Watauga River fishing report
Weekly reports from local fly shops, with what's hatching and which flies to fish this month.
Shop reports, last 10 days
No shop has posted a report for the Watauga River in the last 10 days.
What to fish on the Watauga River in November
- Sculpzilla #4-6: Perfect Fly Store names brown and white-belly sculpin articulated streamers in #4-6. When flows rise, fish soft edges and streamer lanes (MidCurrent).
- Olive Matuka #4-6: The black and olive Matuka sculpins the same shop names.
- Barr's Emerger (BWO) #18-20: For the afternoon olives. Tie it on only if you see rises.
The largest browns move upriver toward winter spawning grounds and feed hard first. Streamers are the main event; olives, midges and an odd sulphur show up in the afternoons. Browns in the big tailwaters spawn from mid-November into December, so keep off the gravel.
Sources: Thomas & Thomas (South Holston and Watauga), Perfect Fly Store, MidCurrent (Tennessee winter tailwaters), Blue Ridge Outdoors (Cooling Waters)
What's hatching
- Blue-winged olives from November through June (Perfect Fly Store lists #16). Baetis and Acentrella hatch ahead of the caddis in spring. · Perfect Fly Store
- Midges all year (cream, red and light green, #20-22), with black flies in the colder months; midges are king when nothing bigger is hatching. · Perfect Fly Store
- The largest browns move upriver toward winter spawning grounds and feed heavily first; expect olives, midges and an occasional sulphur. Streamers are especially productive. · Thomas & Thomas (South Holston and Watauga)
- The largest browns mostly ignore hatches and rarely feed at the surface; when sulphurs and caddis hatch together, anything can happen. Scuds are best from May. · Fly Fisherman (Watauga caddis hatch)
From the Fly Picker, which ranks flies from hatch charts and published reports. It does not use the shop reports above.