East Tennessee Fishing Reports

This is a beautiful snow this morning. It looks about 2 inches of fresh powder. Some would say it is a good day to tie flies. Nay, it is a good day to fish a BWO hatch. They will come off and fish will be eating them. They did yesterday so they will again today. And along with the olvies will be millions of blackflies.  Should be another banner dry fly fishing day. We had better enjoy today , because tomorrow brings sunny skies and a warming trend. Suppose to get in the 40’s and even higher for Saturday. Then will be a good day to tie flies. For today is BWO day. Wonder if we can make that a national holiday.. there is one for everything else. And this is the important one.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

Headed for home Saturday afternoon but made the mistake of driving by the river to “check things out”.

I even[ innocently] got out of my car and walked to some areas to check things out.  Heads were popping up everywhere. Now mind you, this is 4:30 on Saturday and I have a 3 hour drive to see my lovely wife. I convinced myself - just one hour.. no more.  I was close.. I only fished til 6:20. … Could not help it. There were fish rising to black flies everywhere. See, I am addicted to heads popping up.  The fish were hot.. they fought like bulldogs.

I don’t know the moral of this story.. but I bet you’ve been there.

I got 6 more  MODERN MIDGES books.  1000 c0lor midge illustrations.  Retail $40 - our price $29 .

Also have some beautiful AAA Hungarian Partridge skins.  I mean they are nice- Tons of small grey feathers. Full skin, wings and tail.   $25.99

Got some nice AA skins also- full sking, wings and tail.  $16

AAA Grouse is in the house.. Beautiful - full skin with wings and tail… $24 . Soft hackle dream.  But there are many many uses for these skins. Barred legs on nymphs and wing cases on nymphs are just a couple.

Tip- on the upper part of grouse wings there are small barred brown cupped feathers, that are perfect for 20 and 22 soft hackle flies.

The AA Grouse skins are nice - full skin and wings .. no tail.   $12.50

Tight Lines ,

Rod Champion

423-878-2822

Fished yesterday afternoon and 2 hours today.We had BWO’s both days. And fish were very glad to eat them. High of 32 and blowing snow both days. But big heads were up.. and to be honest with you, not very picky. You put it over their head and they ate it.  Total and complete dry fly fishing. No nymphs- just dry flies both days.. I cannot describe to you how good of dry fly fishing it was. Very seldom do you see that many big fish- sipping off the surface. And sipping it was.  I will never forget it. Now tomorrow the winds will howl, but Saturday should be pretty.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

This weekend and at least thru Wednesday TVA is only running one hour during the day. So you have wade fishing all day.  The BWO’s responded real well to the low water also. They came off and in many places pretty darn heavy.

This should begin the good wading flows thru Spring. But DO NOT just take my word on that. Always check the Schedule on line or by 800-238-2264 to make sure.  And as always” Subject to Change without Notice”.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

Absolutely beautiful day- high of 32 degrees… snowed the whole time out: can’t get any better than that!

I stayed with the ” Tony Rule”. First 2 fish were caught on a Sulphur  dry.. absolutely no sulphurs on the water. But fish rose– I hit them and sip. The second brown would have given 18″ a run for it’s money.  Saw very few BWO’s were I was today. Fish were midging.. eating midges, I should say. A midge pupae in 20 and also 18 was the ticket. Get it on down get a good drift and the fish would eat it most of the time. The key was depth and good drift.

This weekend, temperatures should be in the mid to upper 40’s - an all out Heat Wave. TVA should give a good wading schedule. And fish should be eating well.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

South Holston River Fly Shop

Thge fishing on high water has been fantastic the last couple of weeks and yesterday was no exception. Matt, Dave and I floated yesterday and fish were on!.. really on.  Through the whole float , fishing was the same. From beginning to end fish jumped on the nymphs. We got a late start so just nymph. There were some rising fish, but not in large numbers.  So we just nymphed them.

If you want to sample the goodies, give us a call.

We still have a few copies of Modern Midges. It is the best midge book I have ever seen. 1,000 pictures and recipes for midges. $29 .

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

The fishinhg has been good on high water this week. Actually it has been very good.  Not a ton of dry fly fishing, but the nymph bite has been on. On Wednesdya , if the wind hadn’t cuahgt us at the wrong time, the BWO dry fly fishing would have been good. Instead of dries, soft hackles tookm their place and produced.

On Tuesday, David , Amy and Beth Petry, from Quartz Creek Lodge in Alaska floated with us. We have the priviledge of guiding them each year. What a super family they are. The Petry’s have their own family lodge and guide service in the Kodiac region of Alaska . Those who go say it is the experience of a lifetime. Again Quartz Creek Lodge .

The Petry’s hammered the trout on high water. It was Beth’s first brown trout.. pretty neat stuff.

Matt and I floated Thursday and Friday. We picked up fish on nymphs from the beginning to the end of the float. Otherwise, we hammered them pretty good also.

So the moral of the story is, high water float fishing is excellent right now.

Matt is still open for floating next week. The sections that have been closed since November for spawning browns will be open to fishing beginning Monday, February 1.  Which means these fish have not been fished in 3 months. They will be big, fat and a little dumb. What a combination. If you guys don’t book him, he will have to paddle for me. It is too good a situation to let the boat sit still.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

TVA cut the wheels off frrom 2:00-5:00 P.M. Tuesday. So I grabbed my stuff and hit the river. There wasn’t as much rising as the water was going down as usual. But there was some. Fish ate cripples on top fairly well. As the water flattend out , a sulphur dry with a midge pupae was the ticket. It probably did not matter what pupae it was , just as long as it was 20 or smaller for me.  I bet you 15 or so fish ate the Sulphur dry.  There weren’t many sulphurs on the water, but they ate it anyway.

Hopefully we will not get much rain out of this system and TVA will go back to giving good wading hours.

We have the new book: MODERN MIDGES by Rick Takahashi . This is 280 pages of color photos of midge patterns. It has 1,000 midge patterns with illustrations of how to tie a bunch of them. This is a  spiral hard back book , so you can open the pages and work from it. Full of photos and a wealth of knowledge. Retail $39.95 .. our cost $29 .

Essential book for midge fisherman.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

I have been gone a couple of weeks- didn’t miss much.. unless you count a bunch of snow and very cold conditions. On top of that TVA ran 24 hours 7 days a week. Like I said. I didn’t miss much. So I stayed home and tied flies. The thing bad about tying flies when you are not fishing, is you don’t get the proportions right. Or at least I don’t . It takes H2O and fish to square that away.  TVA quit generating and back to work I go. It just so happens that my first two days back to work were research and development. You guys in the medical field are not the only ones to HAVE to do that. We, in the trout business, must also suffer in this area.

My first day, my casting stunk. In two weeks I had become rusty.  I begain thinking about my casting technique. That is always dangerous for me.  But by this afternoon, I was my old self, thinking about fish, not casting. Could not help it there were fish everywhere.  Dangest river I have every seen. Fish everywhere.

Well I took your advice Tony and fished a Sulphur comparadun, just to seee if the fish remembered what one was. They did. There were some BWOs as the water went down. Wouldn’t touch it. Put on a Sulphur and K- Pow.  Go figure.

Anyway today and yesterday was[ in the words of Bridget Bardot ] ” simply marvelous darling.” Not only in quantity but in quality that is for sure.  There were BWO’s on the water and trillons of midges.  Monday, I did nothing but fish BWO dries. Got one gorgeous 18″or so Brown. And I don’t know how many real quality browns+ all the usual-10″ crowd. There are truly some quality rainbow trout that are fired up with spawning colors now. Just as red as red can be. And full of fire.

The Browns are very healthy after spawning.  They are fat and sassy. Not skinny like they should be, but fat. The generating water during the spawn looks as tho it has been good for the browns. But boy do they still have their spawning colors. The red spots are bright red. And the gold is like butter. They are a sight to behold.

Today, Tuesday, the BWOs were slack for me. So I used Tony’s Sulphur  Tony’s Sulphur, and a 20 BWO nymph.  They both worked superbly. Fish were really keying on Midges. But I acted like I didn’t notice them.  That was impossible, fish were sipping midges everywhere. But the best part of the day was fishing to those sipping fish with a BWO cripple. These fish were in quiet , slack water. And when they didn’t sip it on top, they would eat it up with a little swimming action. I mean good fish too. Really good fish. I thought of Carol and Bill Feilser , as I was fishing this way. I beleive Bill likes to grease his leader and fish unweighted nymphs this way also.  I am looking at a 20″ rainbow Carol is holding in a picture they sent me. Wonder if she caught it that way or their other special finese way of fishing.  It is a special way of fishing. And man, is it affective.

Now I have to figure out how to have one more R+D day tomorrow. Is 3 in a row even ehtical?  There is another 50 yards of that slick left that I haven’t touched yet. I might test the ethics law for that.

Come and join the fun. Did I ever tell you, the South Holston is one hell of a river.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

TVA has backed it’s running schedule down this week.  Cutting the water off at 9:00 or so and leaving off all day.  So ALL DAY Fishing.  And the BWO’s are coming off well. So it should be on all winter now. 

But , please check the schedule each day. 

We have a killer deal on Tungsten beads now. They start at $14.99 a 100 pack for size 1/16.  And $2.99 for a 20 pack.  We have up to size 7/64 in most colors.

Please Visit our ebay store. It is coming along quite well now. . Go to ebay and search: southholstonflyshop.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion