Hunting with a Fly #1 | Fly Fishing Like a Hunter with Joe Goodspeed

00:00:00 Rick: This is Rick Kostick, author, guide and travel host and you are tuned in to the Hunting With the Fly podcast, where we dive deep into the strategy approach, flies and culture surrounding the fly fishing pursuit of apex fish like muskie, pike, trophy trout and saltwater predators. Fooling a fish at the top of the food chain requires the focus and commitment to understand the quarry’s habits. Going beyond simply casting and retrieving a fly. Each episode is geared towards information to improve your angling and enjoyment of the quest. If it concerns big flies and aggressive eats, we have it covered here on hunting with the Fly podcast. Please stay tuned. Welcome to hunting with a fly podcast. Today we are talking Muskie with Joe Goodspeed. Many of you know Joe or know of him, but for those that don’t, Joe is a highly accomplished fly caster and angler in both fresh and salt water. He has worked full time in the fly fishing industry for nearly twenty years. Signature tire for fulling mill and designs fly rods and operates the Diamond Pack Fly Rod Company. Many of his designs are being considered the new standard in the industry, but above all of that, Joe has an incredibly analytic mind and the ability to think out of the box with this fly fishing approach. It’s probably the thing that I appreciate most about Joe and fishing with him. 00:01:32 Joe: Thank you Rick. That makes me out to be more than I probably am. But, uh, glad to be able to, uh, you know, come and share some of our, uh, you know, mutual knowledge about this stuff. 00:01:44 Rick: Yeah. No, I’m honored to have you as my first guest on this new series. Yeah, I guess I it really kind of wanted to start just a little bit by talking about our fishing history together. Certainly have enjoyed that over the last ten years. We’ve, uh, really developed some, I would say very positive, musky mojo. You know, we pretty much get together, you know, once, maybe twice a year this past year. Unfortunately, the weather kind of prevented that. And, um, was unfortunate that we kind of got weathered out. But, uh, any particular experience that we’ve had together stick out in your mind? 00:02:19 Joe: Well, we’ve had a lot of, uh, we’ve had a lot of successful trips together to the point that we rarely have gotten together where we have not, uh, put, uh, musky in the boat on any given day. I think we we broke a streak of what had to be probably fourteen or so consecutive days where we’d landed, uh, fish, one of the last times that we didn’t catch one. So it’s. We’ve had a lot of good fishing together, and, uh, I think we’ve got a good chemistry of fishing together that contributes to, uh, to that success on a number of different waters where we’ve been able to, uh, to catch fish. So. And that, you know, I, I find that there’s different chemistry fishing, muskie fishing is something that has such a, a pace and calculated nature to it when you’re being, especially when you’re fishing successfully, that it’s different, fishing with different people, kind of the energy and the pace of, uh, of what the fishing is like when you fish together. So I think that we have a good rhythm of fishing together that’s produced fish in the summertime and also in the, uh, the late season. 00:03:24 Rick: Yeah. No, I agree with that. I mean, I think a good partner is almost as important as really anything your equipment fly, you know, having that, um, I think being on the same page, you know, just both the approach, but the type of water you like to fish and just kind of, you know, I think one angler feeds off another, you know, when when you feel like, you know, pushing forward is going to be the, you know, the, the way to catch Muskie and just kind of having both people in that same mindset, I think really makes a big difference, especially when there’s just kind of that, uh, you know, both people on the same page. 00:04:02 Joe: It’s different fishing alone. You know, for me, fishing with other people has a very different energy to it depending on who the person is. And also just the difference between the way you approach things when you fish solo. Because I know both of us spend a lot of time muskie fishing alone in the boats. And, uh, I definitely feel like I’ve got a little bit more energy when I have someone else in the boat and also the person in the boat. Really? Where your mind goes when you’re fishing. I think, you know, whether you’re talking to someone or you’re not talking to someone, you’re focused on what you’re doing or, you know, to a big extent, the person who’s in the, uh, in the boat with you just makes a big difference in the way that you fish. And I, I think I’ve had times where I’ve fished poorly with certain people who have, you know, make me anxious or are going at a pace. That’s not the pace that I want to fish at. So it’s a not something that we talk about very much, I think, in the sport, but I think that we, uh, feed off of each other as far as being able to stay in a fishy rhythm. And that could be different things in the summertime or in the, uh, in the fall time, but communicating about what the fish are reacting to and also what sort of things have produced fish in the same types of situations, because both of us have some great experience to draw on from different types of waters. You know, between your background and my background, I think that everyone has this really focused view based on what their success has been. And the more that I have been thinking about this and hearing other people’s perspectives who are maybe having podcasts in different parts of the country, the perception of the fish based on who the fish is, where it is that people are fishing for is so different. I really think that’s a a topic that isn’t, uh, pronounced enough. The difference between the fish, if you’ve got, uh, river fish or lake fish or you’re fishing a place that has a high concentration of smaller fish, or you’re really, you know, probing big water for a big fish, it’s a different fish and it’s a different experience. And the successful feedback that people get is a lot different from one region or one type of water to the next. And I feel like when you do a podcast or something where you’re sharing information, it’s important to put that information in the context of where you know where and how that experience came to be, because that really drives someone’s view. And it’s musky is like the hardest thing to have, that really wide angle view where someone knows what it’s all like because it’s, you know, the feedback is so limited and the success, we work so hard to get the success, you know, where we do it. And oftentimes it’s based on really understanding a certain water. You know, especially maybe even during a certain time of year and the patterns that the fish follow. But then that becomes someone’s perspective of what the musky is. And and, you know, anyone who’s had musky success, it’s hard to tell them, rightfully so. If you’ve had musky success, it’s a very probably gratifying thing that makes anyone feel like they have maybe a wealth of knowledge that’s a lot more limited oftentimes probably. And I think even for us, you know, the things that we’ve done, even the, you know, even with anyone who’s got a whole bunch of trophy fish, if it’s on similar types of waters, it’s similar, you know, times of year. It’s not a wide spectrum of feedback. It’s like a narrow spectrum of really good feedback. 00:07:40 Rick: You know, I couldn’t agree with you more, Joe. You know, the one thing that I remember from when I wrote my book and did some research on and I, you know, had the opportunity to to fish, you know, probably in about six or seven different states and up in Ontario. And the one thing that struck me is just how wide of a range of environments that Muskie live in, you know, from the smallest of streams to some of the biggest lakes and how they all do react differently. So, I mean, I and I, you know, I’ve certainly have seen that even just some of the techniques that work on my water haven’t worked as well on the water you’re most familiar with. And, you know, and I think vice versa to some degree. And, you know, and that’s just a small sample size that’s just two pieces of water that, you know, we both know very well. And there’s wide variations in the techniques that have worked there or been the most successful. So I think you can take that and extrapolate that over all of, you know, the Muskie kingdom. And you know, you’re going to see wide variations, you know, throughout that. So I do think that, um, yeah, I think that’s an important part of this is that being successful, you know, I think really does take some intimate knowledge of your water and, uh, you know, and some of that intimate knowledge is going to apply to the next place, but some of it may not. 00:08:59 Joe: Yeah. I think oftentimes it’s hard for us to come to grips with the fact that our knowledge and experience that’s based on what we know oftentimes isn’t that applicable in other fisheries. And, you know, there’s so many factors that a really smart fish like that grows up experiencing. And also, you know, the fishing pressure of what they see or don’t see, really also kind of forms the behavior patterns of the fish as as far as how it relates to the fishermen and what we’re pulling through the water trying to get them to, uh, to catch. So I know my experience is fishing, you know, fishing with you. I’ve had times where I really had to accept that what I wanted the fish to react to really wasn’t the best way to approach them as far as the presentation styles or the fly styles. And there’s the different strains of muskies, you know, and a lot of that has to do with not just, you know, where you are, but you could be fishing the Great Lakes strain fish that get up to sixty inches, and they inhabit the, you know, the Great Lakes and the things that connect them. Or in the East, we also have those Chautauqua or they’re the river strain fish, you know, I guess they would call them the Ohio River strain fish, but they inhabit most of the river environments in the northeast. And there are different fish. They don’t grow as long, you know, they get a better kind of girth to length ratio, especially the, uh, the females. But they behave differently. And I think that that’s one way of framing, you know, the know, the differences in the fish. I do think that when you talk about, say, the Ohio River strain fish in river environments that have similarities, that’s probably the sort of place where you can apply patterns, right. And, you know, and the patterns are going to have you can probably have success doing the same things on those same types of fish. And it might be the same with the Great Lakes fish, although I don’t have nearly the experience that you do with those Great Lakes fish. I you know, the the strain of fish is a different strain of fish. And when you talk about what people have out in the Midwest, those clear fish, the more kind of green fish or you go even further to the west and you have the, I guess, the Missouri River, you know, drainage fish, those are kind of each separate substrains of the muskies. And I haven’t I haven’t fished for the furthest west ones, I’ve caught the clearest and I’ve caught the Great Lakes fish and I’ve caught the Ohio River strain fish. And I would say that all three of them have their own flavor of how they behave and what they react, and just the type of environments that you have in those regions that the fish live in. 00:11:46 Rick: Yeah, I think that’s, uh, you know, really an interesting point for sure. And, you know, I think some of it too, is just each place has its own, you know, forage in bait. And I think that has some impact on that as well. So I think, you know, sometimes I think it’s, you know, it’s important to at least have an understanding. I mean, muskies in general seem so opportunistic on what they do feed on. And I think that’s really one of the reasons they can exist in such wide, you know, wide range of environments. But certainly I think that impacts things to a degree as well. 00:12:20 Joe: What are your thoughts on the muskie preference in what they prefer to eat? Because being an apex predator and being at the top of the food chain, the muskies have a pretty wide range of opportunities of what they’re able to eat. And I know when I see, you know, like stomach studies from taxidermist taking trophy fish. There’s oftentimes some interesting things that you can see from if a big trophy fish has contents in its stomach, oftentimes there’s a pattern of there’s a certain thing, it has a bunch of that. It’s eating. So what are your thoughts on how the flies relate to the forage? 00:13:02 Rick: Well, it does seem like in most places where they’re available, suckers seem to be one of the, you know, preferred meals for a for muskie. But I do feel as though like even in my own river, you know, shiners, golden shiners or, you know, a key part of their diet. So I do think where it comes into play, I guess, would be designing fly sizes that have, you know, more of a match with the forage that you think that the fish are eating? So I think that’s to me, that’s what I think in terms of, you know, just having some I’m not I’m not one hundred percent. And I know, you know, we’ll get into your flies. And I know you think very differently, but I’m not one hundred percent convinced that color has to be, you know, the perfect, you know, match for what they’re eating. But I think more in terms of trying to match what I think the general size of the bait, the muskie are eating in a particular area. 00:14:03 Joe: Yeah. There’s something that certain just anecdote that I’ll share that, uh, that stands out to me as far as this bait situation goes. And it was someone who was fishing live baits and catching prime baits on the water that they were fishing and floating them down the river, and they were fishing with suckers. And they’re also fishing with fallfish. And they said that the rate that the fallfish got eaten by the muskies, compared to the suckers on the same drifts, was about three to one with the, you know, same size bait, same setups. And for me, that really stood out because, you know, the fall fish in the sucker are both kind of they’ve got no sharp fins. They’re both a pretty easy to swallow and digest fish for the muskies. And that stands out to me. And also ice fishing for purebred muskies and going and setting a spread of baits down and seeing, uh, what baits got harassed the most by the fish and what baits got eaten. That was, you know, for me, that’s something that, uh, I have a strong belief that the more food that’s available for the fish, the more likely they are to be selective. And that in a situation where the fish are hungry and they don’t have consistent food sources, the likelihood that they, you know, react to any number of things, react to To presentations, vibration patterns compared to fish that are just fat and stuffed and trying to feed that fish something else to catch that fish. I think it’s so much harder to catch a fat fish that that has all the food it wants, and you’re trying to get it to eat something where it’s not probably hungry. And so, you know, my experience through the ice when I’ve gotten them to eat baits, I’ve gotten them to eat suckers, and I’ve gotten them to eat golden shiners. But when they’ve eaten those baits, they have harassed them for so, so much before eating them. And it just it makes you it gives you a concept of how much time a muskie might spend committed to interacting with something that’s going to eat. I remember the first time I caught one through the ice. You know, we were in a spot where we put down all these live baits and we were like, we’ve got a good chance of catching our first purebred muskie through the ice. And then halfway through the day, this one big sucker just started getting terrified and tripping. This one flag kept going off without the bait being hit like over and over and over again to the point that we were just like, this is ridiculous. That we just keep, you know, having to mess around with this one sucker. And even under heavy tension, the sucker was just panicking to the point that it was pulling hard enough to let it go. And then after maybe seven consecutive times of that happening, my buddy Artie and I walked over to that tip up and the line was just smoothly rolling out to the side, and we looked at each other and we and we nodded and said, you know, that must be because we knew a muskie was messing with that sucker. And the and they had to be some sort of very scary, predatory fish that was freaking that sucker out. And it was like a, you know, like a forty two inch twenty pounder. It wasn’t a giant, but it was a, you know, it was a nice fish. And so just how much time and how much those monkeys must think about whether or not they’re going to commit to making that decision to eat something. Let’s you know how much thought process there might actually be for them to decide yes or no on eating something? So, you know, for me, in those places where the fish really have a lot of food, I think it makes in those sorts of places, those are where I think it can make a difference to have those an imitation of a certain thing as opposed to, you know, places where you’re finding hungry fish that are in feeding mode, that are looking to hunt something down and then color contrast. And I think that there’s absolutely places where it doesn’t really matter to that extent what you’re imitating. You know, the the presentation, the contrast, making sure the fish find it way more important. And I think there’s some places where it’s critical where the fish are just very have just everything they could possibly eat. My theory on it is like, it’s like a it’s like a buffet. And when there’s so much food on the buffet that you have anything that you want. The most interesting thing to you is what, you know would be the first or last thing that you would grab. And I think that that’s my my fly theory on those waters where the fish are stuffed. 00:18:45 Rick: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, that experience also, you know, sheds some light on a fish following your fly. You know, the frustration that we all feel with that. But that really kind of illustrates, you know, when they are following it. Probably the biggest thing is really just that they are before they’re committing, just giving it, you know, kind of in your words, a lot of thought and just a lot of inspection before they make that commitment. And I think that really leads to, you know, why we get a lot of follows. 00:19:16 Joe: What are your thoughts on the hanging fly bite? Because I oftentimes don’t figure eight. And I have a theory about the hanging fly bite. And I know that pretty much everybody has a story about the hanging fly bite. Yep. You know, whether they’re on their phone or something. Have you seen those situations where something is just sitting in the water and a fish that wasn’t engaged with it suddenly has come up and found it? 00:19:39 Rick: I mean, there was I, I had an experience probably two or three years ago, fishing on a lake. And, um, I was, you know, fishing up in front, messing around with my motor, you know, trying to, you know, adjust it for the wind. So I wasn’t looking. My fly was just hanging. And all of a sudden, it just took me a second to even realize what was going on. But I all of a sudden, I feel tension on my fly and still not really even thinking about what’s going on while I’m messing with my motor. And I look over there and there’s a muskie with, you know, just sitting there with my fly in its mouth. Yup. Went to to set the hook quickly and he just the angle wasn’t right and it you know, it didn’t set. But so it certainly has happened to me. 00:20:19 Joe: Have you ever seen one eat a fly that hasn’t been cast when someone just sets it in the water. 00:20:25 Rick: I don’t believe I’ve had that situation yet. No, not where it hasn’t at least come in. Although this in this situation that fly had been sitting there probably for a good 30s. So, you know, it possibly had followed it in, but, uh, it was just sitting there for quite some time. 00:20:42 Joe: And two different situations. I’ve seen someone who had just tied a fly on both of these situations. It wasn’t me fishing drop a fly over the side and within two seconds of it hitting the water. Adult Muskie, not a little one ate that fly. Yeah, one of them. We caught the fish because my buddy Cam Chaffee, who is a youth world fly fishing champion and he was a hockey goalie, he has very quick reaction time. He was looking right at me and he dropped his fly in the water. And I watched a muskie eat it just behind him. And I just said, damn, grab your rod and set the hook and cam, without, without hesitation, grabbed his rod and yanked back on it and hooked. And we caught a forty inch muskie there. 00:21:28 Rick: That’s crazy. 00:21:29 Joe: And an even bigger one. One of the only times I’ve seen a true fifty one hundred percent. You know, over fifty inch river. Uh, Ohio River. Strain. Fish. Summertime. Nothing going on. Floating down the river with my friend Eric. Master birdie. And we were in a spot. That of other friend who throws lures from shore. Had said that he had seen a big fish years before. And, uh, I was telling Eric this story and I said, yeah, we’re going past this rocky, this rocky kind of current zone that, you know, this other friend had won a suit from shore that he said was the biggest one he ever saw in the river. And my friend was like, oh, wow, crazy. And he had just tied on a black fly, and he dropped it in the water over the side. And that massive muskie came out from underneath my twelve foot boat and ate his fly off the surface going away from the boat. And I remember the back of the head of the muskie looked as like a shovel. So just the width of it. And just for a minute, kind of the he pulled, he had the line in his hand, I think, and the it happened quickly, but the fish kind of thrashed on the surface and dropped the fly. And the first thing I said to him as it disappeared was that was a fifty incher. 00:22:45 Rick: He probably he probably already knew that. But yeah. 00:22:49 Joe: one of those things that shows you how, you know, with with that fish, they could be stalking you in a way that you never see. 00:22:56 Rick: Yeah. No question about it. Well, you know, one thing I did want to get into, Joe. I mean, I remember from the first time, you know, we did fish together. I had a certain approach to fishing. A lot of it had or muskie fishing. A lot of it had been developed over, you know, twenty some years of of the time that I’ve been doing it, it seemed like a lot of other anglers that I had fished with other fly anglers, musky fly anglers, before I started fishing with you. I had kind of a certain approach and right away when we fished together, I kind of really noticed you had taken a, you know, I think, you know, maybe an alternative approach really to how you present the fly, how you thought about just the presentation. I mean, I think we’ve kind of touched a little bit about that right now, but, uh, where did you I guess, when you first kind of arrived on the scene of musky fly fishing? I mean, we’re kind of was your head thinking in terms of, you know, designing an approach that you were going to use for musky because it does seem like you weren’t following the crowd. You were kind of developing your own, your own strategy. 00:24:00 Joe: Well, at that time, I was living in Central New York. There when I was I was designing the products at Cortland Line Company and. Right, I don’t know, twenty miles from my house was Otisco Lake, which New York State just stocks with a prolific number of tiger muskies. And so something that I was doing all the time was I was ice fishing for these tiger muskies, and I was catching them at just a rate that no one else was catching them. By targeting these open water areas and figuring out that the fish were really working in the middle of the water column in certain depth transitions. And it was something that the first thing that I started doing, fly fishing for the muskies, was fly fishing for the tiger muskies that I was catching there, ice fishing where I’d caught, you know, maybe a hundred of them through the ice and had a very consistent idea of where they were setting up in the water column and working at Cortland Line. I had access to all these different sinking lines, and it was easy to I was also designing lines, so it was pretty easy to, uh, have the resources that I needed. And also at that time, I had gone to the people at Cortland line, the president, and said, I think that muskie fishing is really going to take off, and it’s something that I want. Our company should get into more product development in. Lines for muskie fishing, because there’s not really great options for that. And so I was already messing around with kind of compact heavier, you know, intermediate and sinking lines and fishing Otisco Lake. I was trying to create presentations where I was getting the fly into the middle of the water column in these deeper areas, let’s say, fifteen to twenty five feet of water. So the middle of the water column, there would be seven and a half feet to twelve and a half feet. And right away I started having success getting my flies that imitated the food sources in Otisco Lake, which were golden shiners and all wives. I had fish reacting to, you know, shiny flies that were fished in the middle of the water column. So one of the really standout situations I had when I first started, and I didn’t even have a boat yet, I was in a friend’s boat and I was out fishing and we were going to move, and I was wearing a GoPro, and I finished up my presentation and in the clear water of Otisco Lake, my fly was maybe seven feet down in front of me and all of my line was out. And I said, hey, uh, Chris, my friend Chris, tribal and his drift boat. I said, let’s reel up our stuff and move a little bit. And I pinched my line and I have this on. I had this on a GoPro. I reeled up all of the line, and just as I got to the end of the line, the biggest tiger muskie I’d ever seen came out of nowhere and ate that fly that had just sat there for about 30s, and I hooked it. And with a twelve way, I never brought the fish back up into view. It was a massive wow tiger muskie. But that presentation of creeping the fly up and then keeping it kind of a rod length away is something that I was like, if that class of fish, because that’s what I want to catch. I don’t want to catch a whole bunch of, you know, twenty five, thirty inchers. I was like, if that class of fish reacts to that presentation where I never see it coming in this clear water and it’s stalking it from below and behind for that much time. That was something that right away when I was fly fishing for muskies, I started to really focus on that end of the presentation where the fly is moving at an angle. And so before you started fishing with me, I had already seen a bunch of reactions like that from nice adult fish, and had worked that into my strategy of the pace of how I presented the fly. And really, you know, with having the fly finish up slow, it has to fish slow all the way, because if you see the fish in the water, one thing that muskies really seem to react poorly to, in my opinion, is a change in pace. Yes, the fly is doing. Yeah. You know, it’s either it’s either fast and they like it fast or it’s really stalled and they like that. But if you have a stalled fly that you suddenly speed up, I have seen, I know for sure I can picture it in my head happening. Seeing fish peel off of flies that I accelerated when I was fishing slow. And so that’s always, you know, trying to keep the bait, doing something consistent is something that I think is critical to the success of getting the fish. And people who get the fish fast boat side, I think they’re forced to fish fast all the way through. You either have one or the other, and if you’re going to fish slow install the fly out boat side. You really need to fish it slow all the way through, and you can’t go fast and install boat side or go slow and then figure eight fast boat side. That doesn’t work. 00:28:52 Rick: You know, I think because that’s really what I learned from you initially, was because I had always had more of a, a focus to get the fly down, you know, fish, you know, and maybe a bit of a steelhead mentality to, you know, fishing that fly maybe in the bottom third of the of the water column. And I know from our interactions that you weren’t necessarily getting, you know, fishing that fly as deep as I had been. And I think that changed my outlook and my thought a little bit more on, you know, giving more credit to the Muskie to move up in the water column for, you know, for something, you know, that maybe I hadn’t been considering as much in the past. Um, so I know that’s and that’s changed my approach, you know, on my water and a lot, you know, other places that I fish now. Um, certainly not putting the fly down as deep. I think the other thing too, then you you you’ve touched upon it. What is that idea really making that fly? I think you kind of, you know, that slow approach trying to make that fly look like it’s vulnerable, damaged, whatever, you know, kind of that something that’s, you know, Muskie would have an make an easy meal out lot of that seems like that is part of, you know, what you saw and what you’ve done. You know, I think that plays into your fly design as well. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that because, you know, I have a number of, you know, people that know I fish with, you know, know, and you’ll have seen your musky flies out there. And, you know, a lot of people ask, you know, do you fish Joe’s flies? And, you know, my response is, I do. But you know, my feeling anyway is you can obviously speak more to this, but I feel like when I if you’re going to fish, you know, one of your main fly designs, you know, your pad flies. That isn’t just fishing the fly. It’s kind of part of the whole system, you know, and just kind of just approaching what you were just, you know, describing that you really if you’re going to make that fly successful, you kind of got to commit to a whole process that is part of that. And, um, you know, and it takes some I know when I fish with you, you know, I rig the way you do. And, you know, sometimes it does take me a few minutes to kind of slow down a little bit or to get the right pace. And so maybe you can speak to that a little bit about, you know, how your fly design complements. I guess, you know, this thought process, your approach to, uh, you know, how you feel. Musky feed. 00:31:19 Joe: My concept is that in nature, when something is wounded and staggering around, that’s what the musky is programmed to find and eat is something that’s vulnerable. And when things are making irregular vibration patterns, that’s something that the muskies can feel and they can differentiate when something is moving in a healthy, active way or something is twitching and moving, you know, also just struggling, you know, because you’ve seen so many times someone’s fighting a smallmouth bass. And out of nowhere, muskie comes and finds it because the smallmouth bass is just thumping around and making a huge vibration profile. And that is something the muskies can feel from a long ways away. And you’re right. It isn’t just, you know, fishing the fly. It’s committing to the idea that you’re fishing, that you’re imitating something that’s basically dying and is staggering around out there in the water through the entire presentation. So you know how my flies are designed, how the leader connects to the fly, how long the leader is. Because I fish very long leaders, and that has a lot to do, I think, with the fly actions. So between and also what the lines are, because I go back and forth a lot with intermediate lines and with sinking lines, and they’re very different presentations. When you’re keeping a fly staggering around high in the water column, or you’re creating those angles where you’re pulling it down and pulling it back up, and depending on the activity level of the fish, there’s times where I really lean into one or the other with the same flies, although there’s a subtle difference with the flies. Some of them, although they look the same from the outside, they have different amounts of weight, and some of my flies have a very natural light sink rate, and some of them basically float, not like a cork, but float enough that you have to pull them down. And I tend to use the floating flies with long leaders with a fast sinking lines, and I tend to use the flies that sink a little bit with long leaders with the intermediate lines. And that slow sinking fly with the intermediate line allows me to fish the slowest. And so with that fast sinking line, I can only fish so slow because the line is going to pull the fly down to the bottom. But once I come tight to a fly, even that sinks a little bit with the intermediate. Once I’m tight to it, you kind of slow the sink rate down, and so having control of the depth and the speed of the flies is something that’s critical to me to make these flies work, right. So if I have to work them too fast, or if I can’t get them down to where the fish are going to see them and react with them. Game over. So I’m always, you know, depending on what the water temps are and what the flows are, what the time of year is. I do a lot of thinking and tinkering with the line connections and the pace of what I’m doing, maybe how long I’m waiting before I start a presentation to make sure that I’m showing the flies to the fish in a way where they see them like a injured, you know, let’s say it’s a sucker that’s banging around out there that’s stunned or something. If it’s not right, the muskies will find it and come over and look at it. And so I want to show the neutral fish that are the most skeptical fish. Oftentimes the big fish, something that looks like a realistic show of what they actually eat out there and, you know, a a pink fly or something blazing through the water for fish that are well fed is unlikely to get a reaction from those fish. So these presentations are also based on targeting fish that are stuffed, basically that have all the food that they want. And so they are going to be pretty jaded and not that hungry. And you’re trying to convince them that something is something that they should eat, as opposed to showing them something that they’re hungry to eat. And I think that there’s a big difference between what that means and, you know, presentations that are the best play on places where there’s not that much food, don’t produce fish on places where there’s a lot of food. And those slow presentations that produce fish where there’s a lot of food wouldn’t make sense to fish in places where the fish are hungry and covering the water’s going to be the best application. So I know that my flies and strategies are really tailored towards big open water situations, deeper water, well fed fish that you know you’re trying to convince to bite by showing them something really natural. 00:36:04 Rick: Yeah. No, I think that’s and again, this really goes back towards, you know, how we even started this discussion that, you know, adjusting to thinking in terms of, you know, where you’re fishing, how the fish are reacting and trying to develop something that, you know, kind of plays into that as well. So I think that, you know, that’s great. And I think that’s really an important thing to understand really, for anybody that’s listening, you know, that ask about Joe’s flies that it is part of, you know, really an entire system. You know, that he’s developed you know, one of the things too, that we’ve talked about, Joe, over the years is, uh, you know, stealth, you know, trying to not educate the fish. You know, I know you’re you’re one of the things that you’ve told me many times, and, you know, it’s always stuck with me is how intelligent muskies are. And, you know, certainly seems like they, you know, whether they remember actually, you know, consciously remember things or whether it’s just, uh, you know, reaction instinctual, I guess. What things we talked about this earlier, too, was about fishing alone and in fishing with somebody else. And I, I kind of want to get back to diving into that just a little bit more again. But what things do you think you do to try not to educate fish? Because I really think there’s times where when I’m out on the water, you know, I think in terms of I go back and forth on whether I really want to, you know, beat an area up that I know has some fish, but am I just going to educate those fish more for the next time that I, you know, next time through there that I’m fishing it or, you know, is it just a matter of just trying to continue to hit water where, you know, there’s muskies and just, you know, eventually one is going to get into that mode where it wants to feed. And I’m not sure what you know. Have you given that much thought in terms of, you know, what things are you doing to maybe not educate a fish or not overdo it so that it’s maybe diminishing your chances for, you know, later in the day or the next day or whatever, if that makes sense. 00:38:07 Joe: Well, I might as well put a aluminum hat on to answer that one, Rick, because I’m just about a conspiracy theorist when it comes to all, you know, my theories about this. But there’s a number of things that I think that the muskies can become aware of the slap of the fly landing, the thump of the fly line being pulled tight in the water, which I think the best way to describe what’s happening is like, if you think of a bass guitar string being strummed, when you pull tight, when you have a fly, like our musky flies oftentimes have a lot of resistance. So when you pull and you feel that thump in your hand. That thump is also that line pulling tight that’s creating a acoustic profile that just like that smallmouth bass thumping around in the water that the muskie can sense from probably thirty yards away at in certain water conditions where it’s calm and not and not very loud. I have the belief that the muskies can easily, if they’re within range of seeing and feeling your fly. I think that they can easily feel that consistent thump. So what I describe it as is like a like you’re banging a big bass drum while the fish is looking at the fly. It’s like doom, doom, doom as that fly is moving. So one of the things I have the theory of is the way that you pull the fly, that you can take away the thump. Okay? By drawing the fly forward instead of pulling tight to it. And one of the reasons that I’m pretty confident that this is important is I see how often if you move around with a trolling motor, that the muskies will bite the fly when you’re moving it without thumping whatsoever, when you’re just moving that fly smoothly through the water. That’s a presentation that the Muskies will react to. And I know between us, there was a time that we were fishing together, and it was the very end of the day, and we were we’d had a good day. We’d I think we both had caught muskies and I was, I don’t know, seventy five yards from the takeout of where we wanted to leave. And I, I cast a fly out and turn my trolling motor on high, headed straight to the headed straight towards the, uh, the launch and didn’t go very far and my rod just folded over so the rod folded over. And I think it was it was like a probably like a, you know, it was a very, very fat fish that ate a, a rainbow trout colored fly right up on the surface. And we and we landed it there at dusk. And but I’ve seen it a bunch of times, to be honest, moving around, not even having trolling be the way I’m trying to fish, but just, you know, trying to keep the fly in the water as I’m, as I’m moving, either trolling or moving with the trolling motor stopping and then starting to strip the fly in. The biggest one I’ve ever landed, I caught that way. I made a, I made a little move with my trolling motor to reposition while my sinking line was out. And then I think my first stripper to after the fly, you know, hung there and then started moving again. The fish had either eaten it when it paused, or it had to do with a movement with the trolling motor. So there’s two things there. It’s the thump of the line and also slapping the fly down. When you’re using the trolling motor, you take away having the fly landing because the that’s something the fish can really sense, the slap of the fly coming down. I’m under the impression that when we can get a drift going, that’s also, you know, not just the trolling motor, but when the wind is blowing my boat in a drift, I feel most confident that I’m going to take fish. The longer I can keep my fly in the water doing that sort of thing. So those are all things. And, uh, the presence of the boat. When I do use electronics, I often see big muskies come right up to my boat and sit right underneath it before I even start fishing, as I move into a spot. And I think, I don’t know if they recognize the boat, or they just know that they’re about to get fished. But I see that by using the electronics, the awareness of the fish when they come and hug the boat, and it’s not following a presentation that I’m just like, they’re a step ahead of us here. 00:42:25 Rick: Yeah. That’s amazing. I do remember that that fish too, that we got on the troll, if I remember correctly, that was the day we just got absolutely soaked. It rained all day long. That was the day we had to take our clothes to the laundromat, if I remember correctly, just so we could dry them out to be able to fish the next day. I think that’s what we were going back to the launch. We were just we were both just drenched. But no, those are yeah, both of those are great. You know, considerations and you know, definitely things to think about. You know, one of the other things I wanted to talk about too, Joe, is just we talked about earlier from a fishing pay standpoint, and I wanted to get your thoughts on this from a stealth standpoint. When I have a good fishing partner, I do really like sharing the boat with somebody. I mean, you know, provides the, I guess, confidence to that. You know, if you get a big fish and you’ll have somebody on the net, it helps with the photography. I you know, I think over the course of a long day, it’s nice to have somebody to bat theories off of. And like you said, when you’re with the right person, um, you certainly develop the right energy. You know, I’ve noticed in my own fishing, though, that when I fish by myself, I swear there’s I have a higher catch rate, not just for myself personally, but the boat has a higher catch rate. It seems like when I fish one by myself, then if we. Then when I have two people on the boat and I think some of it is, you know, I’m able to fish more efficiently because you’re able to cast three hundred and sixty degrees and all that type of stuff. What do you think about the stealth part of that with, you know, I often think, I mean, a second person in the boat is maybe creating more movement. You know, I don’t know if the, you know, if a muskie can actually decipher people talking if that’s a potential thing that could spook a fish. I just wonder about that type of stuff. 00:44:11 Joe: Sometimes for me, that’s the biggest factor. And you, you know, I want to have a communal situation and communicate with people in the boat. But those, especially the metal boats, I feel like it’s like a drum. Yeah. And when I’m out in my boat and I’m there alone and I oftentimes will take my boots off, so I’m just wearing the booties of the neoprene so I don’t have the thump of the boot, the hard bottom boot against the boat. And I cover my whole boat in foam pads. Yeah. So there’s no direct contact between me and the boat. But I think the base of our voice is something that that amplifies into the water. When I’m standing in the boat and say, a train goes by, I can feel the vibration of the train through the water, through the boat, through my feet. And I’m very confident that when we’re bellowing the base of our voice in that boat, that that’s something that the musky, which has a far more sensitive ability to feel those vibrations. Yeah. The train going by must sound like a I don’t know what, but I’m sure it’s a massive sound to those fish, and I’m pretty sure that they can hear our voice, especially through a metal boat. So that’s one thing when you take that out. I also, this year, in a time where I was having a hard time getting fish, I’ll go to this next That anchoring I think has a lot to do with stealth, and I catch a lot of my fish, especially alone off anchor. But, uh, by the time this year where I was having a hard time getting reactions from fish and I sat down in the bottom of my boat, so I didn’t have my, you know, silhouette sitting up, and I was eating pizza. So I just had my my rod down. But I intentionally kept my rod in a position where I could make a presentation. And I just made a couple presentations. And, you know, as I was sitting there in the bottom of the boat, my fly was just maybe fifteen feet off the boat. So it would have been in a range that I think the fish could have seen my silhouette if I was standing up. I took a nice twenty five pound fish that ate that fly. As I was crouched down, my rod folded over and I hooked it and stood up. And it was a it was my the biggest fish. I landed this fall, and that was the only time that I fished where I wasn’t creating a vertical silhouette. So that’s something that I think is also. 00:46:33 Rick: I think it’s huge. You know, and I definitely recognize that on my water, especially in the summertime when the water is very clear. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve really experienced it when you’ve been over here, but, you know, we you know, in the summer, it’s you can see down to the bottom in fifteen, twenty, you know, feet of water. So when you have a follow and that fish is coming in, a lot of times it just you feel like the fish is right on the fly and it’s focused on the fly. But then as it gets closer to the boat and all of a sudden, just like recognizes, you know, it just sees this towering image looking down at it. And, um, I think that’s, you know, a lot of times those fish will just peel off. And I think that’s probably the biggest factor is they’re just I don’t even think the boat spooks them as much as that hulking image of of the angler kind of looking over the edge. And, you know, a lot of times, I swear they they come in, I swear their eyes almost look at my eyes and then, you know, that’s when they’ll disappear. You know the one thing that you talked about this earlier was not speeding up the fly. And that’s probably the only time that I really feel like, you know, you’re going from a, you know, maybe a medium pace retrieve. And the one time, the only time that really seems to work where you really speed it up is in this clear water. If I speed up that fly, sometimes the fish will focus so much on that change in speed, they’ll forget that I’m there. And that’s your only really in that really clear water. It seems to be the chance of being able to fool one of those fish is to get it, just to kind of focus in on that fly and forget you’re there. And if you can get that, then you got a chance at them. But, um, it seems as though, you know that image. They just see you when they’re coming in. 00:48:13 Joe: I saw some of those bites this fall in particular, where that fish was just so transfixed on the fly boat side that it was going to commit to eating it. And the only time that I saw it was using these flies that had, you know, it’s a fly that I see you show pictures of frequently that has like a bright material coming out the back of it. You have black flies that have orange tails. Yeah, and I had a couple of fish that I took this fall that that ate flies that just were right in my lap, to the point that I thought the fish was guaranteed to spook, that were locked on to orange tailed fly that ended up eating that orange tailed fly. And so they’re all individuals? 00:48:56 Rick: Yes, absolutely. 00:48:57 Joe: And, uh, I feel like the fish that react to those bright colors are oftentimes kind of in a different mode than fish that are stalking, like a real neutral presentation that I’ll make with a natural looking fly. So even within the same, you know, fishery, if you go from fishing slow with like a sucker to ripping around something that’s like an attractor fly. Yeah. Because the muskies have these windows of activity when you have one that’s in that real kill mode, you’re just as well off making an aggressive presentation or using something you know that has those colors that are just, you know, vibrant or very unnatural. So I feel like it’s the way the fish, their mood changes is something that they’re likely to have behavior at times, that there’s no explanation for it, because the feedback that people see, if you fish in what I would consider a ridiculous way, you will catch fish when you cross paths with those fish that are in these feeding windows. And so, you know, some of this stuff. And that’s why when you talk about something like this, it’s easy for someone to say, I don’t agree with that, because my experience is different than that, and their experience is different than that. And everyone’s experiences are different. And it’s hard it’s hard to have enough positive feedback from the fish to really form patterned opinions about what they do. I think that when you’re someone who’s taken more than one hundred muskies on the fly, then I feel like anglers like that are much more likely to have a breadth of experiences and a width of saying, oh yeah, they could do that, they could do that. But my approach is this, you know, as opposed to someone who’s caught five who’s like, all I do is rip, you know, brown, pink flies through the water. And twice a year Muskie smokes it, you know, and so you can’t tell me I don’t catch them because, you know, here’s the five I’ve caught in the past three years. And it’s like, okay. And that is legitimate. But it’s it doesn’t mean that it’s the whole story. 00:51:06 Rick: Exactly. I mean, my my feeling is there’s no nevers and no always when it comes to muskie fishing. And I think if you kind of keep that in the back of your mind, uh, it definitely keeps you open to, you know, really all the possibilities. Yeah. The one thing I wanted to kind of end up here, Joe, is just. Let’s talk a little bit about your rides. You know, the Diamondback Universal Predator ride is, uh, developed a good following among muskie anglers. I know I used one this, you know, pretty much this entire year. Great casting rod, great fishing tool. You know, I landed my biggest fish on it this year. And a couple other, you know, a number of other good fish. And, you know, I really attribute, you know, that the big fish I got right next to the boat this year is, you know, having a lot to do with the, uh, with the power of that rod, but maybe talk a little bit about I mean, not many of us have the ability to, uh, design rods that meet the, you know, characteristics of how we like to fish. So you’re unique that way. You know, what went into the thought process of developing that? And, um, you know, really, what are the key attributes of why that rod is, uh, you know, such a good fishing tool? 00:52:15 Joe: Well, I’m fortunate to have the amount of experience I have with the rod building and, you know, to have well over one hundred commercial rods under my belt before I took on that project, including some rods in that same sort of, you know, predator type rod design concept. So a lot goes into that, and I feel like the good muskie rod, there’s a couple things that happen muskie fishing where the rod needs to do something. And that’s really what determines whether the muskie rod is effective. You have to work the fly. And so I think that you need to have enough tip power so that you can twitch a fly that has a lot of water resistance. And if your rod tip is soft enough that it folds when you try to move the fly, I think you just don’t make good presentations. So that’s how it starts. And then when a fish eats the fly, being able to hook a muskie, oftentimes it has to do with how you strip set. But keeping a muskie hooked a lot of times has to do with what the rod does, especially if a muskie eats a fly pretty far away from you and you get a hook set on that fish, and then you’ve got it moving towards you, and you need to kind of use the rod to create angles and to create tension. And for me, a lot of the times when a muskie rod isn’t quite right, that’s where I see it is. You drop the fish after they bite. You drop those fish during the fight in the mid range because you’re not keeping great tension on them. And so for that rod to keep good tension but still be a casting tool, not be a broomstick, you really need to have this action that’s similar to a very stiff spey rod where you have a stiff tip and then a bit of a progressive taper coming down the rod that distributes the load through the rod instead of flexing right up in the tip. And so an action like that allows you to get some load in the rod casting it, but to have the rod be stiff enough up near the top that you can twitch the flies and you can keep tension on the fish at distance. And then also, critically, when a fish bites right near you, you can, you know, cross a fish up and create good tension on the fish with that upper part of the rod. When you have to, because oftentimes you get put in a situation where where the fish eats what you have to do to get the fish to eat, it just puts you in a very awkward spot to set the hook. And you know, it’s, you know, when that happens, depending on the angle the fish eats at, suddenly it’s something that you couldn’t have predicted that you were going to be in that situation. And you have to rely on the rod no matter how good your technique is. As far as you know, you’re trying to strip set. Suddenly a fish eats at an angle seven feet off the boat, and you have nothing but the rod to rely on to create the the tension, to cross up and and stick that fish. And that’s where the rod really comes into play. So for me, you know, I spent a full extra year on the water because most of my muskie fishing is in the fall. So I’m trying to I’m trying to get the the development done right in the fall. And I had a great casting and fishing rod that I was dropping the fish on after I hooked them and I had to, I kind of re reassessed the taper and the materials I was using and came back to it where I just said, um, you know, this feels like a good muskie rod, but it’s not doing these certain things that when it comes down to putting the fish in the net, it’s not doing it. And so the one that I came to the next season, different taper, different material composition, fished similar, but just the way it hooked and kept fish on way better. And so that’s the the universal predator rods that you were just talking about. And I’m very happy with the way that, uh, that rod has come out. 00:56:07 Rick: Yeah. No doubt. And that was my situation with that big fish this year was just a total handcuff situation where that was all I had, you know, was was the strength of the ride to hook it also just the, you know, the, the lightness of that ride. I mean, when you pick it up, it’s just really amazing how light it feels in the hand. Um, and I was able to, you know, two hand cast that all this year too, with the shorter headline. And it felt great. Two hand casting as well. So really just a all around, um, you know, very versatile tool for sure. 00:56:39 Joe: When you talk about the weight of the rod, the muski rod is something where you have this. It’s a tough balance to run. You want to make the muski rod super durable, but a lot of the things, as far as the guides or the handles that increase the durability, they’re heavy. When you talk about composite cork in the grip, or you talk about having ceramic insert guides all the way up through the rod, both of those things, in my opinion, make it tough to really comfortably fish long hours and to have the sensitivity where you don’t get fatigue and you’re able to, you know, feel the tick of a bite or, you know, be able, at the end of the day to to have the power in your wrist to set the hook and not have your wrist roll over when a fish eats near you. But so that rod has all floor grade cork, and really, except for just the very bottom, it doesn’t have composite cork in the grip. And then it uses, although they’re like a heavy gauge steel snakes, it does have snakes and snakes will wear with sinking lines. But you know, for me the trade off is when you go to a full set of ceramics. It doesn’t feel like a fly rod anymore. Yeah, yeah. You know, you’re just more likely to hurt your wrist or elbow fishing it. So for me that’s the trade off is I want that muski rod to be as comfortable as humanly possible to fish. And that’s the trade off is you really have to use those guides that after time you might have to replace the, you know, those sections of rod that have those steel guides because the sinking lines will wear into them especially, you know. But you can replace a tip section, but you can’t replace your wrist or elbow. 00:58:22 Rick: Right. Exactly. Yeah. And that’s the other. I mean, those are the little things that you certainly have put into that or thought about. But even just the tip tap guide, oversized, you know, the the connection between the line and the leader slides in and out of that so easily every time. I mean, those are little things that when you’re trying to be an efficient, musky fly angler, that may not sound like much, but just that ability to kind of get that next cast going quickly without ever hanging up on the tip top, you know, it’s really a key part of that as well. You know, efficiency is the key for sure. 00:58:58 Joe: Yeah. None of us are getting any younger. And, uh, oftentimes those fish come right at the end of the day. Yeah. You know, and being able to not just still be strong at the end of the day, but to still be on the water at the end of the day because you haven’t hit a wall just from, you know, discomfort or fatigue. To get off the water, because I have lots of stories of getting that fish at the very end. You know, everybody who must be fishes, who commits to it, will tell you, boy, I fished all day and nothing happened. And then just at the last minute, boom, I got my fish. And it’s happened over and over. And for me, the ability to be out during that last window of time, that’s oftentimes when the fish are most likely to bite. Yeah. Is based on, you know, being comfortable. 00:59:44 Rick: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and that certainly happened with us a few times, you know, where the day is kind of been made right at the end. Yeah. So, you know, it’s definitely, uh, I think there’s a big portion of muskie fishing that, you know, comes with being comfortable all day, being able to stay in the game, both mentally, physically and, you know, even sometimes adjusting your fly to make sure it’s something you can cast comfortably all day long. I mean, I do think that, uh, you know, I’ve seen that situations where some anglers kind of try to struggle with too big of a fly, you know, just to having it in their head that that’s what they have to use. And then it, uh, you know, can tire you out during the course of the day. You’re better off, you know, casting something that’s comfortable all day long and being at the game, you know, in the game right up to the end. 01:00:30 Joe: The big fly does not equal the big fish. 01:00:32 Rick: Yeah. Not always, that’s for sure. 01:00:34 Joe: I know that, uh, it’s just with everything that I do, the different types of of fishing all across the board, it’s rare that you can achieve trophy fishing just by using the biggest thing that you throw in the water, because the fish just get smarter and smarter as they get older. And oftentimes that biggest fish, you know, makes a pretty calculated decision. And the fish that eat the really big things are oftentimes not the biggest, smartest fish. 01:01:01 Rick: Yeah I agree. You know, it just has a tendency to make you less efficient. So, you know, I think there’s there’s a lot to that. Well, Joe, this has been great conversation. Anything else you want to add or anything like that that, uh. 01:01:14 Joe: We could spend just as much time talking about, you know, the water temp trends, light trends when the, uh, when the fish bite. But, you know, I think this is a this was an hour and fifteen minutes. So that’s a good bit of, uh, of information to digest. I’ve got lots of things. 01:01:30 Rick: I think that, uh, is, you know, you’re inviting a part two at some point later this year, I think, you know, I think the other thing, too. Yeah. Bite windows, moon phases, um, you know, are other things that we could, uh, chat about for hours. So maybe we’ll set up another one later in the year. 01:01:46 Joe: Great. Yeah, I, I love talking, uh, you know, fishing with you, Rick. It’s the same reason I enjoy being in the in the boat with you. And so I’m happy to be a guest with you talking anytime. 01:01:56 Rick: Great. Joe, I really appreciate you being on the first episode in this series, and hopefully this continues on into the future. This is really the the type of content I’d like to develop on this, you know, kind of more in depth and, uh, really getting into thinking about, you know, why we’re casting a fly, you know, and why we’re casting it there and casting it here and, and, um, you know, the, the overall approach, thinking more like a fish than just, you know, simply going out and casting and retrieving a fly haphazardly. I think, you know, that whole idea of really focusing in on exactly what we’re doing, making sure that every, you know, I think every, uh, you know, step that we make has a purpose to it, you know, and I think that’s really what I want to try to, uh, continue to develop in this podcast. Great. 01:02:44 Joe: I think that it should be, uh, it should be a lot to learn with, uh, your experience here. 01:02:48 Rick: Yeah. Great. Well, again, Joe, thank you. Thank you for your time. It’s been great. And, um, I’m sure everybody will, uh, you know, appreciate the insight. 01:02:56 Joe: Sounds good. Well, thanks for your time, Rick.