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.
