Personal Reports - Jan - June, 1998 - The following reports are colored by my personal preferences (I guess most are). No reports on live-bait or deep-water fishing (I fish almost exclusively with a fly rod - usually shallow water), no reports that include far-flung locations on the lake (unlike some "bass-masters" on the lake I don't like to "set the water on fire" while racing from one spot to another), and no catfishing reports (`though I'm dying to catch one of those big carp on a fly).

"Live like you'll die tomorrow (fish every day),
.....fish like you'll live forever (catch & release)."

 

June 28 - XXX River - 6 pm - Fished here with Pat T. He took a big largemouth on a jig; I took a baby hybrid on a clouser, plus a giant carp that I foul-hooked (geez, this guy was big and strong- for several minutes I thought I had one of those big stripers).

June 18 - Callaway Gardens - 4 pm - Hummingbird Lake - If you've been to Callaway, you've seen this lake and dreamed of fishing it - dreams do come true. Nestled between a pair of steep hillsides, it winds slightly from a wooded gulch to the dam at the road. With overhanging trees and bushes and a bit of downed timber, it's a fisherman's picture postcard. With a fun-loving family from here & yon, we fished it til almost dark - took mainly bluegill, with a few bass and a huge warmouth thrown in. As the sun got low we worked our float tubes toward the road, throwing poppers near the manicured grass bank (and even on to it) - often, the strike came the instant the fly hit the water. I climbed out early to get the truck and help everybody out and got the view from the road that had cars and bikes slowing and stopping, watching and wishing - float tubes barely disturbing the still water, colorful fly lines gently arcing the air, big sunfish bowing the long rods, and grinning, but intent faces wanting just one more (even "Big Dog", who had reproved the theory that barbless hooks are kinder not only to the fish, but to the fisherman).

June 17- Flint River - 6:30 pm - Fished w/Pat T., my spinning rod buddy. Water was way down and quite a few people around, but we still caught a fair number of fish.

I've been fishing the fly so long and forgotten the little I knew about spinning rods, I'm looking for some suggestions. Pat's new to river fishing and had some problems fishing - the water is shallow and rocky, and the deeper runs have lots of moss/weeds. Spinners & plugs tend to foul. He tried fishing a fly with a casting bubble, but was only moderately successful. For years I endured his badgering on West Point Lake about my fly rod, and it's true for bass fishing on a large lake the fly rod is just a alternate method of fishing that in some cases is better and some not. But on a river like this, the fly rod is perfect. Mail me if you've got some suggestions for Pat. Or else, I'll have to convince him to drop his prejudices and learn to throw a fly.

June 16 - Callaway Gardens -1 pm - My first guiding trip here - 4 great folks from Conyers & Norcross. Never flyfished before, but a couple may now have the bug. Katie, bless her heart, was a bit discouraged at first - said she'd just watch,...it was a pretty day...she'd have fun... Turns out she caught the first fish, and in fact, til 15 minutes before we quit, had the most fish. You go, girl!

June 14 - XXX River - 6 am - Fished this tailrace with Alfred W. Took 3 hybrid and 2 stripers, all around 6-7 pounds, plus several assorted smaller fish. Alfred's first bigger hybrid on a fly - "Wow, what would you do with a big one?" All fish in the whitewater and stopped when sun got full on water. But it was fun while it lasted.

June 14 - Callaway Gardens - 7 pm - Fished one of the back lakes with Norman P. Fishy galore - and beautiful to boot.

June 11- West Pt - lower lake - 6 pm - With Pat T., fished deep point to start - took a couple small spots casting to swirls and one big largemouth who sucked down my popper as soon as it landed about 18' off bank. Moved to shoal off river - a few more spots. Then we found the schoolie hybrid in 35' of water chasing shad on top - caught `em til dark.

June 10- Flint River - 4 pm - Another good day. For some reason, bass were extremely aggressive, even in full heat & sun of day. In one run, I took 4 on two consecutive casts fishing upstream with dry yellow stonefly and black wooly worm dropper. This is a new stonefly pattern from A.K. Best's book I tyed, and it is terrific - deer hair body(not spun) & wing, it floats like a cork and is easy to see. The bream loved it too, in spite of it's size (almost 1" long).

June 7, XXX River - Georgia - 6:30 am - Fished this tailrace river wading the shoals for hybrid bass w/Carter and Norman from Callaway Gardens . As we pulled up to the car park, Norman said one of us would catch a 5-pounder today. He was wrong - we all caught `em - and way bigger than 5 lbs, too. Several were 20-24" fish, and some of the biggest got off(of course) in the strong current. All our fish took clousers. This was the first time I've caught these fish on a 5-weight rod - wow! We fished `til noon and headed out, sore-armed and hungry.

When I got home, I couldn't stop thinking about those fish. The strikes were like hanging up on a big log (solid), then the line starts to move, and as soon as you apply a bit of pressure, the fish takes off! So, after a 30 minute doze, I headed back to the river with a friend. And guess what? Carter was back, too! We caught some more (tho' not as many as in the morning).

June 4- Flint River - 6:30 pm - Water still falling ( level at 2.65). Fished w/spinning rod buddy. We took numerous fish, slighly more bream than bass. Lots of fun, and rain blew in just as we left river.

June 2- Flint River - 6:15 am - Fished shoals well above Sprewell Bluff. Took many red-eyes and many, many bream. Water level down more to about 2.9, so fish more concentrated. Yellow stoneflies were everywhere early in morn - crawling up my legs, flying round my head and all over the water. Took numerous fish on yellow foam hopper that looked very similar to the stones. Fished black wooly-worm as dropper - wanted to change to yellow or to stonefly nymph, but so many fish taking the black I never did. Numerous times I had two fish on, one on the wooly and one on the hopper - usually these were bream, sometimes one bream & one bass, and once two nice bass (tho' I only managed to land one). Oftimes, it looked like a Charley Chaplin comedy of errors - one fish diving for the moss, one heading upstream, one down.... Bass and bream often came from same pool or run; in one slick at the base of a sluice, I caught several small bream, and on about the seventh cast there, a big bass nailed the wooly. Before the sun hit the water, the big bass were quite shallow. My best one was about 15". - lots of fun in swift water about 10" deep. Even though the temp before daylight was 76 and climbed to 90+, I was cool as a cucumber as I waded the rushing water til about 1 pm. Now, how can I get off work tomorrow?

May 29 - Private Pond, LaGrange - 7 pm - Was supposed to be a cookout, but host said bring your rod, so..... Caught huge fileting size bluegills and one nice bass on my 5-wgt, as spinning rod buddies went fishless - ah, life is good.

May 25 - Alabama, XXXXX River - 7 am - Fished another tailrace with Hooker (the North Georgia Trout Online regular). A fairly inauspicious day with only a few largemouths; the stripers weren't there. But after our last hybrid/striper trip (4/12), I'll fish w/him anywhere.

May 24 - North GA - West Fork,Chattooga River - 7 am - Fish galore - basically same deal as yesterday, tho I found an isolated long, slow run where the rainbows were rising sporadically and I took 5 on a caddis and small black beetle. The key to this section is to seek out the isolated spots (tho they're plenty of stockers at the access points, the bait chuckers are there, too). In the areas we fished til about noon, we saw one other angler.

May 23 - North GA - Chattooga River - 7 am - Walked downstream from Burrell's Ford about a mile and fished down. Water & weather perfect ( water level at about 1.95) , and not a lot of people. Caught many fish (about half of them wild), mainly rainbows, to 14". Joel took lots from deep runs on hares ear nymph, I got em on black wooly, elk-har caddis and a gawd-awful, mylar/polyester upwing dry I'd tied as a strike indicator for the wooly. Fished til 1 when the crowd picked up.

May 22 - North GA - Mocassin Creek- 4 pm - First time here - nice small creek. Saw a couple of campers at trail head & a pair of backpackers, but no fishers. We caught several small fish - me on black wooly & Joel D. on white mepps. Tight creek, but lots of fun. Some deep pools and a few deep runs held most of fish. Even w/7'6" fly rod was very tight casting - in fact, it was mainly flipping. But the fish were there and would come after the fly.

May 20 - Yellow Jacket Creek- 5:30 pm - Fished w/ Norman P., one of numerous area fly-fishers this site has introduced to me. Norman guides some over at Callaway Gardens (see my 8/10/97 report) and is a light fly-tackle enthusiast. `Planned to hunt carp (the "bonefish of the red-mud flats"), but with the water so high we didn't find them and resorted to bass fishing. Fish of size were hard to come by (I got the post-spawn blues!), but finally at dark Norman hooked a good one just off the rip-rap. That fish on a 5-weight rod with a 4x tippet(about 4 lb test) made up for a mediocre afternoon, and then some. All our fish took top-water poppers & sliders.

May 16 - Flint River -5 pm - Couldn't wait to get back here - water level down to about 3.5' and clearing - very fishable. And I did, til dark. Caught about 3 dozen, red-eyes and bream. Biggest was about 16" red-eye, but every one was fun. These shoals are complex, with shallows, sluices, deep holes and loads of moss. I fish a black wooly-worm dropper, with an elk-hair caddis as a strike indicator. When you flip the fly into a back eddy or the top of a pool or a calm slick, the water may be 12' deep or 4' deep, and the fish that pulls the floater under may be a bream, or it may be a red-eye bass that'll charge from that hole like a south-bound special. No disrespect to the bluegills, shell-crackers and red-breasts; they are fighters, too, and tons of fun. Fits my theory is that the fun of a fish is inversely proportional to the depth of the water in which he's hooked and the size of the tackle you use.

May 14 - 6:30 pm - Whitewater Creek Creek - Fished with roostertail buddy - saw what were probably scattered whites working surface sporadically in mid channels, but they never stayed up. We took a few bass off banks - his on rooster & mine on mylared popper (mine were bigger than his). No breeze at all on water so throwing the big popper was easy, but it was hot! `See the water level is down a couple of feet on the Flint - think I'll be there this weekend. It's much cooler fishing when you're wading, tho' you'll miss the jet skis and big basser's wakes.

May 9 - 5 pm - Yellow Jacket Creek - After yesterday, this was a real contrast - whining jet skis and "bass masters" who think "no wake" means a slightly smaller wave than Atlantic breakers (what part of that sign do you "Beavis-buddy", Ray Scott clones not understand?) Regardless, I moved way back in deep coves and managed 4 largemouth keepers plus numerous yearlings on my chartreuse popper. On the way back in at dusk saw hybrid or whites working shad on top mid channel, but by the time I got the boat stopped I was on top of them and they were gone (glad they're back, tho).

May 8 - Flint River - 2 pm - Why haven't I fished here in 2 years? Wow - the water was high, raging & muddy (about 5.5 ft on Culloden scale), the fish were few and far between, and it was absolutely beautiful. Except for the occassional noise of a car on the highway thru the trees, it was like being a million miles from nowhere. A huge osprey circling, geese by the dozens riding the chutes and doing perfect eddy turns, twenty-foot blowdowns with every inch covered by sunning turtles, and otter porpoising 6 feet from me in a small side channel, and a 40" gar scaring the *!#! outa me as he brushed my leg coming upstream. I'll be back as soon as the water's down.

May 3- 6:30 am - Yellow Jacket Creek - Fished rip-rap at bridge as sun came up - took two small largemouth on a white popper. As sun hit the water, noticed shad fleeing onto bank & out of water up & down rip rap - but whatever was chasing them wouldn't take my popper. Switched to a white clouser and they did take it - small hybrids by the bucket. Later found them in coves on docks and bank doing the same - none very big, but lots of them. And I found one decent 17" largemouth mixed in before storm blew in mid-morn.

April 26 - 7 am - Chattahoochee River - fished w/Hooker (the North Georgia Trout Online regular) from Settles bridge up to Buford dam and back again. Water high with all-day generation. We managed 19 browns & rainbows, w/ several good fish (but we worked for em steady til after 4 - that Hooker guy is dam persistent!) This is a beautiful river - incredible that it can exist - can't wait to fish it again with the water down.

April 22 - 6 pm, Yellow Jacket Creek - Tried coves for topwater w/ no success. Finally found spots near bridge rip-rap that would take my clouser.

April 12, XXX River - Georgia - Fished with Hooker again on this un-named river (see 1/24 report). Ran the rapids upstream at dawn in fog so thick we could barely see the front of the boat. Fished side-channel chutes with mist still swirling over the water. `Had a nice hybrid take my clouser - these guys are fun in the current. Still cocky when an even bigger fish slammed my fly, and in an effort to hold him out of some snags, I popped him off (14 lb. tippet, too!). Uuuhh - I still feel him on the end of my line. On my scale, a good morning's fishing with several hybrid & stripers, plus one lonely largemouth (Hooker, of course, is accustomed to boating a coupla hundred pounds on a good day).

April 7- 6 PM - YES! Spring has sprung - the bass are taking the topwater. Fished Yellow Jacket Creek near launch - my regular summer spot. Water was pretty clear w/surface temp right at 70. Took several largemouth on popper fished near bank in cove just off channel. One was 18"+ off tip of downed tree just in cove. Smaller fish were deeper in cove on and off long point. It's just gets better from here!

April 5 - 7 AM - Upriver to Snake Creek. Cool and running high and muddy. Took 3 hybrid, scattered, on white clouser. Even the live bait fishers taking only a few, as best I could tell. Home for lunch.

April 1 - 6:30 PM - Waded back of Yellow Jacket Creek, still huntinfg those white bass - didn't find em. But crappie are still there - many took white clouser. About dusk started seeing swirls in shallows - figured these were brim or maybe little bass, so I decided to have a little fun before I went home and tied on a little popper. My first cast took a real slab crappie and I took a coupla more before dark. I've caught a goodly number of crappie (usually by accident) but never had one hit a popper before.

March 27 - 8 AM -`Went upriver (Snake Creek/New River). The hybrid are there, maybe not huge numbers, but definitely there. Found them on sandy banks and in slack water below sandbar-islands adjacent to channel. Surprisingly, we also took two largemouths. Many fishermen out - saw live-baiters taking most fish, but were also taking artificials. I caught `em on clousers & deceivers, my buddy on roostertails and diving crankbait. Weather was perfect! And when we left at lunch-time there were so many boats at the ramp, we could hardly find a place to pull over and strap down the boat.

March 26 - 5 PM - Waded the very back of Yellow Jacket Creek hoping to find white bass up there. `Found crappie instead - they loved the small 2" clouser in white/chartruse. Good fish were holding on the edge of current. Finally right at dark I caught a white bass - don't know if he was a straggler or early-bird, or just one of very few not confused by weird weather/water levels. (Fished here a couple of weeks ago & found nothing.)

January 24, XXX River - Georgia - It's good to be posting a fishing report again - sorry I can't mention the location. `Went early Saturday morning with the infamous "Hooker" (whom I met through North Georgia Trout Online) to a large tailrace river. Bundled thickly against the cold temp and 15 mph wind, we headed upstream through a wide rock-strewn rapid in Hooker's jet-propelled jon boat. I love whitewater, but am accustomed to coming downstream in a canoe. This is a different deal! Few people would have run up through these rocks, but Hooker calmly bashed and finessed his way through them, using all the technique of a kayaker - I hadn't had that much fun in months, and we hadn't even started fishing. Upriver, the water level began to rise with releases from the dam - Hooker's first cast upstream with a white bucktail into a frothing eddy was slammed - a 10lb. hybrid. And do they fight in the swift water! We boated about seven more, the smallest around 6 lb. Hooker said it wasn't a very good day - coulda fooled me.

 

1998 Reports... January - June ........... July - December

1997 Reports- October....September....August....July....June....May

My Five Star List of Fly Fishing Books -Ridiculous though it may be, life is not such that I may fish whenever I want, i.e. all the time. Luckily, both fly tying and the wealth of truly fine books related to fishing let me to satisfy the addiction. Fly tying I'll leave to someone else, as many of my personal creations imitate, as Tom McGuane says in An Outside Chance, "the effect of a riot gun on a love seat." I do have numerous personal recommendations for a "great read" on fly fishing, and, through a affiliate program with Amazon Books, offer them for sale online

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