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.