Snowy Monday Morning in the Smokies

We heard from Charity last night after she arrived safely waaaayyyy down South in Patagonia. She’ll be hitting the rivers there today. Check back over the next few days as she’ll be posting some photos and telling us how it is. I feel pretty bad for her since I get to stay home with our [...]

Quick Pic: Quill Gordon Mayfly

Quick Pic: Mild Weather Returns Along With the Dry Fly Fishing

The brief but significant snowfall in the Smokies last weekend has certainly cooled the water but the Blue Quill and Quill Gordon hatches are continuing with some of the best dry fly fishing we’ll see all year in the Smokies. Warm rains on the way will wash any snow away and bring water temperatures back [...]

Winter’s Brief but Convincing Return

Warm, sunny days, hatching mayflies, and rising trout gave us the distinct idea that spring was here early. Of course we knew that probably wasn’t the case, but after about of week of that, the idea starts to take hold. Then something happens to jar you back to reality. One of our favorite brook trout [...]

Hatches Continue in the Smokies; Meanwhile Winter Returns

Quill Gordon: The surest sign of spring on the streams in the Smokies Spring really has arrived early, at least from a fly fisher’s view. Here in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee we’ve already experienced about a week of afternoon hatches with rising fish. This doesn’t usually happen until early March or the last [...]

Quick Pic: Smoky Mountain Brown Trout on the Dry Fly

I’m confident in saying the hatches have started. We’ve seen several days of consistent hatches and once they start don’t really stop. This brown came to a #12 Haystack dry fly fished on a 13′ Ayu Tenkara rod.

Spring in February

It’s been an extremely mild winter, even for the Southeast. Here in the Smokies we tend to get a more distinct winter season than neighboring areas in the Tennessee Valley. For instance, the last two winters were pretty severe and we had plenty of snow. In fact, almost six feet of snow accumulated on Mount [...]

East Tennessee River Levels Improving

It’s been an exceptionally mild winter here around East Tennessee. There’s been a few cold snaps along with some snow high in the Smokies, but the weather has been more like late fall or early spring than winter. This would normally mean excellent fishing, but it hasn’t been as simple as that. We’ve had a [...]

Latest Information from Trout Waters Around Tennessee

I went to the latest Tennessee Coldwater meeting in Knoxville. This is essentially a summit where biologists from TVA, TWRA, the US Forest Service, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park come together to share information with each other and member of the Tennessee Council of Trout Unlimited. This isn’t a public meeting where regulation changes [...]

Starting out with Tenkara in the Smokies

Yesterday Charity and I took two new Tenkara rods out for the afternoon in the Smokies. We’ve been pretty curious for a while but finally pulled the trigger. Everything we’ve ever read about Tenkara touts its simplicity, and that is almost an understatement. There is very little to do in the way of set up [...]