I meet up with Claude Hager II and his son Claude Hager III from Kingsport, TN for a day of fishing on the Watauga River in East Tennessee. Claude was wanting to a float trip, and the Watauga has been fishing really well so that is were we headed to. We put in the water at about 9:30 and we were into fish right away. The fish were rising so I put Claude III a size 24 Parachute Adams on the fish started taking it right away. His Dad was fishing with nymphs and started getting into some fish also. We caught 7-8 fish before we even got out of site of the boat lunch. We didn’t get anything big, but we did see a few nice sized Rainbow that we just could get to hit. We had a Grand Slam in the boat right away, Brook, Rainbow and Brown Trout. We worked our way down the river and Claude III was still getting fish to rise to his little dry while his Dad was getting some hits on the nymphs. In the next set of running water Claude II hooked a nice fish that popped off and then Hooked into a BIG Rainbow an the fight was on. The Rainbow took off down stream straight into a lay-down and broke us off. We got a look at the fish, and it was in the 20″ range. The fishing slow a little before lunch so we pulled over on the bank to eat some lunch. After lunch we reached the Trophy Section, and that is were the fishing picked up again. Claude III landed a really nice Rainbow out of a fast run along with two other Rainbows, and Claude II missed a couple out of the same run. The samething happen when we got to the Caddis Riffle. Most of the fish were taking the Midge dropper on Claude’s Nymph rig. TVA ran a pulse of water for a hour and the water started picking up at the Caddis Riffle which made it alot easier to float through that section of river, and the fish keep hitting. Claude II got a little tired so he just seat back and enjoyed the float when his son fished the water hard. We made it down the Ledges and caught a couple of fish out of the Ledges. I parked the boat on the side of a fast run to let Claude fish it out. That was a great stop Me and Claude both caught a couple of smaller fish out of the run the Claude hooked into what I thought was a really big Rainbow. That fish fought hard and was never come up to let us see him finally after a long hard fight we got the fish to hand. It was a really nice fat 16″ Rainbow, but that fish fought like a 20″ Rainbow. It was a great way to finish the day.

I had a great time fishing with these guys, and we had a great day of fishing. We also caught a lot of pretty Brook trout with the biggest being about 11″. Just a great day on the water.

If you would like a Guide trip give us a call at 423-878-2822.

Thanks,

Matt Champion

Champion Outfitters Guide Service