My neighbor and I decided to hit some streams a couple of weeks ago in the mountains of North Carolina. He had never fly fished before and I guess hearing me constantly talk about fishing, seeing me in my front yard casting to imaginary lawn fish, and tying flies when even when we would hang out over a couple beers, sparked an interest. The idea was to head up and camp over the weekend. We hit the road on Friday and had a pretty good drive up there. When we get to park, we wind through the mountain roads and came around a bend. Smack! My buddy hit 3 deer. We were in a 1989 Toyota Land Cruiser so when he hit them, they knocked over like bowling pins. Luckily, every one of them jumped up and ran like hell. Neither one of us are hunters so we were relieved that they were ok (even though in this particular area, they seem to be taking over). In his defense, he was only going about 15-20 mph. They were hugging the mountain and hard to see until we were right up on them. This is just the first of several bizarre incidents. When we get to the stream, I show him a few ropes and get him going. He steps in the water, makes his first cast and his first catch. The catch was himself. Ended up with a caddis fly in the top of his ear. I use barbless hooks so it was easy to get out but he was not happy none-the-less. We fish for awhile and hit a few pools but no luck. We came to a pretty big pool that was holding a large amount of fish (remember I’m in NC and a large amount of fish is 30 to 40 in one pool). Step up to the water and before I can cast, a redtail hawk swoops in and grabs a fish 20 feet in front of me. Awesome! After catching a few, we decided to set up camp. We have a couple of beers and eat some dinner, and are relaxing by the fire when I catch something in the corner of my eye. Coming up the trail is this white, blurry figure that seems to be almost trotting. It was about the size of a dog and all white. I’m staring at this thing trying to figure out what it is, when in a puff, it vanishes. It literally was moving towards us and faded out. I’m not one to believe in ghosts or even saying that it was anything but an animal, but it was definately weird and I cant explain what exactly it was. I looked at my buddy and he was white as a ghost. I said to him ” I guess you saw that”. He just nodded. After a long discussion, no conclusions were come up with. Next day we fished from first rise to sunset and caught zero fish. Saw many, many fish. Caught none. The weather had been cold and warmed up to the unseasonal weather we’ve been having as well as the water was extremelly high. I know, I know. These are just excuses. The next day we decided to fish for a couple of hours before we left. Still no fish. Frustrated and confused I made that “last cast”. Out of a hole in the opposite bank, a monster brown rolls out and takes the midge that was attatched to my two fly rig. I finally get him near me and reach down to get him. I was on a rock overhanging the water so I had to get on my knees to grab him. I pulled an amature hour and ended up putting slack on my line. Sure enough, the size 24 midge pops out. Definately a strange trip. Nothing major happened, just several out of the ordinary events. Overall, the trip gave my buddy and I something to laugh about.