By David Hulsey
The month of May is a great time to try your hand at fly fishing the North Georgia and Western North Carolina Mountains! Bug Hatches are some of the most dependable and heaviest of the year. In addition, stocking trout by the DNR is wide open. Catching trout on dry flies, nymphs, or streamers are literally just a preference as to which technique to use. Anything will usually work if presented properly. Fishing for wild fish is as good as it gets all year. Trout have seen and sampled enough insects by this time to know to check out almost anything that floats by. Water flows and temperatures are still good all over the mountains and the trout are feeling frisky! This is a great time to get almost anyone that has considered trying fly fishing for the first time âhookedâ, so to speak. The strike zones on fish may be feet instead of the inches involved with cold winter nymphing. In other words you can screw up pretty bad and still catch a trout or two.
The Toccoa River, near Blue Ridge Georgia, will be good fishing from the tailwater to the upper reaches. Its tributaries like the Noontootla, Rock, and Coopers Creeks will be rocking the dry dropper bite. Tailwater fishing on the Toccoa will remain decent even with the increasing pressure from the hordes of folks floating and keeping fish from this icy flow. Escaping the crowds of fair weather fisherfolks involves some shoe leather and a little sweat, and you can enjoy a day on the water and not see another soul. The smaller streams are a welcome oasis in the spring and summer fishing seasons. The private water of Noontootla Creek Farms is amazing at this time of year, with massive rainbows and browns gulping down big dry flies bouncing down this high gradient flow.
In far western North Carolina, Fires and Snowbird Creeks are great destinations and worth the drive from anywhere. The lower reaches of these two scenic streams are heavily stocked Delayed Harvest streams and will blow your mind with the size and number of trout available to the careful sight fisher. Surgical accuracy of fly presentations will reward the fly fisher with some beautiful specimens from these two jewels of the southern Appalachians. The upper reaches are full of brightly colored wild fish that will destroy a dry fly at this time of year. It really doesnât matter where and when you go- it just matters that you do in the month of marvelous May! Give me a call at 770-639-4001 to book your trip of a lifetime.
Give David a call to book a class or trophy trout guide trip at Noontootla Creek Farms. We can make learning to fly fish easy and fun! You can make the switch.