Re: NANFA-L-- I - 40 and Pigeon Forge Collecting

Todd D. Crail (tcrail-in-UTNet.UToledo.Edu)
Wed, 2 Nov 2005 10:11:46 -0500

Pigeon Forge Area Collecting Places... This ought to just become part of
the collective consciousness since everyone in the east goes there-in-some
point in their life, and I know it gave me a great break from the famdamily
and the appalling materialistic and commercial perversion of da' Forge ;)

Take 66 to 441. This is the bottleneck getting through Sevierville to Pigeon
Forge. If you hit traffic immediately, turn around, it's not worth your
time. If you can get through Sevierville in less than 15 minutes, you're
golden, stay with it. There are plenty of places to turn around and head
back. This 15 minutes is pretty much having passed over the French Broad.
If you have to stop in traffic before you cross the river, forget it.

Barring any trouble in Dollytown... Turn right on 321, go just past Kroger
on the right, turn off on any of the streets that go behind Auto Zone (man I
love saying behind "Auto Zone" lol). There is a park back there, you'll see
the basketball courts, parking lot and shelter house. Mill Creek runs
_right_ along the parking lot of the park. Also, if you get on the road on
the west side of the stream, you can get right down where Mill Creek dumps
into the West Prong of the Little Pigeon.

Immediately downstream is the confluence of Cove Creek and the West Prong,
which is part of a city natural materials recycle place and no one gave me
huff about walking it. If water is low, I'd check all these places out,
they were kinda deep for me because there was flooding. There was a really
nice gravel bar along there, but I was by myself in clear water, so it was
hard to catch fish in the bigger streams. I could see them swimming away
from me.

I just looked-in-my old trip report... I thought I got saffron-in-the city
park, but apparently I did not (although I don't see why they wouldn't be
there). Maybe because I was too hot to get redlines since I already had
saffrons and didn't work the habitat.

http://www.nanfa.org/archive/nanfa/nanfa-lnov04/0194.html

Anyway, if you're really hot for saffrons... Just go up 321 through the Cove
Creek gorge into the valley. You'll come out where it flattens out, there's
a closed video store on the left right where it says "417" on page 44 of the
DeLorme. There's a parking lot there, you can access the creek across the
road. I can almost guarantee you'll get them there... I hit the habitat
(undercut root wads in pools), got them, and that was that, I quit looking
for them :)

When you get back... Put the saffron, redline and swannona darters in
breathe bags and mail them to University of Toledo, Deparment of EEES, MS
614 C/O Todd Crail ;) The heat in the building killed all of mine. I
can't wait to get back down there and collect some new specimens. I really
enjoyed them all, esp the redline and saffrons. So easy to feed and easy to
keep, when the water isn't 86 degrees :O

Which bring a word of caution... The bigger swannona were tough to feed at
first and they had a big hump to come over to get back (seriously compressed
bellies) much like greensides, but even a little worse. If you don't want
to have to saturate them for a long time once they figure it out... Don't
take them. The smaller members of the species grow fairly quickly and adapt
readily. But then again... I know how it is when you're out on the stream
:)

Hope this is helpful.
Todd
The Muddy Maumee Madness, Toledo, OH
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
http://www.farmertodd.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "matt ashton" <ashtonmj2003-in-yahoo.com>
To: <nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org>
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 11:50 PM
Subject: RE: NANFA-L-- I - 40 Cookeville, TN to Greeneville, NC

> Yeah spots would be great, I might be able to swing 10 miles off the path.
>
> "Crail, Todd" <tcrail-in-UTNet.UToledo.Edu> wrote:Not far-in-all if you don't
have to sit through Gatlinburg traffic in
> Seveirville (which you probably won't). It's about 10 miles from I-40 to
> Pigeon Forge. You will probably be able to get saffrons right in town. If
> not, there was a very large population of them further out in Cades Cove.
> There were a lot of swannona darters in Cades Cove too. I can give you
spots
> if you're interested.
>
> Todd
> The Moving the Prairie Madness, Toledo, OH
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------
/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association (NANFA). Comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of NANFA. For more information about NANFA,
/ visit http://www.nanfa.org Please make sure all posts to nanfa-l are
/ consistent with the guidelines as per
/ http://www.nanfa.org/guidelines.shtml To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get
/ help, visit the NANFA email list home page and archive at
/ http://www.nanfa.org/email.shtml