We’ve had a very wet fall and winter so rivers across the region have been well above average. In recent weeks most of the tailwaters have not had many days with fishable flows. Hopefully this will change. Long range forecasts show us drying out over the next few weeks, so hopefully this will translate into better flows from the tailwaters.

This chart from TVA shows that it will probably be a few more weeks before the Clinch river will have lower flows. Norris Lake (shown as the red line) is currently higher than TVA’s flood guide so you can expect them to generate as much water as possible until the lake falls below that level.

Fortunately we should see lower flows in the coming weeks on the Holston, South Holston, Hiwassee, and Watauga Rivers. It’s been November since our drift boat has been out of the garage and we’re ready to get it back on the river.

Smoky Mountain streams have provided the best opportunities to fish over the last couple of months, but even they have had a good number of days with high flows. Fortunately they don’t stay high for more than a day or two.

Mild weather has meant far better action than typical for January and February. All this warm weather also means that our hatches will probably start earlier than normal. We wouldn’t be surprised if our Quill Gordons start hatching in a couple of weeks. We usually look for them around March 1, but this year it could be mid-February.

We’ll be sure to post a report when the hatches start.

Great Smoky Mountains – We are very involved with the biologists in the national park and already knew most of what they had to say. Most of the commentary from Steve Moore was about the Lynn Camp Prong brook trout restoration in the Tremont section of the park. It seemed that someone had taken a few rainbow trout back into the stream after all rainbows had been removed and restored with brook trout. Last September brookies were removed from that stretch of water by electro-shocking and taken to a neighboring stream. This was done to keep them separate from the rainbows that had to be removed. After the brook trout were moved out, that section of Lynn Camp Prong was re-treated with antimycin to kill any remaining rainbow trout.

Lynn Camp Prong brook trout captured during a sampling to check the growing population

Exhaustive shocking was done throughout the entire length of the stream and that was the only section with rainbow trout. About 70% of the brook trout were recovered from the neighboring stream and brought back to the section of Lynn Camp Prong where they had been removed. Furthermore, an additional 800 brook trout were brought into Lynn Camp Prong to bolster the population. Heavy flows from this last fall may have hampered the spawn, but nothing can be known for sure until later this summer when the stream will be sampled.

Tellico River basin – Jim Herrig of the US Forest service reports that the Tellico trout hatchery is a pioneer in propogating native Southern Appalachian brook trout. This is an experimental program in cooperation with TWRA. Brook trout were collected from Sycamore Creek, Bald River, and Henderson Branch for brood stock. About 120 fingerlings were produced and biologists reported that wild brook trout behave far differently in a hatchery than typical rainbow trout reared in a hatchery. One of the largest issues was that about half of the fish would not eat trout pellets and had to be released. The biologists plan to change their methods slightly next year and the long range plan is to use this method to propagate native fish for future restorations.

Brook trout are becoming more common in the Tellico River basin

Steve Moore from Great Smoky Mountains National Park related the recent discovery that Southern Appalachian brook trout have spawning preferences that biologists have no idea of how to identify. DNA samples were taken from fish used in restorations. Fish from different streams were used in restorations to minimize the effects of removing too many fish from any one stream. After several spawning seasons DNA samples were taken from fish. DNA samples show that there is very little, if any, cross breeding between those populations of fish placed in a restored stream. Moore pointed out that this may have contributed to the limited number of fish that were successfully spawned in the hatchery. This seems to be an issue that will have effects on restorations.

Jim Herrig reported that a brook trout restoration done on Sycamore Creek some years ago in the small headwaters with only 200 fish was wildly successful. The numbers of those fish grew significantly and the population moved downstream of a barrier falls and displaced a wild population of rainbow trout for over a mile. Herrig would like to remove rainbow trout even further by electroshocking and immediately place brook trout in that water. His hopes are that expensive, time intensive restoration methods used now may not be necessary if brook trout can displace rainbows on their own.  The Sycamore Creek restoration is already more successful than it was envisioned and the Forest Service would like to try this in conjuction with the brook trout hatchery program as an experiment.

Herrig also reported the banning of Off Road Vehicles in the Tellico River watershed seems to have already had beneficial results. Tellico River clears much faster after rains and the numbers of mussels in the lower river have increased dramatically. This should help aquatic insect populations and have benefits for trout spawning.

TWRA cold water biologist Jim Habera reported that several wild trout streams in the southern districts of the Cherokee National Forest have not made much of a recovery from the drought of 2007-2008. Water levels have recovered, but high water levels during spawning periods have hampered reproduction. Trout populations are higher now than they were immediately after the drought, but far from what they were previous. He fully expects populations to make a full recovery when water conditions normalize.

Clinch River -  Jim Habera reports that the slot limit on the Clinch seems to have had impressive results. Trout in the 14″ – 20″ size range are at a record density. Slot limits have had mixed results in the past, but this is by far the best result they have ever seen.

Clinch River trout in this size range are more common than ever before

South Holston River – Jim Habera reported that the number of fish in the slot limit was nearly as low now as when it was first imposed. However, that comes after several years of higher populations in that size range. Right now there is a year class of fish missing from the river, almost surely the result of a bad spawn several years back. Every year those fish will be missed less as successive generations grow. On the bright side, the overall number of 9″ – 12″ trout in the river is at an all time high. This sets up for good numbers of large fish in the next couple of years.

South Holston brown trout are more numerous than ever, but currently a little smaller than previous years

Hiwassee River -  This is the first year of delayed harvest regulations on the river and the removal of the “Trophy Section”. This was done because water temperatures played a much larger role in fish populations and growth rates than angling pressure. The most accessible areas with the most angling pressure also received the most stocking. The former Trophy Section had extremely limited access and light angling pressure. That also meant it received very light stocking and also had the fewest fish. Light angling pressure often leads to larger populations and larger trout, but this was not the case here. Trout populations and sizes never showed any benefit from the previous regulations. Sampling will be done on the river this year to see how the seasonal catch and release regulations affect the population over the course of the year.

Caney Fork -  This middle Tennessee tailwater has seen an explosion in trophy trout populations. A slot limit was imposed on brown trout several years ago with positive results. Last season a 13 pound brown trout was captured in a TWRA population sample. Regulations have been deemed so successful that catch and release regulations have been imposed on brown trout up to 24″ and rainbow and brook trout also have a 14″-20″ slot limit protecting fish in that size range.

There is very little to do in the way of set up since there is no reel or fly line. We took two rods, a 13′ Ayu and a 12′ Iwana and used to different style leaders. The first leader was the furled style with a few feet of tippet material. This rig cast beautifully on both rods but was a little long for the area we were fishing.

We made leaders with Tenkara level line, nothing more than hard monofilament and added some tippet material. As light as this was the rods still cast the flies very nicely and accurately. I can say with complete confidence that anyone who can fly cast will find Tenkara very easy to pick up. It’s probably easier for those who have never fly fished, but like a fly rod, Tenkara demands a light touch.

We fished with both dry flies and nymphs. As you might expect, the nymphs did better since it’s January, but Charity did hook a fish on an Elk Caddis. There were good numbers of Early Brown Stoneflies laying eggs on the water and Charity found one enthusiastic riser to take her fly.

Our only problem came when it was time to land fish, and it was primarily because of our inexperience with these long rods. Every time we hooked a fish we hung the rods in overhanging branches. We’ve used 8′-9′ fly rods on these streams as long as we can remember and are accustomed to keeping them out of the trees. The extra few feet was no problem during casting, just during the excitement of hooking fish.

I can tell these rods will work superbly on larger trout streams around the Smoky Mountain region like Little River, Tellico River, Deep Creek and others. Tight streams like Jake’s Creek, Little Cataloochee, and Chasteen Creek that flow through rhododendron tunnels are probably not well suited for this. These streams are tight enough to challenge most fly fishers with much shorter rods and require a fair number of bow and arrow casts. I’m sure we’ll eventually become very comfortable handling fish on these longer rods, but for now we’re going to stick to the bigger waters to gain some experience.

I am very excited to try Tenkara in a number of spots, though. The extra rod length coupled with the all monofilament line will make it much easier to achieve a good drift in countless locations. It also allows you to stay further back from the fish in pocket water like we have in the Smokies. The ultra light, extra sensitive tips on these rods also make them excellent for tight line nymphing or wet flies. Even those who have always relied on strike indicators could probably do pretty well tight lining a nymph on a Tenkara rod.

We plan to continue using these rods and keep you posted on our progress.

Here is a time lapse video from yesterday of the sunrise that foretold there was some weather on the way. You can tell something is up by looking at the motion of the clouds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s to hoping for dryer weather…

Dragging weighted nymphs through a deep pool on a mild winter day in the Smokies

Smoky Mountain streams got relatively high over the weekend and will certainly rise today. You can track stream levels throughout the Smoky Mountain region on our website. This is extremely useful to figure out whether or not a stream is worth fishing so you might want to book mark the page for future reference.

Fortunately the streams don’t stay high for more than a day or two and will be fishing when the water falls. In the meantime, conditions are prime for tying flies or reading books.

Fill ‘em up!

It’s probably mild where you are, but there’s snow on the crest of the Smokies. The highest point is Rocky Top, the summit of Thunderhead Mountain.

Icicles at Tremont just a few days ago

Even as it has been an exceptionally mild winter across most of the country, even here in East Tennessee, it’s still winter in the Smoky Mountains. It’s easy to forget that the Smokies have their own climate, but all it takes is a few times of leaving Townsend in a light jacket and finding snow and ice about 20 minutes away.

Snow along Little River last weekend

The tailwater situation hasn’t been great either. TVA has started to ease up on generation, but this isn’t a highly predictable thing and we haven’t made it over to the Holston or Clinch when the water was right. It’s almost as if TVA knows our schedule and drops river levels when we’re committed to other things and blow it out when we’re ready to go.

Yesterday I found a few free hours and decided to head up the river just to get out of the house. I’ll often coordinate with my neighbor and fishing buddy Doug Sanders several days in advance, but found him in the same spot doing the same thing. We had modest expectations but had to get outside.

The water temperature was 41 degrees F so we were braced for some deep nymphing. Doug already had his rod rigged with a couple of nymphs. I had one rod with a streamer and a second with a dry fly. I grabbed the dry fly rod and had every intention of clipping off and re-tying with a pair of nymphs. Doug caught a fish almost right off the bat and handed off to me to make a few drifts with the nymphs.

Of course I wasn’t going to sit and tie knots while I could fish, so I traded off with Doug and rationalized the whole thing by deciding that we’d have a dry fly already rigged in the off chance it might work.

As it turns out I made a few test drifts with the dry fly on the second run of water and a fish rose to it! We spent the afternoon picking and choosing, but by the end of the day we had actually caught a couple more fish on the dry fly than we did on the nymphs.

We saw a number of cased caddis that had migrated to the water’s edge, perhaps in preparation of hatching. This might explain the good dry fly action, but we only saw a few caddis and a couple of tiny winter stoneflies.

We’re glad to see some good fishing in the Smokies because the tailwater situation is still pretty grim. It looks like there could be a break on the Clinch at any time, but we’re not holding our breath. Right now there are very short windows of fishable water near Norris Dam in the afternoon, but it’s not long. We’ll keep you posted.

Last weekend was exceptionally mild for January, but there was an interesting phenomenon in the Smokies. Since there wasn’t much wind and the sun was at a low winter angle it was still bitterly cold along most streams. I talked to a friend of mine from Bryson City who drove over into Tennessee and noted that the temperature at Smokemont was 35 degrees in the afternoon but the temperature at Newfound Gap was 45 degrees. Most of the time this would be reversed but the exposure on the ridge tops actually made it warmer along the tops of the mountains than in the shaded valleys.

Nothing special this week, just the typical fish in the typical places

A front moved through earlier this week and brought some rain. This warmed things up nicely, but we had several thunderstorms – exceptionally rare in January! Now I’m writing this update with snow flurries falling gently. There is a light dusting of snow here in Townsend with several inches higher in the mountains depending on the location. It still looks like this will be a mild winter, though, as temperatures are forecast to be in the 40′s and 50′s next week.

If you’re someone who likes to fish on East Tennessee’s tailwaters it looks like better days are coming. Judging by flow predictions on TVA’s reservoir information site there will be lower flows on area rivers. It’s hard to say if this will just be for the coming weekend or a long term trend.

If you’re heading over to the Clinch I wouldn’t expect much on the first day with lower water, although we wouldn’t discourage you from trying. River levels have been pretty high for a while and it usually takes the fish and bugs a day or two to adjust to the lower flow.