One of my favorite fishing friends

 Fishing is all about comradery. But unfortunately gone are the days of laughter until I almost wet myself with the dry humor of one of my favorite fishing friends. Natalie Sharp of Sharper Bites Fly Fishing. We spent a many a day guiding some of her best clients into private water in the north Georgia area. Or just fishing one of our favorite rivers The Toccoa.    She’s thrown in the towel and retired from her many years of providing quality fishing experiences and a wonderful high quality five diamond shore lunch with her special trout spread appetizer.   Age has a way of working on all of us and climbing river banks and tying  100 fly lines and untangling lines from trees and your clothing for unappreciative clients for meager wages finally got her to toss the waders out and spend time with her fat old cat in a rocking chair on her front porch.  She’ll be missed dearly.  Thanks Natalie for all the wonderful memories of days on the river.

 

My second to the youngest grandsons first trout

 My two grandsons used to spend many summers, spring breaks, Christmas holidays and just about every other holiday and several weekends each year fishing a number of creeks and mostly 

The Toccoa River in northern Georgia.  They used spinning casters and occasionally I'd let them try a fly rod though after they totally wrapped up the lines into a tangled mess I would point them back to their spinning casters.  Much of the time they'd get bored with not catching much and soon be doing more swimming and playing than fishing.  Occasionally I would take them to a trout farm and they would spend a couple hundred of my dollars in fishing in those ponds.  Kacen has been trying to get the hang of fly fishing and I took him to a large lake and he would improve his skills catching little panfish.  This summer he finally got the hang of fishing in fast moving water.  It's a whole different story and the needed technical skills differ from all other types of fishing.  After a couple of hours he finally landed a nice little brown.  His excitement and optimism peaked after he landed it.  I was just about as excited about it as he was,  years of taking time to get them out on the water paid off with his ear to ear grin holding his first trout caught with a fly rod.  Great job K-Man!!!

While my home waters are in the North Georgia Mountains I have been fortunately able to fish much of the fabulous places where trout swim in the country.  One of my favorite little streams is one that you can at places almost step from one bank of the stream to the other side without difficulty.  But don't let that make you think that there are no big fish! I've learned that many small streams can hold monsters.  Deeply cut banks give these elusive huge fish places to hide from predators and allow them to hide from prey. Below is a 19+ inch cutthroat trout caught on one such stream in Colorado.  The stream manager who has maintained these pristine waters for over thirty years said that while he knew there were big fish in the waters he'd never seen a cut there nor heard of anyone catching one. Well the proof is in the picture! Since several people who are cutthroat purists have pursued and caught much larger specimens.

Big Fish in public waters

A lot of people think that you cannot catch a large trout in public places.  The idea is that they are all fished out because the local public keeps a lot of them.  True many people keep a lions share of the fish that the DNR stocks.  I would estimate probably between 80-90 percent are removed and end up in the frying pan.  But the fish that remain often grow to sizeable specimens.  I recently hooked up with one of those monsters.  And actually though I have access to some pretty special places that are private my largest fish are still all caught in public places that the general public not only fish in but some of them are so frequented that most would say there are not possibly any fish in that area.  I have several of those places marked in my mind, places that I have named “the horseshoe”, “the drop”, “three seams”.  All places that I have either caught 20+ inch fish and in several of them have seen trout in the 30+ inch range.

Sometimes I just enjoy the opportunity to see someone who hasn’t ever put a line into the cold vibrant streams that are what you have experienced in North Georgia.  Having fished all over the country from the Delaware River in the east to the Mercede in the west I consider the various and numerous streams of this area the finest in the country.  Recently I had the opportunity to introduce a newby to my world.  I had teased my friend by showing multiple pictures and sharing stories of the wondrous days on the water.  I picked a day that I thought would be a great one after watching the birds at my feeders, a method that I have found which indicates by the numbers of different species that show up enmass, tuning the time to when the most were feeding.  After suiting up and getting flies attached we spent the next two hours casting with no success! Wouldn’t you know it! The trout had lockjaw. Several other hardcore people who I’ve noted in the section of a stream that I usually take beginners came by asking if I had a bite! They had been on the water most of the day without even a nibble.  I wish that every time I took a person that I wished to introduce to the sport that we had a fabulous experience, but then it would be catching and not fishing!

It's interesting how many people who have a love trout fishing haven't been able to get into the water for years.   I was walking my daughters dog who is an extremely well marked Aussie that garners a ton of attention whenever people see him.   In one of those forays recently I was stopped by a half-dozen people who wanted to pet him and the topic of fishing came up.   Of course I couldn't avoid lingering and engaging in the discussion and soon was giving details and a report on the fish that I helped my latest clients catch.  Several people instantly asked me if I'd take them to anyplace that they could get back into the water and fish.   The comments were things like "it's been years since I have been able to fish and I love it so much but I don't even know where to go" , "oh please please take me with you the next time you go, I just want to watch because I used to fish all the time and I love it so,  but I haven't tried to do it for years" How does a junkie like me resist the opportunity!  Of course I will take you!   I don't have a rod or equipment! I replied don't worry about it I'll figure out how to get some waders and shoes that fit and we'll all hit the water when it geys right for fishing.   I love to fish but I also love to take others and let them have a wonderful day on the water too!

Guiding clients on upper Toccoa

Getting back on the the list again with my favorite fishing guide Natalie Sharp and guiding some great water this last month was great.   Water level is way down but fish were there to be had.  My client for the day was brand new to the fly fishing experience,  he'd never been before and after a quick casting lesson he was anxious to get on the water.  Natalie had set up several rods in her customary method, unfortunately I don't do well using a strike indicator and in slow water the fish can in my experience can see the indicators and they get lock jaw.  After about 30 minutes of making decent presentations and getting no strikes I recommened that my client try to use my method of fishing without an indicator, fortunately he was up for it and I had already set up my TFO with a fly.   After about 15 minutes of getting used to the new setup he had his first fish on. No not a big fish, just a little guy about 12 inches long.  About a half hour later though he was fighting a 20+ fish and we netted him and he was more excited then a kid in a candy store.   He hooked several big fish during the remaining two hours that were in the 25+ inch range,  but these bigger fish are harder to land.  All in all a great day on the water and my client said that he was coming back and bringing his family members to experience the joys of trout fishing.