East Tennessee Fly Fishing

We in E.TN are really blessed with some fantastic rivers for Fly Fishing.  The main problem for me, like so many others, is that there are indeed so many great locations.  Like most parents, we're often busy with other life necessities that we cannot often make time to visit each of these locations.  I've been lucky enough to get to fish almost all of our tailwaters and and a decent number of mountain streams. 

Are there other areas which are as "River Abundant" as we are E. TN?

From my house in Clinton, TN:

Clinch River (Norris Dam) - 8 minutes, 5 miles
Great Smoky Mountains National Park - 1 hour, 54 miles
Holston River (Cherokee Dam) - 1 hour 15 minutes, 55 miles
Little Pigeon River - 1 hour 30 minutes, 64 miles
Hiwassee River - 1 hour 50 minutes, 97 miles

Caney Fork River - 2 hours 11 minutes, 121 miles
Watagua River - 2 hours, 132 miles
South Holston River - 2 hours, 137 miles

This list is obviously missing a few other opportunities, but just thinking about this made me realize we have so many awesome resources!

One of my favorite stretches on the Clinch River

 

Clinch River (June 2017)

Tough Conditions, Tough Day

I had big aspirations for last Saturday.  This was going to be a major outing being Father's Day weekend and all.  Mother nature had other plans as usual.  The forecast was calling for 80% chance of rain and scattered thunderstorms, but that didn't scare us off because we were determined for an awesome day on the Clinch River.  Although it never really did rain all that much, the winds were up around 20-30 mph constantly.  We were also surprised to find out that the fish were really down and not as aggressive as they have been for the past several weeks.
One high point was that my buddy Rodney was able to break in his brand new Orvis Helios 2.  Needless to say, he's pretty stoked about his new rod!

1st Fish on the HELIOS 2!

Clinch River Fishing Report

I have been asked a couple times lately about the current fishing conditions on my home river --> Clinch River below Norris Dam.
This past couple of months have been really great.  Most fly fisherman I speak to fairly regular are catching good numbers of fish and also some good quality fish.  We've had a pretty decent sulphur hatch this year, but like most years on the Clinch is really difficult to figure out from time to time.  I was able to fish a handful of quality hatches on the lower end of the river over the past few weeks.  Of those trips, only one day was I able to really feel confident in my abilities to catch fish on a dry.  I don't know if it was the flies I tied up or just that the fish were over aggressive that day, but it's sure a lot of fun when you can cast to rising fish and acutally get them to take your fly.  I recently read a great article about the Clinch River sulphur hatches and the complexity of our picky trout.  I had never visited this site/blog and I don't personally know the author, but his name is Carter Lyles.  The article can be found ------> The Technicality of the Clinch River Sulphur Hatch This article is extremely well written and was insightful.  I learned a lot from reading it whether its true or not you can decide that yourself.

I recently fished the upper end of the Clinch.  I hadn't fished up there in quite some time.  For the past several years I have tended to focus on the upper end during the fall and winter months.  I was curious to see how the fishing was up there and I had a small window of 2 hours that I was able to get out and fish.  I caught six fish within the two hours, but all fish were really great quality.  

Clinch River - May 31

Clinch River - May 25

FISH ON!

Sage ONE flexing its 5wt muscle

Brodin Nets

Clinch River Report - April 25th

Photo report from April 25th. We fished the middle portion of the Clinch. 

#16 bhpt was the ticket. After all the heavy flows for weeks all fish were strong and healthy.