S5, Ep 98: Jimmy Harris of Unicoi Outfitters

EPISODE SUMMARY

Guest: Jimmy Harris - Partner at Unicoi Outfitters (Helen, Georgia)

In this episode: Fly shop owner Jimmy Harris shares his four-decade fly fishing journey and the story behind Unicoi Outfitters in North Georgia. Topics include developing a fly shop business, managing private trophy water, North Georgia's diverse trout fishing opportunities and warmwater species fly fishing including shoal bass and striped bass.

Key fishing techniques covered: • Dry fly fishing for wild trout in mountain streams • Indicator nymphing and Euro-nymphing techniques • Topwater flies for shoal bass in river shoals • Streamer fishing for striped bass in low-light conditions • Wade fishing and float fishing tactics for warmwater species

Location focus: North Georgia mountains (Chattooga River, Chattahoochee River, Soque River), Helen and Clarksville areas, White County trophy water, Lake Lanier tailwater, Duke's Creek

Target species: Wild brown trout, rainbow trout, brook trout, shoal bass, Chattahoochee bass, Bartram's bass, striped bass, carp

Equipment discussed: Entry-level to high-end fly rods from Orvis, Sage, Simms, Thomas and Thomas; emphasis on quality gear across price points

Key questions answered: • How to start a fly fishing business and manage inventory • What are the best fly fishing opportunities in North Georgia? • How to fish for shoal bass on the fly • When and where to target striped bass in rivers • How to give back to the fly fishing community through conservation

Best for: Beginner to advanced anglers interested in North Georgia fly fishing, fly shop business insights, warmwater species on the fly, conservation-minded fishing and building a fly fishing lifestyle business

**Marvin Cash (00:04):**
Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, I'm joined by Jimmy Harris of Unicoi Outfitters. We take a deep dive into Jimmy's fly fishing journey, the history of Unicoi Outfitters and all the great fly fishing options in North Georgia and beyond. I think you're really going to enjoy this one. But before we get to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items. If you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a rating and review in the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out. And folks, save the date. Our friend Landon Mayer is hosting the 8th annual Clean the Dream on August 26th on the South Platte River. If you'll be in the Denver area, you should definitely check it out. It will be a great day of fellowship and stewardship. Check out Landon's Instagram, at Landon Mayer Fly Fishing, for more details. Now, on to our interview. Well, Jimmy, welcome to The Articulate Fly.

**Jimmy Harris (01:02):**
Marvin, it's great to talk with you. I'm glad to have this opportunity. I appreciate it.

**Marvin Cash (01:06):**
Oh, I'm looking forward to it. And we have a tradition on The Articulate Fly. We'd like to ask all of our guests to share their earliest fishing memory.

**Jimmy Harris (01:15):**
Earliest fishing memory. Well, I grew up in middle Georgia. No trout or anything. But my absolute earliest fishing memory, and I'm pretty sure I've got this right because I used to ask my parents about it. We had a little four-acre pond behind our house, and my mom was actually the angler in the family. My dad would go, but he could care less. He went because my mom went. And I remember sitting in the john boat in the middle of that pond and it had not been built, but like three years, my dad built it for my mom so she'd have a place to fish. And we were catching bluegills, just going home and having a fish fry. And I was probably four or five, I'm guessing. And I caught a little largemouth and had never seen one before. And I distinctly remember asking, what kind of brim is this? And they were explaining to me that that's not a brim, that's a bass. But anyhow, that's my earliest fishing experience. And interestingly enough, as I said, my dad was not an outdoorsman. He was a horticulturist. He got his kicks in his greenhouse. But I had a cousin whose family was fishing or hunting every spare moment they had. And he was like a year younger than me. And it's like we grew up together. So I had that influence on me that kind of got me in the outdoors and got me into fishing and hunting and everything. So I was very fortunate in that regard. I could have ended up being a nerd.

**Marvin Cash (03:24):**
There were worse things.

**Jimmy Harris (03:28):**
I probably still am at some point.

**Marvin Cash (03:33):**
Yeah, they just don't, they have to get to later in life before they get all the girls. So when did you come to the dark side of fly fishing?

**Jimmy Harris (03:46):**
I was, it was in the middle seventies and I was living in Arkansas. I was teaching at a small university, Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, Arkansas. And I love the outdoors. Man, if you like the outdoors, that area of Arkansas is a great place to live. Just to the north, you've got the Ozark Mountains. Just to the south, you've got the Ouachita Mountains. I lived on Lake Dardanelle, which was part of the Arkansas River. I mean, there were just tons of outdoor activities available to you. And I just got an interest in learning how to fly fish. And I didn't know anyone that fly fished. So I went to what was probably the precursor to Walmart at that point, just a kind of a store that has some of everything in it there in Russellville. And I bought a fiberglass Shakespeare fly rod, 7-weight and a Martin reel with a level line on it. And then I went to the library at the university and looked for books on fly fishing. And we're covered up with information nowadays. I mean, all you've got to do is think about it, and somehow Google knows you're thinking about it, and they start putting it up on your feed, on your social media and everything all the time. But the library at the university had one book on fly fishing. And I wish to goodness I could remember the title of the book and the author. But I can't. So if I describe it, maybe some of your listeners out there can chime in and say, oh, yeah, I had that book. But I taught myself how to cast a fly rod with that book. But the thing I remember about that book was the very first page, he opened it up and he said, rule number one of fly fishing, never, ever attempt to teach a loved one how to cast a fly rod. And being in the fly fishing business for almost the last 30 years, that's a gospel truth right there. You don't teach your wife or your spouse or your children how to cast a fly rod. You get someone else to do it for you. But yeah, late 70s, and I would just go out on Lake Dardanelle with a popping bug and catch brim and caught a few bass every now and then. I didn't know what I was doing. But then I moved back to Georgia around 79 or 80. And living in the mountains up here in North Georgia, I decided I wanted to learn how to trout fish with a fly rod. And again, didn't know anyone that did it. So I just bought a little 5-weight fiberglass rod and started going primarily to the Chattooga River. And I've told a lot of people this. I'm known for one thing and pretty much one thing only. If I start something, I'm too hard-headed to quit it. And I fished the Chattooga River for two years before I ever landed a fish on a fly rod. And thank goodness I got hooked up with a local Trout Unlimited chapter, Rabun chapter, Trout Unlimited. And those are the guys that taught me how to catch fish. And I'm forever indebted to them. But yeah, I pretty much taught myself how. I think I was really big into bow hunting. This is pre-compound bows, recurve bows. And this is my thoughts on it. Being accurate with a bow is very similar in some ways to making a good cast with a fly rod. Anybody can hit a pie plate at 20 yards with a bow, but the people that can hit a 50-cent piece on a consistent basis have learned how to tweak the minute things in their technique. And that's kind of the way casting a fly rod is. You can get out there and flail around, and you can even catch fish flailing around. But to really develop, you have to start paying attention to every portion of your cast. What is it doing? Am I watching my backcast? Am I hesitating long enough before I make the forward cast? And that kind of thing. And I think that helped me a good bit, that and being hard-headed just seemed to work for me.

**Marvin Cash (09:21):**
Yeah it's funny that's good to know because my youngest son's hard-headed so hopefully it's gonna work out for him too.

**Jimmy Harris (09:28):**
It does for some of us. Yeah, you live long enough.

**Marvin Cash (09:31):**
Yeah exactly or as I like to say if they don't grind all the edges off of you in the process. Exactly. So you bumped into the guys at TU and kind of self-taught in the beginning, but did you have any folks that kind of mentored you as you kept going down the fly fishing path?

**Jimmy Harris (09:49):**
Oh, definitely. I mean, TU is not a fly fishing club or anything, but most of these guys did fly fish. And we're talking about guys that have been fly fishing since the late 40s and early 50s. So in North Georgia, that's pretty impressive. I mean, one of my closest mentors was a fellow by the name of Doug Adams. Doug was a Georgia Tech graduate, an engineer. And as soon as he graduated from college, he fished the Chattooga River when he was a teenager and in college and everything. As soon as he graduated from college, he moved to North Georgia, to Rabun County, where he was within 20 minutes of the Chattooga River and found an engineering job up here and stayed up here all of his life. But I mean, that's how dedicated these guys were to it. The kind of folks that would pack up their family and move across country or across state. And have you got a job there? No, but I'll find something. But why are you moving there? Well, the trout fishing is really good. So I had some really class mentors. And they taught me how to catch fish. What happened was when I was fishing for two years, and I was only fishing a dry fly. I didn't even know there was nymph fishing. I was only fishing a dry fly. And I was setting the hook too quickly. As soon as I saw a bulge around my fly, I set the hook. So I never fully set the hook on a trout well enough to land it. They just worked with me for a little while and told me to slow down a little bit and relax. And everything kind of came together.

**Marvin Cash (11:55):**
Yeah, that's pretty neat. And I know some folks may not know this, Jimmy, but you own several other businesses in addition to being a partner in Unicoi Outfitters. And I was kind of curious, when you have more than one, you must have had some kind of aha moment where you decided that you didn't want to work for other people and you wanted to work for yourself.

**Jimmy Harris (12:16):**
That aha moment was in the late 70s when I was working with a company that we would locate and purchase timberland as investment properties for whoever. Pensions, insurance companies, even the timber companies like Georgia Kraft and Georgia Pacific and those people, they bought tracts of land from them. You may not remember this, but in the late 70s, interest rates went to like 22%. And people quit buying houses. So there was no market for timber, and I literally, when you get old, you start getting reports from the Social Security Administration about, oh, you paid in this much this year, this much this year. In 1980, I think it was, my report still shows I made zero money that year, zero. Now, thank goodness the years leading up had been pretty good. So I had funds to live off of, but no, I just, it was kind of forced on me to try something out. So I went to my accountant. I said, hey, I'm tired of doing this. I wonder if you would let me know if anything locally comes available, any businesses. And so he did. And long story short is I got into it. I actually got into it with a partner because he had been in it for about 30 years, that same industry. And I had not, I knew nothing about it. So he was a good friend of mine, good fishing buddy. And I said, would you go in and partner with me? And he said, I don't have time. I said, that's all I've got is time. I don't have any knowledge. I said, don't take this the wrong way, but I only want you for your brain. And so 40 years later, we're still partnering. So it worked out pretty well.

**Marvin Cash (14:41):**
And so how did you become a partner in Unicoi Outfitters?

**Jimmy Harris (14:48):**
It's kind of a long, sad story, but in the middle 90s, I was in the process of getting a divorce and going through the trauma that that creates for everybody. And I was already a pretty serious fly fisherman. So I just, I went fishing every day. I would leave my office in the middle of the day and say, I'll see y'all tomorrow. I'm going fishing. And it was just therapeutic fishing. And it really helped me get through that time. But it just kind of became word of mouth around here that if you want to know anything about trout fishing in this area, call Jimmy, because he does it all the time. And from that, I kind of started doing a little guiding. And from that, a couple of local guys started a fly shop in Helen, Georgia, in 1994. And it was a hobby thing for them. And you never knew if they were going to have anybody running it or if it would be you'd drive over there and it'd be closed or whatever. But they had good stuff, high-end stuff there. But one of them was going to take a job in Texas, and the other guy, they both had other jobs, and the other guy called me one night, and this is kind of providential, I think. He called me one night, and he said, Hey, listen, Bruce is leaving and wonder if you would be interested in buying the shop because I know I can't run it by myself. And I said, I don't know. I said, can it be a real business? And it was just dead quiet on the phone. I said, never mind. I think I know the answer. I said, but let me think about it. That was like, and somehow I know that this is what happens when you get old. I remember that was a Tuesday evening. And the next morning in my office, I get a call from another friend. And he says, hey, Jimmy, guess what? He said, my company, he was the operations manager for a winery here. He said, my company just bought 384 acres on the Chattahoochee River in White County. And I knew exactly where he was talking about. And he said, would you be interested in fishing? And I said, I've lusted after that piece of river since I moved up here in the early 70s. And I'd love to. He said, when would you like to go? I said, today. So he said, okay, let's go. So now the family that owned this piece of property, and it has a mile and a half of frontage on both sides of the river, and they had owned it since 1917 and had not allowed anyone to fish it and even had a caretaker with a shotgun that patrolled it and would threaten you with your life if you came on that property. And so as you can imagine, not having been fished in decades, the fishing was just goofy. I mean, they were big fish, a lot of them. They were not shy about taking a fly. So as we're getting off the river that afternoon, and he says to me, he says, he'd been telling me all day what their vision was to do with that property. They were going to build the winery there. And there's an old mill, old grist mill on the river there. They were going to incorporate that and the winery and some other old houses and just kind of develop a little village there that looks kind of like a mill village. But each building had a shop in it of some type. And he said, do you have any ideas of how we could incorporate the river into this master plan we've got? And I just looked at him and smiled. I said, yeah, I think you should lease it to someone and let them manage it for trophy trout fishing. And a light bulb kind of went off over his head and he said, do you have anybody in mind? Now, this was 12 hours after I had been offered to purchase the shop. And so I said, yeah, I think I do. So long story short is we worked out an agreement with the landowner. They built a building specifically for us to move. We moved Unicoi Outfitters into their building. We're right on the banks of the Chattahoochee River. And it's just a pretty cool place. Pretty cool place.

**Marvin Cash (20:12):**
Yeah, that's pretty neat. And so at that point you had some business experience, but I was kind of curious, what was one of the biggest challenges in kind of the early days of you taking over the shop?

**Jimmy Harris (20:25):**
The biggest challenge, I mean, there's always been a lot of demand for what we had once we opened. But the biggest challenge was managing the inventory. We didn't, for years, we didn't do a particularly good job of having the right amount in inventory at the right time or having too much inventory and not enough cash. I mean, the fly fishing world is, from the retail end, it's not a piece of cake. It's a pretty tough industry to be in. We were fortunate in probably the first 10 years we were open there. And I don't even know how this started, but we probably did over 20 TV shows in the first 10 years we were set up there. And I mean, ESPN, what was then the outdoor channel, Turner Network, public broadcasting. I mean, we just had opportunity after opportunity to be on TV and get some exposure, and of course, that helped. And it's surprising. We're not North Carolina. We never will be North Carolina when it comes to comparing trout fisheries. But there are over 4,000 miles of designated trout water in North Georgia throughout the mountains up here and a couple of tailwaters. And so the fishing opportunities are really good. And it was something different. People didn't have to, as you and I were talking earlier, people didn't have to travel to Montana or Wyoming to have a pretty cool fly fishing experience for trout. And so we've been fortunate there. But our biggest challenge was probably managing inventory and cash flow.

**Marvin Cash (22:41):**
Yeah. A little bit earlier made me think about that joke. How do you become a millionaire owning a fly shop and start with $2 million?

**Jimmy Harris (22:50):**
Yeah. It's the same way. That same joke is pertinent in some of my other businesses. I'm involved in different ways with the textile industry. The joke is you ask the guy, what would you do if you had all the money in the world? He said, well, I'd probably stay in the textile business until it ran out. So yeah, I'm used to that.

**Marvin Cash (23:22):**
Yeah. And so it's funny, right? You mentioned you've almost been kind of in the fly shop game for almost 30 years. Kind of what's the biggest change you've seen, Jimmy, kind of in the retail and guidance side of the business over that time?

**Jimmy Harris (23:37):**
Well, number one is from the guide side. There weren't many guides here. We were pretty much in the trout fishing world. Other than us, there might have been one or two guys in North Georgia that professed to be professional fly fishing guides. Now, due to the fact that in Georgia there are no legal requirements to be a guide, a fishing guide, I mean, all you got to do is wake up in the morning and face the rising sun and declare yourself a fly fishing guide. And I don't want to sound too derogatory about that, but there are a lot of those out there. And so there's a lot of competition. There are more fly shops. There was one fly shop in Atlanta when we started. There had been two, but the other one went out of business. But the Fishhawk which I'm sure you've probably heard of in Atlanta, I mean they just were it. They were the classic fly shop and had been there for a long time and were actually instrumental in us getting set up. They gave our blessings to the manufacturers that we wanted, Simms and Sage and Thomas and Thomas and Orvis and all of those. They could have said, no, we don't want to open another dealer in Georgia. We've got this one in Atlanta and it's doing really well. But Gary Merriman at the Fishhawk was kind enough to say, go ahead. He said, they're going to teach people how to fly fish. And he said, I think it'll help my business also. So that's probably the biggest thing is there's just more competition. There are the online shops that don't build up a loyalty from your clientele. You just offer the best price, the cheapest price. And that all impacts the little local shops. And other than that, I would say just a kind of a complaint about the fly fishing world is that when fly rod companies started offering lifetime warranties on their fly rods, I don't know anybody, even the manufacturers, that thought that was a really good idea. And as you know now, a lot of them aren't lifetime warranties. And the ones that are lifetime warranties, the deal they offered you when you bought the rod, let's say back in the 90s, they probably offered you free replacement or free repair or whatever. Now that repair is anywhere between $60 and $120 for that same rod, the rod they said they were going to fix for free for you. So I don't know if they could go back and look at that again. I think they'd probably rethink that. It caused the price of all fly rods to go up. And then here we are now. We're right back at paying to have them repaired. So those are just some of the things that have changed. The other things that have changed is the gear is just out of sight nowadays. I mean, you couldn't, the fly rods that were the premium fly rods in the 90s, you can buy those as an entry-level rod now. And I'm talking about rods that sell for $200 or less. Just as good as anything that we had on the market back in the 90s. So the quality of the gear is just out of sight. It's pricey. It's out of sight. You can still get into the sport. You get some of the rods made overseas and everything. And those rods, for 99.9% of the anglers out there, those rods will meet every situation you will face as a fly angler. And they're sturdy. They last a long time.

**Marvin Cash (28:40):**
Yeah, I always tell people to take the extra money and get some casting lessons and it'll work out better for them.

**Jimmy Harris (28:46):**
It will. Yeah, it will. I mean, don't you just hate somebody comes in a fly shop and they say, I want to get a new rod. And they migrate towards those high-end rods. And I'm not complaining. I like to sell those high-end rods. But they go out in the yard to cast them. And they say, wow, that feels really great. And they just don't know how to cast. They need to spend some time. Like I say, if I could find that book that I taught myself how to cast with, I'd stock that thing in the shop and I'd give it to everybody that bought a fly rod.

**Marvin Cash (29:29):**
Yeah. But I would say, I think Atlanta probably has probably one of the best concentrations of master casting instructors in the country.

**Jimmy Harris (29:41):**
Yeah.

**Marvin Cash (29:41):**
Right. I mean, so like I can, I think the two of us, we could probably name a dozen people off the top of our heads.

**Jimmy Harris (29:47):**
Oh, and probably another dozen that have gotten the certification and just we don't know about it.

**Marvin Cash (29:59):**
Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of them in the Atlanta Fly Fishing Club, and then obviously Mac Martin has got his casting school. Yeah, right. No excuse in North Georgia. So I'm a bit of a shop rat. And so I love going in fly shops, just like I like going in old bookstores and old record shops. And one of the things that always strikes me, Jimmy, is every shop has its own personality. And it was just kind of curious, kind of what do you think the personality is of your shop in Helen?

**Jimmy Harris (30:36):**
The number one thing that I try to ingrain in the guys that are, not only the guys working in the shop, but the guides who may be hanging around the shop waiting on a trip or just finished a trip or something like that, is I don't care who comes through that door. I don't want anyone to feel intimidated by the fly fishing world. I want them to feel comfortable with it and us to work with them and talk with them in a manner that makes them feel comfortable and have a feeling that, okay, I can do this. I thought this was going to be really hard, but I can do this. And so I would say that. I would hope that anyone that comes in the shop is going to feel that level of comfort. And we just want to help you get the best information and the best gear you can get for what you're planning to do with it.

**Marvin Cash (31:45):**
Yeah. And that is how you beat the Internet.

**Jimmy Harris (31:50):**
Well, we hope so. I mean, we think it is. But you're way outnumbered by the Internet places.

**Marvin Cash (32:00):**
Yeah, but you can kill people by being nice. It's all good.

**Jimmy Harris (32:05):**
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we intend to. We intend to. But I'd say that's our shop. And you pretty much know when you walk in that, okay, these folks are beyond serious about this stuff. Not that we talk technical or anything, because I can't talk the technical stuff. But there's just not a place that you can talk about around here where we haven't fished, know the fishery pretty intimately and know what to tell you about. Okay, here's how you rig up and here's how you fish that stream or that area of the national forest. So I hope that's what people get when they come in. They feel like they are getting a master's degree in fly fishing.

**Marvin Cash (33:02):**
Yeah, but it's super valuable, particularly if you're not booking a guide. I mean, that's the, none of us get to fish as much as we want to. Right. And so getting that information is, at least from my perspective, is as or more valuable than getting the gear.

**Jimmy Harris (33:20):**
Yeah, I mean, you can make do with the gear. But if you don't know, as I said, I went over two years without landing a trout. I needed somebody to tell me how to catch these things.

**Marvin Cash (33:37):**
Yeah, it's also funny. The more you buy, you get better information too. That's what I always try to explain to people.

**Jimmy Harris (33:43):**
Well yeah that's just kind of a natural occurrence. Yeah you get to know the secret places. You get to know where we go when we get out of work.

**Marvin Cash (33:56):**
Yeah, it's funny. I always tell people like when they go out west, I was like don't walk in a fly shop and just ask them where the fishing is good. You got to go in there and buy some flies and stuff. And you'll get an extra quarter turn of info on that.

**Jimmy Harris (34:09):**
Yeah. I mean, my biggest bill when I come home from out west is stuff I've bought in fly shops. And could have gotten it for a lot less in my own shop. But that's it. I mean, I joke with people that come in. People will drop me an email and say, hey, I stopped by the shop today. And my typical response is, I can have you arrested if you went in there and did not spend some money.

**Marvin Cash (34:39):**
And speaking of, you've got a relatively new and younger sister store, the Country Store in Clarksville. When did you decide to open that and how is it different than your shop in Helen?

**Jimmy Harris (34:52):**
Well, we could probably spend the rest of the evening talking about that. But we've been looking at it for quite some time. Clarksville is kind of, it's only 15 to 20 minutes from our shop in Helen. But Clarksville is kind of on the way to the mountains. It's on the way to the mountain lakes up here in North Georgia, Lake Burton and Lake Rabun and Lake Seed and all those. And so there's traffic coming through town. And we thought the whole concept of, there's a square in the middle of town there and there's shops on either side of the square. And we just kind of like that concept of people walking the sidewalks and coming in your shop while they're looking at other shops around there. And the way it's different is we can provide you with anything you need from a fly fishing standpoint in there. But about two-thirds of that shop is a lifestyle, clothing and a few decorations for cabins and things like that. But we've also been talking lately about changing the mix in there a little bit. And we're probably within the next eight months or so, we're probably going to delve a little bit deeper into the fishing end of it than we have been. And because there's a lot of demand there for things other than trout fishing. And I think you may know a little bit about the striper fishing in this area and the river bass fishing and that kind of thing. So we're going to try to see if we can't build up that part of the business a little bit more in the coming months. And let's see how it goes. Well, Clarksville's a neat little town. Got some great restaurants and some cool shops. And we're there. Unicoi Outfitters General Store. There's a story behind that. People say, where did the general store part come from? Well, when I was growing up and as a teenager, my dad had a country store. That's what he did for a living. And it was called the Round Oak. It was in Round Oak, Georgia. The Round Oak General Store. And so this was kind of an homage to my dad and the store that he had when I was growing up.

**Marvin Cash (37:57):**
Yeah, that's neat. And we kind of bumped into this a little bit earlier, talking about kind of the trout fishing in North Georgia. I guess you really kind of have two flavors, right? You've got kind of your wild kind of brook trout fishery, right? Because you're the tail end of the Southern Appalachian Brook Trout Range, but then you've also got your trophy water. Jimmy, can you tell us a little bit about kind of the two flavors of ice cream you got?

**Jimmy Harris (38:20):**
Yeah, well, let me go back just a little bit and tell you this. When I first moved up here before I moved to Arkansas, the trout fishing in North Georgia was basically waiting on the stocking truck. That was it. There was nothing special about it. It started in the spring and went through the fall, and you could keep eight. And that was it. That was trout fishing. Over the ensuing decades since that time, Georgia Department of Natural Resources just, and I'm going to give some credence here to Trout Unlimited also. Between the Forest Service, Georgia Department of Natural Resources and Trout Unlimited, the trout fishing in North Georgia was just totally transformed. And now, yeah, we still have put-and-take fishery streams that, they've got trout in them because the stocking truck comes every week. But we've also got catch and release streams. We've got significant number of wild trout streams, not just brook trout, but wild brown trout, wild rainbows. I was talking about streams that haven't been stocked in 40 years. So every fish you're catching out of there is a wild fish. And then we've got the private trophy streams. We've got one state-owned trophy stream, Duke's Creek, which is just outside of Helen. And then we've got two really good tailwaters, the Toccoa River over around Blue Ridge. And believe it or not, the Chattahoochee River below Lake Lanier. Now, that is the section of the river that runs right through the middle of Atlanta. And it is a quality wild brown trout fishery. I mean, second to none. It's cool. Right there in town.

**Marvin Cash (40:42):**
Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. And so, and I think all the great thing, right, and I'm a little bit further north than you are, but I always think the great thing about the southeast and particularly kind of the evolution and fly fishing is we've got all these other species we can chase on the fly. Isn't that the truth?

**Jimmy Harris (41:04):**
Isn't that the truth?

**Marvin Cash (41:05):**
Yeah, and you mentioned it earlier, talking about the country store in Clarksville. You guys have shoal bass in Georgia, and that's something that you guys guide for.

**Jimmy Harris (41:09):**
Yeah. For the longest time, we just kind of kept that to ourselves. But as the climate's kind of warmed up a little bit, you can't trout fish a lot of these streams here in the summer. We started exposing people to shoal bass fishing. And shoal bass are indigenous to the Chattahoochee drainage and the Flint River drainage down below Atlanta. And when people say, well, what are they like? Are they like a smallmouth? Are they like a largemouth? They resemble a smallmouth. They act a little bit like a smallmouth. You hook them and they'll jump and they'll bulldog with you. You'll have a fish on that's 13 inches long and you think, wow, I've got a trophy here. And then you get them in and he's 13 inches. So they'll bulldog you quite a bit, but they'll take a fly and topwater flies, which is just the coolest thing. In all honesty, if you took a poll of our staff and asked them what's their favorite fish to chase on a fly, I would say that most of them are going to say shoal bass. And it's just a lot of fun. You can wade for them. You can float for them and got quite a bit of river drainage that has them. Georgia's kind of interesting. There's like 10 species of black bass in Georgia. And in this area, the indigenous fish are the shoal bass, the Chattahoochee bass, which is found further upstream than the shoal bass. It's found in the smaller waters, probably the most beautiful bass on the face of the earth. I'm not saying a peacock bass is a bass, but they're just absolutely beautiful with orange on their fins and white bellies and just a cool, cool fish. But a 12-incher is a big one. We also have Bartram's bass over on the Chattooga drainage. So those are all wild indigenous fish that are just a lot of fun to pursue. And don't require a lot of the gear that fly fishing for trout requires. You can wet wade when the fishing is good for bass. You don't have to have waders. You probably do need a pair of wading boots because, at least at my age, I do, because I've spent too much time rocking and rolling on bowling balls out there. But shoal bass, you fish for them in water that looks like trout water a lot. They hang out in the shoals. A largemouth bass likes the slowest water they can get. Spotted bass, they'll take a little movement in the water. They're moving up out of Lake Lanier. But shoal bass, you fish for them a lot like you do trout. But the river's bigger and you don't get hung in the trees as much.

**Marvin Cash (44:54):**
Well, there you go. You take all that money you save on flies and buy a boat. Yeah, right. And you mentioned earlier, I mean, you've got, I mean, people may not know this, but I mean, you've got a phenomenal striper fishery. I know you also have a really special striper opportunity through your shop too.

**Jimmy Harris (45:16):**
Yeah, we do. Stripers run up the river out of Lake Lanier in the spring. Actually, some of them are year-round residents in the river. They don't ever go back to the lake, but they're trying to spawn when they come up out of Lake Lanier. There's enough river miles for them to spawn, but the water conditions and the silt and everything on the lower part of the river are not conducive to the striper eggs surviving. But they'll come up here and try. So I mean, you don't know what fun is until you catch a 12, 15-pound striper in a section of the river that's 15 feet wide. I mean, that's a lot of fun. They come all the way up to our shop and there's a dam on the river for the grist mill right below our shop and they'll come up to the base of that dam. And right now today there's probably a half dozen stripers in there that'll go 20 pounds or better and then there's smaller fish in there also, smaller stripers in there. So it's kind of rough on the trout while they're there, but we just try to make lemonade out of lemons and say, hey, here's what we've got right now. And this is a lot of fun.

**Marvin Cash (46:47):**
Yeah. It's kind of like that joke in Tennessee about stocking the South Holston River to feed the striped bass.

**Jimmy Harris (46:53):**
Yeah. Yeah. They do like trout. Let me tell you.

**Marvin Cash (46:57):**
Yeah, and so for folks that are interested, I know that's something that they can book through the shop and come. I think it's kind of an early in the morning, late in the evening type thing.

**Jimmy Harris (47:06):**
Yeah, yeah. If the sun hits the water, you're there at the wrong time. You need to be there when the sun is just beginning to lighten it enough where you can see to make a cast. Or right at the end of the day when there's enough twilight left where you can see to make a cast. If the sun's on the water, you're not going to have much luck. Unless we get a storm and it turns the river off color. If it turns it off color, there's no holds barred. You just go out there and try for them. Be prepared to run downstream with them. Because they don't necessarily stay where you hook them. Like a trout will.

**Marvin Cash (47:55):**
Yeah, it's like a freight train on the end of your line. Oh, gosh. Yeah, and it's interesting too, Jimmy. We were talking before we started recording that you guys have started to get into destination travel, and you got a pretty interesting trip to South America on the calendar.

**Jimmy Harris (48:10):**
Yeah, I've been going to Argentina for about eight or ten years, I guess. Fishing, started fishing with Andes Drifters. That's our partner down there. And they recently, in the last year or so, combined with another outfitter and changed their name to Set Fly Fishing, S-E-T, Set Fly Fishing. And I'm telling you, everything they do is first class. We were there in March of this year, trout fishing. And of the group we hosted, there were five ladies with us. And not all of the ladies wanted to fish from sunup to sundown every day. And they provided actually anybody, including myself, who wanted to take part of the day off from fishing or something. They provided them with so many interesting opportunities, whether it was a private cooking lesson with a chef or a masseuse or kayaking on some of the glacial lakes in the Andes there or just all sorts of stuff. Got to meet and learn from local artisans and things like that. But the fishing down there is just out of sight. I mean, it's just second to none, whether you're trout fishing or whatever. The trip we have coming up next April is for Dorado, Golden Dorado. And that's kind of one of my bucket list fish that I haven't fished for yet. But we do have a trip coming up. And if anybody's interested in it, they can look on our Facebook page or just contact us by email and I'll be glad to send them a package of information. But we'll have six days of fishing, seven nights in northern Argentina. And I don't know if you've ever fished for Golden Dorado. I've got some friends that have, and they just say it's the best quarry you can go after with a fly. So we're going to find out.

**Marvin Cash (50:38):**
Yeah, I haven't done that, but I have been to Argentina. And I've been there with the Andes Drifters folks. I think the neatest thing about that trip in terms of is you don't have a lot of jet lag because there's only a one hour time difference. Right. So you actually don't get there. Yeah. And so you fly. I don't know. We flew out of Miami and you fly at night and you get there and you're not completely wrecked because your clock's not super messed up.

**Jimmy Harris (51:05):**
Yeah. Yeah. I've done the Miami thing also, but you can also fly direct out of Atlanta. But it's an overnight flight. There's no question about it. But it's, I don't know, pretty comfortable. Of course, I'm the guy that you put me on an airplane, and before the wheels leave the ground, I'm asleep. So it seems like a really short trip to me. But if you want to go somewhere exotic trout fishing for sure, I would say you might want to give Andes Drifters in Argentina a shot at it. I mean, it's just first class all the way.

**Marvin Cash (52:00):**
Yeah, absolutely. And I know, Jimmy, I know you're kind of the face of Unicoi Outfitters, but I know you've got a bunch of folks on your team. You want to kind of let folks know some of the other people that kind of help you day to day with the business?

**Jimmy Harris (52:12):**
Yeah, well, let me just say this. The guy that contacted me back in 97 about did I want to buy the shop. His name is David Dockery. And I convinced David to stay on with me. David and I have a pretty compatible relationship. David has no interest in going out and talking to clubs and groups and Trout Unlimited chapters and things like that or doing a TV show or anything. But he really gets off on the minutia of inventory and ordering and things like that, which I despise. And so we've got a pretty symbiotic relationship there. But David Dockery started this shop in 94, and he's still with me. He's still with me. The staff that's in the shop on a day-to-day basis is, gosh, I just, I couldn't be blessed any more than I am with the people I have. Jake Darling manages both shops. He's totally in charge of the logistics of running the shop, the work schedules and everything else. Jake, I was joking, we were in a meeting yesterday in Clarksville with the Downtown Merchants Association, and I introduced Jake to them, and I said, Jake's maybe 34, something like that. And he'll get mad at me if I don't know exactly how old he is. But he literally has worked for us for over 20 years. I mean, he was a shop rat hanging around the shop. And we put him to work. And then he started guiding. And we've got a picture in the shop of Jake when he was real small, sitting on his dad's shoulders in the middle of a river while his dad's fly fishing. And he couldn't help it. He had to work in this field. But then we've got a crew of younger guys who work in the shop and guide also and have been with us a long time. Wes McElroy and let me make sure I don't forget anybody. Israel Patterson, who's been with us for about, I think, three years now and just is fantastic. And is an outstanding outdoor photographer. He just really has some good stuff he's been published in some of the fly fishing magazines and things like that. And then we've got, well David's son Jackson Dockery used to work with us some. He's off on a professional career as a nurse now but he's still around. He does some guide trips for us. Ben Smith, been with us for about a year and a half or two years. He's a young guy that was really into the Euro-nymphing and competitive fishing thing for a little while but he really knows his stuff and he is a serious, serious bass fisherman. So we got that. But, gosh, I know I'm going to forget somebody. I know I am forgetting somebody. But got some young guys still just early in college. One of them is guiding in Alaska this summer. Not sure where we're going to get him back or not. But yeah, we've got a good crew. Got a good crew.

**Marvin Cash (56:33):**
Yeah, that's awesome. And another thing I know about you and your shop is that you're incredibly generous supporting conservation and other outreach efforts. And I was kind of curious if you wanted to share why it's so important to give back to the fly fishing community and the resource.

**Jimmy Harris (56:52):**
Well, I can't really say what the seed of this was. But getting involved with Trout Unlimited before I was ever professionally in the fly fishing business, I realized at that point, and as I said, we worked with the Forest Service and Georgia DNR and just really worked with them to help improve the trout fishery here and maybe expand the community a little bit. I was actually, in the late 90s, I was on the Georgia Council and I was the vice chairman of the Georgia Council, and I was scheduled to be the chairman the following year. And this was right when I'd gotten into the fly shop. And I just thought about it, and I thought about it, and I thought, I can do more for the resource and more for the trout fishing community through the shop than I personally ever could as chairman of the council of the Georgia Trout Unlimited. And so that was kind of the genesis of it was just making that decision. I'm still involved with Trout Unlimited, but I'm not on the council. I did not step into the chairmanship of the council. But we found ways to support every chapter in the state. And we've even supported chapters in North Carolina and South Carolina by making donations to them and things like that. And we feel like we have an obligation to kind of spread the word. One person I left out who's working with us now, his name is Jeff Durniak. And Jeff just retired after 35 years with DNR as the fisheries biologist for the regional fisheries biologist for North Georgia, meaning he was the trout man in Georgia. And he now works for us. And I think with Jeff being one of my best fishing buddies all those years and seeing his dedication to the resource and his dedication to the community, I'm sure that had an impact on me to say, we've really been given an opportunity here. And we need to step up to the plate. We need to not just sit back and be takers. We need to be builders and givers to this community in North Georgia. And so, I mean, that's essentially kind of how we worked our way into it. We're very active with the Chattahoochee River Keeper, which has been a godsend to the Chattahoochee River, not just in North Georgia, but all the way down to the Gulf Coast. They have done so many things that have improved the quality of the water and the fishery and everything on the Chattahoochee River. So we're really involved with them. We're involved with a local group called the Soque River Watershed Association. The Soque River starts and ends here in this county, in Habersham County. So anything that's happening on the Soque that's detrimental, we've got no one to look at, to point fingers at but ourselves. So we're pretty involved with that. I'm actually going to be serving on the board of directors of that in the coming months. So that, Project Healing Waters, Casting for Recovery is one that really just has a piece of our heart. We provide them with the fishing venue on the last day of their retreats in Georgia. And we have two retreats in Georgia now, one in the spring and one in the fall. And I'm telling you, if you don't come away from helping a group like that, if you don't come away with just a feeling like, wow, this may have been one of the most spectacular weekends of my life I just spent here, then I need to have a talk with you. Because it means a lot. And there's a new group on the horizon over there, and it's called Reeling in Serenity. And it's for people with addiction. And I think I'll tell you, I was doing a lot of therapeutic fly fishing in the middle 90s. And that's basically what Reeling in Serenity is about. They're taking the activity of fly fishing and providing it for you as an addict. They're providing fly fishing as your focal point. And that means a lot to me also. My dad was an alcoholic, and he was a recovered alcoholic, but we went through some tough times during my teenage years. And I think I mentioned earlier he was a horticulturist. His thing he focused on during recovery was his greenhouse and all the flowers around our house and everything like that. And fly fishing, you've got to pay attention to be anywhere near a decent fly angler. And I think it's a great group, and they're expanding to across the country. They started here in Georgia. Becca Klein started it. And just check it out. I hope your listeners will check it out, Reeling in Serenity. And you may know someone that could benefit from it. And everything's free for them.

**Marvin Cash (01:04:00):**
Yeah, and as a matter of fact, I probably, gosh, probably within the last two months interviewed Andy Weiner. Oh, yeah. And as a matter of fact, it was probably a week before your event at Norm Mills.

**Jimmy Harris (01:04:14):**
Oh, really?

**Marvin Cash (01:04:16):**
Yeah. And I met Andy kind of when I first started the podcast when his book came out, and he just reached out, and we kind of hit it off. And we're show buddies now. So when our paths cross on the road, we get together and maybe have breakfast.

**Jimmy Harris (01:04:31):**
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And he's doing a great job leading that group and kind of keeping it on track.

**Marvin Cash (01:04:41):**
Yeah. And I agree with you. I mean, for me, I know fly fishing is one of those things that really heals me. And I've worked with some of those groups. And I think the way I always look at it is if I can help bring that peace to somebody else, I'm happy to do it.

**Jimmy Harris (01:04:57):**
Isn't that the truth? I mean, I tell people, I'm either the most simple-minded individual that's ever existed on the face of the earth, or I'm the most blessed person that's ever been on the face of the earth. My world can be falling down around me, and if I step in that stream with a fly rod in my hand, there's nothing else going on. Nothing else but me and that fly rod and a critter with a brain the size of my little fingernail that I'm pitting myself against.

**Marvin Cash (01:05:34):**
And that's on a good day too, by the way. It's that big. Yes, it is. Oh, yeah. It's funny. It soaks up all that energy for me. I do have one last question for you, Jimmy, before I let you go tonight. And Hank the Yank wanted to know if it was possible to be a good carp fisherman if you fished out of a center console.

**Jimmy Harris (01:06:01):**
Well, have you interviewed Hank the Yank yet?

**Marvin Cash (01:06:04):**
I've interviewed Hank the Yank. He actually did a striper fishing report series with me.

**Jimmy Harris (01:06:13):**
Henry, Henry is my idol. I mean, he's my hero. He knows what he's talking about. I have a center console now that I striper fish out of. But the first time I ever fished for carp, Henry took me. I came home and bought a boat to fly fish for carp right out of. So he gives me a hard time about it. There's not much better. I mean, if they say the tug is the drug, you need to go carp fishing.

**Marvin Cash (01:06:55):**
Yeah. He also told me that you'd catch a lot more fish if you take fewer naps.

**Jimmy Harris (01:07:06):**
Well, my claim to fame is that I have napped on some of the most famous trout streams in North and South America.

**Marvin Cash (01:07:19):**
Well there you go. Like George Washington slept here. Exactly. Jimmy napped on this bank right here when he could have been fishing.

**Jimmy Harris (01:07:29):**
Could have been efficient.

**Marvin Cash (01:07:31):**
Before I let you go tonight, Jimmy, is there anything I left out you want to tell our folks?

**Jimmy Harris (01:07:37):**
Oh gosh, I don't know Marvin. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you. It's been a lot of fun. I think if there were one thing I would like to, a message I'd like to get out to people who may be listening to this is talking about giving back. A lot of us have things that we can share with others that could actually change their lives. Talking about people with PTSD or people fighting addictions or people fighting cancer or anything like that, or just young people who don't have any opportunities to go outdoors, to learn how to fish or just learn how to enjoy being outdoors. We were fortunate enough, oh gosh, five years ago now, in 2018, Unicoi Outfitters, this little podunk fly shop in a podunk town in North Georgia, won the Orvis Shop of the Year Award. And still, I get goosebumps just thinking about it. I mean, gosh, there are shops that I walk in and I think, wow, when we grow up, we want to be like this. But for some reason, they picked us. And I think it was because of the fact that it's more than just fishing. It's about the lifestyle and it's about giving back and things like that. And when they gave us that award, they asked me to get up and say something. And my comments to them at that point were, you're not ever going to get rich running a fly shop. But if you want to feel rich, you couldn't pick a better career. You've got lots of opportunities to change people's lives.

**Marvin Cash (01:09:58):**
Yeah, I mean, I think it's powerful, right? I mean being generous with your time and to your point, helping people not feel alone.

**Jimmy Harris (01:10:16):**
Yeah, exactly. That's it.

**Marvin Cash (01:10:18):**
Yeah. And I appreciate you spending some time with me. Folks wanted to kind of follow Unicoi Outfitters, find them on the internet and follow the fishing adventures. Where should they go, Jimmy?

**Jimmy Harris (01:10:22):**
Well, probably the easiest thing you can do is go on social media. We're on Facebook and we're on Instagram. We also have a blog. It's called, I'm almost going to get this wrong because we had a big debate about what to call it. It's called Angler Management. Angler Management. And we try to focus on giving people information. We may throw a commercial in there every now and then and say, hey, we got this going on, the sale going on or whatever. Would you like to, we'd love to see you at the shop. But 99% of our blog is information on helping you become a better fly angler. So you can find us there.

**Marvin Cash (01:11:26):**
And are you on TikTok?

**Jimmy Harris (01:11:29):**
We're not on TikTok. No, we're not. Maybe when I'm gone, Marvin, and the younger guys take over, you'll probably see us on TikTok.

**Marvin Cash (01:11:39):**
There you go. Well Jimmy, I really appreciate you making the time and maybe our paths will cross on the water soon.

**Jimmy Harris (01:11:51):**
I sure hope so Marvin. It's been a long time since I've seen you. I appreciate you calling.

**Marvin Cash (01:11:56):**
Yeah, you take care and be well.

**Jimmy Harris (01:11:59):**
All right. Good night.

**Marvin Cash (01:12:00):**
Well folks, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. And please remember to subscribe and leave us a rating and review in the podcatcher of your choice. Tight lines, everybody.