Recent Rain and What's Next

The last of the precipitation departed yesterday morning as a few lingering snow showers moved through east Tennessee. The snow was in no way significant with this last weather system but the rain was. Center Hill Lake, below which is the Caney Fork tailwater, rose a few feet as a result of all the rain we got. It looks like the generation will continue heavily there for awhile anyway. In the Smokies, Little River rose higher than it has been in a long time. I have not been able to get over to the Smokies recently so I don't have any pictures of the high water. However Ian Rutter from R and R Fly Fishing posted some excellent pictures taken during the high water episode. One of the most impressive was of Little River at the Sinks. The water was extremely high and dangerous. While it has been bad for fishing in the short term, all this rain is pulling us out of the drought that we have been in for the past 2 years so most of us are glad to see it.

Partly because of all the rain and partly because I've been busy, I haven't been fishing as much lately. My new teaching job started this past week and is keeping my doing things other than fishing but I should be able to start fishing on the weekends again soon. So you don't get too bored until I fish again, I'll be posting another article on midges in the next day or two...maybe even later this afternoon.

In early December I posted a video on midges from Ralph and Lisa Cutter. In the past I have posted on how to fish the Zebra Midge most effectively so I won't be dwelling much on these techniques either. The main focus of the upcoming article will be on fishing midges in deeper water in tandem with other flies and will include some of my favorite flies for this task. I'll cover how to rig up, tips on casting, and even a recipe or two for some of the easiest midges you will ever tie. If you have any questions that you would like for me to address, please post them here under the Comments section or shoot me an email and I'll do my best to include them in the article... I also still owe you the 2008 Year in Review so look for that in the near future as well!