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
