Caney Fork River Workshop

Thursday, May 27th, TWRA and the Corps of Engineers conducted a Caney Fork Workshop for fishermen, guides and the general public. I went with a group of anglers from Calvary Outfitters, listened to the information and also took some notes. Before the meeting started Linda, from the Army Corps, told us it would be death by Power Point and she was right. There was a ton of information presented. Most of it backed up what we had been seeing on the river since the big rains in the Spring of 2009. The river was fishing very good (go back and review the reports) before that rain event. Since the rains of 2009 it has been tough catching, but improving as of late.

Over the next several posts (from fishing the Caney) I will try to inject some of the information that was presented. But, here is some electro-shocking info that was quite interesting:

>The TWRA shocked 12 sites on the river early this Spring
>The shocking was at night
>The shocking was conducted on two (2) generators (because of the size of the equipment)

Fish counts:

Browns-
Spring 2008.............135 brown trout
Spring 2009.............185 brown trout
Spring 2010..............42 brown trout

Rainbows-
Spring 2008..............229 rainbows
Spring 2009..............117 rainbows
Spring 2010..............20 rainbows

The 2010 numbers do not mean there were only 62 fish in the river at the time of the shocking.

So there you have the latest shocking information. Lately I have been listening others talk about how tough the river is fishing. I don't disagree, if the Caney 2010 is compared to the Caney 2008, it is very tough. Anglers can't throw a fly in the river just anywhere and catch a fish. We can't do that either. No, now the river is making everyone work for each it's fish. This is much harder than in previous years. But, the fishing is much easier than this time last year.

So, I say all that to say this... I figure "my" questions aren't: "is there grout in the water? ", "did all the fish drown or are they swimming in the Cumby?", "are the fish up-stream or downstream?". Although I have a pretty good idea of the answer to that last question.

I figure "my" question is- what are they eating and how do we get them in our boat? Because I like to fish and I like to help others get better with their fishing as well and that keeps me going to the rivers and trying to improve my skills.

We were on the river yesterday, the day following the meeting, and we caught a bunch of fish and missed a bunch too. In the next few days I will post that report, but for now, here is a pic of just one of the browns we landed while nymphing.

Caught and Released