690 | Catching Big Smallmouth Bass with James Hughes – Schultz Outfitters, Fly Design, Fleein’ Cray

Dave (2s): Some of the most effective patterns and greatest guides we’ve had on this podcast go deep down the rabbit hole to pull out a bag of tricks, whether that’s on fly design, water temperature, the perfect strip, or any other aspect of fly fishing. They somehow managed to break down their secrets. And today we’re gonna hear behind the scenes on what it takes to find big, small mouth bass and hook up with more of them on the water. This season This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. Hey, I’m Dave host of the Wet Fly Swing podcast. I’ve been fly fishing since I was a little kid. I grew up around a little fly shop and have created one of the largest fly fishing podcasts in this country. Dave (47s): I’ve also interviewed more of the greatest fly anglers and fly designers than just about anyone out there. James Hughes head guide at Schultz Outfitters is going to break down small mouth bass. Today on the podcast you’re gonna find out when to fish smaller streamers versus the giant five to eight inch streamers. We’re gonna find out when a swim fly works best and how to fish it and how to effectively strip your fly for success. And also the two things that most people get wrong when it comes to smallmouth bass. Plus, if you stick around to the very end, we’re gonna talk about this trip and how you can get a spot. We got limited spots for this big one right now. Smallmouth Bass with Schultz Outfitters coming up here this year in July. It’s trip planning time. Here we go. Dave (1m 26s): James Hughes from schultz outfitters.com. How you doing James? James (1m 32s): I’m good man. How are you? Great. Dave (1m 34s): Great to have you on here. We are gonna dig into Smallmouth bass. We might even talk about some other species that you guys cover throughout the year because Schultz You know Mike and you and the gang here have kind of are leading the way. A lot of this stuff. But we’re gonna talk smallmouth today. You know mainly because we’re heading out there for a trip in July and we’re gonna be bringing out some people from, they’re listening now You know on the podcast and we’re gonna be digging into maybe some big small mouth. so I wanna get into all that today and get some tips and tricks for everybody. But before we get there, take us back to fly fishing. How’d you get into it? What’s your first memory? James (2m 7s): So You know, I’ve always, always fished. That was like the first thing I ever ever liked doing. And pretty much no matter what I did in life from You know athletics through college, everything, I never stopped fishing. And when it came to fly fishing I was, I was just young You know, I think I was like 11 or maybe 12 and just watching it on TV with dad on OLN back when it was still OLN and I think they were fly fishing like a high mountain lake out west or something. And I just remember looking at ’em going, You know I wanna do this and no one in my family fly fished. And all he said was, and I, I think it was a ploy to You know discourage me was, well if you’re gonna learn how to do this, you need to to teach yourself how to tie your own flies because I’m not gonna spend the money on flies to, to keep you going on this You. James (2m 56s): Know him thinking that this was somehow a more budget friendly option. Yeah, But, you know, they held up their end of the bargain. I got like a beginner’s fly time kit with a black and white booklet in it and before I’d go to class You know I was like a fifth or a sixth grader at the time. You know in the morning before the bus came I’d be sitting there in my room trying to figure this out just off of pictures. This is before YouTube and everything and I lived out in the sticks. I had nobody to teach me anything and it was just kinda like, ah, But, you know, it’s thrown on a hook at the end of the day with some materials. Eventually got the hang of it and he said, You know, hey, if you’re getting the hang of this, maybe we’ll get you a fly rod for Christmas. And sure enough they came through and then that led me into having to then teach myself fly casting from a book like a black and white book that came with the prepackaged with the thing, some basics of fly casting and then You know. James (3m 47s): So that was sometime in middle school and You know flash forward number of years end up in college in eastern Michigan. And I was out for a run one morning and this building that had been empty for the entirety that I was in college all of a sudden had lights on and I was like, yeah, what the hell’s that? I kind of go run through town and I’m coming back through on my way back I look in, I get a better look in there ’cause I’m on that side of the street now and there’s fly rods in there and I was like, whoa, wait a minute. Like what the hell’s going on? so I ran up to the house and hopped in my car and drove down there and I walked in and You know there’s early 30 something, Mike Schultz and I think I was about 22 or 21 at the time and kind of met ’em the first time. James (4m 33s): Bought a few flat time materials and just went, got really into it from there. ’cause prior to that it was pretty much fly fishing to me was just going down to the river a couple miles from my house and swinging woolly buggers down on the cross to catch fall mouth. But then You know that was You know from middle school through high school. And then You know towards the end of college ended up meeting Mike and kinda rest his history from there. Dave (4m 56s): Yeah, because Mike is You know, I mean he’s over the years since then. Yeah, since that or I guess that’s when he kind of kicked things off. I mean he’s kind of grown this thing into one of the le the leaders out there. Right. I think, I’m not sure is yeah. The secret to his success. But I think part of it’s bringing on good people, right? People that are You know, dedicated and probably as passionate as you do. Do you think that’s part of it, the success of Schultz and what you guys have done? James (5m 18s): I think entirely and like something about our shop, like at least in terms of kind of those early days when, ’cause when I first walked in there he had been open I think a couple of months. Yeah I think I was freshly 22 ’cause I think he opened it late in 21 or something like that. It was right around then. And, or I’m sorry, late in 2011 was when he opened it sometime around then. So when we first all kind of worked there, it was just him, You know the, the shop was a, it wasn’t just him. There was actually, there’s three or four, but him and Greg were still around. Were there and our instructor, Jay Wasowski, he’s one of our instructors, but he was there before I was and I pop in and kinda like one theme through all that is a, yeah, we’re all You know hardworking people we’re, we’re pretty passionate but B, we were all athletes in college. James (6m 12s): And so there was like a like-minded mentality and work ethic going into this where it was very much, here’s the team, here’s the goal, everyone’s got a role and you do your part and if someone asks you to do something you just go do it and you get the job done to the best of your abilities. so I think that was pretty pivotal in my opinion looking back on it in the, the early success and onwards. And of course You know it kind of snowballs and the thing just keeps rolling. But yeah, I think that was a big part, at least in my mind ’cause I was You know coming fresh outta college just getting done with all that and that was still very much the obedient, trainable athlete, right? Dave (6m 52s): You ever had to do hot whatever they call it do hot recruit coming out from the pros, right? You were the they, they picked you up on the free You know whatever during the draft. Right? And the college thing is interesting because I’ve heard that man, we’ve done a ton of episodes over the years with people that when you look back you’re like, oh wow, you were like a professional athlete or you were very close to a pro athlete in other sports. so I find that that’s a a similar thing. We’ve had a lot of people on here that are great fly anglers or also we’re in a high level in other sports. So that makes total sense to me. James (7m 20s): Oh absolutely. I mean the, just the, the hand-eye coordination alone, even though I didn’t do anything that involved a whole held a lot of hand-eye coordination. But it’s kind of just like you’re used to having your body trained and you’re used to doing physical tasks so you can pretty much pick up a physical activity in no time flat. And I mean just through guiding alone, when we talk the guides amongst themselves, You know if we’re catching up by phone after a trip or whatever and somebody You know my, one of my favorite things is having new fly anglers, like first timers. But an easy description that speaks a lot to everybody on staff is if if you say like, oh yeah, I had this You know this new person today and You know they picked it up pretty nice. James (8m 3s): you can tell they were an athlete, right? And it’s just because of the, you can pretty much show somebody with that kind of background once or twice and they’re gonna start emulating it pretty well. Dave (8m 13s): Yeah, that makes sense. Cool. Well this has been great. We might hold some of the sports questions till a little bit later. I’d always love chatting sports, but let’s jump into You know back into the trip that we’re gonna be putting together and You know, we’ll kind of cover a little bit more detail there. You know we’re looking at July, we’ve got some people coming in. What are you telling those people? If you’ve got You know you’ve, you got your people, you find out who your clients are for the day. You know when you’re coaching them to get ready for this thing. Are you telling them anything to get ready? How do they prepare for this trip? James (8m 41s): So it’s just for clarity that you’re specifically saying like how would I speak to a potential customer who’s coming in for a trip in July? Correct. Yeah, exactly. Is that more or less what you’re asking? Dave (8m 50s): Yeah, if we were coming in for small mouth bass, James (8m 53s): So typically what I’d say for small mouth in July is it’s you’re coming off a great time, right? You’re thoroughly postponed. The weirdness is pretty well done. They’re settling into nice summertime habits. They become pretty predictable in that regard. You know it’s not like the same level of predictability that you have in early spring where they’re locked into very specific spots and they’re not really leaving But, you know, and they’re only feeding during a set window. The predictability of that kind of midsummer is they’re feeding pretty well throughout the entire day. They’re reliably going to be all over the place and there’s comfort in that, right? James (9m 36s): It and then the big fish, the the true homebodies, they’re gonna be in their haunts and as long as you have favorable conditions, You know, not too bright, the water’s not too low, that kind of thing, you stand pretty good odds of getting into ’em. But, you know, typically in a mid-July day, it’s some of the easiest fishing of the year. It is. It can be a lot of top water fishing, it can be really good streamer fishing. But that sort of again, is water dependent. If the water’s low and clear some years it is, you’re gonna be fishing generally smaller stuff and doing a little bit more of like a site fishing approach. If you have a decent water year, like in midsummer that turns into You, know some medium to even larger streamers that you can present kind of almost, it’s like an extension of spring at that point. James (10m 26s): We had one of those years this year and we had a a year like that a couple years ago as well. Dave (10m 31s): Gotcha. So streamers, so that’s the thing. So the, it’s all like, like fishing is, it’s all depend on water levels and, and temperatures and kind of weather, right? All that stuff. so we don’t quite know what it could be. And we were just on a trip this summer that it was low and clear and I think everybody was like, okay, we need some rain. You know. Did you guys find that in a lot of years you’re sitting there thinking, man, are we gonna get the rain? Is, is that kind of the typical thing or what’s that look like? Yeah, James (10m 57s): You’re dredging up just like, just some, yeah. Rough memories from like even was it two seasons ago I think? Yeah, or maybe some. Sometime in the last few years we’ve had, like in the last five years we’ve had like two really good water years and three that were kind of horrifying. Like the water was there when you needed it and it always seemed to come like when you most needed it. But I remember of May that looked like September, Dave (11m 27s): Right? James (11m 28s): And usually May you’re riding off a pretty good April high and when I was out there and You know, I’m starting to watch the Spawn kick into gear and You know rivers that I would prefer to see running at 500 or above or You know down into the low threes. And I am watching Bath Dig Nest in the middle of a river behind like a log laying You know perpendicular to the current. And I’m like, wow, this is not okay. Yeah, and You know the good news was I a you learn a lot during those years, mostly just how shallow of water you can get a boat through without having to drag it. But you also really can You know if one is savvy enough to pay attention in the most dire situations, you really can start to map the river bottom better than you ever have before. James (12m 20s): And even picking out like, hey You know man, there’s a, just because it’s only marginally deeper over there doesn’t mean it’s not as good. It’s in fact that two inches extra of depth is everything when the water’s that low. Yeah. And so all of a sudden you’re like, huh, that depression that I always ignored turns out even in high water that’s holding fish even though it’s only like three inches different than the rest of the water around it. And so that’s pretty cool. It opens up like your mind like remember that mid river weird spot even though right now there’s like three feet of water over it. Oh yeah. There’s one there right now still with pretty cool stuff that can come outta that real low water. Dave (12m 57s): That’s cool. So basically, yeah, like you’re saying that depending on the season, what’s going on low and high, but it sounds like no matter what there’s gonna be an opportunity to get in some fish even if you do have one of those Oh yeah. Super low, low kind of summers. James (13m 9s): Yeah man we’ve worked so many different bodies of water that that is not a concern. Especially with, with July You know that time of year usually that real low water stuff doesn’t happen until September. This year was one of those years we You know September came through and there it was, but even then it was sort of like a normal September. But that would be like the most dire scenarios where it’s like, yeah it just, it’s like that in July. I really don’t expect it. It can be low but low is relative if it’s, and and we chased Beth conditions all the time. We’ve got like Six Rivers we work and You know a couple four floats on each one. James (13m 49s): So there’s always auctions. Dave (13m 51s): Yeah. So you guys cover a little bit on the rivers. Is this pretty much all floating with the drift boat or do you guys have Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s all floating. So these are big and small rivers, everything in between. James (14m 1s): Correct. Yep. Rivers for anywhere from You know 60 or so feet across for the most of the day to Rivers that are more than a hundred yards across for large portions of it. so we got, we got all sorts of different options to run and You know, the one nice thing is some of the rivers that hold up best to low water are also our highest population rivers in terms of fish. So sort of like, eh You know you get you kind of as, as water gets thinner so you have to start checking some floats off like, well we can’t get through that one, we can’t go do this one But. you know, the six that we have available are all really good floats all the time. So there is that, that’s like a wonderful worst case scenario kind of thing where it’s like, well water sucks but at least the fishing’s gonna be good. James (14m 47s): Right, Dave (14m 48s): Right, right. Do you guys cover, what are these all pretty named Rivers people would know about out there? I mean I know you got some big ones obviously out there, but are these rivers people would know about in the area? James (14m 59s): Oh yeah. I mean You know our area of operations is down in You know we’re kind of in that like southeast south central ish area of Michigan. And so You know it’s all the big rivers. So like the shops on the Huron, we run that one You know the Huron Flinch, AYA Wase Grand are kind of like the the main lurking areas of a now these rivers are along and You know, just because we’re on the Huron doesn’t mean we cover it from top to bottom. We, we handle a few sections and it’s like that on every, every river that we fish. Dave (15m 31s): Do you want to be a holiday hero this year? Well listen up, Jackson Hole Flight Company is spraying the joy with an offer that’ll make your wallet and your favorite angler happy. If you spend $50 right now, you get a $10 gift card. It’s like fishing for deals and the fish are biting from rods that feel like magic wands to reels that per light kittens, they’ve got everything to make someone’s fishing dreams come true. And those combo kits, they’re basically happiness in a box for any skill level. you can head over to Jackson hole fly company.com right now and catch these deals while they’re hot. That’s Jackson Hole fly company.com Let ’em know you heard about them on this podcast and have a happy holiday season. Stonefly Nets nestled in the heart of the Ozarks Ethan, a master craftsman dedicates his skill to creating the finest wood landing nets. Dave (16m 17s): Stonefly nets are more than just nets. They’re part of our story. Each cast and every cast ready to make your fly fishing trips unforgettable. Visit stonefly nets.com and discover the difference of a handcrafted wood landing net. Well let’s take it on the water here. So we’re You know, I think we’re coming in somewhere mid-July. Let’s just say You know we’re getting ready the night before coming in on Monday. Maybe talk about that. What’s that look like that first morning you’re meeting up with your, your clients? James (16m 47s): Yeah, generally speaking You know sometime the evening before you’ll hear from me and just kind of checking in, being like You know, let me know when you’re in town. Lemme know when you get settled and I’ll get you a plan this evening in terms of the where and when of it all. And at that point You know I’ll check in with you sometime the evening usually by text and see if you have any more questions. And then I’d drop you a pin to a location and be like, Hey, meet me here at You know around this time. There’s so much to do even when you get there. To me it’s just like, I don’t care if you’re five minutes late and You know also I’m not gonna be there 15 minutes early just because I’m gonna get there. James (17m 28s): If I say I’ll be there at eight, I’m gonna be there at eight or 8 0 1 or 7 59, something like that. And then ’cause You know, then you get the boat in, you go run the shuttle, you do the thing and you, you go start your day. But it’s pretty, that’s it. Pretty streamlined. Not a whole lot of orchestration going on here. Yeah, Dave (17m 45s): Yeah. It’s not too big of a, I mean pretty easy. It is like most sky trips you kind of of meet in the morning head out once you get on the water maybe what does that look? And it all probably depends right? Depending on where you’re, but let’s pick a normal, you got a normal water year, plenty of water You know where are we headed that first morning? James (18m 2s): You mean like what river would I choose or what Yeah, Dave (18m 4s): Do you have, like if you had a normal water year, would you have You know basically like you said six Rivers you could go to easily or how do you guys choose where you’re going or does it depend on who’s out? James (18m 13s): So yeah, it’s a great question. Sort of for me, the way I will end up picking a river in particular is I’m gonna try to get a feel for not only skill level but expectation. And expectation I think is the more important thing to base it off of. Because people tend to, I would say thoroughly understand their own expectations and are able to convey them very well. People aren’t super great at thoroughly understanding and conveying their skill levels. You know, ’cause the last thing I wanna do is hear somebody say You know hey I’m really good and I want to go get a big one. James (18m 53s): And then I look at all the conditions of the rivers, the flows, the weather reports, the wind reports, all that stuff that helps me decide on where to go and be like, well hey You know this narrow woody stretch that’s super technical casting and ready to go. This person said they’re good and they want a big one, this is the one. And then I get in there and find out it’s like, well their version of good was based off of 10 years of fishing in Alaska where You know maybe they just chuck and ducked and never actually threw a streamer. Yeah. And it’s like, ah, no, yeah, I’ve made a huge mistake. And so I try to get the expectation first and then just gently pry on the overall skill level. Now that’s gotten easier with time and most of the time it’s if, let’s say someone’s in town for like two or three days, I like to open up with a good middle of the road option where it’s like, yeah, let’s just You know. James (19m 40s): Let’s go get a read on each other and we’re gonna go someplace where we can get numbers of fish, we can get a big fish and, and it’s relatively wide open. Get the read and then base the next few days decisions off of that. Dave (19m 53s): There you go. That makes sense. Yeah. So get a start the day not going to the most technical spot right away, right, with James (19m 59s): Your Yeah, take it’s bat in cages. Yeah. Like let’s just go swing all day and and see what’s going on and then, and then go from there. Love that. Because I mean we’ve ev everyone’s been in a situation in life where all of a sudden you find yourself in a situation that is like, whoa, I’m not prepared for this. Yeah. Right. And that takes away from the fun of the experience. Dave (20m 17s): Exactly. Like yeah you’re, you’re at the spot where you say, yeah you’ve gotta go under that tree right up against the law. Exactly. you can drop it down and if you don’t you’re gonna lose your fly. Right. And that’s gonna be a nightmare. Yeah, James (20m 28s): Yeah, Dave (20m 29s): Yeah. Good. Okay, well let’s say we are on that technical, let’s say you got a crew there that’s pretty good You know they feel they can cast You know you’re getting, you’re on the water. Talk about that. How are you finding is this sort of thing where you kind of already know where these big boys are at or how would you find some of the big fish if you were kind of new to that area? James (20m 46s): So You know, I guess in terms of how I would approach to find those big fish is big fish are pretty well, I mean they’re creatures of habit. They have their areas, they have their haunts that they like to lock down and You know time of year is kind of important to consider. Are we still talking about like July? Dave (21m 5s): Well yeah actually let’s just break it out. Let’s spread it out. Let’s just say, ’cause you got pretty much what marched through like October for the small mouth season. Yeah, James (21m 11s): That’s a pretty good way to look at it. Absolutely. Dave (21m 13s): Yeah. So let’s just take it in general. Let’s just say anytime in that window, You know, how would you be finding some big You know versus say just catching smaller ones or whatever? James (21m 21s): Sure. So if we’re talking early spring first, let’s start there. Yeah, what I would look for, or the things I would pay attention to are number one, just water temperature in general. First thing we do in the morning is kick a thermometer overboard and let that thing get a good temp read. Usually just even though it doesn’t take this long at all to get a good temperature reading, You know I’ll put the boat in, kick the thermometer overboard, go run my shuttle and when I get back I’ll immediately, first thing I’ll do is check the temperature and let’s say it’s mid-March and you’re in Michigan and I look at that temp and that water temps probably gonna be in the mid thirties or mid upper thirties depending on how winter is receding. So let’s say it’s 36. James (22m 3s): All right. And if I’m paying attention and savvy, I’ve already looked at the weather of a couple days beforehand and picked to go fishing the day as best I could. Of course everyone’s got schedules and time and all that stuff and But, you know, an ideal scenario would be on somewhat of a warming trend and a sunny day that’s coming up or mostly sunny Dave (22m 26s): Coming off of maybe some weather that wasn’t quite as good James (22m 29s): Maybe or You know. And truthfully in, in March a great ideal situation would be like You know, maybe it’s the third day into a warmup and you got a couple of days left still. And so that water maybe is climbed from a 34 degree start temp to a 36 degree start temp for the morning that we’re there. And as we go throughout the day, You know every hour or so I’m gonna check, but I would probably have told you when I saw 36 in the morning like, hey You know we’re going to start this day not expecting much because it’s cold But, you know, when we get to around noon or so from noon to three, that’s the point we kind of want to be very ready. James (23m 12s): Don’t let yourself get into a funk because it’s gonna happen around that. That’s gonna be around the daytime high for years. What we’ve noticed is roughly an hour leading into the daytime high is when the first fish will get caught. You’ll catch fish through the daytime high and then after that temp first starts, the air temp first starts to dip down, you’ve got about another hour before that water temp follows suit and we’re talking half a degree drop is enough to shut it off. Now this is some pretty extreme cold weather fishing right at that point, but that’s the kind of stuff that we noticed early on. And so what I tell people who are either thinking of coming up here to fish with us or if they’re thinking of doing it on their own, it’s just like, don’t go hard out the gate on those days. James (24m 1s): It’s all warm up. And so You know practice making some hard shots. Fish seriously, You know there’s always a pike around willing to play and you never really know. But generally that’s kind of how I’m thinking is you’re, you’re, you’re playing off the thermometer in that early spring stuff now in terms of strategy and where to look with all that information in mind, if I’m on an A to B float and it’s eight miles long and I know that sometime around that daytime high I want to be in the areas or as close to them as I can that have the highest potential to turn out a big fish. What do those areas look like? Well, they’re gonna be pretty slow. Speed is what they’re gonna be looking for. James (24m 41s): Not totally dead, not like leaves stacked in there that haven’t moved all winter slow. Right. But imperceptible current like Dave (24m 51s): Yeah so not like a a pool, a super stagnant pool but more of a maybe a glide. No, maybe a glide that’s just kind of James (24m 56s): A very, very gentle glide. Yeah. Like super slow speed and about three to five feet in depth is ideal. Dark bottom. If you can play a sunny side of the river, it’s a good start Dave (25m 6s): Play The sunny side. Yeah. What, what would that be on the sunny side? Do you wanna be on, talk about that where the sun, the sun was out bright, where would you wanna be positioning? James (25m 14s): It’s, it just depends on where the sky’s gonna be in the river. But it’s just literally, if I’m looking, let’s say you blindfolded me and stuck me on a river and yanked it off and it’s mid-March and I’m fishing for small off bass and the water temps 36 at the start, I’m gonna just go through and be like, well that side looks slower and deeper and it’s got a dark bottom and it’s getting some sun. I’m gonna fish that one. Okay now just because it’s like that’s got your, it’s got the right kind of holding water for that time of year. It’s got a dark bottom that’s gonna absorb heat quicker and it’s got the sun. So it’s getting the double load of You know warming rather than kind of like heat dissipating into it from throughout the water column. It’s like no I’m getting radiant energy now that’s gonna see your more active fish. James (25m 59s): That being said, I’m not ignoring You know four out of five criteria just ’cause there’s no sun there. Right. I’m still gonna fish good spots in shady bends, But, you know, every now and then if I’m looking at a spot that’s got everything, if both sides have everything but one’s got sun, I’m gonna start there. I might roll up and fish the other side too afterwards. But Sun’s very helpful that time of year. Yeah. Dave (26m 19s): Okay. So that’s it. So basically, yeah, you’re always thinking about the sun where you’re at. And then so once you’re there, I mean those are conditions for You know kind of, I’m sure there’s some different size classes that could be living in there once. If you do have, let’s just take it to that prime thing. You got the dark bottom, you got all that going for you now where are you tracking to find some of the bigger fish versus maybe some of those smaller ones James (26m 38s): Inside of that one run? The theoretical run that we have? Yeah, usually it’s gonna be your just the most prime piece cover. So if they’re all grouped in there together, what it generally feels like is the biggest fish is holding the best piece. So kind of like somewhere closer to head of run, little bit slower water, maybe some good cover down there like a log or a rock or all of the above. That’s gonna kind of be where it’s at. And again, considering the time of year we’re in, considering that 90% of the fish are in like 5% of the water just because I fished through something one time, if it looks good enough, that doesn’t mean there’s no fish in there. I might row back up and hang out on any river and run through it again and again if, and especially if I’m very confident three, four times through that, changing flies, changing depths, pushing that limit. James (27m 32s): I mean that’s pretty normal protocol. It’s like you You know why, if You know when the water’s that cold that they’re here, why go somewhere else? I mean eventually you just You know you gotta cut bait You know just yeah. Right, right. Like all right we gave it a go and let’s go to the next one because we only got that time of year again March. You got about three and a half hours or so to get this thing done on a good day and you wanna event You know you just gotta start maximizing your Dave (27m 57s): Odds. That’s amazing. What is the You know, not that this is all a numbers game or size game But, you know, I’m just curious on that. What is a You know a big, what would be a kind of a trophy? ’cause you guys I think have some pretty big small mouth out there, right? What would be a really big one? James (28m 13s): I mean, anything plenty and up is freaking huge. You know we get a good number of 20 inch fish each year. We get a handful of 20 ones if we’re You know lucky on a good year. And keeping in mind that these are river fish, they don’t pack on pounds like a lake fish can You know that. And that’s why we often operate on length, weight as highly variable as the season goes by. You’re, you’re 20 inch individual in April might be like a pound less come August. And so You know it’s kinda like, eh, it’s let’s go by length for us. Dave (28m 46s): Right. And why is that in a so April, so they’re bigger in April and they lose pounds over the summer. Yeah, James (28m 52s): A couple of factors there. If it’s a You know, chances are if it’s that big of a fish, it’s probably a big female. And so in April they’re stacking up, they’re putting on pounds to getting ready for spawn. They got eggs spawn there, all that other, yeah. Yeah. And then also they’re cold-blooded animal. So the metabolism follows suit with the environment. When it’s that cold, the metabolism slows down. So not only You know it, it’s a myth that they don’t have to eat in the winter, they eat every single day. But what happens is they’re just not burning as many calories sitting there anymore. Right. So when they’re eating, they’re retaining more calories. It’s just like You know as we age and theoretically the metabolism slows down. You know I don’t look as stunning as I did 10 years ago. James (29m 34s): Right. Dave (29m 35s): Yeah. None of us do. That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. You gotta watch your weight. You can’t eat as many cheeseburgers anymore or all No. Right. you can but you just won’t, you won’t be feeling good. James (29m 44s): Yeah, you’ll pay for it. Dave (29m 45s): Huh. So the fish too, the fish will pay for that a little bit if they, well I guess that they don’t have that sort of thought, right? They’re just trying to survive. Well James (29m 51s): Yeah, to them it’s a boon. ’cause You know they’re big and bad and they’re surviving. But once that water temp ramps up, they kinda get that double whammy. They go through the spa. That’s pretty exhausting in general. It’s a huge energy sink. And then they feed pretty hard after that. But eventually they’re sitting there in midsummer. Water temps for us can creep into the low eighties. Oh wow. When it’s really hot. Usually it’s more like in the seventies. But I mean you think about that, that sucker’s metabolism is You know cranking away and he’s just burning calories fast existing and sipping on You know bugs and small minnows and whatever they can get all day. It’s keeping up, it keeps ’em going, but they just start trimming down. Dave (30m 33s): That’s it. Cool. So that’s a little bit, and there’s more we can cover there. I, I started thinking about flight time a little more. You mentioned kind of getting started as a kid and now I think You know, I think Bob in the hood is coming up here. You’ve got a kind of a cool new event that you guys have been doing. Yeah. But what’s your take on flight? And I think you have some of your own patterns, right? That you’re doing. I’m not sure if the, I was kinda looking at a couple of those, the fleeing CRAs, some of those out there. Maybe talk about your design on flies. What do you choose and, and I guess take it to what maybe what we’re talking about here as as this example in March. James (31m 2s): Oh, so I guess for like if I were fishing in March, what I would be choosing is pretty typically like a good bread and butterfly. You’d be a fool not to have one. Just be like a red-eyed leach or any leach pattern, sculpting pattern, that kind of thing. Something with some lead in there rabbit. And kind of the, the idea behind having these is it’s a pretty inoffensive offering to them. It’s not moving like crazy. It’s not a huge thing that requires a lot of energy to tackle. It’s something they can just snack on easily. And what I like about those flies in particular from a work standpoint is I can get people, any one of us can, but like I can get people to fish those things at exactly the level I want. James (31m 54s): Just through some You know, really quick verbal coaching where I can say like, all right, I want you to cast it to that bank. Strip it like two or three times real quick off the bank. ’cause you can see it’s sort of a shallow shelf there and then it drops. So those two to three strips, you get you to the edge. Once it’s off the edge, just You know. Give it like a three count. I’ll tell you when to start. And in my head I’m sitting there going like, all right, one, two, alright man, go ahead and make one long slow strip as slow as you can past your hip. And inevitably that’s always too fast. And so you, you kind of coach ’em down until they’re working slow enough. But what we’re then able to do is fish that leach just at a right level. It’s really You know, we call it the swing strip where it’s half swinging and then occasionally you’re stripping. James (32m 35s): But it’s, I I describe that strip not so much like what, what everyone is thinking right now. When I say that, I’m saying like I want you to just slowly drag that thing to you as if you’re just have your eyes closed and you’re feeling along a wall for a light switch. Like just a very slow pole. And what you’re actually doing in that moment is not so much trying to animate the fly as you are in the case of march with these cold water temps. Feeling for something to pick it up. Because it’s not gonna be the yank or the tug that we all hope and pray it’ll be, it’s a pressure bite. Dave (33m 11s): Yeah. A little something different as you’re slowly stripping something, something James (33m 15s): Different. Right. And it’s just, and usually what happens is You know with the course of the day I’m watching fly lines and I can tell right away when something does it ’cause your fly is You know with me controlling the boat at at the exact same speed all day long relative to the river. Watching that line go through at the exact angle that I wanted at, with just a little bit of bow in it. When I all of a sudden see that thing hesitate for a split second. It’s like, yep, that’s a fish. And usually the first two or three times I say that in a day where I’m like, Hey, check it. It’s like, oh no, no, there’s nothing there. Finally they do and then they look back and go, I’ve missed like three today, haven’t I? It’s like Dave (33m 52s): Right. And what’s the set like on that? Describe that a little bit. James (33m 56s): So in the morning, You know, as long as I’ve had my coffee, usually one of the first things I’ll say is we start fishing. It’s like, hey, here’s how we’re gonna do it. As I’m coaching them into like how to move the fly and I’m like, I’m gonna say you’re not gonna feel the takes. I’m gonna be able to see the line. And when you set, I just want you to both You know with small mouth in general, pretty much no matter what time of year, if we’re talking streamers, I wanna see not only a strip set, but I wanna see that rod engaged as well. Stripping and pointing at the fish doesn’t get it done. ’cause they have a tendency to not turn away from you after you prick ’em. They have a tendency to charge you. Mm. And so if you just strip and keep your rod pointed at him, you prick ’em but you never bury it. So you strip sweep the rod in the opposite directions from the fish. James (34m 39s): So if he’s off to the left, you better sweep that thing kind of to the right. Get it up in the air as soon as you can. But often with those big fish, especially in the early months, march, early April kind of thing, you will strip into those things and sweep and bury it. And then there’s no movement. And what I tell people is, you’re gonna think you hook the log Dave (35m 1s): Really James (35m 2s): Because the thing just doesn’t move at first. Dave (35m 5s): Yeah. The big ones, the big ones especially are just, you can’t even move them. They’re just sitting there. Right. James (35m 10s): And and their, their energy’s still pretty low. And I mean it’s almost the same thing every time someone drills into like a big chunky 19, I watch ’em bury it and they’re just, they’re holding it. They’re long enough for me to go, is that a fish? I don’t know. And then all of a sudden you’ll see like the rod tip, like pulse once or twice and they’re like, oh it is. And then You know they start stripping them and you get, you fight it in from Dave (35m 33s): There. What percentage, percentage of the time just roughly on those, is it a log do you think out James (35m 38s): There? I mean, You know when it’s a log ’cause you gotta go get it. Dave (35m 41s): You know. Yeah. You get it right. James (35m 42s): It’s, I would say it depends on the type of river we’re fishing, but it’s often a fish as long as the control and everything’s right. And kind of back to the, these leaded flies things that I was talking about earlier. ’cause we kind of got away from the fly part of it. Yeah. Is what I like about those for that time of year is you can choose your fly based on the size of lead and the flow of the river and the depth of the water and the depth that the wood is sitting within the water to, to kind of feather your presentations that way. I don’t want the heaviest fly in the world out there. There are times and places where that is absolutely acceptable. But generally for the rivers we fish are such low gradient, all that other stuff and very gentle kind of glide streams. James (36m 24s): Like I’m looking more at the like small to medium eyes because I can, we, we can feather that presentation better. We’re not chasing stuff away. And, and to that end, You know, coupled with that is why we run a lot of intermediates. Again, our gradients not fast enough to demand a sink tip in the first place. But two, you’re just chasing sink tips off the bottom all day, moving your fly too fast trying to prevent it from snagging. Yeah, Dave (36m 49s): Right. That makes sense. So yeah, you don’t want to be, you’re getting down, the fish are down, but you don’t wanna necessarily just throw, have a, a sink or weight just slam to the bottom. You, you’re feathering it, you’re touching it, you’re kind of, yes, all that. Okay, that makes sense. So the intermediate, is that pretty much your standard line throughout the, well I guess throughout the year it changes, but when you’re trying to get these streamers down, is it intermediate James (37m 8s): Man, it’s like I have intermediates in the boat every single day that I’m out there. If I’m fishing, small mouth water, it’s always intermediate. There’s a couple of floats where I might throw in like a small sink tip here or there like a You know, like a short sink tip kinda line. But pretty much you can get it done with intermediate no matter what. And especially, I mean even the highest water we have, I’m still choosing an intermediate. I might go to a slightly heavier fly, maybe a little bit longer of a liter to unleash it from the influence of that intermediate line and let it dip a little more. But no, I mean swim flies, dredge flies, doesn’t matter. It’s an intermediate line. Dave (37m 45s): Intermediate. Okay. And then what is the line, what’s the line you guys, I know there’s tons of intermediate lines, everybody’s got one, but what do you guys like to use there? For brands? Yeah. James (37m 53s): Two brands we run. It’s like both airflow and scientific anglers. I’m a scientific anglers user personally. So like the Titan full intermediate is my line from like March into May. Okay. And then pretty much sometime in October all the way back into March again. So like all the, any winter bass fishing I do, it’s that sa full intermediate switching over then to like the clear tip intermediates for the summer months if we have enough water for it. And if not, I’ll just start running smaller streamers on floating lines. Dave (38m 25s): Okay. Floating lines. Good. So that’s it. And then anything special on the leaders set up there? Do you, is this a pretty standard setup with with the leader? James (38m 33s): I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s depending on what we’re doing. If I’m just like chucking lead, whether it’s light lead or medium or heavy lead, it’s pretty rudimentary. Like a three section liter down to like either 15 or maybe maybe I’ll step down to a 12 pound if the water’s clear. Yep. Like super clear and about four and a half to five feet in length. If I am running swim flies no matter the time of year, but especially in the spring when you have some extra water and that’s, that’s really You know those big gnarly swim flies that we’d like to fish a lot. Dave (39m 7s): Yeah. What would those be? What would be a name of one of those gnarly swim flies? So James (39m 10s): You’d have like mike pattern of swinging D is one of ’em. Any of the larger, kinda like craft fur infused game changers or feather game changers, the flea and cray or the flea and mineral of mine. Like those things both kind of stand on that gnarly thing. And generally it’s flies anywhere from like, eh, that five inch range up to You know seven, eight inches in length and You know those. I would say you swim flies swim best with a little bit longer of a leader. Now you gotta make sure there’s stout ’cause you gotta turn these areas and things over. so I don’t know, I probably the longest leaders I run are maybe about seven. James (39m 52s): And the lightest I will go is about 15 pound. If I’m running early spring or if the water’s got some stain in it, I’m looking I I’ll run like 20 pound You know, stepping down from like 30 or like 40 or 30, something like that. And just kind of couple of You know three, four sections of wine down to 20 or 15 pound. Dave (40m 12s): What do you guys like, does it matter the brand? You have a special, a brand you like James (40m 17s): For a leader? Yeah, I just, every, I just buy spools of cigar, usually red label or Invis X or Brax, whatever. Whatever I get my mitts on at the time. Any of that, you cannot go wrong. Dave (40m 29s): Step into the world where the river whispers and the fishing is nothing short of legendary. This year I ventured into the heart of Eastern Idaho’s Yellowstone Teton territory where the fish were larger than life and the waters held the secrets of the best fly fishing out West Yellowstone Teton territory is not just a location, it’s a gateway to adventures that will etch themselves into your memory with crystal clear rivers like the Henry’s fork and the South Fork of the Snake and enough lakes to keep you going all year long. Make your way to Yellowstone Teton territory and embark on a journey to one of North America’s finest fly fishing destinations. Whether you’re planning your trip now or just dreaming it up, the YTT is where those dreams turn into reality. Dave (41m 12s): Remember Yellowstone Teton territory? That’s Teton, T-E-T-O-N. It’s time to experience eastern Idaho for yourself and support this podcast at the same time. On De Mark Lodge offers a world class experience with one of the finest rainbow trout and brown trout fisheries in the world. They’re family owned and operated. Missouri River Lodge offers comfortable accommodations, delicious homecooked meals and personalized service that make you feel like family days on the water are capped off by appetizers, beverages, dinner and stories on the back deck and around the campfire. Book your stay for an unforgettable fly fishing adventure where memories are made and the fish stories are real. Dave (41m 54s): you can head over right now to wet fly swing.com/on DeMar, that’s O-N-D-E-M-A-R-K on DeMar right now to book your magical Missouri River trip. So we’re talking, you mentioned it flies you some basic stuff. We talked about kind of the, maybe the smaller stuff, but some of this bigger stuff, five to eight inches. When are you changing to this or when during the year you do, you wanna pull out the big stuff? James (42m 20s): Right. So we’ll start fishing it in March. Shoot man, I, I think I’ve had a couple of years where the first swim fly fish we’re taking in February. Yeah, okay. But I mean, here’s the kicker. So with those You know how I said earlier the benefit of a leach or a small crayfish pattern, or not small But, you know, three inches or so with lead is it’s, it’s a pretty easy meal. It doesn’t require a lot of energy to slurp in these things. It’s turns into a little bit more of an endeavor. So if I’m out there doing it, it’s because I wanna see it. Or if someone’s out there doing it, it’s because they just wanna see it. This is for like the February situation here, which is already an extreme time to do this, but sliding into March, that becomes just, it comes very viable, especially later into March and April and early May. James (43m 9s): Especially all those kinda like, I would say there’s two great months of it, generally speaking, mid-March to mid-May and those big swim flies. So like the, like the swinging Ds and the, the fleeing craze of the world. Those things become awesome because you can target these fish in those aforementioned kinda like holds like the big slow pools and runs and hover those flies in the strike zone. Dave (43m 37s): Oh right. James (43m 38s): And you can fish them over wood without worrying about it plummeting into the woods. So it’s this tough thing in that, in that early part of the season, and you can fish faster as the year goes on with these flies. But in that early one I would tell someone like, Hey, put it to target. I want you to make like one, two big strips and then till it, and I might say like, all right, hey man, gimme two big strips. So strip, strip, alright, now pause, don’t move it, don’t move it, leave it alone, don’t move it. Okay. Two strips again. Oh wow then ba kidding. He’s like, yeah, because those flies, they’re, even though they’re keeled and they have all the stuff, they’re so buoyant from the amount of material in there that they’re falling in that time, but it’s just a gentle tipping kind of like downwards, right? James (44m 28s): So you’re never losing sight of it and they’re only fishing like a foot and a half below the surface or so. And so maybe during that pause they drop six inches and then you’ll light it back up and it kind of comes back up into that foot and a half range again and then just drops back down. Yeah. Dave (44m 41s): And like any predator, right? They love the, the flinging predator, they wanna see it maybe wounded or something like that, but do they love it? Right? They wait for it to take off again. Is that kind what they’re waiting for? James (44m 50s): What they’re, I mean for small mouth it’s like, yeah, that’s certainly a trigger. It’s like if you can, let’s say in a hypothetical retrieve you, you give it those first two kicks and that big die, you might be getting his attention in that big die. Like he’s kind of jockeyed up behind it, below it, you don’t see him yet, you strip it two more times and you kill it again. All of a sudden he comes screaming in on that next big kill and just sucks it in. So they’re always gonna eat when that thing’s Mm. Always is a tricky term. 98.4% of the time they’re eating on that long pause no matter what time of year it is. Dave (45m 25s): Oh, on the long pause, right? James (45m 27s): Yeah. Or on any pause. Yeah. Like in July you can work much faster. It’s like strip, strip pause, strip pause, strip, strip, strip pause and they’re gonna suck it in on those pauses. Dave (45m 36s): Yeah. So as the water warms up and do you get to a certain point in the summer when things get too or maybe talk about that. So we’re talking springtime going into May. You got the spawn after the May into back, now we’re back to July. So June July. How are things changing there as far as the stuff you’re fishing James (45m 53s): In terms of flies? Dave (45m 55s): Yeah, in terms of flies. Yeah. Are you, could you still use some of this stuff we’re talking about the fleeing You know and Yeah, if we have James (45m 60s): Good water, like if we have like a, a great water year. Yeah, I got some pictures from like 2021 where I think the remnants of I’ve, I’ve forgotten hurricane, came up here, dumped like inches of water on us over the course of a few days and that was, that was one of the years where the spring was like creepy dry. then we had just this sick midsummer that set us all the way up into October and I was running You know six inch streamers in small water like widthwise because we had Springlike flows in there and it was amazing. I mean we caught a lot of really great big fish and a more typical year, I’m gonna drop into like that three to four inch fly range for that if we’re talking streamers. James (46m 46s): And then the other thing about July is like the top water fishing is really good and you can sit there and run poppers or frogs or You know like deer hair bait fish type imitations throughout the whole day. And you can do that You know and, and you can do that in a probing fashion where it’s just sort of out front, down the middle and kind of see what comes up for us. Or you can be hyper-specific, You know, full on headhunting looking for or You know expressly presenting to known lies of fish where it’s like, Hey You know there’s been an 18 hanging out here for like 10 days, so we’re gonna run it out there. Or it’s like, ooh, there he is. Drop that fly 20 feet upstream of him and just run it into him. James (47m 28s): Pop it like once when you’re 10 feet from ’em and then don’t move it. Yeah. Just let it dead. Drift over ’em. Gotcha. And see what Dave (47m 36s): Happens. Wow. That’s cool. Yeah. Do these fish, when you guys see ’em, are you seeing You know if you hook up with one of these big fish You know today, tomorrow, is that same fish potentially in the same spot just ready to go again? James (47m 49s): Potentially? Yeah. I mean, I would say they’re gonna be in or near the same spot. Yes. I don’t really notice a whole lot of, like, I, I don’t think they necessarily become overly gun shy the next day, other than the fact that I think they’re very good at just learning from their mistakes. So if you’re coming in and trying the same trick that might not get it done. Yeah. Because they’re just a little more aware. And two, with, with these big fish, I mean, there’s a reason they’re hard to catch. It’s just they’ve seen it, they’ve learned from things before. And even if, maybe I’m giving ’em too much credit, I could say this, those big fish might naturally be the most shy among them. James (48m 33s): So something that You know, a shifted foot in the boat that wouldn’t bug the average 16, that 19 he might not run. And this was something you can see in really clear water. But if you’ve been watching him and he’s sitting in like a bucket or something, 30 feet from you and that foot slides on the boat bottom, all of a sudden he’ll stop Finn so happy, he’ll kind of like tighten up his movements and just sorta sit there and not move as much. ’cause it’s, it’s sort of like a, it’s just like a freeze in front of the predator moment of like, all right, if I don’t move, they might not see me. Right. So that’s something I see more in with big fish, especially in low water when you can really watch ’em, is just that shift in body language. James (49m 14s): And You know every fish does this. You, you can tell when they’re off. Dave (49m 17s): Yeah. Yeah. They’re not, yeah, something’s off, they’re whatever, whatever that is. Yeah. But yeah, You know it. That’s interesting. Okay, so, well we talked a little bit about fly design. Let’s kind of start to take it out here with our segment. This is kind of our fly design segment. I’ve been thinking about the Bob and the hood, but maybe talk about that. Yeah. That maybe let’s start off with the fleeing cray or, or a pattern similar to that and talk about You know, ’cause you’re kind of known for, I think some of this on the flight tying and obviously everything we talked about today. You know this getting nerdy about the You know the fishing, which is, this is amazing. But how does that look with flight tying? Like how are you thinking about design when you go into tying a, a new pattern for smallmouth? James (49m 52s): Yeah. so I You know I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that I have like a million patterns I designed, I I, ’cause that’s just not true. I’ve got You know the, the Flea and Crave Flea and Minnow is You know. Yes. That is one I designed. I’ve got a bunch of way less engineered patterns that I use just to guide with that are are more about just building in the correct swim for something that I want. But overall didn’t require like a ton of design. But the fleeing cray I will speak to, because that was a long process. That was probably You know, I think it was two and a half years from the original idea to the final product. James (50m 33s): And just going through iterations, it actually started as a single hooked pattern where I, I essentially tied like a Schulte single fly Cray, but instead of putting lead on the head i I packed in some, it’s a material called Glow Bug bling, where it’s like a, it’s a yarn, but it’s like an, it’s an egg yarn from Glow Bug, but it’s got like flex of like flashabou in it essentially. Sure. And I used that to create a head that Rough Madden was using on some of his patterns, I think from the No hander lander it was called, where it was like he basically tied this glow bug yarn in perpendicular to the hook, just kind of crossing wraps, move up, tie another section, then you just clip it. James (51m 18s): And so it gave like this sort of flattened wedge look to it. It started just like that didn’t swim super well, but it, it got the job done. It caught some fish. I was like, oh, okay. ’cause the, the whole idea behind it was like, I’ve always been a big fan of crayfish patterns and small mouth have been a big fan of crayfish patterns for a lot longer than I’ve been alive. Right. And so it was like an obvious thing where it’s like, well more crayfish is never bad. However, what’s tricky with crayfish patterns is they really shine in rocky rivers and they really shine in deeper water and they really shine in You know snag free environments. Now why do those things work so well there? James (51m 58s): Is it because crayfish don’t live other places? No, they work well there because you don’t hang up as often on wood. A lot of our rivers are full of wood and full of weeds. And so I was getting to the point where it was like there was an obvious crayfish bite that was better than anything else going on for a while. And so I tied that first iteration of this fly. ’cause what I wanted was a crayfish pattern that didn’t jig. I wanted a crayfish pattern that swam over things. Also looking at sort of the normal thing that crayfish do, if anybody out there has ever been a small kid or maybe a grownup kid now, like me and you go try to catch crayfish out of any body of water, I have never once seen one like jig away from me. James (52m 46s): They scoot and dart and and zip. It’s always in a direct line A to B getting the hell out of there. Yeah, yeah. As quick as possible. Yeah. As quick as possible. And so I’m like, well, all right. The jigging motion is 1000% a bite trigger for all fish, especially bath. And the beauty of a jigging motion is you can, if your strike zone is small, you keep it in there even when you’re animating it or it at least it kind of hangs in there longer because it’s you, you move it and then it falls. So you’re getting two times the movement on two planes, both the X and Y access within a small area. So if you’ve got like a, a four foot zone from a central point like a four foot radius, you can get a whole lot of movement up, down, left right in that zone with a jigging pattern. James (53m 32s): However, then you gotta go fish it out of the snag on your way out of there because flies aren’t tied weedless very well. No. So kind of brought me to this thing of like, how do I design a fly that fishes over the top of everything? I can pause it longer ’cause it’s sort of neutrally buoyant. So it may not drop, but it’s gonna sit. Eventually went on to articulate that original version hanging the shank off the back just to get that little bit more of a broken movement and kind of showed it to Mike one day. And he’s You know we were up fishing I think on the PM when I first showed it to him. And he’s like, oh yeah, that’s pretty cool. Like You know you gotta, you gotta dress it up, you gotta, you gotta enhance the Dave (54m 13s): Thing, put some flash in it. James (54m 15s): Well, no, not really. It was more of just like, it was a pretty gnarly look and critter in it’s, its first iterations and, and needed to be streamlined sometimes it just had stuff in there because it was like, I just need my body here. And then I was in the shop one day looking around and like all of a sudden there’s this, the lively leg brush that material. I’m looking at that and I’m going, holy. Like this is the answer man. Dave (54m 42s): This is like the rubbery material. Yeah. James (54m 44s): Yeah. It’s, it’s like a, it’s a brush with rubber legs through it and they make it in a few different sizes, but I’m like, oh my god, You know you palmer it like a feather and it’s just this leggy mass and if there’s anything that bath love, it’s rubber. And I’m like, this is it. And so I bought some of that went home and this was like December or January of 21 I think. And I’m up there tweaking and tying and tweaking and tying and then I was just like, You know. I landed on it. It had You know and what, what I love about it and I’m no, I’m not shy about this, is like, it’s got all sorts of a bunch of the tires I admire most. I, I see the flavors in there of them You know of like the Russ Maddens, the Kevin TROs, the Mike Schultz, the You know, even like Tommy Lynch, like all these guys from Michigan who tie really great streamers. James (55m 32s): It’s like there’s things I learned from them that I kind of dragged into this pattern and got it to where it is. Dave (55m 38s): Yep. Which is, how would you describe to somebody we could, we’ll put a link the show notes to the the pattern, but how would you describe it? James (55m 45s): So the Flee and Cray is, it is kind of more like if you were to look at its profile, it’s gonna be more of a, like a kind of a rough crank bait type of profile, right. Where it’s, it’s bulkier at the front end, narrower at the rear, which is pretty typical for anything born in water claws hanging off the back bunch of rubber legs. And then it’s got like a built carpus out of mallard flank feathers and then a big bulky head at the front. And so, and it’s also got a keel and, and typically a rattle in there as well. And the whole idea with this is, and you can change what front hooks you run it on, but in general, swim, fly design, if you put something bulky at the front end near where you tie your You know fly to the line. James (56m 32s): So like big bulky head trim it You know you have a, have a narrower body tapering off behind it and then some amount of mass somewhere in there. It’s like this keel. That’s what’s gonna give you the, like that big kick in glide motion that the fly can give you. It’ll, if you give it a small strip, it’ll just turn sideways on the spot. If you give it a longer one, it’ll kind of like slide forward and then give you a big traveling glide to the left or to the right. And then as it, when it stops all those rubber legs kind of like s fla open and play out. Dave (57m 0s): Amazing. Amazing. And what is the keel? What is the keel made out of? Typically James (57m 5s): You can, it pretty much a keel just needs to be a, like a point of math. So you can pick your poison. I usually do like O three O or O three five lead. Okay. Just wrapped on the bend of the hook. And then often like if I’m guiding with it, I’ll wrap it on the bend of the hook. I’ll run some thread up and down the length of it to lock it in. I’ll super glue over that. And then I’ll also UV cure around it. And this ensures that I’m not losing that keel. You know a season in it’s, I’ll have them, it’ll look like hell, but I’ll have it two seasons in still three season in. Yeah. Dave (57m 39s): Will that fly still work after it’s been chomped on and landed some fish? Oh James (57m 42s): Yeah. Yeah. I’ve had like the, the claws that are tied in there get chewed off and it’s just the rubber dangling off the Dave (57m 49s): Back. Is that just the closet or the closet are just some rabbit strips. James (57m 54s): I tend to use pine squirrel instead of rabbit because it’s less bulk. Yeah. What I’ve noticed with a lot of the rabbit ones, all that extra bulk in the rear of it deadens the movement and it’s, I think at times people get lost in trying to like more accurately mimic something and then sacrificing the movement, which is the most important part. Dave (58m 17s): Yeah. That’s the most important. Yep. James (58m 19s): Yeah. To me, if impressionism is key to tricking most fish, like just suggest the idea of the life form but ensure that the place is correct and the movement’s right. And that will lead to good catching Dave (58m 35s): And color is number two. Or what, what or size, I guess what would be number two on the variables? James (58m 40s): Yeah, I mean I think size is pretty important. I think color is important. But I will say if you go look at any of the fleeing craze that I’ve tied or really that anyone’s tied, a lot of people are tying these things very well. I see ’em all the time on Instagram. They, and it, it’s been delightful to watch, to watch people tying these things. And I’m a big fan of like, just make this thing a mosaic. I try not to get too locked into like crayfish or brown. It’s like, well they are, if you’re looking at ’em from 60 feet away, they’re, they’re kind of this brown spot. But if you hold one in your hand, they’re brown, they’re peach, they’re yellow, they’re like, and this is all on one. They’re red, they’ve got blue in there, they’ve got random greens and all sorts of stuff. James (59m 24s): So that’s the beauty of a lot of these brushes that I use in it. They have all these mosaics kind of already built into them and mix and match. And then I try to put a bright spot or two in there, Dave (59m 35s): Little bit of flash. so James (59m 36s): I actually I don’t even, I don’t put any flash in mine. Dave (59m 39s): No flash. James (59m 40s): No flash, no it’s got a rattle. It’s got so much rubber on there. I’m more about that I’ll rely on, if I’ve got stained water, I’ll just run bigger and I might run flashier colors. So like an orange and chartreuse version for instance where it’s like, yeah they’re gonna see this. You don’t necessarily need the flash. Flash might not hurt, I just don’t put it in. Dave (59m 60s): Yeah, you just don’t if you don’t need it. Yeah. Why add something to the fly if you don’t need it? Right. Adding right. James (1h 0m 5s): Yeah. Yeah. Dave (1h 0m 7s): So I got a couple random ones for you, but I had one You know one I’ve been thinking about as far as, well we, we mentioned Bob in the hood, Mike I think when he was on here last time he talked about that. But maybe give us a quick little You know kind of summary on Bob and Hood. Is that something that you are involved with? Talk about when the dates are on that and when, when that’s coming. James (1h 0m 25s): Yeah, so I am, I’ve been tying up Bob and Hood every year we’ve had it, I’ll be at it again this year. You know, I, I don’t necessarily, I work it in a sense that You know I’m tied to the shop and if somebody needs something and I can answer the question, I’m right there. I’m like, yeah, hey go talk to Corey real quick. He’ll get you squared away with that. But I’m invited in there as one of the tires and it’s a really awesome event. It’s been very well received. It’s kind of just a big hangout of notable tires and fishing guides, which is really fun ’cause it’s, it’s February. We’ve all been kinda locked in or working in the winter stuff and so it’s just nice to be out of the cold for a day. James (1h 1m 7s): And it’s You know there’s some classes to take, there’s some seminars to sit in. Usually Mike has like a keynote type speaker. You know, I think in years past it’s usually been like Blaine. I think Kelly Gallup was one of ’em last year. Yeah. But other than that, we’re all in like a You know. Last couple of years we’ve been doing it in an old rail house. And so it’s a large open building. We’re all set up on the perimeter and people can just come in and, and honestly ends up being like a big social event. People set up chairs in front of a tire they like, or if someone’s tying something interesting to them and it’s just come and go, You know I’m not there to sell a product. I’m not there to sell flies. It’s just kinda like You know someone sits down and be like, okay, why’d you do this here? James (1h 1m 49s): It’s like, well okay, here’s why. And it’s a, it’s a kind of a free and open source of information for people to come in. And what is really neat that I like about it is you get a lot of the attendees who are tires themselves will often bring in You know if they’re, if they were looking for you to show you. Like I’ll have people bring in flea and craze that they tied and be like, okay, what did I do wrong? And I can sit there and walk ’em through if there’s any improvement to be made And people like it man. And it makes a difference. I mean at least in something that You know fly time is something people really like to do. And I think an event like that is important where you can, you can get that one-on-one interaction with the tire right there. Dave (1h 2m 34s): Yeah. That is huge. Yeah. The direct feedback, it’s kind of sounds similar to a lot of the You know the tying expos you have around maybe. But, but the difference here is you get a lot of high highest level tires, right? You’re kinda getting the cream of the crop, right. People that are the Blaines and Kelly’s and stuff like that. Is, is that the big difference between, I’m not sure if you’ve bend any of those fly tying expos around the country, but is it similar to those at all? James (1h 2m 57s): You know, I, I haven’t met to any of the other ones around the country. I’ve been to some local ones here in Michigan and then, and then obviously our own. But that is, that is kind of the gist. Like you at, at least in the way Mike’s been setting it up, usually it’s got noted and respected fly tires from industry. You know we got a lot of guys coming in from Ohio. I think there were some guys from Pennsylvania, Willans usually there ’cause he is a buddy of ours. And obviously a fantastic fly tire. Very knowledgeable. So yeah, I mean I, to me as a streamer fisherman, when I look around that room I’m like, man, there’s, there is some knowledge in this place. James (1h 3m 38s): ’cause it’s every cat in there not only understands what they’re doing, but they understand it on a level that most people will never touch. But they’re not sitting there holding it back. You know if you can walk up to Russ Madden and be like, You know Russ, how’d you arrive at the Circus Peanut? And he’ll sit there and tell you the story and the how’s and the why’s and his theories behind it. That is awesome. Yeah. And it’s just great You know. Or you can go up to Kevin Fee street and be like, You know Kevin, what’s the idea behind this swing fly? And he will give you You know a peek inside that phenomenal mind of his Dave (1h 4m 14s): Totally. Yeah. That, that’s why it’s cool is being able to sit down in front and get all that knowledge. Kinda like we touched on it today, You know, I mean the, that’s why the podcast is cool is we can take a little bit of a deep dive into some things You know and sometimes we keep it high level. But no, this has been awesome. so I bass, let’s just, let’s leave this one. We, with the bass day, we’ve been talking a lot about You know what this trip’s gonna be like. What it’s like fishing over there. What do you think a lot of people, what, what’s one belief people have about small mouth bass that You know maybe they get wrong, a lot of people get wrong. Ooh. James (1h 4m 42s): Oh man. Dave (1h 4m 43s): Is that a tough one? That’s James (1h 4m 44s): A good one. Yeah. Not I, Dave (1h 4m 47s): I mean I could think of a few of just myself because I’ve never fished for big bass, but yeah. Yeah. You guys get common things where people are on the boat like, oh man, wow, I didn’t think this was gonna happen. James (1h 4m 56s): Yeah. I mean, I would say, I’m gonna rifle a couple at you. Yeah, that’s right. and you do with it what you want. Yeah. But I would say one thing about bass is I think people overestimate just how fanatical those fish are when it comes to killing things. Oh wow. I mean they’re very good at killing things, don’t get me wrong. Dave (1h 5m 19s): So they overestimate or underestimate that James (1h 5m 21s): They overestimate. And, and what I mean by this specifically is You know watching. Sometimes I’ll do this thing in the boat where I don’t even like to say anything to anybody until I’ve watched them fish for a few minutes. Right. I want to let them expose their instincts and abilities to me in a natural environment. so I might just say like, Hey, let’s start off, just go ahead and start fishing this right bank. If, if I, if they’re of modest skill and, and don’t need to be coached from the get go. And I’ll sit there and watch and let’s say we’re popper fishing and they throw that thing to the bank and they laser that cast out there real pretty. And then they start to fish that popper and it’s like chug, chug, chug, chug all the way back to the boat. I’d be like, all right, hang on, hang on, we’re we’re gonna go ahead and cast again. James (1h 6m 3s): Great cast. Keep it out front just like you did. But this time when it lands, don’t move it until like all the rings disappear and then some and then I want you to give it a light pop and then don’t move it again. And like, it’s kind of like this real more slow thing. And what I often say to somebody is like, right now you’re fishing that fly like rock and roll. And what I’m looking for is bluegrass. Like I want real, like we’re working with the river not against it. I don’t want that thing chugging awake all the way back. And a response though sometimes here is, well that’s how I catch ’em at home. Like, well, do you ever get big ones at home? No. It’s usually like fifteens or sixteens and it’s like, okay, that’s the difference. You’ll catch more and bigger fish fishing nets fly properly. James (1h 6m 47s): Like You know they are stupidly suicidal at times. But in my experience, You know they’re responding to speed. And no matter how fast you fish a popper on a fly rod, you’re never gonna touch the speed that you could on like a conventional tackle setup. No. Right. So you’re not even hitting that threshold. You’re just being noisy and obnoxious and it’s turning the fish off. Just because it’s a bass doesn’t mean it wants like loud, obnoxious things. In fact, it’s quite the opposite from what we found even with fishing frogs where it’s like a really loud Yeah, it’s not, it’s it relatively speaking, it’s a loud You know it’s like a bloom each time you hit that thing it’s like one and sit and then two and sit or maybe like one, two and then sit. James (1h 7m 29s): And then after three or four of those you pick it up and cast again to the next spot. It’s pretty targeted and precise but still somewhat mellow. so I think that’s one thing with bass and same thing with streamer fishing is sometimes you get people out there that are just like, I don’t, it’s like they’re just trying to pull, start a lawnmower a thousand times in a row during that flyback. It’s like, hey, like light it up a few times then just kill it. Yeah. No creature wants to work hard for their meals. I don’t, no Dave (1h 7m 56s): You know. Yeah, yeah. They, they like the chase but yeah, they’re not gonna cross the entire river to get your stuff right. James (1h 8m 1s): No. Occasionally they will and those are awesome, but it’s the exception proving the rule in that case. Dave (1h 8m 6s): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. This is cool. Well I think there’s so much here. You know it’s gonna be hard to kind of move outta this one. But the cool thing is is we’re gonna be, like you said, we’re gonna be heading on the water water with you and we’ve got some people here that are listening that might be out there as well. So this is gonna be great. We’ve talked about a ton today I think all out of everything that I had one question with, I think I’m gonna go back to the athletics because that’s one I’ve always had an interest in You know with my You know my sports and stuff like that. But you mentioned college. Were you a, did you have a college sport you played or what was your kind of, if you were going pro in some sport, what would it have been? James (1h 8m 37s): Oh, I, I probably never would’ve been able to go pro in what I did, but I was a decent college runner. I ran track and cross country in eastern Michigan. You know had some, some solid times and You know was occasionally okay at a conference level, but was just kinda like a solid middleman on the team for the most part. But you know, it’s, it was division one athletics and Dave (1h 8m 59s): Yeah. Wow. And was this like a long distance or short distance? James (1h 9m 3s): I was a, I was a long distance. I was like usually You know three K to 10 KI was, was kind of, yeah. Generally better at like that three to 5K. Dave (1h 9m 12s): That’s awesome. I I like running, I, I run because I wanna try to stay healthy, You know healthier and stuff. But when you get out there, running’s tough because it’s kind of a mental game. You know you start getting tired. Yes. What’s your, when you’re out there running, say you’ve run along and you wanna just keep pushing it. What’s your tip there? How can people become a better, be better at running? Like just keep it going. Sorry man. Or do you have to do that? Do you have to push it James (1h 9m 33s): Both? Yeah, I would say so it’s, now I’m gonna, I wanna, before I go into this, I do wanna say it’s like since college I think I kept up with running hard for about a year and a half after. But I, I don’t really run anymore. I do occasionally I could still lace up and go do like You know three to four miles without too much death involved. Sure. But I will say the way that it trains your brain, I think it does laugh a lifetime. ’cause I’m still very much in like an endurance mindset all the time. And I think the biggest thing with running and endurance from my experience is through high school and college is you just need to be okay feeling awful. James (1h 10m 16s): Oh right, right. And yeah. And, and not, and I don’t mean awful like sick, I just mean it’s going to hurt but you’re not going to die. Like some of the worst workouts I remember in college where it’s like You know doing 10 miles of hill repeats or You know 10 by one mile repeats with a three mile warmup and three mile cool down. Like whatever the hell I was doing, it always came down to the same thing with the team of people I was with. We’re all in this together it feels like. Yeah. But it’s going to end and the only thing that feels worse than enduring this thing would be quitting. Dave (1h 10m 51s): Yeah, right. Quitting. James (1h 10m 53s): And so yeah, like it’s just not an option. I mean it’s obviously if you blow a hamstring or something you’ve been taking it out. But I would say I’ve never seen such animosity out of people like silent, just blood curdling animosity. When we would watch a, what was often a short lived teammate just like dropout due to a bad attitude. Dave (1h 11m 17s): Oh yeah. That’s no good. That James (1h 11m 18s): Never, I mean that’s, yeah, that’s just like you, Dave (1h 11m 21s): You failed James (1h 11m 23s): You and you failed us. Like this is a team, like we’re gonna keep going suffering through this ’cause we want to get through it and get better and you just displayed in front of all of us that you’re not a part of that. And so I think the mindset of just embrace the suck, lean into it. And that’s actually often, that’s in when it’s, it’s march when it’s, when it’s march and we’re fishing for small miles and we’re fighting for one or three or whatever that day, it’s 15 mile an hour winds and it’s 36 degrees outside. You know after a certain point it’s, I always just say the same thing, just lean into the suck. Yeah, Dave (1h 12m 1s): That’s right. James (1h 12m 2s): It’s what we’re here doing, man. Dave (1h 12m 3s): I can’t remember who, who said that on this podcast, but there was one person that said that and I, and I can’t remember, I’ll have to look that up. Embrace the suck. But it’s so good because that, that, that makes a lot of sense for people. Well one, one quick last one on on you, you mentioned bluegrass rock and roll, we’re talking on that end. What is your, if you had, is it bluegrass or rock and roll, which one are you more into? James (1h 12m 23s): Ooh. Oh. Dave (1h 12m 24s): Or neither. James (1h 12m 25s): I would probably lean rock and roll, but I, I really like both. I’ve You know rock and roll has always been something that, I mean you just can’t help but turn the radio all the way up when a good one comes on. Yeah. Dave (1h 12m 39s): Give us one good one. It could be old, oldie new whatever to throw in for the show notes as we take it outta here. Man. James (1h 12m 44s): I would say like, this is not something that I listen to a lot of anymore, but I will say about probably like 10 different instances in the year, I just have to put on the song Rock and roll from Led Zeppelin. Oh, rock and Dave (1h 12m 59s): Roll. Nice work. James (1h 13m 0s): Just blow my eardrums to pieces. Dave (1h 13m 3s): Yeah, that’s perfect. That’s James (1h 13m 4s): A perfect, Dave (1h 13m 4s): It’s good. Yeah. Rock and roll. I, I, I am trying to remember it. I lo love zin but yeah, it’s got that, well throw that one. That’s a perfect show notes to take it outta here. So cool James. We’ll like we said, we’ll send everybody out at the start schultz outfitters.com and we’re excited to put this trip together and get on the water and You know, get some people out there and check this out. so I appreciate all your time today and all the wisdom and knowledge you shared with us. James (1h 13m 27s): Absolutely. Thank you sir. Dave (1h 13m 29s): Alright, your call to action I think is very clear. If you want to check in and follow up and get in on this trip. Small mouth bass fishing with Schultz. This will be with James, with Mike. We’ve had the podcast recently, the best crew at Schultz. We’re gonna be hitting at prime time, we talked about today on the water tier. So go to wetly swing.com/smallmouth bass and enter your name right there and email and we’ll follow up with you on availability. We should have still have a couple of slots here available. If you’re here in this right now, check it out. Or you can always send me an email, dave@wetlyswing.com. As always, follow this show. That’s the best way to find out what episode’s coming up next ’cause we’ll deliver it right to your inbox. Click that plus button on Apple podcast if you’re there and, and let me know where you’re at if you are on another, if you don’t use Apple or Spotify and I haven’t heard from yet, send an email. Dave (1h 14m 16s): Let me know which app you’re using. That next episode that we have coming up here is going to be the Laro Zone podcast. We got Phil Roy, who’s gonna be hosting our Stillwater Laro Zone podcast this week. Don’t miss that one. We all know Phil is as knowledgeable as just about anyone out there and, and I know people are loving this one. If you haven’t checked out Stillwater Fishing, if you’re new to it, this is the way to expand your fly fishing. Not that we need more, more things to do out there, but I can tell you if you haven’t got into Stillwater, it’s something you’re missing out. It’s a great time. Alright, I’ll leave it there. As always, I hope you have a great morning. Hope you have an amazing afternoon or a spectacular evening wherever you are in the world and I appreciate you for sticking around to the very end. Dave (1h 14m 58s): We will see you on that next episode.