Rain delayed soccer games prevented me from arriving at the PFF v. 23 at the usual start date, but after my daughter’s last game of the season I booked over the blue ridge to Shady Valley to join the crew. I pulled in to the field around 3 and after sharing a beer and catching up with the latest fishing reports I pitched my tent and then headed out to find some water to fish. The TVA was up to its usual tricks, so I had to wait for the falling water on the SoHo.
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loginThe fishermen were stacked up in the river, I counted 15 from where I stood. I was hoping for a spinner fall but that didn’t happen. There were a few risers and I targeted them, picking off two fish before they stopped rising all together. I got low holed and felt too crowed so I quite, perhaps I should have waited it out but I didn’t want to miss dinner at the camp.
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loginGood times around the fire and good cheers with old friends. Some of ya’ll stayed up way too late! Jis sayin’, Carter, Kyle, Shane and the boys from Ohio are the usual suspects!
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loginI got up while the coffee was brewing and headed out after two cups. I went back to the SoHo, my favorite hole was already occupied so I drove on down the river and found a stretch to fish. I had a nice area to myself, a flat, followed by a long glide which flowed into a deep fast pool the emptied into some choice pocket water that flowed into a fast run and long wide riffle which emptied into a deep pool and ended in another flat!
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loginI rigged up with a pheasant tail and a mercury midge dropper. The action was almost nonstop! The rainbows were especially aerobatic with leaps followed but strong runs. The bronws held deep and dogged, occasionally thrashing the surface. I lost three good fish in a row! One was almost to the net, another ran back at me, jumped high into the air and spit the hook, the third one got down into some didymo and came unbuttoned.
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loginLater I switched to a scud pattern and that triggered many more catches, at one point I caught five fish in four cast! Now you may be asking, how in the hell did he do that? Well, as I was releasing the first fish, my fly was trailing in the water and a little rainbow came up and smacked it!
I was catching rainbows 4 to 1 over the browns. I stayed there until I needed a break at 1:30, I headed to the Sunday buffet at Webb’s for a great chow down! Great food, waders welcome, I like that!
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loginBack on the river I went to another favorite run, where I found a few good fish, one big brown, which I though was firmly hooked, lead me all over the river, up and down the run and then it blasted out of the water, did a complete summersault and spit the hook, that fish would have easily measure 24” .
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loginI was walking down the road to another spot when Rhody drove by and stopped to invite me to float the 4 o’clock release. After having a beer at Juddy’s, we put in at the bridge and floated on down the river. Rhody hooked up first with a nice brown, I took me a while to get into them. There weren’t many bugs and we didn’t see any risers until we got down to the lower part of our run. There the sulphurs were sailing down the river and the browns were taking them on the surface. There were just at or just beyond my casting/mending ability but Rhody stuck a few. I managed to get one that was rising a bit closer behind the boat. Weather stated to move in, but appeared to be staying to the south of us and we continued to cast to the risers. Then the wind whipped up and we knew it was time to head to the takeout! Before the anchor was up the rain pelted us. Despite the 30 knot wind blowing upstream, Rhody managed to make some headway and we were at the takeout in about fifteen minutes. The rain let up a little. Was glad I had some dry clothes for the drive home!
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loginDouble rainbow, freakin’ awesome dude!
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login150 miles of thunerstorms to get home!
thanks to all the strawbosses, the cooks and the rest of the crew for a good time!
