The South Holston and Watauga Rivers (4.24.10)

I’m not sure why I didn’t know about this sooner.

For years now I have been making an annual trip to the Delaware River near Hancock, NY with Dad and our fishing buddies in search of big browns and rainbows. But, this weekend I found out that there are two rivers within only a two hour drive of my current home in Blacksburg, Va that share a lot of similarities to the Delaware: the South Holston and Watauga Rivers.

The similarities? Big river tailwaters, good hatches, and HARD TO CATCH big trout. After nine weeks of neuro block, time alone on any river was a welcome breath of fresh air. But the South Holston and Watauga Rivers are not just any river, and after this experience, I will undoubtedly be going back as soon as I can, and as often as I can. The drive from my place to Emmett, TN where the South Holston Fly Shop is located, is about a 2 hour drive, which makes for a very tempting day trip.

I started the day on the SoHo (as it’s called locally), which is literally 0.3 miles from the fly shop. I drove down the road a few miles, trying to find a secluded side-street entrance, and found a great spot with no other cars with relative ease. From where I parked, I followed a well-worn path 10 minutes to the awesome views you’ll find in some of the pictures. For the first 4 hours, I was the only one on the river, and during that whole time fish were rising everywhere. I was able to confuse and fool a few on Sulfur nymphs, emergers, and duns (size 16), as well as little black fly patterns (size 20-22). I only caught about 10 fish, with the biggest being about 15 inches, but to my surprise I caught one of each variety: brookies, browns, and rainbows. However, it was quickly obvious that the bigger fish, and the majority of the fish I was casting to, were not so easily tricked, and I spent a lot of my day making a few casts to sipping humpbacks, getting frustrated, tying on a new fly, making a few more casts, getting frustrated, trying a new pattern, and so on, repeating, etc. But like the Delaware, this is mostly an enticing challenge and part of the reason for the river’s awesome appeal. Around 1pm, one other fisherman found my claimed hole and introduced himself. When he told me he was from Florida and that he had been here on a fishing trip for 8 days, I knew I had found a big-time place to fish. He kindly gave me a few black fly patterns he had tied the last few nights and both of us proceeded to have a bit of luck for the next hour or so, but still I had a very difficult time hooking into many. At around 2:30, the dam opened up, and the water levels rose noticeably within a couple minutes, which killed the activity of the morning session.

Remembering that I hadn’t eaten or brought anything for lunch, I decided it was a good time to find some food and check out the Watauga River. It’s only about a 20 minute drive in between rivers, and on my way I passed the Bristol Motor Speedway, which was cool to see even though I’m not a huge Nascar fan. For the rest of the afternoon, rain came down in a light drizzle, but not enough to detract from the fishing. The difference between the Watauga, compared to the SoHo, is that for much of the immediate mileage below the dam, it is lined with housing properties and there are many big, slack, slow-moving deep pools and fewer riffles. This, I would think, may make it better fished on a float trip. Parked immediately below the dam, and was discouraged to find a few plunkers casting to rising fish in the riffles below. But the rain seemed to quickly scare them off, and I had the section to myself for the rest of the evening. Again, there were fish working all over the place, but in the few hours I was there, I managed only to catch two.

In all, my first experience on the South Holston and Watauga Rivers was great. I enjoyed the waters and seclusion of the SoHo more, but both are obviously very good rivers with lots and lots of trout. I will be going back again soon, when the Sulfur hatch starts to get serious in the late spring and summer months. Too bad this med school thing is getting in the way.

Arkansas River in Colorado Part 1

After finishing Step 1 of the USMLE (the licensing exam to become a doc in the U.S.), I needed a big change after sitting in the library for 3 months. This was the perfect opportunity to take the road trip my dad and I had been talking about for years. Randy and Richie’s excellent adventure rolled out from Virginia on April 7th and returned April 20th. We saw incredible countryside, met interesting and very welcoming people, and experienced some of the wildest tourist traps this truly amazing country has to offer. I’ll limit these next few blog posts to the fishing highlights in Colorado, but as I hinted before, the journey was just as fun as the fishing.

Dad and I stopped in Oklahoma City to pick up our friend Terry Weber. Terry is a great fishing buddy and he took a bunch of the pics you’ll see in the next few posts, so hats off to him for adding to the blog. After picking up Terry, we drove through the panhandle of Texas and northwest New Mexico en route to Colorado. It was breathtaking standing on Mount Capulin in New Mexico and watching the Great Plains sweep up into the Sangre de Cristo range of the Rockies. If you can’t tell yet, I fell completely in love with the West on this trip.

After a drive full of gawking at the still snow capped peaks of the Rockies, we pulled into Salida, CO and met up with the staff at Ark Anglers. Stefan was our point man for the entire trip, and he did an amazing job of both putting us on the fish and getting us oriented in town. I highly recommend booking guided trips through the shop; they are first class outfitters and very friendly people. I want to make sure y’all make no mistake about pronunciation when you call the shop in Salida. I automatically went for the Spanish pronunciation, but I quickly discovered that the local folks call it “Suhl-eye-duh and town just up the road is called “Boona-vista” (Buena Vista). I guess that’s about the same as us calling Staunton here in Virginia “Stan-tin”, but these things never cease to amuse me.

On the morning of the 12th, Terry and I headed out with Will, a fellow Okie and our first guide from Ark Anglers, for a 14-mile float trip on the Arkansas River from Salida to the boat ramp at Rincon. I had never floated for trout before, and fishing with Terry and Will made for an awesome trip. We started out fishing right in town and had early success on some white articulated streamers that Will ties. I looked for some in shops during the rest of the trip, but was unable to find any like them. Will, if you’re out there reading, post me the name of those flies or please tell me where I can score some. They were money! One fish chased a Will-tied streamer for a solid 10 feet. Just as an aside for Chuck Kraft, the Kreelex also worked beautifully in Colorado throughout the trip, and we handed them out like candy at every fly shop we visited.

Will also taught us a new streamer fishing technique that definitely adds more life than simply stripping in line. You can really make a streamer dance by using the rod tip to jerk the fly erratically toward you, making it seem like a distressed and enticing meal for a trout. Another thing I didn’t expect was the success we had fishing our streamers just under the surface. The fish really went wild after using the rod-jerk technique to make the fly skip the surface a little. Terry and I both agree that the best part about having a guide is LEARNING. Being put on fish is obviously fun, but learning new techniques and about the way fish feed and what they eat really adds to your repertoire as an angler. Thank you again for an awesome float, Will.

We ended up catching about half browns and half rainbows that first day. Most of the rainbows came after we switched to a two fly nymph rig with an indicator. I am a new believer in using indicators after this trip. Waiting for that thing-a-ma-bobber stop dead in its tracks or jump a few feet really puts you on edge. It also doesn’t hurt when it results in a tail dance by a fat rainbow covered in spots and stripes. That reminds me, we didn’t catch a fish under 10 inches the entire trip, and an average brown in the Arkansas from what I can tell is probably 14 inches. Every single fish we caught had vibrant color and they were all much harder fighters than the fish back East. I think that’s about enough for now.

Check back soon to read about more adventures in Colorado and some other very helpful techniques I learned out West.

I Will Catch a Carp on the Fly This Year

Just saw this awesome video over at one of my favorite local blogs, Mike's Catch Report.  I don't know if it's the music, the ridiculously huge carp taking flies off of the surface, or the sick casts that this guy pulls off, but it has reinforced my determination to catch a carp this year on the fly.  Fortunately for us here in Charlottesville, there are numerous places we can go to try and make it happen.



In other news, not much fishing going on for me these next two weeks as I still have a ways to go before I take my board exam.  As for the others: Rich will soon be departing for a ridiculously awesome trip, Kyle truly is making the catch of a lifetime, and I suspect that Scott has a post coming up soon about his recent trip down in southwest Virginia.

If you are curious, the reports from around the area have been that the fishing is good and that the water levels are finally starting to calm down.  With all of this beautiful weather we're having, I suspect there will be some perfect opportunities to see some great hatches going on.