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Courtesy of Jocassee Outdoor Center.

Jocassee Outdoor Center manager Alex Orr caught this five-pound rainbow trout out of Jocassee last week. The shop just released its trout tournament schedule for the upcoming season.

Three weeks into October and everything that walks and swims is wide open. Even without looking at a calendar, I could tell you it was late October because my grass is too high, my truck is a mess with hunting gear strewn across the backseat, lake maps stuffed under my console and Hardee’s biscuit wrappers all over the floorboard. Speaking of Hardee’s, I was standing in the parking lot at Hardee’s off Highway 123 last week, and out of no where, a six-point buck crossed the street, ran across an adjacent parking lot and jumped a fence to get into the woods on the other side. There’s only one thing that makes a young buck do that – the rut cometh.

I spoke with Alex Orr, manager of Jocassee Outdoor Center this week. Alex told me the trout fishing on Jocassee lately has been outstanding. Five-pound rainbow trout coming out of Jocassee used to be a regular, almost daily occurrence, and Alex caught one last week. That’s a great sign that the trout in Jocassee are making a resurgence. Since not everyone deer hunts, I had to get the scoop from Alex on the trout bite.

“They’ve been catching some good trout fishing right over the tops of the trees on the main lake, especially around Roundhouse Point,” Orr said. “The fish are holding in the 85-to-90 foot range, and the trout anglers and guides are using live minnows; the four-to-six-inch kind that we sell here at the shop. They’re trolling them behind downriggers. The better bite has come in the morning up until around lunch time.”

Like most area lakes, Jocassee is suffering from the persistent drought with the lake down some 24 feet from its normal level. According to Orr, local rumor has it that Duke Power will be having an outage at the nuclear plant and will back-pump somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 feet of water from Keowee back into Jocassee. It remains to be seen if this will all happen according to the rumor but moving water typically means great fishing in Jocassee, at least in the short term.

Still on the subject of trout fishing, Ken Sloan, the owner of Jocassee Outdoor Center, has released the schedule for the shop’s 2008 - 2009 trout tournament season:

Lake Jocassee Trout Tournament Schedule for 2008 – 2009

• Nov. 8, 2008 — $35 per person, Winner Take All!

• Dec. 6, 2008 — $45 per person, 1st – 3rd

• Jan. 17, 2009 — $50 per person, 1st – 5th

• Feb. 21, 2009 — $50 per person, 1st – 5th

• March 21, 2009 — $45 per person, 1st – 3rd

• April 18, 2009 — $35 per person, Winner Take All!

Big Fish Pot:

• $10 per person per tournament

• Pays for 1st-3rd place

• You must fish in at least two tournaments to qualify.

Jimmie Orr Championship:

• FREE!!! Everyone that enters a tournament is automatically entered into the championship at no extra cost.

• Points system: 1 point for every tournament that you fish in, points equivalent to the weight of the fish that you weigh in (so you need to weigh in a legal fish regardless of your position in the tournament), and you will get bonus points for placing 1st-5th place.

• The winner will receive the Annual Jimmie Orr Championship trophy.

Kids Under 16 Years Old Fish Free in ALL Tournaments!!!

Prizes for 1st-3rd Place

End of year Youth Division Champion will receive a Championship Trophy

End of Season BBQ provided by JOC at the Jocassee Pavilion – after the tournament on April 18 as well as Door Prizes from our Sponsors!!!

Visit the JOC web site at www.jocasseeoutdoor.com or call 864-944-9016 for rules and registration information.

Got Outdoor News or Photos you want to share? E-mail Phillip Gentry at pgentry6@bellsouth.net