We’ve followed Charity and Ian’s website after a friend utilized their guide service a few years ago and shared what a great experience he’d had with them on trip back East.
They’ve been on our list to interview for a bit and when Charity starting chatting with us a few weeks ago about a design project we asked for help on, it seemed like the time to pester this busy husband and wife team for an interview.
Ian and Charity Rutter operate R&R Fly Fishing Guide Service in Townsend, Tennessee. They don’t have a fly shop, just a guide service, and that’s the way they like it since that allows them to spend their days outside on the river. They live just a few minutes outside of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and about an hour from the Clinch and Holston River tailwaters where they also guide.
They’ve written five books about fly fishing around their region: Great Smoky Mountains National Park Angler’s Companion, Tennessee Trout Waters – A Blue Ribbon Guide, Rise Rings & Rhododendron – Fly Fishing the Streams & Tailwaters of Southern Appalachia, Fly Fishing for Brook Trout in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Fly Fishing with Streamers – Advice from the Guides.
Charity and Ian have shared a lot of good stuff with us; their interview will be posted in two parts.
You guys live and work in some of the most scenic territory in the country; what’s really special about Townsend that prompted you to call it home?
Ian: I grew up in East Tennessee and moved about 45 minutes from my previous residence to move to Townsend. I moved here specifically for the fishing since it’s at the entrance of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and 90 minutes or less from three trout tailwaters. Give me an extra hour and I can get to four more tailwaters and God only knows how many more streams.
The fish in the Smokies are not generally very big, averaging about 7”-9”, but there is a tremendous network of hundreds of miles backcountry streams, the weather is tolerable for fishing at least 9 months of the year, and the fish have a strong dry fly bias.
Charity: I grew up in a small town in midwestern Oklahoma so I’ve always had an affinity for small towns. Townsend is one of those places where everyone knows everyone else. Living in the mountains… What can I say? I live in the mountains. What’s better than that?
Having done so in the past, we know that it can get interesting having both husband and wife working hard in the family small business. How have you guys made it work?
Ian: It’s good to hear outside affirmation that it’s working! It takes more effort than just about anyone realizes, but at the same time I’m not sure I’d want this business situation without Charity. We’re very fortunate to have abilities which compliment the other. Charity is much better at dealing with people on the phone and coordinating the calendar. Charity’s artistic ability is phenomenal and I think it’s largely responsible for the success of our books.
Charity: We play off each other’s strengths. Working together we’re able to minimize each other’s weaknesses and maximize strengths. There’s also something to be said for working with someone you trust completely. You know your husband has your back and at the same time we can know if the other has an issue with something, that’s probably something we should back away from. Having said that all our married friends say their marriages wouldn’t last if they had to work with their spouse every day.
What do you enjoy the most about running R&R? The least?
Ian: I enjoy being my own boss, but it’s a double edged sword. I have to be careful about being sure to schedule time off. Most people think the self employed set their calendar up around days off, but I think we tend to worry about the balance in the checking account more. You don’t think about days off in January when you’re filling dates on the calendar, but wading on boulders or rowing a drift boat 25 days a month can beat the crap out of you. I always say the boss is a real hard ass when you’re self employed.
Charity: The part I like the least is easy – paperwork! The part I love the most is working for ourselves. I get to share my passion with other people and help them gain a respect for the rivers and fish we love. Most of the people we take fishing only get to do it a few days a year and it’s rewarding to help them learn to be better fly fishers. In most cases they’d do it more if they could, but most of the time they don’t live so close to a trout river or stream. It’s pretty cool to know you have a positive impact on people having fun. I refer to myself as “The Fun Police!” People don’t come to me with problems or to get something fixed that’s stressing them out – they come to us to have a fun and stress free experience!
How about your best crazy / strange guide day story from last year?
Ian: We were doing one of our four day backcountry fish camps in the Smokies and one of my anglers hooks a 9” rainbow on a dry fly. It started to run down a rapid and the angler was trying to pull it back it through the white water. I was yelling to him that he needed to go downstream because he wouldn’t be able to drag the fish back through the heavy water. As I was doing this I thought I saw a monster fish go downstream over the rapid. It was one of those moments where you think you imagined it because it just didn’t seem right. Before the angler could respond to my advice his fish actually swam back up through the rapid on its own. This is one of those spots with a standing wave about three feet high; really powerful water. I was thinking “Wow! That’s pretty unusual,” when the big fish I thought I had just seen came zipping up through the rapid in hot pursuit. I only saw if for a split second but just as I lost sight of it my angler has his rod just about jerked out of his hand.
I’m screaming for him to hang on, but don’t apply too much pressure because his rainbow just got eaten by a Jurassic Park class brown trout. It swam around for a minute, ran along the far bank that was full of roots, logs, and boulders. Everything just kind of stopped and I asked the guy if the fish was still there. He pulled really hard from about three directions and shook his head declaring it had him all wrapped up. From where we stood his leader wasn’t even visible.
We sat there laughing about the whole thing and I took off my vest and backpack with lunches before I waded across the stream to undo the mess. I think we even took a few minutes to review some pictures on the digital camera from earlier in the morning.
Anyway, it was at least a few minutes before I waded across the deep run of water. It was a touchy spot because it was a few feet deep and any slip would send me body surfing down the rapid downstream. I pulled on the line expecting to break the leader off somewhere. About the time the leader should have broken the line went zipping out of my hands and up the stream. I started hollering and the guy is trying to get up and go back into crisis mode. The line went slack and my guy reeled in the most beat up rainbow trout you’ve ever seen. From the three or four quick looks I got, that brown trout was 22-24”, a real shark for a mountain stream.
Charity: I had a guy last season who asked if he could swim in a big pool after we fished it. I said “It’s really cold water, but sure I guess if you want to swim you can.” He and his wife and I sat along the river banks and ate lunch. When he finished his lunch, he took off his fishing vest and started wading in. When he got about thigh deep, I really thought he was going to back out, but he kept going. He swam in the river fully clothed. It really isn’t crazy for someone to swim in the river, I had just never had an angler decided to go swimming while we were out fishing, so that was a first.
Most people ask us about black bear while we are out fishing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Ian and I see them often, but it’s a special treat for visitors to see them out in their natural habitat. One day there was a group of 4 anglers with me and another one of our guides enjoying lunch along the banks of a great big pool with a real pretty view. One of the guys asked me “Do you ever see bears while you’re out fishing?” I looked up from my lunch and said “Yeah we see them pretty often.” Before I finished that sentence, I see motion in the trees out of the corner of my eye. I look over and say “There’s some right now.” The guy laughed at me and thought I was trying to be funny because I pointed behind him. I said “No really. Look!” He turned around in surprise as a Momma bear and two cubs strolled across the trail and down into the river to play on the rocks up stream from where we were sitting. That was pretty fun since the bears came out right on cue!
More from Charity and Ian tomorrow.
