A trip down Watauga with A & S Outfitters

Well the TVA Recreational Schedule is finally in effect.  Saturday morning we met up with Sean from A & S Outfitters of Elizabethton to take him down in our Kayaks.  It would be his first time down Watauga in a Kayak.  You might say that he was a little excited.  I offered Sean the use of my Flex Vertex 85 Kayak.  So a little before 8:00 AM we were at our normal put in just down from Siam Bridge.  Before getting into our trip too much I do want to mention a little about a particular piece of the equipment that was being used.  I did not get a good picture of it however you can see it on the side of the Vertex in the above picture.

Sean and his wife Angie are owners of a great new fly shop in Elizabethton that also makes custom fly rods.  Sean was using a pretty unique fly rod that I wanted to mention.  It is about a 5 foot rod that you are able to put either a spinning real or fly real on.  As an avid kayak fisher this really intrigues me.  As a matter of fact I am having one built by them as I type this.  Hopefully I will have a nice review of it up within the next few weeks.

So with that said lets get down to the trip.  Sean was the first to land a trout of the day.  It wasn't the biggest trout any of us had ever seen but first is first!  We had stopped in our usual spot at the small island just down from our put in at Siam Bridge.  The trout were jumping all around us so we new we were in a good spot.  Unfortunately Sean's trout was the only fish we caught from that spot.  In fact it was the only trout we caught until we were down past were Stoney Creek joins with Watauga.  This is another of our spots that we normally do well at and Sean and Jordan really started catching them here.  I think Sean finished up with 5 from this spot and Jordan with two.

Our next fairly productive spot was just below the Hunter Bridge.  There was a lot of folks in there but we were able to ditch the Kayaks on the bank and find us a spot.  I am not sure of the total number they caught but Sean and Jordan did pretty well here.  We also took a few minutes to eat a quick lunch.  In this picture here you can see the difference in Sean and Jordan's rod.  Jordan is the one in the distance and is using his 8 foot 5 weight and Sean is in the front with his little 5 foot rod.  I am not sure of the exact weight of it but Jordan nicknamed it the "baseball bat".  Whatever you want to call it though, it caught the most fish on the day.

The rest of our trip down the river was pretty uneventful and we didn't catch but a few more fish.  I didn't take any other pictures either.  I want to thank Sean for coming with us.  He gave up time away from his fly shop on a Saturday morning to do a little fishing with us and I really appreciate that.  I can't say enough about A & S Outfitters.  Sean and Angie are remarkable folks and I am glad to see them in Elizabethton.  I hope the business does well and is here for years to come.

Hiking, Camping and a little Geocaching - Part 2

As promised from Part 1 of this posting, I will let you know what happened to the trackable we fondly came to know as "the little yellow guy".  We set out Saturday, May 19, 2012 for Panhandle Rd on Holston Mountain.  Specifically we were headed for the fire tower access road on top of Holston Mountain.  The group this time around only consisted of Misty (the Wife), Abby and myself.  Brianna and Colton chickened out on going and unfortunately Jordan had to work Saturday night.  And yes to make sure that I point it out so that all 10s and 10s of people that read his blog will notice that Brianna (age 15) and Colton (age 12) were too chicken to make the hike out to the camp site.  Yet Abby (age 5) was a trooper and went with us.


I had hunted this area before with Jordan so I was somewhat familiar with the access road out to the fire tower.  The road was wide and a easy hiking although it does climb in elevation a little towards the end.  Normally this wouldn't be so bad but with Misty and I carrying loaded packs for out camp we were due a short rest by the time we made the close to mile hike out to the tower.  After a short rest we decided to check on one of the caches that are supposed to be near the fire tower.  While looking around for the cache we found this little guy right around where the cache should have been.  Not liking snakes very well I decided to let this cache pass until another day preferably when the weather cools off some and the snakes aren't out.


So we set out down the Holston Mountain trail (and yes there is a trail hidden somewhere in this picture lol) on our way to the Flint Mill trail.  The ground foilage was very dense for most of this trail so I kept a good eye out for more snakes while we hiked on.  The trail was a good hike and as I pointed out to Misty several times, was mostly down hill which meant tomorrows hike back out would be up hill most of the way.  She was not in the least pleased to here such comments from me so I decided to shut up before I found myself sprawled at the bottom of one of those hills.

By the time we made it down to the Flint Mill trail head we had been on the trail for a 2 to 3 hours and all three of us were ready for a break.  Abby was hoping to make our camp right in the middle of where Holston Mountain and Flint Mill trails intersect.  Not out of exhaustion though, she was just excited to be camping.  After a short break we set off up Flint Mill trail.  The trail was ab little over 0.5 miles to Flint Rock and we hadn't gone far when I heard Misty shout something from behind that I never really expected to hear.  As I was walking up the trail I heard her gasp and then shout "HORSE".  Now I know that people do frequent these trails on horseback, but maybe my mind just working a little slow at that moment because I about jumped out of shoes when I spun around to see a guy on a horse approaching us on the trail.

After we all got a good laugh and things calmed down the guy on the horse pulled a rattle snake rattle from his shirt pocket and said that he was a short ways behind us on the trail coming down Holston Mountain and that we had walked right past the snake.  On the return trip the next morning I came across the dead snake and man were we lucky.  It was about a 3 and half to 4 foot long snake and as a big around as a mans arm. I am just glad that something didn't happen when we went past it.

After that little jolt we continued on up towards Flint Rock.  About half way there we found a spot where others had camped so we dropped our packs there and hiked the rest of the way out to the rock.  Once we made it to the rock all we could really say was WOW what a view.  I have seen basically the same view from planes while I flew into Tri-Cities Airport but nothing quite like seeing it from the rock.  I think we could have spent all afternoon there but we still needed to find the cache and get out camp set up.

We started back down the train and found the cache on the way back to our camp site.  It was in great shape and after trading out a little swag for Abby we signed the log book and said our goodbyes to "the little yellow guy".  He was our first trackable and we were excited to send him on his way.

We got back to the site and set up our tent and got started on dinner.  I cooked some small pizzas on my MSR pocket rocket stove.  I am not sure if it was just the fact that we were all so hungry or not but the pizzas were some of the best I had every eaten.  After we ate and cleaned up the dishes we broke out some marshmallows and roasted them over the fire.  Abby was her typical self and ate her fair share of them.  We then straightened things up and did a little laundry before heading to bed.  We slept pretty decent aside from the occasional critter in the camp site that night.  Not sure exactly what they were but I did here several coyotes howling nearby.

We rose the next morning and made our trip out.  All-in-all it was a great experience and one we will remember for some time to come.

Here is the track of our trip one way to Flint Rock.

Flint Rock Hike / Camp

⇒ Click here for an album of pictures from the trip. ⇒ Click here for a slideshow of pictures from the trip.

Hiking, Camping and a little Geocaching - Part 1

I have been a little lazy on my posting so this will encompass events over the last two weekends.  To start off, on Saturday, May 12, 2012, we went on a hike out to a geocache in Dennis Cove.  It was supposed to be about 0.75 miles to the cache in a straight line so probably around 1.25 miles along the trail.  Although my wife and oldest daughter was along with us, Jordan and I decided we would hit Laurel Creek, which runs along side of the trail, for some brookies.

So as we hiked the trail Jordan and I stopped occasionally to try our luck.  Unfortunately however our luck did not go so well.  I did tell Jordan towards the start of the trail that fishing on small native streams like this one was much different than fishing stocked streams and rivers like he is used to fishing.  

Here is one of the holes we stopped at along the trail.  It was a beautiful spot that we all enjoyed.  Notice in the picture that Jordan was in his socks.  I am not sure if he was trying to use some sort of chemical or biological attack on the trout or not.  Maybe he was just trying to totally get "in touch" with the water.  I managed to get one or two to bite on my spinning rod here but never hooked any.  The hole was really a bit too tight for two to fish so I wound up dropping back and letting Jordan have at it.  He never even got a bite out of the hole.  Maybe he needed to get his water shoes out of his pack.

One of the next holes we stopped at was another beautiful spot.  The hole was deep and would have made a great swimming hole.  There was a giant rock roughly the size of a small van that we were able to crawl out onto.  Jordan did manage to get a few strikes out of this hole but again did not hook any.  I didn't fish much here and wound up letting him use my spinning rod some.  We spent a good little bit of time here at this hole just relaxing and watching Jordan get frustrated with not being able to hook any trout.  It's always enjoyable to watch others having trouble fishing.  At least it is for me.

We continued on down the trail and eventually came to several spots where we had to cross the creek.  As you can see from the picture Brianna is giving it a go at crossing this part using the wires stretched across.  She didn't make it far though.  I am still not exactly sure what the purpose of the wires were.  At all three crossings the wires were so far above the water that there was no possible way to wade the water and also use the wires for stability.  Not unless you were about 10 foot tall that is.  I also doubt they are there for a person to cross like Brianna is attempting.  The average hiker here would never be able to make it all the way across like that.  What ever the reason, the wires were there and gave us something to laugh about while at each of the crossings.  

After wading across the three sections of the creek, we managed to find our way to the geocache.  To our surprise we found our first trackable in the cache and liberated him.  Jordan also chose a fishing lure key chain.  I forget what we left in its place.  

The entire trip took about 5 hours and was maybe about 2.5 miles round trip.  We had a great time and saw some beautiful country.  In part two of this write up you get to see what happened to the trackable we got from here.

⇒ Click here for an album of pictures from the trip. ⇒ Click here for a slideshow of pictures from the trip.