Below is the link to the slide show for the trip
http://s1009.photobucket.com/user/jason_adkison/slideshow/The%20Great%20Smokey%20Mountains%20National%20ParkI have taken sometime off from fishing since my little baby boy was born in April. This past week my wife nudge me to go and take the weekend. On Tuesday I began the calling my fishing buddies to see who could get a hall pass this weekend to go to the Mountains. Bruce my Brother in Law had a hall pass as long as I could adjust my schedule a little bit. After some negotiations on when to leave and where to go we settled on leaving Friday afternoon and heading to Townsend. We arrived at Townsend Friday Night and was welcomed by the owners of a very basic and very clean Motel. They were exceptionally nice and very friendly. We settled in for the night because tomorrow was going to be a very long day if everything went like I hoped.
Man 5:30 am hurt a little but with the site of the morning twilight peaking out over the Mountains it was well worth it. We arrived at the trail head just as it was getting light enough to see well and I have yet to see another angler. In the back of my mind I thought maybe the 40 % chance of rain changed some minds. SO we were off on what was to be a test of will and endurance I just didn't know it when we started. We hiked up a very easy trail about 2 miles to get some distance between us and the parking lot and slipped into the water. We fished pretty hard for about an hour with just a couple of little rainbows between us. God decided to fix our little mistake for us. It started raining and raining hard so we jumped back up to the trail to find an overhang to weather the storm out. To our surprise So did 2 other anglers about 150 to 200 yards up stream of us. Here is where I made the call that my feet would hate me for later. I looked at Bruce and said lets walk up while its raining to find some clearer water and give these guys some space. Note to self never tell a 6 ft + guy that played soccer in college that you want to put some distance in unless you are 6 and in shape. we hiked for another 2 miles and found clean water on one one of the main tributaries and lots of willing rainbows to eat dries. over the next mile of water we landed trout at every spot there should have been a trout it was glorious. Then it turned off like a switch so we hopped out to the trail to see those 2 same fisherman from earlier walking toward us. So we put another half mile of trail in our dust and got back into the water and trout. we fished up to one of the primitive camp grounds and thats when we got our warning shot ( Thunder ) it was time to go. I that is when I made mistake number 2 I looked at Bruce and said we need to get while the getting is good. Over the next 5 + miles of trail he showed me why I never even considered playing Soccer. We made it back to the Trail head just about in time for the next big storm. I am not normally super sore or tight after spending the day fishing but my body let me know I had abused it and it needed some Asprin and a shot of whiskey.
