Fighting for Gamefish Status for Georgia Redfish

Thanks to guys like Capt. Gordon Churchill in North Carolina and now Capt. Scott Wagner fighting battles, educating, and keeping us posted on conservation fronts, fish such as this are still possible to the average angler. Scott is a close angling friend of mind, co-founder of Georgiaredfish.org and we recently had the chance to discuss his fishery in GA. The newly formed, grassroots organization is committed to achieving game fish status for redfish fish in Ga and thus preserving redfish stocks.

What is the goal of the group and what will this achieve?

Game fish status would eliminate the commercial sale of redfish at market. Not only would this apply to commercial interests such as a shrimper selling by-catch of netting but more importantly to recreational anglers. Plenty of rod anglers, including guides, sell redfish at open markets.With liberal bag limits of 5 fish per person in the slot of 15-23 range, stocks are suffering.

You mean to tell me there are guides actually keeping fish from clients and selling them at market? That seems to be a conflict of interests to me.

You would think exactly that. Remember gill nets have been outlawed for years. Redfish game fish status would stop hook and line guys, guys spot lighting fish at night and even the jokers using bow/arrow set-ups. Game fish status would eliminate all of that. No one has a problem with personal consumption within the limits but lets stop the selling. Keep only what YOU can use. One only needs to look at states like TX and LA to realize the value of a redfish and the effects the change could have on our fishery.

Are you getting support from the GA CCA?

Ga. CCA has been in favor of the game fish status. Yet there does seem to some conflicting views on limit adjustments. There have actually been CCA board members being quoted as saying "we can not pursue creel limit changes for fear of losing membership". That's a bit of oddball view for an organization with a mission of stewardship and sensible access given the extremely liberal bag limits. Now they have stocked redfish in Wassau Sound but it has become a put and take fishery not a rebuilding of stocks.

What is the current status of State legislation?

The problem here is the lack of education amongst the decision makers. With out sound research information and stats how can anyone make informed judgements. Ultimately a resource commission or dept of wildlife should being in control or at the very least have a strong influential voice.

What can anglers do to help?

Visit the website at georgiaredfish.org for info on purchasing t-shirts and to make donations. Proceeds will help promote awareness and purchase ad space. The site is available to posting and comments. Use it as a way to spread the word.

Scott can be reached directly savannahfly.com. Looking forward to further discussions and comments on this matter.

Capt Paul

Looking Behind the Counter: Unicoi Outfitters

In a new feature here at FlyfishMagazine.com we are bringing you a look "behind the counter" at successful fly shops. Jimmy Harris is the co-owner of Unicoi Outfitters, a successful fly shop with locations in Helen and Blue Ridge, Georgia. I met Jimmy while being crammed into an airport shuttle as we were leaving the retailer show in Denver a few years back. We managed to stay in touch and have found Jimmy and Unicoi Outfitters to be unique in their approach to running a group of fly shops that manage to compete and even thrive in direct competition with the big box sporting retailers. I jumped at the chance to ask some nosey direct questions about how he does this and Jimmy answered candidly on all counts. Here is my interview which I think gives a lot of insight into the world of folks who make a living through fly fishing:

Name: Jimmy Harris
Owner of: Uncoi Outfitters of Helen & Blue Ridge, GA
Number of years as a fly fisherman: 30+
Number of years as a fly shop owner: 11
Favorite species to fish for: Trout
Favorite place to fish: The Madison and Soda Butte

How did you get started in fly fishing?
I became enamored with the idea in the mid-70's, checked out a book at the library, bought a cheap fiberglass rod with Martin reel and taught myself how to cast. Became pretty decent at casting but not catching. I literally fished the Chattooga River for two years before landing a fish on my fly rod. Was just too hardheaded to quit.

How did you get into the fly shop business?
It was providential. My partner, David Dockery had started the shop in Helen in 1994 with another partner who was then moving to Houston, TX for a new job. David called me one evening to ask if I were interested in buying the shop since his regular day job prevented him from running the store except on weekends. I knew the shop was a hobby for David and his partner and didn't have much interest in a hobby business. However, within 12 hours of his call to me, I received a call from another friend whose company had just purchased 386 acres south of Helen and it had a mile and a half of the Chattahoochee River on it. I knew exactly where he was talking about since I had coveted this stretch of river since I had moved to north Georgia in the early 70's. He invited me to come fish it with him and I, of course accepted. It was goofy fishing! The previous landowners had not allowed anyone to fish on it since they bought it in 1910. Big, dumb fish; just what I like! At the end of our fishing trip, my friend, who had described what his company planned to do with the property (it later became Nacoochee Village with the grist mill, winery, restaurants, home furnishing stores and antique shops) asked me if I had any ideas as to how they could incorporate the river into their master plan. My response was that I thought they should lease it to someone who could manage it for trophy fly fishing and that I thought I knew someone who may be interested. The rest is history.

Your shops successfully compete, even coexist well, with the big box stores and their fly fishing departments. How do you do that?
First of all, when Unicoi Outfitters opened, there were no other shops outside of metro Atlanta in north Georgia. Honestly, if it were not for the good graces of Gary Merriman at the Fish Hawk in Buckhead, we would probably not be in business. As strong as they are in this market, we would have had a very tough time getting any quality lines in our shop if they had decided to oppose it. As it was, the shop opened with the best of tackle, Sage, Simms, T&T, Orvis, Ross, St. Croix, Abel and other top shelf products. Our mission statement has been to be the best small market fly shop in the country and every decision we make we try to make it to that end. Over the years, we've added Winston, Chota, Action Optics, Lamson, Scientific Anglers, Fishpond, Wm. Joseph, Renzetti, Tibor and others to our lines. But back to living among the giants, we acknowledged from the get go that we could not compete with them directly. Bass Pro's advertising budget for their fly shop alone is more than our entire annual revenue. What we did realize, however, was that, generally speaking, they do not typically have the expertise our staff has, nor are they in such close proximity to good fishing as we are that they can give up to the minute fishing advice. Orvis then opened two company stores in Atlanta and another private store that was, at the time, an exclusive Orvis dealer. So we made it a point to go down and meet everyone, invite them up to fish with us, help them out any way we could and, in general, take the first steps toward establishing a partnership with them rather than take an adversarial approach. Now, we get calls from customers who are standing in the Orvis shop or Bass Pro, using the store phones asking about current fishing conditions, which gear is appropriate, or do we have a specific piece of gear in stock, and will we hold it for them until they can drive up and get it. We also have them book guided trips with us from the stores in Atlanta. It has always been our philosophy that all the shops can benefit from working together much more than if we all take an adversarial position in regards to the small community of fly fishers. We have also done seminars in Bass Pro Shop and the Orvis stores for their special event days. Most of the time we do it without advertising ourselves but simply helping them to create more interest in the sport. If they create more fly anglers, we're confident that we'll see them in Unicoi Outfitters at some point.

Given the current economy, how important is price to the average fly fisher? Has this changed the way you do business?

The world of retail fly shops has been warped dramatically in the past few months. What we offer is something that is totally financed with disposable income and there's much less of that today than there was even three months ago. We'll still carry the top of the line gear, but we're also planning to zero in on more moderately priced equipment that we think is the best quality for the dollar. Unfortunately, fly fishing has already been hung with this image of being elitist long before the current economic situation. While we have never thought this argument held much water (those who argue this point haven't spent much time around Unicoi Outfitters!), it has been perpetuated by some television shows and magazines. When you consider that you can get into fly fishing with all the gear you need to step on-stream for less money than one high tech golf club will cost you, and it will last you a lifetime if taken care of, then it seems like a no-brainer to us. Now we've just got to convince the recreating public. And that task will be more important going forward than it has ever been in the past.

Why is selling flies so important to the local fly shop?
Profit margins and inventory turns. It's a simple as that. Those margins allow us to stock rods and reels that may take 12 - 18 months or more to sell. Without flies, we couldn't carry the slow moving inventory which customers expect to see when they come in our shop.

How many different flies do you carry and may we be so bold to ask how
many you sell in a year?

We carry about 1200 patterns/sizes in each shop and we sold about 100,000 flies in 2007.

How do you compete with the Internet discounters on flies? The big boxes?

We really can't compete on price on most of the Internet suppliers. They have no overhead, they're buying straight from the manufacturers so there's no middle man in there like Orvis, Umpqua or the other major wholesale suppliers. The advantage we do have is local knowledge, including which flies to use and where and we guarantee a quality fly tied on a quality hook. That isn't always the case with the online guys. The big box stores, in our experience, don't carry the top end flies so we again compete on quality and expertise. At $1.95, our trout flies are competitively priced with most other brick and mortar shops.

What is your top seller?
Y2K Bug. It has been our best seller for 5 years in a row now. Interestingly, a lot of anglers won't fish with it because they have this idea that it's only for dumb stockers. However, our guides have fished it all over the country and it's caught fish on spring creeks in Idaho, the Green River in Utah and numerous other wild trout fisheries. No one understands it but the thing sure catches fish. Our best selling "non-junk food fly is a Tungsten Rainbow Warrior.

How does the sale of flies impact the sale of big ticket (slower turning) items in your shop (Rod and reels etc).

As I mentioned earlier, it is the only way we can justify stocking tens of thousands of dollars worth of rods, reels, waders, etc.

What is your top seller?
On rods, Sage is number one but Winston made some serious inroads when they came out with the Boron series of rods. Our best selling reel by far is the Orvis Barstock Battenkill series. Great reels for the money.

Most shop owners say guided trips are a big part of their business. Would you agree? How big a part of your business are they?

I've always been of the opinion that I wouldn't want a shop without a guide service and wouldn't want a guide service without a shop. I can't see either option being sustainable. The guided trips generate about 50% of our revenue but a lot of that goes right back out to the guides and our landowners who have the private streams we provide access to.

How hard is it to find and keep quality guides?
We've been very fortunate in that we have always had a close group of folks around us that we've fished with long before we got into the fly fishing business. I would guess that the average number of years our guide staff has as fly fishermen is somewhere around twenty five, and that includes the young guys we've got on staff because most of them started fly fishing before they were ten years old. We've got, without a doubt, the most experienced guide staff in the region.

You mentioned access to private water?

We've got five different private pieces of water which total almost 9 miles here in north Georgia. We are very particular about how these streams are managed and how much fishing pressure we put on them. We will not fish a stream if water conditions are not good. We also will not try to book as many trips as possible just so we can pocket the revenue. We are more concerned that our guests have the trip of a lifetime than we are about ringing up a sale. There are no guarantees in the fishing business but we do our best to put the odds on the client's side.

How important (or unimportant) is access to private water to your success?

Private water has been integral to our success. Not only has it given us the opportunity to offer an experience not commonly found in the southeast but it has also given us unbelievable exposure on national television, national fly fishing periodicals and local Internet outlets. We've been fortunate to have been featured on ESPN, ESPN2, The Outdoor Channel, Outdoor Life Network, Turner South, Georgia Public Television and some local access cable shows. And we haven't spent any time going out and trying to get that exposure, it's all come to us because of what we have to offer.

Thanks for answering my questions so candidly. Do you ever have need of Internet magazine Editorial types to come and fish these private waters thoroughly and provide a report to you of the quality of your fishery? We don't charge for this.

You bet, if you know of anyone. I must warn you that most of those guys don't know how to fish.

Jimmy Harris and the knowledgeable staff at Unicoi Outfitters offer some excellent access to fine fly fishing and competitive prices on fly fishing gear. You won't go wrong if you contact him for your all your fly fishing needs or questions.

Helen
Manager: John Cross
Telephone 706-878-3083
Email: flyfish@unicoioutfitters.com

Blue Ridge
Manager: David Hulsey
Telephone 706-632-1880
Email: flyfish@unicoioutfitters.com

Proposed Interstate brings opposition

The Stop I3 Coalition opposes a proposed interstate highway that would connect Chattanooga, TN with Asheville, NC by going right through the middle of several southern Appalachian mountain trout streams.

The road would cross many high quality streams including trout streams and streams feeding into Fontana Lake, Lake Santeelah, and the Valley River.

Several area chapters of Trout Unlmited have joined with the Stop I3 Coalition to voice their concerns.

Still Missing...

Jimmy Harris of Unicoi Outfitters of Blue Ridge and Helen, Georgia reports that they still have not found any information about the stolen drift boat which we reported about back in June (not the one pictured above). We thought we should remind you to be on the look out just in case someone offers you a real deal on a new Hyde drift boat.

It's red, black and white, has counter-balanced oars, and, when it left our place it had an oval Unicoi logo on each side of the bow. You never know if someone dumb enough to steal something as large and unusual as a drift boat will have the sense to take the logo off. Not sure how you fence something like this but we would appreciate everyone keeping an eye out for it. If you have any information concerning its whereabouts, you may call our shop in Blue Ridge at 706-632-1880 or our shop in Helen at 706-878-3083. If your information leads to the recovery of our boat, I promise you will be one well-equipped angler, compliments of Unicoi Outfitters

Calling All Cars....Stolen Drift Boat

Calling all cars.. Be on the lookout for a drift boat stolen from Unicoi Outfitters in Blue Ridge, Georgia. From the posting over at the SEFFF:

From Jimmy Harris at UO:

Well, here we go again. Someone has stolen our Hyde drift boat from behind the store in Blue Ridge. It's red, black and white, has counter-balanced oars, and, when it left our place it had an oval Unicoi logo on each side of the bow. You never know if someone dumb enough to steal something as large and unusual as a drift boat will have the sense to take the logo off. Not sure how you fence something like this but we would appreciate everyone keeping an eye out for it. If you have any information concerning its whereabouts, you may call our shop in Blue Ridge at 706-632-1880 or our shop in Helen at 706-878-3083. If your information leads to the recovery of our boat, I promise you will be one well-equiped angler, compliments of Unicoi Outfitters.The boat was evidently taken some time Monday night or early Tuesday morning.

We met these guys at the Fly Fishing Retailer Show in Denver last year. If you have any info be sure to drop a dime (or a quarter these days)

More Anglers vs. Rafters on the Chattooga

We are not sure exactly who in their right mind would want to go white water rafting on the Chattooga River in the first place. Don't these people watch old movies? Currently on the Chattooga boating is allowed only on the lower sections of the river with the upper section, above highway 28, reserved for anglers. However in 2004 American Whitewater filed an appeal that sought to open the entire river to the raft and kayak hatch.

An administrative appeal was filed by American Whitewater in 2004 with Forest Service’s Washington Office. The appeal challenged the boating prohibition on the river above Highway 28. The Washington Office of the Forest Service decided to reverse the agency’s decision to continue to allow floating only below Highway 28, and directed the Regional Forester to conduct a visitor use capacity analysis to help make a more informed decision about how that section of the river should be managed by the agency. Until this work is completed and a revised decision is issued, the relevant provisions of the Sumter’s 1985 plan remain in effect, including the prohibition on floating above Highway 28.

Any floating on the Chattooga River above Highway 28 may only be allowed by Forest Service permits associated with this analysis. Activities allowed during this analysis period are only for data collection purposes, and may or may not be allowed in the agency’s final decision.

The US Forest Service has announced a public meeting on July 27th, 2007 in Highlands, North Carolina for the purpose of giving an update on the status of this appeal. For more information see this press release from the USFS or contact the following people:

Terry Seyden, Public Affairs Officer, National Forests in North Carolina 828-257-4202

Karen McKenzie, Public Affairs Officer, Chattahoochee/Oconee NF 770-297-3061

John Cleeves, Chattooga Analysis Team Leader, Francis Marion/ Sumter NF 803-561-4058

Here is a link to additional information about this subject from the Mountain Bridge Chapter of Trout Unlimited.

Here is a link to previous coverage of this subject on FlyFishMagazine.

Put us on this list...

"Zoo Atlanta is participating in programs that send plumage from some of its most colorful birds to people who value them for culture or sport. Some wind up in the hands of Native Americans who use them in centuries-old ceremonies. Others are used in making fishing flies." Link to the AJC.com article

Click here to sign up for free Kori Bustard feathers from FeathersMC.com. In the past these feathers have sold for as much as $300 for a matched pair.

Photo of the Kori Bustard - Credit FeathersMC.com