Spring kayak fishing suggestions.

Hey guys,

I'm going to be down in Atlanta for the second year in a row visiting my best friend from college and I was hoping to get a little information on places that I can safely kayak fish from a Native Ultimate 14.5 without getting into too rough of water on the Chattahoochee River or another river further up into the mountains. I may also actually convince my friend and his wife to come out as well so a beginner area with some fishing chances would be good too. I was thinking about taking them to Bull Sluice above the Morgan falls dam, it looked like there was a livery there and some good bays to get back into for some bass.

Last year I kayaked out of Don Carter State Park, Belton Bridge and Shoal Creek but I'd like to get into some moving water if possible. I'm definitely planning on fishing Lanier proper again, I really wanted to launch out of Lula Bridge last year but I had an... interesting incident when I went to put in out there the first time so I opted to launch out of Don Carter instead. I'm thinking about outfitting my kayak with a removeable trolling motor set up as well so hopefully that will help with the distance you seem to have to cover when fishing the big lake.

Anyways, I'd love to hear your suggestions. I caught a grand total of two fish last year due to a nasty cold front that came in the entire week there and just general inexperience fishing the big res's down here (Up in Michigan the reservoirs are typically only a few hundred acres and nowhere near as deep so I was a bit at a loss out there). I'm tentatively planning for late April - early May but am open to suggestions. Thanks in advance and tight lines!

The Etowah river is hard to beat. Depending on the sections you float you can be on a mountain stream trout fishing, or entering a large reservoir fishing for striped bass.

Check out this website: http://www.etowahwatertrail.org/
particularly the interactive map.

Just a word of caution. If you attache a trolling motor to your kayak it needs to be registered. Not sure how it would work with you as a visitor though.

Google Flint River Outfitters. They have camping and bus service on the Flint river. Very inexpensive and the shoal bass fishing is awesome.

I like the Etowah in the Spring.

Also the area around Bull Sluice is good.

The Coosa River around Rome can be good in Febuary - early April if you find the white bass.

The Coosa is deep enough for bass boats but in my experience the boaters on the Coosa are polite to kayaks. Maybe because there are not pleasure boats in the Coosa just fisherman.



No jet skis which is a plus.

Cedar Creek in cave springs is a great little river to float/fish. Last time I fished there I caught about 30 fish. Caught largemouth, spots, bream and even caught a drum. Biggest fish caught was about 3lbs(largemouth). Had a blast that day

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I'd love to get them out for some Large Mouth and maybe some spots (We only have larges and smallies up in Michigan) as that's mainly what I'm confident in fishing for. I don't have much experience fishing spots or shoals but I'd love to get into some of them. Would I be better off taking the newbies to a local lake? I've seen a lot of smaller res's in the area but it appears a lot of them are limited access. I think if I get them to go out they're only going to want to travel an hour or two away from home for a day trip (They live in Duluth), so that might make the locations a bit more difficult as I know a lot of the rivers you guys mentioned are more on the west side of the state and Atlanta traffic can be CensoredCensoredCensoredCensored. Thanks again for all the suggestions, I can't wait to get out there this summer and go for round 2. Hoping for a few more fish this time and a little less cold front!

SASS249 said:

The Etowah river is hard to beat. Depending on the sections you float you can be on a mountain stream trout fishing, or entering a large reservoir fishing for striped bass.

Check out this website: http://www.etowahwatertrail.org/
particularly the interactive map.

Just a word of caution. If you attache a trolling motor to your kayak it needs to be registered. Not sure how it would work with you as a visitor though.

Click to expand...

I've been looking into the Upper Etowah and I gotta say I think I might spend a good chunk of time there kayaking. How are the flows generally on the river? Is there a CFS range I should look at staying within? What about paddling up river from launches in Dawson county? Is that possible or is the current typically too strong? There's probably going to be at least a day or two where I'm going solo so I like to keep my options open. Thanks again, I can't believe I didn't see this river last time, it looks similar to a river I fish up here for smallies/pike/large mouth.

The upper Etowah is one of my favorite paddles. The section through Dawson Forest is really nice, great scenery and pretty good fishing. You want to have the gauge in Dawsonville between 4 and 5 feet, with a flow anywhere up to 400cfs or so.

The upper or tunnel section is also nice. You need a minimum of 5 with somewhere around 300-400CFS. Access here is not as good as the Dawson forect section and fishing is a little more iffy, but where else can you paddle through a mountain on an old mine tunnel.

Neither of these section is really one that you would want to paddle up on, although you can do so in the Dawson Forest section.

I can often get off with a little notice, so if you decide to go and want company shoot me a PM

The tunnel is well worth the trip. See this video my son made on our first trip through last year
https://youtu.be/pp7BC_XBcVg

Flatstacker said:

The tunnel is well worth the trip. See this video my son made on our first trip through last year
https://youtu.be/pp7BC_XBcVg

Click to expand...

That looks pretty intense, do you guys usually portage your gear down before going through? I'd be paranoid about flipping and losing all my gear through their. Sweet video!

The great thing about the tunnel section is that while it looks intense and is when you go through it the first time, it is really not that big a deal. When we used to run it in 15' canoes it was never an issue. Today folks running it in short kayaks can have some issues. The longer boats pretty much could not get caught crossways in the tunnel. Shorter boats can and I have had a few folks get somewhat hung up. At the water levels I like to run it however all you need to remember is that you can just get out and stand up, it is neither that deep nor the current that strong.
I have never carried gear around the tunnel, just made sure everything was tied into the boat and let her rip.
Did have one person who got a sit-in kayak hung up. It filled with water and he came bobbing out the tunnel sans boat. Ended up walking over the mountain back to the tunnel entrance and carefully walking to where his boat was stuck, got it loose and all was fine.

Duluth is within 10 miles of several good places to put in the Chattahoochee. The trout fishing is very good on that stretch of the river. Also if you want to fish for stripers, shoal bass etc, you can put in downriver at the tail race of morgan falls dam. That's a great place for a Kayak. I fish it from my jon boat, but I'll be fishing from a Kayak as soon as I get one.