30 Oct. 2011
Today I found some time to head out to the river, if you look on the forum you can see a few flies I tied for the South Holston River. Probably should have placed it in the fly fishing area, but it was river specific. Anyway, fresh flies, sun out, and time, fly fishing here I come. When I arrive, I have the green weenie already attached so fish it, within about 5 minutes I have a little rainbow. I get it up to me, try to net it for the photo op and it gets off. Catch and release is the order for the day, however, I did want a photo, so add one to the above fish.
The little bow must have went and told the others not the hit the ugly green thing, cause it ceased. There were breaks on the sulfur all around me, I had just tied one so I put it on the line and off I go. When I see the fly on the water, I wished I would have tied an 18 instead of this 16, but I get one. As the hatch is coming off, I miss a couple more, then there is a cease to the hatch.
Switching is in order so I tie on a pheasant tail with a midge following. First cast boom, it is nailed and I haul it into the net. This was interesting, the pheasant tail caught the fish, and the midge caught the net. After photo, I take forceps, that’s right my-father-in-law gave me an extra one that he had, I grab the nymph, tear it up terribly, and release trout. I spend the next few minutes getting midge out of the net, I love the size 22 and decide to try the ripped up pheasant tail. No more hits, I switch.
I try a BWO because I had tied one, there was nothing that even came up to laugh at it so I went back to green weenie. My thinking here was, trout have a short memory. Now I have no data to support that theory, but for some reason I like to fish this thing. As you can see in the last photo, I caught one more, but I missed quite a few others. We leave and I am thinking, it was a good day, but I am uncertain how the winter will be with my waders and the gaping hole that gets my feet soaked in water. Oh well, it will give me something to write about, God bless and good fishing to you.
23 Oct 2011
This weekend has been a shut in for a few reasons, but the leaves were up, went to church, ate lunch and the batteries were charged, so I headed to Misty Waters Boat Ramp. Immediately I set out to throwing the cast net, threw and threw, saw one flip went over and threw and threw and I could bore you to death with all the conditioning that I received from my cast throwing activity, however, let me make this pretty short.
Right outside the boat ramp at around 2:30, I caught no bait. Headed over to Candy Creek, and caught no bait, came back and went down the left coming out of the ramp and caught, you guessed it, no bait. Then headed back to my first place of casting. There I finally hauled in the massive bait. So what were my learnings. Well, I am not all that good with a cast net. Also, I am going to be able to improve my mending skills due to the enormous tear that is now in my cast net. It is huge, bigger than the first and I have no idea if I can mend it or not. By the way, it does effect how the net performs in the hands of an amateur.
However, I did get to enjoy some good conversation with a gentleman that was having as much good fortune as I was at bait catching. So all in all pretty good, I made a friend, had good conversation adn got to be outside. So this left me about an hour to fish. I put on the shad I caught, see photo for a reference to this monster shad. He survived that hour so I let him go.
I did throw a bitsy tube because it was on my line, and did not do too well with that one either. One could say that I was skunked, however, I did catch a 3 ounce largemouth bass in the cast net. And for proof, I did catch that gizzard shad you see above. I may have ruined a net, not caught anything worth discussing, but I did get on the water, and met a fisherman along the way. So the fishing report for Boone from my perspective is, get out there, I saw a lot of fish in the finder around point 7, saw a few stripers hit the top water out there also. Just let me know where to find the bait. God bless and good fishing.
16 Oct. 2011
Had a little bit of time available this afternoon, so I headed to the SOHO. When I got to the dam I looked down stream while crossing the bridge and someone was where I was planning on going, so I just stayed at the grates. Now while fishing here I ran into something I found interesting. First the green weenie was completely ignored by the trout, not a real shocker, but disappointing. I put on a sulfur, a hatch was coming off, and I got a total of 9 hits. Now when I say hits I mean that 9 trout came up to the fly, sunk the fly, but I never felt them on the hook, when I pulled it or if I did not. I thought perhaps they were playing with it. After all this teasing I figured I would head down stream.
Starting walking and I found all the people that had used the parking lot. I finally found a spot and began fishing. I got one hit here, or the moss got me and after a while I figured I just got skunked again and started walking back. As I got back to the green weenie honey hole, no one was there. This is where I sprang into action. Put the green guy on the line, waded into the water and thought, the action is going to be so intense, I probably should have stretched. I began to fish then thought, I could have been on my way home by now.
As reality of no fish is setting in, bam, I get bit, the hook is set and as you can tell from the photo above, victory belong to me. I fish a bit longer and another hit, pull it in, take the photo and say my it is on like Donkey Kong. I begin fishing the faster water, get a bite or two and focus on catching this one. I get a hit, hook is set and it is large. I have a 6x on the line and don’t want to fight too hard. It moves from left to right then back but does not leave the fast water. After about 20 seconds, the hook releases and I am empty, victory to the trout.
I leave shortly after, due to realizing all of you anxious readers chomping at the bit for a journal update, satisfied at a good day fishing. One of the trout left the water 3 times during the fight, it was a blast. Now if anyone has a helpful hint for my 9 hits with nothing to show for it, please go to the forum and let me know. Anyway it was good fishing, and God bless you.
09 Oct. 2011
The thrill of yesterday with the remaining minutes of the morning, my two minute drill with the new Green Weenie fly that I had tied left a desire in me that I wanted to hit the river again. The thinking was that if I had only stayed another 20 minutes yesterday, probably would have gotten a very large trout. So after church, food, and a few things that I wanted to do, made a phone call and off we go.
Of course the wonder fly was on there and I began using it first. After a while of casting this I decide to move down stream. My thinking was using my new wonder fly, there was obviously no fish here or they would have never been able to resist the fly. I head down stream to a tight spot, but deep. Have caught a few here before and could see some really nice trout in the water. After a while with the green one, I decide to switch to the same fly design, but in the color brown.
So I go to sit on a rock, move my net and somehow the forceps fly off and land in the water, deep water. So I take the rod tip, with my line, feel the tip of the rod hit the forceps, pull the fly line trying to trap it and boom, it slips between tow rock to never be seen again. I head back up to the spot after fishing the brown one, and pulling out a bunch of leaves. I end up using pheasant tail, sulfur, blue-wing, and some other stuff that have yet to be discovered.
During all this I notice a knot in my line. I cut off the fly, cannot remove the knot, so I pull thinking my braided leader would be fine, however, I did not realize my own strength. I break my 10 year old braided leader, I use up my last bit of 6X, I lose my forceps, I knot my line twice that was not repairable without cutting, but with all of this, I do think I got one real hit. I say one cause I caught so many leaves that Boone Lake will be fine for a few days.
With all the challenges that took place today, there were some bright spots. The weather was fantastic, the place was beautiful. It was peaceful and good times were had. So for a fishing report, look at Randy Ratliff on the South Holston River and let me just say, God bless and good fishing.
08 Oct. 2011
It’s Saturday and we are 8 days into the month, haven’t been fishing yet. Went the last day of September, starting to get dark a little early so I haven’t gone after work. Wanted to be home by 11 this morning so the night before did some considering. Would have to get up pre-dawn if I went to the lake. Drag everything out, spend a significant amount of time catching bait, then hope to catch one. Or I could hit the river and sleep in somewhat. As you can tell by the photographs, sleeping in was the choice. Reason being I get up at 4:45 M-F and just wanted to get more than my typical 5 hours.
So I get up go through morning routine and head to the river. When I get there, I notice I have a popper on my line. Can’t remember why I attempted that, I think it was late at the lake looking for bluegill. So I took it off and tied on a Tellico. Begin wading, cast out line and get a good hit while wading. Missed the fish and used this for about 20 minutes. Nothing, fish all around me and I am catching nothing. Considered going to a midge but would have to tie on some line also, so went with a never used Pheasant Tail.
I got me some hits with this one. I fish it a while then head to go back up river. As I get to closer to the bank I begin to fish it. I miss about three trout with this, they are hitting it but only slightly. I fish it for about 30 minutes then jump to a new bait. When going to Gatlinburg I had tied up a Green Weenie, it was rather simple to tie and thought, why not give it a whirl.
It is 10:06 and I begin to tie it on the line. Make a cast and the fish just about takes the rod out of my hand, pull it in and that is the first photo. I am think wow, first or second cast and I get one. Make a couple more cast and boom, I catch photo number 2. I hook one more but did not get a photo, got off before it got to me. Let me interject here that taking a photo alone while fishing when you have forgotten your net and there are no rocks to lay the fish on, is not that easy. Anyway a few more cast and I get another one.
The interesting thing is that I was getting a bite about every 4th or 5th cast. The bites I was getting were not like the other bites, these fish wanted this thing and wanted it bad. I am going to include a photo of it below. First time I had tried it but it won’t be the last. I also have some brown chennelle (s0rry about the spelling) I am goign to try a brown one next time. Hope this helped, God bless and good fishing. 
