[gentle orchestral fanfare] - All right, come on.

Got the trees behind you.

Got him down deep.

- Yeah, nice brown, nice brown.

- Sorry, my bad, there you go.

Right.

- Good fish, Judson.

- Thank you, thank you.

- Nice brown.

What do we like to call this?

Butterscotch dip brown trout?

- That's right.

They're the meat eaters.

All right, guy, I'll let you go for another day.

- All right, good work.

- Good sir.

- [Announcer] The production of Carolina Outdoor Journal is made possible in part by: - [Female Announcer] Wildlife in North Carolina Magazine.

ncwildlife.org/winc.

- [Male Announcer] And by EZ Bait and Tackle, family owned and operated.

We've been fishing since 2003.

Come see the crew in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and we can hook you up for all your fishing needs.

[light instrumental music] ♪ - Hello, welcome to the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

Today's program is about drifting down the Watauga River with Joe, a lot of water, it got interesting.

- It did, well it was interesting the whole day just because of the fast paced nature of the trip because the river was full.

The mountains had a lot of snow this year and so all that runover has gotta go somewhere.

And so the Watauga was full.

And a lot of movement, so we're fishing out of two rafts and the guys were fly fishing, and we're targeting brown trout that day and so.

They're fishing the whole time and we just, you know, it's really, you'll see the footage.

The rapids and everything.

And just had a lot of fun.

- You always need to be a master fly fisherman before you gather that hard.

- Well these guys are.

This is Justin Conway and Elcreek Outfitters who we've been fishing with before and they fish Watauga a lot.

This area of the river is known for brown trout and pretty good size fish.

I think our biggest fish of the day was about 20 inches which is a nice brown trout.

And just a lot of fun.

- And Donna's in the kitchen.

Now she's taking macaroni and cheese and adding some crab meat to it.

This is good stuff.

- I haven't tried that yet but it sounds different.

I've never tried crab meat with macaroni and cheese but we'll see.

- Get your pen and paper, we've got great show lined up for you today here on the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

- Well Judson, it's been a long cold winter.

You got us out here fishing.

What are we going for today and where are startling?

- Well like you said, it has been a cold long winter with a lot of snow melt and a lot of rain this early spring, too.

So the water's up, they're generating out here on the Watauga, so let's do some streamer fishing and we ought to go turn some heads, maybe get some little bows and browns.

But it also gives us the opportunity to maybe turn in a big head, you know, find us a really big brown.

So I'm gonna start out with a big fly.

You know, those big guys will come out for the meat, so.

That's what I'm gonna.

- I think I'll have to join you on that.

- I hear you.

Maybe we'll find us a few trout out there.

Maybe one big one.

All right, y'all ready?

- Yeah, let's do it.

- Let's do it.

All right, Drew, now the sun's getting up.

We're gonna have to get back in the shadow.

This brown's fish is bigger laid up on the logs anywhere they can get an ambush point but they like, they like the dark sky.

- All right, well make sure you save me a little bit of it.

- Don't worry, don't worry.

Nice pitch, nice pitch.

- Go on.

- Needs to wanna stay down.

All right.

- Rolling like a brown.

- Nice brown.

- Nice job, Drew.

- Thank you, sir, good job put him in the net.

- Good way to start the day.

- Get that fly over, that's pretty brown.

Good sunlight.

All right, thank you.

- All right, boys.

Get another one.

- Fish hit strong, that's for sure.

- Well she's full pond today, isn't she?

- Oh yeah, rolling fast, too.

- And uh, the lake's so full they're generating 2,500 cubic feet per second.

And the Doe River's out from the rain and snow melt so about 500 cubic feet per second, so.

It's about as full as it can get.

But I like it.

- Oh yeah.

Waiting to see that monster that hasn't eaten good all winter roll out of that corner.

- Yeah, it's good.

- Come on, Leroy Brown.

Where you hiding?

- Well Judson, this is time of year when we seem to find some of our bigger fish.

You just don't come across them as often as you like to.

- I know, I know, they don't get big for no reason.

They're smart, but this is when we can sneak up on them when that water's high and little bit dingy.

So we'll have to use that to our advantage.

- Yeah, and you'd think with this high water, there's probably been try to take advantage of early spring feeding, too.

- Heck yeah.

- I didn't see him yet.

- Uh uh.

- All right, get ready to let him in.

That's a good fish.

Good fish, there you go.

Keep tight, keep tight.

- Abandoned that southern way.

- Here you go.

- Good work, guys, good work, nice brown, nice.

- Thank you.

- Good release, good release.

Ooh that back pocket.

Ah, see there you go, Judson.

- Drew caught one in this rapid one time.

All right, fellows.

We're about to get down to the quality trout zone down here.

And Judson, what exactly does quality trout zone mean?

- Well it's a special section of river that's regulated just for artificial lure, illegal to possess bait.

And for those people that keep fish, only allowed to keep two down here and they have to be 14 inches or larger which will help us catch and release guys out, and you know, give us better chances of more fish and bigger fish.

Just gonna see what we can do.

- Keep it tight, keep it tight.

- Good one.

- Well I always tell you, a good conversation a lot of times leads to a pretty good fish, you know?

- Right!

- Not very often you get to get them on the rail like that.

I wanna go ahead and get him on up here, Evan.

Here he comes.

- Nice brown.

- All right, good brown, thank you, sir.

Appreciate that, good network.

We got that thing good.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah, it's looking good.

- Aw man.

- Looking good.

Good call on the spot, Judson, you said it.

Just sit there and work it, it'll come.

- All right, get another one.

- Judson, these are absolutely perfect conditions we have here for streamer fishing.

- Perfect except for the sun.

Sun's the only, but the high water, the fact that the clarity's a little bit off.

These are all bonuses.

Sun makes it a little harder.

Overcast skies and rain are always to our advantage.

- I'll tell you, when it's working good the sun's nice to be able to see those fish coming out of the water.

- Yeah, yeah.

Always a silver lining on the frown, I reckon.

- Nothing's better than seeing a big fish before it strikes you.

- Yeah.

Even if you don't get him hooked, it's right.

[upbeat music] - How bout time of year?

- Well this is definitely a prime time of year just because we're getting so much spring rain brings the water levels up.

It's kinda what you want for streamers is, as summer comes on the rain tapirs back, generally the water gets lower and clearer.

And the fish get a lot more spooky and it's harder to get a big fly close to this fish without them seeing and know you're coming, so.

But all in all, any time you've got a good range doing just the water levels up and binges the water just a little bit, that's what you have here, so.

In short, spring is definitely one of my favorite times for streamer fish, but when you think about it, just about any time you can.

All right.

Come on.

- Got the trees behind you.

Got him down deep.

- Yeah, nice brown, nice brown.

- Sorry, my bad, there you go.

Right.

- Good fish, Judson.

- Thank you, thank you.

- Nice brown.

What do we like to call this?

Butterscotch dip brown trout?

- That's right.

They're the meat eaters.

All right, guy, I'll let you go for another day.

- All right, good work.

- Good sir.

- If you can get a cast in there, you might, you can't hit it the creek.

- All right, you got him?

Fish on, fish on, hurry.

I think it's a good one, too.

- That's a good fish, good fish.

- Hang on.

- It's not ready yet, give him a second, give him a second.

He's got a good head shake in there.

- All right, here he comes.

- Ooh.

- All right, good job.

- Yeah he did, yeah he did.

Let me hold that brown.

Big old buck, isn't it?

[sighs] - Nice.

- Good fish.

- Good, pays you to watch the style too, 'cause it was right here right before I picked it up.

- It looks like that thing ate right out the boat, too.

- Uh uh, nice fat brown.

- Oh man, good release, good release, man.

- Good fish, good fish.

- Good job, good job, man.

- All right, we can pull up and head on down.

- All right.

- I hear you.

- Okay, good shade right here, good bank.

This ought to be holding some fish right here.

Come on.

- Yeah, man, us.

Surprised he's not there.

- Ooh, but some brown on that oar.

- Tight holes there.

Feel like we're missing all the good water in between these ledges.

- It's tough, it's fast out there though.

- I was just talking about this road beside us.

- How clean it is.

- Heck yeah.

- Oh man, he's fooling.

- Look at that eight way, look at that eight way bid.

- He walked off on him.

He's just not letting me have none of it.

It's a good fish.

I wanna get him in quick, I wanna get him in quick.

He's not doing so good.

- Just like a brown trout, roll it around.

- All right, here I go, I got it.

He's got his head back, I'm not too worried.

All right, I think, all right.

- He's still wrapped, he's still wrapped.

- Coming in on, coming in on.

Nice work, good work, good work, sir.

That was one of the better.

- You call the spot.

- Yeah.

- You call the spot.

That's a chunky brown, look at that thing, whoa.

- That's a butterscotch.

- Yeah, that's butterscotch dip brown all right.

I think I wanna ease him down on the water here.

Yeah, there you go, buddy.

I appreciate it.

- Thank you, Mr. Brown Trout, man, all right.

Evan, good net work, sir, good job, all right.

I guess we're switching seats, huh?

- That's right.

Already got my rod rigged up right this way.

- Joe, that was an interesting day on the river.

And kind of amazing too that we were able to catch fish.

- Yeah, to me it was because just the speed at which we were moving down the river.

The river was full as we said earlier, and to get your streamer, we're streamer fishing, and to get your lure into to where you wanted, if you saw a spot you just had one shot.

And that's why I say you gotta be really good with a fly rod to be able to do it.

A lot of stripping, a lot of work, and we were all tired at the end of the day.

But we'll go to Gear Time and they'll share with us how they rigged up what fly rods they used and the streamers they used.

That's pretty interesting.

- Well let's do that.

Let's go to Gear Time.

[upbeat music] - All right, Drew, well that was great day.

Good day of streamer fishing out on the Watauga River.

You know, like you said, we got big water out here and so we went out there with some streamers.

So how do you feel about it?

- I thought it was a great day.

It's a great day, my arms are little bit tired from this big eight weight rod.

You know, I normally wouldn't throw one that big, but we made up our mind early, let's get after it and go after the big one, so that's what we've done.

- Yeah, a lot of people would consider trout fishing, for streamers, they think of, like a little root beer wooly bugger.

And it's a great effective rod on a flout or a five weight or something like that.

But of course we did decide let's just go for the big trout.

Anything larger, so we got out our big flies, like this double bunny here I tied.

And so, in throwing a big fly all day, I didn't wanna wear myself out, so I grabbed my seven weight.

Got a streamer express line from Scientific Anglers, 250 grain, and it did a good job of getting these flies out there.

But I notice you were throwing fly even bigger than mine.

Tell me about that.

- Yeah, this is a fly tie and it's what I call a double bunny.

It's the standard double bunny pattern except I just up the hook size and connect another hook out the back of it and I tie it with a very large rabbit fur so it makes a heavy fly to throw once it gets wet, but it gives that appearance of a larger bait fish in the water.

So it's primarily when you are trying to imitate other trout.

- Yeah, that's right.

And you were throwing an eight weight with that, too.

- It's an eight weight and it's full sink.

It's definitely a heavy set up, but once you get the hang of it, it'll put it out there.

- Yeah, under normal trout conditions we'd usually leave the seven and the eights home but like we decided let's just throw for some larger than average fish and that's what we ran into today, so.

Plan well worked together.

- Oh yeah.

- We didn't hook each other, so that was nice.

[laughs] - Yeah, that always works out well.

Well I really enjoyed the day on the water with you.

- Yeah.

- Always.

- Well I appreciate you coming out here and fishing with me.

- You bet, you bet.

- It's the art of fly fishing.

If you want more information, call the number you see on your screen, or do us a favor and visit our website.

Now Donna's got a recipe and it is all about macaroni and cheese, but she's added crab meat.

You're gonna like this one.

[upbeat music] - Hi and welcome to Simple Cooking.

Today we're gonna do a different twist on a mac and cheese.

We're gonna make a crabby mac and cheese, and you don't have to be crabby to make it.

We're gonna start off with some beautiful lump crab.

This is gorgeous and you can just pull this out.

You can also, if you don't wanna use crab or you only wanna use half crab, you can use a little bit of crab, you can chop up some shrimp if you want or some scallops to make it a seafood mac and cheese, too.

So you have your whole meal in one pan which is great for all of us that are busy and we want something that's warm and satisfying but we don't have a lot of time so.

We're gonna go ahead and start and get this together.

We're gonna use two eggs, pour those into our mixing bowl.

To that, we're gonna add some sour cream so you know it's gonna be good.

Then we're gonna add in a little bit of some dried browned mustard to this.

And a little salt and pepper.

There's the salt and a little ground pepper to this.

And give a whisk.

And then we're gonna start adding in our more wet or liquid ingredients.

We'll just give that a whisk.

We're gonna add to this some milk.

And some chicken broth.

And you can use your own chicken stock if you have it or store bought.

And just mix this together.

Or if you don't have any on hand but you have some chicken bullion cubes, you can use that as well.

That's what I always use when I'm defaulting.

And then we're gonna add in some hush puppy mix with onions.

And this is gonna give it some great flavor and some great body in your recipe.

So we're just gonna mix all that together.

And once that is mixed and then we're going to start adding in our pasta.

And I've got some elbow macaroni or elbow pasta here and I like to use the kinda has a little bit of whole wheat in it just, I feel like I'm getting a little bit of nutrition in my children.

So you're gonna add this into that.

You're gonna add six cups of cooked pasta.

It's a great way to use leftover pastas too so if you have a little bit of a different variety of pastas throw it in there it makes it really interesting.

We're gonna toss in our pasta in here.

Then we're going to add our cheese.

And I bought some shredded cheese that is cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese or Colby jack.

And it's kinda nice.

You can use a variety of cheeses too so if you have a little bit of cheese left over in your fridge just grate them all up and put them in here and it's a great way to use them up.

And you're gonna add some great flavors to your recipe.

So then once we've tossed in our cheese, we're gonna pour it into our nine by 13 pan or your casserole dish if you'd like.

You can divide this, make two different ones, freeze one and bring one out and eat it right then.

Pour that in, toss it with or sprinkle it with a little bit more shredded cheese, and then you're gonna bake it at 350 for about 40 minutes until it's nice and bubbly.

And let me show you what it looks like when it comes out.

It's gonna have rise up 'cause of the hush puppy mix in there, it's gonna bring it up and make it nice and fluffy more like a cake like almost.

And then we're gonna have the great cheese on top, the pasta in here.

It's a great meal, serve it with a side salad or with some great green vegetables.

It would be a great meal all in one dish.

It's fabulous.

So I hope you enjoyed the crabby mac and cheese.

And I look forward to seeing you next time on Simple Cooking.

- You got me, Donna, that sounds mighty good.

Joe, let's go back to the river.

Tell me about the river and tell me about the space you have.

- Again the river was full.

We were moving down, it was real high speed fishing is what I call it.

And we're fishing with Judson Conway and Elcreek Outfitters.

And they do this all the time.

I mean, they're professionals at it.

And they didn't hae any, didn't faze them at all.

The conditions were good enough to fish and they go fishing.

And we were streamer fishing.

It's actually the first streamer show we've ever done you know, for the journal.

And again, it was real fast paced.

But what they were using was, this is rabbit fur and it's supposed to replicate a small trout, a small brown trout.

The bigger trout in that river are cannibalistic.

They will eat fish this size.

A lot of times when we're fly fishing we'll use a real tiny flies to match the hatch, which is on the string, but on this trip, we were targeting bigger trout, so consequently you use a little larger bait.

And that's what we did here.

So these are all hand tied by the guys and it's a great experience.

And again, because of all the snow we had this year all the rivers were full, had been full.

If you've never done it, give it a try, it's a lot of fun.

- And like you said, you only got one shot at that spot.

- Exactly, you gotta hit it and hit it good.

- Another day of great fishing in North Carolina.

For Joe Albea, I'm John Moore.

Thanks for joining us on the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

- [Announcer] Make sure to visit our website for more information.

- [Announcer] The production of Carolina Outdoor Journal is made possible in part by: - [Female Announcer] Wildlife in North Carolina Magazine.

ncwildlife.org/winc.

- [Male Announcer] And by EZ Bait and Tackle, family owned and operated.

We've been fishing since 2003.

Come see the crew in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and we can hook you up for all your fishing needs.

[light instrumental music] ♪