For this discussion we will be talking about fiberglass boats. They dominate the market and for good reason. Aluminum driftboats are durable and long lasting but repairing them is beyond the capability of most fly fishers. Unless you have the equipment and expertise to heliarc weld, you should leave aluminum boats to the pros. Not so with fiberglass, repair materials are readily available and the skill needed is easily mastered with a little practice.

First you should dry the boat completely, it should have been out of the water for several days and preferably stored inside before you begin any repairs. Small dings and scrapes can sometimes be fixed with the boat still on the trailer but if you go beyond that the boat will have to be turned over to expose the bottom. Take off knee locks, anchor brackets, oar locks, anything that might be damaged when the boat is rolled over and remove any seats and lockers you can to reduce weight. Notice the fiberglass cloth tape covering both the chines! Get a buddy or two and roll the boat over. Drift boats are built tough and can be supported on their side while you flip them over. Once you have it flipped, clean the bottom thoroughly and let it dry. Inspect it for damage. The chines, or edges usually take the brunt of the hits so look them over good. Grind or sand out any loose, damaged, or delaminating glass you find. You want to get down to clean, well bonded material. For small dings and scrapes, especially those that don't go all the way through the gel coat (the outer protective coating) all you really need is body filler. Most marine supply stores sell a product called "marine-tex" and it works well for these kind of repairs. Mix it according to instructions and putty it in with a plastic squeegee. Let it set up and sand it down smooth. That's it! You can just use auto body touch up paint to cover the area if you like, or leave it as is.

 If your bottom looks like the one in the picture or worse, you have some work to do! Inspect the deep gouges thoroughly, check for soft spots that are getting weak and clean out any dirt or loose fiberglass from the scrapes. Sand everything with 80 grit paper, either by hand or with a random orbital sander and blow off the dust, clean the entire bottom with solvents to remove any grease or oils. Lacquer thinner or mek work great for this.  I would recommend a long sleeve shirt and dust mask for these steps because fiberglass strands are itchy and cling to exposed skin. Now off to the marine or auto body supply store. Get the amount of 6 or 8 oz fiberglass cloth you think you may need, and a quart or two of either polyester, or epoxy resin and hardener. Epoxy is harder, and bonds better to dissimilar materials, but polyester is less expensive, easier to work with, and is what was used to build your boat in the first place. Also get some mixing cups, stir sticks, and disposable latex gloves. This stuff is messy! Also pick up some short strand fiberglass reinforced, waterproof body filler (bondo) and a few beers probably wouldn't hurt.

Deep divots, especially at the chines will have to be built back up by dry cutting fiberglass cloth to fill the hole. Start small and cut each piece progressively bigger so the final piece overlaps the repair by an inch or so on each side. Once you have your repair pieces cut and placed together next to the repair area you can mix up some resin. Start small, depending on the temperature and humidity you will only have a few minutes to work before it begins to set up, or harden. Don't try to force hardening resin into a repair, mix a new batch and begin again. It won't take long to get a feel for this but if you mix a whole can and only get to use a little before it hardens, well, it can get expensive! Wet the repair area with resin using a foam brush and begin laying each layer of cloth you precut into the repair, wet it just enough for it to become transparent, squeegee off the excess, you don't want pools of resin left on the surface, it will weaken the patch. Use this procedure with all the repair areas. It sounds complicated but you get a feel for it pretty quick. Try to be neat with the resin and glass because any drips or runs will have to be sanded off once it dries. For really rough and damaged chines it's a good idea to run a strip of glass cloth or tape all the way down the length of the chine exposed to the waterline. Just make sure the surface is sanded and prepared according to the previous instructions. Prep is everything, take the time to do it right! If you have an actual hole, it will have to be reinforced on both sides to make the repair last. As long as the fiberglass and resin remain tacky you can just keep adding layers, if you take a break and allow it to set up, it's best to lightly sand and clean with solvent before you add any more layers. Once you are finished with the glassing, drink the beer and let it set up, usually overnight. Come back and inspect your work, make sure everything set up correctly. If anything is soft it may need more time or you mixed the resin and hardener incorrectly in which case it will need to be removed, cleaned and sanded. If you took care to measure and follow instructions though, this should not be a problem.

Light sand everything, you will probably need to mix up some of the body filler according to instructions and fill some areas and sand to make them smooth. How smooth is up to you. My boat is a work boat ,so I don't get too anal about this as long as it's reasonable and doesnt look like a monkey did it. If you want to put in the time you can restore it back to factory appearance. You can then either re paint with marine epoxy paint using the roll and tip method, or use spray equipment if you have it. Both will look really nice, or you can take it to a fiberglass shop and have them re apply gel coat. I would not recommend applying gel coat youself, as it's pretty tricky stuff and not really necessary for most of our purposes.

Congratulate yourself! You just repaired your own boat, did it right, and most likely saved yourself hundreds of dollars. The next time you hit a rock or ledge you can quietly tell yourself..  "I can fix that" ..

All in all a great week. The weather was awesome, incredible really for this time of year, the river treated us well, made some new friends, and got to see some old ones. What more can you ask for late Winter??

The Clinch continues to run around 16500 cfs! That last big round of rain we got brought Norris lake up past what would be considered flood stage for this time of year, obviously sending the powers that be into a panic, so Norris has been sluicing an extra 7500 cfs bringing the total output from the dam up to 16500 cfs. Sound like a lot? You betcha! Here we are launching at Miller's Island on an ill advised streamer run! This is the road leading down to the ramp..not the ramp itself..not often one gets to float out of the parking lot into the river! Many years ago another guide and myself floated the Clinch on almost exactly this water level, due to an intolerable case of cabin fever, and had one of the best streamer fishing days of my life..this was not one of those days! The fish were hugging the bottom for dear life and not interested in chasing our offerings. Still floating the river was a blast. And it certainly didn't take very long!

We then progressed to a much safer and rewarding plan and packed up the gear and headed for the South Holston. I've done several trips up there in the last couple of weeks and the fishing has been pretty darn good. Most days we floated nymphs under indicators and caught good numbers of brown, and rainbow trout in the usual places, even saw a few blue wing olives hatching but the fish weren't on 'em, so we just plied the holes with nymphs and caught fish pretty much all the way down the river. When the sun was out, the fish were on, when the sun went down, so did the fish..pretty typical for Winter fishing. I was back up there this Monday with resident streamer fanatic Peter Petruzzi to do some fishing with the big uglies and had a great day, sun was out most of the time, and the fish were actively chasing the fly.  I always enjoy the South Holston and seeing my old buddy, and shuttle driver extroidinaire, Jack Prater. The South Holston is still running a good flow at the time of this writing but things can change rapidly. Boone lake is down to Winter pool so the river pretty much flows all the way to Bluff city.

 I'd like to wish everyone a great Hoilday season and thanks to all of you who took part in the Christmas gift certificate drive, it allows me to rake in some much needed Winter cash and nets those folks who take part a pretty good discount on some Spring (or Winter) fishing. I'll leave you with one more picture from the most recent South Holston trip and the wish that all of you get the chance to get out and do some fishing this season. I'll be starting the new newsletter this Spring so if you want it, and havent signed up, drop me an email or sign the guest book on this site. Merry Christmas everyone! Keep the faith, Spring is just around the corner! 

 "Eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it"

                                                                 Norman Maclean

Over on the Holston I had a chance to fish with Mike and Glenn and even though he's camera shy Mike sent me some great pictures from the trip. One is Glenn holding a nice Holston rainbow and the other is a fish we caught on a cane rod built by Walter Babb and a Bogdan reel, both belonging to Mike. A really nice, classic setup.  

And last but not least, another nice rainbow caught on the Clinch by Jack..

Hope everybody is having a great November and getting a chance to get out and do a little fishing before Winter sets in. I've really been bitten by the Winter fishing bug this year, not sure whether it's my plans to build a new Tailwater 9' 5wt cane rod, or the boat building project, but I'm more excited about the possibilities this season than I have been in a while..I'll keep you posted.

The Holston appears to have had a good holdover from the Summer heat but we haven't had much opportunity to fish it because of inconsistent water schedules. Hopefully soon,  TVA will get where they want to be on the lake levels and begin showing some rhyme or reason to the generation.

On a personal note we had a great grouse hunting outing to Wisconsin this year! Got to hunt all five days which is almost a record for us. It generally rains or snows at least a couple of days while we're there but this year was an exception. Plenty of birds, good dog work, and lots of shooting. Fun trip!

My friend Peter Petruzzi sent me this picture of a brookie he caught in the Shenandoah Valley a few days ago on a cane rod I made for him this past Winter and I just had to share it here. I've been looking for a good picture to use to start a cane rod page on this site and Peter came through for me in spades! Cane rod building got me into the business of fly fishing back in the early nineties when I thought I wanted to make it a full time profession. I quickly discovered I would much rather spend my Spring through Fall season on the river than in a dark rod shop planing bamboo, but I still enjoy making a few rods every Winter to pick up some off season cash and hopefully to build something that will ultimately outlast the maker. I still love cane rods, especially short light ones. Stepping into a mountain stream with a dry fly and a well made cane rod is like stepping back in time, they definitely have an appeal all their own.

Hope everyone gets a chance to do some late Fall and Winter fishing this year!

Mike..

Open a topo map of East Tennessee and look at the thin blue lines that criss cross the area. Pick out almost any one of these and chances are, they contain smallmouth bass! East Tennessee has literally hundreds of miles of bass streams that comprise some of the most under fished water in the state!

Where I come from in Middle Tennessee there were no trout, at least not any to speak of, TWRA stocked some of the small creeks in the area but the few fish who survived the day after stocking onslaught, had little or no chance of surviving the Summer heat. Almost everyone I knew who fished with a fly rod fished for bluegill ,or the occasional bass, on Kentucky Lake during the willow fly hatch. Most then put the fly rods away in favor of more conventional tackle and chased largemouth and Kentucky bass from tricked out bass rigs. Lacking the finances to buy such a boat I began concentrating my efforts on the many creeks that fed into the lake and soon found myself catching fish that would make the big water boys envious. Moreover, I was doing it alone, and with a fly rod! Thus began my lifelong addiction to smallmouth bass on the fly!

These days I mostly fish from a drift boat and without question my absolute favorite way to fish is drifting an uncrowded river, chunking poppers or streamers to the bank for smallies. I do it every Summer. Lately I've noticed a growing interest amongst the folks who are kind enough to fish with me, in streamer fishing for big browns, and chasing smallmouth bass on the fly. So I thought I might pass along some of the tips and tactics I feel work the best in the hopes it might get a few more people addicted as I am!

TACTICS..

Smallmouth are predators, from birth to death. I've often said they wake up mad and they're mood only gets worse as the day wears on. Whereas trout will simply hold in the current and wait for the river to bring them food, a smallmouth likes to hunt, run things down and kill them. Therefore most of my favorite smallmouth tactics require more action, you have to move the fly! When fishing streamers I often vary the retrieve between fast and extremely fast, sometimes pausing a moment or two to let the fly rest before resuming the retrieve, the start and stop technique. I recently had the opportunity to fish with legendary angler and fly tier Bob Clouser on the upper Clinch river and we were discussing this very thing, he told me when he was guiding he used to challenge his anglers to try and move the fly fast enough to pull it away from an approaching smallmouth, it can't be done! Sure there are times in very cold water when bass are lethargic that slow retrieves will work best, but that's mostly on lakes in Winter. Movement is key, it provokes the bass's predator response and often brings ferocious strikes.

The only real exception to this is popper fishing. Poppers are best fished by casting to the bank, or structure and allowing the fly to settle for a moment, I then give it a slight twitch or two, let it settle again, and then begin a retrieve, or pick it up and cast again. Most strikes will occur the moment the popper hits the water or very shortly thereafter. Sometimes a fish, most often a large fish, will levitate up under your popper and study it, chalk that up to wisdom of old age, in these instances I have found it best to just let the popper sit, perhaps only giving it a very slight twitch. Most often he will simply suck it in, or refuse it, but in this circumstance moving it rapidly will most likely spook the fish..there are always exceptions! Another exception are when bass are actively feeding in riffles or chutes in the river. Then a large rubber leg nymph like a stonefly or Helgramite imitation dead drifted under an indicator in classic trout fashion will catch a lot of fish. It's a technique well known to most trout fishers but I have found it works best in fast moving water. Many anglers like the “popper and dropper” technique where a nymph is suspended underneath a large popper. This often works well but is not one of my favorites for open water bass.

FLIES..

A good smallmouth selection does not have to be extensive, for years I basically fished with one fly, a white cone head streamer and I caught a bunch of fish. These days I carry a little better selection but that streamer is still my go to fly. A good fly box should contain a few flys that will allow you to fish a variety of depths from the top to the bottom. Poppers in chartruese, white, and yellow are a great choice in about a size four for smallies. Bigger poppers don't seem to work any better and often spook fish. I also like to have along a black popper or two for when smallmouth are jumping after dragon flies, that can be exciting. I also select poppers with a little weight to them, and a heavy epoxy coating. They hold up better when whacked against a rock and also make that resounding “PLOP” when they hit the water that I think attracts active fish.

The next category of flies are the divers, often made from deer hair, that float in the surface but dive when you retrieve them. Fish will often strike these violently and I like to fish them over gravel bars and sunken logs where a fast sinking fly would almost certainly get hung up.

Then you have the streamers, Synthetic Clouser minnows tied with some flash in them and rabbit strip flies with rubber legs, like the Gallup patterns for large browns, are my favorites here. Depending on your line of choice you can fish these through almost the entire water column and serve to cover a lot of river.

The final category are what I call the bottom bumpers. Crayfish or helgramite imitations that are fished on, or very near, the bottom. For these I like heavily weighted flies with dumbbell eyes or large cone heads. Sometimes tied weedless or with an inverted hook these are generally fished more slowly and allowed to bump along the bottom with only the occasional twitch to imitate a fleeing crayfish or a dislodged helgramite searching for a rock to hide under. A few flies that represent each of these categories should cover you pretty well on almost any bass stream

TACKLE..

For years I fished for bass on a six weight fly rod. These days I find by fishing the same flies on a seven or more often eight weight rod I am less tired at the end of the day. Even though the rods are a little heavier they cast the larger, more air resistant flies with less effort and are better able to handle the intermediate or sink tip lines often used in streamer fishing. While we're on that subject, you will probably need at least two lines, one floating, and one sinking. I like the 200 grain sink tips for most of my streamer fishing so I can vary the depth I fish them depending on the speed of my retrieve, and the extra weight makes the rod load up easier with large streamers. Full sinking lines find limited use and generally just wind up causing your fly to be stuck on the bottom most of the day. Often I carry two rods rigged with different lines, a floater for the poppers and a sink tip for the streamers. This makes switching between the two fast and efficient depending on conditions. Although some hard core fly fishers would consider it blasphemy, I often encourage folks to carry along a light or ultra light spinning rod and some floating Rapalas or Rebel crayfish plugs. After a long day of chunking streamers it's often nice to take a seat, rest your arm, and still cover some water. They don't sell so many of them because they don't work!

So whether your just looking for some variety in your fishing or returning to your roots like me, I encourage you to give smallmouth fishing a try. They are one of the gamest of game fish. Require a little different skill set, and are a challenge to even the most experienced anglers.

The Tennessee tailwater only guide license continues to be an interesting subject. As I currently understand it guides across the state were contacted and asked their opinion and an overwhelming percentage were in favor of it. So far I've only been able to locate one who was actually contacted and he was on the fence! Keep you posted on that too!

I'll be smallmouth fishing the next couple of days and looking to get some good pictures to go in a write up the first of the week on Tennessee smallmouth on the fly..check back then and wish me luck..good fishing everyone!

Mike

Guide License Proposal

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Commission discussed the possibility of implementing a fishing guide license at the Aug. 25 Commission meeting in Kingsport. The Commission felt that a guide license is needed to assist in expenses at TWRA’s state fish hatcheries due to the likely reductions in trout production at federal fish hatcheries in Tennessee, Dale Hollow and Erwin National Fish Hatcheries.

A recommendation was made to consider a fishing guide license only for the following waters: the rivers immediately below Wilbur, Watauga, South Holston, Cherokee, Norris, Appalachian, Tim’s Ford, Center Hill, Dale Hollow, and Normandy dams. The Agency was asked to recommend a proposed cost for the guide license, both resident and nonresident; any qualifications or restrictions that may be necessary; the projected cost for managing the program; and the projected revenue generated from the program. These recommendations will be presented to the TWRC on Oct. 13 at the Commission meeting in Nashville.

TWRA Soliciting Comments

The TWRA is soliciting comments for its 2012 sport fishing regulation changes and guide license proposals. This is an opportunity for the public to share ideas and concerns with the TWRA staff.

Public comments will be considered by fisheries managers and may be presented as proposals for regulation changes. Comments may be submitted by mail to: Sport Fish Comments, TWRA, Fisheries Management Division, P.O. 40747, Nashville, TN 37204 or emailed to TWRA.Comment@tn.gov. Please include “Sport Fish Comments” or “Fishing Guide License Comments” on the subject line of emailed submissions.

This comment period will be open until Friday, Oct. 7, 2011.

I was just recently made aware of this proposal and haven't been contacted by anyone from TWRA about it so I thought I would make everyone here aware of it also in case you haven't heard. I mostly live under a rock and only get out to chase fish so this may only be news to me! I would encourage..no..beseech everyone who has time to email or write TWRA with your comments and thoughts on this to do so. Here's mine..

I am not opposed to the licensing of trout guides in Tennessee, never have been, but to think that license fees from such a small number of individuals, after the cost of administering the program, would have any significant impact on hatchery funding is a pretty long reach! I don't know the exact number of people who guide for a living in the state, I'm sure it could be counted on two hands, maybe one, given the past few years economy.  As I read it, this doesn't include bass or striper guides, just trout. As I said, I'm not opposed to licensing guides, but it should be done for safety, and to ensure a certain degree of professionalism, not as a fund raising effort. Tennessee is not Montana. People do not come from all over the world to fish here. I for one am thankful for that as it keeps the traffic, and number of guides, down by virtue of supply and demand, and not by government regulations and programs. Not everyone who floats in a driftboat is a guide, these days most aren't. I know every guide who fishes the Clinch, and Holston rivers, at least with any amount of regularity. You can't help but run into each other on the river, and I can say with absolute certainty, there ain't many!

There are a lot more on the Wautauga and South Holston. Most days the parking lot at the put in and take outs are full, but only about 20% of those are from Tennessee, the rest are from North Carolina, and maybe Virginia. So many in fact that I quit fishing the Wautuaga all together several years ago. There probably does need to be some regulation on that river, maybe the South Holston too, but a river permit system for guides would make more sense and probably bring in more dollars, much like there has been on the Hiawasse for years. At the very least fees should be different for in state versus out of state guides simply by virtue of dollars they contribute to local economies. If you only drive in..fish..and leave, you contribute much less to local businesses than trips that originate locally. However all guides, whether in state or not, contribute to the TWRA and the trout fund through license sales. Clients buy licenses, often three day or even annual licenses, out of state clients pay more, and since most of us are catch and release, take nothing from the resource except pictures and memories.

Tell me what you think, better yet tell TWRA what you think, as my opinion is probably skewed! There are good reasons both for and against the licensing of guides in TN. but if budget cuts do come to pass and TWRA has to stock less fish the answer to maintaining a quality fishery is to take fewer out! DUUHH, it's a numbers game fellas. That's a regulation and enforcement issue. It's not going to be managed by collecting fees from a small handful of people, profit margins are not great anyway, nobody does this for the money, at least not for long. If fees were substantial enough to have a real impact most would just quit, or find creative ways around them.

I for one would be happy to contribute or do my part to ensure a quality fishery, both from a personal and professional stand point. Those of us who derive income from the resource should contribute a little more. Perhaps it's time to also consider a guide's association, maybe there's more out there than I think. But there is definitely more that can and should be done to address the issue. Better regulations, better enforcement, better education, the Clinch river has had a slot limit for a few years now,  but there are almost no signs anywhere on the river that tells anglers what that is. Maybe some of that proposed money could buy a sign or two.

Now on to cost. Yep, it's expensive! Especially to guides who are changing flies, undoing knots, and messing with the tippet all the time. You can go through a half spool a day. But, when you consider all the other expenses associated with a days fishing..food, gas, shuttles, boats, rods, etc...a little extra for something that probably adds to the fish count seems fairly negligible. Plus it's more abrasion resistant and that could translate into more landed fish. One way to cut down on cost is to buy it in bigger spools. Spin guys use it too, and if you trying to fill a 200 yd spinning reel spool with the stuff, you have to buy it cheaper than us flyfishers pay! Seaguar sells 100% flourocarbon on a 250 yd spool for roughly the same cost as a 30 yd spool of Umpqua, but there's a catch! They only make it down to 4lb test. Which makes the diameter roughly between .0065 and .007. That translates into about the same as 5x in the fly world. If you want to go any lower than that, you're probably going to have to pony up the extra dollars and go with the tippet size spools. A good rule of thumb is you can normally get away with one tippet size larger if you are using flourocarbon, another big plus for me. More pound test equals more landed fish and fewer lost flys, and since I use all tungsten beads, (more on that in a future article) the cost savings adds up. However in low, extremely clear water, like the Clinch, the premium material such as Umpqua and Orvis in 6 or even 7x is worth the extra cost, at least to me.

So bottom line, in high or stained water the gains may not justify the cost, but in clear, low water, fishing to spooky or pressured fish I use flourocarbon exclusively. Both when I fish and when I guide. I think it makes a difference. One word of caution..flourocarbon is a much stiffer, harder material than nylon so if you are tying it onto a leader or tippet made of nylon use the two sizes rule. In other words if you are tying 5x flourocarbon on, make sure it's onto 3x nylon to prevent the flourocarbon from cutting through it. You often hear complaints about knot strength in flourocarbon tippet materials and more often that not, that is the culprit! Good fishing everyone!