So what about white bass in the Caney? Is that possibly what I've caught a lot of or are they more likely to be small striped bass?

If they had a stocky body, light stripes, and multiple tooth patches on their tongues...white bass. Young stripers typically are more streamlined and their stripes are dark, even if they are broken. Next time, look at the fish's tongue. A white bass has multiple tooth patches and a striper has two distinct patches on its' tongue. There are white bass in the caney, and it wouldn't surprise me if you catch numerous whites since they school heavily.


Chris

Could be either. I have caught a bunch of both in the Caney. This time of year, it's probably most likely white bass, since their spawning run is about to begin. They aren't hard to tell apart once you get the hang of it. Striped bass are more torpedo shaped and have much bolder lines.

Small striped bass:

http://www.tnfish.org/PhotoGalleryFi...eNegus_jpg.jpg

White bass:

http://www.tnfish.org/PhotoGalleryFi...sNegus_jpg.jpg

It's a little more challenging to tell the difference between small hybrids and white bass since the body shape is more similar - the giveaway there is that the hybrids will have darker (but very broken) stripes.

Hybrid (a bigger one) for reference:

http://www.tnfish.org/PhotoGalleryFi...rNegus_jpg.jpg

However you won't find hybrids in the Caney.

bd

Looks like they made it down to 626...now its back on the rise and Great Falls is dumping 15K cfs, 14K cfs, 8K cfs the next few days.

Guess I will still be waiting a while to buy that trout stamp. So much for fishing in March...there's always April. :mad:

Yea this is pretty annoying isn't it? I went ahead and bought mine because I know I'm going to use it...eventually and I didn't want that to be standing in my way when they finally do give us wading windows. I just want to pack my stuff and go straight there.

For trout, March and April are the times to hit the spring creeks on the Plateau and west of town. On the east side, the upper Collins is good, along with Pine, Sink, Charles, and Mountain creeks. On the west side, Mill Creek, Tumbling Creek, and Cane Creek are worth fishing.

I don't "name names" on my smallmouth creeks, but I don't mind talking about the spring trout creeks because I think TWRA would do a lot more with these creeks if we could get them more attention.

As far as the Caney Fork goes, the water should slow down once it warms up some. Hopefully we'll get some wading windows by early May unless we have a lot of heavy spring rains.

bd

They're back up to 628.6 this morning above the dam. Looks like it might be quite a while before we get wading windows...maybe early summer haha. At least we have the whtie bass run into the streams to look forward to! That should be happening anytime now. I'm gonna start hitting the local streams here in Smyrna and I'll report back if I get into them.

I just noticed yesterday that some wading windows are starting to appear! Only a few hours at a time but the river depth is dropping low enough to wade in. I'll be out there in a couple weeks.

I still say its a hoax... Believe it when I see it...:D

at what water level does it become wadable?

Very few places on the river you can safely wade when they are running water. That goes for generation and/or just sluice gate.

Be safer to go when water is off and be aware of the generation schedule as well as how long it takes to get to where you are.

I got trapped on an island in the Caney once. I was all set to stay until water receded.
A couple of men came by in a canoe and gave me a ride to the side with my car.

Never was in any danger, just thought I was going to have a long wait and had already called my wife and told her where I was and that I was going to be a little late.