774 | Fly Fishing the Ozarks with Brian Wise – Fly Tying Videos, Streamer Flies, Fishing Missouri

Dave (2s): Missouri might not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of trout fishing, but Brian Wise is here to change your mindset. Today from the spring Fed waters of the Ozarks to the Wild rainbows of the North Fork of the White River, Brian’s been chasing trophy trout and designing streamer patterns long before it was cool. By the end of this episode, you’re gonna hear how he approaches streamer fishing, why Slack kills, and how to tie a fly that actually swims, not just sinks to the bottom like a wet sock. 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. Dave (43s): Brian Wise, streamer, fanatic Fly Tire, and the guy behind fly fishing, the Ozarks joins us today to share some of his hard-earned lessons that he’s picked up from guiding and fishing Missouri’s famed tr water, you’ll find out why weightless streamers might be your new best friend. How Slack kills a good presentation and what fly design really matters when chasing big Browns. Plus, Brian’s gonna walk us through the rules of streamer fishing. Spoiler alert, there’s only one. And why the 10 pound trout can still live and hang out in 10 inches of water. We’re heading to the Ozarks with Brian Wise from fly fishing the ozarks.com and check out his YouTube channel of the same name. Dave (1m 27s): Here we go. Brian Wise, how’s it going, Brian? Brian (1m 31s): Good. How’s it going, man? It’s been a while. Dave (1m 33s): Yeah. Yeah, it’s been a while. September, 2020, so we’re looking at a good, almost five years since our last chat. Things, you know, a lot’s changed in the last five years, as we all know. What’s, what’s been going with you? Anything new in the last five years that you wanna give us an update? Since that one? We’ll get a link to that episode in the show notes. Brian (1m 50s): Oh, gosh. You know, the last five years, I, it’s, it’s been absolutely crazy for me, to be honest with you. We, we went from, we went from COVID to empty nesters and Wow, it’s exceptional. Dave (2m 5s): Is it, are you liking the empty nest? Is that a good thing? Brian (2m 7s): It’s a great thing. Yeah. Dave (2m 10s): Yeah. I always wonder about that. You put in, you know what I mean? All the amazing times, the all the hard work. Right. And then finally, you know, and that’s the worry too. You always hear these stories about the kids coming back, right? They’re like, so are they, are they, are they off? Do you think there’s a chance they’re gonna swing back on you here in a bit? Brian (2m 25s): No, I, I don’t, I don’t see that. I don’t see that coming. They’re, they’re all, they’re all just like super, we, we just married one off, which is crazy. Dave (2m 33s): Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Holy cow. Brian (2m 36s): So there you go. But yeah, yeah. I don’t, I don’t see coming back. If they do, if they do, they can, I don’t know. They can sleep outside, right? Dave (2m 43s): Yeah, exactly. Cool. Nice. Well, so I mean, what you have going, you got quite a bit going. I think last time we talked about your, your channel, your YouTube channel, fly fishing, those arks we talk streamers you’re known for, or you do some guiding as well. I was thinking Today we do some high level, maybe talk Missouri, you know, the state of Missouri, and then talk streamers and kind of fishing, go a little bit deeper there. Does, does that sound okay? Brian (3m 6s): That sounds fantastic. Dave (3m 8s): Good, good. Well, let’s maybe on the, let’s just start high level. I always like to kind of bring it up high. So Missouri, maybe take us to where you are and because the White River, we’re gonna be actually heading out there later this year, which is amazing. We’re heading to fish the white for the first time. And so I’m really interested to hear this, you know, get some tips here, but describe where you’re at and what you’re fishing. Brian (3m 30s): So I’m, I’m basically like extreme south central Missouri. Like, I’m, I’m due west of Branson by 40 miles, 50 miles, stuff like that. But I, like, we can, I can throw, I can almost throw a rock to the Arkansas state line. That’s, that’s where it’s Oh, wow. But, but I always like to say I’m definitely not from Arkansas. Yeah. You know, the border war thing, there’s a, a big difference. Dave (3m 56s): Right, right. Yeah. That’s interesting. Right. So it is a different state, but you’re right there. Yeah. You’re near the, the Dogwood Canyon Nature. Well, I guess that’s a kinda nature part, but Yeah, there’s a lot of water. So is all that water around Branson, what is, was that part of the white, or where, where are you fishing? Brian (4m 12s): Technically? The White River. It comes from a, a chain of lakes that, that starts in, actually kinda starts in Arkansas, goes up into Missouri, then comes back into Arkansas. It’s, it’s several lakes that starts this white river chain and the Branson Water Road, Tany, KOMO and, and stuff like that is just a, a part of the whole system, basically. So yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of water around me. I’m, I’m surrounded by, I’ve got SHOs Lake and Norfolk Lake. SHOs Lake is, is a, is what actually the White River is formed by, I mean, it’s the, the dam for SHOs Lake creates the white, the actual White River in Arkansas. Brian (4m 53s): And then Norfolk Lake creates the Norfolk River in Arkansas, the two famed rivers in Arkansas. And I’m, you know, like 30 minutes away from one 40 minutes away from the other. And I don’t live in a horrible spot. You really don’t. Dave (5m 9s): No. You’re in a, a spot. Yeah. And we’ve talked definitely because we’ve been getting prepared to head out there. We’ve been talking a little bit about the white in the area, and it’s pretty cool. What about when you look at Missouri, that’s one thing in general, you always say, you know, we always look at this kinda, the states down the middle. You’re in this area, which we haven’t talked a ton about, but maybe take us high level on Missouri. Where have you fished around the state A little bit. I Brian (5m 30s): Have actually, like a lot, let me take a step back. So like, Missouri, I feel like is really, really is just not even on the radar for most fly fishermen. We have over 20 trout streams in Missouri, all within the, the bottom, mostly within the bottom half of the state. So it’s that we’ve got a load, like tons of miles of trout streams. We’re, we’re kind of the redheaded stepchild in the Midwest, I think, you know, we we’re so close to the White River and then, and then, you know, you’ve got the Driftless region and, and then you go east and into Tennessee and, and stuff like that. You got that stuff. Brian (6m 11s): But when it comes to like the heart of the Midwest, I feel like Missouri’s just kind of forgotten about as when, when trout fishing, when you’re talking about trout fishing in specific, but, you know, small mouth fishing, it’s incredible the amount of, the numbers of different game fish species. You can come here within an hour of where I am and catch it’s, it’s ridiculous. It really is. Dave (6m 34s): No kidding. So, and you’re like you said, you’re more in the southern half. So as you go up north, the, what does the state do as you go from the southern half up to north, like towards Iowa? Brian (6m 43s): Missouri’s really, like vastly different. So, so basically you’ve got the Ozark region, which is where I am, which is super hilly, you know, very car, just a very, the topography is crazy. It’s like, just crazy. Dave (7m 2s): And what is the o what is the name? The Ozarks? Like what is that, what is that area of the Ozark? What, where is the O Ozarks? It’s Brian (7m 8s): A very, very large area. The map, it kind of changes, depends on, depending on where you see the map, but it kind of goes from, well north of me, south of like the highway 44 corridor down well into Arkansas. So like the Boston Mountains in Arkansas and like down around like the Buffalo River, the famed Buffalo River, Arkansas, stuff like that. It’s, it’s a, it’s a very, it’s a large, large area. It really, really is. Dave (7m 34s): Yeah, I’m looking at it on the map. I’m kind of just roughly, it looks like it takes up most of southern Missouri and like northern Arkansas. Right. It’s Brian (7m 40s): Giant’s, it’s a large area. It’s like the Ozark region is as large as a lot of the states on the East coast. I mean, it really is. Yeah. Dave (7m 48s): Right, right. And, and the Ozark, and is it kind of just the, the hills, the topography, the environment? Is that what makes it the Ozarks? Brian (7m 55s): I think so. I, I think that’s it. If it’s not what started the quote unquote Ozark region to begin with, it’s definitely what we’re known for now, for sure. Yeah, Dave (8m 5s): It is. Okay, cool. So that’s kinda it, but you spend most of your time down, and when you do in on guiding, you’re down in kind of the White River in that system, the Norfolk. It’s the Norfolk, right? Brian (8m 16s): Well, we have, we have some lingo that we may have to go through. Dave (8m 21s): Yeah, let’s hear it. Brian (8m 23s): So you’ve got the North fork of the White River, which is my, what I call my home river. What I, you know, kept my teeth on guiding when I, and I have to say, when I was guiding technically Dave (8m 35s): Yeah, you’re not guiding currently as as Brian (8m 37s): Much. Right, exactly. And I’ve, I’ve taken some time off. I, I may open some books in the future, but yeah, we’ll, we’ll see where that leads us. But, so you have the North fork of the White River, which flows in, flows into Norfolk Lake North Fork as in N-O-R-F-O-R-K. Dave (8m 58s): Oh, gotcha. Brian (8m 59s): Okay. And then below that is Norfolk River, Arkansas. N-O-R-F-O-R-K. Like, I don’t know why we had to make it so hard. Yeah. Dave (9m 9s): Norfolk. So is nor just literally take off two letters, or is there some more to the Norfolk? I can’t even say it. Norfolk, Brian (9m 17s): You know, it’s N-O-R-F-O-K, but I don’t know where it came from. I don’t, okay. Yeah, that’s, I dunno, the history behind why we have to have different names. The way I always like to think about it is, you know, the way we talk around here is we just basically shorten everything. So they just took North Fork and just said Norfork. Right. So that’s it, I think, you know, and just, just as, just as a, a side note, I, I would like to just stamp that and say, okay, that’s, that’s exactly where it came from. We can rewrite history books if we need to, but Dave (9m 53s): Yeah, no, that’s it. I mean, literally it’s that simple. It’s basically, and it’s interesting because, you know, we’ve been chatting with Chad Johnson, you know, recently, and he’s doing some stuff on the podcast, and, you know, when you listen to Chad, his, his southern accent is definitely different than yours. Like, you don’t really have a, so is that, now, is that a big thing between Missouri or is it just that you’re coming from a different area? Brian (10m 14s): Well, first, like, Chad’s from Mississippi, technically. Dave (10m 17s): Oh, right. He’s not even from Right. He’s even further. Yeah. Right. Brian (10m 20s): So, so it’s even more pronounced. Yeah. And, but you know, it, we, my wife and I, my wife is from just outside of Chicago and, and she’s picked up on this whole accent thing, especially, especially around where we are, you know, I honestly, truly in my heart believe that it’s, you know, and the accents around here, which vastly are, they’re totally different. I think it depends on how, how you’re raised so much. I, I really do. Because like, like I don’t have much of an, I like to think I don’t have much of an accent. My Dave (10m 52s): No, you don’t, you don’t, you don’t have barely, no, I would know. You could be living in any state right now, and I have no idea. Right, right. Brian (10m 59s): Yeah. But then, like somebody I grew up with that I’ve known my whole life, well absolutely sound like a hillbilly. Dave (11m 5s): No kidding. Brian (11m 6s): And, and it, it’s just, it’s, it’s really kind of funny the way it works. I, I, you can’t put your finger on it. It’s kind of odd. Dave (11m 13s): Yeah. Nice. All right, well we got the important stuff out of the way on the terminology and the, and all that, but if we take it too, so you said the north fork of the white, which is interesting. I think that would be cool to dig into that a little bit. Alright. Now is streamers, you’re kind of known for, I guess with tying especially, but what’s that look like for you on the water? Are you focusing on streamers or are you doing a little bit of everything? It Brian (11m 34s): Kind of depends on where I’m at. You know, if I’m in a, in a tiny little stream away from here that I’m, you know, like I just not, I’m not overly confident in throwing a streamer. I’ll, I’ll pull out some NPHs and, you know, kind of fill some things out. But, you know, if it’s a, if it’s a river I’m gonna float, or if it’s a medium, I say medium even. Like, if it has some body to it and I have a chance to throw streamers, that’s the first thing that I’m gonna do. Just period. That’s just, that’s where I wanna be. Yeah. So, like, doing what I do and, and everything now it’s like, well, I can just go fish the way I want to fish. Brian (12m 15s): You know, I was just that this is the way I want the fish to eat, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna force them to eat this way. But yeah, that’s, that’s what I do. It’s, it is, I don’t, I don’t think it’s it, and it’s nothing against nipping, you know, you hear a lot of streamer, fishermen that are like, oh, nipping, no, I, you know, I made a career outta nipping, you know, for guiding for years and years and years. I, I appreciate it. And, you know, there’s no, there’s no more efficient way to go catch fish than nipping just period. But man, you know, you don’t, you don’t get to see the eats nipping like you, you’re pulling big streamers, Dave (12m 52s): So Yeah. Right, right. And, and you’re tying some of the big streamers, right? That’s the other thing. Or on your channel, do you still spend quite a bit of time focusing on streamers on your YouTube channel? Brian (13m 1s): Yeah, I, I really do. Like for, it’s in the last couple years, actually, since our last podcast, I’ve, I’ve added some things to the YouTube channel. I’ve, I’ve expanded, you know, just a little bit because it was for, for years and years, it was, Brian Wise is tying streamers only, and that’s all there is on that channel. But, but it’s, I’ve, I’ve kind of added some different series and stuff like that, that, you know, I mean, if you wanna, if you wanna talk about later or you wanna talk about now, we can Yeah, we can kick it off. Dave (13m 31s): Yeah, let’s hear it. Tell us what’s, because I, I think you are known as the streamer of the Flies and all that on the YouTube channel, but yeah. What’s, how’s things changed? Brian (13m 38s): I’m the guy that speeds up his videos to ends and sets it to music and, and stuff like that. And yeah. That, that would be me. But I figured out that there’s, I’m one of those people that I know what I’m good at and I know what I’m not good at. And, and I feel like that’s a, that’s a blessing to me. You know? I, I feel like, and I’m very honest with myself, if, if I’m not good at it, I know I’m not good at it and I wanna get better at it, but I just, I know that that’s not something that I’m overly good at tying dry flies. Yeah. Man, I am not good at, that’s hard that I try to stay away from it as much as I possibly can. But one thing I am pretty good at is teaching. Like, I feel like I have a, a pretty good style, and I can, I teach in a way that may, that I hope isn’t gonna lose you. Brian (14m 25s): You know, you’re gonna be, you’re gonna be entertained a little bit, you know, and, and stuff like that. I’m not just gonna be like a monotone, boring kind of guy. So when I started doing this, I, I started adding some different materials that I would do, like a product spotlight on a, on a new material that, that a company had sent me, or an old material like Mallard flank, you know, just anything. So I’m kind of, I’m kind of working through all the materials in the fly tying world. I, I’m, eventually, I will make it through every single material. There will be a, there will be a product spotlight video on, on how to use every single material in the fly tying world. Brian (15m 7s): That’s my goal. So it is massive. And, and I’ll be honest, I’ll probably die before, before I make it through. Dave (15m 15s): Yeah. But you’re gonna go for it. Are these coming out? Like, are you doing a, a series of these every month? And then how do you, how are you choosing what materials is it mostly, I guess, what you’re tying with to tie your streamers? Brian (15m 27s): Well, you know, honestly, like I’m using everything from, you know, from, from dubbing that’s, that’s only gonna be on like nymphs to wet flies and, and a little bit of everything in between. I, I say a little bit of everything in between. If I, again, if I tie a dry fly, it’s probably gonna be something with foam because I’m just not good at dry flies. But, but you know, it’s, it, it’s not, it’s definitely not streamer specific. That’s where, and, and I did that on purpose. I was just like, I need to expand a little bit because, you know, the, the YouTube niche in fly fishing is tiny anyway. And, and if I just make it streamers only, it’s even more tiny. Brian (16m 7s): So I needed to expand and I expanded. And, and to be honest with you, these product spotlight videos and tying tips videos that I do now are quickly becoming my favorite things to do. I really like doing these. They are, they’re a lot of fun. It’s, it’s more interactive with the people that watch me, which is still weird to say, but Dave (16m 31s): I know. Brian (16m 33s): But that’s, I think it’s really quickly becoming my bread and butter, like what I really kinda lean on and, and, and definitely, you know, the, the numbers don’t lie. The, the people are, are really liking those videos. So they’re fun. Dave (16m 49s): San Juan Rod Works started with a simple belief, great fly rods and gear shouldn’t cost a fortune as a family run company. They focus on building high quality fly fishing products that perform on the water without the premium price tag. You can try San Juan Rod works for 30 days risk free right now, and if you’re not satisfied, send it back for a full refund. You can go to San Juan rod works.com. That’s S-A-N-J-U-A-N Rod works.com. Stonefly nets builds handcrafted landing nets that are as tough as they are. Beautiful. They’re shaped, sanded, and finished by hand from premium hardwoods. You’ll feel the difference the moment you land your first fish light in the hands, strong at the hoop and made by someone who knows what it means to earn your trust. Dave (17m 32s): You can head over to stonefly nets.com right now and see what they’ve got in the shop today. That’s stonefly nets.com. Wow. Cool. So that’s, that’s a little update on the channel and we’ll probably talk a little more about that as we go, but yeah, well, let’s just dig into the, let’s, let’s stay with the North fork of the White ’cause I think that’s pretty interesting there. So let’s take it to streamer day. You know, you’re on the water and are you typically floating? Describe that. What does that look like when you’re fishing outta a boat or, or more off the bank Brian (18m 2s): Anymore? I’m older. I think I’ve waited in maybe twice in the last three or four years. I just, I just, I, we float. That’s, that’s what we do. We’re gonna be in drift boats. We’re gonna be in, in, in something like that, or paddleboards. We do a lot of paddleboard fishing and stuff like that. So, but yeah, the Norfolk of the White River is a, what I would call like a medium to larger river. It’s claim to fame is, its rainbow population is a hundred percent wild. They, they have stopped stocking. They haven’t stocked rainbows in that river since the mid sixties, which is really cool. Brian (18m 42s): Like in, in Missouri, you know, and Missouri has, you know, several rivers where either they have supplemental stockings to help, you know, a a naturally producing population of, of rainbow trout or they’re just completely wild, which is really, really cool. But on the other side of that coin, we have large brown trout. We have large, huge stripers and like seasonal stripers that move into the river and stay for a while. And so, like, we throw big streamers, like yeah, every chance we get, Dave (19m 15s): You do, you do, you’re telling big stuff. Okay, so you’re in the boat, you’re floating down. Maybe talk about that. What are the streamers you’re throwing these days? Are they, are they these giants? Talk about the design, what, what you’re, what you’re working on these days. Brian (19m 28s): Sure. When the big streamer thing really started to kick off. Dave (19m 32s): Yeah. And when was that, take us back there. Was that a while back? When, when do you think is, are you talking specifically for your area on the white? Yeah, Brian (19m 40s): I would say it’s really hard to judge. Yeah. Right. Because it was, it was a long time ago and it was still, I don’t wanna say it was early internet days, but it was still pretty early. Like it was before YouTube, before, you know, it was like the message board days if you, if you remember that. Dave (19m 57s): Yeah. I’m trying to think now. So we’re talking probably the, the nineties, right? Somewhere in that, in that late, late nineties, Brian (20m 3s): This probably, I was thinking 2005 to Yeah, Dave (20m 6s): 2005, a little bit later. Yeah. Brian (20m 8s): Yeah. Something like that. Somewhere in there is, is when we, we started doing it like guide’s day off. You know, you would go do this and, or, or we would go, we would guide during the day, and then after we, we got our fishermen off the river and stuff like that, we’d get together and go to our streamers after that, you know, after spending a whole day on the water, we would go take another float and go throw streamers. And we were learning so much, but we didn’t offer this in fishing trips for years, like Right. We didn’t think anybody would want to do it. Dave (20m 46s): Yeah. Because it’s hard, right? Because it’s still not easy to catch fish Brian (20m 49s): And you don’t Yeah. It’s work and you don’t catch that many fish and, you know, it’s, there’s just a lot to it. And so as went on and time kind of progressed, we were fishing these big huge ungodly streamers. There were just, you know, they were huge, Dave (21m 7s): Like seven inch, seven inch range Brian (21m 10s): North. Yeah. Oh, north. Yeah. Nine, nine inches. And some of them we were throwing musky stuff to trout, what we consider Musky stuff. Now. We were throwing to trout back then, just because we didn’t have a limit, I guess, you know, if, if you, if you don’t have a limit, you need to figure out what that limit is or there is no limit. So like, like on when size comes into play, you know, we started off with maybe like a four inch streamer and then boom, we got eats and caught numerous fish on that. So we would go up to six inches, we’d go up to 7, 8, 9 inches just for the listeners. We never found that limit. Dave (21m 48s): Right? Right. You kept going. Brian (21m 50s): Yeah, we did. And we kind of stopped at that 10 inch mark, give or take some, just because, but God, you know, Dave (21m 58s): Can’t cast it. Brian (21m 60s): At what point do you just say, okay, this is ridiculous. We need to like hump the brakes. And So we did. And, and I think that was the best thing that happened to this streamer game. We started figuring out that it’s not just big bulk, you know, that we need to do, that’s gonna just, that weighs a lot that’s gonna wear you out to fish. And we started paying attention to how flies are designed, and that’s when the streamer game that, you know now really ramped up and everybody, that’s when it became mainstream, I guess. So, so, you know, we were, we were going through the paces, you know, trying to figure stuff out and, you know, fishing these big, huge heavy flies because that’s what we thought we needed to do. Brian (22m 46s): But then things shifted and I think we’re in the coolest part of the streamer game that we’ve come across right now. You know, it’s just, it’s incredible what people are coming up with. Dave (22m 58s): Like materials that are, that are lighter, not as bulky, they’re easier to fish and, and then do things. Right. The, the flies doing what you want it to do. Brian (23m 6s): Absolutely. Like just trading out a whole fly. ’cause I, I remember early I was tying flies that were almost solely bu just palmer bu and, you know, you, you palmer say four four bu feathers up a fly. Like that’s gonna get heavy really quick when it gets wet. Yeah. You Dave (23m 27s): Know, wet sock, wet sock Brian (23m 29s): You. Yeah. Right. If you take one of those maroo feathers and then hold it up, quote unquote, hold it up with bucktail, you have immediately a fly that’s half as heavy when it’s wet. It sheds water when, whenever you cast and, and just, just by trading out, you know, half of the bu you’re already into a better fly that looks exactly the same and probably swims better. You know, those big heavy flies don’t swim. They, you know, they just, they don’t swim. They a big heavy fly will jig. And, and I’ve said it a lot, I’ve, I’ve caught a little bit of flack for it, but I’ll say it again. A jigging fly is great for rainbow trout. Brian (24m 11s): You know, if you’re looking for big brown trout, a a hard jigging fly that’s just gonna jig in the water. Yeah. I couldn’t care less about that fly. Dave (24m 19s): And what is a jig versus what you’re talking about The other, what, what is the jigging fly doing? Brian (24m 23s): So a jigging fly will like literally go straight up and straight down in the water column. It’s, it’s head heavy enough that it literally jigs you, you think of a jig, like a bu jig, a bu jig in the water will, if you lift it up, it goes straight up. When you let, when you give it slack, it drops straight down. And there’s literally not a single bait fish in the world that I know of that does that. And a lot of people Dave (24m 50s): That probably go straight up or, or straight down. Right. Exactly. Brian (24m 52s): They don’t do that. Even when they’re fleeing. They definitely don’t do that. And you’ll get people that’ll say, well, it’s, it’s, it’s imitating a wounded fish. And I’m, I’ll tell you right now, like, you give me a double deceiver, that doesn’t weigh anything. When you strip that just right, that’s the best wounded fish you’ll ever come across. Just period. I mean, you know, it’ll just, it’ll turn almost in a complete circle, you know, and, and stall. And that’s all you have to do. You’re in control of everything. And once you’ve kind of figured that stuff out, you can do so much with a weightless, a completely weightless fly with zero added weight to it that’s still like six, seven inches long. Brian (25m 35s): That’s not hard to cast. That’s that you can take a beginner and really give them at least a really solid look at what streamer fishing is about. So, yeah. Dave (25m 45s): Gotcha. Okay. That makes sense. So, so you’re, what you’re saying is the jigging, the jigging style, the rainbows will eat, but the browns won’t. Well, I Brian (25m 52s): Fish or fish, you know what I mean? Yeah. Dave (25m 54s): Other fisher fish. Right. Brian (25m 56s): But what you’re gonna find is more consistency and, you know, there’s, there’s always an anomaly. There’s always some stupid fish out there that’s that’s, that’s gonna do something crazy. But for the extreme vast majority of what you’re gonna run into, you know, jigging just, it just doesn’t work very well for big brown trouts, big stripers and stuff like that. If it, like, you know, jigging may work pretty well on big stripers when they’re 70 feet in deep in the lake, but they’re down there for a reason, you know, that type of stuff. So, but when they’re actually actively pursuing bait fish, jigging is just, it’s just throwing things out, throwing everything out the window. Brian (26m 39s): Yeah. Dave (26m 39s): So you’ve got these on your fly. You’re making the, you’ve got the wounded fish versus say the flinging fish. Is that a different tie that you’re doing? Talk about that. Is that a whole different style of how you’re retrieving out there? Or is that more the fly, how the fly’s designed? Brian (26m 54s): Technically it could be a little bit of both. I, right off the top of my head, I can’t think of any just completely like wounded bait fish flies that are, I take that back, like gallop’s gallop’s got a fly that he ties that, that is basically tied on its side. And that would be, that might be considered more of a, you know, of a wounded bait fish kind of look simply because the way it was tied and how you’ll fish it. But the way I look at it is you can create a wounded bait fish. A fleeing bait fish. A bait fish that is just completely getting out of town, or a bait fish that’s just kind of hanging out all with the same, the same fly. Dave (27m 36s): Oh, the same fly, yeah. Brian (27m 37s): Yeah. Like say you’re gonna throw like one of my knuckleheads or, you know, a knuckle deep or a double deceiver. Dave (27m 43s): Let’s take that to the water. Sure. Let’s take that to the water. Let’s take this example. Let’s say you’re on the boat, you are getting ready to cast. Talk about Yeah. Describe that. How you would be doing that with this fly. Brian (27m 53s): Okay. So for the most part, you’re always gonna, like, especially from a boat and, and, and pretty much anywhere brown trout, brown trout, like being in places where they can ambush things. So, and what a lot of people think is, you gotta fish super deep for them, but that is not the case. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna start off by first rule is if you can reach the bank, you’re always gonna land it on the bank. Dave (28m 20s): Oh, okay. Number one rule. Brian (28m 22s): Yep. Number one rule. Get it on the bank. You’re gonna lose flies. You’re gonna hang flies up in the limbs above the bank, you’re gonna do it. Don’t get frustrated because that’s what comes with the game. You know, Dave (28m 36s): So you want to get this thing as close to the bank as possible. ’cause they’re sitting up under undercuts or just, that’s just where they are. Brian (28m 42s): A couple different things. Most of the time the water on the bank is nowhere near as shallow as what you think. Right. There’s all sorts of little cuts and there’s a big rock here that drops off to, you know, say knee deep four feet off the bank. And that’s a great holding spot for brown trout. You know what I mean? They’re, they’re kind of out of the, they’re out of the, the main push of the main part of the river, but they’re still close so they can get in it and get out. They’re always close to ambush zones and places that if a predator comes at them, they can get out quickly as well. So like a, a hard seam or a, you know, a soft seam. Brian (29m 23s): Just any seam, any change in the river bottom, I don’t care if it’s a change in color on the river bottom, that’s a little trigger point. But we’re fishing mo, like I said earlier, most of these flies that I’m using are completely weightless. They’re big and, and stuff like that, but they have no added weight to them. They don’t have dumbbell eyes, they don’t have a, a cone head or anything like that. So what we are required to do in the, in that instance, is we have to throw a sinking line, right? So the sinking line is what actually force the fly to get a little deeper and, and, and swim better as well. Brian (30m 3s): So you’re throwing, you’re, you’re casting that fly up onto the bank for those fish that are right there to ambush. And sometimes it’s the craziest thing, like landing it on the bank. And by the time you have to pull your first strip, it’s already in a fish’s mouth and they’re shaking their head like it’s the craziest thing. And in water that you don’t think that would ever hold a brown trout. I like to tell people, you know, a 10 pound fish can be in 10 inches of water, like a 10 inch deep fish from, you know, from the top, from its back to its belly. A 10 inch deep fish. That’s a big fish, man. Yeah. It’s, Dave (30m 41s): That is big Brian (30m 41s): Fish. Really Dave (30m 42s): Big fish, big fish’s, gigantic Brian (30m 43s): Big fish. So, you know, it doesn’t take much at all to hold a big fish, so you want to, no, so number one, you wanna take that, that scenario out and cover that water. So you landed on the bank, you’re covering that water. So as you, as you’re stripping it back to the boat, you’re also fishing the drop off that is inevitably coming. You know, there’s, there’s gonna be a drop off somewhere. There’s gonna be, you know, some greasy water that, you know, you just, you have to fish through. So you have the ability to kinda, as you’re floating downstream, to kinda look at what’s coming slow your, your strip down so you can, you know, swing it around a rock or speed your strip up so you can make another cast to hit this other spot. Brian (31m 25s): Yeah. You know? Dave (31m 26s): And are you doing this for the most part while you’re drifting down the river without an anchor? Brian (31m 29s): Absolutely. A hundred percent. If you’re anchored up doing what we’re doing, you’re gonna lose so much of the movement of the fly. Dave (31m 37s): Oh, really? So you want to be moving pretty much all the time, just going with the flow. Brian (31m 41s): Absolutely. Yep. If you kind of think about it, whenever you’re waiting and you’re throwing streamers, you know, most people think of it as, you know, you’re casting like quartering downstream and you’re just swinging them, you know what I mean? You’re using the current that is moving around you to move the fly, and then you strip it back and I mean, you might strip it as it’s swinging and, and stuff like that. Yeah. But Dave (32m 3s): So it’s kind of swinging. So you, you make a cast the bank, and then the current’s just obviously pulling it downstream, so you’re kind of slowly it stripping it. So it’s, it’s almost a swinging fly. It’s almost a swinging technique. Brian (32m 14s): Absolutely. I mean, if you are, if you’re anchored, that’s what it’s gonna do. It’s gonna get swung downstream really, really quickly. But you don’t have near as much control. Like the river’s gonna take it no matter what. It’s, it’s just those times. So when you’re drifting, you’re going roughly, it’s not exactly, but you’re going roughly the same speed as the river. So what you’re doing is you can add slack, like in between strips, in between strips, the fly is not getting pushed out and swung out in between strips. The fly is just keeping up to the same speed as the water, so it has a chance to perform. Does that make sense? Like Dave (32m 50s): Oh yeah. Totally. Brian (32m 51s): Right. So like during the strip, whenever you are stripping the fly, that is not, when the fly is quote unquote performing at all, it’s going in a straight line and that’s all it’s doing. It’s, it’s right at the end of the strip that the fly performs and it does cool things. Right? So that’s when, that’s when you get to see these flies do like incredible stuff. Like they, they really do. Dave (33m 18s): That’s cool. Brian (33m 19s): And that is when a, a fly is, is working Dave (33m 22s): And that’s when you get the eats. That’s when you get the eats. When you stop on the pause, Brian (33m 26s): It’s just all over the place. It, it can literally be in the middle of it drip. It can be just absolutely anytime. And that’s what’s, I think that’s what’s so cool about it, you know. Dave (33m 38s): So you mentioned some rules. I, I wanna hear are there some more of these rules? You talked about the one get, are there a few here? Brian (33m 43s): Absolutely. Dave (33m 45s): Let’s break out a few. I’m not sure if you have, if you’ve covered this before, but maybe we can talk about a few more of these rules. Brian (33m 51s): Right. So I, like, I’ve been on several podcasts and I don’t think this has ever come up. This is kind of cool. Dave (33m 58s): Oh, nice, nice. Here we go. This is great. Okay, Brian (34m 0s): So let me get my rule book out here. Dave (34m 2s): Oh yeah, let’s get the rule book. This is, this is gonna be awesome. We love a good rule book. Brian (34m 7s): The first thing I say rule number one, and all these rules have caveats, every single one of them. But it’s, it’s great. So rule number one, there are no rules. Dave (34m 18s): Oh, okay. There you go. That’s good. I like that. Brian (34m 20s): Right. So if you, if you limit yourself that, because the only reason that we started doing this stuff is because we found out that, and I’m, I’m just gonna be blunt, we found out that what the old, the rules that the old timers had like passed on to us were totally freaking wrong. Really? Like, they were, they could not have been more wrong. You like, whenever I was like cutting my teeth and like, and like getting into this and really growing in the sport. But you know, old timers would tell you, you don’t throw streamers. And, and we’re, and they, and back then they were talking like, you know, wooly buggers and size four wooly buggers or whatever. Brian (35m 1s): You don’t throw streamers during the day. If it’s a bluebird sky, you just don’t do it. Oh, right. And if you go back and look through like my hero shots of, you know, the extreme vast majority of the big huge brown shot that we’ve caught, they’re on a bluebird sky day Wow. At one o’clock in the afternoon. Yeah, there you go. So don’t hinder yourself with rules. Okay. That’s kind of the main thing. You know, they’re the rules that are hard, fast, and, and they are set in stone are very set in stone and Yeah. Dave (35m 31s): Well maybe we call these the new rules. We’ll call these your, your new rules. I like that first rule though. So there are new rules, but there are, there could be some rules, some new rules, Brian (35m 41s): Right? Like the only real rules are you don’t want to trout set. Dave (35m 46s): Oh, Brian (35m 46s): Right. Number one, you know, everybody hears about that. Don’t trout set, don’t trout set strip set only. And yeah, that’s, that’s the case for the extreme vast majority of the time. Dave (35m 55s): Yeah. And why is that? Why is the trout set? Because you are fishing for trout. So why is the trout set the, like you’re raising, you’re answering your cell phone, right? That that’s, don’t do that. Brian (36m 4s): Exactly. Exactly. So it’s so many times what you see when you’re, especially when you’re streamer fishing from a boat, it’s a very, very visual game. So, so you’re watching this fly swim back all day long. Dave (36m 19s): Oh wow. So you’re seeing this, you, you’re seeing this fly and you’re actually seeing the fish eat it. Brian (36m 24s): Absolutely. But wow, what you’re also seeing is the fish come up and take a big swipe at it and completely miss it. So if you trout set every single time and that fish didn’t even get close to your fly. If you had left it in the water, chances are that fish is gonna come back. Dave (36m 42s): Oh, right. Brian (36m 44s): So, you know what I mean? You, you pull it outta the water and you just killed it. It’s done. Gotcha. Dave (36m 49s): So the strips that you’re actually not pulling outta the water, you’re just pulling it faster and they might come back on it. Brian (36m 54s): Well, a strip set is literally what it is. You, you keep your, as you’re stripping, the way I strip a fly is super short strips, maybe say 18 inches long or something like that. But they are crisp. Dave (37m 7s): Oh, you mean like a So you’re doing a 18 inch long strip, but it’s fast. Brian (37m 11s): Super fast. Because Dave (37m 12s): That’s a pretty long strip. Right? That’s a decently long strip. 18. Brian (37m 15s): Well, I mean, it, it kinda depends on how you’re looking at it. Like if you’re talking about a, like a bonefish strip. Yeah, that’s a really long strip. Like that, that would be a, that would be a, a strip set on a bonefish flat. Right. Where you’re sitting there like four inch strips, little four inch strips. You know, what we need to do is we need to move heavy line and a bigger fly. So it takes a, it takes a little bit longer of a strip and it takes a little bit more crisp of a stop of a strip. I hope that makes sense. Yeah, it does. Does that’s one of those things that Dave (37m 47s): It does. It’s almost like a fly cast. If you think about your fly cast, you wanna stop. Right. Same thing. You wanna do that with your strip. Brian (37m 53s): You could not be more on the money. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You wanna do that with the end of your strip. Dave (37m 57s): Oh, right. Because that kind of jolts it, does that kind of get the fly doing the action? Brian (38m 2s): Exactly. Yep. You’re you’re, you’re seeing it now. Nice. Yeah. Nice. So that’s, that’s what gives the fly better action. But it’s also, if that’s what you’re doing, it’s a great strip set. You know, you’re already strip setting every time you strip so, so Sure. Your, your adrenaline’s gonna give you more. Gotcha. Dave (38m 21s): Yeah. So your strip, so literally every time your strip setting, so if the fish hits, you’re already doing it. Yep. Brian (38m 26s): You’re already doing it that No, like I said, whenever as you’re stripping the fly back and it’s working, its, its way back to the boat. When a fish does eat, trust me, you, you’re not just gonna normally strip set and it’s just gonna be this little, you know, you’re, you’re adrenaline has kicked in and you’re definitely gonna strip set farther and harder than you, than you normally would’ve. Dave (38m 47s): Yeah. What’s the closest fish you’ve ever hooked at the boat? Like how close do you get these fish near the boat? Brian (38m 54s): Oh, okay. This is brown trout in specifically Yeah. Are so much like muskie that it Oh really? It’s, it’s incredible. Yeah. There’s been times where I’ve told fishermen, you know, figure eight, the keep the fly moving. ’cause there was still a fish. Dave (39m 10s): No kidding. Yeah, Brian (39m 11s): Absolutely. They, one of these days I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna take like a charging cable for my phone. I know, but stick with me, bear with me. Yeah. Right. I’m would take a charging cable for my phone and tie it into the fly and just loop to loop that to my fly line and prove that brown drought don’t care. Dave (39m 33s): Yeah. Right. Because Brian (39m 35s): I like, seriously, you could put a chain on it. Yeah, Dave (39m 38s): Yeah. And Brian (39m 38s): They’re not gonna care. I’ve literally lifted my oe like as I’m rowing down the river, I’ve lifted my oe to give a fisherman that much more, you know what, a room for a fish that’s following. Oh wow. So yeah, they’ll touch the boat. Dave (39m 56s): Dang. Yeah. No kidding. Brian (39m 57s): So yeah, it’s incredible. Dave (39m 59s): They’re on, I mean they, I’m sure they kind of see the boat, but they’re just so focused on this fish that that’s like, that’s it. They’re just going for it. Predator. Brian (40m 6s): That’s the way I look. Yeah, it’s absolutely predatory. They are predators. There’s no if ands or buts about it. They are, they are predators and they act like it. They are not, they’re not rainbow trout. They’re not, they are so extremely opposite. Dave (40m 21s): Are there any brown trout that are close to 30 inches out in the north fork of the white? Brian (40m 26s): Absolutely. Yeah. So I am one of those people that’s, it’s driving me crazy. It’s frustrating, but it’ll happen. I’ve never touched a 30 inch. Well I’ve had, I’ve touched 30 inch fish that I’ve had clients catch. Dave (40m 38s): Right, I see. I I love that. I love that you’re saying, ’cause I, I know Chad has been talking about that, how he’s saying there’s a lot of people out there that come in and they say, Hey, the guy said he got a 30 inch, but it was Roy, maybe a 25. And so he, hes it absolutely. He thinks it’s important. I think it’s interesting because, you know, he likes, because he wants to know what’s going on in the river. He wants to know, honestly, like, what did that person catch it on? And so, because it helps everybody to know, so I, I feel like the fishing stories Right, we all have that because we’re fishermen. But, but what you’re saying is there are legitimate 30 inch fish, you just haven’t ever caught one yourself. Brian (41m 10s): I myself have never caught one. Dave (41m 11s): Yeah. Either have I, to be honest with you, I’ve never caught a 30 inch fish. I don’t think I’ve come close. Brian (41m 15s): Oh wow. So I’ve caught like, you know, 40 inch stripers and Yeah. Right. And you know, but that brown trout, that 30 inch mark, I’ve yet to clear it. I’ve, I’ve hit a 28 and, you know, and stuff like that. But I, I haven it cleared the 30 inch mark and I’m, I’m dying to. Dave (41m 30s): Yeah. It’s interesting. Why do you think that? Yeah, I guess that’s because it’s that, you know, just the fish’s life Right. The way it, it lives eventually it, it’s gonna die. You know, it only grows so much. Right. And that’s the older fish. Right. A 30 inch fish is probably pretty old. Brian (41m 43s): Oh yeah. The oldest fish in the river is typically the biggest fish in the river’s. Oldest fish in the river. And unless they have some sort of malfunction that probably die before that anyway, if that’s the case, but Dave (41m 53s): Yeah. Good, good. So, okay, cool. Well now on rules, back to the rules, we, we’ve got a couple here. Anything else we wanna throw in there? Anything else? I guess we could call it a rule or just call it a recommendation. Brian (42m 3s): Absolutely. There’s one thing, like what I kept running into before I closed the books on guiding what I was doing was a whole lot of real new streamer, fishermen that, that had watched my videos and, and and stuff like that and, and wanted me to kind of give them a primer on streamer fishing for a day. You know, spend a day with me fishing and teaching as much as anything, you know, which was really, really cool. Like those were some of my most memorable and I made such good friends with so many people that I still, and I’m still in contact with today. But what we run into a lot is, you know, the godfather Kelly Gallup starts talking. Dave (42m 48s): Right. Brian (42m 49s): And people will listen to every word that dude says and rightfully so. Rightfully so. If I knew half of what he’s, as much as he’s forgotten Right. I’d go catch a 30 inch fish. Yeah. Yeah. But, but Kelly really pushes a certain style of retrieve that can absolutely get you in trouble. Dave (43m 12s): Is this like the jerk strip thing? The Brian (43m 14s): Jerk strip. Okay. Yeah, the jerk strip. So let me, let me take a step back to, we were talking about stripping that fly back to the boat, right? Dave (43m 21s): Yeah. Yeah. There Brian (43m 22s): Has to be a straight line from your rod tip to the fly. Dave (43m 27s): Oh, Brian (43m 28s): Dead straight line. Okay. Okay. For two reasons. If you wanna move the fly and get the most movement out of the fly, the line has to be totally straight or you’re just gonna strip slack. Right. The more slack you have, the less movement you’re gonna get on the fly. Just period. The more slack you have, the lesser of a chance that you’re gonna actually hook that fish. If you get an eat. When you get an eat right. So Kelly’s jerk strip, if you don’t do it perfect, like perfectly, the rod tip moves, right. Say, say the rod tip is gonna move to your left. That’s the way you’re gonna do the jerk strip. If you don’t pull the exact amount of line you need back to straight at your fly, you got slack and something happens in between that time, you cannot set the hook, you can’t do it. Brian (44m 19s): Right. Dave (44m 20s): Right. Brian (44m 21s): So the jerk strip, so basically the way Kelly talks about it is he watched a professional bass fisherman walk, walk with a, with a, a lure. Right? And so the only way you can do that is if, if you are like a jerk bait, you know, you’re moving your fly like a jerk bait. So, so it’s that, it’s that in between. So you move it really quick to your left, like boom, like real quick to your left. But it’s in between when you make that movement and you go back to straight in front of you, that things have to be perfect. And if they’re not perfect, you’re gonna miss phish. It’s going to happen. Dave (45m 0s): Yeah. So it’s the jerk strip. So you’re kind of jerking it and then stripping it. But if you don’t get that, that timing right, then you’ve got slack and then that’s a mess. Brian (45m 9s): Exactly. And then people will jerk strip and it’s so funny, like they’ll jerk strip is say you’re in the, the bow of my boat and you’re fishing in the front of my boat. You’re jerk stripping off the, off the side of the boat. Say to our left, I’m trying to give a visual here. Dave (45m 24s): Okay. To left to the river. So we’re looking, we’re on river, right? So or river left floating down or in the middle, we’re Brian (45m 30s): Just floating in the river. Yeah. You make a cast to river left. Okay. And you’re gonna start jerk stripping. Okay. So what I’ve seen more times than not is they’ll start jerk stripping and strip. So it’s a jerk strip jerk strip, but they know they need to keep good contact with the fly. So instinctively they will start to pivot and they will almost turn around and face me as I’m rowing. Does that make sense? Just to keep the slack out of things. Dave (45m 57s): Oh, because they’ve got too much slack. So they’ll start turning to you to get the pick up the slack. Brian (46m 1s): Exactly. They’re physically turning their body. Right. And if you turn your body, you’re turning your rod and if your rod ends up upstream facing straight upstream or straight downstream and your fly is coming back straight from riverbank left, you cannot set the hook. If you hook that fish and you get an eat, it’ll be completely luck because Dave (46m 21s): It’s not straight. So, Brian (46m 22s): Yeah. Yeah. So the jerk strip is, is something that Kelly has obviously mastered and does a really good job of, of fishing with it. I don’t tell even myself, like I don’t think I have the, to do that and do it right without some point messing up. ’cause I’m one of those people that, you know, we get so few eats. Yeah. You know, it’s just part of the game. Right. Compared to nipping, it’s just part of the game. We get so few eats. If I mess one up in a day by messing with, you know, a different kind of strip or something like that, that may be the only eat I get all day. Yeah. Dave (46m 57s): That might be it. And I’m Brian (46m 58s): Not willing to sacrifice Dave (46m 59s): Meat. No, this makes total sense. So on the strip that you were talking about, the 18 inch, the straight strip. So is it your fly the way you design it that’s doing all that work that maybe makes it look like a jerk strip or make makes it do something similar to that, that other style or something like that? Brian (47m 14s): Well I think ultimately the fly in the water, like, like how the fly moves in the water will be fairly close to it. Whenever you do a jerk strip, you are moving the fly. You are partaking in that fly moving quite a bit farther than you would if you’re just stripping it. Which is, which is not not good and not bad, you know, it, that’s just, it is what it is. But I think if it with the jerk strip is, you know, I was telling you how we have to, we strip really like really sharp. Yeah. A jerk is kind of the same movement right. With the fly, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, totally. It’s sharp and it’s sharp. Yeah. It’s abrupt. Brian (47m 54s): Yeah. Anything that’s sharp and abrupt will give that fly the same movement, but the way you do it can hinder things as you keep going, I guess. If that makes sense. So what what I would ideally, and I, I’m one of those people that has to like tell a huge story just to Yeah, yeah. Dave (48m 15s): Let’s hear it. We love stories. Stories are good. That’s what the only, the only thing people are gonna remember outta all this are gonna be the stories. So, so go for it. Right. Brian (48m 23s): So like the, the only thing that you can, you can really, really say that is going to hurt your streamer phishing is slack at any time. You know, be it during the cast, be it whatever that just slack kills. Dave (48m 39s): And the same for, again, our analogy, the fly cast slack is the, the thing that kills you on a fly cast. Brian (48m 45s): Absolutely. Yep. Slack is bad in every sense unless you’re nipping and you’re forced to have slack as a dead drip. Right. You know, that’s no, you know, there are ways that you can add a little bit of slack that’s controllable, especially when you’re floating from a boat. You can add a little bit of slack that’s controllable because you see what’s going on. You can see your line, you can see the fly. As long as I know I’ve got, like say I’ve got three feet of slack that I’m just waiting as I go downstream. ’cause I don’t wanna pull the fly outta the water because it’s 10 feet away from a drop off or something. I’ll just leave that in it, you know. Brian (49m 26s): But if I’ve got a pool of slack underneath my rod tip, you know what I mean? That’s the killer. Dave (49m 33s): Pescador on the fly offers a full spectrum of fly fishing gear for any angler at any budget. By bringing high performance rods directly to the angler, they eliminate the middleman markups saving you time and money. 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So, so I, I always come over prepared. I will have at least two sinking lines ready on, on two different reels at any given point. So I will always have, and, and it depends on the river actually. So, so say for the white, I will always have a T three and a T six, like, so a three inch per second line and a six inch per second line. But on big, huge water, I will always have a six inch per second line and a nine inch per second line. You know? So just covering everything. I don’t want to, I don’t wanna have any surprises. Brian (51m 16s): Yeah. When I get to the river, Dave (51m 17s): How do you know what line to put on, on the river? How, how do you know to go, whether it’s a three or six or whatever else? Brian (51m 23s): So, speed of the water is one thing, you know, if you’ve never been to a river or something like that and, and you get there and you’re, and say, you come prepared, but this water is like all moving really fast and, you know, it’s, it’s maybe not even that big of a river, but it’s moving really fast. I would go with a heavier line just to compensate on that faster moving water. Dave (51m 48s): Yeah. Because you wanna get it down. Do you wanna get it down a certain depth of, but it sounds like sometimes they’re hitting on the surface, like how far typically are you trying to get it down the fly? Brian (51m 58s): Oh, that may be the most loaded question in Dave (52m 1s): The world. Yeah. That one’s hard. That one’s hard. Brian (52m 3s): You know, every cast is a little different. Yeah. Right? Yeah. As you float, every single cast is a little different. Dave (52m 10s): Yeah. Again, why There’s no rules, right? There’s no rules here, Brian (52m 13s): Right? Yeah. So the previous cast you just made may have been on pretty flat water that’s not very deep. And then the very next cast could be after a drop off and you drop off to nine, 10 feet of deep water. Right. So what you need to do is, is be ready for the deepest part of the water and still be able to fish the faster part of the water. Yeah. So, you know what, you, you don’t want to, every time, every single time the, there’s a drop off, you don’t wanna just switch rods real quick and then hit it because you’re wasting a cast. Yeah. Or two or three casts. Right. And like I said, like I’m, I think efficiency is, is one of the biggest things in this game. Brian (52m 55s): You know, it’s not, the more casts you can make, it’s how many great casts are you gonna make up on the bank and fish it effectively off. You know, I’ve, I’ve seen guys that really do just absolutely flog the water and they, but they don’t take advantage of things. So you can sit there and make two 5,000 casts in a day, but if you’re not fishing that water specifically, like the way you need to be fishing it, you could have made a hundred casts in the day and fished the water even better. Dave (53m 27s): Right? Yeah, yeah. Covered it. So, right. Brian (53m 30s): So, yeah. Yeah. So it’s not just to go out there and grip it and rip it and, and like, like the, like the streamer, Dave (53m 36s): Same thing every time, Brian (53m 37s): Right? Like, and streamer fishing gets a little bit of that, grip it and rip it kind of, you know what I mean? It kinda gets that. Yeah. Dave (53m 44s): You get stuck in that mode of just, and you never wanna do that. Right. Whether you’re steelhead fishing or whatever, where you’re stuck doing the same thing, like, you know, the same, same, same. You really wanna be thinking about what that fly’s doing Right. And fish in the fly, and you’re thinking about the fish. Like you’re, you’re down there. Right. I think that’s what you’re kind of going to don’t get stuck in the same monotonous stuff. Brian (54m 3s): Exactly. That’s because it may seem monotonous as you’re doing it, but as you’re floating, there’s nothing monotonous about it. There’s, you’re never gonna go over that same water in the same day as you did. Yeah. Dave (54m 16s): Right. It’s always gonna be changing. Brian (54m 18s): Right. So, and as far as like changing flies, speaking of kind of monotony and, and stuff like that, I’m one of those people that if the situation is, is very extreme one way or the other, say it’s it’s gonna be rainy all day and the sun will never come out, then I will, I will probably go to, if I have two people in the boat, I’ll probably have one with a very natural fly, you know, like a, like an olive or olive and yellow or, you know, something like that. But then I’ll still have somebody with just white, you know, just like, if you wanna talk colors and, and how often, you know, you’re changing colors. Brian (54m 58s): Myself, me, myself, when I go to a river, there’s so many days I’ll never change the color, like at all. Well, just, you know, if you don’t, if you don’t need to, you, you don’t have to. But, but I’m one of those people that I would rather, I would rather spend the time fishing fly, because this is the way I look at this. We’re not trying to feed these fish, you know, we’re trying to get a, an aggressive something out of why big browns trout, you know, we’re, we’re going knocking on doors to see who opens the door and punches us in the face. Yeah, Dave (55m 31s): Right. You know, Brian (55m 32s): I mean, that’s, that’s what we do. That’s the Dave (55m 35s): Reaction. Brian (55m 35s): Yeah. So I, yeah, I think, yeah, I think it’s more of a reaction. So if you’re trying to feed the fish and they’re actively feeding, there could be differences there. But the way I look at it is I don’t think we’re actively, we’re trying to feed active fish. I, I think we’re trying to, to punch the schoolyard bully and see what Dave (55m 55s): He does, see what, see what happens. Right. Brian (55m 57s): And, you know, just, yeah, just, just get in his, get in his area and see if he hurts us and takes our milk money. Dave (56m 3s): That’s awesome. That’s great. Well, let’s start to take it outta here. We’re gonna do our, our travel segment. And I want to hear, I know you have some top pro fly tire habits. I think there was a video out there. So we, I wanna talk a little about that and we’ll, we’ll wrap it up here with some flight tying stuff. But today’s travel segment is presented by Intrepid camp gear intrepid camp gear.com. They do the rooftop tents, they do some other stuff too. But we see a lot of those around our area. You know, tons of these rooftop tents. They’re, they’re pretty awesome. So that’s, we’re gonna give a big shout out to Intrepid Camp gear. So before we get into the tips, tell me about that. Do you guys see any of these rooftop tents or what, what are you seeing around, what are people, I’m sure they’re camping right around your neck of the woods. Brian (56m 41s): Oh, tons. We like every Jeep and every Jeep Gladiator that has a, you know what I mean? Ha has a rooftop cant on it. Dave (56m 51s): Yeah, there you go. Okay. So there’s plenty out there. Yeah. They’re, they’re, they’re definitely pretty cool. Yeah, they’re awesome. Yeah, we’re gonna be doing some more stuff with them and, and hopefully getting out and, and you know, I haven’t actually been in one yet, so that’s gonna be awesome to do more of this, but they’re kind of doing some good stuff out there, so. Super cool. Yeah. So shout out to Intrepid here today. So what about on your travels? Are you, what are you up to? Are you planning any, you got any trips coming up here? You’re looking, going outside of Missouri or what, what’s your, you’re looking like Brian (57m 17s): Right this second? Like, typically I do have something cooking on the books. Just, you know, just ready right this second. I really don’t, but it’s really kind of funny. Just a little, I don’t know, a little personal side note. My wife’s a nurse and she and I told you we, we are like Dave (57m 37s): Empty nesters. Brian (57m 38s): Empty nesters. So, but she just took a school nurse job, so she’s gonna have all summer off. Dave (57m 45s): Oh, nice. Brian (57m 47s): So I, we purposely didn’t plan anything. Yeah. So we can just go, that’s great. Dave (57m 51s): Go. That’s smart. I love that. So Brian (57m 52s): Yeah, that’s, that’s what we’re gonna do. It’s, that’s a good idea. It’s gonna be different and cool. But yeah, that’s, that’s what we’re looking for to, so that’s the, I’ve got a good reason for not having any trips on the Dave (58m 2s): Books. Yeah, totally. Well, what would be, if you were thinking bucket list, like, you know, trip of a Lifetime, what is something that you would, you haven’t done yet that you’d wanna go for? Oh, Brian (58m 10s): Like Trip of a Lifetime stuff. It’s gotta be salt water. Dave (58m 13s): Salt water. Okay. You like the salt? Brian (58m 15s): Yeah. I’d probably have to be like Cosmo Lito, you know, something like, just, I think I would die happy if I died on a GT flat. Right. You know, from a heart attack from A-G-T-E-D. I know a sandal. Dave (58m 29s): I know. It seems like that would be pretty hard to beat. That’s, that’s it. Nice. Okay, cool. So we got a couple here. Well, let’s, let’s talk about this. Did you remember, I guess it was pretty recent, like the the pro tire habits. What, what was this video about? And, and tell us a little bit about what, why you did that. Brian (58m 43s): Yeah, so number one, I, I think I kicked that video off with the caveat of something along the lines. And I’m, I hate to quote myself, but I’m not, I’m, but I’m not above it either. Yeah. But I say, I say something along the lines of what separates a pro tire from everyday tires like me and you, and I really truly believe this. I, I don’t want to, I don’t wanna put anyth, I don’t want to tell people that I think I’m this big pro tire that’s just phenomenal and stuff. But I’ve just noticed several things that really phenomenal fly tires do that, that some people that would help some people if they would take it, newer people, if they would take it on, you know, like organization is huge. Brian (59m 30s): And I was one of those people for a long, long time that my tools were kind of everywhere and you know, I, you know, I was just trying to tying like that. And when I stopped that and I started like having very kind of, I don’t wanna say regimented because I’m not a regiment kind of guy, but you know, something like that. And this is where this goes, this is where that goes. I know where everything is and, and, and if you’ve ever seen any of my videos and stuff, like I’ve got a fly shop, like literally worth of materials you Dave (59m 60s): Do. You’re organized, you’re organized in there. Brian (1h 0m 2s): Right. And if you’re not, you’re wasting time trying to find materials when you could be tying. And, and I, that’s, I’m just one of those guys. I’m an efficiency guy. You know, we, we’ve said that a couple times on this podcast. I’m an efficiency guy and, and every step, every time you have to stand up and get away from your vice, that’s time that you could be wrapping thread on a hook. Dave (1h 0m 23s): Right. How do, how do you do your, without going too deep, I guess we could probably see, look at some of the videos, but what’s your organization style? What are you using? Is this like, you know, plastic boxes or bins or how, how are you organizing stuff? Brian (1h 0m 34s): Well, actually, Lu Outdoors came up with these bench rings. They’re basically a, a stainless steel cable that has like yellow, yellow plastic wrapped around it basically. And it’s got a screw on one side. And you know, it’s got male and female ends on both sides. So what you could do is like loop your packages from where they’ve hung on the shelf on these bench rings and it keeps everything all on one bench ring. So I’ve got like, I’ve got like my, my MSC dirty bird dubbing, that’s, I’ve got, mm, 18 different packs of that all on one bench ring. Brian (1h 1m 14s): Oh, Dave (1h 1m 14s): And what’s it called? Is it called a Loon Outdoors Bench Ring? Brian (1h 1m 17s): Yep. They’re called, that’s bench rings. Something like there’s, there’s nothing to them. Oh, Dave (1h 1m 23s): Bench rings. Right. So you actually put your, right, so it’s a ring and you put your stuff on the ring and now you’ve got all your stuff for that flyer or whatever. Brian (1h 1m 31s): Exactly. Yeah. So I’ve seen guys, I’ve seen guys do that. If guys are gonna tie a, an olive wooly bugger and they know they’re gonna tie a bunch of olive wooly buggers, they’ll just put all the stuff that it takes to tie an olive wooly bugger on one bench ring. That way they can just go grab that one bench ring and they’ve got everything they need. You know, Dave (1h 1m 52s): That’s, so you literally, and then you could have these bench rings just wherever hanging on your shelf or, and, and this is good. I love it because I got actually Matt, Matt Callie’s is gonna be on the podcast tomorrow. Oh, nice. Yeah. So we, yeah, So we will, we will chat about this a little more. So. Awesome. Okay. So bench rings. So that’s one thing. So basically you have all your stuff on bench rings for the most part when you’re tying in production. Yep. Brian (1h 2m 12s): And they’re hanging, I can see at any glance. So, so for those that haven’t seen my, like my setup, I’ve got this, I’ve got this nine foot tall, six foot wide open shelved unit thing. I don’t even know what to call it that I put little things, you know, little plastic things that have a hook on ’em that I can just hang the bench rings on. And I’ve got, it’s ridiculous. Dave (1h 2m 39s): Do you have a bench ring for every fly big fly pattern you’re tie in? Or is this like for categories or how, what are the bench rings? Brian (1h 2m 45s): Well, I’ve got so many different materials and so for the most part I’ve got one of each color of every material as well. Like, I don’t do it specifically by fly, I do it specifically by material. So yeah. So one bench ring will have all my ice dub on it. One bench ring will have, you know, my flash and, and, and stuff like that. Dave (1h 3m 10s): Gotcha. That’s awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So you don’t have stuff, you don’t have everything stuffed in drawers where it’s buried away. It’s actually sitting out. Brian (1h 3m 17s): Yeah. Almost all that material is within eye shot of me right this second. And you know, my bucktail, oh, that’s something else too. So sorry to Totally, yeah. Yeah. Shift gears. But bucktail just a little tip. So I have, I don’t know how many bucktails I’ve got, say I’ve got 50 bucktails bucktails are, there’s no great way to store Bucktails, but, you know, have you seen those shoe holders that go over like a door, Dave (1h 3m 46s): A shoe holder? Yeah, Brian (1h 3m 47s): It’s like a, it’s like a, a shoe holder that will go on like a closet door or something like that. It has, you know, five or six like stalls wide. Dave (1h 3m 56s): Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Like put your shoes in. Yep, sure. Brian (1h 3m 58s): They hold bucktails exceptionally. Dave (1h 4m 1s): Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Brian (1h 4m 3s): So, so I’ve got like, I’ve got like 50 bucktails and I can see ’em. ’cause you can, it’s, it’s all plastic that you can see through, they’re Dave (1h 4m 10s): Hanging in your shelf or whatever. Brian (1h 4m 11s): Yeah. They’re just hanging on my door, on your door and, yep. So, you know, just, you know, organization is really, really good. And, and I, that is honestly something that I wish I had learned way earlier. I, I really feel like I’d be, I’d be leaps and bounds in a different place if I had learned that way earlier. Dave (1h 4m 29s): So organization is used. No, I, I think that’s probably, yeah, that’s probably where we could keep that tip. I mean, there’s a whole bunch more. So I guess that’s a good thing right now. People can go check out your YouTube channel and watch this video. Right. ’cause it’s fairly recently you, you put that out. Brian (1h 4m 42s): Yeah. And, and actually it’s funny that we talk about this today. I’m starting a, like a studio revamp video. Oh, nice. So there’ll be one of those out, easily out by the time this, this podcast Dave (1h 4m 56s): Stays. Okay. So Stu, that’d be great. So we’ll look for that. So studio revamp and we’ve got your YouTube channel. Well, a couple random ones and then we’ll take it outta here today, you know, of course music, we can’t pass on that. I, I can’t remember what we talked about last time, but maybe talk about some music. We wanna take us away and look at the Spotify and listen to something on the way out today. What would you be listening to here? Or, or if you were on a road trip? Brian (1h 5m 16s): Oh, road trip. You know, number one, I’m, I’m definitely gonna be listening to podcasts of Dave (1h 5m 21s): Some kind. You, you’re, Brian (1h 5m 22s): So you got podcast on? Yep. Yeah. I, I’m a, I’m a big podcast guy, but like if you’re talking music, you’re gonna see everything on my playlist from like old school stuff from like seventies rock all the way to nineties rap and, ’cause I am, I’m a nineties kid, So Dave (1h 5m 40s): Yeah. What is the nineties rap? Who is it? Is that like who would be a nineties rapper? Brian (1h 5m 44s): Gimme Biggie and Tupac. Oh yeah, Dave (1h 5m 46s): Tupac, right? Brian (1h 5m 47s): Yeah. Just, yeah, Dave (1h 5m 49s): There Brian (1h 5m 49s): You go. I’m showing my age. Yeah. Dave (1h 5m 51s): I love it. Well I think Tupac, I think Biggie or Tupac maybe. They’ve got some stuff to, yeah, I guess they do. We’ll we’ll find something for that from them. Okay, so good. So we got some music. We’ll throw that in the show notes as well. We can listen to that here. And then, and what about the Ozarks? We talked about that at the start. What, do you have any fun facts? This might be a hard one, but on the Ozarks itself, I always think of the show that I think maybe put it on the map, the, what was the, the crazy show Brian (1h 6m 17s): Ozark with Jason Bateman. Dave (1h 6m 18s): Exactly. Bateman, that show was like intense, you know what I mean? But I think obviously you got that. But any other fun facts about the Ozark? What should we be known about this area? Brian (1h 6m 27s): Well, you know, I really truly think, especially like fishing, the Ozarks Ys, like the amount of game fish. I said it earlier, I don’t think people understand, like Dave (1h 6m 39s): No, they don’t. It seems like you’re just like, well they got, yeah, there’s not much, but you got everything. Brian (1h 6m 43s): Yeah, right. You almost have to talk like the Amazon to get, because many like different species as we can. Dave (1h 6m 51s): So name some of those. Well, what are some of, So we talked about some, what, what do we got? We got small mouth bass, we’ve got large mouth, all the trout. What else do you have out there? Brian (1h 6m 59s): We’ve got muskie. We have all the temperate bass. So you’ve got the white bass, the hybrids, which, you know, I still say, I still say to this day, give me, gimme an eight pound hybrid over a 15 pound striper any day. It’s just, but it is, it’s incredible. Like one of our, one of our old fly shops here, it’s just iconic. And Chad Johnson was a, was a big part of it was Dally Ozark, fly Fisher. They had a tournament that was just an all species tournament. Just it’s not, go catch the biggest fish you could catch. It didn’t matter how big they were, just go catch as many species as you could possibly catch. And it took like 15, 16 species to win it. Right. Wow. So it’s just crazy what we’ve got around here. Brian (1h 7m 41s): Yeah, it’s amazing. Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. It’s a, it’s a really, it’s a beautiful place. It really Dave (1h 7m 46s): Is. It is. No, I, I’m excited. Like I said, we’re gonna be going down to this year and I’m really excited ’cause I haven’t been down. I’ve been close, but I haven’t been down in Arkansas and I’m not sure if it’ll actually hit Missouri, but it seems like it’s pretty close by. So, so you never know. Brian (1h 7m 58s): Yeah, the white, you’re gonna love the white. It’s a, it’s a different beast. Yeah. It Dave (1h 8m 2s): Really, is there any out there, what are the, the other tourists, are there touristy things to do out there? If you were coming into that area that, that people are maybe coming for, not for fishing or is it all fishing? Brian (1h 8m 12s): Oh, it’s, well, I mean, we’ve got Branson. Dave (1h 8m 15s): Oh, Branson Brian (1h 8m 16s): And, and I, I don’t, I don’t say that with like a, you know, with a gfa. Yeah, I kind of say it with a gfa, but you know, we’ve got Branson, we’ve got, you know, the granddaddy Bass Pro is in the heart of the Ozarks in Springfield, Missouri. Like there’s tons to mountain biking. I don’t, I don’t know. The new, the new capital of the world of mountain biking is northwest Arkansas. Oh Dave (1h 8m 40s): It Brian (1h 8m 40s): Is. I mean, it it is, it is that northwest Arkansas and mountain biking is rolling and that’s the heart of the Ozarks. Yeah, I gotcha. There’s all sorts of stuff. Anything outdoors, hiking, biking, fishing. Yeah, it’s incredible. It really, really is. Dave (1h 8m 53s): That’s it. Nice. Awesome. Cool, Brian. Well I think we can leave it there and like we said, we’ll send everybody out to fly fishing the Ozarks pretty much everywhere they can just search that YouTube, your website I think eventually will be going strong. And yeah man, this has been a lot of fun. Again, we’ll, we’ll be in touch with you. I’ll be in your neck of the woods this year, so thanks for all your time. Brian (1h 9m 12s): Of course, man. Thanks for having me. Again. Dave (1h 9m 16s): If you wanna see Brian tie and phish some of these patterns in real time, you can check out his YouTube channel right now, fly Fishing The Ozarks, check in with him, let him know. You heard this podcast. It’s packed with tons of tips, tons of goodness. And like he said, he’s gonna be stepping you through all of those materials. So if you’re in the flight time, you gotta subscribe to Brian’s channel today. Do it right now before you head outta here. You get a chance, please, like this podcast, follow, do whatever you can to get that next episode. We are gonna be jumping into more of our good stuff. Lato Zone is around the corner and we’ve always got good ones. If you have an idea, I’d love to hear. If you had another podcast series you’d love to hear, send me an email, dave@wetlyswing.com. Dave (1h 9m 57s): Are we not covering your neck of the woods, the area you live in? I would love to hear that. And if you had an idea for a show or a series, I’m always here. So send me an email, dave@wetlyswing.com. All right, I’m gonna get outta here. It is definitely a late one tonight, burning the midnight oil, getting ready for, for a day tomorrow. And we’re not too far away from kicking off some of these trips. We got some salmon, some salmon, multi salmon. We’re talking Atlantic and Pacific, some big ones there this year. I’m excited for that. If you’re interested in any of these trips and hear more details on them, as always, check in with me and, and we’ll take from there. Dave (1h 10m 37s): I’m gonna let you get outta here. Hope you have a great evening. Hope you have a great morning. And if it’s afternoon, maybe it’s hotter than a popcorn fart out there right now and, and it’s smoking. But for some reason you’re still listening to this podcast if that’s the case. If that’s you, I appreciate you for sticking in right now until the very end and I hope you can connect with me and let me know you’re enjoying the podcast. We’ll talk to you soon. 3 (1h 10m 60s): Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly, swing Fly fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit wet fly swing.com.