Thursday (The Day Time Stood Still):

The improvised icepack from last night seemed to have helped, and
the knee felt pretty good. Still, I figured it wouldn't hurt to be
cautious, and headed towards the Little River on the Tennessee side of
the park. It was supposed to have easy access and good fishing.

Drove into Elkmont campground and hit the trail. (Actually, it was
a road.) It was already pretty crowded so "hike far, then fish" seemed
logical. The knee responded well, and using my Leiki for insurance, I
was making my usual pace pain-free. On my way up I spotted one run that
I couldn't pass up. It had a large boulder splitting the river just
above an island. This created two lovely seams plus a deep pool at the
base of the boulder. (Here's a pic from one side:
http://uweb.txstate.edu/~cv01/little01.jpg) This stretch produced a
couple of missed fish plus the first outright refusal I had seen since I
had been in NC. It prompted me to swap leaders and go back to an
open-water leader.

As it turned out, this was a good move; the Little was mostly pretty
wide-open, but had lots of pools and fast runs with with some tricky
currents (plus some seemingly-educated fish). Add to that the fact that
I wound up playing leapfrog with a couple of fishermen.

I found a lovely stretch that reminded me of the Crownest River more
than anything: http://uweb.txstate.edu/~cv01/little02.jpg From that
stretch up a mile or so I was able to stay in the streambed and work
lots of riffles and pools. Whether it was due to pressure or
temperature (or my lousy presentation; I got a couple more refusals),
the pools weren't productive. The riffles, however, gave up a couple of
rainbows in the 6" range.

Somewhere along the way I noticed that my watch had stopped just
about the time I had entered the water. I fiddled with it, but nothing.
Then it dawned on me that it seemed appropriate since time was
inconsequential given my "schedule". Moving upstream with some more
missed strikes, but no pain in my knees, I managed to catch a 7" 'bow on
a sunken para Adams (it waterlogged, but rather than dry it out, I
fished the cast out and got a hookup ... does this mean I was
nymphing?). Then all action ceased.

Just for laughs I tied on a yellow Humpy to see if it would make any
difference, and was rewarded with an immediate strike, but missed the
fish. After checking the fly to make sure that it actually had a hook
point (hi, Uncle Wally), I tossed it into a few likely-looking places
with no luck.

That's when a possible explanation was apparent as a fisherman came
into view in the next pool above me. This seemed like as good a time as
any to start back down the trail, so I clambered out and started hiking.
I glanced down at my watch out of habit, and it had just started up
again. So time had stood still the whole time I was down on the river,
yet it had good enough sense to start up again when I was hiking back
out. Somehow it seemed appropriate, and was even more so when I got
back to the car and found I had been in the water about two hours longer
than I had estimated. (The beer I had when I got back to the car was
the best I've ever had.)


Chuck Vance