This week’s fishing could be best summed up by Dickens’ opener to a Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
Over the period of less than a week we saw gorgeous, sunny weather, snow, a couple of passing storm fronts, a temperature roller coaster, fantastic hatches, and times when the fish were simply locked down. There were even days when we saw this over a few hours.
Overnight temperatures in the teens up in the Smokies saw stream temperatures plummet by morning three times this week. On two of those days fantastic afternoon hatches not only got the trout moving, but rising with reckless abandon. Regardless of the nymph patterns we fished action was spotty until about lunch time when fish would not only take a nymph but the entire variety of Quill Gordon fly patterns.
Jerry Eyler hooked up to a fish he cast to during a nice hatch last week
Another nice wild rainbow trout
We’re happy to say that the weather forecast this week appears much more consistent with temperatures soaring into the high 70’s. Ian has a pair of anglers traveling down from Michigan this week who still have a tremendous amount of snow and frozen rivers at home. They may feel like they’ve gone to the Bahamas when then float the river with temperatures pushing 80!
The rain (and snow on top of the Smokies) we had Saturday night brought stream levels back more in line for their seasonal norms as creeks were getting pretty low for early spring.
We’ll be on both the tailwaters and Smokies streams this week. Stay tuned for pics and reports.
landon humphrey says
I fished sunday 03.30.2014 from 0800 to 3pm up little river trail all they way to goshen prong. Lots of snow and the fish were hunkered down. I did not catch anything but the mountians were beautiful,. The snow ice balls from the tree tops were well the say the least hurting when they hit you. The creeks were peppered with falling smow all day. Hoping for improved fishing real soon.
Ian says
We were lower with less snow but the fish weren’t much more motivated.