Fly Fishing Podcasts Worth Listening To, part XII

Scroll down if you just want the good stuff; the links with the great podcast content from some of the best in the business. …but I did want to say something about why I’ve chosen the five podcasts that I’ve listed below.

I’ve found myself reading less and less contemporary fly fishing writing. Part of that has to do with my limited time. Casting Across isn’t my full-time gig. If it comes to reading or writing, I’m writing. If I read, it is the classics. The other part of it has to do with a sensitivity to maintaining my own voice. I don’t want to emulate someone who is doing what I am doing when I am doing it.

Enter podcasts. Perhaps hearing someone’s inflection and personality makes the whole experience very different than reading an article or essay. While I’m reading mostly classic fly fishing literature, I feel like I’m still hearing contemporary voices through the actual voices of anglers. I think I’ve honed in on these podcasts because they have different experiences, different perspectives, and different voices than me. I don’t think I sound like any of them in my writing or in my podcast.

And these are five of the voices that I think you’ll enjoy listening to; including one specific episode of each:

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Podcast Ep. 69: 5-Star Fly Fishing (…or not)

How would you rate your favorite fly rod? 5 stars? 2 thumbs up? Are you not into rating things?

Regardless, people rate, review, and chime in on rods, reels, nippers, marabou feathers, fly shops, guides, and even moderately interesting websites and podcasts.

This all begs the question: What do you do with this information?

In this episode of the podcast I talk all about ratings and reviews. I also explain why I don’t give out one particular piece of information when I talk about gear on Casting Across.

Listen to the episode below, or on your favorite podcast app.

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Small Stream Fly Line: More Than Flicks & Flips

How often do you have more than fifteen feet of fly line out of the end of your rod?

For most trout anglers, and virtually all saltwater fly fishers, the answer is always. You’re never that close to fish. Casts have to be 30 or 50 or 70 feet… if you’re lucky. After all, fly fishing is about fly casting. Right?

If you fish small streams, the answer to that  “fifteen foot question” might be hardly ever. In high-gradient water, the distance between you and the fish is measured in vertical feet – you’re casting from the pool below. In small, densely vegetated waters it might be impossible to make a traditional back cast. Textbook technique gets thrown out the window. All that matters is getting the fly to where the fish are.

But how?

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Brown Trout & Fly Fishing Ghosts

Most nights I’d time leaving home so I could gear up right as the frogs began to sing in earnest. That wasn’t the event I was  targeting, but the amphibian chorus corresponded with the evening hatch. Trout could be taken all evening long. But the action intensified once the sulphurs started hitting the water. Seeing that little spring creek come alive was always amazing. Reclusive brown trout of all sizes would come out from underneath the banks and thick weedbeds to feed on fluttering mayflies.

Those bugs had the Letort Spring Run under some kind of spell. One year I was drawn in as well.

Early in the week I fished the headwaters. In places the channels were deeper than they were wide. Bonny Brook was always my favorite, and it yielded an unusual number of fish on the surface during this hatch. The sulphurs were present, but the slow and silty water isn’t ideal for mayflies. After a few days I focused on the quarry stretch. The vast system of riffles was perfect habitat for both bug and trout. It certainly still looks like a spring creek, but it lacks the character of the rest of the upper Letort. One night I caught three trout without moving my feet – the only time this has happened to me on the stream. The only downside of that section was the noise of the active rock quarry that was a short cast from the water.

After four or five days I decided to concentrate on the meadows just upstream of I-81. Vince’s Meadow, perhaps the most famous extant spot on the Letort, had always proved difficult for me. Earlier in the week I had talked to an angling mentor about my reticence to leave fish to find fish there. He lived on the stream. He knew the stream.

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Podcast Ep. 68: Taxes, Trespassing, & Trout

Some people fish in places where access isn’t a problem. By and large, most anglers are content to drive up to a state maintained parking lot or a well-used pull off. However, there is a lot of fishable water that isn’t so convenient.

In this episode I talk about a different kind of map that is useful for finding all sorts of fishing access. Not only might you be able to find new ways into public water, but there is a chance the information will lead you down a lawful path to “private” water.

Also, in this week’s recommendation I talk about one of my favorite panfish patterns: the triangle bug from Panfish on the Fly. It is easy to tie and incredibly effective. Now, you’re able to buy kits with special hooks and a material cutter that make the whole process even quicker and easier.

Listen to the episode below, or on your favorite podcast app.

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Brookies at the Ballpark

Minor league baseball is all about fun. Sure, the players are doing everything they can to succeed at the lower levels of professional baseball with the hopes of getting to the majors. But while they’re giving it their all on the field, there is a whole lot more going on around them. T-shirt cannons, “bring your dog” nights, and appearances from  B-list celebrities draw crowds that include die hard fans and families looking for a night out.

If you are an angler who lives around Altoona, Pennsylvania, the draw to come watch the Curve this June might be their new look. For one weekend, the Altoona Curve will become the Altoona Brookies. Complete with new jerseys, hats, and more, the Double-A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates are going to celebrate the state fish of PA.

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I Don’t Hunt Anymore

I really like hunting. I enjoy the hunt itself, including the animals I do or don’t pursue. A hunt might have equal parts camaraderie and solitude, which I appreciate in equal measure. And then there’s being outside. It’s hard to have a bad day when I’m in the woods. Hunting the right way, you get a chance to enjoy the woods and all that they offer in a way that you can’t when fishing or hiking. Plus, I have no ethical problems with it. Fairly harvesting an animal is an experience I think more people should have.

I just don’t hunt anymore.

To be fair, I don’t golf either. Or ski. Or have season tickets to the local minor league team.

As a younger man I had a job, not a career. I had a wife (who was in graduate school), not a family. I lived in rural Pennsylvania, not suburban Boston. It was easier to spend a Saturday in the woods. Waking up early to be in the tree stand at dawn before work was simple. 5am to 8pm could be hunt, work, fish: it wasn’t unreasonable or irresponsible.

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Podcast Ep. 67: Fly Fishing from Your Sleeping Bag

There are plenty of reasons to mix camping and fly fishing.

Sure, there are some that are all about nature and the experience. But what I am talking about is the pragmatic things: proximity, cost, and a bad night’s sleep helping you wake up early to hit that trico hatch.

In this episode I explore a few reasons why I’ll often eschew the hotel room (and sometimes even the tent) when I am going on a fishing trip.

Listen to the episode below, or on your favorite podcast app.

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The Living Seam

Scientifically speaking, the eye can’t see cold. Ice and snow and the moisture in  breath that turns into condensation can be seen. But what is being seen isn’t cold.

Yet the eye can see when it is cold out. Aesthetics accomplish what science cannot. Everything looks more still. The entire world looks as if a color-reducing filter has been applied to it. Cool colors and grayscale overwhelm the landscape. Generally bright underbrush is frozen and muted. The cold presses down leaves and moss and even saplings, mitigating their ability to break up the scenery.

The only place that is somewhat untouched by the cold is the stream bottom. Even gently tumbling water creates a great sense of movement. The refraction and the glare highlight the mineral deposits in the river stones. Browns and grays that would be lifeless in the air sparkle and dance under the current. The water cuts a living seam through an  otherwise stark panorama.

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Fly Reel Balance: Tale of the Tape

Five years ago I switched reels on a 6-weight rod. The large arbor reel that had been paired with the rod was it’s mate for going on 15 years. I acquired a new reel, and made the decision to use it primarily on that same 6-weight. The rod felt very different, and in a good way. The reel was slightly heavier, but the rod was lighter in my hand. I perceived the tip more acutely in casting and in mending.

Why would changing a reel  have such an impact?

Swing weight. Fulcrum point. Moment of inertia. I kind of know what all of those things mean as they relate to the fly cast… but not enough to write from that perspective. What I do know is how to use a fly rod.  And I am very aware that a fly reel matters. Of course, reels matter because you need someplace to store your line and occasionally something to fight a fish. Even the presence of a fly reel  impacts the way you use your fly rod quite a bit.

Usually, performance and price are the two greatest considerations when picking out a fly reel. Both of those facets are important. But weight and balance are just as important. In some situations, weight and balance might be more important than capacity, drag, and components. Weight is just that – how  much a reel weighs. In a way, weight is relative though. A heavy reel will pair well with a heavy rod. Similarly, a light reel will pair with a light rod. Seeing as there are countless permutations of each, that is were determining the reel’s balance matters.

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