Reel Angling Adventures
Our Guide Team                                                         

It's with a lot of pride and respect that I join this team of top fishermen and fishing guides who form the ranks of the guide team at Reel Angling Adventures. Without question, these guys watch my back! They carry fishing knowledge deeper than any other trio of anglers found in the tri-state region of Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee. Each carries his own specific fishing interests and expertise, as well as the broad knowledge of a well-rounded fishing guide, that assures our clients tap into the deepest fishing database available when they spend a day with them on the widest range of guided fishing destinations offered by any outfitter in the southern Appalachian Mountains. -- Bob Borgwat Outfitter/Owner/Guide Reel Angling Adventures Bill Stranahan
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.	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 38 years old, Bill has lived for 11 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 four years on the Hiwassee River at Reliance, Tennessee. Bill joined RAA shortly following the company's award 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 13 years floating, wading and fishing the tailwater at Reliance and the Tellico River watershed where it stretches high into the Cherokee National Forest. Bill's also responsible for single-handedly building the striped bass fly-fishing trips offered by Reel Angling Adventures on the Hiwassee River. 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. Bill also is pursuing his degree in wildlife management, currently covering his basic education requirements at Cleveland State Community College in Tennessee. Lee Howard Holding more guiding experience than any guide on our team, 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 -- for almost 40 years! 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. 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.
During the last 17 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!
Joe DiPietro
Joe DiPietro brings his passion for trout fishing to the small headwater streams of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the shoals, pools, glides and boulder gardens of the Toccoa River tailwater. A few years ago, Joe DiPietro of Mineral Bluff, Georgia, stepped out of the corporate world and dove head-first into guiding on the streams and rivers of the tri-state region of Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee. In fact, there’s not any area trout streams where Joe hasn’t dropped a fly and he loves to teach new fly-fishermen. “There's just something about seeing someone hook, fight and land their first trout on a fly,” Joe says. “Whether the fish is 10 inches or 4 pounds, it's often hard for me to tell who gets more excited – the client or me!” His friends call him “Trout Man Joe” – a moniker attached to the 29-year-old angler because of his headlong dive into both trout fishing and guiding on theToccoa River tailwater at Blue Ridge, Georgia. Joe's laid back personality  – coupled with his deep knowledge of the region’s trout waters, flora and fauna of the region – makes every wade-trip or float-trip more than getting the best shots at catching fish; you’ll also learn a few things about the beautiful ecosystem of the southern Appalachia Mountains and the steps being taken to conserve it. Born in central-Illinois, Joe’s background includes working on commercial fishing and shrimp boats in Florida, as well as doing deckhand and mate work for private charter-fishing operations.  During his second year in college at the University Of South Florida, he guided part-time, offering kayak and wade trips for redfish, snook, seatrout and tarpon in and around Tampa Bay, St. Petersburg and other waters in Pinellas and Pasco counties. Working toward completing his English degree in 2005, Joe rediscovered the passion he held for trout fishing as a kid in the Midwest and began making trips to the trout waters of the southern Appalachias to fly-fish for them. Joe's tenure at USF also included his role as the Suncoast Field Editor for the regional publication Big Bend Angler. Currently, Joe is a contributing writer and photographer for Georgia Outdoor News, Alabama Outdoor News, Trout Unlimited's “Trout” Magazine, and other regional hunting and fishing publications. He is an award-winning photographer, receiving the 2008 first-place award for Feature Photograph from the Georgia Press Association, and will always have a camera ready to capture your memories on the water. Joe hand-ties the overwhelming majority of his flies and can offer basic fly-tying lessons and flies for sale during trips (especially when those fish only want that one secret local fly pattern). Joe is a member of the Blue Ridge Chapter (#696) of Trout Unlimited, where he produces the club’s newsletter and is a member of the Toccoa River Improvement Committee.
Chad Bryson
It's his wide-ranging fishing exper-ience -- 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.	You expect a fishing guide to have fish blood in his veins, right?   Chad 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.     At 39 years old, Chad has built a life around fishing. He’s a North Georgia native who 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 across our service region.  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” method 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.