Bristol, Tennessee
On The Fly Freshwater
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On The Fly Freshwater
February 2025
By Jimmy Jacobs
On The Fly South hosted our first group trip back on January 18 to 20 to fish on the South Holston River in Bristol, Tennessee. The venture sort of mirrored the history of our web journal. After all, who starts a new business in the midst of a worldwide pandemic? That’s what we did in January of 2020, but it has worked out.
So now we had a trip planned in which Associate Editor Polly Dean and I were hosting a dozen of our readers. And it just happened to coincide with one of the worst snow events of the new year! Still, On The Fly South’s charmed existed held. We had some very good fishing.
Our trip was headquartered at the Tailwaters Lodge on the South Holston. Specifically, we had booked their Hatch cottage that can accommodate up to 13 folks. Our overflow was housed in the adjacent Midge cottage. The larger cottage served at our communal meeting place for meals and telling fishing tales at the end of the days on the water.
The public access area on the South Holston tailwater. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
The plan was to do some float trips on the tailwaters of South Holston Lake and Fort Patrick Henry Lake, both of which are on the South Holston. Our float trips were arranged with South Holston River Company guides. Additionally, we had wading privileges on a section of the river on the lodges property, as well as the adjacent public access upstream to the Weir Dam on the river. Early arrivers on Friday kicked off action by catching some rainbows in both of those areas.
Despite air temperatures around the freezing mark, the next morning the groups prepare to head out for some float fishing. However, the ones that planned on hitting the South Holston tailwater had to go to plan B. There was not enough water being released for the drift boats to make it down the river. As a result, those groups switch off to fish the nearby Watauga River for the day.
Meanwhile, Polly and I, along with a couple of other boats, opted to target the tailwater below Fort Patrick Henry Lake. This portion of the river is around 40 river miles downstream of South Holston Lake close to the town of Kingsport.
Our guide was Logun Shell. He is a native of the area, has been fishing the South Holston River virtually all his life and professionally guiding for the last 6 1/2 years. After launching his drift boat, we fished the first two miles of water for trout.
This part of the river is noted to produce less rainbows than the South Holston tailwater. On the other hand, in recent years it has been yielding more big fish. The morning fishing proved to be rather slow, with few takes.
Then our fishing was interrupted by the boat from our group carrying Jim Schill and Rodney Tumlin passed us, with Jim standing in the front with his rod doubled over by a fish they were having to chase. When he finally boated the rainbow, it measured an impressive 26 1/2 inches.
Jim Schill in the drift boat with guide Brady Carter fighting his fish that turned out to be a 26 1/2 inch rainbow. Photos by Jimmy Jacobs.
Eventually, we reached the area of Kingsport proper, where the shoreline is bordered by a massive Eastman chemical plant. It was this stretch of the river that had enticed here. The plant intake sucks river water in to cool their operations. Then, below a low-head dam the heated water is returned to the river. This warm water flow that ranges from 60 to 80 degrees depending on the season is a boon to winter-time anglers. The next two miles of water are alive with feeding smallmouth bass throughout the coldest months.
The first of our signature memories from the trip was made when we rode the drift boat over the dam. Logun made it seem easy, but we still had death grips on the gunnels!
The Eastman plant and the low-head dam. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
Once at the outflow from the plant, we changed over to bass gear, fishing a two-fly rig. The top fly was a floating Todd’s Wiggle Minnow, with a 15-inch dropper tippet ending in a micro-sized Game Changer style fly made famous by Virginia tier Blane Chocklett. Both flies were pure white in color.
Logun explained that we needed to cast across the current, dead drift the flies downstream and let them swing across the flow. The idea was to imitate dead or dying shad floating with the current.
Polly Dean casting to the outflow and with guide Logun Shell displaying the result. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
Once we got the hang of the presentation, the smallmouths proved accommodating. We boated around a dozen of the bronzebacks with several in the 18- to 20-inch size range. The Schill and Tumlin boat managed a similar number, with a couple of 20-inchers, plus a largemouth or two.
As we drifted farther downstream toward our take out, the second memorable occurrence took place. Polly had hooked a log near the shoreline. Logun fought the push of the river with his oars to get the boat over where we could get her line loose.
The “volunteer” smallmouth that jumped into the boat. Photo by guide Logun Shell.
As I sat in the back of the boat, staring down at the water beside the log, the surface suddenly erupted. A smallmouth bass came rocketing out of the water, over the side of the boat and landed flopping at my feet. Polly and Logun immediately thought I had caught the fish, until I pointed out I didn’t have a rod in my hands. It was the first time any of us had a fish voluntarily leap into a boat while fishing.
Rodney Tumlin showing off his bass “slam” from the Fort Patrick Henry Lake tailwater. Photos by guide Brady Carter.
Obviously, that made for great story during the group dinner back at the Hatch that evening. During that meal we also got caught up on how the other groups had fared on the Watauga. Steve Wilder from Atlanta had only caught a single fish. But it was a 24-inch rainbow, so he was not disappointed. Another group had put a total of 42 trout in their boat. Also, the third boat on the Fort Patrick Henry tailwater and manned by Tyson Reed from Rome, Georgia and Rob Kissel of London, Kentucky had done well on the smallies, with at least one topping the 20-inch mark.
Steve Wilder with his 24-inch Watauga River rainbow. Photo by guide Matt Murphy.
And then the snow began to fall. By morning there were 4-inches on the ground and more predicted that day and overnight. While the roads were still clear, our crowd began to flush like a covey of quail, heading in all directions to get home before getting iced in.
The fishing got cut short by a day, but in spite of the cold and snow, fish were caught, fish tales were swapped and we left Tailwaters Lodge with good memories and a desire to return.
We can highly recommend the Tailwaters Lodge on the South Holston and the guides from the South Holston River Company. Give them a try, but you should probably not plan to do it during a blizzard!
