Troutfest was absolutely amazing. Everything was different this year. More people, more tents, more cars parked in the parking area, and evidently, more money raised for Great Smoky Mountains Nat'l Park. As I was walking back to the truck to muster up all of the tying stuff before I was scheduled to tie, I overheard one of the parking volunteers say that they already had nearly $1,000 in parking donations. That is incredible. Again a majority of all money raised this weekend is being donated to Great Smoky Mountains Nat'l Park, youth programs, and fishery projects within the Park. Of course a small portion will be saved for Troutfest 2011.

The river did call me while I was in the Smokies. I couldn't resist rigging up and fishing Little River yesterday morning. Friday evening I fished Big Creek, beautiful area, but I was forced off of the water with the storms that closed in. The Yellow Sallies started to hatch as I began to exit the river. Figures. The next morning I was on Little River by 8:00 in the morning. I started fishing just below Metcalf Bottoms on Little River. Not too long after throwing my fly into the water, I hooked up with a decent brown. He got off. Trout = 1, Tyler = 0. About 20 minutes later, another brown of decent proportions had my #12 Green Weenie for breakfast (you have to remember, a "decent fish" in the Smokies is in the 10-14" range... Nothing too terribly big). He threw the hook too. Bad hook sets? Maybe. Hooks not sharp enough? Possible. Still, it was fun. Packed it in when things got slow around 10:30 in the morning. Took off to Townsend to take in the 'Fest. As said before, everything was bigger and better. An obvious upgrade from last year. I met a lot great folks while there and had a lot of interesting conversations about fishing and tying. Here's a few pictures from Troutfest...






Today was characterized by another short fishing trip. I was going to fish in the Smokies with a friend of mine, but mom wanted us to get home. We drove halfway home and broke up the long trip back to Kannapolis by fishing the Davidson River. The Big D treated me pretty well. I caught several fish and lost a lot more. I hooked into one large rainbow, probably 20" or so, that upon being hooked, leaped out of the water, landed on a log that laid over river, snapped off of my 6x, and flopped back into the Davidson. I laughed and re-rigged. Next came several more fish, most of which came to the net. I had a 26-28" brown trout with a tail that looked like a fan, lunge at my streamer. He sat right under that log and would chase the fish I hooked. A particularly aggressive fish for sure!! With 6x on, the fight would have been as short as the take....





Here's a short video of the first rainbow. Albeit he was on the small size, he fought like one of his larger Davidson River counterparts. I managed to grab the camera right before he leaped into the air.

 All and all one of the best weekends I've had in a while. I'm flat out exhausted though, but that's a good thing in my book, as it means this weekend was productive.