We’re back to normally scheduled fall weather here in the Smokies. Last week we received well over a month’s worth of rain in about a day and our rivers and streams looked like it. We scrambled to reschedule guide trips that could be rescheduled and cancelled those that couldn’t. The Smokies saw some of […]
Don’t Hate Her Because She’s Beautiful
I took Sharon and Richard Donnel out for a day of fly fishing in the Smokies with a generous dose of instruction last weekend. They’re local folks from the Knoxville area who decided they wanted to spend more time in the stunning mountain scenery so close to their home. Both were pretty quick studies when […]
Hot Summer Days on the Water in East Tennessee & the Smokies
There’s no doubt about it. It’s the middle of summer in East Tennessee with hot weather, high humidity, and pop up thunderstorms. Fortunately the afternoon storms are keeping the heat contained, but the humidity out on the big rivers coupled with bright sunshine can be tough on a guy who rows a boat. Things are […]
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
Not a bad day in the drift boat
Almost Too Much To Remember It All
It’s easy for us to know we’ve been guiding for months and on the water almost everyday. We can tell because we don’t know what day it really is. We know we’re supposed to meet Angler X at Location Y in the morning because that’s what the schedule says, but as far as what day […]
What A Week!
Over the course of the spring Charity and I have felt like the fishing was a little more difficult than usual. There were more days than usual when trout in the Smokies wouldn’t rise to a dry fly very well and the number of fish taking a fly on the tailwaters seemed light compared to […]
Summer Tailwater Forecast for East Tennessee
We’re far enough along in the season now that we’re able to start looking into the crystal ball for how fishing will progress into the summer. There’s always a degree of uncertainty more than a few weeks into the future, but our tailwater rivers are a little easier to predict in terms of how flows […]
A Week of Ups & Downs
This past week was quite a roller coaster ride for us fishing guides. It started last weekend with a fresh 4″ of snow in the Smokies that flat out shut down fishing in park streams last Sunday. Trust me. As a guide it wasn’t pretty. But the weather quickly warmed up and our new drift […]
Weather Improving After A Tough Week
It’s been an odd week around here. One that started with sunshine and flowers, regressed to freezing weather and light snow, then bounced back to warm rain. The freezing nights dropped water tempertures down to the high 30’s in some spots and the fish were locked down for most of the morning. We adjust our […]
Spring Break at R&R Fly Fishing
We’re back from our spring break sabbatical with the kids. Now that our daughter is in school our schedules are somewhat beholding to her schedule. For the past few years we’ve made it a point to take a spring break camping trip. As that’s March in the Smokies the weather is always a factor. This […]









