We've had some really weird weather over the past week and it's made the fishing weird too. I've fished wild brook trout streams, tailwaters and various other freestone streams since I posted last and the fishing was tougher than usual.
After class one day last week, I headed out with a new fishing buddy and we hit some brook trout water. We were very excited because the sun was out and it was warm on campus. Dreaming about aggressive brook trout taking royal wulffs on every cast, we sped to the headwaters of a local creek. By the time we got to the mountain and climbed up into the higher elevation, we were met with heavy cloud cover and colder temperatures than we'd hoped for. Needless to say the fishing was slower than last week, when I couldn't keep em off my flies but we stuck to it catching a couple browns at the first stretch of the stream and had a slow couple hours until we got to the top of the first section of falls. Then the fishing turned on as the sun started to barely peek through the clouds and we ended up with a bunch of brook trout coming to hand. We even got to sight fish to a few! Persistence pays off.
On Sunday, I went to fish the South Holston and the weather was crappy, rainy and cold again. We started off catching a few fish but not the action we are used to (partly because of being spoiled). I was catching them on scuds and my buddy was catching them on blue wing olive nymphs. Then we moved to a section we have never fished before and I had an hour or so where I was catching them back to back on a scud again. As I moved from run to run, the fishing got a little slower but we managed a few more fish and I caught one of the most beautiful rainbows I've ever seen, but as I attempted to drag it over to Joe to get a picture, the fly popped out of his mouth. Then it started to get really cold and windy when a front moved in and we left and went to the Watauga and caught a few more fish on blue wing olive nymphs and called it a day when we couldn't fell our hands anymore. We had plenty of freezing cold days over there during the winter, but we simply weren't prepared for the cold this time. It's April! It's not supposed to be this cold!
Yesterday, I went out to the Elk river with my buddy Garret, who I fished with last week for the first time. It was cold as crap again and there was snow all over the mountain tops on the way there. I was scared we weren't going to catch anything, but we tied on black streamers and fished the deep pools through the first section of river and caught a good amount of fish. Then we switched to tight line double nymphing and picked up a few more fish in the smaller water on the last stretch of river. I was using a big soft hackle hare's ear as my point fly and a size 16 bead head pheasant tail as my back fly and caught them on both. It ended up being a pretty good day and Garret got to use his new Simms waders and boots he just bought and loved them!
These three pics were the only ones I took. They were from the headwaters trip last week after class.
Tight lines to everyone,
-Will
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