Davidson River and Watauga River Fly Fishing Report January 28 2020

January 28, 2020 Asheville Area Fly Fishing Report


Davidson and other Medium to Small Sized Streams in Pisgah National Forest
Our small stream fishing has been all over the place. Some days are pretty tough and some days are awesome. The weather and water have been very manic lately and so much so that we can’t really get into a pattern. When the water gets low we have been doing well nymphing the deep slots and holes below riffles. Fish aren’t super active and we have been doing well fishing small streamer patters, worms, big hares ears with midge droppers. When the water gets high it pushes the fish to the shallow edges and then we are switching to a dry dropper set up so we can get drifts in those slow pockets up under the rhododendron. Pheasant tails and small soft hackles in 16-20s have been our best droppers.

Watauga River Fly Fishing Report Tennessee
We have had big water releases from Wilbur dam for the past few weeks and it was strong fishing. We caught our biggest brown trout of the year and many other nice sized rainbows and browns on the flow. It was about 1700cfs. We also were getting good numbers of trout but it was not ridiculous. The lake levels are back down inside the guide curve so we expect low water until we get another big rain or two. February is our best streamer month so we have our fingers crossed that we get some more big rain to fill the lake. Nymphing and dry dropper have been good on the high water flows. They should continue to be productive on the low water we have coming. Fish are still eating eggs. The rainbow trout are spawning, but that will end soon. Then we will finish egg season with the sucker spawn in march.