Here’s your UO New Year’s fishing report, courtesy of several friends and staff members who were able to hit the water this week.
Region trout waters remain droughty low and crystal clear. Thankfully, they are much warmer than normal due to this recent stretch of pleasant weather. Hit them before next Tuesday, when winter returns via a sub-freezing cold front.
https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?site_no=02330450&legacy=1
Streams are so warm that a couple of our reporters even had luck on dries over the holiday. Both blueline wilds and Delayed Harvest stockers looked up during the last few warm days. Some of the DH stockers are big, too! Tailwater fish are cooperating, as well.
Our lake anglers took some time off, so we’ve got no breaking news on reservoir action. We expect it to be pretty good, too, during this warm spell.
Our Christmas tales are detailed in our weekly fishing report, right here:
http://blog.angler.management/
(Link in bio)
Note that we’ll take a little time off for the new year, closing our stores at 1PM on the Eve and all day on the 1st. It’s back to our normal hours on the 2nd. Wes has your Tuesday nights covered during January and February.
Happy New Year to all of you, our dear fishing friends!
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 blue wing olive, tan elk hair caddis, small tan chubby, parachute Adams.
Nymphs & Wets:
DH Stockers: twister egg, ruby midge, pheasant tail or Frenchie, diamond midge, rainbow warrior, Duracell, micro girdle bug.
Mountain streams: zebra midge, soft hackles, micro mayfly, prince nymph, hares ear.
Streamers:
Black and olive woolly buggers, Sparkle minnow, barely legal, UV polar Jig.
Reservoir Bass & Stripers:
clouser minnow, low fat minnow, Cowen’s somethin else.
Headwaters:
They’re low and gin-clear, but warm enough to encourage residents to look up. Here’s the Hooch at our Helen shop at 7:30 this morning;
UO buddy Weston hiked high above Helen this morning (26th) and treated himself to some wild bows and specks. A small jigged leech worked in deeper pools while some dries worked in runs and shallow pools.
Delayed Harvest:
We had mixed reports at the shop. Again, the success rates were dependent on angler expertise. A Smith Creek angler came in the shop today to resupply and said he had a fun morning on that creek. He said that most of his nymphs were ignored, but fish really liked his small tan dries. Most were big and some were trophies, and he complimented GAWRD on the size of their December DH stockers.
UO buddy Athens Jay said: “Unseasonably warm weather got me thinking that trout might be getting frisky. I used some excellent information from UO’s recent blog posts and headed to north Georgia. I started with a double nymph rig under a strike indicator and had good luck all through the middle of the day. I even had a fish munch on my indicator! Water was low and clear and most fish were found in deep runs. The fly of the day was a jig style variation of a Hare’s ear with a gold tungsten bead. I tied this based on some information from Blog contributor Ryan Hartley.
I also caught several on a peach-colored egg. It was a good day.”
Stockers:
Your best bets are the two tailwaters for summer holdovers and just outside the DH stream boundaries to catch the wash-downs and swim-ups after flood events.
Private Waters:
We had some successful trips prior to our Xmas break. While low flows make the fishing really challenging, the warmer water temperatures have the fish active.
UO-Helen manager Wes: “Here are my fishing reports from last weekend. I fished on Saturday morning with repeat clients Brad & Colin on the Soque. Despite the cold temps the fish were very cooperative. Small tungsten weighted eggs and midges were the best flies.
I fished Sunday morning with a duo of lady anglers on the Soque. It was their first time fly fishing and they did great! Small tungsten egg flies were our best flies as we saw several fish on redds in the riffles. A root beer midge was also a productive pattern.”
Rabunite “Dr Tom” chimed in: For Christmas my son hired Jake to take us to Rainbow Point on Soque. Much fun! Jake had the perfect temperament and we both caught nice fish. Makes me want to find a stretch of stream myself to grow some big ones!”
Tailwaters:
Remember that our GA trout tailwaters (Hooch, Toccoa, even Smith DH) run a bit warmer due to their stored lake waters, which haven’t fully cooled off yet from cold December air temps.
UO buddy Mo provided two Hooch reports:”The trio was out in force last Saturday to remind the tailwater trout once again who is boss. It was a perfect winter day on the water and we hit it just right. The water has cleared up and is back to normal, thanks to lake turnover. We started around 11am and got into fish almost immediately, as in the very first 2-3 casts. Small browns and rainbows were quick to eat the flies. The fast action continued for the next couple of hours. Euro nymphing rigs with 2-fly tandems tethered to 7x tippet were the right tools for the job. The fish were eating olive and black perdigons and midges, and olive/brown Walt’s in 16-20 all day. The afternoon brought more action and better fish too. I even caught several fish on a small olive streamer before heading out. I made a mess of my line and didn’t feel like re-rigging with 2 flies. Put a streamer on instead and I was back in business.
We didn’t find any monsters but did touch a few decent browns for this area. That last brownie is what we usually catch the most at the dam, maybe a lil bigger, and a snit is a real treat. This time we found some solid 12-14 inchers! We called it a day around 4:30 and headed out.”
Report #2: “Just got back home from the dam. Here’s a niceun from today (26th). They were not as hungry as last week and the wind was wicked, but we def showed them who’s boss again today. Perdigons for the win.”
Warm Bass Rivers:
No news.
Ponds:
No reports.
Lakes:
Jimmy took a Lanier boat ride just before Xmas. He landed one magnum spot but struck out on stripers.
UO guide Joseph took some time off for the holidays, so we don’t have any fresh intel for y’all. The same “small bait/small fly” pattern should hold, however, so match those 1.5 inch threadfins. Use binoculars to find diving gulls and your electronics to locate deeper bait and striper schools. To book a new year trip with Joseph, call UO Helen at 706-878-3083 or visit his website at www.josephclarkflyfishing.com.
Events:
Reminder: tune in every Tuesday night in January and February for Unicoi Undercurrents, Wes’ live interviews and your Q&A sessions nationally known angling experts:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DSbJTSQkXTW/?igsh=MWdva2drd2I1aWI3aA==
There’s your short and sweet New Year’s report. We hope you can get on the water before these fish refreeze on Tuesday, or wait til late next week when water temps rebound a bit and our trout thaw out. Come see us before the 31st and definitely after the 1st. And may 2026 bring you a netful of new fishing memories!
Unicoi Outfitters: Friendly. Local. Experts.
www.unicoioutfitters.com
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