A day at the beach

The water level has dropped in Percy Priest Lake, making one of my favorite spots perfect for wading. With the sun shining, the wind calm and the water warm, yesterday afternoon was a picture perfect carp fishing day... without the carp. I don't know where the fish have gone. There is ample food on the flat - I saw thousands of baitfish, crawdads, and plenty of feeding fish, but only two carp. One was literally scratching it's back on a sunken log, probably in response to parasites, the other one was feeding but disappeared before I could say 'wooly bugger.'
I hooked up to three decent bass, lost the first two but hung on to the third:
It's a pretty good size bass, but when you have carp on the brain, even a world record largemouth is just a medium sized fish that doesn't pull too hard.

Fueled by Fish

After Hurricane Ike closed down refineries in Texas a week or so ago, there was some disruption in the supply lines bringing gasoline to Nashville. Those attracted by the drama of a shortage began lining up at gas stations. This DID cause a shortage because people who didn't really need gas, or people who would normally have just put in a quarter of a tank were suddenly topping off every chance they got, and filling up extra gas cans too! The "psychological gas shortage" (as my friend has dubbed it) did not stop Mike and I from visiting a local bass spot on the Harpeth River System.
Mike hadn't been to the stream in years and was suprised at the changes. Erosion had widened the streambed which meant shallower water and so the big bass of his youth had moved on to new homes. There were still some fish and we had fun wading from pool to pool, catching fish where we could:

This is a well hidden spot - one I never would have found without some local help. A real Tennessee treasure...

Caney Tuesday

I visited the Caney Fork on Tuesday. There were fewer fish than on my first visit, but what was lacked for in numbers was made up for in size. 
The weather is definitely changing. After the remnants of Hurricane Ike moved through this past weekend, the air has failed to warm back up to summer temperatures. That combined with the old age of my wetsuit made for some shivers.
The fish of the day went to my buddy Mike (actually most of the fish went to Mike!) He caught this fattie on a hare's ear nymph and landed it on a 7x tippet:

leader shy

Finally some action! I have been so close to successful the last few times I've gone carping - the fish would show interest by approaching my flies, but then at the last second, with no regard for my feelings, they would just pass up my offering. Thinking it might be leader shyness, I decided to tie on a 6X tippet for my next attempt. For you non-fishing folks, the tippet is the very end of the line, onto which I tie my fly, and 6X means that the tippet is very very thin and nearly invisible, but also not very strong, so one must be gentle when playing fish. The change seemed to work. I caught this nice drum chillin' by the bank. If you look closely, you can see my little pink worm fly stuck in it's upper lip.
Tradition dictates that when releasing fish into a current, they should be held gently, facing upstream. That way, water flows over the gills which helps the fish to recover. In low current or stillwater, I recommend gently rocking the fish forward and backwards. Though apparently some fish gills use a countercurrent exchange which means that backwards motion is not particularly efficient, the gills are essentially a passive membrane so any motion of water over gills should help the fish recover faster.