Stonefly
11-24-2007, 12:55 PM
As Byron mentioned in the Fishing Report on Wednesday, my buddy Trey and I floated the bottom section of the Caney on Tuesday, w/o much success. We saw a couple of friends from Hendersonville Fly Fishers who also had slow fishing, at least early.
Weather was great and there were some large tan caddis coming off, but I can't say I saw any being taken by trout. There were some near-surface takes that looked to me like the fish were eating caddis, or possibly midge emergers. There was also a smaller olive caddis that may have been the ticket -- I'm sure I didn't give those a decent shot.
One odd catch -- a 4-5" rainbow. Looked like a stocker, no coloration, but I've never heard of TWRA stocking fish that small in the Caney, and this was well below Kirby road which I think is the last stocking point downstream. That little guy took a black zebra.
The 9-11 am generation water never came up on us either, which was a surprise, though later in the day it was obvious that there'd been generation at Happy. We took out about 3-ish and went to Happy, where the fishing was, happily, better. Did OK with my favorite Caney fly, a small chartreuse brassie. Best fish there was a 13" brown shortly before dark. We heard some other guys who'd floated from the dam down to Happy after the generation, and they said they'd done well. Don't know what they were fishing though, possibly bait.
The next day we saw Byron at the shop, and fished WPLP not far above Sugarlands. In 25 yrs I've been fishing the park, I'd never fished that section. Water level there seemed pretty normal, much better than we saw below Elkmont. Had rained an inch up high, two nights before, I think. We had a good day, most fish taking EHC's. Saw no one else fishing there.
sb
Oh, I'll try to remember how to upload some photos to Photobucket and add them to this post.
Weather was great and there were some large tan caddis coming off, but I can't say I saw any being taken by trout. There were some near-surface takes that looked to me like the fish were eating caddis, or possibly midge emergers. There was also a smaller olive caddis that may have been the ticket -- I'm sure I didn't give those a decent shot.
One odd catch -- a 4-5" rainbow. Looked like a stocker, no coloration, but I've never heard of TWRA stocking fish that small in the Caney, and this was well below Kirby road which I think is the last stocking point downstream. That little guy took a black zebra.
The 9-11 am generation water never came up on us either, which was a surprise, though later in the day it was obvious that there'd been generation at Happy. We took out about 3-ish and went to Happy, where the fishing was, happily, better. Did OK with my favorite Caney fly, a small chartreuse brassie. Best fish there was a 13" brown shortly before dark. We heard some other guys who'd floated from the dam down to Happy after the generation, and they said they'd done well. Don't know what they were fishing though, possibly bait.
The next day we saw Byron at the shop, and fished WPLP not far above Sugarlands. In 25 yrs I've been fishing the park, I'd never fished that section. Water level there seemed pretty normal, much better than we saw below Elkmont. Had rained an inch up high, two nights before, I think. We had a good day, most fish taking EHC's. Saw no one else fishing there.
sb
Oh, I'll try to remember how to upload some photos to Photobucket and add them to this post.