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. […]
Backcountry Brook Trout, a Tailwater Float, and SNAKE!!!
It’s been an extremely busy week here in the fly fishing mines of the Smoky Mountains and East Tennessee. We’ve spent several days guiding anglers in some out of the way streams in the Smokies, helped park biologists monitor a brook trout stream one day, and did a float on the Holston on another. I […]
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 […]
Good Water Levels in the Smokies and East Tennessee
We had some soaking rains over the weekend and water levels are pretty good right now in the Smokies. Fly fishing last Sunday was a bit streaky as the morning started off rainy, weather cleared around noon, then a strong front with thunderstorms closed in during the afternoon. A number of runs were pretty stingy […]
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 […]
Weather Begins to Heat Up, Fishing Continues to Hold Up
It’s been another busy week of guiding here in East Tennessee. Again, we’re covering a lot of water from the Holston River tailwater to creeks in the Smoky Mountains. The weather has really started to heat up, getting in the upper 80’s. It’s not that warm on the stream in the Smokies, but still warm. […]
New Brook Trout Water Open for Fishing in the Smokies
The National Park Service has just changed the fishing regulations so that Sams Creek is now open for fishing. This stream has been closed since the 1970’s to protect native brook trout. A restoration was conducted by the park service along with volunteers from Trout Unlimited. Biologists at Great Smoky Mountains National Park now say […]