Today we fished the Little River inside the park; some of this I’d seen on prior trips, but most of it was new to me. Rich Margiotta, myself, and Ian slunk around and tried to look like nice, safe, non-predatory beings to the fish, and I have to say it only worked part of the time. It’s late, I’m beat, I’m hungry, and I’m still pretty sick, so this will be short.
I fished Raine’s 8’3″ 4wt, which really was a nice rod for the Little River, which is like a smaller, kinder gentler Upper Sac with weird trees and a different set of bugs. As you might expect, Ian has this place pretty wired, and recent evening hatches have been wild affairs, so even though my sick, abused body pretty much folded up the tent by 5:00, we stuck around until after 8:00, waiting for the evening’s festivities, which never really came off.
Ian immediately burdened me with the responsibility, and given the current, unfishable state of the Upper Sac, it’s hard to argue. Tomorrow, I’m expecting the Tennessee fish and game department to call with an offer to leave the state, thereby restoring the fishing. I’ll let you know if I take the money.
A couple different dry flies allowed me to land a handful and miss a bunch more. Ian used nymphs early and changed to dries midday to land close to a dozen. He moved at leat two real good fish, but landed neither. Rich had to leave early, but landed a couple and was probably the person really to blame for the lack of an evening rise (he’s not here so he gets the blame).
Tomorrow we’re floating the Holsten, and we’ll find out if that blizzard caddis hatch – which resulted in literally countless hookups for a pair of Ian’s clients last week and yesterday – can stand up to a liberal dose of Chandler’s Hatch Repellent. See you on the river.
That’s Ian being all sneaky.
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This is what happens when you’re sneaky.
In a gripping race against the clock, bamboo rod builder 
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