UO Fishing Report - 7/24/26
It’s a good news/bad news kind of week. The good news is that the storms have dumped a bunch of rain on a big chunk of north GA. Higher flows and cooler water will give mountain trout bums a decent shot during weekend mornings before high heat returns next week. Be ready to fish clear or stained flows, or both in the same day.
The bad news is that storms anywhere in a watershed will muddy-up our bass rivers and trout tailwaters, and they usually take several days to clear. The Hooch Tailwater is blown out and the Toccoa might be, too. You’ve gotta watch the USGS gauges and call local tackle shops to know when they’re fishable again.
Overall, it was a pretty good week for fishing reports, considering that we’re stuck in late July. These reports from our fishy staff and friends should give you a little hope.
Catch our most recent fishing intel in our full report, here:
https://www.unicoioutfitters.com/fishing-reports
Stop in either UO shop for hot bugs, cool air conditioning, and the best local intel for our corner of the state. Good luck. Don’t forget your bug spray, sunscreen, and a poncho!
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.
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, para Adams, micro chubby for creeks, tan elk hair caddis.
Nymphs & Wets:
Squirmies, Mops, pats rubberlegs, and buggers for stockers. Droppers for picky fish: small pheasant tail or hares ear soft hackle. Drowned ant, green weenie, pheasant tail for wilds.
Streamers:
Sparkle minnow, jig bugger, bank robber sculpin.
River stripers:
Game or feather changer, Clouser, wiggle minnow, Cowen’s coyote.
River bass:
Stealth bomber, crittermite, jiggy dead Ned, feather changer, hairy fodder, big black bugger.
Bream & Carp:
Hybrid worm, carp it bomb, gill scorpion, amnesia bug, mini jig bugger.
Headwaters:
Y’all have a decent shot this weekend, thanks to all the rain and cloudy weather that are cooling off the creeks a bit. I took the long way home from the shop tonite, and at 530PM the Hooch in town and Dukes on 75A both had about 18inches of visibility, some great squirmy worm water! Barring more storms tonite, area streams will be clear by morning. Since only 1.5 inches of rain fell up here in our corner of the state, streamflows aren’t bad at all.
Be ready with your squirmies and buggers in muddy water, dry/dropper rigs in stained water, and single dries when they clear, which will happen really fast at high, steep elevations.
UO buddy Weston and his friend stopped in our shop this afternoon. They had some luck on wild bows and brooks while getting drenched today. The stained water had fish looking down instead of up, so ant droppers were the ticket. They also tried for stockers on their way back down the mountain, and it was the same song for them. Stockers preferred the eggs and small streamers and didn’t rise to dries in the stained river.
Stockers:
Today’s list just hit our In box at 330PM. Here you go:
As always, find the 2026 master list here to find those creeks that will still get stocked late in the season.
Private Waters:
Forget em til October. 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:
The Atlanta TV news tonite reports 5-7 inches of rain fell there today, so you’ll need to avoid the Hooch Tailwater for a while. Tailwaters will still be good when they’re clear, but play it safe right now. At least the high flows will scatter out the stockers.
UO buddy Ryan: “Chattahoochee Tailwater action remains pretty darn good. I had a few clients request to learn euro nymphing, and both did well in learning and putting fish in the net! Eggs, and natural hares ear / frenchie jig nymphs (size 18-20) caught all fish. I couldn’t help myself and went back out to fish after my trip concluded. I caught about 25 in several hours. I used 6x tippet while tight-line nymphing with a 3mm & 2.5mm tungsten bead nymphs. Check out my frenchie that earned retirement. While DNR reports there’s some limited rainbow trout reproduction in the Hooch, the majority of these fish could have been “trout in the classroom” (TIC ) survivors. Anyone who was unaware of Upper Chattahoochee Chapter of Trout Unlimited’s TIC program would think these are wild fish. They sure bite like a wild bow, but they have been raised from egg to fingerling size by students in Atlanta area classrooms before being released in the river!”
And brother Myles: “I had a guide trip Thursday with a newer fisherman wanting to learn Euro nymphing. He was 13, and is wanting to advance his skills to be the best he can be. We started the day off with some instruction, and very quickly he picked it up and did great. After doing our best to minimize what would be a stellar hook set for bass fishing, we hooked probably 25 fish and ended up with 13 to the net. The Chattahoochee Tailwater is still prime time fishing right now with plenty of stocked trout. Lighter tippet and smaller nymphs like 18s and 20s were the keys to success today, with the flows being less than normal.”
You can contact this duo for your own Hooch Tailwater guide trip:
Ryan Hartley: 678-468-0440
Myles Hartley: 678-900-0835
There are great summaries of the two GA trout tailwaters in today’s GAWRD blog. Scroll down to the bottom of it:
Warm Rivers:
Check those USGS gauges! Today’s rain has blown out many of your weekend opportunities. As rivers clear, the bass and bream topwater bite will continue to be very good!
UO owner Jimmy: “The river finally cleared up enough that I was able to do a little fishing on the evening of the 21st, and I had a blast. Seven Shoalies in about an hour and a half; all on a Stealth Bomber. The water was low again, which made wading fairly easy. Well, except for that moment when a 10-pound carp exploded right under my feet as I was tightrope walking along a narrow ledge. A couple of nice pirouettes and I'm floating my hat! Oh well, at least I didn't have to take a shower that night. Great time for topwater river bassin’!”
UO buddy RSquared: “Fellow Cohutta TU member Josh & I paddled & fished down one of our local tributaries to the Coosa River on Wednesday. We were the only anglers along the nearly 6 miles of cool, gin-clear water in NW Georgia. The Redeyes were actively looking up and smashing tan hoppers yellow size 8 Stealth Bombers, & size 10 Chernobyl Ants. We both lost count of the Redeyes we caught. My big fish of the day was a fat, 11.5 inch beauty that attacked the Stealth Bomber. The weather nor the time of day affected the bite from the scrappy natives. We consistently caught fish all day!”
Note: to check the Upper Hooch, dial into the USGS Hooch at Leaf gauge. To see if the Soque has dumped mud into the lower Hooch, call up the Hooch gauge at Duncan Bridge and check the Soque gauge too. The Duncan gauge has temps, too! For the Chestatee, check its sole gauge. Find all of your GA gauges here:
Just zoom way in to see all of the GA stream monitoring sites and click on the one(s) of interest.
For river bassin’, the usual 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. See our shop’s recent social media posts for Wes’ awesome tying tutorials for the bomber and fodder.
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. Catch them when these muddy rivers just start to clear a bit.
Ponds:
No recent reports. Our trusty pond reporter was away on another adventure.
Lakes:
No recent reports, as our contacts are still avoiding warm water and heavy boating crowds. The GAWRD weekly blog (linked above) still has the best current lake intel.
Afar:
UO buddy Athens Jay continues to take advantage of his new retirement gig. He reports: “UGA 5 Rivers alums Izzy and Jay just returned from a wild adventure in Idaho. We were part of a 12 person DIY crew (ages ranged from 25 to 75) that floated on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River through the aptly named Frank Church - River of No Return Wilderness (75 river miles in 7 days). The whitewater was exciting, the wildlife and landscape were breathtaking, and the fishing was very good! We caught lots of beautiful Cutthroat trout plus a few Mountain whitefish. Izzy even caught a juvenile Bull trout. The dry fly fishing was excellent in the mornings and evenings. Fish were not picky, but you did need something that would really float; and a drag free drift was essential. Size 10 yellow, brown and tan Chubby Chernobyl’s or foam hoppers worked great. In the hot middle of the day, fishing from the raft with white and brown articulated streamers cast into eddies moved some good fish. We enjoyed hot springs, waterfalls, pictographs, bears, bighorn sheep and chukars along the way. Izzy is currently working for Idaho Fish and Game, and based on the time she’s having, I’m not sure we will ever convince her to come back home to work in Georgia! The good news is that her passion for fisheries conservation is tremendous and keeps growing by the day!”
UO buddy CDB: “Spent a few days exploring the White River in Arkansas. 100° on Tuesday! That’s pretty hot. Did not seem to bother the fish too much though. Not much surface activity. Nymphing with zebra midges and micro jig streamers was very effective. Streamers worked well also. Lots and lots of rainbows. Only a couple browns. None of the big boys came to dance. Really cool wildlife - bobcats, raccoons and plenty of herons.”
Catch a few mountain trout with some morning trips this weekend, as our streams drop and clear. Take advantage of a brief respite from extreme heat before it returns next Tuesday. Stop in our Sautee shop to swap some fish tales if you’re in town. Good luck as we dry out from some welcome summer showers.
Unicoi Outfitters: Friendly. Local. Experts.
www.unicoioutfitters.com