Driftless Fly Fishing Gear Essentials, Pt. 2

In this episode of the Wisconsin Sportsman Podcast, Josh talks with Pierce Nelles of Good Chance Fly Fishing for part 2 of a discussion about essential gear for Driftless fly fishing. Tune in, gear up, and go catch some Driftless trout!

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What is going on everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Wisconsin Sportsman Podcast, which is brought to you by Tica. This is your home for all things outdoors in the Badger State. I'm your host, Josh Rayley. Thank you so much for tuning in again with us this week. Today I'm talking again with my buddy Pierce Nellis.

We had a conversation a couple of weeks ago where we were talking [00:01:00] about, uh, gear, specifically gear for fly fishing in the Driftless. We ended up having to cut that conversation short just because there is so much to cover, so much to get to when it comes to the topic of gear. So in that last episode, in part one, we were able to talk about, uh, rods and reels and fly line.

And this one we get into leaders and tip it and. Flies and presentation and all of that good stuff. So it's a really good episode and I hope that between the last one and this one, it's given you enough to get started fly fishing if that's something that you're interested in. I honestly think it's something everybody should try out at least once.

Like I, I know like the bigger fish get a lot more attention. I know like, Bass fishing is huge and I, I get it. I've always, always, always though, enjoyed the intricacies of, of trout fishing, whether that be, you know, down here in Georgia where I'm at now, uh, in North Georgia or in, uh, in there in Wisconsin with, you know, the drift list and a really, really unique fishery.

And so we're gonna keep this intro pretty short today. I do wanna mention though, [00:02:00] this episode is brought to you, first of all by Tcam. They're the title sponsor of the show. Their 6.0 and solo extreme cameras are the best way for you to start still filming your hunts. Uh, with that 6.0 camera, you're gonna get 4K resolution.

You're going to get the ability to do slow motion. It has up to eight x zoom. It can be fitted to any weapon with all their different mounts and adapters, and you're gonna get something like two and a half hours of record time per battery. It's super simple too. If you just carry a couple of extra batteries with you, you know that you're not gonna run out of, uh, Of time while you're out there in the field.

Also, their solo extreme camera is awesome. It does not give you the 4K resolution. It gives you HD instead, but you're still gonna get a weatherproof housing. You're still gonna get one touch operation. You're still gonna get great low light performance. You're still gonna get two and a half hours or so of record time, uh, on a single battery, and so it's a great addition to your arsenal.

Head over to tac cam.com and learn more. This episode is also brought to you by the Onyx Hunt app. I use this more than any other [00:03:00] piece of gear that I take into the woods with me. One of my favorite features is the Elevation Exaggeration feature. I did a reel on that recently over on my Instagram page, and one of the reasons that I like it so much, obviously, is it helped me kill my buck This past fall, I would not have found.

The ditch crossing where I killed this thing, if not for this feature. So head over to onxmaps.com if you have any questions or want to learn more, you can also find the OnX Hunt app on the app store of your choice. Now let's jump into today's episode, talking Fly Fishing in the Driftless with Pierce Nellis.

All right, joining me on this week's episode of the Wisconsin Sportsman Podcast. Once again, Pierce Ellis. What's going on buddy? Not much man. I'm, uh, a little bummed that we've got another week of 90 degrees ahead of us here and, uh, no rain in sight, but fishing was good yesterday and we're getting through the summer.

Dude, it looked like y'all had a good time. Are the pictures I saw, are those from yesterday? Yeah, that was yesterday. Okay. That's right. Is that a father's picture? We had a tiny, tiny bit of [00:04:00] rain. We had, uh, had some pretty high winds contend with, especially in the spot that we were in, but, uh, you know, just focused on a lot of broken water and stuff.

Um, yeah, the creek, we were on Great Creek anyways, but. Um, yeah, luckily had some ca uh, cloud cover finally, uh, which was really, really nice and really needed because, uh, we were struggling on Friday, just the high sun and some low clear water trout are just spooky as ever right now. And, you know, the, the early morning and, uh, the evening's great.

Right now just when the, basically, anytime the sun's not shining down in the water, things are really good and bugs are coming off. But yesterday, yeah, we had kind of a little midday hatch of a number of different bugs going on. Some drizzle kind of came out and fish got comfy and started eating well.

Nice. Yeah, it sounded from the post, it sounded like y'all did pretty well. Mm-hmm. And caught some fish, so Yeah, it was great. Good. Really fun trip. Good man. So we were just talking off air and I was like, hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, [00:05:00] wait. Let me just start recording because we still, we, we typically talk for like an hour and a half and then press the record button.

And we've talked about all kinds of cool stuff before we ever actually get to the topic that we're talking about today. So, Um, I was like, hold on, let me hit record. We were just talking about storing, uh, Turkey fans. I've got a mount sitting behind me that I kind of made it still needs some work to make it like, you know, wall hanging worthy.

Uh, but for right now, it was kind of just, I, I've gotta get my wife's sick of the way I have the basement currently. Like my hunting stuff is still everywhere. Like I've got a mattress laying on the floor next to me that was stored somewhere else with all my Turkey hunting gear laying on it still. Um, and there were fans that were drying or, you know, had borax all over 'em, and then other fans from other years that I just hadn't unpacked and moved yet.

But anyway, so I've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6 Turkey fans on this little board back behind me. And you were saying you used a new product, what is it called? [00:06:00] Uh, it was Fan Lock by Velvet Antler Technologies, I think. Yeah, I saw, I'll be honest, I, I totally just bit hard on the Instagram ad. I was gonna say, I saw Jace, I saw Jace Bosman using that stuff, I think it was, and it looked really interesting cause it was like, not messy, blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, Hmm. I don't know. So it works pretty good. Yeah, I was very impressed with it. I mean, I, you know, I shot my bird and it was hot. And then I wanted to make sure, cause I've lost as we were talking right before you hit record. Uh, I've lost a number of Turkey fans to, uh, raccoons and stray cats and other critters getting into our shed.

Um, mostly into my own doing. But what I've been doing previously was basically just pouring salt on it and, uh, you know, just waiting for it to dry out. I'd heard that work just fine from, from, from folks, uh, that I hunted with before. I've heard folks using borax and everything too. Um, After losing, uh, my third [00:07:00] fan to a stray cat, uh, a couple weeks prior to Turkey season, uh, I wanted to make sure that this one got saved.

And, uh, so I decided to go for it and buy, uh, buy an actual product designated for preserving Turkey fans. And I was impressed. It was, it's just a little spray bottle and, uh, yeah, I mean, it, it kind of gives the feathers a nice little, uh, I don't know if it makes like, like leaves any sort of coating on the feather itself.

But everything looks, you know, shiny and pristine and everything there. And, uh, I, when I cut the fan off, I salted it and then I threw it in the freezer, which I was a little nervous about. Um, but I just wanted to make sure that it didn't rot or get bugs on it or anything. So I was just trying to kill it or kill any mites and anything on there.

And, uh, so then I brought it out and then thawed it and just started spraying it down with that thing. It was like, you know, a couple sprays on the actual hide and fleshy parts. Um, You know, every day for like a week and try to ride out. [00:08:00] So Nice. Seems good. I haven't taken it off the board yet. Still sitting down here, kind of on my list of to-dos, but yeah.

Are you, we get around to it. Are you super careful in like particular when it comes to cleaning the tail off? Like my first Turkey, I obviously did what everybody does. I went on YouTube and I was like, all right, let me look up how to preserve this fan. Uh, or I guess this would've been my second Turkey, my first one I took to, uh, Meers Berger's Rut.

Strutton Stream Taxidermy. Mm-hmm. Um, there in southern Wisconsin just to, to, you know, have him do it. I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. Just do it right. You know? I want my first one to at least look nice on the wall. Right? The second one I was gonna try to do myself and I like scraped all the fat off the lower feathers.

I got all the meat off of there, you know, took wire brushes to the fat and I mean, it was just really getting after it. And with each subsequent Turkey, I've gotten less and less careful about how much I cut off of there. So, yeah. How careful are you? Not super. Um, I, I think my [00:09:00] bird that I shot last year, uh, you know how there's like the, the tailbone kind of back there that everything's sort of centered around?

Yeah. Um, I was, I thought I was on the top of it and I was down below it and I just kept like, I was like, son of a gun. Like this is, this one's way harder to get off than the rest of 'em. And so then I got a little carried away. I didn't cut through the bone, but I got about halfway up that tailbone. I was like, oh, duh.

That's why it's not coming off. And then I kind of went back and tried to sort of carve around it. Um, and, uh, kind of butchered that one, but I, I don't think you need to be super, super careful with it. Yeah. In my opinion. I don't know. I'm sure there, like, I'm sure there's folks out there who know a hell of a lot more than I do about it, but Yeah.

Uh, yeah, usually like, I, I didn't do anything like what you did where I, you know, took a wire brush or like tried to scrape off the, um, You know, all the fat and stuff like that. Honestly, this, this spray just dried everything out completely. So I was very [00:10:00] impressed with that. Nice. Yeah, I've, I've done that in the past and I've used, used Vorax with it and then I've gotten a little less careful, in fact, one of these hanging behind me, like still has part of the tailbone in the, in I guess the very end of the tailbone or whatever.

Yeah, yeah. Uh, in the thing, like there's that much meat and all kind of left on there. But I, I do borax everything well, and I, you know, treat it several times and make sure to keep it dried out. Mm-hmm. But I packed 'em all together to move and, uh, put like boxes in between them and it was so weird when I pulled them out, the fat and residue that was on there and we're talking like two and three year old Turkey fans, right?

Mm-hmm. The fat that's on there is still like leaking a fluid years later. It's kinda got that oil in grease almost. Yeah, it's got like an oily grease to it. And it's years later. Man, this is like been a long time. Yeah, and I mean, I borax him and everything else, so I, I don't know. I might have to try that stuff out.[00:11:00]

There might be something to that. I don't know if you ever get, I mean if you borax and stuff. That's more than, than what I did on my previous ones. Like I said before, I just used salt on my stuff. There was one fan that was two years old that was left it hanging in the rafters. Um, I think it was last season, I had a couple birds that were hung up on, out on this field that I wanted to grab a fan and just see if I could crawl in on 'em a little bit.

And I grabbed that one. Then I got like halfway through the field and you know, it was like mid-May, it was warm out and uh, same kind of thing. I like looked at my hand and I was like, why is my hand like damp? Like this is my gloves. Like kind of just got this like gross Turkey fat rendering, like just kind of oozing into it.

It's like, all right, that's nasty. Not nasty. Didn't kill anyways. So nasty. Dang, dang. So what's been up question for you when you cut the tail or the uh, yeah, the tail off? Um, I've heard of some guys who in order to [00:12:00] keep some of those, like the, um, gosh, I don't remember what, what kind of feathers they're referred to, but you know how you got your main tail feathers and then the shorter ones in front of those and then it gets shorter and shorter and shorter as it goes down and then it kind of blends into the, the back feathers.

Yep. Um, Do you ever, when you remove the fan, I've heard of guys basically you kind of almost skin kind of down into the back so that it has sort of a strip of all those feathers leading up to the fan. Do you ever do anything like that? I haven't yet. Um, I should though, because my very first Turkey fan that I did by myself, I wasn't paying very good attention and I only cut the tail feathers off like mm-hmm.

You know, people on YouTube had freaked me out about like, oh, you gotta get, get rid of all the meat. So I like, I like way overcut, you know? Sure. And check out everything. Um, since then I've only been preserving like the, the tail feathers and then like the one or two layers in front of that, so like mm-hmm.

The fan and [00:13:00] then like that next layer that's, you know, obviously longer than the rest and then that first little bit longer or Sure. I guess shorter piece, but, uh, I probably should though, cuz I've seen mounts that are done that way. And every time I do, I'm like, dang, that's a nice, that's a nice mount, you know?

Right. Um, but I don't know, man, I, I like Turkey fans and I haven't been able to bring myself to like, not keep a fan off of a Turkey that I killed. Mm-hmm. But at this point, I'm kind of just like, boy. But I, I sure do have a lot of fans, you know, like there sure are a lot of fans just laying around and they're not like deer.

Like, I can't, I can't look at it and be like, oh, that one I shot, you know? Right. Doing this thing I have to mark on there, you know, which one it is and mm-hmm. I don't know, man. And, and honestly a lot of the spurs are like that too. Like, I mean, they're in Wisconsin where I hunt. Most of the birds I shoot around there are right at one inch or a little bit under Spurs, you know, [00:14:00] three quarter to an inch long.

Spurs. They all look absolutely identical. They're that black color. Um, And it's like, it's, they're all just the same. The beards are a little different. You know, you get one with a nice big bushy beard, or you get one, you know, with a really skinny beard, or you get the, you know, a double bearded Turkey or whatever.

Mm-hmm. So that's kind of cool. But the rest of it, I'm just kinda like, I, I don't know, man, that's not the mounts for a Turkey. Don't take me back like a mount for a deer does. Right. If that makes sense. Absolutely. You know? Absolutely. That, that's very true. It's, uh,

yeah, I don't know. There's something about deer heads and I don't know if it's antlers as a whole. Um, you know, that, that maybe they're just viewed as more of a. You know, maybe that, I don't know if it's like traditionally speaking or anything [00:15:00] like that, like just saving the deer antlers cuz they were, you know, antlers in general.

Cause they were used for tools, you know, you know, centuries ago and stuff like that. Do we just have a little like, kind of inherently in our dna, maybe just like, uh, an affinity for antlers? Yeah. Or if it's just, you know, the tradition being passed down of, you know, you go out to grandpa's place and you see, you know, whitetail skull sitting up on the barn or on the porch or something like that.

Or deer sheds now used for, for decoration and everything too. I mean, there's, there's some sort of human draw to antlers. Yeah. So I'm not sure what exactly that comes from, but I agree pretty much I have the same thing with feathers. Yeah. Pretty much anybody can appreciate large antlers. Mm-hmm. Whether they hunt or not or, or whatever.

Like they can appreciate it. And I mean, feathers are cool, but it's like, I don't know, I don't like when I look at this deer hanging over me right now, I think back every time I look at that [00:16:00] thing to the moment that I, when I was hunting and the moment that he popped up out of the ditch, and I realized that it wasn't just a spike, it was a mm-hmm.

Giant, 140 inch public land tank. Uh, not bragging, just taking myself back there. So like with, when, when I look at this thing, I'm like, yeah, like that was it. Mm-hmm. So, I don't know, I'm, I'm kind of saving it if I get a Turkey with like, you know, inch and a half spurs, or, you know, at this point I've killed several.

And I don't know if it may just be the area that I hunt, but I've killed several turkeys with 11 inch beards. But I've not killed one over 12 yet. And so if I get a Turkey over 12 inch beard or one and a half inch spurs, I'm thinking about doing the full, um, a full body mount. And those are expensive, but I think it'd just be a cool addition to the man cave, but also, or in, you know, in podcast studio.

Cause they're kind of the same thing for me. Um, but I don't know, I feel like that might take me back a [00:17:00] little bit because like for those, I've seen people do like the pedestal mounts and stuff where they're decorated, you know, with things from the scene of that, you know, of that, uh, that hunt or whatever.

So if you're sitting in a right, in a brushy fence row, maybe you've got a, an old weathered fence post mm-hmm. With a little bit of barbed wire wrapped around it and you know, some of that tall green grass that grows up in that stuff, you know, beginning in, in middle of May and you know, so everything that would kind of take you back to the scene.

But I think it might just be the specificity of antlers too, like. That's true. You know, you look at a, you look at two different eight points and you can tell them apart. Mm-hmm. You know, very rarely do you look at two deer and you're like, man, those look identical. Like, I can't tell those two deer apart.

Right. Whereas a Turkey fan, it's like they all kind of all kinda looked to this was gobbling his ass off Right. In my face. He was coming in hot. The other one was hung up behind him. He might have been bigger, but this guy came in angry and I let him have it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yep. [00:18:00] Exactly. And it doesn't quite, you know, the, the fans may not have been that much diff I don't know.

I don't know. Right. But anyways, do this, this, it's not to say that when you get, you know, different fans and stuff, you don't have ones that have, you know, a, a lighter, you know, tip to the feather or something like that. Sure. Or stronger barring or something like that. Sure. It's not that. Yeah. Like you only really see that when they're side by side hanging on a wall or sitting, you know, in your garage rather than.

You know, you're, uh, you know, exactly like you said, like if you've got a year and a half old and a three-year-old deer walking in down the trail together, you know which one's bigger. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. One, one interesting thing though. So this, these feather or these fans behind me here, just take a quick look at these right now.

I was telling you all the turkeys that I kill, they all kind of have, you know, similar, um, spurs. But look at the colors on these fans. They're all literally almost identical. Like there is [00:19:00] very, very little difference in the, I mean, it literally looks like I copied one into six different fans. I. Do you think that's a genetic thing?

Like do turkeys pass down? I, I don't know how exactly it works. It's the same kind of thing with deer. Like we talk about how like, oh, like you want these genes in the, you know, in the pool or whatever and, you know, maybe that, maybe it does or doesn't influence, uh, you know, antler Yeah. Frame or something like that.

Do turkeys have the same thing with their coloration or they, I don't know, you know, weird structure or, I have no idea. Yeah, I, I do know that there's, you know, the only one of these is I'm looking in person that I can tell a difference in is this top one has like a dark bar, like the others, but it fades instead of just being a real specific, you know, bar.

Sure. It's, it fades into the brown, you know, it kind of loses its color slowly. But that's the one I shot in Iowa. So I don't know, man. I don't know. We'll [00:20:00] figure it out one day though, I suppose. But, um, I feel like I've noticed differences in like, You know, you got the barring going up, the, the, the tail feather.

You know, I think I've noticed differences in how dark the, the brown is in between the, um, you know, the, the black bars and stuff as it goes up. Yeah. I've noticed differences in that. And some of them almost, it's like, um, like a light, kind of a, uh, I don't even know, almost like a cinnamon brown kind of, where it's, you know, really, really light kind of bronzy with, you know, so those stripes really just pop.

And other ones, I've had it be super, super dark where it almost blends, but that's true. Like this one in the middle, this one in the middle here just looks like, almost like a cinnamon color to the tail. Mm-hmm. Like there's no dark barring in or stripes in between. Sure. But like some of the others have really specific striping, so, Yeah, dude, I love that.

I love when they got those light fans, especially when the sun hits someone, they're creeping up over the [00:21:00] hill and everything. Yeah, dude, there was a, there was a bird that we've, you and I have talked about it for a while. I chased him for a whole season. Uh, he was a bird that hung up at, you know, 75 yards when another dumb two-year-old came running in and I shot the two year old.

Mm-hmm. Well that other one, we, I chased him all season long. We called him too shy cuz he was missing two feathers from his, from his tail fan. And my buddy ended up shooting him on that property the very last day of the season. He had to, he ended up reaping him cuz that Turkey would not respond to any calls.

So Sure. We, we didn't pull out the reaping decoy until the very end of the season because of breeding and all that. Um, and so we, we did pull it out though cause we were like, let's, let's see if we can get this bird. And he came in and dude, he had that thing looked like a Miriam's. Um, white, white, white tips.

And I have no idea why, like, what the deal was with that bird. I mean, even his, even the, the, the shorter feathers, like not, not the big tail feathers, but the shorter ones, even they had white on the tips of them. [00:22:00] Like a Miriam's would really? Yeah. It was, it was really strange. Yeah. Now here's a question. Do you think their feathers changed kind of like, uh, or based on habitats or, or similar to how like deer antler, some of 'em are real dark brown and other ones are like that pure white.

Do you think that has any influence? You know, I, I don't know. Um, you know, and I think with some of that on deer, you know, there, there's, if you look at some deer that are in Piney woods, right? Like for instance, the northern Piney woods, right? It's just all kinds of different coniferous species up north.

Well, Those deer tend to get really dark chocolate colored antlers. Right. And the theory is it's because the brush, they're walking through and the trees are rubbing their antlers on and all that stuff. Mm-hmm. Do you think that has to do with sun exposure at all? I think so. I think a lot of that is because you look at those deer out west, like those Nebraska deer, um mm-hmm.

You know, those, those are the [00:23:00] ones that you see or Oklahoma, even some of the plains, yeah. Plains areas of Oklahoma. Those are the deer you see with like bright white racks. Right. Then again, the one of the whitest racks I've ever seen was in South Alabama. Um, I, it was middle of the rut. I looked down at my watch, it was like seven, like 7 0 3, and I remember thinking like, wow, it's getting kind of warm and the frost is finally melting off and I dozed off and then I woke up and looked down.

There were three dos running around the bottom of my stand and I look up and this giant. Giant six pointers standing there. And when I say giant, he's probably 20 inches wide at and a and a six point small. So you imagine what that frame looks like on a 20 inch wide six point. I mean, he just looked like a freak show, my God.

Um, but his antlers were just white. I mean, like, looked like they had been bleached out in the sun, like old sheds or something. It was, it was so weird. [00:24:00] Um, so I don't know, man. I don't know. And, and I don't know if that carries over into turkeys too. I mean, I imagine, I think it is interesting that the more showy birds with white tips are, you know, your goulds and your merriam's turkeys.

Mm-hmm. And they tend to be more out west where tree cover isn't really that much of a thing and they can be seen from a long ways. Yeah. So it's almost like the visual display is more important. That's true for them. Uh, while at the same time, You get down here, you know, or you, you get out east, basically anywhere east, either Wisconsin or you know, anywhere east of the Mississippi and you're, you're hunting Easterns.

Everyone says they gobble harder, they drum louder and yeah, their, their display is just different. So, but, you know, they need to be louder, I guess, because, you know, visual displays aren't quite, they're not gonna be seen [00:25:00] from half a mile, three quarters of a mile. Right. A mile even away by, by hens. So, I don't know.

I'm not a biologist. I should get somebody smart on here to talk about this stuff at some point. I didn't even think about that with the Western Turkeys though. That's that's super true. Yeah. It, it, it's, it, I mean, maybe they just pop a little more. It makes sense. But, but then, then though, you've got the Osceola down in Florida, which.

When the sunlight hits it, you've got all these greens and blues and just like the iridescence of the chest feathers sure are way, are way different. And you know that bird, you get it in the sun just right, it almost looks like a tropical bird as opposed to, you know, what we would think of as a North American bird.

So, I don't know, man, I don't know. I do know that, uh, I am mourning the loss of Turkey season. Like this has been a, this has been a [00:26:00] bad one, but I'm making plans right now with the wife. Um, I think I'm gonna be able to keep my kid kids out of school for the last three days of school next spring. So I think I'm gonna be able to be in Wisconsin for two weeks.

At the end of next spring, or at least, you know, 10 days or so, or two. Sure. I say two weeks, two seasons. So I'll overlap the last part of one and the first part of another Turkey season. Right. Those two at the end of May. So hopefully they won't be done like they were this time, both you and John Roach, who I had on the show, uh, and who filmed me shoot my, my bird.

Mm-hmm. Basically everyone I talked to was just like, yeah. By mid-May they weren't coming to calls anymore, they were done. Yeah. So that's odd that I haven't run into that person. I mean, I've, I've ran into, you know, most birds are kind of acting done, but I've always been able to find one that was still, you know, ripping and roaring and, and ready to play the game.

Right. [00:27:00] Um, but yeah, I don't know. Well on, on the right side too, if things are, I mean, it was a hot spring this year too, but also I remember dis I distinctly remember, um, I think those last two weeks of May. Uh, there were still plenty of leftover tags, so if you wanted to, you know, if you're up there for one week or you know, two seasons, you can, if you shoot one on the first day, you could probably grab another tag and shoot another one for that season and so on and so forth.

So that's the idea would be we'd come up for a family vacation. We'd see, you know, friends in Wisconsin cuz we've, and we miss so many people. Like we made such good friends there in Wisconsin, um mm-hmm. You know, people that our kids befriended too. And so we want to go back and let our kids see their friends and us see our friends and uh, obviously I wanna get back up to Turkey hunt and I'm thinking it's a better play to hunt down [00:28:00] south early, so Sure.

Season opens here in Georgia, April 1st. Yeah. So it's probably a better thing to just go ahead and jump on that while the gettin's Good. Cuz you know, one, our Turkey pressure is just, Unmatched in the, in the Midwest. There's gotta get out there before Dave. Dude, there's nothing like some southern Turkey pressure.

And then when you find out you're on the same lease as Dave Owens, it's like, what in the world? How did, how did I get into this debacle? Um, but anyway, I know who I'm gonna be following around though. I just gotta figure out how to position myself between him and, and the bird he's calling to. Like, I, I won't even say, I won't even say anything.

I'll just slip in between him. I won't, I won't call, I won't do anything. I'll just. Insert myself right there in between them. Sounds like a solid, solid play. But, um, yeah. Anyways, Dave, you sounded so [00:29:00] real. I didn't, I didn't know you were there. I thought you were a hen. I thought you were a hen, dude. What?

It's weird, man. Crazy, crazy. Anyways, well, man, I'm, uh, I'm mourning the loss of Turkey season, but that's not why we're, we're talking today and not what we're here to talk about. We are talking, um, fishing. We, we did an episode a couple weeks ago where we, we decided, well, we talked about it before and we were like, look, we're, we're realistically probably not gonna get through this.

Like, it's just mm-hmm. And that's okay. You know, and then when we got halfway through it, I went ahead and made the call. I was like, yeah, this isn't, we're not getting through all of this. So we're probably a little late to the game, uh, at this point. Maybe not though. I mean, some of the, some of the best fishing is still to come.

Uh Oh. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so still a lot of good stuff to come. Um, but we were talking about fishing gear and getting somebody out there and, um, you know, geared up in a way that is quality, but maybe [00:30:00] isn't gonna break the bank. Right. Right. And you kind of had prioritized things like, Hey, get a decent reel.

Doesn't have to be a great reel, because at least not for where you're fishing in Wisconsin. Right, right. Uh, get a, get a good rod, decent rod, uh, and then fly line is where you really wanna spend your money, you know? Mm-hmm. Get a, getting a really great line. And then that's really all we had time for and we kind of cut the conversation a little bit short there.

Where do we pick up? Like what else, where do, where do we go from there? I'll be honest, I didn't go back and listen to that other, other episode to figure out exactly where we left it. So, Uh, we may even rehash just a little bit of that conversation and, uh, talk about some more of that. But, but what else do we need?

Yeah, I was, uh, I'm right in the same boat there. I did not have a chance to re-listen to, uh, our, our previous conversation. [00:31:00] Um, but yeah, I mean, I, I know I rambled a ton and can kind of nerd out on, uh, on the gear talk there. Just like, you know, any outdoor endeavor can lead one to do, but Absolutely. Um, yeah, you hit it right on the head there.

Um, you know, for our driftless trout, you know, most of these fish are, you know, they're capping out, uh, You know, around that, you know, if you're very, very lucky, they're capping out around that 22, maybe 24 mark. Um, although you and I were both talking about that absolute freak that got pulled out of the Baroque area, um, dude, back in April, April, that was, what was the deal with that thing?

Just gross. Goodness gracious. Where the heck that thing came from that, you know, where that came from? That came, that came from somebody's aquarium in their backyard. And they, they stuck a fly in that thing's mouth and took a picture. Like that's what, that's what happened. Those dude, the big fish come out at night.

Yeah. They're like eating mice. I'll tell you, it's just wild that they ate it that early in the year when bank grass was still that [00:32:00] low. Cause even like, it seems like mostly, I mean the last couple weeks the grass is finally started to come out in seed, which, you know, typically draws the, the field mice out.

So our mouse and should be starting to get pretty good here. Yeah. Um, especially at night. Cuz Fis Fisher kind of hunkered down throughout the mid part of the day and, um, you know, just with the high sun and all that. Um, but yeah, you, you hit it right on the head, you know, with, with most of our driftless trout, you're not gonna need, um, a reel that has a a, you know, you know, stop a car, uh, strength drag on it, um, or anything.

Especially on our smaller creeks. We, yeah, we know the majority of our casts are kind of in that 20 to 30 foot. Range. Um, uh, yeah, I always tell folks, you know, it's not like we're fishing out west where you gotta be able to, you know, punch one 40 feet, 50 feet to hit a spot and get a good drift. But just with our, um, our smaller creeks, there's, there can be so much variance in the creek [00:33:00] bottom and, you know, so many things change so fast that we can have all these conflicting currents that will just grab our fly line if we've got too much on the water and, you know, twist and pull and push and all sorts of stuff that will just inhibit our drift.

Not to mention having a, you know, a p PVC coated piece of line running right over the top of a fish that, you know, you may have missed, uh, that you're gonna spook that fish anyways. Um, so I think that might be a good way to, um, you know, kind of segue into. Our driftless flies and, you know, fly fishing essentials, I guess.

Um, just kind of talking flies. And then also, uh, you know, a little bit of presentation type stuff. Cause that's really what it kind of comes down to is, uh, you know, having an, a natural looking presentation. I've found that even if you're your fly, don't exactly match what's going on. If it looks natural, if it's in the right spot, it doesn't look like it's being drug around by a piece of rope or exploding off the surface.

Um, you know, you can a lot of times get [00:34:00] away with quite a bit. Um, yeah. But like you said, you know, the real, sorry, go ahead. No, I was just gonna say from, from what I've read, from what I've listened to, from what I've learned from you, it sounds like, you know, one of the things that I was most concerned about when I first got into fly fishing was matching the hatch.

Right? I mean, that's what mm-hmm. That's what you're told your entire life. And, and like, there's an element to where like that can be really, really good. But in the drift list, I feel like a lot of times you do just as well to just throw something out there that's just. You know, buggy off the wall. Yeah.

Just something that's buggy. And like you said, as long as it looks natural, that's gonna take care of 90% of it for you, like right. Could you catch more fish if you match the hatch at the right time? Maybe. But mm-hmm. Are you still gonna catch a bunch of fish if you just are like me and all you throw is a pink squirrel and you just let it, you know, kinda swing slow.

Uh, yeah. You, you could probably catch some fish. So, yeah. And there's absolutely a time and a place for matching the hatch. Will 110% catch more fish? Yep. I mean, I'm, I [00:35:00] won't even say a time and a place matching the hatch will almost always help you catch more fish. Yep, yep. Um, you know, imitating the naturals and everything, but again, it's not to say that a hippie stomper or a chubby Chernobyl or some big foam body, just bushy leggy hunk of foam, uh, won't catch a fish.

Yeah. Because it absolutely will. Uh, fish are curious, you know, they're always looking for food. They, uh, you know, they're constantly, while they're, you know, sitting in a feeding lane, if they're eating, uh, you know, they're. Having pieces of debris, you know, dirt sticks, moss, grass, um, and then obviously bugs, uh, floating downstream to 'em, um, you know, all the time.

And so there's a lot of stuff where, you know, they'll see, you know, a chunk of grass or you know, a little piece of, you know, bark that maybe looks kind of the shape of an nph. They'll lean over, they'll get that in their mouth. And if it doesn't taste right or if it doesn't seem right, they'll spit it back out.

You know, they're constantly, they're, they're just curious. They're, they don't wanna [00:36:00] miss a meal, they don't wanna pass up free calories. Um, you know, cuz that's, at the end of the day, that's what they're trying to do is, you know, consume calories and survive. Right? Sure. Sure. Yes. I, I think conditions dictate that a lot.

You know, you can, there are times where we wanna fish something that's, you know, a little bit bigger, a little bit bushier, especially subsurface if there's a stain on the water. Um, you know, if it, if the water's high, it's moving fast. Uh, yeah. You know, you want to have something that's gonna get a little bit more attention from that fish and, you know, kind of draw its eye versus, you know, right now where it's, you know, our creeks are low, everything is super clear.

We've got no rain, like, hardly at all. Uh, you know, to muddy up the water, kick any silt loose or anything like that? I mean, they can see everything. Yeah. We're depending on the, on the spot there, uh, we're, we're spooking fish from, you know, it, it could be 30, 40 feet away if we're not waiting properly or, you know, careful on the bank.

[00:37:00] Um, And a lot of that, again, has to do with time of day. Basically, trout don't like having a spotlight on them. Yeah. They're very, very wary fish. They've got excellent vision. Um, and so, you know, as the sun gets higher in the day, it obviously shines more directly down on that creek. Um, which, if you're a heron or a hawk or an eagle or a fisher or whatever, like a, any sort of predator that's looking for an aquatic meal, you're gonna, where you're gonna look, you're gonna look in the creek and you're gonna look for something that's swimming around and, you know, hopefully swims up close to you nearby, and then you can jab it or grab it or whatever.

Um, and so the, the trout are just, they're, they're aware of that. They're super, super cautious. Um, and so a lot of times they'll, uh, yeah, I, I've noticed the, the bigger fish will do kind of goofy stuff and they'll be on a high alert and they'll be super, super spooky. But if they wanna sit. [00:38:00] Um, I think I sent you a picture one like two weeks ago.

It was probably a like 17, 18 inch fish sitting right directly underneath a bridge and probably like a foot of water. Um, but you know, I don't, he would be so difficult to catch. It's not even funny because he is, especially when he is that shallow, he can see anything and everything. Yeah. And when he is that tight to the bank, any vibration that goes through the, and you know, like I said, a, a truck drove over, like while I was standing on the bridge, a truck drove over and the vibration of that went down through the bridge through the earth and spooked that fish and he swam back down into this deep hole.

Um, dude, he was like a, he was like a mature buck bedding next to the parking lot, just like mm-hmm. Just like watching the parking lot. When I, when you sent me that, I was like, like literally my first thought was what a dumb place for a big trout to be like what a, what a dumb spot. Yeah. And so I was like, did you cast to him?

You were like, dude, there's no way to cast to him. Like you couldn't. I mean, [00:39:00] like something drove over the bridge and he was gone. Mm-hmm. You know, you get down there close to the bank and he's gonna be gone. You can't step into the water because he is right there and he'll be gone. Like, yeah, he was, he was.

Even though he was in a spot that looked dumb, he was really pretty bulletproof right there. Oh yeah. Yeah. He was, I mean, he was basically in, like I said, in a foot of water right next to a really deep hole underneath that bridge where if anything came by, all he had to do was just scoot down into that and he was golden.

Not to mention he was surrounded by a bunch of really thick vegetation and everything down in the water so he could hide underneath that. And I mean, like, I think big browns and mature bucks kind of have the same brain. Yeah. Well, remember we did a, we did a podcast on that, like Yeah. How the two are similar on the, on the How To Hunt Deer podcast.

How? Mm-hmm. Uh, I think we called it like how fishing for trout can make you a better deer hunter. Or something like that. Yeah. And we talked about, you know, how things relate to cover and movement and like the, the whole game of like [00:40:00] calories with minimal expenditure, um, and all that kind of stuff. Just wanna take a quick minute to let you know that the Wisconsin Sportsman Podcast is brought to you by tac cam makers of the best point of view cameras on the market.

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You know, fish, obviously their, their needs are very similar to ours. They need to eat, they need to stay safe, and they need to reproduce right mean, um, they, uh, occasionally so our, occasionally they like to reproduce occasionally. Yes. Um, and so, you know, fish have all five senses that they're trying to, you know, they try to utilize, they can smell things.

Um, so when you're putting on, you know, Sunscreen. You know, try and do it with the back of your hand or something, you know, don't have like a bunch of sunscreen or bug spray. Rub it into your palm and then wipe it on your face and stuff like that. Um, or if you do at least try and wash your hands first, you know, some folks will say like, you know, put gas in your car the night before.

Um, so, you know, similar deer to deer hunting and stuff. Being conscious of, you know, what's on your hands, what are you leaving scent a little bit. [00:42:00] Um, people do that for trout. I don't know that they actually do that for trout. Oh man. I was gonna say, I would imagine it makes sense cause you look at carp, you look at catfish like, you know, fish, obviously, you know, some of them have a, a stronger sense of smell than others.

But I mean, if you're, makes sense. Like say you're fishing for carp, um, you know, a lot of our flies we won't put, so typically when you're tying flies, uh, especially subsurface stuff, Just to enhance the durability of it. You'll put a little bit of, like, when you finish your fly, you'll do a, you know, a whip finish and, you know, cinch everything down.

And then you'll take what's called like head cement and, uh, it's basically just like a, you know, I wish I had some with me right now, but yeah, it's a little bottle of like this clear glue essentially. And you'll take that and you'll, you know, dip a tool in there and then just kind of work a little drop of that in, around that thread and then that'll harden.

Um, that stuff has a scent. And so like for carp and stuff, if you use head cement on your fly, they'll pick up on that and they will book it. They will not touch your fly at all. Cause it smells like, no kidding chemically [00:43:00] glue and stuff like that. Um, dude, have you, have you seen that, uh, the video of the, he's like a professional ice cream taster and he just, he makes all these ridiculous like sounds and stuff like that as he's like tasting it.

So, mad River Outfitters did this, uh, did this. Like spoof on that video where, and it says at the top like a carp, deciding if it's going to eat my fly. And he's making all these ridiculous noises with his mouth and he's like, put it on Noll, 9,000 taste buds. Work it around. Bring it up to the top. So, so stupid.

But it was, it was hilarious the way you did it though. It was just like, it's exactly how it is though, man. Just asshole. They're the worst fish ever. But dude, we still, we still gotta gotta get around and chase some. I uh, I know where some big ones are and I know, dude, we gotta get out there. Hey, just happened to be in the same stream as some trout, which I don't [00:44:00] understand how, I don't understand how that works.

Uh, but oh yeah. I should probably shouldn't say it. I'll edit this part out. Um, dude, the last, in the last episode of, of Wisconsin Sportsman, uh, we were talking and we name dropped the public land piece. Where I killed this buck like four different times. Oh my God. Yeah. So I had to go through it with like a fine tooth comb and like there were occasions where I edited out like directions mm-hmm.

As to where this place was, or like where it should, the spot was on the public piece. And I even edited some things out and left some things in so that if you thought you were in the right spot, you would still end up in the wrong place because I, I left, I left part of the directions in, so that might make me a terrible person.

But, um, no, not at all. Anyway, anyway, I'll go back and, but I can given enough hints out that like, if people really wanted to go, you know, put in the [00:45:00] effort, you know, like John did and granted John Hunt's there anyways, but, you know, yeah. Put in the effort to really, uh, find that spot, you know, that's up to them.

Yeah. In all fairness, like one of the spots where I. Uh, would like sit and glass birds on. One of my favorite pieces of private, which mm-hmm. Isn't too far from the public, was like 75 yards from John's shop, so. Oh, really? Yeah. I could have, like, I could have yelled at him out the car window. Hey man, what's going on?

Like, it, yeah, it was, it was super close. So it, you know, for him, for him, I think the, the alarm bells were going off, but, um, so anyway, um, so we're talking about trout though. We're talking about, uh, how picky they can be and how for some fish mm-hmm. You don't even use glue like carp because they'll pick up on the smell.

Right. And so, you know, taste and smell, uh, obviously, you know, certain fish have, they rely on those senses more than, uh, than others. But, you know, trout, a lot of times I use head cement. You know, people use, you [00:46:00] know, various glues and stuff like that on a lot of flies. And, you know, trout typically cuz they're in moving, you know, typically faster moving water.

Um, You know, they're watching food kind of just come straight down at 'em, uh, all day long. You know, typically they're more like, that looks like food. I'm gonna nab it and if it doesn't taste right, then I'll spit it out. So they're kind of eat first. Worry about it later. Yeah. Um, yep. Sort of predators. Uh, so then obviously they've also got, uh, you know, the sense of what way to taste, well sense hearing sort of works in there too.

It's kind of, you know, carp especially good sense of hearing. They've got a real dense head, uh, kind of like amplifies a lot of, a lot of vibration. I know guys who they, they literally won, you know, if they're gonna approach a carp, they'll strip off all the, uh, the line from their reel that they think is gonna, they think that they're gonna need, um, to reach that fish because they're worried that if they get in close and they strip some line off and they hear that of their [00:47:00] reel, that that's gonna Oh, yeah.

No joke. So we're talking serious. Yeah. This is, this is now. I think for trout, especially vision and, you know, their, their sense of feel. Um, that's their two main, you know, those, those are their two strong suits. Yeah. And by feel you're talking lateral line, what they're picking up on. Right. Like, there you go.

Like from their, so like, if you look at my lovely, uh, that's beautiful brook trout mouse pad that my girlfriend had made for me. Thank you Sarah. That is amazing. Um, you can see this little line in the side of the scales, and so that's their lateral line. All fish have it. Um, and basically all that is, is just a line of nerves that runs from basically their GID plate clear down to their tail.

And then with that they sense vibration, whether it be the vibration of, um, you know, other fish. Cause obviously when, you know, like if you've ever been swimming and stuff and you, you know, say you like, [00:48:00] you know, Fan your hand back and forth, uh, under the water, it pushes water, right? You can feel kind of a pressure.

Um, you know, if you were to do that or somebody swims by you and like they're kicking that you feel the, the, the impact of like that water, it could be displaced and kind of shoved into you. Um, fish feel the exact same thing. So they'll feel that vibration of a small little bait fish darting around. Um, or, you know, a, a bigger fish, a turtle, a muskrat, um, a fisherman, you know, stumbling on a boulder or, uh, you know, falling through luer structure.

Uh, not gonna name names, but I'm still sorry to anybody who fishes near Nucleis. If you found that lunker structure, uh, that was totally smashed in. That was my body going through it, and I'm sorry about it, but you know what? I think it's time that it was replaced. Anyway. Um, but anyway, that's, that's just out there for you guys.

Yeah. And so, you know, our, our [00:49:00] fish, uh, especially, you know, think of it this way, the bigger the fish, and this goes for sight too. Um, the bigger the fish, the longer that lateral line, you know, the, essentially the bigger the nerve is, the more they'll in theory be able to feel. Um, likewise, the bigger the fish in general, the bigger the eyeball, the bigger the pupil, the more light that they're gonna be able to let in.

Um, And so then kind of going down that route, trout have excellent vision to the point where, uh, you know, we do have to be kind of cautious with, uh, with our, you know, our leader and Tippi, a lot of our fish aren't super tippi shy because a lot of our creeks are small enough and there's enough bearings and stuff that, um, you know, we can get by with, uh, maybe a shorter liter, um, than, than, you know, if we were fishing in New Zealand and, you know, they say you need the, the 12 to 15 foot liter, otherwise your, you know, your fly line's gonna land on the water and it's gonna spook that fish.

And you gotta have that much [00:50:00] separation between the two. Yeah. Um, dude, when I first started reading about fly fishing and I started reading that I needed a, like a 12 foot liter, and I was like, mm-hmm. Hold on a second. Wait, wait, wait. That's like longer than the rod. Like, how, what am, what am I even like, how does that even work?

But anyway, I've learned you don't need quite that long, especially in the Driftless. Right, and definitely, essentially definitely not on these southern fish that I'm fishing for now, because they are dumb.

And so, yeah, so basically with leader design, um, you know, the way you're, so as I mentioned in the last time we talked about this. Fly lines have different shapes, different sizes, different weights. Um, they're just engineered differently. Um, and so essentially the thing you need to know about your fly line is from the start of that fly line as it goes up the line.

Um, it's gonna have a, a front taper where it's gonna widen out. Um, well [00:51:00] got one right here. You're gonna have like a front taper here, and then it's gonna get wider and then that's gonna carry all the weight of the fly line right there. And that's what's gonna be loading your rod and then tap back down and then it gets nice and thin and that goes into your running line.

This front taper. Is key for determining what kind of presentation you're gonna have. Uh, this is sort of a, a generalist line. That's good for just about anything. I think this one's got, it's got a 10 foot front taper. It's nothing crazy. This is a scientific angles infinity line. Um, but, and I've been a huge fan of that one this year.

That's kind of been my go-to. Uh, but a lot of, you know, more traditional fly lines basically. The longer the front taper, the more delicate the turnover is. You need that taper in order to actually, you know, everybody's seen the slow motion videos of, you know, fly fishing and, uh, you know, at sunset, you know, making these big slow motion casts and you see that [00:52:00] loop lay all the way out and then it unrolls and everything.

Um, If there wasn't a taper, it wouldn't do that if it was level line. It's just not possible to do that. Cause you need that transfer of energy, you need the mass behind it to then run it down that lighter line and that's what's gonna actually cause things to flip over. Gotcha. Um, so our, like our bass lines and stuff, it's, you know, a lot of 'em have like a four foot front taper.

Like it's just, it is super, super blunt cuz they want to get that thing, you know, to load the rod up fast and slap that fly down hard, that's gonna, you know, create the disturbance. The bass are gonna sense that it's gonna, you know, sound like a frog jumping in the water or, uh, You know, a bait fish, struggling for life, whatever you want to be, uh, it's gonna trigger that predatory instinct and get their attention.

Now trout, depending on what kind of mood they're in, um, they don't really like that. They're gonna want, uh, they're gonna want, typically most of our trout lines have anywhere from a, you know, like a 10 to, I mean, like one of the other ones I've got, uh, on another rod is like, [00:53:00] it's got a 26 foot front taper.

Geez. Okay. So super transfer, super light presentation, everything down. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Exactly, exactly. Um, and so cuz that, you know, think of a lot of trout bugs and stuff will be fishing size, you know, 22 Midge clusters or you know, 20 gnats or whatever it may be. Super, super small stuff that you don't want to just.

Bomb down into the water. Right? Um, and so our, basically the reason you would get into stuff like that, 12 to 15 foot liter for a trout, uh, part of it is stealth because your fly line that's, you know, colored obviously is gonna be further away from that fly. So in theory, that trout's not gonna have quite as much opportunity to maybe see that weird thing land on the, on the water.

Um, You know, near this fly and then potentially spook it. Um, granted a lot of lines now, you know, I think, uh, most people, you know, see some fly lines that have like, that, you know, that bright yellow coating [00:54:00] and stuff like that. Um, a lot of times that's, you know, so that you can see it better what you're learning to, you know, it's a lot of like more beginner type lines.

Sure. Um, have that so that you can kind of see what your fly line's doing and stuff. Uh, most of the ones that we're fishing right now have, you know, sort of like a sky blue or a gray finish. It's kind of a little bit more natural looking, a little more camouflaged, uh, than, you know, that highlighter yellow, uh, piece of plastic hitting the water.

Yeah. Um, but essentially a leader is. Just an extension of that front taper on our fly line. And so, um, same kind of thing, like if we're cast in bigger bugs and stuff like big poppers or larger streamers for, for bass or predatory fish, uh, we want that leader to be a lot shorter and a lot stouter because again, that's gonna have the shorter front taper to kind of just really transfer that mass from the line and flip that fly over and present it properly.

Whereas with our trout bugs that are, you know, typically much, much smaller. Right. Um, [00:55:00] You know, we, we want something that's gonna lay 'em down delicately. And especially for fish that have better vision, we want that fly to be a little bit further away from our fly line. So in situations like that, like New Zealand where you've got a super glassy pool with a 30 inch, you know, brown or rainbow sitting at the bottom of it, that's got eyes like a freaking hawk.

Like yeah, you want something that's gonna land really, really naturally, um, so that you're able to, you know, present that properly. Now for around here where we're making, like I said, 20 to 30 foot cast, uh, you know what we don't really want that, uh, we could get by with, you know, typically the longest I'm gonna fish is like maybe a 10 foot liter.

Um, and that's like in winter for fishing midges and stuff like that. And that's so I can have a really nice long taper. Um, But you know, a lot of times, like right now, like a fish are spooky, I'll fish a nine foot liter and usually we get by just fine. Yesterday [00:56:00] even we were fishing seven and a half foot liters and same thing.

Yeah, we were, we were doing just fine. Um, situation, you know, the type of water you're fishing dictates that a lot. As I mentioned, broken water, um, protects the fish quite a bit. And so trout, uh, you know, their, their vision as I mentioned earlier, is excellent. And so when they're sitting in water, um, they're aware of predators from above, but also a lot of times their food is coming down on the surface, right?

Or coming downstream towards them. But safety is their primary concern typically. Um, and so trout oftentimes kind of, if you think of the surface of the water, like a, a window to what's above. Obviously the, you know, our, the windows on our house and our windshield in our cars and stuff are super smooth because it's gonna provide the, the clearest image possible.

Right. Whereas if it's a piece of stained glass, it's all warped or whatever, it's really hard to see through it. There's a lot of distortion there. We can't maybe see like, sort of the [00:57:00] shape, but we can't see really any detail whatsoever. Um, So a lot of times when condition, you know, when the sun's high and conditions are, are a little bit poorer and the water's low, and the fish don't have as many places to hide, they'll sit.

If they're going to eat during the day, they want to sit in those fast rly, more broken, as we call it. Yep. Or brackish, uh, types of water so that they feel confident that, you know, they're not just spot lit from above and, you know, just look like a perfect meal sitting there, uh, for a, a heron or a hawk or whatever to come down and, and mash, uh, like, you know, and vice versa, big smooth glassy runs and pools.

You're gonna want to be real careful with that presentation because they can see everything. Um, yeah. So that's kind of how they, how they see and stuff like that. Yeah. Typically in the Driftless, you can get away with, you know, anywhere from a. Yeah. I've seen, you know, folks fish with, you know, six and a half foot liters up [00:58:00] to, I mean, I'll let folks decide how long of a liter they really want to fish.

But, uh, in, in my experience, my opinion, you don't really need anything longer than, you know, nine or 10 feet. Um, and 10 feet is, you know, if they're really, really spooky. Right. Yeah. Or you're fishing super, super small flies that you need a lot of delicate or delicacy in there in the, uh, the presentation of that stuff.

Yeah. Um, so I've, I've fished successfully seven and a half foot leaders. Mm-hmm. Pretty regularly. And that's, I don't know, that's, that's mostly because it just freaks me out to have a, have a leader that's longer than my rod. I'm kinda like, ah, how am I gonna even get it over there? I don't, I don't know what I'm doing.

Uh, mm-hmm. So, you know, that, and, and that's, you know, just nerves on my end. Uh, when it comes to buying the, the leaders though, how important is it to buy quality? Um, I have an opinion on it. So I've bought really good [00:59:00] leaders from like Orvis and then I've also bought some from like cheapo country. I can't pronounce off of Amazon.

Uh, and I've fished them both and I've caught fish on both. And so I'm curious to hear your take on like how important that is. Cause I know the fly line's really, really important and for, in my opinion, uh, flies are super important as well. You go to like big y fly company or something like that online, you're really gambling whether or not you're gonna get a decent fly out.

Sure. Out of the deal. I've, I've just sure I've blown too much money on bad flies that now I kind of stick on, stick to buying decent flies online. Right? Totally. Um, or from a local shop, preferably if I can. Mm-hmm. Um, but what about the, what about the leader? Like, does it matter if I spend money there? Um, I think so.

I think buying something reputable, um, I don't, I'm not sure what brand exactly it was that you got on Amazon, but I know there's, there's good brands out there too that, you know, sell [01:00:00] on Amazon. Um, you know, if you're buying leaders from, and I'm gonna forget companies out here that make totally fine leaders as well.

Um, but you know, like a lot of my go-to is, are gonna be, uh, you know, Orvis, scientific anglers, uh, Rio, um, I fished a couple Umpqua leaders and stuff like that before. Uh, you know, buying a decent leader is, is, uh, I, I do think it's important. I think the more you pay, typically what you're gonna get is just a, a, a better taper, a better product, um, and oftentimes like a, a higher strength to it.

Um, A, a big thing to note, um, and I get this question a lot from folks, is the difference between a nylon and a fluorocarbon leader, um, basically fluorocarbon is the, the big thing to note is fluorocarbon is designed for subsurface fishing. [01:01:00] It is super dense. Well, it's not su, it's denser than nylon, essentially.

Um, and when it's in water, it's nearly invisible. So it is a very stealthy presentation. It's excellent for throwing streamers. It's excellent for, uh, nymphing and stuff like that cuz it's gonna, like I said, it's denser than nylon. It's gonna cut down through the water column a lot quicker. Um, and get your fly down in the strike zone faster.

Also, with that, you know, you know, supposed near invisibility, um, you know, when it's, when it's beneath the water, uh, it, it is helpful. Cause in theory you could use a higher strength, uh, tip it or leader, um, that's gonna have a little bit stronger tensile strength than, um, you know, maybe if you're fishing nylon and you're like, ah, this is gonna look too dense, it's gonna look, or too like fat.

It's gonna look like my name's getting drug around by a piece of rope. Um, I should stick with five x instead of four x or something like that, you know? Yeah. Um, so, so the big thing is, you know, I, I've had some folks [01:02:00] just ask like, oh, so I should only fish fluorocarbon in the driftless? No, no, not true.

Like, yeah, especially if we're doing, uh, you know, if you're fishing dry flies or dropper rigs or anything, and you can even fish subsurface with a nylon leader. Um, That nylon is less dense, and so it's gonna float on the surface better than fluorocarbon. If you try and fish dries with a fluorocarbon leader, even if you rub a bunch of floating on top of it, it's more dense than nylon and it's gonna sink faster.

It's just gonna drag your fly down. Whereas nylon will sit up on the surface, it will absorb some of that float much better, um, and stay a little bit more buoyant than, uh, than fluorocarbon typically does. So basically you want that to be your main leader if you're gonna fish anything on the surface. And then you can always run, you know, you can tie a surgeon's not and add 18 inches of fluorocarbon.

If you want to throw a streamer or a [01:03:00] nymph down below that and you've got an indicator, you know, sitting on the surface, stuff like that, uh, or further up your leader, uh, The big thing is like, don't think that like, oh, like trout have good vision. Fluorocarbon, stealthy or nearly invisible in water. I should only fish fluorocarbon and you know, just buy those cuz you, you're gonna be so frustrated it's not even funny and your flies are all just gonna get soaked and you just won't have fun time.

Um, and you know, like for years I fished, uh, and even in a pinch I fished, uh, you know, uh, you know, strips of nylon tippe and stuff. Um, you know, with a nymph on it, you know, down below if I'm doing a drop a rig, okay crap, I just ran out of, you know, Fluro. Um, I've got some, you know, all I've got is nylon.

I'll tie that on and, you know, do that. I do that when I'm fishing, so I'm not on trips, but, yeah. Well, and especially like, at least in, in my limited experience, which is not yours. I mean, you're, you're a guide. Um, but like if I'm gonna fish a bead head or something like that, something [01:04:00] that I know is gonna have a little bit of weight to it already, I'm not as concerned as I am if I'm fishing something that doesn't have.

Any weight to it whatsoever. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. Like I'm not, I'm not as concerned about throwing nylon on the end, uh, although I do carry some, some fluorocarbon, so I could do exactly what you were saying is mm-hmm. You know, tie that onto the end of my nylon, you know, or onto the, for, for my drop or whatever that happens to be for the day.

Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, like you just said, like most of the time if I'm rigging up a dropper, it's gonna be on a nylon liter to keep that dry floating high, and then I'll tie, you know, anywhere from 12 to 18 inches of, uh, eh, 16 inches of, uh, fluorocarbon off that, you know, to have my nips that my nip gets down and my dry stays high.

Um, yeah. And I can fish and cover the water column, uh, you know, as I'm working through a creek. That's exactly right. Yeah. So let's, let's talk now. Oh, so my experience aligns with yours when it comes to buying something quality. Um, I've bought [01:05:00] Orvis, I've bought Rio, and then I've bought like, Uh, I don't know.

It was like, have good time fishing or, you know, something some ridiculous. Just like, okay, this isn't, this is not good. Um, but they were cheap leaders on, on Amazon. And one of the problems that I had with those was their, was the memory in those things. Like, I couldn't get them to Oh yeah. I couldn't get them to straighten out.

Well, like even they'd stay coilly or they would, yeah, they would stay coilly. So like, even trying to stretch 'em, like, cuz they make those little things, or you can, you know, just grab a piece of leather or something and like try to stretch 'em out so that you can, you know, straighten everything just a little bit.

Mm-hmm. And I could not get those things to straightened out for, huh? For anything. So that was a, that was a huge pain. And then they, they just seemed really brittle, so like Yeah, they would, they would break. It didn't, I wouldn't even call it weak. I would just call it brittle. Mm-hmm. You know, so it was like, if I would get, you know, snagged on a branch or on some grass or something like that, if I pulled like sharply at all, it would just, it would snap it.

Just [01:06:00] super, super quick. Interesting. Yeah, it was, it was a weird experience. It was like, huh, what exactly is this? On top of it, you don't know where those leaders were stored. Um, or, you know, whatever. They could be sitting outside, you know, year round for all we know. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah. But it kind of brings me to another just little caveat on, uh, uh, leaders and tip before we move on there.

Just, um, but, and fly line for that matter. The, the worst thing you can do to any of that stuff is leave it sitting in a window in your car all day, anything like that. The heat changes and that UV light exposure just degrades the heck out of that material. Uh, whether it be nylon, fluorocarbon, or your fly line.

Like I said, uh, your fly line, especially if it's a cold water line, is not designed to sit in 150 degree car all day. Um, so if you're gonna go in and, you know, say you're gonna fish after work or anything like that, keep your stuff with you, bring your pack into your office with you, keep it in the AC or something, um, it will, it will.

Last you much longer and you'll be a [01:07:00] much happier angler. Um, but, but Pierce, Pierce, that nylon leader and all that kind of stuff that, that'll get super brittle, like you're saying, uh, if it's exposed to sun and all that. But Pierce, it looks super cool when I store my rods in my car. Like that way, how are, how are people supposed to know that I'm a very serious fly fisherman?

If when I open the back hatch of my vehicle, I don't have all of my fly rods totally rigged up and ready to go right there. Get some stickers, man, I don't know. Let 'em know some other way people know if I don't have it all sitting right there. That's like driving around down here in the south. It's like, how will people know I'm not a hunter if I don't have my, my old man or my summit climber hanging just a little bit out of the back of my truck, right?

How will people know if it's not there all the time? I mean, it'll be like a, a Thursday in the middle of the day, and folks have their, you know, climber hanging out of the, the truck. It's like, dude, go home. Put that thing away. Like, [01:08:00] someone will steal that if you stop at the store. But anyway, or get the, uh, get those thousand dollar rod balls to throw on top of your car so everybody knows you're legit, you know?

Goodness gracious. Yeah. That's like, uh, it's like wearing Sitka, but have you seen, oh my goodness. There's a, there's a, a real on Instagram that's like when, uh, I forget what it, it's like when, oh, the guy who's trying to defend to his wife why he needs $3,000 worth of stuff, or else the deer will 100% see him and stuff like that.

Oh and no, he's poor. Uh, they'll not only see me, but they will know that I'm poor or think that I'm poor. Something like that. No, there's another one. It's a scene from a movie. Where two guys hug each other for a little bit too long and there's like this embrace and it's like when Sitka bros see each other in [01:09:00] public or something like that.

Is that the Brook Back mountain scene? Yeah. Yeah. When Sitka bros see each other out in public, it's like, oh, oh, there it is. There, there it is. Um, man, I might have to edit this out. I've seen that with Sitka and First Light. Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes I've also seen, uh uh and which, you know, whatever man, I'm not, it's funny.

We can, we can laugh. Um, yeah, so I've also seen this one, I forget exactly what it was, but it was basically like when Sitka and First Light Bros see each other. It was like, you know, folks getting ready to fight, basically like turning into a thing. They're gonna like brawl about it. So anyway, um, well, dude, let's, let's talk flies real quick.

Orvis and sage, guys, if you're, what's that getting in? It's like Orvis and sage if you're fly fishing. Yeah. There you go. See, see, you need to just, you need to just go with a reputable third party. Stay away from the, no, I'm kidding. So find some local old guy who makes [01:10:00] handmade rods and help him out. Ain't that the truth, man?

Like, I've been looking more and more into that. There are so many small rod shops just that's pretty cool all over the place. That Yeah. Um, have been pretty striking. But you are gonna spend some money on a Yeah. On a rod. Like you're gonna, you're gonna pay for it. Mm-hmm. But, um, all right, so we're, we're getting, I think we're past an hour, just a little bit at this point.

Uh, talk to me real quick about the flies that I need to get. To get started. Like when I look at a fly box that like someone like yours, it stresses me out cuz I'm like, holy cow. Where, where did all those flies come from? And if I had that many, I wouldn't know which one to fish right now. So why don't you give me just a quick rundown.

Like if I wanted to have just a small fly box, not spend a ton of money and get some flies that are gonna get me through maybe year round, like maybe mm-hmm. Maybe I don't worry about matching the hatch all the time. I just wanna be able [01:11:00] to go out and fish and, you know, have 30 or 50 flies in my box.

Like what, what would those Sure. Which ones would you, would you pick? So basically you're gonna want to imitate our primary. Hatches essentially, um, throughout the year. So basically you're gonna want some variation of a midge pattern, whether it be, you know, basically for aquatic insects, you're gonna want the, the dry and the, you know, nim for subsurface version, um, of each of those flies.

If you really want to get down the rabbit hole, you can fish in a merger that's kind of gonna sit in the film and be like a halfway point. Cause basically, you know, aquatic insects, they spend most of their lives subsurface. They, you know, hatch from eggs below the surface of the water. They crawl around on the rocks and their NI states, and then when it's time for them to hatch from the conditions are right, right?

You know, right time of year, right. Light conditions, right. Water temperature. They will swim up to the surface and that's when, you [01:12:00] know, folks will say, oh yeah, there was a hatch going on. Um, when they start swimming all up at once, the trout key in, they're like, okay. There's a lot of these in the food system right now, time to start eating, and they'll actually key in on the, just basically the shape and profile of, uh, whatever's hatching the most at a, at a given time.

Um, so at that point, you know, like I said, you can kind of get away with, uh, some funky, sort of attract your patterns, um, stuff like that. Uh, you know, obviously the more natural, the better. But there are times where, you know, like our, our pink squirrel, our Frenchies, that have a, you know, a pink or a purple collar on the top of the, um, you know, the top, the, I guess the thorax of the, the fly.

Um, you know, we don't see any. Pink Mayfly is flying around, or pink cadis. Right. But you know, for some reason they like that kind of goofy stuff and that, you know, pinks and purples in the driftless. And I still haven't quite figured out why exactly, but they just seem to be the lights [01:13:00] out. And, uh, was, was that you that was telling me there might be something to do with like, as the, those colors get further down light shade as it gets deeper in the water?

Yes. Yeah. Like how they change in the water column, like what that color may actually look like, you know? Yes. 24 inches down, maybe different. Right. There was an entomologist, I think he was an entomologist. He might've just been a fly fishing scuba diver, I'm not sure. But he, he, you know, took a bunch of, uh, you know, cards of colors of, you know, differently common colors of flies and uh, you know, even just fishing lures, he had like chartreuse and stuff like that, and hot pink and, you know, electric blue, all that kind of stuff.

Um, and then he basically like carried them down with him and he descended, you know, three feet and five feet and 10 feet, you know, stuff like that just to see how as the light got filtered out by the water. Um, the deeper you went, how things started to look different and how colors changed. And so there was some thought that pink as it gets deeper in the water column, starts to look more tan.

Um, okay. So I don't really know for sure [01:14:00] if that's, if that's how it goes, but our driftless trout like pink and purple stuff, so yeah. So throw it at, got some of that in your box. Throw it it at him. Uh, basically, uh, you, you're gonna want, so I'll circle back here to the, uh, I'll finish the entomology lecture there.

Um, when that the bugs hatch, they, they swim up to the surface and then they have a, an exoskeleton that they try and, uh, shed of their, their NML body. And then they've got their wings and their adult bodies underneath that, that hopefully they pop up, they punch through the water surface, and then they get rid of that shuck and then they dry their wings and they fly away.

And then they can do their thing. They'll fly around, they'll mate, and then they'll come back down. Uh, you know, they'll do, its. Come spent, or, you know, referred to as spinners. If you ever heard people talk about a spinner fall, basically they come back down to the water and they all just kind of collapse on the surface.

And then they lay their eggs, and the eggs go back down, land on the rocks, get stuck on the surface of the creek, and then the cycle continues. Um, and so our main bugs here in the drift list are Midges, [01:15:00] uh, mayfly, Cadis. Um, we get some winter stone flies like in February. And then, uh, right about now, actually, uh, typically we're seeing some like yellow Sallys, which is like a bigger ish, a small compared to, you know, like the salmon flies out west.

It's a small mayfly or a small, uh, stonefly. But there are these, you know, Little yellow stones, um, that'll fly around. Uh, stone flies don't hatch. They don't swim up like, you know, mayfly, Cadis and Midges. They'll actually crawl out, um, you know, on the bank and then they'll shed their exoskeleton once they get up there.

Um, so we've got Midges, mayflys, cadis stones, and then Terrestrials are our other big ones. So our, right now we're starting to see a lot more ants. Yesterday, like our, our best fly out there was a goofy, like, you know, half inch long bionic ant, um, which is just kind of a foam body ant with like a wing on it and [01:16:00] stuff.

But it's, it's, you know, floats high and, you know, has some pretty prominent legs. Again, same kind of thing. It just looks buggy. Yep. Um, and, you know, our hippie stomper that everyone jokes about and talks about, you know, it's got a goofy, you know, I've seen 'em in green, blue, black, tan, you know. Pink, whatever, whatever color you want to, you know, tie these or buy these things in.

Um, hippie stomper, it just looks like some sort of big fat, goofy, juicy beetle. Um, some long squiggly legs. Um, and it, it floats high. It's easy to see and trout like it, they just do. Yeah. Um, so if you're gonna build out a box, I would say have, Uh, you know, uh, uh, a nymph and a dry variation of a midge may fly and cadis for sure.

Uh, typically like a zebra midge down below. Um, you know, for the nymph imitation there, um, you're your dry, so you're gonna wanna do either like a Midge [01:17:00] cluster or even like a Griffiths gnat, uh, it's called. It's basically just looks like a cluster of mating adult midges, cuz midges are super tiny, like super, super tiny.

Um, you know, if you want to tie, uh, an individual, you know, like realistic size, um, you know, Midge, you're gonna be tying like a 24 size hook, like just something insanely small. Um, I know out west there's guys who fish like, you know, size 28 and 30 hooks, like, it's just crazy. Um, Typically in the drift list for midges, we can get by with twenties and eighteens even.

Um, most of my midge nymphs are eighteens just cause I think it's easier for the fish to see and quite frankly, it's easier for me to see and I haven't really noticed too many fish turning their nose up at it. Sure, sure. Um, for may fly imitations, the parachute atoms will get the job done 10 times out of 10.

Um, it's, it's, you know, it's a lower sitting, dry fly imitation, so it looks like it [01:18:00] kind of does double duty as a, an emerging insect that gets caught in the film. Circling back to the entomology lecture sometimes when those bugs are hashing and they're swimming up to the surface. They don't punch through the surface of the water or they are unable to shed that exoskeleton.

So they can't swim, they can't fly, they're just stuck there. And that is the easiest meal in the world for a fish cuz it is guaranteed calories and it's not gonna swim over, fly away or swim away. You know, if they go up to eat that thing, they're going to eat that thing. So a lot of times they'll key in on stuff that's just below the surface or like right on the surface.

But if there's something that's sitting really high up on the water, uh, you know, there are times where basically they'll kind of like, eh, maybe if I'm really aggressive, I'll go after that thing. And you know, lately I've also been seeing trout go, like, you know, jumping a foot outta the water, chasing damsel flies that are just, you know, Hovering all over the surface of the water, and it's been pretty fun to see.

So they will chase things [01:19:00] down if they're in the mood to do so. And if it's a bigger meal, like a dams will fly. Um, and they'll do the same thing with Cadis, cause cadis like to flutter around and kinda like slap the water to basically dislodge their eggs. Okay. Um, and lay them. But, um, yeah, have a, you know, the, you know, pheasant tail, a frenchie, uh, you know, some sort of mayfly imitation, uh, to fish subsurface, um, or cadis classic elk here.

Cadis or a cadis. Pupa subsurface is great. If you wanted fish a emerges of mayfly, uh, run a, a sparkle done or. Um, you know, for Cadi and x, cadis is great. Same kind of thing. Basically, the only variation with those is they've got a, um, like a translucent nylon material off the back of the hook that looks like that translucent shuck that's stuck onto the, you know, the, the crippled fly.

Um, and then Terrestrials man, I mean, go down the rabbit hole, like, [01:20:00] yeah, hippie stomps. Um, ants are great. Any beetle variations are great. Um, once we get into, you know, July, August, September, even kind of punching into October, um, we're still seeing grasshoppers, but, you know, July and August, um, in September especially, uh, you know, start out with smaller grasshoppers that are, you know, maybe like a size.

12 or something like that. And then slowly get bigger as the season goes on. Cuz they'll, they'll hatch on the, you know, on land and then they grow and then they shed their exoskeleton and they become like the big, you know, inch and a half long brown grasshoppers that we all see. That sounds like a small helicopter.

And when it takes off, if there's wings clacking and everything. So, uh, trout love those. Um, and then, you know, if you wanted to build out a box of, you know, streamers and stuff, have some leeches, um, smaller leeches, preferably a lot of folks, you know, they see that big four or five inch hunk of brown [01:21:00] rabbit fur in the fly shop and they're like, oh, huge leach.

But. I mean, think about if you were in a creek and you saw a five inch leach swim by, you would freaking run. So, uh, yeah, try and imitate the smaller stuff. Our bugs in Driftless creeks are smaller. Um, they're, they're much, much smaller than, uh, you know, out west or even up north, uh, quite often. Um, you know, our Midge is, like I said, an 18 or a 20, uh, will do the job.

Our mayflies and cadi, you're gonna wanna fish any size from, you know, really, I mean, Cadis, you can get into a 16. Um, but mayflies you want to go same kind of thing. Eighteens 20, you can maybe do a 16, um, like with our sulfur hatch right now, that's happened in the evenings. Those are a little bit bigger, uh, may flies and, you know, sometimes they just work well as in a tractor pattern.

Uh, but then your, you know, hippie stoppers and terrestrials and all that stuff, anywhere, 14 up to like a, you know, some hoppers that we'll fish or like a size. [01:22:00] Like eight, or I've even, I've gotten one in my pocket that I think is a size six and it's just a freaking giant. But, um, do you ever fish it? What was that?

Do you ever fish it? I have fished it before. Okay. And I have, uh, convinced a couple of dumb trout to, uh, to eat it. But again, it's kind of like that thing that fish has to be really, really willing to. Yeah. Um, just a general rule of thumb is like whatever size you think a bug is in, you know, as you're out in the field, if you're trying to like match the hatch or whatever, go smaller, start small.

And you can try, you know, a lot of folks will fish, you know, a size 14 may fly because they can see it. But if a fish sees that, they're gonna freak out and probably not touch that. And then they, unless they just think it's like, oh, that looks like a bug. What the hell? I'll go up and mash it. And, but consistently speaking, like if you throw.

A size 14 bluing olive in the middle of a regular bluing [01:23:00] olive hatch where it's all, you know, 18 and 20 and 22 size naturals. Like you're, they're just gonna freak out and run. So, um, you know, ba basically, you know, as you're fishing, like I said, having a natural presentation, even though if it's not exactly right on with what the, you know, the bug is that's coming off, having something that's just like approximate size and behavior will almost always move a fish.

Um, you know, a lot of people freak out about color and stuff like that, and it is important depending on like the hatch, obviously. Uh, you know, for those who aren't familiar, like a sulfur mayfly that's hatching right now, it's like a really, really pale, creamy yellow color. Um, And our regular blue wing olives are much darker than that.

They've got a, you know, an olive body with kind of a bluish gray wing. Um, and so, you know, you can, not that they're not coming off at the same time, but if fish are keyed in on a sulfur, [01:24:00] they're gonna want that sulfur more than, you know, a smaller b w o imitation. Um, if that makes sense. So, you know, just getting a dragged free drift is, is critical.

Having a bug that doesn't look like it's getting, like, yanked across the surface of the water, you know, with a big wake behind it, um, you know, that, that comes into play a lot. Sure. A lot of, a lot of folks that I fish with, they'll, they'll try and cast out somewhere or, you know, I'll say like, Hey, let's see if we can get, you know, tight to that bank, um, kind of up by where that stick starts to hang in there.

Let's aim for that. And, you know, they'll cast up there and they won't quite get it and they're like, oh, dang it. And they'll yank it right out of the water immediately, like, okay, well. We're gonna have to move on to the next spot, then let's walk up another, you know, six, eight feet because whatever fish was right there, just saw your beetle, you know, explode from the creek.

And, uh, he's running for cover right now. So that's unlike any beetle [01:25:00] I've ever seen. What'd you say? I said, that's unlike any beetle I've ever seen. Exactly. I see that. It's like, ah, it's done. So would you say just a, a tactical thing right here, right. So would you say that, you know, you make a bad cast or a, a cast, that's not exactly where you want, you're better off playing that drift.

Fish it through. Cuz even with a ba like you could still catch a fish on a bad cast, but it's really hard to catch a fish on a bad retrieve. Mm. If that makes sense. Yep. Um, big thing if you're casting out and you're, say your leader kind of lands in a coil or a pile or your fly lines right next to it.

Point your rod directly at your fly and slowly and carefully strip that line away from your fly to straighten out your leader. And that's gonna give your fly a much better drift. And kinda like I mentioned earlier, with the longer leader, uh, discussion, um, it's not gonna look like there's just this big piece of PVC sitting right next to it's, you know, right next to a bug.

Um, so you're gonna spoof fewer fish that way if you can, [01:26:00] as you're casting when you come forward, stop your rod cuz that stopping of the rod is what actually, basically, if you think of your rod is a spring. Stopping that allows the spring to deload. And that's what forms the, the loop in your cast. You stop your rod and then as your fly line starts to lay out and straighten, then drop it to the surface.

Everything will lay out nice and easy. Um, and if you're, you know, finding that you're casting out and your, your fly line's hitting the water before your, your fly is, and everything's landing in a big, messy pile, um, take a hard look at where you're stopping your rod. Cause a lot of folks, they'll come forward and they'll just come straight down on it.

Yeah. And that'll just drive their fly line into the water rather than if you leave it, you know, say eye height or head height or slightly above, it's gonna shoot that line out and then you can just drop your rod tip, [01:27:00] uh, with everything. But dropping the rod tip after the cast is it, it really is crucial.

Cause that's gonna add about. Eight feet to your cast, um, because you're not gonna have your, if you leave your rod tip up, the weight of that fly line just creates a big sag and yanks everything back. Yeah. Not to mention your fly line, your fly rod's already, you know, up here. So if a fish were to eat as soon as you eat it, or as soon as you, you know, make that cast, you don't have that much range that you can get to actually, you know, lift your rod up, set the hook properly.

Not to mention you've gotta get through all the slack that's underneath your rod tip. So, no, that makes sense. Stopping your rod going out and then dropping the tip that everything lays out in a nice straight line. And then just retrieving line with the speed of the current, not so much that you're dragging your fly or moving it, but just retrieving with the speed of the current.

So you've got just a tiny bit of slack. So if a fish were to eat, um, you know, you can lift your rod and as soon as you lift it, you're putting tension into that line and [01:28:00] driving that hook into the fish. Yeah. Gotcha. Well, Pierce man, uh, I gotta go cook some kids' dinner. Uh, so this has been good, man. So we've covered, what's that?

I gotta go get some cleaning done. Yeah, I can ramble about this all day. No, this, this is great, man. And it's, so I, I thought that I wanted to, I knew I wanted to follow up, like we've talked gear specific for the last two. I knew I wanted to have another one later on that was more tactical because I've been thinking the whole time, like how much I learned, uh, about approach and how much I forget about the way I approach the water and just stealth in general, uh mm-hmm.

How fish relate to structure that came back to mind in the conversation, um, as we talked just now and then just casting mechanics and, and how, how important that can be and how you can, um, really shoot yourself in the foot by, oh shoot, I didn't get it where I wanted, ripping it back up and trying to recast it again.

Whereas like, you know, and, and then even from that [01:29:00] perspective, you know, if you try to cast and you didn't get it quite there, Well just see that one through and cast a little further with the next one. I mean, you're working your way in towards your target anyway, which is a better approach than trying to blast right in there necessarily anyway.

Exactly. So there's a lot of stuff. Shorter cast will catch more fish. Yeah. Almost all just creep your work your way up to where you see a fish, rising fish between you and that fish first, cuz sure you can make that cast to that fish, but then you're dragging him through other fish that may be there and then, okay, well you got one fish out of there when you coulda maybe got four or five, right?

That's right. That's right. The hole or the run or whatever it is, you're fishing will last longer and you'll, you'll end up pulling more fish from it. Um. Mm-hmm. The last time, actually no, not the last time, the time before I fished with you last time, uh, I fished a spot in the drift list where there was a, a tight curve and there was this bridge in, in the middle of a [01:30:00] cow pasture and the cows used it to cross from one pasture to the other.

Yeah. And I sat on this hole and pulled fish out of it for probably 45 minutes. Yeah. And we were like, like literally, I mean, I would, I would cast out, it got to the point where I was casting out into it and I was fishing with an indicator. Uh, I was, I did have a dropper, but it was really, really, I could tell it was a really deep hole.

Mm-hmm. So I just kept casting out into it. And it was almost out like I was fishing with a cane pole. Yeah. At, at this point. It was, it was like catching brim on, on a worm, except it was a fly and a, and a and a, you know, fly fly rod actually. Yeah. Um, so anyway, so lots of stuff that's been coming to mind that, that I need, that we, we should probably cover in, uh, in future episodes.

But, uh, people wanna get ahold of you. They wanna find out more information about fly fishing. They want you to take 'em fishing. Maybe they want, I mean, you do casting lessons and all kinds of stuff like that. Mm-hmm. So where can folks find more from you and, and get in touch with you? Yeah. Uh, good chance fly [01:31:00] fishing.com.

Good chance Fly fishing is my, my business. Um, Yeah, good chance fly fishing.com or if you're on Instagram, uh, just at good Chance Fly Fishing. Awesome, man. Well, thanks for coming on the show again. It's about time too, by the way, to start cranking out some deer talk. Uh, yeah, we, and by dear talk, I mean me and you personally, not on the podcast because I don't want people to know where we're at.

Uh, and we gotta start figuring out some plans for this fall. So, um, anyways. Absolutely. Yeah, man. Well good. Thanks for coming on again. You bet, man. Thanks for having me. That's all for this week's episode. As always, thank you so much for tuning in. If you dig this show, be sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever it is that you get your podcast.

While you're at it, if you could leave me a five star review, I would very much appreciate that. You can also follow along with my outdoor adventures on Instagram at the Wisconsin Sportsman or at How to Hunt. Dear. That's also the best way to get ahold of me. Suggest topics, guests, or questions that you'd like me to explore on the show.

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And until next time, make sure you make the time to get outside and enjoy the incredible natural resources that are ours as Wisconsin Sportsman.

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