A Few Pics..

Just a few pictures of some great folks and some nice fish taken recently.  

 

 

April Update..

In a word..great! The Clinch river has gone from running in the trees to pretty much dead off. The Holston is on the minimum flow schedule ,which basically is one generator every five hours, so both rivers are fishable almost all the time and the fishing has been outstanding on both. No real dry fly hatches yet but we've been seeing a few sulphurs on the Clinch and there have been some caddis on the Holston which leads me to believe dry fly fishing is just around the corner.  All

the high water certainly doesnt seem to have hurt the fish any, the quality of the trout on the Clinch has been outstanding! Basically I'm just going to leave it at that and post some pictures from recent trips. It's been a great early Spring and it's not even May yet. This time last year we were just getting started! What a difference a year makes. Grab your gear and let's go!!

Carp Fishing

I have to admit, I came by my appreciation for the carp slowly.  Time was I considered the homely carp nothing but a trash fish..about as attractive to a trout river as an old refrigerator. Even when one would inadvertently eat a nymph and put up a battle to be remembered I would do my best to release him without touching the fish..well.. to be fair I still do that, but with much less prejudice. Over the years and with some prodding I have come to appreciate the carp for many of it's considerable, if not obvious, qualities! First of all, they can live anywhere. Cold water, warm water, prob even no water if need be. These guys are tough. Second, they are super selective and god awful spooky! Believe me, if you can go to one of our area tailwaters and catch carp on the fly, not snag them, but actually get one to eat, you can catch tailing, cruising fish, of any kind, anywhere in the world!  They don't really like to eat flies to begin with and talking them into it can be a monumentous challenge. Occasionally when there are a bunch of June bugs or on the right year cicadas they can actually be fooled pretty easily, but most of the time dropping a fly in front of a cruising carp and have him take it requires a near perfect presentation. Making the perfect cast to a carp only to have him refuse it is something like getting rejected by the ugliest woman in the bar at two am..his looks just make it sting a little worse! For the life of me I can't figure why they are so spooky. Nothing eats them..we don't, herons don't, osprey don't, not even other fish, and yet when it comes to fleeing from any hint of danger, the carp has no equal! Even shadows or wind will spook 'em!

For angling purposes we will divide the carp into three distinct groups. Resting carp, schooling carp, and feeding carp. Again for angling purposes we can all but ignore the first two groups. Resting or schooling carp almost never eat a fly. Look for the ones up in the shallows that have the appearance of a fat kid cruising the pizza buffet, just slowly moving along, sampling this and that. Drop the fly where he's going and wait for him to get close, move it and see what he does. Most of the time he will spook or follow it a short ways and lose interest, but occasionally he will eat, then you better hang on! These guys can really haul the mail!

For flies, I have caught carp on almost everything, small streamers, dry flies, terrestrial imitations, and even bead head nymphs. But generally for cruising carp something that resembles a wooly bugger in tan or olive, preferably with some rubber legs attached in sizes 4 or 6 should work pretty well. I would suggest fairly heavy tackle as a big carp can make short work of a 4 or 5 weight. 6 to 8 weight rods seem to be best and probably a floating line, sink tips work ok, but when Mr. Carp drops off into even moderately deep water he generally stops feeding and becomes almost impossible to catch. Look for them working along shallow gravel bars adjacent to drop offs. When he's up on the gravel, chances are he's feeding.

All in all, carp are great fun! I followed a guy coming home today riding a moped..it's kinda like that. Maybe a little embarrassing but a hoot none the less. And if you are about to head out on the bone-redfish trip of a lifetime I would strongly suggest you grab your fly rod and head to one of the rivers and chase the wiley carp. I guarantee he will make you better, and probably quite a bit more humble!

St. Croix Bank Robber

  

I recently got the opportunity to test out a new rod from St Croix..the Bank Robber. Clever name. I'm pretty skeptical when it comes to rod manufacturers claims of the latest, greatest, lightest, fish catchingest tool of all time but this one caught my interest because it was designed for something that is near and dear to my heart..chunking big streamers from a drift boat. And that design, at least in part, was with input from a guy who dearly loves to do it too. Kelly Galloup. And to make things even better the price point on it looked to be within budget. Around 350.00 I believe, which is considerably less than a good number of rods out there.

While floating the Clinch recently with resident streamer fanatic Peter Petruzzi I had a chance to get his input as well as try the rod out for myself, and as a comparison we also had  along an eight weight Orvis Helios..a very nice rod but at a considerably higher price point. We were throwing sink tip 250 grain lines with some rather large articulated streamers.

The first thing I noticed was the rod was well appointed, nice cork and reel seat, fighting butt and double uplocks to keep the reel in place. Kind of an interesting gray color with darker wraps, not beautiful but functional looking, and it felt light and well balanced in your hands. But the real difference is when you cast it. The tip is very soft and tapers to a powerful butt section and it definitely gives it a unique feel with a sinking line. This rod was designed to pound banks with streamers! Pick up the fly..one false cast..and put it back down..Bam..that's how it's done, and this rod does it well! It's not a gun, and it probably wouldn't be your first choice for a bonefish or flats rod, but for chasing Mr. Brown or river smallmouth.. winging big streamers accurately at medium distance, this rod performed admirably. I like it, plain and simple, and it does what it says it was designed to do. I'm getting one and I plan to keep it in the boat rigged with a streamer for guests who would like to try it out. Peter had to give the edge to the Helios, and it is a hell of a nice rod, it's also over twice the cost! All things considered, and given my penchant for slower, softer tip rods, cost aside, I had to go with the Bank Robber. Pretty good endorsement considering what it was up against!

I'm not sure about the particulars, the one I fished was a seven weight, but I think it comes in five and six also. All the info is on the St Croix website along with modulus of graphite and so on, if you care about such things..I really don't. It casts well, feels good in the hand and does a specific job well, and you probably won't have to take out a second mortgage to afford one.  One final note..I also cast one in the parking lot at Three Rivers Angler fly shop in Knoxville with Jeremy and Alan after I had fished with Peter, it still cast nice but this rod really needs water to load the line and bring out it's finer qualities. That's where it really shines!

March Update & Gear Review

  

In between intermittent rain storms and trying to get a few modifications done to the drift boat I thought this might be a good time to update everyone on the river conditions for the end of March. It's getting better folks! Had the chance to run several trips on the Holston this week and experienced great fishing each time. TWRA seems to have stocked a good number of fish all up and down the river, and action has been great on nymphs. Although the midges are hatching in swarms..sometimes covering the side of the boat, I didn't see any caddis yet, but if temps stay warm as they have been, chances are we're getting really close. The fish are healthy and fat! Too early to really predict holdover, as it seems the really large fish don't always start to prowl until the water temps warm up a bit, which shouldn't take long given the recent schedules and warm air temperatures.

Here John Grant from Chattanooga plies the upper end of a riffle with a beadhead rig as yours truly waited in the shallows with the net, after discovering a brand new leak in his waders that just somehow appeared over the Winter..how do they do that?... While we're on that subject it makes a nice seque into a new section of the site that I'll be adding this Spring.. gear reviews!

I often get asked about new gear..if I've had a chance to check out a certain rod or reel, or new set of waders. I also get a lot of people in my boat who have recently purchased new equipment, and I get the opportunity to get their opinion on certain new items. As anyone who fishes with me often knows, I'm rough on my gear! If it has a flaw, I will find it..quickly. I don't sell anything so I don't have a dog in the hunt, except hopefully to help the readers of this site and the folks who fish with me get good stuff they'll be happy with!  Cost is always a factor in my purchases and I assume with a lot of the folks who read this site, so I'm going to try to do a good percentage of the reviews with that in mind. Obviously Sage makes great fly rods, same with Simms waders, boots, and rain coats..but damn..I can't afford 'em anymore! Not that I'm going to exclude high cost equipment, some things are darn well worth the money,  but I plan to spend some time checking out gear that is affordable to the average person on a budget as well. If it's good stuff and it saves you a buck..I'm all for it! Maybe you can afford to take an extra trip with me this season! :) If any of you have recently purchased or tested new gear and have an opinion you'd like to share, shoot me an email and I'll post it here along with mine, hopefully we can build up a pretty good data base of independent reviews for everybody!

First up in the gear review section is going to be the new Bank Robber rod from St Croix..I love to streamer fish for big trout and smallmouth and this rod was tauted as being designed by Kelly Gallup to do just that. I had a chance to fish with one recently and I'm going to start off the review section with it.

Right now the rain has stopped and I need to get my new high back seat installed in the boat, but I'm gonna crack open a beer and post the rod review this evening. Spring is here! Let's go fishing!!!