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 .

Be safe and have fun on the water.