Caney Fork

[Dakota]

With all the rain this week has anyone been to the Caney. How does the river look, high and maybe cloudy?? Looking to go Saturday, maybe.

Dakota

[Catch & Release]

forget the Caney for a while, extemely high and muddy.... Probably take a week at least to clear up....

[baxterboy]

According to http://www.tva.gov/cgi-bin/pdet?postmainpage Center Hill Dam has received more rain this month than any of the other 62 TVA spots in the state. Almost 7 inches has fallen in the past 72 hours, with more to come this weekend.

[bd-]

From the reports I'm getting, the river is muddy right now. It will take some time to clear. The Corps is still running a wadable generation schedule for the time being. However, the lake is still slowly rising, and I expect it will top 630 some time today or tomorrow. At that point, the Corps will be obligated to go to heavy generation to drop the levels. The more rain we get, the longer it will take to straighten out.

Meanwhile, we're still in a dicey situation with cold water supply for the year.

bd

[Dakota]

Well a couple of buddies really wanted to go, so we did. The conditions were actually alot better that expected at the Caney. Water was still pretty clear. We did have some good action at times. The biggest were two brown's, both about 14' and a rainbow about 12' Total of about 8 trout and 5 red-eye. We were wading and the bigger fish came on rooster tails.

Dakota

[bd-]

Five red eye? How far down were you fishing?

bd

[tkwalker]

Look out bd ... It looks like you may be profiling ... Prejudging favorite temps and clariety of fish species in the Caney ... We have been down this road before ... LOL !!! :) <'TK><

[Dakota]

Bd, Indian creek area is where the red-eye were being caught.

[Dakota]

Hey Tk, I rely alot on this forum and they had me talked out of going to the Caney. I was pleasantly surprised on the conditions (better than I thought it would be) Thanks to a couple of buddies that really wanted to go, it worked out. I fish OH alot and when you say muddy I think OH muddy. I thought the water level would of been so much higher, too. So to Bd and all the other posts Thank you.

[MikeW]

I passed over the river on I-40 Sunday, once around noon and later around 6pm. The water levels were down both times. Water seemed to be a little darker around the rest stop, but didn't look too bad from the bridges as you go down-river, more cloudy than muddy. Of course I was looking down from the road which isn't nearly as good as being down at the river. Looked at the weather tonight and we have around a 50/50 shot of thunderstorms each day, so looks like the rain might not be done yet. It may be too late in the evening, but I have to go back that way Thursday and if I can get back through before dark, I'll try to take a look and post if we've had more rains. Hopefully we won't have any more deluge rains and things on the water will settle out a bit, and I can finally cut the grass before it's high enough to require a bush-hog.
Out of curiosity, when the river is high and muddy/cloudy, does it take any extra time for the fishing to return to normal after it clears up and drops, or do the trout adjust pretty quickly to the improvement in conditions? I've done some trout fishing but can't think of a time when we fished during or after a big change in clarity and conditions of the rivers we were on, with the exception of normal generation and water level changes.

[Catch & Release]

Hey Tk, I rely alot on this forum and they had me talked out of going to the Caney. I was pleasantly surprised on the conditions (better than I thought it would be) Thanks to a couple of buddies that really wanted to go, it worked out. I fish OH alot and when you say muddy I think OH muddy. I thought the water level would of been so much higher, too. So to Bd and all the other posts Thank you.

It did end up being fishable alot quicker than I thought it would for that much rain. But the rain we got yesterday put alot of color back in the water again... They also increased generation from 2 hours a day to 8 hours yesterday and today... From the looks of the cfs they are putting through, they must have the flood gates cracked also....

[bd-]

I believe the 1800 cfs is most likely coming from the sluice rather than the spill gates. I don't think they'll open the spill gates except as a very last resort because lake's surface temp is still in a lethal range for trout. The sluice is a deep intake (deeper even than the turbine intake), so it's cold water.

Dakota, what we've been seeing lately is that after a big rain, the river will be extremely muddy (not fishable) for a day or so due to silt runoff from the dam construction. However, after the initial runoff subsides, it doesn't take long for water from generation to clear out the bulk of the silt. It will still be somewhat murky - certainly not the crystal clear that we're used to - but it's still fishable after the initial runoff clears out.

The lower river below the Smith Fork (Thayer and Ballfields access) is a different story. The Smith is dumping a lot of silt this year and the river below the Smith will be muddy for several days after a big rain.

MikeW, the trout won't eat when it's muddy, but they seem to pick up feeding activity as soon as the water clears enough for them to see. During that clearing stage when it's still a little murky, it can be a good time to put on big lures or flies and hunt for a trophy brown. The lower visibility seems to give them confidence. You won't catch a lot, but if you get one it's got potential to be a quality fish.

bd

[MikeW]

Thanks for sharing the info. I was thinking about going to the Caney sometime over the weekend for a half day trip, haven't been fishing there in a long time. Looks like plenty of rain coming on Saturday though. I don't now that I'll even try heading to the lake. May be a good day to stay inside and watch some football.
I passed over the Caney today, looked OK best I could tell. I didn't have enough time to make any stops to really check it out. May just wait and see how much rain falls tomorrow and figure out from there where to go on Sunday.