Fishless Fishing Beats Not Fishing

 

I failed to get out prior to last weekend’s winter storm, so with another storm forecast for this weekend, I didn’t want that to happen again. I had some lure photos I wanted to shoot for work and had reached a late-afternoon stopping point with office stuff, so I headed for a close-to-home river access.

You can probably guess by the title that I didn’t catch anything, and I only fished for a little more than an hour. Had I let the afternoon slip away without even trying, though, I’d have felt liken I’d missed an opportunity, and in truth I really enjoyed the river outing.

Don’t get me wrong. I always want to catch fish, and that’s the objective when I go. I focused on the areas where I thought they were the most likely to be and tried a few good winter presentations. Failing to catch fish doesn’t ruin a trip for me, though, and I knew when I left home that going fishless was a definite possibility.

Last weekend’s storm brought a lot of sleet and freezing rain and overnight lows in the low teens. Water temperatures undoubtedly dropped more dramatically than Georgia fish are accustomed to experiencing.

I also chose an area where shoal bass and spotted bass are the main sport fish species. Trout waters might have offered better prospects, given conditions, since trout are cold-water fish by nature.

That wasn’t my choice, though, so I won’t ever know. I’m just glad I chose to go fishing.

Fly Lesson Video

I noted in a recent blog post that Asher and I recently took an instructional flyfishing trip on the Chattahoochee River with Unicoi Outfitters in nearby Helen, Georgia. This little video shows the great job that Jake did teaching Asher, who had never flyfished previously. Enjoy.

Chub Tales

Asher and I each caught a chub while we were flyfishing in the Chattahoochee River a couple of days ago, and each was noteworthy in its own way.

Asher's was just kind of funny. He was trying to make a cast and his fly line was coming out of the water as it should have. Although Asher is brand new to flycasting and his mechanics are far from perfect, our guide Jake couldn't figure out what Asher was doing wrong that was preventing his cast from working, so he took the rod from Asher for a moment, only to figure out that there was a 4-inch fish at the end of the line. He gave the rod back to Asher and let him land his prize.

My chub, which came from the same run a little later, had no good story, and it was about the same size. It was noteworthy only in the fact that I hadn't caught a chub yet in 2015, and it was species No. 20 on this year's list.

First Fly Trout

Asher got his first taste of flyfishing today and definitely liked the taste. He and I took a half-day instructional trip on the Nacoochee Bend section of the Chattahoochee River, learning from Jake Darling, assistant manager of Unicoi Outfitters and a Unicoi guide.

Jake began with some one-on-one instruction with Asher, showing him the casting and line-management techniques he would need for the way we would be fishing, teaching him how to hook and fight a fish, and then walking him through rigging with a strike indicator, two flies and a couple of split shot. I listened quietly in the shadows, mostly hiding behind my camera, and learned at least as much as Asher.

Basics covered, Jake set me up beside a feeding trough and moved upstream with Asher, where he coached him through casts, mends and hooksets.


Asher and I each gave Jake plenty of work untangling knots or retying rigs that weren't worth trying to untangle, and we both got out-muscled or outsmarted (or both) by a big trout. That said, we also both managed to land a handful of Chattahoochee River rainbows and had a big time doing so. More importantly, I learned stuff that I incorporate into writing and got lots of photos, and Asher and I both learned plenty that we can apply during future trout outings.

Christmas Stockings

Trout being stocked into the Chattahoochee River, just in time
for Christmas vacation. Photo courtesy of the Georgia Wildlife
Resources Division.

Some call 'em stocking elves, the hatchery workers and volunteers who team up to spread Christmas cheer in the form of trout. Whatever you want to call 'em, they've been busy this week, stocking plenty of trout in various spots along Georgia's Chattahoochee River below Buford Dam and most likely in some other year-round trout waters, so folks can enjoy good trout fishing during the Christmas break.

Untimely rain may add a little chocolate to the river for a few days and could make both access and fish catching somewhat challenging. It'll settle though. Always does. And when it does, those freshly stocked trout will be there waiting and ready to eat.

Trout can be harvested through most of the Buford tailwater. Three miles of river, through Marietta, fall under delayed harvest regulations, which means that all fishing this time of year must be done with single-hook artificial lures, and the trout all must be released.  For obvious reasons, the fishing tends to stay really good throughout the "delay" period in those waters. In fact, I may need to slip down there some time very soon. I haven't fished the 'Hooch DH yet this winter, and it seems to be calling my name, even as I write this. Maybe I'll see you there.

To learn much more about trout fishing in Georgia, visit the trout page on the Wildlife Resources Division website.

Sweet Georgia Brown

Chad Daughty's 20-pound-14 ounce brown trout, which he
caught from the Chattahoochee River, broke the Georgia state record
by 2 1/2 pounds. Photo courtesy of the Georgia Department
of Natural Resources.

"You have trout in Georgia?" people sometimes ask. In other places, when folks think of Georgia, many think of peanut farms, downtown Atlanta, Okefenokee Swamp and maybe a peach orchard. Few picture the mountainous country that I live at the edge of, and somehow trout just don't fit the stereotypes.

Yep. We have trout: brown trout, rainbows and brook trout. Only the brookies are native, but many Southern Appalachian streams support natural reproduction of rainbows and/or browns.

Along with the mountain streams, a couple of tailwaters stay cold enough to support good trout populations, and that's where the trout tend to grow big. Chad Daughty, a 27-year-old angler from Winder, Georgia, was the most recent person to prove that in grand fashion. While fishing from a kayak in the Lake Lanier tailwater (Chattahoochee River), Daughty had a whopper trout attack his spinner. Forty-five minutes later Daughty landed what would soon be confirmed as the new state record brown trout.

The record brown weighed 20 pound, 14 pounces and eclipsed the former record by 2 1/2 pounds.

Yep. We have trout in Georgia.

Flood Thoughts

Being just home from a week on the road, it's hard to not think about the rain that's pounding on my tin office roof and how thankful I am that Nathaniel and I were able to get in as much good fishing as we did. Apparently, the area we fished in Tennessee (under blue skies for two days) has had rain every day since we left, including absolute downpours last night, and  the gravel bars we walked on in Arkansas' Buffalo  River were majorly flooded only a day later. Meanwhile we somehow dodged the heaviest of Georgia's rains as we drove home today. And the Mississippi, where we began our fishing adventure, is high and red right now.

The Bassmaster Elite Series pros fish West Point on the Georgia/Alabama border this week, and apparently it was storming, with heavy rains and even big hail as the pros arrived in town today. They'll be fishing flood patterns and dirty waters, I suppose. Most Georgia waters run pretty red when the rain falls hard, so that has a big impact on how the fish behave.

Sometimes flood waters wash out a trip. For example, floating the Buffalo would have been dangerous after the big rains came. Some lakes simply get too muddy for the fish to find their food or the current in a river gets so strong that the fish just move into survival mode for a day or two.

Often, though, flooding creates opportunities (as any extreme condition can) because it washes food into rivers into rivers and lakes, causes fish to position themselves predictably in obvious eddies, tight to cover, or in the clearest water they can find. Sometimes it just makes them more aggressive.

The key is to consider the conditions that the weather has brought and fish accordingly. Unexpected flooding might mean searching shallower, using bigger and noisier lures and keeping lures much closer to cover. It also might mean doing a lot of looking to find little pockets where the water color is better.  Find those, and you've found something special. It'll be interesting to see how that kind of stuff plays out on West Point this week.

Three Days, Four Waterways, Seven Species

Our week-long three-state fishing trip is off to a fine start, with fish-catching success on the Chattahoochee River, Old Hickory Lake, a small private lake and Center Hill in the first three days. Nathaniel and I fished Center Hill today, and the smallmouths bit pretty well. We spent this morning taking photos and fishing for smallmouths and the rest of the day driving to Arkansas, where tomorrow we'll begin a few days of fishing in Ozark streams.

Thus far, the trip has produced seven different kinds of fish for me: rainbow trout, brown trout, bluegill, largemouth bass, black crappie, warmouth and smallmouth bass. The crappie and the smallmouth were new additions to my 2013 catch list.

Tomorrow we may do some trout fishing in the White River in the Bull Shoals tailwater, and I'll most likely take Nathaniel to Dry Run Creek, the "youth only" catch-and-release stream that he likes so much and that I've often discussed in blogs. Thursday and Friday we'll float the Buffalo National Scenic River! We always enjoy fishing in the Ozarks.

Trout & Tennessee Travel

Today's main objective was travel to Tennessee, where Nathaniel and I will fish for the next couple of days, but our path took us right past the delayed harvest section of the Chattahoochee River in Atlanta's suburbs. Fishing can be good there, and Nathaniel had never seen it so it seemed like a sensible stop.

Following a parking lot tip from someone who had helped with a very recent stocking, we switched acess points from where I'd originally had in mind and enjoyed pretty good success. We ended up catching eight trout, equally split between rainbows and browns, in a couple of hours of fishing, before continuing our travel to Tennessee.

Tomorrow's plans put Nathaniel on Center Hill bass fishing with two different local anglers and me fishing part of the day on Old Hickory and part on a private lake.

Photos and reports to follow.

Wheeler Builds Lead Again

With three days down and only one to go, 21-year-old Jacob Wheeler continues to lead the Forrest Wood Cup, and his lead is back to the 6-pound margin that he held after the first day of the competition. Wheeler is mostly fishing up the Chattahoochee River arm of Lake Lanier and is using a variety of lures to meticulously work cover. As has been the case throughout the tournament, leaders are using a variety of shallow- and deep-water strategies and catching both largemouths and spotted bass. However, largemouths are turning out to be the difference makers.

Behind Wheeler are Scott Canterbury, Bryan Thrift, Scott Martin and Jay Yelas. Only the Top 10 anglers after three days get to fish today.

Today I get to see things for myself. I'll be heading to the Gwinnett Center in a little while to attend the Forrest Wood Cup Expo and then to watch the final-day weigh-in. I'll be blogging and reporting on Twitter (@jeffsamsel) throughout the day.

Stay tuned!