Rene J. Hesse

Scott Brown:

..........

Pat Brechbill:

Outdoorsman all my life. Started fishing at the age of 5 and picked up the fly rod at the age of 51. Married over 25 years with 3 boys, ages 12, 17, and 20. Oldest boy is a sophmore at the Citadel. Love trout fishing and am committed to learning every day I fish. The things I love about fly fishing the most is the people and the places.

TDD Fly Masters Invitational

4th Summer Series Mini Comp

Gold Cup

Duke of Dukes

CNY Classic

Brandon Withrow:- 2015 Captain

Growing up in the foothills of the Appalachians, I never really took an interest in bass fishing. I was put on the stream with a Zebco in one hand and a can of corn in the other at a fairly young age. From age 5 thru my high school years, you could find me on the local streams throwing my spinning tackle until the day I graduated high school when I used some of my college living money I just received to buy my 1st fly rod. That has been 5 years ago and it is amazing that what I thought was a hobby, has become such a lifestyle. I picked up fly tying around 3 years ago and I enjoy it as much as using the flies to catch fish. After wanting to branch out from the Georgia waters I have fished my whole life, I started fishing all over the southeast and even make a yearly trip to Yellowstone National Park. My favorite area to fish is the upper elevation streams on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park where I try to make at least 6-8 trips a year to fish.

Chattahoochee River Mini I

Chattahoochee River Mini II

Chattahoochee River Mini III

First Place Callaway Gardens Loch Style Comp

2nd Place Callaway Gardens Loch Comp Part Deux

2nd Place Lake Vogel Lake Mini

Nantahala Winter Mini

Chattooga Mini

CNY Classic

Bob Lux:

I grew up 40 miles south of Buffalo, NY and 6 miles from the banks of Cattaraugus Creek, which is the crown jewel stream for Lake Erie steelhead. My outdoor days started at 5 years old being carried into the woods in the dark at night coon hunting with my dad. Most everything we did involved the outdoors from hunting, fishing and camping. This pretty much set the groundwork for my lifestyle as I have become an avid bow hunter and fisherman. While my dad wasn?t fly fisherman, we spent most of our summers fishing our pond or some of the other local ponds for bass. Once spring would roll around, we would always hit the trout streams. Around the age of 16 and seeing Brad Pitt catch trout in ?A River Runs Through It?, I became fascinated with fly fishing. I saved up money working my part time job and bought a fly fishing outfit from Cabelas. After reading some books and watching some VHS tapes, I figured out how to catch fish. I really cut my teeth on fly fishing for steelhead and salmon though and what better way to learn then with giant fish.

After graduating college and moving to Georgia to chase work, I saved up some money and bought a new bass boat. I became heavily involved in the tournament scene and did very well in a short period of time. I still would squeeze in some fly fishing in between, but bass fishing tournaments in the south is really a yearlong thing. After 7 years of tournament fishing, I realized that the only way to make it pro was to quit my job and fish full time, so I stepped away. The fishing became too much of a money thing and it didn?t make fishing fun anymore, so I pretty much gave up bass fishing entirely and focused on fly fishing again. While I enjoy nothing more than being on a secluded trout stream casting to wild fish, I missed competing. I had spent most of my time during school playing sports and when I graduated college the bass tournaments filled that void. It wasn?t until during one of my TU meetings where I watched a presentation on Czech fishing that I could find something to fill that void. Not only that, but it was a totally different style of fishing that I had never used before. Similar to what I did in my youth, I read some books and watched some videos (this time on a digital format). I signed up for my first competition in February 2011 and that was the Southeast Regional. While I got beat pretty good fishing that, I learned so much just in two days of competing that it actually motivated me to really embrace this style of fishing. Since then, I haven?t looked back and I feel that every competition I fish I only become that much stronger. After a few competitions, I was invited to join Team Dead Drift and I feel that I have learned so much more than I would I my own. I look forward to growing with the team and helping the sport grow.

Southeast Team USA Regional Qualifier

Team USA National Fly Fishing Championships 2011

Summer Series Mini Comp

Team USA SE Regionals

Nantahala Mini Comp

Chattahoochee RIver Mini Comp III

Davidson River Mini I

Brigadoon Lodge Comp

Duke of Dukes

Callaway Gardens Loch Comp

CNY Classic

Justin Pickett:

I'm an avid outdoorsman who was fortunate enough to grow up out in the country here in Georgia. I've been fishing and hunting for whitetail ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper. In my younger years, chasing bass and bluegill on Lake Sinclair was the ticket. I first became interested in fly fishing in my ealry teens and received my first fly rod as a christmas gift. That was all she wrote. I've been fly fishing for about 12 years now, but have really fallen in love with the sport and become a much more serious fly fisherman in the past couple of years. I've been taking in as much info and learning new techniques to increase my understanding of fly fishing, so that I can appreciate the sport even more that I already do, as well as become a better competition fly angler. If anyone has learned anything about me, they know that I am a hardcore dry fly kinda guy. I'm just addicted to the sight of a trout emerging to slam a dry fly. I'm learning new skills and getting better at other nymphing techniques as well in order to become a more well-rounded fly fisherman. One of my favorite things about fly fishing is the adventure that's involved in chasing after trout. I've heard this said before, and it's true, "Trout do not live in ugly places." Whether it's rainbow, brook, or brown trout, there's always an awesome scene surrounding you while you're standing in a stream or river, presenting your fly. There is nothing better.

TDD Fly Masters Invitational

Gold Cup

Callaway Gardens Loch Style Comp

Brigadoon Lodge Competition

First Place Gold Cup 2012

Certified Adaptive Fly Casting Instructor

Certified Therapeutic Adaptive Fly Fishing Guide

Brett Nelson: Casting Coach

Growing up in South Florida, Bret fished the beaches, ponds, and estuaries since he was young kid. Having always loved the outdoors led to him becoming an avid camper, angler, and diver. Bret moved to Georgia in the fall of 2006 and quickly became addicted to trout fishing and since then has focused on fly fishing, fly tying, and casting.

Bret holds a Masters degree in Psychology and is a licensed professional counselor specializing in working with disadvantaged children and adolescents. As a counselor he teaches on a daily basis and frequently uses fly casting instruction and fishing as a means to engage his patients in problem solving and self-esteem building.
Bret is also on the board of Directors for North Georgia Trout Online, Inc., a non-profit organization 501(c)(3) dedicated to the promotion and protection of trout fishing in North Georgia.

TDD Fly Masters Invitational

Summer Series Mini Comp

3rd place Summer Series Mini Comp September

6th Place Rumble in the Rhododendron

1st Place Gold Cup

Callaway Gardens Loch Style Comp

Jamie Sullivan: IT Admin

Fishing was instilled in my blood at a young age. I can remember only being 4 or 5 years old waiting on my father to get home from work so we could take the boat out and fish the evening bite on Lake Allatoona. I have been a fisherman since I was old enough to hold a fishing pole. It started with my dad on the boat and then branched on to ponds and creeks that I could get to on my bike as I got older. I picked up fly fishing in 2007 and it has consumed me ever since. I have done my best to learn every aspect of it that I can, from trout fishing, saltwater fishing, casting, fly tying, and my true passion chasing after river run striper on the fly. I have always tried to help others learn what I have over the years. I was one of the first assistant organizers with the Atlanta Fly Fishing Meet-Up Group (a group dedicated to helping beginner fly fishers learn the sport). I started with that group a year after I started fly fishing, still fairly green, but ended up helping many others along as I progressed. In the winter and spring I can be found chasing after trout throughout North Georgia and Western North Carolina. Come late spring thru the end of summer, you can find me in saltwater or on a number of warm water flows chasing Striper with my fly rod.

2011

2nd Place TDD Fly Masters Invitational

6th Place -Gold CUP

2012

18th Place -Chattahoochee River Mini I

12th Place- Chattahoochee River Mini II

8th Place- Numb Toes Classic

21st Place- Chattahoochee River Mini III

13th Place- Davidson River Mini

12th Place- Duke of Dukes Mini

10th Place- Lake Vogel Mini

21st Place- CNY Classic Silver

15th Place- Toccoa DH mini

4th Place- Up/Low Nantahala Mini

6th Place- DD Gold Cup

15th Place- Upper Hooch Mini

11th Place- Ravens Fork Mini

2013

10th Place- Tallulah River MIni

14th Place- SE Regional Silver

8th Place- Frozen Wader Thunder Silver

Certified Adaptive Fly Casting Instructor

Certified Therapeutic Adaptive Fly Fishing Guide

Tommy Archibald:

Josh Bennett: info coming soon

Stephen Thomasavich: info coming soon

Stephen McFarlin: info coming soon

David Hobbs:

Garrett Gresham:

Fishing has been in my life ever since I could walk. I started out mainly salt water fishing at our second home in Destin, Florida. Whether my Dad and I were trolling for kings or bottom fishing for snapper and grouper, I loved every moment of it! My Dad could not stop me from begging him to take me.

When I was 10, I went on my first camping trip up to North Carolina to white water raft the Nantahala. On the way in we stopped by the rest stop below the bridge. There were a few people fishing there and I saw one of them land a very nice brown. The next morning my Dad and I went out and I landed my first trout: a nine inch wild brown from the lower Nantahala! That was the start of what would become my favorite thing to do. During the next year or so my Dad and I went on a few trips to Northern Georgia and North Carolina to trout fish with spinning tackle. We were addicts.

In February of 2008, while on a ski trip in Keystone, Colorado, my Dad and I went on a guided trip with the local Orvis shop. I managed to catch my first fish on a fly rod, and never turned back. Once we got home, my Dad and I joined our local TU group: the Cohutta Chapter. That March we went on our first Georgia fly fishing excursion to the Toccoa DH. We were having a tough time until one of the guys gave us this strange thing called a y2k. We managed to catch our first few Georgia trout on the fly.

The fly fishing bug bit me hard. After my first year of fly fishing in Georgia, I had gotten much better due to the help of our chapter. By the time another year had passed, my Dad and I had gotten so addicted that we purchased a drift boat. This allowed us to travel to many of the tail waters throughout the southeast. We fished mostly the East Tennessee streams like the Elk, Caney Fork, Watauga, and Hiwassee rivers, but eventually started drifting the Toccoa and Chattahoochee here in Georgia. Nowadays you can find me fishing anywhere from drifting one of the Southeast?s famed tailwaters to high sticking an attractor dry through a plunge pool in a small brookie stream.

I became interested in comp fishing after meeting my good friend Andrew Brown back in September 2011 while fishing the lower Nantahala. He took the time to teach me how to Czech nymph and showed me many comp fishing techniques and strategies. I recently participated in my first competition, the Chattahoochee Mini part III, and I loved every minute of it. Now that I am part of the team, I look forward to learning a lot and helping Team Dead Drift kick some butt in future competitions!

Heather VanDevender:

Has loved to fish since going with her father at a young age. Relatively new to the fly fishing genre, she has adapted well, and competed in 2015 at the TroutLegend National Championship. Heather enjoys all things fishing, but says fly fishing has a certain draw that no other type of fishing has. She has been featured in several magazines.

Dylan Rumbaugh:

Benjamin Van Devender:

I have been fishing since I could walk. I am well versed with spin tackle on a multitude of species and game fish. I fell in love with fly fishing and rarely pick up conventional tackle any more. I love the challenge and art of the long rod. To me there is no greater reward than that of a fish caught on a well presented fly.

Chasing Trout across Georgia has been my passion, but I do enjoy warm water species as well. Bream and bass on light fly tackle can be a blast and just as rewarding. I have never been fishing any place that I could not admire the natural beauty around me. My passion for fly fishing is evident in my pursuit to help others appreciate this great sport. Fly fishing is so rewarding due to the mental and physical problem solving involved. I hope I can help many more people learn to appreciate this great sport and I encourage everyone to protect and conserve our natural resources.

Angling Achievements and Awards:

Certified Adaptive Casting Instructor

Certified Therapeutic Adaptive Fly Fishing Guide

2009 Georgia Angler Award for 25"Rainbow Trout on fly tackle.

2009 Georgia Anlger Award for 22"Rainbow Trout on fly tackle.

2009 Georgia Angler Award for 44" 37lb Grass Carp on fly tackle. (2lbs heavier than State Record)

2010 Georgia Angler Award for 10" Brook Trout on fly tackle.

2010 Georgia Angler Award for13" Red Eye Bass on fly tackle.

2010 Georgia Angler Award for36" Grass Carp on fly tackle.

2010 Georgia Angler Award for 28" Rainbow Trout on fly tackle.

2010 6th place overall Rumble in the Rhododendron Fly Masters Tournament.

Team DD Fly Masters Invitational

Team USA National Fly Fishing Championships 2011

Southern Summer Series Mini Comp

12th place Rumble in the Rhododendron

5th Place Gold Cup

2nd Place Chattahoochee River Mini Comp II

2nd Place Chattahoochee River Mini Comp III

Team USA Southeast Regionals

6th Place Numb Toes and Big Bows

4th Place Callaway Loch Comp Part Deux

4th Place Duke of Dukes

Chattooga River Mini

4th Place Gold Cup 2012

Guide at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain Georgia.

Head of the West Georgia Fly Fishing Meetup Group -(immersing new anglers in the sport of fly fishing to free education and comradery through local networks of anglers who want to enhance the growth of fly fishing as a whole.)

Event organizer for the Atlanta Fly fishing Meetup Group

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Competitive Fly Fishing

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Rene J. Hesse
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