The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

This week I interview our rod and reel designer, Shawn Combs, whose nickname around the office is Didymo (you have to listen to the podcast to find out why).  Shawn is a streamer fanatic, and the best at streamer fishing for trout of anyone on our staff, so I asked him to tell all his secrets of fishing for late fall and winter trout with streamers.  It’s an educational podcast for sure, but it’s also a fun one.

In our continuing steelhead series, we’ve moved a little further east and this week we cover the streams of New York and Pennsylvania.  We don’t give specific recommendations on rivers, but Shawn Brillon, our resident Great Lakes steelhead, Spey casting, and fly tying expert, shares his knowledge on how to time your steelhead trips on Great Lakes tribs, tackle to use, when and how to swing flies, and how to fish egg flies and nymphs.  It’s a long podcast with a substantial Fly Box section at the beginning, so sit back and relax and daydream about steelhead.

This week we continue our coverage of steelhead with a podcast interview with Steve Kuieck on the basics of Great Lakes steelheading.  Steve concentrates on the techniques used on his home waters in Michigan, but the advice he gives is valid for steelheaders in all the Great Lakes tributaries, as well as steelheading on the West Coast.  And of course we cover the gamut with quick tips for listeners who have asked questions via e-mail and our podcast request telephone line—802-362-8800.

This week we have a long podcast, well over an hour, because Damien Nurre of Deep Canyon Outfitters and I got all wound up about steelhead.  We could have gone on for hours about tackle, reading water, fly selection, how to hook them, and how to time your trip properly.  Damien gives some expert tips on how to catch steelhead and reminds us that it’s mostly a matter of luck and persistence.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t stack the deck in our odds.  Damien is an articulate and thoughtful angler and teacher with lots of solid tips, so if you fly fish for steelhead or if you’ve ever wanted to, here’s your chance to get some world-class information.

This week’s podcast is timely—it’s on one of my very favorite fly-rod fish, the false albacore or little tunny (also known as albies, bonita, fat alberts, and boneheads).  They are gorgeous, much faster than bonefish, and available from northern Cape Cod to Florida and throughout the Gulf Coast.  Fall is the best time to fish for them close to shore, although in their southern range they can be caught on a fly year-round (you just might need a longer boat ride).  There is no other fish I know if that causes such havoc with tackle and produces such idiotic and crazed behavior among anglers (and I include myself in that category).   One thing I neglected to mention in my podcast is the excellent book by Tom Gilmore titled False Albacore.  It’s the only book written on the subject and a terrific resource.  Get out there and sample a bit of this insanity yourself—you will never be the same.

Unless you live in one of the rare parts opf North America that isn't in drought conditions this summer, or you've been lucky enough to be fishing tailwater waters with an abundance of cool water, you're probably faced with very tricky conditions. Trout fishing is not impossible this time of year, but you have to adjust your tactics to lower flows, clear water and paranoid trout. We have LOTS of questions in the fly box this week which makes for a pretty long show. 

This week, I decided to answer 10 listener questions, sort of an enlarged fly box section.  As a special bonus, I have three great suggestions from other listeners that I know you’ll benefit from.  I won’t spoil all the surprises, but we talk about fly lines sinking, leaders twisting, fish getting away, fish getting hooked in the belly by mistake, and fish refusing flies.  I won’t even come close to answering all these questions but I can at least give you some ideas to think about.

This week, after a special introduction from my son who visited the studio this week,  two self-described carp addicts talk all about carp fishing, from finding them to presentation tactics to tackle and flies.  I interview my co-worker Tim Daughton, who is by far the most experienced carp fly fisherman on our staff--to put it more precisely he's obsessed with carp fishing and will pass up trout fishing most times to chase carp.  We've had lots of requests to do more podcasts on these very challenging fish, available to most people in urban and rural locations throughout the world.  In the fly box, we ramble from how much to spend for a fly rod to when to replace a fly line to fishing in foul weather to a few steelhead tips.  And a couple more.

This week we're publishing an interview I did with Daniel Galhardo, founder and CEO of Tenkara USA, on guess what?  Daniel was here to sample some of our Vermont small stream fishing, which he loved, and we had a ball fishing together.  He explains Tenkara, whether he considers it fly fishing, and the basics of how to use a Tekkara outfit.  In the fly box, we talk about dealing with fishing gear in hot weather, dries vs. emergers, and setting the hook on downstream fish.

On this week's podcast, after a week on Cape Cod I'm prepared to tackle the subjetc of fly vs. spin, something I was reluctant to discuss before because I just have not used a spin rod much since I was a teenager.  But we'll talk about the relative advantages of both methods of fishing, and when a diehard fly fisher might want a spin rod handy.  In the short Fly Box topics this week, we further our discussion on releasing fish unharmed, where to position your rod when playing a fish, DT vs. WF lines, getting the fly line wrapped around the reel seat, and a few other goodies.