The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

Where can I legally fish and where am I trespassing? What is considered navigable water? Who owns the water and the fish in it? These are all questions answered in this week’s podcast by Land Tawney, CEO of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, based in Missoula, Montana. What you’ll learn is that these answers vary with every state, and thus you must learn a new set of access laws every time you cross state lines. Also in the Fly Box this week we talk about how to fish a streamer, why dry/dry dropper rigs work, shelf life of fly-tying thread, underwater fish photos, tipping guides, the use of class tippets in salt water, whether you can put backing away wet, and other fun stuff.

In this week’s podcast, I tackle the subject of “Ten Hot Tips for August Trout Fishing”, and I think there will be things for both beginners and experts in there. In the Fly Box, we discuss such diverse topics as deer hair choice in fly tying, 7-piece rods, rubbing flies in the mud, imitation jungle cock, tippet ring setup, moving from Tenkara to conventional “Western” rods, spooked trout, jumping carp, and how to pick the right guide.

In response to requests for more advanced podcasts, this week I have an interview with Tom Brown, a master at technical trout fishing, long-time fishing manager in our Roanoke retail store, and now a member of our Outfitter Team (the great people who answer your technical fly fishing questions via phone, e-mail, or chat). Also in the fly box we cover whether a 3-weight is OK for an all-around Rocky Mountain rod, whether the absence of small fish in a pool indicates a big trout nearby, treble hooks for tube flies, switch rods from SUPs, the best sinking line for streams, terrestrials early in the season, and a bunch of other interesting questions.

This week’s podcast feature smallmouth expert Paul Caldwell with his tips on finding and catching stream smallmouths on a fly rod. Paul is a specialist in the Outfitter area in our Roanoke customer service department, and handles technical questions for guides, dealers, and all anglers who have questions on tackle—or just plain fishing questions. As you’ll hear, we have a talented staff in Virginia with first-rate anglers manning our phone, e-mail, and chat lines. In the Fly Box this week, we talk about spooky brook trout, how much pressure a small stream can take, how to wash your waders, why stocked trout have banged-up fins and jaws, how to decide angling tactics based on habitat or trout species, ways to test your hook-setting abilities, and how to play a trout with a long leader.

This week we have a loooong stillwater podcast, for those of you who have been requesting one.  Because the British are so more sophisticated in stillwater fishing than most North Americans (with the exception of anglers in the US Northwest and southwestern Canada) I turned to an expert from across the pond, Steve Yeomans, an expert stillwater guide and angler.  Steve goes into detail on how to find fish in lakes, gearing up, casting tricks, lines and leaders, retrieves, and of course flies.  It’s chock full of solid information.  Also in the fly box we discuss the best length for saltwater fly rods, trout fishing in rain and fog, landing trout that sulk in deep pools, landing trout on smaller hooks, parachute posts, and beads vs. cones on flies.  There are also two great suggestions from listeners and I re-answer one question where I thought I heard the caller say “tube flies in salt water” when he actually said “two flies in salt water”

This week I had the pleasure of talking to Daniel Galhardo of Tenkara USA, who did a basic Tenkara podcast last year when he was visiting us. We get into a little more detail on Tenkara, especially the use of sinking flies and all the ways you can manipulate them with this method. If you are curious about this method of fishing I think you’ll enjoy it. In The Fly Box this week, we had a wide range of topics, like how to hook snakehead on a fly, which sling bag to pick, how to fish streamers, a tip on curing UV resins, whether the flex or action of the rod affects your hooking ability, and which direction salmon face when they are returning to the ocean.

In this podcast I tell a story about getting caught playing Hendrickson hooky by two owners of the Orvis Company. Plus various assorted Fly Box questions like keeping rainbows on the hook when they jump, how to remove flies from deep in a trout’s mouth, how Eastern and Western waters differ in early season, fly fishing alongside spin-fishing buddies—plus the main podcast, in which Paul Moinester of Keep ‘Em Wet and I talk about best practices for releasing fish.

This week we visit with Captain Dave Pecci about early spring fishing in the Charlotte Harbor area of Florida. WE also talk once again about the current water quality issue in Florida. You may all be sick of hearing about it, but other than climate change the Everglades issue is one of the most serious immediate threats to both our freshwater and saltwater ecosystems. But don?t worry, we also talk about catching redfish, speckled trout, and snook. In The Fly Box this week we cover a broad range of topics, from the Eastern Green Drake hatch to small-stream steelhead tactics to the advantages of fiberglass rods.

Tom sits down with Orvis' new fly guru, Jesse Haller to discuss (of course) flies as well as competitive fly fishing. / / In the Fly Box, Tom takes your questions ranging from scented flies to broken rods.

This week I have an interview with Captain Jason Sullivan, who fishes out of Flamingo in south Florida and covers both the southern Everglades and Florida Bay.  We talk a lot about tarpon, but also redfish, snook, sea trout, cobia, and even tripletail.  On the second part of the interview we talk about the longstanding ecological problems in south Florida, caused by man-made diversion of fresh water from the Everglades and Florida Bay and the over-abundance of human-directed fresh water on places on both the Atlantic Coast and Gulf Coasts.  It’s a hot topic these days because of the high water conditions in Lake Okeechobee that are creating even more flows of polluted fresh water  than usual.  The Everglades belong to all of us, and anyone who loves this vast wild place should be concerned about what is going on in Florida.  So please don’t turn off the podcast after we get done talking about tarpon fishing.   In the Fly Box, we range from spring high water issues to tippet knots, line-to-leader connections, and magnetized fly hooks.  And, of course, imitating freshwater clams for carp fishing.  Would not be a proper podcast with a clam-eating carp question.