Fishing with El Presidente

[buzzmcmanus]

Last week, A buddy of mine, El Presidente, called me up and made the suggestion I head down towards his place in Murray County Georgia to do some fishing. He suggested that we hike into a wilderness area and fish a stream we had fishing once before. Being up for a road trip, I headed down Saturday. I met up with him at his house and we loaded up the motorcade and headed to the trailhead.

The plan was to hike down to the stream, put on our waders and fish from there.

The trail went down, and down, and even further down.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000448.jpg

Once we made it to the bottom and the stream,
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000449.jpg

we came across a couple of backpackers who just happened to be fishermen. They had just gotten back to camp and had fished all the water around camp. Oh well, it looks like we were going to have to hike further downstream to fish. After adding another mile to our hike, we came across some good water.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000450.jpg

El Presidente and I split up. I jumped in the water immediately and he hiked down a little further. It wasn’t long before I was into fish.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000451.jpg

They weren’t big, but they were fish.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000452.jpg

I’m used to climbing boulders the size of cars and fishing big plunge pools. This kind of water is pretty new to me.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000456.jpg

Instead of climbing rocks in the stream, I was crawling through rhododendron.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000455.jpg

After about 50 yards of fishing, the fish just turned off. I figured El Presidente had fished up to where I jumped in and jumped ahead of me a little bit and I was fishing behind him. After looking up stream a little ways and not finding him, I got back in the stream and continued to not catch anything. I wasn’t even getting rises. I continued to fish, having no idea where El Presidente had issued his executive orders and cut me off at, I didn’t know where to go to get into good water. A short while later, El Presidente came walking up from downstream. He talked to another fisherman, El Diablo, and he said that El Diablo had been fishing all above us that morning.

We packed up and move a bit.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000460.jpg

It wasn’t long until we were back into catching these little guys.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000458.jpg

You Georgians sure like to camp. It seems that there was a campfire ring every 100 yards along the stream.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000457.jpg

El Presidente was beat. He even had to sit to fish.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000463.jpg

Apparently, his method works.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000464.jpg

[buzzmcmanus]

Fungi anyone?
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000466.jpg

Remember how I said it was straight downhill to get to the stream. Well, it was straight up when we were done.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000470.jpg

I headed up the mountain and got to the motorcade in good time. However, El Presidente was nowhere to be found. I wondered if he just got tired of listening to me talk, or he got ate by a bear. After a short wait and no El Presidente, I headed back down the mountain to rescue his fly rod, fly box, and whatever cash he had in his wallet, and this is what I found. It was El Presidente waiting to be carried the rest of the way up the mountain in his pharaoh chariot.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000472.jpg

Sunset in the North Georgia Mountains.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000475.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000476.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000477.jpg

Why can’t these things stand there and look at me stupidly while I have a bow in my hand!?!
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/buzzmcmanus/2012%20Fishing/3-10%20North%20Georgia/P1000480.jpg

[Grannyknot]

I see a blatant violation of rules 1&6.
http://littleriveroutfitters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15845

:biggrin::biggrin:
Nice report Buzz. I enjoyed it.

[buzzmcmanus]

I see a blatant violation of rules 1&6.

I've got excuses for everything. My camera was in my pack while heading there, and I don't recall seeing a single bug. There were a ton of midges were we parked the motorcade, but I really don't recall seeing a single insect while on the stream. That's really kind of odd.

I really should have been at home tying flies instead of fishing. I'm still about 8 short and just need to sit down and finish them up.

[tnflyfisher]

Wonderful report! Great pictures! Wish I was there with you... :biggrin:

Tight Lines,

[ifish4wildtrout]

Awesome report, looks like a fun day.

[Knothead]

I always like to follow others and catch the ones they miss. I used to make my son mad by doing that.