By Ronnie Parris
If you love to fly fish, and especially dry fly fish, this is your time. The waters in our Great Smoky Mountains are some of the richest and most valued jewels around. The temps are up and the top water bite is on. I’m located in Bryson city and in any direction I turn, I can be in a great fly fishing stream in 20 minutes or less. Be sure when you go out, to check what the regulations are for each individual stream, as the creel limit, size limit, and types of bait allowed, are different when fishing park game lands, streams, or hatchery supported streams. If you can’t find out what you need to know, you can call me and I would be glad to help in any way I can. The water is warming up now so I like to put on a pair of shorts and wet wade with only felt soled boots, but you may be more comfortable in waders.
Be sure to wear natural colors of clothing and you will get double the amount of strikes. A lot of the fishing shirts that companies put out today are colors that catch our eye, but also, they will catch a native trout’s eye and spook him. Although a nymph will work fine if you want to have some fun, get you a 3wt 7ft fly rod and hit the hard to reach streams, as they are not pressured as much and the bite will be much better. Don’t look for monster trout; your average will be from 5 to 8 inches with the occasional 15 plus, inch fish that will make you wonder if that little 3wt is gonna break. Last trip, I had a client catch such a fish, I won’t name the creek we were on, but we were around 2 miles from the parking area. The morning had been good and my clients had caught several brook and rainbows, in the 5 to 8 inch range. We were close to the end of the trip when the fish hit.
We had just fished a really nice pool and to our surprise, didn’t even get a hit, which was odd since we were getting strikes in almost every decent sized pool. The very next pool wasn’t much, maybe a 4 ft pothole with a rock on the side, with a bit of an overhang. As my client flipped the size 14 Parachute Adams in, the fly was washed almost under the overhang. This was the point where we figured out why the nice pool below didn’t have any small trout in it- because the rainbow that took our fly probably had eaten them. As the fish took the fly and my client set the hook, I instantly regretted taking my landing net off my vest that morning so it wouldn’t interfere with the backpack I was carrying. The trout was a great fighter, ending up back down in the big pool below, and after 2 jumps, we were able to work him back over to a little sandbar where we could get him in our hands for a couple of pictures before releasing him to fight another day. In my opinion, there’s nothing more exciting than seeing a nice trout take your dry off the surface. One thing I would like to ask is, if you do go back and fish these streams is to please don’t litter. There’s nothing that looks worse than being in one of these pristine streams and seeing where someone has thrown down their drink bottle or candy bar wrapper. If you would like to book a trip to fish any of our backcountry streams give me a call at 828-488-9711 and I would be glad to book a trip for you.
Ronnie Parris is the Owner and Head Guide of Smoky Mountain Outdoors Unlimited-Fontana Lake Fishing Guides, headquartered in Bryson City, North Carolina, heart of the Great Smoky Mountains. (www.smokymountainoutdoorsunlimited.com)