December 12 - David Cannon and his wife Stephanie came down and fished the Gardens today. David is working on a book about Georgia fly fishing and needed some photos for the section on Callaway. Happily, he got some good ones with some beautiful weather and nice big trout.

December 11 - Fished Callaway today with Brad and his son, Walt. Walt wore the old man out all morning long, but Brad closed the gap in the afternoon for a late near-tie finish. Here's one of Walt's fish...

November 26 - Fished the Callaway Gardens trout today with Bonedog & EE from the NGTO board. The trout were willing to cooperate on a really beauttiful day. Here's one (about average in size - no, really!) that ate a big #1 white zonker.

October 26 - Oh, my!  I went to Mobile, Al, this weekend to do a casting clinic for the local fly fishing club. We had a great time on Saturday, casting all day out a the beautiful Japanese Gardens there. Then on Sunday, one of the members, Tom D, took me out to the Biloxi Marsh to hunt some reds. We found em! If you've heard the stories about this place and they seemed too good to be true, they weren't!!! This one was 30# on the boga; we saw `em bigger. Thanks Tom.

Tom doesn't guide there (though he sure could), but the man to call to get some of this is Jack West. He comes highly recommended from Tom, and we saw him out there and stopped to chat for a while. Turned out I've known him for years from the FFF conclaves. Anyhow, contact me and I'll get you his phone number - you won't be sorry.

October 11 - I've been pretty lax in updating, but this one had to go up. This picture of Zach with a big bream may look a little familiar as (I think) he's shown up here once before...

...but his ole man has been on here with big bream and bass for , I guess, over 10 years. Notice the resemblance....

September 12 - Fished today with Stack Scoville, his brother Steve and their pal Rick. Some of you may recognze Stack's name as he's a world-famous Atlantic salmon fly tyer. I was a little ashamed to have him fishing my plain ol' RLD's, but Rick said they were fine as he landed this giant shellcracker.

August - It's been a rip-roarer of a month. Flint fishing has stayed good with excellent numbers and good size fish. Also had a couple of days when the carp were thick on the mud flats at West Point Lake.

Callaway has been pretty reliable, with good numbers of bream on the RLD fished slow and deep.

Also got to attend the TFO annual meeting near Lefty's home in MD - 3 great days of casting and learning from some of the best, including "the belly brigade" below, Lefty Kreh, Mike Kinney & Bob Clouser).

July 17 - On the Flint today with Carlton and Alex, we found the water up a foot or so and moderately stained. We headed up one of the feeder streams and found clear water - apparently the rains over the weekend had been way upstream on the river and were just hitting, but the feeders had already cleared. Some of the bigger bass had moved up for the clear water as we found several, with Carlton getting the big fish.

July 8 - Coming back to town from a new direction last week, I passed a shallow flat off West Point Lake that I used to fish for carp. So today I had a free day and decided to see if the carp there still wanted to eat. `Turned out that a couple of the small ones did, but then I hooked up with this guy.

What a white bass was doing up in this water I have no idea, but he ate that RLD with no hesitations.

June 30 - We're in New Jersey on vacation. Yeah, I know......."why on earth go to NJ for vacation"??? Well, it's a family thing and we're at the eastern shore. And the inshore fishery is beautiful. First morning there I found the shad while hunting the stripes. They ate the 3/0 whistler.............

June 19 - The weather has heated, but the fishing is holding on. At Callaway, we're still doing good early and late in the day; midday gets pretty warm.

I love the Flint this time of year - wet-wading helps you stay cool all day. The water is low and clear and the fish are perhaps a bit smaller, but it's great fun fishing the smaller technical water. It can be different though - the tactics that worked when the water was high need to be adapted.

June 3 - `Had a Flint trip cancel today, but I was ready for the river - so I just went and fished by myself. Somebody missed a good one as it was great - shoalies, redbreasts, shellcrackers,  plus a lonely bluegill. A few hit the stealth bomber, but most of `em came on a black RLD. The Rubber-Legged Dragon, aka the RLD, is a favorite of mine - it's caught a lot of different species including trout and carp. But until today, it had never caught one of these..............

May 31 - The FFF-SE fly fishing show has been happening at Callaway Gardens for the last 3 days, and boy did we have some fun. After the closing reception Saturday night, I asked our special guest, Steve Rajeff, if he was interested in a little fishing. In spite of a pre-6am scheduled departure tomorrow morning, his face lit up like a little kid, and in effect he echoed my favorite Flip Pallot line, "This is how I look when I'm ready.".

We grabbed the driftboat and hit Robin Lake as the sun went down. Definitely a guide's dream -  the best caster in the world in the front of the boat effortlessly firing bullets with my stealth bomber. Of course the phenomenal casting was no surprise

May 25 - The Flint just gets better and better as the water drops and clears. `Fished it today with Gary L from Kennesaw. First time for Gary, but he timed it right - got plenty of fish and the spider lily bloom too...

May 14 - Flint fishing is fine these days............

May 3 - Fished Callaway Gardens yesterday & today with the boys from NGTO - a lot of fun as always, though the fishing was a little tough. In  spite of the fronts coming through, we found some topwater bream and some bass chasing damsel nymphs up in the weeds.

April 22 - `Got a busman's holiday today - decided, just for a change, just to go fishing. `Found a few of those striped fish........

April 21 - It's that time of year, and the fishing is turning on all over. The Flint is on between the rains, the Hooch stripes are moving upriver, and the big bream and bass are doing it on the Callaway Lakes.  Rex and Joel spanked `em good today - below is Joel with a giant shellcracker.

April 19 - Kevin's wife had called me in December to get a Christmas gift for Kevin, a striper fishing gift certificate. She said he really wanted to catch something besides those small stocker trout on a fly rod. Today he got his wish on the Hooch above West Point. The first one busted him off on the hit as it almost yanked the rod from his hand. The second one popped him on a hard run across the current. The third one didn't....

March 29 - The fishing has stayed good at Callaway all month long, with big trout eating everything from #22 midge pupa to #4 buggers.

Runoff from the rains have kept us off the Flint most days of the month, but today and yesterday I had two good days. Dwight and his son Matthew, plus Tom (all from Mobile) joined me on the river. It was still a bit high, but all three anglers got their first looks at shoal bass. Here's Matthew with one of his.

March 9 - Fished at Callaway today with Rodney D. from Birmingham. Started off slow and cold, but Rodney was soon into the trout. He billed himself as something of a novice, but that may have been sand-bagging. With my 4 wt TiCRX and a 150 grain Teeny head, he was adding a slick little "strip-tease" (a la Gary Borger) to his retrieve and boated the fine rainbow shown below. And the strip-tease continued to work all day.

February 26 - It's been a rop-roarer of a month - lots of fine trout at Callaway and a precious few stripers on the Hooch and over in Alabama in a couple of spots. But for me the highlight was a coastal NC road trip that mixed visiting TFO dealers (my new job) with doing a casting clinic for the Cape Lookout Fly Fishing Club. Capped the trip off with a trip on the brackish Neuse River with Capt. Gary Dubiel, owner-operator of Spec Fever Fishing Guide Service. You've probably heard of Gary and all the good things they say are true - on the heels of a hard cold front and with some heavily-stained water, Gary put me on striper, redfish, and largemouth bass, all before lunch. Call him!

Jan 12 - Fishing the trout at Callaway has been gang-busters this year - today with Janet & George from Macon. They are usually fishing stripers on the Hooch with me in January, but with no water and few fish there we decided on the Callaway trout. And these folks caught trout as big as some pretty good stripers, including this big kip-jawed male that Janet landed.