Saturday morn i got up early and headed south to the South Holston at Buller Hatchery. I parked at the dam so my meat flinging, bait fishing buddy could fish the put and take. One of the guys form the hatchery pulled in behind us, he was there to clean the grates that feed the hatchery. I seen a few fish swimming around and the dude had a bucket of trout chow in the back of his truck..So i smiled and grabbed a hand full, called my buddy over and tossed it in. Well boys the water turned white and began to boil with fish exploding out of the water like a blitz of bluefish! Dudes eyes turned to baseballs as he hurried to put his spinning gear togather....I handed him the keys to the car and took off down river. I caught several on small beadheads and midges, rolled a couple nice'uns and had a MONSTER bow come un'done after a second or two..Soon i realized the sun was going down...I figured i better head back to see if homie was still alive....And there he was, said he had been in the car for 4 hours....just watching it rain. Out of all those fish all he got was two........
Sunday i headed to the Smith down by Basset, same thing...caught a bunch on the small stuff. Also rolled a few nice ones and had one throw me off in the air...
Ohh yea i also had a big one break off down at Buller...these size 18 midges and super light flouro make it tough on a feller!
Sounds like ya'll had a nice day. 0--0
It was a pretty awsome day....I hooked several big fish, it was nuts....I was crawling around rocks, sight fishing for giant fish....and they were eating the hek out of it!
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Was the water really low? Last time i went over there I looked at the stream and left. That was back in about June, I went to the N. Fork and smallie fished. I used to fish the SF alot but been too low the last good while. I hit it with some look luck I think it was last Jan. but other than that I haven't been over there. It can be a good stream though.
STU
Its was low, you just have to sneak up on the and look for the deeper current pockets...Once you get to where the water from the hatchery come back in, the volume of the river doubles...
That stream is one of, if not THE, best freestone trout streams in VA, if not the Southeast. Like most streams this year, there was hardly any water and I think the fish population took somewhat of a hit. But, I have never seen wild trout grow like they do in that stream. And, I've never seen hatches as big, as numerous, and as varied as the South Fk in the spring. It can drive a dry fly angler mad at times.
p.s. - Did ya take a peek under the bridge while you were there?
yea....bunch of smaller ones