Trout season opened in Georgia last Saturday and many people took advantage of inexperienced trout that have not been fished for in several months. It is an excellent time to head for your favorite stream.

My first experience trout fishing was almost my last experience of any kind. I was a senior at the University of Georgia and read about trout fishing below Hartwell dam, not too many miles from Athens. The cold water coming from the bottom of the lake supported trout, and the state stocked rainbows there for fishermen to catch.

I either did not have class one week day, or maybe I even skipped class, but I headed over there to check it out. I arrived in the area at about 9:00 AM. As was my usual tactic, I stopped at a fishing store near the river to ask for information. The owner took me outside and showed me an ice chest full of trout his son and a friend had just caught.

They told me the state hatchery truck had just dumped a load of fresh rainbows in the river at daylight that morning, and the fish were feeding. After getting directions to the spot, I bought a can of Green Giant nibbletts corn, the recommended bait, and headed off.

I turned down the side road, found the steel bridge over the river and parked beside it as instructed. The Savannah River was beautiful, about 200 yards wide at that point with rocks all the way across. The rock areas were full of pools and streams of water. It looked like a fantastic place to fish.

I waded into the water and started walking upstream, casting a small Mepps spinner to likely looking places. Nothing bit so I opened the can of corn with my pocket knife and put a kernel of corn on one of the treble hooks. On the first cast I hooked a 12 inch rainbow and put it on my stringer.

For the next couple of hours I caught fish out of almost every pool. I could hop from rock to rock and wade through the shallow streams, casting as I walked. Just after noon I had circled back to the truck, put my catch of trout on ice, and ate my lunch.

After lunch I decided to fish downstream from the bridge and had worked out to the very middle of the river at about 1:30 PM. I had two trout on my stringer hooked to a rock at my feet, and I was casting to a fairly deep pool, expecting to catch another trout any minutes.

A car went across the bridge about 200 yards upstream of me and blew its horn several times. I turned and waved, and went back to fishing. For some reason, something just did not seem right. I looked back and realized a fog was coming down the river. Then my heart almost stopped. The rocks I had walked on earlier above the bridge were under water, and the fog was from the cold water rushing down the river.

I grabbed my stringer of trout and started running across the slippery rocks toward the bank. I was lucky and did not fall, and was able to run straight to the bank, not around any pools. When I reached the edge, I was standing on a rock just above the water level and the top of the bank was at chest level.

I put my rod on the ground on the steep bank and hooked my trout to a limb. By the time I had done that the water had risen from ankle deep to waist deep where I was standing and I quickly climbed out.

Looking back to where I was standing just seconds earlier, there was a torrent of water several feet deep covering the rocks I had been on. The Corps of Engineers had started generating water at the Hartwell Dam three miles upstream, and the rushing water had almost washed me away. If the folks in the car had not blown their horn and warned me, I would have been trapped.

I stopped at the store on the way back and told them my story. They said a fisherman had drowned three days before when he had gotten caught by the rising water. They found his body trapped in the rocks the next day when the water went down. They also told me the Corps had a warning siren on the dam but had quit using it because of complaints about the noise from local residents.

Lake Russell now backs up to the Hartwell dam and there is no moving water. The old steel bridge was cut in the middle and is now a fishing pier.

I was lucky to survive my first trout fishing trip, thanks to some unknown person blowing their horn and warning me.