Hmm - lots to respond to here.
Wadeable carp flats is a tough request! There are some spots on the Caney that aren't too bad. If you start at the Kirby Road access, there is a flat upriver where you might get a shot at some fish, and if you wade downstream, you can access Smith Fork Creek and it has some carp.
You could also wade the Stones River below Percy Priest Dam - there is a greenway that runs along the river that will give you access. It's 99% buffalo though, and not common carp.
Other than those spots, for most of the best water, you really need a boat. I could point you to a ton of great carp flats on Old Hickory, but I can't really think of any where you could wade. Even if you could get access from the shoreline, the bottom on most of the good flats is so soft and muddy that you'd sink to your knees if you tried to wade it.
I think Percy Priest might have a few areas where you could wade fish for carp - there is a sailboat marina near Elm Hill that has some flats nearby, and the bottom on most parts of Priest is hard enough that you could wade it without getting stuck.
As far as what fish to target, I have to disagree with Saltwaterwalt a little on which fish fight the hardest - the common carp DEFINITELY fight better than any of the various varieties of buffalo. Maybe it's different with bowfishing; I don't know. But on a flyrod, buffalo rarely put up a very good fight. A really big one will fight okay, but most of them just resist you pulling them and provide dead weight. Sometimes, if you let the line go slack on a buffalo, they will even just sit there and not do anything until you start pulling on them again. Common carp fight harder and they don't give up. The big ones are smart, too - if there is the slightest bit of cover nearby, you'd better get them away from it, or they will bulldog you into it every single time and break you off.
Buffalo are also much harder to catch than carp. A common carp will take a fly at least 2/3 of the time if you get the fly under his nose with an accurate, quiet cast. In other words, it's challenging, but if you do everything right, you will catch fish. Buffalo, on the other hand, will ignore the fly about 90 percent of the time, even if you do everything right. I'll cast to a big buffalo if I see one while I'm fishing, but it's frustrating because they won't hit often.
When I'm fly fishing for carp, I definitely seek out places with common carp instead of buffalo, and it's important to learn to identify the difference when you're looking at the fish in the water. If you're casting to buffalo only, it gets very frustrating.
Good luck - hope this helps at least a little bit.
bd
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