On The Fly Freshwater
SPONSORED BY
UNICOI OUTFITTERS
February 2024
Article and Photos by Jimmy Jacobs
Big Creek in Fannin County, Georgia has been a bit of an enigma throughout my angling career in the Peach State. To begin with, such a common name invites confusion when conversing about the stream. Knowledgeable Georgia anglers are more likely to think of Big Creek as being the stream in Rabun County that flows into Three Forks to join Overflow and Holcomb creeks in forming the West Fork of the Chattooga River.
The Fannin County version, however, forms high on the eastern shoulder of Rich Mountain in Gilmer County, then enters Fannin to flow northward and empty into the Toccoa River. Along that course, it goes from being a small flow to medium-sized before reaching its mouth. The headwaters are on public land in the Rich Mountain Wildlife Management Area, but are remote, hard to reach and the creek is so small it garners little attention from anglers. Lower down the creek is mostly on private land, skirting only a couple of patches of national forest property that are open to the public.
Big Creek has some wild trout, basically rainbows, but the public areas have traditionally and continue to be stocked with fish as well. Presently, those stockings take place twice per month from April to July, then once per month until Labor Day.
The part of the puzzle of Big Creek that has haunted me has been finding access to it. Several decades back, I first went looking for the stream. One of the public portions starts at the bridge crossing beside the Big Creek Baptist Church on unpaved Big Creek Road. During that initial adventure, I parked in the church lot and walked down to the flow. There was then a large pool, a bit deeper than the rest of the stream, with a couple of steps cut into the bank. It was the baptismal pool used by the church’s pastor and congregation. One can only imagine that being dunked into an icy trout stream would certainly put the fear of the Lord into the newly saved!
On that weekday, I chose to baptize a No.12 Royal Wulff in the pool and proceeded to catch a pair of 9-inch rainbows, making the spot something akin to holy water for me. Revisiting the spot more recently, it appears the congregation has taken their ritual indoors and the pool has subsequently silted in.
In the ensuing years since first visiting Big Creek, I’ve dropped in a few times, but more out of curiosity than hopes for great fishing. The access is just too skimpy to allow even a couple of hours of fishing. I more or less wrote Big Creek off as a prime fishing destination.
Then a few years back, while in Fannin County for the annual Blue Ridge Trout & Outdoor Adventure Festival (scheduled for April 27th this year; blueridgetroutfest.com), I got an invitation to visit Fly Fish Blue Ridge, which owns roughly a mile of Big Creek’s course. The run is on the lower portion of the stream, where it is of medium size. Here the creek passes through a level valley of mixed pastures and woodlands, framed against a back drop of mountain peaks.
This portion of the water has been managed for guided, trophy trout action for close to two decades. Besides offering the opportunity to fish the creek, the service also can provide rods, flies and other gear as needed.
Fellow outdoor writer Jason Beck joined me, as we were guided by Dalton Tankersley. Dalton has almost a decade of experience guiding on the creek. During that time, he personally landed a 33-inch brown trout on Big Creek, while also guiding a client to a 30-inch rainbow. Needless to say, with fish that size, stocking and supplemental feeding does occur on this part of Big Creek.
Tossing a mix of dry flies and nymphs, both Jason and I soon hooked fish, but not the giants we knew were in the creek. Instead, we tangled with brightly colored rainbows in the 10- to 15-inch range. Those fish seemed to inhabit every run, pool and depression in the bottom of the creek.
Moving upstream along a pasture fence line, Jason cast up to a bend pool in the stream. As his fly arced around the bend over deeper water and reached the point the creek straightened, his strike indicator hesitated. A quick hook set caused the water to part with a much larger trout thrashing on the surface. After a short fight, he led the fish into Dalton’s waiting net. The tale of the tape put the length of the kip-jawed male rainbow at 22 inches.
The rest of the afternoon yielded a couple of more 20-plus-inch rainbows, with an abundance of smaller ones. Eventually, while fishing another deep bend pool, I even got into the big-fish action, bringing a 24-inch rainbow to heel.
By the end of the day, the angling at Fly Fish Blue Ridge had proven so good that it moved my fishing trip in the baptismal pool into second place among my spiritual fishing experiences on Big Creek.
For more details about Fly Fish Blue Ridge, visit their website.
