We’ve had a full week of fly fishing in the Smoky Mountains and East Tennessee this week. Mild weather and good water levels have made for perfect conditions from the brook trout streams high in the Smokies down to the smallmouth rivers in the valleys.

One of our favorite things: Colorful specks in the Smokies

This is peak season for hike-in trips in the Smokies. While there are almost endless possibilities for this in the park, we have a weak spot for brook trout this time of year. We have our favorite fly patterns, but almost anything will catch them.

Mike Bryant casts a dry fly in a Smoky Mountain brook trout stream

This week we’ve been using Royal Stimulators, Parachute Adams, and Elkmont Ants in size #14. The only downer, if you could call it that, was we hooked into far more rainbow trout than usual. That’s really not a problem, but the stream we were fishing will only yield a few bows on a typical outing.

Not only is it peak season for specks in the backcountry, it’s also peak season for smallmouth bass. We’ve always wondered why smallies seem to be the redheaded stepchild of gamefish to many fly fishers. Heck, carp seem to get more respect at times!

Smallies are looking up and we're getting them on poppers.

Water conditions are great on Little River and the Pigeon River for smallies right now. The Pigeon was a bit off color last week, but it’s gotten quite a bit clearer this week. Little River is also fishing extremely well from Townsend down to Maryville as well. Most fly fishers bypass thes fish for trout higher up, but we’ll often skip the more crowded trout streams this time of year for more solitude (and stronger fish) further down the river.

Streamers are working well in the riffles right now, but we have a tough time taking the popper off. Use a bigger popper if you want to keep the panfish off, but they’re pretty fun too! We’re using #8-10 poppers most frequently, but moving up to #4-6 when we feel like some real mean smallies are in the vicinity.

The big news is that the drought is officially over. In fact, we’re
currently running a rainfall surplus here in East Tennessee. This has not
only brought our stream levels back to normal, but also has implications for
fly fishing on the tailwaters.

Smoky Mountain Streams

Spring hatches started strong with Quill Gordon mayflies in the Smokies and
midges on the Holston, so the fishing was excellent. We’ve covered a lot of
water in the past three months. In the Smokies we’ve covered nearly every
inch of Little River from the Three Forks in the backcountry to the Townsend
Y. Greenbrier has fished well along with the West Prong of the Little Pigeon
River from the Sugarlands to the Chimneys.

Quill Gordon photographed by Julie Tallman on a North Carolina stream

Brook trout fishing started a little slow since we had a cool spring, but
that has come along nicely everywhere from Sam’s Creek to Road Prong.

Some of our best days have been on the Carolina side of the park. Our Hazel
Creek Creek camp was the best we’ve ever done. The weather was fantastic and
water levels were great. Dry fly fishing was a little slower than we
expected, but the nymph fishing was superb.

The Oconaluftee system has also fished well. We’ve seen some excellent dry
fly fishing on the the ‘Luftee as well as Bradley Fork.

Tailwater Rivers

Water levels were tough on many of the tailwaters this spring, but we didn’t
notice because the Holston was in such great shape. Fortunately our home
tailwater fished well and we didn’t realize most other rivers in the region
were blown out.

The Holston River was our primary float this spring

Recently our biggest problem has been trying to choose between the Clinch
and the Holston. Many anglers remember the glory days of the Clinch when
trout were abundant and big fish were common. We’re confident that those
days are back!

Trout have been everywhere in the Clinch since last fall. Most fish are in
the 9″-12″ range, but we’re hooking up good numbers of 14″-16″ trout as
well. We’ve even seen some good Sulphur hatches with rising trout. Perhaps
one of the most memorable moments of the season was when we saw a 18″ brown
trout’s tonsils as he slowly rose to a dry on the Clinch. Unfortunately that
fish broke off on the second jump, but what a sight!

Fish like this are starting to show up regularly on the Clinch once again

Summer Fly Fishing Forecast

Mountain Streams

We seem to have a good pattern of afternoon thunderstorms in the mountains
right now and long range forecasts seem to show us in a “normal” summer
weather pattern. Normal summer weather in the Smokies includes pop up
thunderstorms. This is the best weather to have in June, July, and August as
the stream levels should remain quite good. Be sure to keep a light rain
jacket handy.

This is the time year when we begin to frequent brook trout streams. Most of
these require some kind of hike, but the resulting solitude is worth it.
Keep a fly box full of #14 Parachute Adams, Stimulators, and Thunderheads.
They’re always a hit with the specks.

Head to the higher elevations in the Smokies for colorful specks

Lower elevation streams like Little River and Abrams Creek should fish
better this summer than they have in several years. Nymphs fished riffles
and pockets should produce quite well, but don’t neglect terrestrial
patterns. The Elkmont Ant is our favorite terrestrial but inch worm patterns
are a favorite with many local anglers.

Tailwaters

The increased rainfall may make favorable tailwater flows a bit tougher to
come by over the summer. All of TVA’s reservoirs are full or even slightly more than full. With the long term forecast pointing to a normal, wet season TVA will have to generate to keep the lakes from getting too high. The hot summer months are also the time when power generation from area dams is crucial to meet the power demands caused by all of our air conditioning units.

Wading anglers will certainly have to keep a close eye on the schedules, but the Clinch and Watauga Rivers both have scheduling that anglers can rely on. The Clinch has a “recreational” schedule on weekends that considers fishermen.

Those fishing from boats will have more opportunities. The Clinch is often fishable from a boat when it can’t be waded. The South Holston should also have some excellent float schedules over the summer. The Hiwassee is best fished from a boat in the summer, but only those with experience on the river should attempt to row it in a drift boat. Personal pontoons can provide some excellent access to wadeable spots on this swift river.

Only experienced oarsmen should attempt to float the Hiwassee

Smallmouth Bass

River smallies are the forgotten gamefish in the Southeast. Most river fishermen chase trout and the average bass fisherman heads to an area lake, so smallmouth bass in rivers and streams are rarely fished. This is a huge mistake in our opinion since East Tennessee has some of the finest smallmouth rivers and streams in the country.

Many fly fishers live closer to the fish than they do trout. Even better, they are often active in the hottest months when the action on many trout streams slows down.

This Pigeon River smallmouth ate a popper and put up a spectacular fight.

The Pigeon and Nolichucky Rivers in East Tennessee are both standouts with good access, excellent fishing, and plenty of opportunities for wading or floating. The Tuckaseegee, Little Tennessee, and French Broad in Western North Carolina also provide superb opportunities for these hard fighting game fish.

You probably already have the gear you need to fish for smallmouth in rivers and streams. While a 6 or 7 weight fly rod is ideal, you can easily get on some fish with a 5 weight. Poppers are our favorite, but streamers also attract bass.

Water levels in the Smoky Mountains are absolutely perfect this year. The region is officially out of drought and we’re getting some rain almost everyday. It’s thunderstorm season here in the Smokies so anglers would be wise to bring rain gear since we’re getting short showers on a regular basis.

Dry fly fishing is excellent but we’ve probably fished more nymphs this spring because of relatively high water levels. Water has been great this week and we’ve focused more on the dries.

TVA has changed the schedules on the tailwaters a bit, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We spent so much time on the Holston that we didn’t even realize that most other tailwaters were blown out. Norris Dam was spilling for a while and made the Clinch unfishable for a few weeks. Right now it looks as if TVA is getting into their regular summer groove of on and off generation so be sure to take note of the schedule before heading out.

We hope to get a newsletter out in a week or less. We’ve been working on a few articles and will try to get that out soon.

Fishing in the Smokies has been best in the afternoons and water levels are workable. Nymphs are the way to go in the mornings, but hatches have been coming off after lunch. Yesterday Charity got into a good olive hatch around 2:00 and fishing rose enthusiastically after that.

The caddis hatch on the Holston has been about as good as the weather. The nicer the weather is the better the bugs hatch and the better the fish rise. It’s been mainly a nymphing affair with some spotty dry fly fishing. One of Tim’s anglers, Brian Beech, landed a 16″ brown on a streamer from the drift boat yesterday.

Fortunately we’re looking at sunny, warm and dry conditions over the next few days. Early next week looks wet though.

Charity helps our daughter Willow get the drift over a pod of risers

The weather has been pretty good and while the fishing hasn’t been drop dead awesome, it’s still been pretty good. We hitched up the drift boat yesterday and headed to the river. Fish were up midging almost everywhere. We can sometimes catch them on a variety of small dries, but not this time. A small midge pupa was the way to go and we caught most of our fish on that. We hung it under a #14 Parachute Adams so we didn’t feel like we were nymphing. A few fish did eat the Parachute. Most of the fish were about 10″ with a few smaller and a few larger. There were a couple around 14″.

Our three year old daughter Willow got in on the act too! She caught her first few trout last fall on our Yellowstone trip and wanted a few tries yesterday after watching Mom and Dad catch fish. She did about as well as some of our customers. (Not you! All the other customers.) We helped her cast to fish and set the hook. When she hooked one she immediately began to reel the wrong way. I got her to stop that and handed her the line to strip in the fish. She hung on for a second, then dropped the line and started reeling backwards again. Fortunately the fish was hooked solidly and we managed to finally get it in the net.

Daaaaad! Don't take your picture with my fish!

Later in the afternoon Charity and I decided to switch over to streamers. We turned a good number of fish and caught several, although none were exceptionally large. At one point I had hooked four or five fish and Charity asked when she could quit rowing and get to fish again. I told her that I kept holding on for a big one since she has this magical way of catching the fish of the day (or the year) within the first few casts of her turn.

True to form she caught a 18″ rainbow on the sixth cast. It shot up at the fly and rolled at it, then turned around and inhaled it. It was a beautiful fish with such a girth Charity couldn’t get two hands around it. She held it up for a picture, the fish squirmed and kicked itself into the air and went right back in the river. No picture this time, but we’ll get more next time!

We’re anxiously awaiting the first spring hatches in the Smokies. It was in the 60’s today and we’ve got some rain on the way. A warm rain might be what it takes to kick things in gear, but we’ve got some cool weather forecast for the early part of the week. We’ll let you know when the bugs show up.

Anchor ice is rarely seen here in the Smokies. Ice forms in small micro-eddies on the bottom of the stream in riffles

Water just doesn’t get any colder than this. It was 32 degrees and frozen anywhere it wasn’t moving. Not good fishing conditions, but pretty to see. This small waterfall on the West Prong of Little River, just upstream from the confluence with Middle Prong was particularly impressive. That’s not a long exposure, the cascade is mostly ice!

And you thought the rocks were slick in the summer!

We went on to Cades Cove parked at the bridge over the spring creek section of Abrams Creek. At 3:30 the temperature was 19, but it was just nice to get out. While the other streams were icy, the spring influence was evident on the stream. There was absolutely no ice anywhere and it was so cold that putting your hand in the water felt relatively warm. We saw a 10 point whitetail buck browsing along the stream and watched a beaver maintaining a dam.

On the way back home we saw these fish in Little River just outside of the park. It was tempting to pull over and fish, but the floating ice was enough to convince us to head for home and the fireplace.

The Scenery

Abrams Creek on a snowy day last January

Misty spring day on Newfound Gap Road

Daffodils at Elkmont in March

Rhododendron blooms on a remote brook trout stream

Rainbow over Rich Mountain, Townsend, TN

The Fish from 2008

A Little River brown trout fooled by a Haystack

A native brook trout miles from the trailhead

A rainbow trout feeds in the current in a Smokies stream

Charity with a 18″ Hazel Creek brown trout

John Switow shows a beautiful rainbow that he caught on a caddis emerger on the Holston

A nice Holston brown trout caught by Chad Plumly last May

A family float on the Holston

A smallmouth bass from the Pigeon River

A different view of a Smokies rainbow trout

Underwater view of a Smoky Mountain brook trout

The rare big brown trout landed on Little River

Another very nice Little River brown trout

A rainbow rises to an emerging caddis on the Holston River

The Wildlife

A bull elk along the Oconaluftee River near Cherokee, NC

 A bull elk in Cataloochee Valley

Ruffed Grouse along Little River

River otter in Little River

River otters on Calderwood Lake

Bear tracks at the mouth of Hazel Creek

Black bear eating cherries in Cades Cove

This timber rattler was sunning along the trail up Fish Camp Prong

Dry fly fishing has been nothing short of excellent over the past few days. Midges, Blue Wing Olives, and a variety of small caddis have kept the trout looking to the surface. The best fishing has been in the middle of the day, but we’re still getting fish up in the morning and late afternoon.

Late afternoon on the Clinch

While Tim and Charity have spent most of their time in the Smokies I spent most of the week floating the Clinch River. The Clinch has been surprisingly consistent. Most of the trout we’re catching have been less than a foot long, but we’re still getting a few to the net in the range of 14 – 18″.

There has been a pretty even distribution of rainbows, browns, and brook trout. Most of the sizeable trout have been rainbows, but Ben Shawler landed a 18″ brown this week. I’d like to take this opportunity to openly taunt Tom Chandler of Trout Underground. Tom is a brook trout fanatic and often wonders if I’m taunting him when I post photos of brookies. Most of the brook trout have been in the 10″ range, but a few are a little better. They aren’t the biggest fish in the river, but they’re cooperative and it’s fun to catch them on a big river from a drift boat.

A standard issue brook trout from the Clinch

We’ve also seen a little bit of dry fly fishing on the Clinch. Most of the fish are coming on midge pupa or small beadhead nymphs fished under a strike indicator. Some small black caddis are hatching late in the afternoon and we’ve been able to pick up some fish on #18 emerger patterns.

The weather forecast looks good for the next few weeks and the fishing usually holds up through the end of the month. After that it’s anyone’s guess when the cold weather will set in, so get out on the water while the getting is good.

A chunky rainbow from the Clinch

A colorful Clinch River rainbow trout caught last week

The Clinch has been fishing quite well this fall. I hate to act surprised, but this once remarkable tailwater has been on the slide for the past several years. While most of the trout we’ve been hooking have been less than 12″ long, each and every one is colorful and strong. There have also been a number of fish hooked up to around 16″ or so. We’re hoping that the slot limit imposed by TWRA earlier this year will continue to help bring this fishery back to its former glory days. We’ve also seen some of the huge brown trout that contributed to the river’s reputation for big fish. A couple of those browns were easily in the 8 -10 pound range.

We’ve been sticking with small beadhead nymphs in #16 – 20. Trout have been rising to midges and a small pupa pattern fished about 12″ – 18″ under an indicator or dry fly will hook far more fish than a dry fly.

Both turbines were down on Norris Dam for a couple of weeks. The constant flow of 420 cfs was superb for floats or wade fishing. One of the generators is now back on line so you can expect the typical day to day variation in flows, but expect good flows for wading. Those who want to float will need to keep an eye on the schedule to be sure the river isn’t too low.

Hazel Creek

Last weekend I was on Hazel Creek for our semi-annual fly fishing camp out. We had a fun group of folks and had a great time. I’m considering changing the name of this trip to “Smoky Mountain Drought Busters” since we always get some rain whenever we’ve done this trip. Fortunately the rain was short lived and seemed to bring on a decent hatch of Blue Wing Olives.

Bear tracks along the banks of Fontana Lake at the mouth of Hazel Creek

Wildlife on Hazel Creek was quite active. Members of the group saw about every large mammal in the Smokies. For bears were seen as well of tracks of a couple more. Deer, turkeys, and wild boar were also seen along the stream.  Both rainbow trout and brown trout were caught by our party. Water levels were low and fishing was a bit more difficult than we like to see it in the fall, but the fishing was still good enough for everyone to hook up with some fish. We’re looking forward to our next trip in the spring.

We’ve floated the Clinch a few times this week and it has been fishing  very well. Both generators are down at Norris Dam and TVA is sluicing a steady flow of 420 cfs. That is, they have a gate cracked to keep a steady flow. The result has been great for fishing. While water is still low enough for wading, it’s a little higher than we’ve typically seen in past few years. The fish seem to be feeding better and are certainly less skittish if you’re fishing from a drift boat.

Brook trout have been a new addition to the river this year. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency started stocking them in the river close to a year ago. I used to wonder why the state didn’t stock them there since that’s one of the coldest tailwaters we have and brookies flourish in ice cold water. Most of the fish were stocked in at a relatively small size, but right now you’ll find most of them between 9″ and 12″ long. They’ve been in the river long enough that they have very nice color. Some have vibrant orange bellies.

The old standby Clinch River flies are working as well as ever. About any midge pupa or larva pattern will work well.  The Zebra Midge has been one of the most popular in the past few years. A #16 Beadhead Pheasant Tail Nymph is also as effective as ever. You’ll see numerous rise rings on the surface as the fish are eating midge emergers, but you’ll hook more fish using a nymph.

Trout Streams in the Smokies

Fall color is getting more vibrant every day.  We had a pretty good rain a few days ago and water levels improved a bit. There’s a chance of scattered showers late this week. Weather has been unseasonably warm. Our average temperature for this time of year is in the low 70’s or high 60’s in the Smokies. We’ve been about 10 degrees higher than that but it looks like a cool down to more seasonable conditions is on the way.

Fish are rising to Blue Wing Olives, midges, and micro caddis. A #18 Hi-Vis Parachute Blue Wing Olive has done extremely well for us this week. We’ve also used #14 Parachute Adams and #16 Haystacks in the rougher water.

It’s a good time to see black bears out and about. I saw another bear above Elkmont a few days ago with Brian Jones and Eric Tuttle. We were on the trail and we spotted it on the other side of the river foraging about for acorns. It’s one of the largest I’ve seen, perhaps 40o pounds.  I pull that number out because it was at least twice the size of bears I usually see and the average Smoky Mountain black bear weighs about 200 pounds.