WFS 960 Transcript 00:00:00 Dave : Experience doesn’t end the learning, it just changes the questions you ask on the water. Today we’re joined by Jim Sens of Dead Man’s Guide Service. Jim spends much of his season guiding anglers for trout and summer steelhead, and today he shares why swinging flies has become one of his favorite ways to cover water. Teach new anglers, and find fish that many people overlook. 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. Today, Jim is going to talk about how he fishes summer steelhead from a drift boat in places where most people can’t get to. He’s going to talk about the trout flies that rarely leave his box, including the twenty incher, the McKenzie Green Caddis, and the slump buster. We’re gonna find out why seams and tail outs consistently hold fish throughout the season and how to fish them. His biggest mistakes anglers make after feeling a grab on the swing. Plus, how he blends swinging flies, dry flies and nymphing into one productive day on the water. All right, you can find Jim at Dead Man’s Guide service dot com. Here he is. Jim sends. How you doing, Jim? 00:01:09 Jim: I’m doing great Dave. How are you this morning? 00:01:11 Dave : I’m doing good. Yeah, I’m doing better. Now that we’re chatting here, we’re going to talk about some of the stuff you do with Dead Man’s Guide service. And we’re going to talk about swinging flies for I think steelhead trout. We’re going to talk a little bit about Oregon, maybe the Mackenzie and probably your history as well, because I always love getting a background. I know off air we were just talking about Pike. We just got back from a big pike trip up north. And you’ve done a little bit of that. It sounds like when you’re younger, but maybe start us off on the swinging flies. When did you first. Is that something that kind of started more recently and Dead Man’s Guide Service? You’ve been doing this a while. 00:01:43 Jim: Uh, when I moved to Oregon about twenty years ago, I picked up fly fishing relatively quickly, and then I was done on the North Umpqua, just fishing trout, just with a little dry fly during the summer. And I saw a guy out there. I have no clue who he is. I would love to run across him again, but I saw him spey casting and I just instantly was like, I just sat there for like a half an hour just watching him cast. Did he catch anything? No, but he was just casting. Yeah. And just watching him do like really fancy roll casts is what I refer to him now. It was, uh, it sparked something in me, and I instantly drove back into Eugene, went to the fly shop and bought my first Spey rod and started banging my face against how to Spey cast and learn all the different casts and lines. And it’s a steep learning curve when you’re getting into it by yourself, man. 00:02:35 Dave : Yeah. 00:02:36 Jim: It’s gotten way easier over the years, but it’s still a pretty steep learning curve until you get into it and you actually, like, start figuring it out and understanding. It’s really understanding the lines and what running line you like better, what head you like better, what’s best for different sink tips like, man, you end up learning way more than you even think that you’re going to. 00:02:59 Dave : Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. We had, you know, we mentioned we just got off of this trip up in northern Canada. We were fishing for Pike, northern Pike, but there was also lake trout. We caught on the swing and we caught a big grayling. And they had this. We didn’t bring any. I didn’t bring a spey rod because I knew, you know, the single hand thing was going to be the, you know, the thing. But Jason at the lodge had a spade rod. He had a four weight, I think it was a Redington. And it was a sweet little setup. They brought it out in the boat that day and I fished it for Grayling swinging and we like it was for a second there. Every cast. And some of them were up to twenty inches. Right? So this is fun. But the rod was perfect. You know, it was this perfect spey rod. It was the perfect line match up, like you said. Is that something that you’re, you know, for trout? Is that weight wise? Is that the range you’re at for weight for swinging for trout. 00:03:42 Jim: On the Mackenzie. I love a four weight, especially during this, well, pretty much all year. But during the summer, because you’ll be swinging wet flies for trout and all of a sudden you’ll hook into a steelhead on the Mackenzie or the Willamette. And it’s nice to have a little bit more of a backbone to it than going with like a two weight or a three weight Trout Spey, you know? 00:04:01 Dave : Right. That’s cool. So you can hook steelhead while fishing. So what is the time wise? When do you have an opportunity to hook a steelhead or trout out there? 00:04:08 Jim: Uh, pretty much as soon as June rolls around, there’s fish poking around and we’re just coming into that like August, September, magic hour. And it’ll go all the way into September, October, November, even if we don’t get any rain. Get enough rain to blow the river out and force the fish to go back downstream. So we kind of have a pretty good long summer steelhead, and we don’t have a winter run on the Mackenzie or the Middle Fork of the Willamette here in town. But, uh, the summer runs are pretty fun. And we, we’re having some good fish this year too. So I’m seeing fish in almost every tail out or little spot that I normally find them in every time I’m on the river, so it’s pretty awesome. 00:04:52 Dave : Wow. Do you do more with your guide service? More of the trout swinging or more of the steelhead, or is it kind of equal? 00:04:59 Jim: Uh, I with my guide day, I especially this time of the year, I try to start the day. If the guest wants it, I start the day swinging flies for steelhead and then we’ll transition into trout. But when we transition into trout, we’ll do dry flies, dry droppers, we’ll do nymphing. We’ll do swinging wet flies. I try to cover everything because I take a lot of people out that have never fly fished before, which most guides do. So it’s nice that they get to get a little taste of everything and kind of it sends them in a direction that they enjoy. If they really enjoy nymphing or dry fly, you know what I mean? Or swinging flies, it helps them. At least they get a little basis on the day of what they really enjoyed the best, right? 00:05:45 Dave : Yeah, get a taste of it. And so this is cool. So you’re doing a little bit of both. And I’m always comparing it to the other steelhead rivers around, you know, because you’ve got the Deschutes. You mentioned the North Umpqua, the the rogue. You know, there’s a lot of these steelhead, the rivers that have summer steelhead. But I feel like the Mackenzie maybe doesn’t get as much air time as the other ones. Do you think that’s true. And what do you think people are missing out here a little bit? 00:06:08 Jim: Oh, definitely. The the Mackenzie doesn’t get a lot of attention when it comes to steelhead, which is totally fine, but it’s there isn’t a lot of public land on the Mackenzie to be able to like, just go out and swing runs and a lot of the slots and tail outs and stuff where the steelhead hang out, they can be really difficult to even, even if you’re in a boat, to be able to wet weight and get to them. Um, a lot of times I’m like back trolling the flies from the front of the boat for the steelhead. Like I’m, they hold the rod and I move the flies where I want them to be to find the steelhead in the mornings because they’re just runs that are really hard to. have your feet on the rocks and actually cast too. It’s nice because people that have never spey casted before. They can experience what it’s like to fight a fish on one of those rods. 00:07:02 Dave : Mhm. 00:07:03 Jim: I try not to make it feel like I’m the one that’s catching the fish, like they’re the ones that are connected to the fish. I’m just the tool that’s rowing the boat. Like you would be spey casting and swinging the fly. Does that make sense? 00:07:17 Dave : Yeah. So you’re not getting out in these typical standard steelhead run and. 00:07:20 Jim: No. Generally not. There are runs on the Mackenzie, especially lower where you. There’s some good runs that you can get out and swing flies, but as summer progresses the fish will be more concentrated up by the Leaburg dam that’s just upriver from my house and the runs there aren’t super. There’s a couple good runs that you can get on swing, but a lot of them you have to be. It’s safer to be in the boat and swing the flies from the front of the boat. 00:07:48 Dave : Yeah. So you swing so you’re in the boat, you’re getting them in position and they’re casting. They’re still swinging down through these runs. Uh, some of these areas. 00:07:57 Jim: Basically, they’re just holding the, the line, the rod out in front of the boat and I’m moving the boat through. Oh, right. 00:08:04 Dave : Gotcha. And what are you using? Is this a drift boat or do you have a motor on it? 00:08:08 Jim: Oh, I have a drift boat. 00:08:09 Dave : Yeah. So you just kind of back rowing. Yeah. 00:08:12 Jim: Back trolling or pulling plugs if you want to talk like gear terms. 00:08:16 Dave : Yeah I see. Okay. And then for the trout, um, is it the same thing for trout for. 00:08:21 Jim: It can be there are some better runs that we can get out and trout are a lot more, a lot easier to find. Obviously, like everybody knows that you can get a trout on a fly a lot easier than you can a steelhead, and there’s some short little runs that we can get out and actually like Spey cast and swing the flies for trout really easily. 00:08:41 Dave : Yep. Okay. And then what is your setup for the, uh, the Spey here? It sounds like it’s a four way. What type of. 00:08:47 Jim: Yeah, I generally for myself, I use a for weight for my summer steelhead and my trout on the Mackenzie year round. Even on the Willamette, I do have a six weight that I enjoy throwing as well. And then for my guests, I try not to put four weight trout space in their hands for the steelhead, because I feel like a six weight is a little bit easier for someone without a lot of experience to get a fish to hand. Does that make sense? Yeah, a little bit more backbone to it to be able to like fight the fish better. If you have experience. A four weight trout Spey for steelhead is a pretty fun fight though. 00:09:22 Dave : Yeah. Yeah, exactly. After fishing that four weight up there, I mean I’m thinking I’m I’m getting a four weight because it was just light to hand, you know. I mean the six weight’s pretty light too, but not you know, the four weight’s a lot lighter a lot lighter. And you can still cast it. That’s a great thing. I mean, you could still huck it, right? 00:09:40 Jim: Oh, totally. When you have that thing set up right, it’ll cast like a dream. It’s probably my favorite rod to fish with. In general, I have a what is mine? A four way G. Loomis, uh, version one Pro and it’s like eleven eleven inches. It’s pretty awesome. It’s probably my favorite little rod that I have. 00:10:01 Dave : Yep. So you like that. So the lengthwise, the eleven in that twelve foot range is about right. You don’t need it longer than that. 00:10:07 Jim: Yeah. Well, especially from the boat. Like if I’m standing in the boat or if I’m just using it in the boat, it’s nicer to have just a little bit shorter. Does that make sense? Because I can always move the boat where I need it. I don’t have to have a, like I, I have a fourteen and a half foot sage rod that I love to cast, but it’s not fun to have that long of a rod in a sixteen and a half foot boat. 00:10:30 Dave : No, no it’s not. Yeah, that’s a big stick. Okay. And then what about the line? What would be the line that would match with that for weight? 00:10:38 Jim: Uh, I use the Rio, uh, Skagit Pro or power power that okay, that like salmon and pink colored one. And that’s probably my favorite line on that rod. It loads it up really good and casts it very well. And then I, underneath that, I use like a T eight or a T ten sink tip. 00:10:56 Dave : Okay, so you’re using a tip on these when you’re fishing for both steelhead and trout. Yep. Gotcha. And that’s just probably just cutting down, especially if you’re in the boat. It’s getting you down quicker down to where the fish are. 00:11:06 Jim: Totally. I can control the, the speed at which we’re drifting down the river and that can help sink the fly more, lift it up. Just like when your Spey casting. You can cast more up river to help your sink tip get down more, or you can cast at a sharper angle down river to keep your fly up more through a run. You know what I mean? 00:11:24 Dave : Yep, yep. Do people, um, you mentioned the Willamette is there. How would you break down that? Describe that for somebody listening now that, you know, maybe is in coming to the area or something they’re not familiar with it, maybe break down the McKenzie, the Willamette, the Middle Fork, you know, are there opportunities all over the place? Do you have to have a boat? Are there some places where you can go fish, like outside of Eugene or in Eugene. 00:11:45 Jim: The Willamette, in my humble opinion, would have easier walking way to access for people that don’t have a boat. Uh, there’s a lot more open land and parks salon. 00:11:56 Dave : And is that below? Is that below where? Because the Mackenzie flows into the Willamette. So is this downstream where it below the confluence? 00:12:03 Jim: Generally, when I’m focused on finding steelhead or swinging flies for trout on the Willamette, it’s above where the confluence is for the Mackenzie. 00:12:11 Dave : Okay, but but but on the Willamette, the main stem. 00:12:14 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. 00:12:15 Jim: But you can float the Mackenzie into the Willamette. And there’s amazing trout fishing everywhere and steelhead fishing everywhere. It’s just a really long float. I think it’s from Armitage, which is the last boat ramp on the Mackenzie to the next boat ramp on the Willamette. It’s like a twelve mile float and it’s the Willamette, so it’s not super fast flowing water for probably nine of the eight of those miles. Yeah. So. 00:12:44 Dave : Right. Gosh. And then time wise, you mentioned June. I mean, it sounds like it starts in June. Is there a time in there is August, September. Right now as we’re talking, it’s August is right around the corner. Oh yeah. Prime time. 00:12:55 Jim: We’re just getting into the good stuff. Me and my other guy friends are finding fish everywhere right now and it’s pretty awesome. 00:13:01 Dave : That’s great. What did you mention the The dead man’s guide service? That’s a good name. Where did the dead man’s come from? 00:13:08 Jim: Uh, there’s a run on the McKenzie called Dead Man’s Ferry. And there used to be a little slide right there that you can put in at. And me and a couple of my friends. That was the first place that we went and swung flies together. And it always just kind of like stuck in my head. And then it was just like, it just made my head, made me happy to have that run involved in my life. Because just that day and that those friendships were really important to me in the fly fishing world. Yeah. And it just sounds like a cool name. 00:13:39 Dave : It does. It makes you wonder, do you know? Is there a story there of the history on that? 00:13:43 Speaker 3: Uh, I. 00:13:44 Jim: Don’t I’ve heard a few different stories, but I don’t know which one is real, so I’m not going to regurgitate either one of them. Does that make sense? 00:13:52 Dave : Yeah, yeah. 00:13:53 Jim: Because there’s always like River tales. Yeah. 00:13:56 Dave : So yeah. You don’t quite know. Yeah. 00:13:58 Jim: I don’t know the truth. So I don’t want to regurgitate a false story. 00:14:02 Dave : Yeah. And is that on the Willamette or the McKenzie. 00:14:05 Jim: That’s on the McKenzie. 00:14:06 Dave : On the McKenzie. Okay. So is there still a ferry there or is it just still name? It’s probably not, but there was. 00:14:11 Jim: Yeah, yeah, there’s just it’s just it was a boat slide that slowly become overgrown. Now you can still get to it if you know where it is, but, uh, it’s not very well maintained anymore. 00:14:24 Dave : Yeah, I’m just looking, I’m doing the old chat. GPT. Yeah. So I don’t want to say anything either, but we could do it our own and kind of take a look at it. But essentially, yeah, there’s a little bit of history there. So cool. So that’s kind of where you got started. What was your take us back before twenty years ago? You start you came out to Oregon before that, were you in the Midwest or where were you at? 00:14:42 Jim: Uh, I was traveling all over the place and, um, I was a professional body piercer for a lot of years. 00:14:49 Dave : Oh, wow. 00:14:49 Jim: And, uh, so that led me to travel all over. And, uh, there was a owner of a studio here that had bugged on me for a while to come out and check out Oregon. And I eventually caved to his desire to have me and, uh, fell in love with Oregon as soon as I saw the Mackenzie River. Honestly, this was the first river I saw when I got here. And I was like, this is amazing. I’m never leaving. And I’ve just been here since. 00:15:15 Dave : Nice. And was the shop the, um, what’s your local shop there? 00:15:20 Jim: Uh, the local fly shop. 00:15:22 Dave : Yeah. 00:15:22 Jim: Uh, we have two, we have home waters, and then we also have the Caddisfly shop. 00:15:28 Dave : Yeah. And the caddis fly shop. Yeah. That’s right. And the caddisfly has been there. Probably the longer one. Right. 00:15:32 Jim: Forever. 00:15:33 Dave : Yeah. 00:15:33 Jim: It’s been there forever. It’s a very well respected shop in the area for sure. 00:15:39 Dave : Yep. Are you doing any? You tie some flies, right? Are you doing some tying for the shops? You do videos, anything like that? 00:15:46 Jim: Uh, I have done videos for caddis and I currently I’ve been tying flies for caddisfly for probably ten years. 00:15:54 Dave : Mhm. 00:15:54 Jim: Maybe a little longer and, uh. Yeah. Yeah. And I did some videos for them back in the day. And, uh, I do some guide trips through them to when they need another guide. They hit me up for guide trips and stuff. 00:16:07 Dave : That’s cool. What are the, the videos and the fly tying? What does that look like? Um, you know, what are you tying mostly? And then does the caddis flies shop? Do they fill a lot of their orders through like kind of local folks like yourself? 00:16:19 Jim: No, I, I think I might be the only local person that ties for them. Um, they just like all other fly shops, they mainly get them from. 00:16:28 Dave : Yeah. Big Umpqua or whoever stuff. Yeah, yeah. 00:16:32 Jim: But I’m the, the handy one when someone brings in a random fly that they can’t find anywhere, and I sit down and replicate it for them. Or there’s a pattern called the twenty incher that, uh, Chris Daughters, the owner of Caddisfly modified years ago and asked me to tie it. And so I tie it like very specifically to the way that he wanted it. And last year, I tied one hundred and ten dozen of that fly alone. 00:16:58 Dave : One hundred and ten dozen. Wow. 00:17:00 Jim: Yeah. 00:17:01 Dave : Is the twenty incher now, is that a trout or a steelhead fly? 00:17:05 Jim: That’s a trout fly. It was, uh, invented on the rogue. And the story goes, and again, this might not be the most accurate story, but this is a story I’ve gotten is the first cast with it. He landed a twenty inch trout. So he named it the twenty incher. 00:17:22 Dave : Yeah, the twenty incher. Right. Is it a describe a little bit. It looks is it like a pheasant tail or not a pheasant tail. 00:17:29 Jim: But it’s it’s like a peacock body. Uh, it has goose bites for the tail. And then it has like a wing case with Hungary, Hungarian partridge for the legs. And then I use a traditionally I’d use like a gray, like a natural hare’s ear dubbing for the thorax, but I use a tan UV dubbing for the thorax. 00:17:53 Dave : Yeah. So it’s your typical, you know, a mix between a. Yeah. It’s, uh, whatever it would be a pheasant tail, maybe a hare’s ear. 00:18:00 Jim: Yeah. It’s like a imitation fly. It’s imitating a lot of things that the trout would eat. Yeah. My personal opinion is for the hatchery fish on the Mackenzie. They think it’s another snail because the hatchery trout are trying to figure out what they’re supposed to eat, and their bellies just get full of snails. 00:18:16 Dave : Oh, really? Yeah, they love snails. Cool. So that’s the twenty inch. And then what? Like, how would you fish that? Is that something you’re fishing on? Just nymphing? Or how would you fish that? 00:18:26 Jim: Yeah, it’s a nymphing fly. So you can use it as a dry dropper underneath, like a size ten or eight. chubby or, uh, underneath, like a mega prince or Pat’s rubber leg stone fly underneath a bobber or indicator, depending on which way you like to call it in the industry. 00:18:46 Dave : This episode is brought to you by AVC Rig Adventure Vehicle Concepts out of Colorado. These guys build next level adventure vans designed to help you explore farther and stay out longer. Are you dreaming of a full van build? Or maybe you just need the best aluminum cabinets and storage for your DIY rig? AVC rig makes it easy to turn your vehicle into the ultimate mobile base camp. You can check them out right now at avc dot com, that’s a v c rig dot com. Check out Jackson Hole Fly Company today. Premium fly gear straight to your door without the premium price. Jackson Hole Fly Company designs and builds their own fly rods, reels, flies and gear, delivering quality you can trust at prices that let you fish more and spend less. Whether you’re picking up a fly rod for the first time or guiding every day, they’ve got what you need. Check them out right now. That’s Jackson Hole Fly company dot com. Jackson Hole fly company dot com. Are you guys fishing that like if you’re out there fishing for trout after. Sounds like you fish for steelhead maybe in the morning and then you go for trout. Do you start with the nymph and maybe describe that that setup with the nymph setup. It looks like with your leader. 00:19:59 Jim: Uh, this time of the year, a lot of it. I’m the nymphing. I try to keep on the back burner for the most part, because a lot of the trout, uh, like the chubby dropper. So we do that primarily, but there are some deeper holes where the nymphing rig works. Well, generally it’s like a nine foot three X leader. And then right at the end of it, I’ll put a little micro swivel. And then below that I’ll put a mega Prince is usually my bigger like heavier fly that I put. And then about Twelve to eighteen inches. Below that, I’ll put a twenty incher or whatever other random jig fly that I like that day. Mhm. And, uh, just start getting some drifts with the runs. And then the steelhead in the morning is basically as soon as we put in, we get the rods out and we start swinging the runs and there’s like, uh, three or four really good runs right at the beginning of the day that the steelhead will be sitting in it. And then hopefully they’re in a kind moon and want to eat a fly that day. Yep. And then we get down to where there’s like this little shelf, and then we start fishing for trout from there. 00:21:06 Dave : Gotcha. 00:21:06 Jim: If we feel like it, we can poke around for more steelhead at other little spots. But my main confidence is right in the beginning part of the day for the steelhead. 00:21:14 Dave : Yeah it is. Is that because the steelhead are kind of um settle down. Why is it not better. And is it good in the evening too? 00:21:22 Jim: Yeah, it’s great in the evening when the fish start moving like that hour to two hours before sundown, all the fishing gets really good then. 00:21:30 Dave : It does. 00:21:31 Jim: It’s just right. It’s just hard with a guide day to have someone out that late. Does that make sense? Unless we start later. But then we’re starting at the slowest part of the day, which is the mid afternoon. So you gotta, like, you have a sacrifice either at the beginning of the day or the middle of the day. 00:21:46 Dave : Yeah. You got eight. Yeah. Because you’ve got your. And is that typically how it works? Do you kind of have an eight hour day where you’re starting at, you know, kind of early and then ending early? 00:21:57 Speaker 4: Uh, I generally start on the Mackenzie. I start my days between eight and nine. 00:22:01 Jim: In the. 00:22:01 Speaker 4: Morning. 00:22:02 Jim: Put in, uh, so we don’t have to be on the river super early. And then we’re usually done by like four or five. And then just like most fishing days, the lakes or rivers that like one to four o’clock, you usually get a little bit of a lull in the day. So you have to work a little bit harder to find where the fish are still feeding and being active. 00:22:21 Dave : Yep. Is there a what is the when you’re swinging for steelhead in the morning, what’s your your fly you’re starting out with. 00:22:27 Jim: Uh, I really love Sylvanas. Or pretty much any bunny leech. 00:22:31 Dave : Okay. 00:22:32 Jim: Those are my like, confidence flies, generally pink and purple on one rod and olive and chartreuse on the other. 00:22:41 Dave : Pink and purple. Yeah. And then the, the, the Sylvanas is what is that like a standard? What is that? 00:22:47 Jim: That’s an old Brian Silvey fly. It’s a like a tube fly bunny leech. Okay. Super easy guide fly. It’s like a strip of rabbit, some, uh, ostrich slop and hackle, a little bit of dubbing. Slap the bead on it and call it good. 00:23:05 Dave : That’s it. 00:23:06 Jim: Yeah. Easy one. Super easy. You’re not going to cry if you lose it in the bottom of the river or on a rock, or a fish breaks you off and it catches fish. 00:23:14 Dave : Yep. And then what’s your for the steelhead leader? What’s your setup look like? 00:23:18 Jim: They’re, uh, generally. 00:23:20 Speaker 4: I was. 00:23:20 Jim: A maxima person for the longest time in like ten or twelve pound. But now I’ve been switching over to, like, a cigar fluorocarbon and like a twelve pound. That’s been my go to. Now I’ve kind of I don’t know if evolved or just I feel like as a guide or even as a fisherman, you tend to just like change things up every once in a while, just something pushes you in a different direction and you go that way for a little while. 00:23:45 Dave : Exactly. Well, round it off with your, um, we’re getting this set up, so it sounds like you have a four way Loomis. What’s your reel that you’re working there? 00:23:53 Jim: Oh, I have a Bauer reel on it. Yep. I have a serious weakness for Bauer reels. I love you do? Yep. I think I have, like, five or six Bauer reels. Now. 00:24:03 Dave : Where? Bauer, where are they out of? 00:24:05 Jim: Uh, they were made in Ashland, Oregon, until a few years ago. Then Winston bought them. And I have a couple of the old ones that were made in Ashland. And I think if someone told me correctly, Winston owns them. But they’re still made down in Ashland. Oh, wait me on that part. 00:24:20 Dave : Right? Yeah, we’ll have to fact check that one. Yeah. That’s cool. So not far in Ashland obviously is not far. What does that take? That’s probably from Eugene to Ashland. Not too bad of a drive. 00:24:31 Jim: Yeah, it’s probably two and a half hours. 00:24:33 Dave : Yeah, it’s not bad. 00:24:34 Jim: My wife has some family down there, too. And Sawyer ores are made down there like some of the best ores in the world. 00:24:40 Dave : Oh, Sawyers down there too. 00:24:41 Jim: Yep. 00:24:42 Dave : So that’s right. Yeah. Ashland’s got some good stuff and it’s got um. Well there’s a few boats down there too right. Well I’m not sure if Willy’s is down but somewhere down the south. Right. 00:24:51 Jim: Yeah. Well and I don’t know where they’re all at, but obviously, like Clark is here. Koffler is here. Poverty is here, Willy’s are here. And then there’s a couple other smaller aluminum boat builders that I forget that are like in the, uh, Umpqua area. I’m trying to remember the name of them, but there’s like, there’s a ton of boat builders in Oregon. It’s kind of crazy. I mean, this is like the McKenzie River is where Drift Boat started too. 00:25:15 Dave : That’s right. Yeah. It is. 00:25:17 Jim: So it does make sense that we have a lot of boat builders here. 00:25:20 Dave : Yeah, definitely. Um, and then what’s your vote? What do you run in there? 00:25:24 Jim: I have a twenty twenty Clacker craft, Big Eddie. 00:25:28 Dave : Oh, yeah. 00:25:28 Jim: Big Eddie is what I have currently. Eventually, I’d like to get a raft or get a Koffler’s or Willy’s. 00:25:35 Dave : Is it the. Yeah. So the craft that’s. Is that like a big. The seventeen eighteen footer. 00:25:39 Jim: Yeah. It’s like sixteen and a half feet. It’s a fiberglass boat. 00:25:43 Dave : Okay. Gotcha. So when you’re out there fishing, uh, you know, or most people floating is that kind of on the McKenzie Willamette, you don’t see as many people just bank fishing. 00:25:53 Jim: Yeah. You have a few spots where the bank fishermen have good access, but for the most part, it’s it’s a boat or a raft that you’re in on the McKenzie. 00:26:01 Dave : Right. Okay. Yeah. What would you say if somebody’s listening here and they’re, you know, back to that start, they’ve maybe in the area and they want to get out. What are a couple of things you’re telling them to have kind of more success out there with? I mean, both steelhead trout sounds like swinging flies is something you’re doing there. But you know, if it’s somebody’s first time out there on the water, what do you tell them? 00:26:21 Jim: Um, find the seams. Find the faster water, the slower water. As the summer goes, the fish will tuck up more and more into the riffles and the faster water too. So don’t neglect those. But always fish seems just like any river. Always fish the seams because that’s where the food will be. And that’s where the fish will want to hang out because they can hang out in the slower water, they can dart into that fast water and get something to eat and get back out. And tail outs, all the tail outs. 00:26:49 Dave : And tail outs. 00:26:50 Jim: I love fishing tail outs and fish them deeper into the tail out than you think. Yeah, I’m amazed at how many steelhead I hook in water that I don’t think a steelhead would want to be in, especially early in the morning. 00:27:03 Dave : So they’re in the tail out. So in the you got the smooth water, but even into almost when it breaks down into the riffle. 00:27:09 Jim: Yep. Exactly. 00:27:10 Dave : Cool. Well yeah, we’re just kind of chatting on, you know, somebody dialing in getting ready. So it sounds like having a boat or either talking to you and checking in on a trip or, you know, or maybe if they have their own boat. Is that something that’s doable out there? If somebody had a boat? Or are there some rapids in that section? What does that look like? 00:27:26 Jim: The anything below the labor dam isn’t too bad. There’s a couple little spots like in any river. Um, once you get above the dam and you’re into those sections, they can get pretty gnarly pretty quick. So you definitely want to know what lines you’re supposed to be on and pay attention. And probably either book something where someone can teach you how to row down the river if you really want to learn it, or follow someone else down the river. Like just anybody that has a drift boat knows that you have to be careful in certain areas on any river. So use your smart brain and don’t hurt yourself or the people in your boat. 00:28:03 Dave : Yeah, exactly. Are you guys also getting some hatches out there throughout the summer? Um. 00:28:08 Jim: We we get morning hatches and evening hatches. The hatches obviously slow down just like any other river, but, uh, the fish will definitely key in on I, I’ve definitely learned in the last few years that the trout on the Mackenzie really like terrestrials during the summer. Like ants. Ants in particular are my go to right now. I can find them on hoppers, but I think the fish just think they’re a little big. Some beetles. But ants are definitely my my confidence dry fly for some. Like late summer when the hatches are all kind of chilled out. 00:28:43 Dave : Mhm. So there you go. So ants are good. And and are you just fishing that. Um, just the ant sorted out or what would that look like? 00:28:51 Jim: I generally try to have at least a little wet fly below it. Um, unless the person really just wants a dry fly fish, which I’m all about. It’s your day if you just want to dry flatfish, let’s. You know what I mean? Like there’s days I’m sure even you, Dave, like there’s days you just want to go dry fly fish for a day. 00:29:08 Dave : Yeah, definitely. 00:29:09 Jim: Even if you don’t, just like when I want to go out and swing flies, if I don’t catch anything, at least I fished it the way I wanted to. 00:29:16 Dave : Yep. So yeah, I think that’s it. Yeah. It feels like always we talk about this a little bit, but the, the surface stuff is always it seems like it’s the next level. You know, seeing the fish come up and eat the dry fly, right? Or just seeing it, that seems like it’s always kind of, you know, the, the ultimate is that, do you do you find that’s the case out there with how you feel about it? 00:29:35 Jim: Uh, it’s a hard toss up between getting a fish on a swung fly or getting them on a dry fly. They’re very close to each other for my like ultimate passion on how to go about things. I feel like swinging flies reminds me of when I was a kid chucking daredevils at Northern Pike, you know, like you can just feel that like the grab and the intensity of it and that just jolt of energy you feel on your rod. And yeah, that’s what I really love. Dry fly fishing is super cool. Like, yes, it’s right up there as well, but the swung fly is definitely one, one of my favorite ways to go about it, right? 00:30:13 Dave : Do you do any or any of the like skating kind of the for steelhead dries on more on the surface, any of that. 00:30:20 Jim: I generally make a trip down to the North Umpqua as a skate dry flies to the North Umpqua fish down there. That’s something I try to do every September just because it’s something I’ve always loved. On the Mackenzie and the Willamette. I’ve poked around at it a bit, and I know that you can do it because, like Todd Hirano lives around here and he swings dry, flies year round, as far as I know. So I know you can do it, but it’s just not my confidence. Way to go find the fish on these rivers. Which is weird because I drive an hour south and I’m like, oh yeah, let’s just do dry flies today, right? Where I could just do it in my own backyard and figure it out and build my own confidence here, you know? 00:31:02 Dave : Yeah, totally. Could you skate dry flies for trout with those trout? Eat the dry flies. 00:31:06 Jim: Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yep. Like a little skated caddis would be awesome. 00:31:11 Dave : Yeah. So you could do that. So that might be a way to do it. Fish the fish. Kind of for trout. You know, fish the skate caddis. And if you build. 00:31:17 Jim: Confidence with that. 00:31:18 Dave : Yeah. Yeah. You know you might get a trout. 00:31:21 Jim: Yep. That’s actually a great idea. I might do that more often. 00:31:24 Dave : Nice. Do you pick up trout in the morning? Um like if you’re fishing for steelhead you had a, a steelhead fly on. Are you ever hooking trout. 00:31:32 Jim: Oh yeah. We get cutthroats on them a lot. And the cutthroats have been really nice, especially this year. We’ve hooked into some like sixteen, seventeen eighteen inch cutthroat. And that’s a nice cutthroat. And they fight good and they’re super fun. I love cutthroat. That might be my favorite fish. 00:31:49 Dave : Yeah. So you have cutthroat in there. So is that the trout you’re fishing for mostly, or is it a mix? 00:31:52 Jim: Rainbows. Generally rainbows is what we’re going for. But the cuts are it’s always a nice little surprise. I have a soft spot for those guys. 00:31:59 Dave : Right. So same thing. You would be fishing and you might hook a cutthroat as easy as you hook a rainbow. 00:32:05 Jim: Yeah, totally. 00:32:06 Dave : That’s it. Yeah. I remember what John Shuey when he was on last time, he was talking about how, you know, on the Deschutes River we get these fish that are, you know, tips and taps and tugs and all these little things that are you’re like, okay, is that a trout or a steelhead? And usually I just think it’s a steelhead, you know, it’s a good way to. And a lot of times it is, it’s, I feel like, but John was saying he’s, um, I got one of his old fishing buddies who I think passed away, they had that conversation about, okay, is it a trout or a steelhead? And they came to the agreement that it was a trout, you know, but and I think he fishes the North Santiam a lot. But what’s your take on that? Are you getting a lot of those tips and taps and tugs and stuff? 00:32:40 Jim: I’m so glad you brought that up because when I was listening to that episode, yep. I literally was having my own debate on write My feelings on it. When you guys were talking about it, it was a really cool moment. Um, I so it depends on my mood that day. Sometimes I’m like, oh yeah, that was totally a trout. Like, I’m gonna just keep fishing this run and I’m gonna get that steelhead. But then other times I’m like, hmm, I don’t know. That one felt heavy. Like it just felt different than a little like trout peck, you know what I mean? Yeah. Especially if it’s like, right where I think a steelhead should be like, I’ve caught steelhead there. That’s got to be a steelhead bite. So I go back and forth on it. And I literally had this whole conversation in my head listening to that episode. Yep. So I would say fifty fifty. It kind of depends on my what my gut is telling me at that moment. Sometimes the trout, probably most of the time it’s the trout. And then every once in a while I’m like, ah, I’m gonna back up. Change flies. Give it another swing. 00:33:38 Dave : Yep. 00:33:39 Jim: You know what I mean? 00:33:40 Dave : Yeah, I know, and I think I, I can’t remember what I said on that, but I mean, all rivers are different. And I can’t remember if John was talking, you know, specifically about a certain river, the Deschutes. But I feel like and maybe it’s just my positive outlook on things, but I feel like it’s a steelhead, it’s gonna always be steelhead because that keeps me with the confidence knowing like, you know. 00:33:58 Jim: Especially if it’s been a really hard steelhead day, you know? Yeah, that was one I that’s right. 00:34:03 Dave : That’s right. Yeah. That’s yeah, totally. That was yeah, I had, I had eight steelhead come to the fly today, even though even though I didn’t hook any. 00:34:10 Jim: Yeah, didn’t hook a single one, but I moved eight of them today and it was exactly right. 00:34:15 Dave : Yeah, that’s pretty funny. Yeah. We, uh, I mean, is that, you know, do you on the Mackenzie when you’re fishing for steelhead, are you getting a lot of action? I mean, I know it changes with numbers and things like that, but is, is it kind of one fish a day. A pretty good day on the Mackenzie. 00:34:29 Jim: Yeah. I’d say one to two maybe like as the season really primes into it, two or three in a day is a pretty good day, but generally a one to hand, I feel like is a really good day. Swinging flies for steelhead. 00:34:42 Dave : Okay. And you fish sounds like the Mackenzie. I mean between that and the Willamette, are you fishes the Mackenzie kind of more the place you’re spending more time? 00:34:50 Jim: Yeah, it’s literally my backyard, so I don’t have to drive far. Yeah. That’s right. I have a boat ramp just like a quarter mile up my street. So I just put in at the boat ramp and go unless I want to go do a different boat ramp. So it’s hard to beat the commute when it’s so close to go fish like the Willamette, or I’ll even go sometimes up to Portland and fish the clock in the sandy. Because I really like fishing those rivers and yeah, make a trip down to the rogue to go see Anne’s family and fish the river down there. And so I do, and obviously the North Umpqua trip. That’s amazing. 00:35:27 Dave : Yeah, yeah. The North. Exactly. Yeah. There’s a lot of you’re kind of in the middle really kind of in the middle of it, you know, you got, you got the north. If you’re looking at it, you got the south, you’re, you’re in a pretty good spot and you got the Mackenzie right there in your back door. 00:35:39 Jim: Also, uh, smallmouth bass fishing on the Umpqua. 00:35:43 Dave : Oh, right. Yeah. The Umpqua, the mainstem. 00:35:45 Jim: Yeah. Go down and catch like a hundred fish in a day on a fly rod. It’s pretty awesome. 00:35:50 Dave : Yeah, yeah, I’ve done that a few times. I feel like that’s probably as good smallmouth bass fishing as anywhere in the maybe the, the world or not the world, but maybe the country. Right. You feel like the activity. 00:36:02 Jim: Yeah, totally. Unless you go to the John day, I would say those two are pretty much on par with each other on your smallmouth bass day. 00:36:11 Dave : Experience the waters of Bristol Bay at Togiak River Lodge, where fly fishing meets Alaska’s rugged beauty. This is the place to complete the Alaska Grand Slam with all five salmon species rainbow trout, Arctic char and more. Where each day offers a new Alaskan adventure, you can visit Togiak lodge dot com right now to start planning your Bristol Bay experience with Togiak River Lodge. If Belize is on your bucket list for a flat trip, take a look at Blue Bonefish Lodge. You’ll be fishing more than four hundred square miles of flats right along the Belize Barrier Reef. Clear water and endless opportunity. They offer all inclusive packages. Whether you’re focused on fishing every day or planning a trip with the family. You can learn more right now and start planning your trip at Blue Bonefish, Belize dot com. That’s Blue Bonefish, Belize dot com. Check them out right now. Well, tell me this on. We talked a little bit about flies, but what would be. We talked about a few. If you had to put together a handful of flies and let’s just stick to the trout, you know, on the Mackenzie. What would be your top list of maybe five or ten flies that you’d have to have there? And we could talk about, you know, whatever nymph, wet flies, anything. 00:37:22 Jim: Uh, I’ll start with dry flies. I would go with a chubby dropper. So I’ve been really liking, uh, Montana fly company came out with the double stack chubbies. 00:37:32 Dave : Okay. 00:37:32 Jim: And I really like those. They float the best of any chubby all day long. Even if the person is just dragging the fly underwater, it’s still gonna float all day. 00:37:43 Dave : Oh, really? And that’s like two double stack, double stack, like two foams. 00:37:46 Jim: Foam. Yeah. 00:37:47 Dave : Yep. 00:37:47 Jim: Okay, so that’ll be my chubby on top. And then underneath it, I’ll put like a size fourteen or twelve twenty incher. Yeah. I’d say twenty inches is probably going to be my biggest confidence fly there. 00:38:00 Dave : Okay. 00:38:00 Jim: And then for my nymphing rig, I’ll do a Mega Prince or a Pat’s rubber legs, and then a twenty incher or a Holy Grail caddis underneath it, and a size fourteen or twelve for both. Now that I got those two out of the way. Wet flies. Yeah. Uh, so we have the McKinsey Green Caddis that comes off in the spring, and that’s like a size eight caddis. And it’s awesome and it’s amazing. And it, it’s like the bug that was made for swinging. 00:38:30 Dave : And it’s called the McKinsey green. 00:38:32 Jim: Yep. And between that and a March brown in the spring, swinging wet flies is amazing. That’s probably one of my trout spey rod gets the most use is in the spring when those bugs are coming off together. 00:38:45 Dave : Gotcha. And is the spring. What is the timing of the spring? When does the spring start and end? 00:38:49 Jim: I’d say like mid to late March, depending on how the weather is doing. This year has been weird, which you are well aware of. Yep. But, uh, and then the March Browns just start coming off late February, but they’re really going about that time. And then the green Mackenzie Caddis start coming off around that, like April into May. And then they last for a little while too. And so you can combine those two bugs on a wet fly rig and swing them. And you can have a really epic day and. 00:39:20 Dave : Get. 00:39:21 Jim: Beautiful wild rainbows. 00:39:22 Dave : So swing two flies. 00:39:23 Jim: Yeah. 00:39:24 Dave : Generally, how do you do your dropper when you’re swinging flies. 00:39:27 Jim: Off a tag. 00:39:28 Dave : Off the tag. So just so you’ll put a little tag up above your main fly. 00:39:32 Jim: Yep. And I’ll put the bigger fly on the tag and the smaller one behind it. 00:39:36 Dave : Okay. And just use a surgeon’s knot tag or. 00:39:39 Jim: Yep. Yeah. You do the triple surgeon’s knot because it’s easier for me than a blood knot. 00:39:44 Dave : That’s cool. Yeah. I’m just thinking as you’re talking about this Davey Watson, who’s kind of one of the wet fly, you know, not necessarily swinging, although he does everything, but he was describing the tag and which one he uses, whether the lower and the and I can’t remember right now. Right. Is it does that matter to you whether you use the top or bottom tag? 00:40:00 Jim: I like putting at least when I’m fishing like insect wet flies. Not like a yeah, like a slump buster or something, you know. So we’re just sticking with bugs? Yeah. Uh, I like having the bigger bug above because it generally will get the attention, but it won’t always get eaten. And then they see that smaller bug and they’re like, oh, I’ll go for that one. 00:40:21 Dave : Right? 00:40:22 Jim: Does that make sense? 00:40:23 Dave : Yeah it does. 00:40:24 Jim: The way my brain works, I don’t know how a trout brain works. 00:40:27 Dave : No, no. Do you put it on the and then on the tag. Does it go on the tag that’s going down towards your fly or the tag that’s going towards your rod. 00:40:34 Jim: Going towards the rod. So towards the rod, a little bit of a bend on it to keep it from getting tangled up. 00:40:39 Dave : Yep. Gotcha. Okay. And so that’s and then on the green caddis, is that kind of a, um, how do you describe that pattern? Is that like more of a, it’s a wet fly. 00:40:48 Jim: Yeah, yeah. I, uh, the way I tie it is I use hairline makes a, a specific McKinsey green caddis rabbit dubbing. 00:40:58 Dave : Okay. Which is kind of a bright it’s almost like a bright green. How would you describe that green, right? 00:41:02 Jim: Yeah. It’s like a bright bluish green. 00:41:04 Dave : Bluish green. 00:41:05 Jim: Yeah, yeah. And, uh, then I’ll do a silver rib on it with a silver tag. Uh, I’ll do a Hungarian Hungarian partridge collar. And then I use medium done deer hair for a very sparse wing on it. So it kind of floats a little bit at first, but then that deer hair doesn’t float as well as elk hair. So it will get a little bit of water soaked into it, and it’ll start sinking and just swinging perfectly in that like foot to surface film area. 00:41:34 Dave : That’s awesome. 00:41:35 Jim: And that’s. 00:41:35 Dave : Awesome. 00:41:36 Jim: That’s oh God, it just makes me happy thinking about it. 00:41:39 Dave : I know I’m looking at here. I’m actually I just searched, I found a actually a caddis fly shop video and it’s got this one has a little bit of, they call it a hidden bead. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it’s pretty cool. So it’s got the, the body, everything like you said, but it’s got a bead and then the partridge is over the bead. Right. So it makes it swim or whatever. Breathe a little bit. 00:41:58 Jim: Yeah, that’s probably my favorite March Brown fly for sure. 00:42:01 Dave : Oh, and then you can tie it in any color, right? Yeah. Brown. Right. That’s cool. So it’s a little, it’s kind of like, um, you know, it’s a little wet fly, but it’s got the wing, the deer hair wing. So it’s almost like a, I always think of the Elkhart caddis. The difference is the Elkhart has got a bunch of hackle on it. Right. Yeah. And elk air wing. 00:42:18 Jim: Help it float this. We’re just letting sinks. We don’t do those things. 00:42:22 Dave : Let it sink. So when you’re fishing that on the swing, is it a forty five and a cross and swinging it down if you’re doing that or out of the boat. 00:42:28 Jim: Generally, unless it’s a little deeper run, then I’ll cast it a little bit upriver and let it sink for just a little longer before it comes tight. 00:42:35 Dave : Right. Do you ever put on the mending on it? Is it better? Do you put more upstream or downstream mends or does it depend depend on the current? Are you trying to speed it up? 00:42:43 Jim: It depends on the current. I’ve been really working on just getting my fly fishing as as soon as it hits the water, unless I’m trying to do the like, I’m getting it deeper and casting up higher. But in general, I like to cast at an angle that I know is going to get that fly swinging right away. Yeah, I want it to be fishing as soon as it hits the water, especially for trout, because sometimes the trout just see that fly hit and then it starts moving and you’ll get a grab within that first like few seconds of it even being in the water. So in my opinion, it’s important to really get that fly fishing immediately, right? 00:43:22 Dave : Get it going. So speed is not a problem. You don’t have to. Yeah. Get it going. No. Okay. And what’s the hit like when we know kind of we’ve heard about the steelhead hit. What’s the trout hit like. Is it similar to a steelhead when it’s on the swing. 00:43:34 Jim: I almost feel like like with steelhead when they’re committed to it. You don’t have a choice. You know. And like it just it’s instant energy. It’s instant aggression. Like, you know, you’re in and you’re going with trout. They’ll kind of peck at it sometimes as they’re going. That’s why, like when you were doing that John, uh, John interview you were talking about how the throttles just kind of peck at it. I’ve noticed if you don’t react to that peck and just let it keep swinging, that trout will come back and eventually either it’ll give up or it’ll like commit and then right into the fight, like they kind of check it out a little bit first. 00:44:12 Dave : Gotcha. Yeah. They pick at a little bit, they tap it or check it out. Yeah, yeah. That’s interesting. I’m trying to think now back to the comparisons with steelhead where, you know, I’ve had situations where yeah, I mean, that happens occasionally where you get a steelhead that on the same swing might hit it four times and then it hooks up. Right. That’s a rare, I think usually you’ll get a, you’ll get a tip and then you’ll put the same cast back and it might hook up later. 00:44:35 Jim: And I try to stress to my guests how important it is to not react until, you know, the fish is there. And it’s such a hard thing for anybody to learn. When you’re feeling any positive energy on your rod, to not give energy back into it and just let it keep working and doing its thing until that fish figures it out. You know what I mean, right? Like you really have to keep working. Yep. I read a thing the other day. Fly fishing doesn’t teach you patience. It punishes the lack of. And that. Really? 00:45:10 Dave : Oh, right. 00:45:10 Jim: Yeah. Like, you really just have to force yourself to hold and wait. Let it go. Yep. 00:45:16 Dave : Let it keep swinging. 00:45:17 Jim: Yep. Until something is really there. Don’t do anything. 00:45:22 Dave : Right. Let it swing. So if you’re getting something, you’re definitely not setting the hook. You’re just letting it go. And maybe it hits it again. And then do you do the same thing for trout? If you think it’s trout, just put the same cast back and swing it through there again. 00:45:34 Jim: Yep, exactly. 00:45:35 Dave : Yeah. 00:45:35 Jim: Um, trout in particular, I, I won’t put I love trout, but I’m not going to put as much work into trying to get a trout to commit to a fly. I’ll just keep moving and find the next. It’s steelhead are harder to find and it’s especially hard to find one that wants to play. Those ones I’ll put in more work and I’ll back up. Or change flies or both. Or I’ll work that water a little bit more once I know a fish is there, or let it rest for a little bit and let that fish settle back down and then go at it again. Like you have options to put more work into a steelhead. I generally don’t put a lot of work into the trout like that, because I can go find another trout. 00:46:13 Dave : You find another trout. What are the are there some pretty decent size trout? Because I always think of the the West versus the east side, you know, the east side of the Cascades, you get a lot more food. The McKenzie’s kind of on the west, right. But it’s got. Talk about that a little bit. Are you getting some pretty decent sized rainbows out there? 00:46:30 Jim: You can find, especially in the spring and the fall when the bugs are starting to go again, you can find some really nice eighteen nineteen inch wild rainbows on the McKenzie. Okay, uh, general wild rainbows are going to go from tiny little guys like any fish that’s growing, but the average size that you’ll hook into are twelve to sixteen, Sixteen seventeen inches, right? Which is yeah, which is awesome. I’ve landed one the whole time I’ve been fishing the Mackenzie that was twenty one and a half inches. I actually took the time to measure that one and that was an amazing fish. 00:47:03 Dave : Yeah. That’s huge. That’s huge. Yeah. They’re just not. And that’s the thing that they’re not going to have as much food as, say, you know, a Missouri River fish or some fish where, you know, there’s a lot more growing season, right? Yeah, totally. That’s the case. Or Missouri is different. That’s not a good example because that’s a super tail water. I mean, the Mackenzie essentially is tail water too, right? Is it? Yeah. But it’s got a dam above it, right. It’s got the dam, but it’s kind of like it’s got a lot of spring fed action too, right? 00:47:27 Jim: Yeah. It has three dams on it. The Leaburg Dam, which is the one I’ve referred to a few times, is a dam. Whatever goes into it comes out of it. That doesn’t. Yeah. Yep. Uh, through dam, I think it’s called. And then, uh, we have the Cougar Dam and the trail Bridge dam. Those two are the ones that, uh, control flooding and our water reservoirs, and those ones are the ones that mitigate the flows of the river. 00:47:54 Dave : Right. So the flow is pretty stable throughout the year. 00:47:56 Jim: For the most part. Yeah. They try to keep it at that like two zero zero zero mark all summer. And then eventually they turn off the water when the rainy season is coming again and it drops down to like seventeen, sixteen hundred at the end of summer. And then it’ll once the rainy season comes, then it bumps back up and then it’s good again. 00:48:15 Dave : And what’s your average flow throughout the year? 00:48:17 Jim: Uh, throughout the spring. It’s pretty locked at that two thousand, give or take one hundred cfs. 00:48:22 Dave : Mhm. 00:48:22 Jim: Um, and then the winter it’s fishable from one. The rainy season is here. So fall through spring. I’d say comfortably fishing at like five thousand cfs is going to be a nice flow to be able to do some good fishing on the river. 00:48:37 Dave : Okay, great. Well, we grabbed some flies from you and we’re going to do a little rapid fire round as we get out of here. We’ve been going back to this a little bit because I’ve been missing it, the rapid fire. but. So we’ll put a little list of those flies you mentioned. Any other flies you want to throw on there first, as we get started here that we miss, you mentioned the double stacked chubby twenty incher, Mega prints patch, rubber Holy Grail caddis, and then the two March brown like green caddis. What would you call that style of the green caddis March brown of that style of fly. 00:49:05 Jim: Uh, that would be a wet fly. 00:49:07 Dave : Yeah, just a wet fly. 00:49:08 Jim: I mean, you can fish them as dry flies too, and I do all the time, but, uh, the wet fly is probably my key. 00:49:15 Dave : Okay, perfect. And, um. Okay, well, let’s do a little rapid fire round, and then we’ll take it out of here on what we have going. So. Well, first off, just on that fly, anything else that you wouldn’t leave home without that we missed on that list. 00:49:26 Jim: Um, for trout, that’s probably my like go to list right there. If I was going to go fish the Mackenzie with a limited amount of flies, which I never have a limited amount of flies, but if I did, those would be the flies that I would go to. 00:49:40 Dave : Okay. All right. Perfect. And dry fly fishing, nymph fishing and wets. You can only pick one for the rest of the time. Which one are you going with? 00:49:47 Jim: Wet. 00:49:48 Dave : Okay. Wets definitely wets. All right. 00:49:50 Jim: Um, I might throw a slump buster in there, too. 00:49:53 Dave : Oh, yeah. The slump buster. 00:49:54 Jim: I forgot about that one until just now. 00:49:56 Dave : We’ve heard that one before. Okay, we’ll add the slump buster to our list. There. 00:49:59 Jim: It’s just a great fly to have. 00:50:01 Dave : What is the slump, buster? Maybe just give us clarify on that one. 00:50:03 Jim: Well, I tie it with, uh, a pine squirrel tail. 00:50:07 Dave : Oh, yeah. 00:50:08 Jim: And then pine squirrel for the collar. I also put, uh, a red hen collar behind, like, as a secondary collar behind it to give it like the gilling. And then I do like a, that tan UV or a pearl UV ice tub for the body. 00:50:28 Dave : Yeah. And the ice. Okay, good. And there’s, there’s a bunch of different variations on that. So that’s a slump buster. What is the, uh, you know, you’ve got a new client on the boat. What’s a typical mistake you see that people are making when they first get out there. 00:50:41 Jim: Uh, on the steelhead setting it as soon as they experience some. Yep. Which everybody does. Everybody that starts steelheading. That’s what you do. And it’s just a mistake. Everybody has to learn through. Um, for the trout, it’s just um general mistake they make, probably not fishing the fly as confidently as someone that would have a lot of experience, like just not getting that mend and really working that right that you’re on. 00:51:13 Dave : Fishing the fly. Yeah. Like actually fishing the fly. 00:51:16 Jim: Yeah. Stuff that experience teaches you. And I try to slow them down and help them and guide them in the direction that they can go to be more successful too. But thankfully, trout are forgiving and they will eat almost anything if they’re in the mood for it. 00:51:30 Dave : That’s true. Yeah, but steelhead aren’t as much. That’s why it’s so important to be confident and fish to fly. Right. Okay, good. So that’s a good tip for sure. And, um, what is your we mentioned hatches a little bit. What is your favorite kind of hatch out there on the Mackenzie throughout the year. 00:51:45 Jim: March. That’s it. 00:51:46 Dave : Yeah. 00:51:47 Jim: And the green Mackenzie. And then when the fall comes in October once well, like September ish, I’m going to guess this year the October caddis because we have a really good October caddis on the Mackenzie two in the fall. 00:52:00 Dave : Oh you do? The big caddis. Yep. Yep. And is that where you’re fishing. Just throw on a similar fly just a little bit bigger as that green caddis and with orange. 00:52:08 Jim: Yeah. Basically take that green caddis. Put an orange body on it and throw it. 00:52:12 Dave : Yeah. Do you make it bigger or do you tie it smaller? 00:52:14 Jim: Same exact size because the green caddis is a size eight and the October. 00:52:19 Dave : Oh wow. The green is a size eight. 00:52:21 Jim: Yeah, that’s what I was saying. It’s like a big bug. 00:52:24 Dave : Oh, wow. So you got this green cast. We haven’t heard much about this. So you’ve got a big October caddis size fly that comes out in the in the spring. Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. 00:52:35 Jim: It starts a little earlier than the salmon fly hatch does. And then it goes during the salmon fly hatch. So while everybody’s over on the Deschutes chasing the salmon fly hatch, we’re enjoying a size eight caddis on the Mackenzie. 00:52:50 Dave : Wow. 00:52:50 Jim: And we can fish from the boat. 00:52:52 Dave : And are you swinging that fly? 00:52:54 Jim: We can swing it. We can do dry flies. We can do whatever we want to get a fish to eat one. It’s pretty awesome, right? 00:53:01 Dave : And and when you hit the October with the October casts, are you fishing that the same way? 00:53:06 Jim: Yep. Either dry or wet or wet. 00:53:08 Dave : So you can just swing it basically. Yeah. Yep. I always wondered about that on the October. It seems like, you know, any just cast in general, what’s the most effective way to fish a caddis? You know. 00:53:19 Jim: Probably just the traditional dry fly. But, uh, I really like swinging big caddis for fish. I think it’s just again, I wet fly swing is the name of your podcast. That’s right. That’s literally the reason I started listening to you. I was like, oh, this guy, there you go. A, a spear guy like me. I’m gonna. You know what I mean? I started listening to you like, forever ago when you first. Oh, you did it. And you had like April on. 00:53:45 Dave : Sure. Back at the start. 00:53:46 Jim: Yeah. Like literally I’ve been listening to you for that long. 00:53:49 Dave : That’s amazing. Yeah. That’s right. We were all steelhead. We were pretty much all steelhead and trout the first year, I think. Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. Well did we lose you a little bit as we got into all around the world. Sort of random. 00:54:01 Jim: I mean you have to evolve and you know what I mean. You didn’t lose me. It just didn’t interest me as much. So I tuned back in when it is. 00:54:09 Dave : Yeah. You see one that you. 00:54:10 Jim: Like, information that I want to pay attention to. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. 00:54:13 Dave : That’s perfect. No. So this is good. So we talked October caddis. Um, well, I’ve got a couple more for you here and we’ll have a random one or two and then we’ll get out of here. Um so we mentioned, you know, materials, you know, fly tying. It sounds like it’s a big part of what you do. What is one fly tying material that is worth spending a little extra money on? If you had to pick one, what’s your big fly tying material? 00:54:33 Jim: Dry fly hackles. 00:54:34 Dave : Oh yeah. Hackles. Yeah. That’s right. They’re not cheap. 00:54:37 Jim: When you look at the price tag And you see how pretty that hackle cape is on the wall and it’s like two hundred bucks. And you, you really like dry fly fishing. Get that cape, right? 00:54:48 Dave : It’s worth it. It’s worth it to get the good cape. 00:54:50 Jim: It’ll last you so long. It’s so worth it. Yeah, and same with steelhead flies. Like the materials for steelhead flies are such a deep rabbit hole to crawl into. Not that the fish care, but you tying a fly with like really cool materials just feels good when you’re on the water and you’re swinging it. 00:55:10 Dave : Yeah, it’s worth it. Nice. Um, when you’re going to the water, you get out early. Sounds like you’re getting going, you know, eight or whatever that is. Are you getting coffee before fishing or are you straight to the river? 00:55:21 Jim: Uh, I always stop off for coffee first. 00:55:23 Dave : Okay. Yeah. And you’re stopping off. You’re not making it at home. 00:55:26 Jim: Oh, I make a cup at home that I drink at home. But then I also get another cup of coffee at a little place on the river. 00:55:32 Dave : There you. 00:55:32 Jim: Go. Uh, in the town of Leaburg. There’s a little coffee shop there that I enjoy that I stop off for coffee and they. They always give me good juju for the day. 00:55:41 Dave : There you go. Yeah. That’s sweet. So so Libra in Libra is kind of a little town up the Mackenzie from Eugene. 00:55:47 Jim: Yeah. It’s a little town on the Mackenzie. 00:55:48 Dave : Yeah. Okay, so we got Libra coffee. We got that going. What’s your. So switch it at the end of the day, what’s your go to beverage? At the end of the day after you get off the river? 00:55:56 Jim: Uh. 00:55:58 Dave : Arnold Palmer oh, Arnold Palmer. 00:56:01 Jim: I make some tea out of a black tea, and then I make lemonade and I mix them together myself. So I do like three quarters tea in, like, a quarter lemonade. Oh, that’s probably my favorite summer drink. 00:56:13 Dave : Oh, yeah. Right. So that’s a so tea and lemonade. And then if you wanted to put alcohol in it, what would it be? The alcohol you’d put. 00:56:20 Jim: I don’t know, I don’t drink, okay. If my wife was here she’d be able to tell me, but she’d know. Okay. I know that it’s a thing. I just don’t know what it is. 00:56:27 Dave : You just don’t know, right? Yeah. So the Arnold Palmer is actually just tea. Black tea and lemonade. Sounds pretty good. 00:56:33 Jim: Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. It’s my favorite summer drink. 00:56:36 Dave : You get a little caffeine blast and then. Yeah, exactly. That’s good. Yeah, there’s a lot of great drinks out there. There was one up in Canada when we were up there in Saskatchewan. Oh, man. What was it? It was like a mix between. It was quite a drink. It had coffee. It was like half coffee. And then the rest of it was Kahlua, Baileys and vodka. 00:56:56 Jim: Oh, that sounds intense. 00:56:57 Dave : Yeah. But a bunch of coffee. But up in Canada, that’s where they actually get it in a can. It comes in a can too, if you want. 00:57:03 Jim: But do you remember the name of that? 00:57:05 Dave : Oh, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t remember what it was, but we’ll put a link in the show notes because I know shout out to Josh who was our guide that week. This guy was super awesome. He had one of these like, uh, handlebar mustaches. Oh, it was so classic. Yeah. This guy. 00:57:18 Jim: I’m sure someone’s listening to this right now and they’re like yelling at their device that they’re listening on. It’s called this. 00:57:25 Dave : Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There’s lots, especially our Canadian friends up there. They know exactly what I’m talking about. But but yeah, it’s pretty cool. So you got a bunch of good drinks out there. Um. So good. Well, yeah. I mean, I think we’ve kind of covered what anything we missed today. I know we’ve kind of hit on a bunch of things. Steelhead trout. If somebody’s coming in there, they could obviously connect with you on a trip and any other tips or tactics or anything we missed on giving them more success out there. 00:57:49 Jim: Uh, just go have a fun day. Yeah. The goal is to catch fish, but the real purpose that you’re out there is just to get outside. Enjoy that part too. 00:57:59 Dave : Exactly. Yeah, I think that’s I think we all get caught up sometimes, especially with, you know, the podcast. I love when we, you know, do these, right? Because you get some tips and new flies and techniques and stuff. But at the end of the day, you just got to get out and experiment. Right? And that’s kind of the fun part of it. When you do something that maybe wasn’t something you read, you just try differently. And it worked. Mhm. That seems like that’s kind of dude. 00:58:20 Jim: I love when that happens. Everybody told me not to do this. I’m going to do it anyway. Right. And it works. And you’re like, ha, yeah. 00:58:28 Dave : I know. Are you always doing that? Do you find when you’re out there? I remember I fished the Mackenzie a few times actually, and I struggle a little bit. You know, this was back in the day, but I remember just not nailing it, you know. And we did the same thing. We drifted and floated it. But do you find when you’re out there you’ve got stuff dialed. You’re a guide so you know where the fish are. Do you are you trying different things each day when you’re out there? Maybe trying new spots, checking stuff out? 00:58:50 Jim: I try not to experiment when I have guests on the boat unless I’m really struggling. But it’s usually an experiment that I’ve done on my own and with my guide buddies or my fishing buddies a few times, but definitely with the fishing buddies and the other guides. When we’re out enjoying the day, then we just pull out whatever we want to do and just play with it. And those days are pretty fun. 00:59:12 Dave : Yeah, that’s good, that’s good. 00:59:13 Jim: A lot of my friends end up with random flies that I’ve tied. I’m like, go try this, catch it something. 00:59:18 Dave : Right? Well, you got the pink, right. I know you mentioned pink, so that’s definitely a sweet. 00:59:21 Jim: I love pink. Pink is one of my favorites. 00:59:24 Dave : That’s a cool color. That’s a color that you sometimes people are like totally against and sometimes that they love pink, right? Pink seems to be like this X factor. 00:59:32 Jim: A nymph with a pink bead has landed me the biggest white fish I’ve ever seen in my life, which was almost thirty inches. 00:59:38 Dave : Oh, wow. 00:59:39 Jim: On the Mackenzie. 00:59:40 Dave : Holy cow, you caught a thirty inch whitefish. 00:59:42 Jim: Yeah, well, it was twenty eight something whitefish. Here, here’s a good thing. Yeah, Whitefish are an underrated species. I don’t know why whitefish get such a hate from so many people. They are such a cool fish. Native fight. Really good. They’re wild. They’re native. 01:00:00 Dave : They’re big. 01:00:01 Jim: They can be big. They’re just a cool fish. 01:00:04 Dave : Yeah. They are. 01:00:05 Jim: Did it. It’s pulling on the end of your line and it’s putting a fight. It might not be a rainbow trout, but it’s a whitefish. And those are really cool. And they’re indicator species. Like they can’t handle warm water. They can’t handle polluted water. They’re very sensitive to those things. So if you have them in a river, that means your river is at least healthy enough to have them there, which we should in this day and age really appreciate. 01:00:27 Dave : Yeah. 01:00:28 Jim: Love the whitefish, right? 01:00:30 Dave : No. Yeah. Me too. What about suckers? Do you guys have any suckers in that stretch? 01:00:33 Jim: We do have suckers, and I wish that they would eat flies more often instead of just like that random once in a while, right? And they fight really good for like, forty five seconds. And then they’re just like, all right, get this over. 01:00:44 Dave : And that’s it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s right. Yeah. 01:00:47 Jim: It’s like, oh, I got a steelhead or something really big. 01:00:49 Dave : Really big. 01:00:50 Jim: Yeah, yeah. And then you like it just stops fighting and you’re just reeling it in and you’re like, oh, I’m sorry buddy. Let’s get this hook out of you and get you on your way. 01:00:58 Dave : Right, right. That’s it. What’s your best month for steelhead? You can only pick one. 01:01:04 Jim: Only one. Well, my birthday is in October, so I’m going October. 01:01:08 Dave : October. Yeah. There you go. And and is October a lot different than as far as the fishing than, say fishing July or August? 01:01:15 Jim: Well, I feel like the fish get more trouty as they’re in the water system. They kind of develop back to their trout brain a little bit better. So they’re more forgiving, which is nice. Mhm. Yeah. They’re more willing to eat something. Maybe they’re just more angry because they’ve been in fresh water for a while and they’re just like, everybody sucks. I’m eating anything that gets in front of my face, you know what I mean? They’re just crabby. 01:01:39 Dave : That’s it. So they get so as the season goes on, they get a little more even maybe. Well, they just changed a little bit. They’ve been in the river, so they’re changing a little bit. 01:01:47 Jim: Yeah. And there’s like a chrome steelhead in the beginning of the year is awesome. But there is something cool just grabbing a fish that looks like a rainbow, but it’s like three feet long. It’s pretty cool. 01:02:00 Dave : That is cool. Yeah. This is awesome. Well, Jim, I think we could leave it there for today and send everybody out to Dead Man’s Guide service dot com. I think we’re going to do a little research and try to get a little more history there. But this is awesome because I feel like, you know, for me, like I said, the Mackenzie isn’t I mean, there’s lots of trout. But again, like anything, I think picking up a guy a day with you or anybody really out there to drop that learning curve a little bit is helpful, you know? So I think we’ll we’ll send people there and yeah, until we meet again or meet for the first time. We’ll be in touch with you. And thanks again for all the listeners to the podcast as well over the years. 01:02:32 Jim: You’re so welcome, Dave. Thanks for your time and I appreciate you. 01:02:37 Dave : All right. If there was one takeaway today, uh, it might be that confidence grows from understanding on the water and to not rush through your day to experience and try new things. As Jim says, that’s always the best, uh, method and thing to do while on the water. You can check in with Jim at Deadmans guide service, and you can check with him for opportunities to fish either this summer or later in the year. If you get a chance, you’re interested in joining us on upcoming trips, you can always ping me at David dot com. And if you’re new, as always, you can send me an email. We’d love to hear if we have new listeners out there. Always great to talk to people, so please send me an email, Dave at web dot com if you haven’t checked in or it’s been a while, we’d love to hear from you. See what we can do to make your fishing day or month better. And that’s where I’m gonna leave it today. I got a lot to do. As always, we’re building and preparing for our next trip here. We’ve got a big one with Craig on Denmark Lodge and all the crews for the dry fly school heading to Montana to fish the Missouri we mentioned in the episode today. Really excited about this getting out there. Um, we’re going to have a big week coming up here, so please check in with me if you have any questions on trips or upcoming schools. And, and I’m gonna leave it there. Thanks again for checking in and all your support. Hope you’re having a great morning, afternoon or evening and we’ll see you and talk to you on the next episode. Have a good one. 01:03:57 Speaker 5: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit wet fly dot com.