Chattahoochee River

I did some online searching and found several places in North Georgia to try.  My first stop was to Alpharetta Outfitters (79 South Main Street Alpharetta, GA 30009).  These guys are the real deal and were willing to help out finding fly fishing spots to try.  They even have maps ready to hand out!  Thanks, guys!

Chattahoochee River “Hooch,” below the Buford Dam (Little Mill Rd, Cumming, GA 30041) (GPS 34.156716, -84.080054) was my next stop.   The Hooch is a big tailwater that runs all the way down through Atlanta.  This is the first place I have ever fished where it was required to wear a life vest.  Fortunately, I had one along, and the reason you have to wear a PFD is the dam will start to generate electricity with little notice, and the water level will come up very quickly, and people have been killed.
 
Below the dam I found several guys using float tubes to access the water.   There was not much wadable water here, so I walked down stream towards Bowmans Island, where the river is braided and has more wadable water.    

I fished likely spots and was not having much luck.  One of the float tubes went by, and I asked him what flies were working, and he said the Zebra Midge was doing it for him.   Then I remembered a guy in the parking lot was telling me that there was not much for hatches on this river because they did not have limestone like other places and most of the action would be on midges.

The river bottom was very uneven with exposed bedrock creating difficult wading.  I had my wading staff along and used it to get around.   The rugged bottom also made it tricky to get a good drift, but once you found a spot where you could get a drift you were likely to find fish.