Sunday, October 3, 2010

Smoky Mountain Fork Tails

On this beautiful Saturday, the first one in October I fished a stream that benefited from the recent rains that brought up the streams volume. It also allowed the trout to move freely and seek out food and new areas of the stream that were unavailable do to low waters. The sky was bright and sunny, with comfortable temps, and lots of leaves in the water and around, some colored and some just there from the stress of the trees.

I had tied up some fly patterns that were favorites of fly fishers in the Southern Appalichians for trout. The pattern is known as a "Smoky Mountain Fork Tail", I fished them dry, and allowed them to sink under the water at the end of the drift and retrieved them back as an emerger. The flies worked very well producing reactions on what seemed like every cast.

In the few hours spent along the stream today a few thoughts were going through my mind, we finally recieved the rain we so badly needed and that the brookies seemed to have survived the heat and the drought in very good shape. For their size they are tough little guy's. "Thanks"

A beautiful spawning male, and a "Fork Tail"

A wild brook trout who fell to a "Fork Tail"
A Favorite

11 comments:

  1. Those brookies look good in their new colors, beautiful stream too. I am happy to hear your trout made it thru the dry summer. Thanks

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  2. Nice post and great pics. Thanks for sharing them.

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  3. Beautiful brookies! Good to see the Smoky Mountain Fork Tail fooled some Connecticut specks!

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  4. Terry, thanks. Summer was very tough on the little ones. Hopefully with the water levels remaining stable, a good spawn will happen.

    Casey, thank you for the kind comments.

    Tar Heel Fly Fishing, thanks,
    That fly was awesome. There are a few more patterns, that I'm going to try.

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  5. Try the Tellico Nymph, Thunderhead Dry, or Tennessee Wulff. All great patterns that originated down here. All of them flat out catch fish. Especially the brookies!

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  6. Tar Heel Fly Fishing,
    I have tied the Thunderhead with a yellow wing and its worked well, the others are on the list.

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  7. My experience fishing the Smoky's is that any fly will produce as long as it is yellow. =_)

    Beautiful brookies!

    The Average Joe Fisherman
    http://averagejoefisherman.blogspot.com/

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  8. Nice report and pics Brk Trt. I'll have to give the Fork Tail a shot on some of these Virginia brookies.

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  9. Ryan, thanks.
    Yellow is a brookie magnet, anywhere, got to love it.

    Dan, thank you. Shenandoah Nat Park is on my list.

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