Well, in spite my utter lack of spelling skill (something grade school
teachers also identified), Wayne was able to identify the river in question.
Watching a fishing show this morning filmed at another place in Georgia
(Oconee?) left me with the same impression - very big rainbows with rounded
over fins looking way too well fed for a diet of mayflies, nymphs, minnows,
etc. Somehow it doesn't look like much fun catching someone's pet fish. (The
choice of flies was a major clue: fisherman 1 to fisherman 2, "You still
using that little yellow puffball?".)

Thanks,

Jim Ray

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"Wayne Knight" wrote in message
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"Jim Ray" wrote in message
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Anyway, I happened across the Fly Masters flyfishing competition on OLN
which was some sort of SouthEastern regional qualifier. In any case, the
river they were fishing was the Catahouchie (I think) in the northern
part
of Georgia. For some reason, I am a bit skeptical of their catches - one
big
football shaped rainbow of about 22 inches immediately comes to mind, in
addition to several in the 14 -18" range. I'm guessing they were
stockers,
and most likely, placed there specifically for the show, er competition.
Am
I way off base, or are big fish like that common in that river?


That was the Upper Chattahoochee River. I think the section they were
fishing is a private section which has some big fish. There are several
places in North GA, most of them private, which have big trout in them.
Most
of the those stretches give the fish supplemental feedings.

The upper part of the Chattahoochee has some born in the stream fish, but
it
is supplemented by stocking programs and most of the big fish were stocked
at one point. Unicoi outfitters was on the credit list and they used to,
and
I assume they still do, control one of those private supplemental feeding
sections. They have a web site so you might want to give them a call.