Caney Fork 9/13/08 & 9/14/08

[Worrgamesguy]

My grandfather decided to drive down from West Virginia for a weekend of fishing. We (granddad, dad, me) started at 5:00 AM this morning at Happy Hollow, and caught a mess of brookies on powerbait. When it was light enough for me to see, I switched to my fly rod which proved to be VERY hazardous in the boat. We have a two person jon boat that we squeezed 3 people into. I caught about a dozen fish before I decided to call it quits before someone got hurt. I did manage to catch a brown off my EHC indicator, all the rest came off black zebra midges.

We floated down river and caught a lot of fish, nothing of size until I caught a 16" rainbow. Our friends wanted us to bring them back trout, so we only kept the ones that were injured or big enough to keep.

And this is the part you've been looking for. My grandpa hooked into a 24" brown, it is EASILY the biggest fish I've ever seen taken out of the Caney. I've SEEN bigger fish, sure, but never seen one being caught. We got him to the boat, he was barely hooked in the lip, took a few pictures, and went to let him go when we saw blood pouring from his gills.

Anyways, here are the pictures of random moments throughout the day.

Nice little brookie-



Another brookie-



Haha me attempting to grab the line so it didn't slip through the eyelets-



That fish-



And of course... the brown (me cheesing)-



And again...



I will post again when I get back from the river tomorrow, only this time my friend will be with us, so I will most likely be wading alone at HH with my grandpa, dad, and friend in the boat.

[Crick Addict]

Wow, that's a nice dead brown. I'm glad for your GP, but the story would
have been even better with a release of the fish.

[Worrgamesguy]

Originally Posted by Crick Addict

Wow, that's a nice dead brown. I'm glad for your GP, but the story would
have been even better with a release of the fish.

He was gonna die, so it might as well be food... He was one of those fish that if you tried to release him, he would swim out of your hands, and turn immediately over.

[Gerry Romer]

Trey!

Great day!

Now... Just for kicks, go back and re-read some of your first posts on this board. You were one of the most frustrated, helpless, confused posters on tis board!

Now you're talking about having fun with rainbows and brookies on the fly and getting frustrated with the confines of a Jon boat!

As the old Virginia Slims commercial used to say, " You've come a long way, baby!"

Virginia Slims?? It's an old brand of cigarettes....

[milligan trout degree]

pig of brown. its a good story dead or alive. I Like to see the big ones go back, but sometimes that happens. My guess is that even if the hook was in its lip when it got to the boat, at one point or another, the hook had been in its gills to cause it to bleed. Great fish though

I've never fished the caney before. I probably won't for a while because it requires a decent drive for me, but what is the layout of that river like? Are we talking long slow pools, riffles, jagged rocky runs? Does it run through fields with relatively open banks, or does it have bluff borders like a lot of the watuaga does? I never get to see many pictures of the river, I'm just curious.

[nvr2L8]

Trey,
Great pictures and great trip. It's nice seeing three generations fishing together. Keeping the dream alive.

MTD,
You've been pretty quiet lately. What have you been up to? I'm sure whatever it is, there's been some trout fishing involved.

[Crick Addict]

Originally Posted by milligan trout degree

pig of brown. its a good story dead or alive. I Like to see the big ones go back, but sometimes that happens. My guess is that even if the hook was in its lip when it got to the boat, at one point or another, the hook had been in its gills to cause it to bleed. Great fish though

I've never fished the caney before. I probably won't for a while because it requires a decent drive for me, but what is the layout of that river like? Are we talking long slow pools, riffles, jagged rocky runs? Does it run through fields with relatively open banks, or does it have bluff borders like a lot of the watuaga does? I never get to see many pictures of the river, I'm just curious.

A lot of the river looks like this....

[David Knapp]

Nice raft Crik Addict!

Trey, hope you have a good time today at HH. Looking forward to hearing how you do... Those brookies look like they've colored up even more than when we fished a couple of weeks ago...fall must be just around the corner!

[Worrgamesguy]

Originally Posted by Gerry Romer

Trey!

Great day!

Now... Just for kicks, go back and re-read some of your first posts on this board. You were one of the most frustrated, helpless, confused posters on tis board!

Now you're talking about having fun with rainbows and brookies on the fly and getting frustrated with the confines of a Jon boat!

As the old Virginia Slims commercial used to say, " You've come a long way, baby!"

Virginia Slims?? It's an old brand of cigarettes....

I knew what they were as soon as you said Slims. Haha thanks, I'm just really excited for my new setup. I taught myself how to tie blood knots that way I could tie on my own tippet (thank you, and thanks David ).

Originally Posted by milligan trout degree

pig of brown. its a good story dead or alive. I Like to see the big ones go back, but sometimes that happens. My guess is that even if the hook was in its lip when it got to the boat, at one point or another, the hook had been in its gills to cause it to bleed. Great fish though

I've never fished the caney before. I probably won't for a while because it requires a decent drive for me, but what is the layout of that river like? Are we talking long slow pools, riffles, jagged rocky runs? Does it run through fields with relatively open banks, or does it have bluff borders like a lot of the watuaga does? I never get to see many pictures of the river, I'm just curious.

The Caney is one of the top rated rivers in the nation. I love it, I've fished it 16 years and have NEVER been skunked, on any either spin casting or fly fishing (only been fly fishing 4 months, mind you). We were gonna put the brown back, so we put him in the net in the water so he could breathe and he turned sideways and you could see clouds of blood pouring out.








^^^ That water is about 2-3' deep.

Originally Posted by nvr2L8

Trey,
Great pictures and great trip. It's nice seeing three generations fishing together. Keeping the dream alive.

MTD,
You've been pretty quiet lately. What have you been up to? I'm sure whatever it is, there's been some trout fishing involved.

Haha 3 generations, literally. My grandfather is Donald Carson Nichols, my dad is Jr., and I'm III (hence the name Trey).

Originally Posted by Plateau Angler

Nice raft Crik Addict!

Trey, hope you have a good time today at HH. Looking forward to hearing how you do... Those brookies look like they've colored up even more than when we fished a couple of weeks ago...fall must be just around the corner!

I couldn't go today. They were gonna come wake me up at 9:00 because my buddy said he couldn't fish, so we were gonna float the river again. I woke up at 9:30 to my buddy's little sister and she said we weren't going fishing because it was gonna storm later. I was really upset...

[Mike_Anderson]

I’ve seen fish with gills missing survive. Blood from the gills isn’t a death sentence. Keep the fish in the river, hold him under his head with one hand and by his tail with the other. Face him upstream so water can rush into his gills and move his body back and forth to release the lactic acid buildup. This may take several minutes but there is a lot of satisfaction in reviving a fish and watching it swim away.

We spend $4 a gallon drive three hours to get there. Spend tons of money on equipment, boats, license, food, etc, etc, and then remove the very thing that moved us to spend all that money for a shot at it. I just don’t understand.
I can’t help but think that some day we will all look at pics like this and say I remember when the caney was the best river in the nation..... I'm not picking on anyone here, its just that I've seen so many of this size fish leave the Caney this year it makes me sick to my stomach. It's only about 8 miles of river. How many Trout over 20” do people think there are?