But, as mentioned his primary tactic is to make dozens of short, quick drifts in the turbulence. Right in front of the turbine outlets, the water is 35 feet deep, but comes up to 15 feet only a few yards distant. Crook sometimes runs right to the face of the "boils," throws his bait in the deep hole, and lets the force of the water sweep him downstream for a few yards so that the strong current pulls his bait up the shelf. The whole exercise takes only a couple of minutes.

"When the fish are biting in the boils, I've been known to make that same drift 200 or more times in a very short span," he said.

The other key is in using the yellowtails for bait.

"It's the way they act all crazy whenever they're near bigger fish," the guide said of the native shad. "They get the fish to bite whether the fish want to or not."

Crook prefers to catch his own bait, by finding them bunched up in a corner of the dam structure, when he can simply scoop them up in a long-handled dip-net. He may have to throw a cast-net, or he might be required to look for them in nearby creeks. If all else fails, he buys them for $10 or more a pound.

As a last resort, he ties on a homemade lead-headed jig and adds a soft plastic Sassy Shad body; perhaps the most popular lure choice of local anglers. He also likes to use conventional spinning tackle with 10-pound-test line, but switches to a baitcaster with heavier line for fishing the boils.

The tailrace guide likes to start his day with 4 to 6 dozen shad and "the bigger the better." He puts them in his special bait bucket, to which he adds salt to help keep them healthy.

"A bad day would be to catch only 30 fish. That's 10 or 15 bass and some other fish," he said matter-of-factly. "I don't think I've ever been skunked."

There have been many days when almost every cast yielded fish. But, more recently, those days are few, outside of the fall.

Crook doesn't watch the calendar as much as he looks for the appearance of sulfur-colored butterflies.

"Everybody thinks I'm crazy, but that yellow butterfly is my signal," he said. "When they show up, the bite is on."