On March 21 Kyle Ogle yanked two rainbow trout measuring more than 21 inches long out of the Hiwassee River in the Big Bend area -- on consecutive casts.
He's a catch-and-release angler, so they both went back in the water after their pictures were made. Ogle repeatedly heads back to the river -- and others -- as well.
"Fly fishing has shown me some of the most beautiful sights that the South has to offer," said the 25-year-old Walker Valley High School graduate who has attended Lee University and Cleveland State Community College and now is looking into going to physician's assistant school.
"My entire life I have been an outdoors enthusiast, ranging from hiking and camping to fly fishing all over the Great Smoky Mountains and Cherokee National Forest to the mountains of Blue Ridge, Georgia, and any place that allows me an excuse to be outside."
Ogle is planning this year to "take a month or more along the Appalachian Trail to really get an immersive outdoor experience."
He's worked at a variety of jobs while making his way through college, and he is just as set on a career in the medical field as he is on enjoying more outdoors adventures.
"Helping people is a huge passion of mine," Ogle said last week. "I love studying medicine."
He sees both the camaraderie and solitude he loves in fly fishing as a great relief from the expected stresses of his chosen field, just as it was after the shocking death of his best friend of 18 years in January 2014.
"I found myself fly fishing day after day after day after day for weeks. I found peace out there on the river by myself," Ogle said.
He lives just 20 minutes from the Hiwassee, he pointed out, so he considers it his "home river," but he also has enjoyed the Tellico River, Gee Creek, the Jacks River, the Toccoa River and, farther down in Georgia, the Chattahoochee and the Soquee, among others.
"I've fished so many rivers," he said, mentioning Bald River Falls as another favorite place.
He also has an itch to do some professional guiding -- "not for the entirety of my life, but as an experience before I settle down."
He's done that on a friend-to-friend basis and through the SOBROS (Southern Brothers) club he helped his recent-years mentor, Dr. Guy DeLoach, and his son Brian DeLoach, found. Dr. DeLoach is a former Toyota top executive who now is an associate professor in Lee's business department, while Brian -- who was a year ahead of Ogle at Walker Valley -- is a teacher at Cleveland High School.
Dr. DeLoach also teaches an accredited fly fishing course at Lee, and Ogle has helped in that.
"It's a very difficult type of fishing to grasp -- there are so many factors -- and it has been extremely rewarding helping the students on the water," he said. "They light up like the Fourth of July when they catch one. They absolutely go crazy. That's one of the most fun things I've done in a long time."
While identifying the DeLoaches as his two greatest fly fishing friends, Ogle credited his father, Ken, and his maternal grandfather, the late William Harper, for getting him hooked on fishing early.
"From a Mickey Mouse pole when I was 4 at my father's lake house to now, I have been somewhere on the water doing what I love," he said. "My grandfather was the best fisherman that has walked the planet, in my eyes -- above and beyond amazing. And he was fun to be around.
"It could have been snowing, raining, anything, we were always out there, it seemed."
He was with another older adviser, "Coach" Harold Morris -- a teacher at Ocoee Middle School when Ogle was there -- the day he caught the two big rainbows back to back.
"I just found the money hole," Ogle explained. "One cast got the one and the next cast caught the other. The stars had aligned that day. The fish were going crazy and I happened to be in the right place at the right time."
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.