Smokies After the Flood

This past week, the remains of Hurricane Ida soaked east Tennessee with several inches of rain. Little River rose to nearly 4000 cfs which is a lot of water for such a narrow streambed. Today I went over to the Smokies for a few hours to fish and just spend some time relaxing. A few fish were fooled, a fish big fish spotted, and best of all I spent some time in my favorite place to be.

The fish I caught weren't particularly picky and favored a small soft hackle over the smaller BWO nymph that I dropped behind it. If you found a good spot, the fish were stacked in tightly and feeding heavily. I stood in one spot and caught three fish and missed several others.

Today was not a good day to spend much time wading because of the high flow. Despite the fact that it has been a few days now since the big rain event, Little River is still flowing at between 600-700 cfs just outside the Park. You could see where the water level had been another 3-4 feet higher at the peak of the high water. Many of the browns that had been spawning were pushed off the redds by the high water and appear to just now be returning. I found several big fish in a new spot that I'll have to keep a close eye on. Sometime this winter I intend to go back and try to catch some of them.

At the end of the day I drove up Middle Prong and took a few pictures. I spent some time just sitting in my camp chair by the stream which is occasionally better than fishing. A quick stop for some spring water completed my trip to Tremont and as the sun sank in the west, I headed back towards Crossville while thinking about doing another trip next weekend...