Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Tenkara fly fishing in the GSMNP

Sometimes life throws you a bone, which is why I am able to write this trip report. The spring hatch is peaking and my job is sending me to Gatlinburg for a couple of days. Of course I was able to get away for a little fishing while I was there. The Quill Gordon hatch was almost over, but I thought that I could still pick up some fish on the pattern. An old friend from high school caught a couple of 16+ inch browns on the Little River in the GSMNP this past fall. I thought that would be a good place to start. I waded out above Metcalf Bottoms using a size 12 Quill Gordon with a 14 soft hackle hair's ear off the back. It was one of those days that was so beautiful that it almost didnt matter if I caught anything.....then a couple of hours go by without a bump and all the scenery starts to fade. It's time to catch a damn fish. I took off the dry and added some weight to the SH Hairs Ear. I immediately missed 2 fish....or maybe the same one twice. Then I caught my first fish n the GSMNP and first fish on my new Tenkara rod. It was a little 6in rainbow.
I will write a post exclusively about the Tenkara Rod later. I fished for another hour with very little action so on the advice of the salesman at Little River Outfitters, I decided to drive over to the West Prong of the Little Pigeon River, which will now be known as WPLPR. It was about 3pm and I had to be back in Gatlinburg at 5pm so I didn't have much time. I found a small pull off of HWY 441 and tied the Quill Gordon back on. The next 45 minutes was the best fishing I have ever experienced in my very limited years of fishing. I caught or missed a fish on almost every cast. I ended up with 8 fish to hand with at least 5 LDRs. All the fish were rainbows with the largest being a 10in and last fish of the day.



Note: I figured out that the key to setting the hook with the Tenkara rod is to not try and set the hook. If you keep the line off the water and the rod tip high, then the fish will set the hook themselves.

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