freezing on the caney

[ttas67]

today chad (green weenie) and I visited the caney for the first time. first off let me say that today was not a day for anyone to be fishing. it was COLD to the bone! I had on 4 layers: a tshirt, a long sleeve capilene shirt, synthetic down liner from my jacket, and fleece over that. topped it all off with a toboggan. we started out with some streamers by the dam. chad hooked into one nice one which got off and I didn't even get so much as a look from a fish. the wind was ripping and the water was whitecapping in some places. I attempted to tie on a dry dropper combo. after about 5 minutes I got the dry tied on. it was so cold that my hands were locking up. I never did get that dropper tied on, it was just too cold with the wind. now I know I've mentioned it was cold, but just so you understand, I stuck my frozen hand in the water and it actually felt warm compared to the air.

we then moved further down river to another area. some guy yelled from a house about 100 yards up on the hill, "hey, go on down you b*st*rds!" I don't know what that was about. we were at a large public access area. after stripping a streamer for a few hours I finally caught one! I should mention that chad caught about 3 during this time period.

later on I found what must've been the caney honey hole. I stripped a streamer across it at least 100 times, getting sometimes up to 5 very visible strikes per cast, but no hookups. I switched to a smaller streamer and instantly started connecting with the fish. chad came over and started hooking up too. overall it was a really fun trip. chad is a great guy and I think he caught about twice as many as I did.

as a side note: at some point in the day I saw something very long and skinny following my streamer. It looked just like a snake underwater. I remembered Plateau angler posting that he'd caught a snake. I started thinking about it. surely there aren't snakes that fast that just swim around underwater up there, terrorizing streamers. I mean, that would be pretty scary, right? well about an hour later we saw a big dead gar washed up by the bank. that had to be what it was. too bad I didn't catch him!

[David Knapp]

Glad ya'll were able to catch a few despite the cold temperatures. I've seen some of those gar in the Caney and would love to catch one but haven't yet. You need to come back over to fish the river sometime when the weather is a bit better...;)

[Green Weenie]

Sorry for posting so late. I just thawed out.

I don't know if Trevor mentioned this or not, but it was COLD today! I digress. It was nice out, but the wind chill had to be nearly freezing. And like Trevor said, the water was white-capping from time to time. I had on a pretty hefty streamer and it was whipping in the wind like a kite.

Anyway, we did manage not to get skunked after the 2-hr drive to the Caney Fork. I ended up being very proud of myself. Up until now, I rarely fished streamers. I know they catch alot of big fish, but I've never had great luck with them, hence, I had no faith in them. Today, however, I fished only streamers all day long. I picked up a few nice fish, got a look from a few more, and ended up changing to a "Streamers for Life" kind of guy. I think Trevor ended up feeling a bit better about streamer fishing as well.

That one run he was in was unreal. You would get a strike on literally every cast...but only if you cast to just the right spot. And with the wind gusting in excess of mach 3, that was no easy task.

Like I said; great day on the water and really awesome getting to fish it for the first time with a friend.

[Grumpy]

Was that you guys, i wouldn't have hollered if i'd known it was ya'll, well i normally do, nothing breaks up the tranquility of the river than someone standing in my favorite run, i was watching a 30" brown, did ya'll see it:rolleyes:
Seriously, what part of the river were you on when ya got hollered at? I'm glad to hear ya'll had a good time on my favorite stream in mid-TN, it has been fishing great this year & we're hoping the construction on the dam will not change that over the duration of it, when completed, lookout, it will really turn on i do believe.
Oh yeh, what color streamers were you using, i ran a trip Friday, white ones were the ticket.

Grumpy