Toccoa River Fishing Guides and Conditions, Georgia

About the Toccoa River

The upper Toccoa River gathers in the mountains near Suches and runs north through Fannin and Union counties to Lake Blue Ridge, and the stretch between Deep Hole and Sandy Bottom is one of the few genuinely floatable trout rivers in Georgia. The Toccoa River Canoe Trail covers 13.8 miles of it, most of that flanked by the Chattahoochee National Forest, and guides run western-style drift boats and rafts down it whenever there is water. This is a different river from the Toccoa tailwater below Blue Ridge Dam, which is colder, more regulated and fished year-round; the upper river is freestone, warms up in summer, and fishes best in the cooler half of the year.

Roughly a mile and a half of the upper river is managed as delayed harvest, running from four tenths of a mile above Shallowford Bridge downstream to just above the Sandy Bottom canoe access. From 1 November through 14 May that section is catch-and-release with single-hook artificial lures only, and it is stocked heavily enough through the winter to hold fish all season. On 15 May it reverts to standard Georgia trout regulations. The rest of the upper Toccoa is ordinary seasonal trout water holding both stocked and wild rainbows and browns, with brook trout in the colder feeder streams higher up.

Trout are not the whole story. Smallmouth and spotted bass push up out of Lake Blue Ridge through spring and stay into the summer, and on a warm June day the river fishes better for bass than for trout. Flow governs everything on this river: below roughly 350 cubic feet per second the shallow bars start dragging a drift boat, and after a hard mountain rain the Toccoa comes up fast and stains. The gauge near Dial sits at the top of the float and is the number guides check before committing to a launch, since there is no dam upstream to even the river out.

Access

Deep Hole Recreation Area, GA Highway 60 - the standard put-in for the canoe trail, USFS campground and river access.
Sandy Bottom canoe access, Old Dial Road - the main take-out and the lower boundary of the delayed-harvest section.
Shallowford Bridge, Shallowford Bridge Road off Aska Road - mid-river landmark; the delayed-harvest water starts 0.4 miles above it.
Old Dial Road generally - follows the river for several miles with pull-offs and wade access on national forest frontage.
Toccoa River swinging bridge at the Benton MacKaye Trail - foot access to the upper river above the float section.
GA Highway 60 south toward Suches - roadside access to the smaller headwater reaches and feeder streams.
USGS 03558000 near Dial sits at the head of the float; below about 350 cfs the drift-boat run gets thin.

Seasons

Spring: the best of the year. Delayed harvest runs through 14 May with heavy holdover fish, hatches build through March and April, and smallmouth start moving up from Lake Blue Ridge as the water warms.
Summer: bass water. Trout fishing gets marginal in the warmest weeks on the lower float; smallmouth and spotted bass fish well, and the river is at its most floatable for anglers who do not mind sharing it with paddlers.
Fall: cooling water brings the trout back on, and delayed harvest reopens 1 November. Low, clear water through October rewards a careful approach.
Winter: the delayed-harvest section is the reason to be here. Catch-and-release, single-hook artificials, stocked through the season, and floatable whenever flow allows.