Fishing with WXII NewsChannel 12's Austin Caviness....

Over the past couple of months I have gotten lots of questions about the fishing trip with WXII NewsChannel 12's Austin Caviness. Its really interesting that the only thing it took is an email and a phone call to get the ball rolling. Actually I was here one afternoon just tying flies and the thought had crossed my mind about his show and contacting him about possibly doing a segment. One email to him and a phone conversation and it was on the calendar.

I have done segments before with other folks from the local news stations, all of them lots of fun and the people very interesting and fun to be around. In that way, Austin was topnotch. If there's a nicer guy out there doing what he does I do not know of him. He's the same guy you see on the News doing the weather, and let me tell you - - - - the guy is a serious hunter and fisherman. It didn't take too many casts to see that he could fish, and was obviously no stranger to the fly rod. It only took minutes for him to hook up. Our original plan was to fish a few holes, enough for some footage and get him into a fish or two for the camera.

With a frontal system moving in, and clouds very thick, the fish were on, maybe wide open would be the right way to put it. In two pools we'd caught some really good fish, maybe a dozen or more, and plenty of footage for sure. Austin's camera man said,"Boy we usually don't have this problem....too much footage." It sure was good.

I watched as Austin fished every rig I handed him, nymph, dry , dry /dropper, emerger. He really put it to those Helton Creek fish. Our plan was to fish maybe an hour /hour and a half or so, but it was good enough that Austin didn't want to stop. It was good enough too that his camera man even got in on the action, catching maybe half a dozen fish of his own. Needless to say, what was going to be fish for an hour or so and get some footage and be back on the road by noon turned into fishing until 4pm and then quickly taking the waders and other stuff off and blasting off for home. It was a great day, we caught maybe 30 or more fish all together, a good day anywhere. Our plan is to do another segment this winter, on fly tying and I will be looking forward to that.

As I said earlier, Austin is one of the nicest folks I have ever met. Only a few minutes with him and you felt like you were with a long lost buddy from high school. He 's great......literally, at about 6'6" or 6'7" he really is. To see the clip from our onstream segment you can click here .