Yesterday, a friend who has just earned his pilot’s license was generous enough to take me along for a ride. Being his first time taking a passenger along, and him having only about 15 hours previous solo flying time, I was a bit shaky as we hopped into the 1970s model Cessna Skyhawk. Taking off was an interesting experience. If you’ve never flown in a single-engine plane its rather surprising the low speed at which they take off. I’d estimate it was somewhere in the 70 mph range.

Having no real flight plan, he asked me where I wanted to fly. Using the headset and microphone provided to me by the airport, I suggested we fly over Cherokee Lake and Dam; I was curious to see the topography of the lake since winter drawdown. Somewhere along the short trip over to Cherokee and after we reached about 3,500 feet, my friend asked if I’d like to stall the aircraft. After a confident “NO!” he wasted no time in tilting the nose skyward and killing the engines. We must have fallen a couple hundred feet with the plane shifting back and forth at gravity’s mercy & the stall alarm sounding before he exerted throttle and regained control. Insanity. Absolute insanity.

Upon reaching Cherokee, our eyes were drawn to the wide beachline of winter pool. Enormous lakefront houses appeared to have lost their seasonal appeal by a slowly retreating waterline.

Flying over the dam showed something that I don’t like to see when water levels are that low; full generation. In fact, close inspection of my normal Holston River fishing grounds revealed none of the rock that typically serves as my platform.

A hop over to Douglas Lake, whose French Broad River does not support trout, showed a similar scenario. The good news, however, is that TVA generation schedules seem to be letting up. A couple days ago they stopped their constant 2-generator releasing. They are now stopping generation for several hours at night when energy demand is at its lowest.

Our tailwaters may not be fishable yet, but this is a sign that we’ll be back in business in the coming weeks.

Thanks for being here