Photo Essay: The Hooch
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As much as I complain about the Hooch’s overall condition, it is a good fishery, especially this time of year. Went out with Scott Kitchens this morning. We stopped for coffee in a cool riverside coffeehouse and also later had lunch at the best barbecue in Atlanta on the shuttle drive back.
Color was waaay off. Probably a 15 turbidity, with the water almost sparkly with silt. So I went big on the fly selection. Had a couple chasers.
Here’s the fish we boated:
Solid eleven pounds on the boga.
Shoalies have red eyes so I tie anything above a certain size with these just in case. Probably makes no difference but…
Unfortunately a certain amount of high sticking is inevitable in a canoe, and my 10 weight S4s had already taken a beating and had a micro-split in the first ferrule. As I was landing that fish I heard an ominous creak. Despite a tape job, it snapped about a dozen casts later. The tape at least prevented any explosions.
By the way, did I mention Scott is an excellent caster?
Also check the outriggers. Those things are slick. They inflate and break down to go in the car. Maybe need just a little shoring up but nothing a drill gun, some rivets and JB Weld won’t fix in a hurry.
We got out just in time. This was the scene at Powers Island when we came back to run the shuttle. I actually had to perform a little swiftwater rescue down in the Devil’s Racecourse for a not-so-young lady who found herself stranded on a rock while her flotilla of tubers left her well behind. Someone died on the Hooch last week at the jumping rock – it is astounding how unprepared people can be, especially when the water is a little up like it was today.
Zach
A fun morning no doubt. Always good to get on the river. Pretty good fish by Mr. Matthews – even in some pretty tough turbidity and raft hatch conditions. At some point, Zach said we’d be lucky to get one fish between us – and he pulled one in. Way to go man. Fishing for these suckers is tough in any case, pounding a lot of water and dealing with a lot of goosegg days is par for the course to come up with anything.
Below, a party barge sneaks up on an anchored Zach.
Dave – the outriggers are the Hobie Ama Outriggers. Bought them online at Austin Kayak. My yak is not a Hobie (it is a Wilderness Systems Tarpon 120) so I bought them hoping (but not sure) they would fit (they did). By “fit” i mean that outriggers need to be keyed to the amount of freeboard at the mounting point of your kayak. Too much freeboard on your boat – not much stability because the pontoons aren’t firmly in the water. Fortunately, these pontoons are just enough in the water to make me stable when standing. Frankly, the Tarpon is pretty stable without these, but anchoring in current while standing and casting without outriggers really exceeds my deftness and comfort level. If you need Dave, I am happy to measure the amount of freeboard I have so you can judge whether these would work for you.
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