MARCH River Report - South Holston & Watauga Rivers
UPCOMING EVENTS
APR 13 - Season Kick Off
MAY 18 - East TN Dry Fly
Don’t miss out on our awesome upcoming events as fishing is ramping up in 2024! Please click on the link to sign up for the event you plan to attend.
First and foremost, before getting too far into this months river report, we wanted to give you all a little shop update. Jacob, who has been with us since the inception of The Fly Box back in 2021, has accepted a position with Poncho Outdoors in their marketing department. He accomplished a lot of things while working for us and we could not be more proud. He did a great deal for our social media in the time he was with us, and became an amazing guide in the process. He will be greatly missed inside the shop and on the tailwaters of East Tennessee. If you haven’t done so, make sure to follow jacob.cervantes on instagram to keep up with his future endeavors. We are already counting down the days until he’s back visiting us and sticking some fish on dry flys. Cheers buddy!
AN OVERVIEW
And now, back to our regular scheduled program …
March followed in February’s footsteps in being a wet month with 3.37” of rainfall. This prolonged the high flows on the South Holston and Watauga tailwaters that we experienced in February. The South Holston was on a 24-hour generation at 2,200 cfs for an extended period throughout most of March. The Watauga River saw a 1,500 and 1,200 cfs sluice for the same amount of time. Due to these higher flows on both tailwaters, wade anglers had limited opportunities and had to look to our smaller tributaries and mountain streams. It’s looking like you all are going to see low flows on the South Holston and Watagua and that’s great news for our wade anglers!
SOUTH HOLSTON RIVER
With the high flows during the month of March, we were able to find success with the bottom bouncing technique. We experimented with other methods as well, such as a deep in-line rig in softer water. However, we found it more affective when we were able to get our flies as deep as possible. Changing tippet size, playing with depth, and various split shot amounts seemed to yield better results catching fish than frantically changing flys. Once you find a fly they are eating, stick with it and make adjustments to the rig you are fishing for continued success. Our biggest takeaway was dropping down tippet size of our tags on the bottom bounce rig to 5.5x and 6x, even with the tinted water from all the rain.
DRY FLY FISHING
With bug activity pretty minimal and the 24-hour generation of 2,200 cfs, our dry fly fishing has been fairly limited. At times, fish were eager to eat a dry fly with a drag-free drift in slower moving water off of strainers from fallen trees. Now that our flows starting to drop back down, we have been seeing a decent amount of blue-winged olives on the “falling water” with the occasional sulphur mixed in. During this time the dry fly fishing has been awesome, and we can only hope it is a representation of what is yet to come.
LOOKING AHEAD
With our lake levels showing that they are back to their appropriate level for this time of year, generation schedules should allow for more wadding opportunities. Looking ahead to April, we are hopeful for consistently warmer weather, which will only increase the bug activity and help to consistently improve the fishing.
Click here for the South Holston Dam generation schedule!
Suggested Patterns
Nymphs
Weiss Dark #18-20
Pheasant Tail #18-20
Rainbow Sow Bug #16-18
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
While most of our time was spent on the South Holston during March, we did visit the Watauga a few times. During higher flows, we focused on softer water using a deep in-line rig. The prolonged 1,500/1,200 cfs flow gave consistent opportunities for anglers that were wanting to throw larger streamers on sink tip and full sink lines.
LOOKING AHEAD
We all are feeling the anticipation and excitement growing for the Grannom caddis hatch! We can only hope that this year brings half of what we saw last April. While the dry fly fishing is what everyone is after, and rightfully so, setting up a rod to swing wet flys during the caddis hatch can produce some really fun fishing. Be prepared for a lot of traffic on the tailwater if we are blessed with the Mothers’ Day caddis hatch! Stay on the look out for more updates on the caddis as we move into April.
Click here for the Wilbur Dam generation schedule!
Suggested Patterns
Nymphs
Squirmy Worm
RC Leggy #16
Duracell Jig #16
Spanish Bullet Olive #20
Streamers
Wooly Buggers
Olive & Black Dungeons
SMALLMOUTH
Small mouth fishing continued to be excellent throughout the month of March. Talk about some pretty awesome moments! For us, we found it more effective to run our flies a little deeper by fishing patterns with more weight than a traditional “shad” pattern. This is something that we are excited to share with our clients, as well as bring them along with us throughout the summer months!
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
SCOTT SESSION
“Our team designed and crafted a series of rods to help you get the most from your time on the water-the most success, and the most enjoyment.
Session rods are high-performance hand-crafted fly rods that blend some of our most acclaimed design approaches with our latest materials and technologies.
This combination creates rods that bring together high line speed and exceptional loop control with a light and lively feel in the hand. These traits have become known as Scott’s signature fast with feel action.
Session rods are finished with a new grip design, and custom machined aluminum reel seats featuring dyed box elder wood inserts. They also feature Silicon Nitride stripping guides and low glare light wire snake guides for a premium component package that’s a perfect match to the high- performance blanks.
All of that gives Session rods a wide bandwidth of performance for fishing at a range of distances, and for using a variety of flies and techniques with the same rod.
With their almost nothing there feel in hand combined with their easy smooth casting, Session rods pack technology loaded materials with advanced design and premium craftsmanship.
Most of all, Session rods are about having fun on the water and enjoying the rod in your hand.” - Scott Fly Rods
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