# Epic weekend of fishing TN



## flyman01 (Jan 23, 2013)

My long time fishing buddy and I traveled down to Reliance to fish the Hiwassee and what a weekend it turned out to be. Weather was very nice, low 80’s with no humidity so it did not feel hot at all while fishing or doing anything else. Saturday morning, we got up at 6:30 AM had coffee and breakfast then hopped in the car arriving at the river right around 7:20 and it was just starting to get light. We started to wade out about 7:35 heading toward Cane Island to begin the day there and to work our way up or down river, depending on much pressure there was around us. Got to the spot that I wanted to fish about 15 minutes later and the morning light was good enough to tie on a bug without the assistance of a flashlight, I saw a couple of fish sip midges of the surface so I put on a Griffith’s Gnat to start the day. By my third cast I had my first hook up which turned out to be a rainbow, a fast start to a good day.
The gnat was proving to be very effective, fish and fish were rising to it or taking it on the swing up until the time the pulse came through which I then switched over to a woolly bugger and landed several more. After the pulse, caddis started to come off the water so I changed over to a brown body dry and it was game on again. I was fishing the caddis dry for a while with very good success and then right about 10:30 I saw some October caddis coming off and the fish really going after them. I happened to have a couple of them in my box so I switched over to one and picked up a couple, one that was a gorgeous brown that went about 14 inches and then a few casts later while the bug was swinging upward, I felt a huge tug and then the battle began with what turned out to be my fish of the weekend, a monster rainbow that was pushing 22”. The water temps where still a little high and I had to revive that fish for about 10 minutes before it finally was able to swim off with no issue. After the release of the fish, the first generator was no approaching so it was about time to pull out and head back to the cabin since they were going to run water until 7 PM.

Sunday was pretty much a rerun of Saturday with the exception of no generation until 1PM. We were on the river same time as Saturday morning and we fished right up until 11 and then took a break for a stream side lunch. After lunch we got back into the river and fished until 2:00 when the generation was upon us at which time we called it a weekend. What worked on Saturday did not change for Sunday, Griffiths gnats and caddis were the name of the game all day and the fish were greedily taking them. In the past I have had 100 fish weekends, but it has been a while since that has happened. This weekend happened to be one of those weekends for both of us and the most remarkable thing was we basically caught 95% of dry’s which is awesome especially when it is virtually November! The rainbows were very acrobatic which shows that they are not very stressed and fully of energy, very good to see. I did have to laugh at one point as my buddy was fishing the pool above me, I was walking toward him and could see he had a fish on. He was using a caddis dry with a caddis nymph dropper about 12” below that. The fish he was fighting had taken the dropper, I could see the dry suspended about 6” above the water line and one hungry rainbow took two leaps out of the water at it attempting to eat it. Now that is something you don’t see very often!

Aside from the great fishing, the fall colors lining the river and around the area was just spectacular to see. We were able to sit out on my deck Saturday night with a fire behind, the evening sunset was something to behold which then gave way to a clear sky filled by millions of brilliant stars with an occasional one shooting by. This was perhaps the best weekend I can recall while being down in Reliance and I am looking forward to a return trip soon!


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## garhtr (Jan 12, 2009)

Looks and sounds like you had a Great W/E. This weather is almost unbelievable and Oct sure was a beautiful month for Fishing , hopefully Nov will be as kind to us fisherman.
Good luck and Good Fishing !


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## Tom 513 (Nov 26, 2012)

Sounds like You had a perfect weekend, this October weather is something I think we all can appreciate after such a hot humid summer, back in the begining of the month I made a decision to camp and fish every weekend in October and completed the 5th weekend yesterday, although he only fly fishing I was able to do was 2 weekends ago in Ky, I can only hope to fish streams like the one you guys did and hopefully someday will be as skilled. Congrats


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## big ugly stick (Nov 29, 2010)

Phenomenal


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