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Technique guides and fly library.

When to use what

Approach match guides.

Bluebird sky, barometer rising hard, sharp overnight temp drop

Fish: Sluggish and pinned to the bottom or tight to cover; strikes turn short and subtle.
Do this: Slow everything down and downsize. Dead-drift weighted nymphs through deep seams, work a finesse plastic on a light jig, or soak cut bait right against structure and wait them out.

Fly Spinning Bait

Falling barometer, building clouds, wind picking up before rain

Fish: On the feed and willing to chase — the best window of the day.
Do this: Cover water with reaction presentations. Strip streamers, throw topwater or a moving bait, and fish faster than you think you should.

Fly Spinning

Visibility under a foot, rising or off-color flow

Fish: Relying on vibration and silhouette, holding tight to the bank and current breaks.
Do this: Go dark and high-contrast — black or contrast streamers read better than natural crawdad tones when fish can't see color. Add bulk and vibration, and put it right on the cover.

Fly Spinning

Gin-clear flow, bright sun, spooky surface

Fish: Easily spooked and leader-shy; they get a long look at everything.
Do this: Lengthen and lighten the leader, switch to natural colors, and lengthen your casts so you're not on top of them. Match the hatch precisely.

Fly Spinning

Dimples and rings on the surface, bugs in the air or on the water

Fish: Locked onto one insect at one stage — selective.
Do this: Match the bug's size and silhouette before its color. Check the Hatches page for the month and the per-spot matcher, then fish the closest dry you carry.

Fly

Dashboard shows generation on; flow up and cold

Fish: Pushed to seams, eddies, and bank edges out of the main current.
Do this: Get weight down fast and fish the soft water beside the heavy flow. Swing and strip through the seams; mend hard to keep the fly in the strike zone.

Fly Spinning

Air in the 90s, surface temp climbing, midday glare

Fish: Topwater at dawn and dusk; through midday they slide deep and into shade.
Do this: Fish low-light windows hard with topwater, then go deep and slow under cover the rest of the day. The solunar major windows on the dashboard are worth planning around.

Fly Spinning

How-to library by category.

Lure color guide
Which colors to throw in clear, stained, and muddy water, per species, for fly and spinning.

Blue-Winged Olive (BWO)
Early-spring and fall standby. Cloudy days, sizes 18-22.
Elk Hair Caddis
One pattern, three watersheds. The fishingest fly in TN.
Hexagenia (Hex)
The biggest mayfly that matters in TN. Reelfoot at dusk; East TN freestones June-September.
Matching the Sulphur Hatch
South Holston signature hatch; size 16-18, evening focus, April through September.
Zebra Midge
The year-round tailwater pattern. Size 20 covers most TN water.

Blood Knot
Join two pieces of mono or fluoro when their diameters are close.
Improved Clinch Knot
The default attachment knot for tippet to fly or line to lure.
Non-slip Loop (Kreh Loop)
Loop knot for streamers and jerkbaits that need action.
Palomar Knot
Strongest connection knot for braid and slick fluoro.
Surgeon's Loop
A quick loop in the leader butt for loop-to-loop connections.

How the 0 to 100 score works
A plain-English walk through what the number on every spot card means, what feeds it, and how to read it.

High-Stick Nymphing
Short-range tight-line nymphing for pocket water and riffles.
Swing and Strip
Subsurface presentations for soft-hackles and streamers.
The Dead Drift
The single most important technique in moving-water fly fishing.
Topwater Bass at Dawn
The first 90 minutes after sunrise on a flat lake.