Fly and Gear ordering and delivery: We can get flies to you within two to three business days from the time you place your order via Priority Mail. If you provide a budget for flies, we will select them to match the budget and get them to you on time for your trip. Please see the bottom of this column for ordering options.
We also have custom Perfect Fly selections in 3 different price ranges for this stream that come with or without fly boxes. They make excellent gifts. Click Here To Order or Call us at 800 594 4726 or email us at sales@perfectflystore.com.
Type of Stream
Freestone
Species
Brown Trout
Rainbow Trout
Brook Trout
(Wild)
Size
Small to Medium
Location
Great Smoky Mountains National
Park
Nearest Towns
Knoxville, Tennessee
Townsend, Tennessee
Season
Year – round
Access:
Very Good
Special Regulations
None
Non-Resident License
Either the State of Tennessee or the
State of North Carolina
Weather
National Weather Service Link
Additional Information:
Fly Fishing Smoky Mountains
Seasons:
All the streams in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (except those closed for special projects) are open to fishing year-round.
Spring:
Springtime is a great time to fish this little trout stream.
Summer:
The headwaters are the best choice for summertime fishing on Cosby Creek.
Fall:
Fall is certainly the most beautiful time to fish the stream. The fish are always very responsive and dry fly fishing is usually great.
Winter:
Trout can be caught on all but the coldest winter days.
Recommended Tackle & Gear
Fly Line:
4, 5 or 6 weight
Leaders:
Dry fly: 9 to 12 ft., 5 or 6X Nymphing:
71/2 ft., 3 or 4X, Streamers 0-2X
Tippets:
Dry fly: 5 or 6X, Nymphing: 3 or 4X,
Streamer 0-2X
Best Fly Rods:
Perfect Fly Supreme Four, Superb Five
or Ultimate Six
Fly Reels:
For 4/5/6 fly line
Fly Floatants and Misc Items:
Floatants, KISS Strike Indicators
Tools & Accessories:
Nippers, forceps, retractors, etc.
Fly and Gear ordering and delivery:
Email us at (sales@perfectflystore.com) with the dates you will be fishing and we will send you a list of our fly recommendations. We can get flies and gear to you within two to three business days from the time you place your order via Priority Mail. If you provide a budget for flies, we will select them to match the budget and get them to you on time for your trip. Your can also call us at 800-594-4726 and we will help you decide what flies and gear to use. All orders are shipped free in the U.S. If under a $100 order requiring Priority mail is a charge of only $8.10. Orders over a $100 are shipped free via Priority Mail.
Copyright 2013 James Marsh
Fly Fishing Cosby Creek Tennessee
(GSMNP)
If you like fishing a small stream that is away from the crowds of the larger communities and most tourist, try Cosby Creek. It is an easy and delightful little stream to fish.
Cosby Creek is located in a fairly remote section on the north end of the park near a community where moonshine was more plentiful than the water in Cosby Creek at one time. Now it is one of the fastest growing areas surrounding the park. It is a great place to take youngsters who are learning to fish. The trout are fairly easy to catch.
Cosby Creek may have some traffic and it may have a crowded campground at times, but it’s not usually crowded from a fishing standpoint. Its headwaters want be crowded for certain. Rock Creek, Inadu, Toms and Crying Creek are all very small brook trout streams in the headwaters.
All but some of the lower areas of the stream are tightly enclosed with tree limbs. It is fairly easy to get around in the lower part of the stream below the campground. Much of it can be fished from the banks although keeping your fly out of the trees and bushes isn’t exactly easy.
Cosby Creek has some beautiful short runs and a few riffles. Its pools are usually full of wild trout. Since the trout are all wild, streambred trout, a certain amount of
caution should be used. They are easy to spook. Good presentations are usually needed to fool them.
Fly Fishing Guide to Cosby Creek:
Cosby Creek requires small stream tactics anywhere you fish it.
The lower part of this stream is a quick and easy stream to fish. The upper headwaters
takes some hiking to get to. The lower section has lots of small rainbows but there have
been a few larger ones caught there also. The stream is stocked just outside of the park. A
road follows the lower section up to the Cosby Campground. You can stop and fish just
about any where there within sight of the road.
As just mentioned, you can hike into the headwaters but you can also catch plenty of brook trout starting at the campground and fishing upstream. You don’t have to make an extended hike to catch them. The farther you hike into the headwater, the better the fishing usually is. It gets far less pressure.
These small to tiny headwater streams typically have a short plunge and a small pool. The
gradients are usually quite steep. There are few areas where the water flows only
moderately. Most all of it is fast water. The brook trout can be found in just about every little pool. They usually don’t hold and feed in the fast water of the plunges or in the white water. Most often they are positioned in the slower moving water at the ends of the pools. It just requires sneaking up on them and making a soft presentation that doesn’t spook them. It also requires keeping your flies out of the trees. Cast are normally only a few feet. It usually takes all types of short, creative cast to get the fly in the right spot. Stay very low and sneak up to each area large enough to hold a brook trout.
The lower section along the road is quite different. Cosby Creek is one of the small brook
trout streams that you can reach from a road. There are not that many in Great Smoky
Mountains National Park. Brook trout start showing up as low as just below the Cosby
Campground. Most of the trout below the campground will be rainbows. Fish upstream in the
short riffles and runs. All of he pictures are of the lower section along the road. There is
enough room to cast in many areas but some of them are very tight and enclosed with tree limbs. Short, upstream cast are all that are required. High sticking nymphs in the fast water is also usually effective but most of the time the trout will respond to dry flies.
Hatches and Trout Flies for Cosby Creek GSMNP Tennessee
Cosby Creek has some great early season hatches. Beginning in late February, you can
usually find some Blue-winged Olives hatching on a cloudy day. We have seen these hatch
even when it was snowing. About the first of March, chances are good that the Blue Quill
mayflies will start to hatch. The exact time can vary a couple of weeks or more if the weather is abnormally warm or cold.
Around the same time you will begin to see the Little Black Caddis along the rocks and
banks. They will hatch out in the stream on the surface almost like a mayfly. These can
actually provide more action and result in more trout caught than the Blue Quills or Quill
Gordons. From about the middle of the afternoons you can fish imitations of the pupa, then change to an adult pattern when the hatch gets to going good. After about an hour, the egg layers from previous hatches will return to deposit their eggs. The action can last until dark.
Almost at the same time the Blue Quills start hatching, the larger Quill Gordons begin to
come off. This can really turn on the trout and the anglers. They actually turn on the anglers more than they do the trout. The larger mayflies are easy to see and give the impression that the trout are really interested in them. Actually, they probably eat far more Blue Quills than Quill Gordons, but the Blue Quills are more difficult to imitate. You can match the flies alright, but you must fish the shallower, slower moving water where the trout get a good opportunity to examine your fly. It is easy to spook the trout feeding on the Blue Quills. The larger Quill Gordons hatch behind the boulders and in pockets where they quickly get caught up in the current seams and head downstream.
The Quill Gordons hatch on or near the bottom and may or may not get any attention from
the trout on the surface depending on several factors. Often anglers are frustrated by
seeing them hatch and still not catching trout. When that happens, fish an emerger pattern. We have a “Perfect Fly” pattern just for this. It is a wet fly that works great whether the trout are taking the duns on the surface or not.
Fishing the Quill Gordon hatch, you can usually get by making rather shot upstream
presentation in the current seams and at the ends of long runs and riffles. When they take the duns on the surface, the action is exciting and provides a lot of fun for anglers. Come April, the Quill Gordons will be gone for another year and you will have to start looking for other less concentrated mayfly hatches.
The March Browns will show up on Cosby Creek but not in heavy concentrations. Soon the
Light Cahills will start hatching here and there but again, not in a concentrated manner. You can catch trout fishing these hatches, but not as consistently as you can on the Little Black Caddis, Blue Quills or Quill Gordons.
I haven’t mentioned the stoneflies but they are very plentiful in the stream. The first ones to appear are the Winter Stoneflies that show up in January. In April you will begin to see the Little Yellow Stoneflies, or Yellow Sallies. They will provide a lot of action late in the
afternoons around sunset.
In early to mid October, the water will cool down and some late season hatches of
Blue-Winged Olives and Mahogany Duns will start to hatch on the lower section of Cosby
Creek. The Mahogany Duns, a sister to the early Blue Quills, usually hatch in large
quantities and provide some great action. These are small mayflies, usually a hook size
18-20 but they will get the attention of the trout.
During the month of June, grasshoppers, beetles, ants and inch worms, all terrestrial
insects, become important food items for the trout. Theres few hatches occurring, so most anglers start using imitations of these terrestrials. The inch worms, or moth larvae, are especially important due to the large numbers of them in the forest of the park.
In addition to the terrestrial and aquatic insects, theres a lot of other food for the trout. Small Crawfish is one of those items. Another one is Sculpin. These small fish are abundant in most of the stream. Imitations of them can be very effective. The Black Nose Dace is another baitfish that is important. Streamers imitating these and other minnows work great, especially when the water is slightly off color.
I didn’t mention it in the aquatic insect part above, but midges are abundant throughout the park. They can be very important when the water is cold and nothing else is hatching.
Imitations of the larva and pupa will catch trout anytime of the year.
Craneflies are everywhere water exist in the park. The larva and adults are important insects to imitate. Hellgrammites, or the larva stage of the Dobsonfly, is another abundant insect that is in many of the park’s streams.
We recommend our “Perfect Fly” imitations. They are the best, most effective flies you can purchase and use anywhere trout exist. If you haven’t already done so, please give them a try. You’ll be glad you did.