East Tennessee Fishing Reports

Thge fishing on high water has been fantastic the last couple of weeks and yesterday was no exception. Matt, Dave and I floated yesterday and fish were on!.. really on.  Through the whole float , fishing was the same. From beginning to end fish jumped on the nymphs. We got a late start so just nymph. There were some rising fish, but not in large numbers.  So we just nymphed them.

If you want to sample the goodies, give us a call.

We still have a few copies of Modern Midges. It is the best midge book I have ever seen. 1,000 pictures and recipes for midges. $29 .

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

The fishinhg has been good on high water this week. Actually it has been very good.  Not a ton of dry fly fishing, but the nymph bite has been on. On Wednesdya , if the wind hadn’t cuahgt us at the wrong time, the BWO dry fly fishing would have been good. Instead of dries, soft hackles tookm their place and produced.

On Tuesday, David , Amy and Beth Petry, from Quartz Creek Lodge in Alaska floated with us. We have the priviledge of guiding them each year. What a super family they are. The Petry’s have their own family lodge and guide service in the Kodiac region of Alaska . Those who go say it is the experience of a lifetime. Again Quartz Creek Lodge .

The Petry’s hammered the trout on high water. It was Beth’s first brown trout.. pretty neat stuff.

Matt and I floated Thursday and Friday. We picked up fish on nymphs from the beginning to the end of the float. Otherwise, we hammered them pretty good also.

So the moral of the story is, high water float fishing is excellent right now.

Matt is still open for floating next week. The sections that have been closed since November for spawning browns will be open to fishing beginning Monday, February 1.  Which means these fish have not been fished in 3 months. They will be big, fat and a little dumb. What a combination. If you guys don’t book him, he will have to paddle for me. It is too good a situation to let the boat sit still.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

TVA cut the wheels off frrom 2:00-5:00 P.M. Tuesday. So I grabbed my stuff and hit the river. There wasn’t as much rising as the water was going down as usual. But there was some. Fish ate cripples on top fairly well. As the water flattend out , a sulphur dry with a midge pupae was the ticket. It probably did not matter what pupae it was , just as long as it was 20 or smaller for me.  I bet you 15 or so fish ate the Sulphur dry.  There weren’t many sulphurs on the water, but they ate it anyway.

Hopefully we will not get much rain out of this system and TVA will go back to giving good wading hours.

We have the new book: MODERN MIDGES by Rick Takahashi . This is 280 pages of color photos of midge patterns. It has 1,000 midge patterns with illustrations of how to tie a bunch of them. This is a  spiral hard back book , so you can open the pages and work from it. Full of photos and a wealth of knowledge. Retail $39.95 .. our cost $29 .

Essential book for midge fisherman.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

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

TVA has backed it’s running schedule down this week.  Cutting the water off at 9:00 or so and leaving off all day.  So ALL DAY Fishing.  And the BWO’s are coming off well. So it should be on all winter now. 

But , please check the schedule each day. 

We have a killer deal on Tungsten beads now. They start at $14.99 a 100 pack for size 1/16.  And $2.99 for a 20 pack.  We have up to size 7/64 in most colors.

Please Visit our ebay store. It is coming along quite well now. . Go to ebay and search: southholstonflyshop.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

>столовеe the South Holston has been generating so much lately, I have been fishing the Watauga River a little each day this past week. It seems TVA is not generating on the Watauga during the week days. Matt thinks it is because of construction on the new Siam bridge.  And when bridge workers are not there, during week ends , TVA is generating. That held true this past week.

The Watauga is a  25  minute trip from our shop.  So it works out real well. If one is generating, we can drive quickly to the other.

The fishing was good.  The first two hour day produced a 20″ or so brown. That fish had been working hard on a bed. I had NO idea that fish was a bedding fish. I could not tell there was a bed. Only by his tired fight and watching him upon release did I have a clue. The bed he went to was barely noticable. This river has so much round copper rocks , a bed does not show up. I would not have messed with him had I known that. That rascal hit a size 20 BWO dry fly. His rise was just like the 3 other smaller fish that had eaten the dry. In the glare, just a subtle sip. I left the area when I saw him sit down with a female.

The next day- Wednesday, I fished a BWO hatch for an hour. Fish were rising and eating but all were small fish. I mean 6″-10″ small. Probably landed 15 before giving up on the dry and went to nymphs.  My first nymph fishing in forever, it seems. I had forgotten how much fun it is to watch that strike indicator go down. The size of fish went up quickly .  Not big fish, but solid 12″ and a couple pushing 14″.  Fun never the less.

Thursday afternoon  went to another stretch and fish nymphs completely.  Stepped in the water and busted 10 quickly, then had to work like heck to catch 3 more. I don’t know why the quick drop off. I expect not enough weight. Of course, I had no split shot. Got  a store full of them, but none on me. Go figure.  But I was still using a 3/32 tungsten bead and heavily weighted nymph + another 5/64 tungsten beaded nymph. That is a lot of weight . But flows are up, so in faster deeper runs, it was not enough.

There are a couple places in the past always had good BWO hatches all winter over there. As soon as river flows allow, I am going to see if history repeats itself.

On the S. Holston, this past week, drift boat trips had had rising fish. Dry Fly fishing at Christmas on high water. Ain’t that something.

Tight Lines,

Rod

 

Pat and Kathy Sleeth were staying at Riverway and decided to take a half day float with me. We meet up here at the shop around 12pm and headed to the river. We started out with nymph, because the Blue Winged Olives had not started yet. We headed off down the river and the fishing was a little slow, but we were hooking up on fish. Kathy was the first to get a fish to the boat. Then both Pat and Kathy caught fish all the way to the closed section. The fishing continued to stay constant pass the closed area. We ended the day with a really nice treat Pat caught a nice healthy 26″ Male Brown. Man was that fish fired up it jumped twice and really fought hard. It was really colored up and had a big hooked jaw. Pat was shaking after we finally got the fish to the net. It was a great way to end a good day of fishing.

I really enjoyed fishing with Pat and Kathy, and hope to do it again someday.

If you would like a Guided Trip give us a call at 423-878-2822.

Tight Lines,

Matt Champion 

South Holston Fly Shop

423-878-2822

Don’t know what it is about snow and dry fly fishing. The two go together like peaches and cream.  Don’t think I have ever been in snow that fish didn’t rise. No different Saturday.  Looking back on memorable afternoon dry fly fishing , I cannot remember but one afternoon that was as good as Saturday. That is in terms of fish size. One afternoon on the Watauga 10+  winters ago , will stick in my brain, til it stops producing cells.  Five fish over 18″s rose to my Olive Comparadun. I actually landed all five.  I remember the smoke coming from wood stoves hovering low in the valley as I was leaving. If I close my eyes,  can still smell the wood smoke. That is the kind of memory that is.  Well Saturday on the South Holston will be second in my brain for dry fly fishing. There were olives on the water as it was going down from generation. So the first hour was easy to figure out. If fish are rising as the water is going down, they will eat your dry fly. What happened from then on was the good part. I stayed with an olive dry fly for the next two hours. Good fish continued to sip it. Please understand there were no olives on the water at this point. But fish continued to eat the dry.  They were not rising but they ate the olive dry. I never changed patterns. Just continued to throw the dry against all odds and it worked.  It cannot be too shallow looking to hold fish here. Fish were in shallow runs . Fish were in all runs, no matter how fast or slow the water movement was. The big fish sips were no different from the 10″ fish sips. Very gentle with very little ring. So do not judge fish by the size of the ring.  The biggest rainbow’s take was the most subtle of them all.  He was a great fish of 3-4 p0unds and was hot as a fire cracker.  He jumped five times and his runs were mighty.  All of the bigger fish were caught in an across and down way. Caught fish on  curve casts upstream, but they were the smaller fish.  If there was a little trough, with a slight flow to it, there were fish.  The bigger fish were in those small troughs.

Snow and dry fly fishing burns in my soul. And makes little niches in memory places. Should be good food for my feeble years.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

I got to fish Sunday afternoon. There were sporatic sulphurs and sulphur spinners. And fish would occasionally eat one.  I stayed with a sulphur dry just because I wanted to. Just did not want to give them up quite yet. I force fed a good number of fish and a couple of fat, dandy browns. But in my heart , I knew it was over for the year. That does not mean some sulphurs will not continue to hatch off, because they will. But not near the numbers and the regularity of the past 7 months. The fish know it too. They have switched to midge pupae and BWO nymphs.  And soon the BWO’s will appear in numbers and regularity .

My buddy, Dave Miller, whacked one right after the other on midge pupae Sunday. When I say whacked em, I mean whacked em.  But I wasn’t ready to let go , yet. Next time, I will. But that last 16″ brown  in the back of the slick pool that jumped high twice, that was as gold a butter, was worth it. As I slipped the Sulphur dry out of his mouth, I not only said good bye to that brown, but also said good bye to the sulphurs. But what a year for Sulphurs it has been! It has been as good as it gets.  Now come on BWO’s . We are waiting on you.

Tight Lines,

Rod Champion

Today is 11-24.  As most of you know, TVA is running water pretty hard because of recent rains. The water is clear , but the generation is on.

Matt has guided and we both have fished a lot the last couple of weeks. The reviews are mixed.  Seems like half a day each day is hot. and the other half is so- so. But the deep nymphfishing is fairly steady.

Sulphurs and BWO’s are still hatching on high water. They have not been picked on much so the fish are not as picky as usual.

Streamer fishing is on one day and off the next. We caught 1- 20+”  brown three days in a row, with a couple of big fish lost 2 of those 3 days. One day, fish are chasing streamers like crazy and the next, they are chasing.. none. When they are chasing , it is on! When they aren’t, deep nymph fishing or waiting on the hatch is the trick. But the amazing thing is, there have still been plenty of Sulphurs… they have to quit sometime, but as of now, it is still happening.

As for our web page, some is up on Ebay…  under our store name.  Check it out, if anything interest you, call us and we can do it over the phone. The Ebay store will be finished very soon, and a stand alone web page will be coming next.

As of now, we are making an offer of :

Any New in the Tube Factory Winston BllX, Bllt, Bllmx or Winston Tradition Plus a Lamson Guru Reel.. all for the retail of the winston alone- $695 .{ or the actual retail price of the rod]  That is a minimum savings of $189.

As for me , I love the Bllt. I would not trade it for any rod in the world. Load it with the SA Sharkskin line and it is the best! I have become a medium action rod guy. Can’t even cast the fast stuff anymore. I guess, old man are set in their ways. Most people like the faster BllX , but the medium action bllt is for me. I bet the 9′6 wt. BllMX with a full sinking line is some kind of streamer rod.  The St. Croix Legend Ultra 9′ 6 wt. with the SA full sinking line is the cat’s meow. If one of you guys does not buy the 9′ 6 wt.- BllmX from me, I am going to put the sinking line on it and find out.

Tight Lines,

Rod