North Georgia - Loved it

[John]

Had a great trip to North Georgia, lost of fish and some good sized ones too.

First ever Rainbow on A Woolly bugger from the Toccoa river!



A Soque river specimen taken on dry fly.


My best fish of the Trip - Soque again




Toccoa river - Photo by Stephen Moore



Weapons of Fish destruction


Eloy's best fish taken at dark on a Y2K nimph



A great trip highly recommend it to anyone, Unicoi Outfitters in Helen really sorted us out on where what and how to fish.

[Gibby3474]

Mighty nice! Good pics, too!

[biscuit]

North Georgia is a great treasure for river trout fishing
Next time you head that way let me know
I know some great areas to fish
We might be able to meet up
I have a cabin in Blue Ridge and go often

[John]

Thanks fellas, Biscuit a cabin in Blue Ridge, I'm jealous mate.
I can see one in my future in about 20 years as a retirement home. Right now I wouldn't get enough use out of it.

[BigFlyReel]

Outstanding, and great pix! Thanks for sharing!

[biscuit]

Thats my plan
If all goes well i hope to retire with in the next 2-3 years
Then move there full time and spend many hours on the river

[DaveR]

Great pics Johnny.

[GILs_GONE_WILD]

This is one AWESOME photo!!! The color, the framing of the flyfisherman with the flora! I ... like it!!!

[BearsFan]

Well done, young grasshopper.

[Captain Hugh]

Helen Ga. is a really nice place. My sister and brother in law have a cottage near Blairsville. Once stayed in a cottage that over hung a nice stream near Helen.

[jbdba01]

Hmmm...seems I'm a bit late reading this one.

I liked the fog pics...very cool.

IMHO the mountains were soooo much better before the Olympics hit Atlanta. Property was reasonable and abundant. Trout were plentiful and big. Some of the cabins put in after the Olympics must be worth $750K-$1M now and are easily seen on the mountains. Kinda takes away from the outdoor feeling.

Atlanta's urban sprawl is just at the doors steps of the Appalachians as well - even worse since I left, and where people used to commute Southbound into ATL the commute on 400 (into the mountains) is now in both directions for both evening and morning rush hours. It's brutal. I remember reading an article about ATL's projected growth - it was massive. A contiguous sprawl from the North ATL to Athens to Macon. Basically TPA (maybe even Tarpon Springs) to Orlando to Sarasota. I believe Metro ATL is at 5.3M people now. Last time I tried Octoberfest in Helen was a 2 hour drive - normally it was 60-70 min. That was a decade ago - I can't imagine how much traffic goes through there now.

After 20 years of hanging out up there I had my fill. I'm not as much into hunting any more and fly fishing wasn't my ticket. Fast forward to '98 and one poon and I knew my gig was up in the ATL. FL was the ticket for me. Wonderboy is hooked on FL as well. I'm encouraging him to do what I did - get a gig in ATL, get your bearings, move back to somewhere in FL. He's been accepted into GA Tech (and UF) so we'll see where it lands.

I suspect you could probably say the above for Miami and the Keys in the 70's. Progress - it's a bitch.

I wouldn't trade the mountains for what we have in FL for anything. There are some very cool places up there, but to me the mountains are much like Miami now. 3-5 days of it and I've had my fill and am ready to leave. Course I want to live on a boat...

Seems the grass is always greener...Hope I wasn't too much a Debbie Downer. Providing a different perspective on how it used to be vs. the way it is now.

Now for employment...that's another story. Here's an article that came out yesterday on 500 IT jobs moving to ATL averaging $65K. Over here we're glad to be getting Bass Pro.

[FishingDL]

Sounds great John. Great pics. For those who haven't done it, you need to. Walking into a river and figuring out how to fish it is a great feeling. I fish a lot out west now on the Madison and the Henry's Fork among others. I have never had so much fun fishing. Some places you just wade in and figure it out. Other places are much more technical. You have to figure out when the hatches are and what is hatching if you expect to catch anything. Sometimes I sit on the bank enjoying an adult beverage and wait for a hatch just enjoying the scenery. When a Mayfly or a Damsel spinner lands on me I match my fly to it and start watching for rising Trout. The most fun is picking a certain Trout and timing the rises and presenting the fly for the take. When it works it is fantastic. Better than tailing Redfish in my book.

[DaveR]

Great to hear from the master of the silver spoon. We were just talking about you last week. Enough about you. How's your wife!?

[bicoastal]

the toccoa area is beautiful. I used to spend a lot of time up that way when I lived in Macon. Kudos on the great shots