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 for Smoky Mountain Brook Trout
I was able to squeeze in a day of hiking a fishing between several days of guiding this week. I’ve been trying to fish as many of the formerly closed brook trout streams as I can. This has been something of a quest over the past few years since these streams opened. The vast majority […]
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 […]
Stream levels up after recent rains
Newfound Gap Road after a drenching rain I’m happy to report that this has been the rainiest few days in the Smoky Mountains I can remember over the past few years. It hasn’t been raining continuously but we’ve been getting some good afternoon thunderstorms. Stream levels inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Nantahala National […]
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 […]
Biggest Brook Trout Restoration Yet to Take Place in the Smokies
Fisheries biologists at Great Smoky Mountains National Park are planning the most ambitious restoration of native brook trout they have ever undertaken. Lynn Camp Prong, in the Tremont section of the Smokies, will be restored upstream of Lynn Camp Cascades. Brook trout will soon be common in Lynn Camp Prong near Townsend, TN Brook trout […]
