There appears to be a very small Mountain Lion population in the Great Smokies, and a few animals apparently wander into northern Georgia. If I were you, I'd forget about trying to get photographs; mountain lions are notoriously shy and hard to see even where they're common. If you really want the challenge, you probably would need to bait one to a blind, but I really think you'd be setting yourself up for a lot of fruitless waiting.

There are plenty of books and videos out there on tracking techniques. The North Cascades Institute even offers an April seminar called Tracking Cougars and Their Prey!