Made it out to the Hiwassee for a weekend long camping/fishing trip. It was good to get back out and camp again.
Friday's weather was amazing, however TVA had other plans. The generation schedule was running 2 generators most of the day. So, we really had to work hard to find fishing locations where we could wade with 2 generators. So, we parked at Hiwassee Outfitters and walked up the railroad tracks until we found a couple of runs that we could wade out into. As we entered the water we were immediately greeted by hundreds of small olive caddis, size 18 to 20. However, there were no rising fish, and all our efforts were fruitless. When we were prepared to leave, we set in the parking lot at HO and watched some enormous browns sipping BWO's. Some of them came clear out of the water, and they were quite large. However, no matter how hard we tried, we could not reach them with our flies.
On Saturday, the generation schedule was much more favorable. So, we slept in and ate breakfast before heading out. We got to the river to explore some new water, and found some very nice runs. This was new territory, so we had to be careful.
The wind was extremely gusty, and I would estimate some of the gusts to be 20+ mph, so it made casting very difficult. On one ocassion, I snagged my size 6 slumpbuster in my cap just above my ear while casting perpendicular to a heavy gust. There were no hatches coming off while we were there, but some action was found using a size 20 blood midge shown at right. It is tied using a TMC 2488 size 20 hook, rusty red thread, 5X tippet overbody, and a small copper bead. Before the day was said and done, 2 of the 4 in our party had went for a swim, one brand new Orvis MidArbor reel was damaged, and 2 camp chairs burned up when the wind blew them into the fire. Oh well, it still beat a day at the office, and it was nice getting out and wetting a line again. I am already planning my next trip.
So, we chose to start off with nymphs, so I started with a BHPT and a hare's ear nymph. Managed to catch 2 about 30 minutes into the morning, then things slowed once the pulse hit. However, as the water was just starting to come down the run I was fishing exploded. I caught 5 between 10 and 13 inches in about 30 minutes, the best of which can be seen to the left. Since I had to be back in Knoxville at 5:00, we started packing to leave around 3:00, the beginning of the best fishing time. As we were leaving, ran into 2 guys who said the day had been slow, but I believe they had been fishing dries most of the day. We caught no fish on dries today, and only saw a couple of small stockers rising to dries while on the river. The fly of choice today was a black bead head pheasant tail, as seen below. The black bead seemed to make a difference, since the action was much more consistent than when I had a gold bead on.
I lost a good number of fish, most were stockers, but one was a decent sized rainbow.
