We’re so blessed to have so many fly fishing options from Great Smoky Mountains National Park, to our big tailwater rivers, to our phenomenal smallmouth bass fisheries. Here’s a look at our 2011.

The Scenery

One of the best things about living in the Smokies is just getting up in the morning. Several times a day we stop what we’re doing to just take a look around. Here are a few of those moments.

That’s why they call them the Smoky Mountains! The mountains rise above the morning mist.

Beautiful morning light in Townsend. That’s Mount Leconte poking into the clouds.

Another incredible sun rise over the Smoky Mountains.

On our “commute” to float the Tuckaseegee we had to stop to take this in. Looking down the Deep Creek valley and Bryson City, NC is under the fog.

Moments on the Water

Ice bells on a cold day on the stream

Unmistakably spring in the Smokies – Dogwood blooms along the stream.

A magical spring afternoon in the Smokies with warm sunshine, hatching mayflies, and rising trout.

Floating the Clinch River on a bluebird October day

Casting streamers along rock ledges

An idyllic summer afternoon creekin’ for smallmouth bass

A cool autumn morning on Hazel Creek

Could you create a prettier spot on a creek?

It was a phenomenal year for fall color in the Smokies

The Bugs

Without bugs where are we as fly fishers? Here are some of our favorites from the last year

Salmonfly up close and personal

Our favorite mayfly in the Smokies, the Quill Gordon

Small but they still bring trout to the surface – Blue Wing Olive

An extreme close up of a #20 Trico

The Fish

Early spring rainbow trout on a float

A healthy rainbow trout that we found rising to Quill Gordons

The best part about catching Smoky Mountain specks is just looking at them

A solid smallmouth bass from the Holston River

A solid Hazel Creek rainbow trout

A great pair – A nice brown trout and a Tellico Nymph

Wildlife

One of the best parts of our job is who we share the “office” with.

A curious but cautious black bear keeps its distance on Hazel Creek

Iconic image of spring – a tom turkey struts for hens

A bear cub high up in a tree over Bradley Fork

Show respect! A timber rattlesnake takes its time crossing the trail in the backcountry

Perfectly camouflaged a copperhead remains motionless on the forest floor

Out West

Every year we make our annual pilgrimage to Yellowstone Country. This year we hosted a group on Idaho’s Henry’s Fork and spent some personal time on the Yellowstone River and in Yellowstone National Park.

Ultimate prize – A big rainbow trout and a little fly on the Railroad Ranch section of the Henry’s Fork

Sunset over the Henry’s Fork

A heck of a slab! Cuttthroat/rainbow hybrid on Henry’s Lake

A family effort in Yellowstone Park. Dad holds the brown trout and carries young Boone in the pack, Willow holds the rod, and Mom takes the picture

“Mend it Mom! Mend!” Floating the Yellowstone

Welcome to your place in the food chain – A grizzly bear track along the Yellowstone River

A native Yellowstone Cutthroat trout

The Big Moments

A beautiful brown trout from the Smokies and a priceless smile

An early season slab of a smallmouth from the Pigeon River

A beast of a brown trout caught last spring on Hazel Creek. We saw him in the same spot later in October.

Can you believe this 23″ chunk took a dry fly? Best eat of the year!

This 20″ smallie ate a popper!

Not nearly so big as the others, but this 10″ native speck is equivalent to a 20″ brown.

A beautiful fall brown trout!

I still got it!

Charity shows off a nice wild fish

TVA hasn’t been very cooperative this fall when it comes to generation schedules. We got out on the Clinch a few times, but the you had to be ready when the water was right because it wouldn’t last long. At this point Norris Dam is pushing plenty of water but expect to see flows back off a bit in a few weeks.

The quality of trout in the Clinch River has been excellent this year with plenty of fish over the 14″ mark and fish over 17″ as common as we can remember.

The Holston River below Cherokee Dam has had better schedules lately, but still nothing to brag about. Folks are always concerned about water temperatures and trout welfare on this river and let us put your fears to rest. Water temperatures coming out of the dam are 63 and there are plenty of trout in the river. We floated for smallmouth bass below Indian Cave a while ago and there were several trout coming to the streamers. The popular access at Nances Ferry is so far downstream that it is rare for many trout to stick around through the summer, so don’t use this section of river as a measuring stick.

As always, fly fishing in the Smokies is great. Trout are still looking up since there are sporadic hatches of Blue Wing Olives and dun caddis. Brown trout have been spawing in the larger streams, but expect them to put the feedbag on when that’s wrapped up. November is always the best month of the year to hook a better than average brown trout in the park.

We hate to say it, but the time for smallmouth bass has just about passed. You can still find some willing fish on the Holston River if you get good water levels, but other rivers like the Pigeon and Little River have gotten cool enough that those fish just aren’t moving much.

Exceptionally common in all rivers, streams, and lakes throughout the Smoky Mountain region this is a fish food many fly fishers ignore.

Most anglers tend to think of them more in the context of bass fishing, but we found this nymph in a Smoky Mountain brook trout stream.

The superb fishing with poppers continues…

As is almost always the case, the brook trout were more than willing to reward Pat with plenty of action. He hooked up plenty of fish up to 8″, about as large as you can reasonably expect in the wild trout streams of the Smokies.

Were were over 3000′ and the weather was very pleasant and the water was 59 degrees.

For day two we hiked in to one of my favorite smallmouth bass spots. It doesn’t get much pressure since the typical fly fisher around here prefers trout over bass and most anglers don’t hike very far in to any stream.

The popper fishing was fantastic. I don’t remember how many bass Pat caught, but it was enough to lose track, but not so many that you thought they were absolute pushovers. In short, a perfect day on the water.

One of many fish caught that day – all on poppers

Plus we saw a bear foraging along the stream. It was rolling small to medium size boulders looking for crayfish or salamanders underneath. Very cool…

This was a pretty freaky thing as two very large snappers were mating as they drifted down the river past me while I cast poppers to smallmouth bass.

We’ve had a little time to mess around for ourselves lately, but have had to make due with fishing in two hour increments. Stream smallmouth have been the perfect solution since it’s hard for us to get to a high elevation trout stream and return on time with the small window we have available in our calendar for “personal” fishing.

This will certainly make for some happy fish! It’s August and we don’t usually expect much as this is traditionally the hottest time of year. We’ve been doing all of our fishing up high or down on the smallmouth bass water.

Flows are still running high on the Clinch right now, although recreational flows on the weekends guarantee at least a couple of days a week with fishable conditions.

The Pigeon will produce smallies as long as thunderstorms don’t muddy the water. Be sure to keep an eye on flows. Saturday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are all days when water will flow for rafters but there can be additional flows on the other days of the week.

Charity works the popping bug for smallies on a hot afternoon