fishing – Taylor Joyce Fly Fishing

Watauga River: Siam Bridge

The middle section of the Watauga River at Siam Bridge is a great place to catch a mixture of rainbow and brown trout. Parts of this section are a little on the deep side, so you generally have to stay closer to the bank if you’re wading. This section is road-side, so you typically won’t be fishing alone.

Find a spot to park and make your way through the weeds, strap your boots on tight or else you might lose a shoe to the mud pits at the rivers edge.

One of my favorite ways to fish in this area is using a wooly bugger. It’s an optimal spot for casting your line across the river and dragging it back towards you. Usually I’ll cast my line, let the wooly bugger sink some, and then start slowly dragging the line back towards me.

The water here is slow and clear, so a light tippet is always necessary when fishing small flies. Come prepared with your 6 and 7x. Make sure that the only thing the fish can see is your fly hitting the water. If any part of your line hits hard, it’ll spook them.

What to use*:

Nymph rig: Squirmy worm, pheasant tail, black/purple/olive midge, split case (sulphur or BWO), copper John, soft hackle pheasant tail, red butt

Streamer: Wooly Bugger

Dries: Caddis, Sulphur, Blue Wing Olive (Winter)

*These fly choices may depend on the current season. Contact me or a local fly shop for more information about which flies to use!

You can get here by typing in 222 Steel Bridge Rd, Elizabethton, TN into your GPS. Previously, there was a steel bridge in this exact area, but it was demolished after they built a new one. You can still see the support beams in the water!

Watauga River: Riverside Dr.

To find this stretch, use 108 W Riverside Dr, Elizabethon, TN in a GPS.

Riverside Dr. is one of my favorite places to wade on the Watauga because of how easy it is to access and the amount of water you can cover. If you’re a beginner or taking a beginner with you I would recommend coming here since it’s so wide open and typically pretty easy to catch small to medium sized trout.

About half way on this street, I usually get in right above a small rapid and work my way up the river and cast my lines close to the opposite side of the bank. There aren’t many hard eddy lines to mend around, the water is slower, and it’s easy to walk around here.

Watauga trout can be finicky – I’ve had hard times figuring out what they’re eating. As far as nymphing goes I always bring my zebra midges, pheasant tails, and a variety of soft hackles. For dry fly fishing I bring sulphurs, puff daddies, BWO’s (these are more for the winter), emergers, Morgan’s Midge*, and caddis.

*When I see trout rising for flies and I can’t get them to hit a sulphur, BWO, or caddis, my fall back is always the Morgan’s Midge. Drop it behind your main fly and trout will hit it on the swing.

To find this stretch, use 108 W Riverside Dr, Elizabethon, TN, in a GPS.

Watauga River: End of the trophy section

This section of the Watauga River is located at 100 Wagner Rd, Watauga, TN, 37694.

You should see train tracks beside of the road, and once you turn onto the street you will see a parking lot to the right with the boat ramp and the river in front of you. The trail to get down river to the bridge and easy wading area is to the right of the boat ramp and is easy to follow.

When you get into the water past the bridge, there is a nice ledge in the middle that is shallow and can be walked up and down easily. There is a deep pool that follows along the right bank and a rock slab all the way down the side of the river. Nymph along this wall or use your dries if there is anything rising.

My go-to Watauga nymph rig for deeper water is a squirmy worm, another nymph (copper John, zebra midge, rainbow warrior,) and a soft hackle on the bottom (typically soft hackle pheasant tail or red butts depending on the season.) Weight your line accordingly.

This area houses mostly small to medium sized rainbow trout, but I’ve seen a few monsters lurking beneath the bridge.

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