We got a lot of rain in the last two days, and it even snowed Sunday morning. That was unexpected. I got to fish on Saturday, and after last weekend’s little “hike”, I was going to stay a little closer to main thoroughfares of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and try to get rid of the skunking the last couple of trips out.
So I started on a main stream and the weather was great, cloudy and light rain all day. I’ve had great days fishing in the rain before. My brother in law and I once passed one fly ride back and forth on my Canadian home waters one rainy summer day. We literally threw one cast, one brook trout, hand the rod off, one cast, one trout. It was phenomenal. We got a limit of trout and got a great memory.
I didn’t get any fish on that stream, and lost a few nymphs and about 30 feet of leader and tippet. I was getting worried, and not seeing any Quills coming off the water, started to smell that skunk again.
Sometimes you get stuck on a stream not producing, and you stay. Sometimes you get a feeling like you should go somewhere else, and you’re torn, and stubborn. I had the feeling of going to a nearby stream, kept debating and working up stream and then finally decided to move on.
The next stream just felt better when I got there. No one else was fishing and this one gets some pressure when more people start filling the campgrounds. I started to see a few bugs coming out, and switched to an emerger pattern that is quickly becoming my “go to” fly. It turned into a killer fly this past fall in Maine and made my trip, and it made my day. A nice 7″ brown trout took the emerger behind a rock in the slow eddy. A 8-9″ rainbow took the emerger at the base of a small falls, where they usually are. Two out of Three of the Smokies Slam. Not bad.
The skunk is dead! And another great fishing day in the smokies. The spring is starting to pick up and I’m starting to get ready for a big week of fishing starting in about 5 days! More to come on that later.
Thanks for reading!
smokymountainflyfishing 
yay!