Ronald Jones from Hendersonville, NC drove over the mountain to fish the S. Holston River. Ronald meet me here at the shop around 9am, and we headed down to the river. We got down to our first spot. When we got in the water the wind was blowing a little harder then expected. We had some fish rising so we fished a dry and dropper. We missed a couple, but I decided to head to our next spot to try to fish a Blue Winged Olive hatch. When we arrived at our next spot the fish were already rising heavy. I scanned the water to see what they were rising to. I soon figured it out, Black Flies.  Ronald had on a BWO Sparkle Dun and a Stripper Dropper. So we started with that. He had fish take the BWO right off the bat, and he caught a nice fat 14″ Brown on the dry. He missed a few on the Stripper, but they were not really hitting it good. I switched dropper around to a BWO nymph no takes, then back to a Stripper. As soon as I switched back to the Stripper he got hits right away. Then the Blue Winged Olives started coming off good, and the fish started switching over to the Duns. I switched his dropper over to a BWO emerger and we catch one an missed several more on the emerger right away. The water started getting move and move covered with Blue Winged Olive Duns so I just took off the dropper, and down sized the dry to a size 22. We caught a good many more fish on the dry and missed even more. The hatch started dying out around 2pm so we decided to warm up with a hot meal. After lunch we checked a couple of stops hoping to get into some more Olives, but we didnt see any. We went back to the first spot we had started in. The fish were rising to midges so we just fished a dry and dropper. We caught 10 or more fish before calling it a day. Most all the fish were taking the midge dropper were we end. We could target the rising fish and they would take the midge dropper. It was a great day on the water with Ronald, and a great hatch. We caught lots of fish and some really pretty Rainbows.

Dont let the Black Flies get you. The fish are really feeding on the Black Flies when they are coming off. If you see fish feeding heavily on the surface and can not see what is on the water most of the time it is Black Flies.

If you would like a Guided Trip give us a Call at 423-878-2822.

Thanks,

Matt Champion

Champion Outfitters Guide Service