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Home › Waters › Georgia › Chattahoochee River
Tailwater · Metro Atlanta · Georgia

Chattahoochee River Fishing Guides

A cold-water trout tailwater running out of Buford Dam straight into metropolitan Atlanta, forty-eight miles of year-round trout fishing inside a city of six million.

A shallow rocky river running clear through eastern woodland

Map of the Chattahoochee River

16 numbered points: 11 access points, 2 parks and conservation areas, 2 hazards, 1 USGS gauge. Tap a marker for details. Reviewed Sep 26, 2026.

Printable version →
  • Access / boat ramp (11)
  • Park / conservation area (2)
  • Dam / hazard (2)
  • USGS gauge (1)
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Points are curated from OpenStreetMap and state agency sources; confirm access and hours before you go.

Print it. Bag it. Bring it.Phones die, screens crack, and most of this water has no signal. Print this map, fold it into a zip-top bag or dry bag with your license, and you have a backup your electronics can’t give you. Every marker is numbered so you can say exactly where you are.

Open the printable map
All 16 points on this map
#PointTypeLat, LonNotes
1Buford Dam
Corps of Engineers, Gwinnett/Forsyth County		Dam / hazard34.16014, -84.07425The top of the tailwater. A horn and siren mean generation is starting: the river below can rise several feet in under an hour. Never wade below here without checking the schedule.
2USGS gauge - Chattahoochee River at Buford Dam
Roster gauge coordinate		USGS gauge34.15667, -84.07842The gauge the whole tailwater is read off. Check it and the Buford generation schedule before wading anywhere between here and Morgan Falls.
3Lower Pool Park
COE, Forsyth County - paved ramp, fee		Access / boat ramp34.15793, -84.07724The first access below the dam, on the reregulation pool. Trailer ramp, and the usual put-in for the top float.
4Settles Bridge
NPS - Chattahoochee River NRA, Gwinnett County		Access / boat ramp34.09822, -84.10912Park unit at the old Settles Bridge abutments. Walk-in and car-top access; no trailer ramp on the DNR record.
5McGinnis Ferry
NPS - Chattahoochee River NRA, Forsyth County		Access / boat ramp34.05158, -84.09872Paved launch at the McGinnis Ferry Road crossing, a common take-out for the upper tailwater float.
6Abbots Bridge
NPS - Chattahoochee River NRA, Gwinnett County - fee		Access / boat ramp34.02461, -84.17207Park unit and launch at the GA 120 crossing.
7Medlock Bridge
NPS - Chattahoochee River NRA, Gwinnett County - fee		Access / boat ramp33.99553, -84.20186Launch at the GA 141 crossing. The downstream limit of the artificial-lures-only section that begins at GA 20.
8Jones Bridge
NPS - Chattahoochee River NRA, Fulton County - fee		Access / boat ramp33.99890, -84.24782One of the most-used units on the river, with the ruined Jones Bridge just downstream of the launch.
9Garrard Landing Park
City of Roswell - paved ramp, fee		Access / boat ramp33.97333, -84.26459City ramp and park on the Roswell shore, opposite the NRA's Rogers Bridge land.
10Island Ford
NPS - Chattahoochee River NRA, Fulton County - fee		Access / boat ramp33.98691, -84.32353The NRA headquarters unit. Shoals, a long bank-fishing frontage and a car-top launch.
11Morgan Falls Dam
Georgia Power, Sandy Springs		Dam / hazard33.96794, -84.38422The reregulating dam that forms Bull Sluice Lake. A hard portage - take out well above it, and expect the release below to change through the day.
12Morgan Falls Park
DNR-WRD, Fulton County - paved ramp, no fee		Access / boat ramp33.96546, -84.38273Free state ramp beside Morgan Falls Dam - the launch for the lower tailwater.
13Johnson Ferry
NPS - Chattahoochee River NRA, Cobb County - fee		Access / boat ramp33.94551, -84.40407The first unit below Morgan Falls and the usual put-in for the float down to Powers Island and Paces Mill.
14Cochran Shoals
NPS - Chattahoochee River NRA, Fulton County - fee		Park / conservation area33.90316, -84.44331The NRA's busiest day-use unit, with several miles of riverside trail and bank fishing. No ramp on the DNR record. The delayed-harvest section that starts at the Sope Creek mouth runs through this reach.
15East Palisades
NPS - Chattahoochee River NRA, Fulton County - fee		Park / conservation area33.87773, -84.44201Bluff-and-bamboo unit with steep trails to the water. Bank access only; no ramp on the DNR record.
16Paces Mill
NPS - Chattahoochee River NRA, Cobb County - fee		Access / boat ramp33.87038, -84.45248The last unit on the tailwater and the standard take-out. The delayed-harvest section ends at the US 41 bridge just downstream.

Guides on the Chattahoochee River

Claimed profiles take booking requests. Unclaimed profiles are built from public records so the river is never empty; the guide can claim or remove one any time.

About the Chattahoochee River

The Chattahoochee below Buford Dam is the southernmost year-round trout fishery in the eastern United States and the only one that runs through a major metropolitan area. Cold releases from the bottom of Lake Lanier keep the river in the fifties all the way down to Atlanta, and the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area protects a string of units along both banks that give anglers public access most of the way.

The upper river from Buford Dam to Settles Bridge is the coldest and the most trout-focused, with a strong stocked rainbow fishery and wild browns that grow large in the pools. Below Medlock Bridge and through the Jones Bridge and Johnson Ferry units the river widens into classic shoal water, and by the time it reaches the Palisades it is a mixed fishery with trout, striped bass in summer, and shoal bass in the warmer reaches. Guides run drift boats and rafts on the upper floats and wade trips in the shoals.

The Buford Dam gauge is the release number and it is the single most important safety fact on this river. The Corps generates on demand, and the water can go from a few hundred cfs to several thousand within minutes, with a siren and horn warning at the dam. Wade only on low, non-generating flows, know the schedule, and get off the gravel when the horn sounds. Guided floats are timed around the release pattern.

Everything is close: Buford, Roswell, Sandy Springs and Atlanta itself. That access is the appeal, an hour of trout fishing before work in a city that has no business having a trout river.

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Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Chattahoochee River cfs

Now: 606 cfs, read 3:30 am CDT, Mon Oct 19, 2026 (USGS 02334430, CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVER AT BUFORD DAM, NEAR BUFORD, GA).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Buford Dam Park: the top of the tailwater, boat ramp and the generation-warning siren.
Bowmans Island Unit: the first National Recreation Area unit below the dam.
Settles Bridge and Abbotts Bridge: upper river units with parking and trails.
Medlock Bridge: popular launch for the upper floats.
Jones Bridge and Holcomb Bridge: mid-river units, shoals and wade access.
Johnson Ferry and Powers Island: lower units close to the city.
Chattahoochee Nature Center and the Palisades: lower river shoal and striper water.
Never wade without checking the Buford Dam generation schedule.

Seasons

Year-round trout fishery; the tailwater never warms out.
March through May: hatches, stocking and comfortable flows.
June through August: cold water in Georgia heat, plus striped bass in the lower river.
September through February: brown trout in the fall, midge fishing in winter, few anglers.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Chattahoochee River?

As of Oct 19, 3:30 am, the USGS gauge CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVER AT BUFORD DAM, NEAR BUFORD, GA reads 606 cfs, the 10th percentile for this date, with water temperature 50.5 F. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Chattahoochee River?

Anglers target Brown Trout, Rainbow Trout, Shoal Bass, Spotted Bass, Striped Bass on the Chattahoochee River in Georgia.

Are there fishing guides on the Chattahoochee River?

GuidedFloats lists 2 guides and outfitters on the Chattahoochee River. Claimed profiles accept booking requests; unclaimed profiles are built from public records and link to the business.

Where can you access the Chattahoochee River?

Buford Dam Park: the top of the tailwater, boat ramp and the generation-warning siren. Bowmans Island Unit: the first National Recreation Area unit below the dam. Settles Bridge and Abbotts Bridge: upper river units with parking and trails. Medlock Bridge: popular launch for the upper floats. Jones Bridge and Holcomb Bridge: mid-river units, shoals and wade access. Johnson Ferry and Powers Island: lower units close to the city. Chattahoochee Nature Center and the Palisades: lower river shoal and striper water. Never wade without checking the Buford Dam generation schedule.

When is the best time to fish the Chattahoochee River?

Year-round trout fishery; the tailwater never warms out. March through May: hatches, stocking and comfortable flows. June through August: cold water in Georgia heat, plus striped bass in the lower river. September through February: brown trout in the fall, midge fishing in winter, few anglers.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Chattahoochee River?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Georgia agency site: https://georgiawildlife.com/fishing-regulations