Soho 10/19/08 pics

[wynnsman]

Hey all, got out just above the grates today and had a pretty good day. Kinda windy at times and cold at times. Got around 9-10 total. On everything from red and black zebra midges, gray sulfer, stripper midge, and last but not least I got my first trout on a streamer. Ended up with 3 on a olive wooly bugger. I was amazed at how those browns hate those buggers. But it was a great day.

[Worrgamesguy]

I can tell that top brown is no stocked fish... Seems like he is a little darker and colored than the others, and he's slim. Last year's spawn? Right? Good looking browns nonetheless.

[milligan trout degree]

what size bugger is that, looks a little small, but might just be the picture. i imagine it gets a higher percentage of takers per chasers than the bigger ones i usually throw. I've never caught more than one or two while streamer fishing for trout in a given day. of course i usually only throw a streamer near the end of the day after i've worked through the runs with nymphs first.

[wynnsman]

Well yesterday was the first time id ever used a streamer. I belive that one was a 12. I had lost an even bigger streamer on a fish. What size leader and tippet do you usually use?

[Gerry Romer]

I suppose I should have stuck to what I know about the SoHo... which would be the upper TVA section from the weir down to the island below the boundary marker for the upper section.

Took a friend to the SoHo yesterday and just about got skunked. 10 hours of fishing and less than 10 fish between us.

I decided to try a section I've never fished before - the lower TVA property. Got there just after sunrise and took the right fork in the trial to head down toward the Hickory Tree bridge from above. Got to a beautiful section of the river only to have the peaceful, quite dawn shattered by shouting coming from a trailer across the river . The couple occupying the trailer proceeded to shout at and to each other as they launched a float tube and fished from the bank. The shouting went on for about an hour.

I did see some rather large browns in that section. Had a twenty-plus incher cruise right past my left leg

About a half hour after entering the water, the farmer who owns the property right next to the TVA property pulled up alongside the river bank in his jeep and got out to talk. First thing he asked was if we fished there often. When we said no, he offered tons of advice including such things as: 1) get rid of your big yarn indicators and use very small BWO dries for indicators then drop size 20, 22, 28 nymphs because the fish in that section spook very easily, 2) work the narrow channel that runs along the bank nearest his property since that's where the pigs like to hide, 3) work under the trees on the far bank for smaller browns and rainbows 4) don't expect to see much action until after 1:00 PM. A very helpful guy... I think... maybe he was just steering us wrong??

Well apparently, between us and the "Louds" we put all the fish in that channel down for the day. We worked from there upstream to the shoals at the terminus of the other trail and didn't see anyone bring any fish to hand. I managed about four all under 10 inches brought to hand and self released two or three browns that went about 12 inches each. The fish turned on briefly when the afternoon flow came up, but that was about it.

Trust me, we tried everything. Black thread midges, red thread midges, black and red, red and silver, black and silver -- all in sizes from 18 down to 28 -- pheasant tails, PT Kruzers, Bubba Dark's, black Woolly Buggers, tan Woolly Buggers, tan San Juan worms, pink San Juan worms, brown San Juan worms, red eggs, pink eggs, cream eggs, Eggie Wan Kanobis.... hey, in 10 hours you can try a lotta stuff!!

At about 5 PM we gave up on the lower TVA section and headed down to Rockhold where we were totally skunked for the next hour and a half .

[milligan trout degree]

I usually use 2x or 3x tippet with about a leader length of five feet or so. What i do is keep all my old leaders when im done with them and cut them down short, add some 2 or 3x and use those as streamer leaders. i really need to tie some smaller buggers. I fish a lot of zonkers too, both white and black.

Gerry, do you mind me asking which tva section you were talking about. im familiar with the wier dam and the hickory tree bridge section, but i dont know squat about the area in between. from the info you gave, it kinda sounds like you were fishing the slow pool above the small island just upstream of hickory tree bridge? Big drop in temps last night might have warranted slower fishing today. just a guess. im headed to the SOHO tomorrow morning, i hope it picks up.

[tennswede]

Gerry, Was that you I saw around 6 PM at Rockhold? I walked downstream in order to talk to two guys in the big run there but they headed out as soon as I got there. Sorry if I ran you all off. We fished, (Pete and I) upstream at the grate from 11 AM to about 4 PM. We did alright on midges in the AM and dries in the PM. We got hungry and went to a fast food joint and then decided to check out the Rockhold area. didn't catch a thing down there. I managed to loose a home made fly box in wood with about 4 dozen of Sulphurs. It's probably floating in the gulf by now. LOL.

[bigpopper]

Nice catch! Those are nice lookin Browns! I've got to hit the SoHo myself one of these days.

[Gerry Romer]

Originally Posted by milligan trout degree

IGerry, do you mind me asking which tva section you were talking about. im familiar with the wier dam and the hickory tree bridge section, but i dont know squat about the area in between. from the info you gave, it kinda sounds like you were fishing the slow pool above the small island just upstream of hickory tree bridge? Big drop in temps last night might have warranted slower fishing today. just a guess. im headed to the SOHO tomorrow morning, i hope it picks up.

Yeah, that sounds good. I'm willing to blame it on the weather .

Remember that map of the spawning sections on the SoHo? The lower TVA property is at the very head of the large section above Hickory Tree bridge. Turn off Hickory Tree at the 4-way stop sign near River Bend Baptist Church and head down toward the river - I think it's River Bend Rd. - and bear to the right at Piney Hill Rd. Take it all the way to the end and you'll see some TVA signs posted on the right just before the farm at the end of the road. Parking is first-come-first-gets alongside the road. Take the trail in a ways and look for the fork in the trail. The right fork is a longer walk but it puts you in good water a little over a mile above the Hickory Tree bridge - way above the small island you mentioned - and just southwest of the big bend in the river. That puts you about a mile and a half below the weir dam. The trail on the left fork is a shorter walk and it puts you in at the shoals on the east side of the bend a considerable distance below the lower boundary of the upper TVA property. When you're looking at a map of the SoHo, find the Hickory Tree Bridge and trace your finger to the right to the big bend. A big chunk of that bend is the lower TVA property. It's not like I'm giving away some secret honey hole here... when I was leaving, I was hiking out behind the guys from South Holston River Fly Shop who had been guiding a trip there.

Gerry, Was that you I saw around 6 PM at Rockhold? I walked downstream in order to talk to two guys in the big run there but they headed out as soon as I got there. Sorry if I ran you all off.

That may well have been us. We were fishing at the pull-off just above the stop sign at Rt. 44 and Chinquapin Grove Rd. Saw a couple guys get in the water up stream from us close to the Rockhold Methodist Church, then, just before leaving, I saw somebody get in just below us but above the bend and head downstream toward the bend. Could have been you... funky hat and a small black net hung from a d-ring on the back of a vest . No biggie. We were way over it for the day. Wish I had known you and Pete were going... we could have all met up and had a bad day together! Misery loves company and all that...

[milligan trout degree]

Gerry, I appreciate that, I've fished up and down that river and never there. Im not real sure why though. To be honest, I didn't even know about it. I guess I've never even really looked at a map of that river, I just know what I've been taken to and what I've found.

I mentioned a while back about buying a pontoon. I still plan on doing that probably sometime this winter. I know I won't be able to get a good float in until after spawning season, but how long of a float is it from the wier to about hickory tree bridge? how about webb bridge? How hard of a float is it?
This question goes out to anyone who can help.