Well Sure enough when Chandler and I hit the road it was pouring rain and about 50 degrees. Not so great! But we made the hour drive and got to Happy Hollow access parking lot around 7:30am and began fishing around 8:00am. Before we hit the water, a father and son came up from the river with disgusted looks on their faces.... They were the faces of defeat! :(
I got to talking with them and they delivered the bad news to me. They didn't catch anything, hook anything, or even see anything... Definitely not what I wanted to hear. And these two had fished this stretch before and knew the river pretty well. But we stayed optimistic and walked down to the banks anyway. Chandler took off down the bank with his spinning rod and Rooster-Tail attached to the end of his line. While I waited at the edge of the water looking for brown trout to either be feeding or at least sitting on the grassy bed of the river.
The river looked awesome; it was nice and clean with great looking water and great looking potential for holding browns and rainbows. But the water was low, no question about it. I'd say we were looking at anywhere from 200 to 400 cfs. And this river usually flows around a 1,000 cfs, especially during the rainy spring season.
I set up my first rig which consisted of a white strike indicator, and two nymphs ranging from 2 to 4 feet under it. I had a Scud on top and a San Juan Worm under that. Two (supposedly) deadly flies on this river. I saw no fish in my first twenty minutes of searching and I decided that blind casting into the deeper riffles was probably going to be the key to my success. I began to fish the deeper riffles expecting something to rip my strike indicator down under the water but nothing. Maybe that was the problem, I expected to catch something even though I had never fished there before.
But I continued to fish changing flies like a madman, I literally threw every nymph I had. I went from scuds, to SJ Worms, Prince Nymphs, Pheasant Tails, Zebra Midges, Hairs ear Nymphs, etc... I didn't even realize it until after we were done fishing, that I never threw a streamer. Which I said in my earlier blog that I would, but after seeing the low water I didn't think a streamer would even be worth trying. After a four hours of fishing, I saw five newly stocked brown trout in the 5-7 inch range and a rainbow that jumped out of the water, and he was probably a 13 inch bow. But I couldn't get my fly to him, he was too far out in the middle. After seeing this, we went back up to the car only to see more disappointed men getting back into their cars after also getting skunked.
It was definitely a rough day on the Caney but I'm eager to go back. I know way more now about the river than I did. Sometimes it takes coming back from the trip and recapping in your head what you could have done to be more successful. It wasn't a great trip in the "catching fish" category, but it was a blast to get up early and see a new river I had never seen or fished before.
Now I'll be headed back this Friday with another friend from my grade named Jack. Jack works in the Orvis shop (Also known as "Game Fair Ltd.") here in Nashville, and he has more experience on the Caney than I do so hopefully we'll be able to get into some fish this time. Stay tuned!
P.S. Definitely Pictures this time!! Sorry I keep forgetting the camera!
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