WOT 241: Smallmouth Tactics on the Huron River and Building a Team with Mike Schultz

In this episode we WadeOutThere with Mike Schultz from Dexter, Michigan.  Mike grew up in Michigan fishing conventional gear on small ponds and lakes around his home, until he started driving and found the Huron River. On a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, he was introduced to fly fishing while being drawn to the rivers’ salmon and steelhead. He continued fly fishing back home on the Huron River while waiting for the salmon seasons up north.  

Mike played hockey in college and attended business school, while continuing to fly fish.  After school he continued fly fishing and guiding until his dream of building his own shop became a reality.  Today, Mike is a guide and owner of Schultzoutfitters, located on the banks of the Huron River, not far from where his love of fly fishing took hold as a child.  

We discuss building a confident and welcoming fly shop team, the Huron River, and Smallmouth tactics and fly design.

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SchultzOutfitters.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

In this episode, we wait out there with Mike Schultz from Dexter, Michigan. Mike grew up in Michigan fishing conventional gear on small ponds and lakes around his home until he started driving and found the Huron River. On a trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, he was introduced to fly fishing while being drawn to the rivers of salmon and steelhead. He continued fly fishing back home on the Huron River while waiting for the salmon seasons up north. Mike played hockey in college and attended business school while continuing to fly fish. After school, he continued fly fishing and guiding until his dream of building his own shop became a reality. Today, Mike is a guide and owner of Schultz Outfitters, located on the banks of the Huron River, not far from where his love of fly fishing took hold as a child. We discuss building a confident and welcoming fly shop team, the Huron River, and smallmouth tactics and fly design. Welcome to the Wade Out There Fly Fishing Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Shefchuk. At Wade Out There, we believe fly fishing is special, but not elite, and that anyone can become a great fly fisher if they are willing to go, learn, and teach. Join me as I talk with other fly fishermen and women about their unique journeys into fly fishing, the rivers they fish, and the tactics and philosophies they practice. For those who can never leave the river in their hearts, this podcast is dedicated to helping you make the memories that keep us all coming back to Wade Out There. Welcome, Mike. Thanks for being on the Wait Out There podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

No problem, brother. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Yeah, it's a pleasure. I love talking to people from Michigan, Michigan native. And uh we're gonna talk about this later in the show, but a lot of your guys out there are all Michigan natives and it just seems like a special fishery. I say that about a lot of fisheries, but Michigan is it's just always been cool to me that there's all kinds of uh just different watersheds and the warm water and the cold water up in the upper peninsula and all that. But uh today we're gonna talk mostly about uh Huron River and warm water and those types of things. But I thought we would get started with before you you were in fishing, or I don't know if you're fishing in school, but I was reading that you were uh in school in Michigan East Michigan University, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yeah, it's Eastern Michigan University, and it's just up the hill from the shop area.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Just up the hill from the shop, okay. I didn't know it was so close to the shop, but uh Business. Business administration degree, and I also have a business degree. But I was curious if that time in your life when you were going to school did that influence where you are now and how that happened? Like were you thinking in business school, like were you did you write a business plan for your final paper on fly fishing or how did that was there any crossover there?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Yeah, a little bit. You know, I kind of knew going into school that it was something that I should do. Um, you know, I had friends that slid off and got, you know, what appeared to be, you know, pretty good paying jobs right out of high school with through connections and whatnot. But uh parents were pretty adamant about me going to school, and you know, I had no problem with it. I played sports and you know, I was looking forward to to continuing playing sports and whatnot in in college, not at an elite D1 level by any means, but just being part of a team is just kind of in my blood. And I, you know, started playing sports at an early age, and you know, it's something that uh still in me um and kind of dictates how I run things around here. But anyways, I uh yeah, went to business school, got a um uh business management degree. Uh kind of always had the game plan that I was gonna own my own business. So uh by that time in my life, it was I was gonna own a fishing store. Um, so that's kind of the the simplest thing my my brain came up with. Be an entrepreneur, be your own boss, build a fishing store slash outfitter. And that's kind of what I did.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

All right, a couple things. What sport did you play?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

I played hockey.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Hockey? I was gonna guess hockey, but uh that's cool. Did that uh ever conflict with your desires to go fishing? Did you have to trade time or was it a nice blend where you could fish when you weren't skating?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah, very consistent schedule. So uh you knew exactly what you uh you know were obligated to be part of for the team. And uh business school, they only had classes uh Monday through Thursday, so of course I didn't take Monday classes. I crammed everything in the middle of the week. So if I could go fishing and we weren't playing, I would just slide off Thursday after school, fish Friday, Saturday, Sunday, maybe push it to Monday and then come back.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

But you had to been practicing like all the time, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Like with Yeah, yeah, I mean it wasn't crazy, but evening this season's only so long, you know. Um so yeah, but yeah, summertime I just fish my butt off. And you know, we'll probably talk about it here, but uh smallmouth fishing was it was illegal to fish year round in Michigan when I was yeah when I was going to college. So uh that kind of kept me between the rails. Probably a good thing that's that helps, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

The the law that kept you in mind, yeah. Um and then uh the second thing that you said that I wanted to touch on a little bit is the entrepreneurial part, and you mentioned fishing store, um, and I feel like those words are very specific fishing store versus fly shop. And did that change? How how did that kind of change as you uh because now you're you're running I don't know if you'd consider it a fly shop or a fishing store or yeah, flying tackle shop, you know, I kind of call it.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Um but yeah, no, I uh you know I I grew up fishing with conventional tackle, right? Just basic stuff, fishing with dad, fishing with grandpa. You know, as soon as you get wheels, you uh you find for me, I found the closest moving water, which happened to be the Huron. Um luckily around that same time I was introduced to you know going up north and fishing for salmon and steelhead. And I saw I was obviously obviously there bring out the gate with spinning rods. I saw the people the other anglers fly fishing, and I was like, man, I gotta try that. Um so that's kind of how I got you know introduced into fly fishing was was uh going up north and the migratory game.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Yeah, I've heard that from other Michigan people too. That's kind of the and do you think that's just because it's the first time you've seen it, or do you think it's because it's super productive up there, or it's just like um I I don't know. It just seems like there's a there's quite a few folks that that's kind of their intro into it. And I would think that it's go up north and trout streams and stuff, because it's also great trout fishing up there, but why the salmon steelhead versus the trout? And we should say also that that's a big part of your your shop as well, because we're gonna talk warm water a lot today, but you also do that as well.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Yeah, yeah, we dabble in the trout and steelhead stuff. But um, I think you know, r you know the first thing that comes to mind when you ask that question is like it's the size of the fish.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Right? So if you've never gone salmon fishing and never you know seen a 30-pound salmon in the river, you know, if you're a young kid, that's pretty, you know, impressionable, right? It's gonna be burned in your head. You never forget the first time you hiked into a river, you know, before the sun came up, and you know, you're your your you know, hair standing up on your arms. You've never been there before, you know, you're hiking in to get your spot, you know. But uh yeah, I would say the sheer size of the fish, you know, and kind of how my story went was I was taking salmon fishing. Um, and then uh the the the father of uh buddy of mine, a hockey player uh friend, he's he's like, Yeah, I'm gonna take you guys up steelhead fishing in the spring. So, you know, that's pretty much all it took. And then it was like, Oh, I need a fly rod now. And then it was like, Well, I gotta wait till fall for the steel head to come back or the salmon to come back. I gotta figure out something to do. So I found a river, the Huron, which is my parents still live about 15 minutes from here.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

And uh yeah, started fishing right out, right here at the shop, like within two miles of the store is like the first place I ever caught a s river smallmouth.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Was it a shop before that? Or did it was it like a building and you saw it and it was opportunity, business opportunity?

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah, yeah. What it was was well, here you go. Played hockey in college with a guy whose dad owns the building. So that's kind of how we started.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

So and you're just fishing next door to the building, like this is the perfect spot.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Yeah, I mean, it didn't happen, you know, until I was 30, but you know, but uh yeah, I was always, you know, I honestly vividly remember sitting on the little island that's out here right by the shop. I had just broken a rod, like broke the the feral came loose and I snapped it. And um sitting out there and like thinking like this would be a pretty cool place for a flash up, you know, and that was 12 years before it happened. So pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

And you guys have been like over 13 years now or 14?

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yeah, we just turned 13 uh last week, two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Yeah, I thought I saw that. So congratulations, man. That's a big deal. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Yeah, thanks, brother.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Um what was that time like in between? I was gonna ask you this. Um do you remember, or take me back to because everybody, you know, has that is how I started in fishing. Not everybody, I guess, but a lot of people like fished with my dad, fished with my grandpa, kind of got into fly fishing, started fishing more. A lot of people have a s uh have like a period of their lives, like a like a sprint, like where it was just like all the time. Like you we were talking before the show, and you mentioned it's a really nice day out here, and I'm in the shop, and I'm I'm not saying that you're saying that's a bad thing, but you know, your life is different now than you all of our lives are different than the that that time when you're really just hitting it and that time on the water. Can you take me back to that time on the w that where you were really leveraging that time on the water?

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah, so like I really, you know, put it in put it in, you know, the pedal to the metal, like towards the tail end of college.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Um, so I I went um, you know, I found a job working in a fly shop. You know, how did I find the fly shop? I was actually joking about this the other day with uh or not joking about it, just telling Jesse the story. I don't know how long you've been doing this, but there used to be a fly fish America magazine. There used to be at Dick Sporting Goods and every fly shop fishing store. And that's how I found the original shop that I worked for. I found a little ad in there, and I ended up going there. But what did the ad say? Was it just looking for just a just a no, just uh just a logo of a shop. It was like it's like a town over from where my parents live. So I drove over there immediately and met the owner and still a friend today, the first guy I worked for in the industry. So um, you know, while I was in college, I was managing a fly shop um and eventually graduated. Um might have been doing that for a year while I was still in school. Actually, broke my scaphoid bone in my hand and had to have a couple surgeries on it. So it kind of slowed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

I broke my scaphoid as well. It's the sl second slowest healing bone in the human body, is what I've been told. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yep. So I I I broke it and missed a whole year of hockey. So I missed like all half a season and then another half a season the following year, and then even coming back from it, I was garbage because your hand is everything, right? So uh lower hand. Um but anyway, so that's how I that was like really I had time then, and I was kind of cruising towards my degree getting it over with, and uh then I just put it in overdrive and just fished nonstop. So um, those are the years that I put in major time. Um and uh, you know, and I'm like I look back at that and I you know, like I was very fortunate because that was at the very beginning of like the streamer craze, you know, or trout. And you know, I was I'm old enough to have learned how to fly cast with a floating line and trout fished and know how to mend and do all that stuff, those basic foundation uh you know of angling skills that you know nowadays a lot of these kids come right in, they're right streamer fishing. Straight to the streamer, yeah. Straight to the streamer, don't know how to.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Isn't that weird? I mean, it seems odd to me, but why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Uh just because the appeal of it, it's fun. It's a you know, it's it's faster-paced fishing, it's yeah, yeah, it's visual, you know. You're not waiting for Mother Nature to give you an opportunity by a bug hatching so you can go fool the trout. You know, you can get out and get after it for multiple species. So that's like, you know, I'm like happy for that that I was able to kind of experience all that, you know, learn the basic stuff, swinging wet flies, basic nymphing, dry fly fishing, hoppers, you know, terrestrials, and kind of living trout seasons before I got into smallmouth because again, the the uh the the season was kept you between the the ditches, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

In between the ditches?

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Yeah, you know, it's in the straight and narrow. You could you couldn't go outside of the outside of the uh actual season, like it yeah, you know, like especially if you're working in a fly shop, you're not gonna be out like mucking around breaking the law, you know. It's like you couldn't do it. It was like hands off, so you had to find other things to do. Salmon, steelhead, trout. Yeah. You'd have to wait until the last Saturday in May to go bass fishing, and that's painful.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

So you and you're in this uh putting the pedal to the metal time, yeah. You're you're kind of all over the state. You're not just in the um the warm water stuff, you're doing all of it.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Yep, yep. Doing a lot of dry the trout fishing at uh I still have a really good friend who's at my wedding. Just we're super busy. We don't get to fish together as much as we used to, but um one of my friends uh parents got divorced and he ended up snagging their cabin. So that was kind of like the spot. He owned it outright, and we would go up there and leave school or leave work on Thursday and go fish all weekend and get after it. So um learned a lot fishing the Osable, the Pierre Marquette, the Manistee, the Betsy, all the rivers up north that are well known.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

You mentioned it a little bit. Um you you talked about like you're fortunate to have that kind of foundation in trout kind of traditional casting, mending. But um I wonder if there's anything else or if there's anything specific about that that you took away from that time in your life where you're just fishing all the time that I don't know that really influences the way you fish today or um that you pass along, like advice or something like that?

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Well, I mean it like that whole stage was like all like all the really technical stuff was smallmouth, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

It all transfers into that game. Like I used to think, like I when I first started smallmouth fishing in a drift boat, in a river, actively moving, some you know, fishing streamers, uh, is a whole lot different than what do we do today. Um but my idea was like take the things that I do for trout and like go catch a smallmouth. And just because you're a good trout angler with a streamer doesn't exactly transfer to smallmouth. So I was kind of on the wrong path, like to start, because I started from the path of trout.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

So it's a totally different game. The angles are slightly different, the flies are different, the way they eat is different. Um, but that was my foundation. Nowadays you can just pop on YouTube or whatever and hear somebody talk about it. And if you put any time in on the water, you should have some success. But back then you had to read about it, and who knows how legit those people were back in the day writing those articles.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Well, there's a lot of unlegit stuff today, too, probably.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Oh, I'm 100%. Regurgitated, you know. I talk to people all the time on the phone that end up writing stuff, and some of them are good and some of them are terrible.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Well, so they call to like uh like research for articles, or they're just like uh that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure what the kid's name was, but a kid knocked one out of the park the other day.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

I was like, dude, you don't have to edit anything. It was I don't know when it's coming out, but it'll be a good one. Uh okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Well, if it's out, we can try and put that in the show notes maybe if we can find it. Yeah, for sure. That'd be cool. All right, well, we're gonna talk smallback tactics in a bit. I have a couple more questions before we move on, and I want to talk about the Huron River a little bit as well. But um you know, you meant you talked about managing a shop when you were young, now you're managing a shop older. Um we're gonna talk more about that later as well, but while we're on it, I thought we'd just put a pin in it. And can you talk about that time of managing a shop much younger and anything that stands out uh that you learned that you you took into your time managing now?

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yeah, um, you know, I I I worked for uh three different uh owners at the beginning, you know, and I worked my way through that. Um, you know, I worked for the you know wealthy. Um I don't really need this. This is just my little side thing, that it's my conversation piece and my thing that I can show my friends that I have.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Guys, these are owners? Okay, yeah, yeah. Owner personalities, okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah, 100%. Uh, you know, that was hands-off, never there working, just owned it and you know, expected to run it like it was a Fortune 500 company or something, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Expected that from you.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Well, no, I'm not just me, but just everybody in general. It's like you're paying paying people pennies and you're expecting them to work like they're, you know, this is the final destination and livelihood, you know. Uh worked for that guy, worked for um another guy that was just super fishy and liked to fish and was way better angler than he was uh uh a business person. Yeah, you know, that's that's pretty common in our industry from what I understand. Um, and then I worked for like a corporate refugee. Like he uh, you know, did fairly well in his previous career and then retired early, and I'm gonna start a fly shop. So um, yeah, I mean I think the one thing that I took away from it is you better be pretty well-rounded, like in all that stuff, right? Or be willing to work ex extremely hard and long hours to pull it all off. But uh it's hard, it's hard to be the guy that fishes 200 days a year um and then own a fly shop that does any type of real, you know, uh business. You know, you can it's I this is a real business. I have to bust my butt. I got a lot of people to pay and a lot of people rely on me, so like I take things a lot different than being a corporate refugee or just a little side piece, uh fun thing to have to show your friends that you own.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

You know? No, I get it. I was gonna talk about this later, but I think if if you don't mind, we'll stick with it. We're gonna talk about the people, the people on your team. Yeah. And we talked about this before the show, but when I look at your website and I look at the bios of the people that you've hired, uh it seems very intentional. It's it's and you know, I've followed some of your social media as well, and there's videos, and I can uh just tell that people are uh it it seems that people are are united. You have a team, I guess. You have it's not uh it doesn't seem like it's uh a bunch of people that work at adult outfitters. It seems like this is my team. And this makes sense now talking to you about your sports background. Um so I guess first, is that something that uh I I I I perceive that as intentional. Would am I wrong on that, or is that something you thought about when you started? Is it something that evolved into what you have today, or am I just out in left field?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

No, no, no, no, no. Hundred percent intentional. You know, you look at the way you want to build a sports team, you know, but you know, looking at like a hockey team, right? You want to build, you want to have that first line center, you want to have that second line center, you want to have that number one D-man, number two D-man, left wing, right wing, you know. So we you know, I intentionally build it the way I do. I tend to um, you know, um I I love athletes, you know, I love athletes and and it's not no individual sport people here. It's all guys that played, you know, football and baseball and hockey and ran D1 track, you know, stuff like that. So um, you know, it's kind of like uh sports really build a great foundation for life. And uh, you know, I will I'll take the athlete, you know, that's what that was stuff. My way. It's no s I don't think it's a secret sauce that you know, it's not like some secret that nobody's ever done this before, but that's kind of the way I like to do it. So that's a big part of it.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Yeah. Uh have you read the book Good to Great? I don't know if you've read that.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

It's a business book, but no, I haven't, but I know I think I know what you're talking about. I might have it. When we got to it.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Well, you're gonna business degree, so I thought maybe you might have touched on it, but yeah, they talk about like get the right people in place first and then figure out where you're going. It's more the people are more important.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Um yeah, yeah. But it all like a lot of the stuff that happens around here, it's pretty organic how it happens. I mean, the guides and stuff are I mean, I don't I don't we've never put out a help wanted for a guide. You know, we just kind of build them and we got guys ready to roll into that position, and it might take a year to get them ready to go, but you know, we're willing to put in the time to get them there.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Um so this is a question that you kind of maybe already answered, but I was gonna see if you could expand on it, or or maybe if there's something else, but is there a quality that you look for in outside of experience? Like, not like look where I've worked or look what I've done, like look how fishy I am, but is there a quality, and maybe it is an athlete, or is there something else that you look for uh when you're building that team?

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Yeah, people skills, um, you know, uh and confidence, just overall confidence, right? So, like if you can if you're confident, you're gonna be able to talk, you know? So uh super important. And like we have enough knowledge base here when it comes to you know, the the guys that have been doing this forever that if anybody if you're willing to learn and you're confident and you can speak and you can make eye contact and you're reliable and you're honest, and when you screw up, you can admit that you screwed up, and when you do good, you'll get a pat on the back, you know. Yeah, um, but yeah, yeah, I mean that's that's the biggest thing. Like no one wants to go into like the business like this, we don't make it that way, but I think like the stereotype of a fly shop um is it's kind of uh uppity and snooty and like you know hard to go into. So I know there's people that In the door that are nervous, you know, like you know, but like we make a really welcoming environment, and I think that's one thing that separates us from a lot of places is um you know just everyone's personality. So if you walk into a shop and the you feel like the shop owner doesn't want to even you're bothering them by being there, and I'm not saying just fly shops. If you've been into party stores, you know how this is. You roll in and they're just like, you know, like what? I'm here to spend money.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

I thought you would like this questioning.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right? You know, so it's yeah, that's that's a big thing, man.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

No, I I mean I totally understand, Mike, and that was uh I I was gonna ask you this question as well. This is kind of a newer question that I kind of thought was thinking about, and I'm gonna try it out on you, but kind of the tagline or one of the themes that weighed out there is fly fishing is special, but not elite. So we all have a special experience. We all have your story of where I was playing hockey, and you know, then I I I was out for an injury, I started fishing a lot more, and uh business back everyone has a story that makes it special for them. Um not everyone, I mean, but but but you can have that story without being a guide in Michigan. Like you can have a special experience. Maybe it's a family, maybe it's a place that you went to. Um and so uh uh for you besides the you know, if if if it's not uh catching the biggest fish or catching the most fish, what are one or two things that make fly fishing uh special for you?

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Yeah, I mean I the the first thing is just being able to be 100% present and in the moment, which is so rare these days. Um so when you're on the water, you know, it's you know, I didn't really get this when I was younger. You know, you'd always say like it's fly fishing's therapeutic. Yeah, just being in the environment and being away from the noise and chilling and being on a river, it just it's you can't reply. I don't know. I mean, sitting in a hunting blind, kind of like it, you know, but being on a river and moving and chilling and looking at stuff and floating through nature. I mean, how what else can you compare that to? You know, besides being on a river and floating through nature. Like it's just it's a unique experience, yeah. Yeah, it's a unique experience. So yeah, like just being out and being present, you know, that's I need it to recharge. Yeah, I really do need it to recharge to keep you going. Um, so yeah, I think that's number one. And then number two, spending that same quality time with people that you you enjoy being with, you know, and in my stage of my life right now, that's being on the water with my wife and my boys. So we are fortunate to be able to take a couple long vacations uh when the kids are off school, and we just fish pretty much 80% of the days that we're on those vacations.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

So wife fish?

SPEAKER_00 27:05

What's that?

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Wife fish.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She was uh before we had kids, she was uh coming along really good on the fly game, and then poof kids, and we don't get out as much as we used to, and but when we do, she when we do, she's usually throwing a whopper plopper.

unknown 27:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

We'll talk flies later. But uh how many boys you got? You said you got multiples?

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Yeah, I have two boys. I have a 13-year-old and an eight-year-old.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Okay. And they're both into it, huh? They like Yep.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Yep, they're definitely into it. They uh both play, you know, multiple travel sports, so um, they really enjoy that in the middle of the summertime where they get a little bit of a break and we get to get out and get after it.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

No, that's cool. Before we move on to the tactics, and I want to just kind of stick with the people and stuff, with all the experience you've had with these different kinds of guides, it sounds like it's this take the good, leave the bad type of thing. It it it's not it it didn't sound like you were saying that these guys were all worthless. They had pluses and minuses that kind of taught you how to go forward. You know what I mean? Like it was like, it seems like even even the first guy who was like the business dude who wasn't around much, like you learned, like you took a lot from that. Um is there is there something that you and I I didn't know we were gonna go down this road, man. I'm hitting you on like the leadership stuff or whatever. Um I mean, I don't know. Is is there something that you like is there a quality that you're trying to like um set an example for, or is there like uh like something that you really try and instill in your in your guides or your uh people?

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Well, I mean from those experiences?

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Yeah, that you you took into as a flash-up, or maybe not, maybe just like this is important to me.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Yeah, no, no. I mean, like, you know, if you want to go back to experience the the out of those three guys that I worked for, um uh two of them have since passed. And the one that's still alive, uh, I took tons of stuff from him.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

And there's a there's a Costa film that they did with uh about you know Schultz outfitters and myself, and John is in the in the video, but uh uh John uh you know just a very personable dude, very welcoming, always willing to teach, always willing to take some time to go outside and cast. And um, he was a great salesman, but he was a true, genuine person that cared and wanted you to get better and wanted you to fish and and all that stuff. But in in that Costa film, if you guys find it, it's it's just it'll pull up. John, there's a couple, a couple little interviews with him, but he kind of like lays it out, and it's like that's the exact stuff that he told me, you know, when I was a kid. Like I literally started working. Everybody that I worked for, I always told them that like my goal was eventually to own a store. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Oh, yeah. So you knew that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yeah, going in yeah, before they even hired me.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

How was that received? Were they like very supportive, or were they like, okay, whatever?

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Or uh Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was kind of like uh you're gonna own this one eventually, kid. Yeah, you know, type type deal. So it it was cool, but um, but yeah, no, that was you know, think John was great, great dude. And he was the he was the dude that actually fished and he was into the outdoors and he knew how to row a boat, and it wasn't like a business thing for him to make money.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

You know, I think that's hard to do in life. I wish I had more of that in me, right? Like and you talked about being present and how it's it's nice to go on the river because you're present. And I know that feeling, I know what you're talking about. It's one of the reasons that I enjoy fishing as well. Or just like you said, being on the river, being in nature. It's one of the reasons I really like fishing rivers also because there's this movement that kind of uh continually keeps you thinking and moving in a way that I don't get when I'm static fishing, but right. That being present and being able to take that off the river, right? And like you said, being present with the customer, being present, taking the time to go outdoors. I'm not too busy, I'm not too rushed, uh, and just like slowing things down in life. I think that's I think that's cool. That's cool that you learned that from him.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Oh yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

All right. Is there anything else that you want to say? I mean, I I like I said before, I didn't want to I don't mean to put you on the spot and like this isn't a leadership uh course or anything. But I mean I just I really did get the sense in and you being an athlete and then the thinking about the way that you think about teams and stuff, like I was really curious about how you approach the your flesh up because you are the captain of the team and you have like you have the world's your oyster, man. You can do it how you want. And so I thought that was no doubt.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

No, I'm all about I I really like you know that part of the business where you know, like I I I growing up, you know, what what I I was more times than not, I was, you know, a a assistant captain or a captain on a team, like growing up, you know, like for hockey. Um and you know, I was more of that I was vocal, but I was uh a lead by example guy.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Right? You know, and I wasn't a brown noser to the coach, but if we had to be we had to be in at a certain time, more times than not, I'm coming in and I'm dragging a guy that you know sh needs to be drugged back to the to the hotel, but also say the things that need to be said in the locker room and then lead by example. Like I never ask anybody here to do something that I wouldn't do myself. And you know, if I if I'm I'm a pace setter, so if if I if I charge and I'm charging all the time, the guys are charging all the time, you know. So when I'm not here, I don't know. You gotta give them a list.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

That's all right. We have checklists we have for that. Yeah, yeah. All right, that sounds fair, dude.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Um, let's move on.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

What's that?

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Grind to shine, you know. That's that's kind of the the Detroit motto, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:49

So grind to shine?

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Yeah, grind to shine, just grind, work, outwork everybody, you know? Like just grind to the big thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

I didn't know that was the the Detroit motto, but I think that's cool. Yeah, yeah. All right. Uh let's talk Huron River a little bit, and then we'll get into the tactics and we can talk both or however it flows. But um what's something you've been out there a long time fishing it, um, and you get clients from all over the place, I would imagine. When people come out there, what's something that surprises them about that fishery that you think is uniquely special or or something like that?

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Uh solitude. Yep, being on a piece of water, and pretty much more times than not you're gonna have it to yourself. So that's that's that's the biggest thing. That's the biggest thing. Like I'll go up north and go on uh trout streams up there, or I'll go, you know, a bass stream up in the UP, or even northern Michigan, I'll see more of my clients fishing those waters than I see fishing the waters that we guide. Yeah it's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

We might have to go back a long way for this, but sometimes when I'm talking to people, or if I think about fisheries that I've been on, there's kind of maybe a trip or a time or a summer or something where I have kind of a breakthrough moment or like light bulb kind of thing comes on. Sometimes it's gradual, but sometimes there's like a thing that kind of sticks with me. Is there a time for you on the Huron River that you can talk to, or maybe it's something that you see other people experience?

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Yep. No, I mean the biggest thing for our programs and whatnot, you know, from uh um, you know, out of our control, you know, uh, I guess, nature to it is um the the season, right? Once the season changed, that was a big deal. Um, so that was one of them uh that allowed us to fish early in the season when like fishing is just lights out and you're gonna catch the biggest fish of the year. Um other things that happened was I we spoke earlier about kind of having that trout uh foundation. Um and then the the the wasted time trying to it wasn't wasted, but the grind to kind of like finally kind of break through from like these aren't trout. Even though the river looks the same, even though they're gonna hang out in the same spots at times, yeah um they're not trout. So we had to change everything there. The piece of gear that changed everything was the intermediate fly line.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

So once I figured out that like I don't need to be chasing sink tips and rushing presentation. Um I, you know, can't do what I want to do with a floating line. I eventually found the uh the intermediate line, and not only just an intermediate line, because intermediate lines weren't new. They weren't any like you could go to a fly shop when I first started and you could buy a saltwater floater, a basketball.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Yeah, it wasn't like the invention of it, it was just the application, is what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

It was the application, plus they took like these lines that most people would probably use for saltwater fishing or maybe still water fishing, and they put a shorter head on it to make it like aggressive and punch and be able to throw big flies. So, like a lot of those early intermediates were like really lame tapers for bass fishing, where they were long and they were light, and a seven went on a seven and an eight went on an eight, and that's just what you did. When in the event, you know, when shorter belly, shorty shorter taper, shorter belly lines kind of started getting going. Now there's a you know a 30-foot head or 32-foot head, a 33-foot head roughly, with an intermediate, a sink three, a sink five, a sink seven, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that that line came out, and that line was uh real outbound short. Okay. So started fishing that, and what that allows you to do is that allows you to slow down your fly and pause your fly and hover above wood piles and fish, you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Just because you have more time in the water, you have more time and space to kind of get things done, you're not as rushed, is what it sounds like.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

Yeah, it's the sink rate.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

It's sink rate. And like even before those were out, you know, the sink tips we were using were like teeny sink tips, like Jim Teeny lines, T150, T200, or you know, SA had one called the Streamer Express, but they had a 30-foot sink tip. Or fish in a river, we might only fish to fly 10 feet. So the 30-foot sink tips, they were useless.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

That's not awful. So that must have been a super exciting time for you because was this all happening like the gear around the same time that you're kind of having this renaissance of this isn't trout fishing? And did that was that I mean, how hard was that to mentally get over? It sounds like you're describing it as kind of significantly challenging to like mentally just say, okay, let's throw it all away and let's let's start from fresh, kind of.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you just learned so much more um, you know, having a boat too. So I got I got my first drift boat in 2003.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

What kind of drift boat?

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Um it was uh used hide uh 15, whatever, low profile job. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Cool. That sounds pretty exciting. I'm gonna ask some more questions about that a little later on. But um is there something that you can tell me that you know I a lot of times as we grow with experience, it seems like you know, you're always learning, you're always trying to get better, but sometimes you know, hopefully you're you're making less and less mistakes. Is there something that uh stands out to you recently where like for me, sometimes I'll like I'll do something like I should have known better, I know, I know not to do that. Is there is there something on the Huron River that you see people do, or maybe you do that is something that you know Just recently, a lesson learned. Or let me put it this way is there a is there a time on the Huron recently that stands out as a lesson learned that you have, like either I've relearned a lesson I should have known, or like, oh, it's something new that I didn't know about?

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Yeah, I mean you you always learn new things um you know on the river, and like at this stage of like my career and like how many times I've floated down through the sections that I choose to fish, and you know, they are numerous, but um, they're ever changing, right? So, like, so though like you most of the stuff that I learn nowadays is I'm I'm learning of like something that's moved, you know, and that's like you know, it keeps things fresh. Um it keeps like uh you know, like uh Hughesy made a funny statement last year when I told him about a couple things getting moved around. He's like, Oh, it's like it's gonna make it fun again going through there. And I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, Well, it's gonna make it harder. He's like, it was getting too easy, you know.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

So well, yeah, you get used to it. Is it is the river change a lot? Is that something that is like what causes all that the water levels and ups and downs and debris and stuff?

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Yeah, just fluctuations in water temps or you know, trees breaking off and you know, changing a whole corner, and then you know, maybe that tree like looks perfect right now the way it's sitting, but it's gonna take a couple months for that to dig out and become something that like a fish is gonna lock in on. So um, yeah, that ever-changing environment and like you know, just about fly fishing and like doing it the way we're doing it, like you're fishing for these fish, like you'd be hunting with a bow. You know, like you're you're putting yourself at a disadvantage um slightly, you know. Um, and you just you have to slow down. That's that's like a the tip that I could give everybody, you know. You gotta slow down. Slow the boat down, slow just everything, just everything. Like I think that I like you know, if you just go down and just fish around and you're just like have no game plan, you're not thinking about your point of entry, you're just getting the fly out there. As soon as the fly hits the water, you're immediately stripping it, and then you're going into like a robot strip where you're just strip, strip, strip, strip, strip. You're just eliminating so many fish from the equation. Like, there's gonna be fish that aren't gonna eat that way. Yes, you're gonna get that full like swim through suicide eat, but the bonsai eat. Yeah, but that's only a small percentage of of the you know targeted quarry, right? So you gotta slow down and think.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

All right. Well, let's talk about that. I was gonna ask this later, but let's stick with it. The game plan, and I was gonna ask quality over quantity, like what's more important? Do you want less of reps or more quality? It sounds like you already answered that. It's more like a quality thing.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's there's places you go where you can catch high numbers, and they're good places. Like you talked a little bit about wanting to chat a little bit about more beginner stuff, and like if you're a beginner, like you need reps. You need reps. So, like, even if the reps come from bluegills, you know, like get out, get your set down, get your stuff together, and learn the basic stuff, you know. And bass are a great species to do that, and like where you usually catch giant ones, usually in our watersheds, there's not a ton of them, right? So, like, don't like go into smallmouth fishing thinking that you need to go out and be, you know, catch a fish for Instagram. Go out and and just get get reps, catch them. That's how I got it going.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

What are the game plans? Like, give me one or two game plan examples. Like you go out for the day and okay, this is the game plan versus that. Is it mostly seasonal? Is it weather or combo? I mean, I know this is a big it depends, but you've probably got you it would it seems like it would be useful to have, if you're talking about game plans, kind of like this is my playbook, this is kind of these are some things the the way that I'm gonna approach the water. Is there one or two that stand out that you would say like this is kind of maybe different than the other, are they pretty opposite?

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Are you saying like what my program would be and like how I've what what the rules I set for my anglers?

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Um maybe. I guess I'm saying like, for example, it's an overcast day in spring, my game plan might be this versus it's uh a bluebird day in fall, my game plan might be this, or are there certain I guess tactics that you apply in those game plans that are kind of like oh that we're definitely doing this today versus that? Does that make more sense?

SPEAKER_00 43:23

Is that yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like our thing, like just to kind of understand our program, we're gonna make our calls more times than not off of like where we're going and what we're doing off of water levels. Um water levels and when that particular watershed, you know, received that precipitation. Um, you know, where it's at on the rise, where it's at on the fall. Um, you know, like it's like that's like the great stimulator of the environment, right? You get a big, big water event, um, you know, that changes things. And then like you get on that water and you work it for a day or two or three, and then by the time you get to that point, things are gonna change and it's probably gonna drop out, and then you're gonna go somewhere else. So like it's always you're always moving and you're you're we don't we're not like a out west like tourist outfitter, right? Where you just like we're going to fish the yellow, you know, the whatever yellowstone. We're going out to fish this or that, and like that's where they go every single day. That's like not easy. Like that would it's like suicide to do that, like with what we're doing, like fisheries-wise, right? You have to be on your game, you have to move around. That's why like being a firefighter that is a fishing guide eight days a month, like for to make side cash is like you can't you can't do it here. Like it's impossible. Like you you're gonna be around for a minute, you're gonna be a leaf in the wind, and two years you're done, you did 10 trips, you know.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

You're not the first smallmouth angler in Michigan to tell me that.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

So right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

So that's the biggest thing is like well, are you talking about like just the Huron? Are you saying like you keep you keep saying you're seep saying the program? So maybe maybe define the pro what do you mean when you say the program?

SPEAKER_00 45:04

Every river is gonna be different, you know, every section of river is gonna be different. We're in south southern Michigan. Every river around here has dams on it.

SPEAKER_02 45:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Multiple. So it's every section is totally different, behaves different. There's gonna be different blowout points. There's gonna be sections of river that you know are uh shallow ponds and they go over a dam, and that piece of water is gonna be five degrees warmer than you know three three sections down because that one has a deep pond that still has ice on it, and you know, like all these little minor details of like there's no way in heck that you're gonna know any of that stuff unless you have a you know a long, long, long history with pieces of water. Like it's just like all the things that like you know that other people don't know. That's the coolest thing about fishing, because there's really no way to cheat that. You can't just figure that out, you gotta see it and you gotta live it.

SPEAKER_02 45:56

I think that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

So so you make those decisions on where you're going off that. So, you know, some of our rivers run to the north, some run to the west, some run to the east, some run to the south, and they're all different watersheds, and you could get you know, rain to the north, and those rivers turn to mud, and these ones down here are good. So, you know, we always tell our clients on the book. trips or like I want to fish River X.

SPEAKER_01 46:17

And you're like not the right way to go.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

Yeah, you're like, sir, you're six months before your guide trip. Like we'll tell you 48 hours ahead of time and we might tell you, you know, we want might not tell you if you go to bed at nine o'clock at night the night before you got to meet your guide at 10. You know?

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Yeah. I'm starting to learn that with my own personal fly fishing trips like that I plan it's almost it has to kind of be like a region and not like a a river destination. You know, like we're going kind of in this area and then the week before what's what's the what's fishing better, what's doing better, you know? Unless you just really, really want to see that country but now you have a different goal than catching fish, right? Like you really want to experience that part of the the the country or something.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

100% yeah you gotta you have to have your finger on the pulse of of everything and and and there's so many ways to do it now.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

Well let's talk about the Huron. So you talked about all these different ones let's stick with the Huron. You talked about water going up water going down as being a big uh determinant of the program so what would be something like water levels going up and down that would say not today or you would say you know we're gonna go to this other river because of because of that or vice versa you know what would be like this is money we need to hit the Huron?

SPEAKER_00 47:34

Yeah um water levels so the water comes up right you get a spring rain where you go from 500 CFS to 1500 cf s it's gonna be good it's gonna be good for a while you know um right like I fished yesterday did about 11 miles of water um you know and uh yesterday is like it looked great and it's 36 degree water temps when we got out there and it got up to 40 and the fish did exactly what you think they do. We didn't touch a fish until mid-afternoon and unfortunately we had to leave because we had uh obligations with our families but we would have had like great fishing until dark we had to get off the water at like 430 but we started catching fish at 2 and we caught fish until 430 and it probably would have gone to six so yesterday was a freak show day where it just got super warm not a cloud in the sky full you know sun on the river four or five degree water temp jump and those particular days your best fishing from my experience is going to be you know the the it all the way till dark two o'clock three o'clock four o'clock five six seven seven thirty probably could have caught fish all the way till dark so rising water is good rising temperature is good yeah it can be rising water can be good uh but it's more like it sets it stabilizes and you're fishing the drop that's what I was kind of thinking all right yeah so I get what you're so you're saying that the the water's coming up you know okay it's going to drop so I'm waiting for that kind of drop not necessarily fishing it as it's rising. Yeah yeah because there's ways you can like if you have history with the data and you kind of know you know what at River X gets goes from 500 to 1500 River B goes 250 to 750 River B, we know that when it does that it doesn't blow out River A, when it does that you're going mud for three days.

SPEAKER_02 49:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

You know it's just stuff you you gotta put all together it's the the the puzzle tell me a story Mike tell me a story of a fish that got away maybe a memorable fish doesn't have to be the most memorable fish from the Huron but uh a fish that either you caught or got away and something you learned from it.

SPEAKER_00 49:58

Man oh I got I got a lot of a lot of memories um definitely don't have many that got away that I could say that are uh you know too heartbreaking we usually go back and catch them later if we as soon as we locate them or you're on them right you're gonna figure out a way to get them it's kind of like hunting a big buck. You'll eventually put your hang out there yeah a lot yeah they're the ones that are caught or you know they're usually seen again um uh I've had some crazy uh you know some of the most memorable I guess eats um you know are while we're fishing terrestrials um for bass uh on pieces of water that are highly pressured by just humans not so much fishing but um just a lot of canoes and kayaks and recreating um and uh I think a little bit has to do with um uh kind of lack of of larger food sources as you get later in the year um but uh go that's like full circle going back to that whole trout thing there's a time of year on certain pieces of of river where we'll fish um six weights we'll fish handbill leaders that may go down to three X and we'll fish terrestrials in crystal clear water for smallmouth bass it's not for everybody you kind of gotta you kind of gotta be an ace on the uh on the cast if you make two false casts that's one too many if you make three it's probably game over yeah um and you gotta be able to just flip that fly out and go and just drop it on them right um that has taught me so much about a bass that you know the same fish in the springtime will just swim through a six inch changer but that time of year when they're picky on that you better have the right uh fly you better have the right tippet you might you better have the right uh casting angle and you better drop it in a bucket to get them and uh if you don't do a lot of that stuff they'll come up underneath the fly and just just like some you know maybe you've seen it in a little wild you've probably seen it in videos trout will come up underneath dry flies or terrestrials and just kind of drop back and the their fins will just kind of be flaring and they're just kind of looking up at it inspecting it. No that that yep that happens for for smallmouth. So I've had multiple situations where we've we've put a good shot on a fish you know could totally get eaten fish comes up it noses up on it I have had them put their like actually touch the hook.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

That's so hard to wait for the hook set it's I mean right I I've had them circle downstream reset up on the same bug and then eat it. Wow that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 52:57

So I mean that's I that's happened multiple times and like that's just one thing that just burned in my memory um and catching big fish with your kids that's always just right on two more questions about the Huron and then we'll get a little more into some some of the tactics but if you could only fish the Huron two days of the year which two days would you fish it and how would you fish it?

SPEAKER_01 53:19

This isn't necessarily like the best days of fishing.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

This is just when when you want to go for you yeah yeah if I had two days to fish it I'd fish one day pre-spawn which usually is going to be uh kind of in that uh you're gonna have like a magic two weeks um between the last week of March and the last week of April. Somewhere in there there's gonna be 14 days that'll be lights out for streamer fishing. I would say the other way would be that terrestrial style that would be like somewhere in the um month of July or August where the river's super low and clear the big fish are out moving around it's uh there's weeds growing in the river where there's damselflies and dragonflies landing on those and there's these giant soft shell turtles that cruise around and the smallmouth feed off the back of them and I would say that would be my number two day.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

Okay. I am a slightly below average fly tire and I know it depends on seasons and uh you know a lot of different things but is there a couple of flies that you might recommend that I could tie if I was coming out there any time of year, but just minimal material kind of simple kind of ties that um that if I took out you might say yeah we can fish this if you want.

SPEAKER_00 54:46

Yep yep uh circus peanut so circus peanut is just a fly developed by Russ Madden he's a northern Michigan uh guide and fly tire known Russ for 25 years great dude um but his circus peanut is the foundation of so many streamers you know kind of credited for being the first uh you know articulated fly of its its kind and you know Russ used to work for Kelly and Russ made the circus peanut and then the rest is history so different ver versions of that fly um different ways you can tie it with different style weight or different materials you know rubber leg delivery system as Russell calls it um you know gotta have a circus peanut could be a tiny one you'd fish in the summertime could be a four and a half five inch version that you'd fish this time of year. So um the peanut uh some form of of popper um you know I I think that uh on a river like the Huron that sees pressure uh from from everything for just humans it's not necessarily fishing or properly fly fishing to these fish but being able to show them something different is always important so I don't know if it uh has as much to do with color as it would with profile but being able having a topwater bug that was something unique that you were confident in that you've caught fish maybe elsewhere that you could show them something different. You know that'd be uh highly recommended and then uh just uh catch everything all the time you're not gonna get skunked uh red eyed leech just a basic rabbit strip leech with uh dumbbell eyes on it doesn't have to have necessarily red eyes but uh a basic leech pattern just everything that swims eats a black rabbit strip that seems manageable for me that seems uh doable uh I don't know about the circus peanut I haven't tied one of those but uh it seems a little more challenging for me but um all right some more tactics what do you think are a couple of presentation techniques that are overlooked that you think are super important guys just don't get it it's like dude you gotta do this and and people aren't doing it like the kind of like your pet peeves of presentation that like they're just not as well um known yep yep so the number one thing and is de definitely well known uh from anything I do uh whether it's you know talking on YouTube or talking on podcasts or just doing presentations at shows and whatnot the angle of approach is the biggest thing in small moth bass you're playing percentages so if you want your best uh chance of hooking and landing a fish it's gonna be no matter where you're at I've done this on giant rivers I've done it on little rivers and everything in between if you can keep that fly out front of the boat you know roughly generally speaking 45 degree angle downstream present your streamers that way uh present your frogs that way present your terrestrials out front everything out front for the smallmouth bass you're gonna put yourself in a way better position no matter if you're an absolute rocket of an angler or you're just your average beginner getting started. If you can figure that out that was one of the biggest things for me was the trout right and I wanted to do the gallop stuff I wanted to fish off the side of the boat. I wanted to fish upstream and bring the fly down it you'll get eats that way they'll eat the fly but more times than not when you set the hook on a bass the fly's gonna come out of their mouth. So if you keep that fly out front you're gonna be more stealthy. The way the fish eats is going to be more conducive for a positive hook set. When the fish eats it and where it goes away from you you're gonna be able to tighten up on everything and keep everything out front. The guide's gonna be able to back row if you're in a boat but even when you're on foot it's important to keep the the fly out front so that's that's one of the major things and then I would say the number two thing uh that comes to mind is just don't be a robot when you're streamer fishing or popper fishing or frog fishing or anything. Any fishing yeah don't be a robot it's not just one straight strip strip strip strip strip strip do it again strip strip strip slow down slow down um and then maybe beyond that once you get the client to that point or your your your angler or you personally get there as a an angler that's enjoying doing this journey on your own your next thing to think about is like your point of entry like where does the fly enter the water and then what do you do when it does you know like most people will like all right now I got the right spot but I'm still gonna throw it in there hurry up get under my finger and then just start doing the robot again right you just the point of entry is so key think before you cast and this is something that you're gonna get better at as you collect more data in your brain of seeing things happen right you're like oh that happened you know and it's not just that happened on that wood like fish are on wood. All right you get to that point in your angle like they like wood they like rocks they like this and that but where are they positioned on that structure?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:00

Yeah that's something that Russ Madden talked about when I I remember him talking about this when we talked was the opening your aperture and kind of looking downstream and picking like like the the log or the rock or or where exactly do I want it to be and the importance of that versus just doing the like casting four times. And I know reps are important like you talked about but casting four times has benefits because you're getting reps, right? But you know if you can um pick that specific spot you know and and see further out it's helpful I guess 100% yeah I know and you just start putting it all together man. When you say don't be a robot can you expand on that or what are things you can do to not be a robot? Like is it just the cadence of your strip or is it what what other things are are you know are you just talking about being unpredictable or just changing the way that you're always doing things a little bit different or is is it all of the above or just the strip or what yeah yeah the robot like is just like do like just doing the most basic same thing over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:19

Like yes I get it when you're first starting you're gonna be a robot to some extent because you're still it's not natural to grab that line it's not natural to you yet you know you're reaching up in front of the reel you know doing all kinds of goofy stuff when you're just starting out and you quickly put that together but yeah you just it's just not one little three three foot two and a half two and a half two and a half two and a half two and a half you know just stripping stripping stripping stripping mixing it up you're you know you like you know you gotta be the fly man you know like you gotta be the fly you're hunting the fly you're not stripping the fly you're hunting it um and then that brings me to like instantly like what do I think of I think a swim fly like and what we're doing with those like they uh encourage creative ways to move them right it's not just a woolly bugger it's not just a cone head it's not just a dumbbell eyed leech just doing that whimpa who you know like it's actually doing things and you the the little movements of the rod left or right or downswats are going to change the way the fly moves. Yeah, about rod tip as well then yeah I mean there there's there's only so many things you can do if I'm guiding you know you're building your angler over the day but you're building your angler over a seasons and seasons and seasons. How far can you take that that person? That's that from a guiding standpoint those are the clients that I want to guide. That's my ideal client client that comes to me that's like I want to get better I want to get good I want to learn I this isn't just coming out there just to catch fish but when you like fully engage in this and you you understand the importance of all the little things that you really can't read about you can read about them but you got to experience them. You got to experience them.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:07

Is there other things that you don't want to be robotic about like where you place the fly around structure maybe or um no other other things?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:17

Yeah there's gonna always gonna be exceptions to that 45 degree rule right yeah so there's gonna be some things that like you know if I'm guiding I'm communicating the whole time I'm calling out where I want you to put the fly and that might be something that goes on forever in our relationship or that might be something that goes on for a couple trips and then you're on your own and you get it. But you know backhand and forehand right like you've got to be proficient in that you got to be able to cast at different angles. You know it's not all just up over your head. So you know being like a a fishy like an athlete I don't ever call fishermen athletes. I think that's kind of silly but like the more athletic you are and the more you can do at different angles and do things the better angler you're gonna be especially on the waters that we fish. Like there's a lot of shooting at structure there's a lot of getting it underneath stuff there's 50% of the river is on your backhand 50% is on your forehand. So unless you're switching hands you better learn how to how to cast pretty darn good but uh yeah just don't be a complete robot. You can't just go down the river and just wish it you gotta fish it.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:28

I like that. So is um when you talk about bugs or streamers that you're fishing in the movement and how important that is can you talk a little bit about fly design or just what are some of the things that you think are important that you've learned through your evolution of fly tying and fly design?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:46

Yeah I'd say that like you know the biggest thing like just like questions that I got asked at the show last weekend like I probably got asked a you know half a dozen times you got any new flies for the season? It's like I got new colors but I don't have new sizes or size uh you know it's flies. Um I think that like just like an angler like a you know a conventional angler has an arsenal of of lures you know whether it be you know a hair jig a flipping jig a football jig uh a jerk bait uh you know a deep dive and jerk bait you know a deep deep diving jerk bait you know a crankbait plus one plus two lining it up right so like you're building like these sets of flies um to deal with ever changing conditions there are patterns that I've tied and like made videos of that there may be seasons that I don't use them because one I may not get to the body of water that I made them for or the water levels are not that level when I'm there um but like every fly that we tie has a you know they'll be designed and kind of promote they have a purpose um so a lot of them work just going out and robot fishing them yeah you're gonna get fish but a lot of them are designed for really specific things.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:12

What are some of the specific things? Like what are some of the purposes that you like this one's it doesn't have to be all like I know it's totally and I'm asking you questions they're like dude we've got like 12 different ones but there's got to be maybe one or two like kind of designs or purpose that I really want this one to I don't know like I get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:32

Yeah yeah I mean like so like the most popular one right now that like is all over Instagram everybody's tying it and everybody's selling it on Etsy and everything else is a is a is a leggy boy is a leggy boy right so like the leggy boy is uh something that you can go out and you can just strip it and you'll catch fish right but like it literally was designed to be a transition fly between like winter so cold sub-35 degree water temps it's freezing you need to fish a fly with some jigging motion something that you could drag along the bottom usually containing lead eyes or tungsten or a combination thereof to get you down and like put it in their face when they're pinned to the bottom in some situations. The Leggy Boy is kind of like what comes after that like when the water hits 36 37 38 39 you can start fishing that fly and be effective with it even though it's like a changer platform that works really well to just go out and strip but it's designed to be fished from a boat. You can you can fish it on foot if you want to walk and do different things but it's designed to be fished from a boat it's designed to be tied in a couple different lengths for what I use it for those couple different lengths have maybe three different weights in the heads they're the same size bug. If you threw them at me you could throw them at me I could say this one has this bead in it you threw another one at me I'd say this one has this weight bead in it. But there's a decent amount of difference in weight um with them and then you're playing a balancing act between that weight and the material that you're using for the head. Okay and the material you're using for the head is EP crustaceous brush. There's a million there's a million brushes on the market. That's the one that you have to use to do what I'm doing with it. And that's how I have it figured out in my head of how deep it fishes, and blah blah blah blah blah. So you're you're use you're using those those flies with the new the buoyancy of the head material, the the weight, plus the rubber legs to be able to fish that fly at a desired depth. Um the rower dictates the speed in which it's moving and swings. Your cast dictates that too, but uh if you're rowing, you're probably guiding you're gonna keep that person in these parameters. And you're able to keep that fly and work that fly real slow over structure, over rocks, over wood, across color changes, whether it's you know mixed substrate, uh mud or whatever, and you're able to tickle that fly across, and those rubber legs are fluttering, and you're maybe in four feet of water, and you're down two feet, and there's a fish sitting there, and that thing comes across the peripheral, and they're gonna smoke it. So, like yesterday started at 36 degrees, we got up to 40, and we caught them on the leggy boy. You know, that was that's the fly.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:22

And is it because the way that the fly is designed, it moves uh the right amount for that time of year and those temperatures?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:31

Yep, you got so many like overstimulating the fish where you got rubber legs, you got marabou, it's wiggling, it's hovering, it's just in their face, and they inhale the whole thing. It's gone. Versus a fly that's designed for a different purpose, which would be like less movement, maybe, or um well, you could you could take like uh you know a fly, like let's say the swinging D, um, where it's the swinging D is not like necessarily designed to like cover a ton of water and like sweep and fish real slow. It's designed to throw into an area and like crack it around in that area where that fly, you make vary your strip from six inches to a foot to two feet, it's gonna do all different stuff, and it could move if you tie it properly up to two and a half to three feet left to right versus coming back to the boat.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:21

It's a lot more uh uh of an aggressive kind of fishing scenario.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:26

Yeah, wounded, wounded bait fish, you know, water temps a little bit higher, they're willing to chase. You know, you throw a six, seven-inch fly into a little soft pocket, you know, every in a certain times of year, you crack that thing a couple times, it's got a rattle, and every fish from 15 feet away is gonna come in to see what the heck's going on.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:46

It's got a rattle as well. And is it what is it about the materials then that helps it do that?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:52

Uh the head design. It's got a like a flared, it's got a foam head with like a f a flared collar on it. And the the collar can't be too big, it can't be too small.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:03

But that forces it to kind of it more drag as you're stripping it, more drag, it's gonna force it out more.

unknown 1:11:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:09

Yep, tension. You have tension on it with the current, and it just it's all over the place. All right, you can vary vary the weight of the fly. You put more tungsten the what more weight on the bend of the hook up front, which is referred to as a keel, the fly is gonna sink faster when you're pausing it. If you have no keel on it, that thing's gonna run in the first six inches of the water.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:30

You know what I'm saying? So you can vary your your depth depending on water temps.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:33

That makes sense. I don't I mean, I understand what you're saying, it makes sense, but uh it sounds complex and there's a lot of moving parts. How about observation? Everybody says observation is important. I agree, observation is important. I think uh there's some things sometimes things are more obvious than others. Uh you know, what are what are a couple things what are a couple things that you think are important in observation for smallmouth that uh maybe one that's like more obvious and one that's less obvious.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

Yep. You know, more more obvious would be stuff that you can see when you're wading that may be protruding out of the water, whether it be rocks or wood or that kind of stuff, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:19

Structure, yeah. Okay, so that's probably a place that they like to be. We need to observe that and pay attention and look for those things, okay?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:26

Yeah, yeah. You know, and like you know, there's gonna be uh, you know, more times than not, um if the water's up, uh the smallmouth bass, you know, is gonna be behind the wood structure. You know, and then as the water gets low in the summertime, we're talking about like wood structure that has current, you know, going over it. Um in the summertime they're gonna be uh at times in front of it or come out of it from the front. But if it's springtime and it's ripping, no no smallmouth is gonna be sitting on the front of a log jam, like you may in your mind think that like a brown trout might be sitting in, you know, right? Because the fish is gonna be sitting back, it's gonna be using that structure as you know, a break in the current and sitting there, you know, in that on that edge, being able to spring into the current and grab whatever it wants if it wants to do that. So um, you know, that's one thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:18

How about less obvious?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:20

The less obvious is the stuff that you get to see uh being in a drift boat, and that is being elevated, uh seeing minor depth changes and whatnot, different contour changes in the in the river's bottom, uh substrate color changes where you go from maybe a dark substrate on the on the bank into uh sandy and maybe even to the middle of the river, more of a cobble and rock bottom where you see those transitions. Those are all like super important um things to to note. Uh but you know, one time of year that's really obvious is spring when the water's warming. The you you know, you know, most anglers, you know, when you everybody when they first start, in the vast majority, unless they've been taught by somebody, um, you know, they're gonna look for like holes. I'm gonna go fish the hole.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:08

It's like you're using quote marks.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:10

Yeah, you know, like a hole. Right? Yeah, you're gonna go fish a hole. It's like, okay, well, like if a fish is keyed up and it's feeding, it's probably not gonna be in a hole. You know, I mean, I get it. You throw out a live worm with a you know weight on it and just sit there and still fish, you're probably gonna catch something in the hole. But like a fish that's like actively being a predator and feeding, those fish are gonna be keyed up in um you know, shallower water. Um, so a lot of times those fish are on those color changes. Um, and that's stuff that you see from being in a boat.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:43

That's interesting. So you're talking about the the river bottom, a lot of the is it transitions changes colors or structure or you know, this type of bottom versus is it is it kind of you're looking for those changes, whether they be any of those number of things?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:00

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're just looking for different, you know, like if you you had a uh five-gallon pail and you threw three goldfish in it, and then you put a pebble in the bottom of it where the goldfish are gonna go hang out. Yeah, they're gonna sit on top of the pebble. It doesn't matter if it's a goldfish or a bass. They're gonna be on beyond structure. But when you're elevated and you're able to see that, then you can start taking notes, you know. Like, you know, I've heard guides say, like, I got a pretty good idea what the you know bottom of that river looks like for that section. It's like that's all super important stuff because you know there's they're fairly simple creatures, right? If one's doing it, there's gonna be other ones doing it. So putting it together.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:37

Yep. You you've mentioned temperature a few times. What's optimum temps for smallmouth?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:43

Um, anything over 45 degrees. You know, so that's like where they get really fiery and do things that you, you know, stereotypically would consider smallmouth doing, like swimming through six-inch flies and eating frogs off the surface.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:57

Is there a temp that's too high or that's not not good?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:01

No, I mean, like I think like uh don't quote me, I'm no scientist, but I think the water needs to get into like the nineties to really affect the smallmouth, like for death, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:12

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:13

Okay. One more thing on tactics and we'll start wrapping it up, Mike. But um you've mentioned a bunch of this stuff, but I wonder do you have any uh habit patterns or things that you think about when you're reading water? Um I mean the non-robot I would think is is one of them, but uh specifically when you're reading water or or fighting fish, maybe, or hook setting, things that you have habitualized in your fly fishing smallmouth fly fishing that you think uh if I'm new to fly fishing, I'm listening to this, like this is something that it's not just like good for different scenarios, but this is a habit that will serve me well in smallmouth fly fishing, kind of in general.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:57

100%. 100%. One like in combination with that intermediate line. Um when you're streamer fishing, you want to have your rod tip fairly close to the water, especially if you're you know in a boat. Um so I like you know to have my clients have their rod tip, let's say 12 to 18 inches off the water. Um, smallmouth love to eat flies on the paws. They'll eat everything on the paws, whether it's a jerk bait or whatever. Um moving baits, you know, robot, don't be the robot, throw some paws on the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:29

Don't be the robot. I'm not gonna do it, dude.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:31

Yep, yep. Mix up your retrieve. Um pause. Always keep that rod tip low because when when they eat it, a smallmouth is an inhaler. So they inhale the fly. They're not a muskie, they're not a pike, they're not a brown trout, they're not, they're not grabbers.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:51

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:52

So they swim through it usually, fully suck it in, doesn't matter if it's six inches, eight inches, four inches, two inches, it's fully in their mouth. The rod tip is low. You're gonna immediately remove the slack from the presentation, which is probably pretty darn tight if you're fishing a streamer, and you strip it out, and then you just you lift. You strip, you got it tight. It's under your finger. You're stripping, it's tight, pinch it to the cork when you get tension and whack them. You know, it's not it's not a tra it's not a bone fish strip set, strip set, strip set till you get them. The rod's gotta come up.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:34

Why is that? Because you mentioned before the way that they eat would want you you'd want to present downstream to them, right? You'd want to be in front of them with the presentation because of the way they eat. So can you talk real quick about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:47

Yeah. I mean, if you you're again, like I'm these statements that I'm making about this technique and all this stuff, this all revolves around you playing within that window. That 45, you know, out front out front of the boat, you know, let's just say 11 o'clock, you know, to to eight.

unknown 1:19:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:05

That's your window, right? And same thing on the other side, you know, one o'clock till uh that's why you got a cast with both hands.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:11

You got a front hand, backhand cast.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:13

So everything that I'm saying is revolves around that. Keep it out front. Like if you're gonna try some crazy trout stuff and fish it upstream and walk it down the bank the opposite way, there's gonna be things that you need to do in your head, have the discipline to know what you need to do in that situation when that fish eats, because it's probably gonna be something like clear the line and sweep versus a full hook set. Because if you do this, you're gonna pull it right out of their mouth.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:38

So I'm talking about program windows, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:42

So, like, again, you know, like I think there's so much information out there, like when it comes to this stuff, and like there's so much like people can do it so many different ways. It's fly fishing.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:54

I get it, but you're doing a great job of of of of explaining kind of the ways that you like to do it and 100%. Yeah, I I mean I think most people listening know that you're not saying you must, therefore, you shall kind of stuff. I get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:09

But if you stick to that stuff, that's just we're on the program, exactly. Like we want to build, like I can take an angler, if you could get someone in my boat that can cast 30 feet, like this time of year, even in the tough time where you really got to slow people down. Give me 30 feet, maybe 35, be able to pick it up, make two false casts, and lay it down. I'm confident that give me a few days, a couple days, two days, or maybe in the one day, if you're a really good listener and you're willing to just do everything I say, we will put you, I will put you onto a big fish. You know, like it's not that hard. Like it's like when it comes to guiding, like, yeah, you know, a lot of people know this, like it's not no secret. Like, that fish is the guide's fish as much as it's the guy that caught it, or the wingler that caught it, caught its fish.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:56

Like, you're like that, it's it's why a lot of guides like fishing, right? I mean, it's one of the reasons I like rowing a drift boat because I feel like I'm part of like I'm doing it. 100%, you know, and I'm not I don't I'm not even I'm not good at it, but I'm getting better and I I I treat it as a skill set, and I I acknowledge that it's part of that, and it makes me happy when I'm rowing and someone catches a fish, and you know, it's not always I'm not always causal, but I'm I'm in the I'm involved, right? Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:26

And the most important time to be an absolute rock star on the oars is when in the cold weather periods.

unknown 1:21:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:33

Like you could go out there and if the boat's not moving right, like there's not a parameter. Like when I go out this time of year, if even with them with my buddies, I'm rowing 80% of the time. Because it's that it's that important. So, like, yeah, so like think about it before you buy a drift boat, fella, folks. Because like not uh yeah, not only do you not only do you know need to like buy the boat and have the tool, but you gotta know how to use it, and you're gonna be rowing the whole time, or you have to have a buddy that's willing to learn how to use it. Because if not, it's it's just a just a cool thing to run down the road with, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:09

I'm learning this. Uh I just got a drift boat. But um, but I one of the reasons I got the drift boat is because I'm really excited about like getting better at rowing. So doubt. So, real quick before we start wrapping it up, the way the fish eats, can you like you the how does it like oh you said they swallow it a whole, but then how where do they go from there? Because you're gonna tighten it up with like a strip set, but then come up. So it's not a complete strip set, like but why is that but with the way the fish eats?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:39

You're just removing the slack and then you're coming up with it. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:44

Because the fish is not turning with it, really. He's he's coming at you.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:50

Yeah, same, same old deal. We're out front. Yeah, we're out front, right? So they eat it more times than not, they're gonna go downstream or to the middle. Very rarely are they gonna come at you.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:03

They're gonna go at the they just got stung. Are they gonna go swim into the current or are they gonna go from the path of least resistance?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:10

Sure, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:11

So everything, if the you keep it out front, you're stealthy, the you're you're dropping your presentation in there, the fish eats the fly, you set the hook, everything's out front. You're not doing like the whole John Travolta, you're not putting the fly line in your mouth and picking it up. Like everything's tight. You have a much better chance of succeeding, you know. And if you're a drift boat angler, I'll tell you this right now: the last thing you want to do when your buddy hooks up on a small mouth, if it's of size, is to drop that anchor. Don't drop it. Do not do not do that. You can do it. There's more fish for us to catch. But if you do that, you're gonna pull hooks on these fish. Because you're gonna probably be running 12, 16 pound tippets. So you drop anchor in the river and that boat comes to a stop, and that's that you're gonna pull hooks.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:59

Do the fish have a program? Like you said, like if there's usually if I don't get a fish, I'll come back and get it. If you hook into these fish, or they've you know, if they've been caught multiple times, or or maybe they're just maybe not, I don't know. Do they have like a I know that this is my zone, and if this happens, I'm gonna go run to this structure, or do they have a kind of a do you see that? Like I've seen that with trout. Like certainly I've seen that with trout and in uh where it's like that was a definitely knew that that's where the structure was, or definitely had a plan. Do you see that with smallmouth?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:33

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like when I when I say that we'll come back and get them later, that's usually if it's like a a fish, you're just like, whoa, like that's the one. We had it, we had not we had it, we had a sighting. Um it depends on the time of uh time of year. So like the way they behave in the spring is a heck of a lot different than they behave in the summer. And then when you get like situations where you get extreme low water, then they they get desperate and they do wild stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:58

But um they will make runs to structure, they will they will like have yeah, like an escape escape route. Yeah, or they go down deep or um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:10

Yeah, they they have um you know um they're gonna be set up in different places depending on the time of the year for one, and two, uh current conditions. Like there may be an a spot that that you would consider like an A spot for that fish, but you know, once it gets uh super low, it moves somewhere else, you know, or goes on like a full like run where they move around and feed like uh off of those, like I mentioned, the turtles. Um a couple of the rivers we guide, there's these turtles that these fish feed off of. Um and they'll go. I I you know, and and going back to your original question about like I you know, you catch those fish once a year.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:52

Type deal. It's very rare that we catch the same fish twice in a year that's of that size, but I do have two stories on that. Um one story, uh I believe it was a client that caught like a 20 and change off a turtle.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:07

When you say off a turtle, like what is that exactly?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:10

That means that the the the turtle's feeding and it's knocking stuff up while it's grubbing around on the rocks. It's the it's a soft shell turtle that does that. And then the smallmouth are behind it picking up stuff. But he caught a he caught one on a terrestrial off a turtle, and then like a week later or a few days later, a couple of our guides are out screwing around and caught the same fish, has uh had a tag in it, caught the same fish about a mile downstream, still on a turtle. Was it the same turtle? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:39

But um, they're buddies, they have got their their team, they're a team.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that that happens.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:46

That's cool. Mike, we've been talking a while. I want to give you the opportunity if there's anything that you think we haven't covered, that before we wrap it up, that you're like, dude, we didn't cover this, and I gotta say it before we move on. Is there anything tactics-wise on smallmouth? We've been talking a long time.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:02

No, man. Just like I said, keep it out front. Uh their inhalers, uh, strip the slack out, set the hook, tie your own leaders, uh, tie your own flies. Um don't be a robot. Yeah, don't be a robot. Get the right tapered fly lines.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:18

That's super important. You're not going to go out there and have much success throwing like a general all-around taper that's made for trout fishing, throwing the flies that we like to fish. Um, you know, intermediate over sync tip more times than not. Stall out the fly, give it a pause, uh, be the fly, hunt the fly, don't be a robot, and that's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:40

All right. Uh, Mike, how can people find out more about you? Check out your fly shop, maybe schedule a guided trip, and uh and then also, is there anything that you're excited about coming up in the fly fishing world?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:53

Yeah, um, you know, social media is big for us. We put a lot of content out there. Um, you know, a lot of posts on Instagram, a lot of reels, lots of stories. Uh, our media guy, Nick Meinsinger, he's uh always pushing stuff up onto YouTube, so there's a bunch of instructional videos on there. Uh, nothing hidden behind paywalls. You can just jump on there and see us tie our flies uh and whatnot on that. Um so Schultz Outfitters on Instagram, Schultz Outfitters on IG, uh, or on Facebook rather, Schultz Outfitters on YouTube. Um new website coming uh this year. Um whole bunch of stuff happening, but what I'm most excited for is uh pre-spawn. So I start uh next week I'll be down in Virginia with Blaine Chocolate doing a smallmouth school, and then when I get back, I'm uh pretty much guiding uh until uh June. So that sounds cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:45

Is the website URL gonna be the same, the new one, or should we just link? Okay. So we'll link to all that stuff in the show notes so people can find you. And uh just for people out there, what's the website link?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:56

Just uh SchultzOutfitters.com. S-C-H-U-L-T-Z.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:00

We'll put it on there. Mike, last question. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:06

Ready.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:07

If you could go back to when you first started fly fishing and give yourself two pieces of advice, one more tactical and one more philosophical. What would you tell yourself to help you progress at fly fishing?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:17

Bass are not trout. Number one. Trout or not bass.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:22

Is that tactics or philosophy? That's a little of both, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:25

Yeah, a little bit of both. A little bit of both. Uh, tactics-wise, um, like I said earlier, you just gotta slow down. It's just slowing down and just like observing and not being in a big rush to fish everything and run all over the place and fish different rivers and all that stuff. When you're first starting out, you need to find something that's close to your house that you can get to quickly and get to at all hours a day if when you can get an extra hour or two and put in the time and observe and even get to the point where you even break it down smaller than that. You literally pick a four-mile section or one float that you just do over and over and over again to intimately learn it. And once you capture those data points on that particular piece for the whole season, then you can start putting it together and then you can expand on it. But uh, you know, that's what I recommend. I I think I chased uh I I uh I tried to manage things and um uh and whatnot, and not really just listen to Mother Nature and learn from her and what she gives you on a given day or a season or a month or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:36

Okay. Good advice, tactical and philosophical. Mike, I really appreciate it. I learned a ton. Um there's so much. I mean, we could do a whole another three or four episodes on on all that stuff. So I was trying to get a bunch of it in there, but you did a great job, and I really appreciate it. Like I said, learned a ton, had a great time talking to you, and I really appreciate you being on the show, so thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:57

No problem, brother. Thank you for having me, and uh let me know what I can do for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:05

Thanks for listening to the Wade Out There Fly Fishing Podcast. You can learn more about some of the topics we discussed in today's episode show notes. For more fly fishing ideas, stories, and artwork, check out my blog and online gallery at waitoutthere.com. If you want to make Wade Out There a part of your own fly fishing journey, please subscribe and share. Until next time, Wade Out There.