A Beautiful Day

This is the first time that we have ever brought the boat with us for our week in Helen.

We found the most beautiful lake and we enjoyed it so much.

This new dock leads to a campground that was so neat.

We read that it is a 32 acre state park.

What we loved about it besides the beauty was the cleanliness.

I wish I had took pictures of the campground.

There is a stream designated just for the young (11 and under) and the older (65 and older) with fish. It was beautiful. It had seats, a swing and a bridge. I just loved it. When we got back to our condo we read that they also have hiking trails and fishing for the disabled.

The name of this is Moccasin Creek State Park.

This state park borders Lake Burton. This is where we were going.

Oh it is beautiful and so clean. We need to learn the lake to fish but we will after a few times.

It was gorgeous.

We were sitting in a swing on the bank while our sweet hubbys were getting the boat ready to go. We didn't get that many fish but we had a ball.

What would we do without our sweet guys!
The day passed by so quickly but we knew that we had to get back so we could play Canasta with these guys. They have been on a winning streak so we were ready to take on the challenge again.

Can you see these fish? They are trout.

Right next to this campground and part of this state park is a trout hatchery.

One of the guys saw me taking pictures and invited me to watch them load up.

They scoop up the trout into this bag and then weigh them.

Then they dump them into a tank on to the truck.
Each June about 400,000 4 inch fingerling trout, 4-6 months old arrive from Chattahoochee Forest National Fish Hatchery. The trout are grown for about 9 months until they are approx. 9 inches long. The trout are loaded on to trucks specifically for this and transported starting in mid march through labor day to streams and lakes.

I tried to watch to see how many pounds of fish they were getting. I think it was 50 lbs for each tank. I asked them where they were taking the fish and they said that they stock all over Georgia. I thought this was so interesting. This hatchery used to be in charge of the campground but it became too much to take care of so the state took it over and made it a state park. Lake Burton was one of the first lakes in the U.S. created specifically for power generation. The 2700 acre lake was created in 1913 by completing the dam. This lake is surrounded by beautiful mountains. I honestly believe this is one of the prettiest lakes that I have ever seen. We will be coming back here. We all loved it!