What a nice day to be on the river. As I understand it the DNR released about 13,000 trout at most ramps or stocking areas last Tuesday. My son and I went out in my small jet drive to see if we could find some of them. I caught 10 in about 2 and 1/2 hours in a part of the river where "Gulp" is legal. The biggest surprise was the size of some of the fish. The average rainbow stocker seems to be about 11 to 12 inches but I am assuming that since it was among the first few stockings of the year I caught some nice trout. Three of the 10 fish were 14 inches and one was 15 inches. One or two inches in the length of a trout makes a lot of difference in their thickness as well. The 15 inch trout had about twice the meat on it that the 12 inch fish did.
Trout fishing does not provide the rush that striper fishing does but coming home with fresh trout for dinner is hard to beat.

Nice job Logan and a great report. Glad you all had a great day on the water, with some tasty dinner to boot.

Good job. I need to figure out where to go here near Atlanta. I went the other weekend to the Chattooga and killed it on the DH section. No trout dinners, but it was still a blast. Love going up the hills in order to get away, but sometimes just wish I knew the hooch well enough. Just need to spend time researching. Don't want to get in big trouble over something small in certain sections of the river.

I also purchased a little 16' jon boat with a 9.5hp shorts haft motor on it off my brother in law over the winter. Looking to get that on the hooch as well once i finish working on it.

You can get around fine in many areas around the ramps. Abbots and metlock bridge are good and are navigated by a lot of guys with your setup.
If you want closer to atlanta you have jones bridge and Johnson ferry.
Take your time and go when the water is clear the fist few times.
As and invite to you guys, if you want to get on the river at some point let me know with some notice we can probably work out. My 15 foot jet will take 2 adult and a child, always enjoy having kids on the boat.

Tried to get out on to fly fish on the west side of jones bridge on April 2; the water was so high and fast it was actually dangerous to wade from more than a foot or so off the bank. Should have checked on the release schedule before i went, but this was higher than I've seen before.
Weeknds there are never releases but huge swarms of fishermen (especially now that you can keep the fish); weekdays less people but probably more releases given the high water level at lanier....

Anyway-- if releases stimulate feeding on lanier, last weds afternoon should have been good fishing. The dam must have been wide open.

I used to fish the Hooch a good bit years ago. The only time I fished with the water being released I caught my largest trout, a 4 lb brown. Only fish I caught that day though.