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5. | South Holsten - TN -July 4 -5, 2007 |
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i was hoping for some fireworks on the South Holson River, so I headed over the mountain to she what if anything was hatching. Once agina the TVA wasn't helping any with an early scheduled release. I parked backdown on Big Spring Rd.and was hopeful of getting down into the bottom hole.. There were a lot of risers in the slick water, but I couldn't tell what they were hitting. Whatever it was it didn't last too long. I moved up to the riffel at the head of the slick water and took several decent sized bows on a #22 pt nymph. The action was steady and predictable, but i was hoping for some dry fly action. Sight casting to a rising trout offers a much greater reward than following a nymph into the depth of run. Finally I moved down to the bottom hole and found that it was being worked over by some hardware boys. I hit the runs above without any success. Then it was time to move on as the signs on the pending flow had reached Big Springs. There was a noticable increase in the debree floating as the water began to rise. I slogged back upstream to the pulloff where I had parked. Along the way I noticed dozens of trout moving in front of me in the slack water and even saw one that may have been twenty inches within 6" of the bank. It had moved to a spot whrere he water was barely over the top of my boots.
I had planned to move on down to Rockhold for several more hours of fishing, but when i got there I found that all of the parking spaces were filled up. What do you expect on a holiday? So, I deceided to go fish the Beaverdam and see what kind of bugs would be coming off that water. But first a trip into Damascus for dinnner. I stopped in at the Baja Cafe for a mixed bean burreto, which was quite filling. It's also located right next to the new Fly Fishing Shop & Espresso Bar. Sall and efficient it looked like they carried a simple selection of fly fishing equipment, and I couldn't help notice that a Columbia vest in the window was priced at ony $20!
Back to the beaverdam somewhere between mile marker 8 & 9 I found a nice looking stretch of water and tied on a Royal Coachman! Quickly I had a fiesty rainbow and two cast later a 12" brown took the fly. For the next couple of hours I had trouble keeping the fly dry as fish after fish took the gaudy artificial. It was nice to fish a big fly with a calftail wing in the failing light. I was off the river by 8:30 and headed to Shady Valley and it's Cingular Tower to check in with ODG3, he confirmend that he was all set-up at River-ridge campground and asked what the hell I was doing in Shady Valley. It's not exactly a short drive to Elizabethon and it took about an hour, about twice what I had expected. I had no troubel fining Ralphs campsite. He even had an extra chair. We sat around and then backed off from the campfire. I was memerized by the flickerling flames. Steve Hicks joined us for a while before we all retired for the evening having planned an early morning rise. Ralph set his alarm for 5:30. 5:30? That's pretty early, but he said it would be the crack of dawn. I had my doubts.... sure enough the alarm went off and it was pitch black, so we slept for another 30 minutes or so. Packe up real quick and hit McDonald's for a quick breakfast and much needed coffee. We drove to Webb Bridge and fished the run below the bridge with soft hackel's and each took a small fish.
A shout from Ralph indicated that Rick (Mstash) had arrived and we headed up the river to a selcet section. The fog was quite think. Rick hit the first run as Ralph and I headed upstream. Ralph gave me the "lay of the land" in detail, the only problem was that 1/2 of what he was describing was shrouded by the fog leaving a lot to the imagination. Soon enough I found myself standing in water where the fish would be and casting to where I should be wading. I'll know that sectiion a lot better the next time I fish it! The fog began to lift and the air swilred with warm and cold breazes. I was running out of time as I was due home and had a long drive ahead, so I slipped out of the water at 10:30. Ralph will be there through the weekend tearin' 'em up! Rip some lips for us Ralph! I stopped in at Champion's fly shop and since some of you have been asking here's a couple of photos;
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4. | South Holsten - TN - Cloudy, Thunderstorms,80's - Sulfurs- June 20, 2007 |
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Packing up for the trip I looked at the Sage 5wt for a moment, but left her behind, I've got a new girlfriend now.
I stopped for lunch and found Forrest from Hunter Banks having lunch with his clients who were from New England and were down in TN for a wedding, leaving the details to the women they had taken off to fish.
I was wondering how Ralph (ODG3) would respond to these conditions and how he fishes his soft hackles in this type of water....gotta hit the bench and tie up some more PT flashbacks and might try a soft hackle or two. |
2. | CFFC - New River Smallie Float - June 23, 2007 |
Drove up to meet the CFF group float, meet rodwrapper, oldman, disco, ODG3, ZZDruid for the 6 mile float from the 221 bridge down to little Egypt (Nile Road). I fished a Todd's wiggle minnow (tiger) pattern and caught a few, being stubborn by nature i continued to fish this fly. Even though I knew after a while I should have switched... Oldman was fishing mostly hardware and landed the most fish... followed closely by Disco, who caught a couple of real nice ones. I didn't catch that many or any worthy of breaking out the cellphone camera..... Here's a pic on one of Disco's better fish. Ralph's got a picture of the bigger one.. |
1. | Smith River Cook-out - June 16, 2007 |
A lot of good folks turned out for the 2nd annual Smith River TU Picnic. Ben, Firestick, L.M. ODG3, Al, PHG, along with many others shared the river and some good food too. I arrived a couple of hours late and ended up fishing the Special Regs section. There were a couple of cars parked and the mirror plant and I headed down below the trestle pool. As I was rigging up the rod I noticed a couple of risers and put on a CDC emerger. But some sloppy casting put those two down. I moved across the stream and into a good casting position for the water upstream and I caught a couple on the emerger. I saw a few caddis coming off and the trout were chasing them down as they skittered across the water. I changed flies and tried to skate my fly across the water to entice the trout, but they didn't like my action. I saw a few sulfurs coming off so I switched flies and that was the ticket. They were all over that parachute sulfur. I worked the run from tail to head and caught well over a dozen from 40 yards of water! Then the crew from below caught up and passed through on river right. L.M., Ben, Firestick and one more walked around me back cast. It was a while before I caught another trout. |