Moccasin Creek State Park - Clarkesville, Ga (Sept. 2 - 8)

Tuesday, September 02 - We left this morning at 9:20 after saying goodbye to our friends. This place was definately harder to leave than some. We arrived at Moccasin Creek at 1:18 after driving 158 miles of mountain highways. We got set up, had dinner, took a walk around the campground, then John fly fished from shore until dark. He caught a few nice bluegills, but the bass were not to be found. Several people were fishing the trout stream, but did not see anything caught. We are not sure if we will buy trout stamps or not. The trout fishing has not been very good we are hearing. We have cell service here, but no tv reception. We will have to keep up with the hurricanes with the computers.

Wednesday, September 03 – It was a very quiet night last night, but we heard that a large bear had passed through the campground in the evening while we were down by the lake. It did not cause any trouble, though. While taking our coffee walk down by the creek, we met a couple, John and Susan, who live nearby in Dillard. John part-time pastors a non-denominational church nearby, which we plan to attend on Sunday. We did some cleaning today on the camper and truck. In the evening we launched the kayaks and fished on the lake until dark. John brought in a huge bream on the fly rod using a black wooly bugger. Joan had one take a swipe on her WB, but missed it.

Thursday, September 04 – Today was explore and Walmart day. We drove to the Chattahoochee National Forest to check out a couple of campgrounds and creeks and rivers that run by them. We looked at Tallulah River Campground which was fairly full and looked very nice. There are no hookups, but it has flush toilets and there is a host on site. The river on the way there (Tallulah) is beautiful. There were many fishing along the road on the river and one man had a few trout on a stringer. We did not see any fly rods, but only conventional tackle with spinners or bait. We also checked out Tate Branch Campground, but it was nearly empty, seemed isolated and did not have a host. The same was true of Sandy Bottom Campground. There were some “Deliverance” looking characters there, so we made a hasty retreat. We also drove up the steep climb to Black Rock State Park and on the way back down stopped and fished at Big Rock Lake. The bluegill were too smart for us from much training. We did our Walmart stop in Clayton and returned to camp. We bought a fly-tying kit and a new fly reel for the rod we got Joan in Kodak, TN. We fished in the evening with a few hits, but no fish.

Friday, September 05 – We had our coffee and breakfast and headed out to hike the Hemlock Falls Trail. It is 1.5 miles and about 400 feet rise in elevation to the falls, but as we found out not nearly as challenging as the Rock Creek Falls Trail last week. It however is a beautiful trail and closely follows Moccasin Creek. The book we have, “Trout Streams of Southern Appalachia,” and the campground host recommend it for fishing, so we decided to buy our trout stamp and fish it tomorrow. There are many places we can get down to the water and cast a line. In the evening, after a wonderful BBQ pork dinner that Joan did in the crock pot, we launched the kayaks for about an hour and a half of fishing. Joan landed two very large bream on a green woolly bugger fly. John only got one good hit on a black woolly bugger. The campground has filled up for the weekend. We are hoping for a quiet night. We like that the campground is locked up at night, so no one can come in late and set up.

Saturday, September 06 – John tied his first fly this morning, a black/red woolly bugger. It was not too ugly for a first attempt. We hiked up to the falls again, this time with fly rods in hand. We went down to the creek from the trail where it was not so steep that emergency crews would have to come and get us out. It is such a beautiful creek and we really enjoyed seeing it again, even though we did not catch anything and John lost his woolly bugger. In the evening we got caught up on phone calls. It is quite busy here in the park today, and noisy as well, with folks listening to the Georgia Bulldog game with volume levels set to accommodate the deaf. It will quieter tomorrow when nearly everyone leaves.

Sunday, September 07 – We drove about 28 miles to go to church today in Sky Valley. It is a beautiful, Alpine-like community over 3000 feet elevation. We were in N. Carolina at least three times on the way there, but it is actually still in Ga. The minister there is the man we met here in the campground shortly after we arrived. John and Susan seemed genuinely pleased that we came. He introduced us to the congregation during the service, which was very full with good music and a great message on our need to forgive. We were able to talk with him for quite a while after the service. Folks there were very welcoming and friendly, and made us feel right at home. We returned to camp and started getting things ready to leave in the morning. It was warmer here today, and a little more humid. In the evening we drove a couple of miles up Wildcat Creek road to check out a NF campground there, but it turned out to be a little more primitive than we prefer.



See pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/johnjoanW/MoccasinCreekStateParkClarkesvilleGaSept28