In Park Fishing Recommendations

[matthew]

Two of my buddies and I are going to be fishing the mountains in the next few days. We have gone before with a decent amount of success, but are still looking to break that barrier of limited success to having confident trips with many catches. One of my friends and I are the two more experienced fly fisherman, with the other not as experienced, but just as eager. The more experienced fisherman and I mostly fish the rivers around Knoxville, and are used to long open rivers, casting at rising fish, and battling fish for minutes at a time.

I enjoy both "types" of fly fishing. I love catching large trout in open water, but I enjoy catching smaller trout in small streams just as enjoyable, for different reasons. The nature, the beauty of the fish, and the variety of species are among the reasons I come back again and again to the park.

Casting seems to not much of a necessity where we primarily fish, around the Tremont streams, but line placement, stealth, and location of your casts (casting into correct trout occupied pocket water), among other things, seem to be imperative in having a successful trip. Although these things are very important in large river fishing, it is simply different here. I usually use a never sink caddis size 16, stimulator size 14, or rob's hellbender size 16 for dry flies. When using a dropper, I will usually use a prince nymph size 16.

Apart from materials, does anyone have some perhaps overlooked advice for the fishing in the park? I fished up thunderhead yesterday, and only got one fish to hand, which was out of the very first pocket water I casted at. This made me think I would have a very successful day, but left with 9 strikes with only one fish to hand.

I am open to any recommendations, and all is appreciated.

Thanks

[JayR]

Make sure you're not fishing behind someone. That area, Tremont, is pretty popular right now.

Look for boot prints, wet ones usually, to see if someone is ahead of you.

[buzzmcmanus]

Fish different streams. Tremont sees a lot of fishermen and I think it's one of the most technical streams in the park. Thunderbird looks like it should be an awesome stream, but I've never had much luck on it. It could just be me, your mileage may vary.

[elkhaircaddis]

Also don't necessarily just fish pocket water, a lot of times the biggest rainbow is in the fastest water. I try to cast everywhere I can