TheBanyanTree: Way Down Yonder on the Chattahoochee - Part I

[B Drummond]

A little more than a week ago I made a float and fishing trip down a
section of the Chattahoochee River.

This was something that I had thought about doing for as long I we
have lived here (about 10 years) but just never did.  I have owned a
canoe for most of that time period, contemplated many times doing the
trip by canoe but somehow never got a round to making the trip.

I recently purchased an aluminum john boat and made a few fishing
trips to small local ponds.  After christening it on those trips I
decided earnestly to make the much delayed trip down the Chattahoochee.

The plan was to put the boat in at the GA Highway 16 bridge just
outside of Whitesburg, GA and float, paddle, and fish down to
Franklin, GA some 20 to 30 river miles downstream.  This would be a
point more than 100 miles downstream from the origins of the river in
the Appalachian foothills of northeast Georgia and western north
Carolina.

I checked around and no one from this area that I talked to knew
anything about the part of the river that I was to go down.  I
checked online and could not find anything there either. I later
found that there are references online but I didn't know where to
find them at the time.

So, I went "blind" down the river expecting to reach Franklin after
an overnight on the river and some fun finally exploring an unknown
(to me) part of the river.  The trip ended up being all I expected
and much, much more.

The boat's length is approximately 12 feet, its width at its widest
is approximately 4 feet.  I loaded it down with a tarp, a two person
tent, a box of Granola bars, two car batteries, a 12VDC to 120VAC
inverter, a propane lantern, propane single burner stove, 3 gallons
of water, two paddles, extra clothes, camping utensils, fishing gear,
and other items, all this mainly in two big Rubbermaid containers.  I
also took the camera but alas, the durn files got corrupted somehow.
I can view them on the camera but not one of the 3 computers that I
have (one Mac, one with Linux and one with Windows) can read the
files.  I only have about 4 pictures that can be viewed and they are
of some plants that grew along the banks in various parts of the river.

Well, I got a late start and didn't put in until around 3:00 pm.  My
wife accompanied me over to Whitesburg and some bikers who happened
to be at the boat landing kindly assisted me in getting the boat off
the top of the SUV and into the water.  Bless 'em for their kindness.

I fished heavily on the first part of the trip that took me by the
Yates power plant and McIntosh Reserve ) on the upper part of the
river but, regrettably to no avail.  I didn't catch the first fish
until the next day and many miles down the river.   (http://
www.carrollcountyrec.com/mcintosh_reserve.htm   is a reference on the
McIntosh Reserve which has a section on the banks of the river)

The only fish I saw for the first 10 miles of river trip were gars,
and, man, were they were in abundance!  They'd hang out behind downed
tree limbs and in the eddies behind "whirlpools" ambushing baitfish
and minnows.  Many times they would surface and grab a gulp of air to
refill their air bladders. One particularly large one I remember rose
slowly to the surface near the middle of the river, opened his mouth
slowly, took a gulp of air and seemed to smile at me before splashing
off back toward the depths of the light brown muddy water.  He wasn't
intimidated by me, the boat, or much of anything.  I'm not a gar
fan.  They look like something out of a horror movie and from a
prehistoric age.  They have a long snout with a double row of needle
sharp teeth that can make mince meat out of most anything.  They hit
my bass lures frequently but there was no catching them with a typical
lure.   They hit it, you feel them pull for a short period of time
and they soon are free from the hooks as their blooming snouts and
teeth are too hard for a hook to penetrate.

Near the Yates plant was where I encountered the first of the
disconcerting parts of the river trip. In the local lingo they're
called "Shoals".  The power plant is huge and noisy and has huge
water inlets that are used to pull water out of the river and pump it
up to a reservoir on the property for use in power production. Said
noise masks a noise that I later came to dred  -- namely the noise of
water rushing over obstacles in the river & where the river is
shallow.  In most cases those obstacles were granite rock.  Sometimes
those rocks were the riverbed and sometimes they were rocks that were
above the water line and situated in a shallow section of the
river.   In either case, before I finished this trip I would come to
loathe that sound to the point of near nausea before I reached Franklin.

The first shoals were a breeze compared to farther down the river and
all I had to do was carefully survey the river while approaching them
and "shoot the hooch" through the deepest part.   There's an "art" to
the technique of choosing the right place to pass through them that
most people (myself  included) learn best through trial and error.
It's the error part that I became acquainted with on this trip more
often than I was used to in the past.

The first afternoon's trip had me all alone on the river, except for
a group of young people (late teens & early 20s or so) who came along
behind me on tubes and inflatable boats.  They were a rowdy, noisy
bunch that hurled insults, cussed like sailors, hollered, whooped,
guzzled beer, and smoked pot all along the trip.   For the most part
I stayed ahead of them and out of their way.  A heavy downpour around
6:00 that lasted for about 45 minutes caused me to have to paddle
over to the underside of some downed trees along the bank and hold
the tarp in place over the boat. The rowdies decided to seek shelter
as well but across the river.  After the downpour they were a little
quieter, thank goodness, as the rain had put a little damper on their
mood and their beer and dope were apparently running a little on the low
side by that time.    Later they found some kindred souls in a cabin
over a bluff that they apparently talked into donating some more beer
to their cause.  This caused them to delay at that meeting spot and
allowed me to put some distance between us just above the point where
the McIntosh Reserve sits on the river.



End of part I