Winter Fishing on the Elk River, TN

The Elk River in Lynchburg is a tailwater of Tims' Ford dam.  The TVA and Corp of Engineers, which manage the generation schedule of the dam, rarely generates.    It can provide fishing opportuinities when other rivers don't. My good friend Mark Law and I decided to head out this weekend to see what could be done.  We soon found out that the Elk River relies heavily on stocked trout.  There were few fish to be had.  The traditional method of fishing on the Elk is to use streamers and nymphs but an older gentleman suggested I try a dry dropper rig.  After fishing buggers for a couple of hours we headed out to where I had seen a few rises earlier and tried a dry dropper.  Within a few minutes I had two small browns to hand.  I missed a couple of rises to my dry and so did Mark.  We saw no larger fish and nothing moved to take our buggers.  I hear there are hold over trout on the Elk and I have seen larger fish there, even in the heat of the summer but overall the Elk River seems to be a river that produces few hold over fish and I wouldn't recommend it in the winter, unless you have an itch that can't be scratched any other way.  Even so, it was a beautiful day on the water.