Dave from Harriman and I headed out for the park last week for some early fall fly fishing. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect and the bugs were coming off like crazy. The morning started off kind of slow, just picking up a few fish here and there on nymphs, but after the sun came out, the river came alive. I had Dave throw his caddis across the current to a riffle running down a ledge and this is what was waiting on it.

Dave saw the sip and said, “I think this is a better fish,” just as I see it running down stream. What a nice fish and on a dry.

As the sun got higher, we started seeing several species of bugs coming off. Brown caddis, October caddis, a few isonychia’s, but the majority was a small sulphur which is unusual for this time of year. I had some in my box, so we put one on and noticed another good fish sipping emergers. A few cast’s later Dave hooked up with another good fish.

This one was a big rainbow.

For the next 2 hours it was about every 3rd cast, Dave would hook up with another fish. I told him that he would be spoiled from now on when he came to the Smokies. This is how fall can be in the Smokies, lots of bugs and hungry fish waiting for them to float by. This is also the best time to try to catch a bigger fish, because the brown trout are in spawning mode and fill up before they get on the redds.

Way to go Dave on all the quality fish, especially the brown.