South Fork Snake River Fly Fishing with Michelle Edwards (Traveled #52)

WFS 985 Transcript 00:00:00 Dave: Today we’re breaking down simple guide flies, dry dropper strategies, and a nymphing setup that keeps your flies in the zone longer without overcomplicating things. Today’s guest is a guide Fly Tyer, and someone who spent years dialing in, guiding and fishing on the South Fork of the snake and other waters of the west. This is the Travel Podcast series where we bring you the best places to fish in the West, and the stories behind how this region became what it is today. Michelle Edwards is here today, and she’s going to talk about how she tweaks standard flies just enough to get more eats. The dry dropper system that works from summer through fall. We’re going to get into a breakdown on what the ninety degree Nymphing setup is all about, and how to get longer, better drifts with a drift boat. And we’re also going to talk about the easy way to fish two flies. This episode is presented by Visit Idaho and Yellowstone Teton Territory, home to some of the most diverse and wild trout waters in the west. All right. You can connect with Michelle anytime. You can find her on Instagram @slackwaterrepublic1. Here she is. Michelle Edwards, how you doing, Michelle? 00:01:04 Michelle: Good. How are you doing? 00:01:05 Dave: Not too bad. Not too bad. How did the show treat you? I’m curious. We’re going to talk a little about your background here. You just came out of the Idaho show, right? The fly tying expo. How was that this year? 00:01:16 Michelle: Yeah, it was pretty good. There was a ton of people. The weather was pretty nice and a lot of flat tires, and I got to see a lot of cool things. 00:01:24 Dave: What were some of the we’ll talk about your fly time a little bit, but what were some of the cool things you saw out there at the show this year? Were there some different things from the last few years? 00:01:31 Michelle: Yeah, I think there were more tires this year. I don’t know, I’m just really interested to learn from other people because you can always pick up a tip or two from watching anybody. 00:01:41 Dave: Yeah. Were you tagging at the show? 00:01:43 Michelle: Uh, this year I tied some streamers and some little cart flies. Just something different. 00:01:49 Dave: That’s right. When you were guiding out there, what was the species? Were you guiding for trout or carp or what were you focused on? 00:01:56 Michelle: Uh, trout. 00:01:57 Dave: Trout. Okay. And streamers and carp. As far as the flies, what were some of those patterns that you were tying there? 00:02:03 Michelle: Um, I tie like, a little, like peanut envy variation. Just something that I like to throw from my boat here on the South fork of the snake. And just some little basic, like, carp bitters. I don’t know, I tie a lot of nice, simple guide flies. 00:02:18 Dave: Right, exactly. And is the South Fork. That’s the river you’re fishing most still? 00:02:22 Michelle: Yeah, it still is. Uh, even though I’m not guiding on there anymore, I still fish it at least once a week with one of my guide buddies. 00:02:28 Dave: Oh. You do? Okay. How’s that thing? Is that getting ready this time of year? You know, it’s kind of. April is kind of right, right upon us here. Is that going right now or what’s that look like? 00:02:38 Michelle: It’s been a really warm winter here. I mean, winter, if you can even call it that. But it’s been super windy, so it’s been hard to get out and go find a good time to go fishing. But it should be picking up here pretty soon. Once they start raising the flows, the winter flow is is pretty low, so it’s kind of hard to scoot a boat through some of the spots. 00:02:59 Dave: Oh, right. So it’s they keep it low this time of year. It’s pretty low. 00:03:03 Michelle: Yeah. They drop it down to about eight or nine hundred and it it’s just really tough. 00:03:07 Dave: Yeah. Oh right right right. What is the typical flow during the, um you know, prime time? What’s the flow you’re looking for. 00:03:14 Michelle: The prime time for like the salmon fly hatch in, in June and July is pretty high. It can be up to nineteen thousand. But. 00:03:21 Dave: Oh wow. 00:03:22 Michelle: If it’s about fifteen that’s super nice. 00:03:25 Dave: Yeah. So eight hundred is way is about as low. That’s about as low as it gets. 00:03:29 Michelle: Yeah. It is. 00:03:30 Dave: Okay. Wow. When is the sand fly hatch. When does that hit in? Uh, typically on a typical can you narrow it down to say, you know, the sand fly hatch any given. And like the giant, the big stone, you guys get the big stones out there, right? 00:03:43 Michelle: We do. And it’s a bit later like it. It kind of starts over on the Henry’s Fork, like around Memorial Day. And then since we just have so much more water coming out of Palisades. The water is a lot colder, so it takes a while to bump up that temperature. And we get it usually kind of first week of July. But it it can be like anywhere like a week or on the front or back end of that. 00:04:07 Dave: Okay, first week of July. So, and that’s, that’s when that starts going. And then do you fish the goldens kind of throughout the whole year or throughout a good part of the summer after that? 00:04:17 Michelle: Yeah, it kind of comes in a mix like, and then we also have an awesome little stonefly that you don’t see anywhere else. The, the mutant stones, kind of a September like late August kind of thing. 00:04:30 Dave: Yeah, I’ve heard about that one. The mutant. And what’s the pattern you’d be fishing for the big if you’re trying to match that big stonefly pattern a bit, the giant salmonfly. 00:04:39 Michelle: It kind of depends. Like if you’re guiding, um, the salmonfly, uh, flavored like chubby Chernobyl works pretty good, especially with like a darker like gray wing. But, um, the Henry’s Fork salmonfly works pretty good. 00:04:52 Dave: Is there a flag called the Henry’s Fork salmon fly? 00:04:55 Michelle: Yeah, it’s like the Henry’s Fork stone. It’s kind of like thin and narrow, but it’s still floats pretty good. It’s foam. 00:05:01 Dave: What was the shot you’re getting with their. 00:05:04 Michelle: Uh, the lodge at Palisades Creek? 00:05:05 Dave: Yeah. Lodge at Palisades Creek. What was the focus there like? Were you fishing throughout the summer or what was that time? Would that look like? 00:05:11 Michelle: Yeah, pretty much the summer. Like once the salmon flies come off, like they start looking up. So you can do dry droppers pretty much all the way through. 00:05:19 Dave: And how do you fish the the dry dropper. Is that fished kind of hit in the banks or were you typically where are you finding fish for that with the dry dropper kind of does that go like wherever. 00:05:30 Michelle: Pretty much the banks. Um, there is a lot of water, so kind of anywhere that they can get like a little soft cushion, but like inside corners, drop offs, all those good spots. 00:05:41 Dave: Mhm. Gotcha. So you’re just kind of floating down for the most part and fishing out of the boat, looking for wherever there’s a soft spot kind of that you can hit. 00:05:48 Michelle: Yeah, it’s, it’s not really a Wade friendly river until it kind of drops below. I don’t know, probably like ten thousand, nine thousand. You really just can’t get out. Plus the floats are pretty long, so you don’t really want to. 00:06:01 Dave: Oh, right. How long is a typical float during that time of year? 00:06:04 Michelle: I think they’re about um, the sections are like one through four. It’s about I think ten to twelve miles for each one. 00:06:10 Dave: Gotcha. So you’re in nineteen thousand. I mean if it’s up you’re moving pretty quick. Are you stopping at all or are you. You must be floating pretty fast down through there. 00:06:18 Michelle: Uh, you can get through it pretty quick, but when you are guiding, you do obviously have to stop for tangles and that sort of thing. 00:06:24 Dave: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So you are stopping tangles and hitting some backwaters and side channels and stuff like that. 00:06:30 Michelle: Yeah, there’s some really good side channels and most of them now are pretty open. 00:06:34 Dave: Yeah. So that’s basically the South Fork. And now you’re out there not guiding as much. What’s your travel look like now? Are you getting around checking out places around that area or more around the state? 00:06:45 Michelle: Uh, yeah, definitely closer to home. Now, obviously you can hear my cats yelling, so. Oh, yeah, I got some creatures I got to take care of and a ton of water here that I really haven’t even been able to touch since I moved. Kind of. Once you’re guiding, you’re on that river and then you’re kind of fishing that river when you’re on your days off, which is fine, but we still have the Henry’s Fork and then the lakes and then steelhead over on the salmon River. 00:07:12 Dave: Mhm. Yeah. 00:07:13 Michelle: Just all sorts of good stuff. And then if you go a little further north, there’s the Madison and Yellowstone. So it’s a great area. 00:07:21 Dave: There’s a lot of opportunities out there. What is the, uh, the Stillwater. Have you done a little bit of that? Some Stillwater fishing? 00:07:28 Michelle: Not really too much. Just a couple of little lakes here and there looking for some grayling and some other out of the way fish that I haven’t caught. But hopefully this year I’m gonna get up and fish Henry’s Lake at least, right? 00:07:41 Dave: Yeah, that’s definitely a good one. Okay. Yeah, Henry’s and then and then what else is going on throughout the time? I mean, again, it goes back to the show. Are you planning on hitting the the Expo again this next year. The. I guess it’s the snake River, the website. I think it’s SR snake River cutthroat Expo dot org. I’m not sure if that’s still the the main site, but are you planning on doing that this next year? 00:08:01 Michelle: Oh yeah. Definitely. And then I hope, I hope this next year that we have some some ladies sign up for the women’s fly tying class. 00:08:09 Dave: Okay. Is that what you did this year? 00:08:11 Michelle: Well, we didn’t have anybody sign up, so it got cancelled, but. 00:08:13 Dave: Oh, wow, that’s too bad. 00:08:16 Michelle: That’s all right. 00:08:16 Dave: It’s still kind of a definitely a male dominated kind of event. Is that true or do you see a mix of people out there? It’s just that didn’t not for the classes. 00:08:25 Michelle: There’s more of a mix definitely. But it still is a male dominated industry. 00:08:30 Dave: Yeah it is. What is that like for you? You’ve been guiding and I guess you’re not doing that anymore. But what has that been like for you is that, you know, you’ve probably seen some changes. Have you been doing the guiding or when did you first get into all the fly fishing? 00:08:43 Michelle: I first got into fly fishing back in like two thousand and eight, I think I took a class from the Colorado Mountain Club back in Denver. They do like a full month long class and a couple evenings and then casting and then kind of an on river day, which was pretty good. I think they’re still doing it, but. 00:09:03 Dave: So is that where you were? You kind of were in Colorado and then you moved out down to Idaho Falls? 00:09:09 Michelle: Yeah, I was in Colorado and I, I had been guiding for the, the Blue Quill angler, which I kind of got into after I quit my, my real job working for the Department of Veterans Affairs, just too much stress. And then I was lucky that a good friend of mine was the guide coordinator at the Blue Quill. So I got on with them and then learned how to do all the stuff. 00:09:31 Dave: Yeah. What was that like? Who taught you? Who was the was there one person or a bunch of people that taught you the guide, how to become a guide, how to, you know, be good at the guiding? 00:09:40 Michelle: Yeah, I worked really closely with, uh, Kerry Carragher. He used to be the well, he was the guy coordinator there, but he was previously when I met him, I think the fishing manager at the Cherry Creek Fish shop in Denver. 00:09:52 Dave: Okay. Kerry. And and so in the blue Hill that’s in Colorado. 00:09:55 Michelle: Yeah, it’s in evergreen, Colorado. 00:09:57 Dave: And so you get going on the guiding up there. Is that how your guiding work? You started in Colorado and then moved down or what were you doing there? 00:10:03 Michelle: Yeah, I started in Colorado. And then, um, when the pandemic hit, I had been kind of looking to get out of Colorado since it was getting so ridiculously expensive. And the rivers are pretty crowded. I mean, working on the South Platte in Denver is definitely combat fishing. So now here in Idaho, it’s nice and chill and less people, more rivers. 00:10:25 Dave: Is it the less fewer people there? 00:10:27 Michelle: Yeah. I mean, unless you try and go for the salmon fly hatch over on the Henry’s fork, that’s when it gets super busy. But in general, it’s not nearly as crowded as the Colorado River is. 00:10:37 Dave: Yeah. Gotcha. What was the what was the guiding like when you were out there and, and on the South Fork, was it something you really enjoyed or did you find. It was pretty, pretty hard and challenging. 00:10:47 Michelle: I know, I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t as challenging as the South Platte for sure, but I mean, there are days like, honestly, the river gets a vote. Like they bump the flows and you might have a bad day. It might be might be a struggle all the way through. But in general, it was pretty good. 00:11:06 Dave: Yeah. That’s pretty is that I know that for me that was challenging. When you have a rough day, how do you handle that? How do you deal with those days where fishing is really tough? 00:11:15 Michelle: Oh man. It’s like mild panic. And then you’re just trying to run through everything that you could possibly do and trying to find something. But I think I only got blanked once. That was pretty good. 00:11:26 Dave: That is pretty good. Yeah. And I guess there’s other things you can learn while you’re out. You’re out there, right? I mean, I guess it depends on whether you have a kind of a beginner or somebody who’s got a lot of experience. But, um, what got you out of the guiding. 00:11:37 Michelle: Um, just getting older and I just, I don’t know, I can’t do like twelve hour days for twenty days in a row anymore. 00:11:44 Dave: Yeah. The guy thing is interesting because I always make. Well, not always, but the analogy is to professional sports, right? It’s not the same, but there’s some similarities, right? Like these pro athletes, by the time they’re forty or whatever, they’re old, you know, and guidings a little bit different. I think there’s lots of people that guide way past that and into their late years. But yeah, it takes something to be doing that right all day long and getting up and the boat and all that stuff. Right? 00:12:09 Michelle: Yeah. Especially trying to do it full time. And when you’re single, that adds another layer to it. 00:12:16 Dave: Another thing. What is the, uh, what was your boat of choice that you were running there? 00:12:21 Michelle: Um, I had to hide and, uh, I originally bought it when I was in a guide in Colorado, probably on the Upper Colorado. So that’s actually how I ended up in Idaho Falls. I came up here to pick up my boat and it was a pretty cool area, so I ended up here. 00:12:36 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:12:37 Michelle: Yeah. 00:12:37 Dave: So you got your boat. How did you, out of all the drift boats out there? And are there some in Colorado? Are there some drift boat companies in Colorado. Or maybe not, because I’m trying to think of one, because there’s not as much more rafts up there. Right? 00:12:48 Michelle: It’s more rafts. But, um, I think like Hog Island, I think they’re still in Colorado. And then Boulder, I think is still in Colorado. 00:12:55 Dave: So you chose Hyde. What got you to made the decision to go for height as opposed to other boats. 00:13:01 Michelle: Originally it was first, uh, like customer service. Like it’s hard to kind of figure out how much these things cost. Like you gotta call around and I’d send out a bunch of email requests to a whole bunch of different places. And, uh, Matt Hyde called me back like within an hour of sending the email. So I chatted with him and that’s service. Yeah. I mean, so I really liked it. And then that’s what I ended up going with. 00:13:25 Dave: Yeah, I wrote a Hyde my first. Still only time I wrote Hyde was, um, it was one of the skiffs, the, you know, the nice low side skiff the first time I wrote a skiff. Man, that thing was super awesome. It was just the whole day we were on the South Fork, and it was just nice getting in and out of the boat. Do you still. Is that still your boat? Are you still running there? 00:13:44 Michelle: It is, but I would kind of like to get a Montana skiff instead. 00:13:48 Dave: Oh, Montana skiff. Now, is that a different boat than. That’s a different company. 00:13:52 Michelle: No, it’s the hide the skiff. 00:13:55 Dave: Oh, it’s. Hide. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. I don’t know which one I had. So they have a few different skiff models. 00:13:59 Michelle: I’m not sure I know the headhunter the clock is is pretty popular too, but it’s pretty low. 00:14:06 Dave: Gotcha. What is your current height? What’s the model? 00:14:08 Michelle: I don’t know, it’s a guide. Guide Pro. 00:14:11 Dave: Oh, okay. So it’s like more of a full it’s more of a full with the pointy bow and all that stuff. It’s not a skiff. 00:14:16 Michelle: Yeah. No, it’s not a skiff. 00:14:18 Dave: Yeah. I think that’s what I had. I think I had more like the Montana or at least that was I rented it, I rent it, there’s a boat company that rents boats out there. So you got your hide still going strong. What about you mentioned guide flies. What do you think when you’re fishing the South fork of the snake. What do you think? Are those top flies you know throughout the year that are kind of your guide flies. 00:14:37 Michelle: Anytime you can put like a little variation on some of the standards that might be enough to get more fish. Just changing up the color. Like, uh, I copy a circus peanut Chernobyl. So I still put like a, like a huge wing on it, but it, it kind of looks more like that, like dornan’s like circus peanut colors. That works pretty good for a golden, like later on in the year. And then it’s just simple stuff like changing up your colors and. 00:15:06 Dave: Oh, right. So Paragon is a staple. That’s a good one. 00:15:09 Michelle: Yeah. Pretty staple. And then, um, like the CDC flies. Yeah. Just like simple like blueing olives with CDC wings. Those seem to be pretty good. 00:15:18 Dave: Right. So little, um, kind of more do you fish more mergers or are these kind of like, uh, what type of fly? Not, not dries necessarily, right. More like in the surface or. 00:15:27 Michelle: Uh, no, like full droppers. So generally like the rig that everybody’s running is like a big foam fly and then about an arm’s length to your dropper, which is usually something with a heavy bead to get down in that water. 00:15:41 Dave: Gotcha. So you’re getting down. So you’re using the foam fly and there’s the circus. Is that kind of a, um, a nymph too? 00:15:48 Michelle: No, it’s a, it’s a dry fly, but it’s like a yellow gold foam. 00:15:53 Dave: Gotcha. Okay. I was thinking like streamer style, but this is more dry drop. Yeah. Okay, I got you. I’m looking at it now. 00:15:59 Michelle: Yeah, it’s a different one. It’s not the the streamer circus peanut. It’s. 00:16:02 Dave: Yeah. The streamer. Yeah, yeah I see. Yeah. I didn’t realize there was another one. Yeah. Okay. So there’s one called the Circus peanut. 00:16:07 Michelle: Yeah. It’s a Will Dornan from over in, uh, Grand Teton somewhere. 00:16:12 Dave: Gotcha. Yeah. So that looks. Yeah, lots of foam. That’s like a foam matches a like you said, a golden or maybe even a hopper could like any of that stuff, right? 00:16:20 Michelle: Definitely. 00:16:21 Dave: Okay. Yeah, that’s that’s it. So you got that fly the paragon of course. And what are some of the other nymphs you’d be throwing below that on the dry dropper? 00:16:28 Michelle: Um, since we got so many stonefly as a rubber leg is pretty money most of the year. 00:16:34 Dave: Right. Just the basic black rubber leg sort of thing. 00:16:37 Michelle: Yeah. Coffee and black. Um, orange and black. That’s a pretty good one. But what’s nice about Idaho is no more of those Colorado sized flies. 00:16:46 Dave: Oh, right. Right. So you don’t because of the. Is that because of the cutthroat. You think the species that are in the river or just because there’s. Why is it easier? Do you think they’re on the South Fork versus Colorado? 00:16:58 Michelle: I think the insects are bigger and the trout just don’t see as much pressure as like below the frying pan or the South Platte or the Taylor. There’s just so technical. 00:17:08 Dave: Yeah, it’s that’s it. It’s just. And the river is much like what is comparison to South Florida snake size versus, say the the Platte. What’s the difference in size? 00:17:16 Michelle: I think when I first came here, I was like, oh, I don’t have any, uh, I don’t have any midges as large as an eighteen. Like, oh, you got to go small sixteen or eighteen. I’m like, oh, great. Oh, wow, that sounds awesome. Compared to a twenty four and a twenty two. 00:17:33 Dave: Right, right. So when you came out of Colorado. Did the skills, your skills in Colorado help there, or were you kind of at another level because it was harder there? 00:17:43 Michelle: Definitely. Especially on the Nymphing front here, we really do have a dry or die kind of culture, but learning how to nymph properly on the Tailwaters in Colorado, just really it really helps, especially if you have to go to them, which you do. 00:17:59 Dave: And are you nymphing on the South Fork quite a bit. 00:18:01 Michelle: I am. I try to get people to do it, but man, they just they don’t want to really. 00:18:06 Dave: What does it look like? What is the Nymphing setup look like? What would you run on the South Fork? What would your. Is it pretty much the same thing you’d run up on in Colorado? 00:18:14 Michelle: Uh, no. Here out of the boat, I usually do the the ninety degree system. So kind of like a butt section and then to the indicator and then just straight down. Usually I use a swivel, usually kind of, I don’t know, three and a half, four feet depending, and then like another eight inches to one. And then if you’re desperate, another one. 00:18:34 Dave: How do you make the ninety degree? How does that setup work? 00:18:38 Michelle: Um, so it’s kind of a fat section probably like, I don’t know, twenty pound, I think to get it to cast properly and then just to like another loop and then put an indicator on the end of that. I’ve been using the Oros ones. Those are pretty, pretty great. So simple and so easy to cast for people for sure. And then you just tie on like a four x three x tippet and then it just goes straight down ninety degrees. 00:19:01 Dave: Oh, so you just tie your four right on to the the loop. Yeah. To the not not a swivel. You just have like a kind of one of those loop connectors. 00:19:09 Michelle: I use a loop sometimes because I’m cheap and then, but you could use like tippet rings or like a little swivel or something to kind of get that ninety degrees. 00:19:19 Dave: Yeah. Okay. So you do the ninety, then you go down to your, your nymph and then how do you fish that is that just like what sort of water is there any tips on fishing that setup? 00:19:28 Michelle: Uh, no. Same thing. Kind of still like close to the banks and then drop offs and, inside seams are probably the best, but it’s it’s good because with the ninety degree, like once you put it off the side of the boat, then you can just adjust your rowing to get like longer drifts. And then the longer they keep them, the longer the better. 00:19:47 Dave: So how does that ninety degree like fish differently than, say, if you just had a straight nymphing setup, like without that ninety? How does that change the drift? 00:19:56 Michelle: I think it kind of keeps it more at like the same level. I feel like when you’re nipping like the regular with like a regular leader and then like split shot and all that, it just kind of, I feel like it’s harder to control the depth for myself, but it’s pretty consistent with the ninety. 00:20:12 Dave: It is. Okay. Would you put split shot on that if you’re somewhere on that setup? 00:20:17 Michelle: Uh, I usually don’t because it usually everything just like once you break the surface tension, it pretty much sinks and then. 00:20:23 Dave: Yeah, so no split. You’re just using a heavy tungsten fly or something like that. 00:20:28 Michelle: Yeah. 00:20:29 Dave: Do you use two flies? Can you use two flies there. 00:20:31 Michelle: Uh, you can use three flies, but I usually do two. Especially when you’re guiding because it’s just going to turn into a rat’s nest sooner or later, right? 00:20:40 Dave: So how do you fish the, um, when you’re fishing two flies. How are you fishing those? Like what are the two types of flies you’d be using there? 00:20:47 Michelle: I’m a big fan of using a rubber legs on the the top to get it down. And then and then something small, whatever you’re trying to fish. But you can do it differently. You can put the the rubber legs down on the bottom or the heavy fly and then do a tag for the the top fly. It works pretty good. But I mean, it’s all relative, I guess. Yeah, it’s whatever you prefer. It all works. 00:21:11 Dave: That’s right, that’s right. What about I mean, you got into these schools, you were doing these schools up there for a while, and it sounds like you were around them. Did you get into casting? Was that like a big thing you spent a lot of time on like, talk about that a little bit. How would you take a when you were doing the schools, somebody into that casting, like say they had a little experience but had some struggles? 00:21:30 Michelle: Yeah. So I did mostly like the beginner casting. Um, I know folks who are like master casting instructors for the f, f or whatever it is now, but I’m definitely not a casting nerd, but everybody can benefit from somebody kind of watching your casting and kind of breaking it down. But the way, the way I kind of learned it was the way that Carrie taught it, which I feel like is pretty effective because I was fortunate enough to volunteer for the casting for recovery here this past fall, and I taught it the same way. And people just pick it up. So it’s kind of the like, if you can pick up the phone, hello, it’s for you. 00:22:07 Dave: Oh, right. Yeah. The phone trick. Yeah. 00:22:09 Michelle: That just really makes it easy for people to understand. 00:22:14 Dave: There’s a place where every bend in the river feels like it’s been waiting for you. Where the air smells of sage and pine and trout rise beneath the shadows of the Tetons. That places visit Idaho’s Yellowstone Teton Territory, the heartbeat of fly fishing in the west from the legendary Henrys Fork to the winding south fork of the snake. This is where big fish and bigger stories live. You’ll find endless waters welcoming towns and locals who still wave as you drive by with drift boat in tow. This is your starting point for world class fly fishing, year round recreation, and wild country that stays with you long after you’ve packed up your gear. Check it out right now that’s wet fly swing dot com slash t e t o n. Visit Idaho for yourself and support this podcast while you go. Were you getting people in there that were really this is pretty much like a beginner class. Yeah, people just getting into fly fishing. 00:23:09 Michelle: Definitely beginners, um, like some people that had seen fish before and maybe or something like that. 00:23:13 Dave: But yeah, I think there’s definitely, you know, the casting is part of it, but like you’re saying, the nymphing is part of it too. You know, people have all sorts of questions about, you know, how to fish two flies, right? I think that’s a struggle for a lot of people. How do you how do you keep people from getting tangled? What’s the secret there? Are you? Is it the cast? Are you doing, like, more of an open loop? Or how do you, you know, how do you keep people from tangling? Two flies? 00:23:35 Michelle: I definitely like an open loop. And then kind of if they’re a beginner, really, when you’re trying to get them on the boat, like you’ve got pretty limited time to get everybody up and going. So it’s kind of just a pick up and lay down really just works well. 00:23:50 Dave: Yeah. Right. So you use the you just pick up. So it’s on the water, you pick it up and are you false casting? 00:23:56 Michelle: No. 00:23:58 Dave: No. So just cast it to the other like pick it up, lay it down on the water and then maybe make a cast back the other way. 00:24:04 Michelle: Uh, yeah, usually just pick up, lay down and mend. 00:24:07 Dave: Yeah. Oh. And mend. Right, right, right. Gotcha. So yeah, if you’re nymphing, you got to get it up out of the water first. And then once it’s out of the water, then you make your, your roll cast. 00:24:16 Michelle: Yeah. False casting just gives me anxiety. In general. 00:24:21 Dave: Yeah. What about on, you know, on the on the fly tying when you’re you’re doing these tying demos. If somebody is new to fly tying or wants to get better, what’s your advice to them? 00:24:32 Michelle: Probably now that there’s so many like hands on classes, like pretty much every fly shop is doing a beginner night or like a beginner class. Kind of when I started fly tying, like it was hard to find like a beginner class that was open. I think the only one who was doing it in Colorado at that time was a Charlie Craven. 00:24:50 Dave: That’s a good one. So Charlie’s beginner fly tying. 00:24:52 Michelle: Yeah. Which I still recommend to people, but myself, like it took me like two hours of watching a YouTube video to figure out how to use a whip finish. So that can definitely be a struggle. 00:25:04 Dave: But that’s a good, good reminder on Charlie’s book. So beginner fly tying, if somebody new to it and they haven’t got in, that’s a good place to get started. 00:25:11 Michelle: Yeah. And I know like books are probably like old technology, but it really is helpful. It’s like step by step photos and each skill kind of builds upon the next, which is the way that I teach it. Even without the book. 00:25:24 Dave: Are you still tying when you go out or are you still tying up for the next day when you’re doing it? 00:25:28 Michelle: Yeah, I am, but now I just get to tie for myself and not like a dozen flies that somebody might lose and I would need for two days later. 00:25:36 Dave: Right? Yeah, it must be. Is it pretty cool now that you’re. It seems like with the guiding that it’s not easy, right? It’s a tough thing, but there’s some people that were kind of just built for it. Right. Do you feel like it’s something that that’s true, or do you think anybody can pick up and learn guiding and become a great guide? 00:25:51 Michelle: I think it’s kind of both. Like there are some people that like really just it works well for them. And then there’s other people kind of like myself that kind of struggle. Like I’m pretty introverted. So eight to ten hours with somebody like just chatting all the time. It really does like kind of wear you out. But I feel like the people that do better, like are kind of, I don’t know, like. 00:26:13 Dave: They kind of know when to, when to chat and when to not. Right. I think sometimes that’s a thing or, or maybe there’s the guy that as you go down, you learn about the geology of the river canyon and the ecology. Right? That’s kind of cool too. Was that something, you know? Did you break out any of that other stuff? Did you learn some of that to do some stuff outside of fly fishing, or do you know what I’m talking about there? 00:26:33 Michelle: Yeah. No, definitely. Um, that really gets you through like the, the struggle days. Fortunately, on the South Fork, we got tons of giant birds. So you got bald eagles and golden eagles and moose, and if you’re lucky, some river otters. 00:26:47 Dave: So yeah, we were talking just yeah. On the guiding. I think the guiding for me was interesting is always interesting because I, I did, you know, some of it and I found it challenging. I was a steelhead guide for a good chunk. And it was really, I remember days when we, you know, you’d get skunked. And I remember being like, wow, this is a rough day. Like, I’m ready to give it up, you know? But then as I started to talk to more guides, steelhead guides later and, you know, I remember Mia, I think I was talking to them, Mia and Marty, and they’re like, did I mentioned about getting skunked? And they’re like, hey, you know, like they kind of laughed almost, you know what I mean? Realizing like, that’s just part of the game. But yeah. Was that a tough one for you when you had those days. 00:27:25 Michelle: Um, it can be tough, but then kind of like once you’re back at the shop or back at the lodge, like talking to the other guides, like you can, like you can just figure out how much they struggle to especially. I mean, it happened a couple times on the South Platte, like it’s just a tough river and then there’s rain and something blows out. Like it can just be, it can just be a struggle. But then when you hear that your boss struggled really hard and they wrote several books on the place, it puts it all in perspective. Yeah, kind of makes you feel better. 00:27:59 Dave: That’s a good point. Yeah. I feel like that’s, that’s totally out there. It’s, uh, you know, they’re all just, we’re all people. You know, there’s nothing special. Like everybody has bad days. Well, we were talking a little bit about the, the line management, you know, with the it seems like with the nymphing and maybe the dry fly, maybe everything is line management something that you’re teaching, is that something that you’re trying to educate people on? What would you tell somebody that’s struggling with that? 00:28:23 Michelle: It’s all line management from your cast, your drift to fighting the fish. Everything. It’s all line management. And just like fly tying, it’s all thread management. That’s really all it is. Those are the two fundamentals for both sides of it. 00:28:40 Dave: Right? Right. What is the when you’re nymphing typically with that setup, are you do you have a bunch of line piled up in the bow? I guess people are sitting there on the front or the back. Is that how you do it or describe that? Like somebody’s getting going? Nymphing. They kind of have a set amount of line out there for the most part, and they’re just fishing that right around the boat. 00:28:58 Michelle: Uh, yeah, I try and keep the boat pretty close to the bank to make it manageable for most folks. In general, like a lot of people try and put way too much line out there. Like, oh, I could cast like thirty feet. Like you don’t need to row in. Yeah, no, I need to row in because you’re not gonna be able to set the hook and you’re drifting across two different currents now. So with my experience in Colorado, a lot of it is. Tightline. Nymphing. So I would teach a very similar thing out of the boat. So I’d have him keep it like pretty high and kind of men’s off there. But then it seemed to work really well for me. 00:29:32 Dave: Yeah. Is tightline nymphing is that I always kind of interchange those and think Euro nymphing. Is that a different thing or is that the same? 00:29:39 Michelle: It’s kind of different, but it’s the same, but more just not having like thirty feet that you’re constantly trying to mend. Just trying to any line on the water is really going to start messing with your drift. So just keeping it as up as possible. 00:29:53 Dave: All right, so keep as much line off the water. 00:29:55 Michelle: Yeah. Just making it easier for beginners to get a good drift. 00:29:59 Dave: Right. But you’re not using necessarily the Euro nymphing lines or have you used some of that stuff. 00:30:05 Michelle: No, no, just just kind of the technique just kind of adjusted. 00:30:08 Dave: Yeah. Adjusted. Okay. And then what about on the on the South Fork? Are there some chance to find some bigger fish? What would be your advice there? Somebody fish in the South Fork to find some of those bigger. I mean, because there’s a mixer’s, right? There’s rainbows and there’s cutthroat there. 00:30:20 Michelle: Yeah. And brown trout. 00:30:22 Dave: Yeah. How do you go about finding if somebody is on your boat in the morning? He’s like, man, I really want to catch a big, you know, whatever that is the biggest fish I can find today. Would you fish differently than if you were fishing just for trying to catch a bunch of fish? 00:30:35 Michelle: Uh, kind of, but kind of not. Um, there’s four sections generally that you guide one, two, three, four from the dam down. Section four is closer to the main and it has some, some pretty big fish in there. And then also the upper section has like the bigger fish that kind of just sit around the dam and kind of that sort of thing. But I mean, you could find a two footer in each section. 00:30:57 Dave: You can. Oh yeah. So any of those sections. Yeah. 00:31:00 Michelle: Yeah. I mean they’re like farther section two and three, the canyon sections there are generally thought to be less big fish, but I still find them. 00:31:11 Dave: So within those so there’s two footers out there. In all the sections are the two footers in more of the slacker water pools or more, you know, are they are they found in different areas versus, say, just slapping the banks or, you know, what are your thoughts there? 00:31:25 Michelle: I think they kind of are. Um, they can be up on the banks and there’s a lot of good like timber, like down cottonwoods. And especially in section four, it’s kind of a cottonwood graveyard down there. But what I would do is I, I fish streamers a lot on my days off. And now that it’s all my days off. So then you can kind of figure out where the bigger fish might be. That might you might not have thought of that. They would have been in that section, but they are. So it’s good to kind of find them on your days off. And then you can put people on them, but sometimes they’re just in the randomest spots. Like I had a guy who caught a twenty five inch brown that was right below one of the the ramps in section one. 00:32:05 Dave: Exactly. And our streamers. Do you think you have a better chance at a two foot fish with fishing streamers? 00:32:10 Michelle: Yeah, definitely. 00:32:11 Dave: What is your go to streamer pattern on the South Fork? 00:32:14 Michelle: Uh, yeah. So kind of the, the peanut envy that I tie black marabou and copper UV polar chenille. It’s a great color combo for me and just anything like when you’re fishing streamers out of a boat, especially with the water moving as fast as the South Fork. Like you got to keep casting all the time to different spots. Like there’s not a lot of let it swim. It’s pick up, hit the bank, couple strips, hit it again. So you don’t want to don’t really want to fish anything with like, uh, like rabbit or anything that’s going to like really weird. Weigh it down because twelve miles of fishing, a wet sock is really going to put your shoulder through it. 00:32:55 Dave: Oh yeah. What is the what’s a good pattern? That’s not like a wet sock. That’s the opposite. Streamer. 00:33:00 Michelle: Good pattern dungeons work really well. Um, like circus peanuts, peanut envies like the rusty trombone and the Goldies are a pretty popular one here, too. 00:33:11 Dave: Gotcha. Those are. You know, I think that’s. Do you ever think about that? I think that’s interesting. The names of the flies, I think Kelly’s. In fact, there was some stuff where he got God, I can’t remember the shop, but somebody just drilled into him and it was kind of a viral blog post because of the names. But what’s your take on it? Because these are all kind of we talked about the male dominated names. These a lot of these have those names. Do you think much about that, or is that just kind of part of not a big deal? 00:33:37 Michelle: Yeah, I mean, it is kind of irritating, but there’s a lot of things that are. So it’s kind of I think it’s kind of funny that when they moved over to, I think Orvis picking up some of them, they made them a little more PG thirteen. 00:33:49 Dave: Oh, did they really. So it’s not so the dungeon. You can find that on Orvis, I think. 00:33:54 Michelle: So I think that’s what happened. Like I noticed all of a sudden it was just dungeons and not dungeons. So I assume that’s what happened. 00:34:03 Dave: Yeah. And then all these other ones of course too. Yeah. So I feel like it’s, I guess it’s just it’s a past my, my thing there’s, you know, is you think about when they came out, I’m not sure when these other ones, the circus peanut and all that stuff came out, but it was back in an earlier time. Like, I don’t think Kelly’s coming up with names that are the same now. You know, I feel like that’s maybe, you know, it’s not politically correct to do anymore. Although, you know, maybe I’m off. I don’t know, maybe there are people that are still doing these really, maybe my dad would say raunchy, you know, raunchy would be the word. He would use these raunchy names. But but I don’t know, I might be wrong. Maybe there’s some people still coming up with them. 00:34:39 Michelle: I don’t know. I mean, if, if it’s your flight you came up with, you get to name it whatever you want. 00:34:44 Dave: That’s right. It’s a free world. And then what about on the on the flies, on the casting with the sinking lines? Are you using a certain sinking line or is it just a heavy weighted fly? 00:34:53 Michelle: Um, usually a heavy weighted fly, but I’m also using like a streamer tip line, like the, like the area like streamer tip, but that’s you like, you don’t want too much sink tip otherwise you won’t be able to get that thing back. 00:35:06 Dave: Yeah. So just a tip. So like a whatever, I’m not sure what the weight is, but a pretty lightweight sink tip. Is that what the tip is? How would you explain the how is the streamer tip different than, say, a. I mean, we’re not talking full sinking lines, right? This is something different, right? 00:35:18 Michelle: So it’s regular. It’s just like a regular drive line on the back, kind of with a heavier head up front. And then I think it’s like ten to fifteen feet of sinking line up there. 00:35:29 Dave: Yeah, it’s a ten to fifteen, right? Yep. Gotcha. And do you is that pretty easy to cast? What are your tips on? I feel like the the sinking tips make it a little bit harder to cast. Or do you think that makes it easier? Those that reel streamer tip to cast those heavier flies? 00:35:42 Michelle: It’s pretty easy to cast like, um, it really just water loads it really well and then just a nice open loop. So you don’t hit anybody, but it’s not too bad. And then just like a seven weight is the best kind of for that. 00:35:55 Dave: That’s it. Seven weight. And that will help you in the wind too a little bit. Right? I guess I go between the six and seven. It seems like the six is a pretty good rod, but what is the seven give you because you have a heavier rod too. What is the disadvantage of the seven over the six? Do you think. 00:36:08 Michelle: The disadvantage is probably just as much casting as you’re doing? It’s kind of harder with the with the heavier weight. But also, I broke my seven weight line and hadn’t got a new one. And this past year I did hook a really big brown and it had my six weight like bent to the cork. So plus we with that heavy water, once they get out in the current. Like it’s really hard to move them with that. 00:36:30 Dave: So definitely having if there’s going to be some bigger fish, probably seven weighs is the route. 00:36:35 Michelle: Yeah. Be optimistic. 00:36:37 Dave: Yeah, exactly. What does it look like. Are you doing a lot of mending? Is that something that you’re also focusing on? Is, is the mending to get the fly or describe that? How would you tell somebody if they’re again, mending is a big thing they’re confused about. 00:36:50 Michelle: I really just tell them it’s picking the fly line up and putting it above or upstream of the indicator to kind of make sure that it doesn’t start dragging it down. And then you can kind of demonstrate it so they can kind of get a good visual of what it looks like when it is pulling the your drift down, kind of swinging it around, right? 00:37:09 Dave: So you make a cast and then instead of just like rolling it, flipping it, you’re actually picking the whole lineup kind of and putting that upstream. 00:37:16 Michelle: Yeah, it’s easier for a lot of people, especially out of the boat. Like you just have a lot more leverage. And when I was guiding and then also for my fishing personally, like I use a nine and a half foot six weight. 00:37:28 Dave: The nine and a half, the extra foot, right. That helps you a little bit out there. Is that a ten? Right. You could even go bigger than nine and a half, right? 00:37:35 Michelle: You can go ten for sure. They just don’t seem to make it in a bunch of like more durable rods that I would guide with. 00:37:41 Dave: What about you mentioned travel at the start. Where do you have any big plans for travel? I think we’re always thinking like, hey, you know, what is that next big trip? Are you are you thinking more around the area, around the country or getting outside of the country? 00:37:53 Michelle: Um, there’s definitely some places I’d like to go back to, like the saltwater. It’s been a while since I moved up here, so it’s been five or six years since I got to fish any of that stuff. 00:38:03 Dave: But where were the saltwater? Where were you fishing? 00:38:05 Michelle: I’ve been to, uh, Mexico twice down in ish. Like that was really fun. Got one permit down there, which was pretty awesome. 00:38:13 Dave: Nice. You got one? Yep. That’s it. Feels like to me if you get one. You know what I mean? Depending. Sometimes that’s about as good as you can get. Did you do a couple trips to get the one or was that, you know, was it pretty tough? 00:38:25 Michelle: Uh, no, it was my second saltwater trip, so I had some shots on my first one, which was really nice, but God, it was heartbreaking. But I’ve also fished in the Bahamas and like around the Gulf Coast, like all the way from Texas to the. 00:38:38 Dave: The keys out of the Bahamas, the Gulf Coast. And it’s kind of that whole area. Which one? If you had to pick one, you could go to just, you know, for the rest of your time, what would be the one, do you think from what you’ve been to, are there more similarities, you think or differences there? 00:38:54 Michelle: There’s definitely differences. Like I would probably pick like the Everglades or something like that. Um, because you can basically get tarpon, everything. Yeah, you can get everything. Just cut it right there. And some redfish like to add that in. But I mean, if you want to go to bonefish like the Bahamas or really just the best close by place. 00:39:14 Dave: It seems like a tough choice out of the three. That’s a hard one because they all seem pretty awesome. They all have their, I’m sure, unique cultural. Do you like that about the travel that kind of get in the culture of the different areas you’re going to and all that? 00:39:26 Michelle: I do. And then even as introverted as I am, like you get to meet a whole bunch of people everywhere, fly fishing. It’s really a small world. So you can just meet people everywhere, and they just kind of pluck you up and take you out and show you where to go, that sort of thing. And it’s just pretty awesome. 00:39:42 Dave: That is awesome. Has the introversion been for you, uh, kind of your whole life? Because I know for me, it was definitely something I had pretty bad as well. And I feel like we all struggle with it a little bit. But is that something that, uh, something you’ve kind of tried to work on? Or do you think it’s something just part of your personality? 00:39:59 Michelle: I think I did try to work on it, like when I was younger, but I think after I turned forty, I just really didn’t care anymore when what anybody thought. I was like, okay, like, this is how I am. And we’re just gonna try and optimize my life around it. So. 00:40:13 Dave: Exactly. Yeah. Not everybody is meant to be the, I don’t know who’s the opposite of the introvert person that we, you know, you see out there, but well, here’s the question, I guess for you. What would that be? If you’re around a bunch of people all day talking to a bunch of people, maybe at groups and stuff like that, how do you feel at the end of the day? Are you pretty, pretty spent? 00:40:31 Michelle: Oh, definitely. And that’s kind of how the expo was like all day. Like go chat to everybody and like, it’s really fun. But then after that, it’s like, please don’t talk to me for eight hours, right? 00:40:44 Dave: Yeah. Let’s take it out here with the expo because I think that’s an interesting thing we were chatting about. So you have the expo, you’re sitting there tying flies. You have people coming through who sit down right at the chairs and watch you tie. What does it look like for somebody who hasn’t been to an expo? What is that like? Sit down. Are you just chit chatting about you’re describing your fly? Do you have to kind of is it kind of like guiding at all similar where you’re always on spot. 00:41:06 Michelle: It is kind of like guiding. Um, but then it’s kind of more like guiding them through your flies or like sometimes they want to see whatever you’re tying or something specific. But yeah, it’s, it’s fun. Like some people ask a lot of questions, take some notes. And since this one, I was tying cart flies, it was kind of fifty fifty like, oh, that’s super awesome. Carp like also. And then half of it is, you really want to catch one of those like, are you doing this on purpose? 00:41:31 Dave: Yeah. The carp do you have is that pretty close there in Idaho Falls? Are there some good carp fishing? 00:41:36 Michelle: Oh there is. Yeah. Um down on the main fork of the snake, there’s some carp and some of the reservoirs around here have them as well. 00:41:43 Dave: Okay. What’s the carp fly you’re tying at the expo? 00:41:46 Michelle: Uh, I was just tying like a little like carp. Bitter kind of. 00:41:49 Dave: Is that the name of, like, carp? Bitter? 00:41:50 Michelle: I think so, yeah. 00:41:52 Dave: It is. I see it buries carp bitter. I wonder if that’s who. Barry. I see Barry’s name here. 00:41:57 Michelle: Yeah, just something a little different. Like a lot of people are tying awesome dry flies. But that is not what I learned to tie when I started out. 00:42:06 Dave: So I see here. I’m not sure if this is the one. Barry’s Cart Bitter is a specialized, highly effective fly design by Barry Reynolds to target carp, often mimicking small crayfish, nymphs or vegetation, it features a heavy bead chain. Eyes at the fly. 00:42:19 Michelle: Yeah. And then also you can time in like little small colors. And there’s some smallmouth around here too. So it’s not just trout. 00:42:27 Dave: Yeah. And it’s essentially a like a lot of these things, the woolly bugger. It’s kind of always a funny joke, but a lot of flies. If you look at this thing it looks a little bit like a woolly bugger. 00:42:36 Michelle: Yeah. And then I mean the articulated streamers are really just dressed up woolly buggers connected together. 00:42:43 Dave: Is that the one we mentioned? The rubber legs. But do you think the you know, the woolly bugger is the greatest fly, or is there something else that you’d say is the top all around kind of starter pattern? 00:42:53 Michelle: I think that’s pretty much the one I would I would go with. But yeah, like if you only had like one fly to fish anywhere, it’d probably be a woolly bugger or maybe a rubber leg. 00:43:04 Dave: That must be a fly that’s been fished. Right? The one fly thing out there on the snake, that event they have. Yeah, I’m guessing the woolly bugger. You would think that would have been a pattern. Maybe not, though, because that’s kind of specialized. Right, for trout and all that stuff. 00:43:16 Michelle: It is. It’s I don’t know if it’s really that great that time of year because it’s usually what like the first week of September, I think is when they run it. And it’s a pretty tough time of year. 00:43:28 Dave: It is. So yeah, you’re not going to just throw out a big streamer necessarily. You’re going to be wanting to probably use something smaller. Yeah. That’s interesting. Is that something you ever got involved with at all on that one fly stuff? 00:43:38 Michelle: No, I kind of before I moved here, I was like, oh yeah, that sounds super awesome. And then kind of when I saw it up close, I was like, it’s a really good like fundraiser, but it’s really just not for me. I’m not competitive and I don’t know. 00:43:52 Dave: Yeah, I know the team, the team USA stuff. Well, you got the competition. I think it’s interesting that, you know, this year in Idaho Falls you’re actually there. You know team USA is going to be well the, the women’s and the and the juvenile are I guess they don’t call them juveniles, but the younger guys, they just won the gold last year and now the men’s are going to be back in Idaho Falls this year in July. So they’re going to be going for. And they’ve been really doing well as well. So this might be a chance to have three gold medals coming out of the US for the the worlds. But it’s cool because we’re doing a little series with them on this podcast. So we’re going to have some panel podcast sessions with the five starters of team USA. It’s going to be cool to talk. I’m going to let them talk. I’m just going to sit back and let them go because they’re because they have way better knowledge than I do, obviously. But, um, so that’s a fun thing coming up here, but there’s quite a bit. And then you got the expo we mentioned again. So next year, do you already know, will you be tying the same thing or are you thinking for next year, maybe you’ll tie some different flies, mix it up or and do you have a and when you’re there, or are you just tying like a bunch of flies trying to fill your box or how are you doing that? 00:44:57 Michelle: No, I’ve just been trying to tie like something different that people don’t usually run into like previous years. Like I tied a bunch of like little trout spey flies and people enjoy that. So I just try to do something different. And this year I was like, uh, I want to do more carp fishing this year. So I’ll start tying some carp flies and just tying whatever. I tied some bigger streamers for some folks, but that’s sweet. 00:45:20 Dave: Well, this is great. I think that we’re excited always to get out and see some, uh, you know, connect with different fly tyers. I feel like this show is pretty low key usually. You know, I think it’s you can kind of sit down, take a seat, which is kind of nice, especially, especially if you got a little bit of, you know, age behind you, you know, to be able to sit down and watch kind of hang out a little bit. But we’ll send everybody out today to the we mentioned the expo. I think that’s a good place. And remind us again on Instagram, where can we track you down and find you out there. 00:45:46 Michelle: At Slack Water Republic and the number one. 00:45:49 Dave: Good. So we’ll, we’ll send people there and then also to the Shark Expo dot org. If people want to connect and see in person, see Tyson flies there. So cool. Michelle. Well, thanks for the time today. Definitely been fun to catch up on the on the snake and we’ll catch you on the next one. 00:46:04 Michelle: Great. Thank you. 00:46:06 Dave: All right. If you get a chance, connect with Michelle. You can do that at Slack Water Republic one. Check in with Michelle there. Let her know you heard this podcast if you get a chance. If you’re interested in taking this further, what we got going, head over to wet swing dot com slash pro. You can sign up there and get your name on the list, and we’ll let you know when we open back up our Pro membership. Excited? We got some good stuff going on in there. We’d love to have you in the group and and check in today if you haven’t already. Send me an email. I’d love to hear from you if you have any questions or if you just haven’t checked in in a while. Dave swing dot com. All right. I hope you enjoyed this one, and I hope you get a chance to get out there and explore that road less traveled. We’ll talk to you then.