From us at Cumberland Drifters we hope each and every one of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Hopefully you were as fortunate as us and were able to get a few days off from the daily grind. We know you ate too much. We’ve never met a fisherman who turned down a free meal. If you’ve met me (Brandon) it’s obvious I’ve never turned down any meal. Unless of course it was a salad or something involving tofu. That’s just gross and we didn’t get to the top of the food chain to eat that stuff. Meat please….and don’t be stingy with the gravy….and pass the dressing.
So it’s winter. That time of year when we as guides actually get to go fishing because most of you have shoved your fly rods into the back of the closet until it gets above 70 degrees again. We don’t blame you, you can afford the wait. Most folks look at fishing as a warm weather sport and at one time so did we. That is until we became guides and your business forced us to pursue our hobby in conditions that were most unfavorable to you. There’s a problem with being a guide in that it ruins your hobby to an extent. We love being out there with you, don’t get me wrong, but by all means we would love to exchange seats with you and be that person fishing instead of the dummy rowing the boat. You have to make hay when the sun is shining and that’s the choice we made. So we fish when it’s cold…and we’ve become quite good at it. What does that mean for the die hards? Think about it. The Cumberland River never freezes. There’s always fish to be caught no matter what your thermometer says. So go. Get out there. I’m not telling you to call us. I’m telling you to go. Fishing is good right now and it probably will be for a while.
So last weekend I had the pleasure of guiding two guides. That never happens. That’s like seeing Fox News agree with a democrat….or MSNBC praise George W. Bush. So given this “I just hit the guide lottery” event I set these boys up with the big guns and we were going hog hunting with some streamers. Guess what…nothing. Streamer fishing was pretty much a non event. When they killed the generator I insisted that we go nymphing and our luck changed. Nymph fishing was…as it always is on the Cumberland, the way to go. I really hoped for some good streamer fishing. When it’s good there’s nothing better…but it sucked worse than Caddyshack II.
We have an interesting generation schedule going on right now and I kinda like it. We’re getting a nice pulse of two generators in the morning and then no water for the rest of the day. That means after 10:00 the water will drop for the rest of the day. It only gets better as the water drops…as many of you well know.
Midges are hatching like crazy out there and you will see rising fish as soon as the water starts dropping so don’t forget your midge dries. My money is on the old standby patterns. Princes….zebra midges…copper johns…brassies…etc. You WILL catch fish in the channels when the water is low. Don’t have a boat? Wade and you’ll find fish. Just know where you are and when the water turns off and how long it takes to get to where you are. It moves at 4mph. Figure out where you are and do the math.
We are more than willing to take the die hards out on a trip if you want to brave the elements. We’ll have a hot pot of chili for you if you’re brave enough. As for the rest of you we offer gift certificates for the holiday shoppers.
From Cumberland Drifters we thank you all for a great year. We’re amazed at how many of you check our website and speak to us on the river. We really do this because we love what we do. We want every person that reads this to become a better fisherman and hopefully…in some way maybe we can help.
See you on the water,
Brandon










