Did You Know About Shoal Bass? With Quint Rogers

Tom Rosenbauer (00:02): Well, my guest today is Quint Rogers and Quint is ⁓ with Peach State Fly Fishing, which is an orvus and ors outfitter in Georgia. And Quint, you, ⁓ you pursue an unusual fish that, ⁓ I have, I have never seen. ⁓ and I think I've heard of it, but I know absolutely nothing about, so I'm really, I'm really excited to, to talk to you about shoal bass and,

Quint Rogers (00:30): Whoa.

Tom Rosenbauer (00:31): And what they are and where they live and, and you know what their environment is like, and then how you try to stick them in the mouth with a hook.

Quint Rogers (00:41): Well, they're my favorite fish in the world, Tom, and I'm excited to talk about them. We're really lucky here in Georgia to have this fishery because it's one that's pretty much unique to our state. ⁓ And there's a few exceptions to that that I can talk about, but ⁓ I've been fishing for shoal bass for fun since I was about 14.

Tom Rosenbauer (00:43): Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Quint Rogers (01:07): and professionally now for going on six years. ⁓ My favorite thing about them is that they're a river fish, exclusively. ⁓ That's a unique thing in the world of bass. ⁓ But these fish may persist if you put them in a still water environment, but they certainly wouldn't thrive. There's a lot of things about their life cycle that depend on moving.

Tom Rosenbauer (01:12): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm interested in hearing about that life cycle. So you sent me some pictures of them and they have sort of the markings of a large mouth, but kind of the shape of a small mouth, you know. What is the scientific name of these? It's a subspecies, right, of large mouth? No?

Quint Rogers (01:54): No, sir. It's a unique individual species of black bass called Micropterus cataractae. ⁓ It's its own species of fish and ⁓ it is endemic to one river system, which is the Apalachicola River system. And that river is formed ⁓ by the confluence of the Chattahoochee and the Flint rivers. And so those three places and their tributaries

Tom Rosenbauer (02:01): ⁓ it's its own species. Wow. Mmm. Okay.

Quint Rogers (02:24): are the only naturally occurring habitats of shoal bass in the world.

Tom Rosenbauer (02:29): Wow. Now will they hybridize with either large monster swamas?

Quint Rogers (02:33): ⁓ They do, as far as I know, there's nowhere where they overlap with small mouth bass and occasionally they will hybridize with large mouth bass. The problem, ⁓ the real problem though, is spotted bass. ⁓ We have in a lot of these fisheries, not just shoal bass waters, but a lot of warm water fisheries in Georgia, introduced spotted bass. ⁓ And that's, you know, from people moving fish around and it's also because

Tom Rosenbauer (02:40): Right? Okay.

Quint Rogers (03:03): they've been stopped in reservoirs like Lake Lanier or Lake Ufala and they've made it through dams and they're now in the riverine environment. So the main hybrids that you come across are with spotted bass and that's, I would say, one of the greatest threats to the species.

Tom Rosenbauer (03:12): ⁓ huh. huh. Okay. can you tell a hybrid when you catch one or do you have to do a DNA analysis and send it to a biologist?

Quint Rogers (03:28): There's some quick checks that you can do and from what I've been told by biologists, there's not really anything, ⁓ there's no such thing as a pure shoalbass anymore. ⁓ That at the genetic level, we're looking at 90 something percent ⁓ as opposed to 100 percent. But when it's ⁓ a real mutt,

Tom Rosenbauer (03:50): Okay. Right.

Quint Rogers (03:54): A spotted bass has a rough tooth patch on its tongue. And largemouth bass and shoal bass do not have that. So if you rub a bass's tongue out of one of these rivers and it's got a rough patch on it, it's either a spotted bass or its daddy or granddaddy was a spotted bass.

Tom Rosenbauer (04:00): Okay. Aha. Okay. Okay. And can you tell us by a pure spotted bass from a show bass easily? ⁓ just coloration without looking at the tongue.

Quint Rogers (04:20): Yes, coloration and spotted bass have that distinct lateral line that largemouth do ⁓ and shoal bass really don't. Shoal bass have more of that tiger striping that people associate with a smallmouth, ⁓ but they're definitely greener in hue and the spotted bass tend to be a little more yellow or golden in hue.

Tom Rosenbauer (04:36): Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's talk a little bit. Let's talk a little bit about their life history. You said they're they're unique to flowing water. You know, what are their what are their needs? What are they what are they feed on? When do they spawn?

Quint Rogers (04:51): That's correct. ⁓ Shoal bass spawn in the spring. ⁓ They typically spawn a little bit later than largemouth bass in reservoirs do. ⁓ And they bed in the shoals, which is where they get their name. ⁓ And there are fish that live in the shoals year round, ⁓ but all shoal bass move into the shoals to spawn during the spring. And a shoal is defined as

Tom Rosenbauer (05:00): Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay.

Quint Rogers (05:25): a large collection of rocks with swift moving water braided through it. ⁓ So at high river levels, you know, it may not be braided, it may just be flowing over the rocks, but at normal river levels, it's a channelized complex of granite or limestone, depending on where you are in the state. ⁓ And these fish find pockets of slower moving

Tom Rosenbauer (05:32): Okay, okay. Right? huh.

Quint Rogers (05:54): but still moving water ⁓ behind boulders in and around weed beds, ⁓ but adjacent to or directly in current to make their bed and to spawn. And ⁓ unlike largemouth, they like a pebbly bottom. They don't bed in sand. They like a pebbly bottom with highly oxygenated water. ⁓ Their eggs require more dissolved oxygen than...

Tom Rosenbauer (05:56): Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hmm.

Quint Rogers (06:22): than other black bass, which is why they can't reproduce in a reservoir. ⁓ They're very much like trout in terms of their spawning habits and also in terms of the places where they hold to feed. And they feed on a lot of the things that you might expect the trout to. And that's true for pretty much any fish in these rivers, not just the shoal bass, but they're eating a lot of stone fly and may fly larvae. One of their main

Tom Rosenbauer (06:25): Yeah, more like trout then more like trout spawning than a bass spawning. Huh? Wow.

Quint Rogers (06:51): prey items is a Helgramite, a Dobson fly larva. We are a heavy Helgramite ecosystem. ⁓ We have lots and lots and lots of Dobson fly larvae in these rivers and so they eat on those. But they also do all of the things that you'd expect a bass to do. They eat on bait fish, shad and shiners and other things that live in the river. ⁓ They eat crawdads, they eat frogs. They're very opportunistic feeders and they're an engulfer.

Tom Rosenbauer (06:54): Mm hmm. Yeah. Uh-huh.

Quint Rogers (07:20): you know, like a large mouth is, they'll pretty much eat anything that fits in there.

Tom Rosenbauer (07:21): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sounds like me.

Quint Rogers (07:28): Yes. We say very often there's no bait that's too big for a shoal bass. Even if it can't eat it practically, it's certainly going to try. Yes.

Tom Rosenbauer (07:37): Really? So, so do you, do you actually have hatches where you can fish to these guys like a rising trout?

Quint Rogers (07:46): Well, that's the main difference between these fish and trout is that they do not care about dry flies. ⁓ They are surface feeders when it comes to disturbance. So just like you might expect other fly fishing pursuits with bass, they love a popper. They love something that's moving across the top of the water, ⁓ but they will seldom hit a dead drifted dry fly. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (07:54): ⁓ Right? Yep. Hmm, interesting.

Quint Rogers (08:15): You can certainly, you can force it. You can force the issue and drift a chubby or drift a dragonfly or a damselfly. ⁓ But your buddy throwing a streamer on the other end of the boat is gonna have caught a dozen by the time you find and land your dry fly shoal bass. ⁓ It really is. They eat a lot of nymphs, once it comes to surface insects, they really could care less.

Tom Rosenbauer (08:19): Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. That's interesting because. Yeah, I know. ⁓ we fish smallmouth in a, large river near here and they will, they will act just like trout to get in tails of pools during a spinner fall. And this big small mouth will eat, will eat, you know, dead drifted ⁓ mayfly spinners. but if you throw a little popping bug, they'll eat that too.

Quint Rogers (08:57): That's true. Yeah, we, and the sad thing about it is that we have some incredible hatches on these rivers because of the grass and the habitat. have some wonderful yellow sally events and some big, know, some larger stone flies that I would call a golden stone. It's probably not the same thing that they have out West, but some really big stone flies. And of course we've got, you know, we're covered up in grasshoppers and dragonflies.

Tom Rosenbauer (09:04): Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. huh.

Quint Rogers (09:24): all of the warm water species that you would expect but I've never never been out there and witnessed shoal bass sipping dries.

Tom Rosenbauer (09:27): Yeah. Now will they eat the nymphs? they eat during a hatch? Will they eat the nymphs?

Quint Rogers (09:36): They will, ⁓ the things that we nymph with most often are the Helgramites and sometimes in clearer water we use a very large stonefly pattern. ⁓ But it doesn't seem to matter that whether the bugs are coming off or not. ⁓ These rivers are just so loaded with these microvertebrates that they're eating them when they see them. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (09:49): Mm-hmm. Yeah. huh, okay.

Quint Rogers (10:06): And a Helgramite is also, it's a unique aquatic insect in that that larval stage sometimes lasts years. It's not like a Mayfly cycle where it's like clockwork and it's happening inside of a calendar year. A Helgramite egg might hatch and that Helgramite might exist as a Helgramite for three or four years before it hatches as a Dobsonfly.

Tom Rosenbauer (10:15): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And boy, of Dobson fly flying upstream is a scary event. You mean I duck when they come by those things are nasty looking when they're an adult.

Quint Rogers (10:39): The stuff of nightmares. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (10:47): So tell me, tell me what a day of shoal bass fishing is like, how, how you guys, how you guys organize it and, you know, what do you do throughout the day? What's, what season, ⁓ is best for shoal bass?

Quint Rogers (11:04): Our main season is in the spring ⁓ and it consists of what I would describe as three phases, pre-spawn, spawn, and post-spawn. ⁓ Now none of those are exact calendar work. ⁓ Shoal bass may have multiple spawning events throughout the spring based on precipitation and river flow. ⁓ Because we're here on the fall line region, which is a region of rapid elevation drop as

Tom Rosenbauer (11:06): Mm-hmm. Okay. Right. Okay.

Quint Rogers (11:34): the foothills of the Appalachians transition to the coastal plain, ⁓ our rivers are extremely flashy. So they come up really hard and they come down just as hard. And an early spawning shoal bass may experience a mid-spring flood that makes that spawn unviable. And so that year, the shoal bass that spawn later will be more successful. I had an accountant client

Tom Rosenbauer (11:38): Right. Okay. Mm-hmm.

Quint Rogers (12:03): ⁓ tell me that that was the fish version of dollar cost averaging. ⁓ they're spreading their risk out across the season as much as they can. But the pre-spawn bite is fish sitting in heavy current in plunge pools and boulder pockets where there's water ripping around these current breaks. And they're sitting on seams and they're ganged up in these current breaks. And they're feeding, feeding, feeding on anything.

Tom Rosenbauer (12:08): Sure. Yep. Yep.

Quint Rogers (12:33): that they can get their lips on. And so that time of year is when we like to fish the exciting baits, the big streamers, the big double deceivers and game changers and ⁓ drunken disorderlies and the stuff that you might throw at a pike or a largemouth that can entice these aggressive pre-spawn reaction strikes. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (12:35): Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Quint Rogers (12:58): It's a time of year where a conventional tackle angler might throw a big spinner bait or a glide bait or something like that. ⁓ We fish like that usually until the end of March ⁓ and these fish start to, they start to bed. I want to distinguish that from starting to spawn. ⁓ They don't start to spawn, but they start to go to the places where they're going to think about spawning and where they're going to plan to spawn. And that's when we start to catch them more on the indicator rigs with the nymphs and the crawdad patterns. And we're still catching them on streamers. ⁓ It's just like fishing a bedding largemouth. They get angry at things that get near their zone and they get territorial.

Tom Rosenbauer (13:37): Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah.

Quint Rogers (13:52): ⁓ But the water might be muddy, the water might be clear. If it's clear, we might be able to see these fish doing these things in these areas and that can afford some cool sight fishing opportunities. ⁓ also this is when the vegetation is starting to get green as the temperatures warm and the photo period extends and we're...

Tom Rosenbauer (14:03): Yeah. Okay.

Quint Rogers (14:16): we got a lot of flowers blooming, the mountain laurel, we have a shoal lily that blooms in the shoals. ⁓ And so that part of the year becomes much more of an experience than just a hunt for a fish in heavy current. These rivers really show out in the spring and they're not very developed compared to other rivers in the region. so it's just, that's my favorite part of the year because it's just beautiful out there. ⁓ And then,

Tom Rosenbauer (14:43): Yeah.

Quint Rogers (14:46): after they finish spawning, they feed back up and they get, they ⁓ they're not as aggressive as they were pre-spawn, but they're steadily feeding and those are the times, those are the days that we have that all day bite where you get on the river and every fish that you come across is hungry because they've just spent a week or two spawning and they're exhausted and they're ready to build their energy. ⁓ But the coolest thing about shoal bass seasonally is that we have a migration. Like I said earlier, there's always fish in the shoals, but during the spawn, all the fish are in the shoals. So in the summer and the fall and the winter, these fish are spread out throughout the river corridor, but there is a massive upstream migration of fish from downstream moving into these shoals and your average size during the spring goes way up.

Tom Rosenbauer (15:27): Okay. Mm-hmm.

Quint Rogers (15:43): because of this influx of breeding fish. that's what's cool is to, right now I'm getting my guides ready for the spring fishing here in February because our bookings will start to pick up at the end of the month. And so we've been out there seeing what's going on and getting warmed up on the oars and all that sort of stuff. ⁓ But,

Tom Rosenbauer (15:46): Right. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Quint Rogers (16:11): starting to see these fish show up to have been fishing in a place last week that we weren't experiencing much success and then coming back the following week and suddenly there's a wad of nice fish that have moved in behind this boulder and watching that increase as we get closer to March is a really, really cool

Tom Rosenbauer (16:25): Heh heh heh. Mm-hmm. So when the fish spread out after spawning, they're gonna be in all different water types? Mm-hmm.

Quint Rogers (16:42): All different water types, ⁓ but still oriented around current. ⁓ We have some places in the river that are, there are some reservoirs on these rivers that ⁓ back up the water at the beginning of the lake. And those aren't places where I would expect to find shoal bass. It might still look like a river, but the water's not moving very much. And so that's dominated by large mouth and spotted bass, but they'll sit on wood. They'll sit in a deep pool just as long as there's current. And I guess different individuals select for different habitat that time of year. And that's every season but spring is when you're gonna find these fish spread out throughout the river quarter.

Tom Rosenbauer (17:14): Okay. Okay. And then do you fish for them all summer and fall?

Quint Rogers (17:32): We fish for them all summer and fall. ⁓ We fish another river ⁓ besides one where they're native, where they've been introduced. ⁓ And that river is a tailwater. And so because of the effect of that water coming out of a lake, ⁓ our temperatures, they are more stable through the summer. The Flint is a free stone river. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (17:43): Okay. Mm-hmm. huh.

Quint Rogers (18:01): and it is a bathtub in the summertime and the fish get really hot and lazy. Shoal bass are a little, they're not cold water fish, but they're not as tolerable to, tolerant to warm temperatures as some of their cousins. They really prefer water temperatures between about 48 and 68 degrees.

Tom Rosenbauer (18:06): Mm-hmm. Okay.

Quint Rogers (18:27): And once it gets once it starts to get warmer than that in the summertime they get real sluggish

Tom Rosenbauer (18:32): Do not fish for them once the water gets to be about 70.

Quint Rogers (18:36): No sir, we still fish for them as a centraucid and a fish in the sunfish family. They're very hardy. ⁓ So they don't build up lactic acid the way that trout and salmon do if you catch them. It's safe to fish for them in warm temperatures. It's just not as productive. ⁓ And so then when it begins to cool down again in the fall, they go back on the feed and they sort of...

Tom Rosenbauer (18:38): Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Fair enough.

Quint Rogers (19:04): fatten up for the winter, so to speak. ⁓ That's a time of year where we have some tremendous top water fishing. ⁓ Usually river levels are low. ⁓ It's pretty dry here in the south during the fall, unless of course we have a tropical storm come through. ⁓ But that's usually the only rain that we get is that stuff coming out of the tropics. We don't have seasonal rain bands moving like we do in the winter and spring.

Tom Rosenbauer (19:06): Yeah. Mmm. Yeah.

Quint Rogers (19:33): So we usually have pretty clear, pretty low river levels and they're surface oriented in the fall and we have a lot of fun top water fishing. Yes, a lot of times you're fishing with a popper but you get to watch them come up from that rock to eat the fly, it's amazing.

Tom Rosenbauer (19:42): Hmm. Sounds great. And probably some sight fishing too, Yeah, there's nothing better than that. So what is it? What do they fight like, Quinn? I mean, they look they look very muscular and, and they don't look kind of fat and sloppy, like large skits on time. I'm gonna get hate mail for this. But you know, large, large amounts are not always. Yeah, so

Quint Rogers (19:55): I agree. They're lazy fish. ⁓ No, shoal bass are athletes. ⁓ Like I said, they only live in current. I like to tell people they're on the treadmill all day. ⁓ They're very strong. ⁓ They like to pull towards bottom the way that a river smallmouth does. ⁓ They'll orient towards that rock and they really don't give up until the last second. ⁓ They don't get as big as smallmouth, ⁓ but I would...

Tom Rosenbauer (20:18): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Quint Rogers (20:42): I would say that in river environments, you can expect a similar size range. People that are catching these 11, 12, 13 pound smallmouth, they're catching them in places like Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. ⁓ I've never heard, maybe I'll get some hate mail, but I've never heard of a double digit smallmouth coming out of a river. A 10 pound plus smallmouth.

Tom Rosenbauer (20:55): Yeah, yeah. Now, I think the world record is not much more than 10 pounds for a moth.

Quint Rogers (21:09): Right. so shoal bass, you know, top out our state record in Georgia is I think eight pounds, six ounces for shoal bass. And so it is a big fish. And so we're, you know, we're, catching consistently four to six pounders. That's our, that's our trophy fish. You know, that's our day maker is, and in inches, you know, that would be a 20 to 22 inch fish.

Tom Rosenbauer (21:19): for a shoal bass, that's a big fish. wow. Wow. Yeah.

Quint Rogers (21:39): And so those fish are, real beasts. And so I don't, you know, I have a few rules that are hard and fast on my boats and one of them is no five weights. Because if you come across one of those things and you're under gunned, it's gonna kick your butt. And they're not leader shy. And so we, you know, we regularly fish, you know, 12 to 20 pound liters.

Tom Rosenbauer (21:44): I bet. Yeah. Yeah. Mm Right.

Quint Rogers (22:07): ⁓ We're mostly fishing with seven and eight weight fly rods and they'll double over a seven weight helios if they're going for a rock. The small ones, ⁓ if you're used to bass in a pond, ⁓ will disappoint you because you hook him and you think you've got a nice two, three pound fish and it's a 12 incher because it's been pulling so hard. They really do punch above their weight class.

Tom Rosenbauer (22:16): Imagine. Hehehehe huh. Do they jump when you hook them?

Quint Rogers (22:39): They do, ⁓ the water, this is anecdotal. I don't have any proof of this other than what I've seen with my eyes. The warmer the water gets, the more they jump. So early and late in the year, ⁓ they'd like to stay underneath the water when they fight, but they'll do a lot of sort of surface head shaking and ⁓ occasionally full leaps that are pretty amazing.

Tom Rosenbauer (22:50): Mm hmm. Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. So not quite as much of a leaper as a small mouth, maybe. Okay.

Quint Rogers (23:08): No, no, yeah, I'd put them down the list a little bit compared to some other bass, but they do jump.

Tom Rosenbauer (23:14): ⁓ Okay, what's your what's your average size in a you know, in the big part of the season? What's your average size? Show of bass. ⁓

Quint Rogers (23:25): ⁓ In the peak season that we fish in the spring, I would say your average fish is about 16 inches, about two pounds.

Tom Rosenbauer (23:28): Yeah. ⁓ That's a big bath for a fly rod.

Quint Rogers (23:35): It's a big bass for a fly rod and especially for a river. And like I said, that's spring. That's a fish that's gonna make my day in July. But that is the fish that I expect to see eight to 10 of in the course of a day in March, April, or

Tom Rosenbauer (23:46): huh. Yeah. That's incredible fishing. That's incredible. Now it sounds like do you mainly float for these fish?

Quint Rogers (23:58): ⁓ We're very blessed to have these fisheries. Yes sir, ⁓ what we do mostly ⁓ is fish out of inflatables. ⁓ We have several premium rafts ⁓ with fishing frames and casting braces and nice seats that are set up like a drift boat. But this habitat that we have to row through is not conducive to fiberglass. You have got to be able to take a rock. And also, have to, depth is incredibly variable.

Tom Rosenbauer (24:11): Mm-hmm. Yep.

Quint Rogers (24:36): You might have a river that we would consider high water and you're still going to have to come through places where you're only going to have, you know, six to eight inches of clearance ⁓ over these rocks. So you have to be able to float shallow. ⁓ Yeah, so we fish out ⁓ of float rigs. We also utilize ⁓ an outboard motor jet boat ⁓ in some places in the river where we can get away with that. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (24:47): Uh-huh. Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Quint Rogers (25:04): And then we do do some fishing in parts of the river where we can fish out of an aluminum drift boat. So we utilize a lot of different kinds of craft, but it's mostly always out of a boat. ⁓ These are not trout streams. ⁓ It is hard wading. And I know lots of people, including myself, who love to wade for these fish. It's just, it's not something that I can just take anybody to do.

Tom Rosenbauer (25:10): Okay. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah.

Quint Rogers (25:29): because of the size of the rocks, the variability of the depth, the fact that you might step off a piece of granite into a six-foot hole. It's not a nice pebble bottom, know, upper Madison dream of a wade. It's best fished out of a boat.

Tom Rosenbauer (25:37): Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay, okay. Now, as you said, 12 to 20 pound liters, you mainly use floating line? Do you ever use a sinking line or a sink tip in these rivers? Okay. Yep, okay.

Quint Rogers (25:58): We use intermediates and sink tips when we fish those big streamers. ⁓ And it's mostly because of the size of the fly and the amount of material. It's not gonna get under the water and swim unless it's on a sinking line. ⁓ But ⁓ for your normal streamer fishing, your craft for bait fish and your, you know, zuddler minnows and your, you know, I'm trying to think of some other Clouser minnows and

Tom Rosenbauer (26:09): Yeah. Right.

Quint Rogers (26:28): deceivers and things like that. A floating line is fine ⁓ if the fly is going to get down on its own. And then, you know, when we nymph and when we popper fish, we're using floating line.

Tom Rosenbauer (26:31): Yeah. It doesn't sound like a fly selection is that critical as long as you have some streamers and poppers.

Quint Rogers (26:45): No, and with the one caveat being bring your Helgramite fly. Far and away, the bulk of a shoalbass's diet year round, from the time they're four inches to the time they're 24 inches, they're eating Helgramites like crazy. Black Willy Bugger is a good substitute. My two favorite patterns are the Critter mite and the Devil's Drifter. Those are both really good Helgramite flies.

Tom Rosenbauer (26:51): Yeah. Black Willy Bugger. Okay. I think that I think that Woolly Bugger was originally designed for a Halgurete imitation, I believe. Yeah.

Quint Rogers (27:19): I wouldn't be surprised. I've come across them in a lot of the bass fishing I've done up and down the East Coast. They're a pretty prevalent fly.

Tom Rosenbauer (27:26): Yeah, my go-to.

Quint Rogers (27:28): We used ⁓ to catch smallmouth on the Susquehanna with them when I was in college. I loved fishing that river.

Tom Rosenbauer (27:35): Yeah, and I think that's where it originally I think that's where the black or the willy bugger was originally developed if I'm not mistaken. know I did some did some research on it for a book many years ago, but I don't remember exactly.

Quint Rogers (27:43): That's Yeah, I know that Bob Clouser invented his minnow for smallmouth and now, you know, how many countless saltwater species has that thing caught, but it's just a trusty bass fly.

Tom Rosenbauer (27:53): Right. my God, everything. It is it is it's a trusty everything fly. Yeah, and it's easy to tie to. As long as you have some good bucktail. Which is getting harder and harder to find.

Quint Rogers (28:05): It is. We catch a lot of fish on closers. That's true, that's true. ⁓ it is. ⁓ I encourage people to ⁓ go out and find some of their own. That's what I've been doing the past few seasons. Yeah.

Tom Rosenbauer (28:24): Yeah, yeah, probably better to except cleaning bucktails. No fun. I used to clean and dye bucktails of my early years at Orvis and that was not not a fun job.

Quint Rogers (28:35): I had some success dying ⁓ some bucktail this season ⁓ with, ⁓ well I should say my friend had some success. ⁓ I gave him the bucktail from some white tails that I was able to harvest and he ⁓ used turmeric, turmeric to dye them yellow and it has, he taught me some nice double deceivers and they have fished really, really well and that color has held well after a lot of fishing.

Tom Rosenbauer (28:39): Huh? Yeah. Interesting interesting. I may have to try that. I think my duct. I think my bucktail dying days are over though. Yeah, and there's nothing worse than dying bucktails black. Nothing worse, nothing nastier.

Quint Rogers (29:06): Mm-hmm. Good DIY. I think you've earned it, Tom. I believe it.

Tom Rosenbauer (29:22): ⁓ Tell, you know, let's talk a little bit about ⁓ about your river and what does it look like? You know, how many miles do you typically float in a day?

Quint Rogers (29:34): ⁓ So the river, I would describe it as three different rivers in one. ⁓ The headwaters, ⁓ oddly enough, begin pretty much adjacent to the world's busiest airport, Hartsfield Jackson in Atlanta. That's where the headwaters of this river is. My other river's headwaters are on the other side of Atlanta. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (29:41): Okay. Really? Really? huh. Okay.

Quint Rogers (30:02): But both of my shoalbath streams, they begin as urban streams. ⁓ But once they are the size of something that you might look at and call a river, ⁓ they're firmly in that Piedmont Fall Line region. so, their characteristics include large granite boulders, ledges, ⁓ swirling eddies.

Tom Rosenbauer (30:09): No kidding. Right. Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Quint Rogers (30:32): but also lots of aquatic vegetation, stuff that's growing under the water, stuff that's growing out of the water, ⁓ and things like, you know, ⁓ Valcenaria, eelgrass, things like water willow, and ⁓ other aquatic plants. And as they transition out of that region, and that region is about

Tom Rosenbauer (30:35): Hmm. huh.

Quint Rogers (31:00): I would say 40 miles north to south. So more than that in terms of river miles because of, know, curvature. ⁓ They come off of that into ⁓ the coastal plain. And with the exception of the places where they are, they have reservoirs built on them. ⁓ They are flat, windy, sandy rivers. And my tailwater ⁓ continues like that.

Tom Rosenbauer (31:03): Okay. Right, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Quint Rogers (31:29): all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. ⁓ But Flint does something really unique ⁓ as it gets into Southwest Georgia. It gets into a place called the Doherty Plain. ⁓ And that is where the Floridan Aquifer is, which is a drinking water aquifer that sits in limestone ⁓ that is, you know, that a huge number of people in that region depend on for clean drinking water.

Tom Rosenbauer (31:31): huh. Mm-hmm.

Quint Rogers (32:00): the river actually at its base flow sits level with the water table. It's carved down into the limestone and it's in communication with that groundwater. And so you once again have shoal habitat, it's made out of a completely different kind of rock. And you also have these groundwater seeps where

Tom Rosenbauer (32:06): Mmm. Uh-huh. Hmm. ⁓ Huh. Sure, yeah.

Quint Rogers (32:30): that create thermal refuges for these fish. ⁓ And you have some incredibly clear water ⁓ at low flows. You've also got some fabulous bird hunting in that region. Some of Georgia's most famous quail lodges are along the Flint River. In fact, I believe there's some orvus operations down there, or orvus endorsed operations down there, if I'm not mistaken. But ⁓ the benefit of that as an angler,

Tom Rosenbauer (32:32): huh. Mm-hmm. Okay. ⁓ huh.

Quint Rogers (32:59): is that you've got these large tracts of undeveloped land. And when you're on the river, which is public water, you're not amongst neighborhoods or municipal outputs. It's just cypress trees and planted pine and the occasional ring of an over-under shotgun and barking of a quail dog. But it's a really, really special part of the river that... ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (33:16): Mmm. huh.

Quint Rogers (33:28): that's really out there. It's not close to any big city. It takes a little while to get there, but ⁓ that's what I would call the lower Flint, as opposed to what we do for the most part up here. We also guide on the lower Flint, but ⁓ everything that I've described so far ⁓ is going on above that area.

Tom Rosenbauer (33:32): Yeah. Okay. Mm hmm. That sounds interesting that lower that lower section sounds fascinating.

Quint Rogers (33:54): It really is. it's ⁓ down there, it's about one to one shoal bast large.

Tom Rosenbauer (34:00): ⁓ huh. Nobody would nobody would complain about that. I don't think

Quint Rogers (34:02): So it's, no, it's yeah, it's a much more even spread. And I'll go back to your comment earlier about fat, lazy largemouth. Certainly applies to almost every largemouth that I've caught. But ⁓ as any smallmouth angler can tell you, when you do come across a river largemouth, it's a completely different animal than a pond or a lake fish. And so I don't think...

Tom Rosenbauer (34:24): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Quint Rogers (34:29): It's so much shoal bass as a species ⁓ are necessarily genetically stronger. ⁓ It's just the fact that they are exclusively a river fish and any bass that spends its whole life in a river, whether it's a smallmouth or a shoal bass or what have you, is gonna pull like hell.

Tom Rosenbauer (34:37): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. I've caught largemouths in fairly fast water before and they pulled pretty good and they weren't fat and lazy. You're right. Yeah, they do. Yeah, they do. I guess it's maybe they look a little more trout like, which is why I like them.

Quint Rogers (34:58): No, they look a little more athletic. Yes, yes. So when we do river floats, ⁓ our stretches that we fish are anywhere from six to 12 miles. ⁓ And when we do a longer float, we might use a small outboard kicker on the back of a motor plate, on the back of a drift boat or a raft to mitigate some flat water. And just because we're...

Tom Rosenbauer (35:18): Mm-hmm. Yep.

Quint Rogers (35:33): doing a 12 mile stretch of river does not mean that we're fishing for 12 miles. ⁓ And especially in the springtime, we're focusing in on those areas of shoals, of these mega complexes of granite structure. ⁓ But we have a lot of good public access in Georgia. ⁓ We have some weird water laws that are sort of getting worked out through various channels right now.

Tom Rosenbauer (35:38): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Quint Rogers (36:01): But we have lots of, you know, we have a good mix of Department of Transportation, Georgia DNR, US Fish and Wildlife accesses, boat ramps, kayak launches, know, wildlife management areas, places where you can access over the land to get on and off the river. And so there's a lot of

Tom Rosenbauer (36:16): Right. Yep.

Quint Rogers (36:30): a lot of different water that we fish. And we sort of move with the river levels about, okay, well, it's too low to do this and it's too high to do that, but it's just right to do this. ⁓ We do half-day outings, we do full-day outings. So we have certain stretches that we can ⁓ pretty much, if we're gonna do a half-day, we're limited, but if we're gonna do a full day, well, then we've got 10 different floats that we can do. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (36:58): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Quint Rogers (36:59): and ⁓ we're a full service guide operation. We put the rod in your hand, tie the fly and all that sort of ⁓ stuff. in Georgia, ⁓ all you need is a fishing license from the state in order to enjoy a trip with us. We don't have any national parks or special use permits for rivers or things like that. Everything that we fish is governed by the Georgia DNR and the only requirement is a valid Georgia fishing license for somebody to fish those rivers.

Tom Rosenbauer (37:34): That's great. I think the next time I go through Atlanta, how far are you from Atlanta?

Quint Rogers (37:38): ⁓ By car, I'm about an hour 30 on a good traffic day. ⁓ And it certainly does not. But if you're flying, ⁓ if you're flying in, then you can avoid the bulk of it by just heading south. You never have to hit Atlanta proper if you're at the airport. ⁓ So I'm about, you know, I live due south of Atlanta and the rivers we fish. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (37:44): Does that ever happen in Atlanta? ⁓ okay.

Quint Rogers (38:08): are anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half from Atlanta proper.

Tom Rosenbauer (38:14): huh. Great. Great.

Quint Rogers (38:16): And we would love to have you. I think that you would really like these fish. They scratch the trout itch and they scratch the bass itch simultaneously. It's a pretty cool thing.

Tom Rosenbauer (38:24): Well, I like all kinds of fish. like, I like them all. And I've never certainly never caught a shoal bass. So it'd be fun. sounds like an interesting environment and it would be fun to do. And I'm sure that some of the other podcast listeners might be interested in coming down to try their hand at shoal bass with you.

Quint Rogers (38:45): We're always excited to turn people on to these fish who've never experienced them before. ⁓ I've got a good core of older clients who have been fishing for these things ⁓ since they were my age and younger and have now gotten to the point where they don't wanna paddle a canoe or wade in the shoals and they're happy to have me row the boat for them all day. But they express how neat it is for, I'm sorry about that. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (39:14): Run.

Quint Rogers (39:15): how neat it is to watch ⁓ a new generation and a new demographic of people appreciate these fish and learn.

Tom Rosenbauer (39:22): Yeah, it's one of the greatest pleasures in fly fishing, sharing something you love with somebody that's never seen it, isn't it? Yeah.

Quint Rogers (39:29): I completely agree. And shoal bass are, beginner friendly. They're not picky. Like I said, they'll eat anything that fits in their mouth. because it's a fish that, a bass that eats a nymph, there are some beginner friendly approaches. You don't have to be able to throw an articulated fly on a sinking line on an eight weight. You can use some more.

Tom Rosenbauer (39:34): huh. Yeah. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Quint Rogers (39:58): traditional approaches and have success. So we have lot of fun taking beginners fishing.

Tom Rosenbauer (40:00): Mm-hmm. Great. Well, thank you, Quint. That was a great introduction and you got me excited about shoal bass. We've been talking to Quint Rogers of Peach State Fly Fishing, Orvis endorsed outfitter. Thank you, Quint.

Quint Rogers (40:19): Thank you, Tom.