CJ’s Reel Southern Podcast #2 | Musky Fishing the Northwoods with Chris Willen

Chad (1s): Welcome to CJ’s Real Southern podcast. I’m your host Chad Johnson, fly fishing guide storyteller and southern soul through and through from the front porch to the river banks. This podcast is gonna be about connection, friends, and maybe learning a trick or two about trophy fishing. So grab a sweet tea tie on your favorite fly and let’s go fishing. And joining us today is gonna be Morgan Gus from Diamond State Fly Shop for our fishing report and what to do in the month of April in those arks. Chad (42s): How are we doing Mr. Morgan? Good. Morgan (44s): Weather’s getting better. Chad (46s): Oh man. Dude, we had a few days Morgan (48s): Are getting longer there. Chad (49s): That work? We had a few days that were crazy there for us Arkansas folks we’re not used to No. 10 below windshield. No. So, yeah, I’m glad the weather’s changing much. Yeah. Morgan (1m 1s): Those days are behind us. Chad (1m 2s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s right. Okay, so what’s going on this month, Morgan (1m 6s): April on the river, I start seeing bugs. Usually early April is when I’m starting to play with a lot of my cat nmps, doing a lot of that. Can still see a shy kill here and there, but not likely. That’s kind of been and gone gotten by then. Yeah. Kind of getting that way from our minow stuff and really starting to focus on bugs. Yeah. So Cadis are coming out early April. Chad (1m 30s): The funny thing, one of the funny things about those April cadi is, you know, when I first got here, I mean, we didn’t have near the hatch that we have now, obviously Right. But when we did, when it started, I could set my calendar on March 15th. Yeah. And they’re a little later now. They Morgan (1m 50s): Are a little later. Yeah. Like it’s early April is when I’m kind of starting to go to my nymph patterns. Right. That’s right. We’re not really seeing prolific hatches in the early parts of April. Kind of start seeing that later part of April, getting some of those better hatches. But you know, I started, we had, it was, it was last year or the year before. We just had one of those spring days where I’m like, these, and we, it was fishing a little tougher, closer to March. Sure. And I was, that’s when I kind of really, I was like, man, I need to switch to Cadi to stuff. And we just wore ’em out and, but not a cadis in the air. But just getting that mindset, I think those fish are starting to see, see those bugs become more active. Morgan (2m 34s): And so I definitely consider, you know, all up and down the river starting to transition to get a little bit more buggy. And that’s really, you know, April, that’s where we’re gonna see a lot of hang out into that evening part of the day and might catch a hatch here and there. And it’s fun. Hopefully you get some dry fly fishing. Chad (2m 54s): Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. And just as the years have rolled on, man, our hatches are just more prolific and more prolific and they just, as our river ages, they just seem to get better and better and Yeah. You know, add in the sulfur hatch, we’ll talk about that here in a couple months. Yeah. That’s, but that’s coming. But just all of our hatches in general are just really coming into their own. Morgan (3m 17s): Yeah. And I mean, like, it just, you know, all across the board in the Ozarks, we’re gonna start seeing fish become more active as they’re, you know, they’re warming up, you know, the insect life as well. So with the cas on the rivers, all your bass species up on the lake, your, your black bass species up on the lake, they’re gonna start transitioning shallow, getting ready for spawning and stuff like that. So getting out on the lake is, is really fun. Right. Chad (3m 44s): April Morgan (3m 44s): Transition Chad (3m 45s): If Morgan (3m 45s): Need to take a Chad (3m 45s): Be a great time to catch ’em. Yeah. Morgan (3m 47s): If you need to take a break from catching trout, which Chad (3m 50s): Everybody should. Morgan (3m 53s): I love going up on the lake and fish and brush piles, you know, submerged brush piles. Yes. As those fish are starting to make that transition. And Chad (4m 3s): I love black bass fishing. I mean it’s, I love it. But I’ll be honest, I haven’t done as much on these lakes. They’re very intimidating to me. I come from a, you know, my world in Mississippi, a 40 acre lake was a really nice lake, you know? Right. Yeah. Morgan (4m 21s): No, Chad (4m 22s): These are big. And, and I had to figure ’em out. Now you walk out here and we got 1300 miles of shoreline and I go, holy crap, where do I put my four inch fly? Right. You know? Yeah. So it can be a little intimidating, although I know if you put in the time and you know where to go and what to do, it can also be very rewarding. We have some amazing bass on our lake. Morgan (4m 41s): Yeah. And this is the time of the year where it starts to narrow, that window starts to narrow as they’re moving up closer to shore and getting ready for that spawn much Chad (4m 49s): More accessible to us. Morgan (4m 52s): And you know, I think as a fly angler, you know, it’s, you get more target fishing. So I mean, I, I fish it conventionally up on the lake as well, but I’ve taken a lot of that conventional, you know, April is when I really start to throw like little flukes and stuff and I’ve kind of just, I’m like, why can’t I do this on a fly Rod? You know? Sure. Slower sinking line. Chad (5m 14s): Yeah. You’re not getting deep anyway. No, you don’t. So why can’t be done on a fly don know Morgan (5m 18s): Rod. Right. You can run ’em on like, like something like your sluggo running that on like a S3 S five triple density line and just working it over the top of brush piles is Chad (5m 31s): So Morgan (5m 31s): Fun. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So fun. I mean, that fly just walks so good. Just kinda like, so very similar to that fluke. Yes. And I was like, I can, we can do this on fly. And it’s, it’s, it’s fun. Chad (5m 43s): Yeah. It’s fun. That’s, and it’s, that’s kind of funny you said that because most people think of the, you mentioned the logo, they think of that as a trout fly. But I actually designed that for as a bass fly because I wanted to get action in dead water. Yeah. And I couldn’t get it with my deceivers and my other bugs. I could get a up and down action, but I couldn’t really get that swimming action. Yeah. And so that’s actually where it designed. I actually had a friend call me and go, Chad, man, I’m killing it on that bug. And I was like, oh yeah, where are you bass fishing? And he goes, bass fishing, I’m catching trout on it. And I was like, you are? Chad (6m 24s): Oh heck, I’ll have to try it. Yeah, Morgan (6m 27s): No, it’s a great, I Chad (6m 28s): Mean, yeah, Morgan (6m 28s): As designed, it’s a great bass bug Chad (6m 30s): And it’s a good still water bug. Yeah. But, okay. So do you start seeing some, is it time for the white bassa to start running up creeks and staging yet? Or is that gonna be a little later or? Morgan (6m 43s): It really depends on where we get with water temps. Okay. On that lake. Chad (6m 49s): Okay. Morgan (6m 50s): Yes, you can Chad (6m 52s): Maybe closer to May before we start seeing those. Morgan (6m 55s): Like I said, it depends, you know, I think this year with the colder, we’re still seeing pretty low lake levels or low lake temperatures, so it might be a little longer. Yeah, that’s right. Okay. But definitely like keep an eye on it and those, I tend to see it more as we start to get into the spawning sha. Chad (7m 16s): Yeah. Okay. Morgan (7m 17s): And chasing sha around. So I would predict, I mean, it’s not to say that it won’t happen, but I tend to see it closer to May. Chad (7m 25s): Okay. Morgan (7m 25s): Into May. Chad (7m 26s): And if guys contact you here at the shop, do you have contacts on the lake? I do. Okay, awesome. Yeah. Okay. Morgan (7m 36s): And I’m not, you know, here and Beaver Lake as well, we have contacts all over. Chad (7m 42s): So that’s with down state. If you’re looking at doing the black bass fishing, I actually don’t offer that. I don’t have guide program on the lake. So Mr. Morgan could take care of you on that. Morgan (7m 55s): Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Reach out to us. It’s not something that we necessarily promote a lot. Chad (8m 2s): Right. But you Morgan (8m 3s): Have access. But we do have access to it. Okay. Chad (8m 5s): You have anything going on through the shop this month you want to tell us about or Morgan (8m 11s): Not? Not really much going on in the shop. Okay. We’re just pretty busy here. Okay. As you know, it’s busy time of month, so. Yeah, that’s Chad (8m 20s): Right. Morgan (8m 20s): We got, you know, between me and Logan we’re both out. Yeah. Running around guiding. Yeah. Trying to run the shop and it’s, it’s busy. It’s, so we’re kind of taking, you know, April, may we kind of Chad (8m 32s): Buckle, chill out, buckle down. Yeah. Yeah. Buckle Morgan (8m 34s): Down, chill out on doing like many events in the shop or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah. Chad (8m 38s): Save that for the slower time. Yeah. Plenty of people coming in right now. That’s Morgan (8m 42s): Right. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So, I mean, but we’re always here. Yeah. We’re always casting in the yard or tying, so Sure. Anybody’s welcome to stop in and hang out and Chad (8m 52s): Yeah guys, they have a great little gig here. You can overlook cot or it’s a beautiful place. Come in if you’re of age, have a beer with the boys, whatever. But, all right, Morgan, thanks for talking to us this week. Looking forward to hearing you on next month’s episode. I know may kicks off a lot of cool things, so. All right. It sounds like this month we’re looking at brown trout on Dries and, and black bass on the lakes, guys. And if you guys want to do any smallmouth fishing or any brown trout or rainbow fishing, don’t forget, just call my service CJ’s White River Outfitters. Chad (9m 36s): I also have CJ’s Crooked Hideaway, which is a rental property, beautiful cabin on a bluff over Crooked Creek that I can put you guys up. Has eight beds and so, all right. Until next month guys. And I want to introduce Chris Will. He is a muskie guide from up north. He’s been down and fished with me quite a bit, become good friends over the years and he’s got a lot of good stuff to talk to us about. How are you doing Mr. Chriss? Chris (10m 8s): I’m doing really well, man. It’s, it’s good to talk to you brother. Chad (10m 11s): Yeah. No long time. No. See we miss you guys down here. I know everybody’s busy these days. So Chris, what do you do up in the North woods? Give us a little little bit about what you have going on. Chris (10m 25s): Alright, now we got a lot of snow shoveling going on buddy, but come into May here while Musky season opens up. We got, as you know, you’ve been up here doing a little fishing, smallmouth fishing in the, in the neighborhood. Absolutely. Our smallmouth bass regulation changed a few years ago and we have a open season year round now. So once the weather breaks and all that stuff goes, we can start bass fishing as soon as they’re, they’re back. And I think you probably are super well aware of this, maybe some listeners aren’t that are Midwest small mouse migrate a lot. Chris (11m 7s): So our fish aren’t really in the river right now. They, they drop out out of the river and go to the flowage, which are, we call flows up north everywhere else in the country we call it a reservoir. Okay. Okay. Yeah. For some reason up here we call ’em Flowage. Well, Chad (11m 23s): That’s a good distinction between the two. People often ask me what they mean by flowage because they think of it because flowing. They think of it as just the river, but it’s not, it’s your reservoirs. Chris (11m 34s): Yeah. If it’s our, and a lot of ’em do have current through ’em. They’re damned up parts of the river. So they’ll be sections of river a lot of times or sections of river that had lots of lakes. Like the Chippewa Flowage, the big famous flowage in our, in our neighborhood here was seven lakes that the river connected and then they flooded it to make it one big continuous flowage or reservoir of usage. Chad (12m 2s): And that would have just multiple small dams on it. Chris (12m 6s): It would have two dams or, well, depending, you know, they have different forks that come in. But essentially you’d have one dam at the end that kind of flooded and, and held up everything and then something that generated power usually also, you know. Chad (12m 24s): Okay. So the rivers that you would be smallmouth fishing on, are these the same rivers that you would be targeting muskie or is that kinda two different places? Chris (12m 34s): Yeah, a lot of our rivers up here have both, so we do do a lot of the same, same rivers, but there’s also like, you know how it is, this river’s a little bit better for that. This river’s a little bit better for that. This section’s a little better for that this time of year, you know, with the migration of small mouses, they, they leave in the fall and they come back in the spring. And so, you know, that comes into play too, where wherever they’re gonna be at in the river. So even though when the ice goes out and everything looks cool, you know, we got a lot of water and it looks like you could go float down the river and have some fun. There’s actually not a lot of, Chad (13m 10s): It’s more like a salmon run. I mean, you, you’ve got ’em in at a specific time and they’re gone at a specific time. Chris (13m 16s): Yeah. And they’re there most of all the summer, you know. Chad (13m 19s): Would that mean, like you, you mentioned, I’m just playing in my head here, that you mentioned there was a couple flowage, I mean dams and they move in and out and then you said some will fish different than others. I would imagine that that lower end would have to be more small mile fishable water because they obviously can’t get past the dams. Right. Chris (13m 40s): They can’t get past the dams. That’s right. But sometimes they run up, you know, they’ll run as far as, you know, to the dam and, and depending on where you’re at, that could be many, many miles. You know, some of the stuff in western Wisconsin is, you know, the, the border and stuff like that. They, they go for many, many miles, you know? Yeah, Chad (13m 60s): I know when I was up with you that, I mean we had phenomenal bycatch, you know, I caught nice walleye, caught nice smallmouth while we were muskie fishing. Chris (14m 10s): Right. And that was because you were around in the early fall. So those, those walleyes are eating a little bit bigger stuff. The smallmouth are eating bigger stuff as they start to drop out. And then you start to, you can run into some really big small mouths muskie fish in late season. They, the big flies tend to bring ’em out. You know, you see on the conventional tackle side of things, a lot of the big bass guys using those big swim baits and glide baits and whatnot, you know, and Chad (14m 43s): Absolutely they look like musky baits. Right? Chris (14m 46s): Sure. And, and so that’s kind of what these big musky flies are to these bigger smallmouth and, you know, our big small mouse depending, you know, we’re, we’re not, we’re not getting anything much over six pounds ever. You know, maybe one a year that big if you’re lucky. Chad (15m 2s): Yeah. But a five pound smallmouth in a, in a river is, well, I mean, let’s be honest, that’s ridiculous. Chris (15m 9s): Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s much more realistic. Chad (15m 12s): Right. A five pounder, not the three pounders people are calling five pounders. Right. Like Right. A true five pound smallmouth is a beast. I mean we get nothing like that down here. You know, if we get a three pounder, we freaking rocked it. Right. That that’s a amazing Ozark smallmouth. But for you guys, I mean, to get that 20 inch four pound or that 22 inch five pound, I mean, not that it happens every day, but it is very doable for you guys. Chris (15m 43s): Yeah. You know, I don’t do as many smallmouth trips as I’d like to do just ’cause I’m so musky based. Sure. So, you know, we do a lot of the pre-PA and stuff before Musky season is open. But my biggest smallmouth this year was during the summer on a smallmouth trip and it was just, was it 22 and something? And it was ginormous. It jumped a couple times and I was just like, oh no, nothing’s huge. Yeah. Yeah. Chad (16m 10s): When they show theirselves before we get ’em in the boat, it’s kind of freak out time. Right. That’s the holy crap, look what’s on the end of my line kind of deal. Chris (16m 18s): Well when they’re smallies and they don’t get their total tail out of the water, they just kind of get part of their body out of the water. You’re like uhoh. Chad (16m 24s): Yeah. That’s the action of a large mouth. Right? Yeah. When these big sows try to jump up and they can’t even get out of the water, that’s freaking amazing. So you talked a little bit, you said, you know, they would go after the big musky flies and before I’d jump into the fly gig, just real quick, so we talked a little bit about your smallmouth. I know that’s your pre spawn, that’s your early season. But once you get into muskies, what are you doing? What’s your game? Chris (16m 51s): So muskies last for us, so Wisconsin is broke into two zones and I’m in the northern zone, so our zone doesn’t open to the last Saturday in May and Memorial Day weekend. And you know, it’s real hit or miss depending on what’s going on. Sometimes they’re biting real small stuff, sometimes they’re biting, you know, quote unquote normalized musky stuff. Sometimes they’re not around, you know? Right. Chad (17m 22s): Sometimes. Well, I mean, we know, I mean, anybody that’s spent any time musky fishing knows that like, that is the hunt. I mean, where we’ll tell guys down here like our big two footers, oh, you know, it’s just like a musky hunt. Like you gotta put in your time and all, but it’s really not like a muskie hunt. I mean that you guys really grind it out. Like y’all have to go work for those fish. But then when you get ’em, it makes it all that much better. Which I would assume takes a special customer and to, to want to put in that kind of time for a fish. But like it’s, it’s so gratifying when you do. Chris (17m 59s): Yeah. It’s just with, especially with a fly, you know, it takes time. It takes time to get a really big one. You know, you can go out and, and catch ’em, just like you can go out and catch browns. Right, right. Chad (18m 13s): We’re gonna go catch some 20 inches. Chris (18m 15s): Yeah. And, but like to go out and get the muskie that you’re looking for, you know, the, the, the one it’s, it’s, it’s an amount of work and it’s a blast, man. I mean, I, I don’t know this, I’ve been doing it for a long time and there’s still nothing I like more. I’m lucky to get to do a lot of different stuff and at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, there’s not much else I’d rather do than go chase the muskies, whether it be with a fly or with a lure or what, what have you. Chad (18m 48s): Right. Just that bigger, not just bigger, but the more challenging fishing seems to be, like you say, just a little more gratifying. I know, you know, in all of my predator hunting when I came up there with you guys, I was there for a week. I had two eats and I’ll never forget ’em. Like Chris (19m 10s): That’s right. Chad (19m 11s): Which is very, I’ve caught a lot. I’ve been very fortunate. Got to go to some really cool places, got to catch some really big fish. But the way those fish eat and as hard as it is to catch ’em, when you actually get that bite, like I never, one of them, I got taken to a little kitty pool ’cause I had not caught one yet, and I got taken to a kitty pool and I literally done a figure eight in two foot of water weighed fishing and he ate at my Chris (19m 37s): Feet. Chad (19m 38s): That’s ridiculous. You know, and the other one that I had, I remember, I think I was with you, we were coming through a very, very skinny sho couple foot deep at best. I get close to the boat, my fly gets hung on a rock and I look down and there’s a muskie sitting right beside my fly. Oh yeah, Chris (19m 59s): Dude. Chad (19m 60s): And evidently he had followed it out and it was hung on the rock. So when I pushed towards the bank to get the fly off of the rock, and when it snapped off of that rock with that acceleration, he ate it. And it all happened so quick that I just totally muffed up the trout, I mean the hook set. And you know, no way was I expecting that fish in that kinda water. And so, but literally burned in my memory. I I, I’ll never forget the way he looked at me before he freaking took off to the left to the fly. Like, it, it just, the whole thing, you know, so it is, it’s a different bite. It’s a different type of fishing and it’s a different reward. Chris (20m 39s): Yeah. And just, you know, something about the environment where they, they live and if you’re talking river fishing, you know, I’ve pivoted a little bit and done a little bit more out on the bigger bodies of water with water level changes and stuff. And we can talk about that in a little bit. But just talking about river fishing and a fly and, and that stuff, and just seeing a fish that’s 25 to 30 pounds coming out of a spot and water that you could walk easily from bank to bank, you know, and it’s just like, it just sometimes to me it just, you know, and after seeing it so many times too, so I mean, don’t, don’t get it skewed, but sometimes it’s just like, what are you doing here? You don’t look like you, you belong in this little body of water, you know? Chad (21m 21s): Yeah, right. Just a giant in this little bitty flowage Chris (21m 25s): And it’s just, it’s cool man. You know, and like to your point, I don’t remember every smallmouth I’ve caught. I don’t remember every red fish, I don’t remember every trout. But if I think hard enough, you know, you can remember most of those muskies or most of those people’s muskies and, and just seeing all that stuff and how it unfolds and it’s just a different thing, you know. And for us up here, it’s just a regional thing, you know, it’s just our big top of the line thing, you know. And some people don’t, don’t dig it. You know, some people would rather go small mall fishing or walleye fishing or whatnot, but the guys that, that muskie fish generally muskie fish, and that’s what they do. Chad (22m 6s): Yeah. They’re diehards. I mean, we were talking about it in my boat yesterday, just how, you know, there’s no other thing in our lives that we give this kind time to receive so little back from it. Right. Chris (22m 21s): That’s the Chad (22m 22s): Truth. Chris (22m 24s): We Chad (22m 24s): Have devoted our lives and, and in saying we get so little back from it. I mean, just like you, I’ve met most of my friends in fishing. Some of my closest friends are from fishing. And it’s this predator hunting mentality that has brought us close together and give us this kinship. So like it does bring you more than just the fish you catch. Chris (22m 48s): Absolutely. Chad (22m 48s): It is very rewarding. But we put in a lot of time for a little payback. Chris (22m 55s): Oh yeah. If we put in a half the effort fishing that, you know, into something that actually had monetary return, we would all be all be doing a little bit better. We, Chad (23m 6s): We’d all be rich by now instead of living out of our trailers. Yeah. But it’s a give and take, right? Like that’s that whole, like, we only get one shot at life. This is what we’ve chosen to do with it. You know, I mean it’s, yeah. It’s crazy. Some people say we’re just beating our heads against the wall. But some of my best, best memories have been made in a boat. Chris (23m 27s): Absolutely. Chad (23m 28s): Predators, you know, the grind, the hunt together, they’re taking very little data and trying to put that together and make something out of it where we can target ’em better. Like the whole process is just different than all of the other fishing that I do. Chris (23m 44s): Oh yeah. And it’s a mindset, you know, the guys that really love it. And pretty funny story, not this past season, but the season before, I’ve had a group of guys that have been coming for a long time and we had the worst week of guiding that I’ve ever had and 15 plus years of this. And it was awful. I mean, we just, the fishing was not happening, you know, couple boats going every day and just, that’s how it went. And you know me, I don’t really tend to have too many alcoholic beverages. And we got done at the end of the trip and we all went out to dinner that night and I ordered a cocktail and everyone, you know, these guys know me and they’re like, wow. Chris (24m 26s): And I’m like, yeah boys, I am gonna need one after this. Like, yeah, Chad (24m 31s): That was a rough one. Chris (24m 33s): That was the worst week of guiding that I’ve ever seen. And they were like, that’s the worst you’ve ever seen. That was the, that was it. We were the worst. And I was like, yeah, it had nothing to do with you guys. The fish just weren’t biting, you know what I mean? Right. And it was just terrible. And all they did was rejoice. They were like, good. Yeah, it’s us. We were the last, we were the ones like yeah, we had the shittiest the ground trip. Yeah. And yeah, they were like, all right, well we’re gonna add a boat for next year and we’re gonna, you know, and they ended up not adding a boat. These guys ended up having to do a wedding. We just did two boats again, but they came out and we smoked them. You know, we, we got some big fish and we had a great trip. And I actually caught a giant one with them fishing a little bit with them. Chris (25m 16s): Awesome. Which had, doesn’t happen a lot, but it did happen that day. And it ended up being my biggest Wisconsin fish of the whole season. And one of the guys got it on video of us netting it. And I just grabbed this dude and I’m hugging him and grabbing him. ’cause it was just such a giant muskie, you know? And, and they were all about it. And this dude catches giant tunas and all kinds of crazy stuff offshore. And he gets the musky grind, you know, and then a couple hours later, his buddy got one that was like right around 45 inches. That was a, a tank. So it was, it was just a day, you know, like you, you, you have the year before where we got our butts kicked just continuously day after day of, you name it, we had it, bad weather, low water, yada, yada, you know, and they just didn’t bite. Chris (26m 4s): And then the next year we get two really quality muskies in a day. And you’re just like, that’s it. You know, you, you’re, you’re paying those dues and you’re getting tested and then you show up again and the magic happens. Chad (26m 17s): Well, let’s be honest. I mean, if they were trophies, I mean, if we wouldn’t catch ’em every day, you know, if they’re trophies, if these things are so hard to grind out. So like really our customers in a manner and, and they’ve gotta understand this, like you’re somewhat buying a lottery ticket. You know, the day you show up, the day you get there, is the water right? Is the sun out? Or do we have clouds? What are the conditions? Because I don’t know about you up north, but for me it’s all about conditions, right? When I get the right conditions we produce, when I don’t get the right conditions, it’s a grind. And so you’ve just gotta keep putting in your time and keep buying your tickets so that you are there on that day where everything lines out and everything comes together and boom. Chad (27m 6s): But I related a lot to permit fishing. You know, these guys have been going permit fishing for 10 years to get their permit. Guys, you’re not gonna come and catch a 30 inch or just because you come and bought a ticket on the White River, you’re not gonna go catch a muskie just ’cause you jumped in Chris’s boat. Like, you kinda gotta put in your time and go, well, but I know that I have a better chance with these guys and going out with these guys to get that fish and so I’m just gonna continue to put in my time. And so it really is, it’s a marathon, not a sprint Chris (27m 43s): With muskies too. I mean, pure point of the lottery ticket, I think with, with the guided muskie fishing, you’re getting an elevated ticket, you know, it’s just like, all right. Especially for a big muskie, like a really big one. It’s like, okay, I’ve seen this fish before. I know where this one is. This is the right time that I can, the best to the best of my ability. I’m gonna put you there at the time that it anywhere we’re in a river float, as you know, our rivers aren’t really set up that well for running around, right? So you’re in a drift boat a lot of times. So I may not be able to put you on that spot at sunrise or at sunset or at, you know, X, y, z, moon set, moonrise, moon under head, moon over foot, yada yada, yada. Chris (28m 29s): I can just put you there to the best of the ability and be like, okay, this is how she sets up, this is where she’s gonna be. And that’s kind of the stuff that I like to teach people these days. Like wherever you’re fishing, whatever you’re doing, like you can figure it out. You know, you can be like, okay, so why is that fish there? And then, you know, you can talk about it. I’m, I’m kind of famous now for being like the guy that drops the anchor and pulls over and explains what happened. You know, like, okay, let’s talk about this for a second. You know, Chad (28m 57s): I like that. Chris (28m 58s): And by, by Famous, I mean they’re probably annoyed of me by it, right? But I’m like, but I’m like, listen, hang on, let’s talk about what just happened. Like, okay, why was it sitting there? What was it, what was it doing? Why does it live there right now? And is it just a happenstance type of thing? Or is it like, okay, we’ve got deep water adjacent, or if it’s springtime, is there spawning ground adjacent? Is there this, is there that, what’s correlating to making that fish? You know, it’s not just, most of the time there’s a simple explanation, but there is an explanation, there is a reason It’s not just there outta happenstance most of the time. Chad (29m 35s): Yes. Whitlock used to give me, Dave Whitlock used to gimme info and he would tell me something and I’d come back to him after trying it and go, okay, so it’s really good that I know it works, but I wanna know why it works. Because if I know why it works, I can replicate it somewhere else. But if I don’t understand exactly right, why then I can’t replicate it. And so I think what you’re doing is great. Don’t worry about if they get annoyed with it. You are actually, that is a great thing to teach your customers because they can then use that information when they go back home. You know, that’s, that’s a very good teaching tool for your customers. Chad (30m 17s): I know that you have guided it up there a lot. You have guided down in Tennessee quite a bit. Talk to me just a little bit about like what’s the differences between the north and the south fishery that you fish? And I know you’re not going down to Tennessee anymore, I just kinda like to know like what were the differences you’ve seen in the muskie from up north and down south? Chris (30m 41s): Well, there was a, there’s a lot of differences, but a couple of the things that stand out to me is being able to fish ’em, pres spawn down there where you can’t, we’re not allowed to fish ’em, pres spawn in the north. So you see some really monster girths and big egg wagons basically. And that’s kind of cool. And how they behave, where they get on those feeds, pres spawned that are, that are kind of interesting and being able to figure that out and, and, and having to figure that out. Just ’cause I’d never been able to, you know, we don’t get to target ’em. So there was a learning curve there. Chad (31m 19s): Yeah. It wasn’t in your wheelhouse, it was a, a new venture for you, so to speak. What do they act like during that time? Right? Chris (31m 27s): Yeah, exactly. And then like, you know, just our fish up north, we don’t, and it’s not like this everywhere, but the fish that I fish for are a much more sucker based diet fish or in the lakes they’re birch croppy, you know, rough fish based. And in the south a lot of the fish are shad based and that’s a completely different approach than, than what we do up here. So that took a little bit of figuring out and that was cool. And just the, the clarity of the water is a big difference too. I mean, just to break it down probably to the most, the, the simplest factor is, and our water up here, it’s a little bit more tannic stained and you, you look, you can’t see in it quite as well. Chris (32m 14s): And a lot of the places I fished down south were very clear. So you would see the muskie activate to fly or lure further away from the boat. You’d pick it up further away. And what I would learn is that like a lot of times these fish would follow it for a ways and then just break off and they’d never even come near the boat where up north at home, I would never see that fish if it didn’t come to the boat because I can’t see it out there. Chad (32m 43s): Right. Chris (32m 44s): So you would see a lot more activity and a lot more, maybe for lack of a better term, curiosity from the muskie from them going down the river in a day because Chad (32m 55s): Back home you’re not seeing those looky-loos that are just coming out and checking it out. You’re only seeing the ones that come in for the boat play. Chris (33m 3s): Yeah. You’ll see ’em, you know, on a bright, sunny day low water Right. Conditions, you know, you might see ’em, but not generally, no. And then what we would have up north inversely to down south, I didn’t see a lot of this down south, is we would have the waken takes, you know, where we’re fishing shallow water and you cast a fly and then all of a sudden all, you know, here comes this tidal wave from downstream or upstream that’s coming towards your fly and you don’t have that as much down south, you know? So that’s a difference. But really the clarity, I mean the tannic waters in our rivers, like we very rarely in Wisconsin blow out. Like it takes a, a really a lot or a a a rather large water event or rain or whatever to, to have a blowout situation. Chris (33m 49s): And even if we do, we’ve got all these natural lakes to go and fish. So it’s, it’s, there’s never really a blowout at all. If you book a trip, we’re gonna fish somewhere. Tennessee blows out at the drop of a hat and with that comes all these different levels of clarity of water, which never really was a factor up north. But when you fish down south, you’re like, all right, we got super gin clear, we got the like blue clear, we got the green clear, we got the milky green, we got the yuhoo brown totally gone, we got the greeny brown that you can still kind of see your fly. Like there’s so many levels of what the water looks like. Chris (34m 31s): Yeah. That’s the same thing. Yeah, exactly. And you figure out like, hey, well during this water clarity, you could really fool ’em because they can see it, but they can’t see it too good. And you really, you know, can whack ’em during those periods or like, you know, it’s too dirty and it’s like you, you know, unless you got a rattle bait or something that’s making all kinds of noise, you don’t have a chance. There’s, there’s no chance. There’s no way they’re finding a fly like zero. Chad (34m 58s): Yep. Chris (34m 58s): And then, you know, when it’s super gin clear, that’s hard too. Yeah. Chad (35m 3s): You might move them from further away, but they can see your fly better and they don’t fall for it as easy and they probably don’t come to as much boat play. Chris (35m 13s): No. Or they just don’t play the game at all and you float past them and you’re like, well there was a big one and we didn’t even wanna, you know, like look at it. That was, yeah, that was slightly anti-climactic. You know, Chad (35m 25s): We found him boys, but yeah, we’re, he’s not playing today Chris (35m 30s): And you know, I’ve seen that with you guys down there on the white too, where you float over a brown and you’re like, golly, that was, that was a real one. And but it didn’t do anything. You know, you’re just seeing Chad (35m 39s): It do nothing. Yeah. They lock jaw at times. We had a scenario last, just last week where we had our waterfall out and, and it got dirty and we that medium dirty and we were throwing into the chocolate milk, but pulling into that green milky water and I love it. Freaking crushed them. Like got a 28 that day, got a 24 that day like in dead low water. But that water clarity made it where they were eating our pushers and they were feeling them more so than seeing them and they didn’t question them as much. And so that predator water clarity thing is very real in all of our southern regions. Chris (36m 24s): Totally. And then, you know, it does translate to up north too, if we get super low and clear that even our tannic water can get really clear and you, you’re seeing every contour of the river bottom and the fly selection gets pretty small. And what I mean by that is a lot of the flies that you might throw just aren’t gonna work. You know, they’re just, you know, either to this or to that, or not enough this or not enough that, you know, whatever it is. And I’m not maybe gonna be a little bit too secretive with that, but there’s only a few things that I’ve found that work when it’s like that and that’s it, you know? Yeah. Chad (37m 2s): The same way here, the same way here. Like when it gets like that, you know, they’re not eating, they, you’re not gonna get that big aggressive, for us a big fly is seven, eight inches, you know, a little smaller than your musky bugs and you’re just not gonna get those fish to go on those bugs and that kinda water. And the same here, like you go to a different style bug for that scenario and it works and you can throw those big ones all day. A big thing for me that I find that I don’t mind talking about is I think there’s a huge difference for us in a, a reaction bite versus a feeding bite when the river’s big and they’re out and they’re hunting and they’re aggressive and they feel good, I’m gonna be throwing big flies for big fish. Chad (37m 49s): But when that water drops out and they’re not in that mood and they’re not in that big predatory state, well, Dave Whitlock told me one time, he goes, Chad, I really like what you’re doing. I don’t want you to quit what you’re doing. You’re putting big fish in the boat, but I want you to remember something. He goes, it takes a special fish on a special day to eat that fly. And he goes, and you’re finding them. He goes, but I want you to remember every one of those fish will eat a three inch minnow. And that set on me super hard. Right? I was like, Hmm, he’s right. And so I started thinking about what am I catching the most of? I’m catching the most of these males, the most aggressive ones right? Chad (38m 32s): During the pon, right? So it’s when they’ve been fighting off all these other fish, when they have been aggressive to all these other brown trout that are trying to get on their beds and yada yada yada, that they get that aggression. And unless we go to that seven or eight inch fly, we’re really not pissing ’em off because for a three inch fly to be in their territory is not offensive for ’em. For a seven or eight inch fly to be in their territory or fish to be in their territory, they’ll run him off. And so I find that I get either a big fly aggression bite or a small fly feeding bite. If you look at our bait boys down here, they catch giants and they’re never fishing anything over a three inch minnow. Chad (39m 19s): And so, right. It’s just that mentality for us as trophy hunters. And we know these big flies have put so many big fish in our boat, but it’s not the answer every time. Chris (39m 32s): Well, I think a lot with those bait guys too, is their ability to keep that in their zone of awareness for so long. Chad (39m 39s): Yes. We’re always asking them to chase. Chris (39m 43s): Oh yeah, well you’re getting it into their, into their zone of awareness for a, you know, a snap of a finger, maybe two snaps of a finger. They’re able to keep that thing in a zone of awareness for maybe seconds, you know, five seconds, eight seconds and 10 seconds. Or if it’s just sitting there on the bottom infinitely infinite, infinite seconds. Yeah, that’s right. Chad (40m 5s): Well, it’s like I, I got a buddy that’s on his 21st birthday. His buddies asked him what he wanted to do, and these were bait guides. And he goes, man, I wanna buy my first legal case of beer and I want to go down and sit on that big fish. We’ve been looking at all these months. And they go down and get him his case of beer and they go down and park on this fish and put a scalping in front of his face. And hour three the fish swam up and ate it. So like they literally just sit there with a bug, a foot in front of his face for three hours and this fish pulled up over the bait to fill for a line and there was nothing. And he backed up and he pulled back over it and felt for a line and backed up and then two minutes later swam up and eat it. Chad (40m 50s): So like we never get that opportunity. We’re never sitting with a fly. I mean, whether we’re fishing a, a nymph, a streamer, a whatever, it’s in and out of their zone. Quick, quick. And so really when we’re catching these fish on flies during the day, that is a huge feat. Like these guys that are putting the big fish in the boat, they gotta realize what they’ve done. You know, you’ve taken a nocturnal fish and got him to feed during the day is really, it’s crazy that we’re able to do what we’ve been able to do, in my opinion. Chris (41m 29s): Pretty fun though. Oh Chad (41m 30s): Dude, it’s so much fun and people either get it or they don’t get it. All right, I’m gonna move on. I got another question for you here. So let’s geek out on flies a little bit. I’m not asking you to give up any secrets when to use what, but in your opinion, what makes a good muskie fly? ’cause I’m a fly designer, I, I enjoy tying, but I tie for bass and trout and stripers and that type thing. And the musky world is just so different because y’all’s flies are so enormous. So like, I know it’s a loaded question, but what makes a good musky fly? What triggers are you trying to hit Chris (42m 11s): Hit? I think the biggest thing with the making a good musky fly, honestly, is castability. You know, if you tie it to the point where it’s unaskable, it’s no longer anything that even deserves to be spoken about because it’s not, you’re not getting it anywhere it needs to be, you know? So that’s huge. And you know what’s funny about that? We just had the Bob and the Hood event and at Schultz Outfitters two weekends ago, weekend ago, whatever it was now. Yep. Chad (42m 38s): Great fly shop up north. Chris (42m 40s): And I tied a bunch of flies and a bunch of the guys there have been fishing with me for a long time. And one of the guys that works in the shop, Jesse, he’s caught a bunch of muskies up north with us, with me and Timmy and, and Lucky. And I ended up giving him, he, he tied me a bunch of bass flies and I gave him the muskie fly that I tied during my class. And he is like, you know, every year your, your fly gets sparser and sparser. And I was like, yeah, ’cause I’m getting older and older bud. Like I wanna be able to throw it over there. Right. And you know, to talk about fly fishing, right? Why did we start fly fishing? It was to cast something that couldn’t be casted anymore because it was so light. Chad (43m 24s): Absolutely. Chris (43m 24s): Some of the musky flies, you could throw ’em further than you could cast them. And it’s sorta skewed, if that makes any sense. You know? Dang right. Chad (43m 33s): Some of these things you could throw on a spinning Rod. Chris (43m 36s): Yeah. And they’re cool and they’re awesome and they look great. That’s cool. But I’m 38, bro, my arm hurts. I’ve been doing this for 15 years. Like I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, you know. Well, Chad (43m 50s): I think too, you’re like, you’re not just older as in hey, in my arm, but like you’re wiser, like when we were young, we’re trying to come up with all of these things, you know, we’ve just, we gotten our heads like, I mean it’s very obvious with what we were seeing, the bigger, the better. Right? I mean that was the mentality we had early on. And then as we progressed and changed, we realized maybe we’re coming down to what it actually takes. Right? Like I used to want to tie nine and 10 inch flies and I realized that on the White River, if I’m at seven or eight, I’m just fine. I’m triggering the same fish, I’m getting the same reactions that seven to eight inches is just perfect for us. Chad (44m 32s): And then I’m in the same boat you are. I have worked very hard at making my flies castable because I mean, just basically if they’re not, yeah. ’cause we have to, I mean, especially here, you know, I’m not in open water. I’m expecting these guys, when we get big water, I mean we’re casting under trees, we’re casting that’s right around logs and rocks. We need to be able to make a good presentation, not just a delivery system where we clunk this big old wet sock out there that after an hour of fishing we’re tired. Chris (45m 4s): That’s right man. And a lot of my guiding, especially river guiding drift boat guiding it is put the fly behind that rock, put the fly that swim it down that long, put it behind this particular spot in the rapid. Like there’s specific spots that it needs to be to up your chances of your lottery ticket getting hit. You know? And if you can’t get it there, you can’t get it there. And it just, you know, the fish cannot be caught. And you know, I’m very lucky in that I get to fish with Larry Dahlberg a lot and he has a, a sort of a, a famous saying that says A fish does not care what it’s caught on. You know, so it doesn’t need to be the next super whistler thing. Chris (45m 48s): It needs to be the thing that can get there and be in its zone of awareness for those seconds of time. And those seconds of time need to be the maximum seconds amount of time that are allotted. Whether, you know, if you’re using a fly with an intermediate line to knock, get stuck on the bottom, then your allotment is shorter. If you’re using a, you know, a sinking line when you should be using a floating line and your allotment gets shorter, be, you know, because you’re gonna get stuck and if you don’t move it, you know. Absolutely. Or, or what, or whatever it is. You know, if you don’t have it pieced together perfectly, things get exponentially harder. But, so the, the fly stuff man, it’s just, it is a loaded question for sure. It, it’s just, I talk about a FFA lot with Musky fly fishing and it’s sort of funny and some people laugh pretty hard about it, but I call the a FF the anti-fatigue factor. Chris (46m 39s): So I want a nice easy cast and Rod, I want a nice easy cast in line. I don’t want you lacerating down the river. I want you to just cast it nice and easy for me because we’re gonna be doing it. I guarantee you, I promise you that you’ll get to do it again. You will get to make another cast. So if it doesn’t get to go exactly where you want it to go, we got hundreds more from A to B in a day. So it’s just like nice and chill and nice and easy and you know, same thing with brown trout, same thing with muskies. Anytime you’re throwing big flies or or chasing down the, the top dog, they could bite it in the last spot of the day just as well as they could bite it in the first spot of the day. Chad (47m 24s): Yeah, that’s right. Chris (47m 25s): So if you’re just a whipped dog at the end of the day and cannot move your arm, but I got this log right above the takeout, man, I got this log and I’m telling you, there is a donkey sitting on that log, dude. And you better be able to put it next to it when we get there. And you know, and Chad (47m 44s): It’s at the end of the day, like I had Michael Schmidt wear his Fitbit watch on my boat one day and it was on his left arm. And he said, dang, that’s weird. It counted me in your boat today, but it normally don’t count me in the car. And I was like, no, no Michael, that counted your strips. And he had over 15,000 strips for the day. Chris (48m 6s): Yeah, I believe it. Chad (48m 7s): That’s, you know, so we’ve gotta come to these trips prepared. You know, I, I have a buddy, I have a buddy that come down and Max Waldrop and he’d fish with me during the streamer season and he’d go, all right Chad man, I need a break. And I’d go, oh no dude, he can’t get a break. We don’t know when a bite window’s gonna open up. We gotta fish. And we get down into Brazil and he goes to Brazil, peacock bass fishing with me. And I get into that like day four and I’m taping fingers and freaking hurting and I go, Hey dude, these guys keep trying to give us a siesta. Why don’t we, why don’t we take a little break in the middle of the day today? And Max goes, oh no Chad, we don’t know when a bite window’s gonna open up. Chad (48m 51s): You gotta get up and cast. And I was like, dude, if you give me a break down here when you come back to Arkansas and fish with me, I’ll give you a break. And he was like, all right dude, pull this boat over, give this boy a break. Chris (49m 2s): He gotcha. Chad (49m 3s): You know, the fatigue factor is real, right? I mean, I’m always rowing. I don’t ever get to fish, I don’t get to cast for a week solid. So like even with, you know, me casting pretty proficiently like I was wore out after day four, you know, and so like you really gotta come to these things prepared for the hunt that it is, if you want to have any kinda success at all. Chris (49m 29s): It’s big work most of the time and it’s, you know, it doesn’t come easy sometimes, but sometimes you get guys that come up for four days and in the first spot of the first day they get a big one and, and that’s the way she goes. Or you know, it happens day two, day three, but it’s just, dude, it’s, it’s a lot of casting most of the time and you know, it’s just a big, big risk, big reward. Chad (49m 51s): Yeah. Okay. This is something I have people ask me a lot. So what do you think the number one thing you see your customer doing wrong outta your boat that you would like to see customers come with a mentality where they change that? Like what’s the one thing that people do wrong that they could go, okay, before I go with Chris, I need to do this. This is what he told me to prepare for, this is what he told me to practice. This is what, like what would that be for you? Chris (50m 23s): Making sure you can cast at least 50 feet, you know, with your muskie setup or something close to it. I mean, you know, at least, right? Yes. And that hook set man is the biggest disconnect honestly. It muskie fly fishing, there is such a small window for air for the hook set. It is like unlike any other hook set that I’ve experienced in fly fishing. And if you do it wrong, it mostly doesn’t work out. So. Chad (50m 55s): Right. And that would be like, one of the things that was surprising to me when we were up there is like, these fish are giant and you don’t give them an inch. Chris (51m 6s): No. Chad (51m 7s): Okay, so let’s talk about that. You’ve got a fish coming to the boat. Walk me through it. What would you like to see your customer do? Chris (51m 14s): Well, just depending on when they eat it. You know, you, you are in the right position, you know, you’re rods pointed at the fly, there’s no off to the side whatsoever. Chad (51m 24s): Right. All straight strip. Or they’ll get caught to the side with their Rod and they’ll miss their hook set. Correct. Chris (51m 30s): Yep. And it just seems like any sort of Rod manipulation on the hook set is bad. You know, I’ve just seen it over and over and over again. It just doesn’t work out. You need to hit ’em 2, 3, 4 times with a straight Rod pointed right at ’em. And when you get to that hook set where you’re pulling and like you feel like nothing’s happening, that’s when you can hook ’em. You know, the fly line stretches a bunch, there’s no getting away from it. And these fish’s mouths are hard. And I pretty much use one hook, you know, I use the same hook. And then sometimes if I’m downsizing a little bit, I’ll, I use a, a double hook platform a lot. Chris (52m 15s): It’s just five o gaag, spinnerbaits spinner bait hooks for bass fishing. They’re the right diameter, they’re super duper sharp and I can resharpen ’em with a file, which is huge for my program. We have a lot of rocky rivers, so if you’ve been in my boat before, you know that little file with the wooden handle is sitting right next to me in the rower seat all day long. And anytime you come tight on something or touch something or nick something or yada yada yada, lemme see your fly. Lemme see your fly. Lemme see your fly. They gotta be razors, they gotta be, Chad (52m 48s): Yes, I’m the same way. Super anal on sharp hooks. Chris (52m 52s): Oh, have to be. That is your number one thing. And Chad (52m 55s): Knots, Chris (52m 56s): Knots are cute Chad (52m 57s): And knots people so negate their knots. When you’re hunting these big predators, you do not want to lose the fish of your life. ’cause you didn’t take five minutes to re rig. Chris (53m 7s): Yep. They’re not like saltwater fish. They’re not like, you know, bass or even browns. They, they’re not running. Once you hook ’em, they don’t run away. They shake their head at you, they run at you on the eat. A lot of times they, they eat it on a glide where they’re gliding towards you and all of a sudden you don’t even feel like you’re stripping anything and you’re, you strip three, four times and then all of a sudden you’re like, oh, oh, oh, oh, tight, tight, tight. And then, you know it’s on or Yeah. Chad (53m 36s): So if you feel the way to that fly leave, you need to start stripping like a madman. Chris (53m 42s): Yeah. Right. And that’s a late fall thing. That’s a cold water. Like that’s generally when that happens, they’re heartbreakers. ’cause if you’re not used to it, you kind of stutter step it a little bit and you’re like, what, what was that? What was that? And they, they spit it out, you know, but they do it all sorts of ways, Chad, and it just, they’re just so frustrating sometimes on how they eat it because they bite it at the worst possible times. I had someone in my boat this fall went to hand ’em a water bottle. They’d made a hundred thousand casts over the last couple days. Hand them a drink and right as I hand them a water, they muskie eats the fly right next to the boat, you know? Oh God. Shit like that happens all the time. Chad (54m 23s): All the time. I had a scenario up there once where I threw in under a culbert, one of the, one of the dam’s, giant muskie. Just, there was no push, there was no nothing. He was just there sitting with my fly in his mouth, just like all of a sudden I throw up in there, make a couple of strips, look out giant muskie. He’s eating my fly and he’s just sitting there. And I mean, I consider myself to have a pretty decent strip set and done a lot of salt water fishing, that kind of stuff. And then we strip set on our brown trout and I make what I think is a giant strip set. Chad (55m 5s): And the reality was, was I never moved the fly in his mouth. Like he was literally just sitting there holding it my strip set, done nothing to pull it into his jaws. And then he just opened his mouth and coughed me out. Oh yeah. You know, after a giant strip set. And so like, you really gotta drive that home. And a lot of y’all’s flies have so much material on him that they can hold onto him Really good. Chris (55m 36s): Mm. They used to. Chad (55m 37s): And so like, Chris (55m 38s): Yeah. Chad (55m 39s): So you got to really put some pressure on those fish and, and, and we’re never really getting the pressure, we think with a fly line. Before I went to Brazil, I took all my guys that went with in, I was like, guys, I want y’all to have a really mean strip set. I said, let’s, and I put together a little thing where we tied a bunch of bugs and we’d done some practice and all. And I put a scale on a tree and told them to strip set me five pounds of pressure. It is amazing what it takes to put five pounds of pressure on that fly. It is a harder strip set than you’ve ever done just to put five pounds of pressure on it. Chad (56m 20s): So with that line stretch and everything we’re getting, we really are like jiv that hook home. I see why you say that. That’s like one of the big things for you is like, it’s, it, it is a crazy hook set. Chris (56m 33s): I give everybody the spiel when we get in the boat in the morning and I just tell everybody like, Hey, pardon my soapbox, but I just wanna reiterate one thing to you guys really quickly. And it’s the strip set every time. And it’s, I do, I show ’em what I don’t want ’em to do and then I show ’em what I want ’em to do. And a lot of people still do what I don’t want. You know, they get that little bit of, a little bit of a side sweep or a little bit of a everything. And so I just tell everybody that’s right handed. Everything’s done with your left hand. Your right hand is doing nothing but pointing. That’s it. If you move it at all, imagine you’re sticking your right, your pointer finger out on your right hand and you’re shooting. Chris (57m 16s): If you move the gun to the right, you’re gonna miss the fish. If you move the gun to the left, you’re gonna miss the fish. If you move it up, you move it down, you’re gonna miss the fish and you’re pulling the trigger with your left hand and you gotta keep pulling the trigger and keep pointing the gun at the fish, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And if you don’t get ’em three or four times, you’re not getting them. You know? Chad (57m 36s): Yeah. That’s a great way to wrap your head around that. That’s good. Chris (57m 40s): I could tell you a story about my favorite muskie fly that I on fly that I’ve ever caught. And I was going down the river with Schulze and a friend of his, named Chris also, and they came up a day early for a four day group trip with the fly shop. And I had a day off and was talking to Schultz and he’s like, well, dude, me and Chris will come up a day early and and we could fish and you could fish too. And I was like, say less. I haven’t fished in two weeks. Like let’s go. You know? ’cause I’ve just been rowing so much. You know how that goes. Oh Chad (58m 11s): Yeah. I mean we, we don’t, we never get to fish the good seasons. Chris (58m 15s): Right? So I had a gap day in in October, which just, you know, that’s, I usually guide 31 days. And anyway, we’re, we’re about a quarter of the way down the float. And his buddy Chris is a accomplished fly fisherman and has a drift float and, and and whatnot. And he’s like, Hey, I’ll, I’ll row for a bit. My arms getting tired already and we got four more days of this, you know, and he’s a, he’s a good stick, you know? And I’m like, are you sure? And he is like, yep. So I get up and cast and you know, luck of the draw, I made like three casts. Chad (58m 50s): Oh god. Yeah. Chris (58m 51s): And all of a sudden my fly lands on the bank, sand bottom spots, high grass bank. I strip the fly a couple times and this wake just comes from downstream and it’s just blowing a wave towards my fly. And I’m like, oh, here it comes. You know, and I’m stripping and I’m stripping and all of a sudden it eats my fly and just goes into the middle of the river at a hundred miles an hour. The line went through the water after it ate it like it was badass. Like I’ve seen saltwater fish do that, but I’ve only seen muskies do it a couple times where it makes that cutting noise, you know? Yeah. Chad (59m 26s): They’re actually running, not just sitting there bulldogging you. Chris (59m 30s): Right. And this thing just ate it and took off and I had to strip, I couldn’t even tell you how many times I guarantee it was pushing a dozen times before I actually caught up to that fish and, and stuck it. And it was in the middle of the river by then. And when I finally came tight to it and I remember the strip and exactly how it felt ’cause it, we just went, I was doing these massive strips of all the wine I could get and all of a sudden I did one and it just went halfway and it was like, right. Got ’em. You know, and that fish immediately shot straight up out of the water and did a back flip and Schulze was in the back and he was just like, holy crap man. Chris (1h 0m 10s): So Chad (1h 0m 11s): You, you said something that I wanted to touch on. One thing was just so these guys know, so I know you like that big straight strip, but y’all catch a huge percentage of y’all’s fish under the boat. Chris (1h 0m 25s): Oh yeah. Right at the boat in the figure eight. Chad (1h 0m 27s): What does that hook set look like? Chris (1h 0m 31s): It’s tough. It’s Reid, Chad (1h 0m 33s): I feel like this is where a lot of people lose them. Chris (1h 0m 36s): You gotta read the eat, you gotta see if it eats it going from left to right or if it eats it going from right to left. Or if it, sometimes if you’re in deep enough water, they’ll come straight up and eat it. And a lot of times that’s tricky. So it’s so situational. You can’t really specifically say how to set the hook on a figure eight muske and have it be a blanket statement. Chad (1h 1m 2s): Well, am I going to, am I gonna continue to sweep the way that he ate it? Chris (1h 1m 8s): No, you wanna go towards its tail. You’ve got a short line out. Generally you’ve got, what I teach people is you’re gonna strip till you hear that first strip of your, your leader and then you’re, you’re gonna kinda get to where you got six inches or so to your wire bike guard. So you’ve got 16 to 20 inches of line outta your Rod tip only. And the reason for that is, is when you’re doing your maneuvers, your eight, your oval, whatever it is, if you’ve got too much line out and you go to make the turn, your fly doesn’t do anything during that turn. It just hangs there and then it catches up and then cuts a 90 degree turn to catch up with your line. Chris (1h 1m 50s): Right? You need that fly to follow those turns. Because of the way muskies prefer to eat things, they prefer to eat ’em sideways. They don’t eat things directly from behind and swallow ’em. They eat things from the head and swallow ’em that way because the fins and spines and what have you, just like a snake would, they’re not gonna just engulf it from behind. Right? So what, what you’re doing with the figure eight is you’re giving that fish opportunity here, here, here, here in the turn, right in that cross section in those hanging turns. And a lot of times on that left hanging turn on that right hanging turn, that’s where that fish eats it because you’re giving it that sideways shot and it’s like, here’s my opportunity, gotta eat it or I’m gonna starve. Chad (1h 2m 37s): You’ve gotta show ’em the side of that Chris (1h 2m 39s): Fly. And like very importantly in the river especially, you gotta your fi your figure eight, I’ve seen this happen. This is a really good thing to remember and Blaine preaches this. Larry preaches this. I talk about it a lot too ’cause we’ve just seen it year and after year. If you’re coming in and your first turn of the figure eight is upstream, so many times that muskie kicks downstream and just takes off. Because think about it, okay, if you’re a sucker or a chub or whatever the heck you are, that’s food. Are you gonna evade uphill? No, you’re gonna run downhill. You’re gonna go as fast as away from ’em as you can possibly go. Chris (1h 3m 20s): And I don’t know what it is. It seems like simple math and it’s like a lot of those rules of angling where the simplest explanation is this, the easy is the explanation, the stuff that’s scared’s going downhill. Chad (1h 3m 32s): Yep. I like that. I, I would have never, that’s a awesome perspective to think about that. That’s cool that you keyed in on that. Chris (1h 3m 41s): So let’s say you’re coming in and that fish is behind your fly and you know it’s behind it. So you’re coming in and you’re in the front of the drift boat now. So you’re coming in and you’re gonna, and you’re fishing river left. You’re gonna sweep to the right with that. You’re gonna keep stripping with the Rod tip in the water six eight inches. Because I’ve also seen that’s a huge disconnect with the figure eight people will do a figure eight and the flies sort of skating on the surface. I honestly can’t remember a time where a fish came up and ate that. Chad (1h 4m 14s): Right? You want it to dive the way you’re doing that figure eight, you’re actually trying to get it to dive deep by the boat. Right? Chris (1h 4m 21s): I want it coming in deep at the boat. And then as you’re coming into that turn, imagine okay, you’re in the front, we’re fishing river left, that fly’s coming in, you’re digging your Rod tip down as it comes to the boat as you’re sweeping to the right, which is downstream. You’re gonna be keeping that depth. And then as you bend out, you’re bent at your waist, your arms are fully extended in front of you, that Rod is now nine pointing nine feet away from the boat. Right? Nine feet long, then you start raising it up. Not all the way to the surface, but just a direction change, right? Or a level change. So that fish is now pointing up and it’s pointing up away from the boat. It’s not looking at the boat, it’s not looking at you, it’s not looking at your bright new puffy coat that’s tech colored or whatever that you know, Chad (1h 5m 10s): You’re keeping it deep by the boat to keep their eyes down. That’s right. When they turn towards the boat and then when they turn the other direction, you’re happy to make that elevation change because they’re looking away Chris (1h 5m 19s): Because they’re not seeing anything but river over there. Chad (1h 5m 22s): Dang right. Yeah. Very natural. Chris (1h 5m 25s): And then if it doesn’t eat it there, I’m gonna come back and I’m gonna dig that Rod tip back down and I’m coming back in front of me deep and now I’m turning on the left side outside. Quick turn. I’m gonna go quick on the upstream turn because I don’t want it to be there, right? Chad (1h 5m 43s): You don’t want that upstream, you want the downstream. So you’re just gonna go up there just so that you can come back down. Chris (1h 5m 49s): That’s right. And now I’m gonna come back down through the cross deep again in front of me and I’m gonna hang it on the outside again. Weighing nine foot, nine feet waist bent, arms fully extended Rod is nine feet plus my arms away from the boat and bam, that’s where I want that fish to eat it. The reason why my arms are fully extended and my, my both my hands are on the Rod. I have both hands of in control of the line. Everything’s out there, it eats it. Now I can set by coming towards my body with both my arms, with both hands on the line, both hands on the re one hand above the reel, one hand below the reel. ’cause most of your musky fly rods have an extended butt, right? Chris (1h 6m 31s): That’s my hook set right there, right there. Just my arms. Boom, boom, got him right there. And then I’ve got two hands on the line so I can slip him some line. If he’s going away, if they eat away, you’re gonna pull on him pretty hard. If they eat at the boat, you’re gonna set it and you kinda gotta let him have a little bit, then you know you, because you can, you can win depending on the size of the fish. But if you’re talking about an upper echelon fish, that’s not the best place for them to be. Chad (1h 7m 2s): No, you’re gonna have to give him a little bit. And so like, dude, that was such a great explanation of what you’re doing there. So in saying that, like you’ve got this giant fish, your freaking Rod lines in your Rod tip, you might give a giant some, but you’re not giving most of them some. Like, tell me what that leader setup has to look like for that not to just explode on you, Chris (1h 7m 28s): Which I’ve had happen one time. Okay. And that happened this year, unfortunately on a really big muskie in the flowage. We were in 16 feet of water, fish, ate it at the boat, went down, dude held on, didn’t give it any. And I’d never seen my 11 way bent like that before. It was so bent. And before I could give any sort of explanation or anything it popped. And so there is a, I’m coming into my 16th year dude, I’ve only seen it happen once, you know, so that was a heartbreak. It was definitely over a four foot fish. I know that because after it popped the leader, it came up and showed itself to us. Chris (1h 8m 9s): So you could see the feathers hanging out of its mouth and it was a freaking whale. But I’m guessing that the, you know, I’m using about a 12 plus, maybe we’ll call it 12 inch bite guard. Okay? That’s where it broke, was at the, where the wire meets the fluorocarbon. And it had to be loud and and shocking to him right next to his head. Right. Like that. And I’m guessing that’s why he kind of floated up for a second was a little bit disoriented. Chad (1h 8m 36s): Yep. What the heck just happened? Chris (1h 8m 39s): But your basic musky liter is a level 40, 40 liter. You’re using a 40 pound fluorocarbon with either, if you’re using a welded lube to your fly line, I use a perfection loop. If you’re not a welded lube guy, you can nail knot it or Albright it, whichever you sow, choose. And then you’re gonna go down to a, you know, in the past I would tell you that that’s never failed me is the Albright to the wire. And then you would perfection lu your fly to the wire. I don’t, I’m not a snap guy. I don’t really like snaps. I don’t think that they are behooving to you in any way. You’re switching flies too much if you need one and musky fishing anyhow. Chris (1h 9m 22s): And I don’t like how they affect the action of the fly. I don’t like how it looks. I don’t, I just, I’m not a fan. I like a real small perfection loop. And it’s, and real streamlined leader and, and keeping it real simple, the perfection loop has, is your weak point of the connection. The reason why I liked that was if I snag the bottom, that’s what I can have be breaking. ’cause 40 pound liter to break it is a lot, a lot. Chad (1h 9m 51s): You’re not able to snap your fly line as quick as Chris (1h 9m 54s): You snap. That’s exactly right. Yeah. That’s right. That’s exactly right. And I didn’t, I, I wasn’t, I didn’t, not interested in blowing out all my welded loops or pulling out all my nail knots. So that would be the breaking point. A stronger way to do it is to use like a uni knot. You know, it’s just a little bit stronger knot. You’re just gonna run the risk of blowing out your welded loop or, or pulling your nail knot. The reason why you’re using fluorocarbon is because it sinks rather than floats like a mono. If you’re using a intermediate line and you’re running into really low water, you could, I suppose switch to mono and, and maybe save yourself a little bit. But not really. Chris (1h 10m 34s): I wouldn’t suggest it. Most of the intermediates are 1.25 or, or, or they’re about inches per second, which is pretty slow. And the liter, the wire is, I only use one kind and I’ve been using it forever. I’ve never had anyone, I never had a, a bite off or anything like that. And it’s a seven by seven nylon coated tie wire. I use the stuff from scientific anglers. It’s 40 pound nylon coated tie wire, it’s called Predator Wire. There’s another brand, A FW, American Fishing Wire, their stuff’s called Surf lawn. Pretty much the same exact stuff. If you’re a Rio, Rio guy, Rio makes it. Chris (1h 11m 14s): If you’re a Cortland guy, Cortland makes it, everybody makes it. But that’s what you want to be using. I personally like the essay stuff the best. It’s very supple. It’s very easy to tie. And you know, I’ve been using it since it came out a couple years ago in the year prior for testing. And it’s been great and it, it works man. And and you know, we used to use fluorocarbon. I think maybe even when I met you Chad, we were probably using fluorocarbon. We’ve known each other for so long. Yeah, that’s right. Chad (1h 11m 42s): But Chris (1h 11m 43s): It doesn’t make a lick of difference when it comes to them biting it. And in my personal opinion, and that’s coming from northern Wisconsin to Middle Tennessee and East Tennessee where it’s clear, clear is what’s coming outta your faucet. You are just saving yourself heartbreak, you’re saving your fishery, you’re saving everything. And for what you know. And honestly if brass tax comes down to, for me, I’m guiding, these people are coming from wherever they’re coming from to come fish with me and I can’t have their fish of a lifetime or their, their one eat of a couple days of fishing or whatever it may be their, their biggest one that they’ve ever caught, just bite ’em off on the hook set. That ain’t happening ever again to me, ever. Chris (1h 12m 24s): So I don’t use fluorocarbon in anything anymore, to be honest with you. I even in my conventional tackle fishing, we used to use one 30 and one 50 and I’ve gotten bit off with that throwing big rubber baits. So I guarantee you you’re not fly fishing with 150 pound fluorocarbon. No. You’re fly fishing with 80 or a hundred and you’re still getting bit off. And people were, some people would preach that you could use as low as 60 pound fluorocarbon and they wouldn’t get it ’cause it would go between their teeth, which is the most astronomical thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Chad (1h 12m 54s): Yeah. That doesn’t work. Chris (1h 12m 56s): So yeah, if you take anything away from my leader setup, it is 100% of the time there is never any reason to use anything but a wire that they can’t bite through. Chad (1h 13m 9s): Yeah. I mean, why they’re such toothy critters, why wouldn’t you? I mean, heck, they’re all like that. I mean I was just catching barracuda down in Turks and Caicos and I actually tied my fly on a 60 pound bite wire because anything less than you were just never gonna get ’em in. Like they’d jump twice and bite you off and you know, so I mean it’s, it’s pretty simple math. If they’ve got a lot of teeth in their head use wire. Chris (1h 13m 37s): Once I hook a muskie with a fly Rod and I, I know I got it hooked. I I’m not concerned anymore. You know, you got ’em, it’s not gonna bite you off. Back in the day when we would use 80 and or even a hundred pound, it was always a, a concern that it was gonna eventually saw you off and you’d get it in the net and you’d look at your, your bite and you’d be like geez, this thing was one or two runs away from not making it to the bag. You know? And it just, Chad (1h 14m 3s): Yeah. So there was still all this concern of whether you were gonna get ’em in the boat or not. Chris (1h 14m 7s): Yeah. Now I’m not interested in that anymore. After, Chad (1h 14m 9s): After you worked for days for these guys, Chris (1h 14m 13s): You know, especially the really big ones, they’re few and far between and it’s just, they’re gonna bite it regardless. It has absolutely nothing to do with the leader. If they’re gonna bite it, they’re gonna bite it. That’s Chad (1h 14m 22s): Right. I mean I’m down here using like, I mean I know this is not big cul, but I mean I’m fishing for trout and I’m using 12 pound maximum green line. You know those things at that point when you’re fishing that size bug, they aren’t looking at your tipt. Yeah. You know, I got a lot of boys down here that are fishing 20, but I tend to stick that 12 max green lines like a 15 and it’s so abrasion resistant that I just, I use that a lot. But, so Chris, let’s see right here. Before we get done, talk to me a little bit, what, what would these guys need to do to get in your boat? What do you have going on these days? Chad (1h 15m 3s): What do you have going on you want people to know about? Chris (1h 15m 6s): Well, to get in the boat, you can get me on Instagram, on Facebook or just in my website, which is chris will.com and you can find all my information on there. Musky dates I have available are spring and summer, early fall. If you wanna look at late fall dates, you need to talk to me this year for 2026. And that’s how the, the late fall season stuff is just going. I’ve been kinda like how we mentioned I’ve been doing this for a little bit and most of my late fall guys are repeat guys that I’ve been fishing with for, you know, some of ’em as long as 12 plus years. Sure. So as far as what else I got going on, you know, I used to guide in Tennessee in the winter this year I’m not doing that and I’ve been working on a project here with Mr. Chris (1h 15m 54s): Larry Dahlberg and the people over at Yeti coolers, which has been super fun. We’ve done a few different things here and we’ve got a few more things on the books as close as just a couple weeks away here. So that’s kind of what I’m doing this winter is kind of focusing on that project. Chad (1h 16m 11s): And will that be posted up? Will that, once you and Larry get that done, will that be posted up somewhere where people can find you? Chris (1h 16m 18s): Eventually it will be, I, I don’t know how much I’m allowed to to talk about or whatever. Okay. But it’s, it’s not Larry’s specific project. It’s a project with Yeti and Okay. So when they, when they ever deemed to release it is is when they do it. Chad (1h 16m 32s): Okay. So keep your eyes out open guys, Chris and Larry have something coming out. We’ll keep our eyes on that when that comes out. We’ll make sure and get you guys the information. So what about, you talked about your summer and fall musky fishing. Are you doing any bookings on early smallmouth trips? Chris (1h 16m 51s): Oh absolutely. Yep. Chad (1h 16m 53s): Okay. So what time of the year and when would that be? Chris (1h 16m 56s): So it kicks off. It can kick off as early as the, the first part of May. Usually April can be a little bit hit or miss. We can get into ’em pretty good but I’ve also had it where it’s a little tough and then once you get into May, it’s usually full swing and we’re on those pres spawned fish. They’re, it’s my favorite time of year to chase a man. It is so much fun and self servingly a little bit. I don’t feel quite as guilty chasing the small moss when I’m not allowed to be chasing the muskies. Yeah, right. Chad (1h 17m 26s): So Chris (1h 17m 27s): I always feel like if I’m small moth fishing during musky season, I, I’m, I’m selling myself short on maybe learning something that day. But the early season, small moth, pre spawn, they are biting anything that you can get in front of ’em pretty much. So whatever kind of streamer you wanna throw at ’em, you can get bit on it. As it warms up a little bit, we start to get a little bit more action with some of the bigger deer hair, frogs, dahlberg divers, stuff like that. The popper bite can be good like boole bugs and stuff. You can get bit on that. But generally it’s the bigger the better. It’s really fun time of year to throw sinking tips or full intermediates and you know, feather game changers, Murti minnows, big deceivers, any of Russ’s circus peanut variation stuff works super good Schultzey stuff. Chris (1h 18m 17s): The swinging Ds, the leggy boys, anything big, you know, four inches would be where you’d wanna be, you know, four or five inch for smallmouth fly is is a pretty big smallmouth fly. Sure. And dude, they’re smashing it. Chad (1h 18m 32s): Oh dude I guys, I’ve been up there and done with this with Chris. If you’re used to catching our southern smallmouth and you wanna see some real smallmouth go getting in his boat guys, it’s a trip up there. It’s a lot of fun. I know he talks a lot about musky fishing ’cause that’s where its heart’s at. But make no mistake, if you’re a smallmouth guy, you want to go getting his boat. Anyway, go ahead Chris, finish up. I just, I’ve been up there and done that with you and it’s so cool. Chris (1h 19m 1s): I think you’re right. I do myself a little bit of a disservice ’cause I’m so passionate about the muskies but our small mal fishing is world class and I always joke around and it’s just for a guide for me it’s a very more relaxed day because the net’s getting wet all day. You’re catching fish, you’re laughing. The stress level of, the anxiety of getting a bite is way down compared to going down the river and trying to make dreams come true with the muskies. Yeah. Chad (1h 19m 30s): ’cause you got a hundred percent better chance at having success. Chris (1h 19m 34s): Yeah, I, one of my favorite smallmouth fish stories up here is I had one of our lomis dudes, Eric Inger, he’s a west coast steelhead dude up here for a muskie trip all week. And we were muskie fishing and it was muskie fishing and we caught some, but you know, we also didn’t catch some sometimes and we got to the very last day and we were on this one bank where the smallmouth really gather at that time of the year and I had mentioned it and he said, oh well do you have any smallmouth stuff in the boat? And I was like, dude, we got 11 weights, I don’t have anything to catch. So smallies, I don’t even have any smallmouth specific flies. I’m like, you could throw a ba, a muskie fly and see if you could catch one. Chris (1h 20m 16s): And then I was looking in my tray and I had a yellow gallop sex dungeon and I was like, oh you know what here. And I quick tied up a smaller leader and put it on that 11 weight and he just yoked him down the whole bank and he was like, dude, we could have been doing this the whole time. Yeah, Chad (1h 20m 34s): Right. Well we’ve been on this grind like these fish are awesome Chris (1h 20m 39s): And it was just super funny to just, yeah, I suppose we could have been doing that the whole time. Well Chad (1h 20m 45s): It’s funny, you know, when I come up to Wisconsin and we go over and we fish a couple of different places up there, the smallmouth really aren’t on people’s radar up there. Like they just say they get in the way while they’re trying, while I’m trying to catch my muskie or pike or walleye or like, and us guys are coming from down here going, oh my god, the size of those bys. So like it’s just kind of a thing for you guys in the North woods, those are very normal for you guys. Those have just always been there as bycatch for you guys. But now we Chris (1h 21m 20s): Fish for ’em for sure. I mean we do target ’em but it is, yeah, most of the time, I mean when I’m musky fishing and they’re, they’re blowing up our flies and stuff, it’s just, or they’re chasing or they’ll get a little bit like what your trout do, they’ll hit it a few times ’cause they’re not getting that big hook, you know, and you’re like, oh look at this guy whack, oh look at him again. Whack. It’s like, ah, yeah, whatever. You know, Chad (1h 21m 42s): Y’all smallmouth, there are rainbows, right? Chris (1h 21m 45s): Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Chad (1h 21m 46s): And that’s a, people get mad at me when I talk about it like that, but like I grew up in the south, so for me, you know, a place like the White River, the rainbow trout or your brim in your perch and the brown trout are your black bass, you know, you can either go catch 30 rainbows for the day or you can go catch five nice brown trout. Well that’s the way it is for me down south with my bass fishing. I can either go catch 30 perch and blue gill and goggle eye and that kind of thing, or I can go catch five or six nice bass. And so that’s just kind of the way that is up there for you guys. That’s just kind of the, the secondary fish so to speak. Chad (1h 22m 29s): But, but yeah, well worked Chris (1h 22m 31s): And I do like ’em. Yeah Chad (1h 22m 33s): Dude, they eat so good and they’re so much fun and they jump and they eat our streamers and like, they’re such a great fish to target. So anyway guys, if y’all get a free minute and y’all want to go up and do some smallmouth fishing or some musky fishing, get a hold of Chris at, it was chris willing.com. All right guys. Chris, thanks for being with us today. We’ll try to have you get back on for a second one down the road. And is there anything before we get done you wanna tell the world? Chris (1h 23m 7s): No, man, just it was great to talk to you again brother. It’s been too long. And we gotta get in the boat. Chad (1h 23m 12s): Yeah, we gotta get in the boat. Okay, so right here before we go, I know he even half told me not to do it, but like, dude, do you have one little short Harry Carey for me? Chris (1h 23m 24s): I dunno if I can, man, I I lost my voice totally in, in Michigan, but we could give you a hi. Well, that, that, that, that hurt. So, okay. Don’t Chad (1h 23m 35s): Do it dude. I’ll bring you on again and I’ll make you do a full episode for us. But anyway, dude, I really, I miss you man. We’ll get back in the boat soon and I, I really do appreciate you visiting us at CJ’s real Southern Podcast. Guys, if you want to come down with me and you want to come visit the Ozarks, I have a cabin parent on Crooked Creek that’s gonna be CJ’s Crooked Hideaway. I also have CJ’s White River Outfitters as my guide service. You can look up either one of those on CJ’s white river outfitter.com and yeah, we’re booking up for the year. Chad (1h 24m 15s): Hopefully Chris will get booked a few times on this gig and we appreciate you guys listening to us and we’ll talk to you guys next month.