Fishing the elk river

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canoefisher76

New member
Back in early June I went with a group of friends fishing, canoeing, and camping on the elk river over a weekend. We had a blast and I caught my trout limit the first day and five the second day. We had a blast and the fishing was good.

Has anyone been there recently or know if the fish are still biting? I'd like to go tomorrow morning but not sure if I want to drive 1.5 hours and not catch anything. But I guess a bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work
 
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Treed1

Member
If your fishing below TIM'S FORD DAM check the water flow. Took off work a few years ago to go fish water was up at least 10 ft. no way to fish it.A lot of times they pull water during the week and keep the river down on weekends
 
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canoefisher76

New member
Treed1 I'm glad you said that about the water being up. We were delayed on our trip which was a Friday - Sunday trip. We had planned to leave early Friday morning to get an early start fishing. We called the people we rented the canoes from and he informed us that the river was too high and we'd have to wait until after 2:00 or so. I totally forgot about this and probably would have been pretty upset if I had shown up and the water was too high to fish. Thanks for the heads up! Plans have changed and I'm going to go crappie fishing with a friend in Sale Creek.
 
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canoefisher76

New member
Hwoody9 its a great river to float. Very peaceful and when we went in early June and the fish were hitting.

Kornbread I've only fished there once in early June and it was good then. Not sure about now. I'm going crappie fishing instead today.

tight lines
 
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Tight_Lines

New member
I have only waded it few times and never have had much success. it has been probably 10 years since ive been there but i remember catching a bunch of browns and all fish were like 6 to 8 inches long. as i remember this is a VERY narrow river with no generation. except up next to the dam where i think the water pools. Canoefisher76, if want to check out a good trout river the Hiwassee is great. though another good Canoe/fish river would be the Caney Fork. it has some GREAT trout fishing and is very wadeable but check the generation schedules on it as in all rivers that are dam controlled.
 
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burnett1988

New member
I've caught alot of big fish floating the elk river down by the tyson chicken plant in pelham. I caught 2 muskies in there over 3'. i have the biggest one mounted on my wall. 4' long & 25lbs. if i could get pics to upload i would do so. It was a insane fight. caught him on a old smithwick jerk bait.
 
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kornbread

Member
Ive caught several small ones as well on the Elk. I never had an issue with bringing home enough to eat in the 14-16 inch range. There are some big rainbows in the Elk, but of course they aren't easily caught. We have caught several in the 18-20 inch range with a few exceptional ones here and there.
 
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Tight_Lines

New member
Kornbread, sounds like I may have to give it another shot! i usually use an ultra light rig with power eggs for trout. i think my yak would be really good on this river as well!! ( take waders for back up!) if i am using an ultra light spinning set up, what else besides power eggs would be good here for 14 - 20 inch rainbows? spoons? or lipless cranks? i am intrigued and thinking about going tomorrow!
good fishing!
 
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canoefisher76

New member
Thanks Tight lines I have fished the hiawasee and have had some luck there. I've never been to caney fork. I'll have to go there and give it a try. We didn't catch any browns but quite a few rainbows. I had a lot of luck with a panther martin. Similar to rooster tail but has a black bullet shaped bead with yellow spots. I had good luck with that lure. The other guys fished rooster tails that were yellow and black. Good luck let us know how you do.
 
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Tight_Lines

New member
Fished the Elk on Sat. floated my yak to the corner and just around the bend! i caught a bunch early! and after 2 or so it slowed down. i think i caught 15 or 20 on the day. size range 12 - 14". i use my Ultra Light rig when trout fishing. caught all fish on power eggs. usually use a no. 6 aberdeen hook with -3 split about 18 inches up. like said was getting a lot of hits early and made good on most of those. best thing about the day was i was almost completely by my self the whole day except for a couple of other yakkers that passed by with no stop. only bad part was that i was by myself and had to walk my yak back up through the swift water shoals near the top of the river. definitely A LOT easier going down stream than UP STREAM!!! weather was perfect and the fish were biting so just a great day!!
 
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canoefisher76

New member
Wow that's awesome! I probably would have gone but I took my son to the hunters safety course. Man that really makes me want to get back out there and catch some dinner. Congrats on a good day of fishing
 
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