Exploratory trip...

[gaspergou]

Stories of huge fish rising to sulfurs with reckless abandon piqued our curiosity, so a few folks that had never fished the Clinch tailwaters made the long drive north and east...

We got rained on some. Cussed at TVA, the wind, TVA, the rain, TVA, the fish, TVA, kayaks, and TVA. Oh, and the mud (did I mention it rained?). Tried to get a handle on fishability/boatability at various flow levels, adjusted at short intervals seemingly designed by TVA solely to screw over our weekend. Had the wrong boats at the wrong level almost every time. Drank a bit of beer.

Fish were everywhere. A few were caught (short bus fish?), but most spent the weekend taunting us or getting dragged off on stringers by the locals (14-20 slot? yeah, right...). We attempted ritual sacrifices. A hat, a 4x4" signpost, an LED tailight, a phone, and a vintage 8' 4wt superfine, to little avail. I broke my boat and patched it with a stick and duct tape. Some of us took a break from fishing and enjoyed a brief swim.

Fish rising with reckless abandon? Found 'em.


BD was bored with micro-midges and went mountain climbing instead.

(I was waiting with camera poised to document the carnage, but he scrambled up just fine)

Trout? Meh. Who needs 'em.


All in all, a wonderful weekend.

[jarrod white]

Nice snook dude !

[bee]

Ihe river is pretty screwed up right now. TVA has decided to put it on release intervals far longer than the historical eight hour pulses that have been in place of many many years.  They are doing 10 to 12 hour intervals fairly regularly.  Plus there are structural issues apparently with the weir that have resulted in the weir not holding water through the historical eight hours it was designed for.  Result is that the river is much warmer and somewhat lower in the tailwater than is historically  usual , particularly in the lower stretches near clinton. It has been a much better fishing river recently than it is showing right now.  Shame to have this water circumstance in a relatively high water year in terms of rainfall but when they sluiced 20,000 cfs earlier i n the year for a few weeks they sort of blew out the inventory of water. There was a good mixture of nice trout in there in the winter, and hopefully some can hold on till heavier summer discharges resume.   There are some very snakely loking larger fish in there now.  FWIW I have fished there about fifty years and have never knowingly seen a walleye although I know they are there.

[MikeA]

I left the DSLR home for this trip but I did take the wp coolpix which I'm really starting to warm up to for an easy to carry camera.

BD all nice and dry...


BD just before the fall. I put my camera away 1 min too soon to capture the look on his face when he Eskimo rolled while entering his yak.


Nice.


Great scenery abounds here. If ever there was a tailwater where it isn't just about the fishing, this is one of them. Good luck watching your flies or indicator.






Taking crappy pics out of a kayak while dealing with fly rod, paddle, camera, and fish, proved to be too much trouble and not very considerate to the Trout so I didn't take many fish pics.



7000 cfs was more then I was comfortable crossing to make it to the nice pool on the other side where fish were rising. I chose to wait for the water to cut off rather then risk it.


Emerald green clean cold water. Prey that they never decide to grout under this one.....

[dbradyh]

Those shots of the dam are right on the money...

[bd]

 Result is that the river is much warmer and somewhat lower in the tailwater than is historically  usual , particularly in the lower stretches near clinton. It has been a much better fishing river recently than it is showing right now.  

Interesting.  The river was quite cold all the way down to Hwy 61 and fish were numerous as far down as we went.  They were extremely selective and many didn't want to hit the flies we were throwing, but they were there.  You could see them.

I fished Memorial Day weekend for a little while and had much better luck, numbers-wise.  For whatever reason, the fish were just very skittish and picky last weekend.  I saw pods of fish spook from a small strike indicator on a 14 ft leader landing 15 feet upstream from them.  I don't know what was making them afraid of their own shadows, but it was definitely challenging to get near them.

If the fish numbers in the Clinch are currently down from where they're supposed to be, I would have loved to see it at its peak. 

bd

[bd]

Some of us took a break from fishing and enjoyed a brief swim.

You make it almost sound voluntary!   

bd

[jarrod white]

Oh I didn't know Grumpy made the trip , or do we a new cold water bather among the group

[DSchlact]

Nice shots...been a while since I was out that way, seeing those pics makes me want to get a trip on the books.  Did you guys end up staying at the State Park?  Interested to hear how its holding up.

Dave

[TimM]

I did take the wp coolpix which I'm really starting to warm up to for an easy to carry camera.

What camera is that an abbreviation for Mike? 

I'm about ready to give up trying to figure out how to capitalize on the capabilities of my S100. If I wanted to work at it I wouldn't have bought a pocket camera. 

[gaspergou]

Did you guys end up staying at the State Park?  Interested to hear how its holding up.

The park was nice and surprisingly empty. Some of the tent sites are awfully close together... if it did get crowded, it would be really annoying.

[MikeA]

I did take the wp coolpix which I'm really starting to warm up to for an easy to carry camera.

What camera is that an abbreviation for Mike? 

I'm about ready to give up trying to figure out how to capitalize on the capabilities of my S100. If I wanted to work at it I wouldn't have bought a pocket camera. 

It's an aw100 Tim but this is no S100. It's a far cry from your camera. The only reason I switched to it was for the waterproof feature and I knew I would eventually dunk the Canon if I kept it for my kayak camera. Might I suggest you try an editor like Adobe Lightroom 3 before you give up on your canon. I edit every pic I post. It's the same as developing film, it has to be done.

[TimM]

Thanks Mike.  

I have and use LR as well as some other photo editing software.

 I do have the distinct sense that the S100 is capable of much more than I've been able to get from it and that the limitation is my patience/willingness to spend the time to figure it out.  When I bought the camera I was just looking for a reasonably good P&S pocket camera that I could use to get decent photos without a lot of extra work.

All that said it is currently at Canon being replaced/repaired as it had a fatal  "lens error" event after taking about 3 photos on my recent trip to Thailand. That didn't really help my perception of the camera and I haven't totally decided what I'm going to do when I get it/the replacement from Canon but as I said it just seems like maybe this wasn't the best choice for what I was trying to do. I may well just sell this one and try something else.