July 13, 2007
Summer sight-fishing for big smallmouth: not easy
I was in the Bristol area Wednesday and Thursday and got to spend some time on the North Fork of the Holston River, a stream I've been wanting to check out for a while.
The NF is supposed to be a pretty good smallmouth river. One reason: the bag limit is one fish over 20 inches per day. That rule allows someone to keep a trophy, but discourages people from keeping fish to eat, which makes sense considering the river is under a consumption ban because of mercury.
Wednesday evening we got to the river late with a guy I'm doing a story on for Sunday's paper. (He had a treestand accident last fall, and fishing is one of his forms of therapy.) Even though it was late I could see how low the river is. Brutal. I didn't think we'd have any luck but our host actually caught a nice smallmouth about 30 minutes after dark.
Photographer Sam Dean and I went back on our own the next morning to get stuff for a story on the river. Around Bristol it was kind of murky, but as we got upstream toward Saltville it cleared up. We fished one nice hole near Bristol but didn't do anything. Later, we stopped and fished for about an hour at the DGIF ramp near Saltville. Again, it was shallow, but there were a few pockets and we could see some fish. Some nice fish, actually. I saw a few that would push 3 pounds.
But, man, were they were spooky. I had a little soft plastic crayfish in front of one and when I twitched it he bolted the other direction. I didn't get a strike. Sam caught a small on his fly rod with a streamer.
I'd like to get back there and try some of the stuff my brother and dad use on the ultra clear rivers they fish in Oregon. Not sure if it will happen this year, though. That's a pretty good haul.
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