Labor Day Weekend Report (lots of pics)

[jeffnles1]

Hi all,
My son and I just returned from a three day weekend fishing in the Smokeys.

We did pretty well, had a great time and even caught a coule fish. There was an extreme tuber hatch going on this weekend and even some bikini hatches in the midst of the vinyl. Most of them were around the Y and on the lower elevation streams where we were not going to fish anyway. My son said he counted 3 bajillion tubers. I couldn't count that high, but won't argue with his estimate.

We took a few pictures and I'll post thumbnails below. Click on the thumbnail and see the full size image.

If any of you all saw a goofey looking guy with his 12 year old son, that was us. I was driving a red Pontiac G6 2 door, that was us. We made a couple trips into LRO over the weekend for supplies. We went out and test cast a couple nice rods with Daniel from the shop (He has a good name, Daniel is my boy's name too). I have a birthday coming up and I know what I want now! The Winston B IIt in 3wt was a winner...

Oh, the fish count? Well, we ended up with 18 betweent the two of us for the weekend. Nothing big, the biggest was about 6" and most were in the 3-5 inch range with a couple "micro trout" that I wonder how they fit the fly in their mouths. I only took photos of a couple fish as I didn't want to stress them any more than needed.

The water was cold and flowing well up higher.

Here are the photos.
If this works, this is a video Danny shot of my casting "technique". I was trying to get up under a tree overhanging the bank. click on it and the video window should pop up.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/jeffnles1/fishing/th_HPIM0100.jpg (http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/jeffnles1/fishing/?action=view&current=HPIM0100.flv)

this is one of the micro trout
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/jeffnles1/fishing/HPIM0122.jpg

I'm not sure what kind of chub this is but it sure was pretty
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/jeffnles1/fishing/HPIM0099.jpg

This is Danny looking at a cluster of butterflies that were sitting on a rock. These butterflies were EVERYWHERE this weekend.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/jeffnles1/fishing/HPIM0067.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/jeffnles1/fishing/HPIM0068.jpg

This is a pretty average size fish we caught
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/jeffnles1/fishing/HPIM0065.jpg

We fished up behind the Chimney's picnic area. What a boulder field. Tough going but we did catch a couple fish. Some very nice looking plunge and pocket water. Very pretty.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/jeffnles1/fishing/HPIM0084.jpg

You guys who fish little river a lot probably know this one. That is some good water coming from the spring.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/jeffnles1/fishing/HPIM0124.jpg

Thanks for looking.

Jeff

[ijsouth]

Those butterflies have been around all summer - we saw a blizzard of them at Cataloochee in July, and in August, one lached on to my hat and stayed there (according to my daughter), for several minutes, even as I scrambled over rocks and around pools. Very pretty, and that water in the West Prong looks good as well.

[Bran]

Very nice pics, glad you and your son had a good time and got out to enjoy the beauty so many take for granted.

[flyred06]

Nice pics. My wife and I were up this weekend also. I did not fish but did have my trusted winston in the truck just in case there was a out break of shopping tention. However, we did ride around and look at the water a good bit and then stopped by LRO and purchased a few flies. Anyhow back to the reply, looking at your pics makes me wish I had tried just once or twice.

[oody3wt]

sounds like you guys had a good time, i've also been known to catch those micro trout almost exclusivly. anyway i think the name of that chub is a War painted shinner

[nvr2L8]

I had a wild hair one morning with no meetings scheduled and took a half day off to run up to Middle Prong to fish above the glory hole. My aversion to work and need to fish was rewarded with 7 shiners and nothing more. Sometimes it just pays to wait until you can actually do the sport justice. Of course playing hookie for a half day was most of the fun.

[jeffnles1]

If the glory hole is just above the bridge by the big pull out/parking area, that is where we caught the shinners.

We caught most of our trout all the way at the end of the gravel road. We hiked up the trail about 1/4 to 1/2 mile or so, bushwhacked down to the river and fished up stream until we founund another spot that was not straight up a cliff to bushwhack back up to the trail.

We fished the road up to Newfund gap (I think it's Walker's Camp Prong). We were going to fish by the Chimney's trail, but it would have been a longer hike from the car to the trailhead than the actual trail with all the hikers up there this weekend. We went on up a mile or two from the trail head on newfound gap road and started fishing the pull offs. The two we caught up there were under a bridge by a very deep pool. They were in the inflow riffles under the bridge and the out flow riffles above the bridge. Small rainbows. I was hoping for a brookie that far up the mountain but no go this trip.

Jeff