I know there are some good fishermen on this forum that fish this area.

Can you recommend any flies or spinners to use? I'll be there next week with the family.

I'd just use, visible, high-riding dries like the royal wulff, elk hair caddis, humpy. Maybe drop a simple pheasant tail off the bend.

A fly shop in the immediate area will be more help for local hatches and pressured fish. But if you're gonna just hike and fish natives, they will hammer all of the above with aplomb.

Excellent. Much appreciated! Looking forward to showing my family your neck of the woods. Our first time to visit.

you need to have a nymph dropper off the dry if you want to catch more fish. I can count on one hand the number of fish I've caught on a dry fly in western NC, they seem to always hit the dropper.

also recommend hiking up away from crowds this time of year. The bigger easier access rivers have been hammered. In the summer its the higher streams with cooler water that tend to fish better.

Ask for a yellowhammer - long time popular fly in that area

A local I fished with used a 1" green inch worm - I didn't catch any on it but I was also brand new at trying to fish a nymph .

Also don't overlook the campground areas. When I got my fly rod, I hiked in 3 miles to hazel creek thinking I was getting away from pressure - didn't catch a fish all day and ran into several folks who had used horses to access.

Fished the next morning in the smokemont campground and caught a nice brown from under the bridge .