1st Father/Son Smokies Outing

Took the little guy out for some father/son time yesterday. So far he has been camping two times, turkey hunting (kinda) once, and bluegill fishing three times at age three. So, I thought it was about time to get his feet wet with some hiking and fly fishing in the mountains.

I didn't really have much faith in it being an overwhelming success, but thought it would be fun either way.

I chose Elkmont because of the relatively flat trail and the easy access to the river. He quickly decided daddy's walking stick was better than his, so he confiscated it...





About 1/4 mile up the trail he wanted to get in the water and play, so I found a convenient spot and let him play for a while....





After about 15 minutes of playing he was anxious to fish in a particular spot....





Working on his technique....



Only had patience to fish for about 10 minutes, but managed to miss two in that short time frame. By this time he was starting to get tired, so we turned around to slowly make our way back to the parking area. Surprisingly he was more excited to see all the old houses and walk through the Appalachian Clubhouse. He is already asking to go back again, and told everybody today about the old houses and hiking. I think I have myself a lifetime outdoor buddy, and am so glad that he had a great time.

Introducing New Fly Tying Tutorials Page

At the top of my blog, just below my banner, you will find a Fly Tying Tutorial page. I will be working to populate that page with some of my favorite flies. Today, I have added the first of these how-to segments with my first subject being a Sulfur Sparkledun. Give it a look, and I hope that maybe you learn a new pattern or trick from these tutorials.

Tight Lines and God Bless!

Father's Day Weekend SoHo Camping Trip

I recently got back from a 3-day trip to the SoHo June 16th thru 18th. This was a regular trip for us, however since Trey was born we haven't made this trip in 3 yrs. I was very surprised to see the number of anglers out there beginning on Thursday, and increasing each following day. Water was a bit higher than normal, but still very wadable. This was due to TVA sluicing a continuous 280 CFS from the dam while they are performing maintenance.


Upon arrival, there was only one other tent setup and two other gentlemen sitting there. I talked to the older gentleman who has fished the river for two weeks consecutively for each of the past three months, and he said that the past two days have been the best sulfur hatch of the year. I quickly geared up and hit the water around 2:30, deciding that the tent could wait until after it had cooled down some. About 3:00 the hatch began, and I picked up a couple fish on sulfur nymphs tied klinkhammer style and sulfur duns. I couldn't get into consistent action and was frustrated a couple times when I saw some big heads sucking down dozens of bugs. After a couple hours I headed back to camp to begin setting up the tent. About this time Scott showed up and helped set things up and run over to the fly shop. When we returned from the shop Dave was sitting at the campsite trying to figure out if it was the right spot. Shortly afterward our camp neighbors returned from their afternoon jaunt. I couldn't see them where they were fishing, but I was told that the older man Darrell probably caught 70 fish to the younger's 15. He showed me his fly, and it definitely had been abused.


As evening was approaching, Darrell recommended that I swing a wet fly in the riffles and seams downstream of camp. So, I did as he said and was rewarded with probably a dozen fish in 1.5 hours of fishing. Light was getting low, so I headed back to camp to help Dave cook up some deer steaks and corn on the cob. That is always a tasty meal when on these camping trips. It was a beautiful full moon night, and perfect weather for camping.


The next morning Darrell recommended that I try swinging tiny softhackles, size 24, in the seams for early morning trout. I didn't have any that small, but had some #20 BWO softhackles that the fish were very willing to eat. I fished for probably two hours and landed another dozen fish. Most were probably 8 to 12", but I did manage one brown around 13". Called it quits about 10:00 and came back to camp for a little midmorning snack. After the snack, I tried my luck out on the slackwater area, and was abused by those super selective trout. Did manage a couple more on some sulfur emergers that I swung in the seams. It was very hit-or-miss for most people on the water. I saw and talked to plenty of people who were skunked.


I took a break and came back for lunch and sat down to tie up some comparaduns for the afternoon sulfur hatch. From 3:00 on is when the magic began. However, it only was magical if you had the exact fly imitation. Thankfully, I got into them taking a #18 medium yellow sulfur w/ bleached deer hair sparkle dun pattern. I tried two other shades of sulfur, and both bleach and natural hair wings before finding the one that worked. So, I spent an hour trying to find the right fly, but once I found it the fish were taking it so hard that I had three swallow the fly. One brown actually jumped out of the water and ate the fly as he was entering the water. I fished that fly in two runs for the last hour of the day. I was probably on a 20 trout/hr pace with the fly I mentioned above.


Saturday morning was nuts! People were walking in on top of each other, and I just chose to pack up and come on back home. That is not my cup of tea. I even saw quite a few bait slingers today out there keeping anything with size to it. However, I think the sulfur hatch up there is just now getting ramped up. Be advised though to take a wide variety of sulfur patterns in different shades of yellow, orange, or some combination. Those trout can be some the most finicky I have ever fished for. If you go good luck, and happy Father's Day!

SULFURS! They are back!

The time that so many fly fishermen in East TN wait for every year is finally upon us. The mayfly commonly referred to as the sulfur is hatching on East TN waters. From the freestone mountain streams, to the Clinch and South Holston rivers. See my previous post on the various species of sulfurs that are found in our area Understanding Sulfurs.

I have been lucky enough to make it out a couple times lately to the Clinch. Both trips have been early morning trips that began around 7:00 and end around 11:00. Action both times was consistent, with things really beginning to pick up around 9:30. Although activity was at a decent level, the surface activity was minimal. Most fish have been caught using either a flashback pheasant tail or a standard pheasant tail. Some fish were looking up though, as I did manage to get a couple using my sulfur hackle stacker cripple pattern.

If I were to rate this years hatch on a scale from 1 to 10, I would probably give it a 7. In comparison, last year was probably a 9 and two years ago was a 6. I expect to get out on the water a couple more times in the coming week, along with a two night camping trip on the South Holston. So, keep checking back for an update on those trips.

Below are some pics from the past couple trips.

Early Morning on the Clinch

Battle Scars...

Durango 2011.wmv

Return to the Four Corners 2011 - Part 2

Part 2 - The fishing part

On our last trip to Durango, we took a float trip with Animas Valley Anglers on the upper San Juan above Navajo Dam. Amy and I both had a blast on that trip, and we caught a good number of quality fish and saw some amazing scenery. So, prior to this trip I called up Will Blanchard, owner of AVA, and he said that he thinks we may as well complete the San Juan float by doing the quality water below the dam. I agreed, and we made arrangements to go on a Monday in order to avoid the typical weekend masses that flock to this world famous tailwater for large trout.

Weather the first two days of our trip was not very favorable for a float, thankfully the conditions changed by the morning of the float. Will picked us up at the hotel, and we made the one hour drive to the tailwater. After getting my one day license for $17, we drove on over to the launch point. While sitting there gearing up the shuttle guys came by and told us that there were at least ten boats currently fishing in the quality water section. The quality water is four miles long, and basically the boats just follow a rotation routine so that everybody has a chance to fish all the good runs. Upon hearing about the quantity of people on the water, Will and I just looked at each other. Will, knowing that I am not a fan of crowds, recommended that we try something a little different. You see, he also doesn't like crowds, and we really wanted to avoid them if possible.

Will's proposal was that we shift gears and float the lower tailwater. The only catch was that the lower tailwater was typically a later season float, and he had not done it since sometime back in the fall. Not only that, but the shuttle guys had told us that they had not ran a shuttle down there in months either. So, it was a little bit of a gamble, but Will thought he could put us on some quality fish. Also, this lower float was 14 miles compared to the 4 miles for the quality water.

We all agreed that it was worth the gamble and shortly took off downstream. It wasn't long before we were into some fish using baetis nymphs:

Most in this first run were about this size

We caught a good number out of this first hole before moving on downstream in hopes of finding better quality fish. The next run we came upon was a beauty, and once again it wasn't long before I hooked up:


The quality did get better here, and we found ourselves pulling a lot of fish out of this run. Plus the browns began to start showing up in the net at this point.




We picked this spot to stop for lunch, and the scenery was quite appealing too:




After lunch, we hesitantly left this spot since we still had a lot of water to cover. Just downstream at the next run we hooked into possibly the best fish of the day. Well, that we landed anyway:


After this fish we switched to large streamers in hopes of turning some big browns. We weren't disappointed as we had several over 20" give chase. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a decent hookset on any of them, and therefore no pictures of big browns to show for it.

It was a wonderful day on the water. A little longer than we originally planned, but the fishing, scenery, and guide was spectacular. We definitely made the right choice by going with this lower section float.

Amy and I are anxiously awaiting our next trip to Durango, and highly recommend Animas Valley Anglers to anyone who is looking for a guide in the area.

I would like to thank my lovely wife for taking the majority of these photos, and the video also in a separate post on the blog.

Return to the Four Corners 2011 - Part 1

Part 1 - The Non-Fishing Part

Four years ago, Amy and I were desperately needing a vacation. Unfortunately, we were running short on time, and our timeshare options on short notice were pretty limited. So, we took a chance and elected to go to a sleepy little town named Durango in Colorado. Little did we know that we would fall in love with the area. Not only is it saturated in beautiful scenery, but the people, fishing, food, and atmosphere are phenomenal. I have been trying hard to get back out there since our last trip, and this year we were supposed to go out in September for some high elevation small stream fishing. However, with baby Taryn growing inside mommy, that altered our plans; and we elected to go out in April again.

When we arrived, we were greeted with high winds, rain, and snow. Not much different than the first time. Thankfully, the weather forecast was showing a significant improvement in the coming days. We tried to drive up the mountain on the second day only to find that the roads were impassable thanks to the previous days snowstorms. So, we just walked around town enjoy the sights and sounds. People in Durango are very health and physically conscious, plus a lot walk to the beat of a different drum (like the fellow below riding a mountain unicycle):

No matter how strange some may appear, they are all very friendly. As I said previously, not only are the people and sights appealing, but the food is fantastic. Day 2 had us hitting up our favorite BBQ joint from the previous trip.

Walking along the river in town enjoying the warming weather provided us with some beautiful backdrops and photo opportunities:



While walking through town, we stumbled upon this little pond. We almost walked on by without giving it a second look.

Thankfully we didn't, and when we looked down into the clear waters we saw a pond chock full of rainbow and cutthroat trout feeding on midges. More on the fishing later.

Later we went to dinner, and I figured I would enjoy some trout prior to the next days float trip. Some may consider this to be bad fishing karma, I just thought it was tasty. Our meal was once again fantastic.



The day before we were supposed to fly back to Knoxville the weather warmed to 74 degrees, the roads in the mountains cleared up, and we elected to take a little trip. The scenery was breathtaking:

Trey's First Camping Trip

Last weekend as we were returning from a conference in Nashville, Trey asked to go camping. What was unusual was that it was completely out of the blue, and we hadn't even been discussing camping. So, my mind immediately went to work thinking about how we could do it. Considering we were still driving home on I-40 with about another two hours left ahead of us, I started calling my parents. I figured that if we got home and threw the camping gear in the truck we could at least go out to the farm and put the tent up for the night. This way if Trey didn't like it or got scared we could drive up to my parents house and let him sleep there for the night. We didn't even bother changing clothes after the conference, we just put the camping gear in the truck and drove to the farm. I was even putting the tent up and starting the campfire in what I had worn to the conference earlier. Thankfully he loved it, and behaved himself well around the campfire.

That night we were all sitting around the campfire talking about how big the moon was. It wasn't until the next night that we were experiencing a super moon, and it would be a long time before the moon was this close to earth again.


The next morning I was awakened by the sound of a turkey gobbling. So, I unzipped my window and nearly fell out of my bed when I saw a flock of turkeys walking past. Four of which were in full strut trying to track down the hens. What a way to wake up.

I let Trey and Amy sleep in some before going to wake them for breakfast. When I checked on them I found Amy had moved up to my cot and Trey was asleep on the air mattress. Unfortunately the air mattress had deflated on them during the night, and has officially seen its last camping trip.

As we were leaving Trey asked to go camping again, so it looks like I now have myself a little camping buddy from now on. YES!