800 | Fly Fishing the Delaware River with Bob Lindquist from Flies for Fish

Dave (2s): Today’s guest grew up fishing Montauk Beaches from a 55 Willie’s Jeep got hooked tying flies on common nails after reading AJ McClain and never looked back from Catskills cast to Delaware sulfur. Today’s guest is built a life around teaching others how to fish, one of the most technical tailwaters in the east. By the end of this episode, you’ll learn how to decode rise forms, why line management matters more than casting distance, and how a bar merger can out fish your dry four to one. This is the wet fly swing podcast where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip And what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. Dave (43s): Bob Lindquist breaks down his top fly patterns for fishing the Delaware River. Today we find out about the myth behind the river’s legendary rainbow trout. We’re gonna relive this story and find out what happens when a 30 inch striper follows your trout all the way in. Plus, you can also hear how a furled leader and a reach cast are completely changing the game where Bob fishes. All right, here we go. Bob Lindquist. You can find him at fliesforfish.com. How are you doing, Bob? Bob (1m 14s): I am rocking and roll and moving and grooving. How about yourself? Dave (1m 17s): I’m Doing great. Yeah, I’m looking forward to this conversation. You know, I’ve seen a lot of your stuff out there online. You’ve got a, a big long background. We’re gonna probably talk Delaware today, maybe some trout fishing, dry flies, but you also have some Atlantic salmon, salt water. So I think that’s gonna always be the challenge is, You know, figuring out, You know, where to focus. But, But yeah. How are things going this week? Bob (1m 39s): Things are going really well. We had three really good days of fishing. One of the things I do in addition to fly fishing, guiding, and just trying to do it for myself, is I’m also an adjunct professor at a college, And I do some tutoring. So this is a big week, it’s state exam week, so we tutored half the days and we’re fly fishing half the days. Dave (1m 60s): Oh, okay. Is fly fishing part of the college? Bob (2m 2s): No, it’s, I actually, I have a degree in mathematics and physics, so, Dave (2m 7s): Yeah. No, that’s great. Okay, so yeah, so you got that going and that’s, so that’s wrapping up. And then are you gonna be fully a hundred percent fly fishing for the summer? Yeah, Bob (2m 15s): I run a camp for kids, a tu camp, and I’m actually second in charge and I’ll do a whole lot of fishing throughout the summer. And my wife loves dog shows, so I try to support her as best I can with dog events. Oh, Dave (2m 29s): Nice. Okay. So yeah, I wanted to jump in. You know, we’ve got a number of pieces we can go here. I love tu obviously all the great stuff they’re doing. We might circle back on that. The, the dog show I think is, is interesting as well. But maybe first for my small mind, I just, I’m curious, the adjunct professor, what is the adjunct? What does that mean exactly? Bob (2m 49s): Well, an adjunct is someone who teaches a lesser number of classes through a college. So I taught for 33 years And I coached wrestling, I coached baseball, softball, And I taught, and when I retired, I, well first my teaching was very much a calling and the only regret I had leaving teaching was you just felt that there’s always a little more you can do. So I retired from teaching and this girl I went to college with, who was the head of the math department at Centenary University, she calls me up and she says, you gotta come work for me. I said, absolutely not. She said, no, come work for me, please. I said, no, there’s no way. I, I, it’s time to fly fish. I’ve been spending my whole life working. Bob (3m 31s): And she said, what’ll it take? I said, well, I’ll tell you what, if I get to teach from my flyting room, never step foot on campus and just talk to my computer. I’ll do it. And she goes, done. So that’s what I do. I, I teach a couple hours a week for my fly tying room and that’s it. Dave (3m 46s): Wow, that’s cool. That is really awesome. Yeah. So, and then you also do some presentations. Are you doing some stuff like video stuff around or is it mostly in person? Bob (3m 56s): Well, some zoom, but I, I do love to give presentations and that goes along with the teaching background. And I have a, a twin passion. It’s photography. I’ve been really blessed And I have known so many great fishermen, unbelievably great, phenomenal that catching phish really hasn’t been a, a very difficult thing in my life because of all of these people. And on the other hand, photography I was the worst. I was pathetic at, I was terrible. And I’ve worked really, really hard to get pretty good at photography. So between the photography and then the presentations is a chance to show the photography. Bob (4m 36s): So I, I enjoy doing the presentations as well. And a lot of writing too. Dave (4m 40s): And a lot of writing. Awesome. Well, it sounds like you’ve got a ton of diversity of topics today. We we’re gonna touch on as we go and including some of the people, some of your, your influences and mentors and things like that. But maybe let’s take it back to the start real quick. It’s just on your fishing. I, I’d love to hear you got such a diverse background. How did you get into it and kinda, You know, what’s your first memory in fly fishing? Bob (4m 60s): Well, at the risk of making your podcast run a little long, when I was seven years old, I got hit by a car and my right leg got completely destroyed. And a couple years later, it was like three and five eighth inches shorter than my left leg. So I became a really angry kid And I was very difficult for my parents to deal with. So one day they brought me to a, a library and they said, go find a book, You know, no YouTube back then. Go find a book, find something in here that you like. So I’m going through the library And I found AJ McLean’s Encyclopedia of Fishing, and I’m looking through the pages and there’s all of these diagrams and photographs about how to tie flies and this just captured me. Bob (5m 42s): So my parents checked the books out for me, I brought it home And I stole thread from my mother’s sewing box. I ripped open my down pillow, and then I went and my dad really didn’t fish, so, but my dad had a woodworking vice and he had common nails. So I took the feathers and some other doodads laying around and the thread, And I tied my first slides on common nails at about 10 years old. Wow. And It just sparked a passion in me. And that led one thing to another. And then my grandfather, he started, he was a good fisherman and he started noticing that my anger stopped whenever I got on the water. Bob (6m 25s): So I went through a whole bunch of surgeries. The legs got 99% better, and my grandfather started taking me fishing a lot. And the passion just grew from there. Dave (6m 34s): Yeah. Where did you grow up? What river were you fishing then? Bob (6m 38s): I actually grew up on Long Island, a town called Bayport, which incredible town, right smack in the middle of Long Island on the South Shore. But my grandfather was very into camping. My grandparents were, and they would, they had a old 55 Willies Jeep that I still own. And they would take me to Montauk And I would spend weeks at a time in Montauk as a young boy, and if you like, catching striped ass and, and all the saltwater species that you can get. And you have a, an old Willie’s jeep to drive up and down all the beaches around Montauk. You got a pretty good youth. So that was mine. Wow, Dave (7m 9s): That’s cool. Yeah, I love the, I was just talking about the Willie’s Jeep. I had this friend, kinda this crazy friend back in high school who had this willie’s, I think it was about the same, and it was, I guess a willie’s wagon, but it was all, You know, fixed up. Right. So it looked brand new, 55, I think. Same thing. Right, right. Bob (7m 25s): Well, those Willie’s wagons are worth a fortune. Dave (7m 27s): Are they? Yeah. Yeah, they’re pretty, what is the, the, it’s the Jeep, right? Like Jeep Woolies wagon, Bob (7m 32s): Right. Like these, these were jeeps before Jeeps were Jeeps. Like the one I had, the model I had was what they used to fight the Korean War. Dave (7m 39s): Oh, wow. Yeah. So it’s kind of like a, it’s almost like a, the first sport utility vehicle. Right? Not really, but that’s kind of what, yeah. Yes, Bob (7m 46s): Absolutely. They don’t like to go faster than 45 miles an hour. They shake violently. Dave (7m 50s): Yeah. Bob (7m 52s): But they’re, they’ll go over and through anything, so they’re a lot of fun. Dave (7m 55s): Yeah. Yeah. Good. Well there’s obviously so much we covered here. Like I said, I think we wanna start on the Delaware, You know, we’ve done some episodes. That’s a, i I love the trout fishing, You know, especially dry flies. I think that’s really interesting. Maybe take us there, it sounds like, are you fishing, so right now as we’re talking, it’s in June, You know, and the summer’s here. What’s that look like? What’s going on right now and how’s trout fishing? Well, Bob (8m 17s): I can tell you that a week and a half ago we drifted the section from Long Eddie to Calhoun, which goes right by my house because I’m really, really blessed and live right on the river. And we got around 25 fish to the boat and six different species chubs, which fall fish. Those are fairly easy to catch. And then we had shad brown trout, rainbow trout, walleye, and small mouth bass. Dave (8m 44s): So this is the time to be, the diversity is, is that throughout the year or just this time of year? Bob (8m 49s): Yeah, the, the diversity is outrageous and to be honest with you, the diversity is pretty much a year long thing depending on which section you go to. Because as You know, the, the Delaware is a tailwater fishery and come summer, it varies from year to year. We had one year where the lower river was trout cold into the second or third week of July. Some years is the second or third week of June. And as the, if it warms up like on a warmer year, this year’s no problem. This year’s been nice and cold. But if it is a warmer year, you just have to go up river and get closer to the dams. Dave (9m 22s): Right, right. So long Eddie is a little bit, is that below the, the confluence of the west and east and west? Yeah, the Bob (9m 29s): West and east come together in a town called Hancock and Cal Coon where I live is 23 miles below Hancock. Dave (9m 36s): Yeah, 23 miles. Gotcha. Okay. Maybe talk about that a little bit on the Delaware. I, You know, again, it’s pretty huge, but You know, hatches wise, what do you love focusing on throughout the year? Bob (9m 45s): Well, I’ll get into that in one second, but I also forgot to tell you something really cool that happened. Each of my last two trips, the Shad in the river and the strip bass follow the shed up the river. So two trips ago we had a striper following a shed in that we had caught. And yesterday we had a saltwater sized striper. This, this fish was well over 30 inches and it was following a rainbow in about, wow. About a 17 or 18 inch rainbow. And he didn’t eat it, but he was following it and he had his eyes on it. So that’s another species that you don’t get a lot of them, but it’s still pretty cool to watch a, a log come up and follow your right, your fly in. So, or your fishing that you got. Yeah, that’s, Dave (10m 25s): And that’s so far up. I mean, how many miles do these stripers travel up the river? Bob (10m 29s): Hundreds. Dave (10m 30s): Yeah, hundreds. So they, they’re going way up. Bob (10m 32s): Yeah, absolutely. So as, as far as the hatches go, the Delaware, it’s an absolute bug factory. I’ve never been out west to fish like around Montana and Idaho and stuff, but I’m told that generally speaking, the major difference between those rivers and most eastern rivers is the bug density. That there’s, the hatches are just thicker and better out there. But I don’t know that that’s the case on the Delaware, the Delaware’s hatches are, are truly prolific, as are a lot of our tailwaters. There have been multiple days this year where from bank to bank, and that’s 500 plus feet wide. So from bank to bank and over miles of river, it’s just carpeted with mayflies. Bob (11m 17s): So some of the best particular hatches, the hendrickson early in the year is a great hatch this year it was a little weird. I never had a day of super thick hendrickson hatching, but they were constantly on the water and the fish were taking them. I think that the thing that makes the Hendrickson hatch so great is the fish haven’t eaten dries for the most part since early November. So they’re aggressive and they’re also hungry. So they’re, you have a chance to catch more big fish than normal because they’re not as cautious and they’re really, really hungry. Then we get into some, a catis hatch, the Granum, which are like the Mother’s Day cas out west, and it’s just as thick and just as prolific. Bob (12m 2s): It can drive you crazy because you’ll, it’ll literally look like a blizzard on the river and there’s not a fish rising anywhere. They’re just chewing down on the bottom. We had, we had a great day this year where we were out and there were grans absolutely everywhere. And the guy I was with And I were talking about the fact that some days you can do pretty well on the hatch, but other days you, you won’t see a fish rise. And we were talking about why that is, And I said that one of my mentors firmly believed that the fish were just down on the bottom feeding on larvae and pupa and et cetera, on the bottom of the river. So we happened to drift over this one patch of the bottom that was black. Bob (12m 42s): And sure enough you could see the trout sitting on the bottom just chewing on larva and pupa and just ignoring everything that was coming over the top. So those are two dominant early season hatches. And then we get the inver, which is kind of like, for argument’s sake, a yellow hendrickson, a size 14, it’s a big sulfur. That’s a fantastic hatch on the river and, and a little hendrickson. And then you’ll get into March browns, which the fish, the March browns are great hatch. It’s one of the few hatches where fish will move out of their feeding lane to go get a natural or your imitation. And yeah, then we get into the Drakes and more sulfur and olives and the cycle goes through every year, but they’re thick and they’re heavy. Bob (13m 24s): They’re really good hatches. Dave (13m 25s): That’s really cool. So that’s interesting about the feeding behaviors, ’cause that’s always a challenge. Sometimes you’re out there and you got this hatch going on and you can’t figure it out. You know, that’s, that’s kind of the big challenge. You had this, I think it was a presentation flies under the hatch. Bob (13m 40s): Yeah. Fishing the under hatch. Yes. Dave (13m 42s): Maybe describe that a little bit. I, I think that might shed light on some of this. Was that focused on the Delaware or just in general? Bob (13m 49s): It’s a general thing, but You know, because I’m on the river so much, most of it was taken off the Delaware. But here’s the thing, one of my mentors on this river, Mike Koski, taught me everything else is checkers. The Delaware is chess. And, And I think that’s really true. One of the things that Mike has drilled into my head is to really pay attention to rise forms. You know, Vince Marro kind of stuff in the Ring of the Rise book. And what you’re looking for is if the fish is taking the fly on the surface or if they’re taking it under the surface. And what you frequently see many anglers do is the minute they see what looks like a rise, and I’m using that term loosely, it’s a disturbance on the surface, they immediately look for a dry fly and they often look for the one that worked well for them the last time they’re out on the water. Bob (14m 38s): And that’s a, a big mistake. What you should be doing is analyzing the rise form. Did the fish really break the surface or did it stay below the surface? If you remember back in high school, you would take chemistry class and you’d have these things called graduated cylinders and you would fill them with fluids and the max height of that fluid at the top, it would actually form a little bit of a bend, almost kind of three dimensional parabolic. And that little surface area was called the meniscus. And that meniscus for us is very easy to penetrate the meniscus, but for a little tiny bug with very little mass and very little muscle breaking through that meniscus, it’s life or death. Bob (15m 18s): And it’s extremely difficult for most bugs to get through it. Some people seem to think cadis rocket through there. That’s not what LaFontaine would say. And it’s not been my experience either. The bugs hatch and they hit this meniscus and it’s like a rubber wall and they bounce down and up and down and up. And it’s an ambush point, it’s a choke point. So all of these bugs are trying to get through the meniscus and it’s actually where the concentration of food is. And that’s why a mergers are so deadly. It’s like an iceberg. 10% is above the water, but 90% of an iceberg’s below the water. And with a hatch, a small amount of the bugs are above the water from most of the duration of the hatch, especially the beginning and the middle. Bob (16m 2s): But under that meniscus, that top say six inches of the water column, it’s just jammed with food. So the fish know this and they will concentrate their efforts on wherever the most food is. It just makes sense. So people are casting a dryly, which is sitting on top of the meniscus, but the fish aren’t even looking there. A lot of the times they’re feeding below the meniscus. And I don’t think anything is more indicative. One of the things we love to fish is a dry dropper, but not like out west where you do a chunky Chernobyl and a stone fly niv, we’ll take for argument’s sake, a sulfur dry size 16, and then about 15 inches down off the bend of the hook, we’ll put a little borrower merger size 16, both imitate the hatch. Bob (16m 45s): You’ll catch four or five fish on the borrower merger to every fish you get on the dry until later in the hatch. So you are watching these rise forms and in the beginning of the hatch, in the middle of the hatch, and for some fish straight through the whole hatch, there’s this quote rise, but they never break the surface. You’ll never see their head, and you’ll never see a bubble left after they rise. The only way to get a bubble is if they took in air. And the only way to take in air is if their mouth breaks the surface of the, of the water. So if a fish is again, quote rising, and you never see a bubble and you never see their head, then they’re actually just taking emerges underneath if you see their head. And during the hatch there will be a point when the emerges peter out a little bit and now there’s more bugs on the surface and now you’ll start seeing heads or you’ll see bubbles. Bob (17m 34s): And now, okay, now we can start and fish just to dry. And you, you take off the dropper. The other night we were out and some people had seen my presentation about this and as they were fishing in the beginning, I’m saying one of ’em had a dry fly only on, and he wanted to fish just to dry only, which is fine, whatever you want to do. But I said, look, do you see that there are absolutely no bubbles and you cannot see a fish’s head, you see bulges and you see tails of fish, you are not seeing a head. And the tail is when they come off the bottom and they turn and the tail breaks through the the surface. So he goes, yes, I can see that. I said, let’s throw a dropper on, pick a couple of fish. Bob (18m 14s): And then when we start seeing heads, so we threw on a dropper, he and he and the the guy in the boat with them each caught. And then maybe 20 minutes later or so, all of a sudden the guy goes, oh my God. It’s like they threw a switch. Look, I’m seeing heads everywhere. So I didn’t see any heads before. Now there’s heads all over the place. We get to trip, we take off the bar merger and we just throw out drives and, and he picked I think another three or four fish on drives before the night was done. Dave (18m 41s): Pescador on the fly offers a full range of fly fishing gear for any angler at any budget with premium barrage delivered directly to you. The A g six is the most packable high performance fly rod on the market, performing like a four piece rod, but with unmatched portability and six pieces. And you can get 10% off your next order right now if you use the code wet fly swing at pescador on the fly.com. Never fly without your G six. Discover the L Race series and more at pescador on the fly.com. Located in Boulder, Colorado. Intrepid Camp Gear is dedicated to designing and manufacturing the best and most highly engineered automotive camp gear on the market. Intrepid Camp Gear specializes in rooftop tents and aluminum cargo cases designed for skis, rods, hunting gear, and any other gear you may be hauling. Dave (19m 27s): Elevate your adventure with Intrepid camp gear right now. Head over to wetly swing.com/intrepid right now. That’s intrepid I-N-T-R-E-P-I-D Intrepid Camp Gear. And what are the mergers that you’re fishing? Do you have some common emerges that maybe apply for, You know, catalyst may flys, lots of different flies, or what’s your fly selection look like? Bob (19m 52s): Well, if it’s a mayfly hatch, my dominant merger that I love is a bar merger. I don’t think anything beats a bar merger. I play with it a little bit. It was made by a man in Colorado, a a dentist, John Barr, I, I think his first name’s John. Yep. And it’s a brilliant fly and I’m not, and please understand, I’m not trying to say I have a better version of the bar and merger. It’s not, yeah. It’s just the way I kinda look for things in a fly. His wing case trimmed back into a wing bud was dry fly hackle. And I, I kind of thought about it, I said, You know, let’s try some wet fly hackle a little bit thicker. And now I started to actually play with EP trigger points fibers and they look a little more like a wing under the water and they, they got a little, little quality that I like and I’ve been fishing those lately. Bob (20m 40s): So for Mayfly hatches, I really like the bar merger and I’ve never, I’ve never had any inkling that I needed anything but a bar merger. The other one that you can use if you want, because this is not new, this is goes back to Frank Sawyer on the Avon River in England. He used to fish a little pheasant tail just under the surface. Yeah. So sometimes we’d do an unweighted pheasant tail under the surface. And then for Cadis, there are three flies that I really like for Cadis. There’s a fly that’s a bit of a legendary pattern called the Taboo cadis, fantastic fly, excellent fly, I like a fly a serendipity. Bob (21m 21s): That’s another productive, really good dropper to hang over of a sry. And then the other one that I like to use is one that it’s a, a testimony to Gary LaFontaine and his LaFontaine Cadis. But if you’ve tied LaFontaine Cadis, You know that they could be a bit cumbersome to fly to tie by comparison to other trout flies. And You know, when you come home at night, you get home at 11 o’clock, you, you write up your river report for the day and you gotta get to bed. I can’t be taking too long to tie flies. So I simplified it a little bit in a pattern that I called the, the Main points pupa, which is it’s just a LaFontaine without the wing and without having to pull those antron yarn sections forward, It just simplifies it a little bit. Bob (22m 6s): It’s very much his pattern and and his idea and his style. So those three through Cadis and just the bar for Mayas. Dave (22m 13s): Perfect. Perfect. So, and then throughout the year, are there other, You know, species or I guess families of patterns that using for mergers or those, if you had those four, is that pretty good? Bob (22m 23s): That pretty much does it. And it’s so funny because, well here’s a fly that catches a lot of fish and to me it isn’t a merger even though it’s treated as a dry fly. It’s called an iris cas, that’s a deadly fly. It’s extremely good. So I’ll fish that a decent amount at a time And I have one may fly pattern. Alright, so here’s the thing about an iris Cass. It sits, the wing is above the water and the rest of the flies below the water, kinda like a clink hammer. And I do that with it. And there’s also one that I, I came up with years ago, again, a testimony to a fly that Rick Whaley made that I call a bum. Actually my friend John Hague calls it a bum. It’s Bob’s usual merger and it’s basically a tuft to snowshoe rabbit at the thorax area and then the rest of the fly hangs below the surface. Bob (23m 10s): That’s a really good one. And it tends to catch fish that you can’t get on anything else. The, the issue with that fly is it can be very difficult to see. So it’s kind of my, if they won’t take anything else, I’ll go to that one pattern. Dave (23m 25s): Gotcha. Wow, this is awesome. Yeah, so we got, I mean I love the emerge chat and dry flies. This is so good. Maybe talk about how you’re fishing in the dry flies. You talked about the dry dropper, but describe that. Are there other ways you’re fishing it and how would you like talk about the casting? Describe that a little bit. Bob (23m 40s): I’ll tell you what, years ago when I was on Long Island fishing, a ton of salt, my best friend was a captain and his name was Kenny Turko. So I went up to Kenny one time And I said, Kenny, what’s the biggest difficulty that you see with fly fishermen? Where did they struggle the most? And being the salt I, I figured he was gonna tell me it was casting but he didn’t. And without missing a beat, he said line management. And now that I guide, he was so right. People have a really hard time managing their line and that goes in so many different directions. But in how to fish a dry fly, the great ones are amazing at handling line, they’re so efficient and there’s no waste anywhere. Bob (24m 23s): On the other hand, the ones who struggle are ones who haven’t mastered that skill yet. I’ll give you an example of what I mean. The Delaware, it doesn’t have a lot of pocket water for the most part. It’s generally very difficult to catch a fish on the Delaware or it is absolutely much more difficult if you cast upstream to that fish. These fish wanna see the fly first. Anything else, the leader, any drag, any anything, and you, it’s very difficult to catch them. This is some of the toughest water in the country. So we like to cast either across or down and a cross to the fish. And to do that you need to do your regular cast plus a reach cast. Bob (25m 4s): A reach cast is an absolutely critical skill and a lot of people think they’re doing it right and they’re not a lot of the times. And then you have to learn how to control your slack and feed line down the river to that fish. If you can’t do that, you’re gonna get a one or a two foot drift and if you can do that, you can get a 31 or a 32 foot drift. So really knowing how to manage line is the key to being able to fish a dry flight. And people would say, You know, it’s all of these other things but it’s not, it’s being able, if you could throw 30 feet but manage dryly and and manage your line so that you get a drag free drift, we could get fish every day, but if you could throw 70 feet but you can’t understand how to not get drag, I don’t care you, you’re gonna have a really hard time picking fish. Dave (25m 54s): And is that because a lot of these fish are, You know, they’re pretty, you gotta be stealthy and you gotta float the fly down. You can’t just cast a foot above the fish where you saw it rise sort of because you’re gonna spook it. Bob (26m 4s): Well that’s all of that’s a situation. It’s funny because like someone was asking me the other day out on the boat, he, he said, do these fish come up and stay at the surface or do they go to the bottom? And the answer is yes. Yeah, they do both, You know, right. A lot of times. Alright, so let’s separate the water types. There’s faster sections of the river and then there are these longer, slower pools in the faster sections of the river. It’s kind of your classic trout thing where the fisher are in say two or three feet of water and they’re behind a boulder and they see a bug come over their head and they rise up from the bottom and back and they take the bug and they come down. But in the pools, a lot of the times they’ll come up to the surface and they will stay on the surface and they will work their way up literally against the current. Bob (26m 49s): And they will go up river as they’re feeding as a pod and they’ll, they’ll cover maybe a hundred or 200 feet of water at most. Then they kind of disappear and they go back where they started and they come up again. So it’s almost like watching bonefish cruise the flats down in The Bahamas. But these fish are cruising the surface and when that’s happening you can’t be too far in front of ’em because they don’t necessarily stay in a straight line. So you think you make the perfect cast and he moved over a foot and a half so you don’t catch ’em. So you need to be close to the fish on those circumstances. And when that’s happening, you, you sometimes you have to hit ’em in the head, you gotta be a foot above them. Bob (27m 29s): But you gotta, again, line management, you make your cast but that fly has to flutter to the water as if it was a snowflake falling on the water and it doesn’t disturb it at all and you’ll catch the fish. But if you hit the water hard bing, It just moves 15 feet away. Right. So yeah, sometimes you need to lead it and sometimes you need to be within a foot or two of the of the nose and everything’s a situation you, you have to see the particular fish to know. Dave (27m 57s): Okay. And and is this the same for, we talked about these emerges is, is phishing the emerges or the dryly same sort of technique with your reach cast or are there different things you’re doing there? Bob (28m 7s): Yeah, you definitely want that reach cast. And this is gonna be a little difficult to understand what a podcast because there’s no visual component here. But I’ll try to describe the difference between a reach cast done properly and what I see a lot of people do, people always have to remember that 100% of the time the line follows the rod tip always, it never changes. So when people do a reach cast, they see the motion of reaching upriver with the rod to finish the cast. If you can imagine doing this, You know, put your hand up above your head and make the casting motion and then reach upriver if that’s a very smooth continuous motion and that hand never changes all the way through, you reach is wrong. Bob (28m 54s): I call that a swoop. But if you, in the middle of it, if you snap towards your target and follow through and for argument’s sake push the fly out or snap the fly out towards your target, now you’ve told the line where to go Anytime after that instant you can reach the fly up river and it’s still gonna go where you want it to go. Now what’s the difference in the output there if you do it the second way where you snap towards your target cast toward the target and then reach up river? Well now what’s happening is the fly is gonna go where you want it to do and when it lands, it’s gonna land so that the fly is first and the first thing the fish is gonna see is the fly. If you swoop because the line follows the rod tip, the rod tip’s gonna swoop and then the line’s gonna swoop and the what you actually end up with is, okay, at the end of it, your leader is still below the fly and it forms the shape of a U below the fly and now the water can push on that U when you get dragged in a hurry. Dave (29m 52s): So when you do the reach cast properly, you wanna, it’s not a smooth transition. You, you make your normal cast and then when you reach, it’s almost when you say kind of more of like an abrupt reach over to the upstream side, Bob (30m 3s): Here’s what it is. Do you watch baseball at all? Dave (30m 5s): Oh yeah, I love baseball. Bob (30m 7s): Okay, so you remember when you played ball as a little kid and they said don’t take your head out. Dave (30m 10s): Oh yeah. Like watch the ball meet the bat. Right, Bob (30m 12s): Exactly. Watch the ball but don’t pull your head and then you go to a ball game and when the pros are done swinging, their heads are pulled out every time they take a swing. Yeah, right. But what people don’t understand is when the ball is crossing the plate, their eye is on the ball. It’s just that the, the torque is spinning their head after they’ve completed their swing. So, and to understand that they almost have to slow the camera down for you to see that. Now when you do the reach cast, it can be very similar. You see someone who’s done the reach cast a million times and is great at it, you don’t see that there’s an instant where they’re, they’re popping for argument’s sake. They’re, they’re making sure their line is going there. It’s such a smooth and quick transition that you don’t see it, but it’s there. Bob (30m 53s): There’s a moment where they pop. So whenever I try to teach somebody this, I tell ’em, make a regular cast pop towards your target and then just take the rod and reach upstream and there can be a half a second in between and it’s not a problem. Your reach cast will come out fine over time you get to the point where it’s so smooth that unless you knew what you were looking at, you would never notice it. And the problem is when it’s done by someone and you go watch a YouTube video and they’re good at it and they’re capable of teaching it, you don’t see that stop because they’re doing it all together in one silky smooth motion and they’re actually doing it right, but they’re not breaking it down enough that you can see the pop, then the reach, so in the beginning pop it, then reach it and after you do a thousand of them, you’ll never do that again. Bob (31m 35s): It’ll be one smooth, just like a baseball player with it Dave (31m 38s): Swing. Okay, that’s perfect. And what would you recommend, it sounds like maybe somebody wanted to see the reach cast or follow up on it. What do you think is the best advice there? Bob (31m 46s): There’s a lot of videos on YouTube, so you can watch YouTube videos or talk to somebody who’s great at it. But if you, if you watch the YouTube videos, just some of them talk about how you have to get your momentum going toward the target, the pop for argument’s sake. And some of ’em don’t try to get, if you’re watching it and the guy just doesn’t talk about that, skip it, go find another one. Yeah. Please find one that does that say, okay, this is the one that I wanna Dave (32m 12s): Watch. That’s great. Yeah, We have, we’ve been working with Kaylyn and, and Marty and they have basically an online tool where they can, You know, you video your cast and they can kind of do some coaching. They’re, they’re FFI certified instructors, so we’re gonna be having a new video, a new presentation coming up with them. So I’m hoping to create some content to help You know, well Bob (32m 32s): That, You know what, can I tell you something that is brilliant and even if I’m allowed to just take it a step further Yeah. To line management, because I was showing someone on the boat the other day, I was trying to explain to him this whole idea of feeding line. Okay, so you make your cast, it’s online, you do a reach cast, you do it right. He had done it right, but it wasn’t working its way all the way down to where the fish was. And, and what you do then is you feed line. So you, you strip about six inches of line off your reel and you just flick your rod tip up a little bit and then strip feed, strip feed, strip feed, strip feed and It just works its way down and you can add 20 feet of drift to the fly doing that well and he just, he couldn’t comprehend it and he couldn’t see where he was making his mistakes no matter how hard I tried to explain to him and no matter how hard I tried to show him. Bob (33m 19s): So I said, here, gimme your phone. And I just took his iPhone And I just recorded him doing it. And then I said, okay, now watch yourself. He goes, oh, now I get it. There Dave (33m 27s): You go. Bob (33m 27s): So the fact that you guys are willing to look at, take video of people doing it and saying, here’s your mistake and then here’s your correction. That’s the quickest and best way to get people to learn how to do Dave (33m 38s): It. That is great. Yeah. And I, And I wanna give a shout out to Nolan and our wetly swing pro Kim. It just been like, man, this has been great. It’s really been. So again, it goes back to that instructor, right? We’re talking about it through a podcast, but You know, if you could get some help, whatever that is, You know, if you can pay somebody for a casting instructor, that’s one way. But just even videoing yourself, right? Like you said, just video yourself casting and take a look at it. Do you think that could be helpful? Yeah. Bob (34m 1s): Oh, very helpful. And then the other thing too is, You know, it’s funny as, as someone who guides on the river, I, I get people who are really, really good And I get people who are not so good. And what’s great is if you’re really, really good, okay, we’re gonna just hunt heads. We’re gonna do, You know, we’re gonna fish streamers, we’re gonna do whatever we wanna do. And then the other people, they’ll look right at you and say, You know what? I don’t care if I catch a fish. And that’s not completely true, but they’re making a point. What they’re saying is, teach me just spend the day making me a better fisherman. Dave (34m 33s): Right? Like, like don’t worry about necessarily catching a bunch of fish, but teach me what I need to know. Bob (34m 38s): Right. What are the skills I need and, and that that person is paying the 500 bucks to be on the river to learn. So You know, if you’re on the river for eight to 10 or 11 hours in a day and you’re getting one-on-one instruction, well to me that’s a really good way to spend money. Dave (34m 53s): Yeah, I agree. That’s so cool. So line management and emerges and You know, I love this topic because I feel like, You know, I always love hearing about Cadi. ’cause for me that’s always been a big struggle fishing the cadis, right? I, I’ve had success, You know, I’ve phished it, You know, a merger maybe on the swing sort of thing. But it sounds like here are you fishing the emerge just solo emerges? Or are you usually fishing it with the tandem with the dry Bob (35m 16s): I will definitely fish dry dropper with cadi as well. Cas is an interesting bug. I tend to catch more fish subsurface And I tend to go back to the old British ways of doing things and fish a cast of wets. Dave (35m 31s): Yeah. And by subsurface you mean just in the surface film just blow not down like deep Bob (35m 36s): Nearer to the surface. But like my typical rig that I would use would be like a cast of three flies. And I’ll actually have two different rods rigged up and I’ll explain how to do this. The first is for argument’s sake, a searching down and across classic. And I love the name of your podcast, the Wetly Swing, right? Because it’s old school. Yeah. And it’s a great way to catch fish. Oh my god. We had a quick side story. We had a day last year. One of the guys, I hate using the word client because I’ve become really good friends with just about every person I take out. So one of ’em is a buddy named Rick. And Rick calls me up on September 12th and he goes, are you free on September 14th? Bob (36m 19s): And I go, yeah, I’m free. He goes, good, I’m taking, let’s go out. My wife just gave me a birthday gift. She says, go fishing for the day. I said, okay. So he go, I go, you wanna hunt heads? He goes, yeah, I wanna fish drives. So we drifted about four or five miles of river. We didn’t see a head, nothing. Yeah. And I look at him And I go, Rick, have you ever fished a wet fly in your life? He goes, no, I don’t fish wets. I go, will you please be willing to fish a wet today? Just please do it. And he goes, all right, what the heck? I’ll do it. So he popped open a beer, he is drinking a beer And I’m bringing up his line for him. And what I do is I get outta the drift boat ’cause we’re very close to some very fast water, but we fish the seam between the fast and the the medium current. Bob (36m 59s): And I’m just walking the boat down the river. I walked about 125, maybe 150 feet of shoreline. And he landed 12 rainbows, 15, 16 inches each just swinging wets. That’s all he had to do. It’s such an effective way to fish. Now what I’ll do in a circumstance like that is I often, my point fly is often a very small bead headed pheasant tail soft acro pheasant tail. And then I will put the next two up will be whatever’s matching particularly the cadis in the area. And You know, we’ll just fish down and across, maybe put a mend in the line and I’ll teach ’em what a swing should look like and you’re into fish and you catch ’em right away. Bob (37m 39s): So that’s what I would call fundamental one oh one wetly fishing. But the difference between 1 0 1 and 4 0 1 is when the fish is rising upstream of you. And that on this river I mentioned before, it’s very difficult to catch fish on dry flies in this river upstream. But if you take a soft tackle, a cast of soft tackles or wets, and you cast them upstream. So instead of trying to catch that fish on the surface, you cast upstream above wherever he’s rising. And again, this sounds like a British chalk stream, but you’re basically contact nipping the top of the water column. And when I do that one, by the way, I don’t put the beat head on there. Bob (38m 20s): So I actually have two different rods rigged up on my boat. So I cast up and across, just above wherever the the rise form is and I’ll just keep contact with it as it comes down raising my rod. And then if you should see any boil or disturbance in the water, I do what I call a zone strike where I just lift my wrist and a little of my elbow bends and I’m coming up and if I feel weight I’ll carry through to the shoulder and if I don’t feel weight, I just put the rod back down a little And I keep drifting. And what happens is if you twitch that fly a little by trying to lift to feel, if there’s weight, then that just moves the fly a little and that attracts fish. So by doing that, you’re basically nipping the top of the water column up and across deadly, incredibly deadly technique with cat Super. Bob (39m 9s): Just when you can do that, you are an outstanding fly fisherman and you will really increase your cat catch rate. Dave (39m 17s): Right. Wow. And that’s mostly upstream or could you do that out and across or even down? Bob (39m 22s): I try very hard to go up and across. I’m praying the fish is rising there. If they’re directly upstream, man, that is so hard. We do it and sometimes you catch them. The good news is if you hook those fish, you usually get them in the other really hard spots when they’re directly downstream and then you can get them to come up. But then you usually lose ’em. So Dave (39m 45s): Some places are just different. You feel at the second you step into the water. Mountain Waters resort sits on the legendary Portland Creek, a place where Atlantic salmon runs strong. And where fly fishing history was written, Lee Wolf himself fished these waters. And now you get to experience the same world class fishing in a setting that feels untouched by time. Whether you’re swinging flies for fresh chrome or kicking back in a cozy riverside cabin, this is the kind of trip you’ll be talking about for years and years to come. And guess what, I’ll be there this year as well. But here’s the deal. Prime time season fills up fast. So don’t wait. Check in now and join me on this historic river this year. You can head over to wetly swing.com/mountain Waters right now. Dave (40m 25s): That’s Mountain Waters Resort. You can go to wetly swing.com/mountain waters right now and save your spot for this epic adventure. Now, You know, we haven’t talked a ton about the dry fly, but that sounds like it’s a small piece. So there’s a PA part of the cycle where fish or hatches are going, and then you hit that 10% where they’re on the surface. What does that look like? That, so that’s when, describe that one that you’re actually seeing the heads and when You know to pull out your actual like, and are we talking Catskills dry flies? Are you using those as part of your repertoire? No, Bob (41m 0s): I, I I’m, I actually for the first time in six years on the boat the other day, a guy slayed fish with a Catskill dry. Usually I don’t catch that many fish on a Catskill dry. And I know that the, it might sound like heresy living here in the Catskills, but Right. Dave (41m 16s): Is that because the Catskills dry fly is because they’re just mostly in that surface film or because there’s better dry flies? Bob (41m 24s): I think both. It’s so funny, like if you were to look in my fly boxes, the cas side of the box has two patterns. It has a parachute cas and it has iris cas, it’s the whole box, everything. There’s no other flies in there. Right? Wow. If you look at the dry flies, there’s a couple of different patterns. I really like, I love a parachute. One reason that I love a parachute is it’s a great floater and you could put the bar off of it and it’ll float all day long. So in addition to being a great fish catching pattern, it’s also a heck of a strike indicator. So, so that’s that one. A pattern that was developed here on the Delaware by Al Coochie is called the compare Done. Bob (42m 6s): Oh yeah, Dave (42m 6s): Compare Bob (42m 7s): Done, sure. Yeah. But I actually prefer a pattern that we call a compare usual, which is just, it’s a compare done with a rabbit foot wing. And then my buddy Mike Bakowski, he actually simplified that by turning it into what he calls the unusual. Now the usual was a fly by Francis betters from the Adirondacks up up on the sable. This is the Compare Dun body, which basically means it matches the hatch. Whereas for the snowshoe, for the usual, it was the whole fly the body and everything was snowshoe, not with a compare. Usual for that one you got a wing of snowshoe and then if you make an unusual mike also made a tail of snowshoe and it was all one fiber, one set of fibers together. Bob (42m 47s): And then you make the body to match whatever the particular may fly is on the water. So that’s a good one. Compare, usual, unusual. That’s one pattern I carry. I carry the parachute. I also really like a fly called, it’s a pattern. I have, it’ll, it’ll, it’s coming out in Fly Tire pretty soon. It’s called a sailboat Done. And all it is is like a slightly modernized thorax done that you would’ve seen Vince Marro fishing in Pennsylvania in the 1960s. That’s a really good fly. But on this river cripples are, are very important. And with bigger flies, I really like what you call a, a quigly cripple. Bob (43m 29s): And if it’s a smaller fly, I really like what they call the last chance cripple. It’s a any ha pattern. So cripples are the other dry flies that I’ll, I’ll bring and those are extremely good flies. Dave (43m 42s): Right. So that’s the difference is that everything you’re talking about here is really, it’s still kind of down in the cer. It’s not a like these traditional Catskills, which are very much trying to sit right on top. Right. Is that the big difference? Yeah, Bob (43m 54s): We want ’em in the film. Dave (43m 55s): Yeah, you want ’em in the film. What is it about the Catskills? I think it’s the history, right? I feel like those, they’re beautiful. You know, like seeing, And I, I’m terrible at dry flies, that’s the thing. I’ve never been a good dryly tire, You know? But is there a place when those Catskills, like what, what were they originally meant for? Is It just because things have evolved? Fish are smarter now? Bob (44m 13s): Well, the first thing that I should mention is that I don’t think I have all the answers with this because I have friends, one’s a guy named Ricky Bassett who is a great fisherman and he catches really big fish and all he uses is Gaskill drives another guy, Davey Brant, he passed away unfortunately, but a fantastic fisherman. All he used was classic Catskill drives. So I’m not saying I’m a hundred percent right about this, I’m saying that it works for me. I know that what you were getting at a minute ago about sitting in the film, I think that’s an important quality for a lot of these fish. The, the average fish that we catch on at fly in the Delaware is 16 to 18 inches. And they’re all wild, Dave (44m 53s): Wild brown trout Bob (44m 55s): Browns and rainbows. So, And I don’t know if You know it or not, but there’s a really cool story about how the rainbows came to be in the Delaware. Dave (45m 1s): Oh yeah. This is the dumping of the train, right? The railroad, yeah, Bob (45m 4s): Yeah. And You know that actually I, I live the train tracks run right behind my house, a couple hundred feet behind my house. Oh wow. So yeah, but the, the legend in that is that the conductor who saved the fish was Dan Cahill as in light Cahill and dark Cahill. Dave (45m 19s): Oh really? Bob (45m 20s): Yeah. That’s, that’s the legend. That’s some people, yeah. Some people have actually gone out of their way to look up, try to find the time card and see if it’s true or not. Nobody knows for sure. Dave (45m 29s): Man. So what, what year was that roughly? Would that happen? Bob (45m 32s): 1896, Dave (45m 32s): Yeah, 96. So that was, that was fish that were what what Remind reminds us again, fish were coming out. What was going on there. Bob (45m 38s): They were adult fish coming from the McLeod River in Northern California and they were going to a hatchery on Long Island. So what happens is the train derails, they, they grabbed whatever containers these fish were in and they brought them to a trip of the Delaware called Cal Coon Creek. And they released them in there. Back then water temperatures, I guess generally didn’t get as high because you had very little buildings and it was all natural and you had overhanging foliage and stuff like that. So they managed to survive and then they went into the main river. And this is actually fascinating because the dams on the Delaware were not built until 1964. Oh wow. So yeah. Bob (46m 18s): So from 1896 to 1964 in what was a small mouth bass fishery, a warm water fishery, these rainbows, they didn’t explode in population, but they had a healthy right Dave (46m 30s): Breeding, Bob (46m 31s): Strong population of rainbows Dave (46m 33s): Living in the trips probably because it was cooler water. Is that Well, Bob (46m 36s): No, they were right out in the main river and the, the locals who knew their stuff were, were fishing for ’em and catching them. There are a lot of springs in the river, so the, the fish would know where the springs are. And one of the adaptations that the rainbows made in this river is that they love to feed it low light. They, they are up in the dark feeding like crazy on dry flies. So that has caused them to be there. And that’s where the rainbows came from. Now, many years ago when I first started fishing this river in, in 83, it was about 90% or or more rainbows in the lower river. And the browns were in the upper river primarily, which is backwards of what you would think. Bob (47m 17s): But the adaptation that these particular rainbows showed, the warmer water didn’t bother them at all. In fact, there’s one hatch in August that we used to have a heavy hatch called the Whitely, A four on Luon. And when I was younger it was a blizzard hatch and then there was a flood in 2004 or oh six, I forget which, and really haven’t had the numbers around. So I went down river to try to find the hatch. One night I was way below cal coun, six miles below cal coun, and the water temperature was 78 degrees. Geez. Yeah. I’ll never forget this. 78 degrees. And I see a fish rising. Now this particular hatch is famous for getting small mouth to rise like trout and take like trout. Bob (47m 58s): So I wanted to catch some small mouth on a dry fly for the whitely. So I tie on a white fly, I cast down on a cross reach feed, feed, feed, fish sucks it in, I set the hook, I get it in 16 inch rainbow trout. Wow. Yeah. Now I feel terrible because I’m sure I killed the fish. But to know that it’s 78 degree water. Yeah. And the rainbows are rising in this. That’s how hardy the rainbows in the Delaware are. But now, now it’s, it’s downriver is more like, I don’t know, 50 50 browns and rainbows. So the browns are definitely increasing their foothold in the river. Dave (48m 35s): Right. Wow. This is great. Well, You know, as always, it’s hard to, You know, cover everything. I, I feel like this is a real awesome topic because I think it’s, it’s challenging. Let’s, You know, I got a few more questions that we wanna take it out here in a little bit, but maybe we can start with our, we’ve got a segment we call kind of our, our conservation corner segment. And, and today this is presented by Patagonia. We’re helping to get the word out on their swift current waiters. So I wanted to give a big shout out to Patagonia. I was talking to somebody on a call yesterday, and Patagonia came up, I was asking him about brands, and he brought, he pulled out this belt. He is like, I, this belt a client left. And he was like, this is the most amazing belt ever. Dave (49m 15s): And it was a Patagonia belt. So I’m a big fan of all their gear, but we wanna give them a shout out to start this off. But for the conservation part of it, You know, we haven’t talked about that today. We always love to talk there. How are things going out there? Does, You know, we talk, we hear a lot about climate change, stuff like that. It sounds like you guys are still having great fishing. Do you feel like you’re seeing any changes or, You know, is there, You know, maybe a group we should look into to learn more about the area? Bob (49m 39s): I’m, I’m comfortable saying this, that the hatches seem to be a little bit earlier than they used to be. And that I think can likely be attributed to the fact that there has been a more of a warming trend recently with temperatures. I don’t know if this is a permanent thing or if it’s just a, a cyclical thing. I, I don’t know enough to determine that, but I can tell you that the hatches are definitely a little earlier in the year. And one of the things that I’m happy to see is that I’m actually on the, the board of a major organization, a community one that helps oversee keeping the river healthy and vibrant. Bob (50m 22s): And it’s the Delaware River Council and people are much more aware of the import of agriculture on the bug life in the river. And I think you’re seeing a concerted effort to try to beat back the knotweed, which is a real hassle in this river system. It’s, it’s terrible. And to plant more traditional native species of plants. And these like oak trees, river birches, willows, these things are, they host all of the bugs. The mayflies hatch, the cat is hatch, the stone flies hatch, and they, they go up in there and this is where they can hide. Gotcha. Dave (51m 2s): So the Japanese knot weed does not do well for the bugs life at all. Bob (51m 6s): Oh God, no. And, and the other thing that’s so terrible about knotweed absolutely awful is it’s so thick. It, it’s basically a member of the bamboo family, and it is so thick that no light penetrates to the dirt beneath it, so nothing grows. So if you get a really bad storm and the river raises and it rips through that knotweed, it takes a lot of the silt with it. And the other thing that we learned about knot wheat, I went to a seminar on this, knotweed apparently is one of the plants that draws the most water for, its, its, it grows incredibly fast. And when it grows riverside, it apparently actually the cumulative effect, and there’s so much of it up here, it actually they think lowers the level of the river. Bob (51m 55s): And now when the river’s getting lower, more rocks are getting exposed. And like right now, the river’s flowing at 5,000 cfs and there’s not a rock exposed on this river. And I’m 23 miles below Hancock. The water coming outta the dam is actually warm right now because it’s, it’s, they’re over a hundred percent and it’s spilling over the top. So we’re getting the top of the lake water coming through, yet it’s colder down here in Calhoun than it is up higher or just about the same temperature because there’s no rocks exposed. Now, if the knot we, if there was no water coming over the top of the dam, if the river levels were lower and the knotweed was sucking some of that water out of the river system, you expose more and more rocks and the rocks get baked by the sun, and then the baked rocks transmit the heat to the river and the temperatures in the river rise. Bob (52m 45s): So that knotweed is a really big deal. Dave (52m 47s): Yeah, the knotweed, that’s, that’s a good reminder. And, and yeah, the Delaware River Council, that sounds like a great group. So they’re, they’re doing some stuff with riparian vegetation and kind of fighting some of that back, Bob (52m 57s): A lot of education, trying to educate people on what you can best do to live cooperatively with the river. I, I believe that, You know, we’re, we’re put on earth to be stewards and, and it’s our job to care for the river. And the way we care for the river is by taking care of the bugs, by taking care of not letting the silt get washed into the river. It’s a responsibility I think each of us have. And the Delaware River Council is a bunch of concerned people. It’s actually a state organization and we apply for grants and we get grants to educate people on it and to, We have weekends where we’re doing things to educate and promote conservation on the Dave (53m 37s): River. Amazing. Yeah, that’s perfect. I think that’s the exact type of group that, as we said, Patagonia, we love supporting them because they’re such a great conservation group, then the tagline that they have is, right, we’re on, we’re here to save our home planet. You know, I think that that’s a pretty powerful thing to be thinking about. But this is great. So We have that covered, You know, again, we’re gonna leave a lot on the table, but I feel like we’ve done a good job on this table. Maybe we just take it out here with a few, I’ll have a couple random ones for you, but just some tips on today. You’ve really nailed a bunch of good ones. But if we’re talking about phishing, these emerges, what are, You know, maybe two or three things you’re telling somebody if they’re phishing mergers tomorrow to be thinking about, to maybe have more success. Bob (54m 15s): Well, first and foremost is, is watch your rise forms. Dave (54m 18s): Is there only two on that now? Now Bob, is it really those two? Is it you’re seeing heads or that other one you said where you’re kind of seeing Bob (54m 24s): The, well the, the first thing that you’re trying to break it down to is are they on the surface or not? If they’re not on the surface, then you have to go subsurface if you wanna maximize your catch. And a lot of times sometimes we tend to think it’s either or sometimes it’s not that. Sometimes you might have a pot of say, eight fish that you can reach that are rising in your area. And you might see some of them taking drives and some of ’em staying subsurface. So you don’t necessarily have to change flies, you can change fish. Dave (54m 51s): Right. So that could be happening in the same, literally you could have like 20 fish and half of ’em are doing one thing, half of ’em are doing the other happens Bob (54m 57s): All the time. Constantly happens. And then you’ll get the weird fish that’s schizophrenic, who takes the dry, takes the dry, and then he takes three, emerges, right? Then he takes the dry and a emerge. So you just have to watch and, and see what’s going on. So first and foremost, watch your rise forms. The second thing is, with an emerge when you’re fishing it, you, you want as close to possible as that same drag free presentation. And the last really cool thing, just to show you how much these fish are on a mergers, it’s truly mind blowing until you’ve seen this. The impact of what I’m about to say is hard to fathom. But you will, ’cause especially in a drift boat, you’re up high, you can see really well, you will watch that fish rise and you will swear that he took your dryly. Bob (55m 44s): Absolutely swear it and you’ll get it in and it’s gonna be the emerge in the corner of his mouth. Happens all the time. That’s Dave (55m 50s): Great. And is the merger reminds again, are you fishing your point with the merger or what’s your typical dry dropper setup? Bob (55m 57s): First, I, I fish a fer leader. So I’ll have a fur leader and that’s important because it’s got a little bit of stretch to it. And that’s really helpful when you’ve got only the leader in the rod tip and an 18 or 20 or 22 inch fish on five X Tippi. So that really comes in handy. Then I will tie that to the end of that. I’ll generally do about six feet of whatever tipt I’m gonna use four x, five x, six x. So to that tipt I tie to obviously the eye of the dryly and then to the bend of the dryly hook, I will tie a piece of fluorocarbon 15, 18 inches long. And to the other end of that, that’s where I put the merger. Dave (56m 34s): That’s it. And then the mergers there. Okay. And the ferral leader is, and describe that just quickly on the furled leader, that that’s basically, how is that different from your typical leader? Bob (56m 43s): Oh, a, a fur leader, there’s good ones and there’s bad ones. You want ones that are made by a machine, not by hand. The reason for that is you want tight twisting of, usually they use mono or floral maybe to make these tit. So there was a guy who lived in the state of Washington who made the best ones ever. And I always bought a whole bunch of ’em and I’d have like 15 of ’em laying around at any time because I hoarded them, because I knew there would be a day where I wouldn’t be able to get ’em anymore. And that day has arrived. Oh, I can’t get them. Yeah. However, there’s two possible reasons. I certainly hope the man didn’t pass, but I’ve heard some reports that he sold his company, if you will, to Feather Craft. Bob (57m 29s): And that Feather Craft now has his leaders. So I ordered two from Feather Craft a while back And I just used them for the first time the other day and they worked great. So the ones that Feather Craft sell, they’re about 15 bucks. They’ll last you between five and 10 years. Wow. And what’s so great about ’em is at the end of ’em, there’s a tip it ring and you’ll see there’s a little bit of a taper to them. And they could be anywhere from three to to eight feet long. And then to that tipt, you just take straight whatever you’re gonna fish. There’s no need to break it down anymore. So what I usually do is I’m six feet tall, a little over six feet. So I’ll just take the tipt and spread it apart the length of my arms, that’s a little over six feet snippet and tie it on. Bob (58m 15s): And then if I need a little bit of a longer drift or a little bit delicate situation, I’ll add a couple of feet to that. Or if it’s really windy, I’ll, I’ll take a foot off and just tie that straight mono or straight fluoro is what I fish to the Tippet ring on that and that’s it. You’re done. That’s all you need. Dave (58m 32s): That’s it. Wow. And the fur leaders, again, the main point there is it gives you more stretch. Are there other benefits of the furled leader? Bob (58m 38s): Oh, it’ll turn anything, anything That’s a strong statement. But yeah, it’ll turn virtually anything over much better than a regular leader will, but not too much turnover. You know, George Harvey talks about how you want it to turn over, but you want some slack in it and it’s, it’s really good at giving you the slack and the turnover combination that you’re looking for. Dave (58m 57s): Right. That’s huge. Yeah. Because the dryly, like you said, the presentation is key. So when you’re fishing these subtle flies, You know, it’s important, like you said, to drop it naturally. Is that, is that kind of the tip? Use the fri leaves or do you have another tip to make sure that thing drops nice like a feather? Bob (59m 12s): No, it, it’ll take care of itself. I, I don’t think you, you need to do anything particularly special for it. Dave (59m 17s): Okay. Nice. Well this is awesome. I got a couple random ones and then we’ll take it outta here from what we talked today. So I wanna go back at the start. You mentioned a couple of things. First let’s, I always love to start with sports ’cause I was a big sports. I still am a big sports fan, but Nice. Yeah. So baseball, basketball, all this stuff. What was your sport? Did you have a sport? Like if you were gonna go pro in a another sport, what would it be If it wasn’t fly fishing, Bob (59m 46s): You know, because of that knee surgery I had when I was a kid, I really couldn’t play a lot of sports until about 10th grade. And I started wrestling And I played some baseball. I don’t think I’m particularly good. I stink at basketball, loved hockey, loved okay. Loved, loved hockey. Yeah. But again, You know, God did not give me great athleticism. Dave (1h 0m 9s): What if he had to choose? You could choose whatever sport you go pro in. Which one would it have been? Bob (1h 0m 13s): Probably hockey. So I can get the summers off and go fishing. Dave (1h 0m 15s): Right. That’s so good. We had a, it’s pretty awesome. I love the stories. We just, I was listening to one of, Brian Ska does our in Theb Bucket podcast, which is a west coast steelhead fishing kinda space. And he just interviewed, well, he was a singer, a Portugal man, kind of a famous band that’s toured around for many years. But he talked about how he was part of this band for 20 years, and then just recently, basically because a couple things happened, quit the band and now is a fly fishing guide. Bob (1h 0m 42s): Nice. Dave (1h 0m 42s): Right. And so it’s like, it’s this amazing story, but I feel like everybody comes back, like, we’re all in the same thing. We’ve got this passion, whether you’re full-time in it or part-time or just getting started, I feel like it’s all about finding that time Right. To get out. And is that kind of how it was for you? Did you, I mean, you’ve been doing it forever, so you, has it always been there for you? Or did you ever think like, well, You know, maybe I’m not gonna be fly fishing, You know, tomorrow? Bob (1h 1m 5s): Well, when I first started coaching, wrestling, I made a really big mistake. I, I started thinking that like if a kid didn’t wanna wrestle, there was something wrong with the kid. And I started to realize that wrestling’s not for everybody. And what, what I believe is, You know, faith is important to me. And I, I believe that God directs us to what matters most in this world with our passions. And I think fly fishing is a vehicle that can bring us back to what matters most in this world. Things from stewardship to fellowship, to the environment and being on the water. The, I used to live on the island where, man, the stress of living on Long Island will kill you. Bob (1h 1m 47s): Yeah. And now I sit here And I sit on a riverside with a friend in a boat casting to rising fish and it’s just, life is good. Right. I, I don’t know if You know who a man named Rich Strollers is? Oh Dave (1h 2m 2s): Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. We’ve had him on the podcast. Bob (1h 2m 4s): Oh, great. Great. So Rich is a friend of mine, and we were fishing together last year. And him and another guy by the name of Brian Ensi, who’s an amazing streamer guy, they’re both fantastic streamer fishermen. And they’ve, they’ve really helped me and, and brought my streamer game up on the river. And the Delaware’s a great streamer river. I have rich out on the boat and, and we’re going through this one particular run and he makes this cast. And so if You know Rich, he, he’s a former state trooper in Connecticut. He’s a man’s man, You know, You know what Dave (1h 2m 32s): I mean? Yeah, yeah. Totally. Right. Bob (1h 2m 34s): So, and he’s a great guy and, and he stands for right and wrong and, and he’s, everything about the man oozes like the greatest generation of American, You know? Yeah. Like, he could have been a guy that stormed the beaches at Normandy. Oh yeah. Dave (1h 2m 49s): That kind of thing. Bob (1h 2m 49s): Oh yeah. And he lets out this cast and he starts working his streamer. And this Tortuga comes out from behind a rock just chasing his fly. And he never took, but to see Rich go from a guy who could storm the beaches in Normandy to like a 5-year-old boy being so giddy at what he just witnessed. And so we’re out on the river every day and it’s this great vehicle that’s bringing us back to the things that matter most in this world. And that’s what I love about fly fishing, and that’s what I think it does so Well, Dave (1h 3m 25s): That’s great. That’s well said. Yeah. It’s, it’s connecting us right to that, that thing that visceral whatever that is nature really. And Bob (1h 3m 32s): Each other and each other. Yeah. It connects us to the world. It connects us to each other. It really does bring us back because there’s so many distractions in this world that can make us either angry or just pull us in a million different directions away from what really matters. So that’s what I think fly fishing is a fantastic mechanism to bring that to Dave (1h 3m 55s): Us. Love that. That’s so good. Cool. Well, I’m gonna leave it with one quick story. Calvin, who is part of our Wetly Swing Pro member members group. He, he’s been talking a lot about Shad, he’s been out there, he’s big into swinging flies with the spay. Do you focus on Shad at all, or is that something where you’re just catching, You know, the other day? Or you said you caught some shad along with other species? Bob (1h 4m 15s): Yeah, yeah. We’ll, we’ll we will somewhat focus on them. They can be a pain in the butt because they’re in the river right now, so thick. But I will tell you a really cool Shad story that Calvin would really like this one. Okay. So, You know, there’s a couple of different types of shed. There’s like hickory shed. Right. Dave (1h 4m 31s): Okay. Bob (1h 4m 32s): And then there’s, there’s also Gizzard shed, which I don’t see a lot of, but there’s also a type of shed called an American shed. Dave (1h 4m 38s): The one that migrates, or do they all migrate? Bob (1h 4m 40s): Yeah, they, they all migrate, they all come up the river, but the American shed is bigger. It, it is significantly bigger than a hickory shed. Hickory shed, 16, 18 inches American shed, you could get 20 to maybe 25 inches, You know. Wow. Significantly bigger. So I had a father son out on the boat the other day, and there’s nothing better than taking fathers and sons or fathers and daughters out on the boat. I just love doing it. And they’re fishing and, and the sun had caught a nice hickory shed and they’re taking dry flies. All right. This, you don’t have to swing like a shed dart or, or a small shed fly in particular, they’re just in there feeding on sulfur. So, and, and by the billions they’re in there. Bob (1h 5m 22s): Wow. Like, they’re all over the place. So the sun catches a hickory shed and he gets it in and it was a nice fight and it worked well. And I have a photo of it. The, the sun is, he’s beaming in the photo. It’s great. And the sun’s in his, he’s a grown man at this point, but it’s still father son. And, and then the father switched spots and, and he’s fishing and he hooks a shad And I see the thing jump outta the water. And it was an American and it was, it was truly poor man salmon or a tiny tarp and whatever you wanna call him. Yeah. He came up like three times outta the water, and then he dug down deep and he, he got him on a five weight, it must have taken 20 or 25 minutes to get this fish in. Oh wow. Bob (1h 6m 1s): But we did get him in and he, he wound up being 22 inches long, probably about four maybe, maybe four and a half, five pounds. Really nice fish. Dave (1h 6m 9s): No kidding. So, Bob (1h 6m 10s): So they’re sitting there sucking down dry and borrower mergers and the mergers in the film, in fact that that 22 took a borrower merger. That’s Dave (1h 6m 18s): So right. Wow. I I Calvin’s gonna love that, that one because Yeah, he talks a lot about swinging and, and You know, spay. But I think that Yeah, you don’t wanna pass up some dry fly action. Right. Tell Bob (1h 6m 28s): Calvin if he can get out to the Delaware area around the 1st of June of like Memorial Day of the 1st of June. A little after the 1st of June. Look me up. I’ll go get him, Michelle. Oh, dry. Good. Dave (1h 6m 40s): Alright, good, good. I’ll, I’ll have him hit you up, but I, in fact, I think he is in your neck of woods somewhere in the northeast, so we’ll follow. Oh, there you go. Good. Good, good. Well, and the last one for you today, I love to leave on a random one here is, is the dog show. I think that we’ve been talking about maybe getting a dog, You know, dogs are great. Talk about that. So what, there was used to be a movie, it was a funny comedy about dog shows, right? Oh, Bob (1h 7m 2s): Best in Dave (1h 7m 2s): Show. Best in show. So we’ll get a best in show link in the show notes here, but talk about that. What, what is a dog show like these days, if you were to what your wife does? Bob (1h 7m 11s): First off it, it tends to be a community thing, at least the United Kennel Club where people will tailgate, they’ll bring trailers, RVs, and they’ll all stay at the dog show. And they, and they become friends. A KC not as much. That tends to be a little more uptight, but UKC, it’s like this. So the first thing you get is just like you, you get what I like to call the Fellowship of the Fly. And we fly anglers who love being together. It’s the same thing for the dog show people. And what my wife does is, is she’ll go to the dog shows and there’s two types. There’s where it’s like best in show, where you’re trying to go for the, the best confirmation or performance. And my wife loves to do agility and obedience, and she’s thinking of doing like some nose work with dogs and stuff. Bob (1h 7m 55s): So what it is ultimately at the end, just like fly fishing brings us closer to the things that matter. These shows build the bonds between the people in the shows and their dogs if, if it’s being done right. Right. So my wife, I love our dogs too, but my wife loves the dogs and she’s really close and fantastic with what she does with them. So that’s kind of her game. And my job is support, logistics and sometimes finances. Dave (1h 8m 23s): There you go. And, and what, do you have a couple dogs around the house? What, what type of breeds are they? Bob (1h 8m 28s): Yeah, we, We have some older dogs now that are called Central Asian Shepherds. They’re very serious dogs. And we, we were not gonna breed them and we’re getting out of them because I’m 62 years old now And I cannot imagine holding this breed at, at age 70 to them a pit bull. Oh, Dave (1h 8m 44s): They’re a big, they’re a big dog. Bob (1h 8m 45s): Yeah. And they’re, they’re aggressive to other dogs. Oh wow. They’re not aggressive to people. Yeah. They’ll kill a pit bull. Geez. Like not a big deal. Dave (1h 8m 53s): Crazy. Bob (1h 8m 53s): Yeah. They’re bred to fight leopards, wolves and bears. Wow. But we, we don’t really deal with them as much anymore. We love them, they’re fantastic with us, but we now also have miniature Australian Shepherds. Okay. And the mini Aussies are great dogs. We can take ’em out on the boat. We can, You know, have a good day with them. In fact, I just said to my wife yesterday, I’ve been guiding so much, I haven’t spent any time with her. And I said, listen, how’s it about tomorrow night we, we go out on the boat, we’ll take one of the pups with us ’cause we breed them and You know, we’ll, we’ll just go for a ride and go out there and fish with one of the dogs for the day. Right. Dave (1h 9m 28s): ’cause you have the Australian Shepherds and, and a friend of mine, Tyler used to have some of those dogs and so they’re full grown like a lab sort of thing. But these are just same. They look the same. They’re just tiny. Bob (1h 9m 37s): Yeah. And they, well, they’re not tiny. They’re about 30 to 40 pounds. Okay. But they have, they have literally, literally the same exact names in the pedigrees. They just selected for the smaller ones. Dave (1h 9m 48s): Yeah, the smaller ones. Gotcha. God’s so interesting. Nice. There you go. So best to show. We’ll definitely ever have to re-watch that movie. I, I feel like it had some, it was a pretty good movie, but I can’t remember. Bob (1h 9m 59s): It was, it’s a funny movie. Definitely. And very, very true to life. Dave (1h 10m 3s): It is. Bob (1h 10m 4s): They overdo everything. But there’s a lot of truth in that movie Dave (1h 10m 7s): Without giving it away for somebody who hasn’t watched it, what’s the premise? What is the, I, I know it was a comedy, but was there, there was some life lessons there. Bob (1h 10m 14s): You know what, what it is, is you, so you got the dog shows and they kind of exploit, kind of make fun of overdramatize the quirks in it and like, here’s a phenomenon. Boy oh boy. Some of the people in the dog show world might hit me for saying this, But yeah, hopefully they don’t listen to the podcast. Dave (1h 10m 34s): No, I don’t think so. Probably not many. Bob (1h 10m 36s): It’s a very true thing. And you can see it in that movie, the dogs, I’m telling you, they look like they’re owners. Oh, Dave (1h 10m 43s): Right. They do. Bob (1h 10m 44s): It’s unbelievable. Yeah, it’s really true. Gosh. So they kind of exploit that or hint at that in the, in the movie. And then they’ve got this play-by-play guy who just says the funniest things and then the, well, sorry, the color commentator. So it’s like going to a baseball game where they, the play Byplay guy would say, You know, okay, and here comes the two and two fastball and the other guy, he goes, yeah, I’ll tell you about fastballs this particular one. So they got all these funny things to say about the dog. So it’s, it’s really good people. That’s so good. If you watch it, I think you’ll enjoy it. I’ve never had anybody say they didn’t like it. Dave (1h 11m 17s): Nice. Yeah. That’s awesome. Cool. All right, Bob. Well I think we’ll leave it there. We’ve got definitely a ton of good knowledge here. We’re gonna hopefully follow up with you and get some more good stuff down the line. But we’ll send everybody out to flies for phish.com or they can check you out Bob linguist on Facebook. And does that sound good? Like a plan? And definitely appreciate all your time. Yeah, Bob (1h 11m 35s): That, that sounds like a great plan. I do appreciate it. I’m really thankful for the opportunity to be on here. And You know, Delaware’s an incredible fishery. It really is remarkable from the drive flies to streamer fishing is incredible on the river. If people are in the area and they get a chance to fish it, if you like a challenge, if you don’t like a challenge, don’t come to the Delaware. But if you like a challenge and you, I’ve heard it said that you don’t go to Delaware to learn how to fish. You go to Delaware to see how good you are at fishing. And I think that’s a really good way to summarize the Dave (1h 12m 3s): River. That’s perfect. Awesome. All right, Bob. Well thanks again. We’ll be in touch. Yes, thanks. Bob (1h 12m 7s): Take care and have an awesome day. Dave (1h 12m 10s): All right, there we go. If you ever wanted to fish a river where truck crews like bonefish and Rise for are your roadmap, Bob Linquist Delaware is the place you can connect with Bob right now. We mentioned it flies for fish.com or you can follow his work on Instagram Flies for Fish. And this one, we’re gonna be keeping up with this one for sure. There’s no question Bob will be back And I think we might even get a webinar out of him. If you’re interested, send me an email, dave@wefflysewing.com. I’d love to hear if you’re interested in hearing maybe Bob go deeper, seeing some photos and just digging deeper on dry flies and mergers, everything we talked about today. Do that and that’s the best way. Also wanna remind you, wet Fly Swing Pro, if you haven’t already, wetly swing.com/pro. Dave (1h 12m 54s): It’s where you can take this conversation further. It’s where you can connect with a community of passion anglers. It’s the best place we know of to go deep with this community in Fly Fishing and on the Wetly Swing podcast. All right, just a heads up, the Belize giveaway is going right now. You can check in wetly swing.com/giveaway. Enter to win a trip to the Iguana house. This is gonna be a full week trip. Two spots are available for the giveaway right now. Check in on that and if you’re interested in learning more about just picking up a spot, you can check in with me as well. The iguana house, they got it going. A little bit of DIY, a little bit of guiding. Pretty awesome. And we’re talking about this week. Alright, that’s all I got for you. Hope you have a great afternoon. Dave (1h 13m 35s): Hope you’re having a good evening, and if it’s morning, hope you have a great morning, great day, and you’re enjoying what you got going. We’ll talk to you soon and see you on that next episode. Outro (1h 13m 43s): Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly, swing Fly fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit wet fly swing.com