Home Blog Page 10

920 | Loop Tackle’s Wild Fish, Wild Places: Fly Fishing Travel and Conservation with Emilie Björkman and Ted Logart

Episode Show Notes

What happens when you take fly fishing beyond your home water and start chasing it across the world? In this episode, we sit down with Emilie Björkman and Ted Logart from Loop to talk about Wild Fish, Wild Places, a global series focused on travel, culture, and conservation.

They share how the project came together, how they choose destinations, and what they’ve learned filming in places like Montana, Sweden, Iceland, and New Zealand. We also dig into the real challenges behind the scenes, why conservation issues are often global, and how anglers can take simple steps to make an impact right at home.

Hit play to start listening! 👇🏻🎧

apple podcasts

Find the show:  Follow the Show | Overcast | Spotify

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe on Android

Subscribe via RSS

(The full episode transcript is at the bottom of this blogpost) 👇🏻

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

Episode Recap

00:00 – 03:00 — Dave introduces Emilie Björkman and Ted Logart and sets the stage around Wild Fish, Wild Places. The conversation opens with the idea that fly fishing feels the same no matter where you are in the world, with shared culture, passion, and connection to water across countries.

03:00 – 05:30 — Emilie and Ted explain how the series started from noticing declining salmon runs and wanting to protect the lifestyle they love. What began as a passion project turned into a global storytelling effort focused on conservation and inspiring future generations.

05:30 – 08:30 — They break down how they choose locations, emphasizing that the story always starts with people. Instead of chasing the “best fishing,” they prioritize places where local anglers and communities can tell meaningful stories about the water and the fish.

08:30 – 11:30 — The Montana episode highlights how strong fly fishing culture can exist alongside real environmental concerns. They discuss declining insect populations and how changes at the base of the food chain can impact entire fisheries.

11:30 – 13:30 — The conversation expands to show how conservation issues are often global, not local. Whether it’s insect decline or salmon populations, many of the same problems are showing up across different countries and ecosystems.

13:30 – 15:30 — Ted shares one of the biggest challenges of filming the series: time pressure. With only a few days in each location, they constantly balance whether to focus on catching fish or capturing the story that gives the episode meaning.

15:30 – 18:30 — Emilie explains how a two-person crew manages production, from research and planning to filming and storytelling. Their success depends heavily on the local people they work with, who help bring authenticity to each episode.

18:30 – 21:00 — The team discusses their approach to storytelling, using loose outlines instead of strict scripts. This allows real conversations and natural moments to unfold, creating a more authentic and relatable viewing experience.

21:00 – 25:00 — They talk about Loop’s role in the project and how the brand supports both innovation and conservation. The series reflects a broader effort to connect anglers with the responsibility of protecting fisheries.

25:00 – 35:30 — The discussion shifts into global conservation challenges, including salmon declines, fish farming impacts, and climate change. They compare different regions like Canada, Sweden, and Iceland, showing how each faces unique but connected issues.

35:30 – 36:30 — Emilie shares a simple takeaway for anglers: you don’t have to fix everything. Connecting with local fishing communities and taking action on your home waters is one of the most effective ways to make a difference.

36:30 – End — The episode wraps with reflections on inspiring the next generation, the importance of getting people outdoors, and how storytelling can help more anglers understand and care about the future of fisheries.


Sponsors and Podcast Updates

Resources Noted in the Show

Loop Tackle — looptackle.com
YouTube — Loop Tackle (Wild Fish, Wild Places) — youtube.com/@LoopTackle83

Loop Tackle

Follow their Instagram
Loop Tackle — @looptackle
Emilie Björkman — @emilie.bjorkman
Ted Logart — @tedlogardt

Related Videos

Related Episodes

Full Podcast Transcript

Episode Transcript
00;00;02;00 – 00;00;30;26 Dave What happens when you take fly fishing from your home water and start chasing it across the world? Different water, different species, different cultures. But the same passion shows up everywhere. Today we’re sitting down with Emily Bjorkman and Ted Lockhart from Loop to talk about Wild Fish Wild Places, a global series that’s all about traveling to some incredible places to fish, meeting the people who live it every day, identifying important conservation issues and seeing how fly fishing connects it all together. 00;00;30;28 – 00;00;51;02 Dave This is the Wet fly Swing podcast. Right. Show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. Emily Bjorkman and Ted Lugard are here and say they’re going to take us behind the scenes of wild fish, wild places and and how they put it all together. 00;00;51;22 – 00;01;14;07 Dave We’re going to find out why the same fly fishing culture shows up everywhere, whether you’re in Sweden or in Montana. We’re going to find out how they choose locations and how this evolved over time and what they saw on the ground in Montana, Sweden, Iceland, some of the other amazing places they’ve traveled around the planet and want to find out how they’re shifting this as they approach their next season. 00;01;14;18 – 00;01;28;10 Dave All right. Let’s jump into it. Here we go. Emily Bjorkman and Ted log out. You can find them at loop tackle dot com and find this series on YouTube. Wild fish, Wild places. Here we go. How are you both doing? 00;01;28;23 – 00;01;39;26 Emilie We’re good. Really good. The spring finally start to come here in Sweden as well. So this fly fishing season is getting closer for sure. 00;01;40;01 – 00;01;44;08 Ted Yeah, it’s one long winter behind us now, so it’s all good. 00;01;44;19 – 00;02;02;17 Dave Good. Yeah. We’re getting close, right? We’re heading out for Atlantic salmon, too, this year for the first time for me. We’re not heading to Sweden, although that’s on my bucket list. And we’ve done some podcast episodes in that area. Should I know? I know how unique Sweden is. It’s. It’s. There’s a lot of some good public water we’ve heard and all that over there. 00;02;02;17 – 00;02;27;00 Dave So but today we’re going to really focus on the show that you both put together. Wild fish, wild places. Folks can find that on YouTube. Emily, you’re obviously a star of this. Emily Bjorkman here. We’re going to talk about kind of how this all came to be and get into what the the focus is. I know conservation is a big part of, you know, everything we do, but maybe we can start with the Ted, maybe we start with you. 00;02;27;00 – 00;02;33;01 Dave What is your connection to wild fish Wild Places? When did this program in loop? When did this connection start for you? 00;02;33;16 – 00;03;04;28 Ted Well, I think it started when well, to go back, me and Emily has been doing TV shows and YouTube films for like six years and when the when Emily got hired by Buy Loop, and as I got into it, she was she was about to do some YouTube series. And she came to me with with the idea. And yeah, we kind of put the concept together and yeah, that’s basically that’s it. 00;03;05;04 – 00;03;14;18 Dave And so, Emily, it sounds like you, you are part of the vision of this. What was your first vision of this wild fish, wild places, and what were you trying to achieve here? 00;03;14;29 – 00;03;46;13 Emilie Oh, good question. I mean, I think if you go back because me, instead of being working together for over six years and doing similar production, I’m trying to I mean, we love to be out by the river and fishing for salmon. And like, we also want to some kind protect our lifestyle. And like we did a film with Colin and, and the salmon runs started to decline and we felt, okay, we need to do something. 00;03;46;13 – 00;04;18;06 Emilie What can we do? Well, we do a film and on that road it just continued. And me and Ted really, really like to do more. We’d like to fish, but we also want to highlight the places and the fish and how you can protect it and how you can inspire and you know everything around it so my daughters can fish for them too, you know, and be by the river and connect with nature. 00;04;18;06 – 00;04;28;10 Emilie So I think it’s a big passion for me and the lifestyle that I was really happy that I could bring into work, if that makes sense. 00;04;28;23 – 00;04;49;00 Dave Yeah, it does. And you able to travel around right when these I think there’s six of these shows that are out there maybe describe that it’s not only Atlantic salmon, right. Or what was the focus on species Did you have from the beginning did you know because there’s you know, we do a lot of travel episodes all around the world and there’s, you know, hundreds, thousands of places. 00;04;49;00 – 00;04;52;08 Dave How did you pick those first, you know, those first shows where to go. 00;04;52;23 – 00;04;56;19 Emilie Oh, do you go first? 00;04;56;19 – 00;05;26;16 Ted Yeah. But I totally agree, Dave, that it’s there’s so many places that that you can go. And I think it kind of the show is just we’re kind of organic in the beginning I mean a little bit was of course you know, rooted in some kind of marketing strategy for the brand, but also where we wanted wanted to go and where we felt like that we could hook up with great people to be able to tell some kind of story from from that place. 00;05;26;16 – 00;05;53;29 Ted And I think that’s to go back to what Emily was talking a little bit earlier. I think it’s we are really, you know, interested in in the lifestyle and the people and especially the people who have kind of devoted their their life to fly fishing in one way or or another. So I think that’s kind of, you know, what sets the direction for for where we go and what we do in a sense. 00;05;53;29 – 00;06;10;14 Ted And you know, all that that small talk we love the small talk that just happens along the river when everybody forgets about there’s a camera there and and I just, you know, I just love it when it when we get into that. So, yeah. 00;06;11;02 – 00;06;27;07 Dave This is a good now I think the great thing is, is that we have, you know, these videos that we’re kind of prime and everybody to understand what this is about. And they can go over right now and watch these. Right. And I think the first one was, was Montana the first in the series or maybe describe that the places that you travel to. 00;06;27;19 – 00;06;37;27 Ted Yeah, Montana was the first that was got released. But we filmed the Patagonia first, right, Emily That’s how it went. Yeah. 00;06;38;07 – 00;06;48;26 Emilie Yes, Yes, it was Patagonia first. Yeah. Then was Montana. Iceland, Sweden, Canada, New Zealand, New Zealand. 00;06;48;26 – 00;07;07;28 Dave Wow. Yeah. You got the whole the whole world covered. This is cool. And maybe take it to Montana since that one you know, obviously, that’s probably the closest for us, you know, to where we’re, we’re at, you know. But what was the maybe give us kind of high level 30,000 foot of that Montana show? What was the conservation focus? 00;07;07;28 – 00;07;10;16 Dave What was the species you’re you’re chasing there? 00;07;10;28 – 00;08;02;21 Emilie Mm. I mean Montana first some say like the fly fishing vibe in Montana just arriving to Missoula and it feels like everyone is talking the fly fishing language there. You can really feel that the fly fishing vibe. I just I just loved it. It was so nice to just be there and like Montana and also Sweden. The bugs is important for the hatches and we have talked with some researcher in Sweden that talk about the cleaning of the bugs and we understand that is happening in Montana as well or everywhere, I guess with the world changing so that was something we wanted to highlight in that film episode about the bugs and also just like 00;08;03;09 – 00;08;24;16 Emilie feel the fine fishing vibe in Montana. What do you fish for the the cutthroat and the brown trout and yeah, just get into that vibe really. And that was super awesome. And meeting all the really super cool people like Simon Shoe and Carly and you know that also live and breathe, fly fishing. 00;08;24;28 – 00;08;46;12 Ted Do you remember when we were sitting out on the bench outside of one of the fly shops and Craig and all the guys were just rigging up with, you know, getting the boats and they were just, you know, talking probably, you know, rubbish against each other. And but, you know. Yes. And we just we were just stunned. We all it was so cool. 00;08;46;12 – 00;08;54;23 Ted Yeah. Sitting there listening to, to that talk. It was just mesmerizing. I think we would have been sitting there staring. We just had the chance. 00;08;55;14 – 00;08;59;03 Dave That’s cool. Yeah, just the, just the. Yeah, yeah. Just on the back of the tailgate. 00;08;59;03 – 00;09;11;20 Emilie Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We really. Oh, that was so awesome. And it’s like in Craig. It’s. Is it three or four fly shop in that little village? Yeah. That’s so cool. 00;09;11;20 – 00;09;19;09 Dave Yeah, exactly. Yeah, a little tiny town. It’s got whatever however many fly shops and. And it’s the Missouri, right. You’re right there on the Missouri River. The big. 00;09;19;10 – 00;09;19;23 Emilie Yeah. 00;09;19;25 – 00;09;32;03 Dave The big mo. So and that’s cool because we’re actually going to be heading there this year too. We have a dry fly school we’re doing with on the Mark Lodge. So we’re excited. I haven’t fished the big the Missouri yet, but it’s it’s pretty amazing so. 00;09;32;11 – 00;09;32;25 Emilie Yeah. 00;09;32;25 – 00;09;51;25 Dave And yeah so that’s and then what was the the focus so did you maybe break down that the conservation piece did you talk to some local groups because I know recently we had the salmon fly project founders on and they talked about what they’re doing. They’re just like you said, they’re collecting aquatic invertebrates so they can document what we currently have and see, you know, what’s changing. 00;09;52;08 – 00;10;02;16 Dave But how was that? How did that fit into the piece on that Montana show? Did you talk to like biologists or entomologists or the guides or how did you touch on that piece? 00;10;02;28 – 00;10;42;07 Ted Yeah, Do you remember? I mean, I think we were in contact with the Salmon Fly project and but unfortunately, something we didn’t manage to fit in a visit with them. So that kind of made us reverse engineer the whole stuff. So and since the bug situation is kind of universal, basically all over, then we did the interview with kind of the Swedish Authority on, on, on Bugs Man, and he asked, yeah, refer to the situation in in in the U.S. as well. 00;10;42;23 – 00;11;05;14 Ted So and that’s have been a little bit of how we have worked with with the scientists other episode as well. When we were in Canada we were we were talking to our boss, the guest of Helstrom, which is kind of the he is kind of a superstar when it comes to monitoring migratory fish. So he goes all over, but he’s Swedish. 00;11;05;14 – 00;11;31;29 Ted So we talked to salmon problems with with him and I saw Norsk which is a Norwegian authority on, on Atlantic salmon. So since it’s I mean fly fishing is of course super local. But, but the problems are often in kind of a global context as well. So it’s it gets kind of relatable for for people all over in a way. 00;11;31;29 – 00;11;38;16 Ted So that’s I was about to say nice. It’s not nice when it’s a problem, but it’s it’s kind of I think it’s, you. 00;11;38;16 – 00;11;39;22 Dave Know, you can understand it. 00;11;40;00 – 00;11;53;08 Emilie MM Yeah. Yeah. And, and we met up also with the trout, the Limited in Missoula. Hmm. Okay. Yeah. Looking at their work they are doing and yeah, that was awesome. 00;11;53;17 – 00;12;14;10 Dave Okay. I know Maggie Human has been involved in that. She’s been doing some of the animals. We had her on the podcast as well, and so we’ll put some links out in the show notes to some of those episodes so people can get a little background on that. But I’m interested in the the Swedish entomologist or the person you talked to is that can we find that in the Montana show or is it the one on Sweden? 00;12;14;29 – 00;12;39;06 Ted No, it’s actually in the Montana show. I think it’s about six, 6 minutes in to get to it. So, yeah, kind of bridge is from when we were fishing the the Blackwater and the guides were talking about the decline of insects. And then we kind of reached over to this mountain, the mountain village in Sweden, and they’re having it’s the same. 00;12;40;05 – 00;12;41;20 Ted Yeah. Similar situation. 00;12;42;00 – 00;12;53;08 Dave Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. And, and maybe just give us a heads up on the places. So where do you travel? You mentioned before at the start it was New Zealand, Montana, Sweden and Canada. What were the other two. 00;12;53;24 – 00;12;57;18 Emilie In Argentina and Iceland. 00;12;57;25 – 00;13;01;09 Dave Iceland. Okay. And that’s there’s a series of six shows. 00;13;01;21 – 00;13;09;15 Emilie Yeah. And so that was the first season and now we are all producing the second. Oh, nice. Yeah. 00;13;09;26 – 00;13;12;08 Dave Yeah. When is the second season going to go out? 00;13;13;04 – 00;13;38;29 Emilie Well, it’s, it’s, it’s a never ending story so we just continue. So we have tried to release one episode each month, so we just continue. We released a New Zealand one in now in January and no sorry, February and we just came home from Italy, the Dolomites and that one we going to release now in April. Oh, wow, cool. 00;13;39;14 – 00;13;50;28 Dave And this is good. Okay, So these are this is going to continue the series is going to continue. You’re going to be traveling. What do you think is the what has been the biggest challenge of putting this series together? Have there been any road bumps along the way? 00;13;51;12 – 00;13;51;29 Emilie Oh, my. 00;13;51;29 – 00;13;53;29 Ted God. Finally, we’re getting into this. 00;13;54;06 – 00;13;54;21 Emilie There we go. 00;13;54;23 – 00;13;56;01 Dave Yeah, goes. The stories are. 00;13;56;01 – 00;14;01;05 Emilie Going to come out now. Yeah. Ted, knock yourself out. Yeah. 00;14;01;05 – 00;14;10;27 Ted Yeah. I think I’m going to do the disclaimer already because it’s I, I have a tendency to turn into some kind of a victim one when it comes to how hard it is to. 00;14;11;22 – 00;14;14;27 Dave Yeah, I could do fly fishing. Fly fishing on film right, Right. 00;14;15;00 – 00;14;42;08 Ted Yeah. No, no. But I mean of course it’s a, it’s a huge privilege to to be able to do this, but it is also a lot of hard work. And I think the definitely the biggest challenge with doing this, you know, six episodes in kind of ten months is the time. It’s a time limit. And when we have done similar projects in the past, me and Emily, we have done it on in our home waters, you know, in the northern part of Sweden. 00;14;42;08 – 00;14;59;23 Ted So then you have the chance you can always come back. I mean, if something happens, you can always come back two weeks later and try to grab the shots that you that you didn’t get the you can hunt down the people that you really would like to talk to. But I mean, this is Iceland. I think we did it like three and a half or four days. 00;14;59;24 – 00;15;26;20 Ted New Zealand was longer. Of course, it’s such a long travel, but so you really need to get all the bits for the story that you that you want to tell. And then it’s always this trade off between do we need another fish or do we need a bigger fish or do we, you know, prioritize to go with, with a, you know, a story bit that, you know, makes the story better. 00;15;26;20 – 00;15;34;06 Ted But it and I think that’s it’s, it’s kind of stressful and it’s kind of it’s really stressful. 00;15;34;09 – 00;15;35;09 Dave It is stressful. 00;15;35;13 – 00;15;39;27 Ted To be able to to you know make the right decisions so. 00;15;41;26 – 00;16;04;08 Dave Experienced the waters of Bristol Bay at Togiak River Lodge, where fly fishing meets Alaska’s rugged beauty. This is the place to complete the Alaska Grand Slam with all five salmon species, rainbow trout, arctic char and more, Where each day offers a new Alaskan adventure, you can visit Togiak Lodge ecom right now to start planning your Bristol Bay experience with Togiak River Lodge. 00;16;05;09 – 00;16;24;10 Dave Golden Fly Shop isn’t your average fly shop. They have a 12 foot shark painted like a cutthroat, hovering over a huge selection of the best rods in the business, a massive assortment of tying materials and their famous steakhouse streamer display. And it’s the hub for a community of anglers who never stop tinkering with new ways to catch fish. 00;16;24;25 – 00;16;53;06 Dave Sometimes the conversation behind the counter includes what hatches are going off and what techniques are working best. Then tales of destination fishing, adventure, spot after species or a good ol congratulations. When a customer brings stories of finally connecting with that fish they searched for forever where they growing online store and a budding YouTube channel, you’ll be able to follow along with their fun antics, international adventures and helpful fly fishing tips, gold fly shop where the community is hanging out, even if they’re supposed to be working. 00;16;53;09 – 00;17;20;00 Dave That’s Golden Fly Shop dotcom. Check them out right now. Maybe take us to the who’s there on the scene. So you sounds like you both are kind of producing this. Who’s involved in the production and and putting this together. We haven’t talked a ton about loop, but maybe I would like to hear about that too. The connection to Loop, because we know we’ve I’ve known about them most of my life and I know all the great work they’re doing, But give us a heads up of like who, who’s involved in the production and how loop fits into this. 00;17;20;16 – 00;17;21;26 Ted Oh, maybe you’re going. 00;17;23;17 – 00;17;24;18 Emilie To go and. 00;17;25;11 – 00;17;35;11 Dave I know I don’t have to. You have to name all all the names, but, you know, just kind of I’m curious, is this just you two out there with one camera person or is this, you know, a bigger production sort of thing? 00;17;36;01 – 00;18;05;16 Emilie Yeah. So it’s a two man band. They’ve so it’s me and Ted before we go somewhere, we do the research, we try to connect with the people and build a story and what do we want to tell and the conservation around it and just find the places before and then we go. When we go there, we are so happy and I am so thankful. 00;18;05;16 – 00;18;48;15 Emilie I mean, we all the people we have been fishing and working with, they put all in their all effort into this and they also want to do this really good. And that means like 1,000% for us because it’s only me and Ted out there. So it’s so we are so depending on the people we are fishing with and when we go out there, we have a script that meathead right before we the we try to do scenes, but you know, fishing is fishing and everything happens and but so we have something to lean back on and just so we have like a beginning, a middle and an end and tend to all like a camera 00;18;48;15 – 00;19;17;16 Emilie guy out there. And I am trying to be a host and to write help to do a portrait of the person we’re fishing with. So yeah, it’s it’s us and it is you. Yeah. And, and so we work a lot. Well, we were out, so just making sure like Ted say so we have everything with us. We like go through the scripts during the nights, like what do we have to capture tomorrow? 00;19;17;16 – 00;19;32;01 Emilie And you know, so it’s, it’s a fishing is fishing and working with it’s like and it’s really fun, but it’s also a little bit stressful because it’s only like, yeah, also things we want to. 00;19;32;01 – 00;19;32;24 Dave Do at the time. 00;19;33;08 – 00;19;45;22 Emilie Yeah, exactly. And when we come home we collect all pieces and Ted do all the edits and so then we are going to one episode and. Yeah. Oh, traveling again. Yeah. 00;19;46;08 – 00;19;47;16 Dave Yeah. Oh wow. 00;19;47;25 – 00;20;08;14 Ted Yeah. But it’s, I mean I, I think to them is saying that I’m doing dead in the sense that I am the one, you know, pushing the buttons. But, but the editing part is something that we both are very involved in. We are, you know, doing the, the selects and the assembly cuts and the dailies and everything basically together. 00;20;09;07 – 00;20;31;15 Ted And I think what in the beginning we were so, you know, keen on trying to get to do a, you know, kind of documentary style to it. And when we say that we write the script, we, we definitely write the script, but we don’t really, you know, it’s, it’s more like we outline scenes, what we think that the scene could be about. 00;20;31;15 – 00;21;02;13 Ted And then we try to it’s basically like Emily decides on what she’s going to talk to the talent about, and then it’s, you know, up to me to try and capture it when when she starts talking. Because that can happened basically any time since. We really want it to feel as natural as possible and to be, you know, the camera as little as possible involved in what’s what’s happening. 00;21;02;13 – 00;21;12;00 Ted And of course, that’s always a tradeoff because sometimes you you just need things to to make the story cohesive in in a way. 00;21;12;00 – 00;21;14;24 Emilie So yeah. Wow. Yeah, of course. 00;21;14;24 – 00;21;15;14 Dave That’s amazing. 00;21;15;23 – 00;21;41;13 Emilie And of course, I mean, before we do like the year plan, we sit down with the, the people, the marketing crew on loop and just discussing and so it connect with the brand and feels right for the brand. So we we are aligned with that also. So they are highly involved also of course. Yeah. 00;21;41;13 – 00;22;07;11 Ted And on on some productions we also have brand manager Allie Parkin. Yes, Yes. Who is helping out a lot and he’s, he, he’s, he’s definitely a decent camera guy as well. So when we get, you know, into some hectic situation, he can take up the camera and get us a different angle as well. And that’s, I mean that’s super helpful in editing to, to get the angles. 00;22;07;11 – 00;22;12;23 Ted I think that’s that the most important part of getting angles. Yeah. 00;22;13;00 – 00;22;33;28 Dave Yeah. No, it’s amazing. I mean, I’ve, I’ve watched some of them and the camera, the videography is really beautiful. You know, it’s, it’s, yeah, it looks, you know, unique and you’ve definitely the angles and everything you’ve got looks is really cool. So I’m excited to watch the rest of them. But yeah. So and then talk about loop a little bit because I know we know loop very well. 00;22;33;28 – 00;22;43;25 Dave I feel like I’m always thinking, you know, loop obviously where it’s from over you know, in Sweden there now is loop. Is it headquartered in Sweden. Is that, is that the headquarters? 00;22;44;09 – 00;22;49;10 Emilie Good question. I mean, so Loop started in Sweden in the eighties. 00;22;49;10 – 00;22;50;02 Dave Yeah, in the eighties. 00;22;50;10 – 00;23;10;20 Emilie Yeah. But now we are spread all over the world. So my closest boss is in the UK and in Scotland and the brand manager is sitting in Scotland and then I have a few in Stockholm. So yeah, just all over the world now. Yeah, all over. Okay. 00;23;11;06 – 00;23;14;28 Dave Like I said, my, my dad had a little fly shop when I was a kid and. 00;23;14;28 – 00;23;15;22 Emilie Oh wow. 00;23;15;28 – 00;23;31;24 Dave Yeah. And I remember in the because I’m old enough to remember, I remember we had loop that was a brand that we had in there and that was my I’ve always remember that. I think we had some. Yeah, but I didn’t know it. I didn’t know it very well. And so now I’m kind of now full circle though with the podcast, I’ve learned a lot more about it. 00;23;31;24 – 00;23;43;07 Dave But what do you think is the focus of Loop, it sounds like, on these episodes? Did you use loop rods? Was that kind of the part of that they cover of kind of a little bit of everything trout fishing, salmon, steelhead, everything? 00;23;43;16 – 00;24;33;01 Emilie Yeah, Yeah, exactly. So they have the whole range for all the fishing gear in rods and in reels and in clothing these days. So yeah, they, they got it all. And loop loop have always like a brand have always been like correct method if I’m wrong like innovative and trying to like the technical side fishing gear and nowadays bringing in much more conservation into the brand which is awesome and really like the ethos around like a respect for the fish and the rivers and wild places and that inspires to loops products in a way, and with our Syria. 00;24;33;25 – 00;24;35;06 Emilie So yeah. 00;24;35;19 – 00;25;06;28 Ted Yeah. So yeah, I think it’s just so, so cool. I think for both me and Emily too to have, you know, to work with that loop as a brand is putting all this, you know, effort into both conservation and to, you know, storytelling and bringing and trying to bring storytelling to to the fly fishing community. And, and I mean, that sweet growing up loop was kind of, you know, the coolest thing that you could did You could have. 00;25;06;28 – 00;25;10;27 Dave Yeah loops huge right? Right. And it doesn’t get any bigger than that, right? 00;25;10;28 – 00;25;20;02 Ted No, no. And especially not in in Sweden in you know, the midnight. So I think it’s kind of a national treasure of Sweden in in that sense. 00;25;20;02 – 00;25;36;25 Dave Yeah. It is in the mid-nineties. Is that one. Because that’s when I actually remember it. I’m old enough to remember that the mid-nineties was I think that’s when we first got loop into the fly shop in our shop. Right. So I feel like. So I mean, Loop’s been around the U.S. for a long time, right? This is not they’re not new to the game. 00;25;37;09 – 00;25;53;06 Dave Is that something do you feel like loop sounds like you cover everything but you know, obviously Atlantic salmon, you know, that’s a species that’s this iconic species around the world. Do you feel like that was the first thing they did really well with Loop or did you guys kind of remember those and you focus on that, right? Yeah, Yeah. 00;25;53;11 – 00;26;14;08 Ted Canada Yeah, I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m I mean, as a brand, I think and when you go back to the, you know, mid-nineties when, when I got into to fly fishing or early nineties I think it was, you know, the underhand cost and the Gordon Anderson cutting up lines and I mean that that was the way that we Yeah. 00;26;14;13 – 00;26;37;16 Ted That I got introduced to, to salmon fishing. So I think they’ve been have a huge impact on on the way that people you know salmon fish all over the world and then it’s the large harbor really of course that’s I don’t think I understood that you know the technical aspects of it, but I mean it just looked so, so cool. 00;26;37;16 – 00;26;52;26 Ted So you just wanted it. I think it was easy as as that. So, yeah, I think it’s I think it’s kind of an honor to, to, you know, be in this this context. No one. 00;26;52;26 – 00;26;53;03 Dave Right. 00;26;53;04 – 00;26;56;10 Ted You’re producing you know, have that heritage. Yeah. 00;26;56;10 – 00;27;00;13 Dave Yeah. Is that the same for you, Emily, What is your connection on loop with you? 00;27;00;14 – 00;27;19;00 Emilie Yeah, I mean, 100% like Ted’s a loop coming from Sweden being the cool brand that you always looked up to and working hundred percent. We look today. Yeah, it’s. It’s hard work and so awesome to put it in words. 00;27;19;14 – 00;27;23;01 Dave That’s cool. We mentioned the Canada so where did you go exactly? In Canada. 00;27;23;28 – 00;27;30;19 Emilie So we finished in the river hunt. Sorry, Dave Hunt River. Maybe they say. 00;27;30;21 – 00;27;31;22 Dave Oh, Hunt River. Okay. 00;27;31;23 – 00;27;32;22 Emilie Hunt River. Yeah. 00;27;33;21 – 00;27;35;24 Dave And this is for Atlantic salmon. 00;27;35;24 – 00;27;46;19 Emilie Mm hmm. Yeah. That was the first time I dry fly fished for some, because here in Sweden, we’re swinging flies. And so that was super cool. 00;27;46;20 – 00;28;01;16 Dave He dry fly. That’s what we’re going to be hopefully doing too. And it’s interesting because I know we’ve had we didn’t have so a Telfer Brown over here and we talked to Atlantic salmon He was heading up there in that part of the eastern Canada and I know he talked about this one trip where he had the greatest or no, he had the worst. 00;28;01;16 – 00;28;19;10 Dave He got skunked, literally. They were on this two week adventure, you know, into the famous waters of eastern Canada. And they got skunked. But then the next year they came back and they had their best trip ever. So I feel like there’s these right back and forth. What was it like for you? Was it challenging to find find those, you know, those Atlantic salmon out there on the trip? 00;28;19;20 – 00;28;25;05 Emilie No. I mean, I know they didn’t have anything to cover above the four of them. So this is the trip. 00;28;25;05 – 00;28;27;15 Dave So you had a good trip yet, or at least fishing wise? It was. 00;28;27;15 – 00;28;51;16 Emilie Easy. Easier. Oh, yeah, but I. I have to say, it took a while until I understand that kind of technique and fishing, you know, to present that dry fly and, and everything. So I was fishing and I have only Balderson in the pool next to me. And I saw him catch a fish of the fish and, and I didn’t catch a thing. 00;28;51;26 – 00;29;20;24 Emilie So it took a while and then saw plenty of salmon in that pool. But. Oh, you did? Yeah. It was awesome. And so when I got like a little understanding for it, how with we were fishing, all kind of different place. But when I started fishing with the numbers and presenting them and seeing that salmon coming up in slow motion, just like a trout for a drive like that was insane. 00;29;21;14 – 00;29;29;22 Emilie So, so cool. Yeah. So the fish that we had for once, we really had some good fishing were there. He did, yeah. 00;29;30;05 – 00;29;44;22 Dave And so you had the dry flies, which you don’t. There’s not a lot of places in the world you can get good action like that. But other than the dry flies, it was the fishing. If you compare it to Sweden, how similar was what you’re doing there in Canada versus what you do in Sweden for Atlantics? 00;29;45;07 – 00;29;48;02 Ted Well, I think it differs a lot. I mean, a lot. 00;29;48;12 – 00;29;48;29 Emilie Yeah. Yeah. 00;29;49;18 – 00;30;23;05 Ted To fish a bummer or a dry in Sweden is is very rare and we swing for for salmon and it’s it’s big rods It’s almost always, you know, double handed especially, I mean at least if you’re in the beginning of the season and and I think also I mean there’s so much fewer fish in that that the official on the other hand I think that maybe you are the Swedish salmon is you know can be at least a little bit bigger. 00;30;23;12 – 00;30;47;05 Ted I mean a 100 centimeter salmon in Sweden, isn’t it’s I mean, it’s a huge fish, but it’s nothing. It doesn’t normal. Exactly. And I mean, you can get up to 120 and then people are like, oh, okay, that’s a so I think it’s that there’s a fewer fewer but maybe bigger. But I think that, yes, the way that your system is is completely different. 00;30;47;20 – 00;30;47;28 Emilie Yeah. 00;30;48;08 – 00;31;08;19 Dave Gotcha. And just for the transition for those that don’t have the centimeters, two inches. So yeah. 120. Oh we’re sorry. Almost 58 knots. Right. 50 inches. We should know this by now. We should have this down. But I still, I still struggle with it and then 100 is like 40. So you’re basically talking a 100 centimeters is like a 40 inch fish, which is giant. 00;31;08;29 – 00;31;21;05 Dave But then 120 is almost 50 inches, which is super giant. Yeah. So we’re talking pound wise, maybe these are the fish. What would that 120 fish be. 20 centimeter fish. How many pounds roughly would that be. 00;31;21;14 – 00;31;26;14 Emilie The one you caught, Ted. 120. How, what did that weight. 00;31;27;06 – 00;31;29;23 Ted That weigh that 18.5, I think. 00;31;30;02 – 00;31;30;22 Dave 18.5. 00;31;31;26 – 00;31;32;21 Ted Kilo. Yeah. 00;31;32;25 – 00;31;33;26 Dave Kilos. Yeah, exactly. 00;31;33;26 – 00;31;35;21 Emilie Yeah. Yep. Perfect. 00;31;36;22 – 00;31;38;10 Dave So I’ll do that really quick. 00;31;38;11 – 00;31;39;06 Emilie They are huge. 00;31;39;09 – 00;31;55;08 Dave Yeah. So. Right. Yeah. So. Okay, so 40 to £40 and bigger. Okay. So that gives it just a rough and that’s the thing with Canada is that they maybe they’re not quite as big, but there’s a lot more fish it sounds like, in that area. What was the conservation focus there? Did you talk did you keep it high level? 00;31;55;08 – 00;32;05;26 Dave I know we’ve had conversations about, just like you said, the worldwide, you know, kind of changes in populations. Did you focus on that area of Canada or did you talk look more broadly? 00;32;06;08 – 00;32;36;14 Ted I think, yeah, if I’m not mistaken, we kind of went to when we got the opportunity to to visit Labrador and the Hunt, we kind of went there with the you know, with the idea that that was supposed to be what the Salmon River could look like in 2025. You know, that’s a healthy river when, you know, not so super affected by all the negative stuff that are affecting Atlantic salmon and so many other places. 00;32;36;17 – 00;33;00;09 Ted So so that was kind of the role model. And then we we went to to Sweden and to Norway and to we did a stop in Iceland. Yes. Because we had made a show in Iceland earlier and talked about the problems that, you know, obviously Norway has a huge problem with with the fish farming industry. 00;33;00;13 – 00;33;01;11 Dave The fish farming, Yeah. 00;33;01;14 – 00;33;09;04 Ted Being so, so massive and with the lice, you know, killing off a lot. A lot of. Yeah. 00;33;09;04 – 00;33;11;09 Emilie Yeah. Diseases and stuff like that. 00;33;11;29 – 00;33;29;26 Ted Yeah. And then Sweden also have seen a huge decline that the lost and we don’t have fish farming but, but somehow the fish is the rods are declining the last ten years pretty dramatically and especially within the recent to two years. 00;33;30;18 – 00;33;36;25 Dave I feel like Iceland and eastern Canada, the two places that people still or that maybe the strongholds. 00;33;36;25 – 00;34;03;08 Ted Yeah, exactly. And as as we we got it in Iceland. This is more like you know they are seeing a growth of of their fish farms in Iceland and it’s more like what the potential harm could be. And that is see that, you know, they escapist of from the farm that can be, you know, devastating for a small populace, small river with a small salmon population. 00;34;04;22 – 00;34;10;16 Ted And then of course we have this the global warming, the climate change, right? 00;34;10;16 – 00;34;11;11 Dave Yeah. And the climate change that. 00;34;11;28 – 00;34;16;16 Ted That effects there. Yeah everywhere with Yeah. 00;34;16;20 – 00;34;22;09 Dave So then temperatures. Yeah. Well that we don’t exactly know right exactly what’s going on but there’s changes. 00;34;22;24 – 00;34;29;00 Ted Yeah. So something is affecting the well everything but the salmon in, in in this case. 00;34;29;00 – 00;34;45;22 Dave Yeah that’s right. And did you talk about I think that’s the species in the U.S. that is has similar declines is steelhead. You know there’s a lot of similarities between steelhead. In fact, when I first started steelhead fishing, I was reading books that were written for Atlantic salmon, you know, and there’s a lot of ocean because we fish for it’s interesting. 00;34;45;22 – 00;35;01;21 Dave And here we have to kind of we have winter steelhead in summer steelhead and winter storm or those cold water fish that they’re they’re down deeper. You got to get to them. But some are steelhead. I mean, you can fish and they come up to the surface like for a fly. And so they’re more similar, I think, to Atlantic Atlantic salmon. 00;35;01;21 – 00;35;06;00 Dave Right. And some of those places you’ve probably heard of them, you know, the Dean River, the Deschutes. 00;35;06;09 – 00;35;06;20 Emilie Places. 00;35;06;20 – 00;35;21;03 Dave Where they have summers. Right. The fish that go away in. But I think it’s we see similar declines. I mean, it’s happening right now, the ups and downs and we’re kind of like, okay, what’s going on? You know, how do we make a difference? What do you think is the big thing when you look at that? How do people listening, how can they help? 00;35;21;16 – 00;35;30;03 Dave You know, I know that watching the videos is good because. You kind of get knowledgeable about what’s going on. But what would you tell somebody if they feel like they’re kind of stuck, like there’s nothing they can do? What would you tell them? 00;35;30;18 – 00;35;57;18 Emilie I mean, it’s difficult to do it all, but everyone can do something. So I guess just connect with your local fishermen. Like like you mentioned. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And management that you have in your area, what to, like, connect on on your home waters and what you can do there. I think that’s a good start. Yep. 00;35;57;29 – 00;36;13;27 Dave So connect to the local groups and they’re, they’re likely have people on staff that know what’s going on and you can maybe do some volunteer work, you know, river cleanups, you know, I know in Missouri you did you’re on the we talked about the Missouri at the start. We’re working on it. We’re doing a big river cleanup this year and doing stuff. 00;36;14;11 – 00;36;33;07 Dave Right. And I feel like that’s kind of a cool way to get people involved in education. Right. Just to realize, you know, maybe it’s not going to save the salmon or the fish necessarily, you know, in one shot. But it’s it’s getting more people out on the water to understand there is a problem. I think some people. Do you feel like that in Sweden, you know, that some people don’t even realize there’s a problem? 00;36;33;21 – 00;37;07;00 Emilie Absolutely. I mean, when my mom saw the episode we did in Sweden where we were talking about dams and how like building dams and how big trout population in whole Sweden have disappeared because of dams. And my mom didn’t have a clue that. Yeah, just so I mean, it’s not easy. It’s easy for us that are so involved and read and reading and watching everything about play fishing. 00;37;07;10 – 00;37;34;00 Emilie But people that maybe don’t play fish know this kind of stuff. So I think it’s important to get out there and inspire, to get out there and be by the water, because I think when we start, maybe stop fishing and being outside and you know who will be there, maybe they build a dam instead, you know. So I really believe in in just connecting. 00;37;35;25 – 00;37;58;04 Dave Quick shout out to today’s sponsor. AVC Rig, They’re the team in Loveland, Colorado, turning regular into full blown adventure machines, looking for a full build from the ground up, or just their killer aluminum cabinetry and storage systems. AVC Rig helps you create a set up that’s lightweight, rock solid and built for life on the road, perfect for anyone chasing fish and wild places. 00;37;58;17 – 00;38;15;03 Dave And here’s the best part They’ll be at the Denver fly fishing show so you can step inside the rigs, meet the crew and see what makes their work. So dialed in, stop by, say hi and let them know you heard about them on the web by Swing podcast. And if you want to learn more right now and start planning your dream rig, go to. 00;38;15;03 – 00;38;42;05 Dave AVC Rig Icon, that’s. AVC Rig dot com, Albert Victor Conrad Rig Ecom. AVC Rig. Check them out Now. Trial results by Onyx is built for fly anglers who want better intel without spending hours. Digging for the information, you’ll get access to public land maps, stream access points, regulations and even road and trail maps all in one place. It’s become my go to app for scouting new trips. 00;38;42;05 – 00;39;02;26 Dave You can check them out right now. Go to west by swing dot com slash trout roots and download the app today. Well you mentioned Emily with the kids. I have a couple of kids 12 and 14 and I find that a struggle for me because I you know, they’ve been outdoors I mean they were when they were six months old, we had them on in the boat, on the water, you know, very kind of extreme, trying to. 00;39;03;28 – 00;39;04;03 Emilie Sort. 00;39;04;03 – 00;39;20;26 Dave Of always love the outdoor. Right. And but but I feel like for me, it’s a struggle now that they’re this age that they and I’m like trying to educate them on and give them some hope. You know, I feel like that’s a great thing. What do you tell your kids, Emily? Or maybe I tell I’m not sure. You know, just like, how do you give the kids hope? 00;39;20;26 – 00;39;24;10 Dave What do you tell them to realize, Wow, the world isn’t going to blow up tomorrow? 00;39;25;03 – 00;39;58;25 Emilie Exactly. I don’t I think I mean, just being outside and be by the rivers and be in the forest and maybe make them sit down on the couch and watch an episode once in a while and like, yeah, show them. And like here in Sweden, like a couple of months ago, they invented a new word, bio phobic. That means that you are scared of nature or discussed by nature. 00;39;58;25 – 00;40;23;28 Emilie Yeah. So I think it’s more important than ever to connect your kids to the outdoor because the future generation, you know. And. Yeah, yeah, but I, my niece, she’s 14 and she loves our serious and watch it all over again and she says that Yeah so I, I feel really hopeful for next generation then. 00;40;24;04 – 00;40;24;18 Dave Cool. 00;40;25;19 – 00;40;38;26 Emilie And I think fly fishing is just awesome way to connect to the outdoors you know and you don’t have to catch fish. I mean just be outside learning and kill the bugs and yeah. 00;40;39;09 – 00;40;56;19 Dave I think that’s what’s cool about, you know, again, we’re trying to make sure these fish don’t go extinct and stuff like that. But it’s interesting, you know, you don’t have to catch. That’s the cool thing about salmon and steelhead. I feel like a lot of people, you know, of course, catching the fish is a goal, but if you’re out there just working on your space casts, you know, sometimes that’s all you right? 00;40;56;19 – 00;41;04;05 Dave I feel like that’s a that’s kind of cool. A cool part of fly fishing is that you don’t have to, you know, catch a fish or a bunch of fish to have a good time. That’s what you’re saying. 00;41;04;16 – 00;41;06;28 Emilie Um hum. Percent. Yeah. 00;41;07;00 – 00;41;24;29 Dave Cool. Well, this is good. I never biofeedback. That’s definitely a1i haven’t really thought about or heard much, but. But yeah, I guess it makes sense with the kids these days, with all the devices and, and all that stuff. But. Well, I don’t want to know. I think we’ve got a little bit of time here. I want to make sure I don’t miss anything. 00;41;24;29 – 00;41;38;04 Dave So on the shows, you know, obviously, you know, we have we’re going to be able to watch everything now. But what would you tell somebody listening now if they haven’t seen the any of the programs? You know, that we haven’t covered today? What would you like them to know? The highlight here? 00;41;38;19 – 00;41;40;03 Emilie Wow. Yeah. 00;41;40;05 – 00;41;56;12 Dave I mean, I know it’s a you know, when I go into this, Ted, but I go to these podcasts, you know, I have this struggle of like, I want to there’s so much to talk about and it’s always good to focus it. You know, I feel like today we focused it a little bit right on Sweden. And what we have going, which I’m interested in. 00;41;56;12 – 00;42;08;24 Dave I mean, I like I said, I think that the Sweden thing is interesting because we hear a lot about Norway in private waters and how you have to be rich to fish, but what we’ve learned is Sweden actually has public waters, which is exciting. People can go for their own fish. 00;42;09;10 – 00;42;09;19 Emilie Yeah. 00;42;10;02 – 00;42;11;13 Ted Yeah, that’s the best part. 00;42;11;13 – 00;42;29;09 Dave So but yeah, I don’t know. What do you think? Is that a is there anything, you know, high level like that would be a big thing. I would want to make sure people didn’t miss, you know, that there are opportunities to fish in, you know, in Sweden, Norway. We’ve talked about a number of things. I think we’ve hit on a little bit of where you guys have gone in the first six shows in the series. 00;42;29;22 – 00;42;34;24 Dave But is there anything else big we’ve missed that you want to let people know, you know, before they go over and watch these things. 00;42;35;06 – 00;43;11;01 Emilie That we are continuing doing episodes and being out there? Yeah, and we are releasing the Italy one now in April and then yeah, we are going to do plenty of more episode this year and if we survive, we will continue next year. I hope you’re doing it so. That’s right. And I have a feeling that maybe I hope I’m wrong, but that we need more fly fishers in the world. 00;43;11;15 – 00;43;19;06 Emilie And I hope that the Syrians inspire people to get out there and yeah, go deeper into nature. 00;43;19;17 – 00;43;20;03 Dave Definitely. 00;43;20;24 – 00;44;01;29 Ted And I think I mean it’s we are super grateful with the feedback that’s having, you know, reaching us from, from viewers that they, you know, really like, like the stories and the format and the, you know, Yeah, I mean, that that’s what makes it all all worth it. All the struggles in a way that that people, you know, you get the feeling that people are are appreciating it then you know it maybe even as Emily said, you know being inspired by it and in some way, it’s it’s super rewarding. 00;44;01;29 – 00;44;02;17 Ted Definitely. 00;44;02;24 – 00;44;18;15 Dave That’s huge. What is the when you started the project finishing the first season, did it change or evolve quite a bit from what your initial concept was getting into it, or is it pretty much how it turned out, kind of how you you kind of saw it as you were writing those scripts? 00;44;18;27 – 00;44;46;06 Ted Yeah, I think that’s a super interesting question and but I think it’s I mean, the kind of vision that that we had before, you know, taking the the experience from the other production that we have done in the past and just, you know, cherry picking the things that we liked from those and trying to put it into today’s concept, I think it it turned out pretty much as we would have hoped. 00;44;46;06 – 00;45;09;05 Ted I think I think it pretty much aligned with with the vision at least what I saw in in front of me then. I definitely think that we hugely underestimated the amount of work that you have you have to do for it’s kind of exponential. I mean, if you do want one episode or one film, that’s I mean, that’s kind of an isolated thing. 00;45;09;05 – 00;45;26;12 Ted But if you do six and you have to, you know, you have to write script when you’re editing and you have to do it location scouting and talent search, I mean, it’s it’s kind of gets exponentially in that way. And I think that was and it came as a little bit of a surprise. 00;45;26;22 – 00;45;32;12 Emilie But it is so much fun it is fun. It’s not Oh, yes, we need to say that. 00;45;32;17 – 00;45;51;07 Dave Yeah, you’re doing this amazing thing. You’re traveling the world and doing things, but now I hear you. It’s similar for us. You know, I think that we have a we have almost a daily interview podcast, which if you ask me why. Yeah, I think if you ask anybody, I don’t think anybody’s even close to doing that. But it’s and these are not just short snippets. 00;45;51;07 – 00;46;11;25 Dave These are full length episodes like we’re doing. So for me it was always a little bit of goal, but the work to get there know, and you write, it takes a lot. You’re in the middle of it during the week and you’re like, Oh, okay, yeah, almost. I go back to this book that I’ve really loved. It’s called the I’ve said this quite a bit on the podcast, but the the war of arts, you know, the power of art. 00;46;11;25 – 00;46;26;22 Dave And so Steven Press feel right. This is kind of a famous but he, he basically said, you know, anything you love that you want to be successful and you’ve got to be almost like a marine, like a military person. You got to be able to take the abuse, you know, and wake up early every morning even when you don’t want to. 00;46;26;23 – 00;46;38;12 Dave And you’re sick. You got to be able to like this guy literally lived out of his car for like like ten years because he was a struggling writer. But guess what? Eventually he wrote a book that became a movie and he became rich, you know. 00;46;38;22 – 00;46;39;05 Emilie So it’s it’s. 00;46;39;05 – 00;46;51;21 Dave Kind of funny they write. But for me, I think about that because I really like some of these mornings that, you know, are times where you’re like, Oh, man, I don’t feel like doing the work, but you’re like, You know what? That’s what pros do. Prose get up and do the work. Exactly. Do you feel like I think that’s kind of what you’re talking about, right? 00;46;51;21 – 00;47;00;29 Dave You guys have done the work, but it’s pretty rewarding. Does it? How does it feel now where you’re at when you now see these these shows that are out there? What’s that feel like for both of you now as you look back on it? 00;47;01;09 – 00;47;30;17 Emilie I am super proud. I mean, I’m super proud of Ted. I mean, because it’s a he’s. Yeah, but steady. I give you some stuff, but he’s he like Ted is walking around with that heavy backpack and this camera 24 seven when we’re out and that we managed to get it together in some way we get Yeah it’s and the great feedback so I am super proud of what we have done together with Lupe. 00;47;30;25 – 00;47;45;01 Dave What about you? That’s pretty awesome, I’m sure to hear. What what’s it like for you? I feel like the what you’re doing this, it’s all kind of this artistic thing, but for you, is it just easy for you to go out there and get the shot? Or does it? You have to work this to find that shot, You know what I mean? 00;47;45;01 – 00;47;53;03 Dave Because for me, you know, I got a phone in my pocket. I’m like, Oh man, how do I get even a photo, a snapshot of a good face? Like, is that come easy to you? 00;47;53;15 – 00;48;01;15 Ted No, definitely not. I actually yes. When you were talking, I placed an order for that book devoid of art, because it really resonated with me. 00;48;02;02 – 00;48;03;16 Emilie I love it. You know, I love it. 00;48;03;24 – 00;48;04;12 Ted I think it’s. 00;48;04;12 – 00;48;18;20 Dave Just going to make you feel good because you’re going to you’re going to realize, oh, okay. When I feel like that, it’s it’s okay. That’s what that’s who that’s put in the work. He calls it this things. He calls it his muse. You know, it’s this thing in the back of your head that everybody has that says you’re not good enough, you’re not good enough. 00;48;18;20 – 00;48;27;19 Dave You can’t. Why should you be the one that makes a video for Lupe, you know, And he keeps telling you that. But you’ve got to battle through that resistance. Then once you get through, the resistance is when you get there. 00;48;28;02 – 00;48;28;19 Emilie Wow. 00;48;28;20 – 00;48;29;21 Ted I love. 00;48;29;22 – 00;48;30;28 Dave Yeah, that’s pretty cool. Yeah. 00;48;30;28 – 00;48;56;15 Ted You know, but I think it’s I am just super, super grateful for that, of course. And proud of Emily as well, I think. And I always said to emulate, I think she is kind of one of our one of a kind in the fly fishing industry. I think he’s totally unique. So so be able to work with her is really, really fulfilling in every, every sense of the word. 00;48;56;15 – 00;49;18;12 Ted And then I also think that it’s so it’s kind of a beautiful thing when you have this incredible people that we get to portray it on, on camera and they are kind of, you know, they are lending us their, you know, life achievements in a way. Yeah. I mean, they’ve been fly fishing for, you know, their whole life and have been learning so much along their journey. 00;49;18;19 – 00;49;35;12 Ted And we get to portray that. And then I think that’s that’s actually one of the, you know, the biggest pressure that I think we feel that we need to make these people justice. We want to make them proud if they feel, you know, oh, this is not really or did I come off like that? 00;49;35;12 – 00;49;36;03 Emilie Right. 00;49;36;16 – 00;49;51;03 Ted That would be awful. So so I think that’s when when you get, you know, a thumbs up from from a Simon shoe or Yvonne then then it’s that feels really, really good. 00;49;51;12 – 00;49;59;03 Dave It feels good when you get it when you got you got it right you know that you know you’re getting the feedback right People are telling you’re hearing it from people saying, Yeah, you got you did it. You got it, right? 00;49;59;13 – 00;50;06;09 Ted Yeah, yeah. I mean, like we didn’t we didn’t mess up, but I think that’s. Yeah, that’s kind of Yes. 00;50;07;01 – 00;50;10;10 Emilie Yes that’s true. Yeah. 00;50;10;20 – 00;50;35;17 Dave Well I think that, you know Emily question I have, you know, before we get out of here a little bit I think is really one we don’t always talk about, but I think it’s out there. And you as a female angler, I think is probably a great person to talk about. We’ve talked a lot about it in the U.S. because like all of us had this 5050, you know, campaign trying to get women more women out on the water because it was always this fly fishing, at least in the U.S., has always been like this old white guy thing. 00;50;35;17 – 00;50;49;09 Dave You know, it’s it’s the old white guy. Right? But like, not as much diversity, not as many women, all that, but I think we’ve done some good things here. What’s that do you think about that at all from your perspective? Are there more women getting involved in fly fishing around the world in Sweden? 00;50;49;21 – 00;51;29;01 Emilie Yeah. I mean, yeah, absolutely. I mean, when I started the Sportfishing Academy in To Become a Guide 2012 or 11 before social media, there was Yeah. And you saw no female anglers in magazine or blogs or the only women sailfish I found in blogs on website was April Vokey Now, really, right? April Yeah, yeah. But no one in Sweden it was so difficult to find other and the class I went to like a sport fishing academy in Sweden. 00;51;29;01 – 00;51;52;19 Emilie It’s a two year academy where you learn how to. Yeah, guiding and tourism and conservation and how to start your own business. And in that class it was me and 25 guys, right? Wow. Yeah. And, and that was a shock for me because I, I grew up with my parents both mom and dad fishing a lot since I grew up. 00;51;52;19 – 00;52;26;28 Emilie So I got so surprised when I started the school. So I after school, I started my own business doing classes for only women and yeah, and that was in 2013. And so many women just showed up and and wanted to do the fly tying courses and casting. And I did guiding trips and yes, like I had to say no because it was something I knew women would want to get involved. 00;52;26;28 – 00;52;55;11 Emilie So I think something is changing now. I see more and more women getting into fly fishing. Absolutely. Yeah. But it’s it’s still a lot of work that has had to be done in magazines, in films and. Right. Everything, I think, super important. And I think it’s even more important that I mean that everyone is fly fishers see it more like that and not a woman that is fly fishing. 00;52;55;14 – 00;52;56;07 Dave Yeah, exactly. 00;52;56;11 – 00;53;08;07 Emilie Yeah. So I think it’s we are getting there but it’s in so it’s awesome with all the different classes and things happening right now. 100%. 00;53;08;14 – 00;53;17;28 Dave Right, right. That’s the other cool thing about what you have going is that since you’ve been doing this, you’re inspiring. Yeah. Lots of, I’m sure, new female anglers out there, Right. Who watch the video and. 00;53;18;28 – 00;53;19;18 Emilie So. 00;53;19;19 – 00;53;20;23 Dave We’ll get into it. Yeah. 00;53;21;02 – 00;53;31;15 Emilie Yeah. And both my daughters are totally into fishing, so hopefully they also want to continue the journey. Gotcha. We need more. 00;53;31;23 – 00;53;40;13 Dave Yeah, we do. We definitely do. And Ted, what about you? We. It sounds like Emily’s been got started with her parents. How did you get started in Fly fishing? Have you been doing doing this a while? 00;53;40;29 – 00;54;01;10 Ted Oh, yes, I. I think if you grow up in the north, northern part of Sweden, you don’t really, you know, there’s not really a choice. So you don’t really reflect on whether you’re going fishing or not. So I think, you know, I’ve been fishing all my life and I think I was like, you know, 13, 14 when I got into to fly fishing and and that around. 00;54;01;11 – 00;54;10;17 Ted Actually, it’s kind of funny that we went to the same school, me and Emily, that the Academy. But I did it like ten years before. 00;54;10;18 – 00;54;10;27 Emilie For. 00;54;12;07 – 00;54;43;02 Ted So I’m much older and the, and the yeah I started working as a guide in the year 2000 and then, you know, got into writing and photography for for magazines and even worked as an editor for a fly fishing magazine in Scandinavia for a while and then somehow, you know, turned into videography further on. And so I think fly fishing is yeah, it’s been, you know, the constant of all my life. 00;54;43;02 – 00;55;02;11 Ted It’s taken different different approaches to it. Yeah. And I’m really happy that I nowadays don’t pick up and pick up the camera instead of the of the rods. I think it’s a it’s a nice ride that this No, no pressure on me. Somebody else is going to do the work in the field of it. It’s perfect. 00;55;03;07 – 00;55;21;14 Dave Exactly. That’s cool, right? Well, give us a couple. I always like to get a couple of tips out of, you know, as we’re in here on fishing, what is the species it sounds like obviously, Atlantic salmon. That’s kind of your home waters. Maybe give us a tip. Let’s start with you, Emily. Like anything we’re going like I said, we’re going to Mountain Waters Resort. 00;55;21;19 – 00;55;31;07 Dave We’re going to Newfoundland, which is not far from Labrador there across the, you know, and and it’s going to be my first trip. What would you tell me to have a better chance at catching one of those fish on a dry fly? 00;55;31;20 – 00;55;42;02 Emilie Oh, wow. Okay. I have only found that once. But you know, it’s really interesting because I was fishing with Yvonne and Mauro. 00;55;42;02 – 00;55;44;06 Dave Oh, you were all. You’re fishing with Yvonne John. 00;55;44;13 – 00;55;50;19 Emilie Yes. And he gave. Oh, that’s cool. Yeah. He gave me a little tiny flip. 00;55;50;25 – 00;55;54;10 Dave Oh he did. So you fished one of his little pheasant tail flies? 00;55;54;12 – 00;56;07;14 Emilie Yes. Yes. And I caught salmon on that too. And on the other cast, I was casting a big bomber and I was catching a segment of that, too. So that’s I mean, it’s all good. 00;56;07;16 – 00;56;11;24 Dave What was the advice that Yvonne, what did he give you? Did he give you any advice? Did he tell you anything? 00;56;11;24 – 00;56;35;20 Emilie Oh, plenty of many. He didn’t. Yeah, he would fishing that fly. He was like almost flicking it a bit. I remember giving like the fly some movements and some movement. Right? Yeah. And because I never thought I would catch a salmon on that tiny fly, you know? Yeah. So that was super cool. 00;56;35;23 – 00;56;40;01 Dave Was it like a small little, like a size like ten or 12 or something like that or. 00;56;40;09 – 00;56;42;27 Emilie Yeah, yeah, I guess that’s maybe smaller even. 00;56;43;00 – 00;56;45;02 Dave Yeah, yeah, maybe so. I was like a trout fly. 00;56;45;02 – 00;57;16;08 Emilie Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think it was in that size. Yeah. And also, Yvonne, I learned a lot fishing with Yvonne tomorrow because they are very about the details about fishing. The right streamline of the water next to the rock. Okay, there is the salmon. Bam. There You go, guys. So very thorough with the cast and not doing like I do sometimes when I fish in Sweden, I just max out and just push it double handed. 00;57;16;26 – 00;57;28;21 Emilie Yeah, yeah. But yeah, yeah. So just read the water before you start fishing. Yeah, I think especially in those smaller waters. Yeah, I think that’s important. 00;57;29;00 – 00;57;43;12 Dave Yeah, that’s a great tip. Basically we’ve heard that quite a bit. The fact that Yeah, you don’t want to just cast out there and swing the fly, you know, cast and swing how you want to actually focus on trying to fish the fly. Right. Know what it’s doing under there. Try to find that scene where you think that fish is. 00;57;43;22 – 00;57;44;05 Emilie Yeah. 00;57;44;05 – 00;57;56;09 Dave And then fish the fly. Right. That’s kind of. That’s awesome. Exactly cool. And what about you, Ted? Do you have a tip for us on it? Could be, you know, Sweden, if your home waters are for out there for for salmon, what would you tell us? 00;57;56;11 – 00;58;01;08 Ted Well, I know I got some really good time to think about. 00;58;01;22 – 00;58;03;06 Emilie Yeah, I have really good. 00;58;03;06 – 00;58;29;26 Ted Tip for you. And I didn’t come up with anything. I reflected on that. How sloppy. I’m getting it at fishing. You know, I. I a small river just on the back side of my house and 20 minutes to one of Sweden’s best rivers. And. And I kind of set up the rod with in May, and then I just leave it basically with the same fly throughout the season. 00;58;29;26 – 00;58;31;02 Emilie You do? That’s cool. Yeah. 00;58;31;08 – 00;58;42;24 Ted It’s it’s it’s terrible. I think. So. Instead of giving you a tip, I would make you a promise that the year of 2026, I will start changing some of and I can get back to you. 00;58;43;04 – 00;58;43;20 Dave Oh good. 00;58;43;28 – 00;58;47;21 Ted After the season we just do that. If. If a fly worked. 00;58;48;02 – 00;58;54;27 Dave Yeah. No, let’s circle back around after you finish this next season of the series and we’ll see how you did with your changing up the flies. 00;58;55;09 – 00;58;58;11 Ted Yeah, I’m sorry I couldn’t be more. More of a help, dear. 00;58;58;14 – 00;58;59;16 Emilie No, I’m good. 00;59;00;05 – 00;59;02;02 Ted I will keep my fingers crossed, though. 00;59;02;02 – 00;59;19;04 Dave Yeah, Yeah, definitely. Definitely not. Great. Well, am I always love to have a random question in here today. You know, you’re doing video production. Maybe Ted will stick with you on this. Are you have you listen to other podcasts? Are you a podcast listener at all or do you listen? Like if you’re on a on a trip, do you listen to more music or podcasts? 00;59;19;21 – 00;59;37;13 Ted Actually listening to quite a lot podcasts. And I actually been doing some some research on on there. But when we do research, I listen to your podcast because you have such a huge library, basically. Yeah. Basically everybody that you wander is, is in there somewhere. 00;59;37;20 – 00;59;55;02 Dave Just about we have we’ve been close to, you know, we’ve talked about a number of the people Yvonne has been on. That was pretty amazing to have him on then. But Goran Andersson, he’s a guy we actually I talked to him on email. Yeah. And then we lost track of him. So hopefully we still got a few big names of people we’re going to get on here, so hopefully we can track down Goran again. 00;59;55;05 – 00;59;55;26 Ted Yeah, Yeah, that. 00;59;56;05 – 00;59;57;20 Dave That’s great to hear. So podcasts. Yeah. 00;59;57;28 – 00;59;59;02 Ted Yeah, definitely. 00;59;59;04 – 01;00;05;10 Dave What about do you have a podcast other than the fly fishing related that you listen to out there. Yeah. Or a genre. 01;00;05;20 – 01;00;24;12 Ted Hey, I’ve got a this is kind of a guilty pleasure. It’s it’s I’m, I’m listening listening to a, you know podcast about video games. Okay. I never, I never play video. Yeah, I haven’t played a video game since I was like 18. Oh, really? But I still, you know, identify myself as a gamer, especially in front of my kids. 01;00;24;28 – 01;00;34;00 Ted So I, you know, keep keeping track of what they are doing, rising to podcasts about video game, then I can be quite honest, I think. 01;00;34;09 – 01;00;41;24 Dave Yeah. So the podcast about video games, is it just kind of give you a like what the kids are listening, are watching now what they’re playing at the video games? Is that kind of what it’s about? 01;00;42;05 – 01;00;44;17 Ted Yeah, yeah. I’m trying to be down with the kids. 01;00;44;17 – 01;00;45;27 Dave Yeah. There you go. Awesome. 01;00;46;20 – 01;00;48;11 Ted I’m not. I don’t think I am though. 01;00;48;17 – 01;00;56;23 Dave No, no, that’s a funny thing about as you get older, you feel like you’re still you’re still there and you’re like, Oh, I’m actually that to them, we’re just old people, you know? That’s the funny. 01;00;56;23 – 01;00;58;07 Emilie Thing. Yeah. 01;00;58;12 – 01;01;03;21 Dave How about you, Emily? What’s your are you listen to more music or podcasts when you’re out there on the road? 01;01;04;03 – 01;01;14;12 Emilie It depends, of course, but I love listening to podcasts. I love yours, David. I mean, I could say you have so many great people on board. 01;01;15;11 – 01;01;23;29 Dave We need more on your side of the pond. That’s all I always joke about. We have a lot we’ve had a lot of interviews, but again, we need more. I guess I’ll maybe keep in touch with you to find some more good guest. 01;01;24;01 – 01;01;56;15 Emilie Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hundred percent. Okay. But I mean, yeah, so. So your podcast is really, really good. The one I fished with same issue. Oh yeah. In Montana and in New Zealand. Yeah. So that was a really good one. And the one you did with Nick and Keith Honeycutt was really. Yeah that’s right. And yeah, but I don’t so I only listen to Fly Fishing podcast or a little bit of hunting because of course I hunt the lot. 01;01;56;16 – 01;01;58;13 Emilie Oh, you do. And I don’t fish. Yeah, yeah. 01;01;58;13 – 01;02;01;01 Dave Are you hunting for what’s the one, the species or the animal? 01;02;01;06 – 01;02;15;24 Emilie A moose. Oh, moose. Yeah. Wow. That’s cool. So I live in live in a in a little forest village. We have, like 400 people, so all we can do is fish, fish and hunt and cross skiing. 01;02;16;03 – 01;02;17;11 Dave That’s so cool. 01;02;17;12 – 01;02;18;06 Emilie Yeah. Wow. 01;02;18;28 – 01;02;25;08 Dave And you got any have moose. And moose are good, right, Mouser? You’ve got. You want to get one of those for the freezer. Right. That’s good tasting meat. 01;02;25;20 – 01;02;32;00 Emilie Yeah, it is. I mean we so I hunt during the fall and then I have meat for the whole year. 01;02;32;07 – 01;02;33;24 Dave There you go. There you go. Cool. 01;02;34;14 – 01;02;53;12 Ted And I think you should also mention, of course, that have the playlist on Spotify for for the production. We, we, we started it in, in Montana and now we asked you know we keep adding songs to it and it’s I think if you just follow our state of mind we’ve been feeling Yes. 01;02;53;12 – 01;02;55;05 Dave Oh, so you have a playlist on Spotify? 01;02;55;16 – 01;02;56;13 Emilie Yeah, we do. 01;02;56;22 – 01;02;59;12 Dave Is it a public Is it public playlist? Can we can you listen? 01;02;59;12 – 01;03;01;10 Ted Do I think we should make it public? 01;03;01;20 – 01;03;07;01 Emilie Yeah, Yeah, we should. Let’s hear it. And the name is the Wagoner’s. 01;03;07;01 – 01;03;07;28 Dave The Wagoner’s? 01;03;08;11 – 01;03;14;22 Ted Yeah. Yeah. It’s because I don’t. Is it the. We had the Wagoneer as a rental. Maybe we were in Montana. 01;03;14;22 – 01;03;16;03 Dave We had a Wagoneer. There you go. 01;03;16;03 – 01;03;19;07 Ted Yeah. Yeah. We really fell in love with it and. Yeah. 01;03;19;07 – 01;03;23;06 Dave How seriously, how is that Wagoneer that I remember that. That looks like a pretty nice vehicle. Pretty good. 01;03;23;06 – 01;03;23;22 Emilie Well we. 01;03;25;07 – 01;03;26;13 Ted It’s, we named. 01;03;26;13 – 01;03;27;20 Emilie Our season on the road. 01;03;27;20 – 01;03;28;11 Ted They Wagoneer. 01;03;29;03 – 01;03;30;29 Dave There you go. I love that And it’s so good. 01;03;31;22 – 01;03;35;13 Emilie Yes We have a really good playlist of the Wagoneer. 01;03;35;17 – 01;03;40;01 Ted Yes to everything from and yeah to Rage against the Machine though. 01;03;40;02 – 01;04;01;17 Dave This is perfect. Oh this is a great way to end it because for a couple of reasons. First of all, we love music, so we’ll get hopefully we can change that to public so people can listen to it when they go out to hear some wagon years. And then the I love the Wagoneer too, because my dad, I’m not sure if you know, when I was a little kid, we always had these Jeep made a Wagoneer, the Jeep Wagoneer, it was called the Jeep Wagoneer and it was a a car that people loved my whole life. 01;04;01;17 – 01;04;22;12 Dave We had these wagon years and then and then it went away in the eighties or whatever the year was. And then also this Wagoneer that you guys drove comes out and it’s like $100,000 vehicle, right? This giant. I’m like, okay, I’m probably not going to get a Wagoneer. So I’m kind of living vicariously through you guys today. I wonder if you would recommend one that if you if you could afford it, that would be a good rig to get. 01;04;22;18 – 01;04;28;21 Ted I mean, just for the record, it’s so far away from from the kind of vehicle that normal travel in something. 01;04;28;22 – 01;04;34;17 Emilie Yeah, exactly. It’s a get that straight out. Yes. But it was a cool wagon. 01;04;34;22 – 01;04;45;27 Dave It was cool to have. Yeah. I think you got to see even when you travel a little bit, I feel like it’s it’s okay to splurge, you know, to kind of take a couple of things if, you know, if you got a little extra money, take that that better seat on the flight. Right. 01;04;45;27 – 01;04;49;05 Emilie What’s that pretty. So. Okay. 01;04;49;22 – 01;05;11;01 Dave Well, good. So we got some music out of this. And like you said, I think we could leave it there today. We’ll send everybody out to wild fish, wild places on YouTube. Emily Bjorkman They can track that down there. And then, yeah, this has been amazing. Really appreciate you both coming on here today and I’m excited to follow the journey and we’ll be we’ll be watching those here today and this week as we go out here. 01;05;11;01 – 01;05;12;04 Dave So thanks for all your time. 01;05;12;16 – 01;05;13;00 Ted Thank you. 01;05;13;08 – 01;05;14;05 Emilie Thank you, Dave. 01;05;16;03 – 01;05;34;27 Dave All right. If you want, check in with Emily or Ted, head over to wild fish, Wild places on YouTube. Let them know you heard this podcast. We love that as well. Check in with a loop tackle. You can do that now left tackle dot com. And if you’re interested in connecting with us, we fly swing pro We just had a new cohort come in. 01;05;34;27 – 01;05;55;01 Dave We’re excited to be digging into all the content there You can go to Wi-Fi swing dot com slash pro you can sign up there and we’ll let you know when we open this thing back up and we’re excited to be jumping into all the content here. Also want to give you a big heads up. We have a big kickoff for fishing expeditions, the Alaska Trip and Conservation event that we’re doing this year. 01;05;55;21 – 01;06;12;09 Dave Salmon states to sit in the river Coalition. If you’re interested in checking in with that fish out exhibitions always doing great work up there in Alaska. They’ve got the road system cover. They’re doing some amazing stuff. Stay tuned. Next week, we’re going to be doing a giveaway. Your chance to win a spot up to fish down this year. 01;06;12;18 – 01;06;24;25 Dave All right. I got to get out of here. Really enjoy this one. I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope you’re having a good morning, afternoon or evening, no matter where you are in the world. And look forward to talking to you on the next episode. Well, we’ll see you then. 01;06;25;14 – 01;06;39;04 Emilie Thanks for listening to the wet fly Swing fly fishing show for notes and links from this episode. Visit Wet Fly, swing, Dotcom.

Conclusion

This episode highlights how fly fishing connects people across countries, cultures, and species. Emilie and Ted show that while every river is different, the challenges facing fisheries are often the same. Through Wild Fish, Wild Places, they’re helping anglers understand those challenges while inspiring more people to get involved. In the end, the biggest takeaway is simple: meaningful change starts locally, one river and one community at a time.

     

919 | Inside the Minds of World Champion Fly Casters with Whitney Gould, Rick Hartman & Kalyn Hoggard

In this episode, we go inside the minds of world champion fly casters Whitney Gould, Rick Hartman, and Kalyn Hoggard to break down what really separates good from elite.

We talk about the World Fly Casting Championships, what it takes to carry 80+ feet of line in the air, and the biggest mistakes most anglers make when trying to cast farther.

Hit play to start listening! 👇🏻🎧

apple podcasts

Find the show:  Follow the Show | Overcast | Spotify

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe on Android

Subscribe via RSS

(The full episode transcript is at the bottom of this blogpost) 👇🏻

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

World Champion Fly Casters

Show Notes with Whitney Gould, Kalyn Hoggard, and Rick Hartman

Have you ever stopped and thought about how the people throwing the farthest aren’t actually trying harder? They’re doing less. Less tension, less force, less wasted movement — and somehow they’re getting way more line speed, control, and distance out of it.

I’m excited for this one because we have three of the best fly casters in the world today. This is our chance to hear directly from them and see what it really takes to get to that level.

About our Guests

[02:26] Rick Hartman guides for redfish on the lower Laguna Madre in South Texas. He got into casting competitions kind of by accident. He says he had to “perform poorly for a couple of years” before figuring things out.

Kalyn Hoggard has been taking the competition side seriously for about a year now. He does some guiding, but his main focus is helping people get better at casting. He runs virtual lesson programs with Marty McVey.

Whitney Gould started out guiding for salmon and trout in Alaska about fifteen years ago, then made her way to Craig, Montana, where she focused on trout Spey. She’s now back in Idaho guiding for steelhead and swinging flies.

What Is Competitive Fly Casting

[5:45] Rick says the easiest way to understand fly casting competitions is to relate them back to fishing. The most familiar events are Spey casting and the five-weight game, since those are the closest to what most anglers already do.

Once you get into shooting head events with grain weights and different setups, it gets more technical and harder to relate to everyday fishing.

Kalyn explains that five out of the six events are distance, where you stand on the line and cast as far as you can, and only one event focuses on targets and accuracy.

Kalyn with Steve Raejeff and Henry Mittel
Photo via https://theflyroad.com/

Men vs Women in Fly Casting

(07:41) I asked whether fly casting is one of those areas where it doesn’t really matter if you’re a man or a woman.

Whitney explains that power can help, like when you’re throwing a big Clouser 50 feet versus a dry fly. But it’s not about brute force. It’s about how and when you apply that power.

She says it comes down to line speed and being quick and precise. She compares it to watching a basketball player move fast and deliver with accuracy. If you can pick up the line and put it where you want it, that’s what makes it an even playing field.

The 170-Degree Cast

World champion fly casters
Photo via https://www.instagram.com/fishwithrick2028/

[12:04] Rick says he didn’t invent anything. He was just trying to fix what he was doing wrong. Early on, he was using way too much brute force and ended up with a bad case of tennis elbow.

So he started casting with his hand as open and relaxed as possible. He did that for nearly a year, and somehow, his distance improved. 

That’s where the long stroke and wide arc started and what Paul Arden later called the 170-degree cast.

Check out this slow-motion video of the 170-degree cast:

Carrying 80+ Feet of Line

Whitney says the biggest challenge is moving from Spey to 5-weight distance. Instead of just shooting line, you have to carry and control a lot of it in the air, and do it with fewer false casts.

She says that at around 80+ feet, it can feel like a “big noodle” out there.

Rick adds that once you’re holding that much line, everything gets very technical. One small mistake in timing or tracking and the cast falls apart.

Kalyn says cold weather makes it even harder, since the line gets stiff and coily, which affects control and accuracy.

Accuracy in Casting Competition

Whitney says you can’t just start practicing accuracy a couple of months before and expect it to work.

In competition, you’re:

  • Hitting 16 targets
  • In 5 minutes
  • While dealing with pressure and distractions

Rick compares it to hitting a golf shot in front of a crowd. Easy when you’re alone. Different when it counts. Kalyn adds that practicing indoors helped him improve his accuracy.

World Champion Fly Casters -Whitney Gould with Kalyn Hoggard
Whitney Gould with Kalyn Hoggard
Photo via https://www.instagram.com/gouldstandard_flycasting/

The Mental Side of Casting

Whitney says at this level, it’s mostly mental. In fishing, it’s about line management. In competition, it’s more like mental management.
All three of them have worked with Phil Blackmar, who’s known for helping athletes with the mental side of performance.

He says once you step up to perform, pressure kicks in. That’s where the mental side matters. A big part of that is visualizing your best cast and taking a few seconds to breathe before you go.

If you want to hear more from Phil, check out this episode:
854 | PGA Pro Phil Blackmar Applies Tour-Level Precision to Redfish Sight-Fishing

World Championships and Other Competitions

We talked about the World Championships and the different fly casting competitions out there.

Rick says if you break it down by event, the World Championship is the main one for a lot of them. They also mentioned:

  • Spey-O-Rama, which some say is one of the hardest, but it’s not a world championship.
  • Other competitions in Europe, where teams are more organized
  • In the U.S., groups like the American Casting Association run events like the US Open, where international anglers can come compete too.

Gear Setup from World Champion Fly Casters

[35:40] Gear is not one-size-fits-all here, and all three are constantly tweaking. The line is often more important than the rod, especially in Spey and shooting head events.

Whitney’s Setup

  • Lines – Gaelforce Extreme Distance by James Chalmers

Rick’s Setup

Rick’s setup shows how things have changed.

  • Now using an 11 wt rod with a 5 wt line
  • Worked up from 8 wt → 9 wt → 10 wt → 11 wt
  • Stiffer rods help him carry more line and hit longer distances

Rick mentioned that before, you had to use whatever rods were at the event. Now you can bring your own.

Kalyn’s Setup

  • Accuracy rod: around 8’8”–9’ 6 wt
  • Distance: no fixed rod yet
  • Focus is matching the rod to her cast, not forcing one setup

He notes every event needs something different, and finding the right rod is part of the process.

Fly Casting Tips from the Pros

  1. “Fish the fly right away.” (Whitney)
    Don’t wait around. Get the fly in the water as soon as possible.
  2. Stop the rod to present the fly
    Whitney adds that fishing right away only works if you can stop the rod clean.
  3. Don’t break your wrist (Rick)
    This opens the loop, and the wind will punish it.
  4. Have a more abrupt stop (Rick)
    On both the back cast and the forward cast. That’s where a lot of problems come from.
  5. Stay calm on the delivery (Kalyn)
    Even experienced anglers rush, get excited, and blow the cast.
  6. Take your time and place the fly (Kalyn)
    Don’t force it. Just make the cast you’re trying to make.

Connect with our Guests

If you want to connect with them or learn more, here’s where to find them:

Whitney Gould

Instagram: @gouldstandard_flycasting
Email: whitneygouldspey@gmail.com

Rick Hartman

Website:  TexasRedfishAdventures.com
Instagram: @fishwithrick2028

Kalyn Hoggard

Website: TheFlyRoad.com
Instagram: @the_fly_road

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

 

Related Podcast Episodes

Full Podcast Transcript

Episode Transcript
WFS 919 Transcript 00:00:00 Dave: You ever think and realize that the people throwing the farthest aren’t trying harder? They’re actually doing less. Less tension, less force, less wasted movement. But somehow they get way more line speed, control, and distance. Today’s episode is one of those rare conversations where you’ll get behind the scenes with three of the best flight casters in the world, taking us through what actually separates good from elite. Whitney Gould, Katelyn Hoggard, and Rick Hartman are here to break it all down. From the World Championships of casting to what actually carries over in fly fishing. This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast, where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip, and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. We got a big one for you today, Whitney. Katelyn and Rick are going to break down some good stuff. We’re going to hear about the background on the World Casting Fly Championship. We’re gonna find out what it actually takes to hold eighty feet of line in the air without losing control. The biggest mistake almost everyone makes when trying to cast further. We’re going to talk about that today. How relaxing your grip can instantly improve your cast. Uh, Rick goes into a great story here and how this all translate back to better fishing. Whether you’re swinging flies or throwing dry flies out there. We literally have three of the best fly casters in the world on this podcast today, so I hope you enjoy it. Here we go. Whitney Gould, Rick Hartman and Kalen Hoggard. How y’all doing? 00:01:25 Rick: Doing great. Another beautiful day. 00:01:28 Whitney: Fantastic. Thank you. 00:01:30 Dave: Right on. Well this has been uh like some of our best episodes. This has been a long time coming. You know, I think Whitney we’ve been talking for a while trying to get you on the podcast. Rick, we’ve talked to you before. Kalen, you’ve obviously been out and you’re all, you know, you’ve been here, you’ve all been doing great things in fly casting. I mean, basically essentially the best in the world. That’s what I have lined up here. So I want to thank everyone for coming on here. And we’re going to talk about the World Championships. We’re going to talk about whatever we go into here today. And I’m going to let you know, I think Rick a little bit let you lead. I’ll have some questions here. But, um, okay. I’m excited because I think that there’s, uh, you know, a lot of things we could talk about, but I feel like the championship, you know, the people struggle with fly casting. It’s the number one thing in fly fishing. So I feel like listening from the best of the best will be fun today. So so first off, Rick, let’s go to you. Maybe give us a heads up really quick. We’ll go around, let’s do a little intro first, uh, with everybody. Tell the audience who you are and then what you do out there. 00:02:27 Rick: Uh, my name is Rick Hartman. Uh, mostly, uh, I come from, uh, you know, come from the area of, of guiding, uh, guiding South Texas on the lower Laguna Madre and, uh, mostly redfish. They getting into this whole casting arena was kind of by accident. Um, I, uh, I just got noticed by a local rep back in my early twenties, maybe even late teens and said, you know, there’s these cool tournaments out there that you can actually win some money and stuff. And and I thought, man, that sounds kind of fun. I’ll start trying to learn to cast. And, uh, and that’s kind of how it started. I, I had to really perform poorly for, you know, a couple years to figure out how much work needed to be done. And that’s just kind of where it started. 00:03:16 Dave: Nice. That’s so cool. And, and, uh, how about you, Caitlin? Let’s go to you. Give us an update. I know you, we’ve done plenty of stuff. You’ve been on the podcast before, but, uh, give new listeners a heads up. 00:03:27 Kalyn: Yeah. So the competition casting thing is a big part of my life. Uh, now I’ve been pretty serious about it. I think Whitney and I talked maybe in April of last year, so I’ve almost been doing this for a year. Um, but yeah, casting instructions is what I’m into. You know, I like to do some guiding for run fish. Um, I also like to do like dry fly fishing in the driftless, like guiding, but for the most part, I’m trying to steer everything toward casting instruction and, and helping people get better. 00:03:56 Dave: Perfect. And your. And give us a heads up on your website. Best place they can track you down. 00:04:00 Kalyn: Yeah, my website is thefly dot com and you can reach me at kayleen at thefly dot com to set up lessons. I do a really interesting virtual program. So Marty McVey and I can do lessons for you pretty much anywhere in the globe. And so that’s, yeah, that’s our main gig, uh, education on the line. And you can reach me at Kaitlyn at the dot com and get started. 00:04:21 Dave: Perfect. And how about you, Whitney? Give us a heads up of who you are and what you do out there. 00:04:25 Whitney: Uh, well, my name’s Whitney Gould, and I’m a full time fishing guide. I started probably about fifteen years ago as a steelhead guide. Um, no, sorry. Salmon and trout in Alaska. Um, I had been a landscape architect prior to that and was laid off in two thousand and eight. Obvious reasons and um, then start transition to trout here in Craig, Montana, where we focused a lot on trout Spey using the two hand fly rod to catch trout and fish traditionally out of the boat with single hand. And now I’m back in Idaho guiding for steelhead. Um, swinging flies. And that’s like really my passion. So yeah. 00:05:11 Dave: That’s it. Awesome. Well, this is great. We got and we’ve obviously, uh, swinging flies, we’ve got a huge contingent of listeners that are into that. So we’re excited to talk more about that here. But I think let’s start this off, Rick. Maybe I’ll let you take this away. I think I want to hear I mean, my question would be off the start, is the world fly casting championship? I think that we’ve talked a lot about the team USA from the, you know, the World Championships, kind of the stuff that’s, you know, Devin Olson and the crew over there, Euro Nymphing and all that. But what you do is fly casting. Maybe describe Rick, what would be a a good setup to describe for people listening who are unfamiliar with it, what it is you all do? 00:05:46 Rick: Well, I mean, there’s, um, I think what kind of Lends itself to what most people understand. Uh, when you relate it back to fishing, I think would be two of the events in particular, uh, would be what Whitney is doing, uh, with the Spey. I think a lot of people understand that related back to fishing. And as far as the, you know, the overhead cast, most people would probably relate to the five weight game, uh, that they, that it hasn’t really been part of the worlds for really all that long. Uh, compared to the other events. Uh, I think those two would be, uh, a little easier for people to get a grasp on because when you start talking some of the shooting head events, you’re going to lose a lot of people. You know, you start talking grain weights and the different rods and, and, uh, that seems to be there’s a departure, uh, from those and related to, to most fishing, not all fishing, but some of it, uh, but I think that five weight game and especially what Whitney does, with the spade. That’s very relatable to, uh, what we’re doing in the world. Uh, and relating that back to most people that are fishing. 00:07:00 Dave: Yeah. Gotcha. Well, I think, uh, you know, I’m interested too in this. And, you know, Whitney, we had just last night, we had some, uh, meet up with some of the members that are kind of in wet fly swing pro. And we were talking and one of the people there was, was a lady and she was asking us like, how many people are in the group that are women? And, you know, and we struggle. That’s one of the things I think that we struggle with. But she did say she thought that, you know, the percentages out there have gone to like forty percent women in fly fishing sort of thing. There’s always that question, right? The women fly fishing. But but Whitney, you’re one of the basically the greatest fly casters. I mean, it doesn’t sound like it male or female matters in fly casting. Is that true? And how did you get to to where you are? 00:07:41 Whitney: I think that fly casting, there’s a special. I mean, yeah, I think the more power you put into it, uh, can be a deterrent, but it also can be helpful. For example, say you’re fishing a big clouser and you’re having to throw it fifty feet. You’re going to have to put a little bit more energy into that than, say, fly cast a dry fly. Right? So when people say power doesn’t matter, I kind of, um, it kind of does in some aspects. It’s when you apply the power, but it’s not brute force. So I think that that’s why women and men can compete on the same level at times is because it’s not brute force. It’s about how you apply the power and when. And it’s also about line speed. And I feel like the quicker you are. I just was watching basketball last night, the, um, I was watching the college basketball plays and I was watching Olivia Miles and that thing, she is quick and, and she just picks up that ball and throws it with precision. And it’s just amazing to watch. And I feel like when it comes to men or women, it doesn’t matter. As long as you can pick up that fly line and throw it quick or get it to where you want it. And I think that’s where I think it’s the even playing field for me. 00:09:01 Dave: Yeah. Perfect. And Caitlin, let’s go around here. What would it be for you? You’ve got Whitney and Rick on here. What should, uh, listeners know or what questions would you want to ask them that maybe, you know, I wouldn’t be able to think about asking or something I might not know about. 00:09:17 Kalyn: Yeah. I mean, you know, one thing I wanted to clarify, just with like the World Championships, how that plays out is five out of the six are distance. So you stand at the line and throw it as far as you can. And then one is, you know, targets and accuracy. And so that’s the five weight games that Rick talks about. And you know, it’s essentially there’s two events set up with the five weight line. You have to use the s a m e d for now. Um, with those type that two number one. And number two is what those events are. And then five and six are of the sp-a and three or four heads. Um, that one and two, it really is something that you can, you can take all the information that you learn and you can use it some way successfully on, on the rivers as well, which I think is really important. I think one of the things that’s weird for me, and this is maybe something I would ask these guys, you know, they’ve been doing this for quite a bit longer than I have. And you know, it’s always for me, it’s like a who’s who. Like I met Rick, you know, in Texas and I met Whitney through Paul and, you know, standing on the pond with Steve Rajeff and Henry Middle and Larry Allen and everybody, you know, um, for me, it’s just been like a who’s who this entire time. So like, I’m just trying to catch up. You know, Rick had mentioned that he worked on that cast for a long time and didn’t really get it together for a couple of years, even when he was competing. And, you know, I’m a year end struggling to keep up, I guess. And so it’s all I’m focused on right now is getting as much information I can from the two of them. Um, Whitney would never tell you, but she’s one of the best casters that there’s ever been. Um, and she’ll know it at some point. And, uh, you know, with Rick, I mean, he’s literally stood in a skating rink for years and invented the cast that’s now basically the modern standard. Um, or at least it’s the baseline of what the modern standard cast would be. So yeah, I mean, you have two of the greatest that ever play the game. And then you have me, I guess, on here for for fun and to be the clown. 00:11:08 Dave: And, uh, you’ve won. You’ve done some good stuff in recent years, right? 00:11:12 Kalyn: Yeah. 00:11:14 Dave: Yeah, yeah. You don’t want to sell yourself short. You, you were number two, right? At this year as part of the competition. 00:11:19 Kalyn: I was there, I lost to Steve and Henry Middle so I could have lost to worse people, I think. 00:11:24 Whitney: And let’s clarify, there’s some really great women spot casters out there, like single hand. I would think that Maxine McCormick is probably hands down, like, I would love to be in that category and I aspire to be in that category. But let’s, you know, she’s out there. 00:11:42 Kalyn: What’s funny about trying to find those categories sometimes is that you realize late that you’re already there. Right. I think you’re great, man. Great. 00:11:51 Whitney: Thanks. I appreciate it. Thank you. That’s really kind. 00:11:55 Dave: Rick, maybe you can talk about the what Caitlin’s talking about what you invented or describe this modern cast. Is this. What does that mean? 00:12:04 Rick: Yeah, I didn’t, I don’t I didn’t invent anything. I mean it. Well, I’ll tell you exactly. Really what happened is, um, while I was trying to learn their, you know, things I was doing wrong, you know, back when I was playing around with this, you know, in the beginning, there really wasn’t internet to get on there and, and find out anything. And in South Texas, you really don’t have anybody to learn from. So I had to make every mistake in the book and figure out how to correct it on my own. And what was really funny is, you know, Whitney mentioned brute force. And in the beginning it was obvious that it is now obvious. Back then, it wasn’t, uh, that I was using too much brute force. And I got the worst case of tennis elbow. I couldn’t even shake somebody’s hand for six months. And I was like, golly, you know, I still want to keep practicing. And so I just completely would open my hand and keep it as loose as possible where the fly rod would almost fall out of my hand. And that’s how I had to practice for almost a year. And oddly enough, from doing that, my distances increased substantially. And you know, that in and of itself taught me that, you know what that you got to lay off. And I mean, you need to be as relaxed as possible. And, you know, you don’t want to hit it. You don’t want to use brute force. And that’s kind of where this long, super long stroke, long back cast the one hundred and seventy degree arc. That’s kind of where it all started from. And truthfully, it was not something that I said, oh wow, this seems like this is what I need to do. It was mostly an accident as to how it came about. 00:13:52 Dave: So you’re talking about maybe explain a little bit on that, the difference of the the ten to two, right. That versus say the wider arc. 00:13:59 Rick: Yeah. And there’s, hey, there’s nothing wrong with, you know, with talking about ten to two. And when you’re teaching beginners and giving them a visual, uh, but this is definitely a departure from that because, you know, in this game, this five way game, you really have to concentrate on holding or realizing more line. And with this, in the beginning, you actually used five weight rods. So they’re substantially slower than what everybody’s using in the worlds. And so you have to reach further back because you’re loading the rod so much deeper, uh, because you’re analyzing so much more line. That’s, uh, obviously a lot of weight as far as the fly lines concerned, and that loads the rod deeper. So you’re having to reach so far back. Um, and then, uh, I’m basically, you know, my rod is pretty much at a point on the back cast and the forward cast. So, you know, your rod is almost stopping at your target, uh, on the back cast and on the forward cast because it’s loading so deeply. And when you, you know, when you kind of look at that on a video, you know, most people’s arc is, I don’t know, probably, you know, eighty degrees, one hundred degrees, one hundred and twenty degrees. Uh, but, you know, the arc that started ended up throwing the furthest was literally I, you know, Paul Arden was down with me and, and, um, I thought he named it the one hundred and seventy degree cast, but he says I did, but, uh, it literally is pretty much about one hundred and seventy degree arc. Uh, when you’re realizing close to ninety or a little over ninety feet of line. 00:15:46 Whitney: You know, it’s interesting about that is, uh, Rick is I, that, that’s what’s so difference between the, uh, shooting eight games, which is space, space shooting head game, right, right. Versus the five weight distances that you actually have to slip line and carry line. And that for me has been one of the biggest, biggest challenges with the, the whole one hundred and seventy, whatever you call it. I mean, I work with Paul and Paul, Andrew, Rick, of course. And so being able to slip line and do it in and hold that line area lies that line, and then do it in as few casts as possible. Um, so you don’t lose control, right? And doing too many false passes is, I find, been the biggest challenge for me because like in space or say sea trout. You don’t do a bunch of false casts, you know. You go one, two, three and shoot you if you, you know, takes mass, move mass. So if you shoot too much line in the backcast, you’re going to lose control, right? Right. So I find that that’s been the biggest challenge for me transitioning from the shooting head games, which is Spey to the five weight distance, is to figure out how to analyze and hold that line in a manner in a certain, like with a minimal false cast. 00:17:08 Rick: Yeah, I think you’re right. I think it’s even now, it’s the hardest part of it because, uh, you know, mentally it can still mess with you and one slight, you know, tracking error or, you know, hall timing various things and man, it’s gone. I mean, it’s just, it’s very technical to keep that much line in the air, uh, with any kind of speed and a lot, no tip deflection that throws the lower leg down. I mean, it’s yeah, it’s tough. And if you get amped up in a competition, it’ll all fall apart in a moment’s notice. 00:17:40 Whitney: Yeah, yeah. It’s like a big noodle out there, like you’re trying to analyze. I mean, right now I’m up to eighty four feet of line carrying that long. And I’m just like, oh my gosh. Sometimes you get you’re scaring yourself. Can I hold this up here? 00:17:56 Rick: Yeah. Well, and that goes back to what you said earlier. Um, earlier you were saying, you know, brute force is actually a deterrent. And, and, you know, when you start analyzing that much line, it’s like, oh boy, it all comes to hand speed rather than brute force. Boy, you add a little too much and it’s just a big pile of junk out there. 00:18:16 Whitney: Yeah. And then throw the wind in there too. 00:18:19 Rick: Oh, gosh. Yeah. Caitlin knows all about wind and weather. 00:18:23 Whitney: Right? 00:18:24 Rick: Yeah. All I. 00:18:25 Kalyn: Cast in is wind. 00:18:27 Rick: And cold. 00:18:28 Rick: And cold. 00:18:29 Kalyn: And snow for the most part. 00:18:30 Whitney: How does that cold affect your line, Caitlin, when you’re practicing? 00:18:34 Kalyn: The med gets coily after a certain temp. Um, but I think everything does. You know, it’s so cold that it’s contracting, you know. And so since it contracts, it basically makes those little circles that we get right in line and you can stretch them out. But, you know, with how cold it is for me, even if I get it stretched out good. I don’t have very long before it’ll start cooling back up. Accuracy is okay. 00:18:59 Dave: Golden Fly Shop isn’t your average fly shop. They have a twelve foot shark painted like a cutthroat, hovering over a huge selection of the best rods in the business, a massive assortment of tying materials and their famous steakhouse streamer display. And it’s the hub for a community of anglers who never stop tinkering with new ways to catch fish. Sometimes the conversation behind the counter includes what hatches are going off and what techniques are working best. Then tales of destination fishing, adventures, sought after species, or a good old congratulations when a customer brings stories of finally connecting with that fish they’ve searched for forever. With a growing online store and a budding YouTube channel, you’ll be able to follow along with their fun antics, international adventures, and helpful fly fishing tips. Golden fly shop where the community is hanging out even if they’re supposed to be working. That’s Golden Fly shop dot com. Check them out right now. Trout Routes by Onix is built for fly anglers who want better Intel without spending hours digging for the information. You’ll get access to public land maps, stream access points, regulations, and even road and trail maps all in one place. It’s become my go to app for scouting new trips. You can check them out right now. Go to fly dot com slash routes and download the app today. 00:20:15 Whitney: Yeah. So have you been practicing indoors? I’m curious, like what you find the difference between going indoors and outdoors is? 00:20:23 Kalyn: Well, you know, like I said, I’m playing the catch up game. So I didn’t really have time in the winter to just not be casting. And we had a pretty rough winter. And then, you know, the qualifier was in February. So I had to cast inside and I found a place that had a couple of indoor soccer fields. And, uh, it wasn’t big enough for like my big stuff, but it was big enough to keep me going and keep me smooth and straight. And I think it did help me get straight. I think that there are some disadvantages. You know, all the lines in the room are straight and available to see. So I think it makes it easier for you to line up everything and make good casts. So it might be a detriment maybe, but I know that it helped me with accuracy. I know that inside I could line everything up and feel what straight felt like, like actually straight. And I think it just kind of changed everything for my definitely for my accuracy cast. And I think it keeps me alive for the distance stuff. 00:21:18 Whitney: Yeah. I’ve been having to play catch up on my accuracy for a while. It felt like I can’t be an American. I can’t seem to do this like Steve and all those guys are like, oh my God. 00:21:31 Kalyn: Dave, what you don’t know is that we as the Americans are notoriously the best at accuracy and have been and have been for decades. Huh. 00:21:42 Whitney: That kind of fell short. 00:21:45 Rick: Uh, I guess I’m from Mexico. 00:21:51 Speaker 6: I just. 00:21:52 Whitney: Yeah, I mean, like, yeah, I think that’s been fun is doing accuracy. 00:21:57 Kalyn: I think meeting you guys has been really fun. You know, Whitney, we kind of met through Paul and. Right. You invited me out and and that I mean, I’m forever in your debt, right? For that because you, you kind of changed everything for me by coming out and being on the team. And Rick, I’ve got this wonderful photo for the first time. I met Rick. Uh, Andre Spinetti took the picture and he. 00:22:18 Rick: You told me you were going to erase that. 00:22:21 Kalyn: And so, so Rick is standing there, hands on his hips, you know, watching my back cast. And you kind of see me in the foreground and he just looks like he’s real upset with the way I’m throwing that back cast in this picture, and I’ll never forget it. I’ll blow it up, put it on my wall first chance I get. But yeah, it’s fun to meet these people because you know, you don’t know, you know, like Rick has been, you know, a name amongst the crowd since I’ve been doing the fly fishing thing. But, uh, you know, you don’t necessarily know what you’re getting into. You don’t know that you’re ready. And like she was talking about, like Whitney was talking about with accuracy, you know, you got a lot of catching up to do as a rookie, you know, like somebody who’s just trying out, you gotta spend time in the box and, uh, not get nervous. And I think maybe I’m whipping that. We’ll see. But no, I’ve had a great time just meeting the two of you guys and, and everybody else, you know, that’s involved with it. And it’s actually been a pretty good like almost family like, uh, situation. 00:23:18 Whitney: Definitely. Yeah. It’s good to get to know you too. I think the whole accuracy thing has been interesting because like for the last world Championships. Like, yeah, I got the accuracy covered. I’ll figure I’ll do, I’ll practice like maybe start practicing the last two months. And you just can’t do that with accuracy. I think it’s the most understated, but it’s the hardest in some ways because you’ve got everybody’s like, how hard can it be to hit a hoop? Right? I’m like, dude, they’re right there. How hard can this be? Right. And there’s so many nuances to it. I remember, um, when I was casting with, uh, last world Championships and I don’t know what was going on, the judges were just playing catch up and they were talking while we were casting. It was kind of difficult. They did it to everybody. It wasn’t just me. And, uh, it was so frustrating because I realized how much concentration it takes to be able to do that. I mean, you’re hitting sixteen targets in five minutes. Is it five minutes? Yeah, it’s five minutes. I should know that. And there are all these other factors going on, and you just need to just focus. And that’s been a real challenge is the focusing part with accuracy. So doing mental drills, doing it every morning, just going through a bunch of targets and calling it good. That’s practicing for that. 00:24:50 Rick: Yeah. It’s kind of like a professional golfer walking up and hitting one off the tee with the driver in front of thousands of people. Uh, you can do it all day long when you’re by yourself, but you start second guessing everything when you’re standing in the box. And boy, it can play head games for certain. 00:25:06 Whitney: Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I think like ninety percent of this is also, you know, this is funny because like, when I think of it as when I’m teaching fly casting or I’ve got people in my boat and I’m like, they’re like, well, I can’t cast. And I’m like, yeah, just get it in there. What you can’t do is lie on management, right? I mean, and that’s the way I think about competition, right? So fishing for me, it’s two percent casting ninety eight percent line management for these world tournaments. It’s like two percent casting, ninety eight percent mental management, you know. 00:25:48 Rick: Yeah, I believe that. 00:25:50 Kalyn: Yeah. It’s funny you say that because I think all three of us have talked with Phil. Right. Rick, have you talked with Phil about like managing the mental stuff? 00:26:00 Rick: Oh yeah. Absolutely. 00:26:01 Kalyn: So we all three have talked to there’s, you know, uh, famously known as the tallest golfer in the PGA. Uh, Mr. Phil Blackmar has done a lot of, you know, working with people’s mental game during sport. And, um, you know, I think he’s written about it, but, uh, yeah, he’s worked with all three of us. Something that you wouldn’t think of, you know, it’s just flycasting. Right. Well, I mean, a lot of it’s between the ears. It’s all about the cheese. Kind of like what Whitney saying and, um, working with somebody that that can help you kind of step up there and do your best and actually do your best. Um, I think has been pretty vital and you spend more time talking to Phil, I think. But, uh, you know, I think that’s something that people don’t think about too. You know, there is a lot of pressure. You are trying really hard and you’re putting a lot into it. You know, you put a lot into something and you stand up on the stage and try to prove to everybody else how much you’ve put into it. You know, you get a little nervous. 00:26:53 Whitney: Yeah. 00:26:54 Kalyn: Does that make sense? 00:26:56 Rick: Definitely does to me. 00:26:58 Whitney: Me too. 00:27:01 Speaker 6: This is getting gushy. Let’s move on. 00:27:03 Speaker 7: Oh, sorry. Sorry sorry, sorry. Yeah. 00:27:06 Dave: Well, let me hop in here. This is really cool. And we had Phil on the podcast and it was great because I think he is he a is he seven feet tall or he’s a super tall golfer, six, six, ten or something like that. I think he’s the tallest PGA pro ever or something like that. Right. And I love the mental thing because I love the analogies too, about, you know, the sports analogies, right, in golf and all that. But maybe talk about you’ve been talking a little bit about the, the comp, the targets and things like that. Maybe you can take us into what that comp and is this always in mixed around different countries around the world? Because I’ve heard about different things and you have space, you’ve got, you know, different comps, like describe. So people know, is this the top place where everybody from the world comes to? And is it in the USA typically? 00:27:50 Rick: Um, well, I mean, if you break it down to the specific events, I would say yes. I mean, Whitney would probably chime in a little bit more, uh, when you start talking about space, because it seems like to me there’s more events and different events in space than, say, the five weight game. I mean, for some of the events, the worlds is it. But then you look at, you know, space drama and all these other different events. And I don’t know, you tell Whitney, what do you think? Do you think the best, uh, come to the worlds? Or is there another event that you think is more competitive? 00:28:29 Whitney: Uh. Well, I think hands down, any competitor will who has experienced the world spay event, this is only spay versus spay orama. They say spay orama is the hardest event out there, but it’s an international event. It’s not a world championship. 00:28:46 Rick: Um, okay. 00:28:48 Whitney: The ones in Europe by the I see. So did I get that right? Yeah, I hope so. Um, those are hosted by a world championship organization, I believe. I don’t know, Henry could get this right. These are the details that I’m not very good at. Um, but that itself brings all these people together from other countries. And I believe that each team, their teams are more organized and they practice these specific games, and they’re just as hard in a different way. There’s different competitions and, you know, there and in some ways, because I’m speaking of the women, because there’s more women that do it overseas. It becomes a harder competition because and it’s something I look forward to because it’s real competition, right? I’m not saying that spectrum is not real competition. In fact, there’s a group of women who are coming up who are going to be deadly. I can’t wait to see what they do. But yeah, it’s just you go and you meet these women who you don’t tasked with every day. Guess that’s what I’m trying to say. And so there’s that random factor. And and they’re good. I mean, they’re really good. So like, Anita, I look forward to casting with Anita because it’s always like. And I look forward to casting with carbonate and Donna and all these people because it’s like, yeah, okay, bring it on kind of situation. And it just pushes you to be better. 00:30:28 Rick: Yeah. It just seems like, you know, some of these events that, uh, you know, that we’re practicing right now, it’s like there’s not really anything else. Um, you know, where you compete in those events, right? 00:30:43 Whitney: Oh, I’d say the world events. 00:30:45 Rick: Yeah. I mean, it just seems like that’s it. 00:30:48 Whitney: Yeah. There’s the a c a the American Casting Association. Um, when they are putting on their U.S. open and those events, the Europeans are invited to come. In fact, Sweden and Norway came a couple of years ago and competed and they competed in the a c a games in the casting games, um you know, which had plug distance and all that which you figure ninety eight percent of the world is more castoring than fly casting, right? This is such a small niche. Um, and they had a couple of days of world games. So there’s opportunities and they’re trying to get more opportunities for that and bring in more people and enthusiasm for the sport of casting and fly casting. So it’s exciting what they’re looking to. And actually they’re beginning to relaunch their website and stuff and do some more marketing in order to bring the message out and bring in more enthusiasm for the casts and educational videos. So we’re excited for what’s coming down the line for that. 00:32:00 Kalyn: I think one thing that probably all of us would agree about is that we want everyone to be there. We want everyone to show up and we want to compete against everyone, you know, and like, there’s people here and there that can’t because of timing or you know, or what have you. The amount of money, because it’s not a cheap sport to play either. But you know, like, I’m pretty certain that Nick Moore from the UK is not going to show up for worlds because we talked about it and I kind of want to beat him. I mean, he did so good. So I’d hate to show up to a championship, an international championship or a world championship and not have everybody there. You know, I want everybody to show up and have a good time. And I’m hoping that there’s going to be a lot of people at worlds this time. And I hope that we have a good time. 00:32:46 Dave: When is the world’s typically so people can check in? And can you check this out? Is this something I’m I’m guessing it’s not on ESPN at this point, but no. Can people find this go to these events? 00:32:58 Speaker 6: Mike says it’s like watching paint dry. I guess I shouldn’t say that, but my husband and I try to get my husband to go with me. He’s like, dude, it’s like watching paint dry. You guys are all amped, you’re having fun, and I’m just sitting there. 00:33:13 Rick: No, I mean, it’s in August um, this year and I, I assume it’s usually in the same time of year, uh, when they have it. Um, but yeah, I don’t know how you would be able to, uh, watch any of it, honestly, uh, unless someone did a live feed on their phone. Uh. 00:33:32 Kalyn: I’m working on ways to make it more fun. 00:33:34 Rick: Yeah. To, to Instagram or something, but no, I’m, I’m pretty sure ESPN would have no interest in, uh, in filming that. 00:33:43 Kalyn: It’s ironic that you say that, Rick, because some of your stuff wasn’t some of the stuff that you used to do, like with the, uh, the Danish games or whatever, wasn’t some of that on ESPN? 00:33:51 Speaker 7: Yeah. 00:33:52 Rick: No, they used to have, uh, some of the events that I was messing around with was, uh, on ESPN and the, uh, outdoor channel back in the early two thousand. 00:34:03 Kalyn: The precedent is there. We just gotta bring it back, man. 00:34:06 Dave: Yeah, yeah. 00:34:07 Speaker 6: Cool. 00:34:07 Whitney: Yeah. I think, you know, it was really fun for, um, when I went to Norway, Um, the Norwegians had a board that had all the scores and people could follow the live scores. Right. And so you could go up and see where you were and where you were, and place of the other categories. And people at home had access to that. And that was really exciting. Um, I had a lot of friends and family that were watching that and I was getting texts and stuff. So it was cool. You know, the whole thing is when I’m in a competition, I turn my phone off. I don’t even pay. I don’t even go on the, uh, Instagram or any of the social medias. I try to just keep noise out. And I think it’s, you know, for them. So I get these texts and I’d be like, what are they talking about? I had to turn it off. I had no idea at the time, but it was cool. They were excited. So that’s helpful. 00:35:07 Dave: Yeah. Well, we had a pod you mentioned we mentioned Maxine at the start. We had Chris Corich on a while back and he was describing the. It was really interesting and he was describing the the rods and the rods that like Maxine was using and how I think he talked about how they were like from the eighties or they were older rods. They weren’t like the new rods. Describe what you use out there. You all use. Talk about that a little bit and what people should know about what you use and maybe what could help. You know, what people, what you know, you’re using for these. And then what can listeners get from that? 00:35:38 Kalyn: We might be the first three people to ask. 00:35:40 Speaker 8: Yeah. Okay. 00:35:42 Kalyn: Yeah. 00:35:44 Rick: I don’t, I don’t think one of us is, uh, in the same arena when it comes to, uh, what rods we’re using. 00:35:49 Kalyn: No. Yeah. And we switch a lot. The three of us in particular switch a lot more, I think, than anybody else. 00:35:54 Dave: So it’s not that critical then. There’s a lot of different rods. 00:35:58 Kalyn: I wouldn’t go that far for. 00:36:00 Whitney: Okay. So for rods, I’m pretty much dialed. But, you know, even when it comes to fishing, I think the line is more important. But, um, so I spend a lot of time dialing my Spey line, and that’s a gale force line made by James Chalmers out. And it’s one of his extreme distances. And it’s the same with the shooting head games. It’s like I spend a lot of time trying to figure out which shooting head there is. As for the fly rods, right now I’m using a sexyloops rod by Paul Ardens. I think it’s one of his hot torpedo rods, which are amazing, and borrowed one from a friend. And um, I’m going back between two back and forth between two different line weights on that. You know, I have a seven weight and a ten weight, so I’m just kind of going back and forth. Actually seven weight. It’s more of a nine weight. Um, and the idea is how much can I carry versus how fast that rod is and to be able to move it and heavy, um, for Spey, I’m, you know, Sp-a for me is pretty much dialed up. You have to get a competition rod. At this point, you can’t just pick up a fishing rod. Um, so I’m using a gale force, um, his new ride called Boomer. It’s a boomer. And then for five weight distance, that’s back to the old Chris Korge. Um, I don’t use the softest rod as Maxine and these other gals, they use the Eagles, which is a Fenwick. I’m actually using an old sage rod, um, a graphite three, and I’ve totally torn it apart. Evidently I, it was an eight and a half foot five or six, I don’t even know. Totally tore apart and put it back together with the new guides of Chris’s recommendations. And, um, it was funny because Peter, um, Peter Knox from sage, he was casting it and he goes, Wow, this was a lot faster than I expected you would want. And I was like, yeah, well, you know, I wanted a faster ride for the wind. But he looked at me and he’s like, you did something to this and probably did, but I don’t remember. You know, I might have cut something off the tip or done something like that, but I’m not not adverse to tearing apart these rods and putting them back together and cutting them and moving handles up and down. So I guess that’s where Kaitlyn is laughing because like, you know, all of our rods, at least I can say are in different disarrays and, you know, they look like a hot mess at this point. So there you go. What do you think, Rick? Where are you at with rods? 00:38:51 Rick: Well, yeah. Um, it’s interesting because, uh, before the five way event was even close to being in the worlds when I started doing it, you show up at the event and they’ve got five rods on a rack and you just go pick up one of them, and that’s what you threw in the competition. You didn’t get to use your own rod. Uh, but you knew what models and make, uh, rods they were going to have. And so you, you probably had one of those, but no two rods are the same. Uh, even if it’s a, a sage TCR five. Wait, your sage TCR five wait. And the one they have at the competition are not going to feel the same. They may be close, but not identical. And it was so interesting because those were so much harder to throw, you know, say one hundred and twenty, one hundred and thirty feet. It was more difficult. Your timing was more critical and you had to slow things down. And I kind of disappeared from competing for a while. And then I hear that people are throwing there’s a lot more people reaching these extreme distances. And I’m like, man, how did that happen? And it turns out that in these new competitions, you’re throwing the same line that we used to throw, but now you can use any nine foot rod. That means a ten weight, nine weight, eleven weight, and it’s your own rod. And, um, it’s funny, I kind of, as I got back into it over the last year, after twelve or so years, I, I started off saying, well, let’s try an eight weight. And it felt stiff at first, but after about two months, I was like, man, this rod’s not stiff enough. And then I’d move to a nine weight and think, man, that’s better. And then I’d say, well, it’s not quite stiff enough. And then I moved to a ten weight and, uh, I thought, man, that’s it. I’ll, I’ll, I won’t need anything stiffer than this. And then after about two months, I moved to a different company’s eleven weight. And, uh, that’s where I’m at right now is, uh, with an eleven weight to throw the five weight line. Uh, so it’s been an interesting transition to see how it changed from back in two thousand and one two thousand and two. And, you know, just using your own rod, that’s considerably faster than, uh, than what the game used to be. And that’s been an interesting change. It’s actually been kind of fun. 00:41:19 Dave: Yeah. So you’re using an eleven weight rod, casting a five weight line. 00:41:23 Rick: You’re right. Now I am there’s an eleven weight with a fairly soft tip. Uh, but it’s very quick in the first half of the rod. But yeah, I right now, um, you know, this morning’s practice has been the same as about the last week. My, you know, it seems that consistently my longest casts have been with, uh, this eleven weight that has a pretty soft tip, but it’s, uh, stiff as all get out in the first half. First half of the rod. 00:41:51 Dave: Yeah. What about you, Caitlin? Are you which track are you on here with your setup? 00:41:57 Kalyn: Oh, me um, accuracy rod, I feel pretty confident with. I’m gonna keep it for sure. Um, and it was basically a, you know, nine foot six weight and it’s not the same length that used to be. So I’m not sure exactly what weight or length it is. I think it’s eight foot eight. Um, and that’s what I’m using for accuracy for distance. I think that each cast has a rod that helps. I think that, you know, equally, each cast, you know, has a rod that doesn’t help or makes you perform, you know, poorer. I think with the distance stuff for me right now, I don’t have a dedicated five weight distance rod, which is terrible. But I think as long as you can keep that long stroke going with something else that has the same kind of cast and performs the same, you know, or similar, um, is kind of the way I go. So it’s funny, you know, you may put in a certain amount of money to get rods and then you have to think about who you’re sponsored by and if they want you to throw their rods and so on. So it can be kind of a an interesting dynamic. I think there’s a lot of rods out there that would be great for me. I don’t know that there’s one perfect one or not. Um, if there is, maybe it’s the blank that I have sitting here that’s about to be built, but we won’t talk about that. Um, but yeah, rods have been an interesting game to play. You know, each of these events really requires a different kind of rod. I mean, you could maybe get away with the same five weight distance rod as your sea trout rod with my kind of cast, but, you know, with a very short stroke, very hard cast it it you wouldn’t. Right? I don’t think so. It’s an interesting dynamic because you’re looking at all these different events. You want to make your casting better, but if you match the rod to your cast, it will make you better. And so that in and of itself is kind of paradoxical, right? Because maybe there’s another rod out there, maybe there’s another, you know, and we don’t have infinite money. Like I said, I keep coming back to it’s an expensive game to play and we’re all doing our best to maintain. But, um, sometimes you’re just stuck with your sponsor and not stuck. But sometimes that’s the rod that is chosen for you more so than the rod that you’re going to throw. 00:44:11 Whitney: And that’s why I don’t have a sponsor. 00:44:13 Speaker 9: That’s right. 00:44:14 Rick: Yeah. 00:44:15 Whitney: That’s like I’m not on any pro staff. I just you can’t afford to be on a pro staff, right? 00:44:20 Kalyn: You can’t afford it. There’s no way. 00:44:22 Whitney: I mean, like, like who can afford to be on these pro staffs. 00:44:26 Kalyn: Nobody right. 00:44:27 Dave: Yeah. 00:44:28 Kalyn: Not to digress too far. 00:44:29 Dave: But yeah that’s right. Yeah. The pro staffs aren’t necessarily sending out million dollar contracts like they would be in the the NBA or these other places. Right. 00:44:39 Kalyn: Well, a lot of times they’re going to require you to use their rod. 00:44:42 Whitney: Well rightly so. 00:44:44 Rick: Right, right. Yeah. It’s I’m with you guys. I’m not on any rod pro staff right now. And, uh, in fact, I really wasn’t back in the day either. I just used, you know, I just tell the company, man, I think this is the best one for this game. And if they sent you one, great. But, uh, yeah, if you get on with one company and you get tight with them, you’re, you’re gonna, you’re a little limited on what they have on, on hand or what they’re making. And, uh, that’s, I guess partially how you end up with a ten weight or an eleven weight, depending on the rod model and make. 00:45:20 Whitney: Yeah. I mean, guaranteed that what I carry in my boat is something that I’m going to fish. Right, right. Not something that somebody’s going to. Yeah. And like, and, you know, if you figure they give you three free rods. And then in my thing, I would have to buy twelve rods to replace everything. Because you think of all the nuances for Spey trout, spey, single hand trout, and then steelhead, it just so you choose the rod that you fish with and hand it to your clients for By the sun. You know, a boat ride that you can afford breaks. So it’s interesting that way. 00:46:04 Dave: Do you think you need a bush plane to fish Alaska’s legendary waters? Think again. Fishing expeditions specializes in road accessible adventures that don’t skimp on excitement. Picture yourself fishing for massive rainbow trout, Arctic grayling, and plenty of salmon species, all within Alaska’s epic road system. It’s doable. I fished the road system on our first day with Adam and the crew, and it did not disappoint. The largest leopard rainbow I caught and landed was right off the road system, and we’ll be driving up again this year, heading up from the lower forty eight all the way up to Alaska to hit those streams again. You’ll experience the breathtaking beauty of Alaska’s wilderness, from mountain streams to hidden rivers perfect for anglers of all levels, fishing expeditions makes it easy to explore Alaska. Why wait? Your Alaska adventure is just a drive away? Book your spot now before spaces fill up. That’s fishing expeditions dot com. F I s h h o u n d expeditions dot com. Don’t miss out. This is great. I also want to hear about one person that obviously Steve Rajeff. What rod is Steve using? Because I think there’s a long history here with Steve going back to you know, I think he was designing rods with Loomis back in the day. And now I think I did hear we had Larry Kenney on recently, who is a founder of Scot, and he talked about how there’s a sixteen hundred dollars Asquith rod now out there, which I think is connected to Loomis in some ways. But talk about that. What is Steve’s for people that don’t know him, what do you think he’s using? Do you got do you guys know. 00:47:37 Rick: Um you know, he seems to bounce around a little bit, but he did bring basically a blank of the new Asquith. And it’s probably just a little bit slight variation On the new Asquith, but it’s basically the blank with different guides. And he had brought a nine and a ten and I don’t know, Calen, you might. I’m pretty sure that’s what he was using. Um the last times he was throwing. 00:48:10 Kalyn: Yeah. He’s a Loomis man through and through. Yeah. That’s. Yeah he was throwing last time. 00:48:14 Rick: And they’re extremely light. Uh, they felt great. I got to throw them a little bit and, uh, I thought they threw great, but I just got a. Steve and I were texting last night, and I think that he kind of got them to make that blank ever so slightly softer in the butt section, uh, for one that he’s gonna have the next time. Um, we, uh, we go to Long Beach score. Yeah. I mean, I’d like to feel it because I, I thought they threw great, uh, light as hell. I mean, just really, really, really light. 00:48:54 Kalyn: Mhm. 00:48:54 Dave: Yeah. 00:48:55 Kalyn: The big rod that Steve is known for is the GLX. 00:48:59 Dave: The GLX. 00:49:00 Kalyn: He made the G. Loomis GLX, like the design wise or whatever. I think it was a nineties rock. It was a nineties. Roderick. 00:49:07 Rick: Um. 00:49:08 Kalyn: Early two thousand. 00:49:09 Rick: Yeah. No, I think probably, uh, late nineties. 00:49:13 Kalyn: Okay. So that ride, uh, is famous for a good reason, right? I mean, he made it. I know some rod builders in the industry that call the GLX the King, that no matter what has happened since then, the GLX is still the king. And I’ve heard a couple of different builders say that. And I know that that’s one of the ones that Steve usually has around, right? Because that’s the rod that he made for himself pretty much. And it’s famous for that reason because it’s that good. 00:49:41 Whitney: He’s also designed I mean, I think he’s also doing the sea trout blanks. Actually, I know he’s making having the sea trout blanks and the salmon blanks made at Loomis. And then you can buy those on the ACA website, and then you can cut them and build them in any manner that you want. You can take some off the tip or some off the. But depending on how fast or soft you want them. But those shooting had game rods are available on the ACA website and they’re designed. I think they’re Steve’s blanks, aren’t they? 00:50:16 Rick: Yeah. Rick. They are. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. He, um, went back and specifically for me on that two handed, he had to make one that was stiffer than what was available through the ACA and got that for me to throw. And that’s, uh, his design that I’m throwing right now. 00:50:34 Whitney: Yeah. And I’m throwing an older, softer, I guess, more forgiving graphite. I’m throwing Larry Allen’s old one because he went to the faster graphite. I think mine is more of a stinger. 00:50:47 Rick: Yeah. Larry through Steve brought, uh, an update. Slightly different than the one he sent me. And it’s faster than Larry’s old rod, or even the one that Larry was currently using. And, uh, when Larry threw it this last go round in, uh, February, uh, yeah, Larry was automatically going to switch to that faster one. 00:51:10 Whitney: Oh, wow. That means I have another rod. Yeah, exactly. Out of this. 00:51:14 Rick: one. 00:51:15 Speaker 7: Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. 00:51:20 Rick: Yeah. It never ends. It never ends. 00:51:24 Kalyn: It’s funny because, like, even speaking of Larry, you know, he told me one time, he said, you know, be very cognizant and be very careful and be very mindful when you’re making your rods. Because if you’re not, you’ll spend a lot of money on them and they’ll end up in the closet like my closet. And apparently he’s been around the block building rods and making new rods and being a champion like he is. I mean, he won the overall, I think in the veterans, last World Championships, if I’m not mistaken. 00:51:51 Whitney: Oh, Larry’s a stud. I mean, he’s a stud, dude. That guy, he’s a weight lifter. Um, he is so generous and such a great casting instructor on top of it. Um, he has been really helpful with me, especially. 00:52:09 Rick: Yeah, he’s a rare, rare human being. He is just a wonderful person all the way around. 00:52:14 Speaker 7: Mhm. Yeah. 00:52:14 Dave: And who is this again? 00:52:16 Rick: Larry. Larry Allen. Okay. He’s in the veterans in, uh, on the US team. And, uh, I think he usually is winning the worlds in the veteran group anyway. 00:52:25 Speaker 7: Yeah, usually. 00:52:26 Whitney: Yeah. He is. Yeah, definitely. He’s, uh, you know, and he given a day it could be him and Steve. 00:52:33 Rick: Wright. 00:52:34 Whitney: Going against each other. Right. And someday Steve wins. Some days Larry. Steve wins. Larry is you know, what’s interesting about Larry and Steve is they’re both, you know, think of themselves as anglers first, right. They’re serious fishermen. So I think it’s cool. 00:52:54 Kalyn: That’s funny. I think the cool thing about our team this year for world championships is our veteran team is going to be pretty tough to beat. It’s going to be hard for other people to get medals this time around in veterans because we’ve got, uh, you know, I think we’ve got Steve, Chris Corey and Larry Allen playing in a lot of the events. And those three are, you know, past time champions. And so we’re going to show up a pretty solid veterans team I think this year. 00:53:25 Dave: And the veterans are those the older age maybe describe that. How many people are on the team and how many different levels are there? 00:53:31 Kalyn: It’s sixty years old and up is veteran. 00:53:34 Dave: Veteran, and then everybody else is under that in the or how many people are in the the regular. 00:53:39 Kalyn: Well, you can still you can still compete in the open. You can choose to compete in the open, but you’d have to have the same qualifying numbers. To be able to be in the men’s open or in the women’s. Is the women’s veteran a thing, or do the women still compete in veteran? 00:53:53 Whitney: Yeah, we’ve got women veterans, Alice Gilbert and um. Lenggong. 00:53:58 Kalyn: Yeah. Yeah. See, I didn’t know exactly how that all worked out, but yeah. So it’ll be a good year for the veterans. Hopefully the rest of us can show up. 00:54:06 Whitney: I’m excited this year for the women’s we have, um, Pam Peters, Donna Elizabeth, Lilly and myself. That’s four people. AM I missing somebody? No. I keep on wanting to say Audrey because that’s wishful thinking, but. 00:54:23 Kalyn: Well, you and Maxine being on the. 00:54:25 Whitney: Maxine. 00:54:26 Kalyn: Is pretty intense. 00:54:27 Speaker 9: Given the. 00:54:28 Whitney: Vaccines are given. 00:54:30 Dave: Oh. Maxine McCormick. 00:54:31 Speaker 9: Yeah. Uh, yeah. 00:54:32 Whitney: She’s looking at coming this year. 00:54:34 Dave: Oh, right. Because she took did she take a little time off for college in that or is she. 00:54:38 Speaker 9: Yeah, she graduated. 00:54:39 Whitney: And I don’t want to speak for Maxine, but from what I understand, she’s looking for a job right now. And so, um, she may or may not come depending on life. 00:54:49 Dave: Right, right, right. Yeah. Again, this is going back to this, right. There’s not a ton of money in fly fishing. It’s, uh. Yeah. Right. You’re doing this for the love of this thing, right? I mean, you’ve got sponsors. We talked about that a little bit, but there’s not, like a prize package that’s in this or is there? 00:55:07 Rick: No. 00:55:08 Speaker 9: No. 00:55:09 Dave: No. 00:55:09 Kalyn: I’m working on it. I’m working on it. 00:55:11 Dave: You’re working on it. Good. 00:55:13 Rick: It’s interesting. I mean, there used to be a lot more money in it. Not so much like a prize for winning. Well, actually, there was prizes for winning back in the old five weight games when I was doing it back in the early two thousand, but companies were willing to write a check back then. Uh, but times have really changed. And, uh, that really doesn’t exist much anymore. 00:55:39 Dave: So they were writing a check for to individual people or to the event to. 00:55:44 Rick: No, no, just to certain people. You know, if you’re winning the event and you know, you’re doing some televised stuff, the companies would approach, you know, uh, sometimes approach you and say, hey, you know, if you’d come on with us, we’d be willing to give you X amount and, uh, tons of product and things like that. But, um, that just really is, you know, it just doesn’t really exist now. Uh, things have changed. It, uh, it used to, you could be have notoriety from competitions you were doing or televised events. And now a lot of that’s gone away and it’s how many Instagram followers you have. And it could very well be somebody that really, honestly doesn’t know a whole lot about any of it. But they have one hundred thousand followers, and that’s who the company is going to be interested in. And, uh, so that’s, it’s kind of changed. 00:56:38 Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah. 00:56:38 Whitney: I’ve been told by companies like, hey, I Come teach your class and they say they have this one person. And I’m like, well, can I help her? Does she know anything about this particular thing? And they’re like, she knows enough to get by. Right. So, but at least she’ll fill the class. And I’ve been pretty much told that a few times. I’m like, okay, I’ll stay in my lane. 00:57:02 Rick: This day and age. It’s not about who knows the most, it’s who has the most followers. 00:57:06 Dave: Yeah, right. I’ve heard that before. And flight time, we had a somebody who’s been on, uh, Dave Allison was on the podcast and he was talking about how yeah, he was in the flight time. He used to have all the companies were coming to him. And now it’s the same thing. It’s how many social followers do you have? Those are the people that are getting sponsored by, you know, fly companies and interesting. 00:57:28 Speaker 9: Marketing. 00:57:29 Whitney: Thing there. It’s just looking for free marketing, right? 00:57:33 Dave: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, so Caitlin, you were, you mentioned kind of when we got started, I’m interested in this story because you mentioned the best in the West, best in the East. We off air. We were talking a little about this. I’m not sure how much, if this applies to anything we talked about today, but I love the history and hearing these stories. So what is that? Can you describe that or that question you had maybe? I think it was for Rick. 00:57:54 Rick: Um, Caitlin, you want to I mean. 00:57:59 Kalyn: Uh, well, I was just going to say, you know, mainly the history behind, you know, I guess money fly casting, um, is something, right. And they, they had these events and Rick went to these events and stuff. And I’d love for him to tell a story about it. Um, but the joke has always been that if there was going to be a best in the West, then there has to be a beast of the East. And if there’s a beast of the East and a best of the west, then they should go against each other in competition. Right? That was kind of like this flow of ideas. Um, I’m actually talking with Ed Matousek about it. Um, and he and I are going to try to start something going on here on the east side of the Mississippi. Um, but Rick, if you wanted to talk about I mean, we touched on it a little bit, but if you want to talk about like casting against Steve, I guess, in the parking lot versus casting against Steve when he’s on the line, um, a little bit and best of the West, that might be interesting. 00:58:55 Rick: Um, well, you know, it was interesting. You know, how I’ll try to burn through this pretty quick. Um, when I first went, uh, before I blew my elbow out and learned how to actually throw that five way game. The first time I ever showed up at one of those was probably like ninety nine or two thousand. And I thought, well, you know, I was good for, you know, my long cast was probably one hundred and eight back then. Maybe one hundred and ten would be my best. And I’d never competed before. And I got there and I had no idea that standing on that stage, what it would do to your nerves, and I just immediately just fell apart and, you know, through like ninety nine feet, uh, or something like that. And Steve and Tim showed up at the finals. They were both part of the very first time I went there. And what was interesting is I’d never really got to see Steve cast all that much. And he stepped up and held about the same amount of line that he would use at a shooting head event. And so while he threw, well, it’s nowhere near what he would be throwing three years later or four or five years later in that event. And, um, so he just didn’t hold enough line. He treated it as kind of like a shooting head event there at the beginning. And I, I think he threw one hundred and four, maybe one hundred and five, but there were two guys there that worked at a fly shop in Utah. And, uh, one of them, his parents owned the flying shop. His name is Jimmy Gunderson. And the other one, which a lot of you’ve already heard of is Lance Egan, and they both worked at that same shop, and I sat there and watched him cast, and both of them carried more line than anyone else. A little bit wider. Loop reached way back. And, you know, Lance was throwing I think he threw one round one eleven and, uh, Jimmy threw one that one it that was about one hundred and fifteen. And at that point when I, I got to watch Steve throw and I got to watch Jimmy and Lance throw. I took good notice of how they cast. And that’s immediately when I went back and got inside my. Got Ahold of that roller hockey rink. Uh, that was big enough to cast in and said, okay, there’s something to this long stroke reaching way back. And that’s kind of where I started changing my cast a lot to, to, to what they were doing and then changing it and going even further beyond what they were doing. And, um, that’s when I started reaching a lot longer distances. And anyhow, what was funny is I didn’t see Steve, uh, competing for the next two or three. And, um, then Steve showed up again at one of these, and lo and behold, Steve was carrying a lot more line in the air. Air lies in a lot more line and obviously reaching a lot longer distances. And, uh, so then it just kind of became where, where Steve and I would bounce back and forth, you know, in those competitions. But, um, you bring up what it’s like about casting against Steve, which you guys have already seen. Steve is a block of ice. Uh, when it comes to competing that what amazes me about him is he can throw the exact same distances in competition that he can throw in practice. And it always boggled my mind because everyone I was a running joke. Uh, if I was throwing one hundred and thirty feet in practice, everyone was like, well, you might be good for one twenty or one eighteen. uh, off the podium. And it was true. I mean, I just nerves get to me and the muscles would take over and I’d try to nail one. And obviously that always had poor results. And that’s what’s always amazed me about Steve. Not only is he just simply amazing, but mentally, uh, he is just, you know, like, I guess a Tiger Woods of throwing a fly rod. I hate to make that comparison, but, uh. 01:02:55 Kalyn: Some people have called him the Terminator, apparently. Oh. 01:02:58 Rick: No. Just unbelievable. Uh, but, uh, he, I learned a lot just by being able to cast with him. And it really, uh, I really grew to, uh, see him. He became more and more of a friend, uh, each year that we did that competed against each other. And it’s, uh, I’m thankful for that event and that show, uh, that I got to, you know, become friends with him through that show and actually many other people as well. 01:03:23 Dave: Yeah. And Phil Blackmar, we mentioned the golf instructor. What sort of advice did he give you all on the mental side of it for comps? Anything you remember that stuck with you? 01:03:34 Kalyn: One of the things is he’s a big visualizer guy, you know, and I think that’s a good thing to do. You know, visualize what it was like to throw your best cast that you’ve thrown or visualize what it’s like to have that round where you hit all fives on the round. Um, that’s something I’ve talked to him about, you know, and how to get into that place, how to turn on that, I don’t know, turn the button on, you know. Um, but that’s mostly what I’ve talked to him about. Yeah. 01:04:03 Rick: That was kind of the same. Uh, he talked to me a lot about visualization, uh, breathing. Uh, but visualization is a big thing. And, uh, I think it’s easy to forget about that stuff when you’re rushing, trying to get up into the box, set your line and, uh, and it’s, I think it’s really easy to forget all of those techniques. Uh, when you’re, you’re scrambling to try to get ready to throw. And, uh, I think it would, you know, if I could just set aside four seconds, five seconds to just, you know, stop and visualize and breathe. Remember to do that would probably be extraordinarily helpful. 01:04:38 Dave: Nice and well, Whitney, before we get out of here, I wanted to hear from you too, because we mentioned the Sp-a. We talked about that steelhead fish, and we have a lot of anglers that are in and trout spey everything. What’s that look like for, you know, your program? Are you doing? It sounds like you’re doing quite a bit of trout Spey and you’re doing steelhead. You kind of mix it up throughout the year. Maybe describe that a little bit. And what where would you find. 01:05:01 Speaker 9: So for me. 01:05:02 Whitney: Personally, I’m not guiding Trout Spey anymore. I’m going to have my first Montana summer ever. I have lived here now for ten years and I’ve never gone to Glacier. So I am doing a part time job and teaching fly casting and fishing on my own. So for me, it’s starting the season with, um, you know, small Skagit heads, small two and three weights, a lot of leeches and jigging flies. Kind of a common thing that I got when back in the old days when I, when I actually did throw a, you know, a gear rod or a lightweight tackle rod and, um, then moving to swinging soft hackles with a two hander with a floating line and targeting trout, rising trout or trout that are, you know, uh, keyed in on in mergers. And then, um, then I do floating line only for summer run steelhead. Um, September through. Oh, smallmouth bass. I’m sorry, I’m starting a small mouth bass program on the snake River. Um, out of my jet boat. Um, swinging those same rods, the, the, um, swinging the, uh, the two and three weights and then moving to steelhead. Um, swinging dry flies and wet flies for summer run steelhead. And you know the great thing about a two hand rod? You can swing flies or target steelhead with a single hand or a bobber and an egg pattern. But for me personally, I like the two hand is kind of built for swinging flies. You can cast it out there in the current and swing it to the fish. And, and, and that’s really what I like to do, I think, and I like to teach that. I like to teach the cast, um, not only for the cast, but for the anglers fishing, um, in order to best set up the fly for that potential of the fish to grab that fly. Um, you know, as a guide and Rick and Katelyn can both speak to this. You get these people who want to go out and try spey fishing, you’ve got five minutes to a trust them that you know what you’re doing. B you’ve got another twenty minutes to get them to at least be able to cast in order to begin to fish. So the whole day doesn’t turn into one big casting lesson. So I focus on not necessarily the cast, but the angle of the cast and how that fly line is going to land so that they’re already fishing right off the bat. And so that’s what my season and program looks like. 01:07:49 Dave: Nice. That’s great. How about you, Rick? What do you have coming up here on your your year. 01:07:55 Rick: Well, it’s you know, the same old same old. I’m getting into the busy season and, um, you know, it’s mostly, uh, I’d say probably eighty five percent of what I do is, is for redfish, um, preferably tailing, you know, hopefully, uh, at least the early part of the morning and then site casting the rest of the day. And I, I think, um, I think Whitney kind of hit on that note that it, um, you know, you’re going to, you’re going to get to your spot and, uh, you know, make sure everything’s rigged up and then you, you gotta kind of see what you’re dealing with when they stand on the front of the boat. And, um, and a lot of the times, yeah, you’re, you’re going to have to figure out ways to help them or each individual, uh, because obviously everyone learns a little bit different or the analogy hits or it doesn’t hit. And, um, yeah, you know, you need to get them to, you know, trying to cast, you know, hopefully forty feet and, um, and so you’ve got to take, you know, some things that you’ve learned or things that hit home for you or, or things that hit home for another client and, and try to find a way to, uh, to infuse that into their cast or into their head and get them casting a little bit further. Because there are days where if you could just cast ten feet further, your catch ratio will go up by four or five hundred percent. Uh, you know, some days they’re easy as heck. They’ll swim right up fifteen feet of the boat. No problem. You can just have a great day. But, uh, with boat traffic and angler traffic on the water these days, those easy days are fewer and far between. And, uh, that extra ten, fifteen feet, uh, on somebody’s cast is hugely helpful. And I think that that’s where doing what all of us do, practicing as much as we do for these games, it helps you kind of find ways to relate that back to the angler. 01:09:49 Dave: Nice. And Caitlin, give us a heads up on what you have going now. 01:09:53 Kalyn: Yeah, the guiding stuff I’ve really moved toward teaching, right? Both, you know, Whitney and Rick have pointed out that sometimes it’s difficult to get a decent caster that wants to go on a trip. And what I fish, you know, I fish the run. But the driftless can be very difficult. If you’re not a decent caster, it can be really hard to do. And so what I’ve done is more move toward teaching people, you know, one on one on the river rather than guiding. Um, because I think that with guiding, I do my best to find a foolproof way. No offense to anybody that is a fool. Um, but try to find a foolproof way to make them catch fish. And like, I can do that in certain ways and you can do it out of a boat behind an indicator, and you can maybe catch redfish on the flap. Can’t cast, but it’s gonna be tough. And oh boy, better pull real good for you and make sure everything’s downwind. Um, and so that’s why I’ve kind of moved away from guiding as much, but I am willing to teach people on the water. Um, and so that’s why I’m hoping to do this year, especially this spring, you know, the driftless has one of the best caddis hatches that I’ve ever seen. And, uh, so, you know, we get a whole month of fun dry fly, go play around. And I’m hoping that I get to teach some people about it this year, but if not, I’ll just give them lessons in the grass and hopefully they can get out there and do it on their own. 01:11:15 Dave: Perfect. And as we just wrap this up, give us your best. Uh, I know this is always hard kind of tip fly casting, but you got somebody new on your boat. You know, that’s always just like I said, we’re talking to some of our listeners recently. We got some people that are brand new. We got some one of the guys, you know, shout out to Tom. He’s trying to get certified through FFI. We got different levels, but do you have a tip, something you find yourself telling a lot of your clients out there? And maybe we’ll start back with you. Whitney. 01:11:44 Whitney: Uh, yeah. Mine is. It’s a broken record, but I’m like, fish the fly right away. 01:11:49 Dave: Yeah. 01:11:50 Whitney: That’s it. Just fish the fly right away. 01:11:52 Speaker 9: Yeah, we. 01:11:53 Whitney: Can think about casting when I know the fish aren’t around, but we need to start fishing that fly right away. 01:12:00 Dave: Perfect. How about you, Rick? What’s your advice to somebody that’s coming on on your boat? Oh. 01:12:05 Rick: You know, that’s a tough one. It um flats fishing is, um so target oriented. 01:12:11 Dave: The wind right is the wind is kind of a big part of it. Right. 01:12:14 Rick: Yeah. The wind is crucial and it’s always there typically in the afternoons. And you know, you don’t get to you don’t fish the water. You’re fishing a fish. And that fish, it could be spooky. It could be tailing, it could be swimming. You know, it could be it, if you’re lucky, twenty feet, twenty five feet. Uh, these days it seems to be more like thirty five and forty. And so I find myself, you know, you find the most common denominator of what the client is doing wrong. And I think some of the very biggest problems I see that are that are very common across the board with anglers on the front of my boat. Uh, number one, uh, they’re breaking their wrist and opening up their loop to an extent that the wind just pummels it just punishes it. And so you have to get a little bit critical, uh, and go back to some of the basics, uh, like trying to find ways to keep them from breaking the wrist and, uh, maybe have a little more sense of urgency on the back cast stop and the forward cast stop. And, uh, you know, it’s, it’s, it seems like just same old basic stuff, but, uh, man, I gotta tell you, I see it so often that you really kind of have to pounce on some of those basic things and find ways to make it, you know, get it into their head, which is not as easy as it seems. Everybody learns differently. Some are more mentally. Others learn it more physically where you literally would, you know, have to put grab a hold of their hand and mimic the cast. And some of them will go, oh well, I got it. Now that makes sense. And then other ones, you can just tell them something and they can visualize it and they can pull that off. But yeah, I breaking the wrist is a huge one. And opening up the loop is, you know, and, uh, and yeah, a lot of people just don’t have a real sense of urgency on the cast. And, uh, so you’ve got to really figure out a way to, to tell them that, look, we need to have a little bit more of an abrupt stop on either the forward cast or the back cast, or both, depending on the, uh, the angler. And, uh, I know those two things seem probably very redundant. Uh, I’m sure everybody’s heard that before, but at least what I see on my boat, um, I see those two things causing a lot of problems for, uh, a lot of, uh, newer anglers. 01:14:36 Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah. 01:14:37 Whitney: So I have to add something to fishing the fly right away. And Rick pointed this out is in order to fish to fly right away, you got to be able to stop the rod to present the fly. Right. So there you go. 01:14:51 Dave: Yep. The abrupt stop, the flicking the paint right. Flicking the paint. 01:14:54 Speaker 9: Flicking the paint. 01:14:55 Whitney: And we’re talking two hand also. 01:14:57 Dave: Yeah. Right. Rick is saying, but use your bottom hand on the two hand. Yeah. Okay. And, Caitlin, take us out of here. What? What’s your. You got somebody there coming in? Maybe the casting. Fishing. What are you telling them? What’s your big tip? You find yourself telling people? 01:15:12 Kalyn: Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest it’s not necessarily a tip, but it’s something that I have to do on, on my migratory fish. Um, so we have fish that come out of Lake Michigan into rivers and then they spawn and then they hang out for a little while and they’ll eat and, uh, sometimes they’ll eat on the way up, but it’s real hard to get them to do that. But my biggest thing is I’ll have people that have fly fish and that are good and have fly fish for years and years, and they’ll come with me and they’ll get too excited and they’ll blow that delivery cast, you know, several times in the day. And then once you’ve blown it three times, the fourth time becomes more likely, right? And so I think a lot of mine is just to, to stay calm, put the fly where you want it to go, or at least to try to put it where you want to go. And for me, that helps a lot because I get guys that on that last cast will punch the crap out of it and throw a tail and put not in their leader, maybe accidentally catch a fish and break it off with a knot in their leader, right? And so for me, it’s just take your time, be calm and deliver the fly. And I think that’s good for a beginner as much as it is for an advanced caster. But I find advanced casters blow it a lot, too. 01:16:22 Dave: Yeah. Stay relaxed. This is awesome. Well. 01:16:25 Kalyn: Keep fishing, man. 01:16:27 Dave: Keep calm. Yeah, I love it. Stay calm, stay relaxed. It’s fly fishing after all. Right. This is the amazing thing, right? This is we’re talking about fly fishing. It’s. 01:16:35 Kalyn: I mean, it’s hard for anybody staring down a thirty pound brown, you know, but. 01:16:39 Dave: Oh, yeah. 01:16:39 Kalyn: You’ve got to get them focused back, right? You just got to keep cheering them into the right direction. 01:16:44 Dave: And we’ve all had those moments where you’ve got this, you know fish of a lifetime on and you lose it and you’re just and you don’t forget about that fish. I know I’ve had some steelhead on that. That happened. And I had one actually recently that jumped out and it was a quick release jumped in front of me and I lost it. But I actually felt pretty good about it because I saw the fish nice, you know, but but yeah, no, this is great. Well, thanks again everyone. I just want to give a shout out. Uh, we mentioned at the start where everybody can find you. Let’s just do that really quick just so we get that again. Whitney, you’re at, uh, the Gould standard fly fishing, is that right? 01:17:17 Speaker 9: Uh, yeah. 01:17:18 Whitney: You can find me on Instagram under Gould standard fly casting. Or you can just email me directly, which is Whitney Gould spey at gmail dot com. Sorry, I didn’t think that through. 01:17:29 Speaker 9: I should have W. 01:17:30 Whitney: G Spey, but space s p e y. 01:17:35 Dave: Yeah, S p e y, that’s right. Perfect. And, uh, and then and Rick and remind us again where you’re at. 01:17:41 Rick: Yeah. You can, uh, my website is Texas redfish adventures dot com. Long name I know, um, Instagram fish with Rick two zero two eight. And my email is also fish with Rick at sbcglobal dot net. 01:18:02 Dave: Perfect. And Caitlin, how about you? 01:18:04 Kalyn: Yeah, I’m on the fly road. Uh dot com is my website. You can go in there and, uh, shoot me a message. Also, I’m on Instagram at the Fly Road and on Facebook. I’ve recently. 01:18:18 Dave: Oh. 01:18:18 Kalyn: Facebook covered the necessity to have a Facebook account and so now I have a Facebook. 01:18:23 Dave: There you go. Cool. Well, this has been amazing. I really appreciate all the time. And hopefully we’ll stay in touch with you if the events coming up here this summer, maybe we can circle back around after and check in on on things, see how that went, but appreciate all your time and looking forward to keeping in touch. 01:18:36 Rick: Absolutely. Thank you Dave. 01:18:37 Kalyn: Yeah. Thank you. 01:18:38 Speaker 10: Thank you. 01:18:41 Dave: Hope something clicked for you today. Or if not, hope you just enjoyed that conversation. I always love the history. Amazing to get all three of them on this podcast today. You can check in. We mentioned where you can track them down. Please do that. Let them know you heard this podcast if you get a chance and if you’re interested, you want to hear more like this. Send me an email, David dot com. I want to give you a big heads up this week. We’ve got a great episode coming up here. Loop. We got a great series from loop fly tackle. They’re talking about, uh, we’re going to be going traveling around the world. Um, and stay tuned for that one this week. Excited to share that episode, another multi guest episode coming. If you’re liking these, where we have multiple guests on, please let me know. We’ll definitely put more of these together for you. And, uh, and I’m gonna get out of here. Got to get a lot done today. So hope you have a great one out there. Hope you’re having a good morning so far. Or afternoon or evening? Uh, if you’re out late in the night and you’re listening now, appreciate you for stopping in today. And, uh, please check in, send me an email. I’ll respond as soon as I see it. Thanks again. We’ll talk to you on the next one. 01:19:43 Speaker 11: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit wet fly dot com.

Conclusion with Fly Casting Tips with Whitney, Rick, and Kaylyn

Hope something clicked for you in this one. And if not, hopefully you just enjoyed the conversation. It was pretty amazing getting all three of them on together and hearing their take on this stuff.

     

In the Bucket #21 | Steelhead Fishing and the Illusion of Control with Adrienne Comeau and Eric Leininger

steelhead

Episode Show Notes

In today’s episode of In the Bucket podcast, Brian Niska is joined by Adrienne Comeau and Eric Leininger for a candid conversation on what really drives success in steelhead fishing. What starts with fly choice and presentation quickly shifts into a bigger discussion around uncertainty, experience, and how much control anglers actually have on the water.

Eric shares a perspective shaped by years of guiding—that in certain conditions, especially when water temperatures are right, many of the details anglers focus on may not be as critical as they seem. Adrienne adds her experience from the river, highlighting the role of confidence, instinct, and pattern recognition, while also recognizing the randomness that shows up time and time again. Together, they unpack the balance between what we think we know and what remains unpredictable—and why that tension is part of what keeps steelhead fishing so compelling.

Hit play to start listening! 👇🏻🎧

apple podcasts

Find the show:  Follow the Show | Overcast | Spotify

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe on Android

Subscribe via RSS

(The full episode transcript is at the bottom of this blogpost) 👇🏻

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

steelhead

Episode Recap

00:00 – 07:30 — Brian Niska opens the episode and introduces Adrienne Comeau and Eric Leininger. The conversation sets the stage with their guiding backgrounds and quickly pivots toward Eric’s unconventional idea that, under certain conditions, much of what anglers focus on may not matter.

07:30 – 18:00 — Eric breaks down his “nothing matters” theory, focusing on water temperature, fish presence, and observed patterns from time on the water. The group discusses how anglers often overemphasize fly color, presentation, and technique, despite inconsistent evidence that these factors truly determine success.

steelhead

18:00 – 28:30 — Adrienne shares her perspective on confidence in fly selection and decision-making as a guide. They explore how experience builds belief in certain patterns, while also recognizing that different anglers can succeed with completely different approaches.

28:30 – 38:00 — The discussion shifts into experimentation—fishing unconventional flies, challenging assumptions, and questioning long-held beliefs in steelhead culture. Stories highlight how fish are often caught in ways that contradict traditional “rules.”

steelhead

38:00 – 48:30 — The group dives into fish behavior and activity windows, including observations of synchronized bite periods across different stretches of river. They explore theories around environmental triggers, while acknowledging that many patterns remain unexplained.

48:30 – 58:00 — Eric reflects on a turning point in his own mindset—moving from confidence built on experience to questioning whether skill plays as large a role as previously believed. The conversation touches on ego, expectations, and the mental side of guiding.

steelhead

58:00 – End — The episode closes with a broader perspective on steelhead fishing as a whole. Adrienne and Eric discuss instinct-driven fish behavior, the limits of human understanding, and why embracing uncertainty may ultimately lead to a more rewarding experience on the water.


Resources Noted in the Show

Follow them on Instagram at 👇

Eric 👉@mykizha
Adrienne 👉@adriennecomeau

Visit 👇

SkeenaFlyFishing.com

PortugalTheMan.com

Listen to The Struggle is Reel Podcast on Apple Podcast with Eric Leininger and Zach Carothers


Sponsors and Podcast Updates

Related Episode

Full Podcast Transcript

Episode Transcript
00;00;01;29 – 00;00;13;12 Eric And then at the end of the day, if they’re like, I can’t believe it’s like, really? I can’t believe it. That’s what I’m going to try to do this winter is like, drill that into all my clients instead of them. I never want to and you can say it. I’m not going to be like, Oh, you asshole, don’t ever say that again. 00;00;13;12 – 00;00;27;29 Eric But it’s like, Why are we saying that? Why are we saying, I can’t believe it? Like, I can’t believe I haven’t won the lottery? Yeah, really? Have you ever won the lottery like now? But you have got steelhead, so when you’re like, Oh, I can’t believe it, it’s like, well, some days you get some days, you know, like that’s just how it is. 00;00;27;29 – 00;00;53;22 Eric So like, what are we doing out here? This emphasis on like, we think we know, dude, if I don’t know and I’ve been out there pretty much more than half my life, like at this point, I don’t know, like I can’t see in the water they should be there. But if they’re not, it’s like, yeah, I’m done being surprised me like, wow. 00;00;53;22 – 00;01;18;12 Brian Welcome to In the Bucket. The podcast that explores the culture of space fishing in the Pacific Northwest, a spectacular land of mountains and wild rivers where every cast has a story to tell. I’m your host, Brian Niska. In today’s show, we’re going to be joined by two return guests who are both superb anglers and guides. Adrian Comeau is a full time Steelhead guide who’s made a name for herself, helping clients connect with the fish of their dreams on the Lower Skeena and the Dene. 00;01;19;02 – 00;01;38;28 Brian Erik Leininger is back for his third appearance on our show. Despite his use of adult type language, Eric is well respected in the fly fishing industry and has established himself as a talented, multi-species angler whose expertise includes a variety of fisheries. Today, Eric wants to share some wild ideas about steelhead fishing that may uproot conventional thinking. I’m looking forward to this discussion. 00;01;39;06 – 00;01;40;25 Brian It’s time to get in the bucket. 00;01;44;22 – 00;02;09;05 Brian It’s been a while since we’ve put out a in the Bucket episode, so I’m very pleased to say this should be a special one. We’ve got Adrian Cuomo and Eric Leininger here today. This is actually a collaboration. Eric’s got his own podcast called The Struggle is Real, and we’re going to actually release this episode on both platforms. So, Ed, most people are familiar with you, but say a few words, let people know what you’re about. 00;02;09;05 – 00;02;10;18 Brian And then Eric, tell him about your show. 00;02;11;03 – 00;02;28;06 Ads Well, my name is Adrian. I guide for Ski and Osprey, and I also guide for Complete Bay Lodge on the dean. I’ve been still heading for well over 20 years. I’m working in the industry for 20 years and got a lot of ideas about things that still don’t have it all figured out. 00;02;28;22 – 00;02;56;27 Eric I am Eric Leininger. I’ve been guiding for about 15 years and thrown the two hander for close to 20. And yeah, just said some interesting ideas over the last year or so about steel heading and skill levels and if anything matters. And yeah, I kind of had a little epiphany slash existential breakdown last fall with Adrian on the Skeena and got me thinking. 00;02;56;27 – 00;02;59;28 Eric So now we’re here to chop it up and talk about it. 00;02;59;28 – 00;03;00;29 Brian This is like therapy. 00;03;01;10 – 00;03;03;04 Eric I mean, every day, you know? 00;03;03;24 – 00;03;17;09 Brian So you know your idea. Eric I just want make sure I fully wrap my head around it. You just think nothing matters under certain conditions, nothing matters. And we put way too much thought into, you know, flies, presentation, sink tips, etc., etc.. 00;03;17;21 – 00;03;40;20 Eric Yeah. I mean, I’m going to say the long and short of it, but I’ll probably be the long and long of it is essentially what I want to talk about today is when the water is warm, that kind of 58 degrees and above whatever that comes out to Celsius, but that 58 to 60 to 63, you know, when you start getting into 65, 66, it could be kind of detrimental to fish. 00;03;40;20 – 00;04;21;27 Eric But that 58 to 62, I feel like they’re at peak aggression level and over the years watching people that have absolutely no business hooking a steelhead, doing that and watching people of really high skill caliber, not catching steelhead in the same kind of areas or whatever. Just got me thinking. Got the wheels turning and when people talk about, oh, like fly color, everybody’s got their favorite fly color, and you’ll hear people say, oh, you know, the color doesn’t matter, but then you’ll fish with those guides or those anglers and they’re so dead set, they’re like, Oh, this is the jam. 00;04;21;27 – 00;04;45;03 Eric And you’re like, Oh, do these people really believe that color doesn’t matter? Or is it just like something we say? But then everybody’s got their preference of like, but this one, this is the jam. So I think some of us still believe like they’ve got just that color that they like or whatnot. And there’s a million same tips out there, a million podcast about casting and presentation. 00;04;45;03 – 00;05;03;17 Eric And something that I saw while up there this fall for a few weeks is that none of that matters, in my opinion. And, you know, I’m a data guy, so I’m just I’m not basing I’m like, oh, I feel this way. Like, I don’t I don’t really care how I feel. I’m just looking at stuff and seeing what what actually are the contributing factors. 00;05;03;26 – 00;05;28;09 Eric And the biggest thing is water temp and if they’re there and if they are, I feel like whoever has that, that fly going through that piece of water is going to catch in a lot of the summer. Steelhead rivers are fairly shallow that I fish and the water’s clear. So I can’t remember a lot of times that we fished a run and then floated over it and saw fish spook out. 00;05;28;22 – 00;05;50;24 Eric I’m sure there’s times where they’re so camouflaged next to a rock or whatnot or just out of eyesight that I can’t see them. But I really feel like if a fish is in a piece of water that hasn’t been disturbed, a bunch low pressure and the water is above 58, it does not matter what you do, they’re going to eat that fly. 00;05;51;21 – 00;06;11;29 Eric So yeah, I just I kept a bunch of notes this fall in the Ron and yet called you guys and I just kind of want to like discuss that idea and get your guys opinions on it. And yeah, the podcast I do down here is called The Struggle is Real with my buddy Zachary Carruthers. He’s kind of a famous musician. 00;06;11;29 – 00;06;31;12 Eric He was in the band Portugal, The Man for many years and then wanted to do something different. So he started guiding and being at the shop and he’s doing a really good job. So it’s kind of us to chopping it up. A lot of it isn’t about fishing, so I mean, it is kind of a fishing podcast because we’re both guides. 00;06;31;12 – 00;06;53;02 Eric It’s kind of neat to have a juxtaposition, kind of of like a first or second year guide with a 15 year guide and kind of the takes on that tax cut. A lot of stories from touring. I got a lot of stories from guiding and we’ll just go off the rails sometimes and and talk about whatever We’re both, you know, we partied our asses off as well and we’re both sober now. 00;06;53;02 – 00;07;12;26 Eric Not that like, that’s a hell. I want to die on and tell everybody like, this is the best thing ever. Like, nobody gives a shit. Congratulations. Whatever. But just the angle of, like, just trying to be a better person as I get older and the struggles of that really. I mean, it’s just very easy for me to not be a good person or be judgmental on stuff. 00;07;12;26 – 00;07;30;15 Eric So yeah, it’s just a combination of guiding the struggles with that, being a good person in life, yada, yada, yada. And it’s been a lot of fun doing it. So we’ve had a pretty good response and it’s just something that we do early morning before we open up the shop. So it seems to work out pretty well. 00;07;31;01 – 00;07;46;09 Brian Ed, I got a question for you. When it comes to, you know, sort of what Eric’s talking about, if we start with the fly, there’s a lot of guides that like to fish the same color, you know, more or less the same fly most of the time. Is this commitment or is this laziness? 00;07;46;25 – 00;08;10;03 Ads I would say that it’s just all about confidence and you start getting feedback on a certain pattern or a certain color, and it’s hard to want to start experimenting, especially as a guide, because if you have confidence in something, you want to give your client the best shot and you know, for me, something I believed for a really, really long time is that it truly is. 00;08;10;15 – 00;08;31;29 Ads You know, confidence is one of the biggest players when it comes to having success. And so, you know, you can talk to ten different steel headers and they all have a different favorite fired favorite color, but they probably all have very similar success rate. And what makes the difference is that they they just have the confidence to finish it differently. 00;08;31;29 – 00;08;53;00 Ads And so if you can pass that confidence along to your client and be like, hey, you know, we’ve been catching fish on this color consistently, they’re going to go fish that fly differently than if, you know, if you’re like, Oh yeah, and okay, well, yeah, let’s try this right? Depending on, you know, their skill level and their experience. 00;08;53;00 – 00;09;07;02 Ads And I feel like the more experience you get, the more willing people are to have confidence in different, different patterns in different ways. But as a guide. Yeah, that confidence factor in a particular color can go a long way. 00;09;07;15 – 00;09;27;04 Brian Yeah, you know, I kind of an analogy. I like to I always find these comparisons and I’ve been watching a lot of hockey lately and it’s a little bit like the hockey team puts in the goalie that they have the confidence in. Until they don’t have that confidence anymore or the guy gets injured. And you know, the scenario where you would deviate from, I’m going to say pink, Right? 00;09;27;12 – 00;09;28;19 Ads Right. You’re like, you’re pink. 00;09;29;00 – 00;09;35;00 Brian There’s this scenario where you would like put something like black or orange on there. Describe what would trigger that for you. 00;09;35;15 – 00;09;54;02 Ads Well, I mean, I am a huge fan of thinking I fish a lot myself and we fish it pretty much exclusively on the bean. But again, it comes down to of their confidence. And, you know, oftentimes I like if I have two clients I do like to fish one client on pink or one client on black and blue. 00;09;54;13 – 00;10;17;27 Ads In the fall I actually transition a bit more into black and blue when the water gets lower and clearer. And again, that just comes from years of of guiding on the same water and and getting feedback and finding that sometimes my success gets better. Switching to black and blue when we deal with low clear water in the fall and the water starts to cool down a little bit. 00;10;17;27 – 00;10;40;23 Ads So and sometimes it’s just it feels right and feels right to put on something different. And you can’t always quantify it. It can’t be, okay, well, you know, the angle of the sun or the temperature of the water or, you know what I eat for breakfast this morning. It’s just you just get a feeling and you throw it on and sometimes you get them, sometimes you don’t. 00;10;41;05 – 00;10;45;28 Ads But every time you get them, just give you a little bit more confidence. Follow that intuition. 00;10;46;19 – 00;10;59;20 Brian So, Eric, with picking up on your idea there, regardless of whether you’re up here on the skin or you’re fishing in Oregon, would you be comfortable with me picking any fly out of your box, tying it onto your line and you just sticking with that? If you truly believe that it doesn’t matter. 00;11;00;07 – 00;11;26;22 Eric Previous to last year, I would probably be somewhere in the realm of like 60 to 70%. Okay with that. Mainly because I do like the challenge aspect of stuff when especially when people are like, Oh, we can’t do this or this is impossible, or like, Oh, try this. Even though I don’t think it’s going to work as well, or the odds are kind of against me, I’ll be like, Yeah, like, let’s do it. 00;11;26;22 – 00;11;41;12 Eric Like I can catch a fish on anything. Like without saying like that in a cocky way, like that’s the mindset that, that you think, right? It’s like, Oh, hey, if I, you know, if I’ve been doing this a long time, like I’ve seen them eat like leaves, I’ve seen them come up and like, take a barber off the top of the surface. 00;11;41;12 – 00;12;06;11 Eric So and they eat beads like crazy, and that’s just a circle of red or pink. So when I really think about that, like, put that in an analogy, then it’s like, okay, well, based on those facts, like you should now that since kind of last year and like this year on the Ronde had a lot of people that tied their own flies and so they would be like, Hey, what do you want, a fish? 00;12;06;11 – 00;12;20;00 Eric I was like, Well, tee time flies. Like, Yeah, I was like, Let’s see your box. And they all look good. But there’s a bunch of colors that, you know, I don’t like the fish, you know, fishing with Dak. He loves purple. I never fish purple. And he thought I was an insane person to not fish purple on there on. 00;12;20;01 – 00;12;35;22 Eric I just. I don’t even know if I’ve fished in the last couple of years. Thinks another one I’ve never caught or had a client catch a winter steelhead on pink because I never fished. So it’s it’s hard to catch on if you don’t put it on. But I know guys that are and women that are dedicated to that color. 00;12;36;08 – 00;12;56;01 Eric So watching them fish their own flies and catching fish on it, I was like, like every time it’s like, oh, there’s another data point. Like shit don’t matter. Listening to Kelly on his slide podcast when he’s streamer fishing and he catches a fish on a streamer, he cuts it off because he’s like, Well, I know they’ll eat this like we already got the proof. 00;12;56;01 – 00;13;17;05 Eric Like they ate that fly. I cut it off, throw something else on. Like, are they just eating that specific fly or can I catch more trout on a different flight? And some days and those are fish that are eating right there, they’re actually carnivorous and looking for food, but some days they won’t touch any other fly. And that is for whatever reason, the fly they want to eat and other days believe anything. 00;13;17;18 – 00;13;35;06 Eric So I like to be put in different scenarios where I can, as I’ve gotten more and more years under my belt, that’s like, Well, I should be doing something different to see if I can figure out answers. So I’m not expecting to because they are kind of a mysterious fish. But what else am I doing? Like, Well, let’s do it. 00;13;35;06 – 00;13;55;19 Eric So now, like if I come up this spring, yeah, whatever you guys want, I’ll bring a bunch flies, but I’ll fish whatever. Like if you put a brown fly on, if the water’s clear enough to see it, I’d fish it. But that’s kind of the only factor that I really think about like within the last year is the first question is can I or the client cast it? 00;13;56;07 – 00;14;19;23 Eric So just make it fishable. And the second is can the fish see it? And if both those boxes are checked, then yeah, I’d feel confident fishing anything. So yeah, I guess you know what? I would say is yeah, I would feel there’s always going to be that little thing in the back of your head like, well, maybe. But, you know, when I first started coming out there that shrimpy, you know, kind of like apricot, you know, just in. 00;14;20;04 – 00;14;40;01 Eric Adrian It’s much more analytical show, play different color schemes and be like, kind of like this. But like she, she more kind of like scientist slash, like witchy woman, like you just never really know. But she’s going to throw some shit that’s going to work. Those guys are like, It has to be apricot with peach. And, you know, I’m like, okay. 00;14;40;09 – 00;14;54;16 Eric And I fish those flies and like, we caught fish. But, you know, I came up, I think, you know, a year or two after that, I’m like, I’m fishing black and blue, Like, I’m going to suck like, I like this. And I caught a bunch of fish and then the next and I fished that one fly for whatever, two weeks. 00;14;55;01 – 00;15;15;24 Eric And then the next season people like, Oh, you go fish. That black blue is like, Now I’m going to fish. That’s orange and red. Completely different color scheme fish for two weeks catfish. So I like being able to like change stuff up. And if I’ve got a good angler, it’s like, Hey, let’s stick to this fly fish. It, you know, the whole day or a couple of days and see if stuff happens. 00;15;15;24 – 00;15;43;06 Eric Something I did this fall, which I’m going to continue to do in any steel heading, is if I’ve got two anglers, I’m going to put the poor angler in the lead or split up the run and put the poor angler through the place where we get them the most, the second angler in the second spot where we still got them, but not as much have them fish through and then in the guy in the back, the stronger angler is going to have my confidence fly and the guy in the front is just going to be a fly that I never fish. 00;15;43;06 – 00;16;07;23 Eric So I’m actually fishing pink this winter. The lead guy is going to fish pink. And then before we leave, I’m going to be like, Hey, Brian, come down here. Start right here, which is going to be maybe two or three casts above the bucket and go through two or three cars, pass the bucket. So maybe just like 10 minutes and have them fish through and see if they the better angler with my fly that I know catches fish, finds that fish behind him or doesn’t. 00;16;07;23 – 00;16;09;26 Eric And my guess would be they’re not going to. 00;16;11;24 – 00;16;34;16 Ads Today show is brought to you by visit Idaho and Yellowstone Teton Territory place that should be on every anglers list from the Henrys fork to the South Fork of the Snake and all the hidden creeks and alpine lakes in between. This region is built for fly fishers, who, like a little room to roam. You can head over to wet fly, swing, dotcom slash Teton right now for guides, lodges and trip ideas to plan your next adventure. 00;16;34;16 – 00;17;05;21 Ads That’s t time tet0n experienced the waters of Bristol Bay at Togiak River Lodge, where fly fishing meets Alaska’s rugged beauty. This is the place to complete the Alaska Grand Slam with all five salmon species, rainbow trout, arctic char and more. Where each day offers a new Alaskan adventure, you can visit Togiak Lodge dot com right now to start planning your Bristol Bay experience with Togiak River Lodge. 00;17;05;21 – 00;17;25;24 Brian This is a bit of a wild idea right now, but listen to your talk and I’m thinking we should do like bounty fly bingo or something where like put up some weird flies and each fly has something attached to it, whether it’s 100 bucks or a prize or whatever. And if someone catches a fish steelhead on this like bright yellow and beige fly, then they get a prize. 00;17;25;24 – 00;17;31;10 Brian And if people want to want to roll the dice on that for a while, might be a fun thing to try in conjunction with the experiment you’re talking. 00;17;31;29 – 00;17;48;08 Eric I mean, I’m coming up for basically your guys this whole season. I live there now, so go ahead and get the W2 out and get ready to employ me. Immigration papers, whatever you got to do. But I mean, I would happily do that the entire time I’m there this spring, if you want to tie up. I mean, make them look good. 00;17;48;08 – 00;18;17;26 Eric Don’t give me some bullshit, you know, make it look good, but you can tie it and yeah, yellow with white in there or whatever. Office the shit out of those. I’ll fish a different fly every day and it would be interesting to see, like, will they eat anything? Because we’ve been fishing. When I saw Shane McKay catch Giant Chrome hen out of a small little river in Canada on an all white fly with weird like sparkly U.V., I was like, what? 00;18;17;26 – 00;18;38;02 Eric And the like, what? White? And he’s like, Oh, yeah. And then, you know, when I saw David catch a number of fish behind me about a decade ago on the Thompson and All Red, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen anybody catch a fish on a red flag. I was like, mind blown. So I heard somebody say it. 00;18;38;09 – 00;19;00;12 Eric I think it was Braden on the slide and podcast. He’s like, We fish steelhead the way people fish like Atlantis. We got all our information from them, essentially, right? So we don’t even know if we’re doing it right, like we catch them, right? But like, there could be other ways to catch these fish. But as far as steelhead go, we don’t really like, push the limits as much, right? 00;19;00;12 – 00;19;15;06 Eric It’s like, Oh, we’re going to spend all this time figuring out a new way to cast. It’s like, Yeah, dude, like set of anchor, get the line behind you and then pull down and hold on. Like, okay, that’s great. People like, Oh, I’ll see you guys. I’m going to get on a little side here. My apologies. I’ll see you guys on the Internet. 00;19;15;06 – 00;19;36;10 Eric They’re like, Yeah, check out this new cast and they’re frickin rib and dancing that shit all over them. A million moves just to end up in like a periscope position and then launch it. And. And people are like, Oh, you’re the wizard. And I’m like, This is some bullshit. Meanwhile, the guy like, upriver that is doing, like a double spell or God forbid they know how to single spay. 00;19;36;11 – 00;19;56;04 Eric Not me. I suck. Don’t practice it. Yeah, they’re fishing twice as fast, three times as fast. And everybody’s like, Put that cast in. It’s like, okay, so do you want to be like a castor baiter Supreme where everybody’s just fucking giving you just high praise and you’re the man. Are you like, do you like to actually have fish? 00;19;56;04 – 00;20;21;01 Eric Yank on the end of that line? Because you can’t be both. You’re too worried about how that loop is going out. And if you’re fish in this gadget, you know, spoiler alert, it’s not going to be great. It’s just a means to an end. So, yeah, I think that we just we don’t even know what we’re doing. You know, there’s a lot of great guides out there and they, you know, air quotes know what they’re doing because we’ve caught fish. 00;20;21;01 – 00;20;42;03 Eric But essentially I’m like, do we know what we’re doing? Like you would think somebody that guides more and more years builds this confidence. And that was definitely me for years. And then I think I called you like last winter after eating a absorbent amount of mushrooms the day before. And I was like, I think we’re do you remember this phone calls? 00;20;42;03 – 00;20;58;09 Eric Like, I think I’m a do I think I’m a charlatan? Do I was I think I’m pulling the wool over people’s eyes like I don’t think any of this shit matters. Like we’re telling them that we know what we’re doing, but I don’t think we do. I think we’re just, like, basing it on some data. Maybe the fish is there. 00;20;58;12 – 00;21;22;01 Eric We’ve never seen one except Adrian and I on Maxima point that one year shout out 24 and then were either catching that fish or not catching that fish. So yeah, I kind of had that was like the beginning of like, I don’t know man. And then that following year was the fall. I came up and I look for fish behind Zach. 00;21;22;01 – 00;21;40;23 Eric That’s not like a slash to him. It’s just like, okay, cool. Like, yeah, I’ve been doing this longer. That should happen. And then I blanked for 12 days in a row and now I was fishing way behind everybody in no man’s land. You know, all the people I came up with were, you know, put them in the bucket, put them in the good shit. 00;21;40;23 – 00;21;59;03 Eric And I was watching them catch fish every day. You know, where the fish would stop. They were catching them and then they would continue their migration and I would see them swim past me three feet from my knees. And they were not eating my shit. And that’s when I was like, Damn, dude, I don’t think any of the stuff we do matters. 00;21;59;03 – 00;22;22;24 Eric I think if they stop and a fly comes past them, they’re going to eat it, especially your guys as fish. I know you get less of them, but not really hatchery program on that river. You know, wild genetics, not a lot of pressure when they stop something. I believe and this is just, you know, being stuff that like maybe something changes and all of a sudden they become a predator. 00;22;22;24 – 00;22;47;21 Eric As soon as that tail starts to kick in, they’re just like a migration animal where they’re just trying to get from A to B, But when they stop, it’s like, okay, if something comes into my wheelhouse where I’m comfortable and trying to relax, I kill it. So, yeah, I don’t know. I guess to answer your question again, I would happily fish any color, fly any length, any material. 00;22;47;21 – 00;22;59;10 Eric I’m surprised more people don’t tie flies out of ducktail in the Steelhead realm just because it’s so light and it has good movement, it’s durable and comes at a bunch of colors. I always wonder about that. 00;22;59;20 – 00;23;00;13 Brian And affordable. 00;23;00;22 – 00;23;01;18 Eric And affordable. Yeah. 00;23;02;10 – 00;23;04;17 Brian All right. So, Adrian. 00;23;04;27 – 00;23;05;08 Ads Yes. 00;23;05;21 – 00;23;24;19 Brian We’ve known each other a long time. Did absolute magician out there. Here’s the thing that I notice is if you guys I don’t care if it’s August or September or October the spring, a lot of times, it seems to me, when I’m not on the water, but I’m getting maybe text messages and my phone will start beeping and someone caught a fish and someone else catches a fish. 00;23;24;25 – 00;23;44;09 Brian It definitely feels that throughout the day there’s periods of activity and it would kind of make sense that maybe there’s a push, a fish coming through and people are running into them, except for people are spread out all over and it happens way too frequently for me to disregard it as mere coincidence that there’s a certain time throughout the day where the fish just get happy. 00;23;44;09 – 00;24;04;22 Brian Now, I remember as a kid reading the B.C. outdoors magazines and on whatever page they would have a little thing with the solitaire tables. And some people really believed that there were periods of activity throughout the day for wildlife. What is your thought on that? Am I nuts to think that this stuff is clustered or or do you think there’s just you know, it’s just times of the day where they get happy? 00;24;05;05 – 00;24;31;09 Ads And I definitely notice that there seems to be periods of activity. I have noticed that on the down and on the skeena. And is that something that we can figure out the why? Probably not, because it’s probably a combination of factors that we don’t even know are going on, whether it’s temperature, pressure, light, who knows? Maybe they’re putting out some kind of, you know, message signal that they’re all okay, now it’s time to go. 00;24;31;09 – 00;25;02;22 Ads We don’t know. We can’t we can’t get the answer to that question. But I definitely agree with you that there seems to be especially I think when conditions do get tougher and you get bigger temperature swings, I probably noticed it more throughout the winter than in the summer, but they’ll be yeah, it’ll all of a sudden it’s something there’s been a shift somehow and they get bitey and will be kilometers and kilometers apart or, you know, 20 kilometers apart from another guide boat. 00;25;02;22 – 00;25;19;21 Ads And, you know, within half an hour there’s multiple fish being hooked and then there’ll be other days where it is really sporadic and maybe the conditions are just more conducive the entire time for them wanting to bite. But I don’t think that you can really come up with any definitive answer as to why. 00;25;20;20 – 00;25;36;12 Brian So it doesn’t matter. Don’t get up early. Just go out there when you when you can and and if you’re lucky, because it’s better to be lucky than good. You had a great quote, Adrian. I think it might have been in one of the Sims films, but you were basically saying, like just when you think you know something about Steelhead, you realize that there’s so much you don’t know. 00;25;36;12 – 00;25;39;15 Brian I’m paraphrasing, but what was that quote exactly? Do you remember? 00;25;40;04 – 00;26;13;11 Ads Well, it probably had something to do with just the randomness that that you continue to encounter the longer you do it. And Eric, I’m sure that you see the same thing, too. We think that we’re going to get a more defined answer, the better we get. But it seems like we just get more questions and you see more randomness and more weirdness and stuff that you didn’t really think was going to happen happens and and it just leads you to the idea that you’re never going to be able to figure it out completely. 00;26;13;23 – 00;26;21;26 Ads And you might as well just keep trying new stuff and believe that it could happen at any random moment. What do you think, Eric? 00;26;22;10 – 00;26;45;09 Eric There’s a mark Twain quote or something. Paraphrasing, too. He says something like, you know, I can’t believe how smart my dad became as I entered my thirties or something like that. You know, basically saying like, you know, as you’re growing up, you think you know everything. And then I’ve seen this with myself a ton like teenager. You think you’re hot shit, then you’re in my ear in your twenties and you’re like, God, what a dumb ass. 00;26;45;09 – 00;27;00;24 Eric And then you get in your thirties and you’re like, Oh, by my twenties, what a dumb ass. And then you get in your forties, you know, like then my thirties, sort of dumb ass and like, you know, with that kind of trend, it’s probably going to continue to happen to my fifties and sixties. Well, hopefully, because then you, you know, you’re kind of realizing stuff. 00;27;00;24 – 00;27;21;21 Eric And I think that can be relatable to everything that when I first started thinking about it, I was like, Oh, like, that’s interesting because that’s like steel hitting, you know, like you start out and you just want to cast and you catch a couple of fish and then you kind of think, you know, what you doing, and you kind of tie a couple of flies and you have some success and you think, Oh, this is the ticket, and you see that not work or something else, totally work. 00;27;21;21 – 00;27;39;00 Eric And you’re like, Oh, okay, that just mixed it all up and then, you know, you keep doing it just hours and hours and days and months and years and you learn something new and then that just gets blown up. And I think that’s like, you know, without going all, you know, Zen one World stuff, it’s like, I think that’s it. 00;27;39;09 – 00;28;15;18 Eric I think that’s basically everything. Like, no matter what you choose to do, whether it’s a hobby or have kids or fish or bow hunt or rock climb or clean your house a different way, whatever. I think that’s just essentially, you know, living life is like the more you know, the less you’re going to know. As many people have said, I think that’s the fun and interesting part to where I’m kind of going through a little phase of that, where I really pigeon hole on stuff and will get obsessed with that for minutes or weeks or years. 00;28;15;18 – 00;28;45;17 Eric And that’s all I do, thinking that if I research test, put time in that I’ll eventually get the answers that I’m looking for. And like Adrian said, all that ends up happening is I end up with more questions. So I’m kind of within the last few, whatever, months or year kind of settled on the fact that I I’m not going to stop doing that because that’s just how I’m built, but I’m enjoying that in a different aspect. 00;28;45;17 – 00;29;20;13 Eric Rather than getting frustrated or digging in harder, just being like, Oh, that’s really interesting that like this is going to keep happening and with the Steelhead angle specifically enjoying the fact that I don’t think I’ll ever figure them out, which makes them kind of more fun in the sense that anything can happen. And that’s when that kind of epiphany hit me on the water in the fall, where the first part of it honestly was pretty rough because it was like a prideful ego chop. 00;29;20;17 – 00;29;47;23 Eric You know, I came in like all like thousands of hours. I mean, they talk about 10000 hours to be an expert at something. I know Adrian myself, you know, Pat, J.B. at one time when he was guiding yourself. Brian We’re well beyond that, You know, numerous times over that 30000 hours, 40000 hours, whatever it is, we have logged just an unimaginable time on water speed casting, fishing, rowing, looking at rivers. 00;29;47;28 – 00;29;48;29 Brian Fish list hours. 00;29;49;06 – 00;30;10;04 Eric Fish lost hours. And for all that to kind of hit me and just be like, yeah, hey, guess what, bro? Yeah, none of that shit matters. Like, your whole life has been a sham. Like, none of that. Bobby, Joe, Joe that shows up is going to catch the same amount of fish as you do out here. If the water’s 58 degrees and there’s a fish on that run, you’re not going to pick his pocket. 00;30;10;04 – 00;30;30;19 Eric He’s going to get it. And if you’re not in the right place, it doesn’t matter. And I was I’ve never been bored swinging flies before. I’m so engaged on like, oh, like I’m always talking about little flat spots that I see when I’m fishing with a client or somebody. I’m like, You see how just like levels out right there, it’s like the gradient, like it’s flat on the bottom of the river. 00;30;30;19 – 00;30;49;01 Eric Like that’s a spot where a fish can hold it. Six feet long. But like, that’s a good that’s like a little bucket. Like definitely focus on that or oh, as I’m, you know, mending or not mending, like trying to keep that perfect amount of tension because that’s the speed that I’ve had the majority of my fish eat on and all that stuff. 00;30;49;01 – 00;31;09;04 Eric Like I’ve heard people like, oh, like swinging flies is so boring because all you do is as cast and hang on and wait and nothing happens. And I’ve always thought, man, those people are missing the point. Like, how could you possibly be bored swinging flies when you’re 100% present and engaged the entire time? And at that moment, all of a sudden that just broke and I, I was bored. 00;31;09;04 – 00;31;29;10 Eric I was like, Oh, wait a second. All this stuff I’ve been doing and all this energy I’ve been focusing on and all this knowledge I’ve gained over 20 years means absolutely jack shit and at that moment I look up and I’m not going to say who, but one of my clients just bar south is cast in a pile means it, so it straightens out. 00;31;29;25 – 00;31;49;24 Eric It’s up like a 45. It starts get across and just gets absolutely cooked. This thing’s out of the water, just cartwheeling all over. They’re super stoked. Somebody goes down and that’s it. And then just like, damn, dude. Like, if that wasn’t like a sign from I’m not a spiritual person, but Mother Earth just being like, Yeah, this is what we’re telling you. 00;31;49;24 – 00;32;11;04 Eric None of this shit matters. So either keep casting or don’t or whatever. But so I kind of reeled up and that’s when I had my infamous little Netflix Netflix moment. I’m just like playing on the Jet boat and Adrian’s taking photos. I couldn’t do it. I’m like, I’m just like, kind of like in a cluster right now. I’m just kind of like, what’s some catch from some stranger thing? 00;32;11;04 – 00;32;41;18 Eric She’s like, you know, watch Netflix out of it. I was like, I got I got a little bit. I downloaded some stuff, so should I run Skeena in the fall? I was like, Yeah, yeah. She’s like, You’re right. I was like, Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, I know. She’s like, I’ll just leave you be. And like, I kind of just was watching stuff is good episode, by the way, and just kind of after being like that shot to the ego and pride and all that stuff and just feeling like piece of shit kind of like went full circle and just kind of enjoy. 00;32;41;18 – 00;33;00;25 Eric Just like having my feet up and like sipping a cup of coffee and watching my guys fish and realizing, Wait a second, man, this might be a good thing. Because if nothing matters this time of the year, it’s not a year round thing. Like if I was winter fishing and nothing mattered and spring fish and nothing matter, it might be different. 00;33;01;10 – 00;33;31;27 Eric But this little magic window of a couple of weeks or something where nothing matters and anybody can get absolutely rocked and have like a fish of a lifetime or like that first fish, you know, grab or you remember that first one forever. That’s kind of cool, especially for guiding. That’s like, Dude, you can go in every day now really believing that every single person, whether it’s their first day with the spare rod or their 30th year has the same odds. 00;33;32;06 – 00;33;46;16 Eric Like, imagine that mindset when I wake up guiding in the fall on the run and I’m like, We’re going to get them if they’re there 100%. Like if we go like, Oh, I’m just I want to get better cast. I’m like, Fuck it, dude, this is not the time. Hug it out, dude, and hang on because it’s going to happen. 00;33;46;16 – 00;34;04;00 Eric Like the confidence going into the run this fall was like, could not be tethered every day. I’m like, We’re going to fucking crush out there. Like I saw the water temp. I’m like, Nothing matters. Fish behind you guys. Nothing matters. Like and we would. And then other days we wanted people like, Man, I can’t believe it. I was like, Yeah, they weren’t there. 00;34;04;15 – 00;34;23;26 Eric Meaning there was probably a fish there, but not our fish. Or they got caught or whatever. But like, if that fish wanted to eat, I don’t care if DEC’s coming up behind you, he ain’t catching it. So it kind of made me feel a lot better about things as far as like guiding and the kind of mysteriousness about Steelhead. 00;34;24;21 – 00;34;50;21 Eric So that’s when I started taking those notes like I was talking about earlier, 30 of every possible, you know, atmospheric weather temperature gauge. I could detailed notes over a month of guiding the same river. And at the end of that, I looked at it, I looked at it. There was no correlation between skill level, you know, the water temp was warm a lot of those days. 00;34;50;21 – 00;34;59;12 Eric Then it got a little colder. Still didn’t make a difference. Fish, oil, people, fish and sink tips, small flies, big flies, like all that stuff. I couldn’t find a pattern. 00;34;59;29 – 00;35;26;05 Brian Eric I got this kind of funny scenario picture in my head right now because we’ve all been there. You know, the clients are like, What fly should I use? What not should I use? What tip should I use? Which cache should I use which, you know, the whole deal. And you’re just sitting there all Zen like in your flip flops going, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, Nothing matters If someone should steal your your phrase there because it’s pretty good you know to promote a Skagit like you know like what’s the sales line for this gadget alone? 00;35;26;12 – 00;35;33;13 Brian A means to an end. Nothing matters. Yeah. Check it out there. Who cares? We need a casting lesson now. Don’t bother. Just throw it out there. 00;35;34;00 – 00;36;00;24 Eric Yeah. Roll cast that bitch. It’s fine again. I think that’s. It’s a good thing. I think in speaking from experience, I was so focused on turning every single angler into the world’s best steelhead, or in 8 hours, just unattainable goals. And now that little magic window. And they’re just like, you know, there’s some wiggle room. But sometime between like September and the end of October or the majority of days, it’s like, man, just enjoy it. 00;36;00;24 – 00;36;20;09 Eric Like throw it out there. If it doesn’t turn all the way over, like mend it to fix it, but try to turn it over and just cover and like you’re going to catch them. And if you don’t, I won’t be surprised if you catch six. I won’t be surprised if you catch zero. I won’t be surprised. It just I guess ultimately it feels pretty good to not be surprised about Steelhead anymore. 00;36;20;19 – 00;36;40;04 Eric Whereas like so many days I’d be like, I cannot believe we didn’t touch a fish really boner. You can’t believe you didn’t catch fish. What are you talking about? Shit happens all the time. And then, like, we get five and I’d be like, Dude, we got five today. That’s like, unheard of, is it? Talk to anybody. There’s tons of people that catch five. 00;36;40;04 – 00;36;51;17 Eric Like, it also happens all the time. So that’s what I have kind of come around to really falling back hard involved with steelhead and it’s like, Yeah, both things can happen at time. 00;36;52;00 – 00;37;03;21 Brian So what you’re saying, Eric, is you’ve eliminated this one phrase from your vocabulary, and I know Adrian said it, I’ve said it. We all say it, though maybe not you anymore. And that’s after you fish good water. Well, you say, Man, I can’t believe there wasn’t one in there. 00;37;04;08 – 00;37;20;08 Eric Yeah, I’ll never say that again. That, you know, I just. I don’t care. And I don’t. I don’t believe it. Anyways, maybe that’s what I’m going to start saying when I, when they get done, they’ll be like, Oh, man, I’ll be like, Yeah, man, 100% believe there wasn’t one there. Yeah, does. 00;37;20;11 – 00;37;22;03 Brian Not. I’m not surprised you didn’t get. 00;37;22;05 – 00;37;36;01 Eric Yeah, I’m not Yeah, I’m not surprised you didn’t get one though. Like why. Because he wasn’t. They’re hard to catch in the third Marty Shepherd show, right. Yeah. It’s like. Yeah. Fucking reel it up and get in the boat. Let’s go find one that is there. I quit thinking about what just happened. Doesn’t matter anyways. Can’t change it. 00;37;36;01 – 00;37;48;23 Eric We’re not going to go through the rain a second time. Fuck it. Who cares? Move on. Get in the boat. Let’s go. And then at the end of the day, if they’re like, I can’t believe it’s like, Really? I can’t believe it. That’s what I’m going to try to do this winter is like, drill that into all my clients instead of them. 00;37;48;27 – 00;38;04;12 Eric I never want to and you can say it. I’m not going to be like, Oh, you asshole, don’t ever say that again. But it’s like, Why are we saying that? Why are we saying, I can’t believe it? Like, I can’t believe I haven’t won the lottery? Yeah, really? Have you ever won the lottery like now? But you have got steelhead, so when you’re like, Oh, I can’t believe it. 00;38;04;12 – 00;38;20;00 Eric It’s like, well, some days you get some days, you know, like that’s just how it is. So like what are we doing out here? This emphasis on like, we think we know, Dude, if I don’t know and I’ve been out there pretty much more than half my life, like at this point, I don’t know, like I can’t see in the water they should be there. 00;38;20;00 – 00;38;34;14 Eric But if they’re not, it’s like, yeah, I’m done being surprised me like, wow, that was like one of those things that hit me. It’s like when I was like, I can’t believe I was like, start thinking, like, What do you mean you can’t believe how many hundreds, if not thousands of times have you gone through run and not kind a fish. 00;38;34;14 – 00;38;45;26 Eric It’s like you should be like, Oh, that’s what I’m going to start saying. I’m going to roll up and be like, Man, I 100% believe that I didn’t catch one there. Yeah, that’s that. That happened. Anyways, come pick me up now. 00;38;45;26 – 00;39;05;08 Brian Eight. It’s a little different when you’re on the dean because you guys actually see fish jump there. We’ve talked about this before, the whole Pogo thing. And I recently listen to a podcast that Pat did with Jeff Lisk a great show. And Pat, you know, typical Pat. He had a really interesting idea on why those fish choose to pogo. 00;39;05;17 – 00;39;08;27 Brian You want to get into that for little bit. You know what? But Pat’s theory is right? 00;39;09;09 – 00;39;29;11 Ads Well, yeah, I mean, that that theory came about, you know, just a random conversation throughout the season this year, you know, because it is an interesting phenomenon and it’s not one that is witnessed that much anywhere else that I know of, that I’ve heard of where they they literally will jump straight out of the water and often multiple times in a row. 00;39;29;11 – 00;39;53;11 Ads And and so Pat’s theory was that I haven’t heard how he described it on the podcast, but essentially that as those fish move into the river because of the way the DNA is structured in the lower end, that they’re coming from very wide open deep water up onto a little shelf and immediately into a high gradient, very Boulder River. 00;39;53;12 – 00;40;20;02 Ads They don’t have a long estuary that they travel through where they’re spending time acclimatizing, you know, running into smaller sharks here and eventually into bigger structure. This goes from, you know, from nothing to everything, essentially. And so as they’re moving up the river and they’re not they’re not used to that structure, it happens so abruptly that they basically, you know, the idea is that they run into a rock almost and spooks them and they come up out of the water. 00;40;20;15 – 00;40;50;15 Ads Can you actually see that’s the case or is it just another interesting theory? I mean, why do any fish surface role jump splash? Do we know? No, but the DNA is very, very unique in that we do get to see them. And often where they jump is in what we we figure are the traveling. And that if we can put ourselves in a position to get a fly into that traveling lane, when that base that we’ve just seen goes through there, then we might have a shot at catching them. 00;40;50;22 – 00;41;11;11 Ads And then, you know, sometimes those fish are moving. So pretty quickly that, you know, they were gone past you by the time you get your fly into that lane. But it’s a very unique situation to be able to witness moving fish because you just don’t get to see them that often anywhere else. So I don’t know what your theory on that is, Brian. 00;41;12;05 – 00;41;15;11 Ads I don’t know whether I believe it or not, but it was a fun theory to come up with. 00;41;15;26 – 00;41;32;00 Brian Yeah, I mean, so, Eric, you probably know what we’re talking about, but basically, you know, the dean has this scenario where Steelhead will shoot more or less straight up, almost like they’re jumping a false. And obviously this is super exciting for anyone, anybody who’s got to fly in the water at the time because there’s that that elusive positive reinforcement. 00;41;32;15 – 00;41;51;21 Brian And it’s just something really neat to see because they can shoot out of the water a long way and it’s a pretty big splash. I really like Pat’s theory. I think, you know, it’s almost like an evasive type action and, you know, at some point fish are going to have to jump falls. And I don’t think it’s entirely unlike, you know, the mechanism where they’re going to jump a falls. 00;41;52;00 – 00;42;08;10 Brian You know, they come out of if you think of the cross section of it, right, coming out of the channel, they’re getting into, you know, much, much shallower water very, very quickly and then encountering big rocks when they hit those big rocks, where are they going to go where they can go up? So I like Pat’s. I like Pat’s theory. 00;42;08;10 – 00;42;23;05 Brian I think as he’s probably explained it, the best I’ve ever heard anyone say it. Obviously, we’ve heard other people talk about trying to get rid of lice or just jumping to look around or what have you, but or being chased by seals. But I do like Pat’s theory. I mean, Pat’s a smart guy and he’s got lots of time on the water. 00;42;23;15 – 00;42;29;13 Brian Sounds sounds like you don’t think he’s nuts on that either. So, Eric, have you heard people talk about this before, this this Pogo thing? 00;42;29;25 – 00;42;59;23 Eric I have and I heard that podcast. That was really a fun and interesting podcast that Pat did with Jeff. Each river is going to have its own unique stuff, right? I think that’s like the biggest thing. Like I think the Pogo thing on the Dave could 100% be true on that river. There’s another river that I was on recently where I walked into a pool and the steelhead were jumping like coho, and they were hundreds of miles from the salt and no big rock. 00;42;59;28 – 00;43;12;18 Eric I mean, I probably saw 30 steelhead just airborne like one after another for maybe 45 minutes or an hour. Nothing like I’ve ever seen. And just like is going on there. 00;43;12;18 – 00;43;14;19 Brian Was it the day you caught me on the mushrooms? 00;43;14;19 – 00;43;33;00 Eric I know, I know. That was just that was a real day. And I was just like, This is insane. Like, I’ve never seen anything like this. You know, you’ll get Coho specifically that flood stages in Alaska. And in late season, they end up in slews and they’re they’re free jumping all over the place. And there’s not seal to be found for, you know, 100 miles as well. 00;43;33;19 – 00;43;58;07 Eric And other fish will roll and do stuff. So I think the Dean thing, I mean, it makes sense to us also fish go through like two inches of water, no problem. So I think if they come into a big rock like that, it’s nothing for them to go around it up and over it to the side of it, hold like I don’t know if they’re that nervous of a fish to just blast up in the air and then blast up in the air again. 00;43;58;27 – 00;44;13;11 Eric Who knows? It’s one of those things that you won’t ever figure out. I like the idea. The best thing I ever heard was somebody you know, they always ask In Alaska, there are so many fish, right? I’m like, Why do they do that? This old timer had the best answer, and I love that this is my favorite answer to that. 00;44;13;11 – 00;44;27;27 Eric Whether you’re seeing a fish free jump or roll or whatever, I mean, it’s like, why did they do that? Eric? And, you know, I’m reciting all the basic shit. It was like my second year. And his buddy goes, Well, I just think because they can. Yep. And that’s my favorite answer. It’s like, Yeah, if you’re a fish, then you could fly out of the water. 00;44;27;28 – 00;44;52;13 Eric Seems pretty fun. Like it doesn’t need to be a specific reason. They’re just going in there. Like, let me just jump in. Let me just roll. Like, it’s just something they do. I mean, they do all sorts of weird shit under the water that we can’t see. Occasionally you’ll be floating over standing on a high cliff and you see some steelhead like scrape its belly on the side when it’s not spawning or, you know, like, do some fucking weird thing where they swim down river or put their head up. 00;44;52;21 – 00;45;11;04 Eric I mean, I’ll see like Tiger Muskie in Washington swim around with their head out of the water, just their head for like numerous minutes, just swimming around the top part of the water column with their head out of the water. And then that’s it. And then just go back down. And I don’t know what that’s about. I mean, Pike, don’t do that. 00;45;11;04 – 00;45;20;11 Eric Must you don’t do that. But apparently Tiger Muskie do that. So I think it’s just a weird thing. We’re like, yeah, it’s because they can a lot of stuff they do is because they can. 00;45;20;18 – 00;45;42;21 Ads Well, here’s an interesting thought process that I, I do talk about with clients, too, is that we’re always looking like as humans that our ability to rationalize and make decisions and be able to think in that way. We are trying to find an answer, a concrete reason why we think fish might be making decisions. Why did they do this? 00;45;42;21 – 00;46;04;28 Ads Why do they do that? And because we do that in our day to day lives all the time. We’re constantly thinking about analyzing, making decisions about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, how we want to do it. Fish don’t operate that way. And so for us, I think that there is an answer in that these fish are making decisions to do things well. 00;46;04;28 – 00;46;29;21 Ads It doesn’t really work like. And so that kind of goes hand in hand with this whole, you know, the more you think you know, the less you actually know, because there’s so many variables that we can’t figure out that comes to fish behavior. And so all we’re trying to do is make our best educated guess and satisfy our need to, have some kind of decision making process behind behavior. 00;46;30;01 – 00;46;52;29 Ads And it just simply doesn’t work that way in creatures who don’t think the same way that we do. So we think that we’re ever going to get a definitive answer as to why they do something, especially with fish that aren’t actively feeding. And I think coming coming to that realization for myself made it a lot easier to to accept trying different shit and all the weird random stuff that that happens. 00;46;52;29 – 00;47;14;23 Ads It’s like, yeah, well, there could be something happening that we don’t know, right? And we’re never going to be able to figure it out because it’s not a decision from the fish. It’s just instinctual, reactionary behavior based on a whole number of factors that we don’t even know are happening. So I don’t know how either. What do you think about that? 00;47;14;23 – 00;47;43;20 Ads Discover the Montana fly fishing, large nets along the federally designated wild and scenic East Rosebud River with 1.5 miles of exclusive private frontage there all inclusive luxury experiences combine world class fly fishing on legendary waters like the Yellowstone, the Bighorn and Stillwater Rivers with rustic elegance and their spacious lodge and luxurious canvas cabins. Beyond fishing explore the stunning abs of Roca Beartooth wilderness through guided ventures, or simply relax on their outdoor firepit. 00;47;43;20 – 00;48;12;22 Ads Surrounded by quaking aspen and cottonwoods with capacity for up to 18 guests, private Spring Creek stocked trout ponds and a fully equipped fly shop. Every detail is designed for the perfect Montana escape you can book now and experience that ultimate combination of responsible fishing practices, breathtaking scenery and unmatched hospitality at Montana. Premier fly fishing destination. You can head over to Montana, fly fishing lodge com right now and check in with them and see what they have available. 00;48;13;00 – 00;48;21;08 Ads That’s Montana fly fishing lodge, dot.com. 00;48;21;08 – 00;48;37;20 Brian Okay, so a means to an end. You just broadcast chuck it out there, whatever fly doesn’t matter. Do you guys think that we take the fly to the fish? Do we find the fish with their fly, or does the fish hunt us? Does the fish find our fly? Do we find the fish or did this fish find the fly? 00;48;38;00 – 00;48;38;22 Brian Does that make sense? 00;48;39;14 – 00;49;08;15 Eric Yeah. I mean, if I think I know what you’re saying, I think we. We find the fish. I think the way I think about it, whatever is right or wrong, I’m looking for that fish, right? I want that fish to move. Wintertime, summertime, whatever. It’s got an attitude problem. It’s the it’s the Wolverine of of the fish world where again, it’s holding so it’s got its spot and they’re just they’re just they have an problem especially, you know, the wild fish. 00;49;08;15 – 00;49;27;06 Eric They’re just pissed off. They want to spawn, especially those winter fish. They’re ready to roll. Right? The summer fish. They got a bunch of energy. The water’s warm. They’re coming out of the ocean, too. They’re just they’re ready to do some shit. So when they get at least when I think when they stop and they’re just like, okay, I’m taking a breath and something comes into their wheelhouse. 00;49;27;16 – 00;49;42;20 Eric Typically in the summer, you’ve got a lot clear water. So they see it come and they’ve held there, or they’ve been holding there for 10 minutes or 40 minutes or whatever, or they just pull up into a tail out. They start, you know, holding air and here comes your fly. And it’s kind of doing the same thing. You know, you hook it out. 00;49;42;20 – 00;50;09;08 Eric However it hits that 45, it comes across, gets a couple of feet closer, it gets a couple of feet closer, kind of primes the pump that that fish is is seeing it. And each fish is different. But some of those fish, when it gets within 50 feet, it lights up and just smokes across the river. I mean, anybody that stood up on a bank and watched summer fish, sometimes they will move in an extraordinarily far amount to crush that fly other fish. 00;50;09;08 – 00;50;31;03 Eric You know, as you get closer and closer, maybe it’s a couple of feet, but we’re requiring that fish to chase that fly down like a predator and kill it, not in a feeding response, but in an aggressive destruction mode, which is that’s how I like to view all steelhead is. That’s why I’m not like, oh, you got to make it like a shrimp or like people that put sand on stuff and all that. 00;50;31;03 – 00;51;04;08 Eric Like maybe that makes a difference, but I don’t care about those fish. I want the that’s tuned up. Mentally unstable, just fiery as fuck anything that comes in their wheelhouse. They just come unglued and just want to absolutely kill it. So that’s the fish that we catch, the ones that are, you know, just smashed to the bottom. Maybe they’ve been hooked before, you know, maybe they’ve been traveling a long time and they just sit there or they a shadow goes over them, something something’s wigged them out and they’re just they’re aggression levels, knocked back a little bit. 00;51;04;22 – 00;51;28;27 Eric I think you could probably, you know, get a fish to eat your fly. The closer it is to them, the slower it’s going past them. But I just think that’s more of a winter trait of fish and not so much a summer fish. So, yeah, I just think that the fish that we’re looking for off the bottom, you know, even if it’s eight feet of water, they’re three or four feet off the bottom and they’re going to move a couple of feet up. 00;51;29;08 – 00;51;37;07 Eric The other fish I don’t care about. Those are the fish that people catch gear, fishing or running beads on Bobbers if you want to call that fly fishing, so be it. 00;51;37;21 – 00;52;00;27 Brian Well, okay, so you’re basically talking about like like you’re on and fishing is related to trout, but and so bringing that sort of technique wise into the steelhead realm, closest thing we have is is beads under bobbers. And essentially what you’re saying is swinging flies and moving quickly. We’re selectively targeting the fish that we want to be catching Those aggressive ones that you were just describing. 00;52;00;27 – 00;52;16;11 Brian I won’t even try and paraphrase. So once again, does it matter? Does anything matter? You put it out there. If there’s a fish there, it comes and grabs it. If you make the perfect cast in the world’s best band with a beautifully tied fly with jungle cock eyes and there’s no fish there, you’re not going to catch anything. 00;52;16;27 – 00;52;34;27 Brian The part I struggle with a little bit and this will probably come into something we’ll talk about towards the end is on numerous occasions I’ve seen a situation where something weird happens, where a guy like goes to like set his anchor. He just flips it out there. He’s not doing anything right. He’s not swinging the fly with purpose. 00;52;35;07 – 00;52;55;14 Brian It’s just landed there. He’s essentially doing nothing to it. And a fish comes in, grabs it, right. So that sort of speaks to this idea of reckless abandon on the part of the fish, which obviously we enjoy. So with that being said, why, what’s the point of any of this? Right. What’s the point of of making a make amend? 00;52;55;14 – 00;53;13;25 Brian What’s the point of, you know, trying to slow the fly down If the fish just wants it, it comes and gets it. I think for me at least, it comes down to this idea that I feel better about it. You know, I feel like I have a better chance. But if I completely were to abandon that and go with with your philosophy, either, you know, there’s this whole idea, Erik, of nothing matters. 00;53;14;09 – 00;53;18;29 Brian I think I would probably I would probably find steelhead ing to be a more spiritual experience. 00;53;19;12 – 00;53;40;04 Eric Yeah. I mean, I think why you would feel better about it is because you’ve caught more fish casting and swinging traditionally, right? That the times we’ve seen a blown for a fish kind of eats it. I saw my buddy Frank do a snap tee, and when the skater hit the surface behind him, a fish fucking exploded on it upriver of him right next to him. 00;53;40;09 – 00;54;04;22 Eric Like, shit’s going to happen, right? If he would have started above that fish and swung into it, probably would have caught it too. We don’t go out there and just throw upstream and dead drifted down, which I’ve seen steelhead caught on that too. So I think the data of doing it 99% one way and us catching fish and then randomly doing it a different way and a fish still eats it kinda does prove that it doesn’t matter. 00;54;05;02 – 00;54;28;10 Eric It just feels better to have that fly in your attention and what you were saying about, you know, stealing and becoming more of like a spiritual thing. Again, I’m not trying to align my chakra and charge my crystals here, but I have found it recently to be more enjoyable because I don’t think anything cares. So like, I’m not focused on like, I’ve got to throw it four more feet. 00;54;28;15 – 00;54;45;21 Eric I’ve got to reach that rock. I’ve got to, you know, get down to this run before this person. I’ve got to, you know, cover this section. I got to wade to the deep on that far bank because there’s a rock over there. I don’t give a fuck anymore. Now I’m like, Oh, man, that’s a Did I just watch a cloud up here? 00;54;45;21 – 00;55;02;08 Eric Sidebar? Have you ever had that happen? There has been staring at the sky and a cloud just appears like that’s some science shit that happened on the run. I was like, That’s. That’s maybe the coolest thing I saw all day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen blue sky. And then a cloud just appear out of nothing. Like it’s a magic trick. 00;55;02;13 – 00;55;24;29 Eric So that was like my favorite thing of that day. And we even caught a fish that day. I was like, wasn’t as cool as that cloud appearing. I don’t know where I’ve seen Steelhead before. I’ve never seen a cloud materialize like Bill Nye the Science Guy. So yeah, I’ve noticed that like, I see more stuff and I am perceptive out there, but we got down one day and there’s a couple of gear guys on the run and like, Hey, had to do it. 00;55;24;29 – 00;55;40;21 Eric And you know, they’re cutting steelhead up on the bank and I don’t know, it just rubs me the wrong way. Even if they’re hatchery, I’m just like, this is like not what I’m here for. We limited out my okay, again, I’m not knocking you. I know a bunch of people that keep fish. It just it gives me the ick as some women would say. 00;55;41;03 – 00;55;59;12 Eric And I was like, Yeah, but I was like, What would you think of that? Those giant bowls on top of the cliff above Eagle’s Nest, They’re like, What do you mean? I was like the biggest bighorn sheep I’ve ever seen in my life. They look like a caricature of, like an animated monster, like the ones that were like, over £1,000 that look like they’re like, Oh, we didn’t see it. 00;55;59;24 – 00;56;18;19 Eric I was like, What? Like they’re blocking out the sun almost. You didn’t see them like that? I was like, Did you see the golden eagle fighting those two bald eagles for like, an hour that like now? And it’s because they were staring at their bobber the entire time. And that could be the same thing. If they’re swinging flies, they’re staring at their Skagit, watching that tension. 00;56;18;20 – 00;56;40;15 Eric They’re like, missing all of this other cool shit so you don’t have to see that stuff. But after a couple hundred or thousand steelhead, the chances of you seeing £1,000 bighorn sheep and I don’t know, it could have been 200. I’m bad with weights. They were huge. Or seeing, you know, golden Eagle invert the bird like Top Gun and throw its talons at two bald eagles. 00;56;40;15 – 00;56;57;28 Eric Like I haven’t seen that more than once or twice, but I got to see it that day. So yeah, I’ve just been like, God damn, really, Now I’m some fucking hipster chill dude out there. Like, Look, I just saw a cloud form, you know, stupid. I sound when I say that to myself. The dumbest person on the planet. 00;56;57;28 – 00;57;17;26 Eric I sound so dumb. I just heard it out my mouth, the words and I sound like an idiot, but it’s true. It’s like, that’s how embarrassing that is, really. That’s what it’s come down to. The point of this whole podcast is me just being like, I’m embarrassing now out there because I don’t care. I don’t think anything matters and I’m having more fun than ever how I was. 00;57;17;26 – 00;57;20;29 Eric This happened. I’m 46. Is that what happens? So that was happened. 00;57;21;12 – 00;57;24;07 Ads Yeah. Brian you can tell us you’ve been 40 think before. 00;57;24;26 – 00;57;25;22 Brian Ouch. 00;57;25;22 – 00;57;26;13 Eric Snap. 00;57;26;25 – 00;57;42;27 Brian Yeah, well, you know, I think there’s something to this, and I was going to save this for the end, but I’ll just ask now. I want you guys to think of an example of something weird that happened that kind of goes along with this. And I’ll go first and I go back about 30 years ago to fishing the Berkeley. 00;57;43;03 – 00;58;01;15 Brian And at a time I had a fly that I thought was pretty hot. It was, you know, it looked what I thought different than what most people were fishing in a really sweet blue and purple color combination that wasn’t as common then as it is now. And, you know, fishing this thing and making, you know, beautiful casts. At least I thought they were beautiful and fishing, all good water. 00;58;01;15 – 00;58;19;19 Brian I mean, I’d been guiding there a bunch and I knew where the fish were and to no avail, I was catching nothing. And then I, I threw a cast that, you know, I wasn’t sure if it turned over properly. So I went to check my fly. And so, you know, you bring the fly close to you and you kind of lift the rod up and then you grab your line so you can pull the fly up. 00;58;19;28 – 00;58;36;04 Brian And as I was pulling the fly out of the water two feet from me, a fish came and grabbed it. So now I have it wasn’t a huge fish. And I have this like £12, £10 fish on essentially a hand line, a very short hand line. It’s right there. And so I let the fish go out and I have all this line strip there. 00;58;36;04 – 00;58;52;00 Brian And I thought to myself, it’s weird to put it on the rod at this point, I’m just going to try and fight this fish as I caught it because the cast didn’t matter. Right. This was it caught on a pretty cast. It was cut in a cast that I thought maybe it tailed or something. And so I ended up, you know, essentially hand lining this this fish. 00;58;52;14 – 00;59;07;13 Brian And I at that point, I had kind of a mini moment of what you’re talking about. Eric. I was like, wow, you know, priding myself on making these beautiful casts and fishing all this really good water. And here I am finally getting the skunk off, you know, essentially right where I’m standing. So what the heck is going on? 00;59;08;05 – 00;59;09;18 Brian You guys have any funny stories like that? 00;59;10;03 – 00;59;41;03 Ads Oh, I’ve got a couple. Where one was this couple of years ago on the copper and it was in the springtime and I pitched this run and big, beautiful run. I was making amazing cast water look great and fish the whole thing and thought I fish did really, really well and and got way down under the tail out because I always like to fish as far back as I, you know, further back then I think I should, you know, with into the bass, the gravity stuff and I was like okay, I’m done. 00;59;41;03 – 01;00;10;08 Ads And I started walking back towards shore, reeling in. So not only is the water fast, I’m also reeling like a motherfucker walking back to shore and a fish landed in rapids, essentially on a retrieving fly. And, you know, I’d gone that whole way fishing, all these beautiful things, beautiful cast, felt super good about it. And the only face I hook is it just in the most ridiculous, fast, weirdest way possible. 01;00;10;08 – 01;00;28;11 Ads So and I’ve had that happen a couple other times really Rod over my shoulder walking back to shore. Eric I know you’ve done the same thing, walking back to shore, really in with the rod literally over your shoulder and you get, you get a fish. So yeah, I don’t know if you have a need. I’m sure you have others as well. 01;00;29;13 – 01;00;30;07 Ads What, you’ve done that. 01;00;30;20 – 01;00;53;15 Eric Yeah. A lot of those end of the run walking out stuff. My favorite was on the Rhine like eight years ago or something. Good, buddy. Cory, we’re fish in camp water a, you know, a glass part of the night. It’s pretty much dark. I just tripped over a gigantic rock like rock my shit and went, as ever, teakettle into the drink. 01;00;53;15 – 01;01;10;27 Eric So I was, you know, Mother F and everything and walking up and I was like, I’m done, dude. Like, I can’t see anyways. And he’s laughing. He’s like, Yeah, me too. So like, walk up next to him and he turns around, puts his rod over his shoulder, you know, is reeling as he’s walking kind of upstream and out and the run. 01;01;11;06 – 01;01;26;05 Eric It’s really specific. It of below him. It kind of moves out into the middle of the river and it’s just a big shallow bar like two inches deep. So you have to, like, walk out to that bar and there’s a big boulder with a slot on it. But like the low is like, you know, whatever, six inches a foot deep. 01;01;26;05 – 01;01;57;19 Eric So he’s like walking out there and yeah, and just like, and I was like, what? I was like, fucking trout. He turns around and this thing just explodes. I mean, in no water on a fly again, being reeled over a shoulder on a floating line. So imagine. And he’s probably 616 to a space rock up in the air behind your shoulder, on a floating line with a hair wing, you know, basically at dark that was like pink and a little black and less than, you know, eight inches of water getting reeled and moving up river. 01;01;57;19 – 01;02;14;06 Eric You know, we always want that fly, you know, like, don’t touch it, like, let it come across all the stuff that we think that matters. And yeah, he reels in this like giant for you know the grand on like a £12 chrome which like 250 miles from the ocean while Buck and all of us are like, I cannot believe this. 01;02;14;06 – 01;02;36;26 Eric Like I just fished through it e fish through it. He walked back past where he had just fished in this fish, came out and ate it. So, I mean, that’s just one of a ton of stories where, you know, like another quick one, I fish, I think the runs called Studebaker right above or right below the fort. Tell the campground there on the Bulkley. 01;02;37;08 – 01;03;02;18 Eric And I obviously sucked it, you know swing and flies back then it was like 12 or 13 years ago. But I pushed whatever fish in it pretty good. I thought I was fish in a tip in America. Tube got done was walking back up the run. Big gust of wind came as the fall time, blew a bunch of leaves on the run and I was just looking at it and just saw a monster come up and just swallow a yellow fly like a dry fly just right where I just fished. 01;03;02;29 – 01;03;15;17 Eric And it’s like how like I’m fish and egg sucking leech on T8 in the fall. Like, I just flew there and this fish comes up and eats a leaf. Yeah, just. Yeah. Stuff you’re not going to make sense of. 01;03;16;00 – 01;03;33;09 Ads Well, and that’s one of the reasons why, you know, when people are fishing and they’re getting, you know, frustrated about the casting or they’re questioning what they’re doing because they’re like, Oh, I haven’t had a bite in while or something. And I just keep trying to say to them, like, if you’re flying in the water, you have a chance. 01;03;33;20 – 01;03;51;03 Eric Yeah, I did want to ask you to in the summer with the warmer water I like just, I like water down just because I’m built into it. And I like the fly coming across straight across. I don’t like it going down river and then accelerating. That’s his personal preference. Maybe I change that because honestly, now that I think about him, I don’t really give a shit. 01;03;51;03 – 01;04;08;09 Eric Maybe I just start throwing it out wherever I see people throw it upstream. My buddy Joe throw it upstream because he wanted to get it not caught on this log and he hooked it at a 45 upstream because he’s like, Well, there’s a rock down there. I’m like, Dude, it’s going to be going a million miles an hour with that rock and then turning the corner right? 01;04;08;09 – 01;04;30;21 Eric Then it gets smoked halfway down, going 100% downriver. But when we’re out there on the skeena in a friendly way, which I always laugh about, I’ve heard, you know, Adrian mid smoke yelling at my dudes in a friendly way. She’s like, Fuck, Eric, do not just throw it straight out and let it’s got to come across speed. I’m just crack it up behind her because they’re like, Well, I’m trying to mend it. 01;04;30;21 – 01;04;58;00 Eric So it was actually like, Quit doing that shit, you Oregon boys, and you’re over men and just straight out. Hold on, get some speed. So like, talk a little bit about why you like and I was telling them and maybe I’m wrong, but I was like, I think she knows that you’re not a great caster and that if you throw it straight across, at the very least, that fly is going to be under tension the entire swing, rather than trying to quarter down mend it. 01;04;58;08 – 01;05;14;04 Eric It’s not really fishing until like well past halfway through the swing. So I was like, maybe she’s betting on that fish, seeing it coming across quick, but under tension and chasing it down and eat it out in the middle rather than finding a fish on the inside. But you’ll have to tell me about it. 01;05;14;16 – 01;05;39;14 Ads Well, I mean, part of it is just the nature of the skin itself and the water that we’re fishing. It is heavier and, you know, it’s not super deep and we’re not fishing for fish that are really, truly holding fish. These are, you know, whether the resting or not, they’re still eventually moving fish. So and I do believe that most of the fish that we catch are are resting rather than actively moving. 01;05;39;27 – 01;06;02;03 Ads But again, who’s to say whether that’s totally true or not? But I want to try and get the fly into the zone that I think those fish are sitting in. But because it’s not super deep, I don’t need to get it down and I want them to, like you said, to see it actively moving under tension for as long as I can. 01;06;02;03 – 01;06;32;26 Ads I want that fly to be in the zone from almost the get go. And I’ve seen too many fish caught in that initial portion of the swing that you missed out on by doing a 45 down through cast. You know, obviously we get the majority of our fish on the inside on the last portion of the swing, but I definitely see a lot of fish caught in that initial portion of the swing on the main stems because it is shallow, the gradients and staying for a long ways out. 01;06;32;26 – 01;07;00;24 Ads I’m not I’m not looking at a specific way on the inside where I want that fly to come into the whole thing in the low. And so it’s more just about a getting the fly into that zone in that fast water and so that it’s in there for a longer period of time. And because they are relatively fresh fish and I think very aggressive fish for the most part, I think a faster presentation provokes a more aggressive response. 01;07;01;16 – 01;07;11;28 Ads They’re new. They haven’t seen a lot of flies. They’re not conditioned to it they’re hopefully pissed off and and something that has a bit more speed is going to trigger that the reaction quicker. 01;07;12;14 – 01;07;19;03 Eric Agreed. Yeah, That’s okay. Yeah. We’re going to be doing some experimental angles in your Honor this next. 01;07;19;03 – 01;07;19;14 Ads Fall. 01;07;21;01 – 01;07;27;11 Eric Just for fun. It makes it easier on me. It’s like fact. These are my shoulders. Just. Yeah, throw it out there. Hang on. 01;07;27;23 – 01;07;44;15 Ads And I mean, obviously that that varies. Great. You start to get into some of the tail outs where that speed really increases a tremendous amount and you know you can straight across and and you fly won’t have time to even break the surface until that last portion of this swing. So in that case, yes, adjust just cast me no. 01;07;44;15 – 01;07;52;14 Ads So it’s all dependent on, you know, a variety of circumstances. But yeah, for the most part, you know, this can hook it out there and Hang on. 01;07;52;24 – 01;07;55;09 Brian You sound like Mikey. 01;07;55;09 – 01;07;59;17 Ads Well, it might be catches a lot of fish. It doesn’t matter. 01;07;59;26 – 01;08;19;27 Brian I think we can agree that, you know, certainly when it comes to like, clients in particular, there is the tendency to get a little caught up in the minutia and, you know, worry about things that they probably shouldn’t worry about too much. And but it is fun with fliers, right? It is fun to, you know, to think that color combos are important. 01;08;19;27 – 01;08;30;19 Brian But I have always felt that presentation and luck are two things that I’d like to do well on. So. Question for for you, Adrian, is there a color that you wouldn’t fish? 01;08;31;16 – 01;08;54;07 Ads I mean, there’s colors that I would be hard pressed fish, but I don’t think there’s anything that I would I mean, it’s just again, it comes down confidence, right? And so, you know, Eric, you’re talking about fish in a brown fly like, well, I don’t have a tremendous amount of confidence in that. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t fish it or let somebody like yourself, you know, throw it on there and fish it. 01;08;54;07 – 01;09;10;25 Ads But when I’m personal fishing, I want to catch a fish. A fish? I don’t need to catch a million fish, but I want to give myself, you know, a good shot at it. So I’m probably going to fish that they have confidence in, and even more so with clients because, you know, I really, really want them to catch. 01;09;10;28 – 01;09;33;02 Ads I thought a lot of that, but I want clients to catch fish and so I’m happy to experiment a little bit. But it comes down to the client if they want to experiment and they have confidence in trying them different than fish, whatever the heck want. But if if they don’t have the ability to be confident in that, then I’m not likely to fish anything outside of of the proven stuff. 01;09;33;16 – 01;09;35;11 Brian So no mustard yellow and Kelly green. 01;09;35;24 – 01;09;38;06 Ads I and I’m I’m a big fan of yellow. 01;09;38;17 – 01;09;39;17 Brian Yeah okay nice. 01;09;39;22 – 01;10;01;27 Ads But yes and you know I’ve got lots of friends and I find more more though people from the state Washington in particular and Oregon as well where you know all of it is a big thing and we don’t fish a lot of all of up here. And whether that’s because it’s not effective or just because it’s not something that people have started fishing is, you know, who’s the. 01;10;01;27 – 01;10;21;26 Ads But I do believe that you catch steelhead on almost doesn’t matter. So it’s what you want, right? Like, what do you want out of your experience? Right. Do you want to be out there tasting? Well, you know, trying to get better, trying to get more, if that’s what makes you feel good. At the end of the day go do that. 01;10;22;09 – 01;10;41;22 Ads If you just want to catch fish, go do that. If you just want to be out there watching clouds form and looking for wildlife and happy to be thrown into the water at the same time, go do it right. That’s the beauty of the whole mentality that it doesn’t matter is that you can make it whatever you want it to be love it. 01;10;42;06 – 01;10;58;10 Eric Yeah. I mean, ultimately that’s that’s the key, right? It’s like, are you having a good time, whatever that may be. And yeah, I’ve gone through a million phases myself. So yeah, I don’t think any of them are right and I don’t think any of them are wrong, which again kind of circles back to. Yeah, nothing really does matter. 01;10;58;10 – 01;11;10;02 Eric It’s like it’s if you’re happy, you wake up and you’re thrown laser beams all day and you’re like, Man, casting was on point and you enjoyed yourself out there. It’s like, That’s awesome, dude. That’s what it’s all about. 01;11;10;02 – 01;11;21;24 Brian Well, let’s, let’s talk about fly size because, well, we might agree that color doesn’t matter. We’d probably have a harder time with the concept that the size of the fly isn’t important because everyone is fish and stuff that’s pretty similar in size. 01;11;22;11 – 01;11;50;09 Eric Yeah, I heard Travis Johnson do a winter steelhead talk when I first got started, so over 15 years ago and he had a bunch of data and flies and stuff like that. And he said that he’s caught steelhead on like seven inch rabbit strips, you know, like he’s thrown that guy I can cast, obviously. So if anybody can throw a seven inch rabbit strip, you know, T.J. can and probably further I can throw a white fly. 01;11;50;18 – 01;12;11;20 Eric But so I think and like he’s fished our local rivers and stuff. So I think really massive stuff. I mean, those fish, those six inch pink worms, you know, under a barber a lot on the coast when there’s a lot of color in the water. So, again, I don’t think size matters may it comes down to like being able to cast it. 01;12;11;23 – 01;12;30;29 Eric I mean, you want to be able to enjoy your casting. So I think anything, any size will work as long as they can see it to clear the water. I think the size is more of a dealer’s choice, like all fish, really big stuff. And Jen asked clear water all the time, especially in the winter, low and clear, you know, sunniest shit. 01;12;30;29 – 01;12;46;14 Eric I’ll still fish like a four inch rabbit stripping catch fish. No problem. Like, I got a lot of confidence in that because I’m trying to piss him off. I’m not trying to be. Well, do you want to, like, maybe inspect this all Black Summer fly? Because the water’s low and clear and there’ll be people like, Oh, we catch them on that too. 01;12;46;14 – 01;13;03;03 Eric It’s like, Yeah, let me guess, the river’s on pressure because it’s clear it hasn’t rained in like two weeks. So nobody’s out there fishing. The steelhead don’t know that, but they’ve been in a piece of water with zero boats going over them and all of a sudden something comes in the wheelhouse. Maybe it’s a green boat skunk, you know, on a T11 tip. 01;13;03;03 – 01;13;17;29 Eric Or maybe it’s a four inch egg sucking leech. Either way, they’re going to they’re going to annihilate it. So can the fish see it as my biggest thing? Can somebody cast it? That’s what it comes down to, I guess size, determination when I’m guiding or fishing. 01;13;18;11 – 01;13;37;06 Ads Yeah, that’s pretty much what it comes down to. And like you said, Eric, if you start getting more color in the water, then you know, most of the time I want to step up on the size. But if you’re dealing with, you know, normal clear water and good water tense, then relatively on fish, then yeah, I don’t think it matters either. 01;13;37;23 – 01;13;58;24 Ads I think once you get into fish that are being pressured a lot and are actively holding and have been in the river for a period of time and they’re seeing a lot of stuff. And I think that’s where, you know, size can make make a big difference. But for the majority of what what I do and probably a lot of what you do, that isn’t a huge factor a lot of the time. 01;13;59;10 – 01;14;08;06 Ads And so, yeah, there’s something that people can ask that to some degree and and that suits the clarity. 01;14;08;22 – 01;14;29;02 Eric What do you think about the whole you know, there’s so many, you know, with the gear fishermen when the water’s even remotely clear, like, you know, even like slightly clearer than that steelhead green. So maybe you got like three feet of this, you know, or even a little clear four feet. Those guys will go down to like £8 fluorocarbon when running beads or little jigs and stuff. 01;14;29;13 – 01;14;34;21 Eric But we’re all running £20 maximum mono. Do you think the fish are leadership at all? 01;14;35;12 – 01;15;00;29 Ads Again, I think it depends on on where you’re fishing and and the fish themselves that they’ve been in the river for an extended period of time if in a lot of different things you know they’ve been fished over quite a bit I don’t think for any relatively unknown, pressured newer fish that you know, even if you’re using a two inch ply, I mean what’s £20 maximum are going to spook them that a two inch plywood. 01;15;01;14 – 01;15;35;03 Ads Right. But if you’re trying to work fish that are another few hundred kilometers upstream or miles or you know and are actively getting heavily pressured, have been in very clear water for an extended period of time and are holding and and maybe are a bit spookier or a bit pickier. That’s where I think that tip, it makes a difference but again, for what I do, I have I want the aggressive fish and I want something that I know isn’t going to get broken off when they rub on rocks or do crazy cartwheels or, you know, abrupt changes in direction. 01;15;35;03 – 01;15;46;07 Ads And these are powerful fish in powerful water. And I’d rather get the aggressive one and have a chance at learning it. And then risk breaking and breaking my head off all the time. 01;15;46;19 – 01;16;14;13 Eric But yeah, the £20 maxima, that’s something I beefed up when I got up there because I broke them off on £15 or we tried some of that flora coated mono stuff. And it reminds me of when people have asked Brian like, what’s his set up when targeting steelhead on the skin and stuff. And I’ve kind of gone to that mindset, not that I need to land these fish, but I do like to see them do all their fun stuff before they want to throw the hook. 01;16;14;19 – 01;16;30;11 Eric Like if I could see him cartwheel six or seven times instead of one. Like, that’s fun to see. That’s fun to watch. Like, yeah, you know, or they like, they swim up close enough to where you can get eyes on them and you’re like, Oh damn, that’s like a high teens fish or whatever. And then if they throw the hook, you know, your fish and barbells or whatever. 01;16;30;11 – 01;16;53;17 Eric But yeah, that last fall where I got absolutely destroyed by that fish, zero chance of anything good happening. That’s when I was like, I think I need to up my gear for the Skeena not in a sense, again to land these fish, but to just like be on a level playing field. And then if they get off after that, which is probably still most likely. 01;16;54;00 – 01;17;11;08 Eric Yeah, your interactions just extended a little bit more. So £20 maxima, maybe a eight way like a real with a serious drag that you can set just enough to where they’re penalized. But it keeps the tension on there. Yeah, I just stuff’s always adjusting absolute it. 01;17;11;18 – 01;17;35;10 Brian Yeah. I think there’s sort of two camps. One camp is I want to fish as late as possible and so the small fish are more challenging. And then I think the camp and put myself in that one is I’d rather be loaded for the fish that I want to encounter. And whether it takes years to find that fish or not, you know, you’re always going to find me with a pretty big reel, with lots of stopping power, lots of capacity. 01;17;35;20 – 01;18;07;20 Brian I’d rather fish an eight or nine weight than a six or seven, that’s for sure. And you do run the risk or the benefit of, you know, hooking a 20 £30 fish in a scenario out here where they could take all your line. You know, with that all being said, you know, I think that luck does come into that a bit, too, Eric, because, you know, if you hook that fish when it’s a little bit tired or you hook that fish in a spot where, you know, you can kind of get a good hand on it and there’s not a lot of big rocks or anything for it to rub rub the line off, You 01;18;07;20 – 01;18;23;04 Brian know that that’s luck. If You hook that fish in a spot where the encounters over before it started. It’s not like you could have done anything different. But, you know, personally, I like to have a big reel. I like the high rate of retrieve. I like the capacity, I like the stopping power. But that’s kind of where I’ve ended up. 01;18;23;04 – 01;18;31;14 Brian Now, I know that you spent a lot of time with a click and Paul, though, that being said, for whatever reason, when you put that hatch nine plus on, you always seem to find some fish. 01;18;31;28 – 01;19;02;29 Eric Yeah. Yeah. I mean it’s those videos are just so smooth that, you know, I kind of feel like I’m cheating occasionally when I when they’re on there. I mean, a lot of people it’s the kiss of death when you start filming any, you know, fishing endeavor. We’ve been extremely lucky up there. I mean, when, you know, Connor and D’Arcy were up that one year, like we landed a bunch of fish and every time it seems as the bond and I go out, you know, it’s like we’re like, just like I just expect it to happen. 01;19;02;29 – 01;19;16;28 Eric I mean, the last time we went out, you know, I was like, Oh, I’m not going to catch anything. You’re filming. And I was like, I, I just was like, Nah, man. Like, we get lucky. Every time we went out the first round, we pulled in. We didn’t realize that the guy on the other side of the island had just fished that. 01;19;17;11 – 01;19;35;12 Eric And so we’re like, It’s open. Well, fish like this cast, like, I get it. Like he gets all the film he needs fish, cartwheels. We get a closeup of it, like we’re done in like 45 minutes the day starting now. If had a click and ball, yeah, it could have gone a different way. And you know, I’ve fished all over Oregon, Washington for many, many years. 01;19;35;24 – 01;19;55;25 Eric And just in that last three years of fishing up on the skeena, you know, this last fall, that was by far the biggest, most pissed off steelhead I’ve ever encountered. I mean, I’ll never forget that fish. Whatever I can’t I’m not going to put a weight on it. Just giant and did more shit in the air and took more line than like any not even comparable. 01;19;56;00 – 01;20;19;19 Eric I mean, better than any. I’ve got just absolute top tier specimen the previous spring. That’s the biggest steelhead I’ll probably ever see in my life. Shout out, Dave. The year before that. That’s the biggest steelhead I’ve ever landed. So within just like a couple of weeks of fishing up there, you know, I’ve just seen like interactions that like, are really enjoyable and really like, stand out. 01;20;19;28 – 01;20;45;17 Eric So I think with that being said, I’m definitely in that camp now where it’s like, you’ll go out. Yeah, you’ll hook some smaller fish and smaller fish. It’s like, what, 10 to £14? Oh God. But like when the big dog climbs on it, probably going to want to be fully geared up because those fish are so strong that you pull your drag off afterwards and it’s like it’s not moving. 01;20;45;17 – 01;21;12;26 Eric And they were taking it like it was no problem. So yeah, I kind of agree with you that at a certain point you’re like, it’s nice to steelhead fish full stop. But the occurrence that happens every now and then, when you know that fish shows up, you might be second guessing having a little clicker attached to your set up compared to something that might give you a a little bit longer of a rodeo. 01;21;13;06 – 01;21;30;03 Ads Well, and it’s it’s not just that, too. You got to think of the fish as well. Right. And it’s going to take you, you know, that it does stay hooked. It’s going to take you a longer period of time to play that version and potentially land it on a cliff. And Paul, when it is that hot, you know, you’re putting a lot of stress on that fish. 01;21;30;03 – 01;21;46;29 Ads And yeah, sure, it’s fun to play a fish on a cliff and get a really good fight out of it. But also need to think of these fish and the stress of the the damage that we’re potentially doing to them. And and, you know, I don’t I don’t think it’s fair to the fish to put them through if it’s not necessary and. 01;21;47;10 – 01;22;12;05 Eric Is just going to agree with you. I think somebody asked us we had a little Q&A on our pod last week and I was like, when do you fish clickers? And it’s like, Now, specifically summer steelhead, not in Canada, because obviously your summer fish are bigger than your winter fish. But down here, Oregon, Washington, you know, the disputes, you know, the Grand Ronde, our local fisheries here, they’re like four to maybe £9. 01;22;12;05 – 01;22;33;20 Eric Like maybe you get a £10 or people like, I got a two or better last fall, whatever. Most of those fish are around summer fish. So like people fish six weeks. But if you have like a 13 foot seven weight, like a Rolex or something and you hook a superhot £7 steelhead, you can put the wood to it and get that fish while they’re not in within 2 minutes max, if you want to. 01;22;33;20 – 01;22;52;01 Eric Whereas like you’re saying, you hook something that I saw swim by me on the Skeena last year where it’s pushing £25, it’s like, Yeah, we’re out here all advocating for wild steelhead and to treat them good. It’s like when you hook that fish, your job is to try to get that fish in as fast as possible or have it throw the hook. 01;22;52;02 – 01;23;06;13 Eric If you’re really, you know, on the fish side, that’s always a joke, you know that I is to say, when people lose a big Chinook in Alaska, they’re like, Oh, man, I was like, That’s all right, man. They’re like, What do you mean? I was like, Oh, I mean, I’m on the fishing side. I mean, I’m here trying to get you into him. 01;23;06;13 – 01;23;13;18 Eric But ultimately, like, yeah, I hope they throw that hook every time. They’re like, Well, that’s not real cool. I was like, Well, I mean, I’m their side, dude. 01;23;13;28 – 01;23;46;21 Ads Yeah. Ultimately, especially as did the, you know, stewards of the river, you know, that’s got to be a big factor in this whole game as well. Right. And the constant need to try and find better, more effective ways to catch fish. And maybe we should just be happy with one right, that one encounter and like you’re saying of more, you know, taking the time to look around and and see what else is going on out there and not be so hyper focused on making everything perfect to catch all the fish and just being like, Yeah, that happens. 01;23;46;21 – 01;24;10;27 Ads Then I get one. That’s amazing. That’s magical. I’ve had this moment with this one fish brief or long of whatever landed or not. But yeah, the, the whole trying to be a little more actively involved in just the entire experience, the less concern about, you know, being the most effective steelhead catcher out there. Now that’s a that’s a conversation in itself, right? 01;24;11;07 – 01;24;11;14 Ads Yeah. 01;24;11;14 – 01;24;34;01 Eric I heard somebody say recently when the goal is the experience, then every day is great and that could be used on anything. But it obviously makes a lot of sense for Steelhead in too. It’s like when you wake up and you’re about to do one of your favorite things ever. It’s like if you catch one, it’s great. But like it could still be a really, you know, we take it I take it for granted a lot. 01;24;34;01 – 01;24;53;27 Eric It’s like it’s good to spend all that time outside and like some of the prettiest places in the world shout out steelhead living in really pretty spots. It’s like, you know, I definitely have had many days where I was just a grumpy old bitch in my twenties and thirties, like, and this fucking sucked. It’s like, Oh, it like you floated down a gorgeous part of Oregon. 01;24;54;08 – 01;25;15;08 Eric Like you got to swing in a river where there’s steelhead and you happened in our catch one. But it’s your worst day ever. Like, you sound like such a bitch. Like you’re such a baby. That’s bad. Like, there’s some people that. That’s not their job. It’s like, Do you ever think of that? That there’s other people in this world that that’s not their job, to take people to do their favorite thing every day? 01;25;15;21 – 01;25;27;09 Eric So, yeah, I definitely had to have a little come to Jesus, talk with myself over the years numerous times of being like, you kind of got to like, see a bigger picture here, buddy, because you’re acting like a little baby. 01;25;27;22 – 01;25;40;20 Brian Well, I think I think that’s a nice way to put a bit of a bow on this discussion before we before we sign off, let’s just take a minute and talk about your podcast again, Eric, because, you know, it is pure entertainment over there, isn’t it? 01;25;41;14 – 01;26;00;29 Eric It tries to be. There’s a lot of really good podcasts out there, so we’re just trying to hang with, with the boys in the in the girls there. We just wanted to do a podcast that is revolves around fishing, but it’s not just the same. Like, tell us how long you fish for. Tell us your greatest memory. It’s more of like kind of like this, like it’s very fluid. 01;26;00;29 – 01;26;22;25 Eric There’s not the plan is no plan. So we kind of recap what we’ve been doing on the water as kind of a newer guide and and a more seasoned guide. And Zach’s super funny and got a bunch of good takes on there. It comes out every Monday, Apple, Spotify, whatever. Think we’ve got maybe 11 episodes out now. But yeah, it’s it’s called The Struggle is Real. 01;26;23;07 – 01;26;43;24 Eric It’s spelled like the fishing reel because he got to have a pun in there And yeah, we just been having a bunch of fun with it. We don’t do gas or anything. It’s just Zach and I bullshitting and yeah, just kind of finding our, our our groove. You know, we’ve worked together for a number of years and he started out just hiring me and teaching them how to steelhead fish. 01;26;43;24 – 01;27;09;12 Eric So, yeah, we’ve got a pretty good thing going and it’s been a lot of fun and it’s really nice getting just feedback to a lot of clients and customers from the shop have been kind enough to text me or do me and just say they been really enjoying it or talking to. You know, both of us have been known to sometimes go off the rails slightly and there’s absolutely no editing going on in this podcast. 01;27;09;12 – 01;27;37;15 Eric So I wouldn’t say it’s family friendly for the most part, although some episodes are like, Wow, I conducted myself as a normal, well-adjusted human being. There’s other ones that I didn’t. I have not. So I kind of can’t. Well, don’t stop a lot of the time. So yeah, we’ll just see if we get kicked off that platform if we’re, I don’t know, going to make we’ll just see. 01;27;37;15 – 01;27;38;04 Eric It’s up in the air. 01;27;38;21 – 01;27;54;01 Brian Adrian, you know, you fished with Eric when he wasn’t sober, Eric And you fished with Eric. Now that he is enlightened, nothing matters. But I’m sober and everything’s cool. Eric And you fished with Zach, too. What do you like most about fishing with with both Eric and Zach? 01;27;54;27 – 01;28;14;23 Ads Well, it was my first time meeting Jack this fall, and the guy has just an amazing. How is it about the whole thing, you as yourself not to be here and so excited and, you know, as much as he wanted to catch a fish, he never sort of went down the rabbit hole, at least that I saw. But yeah, just super fun. 01;28;14;29 – 01;28;22;14 Ads Really, really awesome to have out on the water. You know, definitely not as moody as Eric, particularly in the. 01;28;23;24 – 01;28;24;01 Eric Is. 01;28;24;02 – 01;28;44;13 Ads Anybody more wild days? No. The one thing that I love about Eric is that that you know when he wants the fish and he knows when he doesn’t want to fish in and when he goes especially he’s he’s giving it everything and I don’t mean he’s out there, you know, staring at his lion the whole time. But I know that when Eric starts fishing, if there’s a fish around, he’s going to find it. 01;28;44;23 – 01;29;07;04 Ads And when Eric does a lot of fish, he’s going to chill out and lay on his belly on the doghouse of the boat and watch Netflix. Then he’s going to be perfectly happy doing that. And yeah, it’s just, you know, the conversations are always interesting, always, always interesting. And getting the listener to tell a story is one of the highlights of my guide season because the guy knows how to tell the story. 01;29;07;11 – 01;29;16;11 Ads So even though I have a listening podcast is I am not a podcast person. Eric I have zero doubt that the entertain value is off the charts. 01;29;16;23 – 01;29;24;17 Brian Save it for a long drive. You know, it sounds like fishing with Eric is, is a little bit kind of like hanging out with your cat. 01;29;24;17 – 01;29;39;26 Ads It definitely is. You know, they pay attention to me, pay attention to me and don’t even talk to the I don’t want to look at you right now. So, yeah, you know, you just got to, you know, read the room know I love fishing with Eric. It’s always, always really good. Done. 01;29;40;11 – 01;29;57;08 Brian Excellent. Well, you know what? We’re going to wrap this up. I’m going to go pick up my kids from school and look forward to seeing you guys soon up here on the river. And we’ll get this show out on both of our podcasts at the same time, which we’ve never done before. Eric So this will be a this will be a good adventure, won’t it? 01;29;57;20 – 01;30;14;29 Eric That sounds super cool. Yeah, I was joking earlier. We’ll just rephrase that as the bucket is real. The bucket is just really, really drive that in a maybe a bi monthly recap of all the news. Stupid things that I think I know about Steelhead. And it’s like, Hey, come talk to this dumb new on the bucket is real. 01;30;14;29 – 01;30;26;12 Eric This guy thinks that you should throw the Maxima attached to your Skagit and then tie the fly to your sink tip. Oh, it’s going to get deeper. 2026 Tips and tricks leader Like. 01;30;26;20 – 01;30;27;06 Ads Who love it. 01;30;27;12 – 01;30;36;09 Brian Yeah and you know that would be a new thing Adrian can incorporate into guiding the bucket is real. I’m not a charlatan. There is a fish out there. Maybe. Maybe not. 01;30;36;24 – 01;30;38;29 Eric I need to get some hoodies made with that shit. I like that. 01;30;39;16 – 01;30;40;08 Ads Yeah, that’s good. 01;30;40;29 – 01;30;51;18 Eric Yeah. Thanks for chatting with me, guys. I love throwing out new ideas and getting your guys’s perspective. A lot of years between the two of you on the Steelhead and so. Yeah, I dig it. 01;30;52;00 – 01;30;52;26 Brian Right on you. 01;30;52;26 – 01;30;53;13 Ads Know, it’s fun. 01;30;53;23 – 01;30;58;01 Brian Cool. Hey, thank you very much, you guys really appreciate it. And look forward to seeing you again soon. 01;30;58;06 – 01;30;58;13 Eric Like. 01;31;00;18 – 01;31;18;07 Brian Well, that was a lot of fun. I want to thank Ed and Eric for taking the time to share their stories, views and expertise with us. Thanks as well. To everyone tuning in today. We’ll be back with another In the Bucket episode a month. In the meantime, please feel free to send in show comments, questions and ideas to me via email. 01;31;18;24 – 01;31;37;09 Brian You can reach me at info at skeena Space.com. Thanks again. I’m Brian Niska and you’ve been listening to In the Bucket podcast brought to you by the wet fly swing.

Conclusion

In the end, this conversation circles back to a simple but powerful idea: steelhead fishing will always hold an element of unpredictability that no amount of experience can fully eliminate. Whether it’s fly choice, presentation, or timing, anglers are constantly trying to make sense of patterns that don’t always repeat. Adrienne and Eric remind us that while knowledge and confidence matter, so does accepting the unknown—and sometimes, the best approach is to stay present, keep an open mind, and be ready for anything to happen.

     

Steelhead and Chinook Spey Lessons with Floyd Carter: How to Stop Losing Fish

Losing fish after a solid grab happens more than people talk about. You feel the eat, the rod loads up, maybe even a head shake, and then it’s just gone.

Floyd Carter is back to break down what he’s been seeing all season, from the Olympic Peninsula to Togiak. They get into what an actual take feels like, when to stay patient, and when it’s time to hit it. They also dig into the loop vs drag debate, how small changes might keep fish pinned, and why even experienced anglers are still figuring this out in real time.

If you’ve been losing fish and can’t quite figure out why, this one will hit close to home.

Hit play to start listening! 👇🏻🎧

apple podcasts

Find the show:  Follow the Show | Overcast | Spotify

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe on Android

Subscribe via RSS

(The full episode transcript is at the bottom of this blogpost) 👇🏻

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

 

How to stop losing fish - Floyd Carter

Show Notes with Floyd Carter on Steelhead and Chinook Spey Lessons

Floyd Carter on Steelhead Season and the OP

Floyd shares what his season looked like after Togiak. He stayed busy guiding, then rolled into fall fishing on the Klickitat and some coastal rivers. After that, he spent a lot of time on the Olympic Peninsula from late January up to now.

He says the OP is one of his favorite places. The main rivers he fishes are:

  • Sol Duc
  • Bogachiel
  • Hoh River

Floyd mentions that this season, a lot of fish were “unbuttoned”, meaning you hook up, think it’s on, and then it’s gone. It happened a lot this year, not just on the OP but in other places too.

If you want more from Floyd, go back and check out the episode we did with him last year:
720 | Chinook on the Spey with Floyd Carter – Togiak River Lodge

How to stop losing fish - Floyd Carter

Loop vs Drag

After losing a bunch of fish, Floyd starts digging into what might be going wrong. He describes feeling the whole eat, the turn, even the head shake, and then the fish just comes off.

He’s always fished with his drag set and applies pressure once he feels the fish is on. But now he’s starting to think that early tension might be the problem, so he’s considering switching things up and carrying a loop instead.

He admits it’s still guesswork, but he plans to fish a full stretch using a loop and see if it changes anything.

Steelhead vs Chinook Takes

Floyd says it’s pretty different depending on the fish.

With Togiak kings, the take is big and heavy, like a freight train. There’s no doubt when it eats. He keeps his drag set so it can run, and once it’s on, that’s when he tightens up and “punches it through.” Big fish, thick bone, so when he sets, he does it with bad intentions.

Steelhead aren’t always like that.

Sometimes they just sit there and chew on the fly. He shares one where a fish held the fly for a full four-count. The angler did nothing, waited, then the fish turned and a little side pressure got it buttoned up.

As Floyd always tells his client, “Do nothing until it’s time to do something. Then do the right thing.”

How to stop losing fish - Floyd Carter

Finding Chinook on the Togiak

Floyd says it all comes down to the tide and timing.

They’re watching for pushes of fish and working upriver to downriver, trying to intercept fish that came in earlier and then the next wave behind them. They also rotate water as a team, giving priority to anglers who need a fish.

It’s a low-pressure, mostly catch-and-release fishery, which helps keep things in good shape.

How to stop losing fish - Floyd Carter

The Mental Side of Fly Fishing

Floyd says you get out what you put in.

That means finishing the run, making those last few swings, and not cutting corners. He also leans on instinct. If something feels off, like you need to go deeper or change flies, just do it instead of second-guessing later.

He says the hard part is staying in it when things aren’t going your way. Cold, tired, no fish. That’s where the mental side shows up. But he says it won’t happen back at the lodge. You’ve got to stay out there and keep fishing.

At the end of it, there’s no finish line. You’re always learning. The tough days, the blown casts, all of it adds up. That’s what makes it so rewarding when it finally comes together.

How to stop losing fish - Floyd Carter

Why Togiak Feels Different

I bring up a film on CarbonTV that tells the story behind Togiak River Lodge, especially Jordan’s journey. It’s one of those stories that hits you. You can feel how much the place means to him.

Floyd says that’s exactly what makes it special. Zack and Jordan are the real deal. It’s not just a business. It’s a family thing, and you can see that in how they treat the fishery, the staff, and everyone who comes through.

He also shares that Togiak was part of his own start. It was one of his first guiding experiences, building camp and learning the ropes.

For him, it’s one of those places.

As long as he’s able to go back, he will.

If you want to dive deeper into Togiak, check out our Togiak River Lodge page, where we’ve got all the podcast episodes in one place.

What Kings Teach You About Steelhead

When I asked if Chinook fishing carries over, Floyd said it’s not something he thinks about directly. But over time, things start to click. Slowing the fly down, where to mend, when not to mend. It all builds into your fishing without you really noticing.

He keeps coming back to one thing. The fish will tell you. That’s the real feedback. So if something feels off, change it. Try it. He’d rather do that than end the day wondering what he should have done.

How to stop losing fish - Floyd Carter

Getting Ready for Togiak Season

As we get closer to the season, Floyd says the work starts before the fishing.

He usually heads up early to help get the lodge ready. Repairs, setup, and a lot of hard work to get everything running. The goal is simple. Get it done so they can go fish.

He shared that last year, some of their best fish came early, right after they wrapped up prep work. It’s that push to finish everything that opens the door to those first shots at fresh fish.

And with Alaska, you never really know what you’re going to get.

Late-Season Steelhead Tips

How to stop losing fish - Floyd Carter

Floyd says don’t overthink it. Just get out there and fish.

Even if the water looks a little dirty, like a foot or two of visibility, that’s still fishable. Don’t let that stop you.

He also keeps it simple with how he approaches a run.

  • Start higher than you think
  • Don’t skip the tailouts
  • Fish the whole run, heads to tails

A lot of anglers miss fish by starting too low or ignoring shallow water.


Connect with Floyd Carter

If you want to follow along, book a trip, or see what they’ve got going throughout the season, here’s where to go:

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

Related Podcast Episodes

Full Podcast Transcript

Episode Transcript
WFS 917B Transcript 00:00:00 Dave: Today we’re getting into something that doesn’t get talked about enough. Why? You’re losing fish even when you’re doing everything right. I’ve got Floyd Carter back on the podcast, and today we go deep on a pattern that he’s been seeing all year from the Olympic Peninsula, all the way up to Togiak River in Alaska. Fish eating the fly, feeling solid for a second and then coming unbuttoned. We break down what that actually feels like when a fish just loads up. When it rolls, when it chews on the fly, and when it’s time to do nothing at all versus time to hit it with the lumber. This is the Fly Swing podcast where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip, and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. Floyd is back today, and we’re going to get into what might be happening and why you might be losing fish this year. We’re going to talk about the debate on holding a loop in your hand versus not. And when it makes sense what a real take feels like from a steelhead to a Chinook. Chewing the gum and how to adjust your mindset mid-run so you don’t miss your best shot of the day. Plus, we get into why even experienced guides are still figuring this out real time, and how to think through the swing instead of just going through the motions. All right, we’re back on it. Here he is. Floyd Carter. How you doing, Floyd? 00:01:17 Floyd: Good to be here, Dave. Good to hear your voice, man. 00:01:19 Dave: Yeah yeah yeah. It’s been. I mean, I think it’s been since we left. Uh, togiak. I believe we’ve been chatting on email, but since we’ve really seen each other and talked and all that stuff. So. Yeah. How you been, man? How’s things been going since the big Togiak trip? 00:01:32 Floyd: Uh, it’s going well. Um, you know, just got back from Togiak, did some trips here and, um, then went into the season and then rolled over into the final, uh, kind of push in the fall. And the Klickitat Klickitat, Klickitat steelhead ranch. Um, you know, Klickitat is pretty hard to beat in the fall and then, you know, did some coastal stuff early on here on the North coast. Uh, and then headed up to the Olympic Peninsula to do some recon. Uh, and basically, you know, fished Opis from January twenty second to two days ago. 00:02:17 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:02:18 Floyd: And then plan on rolling back up and, uh, just finishing the season out, uh, you know, and get some different floats under my belt. I really would like to stick a fish in the Sol Duc, to be honest with you. 00:02:30 Dave: Oh, the Sol Duc. 00:02:31 Floyd: Yeah. It’s a gorgeous little. It’s like a big spring fed creek, uh, totally different landscape than, you know, something like the HOH. Um, but, uh, yeah, it’s kind of landed on the radar of I need to just go swing the Sol Duc and find one. Um, so that’s basically a wrap on the year. 00:02:52 Dave: Yeah, that’s the year, man. That’s pretty, that’s a swing. That’s a swing year for sure. We. I was actually up. I fished the Boca Shield for the first time and fished it with. We had a shout out to Ray and Alex, two listeners of the podcast. They set up this trip and I went up there and we fished and yeah, man, what a cool river it was. We floated it and I was lucky enough to hook into a fish, which was pretty sweet fish in the tail out one of the tail outs there. But yeah, the OP is cool, man, because it’s pretty diverse, right? There’s like what, how many rivers are there up there that you’re fishing regularly? 00:03:22 Floyd: Well, usually it’s the main three, the duck and the bogey and the ho. Um, but then you also have the Clearwater, the humptulips was up until the end of January. Uh, the upper Quinault, uh, is going, um, you know, the quits was going to be open. And then I think, uh, the parks and another organization petitioned to have that, um, removed. Um, so, you know, mostly it’s the big three, but it is like you said, it’s super diverse and you know, a any day for me personally, any day on the HOH River is just a magical day. It’s one of my favorite places on this marble. Um, yeah, it really there’s just something about it. You know, there’s certain places that just get you for some reason. Uh, and the HOH is that place for me. 00:04:20 Dave: Um, it’s a big river, right? I mean is it the biggest out of those three, the big up there. 00:04:25 Floyd: I would say uh yes. Yeah it is. But then, you know, you have a pretty cool little section of, uh, the Quillayute, which is basically the koolau, the bogie and the Sol Duc, the confluence. And it’s just a short section, you know, to the salt and it’s, you know, it’s pretty big. Um, and I, I spent some more time down there on my days off, just kind of trying to read it because, you know, it can be overwhelming. I remember being a little puzzled by the system once I hit the confluence and went down. I think I took out at Dickey. At Dickey Creek or the Dickey River. I don’t know which one is designated. Um, so, uh, you know, just learning that and trying to see the lanes and kind of those fish traps and travel corridors. Um, so I feel like I learned a thing or two. Got a lot more to learn. Obviously, you know, I’ve only been up there for three years, so. Right. Uh, you know, as Jack Mitchell would say, I know nothing. Yeah. I literally know nothing. Right. Uh, this season, um, you know, talking to, uh, the rest of the guys that were around and, um, not just my crew, but reaching out to other people who are out guiding regularly. It was a strange season and it didn’t just seem focused on the OP. We had a lot of fish come unbuttoned this year. 00:06:02 Dave: Oh really? Like unbuttoned. What does unbuttoned mean? 00:06:05 Floyd: Unbuttoned means you make contact and you know. And then you think, game on. Right. You think you’ve punched it through and, uh. And to no avail, man. I mean, it’s just it was just crazy. 00:06:20 Dave: Well, check this out. You’re gonna love this because this was never happened to me that I don’t think has ever happened. I’ve been talking about it a little bit because it was kind of crazy. That fish I hooked on the bogachiel was it was cool. I was sitting there in this tail out and just casually just, you know, just hanging out really. And it swung in and it was, there was a boat below us and we just they didn’t fish the tail out. So we stopped in and I swung it and it hooked. And I was like, all right, okay, nice and fish on, you know, and it didn’t do much. And at the start, but then it kind of came up and I and it flashed at me. I was like, okay, definitely a steelhead. You know, it’s a nice bright steelhead. And then it just got a little bit closer and then ran up away from me and just jumped out of the water about the length of its body and just spit the hook. And I was like, there you go. It’s gone. And I was like, okay, that’s happened before. And then the crazy thing was we pulled in the fly and looked at it. And the intruder, I don’t know if it was intruder, but the Spey fly I was using literally came apart. So the only thing left was the shank tied to the leader and the rest of it pulled off. 00:07:15 Floyd: So, you know, it was in its mouth. I mean. 00:07:18 Dave: Yeah, it was in his. 00:07:19 Floyd: Mouth. Maybe you don’t know that, but. 00:07:20 Dave: No, it was definitely in his mouth. I mean. 00:07:22 Floyd: I mean, like. 00:07:23 Dave: But have you ever heard of that? Where the scene that where this was tied by a major manufacturer. Right. Um, have you seen those come apart like that. 00:07:30 Floyd: Oh yeah. 00:07:31 Dave: You have. 00:07:31 Floyd: Yeah. Oh yeah. 00:07:32 Dave: No kidding. 00:07:34 Floyd: Yeah. I have seen and it’s uh, mine are typically with the Coneheads. Um, you know, that don’t like to stay put, but, you know, uh, yeah, I mean, it does happen. It’s a good, I mean, if, you know, if a fly’s falling apart because it’s getting chewed on. Hey, cool. 00:07:51 Dave: Yeah, I was. 00:07:52 Floyd: Happy, but but not just from casting. No, it should stand up. I mean, if you’re going to pump these things out, you know, at least use good material and techniques, um, because they’re pretty proud of their product these days. And I get it. I mean, but anyway, um, it, you know, we, we sat around and it’s all, it’s all guesswork as far as I’m concerned. Um, you know, we everybody, all guides are so smart, you know, we’re, we’re just, we have. 00:08:23 Dave: All the. 00:08:24 Floyd: Answers. That’s not true. Guys are just flying by the seat of their pants mostly. I’m sure guys don’t like to hear that, but I don’t really care. Um, you know, we’re just doing the best with what we got, but, I mean, we sat around and talked about it and talked about it. I just had a conversation with my buddy who was down here, uh, sticking, you know, on Oregon waters. And he’s literally telling me the same thing that I’ve been talking about for months with my friends in the business. Like what is happening? I mean, are they just head butting this thing? Uh, and, you know, it stays pinned for a second and then doesn’t really, you know, punch through. Um, I just saw over and over, um, and, you know, I’m a decent angler and, you know, I went out, I had a couple days off right before this last little stretch and a client was heading out of town and I said, well, what the hell? Let’s fish on your way out of town. Like, I don’t want to put the raft in, but let’s go do a walk in. It was on the bogey. Um, I found a fish in a cool little spot. And, you know, there he was. And this is what I describe. I, I could literally feel like we all know what a tank feels like. Yeah. Um, I could feel what that hook did when that fish Turned. I could feel it roll. I could feel the head shake. It was very strange. I just felt it all go down. And I kind of, you know, you sit there and you always. You’re playing that reel through your head. What could I have done? Should I have, you know. And you know, honestly, the only thing I could come up with and this is what I said. Um, and, you know, this is a major, I don’t know. 00:10:11 Dave: It’s not true. 00:10:13 Floyd: But people talk about carrying a loop and I’m a drag guy. I’m a drag guy. I’m a keep your drag, right. You know, use the mechanism that you have. 00:10:23 Dave: You don’t do a loop. 00:10:24 Floyd: I know, but you know what, Dave? I mean, it’s just guesswork at this. 00:10:29 Dave: Point, right? 00:10:30 Floyd: Uh, but I think, uh, my chances would have been better if I was carrying a loop. Really? And that fish, you know, had, um, more room to travel because I like to, um, when I know a fish has got that fly in its mouth and in a good position, I like to give it the lumber. 00:10:49 Dave: Oh you do? It’s for steelhead. You give steelhead the lumber to. 00:10:52 Floyd: Oh hell yeah. And and I, and I don’t care. Everybody can say what they want to say. I don’t really care. Um. I have touched enough fish in my life of fishing to know when a fish is committed. And that flies in the right place. Now, this fish that I lost that I was speaking of, I didn’t give it the wood, you know, I was being patient. I just felt everything that happened with that fly in its mouth. And I just, you know, the only thing, the only solution I could come up with in my brain was, man, Luke really might have helped in that situation. You know. 00:11:29 Dave: Give him a little more time to hook himself. Right? That’s the idea. 00:11:32 Floyd: And so, you know, on this trip back where we’re going to go play for this last week, um, that’s what I’m going to commit to. It’s like, you know, you want to catch a fly or you want to catch a steelhead on a skated fly? Well guess what? Just rig up skaters and go skate right up. You want to test a theory? Like I’m gonna go up there and I’m gonna fish for five straight days hard, and I’m going to carry a damn loop. Doesn’t mean I’ll make contact with anything, but I’m going to carry a loop every day just to do some data, right? 00:12:04 Dave: Like, yeah. 00:12:05 Floyd: Um, yeah. 00:12:07 Dave: That’s it, that’s it. And the loop you’re going to carry. And for those that, if there are some new anglers on here, the loop is where you have it pinched your swing and your fly, you got this loop of line. Sometimes it’s, I don’t know, a foot maybe of line or something like that. It’s hanging down. And then when the fish takes, it takes up that loop and it gives it a chance to like help set the hook. I think that’s the thinking, right? 00:12:26 Floyd: Yeah, it just gives it. So as soon as you feel contact, right, as soon as you feel that bump or that stop, you release that line. And usually, you know, when it’s all said and done, I would see it say it’s probably about a three foot loop, you know? 00:12:40 Dave: Yeah. Three foot. 00:12:41 Floyd: That’s an estimation from a guy who doesn’t carry a loop. You know, I’ll make that. I’ll make that comment. 00:12:47 Dave: I think you’re right. I think there’s probably everybody like has a different take on it. I don’t even know if right. Some people probably go three, some two. Who knows. Right. It’s a mix. 00:12:53 Floyd: But I mean it makes it’s starting to make sense in my brain. Uh, but that doesn’t confirm anything. My brain is a dangerous place. Uh, but, um, I definitely see, uh, I, I’m starting to see that side. Right? I’m starting to see, okay, perhaps some of these fish that we’ve lost through the season or that my clients lost. Um, yeah, maybe that’s a tactic. Maybe I need to grow and change and, you know, give it some real. And here’s the other thing, and who knows what the comments will be. I don’t like I said, people have their opinion, whatever, but what do I have to lose with carrying a loop? 00:13:36 Dave: Yeah. Right. What’s the worst thing. 00:13:38 Floyd: Versus what do I have to lose with them feeling my fly sooner and spitting it out because I have my drag on and they feel that pressure sooner. And you know, the head shakes start sooner or whatever. Variables all begin sooner. As soon as they feel that tension and the point of that hook or who knows what, it’s almost. And I’ll be devil’s advocate here for the loop carrying dudes out there, which, hey, they’re legit. There’s no downside to carrying a loop. Yeah, because your drag still set. 00:14:10 Dave: Yeah, your drag still there. 00:14:11 Floyd: And that three feet doesn’t mean a thing when you’ve got a twelve to fourteen foot rod of lever, right? 00:14:19 Dave: Yeah. 00:14:19 Floyd: So definitely maybe it’s time to evolve. Dave. 00:14:22 Dave: I, I, well, I can tell you I’m no pro, but I mean, I’ve always carried a loop mainly because that’s what my dad taught me. You know, when I first got going, I’ve always been a loop and I feel like and I do another little thing right. I have the line kind of almost not wrapped around my finger, but it’s on my index finger so I can feel any subtle little thing. So I got the loop. And then when a fish takes, I’m not even thinking about the loop. It’s not even on my mind. But somehow that thing sets and you know, it does its magic. But I’ve always done it. And I, you know, again, I don’t know if it’s again, there’s probably other steps, part of this process that can help you hook into fish. But you know, the loop is just one part. 00:14:56 Floyd: Well, I mean, just making contact is hard enough now, you know, having them stay buttoned up, uh, that’s a whole nother game. Like there’s so many things that can and will go wrong. Um, I think, you know, I think I’m starting to change teams, uh, because it is, it’s just a trigger release. That’s all it is. You’re in direct contact. You’re always in direct contact with the fly, right? Swinging them and with that finger there, my argument used to be, you know, well, that’s just one more thing to go wrong, right? That’s true. People that people are thinking about, well, you know, keep the rod pressure here and don’t flinch and let go of the line. 00:15:39 Dave: Um, yeah. For somebody who’s new, probably the loop might not be the best thing to be holding. 00:15:43 Floyd: Or maybe it’s just a good foundation. You know, I’m just being devil’s advocate. Like I said, maybe it’s a good foundation and maybe they need to, you know, learn to lose a couple. 00:15:52 Dave: What do you think about so the loop for steelhead now take it to Chinook or even Atlantic salmon. So you’ve got this togiak thing right. Which the trip we did now is loop. Is anybody carrying a loop out there? 00:16:03 Floyd: Oh my God. I should know the answer to that. Um, I’ll tell you. Um I know, I think, you know, I can safely say we’re half and half. 00:16:14 Dave: Yeah. 00:16:15 Floyd: On the guide crew of what we choose to do and what we recommend our clients do. Um, and for some reason I’m less convinced of carrying a loop with these aggressive, uh, you know, salt fresh kings that, that we run into. Um, it’s pretty, uh. 00:16:41 Dave: It’s a little different. 00:16:42 Floyd: It’s pretty committed. 00:16:43 Dave: How is that different to talk about that? Because that is the first part of it. You get the take, you know? Yeah. The Chinook take and setting the lumber versus the steelhead take. 00:16:53 Floyd: Yeah. In that scenario specific to swinging for Togiak kings, I typically have my drag set, uh, enough to let it run. And I’ll probably get flack for this. I adjust after I’ve punched it through. 00:17:13 Dave: Yeah. After it’s on. 00:17:15 Floyd: After it’s on. Because this is big water, big fish. It’s time to crank down a little bit. And when I say crank down, I don’t mean like freak out and turn. 00:17:26 Dave: For clicks. 00:17:28 Floyd: Right? Yeah. I mean a slow, gradual with a good disc drag or what have you. Um, you know, that’s kind of my method and it seems to be working, you know, but maybe, maybe I’ll go back up and switch up my, the numbers will be changed for, you know, this little experiment I’m going to do in the coming week. And maybe I’ll just be a loop guy for evermore. Who knows. But right now, you know, with the Togiak take, you know, it’s kind of like a freight train or a dump truck. You know, it just it’s just, it’s just big and heavy and there’s no doubt, right? There’s no doubt in my mind when it’s time to punch that dude in the mouth. 00:18:14 Dave: Exactly. 00:18:15 Floyd: You know, and because, uh, they that’s a, uh, that’s some thick bone and cartilage that you’re having to penetrate. And I, um, I’m not gonna do it too early, but when I do it, I’m gonna do it with bad intentions. 00:18:30 Dave: Yeah yeah, yeah. 00:18:32 Floyd: You know, the thing I tell clients and it’s so, um, probably a little ambiguous, um, is do nothing until it’s time to do something and then do the right thing. Uh, and yeah, so. 00:18:47 Dave: Yeah, let him, let him, we go back to the George cook the chewing the gum because I, I think that that makes you think about it, right? Chewing the gum, let him chew on it a little bit and tell you, and what is the right moment to set? How do you know when to set the lumber on that fish, that giant fish that’s there? 00:19:03 Floyd: Um, you know, or if you’re asking me, it is a, it’s a feel, right? It is a, it is that steady sustained pressure. Um, it isn’t herky jerky. It’s not, uh, incremental. 00:19:18 Dave: No. And what are they doing when they’re doing that? When they’re chewing the gum. What do you think that fly. Have you guys, you probably talked about that like what does that fly actually doing? Right. Because a steelhead, you get these little some stuff, but it’s not like the chewing the gum. 00:19:30 Floyd: Yeah, I have no idea. You’re gonna have to ask the fish, Dave. I don’t know what they’re thinking. I just know that this is what it feels like, and it’s not time. And then this is what it feels like, and it’s time. And that’s usually line peeling off, you know, in a general sense. Now just a hard, steady stop that one. Man. I usually give them the wood. I mean, you know, the chewing thing. Uh, it’s interesting you said that I had a client, um, got one of his best steelhead to hand this year. And this is no exaggeration. I watched it all go down. He he came to the hang down right at the end of the swing of the. Sure. And this buck chewed on his fly for a four Mississippi count. 00:20:22 Dave: No way. Oh, my. And he just had he he he just sat there and he just. Well, I guess there’s not much you could do. 00:20:27 Floyd: And he had nerves of steel. I was so proud of the guy for Mississippi Count. He literally turned around to me and was like, what do I do? 00:20:38 Dave: Oh, man. 00:20:39 Floyd: I just said, let him eat, right? Just let him eat. Just. And at that for Mississippi, then that steelhead committed and turned away. And he just gave a nice little side pressure to it. And it buttoned itself, you know, up and he was not carrying a loop. 00:21:04 Dave: So he hooked it. 00:21:05 Floyd: Uh, he hooked it. He landed it and it was, it was, it was magical. 00:21:10 Dave: So there you go. Steelhead. Chewing the gum for I mean, four seconds is a good chunk of time. 00:21:14 Floyd: Oh, that’s an eternity. 00:21:15 Dave: Yeah. I mean, think of that. Wow. One one thousand two one thousand, three one thousand four. I mean, that’s sitting there like, wow. 00:21:23 Floyd: I mean, you know, the man is standing there. It’s perfectly still. Other than rotating his head around to tell me what’s happening and looking at me, I’m looking at the whites of his eyes and he’s telling me that this is happening. And you know, what do you do? There’s nothing to do in that situation except wait for it to make the decision. 00:21:44 Dave: Exactly. Wow. So that takes us back to the Togiak trip, which was, you know, I was there. I want to hear about the season too, because we were there for, you know, early in the season. I think there might have been a group before us coming in there, but um, but yeah, we had a day on the water, right. I mean, I had actually my struggle day was when I was out with you just because my casting collapsed on me. Right. And all that stuff. But give me the summary of the trip. Overall, how did things turn out? The rest of the season after we left? 00:22:11 Floyd: The season was fantastic. It was hands down the best shape the river has ever been in for me. 00:22:19 Dave: Nice. 00:22:20 Floyd: And it was still according to the buoys. Uh, you know, Zach and Jordan. It was still a high water year, and I just kind of laughed because the two seasons prior, we really had high water. I mean, it was, you know, but now the bars were in the channels and the slots and all of these things started to reveal themselves, which, you know, helps our cause. They concentrate the fish, right? Yeah. Um, and we can get to them without having to make some, you know, hero eighteen pulls off of our real cast. Um, which is, you know, when you’re standing in chest deep water, um, is, is a, is a hard thing to do for. 00:23:04 Dave: A. 00:23:04 Floyd: Lot of, you know, your average anglers. Um, and it’s hard for me. Yeah. You know, I mean, um, but all in all, we found good fish throughout. We had a little weather spell that, um, kind of locked them up for a couple days. And Ryan Pritchett has been up there. He’s one of our guides. He’s been up there, I think, close to seventeen years. I picked that brain every chance I get. And, you know, he was familiar with that little pattern. And sure enough, he’s you know, he said it’ll pass because it did. It kind of went crickets. You know, we were we were struggling to get like, just make contact or get one to commit. Um, some boats did better than others, obviously, and that’s just fishing. But it did pass. And then even on the heels of us leaving, you know, and wrapping up the Spey program, um, Zach is texting me and the guys who stayed to finish out the season, um, with, you know, other types of angling. Um, they were sending me videos of this dropping system and, uh, I really appreciated, uh, you got to fish with Big Aaron? Yeah, I did. Uh, yeah. He’s just he’s a great human. Uh, and a hell of an angler and a natural spey caster. Uh, he’s just one big monster lever. He kind of makes me upset how easy he picked this stuff up. Um, I struggled for years, and I’m still struggling, but he sent me some videos of some places that I really liked to frequent. Um, and that I found some beautiful fish at. Well, those sections were dry, right? That’s how much the river had dropped. So I got to see these videos of the water, which is just, you know, stuff like that’s invaluable. Like you start to understand that’s why they sit there and that’s why they gravitate here. Um, it’s just very revealing. Um. 00:25:06 Dave: Yeah. Could you see the runs? Was it clear? Did it clear up a lot and all that? Yeah. 00:25:09 Floyd: Oh yeah. Yeah. It was you know, it’s just a totally different. 00:25:13 Dave: Yeah. That’s the difference. When we were there, the conditions. It was my first time at Togiak. So I mean it was great. I don’t even it’s the only thing I’ve ever seen. Right? So but compared to when we were there, that water was a little bit higher than what you guys fished as the season went on. 00:25:26 Floyd: Absolutely. Yeah. 00:25:27 Dave: Yeah. So you dropped down. That makes sense. So it drops down even more. And now you’ve got these slots that are now instead of the whole river, these fish are caged up in more of these slots. So they’re probably easier to find. 00:25:37 Floyd: And yeah, right off, you know, right off these deep bars and, um, you know, and your perspective comes from your experience. That was your first year. My perspective comes from three years. So to me, I was overjoyed with the shape of the river. You know, I was just like, this is awesome. Uh, this is great. I mean, because we were casting, I remember my first year, we had a couple spots and we were, we were really, you know, handcuffed, um, and casting from almost from the bank in certain spots. 00:26:14 Dave: And this was the year that we talked about on the podcast because your first year, you were up there with Stevie Morrow, right? You guys had the camp that flooded. 00:26:21 Floyd: Yeah. 00:26:22 Dave: Yeah, that was so so if anyone wants to listen to that story, that’s amazing because you guys had this camping story on the Togiak, which is unbelievable. And you got flooded out. So we’ll put a link to the show notes to that podcast episode. But yeah, so that’s what you first saw was this crazy weather. And now you had some experiences of lower, more conditions. Yeah. 00:26:39 Floyd: And I was just thankful that we had the conditions that we had. We had the returns that we had every rotation, every group that came in had proper fish to hand. And it was just, you know, who knows what it’ll be this year. 00:26:56 Dave: Yep. Yeah. It’s fishing. 00:26:58 Floyd: Yeah. Who knows. 00:26:59 Dave: You never know. It is one of those places that likely will be there will likely be fish because you know, we talked about we actually had somebody on that talked about that whole Bristol Bay area. And I mean, it’s unbelievable. You know, the amount of it’s the largest sockeye run in the world. It’s got, you know, still healthy Chinook fishing. And we talked. We heard some stories about it. But you know, there’s places that aren’t, you know, that are kind of closed down towards Kenai for Chinook and stuff like that. So I feel like Togiak is still one of those places that’s kind of still in a healthy state. 00:27:28 Floyd: Yeah, man. Um, and hopefully, uh, the powers that be are doing everything to keep it that way. I know that the boys are intimately involved with advocating for those protections and management strategies that are long term, not thinking about five year plans, but thinking about, you know, fifty and one hundred year plans. Um, that’s a resource like most of them that should be managed strategically, right? Uh, I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole. 00:28:00 Dave: No, no, I think the best thing is supporting the, I think the conservation groups is a good start. You know, Trout Unlimited, you know, we’ve talked about that the Bristol Bay, the mines up there and stuff. I mean I think supporting Trout Unlimited and groups like that is a good place for people to go to because they’re kind of doing some of the good work there. But, um, but yeah, tell me about the run. So we got this run up there. You’re fishing for Chinook. What do you think makes a good let’s just talk Chinook run. Is it pretty much the same as steelhead run when you’re trying to find fish? 00:28:27 Floyd: Um yeah. It’s definitely you know, you pay attention to the tides. Um and, you know, this is where my boys up there really kind of educate me, you know, Chris, uh, Childs, he has been doing this much longer than I have. Ryan. Uh, you know, you can’t get any better as far as information. So, you know, you’re just looking for waves and pushes of fish. And so just depending on how the tide is, you, you either for the most part, what I saw us doing was going up and intercepting those that had come in, possibly overnight, just according to the tide schedule. And, uh, the Togiak is a very unique, um, type. Like there’s, I think there’s one tide a day because of, uh, the nature of the bay, how far it stretches out and how shallow it is before it drops off that shelf. I believe. Um, I’m probably butchering that explanation, but, um, so we just kind of worked our way down according to the next tide to intercept the next bush. So you try and intercept the first, you know, that came in before and then you time it working your way down to hopefully intercept the next bush that’s coming through. 00:29:47 Dave: Yeah. You’re intercepting fish that are coming in with the tide and then there, then the tide comes back down and then they’re waiting. So and they’re coming in at different times, probably that tide, right. Depending on what time of day. Yeah. But you’re fishing in the morning. I mean we’re getting going in the morning right. 00:30:01 Floyd: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. We get going. Um, you know, uh, I think we fish from like eight to five is our day And you know, we all pick our beats and we rotate and all of those that order, which I love about what we do as a team up there is it’s prioritized by client. Like, um, as you know, you get into the next day or the day after and so forth, you know, the people, the beats that are chosen are based on who, who needs to find one. So let’s give, you know, and say, Ryan’s got those guys or gals, then, hey, uh, Ryan’s up first, you know, and, um, and it just may so happen that Ryan has the next day on the next rotation, the crew that needs to have some success and well, you know, then Ryan gets first pick again. And, and, and we all understand that that is our priority to make it happen for everyone. 00:31:02 Dave: Yeah. That’s right. 00:31:04 Floyd: And I like that. It’s not that, you know, that kind of Peacocking. Uh. Yosemite. Sam. 00:31:11 Dave: Like, who can get to the run first? Get up early. Yeah. No. Well, that’s the other cool thing about Togiak. It’s like it’s a, you know, there’s not a lot of people on the river. There’s basically Togiak Lodge and there was a couple other. But there’s some native folks that were fishing out there, but it’s pretty much togiak operation on that river, right? For the most part. 00:31:28 Floyd: It’s pretty unique setup. It’s, um, you know, a world class fishery, um, with not a tremendous amount of pressure. And, um, since they, you know, turned it into a no kill watershed, uh, at least on the Chinook front. Um. Yep. You know, that’s helped thin out the traffic as well. 00:31:50 Dave: Oh, right. Right. That’s even helped more. That’s the cool thing is that the catch and release now is actually even better because those people that wanted to kill, they’re not there anymore. Yeah. That’s amazing. 00:31:59 Floyd: And I get look, you know, you want to harvest some fish, I get it. Uh, yeah. Me too. But we don’t want to go the way of the buffalo and sockeye are super tasty and they’re, um, they’re in a pretty. Yeah, there’s a pretty healthy population as long as we, you know, aren’t harvesting, you know, a hundred a day per boat, like whatever ridiculous thing we used to do way back when that put us, you know, in a corner in the first place. But yeah, you want to harvest the sockeye or something. Cool, man. You want to take a couple filets back? Cool. But, um, that’s not what we focus on, right? Like during that five to six week period where we’re catch and release swung fly only. And, um, and we attract those that are interested in that. And there’s a lot, you know, I think we were booked, uh, for next year, two weeks. 00:32:50 Dave: After. 00:32:51 Floyd: The program. 00:32:51 Dave: It’s pretty cool because you’re especially like just, you just described at the start how you go around the space, you got the steelhead, you got these seasons. I mean, I’m sure you’re running into people that probably haven’t done the Chinook yet and are like, wow, what is this? Like, you know, what is this? What is a king? That’s how I was. I mean, I’ve caught Chinook, but never really at the Togiak, you know, with those bright, really kings. And it’s different, you know, it’s a different you’re fishing, the runs are a little bit deeper. You’re fishing heavier, bigger rods, fourteen foot heavier lines. You know, it’s a little bit different. It’s like steelhead, you’re swinging, but it’s just a touch different. And, and I like how you guys do it. You said because I had a struggle, I think the first day I had got into a, a super jack or something like that, but I hadn’t got an adult and I think I went up with, um, the sweet spot, one of the sweet spots, right? That easy casting off the bank and, and had a great, a great morning, you know, it was just like epic. I mean, I couldn’t believe it was like one of the great mornings ever. I’ll never forget that, you know? 00:33:43 Floyd: Yeah. You got to spread the love, man. Yeah. Everybody needs a shot. Yeah. And, um, you know, and it’s our job to not just put you in the right position, but teach you what to do when you’re in the right position. And, you know, you mentioned the day you had with me where you were struggling, right, with your cast. Well, welcome to space man. 00:34:06 Dave: I know. Well, let me just reiterate how that worked because I just, you know, I was tired. Whatever it was, I mean, I was sick at a certain point, I was sick, I had that thing that was going around. But I mean, it was just I was struggling. And guess what happened? I hooked this fish and it broke me off. And I was just like, ready to almost ready to throw the rod sort of thing. And I just like, give up, just give up. And I remember you looked at me and you said, dude, you know, this is how it goes. This is not, you know, you got to stay in the game. Was that kind of do you remember that? Is that kind of what you were thinking? 00:34:33 Floyd: Yeah. Um, I remember, in fact, uh, we were at, uh, the spot we were at was we call it three Rivers. 00:34:41 Dave: Mhm. 00:34:42 Floyd: And, um, you know, in the time that we’re all going through this, right, it seems so daunting. And so like, it’s just extremely frustrating. And those things, those moments come few and far between, right? As you progress. Uh, but they’re absolutely one hundred percent, in my opinion, necessary. We have to go through that. We have to go through that and see that it doesn’t last forever. That there is right. There is a way like in, like I said, if you’re good at guiding, in my opinion, then you learn to learn the way your client learns. So whether that’s me walking away or me giving you a little word of encouragement, or me telling you to come have a cup of coffee, whatever that is, to just reset the brain. Um, that’s for me to prompt. But ultimately, you’re the one standing in the river, and you’re the one who’s going through the paces, and you’re the one who’s frustrated. 00:35:45 Dave: And I’m the one that has to make the cast right. Ultimately. 00:35:48 Floyd: Yeah. And when you see when the light bulb comes back on and you slow down or you stop, you’re pushing with the top hand or whatever, or setting your anchor, right? Whatever, whatever is, is got you in flummoxed right when you see that the solution does exist. You found it. And now that piece is over. We all have to make those deposits. I’m convinced. You know, there are some Jedis out there who, you know, rarely screw up a cast. Most of us are going to run into the shanks, you know, the yips or whatever. Um, and you just you just buckle up and look around and, um, realize you’re in this radically cool place doing such a cool thing and, you know, okay. And the, the world of big deals, it does not qualify. 00:36:43 Dave: That’s true. 00:36:43 Floyd: You’re casting poorly. Wow. Okay. 00:36:46 Dave: Exactly. You’re in the middle of Alaska on this amazing place. Yeah. You got to put it in perspective. 00:36:51 Floyd: Yeah. So, you know, as an observer, I enjoyed watching you, your evolution through that because you got through it, right? It wasn’t forever. No. Right. And, you know, and then we were back to Roland. 00:37:07 Dave: Yeah, we’re back to going. And they were more fish out there and more spots and more runs. And I feel like the fly fishing is it’s definitely this mental. You know, there’s a mental component, I think for you, you’re a guide, right? You’re at the, you know, you’re at this highest level and you’re around all these guys. I’m interested because I just found this. I’m a, you know, obviously a big podcast listener. And I found this new podcast. It’s great. It’s called Mind the Game. And I don’t do a lot of sports anymore, but I used to play basketball. And this podcast is actually JJ Redick, who is a professional basketball player with LeBron James. And it’s LeBron sitting down and they’re talking about what it takes to be like the high level athlete and mental, you know, and they call it basketball IQ. But it’s a huge thing. The mental and sports. Do you find that fly fishing like we’re talking about a little bit here. But for you as a guide, do you have to keep that mental thing always be thinking about is that a big part of success there? 00:37:57 Floyd: Um, I don’t know if I would elevate it to the professional athlete status and the concentration and commitment that that requires. But it comes down to this for me and I simplify everything. You get out what you put in. Right, right. You don’t finish the run. You know, you could have been backing a fish down the whole time and but you’re just tired, you know? Or do you keep going that extra ten fifteen rotations. 00:38:27 Dave: Yeah. 00:38:27 Floyd: So you know that you’ve covered it into the tongue of the tail out. 00:38:30 Dave: And there’s also the angle and the type and the how are you fishing it and maybe switching up a tip, right? There’s all these little nuances, right? 00:38:38 Floyd: And if and I am a firm believer in instincts and intuition, and I think those things exist in that you should always be aware of them. So if your internal dialogue is telling you you’re not deep enough, or to change an angle or to change fly color or whatever. Do it. 00:38:59 Dave: Yeah. 00:39:00 Floyd: Do it. Guides don’t know everything. Now, for the most part, you know, you’re paying us to lead the way, right? And make a recommendation. But I, I am a firm believer in telling the clientele, look, if you think something especially seasoned anglers look, if you feel like you need to change something up, let’s try it. Yeah. Because what’s worse is you not doing that or you you getting back to the house or to the lodge and thinking, man, should I have I don’t like should I have? Hey, let’s take the guesswork out of it. Let’s just go ahead and do it right. What have we got to lose? We’re not going to find a fish. Well, we’re doing that right now. Yeah, right. We’re already not finding one. Let’s see if a change up helps. Let’s see if a little deeper in the water column helps. Let’s you know, that’s amazing. That’s the mental side. 00:39:52 Dave: That’s the mental side. 00:39:53 Floyd: That is the mental side. Like, let’s not just be robotic. Let’s angle with intention and be methodical and be complete, right? Complete it. Don’t give up on it. 00:40:06 Dave: Yeah, right. Don’t give up on the don’t give up on the yeah. The very I think John Shuey said that on the last podcast he did here, he, he said, you know, you’ve got to have the same confidence in the first cast as you do the last cast of the day when you’re fishing for swung fly, right. 00:40:20 Floyd: That’s which is hard to sustain. Yeah. I mean, that’s easy to say. 00:40:23 Dave: It is easy to say. 00:40:25 Floyd: But dude, when it’s howling wind and, you know. 00:40:28 Dave: And you’re skunked, think of that. You’re skunked and you’re cold and you’re wet. Yeah. And you’re at the end of the day and you’re like, and you’re. And you haven’t touched the fish yet. 00:40:35 Floyd: Yeah. That’s the mental side, right? Like it’s going to happen. No. Okay, maybe not, but it can happen. I’ll tell you where it won’t happen. 00:40:46 Dave: Yeah. 00:40:47 Floyd: It won’t happen back at the Lodge. No, it won’t happen while you’re sitting in the boat. It won’t You know what I mean? That’s the only place that’s going to happen, so. 00:40:56 Dave: Well, you know what? You know what LeBron said on that podcast. He said they’re talking about making elite angry and obviously obviously or elite athlete. Obviously he’s the one of the greatest ever. But he was like discipline was one thing he said. Like he that JJ asked him like, what does discipline mean? And he said, you’ve got to be able to, um, you know, forget about your family or like leave your right. He said basically like, man, you’ve got to give basically to get to that level. I mean, this is obviously an extreme level, but you know, you got to give things to get there. You know, and I feel like for some of us, you know, I don’t know, there’s probably some similarities there. But do you find I mean, you told your story on that first podcast where what it took you to get here. Do you feel like you still got a long ways to get to where you want to be? 00:41:40 Floyd: I have so far to go. It’s amazing that people even pay me to do this. Dave, to be honest. 00:41:46 Dave: Pretty amazing though, isn’t it? Isn’t it amazing? 00:41:48 Floyd: I have a lifetime of work ahead of me. But that is an attitude thing. Um, and hopefully I carry that more than I let the gremlins creep into my head, but it’s actually a relief if you kind of want to pivot on that, that I will never know at all. I will always have something to learn. There is no finish line here. Guys and gals like, hey, like we are just evolving. It’s just on to the next evolution. There’s no finish line, man. There’s no ribbon, there’s no like. And that takes all the pressure off, right? And that also puts those moments like you had in perspective. Like this is necessary. This is part the growth for me, unfortunately with my history is a little pain and suffering, you know, is when the heat is turned on, that’s when I want to avoid and get out of it as quickly as possible, but that’s when the real seeds are planted and whatever it is. And not just angling in life and relationships and sobriety for me. 00:42:58 Dave: Right. Yeah. Sobriety. 00:43:00 Floyd: You know, that’s just kind of the way I think a lot of us are wired that, um, you know, the some hippy dippy thing, some dude crusty dude told me is like, every time I get out of my comfort zone, my comfort zone grows. And I just thought that that was so profound, you know, and that challenges me. If I’m going to challenge you as a client, then I need to put my money where my mouth is and start making casts with, you know, my left hand. 00:43:30 Dave: I’m just going to say left hand on top, which I haven’t. That’s, that’s the comfort zone. 00:43:34 Floyd: Like whatever, like, you know, just don’t be a hypocrite and continue to grow and we’re going to grow in the sport together. And the reward is there. The difficulty is the reward, right? All of that compounds. I mean, all winter steelheaders. No, all all swingers? No. Um, that all the lead up, all the practice, all the blown casts, all the, the crappy weather, all of that is what makes for those who don’t understand the numbers, right? Yeah. That’s what makes the numbers so special. 00:44:09 Dave: That’s it. Right. You’re putting in the pain, the pain and suffering to get to that one fish or whatever it is. 00:44:15 Floyd: That’s why you see people, you know, brought to tears. I, I. 00:44:18 Dave: I see. 00:44:18 Floyd: Multiple people brought to tears. 00:44:21 Dave: Have you you’ve seen you’ve seen tears on the water. 00:44:23 Floyd: Oh my Lord. I’m telling you, it’s beautiful. Wow. It’s magic. 00:44:27 Dave: No kidding. 00:44:27 Floyd: Um, and, you know, I just get to sit back and be a part of it, but I know, um, the input. 00:44:36 Dave: Let me just say this because this is a great segue to the Jordan. Um, you know, Jordan and Zach, I, I didn’t know the whole story, but I heard there’s a video out there Actually, it’s on, um, carbon TV. If they, if folks want to search Togiak. And basically the, the filmmaker, uh, just documented a couple of days with Jordan and at Togiak Lodge. And I’ll tell you what, Jordan was in tears a number of times talking about how he was given this opportunity. You know, he doesn’t have, you know, bazillions of dollars to buy a lodge, but because he was in the right place, you know, it all came together. Um, you know, and he talks about the experience and Jordan, you know, anybody that knows Jordan and the Togiak, that’s this family thing is what’s so special. One of the things that’s so special is that they’re not your normal, just, um, you know, hedge fund manager owning something, right? This is like a cool deal. So anyways, I feel like the tears, you know, and I had a tear on that watching the video, you know, watching the story. 00:45:26 Floyd: It’s such a magical story. 00:45:27 Dave: Do you know, you know the have you seen that or you know what I’m talking about. 00:45:30 Floyd: I just know the story. 00:45:31 Dave: Yeah. You know the story. 00:45:32 Floyd: Yeah. I mean, I’ll probably watch the video now, but, um, you know, Zach and Jordan, from my experience from day one are salt of the earth real deal. And they put their money where their mouth is. That place is special to them. That place is a home away from home. It’s a family thing, and their actions are reflected in those values that they have for the fishery, for the program, um, for their staff and clientele. It is unique. It is special. And I am, um, I’m just glad that, you know, it was part of my origin story that that place was my first gig. 00:46:15 Dave: Oh, that was right. 00:46:17 Floyd: Yeah. That little, um, that skate camp. 00:46:20 Dave: That was it. That was your first time. Yeah. 00:46:22 Floyd: And Stevie and our our whack a doodle. Uh, you know, Bush Carpenter and I building that camp and, you know, staying the night at the lodge. Um, it just, it’s all of the things. It checks all of the boxes for me. And, you know, as long as there’s gas in my tank and I’m invited back, I’m going back to the Togiak. Every year. It’s just. It’s one of those places. 00:46:46 Dave: That’s awesome. No, I love it. Talk about this on the, um, Chinook. We’re going. I love the Chinook steelhead because again, it’s this a lot of people I think have probably fished for steelhead or probably more steelhead and less of the Chinook, the kings. But when you’re out there fishing for kings on the togiak, are you taking away lessons from that, that you’re applying for steelhead fishing later in the season? 00:47:05 Floyd: If I am, I’m not doing it consciously. It would be probably on a subconscious level, right? Uh, you know, maybe slowing my fly down and, uh, and, you know, where to mend, when not to mend, you know, all of those things kind of evolve into the angling IQ, right? Yep. Um, and there are major differences that much more, you know, seasoned people and educated people can probably identify quickly. Um, I am always just trying to read water and to do what I think the fish want. And so ultimately, the only opinion I really care about is what the fish are telling me. 00:47:51 Dave: Yeah, right. You get the feedback directly, don’t you? 00:47:55 Floyd: The feedback from the fish is the real data for me. Right. Um, because a lot of, a lot of what we do is a lot of conjecture. So, um, and, and, and you don’t know, back to getting back to the dock or getting back to the lodge. I don’t like finishing a float or finishing a day thinking should a woulda, coulda. 00:48:19 Dave: Yeah. Leave it on the water. Leave it all on the water. 00:48:22 Floyd: Yeah. Try it. Like just try it, you know, and, and you, and there’s no guaranteed feedback at the time. Who’s to say that that method or that change up wouldn’t have worked two hours later or two days later or whatever under different water temperatures, different flows, blah, blah, blah. You can just try and just keep trying. You know? Um, and yeah, that’s awesome. 00:48:47 Dave: Well, tell me this. So we’re talking here. It’s almost April is right around the corner, you know, and this is probably going to go live later in April. Um, what, what do you get? When does Togiak start? When are you starting to get ready to think about heading up there? 00:48:59 Floyd: Well, as I’m sure you know, there’s a lot to do at the lodge. Uh, to prepare. 00:49:05 Dave: Yeah, because it’s locked down right now, right? There’s nobody there. 00:49:08 Floyd: There’s always things to repair, to upgrade. Um, and to prep. So what I’ll probably do is head out a week or so early at the end of March, early June, um, and help everyone, uh, kind of all hands on deck. Let’s get this thing operational. The sooner we get it operational, the sooner we get to go play. And, you know, maybe hit some of those early fish, which happened for us last year. Two of my best fish came on back to back days. 00:49:42 Dave: In June, early June. 00:49:44 Floyd: Early June. Um, just on a guide day. Like we had busted our butts, uh, on this massive project, uh, to resupport the lodge, you know, that needed it. And, you know, digging out underneath in the tundra and, you know, it was gross, backbreaking work, but, um, but everybody did their part. And, you know, the sooner that that’s done, the sooner, you know, that’s all the motivation you should really need, right? Especially for somebody who loves to fish is or, you know, everything on the whiteboard to have a slash through it. And now it’s like, hey, next three days. Yeah, let’s go fish. That’s pretty awesome. And it was, you know, and it was in shape, you know, once again, we’ll see what this season has in store for us. But, um, given just the limited experience I have with the high water, you know, and knowing our crew, we’re going to get it done. We’re gonna find a way to get it done. 00:50:43 Dave: You’ve seen it. You’ve seen everything. You’ve seen the high, the highest, you know, the high water and everything in between. 00:50:48 Floyd: Yeah. Over the banks, man. I mean, you know the property now. 00:50:51 Dave: Yeah. It was over the bank. 00:50:53 Floyd: I mean, you know that boardwalk that you walked down from the dining room in the main lodge that was, uh, an inch and a half underwater. 00:51:02 Dave: Oh, that was water, right. So it went over the bank there. 00:51:04 Floyd: Yeah. So, um, yeah, if we can get it done in those circumstances, um, I have full confidence that whatever we have, it’s, it’s going to throw, it’s, you know, it’s Alaska, it’s going to throw something. It just, yeah, just wait for it. Whatever it is, it’s coming, it’s coming. You don’t know what it is, but it’s gonna come. 00:51:25 Dave: It’s gonna be good. It’s gonna be good. Nice. Well, let’s take it out here with our kind of tips and takeaways segment here on. And I want to talk steelhead and Chinook. So first off, like if somebody is getting ready, let’s just say steal. We’re what are we at now? I guess Steelheads kind of wrapping up on is the OP does it close March thirty first? Is that kind of all close up up there? Yeah. 00:51:42 Floyd: It’ll be it’ll be closed in March. 00:51:44 Dave: So it’ll be closed. But there’s still some other stuff open around, right. That you could fish. But if somebody was fishing maybe late in the steelhead season, give us a tip that you would be telling your client if you’re out on a coastal stream fishing for steelhead, just kind of high level. 00:51:57 Floyd: Uh, let’s see, uh, man, just get out there, pay attention to your graphs, you know, um, and, um, when you think you don’t have enough visibility, you actually do, you know, don’t let a foot and a half of visibility, two feet of visibility discourage you. 00:52:15 Dave: Yeah. What is too much? When do you call it? When is it too, you know, it’s too turbid that you can’t even fish. Do you have. 00:52:21 Floyd: Yeah. When you walk in and you know, I’m standing above my boots and I can’t even see my boots, you know, that’s it. I mean, it’s pretty disheartening, but, you know, that’s when you just, you know, you shorten up your gas, then do a light tip and you just fish the hang down. Uh, but that’s not the sexy part of Sp-a, right? We all want to make hero casts and, you know, get some in, you know? Mid-swing. But, um, no, there’s ways to go find them, man. Um, we’re getting a big push of water, but things are shaping up, um, up there, and, uh, they will be down here too, so, you know, don’t just because it’s been a long, hard season and it has been, uh, from coast to coast really. Um, you know, if you want to find one, you got to get out there. And that goes back to our, you know, our mental toughness, whatever you want to label it. Um, you can still find them. They’re still around. And I would say, you know, I’m a real heads and tails kind of guy. Like if you think you’re starting high enough in a run, you’re not for the most part. 00:53:29 Dave: Um, heads and tails. 00:53:30 Floyd: Uh, heads and tails, man. 00:53:32 Dave: Yeah. So don’t worry about. Yeah. The bulk. And that’s what I learned this year is like, man, yeah, the tail outs do do not skip those things. 00:53:39 Floyd: It took me about two years to really, really, um, solidify the tail out. I don’t know why I was so averse to it. It was probably the depth, right? 00:53:52 Dave: Because it’s so because it can be so shallow when you look at it. Oh damn. That’s dropping into this riffle. And there’s there’s fish holding there. 00:53:59 Floyd: Oh they’re one hundred percent is um there’s a particular run on the bogus shield that I fish with a five and five T eight mo tip and an unweighted bug. And that found us three fish. 00:54:11 Dave: Wow. 00:54:12 Floyd: I mean, just just. And we’re talking about two and a half feet of water. 00:54:16 Dave: Yeah. 00:54:17 Floyd: If that if that right in the depth of the tongue. So, you know, do not neglect your tails. 00:54:24 Dave: How do you fish? The upper part of the tail out seem to be a little straightforward when you talk about the upper part, are you starting in the you’re standing in the riffle swinging in that. Right where it’s dumping in. 00:54:34 Floyd: You’re well above. You’re well above. So, you know, at the tip or the arrow of the piece of water where you start to see the seam. Right. Yeah. Um, the fish above that. 00:54:47 Dave: Fish above that, right. 00:54:48 Floyd: Fish above that leave no stone unturned because, um, personally, uh, I had a day off two weeks ago. I walked in to a place on the hoe just casually. I started at much higher, um, than most would. I made an overhead cast. I pulled some line off, made a second overhead cast, and then I made a single spey. And embarrassingly, the rod was ripped out of my hand and the rod is now going into the middle of the fast water. 00:55:20 Dave: Oh, really? You lost your rod? 00:55:22 Floyd: Oh, the rod was ripped out of my hand. Not not. It was a great grab. I lost the rod. Dave. 00:55:28 Dave: Wow. That’s awesome. 00:55:29 Floyd: I went charging after my rod. I tripped, I fell on my face as I was grabbing the rod. This is no lie. Sure. So now my face is coming out of the water and six feet from my nose in the river. Another fish rolled in that riffle that I was fishing. My fish is buttoned up and has gone down into the meat of the run now. And I laughed out loud. I picked myself up. I started reeling, right. I’ve got him on. I’m just chuckling to myself. And then my, uh, my real stopped. It would not reel anymore. The running line had jumped the cage of the reel. 00:56:09 Speaker 3: Oh. 00:56:10 Floyd: Uh. And so I spent the next 40s trying to play that, you know, get tension off enough to pass it, blah, blah, blah. And it was just ridiculous. I had no reason. But, um. 00:56:22 Dave: So this was not a full case. This was not a full cage reel. 00:56:25 Floyd: Right. Exactly. And, um. So, uh. 00:56:29 Dave: Yeah, there you go. 00:56:30 Floyd: You know, if if you’d have started with what you think like the run is, though, I would have, I would have, I would have been behind both of those fish and I found one of them. But I mean, it was fast water. It was fast water. It was shallow water. You know, it’s where the gradient changes and the speed picks up right before it starts, you know, and creates the seam from the turn of the river direction. Man, I started way high. 00:56:57 Dave: Yeah. 00:56:58 Floyd: Started way high. 00:56:59 Dave: That is a classic story. I mean, I think if you fish steelhead or probably any fish long enough, you’re going to have one of those moments where it’s just like, it’s this visceral moment where you, you know, something like that happens, right? And you’re in the water, you’re wet, you’re coming out. And then, you know, it’s, it’s amazing. Well, tell me this as we take it out of here, Floyd. So you’ve been guiding now, um, this last year since we saw each other, what do you think is and this might be a tough one, but what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned as a guide over since we saw you at Togiak, has there been any revelations or any other things that you haven’t talked about today that have, you know, kind of helped your guiding or something you think about. 00:57:33 Floyd: You know, my thing? I think it’s not a revelation. It’s just a reinforcement that as a guide, um, my job, really my job, the one of the critical pieces of my job, there’s things that you should take serious, right? Like, um, you know, the safety of your clients. We want to start and finish the day all in one piece. Um, education and advocacy and awareness of the resource that’s, you know, that’s pretty serious. Um, but ultimately, how do I make you a better angler? Um, how do I increase your stoke? That’s my job, right? How do I teach you to make that cast that you’ve been struggling with? How do I teach you to start a little higher or go a little deeper into the tail out. Um, and then hopefully you’ll get the feedback that reinforces. That, okay, now this is how I am going to approach things and, uh, you know, and then you start to hopefully get more success, which just makes you want to be on the water even more. Those things that education and angling piece, I think, um, gets pushed to the side and measured in success of hookups when somebody feels confident that they’re covering water well and that their acumen in the game is evolving, there’s a, there’s an intrinsic value there that, um, I just think, you know, I don’t have control over the weather. I don’t have control over these wild fish. Um, I do have control over, uh, if we’re going to have a good time. And I think you have a better time when you feel confident. Uh, and that’s what I think our job as a guide is, is to, uh, elevate that competency. 00:59:23 Dave: Love it. 00:59:24 Floyd: Yeah. 00:59:25 Dave: Love it. That’s huge. Yeah. I think, uh, well said. And I will take one more because I, when we were at the lodge, it was, I think the last day or one of them, we were in there and we were getting food. Again, amazing. The whole experience at Togiak were in their food and I think I can’t remember what happened, but you said something to me. Do you remember that moment where you said something about being on the podcast or something, and I can’t remember, and you kind of had me going a little bit. Um. 00:59:47 Floyd: Do you I mean, I, who knows? I talk so much crap. Yeah. So I really do. And all I can say is that if I’m not giving you a ration of. Yeah. Um, then usually I have beef with you. If I’m giving you a hard time, then then then we’re cool. 01:00:04 Dave: That’s it. So there we go. So we’re. 01:00:06 Floyd: Cool. Who knows? Who knows. 01:00:08 Dave: What? No, I loved it, I loved it. 01:00:09 Floyd: Dumb stuff. 01:00:10 Dave: No, you said something funny. You kind of had me going. I almost thought I screwed up, like, oh, did I do something wrong on the last podcast? We did. And then I said something, whatever that, you know, but it was classic. That’s just Floyd, right? That’s just you. That’s what makes you unique. So if you’re screwing with us, we’re good. We’re good to go. 01:00:24 Floyd: Yeah, yeah. If we’re if we’re talking smack, we’re. Everything’s good. 01:00:29 Dave: Okay. 01:00:29 Floyd: That’s just that’s my, my toxic communication trait. 01:00:32 Dave: There we go. There we go. Cool. Floyd. Well, we’ll leave it there for today. We’ll send everybody out to Carter Outfitters on Instagram. And, and people can check out Togiak bay dot com if they want to check in with Zach and Jordan and the crew. 01:00:45 Floyd: Yeah, I hope they do, man. I hope they do. 01:00:47 Dave: Yeah, yeah. Me too. Me too. I think I’m and I’m hopefully going to be back there too. I don’t, uh, it probably won’t be this year. Maybe maybe it will. You never know on some of this stuff, but it’ll probably be the next year. But I’m hoping to get back out because I want to have a another chance to test my skill out there. But yeah, thanks again, Floyd, for all the time and we’ll definitely stay in touch with you. 01:01:04 Floyd: Always enjoyed it. Dave. Thank you. Man. 01:01:08 Dave: That was a great show with Floyd. Hope you enjoyed that one. If you get a chance, check in with Floyd on Instagram, let him know you heard this podcast. And if you get a chance, if you’re interested in checking in with us. We’ve got a big trip going. Mountain waters resort. Uh, send an email to me, Dave at Netflix dot com. I’ll let you know what we have for availability. Atlantic salmon. Uh, we’re heading there to Mountain Waters Resort in Newfoundland this year. Check it out. Also, that same email if you want to check in with me. If you’re new to the show or haven’t emailed me in a little while, I would love to hear how you’re going and how you’re doing. Uh, get a chance. Send me an email anytime. And that’s what I got for you. I hope you enjoy this one. And we are getting out of here. Hope you have a great evening, uh, morning or afternoon, wherever you are in the world. And we’ll talk to you on the next one. See you then. 01:01:52 Speaker 4: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit Wet Fly swing dot com.

Conclusion with Floyd Carter

That’s it for this one with Floyd.

If anything stood out, take it with you next time you’re on the water. Try it, adjust, and see what happens.

     

Hunting with a Fly #2 | Rick Kustich’s Musky Fly Fishing Playbook

Rick Kustich holding a musky caught on a fly with a large streamer in its mouth
A classic boat-side musky on the fly—right where a lot of eats happen when everything comes together.

Episode Show Notes

Musky fishing has a way of forcing you to evolve. You can put in the hours, make good casts, fish the right water—and still feel like you’re just missing something. In this episode, we break down a true musky fly fishing playbook with Rick Kustich, built from years of refining what actually works.

This isn’t theory. It’s a look at the exact adjustments Rick has made since writing his book—and how those changes have led to more consistency and more big fish.

If you want to tighten up your approach and fish more efficiently, this one hits the key areas.

Hit play to start listening! 👇🏻🎧

 

apple podcasts

Find the show:  Follow the Show | Overcast | Spotify

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe on Android

Subscribe via RSS

(The full episode transcript is at the bottom of this blogpost) 👇🏻

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

 

Rick Kustich holding a large musky caught on the fly from a boat
Rick Kustich with a big musky—proof that dialing in your casting, figure eight, and hookset can pay off right at the boat.

Show Notes with Rick Kustich on Musky Fly Fishing

Building on Hunting Musky with a Fly (02:00)

Rick opens by reflecting on his book, Hunting Musky with a Fly, which came out in 2017. While the foundation still holds strong, a lot has evolved through time on the water.

This episode acts like a next chapter—refining ideas and expanding on what’s proven itself since then.

  • Core concepts still apply
  • Refinements come from recent years of fishing
  • Focus on efficiency, consistency, and execution
  • More success on bigger fish in the last 5–7 years
Fly fishing books by Rick Kustich including Hunting Musky with a Fly and Modern Spey Fishing
A few of Rick Kustich’s books, including Hunting Musky with a Fly, which laid the foundation for many of the ideas expanded on in this episode.

Two-Handed Casting for Efficiency and Power (05:30)

If there’s one thing Rick points to as a game changer, it’s two-handed overhead casting.

This isn’t Spey—it’s a standard overhead cast using both hands to create more line speed and reduce fatigue. The result is more efficient fishing and better coverage.

  • One to two false casts max
  • 70–90 ft casts with big flies
  • Faster line speed than a double haul
  • Less strain on arms and joints

He also emphasizes shorter shooting heads (around 23–25 feet) to speed up the casting cycle.

Big idea: more casts, less effort, more time in the water.

Fly Design: Keep It Simple and Effective (18:20)

Rick has moved away from constantly experimenting with new patterns and instead focuses on a few proven designs.

His go-to now: game-changer style flies with synthetic brushes.

  • Maintain bulk and profile in the water
  • More durable than bucktail
  • Consistent movement on strip and pause
  • Fewer flies, more confidence

He also warns against over-changing flies just for the sake of it—often that’s more about the angler than the fish.

Large musky flies showing tapered profile and materials for lifelike movement in the water
Profile and materials matter—these musky flies are designed to maintain shape and movement during both the strip and the pause.

Make Sure Your Fly Looks Right (24:45)

A fly can look incredible in your hand and still fail in the water.

Rick pays close attention to how his flies behave during the entire retrieve cycle.

  • Natural taper: thicker head, thinner tail
  • No collapsing or bunching
  • Looks good during strip and glide
  • Retrieve should match the fly design

If the fly doesn’t maintain a lifelike profile, it’s out.

Two Hooks, Better Connections (29:10)

One key adjustment: switching to a two-hook system.

Rick has found that this improves hookup rates depending on how the fish eats.

  • Rear hook for fish hitting away from the boat
  • Front hook for close-range eats
  • Better overall landing percentage

He also prefers:

  • Long, straight hook points
  • Extremely sharp hooks

Go-to hook:

Figure Eight: Where Big Fish Eat (32:10)

This is one of the biggest takeaways in the entire episode.

Rick estimates 30–40% of his fish eat right at the boat—either during the figure eight or just as it begins.

That means every cast needs a strong finish.

  • Always do 2–3 rotations
  • Use wide turns to trigger strikes
  • Speed up to engage fish
  • Adjust based on behavior

He also mixes depth changes—deeper near the boat, higher further out—to trigger reactions.

Strip Set: Commit and Keep Going (45:50)

Hooksets are a major difference-maker, and Rick has clearly sharpened this part of his game.

The rule is simple: if anything feels off, set hard—and don’t stop.

  • Keep the rod tip in the water
  • Never default to lifting the rod
  • React to ticks, Slack, or anything unusual
  • Strip continuously until tight

Sometimes fish eat and move toward you, creating slack. That’s where fast reaction matters most.

Fight Phase: Keep That Rod Loaded (49:30)

Once the fish is hooked, maintaining pressure is everything.

Rick stresses keeping a deep bend in the rod the entire time.

He notes that a lot of flies fall out in the net—proof that pressure, not penetration, kept them pinned.

Angler fighting a musky with a deep bend in the fly rod while stripping line from a boat
Keeping the rod loaded and maintaining constant pressure—this is what keeps lightly hooked musky pinned all the way to the net.

Instincts: The Final Piece (58:30)

This is the intangible that ties everything together.

Rick talks about building instincts over time—learning from every trip and using that knowledge to make better decisions.

  • Rotate through proven spots
  • Test new water regularly
  • Track seasonal and environmental changes
  • Use moon phases and timing

Sometimes it’s not about logic—it’s about trusting what experience tells you.


You can find the guest on Instagram @rickkustich and Youtube.

 

Top 10 tips for Musky Fly Fishing:  

  1.  Use Two Hands to Increase Efficiency – Two-handed overhead casting lets you make longer casts with fewer false casts—and keeps your fly in the water more.
  2. Keep Your Fly in the Water as Much as Possible – Musky fishing is a numbers game. The more time your fly is swimming, the better your chances.
  3. Shorter Heads = Faster Casting Cycle – A shooting head around 23–25 feet helps you reset quickly and stay efficient between casts.
  4. Simplify Your Fly Selection – Stop constantly changing flies. Find a few patterns that work and build confidence in them.
  5. Prioritize Profile and Movement Over Looks – A fly must look alive in the water—not just at the vise. Focus on taper, shape, and movement.
  6. Fish a Two-Hook Setup – Use:
    • Rear hook for fish eating away from the boat
    • Front hook for close eats.
      This increases your hookup ratio.
  7. Never Skip the Figure Eight – Up to 30–40% of eats happen at the boat. Every cast should end with a clean, committed figure eight.
  8. Adjust Your Figure Eight to the Fish – Speed up to trigger aggressive fish Slow down and tease when needed, and Mix in depth changes.
  9. Strip Set—Hard and Continuous – Don’t lift the rod. Keep setting until you’re tight.
  10. Keep the Rod Loaded Through the Fight – Most fish are lightly hooked. Maintain a deep bend, avoid slack, and stay connected all the way to the net.

 

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

Related Podcast Episodes

Full Podcast Transcript

Episode Transcript
00:00:00 Rick Kustich: This is Rick Kostick, author, guide and travel host, and you are tuned in to the Hunting with the Fly podcast, where we dive deep into the strategy approach, flies and culture surrounding the fly fishing pursuit of apex fish like muskie, pike trophy trout and saltwater predators. Fooling a fish at the top of the food chain requires the focus and commitment to understand the quarry’s habits, going beyond simply casting and retrieving a fly. Each episode is geared towards information to improve your angling and enjoyment of the quest. If it concerns big flies and aggressive eats, we have it covered here on the hunting with the Fly podcast. Please stay tuned. Welcome to the hunting with the Fly podcast. I’m your host, Rick Hostage. Instead of visiting with a guest today, I’m going to fly solo and the subject again will be Muskie. While in the future we will cover a number of other apex fish. I feel like one of the things I’d like to accomplish with podcast is to extend what I’ve written about in Hunting Musky with a fly. That’s my book that was released in twenty seventeen. And at this point, that information is about ten years old, and I think it’s very relevant still. Um, when I look through it and still receive good comments from, from readers that it’s helped them quite a bit. At the same time, I’m, you know, I fished a lot since then. I learned a lot when I was writing that book. And, uh, I have fished many days since writing the book and I, I think that there have been a number of, you know, concepts, approaches, things that I do maybe not necessarily differently, but that I’ve expanded upon that I think has helped my success in the last few years. I think it’s helped it significantly, as you know, really, in probably the last six, seven years have had some, some really, uh, some good success and particularly on bigger fish. And I do think there are a handful of things that kind of stick out, pop up that, um, you know, that have certainly led to that success. So I just wanted to go over those. I picked out five things today, five items that I would like to talk about expand upon. If after listening to the podcast, anyone has any questions, you know, certainly reach out and ask me. I think even in the future, you know, as I receive questions, I may use those as a future episode as well. So one of the areas that I’ve harped on, if you follow me on Instagram or on, uh, YouTube, something I’ve harped on for probably the last five, six, seven years is using the two handed rod for muskie fishing. And this isn’t Spey casting. It’s overhead casting where we’re using two hands, but making a standard back cast similar as you would with a with a single hand rod, and then delivering the forward cast by shooting line. Um, similar to when your muskie fish with a single handed rod. The key thing here is that you’re using two hands. You’re engaging two hands. That bottom hand pulling in, creating a fulcrum action with the top hand creates a tremendous line speed. And I think, uh, you know, even more so, you know, more speed than you would normally get just with, uh, a good double haul. And it’s simpler and it’s easier, uh, you know, on the body. So from my standpoint, you know, the, the two handed casting approach, you know, is the way to go. If you, if you, you look at gear anglers on Muskie, River Lake, almost all or, you know, essentially all are casting two handed rods and the reason for the same thing, that fulcrum action, you know, allows them to propel these huge baits, uh, long distances. And I think, you know, as fly anglers, you know, it’s, we should be kind of following suit, doing the same approach now, you know, it’s not for everybody, the two handed approach and I, and I can see some limitations. So I mean, everything in Muskie fishing tends you have to kind of look at it and see if it applies to where you fish. And, you know, if you tuned in to last month’s episode with Joe Goodspeed, we talked a bit about that, that environment’s certainly have an impact on how muskies react. And they live in such a wide range of environments. So if you’re fishing mainly smaller rivers, uh, areas where maybe you need to make really accurate acute casts, you know, possibly the two handed rod isn’t the best approach, but for just covering water for, you know, making good long casts every time and keeping that fly in the water. Uh, I think the two handed rod is, is certainly an advantage and something that, uh, really everybody should consider if you’re a, you know, a muskie angler. Uh, so the things that I think about with, with the two handed rod is that it creates a tremendous efficiency. So I’m able to get that fly back in the water. So I complete my figure eight, I’m able to get that fly back in the water and really just a matter of seconds. Um, sometimes I can do that and just one false cast. And I’ll also caveat this that I have fished with some very good single hand anglers who are also very efficient with their single hand approach. They can make, you know, a cast, get the fly back in the water, you know, with a, with limited back gas, usually one back gas and they got to fly back out there. Yeah. This is Muskies, a statistical game. It’s about flying the water. The more they fly in the water, it just. It’s not all just, you know, haphazard fly in the water. But if you’re fishing good water, the more your fly is in the water, the more you know chances you have of showing your fly to a muskie that’s, uh, that’s going to interact with it. So it’s, it’s sometimes I don’t want, don’t want to boil it down to just being that simple, but in some ways it is that simple. So the more efficient you can be with your cast, the more success you’re going to have. And getting back to that, the two handed cast, I’m able to get that fly back in the water, usually with one, maybe two back casts at the most, and then extend out seventy, eighty, ninety foot cast with the big fly. So really the efficiency is number one for me, uh, with the two hander. The second thing that I think is really important about it, from my standpoint, especially as I get older, is that really reduces the wear and tear on the body. I’m not making that cast with with one arm, you know, one one arm, one elbow, one wrist. Um, I have two hands involved, actually. You get your whole body, your whole torso involved in the cast. The the only the, the biggest fatigue I’ll feel at the end of the day isn’t in my arm. It isn’t in my shoulder, not my wrist. But, you know, I’ll feel it in my back. And it’s mainly because you’re using your entire body. So if you can spread out the energy that you’re using to cast and can spread it out throughout your body like that, you’re really going to reduce the fatigue and the potential injury to one of your joints. And again, that’s really become important for me as I get older. I feel like for muskie fishing, it’s important to stay in good shape. Typically at the gym two to three times a week, do weight training. You know, I think that’s all very important, you know, as, as, uh, as you progress in age to maintain that strength, to be able to make, you know, cast all day long. I want to be able to cast if it, if it requires eight, ten hours out there, I want to be able to fish for eight or ten hours. But the two handed rod is certainly helping me to do that. It’s not a substitute for staying in shape. And I’m not saying I’m going to the two handed rod because I can’t cast a one hander any longer, or I don’t want to, but it just makes perfect sense to involve the entire body when you can. Like that. The key to the two handed cast is line control, and I think that’s where anglers that want to convert from single hand to two hand have probably the biggest hurdle. I’m maintaining my running line, so I’m always, when I’m making the cast, just as you would with the two handed or with the single hand rod, you have to get the head of the line past the tip so that you can then propel that head and pull the the loose running line that you have at your feet. You know, so the motion to kind of get the head, I’m going to be stripping that fly back so that it’s within a foot or eighteen inches of the tip of the ride every time to do my figure eight, what I do is just kind of strip that or sweep the ride to get most of the head of the line past the the tip of the ride. Sometimes I can get the entire head past the tip. I’m pinching off the the line with my index finger or index and middle finger of my top hand. So you’re going to have your top hand, bottom hand on the ride. The top hand is typically going to be your dominant side, uh, your dominant hand. So I’m controlling the running line. Or the line with that is I make my back and forward cast. I’m trying to let some line out so that I can get to a point where the head of the line is past the tip. I’ll make you know one. Usually it takes good two good falls casts one to kind of get the head past the tip. The second falls cast just kind of line everything up and again, maintaining that tension with the index finger or middle finger of your upper hand. And then as you make the the forward cast pulling in with the bottom hand pushing with the top hand, releasing the line. Then with the index and middle finger, there’s a point where I kind of transfer that line. So I’m holding as I’m doing the figure eight, I’m holding the line with my left hand. Uh, and then as I begin to make that cast, I kind of transfer that control of the, the, uh, the running line or the line, you know, initially the head, than the running line over to the the fingers of my my top hand. I have a couple videos on YouTube and just under my name, Rick Husted, fly fishing. Uh, one kind of goes through the entire sequence of making the two hand cast and the other video then, um, just covers the, the line control and I think both of them in tandem work out. Well, I think they really kind of show how to, to make that cast and make it efficiently. And, um, it’s really something that I, you know, recommend that you consider, especially if you’re covering big water, if you’re, if you’re covering lakes, big rivers, anywhere where water coverage is the key. Uh, you know, I think the two handed rod is, you know, really an essential part of, you know, at least my success on bigger water there has, you know, the thing about it too, is it allows me, I, I make it’s not just making the cast, I’m also making quality casts. It allows me to get good turnover every time I get that fly fishing. You know, almost immediately you really don’t want, you know, Slack is, uh, you know, the enemy when you’re when you’re muskie fishing, you want to get that fly to turn over. You want when you start stripping that fly, you want that fly to start moving and, you know, just getting good turnover, good strong casts, um, making every cast count, you know, is really key. The one thing that’s kind of lagged behind in the two hand Muskie game, though, has been the lines and for a number of years. And you’ll even see that if you look in my video that I’ve had for a number of years, had to just make my own lines. Um, but in the last few years, the line manufacturers are starting to take notice that there is some growth here in the two handed overhead casting, uh, space and are starting to produce some lines. I, I was testing some lines, some prototypes from, uh, Rio last fall. Um, I thought they were excellent. And, uh, from my understanding, there will be, um, some versions of those lines being released sometime this year, hopefully. I know that S.A. is also, uh, produced some two handed, you know, muskie lines as well. The key for me though, is that the, the head be fairly short. And the reason for that is the shorter the head, the, the quicker, the more efficiently I can get the next cast started. And that’s really the key to me. If you’re, if you’re going to be efficient, uh, efficiency, you know, begins with being able to get that head past the tip of the rod quickly so you can really, uh, limit the number of false casts that it takes to get the next cast started. Like I said, when I can really get in a groove, if I can get it down to one false cast, you know, that flies back in the water almost immediately. So a long had thirty feet just becomes problematic to me. Anyways, getting the head past the tip of the rod. So I like somewhere in the twenty five foot range, twenty three to twenty five foot. Uh. If you go too much shorter than that, a lot of times you don’t get good turnover. But somewhere in that twenty three to twenty five foot range seems to be the, uh, seems to be the key for me anyways. Um, there’s a number of two handed, uh, rides on the market and there’s others that, you know, aren’t really designed, you know, they’re like nine foot four inches, maybe not really designed for two handed casting, but can be two handed cast. The one thing about most muskie lines, so a two hand, a good two handed rod has that extended lower butt so that you can get, you know, that fulcrum action so you have something to grip with the bottom hand. So you can pull in with the bottom hand as much as you’re pushing with the top. Uh, and there are a number of, um, rods on the market that are designed for just for two hand, I shouldn’t even say a number. There’s a few that are designed for overhead casting. And then there’s a number that because they’re muskie rods, um, they have that extended handle and the extended handle on a muskie rods just basically there to be able to do the figure eight movement. But it also, uh, accomplishes being a bottom grip for two hand casting as well. So anything, you know, in that nine foot four inch range and up to maybe ten feet, you know, make good two handed overhead casting rods. And again, I think as this style of casting fishing becomes more popular, um, there will be more options on the market as well. So again, I think that that’s enough on, on that topic. But yeah, I can’t, I, if there was, if I had to boil down the one thing that I’ve done differently in the last ten years that has led to success on Big Water. It’s two hand overhead casting. There’s no doubt about it. The next thing that I wanted to talk a bit about is fly design. And in the book, Hunting Muskie with the fly really I think goes into depth on various fly designs. And I know I’ve had good comments in the past from, uh, from anglers indicating that it’s just been a really good instructional guide in terms of various patterns. And, you know, I know things have advanced again in the last ten years since then. I see some wonderful patterns out on Instagram, great tires out there, and really have advanced a lot of the concepts that are in there, which is great. I, over the years have tried many different styles. You know, I’ve kind of relied a lot on Bucktail Sleepin, uh, Icelandic Sheep and some of my earlier patterns that, you know, were quite productive and a lot of flash. Um, if I look back at some of my patterns and again, they worked, uh, but if I look back at a lot of them, you know, they, they kind of condensed in the water. They got kind of skinny. They didn’t maintain the bulk and profile that I kind of like in a, uh, musky fly at this point. So really where I’ve kind of landed in the last probably five, six years. And I, you know, the one thing that that amazes me is I, I have a box of flies down in the basement that, you know, he kind of, and I’m sure this is not just me. I’m sure a lot of anglers do this. Um, you tie flies, you have a box full, you know, and then slowly you kind of go in a different direction and in different style. And then you take some of those old flies out of the box, and they just end up in a shoe box or a, a bin or something, you know, in your tying area And, um, that’s certainly the case with me. And I got a big, you know. Plastic bin down there with, you know, flies that are fifteen, twenty years old that. You know, I don’t just they got out of the rotation. Let’s just say that and. I look back at them and I think sometimes why did I move away from that style or that color or that that type of fly when, you know, some of those flies were quite productive. But it seems like you have this I, and I think most of us are this way, just have this need to try to keep improving and tweaking our flies. And, uh, you know, and I, and I think in musky fishing, the fly can make a huge difference. And at the same time, I’m not always sure it does. And I think, you know, really developing something that you have confidence in and that has worked in the past and sticking with it might be as important as is anything. So I’m kind of taking that approach going forward. Um, instead of trying to keep tweaking and, you know, changing just for the sense of changing and thinking that that’s going to be the cure all. Uh, I’ve kind of arrived at, you know, the style that, that I like and certainly nothing that I’ve developed myself. Um, but I’ve arrived really at just using game changer style flies. Um, you know, I’ve had the pleasure of being able to fish with Blaine a number of times and, um, you know, I’ve had the opportunity to kind of talk to him and, and pick his brain a bit on, you know, how he developed the fly and, uh, you know, what styles and you know, what types have worked best for him. And so through that kind of process, you know, I’ve been tying probably for the last I, I was tying a number of the game changers with, with Bucktail and, uh, sleeping for a tail. And those were pretty productive. Um, the one thing that I see with, you know, even, you know, when I support the bucktail up, I mean, they, they take a while to tie. I mean, they’re, they’re definitely time intensive. You know, the bucktail tends to break down a bit, particularly when you, when you catch a couple of fish and you get that bucktail in their teeth, you know, it just tends to, you know, you catch a few fish on a fly and all of a sudden it doesn’t seem to look as good as it used to. So where I’ve arrived is just a, you know, game changers with synthetic brushes. And if you look, if you follow me on Instagram, you’ll see I posted, you know, those style flies, the type of flies that I that I tie now, you know, quite a bit. And I really feel like in the last few years, you know, I’ve, I’ve, as I’ve condensed this down to really two or three different color choices that I can’t imagine that, you know, I’ve converted some big fish. I’ve converted a number of fish. You know, I’ve talked to Blaine about what he’s used in terms of, you know, what flies work the best for him. And, um, you know, I just developed such confidence in these flies that I’m trying to get my head in a place where I’m not thinking about changing too much in that area. Um, I want to, I want to just kind of stay the course, you know, with the, with the style. I’ve developed a lot of confidence in it. I think it’s an approach that I’ve also used with, with steelhead fishing. You know, you know, in my, my trout fishing for, uh, with streamers, you know, I get a handful of flies. And I think some of this comes from the fact that, you know, I fish and, you know, I think listeners can relate to this. You fish for so many different species that, you know, you’re tying a, you know, a number of different flies during the course of the year just to kind of, you know, keep your boxes full for everything you’re fishing for that, you know, for at least for me to kind of keep things simpler. It’s, it’s just so much easier if I can kind of just have my hand full of flies for each species. And that’s kind of where I’ve arrived at with Muskie is just kind of staying the course. Like I said, with this style, with this game changer style synthetic brush, just it has a great silhouette in the water, great movement in the water. I can, you know, the variety of different colors. Uh, so that, um, you know, I’m using my, my go to and my home water anyways is black, black and orange tail. Um, but I also have some, you know, tan and more natural colors, particularly when the water’s real clear. We get bright sun things of that nature. So, uh, yeah, that’s, that’s my at least my mindset. And, you know, I do encourage, you know, other anglers because I’ll fish with some, you know, some other muskie anglers that I think get hung up on the constant fly changing. If you haven’t seen a fish in an hour or two. You know, the idea that it’s it’s got to be the fly or that, you know, and sometimes making a fly change is, is good for the head. There’s no question about it. If you fish a whole morning, you haven’t seen a, you haven’t seen a musky. You know, sometimes just making that change is good for your, your mental psyche. But for the most part, you know, if we’re, if we’re making the changes mainly for us and not for the fish, I think in terms of even that one or two casts that you miss because you’re changing your fly is, you know, time that your other fly could have had in the water. You know, you just never know when that musky, that next musky is going to come along and, and when you’re going to encounter it. So, but the, the thing with that is using if you are, you know, going to change a number of flies during the course of the day using some type of a swivel or the, the quick connect to make fly changes at least makes it more efficient. And you’re able to keep the same length of your, your bite guard. The one other thing I’ll talk about with, uh, well, a couple things. A couple things with flies before we move on to the next topic. Make sure your fly looks good in the water. And I guess what I mean by that is not even just, I mean, a lot of flies look great at device. This isn’t just muskie fishing. It’s all kinds of, you know, everything that involve. I mean, it’s with my steelhead. It’s with with trout streamers and things of that nature. Sometimes a fly looks great. Put it in the water and, you know, it just doesn’t move or condenses down or proportion seems wrong. Um, you know, I always like a fly that, you know, almost everything, everything in the water has a more of a tapered look, you know, most most bait a little wider at the head, a little skinnier at the tail for the most part. So I kind of like having that look in the water. And sometimes you just you put a fly in the water. It just doesn’t look like that. And, uh, that certainly is something that first, you know, I don’t want to fish a fly that doesn’t have a life like look in the water. So I think that’s the first thing that’s important, but also how it looks when you’re retrieving or stripping the fly. I guess what I mean by that too is sometimes I’ve had flies that look good. You know, when I strip them, they look pretty good. But that in between, like when you strip and let that fly glide a little bit, you know, I’ve had some patterns that kind of just look bunched up, you know, so all of a sudden the shape of the fly kind of changes because of, of how it’s constructed and how it’s tied. I don’t like that. Look, I don’t like that something. I mean, I just don’t think anything natural in the water when you move it all of a sudden, you know, kind of just changes its silhouette dramatically. And I just don’t think that looks very natural. So I like to have my fly kind of look, no matter whether it’s swimming with a constant strip or during the strip or if it’s just gliding after it’s stripped. I like to make sure that that fly maintains the look of of a natural bait and um, you know, so take a look at your flies in the water when you, when you strip them, make sure and some, you know, I’ll say some flies actually fish better with a certain type of retrieve, you know, if you’re given a, just a really sharp movement, sharp stripping action so that, that fly really jumps. Uh, sometimes the fly looks better with that action. Sometimes it doesn’t. Um, so there are fly patterns and some that I tie that, uh, you know, that I’ll use with different retrieves just because they’ll one retrieve looks better than another with that particular fly. But look, your fly, just make sure it looks natural in the water. I do really think that that’s an important part of a, of a good and try to, you know, make sure that your retrieve, you know, coincides or accommodates the way that fly is constructed. And again, that’s one of things that I like about, you know, the game changer style is it really does seem to maintain that silhouette and that look in the water throughout the various types of retrieves that I like to perform during the course of a day. So that’s a really another vote for that. The last couple things I’ll say with this is just two hooks. I prefer two hooks in my flies. For a number of years, I used one just kind of positioned in the middle. And I think that’s fine. Um, but I have found where having a hook positioned in the rear and a hook positioned right in the front seems to make a difference. I have noticed that when a fish grabs the fly further away from the boat, that I tend to hook that fish with the rear hook. And when I get a fish that takes right next to the boat, figure eight or just comes out of nowhere and eats the fly, I tend to catch that fish on the front hook, I tend to. It seems like the fish, the muskie. Eat that fly head first when it’s, uh, you know, in that situation of, uh, of a turn or a, you know, an attack right next to the boat. So I like the two hook approach. Um, I think the key with it, and I’ve really had to work on this, but it’s to get those hooks positioned just right so that when you’re making your cast, you’re not following, you know, there’s generally if you make a good cast and get good turnover, your, your two hooks aren’t going to foul. But if they’re not designed properly, if that back hooks a little kind of too long, or if the proportions between the hooks are too long, or the hooks a little too free in the back, um, it can kind of either catch the other hook or catch the body of the fly, uh, and foul and you just don’t want that. Um, you know, if that’s happening, you need to, you know, redesign that fly. That’s one of the advantages of the single hook. At least it eliminates that. But I’m a big proponent now of the two Hawks. And I’m also a proponent of really sharp hooks and sharp out of the package. I like a long point, a long, straight point. I don’t like a point that kind of curves up a little bit. I want that point straight, long. It just feels like it seems like the longer points, straight points will get into that bone and cartilage a little bit more. And sometimes I don’t even think that the, you know, the hook gets in real deep. We’ll talk a little bit about this in just in a second here. But you know, a number of fish that I’ll get in the net, the fly will just fall out. And I know that it was just the, the point of the hook that was in there. That, uh, was how I could land that fish. And, um, you know, I really do believe having that long straight point is just enough. A lot of times to, to continue to, you know, maintain that connection with the fish. As long as you keep a deep bend in your rod when you’re fighting it. I have arrived at, and it’s not even really a musky hook, but it has served me so well that, you know, I’ll share this with you. But it’s a gamakatsu and they call it the heavy cover worm hook, but it’s a five hook. It’s kind of got an odd attachment to the, the front of the shank. Uh, and that’s there, I guess, to keep your worm on. But I wish they made that with, I wish they made this exact same hook without that on there. So it’s a, a little bit of, uh, an encumbrance when you’re tying on this hook, but it really doesn’t bother me too much. Um, but the success I’ve had both hooking and landing fish with this particular hook has exceeded anything else I’ve ever used. So, you know, not, not I designed as a muskie hook, not really designed as a predator hook, but it certainly is. You know, from what I can see, one of the best on the market in terms of, um, hitting the objectives that I want for a musky hook. So okay, well, that’s, that’s my thoughts on flies fly design. Yeah, I’m a pretty simple guy when it comes to trying to keep my, my flies straight. Um, I think some people that fish with me are a little surprised when they look at my fly box, and it’s not a little more extravagant, but, you know, I’ve come to know what works and have developed great confidence in that. And to me, that’s worth everything. And just going to continue to, uh, you know, continue to ride that until somehow some at some point that, um, I don’t think that’s the case anymore. But, uh, as long as it is, I’m going to continue to, uh, go along with that approach. So that’s, you know, covering flies. Um, the next topic I wanted to talk about was the figure eight and outside eats. I would say on a typical year, you know, I think I get this question. How how many, you know, maybe percentage or how many fish during the course of the year? Do you get an A figure eight or next to the boat? And for me, it seems to be quite a few this past year. Uh, if I, yeah, I’d say it was probably thirty to forty percent of the hooked fish occurred right next to the boat, either while I was aggressively or, you know, intentionally doing, you know, performing a figure eight with a fish following or where I started a figure eight and the fish came out of nowhere and ate the fly. So I would say thirty to forty percent. If you’re not paying attention to your figure eights, you’re, you’re really, you’re missing a large percentage of the opportunity to hook a muskie. I’m stripping that fly down. Typically how I’m rigging. And I do have a video on YouTube as well on how I rig my leader and my line. Um, but my leader will generally have about an eighteen foot, eighteen foot, eighteen inch piece of wire that goes to thirty pound or forty pound fluorocarbon for the leader. And then the other end is a, you know, quick attach connection to the fly. Um, but I’m going to strip down to that knot between the fluorocarbon and the wire every time. And, uh, that’s so I got that fly about eighteen inches away from the rod tip. So I’m going to strip down and I’m going to begin my figure eight. Whether I see a fish following or not. I usually do two to three rotations and I refer to it as a figure eight. A lot of times I just do an oval. So the oval, it just, I guess from, from a mindless standpoint, it’s just easier. Um, you just essentially strip that fly in. Got the line pinched off with my top hand, the right hand against the cork. I got the bottom. The line also pinched off against, you know, the the bottom handle with my my left hand, my non-dominant hand. And just in case I need to, to grab that line for line control, I do have. And again, another, another video on YouTube related to to the figure eight as well. Just kind of showing my approach, but I like just the idea of just doing these, these big wide. And you want to do wide turns. I often see where, you know, if I have an angler in the boat or a friend or client where they’re not making those wide turns, you really want to make sure that when you’re, whether a fish is following or just, you know, you’re just doing the, the figure eight, the ovals, you want those wide turns because that’s what shows the fly on a broad side basis to the fish. That’s really the attack angle they’re looking for. So if you don’t do the wide turn and a lot of times two, if you have a fish following you. If you don’t do a wide turn, you’re actually, you know, if the fish is following lazily, you’re going to move that fly right back towards the fish. And that’s, you know, the most, you know, unnatural movement you could have is moving your fly towards a towards a muskie. I’ve never seen one eat. When you do that, it always, you know, you don’t want that to maintain that position of being in a chase mode. So stripping that fly in down to the to the wire, making big wide turns. And I usually use a fairly aggressive approach on my water. And again, this is where things I think can be specific to how fish tend to react in different waters. Where I fish, the water tends to be clear from a good portion of the year. It’s, you know, a luxury when we when we can get some stained water definitely makes a difference in the number of fish that we hook on the water stained. So what I you know, what I like to do is try to engage that fish right away. So if I have a fish following, I tend to speed up that fly, try to get that fish to engage in the clear water. It just seems like the the enemy is yourself. You know, they’re coming up, they’re following the the muskies following the fly. And at some point, if it doesn’t really kind of engage in that fly, it sees the boat. I think more even more importantly, it sees, you know, you kind of hovering over the, the water with the rod. And I do think that is what tends to spook the fish. So if you can kind of engage that fish so that it’s clearly focused on the fly during the, during the figure eight or oval movement. And I think at some point it just forgets about you being there or so more intent on attacking the fly. Um, you’ve kind of one, you’re starting to win the game anyways, because I think if I keep it in enthused and interested in the fly, I have a good chance of catching that fish. So what I like to do then is really get aggressive with the with the movement, kind of speed it up, speed it up into the turns, continue to speed it up throughout the rotations. You know, I’ve had fish follow around four or five, six times. Uh, and then finally eat it. Uh, you know, as I continue to increase that speed. So that’s my one, that’s my go to approach, particularly on my water. And, um, you know, it works. And, you know, again, this year had some fish that took the fly on the figure eight had some fish that came out of nowhere when I was just starting the figure eight and ate the fly. So don’t ever half ass it. Make sure that every time you do the figure eight. And no matter if you’re you’re tired or not. I mean, it’s the one time you let you. You get lazy with it that there will be a fish following and you know, you’ll lose that opportunity. But like I said, there’s certainly a, you know, more than one way to do this. And you know, what I think is important to look at is how fish react in the water that you fish. And sometimes I’ve noticed in other places that, you know, this very aggressive quick movement that I employ for, you know, the water in my my home waters isn’t, as, you know, as effective other places. Sometimes just a little bit of a tease. So if you, you know, sometimes you just need to read the body language of the fish. You know, if you’re, if you’re stripping that fly in and it’s, uh, coming in fairly slow, if you’re using it just a slow approach, you know, trying to mimic an injured bait and then all of a sudden, you know, it’s not going to be natural for that, that fly to just all of a sudden take off and start, you know, going in a fast rotational movement. Sometimes continuing that tease can be what will trigger a fish to take, particularly as the fly gets closer to the boat. So if that fish is interested in, you know, this slow approach, this teasing approach, you know, sometimes continuing that on and then going in, just continuing a tease right into the figure eight can be effective. So sometimes, you know, it’s just important to read the body language of the fish. And if it’s showing interest in that slow approach, that teasing approach, you know, continue that and you can continue that right into the figure eight by just teasing it, maybe speeding it up a little bit as you go into the turns and then continuing the tease. Another trick with the figure eight or the oval is to change the depths. So go a little deeper when when the fly is closer to the boat and as as you reach out further away from the boat, either in the figure eight or with the oval, kind of bring that fly up a little bit as you reach out. So kind of changing the depth can be a good approach as well. So, you know, don’t just rely on, you know, this, I like the aggressive approach. But you know, I think the summary there is read the body language of the fish. If the tease is working, continue the tease into the the. Figure eight and utilize some speed into the turns of the. Figure eight to try to convert that fish into taking. The next area that I will talk about is the set the strip set, and I think this is an area where I know that I have really strengthened my game over the years. Um, I can think back, you know, twenty years ago or so where I had a few very weak hook sets that I wish I could have over again. I have trained myself to make sure that my reaction is to strip with my left hand or stripping hand and not use the rod unless then I’ll talk about a caveat on that. You know, close to the boat hook sets. Sometimes you need to use the rod, but I really have trained myself to strip set. I think one of the. And strong strip sets and we’ll talk about that here. I think one of the first step towards doing that is when you’re stripping your fly, keep your rod tip in the water. I think that helps a couple ways. It helps kind. You know, I think with stealth keeps the line a little quieter. It’s not ripping on the surface, but it also helps to prevent you from using the rod to set the hook. Because that rod tips down in the water, it’s hard to kind of lift it through the water. I think it helps to make a decision. Making your first reaction to be a strip, as opposed to thinking in terms of setting with the with the rod. And certainly if he, you know, it’s a bit of a, a transition if you’re if you, you know, your background is fishing for trout and you do use the rod to set the hook or, um, other, some other species where you’re using a rod set. It does take some time to train yourself to really focus on the strip, but that keeping the rod tip in the water is certainly one way to, uh, train yourself. You know, sometimes we get lucky and we’re just stripping the fly and all of a sudden, you know, you feel the weight of the fish. So you know that you’re fortunate that as you’re stripping the fly, you retrieve that at the same time a fish took it, turned on it, and you just strip into it and you get a really good corner of the mouth hook set and everything works well. And you land that fish, but not every eat is the same. And, uh, you know, sometimes a fish eats that fly. It will actually kind of drift towards you. You don’t really, you know, feel the weight of the fish. Uh, and, you know, unless you are aggressive with that hook set, that fish can drop that fly before you really even get a chance. So anytime that I fish and, you know, this is really one key thing to take out of this. Anytime you feel anything different. Strip. Set. Strip. Strip. Strip. If you feel a you know, a tick, um, just anything that feels out of the ordinary, you know, I think even the slightest tick can be, you know, a big muskie grabbing your fly or eating your fly chomping down on your fly, uh, has it in your mouth, has it in its mouth. And all you’ve really felt is just, you know, the, the tick of about the, the same as if, uh, you know, bluegill ate your fly or was, was nipping at your fly. So if you feel that strips that you can’t really harm yourself by stripping at that point and you know, all you’re going to do is continue to fly on its path. So, you know, you feel anything out of the ordinary. Another sensation that I have felt a few times and has resulted in, you know, being a fish, if all of a sudden your line just goes extremely limp where a fish has taken the fly and continued to move right towards you. I’ve had a few situations where when I’m stripping line, that line gets so loose it actually falls out of the the stripping guide. And, and it’s a weird sensation because all of a sudden, you know, you’re tight, you feel you’re tight to your fly and all of a sudden everything’s loose and it just feels really weird. But that’s a fish taking your fly, moving towards you so dramatically that it just makes everything in your system loose. And in that situation, you really need to to react quickly. You have to strip a lot of line just to get it tight again. And then you have to just, you know, continue the stripping motion to be able to set the hook. You know, what, what I think in terms of is the strip set just being continuous. It’s not just one set to get the fly in, it’s a continuous motion until you get that fish entirely tight, and then you can lift the rod and get a deep bend in the rod. But it’s again, think in terms of it being continuous. You know, I fished a lot with my good friend Nick piensa. And one thing that, you know, we’ve coached each other on is anytime, you know, you feel something and we’ll just keep yelling at each other. Strip, strip, strip, strip until you are tight to that, to that fish. And it’s really important. I mean, that can really mean the difference between whether you’re going to land that fish or not is how you react when it takes, like I said, sometimes it’s easy. Sometimes I mean, sometimes you can’t screw it up where a fish has taken that fly right at the right time turns on it. But that’s not every time. A lot of times the, you know, the fish are taking at weird angles and you just have to really get on it and be, you know, aggressive and meaningful with your strip set, you know, thinking in terms you’re using thirty, forty pound test, you know, if you have good knots, you’re not going to break anything. So it’s just important to to get them tight. And then after that, like I said, once you get that with a continuous hook set. Once you feel you’re tight to that fish, maintain a deep bend in that rod. And I think that’s critical. If you don’t have a really good hook set, particularly on, on fish that have taken the fly and then kind of continued towards you so that they haven’t really turned on it, um, there’s a good chance that it just hooked in some bone in the jaw or some cartilage on, you know, on the top or, you know, to, you know, somewhere in the, the lower mouth. You know, if you keep a deep bend and don’t let that fish have a lot of slack, you’re going to have a good chance of landing that fish, even if it isn’t hooked deeply. And yeah, I mentioned this earlier a number of times. We’ll get a fish in the, in the net and um, there just won’t be, it won’t be any need for players because of the fly will just drop right out. So and you know, really maintaining that deep bend is is important with that. A lot of the fish that I land, I just, you know, are just stripping line so they’ll never get on the reel. And I kind of prefer that because with that approach, you can gain line quickly. And that’s how I can keep a deep bend in that rod is by gaining line and keeping and really keeping that pressure on the fish. And I can get that better by stripping line and letting my index finger or index and middle finger be my drag, essentially, you know, pinch of my right hand pinched off against the cork. But I want to strip from behind that hand. And I just want to keep that that rod. I can’t overemphasize the importance of keeping a deep bend in that rod throughout the entire and throughout the entire fight. Uh, sometimes, you know, they will get on, on your reel. I had a big fish this past fall that just kept running and running and took all my loose line, even though the fish ate right at the boat and, uh, didn’t eventually get on to my reel. And in those situations, they’ll. Then you’re going to fight that fish from the reel. And, you know, you just have to really be careful because with just that one to one ratio on a, on a typical fly reel, you know, when that fish changes directions quickly, it’s hard to pick up line that quickly. So sometimes, even if I do have a fish on the reel and, uh, you know, I have it under control if it changes directions quickly starts coming at me. Um, you know, I’ll strip line, uh, and forget about, you know, using the reel and take up line by stripping it again. So, you know, just, again, anything you need to do to keep that, keep that deep bend in the rod all the way until you get that, uh, fish in the net. So that that’s the strip set part of it. But sometimes, you know, when you get a fish. So we’ll go back to the figure eight approach here. Sometimes when you have a fish that takes right next to the boat, or most of the time you’re in a position where you can’t really strip set, so you’re going to be kind of handcuffed. Or maybe you still can if it’s far enough away. But if you’re it’s right next to the boat. You’re starting to figure eight. Most of the time you’re going to rely on using the rod. And a couple things that I’ll say with that. First of all, just your rod design. You know, we. Talked about that last episode with Joe. Uh, it’s really important to have a strong tip of your rod. That you’re using. And I like a stronger tip for two reasons. One, it allows me to figure eight better. You don’t get that with the real soft tip. You kind of get a lag in moving the fly. So I’m able to. To control my fly better, closer to the boat. But it gives you that that strength. When you do have to. Use the rod to set the hook. Um, so I think that’s, you know, that’s an important part of your. Equipment selection. The other thing there is, and it can be difficult sometimes. And I’ve had this happen to me a few times. We’re official. Take the fly near the boat and still facing your position and it doesn’t turn. And there’s not a lot you can do in that situation. I mean, you can try to change the angle of the rod so that the fly is going to set from a from a side angle. But what I will say is when you do have a situation, if you can react when a fish takes a fly near the boat, try to have the angle where that fly is pulling back into its mouth as opposed to an angle where you’re pulling it out. So I even think in terms of that while I’m figuring I’m trying to position my rod so that if a fish takes, it’s going to be in a position where I’m, you know, kind of pulling back and it all it’s all happening so quickly that a lot of times that’s, you know, might be impossible. But I do think in terms of that and trying to get the right angle, if you’re going to make a boat sides sat on a fish a. You gotta make sure that it has the fly in its mouth and be, you know, firmly in its mouth. And b try to get that angle so that you’re pulling back into the fish so that you can maximize, you know, the hookset. But those are the those are the big things with, with the hookset and the strip set. And, um, again, I, I, I, I feel as though you, I’ve talked about, I talk about that in the book extensively. Probably these thoughts aren’t too much different from, you know, what I talk about there, but it’s an area that I know I’ve improved my game over the last five to ten years dramatically. And, uh, it’s led to putting more fish in the net. And, um, it’s just an area that, you know, I, I think you’ll develop with experience, but it’s just extremely important, you know, for continued success and kind of taking your muskie game to the next level. The last item that I’ll talk about here is just a pretty simple approach. Pretty simple concept, but it’s just using your instincts. And I guess what I mean by that is, you know, I’ll fish with some anglers that the other new to muskie fishing and maybe haven’t developed enough experience and developed enough instincts to know where to fish or how to fish. I’ve also fished with others that I think rely a lot on theory. You know, where this should be at this time of year. Um, but there is nothing that can beat the experience that you have on water that you regularly fish. And, um, what I really try to do is I try to learn every time I’m out on the water. And my typical approach is to, you know, visit my repertoire, I’ll call it, of spots that either have produced in the past or are showing signs that they’re a good spot for that particular year. For whatever reason, we growth eight. Whatever. And I’ll try to, you know, hit those spots maybe once a couple times. Every time I’m out, you know, my better spots, I’ll try to hit when the conditions are right. Like, you know, when I got a major or my minor, uh, feeding period, you know, relative to the moon phase or the moon, uh, position of the day. But I also almost every day try to just hit a couple other spots, you know, experiment a little, tweak a little, try to find that next hot spot. The one thing that I’ve noticed from year to year is that some spots, you know, are good every year, you know, or pretty good every year, or you can always find a few fish there every year, even though some years maybe they’re better than others. And then there’s other spots that, you know, I have fish that were really good for one or two years, three years where I saw a lot of fish and all of a sudden they kind of just fall off. And again, we growth bait patterns, you know, changes in just, uh, you know, the, the food chain structure of, of the water, all those things can kind of lead into whether spot’s good near or not. So I tend to kind of have almost a hierarchy of, I have my spots that have been good for twenty or thirty years, or at least, you know, where I think there could be a fish there. There have been spots that then are just more, you know, have popped up and then maybe have, you know, gone away. And I try to I try to recognize that. So I don’t beat up spots that no longer seem to have good potential. But then I’m also don’t want to rely on just what I know from, from years of experience. I do want to try to always be thinking and adding a, you know, a potential new hot spot. Um, so I do some experimentation, But I really think that, you know, maintaining some mental notes or, you know, written notes and you know, what you’re experiencing, what you’re seeing, and let that be a guide that, you know, sometimes a particular area is fishing better in one year and make sure that you visit that spot every time you go out every couple times. Don’t get locked in to areas that have just produced in the past. Try to always be updating your your knowledge base. But I think really the instincts I feel have helped me a lot in that, you know, and I’ll just give an example of, you know, one fish this year where I happened to see a fish in an area didn’t even follow, but it was just really clear water and saw it in that area like two weeks earlier and really just went back to, you know, kept on hitting that spot, but I didn’t want to overfish it. And, um, you know, on a day where I had dirty water, uh, and things were just perfect, perfect moon phase, we had a moonrise and hit that spot and really hit exactly where I wanted to hit and caught a big fish there. And it’s really just thinking in terms of, I mean, it sounds simple, but it is, you know, using all your information all the time. Um, that I think is what really what instincts is all about, you know, and a lot of times it’s, it’s not even just the thought process. It’s something that just naturally leads you to thinking that’s the right place or a good place to be at that particular time. So trust that, you know, especially I, I think this applies more to, you know, all angling and muskie angling and particularly to those that have developed some experience, particularly experience on your own water, You know that developing those instincts and letting them come natural, I think, is really the key part of this. I mean, you know, even this whole podcast series, hunting with a fly is really about the hunt. And the hunt is about, you know, understanding your quarry and, um, trusting your instincts to be that pursuer or hunter. And, uh, you know, I really think that’s a, you know, and I know that’s a, you know, that that topic really isn’t as concrete as the previous four. But to me, it’s, you know, I think as, you know, it’s almost a, an intangible that has developed that has certainly led to a lot of success. So I think those are really the, the areas I want to talk about today. I hope that this is helpful. Um, I think if you kind of dissect that and pick that apart, um, there’s something in there probably for all skill levels when it comes to all spirits levels, when it comes to, to musky fishing and, um, really appreciate that I’ve had this opportunity to expand upon some of the concepts that I had in the book, and hopefully you’ll find this find this helpful. Next month, I plan to interview Vince Tobia, and we’re going to switch it up a little bit to talk about Barracuda. And it’s going, I guess from my standpoint, Barracuda is the muskie of the saltwater. Uh, I’m really excited about that interview and, uh, looking forward to, to talking to Vince about his many years of experience, you know, in pursuit of barracuda in Florida and the Bahamas and other places in Mexico. So thank you for tuning in. Hope to keep this, uh, you know, the content fresh every month and, um, look forward to, uh, you know, a number of good discussions with guests and some other, uh, flying solo podcast here in the future.

 

Rick Kustich holding a large musky on a boat after a successful fly catch
A solid musky to the net—when everything comes together from the cast to the figure eight to keeping steady pressure.

 

Conclusion with Rick Kustich on Musky Fly Fishing

This playbook really comes down to refining the details. Better casting, smarter fly choices, stronger hooksets, and finishing every cast with intent.

It’s not about doing more—it’s about doing the right things consistently.

     

How to Fish Big Bugs with Ken Burkholder (Traveled #43)

big bug fly fishing

Episode Show Notes

Fishing big bugs isn’t just about throwing something large at the bank and hoping for an explosion. What really matters is precision, realism, and getting that fly exactly where it needs to be.

In this episode, I sat down with Ken Burkholder to dig into the details that separate a decent drift from one that actually gets eaten. We get into fly design, fishing tight banks, and why small tweaks can make a big difference when fish are locked in. Ken brings decades of experience from the South Fork of the Snake, plus a deep background in fly design with Fulling Mill. This one covers everything from stoneflies to cicadas and a whole lot in between.


Hit play to start listening! 👇🏻🎧

apple podcasts

Find the show:  Follow the Show | Overcast | Spotify

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe on Android

Subscribe via RSS

(The full episode transcript is at the bottom of this blogpost) 👇🏻

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

 

big bug fly fishing

Show Notes with Ken Burkholder on How to Fish Big Bugs

The Bearback Rider and Realistic Fly Design

Ken’s Bareback Rider came from a simple idea: make the fly match the real insect as closely as possible. That meant measuring actual bugs and dialing in proportions. He used macro photography and exact measurements to replicate stoneflies, especially golden stones.

big bug fly fishing
Photo via: https://www.fullingmill.com/Burkus-Bearback-Rider-Golden-S8

Key design elements:

  • Anatomically correct leg placement
  • Knotted silicone legs for realism
  • Layered foam body for segmentation
  • Bear hair wings for natural translucency

Why Ken Avoids the Dropper Rig

Fishing tight to the bank requires precision, and droppers get in the way. Ken avoids them entirely when targeting fish holding tight. When trout are tucked in close, accuracy matters more than depth coverage.

Why no dropper:

  • Limits casting accuracy near banks
  • Gets tangled in branches
  • Reduces control in tight quarters

Fish holding “like a tick on a hound” demand a clean, single-fly presentation.

Snake River Strategy: Fishing the Banks vs Riffles

The South Fork of the Snake offers two distinct games: bank pounding and riffle fishing. Early in his career, Ken focused on riffles, earning the nickname “The Rifleman.” Now, he balances both approaches depending on conditions.

Two key zones:

  • Banks: Big bugs, tight casts, explosive eats
  • Riffles: PMDs, caddis, technical dry fly fishing

The real magic often happens at the transition from shallow to deep water.

big bug fly fishing
Burkus’ Riffle Robber Pale Olive (Photo via: https://www.fullingmill.com/Products-US/The-Mayfly-Lifecycle/Burkus-Riffle-Robber-Pale-Olive-S16)

The “Brown to Green” Transition

One of the biggest takeaways from this episode is reading water effectively. Fish often sit right where shallow “brown” water drops into deeper “green” water.

What to look for:

  • Gravelly riffles (brown)
  • Drop-offs into deeper runs (green)
  • Fish holding just off the edge

This transition zone is where trout intercept drifting insects.

big bug fly fishing
Photo via: https://yellowstoneteton.com/blog/world-fly-fishing-championships-come-to-idaho-falls-july-12-19

Salmonflies vs Golden Stones

Most anglers reach for salmonfly patterns during the hatch, but Ken often does the opposite. Pressured fish start rejecting big flies and switch to smaller, more subtle golden stones.

Key differences:

  • Salmonflies are larger and more visible
  • Golden stones are smaller and often more effective
  • Fish quickly get conditioned to big patterns

Fishing a golden during a salmonfly hatch can be the difference-maker.

Fishing Cripples During the Brown Drake Hatch

On Silver Creek, Ken focuses on cripple patterns early in the hatch. Fish key in on vulnerable insects that are stuck in the surface film.

How to fish it:

  • Target rising fish
  • Present just inches in front of the nose
  • Add a slight twitch to trigger the eat

Timing is everything—this window happens right at the start of the hatch.

big bug fly fishing
Burkus’ Green Drake Cripple (Photo via: https://www.fullingmill.com/Products-US/Dry-Mayfly-US/Burkus-Green-Drake-Cripple-S10)

The PMD Puzzle and Matching the Hatch

PMDs can be one of the toughest hatches to figure out. Fish shift quickly between emergers, duns, and spinners.

Important patterns:

  • CDC emergers
  • Dun patterns (short window)
  • Rusty spinners for later in the day

One angler even won a tournament fishing only a rusty spinner all day.

big bug fly fishing
Burkus’ Rusty Spinner (Photo via: https://www.fullingmill.com/Products-US/Dry-Mayfly-US/Burkus-Rusty-Spinner-S12)

The Chernobyl Ant and the Clausenia Hatch

The Chernobyl Ant wasn’t originally designed as a generic attractor. It imitates a specific stonefly. The Clausena hatch in late August is a major event across the West.

Why it works:

  • Foam keeps it floating high
  • Rubber legs create movement
  • Twitching mimics natural behavior

This hatch is all about motion. Don’t dead drift it.

Cicada Fishing Out West

Cicadas aren’t just an East Coast phenomenon. They show up in Western rivers too. Ken has been fishing cicada patterns since high school, long before they were common.

Where to find them:

  • South Fork of the Boise
  • Green River below Flaming Gorge

Pattern features:

  • Dark body with orange accents
  • Realistic wings (organza or synthetic)
  • High-floating profile
Curtis Fry photo via: https://blog.fullingmill.com/cicada-madness-our-favorite-cicada-patterns/

You can find Ken Burkholder on Instagram @kenburk55.

You can check out his flies at FullingMill.com.

fulling mill

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

Full Podcast Transcript

Episode Transcript
WFS 916 Transcript 00:00:00 Dave: Many people think big bugs are about throwing something loud at the bank. But what if the difference isn’t the size of the fly at all? It’s how close you can actually get it and how real it looks when it lands. Because when fish are tucked in tight, like Ken says, like a tick on a hound, you don’t get many chances. And today we’re breaking down the small details, placement patterns, and presentation that turn a good drift into one that actually gets eaten. This is the Traveled Podcast series where we bring you the best places to fish in the West, and the stories of how this region became what it is today. Ken Burkholder is here to dig into the flies he’s designed with Fulling Mill, his time guiding the snake River and what actually matters when you’re fishing big bugs and technical hatches. Today we’re going to talk about the real reason Ken avoids the dropper and how this can change your accuracy. We’re going to find out about this bareback rider fly and how it was built from actual insect measurements. We’re also going to get into the subtle difference between golden stones and salmon flies, and how most anglers miss these key differences, and why pressured fish will stop eating big bugs and switch to something smaller. Plus, we’re going to find out how to read that brown to green transition and how this will help you find feeding trout fast. Today’s episode is presented by Visit Idaho’s Yellowstone Teton Territory, home to some of the most diverse and wild trout waters in the west. Okay, here we go. Here he is, Ken Burkholder. Let’s do it. How you doing, Ken? 00:01:28 Ken: I’m doing great. Spring is here. 00:01:30 Dave: Yeah, spring is here. That’s good to hear. I’ve heard lots of stories around, you know, this winter about, you know, snowpack. Some places good. Some places not so good. But the cool thing is, is that, you know, we’re coming out of winter and fishing’s right around the corner. Right. I think people are already out there. But, um, but today we’re going to talk about fulling mill some of the patterns that you have some really killer patterns and probably get into some fishing and tying tips and stuff like that. But, uh, maybe take us back on your connection to fulling Mill. Have you been with them quite a while? 00:02:00 Ken: I think it’s been about six or seven years now. Brandon Prince, who I guided with years ago on the Snake is the fulling mill rep and he called me up. He got a hold of me and asked me if I would be willing to submit some flies to Fulling Mill. So that’s how I got started. And then I have a friend who is in the audio visual business, and we set up in a nice room at a fly shop, and he brought all this nice equipment and he filmed me tying a bareback rider, which I then sent to Fulling Mill. And that’s what they worked off of. 00:02:47 Dave: This is good because I want to hear about we’re going to talk some different hatches today. And insects. We just recently had the salmon fly project on and they went in depth on entomology. It was really cool to hear about all the different hatches and. And the bareback rider is a stonefly. So I want to hear maybe, you know, I know a little bit of the story, but take us back to how that one first became a pattern, how it’s different maybe than some of the other stonefly patterns. 00:03:09 Ken: Well, I used to play in the Philharmonic in Boise, the Boise Philharmonic I did for thirty five years. And it worked out well with guiding because it was a nine month season. So I could I could start guiding in the summer, usually in July through September through the Jackson Hole one fly. And then I would come back home and we would start the season at the end of September. Well, after I got out of the orchestra business, I kind of sadly sold my oboe. It was a really good one. But then I invested in camera equipment. So I got a nice canon dSLR and a great macro lens. And I started taking pictures of insects. And I learned a long time ago that if you take a cold blooded critter and stick it in the freezer for a while, they really cooperate. So I could capture these stoneflies and then I could put them in the freezer, chill them down, put them against a side by side against a metric rule, and I could get the measurements dialed in exactly what the bug looked like. So the goal was to create a fly that had anatomically correct legs. And most of these bareback riders are imitating golden stones fully. Mill does have a bareback rider salmon fly, and the difference between salmon flies and golden stones leg wise is salmon flies. Hind legs are more towards the head halfway, whereas golden stones, the legs are slightly beyond halfway. So what I did is I, you know, measured it out and I started putting the legs where I thought it should be. And then I would divide the middle leg and the front leg. So they were equal, equally spaced. And then I would not them. And I found from an old friend that I used to fish with. He’s gone now, but he turned me on to Hedren’s perfect rubber, which is a silicone rubber. And it is durable and it is the easiest stuff to nod because it’s kind of slick and you can manipulate it easily. So I can get these legs just right. And then you just simply you get them all right. And then you put a little drop of super glue on there and they stay put. 00:06:01 Dave: That’s it. And then the wing. What’s the material there? 00:06:04 Ken: Well, I originally was using bear hair, but for fulling mill I can’t get bear hair off shore. 00:06:10 Dave: Oh you can’t. 00:06:11 Ken: No, I wish I could, I could have made a million, but, uh. No. So they used a synthetic and I’m not sure what they use exactly. 00:06:21 Dave: But initially you were using bear hair on the. Do you still use bear hair for your. The flies. You fish. 00:06:27 Ken: I do. 00:06:27 Dave: Yeah. What does bear hair. How is that different than, say um, what’s the other stuff like other salmon flies tied with probably synthetic. Right. 00:06:36 Ken: Oh, people use elk hair. Deer hair. Well, one of the differences is, is that deer hair and elk hair are hollow and they compress. So if you bind a clump of deer hair or elk hair on a hook. It’s pretty steadfast. It won’t slip. It won’t come apart. But bear hair, on the other hand, is not hollow and it’s slick. So you have to use super glue carefully. Well, this year I came up with a different method, and that is, I take a bunch of bear hair and comb it out. Take all the guard hairs because the bear hair close to the hide is what is the wing? It’s not the tips of the hair. So what I was able to do is I was able to comb it out, clean it up, put it in a piece in a pair of tweezers, and then take some thread, wax it like three ot make a triple surgeon’s loop and make a knot and totally compress that where I’m going to tie it on the fly and then drop a little super glue. So what it does is it flares the hair perfectly. And then after I tie it on, I just put a little more super glue in as steadfast. It will never come out. 00:08:04 Dave: Nice. And this one is. And the body is mostly foam. Is that segmented foam or what are you using for the body? 00:08:11 Ken: What I do is I will use a dubbing loop and put on my dubbing material. Normally I started usually using ice dub of some kind and then putting that on a dubbing loop and twisting it on and then wrapping it, palming it down the hook. And then I will trim the excess fibers with a pair of scissors. So a bareback rider has two pieces of foam. It has one color for the first layer, and then it has another color for the top layer and Tony Thompson of River Road Creations. Have you heard of him? 00:08:54 Dave: Uh, River road? Yeah, I think I’ve heard of him. I haven’t had him on yet, though. 00:08:57 Ken: Well, he’s he makes foam cutters and he has made probably fifteen custom cutters for me. And he has really changed my foam output. I mean, he’s been so incredibly helpful. So anyway, the top layer of foam now has a different shape. And Foley Mill is incorporating that in all the bareback riders for twenty twenty seven. So there will be a slight modification coming up which I think is good. So essentially what I do is I will to make them all the same. I’ll put my hook with dubbing on it, and I’ll take a caliper and I’ll put it in the eye and it will direct me to the exact halfway point I’m looking for to start my thread, and then I bind my bottom layer with that. And then I tie it off on the end. I divide that in half and then in half and half. So I have five segments and then I do the head, and then I have the thorax region and I divide that in half. So that’s giving me my leg placement, the halfway point on the fly, and then the halfway point in the thorax, and then the area right behind the head, right. 00:10:22 Dave: So all the legs are in the upper half of the body as far as the hook shank, they’re all in the top half. 00:10:27 Ken: They are. But on these goldens, it’s just slightly back of halfway. 00:10:33 Dave: When you have that, when you’re out on the water fishing that are you fishing it different than you would fish a a salmon fly or any other stoneflies? 00:10:41 Ken: No, not really, but I don’t I don’t use a dropper. 00:10:45 Dave: Yeah. Because the dry dropper. You hear that a lot. You know, people talk about the the big puffy whatever the fly is, you know, like we’re talking about here and then a dropper. So why don’t you do the dropper? 00:10:54 Ken: Well, because a friend of mine, I got it with three years. He still guides on the snake. His phrase was these trout are dug in on the bank like a tick on a on a. 00:11:07 Dave: Right. 00:11:07 Ken: Pound. 00:11:08 Dave: Yeah. 00:11:09 Ken: Okay. So if you have to get within a hand’s width of a bank and you have a dropper, you’re going to get tangled on the branches. 00:11:17 Dave: Right. You don’t want that and you can’t get close enough. 00:11:20 Ken: No you can’t. And they aren’t always close. But sometimes they are. I mean dug in so tight and you have to be really accurate. And that’s primarily what I’m doing with that fly. 00:11:33 Dave: Yeah. And that’s on the so is the snake River. Sounds like that’s the river you guided. Is that the river you fished most? 00:11:38 Ken: I did for thirty years. 00:11:40 Dave: Yeah, for thirty years. Okay. So you were you living in that area and then or have you always been in the Boise area? 00:11:46 Ken: No, I just left my wife for three months. 00:11:49 Dave: Oh. You did? Oh, there you go. Yeah, just left for three months. So basically. So you’ve been in Boise the whole time I have. Oh, cool. So you got the West and the East Idaho covered. 00:11:57 Ken: I do. 00:11:58 Dave: Nice. Okay, so the snake rivers and we’ve definitely talked quite a bit about that. That’s a big river, but it’s um, pounding the banks is the key to that one to get in some of those fish. 00:12:08 Ken: Well, with big bugs, but they have great PMD hatches. They have great caddis hatches. And some of the riffle fishing on that river is just unbelievable with dries. With dries. 00:12:22 Dave: Yeah, that’s the thing. So the timing, that’s what it’s known for, right? Because of all the, the species, the fish that are over there, that you can get a lot of fish on the surface. 00:12:30 Ken: I only catch fish on the surface. 00:12:32 Dave: Amazing. 00:12:33 Ken: I always have. When I first got hired in eighty four, I started working in eighty five and the shop I worked with, we didn’t even have a nymph. 00:12:43 Dave: Oh, really? No nymphs at all? 00:12:45 Ken: No. 00:12:46 Dave: That’s awesome. What was the shot? What was that shop you were working with there? 00:12:49 Ken: It was South Fork Expeditions. John Hill owned it. They did have a fly there, though. That was a wet fly called a super renegade. And this fly was of various different colors by colored. It had a dark hind end and a brighter front end, and it was like a double renegade. So you have a hackle on the rear, a different hackle in the middle, and a lighter colored chenille, and usually a white hackle in the front tied on a pretty heavy hook. And when these salmon fly nymphs are migrating to the bank, you can cast a super renegade in there, let it sink and twitch it out. And I’m telling you, what is some of the most fun fishing on earth? Because you can see it. It’s visual. It’s not dredging. 00:13:46 Dave: It’s not dredging. Right. And this is the renegade. 00:13:49 Ken: Super renegade. 00:13:50 Dave: Super renegade. So the difference between the renegade and the super is that describe that again. Is there more hackle? 00:13:54 Ken: Well, a renegade typically is just a furnace hackle peacock a white hackle. And it’s a dry fly. And it’s usually no bigger than a size twelve. But these things are tied on like three x long sixes. So that was really about the only fly, only wet fly that we ever fished. 00:14:16 Dave: And you would fish it. Same thing hitting the banks cast towards the bank and let it sink a little bit and. 00:14:21 Ken: Let it sink and let it drag out, and then put a belly in the line and twitch it upstream, and it’ll accelerate the movement downstream. And that’s when they hit it. They hit it going downstream like a nymph getting caught in the current, right? 00:14:37 Dave: Like it’s trying to get to the bank, but the current gets it and it’s sweeping it down. 00:14:41 Ken: Exactly. 00:14:42 Dave: Oh that’s cool. And it’s kind of half in that super renegade sits in pretty much in the surface of the water. 00:14:47 Ken: No, it sinks about oh six inches. 00:14:51 Dave: Okay. Yeah. So it’s down in there. So it’s sunk and then it’s, it’s tumbling and doing its thing. And then the fish hit it. That’s that’s cool. How would you know when to fish that versus say the, the bareback rider during a hatch. I guess if you call it that. 00:15:06 Ken: Well, salmon flies typically come out a week earlier than Goldens, but they do hatch simultaneously. So the south fork of the snake has a lot of jet boat traffic. So you have all these people running jet sleds. 00:15:24 Dave: Oh really? 00:15:25 Ken: With oars on them. So what they do is they will find a hot bank and kill the motor and use these big fluffy salmon, fly imitations and just go back and forth and back and forth and then change a bank. So what happens is that these fish start getting really wary of big flies, and they start tuning in more to a smaller golden. And that’s I mean, I love fishing salmon flies, but generally speaking, during a salmon fly hatch, I fish a golden. 00:16:04 Dave: That makes sense. And what section of the snake are we talking about here? 00:16:08 Ken: Okay. The snake, of course, starts in Yellowstone. It goes south through Jackson. It makes a bend at Alpine Junction. It forms Palisades Reservoir, which is about twenty five miles long, and it’s backed up by Palisades Dam and from Palisades Dam to the confluence of Henrys Fork, which is at Menan Buttes, which is downstream about forty five miles, is the section we fished. So it’s about forty five miles of river. 00:16:40 Dave: Okay. And this is what’s the closest town to that area. 00:16:43 Ken: Oh, the biggest town is Idaho Falls. 00:16:45 Dave: Yeah. So Idaho. So basically Idaho falls down to whatever the next dam I guess you got the American Falls is down below, right? 00:16:52 Ken: Right. But I never guided down there. 00:16:54 Dave: Okay, so this is below Idaho or Idaho Falls. 00:16:57 Ken: It’s above Idaho Falls. 00:16:59 Dave: Yeah. So I didn’t realize that. I didn’t realize there were sleds. I thought it was mostly a drift boat game, but it sounds like there’s plenty of sleds out there too. 00:17:06 Ken: Well, it is mostly a drift boat game. That’s what most of the outfitters have is. Uh, most of them do not have a powerboat license, but some do. 00:17:15 Dave: Yeah. Some do. It sounds like it’s an advantage. Maybe if you do it because you can kind of go up and down and hit different spots multiple times, it can. 00:17:22 Ken: I actually did that last August for the first time. I fished with a friend who I guided with who now is a saltwater guide in Key West, and he came up and with a buddy and rented a home and invited me to come up and fish with him. And I fished three days out of a jet boat. And it was really fun. 00:17:43 Dave: It was. 00:17:43 Ken: Well, because you could go to all these riffles and get out and walk and hit the, you know, hit the hatches in the riffles, and then you could row down the banks and throw big bugs at the bank. 00:17:57 Dave: That’s it. So you basically, yeah, cover more water. What is the on the riffles. How are you fishing those out there and are you still using the big bugs there. 00:18:06 Ken: Well I’m using mostly mayfly patterns pmd’s and sometimes caddis and sometimes yellow sallies. So years ago, the thing that’s really cool about that river is there are these areas that are brown, which is thinner water, Gravelly water where the bugs hatch, and then it turns into green, where it drops off. And all these trout are hanging from brown to green in the green, waiting for these bugs to come to them. So I mean the brown to green. I wanted to write a book called Brown to Green, but I never did. I don’t, I don’t write very well. So it’s really the demarcation of that is really easy to see. And they’re really easy to find. They’re everywhere in water like that. 00:19:03 Dave: And that transition more. Yeah, yeah. Not not in the brown, not necessarily in the brown, but the transition. 00:19:08 Ken: Correct. So when I first started, I was really not that into fishing large bugs. I was so excited about what was going on in the riffles. I was actually nicknamed the Rifleman. 00:19:25 Dave: The Rifleman. That’s a great name. 00:19:27 Ken: Because I was just concentrating on riffles. I was going from riffle to riffle to riffle all day long, and getting out of the boat and helping people read the water and helping them get a good drift. And that’s what really excited me. But now I’m kind of into the banks. I mean, I really like the bank fishing too. And that’s, you know, that’s why Foley Mill has so many of these bigger bugs. But they also near Boise there is the famous world famous Silver Creek. Have you fished that? 00:20:07 Dave: I haven’t, but we’ve had some episodes on it before. I know it’s really technical. We did a we did a Euro nymphing kind of thing with Pete Ericson and a couple years ago. 00:20:17 Ken: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, well, locals in that area, the guys have always said that Silver Creek has trout. Well, no, no, trout has a PhD. They’re just trout. But in early June they have a brown Drake hatch. And it’s an evening affair. And these bugs are big. They’re an honest ten. And I came up with one and um Foley Mill took it on and it’s called the burka struggling brown Drake. Well that’s my handle on fulling mill. Oh, gotcha. K u s apostrophe. 00:20:58 Dave: Yeah. The struggling brown Drake. 00:21:00 Ken: Right. 00:21:01 Dave: Describe that sounds like something that’s, uh. Well, is this like more of a crippled sort of. 00:21:05 Ken: It is. 00:21:06 Dave: Yeah. 00:21:06 Ken: Because these, these bugs hatch in the creek and when the hatch starts, these trout are not keyed on duns. They’re keyed on cripples. So if you look in the fly shops in the Sun Valley area, most of their brown Drake imitations are Cripples Quigley style type with a wing sticking forward. So anyway, that fly worked really well for me. I was really pleased with that pattern. So Foley Mill took it on and it’s taken off. I’m happy with. 00:21:39 Dave: It. Berkeley’s struggling and it’s a. How would you describe how you tie that pattern? 00:21:44 Ken: Well, it has a trailing shock and it has a dub body and it has ribbing with silk thread. And then it has I think the legs are made out of pheasant tail three on each side. And it has a CDC wing. 00:21:59 Dave: Oh, so that’s CDC that’s kicking out out the front. 00:22:03 Ken: Correct. And I’m a big CDC freak. I love that stuff. 00:22:08 Dave: And how do you fish that one during it and describe maybe the hatch, the the brown Drake hatch and that’s in the time and then how you fish that. 00:22:15 Ken: Well, first of all, what you have to do, I mean, it’s, it’s world famous. People come from all over the world to fish that hatch. So you’d be shocked at how many people are there. 00:22:26 Dave: And this is on all of those streams or no. 00:22:29 Ken: This is Silver Creek. And Silver Creek has an area that the Nature Conservancy owns and that has no brown drakes. It’s all below highway twenty, and it’s in the slower moving water with a silkier bottom. And what you have to do is you have to park about three in the afternoon and hike up and find a place and sit your butt and wait for maybe four hours. And once the sun gets really low, you might see a bug or two. And then sometimes you see clouds of them. I mean, it’s a phenomenal natural history event. I mean, it’s unbelievable. 00:23:10 Dave: Yeah. What part of the hatch are you catching these on when you’re fishing your this pattern? 00:23:14 Ken: The beginning. 00:23:15 Dave: Yeah, it’s right at the start. It’s right when they’re starting to starting to try to get through that surface film. 00:23:20 Ken: Correct. 00:23:21 Dave: And how are you fishing that when you’re out there at that time? So you’re waiting, you’re waiting to this this point in the evening that it’s just right. And then are you casting? Is there a way, a technique that you’re using to, to fish it? 00:23:32 Ken: I do, I usually, I don’t, I do not cast upstream. I want to have a absolute dead drift. So what you want to do is you want to find a rising trout and you want to feed the fish. You want to, I mean, you want to stick it right in front of their face and about four inches from the face, you want to give it a little twitch and then they’ll just come right up and slurp it down. 00:23:57 Dave: Yeah, because they love the cripples and those patterns because they know that they’re, they’re not going to fly away. Right? Or at least they got a better chance to eat it. 00:24:05 Ken: Yeah. They’re pretty vulnerable. 00:24:08 Dave: Yeah. Right. Okay. And so that’s what you’re fishing with the brown Drake. You don’t worry about coming back and fishing duns or spinners or any of that stuff. 00:24:16 Ken: You know, people do fish early in the morning with brown Drake spinners. That’s something I have not done fully. Mill does have a green Drake spinner though, of mine, and that’s really important because on the Henry’s fork, they do key on spinners later in the duration of the hatch. So that can be an evening event. I mean, green drakes hatched during the day. So if you wait around towards the evening, then they become spinners and you can have really good luck with spinner flies. 00:24:50 Dave: Okay. Yeah, I see the I see the western green Drake spinner you have here. That one looks pretty cool too. And how many patterns do you have with Fulling Mill? 00:24:58 Ken: Well I have two, four six eight ten thirteen. But the bareback riders I have in four different colors. 00:25:07 Dave: Okay, so take me back on. So it sounds like timing wise on this. And if let’s just stay on the South fork of the snake. When is that golden stone? When would you be fishing that that golden stone we talked about? or is this something you. 00:25:20 Ken: Can start fishing that. Okay. The South fork of the snake really is kind of an interesting river because it’s essentially divided into four sections. You have the dam to the Swan Valley Bridge, which people sometimes call the ditch because it’s primarily just wall to wall water. Okay. It’s just bank. I mean, it’s funny looking until you get down to an area called the Fall Creek area, and then it opens wide open and it is channelized and the and the PM, I mean, the riffle fishing down there is unbelievable. And then below that is the canyon section. And then below the canyon is similar. But once you get down past the canyon, the gradient is flatter and it’s more channelized and the bugs start hatching there, generally towards the end of June, and then they work their way up. So the fishing with these bugs can be really good for about a month through about the twenty fifth of July. 00:26:34 Dave: So you got about a month there to fish somewhere in those four sections you could, you got about a month to fish. 00:26:39 Ken: Correct. 00:26:40 Dave: Then these other hatches, you mentioned one of the brown drakes, green drakes fitting into this mix. 00:26:45 Ken: Well, the brown Drake, they don’t have brown drakes on the snake but they do have green drakes now, which forty years ago they, I did not know of any green Drake, but now it has become quite an event. But it only happens on the lower third of the river, which is interesting. 00:27:05 Dave: The lower third of the snake or the Henrys fork. 00:27:07 Ken: The snake or the gradient is flatter. They like the slower gradient. 00:27:13 Dave: That’s interesting thing about stones, right? Because they kind of like a little more gradient, don’t they, than some of those drakes. 00:27:20 Ken: They do like good gravel. 00:27:23 Dave: Okay. And I guess that’s why the snake is kind of cool because it’s it’s got some diverse habitats. You mentioned the riffles. It’s got I know lots of pools. Is that why it’s it’s kind of one of the things that makes it kind of famous is the diversity of the habitat and hatches. 00:27:37 Ken: To me, it is the quintessential dry fly river in the world. Well, that’s my view, but I’m prejudiced. 00:27:45 Dave: Yeah. Well, I guess if you go by hatches and fishing and, you know, we hear about those species which are the is it the Yellowstone cutthroat in there? 00:27:53 Ken: It’s the snake River. Cutthroat. 00:27:55 Dave: Snake River cutthroat. Yeah. There’s a few different species, but yeah, the snake River cutthroats, the main one in there, and they’re known, I guess they’re all kind of known for being very aggressive on surface, right? Compared to rainbows and browns. 00:28:06 Ken: They are. And some people say cutthroat are the stupidest trout in the world. Well, that is so entirely false. It’s like, okay, I’ll take you to a riffle now. Do you want to try to crack the code or do you want to? You want me to help you do that? Because I’ll tell you what. They get keyed on to something, and if you don’t have the right bug, you will not catch them at all, ever. So making the right fly, fishing the right fly is critically important during those hatches. 00:28:38 Dave: What is the difference between, say, you know, you have we talked about your bareback rider and some of these other, you know, fluffy like the chubby Chernobyl’s another one you hear a lot about. Do you think it’s important? You know, you talked about the difference in the legs, those little subtle differences. Do those make a big difference? Or what is the biggest difference between your flying some of those other ones? 00:28:57 Ken: Well, I think it makes a big difference. And the reason why I think it makes a difference is because why not give them something that looks close to the bug? The chubby chub is a very popular fly, and it’s become a very popular because it floats a dropper. Okay. And hopper dropper. Chubby dropper is a real popular way to fish. I just don’t fish that way. So I had a friend a couple of years ago. I guided with a guy, the same guy that filmed my bareback rider video for Foley Mill. He came over and fished with me and he goes, okay. And he ties on a chubby, chubby, I call him chubby Chubbies. And he was just getting rejections. I mean, they’d come up and look at it, but then they’d go back down. So I said, okay, Dave put on a bareback rider and see what happens. Let her buck, boy. He started fishing a bareback rider and immediately started catching fish. And then he burned through about a half a dozen. And then he said, well, I feel real bad. I’m going to go back to these these flies I have. And then he was not catching fish, and he just went back to a bareback rider and started catching fish again. 00:30:14 Dave: There you go. That’s pretty awesome. And it’s just yeah, like you said, any fly that’s going to be, you know, that looks more I guess you have flies that look more natural and then also flies that stick out, right? Because you’ve got a lot of different patterns. How critical is that having something that looks different than what everybody else is using and or like the actual bugs that are floating down, or it sounds like you want to make them look as much like those bugs, the real ones I do. Yeah. So you’re not putting a hot spot like something that the fish can see some pink thing or anything in your flies. 00:30:44 Ken: No, I don’t. The thing is, is that if you have the right synthetic for the wing, it’s close to bear hair. But if you if you hold bear hair backlit, it glistens like a natural stonefly wing. And to me, bear hair is magic. 00:31:04 Dave: And this is grizzly bear, not black bear. 00:31:07 Ken: Brown bear. Yeah, well, if you had a cinnamon blackberry, it would work too. If the hair was long enough. 00:31:15 Dave: There’s a place where every bend in the river feels like it’s been waiting for you. Where the air smells of sage and pine. And trout. Rise beneath the shadows of the Tetons. That places visit Idaho’s Yellowstone Teton Territory, the heartbeat of fly fishing in the west, from the legendary Henrys Fork to the winding South Fork of the snake. This is where big fish and bigger stories live. You’ll find endless waters welcoming towns and locals who still wave as you drive by with drift boat in tow. This is your starting point for world class fly fishing, year round recreation, and wild country that stays with you long after you’ve packed up your gear. Check it out right now that’s wet. Fly swing dot com slash Teton T e t o n. Visit Idaho for yourself and support this podcast while you go. And we talked about a few of the hatches here. What do you think is a hatch people maybe maybe get wrong or mis ID or fish. You know that you see mistakes out there made. Do you think. What do you think is the toughest hatch on the. If you keep it on the snake to get right. 00:32:17 Ken: I would say the toughest hatch are the Pmd’s. I used to get beat so badly in the riffles. I mean it would just make. Irritate me when I first started. So I’d go back to my cabin and I would tie flies and hopefully the next day I would. My catch ratio would improve, and over the years I just came up with some stuff that worked. You know, I originally one of my first patterns, which was not mine, was the Tufts indispensable. Are you familiar with that fly? 00:32:52 Dave: No, it’s the tops indispensable. 00:32:54 Ken: Tufts g u p apostrophe s. 00:32:56 Dave: Okay, no, I’m not. 00:32:58 Ken: A top is a ram. 00:32:59 Dave: Okay. 00:33:00 Ken: And around the scrotum. This came from England. Around the scrotum. The urine would discolor the fur the the wool into a pinkish hue. So what they would do is they would use primrose silk thread for the abdomen, and then they would use this urine stained pink wool for the thorax and only a ginger hackle in front. They had no wings. It was a real simple pattern and I had really good luck with that originally. But then I started using CDC and I thought it improved the pattern. 00:33:37 Dave: Tufts indispensable. I’m looking at it. Yeah, it’s a pretty basic pattern that looks like it could be fished as a dry or a wet fly. Is that. 00:33:44 Ken: That’s correct. You can. 00:33:45 Dave: Yeah, it looks like a cool classic wet fly. And it’s. And then the ginger. Yeah, it’s a very sparse. So your pattern that you tied has a little CDC in there. 00:33:55 Ken: It does. You’re familiar with tube flies, right? 00:33:58 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. 00:34:00 Ken: Okay. Well, h m h out of Maine cells. Tubes for two flies. All right. Well, what I discovered was CDC is that if you take a a select pair of CDC wings and strip them accordingly from the tip down, say twenty five millimeters, for instance, and put them in a tube. So you align the tips perfectly. You can rest that on top of the hook and tie it off. And you have a beautifully divided wing. You can also take these feathers and put them concave side up and put them in the tube and then tie them on. So you have a, what I call a spinnaker wing. Do you know what that spinnaker sail is? 00:34:54 Dave: Oh, a spinnaker right. Yeah. On a sailboat. 00:34:56 Ken: Right. So I came up with a that was a new one for me this winter was a. I have a whole new series called the Spinnaker Series, and you can have the wings tied, cripple forward with a wing concave side up, or you can have them backward to where you can’t them more vertically. But the cool thing about that is, is that all waterfowl have a inside of their feather and an outside, and the outside of the feather is what repels the water. So if you have the concave side up, you have the natural part of the feather that repels the water facing down. Mayflies. The cool thing about a mayfly hatch is that they do key on emergers to begin with, but there is a very short window after that where they. All they want is a done. So you have to have a done pattern. And that’s like I said, that’s a short window can only be an hour. I was on the Missouri with a friend in. oh, it was probably in May. And we ran across a March brown hatch and these fish came up and started eating duns, and it was over in forty five minutes. But you had to have a dun pattern at that. They would not eat any merger. They only wanted it done strangely. 00:36:21 Dave: And the pale morning dun. When is the time of year when that one’s coming off? 00:36:25 Ken: The pale morning dun hatches start in July and they go through. They continue for a couple months. It’s a really long hatch. 00:36:34 Dave: And then there’s also the um the pale evening dun. Right. Is that another pattern that’s that you’re using out there thinking about? 00:36:41 Ken: Well, on the Missouri, the fly shops call them peds, but I don’t know. I’ve never, I never personally got that involved with the difference of the two. 00:36:54 Dave: No, it seems like it’s the PMD is the one you hear more about out there. 00:36:58 Ken: Well yeah, I mean Pmdd. I don’t know who coined that phrase. I think it was probably Swisher Richards and selective trout would be my guess. And then they also talked about pale evening dones, too. 00:37:11 Dave: Yeah. And so what you’re saying is on the hatch, how do you I guess you just got to be out there to figure out when they’re on those wets, when they’re on the dones. And then is that one you’re not really hitting on the spinners. 00:37:23 Ken: That’s a really good question because when I was active in the Jackson Hole one fly, I took a guy fishing, Peter Moyer, who fished a rusty spinner all day, and he caught about fifty. And he won the tournament just on a rusty spinner. And I fished rusty spinners. In fact, Foley Mill does carry one. And that’s a that’s really critical to have. I mean, you really need one of those. And especially towards the later part of the day and into the evening. 00:37:54 Dave: You do to imitate the Pmd’s are on the rusty spinner is one that works. 00:37:58 Ken: It works. It can work really well. Yeah. 00:38:01 Dave: Okay. And then also, like you said, back to the you got the wet flies and then you’ve got this cripple, right? This kind of in between the dones. Is that something also that what’s the one that you are fishing? That’s the longer part of the hatch. Is that or is the cripple a separation or is it a little mix between the two? 00:38:18 Ken: I had a fly. I had a fly that fully milled. I think they’ve discontinued it for some reason. I guess it just didn’t sell very well. It was called a riffle robber and on the Owyhee River in Oregon, which is an hour and twenty minutes from Boise, I was out there and I noticed that these pmd’s were coming off the water with their shock still attached, and I got a really good image of one. So what I did is I thought, hmm, how am I going to make a trailing shuck that looks like a tube. So I just took some Antron Zellen put a triple surgeon’s knot on the back, dropped a little bit of glue on it, trimmed a, trimmed the back to have about four tails, and I had a tubular trailing shuck with a CDC wing and it worked great. It was completely different, which was cool. 00:39:21 Dave: The riffle robber. 00:39:22 Ken: Sadly, it’s not being sold anymore, but but that’s okay. 00:39:27 Dave: But you still fish it, but you still have it in your in your box. 00:39:30 Ken: I still, I still fish it. Yeah. 00:39:32 Dave: Oh yeah. Yeah I got you. Yeah. It’s got the cool trailing shuck. And then it’s got the tuft and then the wing is um what is that you’re using for the wing there. 00:39:40 Ken: CDC. 00:39:41 Dave: Yeah. That’s CDC. Yeah. Gotcha. 00:39:43 Ken: But see I’ve already changed that pattern in a way. And the reason I did is because for several years, three years in a row, I would go to the Upper Columbia A river which is out of North Port Washington. Are you familiar with this area? 00:40:00 Dave: Yeah, a little bit. We’ve done some stuff on wet flies. I haven’t fished that yet either, but we have some some cool wet fly episodes on the Upper Columbia. 00:40:08 Ken: Well, there’s an outfitter. Uh, there’s a lodge there called Black Bear Lodge. 00:40:14 Dave: Yeah. Black bear, that’s Jack, that Jack’s Lodge, right? 00:40:17 Ken: Yeah. Jack owns that. 00:40:19 Dave: Yeah. Jack. Yeah. We’ve had, he’s all over the place. We’ve talked steelhead and stuff, but he mentioned that to me. He said I’ve got to get up there to the Black Bear area. I’ve heard about it. 00:40:26 Ken: Well they have an amazing green Drake hatch in late June. First ten days of July. They call it the great red Drake Taxonomically. It is a green drake, but unlike the green drakes on the Henrys fork, this bug is larger and more red. And the reason they call that he calls his outfitting business. The evening hatch is because these bugs come out in the evening, and so you’re fishing when the sun goes down until you cannot see anymore. 00:41:05 Dave: Oh, there you go. So it’s after this, Drake. 00:41:07 Ken: Well, one of my guys, they also had some caddis going on. And so my guide one and they were feeding on some caddis and he put on a missing link. Mike Mercer’s missing link. And we started catching a few fish and I thought, hmm, I kind of like that idea of a missing link. I like the legs on the side. So what I’m doing with all my mayflies now, I’m incorporating, uh, what I call outriggers for legs. So what I do is I take some zylon or Antron. And at the very, very beginning of the fly, before I do anything, I’ll take four strands right behind the eye and fold it back so I have legs sticking out the front, and once I have the thorax on, I fold the legs back. I have the outriggers, I put the wings on, and then I have this fly without riggers. Had I had that on the riffle rubber, I think it would have worked a little better. But there’s just another thing, you know, I mean, doing something new in fly tying is almost impossible. 00:42:15 Dave: Is it? So everything at this point, it’s kind of been it’s been done. 00:42:20 Ken: Well, that’s the challenge. 00:42:22 Dave: Yeah. That’s always the question. Right. How do you make it different enough to if you, you know, to. 00:42:27 Ken: Call. 00:42:28 Dave: It something else? Yeah. Right. What do you think is your answer to that? How do you know when you’re, you know, when the fly. I don’t know what makes it different enough. 00:42:36 Ken: Well, the bareback rider was entirely new. 00:42:39 Dave: What was the biggest thing that was new on that. 00:42:41 Ken: The legs. 00:42:42 Dave: Yeah. The legs. So before that the legs were just like rubber legs that were just just tight on straight. 00:42:47 Ken: Correct. And this spawned a whole new generation of flies like the water walker. You’re familiar with the water walker. 00:42:56 Dave: The water walker? Yeah, it sounds familiar. I’m not quite sure. 00:42:58 Ken: Will Dornan’s fly? 00:43:00 Dave: Okay. 00:43:01 Ken: See, before the bareback rider, I had not seen stonefly patterns with knotted rubber legs. And years ago, I came up with a fly called the Club Sandwich, which is a grasshopper imitation. And this was probably. I came up with this probably in the early two thousand, maybe. And the reason I tied that is because I had a friend, Carter Andrews, who you may have heard of, who had a pond in Swan Valley. He was the head guy at the lodge at Palisades Creek at the time, and he had a pond that was full of large trout, and there were hoppers everywhere, and they were big and they had no wings. So I went to his pond and I was using like a parachute hopper or a Henry’s Fork hopper, and I was not catching anything to speak of. Well, that night I went to bed, and about two o’clock in the morning I got up and I put on. I made a fly with three layers of foam, three strands of rubber knotted. So I had two hind legs and front legs, and I went back to his pond the next day, and I caught every fish in that pond. So that became manufactured and it became wildly popular. 00:44:29 Dave: And which one was that? 00:44:30 Ken: The club sandwich. And then all of a sudden there were triple deckers. 00:44:37 Dave: Oh, really? 00:44:38 Ken: There were triple clubs. There were all kinds of foam constructs with three layers of foam and knotted hind legs. 00:44:46 Dave: Yeah. Three layers of foam, which gives it the three layers. Gives it what more floating? Just the coloration. What is the biggest thing the three layers does? 00:44:53 Ken: Well, there are these grasshoppers had kind of a striated look. They weren’t just one color. They had kind of a stripe on the side. So I wanted to imitate the stripe on the side, but I didn’t put a wing on it because it didn’t. These hoppers didn’t have any wings. 00:45:09 Dave: And lots of foam. So you don’t really need a wing. It’s going to float high with all the foam. 00:45:13 Ken: Yeah. Anyway, that was that was a fun one. 00:45:16 Dave: When you were getting going on the foam stuff, it sounds like quite a while ago, were there a lot of foam flies out there then or. 00:45:23 Ken: There were not. 00:45:24 Dave: There were not. Yeah. So foam was kind of new. I know we’ve heard from foam from, um, like Rainey’s, you know, we had them on Rainey’s Flies. Jesse was on recently. He was talking about how his mom was doing some of that, you know, but, but there wasn’t a lot there weren’t a lot of people back then. And this was in the this is what the nineties, early nineties. 00:45:42 Ken: This was probably yeah, I would say early nineties. There was a guy. Now, I’m not sure if this is factual or not, but there was a fellow in Idaho Falls named Alan Woolley, who, as far as I know, created the Chernobyl land. And he did that because there’s another golden stone hatch in late August called a Claussenii. And this is an absolute major event. Claussenii sabulosa. And the males do not fly and they. As the water drops, it precipitates this hatch. And these males will hatch on exposed stones. And what they do is that once they are able to get out of their shuck, they swim. They race on top of the surface to the banks, and then they crawl under this dry gravel and wait to find a female. So years ago, what I did is I captured a specimen and I sent it to Richard Bauman at Brigham Young University, who’s a stonefly specialist. And I had him identify it for me and the Chernobyl. And he wrote back and said, oh, that’s a handsome specimen of Clausena sabulosa. They can travel on water and that’s what they do. So and this Chernobyl end is it’s all about the twitching action and the rubber legs. So I was working at South Fork Lodge, and there was a guy, a friend of mine named Andy Kohler, and he decided to use two layers of foam black and tan tan on the bottom and black on the top with legs on the back and legs in the middle, I mean in the front. So we had eight legs. And at that time we were doing double floats and then going to the lodge and having a hamburger with our guests. And boy, he came, he came in and at lunch and he said, I cannot believe what happened with this fly. Well, it became so popular, it ended up winning the Jackson Hole one fly that year. 00:48:08 Dave: Oh, really? 00:48:09 Ken: Yeah. 00:48:10 Dave: And what was that fly he used? 00:48:11 Ken: It was a Chernobyl lamb with black and tan. It was a double layered foam Chernobyl land. And it took the world by storm. I mean, the Chernobyl ant became so wildly popular every fly shop in the West had. 00:48:24 Dave: Yeah. So that was the so he was the essentially the creator of that bug or that pattern. 00:48:30 Ken: Of the double layered Chernobyl and not the single layered foam Chernobyl. And I credit him with that. 00:48:38 Dave: Yeah. And so that’s a good example of a fly something that’s unique enough to be a new named pattern. Or is it still. I guess it’s not. It’s still the it’s still the Chernobyl ant. 00:48:47 Ken: No, it’s it’s a it’s an ant. 00:48:50 Dave: It’s still an ant. 00:48:51 Ken: Well, it became so popular and so commonly used in the Jackson Hole. One fly. The Jackson Hole one fly was nicknamed the Ant Derby for a long time. 00:49:03 Dave: It was. Yeah, the ant Derby. That’s amazing because every year if you had the right ant, it was winning. 00:49:08 Ken: Or variations thereof. It did really, really well. 00:49:12 Dave: And why is that pattern? Because it’s not because it imitates also a golden stone and all sorts of different things. 00:49:19 Ken: Well, Claussenii is our golden stone. 00:49:21 Dave: Oh, right. It is golden, right? Right, right. 00:49:23 Ken: And the thing is, is that this stonefly hatches throughout Jackson Hole, throughout the whole snake River drainage. It’s a major hatch on the Yellowstone. It’s a major hatch on the Missouri, on the Madison. 00:49:38 Dave: And when does that when does this hatch happen? 00:49:40 Ken: This happens. This happens usually around the third week of August. 00:49:45 Dave: Okay. So a little bit later. So you have those earlier stones. The big ones we all think about. 00:49:49 Ken: It is it’s a completely different golden stone. 00:49:52 Dave: And it’s Ksenia and is the name and the pattern, is this the pattern that would be most known to match the. 00:49:59 Ken: Attorney? Yes. That’s what it was originally designed to imitate, was a was a glycinea. 00:50:06 Dave: And so why it gets the ant. How does that that part of the fly, you know, why isn’t it the Chernobyl stonefly? 00:50:13 Ken: I have no idea. 00:50:14 Dave: Right. 00:50:16 Ken: I wish I had an answer for that, Dave, but I don’t. 00:50:18 Dave: There you go. Because it could. I guess if you tied it right, it could. It’s black. It’s got black on top. You could tie it so it looks like an ant. 00:50:25 Ken: Oh, there became so many variations of that fly. 00:50:29 Dave: Yeah. Right. But the brown the multi like you said these different layers is what made it because you had the brown on the bottom, the black on top, you know different colorations of foam. 00:50:38 Ken: Yeah. 00:50:39 Dave: Yeah. Cool. Wow. So that one. Now, if you had to pick between the Chernobyl ant and the bareback rider, which one are you? I guess it depends on the time of year. 00:50:48 Ken: It would depend on the time of year. But casinos, casinos are really interesting because compared to their cousins that hatch in earlier in the year, like in July, their legs are a lot bigger, their legs are a more, they’re just longer and they move. If you capture one of these things and throw it on the water, they are swimming on top of the surface. I mean, there is an incredible event. 00:51:20 Dave: Oh, wow. And it’s going. 00:51:22 Ken: Crazy. That’s why it’s the twitch. Man, you got to do the twitch. 00:51:26 Dave: How do you describe the twitch? 00:51:28 Ken: What I like to do. Well, see, during the Clausena hatch, they’re hatching around islands frequently, and they will go to the banks. On the islands. They will go to the banks on the main river, and you’re fishing a lot of flats, not tight to the bank. And you’re you’re casting towards the bank. And I use a high tip rod with a little wiggle on it and move it towards the boat. Ideally, one would want to fish from the bank and cast it out and bring it to the bank, because that’s how that’s that’s the motion of the bug. That’s what they’re doing. They’re migrating to the bank. 00:52:11 Dave: Yep. So that’d be a good one. If you can get out and park the boat and then walk down the bank or up the bank. 00:52:16 Ken: Absolutely. You get on these islands and you can cast it out and move it towards the bank. It’s. And they just explode on those things. It’s it’s exciting fishing, I’m telling you. 00:52:27 Dave: Wow, is this now we’ve been talking a lot about the snake. Does this hatch also occur, say on the on the Boise and down in your area there. 00:52:35 Ken: You know, I have never seen one on the South Fork of the Boise. 00:52:39 Dave: Yeah. And I and I haven’t heard about it in other areas. You know, this maybe it’s unique to this part of the the West. 00:52:45 Ken: Well, according to Richard Bauman, who sent me his book on stoneflies of the Rocky Mountains, they’re all over the West. It’s not unique to the snake River drainage. 00:52:59 Dave: That’s good to know. Cool. Well that’s awesome. I mean, August is a cool time because August is typically super hot, right? And so I guess, do you want to fish these earlier in the day or later or does it matter? 00:53:08 Ken: You want to get your butt out of bed and get out there at daylight. 00:53:12 Dave: Get out there early before it gets hot. 00:53:14 Ken: Well, they hatch at night. 00:53:16 Dave: Oh, right. 00:53:17 Ken: And I mean, if you get out there even before the sun rises and just cast towards these islands in the shallow gravel and twitch them, you’re just kind of waiting for the noise of an explosion on your fly. I mean, if it’s dark, you can’t even see what’s going on. 00:53:36 Dave: Oh, that’s so much. That’s good. And this is this also the is this the we hear about the mutant stone? Is that a different. 00:53:43 Ken: The same thing? 00:53:44 Dave: Oh it is. So this is the mutant. Okay, cool. 00:53:47 Ken: The mutant, the midnight. And the reason it was called a mutant is because people thought it was it had mutated. 00:53:57 Dave: Yeah. Mutated. Right. 00:53:58 Ken: Well that was, I proved that to be totally false. It’s a totally separate specie. 00:54:05 Dave: Amazing. This is good, Ken. Let’s take it out of here in a few minutes here with our kind of tips, tools and takeaways segment. We covered a lot today, but we’ll have to maybe follow up with you here. But we’ve been talking about some of your patterns. First off, maybe, and you’ve talked about a bunch of tips, anything we missed. First off, as we take it out of here, any bugs you want to, you know, talk about that that we didn’t cover here that you got out there. Have we done a pretty good job? You mentioned thirteen I guess at the start minus the the four variations. So it sounds like you got ten fulling mill patterns. 00:54:34 Ken: Well, there’s another there’s another fly that I came up with. It’s a cicada pattern called a barkada. 00:54:42 Dave: Barkada. Cool. 00:54:43 Ken: Okay. Now, cicadas are kind of a funny critter because they’re all over the West. 00:54:49 Dave: Oh, they are cicadas. And you don’t hear again. You hear more about the cicada stuff? 00:54:54 Ken: Well, yes, it’s a different bug. I mean, it’s a different it’s different in color. They’re green with red eyes in some areas, but out west here, they’re black with orange stripes and they aren’t as large. It’s a major event on the green River below Flaming Gorge, and it’s a big event on the South Fork of the Boise. They come out every year. Some years they come out in greater numbers, but they do hatch every year. So when I was in high school fishing the South Fork of the Boise and killing trout and looking at what they were eating, I discovered that sometimes they were full of cicadas. 00:55:39 Dave: Wow. 00:55:39 Ken: So my buddy and I would we came up with these crude cicada patterns with moose wings and stuff, and we started catching fish. A lot of fish on cicada patterns. And frankly, there were no cicada patterns in any fly shop anywhere. 00:55:55 Dave: No. 00:55:56 Ken: There might have been on the green because that’s a well-known hatch. So I wondered, what am I? How am I going to make one of these bugs? So I originally tried it out of spun black deer hair with a furnace hackle wrapped through it and trimmed short with a moose wing and a little white antron for the top. And it worked really well. But then I thought, hmm, how am I going to get the wings that look more like a pair of cicada wings? And there was a jeweler down the street, Art Smiths jewelers. And I go in there and I go, I’m wondering if you could make me a wing burner for cicada wings. So what I had done is I had captured a cicada. I took the wings off, I put them together, and I xeroxed them to where the idea was. I could fold them in half and then I would have a pair of wings. So they made me these wing burners and I’m now burning organza. You know what organza is? 00:57:06 Dave: No. 00:57:07 Ken: Oh it’s a it’s a fabric they use on wedding gowns. And I was able to burn them with that and put them over the top. And it seems to work pretty well. Blaine chocolate. You know who he is. 00:57:21 Dave: Yeah. Oh yeah. 00:57:22 Ken: Well, he, I saw him in February at at Bob in the hood. And he’s been tying cicadas for years, and he now has a wings made in Sri Lanka that are plastic but are not solid plastic. So they look like a cicada wing, but they have vents in them so it doesn’t twirl. It doesn’t helicopter on you. 00:57:50 Dave: Mhm. Right. Is the cicada the is it kind of May, April, may, June. Is that the time when those are out? 00:57:56 Ken: It’s a June thing. 00:57:58 Dave: Wow. Well, okay. Well that that was good. I’m glad you mentioned that because that’s something I. I wasn’t thinking about cicadas. This is. And on the green and you mentioned the the Boise, are they not as prevalent on the south or on the snake? 00:58:09 Ken: You know, they are in one particular area and that is an area from the dam down about three miles. And I took this guy fishing one time, and at the time I was, I was hearing a buzz in the trees. And I said, okay, Dan, let’s put on this cicada. And he caught six absolutely terrific trout on that thing in about an hour. But then below there, there were no more cicadas. It’s just a weird it’s a weird section on that river where they where they are. 00:58:45 Dave: We’ll have to do a little more research on that. And then and then the one fly you mentioned a couple of times, is that something that you did for a few years? And how long were you doing that for? 00:58:54 Ken: Oh, I guided in that probably for twenty years. I fished in it four times, probably. 00:59:01 Dave: Yeah. What was that? How do you how do you explain what that’s like for people that haven’t been there or seen it? 00:59:07 Ken: Well, it’s a cool event. First of all, there are fifty teams of four and the waters that are fished are from Jackson Dam all the way down through the whitewater section, which is above alpine, Wyoming, about fifteen miles, and then it is fished on the south fork of the snake and its one fly. That’s all you get. 00:59:31 Dave: You get to pick one. And what are your flies? Did you use a different one every year? 00:59:35 Ken: Well, when I was fishing I would use a different one every year, but I fished it one year and I just finished a CDC pmdi and caught forty and I caught them all in riffles. The riffle fishing is where I concentrated, but people use streamers. People use. They use all kinds of stuff and it depends on. There are so many fly tyers in Jackson. I mean, it’s a Mecca of fly tying really. So contestants will have their secret guide and they’ll give them a secret fly. And you know, if the guy doesn’t dissuade them, they’ll use it. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But most of these people in that tournament are good anglers. They’re seasoned. They’ve been doing it a long time, and you only get one fly, you lose it, you’re out. You can keep fishing, but you can’t score. 01:00:34 Dave: Oh. So if you lose, so you it’s literally one fly. It’s not like you can just the same pattern if you lose that one fly. 01:00:40 Ken: No no no no. Only one fly for oh wow. For seven hours. Six to seven hours of fishing. So you have to have a fly that will not fall apart. 01:00:52 Dave: No. And will not break off or an elite in a setup that’s not going to break off. 01:00:56 Ken: Yeah, well, I had this one guy I was guiding one year. I had a guy from Australia and he was fishing a small dry with one X. 01:01:06 Dave: Yeah. 01:01:07 Ken: Because he didn’t want to lose his fly. 01:01:09 Dave: Right. Does that does that make a difference. Do you think he’s catching. 01:01:11 Ken: Absolutely. It makes a difference. 01:01:13 Dave: Yeah. These fish aren’t dumb right. They’re not. 01:01:15 Ken: No. I mean but when you’re using a small dry you want to have a smaller tippet for sure. I was on the Missouri last year in June during their PMD hatch, which is a phenomenal event, and I started off with five X, and as soon as I went to six x I started catching more fish. 01:01:37 Dave: Tell me this, Ken, as we take it out of here. You mentioned the Philharmonic at the start. I’d love to hear, you know, what was that like being in. I’ve been to a few events with, you know, orchestras, but what was that like being part of that or being, I guess your career sounds like that was a big part of your life. 01:01:52 Ken: It was a big part of my life. I actually started playing that in the Boise Philharmonic when I was in high school. In seventy two and seventy three, I started playing in the orchestra, and then I went to college, and I came back and played principal oboe with them for a while. And then I started taking lessons, going to master classes from a guy named Ray still, who was the principal oboist of the Chicago Symphony for thirty years and got involved with him and ended up getting a master’s degree in oboe performance from him at northwestern. That was in eighty four. 01:02:34 Dave: Wow. 01:02:34 Ken: I’ve told people, I said, well, if you think fly tying is tricky, try to make an oboe, Reed. 01:02:40 Dave: Oh, really? Yeah. And the oboe is like, what would be most similar to another instrument people might know. 01:02:46 Ken: Well, it’s it’s a woodwind. It’s smaller than a clarinet. It’s a double reed, like the bassoon. And it’s high in pitch. It has a it’s a high reed. The out boy, they call it in French and it’s a high double reed. So in the orchestra it sits next to the flutes. Then the clarinets and bassoons are behind them and then the horns behind them. 01:03:15 Dave: And you guys played, I guess, in a symphony you kind of played everything. What was your. Did you have a favorite composer that you liked to play or version? 01:03:24 Ken: Oh, there’s so much classical music out there. 01:03:26 Dave: I know there’s so much. I always go back to the, uh, for me, I have this CD. It’s called it’s an old. Well, it’s not even a CD. It’s just a digital. But Mozart makes you smarter, you know. That’s always I have this whenever I’m kind of takes me back to focuses me, but I guess I’m sure you had plenty of Mozart in your sessions. 01:03:44 Ken: We did. Well, he’s one of the. He’s one of the most brilliant minds that ever walked the planet. 01:03:50 Dave: Yeah, it’s hard to beat that. 01:03:51 Ken: I mean, imagine imagine writing a symphony in forty eight hours, all with a pen on manuscript paper with no mistakes. He could write a symphony. He could write a symphony in no time. Whereas it took Brahms four years to write his first symphony. 01:04:12 Dave: Oh, wow. So he is. Yeah, he’s he’s he’s the guy. 01:04:16 Ken: Well, he’s he’s one of them, but I mean, but I love Gustav Mahler. I mean, his his first five symphonies are terrific. His musical language is unlike any other composer. And it’s I’m a big Mahler fan. I love that guy. I mean, his stuff is unbelievable. But Brahms, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Bach, you know, they’re all unbelievable. I mean, Mendelssohn, Schubert, it was great. But transferring oboe reed making into fly tine did apply because in oboe reed making, I used a lot of measuring devices. And I still use a lot of measuring devices all the time with every fly because once I, I like to tie a gross or so and I want them to all look the same. And we all know that a carpenter without a tape measure wouldn’t be able to cut his wood very accurately. 01:05:18 Dave: That’s it. Wow. Well, I think, Ken, we have a lot to. We’ll follow up with you. This is a great episode today. We will. Like we mentioned, send everybody out to at Ken Burke five five on Instagram if they want to follow up with you and have any questions. But but yeah, this has been amazing. Thanks for all your time today and appreciate all the insight. 01:05:37 Ken: Well, thanks for having me, Dave, I appreciate it. 01:05:39 Dave: All right. We’ll be in touch. Thanks again. 01:05:41 Ken: You bet. Thank you. 01:05:44 Dave: If you enjoyed that one, if you found one little nugget in there that hit the spot that is going to help you on the water, you can check in with Ken on Instagram. That’s Ken Burke five five and let him know you heard this podcast. We’d also love to hear it as well. If you get a chance, you can email me Dave at webflow dot com anytime. Always love to hear what’s going on with you, especially if you’re brand new to the show. Also want to let you know. Next up, we’ve got a big episode hunting with a fly. Rick is back. Our new series, hunting with a fly, where Rick is diving deep into all the background of his many years of experience on the water. Rick’s great show, hunting with a fly and also this week later. Stay tuned in. The bucket is back! Brian Niska, our other big host covering Western Spey and Steelhead in the bucket. Brian’s back and he’s got a good episode launching into. And this one I can tell you right now is explicit. So you want to we had to mark this one explicit because Eric was on there and and so stay tuned for that. But I’m glad you stuck in all the way to the end here. I really enjoy always putting these out and keeping this series going. If you have any questions, check in with me anytime. And I just want to thank you for tuning in today and hope you can explore a few new waters this season and explore that road less traveled. Talk to you then.
big bug fly fishing

Conclusion with Ken Burkholder on How to Fish Big Bugs

Ken brings a level of detail and precision that really makes you think differently about fly fishing. It’s not just about size or splash; it’s about placement, realism, and understanding what fish are actually doing.

This one is packed with small adjustments that can make a big difference next time you’re on the water.

     

915 | How a Music Producer Built a Fly Fishing Podcast from Scratch with Pablo Signori

Pablo Signori holding a large fish while fly fishing near a coastal city
From starting a fly fishing podcast from scratch to moments like this, the journey comes full circle.

Episode Show Notes

A music producer doesn’t usually end up building a fly fishing podcast—but that’s exactly how Pablo Signori got started. What began as a side project during the pandemic turned into The Newb and the Knower, a show built around learning fly fishing from the ground up.

Instead of positioning himself as an expert, Pablo leaned into being a beginner and documented the process in real time. That approach not only shaped the podcast, it opened the door to travel, deeper learning, and a completely new path in fly fishing.

Hit play to start listening! 👇🏻🎧

apple podcasts

Find the show:  Follow the Show | Overcast | Spotify

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe on Android

Subscribe via RSS

(The full episode transcript is at the bottom of this blogpost) 👇🏻

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

 

Pablo Signori holding a brown trout while fly fishing in a river with mountains in the background
From the studio to the river—Pablo’s journey into fly fishing didn’t take long before it clicked.

Show Notes with Pablo Signori on Building a Fly Fishing Podcast from Scratch

From Music to Fly Fishing (00:00)

he was used to thinking creatively, solving problems, and building things from scratch.

That same mindset carried over into fishing, where he quickly became obsessed with learning and improving. Instead of casually picking it up, he dove in fully and started fishing constantly, accelerating his progress early on.

Pablo Signori playing bass guitar in his home studio as a music producer before transitioning into fly fishing
Before fly fishing, Pablo was deep in the music world—writing, producing, and building a creative career from the ground up.

The Podcast Idea During the Pandemic (02:39)

When the pandemic hit and work slowed down, Pablo started experimenting with podcasting. That’s when he realized there was a gap in fly fishing media.

Most content was built for experienced anglers, but beginners were left trying to piece everything together on their own. His idea was simple—start at zero and build upward.

Making Fly Fishing Easier to Learn (04:28)

The concept behind The Nweb and the Knower was to remove the overwhelm. Instead of scattered tips and random videos, Pablo wanted a clear progression.

He approached it like a course, where each episode builds on the last. That structure gave new anglers a place to start without feeling lost.

Pablo Signori at a fly tying desk making a funny expression while learning fly fishing and tying flies
Learning fly fishing doesn’t have to be perfect—Pablo built his podcast around figuring it out as he went.

Finding the Right Co-Host (05:13)

Early on, Pablo connected with George Daniel, who initially joined the project but later stepped away for a new opportunity.

That shift led to bringing in Lance Egan, and the dynamic between the two hosts clicked right away. That chemistry became a key part of what made the show work.

Building the Podcast Over Time (10:05)

The show has grown to around 45 episodes, but it didn’t stay the same. In the beginning, Pablo put a huge amount of time into production—editing, scoring music, and building out detailed segments.

Over time, he realized that the level of effort wasn’t sustainable long-term. The podcast evolved into something more flexible, where consistency and enjoyment mattered more than perfection.

Pablo Signori recording a podcast in his home studio with microphone and audio equipment
Behind the scenes, Pablo was doing it all—recording, editing, and producing every episode from the ground up.

Discovering Euro Nymphing (14:50)

As Pablo started exploring trout fishing, he found it intimidating at first. That changed when he discovered Euro nymphing and had immediate success.

That early breakthrough flipped a switch and pushed him deeper into the technical side of the sport. It became a major focus for several years.

Learning in Spain (16:10)

To take things further, Pablo traveled to Spain and trained with a top competition angler. The experience was intense and direct, but it accelerated his learning in a big way.

He was exposed to modern techniques that weren’t widely understood at the time, giving him a completely different perspective when he returned.

Pablo Signori holding a large carp while fly fishing on a riverbank
After pushing his skills further, Pablo started seeing the results show up in a big way.

The Mental Game (21:56)

One of the biggest takeaways from Pablo’s journey is how important the mental side of fishing is. For him, fly fishing became a way to focus his mind and step away from the demands of his creative work.

It serves the same role as climbing—another activity he uses to stay grounded and present. That mental reset has been just as valuable as any technique.

A Career in Music (26:29)

Before all of this, Pablo built a serious career in music. He worked as a songwriter, performed in bands, and eventually transitioned into commercial composing.

That experience shaped how he approaches everything—whether it’s producing a podcast or learning a new fishing technique. It’s all about creativity, structure, and problem-solving.

Building a Remote Fishery in Mexico (34:25)

The podcast eventually opened the door to something bigger. Pablo is now helping develop a fishery in a remote part of Mexico near the Belize border.

The area is small, quiet, and largely untouched, with quick access to both flats and reef systems. It’s the kind of place where you can switch species within minutes.

Species include permit, tarpon, bonefish, and more.

Permit and Unique Conditions (38:23)

One of the standout features of this fishery is the chance to catch permit on floating crab patterns due to sargassum in the water.

It’s a rare scenario and not an easy one, but it adds another layer of challenge and opportunity to an already unique fishery.

A Different Approach to Fly Fishing Travel (54:30)

Pablo isn’t trying to build a traditional outfitting business. His focus is on creating smaller, more intentional experiences where the group dynamic matters just as much as the fishing.

That shift reflects the same thinking behind his podcast—do things differently, and build something that actually helps people connect.

Two anglers on a flats skiff in shallow water fly fishing in Mexico
It’s not just about the fish—it’s about the people you share the boat with.


You can learn more about Pablo and connect with him here: Instagram @pablosong10 and website Pablosong

 

The Newb and the Knower podcast logo with lightbulb illustration representing learning fly fishing
The Newb and the Knower—Pablo’s podcast built around learning fly fishing from the ground up.

 

Top 10 tips from Pablo Signo on Building a Fly Fishing Podcast from Scratch:  

  1.  Start as a Beginner – You don’t need to be an expert to start a fly fishing podcast from scratch. Lean into learning as you go and let that be part of the process.
  2. Build a Clear Learning Path – Avoid jumping between random tips. Structure your learning so each step builds on the last, just like Pablo did with his podcast.
  3. Focus on Consistency Over Perfection – Whether it’s fishing or podcasting, showing up regularly matters more than getting everything perfect.
  4. Learn by Doing – Time on the water is the fastest way to improve. Watching videos helps, but real progress comes from experience.
  5. Simplify the Process – Fly fishing can feel overwhelming early on. Break it down into simple steps and focus on one thing at a time.
  6. Learn from the Right People – Surround yourself with anglers who are ahead of you. The right mentors can shorten your learning curve.
  7. Treat It Like a Creative Process – Approach fly fishing the same way you would any craft—experiment, adjust, and stay curious.
  8. Invest in Experiences – Travel, guided trips, or learning from experts can fast-track your growth and expose you to new techniques.
  9. Develop the Mental Game – Focus, patience, and awareness are just as important as casting or fly selection.
  10. Build for the Long Term – Create your podcast and your fishing journey in a way that’s sustainable and enjoyable over time.

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

Building a Fly Fishing Podcast from Scratch: Videos Noted in the Show

Related Podcast Episodes

Full Podcast Transcript

Episode Transcript
00:00:00 Dave: Before we hit record today, we started talking about microphones, recording tricks, and how to make a voice memo on your phone sound like a studio session. And that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about today’s guest, because Pablo Signori doesn’t really do anything the normal way. He started as a professional musician and commercial composer, writing songs that ended up on TV and in major campaigns. Then somewhere along the way, he fell deep in love with fly fishing. That same mindset led him to create one of the most unique fly fishing podcasts out there the noob and the knower, where the whole idea is simple start from zero and actually learn fly fishing step by step along the way. This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip, and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. Pablo Signori is here today and we are going to get his story and how it all came to be. We’re going to find out about how this pandemic project turned into a fly fishing podcast with some of the best anglers in the world. We’re going to find out what he learned studying modern Euro nymphing in Spain from one of the best in the Spanish arena. We also find out about what this composer’s brain is like and how he approaches fly fishing differently, and why he’s now helping build a destination fishery in one of the wildest places in the world. And we are heading to Inchcailloch, a tiny town with just a few hundred people near the Belize border where permit, tarpon. Bonefish are all part of the game and the place is super unique. I’m excited for this one. You can find Pablo’s podcast at the noob and the knower dot com. Here he is Pablo Signori. How you doing, Pablo? 00:01:44 Pablo: I’m all right. Thank you for having me. I’m I’m kind of shocked I’m on this right now. As a fan of your show, it’s kind of a real weird, uh, meta thing, right? 00:01:55 Dave: Right. Well, this is cool because, I mean, you can tell right away just from your quality of your audio that you’ve got a microphone there. And the cool thing is you’ve got your own podcast, which is amazing. I remember the first time I heard it, the noob and the knower, I was like, okay, what’s this? This is a, this is a cool name. And the concept is awesome. And I think we’re going to talk about that today, like this podcast that you have going. Um, but then also you’ve got some travel programs. We’re going to talk Mexico today and really all this stuff you have going and you got a bunch. I mean, when you told me about it, yeah, it’s a lot. So maybe, maybe take us back real quick on. I always like to start with the podcast. We’re going to talk fishing. We’re going to get into that. But tell me this podcast idea. First off, where did this, did this just pop in your head one day? 00:02:39 Pablo: Well, no. So like many things that happen, this was a random pandemic sort of occurrence. So I was living in Los Angeles at the time, and I’m a commercial composer was like sort of my main gig for many, many years. And of course, during the pandemic, everything started to shut down. So I was like, what am I going to do? Like, this is nuts. Uh, there’s, uh, there’s no work. So in the downtime, aside from sneaking out to fish in the Sierras, I was like thinking about podcasting. And I had a neighbor who was in biotech who approached me about producing a podcast for him. And so that kind of got the wheels turning. And I was like, you know, I should do a fly fishing podcast. And, you know, sort of my, my mantra with everything I do is I don’t, I try and do things different and new and just not the traditional way. So I was thinking about myself as an angler and because I had only been, you know, at this point, right now in twenty twenty six, I’ve been fly fishing for eight or nine years. So, you know, I was a relatively new I still am obviously new fly fisher, you know, especially back then. So as someone who was like, probably, I would say like an advanced beginner or like an intermediate fisher. Uh, I was someone that was fishing like three, four times a day for, you know, two, three years straight. Like I was obsessed. I’d wake up, you know, four a m and go do it before the work day or whatever. So I put a lot of time in early, which I think advanced me quicker, but there’s still so many holes and stuff. And I was thinking about it from the perspective of a beginner. And I was like, if you’re a new fly fisher, like going on the internet is just this like, yeah, you know. 00:04:28 Dave: It’s a lot. 00:04:29 Pablo: Universe of information, just like it’s so inundating, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So I was like, how do I start? Like, how does someone start fly fishing right now? And it’s just really hard. So my idea was we should do an educational podcast that’s entertaining, of course, because I like to have fun. That starts from zero and just goes from there. So our first episode is basically like, you know, it talks about fly fishing and what it is, but it also is like, what’s the difference between spin fishing and fly fishing? So it’s almost like it could almost be considered like a course or something, right? Especially season one. Uh, and it just builds from there and it keeps building and building and building. 00:05:13 Dave: Now, did you have Lance on that first one? 00:05:15 Pablo: No. So no, that was the second piece to this. I was like, well, no one gives a crap about me. So, um, I’m, I gotta find someone cool to have on the show. And coming from the music world, you know, with that sort of pedigree, it was kind of easy to get people’s attention and the fly fishing space when I would just randomly like cold DM them. Right? Yeah. Sliding into the DM’s on, on Instagram. And, uh, so I did that to George Daniel and he instantly replied. And then we hopped on a call and then, you know, we were like, oh, he’s like, yeah, I want to do this. It’s great. You seem like a really cool person and this seems like a good idea. So we recorded two podcasts actually, um, their pilots, just to test the waters and see how it would work. And also for me as a producer, I was like, I don’t know, I mean, I, I like George Daniel, I’ve read his books, he seems really knowledgeable, but like, how is he on a microphone? Because that’s, you know, everyone thinks they can have a podcast. And I was thinking the same for myself, to be honest, you know? So we got Georgie on and he was great. He was actually really good. Um, as you know, as you would expect, but you know, he had just, we had this thing going, we were about to start the thing and, uh, he calls me up one day and he’s like, I feel so bad, but I’m not going to be able to do the podcast. I just got hired by Penn State University to like, you know, to take over the fly fishing program. It’s like my dream job. Like I can’t, yeah, I’m not going to have time. So I was devastated, man. I was so like, sad. I mean, it’s happy for him, obviously, but, uh, it was just like. 00:06:51 Dave: Yeah, he got the job. He got the big job of his, of his life. 00:06:54 Pablo: Yeah. You know, I mean, I was stoked for him and you could tell he was, he was pretty giddy about it. So I couldn’t hate on that. But I was really sad about the project because I mean, you know, think about it. It’s like you’re a nobody. You try and do your first podcast and you land George Daniel as your co-host. It’s kind of. 00:07:11 Dave: That is that. 00:07:11 Pablo: Is mega mega. 00:07:12 Dave: Yeah. That’s huge. That’s huge. 00:07:15 Pablo: So but George being like just the kind, sweet, amazing person that he is, he was like, well, let’s try and find someone to replace me. You know, we can use my network. And I was like, oh. 00:07:25 Dave: That’s. 00:07:25 Pablo: Really nice. So sort of tangentially while this was happening because I was trying to get work, uh, I actually hit up fly fish food separately because I had weirdly created this internet relationship with Cheech, because Cheech did his Mormon mission in Cordoba, Argentina, which is where my parents are from. 00:07:45 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:07:46 Pablo: Yeah. So it was this really weird sort of cosmic connection there that we discovered just from me, like watching their, you know, they would have these live seminars and stuff and I would watch them and comment and whatever. So yeah, total Phish nerd, by the way. I was that guy. Yeah. 00:08:04 Dave: Yeah. 00:08:05 Pablo: But somehow it came about, you know, and he and we, he, we like sighed. We were like side dm’ing basically. And so when all this stuff happened with the pandemic and I was looking for work, I hit him up and I was like, hey, man, like I’m a composer. You guys do videos. Do you guys like need anything? So actually, if you watch the fly fish food videos, all the intro music in the video is is. Oh it is. That’s I made that thing. Yeah. So it’s like, you know, it’s, it’s actually the voice of brig when he catches this big brown and they sent me like this, like it’s from one of their videos. 00:08:37 Dave: Oh, cool. 00:08:38 Pablo: His reaction and I like turned it into a beat and a little intro. 00:08:41 Dave: Oh that’s sweet. So right now the fly fish food. Well, they may have updated it. Or is it that’s your. 00:08:46 Pablo: No, it’s been, it’s like I made like, I think ten for them and they kind of were they picked five and then they used three or four. And then they sort of just fell in love with this one. And it’s become like their signature intro. 00:08:59 Dave: Oh that’s awesome. Yeah. So we’ll listen to that right now. Yeah. I haven’t listened to it in a little while. So, so you made the intro and that’s part of we’ll get into that today. That’s part of what you do too. And the kind of this digital, what you do with your day job, I guess. Right? 00:09:11 Pablo: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But so anyway, so I had that connection with, with Cheech. Right. Um, and so when we were going through the list, George mentions Lance. He’s like, I think Lance would be really good for this. And I was like, oh, well, I kind of have a connection with Cheech actually. So it kind of we hit it from both sides, basically where George reached out to Lance. I reached out to Cheech, Cheech reached out to Lance, and then it was like, okay, let’s get these two guys together. And then upon first meeting, me and Lance just clicked instantly. Um, and, uh, you know, we’re we’re pretty tight now. It’s nice, you know, after doing this for many years, you just become close to people. We don’t ever hang out, which is crazy. 00:09:53 Dave: Right. Well, that’s that’s the online space, right? He’s in Utah and you’re in Chicago, right? 00:09:56 Pablo: Mhm, mhm. 00:09:58 Dave: How many episodes do you have now? Because I know you break it up in seasons. So you got episode like, you know, ten episodes every season or however you do it, but how many total do you. 00:10:05 Pablo: Have out there? Jeez. 00:10:07 Dave: Uh, or seasons? How many seasons do you. 00:10:09 Pablo: Let me look it up really quick, because I can’t even tell you off the top of my head. 00:10:11 Dave: Because you break it up. Cool. You’ve got different. It’s on the website, the newer and newer dot com. You’ve got different. Your artwork is a different color for each season. And then, you know. So it’s easy, but it’d be cool to. 00:10:22 Pablo: Nice job. I can’t believe that you actually went and looked. 00:10:25 Dave: Oh yeah. It looks good man, I love it. I’m always I’m the nerdy. I’m the nerdy one too. I always love to see. 00:10:30 Pablo: It needs a lot of work, you know, if I’m being honest. Uh, but, you know, we we were talking about this at the beginning. I, I’m involved in so many things. It’s very hard to like to keep track of everything, like the little things, you know, but sure. Uh, I get it to where it needs to be, and I keep running. 00:10:47 Dave: Exactly. I think it’s great. I think it looks great. 00:10:49 Pablo: Uh, we have forty five episodes, but not really. Not that much, you know? 00:10:52 Dave: Yeah. Forty five well, it’s you’re fifty. You’re basically if you did one a week, you know, for a year, that’d be a year. I always feel like, I feel like when I tell people about it because we do, you know, I’ve kind of helped people get into podcasting as hosts. We have our hosts on our show, you know, Phil Roy and some others that are doing series on in the show. But it’s, um, I tell them, let’s do, let’s do ten episodes. Kind of like your pilot. It’s like, I guess that’s kind of like a pilot season. Do one a month over a year. And at the end, let’s see if you like it and we’ll see how you’re feeling, because I feel like ten’s a good little chunk. And then if you’re loving it, you know, you might be hating it, but if you love it, then keep going. But if you hit fifty, you’re definitely in the you’re not giving this up, right? You’re not you’re not end of the you know. Right. 00:11:34 Pablo: Yeah, exactly. No, I mean, this has become, you know, as the, the first season we were released. Well, first three actually, I think we were releasing, we released every two weeks. And we would do, you know, kind of like eight months on, four months off type thing because Lance travels a lot and I do now too. But at the time I didn’t as much. But he’s just hard to pin down and he, you know, he works all day. So all this stuff is typically recorded. You know, for me, it’s usually between like eight and midnight, uh, when we record on like a Tuesday, you know, so it’s not a big deal. But then the editing, I mean, you know how it goes. It’s like I edit all my own stuff and, you know, season one and two, I was actually like fully scoring, like everything. And we had another guest on, uh, Jen Ripple, who’s well known in the industry. She would do all of our vocabulary segments, which was kind of a joke that I created within the show. But so it was just like, you know, it was a lot of production, like just. And so it was very time consuming. And so as time has gone on, we still want to do the podcast, but it’s like it was very hard to sustain at that level. So now we just kind of have been putting them out. We’ll start a new season and we’ll aim to put them out every two weeks. But if we don’t, we don’t. We’re just like, we’re like, that’s fine. We’re not. 00:12:53 Dave: Gonna like. 00:12:54 Pablo: Yeah. And I think at this point, you know, I don’t have real like physical evidence, but I think our listeners are, they’re cool with it. They’re like, okay, there’s another one that came out, this is sick, like, right. Well, and they listen to it and, and then they wait for the next one and they know that, you know, we’re doing the best that we can, you know? Right. Yeah. But it’s not going anywhere. It’s definitely become like an institution in our lives. 00:13:18 Dave: Yeah. That’s it. 00:13:19 Pablo: It’s important, you know. 00:13:20 Dave: Yeah, definitely. And Lance is a awesome guy. I mean, we’ve had him on the podcast a few times. He’s just, uh, super laid back and, you know, and one of the best, I mean, anglers wise, you talk about George Daniel. I mean, he’s Lance is right up there with, I mean, really anybody that I feel like the team USA thing, right? That’s the George actually go back to what was his book? Um, not modern nymphing, but um. 00:13:42 Pablo: The dynamic Nymphing. 00:13:44 Dave: Yeah. Dynamic nymphing, which is like almost at this point, kind of the, the Bible of, of the, you know. 00:13:49 Pablo: And it’s so old, you. 00:13:50 Dave: Know, and it’s so old, but he was a comp guy, right? And Lance is a comp guy. We have, we today, we’ve got our boot camp on norm Ecthyma is coming on. He’s a comp guy. I feel like all these guys, the team USA, even though it gets a little bit of or has gotten a little bit of flack like comp fishing is. But I think it’s amazing because all these guys are the top of the game. There’s nobody better than, you know, Lance or these guys. They’re the best anglers really. Right. Is that kind of how you is that kind of how you looked at it? Did you look at this team USA thing and say, okay, that’s what I want to go for with George and, and Lance. 00:14:19 Pablo: Yeah, because my fly fishing sort of trajectory was a weird one, like being in Chicago. My, you know, I have this massive lake a mile away from me. And so, you know, I started basically just fishing streamers at the lake, you know, didn’t catch a fish for four months because it’s really tough fishing, Especially for someone new. But. So I was very intimidated by trout. Trout fishing to me just seemed like this. Like, you know, the apex of all things because I didn’t know much about anything. 00:14:50 Dave: Yeah. And where do you go? Like in Chicago? Or were you thinking like, oh, man, where’s the closest place I can drive to? 00:14:55 Pablo: Well, yeah, actually, you’d be surprised because we’re right in between Michigan and the Driftless. They’re both equidistant. So within three hours you can get into some pretty good fishing. Yeah. But yeah, we don’t have like a home waters, if you will. You know, I’m on the board at the Trout Unlimited here in Chicago. And and they always say that, you know, like our home waters are the driftless. And I kind of wince when I when people say it, I’m like, dude, we got a lake right here. 00:15:20 Dave: It’s massive. 00:15:21 Pablo: Lake. 00:15:22 Dave: I know, I know. Well, the three hour thing is interesting because we, I mean, my home water, that’s always been my home water. I’ve moved a little bit, but it’s three hours away. Yeah. You know, I mean, I’m on the West and the West, but it’s, you know, I think three hours is a ways, but it’s like a lot of people do it. 00:15:37 Pablo: Yeah, it’s totally doable. I think so, but I don’t really have a choice. So but anyway, so I was trying to catch trout. I decided I was going to try and do this trout thing and then just kind of poking around and doing research. I’ve discovered, um, I discovered your nymphing and you know, this is a, you know, almost ten years ago. So this is a while ago. But, you know, I went, I was in upstate New York. I made some, you know, leader and I just tried it. And, you know, first cast I had a fish on in my mind was just like blown that this would work. 00:16:10 Dave: Caught a trout. 00:16:11 Pablo: Yeah. So from that moment on, I was like, this is the thing. This is what I’m obsessed with. I went to, you know, straight down the deep dive. And serendipitously, my brother in law, uh, he’s from Argentina, but he lives in Asturias, Spain, uh, which is northwestern Spain. And that’s where a lot of the most recent modern, Like the modern version of Euro Nymphing. This like Microlitre version was all developed there. The Pentagon comes from that region. 00:16:41 Dave: Oh, the Spanish, right? 00:16:43 Pablo: Yeah. And so I looked up, I started, you know, following people and all this stuff. And I speak Spanish, which is a huge, you know, breaks down a massive barrier. But I got in touch with one of the guys on the Spanish team, which at the time, you know, these dudes were the best, best, best in the world for many years actually. You know, everyone, not everyone, but many of the best anglers that we know took their class. Right. You know, Devin Olson included. Yeah. So I went there and I like studied with the guy when I was visiting my brother, just like family trip. Uh, I went and I got really dialed, you know, like he just, he kind of, you know, kind of schooled me right away. He was like, what are you doing? Oh, yeah. He was like. 00:17:24 Dave: By studying, did he? Were you out on the water every day or what was studying? 00:17:27 Pablo: Yeah, it was like I was just taking lessons with him. Yeah. And so, you know, he saw my rig and he was like, this is, you know, an abomination. Uh, so, and he was kind of like a, he was kind of mean, you know? 00:17:38 Dave: Right, right. 00:17:40 Pablo: But it, it helped because it really, you know, kept me focused. There was a certain point, actually in the lesson where he got frustrated and he was like, you’re not focused. We’re leaving. And he, he literally just picked up and we started walking. 00:17:51 Dave: There was no. 00:17:52 Pablo: Discussion. Yeah. It was crazy. 00:17:54 Dave: Hardcore. 00:17:54 Pablo: Yeah. So and we walked, you know, probably like an hour to get back to the car and we like turn it on like on this other thing. And he was like, okay, do you want to eat lunch or do you want to try one more time? And I was like, no, I want it. I’m here. Let’s, I don’t need to eat lunch. And he was like, all right, let’s try one more time. But he was. 00:18:11 Dave: Jeez. 00:18:12 Pablo: Yeah. I mean, he’s also a buddy of mine, but he’s like, uh, you know, he puts you to task. So he got me dialed really quickly, basically. And so when I came back, I had this perspective on your own nymphaeum that was cutting edge, you know, and I would see what people were putting on the internet. And I was like, oh my God, dude. Like, this is not how you do this, you know? Um, and I got really good at it and I focused on it for probably like two years. But now I, you know, I have, I do it when I need to, but it’s not really my passion. I’m more of a dry fly fisher now. But, um, yeah, I’ve spent, you know, like the last three years of my life just trying to get good at that. 00:18:52 Dave: Golden fly shop isn’t your average fly shop. They have a twelve foot shark painted like a cutthroat, hovering over a huge selection of the best rods in the business, a massive assortment of tying materials and their famous steakhouse streamer display. And it’s the hub for a community of anglers who never stop tinkering with new ways to catch fish. Sometimes the conversation behind the counter includes what hatches are going off and what techniques are working best. Then tales of destination fishing, adventures, sought after species, or a good old congratulations. When a customer brings stories of finally connecting with that fish they’ve searched for forever. With a growing online store and a budding YouTube channel, you’ll be able to follow along with their fun antics, international adventures, and helpful fly fishing tips. Golden fly shop where the community is hanging out even if they’re supposed to be working. That’s Golden Fly shop dot com. Check them out right now. Trout Routes by Onix is built for fly anglers who want better Intel without spending hours digging for the information. You’ll get access to public land maps, stream access points, regulations, and even road and trail maps all in one place. It’s become my go to app for scouting new trips. You can check them out right now. Go to fly dot com slash routes and download the app today. Makes sense how we Lance, right? That’s how Lance is now there. 00:20:12 Pablo: Yeah. So that’s how I knew about Lance. And that’s and then, you know, how we sort of when we started doing the thing, I think a big part of why Lance wanted to do it was because he’s known as this like gyro guy. And it really irks him because. 00:20:28 Dave: Oh it does. 00:20:29 Pablo: Yeah, yeah he does. 00:20:30 Dave: He doesn’t like that. Oh man. 00:20:32 Pablo: Because he is obviously a very well-rounded angler. But like, that’s not even really his passion, you know? 00:20:39 Dave: Right. 00:20:40 Pablo: He put out those videos and stuff and at the time he was into it. But like, you know, now he’s into fishing for lake trout. Like that’s the only thing he cares about. 00:20:46 Dave: Oh, he’s in the lakes. Yeah. 00:20:48 Pablo: Yeah. So like people still see him as like this Euro guy and like, he probably does Euro nymphing like a handful of times a year, you know, and he fishes literally three times a week, you know? 00:21:01 Dave: Yeah. Right, right. 00:21:03 Pablo: So it’s kind of funny, you know, I think I can’t speak for Devin Olson, but I think Devin is someone who who more lives in that world, who’s in the comp scene and like, that’s like his jam, you know. 00:21:13 Dave: And he’s still going, yeah, and Devin’s still on the I think he’s the oldest guy on the team. On the adult. 00:21:19 Pablo: Team. Yeah, exactly. He’s still. Oh yeah. Because Pat Weiss left too. Yeah. Yeah. Right. We had them on the podcast. Uh oh, you and Pat. Yeah, we did like a two part comp. 00:21:28 Dave: Oh, cool. 00:21:29 Pablo: Like two part comp series basically where we discussed, I try to do stuff that hadn’t been talked about already. You know, I know you’ve had them on and they’ve discussed, you know, like the how the thing works and the setup and all that sort of stuff. I try, I try to get more in their mental game and like sort of unlock the, the philosophical side of, of what it means to be a competition angler. Because I feel like the mind is like such a big part of fishing and doesn’t really get talked about that much, you know. 00:21:56 Dave: That’s right. That’s true. Yeah. It is. It’s like, uh, I always love the sports analogies, right? I feel like there’s, you know, fly fishing, I guess technically is kind of like a sport, but there’s a lot of similarity. You know, golf comes up a lot, right? The swing, the cast. But there’s a mental in sports, you hear it a lot. Like there’s the difference between Michael Jordan or whoever and the other. I mean, mental is a huge part of it because if you lose your, you know, if you’re at the free throw line, you know, if you lose your mental, you know, stuff isn’t working. And do you feel like fly fishing? Is that what you’ve learned from the. You new year, that the mental is actually an important part of this. 00:22:28 Pablo: one hundred percent, yes. I mean, I think I would say it’s like fifty fifty, you know, and maybe that’s just my own personal experience. You know, I think I, I suffer from anxiety and like, I’m in my head a lot. I’ve never been diagnosed with ADHD, but I’m sure I have some weird permutation of it. 00:22:44 Dave: We all have it. I feel like we all have some ADHD. 00:22:47 Pablo: Yeah, it’s kind of true. But so for me personally, you know, the two things that have like really helped me with that as I’ve gotten to be, you know, an adult is fly fishing and climbing. I got into climbing like, oh, wow. Climbing. Yeah. 00:23:04 Dave: So like, actually like rock climbing. 00:23:06 Pablo: Yes. Rock climbing. Yeah. 00:23:07 Dave: Oh, this is another see, this is the great thing about these podcasts is that there’s so many topics that I was thinking about for this. Another one again, just to take a little quick tangent, I’ve been on this, you know how we do it. The YouTube thing you get on and you’re like, oh my God, you take this random tangent. But I’ve been following Alex Honnold for a while. 00:23:24 Pablo: Oh. 00:23:25 Dave: And it’s like, oh my God. I remember when I asked Yvon Chouinard on the podcast, we were talking about it and I said, because he’s obviously the client. That’s how Patagonia started. 00:23:32 Pablo: Yeah, exactly. 00:23:32 Dave: And I was like, because that video just came out or I just had watched it late. I didn’t even know about the movie where he climbed El Capitan free solo. Yeah. And I was like, oh my God. And I asked Yvon, like, what do you feel? What was that like? He’s like, oh my God, my. I couldn’t even barely watch it. My hands. But like, isn’t that crazy? Like, isn’t that the craziest thing? Like what that guy does? 00:23:51 Pablo: I’m sweating just thinking about it, to be honest. Yeah. 00:23:54 Dave: It’s nuts. And he just climbed the building. The world’s eleventh tallest building for. Yeah. Without any ropes. I mean, literally, if you slip, you’re dead. 00:24:02 Pablo: Yeah, I know. I mean, honestly, I don’t I think El Cap is much more impressive than the building. 00:24:07 Dave: Yeah. 00:24:08 Pablo: You know, I mean, it’s slippery. 00:24:09 Dave: You know that move he makes in that movie where he has to karate kick? Yeah. And it’s almost like Boulder problem. That’s the the boulder problem. He does it. And the crazy thing about him is as soon as he does it. I mean, it’s so easy, right? You just think, oh, one slip and he’s dead. But as soon as he does, he looks at the camera that’s stationed there and he smiles. He’s like, I got it, I got it. 00:24:28 Pablo: It’s such good TV. 00:24:30 Dave: It is. That guy was awesome. The producer of that movie was did a great job. 00:24:33 Pablo: Incredible. 00:24:35 Dave: So anyways, tangent over. Yeah. Back. Well, maybe we’ll talk climbing on, you know, as we go here. But so yeah, you got climbing too. 00:24:42 Pablo: Um, yeah. Yeah. And it’s all just, all that is just for the mental, you know, especially the climbing. Climbing is obviously it’s good, you know, physical fitness and whatnot. But what it’s done to my brain has been, I think just much more important. And, and it’s helped me, you know, it’s really helped me. I mean, fly fishing too. When I discovered fly fishing, it was like I was able to use the same analytical brain I use as a composer producer, but in another place so that like, I don’t have to be thinking about work basically like, you know, eighteen hours of the day, which is, you know, that’s a recipe for burnout. And that’s where I was when I discovered fly fishing. And I was like, Holy, I can actually take this mindset and put it on something else and, you know, just gas out all that energy so that then when I come to do my actual real job, it’s like I feel refreshed and I’m not like tired, you know? 00:25:34 Dave: Right. 00:25:35 Pablo: Uh, so it’s, I mean, I do, I kind of think it’s saved my, my career and my, my professional life. I think in many ways, you know. 00:25:43 Dave: And maybe take us down that road a little bit. Your real job. I know we’ve got a couple things you do. Um, you know, the biotech startup, I think I wanted to touch on a few other things, but what is it that you’re doing? You mentioned you were in LA doing some stuff. Are you still producing, um, you know, content. 00:25:58 Pablo: Yeah. So I’ll give you the, the long short of it. But, uh, in my twenties, you know, I studied classical guitar. That was my, my major in college. And then, uh, I also got into songwriting while I was doing that. Um, and so I moved to LA basically to become a songwriter. Um, and I put a band together. We got signed and we did that whole thing. And then it was at a very weird time in the music industry where, um, what they call sync placements was starting to become popular. 00:26:29 Dave: What year was this when you were doing this? 00:26:31 Pablo: Uh, this would be two thousand and five ish. 00:26:34 Dave: Okay, two thousand and five. 00:26:35 Pablo: And a sync placement is just, you know, synchronized music. It’s music to picture. So Grey’s Anatomy was like one of the first big shows that like put people’s songs in it. And it wasn’t like you were selling out. It was like cool. People were like, oh, this song’s so good. And it’s like, in this show, you know, um, or Garden State was another one. The, the film. So anyways, you know, we got, we got signed, we did that. And, and we had a pretty big following in LA. We were one of the bigger bands there locally. Um, and we were friends with a lot of bands and you know, one of the guys in one Republic was like lived in our band house and we did that for seven years. And then my drummer, he had a side project and he was always working with this other dude. And well, the other dude was Mark foster. They started to foster the people, which is a, you know, a Grammy nominated band now a really big band. And so within six months, pumped up kicks, that hit song just blew up. And so Mark was like, I’m going to go do this. We were like, you should go do this. And so they took off. Uh, we had, you know, we’ve, we replaced him with another drummer who’s actually Miley Cyrus’s drummer now. Uh, and Arriaga. 00:27:46 Dave: And what was the name of your band? 00:27:48 Pablo: Uh, I’m embarrassed to say. 00:27:50 Dave: Yeah. Why is that? I mean, you’ve got, you’ve got, I mean, you’ve got this, uh, these famous people that are coming off in these other groups, right? 00:27:58 Pablo: So the band’s name was Malbec actually like the wine. 00:28:01 Dave: Oh, Malbec. 00:28:02 Pablo: Yeah. Because my family was from Argentina. And at this time, Malbec was not a ubiquitous wine. No one really knew the word at all, except for in Argentina. They hadn’t done all the marketing that they were about to do. 00:28:14 Dave: Right. 00:28:15 Pablo: So, you know, if you disassociate wine from the word, it’s actually a really cool word and it’s like a nondescript one. So it was our band name for a long time. Unfortunately, it, you know, became like the most popular wine of all time. 00:28:29 Dave: Oh, right. Oh, so this is before Malbec became the. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And if you do the old Wikipedia, it says Malbec was an American indie rock band formed in two thousand and three, you know, and all the stuff, they’re hip hop beats, modern pop styling, southern hip hop influence, Brit pop. Yeah. Is that is that all? Pretty much classic. So was this a culmination of you and everybody in the bands listening taste? 00:28:52 Pablo: Yeah, exactly. And well, we were again, going back to the theme. We were trying to do something totally different that hadn’t been done yet. Um, we’re kind of like credited as the first band to play in LA with a laptop on stage, if you can believe that, you know? Um, because at the time it was like everyone sounded like the strokes. Uh, and we would come in. I remember we played the Viper Room and they used to have the sound guy there, the Scottish guy. He was so ornery and mean all the time. He hated everybody. And, uh, we because we were like running live beats, which was like such a strange thing to do back then. He, you know, we required like, you know, the computers weren’t powerful enough. Like they would just take a on you. We played House of Blues like one of our first shows. And they have like a, the foundation room upstairs on sunset and um, you know, the computer couldn’t handle it. It literally almost blew up and ruined our whole set. So and what we were doing was beats mixed with live drums. So Mark and, and Sydney, our programmer, they would create the beats so that like, it would all sound like one beat, but actually you were getting a blend of electronic and acoustic drums not on top of each other, but filling each gap. 00:30:05 Dave: So wow. 00:30:06 Pablo: It was very complicated and cool. But because of that, we were running live beats and, uh, you know, the, the the Scottish guy was we showed up with these two G4 Mac towers. The guy’s like, who do you think you are? 00:30:19 Speaker 3: Oh, right. 00:30:19 Pablo: Genesis. You know, he was like, so angry. 00:30:22 Dave: Oh, Genesis. Right. Oh, my. 00:30:24 Pablo: So it was like a that was my Irish accent, actually. 00:30:26 Dave: But that was good. 00:30:27 Pablo: That was good. Thanks. 00:30:28 Dave: Um. 00:30:29 Pablo: Sorry. Yeah. 00:30:30 Dave: Wow. So you’re you’re a rock and roll star, man. This is. 00:30:33 Pablo: Like. I don’t know about that, but crazy. I had a different life then. Um. 00:30:38 Dave: Dang. So you got this whole music? Yeah. I can’t remember what track we’re on, but. Yeah. No. Keep this. 00:30:42 Pablo: So, you know, the band did that and then we ended up breaking up and I did solo thing, uh, which did pretty well too. So I co-wrote, I was doing a lot of co-writing. I have like a number one on iTunes with, uh, with Alan Stone. Yeah, I wrote unaware. 00:30:57 Dave: What’s the song? 00:30:58 Pablo: It’s called Unaware by Allen Stone. Um, it’s like his biggest hit. And then I had a solo song on Grey’s Anatomy. Um, so, uh, that’s called Rock bottom, But so, you know, I was I was getting placements and I was co-writing with people and doing that whole thing. And then through that sort of transgression, I guess I started getting interested in commercial music. And the first gig I ever did was for fruit of the loom commercial, which won an Academy Award. So that was kind of like, oh, maybe I should be doing this. 00:31:30 Dave: I just look at something. Hang on one second. I’m looking at. So. Alan Stone yeah, unaware. I’m looking at the just the googled it and, and Conan O’Brien. He was live on Conan had played. Yeah. So so this guy is pretty huge. 00:31:41 Pablo: Yeah. He’s legit. 00:31:42 Dave: Yeah. So you wrote that song so unaware. And then so take us back in the fruit of the loom. So what was the so you had a connection. You started making commercials. 00:31:49 Pablo: Yeah. Well, I just, I was actually just in the band and we were kind of like in our friend circle was maroon five and they were recording at Ocean Way Studios and, uh, this producer calls Ocean Way and they’re like looking for a certain style of voice. And Noah Passovoy, who was, who’s like maroon five lead engineer. Still, he was like, oh, there’s this guy who has the voice you’re looking for. And so I get a call from my manager. He’s like, hey, uh, you have like an audition for a commercial in two minutes, they’re going to call you. I’m like, what? I’m just like, walk. I’m like, on the street. I’m like, what’s going on? So they call me and they’re like, hey, we, you know, we, you know, we’re on a time crunch. We’re trying to get this thing done. We can’t find the right singer. They said that you would be good. Can you do an audition? I’m like, like, sure. What time? They’re like, no, no, right now I’m like. 00:32:40 Dave: On the street. 00:32:41 Pablo: Yeah. So they play this little melody on the piano. You know, they play it like two or three times or like, you know, trying to get me to memorize it basically. And they’re like, all right, sing it back. So I sang it back to them and they’re like, all right, perfect. You got the job. Be here tomorrow at twelve thirty. And I was like, what is going on? 00:32:58 Dave: Okay, what was the melody? 00:32:59 Pablo: Oh my gosh. It’s uh, no, no no no no no no no no no. It’s like this little. 00:33:06 Dave: Like, oh yeah. 00:33:07 Pablo: Uh, that what they were doing was a parody of this Coldplay video, and they won an award for it because it’s like an underwear commercial. 00:33:15 Dave: And. Adi, is that a that’s a commercial words for what is the Adi. 00:33:18 Pablo: That’s like the Grammys for for ads. 00:33:21 Dave: Basically for ads. Gotcha. Yeah. Right. 00:33:23 Pablo: So that kind of broke me into that scene. Um, and then, you know, since then I’ve been doing commercial composing, uh, short films and stuff like that. Um, if you watch TV over the holidays and you hear like a Reese’s commercial with Will Arnett’s voice over, I scored a bunch of those, uh, you know, coke campaign AstraZeneca, like, you know, a bunch of stuff. 00:33:47 Dave: Um, yeah. So this is your. Yeah, this is what you do. You’ve got tons. I mean, obviously lots of, uh, some good stuff going here. You know, I did want to touch on, um, you know, some of the other things you’re doing here, but I didn’t want to miss the let’s transfer this in a little bit right now because I want to talk about the lodge before we get too far into this. Yeah. Because I think that, um, you know, one thing that we do a lot of is, you know, travel, like we said, trying to get around and find these new places. And it is a place that I think a lot of people would love to go to. Right? Yeah. Maybe take us there a little bit. We’ll swing back around on some of this other stuff that we have going with your, um, kind of your, the day job, but um. 00:34:25 Pablo: Well, it kind of fits in actually. Does it. Yeah. Because, you know, I read this book, um, it’s called Awaken Your Genius. It really kind of transformed the way I thought about things, which was, you know, I’ve kept seeing myself as this, like, musician composer guy, but never really felt fully fulfilled. I read this book and it was basically like, your life is, is so long and so vast, and you can be many things and you’re not beholden to like, just what you think your identity is. And it really unshackled me to where I was like, you know what? I want to do a short film and I’m gonna, you know, see if I can get something else and fly fishing, you know, and all these different things. And through that, I ended up meeting this guy through the short film that I was doing, which I filmed in a very remote place in Argentina. My guide ended up like offering me a gig to be like his, basically his co-partner, his co-founder for his, um, his travel agency, fly fishing travel agency. And he’s, it’s an outfitter. It’s called fly fishing. But he wanted me to be sort of my own thing in North America. He’s in South America. So from that, we started building. This was two years ago. It was kind of a harebrained idea at the time, but I was like, you know what? This sounds really fulfilling. I had such a good time when we shot the the movie. Like I, I wanted, I want people to be able to access these places, you know, because typically a lot of these trips are for like very wealthy people. And I was like, how do we get just like a mechanic down there, you know, like that would be so sick, which we did do, by the way. Uh, not to, but, uh, you did? Uh, yeah. To the mobile lodge to fish for Dorado, which we can talk about in a second. But so yeah, so we, you know, we’re trying to get a mechanic down there, which we did. And my whole thing was, you know, how can we get, how can we make these trips more affordable for people from all walks of life, all classes of life to be able to go. Now, of course you can’t. Not everyone’s going to be able to go, but like at least make them cheaper. You know what I’m saying? More accessible. And so that was kind of my mission for a while. And also sustainable tourism, like wherever we go, we should be like helping the community and like getting the community involved and, and making a difference and, and not just having it, not just pumping people in and out of places, you know, like really creating experiences. So that’s kind of where I started pointing and we started building this thing. And while this happened, we were offered to go vet this new place in Mexico, which is about five miles from the Belize border at the very, very end of the Yucatan. It’s like, you know, population four eighty, like there’s nothing there. I mean, there’s a little town, but it was decimated by a hurricane in nineteen fifty five and it never really got reestablished. So the a lot of the town is still kind of in ruin, which is so sad. And the people are just the sweetest, most amazing people. I mean, you know, it’s, it’s been a joy to be able to go there and, and sort of meet the community. But anyway, so we, we went and vetted it and we fell in love with the place. And we couldn’t believe how special it was. And it’s right. You know, there’s the Mesoamerican reef, which is the second largest barrier reef in the world, goes from Holbox, Mexico, which is actually like north western Yucatan and goes around the bend where Cancun is and goes all the way down to Roatan, Honduras. And it is in that. So you basically have like this crazy reef that is filled with fish that like blocks the deep ocean. And then on the other side of the peninsula, you have this gigantic huge flat Spey. 00:38:23 Dave: Flats bay, right? 00:38:25 Pablo: So you kind of have like, you know, pick of the litter there. I mean, it’s, you know, you can fish for permit, you can fish for juvenile tarpon, you know, up to five, six feet. And then in June, July, the big, big, big tarpon come in, uh, the migratory ones. And then you get, uh, but the bonefish, barracuda, triggerfish, what else? Uh, you know, all the classics of the flats, you know, and it’s one of the few places you can catch the permit on what they call dry flies, which is really just a foam floating crab pattern because of the Sargassum, as they say in English, the Sargassum in in Spanish um, which is a plant that due to global warming, has been basically floating up from the Amazon and blanketing all the beaches in Mexico. You know, anywhere you go in Mexico, on the Yucatan side is going to have sargassum. But the Mexican government has these like massive boats that come in and clean it in the resort towns, you know, so you might not see it in Cancun or Isla Mujeres or whatever. 00:39:30 Dave: Um, they’re ripping it out. 00:39:32 Pablo: Yeah. They, they collect it, but in a town of four hundred and eighty, they don’t give a rip about us. So it’s, it’s everywhere. So the locals pick it up and there’s like good seasons, bad seasons. You know, the last time I was there, about a month ago, there was hardly any, to be honest. Um, now it’s starting to come in. Actually, my, one of my good friends there just sent me a picture yesterday. He caught a permit off the pier on a dry fly Because they’re coming in. And there was a big patch of Sargasso that went right in front of him. He, you know, he did like two strips and he had a permit on kind of crazy. Uh, but that’s that’s so rare. I mean, people go all the time and they can’t catch permit. They see them all everywhere. 00:40:14 Dave: On to Mark Lodge offers a world class experience with one of the finest rainbow trout and brown trout fisheries in the world. They’re family owned and operated. Missouri River Lodge offers comfortable accommodations, delicious home cooked meals, and personalized service that make you feel like family. Days on the water are capped off by appetizers, beverages, dinner, and stories on the back deck and around the campfire. Book your stay for an unforgettable fly fishing adventure where memories are made and the fish stories are real. You can head over right now to wet fly dot com. That’s O n d e m a r k on demark right? Now to book your magical Missouri River trip, The right gear can turn a good day on the water into an unforgettable one. Jackson Hole Fly Company’s combo kits are built to match the rhythm of the river, giving you everything you need in one simple package. Each kit pairs a perfectly matched rod and reel with essential accessories, ready to fish right out of the box. From the beginner friendly Crystal Creek to the high performance flat Creek, there’s a setup for every angler. And don’t forget about their packs and slings. I’ve been loving my Jackson Hole Sling pack for a number of years now. The perfect size to fit all your gear, but not too heavy and not too big to drag you down. Check out their slings and rods and much more at Jackson Hole Fly company dot com, and you can support this podcast by checking in with Jackson Hole Fly Company today. Well, permits kind of the fish that’s known as one of the hardest fish to catch. So on drys, I’m guessing it’s even harder to catch a permit. 00:41:50 Pablo: Yeah, I guess I’ve only I’ve hooked one and I haven’t landed one. So. Yeah. 00:41:55 Dave: And this is Paradise Lodge. Is that the lodge you’re working with? 00:41:59 Pablo: Yeah. So the lodge also is just a cool story because the guy who owns it, his family comes from a very big coffee family in in Mexico. So actually, the coffee you have at the lodge is all like his family’s company, but they, they have the only coffee museum in Mexico, too, in Veracruz. And so this guy has been driving, you know, it’s like a twenty four hour drive from his hometown to. But he’s been driving there since he was like seventeen, eighteen and sleeping on the beach to fish. And he’s not a fly fisher. He’s a spin fisher. But he just fell in love with this place. And he’s been going there for years. And so he finally, like, you know, his his business built up because he does like nightclubs and hotels and all sorts of stuff all over Mexico. So he’s slowly like started building his, his business and now he’s, you know, very successful. And so he decided to build himself like a fishing Outpost. And so he did that. Um, it was like one freestanding building. And he’s like, well, now I want to have my family here. So then he built like a whole other freestanding building to match the one. And then he was like, well, maybe I’ll turn it into a hotel. So and then he quickly realized that like, no one’s staying in a hotel and everyone’s going to lodges basically. Right? So then he was like, maybe I should do this fly fishing thing everyone keeps talking about, right? And that’s where we come in. We went down there and we took some people that had been fishing. They fished quite a bit around the Caribbean and, and, uh, they should have a good handle on what was, you know, to be offered. And they were blown away. They were like, we’re never going back to Bahamas. 00:43:38 Dave: Like, really? 00:43:39 Pablo: Yeah. Because the thing is, it’s like from the boat launch to when you’re fishing is about ten minutes. It’s crazy. You know, it’s like you’re not in a boat for an hour to get to just to fish bonefish. Like you can kind of be like, all right, let’s go ten minutes. We’ll fish for tarpon. They’re like, all right, we feel like fishing for permit now. So you go fifteen minutes into the bay, it’s all there. And yeah. And it’s like, you can switch up on a dime and change your plan and it’s all there all the time, you know? 00:44:08 Dave: So amazing. 00:44:09 Pablo: It’s kind of insane. You know, we deal with things like everywhere else. There’s, you know, weather and all sorts of stuff, you know, that’s out of our control. But as far as, uh, the fishery goes, I mean, they are all there and willing to eat typically, you know, if you, if you’re a sound angler, you know, so it’s been, it’s been really cool. And we’ve been building it like this whole projects, you know, just coming up on a year old. So we’ve been building it, we’ve had some pretty cool people go through there. Phil Rowley actually who you’re having on, on your thing today or no Monday you said you’re. Yeah. Monday. Yep. On the boot camp. Yeah. And then um so he went down there in November with the group. He fell in love with it. He’s trying to put more trips together now and then. Housefly. I don’t know if you’ve had them on the show. 00:44:56 Dave: Oh, yeah. The housefly? 00:44:58 Pablo: No, there’s housefly, which is in San Francisco. And Housefly, they’re a fly shop in Pennsylvania. But, um, they are really cool. They, they did a collab with Filson and they do a lot of stuff on the Delaware, like cleanups and stuff like that. And they’re kind of part of, um, this like tattoo community. So when we were there, they had, you know, like, like Dan Santoro, one of the guys in housefly, he’s like a really, really famous tattooer. And then Danny Reed, he owns Crooked Creek Holler, which is also another really cool fly fishing company. He was there who’s he’s also a very famous tattooer. Uh, so it’s kind of cool to see that there’s like, and they were telling me this too, because I, I, you know, I have one tattoo of my dead dog, but yeah, but these guys are covered in tattoos and gals because there’s a woman there. But they were telling me that there’s a whole undercurrent in the tattoo scene of Fly fishers, which I did not know about. 00:45:56 Dave: Oh, really? 00:45:57 Pablo: Yeah, it’s a kind of a big thing. No kidding. Um, and so, you know, they got their buddy Michael Michael to come from Michigan and he’s another really, really prolific tattooer in Ypsilanti, like right by Schultz. So it was kind of a like really eye opening experience. And also so funny because, you know, I was like, oh, you know, all the tattooers are coming. It’s going to be a rowdy week, right? These guys were in bed by ten. 00:46:25 Dave: Like, oh, no kidding. 00:46:26 Pablo: Up and ready to go. 00:46:27 Dave: So you’re saying there’s a this under this tattoo segment of the fly fishing space? Is that is that. Yeah, exactly. And this is just people that are into like tattoo, uh, fly fishing tattoos or just kind of tattoos in general. 00:46:41 Pablo: Kind of both. So Danny Reed, as I understand, I’m not in the tattoo scene. So, you know, this is all just sort of, uh, my, my, my filter. 00:46:51 Dave: Who would be the guy you’re talking about that we could look up on Instagram that might have the tattoo connection or have some tattoos. 00:46:58 Pablo: There’s two guys that that are worth. I mean, they’re all worth mentioning. I think Michael does, uh, it’s Michael and his last name’s a u l owl, I think is how you pronounce it. I’m not sure. He’s in Michigan. He does fishing tattoos, but a bunch of other tattoos. Danny Reed, which is Crooked Creek Holler. Uh, he does a lot of trout tattoos and stuff. Uh, he lives in Asheville, North Carolina. Uh, and that company is really cool, too. Uh, and then housefly, they have, uh, Dan Santoro, who is, uh, a really famous Tattooer actually, Danny Reed and Dan Santoro were just here in Chicago for an art show that featured their work last week. So. And Dan Santoro is part of housefly, which is a really cool fly shop. And in the Catskills on in Pennsylvania. 00:47:52 Dave: Oh, okay. Okay. 00:47:53 Pablo: But that was just, you know, you meet so many cool people and I was blown away just by how sweet they were. And then the other person I haven’t mentioned, which I do mention on my show because I, I fell in love with what he’s doing and I, and I tried to help him out, but, um, it’s forests outdoors, f o r I s outdoors. Colin McElroy uh, he’s making like very stylish fly fishing clothes, but like, kind of in the old, it’s like stuff Hemingway would wear. 00:48:23 Dave: Oh, nice. Right? It’s like old traditional stuff that kind of has a new spin. 00:48:28 Pablo: On it looks vintage. It looks. 00:48:29 Dave: Vintage. Right. 00:48:30 Pablo: And when I saw him, you know, I actually saw him in the airport, didn’t realize that he was one of my clients. And I was like, dang, this dude’s style is like really sick. And I, I didn’t realize that he was like, fly fishing, right? Yeah. You know, So he’s trying to build that stuff. I went to his, uh, showroom in New York, uh, two weeks ago when I was there. And, um, it’s just so sick. You know, you’re in East Williamsburg, and it’s like a classic sort of what you would expect, like some, you know, all white inside and like, there’s like garments hanging. And then like one corner of it he’s turned into like this little like really cool fly fishing nook where it’s like all painted like sort of like. 00:49:10 Dave: Nice. 00:49:11 Pablo: Light green and there’s like stuffed stripers and like netting everywhere and like flies everywhere. It’s a fly fishing, like a fly tying station. And it doesn’t look like you’re in New York City. You know what I’m saying? 00:49:24 Dave: Right, right. 00:49:25 Pablo: It’s very authentic. I mean, he’s very authentic. He’s a really good angler. Ties, insane flies. Uh, so yeah. 00:49:33 Dave: And this is forest outdoors. 00:49:34 Pablo: Yeah. Forest f o r I s f r. 00:49:37 Dave: Yeah, this is cool. And as you’re talking here, I was scrolling on Google maps looking at just driving down the dirt roads. Taking a look because I haven’t been down there yet. But it’s pretty amazing, right? It’s pretty amazing because it’s just like you said, this is remote and this isn’t like a build up part. This is like the end of the road. Kind of pretty remote out here. 00:49:55 Pablo: Yeah. No, this is the last commercial cruise port that reaches southern Yucatan is in Mahahual, which is about an hour north. So you’re really just not. There’s just nothing there, you know. 00:50:08 Dave: Mhm. We did an episode recently with Will Blair. I met him at the Denver show. He’s. He’s the one. When I ran into him, he was doing a Kamchatka trip. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it was great. But because of the war, that ended for a while. But he was also he because of that, he he moved over and he was down in the Bahamas down at Ragged Island, which is this super remote island you got a boat out to. But the theme was, is his his stuff that he does is very remote, you know, like he’s finding these places that are totally not your normal place. And it feels like you’re kind of doing a similar thing. Like you’re making a trip that’s not your normal trip. That’s just like. Right. Everybody’s done. 00:50:44 Pablo: Exactly. So that’s kind of something I wanted to mention when we were talking about getting on on air and discussing this sort of stuff is. So the outfitter Camp Outfitters is my outfitter. 00:50:55 Dave: Oh, okay. Yeah. It’s a spell that for us. 00:50:58 Pablo: C r it’s C r I o l l o. So the word criollo. And I say it with an Argentine accent because I’m Argentine, but double L is a Y. So, Criollo, the word is the word to describe the, uh, native culture, the native culture mixed with European culture, typically Spanish. So you could think of it like Creole, like we have in in New Orleans. It’s kind of the Argentine version of Creole. In this case, it’s not the French, it’s the Spanish. So like a classic example of criollo cooking would be the empanada, which comes from Spain, but was sort of usurped and modified by a lot of countries in South America and Central America. Uh, so that’s like a style of cooking, but really it’s like that cultural mix of like native and European. 00:51:58 Dave: That’s what Creole show. That’s what that word means. 00:52:00 Pablo: Yes. And it’s a very sort of important word in Argentine culture because it describes a lot of the people. I myself am Creole. My you know, my dad did his he did his, uh, twenty three and me or whatever. And he’s like ninety eight percent northeastern Italian, like Piedmontese, like right on the border of Austria. He’s like the whitest dude you’ll ever meet in your life, you know? 00:52:23 Dave: Oh, wow. Do you know the whole history of how your family genes and the all that stuff, where they came from? And were they how they when they moved over? 00:52:31 Pablo: Sort of not fully, but my dad did that. And then my mom, you know, sometimes people think she’s Filipino because she has like jet black hair and she, she kind of has a slightly Spanish slash indigenous sort of, you know, native look to her, I guess. And then my grandfather was like, straight up, like he looked, he looked like he was a native from South America. Right. You know, so. Right. Much to my dismay, I am the whitest person alive. But, uh, uh, although growing up in Detroit, when I, when I grew up was kind of helped me, you know, survive, but, um, because I went to like an all Catholic Polish Irish school in my name was Pablo. So it helped to be white. Nice. But, but so I kind of have that mix within, within my blood, which is why it’s important to me. And that’s why I wanted to call the company that. 00:53:26 Dave: Sure. 00:53:27 Pablo: And what we’re trying to do when I first started, I was like, oh yeah, I’ll be an outfitter, because that’s kind of how the idea was presented to me from Santee, my business partner. But as as time’s gone on, I realize, you know, there’s so many great outfitters out there, you know, like the yellow dogs of the world. And, you know, Orvis has their trips and stuff. I’m like, I don’t want to be part of any of that. Right? I want to do something truly unique and create experiences that people will remember for the rest of their lives. It’s none of it’s cookie cutter. You know, all of this is like very bespoke and like made to order in many ways. You know, I think the lodge is like the furthest end of the spectrum of where it’s like, you know, we’re putting people in there, they’re fishing. It’s more traditional, I guess, but it still is in such a remote, special place that it is kind of unique. And every time we take people there, the the feel of it is like, this is your home. This isn’t a lodge. You know, like we have a chef and we have a barman and all that stuff. But like you, this place is yours. You take it over, you know, it’s really small. 00:54:30 Dave: This is so cool. 00:54:31 Pablo: There’s only room for eight people. 00:54:32 Dave: So yeah, eight people per week. 00:54:34 Pablo: Yeah, exactly. And there’s four rooms. So you’re either paying for your own room or you’re sharing it with your buddy, you know. 00:54:40 Dave: Yeah. I’m looking at it now on your website on Creole Joe Camp Outfitters. And it’s cool with the lack in the Price is right here. It’s pretty amazing. I mean, three thousand five hundred dollars for seven days. 00:54:52 Pablo: Well, that’s the old pricing. It’s not that. 00:54:54 Dave: So it’s a little higher. Okay, so that’s four thousand five hundred forty five. Okay. I was gonna say because thirty five was like, that’s, that was like, wow. Because we do, we do these trips kind of similar. I found that it’s not easy. I mean, what you’re doing is not easy where you’re building out these trips. We kind of build out some stuff from like Airbnbs and, and we’re still doing, we got one with Landon this summer. We’re doing that. We got nice. And the nice thing about that is you can keep the prices lower. You know, you can, you know what I mean? So you can do. But we were doing like three days, three days, four nights at Airbnb. And you know, we try to keep the price under three thousand dollars. You know, sometimes it’s lower, but it’s hard. That three thousand range is hard for anything. And and you’re doing seven days, right? I mean, that’s a so forty five sounds about right. That’s, you know, for a good. Yeah. Good deal. Yeah. 00:55:37 Pablo: Yeah. I mean, but when you look at the place I just sent you the link to, to the website for the lodge, when you look at the place, it’s kind of the nicest place in town. Uh, it’s very boutique modern, like beautiful architecture. So when you think about what you’re getting in the price point, I mean, we’ve tried to keep it as low as we can so that we can cover operationally and still cover our own lives. You know, it’s actually a pretty good deal. And, you know, people have told us a lot of times that we have to jack our prices up. And there’s people that move, a lot of people that bring people that host people and they’re like, why are you so cheap? When they go see the lodge? They’re like, this is worth more money. But we’ve we’ve made a point to keep our pricing as low as we possibly can to cover us operationally. And then, you know, so that we can make some money to continue doing the thing, but to make it as fair as possible, you know, and not not only that, we also try and do like sales and like there’s, there’s times where we don’t have the lodge full and there’ll be some spots left and we’ll offer that for very cheap, you know what I mean? Uh, because for us, it’s like, I don’t know, it’s like such a special place. We’re trying to share that with as many people as we can. I’ve also tried to, for better or for worse, I have a whole mindset around like how you build a business and I know who I am, and I want to work with people that align with who I am. You know, that’s one of the reasons I was like, you know, talking to you and, and, and interested in you because I feel like I just, for whatever reason, maybe it’s because I listen to your podcast or whatever, I feel like there’s a, there’s a connection there. It’s like we’re the same kind of people, I guess in a way. 00:57:16 Dave: Yeah. 00:57:17 Pablo: And so with what I’m building, I’m trying to not just have anybody go to these places. I’m trying to make it a little bit more curated where it’s like a lot of people that would get along and have the same mindset. I think everybody wins when it’s a situation like that, because, you know, you’re not stuck with some person that you don’t like, you know, and there’s a spectrum of personalities in the world. 00:57:40 Dave: Yeah, we find that too. 00:57:42 Pablo: I’m not judging anyone. I’m just saying like, you know, we need to be thoughtful about that stuff, you know? 00:57:47 Dave: Yeah. I think that there’s a we find that with our trips is that people come on these trips and I’ll go on them that are from all around the country that, you know, and they’re listening to the podcast. That’s the one thing they have in common. They listen to the podcast and it always the backgrounds are totally diverse, but the trips always work out great. That’s awesome. You know, I mean, people, the totally different backgrounds, but you know, we have a great time. So and I’m looking at some of these. So you’ve got like six here on the Creole Zoo, camp Outfitters, you got South America, you got Patagonia, northern Argentina fish or visit the moon, the land of Inca. You got some wine and trout wine plus trout, Amazon and then the Mexico we’ve been talking about. So are all those programs still? Is that your focus? 00:58:30 Pablo: So that’s what I was doing. So the website I’m actually updating right now and it will be much simpler. So what I’ve tried to do now is basically condense everything so that I’m only doing very specific, very boutique special things. Sort of the crown jewel in the whole thing is, uh, what we call the mobile base camp or. 00:58:53 Dave: Mobile, the mobile base camp. Yeah. Right. 00:58:56 Pablo: Uh, so that’s there. There used to be a race, uh, in Argentina, I think it’s now either in Australia or South Africa, but it’s called the Dakar Rally. It’s one of the most arduous sort of overlanding races in the world. And we have a leftover support truck for that race. It’s a Scania. Four twenty Dakar Rally support truck. It’s this massive sort of overlanding Mack truck almost, and the top of it’s been cut off and put on hydraulics. So the second floor actually raises. When we park it, we can raise it up and you can stand on the second floor. So what we’re doing now is we’re building up basically, they’re kind of like expeditions in a weird way. We have, uh, three offerings for the base camp. The first one is really hardcore high altitude fly fishing for trout at around fifteen thousand feet in the Argentine Altiplano. Uh, so it’s a place that the only person to ever have guided it is my business partner. No one really knows how to get there or where it is except for us. And we take you on this truck and you live off the truck. We have a chef that goes with you. And then, um, a support vehicle that goes along with the truck and you basically get into like some of the craziest, most remote places you could possibly go. I mean, Volcan Gallan is the largest volcano in the world next to the one that’s in Yosemite, which hasn’t exploded yet. So this it’s the largest crater, I should say, and it’s at fifteen thousand feet. So that’s up there. There’s also like the longest, not largest, but longest, um, salt flat in the world is up there. And there’s like petroglyphs from the Incas that haven’t been studied by archaeology. I mean, the place is just wild. And in the early nineteen hundreds, the British were mining and they planted trout there, of course. So there’s all these spring creeks literally in the middle of this, like vast, vast desert landscape. It’s one of the coolest places I’ve ever been to in my life, if not the coolest. Um, so we’re putting together trips now to do that. Uh, so we’re going to, we’re going to start now in, in November. And then, um, we’re also doing a version of that that’s way less hardcore, um, much more easygoing. Um, in Cordoba, where my family is from, there’s really good trout fishing in Cordoba. The thing is in Argentina, you hear about, you know, three things Buenos Aires, Patagonia and wine. 01:01:41 Dave: And wine, right? 01:01:42 Pablo: But it’s a really long country and there’s a ton of fishing. Like fishing, you know. You know, they talk about Golden Dorado too, I guess, which we also are. We do we do trips for Golden Dorado on the, the mobile lodge. And then we also do something very similar to Monte Lodge where you see it on Instagram all the time, small creek fishing. But we do it without having to take a helicopter or any of that stuff. Again, it’s like affordable and much, much easier to access. 01:02:08 Dave: Is there a place we can see the mobile base camp out there online anywhere? 01:02:11 Pablo: Yes. So, uh, on the website and again, I’m making a new one, so there’ll be a whole page dedicated to it. 01:02:19 Dave: Kyosho Camp Outfitters dot com. 01:02:21 Pablo: Yeah. If you go to Camp Outfitters, that’s C r I o l l o Camp Outfitters, and you go to destinations at the very end, you can click on Mobile Lodge. 01:02:31 Dave: O Mobile Lodge. I see it mobile lodge. All right, let’s take a look at this thing. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. This is not this is badass. This is actually the this is where you pull up and you’re driving on a road trip with your car, and you see that giant truck that looks like it just drove came from Europe. And it’s the baddest, it’s the baddest thing in the parking lot. And it looks like it costs about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And, uh, and this is so this is really. Yeah, I was expecting it’s funny when you were expecting, I was expecting like a, a broke down shanty camper, you know, with a little bit, this is the legit, this is a full. 01:03:05 Pablo: No, it’s, it’s the real deal we had. So we had, um, I just did a, the last podcast we put out was, uh, about Golden Dorado, a trip we did on this thing. And one of the guys that went was a mechanic actually. And he, he was very proud to be like, I’m just a blue collar mechanic, you know? And I was able to do the trip, which made me so happy because that’s been like the entire thing I’ve been trying to build for so long. And hearing him say it was just like everything clicked. But, but so he was obsessed with the vehicle. Like he just couldn’t believe this was a real thing. 01:03:38 Dave: And he’s like, what is the vehicle? What is it called? What’s the style? Because isn’t it isn’t the one that the Unimog, what do they call those? This is the one where you can live out of it for like two months without. It’s got water and everything, right? 01:03:47 Pablo: Yeah, exactly. I don’t know, his description was like a tractor trailer with like, a sleeper put on top, but I don’t actually know what you would call this because it’s, it doesn’t really exist in the US. Right. 01:04:01 Dave: And well, the Unimog is the name of the thing I’m thinking of. Right? The Unimog camper. It’s an extreme all terrain expedition vehicle based on the Mercedes Benz. So that’s the thing. You see these unimogs. And that’s I think that’s their one of the selling points is like, you can buy one of these things and just travel the world literally, right? 01:04:19 Pablo: I’m looking at the Unimog now. Yeah. 01:04:21 Dave: I mean, you might be an older style thing, but. 01:04:24 Pablo: That thing’s sick. 01:04:25 Dave: Yeah, but yours is actually a pop up, so the top pops up into, like, a camper. 01:04:29 Pablo: Yeah. So that when we’re driving the tops down and then when we arrive to our, our destination, we unlock the top and it’s on hydraulics and we raise the thing and it goes up, I think like three and a half feet or something. 01:04:43 Dave: Yeah. So it raises it. So now you have room. Is it like a sleeping area up top? 01:04:47 Pablo: Exactly. So that becomes like where you sleep. You can sleep. We’re sleeping on like real mattresses and everything. 01:04:52 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. This is cool. Well, it’s interesting because we have a, you know, a four wheel camper on our back of the pickup, which is a similar idea. You know, the four wheel camper pops up in ours and it’s obviously a lot smaller. But yeah, there’s a king size bed up top. So you can. That’s cool. You know what I mean? It’s a similar idea. The concept is awesome because. But then you pop it down so, you know, you don’t have this giant camper, you know, knocking around as you drive. 01:05:14 Pablo: Yeah, that makes sense. My cousin has one of those campers. Those things are sick. 01:05:18 Dave: Yeah, yeah, but this thing you’re looking at, so the mobile lodge is cool. So you basically drive this thing up to these amazing remote places and people have a comfortable place to hang out. 01:05:27 Pablo: Yeah. And the main thing about it that’s so special is that you’re not beholden to one place. So you basically, you know, we take this to the riverside, you know, we camp, we fish, and then we jump in a four by four and we, you know, we zip, you know, maybe three hours upriver in like a, you know, a pickup truck or whatever, which depends on how many people we have that goes along with this thing. So while you’re fishing all day, your camp is actually moving to your next location. And then we meet up further remote, you know, and so you can keep doing that. So you really get access to places that normally you just wouldn’t be able to get access to because you’d have to eventually come back, you know, so it’s pretty wild. And because it’s so large, you can go for a lot of days because it holds a lot of supplies like gas, water, um, amenities. 01:06:21 Dave: Etc., everything. So. 01:06:22 Pablo: Right. Um, so it allows you to really kind of be out in the wild for, for extended periods of time. So. So we’re doing, we do one here, which we call fly fish, the moon, which is the, the Inca one that I was telling you about. And then the other one we’re doing is in Cordoba, which is in the pampas. So it’s like, you know, Argentine beef country. It’s all, uh, meadow fishing basically with like kind of jutting rocks around. And it’s like nice brook trout fishing. Uh, nice rainbow trout fishing. The, you know, people go to Patagonia and they have a certain expectation. The trout actually in the Inca part in this, you know, large in the up in the fourteen zero zero zero feet area, they’re actually a lot of times the average size is larger than you would find in Patagonia, if you can even believe that. So there’s also that aspect to it. Uh, the one in Cordoba is more like mid-range sized trout. You’re not going to catch giants or anything, but the setting is like so bucolic and beautiful, and the experience is incredible. Two days horseback. It’s it’s wild. It’s it’s pretty cool. And then the last one we’re going to do, which we’ve been working on. And to be honest, I’m not sure if I’m going to do it. Is Chilean Patagonia with the mobile lodge. And the reason I’m hesitant is because there’s like helicopters involved and it’s very expensive and it’s sort of is pushing in that range where I’m like, this is so expensive for people to go on. It’s only going to be a certain type of clientele, and it kind of is bucking up against my ideology of like keeping it in this like cool range with people that, that align with who I am, you know what I mean? So that’s, that’s the mobile lodge. 01:08:03 Dave: That’s it. That’s the mobile lodge. Wow. 01:08:06 Pablo: Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s nuts. And to my knowledge, I don’t think there’s another one in the world or anything quite like this in the world, you know? 01:08:12 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. This is unique. This is unique. So you have the mobile lodge and you have and, well, it sounds like you’ll be updating the website too. So we’ll have links to that. But yeah. Well, we’re going to take it out of here pretty quick. But um, any other items. I know we’ve been covered quite a bit today that we want to make sure to cover before we get out of here on your program and anything you have going. 01:08:31 Pablo: Not really. I mean, if anyone has questions about any of this stuff, they can feel free to obviously DM me. Yeah, I’m also Pablo song. I’m Pablo song. Ten on Instagram. If they want to go. That’s like my personal account though. 01:08:45 Dave: But Pablo Song ten. 01:08:46 Pablo: Yeah. 01:08:47 Dave: Okay. 01:08:48 Pablo: But if they want the outfitter, they can just go to camp or they can email me directly, which is Pablo at C r I o l l o Camp outfitters dot com. Perfect. Um, and we’re always putting trips together to Mexico. We’re putting trips together, obviously to the mobile base camp. We also do trips to, uh, Strobel. 01:09:10 Dave: Oh, yeah. Like trouble. Right? 01:09:12 Pablo: Jurassic late Jurassic. 01:09:13 Dave: Lake. Right. 01:09:14 Pablo: We’re putting together a pretty sick program. Uh, which is what I was telling you about. Phil Rowley is doing also, um, in Iceland in a very sort of unique place, which has a gigantic lake filled with big brookies and then rivers that go to the ocean. So you get sea run browns, you get salmon, you get resident brown trout. Um, they have like five hundred and fifty hectares. That’s all private. And it’s kind of a non-traditional lodge setup also because it’s kind of like an Airbnb where like you don’t get the chef, you don’t get those things. You kind of have to drive the town, cook your own meals or go to like a local bar or whatever, which I think is a cooler way to do things sometimes, you know, like the Lodge. Nothing against the lodge experience. I’m all about it. Obviously. I operate exclusively the one in Mexico, but there is something cool about this like mashup of like, do it yourself and the setup that’s already been done for you, you know what I mean? 01:10:14 Dave: Yeah. 01:10:15 Pablo: Yeah. So this one kind of ticks those two boxes, which I think is pretty rad. 01:10:19 Dave: Yeah. That’s sweet. That’s sweet. Yeah, I think it is kind of cool. We’ve done that too, where you go out and eat, go into town, get, you know, hit some restaurants, all that, you know, it’s kind of cool. Well, let’s take it out here. We always love to get a couple of tips and we go taking it back to Euro Nymphing because you’re you’re probably more on the Euro nymphing because you’ve been around Lance and you yourself did it for a while. What would be your somebody sitting here? Maybe they’ve, they’ve thought about your nymphing for a while. Maybe they’ve tried it, but it’s been a struggle. What are what are a couple of things you would tell them to. You know what I mean? Have more success out there. 01:10:50 Pablo: Uh, okay, a couple I got two pretty. I think they’re good ones. Really well known. The other one I don’t think gets talked about that much. So I’ll start with the well known one. Um, but when I went out to fish with Lance, you know, we fished for like an hour and I, it was winter time and I wasn’t really doing very well. And I was like, what am I doing wrong? He’s like, nothing really. You look fine, you look great, whatever. And he’s like, it’s just tough fishing. And that’s when he told me to switch to a jig streamer, which now you hear a lot about jig. 01:11:20 Dave: Jig streamer. 01:11:21 Pablo: But I didn’t fully understand because I had I had some, but I didn’t, and I tried it and I’m like, this doesn’t work. But obviously I was just doing it wrong. So when I went there and I did it with him, he taught me actually how to fish a jig streamer. And it was like someone turned a light switch on, on the river. I mean, within the next hour, I caught like thirty fish from catching to like two or three. Yeah. It was. 01:11:46 Dave: Wow. 01:11:47 Pablo: It was bananas. And the biggest takeaway. So, you know, watch all the videos on jig streamer fishing, tie all the freaking flies. But the key to jig streamer fishing is when you jig the fly as it’s coming down, you’re not letting it drop. That’s the thing that I think a lot of people miss and no one says properly. They’re like, yeah, jig the streamer. You just, you know, you. 01:12:12 Dave: Up and down, up and down, up and. 01:12:13 Pablo: Down. You flick it. You don’t actually, you just pull up and then you set it down. You don’t let it fall free. Fall in the water. You’re actually connected to it the whole time. So I prefer the word setting it down or phrase setting it down because you’re connected to it the whole time. And most of the time they’re going to, they’re going to eat on the drop, on. 01:12:32 Dave: The drop, right? So that’s why you want to be connected to it even more so when they touch it, you know? 01:12:37 Pablo: Exactly. Yeah. And then sort of an amendment addendum to that jig streamer concept is, um, don’t get lazy because I think jig streamer also allows you to do that because you don’t have to have a drag free drift and all that sort of stuff. Make sure you watch the cider because you’re going to feel a lot more takes on a jig streamer, which means you start just not watching the cider and waiting for the takes to feel. But if you watch the cider, there’s a good chance you’ll like, you know, double your fish count. 01:13:05 Dave: Yeah. Okay. Cider. Cider is huge. Those are good. 01:13:08 Pablo: So I have one more. 01:13:10 Dave: Okay. 01:13:11 Pablo: And this is the one that I was saying a lot of people don’t talk about. But I would experiment, especially with this whole micro liter. 01:13:17 Dave: Yeah. The micros right. 01:13:19 Pablo: Moving. So you know, I’ve been fishing a micro liter now since my lesson with Andres. So I would experiment with a lot of different cider materials because they’re not all equal and everyone’s tastes are different too. Some people like them stiffer, some people like them more supple. There’s a product that you can only get in Europe called Paisan and Michelle. Uh, it’s a French company that a lot of the comp anglers use, and no one can really get it here. And I have a stockpile of it that I love, but it’s like super supple. I mean, it’s like, you know, a cherub’s pube. Uh, yeah. But it’s like, you know, it bends so easily. So I like that. But some people fish it and they, they hate it. They’re like, I can’t cast with this thing. Um, so I would try a bunch of different ones and see which one works best for you instead of just being like, oh, just cider material in a certain diameter because it’s not really that simple, you know? 01:14:14 Dave: Right. 01:14:15 Pablo: That’s my advice. 01:14:16 Dave: That’s awesome. Cool. Well, we got some bonus, uh, Euro nymphing tips from you, which is always great. Good. Well, I think we could leave it there. We’ll send, uh, exciting today because we’ve got the noob and the knower dot com. We can already go out there and take a look and listen right now. Check in with some of those episodes. And then everything we talked about earlier, your travel program, we’ll have links to that as well. But um, yeah, Pablo, this has been amazing, man. I always, always good. Definitely. Hopefully we’ll have some surprises in the future to maybe some other stuff we might be working on. Well, if that comes up, we’ll be talking about that as well. But I appreciate all your time today. 01:14:50 Pablo: I appreciate you, man. Thank you so much for having me on. And thanks to the listeners for listening to. 01:14:56 Dave: There you go. Hope you enjoyed that one. If you want to check in with Pablo and check in on anything that he has going. Definitely. First off the new banner. You got to subscribe and follow that podcast on Apple or Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. And also his travel program, definitely check out. We mentioned a couple of those sites today. Check in there. That would be awesome. Let them know you heard this podcast. Uh, big shout out if you missed it. This week we had the Salmon Fly project on the podcast. If you’re interested in entomology, take it to the next step, the salmon fly project, uh, circle back earlier this week and relisten to that if you missed it. And also want to give a big heads up. We are heading the Missouri River this year. The dry fly school is back. We’re going to be there prime time fishing. Tricos. Uh, we’re gonna be fishing terrestrials. It’s going to be on. If you want to get access to this trip, find out if we still have availability, which I know we should have at least a spot or two available. Send me an email, Dave at web dot com if you want to experience Montana this year. Uh, the big mo, one of the big rivers. We’re also hitting bug Fest, which is going to be the day before we head out on our trip. So if you’re interested in Bug Fest in Montana, shoot out to me too. As well. We got a bunch going. Uh, it’s all coming this year. Montana Wet Fly Swing podcast. I hope to see you there. Check in with me anytime, Dave at web dot com. That’s the best place. Shoot me an email. Even if you’re not making it to Montana, I’d love to hear from you if we haven’t talked in a little while. All right, deep breath. Where are we going from here? Uh, right now, we’re heading out of here. Uh, we’ve got, uh, we’re finishing up the boot camp. If you haven’t checked that out. Um, the fly fishing, boot camp, fly fishing bootcamp dot com. Uh, you can check out the replays there and listen to all the guests we had, uh, this month. And that’s all I have for you. I hope you have a great evening, great morning or afternoon and appreciate you for stopping all the way till the end. We’ll talk to you soon. 01:16:42 Speaker 4: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit wet fly dot com.

Pablo Signori holding a large fish while fly fishing near a coastal city skyline
From starting a fly fishing podcast from scratch to moments like this, the journey comes full circle.

 

Conclusion with Pablo Signori on Building a Fly Fishing Podcast from Scratch

Pablo’s story is a reminder that starting without all the answers can actually be an advantage. By learning out loud and building something from scratch, he created a podcast that connects with anglers at every stage—and opened the door to a whole new path in fly fishing.

If you were starting your own fly fishing journey today, would you try to master everything first—or just hit record and figure it out along the way?

     

Driftless Fly Fishing Guide: Small Stream Secrets for Big Trout with John Van Vliet

Episode Show Notes

There’s a stretch of the Midwest that a lot of anglers pass right by without ever realizing what’s tucked into it. Beneath the farmland and rolling roads of the region sits one of the most underrated trout fisheries in the country. In this episode, John Van Vliet breaks down why the Driftless has become such a special place for anglers who love small streams, spring creeks, and big wild trout.

We get into the unique geology of the Driftless, why the region fishes so differently from freestone rivers, and how a creek that looks too small to hold fish can surprise you with a twenty-inch brown. John also shares practical tactics for approaching new water, finding fish faster, and fishing these clear creeks without blowing your chances.

This one is packed with useful takeaways whether you’re planning your first trip to the Driftless or just want to become a better small stream angler.

Hit play to start listening! 👇🏻🎧

 

apple podcasts

Find the show:  Follow the Show | Overcast | Spotify

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe on Android

Subscribe via RSS

(The full episode transcript is at the bottom of this blogpost) 👇🏻

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

Angler holding a brown trout in a small Driftless spring creek
John Van Vliet with a beautiful Driftless brown trout, showcasing the big fish that can come from small spring creeks

Show Notes with John Van Vliet on Driftless Fly Fishing Guide

What the Driftless Really Is (02:12)

John describes the Driftless as a unique island in the middle of Midwestern farmland. Covering roughly 24,000 square miles across four states, it holds one of the highest concentrations of spring creeks in the world.

Because the glaciers went around this region instead of flattening it, the area was left with limestone bluffs, steep valleys, underground water movement, and cold clear trout streams. It feels nothing like the flat farmland many people imagine when they think about the Midwest.

Why the Driftless is Such a Great Fishing Destination (04:38)

One of the biggest advantages of fishing the Driftless is how quickly you can change course. If one creek is crowded, muddy, or just not producing, another stream may be only five or ten minutes away in the next valley.

That density of water makes it easy to explore. One stream may have no hatch at all, while another just over the ridge is alive with rising fish.

John’s New Driftless Book and the Stories Behind It (07:02)

John talks about his upcoming book, Best of Fly Fishing the Driftless, which pulls together the highlights from what he calls his Driftless trilogy. That trilogy includes his books on southwest Wisconsin, northeast Iowa, and southeast Minnesota.

This newer book is designed as more of an angler’s tour through the region’s best trout water. It also goes deeper into the geology, history, and culture of the area, which John sees as an important part of understanding the places we fish.

What Makes a Stream Worth Fishing in the Driftless (10:23)

John explains that the best streams are not just the ones with the highest fish counts. Some are included because they hold native brook trout or have a unique feel that makes them worth visiting, even if they are small and intimate.

Others are classic blue-ribbon destinations like Trout Run, Timber Coulee, the Rush, and the Kinnickinnic. He also talks about including a few hidden gems, not to hotspot them, but to help anglers appreciate the full range of what the Driftless offers.

angler fishing a small driftless stream with lush vegetation and clear water
Exploring a quiet Driftless stream—where smaller, lesser-known water can hold just as much value as the big-name rivers.

Small Stream Tips That Help You Catch More Fish (12:00)

This is where the episode really shifts into practical fishing advice. John shares some of his favorite tips for fishing small, clear spring creeks where stealth and observation matter as much as fly choice.

One of the biggest takeaways is to stay low and be deliberate. These trout live in technical water, and if you rush in carelessly, you can lose the whole pool before the first cast.

John’s small stream tips:

  • Stay stealthy and keep a low profile
  • Watch birds to locate active hatches
  • Stay off the beaten trails when possible
  • Fish long, fine leaders and light tippet
  • Don’t head for the truck just because it rains
  • Mix up the times of day you fish familiar water

Driftless Hatches Through the Season (20:15)

John notes that the Driftless fishes year-round because the spring-fed water stays cold and stable. Even in January, anglers can find midges and early black stoneflies, especially on warmer winter days.

By late March and into April and May, things really start building. Blue-winged olives, Hendricksons, caddis, and especially the black caddis hatch can create some fantastic windows of dry fly fishing.

Notable hatches mentioned:

  • Midges
  • Black stoneflies
  • Blue-winged olives
  • Hendricksons
  • Caddis
  • Black caddis

He also shares a great reminder that when a hatch shuts off, the fishing may not be over. Big fish can still be feeding subsurface, as shown by his story of a twenty-inch rainbow that ate a Deep Sparkle Pupa after the black caddis hatch ended.

Big Trout in Small Water (23:50)

One of the coolest parts of this conversation is John’s reminder that the Driftless is full of surprises. Small streams do not automatically mean small fish.

He shares the story of catching a twenty-inch brown in Iowa, then returning later the same day and watching Catherine land a twenty-four-inch hen. Those fish are in there, even in water that many anglers would dismiss at first glance.

angler holding large brown trout in small driftless stream net
Big Driftless brown trout pulled from small water—proof that these streams hold more than you’d expect.

Drift Boats, Streamers, Brook Trout, and Smallmouth (26:09)

John explains that the Driftless is not just about crawling around on tiny streams looking for brook trout. There are also places where you can float and target large browns with streamers from a drift boat or small craft.

He also points out that beyond trout, the region offers excellent smallmouth fishing. Guides like PJ Smith are proof that there is more than one way to enjoy the water in this part of the country.

TroutRoutes, QR Codes, and Finding More Water (27:23)

John’s connection to TroutRoutes started with a simple idea. He wanted readers of his books to be able to scan a QR code beside a printed map and jump directly into real-time mapping data for that stream.

That idea turned into a collaboration with Zach Pope and TroutRoutes, which helped connect John’s books to live stream information, public access, flow data, and land ownership details.

John also mentions that anglers can reach out to him through Trout Run Press or Instagram for a three-month free trial link to TroutRoutes Pro.

The Story Behind The Art of Fly Tying (31:56)

John shares the backstory behind The Art of Fly Tying, one of his best-known books. It was only his second book, and it was built around a different teaching style, helping beginners learn the parts of a fly before learning full patterns.

The book was also designed with a concealed wire binding so it would lay flat at the vise, which made it far more practical than many tying books at the time. Despite early doubts from others in the industry, it went on to sell 100,000 copies in about eleven months and was later translated into Japanese.

The Art of Fly Tying book by John Van Vliet cover with fly pattern
The Art of Fly Tying by John Van Vliet—one of the most influential beginner fly tying books, with over 100,000 copies sold.

How John Approaches New Water (38:28)

This section is one of the strongest tactical segments in the episode. John says anglers should get away from the bridge first, because the easy water right near the road is often “decoy water.”

From there, he likes to work upstream, watching the water, checking bird activity, and focusing first on obvious feeding lanes like riffle-to-pool transitions. He also likes to cover a lot of ground rather than overworking one spot.

Public Access and State-by-State Rules (42:05)

John gives a really useful breakdown of access laws across the Driftless states. Minnesota and Wisconsin are “keep your feet wet” states, which means that if you legally access the stream and stay in the water, you can continue through private property.

Iowa works differently. In Iowa, private landowners control the banks and stream bottoms, so permission may be needed on private stretches. John points out that there is still plenty of public access and no reason to trespass.

He also touches on the Illinois corner of the Driftless and notes that while access is more limited there, anglers can still fish stocked trout at Apple River Canyon State Park.

Flies to Pack for the Driftless (47:16)

When Dave shifts into the tips, tools, and tech section, John gives a nice mix of local confidence flies and broader trout staples. The Driftless definitely has its own regional favorites, but the classic patterns still work.

The Pink Squirrel gets special attention as one of the signature flies of the Driftless. John also mentions the Cooley Cranefly, the Hippie Stomper, Blue-winged Olive patterns, Parachute Adams, and other classic dries and nymphs.

pink squirrel fly pattern driftless trout fishing nymph
The Pink Squirrel—one of the most effective and iconic fly patterns in the Driftless Area.

Tenkara on Driftless Streams (50:01)

John says tenkara is becoming more popular in the Driftless, especially on the tighter, more intimate streams where close-range presentation really matters. He sees it as another useful tool rather than a replacement for conventional fly rods.

It changes the way anglers approach the stream and can sharpen skills that carry over into other styles of fishing. It also packs down easily, which makes it especially useful for hiking into headwaters.

TroutRoutes Features John Uses Most (52:11)

John explains that TroutRoutes helps him not only identify public and private water, but also navigate directly to access points. He likes using the app to preview bridges, parking areas, and stream access before ever leaving home.

He also highlights species information as one of the more exciting features being expanded. For anglers looking to target brook trout or another specific species, that can be a huge help.

John’s Background in Fly Fishing and What’s Next (55:47)

Near the end of the episode, John talks about getting into fly fishing through his dad. He started fishing in the Adirondacks around his grandparents’ camp and later got more deeply into fly tying while in college.

He also shares that he has more books in the works and plans to keep writing. Along with his books, he continues contributing to Fly Fisherman magazine and has also written for outlets like Atlantic Salmon Journal and The New York Times.


You can find John at troutrunpress or connect with him on instagram.

Trout Run Press logo fly fishing books and driftless resources
Trout Run Press—John Van Vliet’s home base for books, writing, and Driftless fly fishing resources.

 

Top 10 Driftless Fly Fishing Tips for small Streams:  

  1.  Stay low and stealthy – These clear spring creeks demand a low profile—approach slowly and avoid being seen.
  2. Watch the birds – Bird activity often signals a hatch. If they’re feeding, something is happening on the water.
  3. Fish long, light leaders – Use 6x or finer tippet to improve presentations and get more takes in clear water.
  4. Skip the obvious access points – Walk past the bridge and “decoy water” to find less pressured fish.
  5. Target riffle-to-pool transitions first – These areas provide food, oxygen, and cover—prime holding water.
  6. Cover water instead of overworking one spot – Make a few good casts, then move. Come back later if needed.
  7. Fish in the rain – Rainy conditions often trigger stronger hatches and better fishing.
  8. Mix up your timing – Fish early morning, midday, and evening to discover different patterns and activity.
  9. Don’t overlook small water – Tiny streams can hold surprisingly large trout—some over 20 inches.
  10. Carry a mix of local and classic flies – Include Driftless staples like the Pink Squirrel along with proven patterns like Adams and BWOs.

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

[keyword] Videos Noted in the Show

 

Related Podcast Episodes

Full Podcast Transcript

Episode Transcript
00:00:00 Dave: There’s a stretch of the country in the Midwest that most people drive right past. Flat farmland, long highways, nothing to see. But tucked inside that landscape is something completely different a maze of cold, clear limestone valleys and more trout streams than most people will ever fish in a lifetime. Today’s guest has done more than just fish it. He studied it, written about it, mapped it out, and helped tell the story of a place that’s quietly becoming one of the most interesting trout fisheries in the country. This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast, where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip, and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. John Van Vliet is here today, and we’re going to be breaking down how to approach small streams and spring creeks that sometimes might even look too small to hold fish. We’re going to talk about the species that they’re fish in there, and how you can find twenty plus inch browns and rainbows in some of these streams. We’re going to find out about the simple shift that will help you find fish faster in these small creeks. We’re going to get a handful of go to flies and tactics that work anywhere around the country, and how tools like trout routes are opening up water most people never find. We’re going to get into that today. Plus, you also find out which of his books hit one hundred thousand in sales and how this has been a go to for fly tyers for many years. This is a great one. Glad I could share it with you. You can find John at Trout run press dot com. Here he is. John Van Vliet. How are you doing, John? 00:01:30 John: I’m doing great. How are you doing today, Dave? 00:01:32 Dave: Not too bad. Not too bad. Yeah. We’re gonna we’re gonna talk about you’ve got a wide ranging background. I’m excited about this because we’re probably going to go back a little ways and hear about what you’ve written. You’ve got a ton of books out there. Uh, you know, the Driftless is a special place for us. We’ve, I’ve been there once and fished it. It’s amazing. And we’re going to connect with trout routes, you know, fly tying. You got a fly tying book out. We just had a had a boot camp we did, which we had some great fly tying sessions and all that stuff, but very cool. 00:02:00 John: Dave, once in the Driftless is not enough, so you have to come back. 00:02:05 Dave: Once isn’t enough. Yeah, yeah. How many times do you have to fish the driftless before you feel like you’ve got it? You got to feel for it. 00:02:12 John: Always one more. 00:02:14 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. There’s never enough. Yeah, it’s pretty huge, right? Maybe you can explain that about the driftless. Is it? How would you? For somebody who’s never been there, how do you explain the driftless? 00:02:24 John: Yeah, well, the driftless is really a unique place when you think about basically an island in the middle of Midwestern farmland, twenty four thousand square miles, covering portions of four states. And it is one of the highest concentrations of spring creeks in the world. And there are people who look at this as flyover country, and they have no idea the trout fishing resources. And some of these are small creeks, beautiful clear creeks that may flow out of caves. And some of them are big brawling rivers that you can put a boat on. And you know, and fish all day from a boat. So it’s, uh, it really is a treasure. And it is only just now, I think, being discovered by people outside of the driftless. 00:03:12 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. It feels like I can’t remember where we first came to it, but I remember a number of years ago, I kept hearing about the Driftless through the podcast and in other areas, and it was like, all right, we got to, we got to get out there and check this place out. And it’s kind of unique. We’ve talked about it on other podcasts. It’s got this unique geology, right where the, the glaciers and it scoured everything. Or is that maybe you probably talk about that in some of your books? 00:03:35 John: Yeah, exactly. It’s actually the opposite. You know, the glaciers, the last three glacial advances went around this area and, um, and so left this island. And so instead of the flat landscape, the farmland of Iowa and Nebraska and that sort of thing, This is an area of high limestone bluffs, six hundred foot limestone cliffs and outcroppings, and all these little valleys and some big valleys that have trout streams flowing through them. There’s a lot of water moving underground. It resembles areas of, say, the Ozarks and that sort of thing. There’s plants and animals found here that are found nowhere else in the world. There’s geologic features like ice caves that are found almost nowhere else. So it’s really remarkable. 00:04:32 Dave: And is it mostly is it a mix of spring creeks? And just describe the streams out there. What is the fishing that typically like? 00:04:38 John: Yeah. The streams, it’s all it’s all spring creeks. Um, these are all limestone spring creeks. You know, it’s not the, the freestone rivers that we’re more familiar with either in the Appalachians or the, or the front range of the Rockies. These are classic spring creeks, limestone and, um, you know, they’re the perfect environment for trout. So it’s, uh, you know, it’s just a great destination. The beauty of the driftless as well, in addition to the natural beauty and the, you know, just the scenery to a trout fisherman, if you’re fishing on one little creek and maybe it’s crowded or it’s, uh, it’s a little bit high and muddy and off color because of a rain, a recent rain, or there’s just nothing happening. There’s no hatches, there’s nothing going on. You can drive over the ridge five, six, ten minutes away and be in another valley, in another creek. That may be completely different because the headwaters might not have been part of that rainstorm, or it may have a a hatch coming off. A cat has hatch or a Hendrickson hatch or, you know, bluing olives are coming off That weren’t happening in the next valley over. So, you know, if you’re fishing the Front Range in Colorado and you want to go fish the powder, you know, you drive for a couple of hours up the canyon. Um, and you get to your favorite spot and maybe it’s crowded, maybe it’s off color, maybe there’s nothing happening. Well, now what you, you know, you’ve got an hour or two to drive to another spot. Maybe you’re going up to North Park, maybe you’re going to the North Platte. But it’s a long drive. Whereas in the Driftless, it’s such a concentration of spring creeks that you can literally just drive over the ridge and be on another trout stream. 00:06:31 Dave: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. And that’s what we did when we were there. We cruised around. We, we hopped in one place and then came over the top. And then you’d pass a wagon on the, on the road, you know, driving by all the. 00:06:42 John: Exactly. It really is. It’s like stepping back in time to, you know, with the with the Amish population there, you know, there’s, there’s horse drawn carriages. They’re plowing their fields with, you know, with horse drawn plows. And it just gives you this feeling of stepping back in time. And it’s a lovely, lovely place. 00:07:02 Dave: Yeah, it’s really cool. I love it. So. So one of the books I think you have coming out, one of your new books that hasn’t been released yet, the Best of Fly Fishing, the Driftless, maybe talk about that first for people that, you know, it sounds like that might be a great book to well, first describe the book. And when is that going to be published? 00:07:18 John: Yeah, that should be out this fall. And, uh, it is really a sort of a distillation and a compilation of the, the books that I have done on the driftless. I have what I call the Driftless trilogy, which is, which is, uh, trout fishing in southwest Wisconsin, trout fishing in northeast Iowa and trout fishing in southeast Minnesota, which was my very first book that came out thirty four years ago. And it’s now in its fourth edition. And so the new book will be not as comprehensive as those three books go. You know, in the individual states, but really sort of an angler’s tour of the best of the trout streams in the driftless, the best Iowa streams, the best Wisconsin streams, and the best Minnesota streams. It goes a little more in depth into the geology and history only because I. I geek out on that completely. Anyone who’s read any of my writings, whether you read my pieces in in Fly Fisherman magazine or any of my books, you know that I’m, I’m kind of a history nerd, a cultural nerd. And I love digging into, into those things because as your listeners know, fly fishing is not all about fishing. It’s, you know, it’s about experiencing a place, whether, whether you’re going to Patagonia or you’re going to the Canadian Rockies or you’re going to southern England, you know, all of these places are so rich in history and culture and and scenery that I present that in my books as well. 00:08:54 Dave: That’s amazing. Just for our first random tangent on the Amish, do you get into some of that history and why that area is such a hot spot for all the Amish and kind of everything that’s going there? 00:09:05 John: I do I touch on that a little bit. I touch on, um, the Native American history. 00:09:10 Dave: Oh, right. 00:09:11 John: It’s, uh, which is pretty significant. And, and there’s some real heartbreaking history in the driftless with the Black Hawk War in the eighteen thirties. And, um, some of the reasons, you know, why even the, you know, the streams are there and the, the effigy mounds and the all of that. I think that’s really interesting. And I think it’s important to someone who is fishing in these places. I just did a piece on the Black Hills in Fly Fisherman magazine that that went into that as well. When you fish in these in these places. I think it’s important to understand, you know, what was there before and why these places were sacred to the Native Americans and why they’re important to the Amish and why they’re important to us. You know, there’s a lot of a lot of recent cultural history that, you know, the Norwegian populations that settled here, the Finns that came over to do the mining and that sort of thing. There’s a lot of history in the driftless, and I think it’s important for us to understand it. And I really enjoy digging into that and presenting that. 00:10:23 Dave: Nice. Well, there’s a ton of good resources. Obviously, your books will have links in the show notes to everything there. For the new book that’s coming out, you mentioned the best streams. What are you know, which streams make the list? What does it take to be the best stream out in the Driftless? 00:10:36 John: You know, that’s a great question. I think, you know, I think people assume that the criteria are is a great fishing. Well, of course, it’s important that it’s great fishing. But there are some streams in the new book that are very small and intimate, but they may have a native population of brook trout that may or may not have been there since the glaciers receded. And to me, that’s important, and it’s a place worth visiting. Other rivers are clearly, you know, blue ribbon streams where the the trout per mile count can be above two thousand five hundred. And they are, you know, well known as some really great destinations. Trout Run in Minnesota is a popular one. It’s a blue ribbon stream. And, you know, Timber Coulee over in Wisconsin, you know, there are quite a few. The rush, the Kinney, these have to be in this book, you know, for a lot of good reasons. But I also put some hidden gems, um, not to hotspot, not to not to ruin them, but to, to share them. You know, this information is out there, but to share these beautiful resources and encourage people to visit and, and try some of these streams, whether they’re, they’re big streams or small streams. 00:11:54 Dave: Yeah. Do you get into the, um, kind of the fishing, the, you know, the tips and tricks in the book? 00:12:00 John: Absolutely. I get into, I offer, um, as I have in some of my books for over thirty years, I have ten tips for small stream fishing because I think when someone comes to the driftless, it’s important for them to understand how to approach these streams where the fish are. You know, how how to keep a low profile, all the stuff that, you know, trout anglers are familiar with, but you know, these small, clear spring creeks, they offer a challenge and understanding that challenge and having some tips on how to approach those streams, I think really helps. And I’ve always said, and I think anyone who grows up fishing, learning to fish in the driftless and then going elsewhere. I think if you hone your skills, your fly fishing skills, your trout fishing skills on these challenging but rewarding spring creeks, you can catch fish anywhere. You know, the New Zealand’s not going to be a challenge to you Argentina. You know the Canadian Rockies. These are skills that you would carry even to saltwater fishing. 00:13:13 Dave: Yeah you would. I think that’s a great title. I think maybe that could be the title of this, you know, this podcast maybe, right. Ten tips on small stream fishing. Can you describe those tips? Can you break some of those out? 00:13:24 John: Yeah. You know, I joke, but it’s true that, uh, you know, someone who’s fishing the Driftless should be prepared to wear out the knees of their waders first. You know, I have a buddy who approaches the stream on all fours with the rod in his mouth like a dog carrying a bow. Wow. You know he wants to. He wants to get to those those super clear streams and the and the big fish that are in there in a stealthy way. It’s not necessary, but it’s something to keep in mind. It’s a reminder that you need to be stealthy. And there’s, there are tips. One of the tips that I have learned over the years is to observe the birds in the Driftless. When you have a hatch coming off frequently, the birds will be eating those bugs. And I’ve had days where I’ll be fishing one stretch of, say, Bear Creek in Iowa, another blue, a blue ribbon stream, and there’s nothing really happening where I am. And I’ll look downstream and the birds are going crazy. Well, those birds are betraying the hatch that’s coming off downstream. And if I move, you know, two hundred yards downstream, I’ll discover that there’s that there’s something happening there. So watch the birds. Do a little bird watching as I say. 00:14:46 Dave: Nice. 00:14:47 John: They will often betray the hatch. 00:14:50 Dave: Nice. Good. So bird watching, that’s always good to add to the list. What would be a few more of these small stream tips? 00:14:58 John: I think an awful lot of people are committed to following one trail. You know, they’ll park at a bridge and off they go and they follow that trail. And I always say, stay off the trails, you know, try and get to the other side, try and find a different way to approach that stream. Because I think that the trout get used to or wary of people following that trail. And so if you can find a different approach, get across the stream, come from a different angle, and you’ll be surprised how that will change. I always say, you know, fish with the longest, finest leader tippet that you can fish in the driftless. I get some blowback from people who say, well, that’s not sporting. You want to land a fish quickly and all that sort of thing. But there’s no question that fishing a six x tippet will result in more caught fish than a five x tippet. It’s just a fact. 00:16:02 Dave: Is that your go to? Is there times where you even go maybe lighter than that? 00:16:05 John: I have gone lighter than that. But I also know that you’ll lose fish or you’ll have to fight them longer. And sometimes that can be, you know, more of a challenge, especially if you’re targeting bigger fish. So, um, but definitely, and if I’m fishing a nymph, I’m always fishing fluorocarbon in the, uh, in the driftless. And that definitely results in more fish caught than fishing nylon. 00:16:33 Dave: Yeah. Is it a mix of techniques? There are people nymphing or dry fly kind of doing it all or what does that look like? 00:16:40 John: Oh, definitely. People are doing it all. You know, I am. I’m kind of a nymph guy, but I love fishing dry flies. And when there’s a big caddis hatch coming off, you know, I just love catching trout on a dry fly. But there’s more and more people that are starting to fish tenkara. Euro nymphing is super popular in the driftless. And then, you know, I have I have friends like, uh, Lance who owns the root River Rod Company out of Lanesboro, Minnesota. And he is a streamer guy. He catches big fish, he fishes the main stems of the, the root river a lot. And he’s a great guide if you’re looking for a guide in the Minnesota Driftless. But he um, man, he he is he’s just wicked with the streamers. So there’s, there’s all kinds of techniques for sure. 00:17:33 Dave: Yeah. There’s all kinds. So, so we talked about a few and I want to maybe get a couple more tips just so we can have our. I always love a little list. So we’ve got the bird watching. Stay off the trails long, fine leaders. What would be a couple more that you might throw onto that list? 00:17:47 John: One of the overlooked tips that I that I really adhere to is, you know, don’t come in out of the rain. There are so many fair weather anglers. They’re like, oh, it’s going to rain. You know, I’ll stay in the truck until until the rain clears. And, you know, seasoned anglers know that there will be more hatches and more prolific hatches on rainy days than on sunny days. And so get yourself a good raincoat and go out and fish these driftless streams in the rain, because you’ll be amazed at the hatches that come off on rainy days, especially those days where you’ll get intermittent showers, you know, and you may get a hatch, you’ll get, you’ll get a couple of seconds of of sunlight and then it’ll, it’ll go away and rain will come in and the hatches will come off. So it’s, uh, it’s definitely good advice to stay out there and fish in the rain. It’s, uh, it’s great fishing. Another tip is to mix it up. You know, I know so many of your listeners and my friends, you know, they work, they work jobs. And so it might be that they, they get off work at five o’clock and it’s a beautiful day and they drive down to their favorite stretch of stream and they fish and that’s their, that’s their window, right? But I always say mix it up and try a different time of the day. You know, get up early in the morning and fish just as the sun is coming up. It’ll be a completely different experience. You’ll get into different hatches. You’ll get into, you know, just a different fishing experience. I’ve had days when I’ll get up, you know, way before the sun and drive to, say, the rush over in Wisconsin and I’ll get there just as the sun is pouring down the river and the deer come down and, and drink from the stream and splash around. And even if the fishing isn’t different, the experience is different. And I see things that I never would have seen if I had just stuck to fishing it, you know, four o’clock in the afternoon. So, you know, I think it’s always wise if you’ve got a favorite stretch of stream, fish it at all different times of the day to experience what that stream can offer. 00:20:15 Dave: Nice. Well, what is the on the hatches? You mentioned a few. What does that look like throughout the year? Are there a number of different, you know, bug hatches coming off? 00:20:23 John: There are the Driftless has a lot of great hatches all through the year, and it starts really in January. When the season opens, you’ll get some midges, You’ll get the early black stoneflies there. A very small stonefly that’ll come off. Some people call those snow flies because you’ll see them on the snow. And so the hatch is really start. You know, if we get a January thaw where the air temperature is right around the freezing point, maybe even a little cooler than that, you’ll start to get hatches already in January. And of course, the aquatic insects are there all year round. So you can, you know, you can drift a bead head nymph along the bottom. And those fish, those fish are eating all year long. These these streams don’t freeze. They come out of the ground at at, you know, fifty. 00:21:12 Dave: They’re perfect. 00:21:13 John: Fifty such whatever degrees cooler than that. Those fish are always there. The water doesn’t freeze. And then, you know, beginning really in the middle to late March and accelerating into April and early May, you start to get multiple hatches on certain days. you know, the henricksons will start to come off. Bluing olives are coming off. You’ll get, uh, caddis hatches. Sometimes you’ll get two different caddis hatches on the same day. A lot of anglers from Chicago and the Twin Cities. And, you know, Madison, Wisconsin will head for the Driftless the last two weeks in April, hoping to catch that black caddis hatch, which is a really big one. It moves across the country, you know, almost, almost like an eclipse. You know, it moves. 00:22:03 Dave: Roy the black caddis. 00:22:05 John: Black caddis hatch. And, um, if you meet that hatch, it’s amazing. And I’ve been fortunate. Catherine and I have caught that hatch quite a few times, and it’s, you know, it’s just glorious. But even then, you know, I was I was fishing with some friends on a stream in Wisconsin, south of the Wisconsin River, and we timed it perfectly. The black cat just came off and for about two hours we had spectacular fishing. Spectacular fishing. But it was all in the ten to twelve inch, eight to twelve inch range. Uh, fish, mostly browns. And then like clockwork, you know, that hatch shuts off one o’clock. So in the afternoon, maybe a little early, it’s done. And I went around to the head of that pool and I put on a Gary Lafontaine Deep sparkle pupa and made one drift the other way through that pool and got a twenty inch rainbow. So those fish are there. The big fish are there. So even when you’re in a big hatch like that, don’t stop fishing just because the hatch turns off. You know, those fish are still there. And that big rainbow he was looking for the, uh. The pupils. 00:23:20 Dave: Yeah. The pupils. Right? Yeah. That’s so cool. I think that’s the awesome thing. We’ve been doing some podcasts with the Salmon Fly project. They’re kind of out in the Montana area doing a lot of bug entomology. And it’s been really cool because you hear about the life history. When you start to dig into this, you realize all these aquatic insects have this amazing life history. And if you understand it, then like you’re talking about, you’ll know like, well, maybe just seeing the bugs isn’t the best time to hit it. Maybe you want to be hitting a little bit earlier or later after that, right? All that stuff. 00:23:48 John: Exactly, exactly. 00:23:50 Dave: So I mean, twenty inch trout is huge. So, I mean, I think sometimes people think of spring creeks adrift as these tiny things. Like you’re saying, you’re walking in on all fours and stuff, but so where would you find some of these larger fish that you’re talking about, these twenty inchers or these? Are they also in the small, little tiny creeks? 00:24:04 John: I have to say, they’re everywhere. You just have to know how to target them. I, uh. Uh, Catherine and I were fishing in Iowa a number of years ago, and I think the picture of her fish was in Fly Fisherman magazine on my piece on Iowa. But so here we’re fishing in Iowa, and I got a twenty inch brown. It was fall. I got a twenty inch brown, beautiful male Kaip Jau all colored up and it was just a gorgeous fish. And of course it was high fives and it gives me a big kiss. And it was a great day. And I said, I said, man, we got to get a picture of this. And she said, neither of us had our cameras with us. And I said, oh, well, you know, we’ll remember this. So we went back and I tied up over lunch. I tied up a dozen more flies for us, and after lunch, she made a beeline back to that spot. And I was helping a friend of ours who’s an older, older gentleman. He’s passed now, and I was helping him get into a into the water. And and I hear her whistling and I said, Adam, I think, I think she’s got one. And I went around the bend and here she’s cradling a twenty four inch hen. 00:25:15 Dave: No way. 00:25:16 John: And I mean, and I said, gosh, it’s a shame we don’t have a camera. And she pulled a camera out of her vest. 00:25:22 Dave: Really? 00:25:22 John: So we documented that fish. So they’re in there. 00:25:26 Dave: Uh oh, wow. And where is that fish? Is that the fish in the magazine? 00:25:29 John: That’s the fish in the magazine. 00:25:31 Dave: It reminds again, just in case folks out there have which magazine. 00:25:34 John: That was in, um, Fly Fisherman magazine. It was an issue on, uh, fishing Iowa. It was a couple of years ago, I would say. So. Yeah. 00:25:44 Dave: Okay. We’ll try to, we’ll see if we can track it down. If not, we’ll follow up with, uh, fly fisherman and we’ll see if they got something there. But no, this is, this is cool. I think this is the, the great thing about this is we’re not talking. I mean, brook trout that are small and native are amazing, right? There’s definitely that’s super cool. But also, I mean, catching a twenty four inch brown is amazing too, right? So the driftless kind of it sounds like it’s got a little bit of everything out there. 00:26:09 John: It does have a little bit of everything. I have a, I have an old friend that he travels a lot as we do, and he always comes back to the driftless. He says, it’s all here. It’s all here. And it really is, you know, if you want if you want small, challenging technical creeks. They’re here. And if you want to target beautiful little native brook trout, it’s here. But if you want to float in a Mack boat, a drift boat, and you want to be targeting, you know, big browns with streamers, it’s here it is. 00:26:43 Dave: You can actually float. There’s places you can drift to. 00:26:46 John: Absolutely. And of course in the driftless we always talk about the trout. But there’s great smallmouth fishing here. You know our friend PJ Smith, who’s a guide. 00:26:56 Dave: Oh yeah. PJ we know PJ. 00:26:58 John: PJ he’s phenomenal. Um, in fact, I’m going to see him. I saw him last weekend. I’ll see him again this weekend. Uh, he’s doing a presentation and and, uh, you know, he floats the Wisconsin River for smallmouth. And, uh, you know, I Catherine and I love fishing for smallmouth. So, um, you know, you don’t just have, you can do, you can do a lot. There’s, there are a lot of fishing opportunities in the driftless for sure. 00:27:23 Dave: Amazing. What is your connection to trout routes. How did you first run? I mean, trout routes is obviously all over the place, but how did you first connect with with them out there? I mean, they’re kind of in your area, right? 00:27:33 John: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It was started here in the Twin Cities by my very good friend Zach Pope. 00:27:39 Dave: Oh, Zach is okay. Yeah. And Zach’s been on the podcast, too. This is cool. 00:27:42 John: Yeah, he’s a great he’s a great guy. We have, uh, uh, he and I fished the, uh, we floated the middle fork of the salmon River in Idaho last year, uh, for a piece I did for Fly Fisherman magazine. 00:27:55 Dave: Oh. You did? Oh, wow. Through the one hundred mile section. 00:27:58 John: Yes, exactly. 00:27:59 Dave: The remote. Wow. How was that trip? 00:28:01 John: It’s spectacular. Absolutely. Uh, you know. 00:28:03 Dave: Hot springs on the cliffs and stuff like that. 00:28:05 John: Exactly. Zach is. Zach is still. He’s still talking about it. That was a great trip. But my my history with trout routes is pretty funny. You know, I’ve been doing these regional guides now for thirty four years. And the trick is keeping the maps current, right? 00:28:23 Dave: Oh, right. Yeah. Because you have a book. You have a book that goes out and then, you know, ten years later, it might not be the most accurate. Exactly. 00:28:30 John: Exactly. So over the years, I’ve tried various ways to keep these maps current because I think it’s important for someone to, you know, these books are standalone, but it’s also important for people to get, you know, real time information. And so much of that comes from the DNR websites and that sort of thing. But I got this crazy, harebrained idea that if I put a QR code next to the map in my book, that it could link directly to trout routes. And so, so the person who bought the book would not only have a standalone book with a map and all that, but that they could scan that QR code and it would take them to trout routes and they would get streamflows and access. And you know, what’s private, what’s public, all of that. So I knew of Zach. I knew he was a one man operation who’d started this little this little app. And I cold called him and I said, Zach, here’s who I am. And I got this crazy idea to put QR codes in my books. And he was quiet for a minute and he said, I love that idea. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but let’s move forward as if we can do this. So we spent about four months writing the code, figuring out how to make a direct link from a QR code in a book to an exact location and stream on trout routes. And it’s been a it’s been a big success. And of course, Zach has. Zach has gone on. He’s. So he’s sold trout routes to Onyx. 00:30:08 Dave: Yeah he did. That’s right. Zach has moved on right. 00:30:10 John: Yeah. But I see Zach regularly. We get together for coffee and, you know, he’s, uh, he’s just a great guy and but you know, I still work really closely with all the folks at Trout Roots and Onex. Uh, they just keep making that app, uh, more and more powerful. I’m an absolute evangelist for trout routes. And I’ll tell you, it’s it’s changed so much. I mean, you know, four years ago, five years, whatever it is now, I can’t remember quite how long ago it was that, that I, that we first did this. 00:30:45 Dave: Yeah. And which book is this? Which book did this first come out in the QR codes? 00:30:49 John: It first came out in the Iowa book, I believe. 00:30:51 Dave: Right. So somebody could go into the Iowa book right now. They can get the book, and if they have it out there on the stream, they can click that QR code. And if wherever that is, whatever stream, it’ll actually pull up the map for that exact stream right there. Exactly. And details and information about it. And then they can read more about it in your book, which is cool. 00:31:08 John: Exactly. 00:31:08 Dave: So. 00:31:09 John: So it’s, it’s just a win win. 00:31:11 Dave: That makes total. 00:31:12 John: Sense. And I can, um, if they contact me, they can get three months free of the, at the pro level of trout routes and give it a try. And if they like it, they can continue. But there’s no obligation. They don’t have to put a credit card in. Um, but they can reach out to me at John at Trout Run Press.com or at trout trout run Press.com. They can contact me. Um, or even on Instagram and I can get them, I can get them the link to three months free. 00:31:41 Dave: Okay, good. So your books, maybe let’s talk a little more because you have another book that is out there. And I didn’t even realize this was your book, but it’s the art of fly tying. And it’s been out, I think nineteen ninety five, it was published. Talk about that. Was, was that one of your early books that you published? 00:31:56 John: That was only the. It’s a great story about that book too. It was, uh, that was only the second book I ever did. I had been in the publishing business for a number of years. I had sold my publishing company and, and I, I wanted to do a book called the Art of Fly tying. I had an idea of laying out a book in a different way than any other book had been done to lay it out in such a way that you learn the elements of the fly before you learn how to tie a whole fly. So you learn all the different bodies and wings and tails and that sort of thing. So I pitched it to a publishing company and they turned me down. And then they came back to me about a year later and they said, do you still think you can do that book? And I said, yes, I believe I can do that book. So they said, all right, let’s do it. And they said, uh, how many, how many copies do you think you can sell? And I said, well, you know, I mean, Swisher and Richard sold fifty thousand copies of their book in paperback, so I think we can do okay with it. And we flew out actually to, to, uh, Manchester, Vermont, to meet with a certain outdoor retailer that you might identify as a Vermont company. 00:33:09 Dave: Right. 00:33:09 John: Met with a certain, um, certain fellow that’s rather prominent, uh. 00:33:13 Dave: In the book writing starts with T, his name starts with T. 00:33:17 John: SAT down with him and showed him the book and he said, you know, if you sell five thousand of those books, you’ll be lucky. 00:33:27 Dave: No kidding. 00:33:28 John: Yeah, and I went, I went home, I flew home with my tail between my legs. 00:33:33 Dave: Which actually doesn’t sound too bad. I mean, Swisher and Richards, fifty thousand, EUR ten percent. That’s not too bad. 00:33:38 John: Right? So we got back, and, um, I got another crazy idea to do it with a concealed wire binding so the book would lay flat. Oh, and the publisher said, Holy cow, that’s a, that’ll cost us a dollar seventy extra to produce that book per book. Yeah. I said it’s worth it. It’ll lie flat on a fly tying. 00:34:00 Dave: Yeah. Because the books, any book. That’s the most annoying thing about books sometimes, right. Where you’re trying to set it there and it’s just it’s folding back on you and you got to wedge it open with it. 00:34:09 John: You got to put a brick on it to get it to lay flat. Right? 00:34:12 Dave: Yeah. 00:34:12 John: So I met with the sales team of this publishing company and we were deep into the production of the of the book, and I had five photographers working. It’s got two hundred and fifty photographs in it. And we were deep in production. And I met with the sales team and gave them a walkthrough on what this book would be like. Well, they went out and God bless them, they sold it. So by the time we went to press, they had pre-sold thirty five thousand copies. 00:34:43 Dave: No kidding. 00:34:44 John: We printed forty thousand copies in the first printing. We went into three printings in eleven months. We sold one hundred thousand copies in eleven months, and it went on to be translated into Japanese. I have found the book in little shops in Labrador in Argentina. It really had legs. So, uh, currently it is out of stock. Uh, the company that that owns the rights now it’s about, I think it’s probably the fifth company. You know how publishing companies acquire. Each other? I think it’s owned by a British company or a German company now. And I’ve, I’ve been trying to get the rights and trying to get it back into print because it really. 00:35:27 Dave: You can still buy it. You can still buy it right now it looks like on on Amazon for you got the u o I guess its use. Yeah, these are hard. These are used copies. 00:35:36 John: Yep. They’re still out there. I find them in antiquarian book stores, which I, I wear as a badge of honor that I’m, I guess I’m now an antiquarian, but, uh, it was a very satisfying project. I’m very grateful for, for that book. And, um, and all the wonderful things that it led to. 00:35:55 Dave: Are those flies. It seems like the challenge on those is like, you know, over two hundred fly patterns, you know, which, which ones do you put on? There are those were those focused on, you know, the driftless area or were they kind of for every, everywhere. 00:36:08 John: They were for everything. And I, I thought that it was important to put flies in that book. not necessarily just to be good fishing flies, but to be good flies for a beginning. Fly tyer to tie and learn to tie. There are some classic patterns in there. There’s streamers, there’s dry flies. Wet flies, nymphs, uh, attractor patterns. Because when you start tying flies, you want a repertoire of patterns. Now that you know how to do it, you want a repertoire of patterns that that you can tie using the skills you’ve learned, but that also will catch fish. 00:36:48 Dave: Yeah, exactly. Nice. So we’ve got another great book out there. And how many books have you published over the years? Remind us again on that. How many do you have out there? 00:36:55 John: I think somewhere around seventeen or eighteen books in my, uh, years of, of doing books, but I’m, I’m not one hundred percent sure. I have a, I have bookshelves filled with copies of my books and I’ll have to stop and stop and count them sometime. 00:37:14 Dave: Yeah, you got a lot. That’s pretty good when you get to that point. We on the podcast episode. You know, I think when I was at two hundred interviews, I could remember exactly every single name and episode, but now we’re almost at one thousand and I’m like, that’s crazy. So we’re almost going to break. And I’m pretty sure we’re leading the fly fishing space in interviews, in the podcasting space. And but yeah, it’s hard to remember everything. You know, after two hundred, I kind of just, I remember everybody, but I don’t remember all the facts and the names and the numbers, but it’s all good, right? It doesn’t really matter. 00:37:46 John: No, it doesn’t really matter. It’s like the old joke about the sailor who comes back to port and he says, yes, I’m back from sailing the eight oceans. And somebody says, says, no, no, there are only seven oceans. He said, I thought that last ocean looked familiar. 00:38:02 Dave: Oh man, that’s classic. Yeah. That’s great. Well, so this is awesome. So we got a little background in the books. Let’s hear about more back to the Spring Creek. You know, the small stream fishing when you’re out there. I think that’s one challenge. You come and I remember when I was there, I saw these streams and they were small and I was like, okay, where do I start fishing this thing? What’s your can you give us a few tips on how you approach new water, how you find fish? Are you starting at the bottom working up? Are you going down? What are you doing there? 00:38:28 John: Well, I tend to. My first advice is to get away from the bridges, right. I call the the water near the bridges. Even if there are trout rising there. I call that decoy water. 00:38:38 Dave: Okay. No. 00:38:38 John: No, it’s it’s so alluring that you it’s easy. You want it, right? You want to park at the bridge and you’re like, oh, I only have to walk fifty yards and I’m, I’m on great water. So I always say walk beyond the decoy water. So I tend to work my way upstream. I tend to to look at the water, observe the water, look at, like I said earlier, look at the birds, see what the bird activity is, see if you’re seeing rise forms. But I walk quietly upstream, um, because the fish are going to be facing away from me and I will try and target, I’ll start to target kind of the obvious spots. So if there’s a, a place where a riffle comes into a pool, I’ll start by throwing a fly right in there for a couple of reasons. One is chances are, you know, the trout are there because it provides oxygen and food source and cover. And the cover that the protective cover that that, that that broken water provides to the fish also is cover for me, right? So, uh, you know, the fish in the pool may have seen me as I approach, especially if I’m not crawling on all fours like my buddy, but those fish that are holding in that broken water, they might not see me and they feel safe there. So that’s where I’ll start. And if I have luck there, I might work my way into that pool or up into the next pool, because through that I’ll identify what they’re feeding on. If they’re rising in that run, then chances are that there’s something coming off. Something’s on the surface. If they’re not. You know, I’ll throw in a tractor pattern either on the surface or I’ll throw a weighted nymph, get it down quickly and see what I can find in there. But I, and I also I also like to cover water. I’m a, I’m a guy that I will walk miles because for a lot of reasons, one is, in my experience, if I don’t get something on the first two or three casts, either I’ve spooked them or there’s nothing going on, or I need to rest that pool or that run and come back to it. So, you know, maybe I’ll pluck one fish out of there and I’ll make a mental note and say, I need to come back to this because I know there’s more. And then I’ll walk. And I tend to walk long ways when I’m fishing. Um, just because you get to see interesting things, you get farther away from the bridges, you get farther away from other fishermen, and you might find new water that you had no idea it existed. So I love to explore. I love to hike. A couple of years ago, on a really hot July day, a friend and I hiked into a headwaters six miles, and we were confident that nobody had fished it for years. And it was it was a hot July day, and we went all the way to the headwaters where it was coming out of the side of a rock, and the water was forty seven degrees and it was ninety degree air temperature mist on the water. And there were there were beautiful fish up in there. 00:41:55 Dave: Really. Were they brook trout or a mix of species? 00:41:57 Speaker 3: Those were brookies. 00:41:58 John: Yeah, we got into the brookies up there for sure. But we did get browns lower down. But you know, I’m not afraid to cover. 00:42:05 Dave: Yeah. Cover ground. And there you can do that. Isn’t that the cool thing about the. Is the law the same in those three states where you can walk basically on private property, as long as you’re in the creek, you can walk right through the private property, right? 00:42:16 Speaker 3: That’s not true. 00:42:17 John: That’s not know Minnesota and Wisconsin are what we call keep your feet wet states. So as long as you’re in the water, not on, not in the high water mark, as it is in some Western states, but you’re actually in the stream and you. 00:42:32 Dave: Okay in the stream? 00:42:33 John: Yep. And you’ve accessed it legally. You can wade and fish all the way along that stream through private property. 00:42:40 Dave: Yeah. Which is easy to do, right? Because these are small streams. You can, you can stay in the wet. 00:42:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. 00:42:45 John: Exactly. And in Wisconsin in particular, the law also states that if you have to get out of the water to get around, an obstruction and an obstruction can be a down log, it can be a deep pool, and you need to get out of the water. In Wisconsin, you are within your legal right to get out of the water. As long as you go around the obstruction and get back in at your earliest opportunity. 00:43:09 Dave: You can’t fish. Yeah, you can’t fish off the bank, but you can get back in. 00:43:12 Speaker 3: Exactly. 00:43:13 John: But you can go around an obstruction. So. And in Minnesota, the law is very similar. Keep your feet wet and you’re within your legal rights. As long as you accessed that water through public access, whether it’s a bridge or state land, state park. That kind of thing. In Iowa, that’s not the case in Iowa currently. And I say currently, because we’re hoping that that law will change. But currently in Iowa, the riparian landowner owns the banks and the stream bottom. So you have to ask permission to go into a stream that is privately owned. Now, given that there is so much public access in all of these states, well, particularly, you know, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. There’s a ton of public access. You never need to trespass. There’s no need to trespass. And if you want to try a stretch of private water, my experience is that Iowa landowners tend to look at themselves as stewards of the land and of the streams, and they are generally very agreeable if you reach out to them. Um, they will give you permission. And as long as we respect their property and livestock and we don’t leave trash. 00:44:36 Dave: Don’t leave gates open, all that stuff. 00:44:38 Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Now. 00:44:40 John: You know, we talk about the Driftless as being four states, right? We never talk about Illinois. 00:44:45 Dave: No you don’t. Yeah. There is another state there. 00:44:48 John: And if you go to Galena, Illinois, which is a beautiful town, you are in the heart of the driftless. That’s driftless, but there’s no trout fishing. And part of that is that looking back, historically, even in the eighteen hundreds, they weren’t finding trout in those streams. Now, whether they whether they weren’t ever there, I don’t know. It seems logical that there were trout in the Illinois corner of the Driftless at some point in history. But the complicating factor is that in Illinois the landowner’s own the stream banks and the stream bottoms. And you can’t even float through. It’s. The laws are are very unwelcome, unwelcoming. And so there. But there is a place in Jo Daviess County in Illinois. Um, it’s called the Apple River Canyon State Park and a beautiful place. It’s absolutely a beautiful, beautiful place. It’s a perfect example of the driftless there. And they stocked with rainbow trout. So if you ever feel compelled to hit the Grand Slam and catch trout in all four of the Driftless State. You can. It’s possible there. 00:46:04 Dave: Canyon. Can I see it now? Apple river. Canyon. State Park. Canyon Ridge campground. There’s a campground there. And the other cool thing is, like we mentioned, the trout routes has all these publics. That’s a big thing they do is public access. So you can actually go on there and find all the access points. 00:46:17 John: Definitely trout routes will show you exactly where you can and can’t fish for sure. 00:46:22 Dave: Awesome. Well, this has been great. We’re going to take it out of here in a sec with our kind of tips, tools and tech segment. But anything else you want to recommend? I don’t want to miss any of your books. You want to highlight anything else before we get out of here? I guess the driftless you’ve got you mentioned the four or is it or were there the four original Driftless books or three? 00:46:39 John: It’s three. Yeah, three. It’s trout fishing in northeast Iowa, trout fishing in southwest Wisconsin and trout fishing in southeast Minnesota. And I get orders for those books and the shops that carry those books. They get orders from coast to coast. Uh, it’s fascinating to see where people are developing an interest in fishing the driftless. 00:47:00 Dave: Right. And it’s driftless fishing, but it’s probably, I’m guessing is there’s some tips in there, like we’re talking about some Spring Creek tips that might apply. 00:47:06 John: Oh, definitely. Yep. There’s tips for fishing. These small streams. There’s fly recommendations. There’s tackle recommendations. So you can, you can learn a lot more from those books for sure. 00:47:16 Dave: Okay, good. Well, let’s do our tips, tools and tech segment here. And, uh, and this is again, we already mentioned it presented by Trout Roots, who is doing some awesome work. We’re obviously going to be doing some more cool stuff. I think coming up trips, I think that’s the big thing. This is flagging us again. We got to get back out to the Driftless. Um, but tell me this. So we talked flies. I love the fly question is kind of always a fun one for the driftless. You know, on the book you’re tying book, you have that amazing royal wolf, which is a classic pattern. What are a few, what’s a handful of flies you would be making sure in your box for the driftless? 00:47:49 John: Well, there’s no question that one of the innovative flies from the Driftless is, is a fly called the Pink Squirrel. Um, and it was developed by John Bethke out of in the Viroqua area. So definitely a homegrown pattern. And the pink squirrel. Um, there’s now all kinds of variations you can get them from my friends, uh, Matt and Jerry at the Driftless Angler in Viroqua. And, um, but they’re, they’re available everywhere and people are innovating on that. But you know, those homegrown, uh, Matt Wagner at the Driftless angler developed a, a cranefly pattern called the Cooley Cranefly. Um, it’s such an overlooked hatch, but the Wisconsin Driftless has a really healthy hatch of crane flies. And, uh, so he developed a pattern to go for those, but the classic patterns work really well. Um, whether it’s bluing, olives, tiny bluing, olives, atoms, parachutes, that kind of thing. And also some really great attractor patterns, like the, um, like the hippie stomper, you know, it’s a western developed fly, but it’s really been tailored to this area. You know, I mean, I feel like I could list all kinds of flies. 00:49:03 Dave: Yeah, those are good. That’s a good mix. 00:49:06 John: But don’t be afraid to bring a little mix of your eastern flies and your western flies. You know, some of the classic the Michigan patterns, the Catskill patterns, they work here. Traditional dry flies, the traditional nymphs. But there are also some great innovations. So make sure that if you come to the driftless, you know, stop in the local fly shops, you know, stop at River Rod Company in Lanesboro and pick up the Metolius caddis, which was developed by our late friend Steve Sabrinac. Stop at the Driftless Angler in Viroqua or, you know, stop with our friends. You know, Dre, my friend Dre down in Decorah, Iowa, who’s got some just some wonderful he’s a tenkara guy. He’s got some great patterns that are absolutely tailored to the driftless. So, um, but yeah, and it’s, you know, these streams, some of these streams are fantastic, so perfectly suited for tenkara if you’re into that. 00:50:01 Dave: Yeah. Is that pretty popular? Are you seeing a lot of people or more people with tenkara down there? 00:50:06 John: Yeah, there’s definitely an uptick in it. And, um, it’s really fun to see because it’s just like having another club in your golf bag. 00:50:14 Dave: Yeah. How does, how is the tenkara describe that? How is the tenkara different than say, if you had a, I don’t know, like a seven and a half foot four weight rod with a reel, you know, does it do it different? Does it fish differently? All right. Yeah. I mean, it fishes differently. 00:50:27 Speaker 4: It does fish. 00:50:28 John: Differently. It’s a it’s generally a much longer rod. You’re doing more straight line fishing. And it, it is a technique that on these small streams, on some of these intimate little brooks, it gets you closer to the fish. It hones some of the skills that translate well to your standard for weight traditional fly fishing rig. Um, but it just makes you focus in a different way that I think is really valuable. You know, I watched a film that Yvon Chouinard from Patagonia made of an old fly fisherman up in the Italian mountains who fished with like, this twenty foot rod. And the way he worked that rod, you know, Chouinard was absolutely, you know, blown away and so was I. But it was it’s that intimacy with the with working the fly in a completely different way than just casting it out and letting it drift. So I think there’s a lot of value in, in trying tenkara. And, you know, like I said, like approaching a stream from a different direction or, you know, fishing different water at different times of the day. It’s just one more way to learn something about the stream and the fish that you might not have known. 00:51:48 Dave: Yeah. So it is a useful tool out there and, and it packs up to nice, right? You could throw it like you’re doing a long hike. Like you said. Throw it in the pack. 00:51:56 John: Exactly. Yeah. 00:51:57 Dave: Yeah. Good. Well, talk about this just on the on the text. So we’re talking trout routes. What do you when you’re out there using trout routes? Give me your do you have a feature that you really love out there? We mentioned the public access points, but how are you using trout routes? 00:52:11 John: I’ve used, like I said, I’ve used trout routes since since the beginning and watched it grown. But for me it has multiple great uses. One it absolutely identifies where I can fish and where I can’t fish. I can tell you know, exactly where I’m where I’m going off of, of public land, public access. Um, they do a really great job of that. But it also, I use it for navigation. So, you know, I’ll be sitting at home and saying, okay, you know, I’m going over to Wisconsin or I’m heading down to Iowa and I want to fish this particular stream. So I’ll find a, you know, the blue dot or, you know, or the orange, the orange dot on the, on the bridge, and I identify that it’s exactly where I want. To fish where I want to park, where I want to start. And I’ll click navigate me. Right. It takes you immediately over to either Apple Maps or to Google Maps, and I can. I can put that, you know, on CarPlay in my truck and it will. I don’t have to think about it. It’ll drive me right there. I park it and with the orange dot in trout routes, it actually shows you. Three hundred sixty what that bridge will look like. So you can identify is there parking there? You know? Does this look like a well, a well used access or is it a little gnarly? You know, do I have. A chance of maybe bushwhacking in and maybe it doesn’t get fished all that much, but it’s. Uh, you know, and then now they’re trout routes has introduced at least in the Western states. They’ve introduced even species. So one of the big questions I get, you know, we travel all over the country. Doing presentations on the Driftless. And it’s amazing how many people will say to me, I want to come and catch brook trout. Show me a stream where I can catch brook trout. Well, what Trout routes is doing now is you’re actually able to select by species. So if you’re going for some cutthroat species you have never caught before, you can select streams that just have that. And if you want to target just brookies, you can do that. So trout routes will tell you what species are in there. They’ll tell you where the springs are. It’s such a powerful app. 00:54:24 Dave: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah it is. It’s got a lot of a lot of tools, especially since they’ve, you know, when they connect with Onyx, you know, in the last couple of years, you know, one of the best out there, they’ve really they’re starting to incorporate some of the, you know I think the features from Onyx, right, make it even more powerful. 00:54:40 Speaker 4: Definitely. 00:54:41 John: We were just out at the fly fishing show in Pleasanton, California, uh, hanging with, uh, our friends with trout routes and onyx and we were talking about what’s coming down the line and there’s some really neat stuff. I can’t tell you yet, but there’s really neat stuff coming. And, uh, trout routes and onyx. It’s a marriage made in heaven. And there’s so much coming to trout routes and onyx for the angler. Uh, it’s just getting better and better and better. So, you know, use the app. Try it for free. If you want the link to try it for free for three months, reach out to us and we’ll get you that link and try it for three months. And I can tell you that in by the time that free trial period is over, it’s just going to be an even more rich app than it is now. It’s really powerful. And, and, uh, Onyx is doing great stuff. 00:55:36 Dave: Yeah. That’s it. Take us out of here with our flight time. We mentioned at the start, the flight time book. Are you a big fly tyer? Is that something? Where you on that book? Did you do a lot of the photos and all that stuff? 00:55:47 John: I did a lot of the tying. I had a, uh, a young kid named Chad who, who did a lot of the tying for me while I was, you know, photo working with the photographers on other things before I did that book. I tied flies nonstop. I was one of those, one of those guys that got into it and. 00:56:08 Dave: Did. 00:56:08 John: What I wanted to do with flies. 00:56:10 Dave: Is that how you got in? Maybe take us back quickly on on your your background. Is that how you first came into fly fishing? Was through kind of. 00:56:18 John: Came into fly fishing with my dad. My dad was a, was a fly fisherman. Um, I grew up with it. 00:56:24 Dave: In the driftless area. 00:56:25 John: Well, and back east, uh, my, my grandparents had a, what they call a camp in the Adirondacks. So I started fishing up there in the Adirondack Mountains, which is just about one of the prettiest places in the country as well. And, uh, so then I started tying flies when I was in college, and my dad and I would take fishing trips and it just, it just evolved from there. 00:56:48 Dave: Yeah. So you’ve been doing it your whole life. So this fly fishing has been with you most of your life? 00:56:52 John: Yeah. And I hope someday I’ll actually, you know, learn everything there is to know. 00:56:57 Dave: Yeah. What’s what’s next for you? What’s the you got this big book coming out, which is coming out this year. After this. Do you are you just you got your next book already? You’re thinking about or how does that look? 00:57:07 John: Yeah, I have another book or two that I have been outlining. I’m not going to give anything away. But you know, I really enjoy writing. I love being a contributing editor for Fly Fisherman magazine. It’s just the, you know, one of the most satisfying things I do. And, um, so, uh, yeah. 00:57:28 Dave: That’s it. So you’re gonna keep going, going strong in all the books and, and where else? So we can see, uh, fly fisherman magazine. That’s is that the magazine that you’re typically writing in? 00:57:37 John: Right. I’ve written for others. I’ve written for Atlantic Salmon Journal. I used to write for the New York Times. So I’ve, I’ve written for a number of other magazines, but, um, you know, I love what fly fisherman is doing. I love the direction they’re going as well. I’ve been involved with them either tangentially or directly for over thirty years. 00:57:58 Dave: Yeah. Well, I think, John, we could leave it there. We will send everybody out to, uh, Trout Run Press.com. They can follow up with you on all your books and and. Yeah, this will be great. I definitely want to follow up with you and maybe we’ll get a history lesson on the next one if we can get you back on and, and we’ll keep this going. So thanks again for all your time. 00:58:15 John: It’s a deal. Thank you Dave. Thanks for inviting me. 00:58:19 Dave: Hope you enjoyed that one. If you get a chance, go to Trout Run Press.com. Let John know you heard this podcast. Uh, if you’re interested in going to the area of the driftless or just learning more about Spring Creeks in general, check in with any of John’s books, everything there. Uh, excited to keep this one going. I want to let you know, uh, tomorrow. Stay tuned. Pablo from the Noob and the knower is here, the Noob and Knower podcast. We got a great conversation coming at you tomorrow If you’re not familiar with this podcast, you got to check it out. Uh, Pablo has some good stuff going here, so that’s going to be a big one tomorrow. And also the dry fly school if you’re interested. Check in with me and let you know what we have. Still going for availability. The dry fly school with on to Mark Lodge. You can also go to wet fly dot com slash mark that’s o n d e m a r k or send me an email anytime, Dave at fly dot com. I’ll let you know what we have. We are hitting the the Missouri this year. Uh, the big dry fly school. Don’t miss it. I’ll be there. Hope to see you on the water. All right, that’s it. I’m getting out of here. Uh, appreciate you for stopping in today. And, uh, we’ll hopefully see you on that episode tomorrow. Have a good day. Have a good, uh, morning, afternoon or evening. And, uh, we’ll talk to you on the next one. 00:59:27 Speaker 5: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit wet fly dot com.
John Van Vliet holding brown trout driftless fly fishing stream
John Van Vliet with a Driftless brown trout—proof of the quality fish these small streams can produce.

Conclusion with John Van Vliet on Driftless Fly Fishing Guide

The Driftless keeps showing up as one of those places that has more going on than most people realize. Small streams, surprising trout, rich history, and endless options make it the kind of region you can keep returning to without ever feeling done with it.

John brought a great mix of practical advice and deeper perspective to this one, and if the Driftless has been on your list, this episode is a solid place to start.

All links, products, and host promises have been flagged inline throughout the post.

     

914 | The Salmonfly Project with James Frakes and Jackson Birrell

James Frakes and Jackson Birrell - The Salmonfly Project

James Frakes and Jackson Birrell break down what they’re doing with the Salmonfly Project, a nonprofit focused on tracking aquatic insect populations across the West. They talk about why bugs like salmonflies, stoneflies, and mayflies matter, and how they can show what’s really happening in a river.

You’ll also hear how habitat, water quality, and insect life all connect, and what anglers can do to pay attention and get involved.

They also touch on Bug Fest, coming up soon, where you can learn more and connect with the project in person.

Hit play to start listening! 👇🏻🎧

apple podcasts

Find the show:  Follow the Show | Overcast | Spotify

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe on Android

Subscribe via RSS

(The full episode transcript is at the bottom of this blogpost) 👇🏻

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

 

Salmonfly Project

Show Notes with James Frakes and Jackson Birrell on The Salmonfly Project

We love talking about destinations, gear, and the rivers we fish. But this one shifts the focus.

It all comes back to the bugs.

The insects drifting in the current and the small changes along the riverbank tell the real story. When bugs disappear, fishing changes. And when rivers start to struggle, insects are usually the first sign.

This episode goes deeper into the connection between bugs, water, and river health.

What is the Salmonfly Project?

Salmonfly Project

James and Jackson met in grad school at the University of Montana, working in the same lab studying aquatic insects. It was more like an apprenticeship, doing research together and learning side by side.

After graduating, they had the idea to start something of their own, and that turned into the Salmonfly Project.

The Salmonfly Project is an aquatic insect conservation nonprofit focused on protecting bugs, fisheries, and the ecosystems around them. A lot of their work comes down to this:

  • They help turn that data into real conservation work on the ground
  • They study aquatic insects and how populations are changing
  • They collect data to understand trends and threats
  • They work with agencies, universities, and nonprofits

Right now, their focus is out West. They’ve got around 17 projects across the Rocky Mountain region, including Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, and starting in California.

Salmonfly Project

How They Sample Bugs and What It Tells Us

They use a method called quantitative sampling with a tool called a Hess sampler. It’s basically a net you place on the riverbed to catch every bug in a small area. From there, they can figure out how many bugs are in that section of river.

Here’s what they’re looking at:

  • Bug counts (density) in a known area
  • Key hatch species like salmonflies, caddis, mayflies, and more
  • Water quality using something called EPT (mayflies, stoneflies, caddis)

The higher the EPT, the healthier the river, since those bugs are more sensitive to change. Stoneflies are usually the most sensitive, followed by mayflies, then caddis.

Salmonfly Project
Photo via https://www.instagram.com/salmonflyproject/

Bug Fest 2026

Salmonfly Project
Bug Fest 2026 – https://salmonflyproject.org/

The Bug Fest 2026 is happening July 25 at Three Dollar Bridge on the Madison River, and it’s all about helping anglers understand bugs and how that connects to fishing.

Here’s what to expect:

  • Fly tying and hands-on learning
  • Stations for nymphs, bugs in the drift, and adult insects
  • Learning how to match the hatch in real time
  • Time to fish right after and put it all into practice

Salmonflies

Salmonflies are mostly found in freestone rivers. They need some temperature change throughout the year to complete their life cycle.

  • More common in mid-sized trout streams
  • Rare in large, stable tailwaters
  • Not found in spring creeks or sandy bottoms
  • Need larger rocks (cobble) to live in

There are a few exceptions, like the Madison, Henrys Fork, and Deschutes, but in general, big tailwaters don’t have them. They do best in water that’s cool but not cold all the time. That slight warming helps them grow.

Main Stoneflies to Know

James and Jackson break down the main stoneflies anglers should know, from biggest to smallest.

  • Salmonflies – the biggest and most well-known
  • Golden stones – come right after salmonflies
  • Nocturnal (fall) stones – later in the season, August to September

They also mention a few others that don’t get talked about as much.

  • Skwala – found in certain rivers, like the Bitterroot
  • Early dark stones – smaller bugs that come out before Skwala

One cool tip they share: Sometimes fish will key in on those smaller early stones and ignore the bigger bugs. Throwing a smaller pattern can make a difference.

Salmonfly Project

Supporting the Salmonfly Project

Since they’re a small and growing nonprofit, even small support goes a long way.

  • Donations help fund research and conservation work
  • Memberships include webinars and education
  • Collaborations help expand projects into new rivers

They’ve already documented major salmonfly declines, including local extinctions across several rivers in the West.

In some places, populations have dropped sharply over time. The goal is to use that data to flag problems early and help states recognize species that need protection. That can lead to more research and conservation before things get worse.

If this is something you care about, check out their site, join as a member, or support the project. Even a small contribution can make a difference.

Salmonfly Project

What You Can Do as an Angler

A lot of the issues come down to water, and it’s different on every river. Things like drought, water use, and temperature all play a role. They share a few simple things anglers can do:

  • Use less water when possible
  • Don’t throw tippet or trash in the river
  • Avoid walking through productive riffles where bugs live

They’re also collecting input directly from anglers. There’s a short survey on their site where you can share what you’ve seen on your home waters, like changes in hatches or insect activity. It takes about five minutes and helps turn angler observations into real data.

If you’ve noticed changes on your local river, go fill out the survey and add your voice.


Connect with the Salmonfly Project

Follow them on socials, check out their work, and stay updated on events like Bug Fest and ways to get involved.

 

Salmonfly Project

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

The Salmonfly Project Resources Noted in the Show

 

Related Podcast Episodes

Full Podcast Transcript

Episode Transcript
WFS 914 – Salmonfly Project 00:00:00 Dave: We love to talk about the destinations and the gear. The rivers we travel to, the rods we carry, the flies in the box. But the heart of fly fishing lives in the bugs drifting through the current and the small changes happening along the riverbank. Because when insects disappear, the fishing changes. And when the rivers change, the insects are usually the first to tell the story. Today’s episode goes deeper into that connection the relationship between bugs, water, and the health of the rivers we care about. The Salmon Fly project is working across the West, studying aquatic insects and helping anglers understand why bugs like salmon, flies, stoneflies, and mayflies are more than just patterns in the fly box. This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast, where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip, and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. James Frakes and Jackson Burrell are here, and they’re going to talk about the Salmon Fly project. This is a program and a nonprofit they created to help discover population levels of insects. We’re going to find out why insects are one of the most important indicators of river health. What salmon flies and other stoneflies can tell us about changes in Western rivers that are currently happening, how the connection between habitat restoration, water quality and insect populations can affect fish, and how you as an angler can play a role as a conservation citizen scientist. And we’re going to show you how you can get involved in this, how you can support to protect our species today. This is a really big one. Plus we get into Bug Fest. It’s right around the corner. And if you are interested and you’re going to be out west, you got to stop by Bug Fest and check in with the guys. Learn a little bit about aquatic insects. Here we go. James and Jackson. You can find them at Sam and Fly projects. How are you guys doing? 00:01:51 James : Great. We’re doing great. Thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. 00:01:54 Dave: Yeah, yeah, definitely. This is going to be good. I’ve got James Frakes on and Jackson Burrell, who and I don’t know the whole story, you guys. So this is going to be really cool today to get this. But you guys, I’ve heard a lot about you in recent months, the Salmon Fly project. Um, you’re doing a lot to collect aquatic insects to understand more about the streams. We’re going to talk about that today, how that applies. You know, I think we talk a lot about, um, you know, bugs come up, but I think a lot of people don’t understand the life history. And so we’re going to talk about that here, but maybe just give us a heads up before we jump into some of the, the cool nerdy bug details. Did you guys start this? Was it just you two starting this together? 00:02:31 James : That’s right. Yes. We we are the co-founders of the Salmon Fly Project. That’s right. Jackson and I, um, we met in grad school, actually, we were working in the same lab at the University of Montana. And, uh, one day we had this wild idea to start a non-profit after we both graduated. And this is what it’s developed into. 00:02:49 Dave: No kidding. So you guys started and were you guys in, what was your degree in? How did you guys first met? 00:02:55 Jackson: Yeah, absolutely. So I joined the University of Montana for a PhD in what was that, twenty eighteen? And James was finishing up his undergrad when I started my PhD. Um, and we were working in the same lab. So, you know, when you’re going to grad school in the sciences, you basically, it’s almost like an apprenticeship you work with. And for a professor doing research. And the same professor that I had joined forces with to do research with, uh, James was helping out in that lab to do research and learning a bunch of stuff. And then he jumped on a Masters after he graduated. And there was a ton of crossover between our research questions. And that was, of course, an entomology lab. We were focused on aquatic insects. Uh, no surprise, you know, given that we ended up doing the same project. 00:03:40 Dave: Nice. Yeah. This is exciting to hear the story. And we’ll dig deeper into the story. For those that don’t know what the Salmon Fly project is, maybe we can just start there so people out there can understand what it is you guys do and how maybe they can get involved. 00:03:53 Jackson: Absolutely. So we are an aquatic insect conservation non-profit. Our mission is really simple. We conserve aquatic insects and the fisheries, ecosystems and people they support. So we have a vested interest in not only the biodiversity and conservation of the bugs themselves, but also the fisheries. Fly fishing as a sport, as a recreation, as an industry. Um, and we perform tons and tons of research and monitoring projects. And all of that is geared towards developing data to support conservation. So there’s not a whole lot of bug or aquatic insect focused conservation that goes on at a large landscape scale. It’s pretty fish focused. And that makes sense because, you know, people like to catch fish, but the, the bugs are really what holds the ecosystem together. Um, so we develop projects collaboratively with government agencies, other non-profits, universities to get data on the status and trends of our insects. Threats. Conservation solutions, because that’s really what you need to do management to do restoration at a watershed scale. So we develop data and then we work on implementing boots on the ground sort of solutions. 00:05:05 Dave: Amazing. And are you guys working focused in the West around the country? Do you have a goal to kind of conquer the world? How does that look? 00:05:13 James : Yeah, right now we are west wide. We’ve got about seventeen different projects going on. Um, blue ribbon trout streams all across the Rocky Mountain West. 00:05:23 Dave: Okay. 00:05:24 Jackson: And our organization is based in Montana, so we graduated from the University of Montana. We kept it. You know, our home base local to Missoula. But right now only about half of our projects are in Montana. Um, we have a lot of projects in Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado. We have one in Oregon and some starting up in California as well. 00:05:43 Dave: Gotcha. Okay, so basically Western right now. And is there plans? I mean, it makes sense to start out where you’re at, you know, Montana in the West. Do you plan on moving across and hitting the eastern eventually. 00:05:55 James : Yeah, maybe. Maybe one day. Um, yeah. We don’t want to grow faster than we can. Uh, you know, produce quality outcomes. So, you know, we’re a very small and scrappy group. Jackson and I are really the two main, uh, staff members. So we like to keep it small and produce as much of an impact as we can. So we’re not trying to expand faster than we can handle. 00:06:18 Speaker 4: Yeah. But when we do look. 00:06:20 Jackson: At our, you know, long term trajectory, we do envision eventually moving out of the western United States. We just need to be, be strategic. Um, once we are, you know, no longer small and mighty, once we’re a little bit bigger and mightier, you know? 00:06:33 Dave: Right. That makes sense. Okay. And, and what does it look like for the sampling? You know, are these you’ve got like citizen scientists out there collecting bugs. Describe that a little bit how this all works and how somebody’s listening now, who’s a fly angler, how they could help what you guys do. 00:06:48 James : Sure. Yeah. So we use this really interesting type of sampling. It’s called a quantitative method. So we use these specialized nets that are called Hess samplers. And these nets are made out of you can kind of envision like a, a large steel drum with an open bottom, and there’s a net that’s attached to that. And the idea is that you drive that down into the river and you catch every single bug on every rock inside of that circle, that area, right? And then you can back calculate based off of that unit of area, how many bugs are in that particular known area. And that gives you a density, right? And so what we do with this project is instead of treating the bugs as like a proxy for water quality, we try to treat them as like game species, right? Similar to how fisheries managers treat their trout, right? They go out there, they do fish, shocking surveys, and they count the trout per mile, right? That’s a unit that all of us fishermen really care about. And what we’re trying to do is kind of put that lens onto the important aquatic insect hatches, because frankly, they’re just as important, right? Like, if we can’t feed our fish and we don’t have hatches to fish over, uh, what are we doing? So yeah, that’s kind of how we, we do things a little bit more different than, um, say the DEQ or our methods are differ a little bit compared to some of the other agencies that are collecting macroinvertebrate data. 00:08:19 Dave: Okay. So and some of those are collecting it to understand what species there are there currently, and maybe the species that are more tolerant or intolerant to changes in water quality, that sort of thing. So you’re not as focused on that as you’re focused on just understanding what bugs are there currently? 00:08:36 James : Yeah, it’s kind of both of those things, right? So we always quantify what we call our target species. These are our important hatches. You know, obviously salmon flies being our flagship species are included in any of the rivers where they occur. But that also includes, you know, Mother’s Day, caddis, spotted sedges, bluing, olives, Western March browns, green drakes, pale morning duns, all these very famous hatches. We quantified those as well. But then we also create, you know, metrics so we can understand how the water quality is doing, right. So like a very common one is percent EPT, which just means what proportion of the Macroinvertebrate community is made up of mayflies, stoneflies and caddis. And the higher the proportion of those bugs, the healthier your stream is, right? Because those are some very sensitive aquatic insects. They also happen to be the most important for anglers. 00:09:32 Dave: And those are. What were those again? Mayflies. Was that mayflies stoneflies and caddis flies? 00:09:36 James : Yeah. So EPT kind of goes back to the Latin, right? So E stands for Ephemeroptera, P stands for Plecoptera and T stands for trichoptera. That’s the mayflies. Stoneflies. Caddis. 00:09:50 Dave: Gotcha. And out of those three orders, is there one that’s more susceptible to changes in water quality? It seems like the Caddis are quite a bit different as far as their life cycle and all that. 00:10:03 Speaker 4: Yeah, that’s definitely true. 00:10:05 Jackson: There is a lot of variation within each group, but by and large, on average, stoneflies tend to be much more sensitive than mayflies or caddisflies. Um, it’s generally really stoneflies the most. And then, and then generally mayflies and then caddis flies. But it depends where you are and what species in particular you’re looking at. 00:10:24 Dave: Mhm. 00:10:25 Jackson: Yeah. But you’re right. Those two things, the, the counts of the bugs and then the water quality perspective are, you know, very, very linked. Because even if there’s a lot of bugs still, and those bugs are facilitating a lot of trout per mile. If you are experiencing bug declines, some of your most sensitive species, let’s say salmon flies, for instance, are declining. Maybe some other ones as well. That’s an early warning signal. That is a red flag of bad things, right? It doesn’t mean that the fishery has gone to pot, not even close. But it does provide a signal that there are changes to the ecosystem that are preventing that sensitive creature from living there. And historically, we haven’t paid too much attention to that because we haven’t been tracking the disappearances of these bugs. Right? We, you know, government agencies might show up and they’ll do their monitoring, create their little index score, and they just use that to show does it support, you know, does it meet Clean Water Act standards and then forget about it? They don’t really come back usually. So that’s really what we’re doing is trying to create those trends, get those early warning signals. And then if we are proactive, we can prevent worse things from happening instead of just waiting until the drought and the rest of the ecosystem are severely impacted. 00:11:46 Dave: Right. And how often on your sampling protocol are you coming back to? Like if you sample a stream at one time, when would you come back and resample it? 00:11:56 James : So for our typical, um, annual monitoring programs, we do that each year. And, you know, we’d set up between five and ten sites on each of these rivers. And then we work with volunteers to go back each year and sample. Now, we don’t write a report on each river each year because that’s, you know, a ton of work. We wait, you know, three to four years and then do a subsequent analysis on trends over that time period. 00:12:22 Dave: I see. And is this a tool that everybody, you know, just somebody that has never done it before can just grab this, do a quick little, you know, session tutorial and they can be out there sampling at the same level as anybody else. 00:12:34 Speaker 4: Unfortunately not. 00:12:35 Jackson: It takes quite a bit of training. Um, we are collecting pretty specialized quantitative data. Volunteers are really important to our program. I don’t want to, um, you know, get away from that. All of our programs are volunteer assisted. Whenever James or I or, you know, whenever we have field techs out there collecting aquatic insects, volunteers are helping us and that helps us keep staff lower and also get people involved to educate the community. You know, it kills two birds with one stone. Um, and when we set these up, we get, you know, a couple dozen volunteers to help us over the week or two that we’re working on the river, but there is a lot of training involved and the equipment is semi specialized. So it’s not like anglers right now can go out and take pictures of the bugs or do something quite simple, uh, where they can identify themselves. But we are creating protocols that we hope will make training easier so we can streamline the actual data collection and make it easily scalable so we can sample in more rivers, rely on volunteers even more heavily into the future. And then they would send us the samples and we would, do you know, the insect ID under the microscope in our own laboratories? So I would say, yes, there’s a lot of opportunities to get involved with the Salmon Fly project. We also have education clinics and stuff like that. We could talk about that later if you want. But um, um, we do hope that there will be more opportunities going into the future for even more volunteer opportunities, if that makes sense. 00:14:09 Dave: Yeah, yeah. It does. So right now, it’s, it’s not like you can just give somebody a Hesse sampler and say, go out there and collect, give them a GPS point and go find that spot and do it. You kind of have to be there with them, helping collect the samples and making sure that it’s done correctly. And then when you get back, who does the like behind the ID? Because that’s a big thing too, right? It’s probably not a fast process identifying these bugs. Is that a major part of this? 00:14:33 James : Yeah, totally. The taxonomy and enumeration part. I mean, that’s what you know, our winter looks like, uh, about half of our projects we keep in house. And we do that ourselves. And then the other half, we outsource to Dave Stagliano, who’s one of our key partners. Um, he lives in Helena and is, you know, an industry leader who does this kind of thing. Um, I did just want to also follow up on your previous question about how people can get involved. I mean, anyone who’s listening who, um, this is exciting. And if you’re, you know, out in the Rockies, have a look at our website on the events page. I mean, we post, uh, volunteer opportunities there and feel free to shoot us an email if you want to, um, you know, volunteer with us. We’re always looking for help in the field. And so, um, I just encourage people to, you know, get involved if this is something that sounds exciting to them. 00:15:26 Dave: Perfect. And that’s the salmon fly project. 00:15:31 Jackson: Uh, no, no, the salmon fly project. 00:15:33 Dave: Oh, that’s what we’re. Yeah. So don’t know the. Right, right. So it’s just salmon fly project.org. 00:15:39 Jackson: Exactly. Okay. Exactly. And then going on top of that, if anyone’s involved that a lot of anglers are involved in Trout Unlimited chapters, watershed groups. We are not a standalone organization. All of the work we do is extremely collaborative, and we could not do it without our partners. So for those people that are already involved in those kinds of groups and are looking and excited about aquatic insect monitoring, that’s what really drives us forward. It’s really hard for us to move into a new area. Learn everything there is to know, answer the necessary questions, do the good work without those sort of partnerships. So that’s definitely, you know, certainly a higher level way to get involved, but no less important. 00:16:19 Dave: This episode is brought to you by AVC Rig Adventure Vehicle Concepts out of Colorado. These guys build next level adventure vans designed to help you explore farther and stay out longer. Are you dreaming of a full van build? Or maybe you just need the best aluminum cabinets and storage for your DIY rig. AVC rig makes it easy to turn your vehicle into the ultimate mobile base camp. You can check them out right now at avc dot com. That’s a v c rig dot com. Trout Routes by Onyx is built for fly anglers who want better Intel without spending hours digging for the information. You’ll get access to public land maps, stream access points, regulations, and even road and trail maps all in one place. It’s become my go to app for scouting new trips. You can check them out right now, go to Webflow Complex Routes and download the app today. And I think I’m just looking at your events page. I think when this episode goes live, it’ll probably likely be in April, but I do see one event, the The Bug Fest in twenty twenty six. Is that, uh, an event you guys have, uh, led in the past? 00:17:30 James : No, that’s, uh, glad you brought that up. This is a really exciting opportunity for us. We’re pioneering a new event out at three dollars bridge this summer. July twenty fifth. It’s going to be this epic angler entomology educational event, um, where, you know, we’re going to hopefully encounter tons of, uh, newer anglers and teach them about entomology and how to match the hatch and how to improve their angling through entomology will have fly tying clinics. Uh, it’s going to be a really, really cool event. We’re going to have three stations. We’ll look into the nymphs. Then we’ll also look at drifting bugs. So, you know, pupa and, uh, you know, insects in the drift. And then we’ll also have an adult identification station. Cool. Uh, all of this tied back to, to angling specific stuff. And then you’re, you know, you’re right there at, at three dollars. So go afterwards, you know, once you’ve had a good time, uh, learning from us, then you go out and put that to use and catch some fish. 00:18:32 Dave: Nice. 00:18:32 Jackson: And, and for those listeners that aren’t super familiar with our neck of the woods. Uh, that’s three dollar in, uh, on the Madison River. 00:18:39 Dave: Yeah. Madison. Perfect. No, this is great. I think this is, uh, it’s pretty awesome because I think we, uh, we had an episode recently with Maggie Human who I know you guys know she’s with t u and done some amazing stuff. She went into some pretty deep on some of the bugs, like the life history. So today we’re kind of hitting the surface on what you guys do and not going deep. But I’m hoping that eventually we can get into more of the nerdy stuff too, because I feel like it’s been almost a joke for me over the years. I’ve had. I don’t know if you guys know Rick Haifley. He wrote Western Hatches, and he was kind of a friend of the podcast and all that stuff, and he was like the only entomologist I really knew of, you know, out there. And it felt like there was nobody else. But you guys have run into you and Maggie and there’s feels like you guys are in a neck of the woods. Is that because of the university? That area just has a disproportionate number of bug people or what’s your take on it from your perspective? 00:19:29 James : Yeah, I mean, there’s great hatches. Yeah. 00:19:32 Dave: Right. It’s Montana. 00:19:33 James : Is really good. It’s amazing. We know Maggie so well that she is actually on our board and will be manning the adult insect station at this event. So anybody who who learned and is excited by Maggie’s course, you should come see her say hi at this Bug Fest event. Um, and yeah, and we know Rick as well. 00:19:51 Dave: You know Rick. Yeah. 00:19:53 James : Yeah. 00:19:53 Dave: Cool. Are there others? Are there. You guys must have. You’re in that world. Are there quite a few other. It seems like the entomologist mixed with the fly angler is the thing that’s hard. Are there some other people out there you know of that other than Maggie and yourself? 00:20:07 Jackson: Oh, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, compared to other industries, of course, aquatic entomologists are a rare breed, but not nonexistent, especially if you’re connected with the university system. There’s a lot of people that study aquatic insects. There’s a lot of fisheries biologists out there that also, you know, their secret love is actually aquatic insects. And they, you know, they do a lot of fish stuff too. We’re certainly out there, but there’s not a lot of organizations like us bridging this gap between angling, entomology, conservation. 00:20:40 Dave: Bringing it all together. This is cool. So we mentioned Bug Fest. Where do you guys take when, when you’re, um, you know, out there on one of your sessions, maybe we just take a bug fest. What is this going to look like as far as you must have a mix of people that are brand new people that have experience. How do you break this down? Maybe give us a high level of what it will look like and what people can learn here? 00:20:59 Jackson: Yeah, it’s a good question and it’ll be similar. We run quite a few smaller angler education events. So next week I have, you know, a couple, I have one on Monday and then um, a couple later in the week that’s out in Idaho and Wyoming. And Bug Fest will be a scaled up version of that. But these events, these clinics are geared towards especially beginner to intermediate anglers that aren’t as familiar with aquatic entomology. I know for folks getting into it, it. It seems like a black box. It’s a little bit. Impenetrable. There’s a lot of, you know, there’s a lot of words and some of the the literature out there doesn’t make it super easy to take that first step. You know, maybe it’s a little too deep. So we really try and boil it down to the nuts and bolts. Um, even in these clinics and especially in Bug Fest, we’re not even going to be teaching people how to identify your basic hatches. It’s really about learning to tell the difference between the major groups stoneflies, mayflies, caddis, your true flies like midges, and then understanding the basic life histories of those different groups. Because if you can know basically what you’re looking at and then pick a fly that looks like it, you don’t necessarily have to know what exactly what species it is. You don’t have to know that Latin. But if you know the life history, what time of day under different weather conditions that might come out, how those nymphs or larvae are going to emerge, whether they’re going to go bankside before a hatch where they’re going to come up quick or they’re going to come up slowly. Um, how the adults move around, that’s what’s really important, uh, when you’re first getting into it. James, I bet you have additional things to say though. 00:22:41 James : Yeah. I mean, the other thing is this is tied, you know, hatches are so closely tied to the seasonality of, you know, each year. So we’re going to be out there on the twenty fifth. So you’re going to expect to see a certain, you know, grouping of insects available. And that’s going to be reflected both in the insects that are in the drift and the adults that we capture. And I think a big thing that anglers, um, who are into fishing hatches, they start to develop this kind of like, almost like an annual calendar that they can, you know, attempt to set their watch to so that they can go out to known areas and encounter these hatches. And I think one of our goals is to help people get excited about that and understand that on the Madison and on other rivers. 00:23:33 Dave: Right? Right. Actually, the timing and we’ve seen that too. You know, like the salmon fly was a good example. You know, the, the salmon fly hatch now is that hatch around? Where does it you know, I know like the Deschutes, you know, in some of these bigger rivers have some pretty prolific hatches. Where do you not find the salmon fly? Or is there a specific type of stream where you find those prevalent? 00:23:54 James : Yeah. Salmon flies are, uh, pretty much just found in freestone rivers. Like it’s pretty rare to find them below, um, tail waters. And that has to do with the fact that they require a lot of thermal variation to get through their life history. So, um, areas, you know, let’s say the Missouri River right in Craig, there’s no salmon flies there because that stream is pretty stable and that’s because of the dam. 00:24:24 Jackson: There are of course, very, you know, exceptions to that rule. Because the very Madison River that we’re talking about is a tailwater. The Henrys Fork has an incredible salmon fly hatch. The Deschutes does as well. So there are exceptions, but generally the bigger Tailwaters think like the green River. Again, the Mo those really big tailwater rivers don’t have salmon flies. 00:24:44 Dave: Oh, the giant tail waters don’t have them. 00:24:47 Jackson: Yeah yeah yeah, exactly. Right. Polluted waters, you know, don’t. Uh, and then generally your smaller fisheries don’t have them, your little rivers. So they like these, these mid-sized trout streams that are cool, but still they get a little bit warm, just a tad in the summertime. And that allows them to grow. If it’s low and cold all the time, you generally don’t get big bugs like salmon flies, and it’s just too difficult for them to complete their life cycle under those constant cold kind of conditions. 00:25:21 Dave: Gotcha. 00:25:21 James : Yeah, they obviously they also require, you know, larger cobbles or you never find them in spring creeks either, where it’s just you have a sandy bottom that’s just not the right habitat. 00:25:31 Jackson: Yeah, they like to live there, big bugs. So they need big habitat to hide in. 00:25:34 Dave: And are they the. And we’re talking about the sandfly. Is that the the giant sandfly pteronarcys californica. Is that the species that we’re talking about? Yep. Yeah. And there’s only one. 00:25:46 Jackson: There’s only one pteronarcys californica, but there are several pteronarcys. So if you go out east, there are even salmon flies. I mean, I grew up in Massachusetts, and if you go to small creeks in Massachusetts, there are tons of giants. Um, you know, big salmon flies, but there are different species and there’s different species of salmon flies all over the place, including the, you know, the northwest. There’s, uh, a couple, but the hatch that anglers tend to fish in these rivers that we’re talking about, they’re almost always pteronarcys californica, but they look to the average angler. They look the, you know, the really similar. They look the. 00:26:23 Dave: Same. They’re big. They got the big fuzzy. Is that the gills? What the under. They’re kind of under their legs. Or describe. Describe how they look to somebody who hasn’t seen one of these things because they’re pretty unique looking and they’re big. 00:26:33 James : I love it. I love to talk about salmon fly gills because this is something actually Jackson and I like directly studied in our grad school. 00:26:41 Dave: Oh, cool. 00:26:42 James : Nice. And I’ll tell you a fun tidbit about their gills and their oxygen at the end of this. But yeah, they do have these very like plumose gills. Only the nymphs have this, right? The gills, the nymphs, they need to acquire oxygen from the water. So dissolved oxygen out of the water. And they do that using these, you know, uh, almost feather like looking gills that are on the underside of the abdomen. So they’re attached only on the underside of the abdomen for salmon flies. And, um, a really cool thing about salmon flies is they have this, you know, adaptation so that when they encounter low flow, because flow is what is ventilating their gills, right? It’s passive ventilation. That’s what’s pulling the CO2 out and delivering new oxygen to the gills. But if they encounter, you know, times when the flow is really low and that natural ventilation is reduced, they have this amazing adaptation. We call it the push up response. And what they do is they literally they swing back and forth and up and down and they’re self-ventilating those gills. It’s just a behavioral response. It’s basically like them, um, taking a huge gasp of air really. 00:28:01 Dave: So they underwater, they’re just moving back and forth getting more oxygen. 00:28:05 James : Yep. And if they’re doing that, you know, they’re really stressed out that that’s an indication that it’s an unfavorable moment. 00:28:13 Dave: Are they doing that like hanging on with their front legs going back and forth in the current or how does that look? 00:28:18 James : Yeah, I mean, it happens mostly in Stillwater, uh, are very close to Stillwater. Yeah, they just grasp on with their legs and shake back and forth, creating flow. 00:28:26 Dave: That’s pretty amazing. You guys must have a lot of these little stories about the life histories of these, all these critters. Is it pretty amazing? Could we talk probably for hours just on that sort of stuff? 00:28:36 James : Yeah. 00:28:36 Jackson: We have a lot of fun facts about bugs, right? 00:28:39 Dave: Right. That’s cool. Um, well, what do you think? So let’s keep it on, stoneflies. You got the salmon? What’s the next big. I guess golden stones are probably the next big one people think about. Is that, um. And then what are the top stoneflies that you guys are thinking about and your the work you’re doing or fishing? 00:28:55 Jackson: Yeah. Let’s go from uh, yeah, the most important ones in, in the trout streams in our neck of the woods from biggest to smallest, generally giant salmon flies. Then your true golden stone, which usually comes out just after salmon flies in the summer, and then a stonefly. That kind of the the entry level angler doesn’t hear as much about the nocturnal stones. Some people call them mutants or mutants. All stones. Yeah. So those come out later in the year depending, you know, on your river, August, September, that kind of time frame. 00:29:28 Dave: And is that a different species than what is the species of that one or the family? Is that how does that compare to the salmon flies or the Goldens? 00:29:35 Jackson: So the salmon fly is kind of its own beast in its own family. Um, and then golden stones have their own family, the true golden stone that most people think about that’s more midsummer is I don’t know if you want me to throw. 00:29:48 Dave: Yeah, throw it out. Throw out some names. We’ve been we’ve been talking. 00:29:50 Jackson: Hasbro, Perla, Pacifica and then the fall Golden is within that same family or nocturnal, whatever you want to call it. That’s sabulosa. 00:29:59 Dave: Okay. And what’s the family for that one? 00:30:01 Jackson: Technical name is Perla, but it’s the Golden Stonefly family. 00:30:05 Dave: Okay, so the golden stone. So the nocturnal is in the same family as the Golden Stone. It’s just the fall. It comes out in the fall. 00:30:11 Jackson: Yep. That’s right. Yep. Different species, same family. 00:30:14 Dave: And it’s and Maggie was telling us it’s not really technically correct to call them to remove the a day right off the family. You should technically call him Pearl a day. 00:30:23 Jackson: Well, that’s. Most people, uh, shorten it, you know? Yeah, just it’s a lot easier. But the real Latin word is Perla. But most people in regular day, you know, regular day, nerdy science talk. Chop, chop the chop it off. 00:30:38 Dave: So even the scientists, even the smart, the nerdy scientists call them pearls generally. 00:30:42 Jackson: Yeah. 00:30:43 Dave: Yeah. Okay. That’s good. Good. Okay, so we got the nocturne then. Are those the three big ones or what else would you add that to that? 00:30:48 Jackson: Those are the three biggest. Um and then Scala. 00:30:51 Dave: Scala. 00:30:52 Jackson: You know they’re not in as many streams. 00:30:55 Dave: Yeah. Why are squall and I for example Deschutes that’s kind of one of my kind of the home water. Why are they not in on the Deschutes and they’re in the other areas. 00:31:02 Jackson: Well, the Deschutes is basically outside of their range a little bit, but at least in the Rocky Mountains. And I gotta be a little bit careful because I’m. James and I are really familiar with everything in the Rocky Mountains. 00:31:13 Dave: Yeah, but not as much. 00:31:15 Jackson: And not not as much, I believe. Um, yeah, they’re just generally less common out there. I’m gonna be tempted to do a little search while I’m. 00:31:23 Dave: Yeah. Search it up. Get get us. 00:31:24 Jackson: Some on here. But but um, they tend to prefer slightly warmer water, you know, still like cold water, trout stream, but a little bit warmer and they tend to like slower kind of sandier water. So the lower Madison now it’s good. Sam. Uh, squally habitat, the Bitterroot is one, I would. 00:31:46 James : Say one of the best salmon. Ah, sorry, squally hatches around. It’s kind of the perfect habitat. 00:31:52 Dave: Where’s that? 00:31:53 James : The Bitterroot is, uh, it’s a tributary to the Clark Fork. 00:31:56 Dave: Okay. 00:31:57 James : Missoula? 00:31:58 Dave: Yeah. So the Bitterroot has perfect habitat for koalas. 00:32:01 James : Yep. I would say have all the places I’ve ever fished. Koala. Uh, they seem to be maybe the most abundant on the Bitterroot. 00:32:08 Dave: Perfect. Okay. So squalls and then then you get into some of the like the little black stones and some of that sort of stuff. Are there a few different of those that we’d be using for phishing. 00:32:18 James : Yeah, the early dark stones, the nimrods, the druids, the yeah, there’s these little group, we call them just early dark stones. They come out even before the squalor. And I think a lot of anglers maybe overlook this, this group of, uh, bugs and they don’t fish them so much. And they do kind of, they tend to overlap into squalor season a little bit. And I’ve had days where fish will key in on those smaller bugs and they’ll ignore the squalor altogether. So that’s a trick little a little hidden secret in here. If you’re, uh, if you’re interested in fishing those hatches, maybe throw like a size sixteen or fourteen little black stone. 00:32:59 Dave: There you go. Perfect. 00:33:01 Jackson: Yeah, we could go on and on. I mean, there’s three thousand five hundred species of stoneflies. 00:33:04 Dave: Is there. There’s three, three thousand. Yeah. Species of stoneflies. 00:33:08 Jackson: And I just looked it up. I gotta say, okay, because this just let’s hear it. So the main species of Scoala Scoala Americana is found in every Western US state and then into Canada. 00:33:18 Dave: Oh, so it is historically was. But maybe the Deschutes has changed. Maybe they are there. You just don’t see them as prevalent. 00:33:23 Jackson: Yeah, I guess I just have to say I’m not super familiar. I gotta, you know, say my speciality. But they they scoala exist in the Western United States, not just the Rockies. 00:33:33 Dave: Not just the Rockies. Okay. Yeah. Cool. So you got all the stoneflies. Well, maybe take us back to again, back to the program you guys have going. You know, people are listening. They can look at the events, they can connect on that. What would be the other thing that people can connect to help you guys out? Because it feels like you got a big, um, it’s a good challenge ahead of you to try to document all this. Is there something, you know, how do you guys see this growing over time? And how do volunteers or people listening? Is there are they going to have a big impact on helping you guys out? 00:34:01 James : Yeah. I mean, uh. 00:34:04 Jackson: We were waiting for each other there. James. Yeah. 00:34:06 James : We’re waiting for each other to answer. Um, I think, you know, we’re a relatively new nonprofit And I mean, frankly, right now, because we’re growing and we’re expanding rapidly. If people are interested in collaborating or if people have the capacity to help us, you know, in a monetary way, your dollars are actually going to, uh, make a big splash in a small organization like what we’ve got going on. Um, so, you know, direct collaborations and, and, uh, new membership is, is huge. And we try to give back to our members in a really holistic way. So we hold these quarterly webinars and we do a lot of education. We, we, you know, are so appreciative of our new members. Um. 00:34:51 Dave: Yeah, yeah, I see it. No, I just opened up on the page. You got the it’s great. You got the different tiers, the midge, the bluing doll of the Mother’s Day caddis, different levels of what people want to contribute. And when people actually help support the project, basically that’s going to directly support basically protecting the species because understanding what bugs are there and whether they’re going up or down can help people that are managing. Is that kind of the idea being if if you guys see, say, a stonefly start to disappear or change over a period of time, you can say, hey, you can kind of flag it. Is that the thinking? 00:35:24 Jackson: Yeah, exactly. So one of the main things that we do are called species vulnerability assessments. And we’ve been working on these a lot for salmon flies just as a starting place because they are widely declining. And I don’t know if a lot of your, you know, yeah, listenership is aware of this, but we and other scientists have documented salmon fly declines, local extinctions on fourteen blue ribbon and gold medal trout streams throughout. 00:35:51 Dave: Oh, wow. So you’ve documented complete extinctions. 00:35:54 Jackson: Well, yeah, that, uh, like local extinctions, that can mean from like a river, um, a segment of a river. Uh, or maybe it’s just a decline in population number. And those range from, you know, fisheries that people hear about. I mean, the upper snake, uh, below Jackson Lake Dam historically had salmon flies. The lower Madison historically had salmon flies. They’re all gone now. Even parts of the lower Yellowstone there was declines there. The the the upper Gunnison, the upper Colorado, the entire Arkansas. The almost the whole Provo, the entire Logan down in Utah. Just kind of, you know, dropping a bunch of names here. Yeah. So we do know that they’re in decline and we are trying to use existing conservation and management frameworks to, you know, do some good here and not not always reinvent the wheel if we don’t have to. So one of the things that we do is assess the declines in these vulnerabilities. And we provide that data to Fish and Game and all states in the western United States every ten years have to do these sort of vulnerability assessments. If the data exists, if the data allows. And if those species that are declining meet certain thresholds, if they’re declining fast enough, then they’re called a species of greatest conservation need. And that’s a state level designation or acknowledgement that there’s a problem with that species. And then there’s usually additional resources that can be allotted towards further research, further monitoring and conservation towards that that critter. So we, um, with our collaborative partners, uh, DNR in Utah, Utah State, we assessed salmon flies in Utah. That’s one of the places where they’re declining most rapidly. And we found a eighty four percent statewide decline since the year two thousand really, really concerning, really strong decline there. And, you know, that that met the threshold. And they’re now designated as this as this conservation species. Similar stuff happened, um, without our direct participation in Colorado, which is great to see that some, uh, states, some state fish and games are kind of doing this starting to. For the first time really on their own, but we’re currently assessing salmon flies and. Their, their state rank, their vulnerability in Montana. So yeah, we’re doing a lot of things like that, not just documenting. Decline for knowledge sake, but really trying to integrate them into existing management frameworks. And right now, because we are small, I mean, it’s nice to have large organizations and you can do a lot more when you’re large, but every dollar has a lot more of an efficient impact generally on small organizations because there’s less overhead. So every dollar really does go a long way for us. And it’s really exciting. It feels like a big lift whenever we get like a moderate donation, we celebrate, you know, we can charge a little bit harder on, on, right? Whether that’s on the Madison or the upper snake or the Provo or wherever we’re working, we can charge a little bit harder. We can do a little bit more. 00:39:01 Dave: Yeah, that’s so cool. So like if literally if somebody puts in fifty dollars today. That definitely moves the needle for you guys. 00:39:08 Speaker 5: Yeah it does, it does. Yeah. It all matters. 00:39:12 Speaker 6: On to Mark Lodge offers a world class experience with one of the finest rainbow trout and brown trout fisheries in the world. They’re family owned and operated. Missouri River Lodge offers comfortable accommodations, delicious home cooked meals, and personalized service that make you feel like family. Days on the water are capped off by appetizers, beverages, dinner, and stories on the back deck and around the campfire. Book your stay for an unforgettable fly fishing adventure where memories are made and the fish stories are real. You can head over right now to wet fly swing. That’s o n e m a r k on Denmark right now to book your magical Missouri River trip. 00:39:55 Dave: Yeah, and that makes sense on the conservation. Greatest conservation. Need all that. So you guys are actually doing something that is making an impact when you look at Utah. Once you understand that and it’s designated, then do you guys keep involved in the process of like, I mean, the big question is, what do you do? You know what I mean? Because it feels like some of it’s water quality, maybe climate change. Do you guys have a grasp of that? Do you know what you can do for these salmon fly populations that are declining? 00:40:21 Jackson: Yeah. It’s different from river to river. So it is a it is a complicated story. People ask us all the time, what’s the solution when they talk about insect declines? And maybe we should talk a little bit more about just our insect declines real and how bad and all that. We can go into that if you want. 00:40:36 Dave: What do you mean? Like, you mean like whether it’s actually like, like kind of fake news sort of stuff, you get some of that. 00:40:42 Jackson: Fake news, but anglers, uh, a lot of the, the talk about insect declines, the reason why the same, one of the reasons why the salmon fly project exists is there’s not much data to actually say how bad the problem is, what species, where, why, etc. most of it historically is based on angler anecdote, which is really important, but it’s not the data that’s needed to change. 00:41:07 Dave: No, because what happens with that is you see that people remember differently or they don’t remember quite correctly. Right. Your mind? Yeah. The good old days. It is always better back then. I mean, those are always. I remember my dad talking about that. He was like, man, back in the day, you know, whatever the year was, it was always better. But yeah, you got to have the data. That’s why this is so important because without it, you really don’t have a starting point. 00:41:29 Jackson: Exactly. But you asked that question. What do you do? You know, in a a lot of the impacts come down to water and it changes from River River. But there are rivers that we know about in, uh, in Utah, for example, that have experienced really quite recent salmon fly declines. And it’s because, um, of recent drought combined with water withdrawals and it’s a super easy fix. Some of the most abundant salmon flies on these stretches of river. I’m talking about, uh, the blacksmith fork River up in northern Utah, which is a tributary of the Logan. So one of the more important trout streams in that state. And one of the last that has a good salmon fly hatch. The most abundant place where you can find salmon flies is just above this stretch of the valley. You know, the river goes through the canyon and salmon flies get more and more abundant as you drop in the canyon, just because you’re getting this like, temperature sweet spot for their development. And then you exit the canyon and you go from gobs of salmon flies to none simply because you hit a ditch. And every summer over the last several years, most of that water just goes away. And that’s not, you know, pointing fingers necessarily super bad. But there needs to be practices in place to protect now this vulnerable species, whether that’s through, um, you know, people choosing to use less water, you know, um, different avenues we, there’s, there’s a lot of work to do there, but it’s different on every river and it often comes down to water temperature, nutrient sediment. And it’s a long conversation. 00:43:02 Dave: Yeah. It is, it is. It’s I there’s a book, I can’t remember the author, but I think it was called Water Wars. But it was, you know, basically that’s the thinking that, you know, it’s, I think there’s nothing more important than water. You know, I mean, we all need it, you know, and the more the larger the population gets of humans, you know, it seems like challenging. I think that’s what people get stuck on. They feel like it’s almost a negative, like, what do you do? But I feel like it’s these little steps. I mean, do you guys feel that way that there’s little things we can do that even if it’s minor, it can make a difference. 00:43:32 James : Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think everybody has the ability to conserve water. I think that’s super important. I think every angler out there should be a steward of the river, right? Like, you know, how about when you clip your tippet off? Don’t throw that in the river. Yeah, there’s things you can do. Uh, you know, honestly, if you’re in a really crowded river and you’re fishing an area, think about maybe not walking through a really, you know, productive riffle. These are where we grow all of our insects, right? These riffles, if you can minimize the amount of trampling you do. Um, that’s going to help as well. I do want to also touch on, on one of these things you asked earlier about what anglers can do. And we do still have open on our website a, an angler survey. So if people listening have, uh, either experienced insect declines or, um, have details about hatches on their local streams that they’d like to let us know about. We have a survey open. It only takes about five minutes to fill out. And, um, that data will all go and get analyzed. And, um, we plan to, you know, turn angler anecdotes into more of a scientific finding and publish that for the scientific community. And we hope that that will make like an actual impact by giving anglers a real voice. 00:44:59 Dave: Nice. Okay, perfect. And this is. I see you’ve got Craig Matthews. He’s on. He’s got a video there. Is that Craig doing a little intro? 00:45:05 James : Yeah. We love Craig. We thank him so much for doing that. Big supporter of our work. And um yeah, that’s him on the banks of the Madison. 00:45:14 Dave: Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah. Great. He’s definitely we had him on the podcast a couple times and it’s always fun. So we got this survey so they can folks can take survey. You’ve got we mentioned some of the events. I mean, this is pretty good. You guys have a lot going. What else should people know before you know we take it out of here today. Any other important. I know we haven’t touched on hardly you know any of the bug, the deep dive. But give us a heads up that you’ve talked about a number of good things. Anything we missed? 00:45:38 Jackson: I would say the we need to touch on just the general state of aquatic insects. Yeah, it’s we live in a tricky space nowadays where there’s a lot of information and it’s hard to sift through it and figure out how bad it is. So I just wanted to talk about insect declines in general. Um, because a lot of the time there’s kind of a sky is falling narrative. 00:45:58 Dave: Yeah. 00:45:58 Jackson: And I don’t think that’s necessarily productive. Um, there’s a lot of places that we work pretty much everywhere we work. We’re in great fisheries. There’s a lot of fish per mile. There’s a lot of bugs. And even if insect declines have occurred, people are still stoked on the bugs that are there. They’re stoked on the the fish that are there. And there’s a lot to preserve. And that’s what we need to fight for. It’s not necessarily about, even in my mind, always returning it to whatever the good old days was. We don’t always even have data on that. And if we can, you know, do restoration. I mean, that’s a part of our mission is doing restoration, surely. But I guess my point is there’s a lot to protect and there’s a lot of good that can be done. And that’s why we’re not only focused on collecting this data, but also, um, we’re using it to, to as these early warning signals, you know, because if we don’t do anything, there is this question of in twenty years and forty years and sixty years, are we going to have these great fisheries? If we just allow impacts to go unchecked and the bugs generally are the canaries in the coal mine, the canaries in the current, if you will. Right. And even more than the trout. So, um, I just wanted to say that at a nationwide perspective on average, yeah, the best available science does show that that aquatic insects are declining when you average everything together. Um, but that does not mean that insects have been decimated on your most, you know, productive trout streams. Um, generally we’re seeing quite subtle signals on the bigger name, more famous, uh, rivers and they’re big and they’re famous because they’re great, you know, and they’re still mostly healthy. So I just wanted to, to give. 00:47:44 Dave: That’s a great. 00:47:44 Jackson: Point. Talking about a lot of aquatic insect decline stuff and conservation. And I wanted to put it within that framework. 00:47:51 Dave: That’s a great I’m glad you did that. I mean, I think part of it and one river that comes up, I know we heard about the last few years is the the big hole. There’s been some challenges, right? Are you guys familiar with that? That’s kind of in the Upper Missouri Basin. Right. There’s been some declines in populations. Is that related directly to bugs? Have you guys studied that? 00:48:08 Jackson: We sure are familiar. Yeah, we definitely are. 00:48:10 Dave: Yeah. So that’s a similar I mean, not too much different than say what’s going on in the like you mentioned the Logan area, kind of similar bug declines and then fish follow that. 00:48:19 Jackson: That’s likely what could have occurred. It’s a complicated story there. And we are good partners with this awesome organization that’s trying to fix it and figure it out. They’re called Safe Wild Trout. They’re a fairly new organization, but they combined with some some local longer time entities like the Big Hole River Foundation, and they’re really doing the bug monitoring and habitat monitoring to determine what the problem is for folks that aren’t as familiar, the big hole and a lot of the Upper Missouri basin experienced a really, really tragic trout decline over a number of years. And it’s it’s since bounced back a little. Everyone’s been trying to figure out why. I’m not going to jump the gun and pretend I know exactly why. I imagine if we had been tracking the bugs really thoroughly for long before that, we would have seen some of those early warning signals before the trout decline, that’s for sure. My hunch, because that’s what aquatic insects do. Um, they decline before trout because they’re more sensitive. But I’m not going to, um, say exactly what I know is the problem. The lower big hole is pretty warm. It’s now too warm for salmon flies. Um, in some of the parts of the lower, lower big hole. There’s still epic catches of that bug for sure. And um, that’s definitely true, especially in like in the canyon. Dewey and, um, that kind of area. But, um, but yeah, the, the bugs are super relevant to those sorts of problems. 00:49:45 Dave: Nice. And, and how fast when you look at these bugs, I know there’s probably variation, but say salmon flies if they’re almost extinct in an area. Could you, if you change the water quality is because their life cycles are shorter, could they come back pretty quick? 00:49:59 James : So same applies actually have a really long life history. They can live in the water for three to four years, right? And then until they are fully developed and emerge as an adult. So that’s probably why salmon flies are more sensitive than a lot of other aquatic insects. Like for instance, if you think about a bluing olive that actually goes through its life history twice per year, right? You have a spring hatch and you have a fall hatch. And because they’re, you know, spending less time as nymphs, experiencing whatever stressors they’re experiencing in the water that can make them less tolerant or sorry. Yeah. You know, a little bit less sensitive, more tolerant. Salmon flies are super, super sensitive because they live for so long. But yeah, in general, aquatic insects, if given the right Uh, environmental condition. They can bounce right back. They’re very resilient bugs. You know, if you build it, they will. They will come. 00:50:55 Dave: They will. Compared to some of these other animals that take longer, say a fish or like you get into some of these fish, right? Sturgeon that are super old. Takes them a little bit longer. But yeah, so that makes sense. So these bugs and and who are the, are the stoneflies, the kind of the longest lived aquatic invertebrates out there. 00:51:12 Jackson: The big stoneflies that people are familiar with. Yes, but there are, I mean, all the little stoneflies, yellow Sally’s and um, even Scala, they’re fairly big, but they, they go through their life cycle in one year. But the big bugs Goldens, uh, the nocturnal they go, they take two years. Salmon flies take three to four as nymphs almost the whole year as an egg. So their whole life is really about four to five years. Um, if you even take an egg, they have a really crazy egg biology, some funky things going on. Um, but if as long as the aquatic insects, that species hasn’t been pushed out entirely, it’ll come back fairly quickly. So even these rivers that have undergone really drastic declines of some species, there’s still quite a lot of hope. As long as they hold on at low population levels, because as soon as conditions come back and are become more optimal for them, they will outcompete these generalists that have moved in. You know, um, Scuds, amphipods, midges. That’s why they’re, you know, they’re tolerant, um, uh, generalists really. And the sense of the books will come back as soon as conditions allow. 00:52:18 Dave: Okay. And is there a reintroduction of bugs? Is that something that’s ever been done or something that could be done or needed? 00:52:24 James : People have tried it. Uh, yeah. In Colorado, they tried to reintroduce salmon flies on the on the Arkansas River, and it was largely a failure. Um, there’s rumors that maybe a few have held on, uh, but no restocking efforts haven’t proven to be super effective. 00:52:42 Jackson: Yeah. It’s been done in a couple other places I can think of. But if you think about it, you know, there are experiments that show, you know, survivability of nymphs. And there’s a reason why every, you know, if you look at an egg sac of an aquatic insect, it’s pretty big. They’re not putting one egg in the water, you know. So essentially, to recreate that female and the male that she mated with their job is to make, you know, two more, you know. So for reintroduction efforts for aquatic insects, it can take a lot of bugs. 00:53:14 James : Right? 00:53:15 Dave: Yeah, a lot of bugs. 00:53:15 James : Understatement of the night. 00:53:16 Dave: Yeah. They put a lot. How many eggs just on average is a big salmon fly. Putting in the water. 00:53:23 Jackson: Oh, you know, I don’t know, um. Couple hundred. 00:53:26 Dave: Couple. 00:53:26 Jackson: Hundred, but but. 00:53:27 Dave: Not thousands. Because you look at fish, they’re in the sometimes thousands right. Of eggs. A similar life history I guess. Right. Put out a bunch and you get a couple that survive, right? 00:53:38 James : Yeah. I’m sure there’s at least one hundred on a salmon fillet. Exact, but I don’t know the actual number. 00:53:44 Dave: Yeah. Okay. Well. Give us. Well, let’s take it out of here with our fly fishing tips and tricks segment. Are you guys now? Are you guys angler wise? Are you like super, uh, high level pro fly anglers or what’s your story there? 00:53:56 Jackson: Cat’s out of the bag. Um, I came here for the bugs, and I am a very casual fly fisherman. I’m obsessed with all things bugs. I love talking about fly fishing because I like the bugs. Like, if I’m fishing hatch, I’m more excited about the hatch than the fish. So I think, I think James should really take it from here because he’s a good angler and super passionate about it. And that’s one of the reasons why we make a good team. We kind of come at it from, um, you know, why we got into entomology and went into schooling for it was from a different perspective. 00:54:26 Dave: Gotcha. Okay. And well, tell me this before we get into fishing really quick on your I guess you both had the masters. What was the project? When you look at the research you did, you were on a similar project or describe that really quick. 00:54:37 James : So I got my master’s. Jackson actually got his PhD. Um, I was studying, Um, how the physiology of salmon flies, um, sort of affects their, uh, performance. Right. So, um, one of the bigger projects that I did was trying to understand how temperature, oxygen and flow interact to influence like the thermal tolerance and survivability of salmon flies. Um, so I built these crazy mesocosm type, um, chambers where I adjusted temperature, oxygen and flow and then measured that push up response I told you about. And then also, um, when they basically pass out from, they can’t handle it anymore. 00:55:19 Dave: Oh, right. So you’ve seen them, what do you call that when they’re doing the troll to get more oxygen? 00:55:24 James : It’s called the push up response is what people it doesn’t in salmon flies it. To me it looks more like a jig, right? It’s like a little side to side wiggle. Okay. And some of the other species, um, it looks more like a push up going up and down. 00:55:37 Dave: Oh, a push up. Right. Okay. And is the just high level. I mean, you hear about the eighteen degree C, you know, for the impacts of that that’s bad for salmonids. Is is that a similar thing for salmon flies or is that what is there a temperature number range? 00:55:53 Jackson: Yeah, actually it’s really similar. Um, for instream survival for salmon flies. Um, it’s a little bit lower than for salmonids, but it’s in a similar range for temperature. 00:56:06 Dave: Perfect. Um, and then Jackson, what was your. So, um. Jackson, you have the master’s and the PhD. 00:56:13 Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I went straight from undergrad through PhD, which you can, you know, okay. Some people do, but, but yeah. 00:56:19 Dave: And what was your, what was your, what did you study? What was your focus? 00:56:22 Jackson: Really similar to James because we were in the same lab. So I also was doing this kind of eco physiology is what we call it, how physiology can inform our ecological views. And, um, looking at interactive effects among temperature, oxygen and flow to understand performance, which means growth, metabolism, things like that of aquatic insects, and then also survival. Just trying to really understand the why salmon flies live where they do and why they’re declining. I was thinking we call it like a mechanistic perspective, trying to understand the gears that make salmon flies work. They were my focal species. Um, some of the results were pretty generalizable to how most aquatic insects work. So a lot of different research projects within that theme, but that’s the gist. 00:57:15 Dave: Perfect. And well, let’s take it out. We mentioned the fish. So James, you’re more onto the angling are you? What’s your home water that you’re fishing there? 00:57:24 James : Well, I used to live in Missoula. Okay. I mean, I moved out to Missoula to go to school there, but my real reason I moved out there was because I wanted to fish more. Originally, I came from Maine, and, uh, we have good striped bass fishing there. Uh, the trout fishing leaves a lot to be desired. And so I, uh, I think I read in a magazine somewhere they called Missoula, like, uh, trout Mecca or something like that. And I said, heck, there’s the college there. I’m going to go to school there. And then I started studying bugs because I figured it’s a good way to increase my, you know, fishing knowledge. Yeah. Right. Help me out on the stream, which it does. It totally. 00:58:01 Dave: Does. 00:58:01 James : Yeah. 00:58:02 Dave: It does. So what would be your best when you mix the two as far as anglers listening now, what do you use with your bug experience that helps you on the water for fishing most? You know, what’s the biggest thing that helps you out there? 00:58:14 James : So to me, it’s all about trying to understand and predict what you’re going to experience out on the river on a given day. When I, you know, spend the day before I go on a fishing trip, I’m not necessarily thinking about where am I going to find the biggest trout. I think about where am I going to intercept a strong hatch, right? And understanding that hatches are totally driven by, uh, you know, temperature of the water, seasonality, weather condition, things like that. You can, um, make predictions about what you’re going to experience and you know, how long you want to drive to go and do that. 00:58:54 Dave: Right? So you can kind of know in any particular stream or reach based on, like you said, the temperature. And I’m sure you take some good journals, some field notes, you can kind of predict that. Like you said, July twenty fifth, do you have a good feel? If you look at that event coming up, you can kind of have a good prediction of what’s going to be coming off that time of year that week. 00:59:13 James : Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, it might be a little different this year with the crazy warm and dry winter that we’ve had. And that’s likely going to push our hatches forward, right? Because the main thing, like almost the entire thing that drives aquatic insect development and brings them to a hatch is the accumulated experience of temperature, right? Because these are ectotherms. Their life history is completely tied to temperature. So if we have a really warm winter and a really mild spring, and they’re experiencing a lot of what we call degree days, it’s like the accumulation of temperature. Um, they will hatch a lot sooner. So this year you might see, I mean, right now I’m living in Colorado right now. I’m seeing bluing olives out already on some of our rivers. And that’s early. That’s pretty early. I’ve been joking with some of my friends that March Brown’s in Missoula, actually are going to come out in March this year, which is normally an April thing. 01:00:18 Dave: Gotcha. Yeah. You hear a lot like the Mother’s Day caddis, right? Is that is that near Mother’s Day still or how does that fall out? 01:00:25 James : Yeah. I mean, historically that’s been around Mother’s Day. The thing with Mother’s Day caddis, I’ve always sort of found is their hatch almost always occurs with peak runoff, which is a total bummer. If you find a river where that doesn’t occur, you should go back there and fish that hatch because it can be pretty epic. Um, I’ve had good days on that bug on the Madison and on the Yellowstone, but some of the rivers, especially around the Missoula area, it just always tends to occur with peak runoff. 01:00:58 Dave: Yeah. Okay. So that’s a big part of it. So basically your, your advice would be to understand, you know, understanding the bugs is going to help you to know when the hatches are coming out and what to do. And then once you get on the water, you know, I guess that’s, it’s a lifelong thing, isn’t it, for I guess everybody. Right. Understanding and how deep you go into this, the etymology piece, do you find that a lot of people that get started and they just, they go kind of deep into it and, and kind of get lost in a good way. 01:01:25 James : Yeah. I mean, I think that’s what happened to me. And if I could give any sort of inspiration to some of the more beginner anglers that might be listening, Like, to me, this is really the exciting part about fly fishing. This is the heritage of fly fishing. And that’s, you know, going out there and experiencing the bugs, following the hatch and then imitating that hatch to full trout. And it’s you’re not going to do it very well in your first three, four or five years of fishing. That’s because you’re just you have to go out there and you have to gain your own experiences and write this stuff down like, like keep a good notebook because that’s going to help you in future years because it is pretty predictable, right? If you can say, okay, on, on this date, I saw a really good hatch. I’m going to go back, you know, to that particular river on that particular day, chances are you’re going to experience it again. And once you have a lifetime of fishing stories that are, you know, can that can you know that that’s your whole year right there. And that’s what I do. And, you know. 01:02:33 Dave: Do you take do you journal, do you journal when you’re out there after fishing and you know, everything? 01:02:37 James : Yeah. I mean, I don’t use a notebook so much, but I use my phone a lot. I take pictures of the bugs. I’ll write in my notes app. I’ve got a notes app that’s super top secret where I catalogue these things. Um, because like I said, that’s what gets me excited about going fishing now. 01:02:55 Dave: Perfect. Awesome, guys. Well, the cool thing is, um, well, when this goes live, we’ll talk to our future selves. This will probably be after we’re going to do the boot camp, but as we’re talking, the boot camp is coming up here next week. So we’re going to bring you back on and you’re going to present. And so when this goes live, people can actually watch that presentation. So we’re going to have a couple of resources for people. But if they want to follow up with you guys, um, Sam and fly Project.org. Um, and we talked about a lot of resources. Um, any other words of wisdom before we head out here today? 01:03:26 James : Lose the chubby and the Pentagon? 01:03:28 Dave: Oh, nice. Nice. No, chubbies. 01:03:31 James : Read some books from the nineteen seventies and get inspired and go find some interesting hatches. 01:03:37 Dave: Yeah. And how about you, Jackson? What’s your word of advice? 01:03:39 Jackson: I was going to say the same thing. 01:03:42 Dave: Yeah. 01:03:43 Jackson: Just because the world of entomology and it’s, you know, it’s just so cool this this interaction between trout and these bugs and to be able to interact with it, even though I said, I’m not like a hardcore fly fisherman. It’s just such a cool thing to be able to understand it and predict it. It’s so cool. And if we’re going to have, um, you know, hatches and solid trout fishing for years to come, we need people that get it. You know, if no one gets it and no one cares, it’s going away, man, because there’s going to be no one to fight for it. 01:04:13 Dave: That’s right. 01:04:14 Jackson: No, that’s really why, you know, beyond just, you know, why the Salmon Fly project focuses so much on education. We want people to be better anglers, but we also want people to be invested and be stewards. Because let me tell you, there’s not many weird entomologists like James and I are there. That’s gonna fight for the bugs. It’s you guys. It’s got to be the fishermen. It’s got to be the anglers. There’s nobody else in the world that’s going to take care of these ecosystems. 01:04:38 Dave: Amazing. God, that’s perfect. I think we’ll leave it there for the day. You guys. Um, like I said, I’m excited for the boot camp. Um, this is going to be a lot of fun to let you guys just present. You don’t have to. I won’t be bugging you with as many questions. I’ll let you just kind of do your magic. But thanks again. Like we said, Sam and fly Project.org, they can check in on all that and we’ll look forward to talking to you on the next one. 01:04:58 James : Thanks so much, Dave. This was fun. Thanks, Dave. 01:05:02 Dave: If you get a chance, your call to action today, if you choose to accept it, is to reach out to Sam and fly project.org and donate if you get a chance. If you have even. I think you can even drop down to as low as you want. But every dollar makes a difference. They’re a small, little tight knit group running this thing. So if you can do that today, that’s a huge call out. Uh, and you will be making your impact on protecting the bugs, the fish and the streams and water we all love every day out there. If you get a chance. We have a lot going on. We’ve got the shop. We just finished our first boot camp this year was amazing. Had a bunch of amazing guests. If you’re interested in taking that level and getting all the replays and hearing everything we have going there from the boot camp and the shop, go to wet fly dot com. Sign up there and then we’ll let you know when, uh, when we open up wet fly swing pro again, the shop, it’s our membership community. We’re doing good stuff. We’re hoping we’re going to be working with the Salmon Fly project more, uh, to get some folks into their world as well. So if you get a chance, please, uh, connect with me. Big shout out if you haven’t already. And if you’re not aware, I just want to let you know that you can reach out to me anytime, Dave at Netflix dot com and I will put together a podcast episode for you, but I just love to hear if you’re new, if you haven’t connected with me before, I’d love to get those emails every day in the inbox and let me know where you’re coming from and that you’re listening to the podcast. That keeps me going strong. All right. That’s all I have for you. Hope you are enjoying everything we got going. One shout out to on to Mark Lodge. We are doing the dry fly school to the same area, the Big Mo, the Missouri River this year. So if you’re interested, send me an email there as well. I’ll let you know. Inside Wet Fly Swing Pro is your best chance to get access to these trips. Uh, and, and that’s what I’m gonna leave it today. Hope you are having a good morning. Hope you have a great day. Or if it’s evening, hope you enjoy your evening and, uh, and kick back and, uh, and have a celebration beverage for me and we’ll see you and talk to you on that next episode. Talk to you then. 01:07:01 Speaker 7: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit Wet Fly dot com.

 

Conclusion with James Frakes and Jackson Birrell on The Salmonfly Project

If you get a chance, check out the Salmonfly Project and support what they’re doing.

Even a small donation helps. They’re a small, tight-knit team, and every dollar makes a difference.

Head over to their site and chip in if you can.

     

The Ultimate Leech Guide with Landon Mayer and Phil Rowley (Littoral Zone #24)

We’re putting together the Ultimate Leech Guide with Landon Mayer and Phil Rowley. We break down when to use leeches, how to fish them, and why they work so consistently across different lakes.

This one goes deep into tactics, from leader setup to retrieve styles, along with a better understanding of how leeches actually behave in the water.

If you’ve ever wondered why a simple leech can outfish just about anything else in your box, this episode lays it all out.

Hit play to start listening! 👇🏻🎧

apple podcasts

Find the show:  Follow the Show | Overcast | Spotify

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe on Android

Subscribe via RSS

(The full episode transcript is at the bottom of this blogpost) 👇🏻

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

 

Show Notes with Landon Mayer on the Ultimate Leech Guide

Leeches are one of the most consistent food sources in stillwater. They’re always available, easy for fish to catch, and they can imitate a wide range of prey.

But before we get deep into leech tactics, we kick things off with a great listener question on early-season water temps and where fish are holding.

Listener Question: Early Spring Water Temps and Finding Trout

Phil answers Cooper’s question about water temps and where to find fish early in the season.

The big number to remember is 50°F. That’s when hatches pick up, and fish start feeding more consistently. The sweet spot is around 50 to 65°F, where trout are active and eating.

Inflow areas are always worth checking. They bring oxygen, food, and structure, but they can also swing too cold or too warm depending on runoff.

Fish are also transitioning this time of year. After winter, they slide out of deeper water and move into the shallows where food becomes more available.

Landon Mayer on Stillwater Fishing

If you haven’t listened to the first episode with Phil Rowley and Landon Mayer, go check out Littoral Zone #10 – Shoreline Strategies and Tactics. Give that one a listen because it’s packed with tips on fishing lakes from shore.

Landon grew up in Colorado Springs and spent a lot of time fishing the South Platte and places like Spinney and Eleven Mile. That’s where he really got into stillwater fishing.

Fishing those waters, Landon said, one pattern kept showing up again and again.

Leeches.

First Leech Experiences

Landon and Phil kick off by talking about their first real experiences with leeches.

Landon describes seeing a large leech at Spinney moving just under the surface, fast and fluid, almost like a baitfish. That moment flipped a switch and showed him how active leeches really are.

That realization carried into fly design.

A broken slump buster led to what became the mini leech. The rabbit strip shifted forward, and suddenly the fly had a different movement profile that fish couldn’t resist

Phil had a slower start with leeches. He knew they mattered but struggled early on until one night in British Columbia when everything lined up and fish wouldn’t stop eating simple leech patterns.

Landon Mayer's Mini Leech
Landon Mayer’s Mini Leech

Why Fish Key In on Leeches

Leeches are an easy target. They move slower than baitfish and don’t require much energy for fish to chase down.

At the same time, they’re a bigger meal.

That combination makes them efficient feeding opportunities for trout. As Landon puts it, it’s more bang for the buck. They’re also always present. Unlike insects that hatch and disappear, leeches live for years and remain available year-round.

Leeches can imitate:

  • Baitfish
  • Crayfish
  • Nymphs

That versatility is a big reason they’re so effective.

When to Fish Leeches

Leeches produce all season, but there are key windows where they really stand out:

  • Right after ice-off
  • Evening low-light periods
  • Windy conditions with surface chop
  • Deeper summer water
  • Right after a hatch

This is also when you’ll run into those windows where fish are locked in on leeches. There may not be anything obvious happening on the surface, but fish are cruising and feeding steadily below.

When that happens, it can feel like a leech bite where nearly every good presentation gets attention. In those moments, focus less on changing flies and more on dialing in depth and staying in the zone.

If you want to understand more about how lakes work and where this all fits in, check out these episodes with Brian Chan:

Where to Fish Leeches

Start shallow, especially near drop-offs where fish move between zones. But don’t ignore deeper water. Leeches live in the substrate, so they’re just as relevant offshore, especially in summer.

Wind actually improves your chances. It creates cover and adds subtle movement to your fly.

Fishing options:

  • Indicator rigs
  • Dry dropper setups
  • Stripping retrieves

There’s really no wrong place to fish a leech.

Fishing Leeches from Shore and Boat

From shore, versatility is key. Mix retrieves and cover water until you find what works. A simple lift-and-drop retrieve that kicks up sediment can trigger fish quickly.

From a boat, it’s about mobility. Drift to locate fish, then anchor when you find them. Wind helps push food and concentrate fish, making positioning even more important.

Rigging and Setup for Leeches

Landon prefers longer rods in the 10 to 11-foot range for better control and lifting power.

His setup includes:

In shallow water, Landon sticks with a dry dropper, usually around 3 to 6 feet, and he mentions that six feet is about his limit, so he can still cast and stay in control.

Once he needs to go deeper, he switches to an indicator setup, and if it gets really deep, he’ll either use a slip indicator or start counting it down. He’ll adjust in about 3-foot increments to figure out where fish are sitting in the column, high, middle, or low, and sometimes he’ll count it down in seconds, like 10 or 20, then start retrieving to dial it in.

Two-Fly “Double Trouble” Rig

When fish are aggressive, he runs a two-fly setup. A bigger fly leads, with an unweighted leech trailing behind. It can look like a baitfish chasing the leech. Fish might come over for the big fly, then eat the leech instead. He connects it with a loop knot to give the leech more movement.

Knots and Small Details

Landon changes knots based on how he’s fishing:

  • Clinch knots for balanced flies
  • Loop knots when stripping leeches for more action
  • Micro swivels to reduce line twist

Phil’s Leech Setup

Phil focuses on keeping everything vertical under the indicator. That vertical presentation keeps the fly in the strike zone consistently.

Key elements:

  • Level leader system
  • Tippet rings
  • 2–3 feet from swivel to fly
  • Flies positioned 1–3 feet off bottom

He avoids tapered leaders because they create an arc, pulling the fly out of position Depth control is everything, and even small adjustments matter.

Leech Retrieves and Presentation

Landon gets into retrieves, and one of his go-to methods is what he calls the “Johnny Cash.”

  • Short 6 to 12-inch strips, like strumming a guitar
  • Done with a quick wrist flick, not long pulls
  • Easy to go slow or fast depending on the day
  • Can switch into a hand twist/finger retrieve from there

He says shorter movements make it easier for anglers to stay in control and adjust speed without overdoing it.

Phil adds that the hand twist helps keep the fly moving without going too fast, giving that ribbon-like swim with a lift and drop. It comes down to matching what leeches are doing. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow.

They also note that trout usually eat smaller leeches, not big ones.

Leech Fly Patterns.

For Landon, every fly needs to be realistic, durable, and versatile. That’s what gives him confidence to fish them anywhere, all year.

  • His core patterns come from the Mini Leech family
  • Variations include unweighted, jig, and booby leeches
  • Built to work in different depths and situations

Phil looks at a few key things when choosing flies:

  • Size, profile, color, and behavior
  • How the fly moves in the water matters just as much as how it looks

They both agree that most of the time, simple flies work best. And having a small box of confidence patterns is better than carrying hundreds of flies and guessing. Black, olive, and brown are staples, but adding bright beads or flash can trigger fish, especially in low light or dirty water.

At the end of it, it’s less about having everything and more about knowing what works and sticking with it.

Common Mistakes When Fishing Leeches

  1. Fishing too fast
    Fast strips can work, but most days slower is better. Think steady movement or even just letting the fly drift.
  2. Adding too much weight
    You don’t always need to get down fast. In shallow water or weeds, a slower sink with an unweighted leech often works better.
  3. Fishing too low
    Instead of dragging the fly on the bottom, keep it just above it where the fish are feeding.
  4. Sticking to one color
    Have both a matching leech and an attractor leech. Fish can switch, so you need options.
  5. Not adjusting your setup
    If you don’t have multiple lines, you can still change sink rates using leader tip systems instead of buying a whole new setup.

Landon adds that you should always have both a Landon adds that you should always have both a matching leech and an attractor leech in your box. Don’t rely on just one.

They also mention not every situation needs heavy flies. Sometimes unweighted leeches are key, especially in shallow water or around weeds where you need a slow, controlled sink.

One last tip is line choice. If you don’t have multiple lines, you can use leader tip systems to change sink rates without buying a whole new setup.

Leech it Tour

Landon shares that he’s been on his Leech it Tour, traveling to shows and clubs and getting back out there after recovering from a back injury. He’s already a few stops in and plans to hit more throughout the year.

You can find the full tour and updates on his website and social channels, and he encourages people to come out and connect in person at events.

Connect with Landon Mayer

Follow Landon on Instagram @landonmayerflyfishing

Visit his website at LandonMayerFlyFishing.com

landon mayer fly fishing

Sponsors and Podcast Updates

The Ultimate Leech Guide Resources Noted in the Show

Here are the pattern recipes for Landon’s original Mini Leech and all of its variations from his Guide Flies Book.

Mayers Mini Leech
Hook: MFC Straight Eye Caddis & Chironomid Hook
Thread: Uni-Thread, 8/0, Black
Body: Crystal Flash, Black/Red
Wing: Micro Pine Squirrel Zonker, Black or Brown
Thorax: Ostrich Herl, Black or Brown

Mayers Mini Leech Jig
Hook: MFC Tactical Jig Hook (#12-#18)
Thread: Uni-Thread, 8/0, Black
Bead: Tungsten Slotted (2.3 MM-2.2MM), Black
Body: Crystal Flash, Black, Green or Root Beer
Wing: Micro Pine Squirrel or Mink Zonker, Black, Olive, or Brown
Collar: Ostrich Herl (Large), Black, Olive, or Brown

Mayers Mini Leech Jig Radiant
Hook: MFC Tactical Jig Hook (#12-#18)
Thread: UTC 70, White
Bead: Slotted Tungsten, Radiant Pink
Body: Crystal Flash, Pink
Wing: Micro Mink Zonker, White
Collar: Ostrich Herl (Large), White
Tying Note: Other favourite colour combinations for the Mini Leech Jig Radiant include: black wing/head and a purple bead, black wing/head and an orange bead, rust wing/brown head and a brown bead and an olive wing/head and an olive bead.

The Ultimate Leech Guide Videos Noted in the Show

Here are the recipes for the leech pattern images provided:

  1. Balanced Leech (Bruised)
    YouTube Video Link (Original Version)
    YouTube Video Link (Updated Version)


    Hook: Daiichi 4640, 4647 or 4699 #10
    Thread: Semperfli Nano Silk, 50D, Black
    Tail: Marabou, Black and Two Strands of Ice Blue Pearl Flashabou (#6904) Tied Along the Sides
    Body: Arizona Simi Seal, Black/Blue
    Bead: 1/8″ (3.2 MM) Tungsten, Gold, Fl. Orange, Fl. Chartreuse, or Fl. Pink
    Extension: Sequin Pin

  2. Baby Leech (Red)
    YouTube Video Link
    Hook: Daiichi 4640 or 4647 #12
    Tail: MFC Schlappen Flue, Black/Maroon, Mixed with Two Strands of Crystal Flash, Red
    Body: Arizona Simi Seal, Red/Black and Red Mixed in a 50/50 Ratio
    Bead: 7/64 ” (2.8 MM) Slotted Tungsten or Tungsten Head Turner Bead, Gold
  3. M & M Leech
    YouTube Video Link
    Hook: Daiichi 1120 #10
    Thread: Semperfli Classic Waxed, 8/0 or 12/0, Black
    Tail: Schlappen Flue, Black, Mixed with Two Strands of Crystal Flash, Red
    Rib: Semperfli 1MM Wire, Silver
    Body: Mirage Opal Mylar, Medium
    Body Hackle: Ostrich Herl, Black
    Bead:7/64 ” (2.8 MM) Tungsten, Gold

Related Podcast Episodes

Full Podcast Transcript

Episode Transcript
913 Littoral Zone #24 00:00:00 Phil: Welcome to the Littoral Zone podcast. I’m your host, Phil Rowley. The Littoral zone, or shoal area of the lake, is a place where the majority of the action takes place. My podcast is intended to do the same, put you where the action is to help you improve your Stillwater fly fishing. On each broadcast, I, along with guests from all over the world, will be providing you with information, tips and tricks, flies, presentation techniques, along with different lakes or regions to explore. I hope you enjoy today’s podcast. Please feel free to email me with your Stillwater related fly fishing questions and comments. I do my best to answer as many as we can prior to each episode, just before the main content. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed today’s show. Leeches are a key Stillwater food source not only for trout, but for other fish. When I fish lakes, leeches are one of my go to patterns and presentation options, especially early in late season or when starting out on the water for the first time. Fish seldom pass up a well presented leech pattern. Good friend, author, fly designer, and fellow leech addict, Lindenmeyer joins me once again on my podcast to provide what we hope is the ultimate Leech guide. Landon. Join me. Previously on episode number ten where we discuss shoreline strategies and tactics for Still Waters. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to this episode, I recommend that you give it a listen today. Landon and I will be discussing all aspects of using leeches, including when and how to use them. Our favorite presentation tactics, leader configurations, life cycle, and why leech patterns consistently perform well on our local lakes and other lakes across both North and South America. But before landing and I sit down in his Colorado home to discuss leeches, let’s answer a great question from Cooper Mnowak about early spring water temperature and finding trout. Today’s question comes from Cooper Mnowak in regards to early spring water temperature and finding trout. Here’s what Cooper had to say. He starts off, Hey Phil, I’m a huge fan. I listen to your podcast, and when new episodes come out and I’ve been watching videos of you on YouTube for years now. Thanks, Cooper. That’s greatly appreciated. Now, Cooper’s question there is a high mountain lake I like to fish. That was really productive for me last year. I had one day where within a three hour session, I caught over one hundred fish. Nothing over eighteen inches. I fished it later in May, but saw that it didn’t freeze over this year and I was hoping to fish it in a few weeks. When I look at water temperature, am I looking to fish areas that are over fifty degrees for the best chance of finding fish more schooled up? So long as the lake didn’t change much. I have an area with an inlet creek that is between three to ten feet of water. Are those the types of areas trout are going to prefer to be in when the water is colder. I hope that makes sense. I’m just trying to figure out exactly what to look for. All right. So Cooper well, first of all, the fifty degree water temperature is one of the key water temperatures in trout fishing. If you listen to the podcast episodes I did with Bryan Chan on how lakes work, we talked about these key water temperatures. And fifty degrees is key in the spring because once the temperature reaches fifty Fahrenheit, that’s sort of the key trigger point for hatches to start really hatching in earnest in the fall months when temperatures. Sorry, temperature drops below fifty Fahrenheit. That’s usually the trout’s polite kick in the pants to strap on that feed bag and get feeding aggressively before the lake freezes up. And pickings are a little lean for a few months. So my response to Cooper was again thanking him for the kind words, and I said, water temperature is an important factor and I always check whenever fishing. When fishing for trout, I look for temperatures between fifty Fahrenheit and sixty five Fahrenheit, as this is when trout’s metabolism will be running efficiently. They can extract oxygen, feed and digest, which keeps them constantly feeding. That’s always a good thing for us as fly fishers. Inflow streams such as the one you described are good areas to explore because they bring not only cool oxygenated water, but also food and if flowing fast enough, surface cover which give the fish confidence to feed as the rippled surface makes them feel more protected. If the inflowing water is too cold or warm, trout can also avoid these areas. However, on average, inflow creeks are a good structure to focus on. Along with my other favorite structures drop offs, points of land, weed beds and sunken humps or islands. So Cooper, I hope that helps out. Um, again, I would certainly, you know, whenever you visit a lake, you always want to probably go back to where you last had your great success. If it was the right time of the year, typically after ice off as well. Those fish are going to be shallow because that’s where the. The water has um is the coolest and most oxygenated. Now, you mentioned. That it didn’t, uh, have a chance to freeze up. So those fish probably moved out into the deep water to sort of get through winter. And then as the shallows start to warm, they’re going to flood those shallows to feed because that’s where food is located. And structures like that creek are also going to bring food in as well. So always good places to try in those scenarios. So again, I hope that answers your question, Cooper, and is also helpful to everyone else that’s listening. And again, if you have questions at all, just send me an email to Phil at Phil dot com and I’m happy to feature them because these are great ways for all of us to learn more about Stillwater fishing and fly fishing in general. Now on to our podcast. All right, Landon, you’re back here again. 00:05:46 Landon: It’s like yesterday. We were right here. Yeah, yeah, it was really good. 00:05:50 Phil: Really good. It’s good to have you back. Now, for those of you who haven’t listened to any of my episodes before, well, first of all, shame on you. But no. I’m kidding. Um, Landon has joined us before. We talked together about Stillwater strategies for fishing lakes from shore. That’s episode ten. I’ll be sure to put a link to that episode in the podcast. But for those who haven’t been here before. Lynn, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into fly fishing and, and maybe a little bit of relation, how you like to fish lake so much? 00:06:16 Landon: Absolutely. So born and raised in Colorado Springs, was very fortunate to be exposed to the South Platte River. And the plateau Basin of South Park is where I fell in love with Stillwaters. We’ve got twenty seven miles of the South Platte and Tarot, spinny and eleven mile Canyon Reservoir. Super cool fishery is what you’ve experienced with me. A lot of fat, hungry, healthy fish with big paddles that, like you, take you into your backing. 00:06:42 Phil: Yeah. And one of the things that’s common to your lakes and many of the lakes, I fish in North America and my home waters in South America is trout and lots of other fish like leeches. 00:06:53 Landon: They love them. They love leeches. 00:06:55 Phil: And we love them too. 00:06:56 Landon: Oh we do. 00:06:57 Phil: So tonight, Landon and I are just going to have a rambling session about leeches. Talk a little bit about their biology. We talk about some of the presentation tactics we like to use, where we like to fish them, why we like to fish them, the rigging and talk about some of our favorite fly patterns too. So why don’t we kick this off? Tell me about your first memorable leech experience and I’ll talk to you about mine. 00:07:20 Landon: Sounds good. Well there’s two. The quick and short is the first time I’ve witnessed a leech in Spinney Reservoir and traveling abroad. South America as well, and other fisheries. Realizing there’s just as many, if not more, especially when they’re bigger fisheries. But being that I was on the Spinney Reservoir and I felt like the Stand by Me movie when he experienced his leeches. Hopefully it wasn’t going to get anything near this, but watching something swim in the water at a fast, rapid rate. I looked close and first thought was, oh, it’s a swimming baitfish or something zipping around. Then once it came closer to shore, just below the surface, coming up just below the surface like a ribbon moving full speed, I realized it was a five inch long leech. And being my first exposure, not only was I surprised at how big it was, how fast it moved, and then realizing, oh, this thing can’t detect if a fish is swimming towards it. So realizing that this is going to be something fish will pursue. And it was quite interesting to see that firsthand. And then after that, when I was on the North Platte River with John Barr and the Hamrick brothers, we were fishing as slump Buster. And this was the birth of the mini leech. His slump buster broke at the bend. The wire came loose and all of a sudden the rabbit was attached to the eye of the hook, and the hook set ratio went up tremendously. We were crushing fish and I’m like, what is going on? We brought it in and realized after a few fish, oh, it broke. And we continued to fish it and fishing and fishing. And Jason Hamrick said, hey man, I’m. I received so many boxes full of micro pine squirrel and you should take some home and try to replicate this and I’ll do the same on the North Platte. And being that I twist it up, took some time to develop the fly. But then there’s Mini Leech and from there it was game on. Ever since. I just can’t believe how not only effective simplistic the ties are, but how much fish really do pursue them. 00:09:09 Phil: Exactly. It’s amazing. We’ll talk more about your mini leech and some others a little bit later on in the podcast. You mentioned something there about Stand By Me. If it’s one thing I said about leeches, their marketing department sucks. Yes, movies have, you know, stand by Me, the African queen. Um, I’m sure there’s a few others that basically, if a leech latches onto you, it’ll drain your blood in under two seconds and your boss’s little transparent thing lying and quivering on the bank. 00:09:35 Landon: You’re looking pale. 00:09:36 Phil: Yeah. My first experiences. Well, when I was starting, you know, in my formative years, um, whatever that term really means. Um, There’s a book in British Columbia called The Ghillie that was put together by. It’s a compilation of many anglers in British Columbia, and it’s primarily Stillwater focused. So it had a chapter on leeches. So after reading and studying that and of course studying other books, I knew leeches were important. But man, I couldn’t catch a cold with a leech. And then I was fishing Island Lake, which is in the central part of British Columbia, near the town of Logan Lake. And we had been fishing all day. And it’s a lake just traditionally, and I think it still is known for. It’s really good. Caddis hatches those big Stillwater traveling sedge or motorboat caddis big, you know. 00:10:23 Speaker 3: Eights and sixes. 00:10:24 Phil: Yeah, it’s a big caddis. But anyway, we’d gone in for dinner and decided this was our my float tubing days. We’d go out and fish and leeches were always a pattern. You fish at night. You know, they come out, they’re nocturnal in their habits, like a lot of invertebrates and insects are. And we were sort of, you know, kicking twitch. I think it’s Cheech from fly fishing food calls it, uh, kicking around. And I had never done well on leeches. I really didn’t have any confidence in them. And we were just fishing really simple mohair leeches at the time, basically a, you know, a way to number eight hook with a little few turns of lead at the front and wrap some mohair yarn on it and brushed the heck out of it and real simple things. And we had a night. Oh my God. We started probably about eight o’clock, just as the sun was starting to go down. And I don’t think we came in till two in the morning, and there was other campers in there and they could hear us hooting and hollering. We were just kind of paddling around in the camp Bay in this little circle. And we were, you know, the lake is reputed to have big fish, and we hadn’t seen much of those during the day. But at night, those big boys came. 00:11:25 Speaker 3: Out to play to play. 00:11:26 Phil: And I remember two guys come, I think they’d had a few beers come stumbling down the lake. What are you guys doing? Catching them on leeches. Oh that’s great. And you hear him walk back. What’s a leech? So. 00:11:36 Speaker 3: Exactly. 00:11:36 Phil: So I guess part of this broadcast or episode, we’ll be talking about that as well. So that’s my first memorable leech experience. But Landon, you touched on it. What do you think? Trout and other fish that feed on leeches? Bass, walleye, pike. I think anything that swims and eats will take one. What do you think they see when they see a leech? 00:11:56 Landon: My personal opinion is the fish refer to leeches as a large food supply. And more importantly, a non escaping food supply. They’re willing to expend energy to chase. It’s found in still waters, rivers numerous depths. High low in the water column. And it’s more bang for their buck. You know fish is going to chase a bait fish to the shore. A big crayfish hopping, stopping and dropping. It takes a lot of effort and energy. I think with leeches, because it’s available most of the time near the surface or mid column, it’s an easier snack to obtain, but it really is more bang for their buck and the nutrients they receive is tremendous. 00:12:32 Phil: Yeah, it’s a I think they just hey, that’s lunch. 00:12:34 Speaker 3: That’s lunch. Let’s go get that steak. 00:12:36 Phil: And they, you know, from a lifecycle perspective, they’re pretty long lived. Most of the other food sources we deal with on the trout side of the ledger and lakes, you know, have life cycles measured in, you know, chironomids can be days to months to years, but not very long, whereas leeches are long lived. 00:12:53 Speaker 3: Exactly. 00:12:54 Phil: Lifespan measured in years. So they’re around all the time there. You know, I refer to them as a a bread and butter or staple food source if nothing else is hatching. Whether that’s there’s no hatches for the day early in the day, late in the day, that’s when leeches really come into play. 00:13:11 Speaker 3: Absolutely. 00:13:11 Phil: I haven’t had a fish yet that won’t refuse a leech. Even if they’re focused on other things, they’ll often find a little bit of room to slide one of those down. 00:13:19 Speaker 3: True. Yeah. 00:13:20 Landon: Yeah. And respects to what they feed on, too. It’s. You know, if there are no leeches available in the waters, you’re fishing and you’re doing well on the leech. They’re incredibly versatile. The mimic can match other food supplies bait, fish, crayfish, nymphs, you name it. So not only is it a win win in the sense that the fish will have a bigger meal, more bang for their buck. You’re being versatile in covering numerous menus and food supplies at once. 00:13:43 Phil: Yeah, they’re just, you know, really relevant. Have you found anything in your experiences seasonally, daily, when they stand out more to give them a shot? 00:13:52 Landon: I personally think it’s the low light evening hours seem to be the best, as you’re referring to the evening bite, where you know a lot of your large trout are predatorial as well. But in addition to that, I find if there’s disturbance in the water for stillwaters where it gets choppy, murky things are stirred up. And then in addition to that, if there’s wind, anytime there’s wind and things are turned around and the fish get close to the surface and they’re more apt to eat because they don’t feel as nervous, that seems to be a key time. But realistically, as you mentioned, it’s all day. Yeah, it’s just the prime times when the bigger predatory fish come out, or even in the river setting where you have them hiding around structure, that’s usually what’s going to lure them out. And even if they don’t take it, you’re attracting them and getting their attention to where they’re going to feed on something. 00:14:34 Phil: Yeah, yeah, we’ve, we tend to use, I know early spring right after ice off is good each time because, yeah, you know, they’re just coming out of their winter slumber. They’ve been that’s a food source. They’ve seen under the ice all the time. They see one of those scooting by. They’ll write, you know, they’re still kind of you know, the water is cold. They’re not moving that much, but they’ll move. 00:14:52 Speaker 3: For that. 00:14:53 Phil: Evenings. It’s kind of funny, though, that leeches are technically blind, so it makes you wonder how they know that coming out in bright daylight is not a, you know, a long lived exercise and how the evening they’ll come out and move around and. 00:15:09 Speaker 3: Find. 00:15:10 Phil: Interesting food source again. Evenings, spring, summer, when trout slide into deeper water. They’re one of the few food sources that can survive at depth. Most of your food sources at trout feed upon lakes and other fish are generally shallow in that shoal area or littoral zone. 00:15:27 Speaker 3: Um. 00:15:29 Phil: Um, so they’ll be out there as well. Um, yeah, so again, a real key food source. Um, I just don’t think, and I think when somebody is getting into Stillwater fly fishing, you know, a lot of the other bugs we fish damsels, chironomids are probably the pinnacle of that. Or it can get real fancy and fidgety. One hundred percent you. It’s tough to fish a leech. Wrong. You can. 00:15:51 Speaker 3: Exactly. 00:15:51 Phil: Drag it. You can hang it. You can go fast with it. You can go slow with it. You can fish it shallow. You can fish it deep. It’s a pretty forgiving fly, isn’t it? 00:16:00 Landon: It’s amazing. Yeah. You know, talking in terms of, you know, ISAF and early season chironomids, it’s now to the point where in the past and I know you’re the same, you wait, your chronometers go down two to three flies, find the right depth. I’m now such a fan of leeches. It’s my anchor fly while I’m doing the Corona mid-bite. Yeah, I mean, it’s incredible because it’s found in depths with Chironomids. It’s, as you mentioned, found all year. Hide low, dirty water, clear water. And that really is the attractant. And I, I tell people there’s two key important food supplies. It used to be just midges, now it’s leeches. Those are your year round food supplies. And if you and I needed survival where we had to catch fish to live. Those would be my two go to’s. 00:16:43 Speaker 3: It’s funny you. 00:16:44 Phil: Mentioned the relationship of chironomids and leeches. Um, good friend Brian Chan, who’s been on this podcast a couple of times. I’ll make sure to put links to his podcast as well. He spent many years as a fisheries biologist, and they’d often do net samples on lakes. And part of that process was unfortunately, the fish was killed during that, but they’re just checking spawning rates and other things like spawning success, stocking success and things like that, and just overall health of the population. And obviously, they would dissect the fish. And also when we start using throat pumps, it’s common after a heavy, heavy feed acronyms late in the afternoon that the trout will switch on leeches almost like it’s dessert. Or maybe it’s some kind. 00:17:25 Speaker 3: Of throat stopper to. 00:17:27 Phil: Keep all that food. 00:17:28 Speaker 3: In there. So they’re also. 00:17:29 Phil: A very good thing to try after acronym attach, which naturally dovetails into that evening bite, as you mentioned. 00:17:36 Landon: Absolutely. 00:17:39 Speaker 4: Fly fish with me. Utah discover year round blue ribbon trout fishing on the famed Provo River. Choose a guided walk and wade or a scenic float and experience big trout, stunning canyons and unforgettable days on the water. You can book your adventure right now at Fly Fishing with Me Utah.com. World class water. Incredible fishing that’s fly fish with me. Utah dot com. Experience the waters of Bristol Bay at Togiak River Lodge, where fly fishing meets Alaska’s rugged beauty. This is the place to complete the Alaska Grand Slam with all five salmon species rainbow trout, Arctic char and more. Where each day offers a new Alaskan adventure, you can visit Togiak Lodge. Com right now to start planning your Bristol Bay experience with Togiak River Lodge. 00:18:28 Phil: All right, let’s talk about where we like to fish them. I know we talked about when, which is pretty well anytime Yeah. Morning through morning. Through evening. Night. Spring. Summer. Fall. Um, yeah, it’s definitely a mention as well. Definitely. In our neck of the woods, we fish leeches right up until ice off and very shallow. But we tend we’ll talk about it more in the fly patterns, but a lot of mini leeches, the small ones you mentioned the big. You know, those big ones. 00:18:52 Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. 00:18:53 Phil: You’re afraid they’re going to come in the boat. 00:18:55 Speaker 3: Or the float tube or up on the bank. 00:18:56 Phil: And drag you in. But I think most times I found the trout like the smaller ones. I think, you know, Pike, I’ve, you know, I’ve done, you know, for a pike, a big bunny leech is one of my go to flies when, believe it or not, Pike seem off the bite and just not willing to chase is usually more aggressive, flashy stuff we throw at. 00:19:14 Speaker 3: Them, right? 00:19:15 Phil: They have a hard time resisting that sultry jig of a slow strip bunny leech that’s about four inches long, just going through the water. 00:19:23 Speaker 3: So. Exactly. 00:19:23 Phil: Great fly. All right, let’s talk about locations. Um, where’s your favorite place to fish them? 00:19:28 Landon: One of my favorites, to be honest, is I like the shallow water zone transitioning deep, whether it’s Pyramid Lake, you know, eighteen inches to fifty. 00:19:38 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:19:39 Landon: Watch out. You might float your hat. South America similar to a lot of the western waters where you go four to eight feet, eight to twelve. And it’s I’ve become such a big fan as well when it is shallow to do the dry dropper. It’s just something I love because it represents, you know, the attractant of getting the fish to look up at a large dry fly, which is awesome. And then you’re intercepting them. They come up to look at the dry. They may not take it. And then all of a sudden, bang, they hit the leech. What you folks can’t see at home is my Maine Coon cat fin is up here checking out the podcast. She hears leeches, and she’s like, I’ll try one. 00:20:14 Phil: I’m looking at all that fur. 00:20:15 Speaker 3: Yeah, we could make up some bugs out. 00:20:18 Phil: Give you a haircut later. Um, yeah. Um, generally shallows, as we mentioned earlier, are always a good spot to fish. Leeches. 00:20:25 Speaker 3: Absolutely. 00:20:26 Phil: The deep water, um, they can burrow into the mud. So muddy bottoms. So there is just. I don’t think there’s a bad place. 00:20:32 Landon: It really. 00:20:32 Speaker 3: Isn’t. 00:20:33 Phil: You can fish. 00:20:33 Speaker 3: A leech and. 00:20:34 Landon: It’s incredible. 00:20:35 Phil: Yeah. And they are, you know, again, deep water. It’s I, I’ve had lots of success in, you know, during the summer months or fishing less productive lakes or, you know, I fished some of the lakes back east, uh, eastern Canada, eastern United States that are mixed fisheries with bass and panfish and trout. And the shallow areas tend to get dominated by the bass and panfish and the deeper areas, the drop offs, those transitions are dominated by. That’s where the rainbows go. They sort of find their own places to live, right. And leeches out in that deep water. 00:21:08 Speaker 3: Oh, it’s lights out. They love that stuff. 00:21:10 Phil: So whether I’m fishing loch style or, um, um, you know, anchored up or not really anchored up or just fishing under indicators as well. So, um, you mentioned wind. 00:21:20 Speaker 3: That’s a. 00:21:20 Phil: Good time to fish just about anything, but. 00:21:23 Speaker 3: It really is. 00:21:24 Landon: It’s roof on the house. I mean, it’s a lot of people are intimidated. I was myself early on where wind would pick up and you think, man, you can’t you don’t maintain the same visual of calm water. You don’t see the rise forms. You don’t see through the surface of the water as much. And it’s a guessing game when you’re not realizing what’s happening. And that is it’s a roof over a house. It’s cover and protection. And that’s the most important thing trout need. And once that happens and you’re doing indicator style and even dry dropper with a big hopper dropper, it’s so beautiful because you’re not even moving, you’re casting, letting it sit, and you’re just riding the waves and the jigging action to follow with especially balanced leech imitations, it’s almost not even legal because when when that’s taking place, it’s a matter of, you know, we’ve both been there. It’s it could be one after another after another. It’s almost a similar take in activity that you get from Chronemics. It’s always active. 00:22:15 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:22:16 Phil: That basically that surface job, if you’re using any kind of suspension devices, you like to call it, whether. 00:22:21 Speaker 3: That’s a. 00:22:22 Phil: Traditional indicator. 00:22:23 Speaker 3: Or. 00:22:24 Phil: A dry fly. Um, and of course, we’re legal to my listeners in British Columbia. Um, you’re not allowed to fish multiple flies. So we usually use indicators there when we’re fishing those waters, but that surface chop just I always say Mother Nature, just let Mother Nature fish the fly for you. 00:22:40 Speaker 3: Exactly. Right. Exactly. 00:22:41 Phil: Just wait if it come down. 00:22:42 Speaker 3: Now, were you fishing. 00:22:44 Phil: Your local waters? You have a lot of shoreline opportunities. So, um, you know, I tend to fish more boat stuff because I just don’t have the stable shorelines or lack of trees or the public access to those areas. 00:22:58 Speaker 3: Sure. 00:22:58 Phil: So what’s some of your recommendations for and suggestions and favorite things to think about when you’re fishing leeches from shore. 00:23:06 Landon: I think they’re the key is to be open to any opportunities that present themselves. The best example I can give is if you’re doing an indicator dry dropper. That’s a pretty simplistic way to fish. If you have a lot of fish that are coming in shallow, extremely shallow, then you can start to do, you know, a presentation where you’re bouncing it off the sand. You can do fast. Slow retrieves. One of the things that leeches are not commonly known to fish as well, which I believe is simply not true, is the stripping method, you know, presentation being like anything you would do with the streamer. Yep. Fast, slow, finger over finger retrieve. And it’s amazing because if you do lift and drop and let’s say you’re lifting up and you’re in three feet of water, you bring it up mid column a foot and a half, move it, let it drop, hit in the sand, create a puff. When those fish come over to investigate. The beauty of it is they can identify where it is because you just strip it one more time. That puff of sand comes over and they just hoover it up like a vacuum. Yeah, it’s incredible. And it’s the difference there too, is just finding confidence that you can deliver it. And because it’s not as big as a streamer, doesn’t create as much disturbance on the surface that can help in in many ways. And I think the other positive way to fish them is if you can double up, do the unweighted and a weighted version to where they’re jigging at the same time, but different directions in different movements. That can also be a key factor. And if it’s just a simple solo fly one single fly rig, I think adding the strip to the actual balance position where the waves are doing the work for you. Movement can be key. 00:24:40 Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, that’s. 00:24:41 Phil: How we use, you know, I always mention in seminars and schools I do. And if you were to list all the presentation techniques on lakes indicator fishing is on the. If you put them on a timeline is the newest. 00:24:54 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:24:55 Phil: You know, we started stripping, you know, we were trolled, but then we started stripping and that’s how we did it. 00:25:01 Speaker 3: And then. 00:25:02 Phil: And I’m going to tell you a little story. So other memorable stories we’re talking about indicators under leeches under indicators. So I don’t know how you first discovered it, but mine was I was fishing with my oldest son, Brandon, who’s now in his early thirties. He must have been about seven or eight years old. We were fishing Roche Lake, just southeast of southwest of Kamloops, and we were it spring. We’re hanging things under indicators. It’s chironomids because that’s what you did. That was the first reason we started to use indicators because sure, trout can get so fixated, such a narrow feeding zone when they’re really gorging on those things because they’re like Pac-Man down there. They just swim up one level and just turn their heads slightly left and right and get all the food they can handle. You mentioned the the whole calories thing. That’s about the most efficient feeding method there is. So anyway, we’re fishing this for a while. We’re getting a few fish. And then he says, I’d like to change my fly. So I said, oh, fair enough. Uh, here’s the fly box. Pick one. And he goes, nope, don’t want any of those, right, I want this. So he’s holding a real simple bead head leech, you know, just a bead head, crystal, chenille body, black marabou tail. I’m saying no, we don’t fish those under indicators. It’s only chironomids. We strip those because that’s how we fish leeches. We strip them. And, uh, so anyway, um, I’m arguing with an eight year old and getting my butt whooped. And like any good parent, I caved. So I said, fine, whatever. Put the thing on. Cast it out there. It’s settled. Bobbed around for I don’t know, 10s went under so hard. Right. And of course, fish are stupid, man. Anything thankfully stripped it in, let it go and flopped it back out there again. And he’d done this about five times in a row. And I’m like, maybe the kid’s onto something. So that’s how I started fishing. That’s cool. Leeches under indicator. So I often joke sometimes if people were seeing me having a good day, you know, back in the late eighties, early. No, it would have been Brennan was born in ninety two. So it would have been the mid nineties. It would have been early two thousand. God. I’m old. Um, uh, and I was catching fish under indicators. Everybody assumed it be to Karamanids might have been fishing some leeches as well at that time. 00:27:04 Landon: Oh, yeah. It’s a great method. 00:27:06 Phil: Well, so so, you know, we tend to fish them a lot from boats. We just don’t have the shoreline access. Um, although when I go down to Argentina, it’s all from the shore because. Oh yeah, people ask if you know, why don’t you use boats down on Jurassic Park. Well, when you’re fishing in forty to seventy miles an hour wind, there’s not five foot swells. It’s like you’re not going out in a boat there. And the food, the the one thing about fishing from shore is that wave action just churns food out. 00:27:33 Landon: Oh. 00:27:33 Phil: Like you said, it’s that roof over their head. They feel very safe with that rippled, textured swirly water over their heads. Foods being pulled out of the rocks. Yes. And they come in and feed. The ironic thing about Jurassic Lake is it has a bit of a bug guy. I have never seen a leech. I’ve seen lots of scuds down there. But that’s another example of why you want to fish leeches. Because even if fish don’t see leeches in their everyday life, it looks like something good to eat. It’s amazing. It’s it’s got life. It’s got all of those things. 00:28:04 Landon: It’s representing anything that may get their attention. And they’re predators. You know, they’re going to move. They see it and they’re. 00:28:10 Phil: Well, they’re not swimming around with flash cards. 00:28:12 Landon: No. 00:28:12 Phil: Wait a minute. That’s I the hats chart for Jurassic Lake is Scuds, snails and zooplankton. So I don’t eat leeches? No, they eat them. No, we fish a lot from boats, float tubes, pontoon boats, you know boats. Do you know there are. It’s nice sometimes to be able to get around. Oh. Big time, you know. And sometimes target structure a little differently. We also fish them Loc style, which is a very popular method of fly fishing in Europe and in competitions. Um, because you can’t anchor up in competitions, everybody gets, you can’t hog the water. So everybody gets a shot at it and Loc style, if you’re not familiar with it, that’s an episode unto itself that I promise I will do in the near future. Is fishing from a drifting watercraft, typically a boat or a pontoon boat. My two favorites with an underwater parachute deployed upwind. It opens, it slows and controls the boat. Because the one thing about fishing on lakes is you have to have boat control. Whether you’re trolling, you have control of the boat by where you drive it. When you anchor, you have boat control. When you lock style, the boat’s not spinning and drifting all over the place. Because if you’re not in control of what you’re fishing out of, basically we’re trying to turn our watercraft into the dry land, which you get to fish from on your lakes. Because if you can’t control that, you’re getting frustrated really quickly about because you can’t fish properly. Because as soon as you make the cast now the boat’s spun around and it’s behind you and it’s all over the place. So very frustrating. But yeah, we fish a lot of boat stuff, a lot of anchored, anchored fishing is very popular in Western Canada, Western United States that I’ve seen, you know, sitting down, picking a spot. It works really well if there’s fish in the neighborhood. But if you need to cover an expanse of water to find fish, you know, obviously that anchor, you know, there’s nobody in the neighborhood, you got to go find them. So that’s where drifting comes big time. You as a healthy guy, you are you just walk five miles down the shore. Yes. With me whining and complaining behind you. 00:30:02 Landon: And the boat thing is important. I mean, we I do a lot of rafts. I’ve owned every boat, Lund Flats, boat, you name it. But the rafts are very important and it’s interesting. The lock style to fill is we’ve done. I’ve done really well and there’s situations where it’s similar to Loc stuff. For example, this is a unique one. We have heavy vegetation with deep pockets around it. Late summer. What we end up doing when the wind picks up is we go to the top of a huge vegetation clump. You’re in a belly boat, you’re in a pontoon, and you set up at the top of the clump. You fish at the very edge of the weed line, and you’re blowing over the top of the vegetation slowly, while you’re drifting on the side of these weed clumps, or even situations where we can’t carry a heavy anchor in the flow of the raft. You know, any vessel that you have that’s floating like a marshmallow, you try to anchor up? Yeah. And you can have a twenty five pound anchor. It’s going to slow your roll, but it’s still pushes and pulls. And a lot of people don’t realize it’s similar to Loc style where we’re slowly drifting while that’s pulling on the sand and it’s causing us to cover more ground. So there’s situations where we’re forced to have to move or the wind is forcing us to where we have movement with the drifts. And it’s amazing how well that works. 00:31:15 Phil: Well, you just cover so much water. 00:31:16 Landon: It’s incredible. 00:31:17 Phil: Yeah. All right, let’s talk. Let’s get into rigging lines. So when you’re fishing from shore, describe to me your setup. You talked dry dropper from reel to fly. What do you got going on? 00:31:29 Landon: Yeah, I’m a big fan of five way ten foots I do for weight, eleven foots. The one thing that is not included in the arsenal for me anymore is five six weight, nine foots. I’m such a big fan. As you know, when you hook and fish big Stillwater scenarios, you want that lifting power. You want line control and vertical connection when the fish take off. So I’ll do Bauer reel Winston rod the new reach ten foot sweet stick. Um, in addition to that, I’m usually floating lines. I’m a big fan of MPC’s longer belly weight forward transitions. Well, in the wind. I’ll do that with the dry dropper setup and the indicator, and I’ll usually set it up where I have nine to twelve feet. If I need to add to that, I’ll use a slip indicator, but I like to set up my drop lines where. If it’s really shallow, I’ll do dry drop or three to six feet and six is about my limit with a dry dropper because I want to make sure I can get a proper cast, have control. I think at that point your fly. There’s a good chance with wind speed or drifting speed, you can sink your dry. Then I’ll do indicator style, but I separate them by three foot increments to see where the fish are high in the column, middle column or low. And then if I’m doing deep water, the slip indicator is great, but I’ll also count it down just like we’ve done at pyramid or the Great Lakes, where you can count down and just determine, start at ten second counts, twenty second counts, and start to retrieve, like we talked about the leech. That’s great because then you find out what depth they’re at. If you have a fish finder, of course, using the fish finder technique works well. And then the other thing I’d love to do is when there’s setups to where I can have a two fly rig, I’m a fan of Double trouble rigs, where if there are really big aggressive fish, you can lead or trail a streamer with an unweighted leech. And the beauty there is it looks like a baitfish chasing a leech. Or let’s say a big fish comes over and is attracted to the larger streamer and then trailing off behind that connected by a loop knot. You’ve got an unweighted leech, so they’re coming over. They see the big food supply I’m not willing to take and bam, they’ll take the other one. And I, in the last class we taught in Denver, somebody asked a really valid question. I don’t get this often, but it should be a question or it’s something everybody should be thinking about is the knot selection for how you’re fishing. So whenever I’m fishing a balanced fly, I’m a fan of using clinch or seated knots, and whenever I’m stripping my leech. As far as the mini leech jig goes, I’m a fan of loop knots when I’m stripping. Now you can connect to the leech to where you have more of a lift and drop a jigging scenario. But I’ve also found that if there’s a little bit more freedom of motion when I’m setting up the rig, going to a loop knot and I’m stripping and there’s heavy wind. I just get more action out of the fly itself. And then in between there, I know that you’re a fan of this as well. And that is micro swivels are a must just to add freedom of rotation in the cast and all of that combined. But it’s really a matter of determining depth control, I think is the most important part. And I like to start high and then work my way down. Even in deep water settings, like some of those fish, when they start to cruise. 00:34:34 Phil: A little different, I’m using the other brand of line. So I’ve got my ambassador series lines, my Stillwater floater with the tippet ring on, and this comes from fishing chironomids when you’re fishing small bugs under indicators, for me, the most critical thing is level leader from whatever suspension device you’re using. So it hangs vertically straight down. If you use a standard nine or a twelve foot tapered leader, they’re built like a fly rod, thick at one end, thin at the other. So you have a leader system that doesn’t sink at the same rate along its length. So even if you’re fishing ten feet away from the leader, if you’re using a twelve foot tapered leader as your foundation, it’s going to come off in an arc. So even though set same distance, it’s not getting there. And we found when fishing smaller bugs, chironomids, mayfly nymphs, things like that on our indicators, that little four inch difference, six inch, maybe a foot in extreme circumstances is all the difference. 00:35:27 Landon: Between. 00:35:28 Phil: Some fish and sunfish. I remember the little knot leech topic, but a couple of years ago my wife and I were fishing chironomids under indicators. Same rigging, everything going steady toe to toe, and then all of a sudden she kind of went quiet for a while. And, you know, you start to wonder what’s going on because our indicators are hanging, you know, five feet apart. So there’s no way. One, I just don’t believe that, you know, they’re coming in, they’re cruising around. We did we rechecked the depth. She was four inches off. 00:35:54 Landon: Oh yeah. 00:35:55 Phil: Reset. Bang bang bang all. 00:35:56 Landon: Over. 00:35:57 Phil: The place. Four inches. 00:35:58 Landon: Yeah. And it’s I think for us too, we do have depths eleven miles extremely deep. We do ninety degree drops from indicators. And that’s exactly right. Having the same size, usually two x three x four x, whatever it is, straight down to the first floor is key. And we do loop to loop. We also connect sometimes to the indicator depending on the strength of the fish. 00:36:19 Phil: I think the system I’m using Rio’s got the indicator. I know SAS got their indicator leaders as well. Those leaders. Um I said don’t use tapered and you look on the package. Hey, Phil Landon you lied to me. It says tapered on there. But but the but section is only about three feet long and. 00:36:34 Landon: The. 00:36:34 Phil: Rest of the leader is level. So my leader system is built into thirds. I have that leader. I have a midsection to a swivel, a swivel. You know, if the winds up a bit, I’ll increase the swivel size to keep it anchored in calm conditions. I’ll go really small, and I’ve had situations where I’ve got fish on leeches and crystal clear water. Bright sunny day light winds. Arguably the toughest Stillwater situation you’re going to face. Um, no swivel, not even a fly with a bead on it. They didn’t want that. They could see any sort of little flash. They were just spooky as heck and wouldn’t go near it. 00:37:09 Landon: Absolutely. 00:37:09 Phil: And then from the swivel, I like about two, maybe three feet difference. So the way I teach this to figure out the depth you want to get, because we’re typically in our neighborhood, we’re always trying to keep our flies within one to three feet of the bottom, usually in deep water because most of our lakes. Again, I mentioned we don’t get the opportunity to fish shallow. So we’re typically fishing ten feet or more down. Um, so those fish are going to be near the bottom where the food is and it’s safe down there. So we’re fishing in that range. So let’s say I want to fish twelve feet down. If I just fish that radio indicator leader with three feet of butt section, I put the indicator right on that transition from taper. I like to keep my indicator close to the fly line. It makes it an easier cast. You don’t want to get that weight source way out on the end of a skinny leader. You end overpower it tailing loops, frustration rods and get ready for it. Tip it in. Leader sales are off the dial. Yeah. Um, but, um, so you got to add, so out of the package, it’s a ten foot liter, three foot spot section, seven feet level. I can fish seven feet down if I’ve got two feet from my swivel to my fly. And we like to keep the swivels. This comes again from kiranm and fishing, keeping that swivel and that weighted fly close together because in windy conditions you get, you know, the wind will create current sachet as it’s called. And if you have those weight sources too far apart, you get this kind of pendulum effect where that fly will be in the zone, out of the zone, in the zone, out of the zone. So by keeping those compressed, you don’t have as much swing going on beneath the the swivel. So if I keep that at, let’s say two feet and I’ve got seven feet off that main leader, I can fish nine feet down. But what if Phil wants to fish fourteen feet down? All I do is take that number nine and subtract from fourteen, which is five. Right? It hasn’t changed. And I had a section of fluorocarbon tippet from the indicator leader to the swivel. And I in my book I called it the adjustment zone because that’s where I ebb and flow the leader length. If I need more, if I go deeper, I need to add. If I go shallower, I need to remove. Because you never want. You only fish. I’m sure you agree with this. Don’t fish a litre any longer than you need to. And oh, and that’s one of the differences. Just still, water fishing in general is litre lengths are longer right. It’s you know. 00:39:17 Landon: Yeah it’s huge. I mean litre length is key. And the one thing you touched on too that is important and a lot of people when you’re transferring bigger leaders and rigs, it is the butt section on the essay or Rio, whatever you prefer your brand to be. And with the essay it’s the same. The butt section turns over to the indicator and the swivel being the transition point. It’s from there building down. In addition to that, you can also use the top ring on that swivel as an extension of a fly. So that can be a tag so it doesn’t interrupt. You don’t get tangled. I think if you tag the bottom, people just need to be careful of getting tangles, especially when it’s drifting because you’re going to have those currents. Subsurface. 00:39:55 Phil: Yeah, I tend to put my I like fishing off dropper tags. Um, I like flies to move independently of each other. You know, I know a lot of people tie off the bend and fish tandem style. I don’t like it because if I want to make changes, I got to pretty well take everything apart. Yes, you can have, um, the bottom fly and a barbless world. The whole bottom section come off. And again, back to the mobility of the fly. The analogy I use in my seminars in schools is it’s like putting a U-Haul trailer on a porch. Oh, that car don’t produce nearly as well. No. And I’ve had situations, probably more when fishing caravans or midges is when those flies are hanging vertically. That upper fly has a section of leader coming off the I in a section off the bend. When that fish comes in and opens its mouth to take the fly, it either touches those and doesn’t like it and swims away or pushes actually pushes the fly, which gives you the the take because the fly moved and you set and there’s nothing there. Right? 00:40:49 Landon: Exactly. 00:40:50 Phil: So. And how I often do it now is I take a section of eight inches of tippet and I put a perfection loop in one end and I loop that section of Tippit around the main leader above on the fly side of a swivel, a tippet ring, um, blood knot or surgeon’s knot. And that those three things are designed to be a stopper to stop that loop tippet from sliding all the way down on top of the bottom fly. So I have a, a leader that spins around. I can change it easily. And we actually snug it tight an inch and a half to two inches above that stopper. So if you get that take and you miss it, the tension of that mistake will pull that upper dropper down tight to the stopper. Whether that’s the triple surgeon’s knot your blood, not your swivel, your tippet ring. You know which fly got the grab, right? 00:41:37 Landon: Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. 00:41:39 Phil: Very versatile. 00:41:40 Landon: That is important. So the way and you describing that, the way the food supply is positioned in the water. Let’s say I’m fishing two to three chironomids the trailing my border anchor Chironomid I tie with the loop, not the one above that I tie with a tag, or I do eye to eye because I do want it to be instead of it being vertical. Horizontal. Absolutely. And then when that happens to that loop, not flies, moving up and down gives it a chance to give a little bit more traction. And the other thing too is when the fish are taking and they’re on the feed and you see the indicator move, it is important to time. A lot of times I find that indicators when they start to quiver or move, if anglers set too fast, they’ve missed or they don’t set fast enough, you really need to base that for the fishery you’re on for that day, especially at depth. Yeah, because in the Great Lakes, when we’d go there and we’d fish deep or pyramid and some of the spots in South America, the takes were incredibly aggressive, where you’d go back, you know, to another section of water, you’d hit a different zone, and they’re not as aggressive. And you really have to time that just like you would anywhere else. And, and the last thing I’ll mention with Clearwater, this is the biggest challenge in my opinion, in Stillwater settings with leeches. When you’re fishing three to six feet of water and you’ve been there with me on spiny waters. Gin. Clear. The other thing that’s an advantage and I started using these a lot. And this is Brad Beifuss, the president and CEO of Scientific Anglers, helped me out with this knowledge. And it’s been a game changer that is using the camo line connected with fluorocarbon tips to leeches because you can fish the camo line, retrieve an incredibly clear water, and it doesn’t cast a shadow. 00:43:18 Phil: That’s the big thing. 00:43:19 Landon: That’s the biggest thing. And if it casts a shadow, if there’s a glint of light, as you mentioned, anything that gets those fish wary, they’ve known from all their predators, hunting them over time. Boom, they’re right in deep water. Yeah, that’s a great line to use. 00:43:31 Phil: Yeah. Because we use you know we talked about floating lines a fair bit. We talked, you know, fishing without indicators call it the naked technique. We do that a lot in the fall months and early spring when trout are in the spring, they’re in the shallows because that’s where the oxygen is and the fall they’re in. They’re foraging aggressively to, you know, build up the refrigerator for the upcoming winter. So we’re fishing a lot of, you know, floating lines with in that situation you know, where accuracy and um presentation. I will use a tapered leader as a foundation, maybe a seven and a half footer and ad tip it from there. Right. Just to get a little bit more of that leader taper working for me to get the delicate presentation because those fish are spooky. So you see a fish swirl with a floating line in that setup and a single leech pattern, because oftentimes I’ll fish single leeches in that situation because as you mentioned, it’s weed choked. And that second fly becomes a liability because you hook a fish. And now that other fly is just a big grappling hook, causes you to lose some pretty big fish. 00:44:26 Landon: Oh, it’s amazing. 00:44:27 Phil: That setting with that setup and a midge tip works well. Or the merger tip with s-a-r lines. You’ve got the ability, you know, you cast one direction, you’re retrieving that fly casting, retrieving fan casting, covering as much water as you can, and then that fish rolls off to your right hand side. I can pick up and cover that fish. Was any kind of sunk line from a hover to, oh, anything simple, you got to strip it in, get the head in, get it out of the water, get it recast. You miss the opportunity. 00:44:52 Landon: Yeah, it plays a huge part. And one thing I haven’t shared before, I’ll share it on our podcast and this is something interesting. And a gentleman asked this a few years back at a show. He was a big fan of fishing Bubble and Fly. And at some point in your life, you’ve seen somebody doing it or you’ve tried it yourself a big, you know, you’re using the bubble, which is filled with water, basically casting the bubble out, which makes a huge explosion on the surface and behind that is trying to fly. When I watched this happen and I watched people on Stillwaters, when they’re casting out conventional, you know, one hundred and fifty feet seems like. And then they bring this massive bubble in with flies behind it and they’re crushing fish. That fill was the starting point for me to use clear indicators. So when I started casting clear see through thingamabobs towards the bank in mediums, my leech can be two feet below that. And because it’s a water bubble on the surface that doesn’t cast a shadow, fish don’t spook. Yeah, and that is the origin of how I started fishing. Clear thingamabobs. and from there into Rivers and Stillwater settings, especially shallow presence. It’s a game changer because they don’t even see it. 00:45:59 Phil: The only drawback to that method. Those clear thingamabobs aren’t easy to find. 00:46:03 Landon: No they’re not. Those will be available on the website. They’re not easy glow in the dark. It’s definitely a thing, but I’ve noticed. And I want to make this, you know, important information clear for anglers because there is a time and place for everything. But just remember, if you’re fishing yarn, if you’re fishing a black indicator, colored indicator with fish looking up for natural food supplies. Ice cream cone vision on top of their head. Natural for them to lift and drop. Yeah, that is a shadow. Yep. And any shadow that’s above you. And I have seen it over and over again. An eagle flies by. Heck, even a small little bird flies by. It’s enough to spook them. 00:46:43 Phil: Yeah. Overhead casting. 00:46:44 Landon: Oh my gosh. Yeah. 00:46:47 Speaker 4: Golden Fly Shop isn’t your average fly shop. They have a twelve foot shark painted like a cutthroat, hovering over a huge selection of the best rods in the business, a massive assortment of tying materials, and their famous steakhouse streamer display. And it’s the hub for a community of anglers who never stop tinkering with new ways to catch fish. Sometimes the conversation behind the counter includes what hatches are going off and what techniques are working best. Then tales of destination fishing adventures, sought after species, or a good old congratulations. When a customer brings stories of finally connecting with that fish they’ve searched for forever. With a growing online store and a budding YouTube channel, you’ll be able to follow along with their fun antics, international adventures, and helpful fly fishing tips. Golden fly shop where the community is hanging out even if they’re supposed to be working. That’s Golden Fly shop. Check them out right now. 00:47:39 Phil: Well, it’s funny because you mentioned the clear intermediates. You know, other lines to use are the slow sinkers. The hovers links at one inch per second. You’re clear, intermediate sinking, depending on the line type within a manufacturer. The manufacturer about an inch and a half, two inches per second. Right? I think we both like those lines because it allows you such presentation control. You can go fast, you can go slow and just let those lines sink and. 00:48:02 Landon: You’re not snagging. 00:48:03 Phil: It’s not a race to the bottom right. It’s about choosing a balance between the sync rate of the line and the retrieve, the horizontal retrieve you’re using to move it so you’re not dredging bottom, turning your system into into a rake, right? I remember one day fishing a, you know, back when clear intermediates were just starting to come out. And, you know, we used to use like a type two line with traditional colored lines. 00:48:25 Landon: Yeah. 00:48:26 Phil: And I remember one day watching my line sync and it was a crystal clear lake and a little bit of ripple, but I could still see into the water and I looked and I swear to God, it looked like a tree lying on the bottom or like a, you know, a young tree, a trunk or something. Yeah, about two to four inches in width, dark. And then I realized it was the shadow of my line. Yes. Right. And that’s like, holy smokes. That’s, you know, it’s not just the shadow. You think the shadow coming off the line is as narrow as the line, but it sun above it comes off kind of a cone and it just gets wider the deeper it is. And of course, that movement that trout goes, I am out of here. 00:49:04 Landon: I’m not touching. 00:49:05 Phil: That. So yeah, those clear intermediate or camel lines, that’s where they come in because the light can pass through them and doesn’t keep a shadow. We also use sinking lines. Um, you know, deeper water. I fish type threes type fives. I fish sweep lines, which I really like when I fish deep water because I find those trout. You know, I’ve had situations where trout have slid off the shallow littoral zone area and, uh, you know, they suspend. I think sometimes people think, oh, the lake sixty feet deep and those fish literally go off the drop off. 00:49:35 Landon: That’s right. 00:49:36 Phil: Down the. 00:49:36 Landon: Slope. Yeah. 00:49:37 Phil: And sit belly tight to the bottom right. They usually there’s not a lot of oxygen down there for them. So they’ll slide out and you know, they could be like airplanes. LaGuardia five ten feet down, all the way down. And those sweep lines with their. And if you’re not familiar with the sweep line out there. They are lines designed with differing sync rates along their length to give you this kind of U shaped sync pattern with your line. So your fly sweep through the water from shallow to deep back up to shallow again. They’re just great lines for that deeper water to where you’re, you know, the fish can be stacked up and be anywhere and you learn, you know, I’ve used these lines to figure out where the fish are in the column and then adjusted my techniques after getting a few fish to where the where they are. So typically if you’re getting fish early in the retrieve when that fly and that light, typically the lighter tip section, the line is up in the column. They’re higher up if they’re midway through the retrieve or towards the latter end before everything sweeps back up to the fly rod to cast again. Then they’re deeper. So if they’re deeper, maybe you go at them with a type five, type three, type seven, and consistently explore that deeper reach. Or if they’re up high, you’re going to hang under an indicator or fish that clear intermediate or hover line. 00:50:46 Landon: So it’s a great scouting line. Yeah. Sweep line scout and let you know. Depth control big time now. 00:50:51 Phil: I don’t know about your leaders but I like on my sinking lines now. Level leaders or very close to I might have a five foot but section that’s like three feet of fifteen in a one x two feet of zero x no zero x, then one x to a tippet ring and then straight three x. So I get. We spend a lot of money for these lines that sink at a set rate. And if you. Oh yeah, if you’ve got a standard tapered leader on. Which will give you some ability to control a long leader and cast because I think people get intimidated by it, but you need to have everything more or less on the same plane. Yes. So you don’t have that inexpensive part of your system, the leader, and fly off like a runaway dog or cat or kid doing something else. And your fly line, because we’re counting those, we’re using the sync rates to count those flies down. 00:51:42 Landon: It’s true. Yeah. Separate them. Usually I separate it. Middle. So four foot to the sinking line. Even two feet where it’s one micro swivel, one foot. Then if it’s four feet, it’s two feet. Level. Micro swivel level. And you can downsize the front of the Fisher particular. But if they’re deep, we’ll find in most anglers. That’s the beauty of it out there is the deeper the fish is, the more you can get away with the X factor. Bigger, heavier Tippets. 00:52:09 Phil: We do that fishing, bigger bugs, more. They seem to be less cautious. I sometimes I think I’m not always convinced that we give these fish this acute visibility, you know, the ability, the ability to see, you know, you hear all these discussions and I gotta keep I know it’s a leech presentation going back to Chironomids where you got to have five ribs and you got to have contrasting ribs with ribs for attraction to imitate the gases and all this stuff. And leaders got to be fine diameter, right? Why don’t they see the hook? I think maybe the leader, if it’s too stiff, maybe it inhibits the movement of the fly. But sometimes I don’t think a fish sees a line of a sinking line. No, a clear space, a couple of sexy bugs and goes connects those dots and thinks, not. 00:52:55 Landon: At. 00:52:55 Phil: All. No, I’m not doing yeah. No, no. 00:52:57 Landon: Yeah. Definitely not. We’re giving him too much. 00:53:00 Phil: So you mentioned knots. Uh, a little bit. Um, I’m like you, I use non-slip loop knots for almost everything when I’m pulling for sure. And hanging under indicators with balance flies. So they have that freedom to move and jig. But when I’m tying flies like your mini leech jig or any fly on a jig hook with a slotted bead, or you knew tungsten, uh, we call them tungsten head turners or inverting beads by. If you cinch a clinch knot or improve clinch not tight to that I. And I like to even give it a little cock back towards the bend that fly. You can encourage it to hang balanced. 00:53:36 Landon: Oh it’s balanced yeah. 00:53:37 Phil: Those beads have been a huge. 00:53:39 Landon: It’s a game changer. 00:53:40 Phil: Because you can balance a Scud hook nowadays. 00:53:43 Landon: Oh, you can balance so many things. I mean, you’ve you’ve shared that with me and visiting some of the clubs when we were spending time with anglers in Washington, where they build the thread ramp to make it appear as if it’s the extension of a pen. But it’s the bead itself coming off the front side of the hook just enough. But if it’s cinched, you have a seated knot and the mini leech jig. That is one of the main factors when I designed it was that it’s balanced. Yeah. And it doesn’t have the pins. So at times you don’t feel like you’re pulling up a saucer plate out of the water where you hook a hook, a tuna. 00:54:14 Phil: It’s an extra tying step too. 00:54:15 Landon: It is one hundred percent. 00:54:16 Phil: It just I find those beads now. You know, I still tie traditional on the sequin pin, you know? Um, we’ve had the originator, the battles fly on the podcast before. Jeremy McBride will be sure to link to his two programs. We did. It was going to be a single episode, but it became apparent that just the design process was one episode. And then how Jerry likes to fish them is another. But, you know, he was also a Proponent. He likes those jigs as well because you get the versatility. You’ve got to fly. You can strip and you’ve got to fly. By just changing how you tie it to your tippet, you can hang balanced, right? 00:54:48 Landon: Oh yeah, one hundred percent. And you know when you clean a big point too is let’s say you’re fishing and your flies are getting dirty every there’s vegetation in the water lakes turning over. You want to clean your flies every. You want to look at them at least every three to six presentations. I recommend all anglers if they’re seating leeches to make them balanced. Check your knots at least every dozen every dozen presentations so that you can seed it again to make sure it’s level. 00:55:17 Phil: Well, I think sometimes if you’re an aggressive caster. Oh, yeah. Right. You can knock those out of position, right? Oh yeah. Now it’s funny with all this balance and I was this was um, down in Argentina, not this past trip because believe it or not, we had four and a half days of flat calm on Jurassic Lake. Now, if anybody’s ever fished there, I show pictures of that. They are like blown away by that. Even the guides had never seen it. Right? That was a totally different fishery. We caught fish, but things had to change a little bit, a little longer, a little finer, a little smaller, a little less smack in the water. Because usually it’s. And it was ironic. I checked windy the following week. It was one hundred mile an hour winds for three days down there. 00:55:57 Landon: Well, that’s leads to exactly the key point. It’s it’s like transitioning light in skies. And whether you are going to run into, I don’t care where you fish anywhere in the world, you’re going to have situations, whether it be daily, seasonally or yearly when it’s calm and you don’t have the option but to deliver the mail and they can see everything you need to be doing dry dropper because that is a natural way to deliver and any disturbance on the surface and dry flies, meaning, I mean, folks, you can be fishing six to twelve hoppers with number six hoppers are freaking mothership. Yeah, you can drop a lot. 00:56:31 Phil: Well, we were. 00:56:31 Landon: Fishing with that. 00:56:32 Phil: Big chubbies and. 00:56:33 Landon: Yeah. 00:56:34 Phil: Fat Albert’s and you get that benefit to them coming up and eating? 00:56:37 Landon: Well. It’s just the similar situation like my mini leech jig damsel. The reason I designed the chubby damsel is that is the mothership. And when those damsels are swimming to shore early morning, it’s hardly ever windy. So you have to have that natural presence, and you have to have a big enough fly to skate to move the bottom drop or the top fly. But that is one thing that I encourage everybody to do. Don’t get stuck with just having the nymph rig set up in the boat or in the vaults, and you pull it out and you’re nymphing. If it’s calm, switch it up. Yep. Strip use the retrieve like we’re talking about with camo or intermediate slow seeking lines, the hover lines or go straight natural dry dropper and it’s going to change the way the fish will look at your rigs. 00:57:17 Phil: Just to finish this up, the only thing I’ll say about balanced flies in Argentina’s taught me this. When the chop is big enough, it doesn’t matter if it’s balanced. That poor little fly is being somersaulted all over the place and it’s moving in the trout light. 00:57:30 Landon: Yes. 00:57:31 Phil: Yeah. Okay, let’s move on to retrieves a little bit because in Stillwaters we. Other than wind induced current, we really don’t have any current to help move the flies. It’s all what we do with our hands to manipulate the fly. So true. What are your favorite retreats for leeches? 00:57:44 Landon: Yeah, and this is what I love. I call it the Johnny Cash. 00:57:47 Phil: The Johnny Cash. 00:57:48 Landon: The Man in Black. So it’s, you know, as a teacher and realizing that so much of the public are visual learners, meaning and visual learner is not that you learn by everything you see. It’s also creating a visual for the person you’re teaching. So you have to be able to say something to them that automatically in the back of their mind, they’re like, oh yeah, I know what that looks like. So Johnny Cash, being that he’s strumming the guitar, playing music, and at some point in your life, you strum the guitar and if not, felt like some of us, you’ve rocked out to the air guitar, right? We’ve all been there. But I’d love to retrieve based on that terminology because it’s picking a guitar. It’s six to twelve inch movements of the wrist flicking down. And what I found with anglers is not only is that effective to where it’s not long, slow, monotonous poles. They can go slow and they can go fast. Easier because it’s a shorter distance, a line. And then if you need to switch that up, you can also from that point, it’s easier to teach them how to do finger over finger retrieval, which is the hand twist. 00:58:51 Phil: Right hand weave. I love that retrieve. 00:58:52 Landon: And the hand weave and hand twist is easier when they’re only using their fingers and their hand to manipulate a flick for a strip or the retrieve with their fingers. And that, for me, has been the key. There are times where you need longer, slow poles, but in those scenarios, you just need to make sure that you have enough line out that you’re not pulling it out of the feeding zone. Yeah, and that’s been one of the bread and butters for me. 00:59:17 Phil: Yeah. You mentioned that guitar strum. We used to call it the thermometer flick. Yeah. Like you were shaking at the monitor, but always like the hand twist because it’s busy. Um, you can involve your pinky to make that pull your, your ring finger, your middle finger. And what I like about it is, you know, most times in lakes, I think people can’t. The drawback with the strip retrieve is they can. If they’re not used to it, they can go very fast. And some days that works. But a lot of times it doesn’t. The hand twist is is busy because your brain is tricked with your. The way your hands going, oh, I’m rocking and rolling here and I can keep things going. Exactly. And that hand twist gives that I think with all Leech retrieves. We’re trying to get that ribbon like swimming motion out of the fly. As you strip it up, it pulls up. It follows the pull as you pause it, nose dives. And when you’re using like marabou tails, your pine squirrel on your leeches, those things just undulate and give that, you know, and sometimes you’ll see leeches talked earlier. It’s, it’s kind of a low amplitude. Is that the right? You know, the leech is trucking, right? It’s moving probably somehow senses like this isn’t a good place to be. Yes. And in some days you’ll see that lazy sort of they’re almost rising and falling four to six inches. Is it just Undulate like cool as ice and nothing’s bothering them. 01:00:33 Landon: It reminds me when I watched the leeches for the first time on the surface. It reminded me of because at the time I was fishing like a madman, going for broke and having buyer’s remorse, but doing trips for tarpon when tarpon would come up slow rolling for air. Yeah. Happy tarpon. That’s it. Looks like those leeches are slow rolling for air in the surface. It’s incredible. And they’ll dip and come down. And like you said, they’ll move. Which before we move on, always remember to match the speed and the movement of the food supply. The more that you’re situationally aware and investigating what’s happening around you. Geek out on the leech. Do everything you can. And if you’re braver than Phil and I, eat a leech, see what it tastes like. I asked that question like I have not come to that yet, but I. You know what, folks? If we see one tomorrow, maybe Phil and I will do that and we’ll definitely post it. 01:01:23 Phil: Head out and maybe hit the dream stream. Um, one of the best ways to find leeches too, and is rolling over rocks and logs along shore. 01:01:31 Landon: They one hundred percent. One hundred percent. 01:01:33 Phil: And one thing we’ll get into a little ahead into. We’re just about to head into flies here. But you know, you mentioned those big leeches, but most of the time for trout, we fish the small stuff. 01:01:43 Landon: Small. 01:01:43 Phil: Because they are, um, you know, different species out there. But most of them, you know, I used to use back in the cast and retrieve no balance flies, no indicator. Days before those things were on the scene, we used to use like a six, three X was a big leech pattern. We use a lot of eights and tens when we’re stripping. 01:02:01 Landon: Oh yeah. 01:02:02 Phil: Just nothing big at all, right. 01:02:04 Landon: Small like even all the way down to half an inch. I mean, there’s so many tiny leeches. I have a great photograph that I’ll share with you, and we can even put it up on the podcast, but I’m at a high alpine lake with Madeline and River and it’s those. 01:02:17 Phil: Are Brandon’s, those are Landon’s kids, Brandon’s my son Landon. 01:02:21 Landon: My kiddos. And at the time with their mother, Michelle. And we were all doing high mountain Lake, you know, family getaway retreat. and we rolled into this lake, not even named Small Little Pond. It basically, you could call this a pond. And I remember going over to the inlet where there was a little spring creek coming in, and I was staring at the bottom fill, and it was three dimensional, like it was moving. And I went, that is crazy. What is going on? I look further and there are so many leeches. The bottom, it looks like it’s moving. So then as a reference, I found Scuds in the vegetation size sixteen and right next to those scuds I just put a clump of leeches. They’re the same size and there were so many of them all over the place. And we ended up getting some really big cooties. But that was the determining factor is the size. Yeah. And you know, we’ve our industry, you know, because, you know, Kelly and others that are great streamer master designers and great anglers. I love fishing streamers too. The tug is the drug craving chocolate, all of them. Tommy Lynch, the list goes on. There’s so many great anglers designing these bigger food supplies. And it’s for a purpose. They eat those. Yeah, but they snack in between. Yeah. And that’s how they get big. 01:03:31 Phil: And I think in lakes too, particularly trout lakes, their food sources are small. Oh, yeah. And you mentioned those pictures. I my, my addiction with bugs. I actually had thirty gallon aquariums, uh, in the garage when I lived on the west coast of British Columbia because my wife Patsy wouldn’t let him in the house because I used to have some of the greatest damsel hatches in the middle of February. I had house spiders the size of tarantulas. Oh, gosh. But I had I’ve got a picture of it, and I’ll be sure to include it too, is of a leech. Uh, because they, they have almost some species have the ability to almost parent their kids. So this is a leech, right? With all the babies on the underside. 01:04:12 Landon: Isn’t that incredible? 01:04:12 Phil: And they will stay with the parent because they’re, uh, um, asexual. Um, and, um, they will stay with the parent until the first blood meal because yes, that’s what most leeches eat. Um, they do eat carrion and other things, and they do eat each other. And some. 01:04:27 Landon: Species. 01:04:28 Phil: Eat snails. Yeah. Um, but they stuck with so many leeches have become hugely important. Um, where I fish, particularly in the fall months. Oh yeah. And you got all those little babies around and that’s. 01:04:41 Landon: All over the. 01:04:41 Phil: Place. I was doing a school on Stoney Lake Ranch last, last late June, and we’d had one week, we’d do two back to back weeks. We had one week. It was a show. Great fun. Then the fish stopped eating. Those got off and went back into the shallows and we had a, a fish eye throat pump that had like just stuffed with these light gray leeches that were barely three eighths of an inch long. 01:05:06 Landon: Tiny. 01:05:07 Phil: Stuffed. 01:05:07 Landon: With tiny, you. 01:05:08 Phil: Know, going into the weeds. It was pretty windy. Those little guys were getting blown out into the, the open places and paying the ultimate price. 01:05:15 Landon: Oh yeah. 01:05:16 Phil: That’s awesome. Just to finish up one other thing, I don’t know if you’ve ever done you probably have is when the wind is not crazy, but light is actually chucking a leech under some kind of indicator dry fly prop indicator upwind and just letting it drift back towards you. Slow fish swim upwind into the current. Yep, you got that nice food source drifting lazily back toward them. It’s a great. Obviously you don’t do this in twenty five mile an hour winds because everything will be blown into your face or behind you, but it’s just a great way to chuck it up on a cute angle up and just gather it’s upstream Nymphing basically just gather it back. It’s deadly. 01:05:54 Landon: Always face the wind. Alright. 01:05:56 Phil: Let’s talk about takes, particularly with stripped flies. You’ll get, you know, I heard often anglers talk about short takes where they’re being, um, you know, plucked at or grabbed and move away. What are you doing when you run into those situations? I got a couple things I do. Let’s see. 01:06:11 Landon: Sure. So I do two things. First, adjustment I make with any anglers, when they’re getting short takes, I immediately have them add an extra pause to the retrieve to give it the drop, or the ninety or the kick where the food supply is kicking, ninety kicking up or dropping. So there’s more pauses where they’re forcing the fish to almost have a better chance of taking a non-moving leech. Non-moving food supply. The other thing is, it’s huge for me. It’s what I call the pension lift. So many anglers, when they’re stripping, what I like to teach them is when it’s finger over finger. Johnny Cash big long strips, it doesn’t matter. Most of the time this is happening behind the trigger finger. And when that’s happening behind the trigger finger, many anglers get excited and they immediately think of the term strip. Set, like many terms in our sport, are used and overused at times. So if you strip set, you’re going to pull it out of their mouth. If the minute you feel tension, if you pinch and elevate up with your arm as an extension of the rod, it prevents the short strike because you’re not pulling. So the fly is not pulling away from the fish. Instead, it’s helping project the fly up. And if it really fails, Then let’s say I’m fishing the mini leech. Then I’ll one hundred percent go to jig style hooks with that pinch and lift. And believe it or not, for us, example of that is when we fish for pike. Pike are known to T-Bone to come up and almost like they’re eating blind. Like they come up and they’ll miss your fly so many times that pension lift. Not only is it effective, but leeches have been one of the huge factors for us. Landing more pike instead of dealing with the big streamers. We’re allowing them to come over and take the snacks because that’s how they got so big in the first place. But that pension lift, and then adding extra pauses to the movement and activity has been huge. 01:07:55 Phil: Yeah. Something similar to I, I use two primary. If I’m getting bumped, I can some and then we’re talking stripping flies here. Um, I’ll sometimes I’ll pick up the tempo and just because I think sometimes those fish are coming up behind the leech and they just flare their gills and that leech just goes backwards down and all of a sudden they’re trying to get at it. And every time they flare or it moves away. It moves away. So by stripping a little faster, I trigger that aggressive predator and they clock it. I think in Randall Kaufman’s Fly Fish the Lakes book, which I don’t think is no longer in print. But if you can get a copy, it’s a great resource. He talked about, you know, keeping the strip up. And then he believed that those fish would change their attack angle. Okay, I’m going to come out of this perhaps more perpendicular or more of an angle and then just drive it. 01:08:44 Landon: Yeah, the lift angle. Absolutely. 01:08:46 Phil: The other thing I’ll do sometimes if that doesn’t work is I’ll just stop the fly and let it drop. Oh yeah. Because one of the things, if you’ve ever seen a natural lights and you touch its back end, it curls up into a little ball and defends itself. So by stopping the fly, if you’re using marabou and blue pine, squirrel, rabbit, whatever soft tail material you’d like when you stop the fly, everything tends to all fold up and and just freefall down. And then that trout can just inhale it in one, one bite like that. So just a couple of things. 01:09:18 Landon: Simple but effective. Yeah, yeah. Reading the retrieve is everything. 01:09:22 Phil: And the, the last thing I’ll say. I’ll be in touch on it is when you’re fishing subsurface lines and even. Floating lines without indicators always hang the fly at the end of the. Retrieve. Because so many times those fish in that retrieval latch on, they’re interested. You go to cast the rod that changes the angle and the speed of the fly, and they grab it. You miss it, but if you slowly, you know, you play with the what we’re playing with is we lift right at the end of the retrieve with about fifteen twenty feet before the line hits, go into this rod, raise up and then pause or hang the fly just at or below the surface and you can do a long hang, you know, ten 20s five seconds, a slow rod raise. You play around, but you’ll turn those fish. And this is anytime you’re stripping flies, you’ll turn twenty, thirty percent on your catch rate just because you’re going to let that fish accelerate after and then stop it. And he goes, oh, cool. And eats it. And it’s, you know, it’s exciting because you see it all happens right in front of you. Probably you probably all had clients he’s following and he’s following. Oh my God, he ate it. 01:10:23 Landon: We call him no looks. Yeah. They’re casting. They’re not looking. And it’s bam. 01:10:27 Phil: Yeah. 01:10:27 Landon: It’s good. 01:10:28 Phil: All right, let’s talk flies. Right. Because retrieving is all good. But there is some pattern considerations to talk about. Flies. Yes. Um let’s talk about. Well I think if there’s one thing, if the flies we mentioned, they’re all pretty simple, aren’t they. There’s no need for complexity I don’t think with a leech. 01:10:46 Landon: No. And you know, for me, flies the origin of flies based on my mentorship and fly design, which was John bar flies were tied for me before he even turned in or submitted as tools for guiding guide flies are key. Three things that my flies have to have, and I refer to them as my guide flies. And that is as to be realistic, it has to be durable and it has to be versatile. And most of the details is not in the number of steps, it’s in the production of the tie, where every material matters, every step matters, and leeches fifteen years into guiding. The reason they became so valuable for me is I got sick of not having a confidence fly, and I had to design something that I could use year round. All water conditions, all waters and all over the globe. And once I found the confidence in it, it’s just grown from there. And I think for both of us it’s a big factor. But I call it my leech family. Like my flies were designed. Started out with the mayor’s mini leech unweighted. And then instead of just adding a bead, which I do have, that it’s the hothead mini leech, and you can just add a bead to the front. Make it an egg sucking leech, the mini leech jig, which instead of just adding the bead, it was a sixty degree jig hook with a slotted bead. And then that birthed the mini leech jig damsel, which you can rock and jig hook in shallow water below a dry that doesn’t snag. And then next to that was the booby leech, where it’s a suspended leech that’s lifting up. And that also played a big factor for me. But the leeches for me, those specific flies in addition to your flies when I was younger, fishing your bugs with Brian’s bugs and the balance leeches that you represent and fished. And we still well, one of my best friends is one of the best customers of Phil Larry Meyer. 01:12:31 Phil: Thank you Larry. 01:12:32 Landon: He loves the. I believe it’s the. 01:12:35 Phil: Olive pumpkin. 01:12:35 Landon: Olive pumpkin. That’s it baby. And that is a rock and fly. And the balance leeches are a huge part for me. And I know you’ll list your flies too. And I think the biggest thing for flies and I. This is how I approach it because I have so many clients show up, feel that they’ll have an entire fish pond bag, a full of two hundred boxes, and we spend. And I’m happy to do it with them because they’ll learn from this, but they’ll spend an hour deciding what flies are going to come out of that box. And let’s say you do have the two hundred. I recommend everybody have a baker’s dozen box, a box of thirteen flies that they have confidence in that work. And I bet you out of that box, including your patterns, my patterns and others, they’re going to decide that leeches are probably filling half of that thing. Yeah. You know, it’s amazing. 01:13:21 Phil: Yeah. I’m similar. I look, you know, I look at traits I look for in a fly are its size, its profile or shape? Mhm. The color and its behavior. For me, behavior is twofold in the materials we choose to make this inanimate collection of stuff come to life and how we fish it, how we make that thing come alive. So right looking at that. But yeah, you know, you mentioned the balance leeches, big influence on those. Um, you know, just seeing, you know, years ago, Brian and I were doing a school at Salmon Lake in British Columbia. And when balance flies were just starting to get on and we were, we both decided to do an experiment. We had two flies tied exactly the same way, fishing them under indicators. And just we were fishing in a boat together, swinging the flies in the wind. So the five six feet apart, that bounce fly outfits the traditional bead head hanging vertically ten to one. It’s amazing right? 01:14:15 Landon: It’s just. 01:14:15 Phil: You know, it’s just unbelievable because the bounce fly gives you that horizontal profile because body, you know how the fly hangs in the water. Just like the naturals move. They move east west not north south. 01:14:25 Landon: So exactly. 01:14:26 Phil: That’s still a big influence on my flies. And that olive pumpkin is just an olive body, olive marabou tail, olive, Arizona semi seal dubbing and a little bit of orange dubbing behind a gold bead. Mhm. Um, I like you. I’ve also started adding fluorescent beads. Probably my favorite color for elites is my bruised the black marabou with the semi seal black blue, hence the bruised and it was originally a gold bead. Now we tie it with, uh, fluorescent pink beads with chartreuse beads and hot orange beads. And that fly is just money for me. Yeah, that’s that’s one of my. 01:14:59 Landon: Color. 01:15:00 Phil: Combos. It’s just, you. 01:15:01 Landon: Know. 01:15:02 Phil: Well, you get leeches. I’ve seen them black. I’ve seen them brown. I’ve seen them olive with like an orange racing stripe down them. Mottled colorations. You know, one of my other leeches I like to use is called a waste roll leech because it looks like all the fluffy stuff. You trim off feathers and throw in the waste roll at the time. Yeah, and it’s just grizzly. Marabou. Um, for the tail. And then I take either grizzly marabou plumes or a grizzly hackle that’s dyed and put it in like a magic tool or a Swiss CDC tool and insert those that flew off the base of the feather into the loop and spin it. And it just looks like a feather duster. But when it gets wet, it just slims down to nothing and it’s just alive when that fly is falling. It’s just. 01:15:46 Landon: It’s. 01:15:47 Phil: Got a life of its own. 01:15:48 Landon: So it’s and. 01:15:50 Phil: And then I’ve got a, an old favorite of mine called the pitching leech that, um, you know, Montana Fly company ties both our flies. We just redid it with those, uh, head turner or inverting beads because now it’s tied on a scud hook. So I have a fly that’s just a long marabou tail, some straggle strings, Semper fi straggle string for the body. A little two turn hackle that I think I put in more for me than anything. It just seems to want to have a little hackle for movement. Sure. And that bead and that fly, you can strip so it pitches and gets super undulation with that long marabou tail. Yeah. And then use that clinch. Not like we talked about. And she hangs. You get a two for one deal. It’s tight all white. It’s a great suggestive mineral pattern. 01:16:30 Landon: Yeah. And you know the key thing too with color. So my mini leech. And that’s a big topic now too. I would the big questions come up Phil and I’ll mention it now. There was a change for me for sure. It was with Umpqua for many, many years and made the switch to Montana Fly Company. And the reason for the switch, which many people have asked. Most importantly, having flies available in anglers hands. Price point. Because when I was young I was thirteen. I remember starting out. Flies can get expensive and also the ability to add versatility and color and design. And you know the thing I teach my clients the mayor’s manual, which is in brown, olive and black. And what I encourage everybody to do with black, ostrich, black, micro pine, squirrel and flash. And the same for the assorted colors. I fish all three colors every day and then adding color to that. I did it for seasonal basis wear. Orange and black was an egg sucking leech. Deep water spectrum. It was purple with black. The one that Montana fly now does carry, which is my go to. And I love this fly because I’m also a fan of the show back in the day. Michael Michael, it’s the Knight Rider, red and black. 01:17:37 Phil: Oh yeah. Red and black is a great color, great color. 01:17:39 Landon: And then in addition to that, we have chartreuse and olive as the trigger color. It was olive and olive before, but now that we have more SKUs available, meaning colors available, and the one I’m very excited about as well, and that is pink bead bone white. Yep. Not the white because white and micro pine squirrel bleached skin will crack. This is a cream ginger color, so pink and bone and, and like you said, it’s the coloration and the variations of colors. But it it really is a key factor. And yeah, it’s an honor to be with you in Montana fly Company, brother. 01:18:11 Phil: Thanks. I don’t own the company. No. 01:18:14 Landon: But you’re a huge influence there for sure. 01:18:16 Phil: Well, it’s, um, and another color that’s a real sleeper is. And we use, um, after shaft feathers off a natural pheasant, ring necked pheasant rim, that secondary feather and take you. It’s gray. Yeah. All gray. We used to also tie leaches out of beaver fur. Mhm. 01:18:34 Landon: Natural. 01:18:34 Phil: Natural. That natural gray color. And every year I’m more amazed at like those those natural gray leeches. Everybody goes for the, you know, the blacks, the olives, the browns because they’re out there. But sometimes that gray coloration you mentioned those sample of the mini, the little mini leeches, the baby leeches we had. Yeah, they’re great in that. They were gray. 01:18:52 Landon: They’re great. Yeah. And natural micro pine squirrel. That’s yeah. That’s the. Yeah. And olive black, brown. And with Montana flying out we have that in gray. And then for the waited for the natural micro pine squirrel. We have gunmetal bead with gray. Yeah. No, those are great. 01:19:09 Phil: No beads have just opened it up because. 01:19:11 Landon: Oh gosh. 01:19:11 Phil: The bead not only provides weight, of course it helps jig the fly, but it’s that little trigger point. Oh, because we got to make those flies stand out. Sometimes I, I joke with some tires that they’re gorgeous tires, but we’re trying to get fish to eat these things, not play hide and seek and hide them amongst twenty thousand natural flies. Exactly. Not that I think whenever you look at the way humans see things, when we look at the natural and put our flies beside it, it’s pretty easy to determine what’s fake and what’s real. 01:19:38 Landon: You know what would be helpful, Phil? And I think we could do this for the listeners for this podcast specifically, is why don’t we make a core dozen leeches that you prefer that you have that are your bugs with Montana flying? I’ll do the same. And let’s give the listeners the visual reference. 01:19:55 Phil: Because I’ve started playing with in recent years, is a new pattern in the inventory is inventories of feather leech. And, um, this came about seeing schlop and feathers. Bigger feathers, you know, come from the base of the tail and a chicken rooster. And they have wonderful fibers off. 01:20:12 Landon: The big time. 01:20:13 Phil: The base stuff you strip off and throw away. It’s it’s thin, it’s marabou like. And I use those for tails a lot on many leeches. But what I also started doing is building a body with flash about just going, tying it in behind the bead, four or five strands, six strands going down and back, coating that body with some resin to protect it. Don’t trim the ends off. Leave the tag ends deliberately long, put a few more strands of crystal flash, and then all tied on a jig hook with either a slotted bead or the head turner beads and take that slappin and find, if you can, a thin stemmed one. If you can’t, then you have to use like a magic tool and fold the feathers in and remove the stem and tie that on as a collar like it looks dry. It looks like a big feather duster, but when it gets wet, those they just collapse. So you’ve got this fly that when you strip it, it’ll again, being on that jig hook, it’ll hang under an indicator with a clinch knot. But if you strip it with the non-slip loop knot, it’s jigging all over the place. And that fly is opening and closing and opening and closing. So when it when you strip it, it slims right down and it’s natural colored. And when you pause, it flares open and displays all that flash on the inside because we didn’t talk about that. But there is a time and a place for some flashy flies, isn’t there? 01:21:28 Landon: Oh there is. Yeah. It’s especially, you know, for fish when they want that attractant, when they really want something that’s just a little bit extra. And I like to use flash flies in low light. I like to use flash flies in dirty water. And most importantly, I find once that wind picks up clear dirty, you know, early in the day, late in the day, that triggers color reaction. Yeah, in a big way. 01:21:55 Phil: It provides contrast. 01:21:56 Landon: Exactly. 01:21:56 Phil: I’m saying. 01:21:57 Landon: Pyramid of light. 01:21:58 Phil: And deep water as well, which is low light conditions. Mhm. Um, and of course, there’s the complete opposite where you fish. If there’s any flat, even a wire rib on the fly in there. 01:22:08 Landon: Oh, they won’t touch it. 01:22:09 Phil: They won’t. 01:22:09 Landon: Touch it. No. Right. 01:22:10 Phil: Because that just puts them right off. 01:22:12 Landon: Right. 01:22:13 Phil: So yeah, the flashy stuff and you know, you mentioned hanging out. One, one technique I didn’t talk about was the washing line. Mhm. You know, using, um, a buoyant fly. You mentioned a boobie earlier. Put something buoyant on the point and hang a leech or other. Fly off an independent dropper and it gets its name because the leech and the fly line you choose causes those other flies to hang like clothes off a washing line. 01:22:37 Landon: Exactly. 01:22:37 Phil: It’s a horizontal approach to depth control, like an indicator or a dry fly is a vertical approach. Well in depth control. 01:22:45 Landon: And we love pyramid. That’s where it’s key, you know? 01:22:48 Phil: Yeah. It keeps the fly off the bottom or tracks through a zone. Yes. So a deadly method thanks to the English again for coming up with that. 01:22:55 Landon: Thank you, thank. 01:22:56 Phil: You, thank. 01:22:56 Landon: You. And finger over finger retrieve. When you’re close lining like that. Make sure that it’s slow rolling. Yeah. Let that thing. And then like you mentioned and I mentioned as well where we’re reading retrieves pause, slow roll pause. 01:23:08 Phil: So common mistakes, fishing leeches just to wrap this up. Sure. I think we’ve touched on fishing too fast is one, you know, there is a time and a place that ripping and stripping works because yeah, trout don’t always eat our flies out of a feeding response. They’re predators. They’re curious. They’re territorial. So you strip something close to them fast. Yeah, they just snap at it. Sure. Out of reaction. But most times I think we I think it’s pretty common. We like fishing them slow, either letting the wind drift them under an indicator or a dry fly or just that slow, long, slow strips. Oh yeah. Johnny Cash or thermometers pop. 01:23:42 Landon: Absolutely. 01:23:43 Phil: That hand weave or finger weave retrieve. 01:23:45 Landon: Yes. 01:23:46 Phil: Um overweighting the fly. I don’t um, most of the times we’re waiting our leeches. 01:23:50 Landon: Now, I think that’s valid though, with how important tension in euro fishing is for anglers that are in the river. Just remember, if you are in the lake, have a purpose for going deep where you’re justifying the depth. And as you mentioned, chironomids and we’ve all done this before, don’t hit it on the bottom. Be suspended above the bottom, you know. So make sure you control your depth there. And you know, it’s, I think for leeches too. When people are fishing, leeches don’t get stuck in the rut of believing that one specific color is going to work. And we both hit on this during the podcast is matching food supply. Yeah. So I think you need a matching leech and an attracting leech. You have to have two available in your box. 01:24:32 Phil: Yeah. And I don’t know about you, but I fish. I always have a stash of unweighted leeches. Mhm. Um, this past fall, I was on Henrys Lake, and we were moving out from the county boat launch. And we’re going with a purpose to one the creek miles. It typically holds fish at that time of the year, and we’re scooting through four or five feet of water and weeds everywhere and pockets, and all of a sudden it’s like bonefish. There’s just these big hybrids scattering everywhere. We slam the brakes on, let things settle down. And we were fishing hover lines or midge tips with hover tips and little crystal buggers. Very leech like. Mhm. I was fishing with, uh, Darren Huntsman, who’s got an episode on the podcast as well. Fishes. Henry’s a lot. He’s definite source of knowledge on that lake. Been fishing it since he was a kid. Um, he fishes these little crystal buggers. Very sparse marabou tail, very thin, slender crystal chenille bodies. Partnered with a hackle like a bugger, but he likes a hackle that’s two sizes smaller than the hook size. So if he’s fishing a twelve, he’s fishing like a size sixteen hackle on these things helps provide little segmented look because leeches do have a little segmentation, but that whole fly sinks so slowly because any bead you were in the weeds. 01:25:43 Landon: It has to be unweighted. 01:25:44 Phil: And they were only eating them slow, long, slow pulls or real slow hand twists. And you needed a presentation technique and a fly that would allow you to fish in that four or five feet, or maybe it’s five feet of water, but three feet of that water is wet tops, right? So you’ve got a little two foot corridor to fish in. So it’s huge. Yeah. I don’t think you got to wait them like bricks all the time. 01:26:04 Landon: No, I did for sure. 01:26:06 Phil: You got to make sure you got the right line choice right for the situation. Um don’t I think a lot of times people just default to that fast sinker and don’t give those. I love the slow sinking lines. 01:26:17 Landon: And on that note, question came up during show season that Phil and I are on right now at the fly fishing shows and also independent clubs. What if I can’t afford to buy rods and reels in lines to replace? And that’s a valid question for people getting into the sport. You don’t want to dump a bunch of money if you’re not familiar yet, you want to build confidence. We get that. We all started there. You want to use for scientific angler the sonar leader tips. Yep. You have tips that you can replace from floater to intermediate to three. Second six second nine second sync rates. Get the leader packages that attach to the fly lines, and that’s how you can switch up to match what we’re discussing. 01:26:54 Phil: Rio has diversity tips too. 01:26:56 Landon: Exactly. 01:26:56 Phil: We’ll put links to those as well. 01:26:58 Landon: Yeah. 01:26:58 Phil: Very important in the show notes to the tips because um, you know, I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of the loop to loop connection, but when you’re on a budget, it works. And when I travel, I bring them with me all the time because airline baggage waits. You can’t be hauling. No, there’s no room for underwear when you got thirteen. 01:27:13 Landon: It’s a it’s a quick switch. And you know what it is an adjustment loop to loop connections can be an adjustment to make, but it’s worth the effort to make sure that the loops don’t go past the rod tip and the first guide because you’re switching quickly and you can make that adjustment without having to, you know, pull out an entire another rig or rerig. Yeah. 01:27:33 Phil: Okay. Um, we talked about the conference flies. We’ll have links to those and put those in those assortments in. Um, hopefully everybody’s, um, enjoyed the podcast getting together. Lyndon. Where can people get Ahold of you? 01:27:45 Landon: Yes. So you can reach me while I’m excited to announce and when Phil is at the house, we’re all friends here. We all fish together. That’s the beauty of our industry. And Phil and I become great friends over the years for many reasons, not only fishing, but personally and feels a great guy and a good person and respect his knowledge. And right now I’m on a crazy tour. I’m celebrating recovery, meaning back injury from last year, but most importantly new family with Montana Fly Company, new excitement and I’m. I’ve launched the beginning of the year, the Leecia tour, which I’m now five shows in. You can find this on my website. You can find it on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook. But I’ll be traveling to fifteen more clubs and shows, which is fun. So the tour is great and obviously with myself and you at shows, reaching out for trips, landing, fly fishing. Com yep, both of our YouTube pages. You have a great YouTube presence and Phil’s got awesome knowledge there with the videos. And Instagram is some great reels and tips and of course our newsletters and, and if anybody has any questions, don’t hesitate to come out and see us in person at the show. It’s great. One on one. 01:28:48 Phil: Yeah. Contact Lennon through his email address. I’ll have links to all of his social pages YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. We’ll have his London Mayor fly fishing page. Book a trip with London. Go experience some of these quality lakes he has within a short drive of his home with some real good fishing there. Loves to fish from shore. He’ll take you out in the outcast float tubes as well. Um, but, uh, thanks for joining me and talking leeches. We could go for hours about this, but I think people will listen to this on long drives. The drive’s got to end sometime, so. That’s right. Thanks, everyone, for listening, and we’ll see you on the next episode of The Littoral Zone. Thanks for joining us. 01:29:25 Landon: Thank you. 01:29:27 Phil: Thank you for listening to today’s episode, Landon. And I hope that if you weren’t a fan or confident using leech patterns in still waters, you might be inspired to give them a try more often. If you are a Leech fan. As much as Landon and I are, we hope that there was something in this episode that you can use on your next trip. Most of the patterns landed and I mentioned in this episode are also available through any Montana Fly Company dealer. You can also purchase my specific leach patterns through mine and Brian’s online Stillwater fly fishing store. Please visit Stillwater Fly Fishing Store.com to learn more. Don’t forget to check out the Show Notes section of this podcast for links to the products we mentioned, including Landon’s books Indicator and Versa Leaders, and Head Turner Beads. If you enjoyed this episode, please tell your friends and share it. If you’re looking for patterns to try or to perhaps inspire your tying efforts, please check out my YouTube channel and in particular my Leeches and Streamers playlist. Finally, if you have any possible ideas or specific Stillwater challenges, you would like me to base an episode on, please don’t hesitate to let me know via my fil at flyfishing dot com. Email address. We’ll see you on the next episode.

 

     
Support Our Podcast Sponsors         
Support Our Podcast Sponsors       
Support Our Podcast Sponsors         

Support Our Podcast Sponsors

         
Support Our Podcast Sponsors