Tips for urban fly fishing, with James Spica

Man: That will happen.
Tom: Yeah, it's happened more often than I like. It's too early in the morning, I guess. I'm not a morning person these days. Unless I'm going fishing, then I'm a morning person. All right, I'll start again. Good thing we didn't get three-quarters of the way through.
Hi, and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast. This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer. And we're gonna talk about urban fly fishing this week. My guest is James Spica, who is the fishing manager at Orvis Royal Oak. And James has done a lot of urban fishing in various places. Of course, he fishes around the Detroit area, which is not what people think of as a fly-fishing destination, but there's actually a lot of interesting stuff that goes on around there that you can chase with a fly rod.
And really in any major city, it doesn't matter. You can name me any major city in the country, and with a little research, I can find you a place to go fly fishing. So we're gonna talk about carp and drum and pan fish and bass and all the kind of things that you can catch close to home.
And summer is a really good time to do urban fly fishing because the waters are lower and warmer. You can generally spot the fish. They're a little clearer and you can see the fish in the water. Do some exploring, the weather's nice. It can be really fun and really exciting. So that's gonna be the interview for today.
And before we get to the Fly Box, just wanna remind you, if your waders are leaking or they're falling apart and you need a new pair of waders, Orvis ultralight waders and wading shoes are still on sale. They'll be on sale till I think the 1st of September. But you can save a considerable amount by getting those now. We have an over inventory of the ultralight waders and wading shoes. We're not discontinuing them or anything. We just have a lot of them. We wanna pass along the savings to you. So if you need a new pair of waders, you know where to go.
All right, the Fly Box. The Fly Box is where you ask me questions, or you give me comments, or you share some tips and then I read them on the air. If you wanna send a question to me, you can send it to podcast at orvis.com. I do read all of them. I don't answer all of them, but I do read all of them. And you can either just type your question into your email or you can attach a voice file, and if I can answer your question, I'll read it on the air. That's what makes this podcast so interesting, I think, and so interactive and it's all about you. It's your podcast and I want you to participate as well as me.
So I wanna thank you all for your great questions. There's great questions every week. I find some good ones every week and keep them coming. Keep them coming because I always need fresh questions.
All right, the first one is an email from Chad in Malmo, Sweden.
"Thanks for the podcast. Quick question, Are there any plant-based fly-tying materials? And if so, which ones are worthwhile? This is clearly not a vegan thing. I don't think vegans fish, but I'm curious after seeing a beautiful fluffy tree seed land lightly on the water near my house and subsequently grabbing some of the fiber and tying up an experimental fly. I'll let you know if it's a game-changer or not."
So yeah, Chad, you know, there's one thing that people use a fair amount of is Kapok dubbing. It comes from, I think, a pod from a tree. I'm not sure what tree it is, but they used to use it, and they may still use it in life preservers because it's very buoyant. I've actually tried some of this stuff, and I found that, yeah, it dubs nice, but sometimes some of that Kapok is really, really clumpy, and it's hard to dub with.
And I found that once you spin this around a thread and then wind it on a hook, I think it loses most of its, most of its floatation qualities. I've tried some flies with it, and I don't think it floats any better than one tied with fur or a synthetic dubbing. But there is Kapok, and I've also experimented with some stuff.
I think you want to use a plant fiber that's going to be fairly resilient. So my kid is a serious botanist and likes to play with different kind of fibers, and they made me some yarn, some really thin yarn. One used nettle, and the other one used milkweed, and they're about to make me some out of some hemp fiber.
Those are all fibers that are really durable, and they should last a long time, and they have a pretty neat look. So yeah, plant fibers work, you know, you could dub with cotton too. You could take some cotton and dye it and make dubbing out of it. It probably wouldn't float. It probably would soak up water, be good for wet flies and nymphs. But yes, you can use plant fibers. You just have to make sure that it's something that's gonna hold up over time.
Tate: Okay Tom, this is Tate from Brigham City, Utah. For those of you who don't know, that's upper Utah, so northern Utah, I guess. And I have a couple questions today, I think. I guess first off, I should start by saying thank you. Thank you for being able to dismiss us in a kind way. I feel like some of the things that have been asked, it's like, I don't know how I'd be able to deal with getting asked that many things over and over again. So thank you.
First off, I'm tying a lot of streamers recently. I've been fishing for probably two years but fly tying for that whole two years. Fly tying is kind of what got me into fly fishing. But in northern Utah, I've not had any luck on white Woolly Buggers or white streamer patterns. I mean, I'm using a leech right now. I'm gonna try and make a rainbow trout variation with this... What's it called? Rainbow Scud Dub. I'm trying to make a rainbow trout imitation. So that'll be interesting.
But I've never had any luck on white. And I was sitting down here wondering, I wonder what you think about why white Woolly Buggers don't work. The next thing is when I'm using marabou, I always use the tips of the marabou, like the end of the feather. I think that looks better in the water, but I've seen some YouTube videos where they just pull bits off of the sides of the marabou. But I think if you use the end of the marabou, it gives it better play in the water. It looks a little more buggy.
So thank you, hopefully you can answer my question and it's not a dumb question. And hopefully, I can get these white Woolly Buggers to work.
Tom: So, Tate, first of all, there are no dumb questions. We all started out, we all started somewhere, and no question is too basic, or no question is dumb. Obviously, it's a question that you have, so it's not dumb.
It's interesting that in certain rivers, white streamers work really well, and in certain rivers, they don't. It may have to do with what kind of bait fish are in the river, it may have to do with the color of the water, it may have to do with the species of trout that lives there, but I wouldn't go crazy trying to get fish to take those white Woolly Buggers. White just may not be good in your local rivers.
Now, the Batten Kill, a white zonker is a killer in the Batten Kill, and there are lots of other rivers I know that white Woolly Buggers and white flies work well, but they're not going to work everywhere. Regarding your tip on marabou, yeah, I think it gives you better action, but people also use clumps of marabou from the sides, and either one of them is going to work. It just depends on the amount of fluffiness you want in the fly and how thrifty you want to be with your piece of marabou. So I generally use a whole marabou plume, you know, the whole thing pretty much when I'm tying streamers. Most marabou is not that big and fluffy that you can't just use a whole plume. So but, you can use any part of it you want.
All right. Another email from Logan in Georgia.
"I'm not recalling this question being asked but forgive me if it has. We all should associate higher water temperatures with trout mortality. But in colder temperatures when metabolic rate is slowed, are trout just as susceptible to health concerns when exerting an obvious precious amount of energy? From what I can gather, there's an effort to reduce metabolic rate through feeding behaviors. It seems as though expending that amount of energy would be detrimental for the fish."
So, Logan, I'm not sure if there have been many detailed studies on that. In high water temperatures, it's mainly the fact that warm water can't hold as much oxygen and the fish just can't get as much oxygen. In colder water temperatures, there isn't that problem. The water is going to be supersaturated with oxygen at colder water temperatures. So there's going to be plenty of oxygen there.
And I think it's possible that if you bring a trout out of the water at, like, minus 20, it might damage their gills, but probably nobody's going to be fishing at minus 20. So I don't think there's as much concern. You should always handle fish carefully and release them quickly and try to keep them in the water. But I don't think we need to worry as much at colder water temperatures as we do at warm temperatures.
Let's do another phone call. This one's from Andrew from Buffalo.
Andrew: Hi, Tom. My name is Andrew and I'm from Buffalo, New York and I'd like to start by saying thank you in Orvis for everything you do for the fly-fishing community. I had just recently started fly fishing and fly tying back in April when the smallmouth began running up the creeks and have been binge-listening to the podcast any chance I can.
But the reason I'm submitting a question is that I was wondering if you had any recommendations for an affordable, one-handed rod and reel setup for steelhead. Right now, I use a 9-foot 5-weight for an all-around rod and noticed while fighting some bigger smallmouth that it most likely won't be practical for the bigger-sized 20-plus inch steelhead I get in the rivers and creeks in Western New York. This would be my first season targeting steelhead on the fly and would love to be prepared before the season starts. Thank you in advance and I'm hoping to hear back from you on the podcast. And as always, tight lines.
Tom: So Andrew, yeah, I think there's a great single-handed rod, both for steelhead and for smallmouth, that you can do two-handed casts with. Of course, you can do two-handed casts with any rod, with a little bit of modification. But a lot of people use 10-footers, 10-foot seven- or eight-weight. I think depending on the size of the fish you're going to catch, a 10-foot seven- or a 10-foot eight-weight is going to be a perfect rod for what you're going to do. You can do some basic single-handed casts with a 10-foot rod. And it's got a nice long reach so you can mend line easier.
So I would think, again, depending on the sized flies and how heavy a sink tip you're going to use, if you're going to use really heavy sinking lines or sink tips and big flies, you might want to go with an 10-foot eight-weight. But I think that for what you're going to do, probably a 10-foot seven-weight for both steelhead and smallmouth is going to work just fine.
And you can get these lengths in various rods, series from Orvis, depending on your budget and how much you want to spend, and whether it matters to you if the rod is made overseas or made in the Orvis rod shop.
Here's an email from Nick from St. Louis.
"I am a lifelong hunter and a relatively new fly fisherman. I've recently started tying my own flies and now I look at combining my hunting and fishing hobbies. I have two questions about harvesting my own materials for tying. I've been having a lot of success catching smallmouth on Clouds or minnows and I've been tying lots of them. I usually harvest two deer per year for my wife and I to eat. I have lots of family that hunts as well, and I feel like I could get my hands on quite a few deer tails.
I have been able to find several sources on washing, skinning, and drying the tails with borax. This seems simple enough for white bucktail, but I have been unable to find much information on dying the deer tails. Is there a specific type of dye that needs to be used and where can I find it?
I'm also an avid waterfowl hunter. Although I don't have any experience with tying using duck or goose feathers, what feathers are worth saving from ducks and geese? I know that CDC feathers are commonly used but are there any others I should look at for keeping? On that note, any trout fly suggestions that are simple or a little easy to tie that use CDC feathers would be greatly appreciated."
So Nick, first of all regarding your first question, bucktail is a little bit difficult to dye. The first thing you need to do is you need to wash and degrease the bucktails. Bucktails are pretty nasty greasy pieces of hair and the dye isn't going to take and isn't going to set well. So you need to wash them with some sort of...you can buy commercial degreaser for dyeing. You can probably just use some dish soap and rinse it thoroughly, but you need to remove all that grease from the bucktail. And this may take a bit of doing because bucktails are very greasy.
So degrease them and then what you want to use is an acid dye that's used for protein-based fiber. So some people use Kool-Aid to dye feathers and bucktails. Some people use RIT dye, you know, the kind you buy in a grocery store. Probably they have some pretty good dyes in yarn stores, and this would be appropriate for bucktail because they're dyeing wool. So that's a protein again and the dyes that you could get in a yarn store would work.
And then there are dyes that are made for fly tyers. The most common one is from Veniard's, from my friend Peter Veniard in the UK. He's been selling Veniard dyes for many, many years and they're kind of the standard in fly fishing and you can find them here in the States. If you do an online search, you can find somebody that's selling Veniard dyes. But give it a try and just don't forget to really degrease them.
Regarding your waterfowl feathers, yeah, you know, almost any feather in a duck can be used at one point or another. Here's what I do. I use a pair of tin snips and I cut the wings off and then I put them somewhere to dry where the mice can't get at them. And wait until they dry, wait until all the flesh that's inside the wing has dried out. And then just, I'll wash them in soap and water, dry them, and then put them in a Ziploc bag just in case there's any bugs in there.
And I always take the CDC from the duck. CDC is found if you run your finger down the back of a duck, you will feel a little bump. That's the preen gland and the CDC will surround the preen gland. And all you need to do is kind of get your fingers in there and make three or four plucks and you'll be able to pull out all the CDC.
But duck wing quills are very useful for lots and lots of things, for wings on wet flies and traditional dry flies and wing cases on nymphs. It's good to have at least a pair of mallard wings or wood duck wings on hand because you might want to tie something like that. And of course, CDC is really useful. And for a bigger fly, goose CDC works really well. I wish I had a little bit more of that, but I haven't shot a Goose in a couple of years.
Regarding simple flies for CDC, yeah, there's, you know, the original CDC flies that we got from France when Americans first started playing around with CDC. The first flies were really simple. They were just a dubbed body. And this would be in the color of the mayfly or the caddis fly that you're trying to imitate. But I would say you'd want some tans, some yellows, and some olives at the very least. And then just carefully wind about two turns of CDC at the head of the fly and tie it off and you're done.
Those simple flies still work really, really well. They work during, they work during mayfly hatches. They work during caddis hatches. They're great emergers. And you can also fish them with a split shot and get them down deep. But, you know, I think the simpler the better on CDC flies.
So try those. You can get fancier if you want. You can find some really fancy CDC patterns online. But I think those, those basic, basic CDC kind of CDC soft tackles work really, really well.
And I almost forgot, there are other feathers on a duck that can be used. You know, some of those iridescent green feathers on a Drake Mallard will make nice beetle imitations. Just stack a couple of those feathers and maybe put a little flexible cement on them. You can make pretty cool beetles with them. What I often do is if I get a different species of duck, like a ringneck or a pintail or something, I'll pull all the feathers. I'll cut the wings off, get the CDC. And then I'll pull a whole bunch of feathers off various parts of the duck. Put it in a bag.
And, you know, at some point I may find use for those other feathers. I generally find I don't, but you never know what you might want. So just put them in a bag and save them. Or if you don't end up using them, you know, give them to a young fly tyer, give them to a kid that's starting out. They can innovate with them.
Oh, and one thing, one thing that I forgot, I forgot a couple of things, on ducks is that on the Drakes, Drake Mallards, Drake Wood Duck, Drake Pintails, Drake Mergansers, there are side feathers. They're the feathers that are between the breast of the bird and the wings. And they're usually long and very strongly barred. Those feathers are very valuable for tying wings and tails and legs on nymphs and wings on wet flies and dry flies. So you wanna make sure if you get a Drake, to save those side feathers or flank feathers as well.
So I get these questions every year as hunting season comes up. And I hope that I've answered lots of other people's questions. And as far as storing these feathers, just pluck them from the bird. Let them dry somewhere and then you can wash them if you want. I don't even bother washing them. Once they're dry, just put them in a Ziploc bag and label them and that's all you need to do. You don't need to do anything special to prepare those feathers. They're going to last for 50 to 100 years if the bugs don't get to them. They're pretty durable. Pretty durable little pieces of fly-tying material.
Here's an email from Aaron.
"I'm planning on getting an 8-weight rod for fishing on the Texas coast. I'll be targeting redfish, speckled trout, and whatever else I can find. I'll also probably use it for bass in the rivers and lakes, nearly as well. My question is what are the main differences in the standard Helios 3 versus the Blackout? Obviously, the cosmetics are different, and I know the eight-weight Blackout is shorter at eight-foot-five-inch and the H3 is nine-foot. Is the action different? What about the construction and saltwater resistance? Anything you can share to help decide between these two would be appreciated. Additionally, what reel and line would you pair it with?"
So, Aaron, the Blackouts are slightly different. When Shawn Combs and the rod engineers came with the Blackout series, they just did some little bit different...they used the same material, but they did some different taper concepts on these rods. So they're a little bit different taper concepts.
The difference between the eight and a half and Blackout for eight-weight and the nine-foot Blackout H3 is that the shorter rod is what we might consider a brush rod or a bush rod or a mangrove rod. Those shorter rods can form a tighter loop and a higher line speed, and you can really fire those well into mangroves or under bushes. You know, for bass fishing, it's a really advantageous length and it's quite a different action from the nine-footer. It's faster and again, it'll throw a very tight loop.
The other thing is that if you fish from a boat or if you fish from shore, you do have an advantage in landing fish with a shorter rod. It's going to be a lot easier to actually land a big fish with an eight-and-a-half-foot rod or an eight-foot-five-inch rod than it would be with a nine-footer.
So those are the main differences. I'd urge you to go to a dealer or an Orvis store and try both of them because they are quite different in action. And they are both very saltwater resistant. There's nothing in saltwater that can hurt a fly rod. The only thing that can hurt a fly rod in saltwater is if you use, like, a wooden reel seat on a freshwater trout rod, the hardware is going to be anodized. It's not going to corrode. But sometimes those wooden reel seats can swell. This would mainly be an older wooden reel seat because the wooden reel seats that are sold these days are stabilized. They're impregnated with a resin. And so, nearly any rod you buy these days is going to be totally saltwater resistant. You don't have to worry about it.
Regarding reel and line, I can't tell you what line to use because I don't know what kind of fishing you're going to be doing. I would not go anywhere without a floating line. And what kind of sinking line that you might need depends on where you're going to fish. If you're going to fish deep channels or deeper water or fish from a boat, you're going to need some sort of sinking line. But it would be difficult for me to tell you exactly what you need.
And the reel is pretty much up to you. It's very subjective. But the two reels that pair best with those rods would be a Hydros reel or the Mirage, and I think the Mirage LT for those rods. Differences, they both have sealed drags. They both have a great drag. They're both pretty and they sound nice. The main difference is you're going to get a better fit and finish and tighter tolerances with the Mirage reels. The Mirage reels are made in USA and if that matters to you. They're made in New Hampshire and the Hydros reels are imported. The Hydros reels are less expensive.
So I would look at both. Again, when you go to look at those rods, I would look at both reels and I would get whatever one speaks to you.
Here's an email from Zach.
"I'm trying to decide on a rod for the brook trout fishing here in Southern Ontario. The river I fish the most is full of brook trout in the six to 12-inch range, so it'll be nice to go as light as possible and get a two or three-weight. On the other hand, I'm often fishing bigger terrestrials like a small chubby Chernobyl or a size 10 stimulator, so maybe a four-weight is a better line size. What to do? What's your go-to rod for brook trout fishing? Thanks."
So, Zach, my go-to rod for brook trout fishing is a seven-and-a-half-foot three-weight. And it could be one of them is an H3. I think another one is a clear water, another one is a recon. I'm not sure exactly the length. But anyways, I like a seven-and-a-half-foot three-weight because it's light and it bends well with a small fish.
The problem is when you get to those slightly bigger flies, you're going to have to push the cast a little bit harder on a size 10 stimulator or a chubby Chernobyl. It's not going to be a big struggle, but a four-weight is going to be a little bit smoother and easier to throw those big dry flies. And if you fish dry dropper, you know, you fish a fairly good size nymph under one of those dry flies, a four-weight is probably better. I do use a three-weight, but there's times when I have to push it a little bit harder than I'd like.
So it depends on whether you want the fun of playing a fish on a light three-weight rod or you want a little bit easier casting of a four-weight. You got to make that decision and decide which is most important to you.
Tom: Hi Tom, this is Andrew from New Mexico calling. I was listening to the most recent episode on foraging, and you asked for more voice calls, so here you go. I've heard you say, I think, in previous episodes that when you're fishing small, brushy streams, sometimes it can be beneficial to overline your rod since it helps you load the rod with less line out to make short casts.
And I was wondering if the opposite holds true for making long casts. Is it beneficial to underline your rod when you need to cast very far? You know, does having a lighter line mean that you need to have more line out in order to load the rod? I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on that. Should I try it? Thanks so much and thanks for the podcast. Take care.
Tom: So Andrew, yeah, some rods, it's nice to overline them for small streams for really short casts, because it brings out the action of the rod a little bit more and makes them flex a little bit more when, you know, you barely got a couple feet of fly line beyond the tip of the rod. Theoretically, underlining a rod for longer casts is going to allow you to hold more line in the air. So that's theoretically.
In practice, it's better when you're making longer casts, to load the rod and shoot some line rather than trying to hold a lot of line in the air. So you have to struggle more. If you underline a rod, you just have to push it harder. You have to push your cast harder. You have to speed up your casting stroke. And I don't find it very pleasant. Again, theoretically, yeah, you could underline a rod for longer casts. I don't like to do it, but you could. But I would try using the line that the rod calls for and then allow the line that the rod calls for to flex the rod and build up energy and then shoot the rest of the line to get your longer casts. I think you're gonna be happier with that than struggling with underlining a rod.
An email from Mitch from Central Washington State.
"I spent the last week fishing a very technical spring creek doing a Trico Spinner fly. I have a couple of questions for you. I was fishing with a four-weight rod using a nine-foot 4x leader. The leader had an extra one foot of butt section. I cut 4x back about a foot, added a foot of 5x, and four feet of 6x tippet.
My questions are, would you set up the leader differently? Number one. Number two, when making pile casts, is the line and leaders supposed to pile up before the fly and level tippet hits the water? Number three, do you find you have to open your casting loops with a leader over 13 feet? I have a feeling it all comes down to casting, but I was hoping to hear your thoughts. I still caught fish, but I felt like I should have done better and wasn't happy with my drifts."
Well, Mitch, first of all, yeah, that's exactly how I would set up a leader. I might start with a 12-footer instead of a nine-footer, but I do exactly the same in the back end and the front end. I think you did that just perfectly, and that's the way I would set it up.
When you make a pile cast, the line and the butt section of leader are gonna land first before the fly and the level tippet. It's just physics. They're gonna land first because they're heavier and they're less air resistant, they're denser. So they're gonna land first and that's the way it works. That's the way a pile cast works.
And yes, I find that with a leader over 13 feet, you do have to open your casting loop a little bit. I find that if you try to throw too tight of a loop with a super long leader, it's gonna open up anyway, so you might as well open up your casting stroke just a bit. Don't forget your basic casting stroke. Just open it up. Open up your arc just a little bit more.
As far as not being happy with your drifts, one of the most important things I think is your position, rather than you're doing a pile cast, you got a leader with a nice long tippet, you're doing all that right, but sometimes just a little bit of a move if you can. You can't always move because you're gonna spook the fish. But if you can move off to the side or down below or up above depending on the situation, sometimes just a little bit of a move, a couple feet, will make the difference in getting that drag-free drift. So I think you're doing everything right. You may just think about the angle that you cast from and hopefully, that'll help out a bit.
Here's an email from Carter from Boulder, Colorado.
"I have a simple question that came to mind while I was fishing the Big Thompson the other day. After netting a fish, sometimes I'm looking for a spot to set down my rod and it can slip into the water. Is it bad for the rod and reel to be submerged underwater? And should I be cleaning or maintaining the reel a certain way to keep it in great condition? I'm an 18-year-old, just recently started a full-time job and your podcast makes long days go by faster. Thank you for everything you do and for answering my questions."
Oh, I said I wasn't gonna read those compliments anymore. Well, I got a slip one in once in a while. Carter, yeah, water isn't gonna hurt your rod or your reel. I do that a lot. If the water's not really fast, I'll just set my rod down in the water because you can't always get to the bank, and sometimes the bank's kind of muddy or sandy, and you don't wanna put your rod and reel down,r especially your reel, down in the sand. So I'll just slip them in the water just like you did. It's not bad. They're made to be waterproof.
The one thing you might check is if there's any debris in the water, you know, if there's some algae floating down or something like that. You may wanna open up your reel and just hose it off, get any grit or algae or anything out from under the reel. But particularly if you have a reel with a sealed drag, it's not gonna hurt it at all. So yeah, you can put it in the water. Just don't let it float away. But yeah, it's perfectly fine and it's not gonna hurt your rod or your reel at all.
Here's an email from Chris in Quechee, Vermont.
"Hey, Tom, I got to meet you earlier this year at the Orvis presentation in Wellesley, Mass. Great night, I learned a lot. I'm in Quechee, Vermont and do all my fishing on the White River, Ottauquechee, and we'll be traveling through Manchester next week for the Batten Kill. I was heartbroken to watch firsthand what happened again in our beautiful state with the flooding from the rainfall earlier this week. It felt so reminiscent of Hurricane Irene in 2011. I have two questions related to that.
First, what can a fly angler do to help repair some of these beautiful fishing rivers? Does Trout Unlimited or any local agencies focus on proper restoration of spots that may be destroyed? I remember after Irene, agencies were using stream beds to harvest rocks and gravel and sadly, straightened and ruined several beautiful stretches of river in order to repair the roads.
My second question is related to what to expect in the short and the long term after a flood of this magnitude. Do all the fish die? Will the mud and silt destroy the aquatic insects' ability to live in these streams? Should I forget about fishing the rest of the year and see what 2024 brings? Curious your thoughts and understanding since you're so close to this."
Well, those are great questions, Chris. First of all, it's interesting that the streams that suffered damage, property and road damage, are the same ones that got straightened after Hurricane Irene, that got channelized. And that's the worst thing that can happen is they get the bulldozers in there and they straighten the stream and then the next flood just increases the velocity of the river and causes more damage.
We had a governor at the time who pretty much told everyone in the state to get out there and dig fast and dig deep while you can because he lifted all the restrictions on putting equipment in rivers and we're suffering for it, our river suffered for it. And fortunately, the current administration in Vermont, we know we've learned a lot since Hurricane Irene, and I just saw a press release the other day where the state urged people not to remove wood from the river unless it's to save property or a bridge or something like that.
You know, messy rivers are healthy rivers. And the best thing we can do is to not put equipment in the river. And I think that the state has been a lot more vigilant about allowing highway departments to channelize rivers.
You know, it happens quickly and sometimes it's to save life and property and there's no way that we can avoid that. But a lot of the dredging and channelizing that was done was after the flood receded and it ruined a number of trout streams for the near future.
On the other hand, there are a lot of rivers in the state that flooded normally. They had more bends and woody debris in the river, and they had a good healthy flood plain where the water could flood out into the land and disperse its energy. And those streams are fishing very well.
I think I know that since the flood, the Batten Kill this summer, is fishing better than it's fished in probably 20 or 30 years in my experience. Most of the small streams that weren't channelized are fishing really, really well. The fish are healthy. You're probably gonna see, and I've noticed, a decrease in hatches. You do lose some insects. You don't really... If a stream is healthy and it hasn't been channelized and there's a lot of woody debris and big rocks in the river, the fish just get out of the way, and they go into those log jams and behind rocks and they're pretty safe.
They've been experiencing floods for hundreds of thousands of years, and it doesn't really hurt them much. I think it does maybe hurt the insect hatches, but they usually bounce back in a year or two.
And regarding all the mud and silt, actually, floods can remove a lot of built-up mud and silt and exposed gravel. Let's start that again. Floods can remove a lot of mud and silt and exposed gravel that's good for insects and good for spawning and kind of reduces the embeddedness of a stream bed which is how much the gravel is compacted. You want loose gravel in a stream and so a lot of good can happen.
It's unfortunate that a lot of people lost property and a lot of our farmers lost some crops this year and that's not good. But it was an act of nature, and the rivers will bounce back, and the farmers will bounce back, and I think that I would not hesitate to go fishing. I wouldn't fish where it was channelized in the past or where it was channelized this year. Those fish probably aren't doing so well but in the streams that haven't been channelized, you're gonna be just fine.
Here's an email from Gene in Oklahoma.
"Thank you for the podcast. I truly enjoy listening every week. It has been insightful and has grown my knowledge of fly fishing. I'm planning a trip to Upstate New York. I usually always stop at a local fly shop when traveling to a new watershed and ask about what flies to use and where to go. After listening to this podcast, I think I'm asking the wrong questions. I guess I never really expected them to tell me where to fish.
Would a better question be, where are the public access points, should I be asking what style of fishing, dry dropper, streamer, etc.? Maybe, as you mentioned, size and color as opposed to specific patterns. What are your thoughts on how to effectively interact with a fly shop to get the most out of exploring new waters?"
Well, Gene, I think the first thing you wanna do is go in and start up a conversation with a fly shop and maybe buy something, buy some insect repellent, or buy a new reel or a jacket or a sweater or a T-shirt or whatever, and then ask them what flies are working locally and get that conversation going.
And then, often, you can say something like, "Well, I'm not sure exactly where to fish. Do you have any recommendations?" Or they may actually volunteer some spots to go. They're probably not gonna send you to their top-secret local spots, but they're gonna send you to a good place because you just bought something in their shop, and they want to repay you for that. And so they're gonna send you to a decent place.
And I think, yeah, mainly maybe asking for public access points is a good thing, but I think you should always ask what type of fishing works well, dry dropper, streamer, Euro nipping. Because different streamers fish better with specific techniques. It's not always the fly. It's usually not the fly. It's usually the way you're fishing it. So I think that when you go into fly shop, kind of just be open and play it by ear and see if they volunteer some information.
Jennifer: Hi, Tom. This is Jennifer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I have a question for you about rods and rod lengths, more specifically unusual rod lengths. The other day I was doing an online search and came across a used Orvis recon, first generation, it's a 10-weight rod, and the length of the rod was 7-feet-11 inches. I thought that was a little bit unusual for a rod size for such a heavy-weight rod.
And so, I was wondering if you could give us a little bit more information about what kind of situation you would be using a rod like this for and what sort of fish you might be targeting. I always find it interesting to understand a little bit more about rod design and construction. I hope you can answer this question. Thank you so much.
Tom: So, Jennifer, as I said in a previous question, that 7-foot-11-inch rod with a heavier line, it was meant to be a bush rod, a brush rod, mangroves, overhanging willows, bass fishing in tight spots. It has a really fast line speed. They're kind of fun to fish. They're totally different from a nine-foot rod. But if you do fish in tighter spots, I think it's worth a try. It's gonna be quite a different action from what you're probably used to, but a lot of people think those rods are fun.
I like them and I know Shawn Combs, our rod designer, loves those short rods for a heavier weight line. He uses them a lot. So anyway, give it a try and see how it works for you. Practice casting it first and see how it behaves and then take it out in some brushy places and see how it works for you.
All right, that's the Fly Box for this week. Let's go talk to James and get some tips on urban fishing.
Well, my guest today is James Spica and James is the Fishing Manager at Orvis Royal Oak outside of Detroit. And, James, you do a lot of urban fly fishing, don't you?
James: I do. A lot both in Detroit and elsewhere when I'm lucky.
Tom: Yeah, people always ask, they're always telling me, you know, I'm going someplace on business or, you know, I just moved to this city and, oh, I'm 300 miles away from a trout stream and what am I going to do? I love to fly fish. And I'm thinking, wow, you got to open your mind and open your horizons because you probably got some pretty cool stuff really close to home.
James: Very much. Very much so. You know, I do a lot of urban fishing around Detroit. But again, there are cool opportunities in all sorts of different cities. Something to keep in mind is that, you know, humans, right, need water for both, you know, nourishment and commerce, right? So a lot of big cities, especially older cities, are built around water or on a river, right? So we humans need to be around water.
And the problem, you know, the problem is that commerce will occasionally, of course, you know, pollute our rivers, but a lot of fish can survive and have survived in these really cool urban environments for a very long time.
So, you know, we've got all sorts of great opportunities in the different cities across the U.S. Some good examples would be all the cool species of, you know, Chilchids and peacock bass in the canals around Miami. You've got a really cool spotted bass fishery in Houston proper. There's just a book written out and I, of course, can't remember anything about it. I haven't fished that one myself. But, you know, you've got the Salt River right in Arizona, right in Phoenix. And all sorts of cool rivers that, you know, have cities right on them or right in them. And so you've got all sorts of cool opportunities.
Tom: Yeah, I've had great carp fish. Of course, people know that I'm a fanatic carp angler, site fishing for carp.
James: Me too.
Tom: And I've had great carp fishing in Dallas and Denver and Grand Rapids and other places that I can't even remember. So yeah.
James: Very good. Yeah, carp are one of the top ones, of course, because they can live in environments that most other fish can't. Carp do tend to be a pretty common little fish that we can find in pretty much anywhere, pretty much any city. So a lot of what I'll talk about today involves carp, but there are a lot of other species as well.
Tom: Good, okay.
James: And I apologize to the listeners. If you hear a little whining, I got the dog outside the door trying to get in. I don't know if you can hear.
Tom: Oh, you know what? People always hear my labs barking in the background even though they're upstairs when the UPS man comes. So yeah, dogs are okay on the show.
James: Oh, yeah, same. Yeah, very good. So we can talk kind of about how to find these waters. Basically, again, if you're in a city, there's likely going to be water around, because usually, it's important for drinking water for cities and for commerce, a lot of the time, shipping, etc. So I tend to look for harbors and areas that have moving water as well.
So you could be talking about all rivers from very wide to very narrow, very deep to very shallow, what have you. But generally speaking, if you've got an urban area, you're going to have rivers that are going to hold some kind of fish, probably carp, all sorts of other cool stuff. And so I just try to find out what river is in the area in the city I'm fishing. And then I'll kind of look at it on onX Hunt tends to be one of the better ones.
And if listeners aren't familiar with that app, it's a hunting app, but it shows you where public and private land access is. And it's not a cheap app. It's the most expensive app I have, but it is worth every penny because it shows you all sorts of information like parks and boat launches and all sorts of stuff. So I'll usually scope it out on onX Hunt. But oftentimes, I'll also look at Google Maps, and I'll do a little Google searching, etc., etc. So do my internet research, in other words.
But one major thing I want to mention is that when it comes to urban fishing, there is no substitute for scouting. I am a very impatient and short attention span person. So for those of you like me, I know how frustrating it is to have to scout and scout and scout instead of just fishing. But the scouting is pretty important for urban fishing because those fish may be in one area and may not be in another.
And when you look at these urban areas on Google Maps or satellite maps of any kind, there are things that you're not going to see, like private property signs or fences that won't let you access in a spot that looked like it was going to be so good to access. So the urban element of it adds a little wrinkle in terms of river access.
It can sometimes be easy, but it can sometimes be frustratingly difficult. And so it's just a matter of putting boots on the ground, as they say, and making sure to just scout out all these different spots. You might drive to six different spots that you scoped out before you find a place to stand and fish.
Tom: Oh, I can't tell you of the hundreds of hours that Shawn Combs and I have spent driving around looking for carp and how many spots we stop in a day when we're scouting. Oh, my God, it's...
James: Yeah.
Tom: And they're often fruitless too.
James: Yeah, of course.
Tom: People have to get used to that.
James: That's right. And, you know, you'll see evidence of fish if you just stand and look. You know, you gotta... The other thing about being patient when you're fishing, urban-wise, is that you will generally have to look for a long time at the water before your eyes sort of adjust. You know, I'll tell people with carp fishing., it's not that you need to get used to seeing carp necessarily. But it's more of letting your eyes adjust to what you're looking at.
It even a long time to just stare at the water and let my eyes sort of suss out what the salient information is and what's sort of background noise in terms of what I'm looking for. So it's not necessarily a skill thing as much as it is just to getting used to looking. I'm sorry about that.
Tom: No problem.
James: Yeah. So it's been, you know, very eye-opening for me to learn how to carp fish to eat, or to get them to eat.
Tom: Yeah, yeah. So what... Is there any particular time of day that you scout, you know, when you're looking for this stuff? You know, do you go early in the morning or in the middle of the day when the sun's bright or in the evening? What time of day do you do your scouting? Because I think that's important.
James: Yeah, absolutely. So I will generally try to... Sight fishing sort of unfortunately requires that sun a little bit overhead so you can actually see what you're doing. So urban fishing for me is going to be the kind of thing where I'll fish for sort of bass... Or, you know, blind casting stuff, any fish that I might be blind casting for I'll fish in the morning and evening. But then when that sun gets up enough to be bright on the water, then I'm thinking about sight fishing.
And so the nice thing about urban fisheries is rarely are the fish that can live in those warmer waters that picky about time of day. It's not like trout when they...you know, the trout here in Michigan go pretty nocturnal in the summer. And the fish that you're going to catch in sort of urban settings rarely get like that. Not always the case. But occasionally, they will. But generally, it's the kind of thing where you've got a certain amount of time and you're just going to fish when you've got the time. Fish when the opportunity presents.
If I, you know, spent all this time looking at weather reports and looking at the time of day, I'd never be fishing.
Tom: Yeah, okay, good, fair enough.
James: And then I'll be looking for areas...I'll scout out a bunch of different areas. But the cool thing about, you know, urban fishing is, look, humans have a tendency to build a lot of structure. And what do you fish like? Structure. So anywhere you're gonna be fishing in an urban setting, you're guaranteed to have structure. It may be incredibly ugly structure like bridge pylons and, you know, shopping carts and all sorts of stuff like that. But to a fish, that is protection and current break and a source, oftentimes, of smaller things, like food items, I mean. And so I'm looking for interesting points of structure.
And oftentimes, if I get the opportunity, I'm looking for a flat because I'm a firm believer that if you find a flat with current moving over it in any water, anywhere in the world, you're going to see a fish come up there to eat something at some time of day. So, you know, flats just, even if they're pretty featureless. But if you have some current moving over a flat, anywhere you fish in the entire world, if you just stand there and stare at it for long enough, it might be three hours, but if you stand there and just wait, some kind of fish will find its way up there and start looking, rooting around for stuff. So I'll look at flats quite a bit.
Tom: Especially flats with adjacent deep water I've found. You know, a long, long, long, long piece of flat water, probably isn't going to hold anything. But if you find a flat adjacent to deeper water where they have protection.
James: Absolutely. Absolutely. And then it's a matter of effectively choosing a fly and tossing it with great care for your back-casting. So another great thing about urban fishing is it's definitely going to make you a better caster. Kind of for two reasons related to casting. The first reason would be, you know, carp and freshwater drum, which I deeply love, I love freshwater drum and fishing for them, and in rivers, they tend to like or they tend to be able to survive in urban environments. So freshwater drum and carp.
You got to get creative with your casts. So you're going to become a more creative caster with urban fishing because you've got to. You know, maybe if you're roll casting 10 feet of fly line and 12 feet of leader, that gets funky real quick. That's a lot of, you know, odd conflicting casting discipline, I guess you could say. So you have to get creative and creativity is a lot of what we enjoy in fishing, right?
Tom: Yeah.
James: So your casts are never going to be perfectly pretty, beautiful cast, but that's not really the point in this case. The point, of course, is going to be being able to catch some. Catch some cool fish.
Tom: Yeah. And at least have some shots.
James: That's right. That's right.
Tom: At least have some shots and some ideas for, next time, I'll know better and I'll do this or I'll do that.
James: That's a big thing with carp and freshwater drum fishing is that, you know, I've gotten used to the fact that, you know, I might catch fish only every other trip I'm out there because sometimes you just don't find those happy feeding fish. Carp are so moody. And, you know, you might find 10 carp and only one of them is, you know, conducive to casting at to even [inaudilbe 01:00:32]. So it's a numbers game.
But, I mean, it's like grouse hunting for those of us who grouse hunt. They're so difficult, but that's why they keep us coming back. That's why we enjoy it so much. You're catching steelhead on the swing, right?
Tom: Yeah.
James: So steelhead on the swing is not a numbers game, but it's so exciting when you do get one that that's what keeps people obsessed and returning to that technique.
Tom: Yeah, I think that with carp fishing, it's both just getting the eat and seeing the eat, which is pretty cool. And then they fight. They fight better than nearly anything else in freshwater. I mean, you'll see your backing if you catch a decent carp. You're going to see your backing pretty quick. And they don't give up either.
James: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Tom: They just don't give up.
James: Isn't there something about carp where they don't build up lactic acid like we do or they do but there's an enzyme in their blood that eats it as quickly as it's built up or something like that?
Tom: I don't know. I don't know, maybe. It seems like it.
James: Yeah, there's something about... I don't... God knows. The other thing that I thought was kind of interesting, I read at one point a little study where some enterprising scientist decided to test the IQs of different fish. I don't know how he did that. I don't know how you can give a fish a Rubik's cube. But the carp comes in at the top.
Tom: Really?
James: Twice as smart as a... It's still single digits, but twice the IQ of a brown trout, I think. So you're really matching...you know, I'm matching wits with a carp when I'm fishing for it.
Tom: Yeah, I was fishing with a friend the other day, carp fishing with a friend and I got skunked by the way. And he's never bonefished. And he said, "What do you think is harder bonefish or carp?" And I said, "Oh, my god, there's no comparison. Bonefish are a piece of cake compared to carp."
James: Absolutely. And there are other. You know, you carp fish long enough and you're going to find all sorts of really cool things, you know, that you see. You're going to see all sorts of wacky things occur. So one thing that I've seen, you know, carp fishing is generally small flies on the bottom. And there's a place that has a little spillway off one of the Great Lakes, enough to get some shad coming in there.
And in the fall, when there's a shad kill, those carp turn into apex predators and just chomp down on big baitfish streamers.
Tom: Wow. Wow.
James: Which is so rare. You know, they'll eat a Murdich Minnow or an EP Minow eating these twitching, dying shad. And so, you know, the thing that is super cagey and super picky suddenly, you know, turns into the smallmouth, effectively, eating baitfish streamers. So you carp fish long enough and you to see all sorts of wacky stuff.
I had another on Lake Saint Clair, I was fishing in sort of a backwater with a buddy and we were casting in these reeds and my fly got stuck halfway up a reed and the carp came up to it and sucked it off the reed. Lucky it was a fly larva or something like that. Just you get to see stuff like when you carp fish. You know, if any of you have seen, you know, mulberry trees dropping their berries and carp underneath just chowing down on them.
I will always say that if you're carp fishing, do not put a fly box in your pack that does not include mulberries because guaranteed if you're out there without mulberries, you're going to see the biggest carp all eating with reckless abandon under a mulberry tree and you'll have nothing. So always have a mulberry fly with you just in case.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah, me too. Purple foam flies, they're in my box.
James: Right. There are other...
Tom: So before...
James: Go ahead.
Tom: Before we leave carp, and I should say that people need to understand, people are always asking, "What's your favorite carp fly?" Well, that's pretty irrelevant because every carp fishery is different, you know, and you pointed that out, and every day can be different. I don't think they're always that selective, and I don't think you always need to match what they're eating. But, you know, sometimes they're just cruising along, and you want them to think it's a snack. But the way they respond in every fishery is so different, and you have to learn them. You have to go through, cycle through a bunch of flies and presentations and techniques, and it can be very difficult.
James: Absolutely.
Tom: One thing I want to ask you because it's a personal interest question. Slow cruising carp. Okay. So fast cruising carp are nearly impossible to catch, right? They're just going somewhere. They're either spooked or just, they're traveling and they're, in my experience, nearly impossible.
James: Yeah.
Tom: But I have found that slow-cruising carp, you know, just kind of moving midwater, just kind of cruising along, looking, what do you do when you find that situation?
James: So I there's a particular place in the Detroit area where I see that with some frequency. I will never, ever say I'm an expert on carp. So I wanna preface this with this is just what's worked for me in the past. So one of my favorite carp flies, in general, is going to be some kind of damselfly or dragonfly larva with a little bit of chartreuse on it. So chartreuse and olive, damselfly, dragonfly, larva-type looking fly.
And in those cases, I have sort of done the drag and drop. For listeners who don't know what that is, that's you're casting sort of ahead and past the carp and using your rod tip to drag it in front of the carp's face. So I'll do the drag and drop, but I'll keep my rod tip high and sort of jig that damselfly or dragonfly larva as it floats towards them. So it takes practice, but I've gotten a couple of eats that way.
Tom: Okay, good.
James: If that makes sense.
Tom: I'm gonna try that. I'm gonna try that. All right, so let's... You know, I could talk about carp fishing all day long.
James: The same.
Tom: Let's talk about some other species that you target and what you look for. Just give people an idea of what you can find in an urban environment. We talked about, you talked a little bit about drum. Let's talk about drum and how you find them.
James: So drum really like current and they like current and they like a lot deeper water than carp. You know, the flats where I find drum, fishing Lake Saint Clair, for example, are flats that are four feet deep versus one foot deep for carp, right? So drum like a little bit more water over their back, but they really like urban rivers and, you know, areas with development so long as you've got deep enough water with current.
So they have this maddening tendency, when you're sight fishing for them, to hover their mouths over a fly for several seconds before they take it. I used to redfish, who will come over to the fly and suck it in when they get over it. Freshwater drum will, just like a redfish because they're so closely related, they'll swim up, they'll tail and they'll swim up to a fly, but they're just going to sort of take their time eating that fly. They're gonna hover over the thing for sometimes 10 seconds before they suck it in.
So there have been so many times where I've thought, well, the fish must have sucked it in now, I just missed it. You know, the fish must have, you know, by now, eating the thing. I just missed the eat. And I'll set the hook and I'll just pull it right out from under. So freshwater drum you got to watch and watch for a while and be really patient when those fish come up and eat it.
But for those of you who get into freshwater drum, I can't recommend it highly enough. Because it's, you know, you got redfish in your backyard if you [crosstalk 01:10:13] these fish. I mean, they're no different than redfish. They fight really hard. They take flies, but they're not pushovers at all. And I will give a shout-out to my good buddy and fishing friend and influence, Dave Hurley [SP], who's one of the drum sort of pros, I should say, on Lake Saint Clair and surrounding areas.
He's a good buddy of mine and I wanted to credit where it's due because he and I have worked together figuring out these freshwater drums for years on the fly. So it's just so much fun. They're such cool fish. And you'll find them in lakes too. I just find it's hard in lakes to find them unless you have current going through the lake and you can find that current. That's just me.
And I'll never say there's a hard and fast rule in fly fishing because, you know, as soon as I say something, someone will prove me wrong the next day. So yeah, that's just my sort of rules of thumb.
Tom: I fish them a bit in a big lake, Lake Champlain, and we typically find them in rock piles over deeper water, but where there's a little rise in the bottom and clear enough and shallow enough so you can sight fish them. But yeah, rock piles tend to hold them. They're scraping clams and things like that, deeper mussels, I think, off rocks.
James: And they're a big thing here in Michigan. We got lots of them. The Great Lakes region in general.
Tom: Yeah, yeah. Do you ever... Can you blind fish a drum? Do you ever blind fish?
James: Yeah. So, so my buddy, Dave, sort of was doing the sight casting thing to them, but I had always blind-fished for them, personally. When you get the big Hexagenia or brown Drake mayfly hatches on the Great Lakes, Lake Saint Clair has a big one, but you'll see them on all the lakes. I always blind fish. I would current depth and fish hex notes. A wiggly hex nymph fly with lead eyes to get it down. And I would catch them pretty consistently that way.
So I would blind cast them with large wiggly nymphs in a place where I had caught them historically. They will take streamers, they'll take Clouser Minnows, you know, with some gusto sometimes. But sometimes, they're much more picky than that. So, you know, I will have caught one on a Clouser and then I'll remember that spot. Usually, if there's one, there's more in that area. They tend to...they don't really school, but they sure hang out together. And so, I'll go back to that spot with some nymphs and just tick the nymphs along the bottom like carp fishing, but with no visual reference because they're in deep water. So that's where I normally blind fish for them. But you know, sight fishing is, you know, just a different way to do it.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah. And more fun if you can get it.
James: Of course. Of course.
Tom: If you can get it, that's the problem. You gotta do a lot of scouting for that.
James: Like I said, sometimes it almost works against you if you're not used to how freshwater drum acts because if you're used to sight fishing the things that eat as soon as they see the fly, you've got some practicing to do when it comes to freshwater. It'll drive you nuts.
Tom: That's a good tip. I'm going to remember that one because I didn't realize that one.
James: At least that's how they act in my neck of the woods. I don't know. You know, you can't say that for sure, you know, for the ones in Lake Champlain, but that's what I've run into in my area. Yeah.
Tom: Okay. So what other what other species, James? What other species do you see in your area?
James: So many. So many. And I will say that from a personal standpoint, that's what I love most about urban fishing, or at least fishing in developed areas is you can get a real mixed bag. And I love mixed-bag fishing. As soon as I catch one species, I start to say, okay, what else can I catch? What other species can I catch? Not how can I catch more of this one species. But what other critters can I get on them flies?
You've got sort of the things in the SUNFISH and black bass family, so largemouth bass smallmouth bass. You're gonna see obviously, bluegill sunfish and crappie in a lot of these urban areas like ponds and golf course ponds, city park ponds, things like that. There are some other cool fish that tend to hang out close to where carp and drum will hang out. So things like quillback carpsuckers and a smallmouth buffalo. Both of which [inaudilbe 01:15:24], you know, bottom-feeding fish that put up a wild fight when you hook them, suckers and catfish. I love catching suckers and catfish both on a fly. They'll eat the same stuff that carp will eat and that your drum will eat.
And one of my personal favorites, if you're in an urban area, if you're in a marshy area, I love to catch bowfin. It's one of my favorite to catch on the fly.
Tom: All right, give me some... We fish them a lot on Lake Champlain. I fish him with a guide named Drew Price up there in Champlain a lot. He's a bowfin fanatic. I catch a couple and I'm done for the day. But he loves them. So give us some tips on catching bowfin because I think a lot of people are interested in such a primitive, ugly yet beautiful fish and so aggressive. Give us some tips on catching bowfin.
James: Absolutely. So bowfin, I tend to like a darker fly that's got some weight to it. So I tend to use just a real base, like a purple Woolly Bugger with a lot of weight on it. Like a red Woolly Bugger, something like that. Or just a purple rabbit strip fly with some lead eyes or something like that. And there are a couple different ways. A lot of the time we sight fish to them. We'll sort of pull up to them in a skiff or canoe or something, and you'll see them kind of hanging out. They're pretty obvious, at least in clear water because it's, you know, this olive-green missile that's just out there and there. They're somewhat obvious to see.
Oftentimes in rivers, you'll see their tails waving because their tails, especially during spawning season, can get really colorful. So you'll see some kind of spawning colors on a weird-looking tail there. And you can kind of see them that way. So I've blind cast to them. I've sight cast to them. You can kind of do both. They like marshy sort of mucky areas, especially reeds and weeds and stuff like that.
But they don't...you're not going to find them as much in your typical sort of, you know, bottom weeds in a, you know, eutrophic lake, but more up in, you know, sand and mud in amongst, you know, rushes and cattails and stuff like that.
Tom: Yeah, way up in the [inaudilbe 01:18:01]. Yeah.
James: Yeah. They don't need much. They do not need much water over their back.
Tom: No.
James: Now, I have been in a really cool situation, and I hope that everyone gets to experience this once in their life. I have been in a situation in sort of a lower river estuary where a river comes out into one of the Great Lakes, in the spring. And I've seen bowfin just like tarpon, gulping water [inaudilbe 01:18:31] casting to where those fish are gulping water and rolling like a tarpon. And that's incredible. And it's so to be able to fish for them that way. So that will happen occasionally.
But at other times, you just sight fish to them over, you know, kind of up in the shallows. And you just pull along and sort of, you know, a reedy area for a while, you'll see some moving around. And they're usually pretty willing to let you get close to them oftentimes [crosstalk 01:19:02].
Tom: Oh, yeah. Like, right on top of them.
James: Exactly. We'll just drop the fly off the side of the boat, you know, not much of a cast if any cast, will do it for them. But if you catch bowfin blind casting on flies in a certain place, that usually means they're going to be around there for the foreseeable future. So you can go back to that place in blind fishing with those heavy purple flies.
Tom: Yeah. We... I don't know if you've ever done this, but Drew has a technique he calls the splash bang. And if we're in a marsh area where he knows there's bowfin, he'll slap his push pole or whatever, on the water and make kind of a splashing sound, kind of swirl it around a little bit and make a pretty loud splashing sound. And the bowfin will actually come out to investigate. They'll actually come out of the weeds and come out in the open.
James: I'm going to try that with my push pole. [crosstalk 01:20:03]
Tom: Yeah, try it. It's pretty amazing. Again, they are not afraid of anything. They're just not spooky whatsoever. Well, occasionally they are, but usually, you can get right on top of them. Yeah, try the splash bang.
James: I will.
Tom: It works. It works.
James: That's very cool. They're the other thing is they fight like absolute mad. And I have had them bend out hooks. I've had them bend them straight. So I would recommend if you tie flies for this kind of fishing, to put them on real stout hooks. Really, really, really stout hooks, even, like, a saltwater hook, because, boy, do they fight and they will straighten out a hook in no time.
So they're cool fish and just a quick public service announcement. But I've been hearing recently that apparently people are confusing them for snakeheads and killing. Bowfin, prehistoric fish been here for absolutely ever, snakehead invasive. So know the difference and look, just look it up on the internet and I just want to encourage listeners to not kill a bowfin just because you think it's an invasive snakehead. There are some pretty obvious differences, but I've been hearing a lot about this happening and bowfin are such cool fish. I don't want to see them get killed.
Tom: No, there are a couple of reasons. One is they're a native species in most places. And the other thing is that they're terrible to eat. So there's no reason to kill a bowfin.
Tom: Right. That's right. Absolutely. Yeah, they're apex predators in their little niche and it's fun to catch them.
Tom: We find that sometimes we have to literally tickle the fish on the nose. You get real close to them and you see them and you tickle them, tickle them, tickle them, and all of a sudden, boom. They just inhale it. But sometimes, you have to kind of tease them a little bit with a fly right on the...and literally touch their nose with the fly. It's pretty exciting. Pretty exciting stuff when they do it. You know, it's dapping. For us, most of the time, it's dapping for them. But the strike and the fight, especially in all those weeds and stuff, is pretty interesting.
James: Absolutely. Absolutely. And let's not forget, I don't want to go on without saying there are plenty of urban fishing opportunities for saltwater fish. You know, you've got all these harbors in brackish or saltwater rivers and coastal cities that are incredible fishing. You know, you may know the spot, but in Boston Harbor, you know, fishing on sort of the north end of the island, you know, Revere and Deer Island and all those areas right at sort of the north entrance of Boston Harbor.
I'll be fishing for striped bass out there and there will be a line of jumbo jets landing right over me at Logan Airport. So, you know, you're just in one of those situations where you're reminded constantly that you are in a city but you're catching fish.
And there are a lot of urban opportunities and there are a lot of areas urban-wise, both coastal and inland, that these areas probably didn't have fish 40, 50 years ago because, you know, we didn't have to...there were less strict standards on cleaning up urban [crosstalk 01:23:49].
Tom: Prior to the Clean Water Act, yeah.
James: Exactly. So, Boston Harbor used to be one of the dirtiest harbors in the world and now it's one of the cleanest. And so, you know, while we get all this, you know, terribly bad news about the climate and industry and stuff like this every single day, it's worth remembering that there are some bright spots and one of those is a lot of the urban fishing opportunities that were not there before the Clean Water Act or before these forced cleanups that have brought all these areas back to fishing strength.
Tom: One of the things we should really mention is that more and more, you see these groups of really serious anglers, usually younger people in cities that really get into this urban stuff. I find it's usually the young guns and they're very innovative. And, you know, you can usually find them hanging around in Orvis stores or fly shops. And, you know, if people you know are in an area and they want to know what's there and where to go, that's one of the best things to do is just hang around a fly shop for a while. Guaranteed there will be one kid in the fly shop who's a fanatic urban fly angler. And you just need to need to find that one jewel and they'll be enthusiastic, and they'll usually be very willing to share information.
So every city's a little different but search those people out because they are around or I guess on social media too you could do that.
James: It's a great resource. A lot of people, younger people connecting on Instagram, just direct messaging about advice and, you know, different places to go and so on. And people are usually pretty excited in an urban setting to give advice and give spots to go because it's this little niche culture that, you know, you want to see grow.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
James: You know, we want to see people giving the trout a break and trying all these really cool opportunities that are sometimes brushed off.
Tom: Yeah, it just gives people so much more time and opportunity to go fly fishing. You know, you don't have to wait for a month to go on your trout trip or your tarpon trip or whatever. You can, you know, go before work, after work, on your lunch hour, whatever, and get a little fishing and get outside and stalk some fish.
James: That's right. If you've got kids and you don't have the time to go up north to fish for trout every, you know, once a week or once a month even, you've got something close to home and that only takes a couple hours of good fishing. And speaking of tarpon trip. You know, if all you did in you know an urban setting was just try out your flies that you have tied for your next saltwater trip, that's a great use of your time.
You know, you're testing out some saltwater flies. Generally, carp and drum and bowfin and so on, are pretty willing to eat sort of saltwater flies like shrimp flies and crab flies, any, you know, bottom crawling critters. So you can get to test out some of your saltwater flies for your next trip and practice good casting and, you know, what we call feeding the fish, practice, you know, feeding the fly to them.
Tom: Do you have any urban pike in your area?
James: Yes. Yes, absolutely. I don't often catch them in my area in quite the urban setting, though. You know, I'm considering Lake Saint Clair and the Detroit River to be pretty urban. And there are tons of pike there. But in smaller lakes and ponds and rivers in my area, not so much in terms of pike, but they can take some pretty warm water. So it is somewhat common to see pike in the Midwest cities on a regular basis.
Tom: It's so funny. We have hardly touched on smallmouth and largemouth bass yet. You can find he's in a lot of urban areas.
James: Absolutely.
Tom: It seems like we're always...I don't know about you but I'm always looking for something different. You know, bass, yeah, I can catch bass anywhere.
James: That's right. Right.
Tom: But that's a great opportunity as well.
James: Bass, you know, especially largemouth can live in all sorts of cool places. And there can be some great largemouth fishing. One of the cool things about urban ponds and little parks on a little baby lake or something like that, you'll be surprised at the size of the largemouth that can come out of those areas.
Tom: Yeah.
James: They can grow real big in some of those places, golf course ponds, etc., so if you want to catch big fish. And that's a great time to test out your top water stuff, play around with poppers, which is another pretty big part of my fly selection. I don't carry a lot of flies with me, but in an urban situation, I'll always have blue poppers. I [inaudilbe 01:29:48] blue poppers. A lot of that is you'll see bigger, iridescent beetles and those blue damselflies. What are those? Ebony jewelwing, I think those are called, those big blue damselflies.
So I really like poppers from small to large, you know, bluegill size to bass size, in blue is another one of those essential flies that I carry with me for urban fishing. I think it's a real asset to be able to.
Tom: And there's really nothing better than taking a floating fly, a popper, and sneaking into an urban golf course where you're not supposed to be early in the morning, catching a couple of bass, and then getting chased off. I mean, that brings you back to being 12 years old. There's nothing better than that.
James: And sometimes, it's aggressive geese and swans that chase me away.
Tom: So before I let you go, James, I'm gonna try to pin you down to, let's say you're urban fishing in your area or any urban fishery, give me a, give me a rod and a line, you know, and the appropriate reel that you would pick for kind of all-around urban fishing. And then maybe a half dozen flies that you wouldn't go without.
James: I'll just go start to finish, top to bottom with tackle, what I bring with me. Rod, I like a nine-foot seven-weight or a nine-and-a-half-foot six-weight, like a [inaudilbe 01:31:38] six-weight. The extra six inches on that six-weight are really nice for those roll casts and a little bit of distance and a little bit of high sticking if you need to get creative, etc. So nine-foot seven-weight, but even better, a nine-and-a-half-foot six-weight.
Tom: Yeah, see, I go 10-foot seven-weight. That's my urban rod, but, you know, similar ballpark.
James: Exactly. And I'll have my line over-weighted. I could go on all day about the pitfalls and benefits and misuses and proper uses of overlining and underlining fly rods. That's a whole other podcast. But in this situation, you're doing a lot of roll casting and a lot of casting a long leader with not much line out. So I'll be able to load the rod quicker. So if I have a nine-and-a-half-foot six-weight, I'll put a seven-weight line on it.
A good reel with a good drag. Just some kind of disc drag reel. And I'll have two different types of leaders. I'll have 10, eight, 12-pound leaders, seven-and-a-half-foot for my bass and my less leader-shy fish, and then 12 foot, 10 to 12 feet if you can get them, for my carp fishing and my drum. So sort of two leader packs.
And then I'll have matching 10, eight, 12-pound fluorocarbon to that because I think that fluorocarbon makes a big difference in terms of...mostly the thing with me and fluorocarbon is the abrasion resistance of it. When you're fishing urban area, fish might have rough mouths and you're certainly going to be around concrete sticks and trash and stuff like that. So I like the abrasion resistance of the fluorocarbon.
And then the flies. My fly box is quite simple for urban fishing. I've got some kind of heavy Woolly Bugger. So Woolly Bugger, maybe with some added legs, but definitely with a tungsten bead or a pair of lead eyes, a pair of [inaudilbe 01:33:56] eyes. So Woolly Bugger [inaudilbe 01:33:59] a little heavier than your typical brass bead.
I'll have some sort of dragonfly, damselfly nymph with a little bit of chartreuse in it. Orvis has a couple. You've got Jan's Carp Tickler is a good one. And then you've got... what's the other one? Like, a hot head damsel is another. I'll have a few crayfish flies. Can live in pretty urban areas. I'll have those blue poppers. And then I'll have prince nymphs. I'll have some bigger prince nymphs. They're a good imitation of damselfly larvae and who knows what.
And then it's hard to beat a soft tackle hare's ear nymph as well. Like, if you can get yourself a size eight or 10, a big soft tackle hare's ear, that's a great carp fly. A great fly for all sorts of critters.
And about it. You know, I have kind of everything set and ready to go in my truck at all times. You know, with how light and compact fly rods are these days, it sure is hard to have an excuse not to bring a rod and that very small amount of gear that we just listed here.
Tom: Yeah, you don't need much on.
James: That's right. And you know, I'm also a big fan if you travel to other cities and you might want to do some fishing there, or if space is limited, six-piece fly rods these days are just as good as four-piece. I love a good six-piece travel fly rod. I know Orvis makes some and other companies make some as well. And I like having a six-piece six-weight or a six-piece eight-weight in a little pack with those few flies and those few leaders, and you're good to go for kind of anywhere that urban fishing might take you.
Tom: Yeah, you sell them need waders. You can either wait wet or fish on the bank.
James: Very much. And I tend to go with wet wading because I oftentimes will think that some muck boots, like, some tall, like, farm boots will do the trick. And I always am going deeper and just fill boots with muddy waters. So you might as well wet-wade at that point. Just wet wade or stand on the bank is just fine. And watch your back cast. Watch your back cast, if you're standing on the bank especially. You know, you don't want to hook a jogger or a stroller or a dog on a walk or who knows what. So watching your back cast, oftentimes makes you a better caster because that keeps the back cast higher in the air. So another way in which urban fishing will often make you a better caster.
Tom: Yeah, for sure. I know a carp spot in Denver where you have to watch your back cast for semi-trailers.
James: Oh, geez, yeah. That's fun. Hook one of those.
Tom: Yeah. They'll test your drag.
James: I'm trying to think what else I haven't talked about yet that is worth mentioning. I think we kind of hit it all. I'll just say that one thing in closing that I'd like to mention is that there's this real romance that you might not think is possible, but there's this real romance about urban fishing when you actually do it. I'll be carp fishing in the morning and then I'll go to a decent gourmet or good restaurant in the city the same day. And I'll be sitting there, I'll be like, I'm the only one sitting in this restaurant right now that caught fish this morning. The only one here who got a more full experience of the city. Oh, there's people around me and just it's so fulfilling. And there's this idea of adventure that oftentimes has more adventure than going to a famous river and, you know, fishing a famous stretch of a famous river. Urban fishing is much more of an adventure sometimes.
Tom: Oh, yeah.
James: You get this close to home adventuring that is so cool.
Tom: And I think probably most of my best fishing stories are urban fishing stories and just the bizarre things that you see sometimes.
James: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I try to... So I'll be a little goofy here, I'll be a little cheesy here. But I do these things if I don't have a day off, but don't have time to go to a cold-water fishery somewhere, I'll do, I'll put together what I call, this is so cheesy, but a little day-cation. So the day-cation will be I'll do some urban fishing. I'll check out a new restaurant somewhere in the city. And I might go to a cool little, like, used bookstore or something like that. Do a little, like, local shopping as well.
So I'll, like, you know, hit the cool restaurant, the cool little urban, you know, bookstore or something like that, and do some urban fishing. And you got this real complete experience of the city that way. And it's really fulfilling.
Tom: That's cool. That's cool. I hadn't thought of doing that. I generally don't stop to eat when I fish. So I forget about the fine restaurants you can find.
James: It's so great. And look, sometimes, walking into a fancy restaurant smelling like fish is just the greatest.
Tom: Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it. All right, James, well, that was a great overview. And I can feel your enthusiasm for urban fishing, which I share. You know, I live in a very pristine area in Vermont, and urban fishing is a big adventure for me. So, I guess if you live in the city, it's an adventure for you as well.
James: Oh, yeah, always. There's always something interesting, always something to see. And I'll just say for those who think that it's not for them, just give it a try a little bit.
Tom: Yeah, try it once, and don't give up. Don't give up. Particularly if you're carp fishing, don't give up. Because it may be three or four trips before you before you even get one to eat.
James: Absolutely.
Tom: So you can't give up. And when you finally get that fish, it's going to be pretty satisfying.
James: Absolutely. Very much.
Tom: All right, James. We've been talking to James Spica, Fishing Manager at Orvis Royal Oak. And if you are in that area and you're interested in this stuff, well, you know where to go and you know where you're gonna get some really good, solid information.
James: Thank you very much for the opportunity and I hope to see you all out there catching carp.
Tom: Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna come visit you.
James: Please, yeah. There's so much around here. All day long you could. I mean there's so much to do in the Detroit metro area you can't cover it in three months of fishing. No way.
Tom: Yeah, cool. That's great. All right, James, thank you so much. I appreciate your time and your knowledge.
James: Thank you. Yeah.
Tom: Bye-bye.
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