Doughton Park, on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Wilkes County, contains almost all of the Basin Creek watershed, and all streams in the park are fly fishing only. I first fished Basin Creek way back in 1998 (creek #28) and caught bunches of wild rainbows on dry flies, but I did not fish any tributaries. I included Cove Creek, Basin Creek's biggest tributary, in my "NC Bucket List Part 2" post back in January. I met Bobby in Wilkes County a couple of weekends ago with plans to mark Cove Creek off the list, and Bobby's goal was to catch at least one trout to keep his consecutive monthly streak alive. We walked in the 1.3 miles to Cove Creek and very quickly accomplished both goals using nymphs (very uncharacteristic for Bobby). I caught four rainbows to make Cove Creek new creek #1007, and Bobby caught his trout to extend his streak to 365 consecutive months of catching a trout on a fly.

With plenty of daylight left and no other plans, I let him talk me into walking up Cove Creek to reach the next named stream. I caught more rainbows in West Camp Branch, raising my total to 1008 creeks. By the way, Bobby is 81, and our round trip hiking distance was around 10 miles (uphill both ways). He never ceases to amaze me.