July Update

Well, most of my business trips for the month are over now, but I still am unable to head to the river. I just had sinus surgery, and need to wait about another week for everything to heal up before I venture out for an extended period. I don't see me getting onto the river before Saturday the 25th, but that is better than not fishing at all. The good news is that I am planning on taking advantage of being at home to restock my fly supplies over the course of the next few days.

Stay tuned for a report as soon as I get out, and also expect to see another lens review shortly.

Independence Day at the Park

Saturday we spent the day at a local state park where we rented out a building to celebrate July 4th. This small local park is probably the place where I officially learned to fish, and I don't visit it often enough. When GSMNP is overrun by tourists, this small park is just about perfect. Yes it does get a little crowded, but not nearly as smothering as the droves of people who swarm on Townsend and Gatlinburg.

Below are a few pics from the day, and I do plan on going back much sooner than later.

We Cooked Hard

We Ate Hard

We Napped Hard

We Even Caught Some Bluegill

Thingamabobbers

I have been using thingamabobber strike indicators for quite some time now. I have to tell you that they are by far the best indicator I have ever used. However, they do require some modification in order to get the best performance out of them. Straight out of the package they work just fine, but they do tend to slip some on your leader. I use the 1/2" size 90% of the time since they are perfectly sized for the smaller nymphs and midges I frequently use. Below is how I modify them to reduce line slippage and they even seem to reduce line twist.

First I buy a package of small O-rings from Lowe's plumbing department. The smallest size that I can find is usually just about perfect.


I then cut them and slip them through the hole on the indicator.


Finally, I super glue the O-ring back together.


When fishing I loop my leader thru the O-ring instead of the standard loop on the bottom.

Busy July Schedule

As I mentioned in my previous post, July is going to be busy. So busy in fact that I may not even be able to get on the water. I have business trips and a sinus surgery that will keep me occupied. Typically my travels take me to destinations where I can at least entertain the thought of bringing my fly rod along and doing a little fishing. However, this month I will be travelling to western Iowa. West Iowa, the land of corn, cows, and not much else. The only piece of water I have seen the past week is the muddy Missouri as it winds its way past the plant. At least the weather has been nice, but it is only the 2nd and I am ready for this month to be over already.

Sulfur Season Finale

I have a busy July schedule, so I don't expect to make it to the river more than once the entire month. So today, Scott and I decided to try and get into some more sulfur action on the Clinch one last time before it ends. I have been averaging over 20 fish per trip recently, and it has gotten me spoiled. While I am not catching the large fish I caught last year, my numbers are almost 2.5 times higher this year. (I keep a log of every fishing trip, that includes weather conditions, water temps, fly patterns, and techniques.) I know that this is in large part to the fish just being overly aggressive this year during a phenomenal sulfur hatch, but I like to think that my skills are improving.

We got to the water today around 8:15 and found only one other person in the water when we arrived. We easily made our way downstream to our run of choice and I hooked up on my first cast. I also performed a long distance release that you would think I had been practicing for months. This immediately got me excited thinking it was going to be a wonderful day. Unfortunately, that was not the case. As I said earlier, I have been spoiled recently on the Clinch, and today was a little disappointing. The hatch did not pick up today until around 11:30, but the fish were very skittish today. Usually I don't have a problem spotting risers and working within casting distance and picking them off one by one. However, today, they were very line shy, and required a down and across approach. I do this quite often with nymphs, but it was a totally new experience with dries. I found that I could get a good 50 to 60' drift downstream, but I had so much slack in my line that I couldn't connect when I did entice the trout to take.

The general consensus today at the river seemed to be that things were a little slower today than past weeks. With the exception of one guy who I watched haul in fish after fish on what appeared to be a dry fly of some sort.

Looking back on my log, it was this week last year that the sulfurs started to dry up on the Clinch. You could somewhat tell it today, as the fish seemed to be stuck somewhere in between typical sulfur holding places and midge holding places. When they are actively taking sulfurs they are stacked up on shoals. Typically downstream in the seams and eddies, but I find the larger ones to be upstream sucking in the emergers before they reach the shoal. Today they were not in those places like they have been the past month or so. I also tried going to my typical midge locations, and only had minimal success there too. My midge locations tend to be deep and have very little current, where I can bounce my larva along the bottom picking up nice sized fish hugging the bottom structure. I think in the next couple weeks the fish will move to the more traditional midge locations, once the sulfurs have completed their season finale.

Trip Summary
Weather: 90 deg and Sunny
Water Temp: 53 deg
# of fish landed: 7
Size Range: 10 - 13"

Dad's First Fly Fishing Trip

I was planning on taking dad to the South Holston for a weekend long camping trip for Father's Day. However, the generation schedule did not look favorable, so we opted to fish this morning. The only other time dad had a fly rod in his hand was at Big Ridge State Park, and that was only for about 15 minutes. I spent quite a bit of time trying to help him with his casting, and once he got over the fear of breaking the rod he started getting the hang of it. His casting motion was so slow and careful since he was afraid that he couldn't put much oomph behind the cast. I rigged him up and put him in a run that typically is loaded with easy fish, and walked below him to do some coaching and a little fishing of my own.

On my second cast I hooked into this colorful guy, and dad got all excited.

He could see the fish swimming around and rising, but just could not get the distance on his cast. Eventually he managed to get enough distance and the correct drift and hooked up with his first fly caught trout.

A little while later he caught his second, and he ended the day with about half a dozen. I told him that those were pretty good results for a first timer on the Clinch.

Dad kept wanting to see a brown trout, and I managed to bring this guy to hand just before leaving. He was just as excited, you would have thought he had caught it himself.

As we were leaving, he was telling me that this is something that he could get into. I hope he does, it was a very enjoyable day, and I look forward to many more with him and hopefully someday my son.

Summary:
Weather: Mostly Sunny 93 degrees
Water Temp: 53 degrees
# Fish Landed: 20+ (4 in the slot)
Very crowded river. Numerous waders and at least 6 boats drifted by while fishing.

One Year Birthday

This past week we celebrated Trey's one year birthday. Where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday that I was rushing Amy to the hospital. What a wonderful year it has been, and my little buddy is getting so big. Unfortunately I had to travel for work this past week, but luckily I was able to come home on his birthday. Below are some pics from his birthday. I am one proud daddy, and I am at a loss of words to explain the emotions I have experienced the past year.

Enjoy.

Back on the Clinch

I took a vacation day today, and Scott and I hit the Clinch after a long absence. We got to the water around 9:00 and fished thru the pulse until 3:00. Needless to say, had the water not been coming up on us, we would have stayed even longer. It was perhaps the most outstanding day of fishing we have ever had. The fish were stupidly aggressive feeding on sulfurs. And it was good to see a very good hatch coming off today, after much debate as to whether there would be any present due to the high generation flows.

The trout were absolutely crushing pheasant tails, sulfur thorax duns, and sulfur wulff patterns. Most were in the 12-14" range, however we did catch our fare share in the slot. I also had four fish break me off today on 5X fluorocarbon tippet, I guess it is time to upgrade to some Seaguar GrandMax fluoro. Even using the 5X tippet, the fish were not line shy like they typically are. By lunch time I had already lost count of the number of fish caught, and as we were walking out all we could do was talk about how good of a day it was. Our estimation is that we easily caught 50 fish between the two of us, and that isn't taking into consideration the fish that either broke off or came off during the fight. I have to travel to Nebraska for work next week, but I will try to get out on the water shortly afterward.

Today also marked the first time I took my D40 to the river with me. I was quite pleased with the pictures I got, and there is a sample of some below. I was limited in the number of fish pictures I got since I took along my 50mm f/1.8 lens that is a manual focus on my camera. Next time I will bring along my kit lens so that I can get more fish shots.

Summary:
# of fish caught: 50+ (between the two of us)
Weather: Cloudy and upper 70's
Water Temp: N/A
Fly Patterns: #16 BHPT, #16 Sulfur Thorax, #14 Sulfur Wulff

Gearing Up

Early Morning Fog

Lunchtime

Waiting out a Storm

Scott working a run

Sulfur Dun

Decent Brown with Bite Marks