By Gary Turner
Johnny Stabile and Laura Battye were picking me up to drive to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and fish a day for trout, and any other fish that might be biting.
The mountain was closed, so we came in from the Knoxville side. As we made our way in, the GPS said to avoid an accident on the Gatlinburg – Pigeon Forge Highway. If you have never been on the back roads of that area, you are in for single lane, steep roads.
Johnny brought his Pathfinder 2300 along for us to fish Lake Cumberland, our final destination. Gatlinburg was just a stop for them to try and catch their first trout and see Gatlinburg. So, here we are as the beautiful day turns to sleet, hail, and snow. We come around a curve near the ridge over Gatlinburg and the big F250 starts spinning, pulling the boat straight up this hill, so we had to stop and engage 4WD to continue.
We make it over the mountain and Gatlinburg is a parking lot. A combination of spring break and a car show are jamming the parkway. Welcome to Gatlinburg. We checked a few spots and headed to Pigeon Forge to a hole I know. We get there and it’s sleeting. We work down to the river and I catch a nice trout right off. Then Laura has one repeatedly follow hers in with no bite. The sleet turns to rain and we pack it in for the day. We have all had these days. You drive 1,000 miles dragging the boat, and the weather just doesn’t want to cooperate!
Early the next morning, we hit the river and Laura catches her first smallmouth, and I catch a large redhorse. We pack up and head to Somerset, Kentucky where we catch up with Damon Melcho, the owner of Xtreme Bait Tanks. We tour the plant and see the tanks in progress, including my new 80 gallon. It was really cool to see them all being fabricated and assembled. We then head to Lake Cumberland.
The next morning, the wind is howling with intermittent rain. We launch anyway only to find giant waves and cold rain. We go back to the houseboat and hang out. Repeat and repeat again for 2 more days. On the 5th day, we ran to the Wolf Creek Dam and Johnny and Laura caught their first trout! The 6th day we packed it up and head to Guntersville.
We get to Guntersville just as a large band of storms rolled in and now we are under a tornado warning. The storms raged most of the night. The next morning we finally have some nice weather and fish! We caught fish all day with lots of hybrids, drums, skipjack and catfish. Laura even caught a 25-pound blue catfish.
The next morning, we met up with our friend Rocky Drake of Rocky Drake Outdoors to catch some big smallmouths. On the first cast, Laura hooked something big on the little Daiwa 1000. After some work, Johnny netted a very nice striper. Rocky was dialed in and put us on the smallmouth. We all caught at least three fish over 5 pounds. We continued to catch lots more species and numbers. It was an epic day of fishing.
The next morning, we all headed home but are planning our next trip already. You can reach me at gary@purgeright.com. Please remember, if you are not going to eat it, don’t kill it.