Two Days, Two Rivers and a 24 Incher!!!

This past weekend I was home visiting the family so I had to fish the Caney on Sunday. I arrived at the river and noticed that there was not a lot of activity, at least where I first took a gander. However, upriver there seemed to be a few fish working. The dry with a zebra midge came out and I was soon casting, covering the usual places without any results. "The fish must be holding in deeper water" I thought. As low as the water levels were, this made perfect sense. I moved up to some deeper holes and soon hooked up...and then again, and again, and again....it was one of those days where it seems you can't do any wrong. Lots of very healthy 12-16 inch fish were attacking my fly consistently, often as soon as it hit the water. I moved 3-4 large fish (18-20 inches) but couldn't get a solid hookup. Later in the day, the generation pulse caught up with me and I decided to try my hand at ripping streamers (something I never do). This proved to be the ticket as the brownies all wanted to play. One monster swirled on my fly but wouldn't hit again. I called it a day soon after having lost caught how many fish I hooked. Hopefully I will find the time to return sometime soon with my canoe. I can only imagine how many good fish could be caught floating the pulse and flinging heavy stuff.

Yesterday, I woke up and wasn't feeling good enough to attend classes. Thankfully, I wasn't so sick that I couldn't fish so I drove up to the Hiwassee for a couple of hours. Things were fairly active here as well with lots of Hendricksons hatching the whole time I was there. The fish were responding enthusiastically but unfortunately I didn't have a good match with me. This WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN!!! Thankfully, a small red copper John seemed to do the trick for the nymphs and I caught several nice fish. My best catch came when I saw the 24 incher swimming slowly across a large pool. Hooked up on the third cast but it turned out to be foul hooked.... After a surprisingly short battle I brought the nice snake to hand and released it. Hopefully it will be able to grow larger, providing someone else with some entertainment....

In other more exciting news, I have a new camera on the way. It is waterproof and will hopefully allow some excellent underwater pictures to be available for use on this blog. I should have it in a couple of weeks at most so stay tuned for some great new pictures!!!