John went out just recently with a guide from down there and tore up the bows. He called me at 3 pm and told me he was up to 40 fish already.
He had to send me the photos to gloat. Thought would share them.
Len
big scuds
trout crack
san juan worms
John was Manager for now defunct Madison Outfitters
in Madison Wisconsin (A Real Fly Shop)
When he wasn’t guiding or managing the store, he fished with me.
His wife was transferred and promoted for Oscar Meyer. The family was
involuntarily moved to Georgia.
John is now a “kept” man. He finds time between his trips out west to hunt to
fish a few times a year north of Atlanta. John caught both of these on size
6 San Juan worms fished downstream in crystal clear 2 feet of water.
John manages to come up by me every spring to fish with “The Trout Hunter.”
John got a birthday present from his wife. She
got a guided trip in northern georgia. He told me
he caught his age in fish and went home
WOW, What a day. Happy for you guys. 
Nice fishes. Thanks for the posts and the pics. Jim
Georgia isn’t that far away from me… I might have to take a trip and buy another states fishing license. Really nice fish and happy birthday!
A few years ago all I wanted for my birthday was a birthday stealhead. I got it and went home also…
I have to ask if some of the fish in the pics are steelhead.
Cheers,
MontanaMoose
Looks a lot like a Nacoochee bend type area… I’ve seen some of those monsters before…and yes anyone close to North Georgia definately needs to check 'em out.
Just a thought!:rolleyes:
Nice Fish, thanks for sharing
That would be quite odd if they were, because we do not have steelhead indigenous to Georgia. The closest there would be would be the Great Lakes Tributaries in IN and OH.
There is a few places like that in GA that are cornfed operations that produce some Purina trophies. Our streams are not particularly fertile, and few are capable of producing consistently large fish like that.
Hello rawthumb, I don’t know everything about steelhead and the reason I mentioned that was because I noticed the lack of numbers of black dots below the lateral line and the one pic had full coverage regarding the black dots.
I din’t know but what back in the 1800’s whether or not steel were shipped to GA as well as a lot of other states. Not tryin’ to confuse things but shoot, I guess I read too much !
Cheers,
MontanaMoose
It was my understanding (very well could be wrong) that the only difference was steelhead migrate from lakes up stream to spawn and back. Therefore if rainbows were planted in a river system that flowed into a lake and the fish began to migrate back and forth then they would be considered steelhead.
I wish I knew more about it but I believe…and of course I could be totally wrong…that salting steelhead stock be it smolt or egg based have been moved…deliberately or inadvertantly…all over the world. In light of the ‘corn fed’ stocks and pollution of the gene pool in hatchery/farm stocks, it’s doubtful that steelhead could be identified, but some of the pics above sure look like steelhead…and again, I don’t know that much about steelhead really…
Cheers,
MontanaMoose
Yes I do agree that they do look like steelhead that are fairly fresh into the river. The steelhead you catch late in the spring are generally much darker fish with the bright red, pink, and purples.