S6, Ep 122: Mac Brown on the Aftermath: Supporting Our Waters and Communities
In this heartfelt episode of The Articulate Fly, Marvin Cash reconnects with Mac Brown amidst the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in the Appalachian region. Mac shares his personal experiences during the storm, highlighting the resilience of the community as they navigate through the aftermath. Despite the challenges, Mac remains hopeful, emphasizing the importance of supporting local communities and businesses in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina.
The episode provides valuable insights into the severe impact of the storm, including landslides and significant infrastructure damage. Marvin and Mac discuss various avenues for listeners to contribute to relief efforts, including donations to charities and purchasing gift certificates from local fly shops to support the local economy during the recovery process.
Mac also shares updates on the fishing conditions in the region, noting the indefinite pause of delayed harvest stockings due to the storm's impact on hatcheries. However, he encourages anglers to explore wild places and high-altitude streams for fishing opportunities this fall.
Looking ahead, Mac outlines his travel plans for the 2025 show season, inviting listeners to join him at various fly fishing events across the country. As always, Marvin and Mac express their gratitude to the volunteers and donors aiding in the relief efforts, reminding everyone that rebuilding will take time and continued support.
Listeners are encouraged to check the show notes for links to charities and resources to assist those affected by the storm. Tight lines, everyone!
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Marvin Cash
Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the articulate fly.
Marvin Cash
And we're back with another casting angles with Mack Brown.
Marvin Cash
Mack, how are you?
Mack Brown
I'm doing great.
Mack Brown
How are you doing, Marvin?
Marvin Cash
As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble.
Marvin Cash
And you've had a fair amount going on in your neck of the woods.
Mack Brown
Yeah, we have.
Mack Brown
Yeah, we've had a lot of, a lot of people concerned sending well wishes and, you know, with the storm that hit.
Mack Brown
And before the storm hit, I was in the hospital for a couple of weeks with my oldest boy and we got, he got checked out of Asheville the day the storm came in.
Mack Brown
So we're glad to have him back home here when all hit.
Marvin Cash
Yeah.
Marvin Cash
And I know, too that, um, you know, you were lucky.
Marvin Cash
You were kind of in that, you know, far western part of the state that wasn't as severely affected as other places, right?
Mack Brown
That's right.
Mack Brown
We, we had the storm Friday when it came over.
Mack Brown
I mean, the eye of the storm literally passed right over where we live.
Mack Brown
We sat out on the patio and looked and it was calm and big blue sky in a circle and you could see the cloud spinning, you know, the direction counterclockwise, which, yes, we got, we got missed with a lot of that.
Mack Brown
We really didn't have a lot of wind damage.
Mack Brown
We didn't really have a lot of flooding damage here, but just a little bit east and a little bit north.
Mack Brown
Thats where a lot of the big amounts really devastated some areas.
Marvin Cash
Yeah.
Marvin Cash
I was watching the news over the weekend and they were saying that I guess just in western North Carolina, its an area the size of the state of Massachusetts thats really, really been leveled.
Mack Brown
Yeah, thats right.
Mack Brown
Especially with a lot of people that dont live in mountainous regions.
Mack Brown
I think the big part that people miss out on, it's not just where you had like they set up over 30 inches at Mount Mitchell for the damage that that caused, but it's more the landslides that happen in the mountains.
Mack Brown
When you have that kind of rainfall, you're going to have lots of slides.
Mack Brown
And we're talking a lot of places are great big, you know, amounts of earth that come down from the mountain.
Mack Brown
And that's, that's really what does the big, the devastation more than the floodwaters as the landslides and what that can do, you know, build a lake up within ten minutes and then that breaks free.
Mack Brown
That basically wipes, you know, everything, kind of wipes it away, you know, pretty quick.
Mack Brown
Yeah.
Marvin Cash
And I know that there were so much rain on a lot of these streams and in rivers that not only did it wash out the bridge, it washed out the abutments and the roads.
Mack Brown
Mm hmm.
Mack Brown
That's right.
Mack Brown
A lot of, the lot of the roads are, you know, were gone much of even up like where I grew up in East Tennessee in Greenville, they had a lot of damage, you know, from the old Chucky and municipal water.
Mack Brown
East Tennessee has a lot of, a lot of things going on, too, that, that were severely impacted with the storm.
Marvin Cash
Yeah.
Marvin Cash
And, you know, a lot of people have kind of reached out to me and im sure theyve reached out to you, Mack, and ill drop a link to this in the show notes.
Marvin Cash
Ive got a blog post thats got, um, just a handful of charities basically for southwest Virginia, east Tennessee, um, and western North Carolina.
Marvin Cash
And, you know, they're generally like, there's the East Tennessee foundation because Elizabethton got hit really, really hard.
Marvin Cash
All that money stays in the community.
Marvin Cash
North Carolina disaster Relief Fund United way in, in North Carolina as well as in southwest Virginia.
Marvin Cash
You can actually designate, um, you know, the county if you want to, where you want your donation to go and so folks can look there.
Marvin Cash
And I know, Mack, you had a couple other charities you wanted to let folks know about as well.
Mack Brown
Yes.
Mack Brown
Right.
Mack Brown
We're going to send those to you and you can put them on the, on the post, you know, with this one of them, french broad River Academy is doing a lot with keeping supplies going to the Chinook helicopters there at the airport in Asheville.
Mack Brown
And they're actually able to take those supplies where they're needed most because a lot of the places are still isolated with not been able to just drive in there, you know, to take it.
Mack Brown
So that's a big, that's a big one.
Mack Brown
I've had a lot of people ask the last couple of weeks, you know, where not, I keep turning them to turn them to the articulate fly because I know you've done a good job putting up a lot of these places, but we'll get those to you, the notes.
Mack Brown
And we're also getting a lot of questions, Marvin, on people calling about, you know, this fall.
Mack Brown
And I think we'll address that, too, and just say probably indefinite, like, I still haven't heard specifically like, where, you know what I mean for like DH programs and all that.
Mack Brown
Pretty much what I've been telling people is I'm sure they're over because the water that they took up there in Brevard near where all of our fish come from for this part of the country was actually as high as and higher than when they lost them all in 21.
Mack Brown
So I'm sure that that's probably going to be on delay for a while.
Marvin Cash
Yeah.
Marvin Cash
You know, the, the word from, uh, in, at least from North Carolina, from the fish and game people, is that the DH stock stockings have been paused indefinitely.
Marvin Cash
And remember, too, folks, that they were already slated to basically renovate that Armstrong fishery up there on the Davidson river, and we were going to have diminished stockings for the next several years anyway.
Marvin Cash
But the good news is, even though that's the case, if people are willing to hike into wild places and go up high where there wasn't a lot of water, you know, there's still opportunities to catch fish if they want to get out and, you know, catch a few trout this fall.
Mack Brown
That's right.
Mack Brown
That's what, that's what we're doing pretty much still.
Mack Brown
And we had a lot of cancellations, of course, because a lot of places made it hard to get here with a lot of the different closures of roads.
Mack Brown
But a lot of the entries into this area, mainly out of the south and 129, the national park road, still open, you know, so they can still come in from a lot of areas, but there's still a lot of road closures up there.
Mack Brown
Upper East Tennessee and up just north of me, there's still a lot of road closures.
Mack Brown
I mean, big, big, major highways, you know, closed, like 40 and 26 down there by those are going to take years to rebuild.
Mack Brown
I mean, that's not going to happen anytime soon for a lot of this to get back to having those pathways opened up, you know?
Marvin Cash
Yeah.
Marvin Cash
And I believe, folks, if you go to NCDrive dot gov, I think that's the site, that's the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
Marvin Cash
That's kind of the latest status on the various road issues, and that's a good place to go to get up to date information.
Marvin Cash
And another thing I would really suggest is tourism is a huge part of the commerce in western North Carolina, east Tennessee, and southwest Virginia.
Marvin Cash
So to the extent that you can get to these places and they're open for business, I would encourage you to try to get over there and support them.
Marvin Cash
But also, too, you know, on the fly shop front, something you can do kind of while things are getting sorted out is you can buy gift certificates and gift cards, and if you have trips on the books, you know, do the best you can to let those guides and outfitters hang on to that money and reschedule so that, you know, while they're trying to kind of get everything kind of back, you know, where it was before the storm that they don't have to worry about finding money to refund deposits and things like that.
Mack Brown
Yeah, that's, that's good advice.
Mack Brown
I mean, I was lucky with that up in Michigan.
Mack Brown
We had several dozen that, that put it out to the 25, you know, which was nice of them to do.
Mack Brown
Not any of them tried to do it.
Mack Brown
All right.
Mack Brown
Then, you know, they just said, we'll just come in 25.
Mack Brown
But that is, that's really good, good advice because I think that's going to be, I'm sure that the fall, just looking at town, you know, the fall leaves and all is starting to turn and, but it's going to be, it's, it's way off.
Mack Brown
Not just, you know, for angling, but bed and breakfasts and people that like to hike and look at leaves.
Mack Brown
I can just tell from looking at the traffic in town, it's going to be off because here we are in our peak and there's not a lot of people in town at all.
Mack Brown
Normally it's, you know, it's packed this time of year, Marvin.
Marvin Cash
Yeah.
Marvin Cash
And it's going to take, it's going to take years to rebuild.
Marvin Cash
So, you know, folks, I would encourage you, you know, this is something that's not going to be done by Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year's.
Marvin Cash
And so, you know, be on the lookout and, you know, you know, plan to, you know, kind of support relief, relief efforts to the extent that you can, you know, into 2025 and 2026.
Mack Brown
That's right.
Mack Brown
And another thing, too, is all the folks, you know, it's pretty like East Tennessee is really just like over here.
Mack Brown
It's, people are really proud and the mountain strong and so many people volunteered their time ever since this happened, there's so many people that have donated from all over the country.
Mack Brown
And so just a huge shout out and thanks to all those people that are, that are helping with this whole relief effort.
Marvin Cash
Yeah.
Marvin Cash
And I know you're, you're not going to be on the water kind of as much as you expected, Mack, but I do know that you will be traveling, Mack, in 2025.
Marvin Cash
You want to let folks know where they can find you on the road during the 2025 show season.
Mack Brown
Yeah, we're going to start out with, I think Marlborough is the first show for the fly fishing show, and then we're doing all of those on their, on their website.
Mack Brown
I mean, it'll have the schedules and there'll be classes on the road.
Mack Brown
And we'll do all those except for Lancaster, is that there's a school going on here.
Mack Brown
Then I couldn't had a conflict.
Mack Brown
But that one, I'm going to start off, actually, I've got one still coming up in the White river, which will be fun.
Mack Brown
I think that's October 8 9th weekend for the club down there.
Mack Brown
That's going to be a fun, really fun event.
Mack Brown
And then the one up in St.
Mack Brown
Paul, great Waters fly fishing expo.
Mack Brown
And I think that one's in third week of March.
Mack Brown
And then that's pretty much my show itinerary.
Marvin Cash
Well, there you go.
Marvin Cash
Well, you know, folks, you know, if you're trying to find ways to support the relief efforts kind of in, you know, our neck of the woods, check out the link in the show notes.
Marvin Cash
You know, everybody, you know, our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Marvin Cash
There's been a tremendous loss of life and property in this part of the world.
Marvin Cash
And, you know, you know, hang in there.
Marvin Cash
And folks, you know, we're going to try to do as much as we possibly can.
Marvin Cash
Tight lines, everybody.
Marvin Cash
Tight lines back.
Mack Brown
Tight lines.
Mack Brown
Marvin.
Mac Brown
Guide | Casting Instructor | Author
Mac Brown is the owner of Mac Brown Fly Fish and Fly Fishing Guide School in Western NC. Mac created the first full-time fly fishing guide service in Western North Carolina. The first Delayed Harvest on the Upper Nantahala River in early 1993 was also a result of his efforts.
Mac Brown is the author of “Casting Angles” which is a fly casting handbook for those on the journey of understanding the mechanics of the cast. The ACA, FFI, and others have endorsed this text as a reference for instructors as well. Mac is a Master Casting Instructor through the Fly Fishers International.
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