Nashville Area Fly Fishing

The Elk River has been good to us and the anglers in the drifter this year. The water quality has been good, the fish have been hungry and they have been eating the flies we have been offering. As Summer now turns to Fall we are seeing the bottom of the Elk begin to turn loose of some vegetation. There are rumors of TVA testing the generator this week and then beginning the draw down of Tims Ford.

Downstream, with all the vegetation,  streamers would only be frustrating. The fish have been eating nymphs with regularity and that is to be expected. We have also been feeding them dry dropper combos and straight up dry flies as well. The fish have looked good and are fighting pretty hard in the cold Elk water. Every once in a while we hook up with a decent size holdover and that always creates excitement.  I haven't taken the water temperature but it is too cold to wet wade for long.

The Caney Fork: The talk this week has really been a guess as to whether the upper ramps would be open or not. As I write this on Saturday evening the ramps are open.  And, as I write this Saturday evening the fish are rising and eating.  As you can see from the photo below the work on the dam continues as well.

It would be difficult to count the number of times I have floated the Caney Fork, but not too long ago I decided to fish a stretch that I have rowed through almost every time. All this really started when I was doing a presentation and came to a point in the presentation where I explain that stretches of a river might look straight or even be straight, but the current seam always shifts from bank to bank as it moves downstream. ..

The past few times I traded that stretch of river for a stretch that used to produce some nice fish and now produces less than I like. So the test was to find out if this could be a higher value area or was it just a stretch that holds a few fish now and then.  So the past few trips we followed the current instead of rowing through the section and ran into several hook-ups including a nice brown trout or two. I guess it doesn't matter how many times an angler fishes the same river there is always something new to learn.

So fishing dries is still working in the upper section, but mostly the brookies are the fish that are eating. Streamers will get some follows and an occasional nice fish, but nymphs are most effective right now.  The trees are starting to add more color. Even some of the smaller and mid-sized browns are getting their colors, all those colors can make some decent photos if you take a camera to the river.