Sunday, July 29, 2012

Under Construction

The recent posts are incomplete. I will be adding some notes about each river. I use the pictures to update my Google earth so I need them online.

Friday, July 13, 2012

South Holston River Trout Fishing

The SOHO has some finicky trout, well at least it seemed like it from my week on the river. I am sure that the blazing hot temperatures, gin clear water, and the fact that, when water is low fish are holding at about ankle to shin deep, didn't help. The fish were super spooky and ignored anything larger than an 18. Pheasant Tails and Zebra Midges under a very discreet indicator drew the first takes and soon a variety of small unweighted nymphs trailing a very small shot were also taking fish.

Despite the fact that the river has a very large stream bred brown trout population, rainbows made up about 4/5 of the fish caught. Which was nothing to be mad about because these were some hard fighting beautiful fish. There browns I caught tended to be a little larger than the 10 to 12in bows, but again that is of the fish I was lucky enough to catch.

I say lucky because it seemed like everyone was having difficulty catching fish the way they felt they should. A friend of my told me that if I was not catching 20 to 30 fish a day than I should get a guide. I did not have a 20 fish day, but it was not due to lack of fish, there were plenty of fish, let me say that again PLENTY of fish, they were just not too cooperative.

When they ran water the river became very difficult to fish and down right dangerous to wade. This is when most people jump in the drift boats. Not only do the fish supposedly turn on, but the river raises so much its smooth sails over some otherwise rough rocky terrain. During this trip I did not get a chance to drift the river, but will not miss out next time.

It does not take long for the wade fisherman to figure out how to fish around the water releases. Water takes time to make it's way down river, so with a little planning you should have plenty of time to fish most of the places you want. The very clever angler can also time when the water will be falling and set themselves up accordingly.

All in All a Fantastic River, one of if not my first choices to fish in the east, I will be coming back ASAP. There are not only a ton of fish, there are some very, very big fish in this river.

P.S. I lost my fishing camera on this trip so I do not have any fish pictures and if anyone finds a light blue Olympus camera with my ugly mug on it keep the camera and send me the pictures!!!!!!!

altamontanglers.com - heard great things about the guide Teo
Water Release Number 1-800-238-2264 code 4-01