This is a special rebroadcast of the Alabama Freshwater Fishing Report. The report that is your best resource for the Lake Guntersville Fishing Report, Weiss Lake Fishing Report, Lake Eufaula Fishing Report, Mobile Tensaw Delta Fishing Report, and all the creeks, rivers, and reservoirs in between.
This episode Nick Williams is joined by Anthony Rabern with Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Earlier in the year we talked about Georgia’s Black Bass Slam, and this week Anthony is here to discuss their Trout Slam. Join us as we talk about the state’s efforts to stock brown and rainbow trout, and to hear about the wild brook trout populations in the Chattahoochee National forest. If you’re looking for a good excuse to find yourself “cloud hidden, whereabouts unknown” in Georgia’s mountains, you won’t want to miss this segment
Next, Nick talks with Norm Latona with Southeastern Pond Management, about pond fountains and pond aeration systems. Now is a great time to start thinking about getting ahead of the stratification that warm weather can bring to a pond, and today Norm talks about what aerators, fountains, and destratifiers will and won’t do for your private pond.
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Hey guys and welcome to the Alabama Freshwater Fishing Report presented by Great Days Outdoors Magazine. The first podcast will bring you the local fishing report for Alabama's lakes and rivers whether it's good, bad or ugly. I'm your host Nick Williams and this week's show is brought to you by Great Days Outdoors Magazine. Are you frustrated by your typical hunting and fishing magazines? Are you tired of reading content meant for guys up north or in the Midwest? Don't get left behind following the guidance of guys who don't hunt and fish in your home state. Pick up a Great Days Outdoors Magazine subscription and become a better southern outdoorsman. Great Days Outdoors Magazine can be found at your local books a million, tractor supply company, Rural King or you can save and buy online at greatdaysoutdoors.com. Hey folks got a quick announcement? Aftco has a new promotion for All Great Days Outdoors Podcast Network listeners. They're now offering a camo sunglasses cleaner cloth with any purchase of Aftco products. We've become very fond of their hooded sun protection churches as well as their Seiko Flora Carbon here at Great Days Outdoors. All you have to do to get your coupon code is text ALFFR to 779-345-2918. You can just text ALFFR - Alabama Freshwater Fishing Report to 779-345-2918. Subscribe to our email list and we'll send you the promo code via email. Alright guys welcome back to another week's episode of the Alabama Freshwater Fishing Report. We've got a special segment coming up today. What with all the snow that's been dumped through the state? There's not been a lot of fishing. It's been kind of hard to get those boats up and down the boat ramp of been watching some of that play out over social media watching people struggle with that down here in Mobile where I'm at. We just had the roof on the Civic Center collapse and most importantly daycare facilities have been shut down. School systems have been shut down so I have been playing Mr. Mom here at the office and trying to get through the week as best as we could. So we're going to replay a special segment that we did last year. We talked with Anthony Rayburn at the Georgia DNR, talked about their trout stocking program so I figured with it being so cold throughout most of our listeners home range here figured it'd be good to talk about a little cold water fishing, we'll talk about brown trout, rainbow trout and native brook trout up in the Georgia mountains. If y'all haven't seen that show I think it's a good show a lot of the information is still relevant. If you have seen the show I'll catch y'all once at thoughts. To get an interview today we're talking with Anthony Rayburn who is the Northeast Georgia region supervisor Anthony welcome to the show. Nick thank you for having me look forward to talking with you today about the trout slime. Absolutely yeah I know our listeners can't see it but we're here on this Oompa and I'm looking at that that creek in the background you got right there it looks a little fishy what uh what creek is that I can't tell you the name of that it's one of our honey holds you know that's kind of the way it goes in Georgia you know I don't believe I said is the answer to most of those questions. I like it I got a few creeks like that too they don't have any names and if they do I'm I'm not telling you yeah that's right that's it give us a little bit of your background information uh tell us tell us first and foremost what kind of fishing do you like to do up there? Yeah I'm kind of a pond fishing guy I grew up fishing ponds in the neck of the woods that I grew up in I'm I'm not far from where I grew up and grew up fishing farm ponds and and you know some had good bass populations some had good brim populations and it always intrigued me as to what went in to making a good fishing pond and that's how I got interested in in fisheries and pursued that as a degree and then as a career and I feel blessed of the lord that I can have a career in that kind of work and I really enjoy it. Absolutely uh we we have on the show uh they're a sponsor a normal atone over with southeastern pond management and he is the man when it comes to explaining what goes into building a pond keeping the oxygen content right balance in your forage species with your bass and and giving them good habitat I mean he's a wealth of knowledge and uh yeah that's how I got my start I think a lot of guys got their start fishing the neighborhood duck pond or granddaddy's bass pond and I've I've fished a lot I've gone offshore I've fished mountain streams big rivers everything but but a pond right there in the evening when the bugs start to come out and the frogs start croaking you give me a top water lure on that pond and I'm happy. There you go there you go I'm the same way I fished in Alaska and fish reservoirs for stripers and and bass but I really like just going down down a road a piece and fishing my my local farm pond with my sons and grandsons so that's it I'm excited I got my daughter and and then I got I got two uh I got a niece and an nephew I all got added within the last year so I got some little people here in the next couple years I'm looking forward to taking out there and putting on the pond so that's right well we'll talk to me a little bit just in in broad terms uh what is the Georgia trout slam? Well the Georgia trout slam is is really patterned after after the bass slam that you've already talked about on your show we launched it last year but you know it's just a program to increase awareness of trout fishing in Georgia and what I found out Nick is that people love a challenge you know they just really step up to the plate when there's a challenge thrown out at them and we've just been shocked at the response it's been overwhelming number of folks that I talked to call into the office of the number of applications we've gotten for the trout slam people love a challenge and and we've gotten people come up from seven different states outside of Georgia as far as Texas and Michigan and Minnesota that have applied and received the trout slam and I think our recent head count is around 300 folks we just launched this thing last spring and we're already you know approaching 300 submissions and applications so I'll tell you we are just blown away at the response and people love it and so you know it's getting them out in the woods getting them out exploring the mountains and finding some new places and trying some different types of fishing that they may not have tried before you know we have a lot of what we call the truck followers and corn donkers at fish for stock trout but some of these things so like brook trout and brown not necessarily it was easy to catch is a freshly stocked rainbow and so we're seeing people step up to the challenge and have really embraced it and I'm excited about that that sounded like really good dissipation for your first year you said 300 people from seven different states can you believe it now is that does that people who who just participated or is that people who completed the slam and caught all three species I think at the end of the year we had 290 who who were actually completed the slam and we have a lot more that you know caught two fish and then quite completed you know and and so there's a lot more of that we don't have in our headcount but I'll tell you what people have gone nuts over this challenge and I'm looking forward and seeing what happens this coming here it's a lot of fun I've never really done the the species challenge before any of the slams and Dr. Matt Lewis he got me into it talking about red I bass and it's a it's definitely a different challenge there's a lot of ways you can challenge yourself as outdoorsman like I'm a deer hunter and you try to shoot the biggest deer or if you're a duck hunter you know you try to shoot more ducks than the guy standing next to you and you know fishing you always I think most guys go to say well I'm going to catch the biggest fish or the most fish but then catching you know hopping in the car and driving all across the mobile basin and fishing four different rivers for four different species of bass and just seeing all the different habitats was amazing to me and and all of the little incidental by-catch species that you catch like I've never been up there in that part of the world where you can get into like red breast sunfish and stuff like that we don't have those on the coast so and and you were seeing like red horse suckers and then fish that I still I don't know what they were but you were catching them or seeing them and and just seeing that wide variety of habitat really gives you an appreciation and it is it's a good challenge to kind of pitch yourself against to grab a buddy and hop in the truck and say all right we you know let's see what we can do for it gets dark today safely and go knock out a couple exactly so our application process requires folks take a picture and submit the picture what I like to see is we get a lot of a lot of families are involved you know father son one of the one of the folks had grandfather father and son so we had three generations and their applications came in back to back and it was really cool to see that kind of family family challenge to to get out there and see if we can go as a group and catch all three trout species in Georgia so it's been fun to see that Tom that happened in the state oh yeah for sure yeah me and my uncle we did did it last year we knocked out two species together and it involved you know five or six hours riding in a truck catching up getting some some good time catching up with your family I like it you know it's it's definitely that type of fishing is really social and it's uh yeah it's pretty pretty relaxed you know we we had time doing it so what made y'all start the trout slam was it was it just to kind of spread awareness was it just to offer something fund anglers is there kind of a citizen science research program behind it what what drives it that's a good question Nick I you know I don't really think there's one thing that drove it we saw the bass lamb and you know the interest that developed from the bass lamb and then this thing kind of got birthed out of the hills of covid and you know the state's around us closed down but Georgia stayed open and I'll tell you what our state parks and our mountains our national parks all that just had huge you know use and so we want to direct them to explore trout fishing explore the mountains and try these challenges with with the different trout species because each one's a little different in how you approach it and and so you know a couple of those things contributed I guess to the birth of the trout slam yeah that's awesome so I guess like moving into it and like looking at it can you give us kind of the the skinny in broad terms about the three different species like you mentioned there was a difference between fishing for you know stalker rainbow stock trout right versus your browns and your brooks what's what's kind of the rundown on each of those species yeah well a lot of it kind of hinges on our on our stocking program so we have their four trout hatcheries in the state and we coordinate our efforts together through through one individual and this was the perfect year to launch the trout slam because we have rainbows we had browns and we had brooks in our hatchery system so a lot of what we saw were hatchery origin you know we we put them in the water so they were fairly easy to catch but you know this coming year is going to be different because we're not overly abundant in brown trout and we have no brook trout in our system so folks are really going to have to make a more diligent effort to find brooks especially but also browns but you know the rainbows are relatively easy to find and catch we we publish our stocking list every week and people can go on to our website and find out where we're stocking rainbows so you know that's that's the easiest part of the challenge browns typically occur lower down in trout waters whereas rainbows may be on on the slope of the mountain browns tend to be on the lower the lower gradient side of of the streams whereas brooks are on top of the mountain i mean we got to go up to above 2 000 feet really closer to 3 000 feet in elevation get up on the tops of the mountains where the water is flat and sort of new coming out of the out of the ground and that's where you find your brook trout so it's so it's really different as to where you have to go to look for the three different species bait wise it's it's really all going to be about the same it's matching the hatch you know knowing your bugs trying to trying to get a you know a flower or lure in there that looks like what what they're eating and getting in the right location a lot of our trout our streams aren't really big for the most part but you know they're usually in the deeper water and hugging the bottom or behind a boulder or a log or tucked under the bank so it's it's really about knowing the knowing the locations where those three species occur and then how to target those based on what's hatching for that month no you mentioned the brook trout were kind of a high elevation species um we've had in the past i know uh uh the director of the native fish coalition Bob Mallard i think he's he's written a couple books on brook trout in particular he's up from Maine where they're really brook trout a big big thing up there you know that's down here i guess like our is a large mouth bass i think i think that's the Alabama state fish i may be wrong but uh it is in Georgia too yeah i know i know we're hardcore bass guys and and he said they feel the same way up there there's some kind of uh patriotic zeal around that species and and he got me fired up about him and i was excited to learn that you know their southern range extended down into north Georgia um and i know there's been some different conservation issues that brook trout have faced how how do you all feel like y'all's population is doing up there as far as you wild brook trout or brook char i know some guys are big on that that are not real trout they're char we we are on the very southern end of the range for brook trout north america so you know we're part of this coalition of researchers that really focus on brook trout all the way from Georgia up to Maine and and then to Canada so we're part of that and we share data and you know do a lot of genetics work uh with that with that coalition but you know brook trout in Georgia because it's warmer than Maine and and every other state north of us don't live long uh they they typically grow fast but don't live very long so brook trout you know you get a three or four-year-old brook trout and that's a big deal that's uh that's an old timer they typically are going to be eight inches or less uh the biggest i've seen in my sampling in terms of wild trout uh wild brook trout's 13 inches so uh not really big compared to our our northern neighbors but you know because they're so short-lived fish species that are short-lived their populations are either boom or bust and uh you know in the good years when the environment it's everything's clicking just perfect i mean that's a great year you get a boom you get a strong year class and it'll carry carry the fishery for two or three years you get some some difficult environmental conditions and you have a bust and and really what what we found in our research is that in Georgia brook trout spawn tail end of august into november if you get a heavy rainfall november december maybe even end of january it'll just flush the egg right out of their reds which is a gravel bed in the stream bottle uh so it just flushes those eggs out and and we have poor year classes as result all it takes is one big rainfall and washes them out we'll lose a year class you know in that watershed if not that whole river basin but in the summer time our problems of drought you know we had uh moderate drought late this summer this past summer and you know it condenses all the fish in the small pools and now they're competing for a limited amount of forage and you know brook trout are pretty aggressive they'll eat their own and uh so we can have some uh poor year classes as a result of drought so those are two big things right now population overall if you look across the mountains probably about average so floods didn't really happen this year we had a little bit of drought but it it didn't linger for we've seen them last as much as two or three years we didn't have that so i i think we're going to be about average so you know folks can get out there and have a decent chance catching a wild brook trout i think this this coming here well that's good i'm definitely i was doing i was at the Atlanta fly show i guess that was last weekend and i just a little bit of scouting i didn't really have time to fish seriously and it was uh it's pretty cold up there this time of the year getting up in that water that water was brisk compared to where it is here on the gulf coast but uh it was cold last week for sure oh for sure yeah i know but i i was looking and and getting ready and i'm really fired up this spring to get up there and and try to chase all the species of trout and the red eyes and everything but brook trout will be a brand new experience to me and uh they they live in some absolutely gorgeous waters this looks like yeah it looks like an awesome awesome thing to go do and we're going to take a quick break y'all take a minute to check out some of the businesses that keep the show free for you this week's episode of the alabama freshwater fishing report has been brought to you by dixie supply and baker metal works dixie supply and baker metal works offer numerous items to help get your project done right the first time they carry a variety of different panel profiles and your choice of colors and gauges with all the matching trim and accessories they also offer a full line of hardware items and post frame building design their friendly and knowledgeable sales representatives are always willing to help answer any questions or concerns you may have contact them with any questions or to get a free estimate today dixie supply and baker metal works your metal roofing headquarters. Anthony you talked about it a little bit briefly that there were you know you had your brown trout at your lower gradients and the rainbow trout further up and then all the way up in high gradient streams you had your your brook trout. I know that you mentioned you know burning a stream is is a very real thing but are there any general locations where you know if you had 300 people submittent last year or there are kind of hot spots in the state like just broadly speaking where people can go to to get on those species like I know Matt he didn't want to name streams but right he was like look you know like tardag national forest like if you're on catch cusabast tardag national forest that's all i say like you can hit that and you'll you'll find them find a stream start fishing you'll find them eventually right no i mean i think there's some places i feel comfortable directing folks to i mean we publish our trout stocking list so i mean that's the way if you want catch rainbows man just call up our trout our go to our website which is i guess i ought to mention that georgiawildlife.com and go to the trout fishing page and everything you all know about trout fishing and georgia is on that on that website so it's georgiawildlife.com there's a up at the top there's a link that says fishing click on that go to trout fishing and everything that i'm telling you here pretty much is on that website so you can you can find our trout stocking list what we stock this week so you know find that at and you'll you'll get on the rainbows we will stock you know close to a million fish this coming year and a good chunk of those are going to be rainbows so they're easy to find the brown trout is a little bit harder to find you know one of our best brown trout fisheries is actually below one of our biggest lakes in the state so it's a tailwater fishery and that's below lake leneer you know lake leneer is known for uh it's striped bass and it's spotted bass and large mouth bass but water coming out of lake leneer is cold and it stays cold all year round so good grief there's over 20 miles of trout water stem stream of of view for dam including our trout one of our trout hatchery so there there's a self-sustaining brown trout population in that river um so they they we don't stock them they're there and uh and people really enjoy fishing for those uh their guides that service that fishery and uh and they're certainly willing to take folks out but uh those brown trout can get really big i mean fish up in the teens is not not out of the question in the leneer tailwater so that's the Chattuchi river comes out of view for dam and that's a good place to find brown trout and they're gonna be they're gonna be natural i mean they're gonna be wild fish not nothing we stalk brook trout you know if you go to that web page that i link uh that i referenced and just there's an interactive map on that uh web page and it'll show you there's a legend on there that shows you what streams are stocked but if you kind of kind of just uh use your imagination and draw a line down the spine of the Appalachian mountains that run all the way from the northeast corner down to about uh the line ago or so in lompin county and just look at the streams that come off that ridge the spine of the Appalachians those are your brook trout waters so you've got to get up high in elevation you know generally above 2,800 feet and find those tributaries that drain off either side of the spine of the Appalachian mountains and and that's typically where most of our brook trout streams are located you know if i had a pick one county where to go that'd be Raven county in the very northeast corner of the state at borders north carolina and south carolina and there's a bunch of brook trout streams up there so that'd be my my recommendation they're not they're not hard to find it's all in the national forest so uh let's get you a good map and we have one on that web page and i i think you can find some good some good wild brook trout uh fishing opportunities sir circling back so i know i was actually i was up around like linear but i never i don't think i saw the view for damn tail waters and it seemed like right now you know like you said we had a drought but it seems like we picked up some winter rain i noticed that the hooch when i come over it was pretty high pretty muddy looking so i i didn't even check it out but uh is that usually or there's tail water something where you can wade fish it or do you need to organize a float or how do people usually fish that fishery uh kind of on the upper end most folks are waiting i mean if you find our fish atry buford trout atry uh there's a path to the river and and those folks are waiting uh it's not far from the dam in fact you can move right up to the dam just about just require you to wear a life jacket because if they flip on the water we don't want you getting washed downstream so sure yeah so um you know that's we stock that area really heavily and that you'll be mostly rainbows but there'll be some browns mixed in so yeah you can wade that once you get further down the river gets bigger and deeper i think your guides are picking up in there and and doing float trips um downstream of say highway 20 bridge something like that you you mentioned you kind of touched on on the fishing waders um and we had on on a previous show we talked with the folks there in gadget in alabama that do the rainbow trout fishery and that's a delayed harvest kind of a small fishery with some some regulations that people may not be used to you know barbless hooks only and right restrictions on what kind of uh you know like i don't think you can have i think you can do a double net frig but i don't think they want you doing like like lots of hooks and stuff like that right right or is there anything that anglers need to be aware of that you need to have or rules that trip people up aside from just having a georgia fishing license as far as delayed fisheries and stuff like that do y'all have an additional trout stamp that y'all sell we do we have so folks would need to buy the fishing license but there is a trout stamp that goes along with that it's uh not much for that so yeah the fishing license trout stamp and most of our streams just fall under general regulations uh you know you fish with one pole every person has their own stringer there's no restrictions on you know art officials or live bait can't use live live minnows for example but outside of that pretty much anything goes and that's really it we do have some a few special regulation streams that there might be a size limit or we have four delayed harvest streams like alabama does more carolina has a bunch of them and i think our regulations are very similar among those states uh so we do have that and that's that's active right now for four of our streams but uh but most of our streams are you know general regulation and folks are certainly allowed to fish them and harvest what the catch i'll say this i'm i'm asking you these questions because we're we're talking with listeners and they can't you know see it they don't have the familiarity i can say that i've looked on y'all's website and everything's laid out pretty clean uh particularly like your maps for your different bass species and trout and stuff like that um it's a very easy thing to do like i went online and got my license got my trout stamp and everything and i think it cost me for a year it was only 80 dollars to get a freshwater license and the trout stamp and and the hard card and everything so not an expensive thing to do pretty well laid out y'all have like the different home ranges of all the the fish laid out really well so it it really makes it easy for guys who are looking to kind of plan a i do it yourself adventure and and you can do something either just for a weekend a day trip or i've got enough stuff planned i could probably go up there and stay for a week and uh and take a pull behind trailer or something and and just make a whole spring vacation out of it yeah absolutely and you're out of state so that license is a little bit higher for out of state folks so it's really inexpensive for in-state folks and you know our trout streams are mainly in the national forest the Chateauci national forest there's camping opportunities or state parks galore all through the north Georgia mountains there's plenty of places to stay and and get out and explore where you can just get away and pretty much you know have the woods and the water to yourself so it's uh it's a awesome place to be what what would be i know i've driven through a little bit of the chateauci national forest actually coming home from a vacation up in north carolina we come home and took the scenic route through the chateauci and it was just beautiful i know like i'm familiar with like northwest alabama and kind of like the crown jewels of that region you have like the Soto state park you have Mount Chia Hall and in your region what would you consider like the the camp miss attraction up there is there a particular park or an area in the national forest you think people need to be sure to check out you know every every park is different has unique features kind of one of the things that my family and i've really enjoyed over the last few years is uh just exploring waterfalls and a lot of these state parks have waterfalls there's unicorn state park and there's and they've got a waterfall there's amacolola falls state park they got a waterfall so a lot of these places you know not only have scenic vistas of the mountains and the valleys but they had those waterfalls and and that seems to be a huge attraction because they all have trails or easy to access uh and they're just fun getaways so yeah those would be too that just come to mind but i'm sure there's more of them sure that's something i have sitting on my bookshelf is it it was actually on our honeymoon and my wife we got married and we went up to the northeast part of of uh alabama and we picked up a map that was the waterfalls of north georgia and and we managed to usually we managed to tick off a couple every year and that's that's actually what got me into fly fishing and looking at trout was just being up there she likes to just go see the waterfall and see the sites have a picnic and everything and then you're just sitting there on the side of the stream and you're like man like the the itch starts to hit you a little bit and you're like man i wonder if there's any fish in this little stream right here yeah start looking in them pools putting on your polarized glasses and trying to shade your eyes and you trying to look down there in the bottom my little my little trick is when i when i get that itch i'm you know doing the waterfall hike and yeah i'm wondering i just i just break me off a little twig and toss it in there and if there's a brook trout in there he's gonna come after it so i can at least satisfy the itch a little bit to know i pulled one to come out that's it that sounds like a good time well we've talked a little bit about about the fishery and broad terms we've talked about kind of the purpose of it talked about the different species and the different waterways just in broad terms like if people are going up there and kind of packing their bags what what type gear would you recommend if somebody was gonna go try to do the trout slam um conventional fly rod whatever like what would be a general recommendation what's that fishing look like you know by and large for most folks you know what i see when i'm out in the woods and and and countering trout anglers most of them it's ultra light spinning tackle me he's fish or small you know there's not a huge fighting ball but it's fun to trick them you know that's the whole bit but ultra light spinning tackles way to go i think for you know the majority of the anglers um you know it's hard to be the number two map spinner you know with gold brown color i mean it's just hard to beat that and i see a lot of folks just casting that toward the pools and and having good success so it that'd be my general recommendation i mean we have we have the the elite guys who like to fly fish on the bigger streams you know a lot of these streams are really small and and they're rooted in dendering thickets that sort of shroud them so that's why i kind of like the spinning gear but if you can get out on some of the bigger water you know it's certainly a fun to to fling flies you know to me when i've done it it's more about the art of presentation uh you never get bored when you're fly fishing because you're always looking for that perfect cast but yeah bigger waters and there's there's some that you can do that on but you know still it's kind of ultra light tackle something you can cast pretty well this time of year you know our fly flingers are are fishing deep trout are deep and in the deeper pools or you know 95 percent of the year fish are on the bottom or close to it and uh and so that's where to you know folks don't like to to tie on a little bit of split shot because you get hung up but right you know there are times when they're they're rising to to the recent fly hatch but you know most of the time they're on bottom so you know anything you can get on the bottom it is going to tip the odds in your favor so it'd be for fly fishermen something something they're like a double net for egg or something like that something heavy get on down there and kind of tick that bottom big that's exactly right i think that's a good bet anytime of year or is there any particular fly hatch that people look for up there a particular time of the year or a particular species or anything like that that's a great question it varies uh for month to month and and uh one of our trout unlimited chapters is put together a fairly good uh reference guide and they'll they'll actually put it in their newsletter what's what's going to hatch this month and the right kind of flies to match the hatch and i'll just give them a shout out i mean it's uh it's worthy to to look at that and that's um i think it's raven r a b u n raven t u dot org and if you'll go to their newsletter it's called tight lines and then just search month by month and they'll have it scroll all the way down to the bottom and and they have a chart called match the hatch and and that is a very good uh guide book to tell you what's hatching this month and here's the here's the lures that match it so that's my go-to guide when uh we're not try to help folks out yeah now that we have uh we've got some pretty good little communities in here you got in alabama you got east alabama flyfish and uh you got steven rockharts over on on the uh the cahaba he's he's a real popular guide he helps a lot of people out you've got up and gadget and you get the rainbow city fly club so a lot of a lot of times i know there's local outfitters or guides or your best info or your local trout unlimited native fish coalition whatever it is what what about as far as like your guides and outfitters out there if there's folks who want to do that i know i i tried several times to go figure out the trout we have in the tail waters of smith lake and i i tried three times and spent three half days of fishing and caught zero fish and finally was like guide i'm just going to call brand and then and schedule weekend uh because this is getting embarrassing at this point the host of fishing podcast and can't right catch these fish here uh or is there anybody you recommend well there's you know i if i start recommending them i make somebody mad because i i won't i won't get them all but you know there's some big ones uh you know there's one that that guides almost exclusively on the linear tail water so chat hoochie river downstream of lake laner his name is chris scallie um river runs through it i think it's the name of his guide service there's one in hellen the city of hellen is kind of kind of the the eastern hub for trout fishing on the eastern side of the mountains uh so a china koi outfitters and then kind of on the western side there's two or three over there but the kahuda fly shop excuse me kahuda fly companies is one over there there's several over there in fannon county so they can hook you up there's new to the creek farms uh outstanding place uh so there's they have god services there's also a number of of rivers in georgia that offer private excursions onto the river so we have the takoa river people are fishing the takoa river they they own section of of river and they have god services for for that section of river uh the one nearest to me is the sakoa river and boy it's it's got trophy fish all down food i mean there's about 10 miles of of private fee fishing operations along that suit so with that you get a guide and there's some huge fish in the sakoa river so yeah so so those are the ones that come to mind i gotcha yeah we i was actually talking with some of the guys at unikoi uh at the fly fishing show last weekend and super super knowledgeable helpful oh yes nice people i'd love to have them on the show at some point and talk about what they do and and uh i think some of the folks from them too over there too um you touched on this you touched on the the the private waters and i know i mean there's a guys who haven't seen it before there's a bunch of land up there in the Appalachians that's publicly owned uh part of that cheddar hoochie national forest so there's there's no shortage of a hundred percent safe public access water what do y'all's water access laws look like in Georgia? i know here in alabama and you can hear different things from different people but talking with like core engineers and talking with our game wardens down here generally if you're floating you're in the clear you know if you can put in at public access take out at public access as long as you're floating through in your boat you're good you start wading smaller streams you kind of run into some legally gray areas what's it look like there in Georgia as far as like anglers like rights to access different water yeah that's a great question our legislature's debating that even this session so uh that's some big committee hearings on that and so i don't want to get out in front of them but um what you described is kind of the present state of our of our um access public public rights um you know we have so much public uh land in north Georgia on the cheddar hoochie national forest there's no reason to really venture on the private land and risk that trust pass so i just recommend that folks exercise that right to respect private property and uh don't go on there without permission and target your efforts on the cheddar hoochie national forest or some of those state-owned properties that are managed by dnr so well mr abin that you've been just a wealth of information i really appreciate you donating all of your time here to the show tell our listeners one more time i know you've mentioned several good resources if people want to plan a trip this spring once it starts warming up and they want to go try that fishery out and submit for the slam uh was was some good resources for them to check out good i'm glad you asked that because really everything that folks need to know is on our trout fishing page uh so go to georgia wildlife.com and you'll see a fishing uh link and then click on that tab it'll bring into the trout fishing page so everything that we've talked about is on that trout fishing page you know our regulations our trout stream map uh so you can find some of these spots that you're looking for application to the trout slam i mean it's just full of information or trout stock and list all that's on that trout fishing page at georgia wildlife.com and then i mentioned the raven t u dot org it's a great website if you're interested in flinging some flies up in the mountain streams and want to know what to use uh they've got to match the hatch chart and some of their newsletters and so you want to explore that and and and know what's uh what the locals are recommending for that time of year yep so those are two sources that i know can steer uh your audience in a good direction awesome well guys y'all definitely go check it out uh i may run into you this year if y'all get out there on the waters i'm gonna be hitting it as hard as i can this year to try to knock out the red eye bass slam and the trout slam and the georgia black bass slam so i got a lot of fishing ahead of me so i'm gonna see if i can't tie it in to work and type back into the podcast because that's that's the secret to skillful living right there is is to tie in your recreation with your work mr reber and i definitely appreciate you being on the show and thanks for everything that you do for both the georgia natives and for the people like me who are coming from out of state to check out the resource y'all do a real good job keeping all that together and managing it and we just want to say thank you well thank you for having me allow me to plug the georgia trout slam absolutely have a good rest of your day all right thanks a lot we're going to take a quick break y'all take a minute to check out some of the businesses that keep the show free for you this week's episode has been brought to you by buck's island is a family owned and operated business since 1948 they have new pontine boats bass boats, bow riders and aluminum boats for sale they love trade-ins for boats and motors they can rig your boat or ship your new motor anywhere in the united states they provide boat service on all kinds of boats even if they weren't purchased from bucks they have factory trained and certified technicians visit them at 4500 highway 77 south side alabama 35907 zip code or give them a call at 256-442-2588 all righty guys welcome back to the show today we're sitting down here with Norm Latona up at south eastern pond management norm how you doing today sir doing good then good thank you yes sir yes sir y'all uh having a good holiday season so far we are you know we kind of slow down just a little bit in december and january uh and so it's kind of a welcome respite I guess so yep doing a little little little hunting a little bit hunting a little deer hunting and enjoying the cooler weather there we go and I know that uh you know in the fishing world I know that it kind of gets a little bit slow unless you're one of the crappy guys most people are either hunting or hanging out with their families or uh they're they're kind of getting ready to kind of do you know the the next year's projects you know they're sitting there implementing the plans for next year they're shopping for that bigger boat they're shopping for that addition to their pond whatever it may be and something I want to talk with you about today is pond fountains and in pond aeration systems I've seen a lot of them I'm not super familiar with them I know every little pond that they've thrown up here in ballton county alabama when they build their little cookie hunter neighborhoods I know they got a little pond in them but I can't I couldn't tell you the difference between one that's in there for aesthetics versus one that's in there for function so so kind of walk me through that and start now you know why why do people install pond fountains what what are they kind of shooting for when they do that yeah those are all those are all good questions and um the truth of the matter is in most cases we tell folks that you know if you want to install a fountain do it because for the aesthetic effect fountains you know and they're just by definition they're decorative water displays they are designed typically to move a very small volume of water very small amount of water a great distance to put on a show you know they might take a small stream water and shoot it up 15 20 feet in the air or maybe put it through a nozzle that breaks it up into 20 or 30 little spouts up in the air but all things considered relative to the volume of a lake even a small lake it's a very small amount of water they're moving a few gallons a minute you know maybe even 100 gallons a minute but it's not enough water to really make a difference in terms of aeration in the summertime particularly when lakes stratify and get really hot um you just not moving a great enough volume of water there's nothing in the world wrong with them but a lot of folks have the misconception that they can put a fountain a decorative fountain in their pond and it'll take care of of oxygenating the water and that's just simply not the case um there are there are there is equipment that is very efficient at doing that in terms of aeration what we would what we would call a true aerator but just to give you an idea Nick a fountain let's say a quarter of a horsepower would be a would be a decent sized fountain to put in a pond yeah you could throw a lot of water up in the air and put lights around it and make it look beautiful it takes about one horsepower per surface acre on on average to aerate to to really replace or provide enough oxygen in in cases where that there's a need for that it takes an average of about an acre a horsepower per acre so if you got a 10 acre lake you need 10 horsepower worth of aerator which is a lot of machine can be really expensive to operate certainly expensive to purchase so typically aerators are reserved for commercial type operations a true aerator like the folks over in west Alabama that are growing catfish we've got a production facility over in west Alabama we grow shad and bluegill and and we're really trying to maximize growth because it's a commercial operation and we've got several thousand pounds of fish per acre you know the average pond may have 350 pounds of fish per acre but you get over into catfish production they may have eight or ten thousand pounds of fish per acre so they really have to have true aeration and they spend a lot and lots of money on it and and so you know those that equipment is available but it's typically not designed for your your average recreational pond fountains on the other hand not only do they provide a pretty display but they can be effective at things like keeping the surface tension of the water broken up especially in the summertime when the gets real still and you get pollen and and kind of a scum on the surface you know if you can do something just to break up that surface tension of the water it makes the water look prettier so that's kind of what they're designed to do is is make the make the place look pretty and and i think that's there's definitely some advantage to that i think most people want a pond that uh people have them for different reasons people want to fish them some people you know value the aesthetics of them and i i know i've seen some ponds that uh down here they they can go stagnant pretty quick like you were talking about when they get that sort of pollen on them and stuff like that what if if you are going with a pond fountain if folks are listening and they're saying well yeah i think i think that's mainly what i need is a fountain i'm not looking at raising you know hundreds of thousands of pounds of catfish in my pond how how do you go about getting the right size fountain because i've i've seen a few that were funny both ways i've i've seen really small fountains in real big ponds and i've seen some really small ponds that you could tell somebody had a a budget and uh and they just spent the whole budget of contractor you know max out is budget or something that looked like you had a 50 foot bond shooting water a hundred foot up in there yeah oh yeah but as far as sizing it it's really personal preference i mean aside from the extremes like what you're talking about you know you get this great big old lake and you get this tiny little bubbler out in the middle that you can barely see from the shoreline or or or the opposite extreme that you just described other than that it's really personal preference i mean it's it's not like i said earlier they're not designed to affect the the the oxygen level the dissolved oxygen content of the water it's just a visual effect so we've had folks that live in neighborhoods that put fountains uh you know in a central spot maybe where the community gathers for parties or or whatever i mean we we've we've got folks that that put them in their in their ponds in their front yard and put lights on them you know they're they're they're really pretty at night and but it's just personal preference um generally when we when we talk with folks about fountains we try to talk to them in terms of you know how far away are you gonna are you gonna be from this thing when you're looking at it you know are you gonna be a hundred feet away you're gonna be three hundred feet away i mean obviously if you got something that's 300 feet out in the water uh it's gonna need to be a lot bigger than if it's 50 feet out in the water for you to see it and enjoy it you know we we talked to him about how high do you want it to come up off the water you want height you want width i mean you can you can uh control that to large degree with just the nozzle type and really what it comes down to a lot of times with fountains as far as cost is the distance uh from the power source and the distance out into water because as you can imagine these things are electric you know they're electrical with running so you got to have a heavy duty insulated wiring however far out in the water they are at stuff that that cables got a run and so that stuff gets expensive and uh obviously the larger the motor the larger the fountain the heavier the cost um so we just kind of talk to them just like you would you know when you're making a decision about purchasing anything i mean pros and cons and what you get for your money and and what your what your intended use is going to be and kind of figure it out from there we do neck uh install instead of fountains or aerators which we we we install a lot of fountains and lakes again primarily for aesthetics nothing in the world wrong with that we install very few aerators true aeration systems in recreational ponds uh what we do in cases where folks want to add a an insurance policy for for for lack of a better way to describe it to to kind of help ensure that they that they're not going to have oxygen problems in their pond is we install what we call de-stratification systems uh which is different than an aerator sometimes they get folks get confused about the difference but a de-stratification system is located on the bottom of the pond and basically all it is is a a high volume to low pressure compressor that's mounted on the on the shoreline somewhere and it produces air that's that travels out to these airstones that are strategically located in various spots on the bottom of the lake and it generates millions and millions and tens of millions of tiny little bubbles that come up from these airstones kind of like a a giant air stone in an aquarium and the the purpose of these stones these bubbles is not to oxygenate the water as much as this to move the water and so what we do by moving water with air we can move tremendous volumes of water a very short distance remember i said fountains are designed to move a very small amount of water a great distance well de-stratification systems are designed just the opposite they're designed to move massive volumes of water a very short distance but what it does is it creates an underwater upwell current and so in the summertime when these ponds stratify thermally and chemically you know what i'm talking about when you jump in a pond and the water up around your chest is bathwater and down at your toes it's chilly well that's stratification and that's temperature stratification but the pond also stratifies chemically meaning that there's not as much near as much oxygen down in that cooler deeper water than there is at the surface and so what we do by when we install these de-stratification systems is we mix the water all we homogenize it we make the water at the surface the same temperature relatively speaking as the water at the bottom and likewise the oxygen content of the water at the bottom is close to the same as the water at the top so we're dramatically increasing the amount of oxygen in the overall pond so we do install quite a few of those and they're very specific to a lake or pond it's a custom kind of design it's based on the depth profile of the lake the surface area of the lake and and you know we come out and take a bunch of measurements and basically design a system that's that's suitable for for that for that particular body water so you basically you would say aesthetics go ahead and put your pond fountain in if you're looking to do some heavy-duty fish farming operations put aeration system in and then for your average guy looking to kind of safeguard against you know low oxygen kill probably a de-stratification system that's absolutely hit the nail on the head that's the perfect way to describe it exactly what what are you looking at for for people who are installing either a pond fountain or a de-stratification system what does that usually look like if you're running power to that thing i know it's more involved like you said than just you know taking an extension cable from the home depot and running that there into your pond is that a service that you all provide as well yeah we well we we have to we'll bring in electricians i mean it's it's a it's a significant effort and it's one that you know they're obviously safety and you know concerns and so you know we would we would always whether you do it yourself or have us to come in certainly recommend using a certified electrician everything you know i'm ground fault and you know obviously you're putting a lot of electricity running it through the water you don't want any any chance of of uh of it leaking and you know causing a hazard and so and and frankly that can be for for fountains especially for larger fountains uh you know multi-horsepower big-com stuff that can be a significant cost i mean it can be uh it can be the the majority of the cost in some cases if you've got to run electricity your great distance that's another advantage a huge advantage to using a destrification system is we don't put any electricity in the water so the electricity stops at the compressor that's bank mounted the only thing that goes in the water is is poly tubing that runs along the bottom of the lake and air you know so so there's really there's no electricity out in the water and you just you can carry that air you know a hundred feet or you can carry it 500 feet it's just the cost the cost difference is just the cost of the tubing uh that you run along the bottom so quite a different endeavor altogether likewise with a an aeration system you typically again have electricity in the water running through the water and heavy heavy insulated uh wiring yeah i can uh so i imagine that's uh would it be safe to to guess all those ponds that you see that run for a little bit and then they quit running is that is that going to be a a wiring issue there either something happened with that electric motor there in that pond or something happened with the wiring they're almost always i mean it's uh they're designed you know they have safety features in them i mean anytime there's any sort of breach in in in that water type barrier it's going to short short the thing out and it's not going to run until you repair it and you know then you start looking at doing underwater splices and things of that nature and you know it it can it again can be costly um i will say if you have a fountain installed properly from the start um there's no reason in the world you know you shouldn't get years and years of service out of it both in terms of the motor the the kind of warranties that the companies we deal with provide and you know labor warranties on labor and when they're when you know there's a proper way to do it there's no shortcutting it underwater electricity is expensive there's just no way around it it's just how it is and uh you know heavy gauge wire copper wire is expensive but if you do install one properly um you should get many many years of use out of it if it's if it's done right uh and we we see plenty of them that are not so you know you can kind of you can kind of spend the money on the front end or you know have a problem that you're gonna have to deal with um long term your choice for sure yeah it sounds a lot more involved than what i would have initially intuited uh norm i know south eastern pond y'all been in business since i think what 1989 it's been that's right yeah it's been a while that y'all y'all been doing it so if if folks are looking to learn more if they're looking at putting a fountain the de-stratification system an aerator and then they're looking for some hope with that where's a good place to get in contact with you you know you can always call me directly i'm happy to share my my mobile number it's 205-288-1371 otherwise uh you can look us up on the web se pond dot com sep-o-n-d dot com and uh put in an inquiry and we'll follow up and get get back to get back folks as quickly as we can well there we go folks if y'all are looking to make an improvement to you pond this year y'all definitely go check out norm over a south eastern pond management uh norm pleasure having you on the show today thank you Nick enjoy it and we're going to take a quick break y'all take a minute to check out some of the businesses that keep the show free for you this week's episode has been brought to you by did you know every 40 seconds someone has a heart attack or stroke in that moment every second counts and every critical decision matters air-med care networks air ambulance providers can bring life-saving care directly to those in need at a moment's notice with 320 locations across 38 states 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