The Catawba river 12/7/20:

[AndyS]

Took the one hour drive from Charlotte to meet up and float the Catawba river with my guide Matt. I got there before him and fished for about 45 minutes and caught 2 foot long brown trout.
We shoved off at 9am. Soon into the trip I started to do very well, hits and follows by cookie cutter 12 inch trout. Some of the river looked like the Millstone, some of it looked like the Beaverkill up in New York, very few houses were seen during the float, maybe 5 or 10 at best, very rural and scenic. Soon into the float trip the Catawba meets up with Muddy Creek, and yes it was muddy. The combination of the 2 rivers turned the water an awesome turquoise color.
Things really started heating up, by 11am it seemed I was getting a follow or hooked up on just about every other cast, it then went to nothing less than LIGHT OUT FISHING !! I never exaggerate and to say I caught 40 trout in 4 hours is a conservative estimate ! Many in the 10 to 12 inch range, some to 14 inches. Some looked like hold over and some looked like fresh hatchery released fish. I never caught so many trout in one day. We stopped for lunch at 1pm. From 1pm to 4 pm when we took out I only caught 3 fish, go figure !! The entire trip was about 9 miles long. Even the guide was scratching his head as to why the trout stack up as they do during certain times of the year. It was also his first time watching someone catch trout on a jig, he was convinced. Matt also told me there were a few rouge striped bass swimming around the upper part of the river but we never saw them. Just like the guide on the South Holston Matt also recommended I use lures that are white, still trying to wrap my head around that one. We did see a lone kayaker and he tossing big white streamers. I've seen some pretty "fishy" water in my lifetime but this ranked up there in the top 3. Next float trip I do may be out in Tennessee on the Watagua and hope to float the French Broad in the spring with Matt. We got off the river at 4pm and drove back up to the top to retrieve my car, now the power company was doing a 2 generator water release. What was once a peaceful pretty trout stream suddenly became a raging river with what looked like class 3 rapids, insane !