When casting weighted flies, here are some things to keep your thoughts on. Are you casting the fly line and fly off the end of the rod to ensure not smacking the rod with a weighted fly and damaging your equipment. When landing your cast is your line and leader as straight as possible and are you instantly connected to the line? Being connected to a straight line and leader will let you feel that bite that usually happens as soon as your fly hits the water. Watching a recent underwater video of a fly caster landing his line with slack and then taking to much time to get the line into his fingers and begin stripping, the smallmouth hit is flies three times before he felt the first hit.
Just some food for thought as your practice your casting in the yard or on the river.
I will be in attendance at Troutfest coming up May 19th, and 20th. I will be in the Temple Fork Outfitters and Chota booths all weekend. Be sure to stop by and lets talk some fishing.
Clouds, rain and windy conditions bring out the big boys. This past week we have had another round of these crazy heavy rain storms. This makes the TVA push water giving us the great flows needed to stage the big fish in the best hiding spots along the river. Think ambush when casting streamers looking for that big bite. It doesn’t have to be that big snarled up mess of logs and limbs, most of the bigger fish for my clients have come from that lone piece of wood or slight cut in the bank. This past week I had a Connie, who has spent a good amount of time fishing the salt for redfish, she wanted to try her hand at floating the tailwaters for trout. The river was slightly stained as we started so I put on a white belly, purple back minnow imitaion and she got her first Watauga brown trout.
The early morning generation was getting to us and the water was getting a deeper stain so we went to darker colors and really concentrated on the cuts and timber on the banks. Her fishing partner Jerry, got into a nice brown about 100 yds down stream.
The water kept getting more stained so we went after some of the bigger browns we were catching back during our winter floats. Connie was very lucky, making the proper presentation and then getting a big brown, the same one that Zane Porter got back in February to hook up. The fight was on and Mr. Brown was not going to be easy to get to the net. After a good hard fight and a couple of breathtaking surface rolls he dove deep and said sorry but not today. Oh well you can’t land them all. Connie was happy just to get hooked up with w Watauga legend brown trout.
As the day went on the river started to fall back and the stain dissipated giving us some caddis hatches from Smalling Bridge through the Cadiis Riffle. Then the sulphurs began to show themselves and the big rainbows began feeding on the emerging nymphs. We put on JAWS and went after them. Here are a few of what the ledges had to offer.
Looking forward to floating the upper Watauga this weekend due to heavy YVA generation schedules this weekend. The rains have the Holston Proper up about 5 feet and extremely muddy so no smallies until mid next week. Be sure to check out my Troutfishers YouTube channel for my latest video on fishing with Mr. Bob Clouser last week.
Hope you have a great weekend, “Tight lines and heavy nets” until next time .
It has been a exceptional week of fishing here in East Tennessee. The weather has been up and down, cold rain and only in the fifties one day, then bright bluebird sunny days and near eighty the next. That hasn’t affected the fishing at all, the smallies on the Holston Proper as well as the trout on the Watauga and South Holston don’t seem to mind the big weather swings. They are hungry and the bugs are coming off good, so they have plenty of food source to feed up on. The Holston Proper was hatching caddis, white mayflies, and hendricksons. The smallies were in a feeding frenzy going after all those bugs. Poppers were the right fly when they were sipping bugs on the surface, they would put a good bend in the TFO Clouser Series 6wts. Here is Linda Heller with a good one taken on a chartreuse popper.
The wind picked up some as the weather was changing so we went to Clouser Minnows. The feeding activity was very good under the surface on the new style Clouser Minnows that Mr. Bob Clouser brought along on this trip. He spent three days floating with me testing some new designs that you will be able to purchase through his website. They are made with new synthetic materials with plenty of flash and movement to mimic dying minnows. Even the smaller fish were hitting it with a vengeance.
The fish were taking these new flies very well. The primary colors that Mr. Clouser was using were called Walleye and Baby Bass. Watching Bob and Linda work these flies was such a treat for me. It was all about keeping it moving and accuracy on casting the flies to the proper spot, no matter if it was on a backhand or forward cast.
Bob Clouser and Linda Heller also enjoyed a day floating the Watauga fishing streamers for the big ones, it was a fun day. The sun was little to bright for the big boys to come out and play, but it had been 7 seven or eight years since they both last fished the Watauga so it was a great day of remembering the fish stories from the past.
The week finished out on the Watauga with caddis popping off and getting some great fishing on dry and dropper rigs with a tan caddis and blood midge droppers. A couple of great guys from northern Georgia enjoyed a fun day floating the Watauga.
Now the weather folks are calling for snow tonight and Monday with heavy winds, so its off to the tying bench to get more Clouser Minnows and trout flies tied up to get ready for the busy next few weeks with clients.
Be sure to check out my Troutfishers videos on Youtube. I will be uploading some new ones this week showing Bob Clouser fighting some nice smallies on the Holston Proper.
That was the comment the lady client said yesterday on the South Holston Tailwater when she was talking about the sulphurs hatching and the fish rising to feed on them. It was great to see her enjoying a birthday wade trip with her best friend, two great ladies who love the sport of fly fishing. The trout were taking midge emergers early in the morning but as the sun heated up the water the sulphurs started slowly emerging then building into a full blown hatch. They were grateful that the rivers gods gave them the opportunity to experience the great sulphur hatch and to catch some of those beautiful butter belly South Holston browns they had heard so much about. The weather was extremely windy with air temps only at 50 degrees so when it came time for lunch we went to Mark Price’s Webb’s Grocery Store for a warm lunch, be sure to stop by there for breakfast or lunch when fishing on the South Holston Tailwater near Bluff City Tennessee.
The Watauga is fishing just as well, we are seeing midges, BWO’s, Craneflies, and the Caddis are coming off now as well. We have been floating the upper river this week with all the generation the TVA is doing, but it will slow down soon as they get all the lakes to full pool. We are using nymph rigs, as well as dry/dropper rigs to get trout in all types of water. One of my clients this week caught a nice holdover 11″ brook trout from when TVA used to stock them in the Watauga Tailwater. That was a great surprise as it came to the net.
We are booked solid for the next week and a half, there are a few openings the last week of April, so give me a call or email and get out on the Watauga or South Holston Tailwaters for the sulphur or caddis hatches.
