Are the trout just having fun, or is there a reason for their taking to the air?
Fall 2023
By Steve Hudson
Photos by Jimmy Jacobs
Don’t you just love the change of seasons? It seems like only a few weeks ago it was 95 degrees in the shade. But today, it’s a welcome 65 degrees outside. I guess fall really has arrived. There’s a certain feeling in the air. There’s a certain hue starting to show in the leaves. It’s enough to make a summer-weary Georgia boy jump for joy.
Somewhere, fish are probably jumping too.
I love to see fish jumping. Don’t you?
One of my favorite places to see jumping fish is the Jones Bridge Unit of Atlanta’s Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. You’ll be standing there on the riverside trail, looking out across the river, and there it will be – a flash of silver as a previously unseen trout takes to the air.
Why? Are those trout jumping? Are they just happy? I know that if I was a fish, I might be happy enough to jump, too, right this very minute, right now. After all, it’s fall.
I reach for a sweater – but which one?
“Either one will do,” she says. “Come on. Let’s go see some jumping trout.”
The Jones Bridge Unit of CRNRA is right off Barnwell Road. All you have to do is to turn onto the access road (the satellite photo on my phone identifies it simply as “Jones Bridge Unit Access Road”) and follow the road to the parking area at road’s end. Yes, there is a bit of parking along the way, but be mindful of the spots reserved for vehicles towing boat trailers. If you park in one of those but don’t have a trailer in tow, you may get a ticket. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Anyway, at the end of the road, there’s a nice paved parking area and even a restroom building. There are also trails leading off upstream and downstream. The hiking here is great, especially if you hike downstream and explore the network of trails in the unit’s southern portion. It’s one of my favorites, and I recommend it highly.
But today only minimal hiking is on the agenda. In fact, on this day, all we have to do is to walk toward the river and catch the riverside trail.
And so that is exactly what we do.
Directly opposite the parking area, there’s a step ramp that provides easy access to the water. In front of the ramp, and upstream and downstream for quite a way, the water is wide and smooth. The flow is broken by some shoals and an island – and with any luck it will be broken by the splash of a jumping trout too.
We follow the riverside trail upstream, towards where Jones Bridge used to stand. The bridge, built around 1904, provided an important river crossing that linked Fulton and Gwinnett Counties. It went out of service in the early 1920s and soon fell into disrepair. The Gwinnett County portion of the structure was eventually dismantled, leaving half a bridge extending out over the river from the Fulton County side – at least until it collapsed in 2018.
Old Jones Bridge, prior to its collapse.
The bridge may be gone now, but the trout are here for sure. There are stocked rainbows as well as wild stream-born brown trout.
But why do they jump? Are they just having fun? Maybe. I’m not a trout, so I can’t say for sure. But those who know say that this jumping thing is just part of the process of chasing down dinner.
Here’s what seems to be going on. From time to time there comes what’s known as a “hatch” of aquatic insects, often caddisflies on this stretch of water. During a hatch (and at the risk of drastically oversimplifying things) the immature forms of aquatic insects metamorphose into adult forms that take to the air to mate and lay eggs and continue the cycle.
Caddisflies reach adulthood only after living underwater as larva for some period of time, where they may roam free on the bottom of the river or (depending on the species) may set up shop in small cases that they build on the bottom of rocks or on aquatic vegetation.
In any case, come hatch time, the larva undergo a series of physical changes that ultimately results in adult insects. But to “emerge” as an adult, the developing bug must make its way from the bottom of the river to the river’s surface. During that transition, “emergers” (as they are called) offer easy pickings for hungry trout. In fact, the trout get so excited about this that they may chase the emergers all the way to the surface, sometimes blasting through the surface film as they try to grab the bug before it escapes. That seems to be what you see when you spot a jumping trout on this part of the Hooch.
A rainbow trout
So where does one look for jumping trout?
“There!” I say, pointing. She follows my gaze. We watch intently, and after a minute or two –
As if on cue, a small trout zooms out of the water, goes airborne for an instant, and then splashes back home.
“I see it!” she says.
We watch for a while, and we see more jumping trout. We talk about coming back to fish for them, too, something that’s fun with small flies fished just below the surface to imitate the emerging insects.
But that’s for another day. Today its about savoring the experience…and asking questions. For instance…
“I wonder what they think when they pop out of the water like that?” I ask.
She considers the question.
“Hard to say,” she says at last, and looks at me. “But I’ll bet they prefer the water. I bet they like it best when they are right where they need to be.”
Another trout jumps then, and in that brief instant I could swear that the fish looks at me and winks.
Then it dives back home, comfortable, secure, safe in a world where it is happy, where it is at home, where it belongs.
Steve Hudson is a freelance outdoor writer, book author and award-winning member of the Georgia Outdoor Writers Association. Steve makes his home in Roswell. Contact him at aa4bw@comcast.net.