Holston Float 5/14

[flydoc]

After getting some great advice from the board we took the canoe to the Holston 5/14 and floated from Indian Cave to Nance's. Beautiful stretch of river. Started fishing a double-nymph rig (size 16 and 18 BHPT). Hooked a few, but a bit slow. Caddis flies started coming off like crazy. I was too lazy to switch out my rig and stuck with the nymphs. Finally l I couldn't resist casting to the risers that were everywhere. Switched out to a dark EHC. Immediately caught two casting to specific risers. By the time I switched, though, the hatch ended and the risers disappeared. Lesson learned.

Spent a lot of time before lunch stopping at promising water and wading. Caught a fair number of fish. Even caught a few smallmouth. Most fish in the 12" range, up to 14". Didn't catch any big ones. Guys with us that were using spoons and spinners were very effective. Stopped for lunch and looked at the satellite map on the cell phone and realized we hadn't covered much water so had to step it up a bit for the afternoon.

Continued to catch fish, but didn't seem to be as much quality water on the lower half of the trip. Lots of deep, slow water. Trolling motor was a lifesaver. Wind kicked up and would have been a long, slow paddle without the motor. Spent a long time in the fast water right above Nance's and actually had our best fishing of the day there. Lots of fish on Buggers in the fast water.

Overall a great trip. Weather held up for us with only a few brief showers. Nobody got dunked. Decent number of fish. Not spectacular. Biggest fish about 14".

[pineman19]

Glad you had a good trip flydoc. It's been a fun last two weeks on the Holston fishing the caddis hatch. I'm limited to just wading since I don't have a boat. I imagine the smallie action is just heating up with the water temps getting around 60 degrees.

Neal

[Corbo]

Thanks for sharing your trip with us.

[glecleir]

I was on the trip with flydoc. We really had a great time. IMO the Holston is a great Do-It-Yourself float option. The trolling motor was a huge lifesaver. In the areas with exceptionally slow current I hooked my tandem kayak to the back of the canoe with the trolling motor and away we went! I would guess there was 2-3 MILES of flat water that would have been pretty tiring to paddle thru (especially considering the wind!).

Other lessons learned:
1) If there is a submerged stump or rock, I will hit it in my kayak.
2) The Holston river is pretty chilly to wet wade in May.
3) The Indian Cave Boat ramp is brutally steep and rife with ditches... I wouldn't use my truck on it.
4) Spinners can be VERY effective, but the fly fishers in our group held our own.
5) I caught many trout on nymphs in areas I didn't think would hold trout (very slow moving water)

Thanks to LRO and everyone on this board for the valuable info that is found here. Without y'all our trip probably wouldn't have happened.