Late Smokies Report

I have been swamped with homework and other things that needed doing so this is a few days late. Over the weekend I went up to camp at Elkmont CG and fish in the park. There were supposed to be a lot of other fisherman in for the weekend from everything I had heard, so I decided that it would be a good time to do a backcountry day trip.

I woke up and ate a leisurely breakfast of pancakes, fruit, and hot chocolate. Afterwards I filled my water pack and threw some items in to eat over the course of the day. I started up Little River Trail around 11:00 and by noon was just over 4 miles from the trailhead where a nice tributary enters Little River. I hiked a few hundred yards and finally couldn't stand it any longer and got in the water and began casting. Nothing hit my beadhead Tellico in the first few casts and then I saw fish rising just above me. Of course, who can resist casting to rising trout? After checking the water temp (50.5 degrees), I quickly tied on a Quill Gordon spundun and soon had my first small trout. Ten minutes and 5 fish later, my dry fly was struggling to stay afloat and I didn't feel like constantly changing flies so I tied a double nymph rig on. The fish still approved and I worked up the stream catching fish out of almost every "fishy" spot that I came to.

I eventually tied another dry on though. After fishing nymphs a lot all winter, it is just too much fun to watch the fish do cartwheels trying to hit my dry. The fishing was so ridiculous that I even caught fish when I lowered my rod, looked around for awhile, finally returned my focus to fishing and discovered fish had found the hook and were still on the line. This happened several times over the course of the day. Man I love spring!!!

One of my favorite parts of the whole day was when I found a nice plunge pool. I just knew that a fish had to be sitting at the bottom waiting for stuff to come drift by. After a couple experimental casts to figure out how my flies were drifting, I got the proper angle of presentation figured out and the fun began. A fat 8 inch rainbow took the Tellico and fought like a twelve incher. I figured, "what the heck..." and cast back in. This time a 9 inch rainbow took my fly. "No way another one is going to hit" I thought. Next cast, another 9 inch+ rainbow hit. That must have been the last of the nicer rainbows though because the next cast only yielded a 6 inch fish. 4 fish in about 5 minutes.....Absolutely crazy....

I finished up the day having fished close to a mile of stream and also got the Smokies slam with 1 brown and 1 brookie in addition to all the rainbows. This was definitely the best day of fishing I've had since last fall and I can't wait to do it again!!!