A fly in the ointment

Bryson City man’s fly collection is educational

Mike Kesselring of Bryson City has, by his count, 7,500 trout flies, a collection that includes dry flies, wet flies, nymphs, streamers and terrestrials that he has accumulated over 25 years, and, he said, “The only flies I’ve ever tied were at the end of a tippet.”

Kesselring’s love affair with flies and fly fishing began when he was a teen living in the state of Washington, where he discovered the excitement of catching a fish with a concoction of hook, thread and feathers.

When he moved to Bryson City in the 1980s, he began seriously collecting flies. He visited local fly shops and talked to fly fishers and fly tiers, learning what flies were used in specific areas and on specific streams. The first flies that went into his collection were mostly Smoky Mountain patterns, those originated by noted local fly tiers such as Roger Lowe, James Conner and Fred Hall.

“I didn’t realize how big a deal flies were until I started collecting them,” said Kesselring, who purchased flies from local fly tiers and fly shops, sometimes buying flies in bulk if a fly shop was going out of business.

Rather than cataloging flies by originator or region, he catalogs them by size, color and their various stages. In the process, he’s noted how fly tiers gradually moved from using natural materials to synthetics, which usually are more durable.

He’s also noted that wet flies are once again becoming popular with fly fishers. Wet flies predate dry flies and were traditionally fished downstream to imitate insects found on or just below the surface. The earliest wet flies were all winged patterns tied with fur dubbing and palmered hackle. Popular wet-fly patterns include Coachman, Cahill and gold-ribbed Hare’s Ear.

An avid fly-fisher, Kesselring said the majority of his fishing is on Great Smoky Mountain National Park streams such as Straight Fork and tributaries of Little River near Gatlinburg. He especially likes the upper part of Straight Fork, which, he says, has a good population of brook trout, many running 8 to 9 inches.

“I’ve fished all the major streams in the area,” he said, admitting he particularly likes the small streams that show up as blue lines on park maps, streams that require short fly rods and sling-shot casts to get flies under thick growths of laurel and rhododendron.

Kesselring exhibits his fly collection at Trout Unlimited meetings and similar venues. He’s chair of chapter enhancement for North Carolina’s state council of Trout Unlimited and will be the program director of the Fly Fishing Museum of the Southern Appalachians on the Cherokee Indian Reservation when it officially opens in June.

All park streams open

For the first time since the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established in 1934, all streams in the park are open to fishing.

Lynn Camp Prong in the Tennessee portion of the park was reopened in March after a seven-year restoration project that included eliminating non-native rainbow and brown trout and restocking the stream with brook trout, the only trout native to the southern Appalachians. Extensive logging in the late 1800s reduced brook trout habitat by 75 percent. When logging activity ended, streams were restocked with rainbow trout from the West and brown trout from Europe. Because of competition from the non-native species, brook trout that remained were limited to high-elevation streams that were inaccessible to the non-native species.

In 1986, the park began a brook trout restoration program that included 11 streams capable of supporting fish. At first, these brook trout streams were closed to fishing to allow native brooks sufficient time to adapt to their new environment. Eventually, streams were opened to fishing under catch-and-release conditions. Once biologists determined that recreational fishing had little impact on brook trout populations, the park opened streams to catch-and keep. Lynn Camp Prong was the last link in the restoration project.

According to a recent survey, the park has 2,900 miles of streams, with 20 percent capable of supporting trout. Brook trout occupy only 8.6 percent of these streams. The remaining streams contain mostly rainbow trout and limited numbers of brown trout, which are found mostly in the larger streams of the park.

Lynn Camp Prong is a tributary of the Middle Prong of Little River near Townsend, Tenn.

Under park regulations, fishers are allowed to keep up to five trout per day. Size limit is 7 inches. The only license required is either a Tennessee or North Carolina state license.