2010 Rumble in the Rhododendron

[Chris Lee]

All,
Announcing the 2010 Rumble in the Rhododendron:

http://www.rumbleintherhodo.com/

Please come out to the beautiful Great Smoky Mountains in Western North Carolina and compete in the 3rd annual Rumble this October. Please let me know if you have any questions or need more information. Spread the word!

Thanks,

Chris Lee
North Carolina Fly Fishing Team, Inc.

[Loren Williams]

How about you use fly tying to advance?

[Dejon Hamann]

Thanx Chris!  I'll update the schedule.

[Chris Lee]

How about you use fly tying to advance?

I would definetly not qualify it that was the case!

[Mark Hanes]

That would be interesting one team mate fly tying the other fly casting!

[Dejon Hamann]

Forget fly tying... let's use Ping-Pong! I'm quite versed in the art of table tennis

[Loren Williams]

That's how I feel about my casting!

How about you use fly tying to advance?

I would definetly not qualify it that was the case!

[Anita Coulton]

Nah, fly tying definitely wouldn't get me there.  Casting isn't my thing either....I'm up for an inline road race....who's in? 

[Mark Hanes]

On a serious note this is a great competition where you can show case your ability against some top notch anglers.

[Todd Oishi]

Looks like a great competition on a great piece of water - with some serious prize money to boot!

Good-luck to all of the contestants!

[Dejon Hamann]

Definitely a great tournament with some of the best anglers in the country turning up each year.  Who couldn't use a couple extra grand in their pocket too!?

[Chris Lee]

Note the date change in Bourcq's post in the General Forum.

[Mark Hanes]

Good Luck to all those competing!  I must say I do hope my Harman Invitation Partner David Woody can pull off a back to back wins at the Rumble.

[Chris Smith]

Thanks Marc.  Wish you guys were down here.

[Anita Coulton]

Just saw that Paul Bourq is leading after the casting portion....

[Dejon Hamann]

Any news? I know it's early.

[Chris Smith]

Paul cleaned house.  He had the highest casting score, landed the biggest fish, and (with teammate Nick Johnson) won overall.

Jason Buffkin and Bill Strickland took second.  Josh Stephens and Kevin Lowe took third.  

The final round was really tight, with the top two teams scoring 4 fish and the rest of the field all scoring 3 fish.  As usual, it came down to the ability of anglers to land big fish and strategic decisions to cull or not to cull.

Congrats to the Cherokee Chamber, River's Edge Outfitters, and the NC Fly Fishing Team for putting on a great event.  

[Dejon Hamann]

Are there full results for this posted yet?

[Kevin Lowe]

CONGRATS to Paul and Nick.
These guys done a great job. THANKS to ALL who helped out and competed!!!!
Its gonna be bigger and better next year!!!

[Paul Bourcq]

This was our stategy and flies.

We went to the casting hoping to score high enough to get a decent water pick.  I had never won a casting up untill this one.  after it was all said and done we got second pick (team total) on water.  Gordon and Jake were 50/50 on beat 1 and 7.  I wanted whatever they didnt take because they were the best beats.  We ended up with one.

1 had two big holes in it with nice edges and good laminar flow in the tails.  Our game plan was to fish the lower hole and score 5 fish.  We knew we could not win it in the am but we could lose it.  Since fish were spawning we threw eggs and some Surveyors here and there.  Picked up 5 fish between that and a root beer and peach streamer.  We rested the top hole.

we won the morning session barely and picked beat 1 again.  The scores were zeroed out.  We then probed the lower hole....stuck one big fish and moved up to the top hole.  We tried every nymph in our box to no avail.  Finally I stood at the top of our beat with water coming over my waders and fished a streamer down on the bank where some fish were holding.  I crammed the rod all the way to the bottom to get the bug deep and hand twisted back to me.  It was painful but it started paying off.  with about 70 minutes left i started picking up fish every 15 minutes or so.  I stuck with this untill it died at which point we went to the lower hole since caddis (big) were moving.  We had 15 minutes left.  Me and nick both stuck and lost what would have been our 5th fish.  so we scored 4.  I still regret dropping those last fish.

Stephens and Kev Lowe also scored 4 fish but we got them on size thanks to a nice big 56 cm bruiser that ate the peach  streamer.  If Josh and Kev would not have culled the 6 fish they did they would have more than likely win but most of us dont fish for second place so i got lucky on that one.

[Mark Hanes]

Nice job Paul and thanks for the play by play.  That culling is always hit or miss you never know what will happen as your time starts running out.

[Paul Bourcq]

After getting into detail about some stuff with Dejon he thought I should post this, its kind of funny.

So the day before the comp i thought my partner was going to have to back out.  We worked that out last minute.  I did not have any rods because they got broken in colorado at the cup.  I had no flies since guide season was busy. i had about a dozen assorted brass crap, and to top it off I had absolutely no tippet.  I borrowed money from a friend to get into the Rumble.  My other buddy gave me his fly box (new member brett nelson) and Gordon Vanderpool from Stonefly gave me a spool of 5x and 6x tippet.  I used my partners rods.  The fly boxes had alot of peach buggers and eggs so that is what we threw lol.  So after i won the comp on borrowed gear and money I brought the boys to dinner.  I literally could not have done it without them.  I was sweating the results.....i was on fumes in my car.

So my word of advice to the poor comp fisherman......hell go for it. 

[Nick Johnson]

Paul owned with the streamers! I though of myself as a great streamer fisherman but my streamer game is more of a strip fast see the strike kind of thing. I recently moved back near charlotte where there are many a pond full of bass. My second day back i took to the bass ponds and started working on my slowed down version of streamer fishing and landed 2 huge bass. The take is all i had to get used to. It is exaclty like paul says  mashed potatoes then bump bump pause then strip set.

[Nick Johnson]

I'm gonna further work on my streamer game by going to Ocean Isle beach tomorrow and fishing a wreck in about 18 feet of water. Gonna have to see if i can get soem sink tip line from someone somehow but i will pull up some flounders and grey trout and whatever else we can get our hands on! This will be my first excursion on salt water with a fly rod in many many years! Last time i caught the Fu$% out of flounder on a white wooly bugger!