Troutbitten
Life on the water. Troutbitten is a deep dive into fly fishing for wild trout in wild places. Author and guide, Domenick Swentosky, shares stories, tips, tactics and conversations with friends about fly fishing through the woods and water. Explore more. Fish hard. And discover fly fishing at Troutbitten.com — an extensive resource with 1500+ articles about trout, friends, family and the river.
Episodes
156 episodes
Fishing Big Rivers-- Thoughts, Tips and Strategies
Let’s talk about fishing big rivers. For the most part, all of us here at Troutbitten are river anglers, meaning not much stillwater. Furthermore we’re mostly wade anglers. We spend most of our time wading rather than floating, because we enjoy...
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Season 15
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Episode 4
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1:02:15
Learn to Read the River Like a Trout
We spend a lot of time thinking about tactics and working on techniques. We devote our energies toward finding fly patterns, tying up our confidence flies and testing new flies. We research new waters and explore unfinished sections in familiar...
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Season 15
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Episode 3
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1:21:34
Know the River or Know Your Tactics? What Puts More Trout In the Net?
Here's a topic that starts with an interesting question: What puts more trout in the net? Is it knowing your water or knowing your tactics?Of course, the easy answer is . . . both. Refine your skills and learn your rivers. Then put...
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Season 15
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Episode 2
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1:13:01
Riverside -- Twelve Small Stream Fly Casting Tips
Here are twelve tips for delivering a fly into waters that are heavily canopied, with greedy branches, ready to grab your fly and make life difficult. The best small stream fishing happens in these places. We call it brush fishing.Learni...
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29:47
Strategies For Stocked Trout
Across the country, there are rivers, creeks and streams stocked by the state, often referred to as put and take (they put trout in, you take them out). And especially early in the season, opportunities for stocked trout can be a solid ch...
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Season 15
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Episode 1
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1:13:46
Riverside: The Best Fly Rods for the Mono Rig, Tight Line and Euro Nymphing
What's your favorite fly rod? This most frequently asked question now has its answer in the Troutbitten Riverside Series. Riverside is a place for sharing and presenting stories and articles from the Troutbitten website. And one of the most pop...
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42:53
Streamer Presentations #10 -- Strategies, Tips and Scenarios
This season has been all about options for moving the streamer. Our focus has been on the animations available to attract and then sell the trout on the streamer presentation. In this season finale, we talk about river scenarios and share some ...
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Season 14
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Episode 10
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1:00:42
Streamer Presentations #9 -- The Tight Line Dance
The tight line dance is another collection of movements to the streamer loosely grouped together into a system or framework for covering many water types and gaining reactions from the trout. It's all about taking the advantages of a tight line...
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Season 14
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Episode 9
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49:21
Streamer Presentations #8 -- The Crossover Technique
With episode seven of this Troutbitten Skills Series, we’ve finally come to the point where we’ve covered all the different ways to move a streamer and give it some animation. Now it’s time to put all of that together.This whole series h...
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Season 14
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Episode 8
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1:08:25
Streamer Presentations #7 -- Speed Leads and Lane Changes
Speed leads happen mostly in one lane, and they go faster than their parent current. Lane changes are exactly what they sound like — the fly is traveling in one lane, and then we deliberately bring the fly over to a nearby lane and travel down ...
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Season 14
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Episode 7
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34:38
Streamer Presentations #6 -- Jigging Styles (Slack, Contact and Pendulum Jigging)
We've covered many animations in these series. We’ve talked about the streamer head position and its direction, about cross current movement vs holding one lane. We've covered jerk strips, glides, slides, fast, slow, quick or smooth, we talked ...
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Season 14
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Episode 6
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50:29
Streamer Presentations #5 - Give Swings a Chance
This steamer presentation is what streamer anglers probably do most — swinging the flies. From what I see on the water, what I read in articles and watch in videos, I think it’s fair to say, swinging is a pretty popular look.But it’s als...
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Season 14
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Episode 5
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47:19
Streamer Presentations #4 - Glides and Slides
For us, streamer fishing is best when we actively and intentionally move the fly. But with glides and slides, our animations are often subtle, because sometimes these are the most natural or convincing looks.Rolling the bottom, gliding m...
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Season 14
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Episode 4
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41:31
Streamer Presentations #3 - The Head Flip
The Head Flip is a pivot. It’s a simple change of the streamer's head angle, from down and across to up and across, or from upstream to downstream. This pivot doesn’t necessarily move the fly out of its area, but the motion might seem pretty dr...
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Season 14
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Episode 3
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41:27
Streamer Presentations #2 - The Jerk Strip
The ability to move the fly with the rod tip and not just the line hand is a fundamental skill that opens creative options for the streamer angler.Almost two decades ago, Kelly Galloup’s first streamer book changed the way anglers though...
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Season 14
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Episode 2
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44:28
Streamer Presentations #1 -- What We Control
This season is a ten-part Troutbitten Skill Series, all about Streamer Presentations. We've been looking forward to this one for a long time.We spend a lot of our time dead drifting dry flies and nymphs. But with streamers, we’re trying...
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Season 14
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Episode 1
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44:04
Pre-Trip Efficiencies
We're talking about how to shorten your time at the tailgate or the trunk. Just get your waders on, your boots laced, and get to the river. It should be as simple as that, but it’s not uncommon for anglers to waste a half hour or mo...
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Season 13
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Episode 10
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58:50
Ten Years of Troutbitten
We're here to celebrate ten years of Troutbitten.December 8th was the tenth anniversary of the first article ever published on Troutbitten. All those years ago, I never expected this Troutbitten business — this media company — to become...
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Season 13
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Episode 9
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1:38:32
Brown Trout, Rainbows, Brook Trout, Cutthroat -- What's the Difference?
This discussion is about the differences between trout species. How are the habits of brown trout different than rainbow trout? Where do brook trout tend to hold and feed vs brown trout? What about cutthroat? Do they have different tendencies o...
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Season 13
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Episode 8
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1:02:50
Season 13 Intermission -- Leader Shop, Videos, Podcast Plans, Books and More
For our Season 13 Intermission, my wife, Becky, joins me for a look at what's going on in the Troutbitten world. We talk about the upcoming leader sale in the Troutbitten Shop (December 6th). We talk about upcoming podcast and video plans, book...
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Season 13
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37:04
Why Do Some Rivers Hold Big Trout?
I fished for two decades before I finally realized that not every river, not every creek or stream has big fish. For most of my early days of fishing, I thought there was a different class of fish in some of my favorite waters that I simply nev...
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Season 13
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Episode 7
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1:11:24
Why We Fish
Tonight we’re here to talk about why we fish. It’s a simple question. Why do we commit so much of our free time and efforts, our thoughts and our daydreams . . . to fishing?Why, after all these years, do we keep coming back?Why,...
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Season 13
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Episode 6
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1:09:38
Barbed Hooks or Barbless? Does It Really Matter?
We’re halfway through Season 13, and tonight we have a discussion that’s been on our backburner for quite a while -- barbed hooks or barbless, and does it really matter?Should we always fish barbless? Maybe not. The answer isn’t that si...
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Season 13
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Episode 5
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1:05:28
Finding Your Confidence Flies
Every angler needs a set of flies to call their own. Among the thousands of patterns, options and choices out there, eventually, we sort out a handful of confidence flies.Our faith in these flies gives us conviction when choosing them a...
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Season 13
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Episode 4
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1:05:51
The Ethical Angler -- What Does That Mean?
What's right and wrong? That's what ethics really boils down to. Certainly, there are nuances about how much space to give other anglers on the river or how long we should hold a trout out of the water for a picture. But doing the right thing a...
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Season 13
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Episode 3
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1:01:42