North Georgia Report

A few months back I said we would have some different things available on the Fishing Report. One of the things is, we are going to have different folks writing about their fishing adventures. Rachel (ALflygirl) and her husband Jamie H. are a couple of people who fish with me several times a year. Last week they went to North Georgia for one of their annual trips and brought back some photos as well as a report. Rachel was kind enough to send the report onto me so it could be posted on our fishing report. So, without further interruption here is a report in her own words as well as some pics.........Thanks David

The Toccoa River in North Georgia

So, it hasn't rained much here in the South in a long time, but the skies opened up this past week just in time for our trip to N Georgia. My husband Jamie and I try to take a couple of trips a year over to the Blue Ridge/McCaysville area.We arrived in McCaysville around mid day on Wednesday the 17th hoping to fish the at Horseshoe Bend on the Toccoa. Negative! They were generating at Blue Ridge dam and it was flowing swiftly and looked like chocolate milk. So we went to option # 2 - the Toccoa Delayed Harvest section that is above the dam thereby not affected by generation. (Did I mention that it was finally raining in N GA???) The DH section is absolutely beautiful and usually has flows around 200 cfs. Needless to say, it was not flowing at 200....it was around double that....somewhere in the 400 cfs range. Not to be outdone, Jamie put his waders on and fished extremely close to the bank and I opted for the bank. The fish did not come out to play so we packed it up and headed to the cabin....just as it started raining again!

Thursday we had a trip planned with Guide Kent Klewein. Kent is a great guide and really wants you to have a good time, but also wants you to learn. Just as David is our go to guide in Tennessee, Kent will be our go to guide in Georgia. We fished the private section of Noontootla Creek which had a good bit more water than when we fished it last year, but was not as affected by the heavy rains as the Toccoa. We fished one section in the morning and had one pretty rainbow to hand and several good hookups....one that even took me into my backing before it broke off!

Rachel with a Nice North Georgia Rainbow

Jamie with His Nice North Gerogia Rainbow

We took a break for lunch and re-fueled and moved to another section. We got into a section that proved to be MUCH FUN! We tied on some flies that Jamie had tied up for the trip and it was ON! I hooked into a nice rainbow and landed it. I managed to get a nice tangle in the midst of trying to get my rig out of the way, so Jamie moved into the same spot. WHAM! He landed a 21" rainbow that had some beautiful colors! Jamie moved upstream a little and I moved back into the spot! WHAM! After fighting this fish for what seemed like 30 minutes (reality...probably 10 minutes) and going downstream for what seemed like 100 yards (reality....probably 30 yards) I landed a beautiful 23" rainbow. Whew! After those two brutes, we were both pretty much pooped. We fished a while longer and called it a day....a GREAT day! Thanks Kent!

The Nantahala River in North Carolina

The next day, we woke up to....yes, you guessed it...rain. We headed over into North Carolina to the Nantahala DH. This is an absolutely beautiful river that I would like to fish again....with a little less water in it. Jamie hooked up with one rainbow and we kept on trying for a while, but we finally gave in and went in search of BBQ!