Unbelievable

 I have been a guide for a few years in the North Georgia region.  I used to often take people out for free and give them a day of instruction all in public water where they learned the basics and ended up before the day was over catching several fish.  But the most unrealistic and unexpected occurrence was during a day of guiding a large group.  Several members of the group were experienced fly fisherman but this one girl had never been fishing in her entire life, she didn’t know anything about casting, presentation nor what was expected from her to land any fish much less a trout that had seen hundreds of flies presented by experienced fishermen turning down their offerings.  After a couple of casual casts and much effort by her guides she landed the most stunning, unbelievable fish that anyone who is an avid fly fisherman would give a left arm to catch. A huge brookie that was a tad off the world record. And her reaction? You’d be wrong if you thought she jumped for joy. She said “who cares” huh lol well all the people who spent lifetimes trying to catch one that’s even close to this beast.  Beginner luck wouldn’t be a good caption for this event. 

Bass man too

 Before I got into trout fishing I was an avid bass fisherman.  I started out fishing for bass and brim in the dozens of little canals that were in the area I grew up in. I regularly caught numerous bass every day in my forays from the canals to the occasional lake.  I actually fished several times at the lake where Jackie Gleason, aka Ralph of the Honeymooner’s show. The golf course was known as “The Inverness” in Pompano Beach Florida.  There were a number of smaller lakes in this area and my first experience was fishing in a crystal clear lake with earthworms catching loads of bass and shell crackers.  Soon I was on to catching 10-12 pound bass in lakes in the area.  I never kept the bigger fish because they were terrible eating. The 1-3 pound ones were fabulous fare. I only kept one big one because I accidentally killed it while trying to get a camera to take a picture. These were the days before GoPro and digital cameras. And a young fella like me wasn’t interested in taking pictures to document the huge fish I was catching. That’s why I accidentally killed the one in the photo.  

Trout Fishing on the Mighty MO

 I spent two weeks in Helena Montana fishing the Missouri River several years ago. It was during the three months I spent fishing all the major rivers and streams of Montana.  I am planning a return expedition in a short time to explore some smaller streams that feed into the river. I’ll post one where I caught several fish. Wolf Creek in a different posting. It took me a couple of days to figure out what these fish were eating. Many times you can use similar flies from one region to another and get similar results. But after going through almost every fly in the 1000’s in my boxes I found a small fly shop that made a few suggestions. These fish are extremely picky and they are under extreme pressure from hundreds of float boats that at times look like a traffic jam on a major highway. I saw dozens of 20-25 inch fish laying in relatively shallow water and when I threw a cast in the direction they darted away 100 yards up the river.  There a a lot of side offshoots along the river that are slow moving water where they lay but any disturbance that isn’t natural causes them to bolt up these channels like a freight train. I eventually landed several decent cut bows and a 20 inch brown.  

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.