Join us fly fishing in Montana at Galloup's Slide Inn on the Madison River!

June 9 Here it is June already! We've been locked into our busiest season of guiding ever, which explains the extreme lack of posting on the fishing reports. We'll try to make up for it here since we've been all over the place in the past month.

First of all let's consider the severe drought we're in here in East Tennessee and the Smokies and the implications it's had on fishing. Water levels are at historic lows for the spring and early summer. These levels are not at all time lows, but records for the time of year. This has made fishing on the large streams tougher than we're accustomed to, but NOT impossible as the photos below will show. We've relied more on nymphs in swift runs. This has proven to be highly effective as Charity has had several anglers hook and land some extremely nice fish on Little River and the Oconaluftee. Pictured here is Nat Ackerman with a nice rainbow and LaDawn Ostman with a 15" Little River brown trout. Both anglers even got the Smoky Mountain grand slam and landed all 3 trout species in the same day.

Brook trout fishing has been superb! Several of our favorite brookie streams have been exceptionally low and we've been working some alternate water, and quite successfully. Low water conditions aren't as evident in these rough and tumble streams and brookies are always eager to meet a good drift.

Tailwater floats on the Holston River have been excellent as well. Oddly enough, the drought will probably be a good thing for the Holston. Dry conditions will keep generation to a relatively low amount. This will keep an abundant supply of cold water in Cherokee Lake at good levels which should last through the hot weather. Wet years can be hard on the Holston as years of high generation will deplete the cold water at the bottom of the lake. Dry years see better water temperatures so we're expecting to see plenty of fish hold over. This is exciting since we've caught a number of brown trout around 12" which should grow nicely by next year. We've landed plenty of rainbows this year with several up to 18" and even one 21" back in the spring. Hatches have not been up to par this year so dry fly fishing opportunities have been limited, but nymph fishing has kept the action hot. We're still encountering some rising fish though. Most days see experienced anglers bring as many as 20-30 trout to the boat.

May 9 It's been a while since we've posted a report because we've been so busy. We've been on the water in a number of locations. Not only have we been floating the tailwaters and wading the creeks, but we recently returned from our weekend backcountry camp trip to Hazel Creek on the North Carolina side of the Smokies. Hazel Creek fished well, but the second half of Saturday got blown out by heavy rain. In spite of the weather, it cleared up by Sunday morning and we got some more fishing in before heading home. Conditions were perfect on Friday and everyone caught fish. In fact, Andy Sonner caught an extremely large brown trout. The picture Andy got of the fish is pictured below. Judging by the length of the rod grip the fish is somewhere in the range of 24-25". While everyone caught fish, most were in the 6-9" range as you'd expect. We've also got a group picture at the Hazel Creek Hilton plus a couple of stream shots. You can see more about the past week on Tom Chandler's TroutUnderground blog. He backpacked up Hazel while we were there. This was after his float on the Holston.

We've been floating the Holston quite a bit lately. It seems as if there are fewer fish this year but the average size has increased. We've caught more fish in the 18" range at this point this spring than we did all last year. Our good friend Tom Chandler of TroutUnderground fame has been staying with us here in Townsend and floated the Holston with his local fishing buddy Rich Margiotta. Rich put on a clinic and made the home team look good on the Holston. Tom also did well, but seemed to find all the trout with teflon lips and missed a good number of strikes.

We're certainly past all the cold weather and brook trout fishing in the Smokies has gotten quite good. I took Bill Fidler of Memphis out for some backcountry hiking and fishing for brookies. He also caught a few good sized rainbows in that section of stream.

Smallmouth fishing is also heating up and we're looking forward to floating the Pigeon River, lower Little River, and the Abrams Creek embayment of Chilhowee Lake. Poppers fish well along with small streamers in all these locations.

April 18 A relatively few quiet days as far as guiding has been concerned, but a few days that have actually allowed us to get out and fish for ourselves. Charity and I scheduled ourselves for a float that took place yesterday. If we don't put it on the calendar like a guide date, we'll usually end up booking a trip for ourselves. It was the best hatch we've seen this season on the Holston with caddis hatching somewhat heavy for about an hour.

There were several runs that looked this with several pods of fish up and rising. Midges and caddis were the insects, with a couple or three varieties of caddis. There were some large #12 caddis with speckled wings, but the tan micro caddis seemed to be the ones they were intent on. This is the typical situation as a #18 Tan X-Caddis is our go to fly from mid-April through June. Pods of rising fish like this are common through June.

This fish is actually one of the risers in the previous photo, and what a jumper! At one point in the day we were anchored in one of my favorite dry fly runs, but nothing rising. I slid out of the boat to wade into position to dredge a nymph through some deep riffles. Charity opted to stay in the boat. While nymphing (and turning up nothing) I noticed Charity was rigging another rod in the boat. Anyone who has spent much time around Charity knows she can't spend an entire day in a drift boat without casting a streamer. If you've ever seen us speak you'll remember her enthusiastic part of the lecture concerning streamer methods. As we pulled anchor we saw a few pods of risers down the river and Charity decided to strip the streamer until we reached them.

We probably didn't even drift 10 yards when she got a jolting strike. When the fish rolledI could easily tell it was the largest rainbow I have ever seen on the Holston. It was 22" long and extremely colorful, not to mention strong. Our good friend and guide Time Doyle once said about Charity, "Just turn that girl loose on the river with a big streamer and she'll let you know just how big the trout get." You can learn more about the methods Charity and I use fishing streamers by reading this article I wrote.

April 15 The fishing this past week has been some of the best of the spring season in spite of some unsettled weather. In fact, I can report snow falling on our mountainside home here in Townsend today. I'm sure there were accumlations at Elkmont and higher up in the mountains. In the dim light before it turned dark I can see snow on Rich Mountain from my deck. It's been raining steadily since yesterday evening. The river has come up, but the slow soaker hasn't caused any flooding. In fact, this is exactly the type of rain we can use. Snow will seep in even better as it melts tomorrow when temperatures are projected to reach 60. A front moved through Wednesday evening and dropped some much needed rain. Windy conditions prevailed in front and behind the system which made for less than ideal casting much of the week. Fortunately fish generally responded to good drifts. Kim and Mark Rougeaux spent 3 fine days on the water and learned how to properly fish the Smokies while catching trout along the way. They witnessed fish rising to emerging mayflies on several occasions and got to learn the best way to get a drift over actively feeding fish. This was the case with all our anglers this week. The highlight of this week, if not the season thus far, was when Larry Everett Sr. hooked and reeled in a 16" brown trout on Little River. If this wasn't impressive enough, it was the first trout Larry ever hooked on a fly rod! His son Larry junior was at least as impressed as I was. Anyone who has ever cast nymphs with Charity or myself won't be surprised to hear that Larry's brown ate a #10 Prince Nymph, one of our favorite flies for swift water in the park.

While the fishing in the Smokies has been good, the tailwaters are coming along as well. Tim Doyle took the Colliers for a float this week and reported that the caddis were hatching nicely, but only a few of the fish had taken note. This isn't unusual during the early days of a hatch, as the trout begin to expect the bugs only after seeing them for several days consistently. We expect the dry fly fishing on the Holston to really take off this week.

April 9 You might have heard of something called "Dogwood Winter" if you've ever lived in the Southeast. It refers to a cold snap that generally coincides with the blooming of dogwood trees. Spring rarely comes along all at once. It usually shows up for a few days, then winter shows up for a few more days. This meteorological tug-of-war seems to carry on for about a month or so with warm weather finally prevailing by mid-April. This past weekend we had the most extreme Dogwood Winter anyone can remember. Temperatures dipped into the low 20's for several nights and remained cold throughout the days in between. There was even some snow here in Townsend and several inches of it along the ridgelines in the park.

Eric Hustedt is a fly fisher from Nashville who I've taken fishing on several occasions. Eric seems to have a talent for bringing more than his share of rough weather to good fishing spots. In any case, Eric and I headed out to Abrams Creek this past Saturday morning. Springs in Abrams Creek keep it a bit warmer in cold weather and cooler in warm weather. From the very first runs Eric cast a nymph into, he was into fish. After an hour or so we saw mayflies bobbing down the stream and a few fish rising to take them. I have no idea of how many trout at a nymph on Eric's line, but I'm sure at least twice as many rose to a dry fly. It was a spectacular day of fishing, in spite of the fact that we would have to clear ice out of the line guides every five minutes or so. In fact, because of this phenomenon I state with complete accuracy that the temperature never got above freezing on the stream. Tim Doyle also reported a strong hatch on Little River yesterday and it was only a little bit warmer.

Weather is forecast to warm back into the 60's by week's end. I'm ready to finally put up the long underwear and start wet wading.

April 5 Time really flies when you're out on the water almost every day. It's been really busy with Charity, Tim Doyle, and myself (Ian) out on the water. Furthermore, we've been all over the place! The past few weeks have been a blur. Little River has been our home water as usual. We've also spent a good deal of time on the Middle Prong of Little River, the West Prong of the Little Pigeon, and the Oconaluftee in the Smokies. We've also done several floats on the Tuckaseegee in North Carolina and the Holston River below Cherokee Dam in Tennessee. The weather has been even more of a roller coaster this spring than usual. We've seen a few days of record high temperatures in the past week, but the coming days are forecast for record lows. Spring is here in any case and wild flowers are in full bloom while the mountain slopes are getting greener every day.

Let's start with the streams in the Smokies. The dry fly fishing has been consistent, but we've only seen a few days when it was exceptionally good. Water levels have been low for the spring season so that might have something to do with it. The West Prong of the Little Pigeon has probably had the best dry fly fishing. The Middle Prong is fishing well, but most of the fish have been on the small side with a few good ones peppered in the mix. Little River has been the toughest but has also produced some of the nicest fish. No one has tied in to a real whopper, but there have been some solid rainbows and browns brought to hand.

The floats have been productive, but we've struggled at times. The Tuckaseegee is often so productive in the spring is seems like cheating. We've been into some fish over there, and some nice ones, but we've had to work for them. Steve Hamblin boated an 18" brook trout and Peter Petruzzi boated an 18" brown on separate floats there last week. However, both days started out extremely slow but picked up steam after lunch. The Holston is just about on schedule. We're hooking most of the fish on small nymphs with only a few sporadic risers. The Holston is a great river for good numbers of chunky 12" rainbows. Last year we boated only a handful that measured over 16". In spite of that, Matt Stephens boated an 18" rainbow last week. By the way, all of these fish have been measured. It seems as if the bar has been set! Matt also cast to a few pods of working carp and got one to eat a small black Woolly Bugger. It was a sizzling run on his 5 weight rod and the first time his backing has seen the light of day.

In the coming weeks we'll be watching for Yellow Sallies, Hendricksons, March Browns, and Sulphurs to be the predominant hatches in the Smokies. This means the fish will be looking up but also willing to take a nymph. The caddis hatch usually gets cranked up on the Holston by the middle of April, peaks in early May, and continues into June.

March 22 The past week has been a busy one on the rivers and streams of Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains. The weather has been a mixed bag, but it appears that spring arrived just about the time the calendar had it marked. Last week I took Eric and Amie Chambers fishing on the North Carolina side of the Smokies. While there were only a few bugs out and about, they managed to pull some eager trout to the surface to eat a few dry flies. #14 beadhead nymphs worked better though. A few days later Charity and I had moderate success with dries on Little River. Tim Doyle and I took a group of anglers from Kentucky up in the park on Friday just as overnight rains were winding down. The water was off color and rose through the morning as temperatures fell. We called it a day early after a couple of fish were caught and a couple more missed in spite of deteriorating conditions. The next day we floated the same group on the big Holston River outside of Knoxville. It was sunny and rather cold with the wind just howling. Everyone got some fish to the boat, but it was harder than it needed to be and a tough day to spend in a boat.

Charity spent the weekend working at Tennessee's first Casting For Recovery Retreat which is a therapeutic experience for breast cancer survivors. They learn fly fishing while sharing their experiences with others who have been through the same hardship. Tim and I volunteered as river guides on the last day of the retreat. Cold weather persisted and made fishing tough, but everyone managed to get a fish in hand.

On Monday Karl Hasselbring and Brian Hack had the incredible fortune to be on the stream with me during the first "real" hatch of the season. Quill Gordons and Blue Quills began hatching well in the afternoon and the guys got to cast flies to rising fish. Karl even got to sight fish to a couple of browns he could see holding. The guys had a blast. Who wouldn't?!

The long term weather forecast seems to show that the cold weather is a thing of the past and we expect the great hatches should continue. We're still waiting for the caddis to start up on the Holston. This hatch is the highlight of our sping float season as we regularly hook very strong 10-13" fish with a couple of 16" and larger occasionally in the mix. We're also looking forward to a productive season of smallmouth fishing starting in late April and extending through the summer. We'll be floating the lower Little River as well as the Big Pigeon near Newport.

March 14 The fly fishing, not to mention the guide season has arrived here in the Smokies and Tennessee. We've been on the water most of the time since the last post. The best hatches have yet to come off, but the warm 70+ degree temperaturs of the past couple of days should give things a jump start. Conditions have been exceptionally dry for late winter and early spring and water levels are relatively low for this time of year. Things are OK, but we're used to relatively high water at this time of year.

We've seen a blend of nymph and dry fly fishing around the park. Blue Quills and black caddis are making up the bulk of the bugs we're seeing. Quill Gordons have made fleeting appearances. We're waiting for more. There are also early brown stoneflies buzzing about, so a #12 Prince Nymph or Tellico Nymph will be just as topical as the Pheasant Tails and Hare's Ears used to imitate mayflies. We've been on Little River, Middle Prong of Little River, West Prong of the Little Pigeon and the Oconaluftee so we feel like we've got a pretty good consensus of what's going on parkwide. Additionally, we've heard from a reliable source that fishing on Hazel Creek has been pretty good. Again, no real hatches, but the nymph fishing was excellent.

Float season is coming up as well. Tim Doyle has spent a couple of days floating the Holston in recent days and reports that rising fish are still rare, but fishing with nymphs and small streamers has been pretty good. The Clinch has also had some great schedules for wading or floating. However, the reports we've heard have focused on mostly small fish. My theory is that the fingerlings stocked in the river over the winter are tackling the flies before the larger fish get a chance. The silver lining here is that these small trout are fodder for the Clinch's behemoth browns. Can't wait to find the time to float and chunk the meat.

March 5 The weather has taken a turn for the colder here in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and the fly fishing has sufferd a little bit. Jason and Allyson Gill came out for some fly fishing before the arrival of their new son in a few months. The weather was sunny and mild, but breezy conditions kept it pretty nippy and very few fish were up rising, in spite of the fact that Blue Quills were hatching here and there. Occasionally the odd Quill Gordon would cruise on down the river, but were ignored by the fish. Jason landed a pretty nice brown on a Prince Nymph early in the day and Allyson got over a decent pod of rising trout late in the afternoon. It was one of those tough casts where she had to place a reach cast over swift water, mend, mend, mend, then feed line, feed line, and feed line to get the fly to drift in the eddy to the rising fish. To her credit, she fed four of the fish and hooked two. However, the tough conditions precluded good hook ups and those fish came off. Jason joined me for some more fishing yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately morning light revealed falling snow on the mountains and despite a beautifully sunny afternoon, the temperatures barely got above freezing. Jason managed to hook and land one of the fish Allyson missed, but it was the only fish rising. Fishing nymphs was slow, yet somewhat productive. The forecast for the coming week is for sunny and warm weather. Hopefully it busts wide open this week and I can report crazed, rising fish in the Smokies in a fed days!

February 28 I took Bill Riehle out on Little River yesterday and the weather was absolutely beautiful! It was about 60 degrees and sunny. It was one of those days when you just know the hatch will be awesome.... or so you thought. The water was pretty cold though and it's still a little bit on the early side of things. However, if you've got some work to do in the yard or around the house, I'd recommend you get that done as soon as possible. We saw some bugs, but not enough to get the fished riled up. I was glad to see a few Quill Gordons, the large, clumsy #12 mayflies that kick off the spring fly fishing here in the Smokies. Not one was eaten by a fish. I'm sure that these bugs are on the leading edge of the hatch for another reason, no birds. Once the hatch has started and the bugs come off reliably there will be crested fly catchers and cedar waxwings perched in the trees along the stream banks. Any mayfly that runs through the gauntlet of rising trout will usually get picked off by one of the birds.

Bill actually rose several fish but missed most of the strikes. He got one decent brown trout on an unweighted Pheasant Tail Nymph that was trailing under a dry fly. The risers came to a #18 Parachute BWO which doubles nicely for the Blue Quills that were hatching. Weather is forecast to tumble back to cooler temps over the coming weekend, but rebound again after that.

February 26 We're finally back in Townsend and ready for spring fishing here in Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains! Even though it's still February temperatures have become quite mild in the past few days. A little more than a week ago we got a significant snowfall in the Smokies, but now it's in the 50's and 60's and spring is in the air. I'm expecting to see Quill Gordons and Blue Quills at any time. There should still be a few dun caddis and little winter stoneflies hatching plus a complement of BWO's and midges. Beadhead Pheasant Tail Nymphs, Prince Nymphs, and Hare's Ears will be the best nymphs to cast while you're waiting for the first big hatch of the season.

Turneffe Flats Belize We spent last week at Turneffe Flats, about 30 miles off the coast of Belize. This ring of islands adjacent to the second biggest coral reef in the world is home to countless bonefish, permit, and a few tarpon. This was the second time we went to the Turneffe Islands and have looked forward to this trip all year long. Only a few of the islands are inhabited and most residents are local commercial lobster and conch fishermen. The only anglers we saw out on the flats were also from Turneffe Flats which can handle a maximum of 12 anglers at a time.

Bonefish were the main target for the anglers who accompanied us. We waded for tailing bonefish in ankle deep water along the edge of the reef. Fishing was best during the high tide phase. Most of the fish continued to loiter in the shallows as the tide receded every day, but they certainly didn't feed with the same vigor as they did with a rising tide. Most of us chased permit as well, but none of us landed one during the week. David Gilliam from Walland, TN hooked a pretty good size one but was broken off quite quickly. Charity got two permit to eat but the hooks set well. I got more good inspections from grubbing fish than I can remember, but no eats. Charity and I boated 3 permit in 2 days of dedicated fishing for them on our last trip. There were several tarpon jumped this trip, though, and that was quite thrilling.

We'll be putting together a big photo wrap-up of the trip and putting it in our next newsletter which will also have plenty of information about fishing on the Holston, Clinch, and Smoky Mountain streams. We might even have a video clip or two since we got lots of great clips of bonefish, tarpon, and permit doing things that make us sweat. Dates haven't been set yet, but we expect to return to Turneffe Flats again next yeat.

Right now our main focus is on fishing right here in the beautiful Smoky Mountain region. We already have a good number of bookings into May, so be sure to get your dates on our calendar. Tim Doyle will be doing quite a bit of guiding with us this year. Some of you may have already fished with Tim. He's a great angler, fly tyer, oarsman, guide, and story teller. We also still have a few spots open for our big trip to Hazel Creek the first weekend of May. Fishing should be prime with Hendrickson's, Sulphurs, and Yellow Sallies hatching while we're camping on this legendary stream. There is still space for our all Women's Fly Fishing Weekend. Both of these events promise to be great fun and we'll all make great new fishing buddies. We're also looking ahead to later this September when we'll be heading out to Galloup's Slide Inn on the Madison River and the Henry's Fork and South Fork of the Snake in Idaho.

February 8 There haven't been any fishing reports for a while for a simple reason. We haven't done any fishing. In fact, this is as close as we got to fishing for about 3 weeks. This is a photo of Charity casting at the Charlotte Fly Fishing Show. Her program was "Casts for Tight Places". While we use these casts on a daily basis on small streams in the Smokies, particularly in the summer for brookies, Charity made it clear that these casts work equally well when casting to river banks from a drift boat or under mangroves from a flats skiff. I "wet waded" the casting pond to set up Charity's targets, so while I didn't get any fishing in, I got wet feet. Save it, I think I've already heard all the comments that can be made regarding "jumping through hoops for Charity."

Here's a photo of our booth. We set it up the same regardless of whether we're at a big show like Atlanta & Charlotte or the smaller shows like Louisville & Cincinnati. By the way, Charity & I both feel like the smaller shows we've done this year have been well organized, perhaps even better so than some of the large ones. We'll be at the BUFF show in Cincinnati this weekend. We were completely blown away by the tremendous range of fly tyers, outfitters, guides, and other cool stuff at this show. At $5 to get in I'd call this a huge bargain.

Enough about the show scene. My batteries were running pretty low and I jumped at the opportunity to go fishing yesterday. The weather has been frigid in the Smokies. I can see snow on Thunderhead Mountain and Clingman's Dome when I look out the window. I'm the first to say I fish for the experience and don't count how many fish I caught, but I passed on a cold day in the Smokies with slow fishing to make a trip over to the Clinch where I knew the fish would be active. Tim Doyle came along and we got to Miller's Island shortly after the generators shut down. There was a sparse midge hatch but plenty of fish rising. Virtually all of the risers were pretty small so we fished small midge pupa patterns under a yarn indicator. Nothing new to report there. The text book rig for the Clinch is a #18-22 Zebra Midge on 6X. We experimented a little bit, but that was pretty much the ticket. The catching wasn't as good as I might have hoped, but standing in running water with rising trout all around was a welcome change from convention centers and concrete floors.

Spring is nearly here and we've got some cool stuff lined up. We've put together a Hazel Creek fishing trip in May and are looking forward to our September trip to Galloup's Slide Inn on the Madison River. We've also put together a great package to the Henry's Fork and South Fork of the Snake that includes an overnight float. If you've got a few more minutes to kill, check out the trip journal I finally put together from our trip West last September.

January 23 It's show season here at R&R Fly Fishing. We're leaving the Tennessee Smokies to travel around the region this next month. Last weekend Charity and I were in Atlanta for the fly fishing festival and had a great time and met lots of great folks. This weekend we'll be in Louisville, KY then Charlotte, NC the next weekend followed by Cincinnati the weekend after that. We've spent a great deal of time putting displays and programs together. However, more to the point, we have gotten some fishing in. The long spell of mild weather started out with fair fishing, but began to fish almost like spring! We had some friends in town visiting and headed to Tremont to take them on a hike. On the way up the road we could see fish hovering near the surface in some of the runs. Without even putting waders on Charity and I managed to roll cast a few out on the water and each landed three and missed a few more in about 30 minutes of sharing a rod. Our friends aren't fly fishers so we cut it short and went on the hike.

Even as the weather turned cold again the fishing continued to be decent. Ronnie Mize came down from Kentucky last week for some trout fishing. Before he left home I told him the weather wasn't mild any longer, so while the fishing might be good, it would be cold. Ronnie said cold weather didn't bother him and came on down. I don't think Ronnie thought it would be as cold as it was. We had to keep knocking ice out of his rod guides, but the fish were more than eager to eat a nymph. Ronnie even had a few trout rise to a small BWO. All in all not a bad day out in the cold.

We'd like to get out and do some tailwater fishing, but schedules haven't been favorable on the Clinch or Holston. There have been fishable schedules, but with very little consistency. I've usually seen that I should have been on the river several hours ago.

January 3 My apologies to the faithful who've kept checking in to find no updates. We actually had our busiest December of guiding which is great, but threw us off our game a little bit raising an energetic little girl and making Christmas preparations as well. We're also migrating our computer operations over to a couple of new machines and that's been complicated. I'll add photos to this post later.

We've got a big year lined up for 2007 which we plan to outline in detail in our next newsletter. We're hoping to get that out in a few more days. To give you a sneak on the big news we've lined up another trip to Montana's Madison River, arranged a new trip with Hyde Drift Boats toIdaho's Henry's Fork and South Fork of the Snake, we're planning a women's fly fishing weekend here in the Smokies, and we're making plans for a Hazel Creek campout. On top of all that we have show and speaking appearances over the next two months in Indianapolis, Atlanta, Louisville, Charlotte, and Cincinnati.

Now for the fishing! Charity and I did several trips in the Smokies. Fishing has ranged from tough to good. There has been very little in the way of dry fly fishing, but nymphing is a good way to keep an occasional bend in your rod. Our usual assortment of nymphs has been working. Princes, Pheasant Tails, Pat's Nymphs, and Copper Johns have been almost all we've fished. I prefer a double rig with a #10 Prince on bottom and a Pheasant Tail or Pat's Nymph about 12-18" above.

Charity and I managed a day of personal fishing between guiding a couple of weeks ago. While playing with our daughter along the banks Charity discovered that the river is currently full of large nymphs. Most of the nymphs in the streams are pretty small as they were hatched from miniscule eggs in the spring or summer. The bulk of mature mayfly nymphs and caddis larva found at that time of year are also small because BWO's, Trico, and dun caddis are all small when they hatch. In addition to a good number of mayfly nymphs Charity found this meaty stonefly nymph.

We've also floated the Tuckaseegee several times. Conditions have been consistently good for floats, but spotty for waders. Just yesterday I took Ken Smith on the Tuck for his first float for trout. Ken has fished with us on a number of occasions in the Smokies and spends a good deal of time on the Elk River, his home water in southern middle Tennessee. After he landed his first fish of the day, a 10" rainbow, he admitted that he hoped he might hook a big fish just so he'd know what it felt like. Apparently Ken has been a good boy this year. He landed this 19" brown just before lunch. That was the first of four large trout that charged his streamer. I had Ken rigged with a #4 pearl and white Woolly Bugger on a sink tip line on his 6 weight rod. There was one rainbow that shook free before it came to the net that I would have liked to have put a tape to. Ken and I speculated that it might have been larger than the brown. There were plenty of other fish brought the boat, most of which were on the streamer. Ken fished several nymph combinations with only limited success.

Fishing has been slow in the mountains the past week or so with water conditions high and cold from rain, cold weather, and snow run off. Water should warm up as the week progresses.