I think we all thought spring was here, but we’ve gotten another shot of cold, wet weather here in East Tennessee. By the standard of what we’ve seen over the past few months this wasn’t much of a big deal. It was well above freezing in most locations but the addition of rain and wind made it pretty miserable. I was out guiding or fly fishing all weekend but the cameras stayed zipped up in the dry bag.
Since I don’t have any new photos to share I’m going to post this priceless video from US Highway 129, also known as the Dragon. A rockslide on Sunday shut the road down about 2 miles south of Chilhowee Dam along Chilhowee Lake. Watch what happens when this driver looks at the news crew and police but not the road.
Sucks for him. Now on to the fishing…
There’s an old saying that it doesn’t rain on fisherman, it rains with them. Let me tell you, it sure felt like I was getting rained on! The sudden shot of cold air, wind, and rain put the hatches off in the Smokies this weekend, and just as they were getting started. There’s even fresh snow on the tops of the mountains and Newfound Gap Road was closed! The fishing should go crazy once the warm weather finally sets in later this week.
Water levels were excellent for fishing on the tailwaters the weekend. The Clinch River got a bit off color downstream of Coal Creek, but that should clear up quickly. The Holston started fish pretty good as well. We did best on midge pupa patterns as all rising fish were eating emergers. I couldn’t stand it and fished a streamer for a good bit of the day. Let me just say I don’t regret it. Long time fishing buddy Tim Masincupp hooked up with a beast but couldn’t close the deal.
He was obviously let down and all I could come up with was, “That’s a shame,” and took my turn casting.
