Saluda River Chapter Trout Unlimited



Dancing trout and diving stripers, mixed with a school of other piscine possibilities, keep anglers guessing below the Lake Murray Hydro Plant on the Lower Saluda River, while researchers work to improve the river's dissolved oxygen levels, vital to this unique tailrace fishery.
		by Malcolm Leaphart
		photography by Michael Foster
	With an indignant flip of its tail, the brightly colored trout gave me a parting show of strength, splashing water in my face as I released it back into the Saluda River. During a low-water period when the Lake Murray Hydroelectric Plant was not releasing water into the river to generate power, I was flyfishing and wading one of the rocky, shallow sections late one summer evening. I had managed to fool the twelve-inch rainbow with an offering of a soft hackle fly to imitate a caddis pupa rising to the surface. The trout struck at the moment when I slowly raised the fly at the downstream end of my drift to suggest that the caddis was about to escape to the surface. After a few spirited jumps and a long run downstream, it came quietly to my net. Two more trout continued to feed in the pool after I caught and released the first. As I surveyed the currents looking for the best angle to cast my fly to them, I caught a glimpse of a large, silver shadow that swept into the deeper water at the head of the pool. I quickly switched from the small soft hackle fly to a Dahlberg Diver, a large deer-hair pattern, in hopes that a fish this size would want a big meal. I cast upstream from where I had last seen the big fish and began stripping line to make the floating fly dart under the surface with a wobbling action like an injured minnow. A large