Long weekend on the Soho TR

[Jfey]

Left last Thursday an noon to meet my buddies Jay and Darrell along with 3 of his friends from WV at a house on the Soho.  Jay, Darrell and I were there for fish and booze, the others were just there to booze.  It makes for a fun trip of late nights and fuzzy mornings.

Driving in from Charlotte, I couldn't resist hitting up a small stream on my way into E Tenn.  Since I had all my gear in the car, I didn't want to get to far away from the car, but did manage to start out the weekend nicely



Including this hoss of a hornyhead

Jay and Darrell had been there since Wed morning and they were quick to show me what I missed...fuggers



Outside of those fish, the fishing had been slow for them though so I wasn't too pissed about missing out

Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning was pretty outstanding.  Mostly midges in the morning until late afternoon with some sporadic dry fly action.  There was usually a bit of a lull between late afternoon until dusk.  This time was filled in with streamers, stogies and whiskey.  Right before dusk the feesh started getting active again with some tiny bwo's and a handful of sulphurs fluttering around.  We fished a bunch of sections and they were all good.  Each day was a little bit different, but once you got dialed in it was on.  Bringing the vice and tying at night was a huge help.  Most of the flies I tied last weekend were what ended up working.   Here's a photo dump of the weekend:













Jay hooked up


Having the house on the water was a nice touch.  Ending each day with a whiskey and a cuban was even better:



I also got to try out my new boo.   I got connected with a new rod builder in Granite Falls, John Smith.  He built me a 7'6 5wt, built on a Wayne Cattanach taper.   He did an outstanding job.  Its slow action and is by far the smoothest rod I have ever cast. It took a while to get the timing, but when I did it was pretty freakin sweet.  A lot more backbone than I expected and had no trouble making any cast all weekend.  Can't say enough about John's quality and craftsmanship.  That guy knows what he's doing.  Check him out if you are interested in bamboo.



Parting shot

[Transylwader]

Awesome Jeff, way to spend the weekend prior to a birthday. You fuggers are doing it right

[AL trout bum]

I like it. What were the successful flies?

That river is something else. I hope to make it back that way soon.

[glassfisher]

Boo, bourbon, brown trout and a good stogie, it don't get no better...      cept for the Jager and red bull, who the hell mixes that shite???    The water out of the SOHO would be healthier and probably tastes better. 

[Jfey]

Thanks Mike, twas a good weekend for sure.

Regarding flies, a variety of midges down to sz 26 at times worked, sulphurs in a couple of different fashions(parachutes and comparaduns mostly) and standard bwo's down to 24 worked well.  Some midge drys had their place at times as well.  Small size 22 and 24 pheasant tails wokred well in the mornings.  It changed often and I about went through a spool of 6x.  Streamers worked ok, but most of the success was on small stuff.

[AL trout bum]

Thanks Mike, twas a good weekend for sure.

Regarding flies, a variety of midges down to sz 26 at times worked, sulphurs in a couple of different fashions(parachutes and comparaduns mostly) and standard bwo's down to 24 worked well.  Some midge drys had their place at times as well.  Small size 22 and 24 pheasant tails wokred well in the mornings.  It changed often and I about went through a spool of 6x.  Streamers worked ok, but most of the success was on small stuff.

Seems to be the case there, smaller is better. Do you use a longer leader there then you would anywhere else? I have been told you have to there. I have had luck there nymphing, but not much success with dries, not consistently anyways. My problem is seeing the damn dries once they get above sz18, and I'm only 27, but I must have shitty eye sight.

[MBB]

Glad you were able to break in that Bamboo rod in a fantastic manner.   I know it was a hoot catching those fish on your new rod.   Beautiful photographs of your trip, looks like you also had some privacy on the river which is quite rare these days.

[Woolly Bugger]

nice, there were more trouts in this TR than in all of the AR TR's with 8 boats....

but we did have a LOT more booze....

[Jfey]

There wasn't much privacy, even if the pics looked like it...there were lots of spin fishermen where we were.  I could never figure out where they were coming from, they would just pop up out of no where an low hole you.  It was all good though, since we were all catching fish.  I think you will be happy with your stick as well MBB.

Wooly, you had more turtles in your TR though.

[Holmes]

Looks like a good one...

[smithrodco]

Those are some nice looking fish JFey and mighty fine looking boo if I do say so myself. 

[blue ridge angler]

That's how it's done..

[Dougfish]

Way to slay 'em! You're a better man than me. If I have to go smaller than 20, I say fudge 'em and start chunking streamers to see if they will get pissed and run at those.