Bob and Gail are from Louisiana and come to East TN to fish with us from time to time. They love to float the bigger rivers, so with the leaves colored up and the browns moving around on the Clinch, it sounded like a good idea. The only thing is that TVA has been lowering the lake levels and blowing out our tailwaters, so floating was out of the question. I couldn’t let them go home without catching any fish, so the plan was to fish the park.

To make matters worse a monsoon pushed in and the bottom fell out of the thermometer.

The water was on the high side and off color, plus the rain and wind filled the rivers with leaves so throwing tiny beatis nymphs was out of the question. Usually when this happens, what we do is put on bigger or darker flies with some flash, like a prince or flashback pt to get the fish’s attention. Also keep the flies out of the main current and into the pocket water. The fish will be there so they don’t have to fight the fast water.

That was the case for this trip and it produced a lot of fish. Leave it to a rainy day in the Smokies to turn the trip around. Plus Bob and Gail are awesome fishermen so that helped too.