My main fishing location is below a tailwater when water flows are very slow or low. However for a few months now, generation schedules prevent fishermen from wading and using standard wading techniques. I imagine techniques used by fishermen floating down fast moving rivers would work great. So my question is…What are those techniques? What setup would you recommend …sinking tip, sinking lines, streamers, etc? Would dead drift tactics work? As you are floating down the river at a fairly fast pace, how do you manage your line? Where do you case…near bank and down trees…up stream, across stream, or down stream? Thank you for any help you can provide.
Terry;
Where are you, and what are you fishing for ?, I suggest being a little more specific and you will get alot of help, and make some good friends also.
Just my .02
I’m sorry, it is below a TVA dam. Fishing for RBT and Bnt. Thanks
What are your ranges of flows in cubit ft / sec. On the lower illinois river in Oklahoma the water is widley wadable at 100 cubit ft/sec or less. When they generate it is in the range of 2000 cubit feet per second plus water comes up 4.5 ft and is not wade-able. There are still a few places to catch fish( from the bank) but is no where near as productive at at the lower rate
Terry;
Which TVA dam? How close are you to the Elk River and Tim’s ford Dam(Winchester, TN)?
Terry,
Jack Hise and I both fish the tailwaters below the Tim’s Ford Dam on the Elk River. If you are close to us, either one of us would gladly meet you at the dam and maybe we could lend you some assistance.
If it’s the Caney Fork I might be able to lend some assistance.
If the river is really flowing fast you don’t want to be fishing and trying to operate a boat/pontoon/raft/ at the same time. It is a recipe for disaster.
If you are by yourself then fish from shore. You can chuck & duck a streamer on a sink tip line or you can nymph fish fairly deep below a strike indicator. The streamer will get you out into the middle of the river while the nymphing technique will keep you fairly close to shore, which is where a lot of fish will be anyway.
Just don’t try to float and fish at the same time unless you have someone operating a row boat or ridged framed raft.
Larry 
—sagefisher—