Wore em' out on South Holston

I'm just back from a two night camping trip. I took a day off from work on Friday. I drove up to Backbone Rock area to camp for a few nights. I set up camp Thursday evening under threatening skies. No rain yet though. It was to come the following day. I have wanted to fish Beaverdam Creek for several years now and my plan was to fish Beaverdam after South Holston. Well, it didn't happen. I had to fish S. Holston both days. Mind you, they were very good days but I was really wanting to spend some time on Beaverdam and one other creek in the area. The rain moved in Friday afternoon and put a stop to that. I got back to camp around 5 pm and it was raining hard. Beaverdam looked like chocolate milk. When I got up this morning to take a look at it, it wasn't much better. I decided to spend both days on S. Holston instead.

I got to the river on Friday morning at around 7:30 am. I and maybe six other anglers were on the water. They had scheduled a pulse at 1 so I had time to fish until about 1:45 pm or so. I began with a 22 zebra midge dropped off of a BH pheasant tail. I immediately began to connect. I fished this way until about 10:30 when everything seemed to slow down. I was tired and hungry so I decided to call it enough and go back to camp. I caught a total of 17 fish in three hours. Two were 15" rainbows and several browns in the 12" range. A very good morning indeed. It didn't look like the others were catching that much. I think they fishermen who are willing to go down in size on midges will do better than if you insist on dries the first thing in the morning. There were no sulphurs on the water at all.

Today, Saturday was more of the same, I fished with the same set up. A black zebra midge with red ultra wire dropped off of the bh pheasant tail. It was somewhat more action today but the sizes of the fish were down. I did managed to catch a couple in the 13" range but most were 10" or so. I caught about 23 today. I had a couple come up and push my dry so I'm sure later in the evening for the ones who wait out the pulse, there would be opportunities on the dry. All in all a good couple of days on the South Holston. I still hope to do Beaverdam one day. I probably will wait until the Green Drakes next year.

Monroe County Stream

Went with a friend of mine today to a Blount county mountain stream. We really visited two streams in one trip. We began our day around high noon and the fishing took off pretty much instantly. There were very sporadic hatches of Yellow Sallies and one lone Green Drake. I also spotted a couple of sulphurs. Water temp was at 60 and the water level has gone down to almost a little low. My friend caught a nice bow around 10 inches and I had several fat ones in the 8 to 9 inch range. This particular stream has some good fish in it and it was a lovely and very comfortable day in the seventies.

We took a break to check out another stream in the vicinity. This particular stream is nowhere near the other one in quality. It is a lovely stream but you will get tired of fishing for dinks after a while. I'm not one to ruffle anyone's feathers but if you are after better quality fishing don't waste your time on upper Citico in the wild section. I'm sure there are a few larger ones in there but for the most part you will find better fishing elsewhere.

New Mexico

Cashed in some airline miles today. Leaving Knoxville on Sept 4 and will be gone until Sept 13, I am really getting excited about this one. I'm hoping to fish San Juan tailwater among others. I have all summer to do my planning. I'm going to pick up a rental in Albuquerque, NM and have not decided on my itinerary yet. More to come.

Ronnie James Dio Dead

It was with sadness I got the word today that the "Greatest Hard Rock Singer" ever has died. Ronnie James Dio the front man of Heaven and Hell died of stomach cancer this morning according to his wife Wendy. I can remember the countless hours of listening to his wonderful voice in Rainbow. His solo career in his own band Dio and later in Heaven and Hell. He was also fairly successful as the replacement for Ozzy in Black Sabbath in 1979. Rest in peace and this is the greatest loss to the hard rock community since Bon Scott's passing.

Brown 10-Rainbow 10

Even score yesterday. I lucked out on the weather front. In between the downpour and lightning, I fished for close to four hours. There were plenty of bugs in the air on Hiwassee. The fresh stockers took a yellow emerger with gusto. I saw sulphurs, tan caddis and Yellow Sallies. Water temp was 64 degrees. I fished from 5 pm until dark. There were only one two other anglers at Big Bend while I was there. It's funny how different fish are fighting. There were some real good fighters despite being freshly stocked. Others were just hanging lick dead limbs.

I got a tie between the browns and the bows today. The state had obviously dumped in a lot of 8" Browns this week. I had a hard time trying to sight fish for some larger ones. I couldn't get the dinks of my line. A positive problem to have I might ad.

Camping Trip

I set out on my first camping adventure this past Thursday night. I left straight from work. I set up camp at Paint Creek Campground. I stayed there for two nights. The campground is very nice and has obviously been renovated since the big flood in 01. I drove over to a new destination for me in Unicoi county. I fished this small mountain stream for a couple of hours during the heat of the day. Friday was very hot and muggy but the water temp on this stream was a cool 56 degrees. I managed to catch half a dozen scrappy bows but no brookies. There are brookies in this stream but I was a mile or so below their preferred habitat.

I drove back to the campground in the afternoon and cooked some burgers on my table top grill. I was purposely waiting on the evening hatch. I began fishing on Paint Creek upstream from the campground at about 5:30 pm. The water level was great and the temp right at 60. I quickly caught an eight inch brown and thought the feed bag was on. Boy was I wrong! I didn't catch anything further up so I decided to hike back down to the stocked part of the stream. I managed to loose a handful of stockers in quick succession. It was obviously not my day. I saw sporadic hatches of some kind of drake. It looked like green drake or gray fox. The fish were not really feeding and I believe the cold front hampered the fishing.

That night was really a change from the night before. It dropped down in to the fifties and Saturday was very windy and a lot cooler. I drove up to my favorite Carter County stream and got on the river at 10:30 am. The fishing here was about as difficult as the day before on the other stream. I had to fight to get any strikes. I caught 10 brown in five hours of fishing different parts of the stream. The biggest fish was a 12 incher. I quit right at dark after breaking for supper. Now waited a long drive back to Knoxville. I was dead tired when I got home but a good tired if you know what I mean.

Clinch on Friday and a mountain stream on Saturday

I am tired, it's tough on an old man to fish two days in a row lol. I went to witness the massive sulphur hatch on Clinch Friday evening. I lost four fish in succession and didn't have much luck with my hook set. I spoke to a couple of other guys and they said fishing was easier in the am. I didn't really see anyone else catching much that night.

I decided to brave the storms and head out to some new water on Saturday. I got to the stream around 2:30 pm and fished until dark. There were sporadic hatches of Yellow Sallies and some lone Light Cahills. Not much of any surface activity at all. I had a great time in complete solitude and managed to catch about 17 rainbows. The biggest was an 11 inch wild fish. I'm off to some camping adventures in a few days. I'm praying for drier weather for awhile.