10 Tips For Better Line Mending, With Mike Pease

Tom Rosenbauer (00:00): Well, my guest today is Mike P's Did I pronounce your name right, Mike? Okay, good. Okay, good. And ⁓ Mike is a guide in California. ⁓ Mike P's adventures ⁓ or of us indoors guide in California, Northern California, Northern California. And what Mike ⁓

Mike Pease (00:04): You did. Please without the L. Northern California.

Tom Rosenbauer (00:22): Would like to talk about I actually asked him to talk about today gave me a list of topics and the one that I that I thought would be ⁓ valuable to the listeners and interesting is tips on mending because I still get I still get a lot of questions on mending and also I'm not so sure I'm not I'm that good at mending because I kind of watch When I fish and I prefer to do a reach cast ⁓ if I can so that the mend is in the line as soon as it hits the water. And I find that after a mend, I hardly ever catch a fish, whether it's a dry or a nymph. So I think I'm thinking maybe maybe I don't mend properly. So I'm I'm

Mike Pease (01:15): We'll talk about that reach cast.

Tom Rosenbauer (01:18): Okay, okay, good. sure I thought I thought we would. ⁓ So anyway, ⁓ you have what six tips.

Mike Pease (01:27): Six tips with a possible bonus seventh tip.

Tom Rosenbauer (01:31): Oh, we got to do the bonus, Mike, we got to do the bonus. All right. All right. If I plead and beg, will you will you do the bonus?

Mike Pease (01:33): Well, okay, we'll see. Yes, I'm sure we'll get to it.

Tom Rosenbauer (01:42): Okay. All right. So, ⁓ yeah, without further ado, Mike, ⁓ maybe tell people a little bit about your guiding operation first, and then, ⁓ then let's get right into it.

Mike Pease (01:52): First, great, great, great. Well, first of all, just thanks for having me on, Tom. I love listening to your podcasts and it's just, I always learn something new and they're entertaining and ⁓ really fun to listen to. So with my guide business, I guide in Northern California, as you said earlier. ⁓ I have two bases. I have one in Sacramento, which is where I'm talking to you from right now. And then another one up in the Los Sierra, which is an area of in the Plumas National Forest, about a million acres up there where I spend most of my spring and fall. We have a home up there in the mountains and then ⁓ a townhouse here in Sacramento. So this time of year I'm guiding. ⁓ I do float and fly for bass out on Lake Berryessa, which ⁓ super fun if you've never done it. And so it works great in the winter and ⁓ early spring. And then I do make periodic trips up into the La Sierra and I do some streamer fishing for trout up there, even in the winter and the snow and all that, but take someone that's really super adventurous to want to do that. And ⁓ yeah. And so that's where I do most of my guiding. I do some still water guiding on Lake Davis up in the La Sierra. I do a lot of guiding on the Wild and Scenic Middle Fork of the Feather River and also the North Fork of the Feather River. ⁓ And a few years ago, I bought a boat. I retired from a high school math teaching position after about 32 years and cashed in ⁓ a life insurance policy and was able to buy a boat and a truck. And ⁓ now I can go out on the lake and I've been... ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (03:34): Mm.

Mike Pease (03:45): really enjoying ⁓ still water fishing for bass and for trout.

Tom Rosenbauer (03:50): Great, and you guide for bass as well? Cool, okay. All right, so that's quite a good variety, probably depending on time of year, right? What you're gonna propose to your clients.

Mike Pease (03:53): I do, yeah. Yeah, kind of starting to figure that out. ⁓ this time of year ⁓ in the winter, when we're talking right now, we're talking in January. ⁓ I've been going out to Davis, or I'm sorry, not Davis, Lake Berryessa, ⁓ which is in the Central Valley, about 45 minutes from my home here in Sacramento. And ⁓ so up until about ⁓ April, so till the end of March and beginning of April, I'm

Tom Rosenbauer (04:14): Right. Okay.

Mike Pease (04:33): keeping my boat here and then I'll be moving once the ⁓ ice thaws on Lake Davis and the rivers ⁓ start to come down a bit, ⁓ then I'll be moving up to the La Sierra.

Tom Rosenbauer (04:47): Okay, when do your good hatches start up there?

Mike Pease (04:52): They start ⁓ usually in April. We get a ⁓ golden stone fly hatch up there. ⁓ we actually have, I've seen now that the middle fork of the Feather River is open year round, which that changed about three years ago. I actually see some dry fly hatches and fish rising, not very often on the river, but ⁓ sometimes. ⁓ But really it starts getting into gear.

Tom Rosenbauer (04:55): Okay. Mm-hmm. you

Mike Pease (05:21): around April, especially May, and then it gets really good all the way through till summer, till like the end of June, and then the river up there gets a little low, but I switch over to the lake and it's pretty good.

Tom Rosenbauer (05:36): Okay, great. All right, shall we talk about mending? Tip number one.

Mike Pease (05:41): Let's talk about mending. All right.

Tom Rosenbauer (05:44): Or should we start with the bonus tip first? You holding off on that bonus tip?

Mike Pease (05:47): Yeah, okay. No, no, no, I'm not holding off. In fact, that will ⁓ allow me to kind of ⁓ tell a little story before we dive into the six tips. I think you're right. Yep, a story and the bonus tip. How about that? Okay. Tip number zero. All right, so this, wrote an article.

Tom Rosenbauer (06:02): love stories. Okay, alright. Tip number zero, right?

Mike Pease (06:14): Called the art of mending. It was my sixth article in California fly Fisher magazine, which is an incredible magazine here in California and Oh Do you okay? All right. All right So my sixth article was called the art of mending which was in the July August 23 issue and I Was I was out in the out in my boat on Lake Davis

Tom Rosenbauer (06:24): I love it. read every issue. yeah. yeah. I love it. Okay.

Mike Pease (06:44): After I wrote the article, it had come out and then I think the next ⁓ the next magazine or the next issue came out and I was in a boat with this guy. I was ⁓ this gentleman that was helping me learn Lake Davis because I was new to the lake and he goes, hey, it was really cool to see that Ralph Cutter replied to your article that you wrote. I said what? And I said Ralph Cutter actually read my article and and gave a response and I was shocked. ⁓ And he said, yeah, Ralph actually used to be my neighbor. And so he gave me Ralph's phone number and I called Ralph and ⁓ Ralph, I thanked Ralph. said, you know, just, was so cool that you responded to my article. And I found out he's a neighbor of mine up in the La Sierra. And so now we're friends and we go fishing, Ralph and Lisa and I. Out in my boat and but anyway what he wrote in the following Magazine that came out and in response to my article And this is part of the presentation I give He said I don't have all of it here, but I have parts of it and it will relate to the bonus He yeah He said the art of mending by Mike Pease is awesome. I have often thought of writing a book about mending but I'm

Tom Rosenbauer (07:43): ⁓ huh. OK.

Mike Pease (08:13): too jaded and it is a money-losing proposition. Mending is far more important than the overhyped casting styles. The fish don't care about your loop and even a sloppy roll cast works if the bait is presented well. Mending rules." So that was part of what he wrote and then comes the bonus.

Tom Rosenbauer (08:34): Okay.

Mike Pease (08:36): He said, I'd add to Mike's piece that mending isn't always about a drag-free drift. Because in my article and in the six tips I'm going to give you, those are about getting a drag-free drift.

Tom Rosenbauer (08:50): Right?

Mike Pease (08:52): Some of the best men's create drag and more. There is no better skill in fly fishing than land control and mending is where it is at. So the bonus tip, which doesn't create a drag free drift is oftentimes when I'm streamer fishing, I'm actually throwing a mend to create a loop. ⁓ I'm throwing a mend downstream that will create a loop.

Tom Rosenbauer (09:19): Right.

Mike Pease (09:21): that will pull my streamer downstream as if it's getting away. It's a bait fish that's fleeing another fish that's chasing it. So my bonus tip is actually to create drag sometimes. It will help you catch more fish.

Tom Rosenbauer (09:40): Cool. Well, that's, you know, that's something that Atlantic salmon anglers use a lot downstream men's if the, if the current's too slow and they, you know, they need a certain swing on their flies and streamer fishing makes sense. In fact, I like that you talk about, ⁓ streamers going downstream when they're, ⁓ when they're fleeing, because everybody tells you that, ⁓ game fish don't take a fly that's coming at them because It's not natural, but when baitfish flee, the only way they can go is downstream. They can't swim upstream. They don't have the power. So I love that. I love that.

Mike Pease (10:19): Yeah. Yeah, you know, Ralph ⁓ is a guru here in Northern California. And so to

Tom Rosenbauer (10:28): yeah. He's a brilliant guy. I've had him on the podcast before we had a podcast about waiting and he he had all kinds of really cool ideas that I'd never thought of. So yeah. Tons of respect for Ralph Cutter.

Mike Pease (10:34): Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, so I was honored that he liked the article and then he added on to it. So I thought that was great. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (10:47): Wow. Alright, so that's the bonus tip. Alright, so let's go to number one.

Mike Pease (10:52): That's the bonus tip, yes. Number one of our six drag-free tips for mending. so the first one is I call it the Zorro Bump Mend. So this comes with a quick story too. Is that okay to tell that story? Okay, all right, all right. So I've fished my whole life.

Tom Rosenbauer (11:00): Okay. Mmm. lots of stories. Yeah, stories are good.

Mike Pease (11:21): And, but I didn't get to fly fish. start fly fishing until 1992. I moved to Redding and it's kind of the hub of Northern California. There's so many different places to fly fish around there. And so I was having a really difficult time back then. This was like kind of before the internet. So I had a book and I was trying to teach myself and I was a poor teacher, a first year teacher.

Tom Rosenbauer (11:30): Right. Yeah, yeah.

Mike Pease (11:52): and ⁓ couldn't afford a guide or anything like that. So I was teaching myself out of a book. I wasn't catching any fish. My wife was giving me all this trouble because I said how I was such a great angler and fisherman and catching all these fish. And now all of sudden I'm not catching any fish. She says, I thought you were good. I go, man, really it hurt. anyway, yeah, I know. ⁓ I ended up after several months of not catching a fish on a fly rod. I took a free clinic through the fly shop in Reading. And I think it was a half day clinic. And we went out to the posse grounds, if you've ever been there. And I'm out on the convention center lawn with an old bamboo rod, learning how to fly cast. my teacher that day is named Chip O'Brien, became my mentor. He's like, let me try that thing.

Tom Rosenbauer (12:26): Right.

Mike Pease (12:46): But anyway, we ended up practicing out on the lower sac right there at the on the second lower Sacramento River ⁓ at the posse grounds. And ⁓ he's he ⁓ was showing me some ⁓ fishing with an indicator. Back then, we used these big yard indicators. And then I watched him ⁓ to put these bump men's, which I didn't know the name for it back then, these bump men's into into his line.

Tom Rosenbauer (12:53): Right? Yep. Yeah.

Mike Pease (13:17): and that indicator was drifting downstream with a drag free drift, you wouldn't believe how far it went down. It had to have been 40 yards, maybe even further to the point where you could almost hardly see the indicator. And I'm like, are you still fishing? What's happening here? And he says, just watch. And then next thing you know, boom, sets the hook and lands that fish.

Tom Rosenbauer (13:34): Yeah, yeah.

Mike Pease (13:45): I was just blown away by this. And so ⁓ when I became a guide back in 2014, I always remembered that and I tried, I think I was, no problem. Dogs, gotcha.

Tom Rosenbauer (13:46): Wow. ⁓ huh. Okay. Hang on a second, Dogs. Might be UPS or something. Let me go see if I can quiet him down. I'll be right back. Dogs, dogs, dogs.

Mike Pease (14:10): No worries. Yeah.

Tom Rosenbauer (14:19): Yeah. you two labs. Every time somebody every time a squirrel moves. Okay, sorry, pick, pick up, pick up where you were.

Mike Pease (15:14): Awesome. love love labs. No worries. Yeah, so I became a much better angler thankfully over the next 30 years and ⁓ and I was able to replicate what Chip had taught me that day. ⁓ And then a few years ago when I was thinking about writing this article, the art of mending, I

Tom Rosenbauer (15:26): Yeah.

Mike Pease (15:44): I tried to come up with a, I think in the way of, you can come up with a metaphor, it's a great teaching technique. And so I came up with this, I was trying to describe what I was doing to create these long downstream drifts. So you could keep fishing downstream of you with an indicator. And so I noticed that what I was doing was after I make my cast upstream and the indicator is fishing dead drift,

Tom Rosenbauer (15:52): Yeah. Right? Right?

Mike Pease (16:14): downstream toward me. Once the indicator got even with me, what I did with my line is I put a big Z in the water, ⁓ some slack in the shape of a Z. And I thought, well, how do I describe that? And I thought, well, that's, I know what that is. I remember those Zorro movies where he would go boom, boom, boom, and he'd make that big Z and it was exactly

Tom Rosenbauer (16:14): Right. Right. huh. Okay. Yeah, we're going, yeah, yeah, right.

Mike Pease (16:42): That's what I'm doing ⁓ to create slack when the indicator gets even with you. Now, you need to make the Z, the slack with the Z, so that as the indicator keeps going downstream, the slack from the Z allows you to do these bump mens, which bump mens, you can see me, ⁓ I'm holding my rod down. ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (16:44): Okay. huh. Okay. Right.

Mike Pease (17:11): pointing down toward the river. And I do these gentle sine waves. I was a math teacher, so I use a lot of math things. But anyway, these gentle S's are sine waves.

Tom Rosenbauer (17:14): Right? Right?

Mike Pease (17:24): And when I'm doing that, I'm adding more slack without moving the indicator.

Tom Rosenbauer (17:29): So you're letting ⁓ loose line slip through your fingers as you do those sine waves.

Mike Pease (17:34): Exactly. Exactly. And with the rod pointed downward, ⁓ you have gravity on your side that helps take line out of either coming up from underneath you. And you might be pulling off line at the same time if you don't have line underneath you. you can fish ⁓ that indicator dead drift as far as you can see your indicator.

Tom Rosenbauer (17:45): Huh? Yeah, okay. Uh-huh. And the Z and the cyber interrupting the Z creates like a cushion. So that's that kind of protects you from moving the indicator. ⁓ I like it.

Mike Pease (18:10): Yeah. You got it, you got it. So if you don't do the Z and you just start the bump mending, you're gonna move the indicator. Yeah. Or the dry fly, yeah. It works with both. yeah, so that first tip is called the Zorro bump mend. Zorro bump mend.

Tom Rosenbauer (18:18): you're gonna move the indicator. Yeah, or the dry fly if you're fishing dry dropper. Yeah, okay. I love it. Okay, the Zoro man. The zero bump men, okay, love it. I'm gonna use that one next time I go out.

Mike Pease (18:37): Yes, yes, yes. just sometimes just challenge yourself to see how far downstream you can hook a fish. It's fun. The further it goes now, the harder it is to hook the fish, I would say. But it's fun trying. I think there's another tip within a tip there.

Tom Rosenbauer (18:47): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you got a lot of slack in there. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Mike Pease (19:06): that I should bring up and that's something, the .5, 1.5, there we go, is called, I call it, and maybe other people have called it this as well, but the, and it works for not just mending, but it works, this tip, this idea called the Goldilocks Principle. The Goldilocks Principle is you gotta have just the right amount of slack.

Tom Rosenbauer (19:09): 1.5, tip 1.5.

Mike Pease (19:33): If you can't have too little slack, so that in your Z, because if you have too little in your bump mens, you're going to move the indicator. If you have too much slap, what do you think? Too much slack, what problem would that be?

Tom Rosenbauer (19:42): Right? Yep. It's going to be tough to stick the hook in their mouth and torture them for a couple of minutes.

Mike Pease (19:52): You got it, that's exactly right. So there's always the Goldilocks principle you have to be thinking about and that's where it really, it becomes kind of an art maybe, ⁓ of trying to get it just right. And the more you practice it, the better you get at it.

Tom Rosenbauer (19:55): Okay. Okay. Mm-hmm, yeah. OK. Alright, I like it. I like it. Number two. I'm gonna keep you on track here, Mike.

Mike Pease (20:13): Okay, ⁓ Number two. And if anyone wants visuals of this, Tom, ⁓ if they look in California Fly Fisher Magazine, and you can search my name, Mike Pease, and you can see all the articles I wrote. And the article is in there, and my wife created some drawings that show some of this. Yeah.

Tom Rosenbauer (20:36): cool, OK, and that's on all the these articles are online like. OK.

Mike Pease (20:41): They are. ⁓ I don't know if you have to subscribe or not so that you could test it out and see. But that's California Fly Fisher Magazine. Okay, are we ready for the next?

Tom Rosenbauer (20:47): Yeah, okay. Okay. Ready for number two?

Mike Pease (20:54): Number two, okay. Number two, and this can be an add-on to number one, or it can just be, ⁓ you can just use it as a standalone. And it's called the pullback mend. So with the pullback mend,

Tom Rosenbauer (21:11): Mm-hmm.

Mike Pease (21:16): the when your fly gets downstream and you start to get drag, that doesn't have to be the end of your of your fishing, right? You don't have to pick up and recast at that point. And so the pullback mend is where when the flies at the end of your drift and you and you are out of bump, men's or whatever you can do, you can simply skate the fly by pulling it up, pulling your rod up.

Tom Rosenbauer (21:22): Right? Okay. Okay.

Mike Pease (21:46): skate the fly as far back as you can ⁓ into a new lane that's parallel to the lane you were just fishing. Into a new lane and then slowly bring your rod down and the fly is now dead drifting in a new lane. Okay, now you can do that multiple times. So you might be able to do it.

Tom Rosenbauer (21:50): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. Okay. Okay, good, yeah.

Mike Pease (22:15): After you do your initial cast and drift, well, you can do your pullback mend. Now you're in a new lane. Well, you can repeat the pullback mend and do it in another lane and maybe even do it again. So you've now fished three lanes, maybe more.

Tom Rosenbauer (22:18): Yeah. Mm. huh, okay. Huh. right. But you have to you have to kind of almost pull the fly out of the water right so that you so you'll give it some slack so that it'll drop down below the indicator. Okay.

Mike Pease (22:45): Exactly. So the fly, so I'm thinking right now, I'm thinking, ⁓ I'm thinking more of a dry fly in my head, but it could be done with an indicator as well. You could do it either way. ⁓ But with it, with, I'm thinking dry fly, I'm, after the dry flies at the end of the drift, just keeping that dry fly on the surface and skating it, you can actually see the dry fly as it skates across the surface into that new lane.

Tom Rosenbauer (22:56): Yep. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Pease (23:16): And ⁓ in fact, if you're in some sort of a hatch and you're seeing fish rise, you can target a fish that just rose in whichever length, wherever that fish is, and then pulling that line up and then slowly dropping it down and letting it dead drift right into that fish's mouth.

Tom Rosenbauer (23:35): without having to make another cast.

Mike Pease (23:37): without having to make another cast.

Tom Rosenbauer (23:39): All right, good, good one.

Mike Pease (23:42): That was the pullback, man.

Tom Rosenbauer (23:44): Okay, pull back number two, number three.

Mike Pease (23:46): Number three. Number three is called the stack mend. ⁓ When I did research on this one, I actually saw it described multiple ways out there on the internet. So ⁓ I'll describe it the way that I use it ⁓ mostly. And that is.

Tom Rosenbauer (24:06): Okay, good, because I'm not very good at the stacked men, so I wanna hear how you do it.

Mike Pease (24:10): It yeah, it's I think it's kind of a tricky one. ⁓ One of the more challenging ones out of all the tips, I think. ⁓ And so I typically use it with with a strike indicator ⁓ and then you're fishing with with a split shot and a couple of flies. And I'm getting my cast upstream. And let's say I think the fish are are pretty much straight across from me.

Tom Rosenbauer (24:14): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right, yeah. Yep. Okay.

Mike Pease (24:40): So I'm making either a Belgian cast or a lob cast upstream of where I think the fish are. Now, the surface of the water of the river, and I know other presenters on your podcast have talked about this, the surface of the water is going up to twice as fast as the bottom of the river, because there's friction at the bottom of the river from the rocks. ⁓ So...

Tom Rosenbauer (24:49): Okay. Yes, yes.

Mike Pease (25:07): to try to get that fly to sink deeper down near the bottom into the strike zone, ⁓ we throw in ⁓ upstream ⁓ roll cast and actually pull that indicator after you make your cast, getting that indicator to jump out of the water upstream from where it originally landed. By doing that, that gives the split shot and flies a chance to sink deeper.

Tom Rosenbauer (25:31): ⁓

Mike Pease (25:36): down near the bottom and also to get a better dead drift ⁓ rather than the indicator pulling those flies up higher in the water column.

Tom Rosenbauer (25:49): And so you have to try to do enough of a roll cast, I assume, to jump the indicator, but not enough to lift the flies out of the water, right? So that's probably tricky.

Mike Pease (26:00): Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is tricky. So, yeah, mainly it's getting that indicator to just jump upstream and then the flies are now sinking down straight below it rather than ⁓ being that that indicator pulling them up here. Ahead. So it's tricky. ⁓ And you want to do that again. You want to do that upstream from where you think the fish are feeding. OK, it's to give it

Tom Rosenbauer (26:18): Okay, great. Okay. Yep. Okay.

Mike Pease (26:30): give the system a chance to sink straight down below the indicator right to where the fish are and not spooking fish.

Tom Rosenbauer (26:37): Okay, all right. Yeah, I see a lot of people using a stack men directly across from them, but I wouldn't think that would be as effective unless you kind of angled that roll cast upstream of the indicator.

Mike Pease (26:50): That's right. then unless you're trying, unless you want to do the Zorro Bump Men, because then you could be doing it straight across from you, Zorro and Bump Men and fishing downstream from you.

Tom Rosenbauer (27:03): don't get me confused. I can only remember one thing at a time. I only one man per cast. I can't hold it all in my memory. You haven't seen me fish.

Mike Pease (27:06): Sorry, Okay. ⁓ I bet you can. That's true. You need to come to California.

Tom Rosenbauer (27:23): Yeah, I know. I'd like to.

Mike Pease (27:26): Anytime, anytime, Tom. All right, are we ready for four?

Tom Rosenbauer (27:32): I'm ready. I'm sitting here with anticipation, Mike.

Mike Pease (27:33): You're ready, you're ready. Now you mentioned this, I don't know if it's in our recording of the show or if it was before, but you mentioned the Reachcast. Okay, I have another story. Can I tell another story?

Tom Rosenbauer (27:45): Yeah, yeah. You can tell as many stories as you want. No, the podcast listeners love stories. So yeah, you go ahead and tell your story about the reach cast.

Mike Pease (27:52): You're so kind. All right. Okay, all right. Well, some of the... Great, great. So in 2014, was ready to shift my life. I was an administrator for a pretty large school district and I wasn't enjoying it anymore, getting about 400 emails a day. And I'm like, this is insane. And I wanted to get back to my, I had worked with a life coach for a couple of years and trying to figure out what I wanted to. how I wanted to change my life. So ⁓ my wife paid for me to go to fly fishing guide school in 2014. And ⁓ it was there that I learned about the reach cast and skate and drop. And it's also there that I decided to leave my administrative position and go back and become a teacher for the last nine years of my career, back to what I really love to do, which was being a math teacher. So anyhow, ⁓

Tom Rosenbauer (28:57): ⁓ interesting. Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay.

Mike Pease (29:04): I was at guide school, which was at Clearwater Lodge up in Northeastern California, which I'm sure some of your listeners, ⁓ you've been there. There we go.

Tom Rosenbauer (29:10): yeah, know it, I've been there. Yeah, years ago, years ago.

Mike Pease (29:15): Okay, so this was 2014. Did you fish Hat Creek when you were there? Okay, yeah, so we were out at Hat Creek one evening. It was getting dark and there's a really, really good hatch of pale evening duns, size 18 and 20, right before dark, about 50 to 60 feet away. Now, how do you see a size 18 or 20 pale evening dun right before dark?

Tom Rosenbauer (29:20): huh. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay.

Mike Pease (29:46): 50, 60 feet away. I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it. And you don't see it. And one of the instructors said, hey, well, Mike, do you know what the reach cast is in skate and drop? And I'm like, no, I don't know. And so he says, watch this. And so he does a reach cast where he, as you know, you reach upstream as you're making your cast going forward.

Tom Rosenbauer (29:48): You don't. You don't. Plain and simple. You don't see him. Yeah.

Mike Pease (30:15): reaching upstream, which is an aerial mend. So you're mending in the air before the fly lands. And so there was a fish rising in a lane downstream. So you have to do this upstream from where the fish is rising. So you do your reach cast and then skate the fly. So when you skate that size 18 or 20 dry fly, you can actually see the wake even when it's getting close to dark. You see the wake.

Tom Rosenbauer (30:15): Right, yeah, yep, right. Right.

Mike Pease (30:43): And then as soon as that fly is in the lane of where the fish is rising, you drop. And now that fly, you know it's in the lane and now you're just looking for the mouth to come up and estimate about when it reaches there and set the hook and frickin worked. It's become a staple now, staple.

Tom Rosenbauer (31:02): Got it. Got it. Okay. ⁓ I love it. I hadn't thought of that. What I usually do when it's getting dark like that is I, is I get upstream of the fish and I kind of whack my fly on the water a couple times just to get the range, you know? ⁓ So I see where the fly is going to land and then I put it in the, you know, gently above the fish. But I liked that idea better.

Mike Pease (31:09): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're not, I think there's a risk of if you do it the way you just mentioned of spooking the fish. ⁓ And in this case, you're taking care of business ahead of the fish and you can get it right in that perfect lane.

Tom Rosenbauer (31:31): That makes more sense. Yeah, you might. Yeah, yeah, you can. Yeah. Right. Right, okay. Note to self.

Mike Pease (31:57): Reach cast with skate and drop. Okay, that was number four. Are we ready for five? All right.

Tom Rosenbauer (31:59): OK, that was four. Alright. I can't wait. I'm getting all kinds of cool stuff. I'm gonna have to watch this podcast three or four times.

Mike Pease (32:13): I love that. You can read the article too. All right. ⁓ So the last two are actually kind of do the same thing. ⁓ I think there's nuances in them, but I think the simplest of these last two, they're both aerial men's, is called the wiggle cast.

Tom Rosenbauer (32:19): Yeah. Okay. All right.

Mike Pease (32:40): Or least I call it the wiggle cast. Who knows? Someone may call it ⁓ something else. But it's the wiggle cast. so, ⁓ okay, when you're casting across a river, oftentimes, at least the rivers that I fish and guide here, like the Middle Fork of the Feather River, there are multiple currents. So there's some fast, there's some slow, there's some fast, there's some slow.

Tom Rosenbauer (33:07): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike Pease (33:09): And it seems like often the fish is rising on the other side of the river. Almost always, right? At least seems that way. And you have to cast over these fast, ⁓ fast, slow, fast, slow sections of the river. If I were to just do a regular cast, cast straight to it, make the fly land two, three feet above the fish so that it

Tom Rosenbauer (33:16): Almost always. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yep.

Mike Pease (33:37): Dead Drifts right to the to the mouth of the fish, but wouldn't work. Why wouldn't it work?

Tom Rosenbauer (33:45): ⁓ all those all those currents are going to your fly line and leader, but have more mass than your tip it. So they're going to get flies are going to get dragged almost immediately.

Mike Pease (33:55): Absolutely, drag is not good in this situation. You get an A. A, Tom. Good work. So yes, I know, I know. So anyway, if you just cast straight across, yeah, like you said, the fly is going to drag and it's not going to be a natural dead free drift of a dry fly to the fish.

Tom Rosenbauer (33:57): Did I answer it right, Mike? Did I get the question right? It was a hard one, Mike. Yep. Yeah.

Mike Pease (34:25): Simply, simply, I think this is not that hard to do. As you're casting forward, wiggle your rod side to side, side to side. It'll throw these S's in the line. And so ⁓ the different currents will take that slack out while your fly is dead drifting right to that fish. And so that.

Tom Rosenbauer (34:50): Now you have to overshoot your target, right? Because you're going to be actually casting straighter or you're actually gonna be casting shorter than your false cast estimates, right? So you're have to overshoot the target, okay? Yep.

Mike Pease (35:04): right. Overshoot it. Yeah, exactly. So I think it's best to as if you see that fish, you're not casting right to it, right? I never cast right to a rising fish. I'm casting upstream. So maybe even cast a little further upstream to get it, get the right amount of line out. But you're absolutely right, because there's all these S's in the line. ⁓ And so, but just kind of backing up, it's it's a wiggle side to side.

Tom Rosenbauer (35:15): Yeah. Right. Okay. Okay.

Mike Pease (35:33): After you make your forward cast, wiggle side to side with your wrist and that will throw the S's in the line, which gives you that slack.

Tom Rosenbauer (35:39): Yep. Okay. Now, Mike, I want you to tell me, I want you to tell me how to throw with this wiggle cast, how to throw an upstream end in the faster current and a downstream end in the slower currents. Make sure those wiggles hit the right spot. Can you tell me how to do that?

Mike Pease (35:57): You'll have to come out and fish with me, Tom, I'll show you on the river. ⁓ We could practice that one together. Yeah, we'll figure it out. That'll be a whole new podcast. Whole new way, yes.

Tom Rosenbauer (35:59): That would be a math problem for you. We'll figure it out, right? Yeah, oh, it'd be a whole new way of fishing. Man, if we could figure that one out, we'd be in great shape.

Mike Pease (36:21): I love that, I love that. Well, good one, that was a good one. Okay, are we ready for the last tip?

Tom Rosenbauer (36:29): The last tip, man, I'm kind of bummed you only got six, ⁓ well actually seven, because I'm getting all these great tips.

Mike Pease (36:40): 7.5 if we add in the Goldilocks principle. Okay, all right, so the last one, which I feel like does the same thing that we're just talking about. You have multiple current, different speeds, and you need extra slack to pull, to get a dead drift or your fly. This one's the parachute cast. Okay, as I thought more about this,

Tom Rosenbauer (36:40): Okay, yeah, 745, right? Yeah, yeah, okay. Right.

Mike Pease (37:08): thinking about our talk today. ⁓ I'm thinking that I'm actually maybe using the parachute cast more than the woodwork cast. Maybe when there is a fish feeding downstream of me and I need to be, the water's super clear and I'm trying to be as stealthy as I can. So I need to make a long cast because I need to stay a long ways away from that downstream fish that's feeding.

Tom Rosenbauer (37:26): Yeah, yep. Mm hmm. Yep. Right?

Mike Pease (37:38): And so I'm going to fish that dry fly ⁓ downstream to that fish. Normally I'm fishing upstream, but in this case, because it's such clear water, maybe shallow water, ⁓ I'm fishing downstream to that feeding fish. So let me describe the parachute cast. So on a normal ⁓ overhead cast, the way I learned and the way I do it most often,

Tom Rosenbauer (37:59): Okay.

Mike Pease (38:08): is when I make my back cast, the plane of the line, my line is actually going upward behind my head. And as I come forward, the plane of the line is going downward toward the water and straightening out just above the water. And so all the line and the fly land at the same time, naturally, nice and soft. Okay. So upward behind me.

Tom Rosenbauer (38:26): Right?

Mike Pease (38:38): downward going forward. ⁓ Okay, well with the parachute cast, in fact when I'm teaching new fly casters, oftentimes they're doing the parachute cast when they're not supposed to be. And that is they switch, you know what I'm talking about, they switch the plane and they do the opposite of what I just said. So their back cast is actually,

Tom Rosenbauer (38:56): Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Mike Pease (39:08): going down behind them and they're casting upward ⁓ as they come forward. Well, that's perfect if you're doing the parachute cast because as you come when you come behind you and upward and stop high, the fly and the line all come down, leaving a bunch of slack in the water. OK, and then as that dry fly floats downstream, it's

Tom Rosenbauer (39:14): Right. Yep. Yep.

Mike Pease (39:37): pulling the slack out of the line with a dead drift down to that feeding fish. So you could do it across the river like we were talking about a minute ago with the wiggle cast ⁓ or you could do it downstream. And I think the wiggle cast and the parachute cast both achieve the same thing. Maybe the parachute cast gives you more slack when you want it.

Tom Rosenbauer (40:09): Yeah, Mike, I'm really disappointed. I already know how to do the parachute cast.

Mike Pease (40:12): What? Well, that's okay. You still learned what? 5.5 other things.

Tom Rosenbauer (40:20): Yeah, yeah. Now there's now there's ⁓ I did a I did a video on the the Orvis Learning Center with Pete Kutzer, by the way, so he wants to learn how to do the parachute cast and see it in action, slow motion, drone shots and stuff. ⁓ Just go to the ⁓ Orvis Learning Center and search on ⁓ parachute cast. But ⁓ and Pete actually distinguishes between the parachute cast and the pile cast, which a lot of people use that term interchangeably, but he said, no, they're a little bit different. And he showed me, ⁓ he showed me how he does each one of those two. ⁓ excuse me, if people are interested in seeing ⁓ kind of a ⁓ refinement of the parachute and pile cast, you can watch that video. It'll be helpful.

Mike Pease (41:00): Nice. Perfect. I actually teach fly fishing at CSU Sacramento in the kinesiology department. And we use Pete Kutzer's videos ⁓ as demonstrations in class before we go out onto the lawn to go practice. Yeah, Pete. So thank you. Thank you, Pete. Keep it up. ⁓ can I? He is. And can I add one other thing? So.

Tom Rosenbauer (41:19): Right. ⁓ great. Great. Cool. He's awesome. You can add anything you want, Mike.

Mike Pease (41:40): So a few years ago, I actually was the keynote speaker at Orvis Guide Run interview. Unfortunately, you weren't there that year. ⁓ And ⁓ Orvis had me bring one of my former high school students who was now a college student of mine taking my fly fishing class, Naili. And ⁓ she got to go out ⁓ on a date fly fishing in one of the rivers there in Montana with in Pete's boat.

Tom Rosenbauer (42:08): ⁓ great. Nothing better than fishing with Pete. I'm lucky enough to do it relatively often, and he's one of the nicest people in the world.

Mike Pease (42:08): So thank you, Pete. She loved it. I know. I believe that. And so bring him with you when you come out and we practice some of this stuff.

Tom Rosenbauer (42:26): Pete'll Pete'll come. can get away. He'll come with me. Believe me.

Mike Pease (42:32): Yeah.

Tom Rosenbauer (42:32): All right, Mike. Well, I'm telling you, that was that was a fact filled podcast. And I really appreciate you putting these all together and sharing your knowledge. As I said, I learned a bunch. I'm sure other people have learned a bunch of things to go out and try right next time they're out there. Give them a try.

Mike Pease (42:55): Thank you so much for having me and it was really fun. was so looking forward to this and seeing you again. Hopefully we can get together in the near future.

Tom Rosenbauer (43:07): Yeah, it'd be nice to see you in person again, not on a computer screen. All right, Mike, we have been talking to Mike Pease of Mike Pease Adventures, Orvis Endorse Guide in California. And Mike, thank you again. I'll hopefully talk to you soon.

Mike Pease (43:09): Yeah. Yep. Okay, one more picture.

Tom Rosenbauer (43:25): Hehehehehe

Mike Pease (43:28): Thanks, Tom.