Chattahoochee River Promises Great Fly Fishing:
Chris Scalley of River Through Atlanta Guide Service has been utilizing drift and jet boats to work around excessive flows of late on the Chattahoochee River and boy is the fishing great! There are many holdover and wild rainbows that are in great condition from fattening up on the abundant herring and shad flushing from the frigid depths of the lake with water temperatures holding around 42F.
Stocking efforts are good on the Chattahoochee :
Buford hatchery is reporting slow growth rates in the their facility due to these cool water temps and the week of March 22nd they will begin intensive stocking of catchable size rainbows to make space. Pat Markey said they will be stocking roughly 10,000 fish throughout the upper river from Buford Dam to Don White Park in Roswell. The average wild brown trout in the river this spring has an impressive average weight and girth which is way above normal indicating again, consistent food intake.
Chattahoochee Insect populations are good:
Invertebrate populations for our 2010 winter quarterly samples were promising with prolific black fly, mayfly, caddis fly, stonefly, scuds and sow bug counts from Buford dam through Cochran Shoals. We are happy to see that the lower reach of the river from Morgan Falls to Paces Mill is much cleaner with exposed gravel and with some remnants of the aquatic vegetation still intact thanks to the much needed extreme flushing flows from this past 2009 flood event. Despite the 2009 floods and extreme cool temperatures it seems these events will actually help to enhance our unique tailwater sport fishery below Buford Dam in the 48 mile Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. To read this entire report provided by Chris Scalley go to to Links and click on River Through Atlanta Guide Service.