Meredith’s Ride: Day 38 - 39

Day 38, Monday, June 16th Marysville, OH to Wooster, OH
We had a beautiful day with great temperature to ride our bikes. We rode 94 miles today.

Day 39, Tuesday June 17th Wooster, OH to Niles, OH
We had a cool start with morning. Temperature was only 53 degrees. We rode 91 miles but we missed the turns 4 times and rode over 100 miles!

3 comments June 18th, 2008

Caney Fork River Float Trip - June 7, 2008

I have been a bit absent from Outdoorzy here lately. I think I have been busy, lazy, or call it what you will. I really do have legitimate reasons; I am busy planning a wedding with Andrea, I am a bit lazy at times, and if you call it what you will, well then, call it what you will. Truthfully, I think it is the lack of fishing that has me in this lull, but I think that has changed.

I floated the Caney Fork River with Codysa50 (Jim) on Saturday. We have been trying to get together for a float trip for the past couple of weeks. Jim bought a drift boat back in March of this year, and when I heard that, my ear perked up. All of my drift boat experience has been on the Watauga River; however, I have been floating the Caney in my kayak for years now. And from my adventures, there is a lot more freedom of movement and other things that you can do in a drift boat that you can’t do in a kayak. Such as anchoring off in a current and having multiple rods rigged up, in this case, I had nymph rod and a streamer rod rigged up. With this trip, I would be able to float river in a drift boat, but I would have a lot of knowledge about the river on were to fish and how to fish the river.

We started out about 9:00 am at the Dam; Jim rowed out into the Dam Pool and anchored off. We rigged up our fly rod; one for nymphing and one for streamers. After I rigged up the streamer rod, I wanted to cast it a few times to straight out the fly line. When I was stripping the line in to me, I hooked up on a Skip Jack. At least I would not be “skunked” for the day. After that, Jim rowed further into the Dam Pool and we spent about an hour or so casting and catching Skip Jack. It was a lot of fun catching those guys, but we were out there to catch a trout, big or small.

When I go fishing, I try to set some goals; be safe, have fun, catch a big trout, catch a really big brown trout, etc. This year is the first year that the TWRA stocked the river with brook trout and I wanted to catch one. There have also been a lot of stories of big fish coming out of the Caney lately. They have all been brown trout, but I am convinced that there are some nice rainbows and that is what I wanted too.

We hit the water by the Dam about 9:30am. While stretching out the fly line on the water, I caught a Skip Jack. I have never caught fresh water Skip Jack, so it was nice to catch something new. We floated around the Dam Pool in the Dam Boat catching Dam Fish on our Dam fly rods for Dam near an hour. Sorry, I had to do that, if I didn’t someone would have. As for the entire trip, at least I knew I wouldn’t be skunked for the day.

After floating around upstream, Jim grabbed the oars and we paddled downstream a bit until we were just upstream of the bluffs. The water began to fall out from the end of the generation and the fish were on; it was nice catching the Skip Jack, but we were after trout. We were using nymph rigs for the falling water and we both landed some decent trout, mainly browns and rainbows. A lady fishing to our right caught a brook trout, needless to say, I was a bit jealous.

We were floating from the Dam to Betty’s Island that day which is about nine mile float. The generation was only going to be off for about 3 fishable hours that day and there are better places to fish the falling water, so we were off again to a secret location. On the way to the “Location” near a bend in the river, I was fishing a nymph with a midge dropper and that is when it happened. The strike indicator dove deep into the water, the fish was on. It was a small fish, but as I pulled it into the boat, I noticed it was brookie. I had caught my first Caney Fork brook trout. After releasing the fish, I was done. I guess I should clarify that. I wasn’t done; I continued to fish all day. I had just accomplished what I wanted to do.

We continued fishing the rest of the day. There were numerous more browns and rainbow, but only the one brookie. My best fish came further down the stream; a nice 18” rainbow from a deep pool. It was nice catching that rainbow, it was easily the biggest rainbow I have ever caught, but it was over shadowed by the brookie. This story seems to be a bit about me, but Jim was on fire all day. I was on fire fishing the nymphs, but Jim whacked them with streamers all day and he proved that with a fat 20” rainbow. We continued to fish the rest of the day down to Betty’s Island. I will admit that by the time we arrived at Betty’s Island, I was done for the day. I would sleep like a log tonight.

It was great trip and I can’t wait to go again. Fishing the high water in the drift boat was fantastic. In fact, I am looking a few boats myself. So who knows, I might be rowing my own boat or firing up a motor on a Riverhawk soon going after those brookies, browns, and rainbows.

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