Ep 124: The Brook Trout of the Smokies, with Ian Rutter
Ian Rutter is a guide, artist, and Smoky Mountain angler. Though he used to guide on tailwaters, he now focuses exclusively on wild Smoky Mountain brook trout. In this episode, we talk about how he got into guiding and art, what it’s like fishing the Smokies, how these brook trout differ from other brook trout, and much more.
Outfitter Website: https://www.randrflyfishing.com
Art Website: https://www.ianrutterart.com
Outfitter Facebook: /RandRFlyFishing
Outfitter Instagram: @RandRFlyFishing
Art Facebook: /IanRutterArt
Art Instagram: @IanRutterArt
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed podcast, your home for fly fish in the backcountry. This is episode 124 with Ian Rutter on the brook trout of the Smokies. Well, I'd love to start by just getting a background on my guests and how they got into fly fishing. So walk me through how you got introduced to fly fishing.
Ian
It was kind of accidental. I was into hiking and backpacking, stuff like that. And here in the Smokies, I was in college at the time and I can't tell you exactly when or where, but from a trail, I could see a trout and I was just blown away that there was fish in this water. It hadn't really ever occurred to me. With creeks, and East Tennessee is full of lakes and everything, so there's a lot of fishing around here, but I never really thought about it in creeks. And took a spinning rod once or twice, had some fish kind of follow where I could see them, but nothing happened. And I had a neighbor that lived on the lake and was retired and I would swim at his dock and I was telling him about it. And he said, "Oh, those are trout. You know, you gotta have a fly rod for that." And he went in his boathouse and came back with a fly rod that apparently he had not really ever used and had been sitting in the boathouse for probably at least 20 years at that time. And I didn't know any different but it was a completely inadequate rod for creek fishing. But I started with that for a few months and was completely self-taught. And this was probably 1991, 92, something like that. So there was no YouTube or anything like that. And it was all books and all the books I was reading were written mostly from a Western point of view. So I was completely self-taught. And once I kind of, you know, cracked the code, or, you know, really the curve really got steep with me. And I was going all the time and got the mountains figured out, started fishing tailwaters around here and just fished my brains out and graduated from college in December of '94. and the next spring I started guiding in spring of '95. So that's kind of my origin story in fly fishing.
Katie
I always like to ask when people say that they got into it before things like YouTube were around and who didn't have necessarily a mentor helping them. What was it like learning to fish just on your own and through books?
Ian
I always say I don't know what it was that I was so driven because I just had to catch that fish. I don't know, but I mean, I went for months not getting anything. And, you know, it's so different where you can actually visually see something on a video. And at that time, the only thing was like Saturday mornings, people, you know, kids today wouldn't believe this, But back then, Saturday mornings on ESPN, they actually showed fly fishing. And it wasn't instructional. It was like some kind of. Made up narrative that this it was just an advertorial, really, for somebody's lodge, but the premise was this guy was traveling the country fly fishing, and then they would have something that had like. B list celebrities, and, you know, you'd watch them, but they were like in New Zealand or something, and it just didn't really apply. But, you know, I kind of figured it out. And and then then nymphing came later and figuring that out. And I always tell people, you know, I learned to fly fish without strike indicators. And it wasn't because I was trying to be so cool because I was too stupid to know what they were or figure out how to use them at the time. So it all came, you know, the hard way. But, you know, the lessons really set. And for that reason, I've always I've been a big proponent about methodology over equipment, where you can have an entry-level piece of equipment and do really well or have just the best thing ever made and still not catch a fish. The equipment really isn't the key and it's nice to have good stuff, don't get me wrong, and I have some nice stuff but I also kind of, there's some other things I'm not as about as I am other pieces of equipment.
Katie
If you had to say which piece of equipment is worth investing in the nicer thing, can you pick something that you think does really hold that value? Or, on the opposite side, something that you think people put way too much stock into, that you think you could get away with a "beginner setup" forever, and if you get better, it won't really matter?
Ian
I've fished a lot of places for trout and for other species and in saltwater and I Realized this really changes wherever you go, but for me, I'm the one thing that I really Enjoy having the really the best and I don't always have the best and then when I don't I really wish I did is sunglasses driving down the road. And I always tell people, you can go to the gas station for $20 and get some polarized sunglasses. And they're pretty good. And mine cost two, I mean, 10 or 12 times more. They're probably not 10 or 12 times better, but they are better.
Katie
Yeah.
Ian
And if I was to say there's one that I just kind of was like, Eh, it's probably like fly line.
Katie
Really? I feel like I often hear fly line as being one that, you know, you get what you pay for.
Ian
I just feel like the fly line, you know, and again, when I started fly fishing, you had to pay attention. Is this a level line? (laughs) You know, there was like crap fly line back then. And the worst stuff out there is better than the best stuff in 1992. So I'm kind of like, oh, I think it's all great. And again, I'm kind of more trout than anything, first and foremost. And secondly, kind of a creek person on top of that. So I could literally cut a fly line in half and still not see most of the line ever. So there's that. And I guess one of the things that always aggravates me is, in the fly line advertising, they say, "This fly line makes you cast 10% further." And as someone who guides for a living, I'm thinking, "It really needs to cast 10% more accurate, but the line doesn't do that." (laughs) That's the operator. But, you know, like I said, everybody's kind of got that thing. And I'm a big believer that confidence is kind of paramount. And if you think that thing sucks, "Well, you're probably going to fish like it stinks, and you'll be a little less." So if you really believe in it, I think there's some validity to it.
Katie
I think what you said also is really important there, that you're primarily a small creek trout guy. And so, if you talk to somebody who fishes saltwater, I'm sure they're going to say the reel is what matters. But my drag will go months without getting touched, because I'm catching a bunch of small mountain trout. So, I don't really care. The reel could be cardboard spool for all I care at times because I'm just not using it. So it really depends on what style of fishing you're using I think you know depending on what or what style of fishing you're doing will really influence what you say matters and what doesn't.
Ian
Absolutely, absolutely and interestingly enough you know there was probably a time where I would have said the reel is overdone But because I'm in such a rugged environment with awful footing that I take a bad fall enough of the time that I've fallen on reels and the really nice ones that are machined get dinged or chipped or scratched and the ones that are cheap bend and then you can't ever use them again. So I'm like yeah getting that machined one is it's a pretty good deal. You know the drag I'm not as concerned about and you know even and even when you're fishing for fish that pull really hard it seems like there's only about a quarter turn on that this drag that's worth anything you know it's either too loose or too tight yeah really fast
Katie
I've got an old reel I think is my very first reel that I still have but the drag works when it's working but every so often it'll just give out it's not it's not like it always fails a little bit it's that it works until it just is non-existent anymore. It's really fun when you're bringing a fish in and it's working until you get a bird's nest. So I might need to retire that one sometime soon because it's starting to become more of a headache than it's worth to keep around for sentimental reasons. But tell me how you got into guiding then because you're going from this guy who is just figuring it out as he goes to someone who's now operating his own guide service in the Smokies. I know we're going to get into brook trout and the Smokies in particular, but tell me how you made that transition and what that's like now.
Ian
So when I was figuring it out and I was in college, I spent a summer being a research assistant for a grad student doing a forestry project in the National Forest. So my schooling was all in botany and zoology and I used that expertise helping the grad student in forestry and that was in the National Forest and from that you know I was just out living outside and I was fishing all the time. If I was not at work or school I was fishing and during college I even set up one semester where I had no classes on Tuesday and Thursday. I packed everything into Monday, Wednesday, Friday and was just fishing Tuesday and Thursday all day and then and most of the weekend. And there was another semester, I remember, where I had like a three hour, maybe four hour break in the middle of the day. I had early classes and late. And I would leave University of Tennessee and drive north of town to the Clinch and fish the Clinch River tailwater for several hours most days. So, I mean, I was just in it all the time. And one of the guys had a fly shop in Townsend. It was like, oh, yeah, would you like to start guiding? And I thought, well, you know, maybe, I don't know. And what ended up happening was I was trying to get work at the time, kind of doing what I had done with that grad student. And I remember the jobs posted were in Idaho and Oregon. And I was like, yes, that'd be awesome. And I don't remember if it was a phone call or a letter or what, 'cause there was, you know, no email, anything like that. And those jobs were filled, but there was something available in Mississippi and maybe like South Carolina somewhere. And I was like, "Oh, no, no, no." And I guess some people don't figure this out till they're much older, but at that moment, within two months of graduating college, I thought, "All I really care to do is trout fishing. I mean, I'm picking jobs based on trout fishing. Let me just try trout fishing." So I didn't really have any bills to speak of at the time. Moved in with the guy who was the owner of the fly shop at the times, split and rent with him. And I got a job working the night desk at one of the hotels here in Townsend. So if I was guiding, I was guiding. And then after that, I would go work the night desk at the hotel or I just went fishing all day and work the night desk at the hotel and worked like one in the morning and got up the next day and went fishing. So I was just doing nothing but fishing all the time and just loving every second of it and hiking in. You know, sometimes it'd be like, oh, I don't have to be anywhere tomorrow so I can I can drive two hours before I hike five miles or whatever. So that just kind of progressed and progressed. And over time, ended up getting married to my wife who's a fly fisher. And I was working in fly shop at the time. And the fly shop, I think maybe the average person who fly fishes for a hobby may not be able to grasp this concept. But I found working in a fly shop just so distasteful because I was not outside. I was inside literally six days a week in the shop, giving directions, selling fishing licenses, fly recommendations and fishing after work. And that was just not enough to satisfy me. And I, as my wife, Charity says, I'm a solar powered person. So I stopped working in the shop and went to guiding full time. And in 2002, my first fly fishing guidebook to Smokey Mountain National Park came out. And in those days, it was just You called information on the phone and you gave him a name. And I was getting phone calls for people who wanted me to guide them from having written the book. So at that time, I was working for one of the lodges around here, guiding for them, and my wife was doing some there as well. And she said, you know, we're not even advertising and people are calling, you know, maybe we ought to just go get our own papers, you know, put our own ads out, get our own insurance and just do it. So we did. And that was 2003, spring of 2003. We started our own guide service. So still at it, still going.
Katie
Did you meet your wife through fly fishing or did she pick it up after she met you or how did that how did that come about?
Ian
So she was a very outdoors person. She's a graphic designer and had education degree in graphic design is working for ad agencies. And apparently we had friends in common for a long time that we didn't realize, didn't never met each other. But one of the guys I guided with at the time came into the fly shop with her on the way going hiking or something, and she was with him. And as it turned out, she was about to move in down the street from me. And I thought maybe my guide friend and her were kind of dating or something, but they weren't. She moved it down the street and we got to be friends and started hanging out together and doing some hiking and fishing. Then that led to dating, and then that led to getting married, and then that led to eventually having our own guide service and everything. I met her in the fly shop.
Katie
Speaking of graphic design, I saw that you also do a lot of art. Tell me, I know we're not going to focus too much on it, we're going to move on to the trout, But I want to hear about the the art process, you know, is that just something you do in the side for fun? Does it make a little extra money or you know? How’d you get into it?
Ian
It started that way and and now it's kind of become a bit of a business I guess I can't hardly do anything for fun without Sending it that way. But yeah, I've got my own website and everything and I always drew and messed around with stuff and I've kind of got a thing maybe Sometime when I was in around 40 or something, I decided every year I would try to get better at something or learn something new. And somewhere along the way, I thought, you know, I'm going to I'm going to start getting back into drawing and doing that more. And I got kind of consumed with that and started painting more and doing stuff. And kind of during covid, during lockdown, when everybody was out of work there for a little bit, we were trying to figure things out. And you know, one of the things was people were offering to to buy gift certificates for guided fishing to cash in later when everybody was out of work. So I kind of came up with this little thing of, hey, if you do that, I'll paint you a fly and I'll send that to you as thanks. So I started doing that. People were really remarking on some of the things I was painting. And I did an Instagram page and people were kind of coming out of. people I didn't know saying, "Hey, could you paint this for me? Could you do that?" So one thing led to another and now I'm doing that pretty seriously. Um, several years later and kind of gone down that rabbit hole, I think I must have kind of a compulsive personality.
Katie
And how does that process work for you? Like, are you what inspires you? Are you out in the water and you know, you notice something that you're like, "Oh, I'm going to take that home and do it." Or do you just sit down and see what comes out? Like, what is what is that process like for as well as you could explain it.
Ian
Yeah, you know, as someone who's been so into nature and lived in nature, and there's so many things that I don't think I'm better than anybody else, but just by sheer reps and being outside all the time, you know, I'll notice things. And after a while, it's not something you notice, you start to really pay attention to. And for a lot of people, especially people who don't spend much time outside at all, it's practically invisible to them. And you would probably understand that you could just be driving along the river. And based on the flow, and you see a bunch of birds flying over the river, you know there's a hatch going on. Where the average person is like, what do you mean? And you're like, oh, no, no, no, no. It's this time of year and this time of day. Those are caddis. And so there's a lot of things like that with art that I will pick up on. And I like to accentuate whatever it is, whether it's the kind of the par marks on a fish or anything like that, that, you know, that as a fly fisherman, we tend to really kind of look at and be fascinated with. I like to kind of accentuate those things and kind of put a little extra emphasis on it.
Katie
Something that might be overlooked by the average person walking by.
Ian
Yeah. Yeah. And like one of the things because I've tied, golly, only knows how many tens of thousands of flies I've tied in my life. And, you know, one of the things I do is just by drawing them, you know, you you kind of more aware of all the proportions. And that's that's probably one of the things that I really enjoy about drawing things is, say, for instance, deer or elk or bears, things I see a lot but not near as much as a trout fly or even a fish I'm holding in my hand. When you start drawing it you're like oh yeah now I'm really getting that relationship between the shoulder and and the hoof and you know you start things really start coming clear to you as you study it to get that proportion right and that's just I think that's probably part of it just the same way as making a cast a fly cast or tying a fly or knowing how to a mend line that as someone who fishes a lot, you probably know that you can make that cast and you just instinctively know which way to cast, to mend the line where somebody that's kind of done it a few times, they might know to mend it, but they mend it the wrong way. And they ask you, well, why is that wrong? And then you almost struggle for a second to tell them why that was. So on some level, it's not quite instinctive, You're so comfortable with it you understand it implicitly and by drawing and painting things you kind of get a little more comfortable and Understanding the relationships whether it's the color or the proportion or different, you know darkness to light whatever.
Katie
I think that's a really good way to help yourself learn to like when you when you explain You know something that you know instinctively I think another one of those is reading water like you're like, oh, there's a fish I know there's a fish sitting there and if someone says why sometimes you're like, well, I don't know I just know I just I can just see that there's going to be a fish there But it sometimes brings like blind spots to your attention that you're like, well, I probably should know why you know like there's a there's a benefit to having that instinctual knowledge because I feel like it allows for quick decisions and You know you get that from just experience but at some point I feel like especially as a guide There's a benefit to to realizing that if you don't know why you don't if you don't know why you know it then maybe you Don't know it as well as you think you do so To a beginner I think it's really really helpful to cement things in your own mind, too
Ian
Absolutely, and I've often said that guiding has made me a better angler because I've had to explain it and Everybody comes from a different background. They have a different level of experience or just completely different background and one explanation Doesn't really explain it to every person So sometimes and one of the things that I'll have different ways of explaining the same concept but to different people and one thing when I talk about why a trout sits in a Particular spot versus another spot is all to say it's like a budget It's calories or money for them and You know, so just the way you can't outspend yourself, you might for a little bit, but then you're you're in big trouble. Same way they can't get out there and overexert for two, what, too little food. So, you know, maybe they can be there today, but tomorrow, if it's not as much food, maybe not. So that's one thing I'll kind of bring finances in sometimes for some explanations and for others, more of a physical thing about, well, could you imagine being on a treadmill, not getting fed? Or could you imagine running the 100-yard dash and then getting your head stuck underwater? You know, so if you had a hard-fighting fish, keep them in the water a little bit so they catch their breath, you know, things like that.
Katie
That's something I found useful too just in general animal behavior because we also hunt and so it's a lot of knowing animal behavior. And sometimes animals do act really differently to humans, but for a lot of the basic needs, sometimes it helps to remember what you would do in that situation. In the case of what you're talking about, a fish in a fast current, it's like, well, if you could choose to hang out in the fast current or right next to it, what would you do? It's not rocket science that they're probably not going to want to hang out in the fast current if there's a nice seam that allows them to sit in slower water and catch what's going past. Sometimes it's easy to forget that we're not that different in a lot of ways, and especially in these basic needs where food, energy, shelter, rest, things like that, it kind of comes down to the same things that you or I might want.
Ian
Absolutely, you know, and there's kind of an interesting concept too, that because we kind of live in a society where just because of telephones and books and television, there's so much that we know outside of our own experience, right? So sometimes people will say, well, if this creek is coming in muddy, why don't all the fish go up where it's clear? Because nobody told them. they don't know it's clear. They live here and it got muddy, so they're still here. Maybe if there's a little muddy streak down the bank, maybe they can see it's lighter over there and they go over there. But animals don't know about something 10 miles away. People will say, "Well, why are the bears over here? They're not over there where it's so much nicer." Or, "Because there's no hunting over there. It's like, well, because nobody told them. You know, and we kind of forget how much information we have outside of our own experience that most other organisms don't have.
Katie
Absolutely. Well, I want to move on a little bit to the Smokies. I know that's kind of your bread and butter is brook trout and the Smokies. And I saw, I might be kind of jumping ahead here, but something you wrote down was that they have kind of a unique biology and Habits, and I think we'll come back around to fishing for them, and you know the smokies in general But I just was curious what you meant by that the unique biology and their unique habits.
Ian
So the smokies are the pretty much the oldest mountains in the world and However it is geologists figure this stuff out about how fast things wear down a A lot of folks in the Rocky Mountains will get under my skin sometimes when I say I'm from the Smokies. They're like, "Oh, you're from the flat country." I'm like, "Well, not really." You know, because from base to peak, the Smokies are as tall or taller than most mountain ranges in the Rocky Mountains. It's just they started at a lower elevation. But geologists have surmised that they were once as tall or taller than the Himalayas. So they're just worn down, but what's really interesting is that there's nothing left to dissolve when it rains here. The water in the streams is not that far removed from rainwater. So the fish here have a harder time growing a skeleton and pretty much anything in the streams. And it's actually extremely biodiverse. Just one watershed that I fish from where it runs into the Tennessee River, which is warm water, up to the highest elevations of the Smokies, it has 95 species of fish in this one river system. And there's only 50 species of fish in all of Europe. So just it's amazing how many different fish there are and most fly fishers are pretty focused just on the three species of trout and maybe smallmouth and maybe a few panfish or something. So we're kind of missing the broad spectrum of everything that's out there. But because the water is so clear, fish see things so much better. They see us coming and they don't grow as big. And there's this kind of weird thing that I think all of us kind of fall into this trap that since fish are small, well, they're kind of easy. You know, the bigger fish are harder. And there's this really common narrative that happens in East Tennessee, western North Carolina, where you have guys that grow up fishing these creeks and you know your fish of the day, your best fish is 10 inches and it's really solid. You might have caught a lot of 7-inch fish but when you catch a lot of 7-inch fish, the difference between 7 and 10 inches is pretty striking. Man, 12 inches. Whoa, that's something else. And you'll have guys that grew up here and somewhere in adulthood, they take their first trip to the Rockies and they just come back like, oh, my gosh. And you're like. Well, because the fish were bigger, they're like, no, no, no, not because they were bigger. They were so much easier. I mean, those fish are just like eat up was stupid. And the thing is, our fish are probably the hardest seven inch fish you're going to find. And it's not that they're super finicky about flies or tippet or anything. It's just that they are like so aware of everything. And once they know you're there, there's no change in that. You can't fix that. So they are just like hypersensitive to predation. So you tend to move a lot here. But because of that biology, they don't get very big. But at the same time, they're not really finicky, but they're just scared to death for their own lives because they can see so well. The water is just as clear as it gets. And so it's just kind of unique, southern Appalachia compared to a lot of other places in that regard.
Katie
Do you think there's anything other than the clear water that's making them so wary? Because I mean, I don't know how clear your water is without seeing it, but I feel like a lot of the water we have out here in the Rockies is, you know, that you call it like a gin clear. We also have the glacial melt, but a lot of the streams are pretty clear, but you're right. I think of a brook trout out here as one of the easiest things I could possibly catch. You know, if there's an eight inch brook trout in a stream out here, you might get 10 shots at it and it's not very smart. So is there anything besides that clear water that you think might make them so wary?
Ian
I don't know, but all I can tell you is there's a difference and it's just so apparent. And it's kind of one of like, for instance, this is going back 15, 20 years ago now, but I had a guy call me up. He said, he'd just moved into the area and he'd been fishing several months. And in several months he'd caught a half a dozen fish. And he said, and I don't know how this is going to sound, but I'm just a better fisherman than that. He said, you know, I grew up doing this in Michigan. Fly fishing's my thing. That's like my number one thing. And I always catch fish and I come here and it's hard for me to believe there's actually fish here. But I'm in the fly shop. Everybody's talking about how many they caught. And unless everybody is just like grossly exaggerating or outright lying, I'm not doing something right. And sure enough, he was not doing stuff right. He was because, and I think we're all products of where we developed and whatever the discipline is. And being from the upper Midwest where there's not a lot of gradient, a lot of smooth water, he was going to the smoothest water he could find to catch fish, which here is just like, you have gone to the hardest fish possible. So he was going to where the fish were oftentimes not even feeding much because the water was so calm. And then they could see him coming before he ever cast a fly to the water. By the time he made a few casts, it was over. Where once he kind of saw, oh, you get in the rapids, you hit all those little slots in the rapids, huh? And then he was good to go. Yeah, he was great. But it was a complete paradigm shift for him in the way he fished.
Katie
That might answer my next question, or I guess two questions, which kind of go together. But I want to know how you handle tackling these fish that are so wary, and then how you do it differently when you're with a client who might not be very experienced, maybe it's one of their first times out, and they don't have that sense of what they can get away with. So maybe you kind of inadvertently answered it there about, you know, targeting them in and around the riffles, but how else do you approach fish like that when you're by yourself and when you're with a client?
Ian
So you kind of have to use the natural features to your advantage. And it's a very rocky place, bouldery, lots of whitewater. So best case scenario is you have a boulder between you and the fish at all times. And I mean from the bank. From the time you step off the bank to go where you're going, you want to keep that rock between you and where you're going. Even better, there's a rapid between you and the fish, and that gives you a lot, a lot of leeway. And probably, you know, the one thing that your typical. Grew up here, fly fishermen does is they always are fishing the run above them from the run below, and you get right up there. So your shins are right in the rapids and you're casting above you and keeping your line off the rapids. But you're never in the water. You're fishing ever, never, ever in the water. You're trying to catch a fish out of and the more, you know, the bigger the water is and you don't have that luxury. You know, you have to cast at 25 feet. You know, you got to stay back and wait so quiet. And I always tell people that even when there are rapids, you know, you want to be that perfect combination of the heron and the water snake. You want to move slow and calm and not make a push and not make a sound. Do not splash. You know, just and by having those rapids, all that helps that that covers your your sound and you won't be making any pushes in the water.
Katie
And if you're with a client, does that change at all? Like, or maybe the question is, does it change? But do you find it difficult to do that? People like someone casting, you know, over a boulder perhaps, or over rapids and getting their line caught in it. Like, does that, do you have to approach it differently?
Ian
You know, I probably, every guide's different in how they, they approach people and work with people and, and do stuff. And, you know, I always kind of give them the playbook ahead of time. I was like, okay, so you see that we're going to wait up. And when you get right there, you're going to get to that. but not a step further. OK? And you can maybe lean on the rock, but you're not going to climb up on it for sure. OK? We're going to talk about this. And then I'll say, and really, all I want is two feet of fly line and your leader. That's it. OK? And the reason is it's not even because you're so close now, but it's because there's so much rapids that your little slot of calm water, that little bathtub size slot. If you have more than that, you're gonna get drag. And it's not drag you can even mend because it's the difference between kind of slow moving water and a class five rapid. So I pretty much just want the fly in there and maximum two feet of tippet at max and that's it. So, you know, I kind of talk about that. And after they've done that a few times, had a fish come at it, whether they miss it, look at whatever, then it starts becoming more predictable and people can kind of get a sense. And probably my favorite thing to see in people is when they're driving up the river in the morning and they're saying, "Oh, I bet that spot's good." And they're like, "Eh, there's fish there, but they're going to be hard ones." And in those spots where it's hard, there are days when it works really good. You got a good flow, you got bugs. And then as the river falls out through the season, no hatches, slack, that's just, you don't fish there. Not if you want to catch something. But when we're going up the river and people are kind of pointing out what they think is good, and at the end of the day, driving back, they're like, "Oh, now that's the good stuff. "I was looking at all the wrong stuff this morning."
Katie
How big is the average river that you're fishing?
Ian
You know, bigger than most people think.
Katie
Yeah, 'cause I'm picturing something very, very small and like kind of backwoodsy, but then you're talking about driving along the river. And so I'm like, maybe I'm not picturing it correctly.
Ian
And you know, again, there's regional names for things. So what we call a river here in the Smokies, in Maine, they call it a brook.
Katie
Okay.
Ian
You know, or maybe a stream, but they call things a stream up there that it's like, you could run a drift boat down that. And they still call it a stream. So there's regional differences. No matter how wide it is, it's all going to be about the same depth. It's kind of interesting because it's such steep water here. I mean, it's running downhill fast. We think of the calm water as probably dropping 100 foot a mile. And stuff we're fishing most frequently is probably dropping 200 to 300 feet a mile. So there's tons of plunge pools, even stuff that's really small, you might still have chest-deep water in something that you could, you know, stick your fly rod across and touch the other bank. Okay. So the depth of the water is kind of the same whether it's really wide or not. And we do have streams here. I'm thinking my home water, Little River, which, man, it's probably a hundred feet across in a lot of places.
Katie
Oh wow, okay.
Ian
And then other spots, you know, we've got other streams that are probably exactly what you're thinking that are, you know, you could jump across them in the summer and stay dry. You know, just kind of rock hop, maybe not even put on wading boots. You could just kind of have your hiking shoes on and kind of flip in there.
Katie
And is being a national park, does that make a lot of where you're fishing pretty accessible by vehicle? Or are you also doing some like hike to stuff, stuff that's a little bit more off the beat path with your clients?
Ian
It can be more accessible but that doesn't mean that it is. So this National Park is about 500,000 acres and... One moment, the dog just walked in and walked out. I needed the door open. So this National Park is about 500,000 acres and in that there's about 900 miles of trail and I think 150 miles of road and about a thousand miles of water with fish. So you can kind of do the math on that and there's even more mileage of stream than there is trails and all the trails don't even follow streams. So there's plenty of roadside access but there's far more trailside access and when I'm guiding I kind of come to the with the approach of, you know, what do you want to do? What do you not want to do? What are you capable of? What are you completely incapable of? And sometimes I don't necessarily ask it like that, but it'll kind of be, you know, do you care to hike? And sometimes people are absolutely. In fact, after I get my day of fishing with you, I'm going backpacking for five miles in to stay at whatever campsite way up there. And I'm like, great, perfect. And then I have other people who will say, I'm going to level with you. You know, I'm I'm 65. I'm overweight and go into the mailbox. Where's me out? So it's like, OK, got it. I know where we're going to fish. So I kind of have, you know, some spots with everything in mind and. Probably same way everywhere, but whenever fishing is just perfect, You're at that perfect time of year, great flows, good bugs. Why you've got a million places you can go. And as things, as the season progresses and flows fall out and fish fall out, and maybe you get marginal water temperatures in some places, then you're kind of like, wow, OK, we're, we're kind of limited on what we can do if without walking a mile or two.
Katie
Now, do most of the streams have fish in them and specifically brook trout, or is it like you kind of want to look things up before you go or be okay not catching something if you show up in a stream that doesn't have brook trout?
Ian
So in this part of the world, it's got to be about a drainage ditch to be questionable if it has fish or not. And when I say that, if it has water in it 365 days a year, it's got fish in it. Just that's a given. And there's a couple of spots that I'm thinking of right now that I can't stand it. If I drive past it and somebody's had a really good day of fishing with me and we drive by this one little spot, I was like, stop, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We have to pull over right here. And there is literally on one side of the road, water dripping off of a cliff, you know, like the road cut. And it kind of falls into a puddle and goes in a drain pipe under the road and dribbles creek and in that dribble where it comes out from under the road maybe there's 50 yards of dribble before it goes to the end and there are fish sitting there. You walk down there and you can see fish kind of running all over making wakes in three inches of water and I just have to say see I just wanted to show you how they are everywhere. So when this morning you're like I don't know if there's fish where I've been fishing and then we've done really well and now you really believe I want to show you the marginal quality of water that has fish in it. with brook trout, that's a little more of a thing just because the Smokies about a hundred years ago or more were logged extensively and that that kind of really had a huge impact on brook trout in this part of the world throughout the southeast. And it's kind of a coincidence of fate, but at that same time was about the time that the technology of figuring out how to fish eggs and everything cross-country happened. So it was kind of a hip-happening, cool thing to be able to have rainbow trout or brown trout anywhere. So as things were kind of fading out, it was like, "Well, that's cool. We'll just go get some rainbow trout." So that kind of became a thing. And so rainbow trout in this part of the world are pretty much everywhere. We have them everywhere. And in these way up in the mountain streams, they're wild, they've been wild for generations upon generations, but if there is a waterfall, in most cases, not all, but most cases if there was a waterfall barrier, the brook trout continued to persist above that and did just fine as everything kind of came back around. Forests regrew and everything. And now in the modern era, the National Park Service has undertaken some restorations where they've gone in where there is some kind of barrier but rainbow trout were above it and they've removed those rainbow trout and extended the range of the native brook trout and it's a really interesting thing and you're in Rocky Mountains right?
Katie
Yeah.
Ian
So, brook trout here are genetically more different from brook trout in New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, than cutthroat are from Montana to New Mexico. That those cutthroat are more closely related than these brook trout. And because of glaciation and how that kind of changed the whole landscape and nothing could even live in Maine as a fish because it was under ice for thousands of years and stuff. What's interesting is the genetic lineage here in the southeast is older than the lineage in the northeast because they migrated back north from the south. So it's a pretty interesting setup. And holding a fish here and holding one in Pennsylvania, they're going to look the same. They're going to look the same as the ones you catch in a pond in Colorado or Montana. They look the same, but at the genetic level, they're very different.
Katie
Are there named subspecies like there are for cutthroats? I feel like every state you go to has its own one to three subspecies that live there. They're not necessarily really easy to tell apart, but sometimes you can tell a little bit difference visually. Would you hear about a smoky subspecies of brook trout compared to a main subspecies of brook trout, or is that not really a thing in that species?
Ian
Well, it's not really a thing. However, I'll tell you this, if you hike in to above one of the waterfalls here where they've always been, never were extirpated, those fish are just so red compared to any brook trout. Even their dorsal fins have red in them. Just an incredibly red fish. And I'll kind of chuckle a lot of times because people talk about spawning colors of, "Oh, they're in spawning colors." And it's like a lot of our brook trout have that coloration all year long. They're just so brilliant compared to a lot of fish in other places. So But no, and it's not like, you know, the difference between a West Slope cutthroat, a Yellowstone cutthroat, and a Rio Grande cutthroat, where their markings are so radically different. It's not like that at all. So we don't really say that, although someone who fishes here could probably tell a Tennessee fish from a Pennsylvania fish just based on that red. And even then you'd say, "I would bet that one's from Tennessee instead of Pennsylvania." But, you know, brook trout are pretty colorful.
Katie
And last thing I wanted to kind of touch on is the hatches and what bugs you have there. You mentioned the bugs and you mentioned they're not too picky fly-wise, but what hatches might someone expect if they came to the Smokies?
Ian
Yeah, so starting in the spring, and spring here is really like March. I would say starting in early March, we'll get pretty big mayflies. We'll get quill Gordons and then some of the little bitty mayflies that are like a blue quill or a little blueing olive, something like that. And as you move through the spring, there'll be Hendrickson's and other things of that nature. Things start going from kind of dark gray to tan, moving into yellow. So by the time you get to the end of April, things are starting to be yellow bugs. and the little yellow stonefly or yellow sally is probably the best known and probably best known because they start by the end of April usually middle of April and Even first to September you'll probably see one here They're fluttering around that they're really thick late spring and through June And you know they're just kind of here and there all the way through July into August We got, you know, we got about one of everything there is just not tons of them. Everything's just so sporadic. We got salmon flies. We got golden stones Things like that, but just you know here and there you see the husks on the rocks everywhere you go.
Katie
Gotcha
Ian
And then by fall everything's usually kind of small. It'll be little olives or midges or something But but when I say things are small and we got olives and midges Nobody's fishing olives and midges. We're like fishing it maybe If we're extremists we're fishing a size 18 Parachute Adams, but you know 14 or 16 parachute Adams pretty much gets it done And one of my guide buddies and I you know We we used to always laugh that if we were out of size 14 dry fly hooks we were out of hooks You know, so that's that's kind of the main thing if you got a 14 parachute Adams size 16 stimulator Probably 16 pheasant tail Stuff like that. You're pretty well covered most of the time You know, you might want something a little more specific for maybe two hours of a certain day But even then I don't know if I'm just because I have more confidence in that fly at that moment You know, I don't know that really matters.
Katie
It is the season year-round. Can you fish through the winter?
Ian
Yes, from from a legal perspective. Yes.
Katie
How about from a realistic perspective?
Ian
So that's one of those things like anywhere you go It's it's how how bad do you want to go and was catching a fish really? your goal I Always tell people that if we have 40 degree water. We're in the game If we got 45 degree water Absolutely fish can be will be caught once we hit 40. It's getting sketchy and if we're under 40 It's it's gonna be tough. It's gonna be tough and the fish they just don't move much They just don't But if you can usually what we get here is these kind of little breaks where you'll have a cold snap Water will get down to 38 39 maybe even colder and you'll have this little warm snap and if you get some rain where the rain will warm that up and it goes from 38 to 43 man they you you can have a pretty good afternoon and it's not an all-day thing it rarely is in the wintertime but they can be had it's just you got to pick your days and you know if it's sunny and 35 degrees outside and the water is 39 have a good time you know
Katie
But you have open water year round.
Ian
Oh yeah, it's not icy, no. But because the terrain is so steep, I'm not exaggerating, there are long, there are miles of stream that don't get a ray of direct sunshine on them for months. They're in the shade. And while it's not permafrost or anything like that, once the ground freezes, it takes a bit to thaw just no sun on it. Even if the weather moderates, it's still in the shade. So it takes a long, long time for things to kind of come back around.
Katie
Gotcha. Well, Ian, is there anything that we didn't cover that you think would be, you know, something that you want to share about Smoky's Brook Trout or something that people should know?
Ian
Oh, you know, we've covered all the best parts of it. You know, one thing I would tell people just about wild trout in general is, you know, absolutely. You know, we all love them. We cherish them. We don't want to hurt them. But in the big scheme, you know, anglers are really not their biggest worry in life. There's bigger issues that do worse things to them. And it's usually things that are well beyond our control, like water temperatures, floods blowing out spawns, things like that. So, you know, I always encourage people to absolutely be respectful of the fish. You know, do whatever you can. But, you know, we're as fishermen. What we do is not the end all be all that determines that populations viability. You know, we can we can do things as a group to ensure their success. but how you fish, which hooks you use, whether you keep some or you don't keep some. Those things are not the most pressing thing. It's all environmental factors. They got to live in there. If the creek's healthy, they're going to be healthy.
Katie
Yeah, I feel like almost all fish populations that are in danger are in danger because of a greater thing like that, like a habitat loss, an invasive species competition, things like that. I feel like these days it's rarely overharvest. I'm not saying it wasn't in the past, but I think these days a well-managed fishery, usually overharvest is not the problem.
Ian
Absolutely. And that's not to say go out there and keep everyone you catch or anything.
Katie
Right. Sure.
Ian
Don't be in the... But that's not really the issue anymore. In fact, I know sometimes from a research point of view, you know, biologists often times are like, you know, if you would keep a fish or two every once in a while, it might help us with some of this research. And they have such a hard time sometimes just getting people to help them, you know, collect a fish every once in a while so they can get some ages or things on that. But yeah, just the overall health of things, flows, floods, water temperatures. That's that's really where it's at.
Katie
Well, just to wrap up, where can people find you if they want to book a trip with you, come fishing the Smokies, or just visit your website, your art website? Just feel free to plug anything. Yeah, sure.
Ian
Well, it's R&R Fly Fishing is our guide service. And because we did this before the internet was as big as it is today, you have to spell it out. There's no ampersands in the internet. So it's R&R Fly Fishing spelled out, and it's a mile long URL there. And all our socials, Instagram and Facebook, are the same. It's R&R Fly Fishing. And we're there, and if you're interested in checking out my art, it's Ian Rudder Art. Pretty self-explanatory there.
Katie
Perfect. Well, Ian, this was a lot of fun. I'm actually coming to Tennessee on Monday for the first time in my life. So I will experience winter in Tennessee, I suppose, and get the answer to my question.
Ian
Well, what part of Tennessee? It's such a diverse area.
Katie
Unfortunately, it'll be for work, and I'll be in Knoxville. So no fishing on this one.
Ian
Oh, OK. Well, that's really close. Well, you can you can see the mountains from Knoxville. You're in the you're in the mountain. Well, hilly part. And you're not right in the mountains, but you can see them on the horizon.
Katie
OK, well, maybe if we finish early, I'll be able to take a little spin over that way and see the area.
Ian
Yeah, I think you could be there about 45 minutes.
Katie
Yeah, well, that's awesome. I'm looking forward to checking it out. I haven't really spent much time in that part of the country. So I'm looking forward to it. And once again, just thank you for for joining me tonight. I had a lot of fun talking to you.
Ian
Great. Thank you.
Katie
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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