775 | South Carolina Fly Fishing with Mike Watts – Southern Appalachia, Clemson University, Rivers and Feathers

Dave (2s): It all started with 25 college kids, a field full of fly rods and a box of safety glasses no one wanted to wear. What came next was a decades long journey mentoring first time anglers, building a grassroots blog from scratch and creating a fly fishing class. So popular it had a waiting list every semester. By the end of this episode, you’re gonna find out how to make fly fishing simple again, what the most important knots are to know when starting out and what happens when your first fish is a seven pound bass and you forget how to land it. This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip And what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. Dave (44s): Mike Watts, educator, writer, and founder of Rivers and Feathers, joins us to share what it’s like teaching a fly fishing group of college students who have never held a rod before. We’re gonna find out where he starts with the basics when teaching people how he built a fly fishing class that is still going strong today, and the secrets around that and what’s what it takes to turn a one page writing assignment into a lifelong connection on the water. Plus, Mike reveals a story behind his students and how 40% of them had never even caught or touched a fish before. And, and the challenge was good, but Mike has a great story here. Dave (1m 23s): Alright, we’re heading down the southeast with Mike Watts from Riversandfeathers.com. How you doing, Mike? Good Mike (1m 32s): Morning. How are you? Dave (1m 33s): Great. Great. Yeah, this is gonna be a fun episode. You know, a lot of our episodes come from either listeners or guests who’ve been on the podcast and, and we were talking to Jerry IC and he recommended you. And I’ve heard a little bit of the story that I think there’s probably a story there about how you guys connected, but that was an awesome episode we have with Jerry. And today we’re gonna talk a little about, kind of more south of where he is, kind of southern Appalachia and that area and your website that I think has grown. I wanna hear that story as well, how this has grown into maybe bigger than you thought it would originally, but then your books and your teaching. You also are a fly fishing teacher, which is also a topic that I love down, you know, at Clemson. Dave (2m 16s): So maybe start us off first on fly fishing. We always love to hear that. How’d you get into it? What’s your first memory on fly fishing? Mike (2m 22s): There is something special about fly fishing and I started fly fishing back in the mid seventies, 76, 77. There was so much history about the sport, you know, we had trout fished and spinning rods and I’m just like, I want to take it to the next step. And got involved with the Trout Unlimited chapter back then in Greenville, South Carolina. And I would always advise folks that are wanting to get in it to check out their local TU chapters. They’re just a great resource. Mike (3m 4s): And started there, met folks and kind of learned how to fly fish. And the guys that taught me how to fly fish, a couple of them, they’re still alive. Yeah. And they’re great guys. I fish with, I’ve been fishing with the same group of guys since the late seventies and early eighties. Wow. We just formed a brotherhood bond and fly fishing has kept us together and we’re just a big fly fishing family through all the speed bumps of life. We still go out and give each other a hard time. But I started there and just kind of developed and learned and started tying flies. Mike (3m 50s): And I built a few fly rods just so I could understand the components and the action of the fly rods and, and what everything was supposed to do. And just kept fishing and got really involved in, in the tr unlimited chapter there. And from there we, we did a lot of mentoring and as we other people, when you teach other people, you become better at it yourself because you have to know and you kinda regurgitate everything that you’ve learned. And it, it creates a good base. And I just love taking people fishing. Mike (4m 30s): It was fun. And I watched, you know, adults have catch a trout on a fly for the first time and I thought it was just the greatest thing because I always remembered what I felt like to catch one on a fly. Dave (4m 46s): Yep, that’s right. You also had a number of, you know, we’re gonna talk about your books here as well, but You taught at Clemson, maybe talk about that. How did that, because I think that that’s not something you see at all universities around the country. I think there’s certain specific areas. How did, how did that fly fish? I think you had over a thousand students over the years. Mike (5m 6s): Yes. We had, Clemson had a program started through the parks, recreation and tourism department called the Leisure Skills Program back after the turn of the century. Doesn’t that sound like a long time ago? Dave (5m 22s): It does, it makes it sound, yeah, it makes it sound old, right? That 20, yeah, we were 25 years of this century. It’s kind of crazy. Mike (5m 31s): But they, they started this program and they wanted to get kids outdoors. They wanted the kids to be able to experience what it’s like to bass fish, to to shoot a gun, to hunt and do other things to broaden their academic exposures. And part of it was outdoors. And then they had other types of leisure skills. They have whitewater kayaking, women’s hunting, shotguns, rifles. They have a sket club now, huh? With a complete range. Mike (6m 12s): They, they shoot competitively now. Oh, right. So has a bass fishing team. Amazing. And you know, it’s really grown. And they approached me back in 2001 somewhere right in there about taking over. They had taught one class there and they wanted somebody to come in and kind of wrap their arms around it. And I did. And I walked into a class for the first time, fly fishing 1 0 1, and there were 50 pair of eyes looking at me. Wow. And I’m standing at the podium thinking, wow, Dave (6m 54s): Had you ever done, had you ever done anything like that before? Have you, had you ever taught No. You’ve never taught? Mike (6m 59s): I had never taught in a big group setting. I’d done Boy Scouts, I had done Girl Scouts, but when you walk into a structured class, I prepared all summer putting things together. We had to have a syllabus. Wow. They get hours worth of credit. Dave (7m 16s): You know what’s interesting about college, I remember this times because it was a, it was a, it was a fun time for me, but I struggled some and I remember those classes. I was kind of a shy, it’s kinda interesting that I do this now because I was, I was really shy back in college and I, I wasn’t the kid in front of the class speaking. You know what I mean? So it was always intimidating being in those giant college lecture halls. Did you find, how did you deal with the kids that were those quiet kids? You know what I mean? How did, how did you deal with that? Mike (7m 43s): What I did with the kids is I went around the room and had everybody, let’s put everybody on it. And I did this all the way to the bitter end 20, 22 years later, is tell me about yourself, where you’re from. Try to find the connection somewhere. And have you ever fished before? What did you catch? How did you catch it? And they didn’t have to stand up. They could sit down. And I always started with, there’s always one in a crowd that’s kind of a fun guy. And that’s the guy you start with. Dave (8m 20s): Oh, that’s like a fun, like a, he’s the louder guy. Mike (8m 24s): Yeah. Yeah. He’s good, you know, you know, he knows the guys in the class. Right. And the ladies and kind of start with them and get everybody relaxed. And in the meantime between, there’s usually I have a story to correlate with wherever they lived, or a funny fishing experience and try to just put their fears at ease. And what’s interesting is that, you know, these are tomorrow’s conservationists, our business people. And I found that almost 40% of the students had never ever caught a fish. Dave (9m 6s): No kidding. Mike (9m 6s): And I thought that was the first semester, the first day I was just in shock, like, oh my God. Dave (9m 13s): Like no fish, not just fly fishing. None at all. Not even a, a not even a spin rodder. Right. Mike (9m 18s): They don’t know how to do anything. Yeah. And I like, okay, I took it on as a challenge. This is going to be fun. So we started the class and went around the room and we did that. And there were 25 students in my first class. And for the first two or three years, it kept getting bigger and bigger and, and that’s more than one person could handle. Oh yeah. And I guess rumor went around that, Hey, how’s a fun guy? You ought to go take this class, you know? Yeah. And I would have the students write three papers and one on, on casting, one on equipment. Mike (10m 6s): And the last one was, if you could fish anywhere in the world, where would it be? What equipment would you use? What P flies would you use, where would you go? And what kind of fish would you catch? Hmm. That’s cool. And I told them, I said, don’t make this hard. All I want is one page. I don’t wanna sit up all night looking at dissertations, just keep it one page. ’cause I try to get them to engage using the internet to help learn and support what we do in class. Then I had to give them a test and told ’em. I said, I just, I want you guys to just recall what you learned at the end of the semester. Mike (10m 50s): I would give them a test and I said, if you wanna take it home and phone a friend, that’s okay. But bring it back next week. Dave (10m 58s): Yeah. Nice. Made a deal. Well, is that te now, did you guys get out in the, on the water during this class? What, what would that look like? Mike (11m 7s): Right. We fished all around Clemson’s ponds. And I had access to quite a few ponds around the university, but most of the time we fished near the football complex now, but there were two or three ponds over there that the kids could fish and not get caught up in trees a lot. Oh yeah. And we would start casting in this big field. And the rule is everybody had to wear eye protection. And so, and I said, if you don’t furnish glasses, I’ll furnish ’em for you and you won’t, next week you’ll have your glasses. Mike (11m 49s): ’cause I had some big ugly safety glasses. Dave (11m 51s): Right, right, right, right. Mike (11m 52s): You know, so it didn’t take but about one class for two or three people, not, and a half glasses. And, but we did that and it was really fun watching them develop and learning how to cast. We, we did overhead casting and then we learn how to roll cast. Dave (12m 10s): Right. Is that the first part, when you come in, you’ve got this new group of kids, 25 kids that are in the class to you, how did you walk ’em through the process? Is it kind of a, a day in the class and then you go out right into the water, the ponds to learn how to cast? Or what’d that, what would that look like? Mike (12m 25s): We would go in the first couple classes, we would sit in the classroom. We had a formal classroom and I taught ’em how to tie knots and how the equipment worked, how the, the leaders and what the real did. And we primarily concentrated on trout fishing, you know, dealing with five weights and single actual fly reels. But just, we put equipment together. They put, they put backing on the reels, they attach the fly lines, they attach the leaders and learn how to tie, tip it and tie knots. Mike (13m 6s): I had ’em, I start off with a one off hook and then I would scare ’em. And at the end of that class I would have ’em tie five or six x depending on what I, what I had with me on size 16 or 18 hooks. And I told ’em, I said, after today, I don’t tie any flies on for you. When we go outside, you have to tie your flies. And the first class or two, we would go through four dozen flies because they, their knots wouldn’t hold. Yeah. You could see a truck, you know, they, they would have to truck back up to my, my truck and walk back up the hill. Mike (13m 53s): And I was like, I said, okay, you know, you’re killing your fishing time. Yeah. You could be down there fishing and you’re having to tie on a fly. Think about it. And then we, after we got ’em comfortable casting on the ponds and, and throwing little wooly boogers and some popping bugs depending on the time of year and what was what going on. I would actually take ’em up in the mountains and put ’em on a river. I would waiter ’em all up, put ’em in state vans and take off up the mountain. And when we first started, my fishing buddies all jumped in and mentored. Mike (14m 37s): And it was great because that way I could put three or four kids with a mentor and we had excellent success rate on people catching fish. It may, may just be one six inch trout, but That’s okay. Dave (14m 55s): San Juan Rod works started with a simple belief, great fly rods and gear shouldn’t cost a fortune as a family run company. They focus on building high quality fly fishing products that perform on the water without the premium price tag. You can try San Juan Rod works for 30 days risk free right now. And if you’re not satisfied, send it back for a full refund. You can go to San Juan rod works.com. That’s S-A-N-J-U-A-N Rod works.com. If you’re looking for a world class fly fishing experience, it’s time to check out Mountain Waters Resort. Nestled along the Newfoundland’s legendary Portland Creek. This spot has a history that runs as deep as the Atlantic Salmon that call it home. Dave (15m 35s): Once they fly fishing. Retreat for the Great Lee Wolf. Today. It’s your turn to step into these historic waters and swing up your salmon this year. You can head over to wet fly swing.com/mountain Waters right now and make it happen. That’s wetly swing.com/mountain Waters. Let’s get out there today. What is it like? Well, first on those pools, what kind of fish were in those ponds around Clemson? Mike (16m 2s): There were some bass, brim and crappy. The first class I took ’em over to the dairy farm pond and we walked down to the pond and it was grown over. And I told the class, this is a great place. We need to roll cast here. And the kids scattered around the pond and class was like four 30 to seven. It was like two and a half hour class. But I didn’t care. I they wanted to fish to dark. I don’t, I didn’t have any issue with that. And a couple guys walked around on the far side, you know, kids disperse. Mike (16m 45s): And I was standing on one side and all of a sudden I heard this kid scream. I was like, what? What’s going on? And I looked and he had hooked about a seven pound bass. Oh nice. His first fish ever on a fly rod. He couldn’t catch one out of the other ponds, but he hooked a large bass and it was tail dancing and jumping. And this kid was hollering and screaming. And the next thing I know, Dave, he’s walking North Pond. Oh, going for it. He’s going after it. Yeah. And he was hollering at me. You taught me how to calf Mr. Watts, but You didn’t tell me how to catch a fish, how to land him. Mike (17m 26s): So I had students run into him and he was waist deep in the water. Wow. Playing a fish. And of course the fish broke off and I made notes of that. And you couldn’t get the kids out till after dark. They would not leave. It was over. But it was great. It was great. Dave (17m 48s): That’s so awesome. No, this is cool because I think you’re also painting the picture of, you know, the area you’re you’re at. Right. And we’ve done some episodes down around your neck of the woods, but I don’t think we’ve had a ton in, you know, like South Carolina and kind of where you’re at. But now where is, For those that don’t know, where is Clemson University located and is that where you are currently today? Mike (18m 10s): I’m actually up in the north Georgia Mountains today. Dave (18m 13s): Is that where you live or where do you live currently? Mike (18m 16s): I live in Greenville, South Carolina and have a little hideaway on a river up in the north Georgia Mountains. Gotcha. Dave (18m 23s): North Georgia that’s in, that’s where it’s Clemson up in the, more in the mountains. Mike (18m 27s): Yeah. Clemson is in the northern part of South Carolina where Clemson’s located. You can be in Georgia, the northeast part of Georgia, and the northwest part of North Carolina in about 30 or 40 minutes. Dave (18m 42s): Oh, okay. Yeah. So you’re not far from Atlanta. Could you drive there in a couple hours? Mike (18m 46s): Yeah. Atlanta’s about two and a half hours. So it’s not bad. Dave (18m 50s): Is it Greenville? Is Greenville where Clemson is. Mike (18m 53s): Greenville is about 30 minutes east of Clemson. Dave (18m 56s): Oh yeah, Clemson. I gotcha. Okay. Yeah, Clemson’s right on. I see it. Yeah, there’s a lot of, what is all the water? There’s a ton of water out there. Around there. Mike (19m 4s): Oh, you have Lake Hartwell. You have, which is the biggest impoundment in the state. That’s huge. Then you have Lake Kiwi and also Lake Joe, Cassie. Wow. Dave (19m 18s): Yeah, those are all just essentially reservoirs out there. Mike (19m 21s): Yeah. And then we have, we have the mountains and most of the streams are put in, take delayed harvest. We have the Tuba River, which is beautiful. Dave (19m 33s): Yeah, I was gonna ask you that. What is, if you look at South Carolina up in that start in the north part, what are some of the popular places to fish out there? Mike (19m 41s): You have the Chattooga River, which is designated as a wild incent river. And it’s great hiking. You can go into the Burrows Ford and you know, fish up, fish down. It’s beautiful. It’s a big river. And there’s some smaller streams that are around that are delayed harvest. You can fish. Dave (20m 6s): What is, I mean I know South Carolina has a connection to the ocean. So you have some of the salt stuff. Do you know, have you covered a lot of South Carolina? Do you know the whole state? I Mike (20m 16s): Grew up in South Carolina. Yeah. So you, so yeah, I’ve trout fished in the mountains, fly fished on the I empowerments, especially Lake Hartwell. It’s huge. It’s a fun lake to fish. The bass Masters have a big tournament there. And then you head south and go to Columbia. You have Lake Murray and then there’s some waterways in there that come in. You have the Broad River that comes in from North Carolina down and the Saluda River in Columbia. And they form the ee and the stripers run in the river from Lake Mary and the Multry, which is further down towards the coast. Dave (21m 5s): Okay. Mike (21m 6s): And then the salt water fishing in South Carolina is great. You have red fish, you can go off the coast. We’d gone off a couple miles and, and tried to chase sharks on fly rods and amberjack bonitas, some Spanish macro run and the, the red fishing is good. Dave (21m 29s): Yeah, that’s right. And so you have the red fishing and so yeah, you mentioned about, I mean Lake Hartwell. Lake Murray, you talked about some bigger rivers, the Broad River Saluda Chattooga. So it sounds like it’s a mix of like the impoundments, the big reservoirs, some of the mountainous streams, which are, are those mostly, do you have brook trout there or is those, those mostly like rainbows? Mike (21m 52s): There’s a few small, I would call ’em creeks or than I would streams where they have been working with some brook trout restoration, but not like it is in North Carolina. In, in Georgia. Dave (22m 10s): Yeah. There’s just more mountains up there. Right, right, right. Gotcha. Okay, so if somebody was coming into South Carolina for whatever reason and they were gonna wanting to fish, what would you tell ’em if they had one spot? Let’s, let’s maybe take out the salt and just say for fresh water, where would you point a person for a, if they had a few days, Mike (22m 27s): If you were coming into Greenville, you could come up and go into the Chattooga around Burls Ford and Fish. That’s pretty popular. Dave (22m 36s): And is that mostly like rainbows? Mike (22m 38s): Rainbows and browns? They stock it almost year round. Yeah. Dave (22m 42s): Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s kind of the difference down in some of these areas. Right, because you don’t have necessarily, well it’s interesting ’cause we’ve been talking about the Arkansas and the White River because we’re heading there this year for a, an event with Project Healing Waters. And, and it’s interesting ’cause Dave Whitlock originally stocked that river with Browns like way back in the day. And now over, you know, 30 years later there’s this great population which are, I’m guessing, you know, holdovers because it’s Tailwater in South Carolina. Are there not any like tailwaters where you have those cold waters throughout the year? There Mike (23m 12s): Used to be a fabulous tailwater 50 years ago, 40 years ago, down below Lake Hartwell, it was the Savannah River. Dave (23m 21s): Mm. Oh Savannah, right? Mike (23m 23s): Yeah. And it was for about nine miles. It was fabulous. And the Corps of Engineers completed Lake Russell, which in turn flooded all that. And they still put some fish behind the dam. But You know, you only got few hundred yards to fish versus nine miles and it’s, it’s kind of hard to wait around. So, Dave (23m 50s): Well, yeah, that’s it. I mean, but again, it’s without being there, I, I’m assuming you kind of just have to get there and explore to understand. Right. Yeah. You know, what is it about South Carolina that you love? You’ve been there your whole life, what has kept you there and not, you know, gotten you moving to some other place? Mike (24m 5s): I like the diversity. I can be in the mountains in on the chat toga in an hour. I can be up in Western North Carolina fishing in Brevard and all up through, you know, in just an hour and a half or two. I can be on the South Holton or Waga River in East Tennessee in, in two hours. Or I can run to the coast, which I’ve done this based on the tide. And I can run down to the coast in the summer. And if we have a king tide or new moon tide, I can go out and there’s some marshes you can actually go out and wait. Dave (24m 43s): Oh Mike (24m 43s): Wow. And yeah, so you know, just the diversity and South Carolina DNR does a good job managing the resource to this day. Dave (24m 54s): Yeah, it sounds awesome. Yeah, that’s the thing. You have South Carolina, which has its own unique, you know, streams and waterways, but then you also are surrounded by all these other places. Tennessee, North Carolina, and I guess Georgia you don’t hear as much about, but as far as the mountains, right, North Carolina, Tennessee, you hear a lot about the South Holston is a famous river. Right. And you’re, you’re not too far from there. Right. Mike (25m 15s): So it’s, you know, it’s quick access. What’s a couple hour drive with the interstate system? What used to take three hours or three hours and a half with the interstate system. Now you can get up just a couple hours on the wga, which is great. You know, you get up early, you fish and then they generate it one or two o’clock, you figure out how long it’s gonna take for the water to get to you and you, you’re home by six o’clock. Dave (25m 42s): Yeah. Sweet. Well this is good. I’m glad we kind of started with that little intro on the area. Let’s talk about your books. I think this is really kind of fascinating because of, you know, the growth here, rivers and feathers.com. Talk about that. When you started that, what was your initial idea and did you ever imagine it kind of would grow to where it is today? Mike (26m 2s): I was actually a journalist major in college that, that took a left, I was a advertising public relations marketing and Oh right, wow. I took a, I took a left into the business world and used the writing, my writing skills for business purposes. But I decided when I re when I retired, I wanted to get back to my roots. So during all these years I had been writing stories and books and journals and composition books and kept everything in a file cabinet. And I said, you know what, I have a bucket list but I want to do something different. Mike (26m 44s): So I hooked up with my good friend Charles Carter at Web Speak Media and he said, Mike, don’t you just, I’ll just fix you a blog and you just write stories and just put it on your blog. I said, okay. So I started writing a few fly fishing stories and then I get calls and like, Hey Mike, I saw your blog. Can I post a story? And so my buddy started posting stories and then their friends sent a story or two. And from there it was growing. And I reached out to Larry Chesnut who was a former editor of Sporting Classics magazine. I said, you wanna come help me edit stories? Mike (27m 27s): He said, man, I love to, this is fun. So he kind of joined me and between he and I, we have quite a few nationally acclaimed authors now that contribute stories. And it started with Meri just writing a fishing story to now there’s over 400 stories Wow. On the website now from all these wonderful writers. Anything fly fishing. Dave (27m 56s): Yeah, anything fly fishing. So that’s a cool thing. So this is not just you out there writing this is that you’ve built this whole, you know, unique. And how many total writers do you think have written with you Mike (28m 7s): For Probably between 15 and 20 have written stories. And a lot of them are regular, I’ll get a story a month. We get 10 to 15 stories, new stories a month that we publish. Dave (28m 20s): Yeah. 15 to 20. Yeah. So how did you go about finding those 15 to 20? ’cause it seems like that’s always the right, how do you get the right people? How do you know you know who to have in there? Mike (28m 30s): Well, I got involved in the South Carolina Outdoor Press Association and met a lot of writers there. And Larry Chesney knew a lot of writers. And between all of us, we reached out and a writer would know somebody else, Hey, you ought to send this guy’s story. This is a really cool website. And word of mouth, you know, that’s the best advertising. Yeah, it is. And it’s free for people to read Rivers and Feathers. There is no charge to, to go on the website and spend hours or five minutes after being in the business world. Mike (29m 10s): It was like, I like to read fly fishing, but I don’t wanna spend a lot of time doing it. So I said, well, let’s just have a website with short stories. The average read is, is four to six minutes, there’s 900 to 12 to 1300 words. I said, you can read, you can escape, you can relax, chill out, and then pick back up where you left off. Dave (29m 33s): That’s it. So just short, short stories essentially. Right. And on your books, did your books come first or did they come out of the website? Mike (29m 41s): The first book came a year and a half ago with the encouragement of my wife and daughter. ’cause I still had, I still had a file cabinet full of stories. So I put those together. There were a couple that had been on the website and a couple I had written Freelance for South Carolina Wildlife Magazine. And I just combined all those into River Bank Memories. And it’s just a collection of heartfelt observations from being outside, whether it’s wading rivers, creeks, streams, salt water, you know, it wasn’t just a, it’s not just a fly fishing book. Mike (30m 22s): There’s stories about friends and family and dogs. And you know, the funny thing is when you, when a fisherman tells a story, people kinda, is this really true? But when you write it and put it on paper and publish it, it’s nonfiction. Dave (30m 39s): Gotcha. Yeah. This is great. No, I’m just looking through the, the blog a little bit. You have a diversity of topics. Where do you, where do you send somebody if they’re brand new to your website, to the blog? Like where do they start? Mike (30m 52s): When somebody first comes to the website? I just have come to the look at the main site and go to the, on the homepage, there’s six stories right there, right off the bat. Dave (31m 8s): Hmm. Just go to the homepage. Those are the most recent stories. Mike (31m 10s): Yes. Then they can go to the, to the blog. And once they go to the blog, you can just keep going. And if there’s a particular author that you’ve read a couple of his stories and you like, then you can also go back and click on our authors and you can go down and find your author and read all their stories. Yeah. Dave (31m 34s): I’m looking at the last one you posted on this is just planning fishing trips. And it’s, I’m just going through, I see a photo of one of the big boat, I’m not sure what those are called. The, the long narrow boats with the big motor on the back. Mike (31m 47s): That picture was actually taken, that was on the White River. Yeah, Dave (31m 50s): I was gonna say we just, the The Chad Johnson. Chad Johnson was just talking about those boats. Yeah. Because I thought that was a White River boat. Mike (31m 57s): Yeah, actually Chad Johnson was the guide on the boat that’s not in the picture behind This one. Dave (32m 3s): Oh, he’s not in the, okay. Mike (32m 4s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dave (32m 8s): We’ve heard many of the stories on this podcast. Togiak River Lodge is one of the great destinations for SW flies, for Chinook stripping for coho all day and unwinding in a lodge right on the river bank of the Togiak River. With access to all five salmon species plus rainbows, Dolly Vardon and more Togiak offers a true Alaskan experience picture over 30 miles of river season guides, high quality boats and low fishing pressure. It’s fly fishing Alaska at its best. I’ll be heading up the summer. So reach out to Jordan and the crew to see what dates they have available this year. You can learn more right now@wetflyswing.com slash togiak. That’s togiak. Dave (32m 48s): T-O-G-I-A-K Alaskan fly fishing like you’ve always dreamed about. It’s been interesting because I’m similar to what you’ve done. We’ve done something I think is pretty unique in the podcast space in that I brought on a few, I’m not the only host anymore, so we have actually hosts that are, you know, and Chad Johnson’s our kind of, you know, white River, really big kind of big trout host. And so he’s doing a select number of episodes and it’s kinda like you right, you’re doing the same thing. You have people that are writing for your blog and yeah, I think it works out pretty well. Have you had any, I mean, where do you go moving ahead with this, with your blog? Do you just keep doing what you’re doing or do you have plans to change things as you go? Mike (33m 30s): I wanna keep the short stories, I want to keep the whole stories about anything fly fishing persona about the website because that makes it so unique. You know, the stories are so diverse. There’s a story from Charles Raymond Hills who was actually in Hawaii and you know, he used to write stories about fishing in Hawaii and then you had the fire and he talks about the water and the people and the fire and how it relates. Jerry IC is, writes wonderful stories and Jim, my who’s been referred to as one of the next Patrick McManus, he’s, he’s a wonderful outdoor humorous and he writes regular stories for us and a good friend of mine. Dave (34m 23s): That’s awesome to hear. Another Patrick McManus for sure. Mike (34m 25s): Yeah. It’s, it, they’re hilarious. They’re great and the stories on the website are entertaining and they, they make you feel good. And the fly fishing is, the community is a large community and there’s so many people doing wonderful teaching videos and how to, and it’s great. But for guys like me, I just wanna read a story. Dave (34m 53s): Yeah, you want a story. Yeah. You wanna be entertained, right? That’s the thing you have, you educate, you have entertaining. I always think of the three E’s, you know, emotion in any sort of podcast, which I’m sure applies to this too. But yeah, you don’t have to have everything. I mean, just entertaining. You don’t have to be a, like getting a tips and tricks every everything. Right. Every blog. Mike (35m 12s): Yeah. It’s just, and our authors seem to find the connection between, it’s not just about throwing a fly and catching a fish. A lot of ’em have underlying stories that you know, well I had a great day, I caught one horny head. You know, so, Dave (35m 30s): Or didn’t catch anything. Mike (35m 32s): That’s true life that happens. Dave (35m 33s): Yeah. What were some of your, I always go back to John Gear Rock just because he was such a, you know, we had him on the podcast a few times and hearing his story about how he wrote, but who are some of your big influences in, in the writing world? Like other authors? Mike (35m 48s): I’ve read just about all of John RA’s books. ’cause I can, I can read them and laugh. Dave (35m 55s): Yeah. What do you think is about John’s writing that was so, you know, that put him, you know, it seemed like he was close to the, the top of fly fishing. Like what did he do that was different than other people? Mike (36m 5s): I think he identified with a common fly fisher, the way he wrote. He invited you in with him, he took you on the trips and you would just sit there and laugh like, yeah, I can, I’ve been there, done that. Yeah. You know, that’s kinda why I, I wrote the story planning fishing trips. Oh really? I started thinking about all the funny, stupid stuff that, you know, we’re supposed to be grown adults, but if you fish long enough it’s gonna happen. Dave (36m 36s): Yeah. So the playing fishing trips is just about just that, just kind of a trip and some of the the quirky things that happen. Mike (36m 43s): Yeah. It’s, you know, when, when our group goes fishing, when we used to drive to Michigan in the early eighties and salmon fish and we didn’t ever get guides back then, we were just, it was all do it yourself. We stayed at one hotel one one year back in 1981 and the guy came down, the hotel came out the next morning after we checked in and fished and we’re getting ready to go fishing again. He says, guys, he said, how did you sleep last night? And I was like, I slept good. Of course we drove 19 hours fished all day and had a cocktail and went to bed. Yeah, right. Mike (37m 23s): But yeah, we slept good. He said, well, I got new mattresses. I said, you did? He said, yeah, the Holiday Inn down the road had a sale. So it’s just great. We take road trips and the first guy drives, takes a Benadryl and wakes up when he is there. Right, right. Dave (37m 40s): That’s, that’s it. Gosh. Well this is good. I think we’re on on a good tracker. I think I’m always trying to picture, you know, let people know what is the easiest way to take things further. And it sounds like just going to your blog and start searching around there is a good, good place to start. Mike (37m 54s): Right. Just go to rivers and feathers.com. You can click on the homepage or click on the blog and kind of peruse through it. Dave (38m 3s): Yeah. And do you guys cover everything from, is it mostly trips you guys are going on, things like that? Or do you cover topics all over the US or maybe even world? Mike (38m 12s): We really don’t have a set agenda as far as topics. If when you go on there, there is a story, fly fishing 1 0 1. I had written for South Carolina Wildlife and published on here, but there’s Posh in The Jolts by Tom Keer about striper fishing. And Once in a Lifetime by Patrick Hunter and Serendipity Lake by Jim, my, who decided to write a story on fishing for cutthroat 50 years earlier before he lost his memory. Oh, you know? Yeah. He said he better write it now before he forgets it. Right, Dave (38m 50s): Exactly. Yeah. Mike (38m 52s): So there’s no agenda. You, you have a good story and it’s entertaining and it, it has to deal with fly fishing, you know, we’re open. Dave (39m 3s): Yeah, you’re open to it. So, I mean, I guess getting back to the, the education, which I’m always kind of thinking about, was that all you did at Clemson? Was it just fly fishing? You, you taught that and then did you eventually just, how did you wrap that up? Or are you still doing that? Mike (39m 16s): No, I, I taught fly fishing and then I taught some fly time classes and after I re once I retired, I spent more time over there. But that’s all I did at Clemson. It was a part-time gig, but it wound up, I didn’t mind the time that it took spending time with these kids and, and taking ’em fishing. And we also, 11 years ago, eight of us, me being the administrator, maybe it was nine years ago now, but give or take the need and want to learn to fly fish. It was growing exponentially. Mike (39m 58s): So we set up and finally got it chartered at Clemson, a chartered fly fishing club. The Clemson Fly Fishing Club. Yep. Dave (40m 8s): Clemson University Fly fishing club. Mike (40m 10s): Yes. And today I’m excited ’cause it most, almost 200 members, Dave (40m 18s): 200 members. So kids that are either present or past students. Mike (40m 23s): Oh, they’re all just students. They’re all present. Right. And we’ve got the program set up now with the Five Rivers program, so they can get their equipment, they can get waiters. They have enough equipment now that students can go check out a pair of waiters and a fly rod and have some flies and go fishing. What’s interesting is, I told somebody the other day, their kid was going to Clemson and wanting to learn to fly fish. And I said, I’m not gonna scare you, but there’s at least two Clemson kids fly fishing somewhere every day of the calendar school year. Mike (41m 3s): Like what? Yeah. Isn’t that great? Dave (41m 6s): Yeah, that’s it. That’s so cool. Yeah. I mean, do you know, I I I wonder, I, this is just kind of random question, but around the country, how many of these universities have programs like this? You know, I, I’m guessing it’s not, not that many. Mike (41m 21s): Georgia has one Western Carolina up in Colory, north Carolina’s got one. There’s several along the East coast that have fly fishing clubs, I would presume especially Montana, Colorado. All those guys have have fly fishing clubs. Yeah. And they may be set up different. Ours was more structured that they could come in and they had some programs. They had fundraisers. We even got a grant from Clemson, we got a raft. Hmm. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Mike (42m 1s): That’s a whole story. That’s another day. Yeah. Dave (42m 3s): Yeah. The cl the Clemson raft. Okay, well we’ll have to hit you up on on the next one for that. Mike (42m 7s): Yeah, yeah. But it, but we’ve got plenty of equipment and, and the kids have a good time and they, it’s where it governs itself now, which is what needed to happen. And the kids managing kids. And it’s exciting because I still know so many kids and after 20 something years, students have become my friends and stay in touch with me. We chat, we talk, I get emails, texts, I’ve written letters of reference for, I see three letters of reference from medical school in the last couple years. Dave (42m 48s): Oh wow. No kidding. Mike (42m 49s): Yeah. Yeah. I’ve helped them get, I’ve, I’ve coached them on job interviews. They will come sit and talk to me while the kids are fishing and we talk about their interview or we talk about what they wanna be when they grow up. You know, because I was in the business world. I understand. And we just communicated and it was, it was, it was as wonderful for me as I think it was for them. Yeah. Dave (43m 17s): That is wonderful. Well, let’s, let’s take it outta here. We’re gonna, I’m gonna get a few more 1 0 1 tips out of here on fly fishing for somebody who’s new. But this is our conservation corner segment. And today it’s presented by Patagonia, a great company. They’ve got a new, well they’ve got their, their swift current waiters, which we’re, we’re helping get the word out about and, and I can’t wait. I haven’t actually put mine on yet, but I will soon. So I’ll be talking more about, but I know we all know Patagonia is one of the greatest companies out there. Right. All the conservation work they do. So big shout out to Patagonia and Swift current waiters for you. You know, trout Unlimited, it sounds like that’s where you got started. Was, was that your start? Like did you, had you done any fly fishing or was tu, was that the first connection? Dave (43m 60s): I Mike (44m 0s): Had Piddled with it, but really getting involved with Trout Unlimited. What’s the driving force? Dave (44m 8s): Yeah, that’s it. So that got you going. And then what is it like, maybe talk about that in your area just for this Conservation Corps. What in South Carolina, what are the big issues you’re thinking about down there? Is there one or there a bunch? Like if you had to leave us with something maybe people can think about, get connected to help out with, Mike (44m 26s): There’s two TU chapters in South Carolina that formed the South Carolina Council and the Columbia chapter has worked closely with Duke Power and South Carolina Electric and Gas for a while on the dissolved oxygen content below their tail race. And they’ve done a excellent job. And then the South Carolina Cha or the Greenville Chad, which is called the Mountain Bridge Chapter Tribe. Now they’re working on some projects up in the mountains on some stream improvements. So they’re, both of them are active as far as conservation cleaning up alongside the rivers. Mike (45m 9s): And there’s the Chattooga River chatter too. They do a lot on the chattooga in the Chaga River. Some stream improvements and working with the Forest service. And I haven’t got into weeds too much with those guys as far as what they’re doing. Yeah, Dave (45m 25s): Yeah. We’ll get a link out to the trout unlimit and the TGA and some of the other ones you mentioned there, just to follow up with it. But yeah, I’m always interested in that because it seems like everybody’s got different topics, different things they’re focused on, but it seems to always come back to water. Obviously, you know, the fish need water, you know, water temperatures, you know, we hear a lot about that rising water temperatures and impacts and I can imagine down south that would even be, you know, like, I don’t know, maybe different but Right. If there’s water temperatures and already warm waters, what does that look like? Mike (45m 56s): Yeah, the water temperatures seem to be rising. Some, we kind of monitor it on the Chattooga River and we do get some holdovers, especially down in the deeper holes where the trouts stay, but they’re still pretty much delayed harvest, put and take. Dave (46m 14s): Yep. Put and take. That’s right. Well, let’s, let’s hear on these kind of back to 1 0 1. So fly fishing, take us away with this. So we’re gonna be thinking of somebody here that’s, you know, we’re gonna give this to them. They’re new, they’re just getting into it like you were back in the day. What do you tell them? What are a few, like five or six kind of big things to get started? What would do you, you know, is it you start with casting? Do you get your, like all that stuff? What, what’s your top list here? Mike (46m 38s): The first thing I would tell somebody that getting in a fly pissing is let’s sit down and let’s learn the knots. Dave (46m 45s): Why not? Why are the knots? So, I mean, they’re obviously super important, but why start with the knots and why not the cast or you know, something else. Mike (46m 51s): If you start learning the knots, that gives you a good base. It gives you just a hint of confidence as you start moving to the next step. And you know, if you can tie your own fly, we take for granted, everybody can tie a knot. And it’s been my experience that that is not the case. They can tie their shoes, but, but when it comes to that past that, you know, that’s Dave (47m 19s): True. I have heard of stories on this podcast where people have been on guide trips. This is probably the extreme, but You know, somebody’s paying lots of money for a guide trip and then they literally can’t tie their fly on. Right. They never wanted to learn that part or didn’t learn. Mike (47m 32s): Yeah, exactly. And it is happened to all of us. Yeah. But if you can tie a knot, then when you get hung up and you have to break off, you at least know how to fix yourself. And otherwise if you do go fishing, you’re sitting on the side of the bank waiting on somebody to help you. You know, so you gotta be able to, to start learning to help yourself. And I’m kind of a, let’s get the, the base of the pyramid. This, and then let’s understand fly rods and we’ll start casting a little bit and the basics of the cast and around here in our neck of the woods and, and Clemson, we all know how to double haul and we can do this and we can do that. Mike (48m 21s): But it’s primarily roll casting and you can get students to learn how to roll cast. But everybody wants to be a river runs through it. Right. And reach out and raise their arm up and raise the fly rod and sling it and Dave (48m 38s): The shadow cast. Mike (48m 40s): Yes. Let’s learn how to roll, cast, and learn. I like that about the dy the dynamics of casting that it’s that when you stop the rod, you’re transferring the energy. And don’t get too detailed. I call it fly fishing made simple. Let’s do that and get you where you can, can get it out on the water. ’cause if you can’t get the fly on the water, you can’t catch a fish. Dave (49m 2s): I love that. So start with the roll cast and keep it simple and then, and then build up from there. Mike (49m 7s): Right. ’cause they start with the roll cast. They start understanding the impact the rod makes on the cast. Dave (49m 13s): Yeah. Once they get the, the knots, you know, and then the roll cast and maybe eventually into the casting. What is next after that? What, what’s the next in the teaching? Mike (49m 23s): I have learned to tell ’em how to set the hook. Dave (49m 26s): Right. And, and land the fish. Mike (49m 30s): Yeah. Let’s talk about playing fish and how you play fish and, and you know, if it’s a trout or, or it’s a brem or a bass. And we talk about strip setting for a lot of the bass, but they may catch in the pond. But You know, lifting up and setting the hook and keeping it firm on the fish. Dave (49m 52s): Yeah. Keep it firm. What is it on the smallmouth bass I think are, obviously they’re everywhere. You know, people love ’em a small and large. Right. But brim is a fish that you hear about, but not as much. Maybe talk about that real quick and we’ll start to take it outta here. Is that a pretty popular fish? What, what are your thoughts on, on brim and, and how do you actually spell brim? Mike (50m 13s): B-R-E-A-M. Yeah. It’s a pan fish. They live in the rivers here. You may be trout fishing and, and catch, there’s different species, sunfish, red eared, whatever. But they’re all just brim and brim. They’re real prevalent, especially farm ponds. Most farm ponds have brim. And I take my grandson out and we fly fish and catch brim on little tiny popping bugs or little limps in the water. And they’re really abundant and they’re fun to catch. And they pull really good. If, if a brim ever got to be five, six or seven pounds, you’d never landed. Mike (50m 54s): Oh right. Yeah. But most of ’em are just hand size or a little bit bigger. Dave (50m 59s): God, that’s great. So yeah, essentially it’s like a, yeah, it’s kind like a, a type of sunfish similar to a croppy or a bat or any of Yeah. But maybe not as, maybe not found everywhere around the country. I’m guessing. Like small mouths, large, smaller. I’m not sure Mike (51m 13s): They’re real prevalent in the south, in the lower part of the state. They even, they get pretty good size. They’re called shell crackers. Dave (51m 21s): God, they’re they’re pretty, yeah. Mike (51m 23s): They can get to be a pound. Dave (51m 25s): Yeah. I’m looking at some photos on a website here. Have you done, have you cover brim on your, on the blog? Mike (51m 31s): There are some stories about brim fishing on a pond. I’ve actually written a couple myself. Yeah. It’s brim fishing is fun. It’s just a good relaxing little, a flower rod. Sometimes a, a popping bug in a small dropper or, or a popping bug depending on, you know, what’s going on and what time of year. But you’re brim fishing and you’d be surprised at the bass you catch. Dave (51m 56s): Right, right, right. And in the same, same territory. That’s really cool. Well, I wanted to finish up with the knots. So you mentioned the knots. What are the, what are the knots you start out with? What are the few of the top knots that when you’re teaching the, the, the 1 0 1? Mike (52m 8s): I start off with the cinch and we’ll do a cinch and improve cinch. And then I’ll go to the uni knot. That one they struggle with a little bit. And then, we’ll, I keep it simple. We’ll do a triple surgeon’s knot to connect the tit to the leader. That one resonates really easy and it’s easy not to follow and it holds pretty good. Dave (52m 31s): Yep. Surgeons. And then do you do more or do you leave it there with those three? Mike (52m 35s): We’ll do, when they’re connecting, we’ll use nail knots to connect and we have nail knot tools and we’ll, we’ll do that. Dave (52m 43s): Okay. And then what is the uni knot? What’s that one used for? Mike (52m 46s): More like the Dunking Loop, same thing. It just has a greater hold ratio. I like to use it fishing. ’cause you’re bouncing it on the bottom a lot, hitting rocks and stuff and you don’t wanna pull. And it just gives them another knot in their repertoire to use. Dave (53m 6s): Yeah. So it’s just a little bit different than the, the improved clinch knot or any of that stuff. Right. Just time. Yeah. Okay. Mike (53m 12s): And we’ll tell you that in the classes when we started, it was strictly all male. And 20 years later it was about 30% women. Oh, wow. Yeah. Which is wonderful. The women call own faster than the men. Hmm. Yeah. Especially knots. Yeah. Dave (53m 34s): Right. That’s great. And how do you, when you people came to class, do you know where, how are they finding it? Like the, the fly fishing class, you know, it seems like it’s a, you know, I guess it’s just an elective. People want to, to have some fun or what are your thoughts there? Who’s, how are they finding it? Mike (53m 48s): Well, it’s an elective and the seniors register first. So most of my classes consisted of seniors, grad students, and a few juniors. And getting one hour of credit, it gave them something fun to do and Clemson urges them to take a leisure skills class. So I guess my class had a really good reputation. We always had a waiting list. Huh. Which was good. It, it actually grew so much that when one of my fishing buddies from the seventies retired, he took over, I had him teach another class. Mike (54m 28s): So we actually had two fly fishing classes and a fly tying class going on in addition to the fly fishing club. Oh wow. At Clemson. Yeah. Dave (54m 38s): Is there still a fly fishing class? I know there’s the club. Do you, is there still a teacher doing the class? Mike (54m 43s): Yes. One of my former students is teaching it. Nice. Yeah. And he’s now the admin over the fly fishing club when he was a former president of the fly fishing club seven or eight years ago. So I like to see my legacy is still there. My students are, are still carrying the torch. Dave (55m 3s): They’re still doing it. Nice. Right on. Well, this has been a lot of fun, Mike. What, I guess, where do you wanna leave us with anything else we haven’t touched on you wanna make sure we have, we know about before we head outta here, Mike (55m 14s): I’d love for folks to take a look@riversandfeathers.com and just peruse the website and read a story. It’s totally free. And just sit back and relax and enjoy a fly fishing story. Dave (55m 29s): Love that. Nice. Well, we’ll put a link out to the show notes to that, and we’ll have everybody go over and take a read and, and maybe check in with you here this year on all that. But, but this has been a lot of fun, Mike. I’m glad you know our journey continues connecting with the, you know, as many people as we can. And I’m excited that we had a chance to hear a little bit of your background and, and we’ll send everybody out your way. So thanks again for all your time, Dave. Mike (55m 51s): Thank you. And have a wonderful day. Dave (55m 54s): All right. Please, if you get a chance, check in with mike@riversandfeathers.com. Let him know you heard this podcast, follow him on YouTube, follow him on Instagram, check in and let, let him know you’re interested in what he has going. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to this podcast and you’ll get that next episode delivered right to your inbox. And we’re gonna be swinging right back this week with the Great Lakes Dude podcast, Jeff Liske. He is back this week with the Great Lakes. Dude, you don’t wanna miss that one. It’s gonna be good. Alright, that’s all I have for you today. It is so late in the night. It’s almost morning. Hope you’re enjoying This one. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I appreciate you for hanging it to the very end. And I hope you have a great evening, great morning, or great afternoon, wherever in the world you are. Dave (56m 38s): And we’ll talk to you and see you on that next episode. Outro (56m 41s): Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly, swing Fly fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit wet fly swing.com.