Watts Bar Willow Flies are starting

[Kingstonian]

For those of you who enjoy fishing the willowfly hatch, I ran into several large swarms around the islands upstream of Thiefneck Island. I was spin fishing, but in spots, you couldn't see the bark on some of the trees for the flies.

Just passing along some info.

[Troutman]

Thanks for the info. Our FFF club is having an overnight trip to WB in July.

[appalachian angler]

I noticed a good Willow Fly hatch this past Friday night They started around 9:30 PM. Stayed till about 10PM just to observe the fish activity. Primarily Bluegills sucking them from the surface...lots of popping sounds could be heard. Even the ducks were busy vacuuming them up! This was in the park at Kingston. The flys are early this year. must be the water temps have risen sharply enough to bring them on. I have had best luck fishing the spinner fall. One overcast morning in '06 I believe, at approx. 9:00 am, they started dropping out of the sky. They would twitch around on the surface (the egg laying females) then give up the ghost. A big parachute dry with a dull yellow foam body, and long moose main tails was the ticket. Color up the 2mm foam with a brown sharpie. I used a light dun hackle for the parachute, and dubbed the thorax with brown synthetic under the hackle. Flys tyed on a sz 4 Aberdeen (minnow) hook. Those fish; bass and bream destroyed 2 flys in about a two hour period during this phenomina!