Thursday, I had the pleasure of showing John and Joe Horning how to fish the Smokies. Wednesday night it rained a lot and it raised the water a solid foot and turned it a tea color. The fishing was a little off and we didn’t see many bugs coming off. The nymph activity was pretty good in the morning, but when the sun came out we couldn’t resist throwing some dries and had several strikes on them. Most of the strikes that we got were pretty subtle, but it only took a few times missing fish to sharpen their reflexes.

As the afternoon crept up on us, the fishing slowed down some, so we hiked in a ways to find higher ground and maybe even some dry fly fishing. It paid off too, because John and Joe both had strikes on yellow sally patterns and were sight casting to fish that were barely breaking the service. We caught a few more fish at the end of the trip and one of them was a brown. It was a good day and I think that these two guys will be fishing more together in the future.

If you are thinking about fishing the park, Yellow Sallies are coming off strong in the evenings but you can catch fish on them all throughout the day. I would probably use a pheasanttail or haresear nymph in the afternoon and dries the rest of the time. Also find water higher up away from highly populated areas.

Lately I have been tying a lot of streamers, poppers and dries for the Spring. It is hard to tie up flies like that because it gets me thinking about smallmouth slamming topwater, carp tailing in the shallows and trout sipping down emergers in the riffles, then I look out the window and there is 6 inches of snow on the ground. I started going crazy yesterday, don’t get me wrong, I love tying but every man has his breaking point. I took a break and drove up to the park to fish for a couple of hours.

I figured with the warmer temps and snow runoff, it would really put the fish down. To my surprise the fish were really active even though the the water was freezing. I got pretty close to the holes that I wanted to fish because the water had color to it. It was definitely worth getting out of the house for a couple of hours. I think all in all I ended up landing about 10 fish and lost a really nice fish that I had on for a few seconds. Keep your hopes up folks, Spring is almost here and the fishing will pick back up.

Most of the fish that were caught were in this range and were really pretty.

This was the biggest of the day and reminded me of a cuttbow from the Snake River in Idaho. Most of these fish were males and some of them milted on me when they came out of the water. I guess they can see Spring coming better than we can. Oh, did I mention I caught all my fish on streamers, I love it.

This guy surprised me on my walk back to the truck. He was hunkered down in the tall grass and it took me making every noise possible to get him to get up and pose like this.

Beautiful scenery, perfect weather, lots of fish and great folks are just a few ways to describe the trip I had with the Scarbrough family. We headed out late Monday afternoon to the park for some great dry fly action and we found it. The Caddis (Brown, October) are coming off really good in the afternoon, but anything dark in a # 16 will  work or orange in a # 12 or # 10 will do just fine. Don’t forget the BWO’s, it is a little early for them, but they are still coming off here and there. The fly that worked so well for us was a #16 peacock Caddis and a very fine leader, also a good presentation never hurts.

We hit one of my favorite holes in the park where there are always at least 10 good fish rising. To my surprise there was not a one in the spot, so someone must have beat us to it. The next spot we went to, the fish told us that nobody had been there, no I don’t speak fish but Wills got a few rises right off the bat. Wills saw that dry fly fishing in the Smoky Mountains can be frustrating, but hung in there and landed a fat Brown on his next cast. Wills is a great golfer so patience is something he has. Here is a shot of the first fish of the day.

We moved on after a short while, just a little higher up where we got into some more fish and some wildlife. As we were fishing I happened to look over and spot 2 doe cruising down the bank without a care in the world. After spotting a few fish Archie and Wills got into position and hooked up with fish only for them to get off. This happened a couple of times, but Archie managed to catch 2 nice rainbows about 10 inches a piece. Here is a shot of  Archie’s catch and of the deer we got to see.

I decided to take them a few miles down stream to show them some different water and how to fish it. We were fishing longer, slower pools in the early part of the trip and they were interested in learning how to fish the park so we went to some really productive pocket water and they picked it up quick. High sticking, mending and fast hook sets are what you need for this type of water and they saw it. We had strike after strike but the fish were usually faster than us and I explained that it was normal to miss fish in the Smoky Mountains. Anybody that fishes here will testify to that I’m sure.

We had a great day on the water and caught quite a few fish. The Lord blessed us with a beautiful day and warm weather. Archie and Wills were great fisherman and super easy going guys and Kathy, the Mrs., was a super nice lady who came along to take photos and enjoy the fall weather. What more could you ask for with all of that. I look forward to fishing with these guys again in the future. Fishing in our area is great, so go fishing when you can and call us for any details about the stream, bugs or taking a trip. Later guys.

Sorry guys for the long delay on the latest fishing report, but it has been crazy the past week. Last week my wife and I taught a family of 7 to cast a fly rod. This was the first time for most of them, but I’ve got to say that they all had a lot of talent. Ages of the kids ranged from 7 to 16 and they were very easy to teach. My wife Ashley and I work with the youth group at our church so we know that those ages are tough to teach sometimes, but not these kids. After the casting lesson they went back to their cabin to get a good meal and a good nights rest because they were we were taking them fishing early the next morning to put their skills to the test.

Now keep in mind that we have been in a small drought for a little while and didn’t see any rain in sight. When we all met up the next morning at 7:00am the clouds started rolling in and a cool breeze blew through the mountains. I was glad to see the rain coming in but it just had bad timing for my clients. It held off for about an hour and then the flood gates opened up, but the fishing was kind of slow anyways so we decided to take a break for some snacks and wait out the rain. The rain did not last long so we went back out after about 25 minutes and that amount of time was just enough for the rain to bring the water up a little and add some color. As soon as we got back in place the fish were ready to eat, and they did. The small amount of rain was all that we needed to get the fish active. Here is a shot of Carolina’s first trout on a fly rod; you can’t tell but she is pretty excited about it.

I think around 10 fish were caught in all between all the kids, one of which was around 13 or 14 inches caught by William.  Unfortunately we did not get a shot of the fish. I know, I know catching a fish like that in the park and not having a photo is like hitting a hole in 1 and nobody seeing it, but I will vouch for him.  Like I said these kids have some talent and picked up on it quick. If there is anything you can do to protect the sport that we all love so much it is passing it down to our youth. Even though we all got pretty wet and cold it was a great morning. Oh, did I mention that I fell in the mud, hey it happens sometimes even to the guide. I will definitely look forward to seeing this family again and maybe with better weather. Here are a couple of shots of the family and the morning we had in the park.

Thanks for joining us on the fishing report and we hope that you enjoyed it. See you guys next time and hope that you have a blessed day.

Yesterday I took a few guys up into the park to do a little hiking and fishing. We started the day off at daylight because we didn’t want to fish in 96 degree weather. Well it didn’t take long for it to get to us though. We also wanted to hit some higher water where it might be cooler. We started hiking at about 6:45am and hiked for about an hour and already worked up a sweat before 8:00am. We arrived at a very good looking hole with fish rising, but not many bugs coming off.

After watching the fish for a few minutes we decided to move in and try our luck. We snuck up behind them, stayed low and made the first cast. We quickly realized that because the water was so low and pretty warm, the fish were very spooky. The hole had very slow water running through it so we agreed to move on to fish faster water and not waste  time. I had a March Brown shuck stick to my leg so we tied on some nymphs and immediately started getting strikes. After moving up about 100 feet I started working with them on fishing the nymph and everyone started hooking fish and Brad caught his first Smokies trout.

The fishing was kind of slow after a while so we grabbed a bite to eat, took a break for a minute and pulled off the packs. After lunch we all decided to go a little higher and hit some of the river that veered off the trail a good ways. We ran into a spot where the creek split in two, so we fished both sides and starting catching more fish. Here is a good shot of one of the fish that Nathan caught which happened to be his first Smokies trout as well.

We caught a few more fish like these in the next few runs, and by that time the sun was at it’s peak and the fish were sluggish. We started heading back and fished a couple more spots we noticed on the way up, but the sun had already done it’s damage so we agreed to head back. Brad, Will and Nathan are definitely outdoorsman and at no surprise picked up the sport very quickly. They had an exciting week full of roller coasters, rafting, rock climbing, mountain biking and I had the pleasure of taking them Fly fishing. Not bad. Thanks for joining us and we will see you next time.

We are so excited to finally be up and running online.  We are looking forward to doing a lot of fishing this season, especially up in the park.  Here you will be able to find posts on how the fishing has been going for us.  Keep checking back with us or you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter!