Fly Fishing Museum of the Southern Appalachians

If you find yourself in Cherokee, North Carolina you should make a point to check out the Fly Fishing Museum of the Southern Appalachians. 

The FFMSA provides a center for learning both the history of fly fishing as well as the arts, the sciences, the crafts and the skills of fly fishing. The purpose of the museum is to capture and preserve the history of fly fishing in the region, since it is being lost daily as our “old timers” pass away and as modern methods and new generations of anglers move fly fishing forward through technology.

Judging from the list of exhibits and names on the site, the museum features a well rounded history of fly fishing in the Appalachian mountains.  If you get a chance to check it out let me know what you think.

Mayfly Week: Mountain Tops Good For Mayflies

Strangely, It is fast becoming a sort of impromptu Mayfly Week here at FlyFishMagazine.com so we wont fight it and as usual will go with the flow. A recent article in the Charleston Gazette points out what some might say is rather obvious. The practice of large scale mining and more specifically mountain top removal is bad for aquatic insects.

Randy Pomponio, director of the EPA's environmental innovations and assessments division, said, "Maggie and Greg assessed 49 streams in West Virginia to determine the effects of upstream mining activities on downstream benthic macroinvertebrate communities. They learned through their study that whole orders of benthic organisms were being eliminated in streams below mines, which indicates that aquatic life is being impaired."

Who'd have thunk it?

Proposed Interstate brings opposition

The Stop I3 Coalition opposes a proposed interstate highway that would connect Chattanooga, TN with Asheville, NC by going right through the middle of several southern Appalachian mountain trout streams.

The road would cross many high quality streams including trout streams and streams feeding into Fontana Lake, Lake Santeelah, and the Valley River.

Several area chapters of Trout Unlmited have joined with the Stop I3 Coalition to voice their concerns.

Global Warming Bad for National Parks

The National Parks Conservation Association has released a report titled "Unnatural Disaster: Global Warming and Our National Parks." It predicts the death of many trout, floods and the end of fly fishing as we know it. Except of course in the FlyfishMagazine.com biodome I am constructing in my back yard. Admission will be $5,000 per week plus a case of beer, not that synthetic junk they have been peddling since the depleted ozone layer burned up all the hops.

"Global warming is harming our national parks. If our national parks are to survive and thrive into their second century, we must act now. We call on Congress and the Administration to put an action plan in place that will protect our national parks," said National Parks Conservation Association President Tom Kiernan.

Here's a link to the report in PDF format.