The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

The main part of the podcast this week is 10 Tips on Fishing Caddis hatches, some tips I’ve learned over the years for successfully (sometimes!) fishing caddis hatches.  Caddisflies are one of the most abundant aquatic insects in trout streams, and the fishing can range from incredibly easy to downright frustrating.  But trout almost always love to eat them so we need to pay attention.  Also in this podcast we talk about bedraggled flies, tailwater insects, and one of my favorite subjects, using roadkills for fly tying.

This week I discuss a frequently requested podcast this time of year--how to set up your fly-tying area.  I talk about what you need to get started and what tools and threads you should begin with.  I also discuss storage and lighting and magnification and about how to stay organized.  In the Fly Box section we have another tip for essential safety items in a fishing vest or pack, and the difference between Blue-Winged Olives and PMDs and Pale Evening Duns.

We posted an episode a few weeks ago on how to best stock your dry-fly box. We had a number of requests for one on nymphing. Let us know what you think of this list!

In this episode Tom gives his list of what you could get that angler, and angler-to-be at the last minute!

This week we range in topics from toilet paper to bass leaders, but the main topic is one that is frequently requested: How to make sense of the thousands of patterns of dry flies into a reasonable number that will cover most of the hatches you encounter. I offer 10 tips on slimming down your fly box (or filling it up, depending on where you are in the game) plus my favorite dozen dry flies.

Welcome to another installment of "Ask an Orvis Fly-Fishing Instructor," with Peter Kutzer. In this episode, Peter explains the differences between the parachute cast and the pile cast, both of which are slack-line casts that can be useful when you're fishing across conflicting currents or to a fish downstream. To make a parachute cast, you stop the rod high and keep the tip up while the fly and front of the line land on the water. This gives you a belly of line between the rod tip and the water. As your fly drifts downstream, you lower the rod tip, feeding line into the drift and maintaining contact with the fly. To make a pile cast, you shoot the line high again, but this time, you drop the rod tip to the water's surface in front of the fly, dragging the line downward. This causes the line to land in a pile, so the fly can dead-drift freely.

This week we do a podcast I've been looking forward to--an interview with a couple of top fly-fishing guides about what it's like to be a guide and how to get into guiding. Learn about how a guide prepares for their day, what they agonize over, and enjoy a few wild stories along the way.

In this week's podcast I announce the winner of the Podcast Suggestion Contest, who won a signed copy of my latest book Essential American Flies.  The topic is sure to be a crowd-pleaser to most of you--targeting bigger trout. In the podcast I give you 10 suggestions for targeting the biggest trout in a pool or in a stretch of river.  There were lots of great suggestions in the podcast contest, and I used a couple for the short Fly Box section at the beginning of the podcast:  How to cure the fall blues after a tough fishing season, and how to pack for a business trip where you might grab a few hours fishing.  Plus a terrific tip on rigging dry droppers on our podcast request line from a listener in Georgia.

This week I interview George Daniel, past competitor in Team Fly Fishing USA and now head coach. The subject is European nymphing styles like Czech nymphing, Polish nymphing, French nymphing, and Spanish nymphing. I've had a number of requests to talk about European nymphing so I called in one of the top American experts on these techniques. You'll learn the differences between these styles and under which conditions you use them, as well as how to rig for these very effective styles of catching trout and grayling on nymphs. These techniques are great to have in your bag of tricks when standard strike indicator and dry/dropper techniques aren't working.

In the podcast this week, I go on a minor rant about the ethics of crowding on today's trout streams, and pretty much tell you if you don't like the crowds, take a hike (literally).  I do give some suggestions on how to handle crowded situations if you have no other choice, but there is almost always another choice.  And in the main part of the podcast, I share with you some fall fishing secrets. We have touched on this subject before, but since the last time I have received some more tips from all of you that I really shoudl share. I also announce a very special contest for the best suggestion for next week's podcast.  The prize is an autographed copy of my new book, The Orvis Guide to The Essential American Flies, which is a large format book with spectacular color photos