Fork of Virginia's Holston an apt starting point for 11-Mile Challenge

A midge-cripple tandem provided the best action for Taylor Calloway during a June excursion on Virginia's Middle Fork of the Holston River. (Photo courtesy of Taylor Calloway.)

By Taylor Calloway

I haven't been able to accomplish a lot in TU's 11-Mile Challenge, but I was able to get out on the Middle Fork of the Holston River in Southwest Virginia on a mild June afternoon. 

The water conditions were normal but the stream looked significantly different than when I had fished it in the past. In this section of the Middle Fork there was an ice plant (which burned last year) and a dam built by the plant that stood an estimated 10 to 15 feet tall and caused the river upstream to be uncharacteristically deep. It featured very low velocities and was practically non-wadeable in many places.

The dam had been totally removed around the middle of March by means of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the Upper Tennessee River Roundtable, providing fish and mussels 15 miles of a functional, unimpeded waterway.

On this day in June the difference was the Middle Fork looked like the Middle Fork of the Holston River, with swift, shallow riffles and moderately deep holes holding eager rainbows. 

The fishing was decent. I hooked into several small rainbows early, only to be stumped by topwater action later in the evening. There was a sparse hatch of what appeared to be large sulphers, however that did not seem to be getting the attention of the fish causing the water to boil. In fact, I was not successful by any means with a dry drift and after much frustration, nearing dusk and the end of all of the action I tied on a midge - cripple tandem and was able to appease several decent rainbows.

As I left, I climbed a bank that previously, in some places, held nearly chest-deep water. It was satisfying and special knowing that I was starting my 11-Mile Challenge with a stream that had recently been a victim of the fish passage barriers that TU's program is working to remove.

Taylor Calloway is a hydrologic technician with the U.S. Geologic Survey.