If I could give only one piece of advice to Tailrace fisherman , it would be to fish across and down. Resist the urge to throw straight up while dry fly fishing. If you do, you better throw a good curve cast. You might get away with it some, like when it is windy or raining, but most of the time it will not work. Not only will the fish refuse the fly, but it will put him down completely.

Get in position with your feet: Get above fish and fish across and down on them. Then throw a curve cast , getting you leader looped upstream of the fish and the fly above the fish. Thus you will get a natural drift to the trout . And the fly will be the first thing the trout sees.. and on top of that ; drag free.  This is imperative. The fly must be the first thing the fish sees. Not the tippet. And on top of that , drag free.

Constant mending is so important in keeping a good drift of the fly as it goes on it’s journey across and downstream from you. Mending is flipping the belly of the fly upstream in order to prevent an unnatural drift of the fly. You keep flipping the belly upstream til you are finished with your drift. Then quietly swing the fly around and do it again.

For tough fish in quiet water , which the Holston is full of. Do the same process for dry and dropper fishing. Or just plain nymph fishing. It will improve your catch tremendously.

In fast runs you can get away with throwing up on fish with a nymph rig. But across and up is better than straight up.

Straight down on fish is a dynamite way to catch good fish. One good way is to cast down stream and pull the line back toward you in the air. This leaves a lot of slack in the line, thus giving you a drag free drift to the fish. And also accomphling the other must : getting the fly to the fish before anything else.

There are many ways to do the above. Find some good methods for you and get good at them.

So work the angles , it will help you out… a lot.

Take Care,

RodC