Troutgirl

Good luck and prayers for a good outcome of the tests. I hope you get to test some Trout eventually.

The native Brookies are so small that it's difficult to catch one that's legal size. During the 1970's I fly fished all over the Smoky Park streams and the streams in the Tellico Wildlife Management trying to catch a sizable native Brookie. I think I caught and released about 150 natives and never caught one over 6". Most of the streams holding Brookies are tiny and tiny fish is what they mostly produce. It's toy fishing as far as I'm concerned. I caught two native Brookies in Calderwood Lake, also back in the 70's. They apparently got washed down to the lake from either the high reaches of Slickrock Creek or Little Slickrock Creek in the Tellico- Joyce Kilmer Wilderness Area. They were both 8".

That's a nice stringer of 'em....!

There's no minimum size to keep most places. There's special regulations some places. Below Norris Dam, there's a Slot Limit. You can keep Trout below 14". You have to turn loose all the 14 - 20" Trout but you can keep one over 20". In the Smoky Park, I think Trout must be over 7".

I have not caught one too big to taste good yet.

You can fish little Wilbur Lake below Watauga Lake with spinning rods. Watauga's cold discharge makes Wilbur cold, top to bottom. You don't have to fish deep. If you wanna try Watauga, get somebody to guide you. I took my brother to Watauga today. We caught about ten Lakers, 4 small Rainbows.....lost a big Rainbow....darn! I caught a 3 pound Smallmouth. My brother got the biggest Laker today, 23", 4.45 pounds.....

Here's what a bigger one looks like. The first picture is my biggest Laker, 28", 8.1 pounds. They get bigger than this! The state record is a bit over 22 pounds. The second picture is my biggest Rainbow, 26", 6.4 pounds.

There's Trout in the cold release below most of the dams in your vicinity. You could try some simple bait fishing for Trout in little Wilbur Lake that's immediately below Watauga Dam. All you need is spinning rods, hooks, sinkers, and crawlers and Powerbait. I've never fished it but I've seen videos of folks fishing there from the bank and from boats. If you want to fish the bigger Trout lakes, like Watauga, you need a boat. Beyond that, in the warm months, you'll need downriggers, lead-core lines, and Dipsy divers to get spoons and plugs down to the depths where the Trout are. By fall, Lakers and Rainbows can easily be hitting at 50-100 feet down. The first picture shows my downrigger on the boat's back. It takes spoons or plugs down to as deep as 220 feet. The deepest I've used it is110 feet at Watauga. The second picture shows my lines on the other side of the boat. The third picture is me with a 5 pound Laker.

There's no shortage of bait fish in Chilhowee. There is a shortage of big, bad predators to eat them. The population of Yellow Perch has exploded, again, because there's a shortage of big fish to eat them. The Rainbows they stocked should be getting into the 15-20" range this year. It's gonna take some while for the Smallmouth population to build back. They did a one-time stocking of 'em. The last time I fished Chilhowee last fall, we released a couple that were in the 16-17" range. I presume they've stocked Lakers again. They'll take 5 years to reach a good size. They grow slower than other Trout. They also stocked Walleyes and there's a few bigger Walleyes present that came from Tellico Lake when the gates were open. They've also stocked Channel Cats. Before, the only Catfish present were some small Bullheads that never exceeded 10". They also stocked some Crappie. The locals have illegally stocked them in the past. I suspect they'll have a hard time finding suitable spawning spots....??? We'll see. They never caught on in a big way in the past. Trout and Perch would be what to target right now. You'll have a decent chance of catching a Smallmouth or two.

Welcome to the fish tank!

Are you kidding! She would appear to be over qualified! Si, oui, ya, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Welcome to the sisterhood of fish slayers!

Oh, by the way, back then, the 70's, the only tailwaters worth fishing were Chilhowee and Apalachia. They were the only tailwaters that didn't need oxygen injectors because they're small dams and the water all turns over in a matter of days. I read one time that all the water in Chilhowee turns over in 2 days unless there's very low flow due to drought. It might take a year or more for water to turn over in big, deep lakes like Fontana and Watauga. Watauga took 2 years to fill when it was finished. The trout below Norris and Fontana would hardly grow before the oxygen injectors. The Smallmouth below Cherokee Dam wouldn't grow much bigger than a foot long back then. I fished the Hiwassee occasionally but was partial to the Little T until it's demise.