Wild Trout in East Tennessee

On Wednesday, my fly fishing buddy Ray and I hired a guide for a little wild trout fishing in far Eastern Tennessee. We had to leave Fairfield Glade at 4am in order to cross a time zone and meet our guide by 8am eastern time. We actually drove into Damascus Virginia (a famous stopover on the Appalachian Trail) before crossing back into Tennessee to access a wild Brook Trout stream.

Wild trout are trout that spawn naturally in a stream without having to be stocked. Brook Trout are the original inhabitants of the Eastern United States before Rainbow and Brown Trout were stocked in the streams many years ago. Brook trout normally live only above 3000 feet elevation in the tiny mountain streams that are cold enough and free from larger rainbow or brown trout. A nine inch brook trout in these small streams is comparable to a 20 inch Rainbow in a larger stream.
Because the stream was small and tight there was very little back casting and we had to flip and sling our fly lines into the stream.

Nearly every small pool held a brook trout. Because these fish live in small steams with limited food they voraciously strike any available food, or any fly that looks like food. We probably caught 20+ between us and missed that many more. One miss and that pool on the stream was done for the day. The little buggers are spooky.
Our guide provided lunch in a small town restaurant appropriately called Mountain City. A thunder and lightening storm happened mostly during lunch, but we had to revise our plans because the heavy rain muddied up a couple of streams that we had planned to fish. But it worked out OK, as our guide knew streams in different drainages that weren't affected by the localized rain. We caught wild Rainbows in 2 different streams in the afternoon and on the last cast of the day Ray landed the best fish, a wild Rainbow that was about 12 inches.
Miles driven...a lot, cost of a guide, even more, wild Brookies and Rainbows.....priceless!