December 20 on the river!

[Woolly Bugger]

I drove over to the South Holston this afternoon to avoid the long drive at 4 am and get in a few hours of stream time. I settled into a favorite run and caught a couple of nice trout on the bwo pattern. There weren't any bugs in the air so all of my efforts were subsurface.  Two guys downstream pulled out when it started raining and the wind started blowing hard. Not sure why the quite with still an hour of daylight. I moved on down and hooked a couple of nice fish but they spit the hook.  Then, at the end of the drift I hooked a decent brown that put a good bend in the Limestone bamboo rod. The fish fought like a demon and the water boiled all around it. I was using a modified  long dry fly leader and after a couple of aborted netting attempts I realized the I was going to have to pull the end of the line through the last guide. Now this is a good was to lose a fish or bread a rod, but I was lucky and the fish was netted on the net try.













The wind was really kicking up now and casting and drifting the flies became a problem. I rat nested the flies and split shot twice and wasted valuable daylight untangling the 5x tippit I continued to catch both browns and rainbows and fished until it was too dark to see. All the fish came on the bow which was dropped off of a rabbit's foot emerger. I plan to be back in the morning for some more awesome winter fishing on the river.

[glassfisher]

Nice fishies WB, I'm jealous.  I'm visiting the in-laws on the coast and everyone is in the other room watching that flippin "Mamma Mia" movie.     TGFG.... thank God for gin.  I've not had any problems getting the leader knot into the guides while fighting as long as I use a nail knot and cover it with zap-a-gap to make it nice and smoooooth.  Speakin of smooth I need a refill on the my G&T.   ;hb

[benflyfishn]

Awesome brown!!! What colors! ;hb Total suck! 0--0

[flyman]

Look at that big ol gator head and teeth on that Brown  0--0 Yea you suck big time

[Mstash]

Good deal for getting to go fish
But you Suck for going back today.
Stay till tomorrow when it a warm 26deg.

Mstash

[Woolly Bugger]

Good deal for getting to go fish
But you Suck for going back today.
Stay till tomorrow when it a warm 26deg.

Mstash

It isn't going to be a picnic today! Temps falling all day with snow in the forecast... and winds up to 18 mph....

[flyfish_va]

awsome fish woolly

[Fire-Fly]

Hey i'll take winds and cold temps over working. Nice day you had woolly, hope tomorrow is good for you.

[9ft4wt]

WB:

you are da man, but you still suck

9ft4wt

[Maxfly]

Good looking fish WB.  0--0  Ya the fish don't mine if it's raining or not they are already wet.  Some of my best fishing was when it was raining. ;hb

[Bassasaurus Rex]

Nice Brown WB!
I love those rains

[BASSET_HOUND]

What type of nymph did you use to catch the big brown?

[Woolly Bugger]

What type of nymph did you use to catch the big brown?

a #18 super secret BWO pattern......