Fished the GSMNP

[Taxman]

I fished the Park mid week last week. Nymphed the first couple days and
fished the new 3wt on the way out. Tough fishing that final day! lol. I was
trying to remember the way "Burt, on the show Soap could make himself
invisible." I think when I was waving my arms it was scaring the fish?.

I did catch my personal best brown Thursday after the rain the night
before. I caught quite a few Thursday and Friday. I probably would
have stayed another day but 3 night camp rule forced me to move
and I wasn't heading any further up and water was just to warm
at the lower campsites.

Ohoopee

 

[NCHillbilly]

No pics?

 

[Taxman]

No pics)). The water was warm and fish were stressed.

 

[NCHillbilly]

No pics)). The water was warm and fish were stressed.

Mainstem stream temps are running in the low to mid 60s on this end of the park, spiking in the mid-60s on hot afternoons, back to 59-60 in the mornings. Not too bad to fish at all, IMO, if you're not goofing around with them. The smaller tributaries higher up are in pretty good shape temp-wise. This end of the park is about an average of a thousand feet higher in elevation than the end you were in, though.

 

[Taxman]

I was at around 2500' most of the time. The water felt cool early.
I caught a very nice one around 5pm that put up quite a fight on
the 3wt. I don't play with the fish but hossing them in on that
rod makes me nervous. I moved the fish under some fast moving
water for about a minute before he slowly swam off.

Interesting method of fishing a pool though. I was fishing a large
very slow and deep pool. I could see 4 or 5 large trout sitting on
bottom. I spooked them from the tail of the pool but they just
went to deeper section and sat there. I tied a 15' section of fluoro
onto my Euro leader and attached a black beaded stonefly. I also
put on some tungsten paste weight about 8" up from there. I made
a backcast to get the line out and tossed as far as I could above the
resting trout and just bounced the nymph across the bottom on the
retrieval like I would a streamer. On the second cast a fish hit it.
Not one of the resting fish btw.

Another interesting aspect of the low water level is that
you can see the sub surface much better and can put a nymph
exactly where it needs to be. Hard to tell with higher water levels
exactly where the deeper troughs are. I discovered years ago that
thoroughly nymphing a run led to more fish. Those little hidden
pockets can provide a nice hidey hole for fish.