DEEP IN THE SMOKIES, A PRIZE CATCH
Park boasts lush wonders and wildlife, much of it in a restored brook habitat
TOWNSEND, TENN. Two visitors emerged from the rhododendron, surveyed the landscape, consulted in whispers and planned their approach.
They were on the Middle Prong of Little River in a postcard-pretty slice of Great Smoky Mountains National Park known locally as “Tremont.”
This particular pool, turquoise in the late afternoon sun, was guarded by a downed tree, just downstream from a towering cascade that serves as a natural barrier separating the creek’s rainbow and brook trout populations.
Rob Fightmaster, a guide with Fightmaster Fly Fishing, and his fisherman studied the pool for a full minute. Fightmaster pointed, then raised his arm a few inches and pointed again. Trout.
James Dotson, an engineer whose globe-trotting work currently has him stationed in Ukraine, stepped into the stream. Two side steps and he was knee deep in the pulsing current. Facing upstream, wielding an 8-foot fly rod and bent slightly at the waist, he made a sidearm cast.
A moment passed before the splash. Dotson set the hook and for an electrifying instant man and fish were connected. Then the line fell slack.
He cast again, flipped the rod tip to mend the line and waited. Another splash. This time the hook held. After a spirited fight Dotson brought a wild, 9-inch rainbow trout to hand.
“This is my third year of fishing in the park,” Dotson said. “I love it here. It’s one of the most beautiful places to be ... one of my favorite spots.”
A RECOVERY TO CELEBRATE
The 522,427-acre Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a woodland jewel, rising to a pinnacle of 6,643 feet above sea level with 16 peaks above 6,000 feet. It is laced with about 2,900 miles of creeks and streams.
Today the park pulses with natural wonders and wildlife, thanks in part to four decades of work restoring much of its pristine brook habitat, work that in some ways has capped a longterm recovery.
A century ago, the lush Great Smoky Mountains National Park landscape that visitors enjoy today did not exist. The land had been ravaged and with it most of the clear, cold streams that threaded this piece of the Appalachian spine and harbored the region’s only native salmonid: Southern Appalachian brook trout.
“Prior to the development of the park about two-thirds of what is currently Great Smoky Mountains National Park was completely clear cut,” park fishery technician Caleb Abramson said.
When the park was established on June 15, 1937, wildlife restoration was not a linchpin of the management scheme.
To improve the fishing, some locals began bringing in rainbow trout by rail from California. Those non-natives found the park’s high-gradient, well-oxygenated waters to their liking. They picked up the moniker “California trout.”
A few native brook trout did survive but were confined to the park’s highest, most rugged ridges and slopes.
Non-native trout stockings continued until the 1970s when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service began evaluating brook trout. The Park Service decided that native species should be preserved, and all trout stockings stopped. Native trout waters were identified and the labor-intensive restoration work began.
Abramson said efforts were made to ensure that when brook trout were moved they remained within the same watershed. Brookie populations have been restored in 27.6 miles of 11 streams, and additional work is planned on two miles of Anthony Creek this year.
Still, most of the park’s trout waters hold rainbows, naturally reproducing descendants of early stockers and fish that are now part of the landscape and welcomed by the Park Service.
BEAUTIFUL, BUT ELUSIVE
Estimates vary as to how many trout park waters hold, but the general consensus ranges upward of 2,000 fish per mile.
One thing everyone does agree on: Great Smoky Mountains National Park trout are not pushovers.
Daniel Drake of Little River Outfitters in Townsend, Tenn., is refreshingly honest.
“It’s not easy fishing,” he said. “Of course, they’re all wild trout. Fishing up in the park can be difficult until you get it figured out.”
He suggested first-time anglers and those inexperienced with the challenges of park waters work with a local guide.
Of the 2,900 miles of waters flowing through the park, approximately 750 harbor brook, rainbow or brown trout. A few smallmouth and rock bass can be found in some of the lower-elevation streams. Fishing is restricted to artificial flies or lures, single hook. No live or scented baits are allowed.
Estimates vary on how many of the park’s 10 million annual visitors fish.
“It’s likely between 200,000 and 800,000,” said Matt Kulp, the supervisory fishery biologist for the park and a 22-year veteran of helping manage park waters. “But my guess it’s closer to the higher number.”
Fishing also can offer visitors some solitude — a rare commodity in America’s most popular national park.
“If a person is willing to put a little sweat equity into it, even on the busiest days of the year you can find a place where nobody is fishing,” Abramson said.