WOT 245: Soft Hackle Tactics, the Provo River, and Fly Fishing Instruction with Nick Teynor

In this episode we WadeOutThere with Nick Teynor, from Salt Lake City, Utah. When Nick was a child his family road tripped from Maryland to Washington State for his father’s job transfer.  Along the way, he was introduced to fly fishing, while watching drift boats out the car window in the Rocky Mountains.  A stop at the family’s cabin in Montana sealed the deal.  He had a fly rod in his hand for the first time, and from then on it was all he wanted to pursue and learn about in the fishing world.  

Nick’s family later moved to Utah, where his time on the water exploded, as he was able to access water from his bike on weekends and after school.  Nick stayed in Utah, and has worked at Western Rivers Fly Fisher, in Salt Lake City, for over nineteen years as both a guide and now, primarily as an instructor.  

We discuss the Provo River and seasonal tactics for soft hackle, including presentation techniques, swinging, and fly selection.  Nick also shares his thoughts on guiding versus instructing in fly fishing. 

Learn More:
Instagram: @thepurplerooster
WesternRiversFlyFishing.com

Visit WadeOutThere.com/art for 10% off your first original painting or limited edition print from show host and artist Jason Shemchuk

Newsletter Sign-Up . Sign up for emails with new podcast episodes, blog articles, and updates on artwork from Jason.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

In this episode, we wait out there with Nick Tiner from Salt Lake City, Utah. When Nick was a child, his family rode trip from Maryland to Washington State for his father's job transfer. Along the way, he was introduced to fly fishing while watching drift boats out the car window in the Rocky Mountains. A stop at the family's cabin in Montana sealed the deal. He had a fly rod in his hand for the first time, and from then on, it was all he wanted to pursue and learn about in the fishing world. Nick's family later moved to Utah, where his time on the water exploded as he was able to access water from his bike on weekends and after school. Nick stayed in Utah and has worked at Western Rivers Fly Fisher in Salt Lake City for over 19 years, as both a guide and now primarily as an instructor. We discuss the Provo River and seasonal tactics for soft tackle, including presentation techniques, swinging, and fly selection. Nick also shares his thoughts on guiding versus instructing in fly fishing. Welcome to the Wade Out There Fly Fishing Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Shemchuk. 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, Nick. Thanks for being on the Wade Out There podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Of course. I'm excited to talk to you about Utah and some of the streams around here that we both frequent. We both get to fish. I say this a lot, but um anytime I get someone from Utah on on here, it always turns into a little bit of a selfish kind of session for Jason to discover new ways and tactics and techniques to fish his own local waters. So that'll be cool. And also I like the way that you guys approach the instruction with your classes and things. I know you have a lot of experience with that, so that'll be cool to talk about too. I want to start with how you got started in fly fishing and have you been in Utah this whole time? I know we talked before the show about some experience up in Montana and the Wasatch Front, and just curious how that grew into a love and career in fly fishing.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yeah, I'll give you the cliff notes-ish version of it. That's perfect. That's what we need. So we'll get drawn out. So we actually was born in Maryland, big Catholic family, one out of five kids. My dad uh had gone to Annapolis Naval Academy, and then he got out of the service and was working for the Department of Energy, and he got transferred and about seven, I think it was about seven, we literally moved from Maryland to Washington State. So completely coast to coast transfer change. I always enjoyed being on the water when we were in Maryland. Never had a chance to fish as much, but I enjoyed fishing when we did get out there. Um most of the time, who knows? We went to a muddy pond and dad said there was fish in there. Don't know if there actually was fish in there. I just enjoyed being out there. Anyways, driving through the Rockies, I saw people fly fishing for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Oh, cool. On the road trip out?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Yeah, just because we drove out. We drove out uh this is like in the early 90s, so we just did the whole road trip thing. Driving through the mountains, I saw people in boats I'd never seen before. Drift boats, floating rivers, saw people fishing in a way I'd never seen before. And stopping through on the family cabin, which is in Montana, saw we met my grandparents up there on the drive out, and saw they had some old fishing rods hanging up in the garage. I'd never seen a fly rod before. Dad took it down, let me play around with it. I promptly hooked myself with it. And after that, that's kind of all I really wanted to learn about was more about fly fishing. So that was in like I said, early 90s, we moved to eastern Washington, Tri-Cities area, closest water. Well, it's right by the Columbia, but the closest trout water around there would be the Yakima that's famous, and then you have the stuff around the Walla Walla area and stuff like that. So yeah, that's kind of how initially the move out as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

That's cool, man. Where uh so you're eastern Washington. I'm from Washington, I'm from Bellevue, western Washington, west of the Cascades, but I've been on the Yakima a lot. My brother has a drift boat, he still lives out there, and I love the Yakima. I think it's cool. What was that like growing up? How how often would did you get out there? And was that your teenage years in the in Yakima?

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Uh so we were, yeah. So we were only in Washington for four years. So we left before I started seventh grade. We were there like third through sixth grade, and it was one of those things where I did not get to fish very much, unfortunately, because uh when you're one out of five kids and you're the only one who gets to go fish or likes fishing. My you know, I'm not to you know poo-poo my dad. My dad did try. He uh he you know he was an Eagle Scout, so I mean he knew how to spin fish, but he didn't know how to fly fish. So it usually would be I get really lucky, my dad and I could sneak out maybe like two or three times, maybe a handful of times a year. He would literally get me up in the morning and be like, all right, you got a couple hours, we're gonna go to this spot. He would sit on the bank and do a crossword puzzle and let me figure it out. Um, my learning curve was pretty much non-existent.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Have you ever been back to the Yakima since? Now that you're more well-versed. I have actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

So uh, and I was so glad, in fact, I didn't just because I didn't get a chance to go explore as much as I wanted to, but when I go back, because my dad's actually still up in Washington State, he's still in Richland. So when I go back, I make it a point to check out those streams that come off the Blue Mountains, and then also like places like Rocky Ford, places I never got really a chance to go explore. I've been making it a point to go fish something different every time, but I love the Yakima, especially in the canyon. Every time I go up there, if I get a chance to go fish the Yak in the Canyon, it's a beautiful piece of water.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Yeah, it's really nice. Yeah. I have a lot of fond memories there because like I said, my brother and I've been out there a lot with him on and my dad on the on the boat. But yeah, all right, so cool, man. That's cool. You got to go back at least and fish it in a different way. And then you ended up in Utah then. So how did that happen?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Did you go out there for school or so dad actually left the Department of Energy and we have family down in Salt Lake have for a long time, and so he ended up working with my uncle for a number of years, and we moved down here in '98. Um and pretty much I've been here ever since, except for going back east for school for a couple semesters, actually, two years.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Okay. Yeah. What was some of the hardest things to learn early on when you got to Utah? What was because I imagine like we talked before the show, you spent a lot of time on the Wasatch Front and creeks and small streams and stuff. Do you remember that period of time? I I feel like everyone, not everyone, but a lot of people, myself included, they have this kind of maybe one or two or different parts of their life seasons where they are sprinting and fly fishing, where they just get to go a lot. You know, it's like a big jump and learning curve. Do you remember a time like that and some of the challenges that you had and overcame?

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah. So I mean, that was the one benefit about that was one huge thing about moving down here is that the water was literally within biking distance. When I was when we were in Washington, you needed a car to pretty much get anywhere where we were in the Tri-Cities. But that is one neat thing about Utah. Everything is so close, especially if you know where to look for it. So biking around to all the Salt Lake City streams, even the Jordan, some of the community ponds. There used to be a couple like bluegill ponds that weren't too far from the house. Learning how to fish big cottonwood in the city, actually. That was really where I honed a lot of my skills just because it was so close. I can literally bike to it after school every other day. And it really taught me a lot. Um taught me a lot about conservation because literally I would go through and pick up garbage and try to clean it up, make habitat for some of the fish. But because it's so tight and brushy, it really helped me kind of learn how to read the water, you know, tight technical presentations, getting good drifts, uh, things like that. So yeah, I mean, local waters really helped hone my skills. And a lot of that had to do with, like I said, getting lucky and having a couple of good pushes in the right direction at the right time. That came from some of the guys at Fish Tech and Western Rivers when I was a kid when we moved down here.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Okay. Yeah, because you're with Western Rivers now as an instructor, I guess, because you guys aren't necessarily in the guiding business. We'll talk about that later. But when did that love of fly fishing? I mean, it sounds like what you're saying is it was really the access to water and time on the water that really helped you. Absolutely. And I think about this a lot. I've I've mentioned it on the show because I was in the Air Force traveling around a lot, and I've always had this idea in my brain that uh I'm so far away from trout water, so I can't go fly fishing. And I really, really believe, now that I've talked to a lot of people on this show as guests, that it's really valuable to just find whatever water is close. Like even if, like you said, it's a bluegill pond or or whatever. But you know, if you if you live in Georgia like I lived in Georgia, or you live in Missouri, like I lived in Missouri when I was in the Air Force, you know, maybe start fly fishing for bass. And just you're fly fishing all the time. I mean, you're still casting, you're still fighting fish. Yeah, and I was fishing anyway, you know. I just like I just associated fly fishing with trout. So like I'm just gonna use spinning gear for bass fishing, but I wish I would have had a different perspective. And when I hear you talk about like the opportunity to be on the water so often, I really think that that's uh closer than a lot of people think, I guess. I'm just putting that out there.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Yeah, no, absolutely. And that's the thing we I especially try to instill with all my students, you know, even though we do focus on trout for a lot of our classes, I do encourage them to, you know, branch out and go try for bass, go try for bluegill, go try for carp. Carp will make you a much better angler. They don't get a lot of love, and I understand why, because they're in places where they maybe shouldn't be, and they can be kind of stinky and gross, but uh I can't think of a bigger freshwater fish that will rip you into your backing, and very few people take the time to go after them. And like I do tell people, if you want to get ready, kind of have an idea of what it's like to go saltwater site fishing, you go find some clear water with carp in it. It's not too different from fishing for redfish or bone fish. Um similar tactics. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

All right, cool. Well, let's talk a little bit about fishing in some of your home waters. We could talk about any of these small streams that you that that you've experienced, or I know you're up on the Provo quite a bit, some of the rivers around Utah. What's something that you think like when you have a guest that comes out, say you're on the Provo, is there anything about the waters out here that is uniquely special that you think, or that when you have a guest that's never fished out here before, they're surprised by that kind of sets it apart or that strikes them as different?

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Yeah, I would say that you know, the one thing that we hear about is like, wow, everything is so close. And so that is true. The one thing I do actually I have to tell more people who are customers or live in Utah, uh, we need to be more appreciative of the Provo because we hear a lot from people, oh, the Provo's always this, it's so crowded, the people are so rude. But we hear from people who come all over the country, and I've heard over and over and over again how lucky we are to have streams like the Provo and the Weber in our backyard. So, but that being said, you know, with all the fishing pressure that the Provo gets, I do tell people, hey, you know, I mean, what you know, number one, thin for the wind. That's what we always I always stress people on the Provo is that there is a time and place where, you know, the bigger, bulkier flies will do well, especially if the water's murky and off-color, where you're fishing turbulent water. But if you're fishing and it's a calm day, some sun around, thin for the wind. Uh thin for the wind. Thin for the wind. Thin, sparse, simple flies, okay, lighter leaders and tippets, that can make a huge, huge difference. Everything in general, just on the more heavier pressured the water is, just thinner, sparser flies. Not always, but that's kind of our whole caveat is thin for the wind uh on the throw.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Okay. Yeah. And what about uh your rig? Does that apply to that as well? Like with tippet size and those types of things?

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Yeah, I mean, definitely. I mean, obviously, I do try to, you know, use the appropriate size leader tippet for the size of flies I'm fishing, but if the water's murky enough color, I do definitely try to get away with as thick of a leader and tippet as I can get away with, because at that point the fish can't see it, and I'd rather get the fish in quick. But if it's calm, it's clear, it's a sunny day, definitely going dropping down to lighter tippets, changing your angle of presentation, trying to give the fish a fly first presentation, like where you're drifting the fly down to them versus casting over the top. Yeah. Um, that can be absolutely a game changer.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah. I think that's uh something I think. What about do you ever think about uh your indicators? Are you always tightlining when you're nymphing? Or I I have gone to white indicators, like when I'm fishing a a bobber or a strike indicator. Like I don't know if that's a that's just a Jason kind of uh uh you know. No, I mean actually uh superstition, I guess, is what I was gonna say. Like a Jason superstition. Like somebody told me one time or I heard like, oh, it's white, you know, it looks like foam. And so I'm like, all right, I'm doing it. I guess you see it fine, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Yeah, I'm actually in the same boat. Um, you know, I prefer to use white. Uh if I you know, I use uh that New Zealand yarn indicator kit. I love that for if I'm gonna be indicator nymphing anymore when I'm nymphing. I'd say nine times out of ten, if I tell somebody I'm nymphing I'm wearing some type of dry dropper rig, that's what I prefer to do when I'm nymphing, just because I I'm still very successful with that.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

And like the simplicity of it. But yeah, no, I mean, uh you think you're superstitious. I tell people uh people uh when people ask about orange bobbers or orange indicators, I say nope. I will never I don't touch orange indicators. If I'm gonna fish an orange indicator, it's gonna big be a big orange stimulator or big orange chubby.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Well, I was out the other day with my buddy on the green in the Wyoming section, and this was a while ago, I guess, but yeah, we were nymphing, we started out nymphing, and I don't remember the color of the indicator that he had on, but like right away we get in there and huge fish comes up to eat that indicator, you know, just like a giant, like so yeah. So at that point he had a grasshopper on like the rest of the day, or a chubby Chernobyl or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

But um Yeah, no, it's happened to me too. I s I remember it's happened two or three times and over the years where he had enough to the point I was like, yep, nope. Uh if I think I can get a fish to come up, or if there's any stoneflies around, it's not gonna be a yarn or an indicator, it's gonna be a chubby or a stonefly of some sort or something big like that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Okay. And then um and then nymph underneath there, based on depth of the water, I guess, huh? Exactly. Do you find that it's just as easy to get it all the way, like let's say you're trying to target the bottom kind of strike zone area? Is it you have any problems doing the hopper dropper or the dry dropper when you're trying to get that deep with your nymph?

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Yeah, so I mean, one of the things I talk about, and because I actually show people how to do the dry dropper rig as the nymphing rig with my beginning classes, just because it's a little simpler and more you I feel like it's just more universal. You can fish a little, as I tell them, you can fish a dry dropper rig literally anywhere. Doesn't matter if it's a little creek, a big river, a small pond, or a lake, it's a little bit easier to cast. Um lands softer. That's why I love it. That's the other thing too.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

I love how it's uh lands really soft.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yeah, I mean, and also like I said, it's you know, I also I'll be also straight up and tell them, hey, it's not they're not always gonna there, there's gonna be definitely times where they're gonna eat the nymph way more, and there'll be times where doing an actual inline rig or a deeper nymphing rig is gonna be the better tactic, but just to get you out there, get you in the game, it's great. And one way to get her over that, and this is where it's more an advanced technique, but if you can do a tuck cast uh with any type of indicator rig, whether it's a yarn, an indicate, you know, a standard like an airlock or whatever, or dry dropper rig, you can get your nymphs down plenty fast, really quick, right into the zone.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Um, and a lot of times, and that's one of the nice things with this wide availability of jig nymphs these days, you can change up the size. That's where I prefer to run as a dropper, is a jig nymph or even two jig nymphs, if I'm really getting after it, because they don't hang up on the bottom as much, and I don't need to add on split shot. They just they get down real fast.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Yeah. They're like little rocket ships, they're just so streamlined.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah, they get down in the zone fast and can be very, very effective.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

I fish them a lot in small creeks where it's like just real pools, you know, like it's real and it's just I'm gonna have a really hard time getting my fly down fast enough to fish that just small area where that that trout might be. Yep. You know, and I want it to be smooth, and I'm probably gonna have to cast upstream, so it's gonna ride along like the shelf before it drops off, and I don't want to snag, and I just seem to use those a lot more when I'm fishing smaller streams now on a as a dropper or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they just make sense. And I'm all about not snagging and leaving stuff on the bottom. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

So that's cool. I'm gonna read something that I heard in one of your videos online, if that's okay with you. This is a video that was out in your I think it was just like a piece about you and kind of what you're doing out there instructing. But you said one of the things I love about this sport is that no matter how long you've been doing it, there's always something you can learn. And after every mistake you make, there's always a chance for redemption and learning something new. And I always try and like look at the people that are coming on the show, do a little research, just kind of, you know, be a little familiar with the people I'm about to talk to. Uh and when I read stuff like that, man, or I hear stuff like that, I'm like, yes, this is perfect. This is the type of person that I want to have on the show. This is the type of attitude that wait out there kind of stands for with fly fishing. I'm curious, I'm curious why you use the word redemption, just because it's more visceral, because it's like, you know, and um just uh if there's anything recently that you've been learning, any mistakes that you've made that you could say like recently on the Provo, uh, you know, mistake that you made that you know, like you're always learning, which is an example of that.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Yeah, of course. You know, with the Provo, one of those things that can be is just you know being stubborn and not changing your angle of presentation, right? So for instance, especially because I do a lot of fishing in the wintertime, that's when I have my most downtime. So trying to catch fish on really small midges in the surface is a little bit of a challenge for anybody, and but I enjoy that game. But you can definitely have days where you've got fish rising all around you and you can't get them to eat, and all it takes is you know, being going, oh, you know, maybe instead of just trying to be like go, instead of just staying with 6x, going like, okay, let's go down to seven, or don't be dumb, use your feet, get around, get above the fish, right? I mean, it took me a moment where I finally was like, you know, I was being stubborn and I was like, no, I'm in a good position. There's no need for me to get above these fish. Well, an hour goes by, fish are still popping off like crazy, and I had maybe gotten a fish to eat the dry, and it's like, okay, I should have changed a long time ago. Uh realized that, you know, yeah, this isn't working. Uh, and that's the thing that, you know, again, practice what you teach. And so as I tell my students, if it's not working, stop doing it and take a break and you know, try to try a different angle, try dropping down and tip it. Uh, we all have those moments where he's like, no, no, I'm gonna make it work, but it's you know why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Like, I'm the same way, and I think about this a lot. And I do feel like it's a balance. Like, I don't want to just be changing every one minute, right? Or every two minutes. Like it you you know, you increase that time, and there's a there's a sweet spot, I think. I don't know. It's different for everybody in different situations, but why is that so hard for people to kind of change it up? Do you think it's people don't know? They don't have enough options to go from, they don't have enough experience. But I mean, you have a lot of experience, and you just said it still happens to you sometimes. I mean, is it just we get comfortable? I don't know, a combination of things. It's frustrating. It happens to me all the time.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Yeah, I think it could be definitely a you know a combination of things. I mean, especially if you had a really good day previously under similar conditions, yes, with similar flies. You know, it is it's not it's an assumption, as I say, you know, when you assume it makes an ass out of you and me. But but the whole concept is that, you know, oh yeah, it worked this last time under similar circumstances, it should work today. And when it doesn't, like kind of starts being one of those things where instead of maybe thinking, okay, what should we change? It's like, you know, I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna be stubborn, I'm gonna try and figure, you know, work this. But I've learned the hard way with a lot of things is that, you know, if it's not working, just take a second, take a break, walk away from the river if you have to, and just kind of look at it at a different angle. It's okay to take breaks. That was something that took me a long time uh to do when I was fishing on my own was take breaks. Just take a step back, observe the situation, try to maybe approach it from a different angle.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

All right. Well, let's stick with the Provo since it's a good, I don't know, it's a good kind of classroom environment. So kind of we can we can lean on that for kind of our experience and stories, but I want to move on a little bit to swinging soft hackles. And I know that you will fish nymphing and dries and streamers, but I've seen you talk a good amount about soft hackles, and I've had other people recommend I talk to you and you help them with soft hackles, and it's something that I want to learn more about, so we're gonna talk about it. Uh if it's okay with you. So soft hackles to me seem like like a niche kind of technique or tactic. Now, first of all, is that true? I mean, is it something that I should be doing a lot more of? Or I guess you'd have to know how much I'm what I'm doing with it, but like do you think in general people should be doing more of it, or is it really depend on the season and the conditions?

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Yeah, so the cool thing with soft tackles is like nymphs, you can fish them 365 days a year.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

So definitely more. I should definitely be doing more.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Yeah, I mean, I would say if there is one, if there is one time of year where they're probably not going to be as effective in rivers in the least, it would be uh you'd kind of be, I guess, like this time of year during the high water. So during high water, fishing soft tackles on a swing is just really challenging, just because you're not able to cover as much water as you'd like. Just because when the flows go high, the fish are forced into really narrow seams, and those seams happen to be right along the banks. You could potentially fish one upstream. In fact, that's how they were originally fished in England. They actually fished soft tackles upstream just below the surface or in the film, like dry flies. In fact, it was they would swing them occasionally, but it was really when they kind of came over here that the wet flicame synonymous. In fact, it was the way to fish for many, many, many, many years before dry flies and that whole concept of matching the hatch really kind of took over. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Yeah. So it can it sounds like you're saying that it's something that you could use year round. This is the worst time to do it, is when the water is high and runoff. But uh besides that, it's it's not like there's a season that's better or worse for it. No, can you talk about then the conditions that those that you might look for on a day? Because if you're going out on the provo and you know, you've got all these different options, nymphing, dry fly, streamer, and even fishing emergers, like even fishing a dry dropper with an emerger pattern, like I've fish emergers a lot now, but you know, this is not the same exactly. So what cues you in to be like, this is a good day to do that, or these are the good conditions for swinging soft tackles?

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Yeah, I can kind of break it down like season by season. So for me, that'd be great. Um, like and when people kind of look at me all kind of like weird when I tell them when I fish in the winter time, I fish soft tackles all the time in the winter. In fact, if I show up and it is just really nasty, cold conditions, a little bit breezy, or if I'm having a hard time seeing my flies with the soft tackles, as long as you fish them correctly, there is no need to see the fly. And I catch a lot of fish. A majority of my fish every winter are caught on swinging soft tackles nice and low and slow. So in that time of year, it's great because you can fish a set length of line. You're fishing those nice, obvious, slow sweeping runs that go into pools where the fish are stacked up, and it's just a perfect technique for covering the water, covering the uh without stripping line through your guide, so you're not building up ice. You're fishing something that is kind of coming up off the bottom and into their face. It just works. It's a phenomenal way to fish, especially because we also get away with fishing a larger flies. In the wintertime, it's rare that I ever have to go with a soft tackle below a size 20. With dry flies, I actually tie dry flies down to size 30 for winter fishing.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Oh man, come on. 30. I've never even heard of 30. I didn't even know they made hooks that so.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Oh, yeah, they do. So I tell people I wouldn't take the time to time and fish them if they didn't work. Um I believe you. I mean But they are for very specific circumstances. But that's the lovely thing about soft tackles is that especially if you have older eyes, you have poor eyesight, you don't have to worry about fishing tiny flies as long as your flies are tight, thin, and sparse.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Um, so for the wintertime, it's phenomenal because you cover the water, especially you don't have to worry about seeing the fly. You will feel the fish come in contact with the fly.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Is there like a better day in the winter? Like is it cloudy better, or is it like, yeah, all winter long? That's what I do.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

I honestly all winter long, but particularly if it's like windy conditions, if it's windy days, uh, if the cond light conditions, like it's snowing, it's just hard to see your flies.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Right? It's there's no reason to fight it, as I tell folks. Cool. Like, don't fight it. You know, keep it simple, right? Yeah. If you can't see what you're doing, it makes no sense to fish a technique where you have to see it. Go with your go with feel. And so that's kind of my whole thing for soft tackles across the board. It'll be the same for spring, for like the spring blue wings. Send concept, the weather's nasty, it's nuke and wind. Maybe I've tried fishing to some fish, uh, you know, dead drift, or I'm just trying to cover the water, maybe it's pre-hatch, or it's after the hatch. Like I've worked the hole through, or I've walked upstream. I'll actually fish a soft tackle on the way back downriver through good-looking runs and holes post-hatch. And I do that throughout the summer and the fall, and usually I'm pretty good at picking out a handful of fish on the way back down to the car if I do that.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

So it's kind of also like a good searching technique. Yeah, it's like a it's like a backup kind of like another, like, okay, no luck through that water with this technique. Let me try this other technique. And also, sounds like it's kind of you know, physically geographically convenient because you go up and then you go down, right? Yeah. Yeah, yep. So yeah. So it's not necessarily the temperature or sky conditions or anything like that that is cueing you in. It's more of something that you do when it's like, well, this isn't exactly working. Let me maybe this is another way to try and to get this to work.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah, for sure. I would say that in the wintertime, that is a good point. That temperature definitely makes a point for me to do it. Because, like I said, if it's gonna be windy and cold, I like to go out under those conditions because I know that probably no one else is gonna be out there.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Uh usually when you go fishing when it's nasty, you're not gonna see as many folks. And because I fish a set length of line and I'm doing a slow controlled swing, I'm not worried about ice building up in my guides. So I like that. It makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Yeah, I do. I think that makes yeah, makes a lot of sense. I love especially like the no ice in the guide thing. Because some days I'm like, you know, man, I don't know if I want to deal with this right now. Yeah. What about the idea of like emerging insects and the timing of the hatch and things? I I think of soft hackles and and fishing soft hackles from the bottom up as like these emerging kind of flies. Is that something that you think about as well? Or is that just fish are always kind of excited about that? Because the other thing is there's lots of movement, right? The flies themselves have that that soft hackle, right? So I I love when a fly like when I think it's enticing, the versus just let's get this as perfect as I can, dead drift. You know, I like that I like when the fly has a little action in it. Is there anything that you think about as far as like emergers or fishing it? Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, can you talk about that? Just like the timing of it, or like because let's say, you know, let's say there's a blueing hatch, like you said, that it's happening and it's based on temperatures, it's gonna happen at this point in the day, is when you think that the fish will start or the the flies will start hatching on the surface. So is there like relative before and after that? Is there a time that you would be more apt to use these soft hackles?

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Yeah, so I think that pre-hatch, like I said, if you're just you it's it kind of depends on which way you're walking. If you're walking downstream to the hole, you could swing, you know, you see a couple bugs, you see a couple fish randomly rising here and there. That is indication that something is starting to happen, but maybe the fish aren't quite up on the surface quite yet, so then it makes total sense just to fish a soft tackle in that regard, because you're seeing uh random risers, the fish are probably starting to see the start of the hatch, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Um, and how we swing the fly or fish the fly, it really depends it's that's where understanding the insects a little bit makes a huge difference because understanding how like the pupa or the nymphs get to the surface, like blueing nymphs are actually really good swimmers. So how you swing the fly to mimic that fly swimming can make a huge difference. Whereas when you're fishing something like a mid-pupa pattern in the winter, you are basically doing a super slow, almost like a dead drift into a super slow swing to mimic that pupa coming off the bottom. When there's caddis around, we can sometimes get away with being a little bit more aggressive with our swings because some caddis species, uh, when they're emerging, the pupa swim very quickly to the surface, so we can fish our flies a little bit more aggressively on a faster swing.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

So yeah, there's in fact there's techniques with fishing soft tackles in the swing that change the presentation or how the fly comes to the fish. Um, you know, one of them I did just a s a little video years ago, one of the three swings I use when I'm trying to figure out what the fish like is I call, you know, we I guess in we call it the Silver Creek cast, the drag and drop cast. I've seen this.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

I've seen this one. I was gonna ask you about this.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Yeah, so the concept there is that if you're trying, you're basically drag you cast, you drag the fly into the lane you want, you drop the rod tip really quick, creates a pile of slack and allows your nymph to sink, but then when the line comes tight, it's gonna pull it up off the bottom.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

So we would call that an induced lift. And so, whereas instead of just casting down and across and letting the fly swing, the induced lift or that drag and drop allows the fly to sink down to the bottom, and then when it comes tight, it's gonna actually bring your fly up the bottom, mimicking that emerging insect. And so there's like I said, fish are different in that regard. Sometimes they'll just take that fly on that nice slow, steady swing. Other times they don't want that. And so when I teach people how to fish flies on the swing, I actually show them a three-swing technique. We do three swings and then we take a couple steps downriver. And the idea is that until we figure we do that so that we're not just randomly casting out there. Yeah. We're going through kind of changing different channels, showing the fish different presentation angles to see if we do finally find something that sticks. And then when we do find something that sticks, then we stay with it until it doesn't work. And then we kind of go back to alternating.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

I like that. I like the deliberate nature of your approach. The induced lift. I want to stick with that. I want to cover all three. The induced lift, I did see that video. The thing that struck me that I don't think about when I'm swinging anything is it sounded like, and from what you just said, it sounded like you're talking about trying to keep it in the seam. Is that so you're you like you're not trying to cross seams? Is that do you care about that, or do you want to keep it in the seam to the max extent? Because when I'm thinking about swinging, I'm thinking about I don't know, like 45 down and across the river, and it swings. It so it's kind of it's coming up, but it's also going across as it does it. And I would imagine that a Mayfly emerger probably is not doing that, right? It's probably staying in that seam because it it doesn't want to swim across all. I mean, maybe it I don't know. I have no idea, but uh that seems hard to do. How do you how do you make sure you're doing that?

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Yeah. So when we talk about that, the idea with when we're fishing the especially soft tackles, and soft tackles are trying to mimic emerging bugs, we have to make sure we have a nice slow controlled swing. And so the idea behind that is that we never want to cast our flies into the fast water, but we do want to put them in the as close to that edge. We don't want to cast into the fast water, but we want to put the fit fly right on that edge where the slow and the fast seam meet, so that then the fly can fish back through the slow water.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

Um, and if you think about it, it's you know, and again, it seems like yes, the bugs may not be swimming that way, but we also have to remember that rivers are always pushing things from the middle to the edge. So the faster water is always forcing things to the slow water.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

So an insect could easily get kind of forced off into that slow water and drift through. And that's why as long as we fish the flies on a slow, controlled swing, it doesn't look unnatural to the fish.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

Am I hearing you right though? Like that you are trying to get in that seam initially that that is.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

You want to get close. You want to get really close. Yeah. Because, like anything, fish don't want to be out in the middle of that heavy current where all have where they have to fight the current to get food, but they definitely want to be right next to that edge, right in the soft water, because like I said, rivers are always kicking things from the fast into the slow water.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

All right, that makes sense. Yeah, and that's the induced lift kind of swing approach. So you're gonna try and get it close to the seam, and then you're going to raise Yep.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

You lift your rod tip up river. And that creates slack and it sinks. Yep, so you're on the rod tip, yep, you lift up on the rod tip. That actually will straighten the line out and it aligns you up exactly where you want to put your fly. Right. And then you drop your rod tip, and the faster you drop the rod tip, the more slack you're giving in the line that allows the flies to actually sink down a little faster, a little deeper. So you can actually control with practice how fast the fly sinks, how slow the fly sinks, by just how fast or how slow you drop the tip down.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it sounds like a really controlled way to do it because at one point when you raise your rod tip, like you're in the driver's seat. It's wherever you want to set this thing down, right? Yeah. Okay. Well, how about um the other two? Can you talk about those? So I'm I'm I'm seriously like, I love this. So right down in the weeds, man. I'll I'll take all the detail you got.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Yeah, so the first two casts that I do, um, and again, a lot of it just depends on the type of bug or whatever we're trying to imitate. But the first swing I teach, I do is always just going to be the classic wet fly swing, uh, which is we quarter down and across. However, I do tell people that the faster the current is, the more you want to angle your flies downstream. Simple reason for that is because by angling the line more downstream, we're not laying the line across as many conflicting currents, so it actually allows our flies to fish slower.

unknown 41:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Whereas if the water is moving at a more even rate, we can cast a little bit more down and across in perpendicular. Because the idea with when we're just doing the classic swing is that we're not targeting a specific fish. We're just trying to cover as much water as efficiently as possible with a slow controlled swing. So, like I tell my students, when in doubt, you find the 45. So if straight down the river and then straight across is a 90, you find the 40 roughly 45 degrees, and that's where you point your feet and your rod at.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

And, you know, just start there. And then again, you're gonna need to make a if you are having to mend aggressively upriver to keep your fly uh from going too fast in the swing, that means it's your angle's too broad, you need to cast a little bit more downstream. And then once you make those adjustments, then you can start to kind of really focus on the actual fishing prospect. But it always starts off with the classic wet fly swing. We always start at the top of the hole, top of the run, and then we work our way down from there. The one thing I will say about the swing, and is that a lot of times people really mess up because number one, their angle of approach isn't great. So like we already kind of mentioned there. So again, faster the water, angle more down across. Yeah. More even the flow down across, but you can go more perpendicular. So, and then kind of principle number two is you gotta get that fly to fish on a slow, controlled swing. That's probably the other big mistake I see a lot of people make, is that they're fishing the flies too fast.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

That's my problem. Yeah. So I'm all yours.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

I'm all yours, dude. Yeah, they fish the fly just too fast. And so a lot of that can come from using your rod, and it's kind of hard to describe. Yeah. But you know, but basically, if you lead your rod down and basically down and across fast, your flies are gonna go fast. But if you cast and you make a big min to the middle of the river, wait for the line to straighten up below the tip, then you drop the rod tip down, and then you just slowly guide the flies over. It significantly helps you have more control, and you're it's gonna it's gonna re increase your hookups. I can guarantee you that. The other thing I tell people don't chuck and chance it. You want to make sure you have controlled swings. The other is, you know, basically fishing consistent length of line. That's the other thing I see a lot of people do, and that's how that's how they get their pocket picked. Uh is that they're not fishing consistently line. They'll go short, then they go long, then they strip it in, and then someone who knows what they're doing comes behind them and picks up fish that they overlooked or that they overfit. So I guess my general rule of thumb is that if my flies can hit that edge of the seam that I'm fishing to, there's no need for me to add any more line out. Because I'm gonna actually be stepping downstream as we go. So if I'm falling short of the seam, then I do need to actually pull a little bit of line off the reel so that I can actually get the fly on that edge. But once I get that, then I keep it at that same length. So that way I'm not I'm potentially not missing near as many fish.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Okay. I want to put a pin in something real quick. The the mend portion of it. So I really understand the speed of the river dictating kind of the angle of approach or how I'm gonna cast, right? That makes sense. How important is that mend and is it just you cast out, so you've got all your line out, and so you're you're casting downstream, you're pretty tight right away, right? So when you make that mend, are you pulling the fly back upstream too?

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Yes, so you definitely can. And you know, that's actually I would say that mend after the fly hits is absolutely crucial. You gotta get that mend in right away because you get the mend in right away, that sets the fly up for the entire drift.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Yeah, because the mend is like, it sounds to me, is what is gonna get your fly down, right? Because your fly is tight. I I think of mending as like a traditional sense in my brain, I'm mending to get a natural drift, right? I'm mending to get a natural drift. It sounds like what you're saying is it's almost like I'm mending when you make that mend, you're pulling that fly upstream, yes?

SPEAKER_00 46:12

It's like a lift mend. It's not really like the drift mend where we Think of just flipping the belly of the line up above or below the fly. Yeah. When we do that in min, we are we are lifting the line upstream, and you know, we are definitely kind of, you know, basically we are, you know, interfering with the drift of the fly to start.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Once we get it set up, then it goes.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

I get what you're saying. Yeah. You're repositioning your line and your fly, I guess, so that as it goes through where you want it to target the fish, it's where you want it to be. If you exactly otherwise it wouldn't it wouldn't get to where the depth that you want and stuff. So you've got to put that men in. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

You gotta have that control. You gotta get it all under control. Otherwise, then you get that Chuck and Chancet thing and get those inconsistent swings. So it's about, like I said, everything we do with the swing is to do it in a deliberate manner so we take as much guesswork out of it.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sticking with me on that one. Yeah. And then there's a third that you mentioned. We've got the wet fly swing, the induced lift, and then Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

So I I I jokingly call it ringing the dinner bell. It's basically just the classic swing, but we actually do add a little bit of motion to the fly. Um, some folks do it when they fish streamers. I guess some would call it the seesaw approach where you just have a little loop of line. But when we're fishing soft tackles, we have to remember that we're trying to imitate bugs uh most of the time, and not sculpins or leeches or crayfish. So just that little tug on the line as the fly is swinging through, it actually creates those those nice soft feathers that you mentioned, the soft tackles. They're already wiggling, but if you give that fly just a little, that line, just a little bit of a tug, you pull in, you let the line current take it back out, it makes those hackles kind of pulsate, poof, and then or collapse and then poof out. That can really trigger some aggressive takes. So it's another way to try to induce a uh a bite, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

And you're doing that with your hand, like almost like stripping line, not not necessarily with the rod tip or no.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

Yeah, you can also do it with the rod tip. I know, like, for instance, if it's cold out um and I'm doing that, I actually will just I'll literally like I'll just take my elbow and just pull my elbow in and then extend.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

Oh yeah. Okay. Same, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

And the idea is I tell my students is that little bugs get little tugs, right? Because when they show them that look, the first thing they do is it looks like they're sawing a log in half, like they're really going after it. It's like, no, I have to remind, no. I mean, you're trying to mimic a little bug that's trying to struggle. It's kicking as it's getting away to the surface, but the current's ultimately pushing it down.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Yeah, and you're not stripping, quote, stripping, you're not stripping it in. You're just helping the move helping it move, you know, three to six inches as it's going through the swing. The tactic is still the swing. We're just giving it a little bit more movement in through the swing.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

Yeah, you're just trying to make that fly look alive. And again, if there's like really active like emergences, like things that swim to the surface, like betas nymphs, gluing nymphs, catass. Yeah. It's really effective when you do that with caddis, it's really effective when you do that with lewing uh or any type of mayfly nymph that swims. Yeah, it can definitely be very effective under those circumstances.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

Okay. Well, thank you. We've covered the three swings. I think that was awesome. That helped me out a lot. Let's talk about the the flies now that you just mentioned. Yeah. Is it just as simple as you know, taking the nymph or the the insect that is hatching and throwing a hackle on it? I mean, thin and sparse, but can you talk a little bit more about because I have soft hackles and they're pretty much look like nymphs with a soft tackle on them, you know? I mean, they're just kind of the same. So, you know, like a pheasant tail, the soft hackle, or can you talk a little bit about the fly selection or maybe Yeah. Um maybe a couple confidence flies that you have that you use for different scenarios?

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Yeah. So when we talk about, and not to get into you know too much detail, but we actually do classify, there's actually three separate classifications for soft tackles. And they're not too different actually from other flies that we already have. So you have soft tackle spiders, those are the attractor attractors of the soft tackle family, and then we have flimps, which are basically soft tackle emergers and cripples, and then we have soft tackle nymphs. So you know, the when people think of soft tackles, they think of the soft tackle spiders, which are the old school classics, which is the some of the simplest flies ever tied, but they're still beautiful and very effective. Like the partridge in orange, that's literally partridge hackle and orange silk. And then there's the partridge in yellow, which is just partridge and silk, and then partridge in purple, olive, partridge and hair's ear. Those flies are kind of like your parachute atoms, royal wolf stimulator, prince nymph, copper john of the soft tackle world. They work a lot of different places, they can mimic a bunch of different insects, and they are designed for fishing in a little bit faster riffly water because their strength is that they don't represent anything, but because of their thin profile, they suggest a lot of things. So when we talk about like the bare essentials, those are kind of the old classics. And the partridge and pheasant tail. Partridge and pheasant tail is another old classic, it's been around for a very, very, very long time.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Is that a spider?

SPEAKER_00 51:42

That's a spider. Stop. So what we define soft tackle spiders, they're very sparse. They're super, super sparse. And the hackles go back to the bend of the hook. Okay, so they actually encompass the body of the fly, but we don't want them to obviously that's where proportions come into play. Ideally, a soft tackle spider, it's gonna go, the hackles are gonna go past just past the back of the body or right to the very end. Okay. Um, and again, they're they were designed for fishing in a little bit more turbulent, a little bit faster conditions, but they they work everywhere. Okay. Uh the the beautiful simplicity of just those soft tackle spiders is you could show up on a river, and if you say, Oh, hey, look, there's some little yellow bugs hatching, you could pick out a partridge and yellow. You see something that's olive, you could fish a partridge and olive. Bigger or small.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

And you would try and match the size a little bit, or because I always think of these as a little bit bigger than the other.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

Yeah, so you could totally try to match the size, but again, you know, if they're tied well, you could even potentially use a size 16 to imitate a size 18 or 20 fly if it's tied sparse enough. I gotcha. Um, yeah, like I said, I mean, that's kind of like the bear bear simplicity, but they work still. And one other thing I was gonna mention about soft tackles, not to this is gonna be a random segue back. Go. Segway away. Uh, but during high water, one of the things we've been telling folks about is lakes. And people fish and over in England and Europe have fish soft tackle flies in lakes forever. Because those soft tackles, when you strip them, they do wiggle and move in still water. They are very, very effective. So I was gonna say that soft tackles in lakes, imitating scuds or calabato nymphs or damselfly nymphs, they can be very, very, very effective, actually. But that's the only thing, and again, that's your soft tackle spiders. They can work well in lakes, rivers, creeks, and streams. Okay. And they're kind of what we consider the quintessential soft tackles.

SPEAKER_01 53:42

All right. I'm thinking of Guide's Choice Hairzir as the one that, like, it's probably the first one that I was introduced to. That's not a spider, though, right?

SPEAKER_00 53:53

But no, that would be considered a soft tackle nymph. So that's a nymph with the soft tackle collar on it. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:00

So all right. So any kind of a nymph with a soft tackle, you could just do that with a pheasant, you could do that with anything, right?

SPEAKER_00 54:05

Just it works incredibly well. Like I said, if you want to give your fly a little add, you know, a little bit more life, you could take any of your favorite, any nymph you love and put a soft tackle collar on it, and you could instantly make that fly a little bit more versatile.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

Um you can fish them, like I fish the guide's choice. I don't fish it as much now. I used to it used to be one of my confidence flies, but I fish it like a nymph. You know, I never really swung it or I'm sure I was catching fish on the swing without knowing it sometimes, but you can fish them like a nymph too, right?

SPEAKER_00 54:43

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that's the thing is that not only are soft tackles literally the oldest family of flies in fly fishing, they're arguably the most versatile because you can dead drift them, you can swing them, you can fish them greased up in the surface or like a dry fly, depending, you know, if they have or no weight. Yeah, you can strip them like a streamer if they're big enough.

SPEAKER_01 55:05

Okay. So there's the spiders, there's the nymphs, and then what was the one in the middle?

SPEAKER_00 55:10

Yeah, flimps. Uh so two gentlemen who contributed a lot to fly fishing, but unfortunately, their works kind of got lost in history, especially with soft tackles, were Pete Hitty and James Lysingring, who the Lysingring lift is named after. I've heard of that. Yeah. Yeah. So they actually came up with that term flimph to describe their style of soft tackles. And I'm paraphrasing, basically, their definition of flimps was imitating a bug that was in the process of transitioning from being a pupa to an adult. So they before really we understood cripples and emergers, they were fishing soft tackles to imitate cripples and emergers.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

That's what they're that makes sense. So you have the nymph. This is more like an emerger.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

Yeah. Yeah. So the flimph is the term they coined, and basically it's a soft tackle emerger. So if the soft tackle nymphs are designed to fish on the bottom, you know, lower bottom, you know, basically that bottom third of the water column. The soft tackle spiders are kind of that middle third of the water column. The flimps were designed to be fished in the film or on the surface or just below the surface. Okay. So, yeah. So if you and again, they're tied with they're tied with to be a little bit more specific. Like there's soft tackled flimps that we tie up to imitate specific, like blue wings, midges, PMDs, caddis, drakes. You can tie a flimp, uh soft tackle emerger to imitate all those stages and is it similar to the nymph where I'm gonna take a an emerger that I'm fishing and then I'm just gonna throw a soft tackle on it?

SPEAKER_01 56:59

Or is it is it is it?

SPEAKER_00 57:01

This one's a little bit more like this one has a little bit more, you mean a little bit more thought to it, I guess, in the sense that you would want this to try to mimic that transitional stage. So you could take some of like, for instance, your favorite like cripple patterns. Okay. Like, let's say like the quiggly cripple, for instance. The quiggly cripple is a classic Mayfly cripple, it's been around forever. So, but instead of having like that deer hair sticking out to imitate the wing post, you take that away and you actually replace it with like a hen hackle, but you still have that transition where it's uh you have that back half of the fly is designed to be the nymph that the adult, the nymph shuck the adult's getting out of, and you have that front half where it's a different color, transitional fly. You can swing that on a slow controlled swing, or you can grease it up and fish it like a dry fly in the film. So flimps, I would say, are defined by being more specific, more imitative, because we tie those to purposely mimic a specific hatch or insect.

SPEAKER_02 58:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:04

Okay, that makes sense. I'm a slightly below average fly tire. Any tips for people listening to this that are like having trouble with tying the hackle on or getting used to the hackle? I mean, any easy buttons. I don't think it's super complicated. I uh but you know, when I was starting to learn it, I was like, oh, this is getting away from me here. How do I Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 58:27

So having the right hackle really, really, really helps. Or knowing some little tricks. So if you would like to tie that's the one thing I hear all the time from people coming to the shop but wanting to tie soft tackles, it's not the bodies that they struggle with, it's trying to get a really nice proportioned hackle. You know, so I tell people if you're gonna be tying soft tackles that are smaller, you want to make sure you have the appropriate hackles. So, you know, I guess like making gumbo, there's the holy trinity of ingredients. With soft tackles, there's the holy trinity of materials or birds. So partridge, starling, and hen. So if you have partridge, starling, and hen hackles or capes, you can tie a variety of size of soft hackles. Partridge is great for anything that's like size 10, 12, you can and 16. Um, you can tie smaller with partridge hackles. You just have to make sure you act that's where it's important to have like the cape or the whole bird. Because most of those super small feathers for the partridge are actually gonna be up in the head and the neck and the shoulders. So if you're trying to tie smaller soft hacks, that's you need to have that whole cape so you can find those. And they're gonna be, like I said, head, neck, shoulders of the bird. Whereas starling is perfect for really small, more delicate, uh just because the feathers are smaller and more delicate. The downside, if there is a downside to starling and partridge, is that they can be a little bit more brittle, they can definitely get busted and chewed through a little bit faster. And that's why I love hen. Uh like hen hackles are awesome because you can get them in all sorts of different colors, you can get them in, you know, capes, so you have all sorts of small feathers up, same idea, neck and shoulders, back area, and then you have bigger feathers for larger things.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

How important is it that the hackle, the sop hackle kind of I don't know, looks nice or that it it kind of all folds uniformly. You know, I've always got strays kind of floating around, they're not going the right direction. You know what I mean? Like most of them are going towards the back of the hook, and then I've got these other ones that are sticking up, and I'm like, I guess I'll just fish it anyway. But yeah, do you think about that, worry about that? Does it matter? Is it good? Is it bad?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:45

So yeah, I mean, truth is I as I always tell folks, ugly flies catch fish. And I don't mean that as a derogatory thing, just ugly flies catch fish as far as it goes. But for me, I guess I don't know, if I do have OCD, it is about my soft tackles, it is about more collars. Um, I don't like I I mean it's okay if you have it's it's okay if it's not perfect. I will be fully. No, that's cool. I mean, I get it. Yeah, it honestly comes down to you. If you have confidence in your fly, that's the most important thing. And for me, when I'm tying soft tackles, if I feel like, hey, I got the hackles properly proportioned, you know, I like how they're distributed, I'm gonna fish that fly better. That's just me. But I've also seen some soft tackles that, you know, that we've also gotten commercially, and I've been like, wow, that looks kind of ugly and buggy, but people go out and fish them, they catch fish on them. So one thing that can help with any of that stuff is like I said, just understanding kind of the proportions with the soft tackles. Like I said, if you're gonna tie those soft tackle spiders, ideally we don't want the hackle to go past the bend of the hook. Uh, that's the long end, and we don't, you know, ideally we want maybe the hackles to go right just you know, right to the end of like where the body is, whether that's silk or part, whatever you're using for the body. When we're tying flimps, we want the hackles to maybe go a half or three-quarters the body length. And I'd say the same thing for soft tackle nymphs, too. But they're, I mean, again, the day that a fish swims up and pulls out a monocle and starts counting hackles and stuff, uh, is the day I'm really gonna str I'm gonna really stress about that. But that's just me. That's what I really look for when I tie flies, especially soft tackles. And one other thing that I think gets a lot of folks is that they can easily over hackle a soft tackle. Yeah. Uh, like I said, sparse, thin for the win. Think thin for the win. Uh that can be really helpful.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:42

Okay, fair enough. Yeah. I just pinch it, pull it back, tie the head on in the front, and I let go, see where see what I got, see where it's at.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:52

Um, so a couple tips I would say for folks who were Fred say they don't have let's say I want it to look nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:59

Let's say I'm like, all right, fair enough. Point taken, but I want it to be good. I want it to look nice. Maybe I also have OCD if I'm listening to this and I want it to be really good on my soft tackle, the way it looks.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:11

Yeah, so a couple great videos for folks who are tying with like partridge or longer fibered feathers. Blue ribbon flies up in West Yellowstone, they tie a lot of soft tackles. They have a really uh little, their soft tackles are very simple but very effective. They have a couple of techniques that they use for helping get a distributed or uh basically a wrapped hackle collar without actually having to palm or the fly, but they're able to measure it better. That'd be one place to look. So, but looking for videos on like the distributed hackle collar, that can be a game changer. I do that all the time, especially if I'm you know tying with partridge. Maybe I just don't have like the smaller feathers I want. I can use a longer fibered feather, but still get the proportions I want with that technique. And it allows you to have a little bit more control. You're not having to worry about polymering or the stems breaking. It's a really helpful little hint.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:07

What are they telling you in that video? What are they saying to do?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:10

So with the blue ribbon guys, uh, Craig Matthews, he has a thing, his version of a distributed hackle collar is that he'll take a feather, he'll strip, he'll pull the fibers down, and then he'll cut the tip out, and then he'll pull the fibers back, and it kind of creates a V. And then you take that V up. Uh this is toward this is the last stage. You actually are using this to put the hackle on the fly at the very end.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:36

You take that V, you put it in the you put the notch on top of the hook shank, you take some thread wraps, and the idea is that with those thread wraps, you tie it down, but then you take the thread, and the thread wraps, as you wrap back towards the body, will actually take the feather and wrap the feather and distribute the hackles around. With the wraps with the wraps. It it's it seems simple enough. It's a little tricky.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:01

Well, we'll link to we'll I'll try and find the video and link to it. You did a great job of explaining something that's extremely hard to explain without visually seeing it. So good job. Thank you for doing that. Yeah. But um I kind of understand what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:13

And I think I've seen that where they cut the notch out and yeah, and the other way you can do that too, you can cut the notch out, and I actually do that at the beginning of the fly. You cut the notch out and you have the hackles kind of facing forward. You do your body, and then you come back with maybe you could use your fingers or even a half-hitch tool, and you push the hackles back, and then you take your thread and you basically wrap it back, and you can use that half-itch tool or in the thread to kind of give yourself a nice distributed collar. And that's really helpful if you're tying with fibers, uh, feather fibers, or you know, you know, from like pheasants or other things that are maybe a little bit too long to polymer.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:53

Uh it's really helpful.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:55

I'm gonna switch total directions here. That's okay. Do you not totally do, but when you're reading water, are you looking at the same fishy water? I mean, you're you're just your same thing. You're looking for where trout would be and fishing to those spots just in a different approach and a different technique. Is there anything different or weird about reading water when you're doing this?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:23

Well, what we're looking for, it honestly depends. Um, like I said, the soft tackles, you can fish them six ways from Sunday, like I said. So let's say I was fishing and it was I was walking upstream, or I see basically a whole bunch of pocket water where it's just a bunch of little slicks behind the boulders or along the banks and stuff like that. In that scenario, I'm going to fish the soft tackles upstream, kind of like you would a dry fly. Not necessarily greased up, but I'm going to cast them upstream and I'm going to be watching the end of my line for a take or a swirl. Uh, just because in that scenario, that's a more productive way to fish. Where those, because I have control, right? There's no point. I mean, if I'm having there's it's really hard to get a good fishy swing when there's all these disruptions and all these microcurrents, right? So in that scenario, there's a time and place to swing a fly, but then there's definitely a time and place to fish it upstream in a dead drift. And so if I'm fishing really kind of fast, technical pocket water, I'm gonna fish them upstream. Not too different, really, not too different at all from kind of how you'd fish a dry fly or even like tight line nymphing, right? Where you're making short cast or high-stick nymphing, fishing it up in there, elevating as it comes through. But if I do see like a nice, lovely piece of river where it goes into a run, it broadens out into a nice, you know, pool, I'm definitely gonna swing that. So the more even the current, the more wider the river is, the swing technique just seems to make more sense because you're gonna cover more ground.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:56

Okay. But you're still looking for fish where fish are as well. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it's not like it's just that you gotta just kind of approach it differently. Be like, okay, well, instead of casting 45 up and mending and doing this, now I'm gonna be in a different spot. And but I'm still trying to, I guess I what I'm imagining in an Is I'm used to fishing. I'm used to trout fishing. Like, okay, I think there's a fish there. And I think a lot of us, okay, so I'm going to walk here, I'm going to cast there, I'm going to mend, and I should have the fly in the in front of the fish, right, at the right spot, or through this area at the right spot. I think what's challenging for me when I think about this is where I can getting my body in the right spot and realizing that it's the same place I'm trying to target and just getting the practice of having the fly kind of rising in the right spot. You know what I mean? Like, because you still kind of want to be precise with it. You and and and I find when I started doing it, I was just kind of like, whatever, I'm just swinging flies out here. And it's you really do I it sounds like you benefit from like really targeting like where that fish would be.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:15

But yeah, exactly. So, you know, we we still look for the fishy zones, and I'm sure someone else has already echoed this, but you know, when I talk to my students about the five key structure points, we break it down in silly little rhymes. Wood is good, rocks rock, foam is home, seams are supreme, drop offs and shelves, fish keep to themselves, you know, just little things that help you remember those. Okay. Uh, yeah, so those are all places you should target, definitely, just for basic structure points.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:45

Right. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:47

I mean, that's an obvious thing. I guess what's not as obvious is when you're in the river and you're like, yes, how do I get this fly to that spot when I'm doing this other technique? Because it's kind of floating downstream and it's rising and you don't see it, and I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:01

Yeah, and other things we tell people about in that note is fish with your feet. And so that's where again, it's not always possible because obviously safety concerns, not everybody is as strong of a waiter, and I'm certainly not encouraging people to, you know, do things that are unsafe or put yourself in a position where you're gonna fall.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:19

But, you know, taking that extra step or turning your body, you know, just that little change can make a huge world of difference. And that's one of the other things I tell folks is like again, you know, if you can be sneaky and you're not making too much noise, you can get pretty close.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:37

And so as I tell people, think like a heron, don't wade like a buffalo, right? Buffaloes don't I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:43

Well, we're gonna talk more about your instructional techniques because these are great, and I want to get into some of the whys, but I still have some more questions about these soft tackles. I I'm wrapping it up. I think this is kind of the last kind of thing I place I want to go is how do you what's your rig like? So do you ever use a weighted soft tackle? Or I know I've seen videos of you putting like a split shot a few inches ahead or uh uh above the fly. I mean, the point is for a lot of this, you want it to be unless you're fishing in the film or at the top, right? You kind of want it to be coming from bottom to up, right? You that's what you're shooting for. So there's times when you don't have any weight and you're just having it, you know, you're you're swinging these what are they lymphs or uh the flimp.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:32

The flimph.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:33

Flimp, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:34

I got we can call the soft tackle emerger, too.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:36

Right. Okay. So uh I mean, yeah, you probably don't want weight on that because it's kind of just in that area. Yeah. But if you're doing the others, or you know, how do you set your rig up or how do you fish what kind of line setup do you use?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:52

Yeah, so one of the other things about the soft tackles is that it's I love it because it's pretty simple. You again, you could take anything and make it complex if you want to, but you can also make it beautifully simple. So liters and tippets really no different from how you would fish, like let's say a dry fly. Okay. So, you know, basically if you're fishing shorter, you know, if you're fishing tighter, brushier water, shorter liter, seven and a half foot liter, maybe, you know, two feet of tippet at the most, fishing a little bit larger water, nine foot liter, two feet to three feet, just depending on the conditions, whether it's wind your size or flies.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:30

And not too different from nymphing though, in that aspect, where if I show up and I see that the current is a little faster and or the water is a little deeper, then definitely. Um, anymore, I do like having soft tackles that have like a thorax as a bead, uh, just because that's less weight I have to put on the line. And I think they fish a little better when you don't have as much weight on the line, personally.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:53

They fish better without like a split shot, is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:58

Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying you couldn't put the split shot on, but for me, I like, you know, I even just use the tungsten putty if I need to get down a little bit. Uh tungsten putty's multiple putty, you can roll on. Loon's made it for years, deep soft weight. That's actually all I don't even I haven't used split shot for years. I've just used that.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:16

Yeah, so I mean, it just really depends on that. So that's what what determines whether I'm gonna fish like a soft tackle with a bead or without a bead is the speed, depth of the water. Not too different from how you'd look uh nymphing.

unknown 1:13:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:30

Because you want to get it down.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:31

So you at some point you gotta get especially if you show up and there's no there's no obvious signs of fish rising. There may be a couple bugs around, but there's no fish up on the surface, then it probably makes more sense to fish your flies a little lower, a little slower. Get them down a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:49

And uh, you know, you're gonna do that with a tungsten putty on the on the line, or you can choose a fly that you tied where you're gonna put some weight. Exactly. Either lead wrap or a bead. Yeah. And you put that below the the hackle though.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:06

Yeah, I mean everyone's different. I um I have a lot more confidence with my hackle in front of the bead. I like the fact that the hackle kind of hides the bead.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:16

Well, again, cool. I don't know. Everybody's different. I'm sure you could ask ten people and they tell you that they catch plenty of fish with their soft hackles with the bead in front, but I I really like it when the I I actually have more confidence with my uh my bead being the thorax and actually being hidden by the hackles.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:33

Oh, that's cool. I mean, this show is about Nick, so this is how Nick does it, and happy to hear it. I like it. Okay, cool. Is there anything we're missing? What am I not is there anything you're like, well, Jason, we haven't covered this, and if we don't cover this, I mean we haven't really we haven't really covered all of it yet with the soft tackles.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:53

Uh other than just to get back to the rigging part real fast. Okay. Um, because we talked about single fly because people ask me all the time, I mean, how many flies do you fish? Well, back in the day, I mean, they literally were using soft tackles in England to literally professional fishermen, people would catch fish to sell at market on soft tackles. So they were using teams of three to four to five flies. Okay. Um I'm not saying you should do that, but you know, a good searching method for me, if I show up and I'm just trying to figure things out, is that if it's a bright day, I'll fish uh maybe a little bit of I'll fish two soft tackles and I'll fish one on a bright day. My larger fly is gonna be my bigger, flashier soft tackle, and then I'll trail something a little bit more natural behind it. Like let's say, oh, there's a fly out there called a shaky beeley or even like a partridge in orange. Okay. Partridge, orange, partridge in yellow. I might fish one of those guys and then trail something like partridge and hairsier in a smaller size, something a little more drab behind it.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:54

And if it was a cloudy overcast day, I might start off with, okay, I'm gonna go with like a partridge in purple, right? Or a snipe in purple, bigger one, and then trail something more like a natural, like a lighter colored fly behind that. Just to kind of play around with that a little bit. Uh that's one thing, again, people ask all the time: should I put a fly off of a tag? Should I just go off the bend of the hook? It's really up to them. I mean, yes, there are performance benefits times for each, but at the end of the day, I tell people keep it simple. You know, if you got a fly, uh your first soft tackle has a big enough hook gap, there's no reason why you couldn't just do the old truck and trailer and put on the smaller guy behind it. But if you like having your fly on a tag, you could do the surgeon's knot tag, and then have your big guy up front off the tag, small guy behind. That also works very, very effectively too.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:51

All right. It sounds like it's definitely flexible, and it there's not a lot of re-rigging, or it's just change your fly and fish it a little different. You know, it's not you don't have it to do a whole different thing. It's not like no, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:06

It comes down to fishing skill. It's how you fish the flies.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:09

That's cool. Yeah, that's part of the reason I like it. I love the simplicity at its core. And again, the tug is the drug, right? That's a silly little thing that's been around forever. I mean, it's like why everybody got into fish in the first place was we all enjoyed getting that grab, and especially on a fly rod, you know, it's different. With a soft tackle, when a fish grabs onto it on a tight line, it's really it's a really addicting thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:31

Yeah, and I imagine that's a we I don't know if we talked about that, but that's a really important point is you make sure you have a tight line or you're you might be missing uh hook sets. Right. The whole point is I'm in contact with the fly, so I feel everything, which is the cool tug that you're talking about. Okay. I think I want to start wrapping up. I want to talk a little bit about your experience at Western Rivers Fly Fisher. I know you guided for a long time, and now you don't guide, but you instruct. And can you talk a little bit about how you go about instructing or a little bit about just kind of how that evolved and why you why that transition occurred? Because it's very they're different things, and just how that how how that came to be in your mind and how you're like, this is gonna be how I want to roll now. I'm not gonna guide, I'm gonna do this, these classes, these instructions, and I think you call them skill building trips before earlier, uh before we were recording.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:37

Yeah. So I've been at Western Rivers for 19 years, and I taught classes, you know, since I started their casting lessons and skill-specific things kind of came on board a little later down the road, kind of built that out. Uh and I guided as well. And even when we were guiding, we always tried to help our clients be better than when they came to us. So that was something that we always asked was, you know, hey, besides, you know, what you hope to get out of the day, was, hey, what would you like to work on while we're out here? Is there something that you've noticed in your own personal fishing that we could help you out with? Is there a technique you want to work on if we can work on it today? Um, and that actually was really helpful because if anyone who's guided for any time knows, is that there's gonna be tough days. There's gonna be days where there's just a lot of circumstances you can't control, whether it's bugs, drought conditions, just a lot of other people in the water. But the adage we I was told by somebody who had guided for a long time, and it did ring true, is that as long as you know, one way they can save a really bad day is having a really good lunch. If the water's really, really good, uh, you know, and the company's good, it can make up for a bad, you know, a tough fishing day. Yeah. But also helping people like, hey, fishing's kind of tough right now. Let's take a second, let's work on your cast, or let's, you know, work on this, get your knots out, and let's leave you a better angler.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:14

Um, so those were things that we did, and you know, for some, I'd say more off more folks than not did appreciate that. Well, you know, because again, there's only so much you can control. Let's flash forward here.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:26

So real quick, I gotta ask you. I'm sorry to interrupt. No, no, you're good. What were some of the more common answers when people when you asked people, what do you want to work on today? Were there were there things that like always came up, like uh my casting or uh my hook set or like how like did you notice anything like that or trends?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:48

Yeah, so you know casting was definitely an important part of it. Um, presentation, mending, those things. I'd also say though that we offered that, and a lot of people out front would be like, Oh yeah, I'm good, I don't need anything. But then if their buddy was having more success than they were, then they would follow Santor over and go, like, hey, you mind helping me out with some stuff?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:12

So Well, I'm wondering what the guest, what would they say typically when you ask that question? Would it more often than not, they're like, Nah, I'm good, or was it?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:21

I'd say it's half half. Some people were straight up and said, Yeah, you know, I'd love to have a little help on my cast or a little help on my mending. But then the other half would say, Oh yeah, I'm good, until we got into it, and then it would kind of come up uh on the fly, no pun intended.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:36

But uh Okay, all right. Yeah, sorry, that's uh I was just curious if like I don't know what people say.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:43

I would be very sp like specific and be like, I really need to figure out how to get my flies down in fast water or you know, like Yeah, so I would love to say that a there were a couple that there were a couple, but more often than not it was well, just watch my cast, or if you see something I'm not doing right. There were times when I would, especially Nym thing, where I'd be like, Hey, do you see, you know, the angle you're casting at? Have you wondered why you're not catching any fish? Yeah. They were they did not actually have their flying the indicator in the same line, the same drift, so they were getting bad casts, bad drifts. Yeah. And then I would come over and show them how to do it and instantly hook a fish, and it would be like that was the difference. It was just literally the matter of making sure that everything was lined up, uh, you were fishing the proper angle, yeah, and you know, things like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:39

So because people sometimes they don't know what they knew what they weren't doing, right? They'd fix it or they'd work on it. So you gotta observe them and be like, hey, yeah, I noticed this.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:52

And maybe a discussion for another day, but that actually led me to doing uh nymph, not a super fancy nymph rig, but I actually fished with two indicators when I was working with people and guiding and nymphing, where we'd had our main indicator, right, for you know depth control, strike detection, but then I would take a little bit of tiny, a little bit of biostrike and maybe put that eight inches down, and I would tell them, okay, see that one, that's your current detector. If those two are coming downstream together, that means you're in the drift. But if you see the little guy get sucked down or it's underneath, or it's not in line, that tells you that you missed the drift, or we need to put more weight on.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:34

Oh, cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:35

So that made a huge difference, and that led to me actually, you know, again, discussion for another day, but making really simple, I call it jokingly the Jack of All Trades leader, uh, where you basically take a seven and a half foot leader, you cut it back to six feet, you put on a foot of uh cider material, and that became the current detector. But yeah, in a pinch, you could tight line with it, you could also put a dry fly, dry drop a rig on it. It uh worked really still works really well.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:08

That's awesome.

unknown 1:24:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:10

All right. Well, you you were talking about how you kind of made the transition into the from the guiding into the more instructional.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:18

Yeah, so as time went on, more and more people started moving out to Utah, and as a result, more and more guide services started popping up, and we, you know, in that time frame, we lost access to water. USAC has been fighting to get those water access rights back. But basically, we had a loss of river access and exponentially more people coming out and exponentially more guide services coming out. It just stopped being fun. It really stopped being fun. And I just feel we as a shop felt like it was hard to provide that quality uh experience that we wanted to provide for people. I mean, the fishing's still great. That's a lovely thing. The provo's still great fishery, but yeah, you know, I honestly tell people if I had my dithers, uh, I don't think I'd want to do a guided trip on the provo or the weaver. I'd rather go to the green where it's a little bit quieter, a little bit prettier, you know, just different environments. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:14

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:16

Yeah, but it really just and part of the issue with that too, and again, that's another subject, maybe, is that it's not that all the there's good guides everywhere, but unfortunately there are a lot of guides, people calling themselves guides in Utah, and there is no literally, there is no regulation in Utah. Uh, whereas other states actually have guide licenses and accountability. Utah has none of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:40

You can just be a guide.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:42

Literally, anybody could be a guide. And that seems like a great thing until you realize, wow, there's just not a lot of water for us to spread out on here. Uh, so it really was just about the quality of the experience and also helping people get better. I've talked to so many people over the last handful of years where they, you know, they they wanted out, they wanted to try fly fishing, they went out with a guide. And the guide did everything for them, did their job, they caught a lot of fish, but then they could not continue on work. They couldn't replicate any iota of the success they had because they weren't actually shown what to do. And that's that's frustrating. I mean, you know, I would be frustrated with that. You know, anytime I've gone on a guide trip, I've even I've actually strict, I've specifically asked the guide and said, hey, you know, let's let's make me better, you know, especially in like the saltwater arena, right? Something I'm not, you know, I don't get chased to do a lot. So that way I can actually learn and get better at this. And so we did that with our classes and then just said, well, you know, there's plenty of people out here, I'm sure, that want to be able just to go fly fish on their own and not have to worry about, you know, hiring a guy to go out and have success. I'm in that boat. I've only been on a handful of guide trips and they're all saltwater. So I love the fact that I can get up and go out, go fish anywhere because I can just do the bare essentials. And that's what we really want to focus on when we teach folks is we want people to be more independent, not independent. We want, excuse me, reverse that. Uh Willy Wonka, that one. We want people to be more independent, not dependent. We want them to feel like, hey, we can go out here, have a good time. And again, I'm not saying that you're things from guides. There are some really good guides, but if you don't ask or talk to the guide about teaching you things, you're missing out.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:40

That's also what you want to do, too. Yeah, exactly. Like you want, like it's this is what the way that I want to serve people in fly fishing, make money at it and stuff. I'd rather do this. Is there uh what's been some of the more challenging and rewarding aspects of of this kind of way?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:00

Yeah, so I guess the challenge that we've experienced in the last little bit is that there's a lot of people that are going through YouTube university. And uh not saying that you can't learn some things or two from YouTube. There's a lot of information out there, and there's probably there again, I've seen it all, there's some definitely some good information out there, but there's a huge difference between seeing something and then getting out and doing it in real time. So that's the one thing we tell folks. Again, internet's great for getting some tips and things like that, but at the same time, nothing beats hands-on instruction, and you know, not everybody learns that way. I literally had to get out there and do it to learn. I couldn't, you know, I read about it in the books, but the only way I got better at it was just getting out there, getting dirty, making mistakes, and getting better at it. And that's what we offer through our classes, and that's why we offer a whole bunch of things. We owe offer everything from private casting lessons to crash course clinics to skill-specific clinics to private lesson options. You name it, we offer it. Um, we try to make it so that it's affordable for most, as far as that goes, so that everybody can get help. And again, I speak from experience. I would have killed to have had the opportunities that are available to people nowadays. Because when I was a kid in Washington, there was a local fly shop and they were good dudes, but the fishing culture in Washington, and especially at the time, you had to know somebody to get anywhere. And I didn't know anybody. You know, the guys at the at the little shop up there, they'd throw me a bone here and there, but it was very much hush-hush. There wasn't really there was no classes or clinics available. When we moved down here, you know, again, I split my time as a kid between Fish Tech and Western Rivers. Both places, the guys and gals there were always really nice. They were always willing to listen. They actually asked you questions. They didn't ignore you. They asked questions and said, I was the fish in, they gave you tips, they listened to you. That actually was a huge reason why when the opportunity came up, I wanted Work at Western Rivers because I remembered how I was treated when I was a kid there. And and like I said, I come be come from a self-taught background, I know what it's like to struggle and get really frustrated and feel like you have no clue what the hell you're doing. So that's why we offer the services we do so we can help everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:34

Do you have any stories that stand out in your brain, like a specific kind of day on the water or a light bulb moment that you saw go on for somebody or anything that sticks out as like particularly memorable? Oh I'm sure there's lots of them, but just one stands out to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:52

Yeah, no, there's a lot. I actually uh trying to think. Well, the one that pops into mind is that there was a father and son who did a bunch of classes with me. And it was just uh over the years, uh, we did this for a number of years. It was just really cool to see their progression.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:14

And uh it was starting with the father and the son, and then it was actually their entire family. They all got into it, uh, taught them all, and they're all still fishing, they're all loving it and getting it out there. It's become a family of thing. So that was really, really rewarding to watch their progression. Then they're just you know, it's humbling because they're very appreciative. And again, as I tell them, it's it's just fishing. But no, it's it's really cool to see how you get like a father and son, and then they get their siblings involved, and then now those kids are married and their spouses are involved, they're still coming back to the shop and getting stuff and helping them out with that. So it's it's really neat to actually see that whole progression.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:55

That's cool. Yeah. Nick, we've been talking a while now. I think we covered a lot. I want to start wrapping it up. Before I do, how can people find out more about you? How can we get a hold of you, schedule, schedule some instruction or go to the shop and yeah, anything like that you want to share with folks?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:14

Yeah, so we actually just updated the website. It's uh Western Riversflyfishing.com. Really did a nice revamp on things, believe for most of the classes now. If you are interested, you can even click on them on the class link and you can actually book there. Cool. That was that's a new one. We used to be for all the classes, you had to call or you know, stop in the shop to schedule. So that's a new feature. It's not on all of them. Some of you do have to still call to schedule, like the private ones, but everything else, the group classes, you can just look at that. And then we do the fish, I do the fishing reports for the shop, and that's also on the uh website. I update those minimum of twice a month, sometimes weekly, based on the water flows. I'll probably have to update them again this weekend. All right. So yeah, and then uh again, like most folks these days, I do have a Instagram social account. It's the purple rooster, is at the purple rooster. I get asked a lot of questions why the purple rooster. It's one of my favorite dry flies. It's basically a play on a purple haze. So, but and most people can remember the purple rooster. It's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:31

Um link to that stuff in the show notes so people can get a hold of you and follow along and just see what you're up to and maybe schedule some of this uh instruction or or just stop by the shop.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:43

Anything you're excited about coming up? Anything uh really cool in your fly fishing world or at work?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:49

Uh well, we have our fish fair coming up. That's always a big one. Uh, the Western Rivers Fish Fair. I think it's June 7th this year. It's the second Saturday in June. It's our big thing. We always are excited for that. We have all of our reps come out, and so people have stuff to cast. Uh ask questions, uh a little bit of a special for that day that's coming up. Kind of uh kind of blew my uh blew my awesome fishing trip uh experience earlier this year. I got to go to Cuba.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:23

Oh, cool, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:24

Uh and do saltwater fly fishing. That was phenomenal. Yeah, really, really special. But yeah, besides that, just trying to sneak out, get out, and do some fishing. Got some goals in mind for high water. I'd like to get a carp on a dry fly this year. That's one of my goals. Try to catch some bass on top water. I've caught plenty of bass on streamers around here. Be nice to catch one on top, too. So little things like that, little silly goals I have for myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:49

Oh, they're not silly, Nick. They're your goals. That's cool. I mean, you're always challenging yourself. I think that's great. You know, there's always something new to learn. So all right. Last question. Are you ready? Sure. If you could go back to when you first started fly fishing and give yourself two pieces of advice: one more tactical, one more philosophical. What would you tell yourself to help you progress as a fly fisher?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:16

Okay, well, from a technique standpoint, work on your knots and your fly cat. I mean, fly caster is one thing, but work on your knots when you're not fishing.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:28

Good. I like it. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:31

And then from a philosophical standpoint, don't worry about catching fish. Focus on the process and the sense of, you know, if you focus on, you know, like I tell my students, you gotta get your stuff rigged. You get your stuff rigged, you're gonna be in better shape. Then you gotta make sure you cast, get your casting out, and you fish the fly right, water knowledge, right, picking the flies. If you focus on those things, the fish will answer the dinner bell by themselves. Just focus on the things you can control, the things, not the things you can't.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:06

Okay. Those are two good pieces of advice. Thank you, Nick. And thank you for all the great advice you gave today. You really went with me down the rabbit hole on the soft hackles. So I appreciate that. That was awesome. I mean, really great specificity, and I love talking tactics on the show, and you didn't disappoint. So that was super cool, and I really am grateful for that personally. So thanks for that. And I'm excited for you and what you're doing with the instruction and teaching people how to get better. That's a big part of Wait Out There and what I'm trying to do too. So thanks for being on the show and thanks for a great conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:40

Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:46

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, Wait Out There.