beaming in eastern tennessee

Romantic an idea as it sounds, here’s the way to not catch fish in eastern Tennessee: Find a rustic, utilitarian cabin amid a braid of mountain-fed streams and stocked rivers in April and automatically assume that you will.
That's where this trip begins.
And, as misery anticipates its company, I invited my father-in-law down from upstate New York to join me.
Tom Rydzy is a very good fly-tier. It's a gift. Since I got hold of a proper fly-tying kit in my early 20s, to this day I can’t tie with a quarter of the passion or an eighth of the patience that Tom has — and he's a guy who took it up more or less as a hobby over the past few years.
And that’s precisely why my flies are about half as good as his.
That he out-ties me really doesn't bother me, so long as he shares the flies. He does. I'm impressed, and he knows it. So every so often, he'll bring me a little bag of nymphs or some really nice dry flies. I can tell they weren’t tied by some kid chained to a desk in a developing nation mostly because there is some extra glue here or there or a hackle isn't clipped to some obscure metric scale. That's OK, because they look pretty good. Good enough to fool most trout, anyway.
And, of course, they last more than a season.
I called Tom a few weeks before the trip. I had told him I found these cozy little cabins just outside of Bristol at a family-run KOA in Kingsport and eastern Tennessee has a lot of rivers and dams. “Ever hear of the Tennessee Valley Authority?” He answered that he had. “Fish tend to congregate heavily near the dams; we can’t lose.”
So eastern Tennessee in early April, well, what could be better?
I brought my dog, and that was the last time the two of us fished together. Sadie, so it seems, is more a catch-a-Frisbee dog than a catch-and-release fishing dog. I should have kenneled her, but call it Catholic guilt or what have you, I just didn't have the heart.
However, she was decent enough company on the six-hour ride out of coastal South Carolina. At least if you have a dog in the car, folks don’t look at you as totally nuts for talking to yourself, or even singing for that matter, while barreling down the highway. Some might even smile.
Hey, dogs are people, too. I saw that on a bumper sticker, so it must be true.
The road to Kingsport is pretty much a straight-shot, unless you count the uphills and downhills through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Interstate 26 will take you into Bristol from I-95 near Charleston, S.C., in under 300 miles, give or take a stop or two at Hardee’s. Then it’s a right on I81, the very road Tom would be traveling down, to the exit.
The highway that started an hour from my house more or less deposited me no more than 10 minutes from the campground. I couldn't get lost if I tried.
Windows down, appropriate bluegrass blasting and the dog riding shotgun sort of put me in the right mood for a four-day trip such as this. It was trout season in the rest of the free world, and I would be free from the warm saltwater reds and stripers that I try to catch on the coast. Just think: wading in running water! Rocks! Streams! No gators!
Sounded like nirvana.
Tom was already at camp when I pulled in. He had every door and the hatch in his VW opened wide, the little blue bug belching more fishing and camping equipment than a Cub Scout troop could carry on a weekend sleepover.
He was smoking his corncob pipe, sitting on a picnic table and tying a fly that the campground owner told him might work.
The same campground owner told us that there was a cold front coming in, so get while the getting’s good.
That afternoon, we scouted out a spot on the Holston River, just under I-81, in the shadow of a decent-sized dam, so we geared up like impatient teenagers and waded in, trying not to spook the fish. The area looked peaceful enough. On one side, there was a road with a small dugout where we parked. On the other, a very tall bank, practically a gorge, with bare trees of all sorts plumb to gravity.
There was an amazing great blue heron community — nests, probably 25 of them — in a few of the tip-tops of the trees. It was quite a sight, and noisy once they got to stirring.
But I was there to catch fish, and so was Tom. I waded up the shallow bank closer to the damn. The water wasn’t terribly cold. The sun was still up, and the temps were in the upper 40s. There was a path above from which bait fishermen, I imagined, plunked their clumsy white bass lures or worms. I saw no rise or fall of bugs, nor did I see any fish nuzzling up to the surface. Why would they? It was still early April, and that's when bugs are still wingless and submerged and, well, cold.
So I tried a few brown and black patterns, but I didn't get so much as a tepid interest. The fish had to be there, I thought. The sun would be dropping very soon, so maybe there would be a rise of some foreign insect. We were standing in pretty decent shadows from the large banks, as to be stealth, but the fish weren’t buying what we were selling.
Just down the river, Tom was retying, too. He had gotten out under a tall bridge and was fishing, wisely, close to the bank.
It was then that I heard someone whistling, as if they were calling their dog, from above. Turns out it was a local retiree, and he was whistling to me. I wanted to ignore him — I was just settling into a groove. He exaggeratedly pointed to the dam, and it was right then that I noticed that the current was running a little stronger than it had been when I waded in. And the water was a little deeper, too.
Interesting, I thought. I knew I could get out of the river, but I didn't know if I could alert my father-in-law in time. He couldn't hear me, what with the river’s increasing noise, and he looked very intent on getting that fly onto his tippet.
I scrambled up the bank and headed down over him. I would say that it wouldn't take more than a subtle expression for him to know something was up, but when you're fly fishing, you sort of get into a zone, a peaceful, tranquil Zen-like state. Clearly, after driving 15 hours through all sorts of odd directions, he was in the zone. So his eyes met mine, then he looked down and saw that the water was rapidly rising (it's amazing how fast it does rise when even those small gates open at the bottom of a dam). By the time he climbed onto the bank, the water had risen 2 feet or so.
As we were chuckling and chatting with our guardian angel on the bank, it became apparent that if we waited in the water for our own epiphanies to strike, I would have had to explain to my wife, had I survived the rush of current, that I had, indeed, took her father to beautiful eastern Tennessee to drown him.
I thought there would be some alarm, some signal... Not so, the angel said. Instead, the locals know that at certain times of the day, the dam opens. There are numbers to call before you get in the river, I was told, you know, if you’re not a local.
Dams, after all, open...
This man walks his dogs each evening and scans onto the river. Seems we weren't the first anglers he's beckoned to.

We ordered a couple of burgers in town after we stripped off our waders and gear, then we headed back to camp to warm up. We built a small fire in the tire ring, cracked open a bottle of Jack Daniels (when in Rome...), and reclined in our bag chairs. Aside from a few campers passing through in their land yachts, we were about the only souls in the place. There was a TV on somewhere in the distance, and the tone of the anchor sounded serious enough. So whoever was watching turned it up. It was the weatherman, and he was discussing the gale that would be passing through the region, well, any minute now.
Now, I’m used to a stiff breeze and torrents of rain, having lived on the coast of South Carolina and Florida over the last dozen years, but the mountains, even in April, well, that’s a whole other can of worms. It could, after all, snow at the this elevation.
As promised, in an hour or so the storm of the decade forced us into our shed-sized cabin, and the dog was the only being in this bunkhouse unafraid to mask her bravado. The lightning was constant and the thunder that followed within the time you could gasp sounded like we were being shelled. The rain came down in sheets, sideways of course, and we wondered if the rivers and creeks would rise to claim us in our sleep.
The next morning, the rain, just above freezing, continued and muddied up all the rivers. The Arctic burst came through like a runaway freight train, covering the mountains with a fresh coat of powder and ice and driving our fish deep down into the rivers.
We fished in full rain gear nonetheless under a pall of low gray clouds and fog. The dog barked miserably on the banks, and later, from inside the truck. And it was god-awful chilling.
Rather than keep running to the truck to thaw and calm the dog, we decided to skit around the mountains and try our luck in a host of rivers and streams. We drove down just about every dirt road in eastern Tennessee that day, and at one point, crossed into North Carolina. We put 250 miles on the truck. We ate well, frequently drank black coffee, got more wet than I could remember in some time and thought, well, maybe it will be better tomorrow.
That night, while we shared the rest of the bourbon, we decided to ask some locals how we’d catch a fish in their wonderful waterways.
Most folks gave us the crazy eye. We even got the stink eye from some others. Polite enough, though, they told us to wait until the weather warmed. We explained that we were here for a long weekend, and, well, our fishing permits would expire by then.
They said they’d see us, then, in May.
But one local at a combo gas/grocery/tackle shop said he’d seen guys waving “fly sticks” near a dam just outside of Kingsport: the Fort Patrick Henry Dam.
It was worth a shot.
The directions were cryptic, but after a few wrong turns, we passed over the river, headed toward it, found the parking lot that led to a path that led to a beautiful wide section of the South Holston. It was spectacular. Bridge overhead, fish ladder just up the river.
The South Holston begins in Virginia, ekes its way into Tennessee and skirts west of North Carolina by just a few miles. It's one of the handful of fantastic rivers that you could need more than one fishing license to be legal in — depending on which state your waded or drifted into — along with the Clinch and Watauga rivers. The French Broad, Little Tennessee and Hiwassee rivers also branch out from the 652-mile-long Tennessee River, and some even spill on into Georgia.
The Patrick Henry Dam, named after a colonial fort that took its name from the famous American patriot, was a two-year project that was finished in 1953. It’s 95 feet high and spans 737 feet across the South Holston River. TVA boasts that the dam generates 59,400 kilowatts of electricity. I don’t know how much that really is, and really don’t care. What I do care about is that in the gurgling water below the dam, there are some big trout. And the fish are there because of some pretty careful monitoring of the rivers and oxygenation techniques that enrich the aquatic environment and, in a nutshell, make the 10-mile stretch up to Boone Dam (named after Daniel...) some of the best tailwaters in eastern Tennessee.
As we were getting in our waders, a young man with an ear-to-ear grin saw us gearing up. We couldn't help but notice the happiness and clarity that was emitting from his soul. He said he caught a couple of 15-inch rainbows on No. 16 hooks with a little black ball on them — wound tightly in black thread.
He gave me one of his and told me. “Have a blast,” he said.
Now, being on the receiving end of advice is one thing I’m not terribly used to in South Carolina. When you ask someone where they caught that redfish, they generally like to get a chuckle out of grabbing their upper lip and saying, “Right about here,” mimicking the fish on the hook. Receiving an actual fly, well, that was a first for me. I vowed right then and there on that riverbank that from this moment on, I would hand out successful flies to those who asked. Assuming I have another copy or two in the box...
But that's all I needed to hear: “Have a blast.” I left Tom in the parking lot and practically dove into the water. I looked anxious, one of the fly fisherman’s cardinal sins. Keep a poker face if not to scare the fish then to at least look to the other fly fishermen as if this stuff is routine. Three days freezing in some pretty terrible conditions, and I could see fish on the horizon.
I carefully waded up the rapids to where a couple of guys were fishing, and they gave me a wide berth, which was good, because I hadn’t cast such light tackle in some time. I noticed the fishermen weren't exactly beaming, but they looked peaceful enough. Somewhere between “I’m trying to put dinner on the table” and “at least I’m not at work.” They were fishing what looked like black eggs. I gingerly cast and waited. The fly came back empty. Tom was just getting into the water. The sun was setting. He gave me the sign that he was going to fish downstream a bit — the old pointing of the finger while nodding the head. I nodded back and cast again. Nothing. And again. Nothing.
More nothing.
I so badly wanted to feel that good vibe, wear that smile, beam as if my soul had been baptized.
Nothing.
So I settled into my usual relenting, shoulders-down fishing routine when I begin telling myself that it's better to have fished and lost than not to have fished at all. I took a few deep breaths and soaked in the scenery. It was really great to be on a real trout stream again. But, on my last night of the trip, it sure would be great to catch a fish.
I even said a little prayer, barely audible. “Dear God, even a little rainbow.”
I turned in time to see Tom getting a hit, but he lost it trying to set the tiny hook. Right about then I felt a tug, which stands to reason because, like watching a pot boil, it happens when you least expect it or when you’re busy doing something with your hands, such as blowing your nose or turning and balancing to see if your buddy is doing any good.
It was a good tug, too. Maybe not a 15-inch fish, but something — anything. I tried to set the hook but realized the fish had already begun his run toward the dam where the water was crazy and the holes were deep. I let the line out and the drag up easily, instead giving the reel some friction with my gloved hand. Then I decided the line was getting too close to the backing and gave it a yank.
He was gone.

The next morning while driving back to South Carolina, the sun was out in all its springtime glory. It was still unseasonably chilly, but the sun through the windshield warmed the truck enough that I could turn off the heat.
Tom would take I-81 straight up the ridge and into Virginia. I wanted just one more day.
The snow was so bright on the mountain tops, it looked as if there were mirrors reflecting the sky right back into heaven. The rivers below rushed with the snow melt and rainwater. And the fish, maybe the fish were hungry today, who knows?
I scratched the dog behind her left ear, swung up on the highway and let out a big sigh. But as I was scouting the majestic Blue Ridge horizon, I caught my own reflection in the rear-view mirror.
I was beaming.