Traveled #27 | Josh Miller – Euro Nymphing Tips and Tactics, Team USA Fly Fishing

Dave (4s): The team USA youth team has dominated the last two world championships, and this year it’ll be held in eastern Idaho on the Henry’s Fork and some of the other famous waters as part of the country. A big reason for their success is the person who is on this podcast today. And today you’re gonna find his roadmap to prepare for a new river or stream you plan on fishing this season. Hey, this is Dave host of the Travel podcast. Today, I’ve been fly fishing since I was a little kid, grew up around a little fly shop and created one of the largest fly fishing podcasts in this country. Josh Miller, Pennsylvania Guide and one of the best anglers in the country is going to show us how to approach a new water from the right questions to ask from the start, which don’t necessarily always include, which fly to his advice on choosing a mentor and why you should stick with one to reverse engineering the stream, to make sure you can present your fly to more fish. Dave (52s): Josh is gonna bring it all today so you can present the fly correctly. This episode of travel is presented by Yellowstone Teton territory, where you can explore great fly fishing, great hunting, and the world championships this year. Alright, too much good stuff. Let’s get into it. Here he is, Josh Miller from Trout yeah.com. How you doing, Josh? 2 (1m 11s): Good, Dave, it’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you. Yeah, Dave (1m 14s): Thanks for putting this together today. You’ve been a person that I’ve heard a lot about over the years and I think we just are finally getting you on here. But it’s been definitely, you know, because you’ve got a connection to, obviously Pennsylvania is a very popular place. We’ve had some episodes, I’ve been out there a little bit and, and then also team USA, I wanna talk about that today because I think you’ve done an amazing job with the youth team. I wanna talk about that because this year they’re actually gonna be, I think, in Idaho out west and I, I’m guessing they have a shot at winning some more. So we’re gonna talk about all that, but before we get into that and you guiding and you guide out there, so before we jump into that, let’s take it right back to the start. You know, fly fishing, kind of what’s your first memory and how’d you get into it? 2 (1m 53s): Memory wise, I’ve been, you know, just like a lot of the great anglers fishing a long time. My mom and dad would take me brook trout fishing in the north central Pennsylvania mountains. And just kind of the earliest memories, camping, fishing on the stream, you know, camping on the stream, fishing, catching rainbows, stock rainbows and wild brook trout and just like loving it man. You know, just catching it. Dave (2m 16s): You’ve been doing it forever. What was the moment when you, have you been, you know, as far as the guiding and team UA, I’m not sure which one, I’m guessing that the, the guiding came first or how did that look? I 2 (2m 27s): Think Team USA, actually they almost were simultaneous. I was just like so lucky and blessed enough to learn things that were so much above what I ever even thought fly fishing was or could be, or you know, so I just wanted to teach it immediately, kind of the things that I was lucky enough to learn. So the kind of simultaneous, Dave (2m 45s): Yeah, simultaneous. Okay. And what about that is, you know, maybe give us a little update. Let’s just jump right into the youth team because I think you’re a big part of that. First off, talk about that. How, how is, how are they doing and what is your role with the youth with team USA 2 (3m 0s): Team? USA is, it’s a really cool organization that has, well, so it’s a couple things. It’s a team of younger anglers from around like maybe 13, 14 to 18, 19 is the youth. And then there’s an adult team with 18 to, I think it’s like 55 maybe. And then a master’s team, which is an older gentleman, and then there’s a ladies team too. So it’s, it’s kind of neat. It’s our country’s fly fishing competition teams in a, in a way. And we fish in world championships and I’ve been, I’m the head coach of the youth team. I’ve been for two years, two world championships now, and been instructing or a part of it for a little over 10 years. 2 (3m 44s): So I’ve been really lucky to one, be able to share love with some these young anglers and share things like, you know, techniques and stuff, but more so get to experience some cool things in life like travel and, you know, different languages. And the, the cool thing about world championships and fishing, not just even competitions, but fishing. You know, you go to the Czech Republic and if I was with my family, we’d go to like Prague or like this and that, but you know, as the anglers, that’s not where the fishing is. We fly into Prague and then drive, you know, 62 hours in the back roads to the, the, the most realest place of the Czech or Poland or Slovenia or Slovakia, you know, and that’s the coolest thing for me kind of is seeing the country is like the realest part of the country in my opinion, you know, so that, that’s kind of the cool part. 2 (4m 30s): But, sorry, getting off. No, Dave (4m 32s): That’s awesome. I love that. So the travel was a big part of it for you. You love you, you don’t get tired of the travel. 2 (4m 38s): I was just in, where was I? Argentina last weekend. Oh wow. Yeah, I’m, I’m just, just, just lucky to have been blessed to go places. But just that like constant learning and seeing new water and like stretching your technique in a way where like sometimes you don’t have a guide or any information on the water and you just gotta fish it and learn it. And that’s what kind of makes me go nowadays that makes me excited, you know? Dave (5m 2s): Yeah, that’s always is exciting about talking with you or any, anybody involved at the team USA and all that because it feels like you, you all can go anywhere on the planet, you know, and have a good shot where that’s a struggle for a lot of people, right? You can kind of know your home waters, but then you go to a brand new place, you know, how do you know if you’re gonna be successful, right? How do you prepare? But is that, what does that look like this year? Because I think it’s gonna be in Idaho, right? And eastern Idaho, the kind of that whole area right on the Henry’s Fork in some famous areas. Talk about how you guys are preparing for that, that event. 2 (5m 34s): Yeah, absolutely. It’s really cool for my first time, you know, having the anglers out in the United States, I think that’s a cool thing for our country for, to really show off our amazing fisheries here. The Henry’s Fork is, you know, no doubt, one of the best in Henry’s lake. And we have a couple other smaller streams we’re fishing for, for, for practice and preparation. There’s so much that goes into it with, you know, local knowledge, local guides and legends and stuff. Their, their information were, you know, putting that together with some of our things that we’ve learned in the last world championships and, you know, books or, or whatever. 2 (6m 16s): There’s so much to, to prepare sometimes almost over. Preparation’s a bad thing, sometimes under preparation. And, and every angler kind of has their own, you know, special spot that works for them. So we kind of try to, you know, match what works with the coaches and which works with the anglers and yeah, it’s, it’s fun. It’s, it’s a really cool thing. Yeah. Dave (6m 36s): So there’s, it sounds like there’s quite a bit, like if you were to, if somebody was listening now and they were going to a, a new destination for the first time, are there a few things you would tell them to be thinking about? Maybe stuff that you guys do that other just regular anglers could do to prepare? 2 (6m 51s): Oh, I’m sure tons. And a lot of the things sometimes I think I just take for granted or I just, it’s just second nature that I’m not thinking about. You know, the last, some of my first worlds as a coach or head coach was in Bosnia two years ago, and I remember kind of, I don’t know if it resonated with the anglers, but for me, you know, mentally it’s like just, just go catch a fish. Does that, is that, that means put on your confidence fly or that means go to the water that you’re most familiar with or, you know, don’t worry about the mountain you need to climb. Just worry about the first success, the first fish in the net, you know? And sometimes it’s just something simple like that. It doesn’t have to be, you know, but to me, the best anglers in the world, the difference between the person who’s winning equally to the person who they’re beating in competition or in just fly fishing in general, the best angler to me is just making better choices than the other one. 2 (7m 43s): That’s all it is. It’s just better choices in the moment. You switch flies, you switch techniques, you move, you stay. It’s just little micromanaging choices all the time. And if you look at it as choices, it’s not scary to anglers that don’t know a lot. It’s just make good choices, you know, and that’s just kind of the truth of it. But that’s how I look at it. And try not to get overwhelmed by, you know, like that angler’s doing something we’ve never seen before. Okay, well, you know, so you don’t know what you don’t know, but control what you can and do it well, you know, make good choices, but Dave (8m 13s): Yeah. Yeah. And the choices come down to, like you said, those choices. How, how do you coaching, you know, the youth team to make the choices, right, to make the good choices. How, how do you break that down? 2 (8m 23s): The truth is, I don’t wanna take any, any glory for anything. It’s those anglers who are good at what they do. I’m just there to hopefully help any way that I can. And that’s kind of what I try to have my role is whatever they need, whatever I can do, whatever I see or whatever they ask for, I try to just do my, you know, the best for them. And it, at the end of the day, they’re the ones that are winning. They’re the ones that are the, they’re great at what they do. So, yeah, that’s right. Dave (8m 47s): You know, and, and you, they did win right? In the last couple years, maybe talk about that, how it’s been going. 2 (8m 52s): So our, the last two worlds where we won both in the Czech Republic and in Bosnia, and the cool thing about the Czech Republic was we didn’t just win gold, we won first, second, and third individually two, which was, you know, pretty surreal and wild. Dave (9m 7s): So what do you attribute that to? Is that just all the stars aligning? Will that ever happened again? Is has that happened before? 2 (9m 15s): I think it’s happened once or twice, to my knowledge. I think Spain might have done it once or maybe someone else too. There’s been a lot of competitions as for all the countries and for all the, you know, European nationals or European championships or whatever. But yeah, for, I think, you know, of course you’re gonna have to have some luck. You’re gonna have to have some good beats. You’re gonna have to have the best other good anglers get the bad beats. But the truth, truth of it is our organization, our country as a whole for information transfer, YouTube, local legends that are helping out these kids individually. We are really good as a country in my opinion, with those things. 2 (9m 55s): And our ang young anglers are just really good. You know, they’re just really good. So yeah, Dave (9m 60s): They’re good. And, and are these young anglers likely to become the next, the, the next group, the, the adults? Do they, 2 (10m 7s): I hope so. Dave (10m 8s): Did you start out as a, where did your team USA kind of, where did that start for you? 2 (10m 14s): Mine was, I saw there was some competitions on my local rivers in central pa and I saw it and I was like, that’s really cool. And I, I, I kind of, you know, was watching from a distance online and physically in, you know, on the bank. And I, I was the, the anglers were so kind and inviting that I was like, you know, they would just talk to me and I, I got to communicate with them and they helped me get started and, and I kind of just had that competitive spirit in me to, not to win, but just to wanna learn and, and they’re catching and I’m, I’m not as much and I want, I want that. So that’s kind of just what got me fired up for it. And seeing that the Calvin K laws, he was, it was neat ’cause he was kind of my introduction to competition fishing, and he actually was the head coach of the youth team for a lot of years. 2 (11m 3s): So that’s kind of how we got connected at the beginning. And, you know, I was his manager for some world championships and it, but it’s neat. And he, you know, he was kind of that connection for me at the beginning. So I have some to, you know, a lot of people I know off topic, but I wanna say this ’cause I think it’s really important. I’ve been really lucky to have a lot of people out there to, to look out for me and to get me started in things or push me to the next level or, you know, what does a mentor to you? A mentor to me is someone who looks out for me. One, there’s nothing for them to gain from it. And that’s, a lot of people have done that for me and I’m really lucky. Dave (11m 37s): That’s cool. And, and probably, I’m guessing some people that we may have heard of some anglers that are pretty well known. 2 (11m 45s): Yeah. And I don’t wanna toot, you know, you’re horn at all, but you have amazing podcasts and some of the best out there and it’s really cool. Dave (11m 51s): That’s awesome. Yeah, no, I mean, you’re in, in that one area. I mean, Pennsylvania, I just think of, you know, whether it’s, you know, George or you know Joe, right? All the, everybody’s by a first day of all the legends, like who else is out there that are people that are still going strong, that are Pennsylvania. 2 (12m 7s): The cool thing is the truth of it, there’s what I wanna call, is like sleepers. There’s so many out there that are so good at what they do or their niche or whatever it is, but they don’t put themselves out there ’cause they don’t care to or whatever it is, doesn’t matter. But they’re so good and that’s what I think is, is neat. That can come down to some like, like local guides. There’s some guides that work for their flash out here that are awesome and just some, you know, YouTube faces or this and that. But there’s, there’s a lot man. It’s, it’s cool. Dave (12m 34s): There’s a bunch. Okay. What is your kinda weekly or your guiding look like out there? Maybe talk about that. What’s your kind of home area and then what types of of things are you covering? 2 (12m 43s): My home is, I, I don’t want too many of my anglers to hear that, you know, my home is wherever I wanna fish the next day. Truthfully, I, I try not to fish the same places too much. I don’t wanna overc catch the fish or, or not even that per se. It’s like, I wanna keep my brain fresh and excited too. So I try to fish, you know, one spot or one stretch a year, maybe twice or three times, you know. But that keeps me and it keeps what I, what I’m trying to do. It keep my brain thinking and, and going. But to say that it’s mostly, mostly central pa. We have a lot of really good streams, man. Just a lot that yeah, you do, you know, we really Dave (13m 21s): Do. Is central pa the area, is that the one that’s really known as the, what are the few of The famous waters that everybody would’ve of known? 2 (13m 28s): Yeah. Spring Creek, you know, Penn’s Creek, fishing Creek, little ju those are kind of like the call ’em, you know, the, the big streams. Dave (13m 35s): That’s it. Okay. And you, yeah, no, I love what you, you kinda say there is that yeah, once per year, just, yeah, you get around. I mean, that’s what you’re doing. You kind of have to get good at that, right? Because you go to new water, how do you get ready for a new piece of water? And then it keeps it interesting ’cause And do you do that when you’re guiding? 2 (13m 51s): It’s neat, you know, I know I’ll fish a stream, stretch a stream, you know, five years ago and then I’m like, you know, let’s, let’s take my angler to that stream today. ’cause I just had that feeling and the angler’s like, man, you know, this stretch. And I don’t wanna say, well I’ve fish in five years, you know, you know. But, but for me it’s, I don’t wanna be stagnant and as much as I can think as they’re thinking, and I think it’s more organic that way too. ’cause we’re kind of thinking together in a way, even though they might not know that or think that, you know, and that helps me to keep on, you know, I don’t wanna catch that same poor fish or, or know that fish is behind the rock. I wanna know he is behind the rock because my technique and things will tell me that’s there versus actually physically have caught that fish before. 2 (14m 36s): If that makes sense. Dave (14m 37s): Gotcha. Yeah, it does. What, what does it look like if somebody was gonna be going out on a trip with you? What? Maybe break it down like a typical day, what that looks like. 2 (14m 47s): Typical day. Typical day is the day before. I’ll let you know what we’re fishing and people are like, how don’t you know? Dave (14m 54s): So, so you, when you come in, people aren’t coming in saying, I want to fish this particular hatch. It’s more like, Hey, I’m gonna take you somewhere and it’s gonna be good. 2 (15m 3s): Well, it depends, you know, it depends on what the angler wants. If I’ve taken them before, what their needs are, their angling ability, their waiting ability, you know, all that first off comes into play. But truthfully, if, if I don’t know the angler and they call me and say, I wanna have, I wanna know the, the emergence of a specific thing on a specific river and hit it in its stages. I say, I’m not the guide for you, even though I probably could do it fine and you know, this and that, but there’s better than me at those things. You know, I wanna float and streamer fish. There’s better than me at that. There’s better at me than most things. But for what I like to do and what I like to teach, that’s more of versus a specific river in a specific place. So. Dave (15m 43s): Gotcha. So you get on a river, let’s just say it’s just some unnamed river or or creek. What does that look like? The first step? Like, okay, we’re getting ready to, to go out. Like how are, like say I’m on getting ready to go on the water with you. Walk us through, yeah. What does that look like? 2 (15m 59s): I like to know the day before with a little call of my angler, what their wants and desires are for the guide trip. What they feel like their strong and weak points are. Dave (16m 9s): What if it was, I really would love to get better at Euro nipping. 2 (16m 14s): And I’d say that’s most of what my anglers, Dave (16m 15s): That’s usually what it is. 2 (16m 17s): I think so most, and sometimes the truth is, well, may I’ll, this is funny, I, I’ll I’ll be in Denver this weekend at the fly fishing show doing some presentation on dry dropper. And people are like, you know, I know you as a Euro guy, but you know, I like to do everything of course. And dry dropper is, I’m trying to share the, the love of how it’s misunderstood and misused and mis, you know, there’s a lot of things of it that are really powerful. Sometimes anglers come to me to learn urine thing and within five minutes we’re dry dropper and they’re like, you know, what the heck? But, but the conditions, the angler’s ability, what the fish are telling me, that might be the premier technique in that moment, you know? So we’re letting the fish kind of dictate in a way. 2 (16m 56s): We’re letting the anglers ability and we’re letting the conditions, you know, all, all, all things, Dave (17m 1s): Everything together. When is Euro nipping maybe not, you know, good in a certain situation. It seems like it’s super effective. Is there a time when it wouldn’t be the best? 2 (17m 11s): Yeah, yeah. It’s the neat thing with our whirlwind this year in the Czech Republic, dry fly, we caught fish on sessions. We caught fish on strictly streamer fishing sessions or, or most of the fish across streamer fishing. So, you know, just knowing what would be the most, the technique that would be the most efficient and prolific and, you know, and that that can dictate with like, am I gonna have more tangles with this? Am I gonna be able to convert to fish faster? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, knowing all those is what helps us to choose what technique in the moment. It’s not always just num thing or this or that, you know? So those things were in the, the water type water clarity, you know, water depth, how close you can get to the fish, all can make choices on what technique. 2 (17m 59s): Remember good anglers. Yeah. Make better choices, Dave (18m 1s): Right? Yeah. What’s your recommendation? Somebody’s listening now obviously they’re, they’re on this podcast listening some content, but where, where do they go to kind of learn some of the stuff that you’ve learned over the years? Like to get better, maybe it’s your own n finger or dry dropper is there, there’s so many resources out there, right? It’s kind of hard, almost overwhelm, right? What would you tell somebody today that wanted to maybe learn from what you’ve, what you’ve learned? 2 (18m 23s): It’s a hard one to say exactly. I mean, you know, of Devin and, and Lance and, and Pat and George and, you know, the, the United States core comp anglers that have done it or are doing it. Those are amazing resources. And then there’s other ones that have squeak off of that, that maybe have learned from those ways. There’s a lot of amazing YouTubers, I can’t name ’em all because there’s tons, you know, there’s books. But this is, this is the piece of advice that I would like to share with listeners that are trying or starting have a mentor and just like stick with that person for a little while versus like learning a little from that, a little from this, a little from that. 2 (19m 4s): ’cause what happens is you learn, you use one leader, it doesn’t quite match with another person’s style of casting versus where they’re fishing versus the rod they’re using. So, you know, kind of, I would just say grab one person and learn for a little while, then break off from it and learn from everybody, you know? Dave (19m 18s): That’s right. That’s great advice. Just stick with somebody. Are you doing the content thing out there? Is that, are you similar, I know Devin and some of these other guys have tons of that out there. Is that something where you have resources that people could follow you on? 2 (19m 30s): Yeah, you know, I wrote a book on Num thing and I do have some YouTube videos. I do enjoy doing that stuff, but it’s also a balance. Like, I don’t always love putting my face out there too. I just, it’s like, I don’t know, I, I like wanna share and like, I, but I don’t wanna be the spotlight too. It’s a weird balance, you know? So, but I like doing it and I, I, I like sharing, like I said, the stuff that I’ve learned, it’s too good not to share. So I’m, I’m, I’m navigating that. That’s Dave (19m 58s): It. That’s right. Yeah. And the book is, I think it’s Euro Tips, tactics and Techniques. Is that the book you’re talking 2 (20m 3s): About? Yeah, yeah. It just came out last year. Dave (20m 6s): Oh, nice. Yeah. Good. So we’ll, we’ll get a link out to that one. People can follow that as well. 2 (20m 10s): Beautiful. Thanks. Dave (20m 11s): Yeah, I think that’s good advice. So basically find one, you know, one person so you don’t get confused on this. And there’s lots of good ones out there. 2 (20m 18s): There’s tons. Yeah. Dave (20m 19s): Yeah, there’s tons. Whether that’s Euro nipping or the dry dropper, right? Anything. Yep. Yeah. Nice. Let’s go on, you know, again, Pennsylvania versus, say Idaho versus Czech Republic. Are those, you know, worlds different as far as the fishing that you guys, I’m just thinking like as you’re preparing for this Idaho Henry’s fork, is the Henry’s Fork a very similar at all to the check or to where you are in pa? 2 (20m 43s): Well, you know, no, and yes, you know, bugs are gonna look different. Bugs, you know, are gonna hash different amounts and this and that, but rainbow trouts or rainbow trout, you know, you know, but then it, it is some places the fishing is more forgiving. Some places the fishing just way harder. Do you know, fishing pressure versus amount of fish in the water versus stocked or wild or hold over, you know? So knowing those things to us is important. I like to ask, I like to kind of stimulate the question, you know, what would I ask if I went to Argentina tomorrow? Or I, like I said, I was there last week or you know, if I’m going to a different country or this and that, what would I ask as an angler? 2 (21m 25s): What information would be important to me to know when I’m fishing a river? If I could only ask one question, you know, it wouldn’t be, it wouldn’t be what the local hatch is. It wouldn’t be what the, what the fly shop hot fly is not, you know, not this thing that, that’s not what I’m trying to do. But what, for me, Josh Miller would be my most important. It’s, you know, if there’s wild fish or holdover or stock fish, you know, that, that just kind of helps me to know where I’m gonna start, how I’m gonna start, and, and my changes throughout the, my progression, my choices. You know, Dave (21m 54s): What is the difference between that? So that is a great first question. So wild versus stocked. How do you change your process once you know that? 2 (22m 2s): Absolutely. So, you know, knowing that I, I would, let’s say this, it’s kind of a neat story. I have a, I grew up on a little wild trout stream here in Pittsburgh area, and there was a stocked one down the road. I would fish and kind of knowing where the fish were in the wild, you know, the wild stream verse where they were in the stock stream. My friend came over and we fished and you know, I, I helped stock the day before and we put them at two bridges and there was no fish in between. Then it rained and then, you know, if you saw it the day we stocked it at, you know, three CFS, you’d realize they’re only in the bridge holes. But then it rained and it looked beautiful throughout and we fished, you know, the miles in between the bridges and caught nothing. 2 (22m 43s): And then we got to both bridges and caught where the fish that are there, you know, so sometimes rain and, and swollen streams, especially on the East coast, look a lot better than they are the day before they rains, you know? So, so just knowing that, you know, I mean like, you know, you don’t waste your time, you know, not, not not saying it that way, but just, you know, for as a efficiency standpoint. But, you know, knowing there’s wild trout there, they might be throughout the whole stretch, you know, and it’s just more dependent on where pers where someone physically put the fit. We all know this stuff, but, you know, so that, that helps to know where I’m gonna put my time in. I’m gonna look for the common points or, you know, and then technique wise, maybe I’ll fish with different flies, I’ll move faster or slower depending on if they’re wild or stock fish, you know? 2 (23m 30s): So it makes me change how I fish for them and the amount I fish eat area. Yeah. Dave (23m 35s): Is the Henry’s fork fully wild or there stocked fish in the Henry’s fork? 2 (23m 40s): You know, truthfully, I don’t know that answer. I think it’s fully wild, but I really don’t know that answer. I mean, we’re gonna fish it like it’s fully wild. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Dave (23m 50s): Which means you’re going to hunker down and, and learn the specifics of every detail, every, every pool. 2 (23m 56s): Oh, we’re definitely gonna learn a, we’re definitely gonna put some practice time in. We’re definitely gonna, which we have already, you know, interviewed some, some local anglers and some competitive anglers. And there’s a lot of, a lot of stuff that goes behind the scenes with preparation to that level, of course. Dave (24m 14s): Right. You’re interviewing, so you’re taking people that know the area. And what are some of the questions, like if we had, let’s say you had that person on right here, you know, you name the mike, like whoever is at the Henry’s fork, like what would you be asking? What would be a few questions you would ask them? 2 (24m 29s): So like a key aspect maybe would be, you know, how fast is the fish reset? Can you walk through an area and they eat again? How many can you pull from one small area? Are they deep water oriented or shallow water oriented? Are they more willing to come up to eat rot dries? Are they more on the bottom? You know, is there white fish? Are the white fish potted up? Are they in what depth of water are they in? And you, you see the thing, I’m not asking what fly they’re using. We’re really in, we’re really want to know the specifics of war fish are and how they feed. Then we can come up with the flies for, for us the confident wise worked before whatever. And those are important questions, but those aren’t our first questions. Dave (25m 9s): No, they’re not. Yeah, the flies seem to be the, oh, I don’t know what you call it, but it’s just, you know, pe everybody loves ’em. We love talking about looking at or tying ’em, but at the end of the day, it seems like it’s one of the last things you have to, that makes the difference, right? Everything you just mentioned there is way more important 2 (25m 25s): Maybe to me, maybe to others it’s not, but that’s confidence and that’s what you build on and that’s is what it’s, Dave (25m 30s): What is your, you know, confidence flies. You hear that a lot. Do you have like a few of yours just to stay on that topic? What, what are some of your confidence flies? 2 (25m 39s): I would say number one through three would be a waltz, and that’s like a cadis kind of fly. It’s called waltz worm, but yeah, it’s not a worm, but ki kind of. But yeah, the cadi, you can know tie in different sizes and colors. And then France fly would be number two. That’s like a, a bluing olivey looking guy. Or it could be like Midge or, or small may fly and then a pheasant tail Frenchy or regular. I mean, those flies are just, I mean, come on. You can’t beat that stuff, you know? Dave (26m 10s): Good. Okay. And, and then the cat is, is that something that you fish quite a bit of, whether in Pennsylvania or just around the country? 2 (26m 16s): Yeah, I fish that num, that’s would be my number one fly. And not, because it’s specifically like the, to me, the best that matches all the tr to be transparent, it’s the fastest, the tie and it’s the fastest I lose, so I’m not, you know, that’s kind of the truth of it, you know? And, and just luckily it’s just a really, for me, a pattern that I’ve built mad confidence in that’s caught fish, you know, pretty much, pretty much anywhere I’ve fished. Dave (26m 41s): I feel like the, you have these pa, well you mentioned the pheasant tail, but the waltz worm is similar to a, a hair ear, right? It’s kind of a similar, is it the same? It’s just, is that all it is? Is is hair ear essentially hairs? 2 (26m 53s): I mean, you could tie it with many different kind of dubbings, but I, I would say yes in a sense. It’s just a, do you know, a simple down hair ear? No, no tail, no win case. And you know, I, I don’t even really use like a special ribbing, I just use the thread itself, you know, it just makes it even faster to tie, you know? And sometimes, sometimes I feel sad about minimizing the importance, I don’t wanna say importance, but minimizing the artisticness of, of flies and, and, but I just don’t have time for it. I just, it’s not, and it’s not something that I enjoy. I don’t enjoy tying flies. I don’t like that aspect of it. Dave (27m 28s): And it doesn’t work better. Like you’re saying, if you put on a, well, it could, but, but I always go to the, you see some of these things out there, and this is more what people love, like the flight tying shows and some guys tying up an exact imitation. I mean, it literally looks like it’s a, the real bug. Like those things definitely don’t work better, you know, they look probably work, work worse because they’re more stiff and stuff. But as you get along this, you have a hair’s ear, which has a case back, it’s got a tail, it’s got little hair, little legs, it almost looks, you know, a little more real. But then you get down to these frenchies and stuff, which are just the thin, the thin, right? What’s the saying? Thin to win or something like that, right? So, but then you get down and I feel like it’s just the basic right? And that’s because it’s getting down. Is that mainly because it’s getting into the zone and not necessarily that it’s the perfect color? 2 (28m 11s): Sometimes I have no clue. Sometimes. I don’t know. Sometimes yes, getting down is, yeah, it, it, and it’s neat. So I try to be more scientific with what’s going on to support my ideas or our ideas. So it’s more not just emotional. ’cause as a coach and as a instructor, I wanna know the reason why behind what’s going on more than, oh, this worked. Okay, stop. Let’s cut your motion. Like, why? You know, someone, an angler will come to me after a session, a young angler or a whatever, and they say, I smoked them, I slammed ’em, I crushed ’em. I said, those are emotions, gimme facts. I caught 19. 2 (28m 51s): Okay, those are facts. Now let’s figure things out. What water type, what this and that. There’s a lot more to it than you know. Oh, so I, I switched flies here and I crushed ’em. I went to the next hole and they’re not eating up there. Was that the fact, or is your setup not appropriate for that next area? Did you change things appropriately? You know, like there’s just a lot more going on and we try to think about more of the, you know, what’s going on? What are you trying to do? So that being said, we work in reverse. We think about what our fly, does it need to, like you’re saying, thin to wind, does it need to get down quickly? Does it need to get down slowly? And then, then our leader, our cast, our mechanics and all that follow versus how a lot of other people do it. 2 (29m 32s): They say, well, I’m, I’m doing this, thus this is happening. I want the opposite. What am I trying to do with my fly first and work backwards with everything, reverse engineer everything I do. And that gives me a little bit more control and knowledge of what’s going on a little bit. I don’t know everything of course, but I’m just trying to think things every time I’m teaching, presenting or coaching. I’m trying to stimulate thought because I don’t know the answer, but I know if you think about it, you’ll come up with a lot more thoughts of what’s going on and you’ll be able to control things Dave (30m 4s): Step into the world where the river whispers and the fishing is nothing short of legendary. 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And so on that Walt worm, you know, let’s just say the Cadis I that because the cadi is, I just feel like, okay, you got may flies, you got cas, you got stone flies, all this. How are you fishing a cadis you know, differently than you maybe were fishing something that’s a may fly, or are you fishing it differently? 2 (31m 14s): No, not really. No, I, if I’m fishing, two flies. I mean, my CAD is on the bottom and my may flies on the top. But that’s, I mean, even that I’m just reaching, I’m not really, you know, sometimes what, what matters more to me then? Yeah, I, I, I think maybe you’re reaching for, maybe I’ll animate the fly or move the fly or fish it in different waters, but not too much. But what matters to me, what I’m after is sink how it sinks. Sometimes I don’t wanna fast sink. Sometimes I want it to sink really slowly, like way slower than I think. A lot of what I encourage every angler to do is when they’re, you know, listening to this, think of the fly they’re using. 2 (31m 57s): If it’s a three, five or two, oh, whatever it is, next time you fish, tie it on your line and drop it in the water in front of you and watch it. But you, no one does. People don’t realize how slow or fast or fly sinks, you know, watch that and see and use that data to think about when you cast and if you drop your rod tip and do all the slack, what’s happening with your slack is the fla actually sinking as faster, as slow as you think it is. And you know, you can start controlling things a lot better when you know how fast or slow your sink is. And you can follow it with your rod tip as it sinks and maintain control. Or you can, you know, a very, the angler that I look up to very highly is, is Pat Weiss. 2 (32m 37s): He’s someone in central Pennsylvania that’s, he’s, it’s neat, just a really good angler. I i, I don’t know exactly why, but I think, I don’t know how even gonna say why, but he’s just really good angler. Okay. And he told me something on a trip I, I, I booked, booked a day to go with him. I wanna learn from him last year. And he told me something like, you know, he thinks fish can see oftentimes a lot further than we think they can. And if that fly sinks really fast upstream, a lot of fish will say no to it before it even gets to there. It just sinks too fast. Nothing sinks that fast. Drop bugs in, grab a CADs grab, you know, may fly some swim and, and do sink faster. 2 (33m 21s): But if you put a four millimeter perdigon on in shallow water, I mean, it’s just unrealistic, you know, but you know, it, it matches with the water. If it’s really fast and efficient, only have a short window to see that really quickly you sink and fly can be, you know, like you’re saying, thin to win it can win. But on a lot of other situations, sinking too fast. And, and why I am telling you this is that to me, these things matter more than matching the waltz form of the pheasant tail or the, the hendrickson infinites third stage of color purple. Like, I, it’s too much for me to think about when I’m just trying to think of the things that I can control, if that makes sense. That’s why I’m telling all this to kind of bring it back Dave (33m 59s): Together. It does. That makes total sense. Yeah. So the getting to the bigger picture, which is like, yeah, you know, how are we making this thing look lifelike to the fish? 2 (34m 7s): They can, yeah. I, I use this kind of analogy called line of sight. What I often try to do is not, not grind the bottom. If, if possible, if the fish are willing to, to move to eat the fly. I try to keep the fly in more fish’s vision, and that means staying higher. And that means with sinking slower, if I can sink slower, more fish are able to see if they’re down in these little ridges and valleys in between the rocks. If I get down to the rocks too fast, I might take out a lot of opportunity for fish from the left or the right to see the fly. But if the fly is a little higher for longer and slowly start sinking more fish will see it. And oftentimes they’ll move into the lane of that fly and eat the fly. Dave (34m 49s): There you go. Are these fish sitting there typically in different locations within the, the channel? You know, I mean, just say it was three feet deep, four feet deep. Are they typically a certain amount off the bottom when they’re feeding? Or how can you tell that? 2 (35m 4s): So, great, great question. That could come down to wild verse stock right there. And that could come down to fishing pressure. That could, can come down to, you know, wind, wind, what do I mean by wind? You know, on our streams here, you have a rainy day and blueing dollars are hatching and beta and, and fisher eating and it’s still, and then the next day what comes after low pressure, high pressure wind blows that in and all the branches are moving and all the leaves are moving and those fish are plastered to the bottom. ’cause they see, you know, it’s like, oh my gosh, everything’s moving. They’re scared. You know? So, you know, know conditions can dictate where the fish are in the column, food bugs, you know, all that stuff. And that can change what I call the strike zone. 2 (35m 45s): You know, someone says strike zone and what does that mean? That’s, to me, the strike zone is the area that the fish will be in or move to to eat. And sometimes that strike zone is so small and tomorrow can be so wide depending on how fearless the fish are or pressured or this or that, you know. So, you know, knowing those things can change how I fish. Dave (36m 7s): I love that. Yeah. We were doing a streamer episode, I’m trying to think of the, oh, it was, I think it was Tommy Lynch and he was talking about two types of fish or the two at least out there. The, the suicide fish and the Wouldbe predator, you know, and the suicide fish is that one that’s just, you know, it’s suicide fish, right? Going nuts. And then you got the other. But I think this goes back to it, right? Same thing is that depending on the conditions these fish are changing, right? And this could probably change throughout the day. Is that, is that true? 2 (36m 33s): Absolutely. It can change, you know, bird flies over all of a sudden they’re spooked and wearing now, you know, so strike zone changes. Dave (36m 40s): W what is the on the leader setup, let’s just take that for the euro. Does that vary quite a bit between, let’s say, pat, you know, Weiss versus you versus others that are out there? You think it’s pretty similar with the Euro setup on the leader? 2 (36m 52s): I think it’s similar in the fact that it’s monofilament, but it’s definitely different in, in the weights and, but those balance, or I tried to say earlier, which he’s, you know, pat is once again engineering or reverse engineering what he wants his fly to do. And then his leader helps to accomplish that. And his, but his cast also is connected with how and what it’s doing, so it matches. But if you ask him what leader, and then you don’t cast similarly, it might not work for you. That’s what I try to say. When you learn from someone, learn their whole method, good at it, then understand what it’s doing, how your rod’s working, how your rod’s bending, why it’s casting the way it is. 2 (37m 36s): You know, the best anglers to me are like plumbers, electricians, like, you know, that’s my dad. He, he was a carpenter and he’s, he understands his hammer, how to use it in ways that, you know, I wouldn’t know. And that’s the same thing with the rod. Like you understand when you cast, it’s doing something with that light leader differently than it’s with a heavy leader versus a heavy fly with long tip. You know? So understanding how your tool works to a high level, then you understand if you grab paths Rod or his leader and then mine, you’re gonna be so different and you’re like, you know, but if you do the same stroke with both, it might not work properly. Wow. Does that make Dave (38m 14s): Sense? Yeah, it makes total sense. No, I think this is a, I think you’re reinforcing a good point here is that yeah, you can, you can go out and get stuff from Devin and Lance and you know, Pete and everybody and put it all together, but it’s gonna be a little confusing 2 (38m 26s): A little. I mean, it, it might not be for you, but for me, I have to, you know, if I go to a heavy leader, my cast is gonna be different than when I go to a really, really light leader. Light flies you, I’ll just like, I, you know, and then if I change rods, it might, my cast might change a little bit too. So a rod that’s a little softer or a little stiffer or whatever, I might need to adjust things a little bit. Dave (38m 48s): Yeah. If you’re, let’s just say you have a fish that is kind of active, you know, maybe is up in the calm a little bit feeding, maybe he’s even in shallower water. How are you fishing a, a nymph? Like what would your setup look like to that fish on that day? 2 (38m 60s): If, when fish are in like water that is like angled and knee deep in fast water like that, if, hopefully if it’s moderately fast, that’s, to me that’s my favorite fish. But when you’re fishing what I call a microenvironment, you asked earlier the fish that’s in three feet in my, there’s different obstacles, let’s say in three feet versus six inches. You know, the environment is so small and six inches that if it, the difference between a two millimeter and a two four think rate might be the difference between one second and the bottom and a half second, which, you know, over a foot might be a drift or not. So, you know, when SWAT’s so small in such microenvironments, little adjustments are huge, little adjustments are very important. 2 (39m 45s): So how I fish something like that oftentimes would be with a really light fly and greasing my leader and letting it float on the water and fishing like straight or almost straight upstream. That’s my favorite way to fish. I love that. It’s my favorite method. Oh really? By far, yes. Dave (39m 60s): Love it. So, and yeah, so they’re in shallow water. And by greasing it you mean you’re kind of putting some like floating so that the leader holds up high? Yeah, 2 (40m 6s): So I’ll put like some sort of wax or something that’s like sticky that you can put on the leader that will help it to suspend and float. And you’re watching that leader for indication of a bite, it’ll move forward or go sideways or even go downstream. There’s different things. It’s, oh, it’s so fun. It’s, it’s, I like that because I can fish a little farther, a lot more casting techniques, more traditional stuff maybe I should say are important. Like you could do different kinds of reach casts and making sure, sorry, this is like, you gotta close your eyes and picture what I’m talking about here. But you know, so wherever your fly is going to go to wherever your fly, if so, if you naturally drop something in the water where it’s going to go, that’s what we call tracking. 2 (40m 54s): It’s the path that the fly is gonna take without your interference. Okay, can you picture this? I want my leader to land downstream of that path always. So I might need to bend my cast to turn around that rock because I want it to go by by, you know, past that rock. But I’m on the opposite side of the rock. How do I do that? So casting might be really important to manipulate my leader in the air to land a certain way. So the fly goes that way. And that’s the same thing with nu thing. You, you gotta think of that same thing, where’s the fly gonna go if you don’t impede its path and you need to figure out your body position and how to do that properly. 2 (41m 34s): That’s then we call it tracking once, once again, something I’m more thinking about than the fly itself. Just one, one more peel layer of the onion. You know what I Dave (41m 42s): Mean? That’s great. I love, and that sounds like, and I love that, you know, you can kind of for a little bit take out the fly, right? That’s one thing we can maybe focus on something else. We, we know the flies that work, right? A little bit. 2 (41m 51s): Let me say this, if I can match the, the drift and exactly the fly, man, I’d be deadly. But in that point it’s too much. You know what I mean? I didn’t need to, I didn’t need to catch that many. Dave (42m 1s): Yeah, I love that. 2 (42m 2s): I’d rather I’d, at the end of the day, I’d rather walk out and say, man, I manipulated my drift. And I was, you know, in control of that so well that I caught fish and I didn’t physically have to change anything. Verse the angler who stood there and had to change the fly 10 times. ’cause changing flies isn’t fun, you know, and you matching the right fly. To me, that’s what’s more fun. But each angler’s their own, you know, whatever, they have fun doing, whatever, who cares? You know, Dave (42m 27s): I’m with you. Like I, I’ve tied lots of flies, but I don’t tie, I don’t love tying anymore. And I feel like the fishing like changing my flies out there. I’m not, especially as I get older, you know, you, you’re not even there yet. But once you get older and you gotta put the glasses on, that’s the other thing that’s like, oh my God, I gotta change my fly again. 2 (42m 44s): You know, you know, I to be the bear. Bad news, sometimes we have to change things. We gotta change weight, we gotta change fly, you know? That’s right. Saying you don’t have to, but I would rather first rely on my technique. Dave (42m 54s): Okay, so I like this little, so you’re, you’re fishing to a fish that maybe is in shallower water. Maybe he’s coming in, he’s in, he could be a big fish right in there. And, and the, your leader is looking like, like maybe describe that. Are you using a shorter leader in that situation? Lighter? 2 (43m 9s): There’s two thought processes here. So leader, let’s talk about length real quick to get all on the same page. So leader length, my if if possible, if, if I’m not bound by regulation nor competition, I will have more of what anglers would call a mono rig. So what that means to me, I don’t know what the exact definition of a mono rig is. I don’t really care. But what the, the definition for me is monofilament. That’s long. So it might be 30 feet of monofilament, it could be tapered, it could be tapered lifts, it could be all cider, it could be whatever it is. In my scenario, let’s say it’s Pierre sepe, it, it is point, let’s say one eight, which is like, I, that’s, I think that’s millimeters, but it would be around four and a half x, four x something in that range. 2 (43m 59s): Okay? So that’s my whole leader, let’s say 30 feet of it. And it’s all slide, it’s all colored, it terminates. And at that termination point, you could put a tip ring, you don’t have to, you could use a perfection loop. That’s what I use usually just a little perfection loop that I tie in the liter. And then I’ll add, tip it to that our fish is in ankle deep water. It’s moderately fast. It’s not like white water, but it’s all gravel, which is kind of key, you know, it’s, we’re, we’re painting a scenario here on the left or the right, it’s really deep water. So he slid over and he’s eating the bug’s coming in, that kind of fast shallow water, which often happens in the summer when there’s a lot of bugs. So for me, I would put a, let’s say a two millimeter malt swarm on. 2 (44m 41s): And in the scenario, I’d want that waltz to be thicker and ’cause that can help maybe slow my sink down. I can slow my sink down by how I land my leader on the water. I don’t talk cast, I land what I call level with my fly and leader and tip it cider, it all hit the, the water simultaneously. So the surface almost pulls my fly just gently so it doesn’t allow it to sink. I can also restrict my sink with thicker tipt, you gotta use five x four x three what, whatever in my tipt length, let’s say it would be about four feet long, three, three to four feet long. In that scenario, the more velocity changes, the shorter my tipt would be. 2 (45m 25s): The more the water is constant, the longer I will fish my tip it to cider. And what I’ll try to do is make sure my cider lands downstream of the fish. So I don’t line the fish with my cider and spook ’em. So if I catch that fish, maybe I’ll move three feet and kind of go for the next chunk versus six inch steps or a footstep because my cider’s just gonna spook that next fish. If that makes sense. Yeah. So choices and someone else might, you know that that fish there would probably a good dry fly candidate. Dave (45m 56s): Yeah, that would be, oh, so you could be under, or you could be on the surface of this guy for 2 (45m 60s): Sure because he’s in such shallow water. But I notice is the, the of sight thing is really, really, really magnified in water like this. Because if there’s discrepancies, if that water’s only six inches to eight inches deep, if there’s little humps and bumps in there and your fly goes right to the bottom, the fish from the left to the right won’t see your fly. So if you keep the fly closer to the surface, it’s, it can see kinda like the cone on the sides of its head farther. It’s almost like dry fly. And when your dry is on the surface, a lot of times you don’t need to be in the lane of that fish. It’ll move one to two, three feet to the left or right to eat that dry. ’cause it can see it. Same with the nymph. If it can see it, if it’s willing, if it’ll move often and you can just convert fish faster when it works. 2 (46m 43s): And sometimes that well, and then let, so that’s strike zone, but then that strike zone some days is compressed to, you have to get it in the mouth of that fish, you know? And, and what I call it, the, the degree of variance that the fish will eat. And in your, your, your cast and your drift and your whatever is so small. And those are the days where fishing just really hard, Dave (47m 4s): You know? Right. That’s when it gets tough. That’s where the Euro NPH thing comes in. It seems like that’s the technique for some reason that works really well on. Do you find that that is the technique when it’s fishing is really hard and they’re, they’re not biting that you could still get ’em to bite with the Euro style. 2 (47m 19s): Sometimes it’s just fishing distance, you know, if that fish just even thinks you’re there, it just doesn’t eat. Sometimes just being farther away or, you know. But yeah, I think with the Euro, I think it gives you more control to control your variance to a higher degree than with an indicator. And a lot of times, Dave (47m 38s): Yeah. And spooking. Right. And all the, the thinner leaders help for spooking. Right. Do, is that a big thing with the leaders? You know, thinner gets you down quicker, but also is it a big part in the spooking of the fish depending on the conditions 2 (47m 49s): With it on the surface or with it underneath? Dave (47m 51s): Well, I, I was thinking underneath, but yeah, either one. Yeah, 2 (47m 54s): That’s, you know, if the really spooky, I’ll fish that tidbit longer between the cider, just so the, even the cider in the air over the fish. I’ve seen spook fish, you know, just even that I try to fish heavier tipt just to respect the fish catch, you know, and catch them faster. But sometimes, you know, tipt will spook fish too. Dave (48m 13s): That’s right. What is your, so you had say three to four feet, and just in this scenario, obviously this is just one little scenario, what fly, so you’re tying on the fight and then are you tying usually one fly or are you ty using a dropper all whatever, with this setup? 2 (48m 25s): I like fishing. Two flies less and less. The more I fish When I’m nim fing, when I’m dry dropper, of course you have two flies on, but when I’m just say two Nims, I don’t do it. I don’t fish that nearly as much as I used to in that scenario. One fly for sure. Just because the amount of sink you don’t, you know, you’re, you’re not, and and to me, because of that environment, so small, anything going passive fish is gonna see it when I have two flies. To me, it’s more chance of fish to be spooked off or to say no. Or to, you know, when I’m fishing deep three feet deep or four feet deep or whatever, and it’s uniform and it’s a big river, I’ll have two flies on when I’m fishing small, you know, boutique little spots like that. 2 (49m 7s): That’s, to me, those are all one fly, one fly spots. Dave (49m 9s): Those are all one flies. Okay. And then, and then on the tungsten on the bead, are you typically, is there any time where you wouldn’t be using the tungsten and it sounds like sometimes getting less sink, is that something you’re doing or is it all tungsten? 2 (49m 21s): Yeah, for sure. In that larger brass beaded fly, you know, a 16 wats or 16 hairs a year with a traditional, you know, bra. Yeah, for sure. The problem is now casting, casting now it gets difficult with a light leader, but when you learn different casts, you know, so someone says, I wanna do what you’re doing. And you know, I’m say it’s actually not very hard, but if you traditional try to traditional cast with it, it’s extremely diff it can be extremely difficult if there’s wind or you know, whatever. And we’ve learned just different casts to that just work that are o actually do this cast call it a Frisbee, Cass, where I put my finger on the side of the rod verse my thumb on top. 2 (50m 4s): When my thumb is on top, I notice I anglers including myself, when I’m guiding, I have the tendency to, to rotate the wrist. Not saying that’s good or bad, but the rotation makes the fly pop out of the water and go high, especially with the light leader kind of amplifies this. And it just really kind of destroys your distance and accuracy. But if you put the finger on the side of the rod and you, we call it the Frisbee ’cause it’s the same motion as like throwing a Frisbee. The wrist is still involved, but it doesn’t rotate on like an upwards angle. It can, you know, you keep it level with let’s say your waist or your, your your your chest. And you can even do it a foot six inches off the water and keep it really low. 2 (50m 46s): And you know, if you think of, I’m not a math person, you know, but if you think of geometry and the distance, you know, between two points, straight line, you know, wind and accuracy, some of that stuff. If it, it helps to get the fly there. It’s not the best, but it, it helps to get it there. Where sometimes that’s the only way I found just to get a light fly, you know? But, but understanding how your rod works, understanding how your cast, you know, how your fly it. I like to explain it almost like, you know, you cast a dry fly with fly line and the fly line carries your fly. Where some of these casts, it’s almost like your fly is the fly line and it’s like you pretend you’re throwing a baseball with a string, you’re throwing the baseball, the flies, the baseball and the string is like, you know, the fly’s pulling your string towards the targets. 2 (51m 37s): Almost similar to like how these cast are just, just different, you know? Dave (51m 41s): Right. So yeah. And there’s, well, let’s, let’s take that moment as you’re talking about casting. We, we have our own casting challenge going and we’ll start to take it outta here. Now as we, as we look at this, we, we have this really cool thing going. I’m reaching out to some of the casting, you know, instructors or just people that know and saying, Hey, what’s a good exercise somebody could work on? And I feel like that’s a big struggle, right? Casting and euro. Just euro, right. Casting that setup is not easy to do. Would you have, if somebody is new to it, like some sort of a exercise somebody could use to get better at the casting of the Euro? 2 (52m 13s): Absolutely. But the, the key to me is there’s like five fundamentals or things that really can make or break and making sure the leader matches what you’re trying to do. Like you said, if you, if you do this with a heavier leader, it doesn’t quite seem to work as well, you know, but like some key aspects, what if I have a heavy fly or my flies deep, I need to get that fly to the surface before I really finish my cast. So the movement of my rod tip might be 1, 2, 3 feet to bring that fly all the way to the surface. And then I finish my cast with a, a crisp flick of my wrist when the flies on the surface. You know? 2 (52m 52s): So there’s definitely some things, but you gotta, you got like, I like to say, you know, I’m not the best with my words. I’m, I’m vi you know, I’m a visual. You gotta see it and you know, then I can explain it. It’s, it, this would be too hard to explain exactly on, you know, a call. But, but that’s, you know, that’s a part of the, the teaching part that I love. Dave (53m 11s): Yeah, you do. Somebody’s coming there to get better at, you know, maybe they read your book and they’re thinking like, okay, I I want to take this next level. They’re out with you and they’re just new to it. So what is that the first thing? What is the first thing you’re doing with somebody who’s kind of new to it on the, on the cast, 2 (53m 25s): Those things. Making sure we set up a back cast properly. Making sure your body is set, making sure you’re physically always identifying your target, where you want your fly to go. Making sure your mechanics are appropriate and you know, trying to execute your cast. And then after the cast, when the fly’s in the air, when the fly is still in the air, understanding the next movements of your rod. If it’s raising by your, your rod tip, by just rotating your wrist or if it’s already moving your rod tip downstream, the same speed as the surface of the water to make maintain instant connection. Like there’s a lot of things post cast to do to help you for success too. 2 (54m 9s): And then it’s even, you know, I don’t do one cast, there’s multiple casts to, you know, identify your target first, figure out what your fly, what you want your fly to do. You want it to sink fast, you wanna be connected instantly. And then that can help you to choose what cast you wanna do. You wanna do a higher arching cast maybe to help the fly to sink faster or to have connection instantly, you know, so that those things are, you know, there’s not one way to do it. There’s many ways. Dave (54m 37s): Oh no, this is love it. The, the, the rabbit holes are always good. Totally. Does your book go into casting? Is that something that you cover in the book? 2 (54m 44s): Some casting stuff in the book? Truthfully, if I could do, you know, I don’t know any author that wouldn’t say it, but man, I could write that book five times longer now. You know, with all the things that I’m like, man, like, you know, ’cause even me, I, I’m always trying to just keep learning. I wanna re, I just wanna be the best I can be always so I can keep teaching, you know, and it’s fun, man. It’s fun. Dave (55m 5s): That’s it. That’s it. Nice. Well, and this time of year, are you fishing, I mean may maybe go back to that real quick on your guiding, are you guiding throughout the year or there’s a time where you’re out there more often? 2 (55m 15s): So my schedule with guiding is, I, I haven’t really fished besides last week down far south. Of course I’m gonna go to Florida next after Denver show this weekend I’m gonna go to Florida, fish the keys a little bit for fun for myself. And then I will start lightly guiding in March. So it’ll be a little bit of steelhead and then trout. And then once opening day in Pennsylvania, I’ll do April trout, may trout, and usually most of June, but I will have my second child, God willing, is coming. We call it the green Drake baby. I have a, I have a grand and baby, which is early season. 2 (55m 56s): I have a green drink baby on the way. Dave (55m 57s): Yeah. Which is, when is the due date? 2 (56m 1s): It would be end of May, early June. Yeah, end Dave (56m 4s): Of marriage early June. Wow. Yeah, 2 (56m 6s): That’ll change my guiding this year. But traditionally it would be June and then summertime would be July. Here in Pennsylvania is too warm on most of our streams, so I kind of hang up guiding, maybe I’ll do a day or two in July, but not really anything. And that’s one, the world championships, July, August for the, the last few years. And then September I’ll go out west for a little while and fish and then I’ll start back into September, october for a little bit of trout. Then they start thinking about spawning. I give up trout and I’ll go to Steelhead for a little while and then comes into the winter and I don’t really fish at all, all winter. So yeah, that’s my season. Dave (56m 43s): Yeah, you’re you’re not fishing, you’re not going for it right now. You got a couple things. Yeah, Denver’s right around the corner. 2 (56m 48s): Well, yeah, honestly, a, a few years ago, man, it was like nice to have that fall, you know, winter time with your family and stuff. But now I’m busier. I got all the shows and you know, talks and engagements and it’s, it’s, it, it makes it so fun. I love Dave (57m 2s): It. That’s so good. Okay, cool. Well, and then we mentioned the July. So are you guys gonna be, do you just head out there like the week before or the, the world championships or how does that look that that week? 2 (57m 12s): Yeah, usually whenever the past in, in different countries we went maybe 8, 9, 10 days before if we could. Sometimes it was a little less, a little more, well whenever you’re going to, let’s say Slovenia, my, my first world championship coaching and it was like, you know, two, three days of travel and the time zone’s pretty big and you know, angler or young anglers are excited, they fish hard one day and then they, they get, they get hit and it, they crash, you know what I mean? It’s like time zone and you’re so exhausted and you know, so we wanna make sure we have enough days to prepare mentally, physically. 2 (57m 52s): But then even small things like you know, there’s not a Utah state fishing game website where you can buy your fishing license when you need to. Czech Republic, you know, it’s like, you know some, I remember we went to this little like, I don’t remember what country it was, maybe Poland, you know, this upstairs third floor, this like home, you know, you’re like, what’s going on here? Dave (58m 13s): That’s where you gotta get, so you do have to buy a fishing license E even over there. 2 (58m 17s): Oh, for sure. Yeah. Every country and they’re different, there’s different regulations and governing things, you know, it might only be you could fish it just these small stretches and that’s it in the whole country. Maybe it’s a region, maybe it’s just one stream, you know. So there it’s very different when you go over to different places overseas with fishing, very different. Dave (58m 38s): Yeah, that’s it. Okay. Yeah, 2 (58m 40s): This year after we went to Austria, we wanted to fish a few places, but it was like we, we, they’re like, you have to take like a fishing test and stuff and for some, you know, I was like, that’s crazy. It, but it’s kind of neat. I kind of, kind of liked it in a way. Dave (58m 53s): That’s kind of cool challenge. Yeah, it’s like some of that stuff, it’s better to have some education before you get into it. Right. Okay. So, so basically for this in Idaho you’re gonna be heading over there the, I think it starts like mid-July, right? So you’ll probably go over there the a few days before and just kind of do some practice and then get ready to roll. 2 (59m 9s): Yeah, we’re gonna go practice way before a couple months before and try to get as much, you know, as much as we can practicing on water type that’s similar or if the venues are still open on the actual physical waterways, but you know, try to get as much, but it’s not gonna be the same in a way, you know, is runoff season versus after runoff so different, you know, so you gotta take that with a grain of salt. Sometimes it’s just physically standing there and having your boots in, in the stream, you know, sometimes just that gives you, you know, you just know the lay of the land, what you’re looking at and you know, familiarity. Dave (59m 46s): You guys are gonna be doing some st there’s always a steel water component, right? 2 (59m 49s): Not always, but usually. Usually, yeah. There’ll be two lakes involved in this one. Dave (59m 54s): Okay. Is is that something that you’re especially, are you equal at lakes as you are all the other stream stuff? 2 (59m 60s): Oh gosh, no. I’m terrible at lakes. So some of the anglers are really good at lakes and, and usually it’s the west coast more anglers ’cause they just have more opportunity of, you know, natural lakes or, or or you know, just lakes in general. We don’t have too much on the east coast. There is some and there’s some with some wild fish, but not, not too much. Dave (1h 0m 24s): Well this is awesome Josh. I think we definitely could chat. I would love to drill in more, you know, at a later point. But I appreciate this today. I think we’ll just send everybody out to trout yeah.com and josh, PGH on Instagram. Any last words for the big event that people should be thinking about? I know you guys like need volunteers, stuff like that. Any other, like why, why would people listen now, want to come to that event? Is that something where anybody can come there and join and watch you guys fish? 2 (1h 0m 50s): Yeah, sure. And it’s great. I think it’s, it’s almost like that thing, you know, more a stream needs friends, you know, we do too. You know, I would like some light to be shared on competitive angling because they’re, you know, to be honest, there is some negative things involved. We’re taking, you know, an area of the stream, you, it’s hard for anglers to fish at that weekend. We’re gonna catch some fish. It makes it maybe difficult, you know, this or that. So of course there’s some negative things and I’ll be the first one to say that. But at the end we tr we try at least, I’m trying to always help the anglers with education on, you know, loving the environment and loving the fish and trying to do their best to, and making sure that they know, and we know that we are ambassadors for, you know, the, the sport, our country. 2 (1h 1m 35s): But you know, that we don’t have the right of way the, the regular angular does. And that’s the truth. Dave (1h 1m 40s): Yeah, that’s right because they’re out there. That’s the difference, right? In the, in the US typically we’re not closing down this whole thing for the championships, but in some other countries, don’t they, did the other two countries, did they close down the, the waters for you guys? Yeah. 2 (1h 1m 53s): You know, and, and we don’t want, you know, at least for me, if I had the ability, I wouldn’t wanna do that. You, you know, that’s, that’s part of the game, that’s part of the luck too, you know, it’s part of what it is. But the thing is, some of the, the governing board or whatever wants to make sure it’s, it’s fair and equal. ’cause some countries maybe will do some things that are, are not fair put put people in people’s beats on purpose and stuff like that, you know? But, you know, but we, we, we try to make sure, so our nationals, we have a nationals here in Pennsylvania that’s gonna happen in March. And you know, for that it, there’s no closed water. You know, anyone could fish right beside the angler, even though I would hope no one would do that on purpose, you know, but we would never, you know, I, I always tell our anglers we are not, what word am I saying? 2 (1h 2m 42s): Looking for? Dave (1h 2m 43s): Yeah, you’re the, you’re making the setting the example. Right. Setting a good example 2 (1h 2m 47s): Of course. But we don’t have the right over the, over them. That’s what I’m saying. We don’t, we never, you know, you know, just, I try to share some love and happiness in this stuff. And Dave (1h 2m 55s): So the nationals and that is the step. So that will be, is that the nationals for everyone or just the youth? 2 (1h 3m 0s): Just just the youth. Yeah, just, oh, I’m excited. It’ll be in Pennsylvania on Spring Creek and Fishing Creek, which are beautiful place. Beautiful place. Dave (1h 3m 8s): Is this the national where now the, the youth that when this get a chance to go to this thing this year or is that already been selected? 2 (1h 3m 15s): No, that will be, that will be, it’ll help to decide the final anglers. Dave (1h 3m 20s): Wow. Exciting. So, so, so you don’t know right now the the exact team, I mean this is the, that must be a little bit of Yeah. I mean right. Some pressure. These youth I’m sure are just as fired up as you about getting this together and they gotta perform, but it’s not just one thing, right? This is a culmination of multiple national events to choose this, right? 2 (1h 3m 36s): It is, yeah. And it’s, you know, obviously the anglers last year that took first, second, and third, Dave (1h 3m 41s): Right? They’re not being booted out. Right. 2 (1h 3m 43s): But anglers age off and then there’s more spots. Some anglers don’t come, you know, I don’t think everyone really doesn’t come back, but sometimes that happens. I’m sure, you know. But yeah, there’s definitely spots to be made this team. So it’s, it’s special and it’s cool. Dave (1h 3m 57s): Awesome. Well this is exciting. We’ll definitely be sharing the message and we’re gonna hopefully help get some volunteers out there. We were talking to Glade a while back about just, you know, helping to get the word out and I think it’s awesome. I think like it’s exciting to, to see what you have going. So yeah, we’ll be in touch moving ahead and definitely thanks for all your time today. 2 (1h 4m 14s): Thank you. Thank you for having me on the channel and I really appreciate it. Thanks so much. Dave (1h 4m 19s): If you ever wanted to see some of the best in the world, now is your chance to go hang out and check out Josh’s crew team, USA, the youth are going this year. The ladies will be there. Now is your chance. Josh may be booked out for his guide trip for two to three years in advance, but if you wanna check in with the people that are learning from him and check in with him in Idaho, you can check in with me, Dave, at web fly swing.com. Let me know and we’ll get you in touch. All right, just want to give one quick trip. Shout out Phil Roy, if you’re interested in the Stillwater School, we’re gonna be doing that again in this neck of the woods. Send me an email and we’ll follow up with you. I appreciate you for checking out travel today. I hope you can live that dream trip this year or just get off the beaten path and experience that road less travel. Dave (1h 4m 60s): We’ll talk to you then.