A good day on the river is almost guaranteed when you’re fishing one of the Southeast’s premier trophy streams. It doesn’t hurt to have a little help from the man upstairs.
Steve Kraftchick is a New Testament professor at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. Joel LeMon teaches Old Testament at the same Atlanta institution. They were both on Georgia’s Soque River in May for a trip Steve purchased at auction to benefit Day 1, a ministry that broadcasts sermons of Protestant church leaders worldwide.
It might be more than a little presumptuous to infer divine intervention in something as frivolous as fishing. But considering the company and the purpose of the trip, and after watching the net man grow weary from scooping up giant trout, it was easy to imagine someone smiling down from above.
On the other hand, we are talking of the Soque River. It is a 30-mile-long tributary to the Chattahoochee River, and much of its length through Habersham County, Georgia. is privately held and heavily managed for trophy brown and rainbow trout. The Soque offers the kind of fishing that lures in celebrities, CEOs, and heads of state. In terms of numbers and size of trout, it is some of the best water this side of Alaska.
This trip was graciously donated by Dave Sutton and Batesville Dragonfly. Guide Phil Culver showed the anglers around Dragonfly’s gorgeous expanse of river. Both Steve and Joel had nothing but praise for Phil, who worked hard and succeeded in putting his anglers on a lot of very nice fish.
Dragonfly is a target-rich environment. Supplemental feeding is key to growing big-shouldered trout that are sleek, healthy and colorful. Even geared up with 6-weight rods and 3x tippet, trout weighing into the teens often make a mockery of anglers with long, line-snapping runs, violent thrashing, and tarpon-esque tail walks.
Shin deep in rain-stained water, Joel was taken aback when the first of many giant rainbows plucked a Pat’s Rubber Legs from the flow. The power on the other end of the line shocked him, and the outward display of emotion teetered between joy and trepidation through several blistering runs until the fish was finally landed in an oversized net.
And it was just an average fish on a day that featured several longer than 25 inches. The action was astounding and included one bruiser that plucked a dry fly from beneath overhanging vegetation before launching 4 feet in the air to nearly hanging itself in a tree. That fish making it to the net was a pretty solid argument for providence in trout fishing.
And although Steve is a philosopher by trade, he didn’t think long or hard about fishing the Soque again. As Phil cradled that last giant rainbow in the flow, reviving it for release, Steve began asking about Dragonfly’s open dates for fall.
Batesville Dragonfly offers guided trips for up to 10 anglers at a time on three gorgeous stretches of Georgia’s famous Soque River. See their website at batesvilledragonfly.wordpress.com or call 770-530-1599.