This year has been a transitional year. Leaving behind the teaching profession was difficult as was leaving a place and friends I really enjoyed. In many ways that made the end of 2013 and 2014 the toughest time of my life. However, the opportunity to dive headlong into the fly fishing business as a guide was a lifelong dream come true. At this point, I'm not sure what the future holds. At the very minimum I'll still be guiding some on the side as I'm not sure if I'll end up back in the classroom or not. If guiding continues to be a full-time career, you won't hear any complaints from me. On my first day as a guide in 2014, I looked around as soon as we hit the water and thought, this is my office now!
Here on my blog, the last trip of 2013 prompted my first post of 2014. A cold weather Smokies trip resulted in a beautiful brown trout that ate a streamer, in other words, my kind of fish. Later on in January, I had the pleasure of both reviewing Matt Supinski's book Selectivity as well as interviewing the author by phone. What a pleasure to talk to someone who appreciates finicky fish as much and probably even more than I do!
By the end of January, Trout Zone Anglers was born. In February, I made a last trip back to Colorado to visit friends who would soon be moving on out of my life. The chance to return to South Boulder Creek was too good to pass up, and I enjoyed some great winter fishing without ever getting my feet wet. Back in Tennessee, we were stuck in the polar vortex that delayed the spring hatches and generally wreaked havoc with the early season fishing. There were fish to be caught, but it wasn't as easy as some years. By late February, all the paperwork was completed with the National Park Service to officially guide in the Smokies, and I started taking bookings.
In March, the cool weather kept the fishing in the marginal category but we started to see bugs eventually. Trips to Smokemont as well as some closer to home kept me busy until I started doing guide trips by late in the month. April continued with much of the same. High flows on the tailwaters early in the month finally started to give way to some windows of opportunity for both guide trips and personal fishing excursions. Dogwood winter brought a return of the polar vortex, but by and large the month was a little better than the previous 2 months in terms of nice fishing weather. One of my favorite trips in April was a guide's day off trip down to the Caney. I had always heard about the run of buffalo but never experienced it for myself. That all changed when I hit the water with hundreds of huge fish everywhere. What a trip!
May was one of the highlights of the year for me. Tranquil evenings chasing farm pond bass, perfect flows in the mountains to catch trout, generally one of the best fishing months in Tennessee, it produced both good fishing as well as some opportunities to give back. One of my favorite opportunities in May was to help with a Casting for Recovery Event. It was a lot of fun and I hope to make it back again this year. Another highlight of not only the month of May but of the whole year was the chance to camp for a couple of nights up in the Smokies with my buddy Joe McGroom. We have fished all over together including Colorado, Yellowstone, and of course throughout east Tennessee. One of my oldest and best fishing buddies, Joe is one of the best fishermen I know and always fun to share the water with. Another great trip in May included a Caney trip where I found some carp. By the end of the month, Trout Zone Anglers had added a new trip option, float trips! Yes, a drift boat was added to the arsenal. An older boat, it nevertheless did everything that I needed a drift boat to do and was soon put to work taking anglers down the Caney Fork River.
June brought a lot more work in the form of guide trips but I also still found time to sneak away and fish. Local smallmouth streams were really turning on, and I was out fishing hoppers as often as possible. A 1/2 day guide trip in the Smokies helped me find one of the better browns when I decided to fish for myself after the completion of the guide trip. June ended on a high note with a client getting a better than average brown on Little River. I think I was even more excited than he was. Oh, and I should mention again that this was his first fish ever in the Smokies. Some people have all the luck...
In August I was still chasing smallmouth in between lots of guiding, but things were busy enough that I started to slack off a little here on the blog. By September, jokes that I had been making about an early fall as far back as June were looking more serious. Beautiful leaves were showing up with regularity on the streams. Part of that had to do with the slightly drier than normal year we had in east Tennessee.
October saw the normal peak colors in the Smokies along with the usual excellent late season fishing. I caught some of my largest Park rainbows in the fall burst of great fishing. High water returned as the norm on the Cumberland Plateau which meant that the Caney Fork River would rarely be fishable for the rest of the year. Striper fishing was spotty this year but I eventually got one in October.
November brought an early winter with snow and cold temperatures. For my birthday I managed to find a big Smoky Mountain brown trout that would eat a streamer.
The highlight of December was getting my buddy Dan Muenger out after some musky and putting one in the boat on his first ever musky trip. I can't take all the credit as he is an excellent angler and stuck with the game plan for a long day of tossing big flies. Trips to delayed harvest streams kept me busy in between the events associated with the holidays. One last guide trip at the end of the month allowed me one more chance to fish in the Smokies. After putting all three new anglers on their first few trout, I headed back out and caught double digit numbers of fish in the last hour and a half of daylight and was reminded how important water temperature is this time of year.
So there you have it. 2014 has been quite a year but as much as I've enjoyed starting a guiding business, I am looking forward to a New Year and hope for a much happier 2015. I plan on fishing as much as possible and continuing to build my still young guide business. The west is still calling me and if gas prices stay low, I may head that way at some point this year to relax and enjoy the wild country.
I hope each of you has a great 2015 and that you can spend even more time out on the water! Thanks for being a loyal reader and supporter of the Trout Zone.
