The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

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.

This week I interview Justin Lewis, fisheries scientist and native of Grand Bahama Island, who is the Bahamas Initiative Manager for Bonefish Tarpon Trust.  You’ll learn some fascinating science, what the Bahamas is doing to protect their near-pristine habitat, and some tips on catching bonefish based on the science we’ve learned from BTT’s research.  In the fly box, we talk about storing waders, head cement, swinging flies, coiling line, where to attach droppers, fishing PCB-contaminated waters, indicator types, wet knot strength in tippet, and how to keep dry flies floating upright.  Plus we have a couple great tips submitted by listeners.

This week the main part of the podcast is a long interview with Dave Klausmeyer, editor of Fly Tier Magazine.  He talks about his Golden Rules of Fly Tying and then also gives his 10 Cannot-Do-Without natural and synthetic materials.  If you keep count you will find that Klausmeyer is even worse at addition than I am. In The Fly Box, we ramble from fishing soft hackles to checking fly lines and backing for damage.  There are also a couple questions about finding big rainbow trout feeding in still, shallow water.  And we have a couple great lists of suggestions from listeners—one on ways to carry a second rod when wading; the other on “Suggestions for a novice from a kinda novice.”  If I keep getting great responses like this from listeners I can let them take over the whole podcast!

By very popular demand, this week I have Tim Flagler of Tightline Productions as my guest and we ramble about—guess what?—fly tying.  But not all tying, in fact I think we talk as much about winter trout tactics as we do winter fly patterns.  But I know after this podcast I have a half dozen new flies I want to try in the coming season.  Also, in a longer-than-usual Fly Box section this week (hopefully to make up for not having many podcasts in December) we talk about sharpening scissors, tying the Adams, hooking fish, 10 fly-fishing books I recommend, caddis nymphs, knots for tube flies, UK wild trout, carrying a second rod while wading, and lots more.