This past weekend I couldn’t take it any longer and took the drift boat over to the Clinch River. Flows have been high for months now and while I wouldn’t do a guided trip under these conditions, I just had to get out and row the boat on a pretty day. I can’t say I’m […]
Hatches Continue in the Smokies; Meanwhile Winter Returns
Quill Gordon: The surest sign of spring on the streams in the Smokies Spring really has arrived early, at least from a fly fisher’s view. Here in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee we’ve already experienced about a week of afternoon hatches with rising fish. This doesn’t usually happen until early March or the last […]
East Tennessee River Levels Improving
It’s been an exceptionally mild winter here around East Tennessee. There’s been a few cold snaps along with some snow high in the Smokies, but the weather has been more like late fall or early spring than winter. This would normally mean excellent fishing, but it hasn’t been as simple as that. We’ve had a […]
Latest Information from Trout Waters Around Tennessee
I went to the latest Tennessee Coldwater meeting in Knoxville. This is essentially a summit where biologists from TVA, TWRA, the US Forest Service, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park come together to share information with each other and member of the Tennessee Council of Trout Unlimited. This isn’t a public meeting where regulation changes […]
Mild Weather & High Water
It looks like another week of mild weather is on the way here in the Smokies, but it also comes with more high water. Our tailwaters have been blown out for a long time with very short breaks in the high flows. It’s absolutely pouring as I write this so we can be sure TVA […]
Damn that was good!
While we don’t expect to get much sympathy from anybody, we don’t get to fish as much or as often as many of you think. We had a pretty ambitious holiday travel schedule to be with family and even left the country for a little more than a week. Since we’ve been back we’ve hit […]
A Wild Week of Weather
To say we’ve had a wild week as far as weather is concerned is an understatement. We’ve had just about everything except scorching heat here in East Tennessee and the Smokies. Last weekend was exceptionally mild for January, but there was an interesting phenomenon in the Smokies. Since there wasn’t much wind and the sun […]
The Latest from the Smokies plus Our Predictions for 2012
It’s been a long holiday season for us that began over a week before Christmas and went on into New Year’s. While it got a little tiring it was only because we’re blessed to have a ton of family to spend time with. Mild weather through the end of the year and some negotiable tailwater […]
A Year in the Life of R&R Fly Fishing, 2011 edition
Now that the water has been high much of the time and the weather has turned cold we’ve gone back and taken a look back at the year we’ve had. It seems like the life of fly fishing guides is all fun and games, but it’s really quite hectic. It’s only now when we’re not […]
How can you tell when the water is high?
This is one way… We’re in the middle of another high water session all across the Smoky Mountain region with creeks boiling with whitewater and our tailwaters running full. The Norris Dam is about start spilling so we won’t be fishing the Clinch any time soon. Even the Watauga and South Holston, usual good bets […]