East Tennessee

Originally planned as a South Holston trip, the Watauga was added into the mix when we discovered that they would be generating in the afternoon on the SoHo. I had been looking forward to this trip for awhile and stayed up tying flies the night before. It pays to be prepared and you can never have too many sulphur patterns.

Sunday morning I was up at 4:00 (central) and headed out the door shortly thereafter to meet my fishing buddies on the east side of Knoxville by 7:00 (eastern). The drive was uneventful but the night before I had another of my premonitions indicating good fishing was sure to follow...and it turned out to be right again. We got to the South Holston by 9:00 and were soon fishing. I got things going quickly with a few stocker 'bows and then spooked a large brown. We worked down the river with everyone catching a few and then the pulse started to come through. The water never got too high and we stuck close to the edge of the river and then worked a bit farther down to continue fishing as the water slowly dropped back out. The rush of cool water seemed to slow things down briefly but it provided the apparent trigger for the sulphur hatch to start and soon the fish were nailing our nymph patterns as the sulphur nymphs started drifting in preparation for hatching. Soon the adults started appearing on the water and things just got better. The day became truly spectacular as fish after fish fell to our dries and nymphs. We had lots of doubles and even a few triples which tells you just how good the fishing was. My buddy Kevin took big fish honors on the SoHo with a nice brown of probably 15 or 16 inches that took his dry softly and then battled for awhile until we got it in the net. I missed at least two good fish but it wasn't the day for a big fish on this river for me.

Kevin's nice brown...

After fishing up until just before the generation was scheduled to start again, we headed back to the car and then off to find some lunch. After grabbing a bite to eat, we headed over the the Watauga to check it out. I hadn't been there before but Trevor assured us that it would be worth our time. It turned out to be an excellent decision as the fishing was just phenomenal. Despite dodging lots of water snakes and lots of lightning, we caught plenty of fish and I enjoyed my first time fishing this river.

Trevor fighting a hefty rainbow...

We finished up the day at a heavily used access and I finally got my nice fish for the day. I was fishing a series of deep and very swift runs with a big Tellico nymph. Working almost to the top of one run, I cast up above it to allow my fly to sink all the way to the bottom of the run. Suddenly my line stopped and then darted upstream. Pulling back gently but firmly, I found what felt like a good fish attached to my line. Thankfully I was able to get it on the reel before it really took off and then the battle was joined. The fish bulldogged at first and then made short scorching runs downstream with my reel screaming. The fish finally came up and rolled a couple of times allowing me to realize that it was a nice rainbow. Eventually the fish tired and I worked it into the shallows where Kevin helped me land it and then we got a couple of pictures before watching it swim away. This spot proved good for a nice brown and another good-sized rainbow in addition to some smaller fish. I also had another big rainbow on but the fly popped out as I was applying a lot of pressure trying to keep it out of the rapids.

My nice Watauga 'bow

Shortly after this, another storm was approaching and we all hurried back to the car and decided to call it a day. The trout of East Tennessee will be glad we don't make it up there often as we all caught lots of fish over the course of the day.