S7, Ep 41: Navigating High Water: Strategies for Success with Mac Brown

In this episode of The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash is joined by Mac Brown for another insightful edition of Casting Angles. As they navigate through the recent storms and high water, Mac shares his expertise on how anglers can still find success despite challenging conditions. They discuss the importance of fishing high in the water table, particularly in the Park, where clarity often prevails over the more turbid waters downstream.

Mac emphasizes the value of knowing the water and the behavior of fish during floods, explaining how they often retreat to the edges and structure. The duo dives into effective techniques for fishing in murky conditions, highlighting the benefits of using bright colors and jigs, such as mop flies, to entice fish. They also touch on safety tips for wading in fast currents and the advantages of fishing from the bank when conditions are less than ideal.

Listeners will gain practical advice on adapting their fishing strategies during high water events, making this episode a must-listen for anyone looking to maximize their time on the water.

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Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash,the host of the Articulate Fly. We're
back with another castingangles with Mac Brown. Mac, how are
you?
I'm doing great. How are youdoing, Marvin?
As always. Just trying to stayout of trouble and heard you were
hammering away on Noah's Arkbefore I started calling.
Yeah, we've had, we've had oursheriff some, some storms here for

(00:24):
sure the past, the past fewweeks it seems. And yeah, the water's
pretty big, big right now. SoI thought, well, that might be a
good topic. You know, a lot ofpeople that are already on vacation
or visiting here and it's likethat and they think, well, they need
to do something else. Butthere's a lot of times you can, you
can make magic if, if it's nottoo blown up. And I figured that'd

(00:46):
be a good thing. How do peoplemake that call?
Yeah. So I guess, you know,the first thing you and I were talking
before we started recordingis, you know, if you've got to get
out and we'll talk aboutsafety and stuff like that later.
That probably means, forexample, that you need to head high
in the water table up into the park.
That's a good place. Yeah. Thehigher up you get, you know, you're

(01:06):
going to have a lot lessvolume because of the catchment.
You know, up high is not goingto be near as big and you don't even
have to get in the water isthe other thing. A lot of places
up high you can, you can fishfrom the bank without every stepping
foot. If it's, if it's prettybig water and there's a whole lot
of ways to have, have success.It's just about knowing where to
go and what to do. And I thinkthat's, that's a big part I see is

(01:30):
definitely there's no floattrips going on the last few days
here because the water's it'spretty big and it's chocolate. I
mean the visibility is noteven 2 inches looking in the water.
So when you got 2 inchvisibility of chocolate, then it's
probably best to looksomewhere else.
Yeah. And so you know, thegreat thing too about, you know,
fishing high up in the, up inthe water table, like up in the park,

(01:51):
is that that's going to alsobe the first water to clear.
That's right, yeah. And thefreestones coming out of the park
will also be the first toclear. Compared to the bigger waters
that go through farmland, likewhere I am, like in the Tuckaseegee
drainage, even Nanahala,there's a lot of houses from the
upper Nantahala. And you know,when it gets big, it gets a lot of

(02:13):
chocolate color even on theupper. So depends how much agriculture
and developments took, youknow, taking place. Because you really
don't see the park turn realchocolate very often. I mean, just
because there's no developmentwhere it comes off. Like the watersheds
on Hazel Creek and Forney and,you know, Deep Creek, all these park
streams on the Carolina side,there's. There's really no reason

(02:35):
for it to be real chocolatecolored. I mean, you can see it flooded
and still be relatively clear.So they're not going to be near as
much turbidity of soil mixedin, you know.
Yeah. And so, you know, if wetalk about kind of coming back down
to like the tuck, for example,you know, we were talking about a
good rule of thumb, as youknow, you probably want, I don't

(02:56):
know, about a foot ofvisibility. Right. Or you probably
should go rent movies orsomething like that.
That's right, yeah. I mean,when it's a foot of visibility, you
can do pretty well, which isanother reason, not just for safety
reasons, but you're not goingto do as well out in the middle anyway.
The fish are conditioned. Evenif they're, even if they're hatchery

(03:18):
fish, the wild fish definitelyare going to be out right on the
edges and keep moving out. Asthe river comes up higher, they're
going to be on the edges nomatter how high it gets. It's just
like the floods from Helene.You know, a lot of people thought
the fisheries in the Nochuckywhere I grew up in Greenville, they
thought all that would bedevastated. And I talked to a lot
of the biologists that wentover there and studied it. There

(03:40):
were several of them fromCarolina side that helped over there
with some studies. And totheir surprise, and it really doesn't
surprise me. Fish, no, even inthat kind of condition, I mean, the
nochucky was larger than it'sever, you know, been recorded. And
they still had plenty ofmuskie. It's a big muskie river through
the gorge there, you know,above Irwin, a lot of smallmouth

(04:03):
down near Greenville,Tennessee, a whole lot of different
species of fish. But they,they said they didn't even notice
a huge decline after theflood. So that tells you all those
fish knew exactly what to dogoing out on the edges. So I don't
really worry about that. Thathappens here all the time where people
think all the fish are washedaway. And I just don't think that's
how it works. You got torealize fish are super adapted, adapting

(04:27):
when that takes place to knowwhat to go do, you know?
Yeah. And so, you know, theyget pushed to the edge, they get
pushed on structure. And then,you know, we kind of talk about,
you know, probably, you know,with, with turbid water, you know,
you kind of want to get downquickly. You know, you probably want
color and, or flash right to,to fish. You know, in that situation,

(04:49):
I guess if it's safe. I thinkabout like jigging things like mop
flies, you know, woolly boogers.
Good tactic. Yeah. Those areall good things. And a funny thing
is about this is, you know,one of the funniest moments for me
personally of all the yearsbeing around this as an educator
is during one of the schoolsyears ago we had a school and it

(05:10):
was a huge flood in March andwe were out and everybody was like,
their faces were low. Youknow, they're looking at the water
thinking it's going to be awasted, wasted trip. And as far as
learning how to. We were doingnymphing that day. And I can remember
you, I said, you know, putsomething light colored. Like I,
I had a white mop in my vestand it was really simple. We were
in carhartts that day. Wedidn't even have waiters because

(05:31):
it wasn't raining anymore. Sowe're standing up on the edge and
I tell everybody about thistree. It's like 20ft away. And I
said, you know, there's aperfect spot. There'll be a brown
trout there. And everybody'sthinking that I'm just talking making
this up the first four spots.And I said, there'll be something
there. Bow and arrow cast inthere. One jig boom. 17 inch brown
trout, first cast. I mean,we're talking chocolate color, just

(05:54):
like we were describing. Thewater's way up, it's in the trees,
off on the edges. And thenpeople are rushing and scrambling
through their gear and they'reall excited because they just saw
four fish get pulled out. Imean, you can. If you know what to
do in those conditions, youcan still make magic happen. It's
just really, a lot of it ispeople try to go in and fish their
regular technique when it'sflooded and then wonder why it's

(06:15):
not good because they'refishing the wrong places usually.
You know, man, it's real predictable.
Yeah. And I would say too,right. You know, probably a good
idea to leave the indicator inyour shirt pocket and, and tight
line because you Know, there'sjust, there's just too much velocity
on the surface to makeindicator fishing effective.
Yeah, I think, I think justgoing straight, straight, tight line

(06:38):
and you know, jig. And I liketo jig a lot when it's flooded like
that. Well, I like to jig whenit's clear too, but I like to jig
especially when it's floodedlike that. And worms. A lot of different
worm patterns out there thatwe like to use in high water events
and those are always a winner.That doesn't matter if you hear the
White river system or out inColorado. I mean, the worms are going

(07:00):
to excel any, any fishery inthe world when it's hot water and
flooded. You know, that's justone of the main go to things. That's
when worms are at their best,I think.
Yeah. And you know too, if wetalk about safety, you know, a couple
things I would say, you know,the water gets pretty pushy when
it's fast. Right. So I wouldsay, you know, if it's, you know,

(07:21):
more than a foot above yourknee, you might want to be thoughtful
about it. And I would saycertainly don't leave the waiting
staff in the truck.
Or you can do like me and justwear car hearts and never even get.
I don't get in the water atall when it's flooded. I mean, when
it's flooded here I just, Ireally enjoy just wearing like my
just work pants, you know, andjust staying out because there's.

(07:43):
You can still reach a wholelot of things by just staying out.
And you kind of circle in andout, in and out to the stream and
it's just easier. It'sactually a lot easier and it's actually
a lot better for safety wisejust to stay out of the water entirely
when it's that big. Like rightnow I wouldn't want to be in the
water even on deep creek thatI live on. It's like we looked at

(08:03):
that this morning and it'sjust. There's so much water coming
down through there. You justkind of have. And of course it helps
knowing, knowing a creek, likeknowing where you are, it makes it
a little tougher if you'venever been on the creek to find out
where do I go when it'sflooded. You're gonna have to do
a lot more searching thansomebody that already knows if you
walk, you know what I'msaying? Like I, I kind of already

(08:24):
understand when this creekfloods exactly where I'm gonna walk
to, to fish. You know, that'san advantage yeah.
And I would say too, that, youknow, you know, if you do decide
to get in the water, you know,wade slowly, you know, ideally you'd
have a partner with you. Butthen I think the really important

(08:45):
thing is people get in a hurryand they don't keep two points of
contact. Right. Which is goingto be one foot in your waiting staff
before you start moving aroundand you'll get in trouble. And then
the other thing too is you gotto remember that the current's pushing
you downstream, even if you,you know, don't slip and fall. And
so you better make sure thatas you're working your way across
to wherever you want to be,you can actually get back somewhere

(09:05):
that you can get out of the water.
That's right. Yeah, that's.That's good advice. And of course,
in a boat, like, if it's realflooded, probably don't have any
business floating, you know,like, we didn't see any boats today.
I mean, I drove up, up toFranklin today, so we saw probably
22 miles of river. And ofcourse there's nobody out when it's

(09:28):
that high. I mean, there's noboats going down at all because I'm
sure the commercial trips wereall, all canceled or doing something
else. Another, another gameplan. But another good option is
the tail waters up here thatare, you know, below the dams. I
mean, we have, we gotCalderwood Lake, Chioa Lake, there's
all kinds of, you know, WolfLake, Tennessee Lake. All those lakes

(09:48):
will produce really well indays like today. I mean, they're
still fishing well, the lakesand I mean they're lake impoundments.
But it's not like dirty waterlike a Cheolo be running totally
clear even though it rained abunch the last few weeks, just because
the catchment, it's got plentyof room to clean it out in the lake
above in Fontana, of course.So if you like being in a boat during

(10:12):
these water events, that'sanother good option that you could
do. Still, if you had a clientthat you had to keep them in a boat
because it's. So they're notgoing to be real into walking in
somewhere far. There's stillthat option on the table.
Well, I think, I think we'vekind of touched all the bases. Mack
Brown, what do you think?
I think that'll help. Helppeople a lot, make that decision

(10:33):
anyway.
Yeah. And so, you know, we'vegot, you know, three weeks left before
DH Burns off, and then it'llbe kind of a park only game or a
park mostly game. Right. If Iremember correctly, you don't have
any school scheduled until thefall. But if folks want to learn
more about the kind of thefall class offerings or book a day
on the water with you, whereshould they go?

(10:55):
Yeah, the dates are all listedon the website. Macbrownflyfish.com
underneath specialty schoolsthey'll see all the different dates
for what's coming up in thefall. There's mainly the first one
will be the casting two daycasting event there in September
and then we'll have the wetfly clinic down in Mountain Home,

(11:15):
Arkansas. And then we haveseveral schools here in October and
November as well. That'll bethe that'll be probably the best
place to find all that in themenu item up there under specialty
classes.
Well, there you go. Well folksas always say you owe yourself to
get out there and catch a fewtight lines everybody. Tight lines,
Mac, Tight lines.
Marvin.