If you’re looking for a place to go fishing this week you likely won’t need to look far. Water levels on mountain streams are excellent, tailwater flows are about as good as you can hope for. You can’t float the Hiwassee or South Holston right now, but other than that you can wade on any […]
High Water in the Smokies Before the Great Weather Arrives
Last week was just one of those weeks… This is my twentieth season guiding and Charity’s thirteenth so it’s not new, but you certainly don’t like it. A constant parade of weather disturbances came through featuring everything from snow, to rain, to high winds. It was just a tough week with yo-yo-ing water temps and […]
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 […]
Looking for Some Consistency On the Way
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, […]
Up Close and Personal with Wild Rainbow Trout
We admit it. We’re fish nerds and we’ll go to some lengths to get cool pictures and video of fish. Here’s the latest video we’ve gotten and it really makes us smile. These rainbow trout are in the midst of some pretty swift water. Notice the spill that’s just in the background and notice the […]
The Cruelest Month?
Yesterday the sun was shining brightly and wearing long sleeves made you sweat on the river. Today it’s raining and the thermometer is set to plunge tonight. Tomorrow morning we’ve been told to expect freezing temperatures in the low 20’s and teens up in the Smokies along with a dusting of snow on the mountains. […]
Spring Fishing Starts Now
It was an absolutely beautiful weekend here in the Smoky Mountains. In spite of warm weather the streams are still a little on the cold side, but things are certainly moving in the right direction. While there have been some insect hatches on the streams we have yet to see the best of the season. […]
Making the Rounds
It’s still February and the latest weather forecast shows plenty of wintry weather in store this week so it’s a good thing I made the most of the bearable weather and good flows available. Last week we made a trip over to the Holston. Over the weekend I also floated the Hiwassee and checked on […]
Cold but the best conditions we’ve seen in a while
We hitched up the drift boat yesterday and headed to the Holston River. The original weather forecast was for 42 and sunshine when we originally made arrangements, but every subsequent forecast would degrade ever so slightly and by the time we arrived on the water it was overcast with a slight breeze. I don’t know […]
Warmer Weather On the Horizon
I’m sitting at my desk in Townsend waiting for more freezing weather and snow to arrive. Yesterday was relatively mild but the streams in the Smokies were essentially frozen over. Even now I can still see snow on Thunderhead Mountain and other high peaks. Still, yesterday was sunny and about 50 degrees and we weren’t […]