by Jimmy Harris
Unless you’re willing to travel to fish the tailwaters and the small high elevation streams in extreme North Georgia, a trout is difficult to come by in August in Georgia. We’re talking about getting more use out of the rod you have. Year round fishing is why we live in the South, unless we were blessed to be born here of course.
That 4 or 5 weight trout rod can perform perfectly well on summer panfish as well as largemouth, spots, redeyes and shoal bass. A weighted leech or woolly bugger with a pheasant tail dropper can be as effective on bream as red wigglers. It’s the perfect way to introduce someone to fly fishing because the rewards are instantaneous if you’re in the right place.
If you have a 6 weight rod for streamers and nymph fishing, throwing popping bugs and small to medium crawfish patterns for pond or river bass is about as much fun as a person should be allowed to have. Change out that 9-foot leader to a 7½ footer with about 8 pound test tippet and you’re in business.
The Big Stuff! Yes, they require heavier tackle but there’s a lot of big stuff to chase in August. A 7 or 8 weight rod opens up some very interesting opportunities. The hottest (literally and figuratively) fish in fly fishing these days is the common carp. They take a good bit of skill in casting and fighting but the results are exhilarating! Challenging a fish that smells you when you enter the water, puts you into your backing when hooked only after you made a 50 foot cast to an area the size of a paper plate and is way too big for any net you currently own, can certainly get your heart pumping.
Finally, there is the freshwater tarpon of the river; gar. Gar require some very specialized gear. Your sharpest hook will seldom penetrate the bony snout of a longnose gar long enough to hold it. Forego hooks all together. Your best “fly” is a piece of unbraided nylon rope. I could go into the details here but Kent Edmonds has a great explanation of the process on his website at http://www.flyfishga.com/gar.htm. Gar are very common in most rivers and large lakes. They’re prehistoric giants that jump like tarpon when hooked, providing a level of excitement to match any summer vacation adventure. What more could an angler want?