Here’s another “better late than never report, “ as folks kept me busy in the Helen shop today. Our small and medium trout streams are in good shape and will fish well throughout the day. May’s bug colors of yellow and black remain your best bets up high. Larger trout streams are wide, lose the shade, and catch more midday sunshine, so they are warming into the mid-60’s and shutting down the afternoon trout bite. With warmer days on our horizon, that bite will shut down even earlier in the day. Hit them early or at dusk for some late season hatches and risers..
GAWRD has a shorter list of stocked waters this week when compared to last week’s long holiday list, but there are still some great opportunities for y’all.
River bassin’ has been tougher with the storms muddying the water. This afternoon’s storm will knock out tomorrow’s floats, but the bassin’ should be good as the rivers drop and clear in the dry week ahead.
Lake fans are busy chasing the cicada hatch. Catch Wes’ fresh cicada report and all other intel in our blog. It’s new every Friday and will help you boost your own catch rates.
http://blog.angler.management/
(Link in bio)
Stop in either one of our two UO shops for some flies, supplies, and advice.
Helen: 706-878-3083. Open 8-5 daily.
Clarkesville: 706-754-0203. Open 8-5 from Monday thru Saturday.
Unicoi Outfitters: Friendly. Local. Experts.
Wes’ Hot Fly List:
Dries: parachute Adams, parachute light Cahill, 409 Yeager yellow, yellow stimulator, micro chubby Chernobyl, parachute and hard body ants, goober sally.
Nymphs & Wets:
Stockers: Squirminator, lightning bug, micro girdle bug, slush egg, pink tag jig.
Mountain streams: hares ear, improved yallarhammer, drowned ant, prince nymph, crazy leg stone.
Streamers:
Sparkle minnows, small black and olive buggers for DH streams, mohair leeches, Jiggy Fry, mini shimmer buggers.
(Bass & stripers) clouser minnow, polar changer, yard sale, crittermite, crawfish jambalaya.
(Panfish) mini stealth bomber, Boogle popper #8, brim reaper, girdle bug.
Headwaters:
They received a muddy slug of water from this afternoon’s storm, but they’ll drop and clear by morning. They remain a best bet for wild trout fans with short rods and buoyant bugs like tan caddis, yellow stimmies, and black ants.
UO buddy Megan is in town to volunteer as a fishing guide at tomorrow’s kids fishing event, hosted by UO at Nacoochee Bend. She honed her guiding skills tonite at Dukes Creek, next to their rental cabin. Under her guidance, young friend Colt S from Massachusetts nailed this fine wild bow on a pheasant tail nymph.
Delayed Harvest Streams:
GA’s DH streams are now too warm and too harvested to be worth your trips. Road trippers have a week of opportunity left on the NC streams, so they’re a best bet til next Friday. UO buddy Athens Jay shared his timely intel:
“Nantahala DH Tuesday afternoon trip: I had the pleasure of fishing with UO’s Dredger some this week, and as always I learned a lot. Thanks to Unicoi intel I tried a great dry fly pattern I’d never fished before (409 Yeager). We didn’t see many rising fish, but there were enough bugs coming off to have them looking up. I started with a dry-dropper rig and most of the takes were on a size 18 soft hackle pheasant tail.
Dredger had luck on his yellow stimmy and sunken ant dropper. Water temp was a fine 60F. Late in the evening, bug activity picked up significantly. At one point there were Yellow Sallies, Cream Caddis and Light Cahills all around - the fishing got really good. We both switched to a double-dry rig (#14 Yeager and #16 parachute light Cahill) and managed the grand slam! We caught a bunch of brookies and browns, a few stocked rainbows, and a big handful of those small but beautiful wild rainbows that feasted on the bugs from 7:45 to 8:30 PM. Don’t leave the stream before slap-dark!”
Stockers:
GAWRD’s Friday stocking lists are always here. This week’s list is shorter than the holiday version, but still a page full of opportunities.
https://georgiawildlife.com/Fishing/Trout
UO buddies Ryan and Myles:
“On Monday, The Hartley brothers brought some friends up north on a meat mission! We had an awesome time helping our friends catch some of their first trout and then bringing it home to have a cookout! We caught these stockers on small pink eggs and size 20 hares ear patterns.”
UO buddy JS sent us a pic of his grandson and these prideful words:
“My grandson finally got a brown to finish his GA trout slam. I greatly appreciate the GAWRD fisheries department for stocking some nice fish this year!”
https://georgiawildlife.com/trout-slam
Last Thursday Dredger committed himself to an evening of streamer chucking on unnamed border river. He was hoping for high, muddy water, but the storm surge had already passed that morning and he managed just three stocker bows and one thin brookie. The low, warm water is shutting down that trout fishery for the fall, except for some morning stocker opportunities near the bridges.
Our trips are winding down, but the morning sessions have been good, thanks to the cold, rainy days.
UO guide Sydney said she’s had fun this past week: “My last few guided trips have gone really well! Grateful for the rain keeping water temps relatively low. First trip got a 9yr old on his first trout! 2nd trip got one of the ladies on her first trout. The third trip’s angler hadn't fly fished in 20 years, but I got him back into the swing of things.
The last angler also had never caught a fish on the fly rod, but he started his morning with a 17 inch brown and ended his trip with a 22 rainbow caught with a Perdigon.
Memories were made!
After the rain I used stonefly patterns- Montana prince, pats rubber legs(black/tan) following with a weightless squirmy(pink).
Mohair Leech patterns, and the mini bugger jig, and keslers black widow nymph also worked great after the rain.”
Tailwaters: No recent reports. They’ll be a best bet, thanks to cold winter water, whenever they clear after these storms muddy their tributaries.
Warm Rivers:
No recent reports. They’ve been muddy and many bass fans are chasing the lake cicada hatch, instead.
Ponds & Lakes:
UO-Helen manager Wes: “A couple of the shop staff have been exploring some water in North Georgia the last couple of weeks looking for 17 year Brood XIV cicadas that fish are keying in on. We were hoping to find some carp looking up for them but have struck out on the search up to this point. We did find the bugs and were able to catch some panfish and spotted bass eating them which was a nice consolation prize.
P
For anglers wanting a better shot at hard fighting carp keying in on the periodical cicadas they will wanna head further north into TN or NC in the next week or two before it’s all over. Use resources like the “cicada safari” app to find bodies of water around where reports of the bugs have been. “
Ole buddy Hank the Yank chimed in from Lanier:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DKSn1XIR3Vw/?igsh=MTlrdDdkMDRrazdndA==
Afar:
Athens Jay and Dredger hit the Smokies on Wednesday. They were greeted by swift, rising, stained river flows (temp 58F) and uncooperative fish that were hunkering down during the flood. After two hours of humble pie at low elevation, they went upstream to smaller, slightly stained waters and salvaged the day via a sunken ant dropper above a heavy walts worm, fished on Euro rigs tossed into soft pockets. A small handful of wild bows and two wild browns came to hand. Some turkey and elk sightings topped off a fun day, despite the lower catch.
Daily Park intel here, thanks to our friends at LRO:
https://littleriveroutfitters.com/
News and Events:
The UGA field course, Fishes of Georgia ended with a week on the GA coast. Students enjoyed sampling a variety of salty species.
(Note: All fish handled with appropriate state and federal permits.)
That’s the latest intel as we transition from spring to summer. Trouting will now slow down, except for high elevation headwaters and big, icy tailwaters. River bassin will improve once the rains quit and those flows subside and clear. Wet-wading season is here, so change out to your short, three-weight blueline outfits and stout six-weight bass sticks. Give us a shout if we can help you out this summer.
Unicoi Outfitters: Friendly. Local. Experts.