East Alabama Fly Fishing

Ten guides are listed by name on this outfit's roster, each with a stated home water and a stated specialty. Drew Morgan founded it after years of fishing the piedmont rivers around Auburn, and his own guiding runs the Tallapoosa River and its tributaries out of a drift boat, with redeye bass the fish he chases hardest. David Horkey is a Fly Fishers International Certified Casting Instructor who learned on warm water here in east Alabama and has fished for trout around the country and permit in Belize. John Agricola came up fly fishing bream and bass on Lake Guntersville, spent three years on the North Platte and Laramie rivers, and now works carp on the Coosa chain, including Lake Weiss and Neely Henry. Trevor Ibsen fishes the Coosa tailwaters and Jordan Lake for Alabama bass, drum and longnose gar, and writes for a national fly fishing magazine. Dave Weakley and Kyle Albert both grew up on southeast Alabama creeks and the Tallapoosa. Several of the guides came to the sport through veterans programs and stayed on to run them: Rowell Guevarra retired from the Army after 21 years and established Alabama's first Mayfly Project chapter, Jake Vincent teaches fly tying through Project Healing Waters and holds a zoology degree in fisheries biology, and Christopher Murphy has taken leadership roles with Project Healing Waters, the Mayfly Project, the OARS Foundation and Healing Towers. For an angler booking here, the practical effect is that a trip can be matched to a specific river, a specific species and a specific teaching style rather than to whoever happens to be free.