Excerpt
Excerpt from pg. 31: You can count on the thumb of your left hand the number of major cities in the South or anywhere else in the nation, for that matter, that have a great trout stream running through their centers. But that's just what the Chattahoochee brings to Atlanta, thanks to the frigid outflow from the base of Buford Dam about 45 miles north. The suburban 'Hooch is the section of river that gets all the glory, but high in its headwaters in the mountains above Helen, the river is quite good for both wild and stocked browns and rainbows.
Rising between Coon Den Ridge and Spaniards Knob where the southern Appalachians brush 4,000 feet, the Chattahoochee gathers its waters from beneath hemlocks, rhododendron, and azalea, and tumbling over granite boulders, runs thin and cold. This is native brook trout country. You can catch tiny trout of six inches or so, as gaily colored as the wildflowers that bloom in the spring woods. A 30-foot waterfall at Henson Creek protects the brookies from browns and rainbows lower down. The falls are a short hike from the Wilks Road, which branches off the Poplar Stump Road at Vandiver Branch, about a mile to the west. At that point the Poplar Stump Road is fairly high above the Chattahoochee, which is flowing in a gorge. There's less fishing pressure there, yet the fishing is very good, probably because the river is not easy to reach.