Tennessee + Trout = Bovine Suicide?

I got back from Kentucky on Monday afternoon. I did not fish in Kentucky...it sucked. On the other hand Ryan has had to do his best imitation of an adult at work, so he has fished exactly zero times in the past three weeks...it sucked also. On Tuesday we decided we needed to stop sucking and go chase some trout. Ryan and I met at the put-in, on the Watauga, a half hour after our mutually agreed upon time. Ryan was half an hour late because he has the slowest bowels of anyone I know. I mean seriously, I watched at least three boats put in waiting on Ryan to finish defiling the McDonald's bathroom in town.

"I took a picture of this cow right after it evacuated what looked to be a Volkswagen size pile of poop. It took 30 seconds to do the deed...not even close to half an hour Ryan."]

Well, after auspicious beginnings we got the boat in the water and made our way down to the trophy section picking up a few fish on the way down.

"My best rainbow of the day. I am into numbers these days, who needs big fish, right?"

As luck would have it we ran into an epic thunderstorm just as we reached the Caddis flats. I thought this might happen, as that is the weather pattern we have been in for the past couple of weeks. We were right near a rock formation that fits the boat like an overhanging glove so we decided this would be a good fried chicken interlude. At this point in the story I would like to interject a riddle if I may, "What has two thumbs and loves fried chicken?". The answer is,"This guy".

I especially love fried chicken on the river. I mean if you deep fried the beak and ass of a chicken and served it to me on the river I would gracefully accept and ask if there were seconds. I wonder if Bojangles would give me a fly fishing sponsorship just for eating chicken and being awesome? But I digress, we spent about an hour hiding out it in our man cave until the rain let up and we hit up the Caddis riffle.

There were no dry flies because of the pounding rain (that would be too much to ask for on my day off), but they were taking soft hackles with some authority and we were having a good day catchin' plenty of cookie cutter rainbows. That is until we got to the island hole, and Ryan had to go and one up me and stick the nicest brown that poked his head out all day.

"Ryan and his brown. Much like UPS this Brown delivered (that is the worst thing I have ever written...ever! But how many funny things am I supposed to think of to describe a brown trout?)"

"Check out the tail, it's almost half the length of old Mr. Leroy"

It wasn't the biggest Brown we have seen up there this season, but a delightful specimen nonetheless. We made our way down river trying to stay ahead of the chocolate soup, consisting of generation and heavy rainfall, that was making its way down river at that point. Down in the ledges I noticed what appeared to be a cow, and low and behold it was a cow...a very dead cow.

"Steak Tartar anyone?"

The funny thing is that this is absolutely not the weirdest thing I have seen in E. Tennessee this year (that would be the guy in the homemade Styrofoam and lawn chair boat...I mean, wow). This does, however, go a long way towards dispelling the popular scientific belief that our Southern trout waters are devoid of nutrients. That is the most nutrient rich sight I have seen in years.

Hmmmmmmm, Beef......Beef, It What's For Dinner......Where's the Beef?....(Insert your own catchy beef phrase here)

Well, till the next dead animal folks,

- Nymph-o