Lake Blue Ridge Drawdown Begins

In the wee hours of Friday morning, the gates of the dam at Lake Blue Ridge were raised and the drawdown has officially begun. The flow as seen here is a little higher than a normal generation and is up in the trees along the bank in some places. It might be a little while before we get to fish the river. Looking on the bright side though, when the drawdown stops, any fish left should be ready to take a big fat streamer. We will keep a keen eye out for any breaks in the generation so keep checking our blog for updates.

Luckily, the Blue Ridge area has a tremendous amount of trout water available to the angler. Time to dust off the short 3 weight and hit the smaller streams at the higher elevations. Noontootla, Rock, Coopers, and their tributaries hold lots of beautiful wild fish that are eager to strike a easy to see attractor pattern. The upper Toccoa has been producing some nice smallmouth and redeyes in the past couple of weeks.

For more information about the BR lake drawdown, click on this TVA link.

Drawdown schedule given to us from Mike Holloway, President of the Blue Ridge Trout Unlimited Chapter:

Blue Ridge Reservoir Predicted Elevations
Elevation Date
1686 7/15 – start drawdown
1672 7/29
1658 8/12
1652 8/26
1647 9/9
1641 9/23
1635 10/07
1629 10/21
1620 to 1625* 10/30/10 to 4/01/11
1620 to 1625* 4/1/11 – Start Refill
1631 4/15
1642 4/29
1651 5/13
1658 5/27
1663 6/10
1668 6/24
1671 7/8
1675 7/22
1677 8/5
1678 8/19
*Low water boat ramp(s) are unavailable below elevation 1,627

Pickwick Smallmouth

If your passion is chasing trophy smallmouth bass, the number one place in the southeast has to be Alabama's Pickwick Lake near Florence, AL. And the number one guide for those big fish in Pickwick is Steve Hacker. My friend Jim Bruce has been fishing with Steve for almost 20 years and has trips booked years in advance. When Jim asked me to tag along with him for a quick run over to fish on Tuesday of this week, I couldn't turn it down. I've been there before and it is definitely worth the trip. No fly fishing this time as I'm still trying to learn the nuances of how you catch these guys. When in Rome, you know. Pickwick Lake is essentially a controlled river in that there is almost always a current running between Wilson Dam and Pickwick Dam. And that current determines when and how you fish. Last week there was an FLW bass tournament on the lake and, while he's not much on bragging, Steve's clients who were out with him at the same time as the tournament were outfishing the pros by a substantial margin. Here is Steve's description of the day:

"386 anglers blasted off at 6:30 this morning in the FLW Stren Series Championship. Hank Chitwood, from near Calhoun, GA, had the "misfortune" of having a trip scheduled with his son, Caleb, while all of this madness is going on.

"Pulled up on the first spot this morning, and Hank hooked a giant within 3 seconds. Unfortunately, it broke his line. Not to worry, though, as by 7:30 they had a livewell full of smallmouths, with the five best at over 25#. They caught about 30 smallmouths for the day, and lost 4 giants (2 breakoffs and 2 jump offs). Could have probably had a five best of 27 pounds or so, as the second big fish Hank lost right at the boat was a giant. Something interesting: for the first time that I can ever remember, nothing but smallmouth were boated for the day. No drum, spots, or anything other than those beautiful brown bass."


Jim and I didn't have the day the Chitwoods had but it was plenty fun. At our first stop, we fished for about an hour and had only four casts between us during that time that didn't result in a strike or a hookup. It was wild! Steve is strictly catch and release and he does on occasion guide fly anglers. It sprinkled rain on us all morning (thankfully the heavy downpours were just east of us all day) but the fishing was so good we didn't mind at all. The sun broke out after lunch and the weather was absolutely beautiful. A great day on the water!

A not so great Tuckasegee trip

Well, I had to settle a curiosity that had been bothering me all summer about one of my favorite tail water rivers. And despite people telling me that it is not worth fishing, like the legend of Wooly Swamp, I just had to find out for myself.

So my brother and I headed up to Webster, NC to spend the day prospecting on the Tuckasegee DH section. We launched the boat around 8:00am with at least 8 rods rigged up with everything from pencil poppers for bass to small nymph dropper rigs for trout. Now my drift boat has been known to resemble a battleship with all the rods sticking out of it, and Saturday was no exception. We fished hard and with reckless abandon for our own health and well being, but at the end of day, we were broken and longing for Monte Alban's Mexican Restaurant there in Franklin. We did catch a few trout but did not see or catch any bass. Its a shame too because there is so much good water on that section.

Most interesting observation was the water temperature. I realize that there is a long distance between the DH section and the two separate powerhouses that release water down the Tuckasegee, but knowing what I know about Hydrology, I was a little surprised. At 8:00am with the East Fork running 500cfs, the water temp was 62F. Which I thought was a little warm for that time of day. The release stopped around 1:00pm and by 6:00pm the water temp was up to 68F. On days that there is no generation, I could easily see the temps in that section hitting +70F.

Smokies and Smallies

Some friends and I were fortunate to do a little fishing in nearby North Carolina recently and it was so much fun we kept going back. Between Sunday, June 28th and Saturday, July 4th, we hit some of the small Smokies streams for wild trout as well as the larger western NC rivers for smallmouth on three days. Actually, those are just the days I got to fish; my friend The Dredger was on vacation that week so he really abused the privilege and, I think, fished there on five of the seven days, catching this nice 15" brown on one trip. We've been pretty darn blessed in Georgia this summer with good rainfall and relatively cool temperatures but, being at this altitude and, for the most part, fishing streams on the south-facing slope, we have seen water temperatures in the high 60's and even above 70 degrees on the larger streams. If you read my earlier post, you know that I've spent some time fishing for shoal bass on the Chattahoochee River lately but I had guests coming in from Alabama the last weekend of June and they really wanted to trout fish. So I decided to take them somewhere they had never been before, The Smokies. As we drove through downtown Cherokee, I'm sure they were thinking I had lost my mind but they both breathed a sigh of relief as we stepped out of the truck on the banks of one of the most underfished streams in the Park just a short drive north of town. Even in mid-afternoon, the water temp registered just 60 degrees. Quicker than you can change tippets, everyone had their short rods out and rigged with an attractor dry fly with small nymph droppers. Today, most of the fish were taken on the nymphs with size 18 pheasant tails doing the bulk of the work but a big Mega Prince did entice one nice 12"rainbow out of a deep run for me after fishing it with the pheasant tail for quite a while. Later in the afternoon, we moved upstream as our guest leap-frogged from pocket to pocket picking up small wild rainbows on both dries and nymphs. For two guys who probably envisioned fishing all weekend for big fish, it was a pleasant surprise and one that challenged everyone's skills. And even better, we only saw two other anglers all day on this stream. The following Friday, after receiving reports from Dredger on the big smallmouth he had caught the day before, I was coerced into making another trip back to western NC that afternoon. We fished until dark-thirty and I used nothing but a white popper with big rubber legs. What a blast! This section of North Carolina has two very good smallmouth streams, the Tuckaseegee downstream from the dam at Dillsboro to Bryson City and the Little Tennessee River between Jackson and Fontana Lake (also near Bryson City). Both are big rivers but offer good wading and floating opportunities for smallies. I'm still learning about river smallmouth and I find myself absentmindedly fishing as if I'm after trout on these rivers. It sure seems that smallmouth waste some great runs and riffles in favor of the frog water at times. But it only takes a couple of nice leaping brown bass to help me focus. Interestingly, the fish these days were not overtly aggressive. A good cast into likely holding areas, one twitch of the fly and... wait. If you continuously stripped your fly, you likely got nothing. If you waited patiently, you were often rewarded with a boil on your bug. This first evening I counted 11 strikes before I landed a fish. Talk about a teaching opportunity! We ended the day with probably 18 or 20 fish with the largest being a nice 16-incher right before we left. On the ride home, we discussed whether or not we were up for trying it again the next day, Saturday. When you roll in after 11 PM, you have to fight the urge to sleep late the next day. So, we decided to meet again the next morning and head back to the Smokies then finish up the day harassing the smallies again. Sleep can come later. This time we headed for another stream in the Park near Bryson city. This would allow us to be very close to our evening rendezvous with the smallies. The trout streams in this section of the Park are classic "pocket water". Almost any little place that looks like it should hold a trout, does. Early in the day, I mistakenly made the call that we were only finding fish in the rough water at the head of pools. Only later did I realize how many fish we were spooking from the slower pools and runs. You literally could not get within 30 feet of these fish without them bolting into the next drainage if the water was the least bit placid. Realizing this helped and, with longer casts and more stealthy approaches, we began picking up fish before we spooked them. Again, on this day we caught more on nymphs than dries but there were enough on dries to create a lot of hootin' and hollerin'. We saw three other anglers all day on this stream which does not require a long hike to get to. Again, we finished up the day stalking smallmouth and the rewards for me were two 16-inchers along with a host of smaller fish; all one of Kent Edmonds' Stealth Bomber in white with orange rugger legs. It was deadly! the river this day had a lot of swimmers and tubers but by the time we hit the water at 4 PM most of them were leaving. My second fish of the day was one of the big 16 inchers that I pulled from slow water withing a hundred feet of a frolicking couple playing in the shoals nearby. On a side note, the next time I head up this way I'm taking flies for carp and redhorse suckers. There are some really big boys cruising the shoals and gravel bars on these rivers and it would be like sight fishing on the flats except you wouldn't have to make long casts. These big rivers are a tremendous fishery and within an easy drive of north Georgia. If you drive up to fish the delayed harvest sections of the Nantahala or Tuckaseegee, or the trophy stream in Cherokee, these are within your range. A large part of small stream summer fishing is the discovery. Virtually every stream in this section of the Park has the same geologic characteristics and will fish about the same regardless of which one you find. Get a map of the Smokies and start plotting your own trip destinations. And if you want that big fish fix, reserve some time for the waters of Cherokee or the big bass waters on the Tuckaseegee and Little Tennessee Rivers. It's not that far away and is a great alternative to your home waters when they get too warm.