Dave (2s): Many fly anglers start in freshwater and eventually add salt water at some point, but the transition isn’t always smooth. And today’s guess is a freshwater and saltwater guide and runs schools in the northeast part of the country. And today, you’re gonna get some of his best tips on fishing the flats of Cape Cod and the Tailwaters of the Northeast, so you can more easily make that transition to saltwater. This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip, And what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. Hey, how’s it going? I’m Dave host, the We Fly Swing podcast. I’ve been fly fishing since I was a little kid, grew up around a little fly shop, and have created one of the largest fly fishing podcasts in this country. George Sylvestre, a guide in Massachusetts, is gonna walk us through his fishing program throughout the year. Dave (47s): You’re gonna get his top three differences between fresh and saltwater and how to prepare for these changes. You’re also gonna discover how to find and hook fish on the flats out in Northeast, in Cape Cod and around and around the arm. And also, we’re gonna get some great casting tips and some other tips and tricks along as we go. Plus, you’re gonna get a few bonus tips today on the Northeast and fishing winner, Midges and Tailwaters. It’s all here today, plus a little history here. He is George Sylvestre from sylvestreoudoors.com. How you doing, George? George (1m 19s): I’m great, Dave. Thanks for having me. Dave (1m 21s): Yeah, yeah. Thanks for making time today to put this together. We’re gonna talk, I think today all things, you know, Massachusetts a state we haven’t really dug into specifically. We’ve been all around the East coast, but I think that’s one state that we haven’t dug into. We’re also gonna talk some salt, probably some fresh, and just everything else you have going at Sylvestre Outdoors, so, so yeah. Well, first off, how are things going? What are you up to this time of year? It’s kinda, as we’re talking, it’s, it’s early February, this episode’s probably gonna go live in March. So what, what’s been going on? Well, George (1m 51s): You know, when Mother Nature allows us, we’re still doing freshwater trips. We’ve got some great tail waters out in the western part of the state. Mother nature hasn’t been all that cooperative lately, Dave, to be honest with you. It’s, it’s pretty cold here. So, you know, like most fly anglers, I’m tying flies, filling up the fly boxes, getting my gear ready, actually tearing apart one of the boats and trying to put it back together again. And yeah, we’re, we’re, we’re actually now starting to promote saltwater fly fishing school that we just kind of kicked off. It’s gonna have its first session in May, so pretty busy with that. George (2m 31s): And this time of year with a little bit more downtime, I could spend a little time, you know, in the gym. I, I try to spend some time training jiujitsu. Oh, wow. Which is kind of a, a cool hobby of mine that I think has some surprising similarities to fly fishing. But yeah, just trying to pass the time, be on the water as much as we can and, and get ready for the salt season. Dave (2m 53s): Nice. And, and is the, the Saltwater School, what, what does that entail? How does this school, you know, we do some of our own schools, but how is that different? Maybe describe that a little bit. George (3m 3s): Sure. It’s called the Cape Cod School of Saltwater Fly Fishing, and we actually have two formats. We run an intensive two day school where students come in, they’re gonna get all sorts of techniques, tactics, you know, discussion of target species, and a whole lot of casting instruction that takes up two days. We have a great group of folks coming in in May, and we also do what we call 90 mini clinics. And we do ’em in a series of five. It takes folks, you know, through the very beginning of salt, saltwater fly fishing, casting, the, the tackle, the techniques all the way through in the end of the fifth in the series, you know, sort of more advanced techniques. George (3m 45s): And the idea with both of these formats is that as students come in, we’re introducing them as they leave, we’re wishing them good luck, and they’re ready to go out and really sort of get after it on the salt. Dave (3m 56s): Gotcha. Go after it. What is the, when you’re getting into that, do you find you have a mix of kind of people that are brand new experience? What’s that look like? George (4m 4s): We have folks that are, maybe some folks are brand new to fly fishing. Other folks have some experience on the salt. And we do have a lot of folks that tend to come from the trout world and are interested in salt. And our philosophy is just to meet every student right where they are, have, you know, a good understanding through a discussion with them of what their goals are, and then really do the best we can to get them from where they are, wherever they’re starting, right. To, you know, that that sort of angling experience that they want to have. Dave (4m 33s): That sounds great. And, and what is the, when you get into it, if you have somebody that’s new coming from the trout and they’re, what’s the biggest challenge? I, I guess is the casting or are there other big challenges? George (4m 43s): Yeah, it’s, I actually do, this whole presentation I’ve been doing at fly shops recently, it’s really focused on the difference between fresh water and salt water fishing. And I’d say there’s a few things, certainly casting, it’s not to say that there’s never wind over fresh water, but there’s almost always wind over salt water, right. So specifically focusing on casting techniques that will help an angler deal with the wind distance, you know, is another aspect I think that’s pretty different between fresh and salt. So working on that double haul, working on some accuracy at longer distances. And then, and this is something if it gets me every time when I transition from the fresh to the salt is sort of, you know, the old trout set versus strip set. George (5m 32s): And it’s probably when I’m on the salt, probably the number one reason for fish not making it to the boat. So we, we really try with this sort of transition from fresh to salt to show anglers, you know, the skills that you have on freshwater are useful and we can build on those, but there’s some important differences and we really encourage people to sort of understand what those differences are. And more importantly, practice, practice, practice before you get out on the salt, it’s gonna make your salt trip so much more worthwhile. Dave (6m 5s): Nice. What is the, if you had to pick, say a few, the biggest differences between trout, like if you were to have a, a headline, you know, the top five differences between the two, how would you, would you say there’s five or is there more like 20? George (6m 18s): There’s probably more like 20, but, but I would say, you know, things like, you’ve gotta be able to deal with wind in any direction in, in freshwater, you know, we’re making some aerial mends that help to get that fly to really dead drift fly first down a current seam. So we use slack when we cast, and the salt slack is not your friend at All, right? Because the wind is gonna do whatever it’s gonna do with that. So casting without slack and, and really techniques to, to not only reduce slack, but increase line speed. And then I think maybe if I just sort of pick the top three in the salt, we’re, we’re always, I think, very focused on staying in contact with the fly. George (7m 5s): When that fly hits the water, you need to be ready to strip in some cases right away. In some cases, even I have angler strip before the fly hits the surface of the water, which, you know, in the fresh water, you’re really, you’re using a different technique. You’re letting the river sort of move the fly in salt water. You really need to impart action into the fly. So yeah, those, I guess those would be my top three. Dave (7m 31s): Yeah, that’s huge. So that’s a big difference. So yeah, so those are definitely a few key differences. We’re gonna talk more about this today. I think we wanted to kinda tee this up so people understand your program, what, we’ll obviously have links out to your, you know, your website as well. But let’s get in more. I wanna talk to, because you not only do salt, but you cover do some trout stuff. Maybe we can start high level with Massachusetts, kind of the area you are, talk about what are the opportunities like in mass? Is this different from a lot of the surrounding Northeastern states, or is it very similar to say, if you pick any of the Northeast states, what, what you offer? I, George (8m 3s): I’d say it’s similar in nature, of course, I’m, I’m biased, so I’m gonna say it’s, it’s probably better. And I think the best part of it, and this is not unique just to Massachusetts, but it’s, it’s really David, it’s the diversity of fly fishing that, that you can, you can experience. Let’s say we start all the way out west and we’re fishing rivers like the Deerfield, which is a great tail water, A place that we spend time this time of year, that place fishes great. Honestly, all throughout the year you’ve got brown trout and rainbow trout. You can pick up some book trout, if you go even farther down, more sort of the central part of Massachusetts. George (8m 45s): The Deerfield itself turns into a great small mouth river, which I think is kind of an incredible opportunity for folks to experience different species of fish even on the same river over the course of the year. We also have a bunch of great Freestone rivers. There’s one that we fish that I in particular am really fond of. It’s called the Miller’s River. And that river, as opposed to the Deerfield, I would call it a more technical river. All right. It’s, it’s, I call it technical and moody, because as a freestone it, it’s really more susceptible to variations of water flow, temperature, things like this. So it’s a place that you can really go and use almost every fly fishing technique that you’d like to try. George (9m 30s): There’s dry flies, certainly this time of year we’re gonna go with small nymphs. In the fall, there’s, there’s great streamer fishing. It’s great because in one river over the course of a year, you can really practice for whatever technique that you want and really try to work on it. So just two examples I think of, of some really nice rivers. There’s a bunch of still water, some great reservoirs right here in the central part of Massachusetts that you can, you know, you can target all sorts of species, small mouth, large mouth bass, you know, take your young kids out and hook some blue gills, lots of fun there. And then, well they, I mean, I wouldn’t be truthful if I didn’t say I was biased towards the salt. George (10m 15s): I mean, we’ve got just, whether it’s, you know, the North shore, which is that part of Massachusetts up towards Cape Ann, north of Boston, the South shore, that area south of Boston, Boston Harbor, Dave (10m 28s): Right. Boston Harbor. There’s nothing more famous than Boston Harbor as far as just, just the history. George (10m 33s): Yep. Have some tea. Right. Commemorate that. And, and I mean, there’s, there’s just, there have been years where there’s schools of, of monster stripers in there, and then of course my hometown of Cape Cod, you know, to 70 mile sandbar with more than 400 miles of coastline to fish. Wow. And I contend, and I don’t know, maybe I’m in the midst of it right now, but you could fish there your whole life and not fish everything. Right. It, it’s just, it’s a really unique fishery. God, Dave (11m 1s): That’s great. And is that what, I mean, you hear a lot about Cape Cod probably for a number of different reasons, but what is it about that that is so unique? You know, I mean, it looks unique. You look on the map. Is that a natural, is that all a natural, whatever that’s called Island? It’s not island, but look, it sticks out. George (11m 16s): Yeah, it’s, I think it’s probably called the Peninsula. And yes, I think, I think it is, is all natural, probably formed through the, the Ice ages and, and stuff like that. But you know, I think Cape Cod is probably, there’s at least two big things that make Cape Cod great. One is accessibility, and the other is diversity. And, you know, accessibility where about 70 miles south of Boston, which is, you know, depending on that infamous Boston traffic, maybe it’s an hour, it might be two hours of travel, but not, not far at all. Lots of different kinds of places to stay, different venues for recreation, great restaurants, it’s, you know, I think everybody kind of thinks about Cape Cod as a, a family vacation spot, which it is. George (12m 5s): But from a fishing perspective, I think this is where the diversity aspect comes in. I mean, from a fly angling point of view, we’ve got some really great species over the course of the year, of course, the iconic stripe bass blue fish, which are probably an underrated species as far as fly angling is concerned. You know, we get into August and we’re visited by Benito and then later on by, by false albacore. So you’ve got, you know, a diversity of species, but there’s a diversity of terrain that I think makes it really interesting. You know, Cape Cod Bay, the very southern part of Cape Cod Bay has the Brewster Flats, which maybe not everyone is aware of, but it’s actually the largest flat system in the northern hemisphere. George (12m 54s): Oh Dave (12m 54s): Really? What would be the nearest town to this? George (12m 57s): So starting on the western side, east Dennis Cess Wood Harbor, which is a place I go out in and out of quite a lot, really, in this central part of the peninsula of Cape Cod. And it really kind of goes all the way through, you know, the inside of the arm up into Eastham. Even as far as Wellfleet, it’s 12,000 acres of tidal area that you can walk out, you know, you could park your truck at the, at the beach parking lot, and you can walk maybe a mile and more on some of these big low tides and, and just a huge area to fish. You have to, you do have to be careful though, there’s a about a 12 foot tide swing that comes in there. George (13m 42s): So low tide, you could be sand on dry sand, and then six hours later, the top of the high tide, it could be 12 feet deep. Wow. So there’s, Dave (13m 51s): Is this in the Buzzards Bay? Is that what we’re talking about here? George (13m 54s): Well, no, actually this is east of Buzzards Bay, sort of, if you think about Cape Cod, you know, like an arm that’s curled up fifth at the top. Dave (14m 3s): Yeah. It’s like an arm that’s flexing its muscle. Yeah. George (14m 5s): So this area, the Brewster Flats is really like where the bicep would Dave (14m 10s): Be. Oh, okay. George (14m 11s): Of that arm on the northern side. Dave (14m 13s): Yeah, I see a Brewster. Yeah, yeah, Brewster. Gotcha. Okay. So you’re on the inside. Yeah. You’re on the Cape Cod Bay side, right? George (14m 19s): Cape Cod Bay. Exactly. Yeah, we call that the north side. And, you know, even, even as much as I think Brewster Flatz is iconic and interesting, and for all the right reasons, there’s, there’s even more out Dave (14m 32s): There and even more so. That’s pretty amazing ’cause you come down to it, so you can just take yeah, highway six or right in and just hop in there and hit for Brewster. And you, like you said, you got miles of, of flats, essentially just explore. Is that how it works? Is it public? Is it all public water? George (14m 47s): It’s all public water. There are private beaches kind of interspersed along there, but the public access is, is, is really plentiful there. You should have no trouble getting out on the flats at all. Dave (14m 58s): Wow. Cool. And then what would be, like, how do you do it? Are you doing, what is your program when you’re out there guiding? Are you doing as much guiding or is it more like the schools and clinics? George (15m 7s): I’d say it’s a mixture in the beginning of the season, for sure. The majority of the work that we’re doing is schools and clinics, and it’s, you know, getting folks ready to go out and fish for the season in the season. And I think when we’re talking about the north side, normally that’s where we begin the season, around about the, the middle of May. As far as guiding is concerned, those clinics, they’ll sort of happen maybe last part of April into the first part of May. And they’ll, they continue through the summer, but the concentration really is before the season gets started. In mid-May. mid-May, geez, you know, we, we, we have some great spring tides that are wonderful to fish. George (15m 52s): You know, there’s a lot of water moving in and out. And so really what it is, it, it’s waiting usually around about two hours before the bottom of the low tide. We’ll fish through that fish a little bit, you know, sort of in the middle there, and then two hours on the incoming tide. And, and really what happens is that because of the water depth, you can walk the flats beginning around two hours before the bottom of the low. And as the water comes in, it really chases you back to the parking lot. So once the, once the tide turns, you’ve got about two hours to, to make it back, which, which makes for some terrific fishing Dave (16m 34s): Experience. The waters of Bristol Bay at Togiak River Lodge, where fly fishing meets Alaska’s rugged beauty, this is the place to complete the Alaska Grand Slam with all five salmon species, rainbow trout, arctic char, and more where each day offers a new Alaskan adventure. You can visit togiak lodge.com right now to start planning your Bristol Bay experience with Togiak River Lodge. What species would you be getting off, off these flats? George (17m 3s): So in the beginning of the year, it’s stripers for sure. We have a big migration of stripers that they come through the Cape Cod canal for the most part. And, you know, many continue north, they’ll head into Boston Harbor and even points farther north. But there’s a group that break off and sort of take a right hand turn and they take up residency in Cape Cod Bay. So those are the fish that we’re really targeting really that first part of the year. Dave (17m 30s): And when is the first part of the year? What, what months would those be? George (17m 33s): So we’re looking at, you know, middle of May in terms of some consistent fishing. And then, I mean, those stripers are, are in the bay for the most part through the course of the summer. But, you know, I think around about July 4th, the water temperatures in Cape Cod Bay can get a little warm. And when they do the level of dissolved oxygen goes down. And so what happens then is that we start to turn our focus on the south side of Cape Cod. So if you were to look again there, you sort, you’ve got that flexed arm, you’re looking at the bicep, that’s Cape Cod Bay. If you go directly south off the elbow Yeah, if you will, of Cape Cod, there’s this feature called Monomoy Island. George (18m 21s): And Monomoy Island has its own series of flats. They tend to fish pretty well even into July. And that’s because those flats are exposed to the Atlantic. Right. So the water temperatures stay lower, generally speaking, than in Cape Cod Bay. But the, the feature of most interest, I think down that way are these shoals that sort of extend from the elbow of Cape Cod all the way down to Nantucket Island, which is about seven miles off the tip of monomoy. And these shoals, they can really produce some amazing fishing. What happens is that we get these strong coast wide currents. George (19m 3s): They travel along the coast, coast wise, I should, I guess I should say. And when those big currents come up against these giant mountains of sand, these shoals, they create standing waves and, which is like very visually cool to see, but it tends to really attract a lot of bait and therefore a lot of game fish. And that’s where sort of we shift our focus there second, third week of June. Really, you’re, you’re looking at stripers from that point on, the blue fish tend to come in a little bit later. And then as we continue through the season, you get into the late part of August, early part of September, and we get those false albacore starting to show up and and that’s a real party right there, Dave (19m 51s): Right. So that’s a false, yeah. And when, when did those start coming in? George (19m 54s): You can probably start to find them in the very western part of Cape Cod, sort of the last week of, of August. You know, we’re out on the boats, you know, looking intently in anticipation that time. But really, I, I think it’s probably the first part of September before they’re there, you know, in numbers and that that really, that throws the entire fishing community into a frenzy at that point. Dave (20m 19s): Oh, is, is that more of a frenzy than, because I’ve heard some things about the, you know, the, the striper fishermen that are just kinda like, you know, living outta their van, going for if you have the same thing for the false albacore. George (20m 31s): I, yeah, I, I really do think so. Yeah, the, we don’t have the, the alies around for all that long. And I think because of that, people really focus on them very intently for that period of time. But for sure, I mean, I know guys that have lost their jobs, wreck their boats, you know, and, and strain their marriages for sure over that course of sort of September, October, Dave (20m 56s): September. Is, is that when the in the bay, like temperatures change back to the cooling down? Is that why That’s good. George (21m 2s): Yeah, that, so September and October are a little bit like, you know, Christmas, your birthday and, and any other holiday you want to put together because yeah, you’re right. So not only do we have on the south side the ALBs that show up, but you begin to start to see the southern migration of the Stripe bass. And they do come back onto the flats. They’re swinging around the outside of Cape Cod and they’re, they’re in numbers and in size. And I think part of the reason it’s such an exciting time to fish Cape Cod is that there’s plentiful bait, and those bait have grown, you know, they’ve become pretty mature, so you could throw some big flies and catch some big stripers and yeah. George (21m 47s): Yeah, it’s, it’s a magical time of year for sure. Dave (21m 51s): Wow. So that might be, if you’re gonna pick one week to go up there, you you think maybe September october might be, might be the best. That’s George (21m 59s): What I would suggest. In fact, looking at my calendar, the month of September for 2025 was already fully booked before Christmas, got here in 2024. So folks definitely, they, they know when to come and they’re focused on that time of year. Dave (22m 15s): Gotcha. And then are you pretty much, for you when you’re guiding, are you out taking the boat around and talk about that a little bit? George (22m 22s): Yeah, I think it’s a real mix. So we do a bunch of waiting trips, you know, primarily in the first part of the year. I also have a flat skiff, which I use up on Cape Cod Bay on those flats. It’s tremendous casting platform. It’s a great way to sneak around and change locations and, and find concentrations of fish. And then for the bigger water on the southern side of Cape Cod, I’ve, I’ve got a Jones Brothers 1910 light tackle edition, 20 foot center console. And that hull, I mean, it is the quintessential saltwater fly fishing boat, but I can personally vouch for that hu being just one of the best platforms of, of any boat that I’ve Dave (23m 8s): Oh, really? Like, like, so it’s good in kinda rough waters And also good for the, like a skiff style. George (23m 13s): It is, I mean, it, it’s really good. It, it makes two to three foot chop seem like it’s almost not even there. It handles three to four feet of chop without any kind of problem at all. And one of the best parts about that Jones Brothers boat is that it can get into pretty skinny water. I mean, I can get into less than two feet of water with that boat. So it’s kind of a, it’s go anywhere, do it all kind of a platform. Dave (23m 38s): Gotcha. Cool. So, so let’s just imagine you had some open spots and we were heading out there in kind of end of September. Talk about that. What would that look like potentially? What would we expect? Let’s say we were gonna be out there for a few days. George (23m 50s): It’s a great mixture of approaches that we could take. One of my favorites is I usually leave at a Chatham, which is sort of right there at the elbow. And in the morning Al’s will, will sort of surface feed, right? They, they don’t feed in the dark, they need light. So normally what I like to do that time of year is pick up my clients and Chatham and then we’re gonna head west down towards Hyannis, kind of hugging the coast. There’s quite a bit of structure there. And what you’ll find is you’ll find, you know, schools of Albee’s that are crashing bait at the surface. And man, they are fun to chase and they are really hard to catch. I mean, you might, you might have a shot or two, they’re here and they’re gone. George (24m 33s): There’s a group of folks that will do sort of the run and gun. They’ll, they’ll chase those schools around. I tend to try to identify a pattern because those schools will swim sometimes in a circular pattern, sometimes just some kind of identifiable pattern. And I can kind of wait and, and let them come to me. We’ll have a ton of fun doing that in the morning. And then as the, as the sun comes up, those EYs can be pretty picky. They’ve got some great eyesight. So at that stage what I like to do is run out to the rips off of Monomoy. And from there, you know, you you, there’s any number of species you could run into, you know, a a big pile of blue fish on your way out to Monomoy and have a blast with those guys. George (25m 17s): I mean, pound for pound one of the best fighting coastal fish that you can find up here. Make our, our way out to monomoy and, and fish those rips. Certainly there’s plenty of big stripe bass out there, but you can most definitely hook into Albee’s as you’re fishing the standing waves of the rips. And in fact, last year we found those ALBs, for whatever reason to be a little bit more difficult, a little trickier, a little pickier than your typical season of ALBs. So we tended to have the best luck for Albe in those rips when we’re sort of drifting, you know, heavy flies on sinking lines low and across the, the tops of the shoals and the ays would take ’em. George (26m 1s): And man that’s one heck of a flight right there, right? It’s kind of chaos, right? You’re bouncing around and and chop that’s two or three feet and, and the wind’s blowing and, and the al’s taking you right to the end of your backing and you’re wondering what’s gonna happen next? It’s pretty, pretty exciting stuff. Dave (26m 19s): Are you kinda chasing them down in the boat when they’re running? George (26m 22s): There are definitely times when we have to chase ’em. I did that a few times last year. I’m not sure exactly why, but you know, we had bigger ALBs last year than we’ve had in the past. Some in the 10 to 12 pound range. And yeah, for sure when you start to see the end of the backing coming up, you’ve gotta get the boat in gear and try to chase that guy down a little bit. Dave (26m 44s): Gotcha. And then what is the, and then the stripers, would you be out say in that same time, end of September be you mentioned off the tip there, would you be going out also on some flats and doing some of that? George (26m 55s): For sure. You know, Monomoy itself is this, this great island that forms a very unique ecosystem and part of that ecosystem is a small area of flats called Great flats actually. And the stripers will go in there chasing bait, you know, corralling them up against the shore in that, that shallow water. And there have been times where you can get into some of these small channels and they look like, you know, a traffic jam on, on, on the Massachusetts turnpike just to filled with with stripers. Yeah. But it’s a very dynamic environment. Again, there’s a, a tidal swing is is pretty steep there, not as steep as in the bay, but the currents that move through there really push a lot of water, you know, in a lot of different directions. George (27m 40s): So again, something if you’re sort of weighting the, the tidal flats of Monomoy, you gotta be real careful out there. Dave (27m 48s): Gotcha. What, what is the, do you know a little about the kinda life history of stripers? Like why they’re coming in to the bay and kind what they’re doing and all that stuff? George (27m 57s): Sure. You know, stripers are, are, they’re, first of all, they’re ISTs, right? You can find them in fresh water, you can find them in right in salt water. And, and I think kind of the life cycle of stripers that, that we pay most attention to, you know, starts in their, in their spawning time of year, which is, is coming up here pretty soon. And, and that takes place for the most part in Chesapeake Bay in the Hudson River. There are other locations for sure. But as far as the population of stripers that visit Cape Cod, they’re principally from, from Chesapeake Bay. Oh, they Dave (28m 33s): Are? So they’re now Chesapeake is is south of there. George (28m 36s): Yeah. Sort of, you know, Delaware or Maryland Del Marva Peninsula. Dave (28m 41s): Basically they spawn in the, the spring and then they’re heading up north after that. George (28m 45s): They do, yeah, they spawn in the spring. They actually need mostly fresh water to spawn in. And then after that what they’re doing is they’re basically chasing concentrations of bait north as the water temperatures warm and as that bait moves north, you know, so do the stripers. And there’s actually a magazine here that publishes an online version that shows the migration of stripers up the east coast Oh yeah. And sort of a heat map style. And it’s, it’s interesting because everybody’s sort of ch chattering about, you know, where are they and how soon will they be here? And, and, but in, in terms of the, the striper migration, you know, that they kind of come in at the Cape Cod area around the middle of May. George (29m 30s): They’ll head, you know, as far north as the Canadian Maritimes. We’re lucky in Cape Cod because the stripers stay for the summer, which is not the case in all locations. If you happen to fish maybe further south in New Jersey, you know, there’s a part of the summer where the temperature’s warm enough that the stripers won’t hang out there, but they do hang out all summer in Cape Cod and that’s pretty cool. Dave (29m 55s): Right. Wow. So you have ’em all summer. So there, there’s that window where it’s a little bit warm, so you’re not really targeting ’em, but you’ve got the, like you said, the June, maybe you’re taking a break in what, July later July, August, kinda that period, then you’re back to it. George (30m 9s): And the sort of the warmer months in July and August we’re, we’re on the southern part. Oh, Dave (30m 14s): Just hit the Southern. Yeah, George (30m 15s): Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s incredible to me how much variation there is in water temperature down there between Cape Cod and Nantucket is, it’s kind of a, a funny story I’ll tell you. Yeah, I remember this last year very clearly. It was the 14th of July and I remember ’cause it was very foggy and I was listening to the radio frequency that all the guides use and we’re out there bobbing around in the middle of the fog and one of the guides says, Hey, look at your, your electronics and tell me if you’re seeing what I’m seeing. The water temperature was 48 degrees on the 14th of July and had something to do, I’m sure with a variation of maybe the Gulf Stream or something like that. George (31m 1s): But it’s the coldest temperature that any of us could remember happening in July. And you know, oddly enough in a few days time, you know, the fog cleared, the sun came back out and the water temperatures, you know, bounced right back into the sixties and and seventies. And it was just, it’s kind of the way Cape Cod goes every day is something different. And, and that makes it both, you know, challenging and exciting. Dave (31m 25s): So it’s always changing and that, and so when it gets down to the cooler temperature, is that kind of the prime? Like is there a temperature that’s like the perfect temperature for, for fishing, find these guys? George (31m 35s): For sure. I think the preferred temperatures for stripers for feeding anyways is somewhere in the sort of middle sixties to middle seventies. But having said that, they will feed in cooler temperatures. I don’t think that they’ll feed much above sort of 74, 75, but I think they’re, they’re sort of preferred. Where they like to hang out is, is sort of mid sixties, mid seventies. Dave (31m 59s): Okay. And then, and back to, you know, I’m kind of going back to the flats ’cause that’s kind of interesting I think what, yeah, so they’re basically going on there to, like you said, they’re pushing the bait in and trapping them essentially. What, what is it like when you’re sitting there on the boat, if you’re kinda on the flats, talk about how you’re setting up for the fish and how you’re kinda hooking into ’em. George (32m 18s): Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, on the boat we’re, we’re gonna take into account, you know, things like what’s the direction of the wind so we can, if we have the ability to set up a drift, you know, over the top of, of a likely spot and you know, a likely spot is on the outgoing tide where one of these estuaries empties out into Cape Cod Bay. And the reason that’s a likely spot, and this is, you know, in a way similar I think to fishing for trout in a river is that, you know, the marsh that’s being drained through at that estuary is really bringing all sorts of food from that marsh area out into the bay. George (32m 58s): And stripers, you know, they want to be, they want to be efficient in their use of energy, so they’ll wait there. So a good drift on an outgoing tide takes advantage of the wind sometimes. And, you know, early part of the year we can catch a favorable southwest breeze, not too strong of a breeze and just sort of let the boat very stealthily move over that area and have anglers cast into it. The thing about the flats, I like to say they’re not flat. Yeah, they’re, they’re a series of, you know, channels and, and gies and, and sandbars. So we try to be as stealthy as possible. George (33m 39s): I’ve got a, a trolling motor that I use, you know, sort of to get from here to there when I’m not, I don’t have the outboard fired up and I’ve also got, you know, a polling platform. So once we find ourselves, you know, sort of in that spot where we think fish will be i’ll, I’ll put the trolley motor away and, and just pull that skiff right over the top of them if I can. Dave (33m 58s): Gotcha. Gosh. So you have kind of this period we’re talking about and, and I mean going back to the trout. So when do you, or maybe talk about that, why, why are you choosing trout versus the salt? Or is there one that you would, you know, go all in? It sounds like salt’s pretty exciting. What brings you back to the trout stuff? George (34m 16s): Well, you know, by the time October, November comes around, the stripers have migrated south of us and you know, I like to think about that time of year that that trout they need to get ready for the winter. So the anglers that I fish with are very happy to feed them and get them ready for the winter. So, and you know, to be honest with you, I personally just really like the variety I, I like, you know, during the, the salt season to really sort of fully concentrate, you know, on what’s going on out there. But over the course of the year it, it’s really nice to change it up and I, I think, you know, there’s certainly similarities and you can carry some things across from fresh to salt and, and back the other way. George (35m 2s): But you learn stuff I think on, on the fresh water that you can bring over to the salt that’s different and vice versa. So it’s a nice nice to change it up. Dave (35m 11s): Yeah. Okay. And we’ve, we’ve done a little bit, well more than a little bit of some episodes on New York, which is kind of right, right there adjacent to it. Yeah. Is that just mainly, you hear more about New York, you think ’cause it’s a bigger state, there’s more waters more because you guys have a little history there too, like we said, but is it, is kind of Massachusetts, do you feel like it’s still kind of off the radar compared to some of the other ones? George (35m 33s): I think you’re making a good point. I I do in a way. You know, you hear the iconic stories of fishing stripers off of Montauk and, and for all the right reasons, right? It’s a beautiful place. And those fish in their southern migration just, they just, that’s their highway. And so why not fish there? I do think maybe Cape Cod is still yet a bit underrated maybe. And you know, in my opinion, I, I think it ranks up there with some of the most, you know, world class fly fishing fisheries that I can think of. Certainly different, you know, than fishing for let’s say bonefish or tarpin or permit. George (36m 13s): But yeah, I, in a way I’m glad that we can have this conversation and just sort of introduce people a little bit to fishing Cape Cod. Yeah, Dave (36m 22s): Definitely. I think, like I said, we’ve, we’ve talked stripers and, and the albacore, but it’s, you kinda never get tired of it. ’cause it sounds like, it sounds like there’s this addiction to it, like a lot of these species. So George (36m 34s): I’ve been doing it my entire life and I’m not tired of it yet. So, Dave (36m 38s): So have you now maybe take us back there a little bit. Let, let’s go go big picture. Did you, you’ve been fly fishing for quite a while here. Like when, when did that get started? Yeah, George (36m 47s): You know, I was really fortunate growing up. My hometown is a place called Stonington, Connecticut. It’s right on Fisher’s Island sound. My grandparents were next door neighbors and they both lived on the water. So I spent my growing up time on, on the water. I had this grandfather. He was just a, a real central part of my life. And, and he, when he wasn’t working, he was fishing and, and he introduced me to fly fishing because he was kind of curious. He is mainly a bait fisherman, but he was curious about fly fishing and I would follow him around everywhere. I just wanted to be him. So I did everything that he did. And when I was nine years old, he took me to a yard sale and bought me a fly rod. George (37m 30s): And you know, I think over the course of time we explored fly fishing, but neither of us really had enough patience for it. Right. We just wanted to get out there and, and, and chase mainly blue fish at that point in time. And then, you know, time goes by and, you know, I, I grew up and, and started a career and started a family and all that sort of stuff and you know, it’s kind of, it’s a little bit of a funny story. At one point I was, I was pretty deep into golf and I had some injuries that I had sustained when I was in the army and eventually, you know, like they caught up with me, it kind of ended my golf career and I was kind of looking around, what am I gonna do next? George (38m 12s): And a college buddy of mine said, Hey, I’m taking a trip to the Catskills, would you wanna, you wanna join me? And it was kind of never looked back, you know, at from that point and have gotten, I think you never touch bottom ’cause there’s always stuff to learn, right? But it’s, it’s kind of at this point it’s consumed my entire life. It’s how I make my living. It’s kind of all I think about and dream about at night, so. Dave (38m 39s): Right, right. That’s awesome. So you, so yeah, so the Catskills and then where does the kinda, the Massachusetts, how does that all fit into it? George (38m 48s): Yeah, my family would come to Cape Cod every summer when I was a kid. We used to camp out here and, and back then would mainly fish in the kettle ponds fresh water on, on Cape Cod. And, and normally really great fishing. But having started from a salt water background and kind of learning a little bit more and more over time about salt water fly fishing in, in Cape Cod, it pulled me in and it was kind of nothing I could do about it. I, it just, it kind of took over my life. And when we moved to Cape Cod, I was in the process of kind of transitioning from a, you know, a corporate career I’ve been doing, guiding for salt water and freshwater there, you know, as kind of a part-time thing that I, I was doing with my kids. George (39m 36s): And my corporate job just sort of ended and I was out of excuses at that point for not guiding fly fishing full-time. So the next thing I knew I had two boats and a captain’s license and we were off and rolling. Dave (39m 50s): There you go. Never looking back then. George (39m 52s): No, there’s no looking back at this point, Dave. It’s, that’s this is it. Dave (39m 56s): Gotcha. That’s cool. So I love, I love the always the story on that because it goes back to your grandfather, right? You had this connection and there was a fly rod along the way, and then it’s like the planting the seed and then eventually, you know, years later you find yourself buying two boats and you know, going all we, I hear that story a lot. I think it’s, I’m not sure what it is. I think it’s because, you know, fly fishing kind of hooks you there somewhere along the way and then yeah, there’s a life change and you have this opportunity right. To go for it. Yeah. George (40m 23s): Somehow kind of, I found the more people I talk to, the more clients I fish with. It. It’s something that happens at one point in your life and it’s just sort of the right place, right time. And then from there, people just take off with it. Dave (40m 39s): On Demark Lodge offers a world class experience with one of the finest rainbow trout and brown trout fisheries in the world. Their family owned and operated. Missouri River Lodge offers comfortable accommodations, delicious homecooked meals and personalized service that make you feel like family days on the water are capped off by appetizers, beverages, dinner and stories on the back deck and around the campfire. Book your stay for an unforgettable fly fishing adventure where memories are made and the fish stories are real. You can head over right now to wet fly swing.com/on DeMar, that’s O-N-D-E-M-A-R-K on DeMar right now to book your magical Missouri River trip. Dave (41m 23s): I want to hear about a little bit, we’ve been talking a little bit about Midges, you know, I mean the tail waters, especially this time of year, you think of February, you know, January, February, March, it’s winter time. But the cool thing is on tail, especially in these cold areas or around the country, you can still fish, right? Are you still fishing this time of year, like right in the middle of the winter when opportunities arise? George (41m 42s): When opportunities arise, that’s the key. Yeah. It’s pretty darn cold. And, and you, you can run into a lot of problems with ice and the guides and things like that, but for sure and in these tail waters, you know, ’cause of the nature of tail waters, they generally speaking don’t have as much sort of bug life as maybe a a, a freestone. So for sure you’re gonna go with those, those small Midges you know, maybe in, you know, tandem or, or or three at the end of, at the end of your leader and you’re gonna fish ’em slow, right? Yeah. ’cause those, the metabolism of trout at this point in time, given, I mean some of our rivers are, are even frozen. George (42m 22s): Those that don’t move very much. So the metabolism of trout are pretty slowed down and it’s a pretty technical form of fishing. I think people in my experience who are fishing this time of year up in this neck of the woods are, you know, their expectations are adjusted accordingly. But they’re, you know, they’re happy to be out, they’re happy to be fishing if they happen to hook a trout. While that’s a, a pretty nice thing, but the expectations are pretty low at this point. Dave (42m 50s): Gotcha. So it’s been a cold winter so far. I’ve heard there’s been some cold temperatures. Yeah. George (42m 56s): You know, this one reminds me of those good old fashioned New England winters when I was a kid, relatively speaking. We’ve had more cold days and, and more sort of snow and ice this year than, than the most recent years. And, you know, it’ll be interesting to see what happens both in terms of how these rivers wake up over the course of the spring and then if the ocean temperatures have cooled as a result, you know, will that affect the striper migration? Hard to say. Dave (43m 24s): Yeah. Gotcha. That’s awesome. Well, I wanna start to slowly take it outta here and, and we’re gonna be thinking about, I’m gonna get some, some maybe some midge fishing tips outta here in a few minutes, but I want to do our kind of our fly fishing travel spotlight segment. And today it’s presented by Mountain Waters Resort. So we’re heading up to fish for Atlantic salmon up north of you. And this is out of like Newfoundland and there’s a, a cool area that we’ve been looking at and it sounds like the fishing’s pretty good up there. So I wanted to give one big shout off that. The other cool thing about this, talking about history, which you have a lot of in your state, but this lodge was where Lee Wolf, you know some people that are may know about Lee, he’s kind of an old, you know, famous iconic. Yeah, iconic, right? Dave (44m 4s): Well he used to, this was the lodge he used to fly his plane up to and fish for Atlantic salmon. So we’re gonna be fishing some of the same pools that Lee we’re actually gonna be staying in the same cabin Right. Essentially that he was in. So it’s gonna be this Roy. That’s amazing. I know. It’s amazing. And for me, I’m a big, I’m a big steelhead angler, so it’s gonna be cool to finally compare Steelhead Atlantic salmon. And so I wanna give a big shout out to Mountain Waters Resort. So for you on the, you know, the travel segment here, what is, you know, we’ve talked about Massachusetts today. What is on your travel segment, do you have other places that you’ve been to or you want to go to around the country, the world that, that you haven’t been to yet or that maybe that you’ve been to? You wanna go back? George (44m 40s): Yeah. Well I know you’re a steelhead guy. Yeah, I am. I am secretly a steelhead guy. Oh, nice. Myself, I’m in the early part of the spring. I’m gonna head out to the Lake Erie tributaries. I I go there every year in the fall. Never been there in the spring, but those fish, I mean, well, you know, probably even better than I do. They’re just, they’re really something else. So Dave (45m 5s): Yeah. So that’s it. So you can travel in probably from, what is it from Boston? It’s what, like a 10 hour drive or something like that to get over there? George (45m 13s): Yeah, eight to 10 hours. Not so bad at all. Usually pretty solitary driving up through that northern part of New York, but yeah. Worth the drive for sure. Dave (45m 22s): Worth the drive. Are you gonna be Yeah, I’m probably some of the same rivers we fished up there. So is that drive, you know, what is that? Just hop on the road, throw in some, some music podcasts. Is this something you’re doing on your own or what do you got going there? George (45m 36s): Throw the gear in the back of the truck, pop on some Bob Marley and just go for it. Dave (45m 40s): Just go for it. Nice. Awesome. And what, what’s your, what’s your on the, this is the start of our random, you know, segment in the podcast, but what’s your, are you doing the, like hoteling it ca well you’re probably not camping, it’s in the fall or what, what, what’s that look like? Are you traveling through George (45m 53s): Yeah, pretty cold, but you know, just whatever cheap motel, all you need is a place to lay your head down. You’re gonna be fishing otherwise, so. Dave (46m 1s): Yeah, exactly. Nice. Okay. So that’s kind of the, you know, like I said, kicking this off, that’s a spot. I love that you’re into steelhead. We obviously have a lot of steelhead episodes we’ve talked about. Let’s hear a little bit, I wanna hear about the, the boat. So you’re talking about you’ve got this boat, we’ve done a few, some episodes on like drift boats, but are you into, are you’ve tearing your boat apart? Are you a big boat maker? George (46m 22s): Oh, I can’t stop tinkering with boats. I mean, I, I guess properly, I have three, I’ve got two salt water boats and I’ve got a, a drift boat that I use for the rivers out here. And I, you know, honestly I wish I could stop with all this tinkering and tearing apart and putting that together, right. But every time I fish one of these boats, you know, I think about something we could change that would make it a better fishing platform. And so it’s kind of irresistible to try to tweak it and make it better for my anglers. Dave (46m 51s): Right. And is the, is the what the boat you need there different from say if you’re fishing in any other flats around? I mean, it sounds like maybe the high tides make it, you need a more stable boat for that. George (47m 2s): Yeah, no, you’re making a good point. The flats boat I run is a 22 foot hydro sports ocean skiff. And the way to think about it is that it’s got a more, more of a v hole than a flat, like a chitum or, or something like that. And that’s because, you know, we’re always gonna be with a little bit of chop and I wanna be able to get out onto the bay, you know, if it’s maybe rolling one, one and a half, two foot, get out there and be able to get into some of these estuaries and you can get into the estuary and you’re not dealing with any kind of wave action at all. But the ride there and the ride back, you know, you need a little bit of a, a v haul to get you there. Dave (47m 42s): Yep. Yeah, because without the vha you’re, you’re not doing well going through the waves. George (47m 46s): No. You’re getting, you know, kind of brutalized on the way out and back. Dave (47m 50s): Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Well let’s maybe talk about that just before we start to kinda wrap this up on, on the tips. So we, we talked a lot, you know, about, you know, the Cape Cod and if people again want to follow up with you, we can send ’em out to sylvere outdoors.com. But yeah, let’s hear some, you mentioned maybe a couple there on the Midge fishing. What, what would be your main tailwater or for fish and Midges? Is that the, the deer field? George (48m 12s): Yeah, the, the deer field. There’s, there’s another river folks will recognize that in central Massachusetts called the Swift River. And, and that river very, very clear water. You can see the fish, they can see you. So you’re, you’re down to some pretty small, you know, sizes of Midges. Maybe you’re in the 22, 24 or 26, you’re, you know, sometimes Oh wow, small, real small. Yeah. And you’re gonna be fishing six seven x tbit, which, you know, is pretty tough to tie on a 22 if it’s 30 degrees high. Right. So yeah. But that would be, that’s pretty much the approach you have to take at this point. Dave (48m 53s): You gotta go small and the reason you go small is because you why it just, the images are smaller. Is that kind of why you’re going small? George (48m 60s): Yeah, it’s, it’s more of a match the hatch thing. Dave (49m 2s): Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then the techniques. Are you typically fishing more down to the bottom or more emerging or what, what’s that look like? Well, George (49m 10s): My personal preference is, is to have, have a fly low, have a fly sort of in the middle part of the water column. But I, I think, I think you’re concentrating probably on that point fly for the most part these times a year. Yeah. They’re, let’s try their sulking, you know, it’s cold. Yeah. And they’re sulking down low and, and yeah, you gotta get run, gotta Dave (49m 29s): Get in George (49m 30s): Front of him. Yeah. He gotta pretty much bonk him on the head with it. Dave (49m 32s): Right. Well, what’s your nipping, is the nipping like a euro style or is it indicator? What does that look like? George (49m 39s): I do a little bit of both. I, it, it kind of, this time of year, I think probably your, your tight line nipping is gonna be your bet or bet. But you know, again, if we’re in the drift boat, we’re gonna be doing some indicator, nipping Dave (49m 51s): Indicator. Okay. Oh, right. So you, and you have the drift and, and the drift boat is like a fold. Is that kind of where you just hop out on the water even during the wintertime, you’re using that boat if it’s conditions? All right, George (50m 1s): For sure. Yeah, we do a couple of different trips. The deer fields is usually just a fully float trip. We, we do a trip on the Ware River, which is a little closer into central Massachusetts, and that’s, that’s a trip where we, we drift for a while, then we’ll anchor up, allow our anglers to kind of wade certain sections of the river and then drift down to the next, next pool. Dave (50m 25s): Okay. And what’s your, what’s your drift drift boat? You, you got there? George (50m 28s): So I have a Avon path maker. It’s, it’s one of the, it’s an inflatable raft. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Dave (50m 36s): So you have a, you have a, a drift boat and a raft or That’s George (50m 38s): That’s my drift boat. Yeah. You know, the, the, the rivers here not really friendly for a drift boat, like a cl or, or something like that. It gets super skinny in places. These rafts are, are really what folks use up here and they’re super comfortable. Dave (50m 54s): Yeah. So you’re using a raft, you’re not using a hard boat. Right. Yeah. I gotcha. But it’s set up with the, the frame and the, all the casting. Exactly. Playing Okay. George (51m 2s): Casting platforms. So two anglers, one on the back, one on the front, and there’s me shoveling water in the middle. Yeah, that Dave (51m 8s): Makes sense. Okay, perfect. I was gonna say, yeah, I, you know, you don’t tend to see as many drift boats out east, right? There’s definitely some, there’s some rivers, but mainly that’s because yeah. Why is that on, on your rivers? Mainly because it’s just a little too technical or rocky. George (51m 21s): It gets really skinny, you know, in some places that you’ve gotta get through, which is, I mean, when I fish the Catskills, which I still do every year with my college buddy. And that’s, you know, that those, that’s where you see a lot of drift boats and much fewer rafts. And I just think that, you know, systems like the Delaware are just more amenable to those boats, different to the systems that we have up here. Dave (51m 43s): Gotcha. Nice. Okay, well a couple more and then we’ll kind of get outta here. One thing I was thinking about was just, you know, there’s always changes in, you know, whether that’s gear or technique, stuff like that. What, what is one, have you seen one big change in fly fishing maybe in the last year that’s really, you know, you think of has made a big difference in your fishing? You could, you could bring it back to the stripers if you want, but anything come to mind there? Yeah, George (52m 7s): The thing that leaps to mind is, is that these fly rods are getting faster and, and faster. And I think especially from a, a salt perspective, that’s good because they’re better able to handle the wind. The downside is, is if there is one, is that you have to adjust your casting technique between, you know, a, a rod that’s slower action versus a rod that that’s faster action. And I, I get a lot of this in my, my casting lessons where a student will come, they’ve purchased this really fantastic rod, it’s a super fast rod, and it’s really difficult for them, you know, to make a, a good cast until we break that cast down and, and really get them to understand how to use that particular rod, Dave (52m 53s): Right? So you can take a person that gets a really fast action rod that doesn’t have the skills yet, and you can take them and actually teach them to give them the skills to cast it. George (53m 2s): Exactly. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, just as a, as an approach if, if this would work, I’ll step them back to a slower action rod and get them to really have a sense for how a rod loads and unloads and then move them back to the faster action rod. And just, it’s a matter of, you know, adjusting that casting stroke for that particular rod. Dave (53m 23s): That’s perfect. No, I love, I love that you, this seems to keep coming up now that we’ve opened up the casting, you know, questions. And I think that the, I’ve heard this from some of the best that, that that’s a big challenge is that people get a rod that’s too fast, you know, because the industry is promoting faster and faster rods and, but at the time, especially if you’re newer, you’re not that good at casting a fast action rod, so you actually want a slow action. Yep. Good. Well this is great. Well, what would be a, like a casting, let’s just take a casting tip. Like if somebody’s listening now and we were putting this into a bunch of ca they could do like today, like what could they do today as a casting? Maybe a, not, maybe not even a tip, maybe it’s a casting exercise to kind of get ready. Dave (54m 3s): What would be one, George (54m 4s): You know what I think remember that over the course of a fly cast, whether it’s your back cast or your forward cast, that rod is never moving at the same speed. It’s either accelerating or decelerating. Right? And that’s, that’s really with the physics of getting that rod to bend or load loading and bending are the same thing, right? And then unloading, so maybe two things to remember is that you’re always either accelerating or decelerating, never moving, you know, at the same speed. And one of the things that, that I really find is a common casting error for clients or students is really bringing that rod to an abrupt stop. George (54m 49s): It’s really that point. And the cast at which, you know, the moving line overtakes the stationary rod, and that’s where the loop forms. So I tell people, you know, make sure you stop the rod, don’t blow, blow past that stopping point, stop it and then lower it. But don’t, don’t just lower Dave (55m 5s): It. Yeah. What would be, would there be something if somebody was getting ready for, let’s just say a salt water trip that you would say, Hey, do this. I don’t know if there’s an exercise or something they can do in their lawn or on the water practicing. George (55m 18s): I guess maybe the simplest way to get somebody ready that, that maybe doesn’t have a whole lot of time is, is to think about how you would handle wind, because there’s always gonna be some, right? And, and, you know, if, if the wind is coming onto your casting arm, I think the simplest, most straightforward approach is to basically just tip that rod from vertical to horizontal, essentially moving that fly away from your body, right? Dave (55m 43s): Oh, right. George (55m 44s): Yeah. And, and the way I teach this in my advanced saltwater fly casting lessons is, is that, you know, if if you do that and you’re not able to either make an accurate cast or you’re not able to compensate for the wind enough, you gotta take that rod and move it over to your other shoulder. And maybe now rather than that wind blowing onto your casting arm, you’ve moved, you know, the rod across your body, your casting over your non-dominant shoulder. But you still need to be able to make that cast in that case, you know, the fly is now downwind from your body. Dave (56m 18s): Right? So not necessarily changing your hand from a right to left hand, but just using your right and casting across your body. George (56m 24s): Exactly. Yeah. I mean that, that’s, that’s saved trips. I mean, sometimes you’re out on the flats and you know, you can’t, you’re constrained by where you can stand because of the water. You can’t change the direction that the wind’s coming in. Moving that rod from one side of your body and being able to cast it across your body has saved trips for me. Dave (56m 42s): No, that is a good tip. And really exercise you could do, right? You could be in your yard absolutely. Instead of just casting like regular, you can practice casting across your body, like figure, act like the wind’s blowing against you and you gotta cast over there. And then also the side arm, right? You could practice that. You can just go out in your yard. And I think there is a couple of exercises, we’ve had some casting instructors who’ve been on, they’ve talked about doing the, you know, where you have the rod just down to the side like you said, and it’s in front of you and then you just cast back behind George (57m 8s): You. Oh yeah. Delivering in the back cast that, that’s, that’s super handy. It’s a little bit more complicated than the first two examples that I mentioned, but you know, if you have time, really handy skill to have and that’s sort of on the boat or on the flats or, or sort of whenever. But yeah, if you’ve got a real strong win, you can’t compensate in either of those two more sort of simple approaches. If you could turn around and deliver in your back cast something I personally practice a lot because I think it’s a real useful skill. But yeah, that, that’s the third of the three, I think Dave (57m 40s): That is. Okay, perfect. And, and I just wanna get a couple you mentioned at the start, I wanna take it back here as we, as we kind of wrap this up, the jujitsu, let’s talk about that. You mentioned it’s kinda like fly fishing. So what, what’s the, what’s the connection? How are they similar? You George (57m 53s): Know, it’s, it’s so interesting. I think it’s just something that over the course of time my brain kind of absorbed. I, I think they’re similar in that, you know, they both have these sort of broad concepts that you have to think about, but the only way you can get better is really kind of working through a more and more detailed view of the broad concept. You know, both of them take a lot of practice. And the other thing that I think is interesting and, and similar is that neither of these two are about strength. It’s about technique and timing. And that’s maybe the biggest similarity that, that’s occurred to me lately. Yeah. Dave (58m 29s): As technique and timing, right? So you could be a of small or a big person and be good at jujitsu. George (58m 35s): Absolutely. Lots of examples of Dave (58m 36s): That. Gotcha. Okay. And what about, what about sports? I always love to hear some sports questions. Are you, are you a fan? You mentioned golf, is that, were there other sports out there other than golf? George (58m 45s): I, I, I’ve always been a fan of, I don’t know, martial arts and sort of combat sports. I, I was, a long while ago I was, I was doing some amateur boxing here in, in Boston. My wife very rightly talked me out of that. Wow. For all the right reasons. Dave (59m 4s): And amateur boxing means that you’re still boxing, like full people are hanging. Oh yeah, it’s like boxing. George (59m 9s): Oh, for sure. Yeah. In front of crowds and, and, and all that stuff. It was holy cow. I mean, it was, Dave (59m 15s): What was that like? Did you ever get like knocked out or knocked down? George (59m 20s): No, fortunately for me, I’ve never had either of those two experiences. But I, I will say that the very, I remember my very first fight, you know, I was in this gym and there was 200 some odd people there. Wow. There was a band playing in the, the corner. There was like three or four kegs by the door. Oh my god. And I was so nervous climbing into the ring I thought I was gonna pass out. Just, wow. Dave (59m 45s): What’s that like when you get up into the ring, you’re nervous, you get up there and then you gotta go and look across, are you looking across at the guy that you’re fighting and thinking, wow, that guy’s bigger than me and or what’s that look like? George (59m 57s): It was exactly the case in my very first fight, I fought a, a guy that, man, I think he was, seemed like he was three feet taller than me. I’m sure he wasn’t that much, but much taller longer. And it’s, it’s all by weight class, right? So that’s kind of how you get matched up. And I, I remember thinking to myself, this is gonna be a problem, Dave (1h 0m 15s): Really. So, so what happens, the, the bell rings. What is your tactic to stay alive? George (1h 0m 20s): The bell rings and this particular fight is kind of funny, right? So I’m, I’m relatively short. This guy was long, had a long reach, so anytime I tried to get close to him, he would just, he would throw jabs and, and keep me on the outside. And that was pretty much how the first round went. So I went back to my corner between the first and the second rounds and my corner man says, look, this is what you do. Put your hands in front of your face and just walk straight at ’em until you back ’em up in the ropes. And then just get in the inside and go to work. And you know, I, I came out the second round, they rang the bell, I walk into this guy, landed a few punches on the inside, and the rest of the fight was me chasing him around the ring. Dave (1h 1m 2s): No kidding. Oh wow. George (1h 1m 5s): Yeah, because I don’t think he wanted, he didn’t want any more of that, so he just wanted to kind of stay away. Dave (1h 1m 10s): So you were, you were hitting him, you were like going in the ribs and sort of stuff like those punches? George (1h 1m 14s): Yeah, yeah. I mean, my corner man said, look, you’re gonna take some shots on the way in. You just gotta expect that. But once you get inside of his elbows, you’re, you’re, you’re home. Dave (1h 1m 22s): That’s it. Wow. So how did, was this, how many rounds was the fight supposed to be? George (1h 1m 26s): This one was three. Most of these amateurs rounds are three, three minute rounds. Dave (1h 1m 30s): Gotcha. So you went three rounds and then you guys basically called it chose a winner. Is that how that works? George (1h 1m 35s): Yeah, yeah. I think I, I ended up winning that one, but man, I got tired chasing that guy. Right. Dave (1h 1m 42s): Wow. George (1h 1m 43s): Amateurs, we don’t know what we’re doing. We’re just in there having fun, you know, and Dave (1h 1m 46s): Oh, totally. Well, it just seems like, I mean, I, the fighting right is, is interesting because it is entertaining to watch, you know, you go back to like Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, you know, any of the greats like watching those fights, but it’s brutal, you know, it’s brutal too. At the same time you’ve got like Muhammad Ali, all these fighters are, are getting brain damage, you know? Exactly. Right. So it’s this brutal thing. It’s crazy. George (1h 2m 8s): It’s crazy. And I was getting into my forties and I remember my wife looking at me going, Hey man, I don’t think this is a long term thing for you. Why don’t you pick something else? I was like, oh yeah, okay, how about Jiujitsu? That’s good. So that’s where I went. There you go. Dave (1h 2m 22s): Cool. All right. And, and, and what about, what about the football? I, I hear you hear a lot about, I remember the, the Tom Brady days and all that stuff. Are you, are you a big football fan or other sports? George (1h 2m 32s): Well, living here, I mean, you have to be, this has been like title town for, you know, whether it’s the Red Sox or the Bruins Oh yeah. Celtics or the Patriot. We’ve, we’ve had, you know, some really great years. Right now we’re in a little bit of a dry spell. I mean, I, I’m not disparaging the Celtics, they won the championship last year. I’m just not Oh, a big, yeah, a fantastic year after having built, I think, you know, seasons for it. I’m, I’m just, I’ve never been a basketball fan. I’m more of a football fan I think. Yeah. Dave (1h 3m 0s): Yeah. I gotcha. So you were loving the, the Tom Brady years. George (1h 3m 3s): Oh, it was great dude. Winning all those Super Bowls. Absolutely. Dave (1h 3m 8s): That’s good. Cool. Well, anything else before we get outta here on, you know, we’re talking if people are interested in checking out your trips. Anything we missed today on anything? George (1h 3m 15s): Not really. I would, I would just put this out there for folks that are interested in, in learning all things sort of fly fishing. I do work as the education committee chair for Fly Fishers International. Oh, cool. And you know, I just, I, I’m not sure actually how familiar most people are with FFI or the amount of resources that are available. It’s just, it’s a vast amount. And so yeah, I would just put a plug in there for, for FFI come check it out. There’s something there for you. Dave (1h 3m 44s): Good. We’ll we’ll put a link in the show notes to that as well. Yeah, we’re doing some cool stuff I think in moving ahead with FFI too. They’ve got a ton, like you said, casting is a huge part of, you know, that. But all sorts of other stuff. Good. Well, we’ll send everybody out till we set at the start. Sylvere outdoors.com. And then same thing, remind us again on Instagram, where can they find you? George (1h 4m 1s): Same thing, handle Sylvere Outdoors. Perfect. Dave (1h 4m 4s): All right George. Well thanks again. This has been great today. Hopefully we’ll be in touch with you in the future and maybe get, get on the water. I’d love to check out those flats sometimes. And yeah, definitely. Thanks for all your time. George (1h 4m 14s): Absolutely Dave. Thank you. Dave (1h 4m 16s): Alright, quick, quick call to action for you. If you’re interested in stripers, albacore, maybe even some trout fishing in the winter, check in with George. You can do that right now at his website. We’ll have a link in the show notes. Let him know you found this podcast there. Also, if you haven’t yet, you can follow this show. Just click that plus button on any app you’re, you’re on right now. I wanna give you a quick heads up next episode. Going live Monday is gonna be a big one. We got, we got CJ Chad Johnson’s back and he’s gonna be going deep oz always on streamers. Plus we got a big bonus surprise that we’ve been talking about. Stay tuned and subscribe so you get updated on that one. And, and that’s about all we have now. Hope you are having a great day. Dave (1h 4m 56s): Hope you have a great afternoon, great evening, or a great morning, and we’ll talk to you and see you on that next episode. Outro (1h 5m 3s): Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly, swing Fly fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit wet fly swing.com.