Winter weather and the TVA have been keeping me off the water, but a break came after the Polar Vortex retreated back up north. Monday was shaping up to be a warm and sunny day with plenty of time to fish after they turned off the water on the South Holston dam.
We started off the day fishing the nearby Watauga, but we had trouble finding the fish. The only ones we saw were caught by fishermen on the bridge who were tossing spawn sacks and catching browns one after the other.
Moving on over to the South Holston we found all the other fishermen in the same location and we walked up and down the river trying to find a polite space to squeeze into the river.
There were bugs in the air but the wind wasn't helping things at all and the conditions were tough. We worked the water and the few fish that rose became our targets. Only a few smaller fish were caught until we bailed and headed down stream for some action on the falling water.
Unfortunately others beat us to our destination and we were forced to fish around him. We both threw big streamers with the hoped of finding an aggressive brown trout. Nothing happening with that plan, so after the water dropped we switched over to nymphs and I caught my best fish of the day. I was hoping and expecting a lot more and bigger fish, but sometimes the river wins.
We kept on fishing, kept on hoping, until half past reason and ended up the day with an IPA.
With the weather turning bitterly cold in the coming week, it may be sometime before I get back over to fish the Tennessee tailwaters.
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