S6, Ep 38: Shoal Bass Shenanigans and Fly Tying Philosophies with Georgia's Fletcher Sams

Marvin Cash: Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, I'm joined by fly tyer and River Keeper, Fletcher Sams. We take a deep dive into shoal bass,  Fletcher's  fly  designs  and  his  work  protecting  central  Georgia  waters.  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  liked  the  podcast,  please  tell  a  friend  and  please  subscribe  and  leave  a  like,  us  a  rating,  and  review  in  the  podcast  of  your  choice.  It  really  helps  us  out and  we're  excited  to  partner  with  our  friends  at  Jesse  Brown's  Outdoors  to  bring  the  Chocklett  Factory  to  Charlotte  on  May  4th.  Blane  will  be  teaching  private  tying  classes,  discussing  predator  and  prey,  and  sharing  his  favorite  rod,  reel  and  line  combos.  Check  out  the  link  in  the  show  notes  for  more  details.  Now, on to our interview.

Marvin Cash: We'll Fletcher. Welcome to The Articulate Fly.

Fletcher Sams: Thanks for having me. Very excited.

Mavin Cash: Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. And it was kind of, it's kind of ironic that two Southerners have to go all the way to Ypsilanti, Michigan to meet each other in person.

Fletcher Sams: Yeah. That was, uh, that was quite the show.

Marvin Cash: And it's kind of funny too. I was explaining to people, I was like, there was this whole like Southern predator angler scoff posse up there.

Fletcher Sams: Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, we, we car pulled up, uh, believe it or not, at least half of us. So, um, you know, it's, it's been, uh, uh,  a  really  cool  show,  lots  of  relationships,  you  know,  that  you  can  meet  on  social  media,  but  then,  you  know,  now  you  have  like  real  and  contact  stuff  with  them. And so, um, yeah, that's, that's been super cool, uh, especially meeting folks like Chase Smith in person.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, so Fletcher, we have a tradition. I know you're a listener. So, you know, the tradition is we like to have all of our guests share their earliest fishing memory. 

Fletcher Sams: So, um, my earliest fishing memory that's like really super burned into my brain is,  you  know, at  a  young  age.  Um,  my  family  was  super  close  and  I  grew  up.  up  a  mile  down  the  road  from  my  cousin,  Jimbo.  And, Jimbo  and  I  fished  his  dad's  bass  pond  and  maybe  the  biggest  fish  in  there  was  half  pound,   pound.  We  would  go  out  there  with  jitterbugs  and  beetle  spins  and  just  have  a  blast and I kind of thought that’s what fishing was. It was a great time, and then my  dad  took  me  to  this  farm  pond  down  the  road  and um,  you  kind  of  have  this  fish  that  haunt  you  and  this  is  the  first  fish  that  really  haunted  me  and  I  Just  kind  of  went  down  there knowing what I knew and tied on a jitterbug threw it out and started reeling back in and It got kind of underneath the branch and I thought that I was gonna get snag so went away little bit faster and it just looked like a toilet flushed right there in the stick.

And  this  shoal  is  probably  five  or  six  pounds,  but,  you  know,  as  a  kid,  I  was,  you  know,  20  pounds  and,  and  it  jumped  out  of  the  air  straight  in  the  hook  and  blew  off. And, you know, just totally distraught. And my dad had to, you know, call me down and everything like that. But that, that's,  my earliest burned in fishing memory.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, that's pretty neat. So when did you come to the dark side of fly fishing?

Fletcher Sams: So on a trip, my grandparents took Jimbo and I out on this, I mean, trip of a lifetime when I think that, I was say, 10 and Jimbo is probably 12 or 13. And, um,  they took us out to the middle fork of the salmon out now at Idaho. And we did a float for I think it was seven days.  And um,  you  know,  Jimbo  was  getting  ready  to  go  and  you  know,  getting  all  the  stuff  that  he  wanted  to  take  and  he  was  going  to  try  fly  fishing  and, and  of  course,  you  know,  I  have  to  do  what  my  big  cousin  is  doing  and  so  beg  for  a  fly  rod  to  take  from  my  mom  and  dad and  they  got  me  one,  went  out  there  and,  you  know,  it  was  just  dry  flies  for a really  big  cutthroat  and  this  was  back  in the early  nineties  and  it  was  just  awesome.  It  was  the  coolest  thing  and,  you  know,  I  was  terrible  angler,  but  was  able  to  catch  fish.  And  that  was  the  first  foray  into  live  fishing,  and  when  I  got  back  home,  was  kind  of,  you  know,  in  this  trout  snob  mode and  then  I  kind  of  started  trying  to  trout  fish  up  in  the  north  towards  the  mountains  and  it  was  was  crowded  creeks,  nymph  fishing,  and  I  just,  it  wasn't  for  me and  so  I  kind  of  dropped  it  for  a  long  time.  It  wasn't  until  I  was  in  my  20s  that  I  picked  it  back  up.

Marvin Cash: - Yeah,  very,  very  neat.  And  the  rest  of  course  is  history.  You  got  a  little  bit  of  water  under  the  bridge  since  then,  and  you  know,  who  are  some  of  the  folks  that  have  mentored  you  on  your  fly  fishing.  journey?  And  what  have  they  taught  you? 

Fletcher Sams:  I  lived  in,  you  know,  middle  Georgia.  There's  no  fly  shops  around  or  anything  like  that.  The  closest  one  we  have  is  an  excellent  fly  shop  called The  Fish  Hawk.  And  you  know,  the  one  mentor,  I  guess,  guess  that  that's  been  kind  of  constant  in  my  life  Is  this  guy  named  Rob  Smith?  Everyone  knows  him  down  here  is  mustache  and  If  you  if  you  don't  know  mustache  you  need  to  know  mustache  and  he  has  no  social  media  presence  whatsoever  but  everyone  knows  him  and  I  remember  when  I  went  in  and  decided  that  I  was  going  to,  I  was  doing  a  lot  of  duck  hunting  at  the  time,  and  wanted  to  bring  a  fly  rod  with  me  for,  you  know,  after  the  morning  was  kind  of  done,  we  were  out  in  the  boat  and  red  fish  were  around  and  wanted  to  kind  of  get  into  it  and  within  with  the  intention  of  buying  a  red  fish  rod.  Rob  kind  of,  you  know,  gave  me  a  little  refresher  and  got  me  all  set  up.  And  as  that  kind  of  progressed  into  bass  fishing,  Rob  was  always  there  to  kind  of  deer  me  in  the  right  direction,  not  necessarily  like  spending  time  with  me  on  the  water  as  a  mentor  or  anything  like  that  but,  he,  he  is  always  somebody  that  I  really  look  to  to  help  me  problem -solve  problems  with  my  casting  my,  my  you  know  understanding  how  to  fight  fish  that  kind  of  thing.  But,  you  know  by  and  large,  the,  the  fun  thing  to  me  about  fly  fishing  as  far  as  how  I  got  into  it  and  how  I  learned  was,  was  really  trying  to  figure  it  out  for  myself  and,  you  know,  kind  of  surrounding  myself  with  fishing  buddies  that  liked  figuring  things  out  themselves.  And,  you  met  some  of  those  guys  that  came  up  to  Michigan,  uh,  Adam  Smith  and  his  brother  Travis  Smith  and,  uh,  Seth  Clark,  and  we  all  just  kind  of  nerd  out  about  fly  fishing and  trying  to  solve  different  problems  and  really  just  kind  of  feeding  off  of  the  problem -solving  aspect  of  fly  fishing  and  figuring  it  out  for  yourself  makes  it  a  lot  more  rewarding  experience  in  my  opinion.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, which is interesting because I know we were talking up in Michigan too. That's probably how you've kind of, you know, not to you but to a lot of people. have started chasing kind of edge species on the fly. And, you know, everybody that I talked to that fly fishes in Georgia, they're absolutely nuts about shoal bass. And, um, you know, for folks that aren't familiar, you want to kind of give folks kind of an overview of, like, you know, what a shoal bass is. 

Fletcher Sams: Sure. You know, I think most of your listeners, uh, living outside of, uh, the Southeast, you know, kind of tend to think about, you know, what a shoal bass is. think of bass as largemouth, smallmouth, maybe spotted bass. And there's 19 species that have been delineated of black bass that you can go catch today and  Georgia  has  12  of  those and  out  of  the  12,  the  shoal  bass  is very  unique  in  a  lot  of  different  ways.  It's  a  habitat  specialist  first  of  all  and  foremost.  There's  a  reason  it's  called  a  shoal bass  and  that's  because  they  live  in  this  what  we  call  fall  on  habitat. These  fish  require  that  for  spawning  habitat  and  If  you  Impound  the  stream  that  they're  in  they're  not  gonna  survive.  They  do  not  do  well  with  impoundments  at  all  versus  you  know  say  a  smallmouth  or  a  spotted  bass,  which  is  kind  of  more  of  a  habitat  generalist  they'll  kind  of  be  all  over  the  place  They'll  make  huge  movements  up  and  down,  you  know,  it's  apparent  that  they're  very  different  if  you,  you  know,  had  both  of  them  in  your  hand,  but,  I'd  say  that  the  coloration  most  resembles  a  smallmouth  bass.  They  have  vertical  barring  going  down  the  body,  kind  of  an  olive  back  and  a  yellowish  light  olive  side  flank  and  a  pretty  white  belly  and  they  have  this  big  black  spot,  typically  on  their  tail  and  their  tail.  fins  are  almost  like  a  mauve  color  and  the  other  distinguishing  thing  from  small  mouth  would  be  that  their  mouth  is  almost  as  big  as  a  large  mouth,  very,  very  large  mouth.  And  proportionately,  their  tail  is  not  as  big  as  a  large  mouth.  a  small  mouth  bass.  And  where  they  live  for  a  good  part  of  the  year  is  in  tiny  little  current  breaks  inside  the  heaviest  current  that  they  can  find  and  that's  how  they  largely  ambush  food  is  in  and  out  of  tiny  current  breaks  when  stuff  washes  down.  They  can  get  fairly  large,  the  Georgia  record,  I  believe,  is  eight  pounds  four  ounces,  and  it  was  tied  two  years  ago and  they  only  live,  only  native  to  one  specific  drainage,  the  Apalachicola  Chattahoochee  Flint  drainage,  that  the  Chattahoochee  forms  part  of  the  border  from  Alabama  and  Georgia  and  kind  of  flows  out  the  Apalachicola  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, and  then  the  Flint  forms  around  the  Atlanta  airport  and  comes  down  through  Albany  and  meets  the  Chattahoochee  and  Lake  Seminole,  and  that  is  their  native  range. In  the  '70s,  they  were  stocked  in  the  river  that  I  work  in,  the  Ocmulgee River  in  the  Altamaha  system and  the  native  bass  at  that  time  in  the  Ocmulgee were  a  strain  of  red  eye  called  the  Altamaha  bass  and  largemouth and  these  days  in  the  shoal  habitat,  the  large  mouths  are  incredibly  rare,  and  there  are  no  pure  Altamaha  red-eye.  These  fish  immediately  took  over  everything,  so  that's  kind  of  what  they  look  like  and  kind  of  where  they  live,  but  they  are  very  rare habitat specialists and they have to have that shoal habitat in order to survive.

Marvin Cash: Got you. So it sounds like, you know, maybe unlike smallmouth bass, you kind of have to target them like you're fishing pocket water, right?

Fletcher Sams: Yeah. Yes and no. I mean, it's, they, they will be, um,  kind  of  in  more  open  water,  They  will  hang  out  in  pools  and,  you  know,  I'm  sure  a  lot  of  your  listeners  are  listening  to  this  and  say,  "Oh,  you  know,  smallmouth  bass  hang  out  "in  that  kind  of  habitat  in  my  neck  of  the  woods."  And  sure,  they  can  be  in  that  kind  of  general  area, but  I  think  the  thing  that's  really  bizarre  when  people  experience  anglers  come  down  and  try  for  the  shoal basses,  how  much  current  they  will  be  in.  People  you know, try  to  make  them  analogous  to  trout  and  all  this  other  stuff,  and  it's  really  just  its  own  thing.  And  because  a  lot  of  this  habitat  is  pocket  water,  troughs,  ledges,  high  current,  wood,  rock,  all  this  stuff.  It's  challenging  to  get  your  bait  where  you  need  it  to  go.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And so I guess does that mean that you generally are fishing, you know, opting for like a streamer presentation over like poppers and sliders and things like that?

Fletcher Sams: There, there, are,  you  know,  in  the  summer,  poppers  can  be  a  really  good fun  way  to  do  it.  You  can  fish,  you  know,  big  nips  for  them.  That  can  be  fairly  effective  if  you  can  get  heavy  enough.  But  for  me,  the  streamer  fishing  thing  is  the  river  that  I'm  in,  unfortunately,  runs  from  a  fishing  standpoint,  runs  exceptionally  clear  almost  all  the  year.  We  just  have  super  high  visibility,  and  from  a  fishing  standpoint,  I  don't  really  have  a  lot  of  patience  for  nipping  or  dry  flies  or  even  poppers. I love animating a fly and I love seeing them eat. This fish is almost a hundred percent perseverance after they're 12 inches long.  So  all  they  eat  is  fish  pretty  much and  so  my  favorite  way  to  target  them  is  totally  with  a  streamer and  do  you  see  me  out  on  the  water  with  a  bobber  on? And-- Uh, I am having a really awful bad day.

Marvin Cash: And, and we'll, and we'll talk about this when we get to, to fly design, cause I know from talking to you in Michigan,  um,  at  Bob  in  the  hood  that  you've  got  some  really  kind  of  unique,  you  know,  uh,  approaches  to  the  way  you  like  to  design  and  fish  streamers  that  are  kind  of  unconventional  for  kind  of  what  I  think  of  as  kind  of  traditional  predator  streamer  folks. But, you know, on the tackle side or, are you fishing those with like, you know, six and seven weights on like floating and intermediate lines? I mean, kind of what's your tackle set up?

Fletcher Sams: So,  um,  you  know,  shameless  plug  for  Schultz,  um,  that,  that  swim  fly  rod  that  he  developed,  I've  got  four  or  five  of  them  and,  um,  all  eight  weights.  And  the,  the  eight  weight  thing  really   kind  of  evolved  not  necessarily  because  of  the  fish,  but  because  of  the  flies.  Because  they  have  such  a  big  mouth,  we're  throwing  fairly  large  flies,  you  know,  up  to  12  inches  long.  And  so  having  the  ability  to  quickly  switch  to  a  fly  that's  that  size,  it  helps  to  have  the  extra  beep.  The  other  thing  is,  you  know,  these  fish...  can  live  in  really  small,  really,  you  know,  crowded  canopy,  little  creeks  and  being  able  to  roll  cast  a  decent  sized  stream.  It  helps  to  have  the  eight  weight  and  most  people, at least most people that I fish with, fish with eight weights. 

Marvin Cash: Got it. And so that for folks that don't know, that's a limit. luma stick. And I'll try to drop a link to it in the show notes. And are you then fishing a floating line or intermediate? I mean, what do you like to do? 

Fletcher Sams: So, you know, when I first started to really get serious about, you know,  tying  and  doing  all  this  stuff  for  shoal  bass,  I  was  essentially  trying  to  copy  copy  Mike  Schultz's  program  of  kind  of  breaking  down  the  water  column  and  having  it  situational  to  water  temps  and,  you  know,  kind  of  through  the  whole  thing.  I've  got,  you  know,  full  sink,  sink  tips,  all  this  stuff  and  when  we're  fishing  out  of  a  boat,  we'll  we'll  have  seven  rods  in  the  raft  and,  you  know,  we're,  it's  almost  like  we're  the  glitter  boat  guys,  you  know,  just  picking  up  a  different  setup  and  growing  it.  But,  you  know,  it's  kind  of  evolved  over  time,  at  least  my  program,  what  I  run  is  really  kind  of  simplified  and  specialized  into  a  loading  line  program  primarily.  And  a  large  reason  that  I'm  doing  a  floating  line  kind  of  base  program  these  days  is  I  really  like  targeting  these  fish  on  foot.  So  I'm  weight  fishing  most  of  the  time  and  really  the  only  time  that  I'm  bringing  in  any  kind  of  sinking  line  is  when  I'm  in  a  boat.  And  you  know,  we  fish  a  lot  with  conventional  guys  trying  to  learn  what  they're  doing  and  you  know,  how  the  fish  are  reacting  to  the  different  baits. And  you  know,  one  thing  that  I  feel  like  you  can  replicate  a  lot  of  the  stuff  that  that's  been  fishing  guys  and  conventional  tackle  guys  are  doing. But  the  one  thing  that  you're  really  able  to  do  that  they're  not  able  to  do  so  well  is  like  the  floating  line  presentation.  It's  just  really  hard  for conventional  guy  to  do  like  a  grease  line  swing,  for  instance.  And  so,  you  know,  I  feel  like  because  of  the  clear  water,  I've  kind  of  developed  my  flies  to  all  be  fished  on  the  floating  line.  

Marvin Cash: Got  it.  And  I  would  imagine  you  probably  given  if  they're  fishing  in  structure,  you're  probably  almost  all  fluorocarbon,  right?  

Fletcher Sams: Oh,  yeah.  Yeah.  Yeah.  It  takes  a  lot  for  me  to  go  under  like  20  pounds.  

Marvin Cash: Yeah.  And  so,  you  know,  I  know  from  looking  at  your  Instagram  feed  that  there's  some  other  species  you  like  to  chase  on  the  fly  too.  You  want  to  share  those  with  our  listener?  

Fletcher Sams: Yeah.  So,  you  know,  in  Georgia,  we  do  have  12  different  species  of  black  bass.  And  my  other  favorites  to  fish  are  what  we  call  the  red -eye  clade.  That's  seven  different  species.  Some  are  only  found  in  Alabama,  some  are  only  found  in  Georgia  and  South  Carolina.  And,  And  because  we're  so  geologically  old  down  here  in  the  Southeast,  we  have  all  these  isolated  drainages,  and  so  you  have  all  the  speciation  down  here.  And  if  you're  not  familiar  with  the  red -eye  species,  they  don't  get  very  big.
 Like,  let's  say  a  12 -inch  fish  is  equivalent  to  a  19 -20 -inch  smallmouth,  right?  It's...  as  trophy  size,  but  they  are  incredibly  colorful.  They  have  some  of  the  species  have  really  bright  red  fins  or  orange  fins  or  yellow  fins  and  have,  they  look  like  smurfs  part  of  the  year,  just  totally  blue,  bright  blue  coloration  on  the  face  and  the  bellies  and  they  live  in  a  lot  of  places  that  you  would  think  are  like  brook  trout  streams.  And  those  are  fun  for  me  to  kind  of  target  and,  you  know,  really  I  like  doing  that  because  it's  kind  of  a  solo  thing  or  maybe  you  and  one  other  person  and  you  will  definitely  not  see  anyone  else  out  in  most  of  the  places that  you're  gonna  go  target  those  fish.  So  really  rugged,  really  remote.  And  if  it  was  a  trout  stream,  it  would  be  packed,  but  you  got  the  whole  thing  to  yourself.  And  so  those  species  in  general  have  a  special  place  in  my  heart  because  the  first  fly  that  I  named  and  was  really... really  originally  to  target  that  specific  clade  of  species.  It  was  really  kind  of  a  technique -specific  thing  that  kind  of  led  me  to  them.  And  outside  of  the  red -eye  bass,  I  am  really,  really  into  fishing  for  bowfin   and... striped  bass.  And  those  fish  are  also  kind  of  special  to  me  because  the  bowfin  have  really  shown  me  a  lot  about  why  durability,  material  selection,  those  kind  of  things.  And,  you  know,  same  thing  with  a  striper.  I  mean,  a  lot  of  the  striper  fishing  we  do  is  kind  of  targeted  when  they're  acting  like  shoal  bass  or  sometimes  while  we're  fishing  for  shoal  bass  they'll  be  by  a  catch,  but  they're  not  small  fish  and  the  lessons  learned  on  fly  durability  from  them  have  kind  of  changed  the  way  that  I've  kind  of  gone  about  building  flies  too  so  we  kind  of  tend  to  do  a  little  bit  of  everything  except  for  trout  fishing.  Um,  so  it's,  it's  kind  of  come  full  circle  back  to,  uh,  you  know,  what  interested  me  is  a  little  kid,  which  is  fast  stuff.  

Marvin Cash: Yeah.  And  then,  you  know,  I'll  drop  this  in  the  show  notes,  but,  uh,  you  know,  folks  should  check  out  your  Instagram  feed  because  there's  some  absolute  hogs  for  stripers,  uh,  in  your  Instagram  feeds.  Just,  it's  kind  of  crazy  really. 

Fletcher Sams:  Yeah.  And,  you  know,  going  back  to,  uh,  mustache  at  the  fish  hawk,  I  kind  of  gotten  to  the  point  now  where  I  don't,  I  don't  post  fish  pictures  or  because  it's  just,  it's  hard  not  to  burn  spots  and  stuff  with,  with  those  pictures.  So  kind  of  cool,  cooling  it  on  a  post  in  any  more  of  those  through  at  least  a  little  bit.

Marvin Cash:  Yeah.  Well,  there  you  go.  And  so,  you  know,  we've  kind  of  danced  around  the  fact  that  you,  uh,  the.  tie  flies,  you  know,  how  did  you  get  interested  in  time  flies?  

Um,  you  know, probably  10  or  12  years  ago,  um,  my  parents,  um,  took  a  fly  tying  class  and  they  really  got  into  it  and,  you  know,  for  a  little  bit  and  they  thought  that  it  would  be  something  that  I  was  interested  in  because  I  was  kind  of  starting  to  fly  fish  and  everything  like  that.  And  of  course  I  was  like  that,  that  arts  and  crafts,  I  don't  need  to  do  that.  I  just  want  to  fly  the  flies  and  go  out  there  and  fish.  And  so,  you  know,  after  a  couple  of  years  of  it,  you  know,  the,  the  vice  and  the  little,  you  know,  combo  pack  of  materials  sitting  in  the  claws  that  I  had  a  pretty  frustrating  day  shoal bass  fishin’  and  where  I  could  not  get  a  fly  deep  enough  to  hit  where  I  wanted  to  hit  in  the  hole.  And  so  I,  I  dragged  that  thing  out  of  the  closet  and,  you  know,  pulled  up  somebody's  YouTube  tutorial  on  how  to  tie  a  clouser  and  bought  the  heaviest  tongues  to  knives  that  I  could  and,  you  know,  a  bucktail  and  started  spinning  them  up  and  it's  kind  of  been.  an  obsession  ever  since.  

Marvin Cash: Yeah.  So,  you  know,  what  do  you  tie  on  today?  

Fletcher Sams: You  know,  I  think  I  started  with  a  pea  and,  you  know,  kind  of  wore  it  completely  out.  And  these  days  I  primarily  tie  on  a  Renzetti. 

Marvin Cash:  Got  you.  And  what's  your  favorite  flavor  there?  

Fletcher Sams: Um,  it's  just  a  saltwater  traveler.  I've,  you  know, worn  out  a  couple  of  jaws.  And,  you  know,  the  thing  about  the  saltwater  traveler  is  I  really  don't  need  for  the  flies  that  I  tied,  like,  you  know,  true  rotary  function  or  anything  fancy  like  that.  I  just,  the,  the  arm  design.  design  on  the  Renzetti  allows  me  to  get  a  little  bit  more  purchase  on  shanks  and  so  that's  primarily  the  reason  that  I  really  like  that  vice. 

Marvin Cash:  Got  it.  Yeah,  I've  got  two  of  them.  I'm  left -handed  so  I  had  one  for  the  back  in  the  old  days  when  we  didn't  work  from  home.  I  had  one  for  the  office  and  one  for  the  house  and  and  now  they're  both  in  the  office  at  home.

Fletcher Sams:  - Yeah,  and  now  my  daughter  is  showing  interest  so  she's  using  an  old  peak  time  with  me,  so.

Marvin Cash:  - Yeah,  that's  pretty  cool.  And  so,  you  know,  who  are  some  of  the  tires  that  have  kind  of  influenced  your  development  over  the  years?  

Fletcher Sams: - That's  a  really  long  one,  a long   list.  I  think  if  you  look  at  my  page,  it's  very  obvious  that  Blane  Chocklett's  a  huge  influence,  but  I  didn't  start  tying  Changer  Style  Flies  for  a  few  years.  It  kind  of  started  out  with  classics,  you  know,  Bob  Clouser,  you  know,  some,  some  pop  of  X -Fly's  like  hollow  flies  and  then,  you  know,  lefty  deceiver,  double  deceivers,  that,  that  kind  of  thing.  And  really  it  was,  it  was  kind  of  around  the  double  deceiver  that  I  started  looking  at,  you  know,  the  stuff  that  Madden  was  doing  with  the  peanut  or  articulated  flies  and  really  started  looking  at  what  Gallup  was  doing  with  the  extended  body  articulated  fly  and  all  the  variation  that  he  was  doing  with  that  kind  of  body  design  to  get  the  link  with  these  natural  materials  that  he  wanted  to  get  and  same  thing  with  the  extended  body  concept  on  the  Beast fly with  Popovics and  the  way  that  I  really  started  looking  at  these  articulated  extended  body  kind  of  flies  was  in  my  brain,  it's  all  different  styles  to  kind  of  accomplish  the  same  basic  idea.  which  is,  you  know,  on  a  single  hook  streamer,  I  was  only  able  to  get  so  long  and,  um,  by  adding  the  extended  body  tail  articulation,  whatever  you  want  to  call  it,  you're  able  to  get  a  much  bigger  bait,  but  on  top  of  that,  you're  able  to  get  the  movement  in  it.  And  so,  you  know,  I  would  say  that,  um,  Popovics,  Maddin, Blane  are  all  huge  influences,  but  then  there's  also  like  conceptual  stuff  that  I  like  to  take.  You  know,  in  other  words,  I  don't  tie  their  patterns,  but  I  really  like  the  ideas  behind  their  patterns  and  like  Mark  Sedotti  with  a  weight  balance  principle.  Um,  I  really  really  try  to  build  my  flies  in  a  way  that  they  are  weight  balanced.  That's  not  always  possible,  but  I  like  to  have  weight  balance  flies  in  my  box  so  that  I  can  hunt  all  day  on  a  new  river.  And  so,  I'm  not  all  out  there  tying  Sedotti  Slammers,  but  that  concept  that  he  brought.  really,  really  adhered  to  that.  Andy  Saboto  with  the  Swimmy  Jimmy.  It's  one  of  my  favorite  flaws  of  all  time.  But  again,  it's  going  back  to  the  extended  body  thing.  My  favorite  way  at  time,  any  kind  of  extended  body  flies  is  doing  it  with  a  game  changer  platform.  And,  um,  I  think  that  it  allows  me  to  use,  um,  materials  in  a  way  that  the  fly  looks  more  realistic,  in  my  opinion,  um,  and  less  suggestive.  And  because  I  fish  a  lot  of  really  clear  flows,  um,  trying  to  take  flies   from  a  suggestive  standpoint  to  a  more  realistic  standpoint,  but  not  really  losing  action,  gaining  action,  that  kind  of  thing.  I  think  that  the  shank -based  bugs  are  really  kind  of  where  I'm  totally  adherent  to  the  game  changer  platform  pretty  much.  I  do  tie  some  single  articulation  flies,  but  it's  even  those  that's,  it's  not  using  a  wire  and  a  bead.  It's  connecting  them  with  shanks  and  really  kind  of  going  back  to,  um,  some  durability  stuff  from  the,  the  both  and  the  Pickerel  and  the,  and  the  big  striper  is,  um,  you  know,  a  lot  of  the,  a  lot  of  the  wire  connection,  a  lot  of  this  stuff,  um,  you  know,  with.  it'll  put  your  tackle  to  the  test  and  so,  you  know,  even  on  the  single  articulation  flies,  I'm,  I'm  articulating  it  with  shanks  just  from  a  durability  standpoint.

Marvin Cash:  Uh,  God,  and  it  sounds  too  like,  you  know,  given  the  species  that  you  like  to  chase  on  the  fly  that  you  didn't  really  kind  of,  you  know,  you  didn't  start  tying  pheasant  tails  and  then  get  to  predator  flies,  it  seems  like  you  were  kind  of  predator  flies  out  of  the  gate,  right?  

Fletcher Sams: Yeah.  Yeah,  pretty  much  that.  That  was,  you  know,  it  was  like,  Hey,  Rob,  what  a,  what  a  bassie,  you  know,  and,  you  know,  showed  him  a  little  box  of,  you  know,  some  nymphs  and  stuff  like  that  that  I  was  trying  to  fish  with  and  must  actually  like  bigger,  bigger,  bigger,  you  know,  and,  and,  you  know,  once,  once  I  saw  a  fish  eat  a  streamer  for  the  first  time  and  how  aggressive  it  was.  I  was  hooked.  I  didn't  want  to  do  anything  else  ever.  

Marvin Cash: Yeah.  And  you  know,  so  for  folks  that  aren't,  you  know,  familiar  with  your  patterns,  kind  of  let  us,  you  know,  know  some  of  your,  you  know,  more  notable  patterns  and  kind  of,  you  know,  kind  of  how  they  fish  and  kind  of  what  they're  geared  towards.  

Fletcher Sams: Um,  you  know,  the,  like  I  was  saying,  the  first  pattern  that  that  I  really  named  and  and  I  guess  what  most  people  know  me  for  is  what  I  call  a  tweaker  and  the  idea  for  the  tweaker  kind  of  evolved  out  of  red -eyed  bass  fishing.  And  another  one  of  my  favorite  flies  is  a  Blane  Chocklett  pattern,  the  bugger  changer.  And...  Um when,  I  don't  know  the  story,  but,  you  know,  originally  when  he  designed  that  fly,  it  was  a  tail  hook  fly.  And  then,  you  know,  there's  some  issues  and  there's  a  change  to  one  shank  back  on  that  fly  with  the  head  just  kind  of  not  floating,   but  lead eye head with  a  little  bit  of  brush  and  that  thing  will,  you  know,  jig  all  the  way  down  to  the  bottom  and  it's  a  great  fly.  It's  one  of  my  favorite  flies  of  all  time.  Um,  but  when  I'm  red -eyed  bass  fishing,  it's  hard  to  roll  cast  that  thing,  um,  effectively.  And  so  I  really  wanted  to  figure  out  a  way  to,  you  know,  just  tie  essentially  the  same  bug,  but  have...  a  bug  with  less  heavy  lead  eyes.  And  the  way  I  was  trying  to  do  that  was  just  tying  them  with  a  deer  hair  head  and  having  the  deer  hair  kind  of  provide  buoyancy  that  would  keel  it  in  addition  to  a  little  bit  of  weight.  And  so  instead  of  tying  them  with  like  say  medium  eyes  and  tying  them  with  extra  small  eyes  and  deer  hair.  And  they  were  great  red -eye  bass  flies and  also  changed  a  really  light  wire  hook  and  being  able  to  roll  cast  that  thing  in  those  red -eye  creeks  was  great  and,  you  know,  caught  a  ton  of  fish  on  it.  But  the  thing  that  I  really  kind  of  noticed  in  and  fish  in  that  version  of  the  fly  a  lot  was,
 and  I  guess  talk  about  this  in  a  little  bit,  but  I  was  not  really  great  with  deer  hair  when  I  started  tying  that  bug  and  had  a  lot  of  variations  to,  and  I  guess  talk  about  this  in  a  little  bit,  but  I  was  not  really  great  with  deer  hair  when  I  started  tying  that  bug  and  had  a  lot  of  variations  to,  you  know,  how  I  was  carving  the  head  and  noticed  on  the  heads.  that  I  was  tying  more  like  a  Gallup  Nancy  PE  like  really  tall  heads  instead  of  really  wide  heads  that  the  fly  was  super  weedless,  like  throw  it  in  a  weed  bed,  drag  it  out,  throw  it  in  a  brush  pile,  drag  it  out  and  never  really  getting  snagged.  And,  and  what  was  happening  was  the  hook  point  was  kind  of  loading  back  behind  the  head.  And  when  a  fish  would  bite  it,  of  course,  had  plenty  of  hook  back  there,  but  because  the  deer  hair  head  was  more  buoyant  than  the  hook  point,  the  hook  point  would  float  ever  so  slightly  behind  the  head  while  it  was  traveling  through  the  water.  And  so,  decided  that  because  it  was  so  weightless,  man,  this  thing  is  going  to  be  a  great  shoal  bass  fly  and  the  shoal  bass  would  eat  the  hell  out  of  it,  but  almost  every  fish  would  straighten  these  little  light  wire  hooks  out  and  so  we  started  tinkering  with  it  a  little  bit  more,  adding  more  weight  to  the  head and  trying  to  go  to  heavier  gauge  hooks,  but  we  would  lose  the  weedlessness  because  the  hook  would  just  kind  of  flop  to  the  side.  The  head  would  keel,  but  this  heavy  gauge,  wide  gap  hook  would  just  kind  of  fall  to  the  side.  And  one  of  the  mods  that  we  made  to  it  to  really  kind  of  keel  it  was  adding  a  little  bit  of  weight  to  the  hook  to  keel  it.  And  the  really  crazy  thing  about  the  final  design  is  yet  still  weedless,  got  a  beefy  hook  on  it.  It's  gonna  hold  any  bass  species  that  you're  gonna  want  to  hook  on  it.  And  it's  because  of  the  weight  in...  the  back  of  the  hook,  if  you're  familiar  with  like  a  yard  sale  supply  that  Matt  Grzewski  ties,  he  weights  the  back  of  the  hook  and  that's  really  what  kind  of  provides  the  glide  and  the  jerk  showing  profile  on  that  fly.  And  it  will  show  like  T -bone  kind  of  profile  every  time  you're  stripping  it.  And  so  having  that  action  that  the  way  that  we  fish  this  fly,  especially  for  shoal bass  is  pretty  unconventional  way  of  fishing  and  it's  a  boat  fish  the  majority  of  the  way  that  we  fish  that  fly,  we  do  sometimes  use  it  waiting,  but  it's  primarily  a  boat  fly.  And  there  are  lots  of  these  pockets  that  are  up  on  the  bank  and  a  lot  of  them  have  wood  and  all  kinds  of  other  stuff  and  a  lot  of  hype  flow.  We  will  put  on  a  really  heavy  gauge,  a  really  long,  like  10,  11  foot  floating  line  leader  and  we'll  throw  this  up  on  the  dry  bank  and  drag  it  down  into  these  bank  side  pockets and  on the  really  clear  low  flow  days  and  try  to  make  reaction  bites  happen,  right?  Because  otherwise  it's  kind  of  having  a  tough  day  and  so  it's  manufacturing  reaction  bites,  but  we're  casting  up  onto  dry  land  and  dragging  this  thing  in,  into,  not  near  structure,  into  structure.  Um,  and,  um,  hauling  fish  out  over,  over  structure,  fish  will  climb  up  over  dry  branches,  chasing  this  thing  down,  um,  just  a  really,  really  cool  fly  and  a  really  cool  way  of  fishing.  Um,  but  it's,  um,  know,  kind  of  the  first  named  fly,  I  guess,  that  I  did.  And  we  have  a  ton  of  fun  with  that  bug.  But  it's  a  really  specialized  bug  as  far  as,  you  know,  like  any  weedless  fly,  you're  going  to  decrease  your  hookup  percentage  somewhat.  And  so  for  fishing  open  water  near  structure,  we  like  to  fish  other  bugs.  bugs,  um,  but,  uh,  if  we're  tweaker  fishing,  there's  a  better  way  to  do  it  than  with  a  tweaker  and  it's,  uh,  we  don't  do  it  with  other  flies.  That's  kind  of  it's,  it's  own  little  sunny,  bright,  summer  day  fishing  program.  

Marvin Cash: Yeah.  Very,  very  neat.  And  also  too,  you  know,  talk  to  our  listeners  a  little  bit.  That  you  were  showing  me  some  game  changers  that  you  tied  that.  they  kind  of  had  a  spoon  face  on  them  that  actually  Were  fished  kind  of  parallel  to  the  water  surface  instead  of  perpendicular  and  you  were  telling  me  that  was  also  for  a  shoal  bass  presentation.

Fletcher Sams: Yeah . That  is  you  know,  I  kind  of  tend  to  break  my  flaws  into  different  categories  and  That  that's  probably  the  most  versatile  fly  in  my  body  I  can  If  I'm  fishing  an  area  that  I'm  not  too  familiar  with  I  can  make  long  reaching  casts  and  you  know,  swim  it  back  like  any  streamer  over  a  long  distance  trying  to  Elicit  a  strike  over  terrain  that  I'm  not  sure  about  Or  you  can  just  kind  of  toss  it  in  a  hole  in  one  specific  zone  and  twitch  around  around  and  work,  but  it's,  it's  kind  of  a  more,  more  wide,  more  flat  kind  of  profile  is  what  we're  kind  of  ended  up  with  of  a  Andy  Sabota  Swimmy  Jimmy  and  we  are  tied  on  a  game  changer  body  and  we're,  we're  tripping  the  body,  um,  where  it  has  instead  of  a  vertical  profile,  it's  got  a  horizontally  wide  profile.  Um,  and  it  looks  like  a  dying  baitfish  up  on  the  surface  and,  um,  kind  of  swim  sideways,  depending  on  the,  the  presentation  it's,  um,  it's you,  you  can,  you  know,  if  you're  a  lot  of  people  fish  and  you  fly  on  sinking  lines,  but  for  me,  I  like  fishing  on  a  full  float  and  along  with  your  river and  I  will  typically  use  it  to  fish  one  zone  and  dive down  into  that  zone  or  into  that  pocket  or  into  that  shelf,  and  then  up  over  the  next  little  shallow  portion  and  back  down  into  another  bucket  or  hole  in  these  giant  shoal  complexes,  and  it  allows  me  to  cover  a  lot  more  water  than,  say,  like  a  deceiver  or  something  like  that.  that's  a  regular  hook -down  fly  that's,  once  I  get  it  in  the  water,  it's  just  going  to  kind  of  maintain  depth.  This  thing,  I  can  dive  and  then  hover  over  obstructions  and  then  dive  down  into  the  next  hole.  And  that  really,  you  know,  we  fish  a  bunch  of  dams  in  the  state  and,  you  know,  sometimes  you'll  have  shabby  shad  come  through  the  turbines  and  you've  never  seen  that  you  know  those  fish  when  they're  kind  of  knocked  out  it's  still  alive  they're  kind  of  up  on  the  surface  they're  they're  sideways  they're  flat  and  um  when  they  are  trying  to  resuscitate  themselves  they'll  kind  of  dig  down  and  then  you  know  kind  of  pause  and  and  just  kind  of  shimmy  float  up  back  up  to  the  surface  and  repeat  that  um  and  this  fly  really  mimics  that  super  wounded  baitfish  kind  of  activity  but  it  you  don't  have  to  swim  it  like  that  if  you  fish  it  on  a  45  by  downstream  out  of  a  boat,  for  instance,  the  fly  will  write  itself,  so  to  speak,  where  it  looks  like  it's  keeled  vertically  and  it  kind  of  will  jerk  up  current  and  then  show  profile  down,  jerk  up  current,  show  profile  down  on  the  pause.  'Cause  it  will  do  a  whole  lot  of  things  but  I  don't  really  take  credit  for  that  because  I'm  just  trying  to  mash  up  a  longer,  extended,  more  realistic  version  of  Andy's  fly  by  putting  Blane's  body  on  it.  But  yes,  that  is  one  of  my  go -to  favorite  flies  for  any  species.  If  I  am  trout  fishing,  that's  my  number  one  bug.  

Marvin Cash: Got  it.  And  so,  you  know,  any  other,  you  know,  flies,  even  if  they're  not,  we'll  say,  Fletcher  originals  or  techniques  you  want  to  share  with  our  listeners?  

Fletcher Sams: Yeah.  So,  you  know,  there's  another  bug  that  we've  been  fishing  for  a  couple  of  years  now  that  I'll  call  the  quackhead  head  and,  um,  you  know,  it's,  it's  kind  of  trying  to  be  a  habitat  specialist  for  these  shoal bass  is  where,  where  it  started  in,  um,  when  Blane  came  out  with  his  jerk  changer,  um,  awesome  swim  and  fly,  um,  and  it's  great.  We  still  use  up  for  shoal bass,  but  there  are  a  lot  of  places  where  I  could  not  get  that  fly  more  than  a  couple  of  inches  under  the  water  in  some  of  these  really  fast  pockets,  and  I  wanted  to  have  something  that  was  able  to  have  a  super  action  yet.  yet  get  down  deeper  and  the  other  thing  that,  you  know,  going  back  to  the  realistic  version  of  the  fly  is  I  really  wanted  to  be  able  to,  you  know,  put  eyes  on  it  and  have  the  ability  to  use  natural  materials  and  add  colors  and  stuff  like  that  that  I  wanted  for  the  clear  flows  and  so  took  some  of  the  things  that  I  learned  about  fly  design  for  messing  with  a  tweaker  like  the  belly  flip  on  the  on  the  strip  and  a  couple  of  things  like  that  and  this  fly  is  a  very  thin  profile.  It's  only  got  a  couple  of  articulations  out  of  the  back,  and  it's  tied  on  either  a  really  long,  I  think  it's  a  TPE -615  Air X  hook,  which  is  a  three -act  long  streamer  hook,  and  half  of  the  fly  is  hook  and  that  kind  of  gives  it  that  jerky  kind  of  movement  by  the  way  that  I  waited  and  the  way  that  the  wing  of  the  fly  is  kind  of  inverted  where  the  belly  of  the  fly  is  the  wing  when  you  strip  this  thing  it  it'll  show  a  whole  lot  of  belly  and  kind  of  carve  almost  like  a  360  while  it's  showing  belly.  It's  a  pretty  wild  fly,  but  you  can  also  walk  the  dog  and  it'll  punch  down  and  get  pretty  deep,  pretty  quick  on  the  paws.  So  trying  to  accomplish  a  lot  of  what  Grajewski  was  doing  with  the  yard  sale  and  kind  of  the  concepts  of  waiting  with  the  wing  and  the  belly  flip  with  the  tweaker  and  a  lot  of  the  action  out  of  the  jerk  shapers,  kind  of  where  that  fly  idea  came  from.  And  it's  a  super  cool  fly.  Um,  and  now  that  Earex  has  come  out  with  that  new  new  beast,  long  hook,  which  is  proportionately  the  same  hook  as  that  trial  predator  hook,  um,  it  has  become  a  awesome  striper  fly  to,  um,  we,  we  could  not  hold  the  stripers  with  TG  hook.  So  had  to  work  on  that  one  a  little  bit,  but  that,  that's  another  cool  fly.  And  then,  um,  the  newest.  fly  that  we're  messing  around  with,  going  back  to  my  obsession  with  this  sideways,  um,  bay  fish  fly  is,  uh,  what  we're  calling a  swim  bone  fly,  you  know,  kind  of  named  it  after  my  cousin  Jimbo,  because  it's,  you  know,  getting  on  that  jitterbug  thing  as  a  kid,  I  just,  uh,   cannot  get  over  the  top  order  bite.  And,  you  know,  that's  kind  of  the  closest  thing  that  I'll  get  to.  using  a  top  water  flies  or  those  when  the  Jimmy  flies.  But  I  wanted  to  be  able  to  tie  a  bigger  bug  that  I  could  get  a  pin  saddle  to  get  the  body  the  way  that  I  wanted  it  to  look. And  so  I  started  messing  around  with  trying  to  make  a  synthetic  version  with  bone.  And  going  back  to  Sedotti's  weight  balance  principle,  um,  you  know,  that  flies  got  a  whole  lot  of  drag  and  because  it's  got  a  whole  lot  of  foam  on  it.  And,  um,  we,  we're,  heavily  weighting  those  flies,  um,  and  putting  a  lot  of  foam  on  them,  which  seems  kind  of  odd,  but  the  reason  we're  weighting  them  is,  uh,  one  they're  on  a  big  chain  cook.  hook,  like  a  TP650  for,  you  know,  smaller  fish  and  then  we're  bending  SA292s  with  a  blowtorch  to  do  striper  versions,  like  really,  really  big  versions.  But  the  principle  is  more  or  less  the  same.  You're  getting  a  dive  and  fly.  Got  a  big  rattles  in  them,  they  were  tying  on  with  heat  shrink  wrap  and  a  really  realistic  looking  painted  head  on  the  spum  and  does  almost  everything  that  this  swimming  Jimmy  fly  does,  um,  but  harder.  It  swims  up  harder.  It  dives  harder,  swims  more,  just  a  really,  really  cool  bug.  And  because  it's  got  rattles  built  into  it,  it  is  just  something  that  fish  can  absolutely  not  ignore.  It's  a  bug  that  can  suck  to  throw  all  day,  even  though  it  is  weight  balanced.  It's  you're  you're  you're  hucking  a  whole  lot.  But  once  it's  in  the  water,  it's  really  hard  for  a  fish  not  to  kill  that  thing.  And  those  are  the,  you  know,  kind  of  the  bugs  that  are,  you  know,  named  bugs  that  we  tie.  But  we  still  finish  a  whole  lot  of  brush  head  game  changers,  hybrid  game  changers,  jerk  changers.  Um,  well,  uh...  a  lot  of  chuck  craft  flies.  We  will  still  fish  a  whole  lot  of  clousers  and  the  other  flies  that  we  fish  a  bunch  are  fisher  rats  flies.  And  yes,  we  do  fish  some  pole  dancers,  but  he's  got  a  fly  called  a  spot  on  baitfish,  and  a  really  flat  single  fly,  and  we  tie  him  with  a  ton  of  weight,  and  that  is  really,  you  know,  when  we're  trying  to  get  bottom,  that's,  that's  what  we're  using.  but  you  know  our  fly  boxes  are  kind  of  getting  smaller  as  far  as  the  number  of  patterns  as  we  you  know  kind  of  dial  in  this  floating  line  program  it's  my  box  is  really  looking  like  you  know  bugger  changer  tweeter  a  swimming  jimmy,  a  spot  on  bay  fish,  and  maybe  a  couple  of  other  things  if  I'm  really  particular  about  whatever  fishery  that  I'm  in,  and  it's  really  kind  of  simplified  the  way  that  I  fish  because  it's  kind  of  limiting  my  options  and  so  these  days  the  patterns  are  kind  of  getting  fewer  and  the  colors  are  getting  more.  So,  the  other  mentor  that  I  have  is  a  UG  young  fisheries  biologist  by  the  name  of  Jay  Shelton and  he's  not  really  what  I  would  call  a  fly  time.  He's  really  more  of  a  mentor  on  baitfish  and  other,  And  he's  not  really  what  I  would  call  a  fly  time, he's  really  more  of  a  mentor  on  baitfish  and  other,  you  know,  the  target  species  quarry  and  how  I  can  get  flies  that  look  like  they  look  like  and  behave  like  they  look.  So  these  days,  I'm  really  just.  kind  of  fun -tuning  color  schemes  to  mimic  different  species  and  really  kind  of  limiting  the  number  of  patterns  that  I'm  playing  with.

Marvin Cash: Got  it.  And  so  folks  wanted  to  get  a  closer  look  at  your  handful  of  patterns  and  wanted  to  buy  something.  Where  should  they  go?  

Fletcher Sams: Well,  you  might  be  able  to  go  to...  to,  um,  this  year's  input  catalog  and  order  tweakers.  Um,  we,  I  do  not  know  if  it's  going  to  make  the  deadline  for  production,  but  I,  uh,  signed  off  on  the  samples  a  few  weeks  ago  and  they're  awesome.  Um,  so  you  should  be  able  to  get,   um,  the  tweakers  and  three  different  colors,  um,  this,  this  year.  And  I  do  occasionally  tie  batches  for  Mike  Schultz,  a  bit  of  Schultz  outfitters  for  promotion  stuff.  And  there's  another  fisheries  biologist  down  here  that  just  left  Auburn  University.  It's  named  Hank  Hershey,  and  he  runs  this  little.  little  boutique  shop  called  Hank's  Bait  Shop,  and  I'll  do  a  batch  every  once  in  a  while  for  him,  but  other  than  that,  don't  really  self -wise,  but  I  am  happy  to  give  you  pointers,  give  you  recipes,  do  all  the  stuff,  and  I'm  working.  working  with  Hank  to  try  to  get  a  video  up  about  how  to  tie  a  quack  head  on  Southern  culture  on  the  fly  here  soon.

Marvin Cash:  Yeah,  Inside  Baseball  says  that  they're  actually  circling  up  the  posse  to  work  on  the  next  issue  here  in  the  next  week  or  so.  

Fletcher Sams: Awesome.  Awesome.  

Marvin Cash: And  so,  to  say  is  that  they're  circling  up  the  posse  and one thing I like to ask  really  serious  tires  is  to  if  they  have  like  one  kind  of  nutty,  unusual  tool  that  they  can't  live  without.  

Fletcher Sams: Absolutely.  And  that's  the  hairline  has  a  material  stager  that  Drudge  kind  of  designed.  And  it's  literally  just  a  piece  of  foam  with  a  bunch of  slits  in  it  that  you  can,  you  know,  organize  your  material.  And  I'm  pretty  sure  it  was  originally  for  production  tires  where  they  could,  you  know,  lay  out  like  10  flies  on  one  of  these  little  foam  blocks.  But,  um,  you  know,  fly  tying  for  me  is  kind  of  two  different  things.  One,  it's,  it's  this,  um,  create  an  analytical  problem  solving  design  process.  And  it's  also  meditation  and  kind  of  therapeutic.  And  the,  the  way  that  I  kind  of,  sides  of  my  brain  is,  you  know,  I'll  do  all  my  design  and  all  my  material  layout  and  all  that  stuff.  And  he,  I  need  to  use  my  on  creative  side  of  my  brain  to  kind  of  organize  all  that.  And  then  once  I  kind  of  have  everything  laid  out  and  organized  it  up  to  the  bias,  um,  you  know,  have  everything  laid  out  when  I'm  hunting  material  or  anything,  I'm  just  wrapping  up  on  and  wrapping  thread  on  top  of  that.  It,  its  lets  me  kind  of,  of  zone  out  and,  you  know,  get  into  a  meditative  stand,  just  tie  the  bug.  And  so  that  tool  allows  me  to  do  both  instead  of,  you  know,  kind  of  going  back  and  forth,  kind  of  not  getting  that  focus  they'll  get  when  I'm  actually  at  the  bice,  if  that  makes  sense.  

Marvin Cash: Yeah,  no,  no,  it  totally  makes  sense  and  yeah,  I  mean,  it's,  it's  an  amazing  thing.  And  even  if  you're  not  tying  a  lot  of  flies,  I  mean,  it's  super  productive  to  lay  stuff  out  and  measure  it.  Yeah,  it  makes  things  go  a  whole  lot  better.  And,  you  know,  folks  may  not  know  Fletcher  kind  of  your  day  jam  is  being,  you're  the  executive  director  of,  and  I'm  going  to  make  sure  I  get  this  right,  the  Altamaha  Riverkeeper.  Did  I  do  it?  Did  I  get  it?  

Fletcher Sams: Yeah,  yeah,  you  got  it.  The  locals  call  it  Altamaha,  but  yeah,  everyone  else,  Altamaha.  

Marvin Cash: All  right. 
 
Fletcher Sams: And  it's,  it's  a  cool  day  job.  It's,  if  you  don't  know  what  riverkeepers  are,  started  up  in  the  Hudson  River,  up  in  New  York  with  a  bunch  of  fishermen  that  couldn't  catch  fish  because  the  Hudson  was  so  polluted and  so  They  decided  that  they  were  gonna  go  catch  the  polluters  by  letting  permits  and  at  the  time  State  of  New  York  would  would  kind  of  pay  a  bounty  and  so  they  they  kind  of  became  pollution  bounty  hunters  and  as  they  saw  success  and  as  the  Hudson  began  to  he  shat  runs  then  strike  back  again  start  making  their  living  other  people  would  replicate  the  program  and  now  there's  a  few  hundred  rear  keepers  all  around  the  world  we  all  ever  assigned  a  specific  water  body  um  and  mine  is  the  Altamaha  base  and  Altamaha  system  is  the  third  largest  contributor  of  freshwater  to  the  Atlantic.  Very  long  river  system,  largely  undammed  from  the  fall  line  down,  completely  undammed,  and  it  has  an  Atlantic  drainage.  It  covers  about  a  quarter  of  the  state  of  Georgia,  and  what  we  pride  are  designed  to  do  is  enforcement  through  review  utilize  in  the  clean  water  act.  So  we  are  designed  to  sue  people  but  that  are  polluting  over  their  permit  levels  or  explicitly  polluting  to  permit  but  we  like  to  use  all  the  other  tools  that  are  at  our  disposal  to  further  our  advocacy  of  a,  you  know,  cleaner,  more  fishable  river  system.  And  so  I've  been  on  that  job  since  2019,  and  we  haven't  seen  anybody  since.  So  that's  kind  of  a  last  resort,  but  that's  more  or  less  what  we're  we're  designed  to  do.  So  we  lie,  we  advocate,  we  do  clean  up,  other  agencies  to  promote  swimmable  drinkable  fishable  water  in  the  watershed.  So  even  when  I'm  working,  I've  got  a  fish  and  rod  either  in  the  truck  or  in  the  boat.  with  me.  So  I  get  a  lot  of  little  bits  of  fishing  time  here  and  there.  Pretty  cool  job.  

Marvin Cash: Very,  very  neat.  And  you  know,  what  are  some  of  the  challenges  that  are  currently  facing  your  watershed?  

Fletcher Sams: We've  got  a  couple  of  fairly  large  projects.  The  the  largest  coal  burning  facility  in  the  western  hemisphere  is  in  our  watershed  and  when  you  burn  coal,  you  have  a  byproduct  of  waste  called  coal  ash  and  it's  really  nasty  stuff.  It's  got  uranium,  radium,  arsenic,  lead,  mercury,  all  kinds  of  awful  stuff  in  it  and  it's  stored  in   ponds  that  are  more  or  less  hit,  that  are  submerged  into  the  aquifer,  and  our  EPA  in  2015  created  rules  saying  you  gotta  dig  that  stuff  up  and  store  it  in  a  line  landfill,  or  at  least  store  it  in  a  way  that  is  not  in  contact  with  groundwater  and  this  specific  plan  is  surrounded  by  residents  that  are  drinking  groundwater and  so  it  was  a  really  bad  situation.  We  have  been  able  to  successfully  convince  the  county  to  put  in  water  lines,  but  we're  still  fighting  the  power  company  on  proper  waste  disposal  and  that's  the  number  one  issue  that  we're  dealing  with.  And  then  on  a  more  positive  note,  we  are  hoping--  and  I  don't  know  what  date  this  show  may  air.  We  may  have  legislation  by  then  that  we  are  in  the  final  stages  of  creating  a  national  park  in  Georgia,  Georgia's  first  national  park,  on  the  Ocmulgee River  River,  right  in  the--  the  center  of  the  two  big  shoal  bass  habitats.  So  that's  been  a  really  cool  process.  It's  multi -agency,  multi -municipality  kind  of  group  working  together  on  this and  that  includes  the  Air  Force  Base  and  also  one  of  the--  removed  tribes  from  Georgia  during  the  Trail  of  Tears,  the  Muskogee  Creek  Nation,  will  be  an  equal  partner  at  the  table  with  US  Fish  and  Wildlife  and  the  other  partners  with  National  Park  Service.  So  that's  a  really  cool  fun  project  that's  like  kind  of  hopefully  in  the  final  stages  but  you  know  we're  we  do  all  kinds  of  stuff.  It's  what  I  tell  people  is  it  kind  of  like  mowing  grass  with  a  push  mower.  It's,  you  know,  as  soon  as  you  get  done,  you  got  to  do  it  all  again.  So  some  of  it's  Groundhog  Day,  but  some  of  it's  really  fun.  Really  moving  the  needle.  

Marvin Cash: That's  neat.  And  if  someone  wanted  to  support  your  work,  what  can  they  do?  

Fletcher Sams: Best  thing  is  donate  and  become  a  member.

Marvin Cash:  Got  it.  And  I  will  drop  a,  uh,  drop  a  link  in  the  show  notes.  It's  kind  of  funny.  You  say  that  because,  uh,  here  in  Charlotte,  it's  like  the  spring  fund  raise  or  week  for  public  radio.  So  perfect  time  to  become  a  member.

Fletcher Sams:  Oh  yeah.  Yep.  

Marvin Sams: So  before  I  let  you  go  this  evening,  Fletcher,  is  there  anything  else  you  want  to  share  with  our  listeners? 

Fletcher Sams: You  know,  I,  I  think,  um,  you  know,  get  outside  your  comfort.  zone,  try  new  stuff,  if  you're  not  applied  to  hire,  start,  and,  you  know,  if  some  of  these  species  are  interesting  to  you  or,  you  know,  no  matter  where  you  live,  there's  always  something  else  to  chase,  something  else  to  learn,  and  no  matter  what  your  skill  level  is  as  an  angler,  don't  let  the  ego  get  in  the  way  of  learning  new  stuff. 

Marvin Cash: Uh,  very,  very  neat,  and,  you  know,  what's  the  best  way  Fletcher,  for  folks  to  kind  of  get  in  touch  with  you  and  follow  your  adventures  at  the  vice on  the  water? 
 
Fletcher Sams: Instagram  

Marvin Cash: You  want  to  share  your  handle?

Fletcher Sams:  @Fletcher.Sams. 

Marvin Cash: Oh,  there  you  go.  That's  pretty  easy  and  you  know  Fletcher  I  appreciate  you  spending  some  time  with  me  this  evening.  It's  been  a  lot  of  fun  

Fletcher Sams: Yeah,  man,  I  had  a  blast.  Thanks.  

Marvin Cash: Absolutely.  Take  care  All  right  Well  folks,  I  hope  you  enjoyed  that  as  much  as  we  enjoyed  bringing  it  to  you  and  remember  if  you  liked  the  podcast  Please  tell  a  friend  and  please  subscribe  and  leave  us  a  rating  review  in  the  podcast  of  your  choice  And  don't  forget  to  check  out  the  show  notes  for  more  information  about  the  Chocklett  Factory  in  Charlotte  on  May  4th.  Tight  lines  everybody.