Jonathan Neyman: Year-Round Trout on the South Holston and Watauga in East Tennessee

Tom Rowland Podcast — Episode 970: Jonathan Neyman

In this episode: why the South Holston stays in the fifties all year, growing up on the Eel River in Humboldt County, the green boom and Murder Mountain, South Holston vs. Watauga, and what makes a great guide — in the exact words spoken.

00:00 · Cold Open

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But if you haven't fished in the Tennessee, North Carolina, North Georgia, maybe even Virginia kind of area, outstanding. And we have Jonathan from the Flybox here today to talk about mostly the South Holston and Watauga Rivers. And, if you're a trout fisherman or you want to be a trout fisherman or you want to get out of hot Florida and go up and and do something different, this is an outstanding opportunity. I'll tell you about another outstanding opportunity. We have a giveaway. As you know, if you're a fan of the podcast, you, have heard the Anglers Unite series. That's the series where we talk to, people into conservation, policy, other things to find out how we as anglers can band together to really move the needle, to do something positive, to make a positive change. We've talked to captains for clean water, O search. So many others that have, helped us to understand the power that we really have as a group. The power that recreational fishermen have, whether you like to fly fish, spin fish, bait fish, lure fish, bass fish, marlin fish, whatever you like to do, we are all one group. And if we can band together, we are very, very strong like that. And if we get splintered apart we're very very weak like that. So that's what the anglers unite series is about that's brought to you by Burnowin. Burnowin is the maker of quick switch marine mounts that go in your boat that make your boat incredibly versatile. Rod holders, filleted knives, filleted tables, universal mounts that you can mount, downriggers and other things that, really stress a regular rod holder. The Berndowin mounts and Berndowin accessories are awesome, and this is your chance to be able to get some of those. Four mounts for your boat, two rod holders, a pair of fender cleats, a seven inch Berndowin fillet knife with a bait prep table, Berndowin swag. That's not all you got neat. 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It's been running by the time that you hear this on this particular podcast has been running for a little bit, but there's still a chance for you to get in and win this, prize. We haven't had that many people in or yet, so you still have a really good chance of winning it. All right. So now that all the businesses out of our way out of the way, we're going to learn about trout fishing in Tennessee, Jonathan from the fly box, a really cool shop there that has a deli, a bar it's way more than a shop. It's like a community builder. And, we're going to learn from Jonathan how you could escape hot Florida, or if you're out West, maybe you wanna escape cold West and trout fish for the rest of the year. Awesome place, Bristol, Tennessee. Alright. Here we go with Jonathan from the Fly Box.

Jonathan Neyman: Hey. I'm Jonathan with the Flybox in East Tennessee, and this is the Tom Rowland podcast.

07:02 · A Fly Shop on the Virginia Line

Tom Rowland: Jonathan, how are you?

Jonathan Neyman: Good, man. How about you?

Tom Rowland: I'm doing great. I'm look we're really looking forward to to, catching up with you. I've fished your area a number of times. Was very impressed with it. So for the people listening, we're talking mostly about the South Holston, but the Watauga, East Tennessee. Right?

Jonathan Neyman: Like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Far East Tennessee. Yeah. We are right on the Virginia border and, pretty close to the North Carolina border as well. So, just a few minutes south of Bristol, Tennessee Bristol, Virginia, right on the river.

Tom Rowland: Yep. Interesting. There's a Bristol, Tennessee and a Bristol, Virginia. Right?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. The state line goes right down through the middle of town, so you can be on the Virginia side and Tennessee side depending on what restaurant you wanna eat at.

Tom Rowland: How does that work with, fishing license? Does the does are there any rivers that, go on both? Do they have kind of a I know it's The lake? Carolina, some Yeah.

Jonathan Neyman: Of, Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: You can have one line of states.

Jonathan Neyman: The South Holston Lake covers both Tennessee, parts of Tennessee, and then parts of Virginia. So I think there's rep reciprocity on that. But as far as the rivers go, you've gotta carry a Tennessee license to fish the South Holston or the Watauga. Yep.

Tom Rowland: Now Yep. I fished up there very impressed with it, for a couple of reasons. I fished all over, including Alaska and and out west. And the South Holston may be the coldest river that I've ever put my feet in.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. It's chilly willy.

08:40 · The Dam That Keeps the River in the Fifties

Tom Rowland: Why is can you tell us, like, what goes on? I know that there's, like, a a weird dam there, but why why is that river so cold? Like, maybe you can explain, like, where it runs and where it's coming from and and and just kinda give us the lay of the land of of that river.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Absolutely. So the starting of the Holston And South Holston Rivers are up in Virginia, and and they've dammed up, the lake in the late fifties. The project started in the forties and completed after the second World War. I think they came online in 1951, something like that. One of the reasons it is so cold is because where we draw for our water, coming out of the bottom of the dam is so deep. It's, like, plus 250 feet deep.

Tom Rowland: Wow.

Jonathan Neyman: So, yeah, we stay consistently, through the wintertime in the high forties, low fifties. And then even in the middle of the summer, you know, we're very rarely out of the mid 50 degree, water temperature. Sometimes on low water when they're not generating, we definitely see some temperatures that, it's funny. People get around here get pretty freaked out by, like, mid sixties. But, you know, if we see mid sixties, people are starting to kinda panic and call TVA and ask for some water. Oh. But, yeah, it's it's a cold river for sure. Both of them are the Watauga and the South Holston.

Tom Rowland: And, you know, out west and in many other rivers, we've had hoot owl restrictions in the summertime of, you know, restricted fishing because the rivers are getting so warm. Have you ever I mean, if it's only getting to the sixties, you probably don't even have that problem.

Jonathan Neyman: Right? No. No. Not at all. And that's one of the things that drew me when I left, where we lived before and opened the shop here rather than, you know, making a pilgrimage back out west. It was the the decision was made because we get to fish year round here both in the winter and in the summer. So

10:53 · Growing Up in Humboldt County: Kings, Silvers, and Steelhead

Tom Rowland: Interesting. So tell me where you came from.

Jonathan Neyman: I grew up in Northern California, in Humboldt County, Southern Humboldt County. So I grew up on, in

Tom Rowland: North all the documentaries of the of the marijuana.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: It must have had an interesting childhood with all that going on there.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. The seventies and eighties there were were an interesting time. Much more peace and love than it is now. But I grew up on the South Fork Of The Eel River, which was a pretty pretty big salmon and steelhead river. We had Chinooks or kings and, silvers and then steelhead. So I grew up with a fly rod in my hand. Started when I was about 10 or 12 years old. Really got into it, in my teens. And, yeah, it was you know, we fish for trout or, small, you know, salmon and trout in the summertime. And then starting around, late August, early September, we'd get our first runs of the the smaller steelhead and salmon would start making their way up. We transition over.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. What was your favorite, of those species? Did you like one over over the other one style?

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, the Kings, for sure. I mean, yeah. I mean, the steelhead were really cool and there's a lot of lure around the steelhead. But in the early and mid eighties, you know, there were a lot of of, kings and, you know, caught in the 40 to 60 pound range. And a large steelhead for us was, you know, 15 pounds. So you could triple that with a with a big king.

12:43 · What Happened to the Eel River

Tom Rowland: Wow. Yep. What's the status of the kings there now? Do you know?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. So I keep up with that river because I've got family out there still, and and it it went through a really rough time in the late eighties, right as I was leaving and moved to Kentucky. And then through the nineties, it was really rough. They actually closed fishing, completely on that river. And and it it's it's really cool because it's starting to rebound. You're starting to get bigger runs of steelhead back, lot better management. So, you know, it's cool to see that. It's definitely been a long process.

Tom Rowland: Are the Kings coming back?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. I mean, there's a few. Not not like they used to. And I think that's probably, you know, obviously, like, the whole Pacific Northwest is struggling with that as well. Mhmm. They're starting to tear some of the old dams down on the headwaters of the Eel River. So they're I think they're hoping that, they're gonna get some of the, you know, reflux of the bigger runs that that those fish saw historically in the forties and fifties when my dad was a kid.

Tom Rowland: What do you think about that, the dam removals? Is that you think that's gonna be, like, instantaneously better for the fish, or what what's the what's your thought on it? I've never seen it.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm pretty pretty far removed from that now, but, again, I keep up with a lot of what's going on. Toward the late eighties, we had some drought years, And then, of course, anything south of us, so like the Bay Area, the Sacramento Valley, all of those rivers kinda tied into those eventually. And so a lot of the issues with low water and then, obviously, warm water there, through the summertime. You know, if it wasn't for some of those dams, some of the headwater streams would have would have reached critical temperature. Certain sections of the eel actually dried up in the early two thousands and late nineties.

Tom Rowland: Wow.

Jonathan Neyman: And some of that was that green boom, you know, all the pot farmers, and large scale operations, you know, using a lot of that water off the head headwaters of that up in the mountains.

15:15 · The Green Boom and Murder Mountain

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Yeah. That's that there's some really interesting documentaries. I had a very interesting guest on the podcast a couple of times, John, Norris that, was a, a game warden there and basically had to resort to SWAT tactics and special forces ecnectics to to go up again. He kinda put all that together. He, fascinating stories. But they they kind of were able to do that because of wildlife violations and particularly, poisoning rivers.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: The overflow of whatever they're putting on the plants was getting into the water, and it was killing everything.

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, yeah.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Justification to to go in, with force.

Jonathan Neyman: Well, you yeah. A lot of that of course, when I was a kid, the term large scale operations, it was mostly, you know, the the like I said, kind of that peace and love, big hippie community. There were a lot of growers, but they're they were very obviously, kinda, as you think, like, they're very, you know, ecology driven. You know, they they were very careful not to do stuff. It was when the big large scale operations came in, the cartels.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Jonathan Neyman: Different foreign entities were up there growing. That yeah. I mean, it it and some of those documentaries that I've watched, Murder Mountain, happened right where I grew up. And it was yeah. It was heartbreaking, man, to watch what I saw as, like, a really pristine area. And my dad had grown up in the forties and early fifties there. And lots of my family live there, and, yeah, it was really sad to see what was going on up there. But I think it's getting rectified.

Tom Rowland: That'll tear up a town.

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, in a heartbeat.

Tom Rowland: It was interesting on one of those, documentaries. I think it could have been that murder mountain, and it was kinda like, you know, they had the people that were just trying to do this organic kind of farming. And and then it seemed like where it was seemed like when it legalized and people had to get all the proper permits Mhmm. That was really causing some serious problems because they weren't making money anymore.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Very, very expensive. Very expensive to do that. I didn't grow up in the in the industry. I mean, we had lots of friends. A lot of my high school friends' parents, you know, were illegal growers, and a lot of my friends after I left did that and some kind of transitioned into the legal stuff. But, yeah. I mean, it's it's, it's a rough industry to be in, and I'm I'm, blessed that I did not stick around and and get wrapped up in that like so many did.

Tom Rowland: Seems like it. There's other things that happened. This may sound crazy to you, but, or maybe not. I don't know. There's also, a lot of, lore around Sasquatch in that area.

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Up in Trinity area up near Redding or in between Redding and the coast. Yeah. It's a

Tom Rowland: That may be where that film was.

Jonathan Neyman: Right? Like,

Tom Rowland: the the the I think what do they call that film? It's,

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. Where he's walking all weird. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Basically, dude in a dude in a suit. I mean, I think Yeah.

Jonathan Neyman: Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. But

Tom Rowland: it captured a lot of people's imagination. You

Jonathan Neyman: didn't Yeah. I think so.

18:45 · Black Bears, Mountain Quail, and Native Grasses

Tom Rowland: Are there were there bears there when you grew up or not?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Black bears. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. We didn't have any, like, grizzlies or, you know, coastal browns or anything like that, but, occasionally, you'd see black black bear. Mostly, what you saw were, black tailed deer. There were some pretty good sized mountain lions. Mhmm. You know, so but most of my as a child, my dad was a big hunter, but he was a bird hunter. So we shot a lot of California quail and pheasants in the Sacramento Valley and duck hunted in Sacramento Valley.

Tom Rowland: Wow. California quail. Are they, held They're

Jonathan Neyman: the ones with the little toughs on tops of their heads. Yeah. Yeah. They're when I was a kid, it was a really healthy population, and a lot of big coveys up where we live. I'm not real, like, caught up on what's going on there. The cool thing about, as we were talking before we started, the area in Chile that we go and fish, this big valley on the Argentinian border, they introduced gamble and California quail Oh. Back in the sixties, and they are everywhere. So it was really cool. We, yeah, we saw a bunch of them.

Tom Rowland: That's cool. The quail Yeah.

Jonathan Neyman: Had a

Tom Rowland: hard time. I mean, we're you're you're in Tennessee, and Tennessee has had a, a very healthy population of quail for a long time. And there's still some around, but Mhmm. You know, the the habitat just gets destroyed not even in a in a terrible way. I mean, certainly by by houses and other things, but even just, you know, farmland and other things that don't have the the, you know, the undisturbed brush that they used to have. And so, like, couple of my friends have, like, some wild quail on their land up there, and they manage it for the quail. There's a lot of burn Mhmm. Stuff like that, but they have, like, the type of habitat that they want, which is basically the same kind of stuff that if you're gonna farm the land, you're gonna get rid of.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The native grasses, which are thicker at the top and skinnier at the bottom, those little guys can wiggle through. You know, fescue and and orchard grass is different. It's thick at the bottom and skinny at the top. Right. And I'm sure a lot of, there's a lot of theories about that too. You know, obviously, spraying Roundup everywhere and Yeah. That kind of stuff is probably, put a put a hurting on them too. So Right.

21:22 · From Northern California to Kentucky to Tennessee

Tom Rowland: So, from from growing up in, in Northern California Mhmm. Salmon, trout, and steelhead angler, how do you end up in Tennessee?

Jonathan Neyman: So, the first move was in 1989. I moved to Central Kentucky, right outside of Lexington, Kentucky. So Bourbon and horse country

Tom Rowland: Yep.

Jonathan Neyman: To go to school.

Tom Rowland: At at Kentucky? University of Kentucky?

Jonathan Neyman: No. No. I went to a small Christian college, Asbury University. It was even smaller than, when a couple years What was the I'm sorry.

Tom Rowland: What was the drop?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. California.

Jonathan Neyman: Alright. So the the abbreviated version would be my dad spent he left Northern California in 1950 and joined the marine corps

Tom Rowland: Okay.

Jonathan Neyman: And then spent thirty one years in the marine corps. I have an older brother and sister that are much more age appropriate to my parents. I'm blessed both of my parents are still alive. My dad's 91, almost 91, and my mom's 90. My brother and sister, like I said, are much more age appropriate. So we lived on the East Coast. I was actually born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, not far from, you know, not too far from where we're at now. And then when my dad retired in 1979, 1980, we moved back to where he had grown up for him to retire. So my sister and brother had gone to Christian high schools, and, my sister found Asbury first, and then my brother followed suit. And then, I lived in California growing up, and then, you know, from, like, second grade till graduating high school. And then I came out to Kentucky as well. So

Tom Rowland: And Yeah. You there are not salmon and steelhead in Kentucky. No. Other things you can do out outdoors.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. What was that

Tom Rowland: like, to to leave that wonderland of of, outdoor act fishing? Yeah. Fishing, really, to go to Kentucky.

Jonathan Neyman: It was tough. You know, I mean, there were a lot of other circumstances on why it was good for me to get out of, Northern California as we spoke earlier. So some of it was kinda starting over. It but it was tough. I mean, the fly fishing. I never grew up gear fishing. I've tried it a little bit, but I was always drawn to fly fishing. So when I moved from, Northern California to Central Kentucky, I didn't have bait casting and spinning rods. I brought fly rods with me. That was tough. And then I actually found the Smokies, and spent a lot of time in the early nineties bushwhacking. And that was something really cool because I hadn't done a lot of that. The rivers I grew up on were were big rivers. The Vanduos and the Trinity, the Mattole, the Bear, North And South Fork Of The Eel, all of those are they're big rivers. And so bushwhacking in the Smokies was really cool. You know? Casting little bitty short rods and, you know, you're kinda catching those tiny trout, and that was really cool. And then found the Cumberland River in Central South Central Kentucky. And in the nineties, that place was Sangre La. I mean, it was unbelievable fishing. And, they they had some dam issues in the late nineties they detected. And then in the early two thousands, they, they basically drained, I think, like, 68 or 70 feet off of, Cumberland Lake and scoured the river and washed out the river. But, the Cumberlands back for sure for your listeners. You guys have to

25:28 · Stocked Giants on the Cumberland River

Tom Rowland: go there. A guide on the Cumberland River, and it's a place that I've been wanting to go because, it looks really good. I mean, this guy's catching a lot of big fish and he's fishing out of some sort of boat. He doesn't often put his boat on there. I wish I knew what the account was. You probably know the guy, but it looks like he's fishing. It looks pretty still like very laminar flow.

Jonathan Neyman: It's flat.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And so, but he's catching a lot of fish.

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: It's really good. So what happened to bring that back? Do you know?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. They they stock the crap out of that thing with those tryptyloid trout, that get big real fast.

Tom Rowland: Tell me that tryptyloid. I don't know I don't know that. What is it? Yeah.

Jonathan Neyman: It's like some species are genetically altered rainbow that, like, the I don't know the growth rates off top of my head, but it's insane. If they're put in a in an in a tailwater or a fishery that has got high, you know, biomass, both, you know, bug life and other fish to eat, Those things pack the pounds on. Now I know. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. We were taking some fish, from Pyramid Lake in California with that gene, that strain of of gene, and those are supposed to get really, really big.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: I don't know about the tryptyloid ones.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. I think I'm pronouncing that right. I'm sure somebody will comment that, you know, this idiot's pronounced that wrong, but I think it's something like that. But yeah. And then, they have a really strong hatchery there. And the cool thing was they added a, like, two mile basically built a really cool I think it's a mile and a half, two mile stream that was the discharge of the hatchery. And as soon as they got that thing plugged back into the Cumberland this was in the, I don't know, like, o four, o five time period, o six. Like, some fish started, like, you know, running up that thing to spawn. I mean, it was crazy. As soon as they plugged that thing in, it's wild to watch that nature kinda work on that. But I think that that happened. And then the brown population in the nineties there was, I mean, it wasn't as dense as the South Holston or the Watauga. But there were a lot of really big browns and wild and, you know, reproducing browns and rainbows on that river. And I think it's just time, man, has got that thing back. But one of the OG guides on that river, Hagen Juan is his name, and I've known Hagen for thirty five years now. He is and there's a lot of super good guides on the Cumberland, but Hagan is old school rose wooden drift boat. And, man, he is a he's a ninja out there. And, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of big fish in that river. And there's a lot of river to fish there too. I mean, way longer than the South Holston and the Watauga combined. So yeah. And it's big.

Tom Rowland: They do overnight trips or anything on a river that length?

Jonathan Neyman: Or You know, I don't know if anybody's doing that. That would be cool. There probably is somebody that's doing it. They run a lot of jet boats up there because of how big that river is and how much water they can cover with jets. And I think too, you know, when I was young and fishing that, you know, we fished it when they we tried to fish it when it wasn't generating. But I think, obviously, as technology and tactics have gotten better over the last twenty five, almost thirty years now, the streamer game is good on high water. So, yeah, it's a it's pretty awesome fishery.

Tom Rowland: Funny because the guy that I follow over there, his his account is Cumberland Trout Guide, and his name is streamer Troy Humphrey. I don't know if you know him or not.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've met him. I don't know if you

Tom Rowland: followed his his account. What's the other guy's name that you said?

Jonathan Neyman: Hagen. Hagen. Won, w o n, I think. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Okay.

Jonathan Neyman: But he's he yeah. He's a neat guy, man. And, sends people down here to fish with me, and I send people up there to fish with him.

Tom Rowland: Oh, that's cool.

Jonathan Neyman: The first thing I always caveat when I get his clients in my boat is, you know, we're not gonna catch the average size of fish. You're not gonna be as big as the Cumberland. We're gonna catch more, but, you know, when and we have a chance to catch a big one. But, yeah, that place is pretty amazing.

Tom Rowland: Well, there certainly are big ones in in your water.

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, yeah.

30:06 · A Day in the Drift Boat on the South Holston

Tom Rowland: So kind of give us a a description of of what the river is like and what maybe what, you know, what your day looks like, kind of boat you're fishing out of. Like, what does it look like on your river?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. So the South Holston, when if we're gonna try to use a drift boat, which I would say plus 95% of our trips out of the shop are a drift boat. People are coming for the ease of a drift boat. And, you know, a lot of people in the Southeast, Atlanta, Charlotte, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Lexington, Louisville, you know, that kind of six hour region around us. They probably do a lot of wade fishing on their own. So I think they're looking for that drift boat experience.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Jonathan Neyman: The South Holston, there's a couple areas that you can fish on low water, in a drift boat. But most of the time, if it's low water, we're usually on the Watauga. But if we're on the South Holston, I fish out of an Adipose drift boat. Awesome boat. It's a skiff style. Mhmm. So low sided.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I fished out of the ancestor of that boat a long, long time ago.

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, the South Fork Skiff. Oh, the Koffler. Yeah. Even before

Tom Rowland: the South Fork Skiff was a total rip off of the I mean, my friend Carter Anthony. It was a total rip off of the of the I don't wanna call it a rip off. It was it was

Jonathan Neyman: Borrowed design.

Tom Rowland: Inspired inspired by the coffler. But the coffler Yeah. Old, aluminum coffler is basically a Yeah. A large, horse, watering tank. It was physically Yeah. A large Yeah. Aluminum bathtub. And Yeah.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. Water shovel.

Tom Rowland: At the same time, everybody was sitting down. And then Mhmm. Carter had an idea for a fiberglass model of that, which was the South Fork skiff. And then now, you know, it's spawned into so many. Yeah. And it's a great design for for your river. I think it's ideal. Low sitting, You know? Yep. That that's really

Jonathan Neyman: And I I borrow that Western mantra a lot. I have a lot of my clients sit. I try to I mean, I we do a lot of nymph fishing here. It it's kind of the bread and butter for sure. But I get a lot of guys that are are dry fly anglers and want to throw drys. So the nice thing about my adipose is I can take the casting braces out, and it basically becomes, you know, the boat that I wanted for years, which is a South Fork skiff. And so yeah. I mean, we my I tend to push my clients a little harder on the dry fly game even if we don't have I mean, we have midgetatches here every day, and we have pretty prolific gluing hatches. The sulfur hatches aren't quite what they used to be. And I don't know if that's a cyclical thing or what, but we just don't have the strength and veracity of the sulfur hatches. They're much more sporadic and spotty now, but still really good and for a long period of time.

33:33 · Sulfurs Year-Round and Why Drift Is King

Tom Rowland: What time of year does that happen?

Jonathan Neyman: You know, we're, we'll see sulfurs year round. I mean, it I've been out fishing in December in snow and, you know, a a version of a sulfur pops off.

Tom Rowland: How big are your sulfurs that you're that you would consider for that river? How

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Primarily are size sixteens. I mean, we throw, like, a sixteen is kind of the bread and butter. There's a lot of bugs that I think people call sulfurs that are actually pale morning duns or pale evening duns. We also have a blue wing that patches and

Tom Rowland: and a pale morning dun.

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, yeah.

Tom Rowland: One of them has three tails, and one of them has two tails. Right?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. The color shading is a little different. I I wish I was super, you know, entomology driven, more of a color and size guy. But I I to be to be honest with you, so back in 2023, from 09/14/2023 to 09/14/2024, when I was fishing fun fishing by myself or with my boys or with friends, on the river, which I think I fish, like, a hundred and thirty days for fun. I threw nothing but drives for a solid year just to see if I could do it. Yep. And I caught fish every time I went. 09/14/2023 was the first day I started, and it went a full calendar year.

Tom Rowland: That's cool. And so Yeah.

Jonathan Neyman: It was really cool.

Tom Rowland: You see kinda some hatches throughout the day every day, and you just have to kinda be ready for it? And then sometime Yeah. Day that they're not keyed in on the surface at all?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. You can still if you know where to go, and and there's a lot of guides that that know the same thing. It's not like I've got some kind of magical Right. Thing. I just push myself to do it more. You know, I'm I try to set expectations not so much in numbers, but, you know, maybe learning a new skill or, you know, trying to get better at a skill that you want to get better at. And, you know, this is a technical fishery. It's a technical dry fly fishery. When the hatches are huge, it's not as hard. But, you know, when it's pretty sporadic, these fish can get super picky. It's amazing what a 10 inch fish how picky they can get. But learning that skill set, like, fishing it like I do the Missouri or the Beaverhead or, you know, rivers like that, then when I do travel, it definitely makes me a better angler. And there's a lot of guys in this area, guides and locals that fun fish that honestly don't have an idea of how good anglers they are because pretty much all they fish are these two rivers. And then they either travel for the first time on their own or they go, you know, go to Montana and, you know, it's we've done a hosted trip to Montana and the the guides at the end of the day when I was getting everybody collected back were like, man, these guys are sticks. And I'm like, yeah. Yeah. They're much better than they think they are.

Tom Rowland: So so what is it about those rivers that that that requires somebody to be so good?

Jonathan Neyman: I think it's it's drift is king for sure. I mean, if you're fishing the Trico Spinner Falls on the mow, you know, and and fishing the Spinner Falls here, and so much of it here is driven by the amount of bugs that we have when the hatches are happening. You know, they don't they they have the opportunity to be picky like they are on the mow during those big Trico Spinner Falls.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm. I love that.

Jonathan Neyman: You know, or or the big PMD hatches there.

Tom Rowland: Where would you fish the Missouri when you're fishing out of, Wolf Creek? Or

Jonathan Neyman: I'm a Craig I'm a Craig fanboy. Yeah. So yeah. I mean, you know, it's busy, and I have some buddies out there that own shops and are outfitters out there. And, I mean, everybody could complain about something. Right? But even in its busy days, I mean, I love basically from Holterdam to, like, Pelican Point.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Jonathan Neyman: Breaking those up, you know, Craig Craig to Stickney Stickney to Mid Canyon, Mid Canyon to Pelican Point, Pelican Point to Cascade. I mean, those are such good floats. And, River. Man, those yeah. It's a killer river. So but I treat the South Holston a lot like that too.

38:26 · Guiding Craig, Montana Before the Internet

Tom Rowland: When I when I guided on, on the South Fork, we would, you know it was back in the time before the Internet, obviously, and and back in the time that when Labor Day would come around, the tourist would just dry up because homeschooling wasn't what it is today. There was no Internet. Like, there weren't cell phones. So it's really crazy how the world has changed like that.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. And it's changed here. I mean, just in the last fifteen years here.

Tom Rowland: To go year round? Like, you can fish year round now?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. I think it's that and then, you know, the Internet. I don't wanna sound like the old curmudgeon, but, you know and it it's a good thing and it's a bad thing. Right? It's two edged sword. Like, on one hand, it's great for the local economy. It's cool that I get to open a fly shop and the fly shops in the area that have been here longer than I have, you know, can, sustain themselves Mhmm. You know, on on a very niche industry so much. But, and then the the the other side of that is is the pressure the river gets.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I was gonna tell you about the, when, you know, back when I was guiding let's see. It was, like, '89, ninety, ninety one, two, those those years in there. And I was going well, Labor Day would come around, and Jackson Hole was, like, very tourist driven. Labor Day would come around, and it would dry up. I mean, it's like you turned off the faucet. Yeah. It just didn't come through anymore. And so you would fish as much as you could until about that maybe a week or two later, and then there just weren't any tourists. People would just start boarding up literally. Like, okay. Well, we're done for the season and ready for hunting season because that's the next Yeah. Happen. And so my wife and I, would go on a little tour and, like, all summer long, I'd heard people that had fished the Missouri, and then they'd come down and fish the South Fork with me, and they would do these different rivers. They'd fish the Henry River. They'd go they a lot of people would do the do the, the green in in, Utah, and then they'd come up to the South Fork. And so I'd hear about all these rivers. Mhmm. Man, one day I'm gonna go do that. So I heard about the Missouri a whole bunch, and so my wife and I just went to, Craig in Wolf Creek, and we were right at that bridge right by the dam. Yep. And we pull into, this this little lodge that was there, and it's all boarded up. It's all boarded up. Like, it is closed down, and this is, like, September 15. I mean, it would be prime time right now. And so there's, like, a note on the door that said, if you need something, you know, just call this number. So we call the number, and they're like, yeah. Nobody's there. Nobody's gonna be there until, you know, spring. And and, like, if you need a place to stay, just grab a key and just stay in one of the rooms. Okay. Right. And we stay there, and there's no one around. No. Not a single truck goes by. We also didn't bring any food. So we thought that there would be some place to eat up there. So.

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, no.

Tom Rowland: You know, and we had to go, you know, it's like, okay, well, where are we going to eat? So we had to go to Helena. Yeah. Great Falls, right? You have your. Yeah. But we would come back and just stay there. No one there. Not a single boat on the river. No one to run a shuttle. And so what we would do is put in at that bridge, and I would walk the boat as far up the, up towards the dam as possible and just move onto the bridge and a little past to where I felt like I don't wanna get too far down because

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: We're gonna be messed up. So I would go down as far as I could, you know, think I could row back up and then walk it back up the thing. But we're the only ones there. That's in which the Internet has changed things. Because September is like prime time out there.

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, they they swing for fish late into the seasons, the winter there.

Tom Rowland: Right.

42:58 · Streamer Culture and Night-Fishing for Giant Browns

Jonathan Neyman: Riesler's whole group is I mean, they he's changed that whole area as far as yeah. And I think some of that, right, is tactics. Like Mhmm. You all the streamer game. You know, when I was I'd say are you and I around the same age? How old are you? Six. Okay. So I'm a couple years younger than you. But, yeah, back in the early nineties, like, ripping streamers was like a muddler minnow or a wooly bugger or a klouser if you even knew what that was. You know? But, you know, now it's like there's like a whole science behind it. And, yeah, I think that's that's definitely helps that as well and kinda extends the the season for those guys too. And Yeah. A lot of that happens here as well. You know, we get we get really good, really consistent weather and fishing all the way up into early November. And we'll have, like, some of the best sulfur hatches October and November here, you know, in the last few years. And, you know, and and start, like, late September all the way through October and November and sometimes even into the later November. And then, you know, you a lot of the guys here just, like, switch to the streamer game. Of course, you've got fish that come up both the Watauga and the South Holston to spawn, browns. And, there's a closed two closed sections on the South Holston that from November 1 through, I think, March 1, you can't fish through. You can float through, but you can't fish through.

Tom Rowland: And that's And so

Jonathan Neyman: spawning? Yeah. Yeah. That's for the spawn. Kinda give them a couple areas.

Tom Rowland: Reds when you're floating through there. Can

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, yeah. Oh oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Big time of the year where

Tom Rowland: Big fish. Be like, what's that's it's like I always think about, like, I love looking at those things because, like, that's the time of the year where you're like, you see what's in that river. You know?

Jonathan Neyman: Hell, yeah.

Tom Rowland: I don't know where that fish goes after this.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So both rivers do

Tom Rowland: stay in those reds, though. Uh-oh. I think we're I'm sorry about that. It's okay. I think we just You got You're, I've I've gotcha. Yeah. Okay.

Jonathan Neyman: Yep. Sorry. My your your thing popped up.

Tom Rowland: See on those, on those reds? Like, what's a really big one there?

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, plus 30 inches. And and and yeah. Oh, yeah. Don't see a lot I mean, there's probably a lot of fish that are called 30 inches

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Jonathan Neyman: That if you actually taped them, they're probably mid twenties.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Jonathan Neyman: But you'll see some sometimes that, you know, the guys at night fish and stuff. Mhmm. You know, I mean, some of the pictures of that stuff is that's crazy. Big, big fish. So but they're tough to catch. And there's a lot of guides around here that catch those things on low water in the middle of the day with high sun. I mean, they're, you know, they're really good at that.

Tom Rowland: And so

Jonathan Neyman: hunting those fish.

Tom Rowland: In in that situation, that was kinda my experience when I came up there. I fished with, Justin Scheuer. You know him?

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great guy.

Tom Rowland: Him and his brother. Very good. Mhmm. Mhmm. I've never seen some somebody use so much fluorocarbon in my life. I mean, like, my VIVX, like

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Like, three Yeah. Arm arm, you know, poles.

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: And they were using, like, this this dropper rig with with amazing amounts of tippet on there. I mean, really, really, really it was a rig, you know, certainly, I never use anything like that out west. I've never seen anything like that out west. It was very specialized for what they were doing. And Yeah. I was very impressed. And we did catch some of those big fish, but they were absolutely hunting them, and they were absolutely at the bottom of the pool. And it was like your strike indicator just sneezed. Like, just stick. Like, the other little thing you've ever seen in your life. And, because there's, like, slack in that in that, all that Mhmm. That that's on there. But, anyway, I was very, very impressed with, how technical it was, how the guides had responded to that. And I can see why you're saying that when when your anglers go somewhere else, like, it seems kinda easy because, like, a dropper out west is, like, 12 inches.

Jonathan Neyman: Like Right. Yeah. It's not. And you're throwing foam that big above it. Yeah. Yeah. And and those those guys were definitely the pioneers of of that game in this area, and and it you know, there's other guides that do it now and and are good at it. There's several of them. I mean, it's easy to see on Instagram. Yeah. But those guys are the the definitely, the ones that, pioneered that big fish hunting on low water, type of thing. Not really my jam. I mean, you know, some of it is maybe my patience level isn't real good. I'll give them a few whacks at it, if we if we see some bigger fish like that. You know, everybody wants to give a shot, but I'm not, you know, it just kinda not my thing too much. What is

Tom Rowland: your thing?

Jonathan Neyman: What what river,

48:25 · South Holston vs. Watauga

Tom Rowland: either. I'd also like to know the difference in your opinion between the South Holston and the Watauga because I obviously well, not obviously. I hear more about the South Holston than I do the Watauga. And when I hear about the Watauga, like, am I am I correct that I'm I'm hearing about Small Mouth there, or am I is that mistaken that with another river?

Jonathan Neyman: No. Yeah. Probably mistaken that with another river. So the Watauga and the South Holston run into Boone Lake, and then there's two dams below where the you know, you've got Boone Dam and then Fort Patrick Henry. Below both of those, there's really big fish and big trout. Below Fort Patrick Henry to a certain extent, then you're in small mouth water there.

Tom Rowland: Okay.

Jonathan Neyman: The Watauga, to me, there's a lot more elevation loss between Wilbur Dam and Boone Lake. You know? So you get a lot of pockets, riffles, runs, buckets, stuff like that. The substrate is a little different than the South Holston. There are ledges just, you know, in shoals and different stuff like that that that you see predominantly on the South Holston. But to me, on high water, the South Holston is a much flatter river. The and and we most of the guides fish the South Holston on high water and fish the Watauga on their low water, which is around 240 CFS. So you'll do a lot of bouncing back and forth. And the fishing styles are similar but very different. You know, over on the Watauga, through the summer, you can throw kind of a western rig, a big chubby. Maybe not have to go down to six x all the time, but, you know, you can throw four and a half, five x to a dropper. And, you know, early in the mornings, they'll come up and smoke a chubby, or in the evenings, they will, because you're fishing a lot of ripples and buckets and drops and stuff like that. Whereas the Southholst and it it just kinda flattens out, much like sections of the mow. You know, just kinda big and flat. And then there, you're looking for those big grass beds, that are on the South Holston, four places for fish to hide or the big ledges that run across it or horizontal with it. So it's a little bit different fishing technique, on on it. Predominantly, the fish that you're gonna catch on the Watauga are rainbows. I think 80% of the population of fish on the Watauga are rainbows, and 80% of the fish population on the South Holston are browns. So it's kind of a flip flop thing. Not to say you're not gonna catch, you know, a rainbow on the South Holston or a brown on the Watauga. There are big browns on the Watauga as well, but predominantly, you're gonna catch more rainbows over on the Watauga.

Tom Rowland: Is one of them more, suited for dry flies than the other or about the same?

Jonathan Neyman: Totally do. No. Yeah. I'd say they're very close to each other. I would say the South Holston is probably more famous for dry fly fishing, but the Watauga has a much more diverse hatch chart than the than the South Holston does. I mean, they get the Granum, the Mother's Day caddis. They've got sulfurs. They have blueing olives, but they also have, you know, a lot of different stuff over there. So, you know, you may see two or three different bugs hatching on one day on the Watauga, whereas the South Holston, you kinda get into that past. The May, you're kind of in sulfur season or PMD season, you know, and you're kinda throwing yellow or orange bugs most of the time. We do have a little black caddis that happens on the South Holston. Seems to be much more predominant than it used to be ten years ago. Used to be much more isolated to certain areas. It seems like we're getting more of them, and they're tiny. And even in big, sulfur hatches, the the bigger fish have a tendency to key in on something maybe a little different. So kind of fun trying to figure that out.

52:46 · Dry Flies, Cripples, and Fast-Food Expectations

Tom Rowland: So, like, you mentioned that the deep, super technical hunting for big fish might not be your jam, but what is your jam? What do you like to do?

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, I love throwing dries. I mean, I'm pretty snobby that way or dries and, like, unweighted emergers or unweighted tiny nymphs and, you know, just under the meniscus or just in the surface film.

Tom Rowland: So are you seeing the surprising before you're you're throwing at them?

Jonathan Neyman: Or not Yeah. I mean, if that's ideally, you know, what you wanna do, obviously. And then patterning the fish, you know, how are they eating? Am I just seeing a certain portion of the fish? Are they on a mergers? You know, are they, you know, eating cripples only? Are the you know, I mean, it it it can get technical that way. You know, you'll see a bunch of really healthy duns just float down right over fish, and then he'll come up and eat something. And, you know, so you're in the box trying to find something, you know, like gallop gallops, like, his bent hook, cripple. I like that much.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. The Quigley cripple was always, one of my favorite flies ever. And my

Jonathan Neyman: The last chance cripple is a great one.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Those all come Yeah. That that Quigley because the last chance is that's the, the boys on the Henry's Fork there

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, yeah.

Tom Rowland: Doing that. But that's how the that's how the South Fork was when I guided there. It was I mean, I tell my boys, they both went to Montana State, and they they fished out there a bunch. And I would go out there and fish with them, and and we're primarily nymph fishing. And then we, you know, maybe we would go with a guide, and we're almost nymph fishing almost all the time. And I was telling them, I was like, dude, when I fished out here, I didn't have a nymph in my box. Like, everything that we had for years was it was all dry fly all the time. 95% of the guides were throwing, like, a single dry fly. And if you if your people couldn't see, you put on a, like, a, like, a stimulator or, like, some sort of a hopper or Mhmm. That. And then if they could see, it was, like, size sixteen, even size eighteen, no dropper, nothing. Like, dropping then was like super advanced. Yeah. What you're talking about like a like a sixteen with with a a weighted a weightless emerger on the back that's just under the surface film. Yep. I would do it, like, only, like, three or four inches behind the dry fly. Like, the tiniest Yeah. Proper ever and it would look like they came up and ate the dry. So you have your people looking at the dry fly and then they see the rise and they set the hook and I'm like, I'll bet you $10, it's on the back on the back fly. They're like, no. No. No. I saw it. Eat this one.

Jonathan Neyman: Eat the foot. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: They always were eating the we would catch so many more fish on the emerger. Yeah. What happened out there? Because now

Jonathan Neyman: Expectations, man. I think it's people. It's that drive through fast food expectation. You know, what and some of that is some of that is, socially driven, I think. I think it's people want instant gratification, and it's can be a lot easier to throw a bobber on and nymph up, you know, fifteen, twenty fish in a day. Yeah. And, hell, I remember times six, seven, eight years ago on on the South Holston. You know, some of the guides would complain about not having a good day because they didn't put sixty, seventy fish in the boat. Right. I mean, what? Yeah. You know? And and and so then, you know, if that's your benchmark, if if if success is driven by numbers, then you have to be careful. Guides will pigeonhole themselves into not trying something like, we're just gonna throw drives today, and we're gonna go for it. And, you know, how does that sound to you? And managing expectations of your clients while not just trying to get through the day. And some of that is probably a little more elder statesman in my age, and, you know, and I can cherry pick some clients that, you know, are are a little more willing to you know, what is a major successful day for you? Well, I learned how to, you know, throw a quartering downstream, reach mend, and feed line down to a fish and and caught that fish on a dry. I mean, you know, I've had guys in my boat that, like, have fished around here and other places. And, like, halfway through the day, they'll say stuff like, I've never caught a fish on a dry fly. And I'm like, what? Yes. You know? And I'm like, you've never caught a fish on a dry fly? And they're like, no. I'd love to try it. And I'm like, well, give me that rod. Like, we're yeah. We're putting those nymphs up. We're gonna make that happen. And, you know, and it it could be a fish this big, but, dude, they're they're freaking out. I mean and, you know, so some of that, I I think I think like you like you said, it's just it's a measured success type of thing.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. When we were getting into fishing, it was almost the other way. Like, nymphs were like a new thing. And, Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, it was like almost everybody fish dry flies. And then there were, like, you know, wet flies, which were like Mhmm. Swing them. And Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, they still work, but, like, I don't know. It's just a different just a different way. Now people get into the sport in the opposite direction. They get in nymphing and then end up dry fly fishing, where I think if you get in as a dry fly fisherman, you can easily become a very good nymph fisherman because you already are aware of, like, how crucial drift is and and Yeah. Mending technique is really good and, like, you just get somebody with to look at a strike indicator all the time. It it's harder to kinda see, like, the difference between, like, you know, like, when you throw a dry fly cast out there and your fly is 10 or twenty, fifteen feet away from your from your fly line, And now you're seeing that the fly line looks like it's floating nice and naturally. A few feet away from the fly line, it looks like it's floating naturally, but there's some slack in there and you're getting drag on that fly. Yep. That's easy for a dry fly fisherman to understand that and then to realize, oh, it's super critical in the nymphing or at least as critical, and I need to be doing the the mending the same as I've seen before. But Yeah. But you can't see what's going on. So you're just focusing on wherever that strike indicator is down the down the line. It's harder to Sure. Harder to visualize what's happening underneath, I think.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. I think for a newer angler. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Absolutely. The sport dancing rather than getting into the sport dry fly fishing. And, eventually, you know, all I mean, in my it's my opinion that eventually you should be good at all of it. You should be good at throwing streamers, at nymphing, at emergent, at dry flies, at big dry flies, at tiny dry flies, like all, like it's all fun. And and Oh, yeah. Have, but unfortunately, some people don't have the river that or the resource that allows for all of those different types of fishing. I mean, I I guess you you could, you know, conceivably if there are trout in there, they they tend to eat different store all different types of things. But if you have a river, like, where you're fishing, where you have nice dry fly hatches, people do that all the time. If you have good nymph fishing, people do that all the time. You have good streamer fishing, people do that all the time. You should eventually be pretty good at all of it, you know? Absolutely. Aware of how to do it all. Right? Right. That's that's like that's that's really good for for, you know, for an angler to have a resource where you could try all all different types. But if you're only fishing like on a shallow Spring Creek with these huge fish, you're gonna learn how to throw these tiny dry flies. Yeah. Eight x. Yeah. That's what you plop a streamer in there. Yeah. They would eat it. If you could present it to them the right way.

Jonathan Neyman: Right. Sure. Super

Tom Rowland: hard to do that, right? Like so. Yeah. That they get very specialized. Somebody that gets into the sport that way or somebody. But there's a lot of specialized nymph fishermen. Nothing wrong with it.

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, no. Not at all. No. Oh, good. No.

Tom Rowland: That's so good. They will outfish you every time with

Jonathan Neyman: with, you know,

Tom Rowland: with streamers. I mean, nymphs, but, I don't know. It's just kinda I feel like it's just, like, whatever whatever you like. And if you're fortunate Yeah. Have a river that can support all the different types of fishing, then good for you, man. Just do what you like.

Jonathan Neyman: Absolutely. I mean, there's tons of guys in this area that just throw streamers in there, you know, or the mostly what they do is throw streamers, and there's, you know, guys and they're super, super good at it, like, way better than I am at it, and way better guiding people than I am at it. But, I mean, you know, so that's something that I've pushed myself towards is, like, getting better all around as as a guide, you know, so that I can get somebody in the boat that maybe has only dry fly fish. And I'm like, hey. You want you know, streamer bites been pretty good. It's pretty overcast or, you know, whatever conditions allow. You know, let's throw streamers today or part of the day. Let's throw some streamers. So some of that too is kind of pushing myself, and, you know, my clients, to broaden, you know, what they do.

62:51 · What Makes a Great Guide

Tom Rowland: Sure. So in your opinion, as you're trying to get better and better at guiding, you've been doing it for a long time. What do you think what do you think a good, an outstanding guide does that, you know, a mediocre or an average guide doesn't do? What's the difference between the two?

Jonathan Neyman: Well, first off, I've not been guiding a long time. I've been a a fly fishing angler for a long time, forty plus years. The guide thing for me is pretty new. I spent a lot of time on these waters, as a as a recreational angler and then opened my shop. So I'm not, you know, not a super experienced guy. What I am is someone that's

Tom Rowland: You book super experienced guys. Right? And you see Oh, yeah.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And Yeah.

Jonathan Neyman: Really experienced guys

Tom Rowland: that that when their people come back, they they love that guy. Like like

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, yeah. Work out. Yes. So what's what's that difference?

Tom Rowland: Yeah.

Jonathan Neyman: You know, in my opinion, a lot of that is how relatable, is the guide to managing expectations of their clients. And, you know, if if and you you know, you've got it. You get people in the boat that are on some kind of corporate trip, and, you know, they they're gonna fish one time a year because their pipe salesman brought them to the South Holston to fish. And, you know, they're they're more interested how many beers can they fit in that cooler. And and the easy part on that is like, well, let's just go autopilot. Let's put a bobber and a couple nymphs and let that guy drink beer and kind of slide down the river. And he's gonna have a great time. You know? He's gonna get a picture with his fish, and he's gonna get to go back to the house they're staying at or the lodge they're staying at and have a good dinner and drink beer with his buddies. And so I think managing expectations, reading the room of the boat, you know, and then if you get clients that are, you know, wanting to learn, or even not express that they wanna learn if you make everything interactive with them. And it isn't just asking about their kids and stuff like that, I mean, which is important, you know, or or their lifestyle or what they do for a living. But I think a lot of it is getting somebody in your boat and, making a mark on that day for them as as far as an educational process. So even if they're a super stellar angler, which I've had guys in my boat that, you know, I was like, oh, this is gonna be a good day because these guys can can throw you know, they know how to do it already. You know, but then it that's the challenge for me is how do I then make it more than just I'm just a dude rowing the boat for them. So maybe talk through a different way or, hey. Why don't we try this because this works for me and, you know, it I think you guys could do it. You're gonna be able to make those casts and or let's try something different. And, you know, the cool thing about my shop is I have a bar in it. Mhmm. So I get a lot of, I get a lot of areas guides who don't work for me. Their clients will stop in and have a beer after their day or, you know, we're kind of in between the river and Downtown Bristol where they're gonna go eat dinner that night, get a lot of people stop in, have a beer. And, you know, one thing resounding is we've got a lot of good guides in this area. If you listen to those people that come in, and I'll ask them how their day was. And and I think a lot of it is just managing expectations, teaching somebody some, you know, something, and they're just having a good time. I mean, we're just fishing, man. It's not rocket science. You know?

Tom Rowland: Yeah. More people need to realize that, like

Jonathan Neyman: you're right. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: I mean, there's so many things. Like, I don't know. I've been asked that same kind of question. It's like, first of all, you keep your people safe, then you teach them.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. And

Tom Rowland: then you make them have a have a better time than they expected. Right? That's that that sounds very simple. Three things. Keep them safe. Oh. Teach them soft and have a better time than they expected. But, you know, managing the expectations, I love it that you went right to that because, man, that is that is the biggest thing. Saltwater, freshwater, inshore, offshore travel destinations. Yeah. Hard. Whatever it is, if you expect to go do something, catch 50 fish and you catch 40 fish and you're disappointed. Right? Like that. That could have been something that could have been avoided, right?

Jonathan Neyman: Like, Oh, sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah. But and then, I mean, you'll get people in in as you know, guiding or you get people in your boat that, even if you try to manage expectations, you know, they're just not super thrilled with how the day goes. Yeah. You know? And I I was listening to a podcast Kelly Gallup did, and he said as guides, we can control three things, and that's our boat and equipment, our truck, and lunches. And beyond that, you know, that's about all we can control as guides. And I've I've, you know, I actually, like, played that and then round like, went and got my sons and said, come listen to this.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Jonathan Neyman: And and, you know, and going back to the Internet, if you jump on our Instagram page, we're very careful to post nothing but big fish pictures. The the the sad thing about that is is if you look at the backdoor analytics of what a big fish picture does as far as engagement on Instagram, Facebook, and social media. But, you know, because truth be told, if you and I got my drift boat right now, we've got an opportunity to catch a big fish, But the likelihood of that is pretty low. But you're gonna catch a lot of really pretty wild brown trout that live in you know, because they haven't stocked browns in either one of these river systems for, like, over twenty years. And we have reproducing ground. And we're in Tennessee. Like, we're not in Wyoming or Montana or Idaho. And we have fish population density that is like, it's insane. And you go out west and you tell people, like like, if I roll in and they've heard of my shop or they ask where you're from, you're like, oh, yeah. You know, what's your home river? And, you know, the South Holston, they're like, oh, okay. Well, wait a minute. First off, we're not gonna catch that many fish. You know? And I'm like, oh, that's fine, dude. I don't can see, but they're managing expectations from the get go.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Jonathan Neyman: And the other thing that, that podcast that Kelly did and I encourage guides to go back and listen to it. It was, posted a a little bit a little bit ago, maybe, like, a couple weeks ago. He also was talking about fireable offenses, that he holds his guides to standard and why he has fired guides. And this rang true with me, because you'll get people in the boat, and they they either struggle getting it or they're just not getting it. And it's really easy to blame them. It's really easy to say, well, I didn't have good anglers today. And Kelly says that's a fireable offense if he hears one of his guides say that to another guide that works for him. Because as a guide, it is our job to make them better anglers. Is it great if you were still a guide, Tom, and I got in your boat, and I didn't tell you that I've fished for forty years, and I rip off 45 foot of line and throw a laser, and you're like, oh, yeah. This is gonna be a good day. You know? Mhmm. Why can't I have that same attitude if I if this, you know, this person is just not getting it? You know? Is it is it too easy for me to flip a switch and be like, I've got four more hours. I can get through this. Or do we stop the boat and calmly go back through everything and start over or change what I'm having my clients do so that they have a successful day and not a frustrating day? So Well, that's

Tom Rowland: really, really good advice. And that is where I mean, I don't know. It's probably different today than I mean, when I when I started guiding, it was pre river runs through it. And then I experienced this moment where that movie came out and, dude, it was like a you talk about a switch flipping. All of a sudden, we had six guides that were all struggling to get eighty days in a song. That movie comes out. The next year, we had 26 guides. Every single one of them was working every day. Mhmm. It was an onslaught like we've never seen before since Yeah. And so every single one of those people first of all, I was on the bottom of the totem pole. So I got the greenest of the green. Mhmm. Everyone needed a casting lesson in the parking lot. Every single person didn't know which end of the rod to hold. Right? So that was probably the very best way that I could have gotten into the profession of guiding because Mhmm. I never had any good anglers. I didn't even know what a good angler was, man. Yeah. Every Yeah. That I got for a for a few years was fresh out of the movie theater. Like Uh-huh. I wanna do that.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. I wanna be Brad Pitt.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Yeah. You know, it took me years to get anybody to return. And, but then they would start returning. And then that person that you fished with or that couple that you fished with last year, now they're back this year. They've taken a couple casting lessons back at their wherever they're from. They show up again. They're better. You're doing different things with them. But that's that's the really incredible, incredibly good advice from Kelly because that is your job as a guide. And I look at God as an art form. Honestly, the guys that are really great at it and girls, there's some fantastic female guys.

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, yeah. Yes, sir.

Tom Rowland: They treat it like an art form. And, you know, it's like it's not just like something you're dabbling in or something you're doing part time. This is a full time profession where every single day, somebody that is really, really good at it and takes it very, very seriously is striving to get better and better and better at it. Now I would add to, to Kelly's three things, those certainly control the controllable. Right? So that's the Yep. The number one thing is control the controllable, which means basically everything that you can control, which also is your personality, your conversation style, your templar, and your patience, right, and your communication. And so Yes. A great guide is a great entertainer. And Yeah. Great guide has done it so much that the safety part is comes totally natural. That's just their MO. That's the way they operate. They don't do anything that's unsafe. They don't let their customers do anything that's unsafe, and that just becomes mode of operation. That's not even that that's almost something that they don't it's the highest priority, but it's almost something that they don't even think about anymore. Then there's, teach them something. Well, they're a great communicator. They're always gonna teach something. That also happens just as you're going through the day. They're gonna learn something and then have them have a good time. If you're a great entertainer, you have some appropriate jokes and a good conversation style, you're gonna show them a good time. Right? And you have to raise your voice, and you never get upset, and you never lose patience. And Yeah. And also lunch. Show them a great lunch. Like, that goes along. But, you know, communication and learning more. Like, I remember, you know, there would be guides that were older than me, and and I'd see them doing stuff like reading a book about geology. And I'm like, why are you reading that? Mhmm. I can talk to my clients about it. Oh, like, you talk about geology? It's like, yeah, man. We're going down this canyon. There's rocks

Jonathan Neyman: on there.

Tom Rowland: People have all the time. How'd that happen? And if you have any I mean, you could just b s them. Or you could be like, well, I just read this book and they said that that's, it's actually sandstone and the water cut right through it. It's interesting how it looks like that. I don't know. Anything. Right?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Igneous. Wildlife, birding, all kinds of stuff.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Anything that you're interested in, man. If you could make it through a birding book and you're like, I've seen that one and that one and that one and that's something that's interesting to you as a guide, the more knowledge you can get about your area that you can give someone something interesting. You're like, see that bird right there? Only comes through here one time of the year. You got lucky enough to see it today. There it is.

Jonathan Neyman: Yep. Yep. They're like,

Tom Rowland: oh, really? That's cool. I wouldn't have noticed that because I'm staring at this red bobber.

Jonathan Neyman: Right. Sure.

Tom Rowland: But, anyway Yeah.

Jonathan Neyman: I don't know.

Tom Rowland: So Yeah. We Some guys

Jonathan Neyman: we took a yeah. Yeah. We took a group out to Montana, and and, we had 10 anglers go on the trip with us. And it was pretty cool because, basically, what I did was put together, like, my, you know, favorite areas to fish, and we kinda condensed it and did it in this trip. And I just remember telling, like, every morning when the, you know, when I take them to the fly shop that we used for, the different guiding, for the customers, I was like, hey. Don't forget to look up and take some pictures. Like, you know, yeah. It's cool. Like, we're here to catch fish, and I get it. But, you know, don't miss the opportunity. And we do that in Chile too. Like, Diego's guides and the lodge's guides, they're very knowledgeable about that region in Patagonia. And it does two things, and you can do it here too. It does two things. It keeps your clients engaged. And then the other thing it does is it puts an investment of your clients back into the area that you're fishing. There is there is then a a a key that they have that they've experienced something that then they're interested in preserving that for the long run either for their kids or for themselves or hopefully, you know, they wanna see you succeed as a guide or your shop succeed. And so, therefore, they're they're invested in the area at that point too. That's right. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: That's right. And it comes full circle. Because if they don't know anything about that river or that area, they don't really care. Why would they care?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. What's the difference in this and another river? Who cares? It's got trout.

Tom Rowland: Well, that's my guides. They're really the stewards of the environment because they're introducing people to so many things that they would really otherwise not get to see and otherwise not care about. I mean Yeah. I'm not making them out as being uncaring individuals. It's just that if you Oh, no. That's something you don't

Jonathan Neyman: know Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Why it's important. You know? You have no idea Yeah. In that river.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

79:35 · The Deli, the Spring Bash, and Finding The Fly Box

Tom Rowland: So your, is your shop open all year round?

Jonathan Neyman: It is. Yep. Yep.

Tom Rowland: You can get guides there all year round?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We

Tom Rowland: This part of the like, we're we're approaching springtime. What does your Mhmm. Look like in the summer and, like, kind of kinda go through, like, what you fish for? Yeah. Are you changed? Yeah.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. We're definitely it not just us, but everybody, you know, all the different guys. So we have a deli at our shop, so we make a bunch of different, sandwiches that are cooler ready. So we have guides that don't guide for us that buy their lunches there for their clients. And so I have a lot of interaction with area guides, which was kind of the whole thought behind the shop was to try to build up, like, a community place. And so our spring is pretty gnarly. It's booking up. But I'm pretty much done for April and the May. Some of it is, you know, I mean, I could take a few more days, but I'm 54 years old. Like, that ain't gonna happen. I mean, somebody else can take them. And that's terrible, but, like, I mean, you know, like, six, seven days in a row, I come home. My wife's like, oh my god. You need a you know, your body is not gonna make it. And then, we typically have a little bit of a slowdown usually around the June. And I think that is end of school year, family vacation time, stuff like that. I think a lot of people on the East Coast and Southeast, you know, they split to the to the beach for a week or so. And then we typically start picking up pretty heavily mid August. And then September, October, November, arguably, are about as busy as our spring is. So summertime fishing is great. It can be hot here. The water's good and cold. But, yeah, I mean, it slows down a little bit through that time. So spring is definitely, like, we're coming out gunning. Like, the shop is starting to get all the inventory for the spring back in, you know, rather than trying to carry a bunch of inventory over the wintertime. Because we're a small family run shop. I I mean, I wish I had some giant checkbook behind me cut and check so I could keep that sucker full. I mean, it'd be really cool, but, it's not. And so, you know, I have to be pretty strategic about when I start getting stuff in and and you know, because that bill is gonna be due. Yeah. So, yeah, we're starting to fill up and get our stuff for the for the spring season. Yeah. It's kinda exciting. It's like Christmas. You know? The rods are coming in and the reels are coming in. You're getting them out and casting them and, you know, trying different stuff out. So it's pretty fun.

Tom Rowland: Nice. So if somebody finds himself in Bristol or on their way to Yeah. Do something in Bristol or wants to make that a destination, how do they get in touch with you, and how do they, go to your your place?

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. So a couple different ways. Obviously, the Internet, it's the flyboxtn.com. And what you can, you know, ask questions through the the, you know, website. You can read about us. And then the social media thing, Instagram is definitely our big, driver. It's where we make most of our announcements. It kinda bleeds over into Facebook. But, you know and and we do, you know,

Tom Rowland: we do quite a bit. What's your Instagram?

Jonathan Neyman: The Instagram? It's, the fly box t n @theflyboxtn. And, you know, we do tying nights, and we have a spring bash coming up, on March 29. Got food truck, local music, some fun casting games, you know, giveaways, the typical thing. But most of it is just to, get guys together. We had a big Caddis Oktoberfest, beer thing at the shop, and, yeah, it was pretty fun.

Tom Rowland: That's cool, man. Well, I know, a lot of people don't think of Tennessee as being, the epicenter of trout fishing, but I have to tell you, it is outstanding. And, also North Carolina, North Georgia Oh,

Jonathan Neyman: yeah.

Tom Rowland: There's a lot of really, really great fishing around your area. And No doubt. You don't have to go to Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, or Patagonia, or

Jonathan Neyman: lots of

Tom Rowland: other places, Alaska.

Jonathan Neyman: Unless you wanna go with us.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I mean I mean, honestly, if you're a trout fisherman and you haven't experienced Tennessee, North Carolina, North Georgia area, you absolutely should. It's something that all I mean, there's some really, really incredible fishing there. So and call John and

Jonathan Neyman: I can catch you up. Yep. Yeah. Would love to. And and, you know, a lot of stuff that gets overshadowed in the fly fishing area by these two tailwaters is the amount of mountain streams that we have. I'll probably get beat up for saying that on a podcast. But and then our small mouth fishery in this area is, like, it's off the charts good. Yeah. I work small mouth.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. But we're running out of time for today, but we'll we'll do it. Yeah. No worries. Mouth. Alright. Yeah. I mean, small mouth is, that's, like, one of my favorite species of all time, and and such a that's an also that's one of the best areas in the world for small mouth is, like, I would think this this area right in there.

Jonathan Neyman: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's insane. It's insane.

Tom Rowland: Let's see. Kinda maybe a little north of where the trout fishing is maybe the best. I don't know.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. I don't man, there's yeah. The Holston proper is pretty pretty awesome.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. The

Jonathan Neyman: amount of big fish that are in there.

Tom Rowland: Awesome. Well, I need to come up there and fish with you, so we'll make that.

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah. Please do. I'd be honored. Okay. I heard your son caught his biggest fish on the South Holston. Is that right?

Tom Rowland: One of them did. Yeah. I think so.

Jonathan Neyman: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. With with the Shoyer brothers, they

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. We weren't out there for thirty minutes, and, I get a picture on my phone. It's like, dang. Yeah. We got some catching up to do. But, yeah. That was, that was a great day. And I had my dad up there, so we had three generations, which was just

Jonathan Neyman: Yeah.

Tom Rowland: We could still do that. Oh, yeah.

Jonathan Neyman: Let's do it.

Tom Rowland: Alright. Okay. Thanks so much, Jonathan.

Jonathan Neyman: And,

Tom Rowland: go with Jonathan. Hook him up. Definitely follow him on, social media, and we will be back next week with another great guest just like Jonathan. Alright. See you. Alright.

Jonathan Neyman: See you guys.