Winter Fly Fishing The Little River

We had a chance to go fly fishing on the Little River in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Saturday, spending a mid winter day with Perfect Fly inventor and trout fishing guru James Marsh.  This winter has been unusually warm and wet in our area of the country, so it's good to see the streams full of water again after several dry years.

The weather was mostly cloudy, with periods of sun and light rain throughout the day.  The air temperature hovered around 50 (I'm estimating), and we measured the water temperature at 46 degrees.  The Little River was surprisingly crowded with other fishermen for the middle of winter, but that's the price you pay for good weather.  We tried a number of James' favorite spots, using a winter stonefly nymph.  I had to use between 2 and 5 splitshots to get the ffly down to the bottom.  (If you're not fishing the nymph on the bottom, you're not fishing.  You're just casting.)  I was also using a small strike indicator.

After a fishing for a couple of hours in the morning without success in the Metcalf Bottoms area, we fished the small tributary Jake's Creek.  I tied on a Blue Quill Nymph, using a large dry fly for a strike indicator.  The shallow water only reguired a single splitshot.  In the small pools of this tiny creek (which was not as ferocious as the Little River), I started seeing trout.  Eventually, I caught a small rainbow trout on the nymph in a small pool

After a little more fishing, we headed back to the Little River in the area of the old logging buildings.  I started seeing trout, even having a couple of hits, in the swollen and rushing waters.  There was a decent hatch of winter stoneflies in the afternoon (as well as a single Quill Gordon).  I was unable to land any more trout, but we had a great day fly fishing the Little River.  Later, James emailed me and let me know one big reason why I didn't have more success (even beyond my clumsy casting): the water level had risen substantially, even while we were fishing.

Before we headed out of town the next day, my son wanted to wet a line, so we headed back to the same area to let him try his luck.  Well, we didn't so much as see a trout, but he's excited about trout fishing, and I hope to spend many fishing trips with him.