The cold weather has let up a little bit and we’ve seen a few days of sunshine and temperatures in the 40’s. After what we’ve seen for the past month this looks like spring break so we’ve made a point to get out of the house whenever possible.
The drift boat hasn’t been in the water since the last mild days of November so it only seemed right to get it out over the weekend. Flows weren’t exactly perfect for a float, but since there’s still a good deal of snow in the Smokies we decided to go the other direction.
There wasn’t much point in getting to the water very early because flows would have been on the high side. We drug our feet getting to the boat ramp, which isn’t hard with two children in tow. We were disappointed not to find pods of trout sipping midges, but it was just nice to pull on the oars for a little bit.
We found a group of fish that looked like they must have been straight out of the state stocking truck. Normally we would boogey on down the river to find some long time residents, but we took the opportunity to have some fun with the kids.
Our daughter Willow learns the finer points of playing a trout
Our son Boone is still too young to handle a rod & reel but old enough to have fun on the river
Both the Clinch and Holston Rivers have had some fishable flows, but still far from optimum. Keep your eyes open for nice windows in the afternoon and focus your attention close to the dams. The reason here is that’s where the water will be fishable the earliest.
There’s still a good deal of snow up in the mountains and it looks like more is coming later this week. We’ve caught a few fish in the park on the forks of the Little River, but fishing has been on the slow side due to cold water temperatures.
