Papa's Reel

In Oct of 2009 my granddad in Oklahoma passed away and one of the items my grandma gave me was his old flyfishing reel. It is a pflueger and was probably made around 1940 still worked great and made for a perfect fit for my St. Croix 8' 4wt. So between getting married and school I really didnt have time to try this reel out till June of 2010 and we had been staying at the camper on the Watauga River and I got up around 7 am to try out my secret spot just down from the camper around a small island that almost always produces a few small rainbows. As got to my spot I rigged up a size 16 beaded pheasant tail and figured I would try a run I usually dont fish because of it being shallow but figured why not? So I feed out some line get into position and make my first cast with my new rod and my papa's old fly reel and wouldnt you know it I caught a brown trout about 11". I just couldnt believe this was happening on my first cast. After that I dont even remember if I caught anything and had to run back to tell every one what had happened.

Along time for no blogs

Wow almost 2 years since I have updated this blog. I will blame it on a lack of having internet at the house (live out in the sticks and internet is not offered there) and graduating from school. So soon to update my blog with some fishing and hunting trips over the past year.

Finally Some Fishing

So what seems like forever I finally got a break from school and was able to go to the watauga for a few hours after my final. The weather here lately has been rainy but really not that bad and I was able to wade wet which really wasnt that bad but like my dad always says once you cant feel your legs it really isnt that bad. I started off fishing at my fiance family's camper with a pheasant tail and caught a rainbow at my little honey hole. This little guy was full of energy jumping a good foot or two out of the water probably 4 or 5 times.

Ok a little side note this little honey hole always seems to impress me at first glance it would look to shallow to fish but has a couple of 1-2 foot runs in it that always hold some fish and actually produced a TN grand slam last if you would call it that of a rainbow, brown, and brook trout. My guess is that TWRA must have stocked some brook trout because that is the only one I have ever caught on the watauga and it was looking rough could def tell it lived in a concrete tank most of it's life. So back to fishing after that I caught a small brown trout and had a couple of chasers on my downstream swing but never could get them to take it. After fishing that area I moved on to a deeper part of the river so I switched over to a weighted black/olive wooly bugger and only had one taker on it but didnt notice I had got a bite till I went to cast so I didnt get a good hook set and this one came off. So after piddling around a bit just enjoying my time away from school I figured I would try some dry fly fishing even though I wasnt really seeing fish rising just wanted to give it a try since the majority of my fishing is either wooly buggers or nymphs. Which my dry fly fishing was not successful I spent more time tangled up in the grass on my back cast then actually fishing so by this point just desided to go back upstream away from the grassy bank and go back to fishing a brown wooly bugger with a pheastant tail off of it. Which I did catch a descent size trout on the pt but it broke off of the wooly bugger so I lost it. Which I didnt feel like tying another one on so just stayed with the wb and got my best fish in awhile fishing it right over a ledge in the main current. Which my reel did great was able to fight the fish and get it over to the bank. I have 14" marked on my rod and from my best guess it was about and 1.5 " past it. So after that I figured it was a good stopping point and called it a day. So in all it was great day and if I can get over this cold I have picked up I will def be on the water again for wed might go and try one of my little wild trout streams I like to fish and then prob will hit up the Hiwassee this weekend.

Almost there...

Well school is almost over only a few more days and I will finally be free to do some fishing but I did manage to go for a couple of hours on 4/24 it wasnt a bad day the fish were biting but my down and across techinque needs some work was not getting good hook sets and had 6 fish come off but did manage one nice rainbow and of course in the hurry of trying to go fishing I forgot my camera which stunk because it was a beautiful day to take some pictures....Also wanted to put this up Hiwassee.net link this is a great site if you fish the southeast part of TN it is where I first found out about fly fishing by going to their TU chapter's fly fishing school on the Hiwassee.

Only a couple more weeks....

School work has been getting the best of me here lately with all my free time spent working on group projects but the light is at the end of the tunnel only 2 more weeks of school left and I will be out with plenty of fishing time. So my coming soon report will have to be put off again was not able to get out due to school work but if I get some stuff done I might be able to go this friday and give my new reel a test.

Coming Soon!

Soon to come a review of my new reel I picked up from Mahoney's and I am hoping to do a little fishing with some friends on the Watauga this saturday which if the weather goes the way they are saying it should be a beautiful day on saturday but here lately I have been looking foward to those ugly cloudy days of cool rainy weather because of the good fishing it has brought too and also less people out on the river too but this weekend will well be waited for the last week has been extremly busy working on 3 group projects for school so I will def be looking foward to this saturday. Also a little side note this past sunday was on the river eating at my fiance camper on the river and their was surprisingly a pretty descent stonefly hatch going on which is the first time I have seen this on the watauga usually see it on some of the smaller trout streams I fish. This also reminds me I am taking a general entamology class this fall and am actually looking foward to my bug collection and hopefully collecting alot of bugs that hatch in the local streams of E. Tn for my project.

Watauga 4/11

Had a couple hours to fish this morning which I really dont like fishing when I feel like I have to rush through it because I have to be somewhere at a certain time but I had to take a break from all the school work I have done this week so an old roommate of mine and I got to the watauga early that morning just to find high muddy water in Elizabethton we figured it was prob from Doe river so we headed up above the Doe and the water was alittle bit better but still muddy. So after fishing two hours he had caught two little ones and I had caught one brown trout and had one come off. Fishing was really slow and from talking with others fishing too they were having the same success but hopefully tomorrow it will be better and if I can find a break from working on a school project may hit the water for an hour or two before church.