Fly Fishing Guide to Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Ian and Charity Rutter live and work at the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and for more than twenty years they have spent countless hours exploring and guiding the rivers and streams of the park. The couple has two children who accompany them on many adventures in the woods and the rivers. Whether they are guiding anglers to trout on the fly, hosting a camp, hiking with their family, or volunteering with the GSMNP Fisheries crew, their passion for fly fishing the Smokies is evident in everything they do.

Ian grew up in East Tennessee and graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1994 where he attained a degree in botany and zoology. He began guiding fly fishers in the Smokies in 1995. Ian is an artist whose subjects are inspired from his time on the water and hiking in the mountains. His works can be seen at IanRutterArt.com.

Charity grew up in Oklahoma and graduated from University of Central Oklahoma in 1992. She immediately moved to East Tennessee after graduation to spend as much time as possible in the mountains. Charity began fly fishing in 1998 and it quickly became a passion for her as she spent all her free time on the water. She began guiding fly fishers in 2002.

Married in 2000, the couple started their own independent guide service, R&R Fly Fishing, in 2003 after Ian’s first guidebook was published. In addition to guiding anglers in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Ian also spent several years guiding fly fishers from a drift boat on East Tennessee’s tailwater rivers. Ian and Charity have traveled widely to fly fish in both fresh and saltwater. Together they have hosted a variety of fly fishing trips to Montana, Idaho, and Belize, as well as numerous fly fishing camps in the backcountry of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and women’s fly fishing and glamping camps. They can be reached at RandRFlyFishing.com.

Ian and Charity have collaborated on multiple books about fly fishing. They reside in Townsend, Tennessee, with their two children, Willow and Boone.

From accessible fisheries like Little River to the back-of-beyond isolation of Hazel Creek to such remote high-country hike-ins as Ekaneetlee Creek, where the wild trout have scarcely seen an artificial fly, Ian and Charity Rutter’s encyclopedic guide to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a fly-fisher’s essential.

— James R. Babb, editor emeritus, Grays Sporting Journal, and author of Fish Wont Let Me Sleep

The Great Smoky Mountains offer some of the finest pristine and uncrowded trout fishing in North America. I have mixed feelings about this book because it will introduce more people to a world-class resource; but on the other hand there are endless miles of rivers and creeks to explore. I cant think of a better team to write a complete guide on this region than Ian and Charity Rutter. With decades of experience guiding and fishing there, superb photographs, and eminently readable and lively prose, theyve written a guide to this region that anyone who has the slightest interest in exploring this national treasure must own.

— Tom Rosenbauer, The Orvis Company

This new guidebook from veteran guides Ian and Charity Rutter offers an abundance of hard-won knowledge about fly fishing for the wild trout found in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and throughout Southern Appalachia. From selecting flies and equipment to highlighting the region’s fish, streams, and proven angling techniques, including a chapter on Tenkara, this thorough and delightful compendium is one to be treasured by both seasoned and novice anglers alike.

— Ron Ellis, author of Yonder: Tales from an Outdoor Life and Cogan’s Woods