2011 Gold Cup Fly Fishing Team Challenge

THE 2011 GOLD CUP FLY FISHING TEAM CHALLENGE

Announcing

Team Dead Drift, Frog Hollow and Unicoi Outfitters are pleased to announce the 3rd annual “Gold Cup Fly Fishing Team Challenge”. You are invited to attend or to participate in this two-day fly-fishing event to be held at Frog Hollow on the beautiful and picturesque waters of the Chestatee River in Dahlonega Georgia and Unicoi Outfitters the famous and beautiful Chattahoochee River south of Helen, Georgia. 

First Round

Saturday November 12^th 2011 8:00a.m. - 5:30p.m.

Final Round

Sunday November 13^th 2011 8:00a.m. - 5:30p.m.

Participants

Entry Fee Per Team $175.00

 Registration deadline November 1^st, 2011

To view this event is free and open to the public.

The Gold Cup Team Challenge is an annual two-day event, which will permit a two-person team to match their skills against other teams, to earn a $1,000 grand prize, plus, one full day fishing and one night lodging at Frog Hollow. Team awards will be given for 2^nd, and 3^rd place. Best Angler award will be given for the most total points by one angler.

Registration to compete is open to the general public, on a first come basis.

A maximum of 20 teams will be permitted; a minimum of 10, two-angler teams must be registered for the event to take place.

A non-refundable registration and entry fee for each team is required. 

In the event an insufficient number of participants register for this event, all funds for individuals will be returned.

A 6:00 p.m. kick-off dinner will be hosted at Frog Hollow on the Friday evening before the Challenge.

This is a two-day two-person team event and will be conducted according to Trout Legend competition standards, FIPS MOUCHE rules, and Tournament Committee member rules and regulations.  Further details on the event, as well as a detailed listing of the rules are posted on the following websites:

http://www.teamdeaddrift.com

http://www.froghollowflyfishing.com

http://www.unicoioutfitters.com

A portion of the proceeds from this event will go to Gold Rush Chapter Trout Unlimited, a 501 (C)(3), non-profit organization.

Volunteers, sponsorship, exhibitors, donations and prizes welcome.

The goal of the Gold Cup Challenge Committee was to coordinate an event with a prestigious fly fishing award with the benefits and intent to promote, educate and inform the public about the joy of fly-fishing.

Team Dead Drift:

The Georgia Fly Fishing Team is a group of anglers who compete in local and national fly fishing tournaments.  The team is excited as it makes strides to collectively participate and encourage in the sport of competitive fly-fishing. Those interested to follow the progress of the team as we make steps toward our goals, please feel free to follow and support us!

Team Dead Drift Mission Statement:

Team Dead Drift is dedicated to developing a competitive fly-fishing team to participate in regional, national, and international events.  The Team will strive to assist in educational efforts aimed at teaching the art of fly fishing.  It will also endeavor to participate in conservation efforts (in coordination with other organizations) to protect and preserve the diverse cold water and warm water fisheries throughout the state of Georgia and the southeast.

This press release revised September 2nd 2010

Kenny Simmons

Gold Rush Cup Challenge Director

(706)244-4372

kenny@froghollowflyfishing.com

Ben VanDevender

Team Dead Drift Captain

(770)312-1513

Thegeorgiafly@hotmail.com

More Toads from the Frog!

Today I fished with K X 2...Keith Calhoun and Keith McFarland at Frog Hollow. The morning started out great with lots of takes and several fish landed. Then it s-l-o-w-e-d down! We caught fish through the day but they were hard to come by. The last hour made up for it. K. C. took several fish up to 20" and lost a couple that were on the plus side of 20"....on DRY FLIES. K.M. quietly kept casting, mending, stripping, drifting, repeating and caught a couple. Then, Oh My ! I can't even explain what happened next, because you wouldn't believe it...it was one of those things where you just had to be there ! If we had a video of it we would get a million hits on UTube. Lets just say that big fish can swim up waterfalls and this old guide can still walk on water to land big fish ! All in all "I'd rather be lucky than good" any day ! Great job to both Keiths and here is a picture of KM's 26 1/2 " by 18" 10 pound rainbow. 

Rex Gudgel

FFF Master Certified Casting Instructor

It's on like Donkey Kong!

From UO guide Rex Gudgel:

Oh Yea! It's on like Donkey Kong! In between the rains when the water levels drop and warm up a little, the fish are showing their appreciation! David Chamers took just a half day trip to hook twenty to twenty five nice fish (and missed several takes) at Frog Hollow! Applying the Roland Martin techniques for hook setting and fish fighting, he said, "my landing ratio was left to be desired just a little bit".  He did improve through out the morning and we put fish in the net! In an email that David sent thanking me for the great trip he said, "I heard all of your advice about how to cast, mend, hook set, and fight these fish, but sometimes with me it sinks in a little slow!" 

Come see me at Unicoi Outfitters and I'll help you get into fish by improving your fishing techniques and your understanding of what, where when and how!  

                                

--

Rex Gudgel

Federation Of Fly Fishers Master Certified Casting Instructor

I Love Springtime!

Taylor & Jim

The weather, the blooming trees and plants, and just flat out getting away from the winter fits of cabin fever! I also enjoy the fact that families are getting out and doing things together...like fly fishing. Some of my favorite times on the water are with "Spring Break Families" looking to do something different, or start a tradition. This past week I got to fish with Jim and Taylor Dockery, a father-son combo from Alabama. Fishing at both Nacoochee Bend and Frog Hollow, conditions were tough with high water from big spring rains, but they fished hard and caught some beautiful fish...of course the "big one" got away! Taylor says he's coming back to catch THAT fish!! Anytime Taylor...and if you want to, go ahead and bring your dad!!  
--
Rex Gudgel

Rex & Taylor

The Standley Cup!

On November 17th I was privileged once again to host the Standley Cup Fly Fishing Tournament. Not only host, but guide, direct, judge, referee and MC! Let me explain. Ralph Ripley and John Standley met in 1975...they were in the Army. Obviously a strong friendship was created there. Ralph left the service in '95' and started his own company (which he still owns and runs). John? Well he continued on in the service and at 70 years old (last year) he was still flying (as a pilot) in support of the military in Iraq. They have fished many places together, including Costa Rica, through the years, but they choose to come back to fish with me here at Unicoi every year for their own tournament, "The Standley Cup". To say that these two are competitive with each other would be an understatement!! What started out as a friendly "dinner bet" six years ago, has turned into a full on tournament with written rules, score sheets and an awards ceremony with the trophy presentation! Trying to explain the needling and trash talking that goes on would be pointless..Let me just say this as a barometer to the degree of needling ...John brought Ralph a hand crafted table with a hand painted trout on it as a consolation gift this trip... because he knows how upset Ralph gets when he looses! The comment was, "this painted trout will be as close as you'll get to catching a fish!" The gift was given to Ralph the night before the tourney just to add a little extra pressure. Like the mailman, neither rain, sleet, snow, or dark of night will keep these two from their appointed tournament and fishing fellowship! The tourney has been held in every type of weather and water condition. Maybe I should say "come Hell or high water!"

Congrats go out to Ralph this year for overcoming a tough day at Frog Hollow and a two year slump to take home the Standley Cup. The friendships and memories that are made on the water are lasting and important...even cherished. I would like to thank these two gentlemen for making me a part of this event year after year and adding to my memories and friendships.

Rex Gudgel (FFF Master)

Life & Times of a Trout Bum

Quite often, when things get quiet around me and I have time to think, I frequently find myself just astounded at my good fortune.  Not in monetary terms by any means but by the friendships and acquaintances that have appeared in my life simply as a result of being a trout bum in the right place at the right time.  Most all of us have icons whom we look up to in some degree and in the past ten days I've had an unusual run of most interesting angling partners.

Lefty

Dan Blanton

To start with, myself, Henry Cowen and Rex Gudgel spent two days trout fishing at Nacoochee Bend and Frog Hollow with Lefty Kreh and Dan Blanton.  Lefty, of course, requires no introduction to fly fishing enthusiasists.  When you Google his name, over 70,000 results pop up.  Dan, while not a household name in flyfishing the southeast, is a prominent writer for most of the fly fishing magazines we read and a top guide for stripers in the bay areas of California south of San Francisco.  My memories of these two days were simply that it was as comfortable as fishing with two lifelong friends.  There's never a dull moment when Lefty's around and fishing with Dan is like fishing with a brother.  Two terrible knee injuries in the past couple of years have put a crimp in Lefty's mobility but when he's on-stream, it's an education just to watch him work.  He was blown away by Frog Hollow and has plans to come back and photograph what he called " the most picturesque trout stream I have ever been on east of the Mississippi".  Dan was just as exuberant on his blog as he posed the rhetorical question of "Where else can you fish for stripers in the morning and trophy trout in the afternoon?"

Loran Smith

Friday, the 28th was my last day with these two giants of our sport but the following Wednesday found me at Nacoochee Bend with Loran Smith of UGA Bulldog fame and baseball Hall of Famer Phil Neikro.  The stories these two guys have to tell are unending and I'm always in stitches when I'm with them.  They literally know everyone who's ever been a major player in football and baseball in the past 50 years and I think they have a story about all of them.  Loran, of course, is best known for his sideline commentary during UGA football games but he is also a prolific writer with weekly columns which appear throughout Georgia in over 30 newspapers and he's authored so many books the Dewey Decimal System has lost count.  They are both great gentlemen and I consider it a privilege to host this event for them every year.

Gary Borger

Finally, on the Sunday afternoon after the tremendous Fly Fishing Show at Unicoi Lodge in Helen, I find myself in the Chestatee River at Frog Hollow again.  On this beautiful early summer day, I'm standing next to another of fly fishings most famous anglers, Gary Borger.  Gary is another angler who needs no introduction to the fly fishing community.  His books, articles and videos are among the most well respected in the field and if you want to know about any aspect of fly fishing, you won't find a better source than Gary's work.  At the moment, he's working on a series of 20 books which will deal with a wide variety of angling topics.  He promised to include a chapter titled "Shrimp and Grits" after dinner at Nacoochee Grill.  On Monday, I drove Gary back to Atlanta Airport and we had more time to discuss life, fishing, travels, attracting new fly anglers (he thinks we need to be cultivating the next generation as early as elementary school and I believe I have to agree with him), and bread making.  Yep, bread making.  Gary has become somewhat of a craftsman with artisan breads and he's already sent me his favorite no-knead recipe that I can't wait to try.

My fortune during these few days was to discover what a pleasure it was to spend time with every one of  these guys, standing in a river enjoying life and trying our best to fool a critter with a brain the size of a pea.  And to a man, you could see the light in their eyes when a fish rose to their fly, whether it was a trophy or a nine-incher.  How fortunate can an old trout bum be?  For me, very.
    

Dan Blanton and Lefty Kreh at Nacoochee Bend and Frog Hollow

Rex, Lefty, Jimmy, Dan

Henry Cowen recently hosted Dan Blanton and Lefty Kreh for some Lake Lanier striper fishing, and to help round out the trip, Henry arranged for the flyfishing icons to fish a couple days with us at Unicoi Outfitters. Dan's got a nice writeup over at his Fly Fishing Bulletin Board, here's an excerpt:

"The next two afternoons were spent trout fishing with the guys from Unicoi Outfitters Fly Shop, personally guided by Rex Gudgel and shop owner Jimmy Harris. We fished two different rivers and both were gorgeous pieces of trout water. I’d fished the second river, the Chestatee at Frog Hollow last year with Henry and Rex a beautiful place in every way. It was on this water that I experienced some hilarious afternoon dry fly fishing for trout so big they looked like steelhead holding in the run. I only hooked a couple of them but the follows and false rises from those monsters kept Henry and Rex, who were viewing Jimmy and me from the high bank, in stitches. I couldn’t see as well as they could but it was exciting nonetheless to hear their oozs and awes. I did hook and fight a monster that Jimmy estimated would have weighed eight or better pounds. When we waded out to the bar Jimmy wanted me to cast from, he said to Rex that I was going to hook a monster because he had forgotten the net. We’ll he guessed that one right. Indeed, I finally busted off the fish when it suddenly surged away when Jimmy touched its tail trying to hand-land it. It simply caught me asleep at the wheel. Hey, I don’t get to fish for monster trout every day. I was happy to just have hooked and fought it.

"Rex and Jimmy, both superb trout fly-fishers and guides, couldn’t have done a better job for Lefty and Me. Jimmy was my guide and I can’t tell you how many different rigs and flies he tied on for me, mostly because I kept tangling them up – we were nymph fishing with two flies below an indicator and I obviously needed more practice. Jimmy had the patience of a saint. The fishing was tough but we managed to hook a few. In fact, Lefty hooked quite a few but because of his limited mobility (bad knee) he lost many by not being able to follow them up or down the run. A number 20 midge doesn’t hold a big trout too well if you can’t finesse them."

Dan also wrote:

"The mornings were spent chasing stripers on Lake Lanier and the afternoons were spent pursuing trophy trout on gorgeous, Georgia mountain streams – private water that Henry had arranged for us to fish. Henry couldn’t have organized a better fishing program for us – stripers and spots in the morning, trout in the afternoon. I don’t know of many other places a fly fisher can do that." 

That last sentence is so true - we have a wealth of fly-fishing opportunities here in North Georgia!  To read the rest of the report, just head over to Dan's post on his Bulletin Board.  We were truly honored to have these guys fish with us.

Giving Thanks

Good food, spending time with family and friends, and fantastic fishing - what a great Thanksgiving week.



I really enjoy fishing with kids, and I had several opportunities to do that during Thanksgiving. Jay Corte from Alabama had fished with me back in the summer on the Toccoa tailwaters and caught several fish. He wanted to fish NCF for larger fish and you can see from the pictures above, he caught those too. His Dad was along to take pictures and he did a lot of that because Jay caught a lot of nice fish.



The pictures above left are Rick McKibben and his sons, Jay and Ross. Neither of the boys had ever been fly fishing for trout. They caught on fast and were hooking and landing big rainbows in a short time at Frog Hollow. Sorry Dad, but I believe the boys caught the biggest fish. What a great family to spend time with on the river .

The picture to the right is Robert Schultz on his first fly fishing trip - pretty good for a beginner, huh? We fished at NCF and I think he landed 5 nice fish before he lost one. Well, he said his nickname was "lucky" - in fishing, that counts a lot. Robert really got into the fishing and I believe he enjoyed it almost as much as I did. I think he may be "hooked" for life.

And these last 2 fish were hooked on Thomas and Thomas rods. No, not the brand name, but on rods belonging to Thomas (me) and Thomas (my son Kevin). This is the other "kid" I enjoy taking fishing - we've been doing it for a long time. Spending an afternoon together fishing River North was really something

Thanks to Jay Corte and his Dad for fishing with me again, to Rick and his sons Jay and Ross,for sharing this special family time with me, to Robert for his enthusiasm, and to my son Kevin for spending time fishing with his "old man". And thanks to the folks at Unicoi and to Eddie for allowing memories like this to happen.

Thanks,

Ron

Team Unicoi Wins 1st Annual Gold Rush Cup

Well, while the jury may still be out on the acceptance of competition in fly fishing, I must say that the folks at Gold Rush TU put on a great event Saturday to help raise funds for their cold water conservation projects. The 1st Annual Gold Rush Cup went off as smooth as silk with great weather, great food and great friendly competitors. And they couldn't have picked a more perfect host venue, Frog Hollow on the Chestatee River. Over 100 people attended the event and anxiously paced the river banks trying to keep up with who was catching what. The two-angler teams had an hour to fish each of 5 beats on the river and could record two fish for each member during that time. From observation, the pressure of competition appeared to result in trying to force some fish into the net as quickly as possible and, for those of you who have fished at Frog Hollow can attest, you don't force those fish anywhere. Even Team Unicoi, Hamp Cross and Chuck Head, were observed long distance releasing a few fish. All in all, it was a fun way to raise money for Trout Unlimited and Chuck and Hamp walked away with a nice cash prize and two custom-built fly rods donated by Garland Stewart. We're very proud of Hamp and Chuck. As always, their professionalism and angling skills were obvious.

We also appreciate these other four teams:

Team Frog Frog Hollow: Jackie Gooch & James Peterson



Team Cannon Falls Lodge: Corey Roberts & Andrew Koester



Team Alpharetta Outfitters: Brian & Randy Schiltz



Team Etowah Anglers: Ben Gann & Steven Hartman

Thanks to Kenny Simmons for the photos.

Tie 1 On with Frog Hollow & Toccoa River Fishing Reports

To all fly tyers and want-to-be fly tyers. Our monthly fly tying session will be Tues. Sept 1 at Unicoi Outfitters in Helen at 6:30. Everyone is welcome and hey, its free. If you have a vise, bring it and any materials you have for a fly you want to learn how to tie or demonstrate how to tie. If you don't have any equipment, that's OK--we'll supply it. We tie simple fish catching flies that won't take you an hour to tie. The session is always fun and its a great time to talk with other fishermen who share the same interest. Hope to see you there.

And while I'm posting, I would like to mention a couple of trips I recently guided. Today I had a trip at Frog Hollow on the Chestatee and it fished good. My customer had 3 or 4 fish that broke us off and landed a 24" rainbow on a Brahma sparkle soft hackle.

Also, last Saturday I guided a trip on the Toccoa tailwater and it was the best trip I've had over there in a while. We brought over 2 dozen fish to the net--including at least a dozen tagged fish and we hooked several more. We hooked most of these fish on a Holy Grail and another fly I'd rather not mention.

Being able to fish and have good results like these during July and August is definitely a big change from this same time last year. By the way, the Holy Grail and Brahma soft hackle, along with the Evil Weevil are just a few of the flies we tie at our Tie 1 On sessions....hope to see you there!

Tie 1 On

Ron

Gold Rush Cup Fly Fishing Challenge at Frog Hollow

The Dahlonega, Georgia based Gold Rush Chapter of Trout Unlimited is holding its first "Gold Rush Cup" Fly Fishing Challenge on Saturday November 21. This is a promising fund-raiser for the chapter that could be a fund-raiser for the participant! It is a team tournament based on up to 10 2-man teams, so it pays to register early before the field fills up. For more info check out the Gold Rush website.

Frog Hollow Fishing Report

This just in from Vonnie McClung of Albany, GA:

Just wanted to thank you guys for a great trip last Thursday. My friend and I fished with Rex at Frog Hollow and had a blast. It was my second time fishing with you guys, but it was my buddies first ever fly fishing experience. Rex took a lot of time with him and eventually had him landing some fish. He's hooked (pardon the pun).

Attached is a picture of the best fish I landed that day. I lost two that were as big if not bigger. I guess that means I'll have to come back and try again.

Thanks again for a great trip.

Nice fish, Vonnie...hope to see you and your buddy again soon!

Small Deer--Big Fish

Tony Land from Tampa had a great background for this hook-up at Frog Hollow--do you see it? You may have to enlarge the photo. By the way, the fish was a 28" rainbow.

Frog Hollow Winter Fishing

Kim Kubach's recent winter fishing trip to Frog Hollow with Alex Lunsford. Note not only the size of the fish but the length of the shirt sleeves. Ain't winter fishing in the south grand!