Ep 123: Healing Through Fly Fishing and the Tallapoosa Bass, with Rowell Guevarra
Rowell Guevarra is a veteran and is more involved in helping the fly fishing community than anyone I’ve ever met. He is an EAFF Guide, PHWFF Assistant Program Lead, TMP Lead Mentor Advisor, OARS Foundation Board member and guide, and AL Native Fish Coalition Board Member. In this episode, we talk about his work across various nonprofits, how he was introduced to fishing through PHWFF, fishing for the Tallapoosa bass, and much more.
Facebook: /rowell.on.the.river
IG: @rowell.on.the.river
East Alabama Fly Fishing: www.eastalabamaflyfishing.com
OARS Foundation: www.oarsf.org
Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing: https://projecthealingwaters.org/
The Mayfly Project: https://themayflyproject.com/
Native Fishing Coalition: https://nativefishcoalition.org/
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 123 with Rowell Guevarra on healing through fly fishing and the Tallapoosa bass. Alright, perfect. Well, I start every episode by getting a background on my guests and how they got into fly fishing. So, I'd love to hear how you got your start in the outdoors and specifically in fly fishing.
Rowell
Awesome. Well, again, thanks for having me on. I do appreciate it. But fly fishing is fairly new to me, which is kind of odd for all the things I'm doing now. I grew up in California on the beach. I spearfished a lot, saltwater fish. It was all gear fishing. Moved down south in 2005 through the Army and found out this was the bass capital of the world at least at one time. So I started gear fishing and that turned into hunting. I quit fishing. And then after a while, I retired out of the Army and found a group, a non-profit called Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing. And if you don't know about Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, they serve disabled veterans across the US. They teach them how to tie flies, how to cast, how to build rods, and they put them on these trips. And one organization led to another, And I was hooked. And it has been going 100 miles an hour ever since.
Katie
Okay, so I want to back up just a little bit. So you grew up, or not you grew up, but you started fishing in Alabama before you were a fly fisherman. You were just gear fishing at that point.
Rowell
I was a worm dunker. I was buying Rapala lures every time I went out. And I was chasing, what is it, ripping lips and breaking hips and just going all, you know. It was all about the glare boat, get to your spot, fish it real hard, get to the next spot. It was very, very fast-paced, very intense, not relaxing at all.
Katie
And you said at one point it was the bass capital of the world. Why at one point? Why not now?
Rowell
I think it was the introduction of largemouth bass into the California region. When they started introducing the bass, the largemouth bass, to California, I think they were starting to eat trout, lake trout, and they started getting big. And I last time I checked, which was quite a bit ago, I mean they had something the eight largest largemouth bass out of the top 12 or something like that. Alabama has kind of moved away. Used to be Eufaula. Eufaula, Alabama used to hold them.
Katie
Okay, so it's less that Alabama has gotten worse and more just that California has taken over as kind of a premier bass spot.
Rowell
Right, yeah, I think so. And I don't follow much of the gear fishing anymore or the lake fishing but That's that's what I gathered it from. I know Texas has got some really good programs that to grow some really big bass But again, that's more gear fishing kind of stuff.
Katie
That's interesting I wouldn't have guessed California because I think of the South when I think of big bass Like I mean, obviously Alabama fits that and I think of Florida, Texas all these states But California is not one that would have come to mind for me.
Rowell
I wouldn't think so either but that's how California does it
Katie
So you're a member of project healing waters at this time and tell me how it goes from from this first experience of you know Having this like healing. I mean, I know you're gonna be the one to tell me about it, but presumably a healing journey You're getting into the sport and now you are a member of so many different organizations and actually playing a role in all of these So how did it go from this to where you are now?
Rowell
So I you know when I first met those guys I was working at a church and they were just looking for a place to meet and as I said Absolutely come serve our community and as they're walking out I said if you guys need any help, I'd love to help help soldiers and they they asked if I served and I said yes and They said well, why don't you come out and see what it's like and learn, you know be a participant in the program. And I was like, "Nah, I don't know about this fly fishing thing." And they finally talked me into it. And so I think that first meeting, I learned how to tie, I think it was a clouser or something. And I thought it was so amazing that I had veterans from all different eras. We had Vietnam vets there, some Desert Storm vets, and the Global War, terrorism, that's my era, guys were all there. It fulfilled something that was missing. It was that camaraderie that we had while serving. It was there. All the banter was there. The making fun of the different services, the making fun of each other's jobs. You had to have a thick skin, and it was a great, great time. It was a great bunch of guys and gals. And to walk away from that first meeting not knowing anything about it, and through their patience and step-by-step instruction. I walked away with three flies and I'm like, "I made this." My wife started calling it arts and craft. You're going to your arts and craft meeting. Anyway, I thought that was really cool. You just forgot about everything else and you just concentrated how many wraps you were supposed to do. You didn't know the difference between a hook eye and the bend in the hook. It was just a new challenge. Then as it progresses on, when you start to learn how to cast. It's the same thing. The first thing I see in men is we try to power. We see these guys cast across the lawn and we're like, "Oh, I could do that." So you try to throw harder and you end up causing a snap of the line whipping around or getting hit in the back of the head with a fly because you're doing something wrong. So again, that's another aspect. You just clear your mind. It's a form of meditation, you will, and you're just concentrating on your motion. Once you see someone who casts beautifully, it's mesmerizing. It's almost an art, I think, kind of art and science where they meet. And then it takes you a little further. Once you get on the water, now you're in a beautiful river. You don't see anybody there. In the river we fish on, the Tallapoosa River, there's hardly any trash, There's no development. And a lot of the stretches, wherever we go on, there's no I mean, maybe occasional kayaker, but we have these shoals that prevents all the other bass boats from showing up or pontoons. So you need a raft or a kayak to go through. So again, being alone, being in that beautiful place, and all you're concentrating on is whatever someone's telling you to do. Cast right here, your arm too far back, you're breaking your wrist, all these little things. And I thought to my first thing I thought was, I didn't even realize we're in Alabama anymore. It was so beautiful. I was used to looking at Chattahoochee, which was mud brown all the time, and here's this crystal clear water, beautiful flowers, the scenery was beautiful, and these fish that we were catching, and it was a Talapuzza red-eyed bass. And if you don't, you know, Dr. Lewis probably told you, they're not very big growing fish, but they are fierce fighters, and they're beautiful, beautiful fish. He's referred to them as Alabama's brook trout because they get these real beautiful colors just like the brook trout do. So but with that you know the I got linked into another organization called the OARS Foundation and these guys their sole job is to get people out on the water and where Project Healing Waters only deals with disabled veterans they've opened up the spectrum a little bit more. If you're active duty, if you are a veteran without disabilities, if you're a And then we even further, first responders like, you know, policemen, firemen, nurses, we'll take them out on their family, give them a day on the water, show them a little bit, let them experience that same calming serenity of the river and send them on their way. And, you know, if they get hooked onto it, we'll bring them back a few other times. If they are a veteran, we'll push them over to Project Healing Waters so that they can continue on that learning process. And then not too much after that, I was listening to an Orvis podcast and Tom Rosenbauer had a gentleman by the name of Jess Westbrook in from the Mayfly Project on and he talked about this this program that it's all volunteers and they teach foster kids how to fly fish. And I thought, "Well that's amazing." And you know, one day a month for five months and at the end of it they give them all their gear. So as they go from foster home to foster home, they not only they their Walmart bag full of clothes or whatever their belongings, but they got a sling bag with flies and a fly rod and a cool skill to get away from. And I started thinking, well, you know, if it works for veterans and it works for first responders, I mean, a foster kid goes through some traumatic things and sure it'll work for them as well, so why not? But, and in each of these organizations I branched off to a whole different story. You know, Project Healing Waters, I continued on with them. I started helping them with their social media started, just kept going at it. I was addicted to casting. Uh, I wanted to learn to double hold so bad and I could not do it for so long. I think I spent every day, you know, 30 minutes to an hour trying to do it. And, uh, finally I think a month to it clicked and I was like, look, there it goes. I could do it now. Um, you know, and, uh, I got the bug and as time went on, I was helping teaching, casting, and then now an assistant program lead for Auburn's Project Healing Waters. And we cover everyone from just outside Atlanta all the way to, we have guys come from Enterprise, which is two hours away to hang out with us. So awesome, awesome program. The OARS Foundation, I was on their first trip when they started. Jim Reitz is a guide from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He's won the Jackson One Fly a few times. But his wife teaches and is now a principal here in Auburn. So for the summer he would come, you know, end of May he would drive out to Jackson Hole, guide, and then he'll be back around Thanksgiving time and, you know, spend the offseason out here. Well, on one of his trips back, the very next day he was taking me out on the water. That was my first trip. And I was amazed that he would do that. This guy just spent months away from his family, and the next day he's taking me out on a float. I thought that was the coolest thing. This guy didn't serve in the military. His parents didn't serve in the military. And just out of the kindness of his heart, he's doing this for guys like me to help us heal. So fast forward, I have the same thing with Project Healing Waters. I said, "All right, what can I do to help? What can I do to see this program help others?" It started off with small stuff, like I was helping them with their social media and stuff. Now I'm taking out veterans, just like he took me out rowing boats and sitting on their board. The Mayfly Project, when I called for my interview, I thought I would be volunteering up in Atlanta because that was the closest project. They said, "Well, we don't have one in Alabama. Do you want to start one?" I was like, "Oh, I don't know." Yeah, it was kind of odd. I talked to my wife about it, and she says, "It's one day a month for five months. It's a little bit of a drive, but it's going to make a huge impact on a kid's life." So I said, "Okay." I decided to go ahead with it, start the one in Alabama instead, put it out on Facebook, and all of a sudden, I had 30 new best friends. Everyone just came out of the woodworks wanting to support this and it grew really quick We weren't even done with our first year yet And I got a call from a guy from Huntsville, and he says hey I want to start one here, and I said absolutely come down and see you know see one of ours How it works come fish with us, and if you still want to do it. I'll help you out and so we did and That next year you started the one in Huntsville. I gave him a list of names. I said call these guys I know they're a little closer to you and they helped him out. And then probably at the end of, or probably in the middle of last year, we both asked all our folks, I said, "Who wants to start one in Birmingham?" Because half my guys were from Birmingham, half his guys were from Birmingham, and that's two and a half hours away. And one of our mentors said, "I think I'd like to do it." So in three years, we started three projects in Alabama, which was fairly quick from what I understand, and I think that has to do with the fly-fishing community here in Alabama. I think it's a little different. I jokingly say it is, it's a young group because I don't think folks have been fly-fishing here, not as, it hasn't been as prolific as say Pennsylvania or Colorado or Montana. So folks have been doing it for a while, but together as a community with the advent of social media, it's grown really quick. And you mix in with southern hospitality and then you just have a good time. Most of time fly fishing is a very solo solitude thing you do on your own get away from everybody. Down here it's a little different. If you see someone across the river with a fly rod you make your way over there introduce yourself say hi and see what works and offer up a fly if he's having trouble. Very very common thing to do I really think these guys, one day in the future, is going to be a destination for folks. I also, I now guide for East Alabama Fly Fishing. Drew Morgan is who owns it, and he started it 2016, and you know, it started with just him, and it quickly grew to eight guides. So there's eight of us now that guide on this river. And we have folks that drive up from Texas, come down Indiana Florida North Carolina than I was used to.
Katie
Yeah, there's definitely pros and cons. I feel like it's nice to have a lot of people who fish in that, you know, there's always somebody around who you can talk to and you don't feel isolated. But I also feel like there's something really nice about that small community that kind of pops up in a place that you wouldn't expect because everyone you meet then, it's like a much more intimate experience. You know, I can go out and find a thousand people in Colorado who fish and that's great, but it kind of takes away that smaller community vibe. It gets, you know, it's, you know, it gets kind of bro-y, people trying to kind of one-up each other. And I feel like if you feel like you're in a small niche group amongst a larger state that doesn't necessarily see eye-to-eye with you or just doesn't recognize that you exist, it kind of forms you into a like a brotherhood or sisterhood in a way that when everyone does it, there's just not that same intimacy.
Rowell
Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, just walking around the mall or something, if you see someone wearing a Simps hat or, know a local fly shop sure you walk up to them introduce yourself like hey what river you fish and next thing you know you're your Facebook friends and you're going out fishing so it is absolutely a neat aspect we have out here and I'm sure there's other places it's like that but I just think it's it's special because I'm here not because I'm here but because that's where I live.
Katie
It is special because you're there. I mean it sounds like you're doing a lot of good for the fly fishing community so I I think it's fair to say that It's special because you're there.
Rowell
I appreciate that, but no, it really, it's a community as a whole. That's what makes it what it is, I think.
Katie
So I have a whole bunch of questions based on what you were talking about. The first thing that came to mind is you mentioned that when they first brought it up to you about coming out on one of these fly fishing trips, maybe it was the fly tying, that you said you were kind of skeptical. Why were you skeptical? What, you know, as someone who did obviously enjoy bass fishing with gear, what about the fly fishing kind of gave you pause?
Rowell
Well I think there's a lot of stereotypes that come with fly fishing. For one, there's you know the one that's all that I always hear especially here is there's no trout here, right? And everyone thinks if you're fly fishing you got to be fly fishing for trout. And then the other thing it is a older rich white man sport. And so I obviously do not fit the bill. And then just being in the South, you know, I'm kind of an oddity. But I don't know. Another thing that I think maybe intimidated me were those size 22 flies that I saw online and I didn't realize, man, those are tiny. I don't know how I could get my, you know, big ugly calloused fingers to tie a knot with those things. Yeah, and you know, I had lived a very fast-paced life at the time or up to that point, and so I wasn't sure I was ready to slow down. It seemed like it was a very slow. But once I did it, I was blown away. I'm like, "Oh, this is so much better." It's like when you finally decide in your life that you're going to turn off the news and not watch cable news 24/7. You know, it's just life is so much better. So I think there was a few things I didn't know what I was getting into. It was such an unknown. It was so foreign to me. But that was another thing that Project Healing Waters did. It took people from all ages, all backgrounds. When I showed up there and I was like, "Oh, okay. These are my people. These are guys I served with, deployed at different times in the same place." A lot of these people, actually, we knew a lot of the same folks. That really opened the door for me.
Katie
You mentioned that there was a camaraderie when you're all sitting around tying flies together. People are ribbing each other and stuff. Do you think that having something to do is a necessary part of this? I'm sure a lot of veterans want that community, but maybe I'm stereotyping here. I don't picture a lot of especially older men wanting to just sit down in a roundtable and just talk to each other. I feel like most of them would be kind of resistant to that, but having something in front of you that you're kind of focusing on, if you don't have anything to say for a little bit, you can just focus on your fly and then chime in when you want to. I feel like that would kind of lower the barrier to entry for people where they feel like they can come and there's no expectation of how much they're going to participate or talk. Do you find that that is the case? are more open to it because they're able to be doing an activity together instead of just sitting and talking about their feelings or any more traditional type of like therapy.
Rowell
Well, you know, men in general love talking about their feelings and very open to it. Yeah, no, nobody likes talking about their feelings. And especially veterans, they have a very hard time talking about especially things that they've seen and done while deployed. They don't, you know, for a myriad of reasons, people think they'll get looked down upon. People think that they're crazy because of their experiences have become very callous about things. And a lot of times their humor or point of view is not appreciated. And it's part of relearning to come back to normalcy. Now, it does get lonely on that way to normalcy. And having this group kind of remind you, you're okay. And seeing different people in their different journeys and stages of, I keep saying normalcy, I don't even know if that's normal, but coming back from a deployment or a hard experience fitting back into society, it's a great venue to do it in. And you're right, when you just fly time, you'll see when something hard comes up, you know, everyone stops talking and they're peeking and looking at everyone else's stuff. And then, yeah, and when it gets to an easy part, everyone starts talking a bit, talking again, making fun of each other. So if anyone is interested in it vaguely, you know, there's no pressure to do anything. You could just show up there, sit back and eat the free pizza they bring and that would be fine. And you can come to one meeting and never come again if you wanted. There's no commitment. It's not a club. You don't pay dues or anything like that. But it's one of those things where the more you come, the more you'll be exposed to different people, different things, and more opportunities to learn something new. And then eventually they'll send you on a trip.
Katie
And what do you find about fly fishing is particularly helpful for these people? I can picture it myself, going out and maybe I'm stressed about work or something, I go fishing and it kind of calms me down. But that's hardly comparable to, I'm sure, what a lot of these people have experienced. So sometimes I feel like that's an inappropriate comparison to pretend that the daily stress the same as having traumatic experiences like that. So what is it about fishing that you've been able to pick out as like, this is particularly healing? Is it the community? Is it the actual act of fishing? The quiet? Is it all of it wrapped up together?
Rowell
Yeah, I think it's everything. It's hard. I don't even know if I can explain it, but as I was talking earlier, when you're on that river and you're just thinking about fish and where they're at, and your cast, and everything slows down, you forget about everything. All you're looking at is that next spot. Or you're looking at, "Please don't get hung up on that tree." Or, "I hope I don't hit the guy rowing the boat in the head." There's all these things that you're thinking about. So there's a lot to think about, but it's a very slow pace. And it's very soothing. I can't put my finger on it, really, except for how I feel when I do it. It's rhythmic. Just watching somebody cast, I think, if I see a beautiful loop, I'm just amazed. If I tell them to cast here and they hit it on the first try, I'm blown away and excited for them. Then to turn around and share it with, from the guiding aspect, to share a father-son moment when he's catching his first fish or his big fish or a new species, it's amazing. It's an honor to be a part of that memory, or to make that memory happen. For East Alabama fly fishing, Drew's thought process behind it isn't, you know, "Hey, let's be guides to be rich." I don't know if any guides do that. Maybe out west where you are, they get rich. But down here, it was really, "Hey, let's build a community and let's give them an experience." That's our goal. Give them, whether it's a person who gets to fish one time a year and they save up their money and take a day off on the perfect day, let's give them the best possible time ever. Or if it's a guy who fishes every weekend and for whatever reason he books a trip with us. Maybe he doesn't have a raft or he wants to see a new river or I don't know, maybe he's bringing somebody new, wants some instruction. We'll give him just as good of a time as a person who's holding a fly rod for the first time.
Katie
That's awesome. I feel like there's got to be a benefit to fly fishing in particular as well because there's the fly tying aspect. So even when you're not able to be on the river, there's a way to kind of bring it home. Because I could see it being, not that it be helpful but if you picked an activity where you get outside and it's great and you're you know people are feeling like they're being helped but then they go home and maybe it's a couple months before they can go on another yeah then there might be kind of a lapse in that progress that they're making but having something like fly time to come home to and be able to do that and still feel like you're very much engaged active you know you could text your friends about what you're tying and things like that like it keeps that that ball rolling in a way that might be missed if you picked an activity that didn't have that like secondary aspect to it.
Rowell
Yeah, I agree. Except for I suck at fly tying. No doubt. And all I thank God I have some great friends who are phenomenal fly tires and I will tie out a necessity and I will tie a slump buster. And that's the only thing I will tie. And so I have some great friends that I, you know, they'll tie supplies for me and I'll tell client, I'm like, "You got some custom flies there, you know, made by some local anglers." And they'd be like, "Really?" I'm like, "Yeah, they're my friends." So, yeah, it is, you know, it's another thing of, I don't know if it's because of my age, but you know, I have fat calloused fingers and now I have bad eyes. I could not tie a trout fly for anything. Now, these big streamers, I can get away with it. They look more like wounded bait fish than a bait fish swimming.
Katie
That might be good, that might be helping you.
Rowell
But I promise I'm winning no contest. I cannot make three flies the same, you know, definitely not 12.
Katie
Well, I've caught a lot of trout on some pretty ugly flies that I've made as well, so luckily the fish don't seem to care as long as it's enticing.
Rowell
Right. So I end up spending most of my time, if I am not on the river, guys at my work laugh because they hear me sigh about every 30 minutes, they say, and I didn't realize I do that, I sigh and I study maps. I study maps, watch videos. I am on any Facebook group that is focused on that river because a lot of times it's like a kayak club and they're like, "Hey, we went out today." And I'm zooming in and looking at the water level. I'm looking at the clarity and trying to see, okay, at this time I'll look at the gauge height, constantly studying that river. And that's how I get by not fly time. If it's not raining, I will go outside and cast. I've been known to do that. I'll sit there at the parking lot on Fort Benning on the grass and people laughing at me like, "You can't catch any fish there." Again, I didn't know we had trout out here in the South. I'm like, "Yeah, okay, whatever." I've heard this about 10 times already. So yeah, definitely one aspect. There are many aspects I need to work on to improve my game. Fly tying definitely is on the top of my list.
Katie
I'm with you. I'm a relatively novice tire, but I spend my time looking at maps and planning trips and figuring out where I could go next year and all that. That's where I get the most enjoyment off the water. So I'm with you there. Although I'm not going out and casting for practice too much. Although maybe I should. Maybe I'd be a better caster if I did.
Rowell
You should. Every week you should get out there. Because you never know. You might end up having to do a backhanded or crossbody double haul to get it into a certain spot. Down here our rivers are very brushy so there's a lot of overhanging and that's where all the fish are at. So you've got to be able to get a good side cast right way into there, deep in there to get that big fish.
Katie
Tell me more about the fishing you've got down there. I know I talked to Dr. Lewis about it quite a bit, but we were kind of talking about red-eyed in general and he mentioned that you specifically are fishing the Tallapoosa River for I believe the Tallapoosa bass but correct me if I'm wrong or misnaming something there.
Rowell
No, that's right.
Katie
Okay.
Rowell
The Tallapoosa River. Yeah, he will argue, he will say the Kusa, the Kusa red-eyed bass is the prettiest and his favorite fish but I would have to disagree with a good doctor and tell him the Tallapoosa red-eyed is the most beautiful red-eyed there is. It is, it is bigger than the rest of them because all the other red-eyed bass predominantly in the tributaries where ours live in the main river. So they do get a little bit bigger. The Tallapoosas that we fish on or a section that we fish on is between Lake Wadawi and Lake Martin. There are three specific sections that we fish. Access is fairly difficult, but the most common place that we meet clients is Horseshoe Bend National Military Park. there's a boat ramp there, it's nice. And then we kind of go our different ways. The river is fairly wide and it has a series of shoal complexes. And in these shoal complexes are where these red-eyed bass live. You know, they're ambush predators. They'll sit behind a rock, in front of the rock, just waiting for something to come by. You come there during the right time of year, you think you're false casting and one will jump of the water and grab your fly. It is one of the coolest things I've done and it's one of the most exciting things I've done is to, you know, watch somebody in there. I'm telling them to go to a certain spot and they're measuring it out and all of a sudden a fish jumps out of the, you know, the vegetation and grabs our fly and they're freaking out and I'm screaming, I'm excited. So it is pretty cool. So with these shoal complexes, I mean, some of them are pretty, pretty long, couple miles long and, you know, it'll go from ankle deep to chest deep just depending on where you are on the shoals, makes it challenging for any other kind of watercraft if it's not a raft or canoe or a kayak. So it keeps most people out and it's just clean running water. And I think it makes it a little different than say the Chattahoochee or some other rivers. So you could raft, you could float in and fish as you're floating in and then we'll get to a spot, we'll get out and wait around for a while and you'll just pick apart the shoals, hop in, get to the next spot. have a show at least down here you know one of the iconic guide that is my favorite river. I'm actually closer to the Chattahoochee River and I will drive the hour to get to the Tallapoosa. And the Tallapoosa has the Alabama spotted bass. It is a it's native there. Anywhere else outside the state especially, that's a bad word, they are very invasive. They adapt to whatever condition they're in, into a lake, into running water, slack water, and they will take over a system. But on the Tallapoosa side by side next to the red eyes and so you may catch a beautiful I don't know eight ten inch red eye or you may catch a eighteen inch spotted Alabama bass so you never know or you might catch some brim and we have lots of different premier and they're all beautiful they quite a little different than the red eye or or spotted bass and on the occasion you'll catch your striper in the river and that's a big surprise when you think you're you know chasing a have a 36 inch striper on.
Katie
Oh wow.
Rowell
Yeah.
Katie
Do the red eyes and the spotted bass hybridize at all?
Rowell
They do but for in on the Tallapoosa it's not as apparent. Yeah that's that's a Matt Lewis question. He will tell you if you catch a a red eye that is over you know I want to say over 11 inches it's probably got a little bit of spotted bass in it but if you look at it everything about it looks like a red eye. It's got the horizontal, or I'm sorry, the vertical blotches. It's got the white fin tips. It's got the mascara behind the eye. You know, blue cheeks, everything spits and says, screams, "Tallapoosa red eye," except for its size. So you think you caught, you know, "Ah, I caught the world record," but it probably has a little bit of spotted bass in there. Now, I think that's a whole other discussion. I mean, I imagine all fish, if were to genetically test them has a little bit of something in them.
Katie
Sure.
Rowell
Other than, you know, I'm not sure. Very few places I think you'll find pure strain anything. It'd be pretty isolated places that you would go to. So yeah.
Katie
You mentioned some of the things that kind of distinguish a red-eyed bass, like the, you said vertical blotches, mascara on the eye. What, what are those some of the distinguishing characteristics between that and a spotted bass? Are there anything on a spotted bass that you would look for and say, "Oh, that's definitely a spotted bass"?
Rowell
Yeah, a spotted bass, usually bigger, and it has a strong horizontal lateral line on it. That's how we can tell on our own. What else? Toothy patch. You can count scales. You can do all sorts of things, but just once you see one next to the other, you can readily tell them apart.
Katie
Okay. Something that I've... I can picture what a spotted bass looks like. To me, they resemble a largemouth in a lot of ways. I know we're kind of deviating, but are there some differentiating characteristics between a spotted bass and a largemouth? They both have that dark horizontal bar. I do feel like there's a little bit of a difference when I've seen pictures, but I've never seen a spotted bass in person. Maybe you'll know the answer to this, what really distinguishes them.
Rowell
There are totally two different species, but the mouth is where you can see it. When they close their mouth, where their jaw line stops, if the corner of their mouth goes past the eye, it's a largemouth. If not, then it's a spot. And we don't have any smallmouth down here.
Katie
Oh, you don't?
Rowell
No. Up in North Alabama, they do, or they used to. Oh, they do. They still do. But if you want to get smallmouth, you got to go to North Alabama and Tennessee, but not this far down south. The next closest is... Oh, what is that? The Flint River has shoal bass. And a shoal bass is a little different as well. They are migratory fish. They have the same characteristics like red-eyed bass, as in they live in the shoals or ambush predators except for they grow a lot bigger. We used to have them in Alabama, but as soon as dams went up, they weren't allowed to migrate, so they all died off. So the closest place you can find a shoal bass is in Georgia. Still, not far, an hour away, but again, and they're pretty fish in their own right as well. They fight just as hard. get a lot bigger.
Katie
Okay. And tell me more about the shoals, not the shoal bass, but the shoals that these red eyes are hanging out in. What's the bottom like? Is it like a rocky gravelly or is it muddy? Because you mentioned getting out and wading, so I assume it's at least firm enough to stand on, but I'm trying to picture what this looks like in a river to have these kind of smaller shoals.
Rowell
Yeah, so there's two shoal complexes that we normally fish, and one of them is where I first started, and it was very jagged. You could see where that's where the earth pressed up against each other. You would, the only way to walk around that is on the ridges. And if you stepped on a slippery spot, your ankle would get caught between two huge rocks. And there's some flat spots. And then the upper shoals that we go is, it's a lot flatter, gravel bottom, a little bit of mud, easy to walk. So depending on the client's mobility or the participant's mobility and the water conditions will depend on which end we get on. Yeah. But beautiful, easy to walk for the most part. And there's some shows where you can kind of jump from island to island, but you're going to get wet, no doubt about it, which is great in the summer here because it gets screaming hot. And yeah, to get, if it is a hundred degrees out and it's a hundred percent humidity, when you get in the water you are totally refreshed. It is amazing.
Katie
I love summer fishing for that. I've kind of like I've kind of stopped wearing waders because I mean we ski and hunt in the fall and winter so I'm not doing a lot of like winter fishing anymore and so I've kind of started to make a push like a personal push toward can I just basically give up waders because I just love standing in the water. Of course I'm battling a lot worse weather in terms of the cold here. Yeah. But in the summer yeah I feel the same way just like get me in there.
Rowell
Sure. And actually, in 2023, I did my first guided trip on January 1st. And I didn't wear waders. I didn't wear waders all in 2023. So that was pretty cool. Yeah.
Katie
Yeah, I can’t get away with that here.
Rowell
No, no, absolutely not. And this year, I think I'm putting on waders if I get in the water before, before March.
Katie
So does it get a little chilly?
Rowell
Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, I guess it's chilly for me. I mean, right now it's like 30 degrees.
Katie
Okay, yeah, that's chilly.
Rowell
Yeah, and next week I think it's gonna get down into the teens, and it's such a huge swing from 90 degrees or 100 degrees with all that humidity. So, relative-wise, it's freezing down here.
Katie
When you're targeting these red-eyed bass in the shoals, what techniques or flies are you using? I know Matt said that he really sticks to poppers, but he said that was more of a personal preference, so we didn't really get into a lot of other things. Are you using similar techniques, Or do you have a different preference? Yeah, no,
Rowell
Matt's, he nailed it. But Matt's kind of an odd, 'cause he will, he doesn't use a tapered leader. He uses like straight eight pound tests, and he throws on a yellow popper. And it doesn't matter, honestly, he could be fishing anywhere. That's the first thing that guy's tying on. He is such a creature, I have it, I love it. But anything that, poppers work great in the spring and in the summer, it's hard to be watching that fish explode out of the water and grab it. So that makes it exciting. And it's also great for new anglers. They just put it out there and I'll have them wait till the wake's clear and give it a couple pops. Nothing there, pick up and lay down to the next spot, and I'll just keep moving the boat. And I'll keep the boat within their casting ability to their target rich spots. But really, they're very opportunistic feeders. So they feed a lot on crayfish, baitfish, and whatever a popper looks like in the water, bugs floating around or anything. So all these flies that doesn't look like anything, they're just big masses that are flowing through water, they love 'em. Slump busters, leeches, anything that looks like a crayfish. My buddy ties this peanut envy that we use when the water cools down and we catch big fish with those. So yeah, game changing, micro game changers, they work really well. And it's funny when you use these big flies, the fish that will eat them. We're talking about a three, four inch fly that an eight inch fish or a six inch fish is trying to get in its mouth, even in the brim down there, it's crazy. So the Tallapoosa River is just so generous, it's a great place for new anglers. And if you are novice or an advanced angler, you can cast that much further, your day is going to be phenomenal. So yeah, most of the time we are using surface flies, something that causes a little disturbance in the water. If not, then we'll move to something that replicates baitfish or crayfish. Gotcha. Oh, favorite colors, white, black, pine, rust, those are pretty much what I stick to. If I'm not, yeah, if I'm not catching fish of those colors, we're just calling it a day.
Katie
On the seasons, when is like the, when is prime time to catch a bass? And then additionally, what is like still fishable but not prime time?
Rowell
Right. So, great thing about Alabama, it's, you can fish year round. But the fishing really picks up in the spring. So starting about March, but the problem with March is, is the weather. So we gotta wait till the weather calms down a little bit. We get a good week of good weather, three, four days, so that third or fourth day fishing's on. It's kinda hard to plan though when you have people booking trips. At one time we had this huge storm come out of nowhere and I had to cancel six floats. Broke my heart. But really the weather starts to level out mid-April, towards the end of April, something like that. I say the prime fishing times between then and mid-June, between Mother's Day and Father's Day being the prettiest. Now the summer, June, July, August, those are great times to fish as well, but it slows down because a lot of people don't want to sit in a boat when it's that hot. And then when it starts to cool off in the fall, great fishing again all the way until about Thanksgiving. Then around mid-November, late November, it starts to slow down. don't catch the number of fish, but the fish you do catch are much bigger.
Katie
Oh, why is that?
Rowell
I don't know. I don't know if they're just fattening up for the winter. I don't know if the smaller fish go in hiding and the bigger fish are just looking for meals and you throw something big. Also in the winter, our techniques change. We start using sink tip lines, heavier weight rods, like six to eight weights, and streamers. So the surface bite turns off right about that time, at least for us on the Tallapoosa River. But any other time, anything goes. You want to catch lots of fish, we'll just move to a smaller fly. You want to catch bigger fish, we'll use a bigger fly. We won't catch as many, and you'll catch a bunch, but they'll all be on the bigger end.
Katie
Gotcha. Well, I want to wrap up by bringing it back around to the nonprofits, because I know that's where you spend a lot of your time focused. You mentioned before we started that you are hoping to retire from your job to pursue this as your thing. Tell me about that. What's your plan for that and what's drawing you to dedicating your life to the nonprofits?
Rowell
Well, it had such an impact on my life. I can honestly say it's probably saved me from myself. It has tied my family together a lot tighter. It's become a family thing we do. I've had other hobbies before. I used to competitively or attempt to competitively shoot. I used to hunt a lot, but those weren't things you brought your family along and did. Or that wasn't something that you can bring a whole bunch of people out and have a good time. Or fly fishing, especially the community aspect of it, is great. You can have fundraisers and you're meeting all these great people that share your passion. And guiding is fun. It's such an adrenaline rush to know that you don't know what this person is expecting. You just know that he took a day off. He is paying a lot of money to have a good time and it's up to you to make that happen. So that is such a big thing for me and the people I meet have always been great. I absolutely love meeting all these folks. And the serving on the nonprofits for me, I think it's twofold. 21 years in the military, you don't do it to get rich. It's more service-oriented. And then when you stop doing that, you're kind of left in a void. And so helping out with these nonprofits, being a volunteer, helping them expand and help other people is just continuing that service. And it's healing for me. It makes me feel good as well. So yeah, people ask me all all the time. How do you do this? There's Project Healing Waters, the OARS Foundation, the Mayfly Project, the Native Fish Coalition, and I guide on top of a 40-hour-a-week job. How do you do that? First of all, my kids are grown. That's where a lot of people have like, "I can't. I've got soccer practice due," or all these kind of things. I don't have to do that anymore. Anytime I get to spend with my kids, they want to come out fish or hang out or do something. It's just a wholesome aspect of my life that has given me more than I've given it. I would like to do that. I'd like to help others get that same feeling I did. Meet new people, build that community for great reasons, too, whether it's helping foster kids, veterans, first responders are protecting our environment. It's all great stuff that'll benefit future generations. I just like to continue doing my part and what little piece I can.
Katie
How realistic do you think it is? Do you think you're getting close to being able to pull it off and make that your new full-time gig?
Rowell
Yeah, I'm getting close. I have a wedding to pay for in May. But after that, we're going to take a hard look and see if I can do that. So yeah, that's a big thing, a wedding in May. And then after that, you know, I don't know, we can buy a van and live down by the river and just do all these things. You know, it might not feed you financially, but it definitely feeds your soul. So yeah, I, who knows, maybe by the the end of the year this will be a full-time gig.
Katie
Wow. Well I hope it goes well for you. I've never talked to somebody who's been involved in so many different organizations that are helping people. There's a lot of people who dedicate themselves to one which is also you know awesome but to see you working full-time and taking on all these projects and not just kind of participating but you know really having an active role and you know a leadership role in some cases it's just really inspiring and I really hope that it works out for you.
Rowell
No, I appreciate that. Yeah, I do too. Yeah, I can't sit on the couch and watch TV. I'll just sit there and sigh. Every time I'm like, you know, you pass a river, you're like, "Oh, I could be there." You're looking on social media, you're watching all your friends do so well on the river, you're like, "Oh, I wish I could have been there with them." But yeah, no, I do too. That's the end goal and God willing, that's what's gonna happen. Now, you know, if the big man's got other plans for me, then, you know, we'll take that when it comes.
Katie
Yeah, not much you can do there at that point.
Rowell
Right, right, right.
Katie
Well, where can people find you? I don't know if you want to give out your personal, like, social media handles or anything, or just the organizations that you work with. Basically, whatever you want. Just feel free to share wherever people can find you or these organizations.
Rowell
Yeah, thanks. So, on on Instagram and Facebook, if they look up Rowell on the River, and that's R-O-W-E-L-L on the River. If you go on the link tree, I got links to all these organizations. They desperately all need help, whether money is great, to help a kid gear up or feed a veteran while he's going on these trips. Or if you want to volunteer, even more importantly, time. It doesn't matter your ability, more important is your time. So especially with the Mayfly project, you know, those foster kids, just you showing up there is the biggest thing for them. As a veteran, when I was at Project Healing Waters, and you know, one of the first guys I met was a guy named Bobby Davis. He wasn't a veteran, he was a fishery student at Auburn. And I was just blown away how this, I call him a kid, he's not a kid, There's this kid who's going to college and he could be doing anything he'd want to do or could do on a Thursday night. But instead he's hanging out with a bunch of crusty, salty guys with bad jokes, making fun of each other. And he's teaching us how to tie flies. I thought that was just amazing. So yeah, I would encourage anyone to volunteer if you can or donate to any of these programs. I promise you if you don't if if you volunteer you will definitely get just as much as those participants are getting whether it's the Mayfly project or The native fish coalition the project healing waters all great organizations all great folks I haven't found a bad thing yet or else I would have left them But I owe them a lot for what they've done to me and what I've seen them do for others And so I will continue to support them Until I told my you know until I can't cast anymore until I'm stuck just watching YouTube videos and listening Podcasts like yours.
Katie
Well, luckily as you mentioned earlier it fly-fishing for a long time It's been an old white man's thing and that means that when you get old you can still do it That's that's why it became an old white man's thing Because you can still do it when you're 90
Rowell
Absolutely. Absolutely. I had to trade in get an old bamboo rod and stick the dry flies, right?
Katie
There you go.
Rowell
Yeah, yeah, no. Absolutely. I hope to be doing this for a long time. I hope to teach my grandkids how to fly fish. You know, I think that would be amazing. Bring up Alabama's, you know, second and third generation fly anglers.
Katie
Yeah. Well, Rowell, this has been a ton of fun. I'm just like blown away by all the things you do and all the ways you're giving back to the people who helped you. So I just want to thank you for joining me today and hopefully we can connect sometime I find myself down in your neck of the woods or if you ever come to Colorado, let me know and maybe we can get together on the water. But just thank you for all you're doing and for joining me this evening.
Rowell
Absolutely. Oh, and one last plug in East Alabama Fly Fishing. They're the ones who actually keep me on the water in order to support these nonprofits as well. So fantastic group of guides and just stand up citizens of the area. So anyway, thank you. Thank you for having me. And I look forward to seeing you hold a Tallapoosa red eye in front of some shore whales.
Katie
I look forward to it too. Thank you, Rowell. All right, that's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. If you want to find all the other episodes, as well as show notes, you can find those on fishuntamed.com. You'll also find the contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram @fishuntamed. If you want to support the show, you can give it a follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. And if you'd like to leave a review, it would be greatly appreciated. But otherwise, thank you all again for listening. I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode. Take care, everybody.
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