And Now a Word From Our Roving Angler...He's In the Smokies

We received this report from Landon Williams, the fishingest 21 year old we know.

I spent my birthday up in the Smokies and had a big time with a couple of buddies up there. We stayed at Cades Cove Sunday night and it was a blast. We fished the North Prong of Little River that afternoon and fishing was good. River was up from recent rain from the passing tropical storm but fished decent with dredge rigs of leeches and pheasant tails. Mostly rainbows but got more browns as it got darker and the rain started again. It poured most of Sunday night and the rivers up in the park were running high and chocolate milk colored. We salvaged the day by packing up and spending the rest of the day on the lower Nantahala below the powerhouse. Fishing was good for holdover and  even wild rainbows down there fishing bank side pockets and seams. They were not hunkered down in that recreational release flow and fed in the top half of the water column, perhaps for emerging BWO's that were coming off. We were catching them on small Frenchies and a few on a Zelon Caddis emerger. It's interesting  you can catch them even with rafts and kayaks constantly going over them. Dark thirty never really happened like I was hoping but I dredged with a golden stone nymph and hooked several in the last hour, including a large brown who got in heavy current and eventually got off. It was a fun way to spend my 21st birthday here on planet Earth!

Landon

Great Smoky Mountain Giant

Even with the frequent rains we've been having lately, water temperatures in mid-afternoon on many streams have been getting a little too warm for a full day of quality trout fishing. So what do you do if you've got an outing with friends planned who don't have to be home before dark thirty? You drive a little farther north and fish the streams in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. When we stepped into the stream, the water temp read 57 degrees; cool enough for me to bail on wet wading. We had hoped to fish dry flies primarily but it quickly became obvious the fish weren't looking up so dry/dropper rig was our second choice. At least it was the second choice for two of us. Jeff, in typical Dredger style, went way deep with multiple split shot and a big meaty fly. A fierce battle with his 3 wt. and 5X tippet ended when Alan netted the big fish; all 21 1/2 inches of it. This is no Cherokee stocked pig; this is a wild brown caught on a small stream in the Park. An absolutely amazing fish!

The Smokies in May

I'm a small stream addict. There is nothing I love more than working the pockets, riffles and deep runs of a mountain stream, particularly for wild trout. When the mountain laurel are blooming and bugs are hatching, there is nothing more enjoyable than a day on the crystal clear waters of the southern Appalachians. Sunday was one of those magical days. As I drove north to meet my friend Alan Folger at River's Edge Outfitters in Cherokee, NC, I watched the thermometer on my car slowly drop from around 50 to the low 40's. Sure glad I dressed appropriately and even threw in a fleece vest at the last minute. Joe and the guys at River's Edge said it had been down in the high 30's overnight. No rush to get to the river, let things warm up a little.

These days it seems everyone is rushing to Cherokee to fish for the huge trout in the new trophy section on the Raven's Fork but, while battling a big fish on a flyrod is fun, there are times when it's good to just get back to the basics; fooling wild fish and matching the hatch. It's also nice to know that for miles and miles on these streams, you seldom see other anglers. Likewise, you seldom see plastic worm buckets and aluminum cans streamside. In short, it's the experience most of us got into flyfishing for.

The cool weather this day put a damper on the bugs flying out of the water. But that didn't stop me from trying dry flies for most of the day. And the catching, while not exactly hot and heavy, was steady. Most however came on my dropper pheasant tail and not the dry. By mid afternoon I had just completed working my way up through a long stretch with moderate success; still hoping that as the day warmed the bug activity would pick up. But it didn't. Only a few Sulphurs, March Browns and even less sporadic Blue Winged Olives, and no fish rising at all. Recalling from life experiences that stubbornness has its place but probably not on a trout stream, I gave in and tied on two nymphs; a #10 Rubber-legged Stonefly Nymph and the trusty Beadhead Pheasant Tail. First cast into the shallow riffle got a small brown, my first of the day. A few more casts and a rainbow. From that point on, I was constantly into fish. Most of them were rainbows with the largest being a beautiful 12" jumper but a few more were browns. The largest brown of the day was probably 13" but when you're fishing for wild fish in the south, that's a "nice un".

It was a great day to be on the water. The Smokies aren't that far from most of north Georgia and the number of streams you have to choose from is more than I care to count. Stop in to see the folks at River's Edge Outfitters when you're in the Cherokee area. They'll be more than happy to help you with fly selection and fishing reports. Their new shop is located right on US 441 North in a beautiful red-roofed log cabin.

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.