Fall is almost upon us and with it comes some great dry fly fishing. Rising trout in the fall are more difficult to coax to a dry fly than they are in the spring. Spring hatches are usually more robust with more bugs on the water. Additionally, the bugs are much larger. Low water conditions […]
Fly Fish With Dropper Rigs to Catch More Trout
Fly fishing with dropper rigs is one of the most effective methods for catching trout with flies. First, it allows a fly fisher to fish two different fly patterns which doubles your chances of fishing the right fly at the right time. Second, it makes it possible to have a fly in two places at […]
Fly Fishing with Terrestrials: Learn to Tie and Fish the Elkmont Ant
The Elkmont Ant is a fly I came up with a few years ago. I was doing a bit of guiding at Blackberry Farm where the fish were big and the water was small. A daily string of guides and anglers kept the trout pretty educated and even smaller fish became jaded by early July. […]
Fly Fishing in the Smokies Perks Up After Recent Rains
We’ve gotten thunderstorms with heavy rains 3 afternoons this week. This has allowed us plenty of time for fishing while bringing the stream levels up from a relatively low point. Overnight temperatures in the Smokies have been in the 50’s and this has also helped to perk up the fish. High temperatures on Friday remained […]
Fly Fishing Video: Casting to Rising Trout
As promised in my post from the other day, here’s some video from our float on the Holston River here in East Tennessee. There are some beautiful clips of rising trout. Those of you have been with us and missed a good number of fish might really enjoy this. Charity hooks up more than I […]
Fun with Rising Trout plus a Few Smallmouth Bass on Poppers
 Yesterday Charity and I hitched up the drift boat and headed over to the Holston River. Our original intent was to focus our attention on smallmouth bass, but we were in a section of the river that has good trout populations in addition to smallies. We put the boat in the river and the water […]
A Guide’s Day Off on Remote Brook Trout Water
Nobody has an office with a better view… It’s been a long season of guiding so far. I don’t think there are many tears shed for us while we spend most of our days on trout streams in the Smoky Mountains or floating the tailwaters in a drift boat. Still we don’t get to actually […]
Summer fly fishing forecast for East Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains
Fly fishing on the rivers of East Tennessee and the streams of the Smoky Mountains has been excellent this spring. Our fisheries seem to have only suffered minimal impacts from last year’s drought and water levels are excellent this year. Tailwater fishing was as good as we’ve seen it this spring. We’ve already moved into […]
Excellent Fly Fishing in the Smoky Mountains and East Tennessee
We haven’t had much of a chance to post a report because we’ve been on the water so much. Fly Fishing in East Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains is superb any where you turn right now. We’ve been on just about any kind of water you’d want to fish this past week and it’s all […]
Beautiful Time for Fly Fishing in East Tennessee
We’ve been out on the water almost everyday and covering a lot of water. We’ve been on the Tennessee and North Carolina sides of the Smokies plus floating the Holston several times a week. The caddis are hatching big time on the Holston and dry fly fishing is in full effect throughout the Smokies. Jim […]