Episode Show Notes
Why do some anglers seem to find fish instantly while others struggle all day on the same lake? In this episode, Gareth Jones, sales Director at Airflo Fishing, breaks down Stillwater fly fishing at a level most anglers never reach—from understanding exact sink rates to building repeatable systems that help locate fish quickly.
We dig into countdown systems, retrieves, line densities, and how wind, depth, and presentation all work together. Gareth also shares competition-proven tactics for fishing teams of flies, controlling drift with a drogue, and deciding when to fish attractor patterns versus imitative flies. If lakes have ever felt overwhelming or random, this episode gives you a framework to simplify the entire game.
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(The full episode transcript is at the bottom of this blogpost) 👇🏻
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Episode Recap
00:00 – 02:30 — Gareth Explains Why Stillwater Fishing Is Really About Depth Control
Most anglers focus too much on fly choice, but Gareth explains that controlling exact depth and keeping flies in the zone is usually 90% of the solution.
02:30 – 05:30 — Consistent Sink Rates Allow You to Repeat Successful Presentations
Competition fishing pushed Airflo to standardize sink rates so anglers can accurately duplicate retrieves, countdowns, and presentations across different setups.
05:30 – 07:20 — Matching Fly Lines to Casting Ability Improves Efficiency
Beginners often benefit from heavier “power taper” lines because they help load rods more easily without requiring high line speed.
07:20 – 10:15 — Fish Depth and Retrieve Speed Must Work Together
There are multiple ways to reach the same depth, but balancing sink rate and retrieve speed determines how long flies stay in productive water.
10:15 – 12:40 — Fast Sinking Lines Help Maximize Time in the Strike Zone
Type 7 and Type 8 lines help anglers quickly reach deep fish during early season or summer thermocline periods without wasting time.
12:40 – 15:00 — Trout Follow Food, Wind Direction, and Comfortable Water Temperatures
Instead of randomly searching lakes, Gareth focuses on where wind pushes food and where trout can feed comfortably while staying near deep escape water.
15:00 – 18:00 — Rainbow Trout and Brown Trout Often Use Lakes Differently
Rainbow trout commonly occupy feeding zones more aggressively, while larger browns often stay deeper and move more cautiously.
18:00 – 21:00 — Using a Drogue Correctly Controls Drift and Reduces Drag
A properly adjusted drift sock keeps boats moving straight, improving presentation and reducing unwanted fly movement caused by drag.
21:00 – 24:30 — Gareth’s Search Strategy Starts with Attractor Flies and Depth Zones
He begins by covering multiple depths with attractor patterns, then refines presentation and fly choice once fish location becomes clearer.
24:30 – 26:50 — Dry-Dropper Chironomid Rigs Let You Track Fish Near the Surface
A small dry fly with a suspended chironomid allows anglers to visually adjust presentations and detect subtle takes near emerging insects.
26:50 – 29:30 — Wind Creates Current in Lakes Just Like Rivers
Stillwaters aren’t static—wind creates feeding lanes and current systems that position trout similarly to river seams and structure.
29:30 – 33:00 — Teams of Flies Help Dial in Exact Feeding Depths
Fishing multiple flies at staggered depths reveals where trout are feeding in the water column, allowing anglers to refine presentations quickly.
33:00 – 37:00 — Reducing Tippet Diameter Often Increases Strikes Immediately
Gareth calls thinner tippet one of the biggest game changers in Stillwater fishing because it improves presentation and sink efficiency.
37:00 – 40:00 — Modern Fly Line Materials Improve Casting, Buoyancy, and Presentation
Airflo’s newer polyurethane and microsphere technology creates straighter floating lines with better recovery and reduced memory.
40:00 – End — Gareth Shares Lessons Learned from Decades Around Elite Anglers
Fishing alongside world-class anglers taught Gareth that successful fly fishers constantly adapt techniques across species and water types.
Resources Noted in the Show
Mayfly Outdoor — mayflyoutdoors.com
Follow their Instagram
@airflofishing
@airliteflyrods
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Full Podcast Transcript
Episode Transcript
WFS 921 Transcript 00:00:00 Dave: Why do some anglers dial it in within minutes while others never find fish all day? Today we’re getting into Stillwater strategy at a level most people never reach. From dialing exact depth to building a system that actually helps you find fish fast. Gareth Jones is back on the podcast. He’s been with airflow for over thirty years. He’s competed at the highest levels and has spent decades refining how to break down lakes, control your presentation, and stay consistent when conditions keep changing. In this episode, you’re going to find out how to quickly locate fish in Stillwater when everything looks the same. We’re going to get the exact way Gareth uses countdowns, retrieve, and angles to stay in the zone, and how different sink rates and line choices control your entire presentation. Plus, we’re going to find out how to fish attractors versus imitative patterns and how to transition between both of them. We’re going to get the big update today, including what’s new with airflow fishing and everything around Stillwater. All right. You can find Gareth at airflow Dot com. Here he is. Gareth Jones. How are you doing Gareth? 00:01:05 Gareth: Really good. Thanks Dave. Glad to be on. 00:01:07 Dave: Yeah yeah. Thanks for jumping back on here. We’ve been it’s been a few years I guess over a few years that we had you on last. Uh, back in twenty two. So that was, uh, you know, November twenty two, a while back, we’re going to get an update of what’s been going on with airflow. Uh, you work with one of the big lines out there, so we’re going to get touch on that and then we’re going to talk Stillwater. I think that’s another big topic. You know, folks are interested in. So we’re going to get an update there, but maybe take us back real quick on airflow. I think there’s been some changes with airflow right over the last few years because I think has ownership changed or describe that maybe, uh, an update there? 00:01:41 Gareth: Yeah, sure. So in back in twenty nineteen, airflow was owned by a company called Burgess video Group. Uh, BVG was the, the main company name. Uh, but in, in twenty nineteen, we were bought out by mayfly who also owns, um, Ross able and, and now also owns Dana King Renzetti, and more recently, they’ve just taken on the distribution of a fly tying brand called Techstream. So yeah, we’ve pulled into the group back in twenty nineteen. Massive change around here, huge investment in plant, huge investment in staff. Uh, pulled a bunch of engineers from the car industry to help us guide us through the, the process. And, um, here we are today where we feel we’ve got some really, really high quality lines, which are, you know, super consistent and, and hit the specs nice. 00:02:29 Dave: And talk about the, the Stillwater line kind of game and what you guys have going there. I feel like that’s something that there’s a lot of room. I mean, I know we talk about it some of our, uh, you know, listeners are definitely into it. So what does that look like for you? You guys have as many Stillwater lines as you have, uh, kind of flowing water lines. 00:02:47 Gareth: Oh, we have a lot of Stillwater lines. Um, UK market is built around Stillwater scene. Um, I’ve been heavily involved with competition fishing and airflow now for, for thirty five years. And, and all the stuff that we’ve built in that that sort of arena has been directly as a result of what we’re trying to achieve on the water. Um, fishing at high levels, you get a bump shoulders, a lot of very, very talented anglers and, and they give you a lot of feedback. So, you know, over time, we, we initially developed a low stretch concept. So we’ve got very, very good contact with, with, with the flies subsurface, you feel the tick tock, that’s the bass. But then what we built around that then was a density compensation. So we were the first guys for density compensation. So the lines would sink tip first. And you had more control over where you were placing the fly in the water column. And then to build on to that was that at the time, sinking lines in different sizes didn’t sink at the same rate. So you’d have a, a type for sink that could sink anything between three inch per second and six inch per second, depending on the line size. So we, we sought to like eliminate that. And if it was a seven inch per second finger, all the sizes of seven per second. It was a five. So it’s just giving you that consistency and the building blocks you need to work your way through the water column. And ultimately, that’s what Stillwater is all about. It’s, you know, when you think of a river, it’s it’s kind of mapped out. You kind of know where the fish are going to be. You know, those seams. And then it’s about controlling the depth. So what is exactly the same? How would the flies that are at the level that the fish are swimming at? And regardless of what you’ve got on, you’re going to get some ticks. You’re going to get some action. You can, you know, you can dial it in post that, but it’s generally ninety percent of the solution is achieving the correct depth. 00:04:36 Dave: Yeah. And it’s interesting because we’ve heard a lot about that when we’ve talked about rods and lines and balancing that there’s like the, it’s kind of all over the place. Depending on the line you get even within the manufacturers, you know that in the past they’ve been differences. Any line you pick up might be different. But what you’re saying is you’ve, you’ve kind of put these things all on the same page. So there. If you get a type four, it’s going to sink and you’ll know kind of exactly that rate. 00:05:00 Gareth: Yeah. And and that all stemmed from competition. You know, you’d have a six man team or a five man team. And different guys were using different sized rods, different different weight rods. So if you were shouting over your teammate and say, well, I need need you to count down 10s. And it was a figure eight retrieval a couple of strips. If he was on a different line size to you, his actual depth was different to yours. So it was all about getting some uniformity to it all and just having that, as I say, but getting those building blocks together so that you can all, you know, repeat what each other’s doing to get, you know, maximum output when you for your time on the water. 00:05:37 Dave: Yeah. Do you think that the weight of the rod, is there a big wide range of rod weights or what’s your kind of go to Stillwater setup? 00:05:45 Gareth: Okay, so the biggest problem we’ve got with line manufacturers and run manufacturers is nobody buys the flat line first and matched it to the rod. So you know it’s the tail. It isn’t the tail wagging the dog. Everybody’s bought a rod. Uh, and, you know, in fairness to the, to the rod guys, they, they used to design it to the action that they prefer. And some of those require more line weight and others require less. You know, it’s, um, so really, it’s, it’s not a question for me. It’s really a question for rod manufacturers. If there was some standardization across the board, we could, we could make it easier. But you know, that’s a bit of advice for consumers as well is definitely try lines on on rods like we offer, you know, floating line range. We offer, uh, tactical, universal and power, which are literally three different weight lines within the same line size. So you’ve got one, which is true to line, right? One, which is, you know, fraction heavy, and then one which is almost a full line size heavy. Now where that affects the consumer is each of us has got different ability in terms of line speed. If you’ve got low line speed, you need a heavier weight. If you go high speed, you can get away with a lighter line. So, you know, it’s just different ways of loading the rod just and there’s no right or wrong. It’s just whatever suits you and important to you, you balance it individually. 00:07:04 Dave: Yeah. So if you were a kind of a beginner and you’re kind of learning what is the tactical or. 00:07:11 Gareth: No, no, you’d go the other way. You’d go to the power taper, the one that’s got the most weight. And what that does is just allows you to flex the rod without line speed. 00:07:19 Dave: Yep. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay. So that’s it. And so when you think of the weight, I mean, we always think, yeah, five weight, six weight, seven weight. So you’re not thinking that way on when you’re thinking about your Stillwater rod set up or how would you, you know, if somebody sitting here now. Yeah. 00:07:35 Gareth: Okay. So in the Stillwater game, like in the UK, particularly, a lot of it is built around sinking lines. So historically, if you think of a type seven sinker, then fishing that on a five weight rod is just almost impossible. A you won’t cast a type seven sinker. Well, and secondly, the hook set is almost impossible. So you’ve got to get up to a six or seven weight rods to actually achieve what you know, to cover the full range of deaths with one setup. Yeah. Uh, we also generally go for ten foot rods. We normally fish from the boat. And what that allows us to do, especially with with teams of flies, we have got three or four like real fish, as many as four flies. Uh, I know that’s not totally legal in some of the other states, but it is a traditional method in the UK. Uh, and that ten foot rod allows us to use longer leaders and, you know, hold flies a little further away from the boat. So you’re not getting, uh, you know, you’re not pulling the fish into the boat and scaring them at the end of the retrieve. 00:08:33 Dave: Gotcha. So and are you still competing on the world stage with on the comps? 00:08:38 Gareth: No, I haven’t competed on the world stage for a long time, but I still compete. Um, not at the levels I used to, you know. Right. Nothing’s forever, you know that. 00:08:47 Dave: Yeah. You’re still doing it. So when you’re fishing out there, you’re still using the same techniques that you would if you were in a complete one hundred percent. 00:08:53 Gareth: Yeah, one hundred percent. You’re still when you’re still water vision, it’s all about building that sort of mental picture in your brain of what depth the fish are at. And it all comes down to a combination of you find the depth, but then once you found the depth, you need to find the speed to retrieve that the fish would respond to on the day. So let’s say the fish are holding it. Let’s say they’re all in a ten feet. There’s lots of different ways you can get to ten feet in depth. You know, you could do it very slow. Retrieve with a type one. You could do it with a fast retrieve with a type seven. So balancing up the speed retrieve to the, the depth of the holding is the key to hold the flies at that level for the longest possible duration and present. Well, uh, other things that come into it is significant as well as angle change. Um, so a lot of times a bit like on the river where you do a little license rig lift and you induce heartache because of the vertical movement. Sometimes the fish really want that vertical lift in the water column, so trying to achieve that with a slow sinking line is more difficult because it’s coming through on a more flat plane through the retrieve, whereas there’s a deep sinking line would hold the depth for longer, and then at the end of the retrieve would come up sharply through the water column. And that’s where you induce the take. So, you know, it’s just little tricks like that. That what, what makes a difference on a day? 00:10:17 Dave: Yeah. There’s a lot going. I feel like, you know, in line weights you said you’ve got like the intermediate. And then what would be the heaviest. I mean, how would you, you know, if like, how deep are you going? Yeah. 00:10:28 Gareth: Yeah. So we, we fish a line called the Basha in the UK. It’s a fifty five foot head. It’s got a four hundred grain fifty five foot head of type eight sinker. And on the back of that, we’ve got an intermediate runner line and we’re fishing down to thirty feet of that line. It’s a long line. It’s fifty yards long. So you launch your long way and you need to do that. If you want to get depth, you’ve got to cast a long way to allow for, you know, allow to get to the deaths as well. But yeah, thirty feet down would be achievable, subject to wind. If the wind was strong, then it’s going to make it more difficult. You lose that time as you drift towards the line. But on a on a relatively calm day, thirty feet down is achievable, is achievable. 00:11:06 Dave: So. And when would you say use that that type eight the the heavier versus say maybe a type four, something that gets a little slower. 00:11:14 Gareth: Okay. So early season, generally we find the fish have, uh, in deeper water feeding on Daphnia. Uh, so that’s the, the water plankton. So that’s can be quite deep in the water column. The other time we find that line usually would be in high summer. So when the surface temperatures have got so high that the fish have gone down on the thermocline, they’ve dropped to that cooler water and they’re all going to be stacked up in there. So that would be the other time when you really, really, really need a line with that sort of thing. Great. 00:11:42 Dave: Yeah. Okay. And then just a matter of like, yeah, basically getting down to the fish because if they’re down deep, you could use a type four, but it would take you a long time to get down to them. And then. 00:11:51 Gareth: Exactly. It’s all about maximizing opportunity. And you know, from and that’s from a competitive background, just like how quickly can I get to death and how quickly can I repeat the retrieve? And what do you generally find is once you found the answer, like a combination of retrieve or angle change or, you know, length of distance before you, you do what we call a hang. Uh, when you find that answer, it’s usually good for like an hour or two. But as you know, temperature changes, wind changes, sudden changes. And during the course of the day, I’ll be constantly just looking like reducing the count by five seconds, increasing the count by five seconds, just to make sure I’m still in that zone. And all the fish coming up in the water column, are they dropping down with, you know, pressure changes? Um, but it’s just getting that balance and trying to say repeatability is the key. 00:12:41 Dave: That is, that’s cool. And then throughout the year, you know, as you get these. I mean, talk about that, the different layers. So would you be. Is there a time where you. The fish might be sticking there for longer than an hour and maybe a longer part of the day. 00:12:53 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. 00:12:54 Gareth: Early season when you got really cold conditions, they won’t rise much off the deck off the lake, you know, but um, you know, throughout the year when you’ve got some kind of hatch, then the biomass is going to change in the water column. And as that biomass lifts in the water column, that’s going to be the easiest area for the fish to get maximum amount of food. So they’re going to just hold of that layer. The only thing they can come into it, which would, you know, affect it badly, is obviously predation. So if the water was too shallow, but it was a good hatch, then maybe the, you know, the bigger fish wouldn’t come into that area just because it’s, you know, there’s other factors that would scare them. Um, so that’s the only time we see like quantity of fly. Uh, but you wouldn’t find, you might find smaller fish in that area a little bit more opportunistic, but the big fish might not move into that area at that point, you know, okay. 00:13:43 Dave: And we’ve had some, you know, guests in the past talk about, you know, the the shallow areas, right? That’s like the feeding zone to go to completely. Yeah. And maybe, maybe even the deeper zones aren’t even worth the time. Do you find that you’re still fishing the really deep water and all the different layers, or are you focusing more shallower? 00:13:59 Speaker 3: No. 00:13:59 Gareth: Focus on the shallow. Focus on the food. Focus on the food. Comfort for the fish. It’s always a combination of easiest food, most comfortable place to live, and with the backup, they can escape into deep water if a problem arises. That’s kind of the three things I’m looking for. There are three factors, but food is always going to be top five and and the fish always find the food before we do. It’s their job. They they don’t have an alternative. So, um, yeah, shallow water and pay particular attention to the wind as well. Wind will have a big impact on where the fish are going to, you know, where the, the, the water, the right temperature is going to going to be on the lake on the day. Uh, so, you know, the water does all stack up at the bottom of the wind and get three feet deeper throughout the day. It’s, it gets pulled back along. So if you got cool water on the surface, that’s going to get pushed subsurface and pull back on the undertow and you got warm water on the surface, the reverse is true. So always looking for the the areas which are going to be most comfortable for the fish. And yeah, just trying to maximize that opportunity. 00:15:01 Dave: Right. And that depends on I guess that’s the whole the game right there trying to find that temperature that they like. Is there a sweet spot for temperature that they’re you know, in lakes. 00:15:10 Gareth: I know what it is in British but I’m not sure what it is in American. Yeah. 00:15:13 Dave: So yeah. What is. 00:15:14 Gareth: It. So we’re like water not ten to fifteen degrees. Yeah. Ten to fifteen is optimum. 00:15:21 Dave: So I think roughly I always say times times thirty two plus or something like that. But yeah. 00:15:27 Gareth: Double it not thirty two. So fifty to sixty. 00:15:29 Dave: That’s right. Double net thirty two. Yeah. So yeah. So fifty. Yeah. So definitely so similar. They’re going to be right. And you’re talking we’re talking mostly trout. Are you, are you fishing for all sorts of different Stillwater species. 00:15:40 Gareth: We look we do have a lot of. Well I say we have a lot. We have our main targets, obviously trout, rainbow trout, rainbow trout are the main stocked fish in the UK. They don’t breed in the UK, but we stock them heavily into the into the still waters. Uh, the brown trout, um they kind of stay out of the way of the rainbow trout a little bit and kind of mooch around a little deeper. Uh, but we’ll come up in the water column when the rainbows go down into their zone. Um, but we do have perch and pike in a lot of the stillwaters as well. And that’s kind of become quite popular in the last few years where people are, you know, whereas twenty years ago, the pike and the and the perch were almost regarded as the junk fish. And now people have realized, wow, you know, it’s a great, great sport and provide a, gosh, you know, a great opportunity for you to catch some real good specimens. 00:16:30 Dave: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, we’re traveling all the way across the North America to fish for pike this year. 00:16:34 Gareth: Yeah. It’s awesome dude. 00:16:36 Dave: Yeah. Are these and are these the same species of pike out there that like, I guess we’re going for northern pike? Is that kind of the same around. 00:16:42 Gareth: Yeah, I don’t know, off the top of my head, but it looks similar in pictures to me. So I’m guessing this. 00:16:49 Dave: It probably is. Yeah, there’s a few different species. There’s, there’s one. I mean, I’m sure there’s a few different ones, but yeah, that’s pretty cool. So you talked about the kind of the trout there are you fishing for, you know, throughout the species a little bit differently on or is it these techniques we’re talking about here are applying to all the species? 00:17:06 Gareth: Um, it’s more times of year, you know, it’s like the opposite times of year for breeding season. And, you know, you’d approach them at a different point in the year, you know, when they become the target species rather than the, rather than the bycatch. 00:17:20 Dave: Let on to Mark Lodge give you the Montana fly fishing experience you deserve. 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Trout season. You know everybody wants to be out in the water from now till the end of May. 00:18:26 Dave: Yeah. Right now. Yeah. 00:18:27 Gareth: This is it. You know, and I, I told you in ten spend a lot of money out on the water. 00:18:33 Dave: Yeah. That’s a good time. What is the you know, you hear a lot about in the UK, the, the beats and how there’s a lot of private water and it’s hard to get out there. Is that the same for the Stillwater fishing? 00:18:42 Gareth: That’s not true. The Stillwater, the Stillwater, as you can generally rock up and get a day ticket on on pretty much every Stillwater in the UK. What we’ve also got as well is we don’t take our own boats. The boats are provided by the fishery. So. And it’s it’s quite good for a number of factors. You know, we haven’t got to drive around with the boat and Britain’s the roads are pretty small over here. So dragging the boat around is not really, you know, conducive. Um, but the other thing as well is that like, if we are fishing a tournament, then everybody’s got the same boat. So there’s a, you know, that level playing field, an element of fairness that allows everybody to have the same, you know, somebody doesn’t turn up with a thirty horse engine when everybody else is on a four horse engine. Yeah. 00:19:26 Dave: Oh, right. Right. Well, and what are the boats out there? What type of boats are these? 00:19:31 Gareth: Yeah. We generally fishing fifteen to seventeen foot column boats. They’re they’re just standard but similar to your boat but a little higher sided. 00:19:41 Dave: Higher side. How would you spell that? What was the name of that column? 00:19:44 Gareth: Is that it’s the brand. Um, c o u l l a m, I think. Is that the way they spell it? 00:19:49 Dave: Okay. Yeah, call them both. Okay. I’m just wanting to get a picture. Yeah. Because I think we say like John boats and stuff like that a lot, but I think it’s, uh. Yeah, electric and you have motor. Yeah. So and then you have a little electric motor or a gas motor. What’s the typical motor? 00:20:03 Gareth: Little false gas motor on the back. The other thing that we use a lot in the UK is, uh, for this, this particular style of fishing, which is known as loch style is a, is a wind anchor. So a windsock, um, we call it a drogue. And I pay a lot of attention to the way that my drogue works. You’ve got two effectively, you’ve got two strings coming to the boat and you’ve got four strings. Then going off those to the points of the, of the, you know, the underwater parachute. Yeah. And the control of that just by taking an inch or two out of one side or another on the main rope potassium to the boat can change the direction of the drift, so you depend on the tactic you want to achieve. Ideally, you want to get the boat to drift as straight as possible because otherwise when you cast downwind, if the boat is moving slightly, a ride to the wind and slightly skidding, then you get a lot of drag on your flies and a drag on. Stillwater is actually as important as drag is on on any river. For some of the presentations we’re trying to achieve, we’re trying to achieve a static presentation. And you don’t just don’t want any movement at all on the flight, especially when we’re fishing out corona patterns. We try to keep that as straight line as possible. And, you know, and that was just a couple of things. One is that it doesn’t move the fly because chromium is generally move up and down the water column, not side to side. And secondly, it allows us to get the flies deeper because if there’s any drag on the on the line, that creates tension in your leader and that slows down the sink rate of the flies. 00:21:38 Dave: Right? So that’s a pretty big thing. So you’re out there. Are you pretty much using the drogue most of the time out there? 00:21:44 Gareth: Pretty much. Yeah. Anything with you know, if the wind is sub five five mile an hour you wouldn’t bother. But you know, eight mile an hour is stronger. You’d put the drogue out just to balance the boat to make sure it goes straight. 00:21:56 Dave: Right. And that’s the cool thing about the drug is it’s not like it’s ripping you across the water. You’re kind of at a what would be the pace? Are you drifting at different paces depending on the wind or are you trying to get a standard? 00:22:06 Gareth: Yeah, sure. Look, the wind is the biggest impact. But then what this allows you to do is to actually fight that a little bit and slow, effectively slow the boat down. So then that gives you more control over your retrieve, more control over your presentation. Yeah. Look, it’s like the difference between fishing a boat, you know, Bouldery River where you’ve got to like try and get the flies down quickly or you’re like on a nice soft, smooth glide and you know, you’ve got that much more control, you know? 00:22:33 Dave: So wow, that’s cool. And then so and are you also occasionally anchoring up out there, or is that something you. 00:22:39 Speaker 4: Just I will. 00:22:40 Gareth: We don’t we don’t anchor in competition. But the anchor is a is a great tool. Um, one thing I will say is that if you are going to anchor, you either anchor on a shorter rope as you can or you put two anchors out because the minute you’ve got the anchor from one point and it’s too long to the boat, you get a lot of oil on the board. So you get a lot of, you know, side to side movement. And that also creates drag on the flies. So anchor systems or really short rope to the anchor just tightens everything up and stops that movement and allows you to present. Well. 00:23:15 Dave: Yeah, it feels like so you got the drill going for somebody who hasn’t done it feels like, you know, you got a bunch of things going. You’re trying to figure out the right depth, you’re trying to get the right stripping, and then the boat’s moving. Are you trying to solve one of those problems first and then work your way through? Or are you just. 00:23:30 Gareth: I totally am. What I’ll end up doing is there’s an approach. If you say the early season approach. I know the fish are going to be between. They’re going to be living in between five and fifteen feet of water to feed. Yeah. So I always start off with a tight sort of seven sinker. And then what I do is I, I will fish different distances away from my cast. So like on a long cast, I know I’m going to get down to the fifteen feet on a shorter cast. I’m only going to get to eight feet. So instead of changing the line in the first instance just to locate fish, I’ll generally fish a lot of like attractor patterns. We fish a lot of, um, we call them the blobs, but they’re like stars eggs. And it’s a great attractor for rainbow trout. Now if you can find a level, you maybe get a lot of followers from fish and they’re not not committing. Then you go back around and you find the fish you found where they live and you’ve realized the depth. So then you go and approach it with like maybe a slower sinking line, more nymph kind of imitated patterns and hold the flies at that level for longer. So that’s kind of the. truth. Yeah. So like in the first instance, a lot of searching, unless, you know, was a known time of year and your known heart, you know, what’s going to happen, a lot of searching and then you, you’d refine it. Then after that point. 00:24:45 Dave: Are there some hatches you’re focusing? It sounds like I mean, there’s definitely lots of ads, but are there I mean. 00:24:51 Gareth: That’s the there’s a big, big hatch. One of our large stillwater’s or recently is that as a water called Rutland Water, it’s the largest man made reservoir in the UK. And it actually started getting a mayfly hatch. So a Vulgata hatch recently. So yeah, it’s been quite cool to go out there and start fishing some real big dry flies on the surface, seeing those rainbows come up and smash those big flies. So yeah, that’s right. 00:25:18 Dave: So there is a little surface activity you’re getting out there. 00:25:20 Gareth: Yeah, yeah. And we will also do we will fish, but chironomid patterns dry as well a lot of the time. So you know, on, on, on days where you’ve got light sort of pinnable surface, then a lot of those chironomids will be, you know, they’ll get they get caught up in that surface tension. And when they get caught up in that surface tension, then the fish will turn their attention to that point of the emergence to, you know, to go and get their food. So, uh, dry flies or dry dropper systems really close to surface is a, is a great way to fish chironomids. 00:25:52 Dave: Okay. So yeah, so dry drops. So this isn’t just a, a knife down, you’re doing a few different things is the, so what would that dry dropper setup look like? And is that something you’re doing a very small window during the season. 00:26:04 Gareth: That look, it’s not so much the season. It’s more the day. If it’s the the right level of wind to, to get surface feeding fish, then one hundred percent is the way to go. And literally all I would do is take a small CDC dry fly chironomid imitation, and then I’d tie six to twelve inches of tippet off the back end of it. And I’d put a small coronoid pattern just hanging below. And that that is absolutely deadly. 00:26:31 Dave: That’s it. That’s awesome. Yeah. So you’re basically a little trail off the hook shank basically. 00:26:35 Gareth: And then and what that allows you to do is to actually position the fly where you can see the, the fish tracking through the water column. If you’ve got it in the wrong position, you can just skate the dry fly across the surface. He’s, he’s generally swimming high in the water column. He’s not going to see the disturbance, but you can get a dead on track and then you can just count him in and watch. Watch that dry fly. Just dip under as it’s as they take the Clomid. 00:26:56 Dave: Yeah. That’s sweet. 00:26:57 Gareth: It’s a cool way to say. 00:26:58 Dave: You know, as far as size of fish, are you finding different areas or are you able to target and find kind of bigger? 00:27:05 Gareth: Yes we are. We are able to target beneficial stocked fish in the UK range in that one and a half to sort of two and a half, three pound range. And fish which have been recently introduced, will generally be in the like the deeper sides of the lake, deeper areas. And then as they become more naturalized, obviously the food is in the shallower areas, they’ll pull in to find that food, you know, and then over time, then those fish get thinned out and the fish that are left will be the wise ones and the ones with a more tricky to catch and the bigger ones generally. So that’s. But you would plan your day around whether you know you. If you had poor weather conditions then approaching. You know, well-educated fish is tricky. You know, they’re not not going to be as easy to catch. Whereas if you’ve got more control on a calmer day, then at least you can present the flies well and make it look like it’s doing the right thing for them to eat it. 00:27:57 Dave: Okay. And you know, when you get to a lake, you know, you’re, you’re new to a lake. What’s your first, you know, your game plan there? As you said, you look out and everything looks flat. It all looks the same. How do you start your, your planning? 00:28:08 Gareth: Yeah. So look, if he if he went to a river, what would you think you’d go. Well look there’s there’s the flow was coming down the stream and you’ve got the rocks and you’ve got the stones. And you can see the areas where the fish are going to be still waters exactly the same. Only the difference is, is that your river is created by the wind. So the wind on the given day is going to create the flows. The fish will generally swim into that that flow because the food will be brought towards them on that, on that current. And then you’re looking for spots then on that wind that would maximize your time in the most effective area for that day. So are you looking for, you know, other fish going to be in three to five feet of water? Yes. Sorry, three to fifteen foot of water. What areas can I fish on that day where I’m going to spend the maximum amount of time on that wind in that area. That’s kind of how I would approach it. And then, you know, you’d quickly build a picture and you’d say, oh, well, today they’re all in that fifteen foot contour. Then you start looking at other areas on the lake in that same sort of fifteen foot contour and approaching those as that, you know, if you weren’t getting takes in that area, then you’d or you’d caught fish in that area and they’d gone off. Then you’d move on and look for fresh water. But with this, you know, it’s very similar throughout the lake. Fish are going to feed on that, that given day. 00:29:24 Dave: Yeah. It is. Okay. So you get there and you know, if let’s say the wind’s blowing at you towards the dock. You might motor across upwind and then throw your drogue out there and work your way back across the lake. 00:29:35 Gareth: Exactly. And also, you know, there’s the the jungle drums. Everybody knows what the jungle drums are. We’re all on social. Everybody’s telling people what’s going on. So, you know, don’t neglect that. It’s the greatest source of information you can get on current current fish locations. 00:29:51 Dave: What are these? 00:29:52 Gareth: Yeah, I’m just saying like social media is a great point of contact to find out what’s going on. You know, it’s, it’s there, it’s free will give you a lot of information to give you a start anyway. And then, and then you can use the signs then to go and make your plan for the day. 00:30:07 Dave: Make your plan when you’re using the drogue, it seems like I’m just picturing your kind of fishing across certain areas of the lake. How do you, you know, if you want to hit the shallower zones, which seem to be on the perimeter right of Lake, how would you how would you fish that with the drogue or are you fishing it differently? 00:30:22 Gareth: Yeah. No, the drug is, you know, effective in four feet of water. So, you know, it’s no different. 00:30:27 Dave: No different. 00:30:28 Gareth: Yeah. And generally I’d be in five to ten feet of water anyway. 00:30:31 Dave: So yeah. So you can fish a draw, you can put a drogue out there and pretty much fish at any part of the lake for the most part. 00:30:36 Gareth: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Totally. 00:30:38 Dave: Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. What about you mentioned the chronometers on on patterns. You mentioned a couple. What are your kind of top, you know, confidence patterns? Other than the or maybe the chronometer? Is that pretty standard? 00:30:49 Gareth: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The chronometer part is we use it generally around a pattern we call an epoxy or superglue buzzer. And literally all that we do in the UK, we a lot of our competitions we can’t fish beads. Okay. So to get depth we have to use flies and sink quickly. And a lot of our chronometers were really basic and they just fly tying thread, a little bit of wire as a rib to create the segmentation. And I really like pattern, which also incorporates some stripped quill. So peacock quill, and then the thorax end is built up slightly larger to get the bulbous effect. And then we make the wing buds out of, um, out of goose by it usually, um, fluorescent fluorescent orange or, you know, a chest that sort of browny color just to match up. But that pattern is covered in epoxy. And with the profile that you get with that, it looks very realistic, but it also sinks like a brick. So it’ll get through the water column and set your depth very quickly. 00:31:49 Dave: Yeah. That’s right. Do you know, maybe you can describe the, um we’ve talked a little bit about this, about the etymology and the life cycle of the, you know, the bugs. What does that look like on a crime? Are you trying to hit multiple stages of the life cycle? 00:32:01 Gareth: Well, so the hatch will start at the bottom, you know, on the bottom they live in the mud. Uh, when they turn pupa, then they start to work their way up through the water column. And then you’ve got the emerging insect, obviously, that hatches off into the adult. And then what you get then is the secondary. Uh, it’ll often happen in the evening when you get the egg laying chironomid come back to lay its eggs. And that can be great. Surface sport can be tricky. Uh, because a lot of those flies are literally buzzing across the surface. Got a lot of movement to them. Uh, so it’s one of the few times where you want to actually skate your dry fly. Uh, but we’ll, we’ll follow, like with the, the teams of flies. We fish. If we’re fishing a float in line, we could be fishing the fly on the cast at fifteen feet down and then drop us at intervals up through the water column, whereas the trout dropper might only be four feet down. And then you can see then visually throughout the day, the fish come into different flies. It’s not that they like the pattern any better than the other one. It’s just it’s that that set depth that they, they currently swimming at. 00:33:02 Dave: Yeah. It’s, it’s the depth. So the fly, if you’re fishing, say you found him at the four foot zone versus say the ten foot zone, is that pattern going to look a lot different? 00:33:12 Gareth: Yeah. What I thought looking at that, if I was consistently getting fish at that one level, I’d start trying to approach it with, um, I changed the point flight. So the heavy fly on the point I’d change to a flyer that incorporates some foam. So either boobies or a lump of foam at the back of the blob, which is, we call it a fab. And what that would do then is string out those flies on a technique we call a washing line, and that would hold them at a similar sort of depth. So you would get in multiple flies at the right depth, as opposed to three flies down the cast, which are not not contributing to the outcome. 00:33:49 Dave: Gotcha. So same thing. Even when you have a team of flies on there, you try to get them all pretty much at the same depth. And maybe or is that the case and using or how would you describe that? Yeah. Be the same depth versus different depths in the water column. 00:34:02 Gareth: Yeah. So literally one one is called straight line nymphing, which is, you know, self-explanatory. You’ve got regular flies throughout the cast and you’re trying to keep a straight line and dropping them through the water column. So literally floating line on the surface, one fly at say, three to four foot. One fly at six to eight feet, one fly at twelve feet, and another one of fifteen feet on the point. But then as the fish come up to the water column, which will generally happen later in the day as the hatch increases and that food is coming up through the water column in a biomass, then the the fab or the boobie on the point that then holds the flies up in the water column, and it even goes so far. Later on in the hatch to actually put another form fly on the top dropper. So I’d get two flies really close to the surface to imitate the patterns really close to the surface. Then two attractors either side of it. 00:34:52 Dave: I see, okay. So so you’d have two. And then what does that set up? How are you doing if you had three or four flies on there, how are you doing your droppers. 00:34:59 Gareth: Yeah. So we, I use a version, I think lefty came up with it, but it’s a version of a surgeon’s knot. Uh, it’s just a two tier, not very small, very easy to perform. Literally. You just, you form like a surgeon’s knot, put your fingers in, twist it up twice, pull the the two strands back through. And that’s, that’s your drop. Trim it pretty short. My droppers are about Extra eight inches. Uh, you you go any longer than that. And the, the dropper would just tangle around the main line and create knots and it doesn’t sit out. Well. 00:35:32 Dave: Pescador on the fly offers a full range of fly fishing gear for any angler at any budget, with premium rods delivered directly to you. The El Rey G6 is the most packable, high performance fly rod on the market, performing like a four piece rod but with unmatched portability in six pieces, and you can get ten percent off your next order. Right now, if you use the code Wet Fly, swing at Pescador on thefly dot com. Never fly without your G6. Discover the El Rey series and more at Pescador on the fly dot com. Check out Jackson Hole Fly Company today. Premium fly gear straight to your door without the premium price. Jackson Hole Fly Company designs and builds their own fly rods, reels, flies and gear, delivering quality you can trust at prices that let you fish more and spend less. Whether you’re picking up a fly rod for the first time or guiding every day, they’ve got what you need. Check them out right now. That’s Jackson Hole fly company dot com. Jackson Hole fly company dot com. When would you be doing for flies versus three or two or one. Are you are you always more. 00:36:37 Gareth: No, no. I would uh, there’s a couple of reasons why I’d go away from it. One, like if you you look into it multiple levels, then for flies is obviously going to cover four levels, not three. Uh, but if I was getting into a situation where I’d been around some highly pressured fish, having the flies relatively close together, you know, would mean that I, I’d rather space the flies out and have a little distance. So they go, oh, there’s only one here. You know, it’s like kind of spaced that out. And a lot of times then when the fish have actually been fished a lot and a lot of pressure, that’s when I go to a single fly, you know, just and, and also one of my, my biggest, my biggest game changers in all of the cell wall, ought to say, well, all they do is. If I’m not getting to reduce the dipper diameter. Single biggest thing you can do as an angler to increase the number of takes you get. 00:37:28 Dave: Yeah. What is your. The tippet diameter typically. And what types of. What leader are you using? 00:37:34 Gareth: Yeah. I’m generally using four X for chironomid fishing. I will use three x or greater for streamer fishing depending on the size of the fly. But I know if I reduce the leader diameter I will get more jigs. 00:37:46 Dave: That’s right. Do you remember? I’m curious that you’ve been doing this a while. Do you remember? I feel like there was a time in the past when people used to talk more about the pound of the leader than the X. Do you think about both of those things? 00:37:57 Gareth: Hey, look, in the UK we still talk about it. That’s the thing people, you know, pound is the way that we always explained it, but it’s absolute nonsense because really all you should be concerned about is the actual diameter of the tippet, because that’s what the real thing is. Anybody can write three x or eight pounds or whatever it happens to be on the packaging, but they need to say what the diameter is because that’s the key factor. 00:38:19 Dave: That’s the key. Yeah. Because the diameter is what’s going to basically get you down or up. Yeah. 00:38:26 Gareth: It’s the only part of science that’s involved in that calculation. 00:38:30 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. But the challenge is, is that obviously the, the lighter, you know, I mean, so you hear a lot on the streams, the Euro nymphing they’re going with a super light seven x, you know, six point five. But you don’t really have to do that on Stillwaters. Is that the case. 00:38:44 Gareth: You can do it. And it does. It does have its place. But you’ve also got to change your tackle and set up correctly for it. You know, you want softer tip rods like the lines are making sure you’re, you know, you’re geared up so you don’t go and break. Like it’s all very well having the takes, but you want to, you actually want to hook the fish and the fish and put it back, you know? 00:39:03 Dave: Right. Not break off, not break off. This is good. And so you mentioned, so obviously you’re with airflow. What are your you mentioned the other brands. So I don’t think there’s a rod brand in the mayfly outdoors. Right. 00:39:13 Gareth: It’s there is the we developed a range of rods called Airlite. 00:39:17 Dave: Oh yeah, they’re light. Yeah. That’s right. 00:39:19 Gareth: Yeah, yeah. So Allied’s a brand that me and Jeff Wagner came up with. 00:39:24 Dave: Oh no. 00:39:24 Gareth: Kidding. Like those offered rods in in UK and Europe for over twenty years now. So we’re not we’ve been around the rod business for a long time and obviously had all the contacts with the factories. Uh, and a good tradition there. Uh, what I didn’t want to do though, was to launch airflow branded rods in the US. I just think it would be confusing for the market. Are we a fly line company or a rod company? So we came up with the name Air light. Uh, we launched that range about eighteen months ago now. 00:39:52 Dave: So yeah, exactly. And we actually, we were working on an event we did, and we actually had a couple of air lights that that’s kind of the thing is I get these rods and I give them away, right? So we’re giving away stuff. So I actually never even cast the air light, although I had it for a little bit. I looked at it and it looked great, but, um, but I didn’t realize that. So you’ve been in the rod game for a while over there and this isn’t anything new. It’s just that you’ve got a new brand. 00:40:14 Gareth: Yeah, exactly. One thing we did have to adjust all the actions for the US market. It’s um, it’s very different to what a European action would be like. 00:40:23 Dave: Oh it. 00:40:23 Gareth: Is. So yeah, look there’s, there’s new ones. There’s in both sides, you know, and what people are looking for on a fly rod. So we yeah, we adjusted to that and we feel like we’ve, we’ve brought out a, a sensible kind of concise range of product. I think what you’ll see in the airline brand is there’s not like huge overlaps and huge ranges. So, you know, it’s like, if there only needs to be three rods in that family, there’s only three rods. 00:40:47 Dave: Yeah. If I was going to get a rod fished in the US for just your general Stillwater rod, you know, what would be the could you say that? Could you pick one and be like, okay, this is the air light rod. 00:40:58 Gareth: There’s one coming out. There’s going to be called the Stillwater. Okay. And that’s going to be available in ten foot five, six and seven weight. Um, you’re going to see that in the US later on this year. 00:41:08 Dave: Oh cool. Five six and seven. And that’ll be like a um the difference there is that it’s longer. It’s made. I mean the ten foot versus I mean, is that pretty much your go to? Yeah, ten foot is needed. 00:41:18 Gareth: Ten foot is a huge advantage, especially for techniques like the hang, uh, which is where you strip the flies to the boat on a short line. Uh, you hold the flies at depth and just wait for the fish to come back and eat it. You know, official official attractor pattern on the top dropper. A couple of names behind Chase. Get the fish chasing after the the brighter tractor, pull him into the zone. And then as they turn back, there’s a couple of nice looking nymphs there ready for him to to take. 00:41:44 Dave: So yeah, that’s it. And are you doing you know, we’re talking Stillwater here. But I mean obviously you guys cover it all. How are you working that on the airflow. Who’s covering the other lines. Are you doing that as well. Some of the the river and stuff. 00:41:57 Gareth: Yeah, yeah. Look I’ve been with airflow now for thirty five years. Okay. We’ve been around the block a little bit. And fortunately for me, I’ve, I’ve got I’ve been lucky. I’ve been a really lucky guy. I got to travel all around the world and fished with some of the greatest anglers that I’ve ever met, you know, and I’ve been fortunate to absorb a lot of information from those guys and and learn a lot from them. And, and, and, you know, that’s what he used to, to develop your product, right. 00:42:24 Dave: Who were some of those anglers? Maybe, I guess some of them probably aren’t with us anymore. Right. I’m guessing you mentioned lefty. 00:42:30 Gareth: But some are, some are. Um, Randy Harrop is probably my favorite angler. Fisherman. 00:42:37 Dave: Yeah. 00:42:37 Gareth: Yeah. Just the one thing I love about Renee is that even though he’s probably seen everything I could ever bring to the table, whatever I brought to show him from the Stillwater side, he would then take that and apply it somewhere else and continue to learn. You know, it’s just you see that in some people who just never stop learning. And that’s, you know, just a sign of a real class angler. 00:43:03 Dave: Right? So you could put Renee probably on any waterway around the world. Probably. He’d probably figure it out. 00:43:09 Gareth: He would, he would. 00:43:11 Dave: Yeah. That’s right. That’s cool. Yeah. No, definitely we’re going to be we’re going to be out in that area hopefully soon. 00:43:16 Gareth: But you know what? The one thing I really like is the crossover that you see from different sort of tactics from different species that you, you get to apply to other situations, you see. And, you know, it’s just that learning, the constant learning is the thing for me is just because you learn something on top of vision doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply to trout. 00:43:38 Dave: Right? Or the stuff we’re talking about today with Stillwater probably could apply to, to flowing waters in some ways. 00:43:43 Gareth: Exactly, exactly. And I know that the uh, esters eg is a dropper on a, on a stream streamer setup. Yep. Does not, does not attract river fish just the same as it does on the Stillwater. 00:43:55 Dave: It isn’t a. Yeah. So for Stillwater that that stock or any of these, the boobies and stuff like that, I mean they’re kind of imitating eggs or are they just flat. What is that thing really imitating? 00:44:04 Gareth: Uh, they’re just look they, they are super bright fluorescent blob. Okay. 00:44:10 Dave: Blob. 00:44:10 Gareth: Right. And that’s all it is. But what it does is it creates a tension. And I think a lot of the times it annoys the fish so much that they just want to put that light out right there. 00:44:20 Dave: Fish. They just want to check it out. 00:44:22 Gareth: Yeah. And they, you know, what can they do? They can’t pick it up with their fins. They’ve got to go and put it in their mouth to find out what it is or attack it to kill it, you know? 00:44:29 Dave: Yeah. They’re kind of curious. Do you know the person or behind the blob or some of those, that type of pattern? 00:44:36 Gareth: Well, there’s a lot of people who claim to be behind it. I would like to think of actually gained it. 00:44:40 Dave: It started from over there though, right? Aren’t these like kind of like UK patterns? 00:44:43 Gareth: Yeah. Yeah. No. And the original version was there and I, I believe that there was a guy called Jimmy McBride who came up with the original one and it wasn’t made out of Estes or Fritz, as we call it, but it was, it was just a dubbing loop out of some, you know, some dubbing, bright fluorescent dubbing. Uh, but that pattern, yeah, that was kind of the, the start of it all. 00:45:04 Dave: Yeah. The so was the blob kind of the first big attractor or there were a bunch of different attractors of different styles. 00:45:10 Gareth: Well, the first version we called it back then was a peach doll, and it was a fly pattern, which was absolutely donkey’s years old guy. It was a white wool pattern that represented a fry. But back in the the mid eighties, somebody made a fluorescent orange version. It was called the Peach Doll. And we all we all used that as an attractor. And it was a great pattern. But we all spend all our time trying to find the exact shade of peach wool, which didn’t really exist. It was. 00:45:39 Dave: Yeah. You know, it’s kind of a I’m looking at it now. It’s kind of a peach. It’s almost like I think of like a salmon row color, right? Almost like. Yeah, exactly. 00:45:46 Gareth: Exactly. And that stuff on that orange wavelength as well really is attractive to the rainbow trout. Okay. 00:45:53 Dave: Oh it is. Yeah. So okay, so color is, is a big part of this. This game we’re playing on Stillwater is getting. 00:46:00 Gareth: Yeah. Yeah. And it is until it isn’t. Okay. So the, the, the bright stuff on this day is unbelievably effective. And then partway through the day, they’ll stop eating the bright color and just start following it. And at that point, then we’ll tone down the patterns. Drop the freshness out. Go to more somber patterns, and then try to maintain the tone, the action. Yeah. 00:46:22 Dave: Yeah, exactly. Wow, this is cool. Well, any other items? I mean, we’ve been hitting on the Stillwater pretty good here just on airflow. Anything you want to give an update on that’s coming up? Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. 00:46:33 Gareth: Look there’s a big one. Big update on airflow is our introduction of the super Max formula that came in this year. Um, we, we literally changed the way that we, we build flour lines. Historically, we would have made our flour lines float with a chemical gas in structure, which was basically a honeycomb in the middle of the lines. And we moved over to microspheres. So we use now. Now use hollow glass microspheres in the line, which gives us um, a very, very consistent buoyancy. We’re able to achieve recovery rates at the tip of the line up to two inch per second recovery speed, which is super fast. But another factor of the line was that we we actually came up with what we call a hybrid system. So an irregular floating flat line. We actually use different hardnesses and materials throughout the length of the line. Okay. So the runner line being thinner and less plastic, we can use a harder material in that zone, but we don’t use the hard material on the belly section because if you’ve got a hard material, it’s harder to form the casting loop. You use too much energy in the cast. So we’ve actually gone to a far more supple material in the belly. A couple of advantages, obviously. The obvious one is the cast in getting that loop formation, not taking energy from the cast and burning it up as heat when you’re trying to flex the line into that casting loop. So very important for casting energy, but also the way that that line follows the flow. You know, if you fish in rough water, then a stiff line gets pulled around a lot. So you put import and impact. A lot more drag on the flies. Having a line that’s more supple will allow it to to follow the flow and and ride that surface current much better and help to reduce the drag at the end. 00:48:19 Dave: Gotcha. So you start with the the running line stiffer. And as you drop down towards the leader, it gets a little softer, which makes it easier to cast. 00:48:27 Gareth: Yeah. Much easier. 00:48:28 Dave: And presentation. And then you mentioned keeping it straight. Does that, does that also play a role in keeping your as you’re drifting, keeping that straight. 00:48:37 Gareth: Having control over the lines with the microspheres and the, the various hardness and materials reduces memory significantly. So these lines come off the rail super straight float really well. 00:48:48 Dave: Oh they do right. 00:48:49 Gareth: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:48:51 Dave: That’s the other thing because because the tech is that’s the interesting thing about airflow is that there’s a couple of different technologies for fly lines, right? And your airflow is pretty unique. The other brands do a different thing, right? 00:49:01 Gareth: Yeah. A lot of competitors use PVC as a main material. We use polyurethane Polyurethane being a thermoplastic as a couple of advantages. The main one is obviously it doesn’t leach out any chemicals into the environment, so it hasn’t got any solvents in it. But also being a thermoplastic allows us to to load it really well with either buoyancy or tungsten. If we want to make a line sink faster. And also being a thermoplastic allows you to weld easier. So you get much better formation of the weld loops. And you know, you’ll see that in the spade game air flows. Um, you know, the two envelopes have been known as the industry standard for a heck of a long time now. 00:49:40 Dave: Right. Yeah. The airflow. Yeah. They’ve got the, the spay. Definitely. They’ve been around for quite a while. Right. That’s, that’s been strong. Okay. And what if somebody sitting here, they’ve got this rod, it’s a custom rod, maybe a six weight that somebody built for them and they got it in there and they want to fish that on Stillwater, let’s just say it’s a nine foot or nine and a half foot six weight. How would they match the line to get the right line? How many lines would they want for Stillwater? 00:50:04 Gareth: Okay. So in terms of matching the right line, uh, that’s really, uh, they need to go to the fly shop and test a couple of different line profiles. And with that, when I say profiles, you’ll also get slightly different weights to find the one that’s right for them. Well, if I was looking for an all encompassing setup for Stillwater, I’d want a floating line. I’d want an intermediate line. I’d need a type three and a type seven. And with those four lines, I could pretty much cover most things with changing fly weight and leader length and getting the, you know, getting the angles I’m trying to create. You’d hate to see my tackle box, Dave. I think it’s not so much the rods. I think I’ve got about thirty three lines in my tackle box at the minute and. Yeah. And, and that is absolutely down to the competition thing that on a on a given day, a line at a certain angle or a certain presentation will give you the result. And I always tell people, I don’t sell fly lines, I sell fiat because if you’re a competitor and you haven’t got the line that you. The guy in the boat with you has got. Then you can be pretty sad. 00:51:09 Dave: Right? Yeah. You want to have it all. And are you doing that? Are you in the boat switching out lines or do you have your rods kind of rigged and ready to go out there? 00:51:16 Gareth: So in the competitions, you’ll have to set up one rod at a time. So yeah, we actually, you know, the guys who are serious about it, again, pretty rapid at changing lines over. And they’ve got the systems to, to make sure that they’re on it the whole time. 00:51:30 Dave: Yeah, I see. Okay. And yeah, type three, type seven intermediate. Is that something where you buy that line out of the box and it’s ready to go? Or do you have an interchangeable, kind of like the Spey where you have interchangeable tips you’re putting on? 00:51:42 Gareth: No, these these are straight full lines out the box. And like the other, the other way you could do it was with with poly leaders. But but poly leaders are just extensions of the flat line. They can allow you to get depth, but what they don’t do is allow you to maintain depth throughout. Like a full sink line can hold that depth for longer. Keep your flies at the level and also create a steeper angle of ascent when you’re when you’re coming out of that zone at the end. 00:52:07 Dave: Yeah. That’s why it’s key to have that right full line, because you want to once you find that zone, like you said, you want to stay right there at that depth. 00:52:13 Gareth: Exactly. 00:52:14 Dave: Yeah. And then the poly leaders. So yeah, we’ve used those. I mean for the Spey and stuff like that. Describe those again. So when would you use a poly leader and when would you not. When would that be good to use. 00:52:22 Gareth: Okay. So I generally use poly leaders with floating lines. I don’t use them with the um, with the Stillwater sinking lines because I’m trying to what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to control the depth of the, of the, the fly with um, the distance between the, the top dropper and the length of the leader. So that has an impact on how deep the water column. But on a floating line, I always use a poly leader. Um, and I particularly like the sort of eight foot float and a floating poly leaders always noticing this end is some of our waters that we’ve got a lot of zebra mussel in, which in turn is increasing, you know, the water clarity. 00:53:02 Dave: These are invasive species or. 00:53:05 Gareth: Yeah, yeah. Uh, so they’re increasing the water clarity. And that’s meaning that the fish are seeing that much. Yeah. More easily. So so having that eight foot, having that eight foot light trout polito trout polito just pushes the connection from the first fly even further away from the from the fly line. 00:53:22 Dave: So is it kind of like a, you’re almost casting kind of like an extension of the leader? Like, how does the balance work on that when you add a ten foot or. I’m not sure how long the poly leaders are. Yeah. 00:53:31 Gareth: So the poly leaders go from five to fourteen feet in some of the salmon stuff. But the thing with the leader is it casts so well, it’s made out of the same material as the fly lines. So it’s got the same flex and it casts really well. So, you know, it’s just transmits that much easier. And it’s, it’s just an extension of the fly line. Like in a perfect world, we, we’d actually make fly lines that were the same diameter as tippet. That would be our optimum flight line. But you know, commercially, you just couldn’t couldn’t make that. So that’s where the the power leaders sit in that gap in between and allow us to, to push through. 00:54:07 Dave: The push through. Cool. Well, this has been good. I think we’ve covered the lines for sure. And then what do you have going maybe take us out of here on your your year where we’re getting ready. May’s around the corner. Are you going to be doing a lot of traveling or are you staying home or what do you got coming up this year? 00:54:21 Gareth: Well, I got, I got this this year. I’ve actually decided to try and get back in the Welsh international team. So I have a a first round qualifier on Sunday and didn’t I. I, I finished the competition at the last weekend. It didn’t go so well. So I need to practice on Friday and Saturday to get my get my techniques back up to scratch. Um, middle of May. I’m taking my father on a week’s vacation to the west coast of Ireland. Official or Corrib. Uh, should be mayfly time, so that should be fun. And then the next trip then is Iceland. I got a little detour to Iceland in June, so. And that’s going to be, uh, Stillwater and, uh, some river fishing. So looking forward to that. 00:55:03 Dave: Looking to find some salmon or trout or what are you looking for? 00:55:05 Gareth: I think we’re going to be a little early for the salmon, but, uh, on a particular area we are, but, um, I know that there’s some great trout fishing on the, on the beach that we’re going to be fishing. So I’m looking forward to that. 00:55:16 Dave: That’s cool. Wow. And if somebody was heading over to your neck of the woods over there for Stillwater, is that something that, um, you know, there’s plenty. It sounds like there’s opportunities. Would you, how would you figure out kind of where, I guess depending on where you’re going in the country. 00:55:30 Gareth: There are within an hour of wherever you are in the UK, you will find decent Stillwater fishing. It’s a small country. We’ve got a lot of waters. Then you will find decent Stillwater fishing. Uh, we’ve got a couple of primary waters Rutland Water, Chew Valley, Draycott, uh, Graham Water up in Scotland. And we’ve got the Lake of Menteith. Uh, so, you know, there’s there’s plenty of water if you want to try that game. 00:55:53 Dave: Yeah. That’s cool. Yeah. No, we were, we were talking to we actually David McPhail who I’m sure you’re you’re familiar with. He He was now. And how far away is he from? Kind of where you’re at? 00:56:04 Gareth: Oh, I’d have to say he’s about six or seven hours drive, so it seems like a long way from the UK, but I haven’t been in the States a lot. It’s not it’s not a long drive. 00:56:13 Dave: Six hours is people are driving that regularly out here. 00:56:16 Gareth: Yeah yeah. 00:56:17 Dave: Yeah. Six hours. Okay. Yeah. Davey we’re I know I was talking to Mike from, uh, Utah fly fish with me, Utah. And we were doing the boot camp, which has been, was awesome. And, and we were talking about that just the fly tying, right? Is that something that you get into is fly tying a part of your. 00:56:31 Gareth: I do, but for me, the fly tying is a means to an end. Um, my, my fly tying is, is primarily around how can I improve my presentation? I’m not, I’m not a, I wouldn’t call myself a world class flight flight. 00:56:45 Dave: David Mcphail’s level. 00:56:46 Gareth: I’m definitely not a David McPhail, but I do know what they need to do through the water column and how to how to tie them to make it do it. So that’s kind of where I come into it. 00:56:55 Dave: Yeah. And you’ve got your, your vise right in the mayfly lineup, the. 00:56:58 Gareth: Yeah, we. 00:56:59 Dave: Do it. It’s Dana King or what? There’s two. Right? 00:57:02 Gareth: Yeah, we got Dana King and Renzetti, and I’m still. Fortunately, I’m still using an original renzetti that I bought thirty years ago. Yeah. So it’s kind of cool. Kind of cool. When we got to, to get a hold of that company and start selling it globally as well. 00:57:17 Dave: Right. Yeah. Because you, you always had, did you have renzetti and then you got Dana King or which one came first? 00:57:22 Gareth: No, it was actually the other way around. Dana King came up for grabs. So we, you know, we could see that there was obviously a machine product and we’ve got the machines to, you know, we’ve got the, the shop then Montrose that is very, uh, capable of, of machining metal parts. And then when, when Renzetti came available, we, we definitely made the, the right move and got, got that into the, into the mix as well. 00:57:47 Dave: Yeah. It’s hard to tell because there’s a bunch of vices out there that are great. You know, I have a, I have a Dyna King, but then I have a regal like, but then there are a lot of them are just great, right? And you feel like but there’s probably some special. It’s probably like rods too, right? You can’t buy a bad rod. You almost find the one you kind of like and go with it. 00:58:04 Gareth: Exactly. And the only problem with this is they last too long. 00:58:07 Dave: I know. Yeah. You’re never gonna. That’s true. Why would you replace a vise, I guess? 00:58:12 Gareth: Yeah. They’re they’re they’re all pretty. Pretty awesome. 00:58:15 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. Good. Okay. Well, we I think we could leave it there. Uh, Gareth, today we’ll send everybody out to. We mentioned it to airflow. Um, maybe give us a shout out for that if people want to check in on what you have to do, where’s the best place to go to? 00:58:28 Gareth: Yeah. If you, if you want to check out what we got, go to airflow fishing dot com. 00:58:31 Dave: Okay. Airflow fishing and they, and they can track you down at Jones the fish on Instagram. 00:58:37 Gareth: Yeah. In the US sorry because the airflow fishing dot com in the UK and the rest of the world. But in the US it’s airflow USA dot com. 00:58:44 Dave: Oh that’s right. That’s I was wondering. Yeah airflow USA dot com. Yeah yeah. Perfect. All right. We’ll get those links out and uh, and awesome. Well thanks again Gareth. We’ll, we’ll keep in touch with you and looking forward to hopefully getting on some still waters and trying out these lines. So we’ll talk to you soon. 00:58:59 Gareth: Yeah. Just let me know what you need. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Take care. 00:59:04 Dave: If you get a chance, please check in with Gareth, let him know you heard this podcast and check in with airflow as well today. We’ve got good stuff going all year long here. Want to let you know we’ve got a big boot camp coming up. If you haven’t heard about that, our July fly fishing boot camp is going to be the biggest one ever. If you want to get involved, you can do that anytime. Check in with me, go to Fly Fishing bootcamp dot com and you can get on the list to get notified when that goes live. It’s going to be a big one this year. We’re excited for all the guests and all the events as we have it all coming this year. I’m out of here. Hope you’re having a good one. Appreciate you for listening today and hope to see you on the next episode. Hope you’re having a good morning, good afternoon or evening, and we’ll look forward to hearing your next story on the next one. Talk to you then. 00:59:47 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.
Conclusion
This episode breaks Stillwater fishing down into a system instead of a guessing game. Gareth shows how depth, drift, sink rate, and retrieve speed all connect to help anglers consistently locate fish faster. The biggest takeaway is that lakes behave much more like rivers than most anglers realize—wind creates current, food positions fish, and presentation control matters at every level. Whether you fish lakes occasionally or spend most of your season on Stillwaters, this episode offers a framework that can immediately improve your success.
