Unicoi Outfitters Fishing Report - 5/30/25

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.

www.unicoioutfitters.com

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.

Private Waters:

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. “

https://cicadasafari.org/

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.

www.unicoioutfitters.com

Unicoi Outfitters Fishing Report - 5/24/25

Trout streams are in great shape and the cooler weather is extending our spring fishing season. Larger 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. Hit them early or at dusk for some late season hatches and risers. All smaller trout waters are fishing well throughout the day. GAWRD has a long holiday list of stocked waters. Just be ready for the bigger weekend crowds. Go early late, or hike further from parking lots to avoid them.

River bassin’ is promising, since it’s been four days since the last big rain and our rivers have cleared. They’re still a bit high, so be careful wading or floating them. Given our cool spell, pond and lake bass fishing is still a best bet while the fish are still in the shallows.

Fresh fishing reports and tips are right here in our blog.  It’s new every Friday and will help you boost your own catch rates. (I’m late this week because our Helen shop was rockin’ yesterday !) Wes’ weekly fly list is always spot-on!

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.

www.unicoioutfitters.com

Wes’ Hot Fly List:  

(Wes said last week’s list still holds true, and our trip results support his conclusion) 

Dries:  parachute Adams, parachute light Cahill, 409 Yeager yellow, yellow stimulator, micro chubby Chernobyl, hard body ant, goober sally. 

Nymphs & Wets: 

Stockers: Squirminator, mop, slush egg, frenchie, girdle bug, psycho prince, Red tag jig.

Mountain streams: micro girdle bugs, black ant, hares ear nymph and soft hackle , soft hackle pheasant tail, improved yallar hammer. 

Streamers:

Sparkle minnows, small black and olive buggers for DH streams, mohair leeches, Jiggy Fry, mini shimmer buggers.

(Bass & stripers) Stealth bomber, boogle bug, polar changer, clouser minnow, crittermite, Thrasher, Wiggle minnow. 

Headwaters: 

They in great shape: clear and cool and flowing at or just above seasonal norms. Temps are usually running from the high 50’s in the morning to the low 60’s on sunny afternoons.  Toss your fluffy dries like anything yellow (stimmy, Yeager) or a tan caddis and enjoy the risers. Add a dropper nymph only if you want to dredge a deep pool.

Delayed Harvest Streams:

There may still be a few fish left in Georgia’s larger Delayed Harvest streams. You can give them a shot at dusk and look for rising fish during the last evening hatches. The NC streams are still under DH regulations until the first Saturday of June (7th) and are a best bet for road-trippers. It looks like the last stocking was heavy on colorful brooks and buttery browns.

Dredger followed the advice in last week’s UO fishing report (reprinted below) and had a big time on Nantahala DH Thursday night (22nd). The water was still a bit high and slightly stained from the midweek rain, but still very fishable. Stream temp was a fine 62F at 5PM.

With no bugs buzzing nor fish riding, Dredger started at 5PM with a dry/dropper search rig. He popped a few fish on the dry (Wes’s favorite, a 409 Yeager) and had no takers on a couple of nymph patterns dropped behind it. Around 6PM some tiny tan caddis hatched and fish started rising. He changed the dropper to a #18 tan elk hair caddis and was in business. A few yellow sallies also flew by and every 4th fish took his lead fly, the Yeager. At 7PM the #16 and 18 cream cahills hatched. He changed the caddis to a Cahill and did well on both dries.  

Half the fish hit the dead drift and half or more had to be enticed with a twitch or skitter. All three stocked species came to net, along with a couple small wild browns and a good handful of spunky wild bows. 

The bugs exited around 8:00 and so did the risers, but he still found four more fish by prospecting good looking runs before quitting at dark.

Here’s last week’s recipe that worked for him and also for Rabunites Nan and Rick, who hit the Nan DH last nite (23rd) for the evening hatches. Nan said: “Ohdarkthirty Magic from 7-8 pm. Just got home. Pooped but happy!”

This morning she added: So, our fishing started slow. Rick and I both caught a single trout on chubbies. We fished 3 spots, with mayflies very active at one. I also caught trout on a Copper John nymph below the chubby. It was slow and Action did not pick up till about 6:30 pm. We went to our favorite spot along the river and started seeing lots of Cahills. We both switched to Cahills and I left Rick near the truck and walked upstream to some promising pocket water.  I found a ton of little wild fish plus small stockers. All three trout species. It was nutso for a while, with fish hitting on every drift. I landed about 15, had hits from twice that.

Last week’s advice:

“Try going at 7PM and look for bugs and rising fish just before dark. Yellow sallies should still be strong, and some leftover cahills and tiny tan caddis may add to the evening surface action. Prospect the shady banks before dark with an Adams lead fly and griffiths gnat or black ant dropper. Add a few early, bonus risers to your head count before the venting hatch commences.

NC DH streams and the Smokies should fish really well as their streamflows subside. Due to higher elevations, western NC’s spring runs a week or two later than ours, so yellow sallies, cahills, and caddis should bring plenty of dusk surface action. LRO always has a good daily fishing report for the Smokies that applies to most streams in western NC.

https://littleriveroutfitters.com/pages/fishing/report.htm”

Stockers: 

Stockers are a best bet, as GAWRD stocked heavily for the holiday weekend and the big crowds. Try going downstream from known stocking sites and picking the pockets for flood wash-downs.

https://georgiawildlife.com/Fishing/Trout

Rabunite Nan hit the upper Chattooga with her hubby on Tuesday evening. They had some dusk luck on yellow stimmies. They were part of Rabun TU’s “hot dogs at the river” crowd. Check out this TU chapter and visit with them. You’ll have fun, too, and might decide to join them.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1C3cfTnw3A/?mibextid=wwXIfr

UO buddy Myles: “I ventured with a friend to Chattooga for my first time this past Friday. It seemed like we were fishing behind a lot of people who had beat us to the river. We picked up a few stragglers that didn't get hooked prior to our arrival. 

After we ventured another half mile or more upstream, away from where we had seen people, we found some spots where some wild and stocked trout were holding together and we ended up having a nice day of it, catching almost 40 fish between the 2 of us. Eggs and small natural nymphs worked for us. We were switching between 7 and 8x for the most part!

This past Saturday I hit the Nantahala right after it rained with some friends who were in town from Pennsylvania. The DH part of the river was high and muddy so we went upstream a ways where it was clearer. I taught my friend how to Euro Nymph and he caught on pretty quickly and caught a trout slam! Between the 4 of us we caught about 50 fish. We used 6 and 7x tippet with size 18 and 20 hares ears and pheasant tail variations.”

GAWRD’s Friday stocking lists are always here. It’s a long list this week for the holiday crowds.

https://georgiawildlife.com/Fishing/Trout

Private Waters:

Our spring guiding season is winding down with the hotter days and warmer water on our horizon. We are only fishing the mornings. Catch one of our few remaining open slots ASAP.

 https://www.unicoioutfitters.com/learn-to-fly-fish-2/

UO-Helen guide Israel: “Private water seems to have slowed down. I can’t seem to find a pattern they prefer, so I’m just picking off a few fish here and there by rotating through my fly box.”

Our two UO clients had a good morning of unguided fishing on Nacoochee Bend yesterday. It was their first time with us.  Most of their fish succumbed to dark, dredged nymphs like pheasant tails, but a few also inhaled their fluffy yellow dries. The duo won some battles and lost some to big brutes that took them up and down the river, complete with aerial acrobatics.  They said they’ll be back soon for a rematch!

UO buddy Alan from Athens went head-hunting at Nacoochee Bend. His streamer chucking resulted in an epic battle with the brute bow at the “stadium hole.”

UO buddy CDB is finally back in state and said: “Hi Jeff, it was good to get off the lawn and back on the water!  Had veterans out Monday on private waters. Water was high and off color in the AM, gradually clearing after the rain stopped. With the darker water we defaulted to my favorite - jig head micro streamers. A size 12 black leech with a bronze tungsten jig head rolled along the bottom was money! I will usually add an extra shot, maybe a 1 or an AB to straighten the leader and get it down fast and fish it under the indicator. Adjust the depth until you get it to tick the bottom once or twice through the run. We lost a couple jigs but the results were worth it. Gorgeous day once the sun came out. Laurels were in full bloom. Really peaceful day with some new and special friends.”

https://veteransflyfishing.org/

Tailwaters:

No recent reports. Water temps will be great, but be careful about dam releases as those lakes try to shed the extra water from recent heavy rains.

Warm Rivers:

Region rivers are finally coming down and clearing up after our heavy rains. The Hooch looked fishable when I crossed it at Highway 115 yesterday. 

UO-Helen manager Wes: “I did a shoal bass Float with UO friend Rusty this week. We enjoyed a beautiful morning on the river and Rusty caught some nice bass. Bottom-bounced black and olive patterns were the key players, as  the bass didn’t seem to wanna chase anything down that day. “

Some summer vacationers have exited the warming reservoirs and run upriver to cooler environs. Stayed tuned for our big announcement next week.

Ponds & Lakes:

Bass fishing is still great, given the cooler weather and moderate surface temperatures.   You’ll do better under the lower light of dawn and dusk, especially if you’re tossing surface bugs.

While Lanier’s birds are gone for the season , the stripers are still around.  See the GAWRD weekly fishing report for the best reservoir intel this week.

https://georgiawildlife.blog/category/fishing/

Also use the great intel in Henry’s book and you can still find stripers this month, even without those beloved gulls and loons. We just restocked his book at our stores, so pick one up before we sell out again.

https://shoponline.unicoioutfitters.com/fly-fishing-for-freshwater-striped-bass-henry-cowe.html

Afar:

UO guide Como evidently took some time off for a beach trip with family. He provided no intel and just rubbed it in by sharing this photo:

News and Events:

Athens Jay just wrapped up  his UGA field course, Fishes of Georgia, with 18 students in tow.

He said:  “We spent this week tent camping at Fort Mountain State Park. Each day we visited a different north Georgia river to sample both the Ridge Valley and Blue Ridge ecoregions. Despite some challenging weather and flows, students were able to experience the tremendous aquatic biodiversity of our state (plus a few bears along the way). A special thank you to Tiffany Penland, Georgia Department of Natural Resources aquatic biologist, and her staff for sharing information about her work. Thank you to Rodney Tumlin and Steve Westmorland from GA Council of Trout Unlimited for telling us about coldwater conservation efforts in Georgia. We also had a visit from legendary  Appalachian snorkeling guru, Casper Cox. Here are just a few photos of our adventures. At one site we collected 30 species of fish, and at another we identified 25 different species while snorkeling. “

UO buddy RSquared also commented: “Steve Westmoreland & I attended Dr. Jay Shelton’s UGA Fisheries Maymester Class today. Jay had 18 students that were excited about getting their feet wet & their hands dirty. We explained the role of Trout Unlimited & how we work with various state & federal agencies on numerous cold-water projects across Georgia. The numbers, size and diversity of fish the students caught in this tributary to the Tennessee River was amazing. Students were allowed to fish after the class was over.”

That’s the latest intel, a day late as I catch up at our Clarkesville store today.  Enjoy your long holiday weekend and some dry weather. Get in on sone of the last Dark-30 dry fly action of the spring season ASAP.  On Monday, let’s all remember those service members who sacrificed everything for the freedoms we now enjoy. Stop in either UO shop (Helen, Clarkesville Square) if we can help you out.

Unicoi Outfitters: Friendly. Local. Experts.

www.unicoioutfitters.com