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Tyler Legg
Charlotte, NC, United States
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Saturday, July 25, 2009
We left town at 6:00 this morning, bound to the North River area. We grabbed some breakfast and drove on past Tellico Plains and Telliquah. Albeit it's Saturday, there weren't mounds of people on the Tellico this morning. We keep driving east towards the NC state line (roughly 3,200 ft or so in elevation). We followed the North River, which is fairly wide (15-20 ft in most places) but as you climb in elevation, the "river" turns to a small, rushing mountain stream. I actually fished one of the feeder streams to the North (IAin'tTellin' Creek). Very tight cover, but beautiful to say the least. It's been a while since I've been in such a pristine, untamed area such as IAin'tTellin' Creek. The first couple of casts yielded several wild So. App strain Brookies. All where released unharmed.



This particular pool was full of eager Brookies. Some took a #12 Green Weenie, but most jumped at a #14 Yellow Sally dry






(Above) I caught this guy just after sunrise. With it being this early and given the dense brush and overhanging trees, it's hard to see the picture... The Green Weenie in his jaws sticks out like a sore thumb...









Good size Spec from this particular stream. I caught him a few minutes after I caught the one above. Notice the oval-like parr marks on his side...

Experimented with the camera on views and vantage points to take a short video...

I got into a nest of yellow jackets while on the water...I honestly had no earlthly idea they were there until they started swarming around me, every one of them stinging me; on the face. Those little buggers are good at stinging the intruder in the face. They don't target the hands, legs, arms...but the FACE... Of all places... I'm now preoccupied for a while digging and removing stingers from my face. Luckily, I didn't have an allergic reaction, or I wouldn't be typing this post right now.

All in all, it was a great trip. I'll be back soon... Winter time probably, when the yellow jackets are at their slowest...

10 comments:

Brian said...

Nice brookies & great pictures. I'm glad that everything turned out ok with the yellow jacket stings...those guys are aggresive and mean.

out4trout (also a NC flyfisher!)

Tyler Legg said...

Brian,

Thanks, very enjoyable trip...

I'm keeping my eyes peeled on my next venture out to the river. One sting can kill a person if they are allergic to the venom. Scary stuff..

Travis said...

Ouch, tough break with the yellow jackets. How much longer you going to be in the area?

Tyler Legg said...

They're getting pretty bad out there. Chased me 100 yds downstream still stinging...

I'll be here until Wednesday, then heading back to Kannapolis, NC for a week and then once again coming back over to SE TN for a week or two with a Smokies camping trip wrapping the Summer up.

I heard you had sinus surgery lately... How are you doing with that?

Tyler

Travis said...

Tyler,
I am doing fine, everything went great. Thanks for asking. I have a trip to the Clinch planned for Friday, but I guess you won't be in the area to go. Give me a shout if you want to try and get in a trip before summer wraps up.

Tyler Legg said...

Will do... Unfortunately I'll be back in NC from Thursday until late next week, then coming back over here. Really appreciate the invite, I'll try and get up that way before too long...

Glad you're able to get back out on the river after your surgery...

Tyler

Mark said...

Tyler, if the insects were leaving stingers, they probably weren't yellow jackets.

Wasps (yellow jackets are a predatory wasp) keep their stingers when they sting, and can sting multiple times.

Bees however, have stingers that are barbed. The stinger remains in the victim with the attached venom sac. As the bee pulls away, is is disemboweled and dies shortly after.

From your description, it's possible you ran into some agressive bees, perhaps even Africanized bees, which are known to be aggresive if you were near their hive.

Of course if the stingers remained becuase you were killing the yellow jackets, then I just took a bunch of space to ramble on for no good reason. ;-)

Tyler Legg said...

Trust me, if it's not an aquatic insect, I don't know much about it. I swatted the first one, as I thought it was just a biting fly of some kind. A few seconds later I realized they were either yellow jackets or like you suggested Africanized bees...I wasn't going to stick around to identify them, they were determined to get rid of me... I've heard Africanized bees will chase you until a considerable distance from the nest. If I'm not mistaken, yellow jackets don't always chase the intruder for a 100 yd. I got onto the trail and got away from the nest, and there were still a few of them following me. I tried not to kill any or injure any of them, because if you do, the phermones released from the injured yellow jacket, bee, wasp, etc eventually has the whole colony attacking.

Scary stuff...

David Knapp said...

Glad you're okay after the bee episode and got some sweet specs on the trip...

Tyler Legg said...

David,

Yeah boy...They got me good.

Glad you had a good trip out in Yellowstone. I guess you've been greeted with full generation on the Caney. The Hiwassee is now flowing heavy...

Tyler

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