James Marsh

6/17/08 When we were fishing the Great Smoky Mountains National Park last week, mygrandson ask me “where does the water come from”. I thought that was a goodquestion and maybe one that a lot of other folks may not have thought about. A freestone stream is born at the top of mountains as drops of rainwater andmelting snowflakes. As gravity forces these droplets to seep… Read More »Freestone Streams -Part One

January (1/09/08): I will try to answer three different questions in email I received from the coldwater article of January 6, 2008.1. The first question was pertaining to when to use dry flies and when to usenymphs. Making this decision solely based on water temperature could be a bigmistake. There are times when you may want to fish a nymph when the watertemperature is 55… Read More »More on Fishing Cold Water

(10/27/07):We recently returned from Yellowstone National Park where the brown trout areahead of Smoky Mountain brown trout with their annual spawning process. Ofcourse this is due to Yellowstone’s climate which results in water temperaturesthat are much lower at this time of year than here in the Smokies.Yesterday we noticed that the brown trout have already begin the spawningprocess in the Smokies. Of course it is… Read More »Spawning Brown Trout

(8/14/07):Angie and I just returned from Wisconsin where we had been fishing the lovelysmall spring creeks to find several emails from this website as well as ourYellowstone website (www.flyfishingyellowstonenationalpark.com) regardingwater temperatures in both parks. In general, they were concerned about thevery high temperatures and low water conditions in both locations.Normally this time of year we fish early in the mornings in the park. I say… Read More »Straight Fork Stream Water Temperature

(8/9//07):We have recently returned from the New England area and did not have time toget this out prior to leaving. Prior to our departure at the end of July, we fishedthe Little River after the water was back down to a fairly low level andtemperatures were again reaching the high sixties during the afternoon. For acouple of days, late in the day, we had quite… Read More »East Prong of the Little River Terrestrial Hopper/Beetle Rig

(7/20/07):On July the 19th and 20th, 2007, we finally got some rain in the SmokyMountains. It has been raining here and there for the last two days, so Angieand I decided to see if the Little River was up and colored. We were going aftera big brown if it was.When we arrived, about 1:00 PM, Little River was rising and too off colored tosuit us.… Read More »Happy July Brook Trout on Walker’s Camp Prong

(5/22/07):It was about 11:00 AM, mid March of 2007. Angie and I wanted to get somefootage of fly fishing the Middle Prong of the Little River. It was time for the QuillGordons to hatch and we were looking forward to it.We started at the end of the paved road. Angie grabbed a rod and hit thestream while I was getting the video gear out of… Read More »Blue Quills of the Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River

(5/20/07):It was cold day in November, 2006, but it had not been cold long enough to bringthe water temperatures down very much in the Oconaluftee River. The watertemperature was showing 55 degrees on my thermometer although the airtemperature was only about 40 degrees when we started. It was too cold forAngie this morning so, guess what? I got to fish for a change.Angie was going… Read More »November Oconaluftee River Trout

(5/20/07): It was our first time to fish Big Creek this year (2007). We had decided to hikeupstream about a mile before starting to fish. I was busy getting the cameraequipment together when Angie departed for the stream with her rod in hand.She is good at that -leaving me to finish the work while she test the water.We were going up the main trail instead… Read More »Hiking Up Big Creek Great Smoky Mountains