The caddis hatch on the tailwaters of East Tennessee has come and gone. Around here, fly fishermen anticipate this event all spring and while the cat is out of the bag on this hatch, (as you can tell from the boat ramp lots) a lot of folks keep their favorite floats, patterns and tricks under wraps. Although we managed some great days on the river, the rain and subsequent high water put an early end to the best of the fishing.
We caught fish on everything from old school elk hair caddises to emerges to pupa. When the fish are looking up like they were during this week, a good drift counts for a lot more than fly selection.
Friend of SDO, Norb, got our biggest dry fly fish of the hatch. He didn’t even let us know that the fish was hooked on 7x until it was in the net….
Bug gods: thanks for a great season. Rain gods: do better next time and cut us a little slack when we need it most.