Cataloochee: Part 1

The trip to Big Creek was actually more of a break on my trip to Cataloochee.  Of course, I had planned it in such a way that I got to Big Creek early in the day.  Exploring new water is frustrating when you are limited to just an hour or two so I kept the whole day wide open.  By mid afternoon, the thought of getting camp set up before dark had me back on the road.

Driving from Big Creek to Cataloochee is always an adventure.  These gravel roads seemingly go on and on indefinitely.  Then, just about the time you are wondering if you will ever get there, you start noticing some familiar landmarks.  As it turned out, I not only made it there in time to set up camp before dark, I also had enough daylight left to catch some fish.

There is one pool in particular that I love to fish, mostly because it is easy to access and can be fished effectively without putting on any wading gear.  Never mind exactly where because I would rather not have others fishing there.  Selfish I know.

I still had a large orange October Caddis pattern tied on and stuck with that.  Why change when a fly has been catching so many fish right?  Starting out about halfway up the pool, I started covering the water carefully.  The fish were there, I was sure of that, but for some reason or another, I wasn't even getting any looks.  By the time I started casting in the fast water at the head of the run, I had lost a considerable amount of hope for this spot, but then on the 2nd cast to the fast water there was a subtle swirl and the fly disappeared.

When I set the hook, chaos ensued.  These chunky rainbows were both larger and stronger than I expected.  Soon after catching the first, I caught another, and then another.  All from the same little seam at the head of the pool.  That spot was good for 5 nice rainbows in a matter of maybe 7 or 8 minutes.  As soon as the action died down I quit for the day.  I was already feeling a little greedy after pulling enough trout out that the nearby tourists were taking notice and figured that it would be better to just let the other fish take the rest of the day off.

Back at camp, I got some supper together and settled in for a relaxing evening, not realizing that some strange things were about to happen...

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Big Creek

While I generally feel like I know the Smokies pretty well, there are still several places in the Park I haven't fished.  Okay, there are a lot of places I haven't fished.  After all, with hundreds of miles of fishable water, the problem is one of time and accessibility.  The more accessible water is what I normally fish because I am usually low on time.  One place that takes a bit of effort to get to is Big Creek.

I chose the "miles of gravel road" route for my recent exploration.  Having only passed that entrance of the Smokies once before, I was in for a treat.  The stream reminded me a lot of other Smokies streams like the Middle Prong of Little River or perhaps even Little River proper above Elkmont, but what a wonderful little stream!  No, I didn't catch any monsters or for that matter even all that many fish, but fishing a new stream is always a great experience.  Each pocket, pool, and run provides the little surprises that always come with discovery.

One large pool had a deep section off to the side with a gentle current running through.  The surprising lack of conflicting currents meant that the cast was actually pretty straight forward.  The trout were obviously holding just under the surface and were rising consistently.  My third cast resulted in a fish.  In another pool, I surprised myself by setting the hook.  The dry had slowly sunk and I'm still not sure if I actually saw the fish or perhaps subconsciously my brain registered the swirl that was the fish taking right in the heavy current.  Either way, when I set the hook the fish was as surprised as I was.  Of course, these little surprises happen on my home waters as well, but there it lacks that new feeling.

Most surprising of all perhaps were the large pools.  Having never been there but always hoping to see it, I climbed out of the gorge right where the stream tumbles out, climbing straight up the side of what felt an awful lot like a cliff, and hit the trail upstream to the Midnight Hole.  It was as beautiful as the pictures I had seen and even larger than I realized.  My last fishing memory for the day was made on this pool.

Trout are everywhere in that pool, but were relatively tough to fool.  It wasn't until I noticed some rises against the far bank that things began to work out.  Checking for trees behind me, I was soon casting the big orange Elk Hair Caddis to the boulders across from me.  A nice trout ate and I managed to keep it on throughout the fight.

As much as I enjoyed fishing at Big Creek, I was actually on my way over to Cataloochee for 2 nights of camping and with luck would make it over there before dark to fish a little more.  Soon I was hustling back down the trail, but already knew that I would be back again, even if it is a little out of the way.

Great Smoky Mountains

My favorite mountains anywhere, the Smokies never cease to amaze or provide new vistas.  While on an early morning drive over the Foothills Parkway recently, I was treated to a prime example of why the mountains are referred to as the "Smokies."  Prior to this moment, however, I enjoyed the sunrise from the famed Tail of the Dragon.  Curvy enough to make the driver car sick, this road is either a joy or pure misery depending on your driving tastes.  The occasional good views are beautiful though and quite possibly even worth the effort.

Not much later, I was cruising the Foothills Parkway when the scene spread out before me in such grandeur that I was compelled to stop, even at the risk of being late for my guide trip.  Thankfully I was still on time and in the process got to scratch my photography itch a bit.  I couldn't decide which picture I like the most so sharing all four became the default action for this post...

Picture Report

Sometimes, my favorite trips do not involve fishing.  Okay, maybe I should have said occasionally or even rarely, but it does happen.  This past weekend involved a trip to Asheville for a cousin's wedding.  I promised myself to be good and leave the fishing gear at home, but when an opportunity to sneak off to Cataloochee presented itself, I was thankful that at least the camera was with me.  Despite being one of my favorite places in the Park, I have only been there a handful of times.  Clearly I need more time to explore in the Park (as well as gas money, etc), but when I do get the opportunity I always jump on it.

While most of the tourists were there to look at the elk, I was there more for the scenery and just to get outside.  Of course, you can't go to Cataloochee without taking at least one elk picture.  This big guy had been bugling a short time before.  However, as you can see, he soon calmed down and decided to relax a bit.

Just across the road, the Caldwell house kept me busy for a bit.  How many different ways can you take pictures of one house?  I found at least a few...

Any trip to the Smokies would be incomplete without walking a few stretches of stream just to look for fish.  There were plenty of fish feeding in the pool just upstream from the shot above (as always), but the rest of my scouting turned up no large fish as I am always hoping for.  Of course, that's probably a good thing.  Without a fly rod in tow, it is always tough finding big fish that are in a catchable state of mind.

Reminders of the rapidly approaching fall were definitely around.  Fall flowers are blooming everywhere here at home and even in the mountains.  The brightly colored leaves are my favorite though.

On the way in, the clouds obscured the valley.  On the way out, they had lifted just enough to give that good Smoky Mountains look.

The Gorge

When my cousin Nathan came up for several days of fly fishing, I knew we would have a great time.  The first day of smallmouth fishing was fun and the Caney Fork float produced that nice brown I'm always looking for.  Next up on our list was the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and hopefully a mid to high elevation stream that had good numbers of rainbow and brook trout.

Arriving in the afternoon at our campsite, we hurried to set up the tent and stash our sleeping pads and sleeping bags before hitting the water.  Not wanting to fish too long, we stayed close to camp, walking no more than a mile before we started fishing.  We each caught a few fish, and I took some pictures before heading out to go try out a new restaurant in Townsend for supper, the Monte Real Mexican Restaurant.  Turns out the food was good! We enjoyed it knowing that the menu was camp food for the next day and a half.

After a good night's sleep, we were up and ready to fish hard all day.  Our goal was to return to a gorge we had fished together a few years ago.  Sure enough, it was just as amazing as we remembered.  This particular stretch of water has both rainbows and brookies and is among the most rugged stretches of water in the Park.  Numerous times we reached places where continuing on meant boosting each other to climb over the huge boulders.  Not for the faint of heart nor for the weak, this stretch of water should never be tackled solo for obvious safety reasons, but the fishing is so worth it.

The rainbows here are thick and never vanish completely, but the higher you go the more brook trout you can find.  I caught a nice one early on, and on a dry fly at that!

Nathan has a soft spot for brookies and was doing his share to catch a bunch.  After catching one fish in particular and shooting a couple of quick pictures, he gently released it in the shallows at the stream's edge.  We watched it rest on the bottom for probably 30 seconds before it took off again.  Naturally I wasn't going to miss the opportunity to shoot a few pictures...

In between the brookies, the rainbows kept us more than busy.  While none were large, they were plentiful and eager to hit our flies.  Enough fish kept hitting the dry to keep us from going to straight nymphs but most were hitting the dropper.  In the low clear water we could often watch the fish materialize off of the bottom to come up and swirl on the little bead head trailing behind the dry fly.

The stream is beautiful which is part of the reason I keep coming back.  The fish are the other part of course.  Between those two things, the visiting angler most be extremely careful.  To spend too much time on one section means getting stranded in this long gorge overnight, not a fun idea.

Since there were two of us, I spent quite a bit of time with my camera.  This is something that is harder to do when you are the only one fishing.  I tend to get so focused on my fishing that I forgot to enjoy the sights around me, but when I'm sitting back to watch a friend fish, getting out the camera just makes sense.  In this case, it allowed me to get two back to back shots that I think turned out well.

The fish just kept coming to hand and the farther we went the better the fishing got.

Photo by Nathan Stanaway

Not too far from where we would climb out and hit the trail back, I had a very nice fish hit and somehow managed to keep it on the line.  My best fish of the day turned out to be a brookie, and I couldn't have been happier!

Photo by Nathan Stanaway

The hike out was all down hill so we made good time and were soon back at camp for a relaxing evening around the fire.  This trip will be one that I remember for a long time. It's always great to get out with my cousin Nathan!

Fall Has Arrived

Okay, now that I have your attention, I'll go ahead and clear things up right now because fall isn't here of course.  That said, you wouldn't know it based on the beautiful leaves I found on a mid-stream rock on Thursday.  Guiding a father/son team, I noticed the leaves and stopped for a quick picture.  Thoughts of beautiful fall days with hungry trout were soon dancing in my head.  Drifting down the Caney catching those fired up browns on streamers, or maybe fishing the big caddis over in the Smokies to try and get a rise out of some of the best fish of the year, whatever your preference fall has something for everyone.  I know it seems premature to think about, but it will be here before we know it and I can't wait!

Summer Smokies Tips and Strategies: Part 1

Spending a lot of time on the water with clients as I did this previous week will get you thinking about how to help someone catch more fish under conditions that, while not optimal, are not yet truly terrible.  Anyone who remembers the drought years of 2007 and 2008 can remember the Smokies streams being a trickle.  Little River got down around 25 cfs at the Park boundary.  Compared to a normal spring time flow of around 300-450 cfs and a normal summer flow of perhaps 100-150 cfs, 25 is a really small number.  This year we are seeing water conditions that are less than the long term average but thankfully not dangerously low...yet.

So, what's a fisherman to do when the conditions get tough out there?  Answering this very question for several clients this past week got me to thinking about all the little things that a veteran Smokies angler does without even thinking, but without doing them the average angler will catch only a few trout.  That's too bad because this time of year can be as good as any if you focus on a few things that you should be doing differently as compared to earlier in the year.  Having already addressed this topic for the Little River Journal a few years ago, I suggest you read my thoughts here and here.  I'm going to revisit some of these items as well as address some new ones.

For this particular post, I'm only going to focus on one issue: stealth.  Now, I'm going to guess that if you have read this far, you are probably nodding your head in agreement.  However, I'm going to approach the question of stealth from a different angle than usual.  You see, being stealthy often means sneaking around on the trout stream, making sure the fish don't see you, keeping a rock between you and that next fishing hole, always approaching the fish from behind, and I could go on and on.  All of those things are great, and I've written a lot in the past on the importance of each of those.  Here's the shocker: the difference between a good fisherman and a great fisherman is not in any those things.  Oh sure, a great fisherman will do all of those things, probably without even thinking about it, but they are very easy to learn and even a beginner can pick it up very quickly.  Will doing those things increase your catch rates?  Of course.  However, hear me out on this one.

Let's say that you are pretty much a beginner and would consider an outing in which you caught 5 trout to be a great trip.  By adding in the above mentioned items whose sum is basically being stealthy, that beginner might move up to catching 10-20 trout.  If you're a beginner you are probably salivating at that.  As soon as I tell you that the great fishermen are likely catching 50-60 fish or more (100 fish days anyone?), 10-20 fish is no longer good enough.  What else can you do to catch all those extra trout?  Right flies, right place, right presentation.

Sounds simple enough, but consider that the last two both hinge on your ability as a fly caster and your line control once the flies have been cast.  Presentation and getting your flies in the right place involve many things, but if you do not have exceptional line control and great casting ability, having the right flies is nearly useless.  Improving as an angler means you have to become a competent caster and have impeccable line control once you have made your presentation.  These things do not come easily.  They are born of many hours of practice, both at home on the lawn or casting pond and on the streams.

To excel at mountain fishing, it is rare that you will ever need to cast a long distance, but the ability to cast a long distance will make you better at line control and overall presentation.  In fact, while most anglers are sneaking as close to a run, pool, or other section of stream as possible, I'm fishing the same water from 10-25 feet back, allowing my longer casting distance to keep me far enough from the trout so they don't spook.  Here's the best part: becoming better at line control and better as a caster will only happen through a lot of practice, so clearly you need to get out and fish more if these are areas in which you need to improve!  There it is, the perfect excuse for more time on the water.  Guess what? I have to fish more, because I realized I need to become a better caster...  I can hear the conversations now.

Once you decide to make the jump to fishing big water like tailwaters or large freestone streams out west, that ability to cast and have great line control will shine.  On rivers like the Caney Fork where I guide, most anglers miss opportunities for large trout on dry flies because they cannot make the required cast.  If you don't mind only catching smaller fish then don't worry about it.  That will leave more nice fish out there for me to target...

Tracks

Checking tracks is nearly automatic for me at this point.  No matter where I am, tracks are at minimum an interesting curiosity.  On some days, the ability to "read sign" can make the difference between catching a few fish and catching a bunch.

Yesterday, my friend Nathan and I were on a popular stream but far enough from the trailhead that we thought it was at least possible we were on fresh water.  The few small rainbows that did eat our flies had has questioning that premise.  A few indistinct tracks had us both questioning openly whether that section had been fished.  When I found some water drops drying on top of a rock where none could naturally have splashed, I knew someone else had waded through in the last few hours.  Right where the tracks ended, I caught a nice fish.

Further up the stream, before we hit the spot where we would jump out and start our hike back, I found some more tracks.  Fresh ones.  Big ones.  Tracks that had me glancing all around and even up in the trees.  After all, we were no more than a half mile from the scene of my tent fiasco from a few years ago.

Thankfully it wasn't as spooky as finding a half eaten elk carcass in a remote Arizona canyon years ago.  Hiking cross country in lion country will keep a person on their toes.  Last night, we never did run across the bear.  The best excitement (other than catching fish of course) was when we jumped a small group of hogs in the waning light on the hike out.  A couple of them were big, real big.  They also wanted nothing to do with us.  That was just fine by me...

Hungry Brown!!!

I've seen some interesting things that trout have spit out before.  Half digested shad during the shad kill on the Caney?  Yep.  A mouthful of earthworms after a heavy rain? Check.  However, I had never caught a fish with another fish sticking out of its throat, until yesterday that is.  I've heard plenty of stories, just never seen it for myself.

After finishing up another half day guide trip, I headed up to fish in the afternoon. Not too long after starting, I hooked a feisty brown that was somewhere between 10-12 inches, and after getting it in the net I noticed that its mouth didn't look right.  A quick glance showed a tail protruding out of its throat that was nearly as large as its own tail!  Even more amazing is that this fish swirled once on my nymph and then ate on the 2nd drift.  Talk about a hungry brown!!!  Even with a mouth full of sculpin it still wanted a #10 nymph for dessert.

One More Drift

Fishing is as much optimism as anything else, but of course there is a healthy mix of knowledge involved in catching a few trout.  Sometimes, there's even a little voice inside your head that convinces you to stick with it.  I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not but when I'm catching nice fish who's to argue?

Yesterday I had a 1/2 day guide trip in the Park.  The morning was spent on a couple of different streams so my client could see a few different options when it came to Smoky Mountain trout fishing.  After dropping him off and grabbing some lunch, I stopped by Little River Outfitters for a bit to say hi to Byron and Daniel and the rest of the crew.  After getting an excellent first-hand report on the local smallmouth from Byron, I was almost tempted to skip heading back to the Park and chase the bass instead, but thankfully trout won out.

On the drive down Little River to town, I had mentally been talking myself into fishing several good stretches.  One in particular stood out, and I decided to return there.  This is a beautiful section of pocket water interspersed with some smaller pools and a couple of deep runs.  For some reason this short 100 yard stretch does not get fished nearly as often as a lot of Park water but that's just fine by me.  I have always done well the few times I've fished it, and more people fishing it could very well put a damper on future expeditions.

Having just eaten and glad to finally relax after working hard all morning, I took my time rigging up the usual double nymph rig.  Some heavy split shot rounded things out well and assured I would be ticking the bottom.  I began casting lobbing the heavy rig into the deeper water and right away caught a little brown on the dropper.  At least I knew I was on fresh water.

Working slowly upstream, I maneuvered back and forth across the stream.  Catching a fish here and there, I noticed a nice deep slot against the far bank with a big rock on the stream side.  Perfect home for a brown.  Working carefully across the current, I was soon running my flies through the slot and alongside the rock.  A small fish was quickly caught and released but that rock just looked like a spot for a nice brown.  Time and again I got what appeared to be a perfect drift.  Not wanting to waste time on a pointless spot, I eventually decided to move on upstream.

That's when the little voice spoke up and demanded that I cast there once more.  Something subconscious maybe?  I don't know, but that gentle tap as the flies drifted up under the rock yet again was definitely real.  When I set the hook, I felt the hesitation and quickly came tight on a nice fish.

For its size, the fish really fought well, surging back and forth across the stream every time I tried to lift its head and slip the net under.  That it was a pretty brown trout was obvious and naturally gave me extra incentive to be careful and not lose it.  Of course, in a short amount of time (that naturally felt like forever) I was slipping the net under the trout.  After a couple of pictures, I gently held the trout in the current until it was ready to go.  All that effort to spend a minute or so with a fish probably seems ridiculous to some, but I was awfully happy at that moment.

The rest of the evening was anticlimactic.  The Yellow Sally hatch never came on strong although there was some egg laying activity that brought a few fish up.  I stuck with the nymphs and caught a good number of rainbows and small browns, but probably I should have just quit after the nice trout.  The time on the water was relaxing though and much needed.  Catching that nice fish early allowed me to really slow down and focus on the experience for the rest of the time.  I even stopped and took a few stream pictures, something I often forget to do in the rush to find more fish.

Next week I'll be back at it.  Maybe I'll just hit a small stream instead, or maybe I'll chase the larger browns again.  Either way, I know I'll always have an enjoyable time in the Smokies!

If you are interested in a guided trip in the Smokies for wild trout, please contact me at TroutZoneAnglers@gmail.com or check out my guide site, TroutZoneAnglers.com, for more details.  

New Fly Fishers

It has been my pleasure to help 5 different people catch their first fish on the fly rod this past week.  Some were friends, some were clients, but all did a great job of learning and applying what I taught them to catch their first fish on the fly rod.

The first were my friends Elizabeth and Antoinette.  I gave about a 30 second lecture on fly casting and they said, "Like this?" and started casting perfectly.  Complete naturals.  The bluegill were biting well that evening which made it even better...

The next was on a Smoky Mountain guide trip last Thursday.  I had the pleasure of taking two young men for their first fly fishing trip in the Smokies and they did great!

Perhaps the best was when I took my buddy Seth to the same spot where we were catching the bluegills shown above.  He also received the 30 second lecture on casting and started throwing right where I told him.  Before long a big bluegill had taken the fly.  We admired it, and then I told him to throw back in again.  Something hit with a huge swirl and started fighting really hard.  When he pulled it up to where we could see it, we realized it wasn't a bluegill.  What a pleasant surprise when you're bluegill fishing!

Smokies Adventure

Adventure is a huge part of fly fishing for me.  During a conversation on our camping trip, I was telling my buddy Joe how I enjoy exploring almost as much as the actual fishing.  Thankfully I was able to enjoy both on this trip.

On Sunday, I arrived a bit later than Joe.  Coming from Central time into Eastern time always makes it hard to get up and on the river as early as my friends.  Getting there at first light means being up to leave around 3 or 3:30 a.m.  No thanks...  Anyway, so eventually I did make it over there and when if found Joe he was already hard at work fishing a likely run.  He reported good early morning action on the usual nymphs and we decided to continue fishing up through a nice mix of pools and pocket water.

Not too far upstream, I came across Mountain Laurel and stopped to play with the camera a bit.

Just above the blooms, Joe worked a really nice run.  When he finished and headed down to the truck for some lunch, I noticed a few rises and moved up into the run.  Tying on dry flies, I worked the fish hard but in the end was humbled.  If I had known how spooky those fish would be I probably would have brought a 3 weight and also used a longer leader.  Dry fly fishing is excellent on Little River right now, but the long still flats on the roadside stretches may produce some challenging conditions.  It was every bit as tough if not more so than chasing a picky riser on a tailwater.

Anyway, eventually we had lunch, set up camp, and headed back out for an afternoon of catching fish.  We both caught a lot of nice trout on nymphs and eventually made it back to camp to rest up for the next day's action.

We fished on both sides of the mountain and hit up some stretches that were new to both of us.  One of my favorite parts of the trip was exploring a stream known as having the ability to produce the Smoky Mountain Hat Trick.  After a fairly early start, we made it over to the stream on day 2 and started fishing by looking for nice browns in the larger holes.

While Joe worked the pools, I fished the pocket water.  A double nymph rig seemed appropriate early in the day.  Wet wading was a little chilly with the temperature hovering right around 50 degrees in the early morning shade.  Hatches were pretty much nonexistent but the rainbows were feeding well subsurface.  This is where I picked up my better rainbows on this stream.  Strangely, neither of us caught a brown trout in this stretch.  By the time things had warmed and the sun was triggering some hatch activity, we decided to head upstream and look for the slam.

Both of us had fished just a little bit of this section before but we had no idea of the challenges awaiting us.  Huge piles of debris from a semi recent flash flood made stream navigation a challenge to say the least.  The fish population seemed to be on the low side but we both caught trout.  The pools were beautiful flat runs that were mostly shallow to medium depth, perfect dry fly water if you ask me.  Of course on water that pretty we both fished dry flies.  I choose a new Yellow Sally imitation I've started tying and Joe went with the standard for brookies, a Yellow Stimulator.  Betchya can't guess what color of bugs were hatching...

I found the brookie before I found the brown.  Both came out of fairly fast but large pockets.  The nice dry fly runs were not producing for the most part.

After a ton of effort to fish maybe 1/4 or 1/3 of a mile of water, we got tired at the lack of fish and decided to head out and hit up another brook trout stream.  That was a good choice as we caught a lot of trout although the number of rainbows was a concern.

That evening, we had a good fire as it was our last night.  Staying up late, talking about trips from past years, we reminisced about our Yellowstone Trip (here and here also) as well as the epic one day fishing trip in Colorado last year.  Good days fishing the Smokies, large fish caught, and lots of other topics kept us up late but not too late to be up early the next morning.

Joe didn't have long to fish the next morning, so after fishing just a little together, he took off, and I decided to hit up a favorite stretch of Little River.  The water here is a nice mix of pools and pocket water, classic Little River water if you know what I mean.  In the first pool, I caught 4-5 trout and probably could have caught more if I had chosen to.  Best of all, most of them were browns.

I continued fishing until around 2 in the afternoon when hunger started to gain the upper hand over my desire to fish.  On the way out, I found a hat hung on a rock in Little River.  If you happen to have lost one while fishing, it is now over at Little River Outfitters in Townsend.  For this last day, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Tips and hints: The best action was in the faster deep pockets...