April River Report - South Holston & Watauga Rivers
UPCOMING EVENTS
MAY 18 - East TN Dry Fly
Don’t miss out on this awesome upcoming event as the dry fishing is ramping up! Click on the link to sign up for the event you plan to attend.
AN OVERVIEW
April followed in March’s footsteps in being a wet month with 3.33” of rainfall. This resulted in even more prolonged high flows (1200cfs and 600cfs) on the Watauga compared to the 240cfs we commonly see. This drove the wade fisherman, who typically stay on the Watauga, over to the South Holston. The South Holston has been on the program of running 2-3 one hour pulses over a span of 24hrs, while holding water back to reach “summer pool” on South Holston Lake. When the weather allowed, mountain streams fished well, which provided opportunities to get away from the large crowds on the tailwaters. Don’t be afraid to open up the maps and go explore water that you may have never fished. Chances are it will be a blast! We believe things are shaping up for a really fun summer of fishing in our region. With the popularity of fly fishing in our area being extremely high, be courteous to other anglers and engage in conversations while out on the water. You never know—you may make a life-long fishing buddy!
SOUTH HOLSTON RIVER
With low flows, the fishing has been and will continue to be extremely technical. On bright, sunny days paired with gin-clear water, long, light leaders and small diameter tippet are paramount to ensure there are more fish reaching the net. My go-to set up for wading the South Holston has been the new Trout Hunter 9’ 6X EVO DRIFT leader paired with either the 6x nylon tippet (when fishing two dry flys) or 6X fluorocarbon tippet (when fishing a dropper fly sub surface).
Throughout April, I found that I almost exclusively rigged up a dry dropper setup for my clients. Fish were eager to eat the dry on top, but it can also be used as light indicator for your nymph or midge below. Our low water theme for the South Holston is to fish it like a large “spring creek”. Slowing down will increase your stealth on these finicky fish. Longer presentations can also help tremendously in finding success, BUT only if you are able to manage your line correctly. As always, a “drag free drift” is the most important component, which might mean your casts and presentations are shorter sacrificing distance for accuracy for better line management.
DRY FLY FISHING
With bug activity ramping up, our sulphur hatches have started to allow anglers to commit to fishing drys only. Trailing a small dry fly such as a BWO, Caddis, or a midge 18-24” behind a sulphur has been the ticket this past month. When committing to dry fly fishing on these lower flows, a longer leader in the 12-14’ range can add more stealth to your presentation by allowing the flys to be further away from your fly line. When seeing the really “splashy” rises, running a small CDC cased emerger with 6X fluro just under the surface has been a solid option when the fish are not committing to hatched adults fully on the surface.
LOOKING AHEAD
With the lake level almost reaching summer pool, we can start to think that regular water releases on the South Holston will be in the near future. Fingers crossed! With the outside air temperatures starting to get into the high 70’s and low 80’s, longer-released flows will become crucial to keeping our river temperatures cool for the fish on the lower ends. Consensus seems to be that anglers are ready to start floating down the South Holston river again.
Click here for the South Holston Dam generation schedule!
Suggested Patterns
Nymphs
Weiss Dark #18-20
Pheasant Tail #18-20
Olive, tan and cream midges #20
Stripper midges #20
Micro Olive Bullet #18-20
Dry Flies
Morgan’s Midge #18
Birchell’s Hatch Midge #18-20
Sulphur & BWO CDC Comparadun #16-18
WATAUGA RIVER
The Watauga gave us everything we hoped for during the month of April. Warmer temperatures and a 240cfs flow created a perfect recipe for our Grannom caddis to show up and it did! Flows ended up increasing to a 1200cfs due to rain fall, but fishing still continued to be excellent. Higher flows seemed to help spread the amount of boats that were out to fish the caddis hatch. During this higher flow, we found success in fishing softer water right up against the banks with heavier and deeper in-line rigs. We found ourselves adjusting depth and split shot size throughout the entire day to stay in the correct water column. Fish were still eating caddis on the surface, but you had to really head hunt for the fish that would give you a legit shot at catching them on the dry.
To finish out the last bit of April, we saw a 600cfs flow that fished really well. During this flow, we switched from a yarn indicator style setup to our chubby dry-dropper rig. While most of the time our chubby was used as the indicator with a nymph below, we would see several eats a day on the chubby. There were a couple times on this 600cfs flow that we fished a traditional in-line setup and it produced equally as well. It is nice when a flow allows anglers to fish different setups and still find success.
LOOKING AHEAD
It looks like the 240cfs flow is going to be the name of the game again. For wade anglers, this is a great opportunity to get back on the Watauga. However, anglers that are fishing out of a drift boat can look at bumping some rocks again. Over the last few days, we have been getting fish on sulphur dry patterns as those are starting to ramp up over on the Watauga.
Click here for the Wilbur Dam generation schedule!
Suggested Patterns
Nymphs
Sulphur nymphs #16
RC Leggy #16
Quill body perdigon #16
Spanish Bullet Olive #18
Dry Flies
Chubby in #10 and 12 various colors
Sulphur sparkle duns in #16
Sulphur puff daddy #16
Creme Caddis #16
Mountain streams
With higher water levels from rain fall, we really had to concentrate our efforts in finding soft water along the banks edge. Throwing bigger “point” flys with oversized bead heads allowed us to get down to the fish quickly in short runs. When we found long deep pools, we put fish in the net by throwing small jig streamers consistently. If things slow down for you with a dry dropper setup, don’t hesitate to dead drift a small streamer through runs and strip them back up to the head of the pool. You can find success doing this even when the small streams are not blown out. These small trout are still extremely territorial and aggressive!
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
CLING MAGNETIC FLY PATCH
In April we brought a new product to the shop and that we have really been enjoying. We have found this product really helpful when wade fishing on our tailwaters or mountain streams. As a magnetic fly patch, you are able to place this wherever you desire to assist in holding flys while out on the water. Varying in color, size, and artwork design, there should be one that fits your needs. Ask about this product next time you are in the shop and we would be more than happy to show you how they work.
Shuttle Servie Contacts
Both guys are solid shuttle drivers on the South Holston and Watauga! Tell them we sent you.
Ronny - 423-737-7767
Jeff - 423-741-4884