The Wadeoutthere Fly Fishing Podcast
The Wadeoutthere Fly Fishing Podcast
WOT 254: Streamer Tactics on the Madison River with Andrew Kangas
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In this episode we WadeOutThere with Andrew Kangas from Cameron, Montana. Andrew grew up in Michigan, learning to fish with conventional gear and dabbling in fly fishing with a fly rod he picked up at a neighborhood garage sale.
When a family friend living in Montana invited his family to stay with her for a trip to Yellowstone Park, Andrew saw it as an opportunity to dive deeper into fly fishing. The trip turned into a wildly fun and productive fly fishing adventure. So when that family friend offered her basement to Andrew to come and spend summers fishing, he jumped at it. He also jumped at the opportunity to begin his guiding career at Kelly Galloup's Slide Inn fly shop, on the Madison River.
Now Andrew splits his time between Montana and Michigan. Guiding, hunting, and fishing for himself, all while continuing to challenge himself with new waters and new species.
We discuss streamer tactics on the Madison River, how different streamers can lend themselves to different styles of retrieves, and how Andrew looks forward to continuing to challenge himself as he grows as a fishing guide.
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In this episode, we wait out there with Andrew Cangus from Cameron, Montana. Andrew grew up in Michigan learning to fish with conventional gear and dabbling in fly fishing with a fly rod he picked up at a neighborhood garage sale. When a family friend living in Montana invited his family to stay with her for a trip to Yellowstone Park, Andrew saw it as an opportunity to dive deeper into fly fishing. The trip turned into a wildly fun and productive fly fishing adventure. So when the family friend offered her basement for Andrew to come and spend summers fishing, he jumped at it. He also jumped at the opportunity to begin his guiding career at Kelly Gallup's Slide Inn Fly Shop on the Madison River. Now Andrew splits his time between Montana and Michigan, guiding, hunting, and fishing for himself, all while continuing to challenge himself with new waters and new species. We discussed streamer tactics on the Madison River, how different streamers can lend themselves to different styles of retrieves, and how Andrew looks forward to continuing to challenge himself as he grows as a fishing guide. Welcome to the Wade Out There Fly Fishing Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Shefchuk. At Wade Out There, we believe fly fishing is special, but not elite, and that anyone can become a great fly fisher if they are willing to go, learn, and teach. Join me as I talk with other fly fishermen and women about their unique journeys into fly fishing, the rivers they fish, and the tactics and philosophies they practice. For those who can never leave the river in their hearts, this podcast is dedicated to helping you make the memories that keep us all coming back to Wade Out There. Welcome, Andrew. Thanks for being on the Wade Out There podcast.
SPEAKER_00Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, of course, man. I don't know if I want to talk to you about hunting or fishing. I know you're into both, and like I also don't know where to put you in. Like, are we gonna talk about Michigan or Montana? You're like, you're doing it all, man. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_00I'm definitely uh better at the fishing than hunting, so probably uh stick with the fishing, but yeah, me too.
SPEAKER_02Me too. It's just I don't know, man. Hunting is it's a different thing. I think you just get less looks at it, you know, less less chances, you know.
SPEAKER_00I feel like fishing, I get lucky, I catch a break, and hunting, I just never get lucky. It's like everything's gotta be perfect.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Well, that's cool. And also I want to say publicly, congratulations on your engagement.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02When's the date? When how far off are we?
SPEAKER_00Uh I think we're gonna wait until she's done with school, so we're gonna push her back probably another three, four years. Oh, that's awesome. That's a long engagement. That's a long engagement. Hey, that's all right. Yeah, we've been together five years, so it's it'll happen.
SPEAKER_02All right, all right. I didn't mean to put you on the spot. Uh we're gonna edit that out if you don't want that in there. No, that's awesome, man. And you're in Michigan, you guys are both in Michigan, but the plan is to move out to Montana, right? So I guess I want to start with you know, how did you get started in fly fishing? And then um kind of walk me through the journey out to Montana.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so you know, I didn't start out traditionally fly fishing from a super young age. Like my dad wasn't big into fishing and all that stuff, so I grew up just bass fishing, walleye, steal conventional gear, and then I had a fly rod that I, you know, bought at a garage sale. I found it, I thought it was cool. Uh, used to catch bass, bluegill on in ponds. Pretty sure you could caught those fish from the bear hook. You know, I thought it was cool catching them on little film spiders back when I was like 13 years old. But that is cool.
SPEAKER_01That is cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then uh we had a family friend that lives in Montana half the year, and she was from Michigan originally. My mom was friends with her, and we were gonna go out and uh stay in West Yellowstone for three or four days, uh, go in the park. We'd never been to Montana. I was 15 at the time, and uh me and my buddy were like adamant we were gonna come fly fishermen out there because it was the cool out west thing to do. And uh we got out there and we hit it just perfect. I mean, it was awesome. It was July. There was so many, like you couldn't even open your mouth. There were so many caddis coming off, and it was like as long as you get your fly on the water, you were gonna have fish coming up looking at it. So yeah, we had a ball doing that, um, fishing in between the lakes, and we would go to I remember I had no money when I was that age, so I would break off my flies because we didn't even know what tip it was and all this different, you know, what to run. So we went to Campfire Lodge and uh bought some tapered leaders. And at the time, uh we didn't know what size tapered leaders you get, like you know, what X five, we didn't know what five X met and other we just looked at the pound test and like, oh, we'll be catching, you know, one two-pound trout, like we'll buy some six, seven X and just breaking fish off and losing our flies. I had to beg my mom to buy me two more elk haired caddis at the fly.
SPEAKER_02So why didn't you ask that question? Like, hey, which one should I buy? Did you feel like I don't know, I don't want to ask, or did you feel like I got this?
SPEAKER_00I think I was just being stubborn with my buddy. Like, I was like, Oh, dude, I know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_02You didn't want to admit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then I'm like, I lost all the flies that I had, and I'll have to beg my mom for five dollars so I can go buy a couple more elk her cadets, but all right.
SPEAKER_02Did that drive fly tying eventually? Were you like, oh I did, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I did end up uh picking up fly tying a little bit shortly after, but that's kind of like what really I was like, this was awesome. And then I, you know, I came back to Michigan, kind of got my ass kicked because I it was not the same experience, and you know, I progressed from there, but that was kind of how it started for me was was going out there for vacation when I was 15.
SPEAKER_02Okay, that's cool. And then so now you're in Michigan, you're a teenager, you've had this fly fishing experience. It sounds like you're telling me that that was kind of like the nail in the coffin, kind of like, all right, I am gonna kind of get into this and and I'm gonna make this real. And then you came back and it wasn't quite like you experienced. Montana has a way of doing that. It it's yeah, it can be like lights out, and you're you just think, wow, this is amazing. And then you go to like some tail water, and it's like, you know, a size 12 hair's ear isn't cutting it. You have to put these little tiny, you're like, why is what's this so different? What is going on? Like, why am I not throwing giant royal wolves and catching fish?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was uh big adjustment. And then like going back home, like you know, we went from catching you know, rainbows and browns on the Madison to going back and be trying to catch Steelhead because where I was at in Michigan, like we have trout around, like we have browns and stuff, but like there's not as many places to go uh fish for browns and stuff until you go a little bit farther north and stuff like that. So we have really good steel head runs, so I switched over to fly fishing for steelhead after doing that, and yeah, it was a big, big learning curve going from one to the other.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so even harder. The like the hardest. All right. Uh so when did you make the move out west? Like was that an easy choice for you? And why did you do that?
SPEAKER_00So after we went out there and stayed with our family friend, she told uh told me if I ever wanted to come out there after high school or after college and just rent out the lower half of the house and just have a really cool summer experience. I could do that for a summer. And you know, I was tying flies in Michigan um after, you know, I got into it and uh met one of my buddies in Michigan that guides here, and he kind of took me under his wing and really got me dialed in on a lot of stuff here and went to college. He was you know telling me when I get done, if I wanted to work under him, I could. So I was in the process of getting my guide stuff for Michigan and COVID hit, you know, everything was shut down. And you know, I was like, I've been wanting to go to Montana, and I'm like, this is the perfect chance to go out there. So I went out to Montana, was trying to find just anything fly fishing related to work, you know, some kind of job for the summer just to have a really cool experience and you know get better as an angler and just have a cool summer and somehow got the job at the slide in. I think Kelly hired me, I already had housing, so I think that really helped me. He hired you what? Housing's a big problem out there. So like you know, like we call it the guide ghetto. So like when you work in the shop, you you stay in a tr one of Kelly's trailers you provide, so like you're the the guide ghetto, but uh I already had that house that I was renting from our family friends, so he didn't have to worry about housing me. Logistically, it made sense. Yeah, so you know, I I saved him a little bit of hassle on that.
SPEAKER_02But you need to have some young blood too, right? I would think like if you're I don't know. When I was in the fighter squadron, we would always, you know, if you have all instructors and no brand new guys in the unit, like it just kind of there's something good about having like a breadth of I don't know, age and experience. In my opinion, I don't know what it's like in a flash app, but in a yeah, I mean Kelly definitely the same way.
SPEAKER_00Like we had a lot of older guides that were you know starting to have kids and yeah, you know, the houses and you know they can't do seven days a week stuff. So sure, you know, I got hired. Jordan, she got hired the same time I did, she's from Michigan as well. Yeah. So Jordan, is your friend that took you under her wing or who uh Jordan's she's uh another guide at the slide. Got it, got it. Okay. So yep, she started the same time I did. She was from we both came from Michigan, and we're both relatively the same age.
SPEAKER_02So cool, man. Well, that's awesome. Um what surprised you about that? I mean, what what was something that you know really like when you got out west and you started working, like something that really struck you as maybe like in the fishing world, or could it be just like in your personal kind of journey that was like, oh, okay, that's how this is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, just like going out there and being at the the slide end, just being around guys and people that were just so into the fly fishing and you know, especially the streamer game. Like I when I was from Michigan, like I I streamer fished a little bit, but I wasn't like super dialed in on it. And I remember getting out there and we would just I'd fish every second I got and uh being around those other guys, you know, they're willing to help and get you kind of feeling comfortable with stuff, and then big thing too is like they want you to go out on your own and figure stuff out, so like I'd go here, come in and be like, Oh, I did really good, or you know, I got my ass kicked today. And yeah, um so it was you know, it was just cool being around that many people that were you know really good at fly fishing, especially with certain tactics and stuff like that that I could pick up on.
SPEAKER_02Sounds like you're saying a little bit that it was surprising how much there is to learn, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's a lot.
SPEAKER_02Like you're like, oh, I didn't know that, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and especially too, like going from steel hood stuff out there. It's like steel sometimes, like the fish just aren't there. Like you gotta try to find them, like oh west on the especially we're right on the Madison. Like the fish are always there, you just gotta figure out what they want to eat. So that's right. So it's it was cool.
SPEAKER_02I use I like to say this is not a fish problem, this is a Jason problem. Like this is not this is possible, it's just not happening right now. I had an instructor that used to say, you need to know what you don't know so you can know it. That's a good one. That's a good one. And it's kind of like, yeah, the whole world is opens up when there's when you fish with somebody that's more experienced or whatever, and you start learning, like, man, dang, that's a lot of I didn't think about that. So that's cool that you got that experience early on. Um what else about the Madison do you think is something that when you're out there guiding and you get people coming in? And you've you're a guide in Michigan too, so you know you've seen different waters for sure, but uh is there anything that really if there's somebody that comes to fish with you that has fished a bunch of different other waters maybe out west, is there something that kind of surprises them about the Madison or they're like, oh, I didn't realize this?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I I think the first thing is like people are shocked by how shallow it is. You know, it's described as a 40-mile riffle. I mean, it's usually average depth, two, three feet. Like it's a very shallow river, and a lot of times it all kind of looks very similar. So, like me going from Michigan, um, you know, we fish log jams, a lot of deeper runs, just how the river's set up is completely different out there. So, like it was a big eye-opener for me that you know, some of these big browns will sit in a foot of water or less. Like, I I have clients all the time where I tell them, like, hey, I want you to hit a cast there. There's a little micro bucket, and it looks like the fish's back would be sticking out of the water, and you know, they throw casts in there and they get you know, they get hit or they get a nice fish or they move one on a streamer. And so like starting out, like people I feel like miss a lot of those spots like that because they just want to cast as far out as possible and you know, try to find the deepest water possible. And a lot of times, especially out there, we probably pull more big fish in a foot of water, 18 inches of water, uh, than we do in some of those deeper, deeper runs.
SPEAKER_02What's it like rowing? I mean, I've been on the Madison a long time ago, but I don't remember. But is it challenging river to navigate in the drift boat? Is there lots of like I don't know, hazards and snares and stuff, or is it pretty much chill? You're just driving down the riffle.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's uh it's definitely uh I so when I went out there, I didn't know how to row at all that well. I I'd rode my buddies boat in Michigan like a couple times, but the Michigan rivers are so slow, like you can take a nap on the oars and you just gotta squeeze between a log jam. Like I get out there and you know the guys in the shop help me, you know, they let me row. Kelly actually let me take his boat and figure out how to row, but it's it's a lot more fast-paced, you know, it's a fast river, it's shallow. You're gonna bump some rocks. Biggest thing is you know, you just don't want to get sideways on one or anything like that. So it's just you gotta constantly be looking ahead, you know. You can't get lazy on it. Um yeah, it's fast, right? Things are happening. Very fast, yeah.
SPEAKER_02But if it's so shallow, I mean, uh you have to kind of know you know where the more shallow places are, I guess, or like kind of how you can get down. Probably not hitting bottom. Or like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Is it you're usually scraping up pretty good. I had to get I just got a new boat this year because my old boat was that battle tested. It was what kind of boat did you get? I got another Klacka LP. Um I can't believe my other one wasn't leaking with how scratched and banged up it was. But uh yeah, I mean, and you don't have to like if you don't go into certain spots, like you can ride kind of out in the middle, it's a little bit deeper in a lot of spots and get through easier. But like I said, a lot of those little micro buckets or those little shelves that you try to get to with the boat that most boats aren't gonna try to get to. That's a lot of times where you'll pull those bigger fish out of just because you know it's a very pressured river. Those fish see a lot of you know, boats, a lot of different flies. So like those little sneaky spots you can get the boat into. I've had to walk the boat into some of the spots just to, you know, yeah. If I think a big fish in there, it's worth it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. That's cool. I think you mentioned like casting far out and stuff. Sometimes with always with big water, for me, it becomes intimidating because it's like, where do I start? You know, and I consider the Madison, depending on where you're fishing it, kind of like that. I don't know if that's accurate or not, but that's just my perception. It seems like it can be hard to find those micro buckets or how to read the water. And you said like people want to cast far out, but how do you go about doing that? Is there a is it get you just kind of get used to like these are kind of the areas that I need I know I need to look for, or is there other ways that you like what are you looking for?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I mean starting out, like if you're just looking for a good place to start, you know, you can find those really shallow gravel bars that you can tell um, you know, you can see them pretty clearly, and it might only go from you know, maybe six to eight inches at the shallowest point, and then you fish right along those shelves, right on the sides of them. You know, it's only gonna drop off usually six inches or something like that. But um, you know, a lot of times those always have good fish on them, whether it's you know off the back end of it or off it's off the the sides of those shelves. Yeah, um, that's a really good place to start because you can pick that out without having to you know really try to figure out where it's it's not underwater, you can see it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, it's it's it's sticking up.
SPEAKER_00You can see it at those islands and stuff like that. All right. Those are really good places to start. Those micro buckets, those are you know, some of them are you kind of stumble upon or like they take a little bit longer to kind of figure out. But um, I usually show my clients like I'll get out of the boat sometimes and they'll be like, How deep do you think it is right there? Because you can see how shallow it is, and they'll be like, uh foot and a half, two feet deep, and I'll stand at the shallow point, and then I'll step in and I'll go up to my hip and they'll be like, Whoa, like it's you can't really see it that well. So it's hard, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, I kind of got out of order here in my uh flow. I was gonna ask you some stories, but I want to stay on the tactics. So I'm gonna recage a little bit. And uh the way I want to approach the tactics is through a kind of framework that I was introduced to by a guy named Daniel Bragg. Do you know him?
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. Okay. I bought his I bought my trailer off then. All right, so yeah.
SPEAKER_02I don't know, I don't know him that well, but I I talked to him on the podcast, episode 103, and one of the things that we talked about was the five fly fishing skills. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but it's something that I really took away from that conversation. And I thought since I was talking to you and we're talking to Madison, maybe I'd bring it up and get your take on it. But the big five, according to Daniel, and I would agree with this, this is my belief as well. But like the five skills are fly selection, like bugs, entomology, that whole thing, reading water, and I would kind of like expand that to like observation in general, but like reading water, casting, presentation, which are similar but different, I think, and then fighting fish. So that's okay with you. I'd like to kind of go through those five things and we'll get some of your generic opinions and we'll try and like needle down into some more obvious things. We've been talking about reading water, so we can stay there if you like, and observation. I think observation is uh I think it's one of the most underrated kind of skills in fly fishing because it's the basis for all the other actions that you take. It's the only skill that's kind of like not something that you're doing, right? You pick out a bug or you cast or you fight the fish, but the observation is kind of like more passive, I guess. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. So um curious, like, is there something about observation when you're on the Madison and you're fishing that you rely on a lot? Like, this is something that I'm always looking for. This like this is like a go-to kind of thing that I'm looking for.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I mean it and it kind of depends to like time of year. So like springtime, runoff, like dirty water, you know, those fish don't want to be out in the middle quite as much. They want to be they're usually tight in the banks. You know, we're fishing a lot of really tight stuff in the spring when we have runoff. We didn't get much runoff this year, but a few years ago we had really high water, and you know, those fish are right tight on the banks. Or if you could find some kind of a there's not a lot of log jams, but you know, you find a couple uh log jams or some inside bends where that water was calm and there would just be so many fish stacked in those calmer spots, and that was where we were really, really keying in on that. And then, you know, as the water gets lower midsummer, a lot of times, you know, especially it was weird for me when I started fishing hoppers out was on the Madison because I was always told, you know, pound the bank, pound the bank with hoppers, and uh we do way better fishing three quarters of the way out or dead center in the middle. Um that's crazy. Yeah, I mean it blew my mind.
SPEAKER_02It makes sense though, because you're going down the river sometimes, and you know that feeling when you're casting to the bank, you're casting the bank, and then all of a sudden you hear this giant splash like behind you, and it's like, well, damn, why am I not fishing out there? Where like and then there's fish rising, they're out there, they're eating on the surface.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think a lot of it too is like a lot of the times when we're fishing the banks, like not that you can't catch fish there on hoffers or hoffer dropper, but a lot of times we're getting usually a smaller fish, and then usually our bigger eats we get are you know out in the middle off those gravel bars, those shelves, or you know, if you can hit some of the big boulders out in the middle, like it just seems like that's one thing. So going from springtime of fishing banks when we're high water, and then you know, summertime we're we're fishing some of the more of the middle river stuff. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_02So is that the same for streamers too? Like if we put a streamer twist on this kind of conversation and we say observation in the context of streamers, is that a similar thing? You're just kind of like thinking about where the fish are and how you're gonna target them, or is that different with streamers?
SPEAKER_00So I mean with the streamers, like typically are we talking on foot or are we talking in the boat or let's talk boat and then maybe we'll kind of boat. So, you know, it and just because we run the water a lot, you know, like certain banks we know are are a little bit better than other banks, and then certain sections, you know, it seems like we do better off, you know, middle shelves and stuff like that. So typically, like streamers, we definitely fish a lot more of the banks, but we're held off a little bit farther, so we're just getting that presentation tight and then we're bringing it down and across in front of those fish so they can T-bone it or try to eat it head first. So um, just because we're hitting that cast on the bank doesn't mean that we're necessarily expecting that fish to just blow it up, you know, in that first foot or two. It's you know, they could be five, six feet off. You know, we're not making crazy far casts when we're stripping, especially with the sinking lines because the Madison's so shallow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So you'll you'll start snagging up. But do you fish a sinking line usually then? We're usually do a lot more sinking line stuff. We'll switch to some like slower sinks uh when the water gets lower. It kind of depends on you know, if our clients are very, you know, new to throwing sinking lines but they want to get better, we're not gonna give them a you know 250 or 280 or 280 grain or something like that that they gotta be on it, you know, as soon as it lands, as soon as they fumble the line. If you know we don't want it to just be immediately hung up, you know, we want to have a little bit of time to kind of situate themselves. But you can do with floating lines too.
SPEAKER_02So sticking with observation, you're going for spring to summer to fall. Are there things that you're looking for in The water that are changing uh as well when you're fishing streamers going into the fall.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so fall time, you know, it's especially if you're talking later fall, we'll start to see a lot of those lake fish um starting to move around coming up out of Ennis Lake, or if you're fishing up in between the lakes, come out of Quake Lake, stuff like that. So a lot of times those those lake fish will be in a little bit of those deeper, faster runs, you know, and then those resident fish, it seems like we still get them out a lot of the you know side channels, some shallower stuff. So fall time, you know, especially if I'm floating down closer to Ennis, you know, we we fish a lot of those deeper, faster runs, like dead center of those runs. Whereas if we're going down some side channels where we get out of the boat and we're doing some wade stuff, you know, we'll cook apart stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02So I think of observation, you know, you're think about what you see, but also maybe like things like weather, temperature, water temperature, are there things like that that you're observing that influence how you're gonna fish streamers throughout the year?
SPEAKER_00More so not necessarily necessarily where we're gonna be throwing them quite as much. It's more so how the we're gonna work the retrieves. Oh, okay. Yeah. Um, so like, you know, if it's really cold, if we can do it, we do a lot of jig retrieves. You know, you can really, you know, peanut embies are a great fly to jig, stuff like that. If it's, you know, warmer out, we're trying to get that reactionary bite. You know, maybe those fish are not being as aggressive for or you know, not as much of a food eat, or just you get that trigger response out of them. You know, I like fishing the slick willy, it's one of Kelly's flies, it's just a flash fly. And I will I tell my clients, I'm like, burn it as fast as you can possibly burn it because you're just you're trying to trigger that that reactionary bite out of them. Yeah, um, the drunk and disorderly, Tommy Lynch's is another good one. A lot of people in Michigan, you know, fish the drunk and disorderly.
SPEAKER_02Um, cool. Um, anything before we move on from observation to one of the other five skills that you think we got to cover before we move on, like observation-wise, like it could be anything. Sure, I think I'm I'm sure I'm probably conversation on something right now. There's not a right answer. It's yeah, just whatever. So I always think of stuff like after I Yeah, we can always bring it back up if you think of it in the conversation. You mentioned a couple flies, so let's talk about fly selection. Uh when you are not catching fish, what's one of the first things you change? Let's keep it in like the streamer world, since we talked about that before the show, I guess. But we don't have to. I mean, if you got something other interesting, like you've got other stuff you want to get out there, that's fine.
SPEAKER_00But like, yeah, I mean no, we can stick with the streamer stuff.
SPEAKER_02So, like if you're not catching fish, yeah, what are you thinking? Like, what do I need to do?
SPEAKER_00Change color, change so like confidence, yeah, like confidence flies, maybe. Um for me, especially if it's colder springtime or like late. I I really like fish and leech patterns, you know, like there's leeches on the Madison, there's leeches, tons of leeches in Michigan. Like, it's just peanut envy is a great fly. You know, when I was younger, cone had woollybuggers, black cone woolly buggers was like my go-to fishing here, and just you know, oh yeah, just being able to that's cool because it everyone most people can tie that too, you know. Oh yeah, that's super that was like one of my the first one that I was just yeah. It didn't have to be pretty, you know, it's it just gets the job done. So um yeah out there, I'd say like mini peanut envy's cone TNA leech, just working them a little bit slower, trying to get them in front of those fish's face. Maybe they're not wanting to chase super hard. And if I figure out by if I'm running leeches and those fish, I'm not getting fish, then I might switch over to something that's you know gonna maybe more trigger more of a response out of them, a little more aggressive. So I usually go leech, work them a little bit slower, then maybe go to something sculpny-y, maybe bait fishy, like a barely legal, work them a little bit more aggressively, and then if that doesn't work, I'm usually throwing something big, kind of obnoxious, and just just kind of burn it. And uh yeah, I mean, if it usually the fish will tell you something, because it's not like you could just choose one and you're gonna just light it up all day long. Like um, you know, it'll go through ways like sometimes you'll get a bite window from you know 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and then it might just die down for a little while, and then it might pick back up. So sometimes it's not always the flies that you're throwing. Yeah, but um, you know, I think if you stick with those three, you know, pick a confidence one, whether it's a leech imitation, pick a sculping imitation that you got confidence in, and then you know, if those aren't working, try to go something, maybe like a DD or some kind of flash fly that's just gonna try to trigger a response out of it.
SPEAKER_02Sounds like you're saying it kind of you go with your confidence, what you believe in, and then if it's not working, it sounds like you're saying you'll switch up the retrieve a little bit, like slower. It sounds like you're switching flies based on like the kind of presentation in the retrieve that you want to show them. So if this fly is not I'm gonna try a whole different it's not so much the fly that I'm changing, it's kind of the what I'm showing them because I'm gonna fish that fly differently.
SPEAKER_00Is that yeah, yeah. And then if those, you know, if if I'm moving fish on a certain fly, but I just can't get them to commit, yeah, then it might be okay, I might need to change the color. I might need to maybe speed it up or slow it down so like I usually can get feedback from those fish to know if like, okay, I need to fully completely change what retrieve or what fly I'm fishing, or if it's you know, I'm moving fish on this, you know, this mini dungeon or something, you know, but I just can't get them to seal the deal. Maybe I'll change the color of it.
SPEAKER_02That's a good point. Because it might just be you're almost there, you just need one more thing. Like, this fly is good, but we could do a different size or different color or whatever.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And Kelly really preaches about like because we do the streamer schools every year, and one of the things he talks about is you know, people get a really afraid to to change flies. They, you know, they catch a couple fish on this fly and then they get stuck on it because they caught some fish on it. It just the fish aren't eating it anymore. And I've definitely been guilty of doing that, especially I fished with my buddy Nathan. I've fished a DD for like six hours in one day.
SPEAKER_02Everyone has done that, Andrew.
SPEAKER_00I was like, I dude, I'm catching one on it because I hooked the biggest brown of my life on it, and I was like, I'm gonna go back, and that's the only fly I'm throwing all day. And I don't think I caught it. I maybe caught one fish on it.
SPEAKER_02Why do you think that is? Why is that pull so visceral that you just are like, I won't do it? I mean, it happens with everything, right? It's like it happens with the where you fish, like the spot that you fished, the water that you fish, the type of fishing that you do. Like, I'm just gonna nymph because that works for me, and I catch fish, and you know, I it just seems like it's very hard kind of hump to get over for a lot of fly fishers to kind of be comfortable getting a little uncomfortable. Like they find something that works, or maybe they don't even have something that works. They just somebody told them this will work. I remember that. Like you go, you get the fly. Here's the fly shop. Hey, here's a fly, go here, fish, and cat, you'll catch fish. And they're like, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do what they said.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, or like you go in a shop and you see the hot fly bin, and you grab and you're like, oh, last two days we killed it on this, and you go out and can't get anything, and it's like, well, it's been two days. Yeah, usually, you know, something changed, and it's gonna be the next hot fly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why that is. I don't know if you have any insights, or it's just human nature, maybe. Yeah, I and I think too, like, if you see a fly in a shop, they're like, they're like, Oh man, this one was killing it, like they might have been fishing it totally differently than you're pushing it, and you know it or this they just have a way better presentation, like you just suck at presenting that fly.
SPEAKER_00It's all time. My body will be like, I caught him on this, and I was like, I can't catch him on that, I suck at it. But uh, I get him on this and he won't catch them on that that day. So it's it's funny when we get back, we all kind of compare notes, all this guides on the river. Like Nathan, he lives 20 yards from me. Yeah, uh, we shared you know, we shared a trailer for two years, so like we'd always be like, you know, how'd you do today? And he'd be like, I caught him on this, and I'm like, I couldn't get a fish on that, I'd catch him on this. He's like, I couldn't get a fish on that.
SPEAKER_02So it's so it's so it depends, man, you know? Like it's just it's the hot fly till it's not, and everybody fishes different. And there's like this weird thing about confidence too. You mentioned confidence flies. Like, I believe in the like the supernatural, like the the the supernatural kind of confidence that f if you are confident in what you're doing and fishing, it just seems to fish better. You just seem to have better luck, and it's kind of irrelevant of the fly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. For sure.
SPEAKER_02All right. Um fly selection, we covered that. Some of that, I guess. Is there anything else about fly selection you want to mention?
SPEAKER_00Um that's what I can think of off the top of my head. Um That's all right.
SPEAKER_02All right. Um casting. Let's talk about that. What do you think is important on the Madison fishing streamers with your cast? I mean, is the cast matter a lot, a little? Like what how much of a percentage of the equation is success with the cast or versus like fly selection or retrieve or some of the other things?
SPEAKER_00So the biggest thing is like getting a good presentation after your cast. So like, you know, if you can cast at a mile, but your your drift is not, you're not good at managing that drift or if we're streamer fishing. And you know, I I usually hold people we're fishing usually pretty tight to where I want you to hit it. And uh you mean distance-wise, kind of like yeah, like distance-wise. So, like, you know, if I want you to hit a bank, I'm not gonna hold you, you know, crazy far out there. Cause especially if we're on a sinking line, like, you know, I want you to be able to I want you to fish that fly how it needs to be fished without us snagging up on bottom or we're fishing dry flies. Um, if I want you hitting a bank, I'm gonna hold you pretty tight to it. Um, if we're out in the middle, you know, I always tell people, especially for dry flies, I typically want people casting two to three rod lengths from the boat. It's not not a very far cast. It's easy to manage that drift. Usually you can get a cast out, you can give it one good upstream mend, maybe do like one more mend in there, and you know, I can kind of control the speed of the boat with those flies, and we can get a good drift. Whereas I always I hate to say it, it's always husband and wise. The wife will be like, Oh, she'll be listening to a short low cast, and the husband, like, I don't know if he's wanting to show off to his wife, he's just bombing it. Yeah, uh, you know, she's getting all these hits, and she's fishing, you know, basically just outside my oar. Um, but her drift is good, and he's got a bunch of drag on his fly, and he's not getting hit as much. So I think the presentation is a lot more important off those casts. So, like, if you know, I'd rather you cast short and get the flat work to fly how you need to, or get a good drift than try to get more distance on it.
SPEAKER_02Same thing with streamers, too. Like, uh, it's not as important as much as like the retrieve or the other stuff. I mean, what if there was something that was important with the cast with streamers, is there something that you were like, this would be the thing you want to focus on?
SPEAKER_00Really try to get that line to lay out straight. And I always tell people, try to get you can really smack that fly down. People think it's gonna spook the fish a lot. Um, it really doesn't. Um, so when we fish, you know, when we hit behind these boulders and stuff and those slicks, I always tell people, you know, I don't even care if you hit the rock, I want you to smack that thing right behind it. And a lot of times they don't even have a chance to move the fly. As soon as that fly smacks down, you know, it gets blown up. And if people try to get real finesse with it, sometimes they'll they'll hit that rock too far inside or they'll hit it too far out, and then that fly line's going through there first. And not that you can't catch fish that way, but I always tell people I'd rather you use the front of the rock or hit it short initially. That way, if you miss it, you can pick it right back up and hit another one in there. Whereas if you you miss it long, you know, your fly line's in there, and then you get it, you know, you're gonna make more of it. So that's one little thing I try to tell people. For whatever reason on the Madison, those boulders, we don't move as many fish off the front end of them. I don't know if it's just because it's you know, those fish will still be in that pocket, but it's it seems like they don't want to chase out of it as much. Like we'll catch them on nymphs, we'll catch them on dries, but for stripping streamers, typically we get them off behind those boulders a lot more often. So I tell people, I'm like, I'd rather use the front of the rock as like your target practice. So like we're coming up to it, hit the front, you know, you hit the spot, now the boat's drifting past it, now you can pick it up. You already know the distance, you don't have to guess, and you can hit that cast right behind there.
SPEAKER_02That's a really good point, man. Yeah, you kind of like you're getting comfortable with like it's like a practice cast, like, or yeah, exactly. Or you could even do it leading up to it, right? You could get a couple in there where like maybe it's 20 yards or 30 seconds away. You can get some practice casts in there and kind of get really dialed in for the big deal when it comes through because you're moving fast, right? Like, so it's not like you get a bunch of chances. Yeah, I'm trying to slow the boat down, but we're still we're still moving. This is happening, we're going.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So I like I'll tell people I'm like, this is a good spot coming off. Like, I'd rather you really get comfortable getting that cast like distance-wise down and to hit the spot I want you to hit than you just kind of guessing it and judging the especially if you're starting out like you're you know kind of getting used to how much line you need out and yeah, all that stuff.
SPEAKER_02Or yeah, the big like a heavier fly, like streamer fishing and all that, a different weight rod, probably than a lot of people are used to. Or I don't know. That's relative, depends on who's out there or if they like to streamer fish or not, I guess. But if it was me, I would be in that bucket of like not as much experience, you know. So it's a different feeling when you're casting, I think, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And if we're fishing a little bit deeper water, like if we go fishing some of the freestone rivers, like if we're fishing, you know, some really deep water where it's not like okay, you're hitting that little bucket, you're hitting that rock, it's just these deeper Y runs. Like we've had fish eat it at the bank, they could eat it right at the boat. You know, that's where I tell people I'd rather you try to get a little bit more distance because you have the time to, you know, if you fumble line a little bit, you're not gonna be snagging up, like we want you to work that fly all the way to the boat, whereas sometimes the Madison, it's like, I want you to hit a cast, two, three jerk strips, hit your next cast, so it's a lot more fast-paced. So I think it also depends on rivers that you're fishing as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, it you're probably playing the odds and saying, if I think the fish are mostly here, I'm gonna I'm not gonna waste my time stripping it all the way to the boat, versus maybe later in the year less water or something, maybe you're fishing more close into the boat or not just hitting the s the banks all the time, you know? All right. Casting, covered casting, presentation. We've talked a little bit about presentation. What's a couple of techniques with streamers that you like if you got someone in your boat and you had to be like, these are the two things I really want you to do today, these are gonna be the most bang for your buck. Is there anything like that that you think about, or is it just depend on the person, or I don't know, any hip pocket kind of things that you're like, dude, you gotta do these two things?
SPEAKER_00I think a lot of times, like and I was the same way when I started out when I was streaming fishing, I just did the same same motion every time. You know, a lot of people they strip and they jerk at the same time like this. You know, it's usually we're trying to do two separate motions. So even when we're jigging, we're we're lifting up and then we're stripping on the down, and that allows that fly to have different stalls and stuff to it. So, you know, when we if I have someone to fish, let's say we're doing a uh barely legal or something, I want you to kind of work it a little bit more aggressively. All the action of that fly is coming from that rod tip. You know, you strip people think all the time like stripping the line is how you're working that fly. You're moving it, but it you're picking up the slack, all the action's coming out of that rod tip. So, you know, if I if I do a big jerk with that rod tip, you know, I'm gonna move that fly a lot farther. So a lot of times I want people just to do little pops with that rod tip. So, like, you know, I may tell people like two, three pops and then stripping that slack that you made, two, three pops, and that just you can see what it does that fly, you really get it to dart. Yeah. And I think people just get in such a rush sometimes. They're moving the fly rod so fast and then they're like scrambling. And you know, I I tell people trying to slow things down in their head, like you can work that fly and just don't do the next movement until you get tight with that stripping up that extra slack that's in there.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, that was my next question. Is all this kind of is dependent upon being contact with the fly and tight and no slack, right? Because if you got all this slack out there, you can jig and nothing happens. It's not gonna connect with the fly, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so like you want to be ideally, you want to be tight the whole time. So like if I do a big jerk with my rod tip, you know, I have to strip more line to get back to that contact because I'm bringing that rod back. So you know, sometimes I'll have people do a big they'll be do like a big jerk or something with that rod tip, and then they'll only do like one little tiny strip back, and then they'll go to another jerk, and then next thing you know, they're they're way out of position, and they'll have a fish eat it and they'll they'll just miss it.
SPEAKER_02So that seems obvious, but it's not, you know. I mean, you really have to pay attention. I have you know, yeah, pay attention to that, man. You have to be able, otherwise you're wasting your time so whatever you're setting yourself up for failure, like you said.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and like sometimes you can get lucky and one just you know totally clobbers it, yeah. You know, you don't even get a good hook set, but you know, you get them. But yeah, so like technique, I'd say that's you know, per retrieves, whatever retriever doing, you jet you gotta try to get that slack in so you're still tight. Whether you're jigging it and you're stripping it down, you know, you want to have contact uh with that fly.
SPEAKER_02So if you're in the boat and you wanna set yourself up for success and you've got the boulder and you've practiced and you're ready and you're you're dialed in and you're gonna hit that spot. You know, I'm imagining I cast downstream, as soon as I my fly hits the water, there's slack, right? Because the boat's moving. So how do you I guess how do you kind of from the get-go make sure that you got contact on that? Or I mean the water is moving your fly downstream as well, I guess.
SPEAKER_00But so usually when we fish streamers, we're typically casting slightly back or parallel, so we want to work that fly down and across so it's coming parallel back to the boat. So we're not doing as much casting straight off the front of the boat.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um so but I always tell people like the biggest thing is like don't let your rod get out of position to where it's way off to the right side of you, because when you're working that fly, then you have no room to do your your strip set. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um so you're not casting downstream, you're more off to the side, so you've got tension more fast, I guess.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because I mean if you watch usually if uh if you've watched videos of trout eating other trout, typically, like especially bull trout videos, it's like the most common one I see. Like giant bull trout eat around.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna go watch it after this though. It sounds awesome.
SPEAKER_00Or like if you see a brown eat a rainbow, or um, you know, usually they have them T-boned. So usually what that fish will do is you know, they'll T-bone it, paralyze, stun that fish, and then they'll circle back and eat it headfirst. So like if you can be coming parallel from the bank to the boat, or even coming slightly downstream, if it's a small enough fly, they'll eat it head first in one go. Or if it's a bigger meal, usually that fish will t-bone it. So instead of going a lot of times when we'd fish straight downstream and strip up, I'd get a lot of tail nips. So that fish has to commit to going around that fly to kill it in one shot.
SPEAKER_02A lot of what? Tail miss?
SPEAKER_00Just like tail nips, like on the nips, yeah, yeah. A lot of nips, yeah. Whereas, you know, usually when I'd go parallel to the boat, you you get them T bonus. You get if it's articulated fly, usually you get both those hooks in there, just a little bit better hookup ratio.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And it it seems like now that I've brought this up and talked it out, I guess it makes more sense. It's a lot more obvious that you're gonna have more tension if you do it that way too, probably. Yes, because it's the boat is not working against you, right?
SPEAKER_00It's yeah, exactly. That's why I was kind of bringing that point up that we're usually casting more parallel. But when we fish on foot, we're usually casting straight up the bank too and coming down, and that's where you know keeping that tension is a little bit tougher because we're not moving in a boat now. So I tell people fish short casts, you know, just enough to where you can manage that line and then you know, you're not just get it to where you're not gonna spook that fish, getting set up on that rock, hit that cast, step up to where you fished it, hit the next cast, and you're just covering water with the streamers.
SPEAKER_02That's the most challenging part for me a lot of times when I'm fishing streamers is being being tight. But I don't think about it the way that you said, the way that you know set yourself up and do like step one, step two kind of things. I'm just I'm doing the thing that you said you shouldn't do. I'm like pulling and jerking at the same time, and I don't I don't know, there's no real purpose to what I'm doing here. I'm just, hey man, I'm fishing streamers, right? There's no wrong way to do it, but there's probably a better way to do it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and like I get people all the time that sometimes they're like, I if they do something that I normally wouldn't do if they're gonna fish on it, like I'm gonna let them do it. Um, you know, but so I'm not saying like doing what you're doing's not gonna catch fish or it's not a you know a time place to do it, but typically we we try to get those flies coming down and across, you know, so those fish can T-bone it or eat it head first.
SPEAKER_02Um Okay.
SPEAKER_00And then it also is a little easier to to jig those leeches and stuff like that, you know, working that fly downstream because you can get that flutter and that dive to it. Um whereas if you're throwing downstream and stripping up, it's hard to get so much of that that jiggy motion.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Again, especially I would imagine, and I might be wrong on this, but like that boat moving downstream is always fighting you with the contact with the flight. Yeah. Um, you talked about some of the retrieves. Are there presentation hierarchies that you go through with your retrieves? Do you have a confidence retrieve? Does everybody have a different confidence retrieve that they go to, or is there like, nope, this is kind of like we do this, then this, then this, and I don't know. I don't know if you want to approach that in your I guess I'm I'm more interested in your the way you do it than the way it's taught at the the streamer school or whatever, but may maybe they're the same thing, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and even at the streamer school, like Kelly talks about because he does a little presentation in the morning, yeah, they have a little breakfast thing, and but he always tells like the people he's like, you know Listen to your guide 'cause just we're on the water a little bit more nowadays. So like I have certain retrieves for certain flies and I think that's why those flies work good for me. Whereas, you know, some of my buddies, like they have flies that work better for them and they have certain retrieves that work, you know, that they do. So like, you know, for me, especially with you know, Johnny's our head guide, he's got a mini kill white he is one of his one of my favorite flies that he has. I absolutely love that fly. And best retrieve cadence I have with Alan is you know, I give it a jerk, jerk, strip, and stall it, and then jerk, jerk, strip, stall it. That's just one if I tie that fly on, that's the first cadence I'm going to with it. And yeah, it if that's not working, then you know we might change it up, but usually that'll at least move some fish.
SPEAKER_02I think that's one of my biggest takeaways from this conversation is the retrieve match to the fly, right? It could be this retrieve isn't as good or you know, isn't as productive with that type of fly because the fly is designed differently, it moves in the water differently, and so the way you retrieve it, I guess, makes a difference.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and usually like that uh mini kill white, you know, it's a wool head, so yeah, you know, it gets a little heavier, it's gonna soak up that water, but it's not gonna push as much water as where deer hair will. So, like usually wool heads, you know, when I have people doing those jerk strips, I'm usually not having them jerk that rod tip really far. Um, it's usually little pops, so it's like real small movements with that rod tip, but just real fast. So just pop, hop, strip, pop, pop, strip. Whereas if I'm working a deer hair, um a lot of times I'll do some bigger jerk strips just so I can get that push of that water. So like if we're fishing some stain, like runoff, I love fishing the full-size dungeons. Um, they just push a little bit more water. Um, so you're you know, even if those fish can't see it the best, they're they're gonna feel it. So yeah, that comes back to just whatever fly we're fishing, whether that how that fly is tied or what materials is gonna dictate kind of how we we fish it, and that just figure out what works for you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's fascinating, dude. And when you say jerk strip, like those are two different things, right?
SPEAKER_00You're gonna use separate motions.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but I think that that kind of gets lost. You talk like a jerk strip sounds like one thing, but you very eloquently described the two motions. I think that's important. Let's put a pin in this though, and stick with kind of the fly, the streamer. If there's other you've mentioned wool heads, those are kind of shorter pops with shorter jerks, and then the deer hair, maybe bigger. Other types of streamers that you for somebody who's listening that's like, okay, I buy this, I understand what you're saying, but like I have no idea. Like, I put a woolly bugger on because that's the one that I like to tie, because it's that's if that's the one that I can tie if you're me, right? So are there other flies like that that you think differently about?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, so like, and I was kind of speaking more so like a lot of the articulated flies because they have a little bit more different movements than some of those you know, single hook flies. So, like woolly buggers, I don't think there's a wrong way to fish them. I like I always just do straight strip, you know, small strip of trees when I was younger, and I'd catch fish doing that. Um, I was never you know burning those things. Another one, you know, if we're fishing some really realistic stuff, like the the Mike Peck sculption is a great one.
SPEAKER_02Um like what type of fly would that be?
SPEAKER_00Because it's is it a woolhead or deer hair, or is it that's a uh rabbit, rabbit head?
SPEAKER_02All right, so different, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yeah, and it's just really realistic, it's pretty small. Um, and that one I'm not even usually I'm just straight strip retrieving. I might throw a little pop in there every so often. Nothing real aggressive just because it's really small profile, and I just want to see if those fish are eating it out of hunger or if they're looking for something a little bit bigger or something that's gonna trigger and eat, not necessarily because they're hungry, but they're just hitting it out of aggression.
SPEAKER_02So um so for that fly, it's not as much you don't want the more of the jerk, more of it, it's more of a strip, and that's because it's more of a finesse fly, or is it's a little I mean, I'd say it's a little bit more finesse.
SPEAKER_00Like I'm never really burning that fly. Like I've like the um mini kill whitey, I've yeah, I like that cadence that I was talking about earlier, but yeah, I've had days where they I ran on a floating line, and we had some for whatever reason there was some dead white fish that we were seeing on the Madison, and we were almost dead drifting the thing with the floating line, and that just seemed to be what they wanted. Um not normally something I would have done. I I think I tied it on for the guy with the floating line, he fumbled his line that was just dead drifting, and we had a big brown eating. I was like, do it again, let's keep doing that. So um, yeah, and I think that just comes down to you know how much time you put on the water and just seeing what retrieves work for certain flies and how those fish react to it. Sure.
SPEAKER_02And experimenting, right? Like we talked about earlier, getting out of your do it the same way or do it the way that you know I listened to the podcast, and Andrew said this, so I'm gonna do it that way every time. Like that's not what we're getting at, but yeah, no, exactly.
SPEAKER_00And like I was just gonna say, like, sometimes I have two people in the boat and I got person up front fishing the fly a certain way I wanted to, and I'll be telling the person in the back to fish a little bit differently, and they might not even be doing exactly what I want them to do, but I'll let it ride for a little bit because sometimes it ends up working, and then I'm like, all right, like it's a different presentation than I would have normally have done, but it's working this day, and yeah, I kind of like log it. And uh, you know, if I'm struggling the next day or something, I'm like, I remember my client was doing some weird, weird stuff, and he was catching fish, so you know, maybe maybe I should try it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's good. It's good to have different tools in your toolbox, right? And uh and it's good to be able to set your ego aside and and be like, eh, it's not what I kind of planned, but let's see where this goes. That's kind of a mature way to approach fishing, maybe life in general. All right, that's cool, man. That makes sense. All right, uh presentation. The last one that old Daniel brought up that I think is important is fighting fish. I think fighting fish is especially like fighting big fish, right? Like fighting a fish that you don't have to worry the worry about. That's that's one thing. But a big fish or a challenging fish, a fish that's gonna like make you work for it. The hard thing for me is just you don't have that many looks. Like if you're catching big fish all the time, that'd be awesome, but that's just not the way it works. So throughout your experience, have there been any kind of habit patterns that you fall back on when you're fighting fish that have seemed to bring you success?
SPEAKER_00So it's gonna be a little bit like some people don't agree with it, some people do. That's perfect.
SPEAKER_02That's perfect.
SPEAKER_00If you have slack line, whether to get it on the reel or if he's coming at you straight. I'm a big firm believer, and especially if you're fishing heavier leader, like if you have that fish coming at you and you've got a bunch of slack down, I would much rather you just have it in that finger and stay tight on that fish as it's coming at you than try to spin the, you know, get all that slack line up and get him on the reel. I think a lot of people are so like they want to get them on the reel immediately. And I've seen probably more fish lost from people trying to just immediately get it on the reel than play that fish out by hand and let the fish get, you know, if it wants to run and then you get you on the reel, great. Okay. But I think people jump into that of immediately trying to get it on the reel way too early on in the fight sometimes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay. That's a good that's a good habit to it sounds like the habit of I got a fish on. Now I'm gonna strip as required to get it to keep it tight versus spin the reel to get it on the line. Both I mean the goal is kind of the same to keep it tight, right? Like that is the goal, but there's two ways of doing it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's that's why I said it's not like there's a wrong thing.
SPEAKER_02But those reels, man, like I I you know, they're not always as awesome as you know, or maybe you're they work great, like right out of the box, and they're awesome, but like you, you know, you got some line in there that's twisted up a little bit, and it's not like perfectly. Do you know what I'm saying? It's not it's not always like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, I had this, I remember it was, I think it's two years, yeah. I had this lady from Minnesota, biggest brown. I'd had a client hook on the Madison at the time, and I joded on telling them like, you know, most of the time, you know, we're fishing pretty heavy, heavy tipped. Like, yeah, you can kind of horse a lot of these fish, but you know, you don't want to bend a hook out, so like still play them out. But I was like, you know, most of the time if it's coming at us, I want you to strip. You know, if it's in close to the boat, I'd rather have you strip than try to reel, because a lot of times people starting out, I always try to tell people it's not like a spinning rod. If you hold that reel knob, no line's coming out. And that's another thing, too, is I I've had so many big fish come off where there was little kids that just forgot in the moment. Oh, yeah. You know, like real buddy, reel. They just keep reeling and the fish wants to go. Like when he goes to run, let go of the reel, and they keep that reel knob held, and then you know it breaks off because no line can come out. So if you have it and you're stripping it, you can feel that tension with your finger. And if you got to let go of some of it, it's a little instead of relying on the drag, which if you know what you're you're a little bit more experienced, and you you know, if you have your drag set good, you're you're fine. But um, I had this lady, it was pretty slow morning. I think we caught she'd never fly fish before. She big on with spinner rods and stuff.
SPEAKER_02And her this is the biggest fish story that you're about to tell? At the time.
SPEAKER_00The same one, same one, okay. Yeah, so you know, I think she caught like a like a little 12-inch uh brown like first thing, and she was stoked. And uh, but a pretty slow morning, and I just I put a fly on that. I hadn't really ran too much and went off to those one of those middle river gravel bars um that we were talking about. It's like maybe a foot deep, if that, and she throws cast out and just hooks this just really good brown. Okay. Um and uh it runs, like almost hits backing, then it turns, it comes back at us. And you know, I just got done telling her most of the time I wanted to strip, so she goes to start stripping the line. And in that instance, I had to, you know, kind of like, no, just reel, because you know, I don't want you to strip a 90 feet of fly line into the boat. Um wrapped it in the cooler, and so like that instance, like I don't think stripping is you know meant for it. But long story short, she got it right by the boat. I told her it was gonna go on one more run, let go of the reel uh when it goes to run, and she freaked out and held the the reel knob, and we we broke off one X. So that was that was like a real wow the nuts because I was like, if I would have had her stripping when it got close, you know it it was she would have line burned herself before we would have broke that fish off.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Whereas, you know, having it on the reel in the moment, not realizing it and holding that real knob and just no line could come out. So I was surprised that the rod didn't snap, honestly.
SPEAKER_02Um that's a nice fish. Yeah, the rod is your cushion, right? It's kind of your buffer. Is that a good way of thinking about it? Kind of like if the fish wants to go, the rod's gonna let it go a little bit before it breaks off. But if you hold that real knob, like you said, like it can only do so much for you. Am I thinking about that right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then you know, I tell people rod angle is important to you, so like especially when we're wade fishing, if we do walk away trips, fighting fish in the boat, out of the boat is totally different. Um you know, on foot, I immediately, especially with the Madison, it's a super fast river. Those fish get out in the middle. I mean, you're gonna be chasing them. It's a lot tougher to land them. Whereas, you know, if you can immediately after you hook them angle to the downstream side, keep good side pressure. Usually that fish will fight towards the bank. You know, they might bulldog you a little bit, but usually they're gonna come in towards the bank and they're a little bit easier to now I can run down and net them, or you could if you're on it by yourself, you could beach them or whatever you need to do. Whereas if you go upstream fighting them, I notice those fish will run straight out uh in the middle, um, and it's a lot harder to get them out of there. Uh so rod angle is super important.
SPEAKER_02So your rod angle, so if you're casting out, water's coming right to left, and you hook up, you're gonna you're more apt to move your rod tip down and left, downstream with the fish.
SPEAKER_00So which way is current going in this? I don't know. This is too complicated. Don't worry.
SPEAKER_02All right, right to left. Let's say you're looking out at the river, it's going right to left. Does that make sense? Are you with me?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it's going right to the left. I would be fighting that fish with my rod to the left.
SPEAKER_02To the left, which is downstream. Okay. And that's so that it's less likely to go way out in the middle.
SPEAKER_00Way out in the middle. And like there's a lot of big boulders in the walkway on the Madison. So a lot of times if those fish run you out, they're gonna wrap you on one of those big boulders. Whereas if you know you keep that side pressure, typically, even if they run down on you a little bit, yeah. Usually right tight on the bank. So, you know, I can do my USAN Bolt impression and run as fast as I can.
SPEAKER_02That's my thing is I I'm always afraid that if I do go downstream like that, I'm it's just gonna be it's it's gonna go. It's gonna downstream. But I guess it depends.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I fight all my Steelhead the same way. And I've showed people like I I've hooked Steelhead, and you know, if I'm in a runner, I know I'm not gonna totally lose them in a log jam or something. But I'll say, watch this, I'll move my rod tip upstream, and that fish will run out and just start going, and then I'll go back to the left, and that fish will you'll watch it, it'll come back up and then start going towards the bank. And as soon as I switch directions, it'll run back out again. So I think it's just you have better odds of getting that fish towards the bank than trying to fight it all the way out in the middle, you're fighting a faster current.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, I don't think about that, but yeah, it's much easier to fight a fish in slower water, right? Closer to the bank.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because even if it runs out on you and it's gonna run out and down, you're still gonna have to chase it. So if you you angle downstream and that fish still runs down, you may even if you have to follow it, you know, you're not fighting as much current because it's usually a little bit calmer on the edges.
SPEAKER_02This brings up a point that I think I heard, I think it was Kelly talking about this. So I I don't know. I don't want to put words in his mouth or whatever, but we're I think he was talking about drags or whoever I was listening to was talking about drags on reels and fighting fish and things, and some of the the problem of being too tight with a fish now gets nervous and it's like, okay, I feel all this pressure, I'm gonna make this big run versus if it's not as tight, it doesn't feel as much pressure. It's I'm kind of butchering this, but it's m it's more likely to chill or stay in, you know, go to water that's it's comfortable in versus get out and fast water. Does that make sense? Am I Yeah. I mean I've Is that an idea that you've thought of, or am I am I messing this up?
SPEAKER_00No, I I've for sure seen that. You know, more so with steelhead and stuff. You know, sometimes they get it get into these log jams and yeah, but too tight of a drag or something like that.
SPEAKER_02And that's like that could be a negative thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you try to really horse them away from some wood sometimes and they're just gonna immediately go in it, whereas sometimes if you let off them a little bit, yeah, they'll kinda just kind of sit in the middle of that run and then you can, you know, try to play them out. I mean, it doesn't always work out, but I think, you know, like you were saying, sometimes those fish they feel that tension, they freak out. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um yeah, so yeah, I fished a click and paw for a long, long time because I was just the reel that I had when I was a kid, you know, and it seems like I could I I don't know. It's hard to say, but it it seemed like they'd make a big run and I wouldn't find myself in such a bad spot, I guess, if that makes sense. All right. Uh fighting fish we covered. You told a story. I'm gonna try and get one more story out of you. Is there a day fishing streamers that stands out in your mind as a particularly memorable fish? It could be the one that got away, or like just one great day on the river with somebody you care about or anything like that in between?
SPEAKER_00I mean, you did tell a good one that got away story, but I'm looking forward to I mean I've it's hard to pick what I've got a lot of you know stories, but um it doesn't have to be the best, it just has to be one of the memorable ones. I think I think one just because it's it recently, you know, kind of brought up his I still talk to his dad and stuff sometimes, and it was a father-son trip. They uh he brought his son out for his senior trip, like a you know, present for him, and they're from Texas, never been to Montana. And uh I met up with them and they were like, I was like, you know, what are you guys looking for today? And they'd done a little bit of fly fishing, but nothing too much. Um and I was like, you know, what are you guys looking for? It was springtime. The walkwade had been fishing really good, the nymph fishing was really good, the streamers were you know solid. And uh he was like, you know, I kind of want just because you know it's our first time out, we don't know if we'll make it back for a while. I just want to try to get as many fish as possible. I was like, all right, like, are you cool with doing the walkwade? We'll take the boat down, you know, we'll nymph a bunch of stuff. And we we did that, we caught a bunch of fish. Um, and the kid had mentioned something about really wanting to try to do some streamer fishing. And uh I was like, How about we finish this walkwade? You know, we did our full eight hours, and I was like, if your dad's cool with it, I'll take you back out for a three-hour float in the evening. Just let me go back and take a shower and eat something. Because his dad was like, I'm pooped, like I'm I'm just pee. I was like, All right, so we get back. Got something to eat, took his kid out, and uh I know we just fished the same yellow boogeyman. It was stained water. I put that thing on, and it wasn't too, I don't think it was that far along. He just gets smoked, freaks out, like trout set, pull it out, and uh I'm like, all right, like cool. Like I just wanted to get this kid, his his big brown trout for a senior trip, like memorable. Yeah that he finally he got one. Um he was just so stoked on it, and it was super cool. It was it was like a 19-inch brown, like great solid brown. It wasn't like it was a two-footer, anything like that. And uh, I just remember him being so stoked. And yeah, we caught a couple other ones, missed some fish, had a great time, dropped them back off his dad. His dad messaged me like three, four days ago. He was like, You still have that yellow boogeyman? Can you mail it to me? I want to put in my kid's stocking stuff for this year. And I was like, absolutely. So I, you know, I mailed it to him, send him some other stuff, and that was just like that was just a really cool, you know, we didn't hammer him, we didn't yeah, uh, but just seeing that kid fish eight hours, catch a bunch of fish, and just him seeing seeing how stoked he was to like try to go. I think he was more excited about the one streamer fish he caught than all the rainbows and stuff we caught in infants. So I think that was just a really cool one. Um yeah, not the biggest fish we've caught, biggest fish story, but it was just a really cool trip. I still talk to his his dad some and uh his kids uh AM. It's just really really good family.
SPEAKER_02Um, but that's a success. Good story. I like it, man. Thank you. I'm gonna switch gears a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, before I do, we've been talking tactics. Is there anything tactics-wise that we haven't covered that you're like, Jason, this is my thing, man. If we don't talk about this with streamers, like we didn't know I can't walk away from this conversation without getting this out there.
SPEAKER_00I don't know, like uh anything like streamers, like anything like that, but like you're talking like little tricks and stuff like anything you got that you want to get out there before we change gears and kind of stop talking tactics. Yeah, so one thing I've started doing, and you know my buddy Nathan, they were kind of giving me a hard time about it. Uh you know, we fish hoppers or when we have salmon fly, salmon fly hatch, you know, we're throwing big dry flies, you know, like the big chubby Chernobyl, stuff like that, and hopper droppers, nothing new. You know, it's guys have been doing it forever, but it's always usually you know, smaller stuff, smaller droppers, pergons, you know, whether you're running caddis stuff, merger, like um we had these balanced sculpons that we got in the shop, and I was just screwing around one day. I was like, I bet this thing would I bet a big chubby would hold this thing up. I had to like douse it as much floating as I possibly could, but chubby, okay. Yeah, the chubby, but it holds just enough to hold up this big balance scalpin. And uh I remember running that thing in the morning because we get some nocturnal stone flies, they're kind of tough to to really hit right. So it's hard for you know me to run that thing first thing in the morning and have a lot of success a lot of days. So why is that? Because it's just those bugs they come off, it's not like consistent to where we can so sometimes you like you'll see some there, and then you know, other times you won't see any in that certain section. So um running a big chubby and then first thing in the morning running that balance scalpin under it, just dead drifting it, and we would catch some really big fish on the balance scalpin um underneath the chubby, as opposed to running like a little pertagon um or something like that for your drop thing, yeah. Okay, for the dropper. So instead of running like a bug or something like that, yeah. Go big. Go big, all right. Dead drift that thing. It's really clunky. Honestly, half the time I have my client's water load on a dry fly, it's just it's heavy. But I mean it's it's really good for little kids too, because a lot of times they're uh you know, they they don't know when to stop at you know, the 10 and 2. So a lot of times if you know if they're going way far back and going forward, it's so much weight, it loads that rod up really well. That's it. And then if if it's dragging a little bit too, or you're not getting the best drift for the chubby, you can do no wrong with that balanced sculpting because it's it's a dead sculpture going down, and if it's dragging a little bit or if they mend it and it put dragging. Exit, you know, it moves it a little bit.
SPEAKER_02That's cool. You've already shared a ton of great stuff, man, great techniques and tactics and stuff. And if more stuff comes up, you know, we can talk that too. But it's not like the door is closed on tactics. But I did want to switch gears. Um we talked about this a little bit before the show, and uh I had asked you about art and and things, and you said you got kicked out of your art class and you're not an artist. I'm an artist, and so I think about art a lot in fly fishing and what inspires me and what I think about and those types of things. You are self-proclaimed non-artist or not artistic. I'm curious, is there any art that intrigues you, or if you could be in that world or space, whether it's music or painting or writing, what would you create? And um, you know, would would it be a fish? Would it be a story?
SPEAKER_00Would it be what kind of art would you create if you if you thought I mean a little bit that I did do before I was it was it was more so the teacher and I was an idiot in high school, but okay. Um I really liked the fit like drawing fish and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Drawing, okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was you know, I could not paint for the life of me. There was no way I was doing that. But I think really the only thing I could get to get me into the art when I was in high school and stuff was doing something fishing related, and then it came a point where she told me I couldn't do any more fishing related stuff, and that's where I think uh Oh, that's where the conflict happened? I think that's where the conflict started.
SPEAKER_02I you should have said, I'm an artist. You can't tell an artist what to create.
SPEAKER_00It's coming from I was always kind of trying to figure out ways to kind of cheat the system. She'd be like, you have to pick something from a culture. So I I can't remember what it's called. It's like the Japanese fish prints. Um they would oh yeah, yeah. So I found I didn't know what that was at the time, but I found that, so I was like, Oh, now I'm gonna go for homework. I get to go fishing. Um, so I went and caught a king salmon, brought in a big Yeti cooler to class, and uh told class just got the you know, put the ink on it, do it on the paper, and uh so I got to use that as an excuse to go fishing. And she didn't like that? She liked that one, and then the next one I was I chose to do fly tying, and then also good, yeah. And then after that, she's like, I need you to do something not fishing related. And then I was like, I can't.
SPEAKER_02All right.
SPEAKER_00So okay.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's a good story. If you had unlimited artistic ability in one of those disciplines, what would you create? Like, what would be the thing that you like would want to do?
SPEAKER_00I've always seen those uh those guys that do like the glass blowing. Oh yeah, that's I think those are really yeah, really cool. I if I had the skill to do something like that, I think that'd be awesome.
SPEAKER_02Or um what would you what would you make? Which fish? Martin Gerdon is one of those guys. I had him on the show, and he he's a true artist, man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, those things are sweet.
SPEAKER_02Um would you make a a brown trout or a fish, or would you make a drift boat or you can do that?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. There's no rules, I guess. It'd be crazy. Uh I don't think I've seen the drift boat one. Um I think I'd do brown trout or brook trout. Okay. I think uh why I just I just think the colors would be awesome. Yeah. I'd probably go that route with it.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Good answer, man. We're off art. We don't have we're off the hook on art. Thank you. Thanks for going down that road with me, dude.
SPEAKER_00Um I wish I could draw like you.
SPEAKER_02I mean no, no, no, no, man. That's I just uh I I think there's a lot of art to be found in fly fishing, and I love getting to talk to different people about the way that they fish, how they fish, what makes it special to them, and I'm just curious about how they see f art in fly fishing and where they see it and how they would perceive it or create it or things like that. Um so for people listening, these art questions are in their infancy, so there'll there'll be iterations on these art questions trying to get to something. That was good. That was pretty good. That was a good answer. I liked I like where that went. All right. We talked before the show about one of the things you really enjoy about fly fishing is the challenge of it. And when you moved out to Montana, kind of the eye-opening experience of like, wow, there's so much stuff that I didn't know, and you have to know what you don't know so you can know it. Yeah, yeah. Um how do you continue to challenge yourself now? I talk to a lot of guides and fly fish urban that fish it can become a grind, right? It can be like, yeah, we're doing this and people get burnt out. You know, what are the things that you do to challenge yourself or keep you from burning out? Or, you know, yeah, let's start there and then I'll ask another question about how you challenge yourself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I think you know, we spend so much time on the Madison to where it can be kind of like you were saying, like you get in the you know, you're on it every single day, and I like to go maybe like me and Nathan, we like to go fish some different rivers that we don't get to spend a lot of time on that we just like for instance this spring we went and fished the Blackfoot, we never floated it, um kind of got our asses kicked. Um, I think we did I think 10, 11 hours, and he caught a 23-inch brown and I got skunked and I never let him he he did me shit still because he skunked or he uh outfished me. But just ah dude, it's good for people to hear that though.
SPEAKER_02I know you know, because it's just they're they're just days. I mean it's when you don't fish that much you just think it's because you suck, and sometimes it is because you suck, but it's not always because you suck, you know.
SPEAKER_00Sometimes being able to being able to be on that river that we'd never been on that just yeah brings back like when you're kind of younger, you just figured stuff out, like we and we're like, Well, what do you think we should do? And we're just throwing stuff out there, and yeah, you know, we're in granite too. It was pretty blown out when we floated it. So we were I was convinced I was gonna catch the biggest bull trout of my life. I'd never caught a bull trout in my life, and uh I did not catch a bull trout. Um, but all day I was just hopeful, and like he got a 23-inch brown and bottom of the ninth, and I told him it was because I rode him into that fish, and he didn't row me into any fish.
SPEAKER_02But um all right, so going to new water, that's a good you know, going to new water, yeah. Just get outside your home water, get outside your comfort zone with with where you're fishing, that's cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then like I go out west and I fish, you know, the Madison most of the time, I'm on there a ton, and then I get back to Michigan, and then I get back to like my home waters, and I just I love being back on there, even just floating it. So like I think if you mix it up, like if you start to get real repetitive and you're starting to maybe get a little bit burnt out, like go explore some new stuff, get your ass kicked, you know, just for a change of pace, and then you come back to the routine, so to speak, and it's kind of refreshing. You're like, all right, well, I you know, got my butt kicked for three days over here, and then I go back and it's like kind of familiar, I guess, so to speak.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, it makes it, I don't know, more enjoyable, or it just makes it like maybe you appreciate it a little bit more. Yeah, you just oh yeah, that was really hard, and I've kind of got more tricks and more tools in my belt when I come fish here, and you know, I don't take it for granted as much, maybe. We talked about Michigan a little bit. We didn't talk as enough, I think, about kind of what you do out in Michigan because you're there half the year. I know you're on your way out west eventually is the plan, but can you talk a little bit just briefly about the type of fishing you like to do in Michigan and and how you run your guide service out there or how you guide out there?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I'm in southwest Michigan, so most of the stuff around me, it's you know, the St. Joe DeWajak River. Dewajak feeds into the St. Joe. St. Joe is a bigger river, so I actually work under my buddy. It's his guide service. Uh Ben McDonald, he owns on-point guide service, so I work with him. So, you know, he's got the bigger boat. We can run trips on the big river. Uh, we both have drift boats. So I typically stay on the small water. You know, I have a little five-horse I can throw on my drift boat, but it's just not as practical for running the big river. So typically the Duaj, it's got Browns. Um, we usually get really good steelhead runs. This year was a little tougher. We just had really low water this year. So, you know, I floated two days ago, caught a couple steelhead, but the water was really, really low this year, so our numbers are down. Um, we get summer runs steelhead. So typically we have our summer run fish come up, and then we get our salmon, our fall fish, and then those summer runs and those fall fish will hold over all winter. So that's typically what we're fishing for. And then in the springtime we get our you know big spring push of fish. So it's we do a little bit of everything, you know. We don't have quite the the browns that they do is a little bit farther north, like the you know, the PM, the Savel, all that stuff. But um, you know, we can strip for Browns. We'll get steelheads sometimes stripping. But I always ask people, I'm like, do you want to we don't just do fly fishing? You know, like I have bait casters if they want to float fish. A lot of the people where I'm at, like they don't fly fly fishing isn't as big of a thing. Most of the people that I guide for fly fishing trips in Michigan are people that I guided out west that come to Michigan and we do it that way.
SPEAKER_02But okay, that's cool. Um let's cover both areas now. What's some of the things that are most challenging about fishing out in Montana for you and most challenging for fishing out in Michigan? Um like the thing that you still have to work on that's that or that was hardest for you to really kind of get a grasp on.
SPEAKER_00Most challenging thing. Are you talking like just as like a fishing standpoint, like guiding standpoint?
SPEAKER_02Like whatever, man. It could be. I mean, we talked before the show, or you had mentioned, you know, the two-handed stuff in Michigan, so I know that that was challenging for you, and we can talk about that.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, I'd I'd say like the outwest, it's just the adjustment of having that much angling pressure on a river every single day, and just trying to figure something out that's different than everyone else. Like, I mean, it a lot of those guys out there have been doing it a lot longer than I have, so I'm yeah, there's way better guides out. I'm not claiming to be the greatest guided on the Madison. Like, there's guys that just have been out there a super long time, they've got their little tricks, but like I think me figuring certain other little things out that work for me. Um, that you know, like I've talked with Johnny sometimes, we come in and he's been out there way longer than any of us at the shop, and or besides Scotty, but you know, I'll be like, Oh, we caught him on this today, and he'll be like, Really? And it's you know, he's like, How are you fishing it? And like he's just like interested in how we're doing it, and then like you know, every so often he'll throw us a little, you know, little trick or something that he does. So like I think just trying to figure out on a river where there's that much angling pressure, and those fish see so much different stuff, like little things that work for you, and then as far as like reading the water was totally different um from being from Michigan out there, so like finding some of those bigger fish that maybe haven't been hit as much. You know, you might have to beach the boat to get to that spot or like get people out of the boat. Um, so I think that was a challenge.
SPEAKER_02Um what about Michigan?
SPEAKER_00I'd say Michigan, honestly, I think a lot of it is having to deal with the changes of the river, um, especially the last four years. Uh, the Dewajak, we had a dam removal take place, which was awesome, great for the fishery. Um, but you know, the Dewajack is typically it's like three miles from Pucker Street down. So it's a very short stretch of river that feeds into the St. Joe's. So when we used to get those fish that would push up in there, they would just be loaded, but the run would be shorter, especially in the spring, because those fish would come up, do their thing, and they'd they'd bounce because they'd only go so far. You know, you had a lot of people messing with them at the dam, and they took the dam out, and now those fish have so much more water to spread out. So it went from, all right, like the fish are there, like we just get them, and then now it's I could still get the fish, but it might be like we can't pull on a spot and hit 10-15 fish out of it. It might be there's fish in the lower river this day, like just finding them is a lot more challenging. And then the last couple years having low water and not having those as much numbers, we just kind of get a trickle of fish up here and there, so it's you know, one day they're here, next day they're gone, and trying to still be able to get people on fish when our chances are usually we're getting a little fewer, fewer less shots than we used to. It's better for the fishery because our our run lasts longer. So, like that's good, especially in the springtime. You know, we get drop back fish that have already spawned. Those tip fish typically eat swing flies and streamers really well because they're just trying to eat some uh some protein before they go back to the big lake, and then you know, in the lower river, you got fresh fish pushing up, so like it just it's spread to things out, but it just it's more challenging finding those fish sometimes because now they can go up higher and you can't really float the upper, so like they get past you, you know, you're kind of struggling to find them some days. So I think that's challenging.
SPEAKER_02All right. I think I'm gonna start wrapping it up, man. Before I ask my last question, how could people find out more about you? Maybe schedule a trip or either Montana or out in Michigan or any of that type of stuff that or follow along with you and your journey or any of your fishing stuff that you want people to find.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so you want to run it. Book a trip with me in Montana, you just contact the slide in, either the North Slide or the the one in Cameron, call the shop and book a trip. You can request whatever guide you want, and then uh Michigan, it's uh on-point guide service. Ben McDonald's the uh the owner, and me and him are really good buddies that we've worked together since I was in college. So um either book a trip with him or me, or if you need two boats, we work together. So um, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And we'll link to that stuff in the show notes. Anything you're excited about? Anything that you want people like uh to know about that you got coming up that you're pumped up, either personal or professional?
SPEAKER_00Uh well the new boat was big, but uh that's cool. Yeah, no uh what's awesome about it?
SPEAKER_02What do you like about it? It's a clacka craft, right?
SPEAKER_00You said yeah, it's it's pretty much the same boat I had as before. It's just it actually has a bottom lift on it. I needed the the thing for me is like I a lot of people either they trade them in or they get them refinished, but since I need to use my boat in Michigan, I couldn't leave it at Clacka to get refinished, and then I don't want to drive back out in like February um to pick it up and then take it back to Michigan. So it was either it is easier just to trade it in and get a new one.
SPEAKER_02But what is it what's makes a good drift boat for you? Like what are you looking for? Like, why did you pick that one? Like what's what's awesome about it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so like everyone kind of has preferences, depends on what water you're fishing. So, like a lot of the guys like running skiffs, you know, they're lower, uh, don't draft as much wind. Like if you get a strong, you know, upstream wind, it's nicer for that. But you know, some of the rivers we float, you know, or the walkway in the springtime, you're gonna take some waves, you know, you're going through wave trains, having that a little bit higher on up in the front is nice. We see people sink boats on the Madison each year, and I a lot of times it's you know, skiffs that take a big wave over the front going in the walkway.
SPEAKER_02So you like having a little more factor.
SPEAKER_00I like having a little I'd rather work a little harder in the wind, but be able to be a little safer, like a little less go down a diversion dam and sweat in it or go down the walkway and just run off and not be worried about taking too big of a wave.
SPEAKER_02So that's good. What about uh is there any kind of like I don't know, accessories or things that you like about like I gotta have this in my boat.
SPEAKER_00I I really like the cooler pedestal or I like the Yeti cooler about some guys like their extra storage. I okay. I got the whole bench seat in the in the back. Like I like not having to pack a separate cooler, I like just having the cooler in front of me. Yeah, that's like yeah. So that's one I like.
SPEAKER_02I didn't think I was gonna like that. I got the drift boat this year, it's my first year with a drift boat, and the cooler, I was like, eh, you know, I'd kind of rather have the storage, but no, I like that cooler, man. It's nice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it might be biased to you because first drift boat I ever bought had it on there, so it's always it's what I've known, but when I get on my buddies' boats, um yeah.
SPEAKER_02Same, same.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02All right. Last question. You ready? Yep. 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_00I'd probably tell myself to ask for some more help, you know, whether it was some fly shops or I know I just was was really stubborn when I was younger and I just was I was trying to figure it out for myself, which I think also kind of helped me with teaching people that are more beginner now because I took longer to learn because I wouldn't ask for help. So it took me longer to figure it out. But I tell myself to ask, you know, for advice and then not buy into so much of the you have to have the nicest gear to cast far. Like, you know, I I had a really cheap rod. I started out, and I thought when I got a nicer rod, it was gonna make me so much better instead of just focusing on like technique, and uh I finally got a nicer rod, a little bit nicer rod, not like yeah, thousand dollar anything, but finally got a nicer rod, and I realized like it's it's not the rod. That wasn't it. No, still I'd say that.
SPEAKER_02That's good to hear. All right. What about um that seems like philosophical? What about tactical? Could be as simple as pause on your backcast.
SPEAKER_00You're talking like just like on the water.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, just like a if you could go back to when you were starting out in fly fishing and you could watch yourself fly fish, and you could say, dude, do this. Trust me. If you just get this sooner, it'll be it's gonna help you out a lot. Like pause on your backcast or um you know, pay more attention to the depth of your fly versus like, you know, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00I'd say probably letting the fly ride longer because I would always get a cast out and then it would be sitting there for hardly any time at all, and I'd want to be recasting it because I was I don't know, I just was whipping that thing around when I was a kid. So like I tell myself, let the fly soak. You're not gonna catch them if it's not on the water.
SPEAKER_02So that's good. Yeah, can't catch fish if you're not fishing. All right, good answer, man. I like both of those. That's great. And thanks for talking to me, man. I lost I learned a ton of stuff, like always, and but uh I'm really excited for you moving out west and what you're doing, and I think it's cool how you've designed a life intentionally to do the things that you like. Not everybody can or does do that, and so I'm excited for you moving forward, man. And thanks for all the advice on the show. It's been super fun talking to you, man.
SPEAKER_00Really appreciate having you on, and I'm glad we're uh able to finally link you up and yeah.
SPEAKER_02All right, thanks for being on the show, man.
SPEAKER_00Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02Thanks 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 WadeOuthere.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.