Our first stop was Montgomery Creek. We've been fishing here for many years and have had a lot of luck in the past. This year has been tough because of the extreme temperatures and continuing drought. We were very disappointed to see just how low the river was upon our arrival but decided to give it a try anyway. After about 45 minutes of wading up the creek we didn't have a single bite or even SEE one trout. We decided that our time would be best spent searching out new creeks instead of sticking to Montgomery.
I brought my north Georgia fishing book so that we could start finding new places but we had a hard time finding Jones Creek which, according to the book, seemed like a great place to fish. While on the hunt for Jones, we took a couple of side trails to see what could find. One thing we did find was a pretty large black racer. I HATE snakes so after it got into "attack position" from Trevor messing with it, I decided to get on the other side of the car and shoot video of what might be Trevor getting bit by a snake. Lucky for him he didn't but here is a picture and the video that I took of the most action we had up to that point of the day.
After realizing we didn't have enough gas to do the kind of exploring we wanted to we headed to a gas station and filled up. Right next door was the Creekside Cafe which we used to take a quick "break" and asked a couple locals if they had heard of Jones Creek. They hadn't, but recommended we go a few miles down the road to Jay's Bridge to fish the Etowah river. That sounded good to us so we hopped back in the car and headed for the river.We were shocked at how amazing the river looked and even more shocked that it had always been so close to our regular spot and we had never known of it. We met a couple that was just baiting up as we pulled up to the bridge. They have been fishing this river for years, along with a few other creeks and rivers in the area, and said that they've had some great luck. The woman told us that she had hooked a 26 inch brown trout a few years back but wasn't lucky enough to actually bring it in. Even though we both know how we fisherman like to exaggerate, we couldn't help but get excited at the prospect of a monster. The river had TONS of deep runs and pools that looked incredibly promising but after a good hour or two of fishing and hiking we had basically been skunked again. The only thing we caught was a sucker fish, a tiny trout and a tiny red eye bass (which was bizarre to me). We were using black/gold, yellow/silver spinners and also tried salmon eggs as well but didn't have any luck. We realized that the drought had hurt the fishing but this was getting ridiculous!
After giving up at this spot, we hiked our way back to the car and saw the same couple and asked how they had done. The woman had caught one and the man had caught a couple nice rainbows. Trevor and I looked at each other and asked ourselves what the heck we were doing wrong!
We were now determined to find Jones Creek so we jumped back on the gravel road, drove past Montgomery and started looking. After about 30 or 45 minutes we finally found it and it was well worth the search! We had read that it was not a stocked creek and it only contained wild brown trout. We were warned that they were very tough to catch and spooked easily but that because of that fact we were pretty much guaranteed to at least see a few. Trout Unlimited along with State came in during the mid 80's and constructed over 100 log type habitats for the trout to use in order to thrive. They did an excellent job! Even though the creek was very low, there were still some nice runs and a few deep pools. After about 20 or 30 minutes of fishing I finally caught the first sizable trout of the day! It was a beautiful brown about 6 or 7 inches long (pictured below).
This catch brought on the excitement! Trevor had dibs on first cast in the very next run and he pulled out a brown about 4 inches (pictured below).
The colors of these fish were incredible which made their size not all that important. I hooked one more but lost it just as I was getting ready to bring it in and it looked to be somewhere in the same size range as the other two we caught. We continued up stream for a little longer but didn't catch anything else. This creek was set beautifully in the mountains with tons of tree coverage and the creek itself was was just as beautiful. We will DEFINITELY be coming back here later in the season to try our hand when the browns are more active because of the spawning season.All in all, it was a great fishing day! We are hoping to head to Noontootla Creek this coming Sunday morning and maybe one or two others. Can't wait!!
No comments:
Post a Comment