I was in Charlotte last week for a conference and figured what better way to wrap up a conference than to go trout fishing? After it wrapped up on Sun I headed west to Helen, GA. I'd already booked a half-day guided trip with Unicoi Outfitters to tackle the Nachoochee Bend of the Chattahoochee River.

I hit the fly shop at 7:30 and met my guide George. I asked what I need to bring and he told me I was country  club fishing and he had everything. My kind of fishing! I did have to borrow a reel. For some reason my Sage was hanging and I didn't trust it. I thought the spool was buggered up and it was rubbing but now I think it's an internal issue and will be going back.

We walked down to the river right behind the show and went to work. It was a beautiful morning and a a gorgeous section of water.



I was a little worried with the hotter temps they'd been seeing but the water still measured in around 66 degrees. It took close to a hour before I landed the first one after trying both dries and nymphs. I finally snared one on a nymph. He wasn't very big but with one in the net the pressure was off.



Number two really got the blood pumping! I got a nice drift with a dry fly and a beautiful specimen slurped it. He put up a good fight and thrashed a lot of water but I kept the pressure on and got him close enough to net. We measured him at 21"!



I was my own worst enemy throughout the day. My saltwater habits were hard to break and I failed to get a good hook set on too many. I drifted another dry and I'll be damned if an even bigger beast didn't go after it with full-on aggression. He was swimming away and I raised the rod to set it. We both thought it was going to be a good fight and then it was over. No idea what went wrong. George said he thought it looked good. I guess that's why the call it fishing and not catching.





Surprisingly, I had the most fun with this 16" baby. The 21 was fun but this guy was awesome! He took off like Meatloaf and a bat out of hell. The reel was screaming as he stripped line off at an impressive rate. As he turned back to me I was grateful for the quick pickup of the loaner reel. Then he really gave me a treat with an awesome 2-3' leap out of the water. Man what a blast!



I also managed to land a small redeye bass. George said this is about as big as they get. Gorgeous little fish.



As we got closer to the end of our time we headed back down the river to see if we could entice the monster to strike again. I was very happy to see another big one just 5-6' off the bank. Even when George got close he didn't spook like I'm used to reds doing to me. He just sauntered away but stayed close. I lit up even more when I saw that he had friends. There were about 6 of these boys just hanging out. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts I couldn't entice them to take much interest. I couldn't see it from where I was standing but George said one put his mouth right at the fly but turned.



We decided it was getting too warm and we headed back to the shop. Overall it was an absolutely stellar day.

The downside to the area is that the majority of the water is privately owned. George told me about some places in the Chattahoochee Natl Forest where I could fish on public land but it was way over my head. I have no idea how to fish the much faster moving water I ran into. The line just kept fouling on the rocks. I did manage a couple of quick bites but didn't hook anything. It was still getting out and enjoying the river.

The next time I head north I'm going to absolutely plan for a longer trip and I'll probably do the same section unguided. If you find yourself in the North Georgia area I highly recommend Unicoi Outfitters.

Oh yeah, about that reel. I reely like it! It was so much smoother than the Sage. I guess I really liked it because I walked out of the shop with my own. The Sage will be my backup one it gets repaired. Behold, the Orvis Hydros SL II...

Nice! Not too far down the road from me.

I should do that one of these days.

Those are some nice trout. Bigger than what we landed today.

Thanks for the writeup.

Beast of a fish!

Had an absolute blast. These dwarfed what I've caught before.

If the weather holds up tomorrow I hope to have some nice pics of flood tide reds also.

yes, some rainbows fight much harder than others, size is not the factor. Some just go psycho.

I will take attitude over size any day...

I agree. I'm still jazzed about the fun the smaller one gave me.