North Georgia Rivers

Best Flies for Noontootla Creek (by Season)

Daniel Bowman · Updated June 19, 2026 · 10 min read

What flies should you use on Noontootla Creek?

Noontootla is a small, clear Southern Appalachian freestone creek with a naturally reproducing population of wild brown trout, so the fly box leans toward accurate small-stream patterns rather than big attractors. The creek runs 8 to 25 feet wide under a dense hemlock and rhododendron canopy, the water is gin-clear, and the fish have never seen a hatchery pellet — every brown in the special-regulations stretch hatched from a redd in the creek itself. That changes what works. A wild trout that has eaten thousands of natural insects will react to a good drift and refuse a sloppy one, regardless of how perfect the pattern is. Carry a tight, sensible box and fish it well.

These are the must-haves:

• Parachute Adams (12–18) — the do-everything dry; the white post makes it visible in broken pocket water.
• Elk Hair Caddis (14–18, tan and olive) — buoyant and visible, the second staple for the pocket water.
• Pheasant Tail nymph (14–18) — the everyday mayfly nymph; a beadhead version sinks faster in the deeper slots.
• Hare's Ear nymph (14–18) — a buggy, generic searching nymph that suggests mayflies, caddis pupae, and cased larvae at once.
• Foam beetle (14–16) and foam ant (16–18) — the core summer terrestrials.
• Inchworm pattern (12–14) — dropped by the hemlock canopy all summer; a signature Noontootla food.
• Woolly Bugger (8–10, black and olive) — the reliable searching streamer for fall browns.
• Sculpin pattern / Sculpzilla (6–8) — imitates the creek's sculpins for pre-spawn fish in October and November.

Because hemlocks shade the water, terrestrials — beetles, ants, and especially inchworms — produce on Noontootla all summer long. Many days the most productive "dry" in the box is a foam beetle, not a mayfly imitation.

Keep three of each size on hand rather than fifteen patterns of one. Wild fish in tight quarters break you off in rhododendron, and there is nothing worse than running out of the fly that's working an hour into a hatch.

Which flies work in each season?

Noontootla's hatches are diverse but rarely dense, which is the central fact of fishing it. You almost never get a blanket emergence that has every fish locked onto one bug. Instead you read the moment — what's in the air, what's drifting in the film, what's blowing off the canopy — and match the month. This monthly chart maps the creek's calendar to a fly choice:

A few notes that make the chart usable. April is the high point: Quill Gordons (12–14) and Hendricksons (12–14) come off on the warmer afternoons and the browns, hungry after a long cold winter, feed with less caution than at any other time of year. If you can only fish Noontootla once for dries, fish it in April. May shifts to Sulphurs (14–18) and March Browns (12), with the best activity moving into the late afternoon. By June you get Light Cahills (14–16), Yellow Sallies (14), and Slate Drakes (12–14), and the terrestrial game turns on as the canopy fills in. September's cool nights restart everything — early-morning tricos and renewed caddis, with the first streamer-minded fish beginning to move. The takeaway: this is a creek where reading the moment beats over-committing to any single hatch, and the technique behind that is the same skill set covered in matching the hatch.

Why do terrestrials matter so much on Noontootla?

The single biggest edge on Noontootla in the warm months is understanding terrestrials. The creek runs under a near-continuous hemlock and rhododendron canopy, and that overhead cover feeds the trout a steady land-insect diet from roughly June through August that most anglers underestimate:

• Inchworms drop from the hemlocks all summer. They dangle on a strand of silk, fall, and drift — and the trout know it. A simple green inchworm pattern (12–14) is arguably the deadliest single summer fly on the creek.
• Beetles and ants blow and fall in from the streamside brush. A foam beetle (14–16) or a small foam ant (16–18) sits low in the film, exactly the way the natural does, and the foam keeps it floating through fast pocket water.
• Spruce moths add to the mix on the upper stretches, especially mid-to-late summer.
• Fish look up. Even in midsummer heat, when most Eastern freestone trout sulk on the bottom, a Noontootla brown will rise confidently to a well-placed beetle or inchworm because terrestrials are a year-after-year reliable food source there.

The practical rig is a terrestrial fished as the dry in a dry-dropper. Run a high-floating foam beetle on top and a small beadhead Pheasant Tail (16–18) on 18 to 24 inches of tippet below it. You cover the surface eaters and the subsurface feeders in one cast, and the buoyant foam holds the dropper at the right depth in the seams. The technique side of fishing terrestrials in small water — the soft splat-down that imitates a bug falling, the dead drift tight to the bank — is covered well by the technique writers at Gink and Gasoline, and it is worth understanding before a summer trip.

What flies catch Noontootla's wild browns?

The creek's marquee fish are wild brown trout, and fall is when the biggest ones eat streamers. As water cools in October and November and the browns move into pre-spawn aggression, they become territorial and will chase a baitfish imitation they'd ignore in July:

• Black or olive Woolly Bugger (8–10) — the reliable searching streamer; black for low light and stained water, olive for clear conditions.
• Sculpin pattern / Sculpzilla (6–8) — imitates the creek's resident sculpins, the natural baitfish a big brown targets most.
• Slow, methodical strips through the deeper runs and the heads of pools — short, twitchy strips that let the fly hang in the current rather than racing it across.
• Step up to 4X tippet for streamers in higher water; the bigger fly and the chance at a heavy fish justify it. Otherwise fish fine — 5X or 6X — for the dries and nymphs.

One caution that's specific to the fall season: October and November are also when Noontootla browns spawn, building redds in shallow gravel runs. Wild, naturally reproducing trout are the entire reason the creek is special, so do not wade through obvious gravel beds during this window, and never target fish that are actively on a redd. The conservation case for protecting wild, self-sustaining trout populations is exactly what groups like Trout Unlimited work on across the Southeast. For the mechanics of fishing these patterns, see the broader streamer approach in how to strip a streamer.

How should you rig flies on this small water?

The right flies on the wrong rig still go fishless on Noontootla. The creek rewards light, accurate, short-range small-stream tackle, not long heavy rigs built for big water:

• Rod: a 7- to 8-foot 3-weight. Accuracy beats line speed in tight rhododendron tunnels, and a slower rod loads on the short casts you'll actually make here. A 9-foot 5-weight is too much rod and will hang up in the canopy on the backcast.
• Leader and tippet: a 7-foot tapered leader to 5X for general nymphing and dry-dropper work, or 6X for technical dries on the smooth runs. Skip the 9-foot leader — it adds wind-knot risk in the tight tunnels and buys you nothing on water this small.
• Dry-dropper is a deadly searching rig here. A buoyant foam terrestrial up top and a small beadhead nymph below covers the column on a single drift — see the dry-dropper rig.
• Drift length: plan for short, drag-free drifts of 3 to 8 feet, not the long mended drifts you'd throw on a tailwater. Most refusals come from micro-drag the angler never sees.
• Polarized sunglasses are non-negotiable. The water is gin-clear and you cannot read depth — or spot a holding fish — without them.

Know the special regulations before you fish: the marquee stretch is single-hook artificial flies only, no bait, and catch-and-release on all trout, so debarb your hooks and carry forceps. Confirm the current rules on the Georgia Wildlife Resources Division trout page, since boundaries and slot limits are revised periodically.

Common fly-fishing mistakes on Noontootla

The difference between a 4-fish day and a 12-fish day on Noontootla is rarely the fly — it's the approach and the rigging. These are the recurring errors that cost first-timers fish, and the fix for each:

• Overcasting. The creek is too small for 40-foot casts. Fix: pick the pool apart in 8- to 15-foot drifts, reading one seam at a time.
• Too much rod. A 9-foot 5-weight overpowers the water and snags the canopy. Fix: borrow or rent a 7'6" 3-weight; it loads on the short casts and lands the fly softly.
• Wading the holding water. Walking through the slot you should be fishing kills it for an hour. Fix: walk the bank where you can and wade only when you must.
• Ignoring the seams. The deepest part of a run is rarely where the fish sit. Fix: target the seam edge where fast water meets slow.
• Beating a pool to death. Wild trout that have refused four casts are educated. Fix: three good drifts, then move on.
• Too heavy a tippet in clear water. A wild brown in gin-clear water will refuse a fly dragging 3X. Fix: drop to 5X or 6X for dries and nymphs; reserve 4X for streamers in higher water.
• Skipping the walk. The best water is a 15- to 30-minute hike from the trailhead; the first 200 yards get pounded. Fix: budget the walk and fish the runs other anglers skip.

How is fishing Noontootla different from the Toccoa or Soque?

Fly selection on Noontootla looks different from Bowman's other home waters because the fishery itself is different. A quick orientation:

• Versus the Toccoa River: the Toccoa is a true tailwater with bigger water and bigger average fish, fished from a drift boat with larger flies and longer leaders. Noontootla is the opposite — intimate, wade-only, short rods and small flies.
• Versus the Soque River: the Soque is private spring-creek water managed for trophy density and bigger average size. Noontootla offers fewer and smaller fish, but every one is wild and naturally reproducing — the most authentic wild-trout experience within 90 minutes of Atlanta.
• Versus the Etowah River: the Etowah is a mixed wild-and-stocked small stream with a slightly easier learning curve, which makes it the better first stop. Noontootla is the step up in technical demand once you've got the basics.

The throughline: Noontootla asks for the smallest flies, the lightest tippet, and the most careful approach of any water Bowman guides. Get the fly box and the rig right and the rest is reading water and staying low.

Daniel Bowman

Owner & Head Guide · Bowman Fly Fishing

Daniel has guided fly fishing trips in North Georgia for over 20 years. He runs Bowman Fly Fishing with a team of 10 guides on the Toccoa, Soque, Etowah, Noontootla, and Tuckasegee — including private water access most anglers never get to fish.