The Wildland Journal

Inshore fishing has been on the list of things to try my hand at going back several years now. Freshwater fishing has been my most persistent hobby for the past 10 years, but each time we visit the beach for family vacation, the urge to broaden my fishing out into saltwater has become a little bit stronger. But it's kind of an exclusive expertise. As I'd sit watching fisherman at the piers and in the surf, it wasn't lost on me that the fish they were pulling in weren't just unfamiliar, they were fish I'd literally never seen before in my life. So a couple years ago after a visit to the gulf coast, I decided to set in motion the plans for a saltwater fishing exploration trip, on a small scale and with people I wasn't worried about making a total fool of myself in front of. Move ahead to 2019, and we'd picked a place (Cedar Key, FL) and a time (first week of October) and a group (my dad and I). I can't recall how Cedar Key became the place. I think I ...

Carter’s Lake is an impoundment of the Coosawattee River in north Georgia, situated northeast of the town of Calhoun and southwest of the town of Ellijay. It’s a 3,200 acre lake and is the deepest lake in Georgia at 450’. I was up in Chatsworth for work a couple months back and decided to do some casual exploring of the western edge of the lake. The area surrounding Chatsworth is an absolutely beautiful part of north Georgia, and places nearby, like Fort Mountain and Cohutta Wilderness, are at the very top of the list of my favorite places to poke around. My first stop was the what they call the Reregulation Lake, which is seemingly just a smaller lake at the base of the lake proper. Aside from a pretty fascinating view of the giant earth dam holding back the lake, there wasn’t a whole lot to it, and I moved on from there to the gated dam and fishing area. Considering it was the middle of the day in the middle of the week, I was surprised to find quite a few folks fishing. It ...