Met Jack, Warren, and a co-worker to fish the Duck River below Normandy Dam in southern Middle Tennessee on Friday. Weather was warm with intermittent clods, er… clouds. The release rate from the dam was only about 45 cfs (cubic feet per second), about a third of normal. The water level was down about 2 feet from what we are used to. For all that, the water was quite chilly. I won’t go into my dismal performance except to say that I avoided The Skunk by the merest (4" bluegill) of margins. Foam spiders were what the fish wanted. I didn’t have any and didn’t have the heart to take Warren’s last one, which probably would have ended up in a tree anyway. It is interesting to note that the Ghost of Charlie, the fly-eating tree scored again. Actually the remnant stump managed to catch a fly. The liberal garland of poison ivy made fly retrieval an interesting proposition. Forceps played a heroic role in the rescue. I also managed to kick a turtle that was lounging in the mud. He swam over to the shore to see just what had so vilely disturbed him. I tender my apologies to the turtle. I lost a pair of cheaters and got a mild sunburn because I had forgotten to take a hat. It was not a stellar day in the performance category, but I have a ball and I am truly glad that I went. I’m still a little boy at heart and getting to play in the water and see snakes and turtles and fish makes me happy.
I expect that Jack and Warren will chip in and provide further details, if they weren’t too busy releasing large 'gills to notice anything else. I managed to remove a large, loose hook from the streambed in an area where children wade and swim. Later, from the same area, I removed a large spinnerbait with a very large, stainless steel hook. That’s the advantage of waders over chucking hardware from the bank, we can find and remove that sort of debris.
I find myself in a very cheerful mood after a day in the river. I wish you all well.
Ed