Paint Creek 10/30/09

Headed for Paint Creek on a last minutes whim. The original plan had been to float the Clinch and throw streamers, but TVA decided they wanted to run two generators. So in a last ditch effort to get a little fishing in, we headed over to Paint Creek.

The drive over was really cool. There is a some pretty country over there and the leaves looked amazing. We got on the water around 12:30pm. There was not as many fish in the river as years past, but there were some very nice ones and a few even cooperated and decided to eat for us.

It was a great day and we even managed to catch a few fish. Doug and Clay found one really nice run that produced some great fish. We wrapped it up at 3:30pm and made it home for dinner.

SoHo in the rain

We fished today on the South Holston Tailwater in the cold rain. I wanted to test out the new LineX coating I just had put on the bottom of my hand built wooden driftboat. The coating did its job and I was very pleased how the boat performed on this low water non-generation trip.

There were black caddis in a size 12 coming off all day. We also saw size 18/20 BWO's coming off in the heavier rains showers and the fish were feeding hard on them. We used a size 18 brown zebra midge with a stripper midge dropper about 14" under a small strike indicator.

When the generation hit us about 2:30 pm we switched to small white rabbit streamers and got a couple good slams.




This little brown hit this zebra midge and started bulldogging to the bottom, it made for a fun fight for my client as he tried to saw off the leader on the sharp jagged rocks.












This rainbow took a stripper midge and put up a great fight in the strong current. It is amazing how they can pull when they put their wide bodies sideways in the current. The camera washed out the really bright pinkish purple strip down his side.

Check out my website, www.trout-fishers.net if you would like to fish the legendary South Holston with the winter time midges.