2007 In Review / The Fall of Caney Fork

It's admittedly been a slow year for the SMAC family. What's the one thing that can keep folks like us from fishing - no water. The drought that gripped the Southeastern United States was certainly felt in the Southern Appalachians. Our annual Fall trip had to be canceled due to low water and camp fire bands. The last word from friends in Townsend was that the Little River had lost almost half it's trout. A previous population of 4,000 fish per mile had shrunk to 2,000. Usually, when mountain trout waters are not producing, we here at SMAC turn to those East Tennessee tail water rivers to get our fix. However, fishing on the Clinch or Holston hasn't exactly been stellar.

Just when things seemed darkest, a glimmer of hope appeared in the West. An "out of the blue" trip to the Caney Fork River below Center Hill Dam provided a pleasant surprise. I think I'm allowed to openly talk about our success here as the secret is out. For the first month, we were under a strict gag order imposed by our in club council, Mr. Jason Murphy, Esq. Fifty fish days on an easily accessible trout hole can have grown men sounding like Spankey and Alfalfa in a super secret he man woman haters club.

These fish weren't easy to take. Size 16-20 bead head nymphs / midges and subtle takes were the order of the day, but once the code was broken the rewards were great. The fish weren't huge, but numerous. Non appeared to be the ragged, worn out stocked fish we often see. We were all amazed at how strong the fish actually were. Usually I wouldn't hesitate to go after 15-16" fish with a 3 or 4 wt. rod, not here. Bring 5's or 6's or stay home. To the rights is a good example of a typical Caney Fork Rainbow. This was actually the first fish I caught during our first trip. I took this pic before I realized there would be many more.

Double hook ups weren't uncommon. Here's a good shot of Murph (foreground) and Alec (background) doing just that. Rainbows seemed to be the dominant species, but a few browns were caught here and there. The brown Murph landed below put up a heck of a fight.

Both Alec (left) and I (right) were amazed at how hard these fish fought. While most of them were all about the same size, were certain that there are some bigger fish that we haven't landed. The secret may be getting heavy and bouncing off the bottom with a big woolly bugger.

I snapped this quick picture while landing the fish to the left. Most of the rainbows landed almost resembled steelhead. This fish was the exception. He must have thought the spawn was on because he came to the party all dressed up.

We did wonder during our various trips over the last two months if this could last. I would venture to say that we caught more fish during this time period than any of us had caught the whole year. One theory was that we caught the browns right in the middle of a spawn. If that was the case, than the rainbows were gorging themselves on the eggs. Others we talked to on the river said that they had never seen the fishing that good. Good enough to wait for, just like Alec, Murph, and Beamer below.

Our last trip to the Caney came the day after Christmas. Really, anytime you can go catch trout the day after Christmas, it's a great thing, but the river has definitely cooled off. Our fish catching average has gone from a fish every ten minutes to a fish every sixty minutes. But here's the important thing. This last time, we got CP involved. Yes, my 8 year old nephew Cortland Phillips, can cast a fly rod better than most grown men. Cortland showed his stuff by hanging in there with the big boys. Hopefully, CP will be logging a lot of time on the water over the next seventy years. Cortland, you can fish beside of me any day - as long as you don't go over your waders!