New Boat!!!

Yes, you read that correctly.  I have a new boat! Well, new to me at least.  While not a brand new boat, this beauty is in extremely good shape and will bring many pleasant days on the water for both myself and any lucky anglers who choose to fish with me.  If you are interested in a day of drift boat fishing, please head over to Trout Zone Anglers to explore your options.

Current Happenings

Perhaps you have noticed that I haven't been posting for the past few days.  I have been spending the last few days with my  girlfriend and have not been doing any fishing.  I do still have some warm water reports to get caught up on and will have a ton more coming later this week and next as I have guided trips, a short camping trip with my cousin, and another camping trip with my buddy Joe.  In between all of the excitement, I do still have some availability if you are wanting to set up a guided trip.  Next week I have Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday available if you want to get in on the excellent spring fishing that we are now experiencing.  The Caney Fork is starting to give us some wading options again so if you want to learn how to fish and approach this excellent tailwater contact me to check out the trip options.

Finally, happy Mothers' Day to all the great moms out there and especially my own! Thanks for all you have done for me!!!

Tying an Easy Yellow Sally

This is the first of what I hope will be quite a few video projects showing patterns that I tie.  Some are my own while most are existing patterns or my adaption of existing patterns.  For the first one I chose to demonstrate one of the easiest Yellow Sally patterns I know of.  This time of year sees the first hatches starting in the Smokies and as the summer goes on, this little insect will be important on many waters across the country.  Try it out, but even better, once you've tried it start experimenting.  There are some great variations that can be done with this simple pattern.

A Well Spent Sunday

A couple of months ago, my friend David Perry contacted me about helping out with a great cause, Casting for Recovery (CFR).  Put on locally by the Music City Fly Girls, CFR is an opportunity for breast cancer survivors to try out the sport of fly fishing while enjoying a relaxing weekend retreat with others who have experienced breast cancer.  The last day of the event was the on the water day where each of the ladies would be paired with a guide and given the chance to hopefully catch some fish.

Fast forward to yesterday, and I found myself getting up at an unearthly hour to make the drive over to the Duck River below Normandy Dam.  The drive over was mostly uneventful other than the random cop that decided to come out of nowhere and terrorize me for a minute or so by riding my bumper in McMinnville.  After my heart rate came back down to normal and he had pulled off somewhere, I was back to the races, trying to make it to the event site by 8:00 a.m.  At least I would have had a good excuse for speeding if he had pulled me over.

Once I arrived, I was surprised to find out how small this tailwater is.  I'm not sure what I was expecting but this is a small stream compared to other tailwaters I fish.  Small is good though when it comes to putting people on fish who are new to the sport.  Trout were rising to a healthy caddis hatch and the occasional Light Cahill and even a Sulfur or two.  We had a delicious breakfast prepared by the Music City Fly Girls and got a nice CFR hat.

Eventually the ladies showed up and we headed down to the stream to fish.  The lady I was assigned to was pleasant and we quickly hit it off.  Once we got on the water, we covered some basic casting to reinforce what she had learned the previous day and then started working one of my favorite patterns for stocked rainbows through a good looking run.  Only a couple of casts later, she hooked her first fish!  Okay, so it was just a chub of some sort, but we were still glad to see a fish.  Not long after, we started catching trout, and missing trout, and catching some more trout.

Photo by David Perry of Southeastern Fly

She did a great job and finished the morning with close to 10 trout.  Not bad for a first timer on the fly rod!

After the fishing excursion, we headed in for lunch and a short program.  There, the lady I had been working with was the lucky recipient of a CFR fly rod and reel combo! The day couldn't get much better, and by the time I headed home, I was tired, but also happy to have been a part of this great event.  Special thanks go out to David Perry for inviting me to help and the Music City Fly Girls for putting on such a fantastic weekend!!!

Availability

The spring fishing is finally settling into a predictable pattern and this next week is looking perfect.  Trout are active and looking up for a good number of their meals although fishing subsurface will sometimes be best for overall numbers.  May is the one month of the year where anglers will likely catch more fish on dries than on nymphs.  In fact, my best day on Little River ever was in May, and I caught all my fish on dries.

If you are visiting in the area and would like to set up a day to get out on the water, I still have a couple of days available this week, specifically Monday and Tuesday.  Please head over to Trout Zone Anglers or email me if you want to set up a trip.  If you are willing to hike, the Smoky Mountain backcountry is at its best right now.  An easy 3-4 mile hike (easy meaning no major elevation gains/losses) can put us on lots of willing fish or if you want to hit up some brookie streams we can do that as well.

Midge Fishing

Rescheduling a trip is always frustrating, mostly because you are looking forward to hitting the water and then something goes wrong.  In the case of the trip Chad scheduled, the Caney Fork was rising quickly when we originally planned to do our trip.  We rescheduled and then waited.  As Sunday approached it was painfully obvious that we would either have to reschedule again or change the game plan.  Thankfully Chad was flexible, and since his main goals were to learn to fish midges more effectively and possibly some other good tailwater techniques, we decided that the Clinch would work just as well.

When we arrived at the river, things were just reaching a good fishable level after the morning generation and we started up high. Finding open water was easier than I would normally expect on a pretty Sunday in April.  The Clinch is known as a "bring your own rock" type of river but on this day we were able to find water without too much trouble.  The bright sun and quickly falling water meant that we would be looking for deeper runs and holes with current moving through them.

Working across one good area resulted in spotting a few fish and one missed strike, but other than that things were looking slow.  We changed flies early and often and kept moving, looking for willing fish.  Finally we got into a spot I like that has a nice riffle dropping away into a nice run.  Trout were moving around on the bottom feeding as evidenced by the occasional flash we could see as the fish turned to eat the meal of the day.

With the greater depth, we changed to an indicator rig with a tiny #24 midge pupa on the bottom.  Chad was soon working the hole like an expert, polishing his mending skills to get perfect drag free drifts.  It didn't take too many drifts until the indicator dove and the fight was on!  He soon had the first fish in the net for a quick picture and then it was back to work the hole some more.

I had spotted a much nicer rainbow feeding on the far side of the hole but it required a fairly difficult presentation.  The flies and indicator had to be thrown over the strong current of the riffle and into the softer water on the other side.  Next, the angler would need to throw a huge mend to get a clean drift down to the fish with more small mends throughout the drift.  Chad was up to the challenge and after a few good casts, the indicator dove again.  This was a much nicer trout and soon Chad was admiring his new personal best trout on the fly rod!

Both trout showed a preference for the tiny midge pupa.  It won't be too long before they start taking Sulfur nymphs with regularity and they are probably already starting to key on them on the lower river.

We finished with another hour of covering some more techniques and working on distance casting when we found some large rainbows rising in a nice flat further down the river.  Chad was a pleasure to guide and I'm sure he will be putting his new skills to work to catch some more tailwater trout in the near future!

If I can help you with a guided trip, please contact me at TroutZoneAnglers@gmail.com.  

Where Are the Fish?

A few weeks ago, I was contacted about doing a half day guide trip in the Smokies.  Roger had been to the Smokies on vacation other times and fly fished some, but had never caught any trout while he was at it.  He had fished in some other places including the White River in Arkansas and had done very well, but the Smokies were a completely different story and he hoped to learn how to approach fishing in the Park.

We had decided to meet at Little River Outfitters so Roger could pick up a fishing license before hitting the stream since he had just arrived the previous evening.  After meeting up and taking care of the fishing license, I asked him what he wanted out of the trip.  His reply was music to a guide's ears. "Catching fish would be nice, of course, but what I really want is to learn where the fish are and how to approach the water when fishing in the Smokies."

"We can do that for sure, and we'll catch some fish while we're at it," I promised.  As a guide, I really enjoy clients who are wanting to learn.  In fact, in my opinion, that should be the main goal of any guided trip.  Catching fish are clearly part of the equation, but if you don't somehow become a better angler then why bother?

We headed for a stream with lots of willing fish that I like to hit when the water is on the higher side.  There is a nice mix of pocket water and pools that keeps the fishing interesting.  After rigging up, we headed down to a good starter pool.  The backcast isn't too cluttered here and there are normally several fish feeding in its depths.  Since the goal was to learn, we started out with nymphs under an indicator.  Before we started fishing, I pointed out the best spots in the pool for trout and explained why the fish liked each one.  Roger immediately got the idea and pointed to another spot and asked "What about there?"  I nodded and grinned.  He learned very quickly!

After several drifts and a quick tip on mending, he was fishing the pool like a pro.  At the end of one drift the fly started to swing to the surface when a hungry fish hit it hard.  It quickly went airborne not just once but twice.  Soon he was grinning with his first Smokies trout on the fly!

A quick picture later and the beautiful fish was on its way back for the next angler.  We began slowly working our way upstream and fishing the best pockets and pools.  The next method that I showed him was one he had tried before but got frustrated because of the tangles it produced.  It was the dry/dropper.  I told him not to worry about tangles, that was my job to fix.  Glad that he didn't have to fix them, he relaxed and started fishing.

The pool he was in was shallower in the middle with two distinct currents on either side.  I pointed to the foam line along the seam of the farther current and mentioned that fish like to sit in water like that and leisurely feed on whatever comes along.  He placed the next cast with the precision of someone who has been doing this for a while and after drifting a couple of feet, a nice rainbow came up and sipped the dry fly.  He had already missed a couple of rises, but this time was ready.  Gaining quick control of the situation, he soon landed the rainbow and we snapped another quick picture.  This fish was memorable because of the deliberate take off the surface as well as its spirited efforts to throw the hook.

We kept working upstream and picked up another couple of fish on the dropper, but then noticed another angler about to get started and decided to find a new stretch of water.  The next section was mostly pocket water, and so we switched back to nymphs after a little while.  The fish were mostly staying deep in the bright sunshine and heavier than normal currents.  Eventually I decided it was time to show him one last thing, nymphing without the indicator.

Again he picked it up like a pro and was soon drifting the weighed nymph through likely pockets and runs.  Our time was quickly running out and before we knew it the time had come to head back down to the shop.  We had caught some fish, and more importantly he had learned the answer to the question of "Where are the fish?"  Back at the shop, he wanted to pick up a few flies and some split shot and indicators so he could nymph fish effectively.

I enjoyed teaching Roger and wish him the best as he enjoys a few more days of vacation. Hopefully he will enjoy catching some more Smoky Mountain trout while he is there!

If I can help you learn about fly fishing in the Smokies, please head over to Trout Zone Anglers and check out the guided trip options or contact me.

Officially Booking

For those who have noticed my progress towards being a fly fishing guide, I have some big news.  The Commercial Use Authorization permit from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has arrived.  That means that I can now accept bookings for guided fly fishing trips in the Great Smoky Mountains.  If you are interested in doing a trip with me there, or perhaps even on the Caney Fork or one of the warm water streams of the Cumberland Plateau, head over to Trout Zone Anglers and take a look around.  While you're at it, send me a message and let me know about your interest.  Dates are already filling so if you want to get on the calendar don't wait too long.

With the cold weather again looming, I anticipate that the spring hatches will be sputtering along until March 6-10 or so when things should really bust wide open.  Our best trips for overall numbers will be day trips into the Park's backcountry and those will be prime from late March through the middle of May.  If you are willing to hike 2-4 miles (minimum) each way to get to your fish, you will have a shot at the day of your life.  By summer, the mid and higher elevations of the Park will be fishing great.  Days of throwing dry flies will be the norm at the higher elevations although dry/dropper will get us into more fish.

It's Official

Trout Zone Anglers is now officially in business.  The paperwork with the National Park Service that will allow me to guide in the Great Smoky Mountains will take at least another two weeks and probably longer.  I anticipate being up and running in terms of doing trips by about the first of March.  In the meantime, check out my new page and give me some feedback.  I'm still working on the site almost continually trying to make it more user friendly and easy to navigate/understand.  While you're at it, I would really appreciate it if you would head over to Facebook and 'Like' Trout Zone Anglers.  Finally, please spread the word about Trout Zone Anglers.  The more exposure the better.  Thanks!

Feedback Requested

Please note that while the site is live, I am NOT CURRENTLY BOOKING.  As soon as that changes I will pass on the information.  Please check out the guide side of this blog, Trout Zone Anglers.  I'm still in the setup phase of the business, but I would greatly appreciate any feedback, positive or otherwise.  Thank you!