WOT 246: Creating Dry Fly Movement Through Tying and Presentation in Pennsylvania with Eric Naguski

In this episode we WadeOutThere with Eric Naguski from Boiling Springs Pennsylvania.  Eric’s earliest memories all involve fishing.  He fell in love with the idea of problem solving from the beginning, catching fish from the dock of his father’s sailboat in Maryland.  A cousin gave him a fly rod and thus began his lifelong love of fly fishing. 

After childhood, Eric ended up back in his birth state of Pennsylvania, where he fished for nearly twenty-five years before deciding it was time to start guiding.  His guide service is called Rise Forms Fly Fishing.  Eric is also a voracious fly tyer, and is the author of the book Favorite Flies for Pennsylvania: 50 Essential Patterns from Local Experts. 

We discuss Erics’s love of topwater fly fishing in Pennsylvania, situations and techniques for imparting movement on dry flies, and tips for organization and efficiency in fly tying.

Learn More:
Favorite Flies for Pennsylvania: 50 Essential Patterns form Local Experts
RiseFormsFlyFishing.com
Instagram: @Riseformsff

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

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In this episode, we wait out there with Eric Nagusky from Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania. Eric's earliest memories all involved fishing. He fell in love with the idea of problem solving from the beginning, catching fish from the dock of his father's sailboat in Maryland. A cousin gave him a fly rod and thus began his lifelong love of fly fishing. After childhood, Eric ended up back in his birth state of Pennsylvania, where he fished for nearly 25 years before deciding it was finally time to start guiding. His guide service is called Rise Forms Fly Fishing. Eric is also a voracious fly tyre and is the author of the book Favorite Flies for Pennsylvania: 50 Essential Patterns from Local Experts. We discuss Eric's love of topwater fly fishing in Pennsylvania, situations and techniques for imparting movement on dry flies, and tips for organization and efficiency in fly tying. Welcome to the Wade Out There Fly Fishing Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Shemchuk. At Wade Out There, we believe fly fishing is special but not elite, and that anyone can become a great fly fisher if they are willing to go, learn, and teach. Join me as I talk with other fly fishermen and women about their unique journeys into fly fishing, the rivers they fish, and the tactics and philosophies they practice. For those who can never leave the river in their hearts, this podcast is dedicated to helping you make the memories that keep us all coming back to Wade Out There. Welcome, Eric. Thanks for being on the Wade Out There podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Thank you, Jason. I really appreciate you having me. It's an honor to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Oh, good. What's an honor to have you, sir, and especially coming straight from the river today. That's super cool. I'm excited. How was it out there today?

SPEAKER_02 1:49

It was pretty good today. It was a fun day. Um, it was a nice day outside, and we got a little bit of a weather window today before it gets nasty tomorrow and had a good time.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Okay. And you mentioned before you're really close to the river too. Pretty easy to compare.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Um yeah, it's like less than a minute.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Wow. That's great. So they meet you, the guy, the guests meet you right at your front door.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Yeah, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

It's a little too those two.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Right down the right down the street, really. At the fly shop, usually, which is literally if I take the long way, it's 45 seconds. Well, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

So you've designed quite a life for someone who loves to fly fish. I mean, you got it set up pretty good. Can you can you kind of walk me through the stages of your life that that brought you to this place? Because not everybody gets to that part uh right away. I know you've been fly fishing a while, but yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

I don't know. You marry if you're married, if you want to get married, marry somebody who knows what they're getting into. Yeah. I have a very understanding wife and very tolerant of my shenanigans. But I think as far as like setting it up, I think you don't rush it. I think that's the big thing. I think the patience part of it is is important. And it's fine, you know, you want to go be a fishing guide and do all that kind of thing. And that's great. And and there's definitely room for it and a place for people to do that. But I think if you want to be in it for the long haul, quite a bit of patience is is a good thing. And it's a small industry. This way, your actions speak louder than your words. Okay. I want you to like if you just I think if you just keep your head down and really focus and try to do the best you can do, um, whether it be fly tying, guiding, fishing, just just being a nice, kind human is probably the best thing you could do.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Those all sound like really good ideas in any line of work.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Right on.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Can you expand on the patience part of it a little bit more? Because you mentioned you want to go guide, like I guess that would be an impatient thing to do, or like it's not.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

I I guess I'm I'm I'm a I had to put it this way, I had to be conjoled into it. I think I had to be talked into it because where I am grew up here in South Central PA, and there's a well-documented and history and a community that's very cognizant of that history and have a lot of respect for the history that has gone on here and the innovation fly fishing that has happened here in the Cumberland Valley. Maybe I was overly aware of it or a little bit hesitant to call myself a fishing guide in in the Cumberland Valley. I mean, if you think about people like Marinero and Fox and like the current day people like Tom Baltz, I have a lot of respect for the ground I'm walking on and what's happened here. And I think when I talk about patience, I feel like I think you can go out and be a really good fishing guide. I do, uh, and not spend wait 25 years or however long I waited to sort of hang out the shingle. But I think uh it's good to be cognizant of where you are and what's happened here, whether it's here, whether it's on the you know, in Idaho on the Henry's Fork or any of these storied places in the Catskills on the Beaver Kill on the upper Delaware system. There's a market. So hey, if you if you could make some money doing this, it's great.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

You know I get what you're saying now. Can you talk to me a little bit about life before guiding and just fly fishing, how you got into fly fishing and maybe maybe a little bit about the time in your life where you were conjoled into, as you said, like what was that like and why I I I understand your hesitation now based on your explanation, but just kind of how that has gone for you since.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Yeah, well, I guess if you want to go, I want to start from the beginning. Um, I don't have any memories like age-wise where I didn't fish, put it that way. But growing up, my father was a uh big sailor. He had a sailboat. We had a sailboat on the eastern shore of Maryland. I learned how to swim, walk, pretty much everything on that sailboat. Although I don't really remember sailing a whole lot. I remember being in the marina. Remember fishing. And I'm not sure and what am I what else am I gonna do? I mean, there's nothing else to do. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't rafted up partying with my parents and their friends at age two. But yeah, so that's real literally, that's what I did. I fished. And I had no nobody said, oh, this is uh that's a carp. This is what you need to do to catch that fish, or that's a large amount bass, this is what you need to do. That's a straight bass, this is what you need. I just failed a lot. A lot of failure, a lot of trial and error, mixed in with some haphazard luck and success, and it's just stuck with me forever. And I have a family member, a cousin who's about 10 years, may actually maybe almost 20 years older than me, when I was 10 years old. He knew I liked to fish and all, and he stuck a fly right in my hands, and it it sort of has just stuck ever since then, you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

So what kept you coming back in the beginning when you were having those failures, especially in fly fishing? Uh was there something about fly fishing that really made you motion?

SPEAKER_02 7:11

The what? A defective gene? I don't know. I it's just problem solving, really. Like, well, it's a fish, it's right there. Why I have to I there's no reason I could shouldn't be able to catch things.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

There is a way I will find a way.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Right. There has to be a way. There has to be a way. People catch those things. Right. Like, like I remember being, again, my father was a sailor and he took some sailboats to back and forth to Bermuda. And I remember being in Bermuda one time, and this is probably 1976. This is so this is pre-fly fishing days for me. And I remember being at the house at where we were staying, and the guy was a bullfish captain, and he was like, Those are mullet, they don't eat, you can't catch those things. Hold my beach.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

And I challenged it. Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

And I figured out a way to catch those stupid things. They kind of hung around like a carp, and guess what? They ate a dough ball just like a carp did. And, you know, and uh it's that kind of thing. You know, you just figure it out. And I might not be successful, but there's some, like I said, some defective gene in me that makes me want to solve the puzzle. And that's the cool thing about not only fishing, but also guiding. I mean, it's always it's always a little different. You're either the conditions might be similar day to day, but I have a different infrastructure of water, I have a different person that I have to somehow, depending on how experienced they are, I have to sort of get them to fall into the same system that might work on that day. So it's always a puzzle, and it's always I think it's the fun of it is figuring it out.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Going back and getting it done.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Yeah, I haven't asked that question very often to many guides, but I would imagine that's part of the problem solving is the person you're helping. And that's 100%. I know that I was instructor in the Air Force, and I know that can be rewarding when the light bulbs come on, or maybe you've got some way of teaching and they don't get it, and you borrow some technique from somebody, and then it's like, oh, now they get it. And just having those tools and building those tools for teaching, I think is something that I really enjoyed about teaching in the Air Force.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Yeah. I mean, honestly, the hardest thing for me around here, guiding-wise, is getting away from other people. But the second hardest thing is trying to convey the mechanics of what all it it to me, especially when I'm I was like self-taught, like no one said you do this, then you do that, then you do this, then you do that. This is where you hold your line. This is nobody ever told me that stuff. Like I remember getting an issue of Fly Fisherman magazine, and it said, uh, double haul, you gotta learn how to double haul. This is what you get. I mean, there's no way you're ever gonna catch a fish that can't double haul. So I took the magazine out in the backyard, I laid it out, and I'm I'm doing and I'm I'm doing what it says, and then I realized I was already doing it, but I didn't know I didn't even know what a haul was. You know, I just was just doing it. So it's that kind of thing that if you could convey that those for me, it's a little bit more difficult because I never had that step-by-step instruction. But you know, over the years you kind of get stuff that you find stuff that clicks with people, and uh, you know, some things work better. There's a thousand different analogies for things, and some analogies whether you're throwing pain or hammering nails or whatever. Yeah. Um, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

I remember that with the pile cast. I remember when someone first told me we're gonna let's do a pile cast. I'm like, oh okay, yeah, show me, show me how to do this. Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

All right, I know what this is. This is like, you know, right. This is what you do when you're in this situation. It doesn't have a name, but this is what you do.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Picky picky fish with uh small dry flies, and you know.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Exactly. And to this day, when people talk about steeple casts or pile casts, like I honestly, I mean, I think I know what they're talking about, but I'm not exactly sure.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

But uh that's cool. So you've been are you been in Pennsylvania this whole time, or did you uh been fishing?

SPEAKER_02 11:12

No, I I grew up in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which is about you know 40 minutes from where I am now in Boiling Springs and in the Crumbling Valley. So I grew up fishing around here and a little bit further to the north, northern tier of the state, in like the Pine Creek and Cattle Creek watersheds. And um but then once I got a driver's license, man, I was I was good. You know, I could go anywhere. And we I was over here in the Cumberland Valley a lot, fishing the La Torte and Big Spring. And it's a good learning ground. I'll tell you what, you it the expectations were always, you know, if you caught a fish, you're doing pretty good, you know, on the on the especially on the spring creeks. And uh you know, those wildfish in those spring creeks are uh a different animal.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Different than any other place I've ever fished, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

One thing that first of all, I've been to Hershey, Pennsylvania when I was a kid. My family's from New Jersey, and we used to go up to the Poconos, and I remember a stuffed Hershey kiss for like a long time when I was a kid from Hershey, Pennsylvania. But one of the things that struck me about when I would visit back east, because I'm from Washington originally and spent some time in Montana, and I know we talked about the show a little bit about your sons in Montana, but things are closer. You can get around places. I remember talking to my dad about that when I was a kid and asking him, you know, what that was like, and he said not a lot of people took advantage of it as much as you would think. And I think that that's something cool about fishing that it kind of pulls you to go different. And I'm not saying it's like super close, but compared to like driving around Montana, it's states are closer together, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Yeah, they're they're closer together, but not only that, when you say that it's kind of sparked something in my head that and I'm sure you other people have said this. Anybody you've talked to from Pennsylvania have said, you know, we have more the only other state that has more freshwater river miles in the United States is Alaska.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Yeah, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

So there's a heck of a lot of options within a two-hour radius of anywhere in Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

And a lot of diversity in those two hours, in that two-hour radius. I could be, you know, I could be fishing, you know, Spring Creek here in the valley, or I could be up around State College in the central part of the state, fishing up there, or you know, and there's it's just different water. I could be, I could be muskie fishing 10 minutes from me, you know, I I could be smallmouth bass fishing, I could, I could be trout fishing on a spring creek, I could be trout fishing on a freestone, or I could be trout fishing on a tail water, all you know, within an easy day's drive. Or a couple, you know, a day trip, not a day's drive, but a day trip back and forth.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Is that something that surprises people, you think, when they come out there?

SPEAKER_02 16:23

I don't know. Maybe. If anybody stays long enough, I think they and they're s and they're you know they're an angler, I think it's they realize what they're what they're they've got themselves into. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah, maybe not the person that just comes to trout fish, but yeah, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

We we're kind of a des here in the Cumberland Valley, we're we're somewhat of a destination, so a lot of people come here just for the day and you know want to do a a trip and do some fishing in the Cumberland Valley because they read about it or they you know they heard about it or something like that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

I've been out there one time fishing in Pennsylvania, trout fishing, and we were talking before the show, but it's just I love I think Pennsylvania is a beautiful state, different but beautiful in different ways, you know. It's just yeah, I love the forest and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

We talked about I think a lot I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Keep going.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

I was just gonna say I think the other thing about Pennsylvania is if you do stay here and you you fish here and you you you experience all the diversity that the state has to offer, you become a pretty good fisherman. You become a pretty good angler because you you see a lot of different things and you see a lot of different you see a lot of different water types, you see a lot of different fish that may not act the same from stream to stream. Whether it be a brown trout that you know lives in the La Torte or a brown trout that lives in in Spruce Creek or you know, they're all they're all they all act a little bit different. And whether it be their prey items or their f the fishing pressure, I'm sure it's all the above, really. But it's it it people are there's a there's a lot of good anglers in Pennsylvania, but there's a lot of good anglers everywhere. But uh I think if you're really at it, you put the time in here, you can catch fish anywhere, especially trout.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Well, I'm excited to talk to you more about that, especially the visual aspect of it and some of the things that get you excited about the sight fishing or the visual aspect of all these kind of multi-species and different areas that you're talking about right now. Before I move on, though, I do want to ask, what was it like when your son said he wanted to go to Montana State in that fishery? And like what was that conversation? Was that like sweet reason to go to Montana and fish?

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Or yeah, it was like for him, yeah. No, yeah, pretty much. I mean, he was he was he's been very academically focused. And but yeah, I mean, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited about going and getting experienced that, you know. Did he is he a fisherman? Is he was he he does? He fit he never says no. Well, I shouldn't say he never says no because like I couldn't get him to blow off classes to go fishing with me several times when I was at oh man. I know it was weird. I was like, maybe there should be a paternity team.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

My dad on the I told you my dad went to Montana State and he blew him up so much. They kicked him out.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

They kicked him out of school. That would have been me. That would have been me, 100%. You know, somebody if if my dad would have come out there at age 19 or 20 or 21 or whatever and said, Hey, let's go to an island park for five days and fish. I definitely wouldn't have had his the same response that he had. That was, oh, I can't, I have classes.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Yeah, that was my dad just he's like I said, they're from Jersey and he moved out there and just he was done. He was like, What is this?

SPEAKER_02 19:32

And uh and if he's not the old he's not the only one.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

In fairness to him, he's I'm sure maybe he's probably not listening to this, but uh he did re-enroll in school and graduate. Uh so he is a bobcat. But yeah, I was just curious if he was a fisherman and that was part of his motivation, or if that was just a bonus to me.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

I know it was kind of just a bonus for me, as far as he from his standpoint. You know, he just wanted to go um someplace He didn't want to do a full tech school. He's an engineer, so computer engineering. He didn't want to do a full tech school, he didn't want to go to a giant university like Penn State where there's 50,000 students, and he wanted to go someplace cold, and it's wound up at MSU.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

It's cold there.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

It does get cold.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Okay. Well, let's talk about the visual and the sight aspect of fly fishing in Pennsylvania, but you know, all areas of your life and fly fishing. I'm interested in your perspective from you know all the different places you've been and fished. But why is that, or maybe chronologically, can you walk me through the part of your fly fishing experience where that became something that you valued more than other more than other things, you know?

SPEAKER_02 20:52

Sure. You know, when I was a when I was a kid and fishing in the northern tier of the state a lot, it was the dry fly thing, you know. If I saw that fish come up and, you know, eat that fly, you know, that was for me, it was a completely different experience than um tight lining. And yeah, there was tight lining back in the 80s or 70s, tight lining some deep hole, and I just hook up. It's cool. Don't get me wrong, it's great to have success when you're fishing. But it's a different to me, it's a different experience than when you see a fish rise, you target that fish, you watch that fish for a little bit, and you kind of figure out what they're trying to figure out what they're eating. And you know, if you can somehow make that presentation, either, okay, you cast that fish and it didn't eat your fly, well, why didn't it eat my fly? Is it the fly? Is it is it was there drag? Was it you know what's going on? And once you solve those couple little riddles and you have some success, and you see, I mean you're visually seeing the the body language of that fish. Sometimes that fish comes up and looks at your fly, then turns away. Well, okay, that might not have been was that presentation, did it drag, or was it the fly? Same thing. Okay. And once you sort of eliminating variables, it's almost like visual confirmation of what you're either doing right or doing wrong.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Yeah, for sure. You know, so and um it started with trout, and then you moved on to other species.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

I mean Yeah, I mean, once I got and I there was always a good bass, smallmouth bass fishery around here, uh Susquehanna River and Junia River and the and the tribs to those big rivers. But then again, it's okay back to that top water summertime. You know, you throw that that popper out there, and either you if you popped it and the wakes were going away from your popper, or the wakes were coming to your popper and you just twitched it and they ate it. It's again, it's it maybe I'm just impatient and I want that immediate gratification that I'm doing something right.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Well, we talked about patience at the beginning. Patience isn't well right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Well, I think again, it just comes back to watching the body language of those fish. And I think it uh for some for some reason it just sticks in your mind. I mean, I have vivid memories of specific instances of whether it be a trout, whether it be a smallmouth bass, of what happened step by step to either catch or not catch a fish. I don't know if I logged, I I guess I logged those memories into okay, this worked in this situation, this didn't work. Maybe we should try whenever I see similar situations or I see similar behavioral cues from a fish, those past experiences then lend themselves to solving that immediate situation, puzzle or what situation. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

So um is it fair to say that as you've kind of grown in your breadth of fly fishing experience when you go into these new geographic areas or different species, you're kind of do you lead with that visual, like, okay, let's figure that out first, like kind of thing?

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Yeah, a hundred percent. And maybe it's a shortcut because again, if you're blind fishing, if you're it's been here, you're just throwing, you're sitting on the end of a jetty and you're throwing out some sort of plug and it's swim swim bait or whatever, you can't really see you can't see what that lower what that lure is doing. You can't see, you know, you retrieve, okay, if I'm like so there's a little bit of a variable you're in control of, but you can't really see how that fish is reacting to your offering. Whereas if it's in a site fishing situation, you have more control of what you're doing or what the what the fly is doing, or even a lure too. It applies for spin fishing as well. You have more control of the situation. I think it it just builds your knowledge base and it who doesn't want to see a fish come up and eat their dry fly it's cool.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

I mean everybody I mean I don't know anyone who's like nah not for me but some people like nymphs it's cool.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Yeah it it it is it is and it's really cool. You know okay yeah if that bobber went down you're watching the bobber go down but why did it go down? What was it? What was it about that was it the drift I'm at the point now where I could I'm not saying it happens all the time but even today it's okay to if it's okay if it's true. But you can sort of tell when the bobber's moving the right speed in the right point in the right spot in the current seam you know that's a better drift than other ones. Sure. Yeah whether whether or not gets eaten or not but probably 90% of the time I'm not surprised that the that fly got that's good that's a good one. Right. Exactly and that happened even just today that happened numerous times today. Right. I had a brand new angler today never fought never caught he'd fly fish once before never caught a trout and I could tell him I said okay see that one that was a good one and right about there she and you know they the the the stupid bobber would go down and we would catch you know he'd hook a fish.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

So nice so I'm gonna ask you a tactical question. It's kind of broad in its kind of range but are there commonalities? So are are there things that you can talk to or for somebody listening who's like yeah I also love dry fly fishing and but I'm in this area maybe I just moved to Pennsylvania and I want to branch out what are some things that you think you've picked up with the different geographical areas that are kind of common threads for the visual fishing be there at the right time right time. Well yeah like a hatch I mean that's that's totally that's a really good thing.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

It's true it's true. I be there at the right time and that's really nice for somebody like me to say when I live 30 seconds from the from the stream or I have got 45 years of experience you know fishing dry flies and experiencing Pennsylvania hatches that's really great. That's nice of you but um nice of you give me that advice but I think you spend the time on the water after a while you kind of learn a couple things and even if it's the same water you know you put your time in and sort of things when your windows opportunity will show themselves over time. And I think that if um you go okay you're in Pennsylvania you get a chance to go to Pennsylvania in mid or early early May late April early May okay well we'll probably might see some depending on where we are might see some Hendricksons we might see some March Browns. So with the internet today it's that's that's easy stuff. You can just go on and say what might I what might I expect to see and as far as the bugs go. And okay hedge your bets this is what I should have there's a ton of ton of knowledge out there now. I mean the the learning curve is way way shorter.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Well I mean you kind of bring that up and I was laughing and you were laughing and it sounds obvious in some ways it is obvious and but the way you bring it up you're like well easy for you to say because you have all this experience etc but for someone who's listening who wants to get into a topwater game like that's still I mean that's valid right like start paying attention to that if you want this to happen and and not just for trout but if you take it to like smallmouth or any other type of fish that you're trying to catch on the surface there's probably a time of day where it's more likely to happen and if that's what you're targeting if that's the tactic you're trying to use sure start looking for those windows and tracking it and paying attention to it. And I think that's yeah that I I think that is something that can often get lost right especially my experience is mostly trout fishing but you go out and you're like I want to catch you know I remember being like I want to catch fish with dry flies today. So I'm going to fish dry flies today and I'd fish all day and maybe not catch any fish until right around here and now I catch him fish and then not so much and that was you know that was a while ago but if you don't respect that kind of part of mother nature like you're not gonna that the fish are going to eat on the surface only a certain time.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

And maybe I don't want to think about how many days I've I've had that same conversation with myself. I'm gonna just give a shot and I don't catch a fish at some days I don't a lot of days I don't even make a cast yeah um and I'm that's fishing for myself and I I'm not a big numbers guy. I really never have been for some reason but anyway again it goes back to solving the puzzle and whether it's a situational thing or a time thing where okay this time of year I'll try to hedge my bets. Yeah this stream's kind of low but it's but it's the it's the beginning of May and that means okay there might be March Browns and low water march browns those fish are going to see those big bugs and they're gonna eat them you know and so that's where I want to be what about water temps and environmentals because I think that again my experience is mostly trout but I think that plays a role in it.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

What about taking that to other species? Have you noticed that as well?

SPEAKER_02 30:24

Oh yeah yeah for sure I noticed that yesterday spalmouth bass we were we did a float yesterday and we had a big 20 degree temperature drop um air temperature and a bunch of rain and I was like you know these fish I think they're gonna be a little sluggish today and they were so we just slowed down the retrieve and we gave them a big fly that moves like it moves a ton and just big changers or big swinging D's and anything that wiggles a lot without doing anything to the fly and we got incredible visual and we didn't really impart that much action to the fly we just had to keep it in their zone as best we could for as long as we could and it turned out to be an amazing day. Like we were arguing this was a fun fish day we were arguing on who was going to row because we were both kind of sick of catching fish not sick of catching fish but like okay this is silly kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Like the problem the problem solving is over we have this right yeah you're right the we had sufficient data points yeah for sure uh yeah I wrote a blog post about that it's called what makes a good day's fishing and it's about a day I had like that where it was like I was just catching fish left and right. It was in Montana up in the mountains cutthroat trout and it was such a wonderful day and such a great memory for me but it wasn't you know we just had a box of dry flies that we pulled out of the trapper's lodge and that was it I mean we just threw it and caught fish and threw and caught fish and it wasn't really I mean I don't even know if we were fishing really we were just catching fish you know what I mean right right exactly but it doesn't make it any more less fun I think it was super fun no no yeah who doesn't it's super fun but it's funny you say you say that because there's a lot of days where if I'm I and I and I don't I don't get as many days to fish for myself during prime time as I used to but when I do I'll get at the end of the day I'll be man that was a great day that was so fun. And I'll think about it well I only caught three or four three or four fish but it was the situation that those fish were in you know and so it's just no I know what you mean yeah those days they it doesn't seem like you didn't catch that many fish it's a different kind of good because it feels like you had this awesome day and then you go back and you're like you didn't I mean you didn't catch that many fish but right or you know it's just a window of time really where things hit. Sometimes it's like the day kind of just I can never get my finger on it and it's just sporadic throughout the day and then sometimes it's like all right I got it like for this window of time. But I tell people too is if you're not out there kind of over the course of that day you might not ever hit that window. You got to put the time in to get it right absolutely nothing replaces time on the right um I want to ask a little bit more about kind of topwater stuff is there anything that stands out in your brain with visual fishing that is kind of a lesson learned that repeats itself or maybe it's a common mistake that people make or something that just recently surprised you like a recent lesson learned where you're like oh that that's interesting or ah yeah I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Right. I think if we're talking trout I mean I think what I've learned in the last maybe decade or 15 years or so has been that a little bit of movement in your dry flies is not necessarily a bad thing. Depending on how you do it. And especially when there's a lot of bugs on the water or big bugs like I say for for us on the East Coast it's you know it's it's uh March Browns or Isonicia slate drakes or green drakes or whatever. A little bit of movement probably helps you. I think one of the ways that I have sort of come to approach that situation or tactic is a lot of times if I have a fish that I see if there's a numer a good number of bungs on the water but you can visually watch that fish he only eats the ones that are fluttering around the 25 duns that are perfectly posed on the water flight they they go right over this fish but he only eats the ones that are flopping around. Well what I like to do is I'll put a cast to that fish past his feeding lane maybe with somewhere within his his window of vision if it depending on water depth where he is you know where that is could be three feet could be six feet I'll go past his feeding lane and then when I put that mend in I'll put a mend in and that's gonna move the fly towards him and towards me and towards his feeding lane and it puts that fly right in his feeding lane with a little bit of movement.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Yeah and sometimes that's a trigger you can do that with the mend yeah exactly can you talk a little bit about the differences you see with different types of dry flies like a a a dun versus a caddis or do you uh do you get into the weeds that far?

SPEAKER_02 35:42

Uh yeah uh let's do it me get let's me get into the weeds let's go let's go deep um well I don't know how deep I am but but yeah no for sure and and a lot of this is historical stuff that like you talk about Jim Leicestering and the Leicestering lift and people think the leicing lift a lot of people think it's you're lifting your rod you're moving the fly what it is is it's actually your lip like it's so he you have say he we did it with like uh wet flies and flimps and so but you can do it really well with like a catus emerger like a uh like a a Renee Harris bubble back caddis or or something like that. Really any buoyant catass emerger uh La Fontaine's uh emergent sparkle pupo um again you can when you make that lift if you're tight to that fly you have enough length of line to get your fly past that fish and you lift your rod tip up that that's gonna pull that fly underneath the water and then right before you get to that fish if you drop that rod tip that fly is going to pop up to the surface of the water okay and so that's really the lift is lift pull the lift is pulling the fly under but when you drop the rod tip you're putting introducing some slack into the system and it's letting that fly use its natural buoyancy to come up to the surface like it's like it's emerging.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

And if you can time it right in front of that fish I mean that's a trick that's a cool thing to practice I mean yeah that's kind of fun to go out there you got to get yourself in the right position.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

It's got to be a downstream presentation and sometimes that's not possible depending on depth and whatever you know but uh but you know yeah so it applies that kind of movement depending on I mean I have my academic background is in aquatic ecology and aquatic entomology. So I mean I've spent some time thinking about bugs and um it uh situational species even different species of bugs you're talking about you could be talking about like a granum caddis in the summertime or I'm sorry in the springtime early spring it could be cold out and so that caddis is popping up to the surface but it's so darn cold I've had seen days bright sunny days where these the the granoms are popping off but it's so darn cold they're not taking off but they still use their their legs as swimmers and they're moving across the surface and I one day the one fly I tie it's got a flux caddis I was like how do I give some leg movement in in a okay there's already great caddis patterns out there if you look at like an elk caddis and an elk or a CDC an elk or deer hair or an ex caddis they're all pretty much the same they all look like a caddis and they're gray flies. But how do I get that leg movement in there? Yeah I tried just to add a couple some rubber legs some smallest rubber legs I could find. And you know that's how that fly came about. It's all about observation and situational. But then you have later summer later season caddys that are popping straight out and so then you you have to somehow figure out how to imitate that mergence behavior and mayflies are the same. You have big lumbering mayflies like our drakes that kind of just flop around and like do what I was talking about earlier.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Or you have like Isenicas slate drakes that are really strong swimmers and they're blasted to the surface and popping out as adults or what about mayflies do you find providing movement with mayflies because to me I definitely have caddis and and some of the bigger bugs I've never the the the mending and the kind of movement it's pretty sloppy you know when I'm doing it but I know I know what I'm doing you know I'm I'm I'm trying to do something intentionally but I find with Mayflies I don't know I've heard or I perceive that it's not as beneficial.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

Is there times when it is or when like the movement in a mayfly yeah I think so I think the a lot of the ephemeralid species that we have like the like the sulfurs or like the PMDs or the the flabs or like uh here the Hendricksons same thing all those all those ephemeralids they're big hatches for us they're like I don't know whatever they call super hatches whatever I don't know but when there's so many bugs on the water I really find that fish tend to cue in on cripples so a little bit of movement is not necessarily a bad thing. It used to the old adage used to be you go up a size or go down whatever. I I don't know but I think if you can make your fly stand out it doesn't I'm not talking about dragging your fly across the water I'm talking I'm talking just a little just like just the tiniest little usually done with like a right like little tiny exact and it has to be at the right time it has to be within that fish's you know field of vision and but yeah I mean I I've I have definitely caught fish that ignored perfectly drag free drifts with an upright dun or even an emerger you put on a cripple of some sort um I really like uh Kelly Gallops with the cripple with the bent shank that's a good fly uh for me for me that's a good fly and part of that might just be that they don't see a lot of them okay but yeah if you time that little movement right so the timing of it is very important too it's huge the pre like every like every every this is nothing new presentation size color you know the presentation is everything first of all you gotta get the fly there right you know and you gotta make it look right and what is right changes.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

Well I think what you brought up that sticks with me is the the foresight ahead like okay this is the plan I'm gonna use movement so I'm gonna need to cast someplace so that when I'm imparting that movement it's I've given myself some room I guess you know what I mean yeah yeah you've got to give yourself you've got to think about it and kind of plan ahead if you're gonna do that. I think that's I I mean I'm a big believer in habit patterns and so for me my habit pattern is cast mend natural drift right and then there's a time and a place where I'll deviate from my habit pattern and I'm doing that very intentionally. So if I don't have a good habit pattern then I get lost in like I'm trying to do this or I'm trying to do that and I don't have the basics it makes these kinds of techniques kind of I don't know not less valid but just harder to kind of be deliberate with you know it's if you don't intentional and that's something that I think that you brought up that is really insightful and something that I will bring to when I'm trying to impart movement like thinking about those types of things not just like the timing of the cast or the distance of the cast but the timing of the movement right that's huge.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

And I think a lot of that comes and what you can do with a dry fly for a presentation to trout your position in relationship to that fish is huge in that the the mech just the mechanics of that I can't tell you how many times over the years I have missed the same fish continuously I've gotten that same fish to eat the fly ten times. All I do is move my physical body to a different position and oh wait I hooked that fish. I don't always catch them but once I've figured it out how you can get that fish to eat the fly but I'm not hooking that fish okay well what's going on and it's either the hook or the the fly it's not usually the fly it's usually the hook or my position for the hook set which is incredibly important too.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

I'm a big believer in moving my feet to help my presentation and it could be 100% because I have you know a weakness in casting or something but I really feel like when I am able when I move around you can really really help yourself out in a lot of situations where 100% I'm never going to make this happen if I have to cross all these seams but if I can get up and angle down and put just one mend in here then I'll float right through there and that you know that may maybe it's not worth it all the time but a lot of times it is but I get lazy sometimes and I try to do stuff that I know is not even when I'm starting out I like there's no way there's no way but um you know I you get lazy and you do that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

But yeah you're 100% correct I think and uh it goes back to presentation.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

What about the visual aspect of we talked a lot about flies and fly lines and casting what about the visual aspect of the fish and observing the fish and how that affects your presentation or your yeah your visual presentation or would would you change flies because of what you saw or would you I mean we you we've talked about changing angles but how would how would the orientation the demeanor if that's a if a fish can have a demeanor I don't know if that's a real thing but no it's I think so how does that affect you when you're out there um pursuing this I mean if you have a fish that's coming up just every you know every 10 seconds to eat a eat a dung upright dung that's floating over top of the thing I mean that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

I feel like that's a catchable fish. You know and uh um if you get you know just put that fly over top of that fish it's a good chance that fish is going to eat that fly. But if you have a fish that's that I think I talked a little we I talked a little bit about it earlier who like 20 of those duns went over but it didn't want that fish or I mean it didn't want those flies. It wanted something that was flopping around or laying on its side one wing's up one wing's almost flat on the water you know with that kind of thing like a knockdown done. I think that affects fly choice for sure. You know a lot of fish that are eating cripples or mergers um you know fly choice comes into play big time. I think that imprint of what that what that insect looks like from underneath it's huge. If you have whether that fish is cured In on the one wing laying on the water, or both wings laying on the water, or upright wings, or the body's kind of tweaked out, and there's shuck hanging off the thing. Who knows? But all those things come into play, and that's why I walk around with a ton of flies.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

Right. Um well I want to talk to you more about the flies that you tie and fly tying. But I just there's one last thing I kind of wanted to hit on, and I don't know if you experienced this, but you know, when I'm looking at fishing on the surface, uh sometimes I'll find a fish, right? And it's a really nice fish, right? And I know that that there's dry fly action going on, but this fish is just not it's not participating as much. Do you think that is I don't know, what do you think that is? Or to me, it just makes me like, okay, I'm gonna have to kind of take my time on this one so that I get the best presentation. But is there do you think that when the hatch is on that that those types of fish are still I don't know. Have you experienced that or would you have any thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_02 47:27

My initial thought is that somebody already caught that fish and he's sulking. That's valid. If if there's a ton of bugs on the water, like what's wrong with them? Come on, buddy. Yeah, right. If you're not gonna play with me, I'm not gonna play with you. Um but no, I think I think a fish like that, you know, who knows why it's not why it's not. You know, who knows why it's not. But I you know, okay, if you really want to focus on that fish, what is he doing? Is he still feeding? If you can see him that well, is he still feeding? What's he doing? Is he moving side to side? Is he moving up? Is he moving, is he where is he positioned? Is he sulking? Something happened to him, you know, who knows? Uh an osprey might have just had him in his talent or talons. Who knows? You know, um, or somebody could have just tried to floss him and stuck an egg in his side. Yeah, who knows? You know, those fish, those fish are jerks. And there's a we have I I mean, most of the fish around here are jerks all the time. So I'm used to that. Um Do you have a story?

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Do you have a this is a topwater story that sticks with you? And maybe it's a fish that got away and you learned something from it, Eric.

SPEAKER_02 48:32

Those are the only ones I recorded. Let's get one of those.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

I know it's putting you on the spot with story time, but is there something that could be recent? It doesn't have to be the story, but anything that stands out as something particular with a visual kind of fishing experience.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Yeah, I there was a there was uh a number of years ago. We were on the uh some friends of mine and uh and I were on the Beaver Kill about this time of year in New York, and it was it was bright sun out, and there were March Browns on the wall. And stopped at this one spot where you can't really you can't see the pool from the road, but there's a pull-off where you can look up about a legitimate, probably the better part of a quarter of a mile, and I could see splashes from a quarter of a mile away. And I was like, okay, we're going there, and we went up there and just had a phenomenal day. Again, it wasn't a big numbers day, but we caught quality fish. They were all 19 to 22 inches long, and they were just eating those March Browns, but the water was really deep, so like trying to find a rock that I can I was already in over my waders and wet, and finally found a rock I could stand on and not be, you know, filling up my waders with water and um sawfish. And I put the first cast, it was far too. I mean, it's probably one of the deepest pools on the beaver kill. And um it was probably a 60 better part of 60, 70 foot cast. And I finally could get my fly. There's a big eddy in between me and the fish. So it was a weird presentation. Finally got that I could get my I got a fly over the fish, and that fish came up and ate that fly, and and I broke them off instantly. And that fish is one of the ones that that haunts me forever. It was, I mean, who I don't know how big. Whatever. It could have been it could have been 18, it could have been 30. Okay, I don't know. It was big, whatever. It was a good fish.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

Let's say it was 28 and a half. Well, let's just say it yeah, sure. Whatever. Did you learn anything from it? Would you have done anything different, or it's just them?

SPEAKER_02 50:49

There was nothing else I could, it was just nothing I could do. I mean, it was just in a spot. It's always those fish that are in the spot that you just can't get yourself into position to get really a decent, even if you can present the fly well enough for them to eat it, it's too far away.

SPEAKER_03 51:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

It's it's you know, to get a good hook set on the thing, or you know, I had already caught a couple fish that were, you know, like low 20s before that one. And did I check my tippet? No. You know, sure. So it's that there's there's the learner, there's the there's the lesson right there. Check your tippet.

SPEAKER_00 51:26

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

It's that's a real thing.

SPEAKER_00 51:29

I caught a fish. I lost a fish, the same thing. You know, I had caught some fish, and it was like it was almost like a section of water where I'm like, I'm gonna I'm gonna fish that. I'm probably gonna get snagged up, but whatever. I might lose a fly in this, but it'll be worth it. Because I feel like there's a nice fish in there. And there was, and and I even but I this one stands out because I remember thinking, I mean, you should probably change your tippet. Because if you do catch this fish, and it was just laziness, Eric. It was just I was just lazy.

SPEAKER_02 52:02

You just reminded me of a of a worse story. But yeah, yeah, it is, it's tall.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

I was just like, as soon as it happened, I'm like, I caught the as soon as I hooked the fish, I'm like, I'm not catching this fish, I'm not gonna catch it. And it broke the tidbit.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Gone. Right. Yeah, I've done that like late summer here. Um in the in uh well it was on Penn Creek. Doesn't matter where on Penn's Creek, it was on Penn's Creek. There Pens Creek is a great creek, there's a ton of bugs, there's a lot of nice fish from like like 14 to 19 inches. A 19-inch fish on Pens is a big fish. This fish was bigger than that. I've caught some bigger ones. This fish is bigger than that. But I had been upriver from there, and there were some, it was September, they get real small betas in the fall, like 22 on like 6x, and I tie those on like a TMCA 2488, so it's a 2x 2x short. These are small bugs. And I went down to another spot and I put an ant on, and I knew when I put the ant on, I didn't need 6x in this spot. This is stupid, but again, it's so first cast in this spot that I know that always holds fish, giant head comes up and eats it. Same thing, just gone. Yeah, instantly. There's nothing I could do.

SPEAKER_00 53:23

I didn't have it for very long either.

SPEAKER_02 53:24

So yeah, it's uh it's like but again, it's just lazy. You think, why? Why didn't I? But whatever. Then I wouldn't have a story. Woe is us, Eric. Right, yeah. Uh it's that I feel like that's a truly worth first world problem. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

All right. I want to move on to fly tying, if you're up for it. And some seasonality of fly tying and such and how you approach it. But before I do, is there anything about visual fishing that you think is underrated or underappreciated, or just something that we haven't covered that if we don't bring this up, you'll feel like we we didn't get your whole take on the visual site fishing?

SPEAKER_02 54:05

The only thing I would say about it is and it it doesn't it not only applies to trout, it applies to smallmouth bass, or it applies to stray bass or tarpon or bonefish or whatever. It doesn't matter. Wherever you encounter the the opportunities, if you're fortunate enough that uh which I have been to to to put yourself in those situations where you can see those fish eat, is to I guess temper your expectations and just kind of for me if you can immerse yourself in that situation and watch the behavior of those fish again, no matter what it is, it's always a learning experience. Even if they don't eat the fly, there's a reason why they didn't eat the fly. If they did eat the fly, there's a reason why they did. I think to temper your expectations and have a have a realistic outlook on first of all why you're there and what your real goal is. I mean, yeah, we ever like I said before, it's fun to catch fish, no doubt. And you know, to travel and fish, it costs a lot of money. Yeah, it's fun to catch fish and to have a photo of you holding a you know a bone fish in you know in Mexico or Belize or whatever, or Seychelles. But you know, I I always think back on, you know, what am I why am I really doing this? And I don't know that I have a really good answer for that, but I don't pretty sure it's not because I caught 72 fish today. You know, that's not that's not my answer. And I think everybody likes to be successful at what they do, but I think if you t have a realistic expectation of what it means to be a successful fisherman, that sight fishing thing kicks in and you start talking about how many eats you had. It's like grouse hunting. Like I'm a grouse hunter. I talk about flushes, I don't talk about how many birds I killed. You know, I talk about because believe me, I don't kill that many. Um, you know, I think it's uh you think about why you're doing what you're doing. So why are you doing what you're doing? I don't know. I said, like I said, I don't know that I have a good answer for that. Defective gene. I don't know. I think it's I think it's because you solved the puzzle, or you've at least tried to. And it's a more intimate interaction with that fish when you have you have to have a certain level of stealth, especially when you're talking about saltwater flats fishing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

And uh it's a different way of being in nature, right? You can walk along the side of a river and you're not gonna have the same experience as wading through that river, turning over rocks, figuring it out. I see the fish, what's it doing? How am I? And that's why the visual thing to me is so exciting. Because it you are it's even more, even more than nymphing or it's just all the way down in a visceral part of the inside of me. I'm gonna figure this out because some ancestor, if I don't figure this out, I'm not gonna eat, right? So yeah, maybe that's the part of me. It's like I need to figure it out, right?

SPEAKER_02 57:15

Like if something happens, I can catch a fish, you know. I don't know. I don't know, and maybe that's it.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

Maybe that's yeah, it's that could be you know not true, but I don't know. In my brain, I think that maybe maybe that's part of it. Right off, all right. Well, that was a lot on visual fishing, and it was good. Sorry, I appreciate that. No, that was awesome. I want to get into the fly tying, and you're guiding year-round, and you're tying flies, and I know fly tying is something that you think a lot about and care a lot about and spend a lot of energy in, and you've got to do it year round. I guess my first question is how do you approach it or do you approach it with any kind of organization or productivity in mind? And I know there's like there's the like the goal and reality, so it's okay if they don't meet exactly. I'm not asking like you to profess that you are perfect, but is there a way? Is there a way to approach fly tying like that that you think is beneficial?

SPEAKER_02 58:21

Uh yeah, I wish I could do it, it would be great. I look at I'm super envious of people. Like, I look at their fly boxes and they're all like all these rows of these perfectly tied flies, and first of course, first thing that comes to my mind is like, well, that obviously that person doesn't fish. But that's not true. I know plenty of people that fish a ton and they tie perfect flies that all look the same. And but no, I like to think in some years I'm I'm are better at it than others, where I'll get my, you know, unfortunately or fortunately, we do as far as from my guiding for trout, you know, it's it's we it's pretty much it's a lot of nymph fishing. Um, so if I can I have a few, you know, maybe eight patterns or so that that I sort of just rotate through during the day that I know are are effective. If I can stock up on those, I I'd I'll do that.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

So these are like nymph confidence patterns that you have.

SPEAKER_02 59:23

Sure, 100%. And and there's nothing groundbreaking about any of them really. I think a lot of them are tractor stuff, variations on a pheasant tail. Um you know, in the book, favorite fly, my book for favorite flies of Pennsylvania, it you know, they it they travel everywhere. There's uh all those flies in that book, no matter doesn't matter where you go. It's a lot of attractors kind type stuff. I mean, the one good thing, you know let me back up. Okay, not the one good thing. There's lots of good things that have come out of comp competition fishing, but you know, there's a lot of really easily tied, super productive fly patterns that have come out of that world. And um, you know, why wouldn't you utilize that kind of thing? I mean, it's especially in when the name of the game is literally to catch fish. People are people are paying me to so they can catch a fish. Right. Well, guess what we're gonna do today? We're gonna fish this blowtorch, and the fish is gonna eat it, whether you catch that fish or not. I can put you on top of the fish and I can tell you what to do. Yeah, but patterns like that, like blowtorches, variations on a pheasant tail, thread Frenchie, some variation on a hair's ear, you know, and you know, you're good to go.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:38

These are some of your confidence nymph flies ear too.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:41

Yeah, with a couple different color hotspots, different sizes, different weights, different not even that many, not even that many different sizes. I'm fishing mostly sixteens, eighteen. Okay. Maybe some fourteens, but mostly sixteen, eighteens.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:55

And while we're on nymphs, how do you think or what's your opinion on uh the style of nymph versus the I don't want to say profile, it's not really the profile, it's it's the kind of thermodynamics of the fly. Okay, like a certain fly, you know, I'll have more luck. Like I'm not I don't fish as often as a lot of people, but I'll have more luck, or I'll give a fly to a friend like a Frenchie, and I think I'm having more luck uh more because of the it's streamlined, it gets down faster, it's you know, it's in the strike zone longer, so my odds go up. Do you think about that uh when you are tying these confidence flies, or do you think that that is a a thing people should think about when their time flies?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:55

100%. I think that those flies, like you said, you're getting however you can get a fly in that fish industry.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

Right, it doesn't have to be a Frenchie, but even if I'm tying like a pheasant tail, I'm I try to make it like okay, I'm gonna fish this towards the bottom, and I want it, I'm thinking about that. I kind of want it to be clean.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:14

Yes, 100%. I don't think those fish, especially in a lot of niffing situations, unless you're diffing like super still water, they don't have a lot of time to look at that fly. I think like people talk about movement and niffs, and I I agree with it too, but I think that if you have you can incorporate there's enough materials choices that we have today, like things like UV and a little bit of a hotspot or something like that, or some C like a CDC collar or something like that, where you're creating in your in the knots that you're using.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:47

Oh yeah, I've never thought about that. Can you talk more about that?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:51

Sure. Why wouldn't I want my dry flies to move just like my nymph? I want my streamers to.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:59

Why wouldn't I want to so the loop knot is a knot that you use to help get some non-slip flip monoloop for everything. So it's not you still have control, but there's a little bit of fluidity there.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:11

Right. Yeah. A little wiggle.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

A little wiggle, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:14

Right. I don't again, I don't think the fish have enough time to really inspect it. It has to look like somewhat like a like a food source. You know, fish, I'm sure you've seen videos of fish in riffles, they're mouthing all kinds of stuff and spinning that stuff out. And it just has to be the right size. And you know, if there's something that yeah, I don't know exactly why fish love rainbow warriors, but they do. They eat them. You know, it's a flat I it's a piece of tinfoil floating through the water. I but they eat them.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:52

You mentioned this before too, and since we're talking about nymphs and you mentioned Rainbow Warrior, this is something that I've thought about fishing in Colorado is sometimes I think and you mentioned this though, so I'm bringing it up, but it's something new, right? Like how much of it is I figured out the exact awesome greatest pheasant tail pattern, or is it just that they've seen everything and this one's just different enough to where they kind of are I think that's you're spot on.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:23

I think that's huge, especially here. Well, it's not only here, it's everywhere. Um pressure, pressured waters. And even, you know, I tie my stuff. Maybe just there's little different little tweaks you can put into them. And I don't know if they're important or not, but it's just different, you know, whether it be you know, a different color hotspot or a different color thread or whatever, different color wire, if you're talking about nymphs, just stuff they don't see constantly.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:54

Do you think that's a good argument for tying your own flies?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:58

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:59

Because then you're then it's easy, right? You can achieve that by just not having the materials that the YouTube video has or whatever you exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:07

And I think it's also an argument for buying flies from custom fly tires.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:12

Which I'm not one of. Believe me. I don't have I don't have the time or the pace or the or the um industrious industrial.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

I'm not industrious enough.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:23

Yeah, right. I'm not a very good sit down and tie four dozen of the same fly. And my seems like my flies, I have some patterns that I've had over the years, and I I I seem to be there's a still a few that I don't change up, but I feel like I'm changing them up all the time. And sometimes that's because of a new material that comes out or something that happens on the water that I didn't like and or I did like. So my fly tying is dynamic.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

Do you ever find you get so far away from the original that you just have to be like, all right, I'm starting over. I'm going back to the beginning here. I'm just gonna tie the basic pheasant tail. Or do you are you always kind of compounding?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:11

I feel like I sh probably shouldn't be, but I am compounding. And I'm not sure why. I think just think again, I think it's maybe just because it's slightly different.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:20

Instead of maybe a pheasant tail, using pheasant tail for a pheasant tail, if I use a brown holo tinsel, which is kind of close to uh the color of a pheasant tail, it's it'll sink a little bit better, it'll be a little more durable. Not that that really matters because people lose the flies before they ever also before they ever wear out.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

So um that's true with me, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:43

Yeah, yeah. I mean, me too. You know, so I think it's really nice to be a fly tire right now. The the amount of materials that are available is pretty amazing. You know, you talk you think back to the days when the Catsco gu guys were tying flies. They, you know, the materials that they had were not great, and they the flies that they produced were pretty amazing from what they had in there available to them at that time.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

And uh so anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:16

Oh, that's great. So it sounds like you uh approach it with kind of the essential, these are my confidence flies, these are nymphs that are gonna be feeding subsurface most of the time. So I'm gonna have nymphs, that's kind of my bread and butter confidence flies, and then are you tithing seasonally then dry flies? And do those nymphs kind of work for you most of the year, most of the seasons? Yeah. I kind of wanted to talk about the seasonality of it, but those nymphs are kind of throughout the seasons.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:50

Yeah, I again for my guiding, my guiding, it's it's it's a lot of attractor type nymphs or the you know, pheasant tail variations, and uh, you know, a few stone flies in the winter time, and pretty much that's all you know, rubber leg stuff. But uh you start getting into dry flies, and that is a whole other thing with me because certain situations will come about where I just didn't think that I had the right pattern for that a particular fish. And that makes me crazy. So like it it was, you know, like I was I sort of talked a little bit earlier about one wing up, one wing down, were they kind both wings down, but they were kind of kicking angled up. Was there eating just a full spinner, but you know, a spin fly.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:40

You think it matters a lot more with dry flies, kind of the precision?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:44

Yeah, I do. I think situationally I think you need to have a wider um quiver, a bigger quiver. Options to go to because individual fish, especially for us like this time of year where there's you know four different bugs hatching and you have three different spinners that are around at the same time and one fish is eating this and the other next fish is eating something different. And it's reassuring to be able to cover your bases.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:19

That makes sense. Are you tying more in the winter if we talk about the seasons, is that kind of your time to tie more or is it just all the time for you?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:29

It's all the time.

unknown 1:09:30

It's all the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:31

Like I would love to be able like sit right now and start tying tying fly like tying I should be tying terrestrials. I guess I kind of am I'm tying terrestrials for late season dry fly fishing but instead I'm tying cicadas because we have a big cicada emergence this year. So I'm tying cicada patterns instead of what I really should be tying. And I do that a lot too especially if I'm like destination if I go like say I go to Florida or whatever and I'm red fishing and I house the flies that kind of work but it wasn't exactly right. So I come home from that and even though I'm not going to be there for another year I start tying flies that I think will fit those situations and it's it's silly. Let's talk about that my friend Jake my friend Jake who you had Jake the lock who I had you had on your podcast. We have that same problem. If I'll go down and I'll go down with Jake we'll go to Florida together and we'll fish for a couple days and we'll be tying flies every night after we fish I think we should be doing this I think this color but I like these eyes better but I like that brush and you know this hook seems to write seems to ride a little better a little bit lighter wire get better penetration and there's all kinds of things we tweak but um and then when we get back we're still tying these flies and I should be tying like in the winter time I should be tying muskie flies not that stuff it's a I'm kind of a mess.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:50

Well I wanted to ask you about tying for trips is that something that you do every time pretty much like a freak yeah if somebody is listening to this and they're getting into fly tying so they're you know they're less experienced but they're going on a trip maybe they're going out to Montana to see their son in college or something like that. Do you have any tips or pointers or lessons learned like mistakes that spent catus that you've made well just with like how to prepare for that or how to approach that. Spent catus.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:24

I'm telling you spent catus. Yeah I think you um the internet's nice but I think people who if you're going to fish with a guide or an outfitter or you talk to a shop most of the time they're pretty willing to tell you what they're seeing right before you like a week or so before you're growing what they might be seeing. Right. And to you know get a little bit of local knowledge is is always good and but again I think when if it's bug season say you're going out there now you know rusty spinners in you know size 12 through 18 spent caddis 12 through 18 tan or or olive or whatever and um and if you're talking about duns that gets a little weird because there's a lot of color variation from place to place uh and it also depends on where you're fishing. If you're fishing these heavily pressured tailwater like the Missouri or the Henry's fork or someplace like that where these fish are generally jerks that kind of stuff matters. If you're not fishing that kind of water maybe it doesn't matter as much. But if you're a fly tire and you're an angler and you're traveling like that I think most people are willing to go that you know put a little bit of extra research in and you know talk to somebody if you're in a local TU chapter or whatever who's been there.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:46

I would try to find somebody who's been there this time of year and say what what worked what didn't work what did you think you know what did you see that kind of thing this is kind of in the weeds but do you have any advice for packing like packing stuff or materials and vices and stuff?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:03

Do you have a special I do well I have a small I don't know if they still make it I have a small fish pond used to make a smaller um fly tying kit bag and again you're you're gonna run into stuff that's tan olive gray and maybe a little bit of rust colored for spinners and the wings are either going to be light or dark done and um maybe some spinner colored wings and I I'm a big fan of CDC and EP trigger point for that kind of thing. And whiting has a really cool um hackle color. They have two that I feel like are really good general mayfly leg colors it's the medium tan done and brown done or something I forget I should I should be better. I'm not prepared for that question. That's okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:02

Well I just didn't know if yeah if you find it uh difficult to kind of like it doesn't have to I mean I gave the Montana example as just an example but you could be going maybe you're going saltwater and you've got okay now how do I do you pick like just a couple flies and like okay I'm just gonna be able to tie variants of these and then otherwise I'm gonna have to buy it at the shop or I'm gonna have to you know kind of do you have a I think plan A, B, and C or something?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:28

Yeah for sure. I think uh if you're talking about saltwater stuff flat stuff you're talking about especially bone fish and permits what color's the bottom um the what colors this what color is the sand are you talking about grass are you talking about greens are you talking about tans sand color are you talking about grass coral marl you know what color are the what color is the food you know that's the that's the big thing um what size size is always weird I find like people have different maybe this goes back to the inconsistencies and hook size between manufacturers but you know somebody I was just going out when I was just out in Montana we were talking about the the Mother's Day caddis and they're like oh yeah 14s and 16s and I got there and I was like man these are sixteens and eighteens and man some of them some of them are twenties I mean they're pretty small you know I I would that's a big thing hook size it is paying attention it is hook size and I think if you talk to somebody and I always I don't ask what size they are I ask what hook do you guys use because that gives you a better idea of because again I a size 18 whatever A Rex and a size 18 fulling mill are not the same. I never thought of that but that makes perfect sense yeah so that that gives me a better idea of what the real size is other than just an 18 or a 20 or a size one you know it doesn't it well I want to start wrapping it up but I I do want to ask you about your book Favorite Flies of Pennsylvania first of all um why did you decide to write that? I mean it's a lot of work that goes into writing a book right so why what motivated you well I contribute had a really small contribution to Keystone State fly fishing and the editor of that book approached me to do the favorite flies book and initially I said no and then he plied me with alcohol and then I said yes that works that works now and I mean I'll tell you really the the I think in all seriousness the reason that I kind of said sure and of course growing up and reading a lot of fishing stuff literature and magazines and you always think oh yeah I you know I'd be cool to write and you always think well what hasn't been written about well really nothing but it was kind of a unique opportunity to talk to other guys and you know experienced anglers and talk to them and sort of poll them for what flies give me give me your 10 flies give me your best 10 flies yeah and you know the same flies kept showing up in all those conversations so it was pretty easy.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:30

Was that surprising were you expecting that or you were like everybody's gonna have their secret sauce and then you're like wait a minute they're kind of pretty similar here.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:38

Yeah and again most fly tying is derivative uh from something that came before it and so really it it weren't weren't any real surprises. You know I got some brief from some people for some flies that I put in there and I knew that that's what I was thinking how am I supposed to pick 50 flies there's especially coming from Pennsylvania where there's a storied history of fly tie you have you have Bob Clauser you have Chauncey Lively you have like you know Ed V uh Vince Marinero Al Trotter Yeah you're not gonna please everybody on this right exactly so the cool thing about that is the editor gave me some leeway to put all that stuff in in another section of the book and then go to the 50 flies that were featured. So it was kind of cool in that respect. But um no to answer your question no I wasn't really surprised by what people were coming back with. Some of them some of the flies are very situational as far as specific insects other ones are more um like say for example like I have a extended body foam drake in the book and it's really nice for those big flies fishing at night you know you can maybe you can't see it but you know it's floating there's got that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:57

Was there any flies that you put in the book that you had never used before that now you are a fan of because because of the writing of the book that like anything that changed your game personally I don't think so no not really no any flies that were a surprise to you?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:20

I know you said not many surprises but any flies actually there is one baltz's yeah um Tom Baltz's um bronze back nymph was a fly that I didn't really ever use and now that's a staple in my guide box. What's that fly all about what's that for it's basically a um sort of like a flashback hair but and the story behind it is pretty interesting. Instead of like a a mile like a pearl mylar flashback it has bronze colored um flashaboo yeah flashaboo is the backing of it yeah and uh it's pretty interesting because the way that came about is there was a guy here in the Commonwealth who was rearing raising Hendrickson nymphs in a in a tank and he noticed that when they were emerging they would turn this like bronze copper ish color before they emerged and that's how that's how that that fly came about. He was just growing these things in his house trying to but what was well yeah I've done that too what's the is the goal to figure out a fly like that you're taking it yeah it's hard to see it happen it's pretty cool because I've done it too with with especially what was really interesting for me when I did it with some caddis flies that again the granoms are like equivalent of the Mother's Day outlet the brachy the brachycentris is the amount of color change that happens between not only the pupil stage but even when they emerge as adults into like adults that are 10 minutes old and 20 minutes old and and two days old as they get darker and they have this they have a the females well the males do too but the it's more pronounced than the females they have a a membrane along the side of their abdomen that allows the abdomen to expand to hold the eggs and that membrane turns like a chartreuse as chartreuse ever gets. When you incorporate that into cattis pupa it's the same thing as the bronze back you're picking that little trigger and incorporating that into your fly something that the fish are actually seeing and it happens with a lot of the a lot of the Mayflies too the same thing especially the drunelas the flavs and like our we have the the cornudas and other drunella species when they pop out they're when they first emerge they're bright super almost chartreusey colored and then they eventually darken a little bit to like an olive gray color but um you know for my like emerger patterns and stuff like that those kinds of things that you do in your your geeky basement setup you know it provides something I don't I think it's super cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:26

I think it's cool. My next question is well I've got a couple questions but which flies did those experiments I'll call them which did those turn into I know you described it but what do they finally resolve into for you fly wise?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:42

Yeah I think a lot of the how that sort of translates into fly design is again there's a lot of really good fly patterns out there and you know you have like for us for me like I don't fish a lot of fully hackled Mayfly dry flies but parachutes and paradigms and and things like that no hackles it comes down to coloring uh to dubbing colors and incorporation of different materials into your flies like where I'll take a for example I'll take a by it bodied fly and I'll have one color buyout and then I'll I'll rid that buy it it'd be I'll wrap the buy it so that and I don't know the name of this part of the feather but it's the if you wrap a by there's two ways to wrap a buy it you can wrap it so that it's totally smooth and the other way that it's ridged. Yeah you know what I mean so in between those ridges I know she means yeah it depends on the way you spin the thread right you can spin it to be flat or spin it to be narrow right so in between the raised edges out you'll you can rib it with other colors and you know with today's synthetics and thread colors out there it's you can just do whatever it's a lot easier to match what you're seeing. Yeah and I think that's where it translates into because like I said Tom's bronze back is is a hair flashback hair zero but it has its color it's it's the bronze color it's not the it's not really the fly design okay yeah yeah anything um I want to get back to the book a little bit I think that's pretty cool. What was some of the more difficult things about writing the book was there anything especially challenging that you look back on um I think picking like you like you pointed out like picking the flies was hard like how do you narrow it down to 50 favorite fly favorite flies and I think did it have to be 50 was that like the publisher like thing yeah it's uh it's it's it's a format yeah so that was kind of difficult the other part for me was it was a little bit easier with dry flies than nymphs you know just saying the same thing in a different way in a different way well this is a nymph you can fish it under a bobber you can fish it in a tight line system that kind of thing because there was it was a description of the history of the fly description of the fly itself applications and then techniques and it's like well okay so how did you pick the people you went to how did you go to 50 different people or did you get like a dozen people?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:13

It wasn't quite yeah it was probably at least that many that many people or yeah at least that many people uh at least a dozen you know some got back to me some didn't the I just picked people that who that I knew or I knew of that were well respected in their fly tying and their guy I I really kind of focused on some guy mostly guides but there's some other anglers that I knew personally that were you know they're out there they're they're fishing way more than me you know they're they're out there they're I just you know I do respect their skills and their fly tying skills and their angling skills and their their time on the water um and um just did it like that and again a lot of the same things were showing up and people gave me grief for putting a squirmy worm in there but I'll tell you what the thing catches fish so well so I mean yeah squirmy worm you got uh you got hate for the squirmy worm no I no I like the squirmy yeah I love them you kidding me yeah but the yellow breeches that I got on there's stock rainbows in there I love the squirmy worm because they love it even more I like a squirmy worm and I like a wire worm I'm not as much of a fan of the chenille kind of worm I don't know why sandwildworm sandwich I just yeah no I'll fish it if I think it's a worm and I don't have any but if so like I'll tie them because I the other reason I carry that those things is because I can get the materials to tie them small.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:44

Yeah well that's I can get yeah I can tie them very small.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:47

Any other flies besides the squirvy worm that you got hate on this is interesting to me now any other quote junk flies?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:56

No I don't think so I think that was the only that's the only one I caught one of the I didn't put the I didn't put the mop fly in there so I didn't get any grief on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:03

I caught one of the I was just gonna say I caught one of the biggest fish of my life I'm not gonna say the biggest but one of the biggest fish of my life in North Carolina on a mop fly.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:12

Yeah so I mean it is what it is man and well it's I fish it proudly and both both the squirmy worm and the mop fly if you do like and I've done a lot in my professional life too working as a aquatic you know entomologist and aquatic insect taxonomist I've looked at hundreds of aquatic insect samples over the years and guess what there's worms in there and they're pinkish brownish red and there's tons of crane fly larvae in there and they're tannish greenish I'm not saying they're chartreuse like a big mop fly but but there's plenty of cast larvae that are green like that but they're present uh in the in the system and you know if I have dirty water or early season where I'm getting eroded banks there's gonna be earthworms in there. It's not it's not I'm not exactly sure why it's controversial but yeah I guess because the material maybe I don't know well you know I know plenty of guys around here that will only tie with natural material.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:13

It's not a fly you know it's not an insect I guess maybe I don't know. But I mean in many ways you're still being very intentional with your problem solving when you're using the pattern. You're saying like okay well what's going on and like you said the water levels and the earth and that can have a lot of yeah so I don't know I I have yet to see anything in an aquatic insect sample that looks anything like a rainbow warrior. Exactly but nobody gives me any grief for using that well they're out there I'm sure they're listening I'm sure they're I'm sure they are okay I'm sure they're yeah I know what you mean yeah for sure or a blowtorch you know I okay you know but you know yeah anything else on fly tying uh or the book that you want to bring up before we kind of start wrapping it up I mean we no I'm talking about seasonality in the beginning process of it um is there any other things process wise you think about when you're tying or is it just kind of I do my staples and then I per hatch then I kind of which I think is is actually a really good process right I mean I somebody listening could be like yeah that makes sense like before I start getting crazy tying all these dry flies or whatever let me make sure I've got a good amount of like for me I'll make sure I have a bunch of black beauties or zebra midges. They're easy for me to tie I fish them mostly year round some sort of pheasant tail some sort of hair zero depending on how I'm feeling which kind of like nymph pattern I want to use I've got a stonefly that I like to tie um some worms you know um yeah I think that's the thing merger patterns and I've kind of got those and then like I said those are my habit patterns sort of and then if I'm going on a trip I'll do a bunch more or if it's like for me I'm still developing my skills so for me it'll be like all right I'm gonna work on pair Shoots, you know, like this is going to be harder for me, uh, but I'm gonna work on this, and I don't have to worry as much about like the big confidence flies that I'm gonna fish most of the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:26

Yeah, for sure. And I think that what you brought up there is is really interesting. What I was gonna say is dry fly-wise and even nymph-wise, if you perfect a couple techniques, tying techniques of even if it's just you know, dubbing or like applying a dubbing noodle and getting that stuff down or getting your parachutes down, if you get those techniques down, the amount of materials and colors that are available to you can really take you anywhere you want to go. Yeah, that's a really good point. You know what I mean? I think that if you focus in on that and getting good materials and it's hard, you know, it's getting it's getting harder, I think, to get good feathers, chicken feathers, whether you're tying like game changers or tri-flies, it's not quite as hard. Um, there's certain colors that are are a little bit more difficult to find. But yeah, I think if you practice techniques, I think it's probably more important and probably more beneficial to you in the long run if you're going somewhere. Okay, I know I'm gonna be fishing, say I I've never been in the Missouri before, but I know it's a flat tail water, so it'll be I want okay, I need to be able to tie comparodons and and flat water flies, like uh, I don't know, whatever. Um uh parachutes or or or a no-hackle, like practice your no-hackles. Like that's a good one. I need to practice my no-hackles. I'm happy with like every fourth one I tie or fifth one. Okay. Um, you know, that kind of thing. Um, that's a really good point.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:01

Yeah. You can use that kind of time to get those techniques down so that um yeah, whether it's deer hair or parachutes or hackle or learn what your materials, how they're gonna react under thread tension, and that'll take you a long way in your fly tying journey or whatever you want to call it.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:26

You know, journey's a good word. Um I guess. Um But yeah, I think that the way like thread tension and you know, what can I do with 16 aught Vivus or what can I do with 8-0 unitread or whatever, you know, like I think that's the important thing as far as fly time goes, and it makes you a more versatile and accomplished tire if you know how your materials are gonna react when you're attached when you're when they're lashing them to that piece of metal. You know, it's to me that's always the biggest learning process when I get a new material or an older material that I haven't worked with for a while.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:06

What do you think about that way of and we're gonna start wrapping it up, but I just don't I want to ask you this because I think about this um a lot. Not a lot, but I think about you know the difference between learning technique versus learning what I'm gonna fish with. I so I'm a big believer, I don't know why. I mean I guess I'd be le because I didn't really embrace fly tying until I started catching fish with the flies that I tied. And I kind of started out with this idea that I was I had a fly tying kit and I was tying kind of the different flies in the fly tying kit. I just kind of lost interest, you know. And I gave it a second chance, and that's when I was just I just kind of tied the flies that I was gonna try and catch fish with, and then I started a more I kind of became more enamored with it. And so I guess the the way to do that is kind of find the balance and kind of find the techniques that work for the rivers that you're gonna fish. Because yeah, if we're talking trout fishing, right? You there's there's those types of things in most different waters. So I guess you can kind of do both at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:17

Yeah, for sure. I think it's I think it's really important. I remember as as a kid looking at these catskill patterns and they're calling them you know a Hendrickson, but the thing's bright pink, and I'm thinking, oh, my Hendrixons aren't bright pink, and you know, and I've got spring creeks around here in flat water, and they're not eating those flies. Uh and uh that was sort of my motivation to kind of look around for something different and and to in the fly design and why is something on why is first of all, everything on that hook should be there for a reason, uh a good reason. Um and uh uh I think that's a that's an important part of uh fly tying.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:05

Insightful. I've never thought about that, but if you just you know, if you think about the reason why you're putting the material on, I think it makes you think more about why you're tying that fly, but also keeps your materials down, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:35:21

Like yeah, it does. And it also to me, it those are some innovative tires. Like if you look at at like like Jake Fock, for example, a lot of his flies, everything on there is there for a reason. He's solving a problem that he he encountered, and how is he solving it? It could be weight, it could be color, it could be bulk with less weight, you know, that whatever it is. Uh you know. Oh, that makes sense. And he's a really good, really super talented tire, and his flies are beautiful, but yet super utilitarian. They're there, they're there because they everything there is there for a reason.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:00

Yeah. And uh that's cool. That's cool to think about that when you look at flies too. If you're just picking flies out in a fly shop, if you have a little bit of knowledge about things, then you can kind of well, maybe that's just for show, or maybe that you know I'll just I don't need all that, or or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:20

Eric, this has been great. I appreciate talk about the flying. Thanks for having me, man. Yeah, no. It's great. Before I ask you my last question, how can people find out more about you? Maybe schedule a guided trip and or get a hold of your book, anything like that?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:37

Sure. Um, probably the easiest thing is is you know, you know, the website uh riseforms flyfishing.com. I'm not very good at it.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:46

I don't post enough stuff on social media, but I'm on Instagram and Facebook and that stuff. I've been told I'm not good at it.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:53

I'm sure you're fine. We can we'll link to that stuff in the show notes. Is there anything else that you want in there? Maybe a link to the book or something?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:59

The book is uh favorite flies for Pennsylvania. It's through StackPole um books.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:04

Um that's about it. You can get it on Amazon too. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:08

But uh do you prefer we put it on Amazon or you you don't care? Either one. Okay. We'll link that stuff in the show notes so people can find it and they could schedule a trip with you if they wanted through the website, I assume, or reach out on Instagram. Yeah, for sure. Anything you're excited about coming up in your fly fishing world that you want people to know about?

SPEAKER_02 1:37:29

Yeah, I'm excited to get some people out and start fishing cicadas that I haven't fished in 17 years. And last time they were around, it was pretty exciting. Um looking forward to that here in the next few weeks. Got some people chopping at the bit to go do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:47

That's a once every 17 year kind of thing, this bug? Yeah, wow. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:52

It's very geographical on where the emer uh uh emergences are, and this year it's uh it's uh in the central part of the state and uh some prime trout water, it'll be it'll be fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:03

That's awesome. That does sound exciting.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:05

It was fun last time.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:06

Yeah. All right, last question. Are you ready? Eric, if you could go back to when you first started fly fishing and give yourself two pieces of advice. One more tactical, one more philosophical. What would you tell yourself to help you progress as a fly fisher?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:26

Set downstream. Tactical. I like it. Tactical. Set downstream and uh philosophical. Um I think just take your time. Slow down. Observe.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:42

Alright. That's a good answer. Both good answers. I like the specificity and the brevity. Uh Eric, I appreciate you taking the time to be on the show. I've really enjoyed talking with you. I love when we get the opportunity to get in the weeds and tactics, and yeah, it's just super exciting and fun for me. And uh hope it was fun for you, and thanks for being on the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:03

Thanks, yeah. I really appreciate it, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:09

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