Watauga River Float 9-18-15

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JaSkynyrd

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
800
Location
East Brainerd
My brother in law Christopher and I floated 17 miles of the Watauga river, from Wilbur Dam to the town of Watauga. We did about 10 miles the first day, and finished up the last 7 the next. We stayed in a fantastic little cabin at Meredith Valley Cabins, right on the river. We were able to just pull our canoes up on the riverbank after a long day, and grill steaks and pork chops on the grill overlooking the river, and then sit on the deck in rocking chairs enjoying the view and the food.

Anyway, the fishing was phenomenal! I have never seen as many massive trout as I did on the Watauga. The water was clear enough to see the bottom in 15ft of water. Hundreds of thousands of fish, some looked to be 26+ inches. We caught around 45 between the two of us, average length was around 12 inches, but Christopher and I both caught a fish in the 22-24" range.

We caught most of our fish on panther martin spinners in 1/16 oz size, bur for the first time I tried a dry/dropper combo on my fly rod, using an olive para hopper with white parachute and a 20 brown zebra midge as my dropper. I have NEVER caught anything on a wet fly, so I forced myself to only used a wet fly to get a little confidence in it. Well, I caught about 4 on the midge, but missed probably 15 strikes on it. It was very rewarding to finally catch trout on a wet fly. I didn't take many pictures, but here's one I caught on the midge:

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I think it's about 16", I didn't measure anything, but it put up a great fight, took me a couple minutes to get it in.

If you are looking for a GORGEOUS float for a weekend, you can't do much better than the Watauga. Biggest rapid was a light class 2 right below Sycamore Shoals, so you don't have to be a whitewater whiz to make it through. Put in and take out are both ramps with ample parking. Literally can't be beat.
 

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