Guided Fly Fishing Adventures in the Heart of Great Smoky
Mountains National Park
828-484-1132
Most people see the Smokies through a windshield. A few step into the current and find a different park entirely.
Not sure where to start? Let’s talk fish, water, and what you’re after.
Call or Text 828-484-1132
Guided Fly Fishing Adventures in the heart of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Licensed, insured, and operating under U.S. Department of the Interior permit GRSM-2025-6d557ec1, Trout Trails offers professional fly fishing and tenkara guide services in Cataloochee Valley of Great Smoky Mountains National Park — one of the most biodiverse trout fisheries in the eastern United States.
From headwater streams holding wild brook trout to lower elevation runs where brown and rainbow trout hold in cold, clear pools, every guided trip is a fully customized backcountry experience. Whether you’re picking up a Tenkara/fly rod for the first time or chasing native fish in water most anglers never see, we meet you where you are and take you somewhere worth remembering. Give me a call or text me at (828)484-1132 for more details.
Protecting What Makes This Place Special
The Southern Appalachian brook trout is not just a fish — it’s a living marker of watershed health, a remnant of the last Ice Age, and one of the most beautiful wild things you’ll ever hold in your hands. A portion of every Trout Trails guided trip goes directly toward native brook trout conservation efforts in the Southern Appalachians. When you book a trip, you’re not just fishing — you’re investing in the future of these waters.
Ready to experience Great Smoky Mountains fly fishing at its finest? Reach out to start planning your trip.
The Guide
Chris has spent a lifetime wading the streams of the Southern Appalachians — learning their rhythms, reading their water, and chasing the wild things that live in them. As a licensed, insured, and NPS-permitted fly fishing and tenkara guide in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, he brings that depth of experience to every trip.
Tenkara isn’t just a technique Chris teaches — it’s how he fishes. Simple, deliberate, and perfectly matched to the tight, tumbling freestone streams around Cataloochee Valley, it’s an approach that strips away the complexity and puts you back in touch with the water. Whether it’s your first cast or your thousandth, Chris tailors every guided experience to where you are and where you want to go.
Beyond the fishing, Chris is a naturalist, a conservationist, and a student of this landscape — its history, its ecology, and the native brook trout that have held on in these headwaters since long before the park existed. Guiding in the smokies isn’t just a job. It’s a way of staying connected to a place that matters.
What is Tenkara??
Tenkara is a traditional Japanese mountain stream fishing technique — a fixed-line method developed centuries ago by professional fishermen chasing wild trout in the fast, cold headwaters of the Japanese Alps. No reel. No backing. Just a rod, a line, and a fly presented with precision directly to the fish.
What most people don’t realize is that fixed-line fishing wasn’t born in Japan alone. Long before modern fly fishing reached the Southern Appalachians, Scots-Irish settlers carried their own fixed-line tradition from the British Isles into these same hollows and creek bottoms — fishing the freestone streams of western North Carolina the same way their ancestors had fished highland streams for generations.
Tenkara didn’t invent fixed-line fishing. It perfected it.
The streams of Great Smoky Mountains National Park — tight, tumbling, rhododendron-choked, alive with native brook trout — are precisely the water this method was made for. Cataloochee Creek and the wild drainages surrounding it offer some of the best tenkara fly fishing in the eastern United States, and guided tenkara trips here put you on water most anglers never see.
Whether you’re picking up a rod for the first time or an experienced Smoky Mountains fly fishing angler looking to fish this landscape the way it has always been fished, tenkara connects you to something older than the park itself.
Our Guided Trip
Half Day and Full Day Options
The Smokies hold more than most people ever see. Elk moving through early morning mist in Cataloochee. Brook trout rising in streams so remote they don’t have trail access. Homestead walls still standing in hollows that the forest has been slowly reclaiming for a century. A guided trip with Trout Trails isn’t just a day of fishing — it’s a doorway into a landscape most visitors only glimpse from the road.
Browse the trips below, or reach out directly at (828)484-1132 to start building an experience around what moves you.
Full Day Guided Trip
8:30 am- 5 pm
$350
​Full Day (1 person)
$400
​Full Day (2 person)
A full day on the water means going deeper — farther up the drainage, further from the trailhead, into the water that most anglers never reach. Whether you’re fishing western-style fly tackle or exploring the simplicity of fixed-line tenkara, a full day gives us time to find the fish, read the water, and actually settle into the rhythm of the stream.
Expect wild trout in wild places. Expect to leave knowing this landscape a little better than when you arrived.
All rods, reels, lines, flies, and terminal tackle provided. Wading boots and waders are not included — wading wet is often the move in summer, but layered wading pants or neoprene are recommended for early season trips.
Half Day Guided Trip
8:30 am-12:30 pm
$250
1 Angler
$300
2 Anglers
Not every great day on the water requires a full expedition. Half day trips focus on accessible, high-quality water where we can spend our time fishing instead of hiking — ideal for those working around a schedule, traveling with family, or just wanting a focused taste of what the Smokies have to offer.
Same instruction, same attention, same wild trout. Just a shorter window to chase them.
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