If you’re one of the many Georgia trout anglers whose ideas of Peach State trophy trout streams involve private water, fat trout, pricey guides and hefty access fees, it’s time to think again. Dukes Creek, in the Smithgall Woods Conservation Area near Helen, blows those assumptions out of the water with plentiful trophy rainbow and brown trout, with only a valid fishing license and trout stamp, a free reservation and a $5 daily parking fee required to fish for them. In more than a decade fishing for trout in the north Georgia mountains and more than five years guiding the area, this trout-obsessed outdoor writer has probably driven past Dukes Creek a hundred times on the way to other fishing haunts. The truth is, I, like many other...

Blue Ridge native Hunter Barnes had seen this fish before. He had watched it for two weeks in the tailout of a big run while guiding on the Toccoa River tailwater. A college student and wrestler at UT Chattanooga, Hunter spent the summer guiding, and in one stretch of river he watched a resident mallard gradually lose all but two of her six ducklings. He’s not saying this fish ate them all, but he knows at least one duck was prey for this massive brown trout. “I saw the fish eat a baby duck once,” he said. “It was like a stick of dynamite hit the water.” He guided the stretch almost daily with clients who were unable to hook-up with the 12-lb., 3.4-oz. fish, which he nicknamed “The Sub” because it...