Reel Angling Adventures
About Our Team

Reel Angling Adventures is proud to share its team of six professional and courteous guides with our clients. Blended from a unique group of anglers, the guide team holds more than 120 years of collective angling experience among venues in the southern Appalachian Mountains and some of the finest fishing locations around the world.
	Bob Borgwat	Lee Howard	Bill Stranahan
	Chad Bryson	Brian Stanford	Jerry Weicken

RAA's Bob Borgwat leads a 5-man team of dedicated, professional fishing guides armed with life-long angling experience that has seen them pursue game fish in a variety of settings around the world.  

Bob Borgwat leads the guide team of Reel Angling Adventures as owner, administrator, web master and guide. His freelance writing, which focuses on both the fishing and hunting sports across the US, qualifies him as an active member of the Georgia Outdoor Writers Association, for which he currently serves as chairman of the board.	At 51 years young, Bob's fishing experience in the southern Appalachian Mountains spans 17 years. A native Californian, he came to North Georgia in 1990 after living 15 years in Texas, where he honed his bass-fishing skills on the legendary lakes of East Texas. Bob's angling fortunes stretch to the rivers of Wyoming's Rocky  Mountains, high-country streams of California's Cascade Mountains, the bays and bayous of the Mississippi Delta, the waterways of Nicaragua's Caribbean jungles, the azure flats of The Bahamas, the rocky shelves of Mozambique's Indian Ocean,  the mysterious rivers of southern Africa, and many more.  Much of his angling experience -- both stateside and abroad -- has been captured in his own  words and photography, as author of more than 100
magazine articles published as a freelance writer and editor for state, regional, national and international fishing magazines. Bob also has frequently served as interim senior editor for 16 state titles of outdoors magazines published by Intermedia Outdoors in Marietta, Ga.
Bob’s passion for the pull of a fish on a fishing line never limits his scope in fishing – neither the fish, techniques, nor tackle for the job at hand. You’re just as likely to see him slinging plastic worms for smallmouth bass with conventional tackle as you are to see him flogging a favorite trout stream with a 4-weight fly rod.
RAA's Lee Howard holds more guiding experience than any other guide on our team. For 35 years, Lee has chased both fresh- and saltwater gamefish across a wide swath of the Southeast US and a few venues beyond our nation's borders.         Lee Howard has guided extensively across the southern Appalachian Mountains and deep across the waters of the southeastern US. Today, his reach in the fishing world extends to ownership and designer of the line of topwater lures manufactured by Blackwater Bait Co. Spend a few minutes talking with Lee and you'll quickly discover his passion for bass fishing. His angler's love for fishing finds him chasing brown trout, seatrout, snook and even tarpon. But it's the black bass -- largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass -- that kicks him into high gear. His bass-fishing tactics have been featured in FLW Outdoors magazine, and he's put his skills  with topwater lures, crankbaits, jerkbaits and soft-plastics to good use, earning several first-place and top-5 finishes in bass tournaments on lakes across Georgia and Florida. During the last 15 years, Lee's fishing focus has zeroed in on the bass and trout waters of  Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee. He's a mentor for the rest of our guide team, proving daily his knowledge and scope of fishing ... for bass and most any other game fish on our menu.
Throughout the southern Appalachian Mountains region, no matter if he's throwing a 5-weight for trophy trout at Tooni Cove Farm or chunking his favorite hair jig for spotted bass on Lake Chatuge, you can bet Lee won't stop fishing until he lands the big one!
That's him -- fishing guide and river rat Bill Stranahan -- of Reel Angling Adventures, as he works his fly-fishermen into a drop lane on Towee Shoals on the Hiwassee River.	RAA's Bill Stranahan ... Client-anglers have used these words to describe fishing guide Bill Stranahan: “Quiet.” Hmmm … “Reserved.” Well … “Low key.” Really? “Polite.” Absolutely! “Patient.” Yes! "Fish-minded." Is there any question? “River-wise.” Like you don’t know! But “river rat” may be the best words to describe him. Just 34 years old, Bill has lived for 10 years almost riverside to the Hiwassee River at
Reliance, Tennessee, and it’s Bill who has led Reel Angling Adventure's guided fishing over the past year on the Hiwassee River at Reliance, Tennessee. Bill joined RAA shortly following the company's award in January 2007 of its outfitters’ permit, issued by the Cherokee National Forest. There couldn’t have been many anglers better suited for meeting RAA’s immediate needs in its first season of floating drift boats on the Hiwassee River. Calling the Hiwassee his home, Bill has spent 11 years floating, wading and fishing the tailwater at Reliance and the river’s watershed, as it stretches high into the Cherokee National Forest. He’s got water on his mind 365 days a year, but he admits he can’t quite make a plan to fish every single day – after all, his mom’s birthday comes once a year! Bill comes to RAA following three years of guiding for long-time outfitter Hiwassee Outfitters in Reliance, and a season of serving as lead guide for Reliance Fly & Tackle, located on Childers Creek Road just minutes downstream from the Smith Creek Powerhouse put-in at the top of the Hiwassee Scenic Riverway. Bill engages anglers of every level with instruction that widens their individual view of trout waters, the means with which to catch trout, and the specific knowledge required to take fly-fishing for trout well beyond the day-to-day encounter. You might also ask him about catching striped bass on the Hiwassee.
RAA's Chad Bryson ... You expect a fishing guide to have fish blood in his veins, right? Well, fishing guide Chad Bryson can’t have much anything else than fish blood pumping north, south, east and west through him. From the trout waters in the mountains of north Georgia, east Tennessee and western North Carolina, to the waters inshore and offshore of Cudjoe Key, Florida, Chad carries fishing experience -- especially with the fly rod in hand -- unlike that of the typical fishing guide found in the southern reach of the Appalachian Mountains.
It's his wide-ranging fishing experience -- from the Appalachian Mountains to the Florida Keys -- upon which fishing guide Chad Bryson builds his next approach to taking fish on both the easiest and toughest fishing days.	At 36 years old, Chad has built a life around fishing. He’s a North Georgia native who has most recently worked 15 years as a regional sales rep for a major distributor of fishing tackle and accessories. Chad has run wild since childhood across the southeastern US chasing trout, bass and stripers in freshwater and bonefish, tarpon, snook and permit in saltwater. Reel Angling Adventures and our clients are fortunate to have hooked into an angler whose experience runs so wide.  When the fishing gets tough, Chad’s deep-seated fishing knowledge is displayed in his ability to read the situation clearly and adapt his fishing techniques to take fish when others cannot. Whether he’s throwing his infamous “size 48 midges” to the most finicky of trout, or he’s gone
off into the “twisted fishing” methods that result in hook-ups during the most trying times, Chad displays keen – sometimes offbeat – techniques in fly-fishing that’s sure to put a bend many times a day in his clients’ rods.   It’s the Tellico River, Hiwassee River, North River and Bald River watersheds of the Cherokee National Forest that are dear to his angler’s heart, but Chad’s guide services extend deep across the entire range of waters in RAA’s portfolio.
RAA's Jerry Weicken ...
RAA's Brian Stanford ...

The Fish Hawk
Atlanta's Premier Fly Shop
Phone: 404-237-3473
Atlanta, GA

Reliance
Fly & Tackle
Flies, tackle, deli & convenience
store on the Hiwassee River
Phone: 423-338-7771
Reliance, TN

Fly Box Outfitters
Flies, rods, reels, sportswear
& more
Phone: 866-460-2507
Kennesaw, GA

Nature's
Tackle Box
Flies, rods, reels, bass/striper
tackle, sportswear & more
Phone: (678) 567-1211
Hiram, GA

Stanley's Pro Shop
Doing the Outdoors Right!
Your online and in-store outfitter
for hunting, fishing and more!
Phone: (706) 632-2441
Blue Ridge, GA

St. Croix Rods
Invest in a St. Croix rod
& you invest in a relationship
Phone: 715-762-3226
Park Falls, WI

G-Loomis

Fly rods that produce faster line
speed, aerodynamic loops and
precisely placed casts

Phone: 360-225-7169

Ross Reels

The No. 1 Selling Fly-Fishing
Reels in the USA

Montrose, CO

Blackwater Baits
Hand-turned & hand-painted
wooden topwater crashbaits
Phone: 706-835-5013
Hiawassee, GA

River Hawk Boats

Shallow draft, exceptional stability,
easy to plane, quiet and stealthy

Winder, GA

FlyFishing for Vets

Healing through fly-fishing ...
in a peaceful setting among
friends and family whose care
provides a welcome relieve
from the stress of recovery

Peachtree City, GA