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.