Nick and
I stopped at the Smoky Mountain Visitor’s Center to see when the Park would be
opening since this was at the time all the National parks were closed due to
the government shut down. Fortunately
the Park opened that day due to all the nearby towns pitching in to open it up,
at least through Sunday if needed.
Perfect timing! After securing
hotel arrangements in Gatlinburg at the hotel nearest the park entrance Nick
gave me a tour around the west end of the park.
The sites were amazing.
The following
morning we went fishing on the Little Pigeon River. This was fun dry fly fishing for small
rainbow trout in a beautiful setting. We
parked by the ranger’s station where the river turned away from the road a bit
where we could fish in solitude away from the gravel road. We immediately started catching lots of trout
eager to take whatever we would offer, mostly an Adams or small caddis.
The biggest fish was about 10 inches
long. It darted out from under an
overhanging rock out of one of the deeper holes.
The
morning that we fished the Little Pigeon River the Park seemed like a rain
forest, very beautiful. Everything was
so green and wet. The rocks were
especially slippery. When it started
drizzling I hid under an overhanging rock, but not Nick.
He just kept right on fishing in the
rain. We noticed a group of kids wading
and playing around the rocks in the river and we wondered what they were
doing. Come to find out, they were
catching crawdads. Looking in their big
bucket we saw that it was quite full of large crawdads. This will make a tasty meal for the
family. Nick and I did catch one crawfish
earlier by placing a rod tip near its claws.
It grabbed the rod tip and hung on.
The park
was so beautiful with outstanding vistas that it was hard to break away to fish
when there were still so may gorgeous sights to see. This is one thing I admit I am guilty of,
being so intent on fishing that I don’t appreciate the scenery and gorgeous
settings that most trout streams are part of.
I am glad I was able to see this part of the country and especially the
wonderful Smoky Mountain National Park.
