UO Fishing Report - 7/10/26
It’s hot and our mountain streams are low and warm. That’s bad for trout but good for bass, while Tailwater trout and summer vacationing stripers will still provide some great fun. We vacationed last week, so this week’s report is chock-full of two weeks’ worth of local intel and western trip tales. You don’t wanna miss this one!
Catch our most recent fishing intel in our full report, here:
https://www.unicoioutfitters.com/fishing-reports
(Link in bio)
You can hear a lot of our trip tales in person tonite. Just c’mon up to our Sautee shop at 5:30 for Wes’ taco dinner and our fish fibs. It will be another great monthly gathering of our UO community. See you there!
Unicoi Outfitters: Friendly. Local. Experts.
www.unicoioutfitters.com
Sautee: 706-878-3083. Open 8-5 daily. (2454 GA Hwy 17, Sautee-Nacoochee.)
Clarkesville: 706-754-0203. Open 8-5 from Monday thru Saturday.
Wes’ Hot Fly List:
Dries: parachute ant, parachute Adams, tan or black micro chubby, tan elk hair caddis, 409 Yeager yellow.
Nymphs & Wets:
Squirmies, Mops, and buggers for stockers. Drowned ant, green weenie, micro girdle bug, pheasant tail nymph or soft hackle for wild fish.
Streamers:
Sparkle minnow, jig bugger, bank robber sculpin.
Reservoir Bass & Stripers:
Game changer, Cowen’s somethin else, low fat minnow, Clouser.
River bass:
Topwater: poppers, stealth bomber.
Streamers: sparkle minnow, feather changer, thrasher, tweaker.
Bottom bouncing flies: crittermite, crawfish jambalaya, hairy fodder.
Bream:
Boogle bugs, Bumble butt, prince nymph, bream reaper.
Carp:
Carp it bomb, hybrid worm, ball peen craw.
Headwaters:
Lack of rain and very hot days and nights have our headwaters very low, clear, and warm. Give many of your normal destinations a break until they cool off.
If you still desire a wild trout fix, head high and to north slope streams. Arrive real early, go up high, use that stream thermometer, and have some dry fly fun til the sun heats the water to 66F by late morning. A stealthy approach and a fluffy dry will get you into the action. Skip the skinny riffles and aim for the deeper drought refuges.
UO buddy Spangler: “my favorite north slope stream fished well just before the holiday. We probably netted a dozen rainbows from 10-12, then moved up to its headwaters just in time for some pop-up thunderstorms. This brookie was landed on in one of those storms, in pretty murky water from the rain but I’m sure that actually helped our case. My buddy did most of the damage on top, EHC and Stimmys, I got a couple on a stimmy, one on a Generic CDC/F-Fly, the rest were on an 18 hares ear. Plus one rainbow up into the falls where we thought we hit brookie water, but I yanked him out on my tenkara rod jigging a tiny olive bugger. My buddy did get a brown in the lower creek so we did get a joint slam! Water temps never read above 63 all day.”
UO buddy Splatek: “The boys slayed them on IDBIS Creek just before the holiday. A small perdigon pheasant tail did the trick all day.”
UO buddy RSquared: “This past weekend, members of the Cohutta Chapter of TU were joined by two members of UGA’s 5 Rivers Club & two members of the Coosa Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited, bringing our total to 14 angler/campers in the Nantahala National Forest near Franklin NC. One of the 5 Rivers students caught their first fish on a fly rod, which turned out to be a wild native brook trout. (Also a first) It was the first fly fishing trip for both students. All of the experienced anglers caught multiple trout. I wanted to go old school, so I fished with a fiberglass rod. I had the best results with a size 12 Thunderhead which is an old time southern Appalachian dry fly.”
Stockers:
This week’s stocking list will be shorter than last week’s long holiday list. GAWRD winds down its 2026 stocking program after July 4th as the waters warm in August and angler crowds wane. Aim for AM trips to higher elevation waters, where cooler stream temps will give you better action. As always, find the 2026 master list and the weekly list here:
https://georgiawildlife.com/Fishing/Trout
Private Waters:
Low, warm, and in their summer siestas til fall brings cooler water temps. Call your favorite shops and guides in August to book those prime fall weekends.
Tailwaters:
They should fish well, thanks to the discharge of stored winter waters from the depths of Lanier and Blue Ridge lakes. They can muddy-up if summer storms hit some tributaries, so check with local fly shops first before driving far. Fresh stocker bows will still fall for junk food (buggers, eggs, squirmies), while holdovers and wild fish will require some hatch-matching (ants, zebra midges, small dark nymphs). Trophy hunters can toss streamers that resemble small trout.
UO buddy Ryan: “Earlier this week I guided a fun trip with 2 gentlemen from the Cohutta Chapter of Trout Unlimited. Neither had fished this section of the Hooch previously. We started out using 5.5x tippet to buy us a little more strength for the larger stocked fish, but found that we weren’t getting any bites from the wild browns. I downsized to 6.5x tippet and immediately started getting more bites. A handful of rainbows fell for junk flies, and all the browns fell for sz 20 hares ears and perdigons. It was a good day!”
Brother Myles:”I’m just halfway into a guide trip this morning (10th) just below the dam ramp. It might be hot out, but the river is cold and the fish are biting! Plenty of stockers fresh off the truck in any deep pool that can hold them! We’ve had 8 fish come to the net so far using 6x tippet with eggs and hares ears!
You can contact this duo for your own Hooch Tailwater guide trip. Both are GATU trout camp grads and members of Upper Chattahoochee TU. They guide under a NPS permit to AO.
Ryan Hartley: 678-468-0440
Myles Hartley: 678-900-0835
Warm Rivers:
They’re at the mercy of summer pop-up storms. Right now, most are low and clear and prime for some bass floats or wades. Just check those USGS river gauges to ensure that a muddy flow spike doesn’t precede your arrival.
The usually summer prescription will work. Try topwater (stealth bombers, boogle bugs) at dawn, dusk, and in the shade, then bounce bottom bugs (crittermite, hairy fodder, weighted black bugger) during the high sun. Small amnesia bugs and micro chubbies will bring river bream to hand all day, so take a light fly rod with you, too.
Some reservoir stripers have run up cooler rivers to their summer thermal refuges. It’s a good time to prospect for them with heavy rods and big shad streamers.
UO-Helen manager Wes: “Earlier this week I hit a river and fished for Redeye bass. Taylor, who is a guide in northern Florida, was able to join me for a few hours while on his way up to North Carolina for the weekend.
With the water low and clear topwater foam bugs and stealth were the keys to success, as the fish were very spooky. The fish definitely were more active early and late in the day. During the sunny afternoon hours we were able to find a few willing bass in shady pockets.”
UO buddy Henry C reported on our favorite Ram, who makes his off-season home on Lanier: “Nate is getting his last licks in on GA stripers before he heads back to LA for training camp in 2 weeks. He’s tossing game changer flies on the Hooch as fish are feeding on gizzard shad. 8 or 9wt rods with Intermediate lines are working. Looks like the fish survived the sewage spill as there are fish from MFD south.”
UO buddy Jamie: “Mixed species day chasing carp on the hot Piedmont flats. Caught tailing catfish, gar, and carp seeking refuge from the heat in shade lines around tributaries. Sometimes a glob of worms is tough to pass up!”
Ponds:
They’re warming up and the action is slowing down. Go early or late to find fish in the shallows as the shadows fall. UO guide Syd hit a local lake and did well on bream with a 409 Yeager in yellow.
Lakes:
No recent reports, as our contacts avoided warm water and heavy boating crowds. Web reports show that spotted bass action is still good on Lanier for conventional folks fishing offshore points and humps. The GAWRD weekly fishing blog is another good source of lake intel.
Afar:
We had a bunch of folks travel for new summer vacation memories, while Ian just updated us on summer Smokies opportunities. His intel applies to our GA headwaters, too. Here’s Ian’s July 7th report:
UO guide Sydney trekked north before the holiday to fish with her friend, a fellow guide, for NC specks at high elevation. Enjoy the pics. PS: grab a copy of Sam Johnson’s Blue Ridge Parkway fishing guide at our Sautee store if you’d like to hunt some NC specks.
UO buddy Galen went west and had a big time. He said:
“Hi, Jeff!
I hope you and Jimmy had a great time in Montana! I spent last week there fly fishing on the Beaverhead, Poindexter Slough, and the Missouri. I got in last night and I am washing fishing clothes and cleaning gear today!
Jeff, I caught mostly browns, some rainbows, and one mountain white fish. I landed two big brown trout on the upper Beaverhead using a #16 pheasant tail and a root beer midge. The largest one is nearly 25” and he took the fly and immediately swam downstream in to the current! I did not think I was going to be able to get him back in after his run. I love fly fishing everywhere, but Montana is great!
I appreciate our friendship. Happy July the 4th!”
UGA 5Rivers grad “Coop” went west and fished with his brother and a friend. The trio had good times on the Gibbon, Madison, and Yellowstone. Here’s one report:
“Winning dry: Black caddis (they were flying everywhere)
Winning Nymph: Duracell (caught all three of my biggest fish on it)
Black caddis were everywhere off the rip. After the fish flipped to tan caddis that were flying around. Some rain came and turned them off the dries, so we caught the most after that on nymphs. Then it started pouring rain so we headed to the car and went to Slide Inn. Grabbed some black caddis. Went back when it cleared up and caught some more on the black caddis. Finished strong there.”
The UO duo of Jimmy and Jeff had a big time on their annual, weeklong trip to Yellowstone country. They were joined by Michigan Ski and hosted again by their Athens friends, John and Laine, at their summer hangout near the ID/MT border.
Trip highlights included the usual Madison River brute bows and browns on dries and droppers, a snow storm that sidelined stream action for a day (but enabled some great wildlife viewing), a white miller caddis hatch that fired up Firehole browns, a fun float on the South Fork Snake for hefty resident cutts, a 23-inch Gallatin brown that inhaled a golden stone Water Walker and tried to snap Dredger’s 10ft Euro rod, headhunting for a few big Yellowstone cutts, and ending the trip with some fine Soda Butte cutts sipping Jimmy’s caddis dry.
A diversity of wildlife added icing to the cake. We’re so thankful for our good friends, John and Laine, who have hosted us for about 16 years!
Events:
Our next UO open house is tonite. I believe that Wes has tacos on the menu. C’mon up to swap fish stories, tie some flies, and practice your casts. The fun starts at 5:30 at our Sautee shop.
That’s the latest news from near and afar as we deal with the summer heat. Go early, go high (GA and NC), go to a Tailwater, or go west for your best action this month. And don’t miss Wes’ tacos and all of our fish tales tonight.
Remember, don’t pet the big brown park puppies!
https://www.instagram.com/touronsofyellowstone_2/
Unicoi Outfitters: Friendly. Local. Experts.
www.unicoioutfitters.com
