4 minute read
Wild People
BY SUNNY MONTGOMERY
Fishing for a Better Tomorrow
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The Boy Scouts have a rule: Always leave a campsite cleaner than you found it.
It is the philosophy that Steve Fry, president of Trout Unlimited’s Appalachian chapter, has adapted to his own life. “When I leave this world, I want to leave it better if I can,” he says.
Trout Unlimited is a volunteer-based organization whose mission is to conserve, protect and restore North America’s coldwater fisheries and watersheds. It is a conservation group, not a fishermen’s club, says Fry. There are 400 chapters across the country with eight in Tennessee.
The Appalachian chapter, focused on the Tellico River watershed, has about 270 members. It was established in the 1970s. Back then, Fry remembers, the best place to catch trout was a portion of the Little Tennessee River north of Tellico Plains. “It was known as the Little T,” he says. And it was a famed fishery; rocky and wild, its edges flanked with Rhododendron and river birch.
Then, in 1979 the Tellico Dam opened, which impounded water from the Tellico River and the Little Tennessee River. Now, says Fry, that once-prized stretch of mountain stream is known as Tellico Lake.
STEVE FRY CATCHES RAINBOW TROUT ON THE HOLSTON RIVER
Fry had been too young to remember fishing the Little T, but he learned about it through his father, Hubert Fry, creator of the Tennessee Riverpark’s Fishing Park and avid fishery conservationist who bestowed upon his son more than just his surname.
Fry remembers, when he was around 8 years old, he began to accompany his father and his father’s buddy on summer fishing trips. His father would wake him at 4 a.m.
“He wanted to be on the boat and fishing before sunlight,” says Fry.
In the murky pre-dawn, the trio would putter out of Harrison Bay to Patten Island where the willow flies were hatching in droves. Fry’s father would give him a pole and bag of worms, setting him up to catch brim. Then the adults would cast out their fly rods. Fry was mesmerized by the graceful back-and-forward flicks of their forearms. He would wait until the men grew tired, then he would ask for a try.
Those were his first informal fly lessons. Fry received his first formal lesson at age 12 when he traveled with his father to Borgarnes, Iceland, for what he says was a lifechanging fishing trip. There, Fry was given instruction by world-famous fisherman Leon Chandler. (There is even a Trout Unlimited chapter in upstate New York named “The Leon Chandler Chapter.”)
Fry took to fly fishing easily. As a child, his skill was showcased in Fly Fisherman magazine. As an adult, he was featured on ESPN’s Trout Unlimited Television, a 30-minute fishing show broadcast every Saturday morning.
But as he got older, fly fishing became less about the catch and more about conservation.
Today, much of Fry’s work through Trout Unlimited involves brook-trout restoration. The cold mountain streams of East Tennessee once teemed with the native fish. But pollution and overfishing took a toll on the species. By the early 1900s, many populations had been extirpated. Rainbow trout from the western U.S. were brought in to restock the waters.
Rainbows now inhabit almost 90 percent of East Tennessee’s trout streams. They are larger and heartier than brook trout, and surviving brook trout populations struggle to compete.
Brook trout are an important indicator species, says Fry. When water quality
PHOTO: JEFFERY SHARPE
declines, brooks are one of the first species to suffer. That’s a problem, he says. After all, “This is the species that God designed to live here.”
Through Trout Unlimited, Fry has established partnerships with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, Tennessee Valley Authority and the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute to help bring back the brooks. He organizes volunteers to aid in laborious projects that manually remove rainbows and restock some streams with brooks. He helps raise funds to support the Tellico Hatchery, which breeds brook trout in captivity then releases them into the wild.
In 2012, Fry developed Trout Unlimited’s Tennessee Chapter grant program. The program uses proceeds from the organization’s specialty license plate (which pictures
FRY AT AGE 12 IN A 1972 ISSUE OF FLY FISHERMAN MAGAZINE
PHOTO: JIM BASHLINE
HUBERT FRY AT THE NORTH RIVER IN THE 1970S
a brook trout) to help support education or restoration projects proposed by any of Tennessee’s eight chapters.
When he can, Fry still manages to get out and fly fish. His favorite spot is the Hiwassee River. Sometimes, he says, he brings his catch home to cook. Mostly, he releases the trout — especially the big ones, he says — but not for conservation purposes. The Hiwassee is stocked with rainbows intended to be caught.
“Catching big fish is very enjoyable,” explains Fry, and if he can help it, those prize catches will still be there for the next fisherman.
