The weather and fly fishing have been nothing short of superb this week in East Tennessee. The bugs have really been hatching on the mountain streams and things are just starting to get cranked up on our local tailwaters.

I spent the day doing a guided float on the Holston River yesterday and most of our action came on nymphs fished under an indicator. Glenda Gibson stayed hooked up consistently through the first half of the float. There were a few pods of trout up sipping midges in the late afternoon.

Here’s some video from the day. Jim Gibson decided to try to catch a few fish by wading slowly over to them. He hoped to catch one on a dry fly, but couldn’t arouse any interest. I tied a small midge pupa pattern on as a dropper about 8″ under a bushy dry fly and that was the ticket. The pupa was eaten on almost every good drift to a fish.

We finished the day stripping some streamers. Jim landed the fish of the day, a 16″ rainbow that we would have given another inch or two of credit if we hadn’t put it on the ruler. He also stirred up a pretty big brown trout that charged the streamer but refused to eat.