Streamer Season in the Ozarks with Chad Johnson (CJ’s Reel Southern Podcast #10) 

WFS 875B Transcript 00:00:00 Chad: Welcome to CJRS Real Southern Podcast. I’m your host, Chad Johnson, fly fishing guide, storyteller and southern soul through and through. From the front porch to the riverbanks. This podcast is going to be about connection, friends, and maybe learning a trick or two about trophy fishing. So grab a sweet T tie on your favorite fly and let’s go fishing. 00:00:31 Michael: Hey all you fly heads. Welcome back to CJRS Real Southern Podcast. I know, I know, wait a minute. This isn’t Chad. Uh, Chad left this go read fishing for a little bit, so. Uh. Oh, and he’s pretending that he doesn’t have cell service. So that’s another. Another good one. 00:00:47 Morgan: Oh, of course, just bails, goes fishing, leaves us to do all the work. 00:00:51 Michael: Absolutely. I’m Michael, I help him out with his tech stuff. And, uh, today we got Morgan Gus with us today, and he’s going to go over your, uh, January fly report. What you got going on there Morgan. 00:01:03 Morgan: What’s up guys. So January we are starting to kick off really kind of streamer season. Um we should start seeing some higher water. We already have kind of been seeing higher water come through in spurts. Um, and with that the streamer fishing has been really good. So um, throwing big streamers in that big water has been really productive on heavy sinking lines. Um, as you get into that lower water, throwing some smaller stuff, three to four inch flies is fishing pretty good as well. Um, we are seeing periods of minimum flow, so throwing small sculpins, um, on like an intermediate line has been a lot of fun as well, if the streamer thing really isn’t for you, um, in that high water throwing mop, flies, uh, up along the bank is kind of the program for this time of year as well. Low water nymphing is still good. Midges, things like that. Nothing. No big hatches is really happening except for those midges. But, uh, this is definitely when we start focusing a lot more on our streamer fishing. Um, in the colder parts of these, uh, of the year, um, when we have that big water. So that’s one of the big things that we’re kind of gearing up and getting ready for is streamers as we go through January and February. So just depending on water, uh, you’ll have to change up that, that sink rate on that line and change up the size and buoyancy of those bugs. But, uh, streamer fishing is really, really the big game right now. 00:02:35 Michael: Awesome, awesome. You heard it from the man himself. So what you got going on at the shop? I know you got some big events coming. 00:02:41 Morgan: Speaking of streamer fishing, we do have Streamer Love Fest coming up. Um, so that’s going to be kind of a two day event. Um, it’s going to be January twenty third and January twenty fourth. So on January twenty third, what we’re doing, you may have seen it out on social media already. We’re having our first annual fly battle. Um, and that’s going to be the night before Streamer Love Fest. So that’s going to be Friday, January twenty third, and that’s going to be over at Rapp’s Barren Brewing Company in Mount Home, right on the square there. Um, so they’re generous enough to lend us some space to do that. And, um, basically what the fly battle is, is earlier this year, um, through the fall, we had people that are not, quote unquote professional tires, um, send in patterns of articulated streamers. And we kind of us here at the shop, uh, we called through all those streamers and we picked out the top eight, and those top eight are going to go head to head in a round robin style format, tying against each other twenty minute rounds, one on one kind of single elimination. And the winner of that fly battle is going to be, uh, going to have a spot to sit at Streamer Love Fest on the night of the twenty fourth, so should be a really fun event over at the brewery. So we’re going to be upstairs at wraps and basically they’re going to be tying head to head. We’re going to have a panel of judges. So Chad is going to be one of the judges. If he comes back from fishing. 00:04:16 Michael: He’s getting voluntold. Yeah, yeah. 00:04:19 Morgan: We’re going to drag him off the water and, uh, drag him into wraps to do some judging. Uh, Steve Dally is going to be one of the judges as well as, uh, Cheech from Fly Fish. Food is going to be one of the judges. Um, so it should be really fun. Um, Brian Wise from, uh, fly Fishing the Ozarks, um, is going to be kind of emceeing it. So he’s going to be going through going around the tables, heckling people, um, as they’re trying to tie these articulated streamers in a, in a competition style format. So stop by wraps, check that out. That’ll be really, really fun. Um, if you guys have been around for any of the previous streamer love fests. Very similar format there. It’s going to be held here at Diamond State Flag Company. Um, in the shop here at six o’clock on January twenty fourth, which is a Saturday. So kind of two day event. So it gives you a chance to come in Friday night, check out the fly battle, kind of see the amateur tires go head to head. And then as we go into, uh, Saturday, you guys will have some time to go out and fish and then you guys can come by, um, the shop, we’re going to have beer. We’ll have food. Um, wraps is sponsoring our beer for that. Um, so it should be really fun. We’ll have a big list of really good tires. Obviously, Cheech is going to be here. He’s going to be doing a class on Saturday morning from nine to noon. So kind of like a like a skill builders streamer class, um, hands on class. So you get to come in tie, learn a couple of the patterns and some of the techniques. So that’s something else to do. Saturday during the day before uh, streamer leftist. If you want to get on that class, Give us a call here at the shop and we can sign you up. Um, it’s one hundred bucks, and we do have limited seating, so give us a call as soon as possible. Other than that, it’s just going to be a streamer love fest where we’re going to be hanging out, drinking beer, watching some of the best streamer tires in the world. Tie some flies. It’s going to be a really, really fun event. 00:06:11 Michael: A little smack talk in there. 00:06:13 Morgan: There’s going to be a lot of smack talking. Um, it’s going to be both. Both nights are going to be really fun events. So if you’re in town doing some streamer fishing or you’re looking for an excuse to come into town and do some streamer fishing, um, this is a good weekend to do it as we have a lot of nightly events kind of going on in that weekend. 00:06:30 Michael: Awesome. Sounds good. Sounds like it’ll be a fun weekend. Some good information to learn also from those classes. Um, and is any of that information on your website? 00:06:41 Morgan: Yes. It is all going to be under the events tab, um on Diamond State fly com. So we’ll have the class with Cheech up there as well as the details for Streamer Love Fest and the Fly battle. 00:06:54 Michael: Awesome. And then, uh, website will also have some stuff posted on that and, uh, social media, Facebook, Instagram. Uh, but awesome. Uh, Morgan, I appreciate you stopping in and getting this done for us. Uh. 00:07:07 Morgan: No problem. 00:07:09 Michael: Uh, guys, if you have any questions you want to send in for the podcast, you can always reach us at CJ’s Real Southern at Outlook.com. Uh, we always love to hear from you guys, questions about the podcast or even something that may have been talked about on past podcast. Just hit us up, send us an email, and that question may be featured on a future podcast. So love to hear from you guys. And I think that’s going to be about it for us. Next up is going to be Chad Johnson. Thank you. 00:07:37 Morgan: Thanks, Michael. 00:07:39 Chad: Good morning guys. This is Chad Johnson with CJ’s Real Southern podcast. We’re here with your guest today Chad Johnson. No I’m going to do this one on my own here today. Guys. We’re gonna. You know, streamer season is upon us here. And, um, the Ozarks. I know different times of year, different places. I know fall for a lot of people. That doesn’t end up being the way it turns out for us here. Um, we tend to fish a a post-spawn instead of pre-spawn, um, versus our fish going and putting on the feed sacks right before they go on the lay on the beds. They tend to go on a huge feed when they get off the beds. It’s also the time of the year that they’re the most aggressive, right. Because they’ve been running off other fish, other rainbows, other brown trout mating season. They become very aggressive. As I’ve talked to you guys before, I believe a lot of our strikes from our bigger fish are aggression bites. So that really comes into play. So the first thing I want to do is just I want to talk about a couple of techniques, and then we’ll get into a fly box and some gear that you wouldn’t want to come without. But we talked a few episodes ago when I done The One by myself about the slow game, and when we talked about that, what we talked about was, I talked to you about my series of jigging flies, that very vertical up and down. There’s another way to play the slow game, and it’s hanging your flies. And it is such a weird concept to us. I’m going to walk through a couple of scenarios for you. When I say hanging a fly, what I mean is literally letting it sit in the water column. I don’t mean a pause, okay? I mean a stop. To me, there’s a difference, right? A pause is a brief little section where you’ve paused, you’ve made a big strip and made it look alive, and you’re pausing to let something find it or let it crush. Then you’re moving on with another strip. This hanging technique, I’m literally leaving it in the strike zone and very, very small. What I would call a twitch versus a strip. And really what I’m doing is I’m making these flies quiver in the upper water column. So I’m going to walk you through a small mouth scenario, um, on our streams here. And I’m sure in other places at the appropriate time, um, I’m actually fishing a floating line with flies such as CJ’s big Johnson. Uh, in the mini, the party crasher in the three inch size. My buddy Ben Levin has a craft fair bug that he ties that stays in that upper column. And, um, one of the really cool things about these hanging flies when you do this, there’s several things that it does for you. One is it keeps it in the strike zone where so quickly I feel like we pull out of the strike zone. We’ve talked about that in our prior episode, how a lot of times just it races out of the strike zone so quick that they lose interest. That’s one of the things that this does for me is I can leave my bug in the strike zone, make it look alive, and get this bite. And the bite is so cool to where you have to imagine, like the hookup ratio is ridiculous. Um, because these fish are coming from the bottom water column to the upper water column, and when they eat that bug, they turn straight back down to the bottom. And the hookup ratio is so great on those because as you’re getting your hook set, they’re literally turning against you. Another thing that’s happening is because I’m on a floating line, and those bugs that we just talked about have some sort of buoyancy in the head. They’re only getting two to six inches deep. I’m not trying to get these bugs down. I’m trying to bring the fish up to them. Um, it’s funny. I use it under two extreme conditions. So when these fish are fired up and we’re talking smallmouth right now, when these fish are fired up come June, really seems like when they’ll start coming up into that upper water column real hard for us. We also know that’s about when they start eating poppers and all. So they start looking into that upper column that time of year. And so that tends to be the time of year that really kind of works best for me, for the smallmouth to be able to get them up into that upper water column. The other thing I’m able to do is to really, really fish skinny water. You know how a lot of times, like if you’re fishing Crooked Creek, you may be throwing over into, you know, a foot of water to bring it out into the three foot of water. And as a general rule, if you had on a bug with a lead eyes on it, you’d have to strip that out of there pretty quick or Are you going to get hung on the ledge before you ever make it to the three foot? And I find that when I come over that ledge is when I get a lot of those bites. And so I want my fly in play before it comes over the ledge. And I don’t want to have to work it super fast over that strike zone. So now that I’m fishing, a fly that’s on a floating line and it’s hanging in the column, I can literally just let it sit there. And so I will make it quiver past that strike zone. And it’s just a really fun way to fish because it’s so visual. And just in case you guys are not super familiar with some of my flies when we’re talking about this, and I’m talking about being able to keep it up in that water column, you’ve got to understand, like, um, the Sluggo has a spun deer hair head. So that’s going to stay in that upper water column where really if you want it down, you need a sinking line. So that’s a great fly to fish in this water column. I have to say, one of my favorites, though is the Mini Johnson. It just it moves so, so great. And because the deer hair head is much smaller on it, I can get it down to that six inch mark where it’s not just waking on the top like a sluggo wants to do sometimes. And so I have found that the big Johnson is my number one for this technique, and my party crasher would be number two. So I found a couple of other scenarios that that same technique will work in, as long as we have that buoyancy in the head. So like your party crasher has foam eyes, so that’s where its buoyancy comes in. But everything’s got to have a little buoyancy to it or you’re going to get too much sink. You’re going to get into the lower water column. And now we’re not presenting the fly in the same manner, which I find I don’t get as many eats on when they are doing that. It is the bug to have on or the technique to fish when they’re on it. They’re on it anyway. Okay, so now that y’all know what I meant by the buoyancy and my bugs, um, you can do anything that will stay in that upper water column. You’re really looking for something with a little buoyancy and no weight, but you want it to break the surface if it’s not breaking the surface on you and it’s waking, like maybe your sluggo’s doing, um, you need a little less deer hair. I don’t really want to see you go to a sinking line to pull that down. As soon as you go to a sinking line, what tends to happen is the current catches the line, sweeps the line out. Now you’ve got to fish at the speed of the current. You can’t make your mends to really be able to slow that bug down. And so I just really like working on, um, modifying my flies versus going to that sinking line. Um, you’ll notice it just doesn’t work the same. And so I’m going to encourage you to use floating line. One thing I do encourage is a nine foot leader, a fluorocarbon, so that it will help you sink a little bit. Like, I mean, you got to remember, we’re only trying to get two to six inches. And so let’s try that before we go to our sinking line. Um, another way that I have been able to use that for bass was I was down in Mississippi here a couple of weeks ago doing some rock hunting. I was down with my friend Ryan Johnson, and he took me to an old bar pit off the Pearl River and, um. Just loaded with nice black bars and, um, they were not moving, man. The night before, a cold snap came in. Dropped down to the Thirties and Thirties in Mississippi is cold. And, um, those fish just locked up. And so I had not used this like that, but I started in my thought process where I’m using these bugs to slow down. And then I know in the past, if I was fishing bass in Mississippi before I was fly fishing is a no brainer. As soon as it gets cold and those fish slow down, we just simply go to a pig and jig where we could slow it down. Because once you put that bug on the bottom, you can move it a quarter inch at a time, so you’re really allowing it to hang in that strike zone. However, you know, that can be a little tougher on a fly rod. We get hung up a little more. It’s a little harder to work like that. So my process was was with this thing’s only two foot deep. So if I use my hanging technique, then I can keep it in the strike zone. And so I went to that hanging technique because the water was so shallow. And I was able to do the same thing six inches under the surface versus being a foot and a half deeper on the bottom. They were plenty happy to come up and close that two foot, but you couldn’t race out of the strike zone. My buddy was fishing conventional tackle, and he had to go to the bottom and slow down to be able to get a bite, and I was able to get a bite in the upper column because I was able to work so slow. Um, really? More like a twitched Rapala, you know, don’t be afraid to give it a two inch twitch and then let the thing just dance a little. The other thing that’s happening is that deer hair head in there. Are those foam eyes really make that fly turn? So one of the things that’s always been my thought process when we say, you know, there is a process, thought process out there that you don’t stop your fly because pray would not stop in front of a predator. But if my fly is still moving in that I have stopped stripping, but my fly is still turning, or quivering or sinking, or the deer hair head is rising, then it is still moving in the water column. It’s just not being stripped. I mean, how often when you go to a creek or a river, do you see a minnow taking off across the river in the manner in which we strip them? Most of the time when you see minnows or other prey fish in the water column, they’re sitting still, just giving enough movement to stay straight. And boom, they move over four inches and they hang for a while. So it’s not an unnatural presentation that you are giving. It’s just different. And so if you can I’m not saying get that thought process out of your head, but use this as another arrow in your quiver. I mean, I would back up and say a lot of the times or some of the times these fish want to see it burned, right? I mean, they just want the reaction bite. You strip it out in front of them as quick as you can. And man, they are just fired up. For instance, um, I had Dusty Waldrop in my boat for what was the best streamer day I’ve ever had. It was just me and him, and he put four in the boat over two foot in one day, and we were stripping Sluggo’s as fast as he could strip them. And he is a big man, and so he’s got a long wingspan and he was moving that bug. Now, I have tried that so many multiple times and not been able to replicate that. And I know on that given day, we were going down with several other boats that were not burning it and they were not getting them. And so I’m not saying that burning it is never the case. Like, I mean, it produced the very best day I’ve ever had, but those days are fewer and far between. Um, I have definitely caught more fish on a pause or a hang than I have ever caught racing. However, I do race, you know, uh, in the appropriate time. At the appropriate time. It’s another arrow to have in the quiver, right? So whenever I’m telling you these things, guys, they are not end all, be all. Don’t leave going. Oh, Chad strips like this. No, that’s one of the arrows in my quiver. And on any given day, you need to shoot several different arrows. Um, let’s back up real quick and move this over to, um, to trout fishing. Right. Um, it’s not far off of what we talked about with our, um, with our vertical jigging in that trout don’t mind eating a hung fly. They don’t mind eating a paused fly. They eat a lot of wounded rainbows on our river. So to see a rainbow that’s not swimming well is not uncommon. They love those guys because they’re easy prey for them. And so we would would I call more. Paul’s are big bugs versus hanging them. But over the last few years I have really moved into when these fish are hanging tight on the bank to really slow that bug down, keep it in the strike zone for longer, and it has been producing some pretty serious fish for us. Um, so I just want you to think about that. If you’re out there and you’re burning and you’re not getting anything, I want you to slow down. And I want you to try maybe your vertical jig, and you’re not getting them on the vertical jig and move to the hanging technique. Like, let’s try several of these things on a given day. The one time that I haven’t been able to get brown trout to eat, my hanging technique is on a big, bright, bold, sunny day. And of course, we know they don’t want to look up meat or hoppers. Well, they don’t want to look up meat or streamers either on a big, broad, sunny day. I’m going to really be working to get down into that lower column that has less light. Um, and I feel like I’m going to do way better. I’m not saying that it has to be total cloud cover for you to do it, but, you know, mornings, evenings, just the lower light situations where they are not having to look up into that upper column, into that sun, I think is a big deal. It’s like I say, it’s been the one time that I just have not been able to get them to produce on the hang is on that sun. Now, the smallmouth will still do it, but for whatever reason, your brown trout are just not going to come up into that upper water column on a big, bold, sunny, high pressure day. Um, I tend to go, you know, LED heads, full sinking lines, that type thing at that point. Um, and so I just like I say, I just want you all to think about this as you’re coming through, as you’re trying some things here on the white in the North Fork and surrounding areas are wherever you’re from. What I don’t want you to do is think that you go out if you want to be a productive streamer fisherman, if you’re going out every day and you’re stripping, technique is the same. You’re not getting the best of it. Um, you may have picked out four or five flies and said, hey, if they’re going to eat, they’re going to eat one of these. But the strip for the given day is, in my opinion, probably the biggest deal, which we know is presentation, presentation, presentation. And so what we don’t have to do is go down the river beating ourselves up fishing a fly or a technique for eight hours that isn’t working. Start switching it up. It’ll keep you fresh because you’re changing things and your curiosity of whether the next thing is going to work will help keep you on your toes because it is very hard when you’re fishing for two or three hours and then boom, you get the big bite for you to be ready for that. So I believe switching techniques keeps you a little more focused and a little more in the game, so you’ll be ready when that happens. So I just think there’s several different things it can do for you. So now that we’ve talked about a few techniques that we’ll try, let’s talk about fly boxes for just, you know obviously this is for our area. Um, as a general rule, not that I’m never going below it, but as a general rule, during streamer season January, February, I am usually not throwing anything under five inches. Um, it’s kind of a five to eight inch mark is what you’re looking at. Most are going to be articulated. There are times like that big, bold, sunny day, different things where we may downsize a little bit and just try to feed a fish because they’re not they’re not eating aggressively. But as a general rule, we want that five to eight because and in my opinion, uh, one of the thought processes on that or one of the reasons they’re doing that is because, you know, it takes a certain amount of fish to be aggressive. Right? So like if a minnow swims in front of a big brown trout, that’s not aggressive to him. That’s food. There’s no like running that fish off right. He’s not aggressive to that. But another freaking trout come into play. You know another eight inch trout come into play. Well he’ll run that off. He’ll chase that out of a territory. And so I feel like it needs to be a certain size just to get that aggression bite. But we don’t want to grow up out of that feeding bite range either, you know? Um, and so let’s just talk about a few flies. So I think you need several different things when we have really big water. Okay. We’re obviously going to a really heavy sinking lines. But we also it helps to have some bugs with some weight on them. When it gets up into that twenty grand or over fifteen really. And that’s when we would come into play with like Alex Lafc’s Love Child Sculpin or um, Michael Schmitz Double Deceiver that has the little skull head on it. My drop zone. We’re looking at bugs with some lead on the head. That’s just going to help us get into that lower water column, because once the hydraulics get that big, our lines and flies get washed out so bad that having that little bit of extra weight really helps. Especially, you know, I fish a lot of buoyant flies. Buoyant flies are harder to sink, so when it gets up into that big upper column, I’m really going to suggest that you have something with a little weight on the front of it, or at the very least, not a lot of buoyancy. And so I would come prepared with that with some five to seven inch, you know, pretty typical colors olive, black, yellow, ginger just typical trout colors. But then we also, as you all well know, we have a lot of water. That’s that medium class water. And that’s when we’re running from three to, you know, twelve grand. That’s when the big Johnson and the Sluggo and the, the double party crasher and those bugs are going to come much more into play because I feel like I get Alex laugh, kiss, brush, head up, Michael Schmitz, double deceiver. There are a lot of bugs like that that are going to be a little more buoyant. Not quite sink as well, but they’re going to have so much more action because you got to realize as soon as we went to that lead head, we’re fishing a jig. As soon as you put a lead, head on something, you’ve got a jig. And so that’s an action, not just a fly that’s going to get down, because that’s going to be head down, head up, head down, head up. Right. And so as soon as I move away from that lead, I can actually get my bugs to swim. And when they swim, they really just look so much better. But you’re really going to struggle to get those into the lower water column. Um, and so there’s a time and place for each bug, right? Um, and then as we talked about in the beginning, when maybe you’ve got to drop down below five, would to me would be when it’s that, um, five thousand or less, I can still get away with throwing some decent sized bugs. But I have also found that things such as like Russ’s Circus, peanut, Kelly gallops, um, sex dungeon. Those type bugs, um, are going to do really well in that lower water because at that point in time, most of our fish are not super aggressive during that time unless we get just a crazy cloudy, snowy something day, they’re not going to be aggressive as aggressive in those water flows. So at that point I would try to move to a feeding fly where I’m actually trying to feed them a sculpin or a minnow, versus trying to get that big bug reaction bite. So I’m not telling you not to bring your three and four inch bugs, but they will be for a very appropriate time on the lower water. Um, but I mean, guys, you gotta realize there’s a million flies out there. My main thing is that I want you to bring something that’s going to get with a little lead into the lower water column. It’s going to be a medium strip like Michael’s Deceiver or Alex’s brush head and then you’re going to that’s going to be mid column flies. And then you’re going to have upper water column flies such as my sluggo my big Johnson, my party crasher. Um those bugs are going to be more upper to mid water column. And so the main thing I want you to think about is both size five to eight inches on an articulated platform that you can reach each water column. It doesn’t have to be a given bug or a given. You know, there’s so many bugs that would work. So don’t get twisted off in that. Get more along the lines of I need bugs for each water column so that whenever we come here on the white River, you may get a dead low water day. You may get a twenty five thousand day, and we just want to be prepared for each. I mean, you may get one in the morning and one in the evening as far as water depths. And so we just want you guys to come prepared. Don’t just bring your big bugs and your heavy sinking lines and think you’ve got it covered. It’s a little more challenging here than that with the up and down water flows. And so one thing we can do is just come with the right box, like come with the appropriate arrows as far as lines and rods and stuff. I don’t think I really have to go over that with you guys. Most of you guys that are listening to this already know, but I’ll just for you guys that may not know if I was coming to the white River and I wanted to be prepared for what was going to happen, I would bring a eight weight rod with a type six full sinking, fastest sinking line you can get, not just a sink tip like we need really, really heavy sink. I don’t care what line company you use. Just the fastest sinking eight weight line they got. And then you will also need a type three on not for when we have those medium flows. The other thing I like doing is I like having a seven weight with a full sinking line and a tight three line. So that’s kind of what I’m running. I’m bringing a when I if I walked into the boat to go fishing, I’m going to bring a seven weight and a eight weight with two extra spools. And if I’m in high water that day, I’m going to put on my full sinkers. If I’m in medium water, I’m going to put on my medium sinkers, and I’m going to have a eight weight for all my seven to eight inch bugs, and I’m going to have a seven weight for my five to six inch bugs. That’s kind of how I fish it. I just I enjoy fishing that way. I don’t like using the eight weight if I don’t have to, if I can get away with a seven. Um, most of the time I’m fishing eight because just the bigger flows that time of year. But, um, that’s how I would prepare to come down and give us a shot. Um, that’s kind of what I would gear up with. Um, I use as far as I mean, guys, I’m kind of funny when it comes to this. I use Greenline maxima twelve pound for just about everything I do. It is just one of the most abrasion resistant lines, um, of not had breakage with it. Knots are good. As a general rule. That’s what I’m going to use for my tippet is is a twelve pound maxima Greenline. Um, obviously on a loop knot. Um, leaders are going to be, um, depending on what your thought process is. So there’s the old thought process or there’s the thought process of all you need is thirty six inches, because your fly line only has to sink thirty six inches before it starts pulling down your fly. And so it is going to pull down your fly faster than any other way. The other thought process is if I leave it five foot long, I can let my fly line sink five foot before it has the struggle of pulling down the fly, and then the very first time I rip it, the thing’s going to dive four foot deep. So if you feel like your fish are holding right on the bank, you need thirty six inch of tippet or leader because you need that bug to get down right on the bank. Now, if you think your fish are holding off the bank and you need to get down deeper overall, run the five foot leader when you cast it out. The mistake people make is as soon as it hits the water. They strip that little bit of slack out of it. Don’t do that. When you let it hit the water, leave the slack in it. Let it sink. That line will plummet because it’s not tight on your rod end. And it’s not being having the struggle of pulling down the fly yet. So that line can freefall. You will see the big difference. And so if I’m running the thirty six inch gig, I really just run thirty six inches of that twelve pound green line maximum. However, if I’m running the five to six foot gig, I will run, um, like three foot of thirty and two foot of the twelve. Uh, because when you get over to that bigger line with the bigger flies or longer leader with the bigger flies, it’s a little harder to turn over. So that thirty pound will help you turn it over so you can hit those tight spots. Um, kind of what? I’m running, boys. That’s kind of how I’m targeting it. Um, if I could give you one tip to fish our waters that may or may not cross your mind because of the way a streamer fishermen are built, bank oriented. Probably the number one tip I could give you is everything’s not on the bank. Strip your flies all the way back to the boat. You’re going to be surprised how many you might pick up across the current seam. So if you can keep your boat out far enough that you can hit the bank and the current seam on the same cast, you’re doubling your opportunity to catch them. So do not. On our rivers feel like you’re going to throw to the bank, strip five foot off and throw back on the bank and strip five foot off. You are missing over half of your fish. So keep that in your thought bank there. And we’re going to end this one. I don’t know if you guys been with me or been in my boats or been around. Y’all know, one thing that I’m not a fan of is fishing the Reds. The Reds are where our browns are trying to bed and produce more brown trout for us. And I feel like if we’re here and we want these brown trout and we want to make a living off these brown trout, and our customers want to catch these brown trout, we have to let them reproduce, guys. And so stay off of our reds. If you’re fishing the banks and structure, you’re not going to be on the beds if you’re fishing over bearing gravel. Stop. Uh, we would just really like to see those fish left alone. Guys, there are plenty of fish on the banks and on our structure that are very willing to eat for us. Obviously, just like any streamer game, you have to work for it if you don’t want to work for it. The streamer game is probably not your game, and we could set you up with a spin fisherman or something. Uh, but, um, anyway, let’s do that, guys. Let’s take care of our resource so it’ll continue to be here for us for the up and coming years. Um, hope all you guys have a great Christmas and and New Years and, uh, really appreciate you guys listening to us this season. I know I still got a lot to learn. Hopefully get some feedback from you guys and be able to do a better job for you next year. And, um, I’m really enjoying it. I hope you guys are. I want to thank Michael Beauvais is actually, um, my recorder and putting all this together for me. And, um, hope you guys have a good year and we will see y’all in January.