Spooky Season

[Sedition and Pockets]

I hate October.  I hate the dead leaves everywhere.  I hate the guttering sunlight.  I hate the tourists clogging the roads to gawk at the corpse of summer draped over the bones of the rocks.

I also hate that I always seem to be too slammed fuckin busy, just too sad, or too caught up in the aftermath of a hurricane to time it up and take advantage of fall trout fishing.  So, this summer, at a time when seasonal depression had yet to rob me of the ability to make plans, I booked a couple days of streamer floats in East Tennessee on the theory that, having already put money down, no amount of melancholy was going to stop me from simply going through that which was already set in motion.  It was a bold strategy, Cotton, and it paid off for me. 

After a dry late summer and start to the fall season, we finally got a good bit of rain over the weekend.  Driving back home through some of the wet stuff, I decided to take a quick detour and run a streamer pass through a few holes that have produced for me over the years.  I only had about an hour to play with, and no rain shell or waders, but I figured I could always bail if I got to cold.  After banging a few casts and striking out in my first spot, I decided to run a few through a flat I usually skirt on my way to greener pastures.  In the elevated, stained water, it looked just a tad bit more juicy than usual.  Bang!

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It turns out that standing in 50 degree water under 50 degree rain is, in fact, fucking cold, do after watching him swim away, I hopped back in the truck, cranked the heat, and headed home. 

The morning before my trip I got a phonecall from the guide, and my heart sank.  No worries, turns out there was a cancellation that morning, so by the time I hung up the, I was the throwing some extra clothes in a bag and headed for ramp to start my now three day trip.  The timing was excellent, I avoided the morning commute traffic, but still had plenty of time to get to the river before the pulse hit.

That first day was weird and tough.  The only consistent weather factor through the day was a cold west wind blowing straight up the river channel, and constantly changing light made it more challenging to play a sophisticated, visual streamer game.  When the sky closed in for more than 10 minutes at a time, the bite turned on, only to shut down immediately when the sun broke through again, which made it tough to get into a rhythm.  I was able to move a ton of big fish, but struggled to feed them.  I farmed three I did feed, while bringing a handful of 14-17" browns to the net.  Finally, late in the afternoon I managed to come tight and stay tight to a blob of a lake runner that was more in the size class of fish I was hoping to connect with.

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Day 2 brought colder temps and a colder wind.  It also brought socked in overcast that made consistently seeing down into the water much easier, and fish that were ready for a killing spree.  After farming an absolutely whale of a still chromed out laker brown no less than three times, I brought my first bigger resident to the boat. 

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The 14-17" browns continued to come relentlessly, with an occasional break to whiff on a real stud, or stick a slightly better one.

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Just before lunch, we slid down into a long deep flat.  Stripping across mid-river humps and buckets, I rolled three dogs, but still failed to connect.  Finally, a fourth big fish charged in this time I stuck the piss out him.  The fish jumped and sharked across the surface before settling into his gator rolls.  As he bucked and rolled, three ghostly blue-gray shapes slowly elevated, tracking the fight from below.  30 pound class stripers.  I don't know whether they were seriously contemplating taking a swing at a two foot brown, or if they just wanted to steal his lunch money, but they were still hanging there, watching, when he slid into the net.  Removing the fish from the net, I immediately fumbled him over the side like a rank googan.  I blame striper fever.  I did manage to pop another decent river fish and even hold it up.

Alas, the butterfingers returned just in time for lunch, as I grabbed the sub I packed upside down in its stupid little brown paper condom, and my meatball sub went floating down the river.  After a somewhat comical chase, I was able to rescue my (now maybe a little soggy) sandwich, while refusing to look the guide in the eye.  Fuck.

Near the end of the float, we slipped into a back braid.  "My nemesis lives here," was all John said.  I cast into a current break behind a bankside log jam.  A huge flash of orange knuckled through the water and I came tight.  The fish charged downstream furiously shaking his head before doing a somersault that wrapped him in the leader.  There he lay patiently until the current unwrapped him.  By that time, John had slid the boat below the fish, and he wasn't able to get anything else going before I could lift him into the net.  Not the biggest brown I've ever caught, but no slouch in the poundage department, and definitely the gnarliest old buck I've ever landed.

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Day 3 brought more hot and bothered meat eaters, but also rolled back the schizophrenic weather from the first day.  Early in the day, we saw John's boy had his dude bent on a dog.  I felt it was necessary to defend his honor, slung my streamer in under an overhanging sycamore and was rewarded with a violently pissed egg wagon laker.  We kept the fish in the net and slid down the river to see what the boys below us had gotten into.  They had a gorgeous resident buck in the net.  I talked with the sport for a minute.  He said he'd come into town the night before and he was now 15 minutes into his first Holston float and we were looking at his pb in the net.  Fuck you dude, mine's bigger.

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The pattern from first day continued.  Constant activity under dark skies, lulls when the sun broke through. I closed the trip with one last quality brown shortly before we pulled into the ramp.

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Cheers y'all!

Dylar

[Woolly Bugger]

Damn Dylar

[Big J]

Dang. Those are some hogs

[Sedition and Pockets]

I will say it is truly bizarre to end a trip with a 3:1 ratio of >2' browns to stockroaches

[Fishbug]

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