GLD #14 | The Skunked Angler’s Survival Guide with Jeff Liskay – Great Lakes Dude Podcast

Jeff (2s): Hey, hey, this is your Great Lakes dude, Jeff Liskay coming to you on the Wet Fly Swinging podcast, where we’re gonna be going rage angler on all things Great lakes from gear fly big water and swinging flies. Of course, if it concerns the Great Lakes, we’ve got you covered. So stay tuned to this next episode. This podcast is gonna be a solo one. It came from some of the anglers that I meet and connect with at the boat ramp on the river, maybe at a fly shop. And they’re like, Hey, I, I’m having a really tough season this year, and the last time I was out, You know, I got skunked. Jeff (45s): Well, You know, I tell them all the time, getting skunked is sort of sucks, but it’s actually a good thing because you can learn a lot from getting those skunk days. What could you have did to change things? And believe me, I get skunked sometimes too, maybe not as much as the average weekend angler, but You know, hopefully as a professional I can limit those days, right? So this episode dives into when the wheels fall off the bus and you’re on the water, having a tough day. You know, making small to major adjustments can dramatically affect the outcome of your day. Jeff (1m 30s): And that’s what guides are really good at, is making these little adjustments, knowing when to move from location to location, looking at the angling pressure that surrounds us, and trying to make the best decision on the water for that given moment. Correct? Sometimes we’re not, right, sometimes we fail miserably too. So we do have tough days. I’m blessed to be on the water 250 days a year as a guide or host, or sharing my passion and enjoying the camaraderie of each and every angler. And I think that’s the driving force for me as a guide, is that camaraderie with every angler that comes to either maybe, You know, check the boxes to catch their first steelhead, or maybe it’s just to explore the waters that I have to offer, right? Jeff (2m 23s): But, You know, that’s the joy of guiding to me. You know, my office is in the great outdoors embracing mother nature, You know, and what she has planned for me, right? She’s a double-edged sword. It can be the most epic beautiful day on the water where you just say, man, I, I love my office. Or some days it is so harsh that you wanna cry for mommy. There’s just some of those days that I was just like, man, this is just not a good career choice, but You know, I’m here, let’s deal with it. But one thing for sure, You know, mother nature always wins. Just like the house at a casino, you might think you’re winning, You know, all the time, but in reality, the house is gonna win back and get all your money. Jeff (3m 8s): And Mother nature will always win because she does rule the house. Let’s chat a little bit about my struggles of my own on my season. And this is from stocking. Steelhead changes from strains from fall to spring strains, it’s water temperatures, air temperatures, You know, and how it affected my season and how I adjusted. And a few things that I took away from some of the really tough days and how I managed to pull a rabbit outta my hat, or how I managed to like say, I’m sorry. You know, it was a bad day And I, I can try tomorrow even better. Jeff (3m 51s): But in general, I think this season from steelhead fishing to my warm water season, which I’m getting ready to wrap up here in the next day or so, I think I learned more this season on how to be a really good guide where the fishing’s really good. We get through, I just go through the motions of like, You know, go through my milk, run, catch the fish. Hey, great day, let’s go and see you next year. I really had to put on my thinking hat And I really had to be careful on the decisions I made to be a, had to turn into a successful day. My steelhead season was mostly a fall strain, winter strain, and we had fish around, but it wasn’t the huge numbers, right? Jeff (4m 35s): So that, that makes things a little more challenging, right? Because you have fewer fish in the system where normally it’s fish in every run and it’s pretty easy fishing around the runoff rivers and steelhead alley. But I will say this was a challenging season. There were a few runs that held fish, there was lots of runs that didn’t, we had a few good weeks of really good, easy fishing, but in general the fishing was tough. And then just when I thought the season was gonna end, we had this mild spring with the water temperature stayed, You know, within reason within the fifties and low sixties, which is perfectly fine for our strain of fish that are coming outta Lake Erie moving into my streams. Jeff (5m 19s): And lo and behold, I’m switching over to start guiding on the lake. And here we get this great run of fish going into May, which is not uncommon, believe me, it’s not uncommon to get this run of fish, but I didn’t think they were coming most of the other anglers dent. So it was a little bit of a bonus. They, they come in really quickly, they set up shop, they spawned, but we had a short period of pre spawn in a short period when they were done spawning that we could take advantage of some super normal late season spring steelhead fishing. So, You know, mother nature is in control of the water temperatures, and of course, You know, if the water temperatures spiked up the, the high sixties, You know, those fish never would’ve came. Jeff (6m 4s): So it was just interesting the way that was. So then my big water season, we had so many cold fronts and just lots and lots of rain, made a lot of turban, water conditions, big winds, which totally turned Lake Erie upside down a lot of times, less than a foot visibility with big waves. And I was hiding in muddier conditions and the lake temperature started to warm up and then it eventually got close to, You know, maybe 59, 64. It stayed at 64 for a while. I’m thinking, oh, just like normal. Going into the mid time, You know, early spring, going into early summer fishing is gonna pick up and the water temperature jumped up for one or two days close to 70, and the fishing started heating up like normal. Jeff (6m 52s): Then here comes a massive cold front, bunch of rain and a bunch of wind, and the water temperature dropped from 70 to 59 degrees in two days. You talk about adjusting the wheels fell off the bus for me. I was on the struggle bus. Did I catch a few fish? Yes. Did I sort of figure out the program, You know? But it was still not easy fishing, it was more fishing than it was catching. So adjusting to each and every one of those days was interesting. I learned a lot about fly selections and everything else, You know, so this episode, I’m gonna concentrate a little bit on what I learned, right? Jeff (7m 33s): In a few things. Most anglers have this perception that fishing guides get to have a rod in their hand a lot and fish a ton. That’s the farthest thing from the truth. I rarely get to fish myself, and if I do, it’s usually a day that I cancel and it’s nasty conditions. Or if we finish up a little early And I get to stay out for a few hours and poke around and do a little exploring for the next day, You know, I’d, I’d wish to have around my, my hand. But some of the passion that drives me is being able to work through the angler and see the enjoyment of their face of when we figure out the puzzle for the day. Jeff (8m 19s): I, I am a puzzle solvers, You know, I very, very much, I, the mechanics of reeling efficient is not as important to me as being a puzzle solver. Like how can I solve the puzzle for the day or for that, even that hour, You know, even though guides don’t get their, You know, wet their lines, we get the enjoyment and working for skills with the other anglers that we work with or even together a lot of times we work together on our skills trying to approve being better guides in our local area, right? So that networking works very well for us for guides, but also think about networking with the shops and other anglers or social media of course, and that you can sort of trust that sort of, but You know, if you get a good core group of fly, You know, a fly club or something that’s pretty good intel, that really gets you started to take some of these tougher days, You know, turn ’em into a little bit more successful. Jeff (9m 14s): ’cause You know, having more boots on the ground fishing gives you more information, right? One thing for sure is, I think because guys don’t get to fish as much, we’re really good at observing all the little details from what works and what doesn’t work. It’s, it’s funny because we just sit there and watch and watch and watch and then we adjust too. But the way cool thing is sometimes we learn more from the client angler than that they realize, right? It’s just, it’s crazy sometimes, You know, it’s a flies that, that an angler brings. Jeff (9m 56s): Sometimes it might be as little as they just do a little bit different when it comes down to the cadence of their strip or the swinging the fly. They do something and I’m like, oh geez, okay, that worked. I didn’t expect it to, but it worked. So that just puts another little, little memory bank in my cash memory of, You know, what worked that day. Most days, one angler will be more successful than another. If I have two anglers, You know, it’s not because of their skillset, it’s that, that they found the magic key for the day. As a guide, I’m always asking myself, what is that one angler doing to be more successful than the other? Jeff (10m 39s): Is it my location of how I’m putting the boat or how I’m locating them on the river, river, right river, You know, river left? Is it the fly that they’re using? Maybe the leader length? I’m thinking, oh, okay, maybe did I maybe check that leader length, right? Is it the typic X factor, right? Is it, am I sure I got, You know, the same, same typic, You know, ’cause I’m always changing things up and trying new things, or is it maybe the length of their cast if we’re on the big water, is the one casting farther than the other? Or if it’s on the river, is it, are they getting to the far bank and the fish coming from that far seam? You know, I’m, is it the angle of the, of the cast? I’m thinking, oh, is the cast a little more upstream to get a deeper the strip cadence, right? Jeff (11m 25s): I think that’s a huge factor of like, what were they doing to get that warm water fish to chase or that steelhead in the harbor to chase when you’re stripping a streamer, right? You know, what was the water column depth that they were actually fishing? I’m, I’m, I’m watching like crazy, but sometimes it’s hard to tell, right? So, You know, is it they’re mending presentations if they’re on the river, was it a big man or they didn’t mend it? You know, what was the speed of the swing? These are questions you need to ask yourself When things get tough and you’re searching to connect with one or two fish, and believe it or not this, these questions should come, come pretty quickly in the day, if not all the time going through the thought process of what’s going on. Jeff (12m 8s): You know, so I I, it’s funny, my day starts off giving the anglers the skinny on how to present their fly and how I think this will produce the best results. And they start off using my sales pitch, following my every word and directions to the best of their ability doing everything I’ve asked them to do. But nothing’s happening. Not one fish is engaged to their fly. So now I’m thinking, You know, huh, thinking to myself, Hey, You know, there’s someone’s wheel that’s fell off passing me. Then I quickly realize that wheel is my wheel that just fell off. Jeff (12m 51s): And I think, oh boy, it’s time to make adjustments sometimes, You know, it’s like little adjustments, big adjustments, but it’s time for me to think through what’s going on during that, that course of period of time. And I get a lot of questions always asking, You know, how fast do you make these adjustments? And You know, and what makes that decision that you make? Well, there are a little bit of spidey senses as a fishing guide just because we are very intimate with our waters and we’ve been up many roads and got our teeth knocked out with our home waters and we make these adjustments and to the best of our ability. Jeff (13m 34s): But sometimes the fish don’t read our notes and they have other plans for us. But what I like to start out with is three words to think about on every Audi. These three words are execute, evaluate, adjust. This platform of approach can be applied to each and every cast or hour by hour. And if you’re super chilled out, it can be outing to outing. There’s no big rush at all. I live and fish by evaluate every cast and ask myself each cast, did I fish it well and always remember what I did if I en engage with the fish on that cast. Jeff (14m 27s): Very important. When I swing a run with no luck and I’m standing at the tail out, I ask myself, did I fish it well or do I need to go through that again? Ask that question to yourself. Did my casts get where they needed? Was that a rock or was that a funny pulling feeling a stale fish? Was the swing too fast or too slow? Was it the right sink tip or maybe a fly change? These are questions that you have to ask yourself before you move on. First rule never. The break is to remember what you did to get that fish to engage and if you didn’t get it to engage what you might have did wrong in that fishing situation. Jeff (15m 19s): I can’t tell you how many times on the big water and the river after doing a high five, congrats in watching the fish swim away. I ask, Hey, how’d you catch that fish? Fast, slow, deep, You know, what was your casting angle and all other options that might come to my mind. And believe it or not, most of the time the reply is, man, I wish I could remember what I did. And I say, Hey, no big deal. Next time through try to remember You know what you did. It’s super important because little things in details do matter when phishing is tough. Jeff (16m 4s): Let’s start digging into the execute part of the equation. I would recommend to approach each outing by starting off with what worked the last time. If the conditions are the same, You know, until you get a vibe for the day, right? So the main thing is if nothing has really changed and you happen to go out once or twice during the week, it’s much easier to keep a vibe on things. As a casual angler, that is the one thing that guides basically make them a professional. It’s not that our skillset are any better than any other anglers, it’s the fact that we get to string multiple days on the water and really get a pulse for the river system or the lake or whatever mother nature’s doing to affect these fish to be a little more successful. Jeff (16m 57s): When you’re trying to compile all that information on maybe once or twice a month, You know, it can get pretty difficult, but if the conditions have changed, you need to approach every cast like an open book with blank pages. ’cause things start all over again because the book is not the same. You’re gonna go there and the conditions are all different and always be open-minded and be ready to add new words to that day’s book Building a and compiling a book and putting this information in your cast memory. You know, keeping a fishing log is great. I call it the mental book because the, You know, the way our brains are, there’s, it’s super easy for us to say, oh yeah, that didn’t work, or What’s gonna work? Jeff (17m 44s): Still Refer to your cache memory, still refer to your notes or still refer to that last book you wrote from the last outing. But think ahead, what has changed and how to tweak things for these changed conditions, right? Did it get it get clear, did it get cold? What changed? And then how do you have to make that adjustment as you move on through the day before you hit the water for the day? I guess I need to clarify what book we are making, right? It’s so this is where things get tricky, right? Is it a migratory fish species or waters that have a captivated natural population of fish in it? Jeff (18m 27s): It’s one thing to figure out the adjustments needed to be successful if there are fish present, but a totally different story. You know, if you’re trying to time a run of a fish that’s coming in and out of the Great Lakes or the salt, right? You just, you can’t catch fish when they’re not in the system no matter what adjustments you make, right? It’s just one of those deals where if it’s a captivated audience and a river system that have structure that they sort of go by like big brown trout muskie, all those fish have their ambush points, right? Even on the big lake there are harbors and places that the water’s moving and working that are high percentage spots, but You know, it’s still those fish are in that general area where migratory migratory fish, if they’re not on the river, it’s like going to Atlantic salmon fishing, You know, we’re gonna go out fishing today, but there’s no fish in the river mates, so you go fishing anyway, but set achievable expectations for the day and think of it as a hunt one fish at a time and build from there. Jeff (19m 39s): I think so many anglers get caught up in fishing reports or posts that sea, like You know, man, they’re killing them. I’m gonna catch ’em like crazy. That’s really not the case, You know, fishing’s fishing and it’s pretty bold of us to say, Hey, You know, we’re going out on this fishing expedition and these fish should bite when I have this limited amount of time to bite. And then you throw mother nature and as we know, things just don’t work out, You know, at all. When I start building a book, my daily book starts off with casting most of my failures of not having a successful day on the water results in my casting skills as little as I get a rod in my hand is I am dramatically trying to set aside time to improve my casting skills. Jeff (20m 35s): And this is not when life is good and we got beautiful days and there’s no wind and everything’s going good and I’m feeling good and going on record. I would say that majority of most anglers also struggle with their casting skills. I see it on a daily basis And I am not by any means the best caster, but realizing setting goals for yourself, prove your casting one little fault at a time will build a great base foundation for your future outings. Jeff (21m 15s): It’s a win-win situation when you work on your casting skill sets and then you get down to the river, regardless if it’s your two handed casting, you’re double hauling or whatever it is, working on those skill sets, especially if you’re going on a destination trip and you’re paying thousands of dollars and you’re dealing with high winds and salt water conditions, or steelhead two handed, or even just anywhere in the river for accuracy casting between logs. These are all skills that base into your casting skills. So let, let’s chat because it is my high bullet point and it’s on my top of the list improvement list for me and also adjustments, right? Jeff (22m 1s): Learning how to adjust in these conditions that get tough and tough. Just doesn’t mean phishing is tough, they’re not biting or they’re not there. This is realizing that you need to build skillset too. That’s part of being, You know, working through being tough situations. So let’s chat about a few bullet points on wind and fishing that really can make the difference on your day’s outcomes. You know, so many days I will have two anglers on the boat or You know, on the river or using fly gear one using conventional spin gear, right? And I don’t get a lot of them, but I get enough of ’em that I can evaluate what’s going on with the fishery and things, You know, and it’s amazing how much more successful in affecting spinning gear can be. Jeff (22m 58s): But don’t, You know, don’t worry, I’ve had many of fly anglers do just as well or even better at times and having that spin gear buddy say, what the heck is going on? Right? So it it’s, it goes both ways, but I would have to say it leans more towards the conventional angler. They just have, you have way more options. You know, the main factor is really the diameter difference between fly line and mono. We’re fishing a fly line, it’s way thicker, it’s affected by the wind more and that is our, our enemy, right? Jeff (23m 38s): Is the silly wind. You know, in wind in windy conditions, the smaller diameter mono is easier to cast distance. It’s also, You know, super easy to control the presentation because the wind doesn’t affect it as much, right? It has zero virtually wind resistance compared to our fly lines. Fly lines can get really hard to get a great presentation. Distance of the cast is a problem in the wind, it’s always affecting it, You know, the accuracy to your target wind pushes against, You know, the fly line throughout the cast and You know, after the, You know, the fly lands on the water also, right? Jeff (24m 22s): It’s just because we get out there, maybe that wind is pushing against that fly line regardless if we’re swinging a fly, it’s, it’s pushing against it, right? If you’re on the Great Lakes, You know, it’s, you’re trying to cover water is the key, right? And improving your distance of cast, you will cover, You know, more water. You know, you stay away from the boat, you stay at fishing depth longer and don’t, You know, feel like I’m beating up if you can’t cast real long or nothing. Shorter cast have their place, right? Shorter cast for accuracy around river fishing situations. Shorter cast to start out with when you’re swinging a fly, You know, you always don’t wanna be a hero caster bombing it out there, but it’s nice to have that arrow in your, You know, your quiver to be able to cast distance if needed to deal mainly, You know, in windy conditions, right? Jeff (25m 19s): You know, that’s the hard part. When the wind gets windy, things get a little bit, You know, difficult, right? So You know, shorter cast, You know, besides accuracy, they work in shallow waters but it can’t hurt to learn and work on your distance casting. I think that one of the main things that wind does for us when we’re trying to make a presentation or try to cast into the wind, it’s that lack of communication with your rod. You lose continuity of what the rod is trying to do. So you immediately do this erratic speed up or slow down and when you do that, You know, it creates slack in your line. Jeff (26m 2s): You know, the ultimate is we wanna keep tension throughout the cast and that continuity allows us to basically make a nice cast with less effort without, You know, basically getting frustrated also. So You know, what about a fix? So I think from what I’ve seen and, and I’ve experienced it too because I am a hero caster, I have extreme problem of hitting every cast too hard and springing back on my two-handed cast. I have this issue of shooting too much line when I really don’t need that much line or my accuracy at saltwater is not the best, but I realize it and, and I’m trying to do that. Jeff (26m 43s): But the best advice I can give you is slow down and let the wind be your friend. Basically, you think in the way it’s like mind voodoo games is that when it gets windy you automatically think you gotta like hit this rod and You know, basically as hard as you can. And in reality it’s the last thing you wanna do. You just gotta slow down, chill out, You know, if you’re fishing a spay cast, let the wind fill your D loop, You know, and then focus, You know, on narrow loops and lower casting plane for single hand rods, right? It’s just that whole thing of just slowing down, concentrating on making narrow loops with your single hand rod that cut through the wind, maybe lowering the plane of attack. Jeff (27m 33s): You know, they, they say that You know, oh you see salt water anglers, you say, oh You know, a low horizontal casting plane, You know, ’cause the wind is not as strong down by the water. Well it’s not strong down by the land. Well the wind is the same no matter what you are just not throwing the line up in the air to allow the wind to affect it as much ’cause it’s gonna get to your target faster because it’s already low trajectory going in on a lower plane. One cast that You know, I think is crucial for any fly angler to learn that gets you outta multiple tough casting conditions is the Belgium cast or the oval cast. Jeff (28m 16s): You know, this cast has no pause, it’s a continuous motion cast, You know, it keeps tension on your line throughout the casting stroke. Super, super good for heavy weighted flies. It’s basically an aerial eye spa cast. If we were to slow the Belgium cast down with a slight pause, it would literally touch the water form a D loop and then we would go out and make it a anchored cast. So do a little research and look up the oval cast or Belgium cast, super effective cast for a wind coming on your casting shoulder trying to keep the slack outta heavy weighted flies. Jeff (28m 58s): You know, it just has a, a plethora of great things that You know can happen when you go fishing and then learn to cast on your off shoulders regardless if it’s single hand or two hand. Whatever you do, You know, you always wanna keep that fly down wind of you. So really practice, You know, that’s my goal. If I actually do get a chance to go fishing, whatever, what I end up doing is making casts on my non-dominant side, on my dominant side, my non-dominant side and back and forth. If there’s no wind just practicing as I go through a run or if I’m on the boat And I can make these changes just so I have it in my repertoire to basically use if I need it. Jeff (29m 44s): Hey, and don’t be afraid to try using your non-dominant hand on either single hand or two hand, especially two hand. If you’re gonna cast off your left side, put your left hand on top and don’t be afraid to use your left hand on a single hand rod and try it. You’d be surprised if You know how, how easy it might be for some people. I’m not blessed, it’s a struggle for me, but I’ve seen multiple anglers that I’ve sort of said, Hey, give it a shot. And they’re like, Hey, this don’t look too bad. I’m like, yeah, you’re doing pretty good man. And then you need to have a double haul. I mean you can get a little bit of distance, but You know when you have these tough days when mother nature start comes knocking on the door with that wind, You know that double haul will increase your line speed. Jeff (30m 27s): The haul is equation in the single hand is the mirror image of the bottom hand pull of a two-handed rod. They’re at the same exact time, right? It’s that added increase of line speed. And then if you’re a single hand caster that’s trout fishing or whatever, or fish in a small steelhead venue, you do not need a two handed rod. I think everyone who fishes river venues could be even for small mop, you should learn a few basic spay casts. Learn the double spay, you can use the single spay, you can use a snap t whatever you want. Jeff (31m 7s): But learning those few basic casts when you have very, very limited backdrop behind you, rather than using overhead cast will really help your tough fishing days, You know, really go a lot smoother and less frustrating. I think a really big bullet point that I feel is you have to focus a lot of times on line management. And I see when sometimes when you think the fishing’s tough and it’s actually the presentation that we’re working on, right? So when I talk about lying management is for single hand and two handed lately in my warm water venues, it’s the single hand when you’re shooting line on the delivery cast, most anglers have a tendency to just let the line go. Jeff (31m 58s): Well, if you are fishing near structure, say maybe a break wall, if you’re fishing somewhere near where there’s trees, that it’s really hard to gain control of that fly immediately because you’re fumbling around trying to get the line stripping. You know, it could take one to three, four seconds before you engage and well that time, many a times that fly is either went too far into the trees, it might have sunk too deep and you’re snagged right away. So really get in a habit of when you’re shooting line with your single hand rod, is to just massage that line, make a nice little loop, feather it out there. Jeff (32m 43s): So if you need to stop it in time where you’re not going in the tree and as soon as the fly hits the line is straightened out and if you need to, if it’s really shallow, you can start stripping immediately. Super, super important. You’ll save your lot yourself, a lot of frustrations and a lot of flies and trees and everything else just by doing that little extra maneuver. And when you’re fishing a two-handed rod, I think it’s really important to learn that line management, You know, lanning in your loops. It’s not that we gotta cast far, but when a lot of times I see you, if you’re really efficient at gathering and the managing the running line, you can get through the run a lot quicker. Jeff (33m 29s): You have less tendency to get that line, that shooting line wrapped up in and around your reel. So it’s just overall a better practice by, You know, focusing on that line management. You know, all that said, setting time aside for practice casting is a win-win win. You know, no matter what you look at it, for me it just takes the frustration out of those super windy days And I’m trying to deliver the fly in the wind and I’m struggling and I’m more concerned about trying to get the fly where it needs to go than I am actually the presentation. So in a way I might as well just do that practicing before I hit the water. Jeff (34m 12s): One of the things I hear a lot is I’m on the river, You know, and I’ll see another 200 angler or I might be, You know, wherever and You know, they say I just can’t get the distance in the wind when spade casting and they say, should I buy a new rod? I mean it was a rod though. Is it a wrong rod? Is do I need a new line? You know, what do you think? Well, You know, of course I will tell you that buying a new rod is badass but it really won’t help the issue at hand. Believe me, I bought a lot of rods myself thinking that’s the issue. And it’s not. It’s that seat time that you need with that with your rod to learn, You know, the proper way to get it, to bend it. Jeff (34m 55s): That’s all You know, spay casts follow the same rules as a single hand cast, right? And I think this is will really help if you’re looking to get distance or fighting the wind and you feel like you’re not reaching that run where you really need to reach it. Especially on big rivers, they’re a mirror image, a single hand and two hand. The main thing is the rod tip needs to follow a straight line path to the target. Not as easy said than done most of the time to get the distance you want is the result You know of you starting your forward stroke by leading with your top hand and pushing forward. Jeff (35m 41s): That causes the rod tip path to be domed creating a wide open loop, right? You can always imagine, everybody talks about painting, You know, you wanna paint the ceiling, right? Just nice and flat, nice straight line path of the rod. Well if you lead with your top hand and it bends wide open, everybody calls it the rainbow, you call it the, You know, painting an igloo, right? That doming path because you’re pushing with your top hand first always results in a big wide open loop. And then of course with the big old wide open loop that gets knocked down, less energy means less distance, right? Jeff (36m 22s): So it’s just a, a factor of loop size when it comes fix is to start your forward stroke by moving the rod downward first. Then engage the bottom hand late in the stroke pulling when you see the rod tip at around 11 o’clock position to a CRI stop at 10, 10 30, right? Imagine yourself pulling that rod downward from your key position downward. And as you start moving downward, the rod tip path is traveling straight and then you engage the bottom hand. If you engage that top hand immediately, there’s no doubt that the loop will be wider. Jeff (37m 5s): You’re gonna lose distance and the loop will be wider. So think about down, we call it down the mountain to accelerate with the bottom hand. Second thing is always to remember that the anchored casts, You know, your D loop is your bat cast. And I think very easy to say that a small D loop will not energize the forward cast as much or as efficient as a larger one, right? So be very, very aware of the size of the D loops you make. Make sure there’s enough distance between the water in your rod tip to allow that D loop to get up underneath. Jeff (37m 47s): Do I need to add a little more force into forming my D loop without blowing my anchor, right? So think about these things that’ll just make those tough days on the water. When you’re trying to catch a fish and you’re ev the wheels are falling off. Concentrate on those few little tips. You know, I think that’ll help out a lot when it comes down to it. ’cause most of the time everybody wants to cast farther. You don’t necessarily need to do that. But there are times that You know, you do need to carry the mail and get one across ’cause it looks super fishy over there, right? When it comes down to single hand casting, I would go on record saying that letting that line go is the number one You know is keeping in contact with your line with throughout the cast, right? Jeff (38m 36s): From even from double hauling. People think that the dominant hand that’s on your rod is the most important. I actually feel that your non-dominant hand that activates the bottom hand of a two-handed rod or activates the line stripping or the line setting on a single hand is actually just as important, if not more important. ’cause it, it finalizes the entire equation right on both of them. So both hands are just as important, if not you’re non-dominant hand is that. So now that we’ve, You know, we chit chatted a little bit about basically the wind, which I feel still is my, You know, number one fault to deal with is just, I’m always struggling is let’s talk a little bit about fly selection. Jeff (39m 25s): You know, my fly selection and patterns come from lessons that I’ve learned from the last few days on the water, right? Everybody is super to blame flies. I think I would put that on the lower spectrum of my adjustments when it comes down to it. Many of the late, late nights, You know, that I spend, You know, whipping up the next day’s menu for the fish after guiding is because of changing water conditions or You know, maybe even having a success on a pattern that’s new to me that I put on somebody’s rod And I was like, boy, that that caught a few fish today. Jeff (40m 5s): Maybe I should tie a few more of those and give it a few tweaks to try to try to better it. Sure. I have what I call, You know, my control patterns that I lean daily on usually stays on somebody’s rod all day. And You know, one thing guides try to do is make things as simple as possible, right? We don’t wanna complicate things. We want to have a milk run, we want the fish to be where they’re at and we want ’em to be biting when we get there. Well that, that doesn’t work, right? Some days it does, but I always have this control fly that worked in the past or the day before and that goes on one rod. Jeff (40m 47s): If there’s two anglers, one will have that control fly. And then the other is my crash test dummy. The crash test dummy angler is where I keep changing their fly till that control fly starts to outshine, You know, outshine them really bad. And then, You know, of course I’m gonna switch over to both the, You know, using the same fly. I’d say in general, most of my adjustments in my fly patterns would be size related first. Many a times that fly might not be big enough. It might be, You know, I feel size and color is really important. Color is when you’re looking in your box. Jeff (41m 29s): Color would be maybe second on the list. And then third would be, is it weighted or unweighted, right? Because there’s a pretty big drastic difference between an unweighted fly and a weighted fly. You know, it’s a depth thing, it’s a vertical drop thing. It’s a lot to do with weighted and unweighted, but still, I feel the size is my first choice. When you’re looking in your box, You know, you evaluate what went on. You say, Hey, I wonder if the water’s too dirty, do I need to put a bigger one on? So think about that. That’s my approach to a tough day. Jeff (42m 9s): Well, you really start to get a pulse on one of your favorite waters. You can’t believe how much the color of just the eyes will make the difference. I have a few venues that in my, and if you fishmen before, You know, it’s like those orange eyes do not come off that fly until that water gets at a certain clarity. I’m fishing pretty stained water And I have tried to prove it different And I can prove it different with a conventional lure jig or something. But with flies, the orange eyes seem to really make the difference. Jeff (42m 49s): Pretty cool. The main thing is no matter You know, what your go-to fly is or what you, You know, someone recommends to you is, You know, you have to fish to fly with confidence, but be open, You know, to change it if you feel that there’s fish around, right? I feel that once Spidey senses start to tell you, it’s like, You know, I’ve fished about three or four runs And I haven’t got a grab or I’ve fished off the break wall, or I’m fishing off the boat And I haven’t got any fish And I see a few fish busting water or something. Don’t, don’t be afraid to change. You know, it can’t hurt. You can always go back to your original fly pattern. But last, You know, is to choose flies that have come, You know, some type of contrast to them. Jeff (43m 31s): I’m a firm believer in, You know, like hot spots or eye color or You know, a slight color highlights, You know, maybe in the body material. I’ve found out that in clear water, even though everybody loves flash, I have found myself leading away from the really a lot of flash in my flies. I feel a lot of times that a matte colored flash, the movement of the flash is great, but I feel like sometimes a matte colored or barring a matte colored flash is just as effective if not more effective when the water’s pretty clear than actually having all that flash bling around bottom of my go-to patterns that I’ve started to tweak. Jeff (44m 20s): Have a good body flash to them with the halo of material over ’em. So you still get the flash and then I put a matte flash as my wing material or whatever, whatever, but it’s a mat and then I might bar it to break it up. But I, that flash does have movement sort of just like, not quite as much as rubber, but pretty crucial. Last would be, You know, if you’re not opposed to using rubber in warm water species fishing in my area, I feel that especially when the water’s a little bit dirtier, that You know, adding some rubber to that fly gives that a little more feel if they’re poking around in dirty water. Jeff (45m 2s): But I do use a lot of rubber and it seems to work better than no rubber, You know, no rubber at all. One last little trick when things have been getting tough is I’ve been using in my warm water jig flies. I’ve been using the standard dragon tails, but I’ve been trimming the tops in the bottoms to allow it to look like more of a beaver tail. And it adds a lot of undulation to it, You know, it works very well. Seems to catch a few more fish than the, when it’s just perfectly natural the way it comes outta the package. That cylinder type going to a tip. Jeff (45m 42s): And then of course if you’re using dragon tails, they’re pretty, they’re not real durable. So you always wanna burn the tip, add a little bit of, You know, some type of super glue to the end to keep it from unraveling. And then also back at the tie end, it has a tendency to unravel there and start the fray away from the cord. So re You know, re resecure that with some glue or some UV cement and that’ll last you a little bit longer and don’t be afraid to try, You know, experimenting around with that. What about talking about leader length and tip it now, You know, leader length and tip it. There’s something to say about that, right? As everybody knows, we’ve had multiple discussions and podcasts on, You know, my swung fly leader is as short as possible, like 1624 inches, even 14 inches sometimes. Jeff (46m 32s): But on a general rule, it’s called 16 to 14 most of the time, and that’s onto my sink tip now, but under super clear water or pressured stale fish, I will start to lengthen up, You know, as much as six feet from my sink tip And I might actually line down and pound test, right? You know, I might have, You know, 20 going into 16 and then I might add on like 12 pound. I generally would usually with swung fly, I generally do not go below 12 pound just because I’ve had, You know, they’re fairly large fish And I’ve had fish break off on a, on 12 pound just on the hit. Jeff (47m 16s): So I try not to, but You know, I prefer to start out with that 15 to 20 and then if I had to, You know, I’ll drop in, You know, You know, there’s, so sometimes the fish get a little, You know, picky, You know, they’d been in the river for a long time, they’d been fished over for weeks. There’s no fresh fish moving into the river system and they’ve seen everything, right? So you open up the fence And I have had some success doing that when things get really tough and we’re not talking about getting two or three extra fish, we’re talking about getting a fish in the net over getting skunked, right? Maybe two. That’s not like a great improvement, but it, it has worked. Jeff (47m 57s): You know, when I fish a wet fly though, I generally start with the liter, the length of my rod, You know, to start out with and then, You know, whatever that length is, if it’s a switch rod, You know, 11 footer, I’ll start out with 11 foot or so. But generally when I’m doing that, it’s usually a, You know, a 13, 13 and a half foot rod and I’ll start out with, You know, 12, 13 foot liter, maybe go to a 15 foot just to get that wet fly down. Sometimes if it’s super clear, You know, water, it’s definitely a stealthy presentation. You know, you want to keep that fly down, you wanna keep it moving, keep it at depth, You know, I feel it’s pretty important to, You know, to play around with that a little bit. Jeff (48m 39s): And I would say, You know, the same thing, I generally never drop below 12 pound even, You know, even with those just because unless the fish are on the smaller side, but generally speaking it’s a 12 pound, You know, at the business and going to the fly for sure. Let’s talk about leader length and dropping down in line test when You know you’re out on the Great Lakes or fishing open waters of a inland lake, I can say that using longer leaders, You know, 12 foot with heavily weighted flies has been my go-to a lot of the times, especially when I’m trying to get vertical drop, You know, on my fly and to keep at deep fishing longer, right? Jeff (49m 31s): It’s not uncommon for me to target fish 22 to 28 feet down with sinking lines and long leaders and heavy tungsten weighted minow patterns. It’s a nightmare rigg to cast. You definitely have to not pause, you definitely have to keep engaged with a continuous motion cast Belgium cast oval cast. But it is a killer way to provoke more strikes. It, there’s just no doubt, if you think about, that’s one thing that a conventional angler can do way better than a fly angler is to get that fly to, You know, their lure or their jig to drop really quickly. Jeff (50m 15s): You know, our leader, regardless of how long it is, is it tethered to this big thick fly line and the sink rates don’t match. Their sink rate is matched throughout the whole system. So, You know, with today’s improved braided lines and the thin diameter, they get this very, very quick vertical drop, which we really can’t do. So that’s one way that I’ve sort of like basically tried and true is to do that. And then a lot of times I think if you’re fishing in a river situation or even in a, in the lake or the Great Lakes, I think using a sinking shooting line with a fairly short earth, medium length, four to six foot liter on a floating fly is very underrated because that sinking line is gonna sink deeper and that floating fly is gonna come around, but when you pause it, it gives it a lot more action. Jeff (51m 18s): And then in, in reaction to that sinking head, that is one of my go-to. So if you haven’t tried that yet, using floating streamers or some type of dahlberg diver behind your sinking line will really, really sometimes trigger those hard, You know, tough fish to get, You know, sort of my rule of thumb, what approaches to this whole leader thing is, is if the water is gritty and colder, You know, I would say go on the shorter leader and You know, if the water is clearer and warmer, You know, then I start to lengthen up a little bit just because if you have a really, really long leader and the water’s really cold in that if your fly starts doing a lot of vertical up and down, the fish’s metabolism basically can’t get it. Jeff (52m 9s): And if the water’s gritty, they can’t see it, it’s moving around too much and they really can’t get on it. So keeping that leader a little bit shorter in cold, gritty water in contact with your fly line will work a little bit better, just a little more control. You have an idea where it’s at and the fish have a little ease of getting, You know, getting to it. Let’s talk a little bit about the swing speed of a swung fly and the cadence of the strip, this cadence of the strip in that swung fly. I have a little story, You know, I never forgot the first time I fished at the Schutz River for summer run steelhead many, many moons ago, And I made my first cast, You know, they weren’t the best. Jeff (52m 56s): And You know, I start my swings and I’m, I was like trying to fish for lethargic winter steelhead and trying to slow that fly down to a crawl, right? Just like I’m normally used to steelheading, You know? And I thought I was doing pretty good, right? I was like, okay, man, I gotta cast out there semi-decent, You know, I’m not falling in the river, You know, I’m, I’m slowing the fly down as much as I can. The guy looked at me and like, what the heck man? And he said, speed that thing up. And I was like, what? Yeah. He’s like, you gotta move that fly for these fish. Ever since then, I’ve always think about the speed of my swing in relationship to the feast species, the water temps and the water visibility. Jeff (53m 48s): That was like a light bulb that went off in my head. Now granted, I was still pretty green, it swung flies and You know, the guides out there knew 10 times more than, or a hundred times more than I did. So I was still on the learning curve. But now, as you begin as a swung fly angler, always think about the fish’s metabolism and the water temperature. Can they get your fly or is it just too darn cold to move to it? Right? You gotta, you gotta remember that fish, You know, steelhead take on that metabolism is the water, You know, so it’s sort of like, Hey, what the heck? I can’t get this thing ’cause it’s moving too fast, You know? Jeff (54m 31s): Or what about the opposite? Like my, my deschutes You know, trip when the water temperatures are up in the high fifties and the flies moving super slow. They’re like, yeah, that’s chicken feathers buddy, and I’m not interested in that one bit, right? Because we went too slow. It’s like the cat and mouse game. You, you basically gotta keep it moving, You know, so they’re, You know, they can’t inspect it, right? To me, the perfect swing speed is when you’re moving that fly as fast as possible without taking it away from them under the situation at hand and the water temperature at hand, you wanna have a little reaction, right? Jeff (55m 16s): So add in, You know, sometimes this can change if you add in, You know, gritty cold water and visibility at 12 inches or less with the water, You know, temps in the mid thirties, that makes things even more interesting, right? I’m starting to get a pretty good handle on gritty, muddy cold water swinging. You know, my home waters are, You know, they run super gritty and they run, You know, the run timing usually peaks when the water temperatures are 45 degrees dropping into like 33. You know, they start out pretty good. But a lot of days, You know, we’re, we’re starting out with ice in the guides and the next thing You know, You know, the guides, You know, the ice in the guides start coming off and the water starts maybe warming up from 33 to 35 if we’re lucky. Jeff (56m 6s): But, You know, understanding how to fish slow tanky runs require, You know, actually requires opposite of what you think to do. So normally if you’re out in the Pacific Northwest or you’re fishing somewhere where you’ve got a little bit of, You know, little bit of soul to the river and flow, You know, you would use the slow and deep, You know, with weighted flies, right? But because of, You know, my home waters, You know, they move so slow and there’s really not much soul to ’em, right? Against the bank. There’s no flow and they’re laying in that slow tanky water. I go with unweighted flies, really lighter sink tips that keeps just enough at depth and still, You know, allows that fly to move across the current. Jeff (56m 57s): It’s a very patient way to cast when your cast hits the water out in the mid river, generally speaking, You know, the fish aren’t gonna be out there, they’re gonna come on that last third of the swing. So I’m not really concerned, You know, you don’t concern yourself when the, You know, that gets tough fishing and those fish are really cold, don’t be concerned about it and You know, getting that fish right away ’cause they’re not there. They’re gonna be in that last third in that slow water. Become a line watcher. That’s what I do. You know, I watch that line move across the river. I control upstream and downstream men’s to adjust to the current speed. You know, that’s pushing against my line. Jeff (57m 39s): As you start to get some seat time, you will start to get a vibe of the speed of the water and the speed of the swing that the fish prefer that day. You can almost call your shots, right? So, You know, moving on to a single hand, You know, when you’re stripping a fly with your single hand rod, the cadence of the strip is key. Many a days, I have seen some crazy strips from this, from fast to slow to pause, catch fish. Other times I can’t believe a tick tick on the bottom works, right? Jeff (58m 19s): So always keep an open mind of changing. Remember, change of speed and direction is the trigger that gets those neutral fish to go right? Some days on the big water chasing warm water species, it takes a half a day for me to figure out what they really want. And that’s just not on my own. That is in coordination of communicating with my anglers. It’s like, Hey, try this. Hey, what did you do there? Did you get a bite? Did you get a grab? Right? So we, We have to communicate, right? So that’s really key. You know, it changes, You know, from a slow drag on the bottom all the way to a two-handed fast strip day-to-day where it’s an overhand two handed fast as you can go salt water strip with no pause, right? Jeff (59m 12s): That sometimes especially late season is really, really, You know, really effective. Especially the last maybe week and a half or so with my waters approaching high seventies generally think of more speed or vertical drop when the water temps gets above 70 to, You know, four degrees or so and start pushing towards 80, that change of speed drop really, really triggers them that up and down. I use a lot of jig flies to help coordinate that, to really get it to drop fast. I utilize a lot of tungsten weighted flies with lead just to get it to drop super fast. You know, when the water, You know, basically is starting to get warmed up. Jeff (59m 55s): If the water temperatures are below 70 or You know, or there’s a bad, nasty cold front that the water’s moving in, the water’s mixing it’s unstable. Think of more slow and steady with not as much vertical drop, just nice and slow and steady. Let ’em get time. They’re pretty lethargic. Things are changed with them and they’re not super chay. Think about it as just mores of a level playing field. Make it the easiest possible for them to get on it rather than going back to the, You know, crazy fast strip or whatever when stripping, You know, in the pause between the strip is the key, right? Jeff (1h 0m 36s): We call it the pause is the cause, right? Be very aware of playing with the short to long pauses, right? That’s the key. How long do you pause? Let’s the fly drop let’s the fly float, whatever it’s doing, you’re changing that in between the pauses. And when you continue to fire back up, that fly changes, speed changes direction, that’s when you get the hit the length of the strip pole, right? I see this a lot. It could be just a little tick tick, it could be a one foot, a two foot, it could be a long slow three foot pole. Very important to play around with that. Sometimes they just want that slow long pull with a nice short pause. Jeff (1h 1m 21s): Sometimes a long pull with a long pause. So these are stripping, You know, is one of those things that it just takes time and you gotta keep experimenting around. But do not fall into the mechanical strip, strip, strip, strip. You’re gonna catch super active fish, but you won’t have any success on those tough, tough days. Sometimes stripping with no pause, You know, you might find that’s the key, right? I feel that sometimes just by fast stripping hand over hand, it’s because it’s, you’re taking that fly away. It’s in their awareness zone and then it just breaks free and it’s the rate on it. Jeff (1h 2m 4s): And sometimes, as You know, as muskie fishing, you never wanna stop the strip, right? You want to actually go faster. So think about, You know, incorporating that with, and it takes a little time to learn that, but You know, it’s not that difficult. Especially the hard part I, I would think is what I’ve seen and even for me is, You know, the rod’s up underneath your, You know, up underneath your arm and you’re stripping and you still do a strip set, but you still gotta like get that rod bent and loaded before you get your hand on it. So there’s a little practice involved, but usually when they hit that, it’s a no brainer. Like there’s no worry about a hooking the fish. So the last bullet point is locating fish. Jeff (1h 2m 45s): It’s one thing to locate fish, but making them bite, You know, when you are there is another issue. I mean, I try to send memos to these silly fish every day, but of course we don’t speak the same language, right? They’re not gonna listen to me and say, oh yeah, by the way, Jeff’s coming here and we’re gonna bite right when he is pulling into the water, right? Nope, it doesn’t work that way. I can’t tell you how many times I can’t get a fish to come to my fly knowing that they’re present. You say, well geez, You know, how, how do You know they’re present? Can you see ’em? Well, yeah, a lot of times we are sight fishing and that’s the bonus of sight fishing is that you can see them and you can see them not chase or you get a reaction from them. Jeff (1h 3m 34s): So that’s good. But I do a lot of blind fishing and the reason being is that a, besides the, the electronics, we, I’ll actually drop a camera down and look at the structure, look at the area I’m fishing and confirm what is on my sonar in big water is actually the fish that I’m trying to target with a camera, underwater vu camera. But most of the days, if, especially if I have an angler that’s using spin gear and it’s usually a buddy that’s coming with the, the fly angler that’s like, You know, hey, I don’t fly fish, but I wanna go fishing. That gives me a really good data base to follow, right? Jeff (1h 4m 18s): Is because in general I would say it’s probably four to seven times better with the gear rod and especially, You know, with the Senate rubber baits and everything. Now it’s just, it’s just a way more effective, but it, it allows the fly landlord to see that the fish are present and it’s my job of communicating and him commuting or she communicating to me like how we can make these fish try to bite. And that’s that adjustment we talked about, right? We’re evaluating what is that gear angler doing that we aren’t and how can we mirror that with our fly presentation? Jeff (1h 4m 58s): You know, 90% of the guide trips are full fly fishing, You know, for me. And so navigating day to day looking for active fish is the key. You almost gotta approach it like, You know, a bass angler does. Going down, working a spinner bait down a bank, you have to get pretty aggressive because, You know, there’s very few, 10% of the fish are active and the other 80% are there, but they’re just not feeding at that time. Most days using flies. You know, it’s hard to get those neutral or stale fish to cooperate. Jeff (1h 5m 39s): You know, they show themselves, we might get, You know, a fish on and we lose it. You know, we might get a pluck or a grab in the river, we might get a follow. So, You know, it’s hard. So, You know, the best adjustment that I can recommend would be to move around a little bit more than usual, try to find some active fish. You know, you can always go back and start and re fish waters that you’ve already fished if you think there’s fish there, but, You know, revisit it. But in general, You know, I’m pretty religious. I’m like, man, nothing’s happening. I’m gonna, I’m gonna keep moving until I figure out what’s going on. Jeff (1h 6m 20s): Especially steelhead fishing in rivers until I sort of get a pulse of what’s going on. Well, You know, we’re gonna wrap up this episode. It’s getting to be close to an hour or so, little more, man, I’ve been chit chatting all about this. You know, the next time You know you’re heading to the water, remember to, You know, execute, evaluate, and adjust for every cast, right? Every cast. Be engaged, be engaged to your each cast, evaluate it, You know, and then make an adjustment to see, You know, was that a good fish? Was it not a good fish? But start, You know, at home, putting your game plan together, executing where you’re gonna go, You know, evaluate, is that the best choice? Jeff (1h 7m 5s): As you get closer, as the, You know, changing weather conditions come in and be prepared that when you get on the water you’re gonna have to adjust. You know, there is no doubt about it. You will have to adjust ’cause things don’t always go your way. Sometimes you have to adjust more than others. But the anglers that adjust and can figure out the quickest have the most success. So, You know, I hope you enjoyed these few tips and reach out to Dave or myself if you have any questions or just want to chitchat about your fishery and maybe get dialed in a little bit better. But I wanna thank you for the listening and tuning in and cheers everyone. Dave (1h 7m 51s): That is a wrap. You can grab all of the show notes@wetlyswing.com and please follow us on Instagram and share this episode out with someone you love. Please send me an email, dave@wetlyswing.com. If you have any feedback or want us to put together an episode on this podcast for you, check in anytime. I hope you enjoyed this podcast and would love to meet up with you on the water. We have new fly fishing schools going all year long and all around the country, so if you want to connect, let’s do it right now. All right, time to get outta here. I hope you have a great evening. I hope you have a great morning or great afternoon wherever in the world you are. And I appreciate you for stopping by and checking out the show today. Dave (1h 8m 34s): We’ll talk to you soon