The Ultimate Fly-Fishing Guide to the Smoky Mountains. Greg Ward

      Smelt were running the shoreline much the same as gizzard shad do in the impoundments surrounding the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It was pretty mundane fishing, more or less trolling smelt flies on the outside of their schools, which stretched as far as you could see under the surface in a 5-foot-wide ribbon. I caught a couple of salmon and discovered black salmon are not quite the incredible battlers as their brethren fresh up from the North Atlantic. I had almost nodded off when the fourth salmon struck, but I immediately knew it was a considerably larger fish than those I’d caught earlier.

      We engaged in a tug-of-war for a few minutes, and then when I worked the fish closer to the boat, it leaped forth from the water. The salmon was almost 4 feet long and cleared the water skyward at least 10 feet. The closest thing I have ever seen to this was when Spencer Tracy in the movie, The Old Man and Sea, first saw his great marlin erupt into the air. For the next half hour I tangled with the leviathan salmon, which took me to the shoreline before I landed it. There must have been 100 people around it while we measured the fish before releasing it.

      Without a word, the crowd parted to allow Ted Williams to come see the fish. I was unaware that his lodge was 100 yards behind me. In his typical gruff fashion, he walked over where I was knee deep in the river, and said tersely, “Biggest one caught here in a long time.” Without another word, or letting me know if he remembered fishing with me in years past, he turned and walked away. The salmon taped 46 inches long, and we estimated its weight at around 43 pounds. The incredible part of the story is, though, that this fish was landed on the same rod I used a week earlier when fishing Abrams Creek.