Floating with Southeastern Fly

Nathan Stanaway photo

Backpacking in the Smokies is always an enjoyable experience. I've been looking forward to the opportunity to do so for awhile and couldn't wait to get on some of my favorite water in the Park. Unfortunately the best of plans don't always work out. Due to several factors, we had to cancel the Smokies trip. To salvage the weekend, my cousin Nathan decided to come up to Crossville instead, and we planned on floating the Caney.

Originally we planned on taking my canoe, but when David Perry from Southeastern Fly asked if we were interested in floating with him, we both thought that would be a good idea. This turned out to be perfect since David knows the river so well. He showed us a couple of tricks he has for days that seem slower at first, and it made all the difference.

We planned on meeting early. I was actually on time for a change, and we were ready to float by around 6:45 or 7:00. The first hundred yards of the float was spent just trying to navigate through the maze of other river users. Once we got out in front of everyone though the fishing immediately improved. Nathan and I started out fishing, and soon we were both catching fish. The midge hatch produce some excellent fishing on a dry/dropper rig. I wanted to catch some larger fish and eventually couldn't resist the call of the streamer rod.




Within just a few casts with a Stacked Blond, I had a little 10 inch brown on and thought it might turn out to be a good streamer day! Unfortunately the quick success soon turned into lots of follows and flashes but few strikes. Still, I was turning fish and some nice ones at that so I was a little reluctant to stop throwing big streamers for big fish.

We continued down the river and things really slowed down as the sun hit the water. The hordes of canoes coming down the river weren't helping either although most people were being polite. The glaring exception was a boat that motored by within 6 feet or so between the drift boat and the bank that was probably no more than 30 feet away at this point and probably much less. This was while I was working the streamer rod to said bank, and it was all I could do to restrain from blasting one of them in the head with a big streamer. Some people are just not very intelligent.

The dry spell continued for a good distance down the river, largely due to the fact that we were spending a lot of time experimenting. Finally, David went to his bag of tricks and showed us his favorite method of fishing the Caney when it is tough. Immediately we started catching fish and within 10 minutes, I nailed a nice 18 inch brown. That fish made my day, and I was ready to relax for awhile so I took over the oars. Rowing on low water is not a difficult job at all...

Nathan Stanaway photo

Nathan Stanaway photo

David nailed several good fish including browns up to 17 inches. Nathan took over camera duties for awhile and we got some nice pictures of all the fish. When we were about a half a mile or mile above the takeout, Nathan took over in the front and proceeded to catch his own nice 16 inch brown.






The river is slowly coming back although it has a long ways to go before it gets anywhere as good as it used to be. The numbers of fish are still not particularly good and the heavy boat traffic does not help. There are definitely fish to be caught though and even some very nice ones. I'll be looking forward to the opportunity to fish the Caney again, hopefully in the next week or two.