714 | Tight Line Nymphing for Steelhead with Jeff Parks – Calmwaters Fly Fishing, The New Fly Fisher 

Dave (2s): What do you think is the most effective way to hook fish on a fly? Is it knowing the water? Is it getting down to the fish, or is it something else? Today’s guest is a steelhead guide in the Ontario area, and today you’re gonna find out how he targets big fish in small rivers and how this will help you have more success this year on the water. 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 trip, And what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. Hey, this is 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 (42s): I’ve also interviewed more of the greatest fly anglers and guides than just about anyone out there. Jeff Parks, Ontario Fly Guide and New Fly Fisher host is gonna take us into Southern Ontario and the Great Lakes. With the focus on Georgian Bay, you’re gonna find out how to find fish in holding water and what he thinks about pressure. He actually likes pressure. He is gonna talk about why with his techniques actually more people is better. And then we’re gonna talk about how he does his tackle and how he leads the fly to a fish. Plus you will get his four most important tips on tight lining for steelhead. All right, let’s get into it. Here we go. Jeff Parks from Calm Waters fly fishing ca. Dave (1m 26s): How you doing, Jeff? Jeff (1m 28s): Hey buddy. I’m good. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me on. It’s fun to be talking fly fishing all the time. Yeah, Dave (1m 35s): Yeah, yeah. This is gonna be great. We’re kind of, we’ve been hitting on your neck of the woods, the Ontario area recently we had your daughter on Alex. In an episode we’ll put a link to that episode or in the show notes and, but it’s been pretty cool because you guys have a lot of great resources up there. Obviously steelhead is a big species that you guys focus on. And today we’re gonna be talking, I think, Ming, today. We’re gonna dig into that and also talk a little about the new Fly Fisher, which you’re involved with. But before we get there, maybe take us back, I think Alex might have touched on this, but how did you get into fly fishing in the, you know, what’s your first memory and then, then we’ll jump into the new fly fisher. Jeff (2m 8s): Oh, it’s funny. I live on a lake, or we actually cottage on the lake. So I was probably about 18, I think it was just before university and you know, living on this lake called this funny little name called Pus Lake, about maybe about an hour outside of Toronto. And in the shed there was this rod. I asked my dad, I said, you know, ’cause we always had spinning Rod. And I said, well, what’s this? He said, and he, he looked at me like I was an idiot. He said, well, it’s a fly rod. And I went, oh well, does it work? And then he looked at me, he says, I dunno. And so I took it out to the dock and it had this big bushy thing on it. Unbeknownst to me at the time, it was a big cataly. Jeff (2m 50s): Oh yeah. And so I tossed it out, tried to get it out there, and I was trying to get it to sink. And as I was trying to get it to sink, it was obviously making a lot of commotion. And this huge, I shouldn’t say huge, but it was about a two and a half pound large mouth hits it. And as just because I was making commotion. And from that day I was hooked. Really? Yeah. It was pretty funny. And, and that was a long time ago. I mean, I’m, I’m 65, so that’s probably, well If you, If you do the math, that’s a long time ago. So there was no, there, you know, the inter, there wasn’t any internet, that kind of stuff. So I was just reading books and just trying to figure it out. And that’s how I got into it for fly fishing. So, and then just on a quick note, we were in Vail, Colorado and we, my wife likes to ski and I like to fish. Jeff (3m 37s): So this is about 25 years ago. And I took a guide and there, and you know, normally I’ve taken a few guides there, but, and normally they’re just, all the guys in Colorado are awesome, was on the Eagle River. And this fellow that I had, this one particular year was just, I dunno, he talked about himself too much. It was all about him. He was gonna have Tiger Woods on the Oh, right. He was the only guy that would, you know, would let Tiger Woods would go with and he made me uncomfortable. Yeah. And we, I came back for Apre Ski with Kelly after going out with that guy, well, 25 years ago, and said, you know what? I can do a better job than that. I’m gonna start a, a guiding company. Jeff (4m 19s): And so her being an accountant said to me, he says, well, okay, it sounds good, but you’re gonna have to monetize it. So I went to the dictionary to look up the word monetize. Yeah. And went, oh. So that’s how I got basically into a lot of the corporate stuff. So I, I, my guiding business, there was a lot of, you know, mom and, you know, of father and sons, that kind of a thing. But it was really where I made the money on my, in my business was in the corporate world and getting 10 to 12 people out and hauling people up from outside of Toronto and doing that kind of a stuff. Dave (4m 55s): Gotcha. So when you first got into guiding your kinda, your target customer was like CEOs and kind of business, that sort of thing, and then you’d bring in like a group of, for like an outing sort of thing, like break work? Jeff (5m 5s): Yeah, yeah. My, yeah, my pitch was basically, you know, If you guys are taking your customers out golfing, you know, try something different and let us teach you how to fly fish. And you know, and they all looked at me and said, well, we don’t know how to fly fish. And I said, well, I know that’s the point. Let us teach you and your customers, let’s give them an experience because you know, every, your competitors are all taking these people golfing. Golfing. Yeah. So everything kind of sort of melts into one. And no one could remember who took them to this certain golf course, blah, blah, blah. But If you take someone out, teach ’em how to fly fish, they won’t forget that. And it just, it basically took off. The financial companies went great. Jeff (5m 45s): The automotive companies were awesome. Really? Yeah, yeah. ’cause they were always taking people to, you know, to hockey games, you know, to baseball games out for dinner. And, and it worked out great. So that was my sort of key to success with the, with the guiding. And I always tell young guides who are starting their own company, I said, you’ll kill yourself just doing, you know, ones and twos and stuff like that. You know, get the corporate business and you’ll make some cash. Dave (6m 13s): Right, right. And are you still doing a lot of the corporate stuff? Jeff (6m 17s): Yeah, well, a little bit. Obviously Covid screwed that up. Yeah. Everybody’s now starting to come back into it. So we’re starting to get, you know, ramping that back up, which is kind of nice. Last year, you know, before Covid we, I was trying to do at least 40 to 50 corporate days a year. And that was, that was pretty easy to do. And then, you know, the, the other a hundred and whatever, 150 days or like, I would try to get a 200 days on the river, so the other 150 were just, you know, your regular drift boat days or walking weight or teaching that kind of a thing. So. Dave (6m 51s): Okay. So, and the corporate stuff you would bring out, say a group of 10 people, would that be kind of like a, a clinic or how would that look on the water? Yeah, Jeff (6m 59s): Yeah. It was, it was perfect. You know, we’d get, we’d meet them on the river for eight 30 and we would obviously, we, we don’t do any dry land training. To me that never made sense when it came to casting and such. We’d always get everybody up in waiters and we’d start in the river right away and, you know, ’cause you got the current and it’s pulling on the fly line and you really have to, it’s a real different experience than just trying to teach somebody to cast on the, in a field and then moved, then moved to the water. So we always started in the water and really it to be about a four hour day. And pretty much after that four hour day, everybody’s laughing and giggling and then they’d head off someplace for lunch and chicken wings and beers and chat about the day. Jeff (7m 46s): And I can’t remember any day that wasn’t a success with these corporate guys. Dave (7m 51s): Yep. Right. Wow, that’s cool. And are these corporate, was this mostly like Toronto, like local? How were you finding the companies? Yeah, Jeff (7m 57s): It was, it was basic sales. ’cause I was always in sales and, and such. But yeah, I would just, I’d just call people up. I’d, I’ll especially, you know, If you hone into one sector, like the financial sector, which worked out great, then you can always say, well, you know, such and such has been using us, which is a, you know, competitor of theirs. And they had such a great time and as soon as they heard that Right, okay, Dave (8m 21s): There you go. Jeff (8m 22s): I better hop on this. So, you know, you tend to almost get one type of business that really, especially with the automotive guys. Dave (8m 30s): Oh yeah. It’s almost like the fear of missing out a little bit. Right. Like these guys did it kinda, yeah. Jeff (8m 34s): Yeah. Because it’s, they’re all, you know, buying for the same customer, especially a lot of them are. Oh, right. And yeah, so anyway, so that, yeah, that worked out well. So it, it was, we did a lot of 75% of my business for guiding was seemed to be teaching, which I Dave (8m 51s): Love. Yeah. Teaching. Right. As opposed to just your standard guide drip where you take a couple people out for the day and you try to get ’em into some fish a little bit different. Well, Jeff (8m 59s): E exactly. But even in that, if you’re taking out a couple people, you know, you always, you always look at some of this like, because there’s a lot of conferences coming into Toronto and such, and so people would be coming in from California or South Africa or whatever, and you meet ’em on the river. So you just take a look at, to sort of see how, like, I think, I think my daughter Alex was talking about this when you had the podcast with her. I’m a golfer. Oh yeah. So I always assess people on their handicap in fly fishing. So I’d take a look at ’em and say, okay, I see them cast. I’m thinking, okay, they’re probably about a 15 pretty good, but how am I gonna teach them to become a little bit better at fly fishing and lower their handicap of fly fishing? Jeff (9m 39s): And so, because you know, as you’re guiding some days the fish just don’t wanna cooperate. But If you can help them with, as you’re doing that, have a good time and but just help them with, help ’em to become a better fly angler. That’s still a great day. Dave (9m 57s): It is. Yeah. Yeah. That’s sweet. Well, we’re gonna talk today, I think we’re gonna talk about Steelhead specifically and all that. But I want to hear before we jump into that, just on New Fly Fisher, we’ve been doing a series of episodes with people that were affiliated. You know, Colin passed away, you know, earlier this year, and I’m just Yeah. Working around trying to touch base with everybody because I wanna just share more of that and celebrate kind of what he did. But yeah. How did the new Fly Fisher, was this one of those things where Colin, you know, tracked you down? Or how’d this come to be? Jeff (10m 26s): Yeah, no, it was, it was, it was about five years ago maybe, I think. And actually it was Mark, mark Malick that, or that reached out and said, you know, would you like to do a show? Like, not as a hostess show, but would you, we’d like to do a show on Calm Waters Fly Fishing. And I went, oh cool. So Bill Spicer, who was the face of the New Fly Fisher for years and years, he was the, he was the host and we did a show called Small River Hero name thing. Oh, nice. And that was on the Sine River, which is just north of Toronto, Northwest of Toronto. And it’s an amazing river. It’s got steelhead farther down below Musky, farther down below an absolute humongous bass. Jeff (11m 12s): But If you go farther up river, it’s an incredible wild brown trout fishery. And I’ve had some really good success, obviously tossing lots of streamers. I’m a streamer junkie from, from the old days. But I also found that the Euro nipping, or the tight line nipping, If you want to call it, is so, so effective there. And these browns can be just huge up there. So Bill and I, we had a great show and that’s how I first got to know the New Fly Fisher. And then I got to know Colin, who was just an amazing fellow. Yeah. And after about two years, I, I did a little bit of work with them for giving them some technical information. Jeff (11m 52s): And then they said, would you like to host? And a little bit nervous on the hosting. Yeah. When I first started, got it up to, I think a place called Elk Island Lodge, which is up in Manitoba. And it was a brook trout and pike, but it was a place called God’s River. And that was the first place I went to. And it’s like being on Niagara Falls, like the, the water just either below Niagara Falls or above where the rapids are just huge. So I was just trying to stand, keep a float on the boat. But that was my first, that was my first trip. First Dave (12m 22s): Trip. Okay. And and was that small river euro ing, was that focused on trout or steelhead or kind of everything? No, Jeff (12m 28s): It was just more on brown trout, brown Dave (12m 30s): Trout. So, Jeff (12m 31s): Okay. Yeah, that was on, that’s all that’s up on that, that one end. And that’s how I got to know, that’s how I got to know the guys on, on all that. And, and I was just up in Labrador actually, this, the, the show called Crooks Lake Lodge is coming out on Saturday. And that’s up in Labrador, which is above Newfoundland and out in the eastern provinces there. And Labrador is absolutely amazing. I I, yeah, I I’m so ecstatic to have been able to get up that way. So was Dave (13m 1s): That for, was that for Trout? Jeff (13m 2s): Yeah, it was for Big Brookies. Big, big Brook tr and these, these brook trout were anywhere from seven to nine pounds. Wow. And it was just, it was phenomen, it was tough fishing. ’cause they didn’t have any snow melt, no ice pack there, just so you know, there wasn’t any precipitation in the winter. So they’re obviously, so the water was low, the water was warm. So we were really, we were really working hard for those guys. And then, then, then last year I also went to, did some Atlantic salmon fishing for Pratt Falls Salmon Lodge. And that was amazing too. So, Dave (13m 33s): Yeah. Okay. And, and then, and you also do some steelhead fishing, it sounds like that nipping, right? Jeff (13m 39s): Yeah. Yeah. Nim Fing is, you know, I started out mostly swinging for steelhead and our rivers are double, you know, they lend well to double hand rods and stuff, spay rods. But I do a single hand spay rod here, and I love that. So I do a lot. But then I started getting into some of the smaller rivers. And we have one river here called the Big Head River, which is up in MyFord. And it’s Collingwood area, which is north again, north of Toronto, a couple hours north of Toronto, but a really fast, smaller river pocket water everywhere. So If you think of any of the rivers that you see, where If you need to walk 10 feet, you’re, it’ll take you, like across the river, it’ll take you maybe three minutes to get that 10 feet. Jeff (14m 23s): That’s how this river is. And it just lends so well to a tight line nipping rig. And so I started doing that about seven years ago, maybe eight years ago. And it increases your catch for steelhead by a thousand percent. Yeah. Dave (14m 40s): Which lake does the big head flow into? Jeff (14m 42s): It flows into Georgian Bay, which is part of Lake Huron. Dave (14m 47s): Lake Huron, yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah, it’s unique that the Lake Huron, the Great Lakes are so interesting because of the way everything’s connected and where things are at. But essentially you’re, yeah, you’re north of Toronto there. And how does the Georgian Bay, is that just a normal, basically another lake similar to Lake Huron? Or is it different? What, you know, why is it called Bay is just ’cause it’s a, yeah. What’s the deal there? That’s a Jeff (15m 8s): Really good question. I don’t think any Canadian knows. Yeah, right. To be honest with you. But it’s, it’s basically a bay, a huge bay of Lake Huron. Yeah. But it’s different because when you get into Georgian Bay, that’s called cottage country for here in Ontario. So, you know, Muskoka is a little place called Muskoka is up there. Okay. And that’s where all the, all the money is. Yeah. Dave (15m 34s): The fancy houses and everything. Jeff (15m 36s): Yeah. The $10 million homes. Dave (15m 38s): I gotcha. They’re on the lake, they’re around Georgian Bay, Jeff (15m 40s): All around Georgian Bay and all around in the, the rivers that are up there and the, the other little lakes and Lake Joe and all these, these different legs, they’re just, they’re absolutely beautiful. But when you get a, when you, if you’re boating on, on Georgian Bay, it is so rocky that you really have to watch yourself and, and know, know what you’re doing. But it has a lot of fish and it’s all, a lot of the, a lot of the steel head are, are all wild up there. Oh, they are. So, yeah. So they’re, they’re not just a, a stock steelhead. So when they come up, when they come up in October, especially in the Big Head River, you, it, it’s a little bit early. They, you can get them coming up. If you get the rain somewhere late September and early October and mid-October, and those fish are hot. Jeff (16m 26s): Mm. They, they, they’re hard. They’re, and with the flow of this river, it’s a really big flow. It’s skinny. So it just, it’s like the water’s just sort of pushed through in this river. And when you hook one, If you hook, say six steelhead in a day and you land too, you’ve done well. Dave (16m 44s): Oh really? Jeff (16m 46s): Yeah. Because they get themselves wrapped in rocks. They got, there’s not a lot of brush on it. Brush gets pushed away because of the flow, but a lot of pocket water. So that’s that. As I said, that just lands so well too. The, the tight line Dave (17m 2s): Trout Routes is the most comprehensive mapping app for trout anglers. With over 50,000 trout streams, 350,000 access points, public land maps and more Trout routes is the number one resource for navigating, researching, and exploring trout streams. You can download trout routes for free in the app store today. Just search for trout routes on your phone and take your exploration to the next level. That’s Trout Routes. T-R-O-U-T-R-O-U-T-E-S. Grand Teton Fly Fishing is a premier guide service and fly shop that has access to some of the most coveted rivers and lakes in Western Wyoming. Their simple goal is to share their valued resource and have you experience a native cutthroat trout rising to a single dry fly in the shadows of the Tetons. Dave (17m 49s): You can check out Grand Teton right now at Grand teton fly fishing.com. Let them know you heard of them through this podcast. Maybe let’s just talk about that a little bit on the, the, your setup on the gear and stuff with the tight lines. Maybe talk about that. What’s the ideal rod for this and, and talk about the, the leader setup and all that. Jeff (18m 8s): Yeah, no problem. The, a lot of people, like, you know, when they’re doing nymphing for steelhead, they, you know, especially when they have an indicator they like an 11 and a half foot or something that’s gonna, you know, get you out a little bit longer. And the same thing when you’re, when you’re say euro nipping for trout, you know, you 10 and a half foot rods tend to lend well, but what I find with this river and a lot of faster rivers that the longer the rod, it’s obviously you’re gonna have more bend and it’s harder to bring them in. So I actually just use a seven weight, nine foot rod, and I got one, it’s a TFO rod that I use the Axiom two x and it is, it’s beefed up on the butt section. Jeff (18m 53s): So you got a little bit more pulling power If you don’t have pulling power on these fish in this river, you can’t, you can’t get them in it just, they’ll just sit in the current and you can’t move them. So, so I just use a nine foot, whereas a lot of people will use a little bit longer, but I like a nine foot. ’cause it’s, it’s, you know, it’s like when you’re fishing for small mouth bass and you get some of these big hogs, we do a lot of small mouth bass here also. Sometimes it’s a, a a nine foot, but sometimes even an eight foot rod just a little bit shorter. So you can bring these guys in is just a little bit easier to, to do on that. And what I do is I just, I put on, I bury the fly line and I put on a 12 pound maximum chameleon and I put about 30 to 34 feet of that. Jeff (19m 42s): So that’s gonna take the fly line right out of the situation. Then I throw on a, depending on the, the flow on something, anywhere from four, three and a half, well probably four feet, five feet of cider tippet, I use the sa scientific angers. But Rio has some good, some good lines. So to also on the cider tipt, but I’ll probably use a zero X for that ’cause I’m just trying to taper it down the, yeah, the Maxima camil and it being 12 pound, the cider tipt being 10 pound, the zero X is a 10 pound test. And then I’ll probably go anywhere from a three x or four x or six pound or an eight pound on the Tippet. Jeff (20m 23s): So that will be about maybe two and a half feet, you know, that kind of a thing. So, and then I will use split shot and you know, If you talk to any of Euro nm for, you know, using split shot is a taboo. Yeah. But with steelhead, and they’ve got one thing on them on their mind, they, they need to get to the tributaries. They’re not looking up and they’re, I mean, you know, in, maybe in the springtime they’re looking up and they see bugs and they’ll, because they’re trout, they’re gonna be eating, but a lot of times they’re looking at the tail ahead of them and or the fish beside them and you know, they’re fighting that fish or they’re, they’re trying to, you know, get to this other fish in front of them. So you need to get the fish down. So you need to lose a lot of flies and, but they still eat as you know. Jeff (21m 6s): Yeah. They need to eat, so you need to bump it on their nose. It’s unfortunately, it, it is kind of a force feeding kind of a thing. Dave (21m 13s): Right. Yeah. How do you do that with your, your split shot? Where are you putting the split shot in relation to the fly? Jeff (21m 18s): Yeah. Well, I do a two fly set up and sometimes, depending on the flow, if the flow is really big and because If you get into some of these rivers, like the big head or a lot of rivers in the states that are, you know, quite turbulent, there’s a lot of pushup from the currents and a lot of different currents within, say a certain run that you’re trying to fish. So what I’ll do is I’ll put that split shot pretty close. I, it’ll be somewhere about six inches above to seven inches. Some people like to go 10 inches. I like to have it just a little bit above the fly. And I do like to use flies. I do use a lot of yarn flies Dave (21m 56s): As opposed to say what, like a bead pattern or something like that? Yeah. Jeff (21m 59s): But I, I do, yeah. I use the, the yarn flies and such. Yeah. But I do use a lot of fly, I mean, basic pheasant tails with a purple head, purple tungsten head or a hair’s ear purple tungsten head on, just on a hair’s ear works so well on these things. So even though you got a tungsten head, say on the, on your, on your, your point fly and probably a, you know, just a regular BB split shot, maybe six inches above. Then I’ll tie, and this is where it gets controversial, where you tie that second fly onto that, I will just tie it onto the shank of the, of the first fly. A lot of people will tie it on the eye of that hook, if that makes sense, If you following me on that. Jeff (22m 40s): But, because a lot of times what I wanna do, if I tie it on the shank of that first hook about another, say eight inches of say six pound tibit down to another fly, I will put another split shot between that first fly and that second fly because of the up currents and because I really want to get that both those flies right down to the bottom. Dave (23m 5s): Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that’s your double fly setup and then was it four to five feet of cider Jeff (23m 10s): About that? Yeah. Oh, four to five feet. And that just depends on how deep your the river is at the time. Yeah. You know, see what the, you just check the flow, take a look at it if you’re, because what you’re not doing with this is that I find with steelheading is that I find I’m more successful if I look at the people pressure and you know, when you go to a Steelhead River, normally there’s lots of people out, and the big head river’s not one of those rivers where there’s a thousand people out on the river at a time, but there’s lots of, say, center piners and you know, the guys are using indicators, they’ll be in the pools. But those pools, when they catch those fish, they’re gonna squirt out, squirt out a lot of the fish. Jeff (23m 50s): And some of those fish were, are gonna maybe squirt out and go back down river or they’re gonna go up river into the really fast stuff. And we catch most of our fish in the really fast rapids. Dave (24m 1s): Oh really? So you’re getting ’em after if they’ve been kicked around a little bit. Jeff (24m 4s): Right. So that’s what I mean if, so I, I love, you know, someone, when I have a customer, they’ll go, oh geez, look at all the people out here. Yeah. And I’m just, I’m just rubbing my hands on going, oh, I know. Look. Dave (24m 15s): Oh wow. So the more people, the the better for you. This is great. It Jeff (24m 19s): Is. No, I mean it really is with this, with the tight line, it just gets you excited and you’re thinking, oh, look at all those people in those pools. That’s fantastic. So then, then you play the game where if you’re talking to your customer and you say, okay, If you were, if it was say your customer’s name is John. Yeah. And so you, you look and say, okay John, If you were a steelhead and you know, you just got spooked out of that pool and you came up river, where would you stop and relax? And so we just start analyzing a certain area. Then, you know, obviously you’re looking at maybe a little pocket water where water’s just pouring over a, a larger rock or even a smaller rock, or is there a channel here or there? And we just start hitting that. Jeff (24m 60s): And a lot of people, especially with steelhead will go, well, you know, we’ve done 20 drifts here, I should we move on? And no, you keep at it for a good maybe 15 minutes, 20 minutes in a certain spot. And If you don’t get anything, of course then move because you know, these steelhead are on the move, but a lot of times they just won’t hit anyway until you actually hit them on the, on the, yeah. Get em on in the right, right in the nose. Dave (25m 26s): Yeah. That’s how you’re doing it. So how do you, so you’re finding these little runs and and is the typically, what’s your typical depth in these faster water units? Jeff (25m 36s): Probably only about three feet. Dave (25m 37s): Yeah. So about three feet. Yeah. Jeff (25m 39s): You know, you know, and that three feet, and it’s the same thing with swinging, I find too, you know, when you’re, like, when you’re swinging on a, on our, some of our other rivers, not to talk about, you know, we’ve got the Maitland River, that’s my other river that i, I guide on. But when you fish, the Maitland River is such a large river that you are, you’re more, you know, the the single hand spay or double hand spay. But where we have the most opportunity for these fish and mo most action, isn’t it, around that three foot run, three, especially at the end of the run. So it’s the same thing with these fish that are in the big head. And when we’re nipping for them, and it’s a really fast river, they’ll be sitting in two feet of water and they’re not that spooky because the, the rapids is cover for them and because it’s cover for them, they really can’t see us that much either, which is kind of nice. Jeff (26m 30s): So I don’t find the, the steelhead, you know, whereas a brown trout, you know, you really gotta creep up on them. Or even a big five, five pound small mold bass. Yeah. You know, these big fish like that, you have to be very wary. Dave (26m 42s): Do you find, you have to be wary if you’re, are the bass and brown trout in, will they hold in that similar fast water? Jeff (26m 49s): Well, the, not as much, the brown, the brown trout, I find they, you know, especially up in the Sau River, they really hug the banks of the river and, and those slower pools on in the banks. I, I find them not as much in the pools. I find the ones that are feeding are the ones that are near the banks is what I find. Like Dave (27m 10s): An undercut bank or something like that. Or Jeff (27m 12s): Undercut. Yeah, you got it. The undercut. So, and normally my guy, my guiding is, you know, we start around, you know, seven in the morning kind of a thing or, or you know, light and till about, by the time three o’clock comes around, normally a customer’s pretty pooped. So we’re not getting that, we’re not really getting that afternoon unless somebody wants to go on the afternoon kind of a thing. Okay. Dave (27m 33s): So you don’t have to. So as far as these fish with steelhead and what, talk about that a little bit on the timing. So you mentioned September. Are you fishing all the way through until the snow starts coming in? Or how does that look? Yeah, Jeff (27m 44s): Actually we, I was out on the 29th of December this year guiding. So a lot of our rivers that are just trout rivers, they will close September 30th and then, but then the other rivers that have steelhead in them, they stay open until December 31st. Dave (27m 59s): Oh, okay. So everything closes, Jeff (28m 1s): So yeah. And then you just hope that it doesn’t get too cold that the river, you know, freezes over before that. But that’s what we’re doing. We’re we’re hitting them in the, at at that time, right. In October, November, you get probably the six pound to eight pound fish that are coming up and the steelhead that are coming up and they’re absolute bullets. They’re full of power and energy because of the water’s not that cold yet. But then as it transitions into mid or end of November, into December, that’s when the big boys roll in. And big boys for us, you know, this is not the cheena or, or or you know, that, but big boys for us are anywhere from 10 to 12 pounds. Jeff (28m 43s): And that’s when they seem to come up in that, that kind of water and that or that kind of timeframe. They’re a lot of fun too, because If you don’t mind the cold, they’re a lot of fun. And again, they’re always hitting flies and you know, people use a lot of the squirmy whammies. Dave (28m 59s): Oh yeah. I was gonna ask you, what, what are the, If you had to say a top, you know, a few flies for your box, squirmy whammy, what, what are for nipping, what are those? Jeff (29m 5s): Yeah, well, for nipping again, it, well I have a couple that are a little bit different. I, a lot of times I just wrap some purple thread on a size, probably size 14 cat curved hook and with the bead head, purple bead head and just a, you know, probably maybe a pink collar on it or off maybe a root beer collar. So the purple works really well. And also a green, a green Cass works really well. Also like a larvae, again with the steelhead, you know, a little bit of a per i i, for some reason I do like the purple heads and if it’s not that, I’ll just use a bullet or, what’s the word? Jeff (29m 49s): Gun metal gun metal head. Oh, okay. Color. Yeah, just an off block. And if it’s really bright, I like to use an off block color because then there’s no shine on it. Oh yeah. That might spook them. So, yeah, Dave (29m 60s): I gotcha. Okay. And then when you’re, let’s just take it to that, run, that three foot run or the shallower water, how do you fish? Are you standing there and how close are you getting the fish? And then are you casting upstream or talk about how you’re getting it down to ’em? Jeff (30m 11s): Yeah, well it’s a, my, my whole thing is that you can get pretty close to these saints because like say you, you walk into an area where it’s lots of rapids and you can see a boulder maybe out 10 feet out. So you, you get maybe, you know, you can, you can get maybe five feet away from that, that five to six feet away from that and start working the, the water above that. But my, my whole thing is that I try to get people to do, if you’re not straight up and down, your fly’s not gonna be down on the bottom. So I try to teach them to think of the line itself as a laser or a very hot wire. And what you’re trying to do is cut through like a piece of butter or, or something and you’re just trying to cut a, a line right through that, through the water with this really hot line. Jeff (31m 2s): And because if it’s lying straight or if it’s lying sort of on an angle a little bit, then your, your fly’s not gonna get down. But as soon as you, you go that up and down and lead it a little bit with your rod tip, just lead a little bit with your rod tip and you can actually almost pull it a little bit faster. ’cause nothing’s really gonna go slower than the current, you know, these nims aren’t gonna be able to go slower, but they might go a little faster. And so almost slightly pull it a little bit faster, but just guide it into the area where you think you can. And you know, really that’s, it’s a very simple method. People try to make the tight line nymphing very technical. Yeah. And it’s not, Dave (31m 41s): Yeah, it’s not technical, but it’s part of it is the challenging of the casting. That’s one thing with all this weight and the lead. And I guess that’s one question I had too on the leader. So you’re, you’re talking about using the, you know, kinda six or eight pound, I mean I think you, when you think of trout, you always think, you know, they’re using really super thin liters, super long liters. But are these like, are they thin? Are they cutting through the water? Is that the idea here that you’re getting really thin liters and could you go down even thinner down to four pound or something like, you know, even less? Jeff (32m 10s): Oh yeah, you certainly could, but you wanna use obviously as much as heavy as you can because you wanna bring the fish in as quickly as you can. Yeah. It’s fun to get the hook up and it’s fun, but you don’t want to wear the poor thing out. And you know, I do see a lot of people saying, well, I, I took out my three weight for the steel head and we had such a good time and I’m just cringing. Yeah. Dave (32m 29s): Three way. So like actually a three weight rod, not a three weight spay rod, but a three weight hand, like Jeff (32m 33s): Just a three-way rod, you know, kind of thing. Wow. And I’m just cringing for these four things, but no, if I could use a 12 pound tip, I probably would just to get it in. But this really six or eight is the best way to go. And when it comes to euro and tight line nymphing to be really successful, because most people, as I said, they catch the fish in more the, the places where you think they would be in the pools and all that. But when you’re working the rapids, you really have to know how to read water. So when I’m teaching the euro or the tight line NI keep, keep calling it euro. I don’t really wanna call it euro, but the tight line, yeah. I’m teaching almost 50% on how to get that fly down there. Jeff (33m 17s): But 50% of the time is, is where the fish are because you know, If you sounds silly, but If you fish where the fish are, it makes it a lot easier. Yeah. And so reading the water, especially in fast, fast pocket water, you know, it just looks like a blur to most people. And you know, when you really take a look at it and say, okay, there’s a rock there, there’s a channel there, there’s, there may be a ledge there. You really have to learn how to read water more. You learn how to read water in that specific situation. Boy you’ll be really, really successful with this type of steelhead fishing with this tight line. Right. Tight line style. Dave (33m 56s): Yeah. Find the ledges. ’cause the fish are gonna be in a big run or rapid, they’re gonna find the slot. Right. That’s the thing. If there’s one slot, If you could find that little area, then that’s your best bet Al. Although, well that yeah, yeah, Jeff (34m 8s): Well, well big pie. And you know what, there are slots where they will hang in all the time. I’ve got my five best spots on this one river and they’re basically, you know, I’ll say to somebody, I say, listen, I can’t guarantee a fish but put it here. Yeah. Dave (34m 25s): Right. Jeff (34m 25s): And almost, let’s say seven times outta 10 there’ll be a fish there and there may be fish there, they just might not even have on those other three times. But they always sit in these, these certain slots and these certain slots are so small and people walk by them all the time. And you just, once you get to know them, you just keep going back and each flow, you fish it better or fish it different with each flow. You know, just maybe an extra split shot or maybe a different fly to get it down. Or sometimes maybe only one fly. ’cause maybe the second fly, because it’s such a small spot, is is gonna kind of spook them. So it’s really as small of a brain they have, they’re pretty darn smart. Dave (35m 4s): Are you, when you’re getting it down, are you kind of feeling like bump bump? Are you bumping that split shot all the way down through the, the slot? Jeff (35m 11s): Kind of, kind of try not to bump it too much. I, my theory is, is that when a fly goes in the fish, even though they’re looking at the tail in front of them, probably see it maybe coming, maybe say from eight feet away. So if it constantly gets stuck on the bottom, they’re probably thinking it’s nothing really real. So you gotta find that If you can get that perfect drift where, and that’s why the cider tip, it works so well because you know, you’ve been catching this one rock constantly. So you, when you put it in, you lift it up a little bit at that spot, then you put it back down, lift it up, lift it down, and you’re just mapping out the bottom. And with the migratory fish, they’re on the bottom. Yeah. Normally, you know, they’re normally somewhere around that bottom area. Jeff (35m 54s): And, and I find too is that I get people to try to, when they put the fly up, try to get it up as much as you can and then lift it up quickly so you get a vision on that cider tip. ’cause it’s hard to see, especially in some light. And then try to get the maximum drift, try to get, you know, 20 feet of a drift or a 25 feet of a drift, which you can with this stuff. And that’ll really, that’ll really help. But always If you get caught, think it’s a fish, you know? Yeah. Just set on everything, you know, and you, you’re gonna lose flies. Dave (36m 24s): Yeah. You’re gonna, yeah, exactly. Or is the cider, so if you’re in a spot, you said sometimes you can get within five feet, once you, If you, I’m picturing cast upstream or a little bit, drop it down into where you think the fish is at and then you mentioned 25 feet. Are you letting it drift down below you and then down is further down? Jeff (36m 42s): Yeah. Big time, you’re know, know you, you’ve always got a certain amount out. It’s like, like say you’ve got, I don’t know, 10 feet or 12 or 15 feet of, of line out kind of a thing. So you know, you send it out in upriver and you know, just keep going. And then as it’s going past you, you’re lowering the rod tip to keep that fly at that same level and lean with it. Almost be athletic is what I try to tell people outta, you know, get on the balls of your feet. Just don’t stand there and Right. You know, think about what you’re gonna have for dinner that night, which I do a lot of times anyway. Yeah. But, you know, try to be ready for a strike at all times. And I find that’s the same thing with a spay rod. You know, you talked about, you know, I got a couple buddies, I got a buddy here that’s one of the most amazing steel header Jim Bonney. Jeff (37m 25s): And he catches so many fish on a spay rod is because every swing he swings, he feels he’s gonna get a fish, everyone. And so he’s ready and he’s swinging that flag correctly and that kind of a thing. So it’s the same thing with this is that just think you’re going to get a hookup every time and don’t be, you know, just be ready. And if you’re not catching your fish, that doesn’t mean, you know, some days you’re not gonna catch a fish. I mean, you’re not always gonna catch a fish. But If you do everything possible then it doesn’t matter If you don’t catch a fish, at least you tried and did everything. Right. Dave (37m 59s): What’s the hookup like on, you know, the fish? Are these mostly subtle takes or how do you know? You know, mostly Jeff (38m 6s): Subtle because it’s like they suck it in and they don’t even know and then all of a sudden it’s just a boom boom. Yeah. And sometimes you’ll get a slam on a fly like this, but it’s not like a spay where, you know, you get a slam in your rut is almost taken outta your hands. That kind of a thing. It’s more, If you think of it with the fly, going down into a, into a certain little channel and a fish just opens his mult and takes that fly. It probably doesn’t even know it’s hook for the first two seconds. But as it’s getting tighter with the flow and you give it that little yank, then you just feel that boom boom and because you’re tight line, which is nice all once soon as you feel that you just let go of your trigger fingers that you’ve got on that line and it’s off and you’re off to the races. Jeff (38m 52s): Yeah. Dave (38m 52s): And are you landing the, are these fish running on you getting down into your fly line and stuff like that? Or are you keeping ’em pretty close? Jeff (38m 59s): Oh, all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All the time. And again, think of a fast river, a fast fish that’s maybe eight, nine pounds. It’s got lots of energy. It hits it. You know, I always say to people, you’ve gotta let a fish run so let it run. And a lot of times, we’ll with, especially with the flow on these rivers, we’ll land a fish maybe a quarter of a mile down the, down the river Dave (39m 22s): Downstream. Jeff (39m 23s): Yeah. It’s a pain in the butt for a guide. Right. Dave (39m 26s): You gotta, you gotta, yeah. You’re chasing with your client. Jeff (39m 29s): You’re just Right. And if it’s one of those days where, and we can have on this particular river and some other rivers, we can have days where you’re hooking up to 20, 23 fish or four Wow. 24 fish. It’s like some days are magical. My gosh. And you know, you almost, I, when you get one of those days, I almost feel like pushing, pushing the customer outta the way and gimme that ru this is, you’re having too much fun. But yeah, you can have some magical days. You can have some tough days of course, but you know, you can have some of those days that you know. But a real typical day on the big head, realistically you can get anywhere from six to 10 hookups. Yeah. Dave (40m 6s): Hookups. So that might be a, you know, maybe a fish on for a few seconds sort of thing or maybe longer. Jeff (40m 11s): Yep. You got her. And you know, they’ll run down and, or up river, but mostly down river. ’cause they’re, you know, they don’t live in the river. So their whole mindset is, screw this, I’m going home. And home is the lake. So they’ll just take the water and take the current, just go and they’ll snap you off. So, yeah. Gotcha. And you know, even though you’re trying to let ’em run, Dave (40m 32s): I just returned from an incredible 5,000 mile road trip to Wisconsin with my family and our project m from four wheel campers allowed us to see things and go places in comfort that we didn’t think possible for over 50 years, four wheel campers has been building tough, lightweight, popup campers designed to fit almost any truck bed giving adventures like me, the freedom to camp anywhere my truck can go, the popup design can be set up and taken down in under a minute. The interior has a slide out bed to maximize the space and the project M allows you to keep your trucks tailgate so you can still use your truck as a truck whenever you need. Four wheel campers also offers building campers like the luxurious Orvis edition for those, seeking a little extra comfort outdoors. Dave (41m 16s): If you own a truck and are curious which model best suits your needs, you can visit four wheel campers.com right now. And when you’re there, you can customize your own camper, find a dealer nearby and explore upcoming events to see one in person, elevate your outdoor experiences with four wheel campers. Wow. This is cool. Yeah. So I mean, what else would be we, are we missing here on the tight line euro nipping kind of for steelhead, is it similar to, very similar to trout, just with bigger gear? Is that kind of what we’re doing? I guess you, you’re adding split shot too, so that’s a little bit different than your typical Euro nipping. Jeff (41m 51s): Yeah, a lot of times a lot of guys don’t use trout. I just find brown trout are awesome, but they’re spooky finicky and I don’t use as much a split shot. I use maybe a, a larger tungsten head or sometimes the water really isn’t as high also when you’re going for brown trout. And so the flows are are smaller, so you really don’t need the split shot as much and those fish are looking up, so you know, those fish are looking up and looking for bugs brown trouts. So you, you know, you can be in different columns of the water when you’re doing that kind of tight line for them. But, but, but the steel head, yeah, no, it’s, I just find you gotta get it down and you, you got, you gotta read the water, be very, very good at reading water. Jeff (42m 39s): That is, you know, that is for any kind of fishing, but more so I find for the migratory fish. And, and the same thing with spay. You know, you want to be swinging where the fish are and and such, so, you know, obviously boulders are the key. Dave (42m 54s): Yeah. Boulder. So that’s the key to reading water is finding the, if there aren’t slots, you know, of find boulders or anywhere where the water’s broken. Jeff (43m 2s): Yeah. You know, and you know, that kind of a thing. And, and the same thing with spay also. And a lot of people try to slow the fly down too much. Whereas I tell ’em, well let’s, instead of doing a a upward mending on your fly line, let’s do a downward mend and get that fly ripping, ripping through the current. And a lot of times that’ll get a steelhead, even a lazy one, you know, getting up and going for that fly. It is just like, if someone’s throwing in a, in a spinner or a Ella or whatever, what’s, let’s say a spoon or something like that, If you don’t reel that in quick enough, it’s gonna get stuck. Yeah. So, you know, when you know, and guys catch a lot of steelhead with spoons and, and that kind of a stuff and hardware. Jeff (43m 45s): So those things are moving pretty quick. So you know, your fly should be moving pretty quick too. And that’s why I said on the Euro nymphing is that sometimes move that fly a little bit faster than the current. It’s just an anomaly for these fish to see that if it’s going slower, I find that doesn’t work at all. But if it goes a little bit faster, not a lot faster, but just goes a little bit faster than that current, get that fly just ripping a little bit that may entice these, some of these things that are lethargic to come out and to hit it. Dave (44m 15s): That’s awesome. How do you, once you get the fish on and it’s, and you’re getting ready to land it, talk about that. How do you, are you using a net or what’s that look like? Jeff (44m 23s): Yeah, always using a net and that’s the most stressful time for a guide. Yeah. Dave (44m 26s): Well, what’s the net, what’s your go-to? What type of net do you use? Jeff (44m 30s): I’m trying to just, just Dave (44m 31s): Regular hoop net with a big, big net. Yeah. Jeff (44m 34s): Just basic, you know, I got, well I lose nets all the time. I leave them on the river. Yeah. It’s just a pain in the, you know, I’m always thinking, oh, I lost my, I left my river and I know exactly where I left it, but that could be like three miles up river and there’s no way I’m going back for it really. Dave (44m 50s): So Yeah. Jeff (44m 51s): Yeah. No, screw it. Yeah. So I, so someone will have a nice nap, but I just good sturdy net, you know, just, you know, anything that’s not gonna hurt the steelhead or hurt the fish, you know, that kind of a thing. But that’s also what I, as I said, you know, someone says, well, do you have any stress in your, in your life as a guide? And that’s the only time I find where it, when it’s game on and you’ve got, you know, a big corporate customer or someone who hasn’t fished and they finally get a day out, they’ve been, you know, working their, their butt off and now you gotta get that fish into the net and If you make a mistake and it’s gone because you hit the line or whatever, you’ll get a stare Dave (45m 32s): That’s Jeff (45m 32s): From the other, from the other band. So Dave (45m 34s): You gotta get a picture of that one. Are these wild, you mentioned wild is there is, are there hatchery fishing here? There’s mostly all wild Jeff (45m 40s): Yeah, there’s a few, yeah, a few that come in that are hatchery and stuff, but you know, a lot of the ones, a lot of the ones that are coming up here are, are wild. So that’s a really cool, cool thing to see. And we’re, we’re obviously catchier bullies, you know, being an ambassador of the river. Dave (45m 55s): Yeah. Can you, can you keep fish? Yep. Jeff (45m 58s): Yeah. You can keep fish on, on this river. Dave (46m 0s): So people are keeping killing fish and eating steelhead. Jeff (46m 3s): They are. Which is just pains me to see. Yeah. And just pains me to see, and especially, you know, when you see one guy in the morning who took two out and then you see him in the afternoon, took two out. I just, yeah. It’s just, it’s a killer. Yeah. So it’s just like, I’m sure a lot of, a lot of rivers out there, north America and well in the world where, you know, there’s, there’s nothing wrong with keeping a fish and, and you know, at all, there’s nothing wrong. I’m not one of those preachers and like, but it, If you just take too many, that’s, that’s wrong. But steelhead to me, they should be catch and release, I think. And same thing with a large small mold. Jeff (46m 43s): Yeah. You know, you look at somebody who’s taking a five and a half pound river small mouth out and that thing is 25 years old for a river small mold, you’re, you’re thinking, oh, that’s just wrong. Wow. You know, smaller ones. Okay. Is Dave (46m 55s): That how old those smallies are? They get up to that, that old, they’re 25 years old. Jeff (46m 59s): Yeah. River small mold. They grow very slowly. And I think you had Rob Heal on Yeah. A little while ago. Yeah. And he talked about the Saugeen River. The Saugeen River, which I was saying we did a lot of stuff on for the Brown Trail farther up. But those, those bass in there, they get humongous and there’s some six pounds, but they’re fat, but they grow so slowly. So you know, some of them will be anywhere between those larger fish, anywhere between 18 and 25 years old. So they’ve seen a lot of, they’ve seen a lot. Yeah. They’ve seen a lot. They’ve seen a lot and yeah, so they, and they’re, they’re a neat fish. And the other river that I fish for small mouth is the Maitland. And that’s Maitland is still flows also into place called Godrich, which is in, also goes into Lake Huron. Jeff (47m 47s): But this river is, it’s a great steelhead. It’s a swinging river. I think I talked about it, but it’s a fantastic small mo bass river and it’s a sight fishing river, so it’s like fishing for bonefish. Oh wow. Yeah. So you’ll, you’ll sit there and you can see standing as you’re walking in, in a certain run or a certain small area, you can see two or three, four or five pound small mouth and try to get those. That’s technical and it’s fun. Yeah. Dave (48m 13s): Wow. That’s really cool. Nice. Well, let’s start to take it outta here. This is our casting and comfort segment today, brought to you by heated core and heated core. There tagline is, stay out longer and stay comfortable with heated cores, battery powered layers that provide consistent warmth through the year. And we had an episode actually on with Amber where we talked about this. And so shout out to heated core.com. There are one way you could stay warm out there. I think that’s a challenge, right? How do you keep your, your arms and you know, everything from freezing. So what’s your tip in the winter? So you talked about being fishing up through December. How are you staying warm out there? What’s your big tip there? Jeff (48m 49s): What’s my tip there? Dave (48m 51s): Are you wearing like, you know, like, because it’s cold, right? You guys get some cold weather, don’t you when you’re fishing? Yeah, big Jeff (48m 57s): Time. I, you know, I, I’m pretty lucky I don’t get, my legs don’t get cold. I mean, like, you know, you wear the thickest zip up waiters you can with regard to that, you know, good. What I do find spikes on my, I have spikes in my, my boots. And of course those really work well, Dave (49m 15s): Right? So that is one thing. You don’t wanna fall, like falling in the water would not be a good day. Have you, have you had that, have you had some clients have that happen to ’em? Jeff (49m 23s): Oh yeah. Actually it’s more me going in. Dave (49m 26s): Oh really? You going? So how do you deal with that when you go down and maybe you get water in your waiters? Jeff (49m 30s): Yeah. You just have to grim and bear it that kind of a thing. But a lot of times, you know, again, as, and I’m sure other guides are, are, are the same way. You know, your number one goal is to keep your customer happy and dry. Yeah. So If you see a customer going in, a lot of times the reason I’ve gone in is because I’ve kept him from going in, but then I’ve slipped and gone in myself. Yeah. And that kind of a thing. And you know, when you go in in November, that’s a pretty crazy spot. But I also, you know, when you’re in, in that kind of water, you always fish and take a look at what’s below you. So, you know, If you do go in, okay, where am I gonna get out kind of a thing. And if it’s, sometimes if it’s too precarious or if it’s a really looks kind of a dangerous, oh, just move on because it’s only a fish and there’s another fish that’ll be just farther up into a, in another easier spot. Jeff (50m 21s): But my, what I tell anybody when they’re especially winter steel heading is always bring a change of clothes and have it in your car for that kind of a reason. You know, that that’s, that’s always key and you know, a little pair of gloves, but your hands are gonna get warm or gonna get so they’re gonna get cold. Doesn’t matter how you look at it. Yeah, yeah. Dave (50m 41s): You are. Well, I find the one thing I love the fingerless wool gloves, like just basic, thin, nothing big, but I find that for some reason the tips don’t get quite as cold and you can, you know what I mean? So I love the fingerless gloves. I’m not sure about you. Jeff (50m 55s): Right. Those are good. My hands get cold, but I, I’m always having to do a lot of stuff with changing flies, putting split shots on. And so I don’t really use, I don’t really, I don’t really use gloves that much. I’ll just put ’em in my pockets. I’m not really carrying a rod. So, but yeah, for, for someone who’s fishing just a small fingerless gloves, they’re the best hat. As I said, change of clothes is the change of clothes is the best. Yeah. Dave (51m 20s): Those are all great. Those are all awesome tips. Yeah. Well, so that’s some winter tips. And then what about, give us a few, let’s say talk about tight line nipping euro nipping for steelhead. Let, let’s talk about that. Just give us like two or three top tips. Somebody’s thinking about going fishing, maybe they’re not gonna get a guy, but they want to do this. You know, what, what are you telling that person to help them? Maybe Jeff (51m 39s): Number one is reading water. So if you’re steelhead fishing, what you want to do is, and I know this sounds like, you know, a a, a scene from Caddy Shack and Caddy Shack where the guy Chevy Chase is saying to the guy saying, you know, be the ball, Danny, be the ball. Oh yeah. And be, you know, that kind of a thing. Well, If you are in a certain run, you have to look down river and say to yourself, okay, if I was a steelhead, you got Jeff the steelhead, I’m coming up this river, where would I go? How would I figure this out? So that sometimes will help people if they visualize themselves as a steelhead. I know that sounds really stupid, but If you, If you visualize the steelhead coming up, where’s he gonna sit? If he’s, and you, and I bet If you look at a certain area when you’re, especially when I’m with the customer and I and I, and we look at an area that’s maybe, I don’t know, a hundred or let’s say 50 feet of a river we can point to with our raw chips, there’ll be one property there, there’ll be one there, there’ll be one there because it’s there. Jeff (52m 35s): And that, and so again, fishing where the fish are is really, really key. And so once you get to where you sort of think the fish are, then you start trying to figure out how to get 10 outta 10 drifts in this spot. Where that in a row, where this spot where you think the fish is. So a lot of people say if the water’s pouring over a rock and you gotta get your fly just above that rock in a certain place. So then it filters into where the, you think the fish is. What I tell people a lot of time is don’t try to just hit that spot like on a dime, always overshoot it and then pull it back in so it gets to that spot. Jeff (53m 15s): And then that, that way If you overshoot it, you can bring it, you can drag it back into the spot and you can virtually get eight to nine to 10 outta 10 perfect drift. So the more perfect drifts you can do, can do. So that’s always a good key. So you’re, you’re visualizing where the steel head’s gonna be, you take that spot, you start hitting your fly in amongst that and set on absolutely Dave (53m 38s): Everything. Yeah. Set on everything. What’s that set look like? What, what is it like, is it just like a trout set, Jeff (53m 42s): Just a trout, just a very small trout set. Because once you do a very, If you do like a, a big large mouth bass Yeah. Trout or a set, you’re gonna rip it right out of the, the things mo but they’re, you know, the steelhead miles are are hard. But once you feel something pull and just a tap, because once that happens the fish are gonna react. I think they’re gonna hook themselves. Yeah. So it’s just trying to get that motion into that fish. So that’s the key. So again, fish with a fish are the set on absolutely everything and work with your weight If you don’t think you’re down. Oh, right. And put another split shot on. Yeah. Dave (54m 19s): And, and you know, you’re down just by the fact that you wanna be touching the bottom occasionally. Like, or, or you know, oh, big time. If you’re not feeling the bottom at all, that means put another split shot on Jeff (54m 29s): You Got it. You just make sure you, and, and there’s, you know, there’s three ways of getting, or a couple ways of getting the, getting a fly down. You can put more weight on and you know, in regular casting you can put weight on, you can set send your fly up farther or you can mend, but we’re not mending. That’s how to get a fly down to the fish. Three ways to do that. But with this you don’t mend. So really either put more split shot on or get your fly up farther up river so it has more time to sync originally. And then that’s how you’re gonna get that fly down. And also you have to have that, the number one thing is to have that fly or your cider tip it straight up and down. Jeff (55m 11s): If it’s on any kind of an angle, your fly’s not gonna get down. It’s just gonna get caught up into the current. So it’s pretty basic when it comes to that. So, and again, just to go through that, you gotta read the water is your best bet. You gotta make sure that you get eight to nine to 10 outta 10 drifts perfect. In that certain run. And you’ve gotta play with your weights on your, on your, on your tippet. So you add more weight or you don’t add more weight or put the fly up a little bit farther Rope river to get the fly down and set on everything and you’re good to go. Dave (55m 44s): Perfect. Good. Well that’s good. And we got a couple more takeaway. Take us outta here and we talked about the new Fly Fisher at the start. Do you have, I always love to hear you mentioned a couple places on the new Fly Fisher. How does that look for you? Are you guys looking out? Do you know exactly where you’re going this year? In the next couple years? Jeff (56m 0s): No. Yeah. No, not, I haven’t got a Dave (56m 2s): Clue. Oh, no clue. Yep. Yeah, Jeff (56m 4s): That usually comes in around April. Dave (56m 6s): Oh, April, okay. Yeah. Jeff (56m 7s): So find out, you know, when, you know what lodges are, are wanting us to come up or, or where we’re going. That’s Dave (56m 15s): Cool. So Mark’s doing that right now. Mark’s kind of behind the scenes, setting up all that stuff. And then you do you typically do what, like two or three trips or how many trips are you doing per year? Jeff (56m 24s): Yeah, I think I’ve done three trips a year, which is awesome. And maybe I’ve, I’ve always, I always say to Mark, I say, yeah, I’d love to do more. You just let me know. Right. If you want me to, you know, keep sending me out. I just did actually, I just did a, a show, a steelhead show with Mark. Oh yeah. That’ll be become out probably in April. Yeah. We were in November we did another river called an Ottawa Saga and the Saugeen. So we, I got some, some fish on the spay on the Sau and we got some fish on an indicator, but I gotta tell you, mark. Yeah. Can he fish? Dave (56m 56s): Oh really? Yeah. He said, I remember talking to him because we had him on the podcast and you could hear, I think I asked him some question about, I think it was about the phishing versus just the experience. And I said something stupid like, God isn’t fishing more, it’s just almost as much about being out there and experiencing it and Right. Is that almost more than the Phish? And Mark was like, no, I don’t agree with that. It’s the phish for me. He’s like, he’s a hardcore Right. Yeah. Jeff (57m 20s): He loves his fish. And you know what I I, he’s tough to be on the boat with ’cause he’s just like, he’s catching fish all the time. And you, and you know, around the, the, the Awasa River that just sounds so Canadian, right? Dave (57m 32s): Ottawas? How do you spell that? Awasa. Jeff (57m 34s): Awasa. Oh God. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, however it sounds, I guess that’s how you spell it. But it’s a slower river and I’m not, I like indicating, but I’ve just never been my, my favorite thing to do. But I hadn’t even got my fly on and he had a fish on, on our, on when we got on the river, I was just still tying my fly on. He’s already got a fish on. He’s unreal. He can find fish from underneath a bus. Just an amazing, amazing fisherman. And that’s why he does so well when he goes to all these places like Chile and, and you know, all the other places. So, you know, you just, he is, he is, as I said, he is, he is a lot of fun to fish with. He’s amazing. But he’s, he’s a, he’s a tough competitor. Jeff (58m 16s): Yeah. Dave (58m 16s): Yeah. That’s it. Okay, cool. So, so that’s Mark. So that’s what you have coming up. Let’s talk a little bit more. So just the area or for you, are you gonna be, is most of your traveling, I guess your guiding, so when does that start for you? When do you start picking up just your normal guiding? Yeah, I Jeff (58m 32s): Guess once the river start busting up, we’ll start getting out probably end of March or maybe maybe April, that kind of a thing. So right now we’re just, I’m actually heading to Sedona, Arizona. Oh really? Dave (58m 45s): There Jeff (58m 45s): You go. Yeah. Which is cool. And apparently you can do some fly fishing there. So I’m probably, my, my wife and I are gonna head out on the, in a couple weeks and we’re gonna go for a couple weeks. So I’m gonna see if I can find some fish there. And then maybe to Florida. We were gonna go to New Zealand, but, But we probably head back down to Florida. Dave (59m 1s): Okay. And are you doing, when you’re doing the Sedona or the Florida thing, are you kind of just flying in, staying in hotels? How, how does that look? Mm, Jeff (59m 8s): Well we actually, we had a timeshare there. Oh, nice. When I say the word ha had, it was in for, on Fort Myers Beach. And we were probably gonna spend quite a lot of the time. But that got blown away by Hurricane Ian. Wow. Couple years ago. Yeah. So, and that was a great spot. Fort Myers Beach was just amazing. There’s lots of snook that would cruise the beach. And there’s a place called Lover’s Key that I would head into, especially in November. And I’d get into Kayak and I’d go tarping fishing. ’cause these, anywhere from, from 20 to 40 pound Tarpon would be laying in Dave (59m 42s): There. The baby tarpon. Jeff (59m 44s): Yeah, the baby tarpon. But they were so quick and it’s all, you’re in a, you’re in an area where it’s like 30 feet wide and you’re in a kayak and it, there’s alligator signs everywhere. Oh really? And I hate to say it, I am zero for 14. Dave (59m 58s): Oh, there you go. So you’ve had ’em on though. Oh, Jeff (59m 60s): I’ve had ’em on, but I just can’t, they get, they get caught up in the, in the mangroves. Dave (1h 0m 4s): Oh, in the mangroves, right. Jeff (1h 0m 5s): Yeah. So, and then they, then they get ripped off kind of a thing. So it’s just, I had one to the hand, almost touched it, but I, I lost it. So I’m, I’m M zero for 14, so I suck at ification. Dave (1h 0m 16s): That’s it. Well, I, I’ve heard some, you know, the, the steelhead is not too different, you know, I mean, I think you’re in an area, the way we’re talking today, I mean, you catch a lot of fish, but you know, you hear some people, and even my brother, I remember he had this story on when he was a younger kid and he told, actually he, I think he wrote about it on our website, but I think he did the same thing. He was like over for 12, it was his first, he was probably 12-year-old and he was, he was out there swinging flies and he lost 12 steelhead in a row. Oh, I bet. And he, on the last one, you know, I think he almost threw his rod. And so it’s that feeling where, you know, it can happen to anybody, you know, but then finally you land one. Right. Same thing for you that tarpon, I think probably once you land that next one, you’re gonna be like, you’ll have it dialed in probably then it’ll be Jeff (1h 0m 55s): Oh yeah. Big time. Well you know what, as they always say, we learn from our mistakes, right? Yeah. So if someone loses a steelhead, like the fir their first two and they probably know what they did. Right. They probably had their left hand on the re didn’t let the real move or, or you know, that kind of a thing. So we learn by our mistakes and we only become better sounds so cliche-ish, but that’s the way I look at every time I lose a fish, it’ll make me better. Yeah, yeah. As I’m swearing. Dave (1h 1m 20s): Totally Good stuff. Well you, this is good. Take ta. We talked, you mentioned TFO, what about Rios or do you have a specific re brand you like to use? Jeff (1h 1m 28s): Re did you say? Yeah, Dave (1h 1m 29s): Like a reel? Yeah. Jeff (1h 1m 30s): Yeah. Well I, I actually, I am a dealer for TFO. Oh Dave (1h 1m 33s): You are? Okay. Yeah. TF o’s good. Yeah, yeah, Jeff (1h 1m 35s): Sure. Yeah. So I, I use mostly TFO stuff and they’re the great, like I said, they’re Axiom two X Rod is just a canon. It’s awesome. And they got some great reels and such. But, you know, I’ve used a lot of reels in the past. But you know, we do a lot of stuff with Orvis with the new fly fixture also. Oh, okay. And so the, the Helios and even the Clearwater rods are amazing, but the reels for Orvis are top-notch. I love them. Yeah. Dave (1h 2m 2s): Orvis is great. Yeah. Orvis is awesome. Yeah, TFOs too. I mean that’s a great story. We’ve had a number of episodes with, you know, TFO from the founder down to, I guess one person we never got was Lefty Cray. But I mean, lefty cray. It’s a cool, the TFO story is cool because of the way, you know, the founder kind of put that all together, you know, and brought all these, you know, lefty and these and Ed Roski like these people in some of the best to basically Oh I know. Basically work with the company and that’s obviously helped him. Jeff (1h 2m 28s): Oh, big time. You know, you got Flip Pal and, and you know, all these names and they’re just not names. These guys are intelligent and they’re amazing. Fly Fisher and they’re pioneers. Dave (1h 2m 37s): Yeah, exactly. Nice. Well this is cool Jeff. This has been a lot of fun. I, I feel like we definitely talk a lot about Swinging Fly, so I love getting a little nipping episode in here and you know, and really it’s, you know, it’s steelhead but it could be nipping for, you know, other species, right. I mean, it’s just fishing at the end of the day. Do you have anything else you want to, that we didn’t talk about today? Any, any last words before we head out here? Jeff (1h 2m 60s): No, I don’t, I think we touched on it quite a bit. I think everything, as I said, if I had my way I’d swing a fly for steelhead, but I got a hidden passion for this tight line. I really do. You know, when you, when you touch some of these steelhead and you are say six feet away from the hookup. Yeah. And it, it just blows the water in front of you. That’s just an insane fight. And that is probably one of the most exciting moments is that initial hookup when you are tight lining. It’s, and just to try to keep it on for, I dunno, three seconds, that initial three seconds. It’s tough to do. So that’s, yeah, it’s fun. Jeff (1h 3m 40s): It’s, I love, I love ’em both, but you know, hard to say. Dave (1h 3m 44s): Yeah, yeah, me too. But Jeff (1h 3m 45s): I, no, I appreciate the time to chat. I, I know I, I probably babbled too much, but I love talking fly fishing. Dave (1h 3m 50s): Oh yeah, no, it’s good. We’ll, we’ll keep up with it. We’ll send everybody out to Calm Waters fly fishing.ca if they want to connect and check in on trips and things like that. I mean, you’re awesome. You’re right there. You guys are kind of just across the border, so I mean, I think it’s probably pretty easy. Do you guys get a few people from the states heading up to fish up there on, on your trips and stuff like that? Jeff (1h 4m 9s): Oh, very much so. Actually a lot. For some reason, a lot from California. Oh Dave (1h 4m 12s): Really? Oh, there you go. Yeah. Jeff (1h 4m 13s): Yeah. I don’t know why. It may be because they’re coming in for conferences maybe. ’cause there is a lot of tech in, in Toronto and, and Waterloo area here, so maybe that’s it. But I, I do find a lot from yeah, a lot in there. Not as much from the border. Dave (1h 4m 29s): Oh right, yeah. ’cause they got their own right down there. They’ve got their own stuff. Jeff (1h 4m 32s): Yeah, they got their own good stuff and whatever. But that, and a lot of people from Italy and for, again, South Africa, it’s, it’s a funny demographic. So Dave (1h 4m 42s): That’s awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Nice. All right Jeff, well we’ll be in touch and thanks again for all the wisdom today and the great episode. And we will check back and talk to you soon. Jeff (1h 4m 50s): Awesome buddy. I really appreciate it. Thanks. Dave (1h 4m 53s): All right, there you go. Tight line nipping, that’s not swinging, that’s tight Line Nipping with Jeff. If you love This episode, please check in with Jeff. Let him know you heard about this podcast, you heard about him on this podcast. That would be amazing. And, and if you’re interested, pick his brain, see if he has availability for a trip. All right. If you haven’t yet, please follow that show. As always. If you’re new to it, you can do that really easy on any of your apps. I want to give, give you a quick reminder. We are gonna be heading out to Argentina, golden Dorado. We all hear about a golden Dorado. Take a look at this fish. It looks kind of like a salmon and in some ways has, I think there’s no resemblance or no evolutionary resemblance or connection, but they look similar with their big head. Dave (1h 5m 37s): But check out Golden Rado. We’re gonna be looking to head out there and we are putting together a trip right now. So if you’re interested in this, you can go send me an email, dave@wefflyswing.com and I’ll let you know what we have as far as availability for spots left on that one. Golden Rado with set fly fishing. Check it out, check in with me. All right, I can get rolling here. Hope you, I hope you have a great morning. I hope you have a great afternoon or if it’s evening, wherever you are in the world. I appreciate you and then hope you have a wonderful evening. We’ll talk to you very soon.