The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

This week, a few people take me to task for not answering questions properly (I have addressed them in this week’s podcast) and we also talk about nymph/adult size and color correlation in insects, how to carry a second rod, using poly leaders, whether keeping gear in a hot car will hurt it, and a bunch of other questions.  But the main event is a long conversation with Steve Hollensed from Texas on his secrets to largemouth bass fly fishing in big lakes.  Just to pique your interest, they are not always in deep water during the day, and fly selection is probably the least important decision you make.  So download this week’s episode and relax in an easy chair, cut the lawn, or make this week’s commute a little more tolerable.

  This week I have a chat with Jess McGlothlin—author, blogger, photographer, conservationist, and a very accomplished fly fisher.  She’s a Montana native and had her own business in the equestrian business before she fell in love with fly fishing and decided to devote her life to writing about it.  You have probably read pieces with Jess’s byline over the past few years, but you’ll be reading more of her in the future as we hired her last winter as our outdoor copywriter—but Jess adds so much more to our team than just words on paper or on a screen as you’ll learn in the interview, where we compare Eastern to Western fly fishing.  We have the usual fly box topics like when to wear landing gloves, when to use a “hitched” fly, how to set up your fishing vest, and a philosophy for tying or buying flies by size—in other words, if someone recommends Prince nymphs in sizes 14-18, can you just get away with a size 16?  In case you don’t get to the podcast until later in the week, I’m speaking at Orvis Pittsburgh this Thursday (June 12) on Fishing Small Streams at 3 pm and Reading the Water at 6 pm.  The seminars are free and I’ll be in the sore all day if you want to stop in and give me your podcast suggestions in person.  Should be fun and I am looking forward to it.

This week’s podcast is 8 tips on indicators—or probably more but I’m calling it 8 and sticking to it.  We’ll talk about types, depth, how to rig, weights, and a couple special tricks on how to slow down the drift of your nymphs.  In The Fly Box, we range from how to prepare for a saltwater trip to barbless hooks to sunken terrestrials to rod/reel balance.  And lots more—even without a special guest I rambled for over an hour this week so I hope I can cover at least one of your daily commutes or a lawn mowing session.

  This week we have an advanced pike and musky podcast.  It’s about time for these toothy guys to prowl the shallows after spawning and they are ravenous.  But you might be surprised by the retrieve speed my expert suggests, as well as many other hot tips on catching pike, including tips on the best place in the world to catch big ones on the fly.  Colin McKeown, host and producer of The New Fly Fisher TV show (WFN and PBS) joins me this week as my expert witness.  We have a short fly box on tying streamer heads, getting your fly out of a tree, and a couple tips on how to choose between a graphite and fiberglass rod

This week I had a great talk with Henry Cowen on freshwater stripers.  Henry is a saltwater angler and fly tier of great experience who brought his talents to freshwater stripers, and he has some wonderful tips for finding these big guys, flies to use, and techniques to get them to eat your fly.  Also, we have lots of good fly box questions on saltwater fly tying, bad loops on fly lines, and other tidbits.  Also a young listener takes me to task for banning cell phone calls to the request line and I should have known better.  He says the only people he knows who have land lines are his parents.  Guess I am showing my age, so please do use your cell phones for the podcast request line—just please not from your car and from a place with good service!   Note: A listener named Trevor called in with a great question about canoes vs kayaks. Please call again Trevor as we could not locate your call when it came time to produce the show.

  This week I don’t have much of a Fly Box, because I just have not been getting many questions from listeners.  Where are you?  I’m lonely here.  But I do have a big interview with the great Joe Humphreys, a savvy, iconoclastic fly fisher that I’ve admired for many years.  He has a unique take on nymph fishing and has never used an indicator, so you may get some new ideas on how to fish nymphs on this one.  By the way, Joe will be at Orvis Pittsburgh this Saturday and Sunday morning, so if you want to see him in action or ask some questions, get over to Orvis Pittsburgh.

  Warning—this week’s podcast, besides the usual Fly Box questions, contains a blatant commercial plug.  I am often asked the difference between the original Helios and Helios 2 rods, and I think we have spelled it out pretty well in our marketing, but I figured a better way was to ask some of the best anglers and testers in the industry to articulate the differences they see between the two rods.  So you’ll hear interviews with people like Brian O’Keefe, Spencer Higa, Dave and Amelia Jensen, and John Herzer—but the real treat is to hear what the amazing Hank Patterson has to say about H2 rods.  I think you will enjoy all of these, but of course for the real truth don’t miss Hank’s interview.

This is a special time of year for me as it is the start of trout season in my hometown. I treat today like a religious holiday. it seems appropriate then that I should interview my mentor, and someone who many view as a fly-fishing god, Lewis Coleman. Lewis has taught some of the best in the world his techniques and he will share some of those with us today.    There is no fly-box section in this show as I wanted to give Lewis as much time as we could to go over his insight into spey casting, how he is pushing the limits in Tenkara and all about how he runs his lodges all around the world. We are lucky to have him on the show.

  This week we have what I feel is one of our best podcasts ever—an interview with Colby Trow of Mossy Creek Fly Shop on his advanced tactics for catching smallmouth bass.  I learned a ton in this podcast and it makes me want to head south to chase some right now.  And in this extra-long podcast there are plenty of fly box questions:  Using a stomach pump on trout, how to keep your indicator from sliding, whether bright silver and gold beads are a thing of the past, how to find secondary feathers on a goose wing, and good substitutes for deer hair on a Comparadun wing.

  It’s still fly-tying February, with our Fly Tying photo contest going on, plus 20% fly tying materials on our web site and in our stores.  So although I do answer a question about poly leaders in lakes and one on whether to take a spinning rod when fishing with a 10-year-old, most of it is about fly tying, and should be helpful to anyone from a total novice to advanced tiers.  I know I learned a number of very cool tricks in my interview with Tim Flagler of Tightline Productions (who does our awesome weekly tying videos).  In the Fly Box, I also answer questions about hook quality, wool for fly tying, what to use for Comparadun wings, fly quality, and some theories about why we attach certain materials to a hook.  I apologize in advance—Tim and I ramble quite a bit, but with a fly tier of Tim’s caliber the ramblings are interesting and educational.