Traveled #30 | Dry Fly Competition Tactics with Jack Arnot – Team USA Fly Fishing

Dave (2s): Today’s guest grew up casting in Colorado’s Eagle River Valley. Joined team USA as a teen and now test his dryly game against the best anglers on the planet from the Freestone Creeks of the Rockies to the ultra technical beats of Europe. In this episode, we break down what it really takes to succeed with drive flies under pressure YA 10 foot three weight with a two weight line might be your next best friend to how a longer leader and a hook cast can change everything for you today. By the end of this one, you’re going to rethink what’s possible with seven x and eight x tip tippet. You’re gonna find out how to fish even when nothing’s rising. And you’re gonna see why the Euro approach Tories might just out fish that chubby Cher Noble Jack Arnaut team, USA angler and dry fly master is here to break down what it really takes to succeed with surface flies, especially when the water is technical and the pressure is on. Dave (1m 0s): You’re gonna find out how he scouts new rivers without seeing a single rise. The rod and line set up that we talked about earlier and why most anglers are fishing flies that look too much like the rest of the flies. All right, there’s so much on this one. You’re gonna love it. I know it. I want to give a big shout out. This episode of Travel is presented by Yellowstone Teton territory host of this year’s World Championships for the youth and the women’s team, and the host for next year’s World Championships for the senior team. You are gonna find out how to connect here. We’ve got some great stuff going. Check out Yellowstone Teton territory right now. Wetly swing.com/teton. All right. Here he is. Jack Anot. Dave (1m 41s): You can find him at Jack Anot on Instagram. How you doing, Jack? Jack (1m 46s): Good. Good. Thank you guys for having me. Really appreciate it. Dave (1m 50s): Yeah, yeah. This is gonna be a good one. Today we’re gonna talk about a, you know, at least one topic tonight, today talking about dry flight fishing competition. Specifically. We’ve been getting some questions from some of the listeners about that. You’re a, you’re an expert. I mean, it really doesn’t get any higher level than I think what you have under your belt of what we’ll talk about some of the championships and team USA, we always love digging into that. So we’re gonna get into all that today. I know you’re traveling as well, and I want to hear an update, but take us back real quick to the beginning. Right to the start. Like how, what’s your, yeah. You’ve been doing fly fishing most of your life or how, how’d you get into it? Jack (2m 23s): Yeah, yeah. I actually got into fishing through my grandpa and that was, you know, fishing power bait on the bank, spin fishing, and yeah, just quickly developed a love for fishing in general. And then I got a fly rod from my parents when I was about 12 or 13. And yeah, I would run down to the creek after middle school with my school clothes on and, and just till dark and yeah, yeah, I just, I immediately fell in love with ply fishing. Dave (2m 54s): Where was that? Where’d you, when you were 12, where were you living at? Jack (2m 58s): Yeah, so I grew up in the Vail Valley in Eagle, Colorado. So lots of fishing opportunities up there and actually the, the spot of two World Championships up there. So, you know, it’s usually pretty good fishing. Dave (3m 11s): Oh, right. So that’s where some of the worlds have been. They’ve actually been held at that at your hometown? Jack (3m 17s): Yeah. Yeah. We had a, a Youth Worlds, which I was able to participate in, and then we had senior worlds a couple years after that, Dave (3m 26s): Senior worlds. And, and I always confuse myself on this because I think golf, but seniors is the actual, the younger of the older guys. Jack (3m 33s): Yeah, yeah. A little confusing. But the youth team, I think you age out at 18 and then the seniors team I think is like 18 to 50. And then the master’s team is 50 plus from my understanding. Dave (3m 45s): 50 plus. Yeah. So, and are you now on the seniors team? Jack (3m 49s): Yeah. Yeah. So I, I, I am currently on the seniors team. I was on the youth team from about the age of 14 to I think around 17. And then when I went to college, I think I joined the senior team my sophomore year of college. So it’s been, I think like four or five years, give or take. Yeah, Dave (4m 14s): Four or five on the senior team. Jack (4m 17s): Yeah. Yeah, correct. Dave (4m 18s): Yeah, on the, that’s right. So who’s the current, because does it vary a little bit, but who is the current senior team right now as we speak? 2025. Jack (4m 25s): Yeah, so it’s me, Cody Bergdorf, Mike Kamara, Devin Olson, and Michael Bradley. And then we’re taking an alternate this year, which that’ll be Austin Shoemaker. Dave (4m 38s): Oh yeah, Austin. Okay. And, and then there’s Jack (4m 40s): And who’s the 15 guys? Dave (4m 41s): Oh, there’s 15. What? Jack (4m 43s): There’s 15 guys that make up the, the rest of the, the US fly fishing team. And then the five get selected or make it in points for the, the world’s team. Dave (4m 53s): Oh, gotcha. Okay. So there’s five that make it to actually go compete. And then there’s 15 others that are there just as alternate support, that sort of thing. Jack (5m 1s): Yeah, yeah. On team USA, you know, everyone’s, everyone’s got a shot, so it’s a pretty awesome group. Dave (5m 6s): And who out that group? Who’s the oldest out of that group there? Jack (5m 10s): Oh man, I think, I think Devin Olson is ranking at the top these days. Dave (5m 15s): Yeah, I was gonna say. Yeah, I thought Devin. ’cause all those names you throw out, there are all people that I’m not totally familiar with. In fact, I think Devon’s the only person we’ve had on the podcast, so it’s cool. Yeah, it’s Jack (5m 23s): Cool. Dave (5m 24s): Yeah, Jack (5m 25s): I’ve always usually been the youngest guy around. I think Mike Kumar is about same age as me, so we got some younger, younger guys on the team these days. Dave (5m 32s): Okay. And, and how is the, how is the team doing these days? Like what was your last championship world and what, what’s coming up here? Jack (5m 39s): Yeah, the last world championship we had in France, we actually earned a bronze, bronze medal as a team, which is a pretty big deal. It’s one of the few, few medals the US has won ever in the competition world scene, super hard championship. I think it pushed us all mentally and physically. And then I leave in two days to go to the Czech Republic and that’ll be 32 countries there. Dave (6m 5s): Wow. So Czech. Yeah. So you’re leaving right around the corner for now. It’s 2025 as we’re speaking. So, and are they typically held about this time of year? Usually Jack (6m 14s): It depends. Most times it’s in the spring to summer timeframe. Dave (6m 20s): Gotcha. Okay. So you’re head now how is, when you head out to these, on these events, do you, is it kind of like you have no idea how well things are gonna go? Or do you ever ever have kind of a, an idea? Jack (6m 31s): Yeah, some places, like when I went to Slovakia, I think two years ago for worlds like Devin had already been there, Lance had already been there. They fished a world championship there like I think it was like eight or 12 years prior. Devon’s also fished a worlds in the Czech Republic before and we’re lucky enough to have the ladies a world fly fishing team compete over there and the master’s team compete over there last year. So I feel like we have a pretty good handle on things, which is not the norm. ’cause we usually have to do a lot of traveling. Dave (7m 5s): Right, you do. And and I think this year the youth and the women are in kind of Idaho Falls. Right. So they’re back on our home turf. And then are you guys gonna be back in 26? Is the, are the seniors gonna be there in the same area? Jack (7m 17s): Yeah. Yeah. That’s kind of how the schedule is seeming to take shape these days. But yeah, we’ll be on home turf, which will be awesome. No, no long flight abroad. Dave (7m 26s): Yeah. Right, right. No, that’s gonna be great because it, and for you, it sounded like you when you won or or the, when you were in the youth, was that in your hometown? How did that all come to be? How did you, maybe take us back there real quick. How did you get in connected to team USA? Jack (7m 40s): Yeah, a little blast from the past, it was really by a freak accident. We went up to a lake called Sylvan Lake to go fish and I think my mom may have heard there was like some fly fishing event going on. So we, we rolled up there and it was the youth team I think doing the America’s Cup or some form of nationals. And one of the kids’ moms, Gabe Witta, who was a world champion, she just came over to me and was like, Hey, you have a great cast and do you like fly fishing? And I was like, yeah, that’s all I do. And she started talking to my mom. And then I think a couple weeks later my mom sent me out to North Carolina by myself to go attend a, a youth team clinic, which they hold quite a bit to find new talent and sharpen everyone up. Jack (8m 29s): And yeah, I just went out to North Carolina and met some awesome friends that I’m still friends with and it took off from there. Dave (8m 35s): Who was at that, who were the teachers at that clinic? Jack (8m 38s): Yeah, yeah. My old coach, Paul Bork. Oh yeah. Great guy. And led us to quite a few medals on the youth world championship. I think multiple back to back years if I remember correctly. Dave (8m 51s): Yeah. Right. Do you guys still keep a connection now that you’ve been in the seniors for a while with the current youth team? Because they’ve been, we’ve talked, we’ve had Josh on and we’ve talked to recently talked to Jess Westbrook about things. Nice. Yeah. And it’s, it’s been cool. I mean they’ve, I think one two, I think two right. Recently. Do you know the, the kids that are, you know, the guy, the kids that are on there? Yeah, Jack (9m 12s): Yeah, absolutely. Cody and I are actually doing a, a light clinic for them this summer when we get back from worlds to make sure they’re in tip top shape for, for their world championship. But yeah, you know, mainly know all the youth kids and I try to give back to the program that I had so many amazing mentors growing up, so it’s really the least I can do. Dave (9m 33s): Right. That’s right. And probably some of those mentors are people that we’d probably all have heard of some of the names out there past. Yeah, A lot of them past, yeah. Past com, you know, competitors. Right. You know, we always go, I mean, and you grew up in, you know, Colorado, so I mean that’s obviously a super hot spot for fly fishing kind of a mecca. Is it also, are there a lot of team USA people that came outta Colorado or currently or in the past? Yeah, Jack (9m 57s): So when I first started I was kind of in no man’s lane. It was a really east coast dominated pool of kids on the youth team. And I was the only one in Colorado for a long time. But as the sport’s grown and everything else has grown, yeah, there’s been, we, I think we have one of the harder regions competition wise just ’cause we have so many people who competition fisher youth, adult women, every, everybody. Dave (10m 24s): Yeah. It’s awesome hearing the stories. ’cause now that we’ve been putting these episodes together, we’ve, you hear how it’s changed from all the way back to Jack Dennis, you know, the story of him starting. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Like when it was this kind of crap, you know, whatever you call it kind of show, right? Where people not Jack (10m 38s): As organized, Dave (10m 38s): Not as organized, I guess show that’s probably not, maybe not the best way to say it, but, but it came to now where it’s like super organized, right? You got nationals and people compete up to a level and then they choose them to go to the next and then eventually you get the best in the country for the worlds. And then you got all of these clinics and everybody’s supporting everybody. It seems like it’s really super organized and you’re seeing, you know, USA winning now, right? Which in the past that wasn’t happening. So it must be working. Does it feel pretty good now? Jack (11m 5s): It felt really awesome to get a a, a senior medal. I think that’s one of the hardest things you can do is get a medal and especially a team medal at a world championship. It takes, you know, everyone being dialed and you have to do it as a team, which we preach that a lot. But yeah, it’s, I think in years past we were always playing catch up to some of the European teams and I, I really feel confident that we’re gonna have a really strong team for the next few years. Dave (11m 35s): Yeah, perfect. Well I think part of this, you know, you always, whenever we talk about the team USA competition, people always think Euro nipping, you know, I feel like that’s always, and it’s so, it’s such a killer effective method that there’s no question, you know, it’s awesome, but there’s other things you guys do, right? So not, it’s not just Euro nipping. So we’ve been getting some listeners that have been asking about dry fly fishing. In fact, one person reached out just yesterday I think, and was like, Hey man, I would love to hear something about competition dryly fishing. Like what is that? You know? And so how do you talk about dry fly? If you were teaching coaching somebody, maybe the youth talking dry flies, where do you start on that? Or how would you describe it? How, how, how is it different than say just the normal dry fly fishing? Jack (12m 15s): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I guess to kind of touch on the broader point here is a lot of people do think competition fishing is, is just you’re on Ming. And it, it couldn’t be further from the truth. We do lock style lake fishing and bank fishing. That’s techniques taken from England, Scotland, the Irish, those are all predominantly pretty solid lake fishing countries and countries who excel well we need to know how to fish streamers on a tight line Euro rig, you need to dry fly fish. So it takes everything to do comps. You cannot get away with just your own ming. You would, you would do very poorly if that’s all you were doing. Jack (12m 57s): So yeah, it takes everything And I think dryly fishing is the pinnacle of that. I think that’s what separates mediocre comp anglers from really good comp anglers because quite frankly, you know, we’re kind of in a, a nymph dominated world, especially in the comp scene. So if you can drive fly fish, you will make it. And I’ve, I’ve had a lot of sessions at worlds in comps where I’ve won sessions. Just fishing drive flies while there might be nymphing. Yeah. Dave (13m 28s): Yep. Right. And is the dryly selection, has that, has that changed the dry flies you’re using? You know, you hear a lot about CDC maybe now more than before, but what’s that look like? If you had to say your box, do you have a, you know, is it similar to where, you know, you own NPHs, you got all these patterns that everybody knows about? Or what’s your fly box look like for the dries? Yeah. Jack (13m 48s): Stuff that you are never gonna find in the us like not in fly shops. Oh yeah, it’s completely, I’d say we take a lot of inspiration from French style dry fly fishing and Spanish style dry fly fishing. Those guys are the best dryly anglers in the world, especially competition wise. They’re insane. I’d say the Spanish are, are really good as well. But that’s how I first learned about how to fish rise and comps was from David Aai in 2016 for Youth World Championship where we got a silver medal and it kind of flipped my world upside down and that’s where things started clicking and I was like, okay, this is, this is how you need to dry fly fish. Dave (14m 30s): Really. So you were learning from like actually watching other competitors from other country like the Spanish and French, what they were doing? Yeah, Jack (14m 38s): He was our guide. Dave (14m 40s): Oh right. Yeah. So you have a guide. So you had a Spanish guide that was showing you like giving you pointers. Jack (14m 45s): Yeah. And he’s gone on to win multiple, multiple, multiple world championship team and individual titles. But yeah, that’s, I kind of adopted some of that style from ’em. That’s where patterns started clicking for me. Dave (14m 59s): Hmm. So what is it that David was doing or teaching or what, what were you seeing from him that, you know, you weren’t seeing in other, in that you might not see just in the us other places? Jack (15m 9s): Yeah, absolutely. So in the US we have this like stigma of like, you’re gonna go down to your fly shop, you’re gonna grab a nine foot tapered leader and you’re gonna fish it on a fly line. That’s probably way too overweighted for your rod and it’s probably a five weight and you know, life is good. Right, right. Dave (15m 27s): Fast action too, right? The rod’s gonna be super fast Action. Jack (15m 31s): Yeah. Our setup is like the complete opposite of that. So I mean there are situations where I’ll fish a four weight or five weight rod. Can’t say I’ve ever done it in comps, but I usually start with a three weight rod, I fish a Diamondback arrow, flex Joe Goodspeed and I are really good friends. He sent me some of the first models of the Diamondback fly rod. So I talk with him about fly rod design and whatnot. But I’ll start with the 10 foot three weight. That’s a big factor in my mind is rod length. So most guys in the US are probably fishing a nine foot rod or even a sub nine foot rod and you’re just, you’re hurting yourself because the rod’s an extension of your arm and 10 foot really is a sweet spot for me. Jack (16m 17s): And I think most competitors and people who are pretty dialed with dry fly fishing are at least fishing a a nine six or, or a 10 foot rod. Dave (16m 26s): 10 foot rod. And is this a similar rod would you say to your typical 10 foot or 10 and a half foot euro nipping rod? Or is it totally different? Jack (16m 34s): Yeah, I’d say a lot different. Like there’s true dryly rods, there’s a lot of European companies that make rods specifically for dryly fishing. They’re all great. I try to keep my rods all the same. So like if I fished sage rods, then I’d find a sage dryly rod that worked in an mro. I do that with Diamondback. I have my Diamondback Lake Rods, river rods and dryly rods and that’s what I use for consistency. Dave (17m 2s): Gotcha. And the, the Diamondback fly rod is something I’m not as familiar with, although we’ve had Joe, it’s Joe, right. Joe, good go. Is it Joe or Joe? Good speeded Jack (17m 14s): Joe. Good speed. Yeah. Dave (17m 15s): Yeah. Joe. Yeah, we’ve had him on quite a while ago. We had Joe on he, I think it was when he was working for one of the other bigger companies. I Jack (17m 23s): Can’t remember. Thomas and Thomas probably. Dave (17m 24s): Yeah, Thomas and Thomas I believe. Yeah. So did he, so he moved and now he’s with Diamondback. Is that, tell us about that company a little bit. Are they focused on specifics? Jack (17m 34s): Yeah, he kinda revamped an old company. Joe is one of the best rod designers in the, in the US bar. None incredibly talented fishermen as well. And yeah, kind of took a brand and, and put his own twist on things. And the rods seem to work really well for competition anglers and that usually trickles down into the average rec angler as well. So yeah, it’s been pretty awesome to watch his success. Dave (18m 4s): Yeah. ’cause I think Diamondback, I mean they’ve, that company’s been around for quite a while, right? Jack (18m 9s): Yeah, Dave (18m 9s): Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. ’cause I remember them from I think quite a few years ago, hearing more about them. So they took a little, something changed with the company and then Joe, then you get one of the best designers on there and he can change the, kinda like the, the Tim rage after any of those other guys. Right. And they can do some big changes. Yeah, Jack (18m 23s): It’s been pretty cool to watch. And he was awesome mentor of mine growing up. So nothing but good things to say about him. Dave (18m 30s): That’s awesome. Nice. So, so there you go. So there’s a, a good start, you know, it’s the rod. So you are using more like a 10 foot three weight for your dries eyes, Jack (18m 38s): 10 foot, three weight, 10 foot four weight. Yeah. Yeah. Somewhere in that range. Dave (18m 41s): Okay. And then what is the, what is the line? Are the lion also different if we keep on this track like we’re talking, is it David? What, what’s David’s last name? Jack (18m 49s): David. RKR Kai. Okay. That’s his, his full name. Dave (18m 55s): Gotcha. Okay. So what Dave, what was the, so they were, and what, what about Lion? Talk about that a little bit. Lion’s leader, how do they do it different than we? Yeah, Jack (19m 1s): So it’s the most important thing and we’ve kind of put our own adaptations on all this stuff. So yeah, in the comp world stuff moves very fast. Like one thing you may be doing one year is not the thing you’ll be doing the next year or even month to month. So what I’ve ended up on is basically underweighting all these lines. So the way the fly line manufacturing game has gone in the past 10 to 15 years is manufacturers have totally overweighted these fly lines as rods get a little more stiff, a little more fast, right? So you think you might be buying a five weight fly line, but it might be more towards a six weight fly line or, or six and a half weight fly line. Jack (19m 43s): So we’re going the opposite direction of that. So I’m fishing two weight fly lines at the very max. I’m fishing a three weight fly line, like for drive flies. Like that is, Dave (19m 54s): Isn’t that, it’s so crazy, right? We’ve talked about this a little bit on the podcast for a few people that have talked about how one of the, we had like a couple casting champions actually, Chris Koic, who’s the guy who took Maxine McCormick, the, you know, I think at like 14 or 15 to, to win the casting. And he went off on the whole thing about how it’s this nuclear arms race to faster, faster, faster. And he was saying, man, yeah, we’re using like 1980s rods to win championships on the casting stuff. Jack (20m 23s): I can believe it. He probably knows a lot more about that area than me, but I can, I can absolutely agree with him on that. Dave (20m 30s): Yeah, but you’re saying the same thing. So essentially you’re having to now instead of getting a four weight, you know, you got a three weight rod, instead of getting four, just get a three weight or get a rod the balance. So you’re going, and is the line just a typical weight forward line? Anything special there with the, the actual line? Jack (20m 45s): No, I mean all fish lines, everything from Cortland to airflow. I think right now I’m on the airflow two eight. Oh man, I don’t even remember what it is. Yeah, I know on the other Rod I have the Cortland 4, 4, 4 silk in a, in a two or three weight. It’s, you know, when you get to a line of that size, you know, tapers start getting a little more irrelevant on what they’re doing Right. Because it’s such a small line, but it’s, Dave (21m 14s): So Jack (21m 16s): Yeah, there are tweaks and differences which with each line, like my airflow lands a little softer than my Cortland and like I’ll bring out my cortland line if it’s a little, if I know it’s gonna be a little windy for the day and I need to punch out a little more line. So just those kind of minute details. Dave (21m 34s): Yeah. What is the, you know, a 10 foot three weight versus a 10 foot four way versus say a 10 foot five way? What is the biggest thing you get with going lighter on on the drive flight rod? It’s, Jack (21m 45s): It’s tip protection. Like with these, what we’ll get into the more terminal side with like leaders and tip it is, I’m, I’m fishing seven x eight x with these drive flies primarily seven x in Colorado. And you know, there’s times where I go out of state and yeah, I’m gonna fish five x and I’m gonna drive fly fish, but for comps it’s standard seven x for me. But yeah, that’s kind of where the, you know, that’s just one piece of the puzzle with dry fly fishing is making sure your line is matching your rod and then is protecting your tipt. And I don’t care if it’s a two weight dry fly rod or a five weight or seven weight dry fly rod, everything needs to be focused on what size tipt you’re fishing. Jack (22m 33s): Gotcha. Dave (22m 34s): Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. And, and if you do have the wrong protection, then you’re just, what gonna break things off, break off your leader, break fish off. Jack (22m 42s): So yeah, you’re just gonna be breaking off fish. And the reason for the small tipt, it’s, you know, I don’t like fishing seven extra dry flies. It’s, it doesn’t excite me very much. Right. But it’s less drag on the water, so the less surface area you have, the better drift you’re gonna get. And same with the fly line as well. I mean there is a massive difference between what you can do with a three weight fly line and more technical aspects versus what you can do with a five weight or six weight drive fly line. Dave (23m 12s): Yeah. Right. Okay. So that’s a big part there. Well you guys are gonna be, I mean you’re probably focusing already on what, what is the country you’re leaving to heading out to in a couple days? Jack (23m 22s): Czech Republic. Dave (23m 23s): Yeah, Czech Republic. So as you’re heading out there, are you already thinking, knowing kind of what to expect for dry flies? Are you, you have your gear set up or is that something that you do when you get there? Jack (23m 32s): Yeah, that’s all I’ve been thinking about for months. Yeah, really the past year is what I’m gonna do over there. Dry fly fishing from the sounds of it is not gonna be the most important thing. There’s always surprises when you go to a worlds, like when we went to France, we thought we would have a little better dry fly fishing over there and turns out nim fing for these super small spooky fish was really the way to go. Or maybe a little dry dropper. But yeah, I don’t think dryly is gonna be, be the thing for Czech Republic. But you know, like I just said, there’s always surprises. Dave (24m 9s): Yeah, there always is. Well, let’s fast forward to, you know, you know, 26 is not too far away. You know, that’s probably, I think it’s, you guys might be in the July of 26 heading out to Idaho Falls. Have you fished that water? Do you know the, the, the, I’m not sure what you’ll be fishing there, but all the Henry’s fork and all that stuff. Jack (24m 26s): Yeah, I’ve done some regionals out there when I was in high school, so did some comps. Yeah, definitely have fished a couple comps out there. I wouldn’t say I know the water like the back of my hand whatsoever. Dave (24m 39s): No, but it is, it is known as a technical, I mean, I think right dry flies, you could definitely fish dry flies there a cutthroat and, and, and Henry’s fork is kind known for that, right? Jack (24m 48s): Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, that’ll come into play and, and the main thing is with dry fly fishing and some of the more finesse competition tactics is you just need to get a fish on it. So like if I’m nipping my session and I have 25 minutes left and I’ve nipped all I can nim I’ve dry dropped all, I can dry drop, I’ve streamer fished it up and down right. And I see a fish rise in a little corner, I need to be able to go plop one cast on ’em, catch ’em, and that, that’s the difference between gold medal, silver medal, first place, seventh place. Like, so there are situations where you’re not using it all the time, but you need to be very well versed in, in what you’re doing just for one little snapshot. Dave (25m 34s): So that could make or break it right there. And it is, could that fish be, say a, a 10 inch fish that could make or break it if you catch that fish? Jack (25m 41s): Yeah, yeah. I mean there, I think our legal legal fish length is somewhere in that range and it’s, you know, it comes down to millimeters. I’ve lost comps off a couple millimeters, you know. Oh wow. There’s, oh yeah, it’s pretty crazy. Dave (25m 59s): It’s that tight. How do you do that when, so is the rules, we don’t have to go into all of it, but you catch a fish, are they, they’re not measur, are they measuring every fish or how do they, what, how does that work? Jack (26m 9s): Yeah, kind of how it works is, you know, there’s five venues. Usually a lake is a venue. There’s five people on each team, right? Each teammate goes to a venue and, and what it kind of looks like. So in the Czech Republic there’ll be 32 beats. What a beat is, is a section of water and it could be 200 yards long. We’ve had beats up to a mile, mile and a half long. And that’s your section, you’re stuck there. It’s a random draw on the bus. So you don’t know where you’re going until you step off the bus and you have a controller with you and they are there to enforce the rules. So there would be 32 controllers on one section of that river, and you scope out your beat, you kind of give it the, hey, that’s my A water, that’s my B water, do a little mental map of how you want to fish it. Jack (26m 59s): And then you catch a fish, they ensure that the fly is, is in the mouth. So forward, the gale plate, they measure it and then you sign for your fish. At worlds they measure in millimeters. And most comps, we just do centimeters, I think is usually how that works. And then, yeah, there’s different point systems on, on how it all works, but basically at the end of the session, like if you had 25 fish and I had 25 fish, then they would add up the millimeters and then I would, I would beat you. Dave (27m 34s): Gotcha. Okay. So, and, and if you’re, let’s take it back on the dry. So you’re there, you’ve got, you know, you see some action, maybe talk about that you’re going to, let’s just take it to the stay on the Henry’s fork of that area. If you were going to a new stream, how do you approach a new stream? If you’re thinking focusing on dry flies, what’s that look like? Are you looking for heads all the time or are you doing anything different than what people would normally be doing? No, Jack (27m 56s): Quite the opposite. I’m not looking for rising fish at all. I’d say a good example of this is Cody and I hosted a mini comp on a creek called Clear Creek in our front range of Colorado. And we actually made it a dry fly only comp. So no nim fing, no dry drop range. Nice. Everyone was forced to fish a dryly. I think Cody and I ended up with about a hundred, I caught somewhere 60, 70 fish. He caught 60, 70 fish. And that was just for, for one day. And we caught more fish than, than we would’ve been nipping. Oh, right. It’s a stream. We fish quite a bit, but there were no risers the entire day. Jack (28m 39s): So I’ll use it as kind of like a, a probing tactic. So if I roll up to a new river and I have no idea what’s going on, I’ll probably spend the first 15 to 30 minutes drive, fly fishing, weather permitting, especially in the summer. So you will, I actually, yeah, when I came back from France, I didn’t nymph for months. I fished dry flies all the way till That’s great. September. That’s great. Dave (29m 5s): Yeah. So you come in here and the, and the conventional wisdom, or at least for some people, especially here, is like, yeah, if you wanna get some action thrown a nph, get down to ’em. But what you’re saying is even without any fish rising, maybe not, there’s no hatches. You come up there and, and what are you looking for on the water? Are you looking for, are you trying to identify, how are you reading the water to find these fish? Jack (29m 24s): Yeah, slack, I mean, slack waters shallow water. I’m looking for stuff. People would walk through step in, like people see a, a juicy seam and they’re like, okay, I’m gonna walk out there. They’re walking over so many fish. So I’m looking for kind of like, I call it like a, b and c water. I’m, I’m looking for water that doesn’t get fished even with a nymph, you know, kind of your oddball weird kind of nothing water. Dave (29m 54s): Yep. So you might go out to a, an area and see what looks like, yeah. Seam or something looks great and then, but you got this slack water maybe on the inside that’s kind of slow or kind of whatever. And so you’re fishing everything, you’re starting off like right in tight. You’re, are you kind of fishing everything or are you still picking spots within that run or that area to hit? Yeah, Jack (30m 14s): That’s a great question. Working it super methodically. So I kind of been trained to use like a, a grid system. So you know, if someone were to watch a comp, it might seem a little haphazard what we’re doing. Like we’re running up and down the river, we’re putting a cast here, cast there, and then you slow down and you’ll start working a section. But it’s the same thing with dryly fishing. It’s like if I catch a fish in ankle deep water and I can see like bigger rocks underneath the water, my mind immediately goes to what else looks like this? Right. Or I’m catching fish in knee deep water with a little bit of chop on the surface and there’s no big rocks, there’s just pebbles. Jack (30m 59s): I’m gonna start scanning and looking around for stuff that looks similar. Dave (31m 3s): Yeah, I see. Okay. So you, and the grid thing is basically you’re breaking up rev, you’re fishing and you’re pretty much hitting everything. You’re systematically going through, you’re not leaving any you stone unturned, right? You’re you’re hitting it all Jack (31m 17s): In a way. Yes. I’d say for the water that I’m targeting, yeah, I’m gonna fish the heck out of it. But for water that doesn’t need to dry, I’m not gonna fish it at all. That might be, you know, your nipping water, your, you know, stuff that deserves subsurface flies. Dave (31m 36s): Yep. And what would be the, yeah, what would be that water? So you’ve got dry fly, you know, you’re fishing dry fly water. What is the water that’s definitely not dry fly water? Is that pretty specific? Jack (31m 47s): Yeah, yeah. I would say it’s like your wave train water, right? It’s, it’s stuff that’s gonna suck your fly in and out a little too quickly. And then yeah, depending on the water temperature, I mean when fishy dries they tend to gravitate closer to the bank in my experience, unless it’s super, super flat water. But yeah, I’d say stuff that does not deserve dry flies is, is it’s more of a speed issue. Dave (32m 18s): Okay. And what about, there’s always this interesting thing and euro nipping is so perfect because it’s the, you know, the matching the hatch versus the hot spot, all that stuff. Is dryly the same way with comp? Are you guys, are you thinking about, oh, this is the exact match of this may fly that’s hatching or what? Talk about that a little bit. Jack (32m 34s): No, yeah, I am like I am way off the beaten path there. I mean there’s a lot of flies. I fish there colors you don’t find in nature and they’re my best performing flies. I kind of break it up into, into like two sections. Like I have my searching dry flies and that’s stuff that will maybe tell me if a fish is there. One of the flies I can mention is it’s popular in Spain, it’s called a a red barren, and I tie my version of it with foing mill. It’s commercially available and it’s, it’s a red dryly and it could be a red quill, you know, maybe if you want it to, but it’s just a great searching pattern and it’s not a, not a color. Jack (33m 17s): You see hatching a lot. So that’s a good searching pattern. And then like you said, yeah, there are match the hatch style flies, you know, if there’s a BWO hatch coming down the river, I’m not putting on a cadis, I’m, I’m not putting on a red quil. I I will target phish accordingly. Dave (33m 38s): Yeah, right. Okay. So yeah, you have that part and the searching patterns, are those typically just what, what, describe that, what what is an actual searching pattern and, and just talk about that a little bit. Jack (33m 48s): Yeah, it’s usually a size 16 for me and they’re, they’re built with a VW platform, so they’re split wings, but they’re, they’re upright and there’s a little bit of globe right in there for just viewing pleasure, which is just hot thread. And I’ll time with synthetic materials, I’ll time with c, DC really anything that that floats. Dave (34m 13s): Yeah, that floats. Okay. And and are these flies typically, are you also, you know, it’s always again that thing like dry fly, traditional Catskills dryly versus say a fly that sits more down in the surface film. Is that kind of, what do you, what types of flies are you using? Jack (34m 28s): Yeah, I don’t fish anything with hackle. Dave (34m 31s): Okay. No hackle. Yeah. Jack (34m 33s): Yeah. I just, I think that why, Dave (34m 35s): Why do you think that is? Well is that just a traditional, you think about, is that one of those just fly fishing traditional things because Catskills are beautiful flies, right? Do you, yeah. And I know they, I’m sure they work too, but what, why is it that those flies in the surface are working better say at times than these other ones they’re sitting up? Jack (34m 52s): Yeah, I mean I love traditional dry flies. You know, I I I really enjoy fly tying. I take a lot of inspiration from, from older patterns, you know, that’s why they’re, they’re there. But you know, we’re, we’re in a new age of fly fishing, you know, there’s no reason not to be fishing synthetic materials or pushing the envelope on, on things, especially dry flies that, you know, the fish just might not see as often. And I think a good case study is this, of this, as Cody and I have both witnessed it, Cody Bergdorf, we’ve seen Phish in Colorado. Like what’s the most popular shop fly in Colorado for the summer? Jack (35m 32s): Chubby Chernobyl. Dave (35m 33s): For which one? For dries? Jack (35m 35s): Yeah. Like find me a rec angler or really a lot of people that don’t have a chubby Chernobyl in their box. Oh Dave (35m 42s): Yeah. I was just gonna say it’s a chub, somebody, we just did a podcast this morning again, the chubby, it’s a chubby for sure. That’s like the number one dryly. Jack (35m 49s): Yeah. Like that’s what people use. And what are they all tied with? Their tied with white wings. Right. And how many dry flies do you see in shops tied with your classic white wing? A lot of em, I would say. And fish gets smart to those. Like I’ve seen fish turn off white wing dry flies. I’ve many times I’ve even seen it in my own fishing too. So, you know, you switch it up to a gray wing or you know, blend some colors together and you’re off to fool fooling fish again, you know? Dave (36m 24s): Yeah. So subtle. And are you doing all your tying, getting ready for these events, these big comps? Yeah, Jack (36m 31s): If you could see my room right now, it looks like a fly fishing explosion. It’s about halfway right? Dave (36m 37s): Is that what it looks like? So you’re two days out. Are you, are you fully organized and ready to go two days or do you still got a lot of work to do? Jack (36m 42s): Yeah, I’ve been in panic mode for like the past month. Yeah. But things are organized, they just need to be put in a bag. But yeah, it’s, I’ve been prepping for the last eight months and a lot of that is fly tying. Dave (36m 54s): Ah, this is awesome. And, and you do a lot of, you mentioned Foley Mill. Talk about some of your patterns because I know you have some other name patterns out there. Yeah, yeah. What do you have going there? The silver surfer right? Is one of them. Yes. Jack (37m 6s): That’s an awesome Drake pattern. I fished that on a river in Colorado that gets some really awesome Drake hatches. That’s another searching pattern for me in the summer. And then yeah, I have like a standard, kinda like a competition cas, it’s synthetic materials, holds up nymphs really well and also fishes standalone on its own pretty well. And yeah, they’re just, you know, I’d say with fly tying, like if you’re super serious about it, you pick up so many tidbits from people over the years. So those are just kind of my renditions of what works for me. Dave (37m 42s): Yeah. What works Do you fish the much, have you fished the stone flies, the salmon flies, any of that stuff over your career? Jack (37m 50s): Yeah, yeah. In high school I used to hike into the Colorado River and, and, and Fish, the Stonefly hatch. It’s, it’s awesome. That’s a place where we’re not fishing a three weight and Dave (38m 1s): No. Jack (38m 1s): Yeah. Dave (38m 2s): That’s the difference, right? Yeah. You don’t need a three weight, you’re Yeah, we’re going big. Jack (38m 5s): Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I don’t want people to take that out of context, like only fish a three weight. Like there’s a time and a place for every, every setup, you know? Yeah. Dave (38m 16s): And the stuff you’re talking about. And that’s why I think like the question at the start, you know, we had a listener ask like, okay, competition dry flight and what you’re focusing on is these places, especially in Europe, are super heavily fished, right? Pressured. So you’ve gotta be subtle and you can’t just throw size 14. Right. You, you gotta go super. Is that kind of why this, why you’re going with the 10 foot and all the super light stuff? Yeah. Jack (38m 37s): Yeah. I’d say like for the most part the fishing in Europe makes the fishing in the United States look like child’s play. Hmm. I mean there even like a, a recreational angler over there would come over to the US and like clean shop. Dave (38m 54s): No kidding. Yeah. So they’re, so the anglers just their general, they’re, they’re just better just because the fishing is harder over there in Spain and you know, France Jack (39m 2s): It’s harder and they, they’re, you know, they’re not fishing orange bobbers and like they’re fishing competition techniques over there. Even your standard fly fishermen, you’d, you’d grab off the street. No hate for indicator fishing. I I do it all the time, but yeah. Yeah, they’re just, I think, yeah, they’re used to harder scenarios. Dave (39m 23s): Yep. Gotcha. Okay. You mentioned Cadi. I always love whenever I hear Cadis because that’s always been a, a, a challenge for me at ties. What, what does that look like for you? Do you have some confidence cas patterns that you can, that are out there anywhere? Yeah, Jack (39m 36s): Absolutely. The one with Foing mills. Great. That’s like kind of more of an indicator dry and then, yeah, I tie some super simple CDC cadi flies. I, I really try not to overcomplicate fly tying, just keep it, yeah. You know, anything with more than three materials, I’m not gonna tie it. Yep. Dave (39m 55s): Okay. So the Cass, the Foing mill, what was the name of that one again? Jack (39m 58s): I think that’s just called my, my new age. Cadis. Dave (40m 2s): Yeah, the new age. So that one is, describe that one a little bit. What does that one look like and how would, when would you fish it? How would you fish it? Jack (40m 9s): Yeah, that kind of came about through guiding and in my own fishing, but it’s got a, a blended synthetic wing, so kind of multicolored. I got pretty fed up with like elk care cadi getting sucked under the water. So I think that synthetic materials hold, drive, fly, floating a little better and it’s got a nice high vis post. And then instead of hackle I put C, DC on there. Dave (40m 38s): Okay. Instead of hackle. That’s C, DC. So you have Yeah, it’s, it’s a And what is the wing material? Jack (40m 44s): That’s just like blended polyon? Dave (40m 46s): Yeah, just polyon. Yep. Gotcha. Wow. So yeah, it looks like a kind of, not really like, you know, I mean it’s similar, similar in profile to Elker Cadis, but it doesn’t have the tough, what do you think on the elker cas that little tough? Do you know? Do you think that has any benefit? Your fly doesn’t have that tough right? No. What what is that tough imitating? Jack (41m 5s): I have no idea. I think fish are pretty dumb and I, I think if you have a good drift it’s going to usually trump whatever fly you ha you have that’s applicable for everything. This Dave (41m 18s): Is great. I love that you’ve showed this fly because I’ve always, the elker always been a pain for me. I’ve never, I’ve never really liked that fly, has never really worked that, I mean it’s worked obviously, but you know, how important do you think the flies are with dry fly fishing? How critical is this like compared to say nip fishing or any other thing do you think, you know, it sounds like it’s not that important. Jack (41m 38s): I’d say the flies with dry fly fishing are, are more important than the flies you would fish nipping. But I think, you know, when we fish and we’re fishing on longer tapered leaders, so our leaders are about 20 foot long, 18 to 20 foot long. And the main thing is it’s reducing your drag. So I think a lot of people, if you’re fishing a nine standard, nine foot liter to your elk, her cas or whatever you’re fishing, the moment your fly line starts dragging, it’s gonna yank on that dryly. And so with these longer leaders, you’re protecting your dryly from drag ’cause you have a, a lightly weighted dryly line. Jack (42m 20s): And yeah, I mean I think dryly fishing is so complex because you can get micro drag that your eye doesn’t even register. But you know, when you see fish come up and sniff your dry fly, it’s probably not the fly. It’s, there’s something going on there with drag. Right. Dave (42m 40s): With drag. How do you, how do you avoid the drag? Is that something, is the long lead, is that typically, is the 20 foot liter a typical length for your liters? Jack (42m 48s): Yeah, 20 foot is, is max for me. And then I grease it up with gel fly floating and then obviously the smaller tippet sizes in the six and a half, seven x eight x range. Dave (42m 60s): Okay. And so the fly floating that, that’s greasing up the line, that’s something you’re always doing? Jack (43m 4s): Always. And I fish fluorocarbon for my tbit, so I know that goes against like mono floats, fluoro sinks and it does sink and that’s what I want it to do is sink under the bit. Dave (43m 17s): Exactly. Yeah. You want it actually, everything else is floating, but that gets down and so it’s not maybe spooking the fish a little bit. Is that casting its shadow? Potentially something like that? Jack (43m 26s): Yeah. I mean, you know, there are smart fish out there that will pick up on that stuff, but when you get into seven x tip sizes like fish can’t see that. Dave (43m 35s): No. How do you, what’s the largest fish you think maybe you’ve landed or you’ve hooked on seven? I mean, can you land pretty big fish on seven x eight x? Jack (43m 46s): Yeah, you Dave (43m 47s): Can, yeah. Jack (43m 47s): Big fish upwards of 25 inches. Yeah, Dave (43m 50s): Right. And just using the, the, and that’s where the subtle, the rod, the, the tip is it is the tip of, or is the, you know, the euro nim rods are known? Well, you could talk better than I can, but describe that. What, what is the tip flex? What, what is the dryly rod? Is it really a, a soft tip? Jack (44m 6s): It’s a softer tip on Joe’s rod. It’s not an overly stiff dryly rod. I’d say a a pretty medium flex. But yeah, the tip matters for sure. You know, you just don’t want a rod that you’re instantly breaking fish off like a broomstick rod. Dave (44m 25s): Right. Okay. And then once you hook a fish, let’s say you have a, a nice fish on here, what, what is your recommendation? How are you landing that fish? How are you turning it so you don’t break ’em off? Or what would be your just general tip for somebody? Jack (44m 37s): Yeah, I think, I think a lot of people think like comp guys are just fighting these fish for like 15 minutes on seven x and it’s really the opposite. I mean, when you get to a point, especially in comps, like that’s the whole thing is to land the fish as fast as you can. So I think if I were to hook a fish upwards of, of 25 inches on seven X today, you know, I’d be puckered up a little bit. Not gonna lie, you know, that’s never, it’s never fun. But yeah, it’s rod, rod angles, you know, letting them get their big run out and then getting them up to the surface and just letting them do the work for you. Jack (45m 17s): And once you turn their head once you just need to capitalize on the, on the net job. Dave (45m 22s): Right, okay. So yeah, so let ’em, if they’re gonna run, make that first run and then get ’em up higher. Keep ’em higher in the surface, calm, and then turn ’em kind of in towards the bank. Keep the rod tip low, turn ’em down. Is it downstream? Do you want ’em down below or above you? Jack (45m 37s): Never, never below me. Always. Dave (45m 39s): Always above. Never below you. Jack (45m 40s): Yeah. Dave (45m 41s): Gotcha. So always above. So you turn ’em always above your rod tips pointed down and now you’re just turning ’em in towards the bank And we and you have your net. Jack (45m 48s): Yeah. I’ve got a funny story about keeping fish above you. When we were in Slovakia for worlds fishing for Grayling, they have these funky shaped mouths and they don’t hold hooks very well. So you’d, you’d hook a GH grayling and then run like 20 feet below it so you could get it. So you could net ’em, net it, like have them coming down to you. ’cause it was, you would drop against every single one if you were fighting ’em step by side. I’m Dave (46m 16s): Gotcha. So you hook ’em and then you run down so that you can get right below ’em and then drop basically drop ’em into your net. Yeah, Jack (46m 22s): Absolutely. Dave (46m 23s): Oh man, that’s cool. That’s definitely a species on the bucket list probably for a lot of people listening. Is those the European grayling, right? Because yeah, they’re different. They’re different than the Arctic grayling. I’ve heard Jack (46m 33s): They’re finicky, finicky little creatures and weird. They’re just flat out weird. Yeah. Dave (46m 39s): Nice. No, this is, this is awesome. I think that, again, this conversation is great because you’re, you’re saying a lot of stuff that I think people aren’t thinking about necessarily, right? I think it’s, it’s perfect. Yeah. What else would you say? You know, we’re gonna probably take it outta here in a little bit, but any other high level, you know, tips, if somebody’s listening down, they’re thinking, man, I really wanna have do better with dry flies, I really struggle. What else would you give them kind of on some tips there? Jack (47m 2s): Yeah, yeah. I mean I would say, you know, just throw your program out the window and start from square one, you know? Yeah. Just be different. You know, if you tie flies, experiment with wing colors. If you like fishing, hack old parachute dry flies, that’s great. Like what, what I do maybe isn’t applicable for everyone. And I would say, especially on the world’s team, we all fish different, right? Everyone’s, everyone’s got different rods and different leaders and and whatnot. So whatever I do might work for me, but it, it might not work for you. Right. So that’s where you adapt and you say, okay, I’m gonna use a little bit of what he said and then I’m gonna try my, my own little thing. Jack (47m 48s): Right? Dave (47m 49s): Right. Exactly. Jack (47m 51s): Yeah. I would say the biggest thing is eliminating drag and lengthening your leader for drive flies. I would say if you’re not comfortable fishing a 20 foot liter, start with 12 and then work yourself up to 15. Dave (48m 7s): Yeah. So longer has been, that’s mainly because of the giving. What, why is the longer leader, why is that helping you? Why is it 20 better than a 15? Jack (48m 15s): Yeah, so when I fish dry flies, there’s no mending, so I don’t Oh right. I don’t have to mend with the way, like, we’re casting this in a way where it creates like kind of a hook. So you’re not casting that dryly and laying it out perfectly straight. That’s like the opposite of what you want to do. You want your dry fly to land to the left or to the right of you. And then the tip, it will actually crumple in a little stack and then the leader hits the water and then when your leader starts gaining momentum down the river, then it pulls on the tipt stack. But your flies, your flies in in its place. So like I can wiggle my rod tip and mess around with it in the air and my fly’s not gonna move. Dave (48m 58s): Oh wow. So you’re getting a, a lot of many seconds on the water with you having to do nothing. It’s just the flies. You made the ca what is that cast called? What would you call that cast? Jack (49m 10s): I’d call a A hook. A hook. Cast hook. Hook cast I think, I think Devon calls it a A J hook. Dave (49m 16s): Oh, a J hook. Okay. So you’re j hooking it to get it in position essentially, so you don’t have to mend or do anything and you’ll just Yeah. Let it do its thing. Jack (49m 25s): Yeah, I will, I am big anti, anti mender. I will, I will not mend because if you’re in a competition and you need one fish to win and you mend at the wrong time and you don’t hook that fish, then that’s a shame for you. But the whole reason of this platform is you don’t need to mend, I mean not saying I never do, but you don’t need to do that big classic swing to mend everything back upstream. Dave (49m 53s): That’s it. Wow. Yeah. The mend always feels like you’re always afraid you mend and you’re like, oh man, it never feels really good. Right. And we’ve had a lot of people talk about, you know, the reach cast probably is the one cast we’ve heard people say a lot, the reach cast. Sure, sure. And it sounds like this J hook is a little like a reach cast, kind of a different type of reach cast. Yeah. Jack (50m 13s): Yeah. You’re correct. And I know I’m not the only one that’s that’s mended at the wrong time and and missed a fish and you’re like, oh man, why did I do Dave (50m 21s): It? Or not even known it. Right? Like, how many fish have you not even known you, you actually, they never even saw the fish that was coming up. Or Jack (50m 28s): You see a fish trying to come up and eat your fly and you mend it and you pull it right away from ’em and you’re like, oh, there we go. Yeah. Dave (50m 33s): Right. Wow. Awesome. Well this is good. I guess maybe talk a little bit about, you know, as we take it outta here, your program, so you do some guiding new age fly fishing.com. Talk about that. What, what do you guys, do you have availability? What types of clients are you, you know, attracting out there? Jack (50m 51s): Yeah, I will say I have zero availability. Dave (50m 54s): That’s right. I figured I could tell after this conversation that you know what I mean, that it’s gonna be hard to track you down, but yeah. What would people do if they go to your site? What would be the recommendations that, to kind of figure out how to get ahold of you? Jack (51m 5s): Yeah, I can get them in touch with some youth team kids here and some awesome Colorado guides that know competition tactics. I guided all four years in college and I absolutely loved it. I work a full-time job now and with the amount of competitions I have to do in practice and training, there’s very few guide days that I have available and most of them are long-term clients of mine. But yeah, if anyone did want a guide trip, you know, there’s a rare chance that I might, might have some time or I’d find a, a suitable replacement for me. Yeah. Dave (51m 42s): Perfect. No, I think that would be a good, that would be well worth it to find somebody you’d recommend would be, would be great. So what about, let, let’s, a couple of these ones we’ll get outta, these are just kind of typical questions. We get a lot of here, you know, there’s lots of flies out there. How are you preparing, you know, building your box. Let’s just stick on the dry flies. Sure. So are you, are you getting, what, what is your dryly box preparation? What does it look like? Do you have one box, like 20 boxes? How, how do you prepare? Jack (52m 10s): I got a lot of boxes of flies. Yeah. I’ll start there and not all of them even come with me on a trip or even make it to the river, but I tie kind of like stock boxes. So I’ll tie my flies in there and then when I get to a comp it’s like, oh, this Cass with the little green ass is working pretty well. And then I’ll go look at my box. I’m like, cool, I got those in a 18, a 16 and a 14. Let’s grab a couple sizes and give ’em, give ’em the whole platter In terms of sizes. Yeah, anywhere from 22 to to 14 is really my, my go-to size range. Jack (52m 52s): And they’re all on barbless dryly hooks. Dave (52m 56s): Yep. What hooks do you like? Jack (52m 59s): I use the Foing Mill Dryly Hook. Okay. That’s, that’s my favorite. And I use that for nymphs as well, but that’s a phenomenal dryly hook. Dave (53m 8s): Okay, perfect. Awesome. Yeah. So 20 twos to fourteens. What do you think is a, a common mistake you see? You probably see lots of anglers out there fishing. Do, do you like dry fly fishing? What, what’s something common you see? Whether that’s comp or just general fishermen, Jack (53m 22s): It’s just the lack of length on the leader. Yeah. Or the fly’s way too big. Like I love fish and hoppers in the summer. Like I’ll go out of state and I’ll fish hoppers on fourex all day long or in elk care cat like, it’s great, but for most scenarios it’s probably not gonna be the thing you’re gonna do for the whole day or at least for technical dry fly fishing. So I’d say just downsizing flies and lengthening the liter past 10 feet would be an awesome starting point. Yep, Dave (53m 57s): That’s right. And can you go too small on dry flies? I mean, why not? You know, you can, you can’t, so at 24 you don’t have to go like super duper small all the Jack (54m 7s): Time. No, yeah, I mean my standard size is like, I fish a size 16 in the summer all summer long. That’s my jam. But yeah, when you think about smaller flies, less surface area, easier to have more drag on ’em, you know, bigger flies are gonna help aid in that, that whole scenario. Dave (54m 27s): Yep. Gotcha. What about, we’ll leave, maybe add one more casting tip here. I think that’s another big struggle for people, right? Casting, you know, you might have some wind tree, stuff like that. What is your, maybe talk about your casting. Are you a person that’s always practicing your cast? Are you, you know, what, what’s that look like for you? Jack (54m 46s): I do not practice casting. No, no, I, yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I guess just grown up around in the competition scene from a young age, like for lakes you need to be able to drop an 80 foot cast on a, on a dime and it kind of just trained me to get, get great saltwater fishing has trained me to get good at casting. Yeah. Dave (55m 13s): Who is your original, who is your original person? Was it your grand grandfather that taught you how to cast the first fly rod or your dad? Jack (55m 19s): No, no, he was a spin fisherman. So it was, I was self-taught for Dave (55m 24s): Oh you were Jack (55m 26s): I think a year or two and then yeah, hopped on the youth team right away and that’s, that’s where, Dave (55m 31s): That’s where it came. I Jack (55m 32s): Started garden things. Yeah. Dave (55m 34s): Yeah. So you, you were self-taught so you probably had all sorts of things that weren’t great. Then you hop on the youth team and you have somebody, some big great caster is teaching you how to do it. Jack (55m 45s): Yeah, I had a lot of things wrong with my game and I’m always improving. Right. Yeah. There’s, yeah. You know, no one’s, no one’s ever the best and I try to stay humble and, and just, you know, yeah, I’m always trying to just improve my game. Dave (55m 59s): What do you think is the, is there a, a tip you were given back then? Do you remember early on that really made the difference on, on your cast? Or was that too long ago to, to remember back in those days? Jack (56m 11s): I don’t know. I’d say for drive fly fishing it’s just, it’s do the, do the opposite of a river runs through it if anyone’s Oh yeah. Like I think you can cast too slow, but you can’t cast too fast in terms of rod speed. Dave (56m 28s): Oh really? You can’t cast too fast. Jack (56m 31s): Yeah. The, the way we’re casting these rigs is not at a typical rod pace is it’s much faster than you would expect. Dave (56m 38s): Okay. And that’s because why is that because it’s so light because it’s lighter than your typical Jack (56m 44s): Yeah, yeah. You kind of just need that energy to to to flow through the rod, to the leader, to the tippet pretty quickly. So I’d honestly compare it more to like a nymph cast in, in a way. Dave (56m 56s): Yeah. Right. If you’re on the water and you see what you think is the spot, you get that fish for the gold and you gotta make it, are you, can you make that, how, how within inches, you know, or were you making it within a pie plate? What, what’s your focus? How are you getting pinpoint on that? Jack (57m 12s): Yeah, you know, in my head I like to think I can do it every time, but that’s just never the scenario. But yeah, I mean you try to lead ’em a little bit, but yeah, you try to drop it, drop it on a, on a dime size thing every time. Dave (57m 27s): And is that partly, I always feel like that that’s not always easy, right? Sometimes you go too far, sometimes too short, but any, how do you do that? How, how do you, is that just kind of, I always think like, you know, you’re on fire, right? Like these sports athletes, so you must have been in that situation, right, where you’re just like hitting boom, everyone is perfect. Perfect, perfect. And then have you been in that moment a few times? Jack (57m 47s): Yeah. It’s, I call it the, the flow. The flow state. Dave (57m 50s): Yeah, Jack (57m 50s): The flow. And that’s when things are going really, really, really well. And I would say for people to practice is the water is lava, so don’t let your fly line hit the water and then don’t even give yourself a false cast. Right? Like you will get a lot better at dry fly fishing if, if, if you tell yourself, okay, I’m gonna give myself one cast for this fish and you don’t do it, then you know it, it shortens your, your window. Right. It’s kind of like, it’s kind of like golf, you know, the less swings you can make the better. Dave (58m 25s): Right. Yeah. Is that, is that what golf the less swings Oh right, the like on the course. Yeah. The less strokes, the better your score so that that’s a, so water is lava and try to make your cast without a false cast. So come back and just, that’s a great, even if it’s a 60 foot cast, see if you can do it. Jack (58m 42s): Yeah. And if you botch it, like give yourself a little 32nd break and pretend you’re doing it again and yeah, give yourself one cast. Dave (58m 50s): Cool. Do you have to ever do the false cast to dry your fly off or are you using certain flies and everything you use? You don’t really worry about drying your fly off? Jack (58m 58s): Yeah, yeah, I use, yeah, I’ll do the little kind of whip around, dry it off and then bring it in close to me and use whatever dry fly floating. Yeah. I have on me for the day, but absolutely on that, Dave (59m 12s): That’s it. Okay. Awesome Jack. Well I think, you know, again, I wanna, we wanna keep talking to you all day here, but I think we’ll respect your time and let you get outta here and maybe we’ll hope to talk to you later about some more of these techniques. We’ll send everybody out. We, we set the start new age fly fishing.com and on I guess Instagram Jack Ornot. Is that the best place to find you? Jack (59m 33s): Yeah, yeah, that’s perfect. Dave (59m 34s): Okay, cool. Well thanks again for all your time Today. We will definitely look forward to keeping in touch and yeah, we’ll be rooting you on the world’s. How can people follow this? You guys are gonna be in a couple days, I guess it’ll probably be over by the time this episode goes live, but can they watch video replays? What, where, where could they see how you guys did Jack (59m 52s): No video? I know on Facebook there’s links to everything through the team USA page usually, and then on standard Google or whatnot, there’s a place called FIPs Moosh and that’s the governing board that runs everything and that’s where they’ll have the, the point totals and everything’s stacked up. Dave (1h 0m 16s): Gotcha. Yeah, it’s interesting. What, why do you think it is that fly fishing isn’t, you know, on on ESPN with golf and you know, baseball, everything else? What, what is it? What is it about it? Jack (1h 0m 28s): I mean bass fishing’s on tv but yeah, we’re hoping to have it televised one day and yeah, people would have a blast watching it. Like it should be, you think it would be super cool and I think we’re lobbying towards that one of these days. Dave (1h 0m 42s): I was gonna say you should, we got time. You know, there’s only about, we got a year now the, the Idaho Falls is right around the court. It seems like the perfect time going back to near where Jack Dennis first started, you know, team USA. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, like it seems like this is the time to bring it on and, and maybe we could work on that a little bit. And I know there’s actually, I mentioned Chris Kotch, the, the casting story he told me, I maybe shouldn’t say this, but he told me that they are working, the Olympics are coming to LA I think in a few years and, and he was saying they’re trying to get it potentially casting comp at the Olympics. Jack (1h 1m 19s): Yeah, I’ll have Dave (1h 1m 20s): To make sure I’m same for, same for team USA. Jack (1h 1m 23s): Yeah. You know, there’s a lot of lobbying and it’d be cool if it works out and I think, I think Glade might even be trying to get portions of our world’s televised ’cause he’s hosting and putting together the worlds, which is a huge undertaking, but I’m sure it’s part of the conversation somewhere. Dave (1h 1m 39s): Oh cool. Cool. Yeah, we’ll have to check in with Glade. Awesome Jack. Well I think we’ll leave it there for today and thanks again for all your time and look forward to seeing how you guys do out there. Yeah, Jack (1h 1m 50s): Dave, really appreciate it and thanks for having me on. Dave (1h 1m 54s): If today’s episode got you thinking differently about dry fly fishing, if you’re curious what it takes to fish at the highest level, you could head over to new age fly fishing.com right now to learn more about Jack’s approach, let him know you heard this podcast, let him know you’re interested and if you’re interested in a guide trip, although Jack doesn’t have availability, it sounds like he’s got some connections to get you rolling here. We’re definitely gonna have to have Jack back on the podcast down the line. So appreciate you for stopping In today. We’ve got some big trips going out in this part of the world. Idaho Falls, we’ve got a Steelwater school, we’ve got a lodge at Palisades Trip going, we’ve got all sorts of good stuff going. I appreciate you for hanging into the very end and I appreciate you for checking out the travel podcast day. Dave (1h 2m 38s): I hope you can live that dream trip this year and I hope you can get off the beaten path and experience that road less Traveled. We’ll talk to you soon.