Thursday, July 24, 2014

To Johnson City, Tennessee


Cornelius Vanderbilt, dressed for the occasion...

A road trip was scheduled to Nashville, Tennessee to meet up with a group of friends renting a house. The plan was to take two days driving south before spending some time day drinking with friends and listening to copious amounts of amazing live music. Along the way we'd camp and maybe fly fish a little around the Smoky Mountains…




Approaching the Smokies and the heart of Appalachia...

Passing Johnson City, we ended up on the outskirts of the Smokies near Pisgah National Forest and the famous Davidson River. To be honest, I've been excited to fish the Davidson ever since I read about it in a fly fishing magazine when I was 13. I imagined a remote mountain stream teeming with wild trout and endless amounts of pocket water to hike and fish in total seclusion. I didn't picture a hatchery, stocked fish, thousands of campers, fishermen on every single pull off, and screaming children "trying" to float down a skinny stream in inner tubes. Shaking off the initial disappointment, I drove as far upstream as I could to the headwaters only to be rebuffed. A few spin fishermen hopped into the immediate hole above us on a stream that could be jumped across. We eventually found some solitude after some bushwhacking and a few trout as well. However, the rain came and didn't let up, forcing us off the water.





I'm not sure who was more cold at this moment in time, myself or Zoey.




The next morning, we had a few more hours of fishing before continuing on to Nashville. Thankfully, the rain stopped and after hiking upstream to avoid some tubers, we found some more seclusion. Katie was determined to catch a fish on a half and half emerger she tied so we mostly fished that. In a nice glide, I managed a good looking brown trout from under a rhododendron on her fly. We then focused on getting her to coax a fish to the emerger under bright sunny skies. Harder said than done. 


Sneak attack...






Time for a beetle pattern...


Zoey digging a bed and eating grass, possibly her two favorite things...


Getting into position...


The moment came on a small glassy pool, where a few small fish were rising sporadically. Katie took her time and carefully drifted the emerger through the pool, mistiming her hook set on a small rainbow. Persistent, she kept at it despite a few tangles. Eventually, the fish wised up and simply refused her fly over and over. It took a little convincing, but I eventually got her to swap out the emerger for a beetle pattern I knew would get hammered. On her second cast with the beetle, an 18 inch rainbow exploded off the bottom and engulfed the fly. Chaos ensued as the rainbow cleared the water by several feet. After a few tense moments things abruptly ended with 6x breaking and a whole lot of laughs and heartache.



Ahhhhh!



Nashville lived up to the hype...


On the way home, we passed the Caney Fork and promptly turned around. The Caney is another famous southern river I've read a lot about and never fished. We arrived to a packed parking lot and a major Project Healing Waters event. The river was shrouded in fog as veterans caught fish after fish. We simply watched and checked things out before continuing on our journey. The Caney will have to wait for another moment in time. However, all of the kayaks and canoes inspired us to do a little float of our own as soon as we got home. 









No comments: