Fishing Reports

This Week's Report
Oct. 1-7, 2007

Here is the East Tennessee fishing report for the week of October 1st through the 7th . We started off the week wading the South Holston on a rare day off. The day was spent testing some new design flies I have been working on. Some worked great and some will be sent back to the drawing board for further engineering. The South Holston is in transition from the sulphur hatches to BWO’s. There was no real hatch so we spent the majority of the day fishing nymphs.

We floated the Holston Proper on Tuesday for smallmouth with John Stanley and his father Ed. The fish were a little sluggish as we started the day but they soon kicked into gear and many healthy smallies were brought to the boat. John was working a backwater eddy and caught a nice pumpkin seed that was 11 inches long. It was John’s best catch of this type of fish so far. The TVA is sending a little more water out of Boone and Patrick Henry Dams so this has cooled the water on the Holston Proper and is making for some good fishing.

The rest of the week was spent floating the Watauga River tailwater with clients. On Friday I had Nat Smith and Jim Rasmussen, it was Jim’s first ever float and trip for trout. He also had never fished with a fly rod. We spent some time at the beginning of the day working on Jim’s casting and then it was off to fish the river. We had many nice rainbows and brookies brought to the boat. As the day wound down, Jim was working a current seam in the lower Watauga in an area called the Ledges. His nymph made a great drift through the seam and then the indicator disappeared. Jim set the hook and the rod lunged back towards the waters surface. After a good fight, a nice colored rainbow was brought to the net. See the picture below.

On Saturday we floated the Watauga with Carol and Ivan from Greenville, South Carolina. It was a clear bluebird sky and very hot for an October day. We enjoyed deep nymphing for some nice rainbows in the upper section of the normal float on the Watauga. After stopping for lunch in the infamous Caddis Riffle, we floated on down the Watuaga towards the Ledges. The breeze started picking up so we switched to terrestrials as we started into the goat hole. We started picking up some really nice brookies that have begun to get colored up for their spawning. Many of these brookies had bright orange bellies and deep red fins. As we made our way through the Ledges, we worked a nice pod of feeding rainbows and Ivan hooked a big rainbow. After a good fight, we lost him when he made a final run downriver and the fly just pulled free. Ivan wasn’t upset because he enjoyed the fight and said we would have released him anyway.

I ended the week doing wade trips on the Watauga Delayed Harvest waters in Valle Crusis near the Mast General Store. Joe Jackson and his son JJ wanted to learn how to fish smaller water and the many different casting techniques for this type of water.

Sept. 29, 2007