TR: Great Smokys Adventure..

Haven't been 'round these parts lately....just sharing my fall fishin' trip.

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Well, I can check another National Park off the list, visited Great Smoky for the first time last week. Fun times exploring, the fishing was tough with the low water but at least the temps were cooperating.

Day 0: Travel from PA, settle in at Dock's in Townsend, TN.

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Day 1: Chase the sunrise, check out Clingman's Dome, do some fishing on the West Prong of the Little Pigeon, poke around Elkmont. West Prong is a great looking stream but tough to scramble around on, a theme for the week it would seem. Fishing was tough, stealth was key, but there were some cooperative rainbows. Little River was awfully skinny for my mood around Elkmont, but ran across some turkeys while checking out the Wonderland Hotel ruins.

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Day 2: Cade's Cove, Abram's Creek. Lots of history in the cove to check out. Abram's Creek was nice, though caught no trouts. Fished around the smaller horseshoe loop above the falls and raised a few but missed them all, did bring few small dace to hand.

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Day 3: Hike AT out to Charlie's Bunion. No fishing, just sight seeing and hiking.
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Day 4: Travel Day to Bryson City, checked out the Oconaluftee River along the way on 441 and the Farm Museum down near the park entrance. Fished a bit on Noland Creek in the evening after checking in to the motel.

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Day 5: Explore Cataloochee Cove. Wanted to see the elk and get off the beaten path, Cataloochee delivered. Even caught the slam of brookie, brown and 'bow from the Cataloochee. also saw momma bear and cub scurry off the road while driving down to the gaging station. Good day on the water, wrapped up with a nice sunset up on the Blueridge Parkway.
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Day 6: Deep Creek. Fellas in at the Tuckaseegee Flyshop pointed me towards Deep Creek. Had read about it, but had crowding concerns, guys at the shop put those worries to rest and it often seemed like I had the place to myself despite the trail being right there. Got into some bigger browns and more good scenery, nice way to wrap up the trip.

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Day 7: Drive home, no pics of the 500miles of Mathew's fringe drizzle as I drove up the 81 corridor...

Full set of pics on the Smug: https://tomi.smugmug.com/Vacation/Gr...ain-Adventure/

nice TR - lotta breadth in great images
thx for posting up!

Excellent! I miss that part of the country

Very cool. My parents retired to the Waynesville area, wish I was into fly fishing when I was there.

That's why I enjoy living here. Beautiful shots.

You should have traveled up and hit the South Holston while you were nearby.

Purdy shots

Looks like a very cool trip. Thanks for sharing.

Very nice.

We need rain in the mountains really really bad. It's crazy low.

A few questions. How did you do on Noland? Did you go up or down?

And deep creek. How far up did you hike to fish?

I plan to try and hit both of these around thanksgiving.

Noland, I went downstream from the road, pretty much to lake level where the trail peters out on the exposed shoreline...thinking upstream would've been better or maybe even further down to the mouth since I was effectively fishing what's usually the lakebed. I didn't do jack, maybe moved one or two fish..

Deep Creek, I didn't hike too far up before starting, water looked too inviting so I jumped in where that cascading waterfall with the benches come in. Fished up thru to above where Indian Creek dumps in, probably an hour thirty-ish walk back to the car along the path.

Pretty sure the entire east coast could use some rain, creeks have been spooky low recently....

Not a fisherman but really felt the stoke from these pictures. Awesome trip and thanks for sharing it with us.

I've never hiked down Noland. Only up. Was curious if any fish were running up from the lake.

Yeah, I didn't see much/any of that action, but I was a bit early for any 'spawning runs' I'm thinkin'...your timing might be better.