WOT: 250 Efficiency and Red Fish Tactics in South Carolina with Caleb Andrews

In this episode we WadeOutThere with Caleb Andrews, from Charleston, South Carolina. Caleb fell in love with fly fishing early in life and continued to fly fishing during college in Tennessee while pursuing a degree in material science and engineering.  

Although Caleb had always envisioned using his degree to land a job in the outdoor industry, he eventually took an engineering job in South Carolina.  Soon, Caleb discovered and embraced his new fishery, pursuing red fish along the low country coastal waters. Before long, Caleb had bought a flats boat, moved to Charleston, and decided to “go for it,” helping others catch red fish as owner and head guide of his fishing charter Tails of the Tide. 

We discuss ways for maximizing efficiency while fishing and tying flies for red fish, how Caleb’s engineer mindset helps him weigh possibilities and probabilities while fishing Charleston’s huge tidal swings, and presentation techniques for red fish.

Learn More:
Tailsofthetide.com
Phone: 434-981-6473
READ: WADEOUTTHERE | How to Get the Most From Your Time on the Water

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 Caleb Andrews from Charleston, South Carolina. Caleb fell in love with fly fishing early in life and continued to fly fish during college in Tennessee while pursuing a degree in material science and engineering. Although Caleb always envisioned using his degree to land a job in the outdoor industry, he eventually took an engineering job in South Carolina. Soon Caleb discovered and embraced his new fishery, pursuing redfish along the low country coastal waters. Before long, Caleb had bought a flats boat, moved to Charleston, and decided to go for it, helping others catch redfish as owner and head guide of his fishing charter, Tales of the Tide. We discussed ways for maximizing efficiency while fishing and tying flies for redfish, how Caleb's engineer mindset helps him weigh possibilities and probabilities while fishing Charleston's huge tidal swings and presentation techniques for redfish. 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, Caleb. Thanks for being on the Wade Out There podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, thanks for having me, Jason.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you. I've been out to Charleston many times, and we were talking about this a little bit before the show. Based on just the way my brain was working at the time when I was in the Air Force, I never thought about it as a fly fishing place because it was always trout for me, and trout is fly fishing, they're almost like the same thing. So I think that I'm gonna eat a little humble pie throughout this conversation as you start telling me stories and all the fun times that you've had out there, that I didn't take advantage of it when I had the time. I used to live in Georgia, so I could have got out there. I mean I was out there visiting friends. I had a friend that lived in Columbia, and I was in Charleston, you know, three or four or five times a year, probably, just drinking beer and hanging out and stuff like that. I could have been fly fishing with Caleb, yeah, probably. But I don't know if you were there at the time. When did you move down there?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

I've been down here probably twelve or so years at this point.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Okay. Twelve years ago. It's 2025, math in public. Yeah, I was gone. I might have been gone. Yeah, I was in Vegas back then. But anyway, I think that the story that I read about you and moving down there is interesting. You're an engineer by trade, right? Like that was kind of like your training.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yeah, so uh I went to school at the University of Tennessee, studied materials engineering there, and uh engineering job ended up moving me to South Carolina. I was doing that, and a buddy of mine hit me up and was like, hey man, let's go fly fishing for redfish, and like it sounds good. So we uh we both had John boats at that point in time, uh little like 14-foot John boats, and we ended up putting those into the salt water and ran out. We were able to stick a couple of redfish and well let me interrupt you real quick.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

I want to read something because I read this in a video that you were in, and I just thought it was like so I hate to interrupt you right away, but it just struck me. So I'll read it and and then I'll ask you a question if that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

I was living up in Columbia, so that's where you were, right, Columbia. I was living up in Columbia and ended up buying a flats boat to start fly fishing for redfish down in the Charleston area, and quickly fell in love with it. And this is the part that I think is awesome. So I moved to Charleston and kind of said, let's just do what we love, go for it. So now you're a fishing guide in Charleston for redfish, and you made this whole move down to Charleston because of this you know, fly fishing experience you had down there. I want you to finish the story, but you've had changes in your life before. What do you think like flipped the switch and made it like was it Charleston? Was it the fish?

SPEAKER_00 4:40

It was probably a combination of all of it. I mean, I mean, you've been to Charleston, so it's a really beautiful place. Anyone that you know does a quick Google search. It's a place that a lot of people find worth going to. And so, yeah, I basically, with the engineering background, I always felt like engineers are trained problem solvers, and basically you've got this tool belt with all these different tools that you can use to try and solve the problem. And I think at some point it kind of clicked in my mind that it was like you could probably do this and apply that methodology to based on problem solving, apply that to fishing, and it started kind of working for me and kind of clicking, and then from there just kind of snowballed. And I think to take a quick step back, my thought process with the I was always a fly fisherman, I always enjoyed fly fishing, and I feel like I went into engineering with the thought that I would work my way into the outdoor industry via the engineering degree. Like I tried to get a job with Patagonia back in the day. I sent applications to GoreTex and I came really close to getting a job with uh Rio right out of college, helping design their fly lines. And I had done a project in school where I did a project on rod building, and that, you know, just something that interested me.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

So, what is materials engineering for people that don't know?

SPEAKER_00 6:24

It's basically the quick and dirty of it is you've got your mechanical engineers who are basically creating something, and then you've got your chemical engineers, and I always looked at the materials engineers as they're the ones that are kind of that intermediate discipline that's connecting the mechanical engineers and the civil engineers and the chemical engineers, connecting them all together to where, you know, if you design a bridge, the design of the bridge is gonna go a long way into how strong that bridge is, but also the materials that go into that bridge are going to ultimately determine how cost effective and you come in and you say, Well, dude, if you build it out of concrete, that's one thing, but what if we use steel and then now we can change Yeah, concrete's great because it's really strong, but concrete is inmalleable, like it doesn't move at all, so you need something to deflect some of the forces, otherwise you're gonna get cracks and cracks eventually break.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yeah, so you're using this kind of material, like I think of engineering material like you said, with the bridge, but also can apply to like you said, fly lines or clothing or or things like any kind of functional thing that is made of anything, really, right? Yeah, that's cool, man. That's super cool.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

It's all just one big oxymoron, but I focus predominantly on plastics, and I think in hindsight, much of the plastics industry is removed from the coast just because of plastics, negative detriments with water, so on and so forth. But I've always gotten a kick out of like when people get on their eco kicks and it's like we've got to get rid of plastic, and it's like, yeah, no, I'm I'm all for it, but just remember your fly line's plastic, so like maybe we're only getting rid of the wasteful plastics or or something of like you, you know.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

I know what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

It all has its place, and so as I've kind of gotten older, I think I I used to look at it as the game is solving the problem, but as I've gotten older, I think the game is more solving the problem as efficiently as possible because uh if you take forever to solve a problem, you can solve it, but you took forever to do it. And there's probably a million other solutions that could come up before then. So efficiency is something that I try and bring with me in my day-to-day. And I certainly can't say that it's always there, but trying to do it.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

No, yeah, it's good that you think about that. I think that's something that I had to learn the hard way in my line of work when I was flying jets, is like you've got a target and you've got a friendly position, and you know, you have to attack the target, but you can think about how you're gonna do that forever, right? And like, should I attack from this direction or where's the sun angle? And are the friendlies moving? You know, like at some point though, you gotta make some decisions because you run out of gas.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

So exactly. Like if you have an infinite tank, then it becomes a lot easier problem if you're never gonna run out of gas.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah, and it's more fun that way too, because now you're actually doing stuff, right? And then you can come back and think about it and be like, all right, when I was out on the water today, or when I was out there flying, like, what did I do? What did I think? What assumptions did I make? What problem was I trying to solve? What did I do? What would I do differently? How can I move that, take that and move forward?

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Exactly. So I think that's the game is I tell folks a lot of the time, any you come out fishing and and a lot of clients, it's like you're feeling out clients and you're trying to figure out what are their expectations. And some one of my least favorite things to hear is, oh, I just want to catch fish. And it's like, oh, really? You want to catch fish? Okay. Well, now that we cleared that up, um because I too want to catch fish, but yeah, if we wait out here all day, we might be able to catch some fish, but the goal is to catch them every 15 minutes. That that's what we want to do, right? Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

No, that's something to think about that I don't think I think about a lot in fly fishing, but I would imagine that it it comes up more in your line of work as well with the tides and stuff, right? Because you've only got windows of time, the tide's up, and then you've got to make a plan for that, and then I imagine there's some period of time where it's kind of stationary or not moving that much, and then you gotta have a plan for that, and then the tide's coming down. So if you wait forever to make your plan, well, now that plan's out the door because now the tide's coming down, dude.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

On to the next section of the day. So yeah. But yeah, that's where I think planning and just a lot of fishing is done, at least fishing here and in the low country in the Charleston area with these big tide swings. I think that a lot of the fishing is done before you go fishing, either be it with a guide or even by yourself, because like we were just saying, what we're trying to do is we're trying to, you know, if I'm going fishing for four hours today, I want to go fishing the four hours the fish are biting as opposed to the four hours they're not. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's the same deal with trout fishing. If you're if you're going fishing today, are you going fishing when you know there's a bug hatch that's happening at 6 p.m.? Are you gonna wait till 6 p.m. and fish that bug hatch, or are you gonna go at 2 p.m. just because you feel like that's when I want to go fishing, that's when I have the time, that's when I'm going. Well, a little bit of science and and uh Yeah, some experience reconnaissance has says that you might, you know, you might be spending your time a little bit more efficiently if you wait a few hours, but you go fishing when you want to go fishing.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

And so Well, yeah, especially with dry fly fishing, right? That's something that people that I talk to that love to dry fly or dry or die or things like that, you know, they tend to go when they know there's dry fly fishing. They don't tend to go fish all day and fish dry fly rig and not catch fish for four hours and then catch fish for four hours. They kind of know when the time's right based on the time of year and the hatch that's going on and things like that. And that's a good way to be efficient. If you can, like you mentioned, if you have the flexibility to go when it's more efficient, right? If you hey this is when I want to go and this is when I have available, then maybe you just have to go and deal with it. Maybe if you just love dry fly fishing, you just maybe you catch a few fish on dries, but if they're not eating dry is like I'm not saying it's impossible. I know people are out there that make it happen, but it's not as easy as when there's no.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

I mean the you run into that same deal all the time with saltwater fishing too, where you can a lot of the times uh when I'm fishing clients, I'm going to suggest a time to them. You know, if we're fishing on on the 31st, I'm gonna suggest a time window based on either the tides or the wind, and you're gonna tell me, look, I can go at this time, and this is the only time where I can I can go, or you're gonna be like, yeah, that sounds good to me.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Well, let's talk more about the tides and the timing and stuff like that. I was gonna save this for later, but I think this is important that we stick with it since we're on it now. How much you said a lot of the fishing is done before we go fishing, which I really like. Right. What are some of the things that you do in your fishery? So we're talking about Charleston and and maybe it would be helpful to talk about Charleston a little bit and just about the fishery so people understand kind of what it's like. You talked about it before the show that it's similar to Louisiana in some ways, but you've got these tides. So I mean, I've got an idea of what it's like, but for somebody who's never been there, what can they expect as far as what kind of waters and vegetation and what are we looking at?

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Right. So yeah, we're in Charleston, South Carolina, and it's it's an area that gets described as the low country. And if you've never experienced the low country, it's kind of hard to describe, if you will, because you're at the beach, but there's absolutely this southern country aspect to it that it's like you're definitely not in Florida, yeah, and so one thing that makes this fishery kind of unique is the how big the tide swings are, and so basically every six and a half hours we've got between five and seven feet of water coming in or going out, and so based on the tides and my experiences with saltwater fishing. I think if there's one statement that I kind of use to uh surmise the fishery, and what I'm trying to do as a as a fishing guide is I'm trying to be in the right spot at the right point in the tide. And so on any given day, you've got a million different variables going on, the wind's blowing, the sunshine, whatever, tides going in, tides going out. And so on any given day, you've got X number of spots, but all these different variables are going on, and so the wind doesn't allow you to go to spots at A and B, but you got spot C, and based on this point in the tide, the fish are sitting in this area at spot C, so that's where we want to go. And so that's how a lot of the time when I'm trying to plan something out here, I'm planning based on these tide cycles, which again, um pretty big tide swings, five to seven feet. To compare that to a similar fishery that a lot of people are fishing. If you were to go to Louisiana, you're gonna find that those tide swings are closer to like a foot, maybe two foot of big tide swings. So it's significantly less water moving in and going out at any any given point in time. And so, yeah, I think that presents its own unique set of challenges.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

What are some of those challenges? Well, first of all, have you ever been stuck in a tight spot where you're like, oh shoot, now I'm I'm someplace where I can't get out? With that's a big swing. Like, so you know, I guess we're gonna have to wait for the tide to come back.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

There there have been many times that I have either sat high and dry waiting on water, or I uh one of my early, early uh experiences was I was fishing with my brother, and this was pretty skiff, still fishing out of a John boat, pushing it around with a bamboo pole. And uh we went fishing on my birthday, me and my brother did, and this was like first six months down here, and we were having a pretty good day. I mean, we weren't catching a lot of fish, but we weren't stuck either, and uh we kind of pushed the limits a little bit, and it was an outgoing tide, and we ended up getting stuck for about two hours, and we're stuck, and my brother's asking me what our options are, and I'm like, we've got two. We either push the boat or we wait, and he's like, I don't want to wait. And so we uh yeah, we ended up pushing that boat for like 500 yards. It sucked. He uh yeah, he wasn't happy with me after that one, but um learned learned learned the values of tides very quickly on and so um so what are the challenges?

SPEAKER_01 20:57

What are you said these are there's some very unique challenges? So what I mean you mentioned knowing where the fish are, but like for someone like me, no idea or somebody listening, no idea how does the tide is there certain where do the fish like to go when the tide is down, where do they go when the tide is up, where do they go in between? Like, how do you make those kind of pre-judgments? And then I know wind, you mentioned wind too.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah, the wind is what dictates everything first and foremost. I uh first, okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

I would think the tides, but the wind first.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah, I I can fish any tide. The fish are always in the water, so like you can get around that, but there are times that you get a wind from a certain direction and and it gets all the you know, you're you're just trying to find shelter at that point. And so I think the wind, the wind is if there's one variable I wish I could control, it would be the wind. Yeah, I think that that ultimately, like I said, it dictates a lot of that early decision-making process.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

What are you looking for and what do you want to avoid with wind?

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Uh I mean, it is what it is. A lot of the time, like you ultimately I want less wind. Less wind is good wind.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

It's not like a direction of wind, or it's just like where is it most windy and least windy? And is there a lot of swing from one area to another where it might be super windy and this cove and not as much down here? Do you really have that ability?

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yeah, so you can so um Charleston's fishery is it's uh inshore, near shore, offshore fishery is the way we kind of break it up. And so as far as what we'll be discussing for the most part, we'll we'll be discussing Charleston's inshore fishery. And so with that inshore fishery, we're talking the intercoastal waterways, we're talking all the rivers and basically up to the ocean. Okay. Um and so one of the cool aspects of redfish is they like to get shallow, like they they're totally, totally comfortable in shallow water, and you can find, you know, 50 fish sitting in water that's less than 10 inches deep, and wow, they'll be totally, totally comfortable doing it. And so, like, I joke around with folks, like there are times that you're back in these little creeks, and it's like you're this looks like it should be a brook trout fishery, but you've got 40, 40, 30 inch reds that are swimming around back here, and the train's no wider than a one-lane road, and I mean it's tight quarters, and so so yeah. When it's all said and done, the fishery here, the way saltwater anglers are typically approaching it, it's with a sight fishing approach. And so, with that sight fishing approach, you've got your generally one of the cool things that I've really enjoyed about the saltwater game is it's a team dynamic in the sense that you've got an angler on the bow of the boat that's fishing, and then you got a guy on the back of the boat that's kind of steering and moving the boat around, and so the two guys. Are working together to catch the fish. The guy in the back's not catching any fish that the guy on the front isn't putting a good cast on and sticking, and vice versa.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

And the guy in the back has a better view typically.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Um, a lot of times I think that's something that I've played with too. I think um the guy in the back has he's typically gonna be higher up, so he's got a better vantage point. But if you've got a good guy on the bow, what I try and get my anglers trained on is if you can be when you're on the bow, one of the aspects that can make this fishery challenging at times is because we've got big tide swings and the water's pretty warm generally, the water's also pretty dirty generally. And so our water kind of has a similar color to uh you know a nice dark coffee. And so a lot of the times seeing these red fish that are basically brown copper sitting in brown copper water, it's not always easy. No, um sounds not easy at all. And so the guy on the bow, what I tell him is at least in my boat, the guy on the bow is 16 foot closer to the fish than I am because I'm in the back of the boat and he's in the front of the boat. So even though I'm higher up than he is, he has a different vantage point than I do. And he can see fish that I might not necessarily be able to see because we're too close to him. And so, you know, that's one of the fun things about it is you if you're a great caster, you can cast at all the fish, you can cast at the fish that are 40 feet away. But if you're an okay caster but you've got good eyes, you're gonna see these fish sometimes five, six feet from the boat, and they'll still eat a fly five five, six feet from the boat if they don't know you're there. And so there's an aspect of like you can catch 30-inch redfish on on a roll cast, basically, if you sneak up on them and you do it sneakily enough.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Um so it sounds like wind, the less wind, the better. Um and we talked about the tides a little bit, and then the conditions of the water. You mentioned that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

So to elaborate a little bit on the tides, just to kind of give a little explanation. So the way the tides work largely is the tides are a function of the Earth's gravitational pull with the moon. That it's those lunar poles that are ultimately driving the tides. And so you generally have stronger tide swings. Well, not generally, you have stronger tide swings on full moons and no moons. So on full moons and no moons, you're gonna have like if a big tide swing is a seven foot tide swing and a low uh small one is seven foot to zero foot is a big tide swing. You'll see that seven foot to zero on a full moon or a no moon versus on your half moons or your neat tide, you'll see a five foot to a two-foot tide swing. So your tide swings are smaller on your half moons, they're bigger on the full moons. And so you can use that to your advantage different times of the month, different times of the year.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Can we talk a little bit more about the tides too? Because I think it has to do with this efficiency kind of theme that we've kind of landed on, I guess. But how is understanding that tide helping you? Is it with where I can go? Is it now that I know the water is going to be this high, these spots are available versus other spots? Is that the biggest thing? Are there are there other things that have to do with the behavior of the fish? Like they'll eat certain flies differently, or you present to the flies differently. Is there other stuff about the tides, or is it mostly just where I'm going?

SPEAKER_00 28:23

I think it's a combination of both. So we one other thing to highlight with our tides, too, and you see this a lot more. I mean, you see it here, but we look at tides, and there's two different ways to look at tides. You're looking at tides with the amount of water that's moving out, you're talking about actual volume. But then if you look at it as percents of the total, then that refines how you look at it a little bit. So one other aspect that drives tides is the wind. So the two big factors, and maybe you could add, you know, rainfall into a runoff a little bit affects it time to time, but yeah. So with regards to uh to wind, certain wind directions will either hold water in or it'll force water out.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

So the way Charleston is set up, we were talking winds and tides. Charleston's on the east coast. So if you have a west wind, that wind has to blow through a a lot of land till it gets to the water. And so you can the advantage of that west wind is you're gonna be shielded a lot more from that west wind because it has to blow through land. Disadvantage you're quote unquote disadvantage you might run into is that west wind's gonna change, change the tides a little bit because what it's going to do is it's going to force water out more than when the water's coming in, that wind's pushing the opposite direction. The tide's trying to come in from the ocean into the land. Right. But you got a west wind which is coming the opposite direction of the tide. And so if seven feet of water were supposed to come in, but you had a 20 mile an hour wind coming from the west, maybe only six foot of water was able to come in. So now you have this foot of residual water, and so your seven foot high, where you were supposed to have a uh zero foot low, it's actually now a one foot low. So if you are planning for a zero foot low, you actually have a foot of extra water. So now you have to contend with that, and the fish are going to be in a slightly different spot, and so on and so forth. So that's where it's a lot of fuzzy math, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Um, that's great. I mean, these are the things that we were talking about earlier with the engineering stuff, and the I I forget if this was before the show started or not, but we were talking about the engineering and the probabilities. These are fuzzy probabilities, right? They're not mathematical certainties, and you can't use a computer program to make it right and build in factors of safety. But I guess maybe you can apply factors to safety, right? You can say, all right, my probability is this that the water's gonna be here, but you know, it might not be quite as bad. So there's these other spots that I can hit along the way if it's not as high as I thought or low as I thought, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Exactly. Because that's all you're really trying to do is you're trying to build together a plan that's gonna keep you busy. And efficient. Yeah. If I if I can stay busy out there, then I don't feel like I'm having a bad day.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

What are other things that you do to be efficient? Maybe are not the pre-planning, which I think is really important. Like if you plan ahead, you can be more efficient. But are are there things and it could be more planning if we if there are things that you think of that is more of a planning thing that you just haven't mentioned yet? But I'm also curious about like I like this idea of efficiency, and we talked about how you can do that in any kind of fishing, like trout fishing or redfish, right? So are there other things that you do or think of or try to teach people that are building that efficiency?

SPEAKER_00 32:18

I think the guys that do it the best are able to pick up on tiny little nuances that just seem to repeat over and over again. And so if you can pick up on those nuances, and I think as guides and anglers, what we're trying to do is we're just trying to get our batting average as close to a thousand as we can get it. And if you if you get it, I mean, the higher it is, the better you're doing, obviously. And so, so yeah, I think that you know, little things like checking your fly in between fish and it like are is your weed guard actually going to be protecting the hook from you know getting fouled? Do you have any little wind knot in your leader? I mean, just little details to where when that moment comes, because it inevitably should come on most days, yeah, where here's your slam dunk, take your shot, you know, make it the best you can make it because this is our slam dunk. And so I think that's what a large part of my approach is trying to figure out the nuances to where, and I think those nuances, you know, they change with different anglers and so on and so forth, but you're trying to pick up these nuances to where it's like, okay, now we've got our moment, it's right here, it's laid out on a dinner platter for us. Can we be perfect in this one moment? And if we are, we usually type catching a fish. And okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Two things that I think about when you bring up the nuances of it and the efficiency that it implies. I think that a lot of anglers, and I would put myself in this bucket, tend to look at things like checking my fly, making sure it's all smudged up or knots of my leaders, or a couple of things that you mentioned. I think it's easy to look at that as like, um, I'm wasting time like because I'm not fishing. But it's kind of like the two guys that are you know sawing down the tree and the one guy leaves every day at lunch and goes someplace and comes back. And he always finishes sawing down the tree first, and but he's fishing, he's uh he's thawing like for two hours less than the other guy. And the guy asks him, Where do you go? Like you always are beating me. He says, I go to sharpen my saw. If you don't take care of those little things like you're talking about, you're actually being less efficient. I mean, I think you just make a great point. It's just a great reminder that taking the time to tie a good knot, or taking the time to check these things isn't wasting time. It's actually buying you time in the long run, or taking the time to yeah, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

People ask me, like with YouTube and all that, you've got a million different knots to learn, a million different knots to tie, and people ask me what knot do I like to tie? And I'll it my response usually is whatever one holds. And what I tell folks is I've got like five knots that I like to tie. And if one of the knots isn't working, I usually go to the backup for that knot. But ultimately, when I tie a knot, what I do is I tie the knot and then I try and break it. And if that knot doesn't break, it's a good knot. And if it does break, it wasn't a good knot. And so I retie it. And so I've found that in doing that, I don't break off on near as many fish because I've already tried to break that knot before the fish. And I'm bigger than the fish. So like I should be able to break the knot easier than him. And so, you know, there's little simple things like that to where, you know, anything you can do to up your batting average, if as long as it's going up, you're probably catching more fish. And, you know, it might not be that day, it might not be the next day, but eventually there's gonna be days where you're like, wow, uh, you know, night and day difference. And it I think that a large part of it is because of those little details. I heard someone say a long time ago, 10% of the fishermen catch 90% of the fish. And I don't know if that's an accurate stat or but what I take from that is basically the minority is catching the majority. And if the minority is catching the majority, I don't believe it's because they're doing anything that much more radical than what anyone else is doing. Because if it was that much more radical, you'd pick up on it. Like those guys are doing something outlandish, but they always come back with a full boat of fish, so like we should copy them. But it's uh I don't know that it is something that's that outlandish. I think it's something that's subtle that they've dialed in on, and you know, from those subtleties, their efficiency is obviously it's better.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Well, that's a great point. There's all the little things that add up, right? Like in so many things. And if you can just do even the tiniest little thing that helps you just a little bit, and if you do all those little things, a lot of little things is a big thing, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Exactly. I mean, if you do 10 1% things to make yourself better, you're 10% better now.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

All right, let's get I'm gonna I'm gonna put you on the spot though, okay? I'm not gonna let you get off the hook here. I want to know what are some other of the nuances or like what is maybe one of the the little things that we're talking about that maybe took you the longest to learn, where you're like, ah man, this is it doesn't have to be the thing or one of the things, right? That it was like, man, it took me a while to figure this out, and it really is a a nuanced technique that is important.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

I would say one of the things that certainly has helped me the most with guiding clients is because we're sight fishing, typically speaking, with these redfish, uh just coming up with different ways to try and get people to see the redfish the way that I see them, as fast as I can see them, because when it all goes down, it goes down in a matter of seconds. And while time seems to stop, it feels like you don't ever have enough time. And so one of the things that I like to do is I'll have anglers point where they're looking, use their rod to point because I can see when they're on the bow, they're looking away from me. But with when they're using their rod to point and they're looking down that rod, I can see where the rod's pointed. And so I can say, You're looking too far to the left, move your rod to the right, and then they'll point the rod right at the fish, and I can say, Yeah, you're pointed right at them. Do you see them? And then they're looking down the rod and they see the fish, and it's like, yeah, I got him. All right, let's go catch them now. And so being able to get everyone's eyes on the fish as quickly as possible, I think, is one of those nuances to where that changes everything. The faster you can do that, I think, is the thing beyond all else. That like if nothing else, even if you're not a good caster, just seeing the fish out there, knowing that that fish right there is ready for you to catch him is cool. But yeah, when you don't see him, that's probably the most frustrating part of it too.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

So it's gotta be frustrating for you when you see it and then you see the opportunity, it's gone. You know, yeah. Trust me, I put you on a fish, you didn't catch it.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Yeah, you took my word for it.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Yeah, we I put you on so many fish today, dude. You didn't see him.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Dude, I'm telling you, I see thousands of fish every time I go out. I don't know what these guys are looking at.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Yeah, no, that makes sense. That would be an efficiency, right, that you could grow at and learn to try and perfect. And the better you are at that, the better you are at catching fish.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

I mean, there's like we were saying, it's these subtle little details, and there's probably a million of them that we could point and choose at any given at any given time. We're not doing as well as we could. I mean, you know, line management's always one that, you know, trying to make sure that line's not gonna get stuck on something, you name it. There's little things where it's like, hey, watch your line, watch your line. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

What do you tell people to do to deal with that? Like, how do you manage your line? Or what are what do you want them to do? Do you want to have less line out or just the right amount, or you use like the bucket or just get it off the boat, or just always be paying attention?

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Generally with salt water, we're trying to keep it on the boat. And so I've got these little line spikes that kind of help it to stay on the boat, and then beyond that, trying to make sure that it's not getting pinched in any spot to where when you shoot the line, it's you know it's actually gonna shoot. But that's the inevitability with fly fishing, I think, is the line always gets tangled with something.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

But uh in um trout fishing, I try and keep less line out and only as much line out as I need. And that seems to help me. Yeah. Because especially on the drift boat, because I mean, geez, Caleb, I cannot tell you how many fish I've lost because like I'm just it's it's wrapped up around the anchor or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

It's just you know, it's laziness, and it's like you said before, it's just those little things that like Yeah, that's a good rule of thumb just in general, is like it's if you're not using it, don't have it out. And so it's a simple fix and it's easier said than done because ultimately what will happen is is as soon as you're like, oh man, I'm only fishing a 40-foot cast, I got 40 feet of line out, and then uh fish is swimming along 50 feet away, and uh you know you can't stretch it quite as far. So yeah, just like everything uh in in this game, it it'll go the way it's supposed to until it doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, Caleb. So I think it would start asking some more tactics questions about the specifics, but before I do, what are we forgetting, or what are we not mentioning about efficiency and the tides and and things like that that we gotta get out, or is there anything like that they're like, oh, before we move on, I I want to make sure this is known.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

Yeah, one last little aspect. Um, so like we said, one of the challenging aspects of the low country Charlestons fishery is how big the tide swings are. All that said, if you were to ask me coming from a freshwater background and then kind of finding myself into a saltwater fishery, what the hardest part about saltwater fishing is, I would respond that's easy. The hardest part about saltwater fishing is the vastness of it. And so from that standpoint, the hardest part about saltwater fishing is the vastness of it, and that's my humble opinion. But I feel like the fish are everywhere and they're nowhere. And so if that's the case, then fishing at a low tide theoretically should be easier than fishing at a high tide, just because you have seven feet or five feet of water, that much less water to contend with, and we know that it's a substantial amount of water because we're talking tide swings and feet. And so, yeah, I think as just a general statement, trying to approach the fishery as efficient as possible. Low tide, you have significantly less water, so those fish are going to get choked down more into the spots that you know that you're trying to find them. Now, that said, from a fly fishing standpoint, we're trying to sight fish them. So that that's where it all changes, and that's where it gets you know can get more tricky and this and that is finding fish is one thing, finding fish to eat that you know you can feed a fly is a different thing.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

So yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. That's something that always strikes me about any kind of fishing that's not a river. Right. Anytime I go to a lake or any big water, I'm just or I look at you know, my brothers out in Seattle area, and I've fished the Puget Sound a little bit, and it's just it's so big. Like I mean, what where do I start? And I've talked to I've had some people on the show and we've talked about the Puget Sound, and you know, you just kind of narrow it down. Maybe you can talk a little bit about besides the tides, or you know, is there things you look for like vegetation or uh type of water that they like to be in?

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Yeah, so so you'll like this. I uh I tried to come up with some laws of fishing at one point in time.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Oh good, because this is my next I was gonna be like I was gonna ask you, I I wanted to move on to the engineering side of it. So this is perfect. Let's start the engineering part of the podcast with the laws of the laws that you've invented.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

So I felt like there should be some laws of fishing because what I've found in trying to teach people the game is um everything's basically a big oxymoron, and it's you do this except for when you do that, you do that except for when you do that, and so on and so forth. And so at one point I was like, I'm gonna try and come up with some laws of fishing, some things that always hold true. And so one of my big laws of fishing is all fish like structure, and so I think that's a really big one. And so, be it if you're fishing a river, if you're fishing, you know if you're fishing salt water, if you're fishing the ocean, I think when you're typically when you're finding fish, I don't think you're often finding them in no man's land. You're finding them in that area because there's I think they've they've typically got a two-track mind, which is eat and don't get eaten. And so is that a law?

SPEAKER_02 46:37

Uh I don't know that that's I think that could be a good law that we came up with on the show. Yeah it could be all right we'll file that one away. Maybe maybe not I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

But I think that's why they like structure is because you've got a totem pole out there in nature which it and unless you're on the top of the totem pole you're somewhere on the bottom.

SPEAKER_03 46:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

And so like if you're not on the top then that means someone is going to try and eat you at some point. And so I think that starting with the lowest on the totem pole those if you're on the bottom of the totem pole you're hanging out by structure just because that's the only place you feel safe and it's the only place you can put yourself in a position to where you can eat and not get eaten.

unknown 47:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

And I think that that goes kind of into my second law of fishing which is life likes life. And so I think that a lot of times when you start finding life life seems to catalyze life around it.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

And so life likes life.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Okay. I thought you were saying light for a second.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

No life life likes life. And so I think you know sometimes you're out there in the ocean and you see a sea turtle that's just floating around and you go to check out a sea turtle and wouldn't you know it there's a few fish swimming under them in it. You can find different instances where you know you're you're fishing a river. Right there's birds there's birds that are eating the chum or you the the birds will take you to like fish a lot of time little signals and oftentimes these signals are because life is building around other life like you know I love it.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

I love where we're going with this dude this is great.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Keep it going so yeah I think th those are two of the big ones I mean there's others that I uh you know give me them all give me everything that comes to mind.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

I want all the laws.

SPEAKER_00 48:35

One of my laws is uh it's better to be lucky than good. One of the laws is if it can get tangled it will get tangled. I mean the two big ones that dictate a lot are life likes life and uh all fish all fish like structure.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

That those are good ones. Yeah. Those can tell you a lot about how where to find fish and um how to read water and um it gets you it gets you moving in the right direction if nothing else. Now I want to think of some laws now that you've put me on this.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

Well they're out there you just gotta figure out you got to figure out now a law a law always holds true and and there ain't much out there that always holds true.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

So that's true. Yeah. Okay. So I like the laws uh what else about your kind of background in engineering has transferred over? Is there things that you use and let's talk about problem solving. You talked about probabilities maybe that's something that you want to touch more on or are there other things that when you are problem solving you can take that engineer's mind and apply it because like you said you're a trained school engineer and now you're fishing but I think that you mentioned before the show even that you you treat the solving of the problem a lot a lot of ways the same.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

Yeah I mean what's fun about this job this career for me is the fact that I don't know that I'll ever be able to totally figure it out. I mean there are times that I'm pointing the bat at the rafters and it's like this next one's gonna be a home run. And when it is it's awesome and then there are days that I'm scratching my head like you know it I just did this.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

And so three two one eat yeah three two one eat.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

You're gonna be right eventually like if you just do that yeah I think one of the things that I've always enjoyed with regards to the fly fishing is the the fly tying aspect of it. I uh I think that's something that like I got into fly tying at a real young age probably like eight years old or something like that. And I think that it's always kind of helped reconnect me to fly fishing even if I wasn't you know if I wasn't fishing every day or whatever I can put time in on the vice and try and create something that based on my experiences being on the water oh it seems like they're eating little shrimp that are only an inch long. So if I can tie a shrimp that's only an inch long and it you know it's weighted right and it's weedless I put that out there and it's a guaranteed eat. And so I like being able to kind of regulate and control what I'm trying to feed the fish and I think the best way I can do that or you know probably the best way I can do that is to do my own tying. Because I there's so many different derivatives that you can do with tying and that's one of the things that I get a kick out of with fly tires sometimes is like they'll be tying some guy's pattern and they'll change the color of the thread and they're like this is my fly and it's like actually it's the exact same fly but you just color the thread and so like you can call it whatever you want. It's the same fly but yeah I like how one one of the things that that I've always enjoyed is I feel like I I told a guy one time that all fly tying is derivative. Like most everything's most everything's been done at this point. And so trying to come up with something that's really unique and special I think is always a challenge to where can you find a new material that's going to shed water unlike any other material or it you know it it moves unlike any other material. And there I have a lot of respect for guys like Blaine Chocolate and some you know some of these other guys David Mangum that you know they come out and they find the dragon tail or the game changer or whatever. And so those are things that are kind of unique and creative and I like I want to believe there's the fly that hasn't been created yet that's out there that just bats a thousand percent every time.

SPEAKER_01 52:55

So are you pessimistic or optimistic on that belief?

SPEAKER_00 52:59

I would say I'm the uh hopeful optimist.

SPEAKER_01 53:02

Hopeful optimist okay so all fly tying is derivative maybe that's a law in fly tying but I mean I agree that everything kind of I call myself a slightly below average fly tire. And so for me once I learned kind of the layering of things it's once you can tie a hair's ear or you can tie pheasant tail you've learned the process you learn like okay this has to go in first and the order of things back that seems to make things everything kind of makes sense after that. And you can tie a lot of different things and try different colors and stuff of the same basically the kind of the same fly or you can put different things on there. Well all the techniques are basically the same like that's good right that helps us those are rules that we can use to help create new things right isn't that sort of like engineering we've got the rules and then we go and build something with those rules and we're trying to solve the problem through what we build.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

Exactly yeah what are some of the things that you've built into some of your flies that you think help solve the problems well at one point so when I when I was kind of making the transition from engineer to fishing guide I ended up working in a tackle shop for a good while and so when I was working in a tackle shop what I was able to kind of do is I started to being a fly fisherman I think just fly fishermen in general were the minority of the fishing population. Also probably the minority of the fish that are getting caught too so I would dare to guess that guys that are fishing conventional gear are typically going like five to one or ten to one on relative to your fly fishing guy for for every five to ten fish they're catching your catching one on the fly something like that. That's being a comparing a a good spin fisherman to a good fly fisherman. And so from that I started trying to look at just nuances within spinning tackle to where it's like oh this lure gets bought tenfold more than this lure. Therefore I flies that are mimicking that lure then maybe they're gonna fish better. And so that was something that I kind of took away working in a tackle shop is uh a lot of times I feel like as an engineer the mindset is to reinvent the wheel but it's not necessarily that oftentimes isn't really the goal. The goal isn't to reinvent the wheel the goal is to figure out can it be done more efficiently and because the wheels are pretty outside of coming up with you know something that's floating in midair the wheel seems to be pretty efficient.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

No I mean I I get what you're saying. I think what sounds like what you're saying is like we don't need to come up with a whole new magic fly it's more like let's use the tools that we have and try and apply them to the situation and build the fly that works for that situation. I'm on board with that.

SPEAKER_00 56:25

Yeah and uh and I think there are aspects where you are trying to come up with a whole new fly but it's also this game of you know you're out there you're fishing you're catching fish you know something works and so is that if you're out and you've got a fly that works is that the best fly because it worked or can that fly be optimized to where when it's working you can get it working better and I think that's the and you know why you know you you're able to identify why it's working better right theoretically because it's just theory really like that's right yeah what was it working better because you were laying down better casts that day was it working better because the weather was as what it was that day was it working better because the fish were just hungrier that day I don't know the answer.

SPEAKER_01 57:17

And on any given day on any given day it could be any one of those it could be the fly it could be the angler it could be a combination of the two um well now we're talking about something different we're talking about problem solving and variables which is very very hard to do because there are so many variables which is one of the reasons why when I I think I just published this article again but when I'm not catching fish or I'm having trouble and I'm going to make a change I try and change one variable at a time because at least for that day now I know that I did if I change like the depth that I'm fishing and the fly that I'm fishing and the color that I'm fishing and if I change all those things and I start catching fish that might be good for that day but I don't know what it was that kind of helped me out. I don't know was it the color was it the size of the fish was it the type of water I'm fishing like what was it that now helped me catch fish and that's why I'm much more nuanced and careful with my changes now than I was before. Before I'd be like oh I'm just let's just I'm gonna do something different and I change a bunch of stuff and now I think also with confidence I'm more likely to be like okay that's a good presented fly. I presented that right like maybe the fish aren't there or maybe it's not the right fly or maybe you know I need to try a different section of water or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

Yeah what you were saying I think that not all variables are weighted the same so that's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

That's a really good point.

SPEAKER_00 58:55

So I'll take a good presentation like you better show me a good presentation three or four times before I'm cutting that fly off because one one time it could have just been bad luck. But I want to see a few refusals before it were like okay that that fly is trash cut it off and throw it in the water.

SPEAKER_01 59:15

Sure yeah that's a good point not all variables are weighted equally I like that yeah yeah I don't I mean any given day just another fun day problem solving so yeah um it's like force is mass times velocity squared right velocity counts a lot more than mass in this equation. Okay. I learned I mean yeah I took an engineering class or two when I was a kid. So I remember that. All right. What else? We talked about the fly tying. I mean we didn't really talk about some of the things that you think about when you're tying flies for redfish specifically what are are some of the variables or some of the things that you take in consideration when you're tying a fly like I really want a fly that does this or I really want a fly that does that. You know what are the things that you're tweaking when you're trying a new material what are you searching for? What are you trying to do? I think um Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:16

I just wanted like when when you're at the vice you're like all right I really want a fly that swims better let me try this or I really want a fly that is at a better depth let me try this like what are those things depth swim I don't know what they are what are the things that you're looking at so I tried to identify a bunch of variables that I liked with like with my flies and so one of the variables that I think is a very important this and and with these variables not all of them are are measurable so that that makes it good and fun right yeah this is all fun dude the whole thing is fun like this is fun talking to you about it fun going out there and trying things like that's why I'm so happy for you that you found this kind of life down in South Carolina doing the thing that you like and you get to use the part of your brain that you like and you get to fish and be in the outdoors.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:08

I mean it's awesome man.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:09

Yeah it's fun but I think that one of the variables that I look at the most with regards to flies is uh castability. So I want a fly the angler can cast and so you know you a lot of times you start changing weights and sizes of the fly and eventually that fly you know you watch the angler and they're not able to cast that fly or that fly's being casted five feet five feet not as far as what you want them to cast. So I look at uh the properties that I like the most in flies are castability. I like um the sink rate and then from there I'm a big proponent of flash I really enjoy putting flash in my flies um I like putting flash in my flies because at one point when I was making the transition and getting into the guiding I was doing a lot of bait fishing charters and and doing bait fishing charters I was having to go out and throw a cast net a lot for bait and at one point it dawned on me the way I was seeing the bait the most the way I picked up on is I would see that bait flash in the water and I'm like if the thing that gives the bait away to me the most is that bait flashing in the water then theoretically putting more flash in and flies should help fish find find the flies better. I also think that because flash is basically it's just a function of light reflecting off of that material. I think that flash also allows you to get additional movement out of a fly that might not necessarily be movement but it can be perceived as movement just because light's reflecting off of that fly in different places and it looks like that fly is moving more than it otherwise is because that flash is just flashing around. But yeah I think that castability sink rate I like flash and then just size and color what are the things that you do to make it more castable I think that cutting weight out of the fly can help let more sparse materials that aren't going to soak up as much water. And that's one of the things that I have fun with is you've got a million different materials out there. I had kind of talked with a guy at one point where I really enjoy tying with your classic materials like your old school furs and hairs and stuff like that. But now we have all these great synthetic materials too which are awesome because your synthetic materials I think are typically more durable than your natural fibers. They additionally where you're gonna get a lot of your flash unless you're getting that you know iridescent shimmer coming off of natural materials is going to be you know your flashes are all synthetic materials and stuff. And so I like trying to come up with flies that allow that I'm able to use both natural and synthetic materials with because I think that you get aspect or get properties out of natural materials that you can't replicate for sure through synthetics like one of my favorite flies to tie is is uh you know Borsky slider basically and I like that fly because it's got that deer hair head on it that's gonna push water and it's gonna cause that fly to sink a little bit slower.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:51

And so I think that um we talked about efficiencies earlier are there efficiencies that you value in fly tying maybe one or one or two things that you really build into your kind of the way that you tie flies that is efficient because I think a lot of people struggle with like a lot of materials in a fly a lot of different materials that I don't have or now I have to go get a bunch of different materials. I mean you could fly tying is a spectrum of efficient to non-efficient and you value efficiency so I'm really interested in how you apply that to tying maybe one or two things.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:31

So I think that as far as if I'm just looking at from a money standpoint and just looking at it on that end of things the hook's the most important part of all of it. And so if if I'm gonna skimp on stuff the one thing that I'm not gonna skimp on is my hook. I like to research different hooks I like to look at as many different hooks as I can find I like to look at the different gauges of the wire or the you know the what the hook is different you know curvatures in the shank and gaps and all that I think is uh goes into better hookups and so that is as far as yeah that's one giant efficiency right there to not skimp out on I think that's where I don't want to skimp but then as far as places that I think you can skim something I heard early on was any saltwater fly tied with more than three materials is overkill. And so I like tying simple flies because you can tie them faster you if you snag it and you want to break it off you can do it not feel bad about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:41

And so um are there a couple simple flies that you recommend that like a guy like me that's slightly below average could tie?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:49

Yeah I've always said if there was one fly I had to fish for the rest of my life, give me a Klauser minnow I was gonna think I was with my brain I was thinking Klauser minnow give me a black Klauser minnow and a little white Klauser minnow and I think you've got enough to I mean you could need that's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:05

What about the efficiency of while you're tying like the process of it anything that you do that is you think is efficient?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:13

I think that if you when I'm tying like I I'll tie for one of the shops around here and I'm usually not efficient when I'm tying just because it's kind of one of my it's an area that I like to just sit and unwind and I can take my time and you know Dude that's a fair answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:31

Like it's not the choice of the fly that you are making though that's an choice in efficiency as well right like I'm yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:39

I have certain ones that I I'm like the you know I have a handful of flies that this is my go-to for this time of year. This is the one that you know certain ones that I I leave on a lot more than others. Yeah certain ones that you know cut this one off I know which one's already going on next. But then I also like I said I like experimenting. I like trying to figure, you know I don't until my batting average is a thousand I feel like there's different things that can be done to to uh improve it. But yeah, I think just as far as the tying goes It's one of those things where if I'm trying to do it as efficiently as possible, what I'll do is I'll kind of pre-select all the materials and have them all kind of oh yeah. This flag uses four feathers, so I'll have all my feathers picked out of the saddle, they're all ready to go. And then it's just, you know, pick it up, tie it in, pick it up, tie it in.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:40

Sure. That's something that has made me more efficient in fly tying, is what you're saying, but also just forcing myself to only tie the same fly for a while because I'll get better at it. If if I'm changing the fly that I'm tying at my level of fly tying, so not the same for everybody, but for me, if I'm changing like I'm changing a zebra midge and then I'm tying a bead hair pheasant tail, and then I'm tying an elk hair caddis. If I'm switching that a lot, like I I need to get in a rhythm if I'm gonna start being efficient. If I'm not tying like at least 10 flies in a row, like I'm being very inefficient in my tying skill level.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

And I think that's the case for just most people and most things I do. Like if you want to do something as efficiently as possible, do step one ten times, then do step two ten times, then do step three ten times.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:37

And while it's a more efficient approach, it's also a more boring approach because you're over and over and over again. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:48

That's maybe that's why it's hard because people I get bored just like everyone else, and I want to like, yeah, I'm gonna try something else.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:54

Yeah, and that's where I tie for the shot, but I yeah, they also know like you'll get your flies when I bang them out because there will be a day where I'm gonna tie two dozen of them, and then there will be a few days where I am not tying near as fast.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:10

So I want to start wrapping it up. I've really enjoyed this conversation on efficiency. But before I do, uh I I want to go through a lightning round. This is just tactics questions. Don't need to have like a huge explanation. You can provide an explanation if you want. There's no rules. I would say there's no rules on the Wade Author podcast. So but it's meant to just like get your thoughts and it's like six to nine questions I want to ask you. Cool. You ready?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:40

We'll try and be efficient with this.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:44

Yes, sir. Okay. What do you change first? And we're talking about in the context of Charleston, redfish, that's kind of like the overall general theme of the presentation. What do you change first when you're not catching fish?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:04

Probably go to the cast first, go to the presentation. And if I find that we're maximizing that presentation with the fly that we got got on hand, then I think I'm either I'll either change the leader, shorten it to try and improve that presentation sometimes, or lengthen it. But I find that a lot of the time the issue I I run into in fishing them here is the fish aren't necessarily leader shy, they're just not getting shown the fly.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:36

Um so you're gonna change the presentation, the leader length. That's kind of what your first kind of thought.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:45

Are we showing the fish the fly? Is usually the first question I'm asking, and then after that, then I'm going to change the fly, probably.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:54

Okay. What do you consider underappreciated in fly selection?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:00

Probably just simple small flies, like small the size, okay. Yeah, like elephants. I always love the saying elephants eat peanuts, and uh yeah, I think that you know, like we were saying, if if there was one fly that I was like, gotta have that one in your box, put a little black clauser in there, and uh I think that you know what's been the biggest unlock for you in presentation? There was a point that I tied a fly with it had a kind of unique color combination, and we started started fishing that fly, and me and a buddy that I tied it for, we noticed like I mean the batting average went up like almost went up in order of magnitude times three. Like it was a notable yeah, nothing else has changed except this is doing something. So that that was probably okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:01

What's one of the less obvious observations that helps you problem solve on the water? Something that people miss, something that you like see that a lot of people don't appreciate.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:13

I think just kind of slowing down and slowing down your initial approach because I think that if the option so a lot of times with clients, I'm trying to figure out how can we get that best presentation, and so a lot of times I put the emphasis on seeing the fish first, and so I'd rather pull into a headwind and have sun at my back, allowing us to see fish better.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:44

Um okay, yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:46

But in that same in that same breath, if I'm pulling into the wind and I notice this guy can only throw it five feet going into the wind, but he can throw it 15 feet going with the wind at his back, that's where I'm now trying to decide what makes more sense in my mind being able to see the fish that we're trying to sight fish for, or being able to cast further than five feet past the boat because the likelihood of the fish feet eating five feet at the boat while we can see them, what's more likely to happen. So um okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:24

What are one or two habits you've developed that you think have helped you most in fighting fish?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:32

Um just general physics, I think, goes a long way to fighting fish. At one point it was kind of realized by me that when you're fishing with a fly rod, you're basically fishing with a spring. And so when you're pulling on those fish, the harder you can pull on them, the more you're gonna break their will, the more they're the more quickly they're gonna kind of yield and give up. And so what I found is if you can kind of have a shallow arc in that rod when you're pulling on that fish to where you're putting as much pressure on that fish as your leader will allow, basically, you're able to manipulate that fish a lot faster, and then doing that, like I said, you're gonna break its will.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:24

And so you're saying using less of the spring, actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:27

Less so so because it makes it's more force on the fish then. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:33

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:33

Yeah, you wanna like you don't want to totally disengage the spring because if that fish surges, that spring's gonna help absorb some of the force, and you've got a reel to help do that too. But sure, the more that rod has a deep arc to it, the less force you're able to put on that fish. The straighter that rod is, the more force you're able to put on that fish, and the more force you can put on them, theoretically that's a really good point.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:03

It's not something I think about a lot. I'm always thinking like get into that bend, push the rod out, which is good, but again, that's less actual force on the fish. Like 100% force would be no rod at all, me just pulling the line directly. That's the most force I can put on him. So any cushion that I'm giving is less, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:26

Exactly. And at that point, you're basically testing your knots and you're testing your leaders because you're running right down through it, you're absorbing all that force is being absorbed either by the knots or by the hook or whatever. And so, yeah, that's where you get to figure out how good your knots are, but ultimately you're pulling on that fish at that point as hard as he can be pulled on, and the harder you pull on him, the more he's not gonna like it, the more he's gonna exert energy, and theoretically he's gonna tire before you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:01

So Okay. What's one of your most underappreciated pieces of gear?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:08

Push pull.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:10

Okay. What's a tactic or technique you've changed your mind on for catching redfish?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:19

I think the more I've done it and just fishing with more people, I definitely try to move slower.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:27

So you used to be a lot faster and now you're slower.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:30

Yeah, I feel like uh, you know, and it's just one of those things where when you're younger, you're a lot more gung-ho. I think now I'm like, don't get me wrong, I'm always still go charging out there, but I try and be a little bit more calculated with my charge as opposed to um wailing out there. And so um, but yeah, I you know, I took my dad down to the Everglades and fishing him. That was one of the things that I was determined that I wasn't gonna get frustrated with them the whole time. And so the way I wasn't gonna get frustrated with them was I was just gonna take my time and it it worked out in our advantage because we got on a lot of fish, and I think we got on more fish because we're moving slower and and we're able to observe more, and I think that's you know how it goes sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:19

Yeah, in the fighter squadron, we used to say that you don't want to be all thrust, no vector. Exactly. Uh all right, Caleb. This has been awesome. I could keep asking you questions. We didn't even scratch the surface of all the tactics and stuff, but uh if people want to learn more, I'm sure they can come fishing with you. So let's uh before I ask my last question, how can people do that? How can they find out more about you or maybe schedule a guided trip?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:45

Yeah, they can reach out to me personally. My website is www.tales of the tides.com. And you can book on my website. Otherwise, you can reach out to me and uh you can do either emails or texts. Uh text is probably the best way to get in touch with me. If you want, I can just drop my number on this.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:06

Sure, that's up to you, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:07

Yeah, it's uh 434-981-6473. And uh, yep, if anyone's interested, just shoot me a text and I'll uh I'll get you in the books.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:20

All right. We'll link to that stuff in the show notes so people can get a trip and go out to South Carolina. I mean, Charleston is a beautiful place, and a lot of people go there, like I said, for different reasons. But if you love to fly fish and you're in South Carolina, it hadn't occurred to you. It sounds awesome, dude. I mean, I it's I meant it when I said it earlier. Like, I wish I had thought more about this when I was out there. And I think you've got a really cool thing going. Like I said before, you found a place kind of a perfect fit for your brain and your love of the outdoors, and I feel really good for you, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:51

I appreciate that, man. Yeah, and uh, next time you're in the neighborhood, let me know, and we'll we'll definitely get out and do something fun. It it's a cool fishery just because you like I said, you you've got the tides that are always changing, but then you've also got different seasons, and so different seasons bring different weather, and different weather brings different opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:13

So um Yeah, we didn't even get into that. Maybe we'll do another episode after I come fish and we'll talk about the weather and the seasons and yeah, sounds good, man. All right, last question. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:24

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 at fly fishing?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:37

I would say the first thing that I would probably tell myself is no fish are off limits for the fly rod would be one of my first pieces of advice. And I'd say probably from a tactical standpoint, it would be to just win and doubt, go slower.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:58

Okay, those are good answers. That's good. I like it. Caleb, again, thank you so much. And uh, I've appreciated all the time that you put into that. And I I love talking tactics, especially with a mind that is so thoughtful about what you're doing. And it's obvious that you think a lot about these things. And thanks for being on the show. I really appreciate it, and you have a good one out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:20

Thanks, man. Yeah, we'll be in touch.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:26

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, an online gallery, at waitouthere.com. If you want to make Wade Out There a part of your own fly fishing journey, please subscribe and share. Until next time, Wade Out There.