871 | Fly Fishing Tactics for the Yellowstone, Bighorn, and Stillwater Rivers with Alex Hepworth from Montana Fly Fishing Lodge

00;00;01;29 – 00;00;28;08 Dave What if the best dry drop of water on the river isn’t on the banks? And what if yesterday’s tactics aren’t working today? Today’s guest fishes the Yellowstone, Bighorn and other great rivers around south central Montana. And today, you’re going to hear how fishing big Freestone rivers really works, what water produces consistently, what anglers overlook, and why the Yellowstone in particular, can be one of the most rewarding rivers in the West. 00;00;28;15 – 00;00;47;07 Dave Once you understand it, this is the Wi-Fi Swim 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. Alex Hepworth from Montana. Fly Fishing Lodge is here to take us into south central Montana. 00;00;47;15 – 00;01;04;23 Dave You’re going to discover why Yellowstone, such a great river and how you to fish it. We’re also going to hear how Alex rotates rivers like the Yellowstone, the Stillwater, this is shown and the big horn to keep things consistent. We’re also going to talk about dry droppers, how to shine those on big water. What? Alex works with his knife set up. 00;01;04;23 – 00;01;20;17 Dave We’re going to get into the nymph rig as well. And then also on streamers, we’re going to find out how he got his biggest fish of the year on Streamers are going to hear that story today. Plus, Alex breaks down how he reads water adapts when fishing is slow and how to help you fish more effectively out of the boat or on the bank. 00;01;21;12 – 00;01;41;03 Dave Just want to give a heads up. We are launching a right now a giveaway wet fly swing icon slash giveaway right now. If you want to enter for a chance to win this Montana fly fishing lodge adventure, you can also go to a wet fly, swing, dot.com slash Montana lodge and you can check there on availability and and we can take it from there. 00;01;41;11 – 00;01;49;09 Dave All right. Let’s get into it. Here he is, Alex Hepworth. You can find him at Montana Fly fishing lodge, dotcom. How are you doing, Alex? 00;01;49;16 – 00;01;51;01 Alex I’m doing good, sir. How are you? 00;01;51;07 – 00;02;15;10 Dave I’m doing great. I’m doing great. Should do good to have a chat here today. We’re going to talk Montana, which is always a fun conversation. It’s it’s definitely one of those hot spots. You know, there’s a few places around the country, you know, that are definitely always, always talked about. And this is one of them. I’m going to get your background here in a little bit, But yeah, just tell me about maybe start of off the top, you know, what’s it like being out there, being the guy in Montana on your side? 00;02;15;23 – 00;02;40;25 Alex It’s probably one of the most extraordinary jobs somebody could ever ask for. You know, where we’re located here and absorb Montana, you know, the Yellowstone River alone, we have about 110 miles of public access and, you know, numerous boat ramps that we can access. And you know, just, you know, fishing that 100 miles of river is truly incredible. 00;02;40;25 – 00;03;02;20 Alex It’s very scenic and there’s a lot of big fish. I will say that the Yellowstone itself is probably one of the tougher rivers to figure out in the state, but it’s very rewarding What? You can figure it out. Yeah. And then, you know, a couple other rivers. There’s the Stillwater, which is, you know, our local one here at Montana Fly fishing Lodge. 00;03;02;20 – 00;03;27;17 Alex We have about during, you know, high water season. We got about close to 40 miles of river to fish. And then we have the Shoshone, which is in Cody, Wyoming, which is also another really close by. Yeah, well, not so much close by, but it’s an awesome, awesome river to fish. And then the bighorn River itself too, is also in the Bighorn. 00;03;27;25 – 00;03;41;20 Alex Yeah, the bighorn is it’s not so much local, you know, it’s about a two hour drive. But, you know, we’ll have some people who will want to fish it. And, you know, we’re happy to we’re happy to do that for him. And that’s also super productive for us as well. 00;03;41;27 – 00;03;55;12 Dave That’s really cool. Yeah. I feel like, you know, we’ve done these podcasts all over the country and I feel like 2 hours or even three or four. I mean, some people drive. It’s funny, right? Not everybody lives in Montana, and sometimes there’s people that, you know, you have to drive 10 hours to get to a good water. 00;03;55;16 – 00;03;56;27 Alex Oh, yeah, absolutely. 00;03;56;27 – 00;04;13;07 Dave And then me included, you know, if I’m going to go fish like a really good home water, you know, that I think of as the big like you’re saying, the kind of like the Bighorn. You know, for me it’s like a few hours and it’s not that big of a deal. You know, you hop in the car, you you get thrown a couple of podcasts or whatever, you know, some music you get there. 00;04;13;07 – 00;04;14;02 Alex Absolutely. 00;04;14;02 – 00;04;27;14 Dave But the Big horn is known as one of those. I definitely I mean, I’ve heard about the Big Horn for pretty much my whole life. I mean, I know I’ve had friends that have, you know, the Big Horn, but then the Yellowstone, obviously that’s the huge with the national park and everything. But we’re going to get into this all. 00;04;27;14 – 00;04;38;08 Dave Maybe just start real quick on on the Big horn. Is that something if somebody was coming in and were really wanted to hit that, what is typically is that why do people want to hit the big horn typically or what’s your take there? 00;04;38;23 – 00;05;04;18 Alex So the big horn has a lot of fish per mile. You know, in comparison to the Yellowstone or the Stillwater here. But it it’s and it’s really productive. There’s a lot of really big fish over there. You know, it’s you got to deal with the crowds. But, you know, at times it can be it can be really rewarding, especially if there’s bugs around, you know, as far as as far as crowds go, they’re definitely tolerable. 00;05;04;18 – 00;05;06;15 Alex It’s nothing really too crazy, Right? 00;05;06;22 – 00;05;10;05 Dave Not that different than, say, if you went over to the Madison or in the end of the big. 00;05;10;11 – 00;05;13;29 Alex Yeah, I would say it’s probably better than the Madison as far as crowds. 00;05;13;29 – 00;05;20;16 Dave Yeah, right. Okay. Yeah. And that’s and that’s kind of I guess billings right. East of Billings. Is that where you get the big horn? Yeah. 00;05;20;16 – 00;05;21;11 Alex Yep. That’s it. 00;05;21;19 – 00;05;36;26 Dave Yeah. And then you guys are an obscure ski, which is a little bit kind of further down the highway 90 and, and we, you know, and we had a, a podcast we did where we talked about all this and kind of framed the whole, you know, the whole Montana area where you guys are at. But this is what you call this eastern Montana. 00;05;36;26 – 00;05;39;16 Dave What part of Montana would you call this people? 00;05;39;16 – 00;05;43;10 Alex A lot of guys say that this area is like South Central. 00;05;43;10 – 00;05;44;09 Dave South Central. Okay. 00;05;44;10 – 00;05;48;22 Alex Yeah, South Central would probably be like the term for it. 00;05;48;22 – 00;06;02;12 Dave Yeah, I like that. South Central. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And well, let’s talk about again, we’re going to get into all of this. I want to talk about, you know, the rivers. Hopefully we’ll get into a number of these ones you fish and where you guide there. But let’s take it back real quick. Have you been doing this in Montana for a while? 00;06;02;12 – 00;06;05;11 Dave What’s what’s your first memory of getting into fly fishing? Yeah. 00;06;05;11 – 00;06;28;03 Alex So I spent the last couple of years actually over in Pinedale, Wyoming. I worked as a shop guy and a part time guide over there. And then actually, this past spring was my first season in Montana. Nice. Yeah. So it’s been quite the quite the experience here. It’s that I definitely don’t plan on leaving anytime soon. No. 00;06;28;11 – 00;06;30;05 Dave And where’s Pinedale? What’s the shock? 00;06;30;05 – 00;06;33;02 Alex I was about an hour and a half south of Jackson. 00;06;33;07 – 00;06;49;09 Dave Okay. South of Jackson. Gotcha. So you’re in that Jackson area. What’s it like with the comparison between kind of that Jackson area versus where you’re at now? Because I know I know we talked about this. You know, Lincoln was saying that there’s not that many people in that absorb ski area. Is that is that the biggest difference? 00;06;49;09 – 00;07;11;00 Alex Yeah, that’s right. Yep. So like you know, in Wyoming itself, you know, there’s different variables that come into play when guiding and you know, you have certain numbers of people at the boat ramp but here it’s a lot different. You know, in in Wyoming, you know, there’s you know, you’ll see ten, 12, 15, 20 boats at the boat ramp. 00;07;11;00 – 00;07;30;12 Alex You know, here I don’t think there was one time all summer, at least in this area besides the big horn that I saw, more than probably eight boat trailers at the boat ramp. So it’s pretty it’s pretty remote here. It’s really awesome. You know, crowds are something that you don’t really have to worry about here and it’s great. 00;07;30;17 – 00;07;31;01 Dave Okay. 00;07;31;01 – 00;07;31;27 Alex I love it. Yeah. 00;07;32;08 – 00;07;44;27 Dave How do you guys make it? Maybe talk about a little bit on how it breaks out? You know, if we’re talking about, you know, somebody coming there for a trip, we’ve got say we got a small group that’s going there, what does that look like for you? Are you breaking this up or are you fish in the same water? 00;07;44;27 – 00;07;47;12 Dave Does it depend on what’s going on each day, each week? 00;07;47;21 – 00;08;13;25 Alex Yeah, it definitely it definitely depends on, you know, how the fishing is. But I really try to kind of spread out as much as I can, you know, like, you know, one day we’ll fish the Yellowstone, the next day or fish to Stillwater, and then, you know, maybe the third day we’ll take a drive and go and fish the Shoshone or maybe even the Bighorn or either we might go back to the Yellowstone, You know, definitely depends. 00;08;13;25 – 00;08;18;26 Alex I definitely try to try to break up the days and, you know, show people different water. 00;08;19;05 – 00;08;26;06 Dave Okay. And do you fish also the because you guys have some spring creeks there, right. I think are some of them private or are there some waters with that are springs. 00;08;26;06 – 00;08;49;02 Alex Yeah we do we actually. So the lodge itself actually has private access to a place called Deer Creek. It’s in Montana and it’s Yeah, just a little, little spring Fed creek coming from the Beartooth mountain range and yeah, we got about six and a half miles of private access walkway fishing on that river. 00;08;49;02 – 00;08;52;00 Dave It is. That’s something that you hit up or you just stick more in the boats? 00;08;52;10 – 00;09;08;24 Alex Absolutely. Yeah. It depends on kind of what my clients would like. You know, if they want to spend a day, walk away and fishing, I’m probably going to end up taking them there. But I probably run about 85 90% of my trips from from a boat. 00;09;08;24 – 00;09;20;17 Dave You do, you know. Okay. Yeah. Well, let’s start let’s start there at the boat. Let’s talk about that. So first day, I’d say if you had to choose, you know, where you would want to go, what would be the first one that would be hit? The big the Yellowstone first or that look like? 00;09;20;23 – 00;09;43;10 Alex I would say, yeah, if, if the yellowstone’s in fishable condition, I’m probably going to go to the Yellowstone. Just me personally, I’m a fan of really big water and yeah, I really like the Yellowstone. So if ever you’re coming here and you know, you want to give, you know, gear a shot, chances are if you’re fishing with me, we’re going to go to the Yellowstone. 00;09;43;11 – 00;09;56;15 Dave Yeah, it’s going to be the Yellowstone. What is the what does that look like for the day? Are you guys kind of dry drop or depending on the season, I think, you know, let’s just let’s frame it like we were heading there in early July. What would that look like? What would a day on the water yet? 00;09;56;15 – 00;10;20;20 Alex It would be dry dropper for sure. We would start with that you know Chevy’s work amazing. There’s a lot of a lot of stone fly activity on the Yellowstone hopper. Fishing gets really good toward the end of the July, the beginning of August and all throughout August and September. It’s really, really good. But yeah, so like early July definitely would start with dry dropper. 00;10;20;20 – 00;10;21;15 Alex Absolutely. 00;10;21;15 – 00;10;39;22 Dave Yeah, dry dropper. What’s sure we just had this question in the group somebody was asking about that. They’re pretty new to fly fishing or or they’ve done it a little while but they took a big break and now they’re getting back into it. And and definitely Montana’s on on the radar. What is your setup look like? Maybe describe that, how you’re dry, how you’d fish that dry dropper. 00;10;40;01 – 00;11;05;22 Alex Yeah. So, you know, just for, you know, somebody who’s just starting off the road and realize that we use our eye like ten foot five weights, that’s probably my go to Rod for something like that, you know, ten, four, five weight. Orvis Clear water is really good. And then, you know, I’ll fish about a nine foot tapered leader, maybe ten foot tapered liter depending on if the you know fish want to be leader shy or not. 00;11;05;22 – 00;11;25;26 Alex But usually we’ll start with the nine foot leader to to the chubby or dry fly. And then I usually I usually do 2 to 3 feet off of off of that dry and to just like you know, I like keeping it basic. I like pheasant tails. A lot of fish. If I doesn’t tell all year round here. Really? 00;11;26;06 – 00;11;30;02 Alex Yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely one of my go to just. 00;11;30;02 – 00;11;32;26 Dave Your standard pheasant tail. No flash. Yes. And just kind of Yeah. 00;11;32;27 – 00;11;56;09 Alex Flash flashback Flashback. Pheasant tail for sure. Absolutely. Yep. So something like that. Pretty straightforward. And then like, it’s a lot different on the Yellowstone. You know, most people in the fish and dry drivers would kind of be targeting the banks and those, you know, overhanging trees undercut banks, you know, small riffles on the Yellowstone is a little different. 00;11;56;09 – 00;12;10;19 Alex I usually like to target, you know, the bigger runs and, you know, you know, water that normally doesn’t get fished as much as, you know, the banks would. And I, I like keeping those dry flies in the middle of the river most of the time. 00;12;10;27 – 00;12;12;15 Dave Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You know, gotcha. 00;12;12;15 – 00;12;13;01 Alex Definitely. 00;12;13;01 – 00;12;20;01 Dave And so on that set up, you had a ten foot taper in. This would be like, what sort of taper later? What, what do you use and is this something. Oh yeah. 00;12;20;14 – 00;12;29;05 Alex Yeah. I just use like a, I use like a nine foot two x straight to my fly. Yeah. And then you know, I’ll use like three or four ax off of the dropper. 00;12;29;13 – 00;12;35;05 Dave Yeah. Three or four X. Okay. And depending on the side of you, what is the first until typically like a 16 or something like that. 00;12;35;06 – 00;12;57;01 Alex Yeah. I usually go from, I like a, I like a bigger there’s some really big, big, big big mayflies that hatch on the Yellowstone. So you know, I’ll do like a 12 or 14 usually and if that’s not you know that’s not being productive I’ll, I’ll switch over to like a two like a like a 14 or 16 usually a maybe even a 18. 00;12;57;12 – 00;13;11;02 Dave There you go. Okay. So so fishing a little bit bigger of the the mayflies, the pheasant tails and then how do you you know, so let’s say you’re fishing those big maybe describe how you fish it. Are you casting up or are you in it? Is this all out of a boat or a raft? 00;13;11;11 – 00;13;13;06 Alex Oh, yeah, just out of my raft, Yep. 00;13;13;14 – 00;13;24;03 Dave Okay, good. And yes, to describe it a little bit. What’s your how do you fish it? How does the person are you drifting the you know, you have your client in the front in there, Are they casting two spots or. Describe that. 00;13;24;11 – 00;13;52;19 Alex Yeah. So I usually so usually on the Yellowstone your you know, anywhere on the Stillwater, any of these rivers, you know, I’ll usually have, I usually have two people and you know one guy I’ll try to, I’ll try to have them cast toward the back of the boat and then I’ll just back row a little bit so we can then allow that fly to sort of drift and then really make sure that we’re covering that water as best as possible. 00;13;52;19 – 00;14;09;23 Alex You know, other times, like when fish are really shy, you know, if I have one guy that’s in the front of the boat, I’ll try to have him cast toward the front of the boat and then I’ll kind of just chase that fly around usually most of the day and just kind of really get some really good distance on that fly. 00;14;09;23 – 00;14;11;05 Alex And. Yeah. 00;14;11;13 – 00;14;26;02 Dave Yeah, that’s it. So the dry dropper, it’s pretty straightforward. It pretty much get a big and you like the chubby, just get a big old Chevy channel especially fishing in July because you’re imitating some of those hoppers or whatever the trust drills that are bouncing around or maybe even some salmon fly stone flies, right? 00;14;26;08 – 00;14;54;10 Alex Yeah. Yeah. We’ll have we’ll have some salmon flies hatchery out. I’ve seen I’ve seen a few, especially in the Stillwater. We get a pretty decent salmon fly hatch in the beginning of usually toward the, you know, beginning of July, maybe toward the end of June if the waters fish and we’ll get a really good hatch of salmon flies but it only lasts you know, about a week, maybe a week and a half or so, two weeks tops. 00;14;54;28 – 00;15;00;13 Alex But yeah, it’s definitely productive stone fly activity here in the early summers. Awesome. 00;15;00;13 – 00;15;18;06 Dave It is. Yes. Yeah. Okay. And and so just framing a little bit on the, you know, the trip again on the river. So you’ve got the Yellowstone which kind of goes down. It flows from, you know, kind of west to east right head now from I guess through Livingston and then towards Billings. Is that correct? 00;15;18;13 – 00;15;19;05 Alex Yes, sir. Yep. 00;15;19;11 – 00;15;28;28 Dave Yeah. So it’s flowing out that way. Where do you guys are there a bunch of different boat ramps that you guys are covered in different sections. Does it depend on flows and things like that or is a pretty, pretty standard what you guys are hitting? 00;15;29;06 – 00;15;56;16 Alex It’s fairly standard. You know, in during the early season when the water is relatively on the cooler side, I like to fish it kind of close to where we are toward Billings in like over by Columbus. And we actually have a private boat ramp that we use that’s like about the furthest I’d say the furthest fishable section downstream from Columbus, Montana. 00;15;57;23 – 00;16;24;21 Alex And it’s about, you know, from where we put in, which is in Columbus, it’s about 13 and a half miles toward Billings. And that so like, you know, that area I really like to fish earlier in the season because the water is cool. You know, as as the summer goes on, that water tends to get pretty warm just because, you know, it’s pretty far away from the mountain range itself and it tends to warm up pretty quick. 00;16;25;01 – 00;16;38;23 Alex But yeah, and then so, you know, as as the season goes on, as you know, we get toward the end of July, August and September, I’ll kind of travel to Livingston and, you know, work my way up to find that cooler water. 00;16;38;23 – 00;16;47;14 Dave I see. Yeah. So chasing the cooler water and you guys sometimes still have you know, you hear a lot about the Montana the huddle. Does that typically happen on the Yellowstone. 00;16;47;24 – 00;17;08;25 Alex So this past season we never did we never had food at all. We did have some warm water. But yeah, the fishing game never, never called Hoot Owl. And, you know, we got the fish, we got the whole thing pretty good all year. Yeah, but in the past it has happened. But it doesn’t happen very often. 00;17;08;25 – 00;17;22;16 Dave Doesn’t happen. Okay, So. So you’re going to have so like you said, you see, you start if the conditions are right down towards Columbus and your fish in that water and what is a typical run, this is about a 30 mile section you’re floating or what does a typical day look like? How many miles? 00;17;22;28 – 00;17;34;11 Alex Yeah, usually I try to do at least ten, usually ten, 11. You know, anywhere from usually like 9 to 14 miles is what I’ll try to do in a day. 00;17;34;15 – 00;17;49;08 Dave Yep. 9 to 14. So, yeah. So you have an area that do you know much about just as you go up the Yellowstone. So you have it. It comes out of us right out of Yellowstone Park. Yeah. Have you fished a lot of the other areas or is this kind of because I mean, I guess you could fish in the park and you could fish. 00;17;49;08 – 00;17;54;05 Dave I’m just looking at the map. You know, there’s other areas as it comes out of Wyoming. I’m guessing you could fish the whole river. 00;17;54;14 – 00;18;13;18 Alex Yeah. Yeah, you can. You can access the whole river. The furthest I have fished it up by boat is in Livingston about it’s I think it’s close to 20 miles upriver from Livingston. Okay. Yeah. This boat ramp called Emigrant. And that’s about the furthest I have fished it. And it is awesome. 00;18;13;18 – 00;18;14;04 Dave And that is. 00;18;14;21 – 00;18;16;07 Alex Yeah, absolutely. 00;18;16;13 – 00;18;22;25 Dave Yeah. And what is the difference between Livingston and and Billings? Are those two towns pretty similar? 00;18;23;14 – 00;18;28;01 Alex They no. So Livingston is definitely a little. It’s way smaller though. 00;18;28;06 – 00;18;28;23 Dave It’s a smaller. 00;18;29;12 – 00;18;43;00 Alex Yeah. Way smaller than billings. I would say that Livingston is more touristy, I guess you can say just because it’s at that. Yep. So you can get into Yellowstone National Park. 00;18;43;00 – 00;18;43;20 Dave All right. 00;18;44;07 – 00;18;45;03 Alex In Gardner. 00;18;45;04 – 00;18;45;20 Dave And Gardner. 00;18;45;28 – 00;18;49;16 Alex And Livingston is about the closest town outside of. 00;18;49;27 – 00;18;51;00 Dave Gardner. That’s right. 00;18;51;00 – 00;18;57;12 Alex Yeah. And then Billings is more industrialized, bigger. You know, that kind of thing. 00;18;57;17 – 00;19;10;12 Dave That’s okay. Yes. And I think we even the last time we were through there, we were we stopped, I think it was in Gardner, and we went through that area. Yeah. That’s basically the main well, it’s one of the main northern entrances to the park. 00;19;10;15 – 00;19;11;00 Alex Yes. 00;19;11;08 – 00;19;20;01 Dave Yeah, that’s one. So okay. And the back to where we’re at. So we’re down below Livingston where if it’s early in say so if it’s July, you might be fishing in that Columbus area. 00;19;20;10 – 00;19;22;12 Alex Yeah, I will be for sure. Absolutely. 00;19;22;12 – 00;19;36;04 Dave You will be okay. And there do you have. So we’ll find a boat ramp there. Maybe it’s the private boat ramp that you’ll float down. Then you take out somewhere towards, like you said, ten miles downriver and you’ll get a what’s the typical private? 00;19;36;04 – 00;19;40;25 Alex The private access itself is actually our furthest take out on the Yellowstone. 00;19;40;28 – 00;19;41;25 Dave Oh, gotcha. 00;19;41;25 – 00;19;45;02 Alex Yeah, our furthest eastern take out on the Yellowstone. Yeah. 00;19;45;02 – 00;19;54;11 Dave Perfect. So. Yeah. So you put in, what does it look like? So you meet at the at the lodge, pick up the clients from the lodge, and then go from there. Talk about that. What’s the early morning in the first part of the day. 00;19;54;19 – 00;20;18;18 Alex Yeah. So morning routine is, you know, get up. Most of the guides who guide here live actually at the Lodge, Lincoln and Judy provide housing for us pretty much all season. Nice. Yeah. So it’s pretty pretty straightforward. We get up, head over to our trucks and boats, you know, make sure we’re good to go, make sure they’re clean and then, yeah, usually we’ll start anywhere from 7 to 8:00. 00;20;18;29 – 00;20;39;10 Alex Usually by 8:00 we’re off and we’re and, but yeah, pretty straightforward. We just pull up to the lodge and our clients are waiting for us, and then, you know, we’re there in our hands for the rest of the day and then fish, you know, all day like an injury. Make some really, really good lunches that we get to have. 00;20;39;10 – 00;21;02;07 Alex So, you know, we’ll fish until about, you know, 12 1:00, you know, in Montana, there’s the high water mark rule. And so, you know, we’ll usually, you know, try to pull over. Most of us set up tables and chairs for our guests. And, you know, we’ll get out, eat some lunch, finish the day, and then usually we’re back to the lodge by four or 5:00. 00;21;02;07 – 00;21;03;11 Alex Most of the time. 00;21;03;11 – 00;21;10;06 Dave Okay, perfect. Now let’s just take it to the water. So we put in in first off, maybe like to here on the boat or what’s your raft of choice you use in there? 00;21;11;00 – 00;21;31;03 Alex I use a 13 foot Rio craft, and I had a frame built by Leo from Missoula, Montana reference. And that thing has been it’s been my baby. I take that thing pretty much anywhere and everywhere I possibly can. And it’s a it’s a fishing rig for sure. Yeah, I really enjoy it. 00;21;31;03 – 00;21;31;18 Dave Nice. 00;21;31;27 – 00;21;32;18 Alex Yeah. 00;21;32;18 – 00;21;42;23 Dave Yeah. I’ve heard about the Rio crafts described. Are they similar, do you think? What do you think the most important thing is on the boat? Is, is the raft itself or the frame more important? 00;21;42;23 – 00;22;04;18 Alex That’s a good question. I would say the frame definitely has a lot to do with it. You know, you could have frames that are very spacious and, you know, your line gets cut around everything. And, you know, you have, you know, not much room at all. You know, the Montana A-frame that I had built in Missoula this past spring, that thing is just incredible. 00;22;04;18 – 00;22;13;21 Alex There’s a lot of room. Everything is positioned on it so that your line doesn’t get tangled and they’re just really sturdy, durable frames. They’re awesome. 00;22;13;21 – 00;22;21;07 Dave They are okay. And the frames I’m trying to think of is that frame look like a metal frame. It’s got the standing platforms. 00;22;21;07 – 00;22;47;16 Alex Yeah, it’s aluminum. Yeah, it’s got a little like braces, one in the front run on the back. And then I have, I have a dry box underneath my rower seat. That’s incredible for, you know, life storage and everything else that every guide is required to have in Montana. And yeah, it’s just super. So they’re very thoughtful about the storage and the room in a raft. 00;22;47;24 – 00;22;48;13 Alex Definitely. 00;22;48;14 – 00;23;02;11 Dave Right. Okay. And that’s the real craft. Good in the raft. Looks sweet. Well, we’ll put a link out to real craft here. And then and then on the boat. I guess that’s the comparison between the drift. But could you use the drift cutters, the rafts more nimble allows you to get in some different rivers. 00;23;02;29 – 00;23;23;08 Alex I personally like the drift boat for the room aspect of things. But, you know, with with my raft I mean I ran close to 90 trips with in a raft this year and everything went fine. I never had any and never had any problems. Not many complaints at all. Yeah, it was. They’re awesome boats, man. 00;23;23;13 – 00;23;33;05 Dave Okay, well, let’s take it back to the river. So, you know, again, do you guys do much of the is it mostly flowing out of the boat? Do you ever get out and fish run stuff like that during the day. 00;23;33;08 – 00;23;52;23 Alex Yeah. Yeah. You know most of the time, you know, there’s a couple of sections on the Stillwater that we do that are, you know, relatively shorter, you know, 6 to 8 miles. And, you know, normally, you know, people just kind of blow through it. But I love to stop, you know, I love getting out. I love I love, you know, really picking apart certain runs. 00;23;52;23 – 00;24;14;03 Alex And yeah, I you know, I do a lot of road arounds, too, you know, So we’ll go through a run and then, you know, I’ll just row back up and we’ll do it, you know, three or four times till we don’t catch a fish, you know. And so, yeah, you know, doing that, getting out is definitely important for just really picking apart those runs for sure. 00;24;14;11 – 00;24;21;03 Dave Do you, when you get out, do you use is the dry dropper are you using that could use that just as effectively off the bank as in the boat. 00;24;21;16 – 00;24;42;14 Alex Yeah. Yeah. So usually like if I’m fishing a dry dropper, normally that’ll be kind of like a boat thing. You know, you know, just hitting the banks, you know, fish in the middle of the runs and, you know, rowing back up, doing it again with the dry dropper. And we do a lot of them thing here too. Oh, I would say yeah. 00;24;43;01 – 00;24;50;28 Alex About well, gosh, I’d say about 70% of the fishing that I do do is bobber fishing or nipping it. Yeah. 00;24;51;03 – 00;24;55;08 Dave So now different than and that’s different than the dry drop you wouldn’t consider dry dropper or anything. 00;24;55;20 – 00;25;09;12 Alex No, no, not at all. Yeah. That’s just with the strike indicator in two flies. Yeah. But yeah, definitely, you know, and, and if we are getting out and wade fishing or on nine times out of ten will be hoping that one you’ll. 00;25;09;12 – 00;25;17;00 Dave Be different And describe that. What would that look like. Say you’re out of the boat or maybe are you fish in both in and out of the boat for with anything? 00;25;17;12 – 00;25;38;23 Alex Yeah, Yeah. Both in and out. You know, if we’re out of the boat, normally I’ll just have my guys try to cast it about as far upstream as possible. And, you know, we’re going to we’re going to mend that sucker down all the way to our feet pretty much. And then repeat process with with the dry dropper. It’s more of your kind of like fish in a smaller window of a spot or. 00;25;38;23 – 00;25;51;12 Alex Right. You know, whether it’s just like a little slew or just like a little, you know, back any that you’re trying to position that dry fly in. It’s it’s a little different but very productive. 00;25;51;12 – 00;25;56;26 Dave I see. And on the nipping what is your rig look like there? What’s your indicator? And describe that. 00;25;57;11 – 00;26;36;13 Alex Yeah. So ah, most of my guys live rigs and mine have rigs usually look like, you know, we’ll use you know about I’d say about three feet of, you know, heavy monofilament that the strike indicator gets attached to and then usually I’ll do about a wingspan, maybe 5 to 6 feet of, you know, fluorocarbon and that’s, you know, 6 to £8 test or, you know, three or four X and then I’ll just I’ll run a5x to my flies usually and I’ll do about 18 inches to each fly for the most part. 00;26;36;13 – 00;26;43;12 Alex So our average total looks about nine feet, 9 to 10 feet total. 00;26;44;01 – 00;26;46;07 Dave And then in the end, what type of indicator to use? 00;26;46;28 – 00;26;49;25 Alex I use all strike indicators. Yep, yep. 00;26;50;00 – 00;26;54;07 Dave How do Oros compare? Because there’s a bunch of different ones. What is? How is or else do it a little bit differently. 00;26;54;23 – 00;27;24;17 Alex I’ve always used oros. I’ve tried air locks before. I’ve tried, you know, I’ve tried New Zealand strike indicators. I’ve tried, I’ve tried like the sticky foam strike indicators before. But Oros has always been a go to for me. I’ve been fishing or else since they’ve come out pretty much and they’re awesome. They don’t tend to slide usually, especially if you’re using like a thicker mano, you know, anywhere from, you know, 35 to £40 test. 00;27;24;17 – 00;27;28;29 Alex And you, you can really crank the that strike indicator down and it won’t slide at all. 00;27;29;05 – 00;27;40;25 Dave No. Again. Okay. Yeah. And so on that nine foot set up, you’re fishing I guess. Let’s take it to that again. Let’s just say we’re July. What, what would be a typical setups back to the, the pheasant tail or what would be supplies you’d be using. 00;27;41;02 – 00;28;10;00 Alex Yeah. Yeah. I’d definitely a pheasant tail would be on that rig for sure. Cardigans guns are definitely a go to any pmds that any PMD nymphs you like in July and August work really really well. My favorite one’s is called the TNT PMD. Okay, that’s a really good one. And then also two, like in July and August on the Yellowstone, there’s a lot of crayfish around to small fish. 00;28;10;18 – 00;28;13;27 Alex There’s buggy bug, it’s called the Zirkle bug. 00;28;13;27 – 00;28;14;17 Dave How do you spell that. 00;28;15;01 – 00;28;17;21 Alex As called z i r deli. 00;28;18;10 – 00;28;22;16 Dave Zero. Okay. I haven’t heard that kind of like in rhymes like the girl bug, but is it different than anybody? 00;28;22;18 – 00;28;31;06 Alex Yeah, yeah, exactly. Same thing. And then also two. Yep. Pass for rubber legs or girdle bugs. We’ll fish a lot of those to earlier in the season. 00;28;31;13 – 00;28;39;12 Dave Oh right. Yeah. Those are great. It’s kind of a stove. Well imitates a bunch of things, right. But it’s got these rubber legs that kind of bounce around. 00;28;39;12 – 00;28;42;19 Alex And definitely it still has its number one imitates. 00;28;42;20 – 00;28;50;11 Dave Don’t fly. Okay so that’s that’s okay And you get all those stones that are hatching or getting ready to hatch. And what about the sizes on the zero bug? What would be a typical size? 00;28;51;03 – 00;29;03;00 Alex I usually you know, anywhere from like a size eight to a 14, usually kind of in that range. Like I usually fish tens and 12 is kind of like my go to. 00;29;03;11 – 00;29;18;14 Dave Yeah, 10 to 12. Okay good. And and then describe that a little bit. So we got the leader, we got the three foot heavy or three feet of the heavy and then the four and then back to the now is it, is it mono then flora and then back to mono. Is that what the set up looks like. 00;29;18;29 – 00;29;22;21 Alex Yeah. Yep. So you’re saying for the nymph. Briggs. Yeah. 00;29;22;21 – 00;29;23;11 Dave For the difference. 00;29;23;22 – 00;29;39;09 Alex Yep. So I just, I do like so mono first that will be attached to my fly line and then about 5 to 6 feet of fluorocarbon and then 218, 12, 18 inch sections of fluorocarbon off of each fly. 00;29;39;17 – 00;29;47;11 Dave And then how do you tie So when you go down from your floor to the to the the the 18 inches how the two fly, how are you doing your dropper. 00;29;48;06 – 00;30;08;18 Alex So for my dropper, I usually attach it to the I of my first fly. So I’ll do what people call it. Just the eye to eye attachment. Yeah. Yep. I is super productive. I just think I just think that eye to eye connection allows for a little bit more hook exposure and a better hook up ratio. 00;30;08;18 – 00;30;11;20 Dave Right? It does, especially for small flies, right. The smaller you get. 00;30;11;20 – 00;30;13;24 Alex Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. 00;30;13;24 – 00;30;24;20 Dave Okay. So your tip, it essentially is So you got the floral, which is five or six feet and then you tie in 18 inches from that flora down. That’s your tip. It is. Is that what your tip looks like or is it longer than the 18. 00;30;24;20 – 00;30;28;14 Alex That’s it. Yep. That’s usually four or five x fluorocarbon. 00;30;28;14 – 00;30;34;23 Dave Yeah. So you got that. So you got one fly going there and then you got another one going off of that two flies that are both 18 inches. 00;30;35;02 – 00;30;49;23 Alex Yep. And then from that, from that what we, we call it our like running line, you know, from our, from our bobber to our first split shot, I usually use, you know, one baby size split shot, sometimes two. But you know, average of just fish one. 00;30;49;23 – 00;30;51;23 Dave Yeah. Where would that go on on the rig. 00;30;52;03 – 00;30;55;07 Alex Yeah. So that would go 18 inches above my first fly. 00;30;55;07 – 00;30;58;06 Dave Above your first slide. So just below the floral connection. 00;30;58;16 – 00;30;59;03 Alex Exactly. 00;30;59;03 – 00;31;04;16 Dave Yeah. Yep. Yep. And that’s and you use and what’s your leader. A leader connection. 00;31;05;10 – 00;31;15;12 Alex So a lot of the times I use barrel swivels. Oh that’s kind of like my go to And then if I have like some really, really finicky fish, I just use a blood, not. 00;31;15;16 – 00;31;24;02 Dave Just a but Yeah. And the swivels are nice because they allow you to well they add a little bit of weight right to it, but they also allow you to switch flies out pretty easy or the way the swivels. 00;31;24;03 – 00;31;30;18 Alex Definitely. Yep. And you, you, you lose a lot less of your rig as well and it saves you a lot of time on the water. 00;31;30;26 – 00;31;43;08 Dave Okay. Okay, cool. So that’s the rig. So that’s your nipping rig. And depending on, you know, I guess the three feet is depending on where you want. You adjust that across to fit the depth of the water. What’s your typical depth? You might be fishing below. 00;31;43;08 – 00;32;01;29 Alex The indicator kind of varies depending on time of year and you know where the fish want to be. But usually we’re fishing runs anywhere from 4 to 8 feet and then, you know, some of the deeper holes on the Yellowstone, those will be about, you know, 10 to 12 feet, some of them. 00;32;02;04 – 00;32;13;14 Dave Ten, 12. Okay. Yeah. So if you’re in a deeper so if you’re floating down, well, maybe describe that. So we’re sticking on the Yellowstone or fish in the nymph. You could fish this just as easy out of the boat as on the back. 00;32;13;25 – 00;32;34;06 Alex Yeah, absolutely. Yep, yep. It’s actually I would say it’s probably a little bit easier to fish from the boat because what you don’t have to really cast very far and then, you know, too, it’s pretty easy to fight fish from a boat. You don’t have to worry about them running too far because you could always chase after them and. 00;32;34;08 – 00;32;47;00 Alex Oh, right, etc.. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I both very productive fishing in and out of the boat, but I prefer to nymph from the boat. It’s, it’s very productive. Okay. 00;32;47;00 – 00;32;53;27 Dave And and when would you choose between. We talked about the dry dropper versus this nipping setup. How would you know what what to use there. 00;32;54;07 – 00;33;13;29 Alex I usually start the morning off with dry dropper You know, low light periods are better for dry fly fishing. The fish are less spooky, the water’s cooler, and they’re willing to cooperate a little more. So usually when that slows down, I usually, you know, pick up the frogs as well. And then for the rest of the day, most of the time. 00;33;14;01 – 00;33;25;03 Dave Oh, there you go. Okay. And you have do you have much of a. So we got that cover. We got the nipping and the dry dropper. And then do you find some hatches out there in July potentially or just throughout the year? 00;33;25;03 – 00;33;37;11 Alex Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. We we get a really awesome cat is hatch at the beginning of July. It’s really, really good I mean just blankets of course just it’s yeah it’s awesome. 00;33;37;11 – 00;33;42;02 Dave And are these the little lake size 12 to 14. Sort of the bigger cat is Yeah. 00;33;42;02 – 00;33;52;23 Alex Yeah exactly. Yep. 12 and 14. You know sometimes 16 will be a little more ideal, but yeah, usually of fish a 12 and a 14 on the same rig. 00;33;53;03 – 00;34;02;19 Dave Same right. Yeah. It was the cat as well. Now are we talking nipping dry fires. What is the dry graphite. Yeah. What’s your go to dry for cats. 00;34;03;01 – 00;34;12;13 Alex But see I like seeds cats a lot. They make this one. It’s called the corn fed cat is. Oh yeah. And it’s yeah, that’s a really good one. 00;34;12;13 – 00;34;16;01 Dave And I think that’s Lance’s Lance Egan’s fly I think that’s what Yes. 00;34;16;01 – 00;34;34;29 Alex That’s, yeah, that’s a really, really good one. That’s probably my go to And then just typical l care cat is, you know keeping it simple is great as well. And then just like a regular cdcc cat is just, just in l care cats with some buggy CDC within it and it’s, it’s awesome. It’s an awesome bug. 00;34;35;08 – 00;34;43;17 Dave Okay so that’s the CDC cats are just basically it’s l care the same it’s got the l care wing or deer hair but then it’s got a little CDC on the front tied in there. 00;34;43;27 – 00;34;44;23 Alex Yep, that’s it. 00;34;44;25 – 00;34;52;21 Dave Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so that’s it. And it’s going to the CDC just gives it a little bit of something unique, Right? Whether that’s it gives. 00;34;52;21 – 00;34;54;10 Alex It, it gives it a bug. Look. 00;34;54;10 – 00;35;09;14 Dave Bug ear. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. And I’m looking at now I’m on the fly fish food site and they got the desert all tan. So the zero bug looks like it’s exactly like a girl bag or it’s got the model, but then it’s got this is it Rabbit strip on top and it’s flash. 00;35;09;14 – 00;35;15;07 Alex Yep, it’s soccer. It’s got a big old zombie strip in front and it’s a great crayfish imitation. 00;35;15;07 – 00;35;21;15 Dave Oh, so that’s what you’re. So that’s basically like you said, that’s what it’s everything. So it’s not just don’t fly. This could imitate the crayfish as well. 00;35;21;25 – 00;35;22;29 Alex Yes. Yeah. 00;35;23;08 – 00;35;38;20 Dave Okay, so we got a bunch of good patterns. What haven’t we talked about? So we’ve talked about the nymph. Your nymph, Ray. We’ve talked about the dry dropper. What happens when you’re out there? You’re fishing, and I’m not sure if this happens very often, but, you know, the fish aren’t cooperating. And you’re like, okay, it’s a little bit tougher today. 00;35;38;21 – 00;35;45;23 Dave Do you find that could be just a water temperature change or what’s your go to and things? Or does that very often? I’m guessing it does. We all get skunked, right? 00;35;46;05 – 00;35;57;11 Alex Yeah. So it happens. It happens a lot. You know, there’ll be times, there’ll be days. You know, like I said, the Yellowstone is definitely a very, very tough river to figure out. And it can be. 00;35;57;14 – 00;36;00;04 Dave Yeah, because it’s not a tail. All right, This is a freestone river. 00;36;00;04 – 00;36;23;20 Alex It’s a it’s a freestone river. It’s. It’s got a lot of different food source. It’s not consistent by any means whatsoever. So, you know. Yeah. In that case, there’s a lot of different things you can do. You can kind of change up the water that, you know, you normally fish, you know, instead of maybe fish in deep runs, dry shower runs, you know, switching flies is very important. 00;36;24;07 – 00;36;31;19 Alex You know, just kind of figuring it out as you go is kind of what I say. Yeah, But yeah, yeah, you can. 00;36;31;27 – 00;36;34;17 Dave Get the same thing. Yeah. If you’re, if you’re not catching something, you’ve got to. 00;36;34;17 – 00;36;43;00 Alex Definitely always you always got to try it. You got to try to do something different, you know something, Something’s not working and you got to just. You got to really figure it out. 00;36;43;08 – 00;37;01;18 Dave Yeah. Yeah. That’s on the Yellowstone. You’ve got, you know, again, it’s the temperatures. There’s different environmental factors that, you know, that’s the cool thing about the Yellowstone, that it’s free flowing. Right. I think Lincoln might have said it’s the longest free dam, free river maybe in the west or something like that. But it’s a it’s a big river flows all the way out down to the Missouri. 00;37;01;18 – 00;37;20;27 Dave Right. I mean, the thing is, is across, you know, going across the country. But so, yeah, you’re out there. You start with day one. Like we said, you’re doing the dry dropper. How do you know when you’re fish in the dry drop or if it’s not going to be a day or do you find you’re getting majority of fish on the dropper or on the dry or can you tell like right away, within the first 30 minutes, an hour, like Okay. 00;37;20;27 – 00;37;21;08 Dave This is I. 00;37;21;08 – 00;37;42;19 Alex Could I could definitely tell, you know, within the first usually hour and a half. Well, we’ll give it that. Yeah. You know, if I’m not seeing any fish coming to look up on top, you know, I’ve gone through, you know, three different bugs have gone through, you know, all kinds of different things. And if I’m having no action whatsoever, I’m going to I’m going to switch to the nymphs. 00;37;42;27 – 00;37;44;21 Dave To the nymphs. That’s it. So that could be. 00;37;44;22 – 00;37;49;11 Alex Or streamers, streamers to streamer fishing here is absolutely incredible. 00;37;49;13 – 00;37;50;29 Dave Oh, it is the streamers are good too. 00;37;51;09 – 00;38;17;11 Alex Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, streamer fish in here is probably like a go to for me, especially during the cold months, you know, spring and fall here streamer fishing is awesome and then you know if you’re out the summer too any crayfish imitations work really good my favorite for like you know the the heat of summer stream or fishing is probably like a orange mini dungeon that’s probably my go to the mini. 00;38;18;18 – 00;38;25;19 Alex Yep, that’s a good one. And then I really like streamer fish in here in the cold months. It’s awesome. 00;38;25;25 – 00;38;35;04 Dave Okay. Yeah. Good, good. And and so that’s something we haven’t touched on in in is this just as effective as is the Yellowstone the river or are they all you can hit them on with streamers on all of them. 00;38;35;10 – 00;38;41;05 Alex Yeah. So you’re just asking is streamer fishing effective mostly on the Yellowstone or is it pretty effective everywhere. 00;38;41;05 – 00;38;46;04 Dave Yeah. Are you using are you doing streamers depending on the conditions on, on any of the you mentioned the Stillwater Yellowstone. 00;38;46;06 – 00;38;57;29 Alex Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Even on the Stillwater streamer fishing is awesome, you know, especially during high water when those fish are kind of pushed to the banks, you know, something to wake them up is definitely a go for me. 00;38;58;05 – 00;39;06;17 Dave So that could be the thing you could you could have if it is that day where it’s slower with the dry drop or maybe the maybe the nymphs or something, want to change it up. The streamers could be a good change up. 00;39;06;25 – 00;39;09;14 Alex Nymphs or streamers. Yeah, absolutely. 00;39;09;14 – 00;39;14;08 Dave Okay. Yeah, well, let’s hear that a little bit. What is on on the streamer talk about your your set up there is this. 00;39;14;08 – 00;39;36;00 Alex Yeah. So I usually I usually start you know I, I really like fishing really big rods for streamers so I have like I usually, you know, go with like a ten foot eight weight is my go to or a ten foot seven weight is probably there are the fish the most. And then that’s I usually fish with full sinking fire lines. 00;39;36;18 – 00;40;05;00 Alex Scientific anglers makes a full sink line that’s like a that’s like a one, three, five. That’s like the weight taper throughout the fire line. And so that’s that’s usually what I’ll go to. I’ll usually fish like a ten foot seven weight with a11354 sinking line And then I usually four liter for streamers I usually use just heavy fluorocarbon, you know, just like a four or five foot section of like £12 test. 00;40;05;15 – 00;40;26;14 Alex You know, fluorocarbon works really, really good for me. So that’s usually what I’ll start off with. And yeah, usually, you know, I really like white streamers for the Stillwater. That’s a really that’s kind of my go to There’s a lot of smaller sized rainbow trout in there and the white always seems to get it done pretty good. So White’s. 00;40;26;14 – 00;40;33;19 Dave Good. Okay. And then back on and on the flora, what is your your leader? So you’re are you getting a prebuilt leader tape or. 00;40;33;19 – 00;40;47;16 Alex No, it’s actually just I usually just use like a just like a regular spool of fluorocarbon cigar Red Label is what I use and that’s like two. Yeah. Just £12 test fluorocarbon. Oh £12. No taper, no tapes. 00;40;47;16 – 00;40;50;19 Dave Yeah. And then that’s a short, fairly short leader. How long would you be. 00;40;50;25 – 00;40;52;15 Alex For to five feet usually. 00;40;52;25 – 00;41;07;00 Dave Okay. So 4 to 5. So that’s pretty, pretty awesome. 4 to 5 feet. You got your maybe your mini dungeon, maybe wait for that. And then how are you? Is this something where you’re casting upstream across, down across? How are you and are you doing this out of the boat? 00;41;07;09 – 00;41;15;16 Alex I usually try to keep it 90 degrees. You know, when you’re streamer fishing, you’re hunting, you’re not really, you know, targeting. 00;41;15;16 – 00;41;17;15 Dave Right. You’re not seeing fish necessarily. 00;41;17;15 – 00;41;34;20 Alex Yeah, exactly. You’re you’re trying to make the fish come to you. So, you know, I’m hitting all the little spots, you know, throwing it toward the bank, throwing it out into the middle of the river, throwing it back to the bag, throwing it up against the tree, you know, and and I’m fishing, you know, are out here. I really like fishing. 00;41;34;20 – 00;41;44;19 Alex It really fast. So, you know, I’m doing like a foot and a half to two foot long strip and I’m just pop, pop, pop, like pretty pretty consistent. 00;41;44;19 – 00;41;47;29 Dave Like just boom, boom, boom, boom and long, pretty long strips. Pretty long. 00;41;47;29 – 00;41;50;15 Alex Erratic, erratic, aggressive strips. 00;41;50;15 – 00;41;55;13 Dave Yeah. Okay. All right. You. And are they hitting on the paws or on the strip or what? How does that happen? 00;41;56;04 – 00;42;03;12 Alex Usually they’ll hit it on the paws. You know, once you’re in that paws and you know, you’ll feel in that next strip and then set the hook, go. 00;42;03;12 – 00;42;19;05 Dave Yeah. That’s so good. Yeah. It seems like the worse. It seems like it’s all you know, it’s all amazing because. Right, you got these different, you know, the different I don’t know what you call them types of fishing. Right. The dry is the nips, all that. But streamers just seems to be like that because it’s that aggressive thing, right? 00;42;19;05 – 00;42;26;09 Dave These fish are coming and potentially you’re getting a big fish. You find that the streamers are might be your better chance to find the real big ones. 00;42;26;20 – 00;42;52;22 Alex Yes, absolutely. You know, and then yeah, so, you know, for example, I, you know, fished all summer, all spring know all of May, June, July, August and September. And then I had just like the final trips of the year in October and I went up to Livingston on the Yellowstone and I had a guy who just wanted to streamer fish and I was like, perfect, You know, it’s all these fish are, you know, bulking up, getting aggressive. 00;42;52;22 – 00;42;56;23 Dave Oh yeah. And are these, these browns and rainbows are mostly browns for mostly browns. 00;42;57;03 – 00;43;20;24 Alex Yeah. Yeah. For the most part streamer fish. And it’s probably going to be a brown. But you know rainbow trout is not afraid to stream or whatsoever. Yeah okay but yeah like like I was saying you know all season I struggled to break the two foot mark and then, you know, I just had, I had that guy, I had a guy, you know, who just wanted a streamer fish, and I was like, All right, let’s do it. 00;43;21;09 – 00;43;25;08 Alex So we went up to Livingston and, you know, the first day we landed a 26 inch. 00;43;25;08 – 00;43;26;09 Dave Brown Oh, nice. On a. 00;43;26;10 – 00;43;26;24 Alex Streamer. 00;43;26;24 – 00;43;27;05 Dave Really. 00;43;27;05 – 00;43;43;08 Alex First down one. Yeah. Day one. That was awesome. You know, then we went back and then we were like, Let’s go try to do that again. So the next day went up in like, you know, two runs above where we caught that 26. We stuck a 24 incher. 00;43;43;08 – 00;43;44;00 Dave Oh cool. 00;43;44;00 – 00;43;50;28 Alex And yeah, yep, same guy who’s just just incredible. Super, super fun times. 00;43;50;28 – 00;43;57;13 Dave Yeah. What was that, seven. That first one you stuck. What was that was the setup you just describe here the same stuff you use there. 00;43;57;20 – 00;44;03;26 Alex Yep. Just. Yep. Ten foot eight. Wait, with actually, that was a five, three, five, seven. So what does. 00;44;03;26 – 00;44;06;23 Dave The three five sub describe that is at the sink. What is it. Three five. 00;44;06;28 – 00;44;09;03 Alex So that’s the sink rate. It sinks to the line. 00;44;09;04 – 00;44;09;25 Dave So it’s a, it’s a. 00;44;10;04 – 00;44;13;13 Alex Six about a foot in three inches per second. 00;44;13;23 – 00;44;21;18 Dave Okay. Yeah. So, so in this one this is the so your fly line sinks at the different rates. Is that, is that what this is the 357. 00;44;21;28 – 00;44;26;04 Alex Yep. Yep. Three, five, seven is like the heaviest rate they have. 00;44;26;06 – 00;44;26;24 Dave Oh it is. 00;44;26;25 – 00;44;30;03 Alex Okay. And that’s like, that’s they’re the fastest degrade they have right. 00;44;30;03 – 00;44;30;23 Dave So you’re getting down. 00;44;31;00 – 00;44;33;14 Alex You need a big rod to throw it. So yeah. 00;44;33;14 – 00;44;43;26 Dave Okay. So you’re getting the flies down so you so back to that. So describe the your client. So he was out there, was this something where he casts over towards out and across over towards some wood. 00;44;43;29 – 00;45;05;21 Alex Yeah. So this was just right smack dab in the middle of the run. Yeah. And he lit on them, you know. Yep. Threw it in the middle of the rod and let it sink for a couple of seconds. And just like, like I was saying, those just aggressive, erratic strips, you know, pop, pop, pop and yeah, just the middle of the river caught that fish and it was it was just incredible. 00;45;05;26 – 00;45;14;00 Dave Yeah, that’s it. And how do you know how long to let it sink? So you cast out there, do you are you waiting for it to feel the bottom when it hits and then go or. No. 00;45;14;09 – 00;45;28;00 Alex No, not necessarily. It’s kind of more of like a just like a timing thing. I usually say like 5 seconds, 5 seconds, and that usually kind of puts it in the strike zone. And then as you’re stripping it in, that fly still sinking. Yeah. So. 00;45;28;12 – 00;45;28;21 Dave Okay. 00;45;28;21 – 00;45;36;26 Alex Yeah. So, so yeah, that’s usually kind of how I go with it. There’s not really a certain way to tell, but yeah, it’s just more of like. 00;45;36;26 – 00;45;37;23 Dave A start with something. 00;45;37;23 – 00;45;39;05 Alex Yeah, yeah. Start some. 00;45;39;05 – 00;45;46;11 Dave Test something. I mean, that’s always the good advice, right? Start with the start of the five second and test. If you’re getting snagged up, that’s too much. Or you know, go a little lighter and figure it out. 00;45;46;28 – 00;45;47;17 Alex Exactly. 00;45;47;17 – 00;46;03;07 Dave Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And Then you’re so on the different, you know, weights like we’re talking about here. It sounds like maybe maybe describe the reading the water because that’s something I think for a challenge for a lot of people. How would you know to tell him to cast where he did, where he got that fish versus say you’re saying towards the wood or the banks? 00;46;03;12 – 00;46;05;03 Dave How do you what are you looking for when you’re eating water? 00;46;06;00 – 00;46;25;19 Alex So like, you know, usually so that day, you know, we you know, we fished everything, right? So we started fishing. The banks, you know, got a couple of smaller fish, but it wasn’t really what we were looking for. And so, you know, I knew I knew that the bigger fish were pushed up on the banks. So we had to find where those bigger fish were sitting. 00;46;25;19 – 00;46;36;21 Alex So obviously we were going to we’re going to try something different, you know. So we left the banks alone and we started targeting, you know, the deepest water we can find. Okay. And sure enough, that did it. 00;46;36;21 – 00;46;54;23 Dave Sure enough. Yeah. And heard that we’ve had some other episodes. I think the recent one we had down fishing kind of more, you know, down in New Mexico. And we were talking about how the some of the water they were fishing was this really slow, almost like frog water, you know, And it says water you almost think of maybe isn’t the good trout water. 00;46;54;23 – 00;46;59;00 Dave But do you find that do you guys have some froggy type slow water? You could catch some fish out there, too. 00;46;59;11 – 00;47;17;24 Alex Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yep, definitely. Yeah. Especially on the Yellowstone. We get a lot of what we call Lake Lakey Lake sections. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just real slow moving, barely any flow. Yeah. And then, you know, in that case, streamer fish. It’s great because you can cover a lot of it, you know. 00;47;17;25 – 00;47;20;04 Dave Yeah. Wow. You can just as awesome. 00;47;20;11 – 00;47;41;26 Alex Yeah. Yeah. And so you know streamer fishing in that scenario is great you know nip in through that section is also really productive because it’s deep you know we you’re not really having many fish that are looking out for bugs they’re really just you know focused on hugging the bottom in those areas and, you know, getting down and dirty, you know? 00;47;41;26 – 00;47;52;14 Alex Right. So, yeah, So yeah, we do have a lot of sections that are like that. And I wouldn’t say that they’re the most productive, but they do hold some really nice fish. 00;47;52;24 – 00;48;14;28 Dave Yeah, they do. Okay, good. Well, we’ve touched on a little bit of everything. We haven’t gone deep into the Spring Creek fish, and I think maybe we’ll leave that one for the next one. But as we’re paying this picture of the trip, I mean, I could see us, like I said, day one, you know, maybe hitting the Yellowstone town, you know, maybe like you said, depending on what conditions throw out us, maybe we’re doing the Dry eyedropper Day two, you’ve got the Stillwater, and then we mentioned the Bighorn. 00;48;14;28 – 00;48;21;02 Dave And if you had another day, you might throw in the Spring Creek or maybe even start off the Spring Creek. Would that be a pretty good three or four day trip out there? 00;48;21;07 – 00;48;30;23 Alex Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Bet, you know, we get to cross state lines fish, a whole new, whole new area if we’re going to the Shoshone as well. 00;48;30;26 – 00;48;31;26 Dave Oh, that’s another one. 00;48;31;26 – 00;48;54;05 Alex We fish a lot too. Yeah. And then yeah that’s, that’s a tail water. So that’s a really popular one. You know, during spring runoff when the Stillwater and the Yellowstone are both blown out. Oh, right. Yeah. So that’s awesome. I really like going down there and then yeah, the bighorn is definitely an option. Probably not number one on my list. 00;48;54;05 – 00;48;58;11 Alex Like, like I said, I’ve know so far as the Yellowstone. Yeah, but yeah. 00;48;58;21 – 00;49;07;28 Dave Yeah, it sounds like that would be pretty. Yeah. You’ve painted the picture of what, the Yellowstone. You know why. It’s why it’s a cool river, you know It’s big, right? It sounds like it’s a really big river, which is kind of. 00;49;08;05 – 00;49;10;12 Alex Is huge. Yeah. Yeah, it’s absolutely. 00;49;10;15 – 00;49;18;00 Dave How big how big is it for somebody that hasn’t seen it? How? How? I’m not sure if we talk about by with or CFS, how would you describe what does it compare to. 00;49;18;25 – 00;49;34;29 Alex Let’s see I would say in you know, in comparison it’s probably the closest to the Missouri. The dairy gets, you know, pretty big in some spots. And you know, but the Yellowstone is definitely bigger. 00;49;34;29 – 00;49;35;14 Dave It is. 00;49;35;18 – 00;49;53;10 Alex It’s yeah. You know you’ll have you’ll have some areas where like, you know, Hartford yards wide 150 yards wide. Some places, you know, as you as you get down toward Billings, it definitely widens up a little bit and and gets really, really big. But yeah, I’d say, you know, on average it you know, it’s about a hundred yards. 00;49;53;12 – 00;49;54;27 Alex It’s about football field wide. 00;49;55;03 – 00;50;04;28 Dave Okay. Yeah. And do you have other species that we’ve talked about? You know today was kind of focus rainbow you know browns are there other species out there in Montana other than the those two main. Yeah. 00;50;04;28 – 00;50;29;20 Alex So like on the Yellowstone there’s, there’s some smallmouth bass. Uh huh Yep. So small mouth around, There’s a lot of these really cool people would consider a bait fish, but they’re like probably one of the most like dinosaur chick looking fish ever. They’re called it’s called a Goldie. And it’s just like they kind of look like shad, but they have, like, pretty sharp teeth. 00;50;29;20 – 00;50;30;13 Dave Oh, wow. Gold. 00;50;30;19 – 00;50;52;25 Alex Yeah. Yeah, they’re pretty sweet. And there’s a lot of them in the Yellowstone, so. Okay, that’s another one that’s around, you know, on this. Joni You’ll get some brook trout and tiger trout over there, which is really, really cool. And then let’s see, there’s some carp around as well. And carp, but yeah, and carp. But that’s, that’s really it. 00;50;52;25 – 00;50;56;21 Alex And why a lot of like Rocky Mountain Bonefish in the area. 00;50;56;25 – 00;51;05;01 Dave That’s cool. That’s a pretty good mix. I feel like, you know, whitefish. You’re talking about a native species. I’m not sure on the gold. I guess they are the gold. I those probably. 00;51;05;01 – 00;51;07;26 Alex Yeah. They are native. Yeah. Yep, yep. Fully native. 00;51;07;26 – 00;51;15;15 Dave The gold. I am not sure. But you got gold, you got carp, you got some of these other. But those are more they found in the lower like warmer waters. A little bit. Yeah. 00;51;15;16 – 00;51;17;14 Alex Exactly. He have lower Yellowstone. 00;51;17;17 – 00;51;36;01 Dave Yellowstone. Okay, cool. I think that gives us a little tour. Let’s take it out of here. This is our We are doing our giveaway segment. This is pretty fun because one person is going to be winning a trip to go out here and probably fish with you, I’m guessing. Do you now with your guides here, do you guys have a few other folks out there? 00;51;36;01 – 00;51;41;02 Dave I mean, how many guides are on in a typical summer out there running around with you guys per day? 00;51;41;02 – 00;51;56;27 Alex Usually on on a really, really, really busy day. There’ll be, you know, 6 to 8 of us. But, you know, just on average, you know. Yeah. 6 to 8 on a really busy day. But you know, on average it’s about four or five of us. Yeah. For a. 00;51;56;27 – 00;52;14;02 Dave Day. Okay. Yeah. So that’s perfect. Yeah. Typically that’s how we kind of do. Usually on a trip we’ll have 6 to 8 people. So that could be four, four guides, right? Something like that. Yeah, they’re covered. So it’s likely we’ll be fishing with. Yeah. That’s the cool thing. So likely will going out and it may, will mix it up on day one. 00;52;14;02 – 00;52;37;10 Dave Maybe we’ll fish with you but let’s, let’s take it to our giveaway. So one person is going to win this trip. They’re going to be out there fishing. They can go to what if I swing dot.com slash giveaway if they want to enter this? And then also we we can go to to the landing page at RFI swing dot com slash Montana lodge and they can actually enter and if they want to pick up one of these trips for the paid spots because we have some of that as well. 00;52;37;10 – 00;52;43;18 Dave But so this is presented by the Montana fly fishing lodge like we mentioned. What are your three biggest tips for trout fishing? 00;52;44;00 – 00;53;06;07 Alex Let’s see, three biggest tips. It’s a good question. I would say I would say number one, definitely be, you know, downsizing is definitely important. You know, if we’re if it’s slow and, you know, you’re really struggling, you know, maybe drop the size of the fly, maybe, you know, try something, maybe just a little bit smaller, more finesse, as they’d say. 00;53;06;17 – 00;53;31;08 Alex That’s number one. Downsizing is probably number one. Number two, know, especially especially fishing in, you know, the spring creeks and, you know, maybe places or areas that you’ll find finicky or fish. Being stealthy is definitely important, you know, being quiet and, you know, making a making a good soft cast is definitely important. And number three, oh, man. 00;53;31;21 – 00;53;47;20 Dave Well, we got downsizing, which is a big one. We got stealth, which is always a good one. Yeah. I’m always thinking about, you know, if somebody is out on their own, you know, being being observant is one that probably has come up more than anything else. Right. Being observed. That’s something that’s important for the Yellowstone. 00;53;47;27 – 00;54;01;25 Alex Yes, absolutely. Yeah. We’ll call that number three, you know, being observant, you know, seeing what bugs are hatching, seeing what the water’s doing, what the flows are, you know, checking the flows. That’s definitely important. Being observed is definitely important. 00;54;01;25 – 00;54;24;19 Dave So so we’ll add that to the list. So what I love today, how you we kind of went through all the disciplines. That was the word I was thinking of. You know, we got we didn’t go deep and draft was all you said July would be good for cats. What about, you know, the off season Are you are you still fishing and right right now it’s almost Christmas time you know it’s almost Christmas but are you fish in December, January, February, What does that look like? 00;54;24;23 – 00;54;53;21 Alex Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah I yeah. You know, especially out here, the big horn fish is really good all season long or all year round is what I meant. But yeah, streamer fishing stays pretty good up until, you know, January until it gets really, really cold. But you know, recently we’ve had, you know, days in the forties and fifties so it’s been it’s been fishing’s been pretty good recently mostly nymph fishing and streamer fishing. 00;54;54;01 – 00;54;59;18 Alex I’ve been taking some trips over to Washington and Oregon, steelhead fishing, swinging so. 00;54;59;18 – 00;55;00;06 Dave Oh nice. 00;55;00;28 – 00;55;03;16 Alex Yeah. So that’s, that’s been a lot of fun. 00;55;03;16 – 00;55;04;02 Dave There you go. 00;55;04;02 – 00;55;05;00 Alex And so, yeah. 00;55;05;08 – 00;55;09;23 Dave What have you been hitting there? What have you been hitting some secret spots or what? Where have you been? Fishing. Yeah. 00;55;09;24 – 00;55;34;16 Alex Fish. The klickitat a bunch. Oh yeah. I’ve been to earlier in the season, I went over to the Hub Tulips in Washington. So that was. That was a lot of fun. And then I’ve been to the HOH a couple of times, but yeah, over here, like, you know where I live now. I’ve been to the Big horn a bunch too, doing some trout spear, so that’s been a lot of fun. 00;55;34;16 – 00;55;39;29 Dave Are you out in the when you’re not at the Montana fly fishing larger you at the near Billings. 00;55;40;09 – 00;55;58;12 Alex No I actually I actually live here now I’m actually at the lodge as we speak. So yeah, I’m working. I’m actually working over at Red Lodge around Ski Resort. So yeah, I’m fortunate to have Lincoln and Judy let me stay here for the winter. And it’s been. It’s been fun. So. Oh, that’s. 00;55;58;12 – 00;55;58;25 Dave Awesome. 00;55;59;02 – 00;55;59;15 Alex Yeah, man. 00;55;59;24 – 00;56;22;02 Dave That’s really cool. We’ve talked a lot about the. The overlap of the ski industry, right? There’s a good overlap of people that are skiers and fly anglers. We’ve. We’ve had time on the show. Yeah, Yeah, that’s good. Okay. Well, I think it’s been a great episode, a good place to stop here. I think what we’ll dig into more on the next one and probably is dig into some of these you know maybe Spring Creek that that might be the next step here on this. 00;56;22;02 – 00;56;39;19 Dave So like we said, we’ll send everybody out to Montana fly fishing lodge dot com if they have questions or want to connect with you and then we’ll also have that link in the show notes for people if they want to enter the giveaway or grab a trip and awesome. Alex we appreciate all your time today. This has been good and I’ll look forward to hopefully seeing you on the water here this next year. 00;56;40;01 – 00;56;41;21 Alex Sounds good. Dave. Thank you so much, man. 00;56;43;19 – 00;56;59;22 Dave All right, before you head out, quick, heads up, just if you haven’t already, check in with Montana, fly fishing lodge. If you want to get a trip, you can check in with me. Dave At what place? Twinkle. We’ll let you know what we have for availability. We didn’t talk in detail about Spring Creek fishing, but we will be doing that because that’s going to be part of this trip. 00;56;59;29 – 00;57;16;27 Dave Also, we have a big giveaway going right now. If you go to west fly swing dot com slash giveaway, enter your name and we will have a big extravaganza here as we launch away our next giveaway. As always, Wet fly swing pro. You can check in with me any time and that’s all we got. We got a big week here. 00;57;16;27 – 00;57;33;16 Dave We’ve got an exciting episode if you stay tuned. If you haven’t yet, subscribe to this podcast. We’ve got one of the greatest flight tires in the world. I can say that for sure is on the podcast and we’ve been thinking a lot about this one, so don’t miss it on Wednesday. You don’t want to miss that. Stay tuned this week. 00;57;34;04 – 00;57;47;28 Dave All right. I want to thank Alex for all the good stuff. I want to appreciate you for stopping in today. And I want to thank you again and hope you have a great morning. If it’s afternoon, I hope you have a great afternoon. And if it’s evening, wherever you are in the world, I hope you enjoy the evening. 00;57;47;29 – 00;58;04;27 Dave Hope you maybe have a little campfire out there or maybe a fire wherever you are. Enjoy that warmth and and we will see you on the next episode. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the wet fly, swing fly fishing show for notes and links from this episode, Visit Wet fly, swing, Dotcom.