All of the creeks we fished on Wednesday, August 7 would be considered "blue lines" with populations of wild trout that seem to be just hanging on. We fished a brown trout stream in Haywood County that I had actually caught trout in on two previous occasions, and Bobby had tried unsuccessfully three or four times. This time, two wild browns took his dry fly, making this new creek #1285 for Bobby.

After that, we headed over the mountain to Madison County to fish a roadside tributary of a hatchery supported stream that has a population of wild rainbows. I had fished the creek before, so I fished a tight stretch and caught three wild rainbows in the 7" range. Bobby caught two to make this one New Creek #1286 for him.

From there, we went farther upstream in the same watershed to a tiny tributary that has a population of wild Southern Appalachian brook trout. The first fish came pretty quickly, but Bobby had to work hard for the second one. We broke through a lot of Rhododendron working our way up that little canopied stream!

Bobby finished the day with three new creeks, which is hard for him to do because there are not that many left that he hasn't already fished! He also scored a wild trout "hat trick" (browns, rainbows and brookies). Some people call that a "slam", but that comes from baseball's grand slam, involving four runs, as opposed to hockey and soccer's hat trick involving three goals. I know - it's just semantics!

On the way home we drove right by a creek in Madison County that I had not fished, so I got in and caught two wild rainbows inside of ten minutes. Sliding Knob Branch became new creek #947 for me!