Gatlinburg Delayed Harvest 2/14/2006

Took Phil Rhodes out for his first flyfishing trip. Phil is an employee at the Orvis store in Sevierville. To my knowledge Phil had never caught a trout especially on a fly rod. We started the day out casting and working on his drifts. After about an hour of on stream instruction we went to a big pool that I knew held some fish. I had been out scouting prior that morning and found a nice pod of fish that I was confident would take.

South Holston River 2/13/2006

Doug Moore and myself met up with Steven Dark of Mike Adam's Flyfishing on Monday. The plan originally was to float the Watauga River, however because of high water we opted for the South Holston. The whole area had recieved a good amount of snow the night before. The snow made for a very scenic float. The down side was extremly cold temps. It didn't get above 25 degrees all day. We were constantly having to dip our rods in the water to clear ice. The fish were fairly cooperative and everyone landed a few. Midges were the ticket the majority of the day. However a few BWO's were coming off and everyone managed a couple of hookups on dries.

White and Norfork Tailwaters 2/3 -2/6/2006

This was the first big trip of the season. I took Doug Moore and local guide and fly tyer Tim Doyle. We left the Smokies Wednesday night and headed for Memphis where we had a room. Thursday morning we headed to the White River. After setting up camp they had begun generating and we did not get much fishing in. Friday morning we awoke to more Generating water so we headed over to the Norfork. We started fishing the end of the C/R area at the handicap access. Doug immeadeately started hooking up and both Timmy and I were getting bites and landing a few as well. After about an hour of fishing the water began to rise. We then called the Generation number and they had only generated for an hour. We hopped in the car and went up to the dam for some more fishing. We all caught some brookies up in the large pool directly below the dam on small midge patterns. A little farther down the rainbows came easily on pink san juan worms and egg patterns. Around two in the afternoon we headed back over to the White to fish below the Dam in the C/R area. We picked up Rainbows in the riffles right off the start. Towards evening after everyone else had cleared out. Tim and I noticed Doug with a nice fish on. He had found a good pod of feeding rainbows and had already landed a number of fish over 20 inches. One of Doug's Bows, he had picked up some before this that were larger, but we did not have a camera. Friday night Jimmy "T", Matt Tucker, Brent Hinds (Tiny), Mike Goldenberg (FiveWeight), and Brian Greer all showed up. We drank a few more beers and then they all headed out for some night fishing. During a trip to the Jon I encountered a coupe of hard core fly tyers. Yes that is a diaper changer Saturday I was striken with a case of Montezuma's Revenge and was running to the bathroom every 30 mins. By one o'clock I had gotten everything out of my system, Doug Tim and I headed up to the White River C/R area to go after some more fish. We picked up some fish in all of the riffles. Trout Crack was consistently producing fish. Towards evening Timmy and I were back at the truck and Doug got this picture. Oklahoma boy with a killer Brown Saturday night the cult went to the 178 club for dinner. Sunday they were generating on the white when we woke so we did a little drift boat fishing. Timmy's Brown from the boat Drift Boat Brown They turned off the generators around noon and we headed back up to do a little drift fishing. 25" Brown Timmy's 27" Brown Sunday night the campfire was filled with tails of big fish and the days success. John Wilson joined us and we got some casting lessons. John is one heck of caster. Some more lies were told and we all headed for the tents to dream about big fish and our next trip to the White.

North River 1/24/2006

Met up with Doug Moore from the shop early Tuesday in Maryville. The plan was for Doug to show me some of his old stomping grounds near Tellico Plains. We had recieved a good amount of rains, so all of the rivers were flowing at a very good level. We started out fishing the upper North River for brookies. Fishing was slow in the morning and the water temps were down in the low 40's. We went fishless for the first couple hours untill we came upon a plunge pool that had been getting sun all morning. We managed to land the first brookies of the season. Later we went and hit the lower section. We both managed to pick up good fish by dead drifting and swinging Mohair leeches. Bald River Falls Upper North River Frist Brookie of the year North River Brown North River Bow