First Day on the Job

Yesterday was the first day at my summer job working for Little River Outfitters in Townsend, Tennessee. I’m going to enjoy working there. A lot of my time was spent doing the more mundane tasks of receiving shipments from some of our distributors and getting them out in the store. The most enjoyable part of working there though is being able to talk about something I love doing. I’ve always enjoyed fly fishing, and helping others with fly selection and offering advice on where to fish is about as good as it gets (and did I mention I get paid for this?).

Being able to go fishing in a mountain stream after work for wild trout ain’t bad either… As soon as I got off work I headed up Middle Prong to check out how the fish were doing. The fishing was very good with lots of bugs on the water near sunset. There were little yellow stoneflies both hatching and also out laying eggs. The big news from last evening though is that the large yellow stoneflies are out in force. I’ve never seen that many large bugs flying around at one time. As usual this time of year, just about anything yellow worked well including Neversink Caddis, a parachute Sulphur, and a yellow soft hackle. Because of the large stoneflies out and about, I’ll probably be somewhere up the East Prong this evening chasing some larger fish…wish me luck!

For now it looks like I’ll be working weekdays so stop by and see me…

Last Time and New Job

Today I made one last (most likely anyway) trip to my home river before heading east for the summer. If all goes as planned, I'll be living in Townsend by this time next week. I was hoping for a cloudy day on the river to get the fish going but it was not meant to be. The clouds gave out on the drive down only about 5 miles from the river and it stayed bright and sunny the whole time I was there. Despite the less than ideal conditions, I still managed to catch a good number of fish. Most of the fish where caught on various midge patterns and would only eat if I got my flies right on the bottom.

I probably won't make it to the Caney for awhile now but that will be fine because I'll be on the wild trout streams of the Smokies as often as I want to (when I'm not working). You can rest assured that I'll be hitting the evening hatch often and hopefully will still have time to post reports. Additionally, I'll probably experiment a little with smallies and make a trip or two to the South Holston, Watauga, Clinch, and/or Holston rivers.

Best of all, I'm getting the opportunity to work for a fly shop which I've always thought would be a great experience. I'll be working for Little River Outfitters for a couple of months this summer until school starts again. I'll be working in the shop and taking care of the fly tying materials section. It doesn't get much better than helping folks out with fishing so I should have an awesome summer! Ya'll stop by and see me if you get the chance...