Trout Bitten? Trout Bitten. Trout Bitten. Trout Bitten? Yeah. Trout Bitten. Trout

It's about trout. Wild trout. This is Trout Bitten. This is the Trout Bitten Podcast and thank you for tuning in. My name is Dominik Swantosky. I'm the owner of Trout Bitten and the author of TroutBitten .com. Alright friends, we're back at it. After the Season 11 intermission with Story Read last week, the Trout Bitten crew was here with me for Episode 8. And this one is all about Hook Sets. That's right, Hook Sets. So I always tell people, if we're talking about Hook Sets, that's a good thing. Because it usually means we've refined the presentation enough to fool some trout. That's the hardest part, of course. And that's why most of us enjoy the challenge of trout fishing. They're not an easy fish to fool, especially the wild ones. And while setting the hook a simpler skill to learn than all of the casting mechanics and intricacies it takes to present a fly, the concept of hook sets in fly fishing can be a bit complicated. Because not all hook sets are the same. If anyone tells you always do something while fishing, don't believe them. Should we set upward with the rod tip? Sometimes. Set as fast as you can? Yeah, in some situations. Just lift the rod tip gently to tighten up. Okay, once in a while. Always strip set on a streamer. No thanks. There are many different ways to set the hook while fly fishing for trout because there are many different ways to fish for those trout. One size does not fit all. So we adapt our hook sets to suit the situation. And that's what we're here to talk about tonight. We'll cover what is meant by a trout set. We'll talk about setting distance, setting speed, setting direction, whether we should pause before a hook set, many other broad and finer points about setting the hook. This will be an important one for all of us because every angler benefits from thinking things through. We spend an awful lot of time with our fly in the water trying to get a fish to eat. So when it does, being prepared with a plan for the hook set gets us to the fight. And if we're we put a fish in the net. Hey now. So let me introduce my best fishing friends. Here is the Trout Bitten crew. Austin Dando is in a really important business meeting. So he's not here. Hey, here's Bill Dell. Bill Dell from Western PA. What you doing, bud? Oh, much for riding technical support to other members the podcasting crew. Hey now, hey now. We got, we got Matt Grob all the way out in Montana. Video and audio. Good job. I suck at technology. Yeah, there's, there's Matt Grob. Well, you don't suck at technology. You were also distracted by Madison. How old is she? She's four and four now.

Almost. Her birthday is the start of official salmon fly season. Okay,

good. Is that the biggest bug you have out there? Yeah, yeah. Really? Without

question. How

big is it? Well, you know, the males and females are different

lengths, but I've seen them at least three, three and a half inches long. It

looks like a one or a two.

Two. I usually tie my chubby on a size

two. Two, like two X long too probably.

Yeah and you can hang a house off it. It's

pretty fun. Deli's showing us a picture. Get that in focus bud. Come on, better. I

Ran into some salmon flies this weekend fishing. No, you didn't I

did so back in Western

PA salmon flies No in Central. That's

a little bit different. That

looks like a hell gramite

Dr.

Trevor Smith says it's hell gramite. Tell us more hell gramite. I way better. I know.

If

it was, I'll tell you what, there was on one of our favorite Central PA limestone -ers, I would always see an incredible egg -laying flight from those stone flies this time of year down on

the... Right on. I don't know if we can call it a salmon fly. Why are we calling it a salmon fly, Delly? It shouldn't be a salmon. It's not a Yellowstone. Yeah. Yellowstone fly.

It could be. Yeah.

I'm terrible. So we did sort of half -ass introduce every person here tonight, right? Josh is still... You did not introduce me? I kind of said Dr. Trevor Smith was saying something about... Did you? Okay, but how was your shooting event in Western PA this past weekend? Tell us. It was great.