The South Holston has been generating so much lately, I have been fishing the Watauga River a little each day this past week. It seems TVA is not generating on the Watauga during the week days. Matt thinks it is because of construction on the new Siam bridge.  And when bridge workers are not there, during week ends , TVA is generating. That held true this past week.

The Watauga is a  25  minute trip from our shop.  So it works out real well. If one is generating, we can drive quickly to the other.

The fishing was good.  The first two hour day produced a 20″ or so brown. That fish had been working hard on a bed. I had NO idea that fish was a bedding fish. I could not tell there was a bed. Only by his tired fight and watching him upon release did I have a clue. The bed he went to was barely noticable. This river has so much round copper rocks , a bed does not show up. I would not have messed with him had I known that. That rascal hit a size 20 BWO dry fly. His rise was just like the 3 other smaller fish that had eaten the dry. In the glare, just a subtle sip. I left the area when I saw him sit down with a female.

The next day- Wednesday, I fished a BWO hatch for an hour. Fish were rising and eating but all were small fish. I mean 6″-10″ small. Probably landed 15 before giving up on the dry and went to nymphs.  My first nymph fishing in forever, it seems. I had forgotten how much fun it is to watch that strike indicator go down. The size of fish went up quickly .  Not big fish, but solid 12″ and a couple pushing 14″.  Fun never the less.

Thursday afternoon  went to another stretch and fish nymphs completely.  Stepped in the water and busted 10 quickly, then had to work like heck to catch 3 more. I don’t know why the quick drop off. I expect not enough weight. Of course, I had no split shot. Got  a store full of them, but none on me. Go figure.  But I was still using a 3/32 tungsten bead and heavily weighted nymph + another 5/64 tungsten beaded nymph. That is a lot of weight . But flows are up, so in faster deeper runs, it was not enough.

There are a couple places in the past always had good BWO hatches all winter over there. As soon as river flows allow, I am going to see if history repeats itself.

On the S. Holston, this past week, drift boat trips had had rising fish. Dry Fly fishing at Christmas on high water. Ain’t that something.

Tight Lines,

Rod

Pat and Kathy Sleeth were staying at Riverway and decided to take a half day float with me. We meet up here at the shop around 12pm and headed to the river. We started out with nymph, because the Blue Winged Olives had not started yet. We headed off down the river and the fishing was a little slow, but we were hooking up on fish. Kathy was the first to get a fish to the boat. Then both Pat and Kathy caught fish all the way to the closed section. The fishing continued to stay constant pass the closed area. We ended the day with a really nice treat Pat caught a nice healthy 26″ Male Brown. Man was that fish fired up it jumped twice and really fought hard. It was really colored up and had a big hooked jaw. Pat was shaking after we finally got the fish to the net. It was a great way to end a good day of fishing.

I really enjoyed fishing with Pat and Kathy, and hope to do it again someday.

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

Tight Lines,

Matt Champion

South Holston Fly Shop

423-878-2822

Don’t know what it is about snow and dry fly fishing. The two go together like peaches and cream.  Don’t think I have ever been in snow that fish didn’t rise. No different Saturday.  Looking back on memorable afternoon dry fly fishing , I cannot remember but one afternoon that was as good as Saturday. That is in terms of fish size. One afternoon on the Watauga 10+  winters ago , will stick in my brain, til it stops producing cells.  Five fish over 18″s rose to my Olive Comparadun. I actually landed all five.  I remember the smoke coming from wood stoves hovering low in the valley as I was leaving. If I close my eyes,  can still smell the wood smoke. That is the kind of memory that is.  Well Saturday on the South Holston will be second in my brain for dry fly fishing. There were olives on the water as it was going down from generation. So the first hour was easy to figure out. If fish are rising as the water is going down, they will eat your dry fly. What happened from then on was the good part. I stayed with an olive dry fly for the next two hours. Good fish continued to sip it. Please understand there were no olives on the water at this point. But fish continued to eat the dry.  They were not rising but they ate the olive dry. I never changed patterns. Just continued to throw the dry against all odds and it worked.  It cannot be too shallow looking to hold fish here. Fish were in shallow runs . Fish were in all runs, no matter how fast or slow the water movement was. The big fish sips were no different from the 10″ fish sips. Very gentle with very little ring. So do not judge fish by the size of the ring.  The biggest rainbow’s take was the most subtle of them all.  He was a great fish of 3-4 p0unds and was hot as a fire cracker.  He jumped five times and his runs were mighty.  All of the bigger fish were caught in an across and down way. Caught fish on  curve casts upstream, but they were the smaller fish.  If there was a little trough, with a slight flow to it, there were fish.  The bigger fish were in those small troughs.

Snow and dry fly fishing burns in my soul. And makes little niches in memory places. Should be good food for my feeble years.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

I got to fish Sunday afternoon. There were sporatic sulphurs and sulphur spinners. And fish would occasionally eat one.  I stayed with a sulphur dry just because I wanted to. Just did not want to give them up quite yet. I force fed a good number of fish and a couple of fat, dandy browns. But in my heart , I knew it was over for the year. That does not mean some sulphurs will not continue to hatch off, because they will. But not near the numbers and the regularity of the past 7 months. The fish know it too. They have switched to midge pupae and BWO nymphs.  And soon the BWO’s will appear in numbers and regularity .

My buddy, Dave Miller, whacked one right after the other on midge pupae Sunday. When I say whacked em, I mean whacked em.  But I wasn’t ready to let go , yet. Next time, I will. But that last 16″ brown  in the back of the slick pool that jumped high twice, that was as gold a butter, was worth it. As I slipped the Sulphur dry out of his mouth, I not only said good bye to that brown, but also said good bye to the sulphurs. But what a year for Sulphurs it has been! It has been as good as it gets.  Now come on BWO’s . We are waiting on you.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion