D&H: Smoky Mountains Fishing Trip

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Smoky Mountains Fishing Trip

One of our former employees, Fj Crane, is getting married soon so we put together a "bachelor party" of sorts and headed down to Tennessee to fish for a few days. We used Townsend, TN as our base of operations. Townsend is a quaint little community right on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Townsend has a great fly shop (Little River Anglers), motels, grocery store, and few good restaurants to relax in after a long day fishing. We stayed in a nice little motel called Riverstone Lodge. Our goal was to spend the majority of our time fishing the headwater streams that take a bit of a hike to get to and receive less fishing pressure than the larger streams down in the valley.

These small mountain streams hold large numbers of native Brook trout. They aren't big but they readily hit dry flies and can be extremely colorful. We fished a bunch of Parachute Adams, Royal Wulffs, and Patriots.

I've heard people compare this area to a rainforest. After this trip, I can see it. The flora and fauna are different of course, but there are so many different animals and plants up there.When you look up from the creek and notice the banks covered in Rhodendron and towering trees above that, you get it.

These guys were huge.

We caught many fish and learned some new skills. Everyone felt a little beat up after 4 days of fishing steep, boulder-strewn streams, but it was a great time. I fished my Sage Accel 8'6" #4 and my old T&T 9' #3. Both rods did a great job and were a pleasure to fish.