Hot Times at River North with Hamp Cross

This past Friday and Saturday I fished with longtime client Stuart Pierce. We met at River North on Friday afternoon and in the first pool were able to land 15 fish with the big one being 8lbs. We continued to catch them on flashback hare ears in size 14 for the rest of the afternoon, probably finishing with 25 plus hookups in the 4 hour half day.

After letting it warm up some Saturday morning we hit the water about 10:30, and caught fish consistently all afternoon, with the largest fish being 23 inches and 7-8 pounds. It took a size 10 gray hurless nymph. Big fly, big fish! Most of the fish took an olive bugger dredged deep though. We ended the day with several more fish over 20" and 20 plus fish for the afternoon. With great weather and cool water, the fish were active and fought well. As always, it's great to get on the water with a repeat client who over the years has become a friend of Unicoi Outfitters and myself. Thanks again to Stuart and I hope to see him in the future to put some more lunkers in the net. Hamp

Like Old Times at River North

I fished at River North this past Thurs with Robert and Mitch and as you can see, I think they enjoyed it--I know I did. The morning started off pretty slow, but as the temp warmed up so did the fishing. Both Mitch and Robert knew what they were doing and before long they had me chasing big rainbows up and down the Soque. Any small mayfly imitations with plenty of weight seemed to be the ticket.

Thanks fellas, I had a great day--hope to do it again real soon. I love my "job".

Thanks,
Ron

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