Fly Fishing in Tennessee

This is Spencer here. Anie didn't want to blog about my fishing trip so I get the honors of memorializing what was an awesome trip down to Tennessee to fish the small streams of the Smoky Mountains and the big South Holston River in Northern Tennesse (a large tailwater which is part of the TVA on the border of Tennessee and Virginia) So if any of you avid blog stalkers don't like to read a long fishing report, this post is not for you.

Beginning last year, My buddy Wayne (from law school) and I decided to plan an annual fly fishing trip over spring break. Last year we braved the bitter cold and went up to Northern Maryland and fished the North Branch of the Potomac and the Savage and Casselman Rivers. Although we had a great time, we decided that this year we wanted to avoid ice and go some place warmer-Tennessee. Early Tuesday morning of last week, we drove down to Gatlinburg, Tennessee-a town just outside the Smoky Mountains Natl Park. This town is seriously one of the most bizarre places I've ever been to. The place is basically a vacation mecca for every red-neck hillbilly in the South. Driving through town was entertainment enough for us! Pigeon Forge, TN, the town right before you get to Gatlinburg, boasts the world's largest AS SEEN ON TV store. Not only do they have the world's largest, I am willing to wager that they have a world record for most AS SEEN ON TV stores per city block. Now that is something to be proud of! Even as I mocked this strange place, I secretly thought of all the FLOWBEEs I could buy to make sure I can flowbee well into the millenium!

The great thing about visiting a red-neck, hillbilly vacation mecca is that the motels are super cheap and there are lots of cheap buffets with plenty of meat to eat! Even better, Gatlinburg is only minutes from some great wild trout fishing streams. Here is the view from out $30/night motel:

Tuesday afternoon, we got a few hours to fish the upper portion of the Pigeon River. Wayne caught one rainbow but I got skunked. I hadn't been fly fishin since our trip last year so I was a bit rusty. I spent most of the first day untangling wind knots! Early Wednesday, we woke up before sunrise and drove to the Middle Prong of the Little River and fished all day.

The morning was a little slow, but right around noon, the Blue Quill's began to hatch and the fish started rising. I stopped nymphing and threw on a tiny blue quill dry fly and within minutes caught a few nice wild rainbows. They were small, but fun to catch on my new three weight rod. Here are a few of the rainbow's I caught on day 2:

On Thursday, we headed back to the middle prong of the Little River. It was much colder and rained most of the day. We did get just enough sun for some more blue quills to hatch, and caught a few more rainbows, but it wasn't nearly as good as the day before. Here are some more pics of some of the streams we were fishing.

Early Friday morning, we drove about 2 hours north to Bristol, TN/VA to fish the South Holston River. The South Holston is a tail water (a river that flows from a dam=cold water)-so it is perfect for trout, but it also means the river can only be waded when the dam is not releasing water. We got to Bristol around 11 am but had to wait until 3 for the dam release to shut off so we could fish. To kill the time, we found a couple local fly fishin shops and got some good tips on what parts of the river to fish. Like clock work, the dam release shut off at 3 and by 3:30, the river had dropped several feet. We waded out and got a few hours of fishing in before sundown. Wayne caught a nice rainbow and then almost landed a huge brown trout, but it broke off before he could land it in his net. I had a bunch of bites, but got skunked again. I'm still a beginner. Saturday would be a better day.

Saturday was the best day of the trip. The TVA had no scheduled water releases so the South Holston was open for fishing all day. We were on the river around 10 am. Apparently everyone got the memo cause there was a someone fly fishing in nearly every pool as far as the eye could see up and down the river. Wayne and I found a nice spot with a couple deep pools headed by some nice riffles and never moved the whole day. I seriously have never seen so many trout in one little stretch of river! The day started off a little slow, but by noon, there were tons to black flies and blue wing olives hatching and we were getting lots of strikes and landing trout all day long. Between the two of us, we landed upward of 30 trout (browns and rainbows) and had another 30 or so that broke off! It was the best day of fishing I have ever had and a great way to end our trip!

After a week of landing fish, Wayne and I are back to trying to land employment to pay for next year's trip...We are thinking of going someplace even warmer so our wives/families can come along and not be angry at us for leaving them alone (or alone with kids) for a week. The Florida Keys is sounding very nice right now!