Innovative Techniques from UK Stillwater Anglers

Tom: Hi, and welcome to the "Orvis Fly Fishing" podcast. This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer, and my guest this week is Chad Critchley from the UK. Chad is a stillwater expert and a guide and Orvis fan. And we're going to talk about [00:00:30.359] some of the stillwater ideas and techniques in flies that aren't really well known in this part of the world. I think that in terms of stillwater trout angling, most North Americans, with some exceptions, most North Americans are pretty unsophisticated in our stillwater trout fishing techniques. And the UK, I think, has taken it to another level. In the podcast, you'll learn about flies like [00:01:00.939] the FAB and the blob, and you'll learn about things like the washing line. So, there's some stuff here that I think if you do any stillwater trout angling at all, you'll be quite interested in. And I think that the interchange between people on the other side of the pond and us is always valuable, and that's where a lot of our fly fishing traditions came from. And so, [00:01:30.000] I hope you enjoy the podcast.
And before we do the Fly Box, a couple notes. One is that this week, I will be in a couple stores in the Northeast Orvis stores. I'll be at the Orvis store in Avon, Connecticut, on Wednesday, June 26. And I'll also be then in Wellesley, Mass, at the Orvis store in Wellesley, Mass, outside of Boston on June [00:02:00.260] 27th. We're going to be doing a bunch of things, talking about taking your trout fishing to the next level. We're going to do Helios Test Cast. There'll be some refreshments there and likely some pretty good munchies. So, I hope you can join us. I love seeing podcast listeners in person and talking to you. And so, hope to see you there. And got some other upcoming visits to the Denver [00:02:30.060] area, Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs area, which I will update you on in the future. It's going to be in July.
And then a little tip, I think the best ways to upgrade your current fly fishing outfit is to get yourself a really high-quality line. And I don't think there's a better fly line out there than [00:03:00.000] the Orvis Pro Trout lines. And they're not just for trout. You can use these for bass, for sunfish, for carp. Certainly, you could use them in saltwater, although they're only in the smaller sizes. They'll work in saltwater. But they're great trout lines, especially. And the advantages to a really high-quality premium line is, number one is that they float better, especially the [00:03:30.219] tip of the fly line. I used to always notice how the tips of my floating lines would sink. And it was annoying. I'd have to clean them or try to put a little fly paste on there. And I suddenly realized that since I've been using the Pro Trout lines, it's not something I notice anymore. It doesn't happen. And for dry flies, this is obviously an advantage. But even in nymph fishing, you get less drag and it's easier to mend if [00:04:00.400] your line is floating right to the tip. Anything that hangs down in the water is going to make it more difficult to mend.
These lines need cleaning less often. You still should clean them occasionally, but they need cleaning less often. They have great tapers. They cast great. They go through the guides really nice. They feel good in the air. And they're long-lasting. Now, the one issue you have to decide is, do you [00:04:30.079] want a textured or a smooth line? It's really personal preference. Textured lines are going to float just a tiny bit better because of the increased surface area. And they'll shoot through your guides a little bit better. There's less friction. But a lot of people like the feel of a smooth line. And honestly, I use both. I use textured and smooth kind of back-to-back. And I don't notice much difference in the performance. Some days I like the textured lines, and some days I like the [00:05:00.079] feel of the smooth line. It really depends on your own personal taste. So, either line is great. And people are always asking me, "What fly line should I get for this particular rod?" And I always say, "If you can afford it, get a Pro Trout line." It doesn't matter whether you're fishing in small streams, or in big rivers, or nymph fishing, or dry fly fishing. That Pro Trout line is going to do the job for [00:05:30.100] you.
All right. Let's do the Fly Box. First question is an email from Rob. "I'm new to fly fishing. I'd like to know how I should be using Woolly Buggers for panfish or bass in Florida. Should I pause, retrieve, let it drop, or straight stripping? I'm not really finding much consistency on one or the other. Any help is appreciated. Also, I'm really failing in knot tying. I'm not new to fishing. I do a ton of saltwater spin fishing down here, [00:06:00.540] but never have any issues with knots. For some reason, my flies are slipping. I feel like it's the thinner diameter line, or I'm just not used to tying knots with this type of diameter. I've used way too many inappropriate words as I reel in my line and see my curly cues. Thank you as always, Tom. Every bit of information is so helpful." So, Rob, first of all, you're not seeing any consistency in fishing a Woolly Bugger because [00:06:30.120] it varies from day to day and even from spot to spot, and sometimes even from fish to fish. What you're doing is correct. You should be trying everything.
When I'm fishing a streamer like that, whether it's for bass and panfish or saltwater fish, I'll start with a steady strip. Maybe foot-long strips are a little bit shorter, maybe 6, 8-inch strips and do a steady strip. If [00:07:00.139] that doesn't work, I will try a strip and then a pause, and then a strip and then a pause. If that doesn't work, I'll try a strip, strip, strip, pause. I'll give it three pretty sharp strips and then let it sink and pause and then three pretty sharp strips. If that doesn't work, I will go to a very slow steady strip where [00:07:30.019] you're hardly pausing at all. You're just pulling in the line and then grabbing it quickly and then pulling it in slowly. Sometimes you can put the rod under your arm and do hand over hand. That'll give you a real steady retrieve. If all else fails, I'll strip as fast as I can. Usually, one of those things will work. But even when you move from spot to spot, you may have to switch retrieves. The old saying that Lefty Kreh used to [00:08:00.680] say something to the effect that you should change your retrieve long before you should change your fly. Just keep trying. Even if it works and then it stops working, try something else. You're going to have to experiment. Nobody can tell you what the best way to do it is.
Now, regarding those knots, I have a feeling, I suspect, that what you're doing is using too [00:08:30.300] fine of a tippet material for the diameter of the wire of the eye of the fly. When you look at the diameter of the eye of a fly, that wire that's used to form the eye, your tippet should not be much thinner than the diameter of that wire. If it's really thin, if it's like a half or a quarter of the diameter of the eye of the fly, [00:09:00.120] your knots are going to slip because you just got too much gap between the turns in your knot. If you're using a size 6 fly and you're using 4 or 5X, yeah, those knots are going to slip. For bass and panfish, you should be using somewhere between, I would say, 8 and 20-pound test depending on how big the fish are and how much cover there is there. If you're using a lighter tippet, you [00:09:30.000] probably don't need it for bass and panfish. I have a feeling that's what is the problem because you say you're a saltwater angler, so you know how to tie knots, you know to wet them, you know how to draw them tight, you know how to take the right number of turns. I suspect that your diameter is too thin on your tippet.
One way to avoid that, one thing that works to keep from slipping is to use one of my favorite knots called a Trilene [00:10:00.200] knot. It's a standard clinch knot, not an improved clinch, but a standard clinch knot where you go through the eye twice. You take your tippet, go through the eye, and then come around and go through the eye again. So, what you in effect have is a double loop in front of the eye, and then take your five or six turns, and then come back through both of the double loop in front of the eye. That'll sometimes help if you're using a small diameter tippet in relation to the [00:10:30.179] wire diameter.
Here's an email from Phoenix. "First off, thanks so much for all you do. I was wondering if you had any tips on how to fish bigger rivers. Where should I cast? What flies do you typically use? Do you have any other tactics? Thanks so much." Well, Phoenix, that's a pretty big open-ended question. You should cast where the fish are. The flies you should typically use should be appropriate to the river and the season, and that you're going to get from a fly shop or [00:11:01.539] an internet source or maybe just a guess based on the bugs you see on the water or near the water. But the most important thing in a bigger river is you've got to narrow it down. That's the most intimidating thing. You've got to narrow down the water you fish. There's an old saying that you should fish a big river like a small river and just divide it up into little pieces, but I don't think that works very [00:11:30.120] well because in bigger rivers, trout don't live everywhere. They probably only live in about 5% of the available surface water.
So, you need to look at the water from a kind of a macro perspective first and then narrow it down. So, that might mean a little driving, a little walking, a little looking on Google Earth if you can see the river. So, once you get an overview of the river [00:12:00.360] and looking for structure, don't look for water that's all the same. Look for water that has some riffles, some pool water, some faster water, some slower water, and then you can start to break it down into smaller pieces. But you still have to look at an overview and say, "Okay, in this big river, where's the best place for trout? What do the trout need? [00:12:31.559] They need current, but they don't want really fast current. They like water between 2 to 4 feet deep, and they like fairly steady uniform current." So, that's what you want to look for. And obviously, some kind of cover nearby, whether it's deep water, or riffles, or logjams, or rocks.
And then a rule of thumb on really big rivers, if the entire river is really fast, let's take something like the Madison River in Montana where it [00:13:00.279] just moves along and hardly ever slows down very much, at least in large sections, if the entire river is really fast, look for slower water. Look for pockets of slower water. If the entire river is big and flat and slow, something like the Delaware River on the border between New York and Pennsylvania, look for the faster water areas. Look for places where the current's picked up. Look [00:13:30.220] for riffles. If an entire river is really deep, look for the shallower spots. If the entire river is pretty shallow, then look for the deeper spots. Again, trout like to be in water between 2 and 4 feet deep. And then look for drop-offs. Look for color changes, look for shelves. Trout like to be on the edge of fast and shallow water and on the edge of current. [00:14:02.000] Figuring out what flies to use is going to be...a lot of it's going to be up to your research and your guesswork. It's an iterative process. It's the scientific method. You have to experiment and see what works because things change day to day or even hour to hour. So, I hope that helps somewhat. But if you fish a big river [00:14:30.220] a lot, if it's a regular spot that you go to, then you'll learn the spots. And remember, journal. Take notes. Remember where you found fish at certain times of year.
Brandon: Hey, Tom. Just want to say the "Orvis Fly Fishing" podcast is definitely my favorite podcast and probably the only podcast I listen to. So, I had a question about spinners. So, I also fish in the Northeast. And [00:15:00.860] later in the season, obviously, you're going to do a lot of your fishing right before dark or when it's just dark with spinners. I carry rusty spinners, and I carry coffin flies for like June. But I don't have a huge variation of dedicated spinners. And I just kind of wanted to know what you carry, and if you have a [00:15:30.039] spinner box or something like that. What do you have? Because I know that there's also blue and gold spinners. Basically, what colors should you really carry for spinners? Because I know not all spinners are like a rusty red color. And then my second question would be sulfurs. Are sulfur spinners yellow, [00:16:00.120] or they turn dark red or dark rusty red when they become spinners? Because I saw some dead sulfurs on the water, but they look like they were just dead duns, but they had the wings splayed out. So, I thought about carrying some rusty spinner-type flies, but just make them yellow. That's about it. Thank you.
Tom: Brandon, in general, I carry kind of generic spinner patterns. And some of them are... [00:16:30.320] Compare a spinner type with just clip tackles. Some are parachutes with a fairly short post. And some of them are tied with kind of a light grayish EP fiber wing. I use various types of spinners. But absolutely, you want to have rusty spinners in really size 12 through 22. Rusty spinner is one of the most valuable things you can carry, as you know. [00:17:00.039] And then I like to carry some tannish colored spinners as well. The sulfur spinners are kind of tannish and various shades of tan and brown. But I think just a medium tan spinner can be very useful in, say, a size 10 down to a 20 because your Gray Foxes and March Brown are kind of tannish-colored spinners. But then you have your outliers, like your big coffin [00:17:30.339] flies, which really imitates just one species. And then you'll have your little trico spinners, which are little tiny black-bodied things.
And the beta spinners, blue and yellow spinners are sometimes important. I have seen them on river. They're usually kind of a dark brown. But those sulfur spinners, generally, there's a lot of species of sulfurs. There's [00:18:00.059] a lot of variations in them. Some of them can be a rusty spinner. Some of them can be a kind of a light olivey tan color. And those ones that you saw that were bright yellow with the wings down were probably not spinners. They were duns that got knocked over. People call them knockdown duns. And you can imitate that with a spinner-type pattern if you want. But trout like those because they're kind of cripples, they're not going to fly away. [00:18:30.420] So, sometimes you can use a spinner pattern during a dun hatch because those flies sometimes fall over. They don't all make it into the air. Some get eaten, and some get knocked down and drowned. So, generally, the colors I carry, it's more important to have, I think, a variety of sizes and profiles than exact imitations of various species.
All right. Let's do another email. [00:19:00.160] One's from Mike from Texas. "Hi, Tom. Just started listening to the podcast a few months ago and love it. Thanks for all your help in teaching us the ways of the fly master. Question, I recently watched a YouTube video on using popper-dropper for bass. The video showed tying the dropper to the bend of the hook of the popper. When I use a dry dropper setup when I'm trout fishing, I like to use a dropper tag for the dry fly instead of tying the dropper to the bend of the hook of the dry fly. Would it work [00:19:30.119] to tie the popper to a dropper tag in a popper-dropper setup?" Well, Mike, I would try it and see. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't, but I think it makes things a little more complicated than you need to. You're going to have more tangles than you really want, I think. It makes sense sometimes with trout fishing because you want to be a little bit more subtle. But when you're fishing for bass and panfish, I [00:20:00.500] think just tying to the bend of the hook is going to be fine unless the dropper pulls your popper down because it's on the bend of the hook. That could be a problem. But I don't see any advantage to tying a separate dropper. It just makes things a little more complicated. I think probably the easiest solution here is the best.
Here's an email from Anthony. "My name is Anthony, and I'm from Michigan. It is common knowledge trout do not fare well [00:20:30.079] in water temps over 70 degrees. In Michigan, during the summer, we fish mainly at night. My question is, how long does it take for the fish to recover from water temperature peak? Let's say the water temp is 70 degrees at 5 p.m., then 65 at 10 p.m. when the hatch starts. How much caution should I use? Am I fine to fish in temps like these?" Well, Anthony, I think you are. Once the water cools off, it's going to hold more oxygen, and [00:21:00.339] a fish's metabolism is going to adjust to that cooler water temperature fairly quickly. Trout can survive quite well at 70 degrees for short periods of time. It's just the fact that when we start hooking them and jerking them around and stressing them that it's a problem at 70 degrees. So, if it was a max of 70 and it goes down to 65, I don't think you should have any problem. [00:21:30.640] I dare on the side of caution, at night, you're going to be fishing with heavy tippets, and I would get the fish in as quickly as possible so that you don't even have to revive them. Just with that heavy tippet, get them right in and release them. I think they should be fine. I don't think you should feel guilty about fishing at 65-degree water temperatures.
Here's an email from Bob in Texas. "I have a fly box [00:22:00.059] question. If you want a soft supple leader that will hold a knot which you claim is nearly impossible, why would fly fishermen not use braided line for tippets?" Well, Bob, I don't think I ever claimed that a soft supple leader is nearly impossible. A lot of filament is fairly supple. And the finer the diameter you use, the more supple it'll be and less resistance [00:22:30.302] to bending, so less problems with drag. Braided line, I don't think it worked very well for tippet because it's coarser and it's going to be bigger in diameter. Even though it's supple, it's going to be bigger in diameter. It's also going to be fairly visible. I do believe fish can always see our tippet, whether it's 7X or 8X fluorocarbon. I think they can still see it, but it's not as overt and not as [00:23:00.220] obnoxious and visible. If you started to tie braided line to a fly, I think it would not look as natural in the water, even if it might be a little more supple, which I doubt. I don't see any advantage to using braided line for tippets. It might be okay for something like largemouth bass that are not leader-shy [00:23:30.223] at all and don't care what you tie onto the eye of your fly. But I think for trout fishing and other more spooky fish, I don't think a braided line would be a good idea. But why don't you try it and see how it works.
Jared: Hi, Tom. This is Jared from Missoula, Montana. I've called in a few times, and I'm trying to help you out because you said you need some more voice messages. So, here we go. I just also wanted to say thank you for the last time you gave me advice [00:24:00.240] on asking about...I was asking about when I lose my line, everything below a tippet ring on a nymphing setup. And just to give detail, these are good tippet rings of a good source, good reputed brands. So, I don't think the sharpness was necessarily issue on the inside of the tippet ring, but tying the Trilene tippet knot on the inside of the ring seems to be helping that issue. So, I appreciate that advice. My question today comes [00:24:30.119] about fishing wet flies. I've really enjoyed the episode that you had almost exactly a year ago with Steve Culton. I've listened to that many times and trying to help my own wet fly game. My question is about losing the fish. So, a lot of times, you know, when you're swinging the wet or however it happens, just a lot of the time the wet fly take seems to happen below you [00:25:00.339] on the river downstream of you.
And for me, that's kind of the worst place to be to have a fish hooked because, you know, their mouth is facing upstream, they often just pop the hook right out. So, a lot of times when I'm catching these fish on the wet fly, it's happening below me, and I just lose them after, you know, maybe, you know, a couple seconds. And sometimes it's not necessarily because of setting [00:25:30.140] the hook too fast. I know that God save the queen or are you there thing to wait until the hook set. But for instance, yesterday, I was literally just dangling the fly as I was walking upstream, and I had two fish on, so I'm not even doing any hook set, they just bite it as I'm walking upstream. They're on for a few seconds, and then they get off. So, the question is, what do you think is the best method to be keeping these fish on that are inherently taking the fly downstream of you, which is a hard place to be keeping [00:26:00.240] a fish hooked. So, thanks for your help. I hope to make this on the podcast. Have a good day.
Tom: Jared, I'm glad that Trilene not worked on your tippet ring. Glad it's helping you land more fish. Regarding losing fish on wet flies, you know, you don't want to set the hook immediately, which you already...you don't want to set the hook at all, actually. You just want to wait till the fish hooks itself due to the tension [00:26:30.140] on the line and then just tighten and play the fish as normal. You're going to lose more fish on a downstream cast. It's just going to happen because of the hooking angle. You might try to angle your cast a little bit more so that the fish takes it more on a sideways drift than hanging directly downstream of you. The other thing is, [00:27:00.440] when you first feel the pressure of the fish and you tighten up on the fish, once you feel the fish is hooked, don't raise your rod tip straight up because that's going to pull the hook straight upstream. Try, if you can, to use side pressure right away in playing that fish. That may help using side pressure, may help to firmly seat that hook in the corner of their jaw and not to [00:27:30.140] pull directly upstream. But again, it's going to be tough, and, you know, some days you're just going to lose more fish on a downstream presentation. It's all there is to it.
Here's an email from Matt from France. "When you travel, do you take fly-tying equipment with you? If so, what is the deciding factor on when you do decide to take it with you? I'm heading on a two-week fishing trip to the States and wondering if it is worth taking along a basic [00:28:00.200] fly-tying kit. Thanks for the podcast and all you do. By the way, you need to add Brittany, France, to your bucket list. I just fish all day, never saw another angler, and caught 15 to 20 wild browns. Granted, they are on the small side, but the wine and chocolate tend to make up for that." Well, Matt, you know, rather than filling out my bucket list, I seem to add more to it every year, and I'm never going to get through it. But if I ever get a chance to get to Brittany, it sounds [00:28:30.119] like a great place to fish. Regarding fly-tying kits, you know, it's always difficult with air travel because you got some weight there, and you can't carry on a fly-tying kit or you can, but I would put my hooks and my vice and all my tools in my check luggage because even a fly tying vice can be construed as a tool over a certain length and the TSA or the authorities can [00:29:00.680] take it away from you. So, make sure that you check all of your scissors and all of your tools, and then I guess you could carry on the materials.
I don't always carry a fly tying kit because often I'm carrying too much other gear, waders, and boots, and fly boxes, and rods, and reels, and just don't have the room or the weight available. [00:29:30.200] But, you know, if I'm traveling by car, I will almost always take a small fly-tying kit with me. And what I do is, you know, I like it. I like it on trips where I know I'm only going to use a limited number of patterns, or I don't need a lot of materials. So, when I go stripe bass fishing here and I'm driving, I carry some bucktail, and some saddle hackle, and a little bit of flash, and a few sizes of hooks, and some foam for tying Gurglers. [00:30:00.539] And I can pretty much imitate whatever I want, a little epoxy maybe, some lead eyes, and I could pretty much do whatever I want. When I'm trout fishing and I'm on a road trip in my car, I will take, you know, one hackle of each color, I'll take an assortment of hooks, I'll take one dubbing assortment, one that has a lot of different colors in it, and I'll take some deer hair and [00:30:31.400] some EP fiber for wings, a little rabbit's foot, and that way, I can pretty much match any insect that I'm going to encounter.
So, you need to figure out where you're going and what you might encounter. I wouldn't worry about trying to take stuff to tie various attractor-type nymphs and things like that or streamers. I generally, [00:31:00.519] when I take a fly tying kit, if I need something, it's more likely going to be to match a particular hatch that I don't have a bug to imitate. So, that's the way I treat it. And, you know, it can be a pain but, boy, if you're on an extended trip, it can really be a great pleasure to go back in the evening and tie up some flies to use the next day. It's one of the greatest parts of fly fishing. So, [00:31:30.480] if you can, I'd take it. If you got the weight in your luggage and you can limit it to a certain number of materials, I would do it.
Here's an email from Matthew from Massachusetts. "I love the podcast and listen on my commute and enjoy the diverse fisheries you cover. I'm writing about the fishing that I engage in most, striped bass in Cape Cod. I'm a short drive from the Cape so I spend most of my fly fishing time there. The North Woods of Wisconsin is a close second. [00:32:00.319] But that's another question for another podcast. Shout out to Tim Landwehr and the fantastic episode you did with him on smallmouth fishing. On to my question. I had two friends in the boat last weekend. We were fishing a spot with a big tide, a channel, and a flat on either side of the channel. We were early in the incoming tide. We'd done some fishing in the channel without much success and were waiting for the flats to flood. We moved over and drifted the edge of the channel next to one of those flats where the water was almost too skinny [00:32:30.059] to float, looking for cruising fish. Well, we found them, a lot of them, cruising with the tide and against the tide, ones and twos, wolf packs of five to seven up to large groups of several dozen. We stopped drifting and anchored up in the shallow water on the edge and were treated to a literal conveyor belt of fish going by.
In the end, we laid eyes on several hundred stripers. I'm sure you can guess where this is going. We could not get one fish to commit. Lots of [00:33:00.220] follows, lots of refusals. We threw everything with every possible retrieve. I had the idea to park a small crab fly on the bottom with my deep sink line and wait for a fish to come near and move it. The current had other ideas for my crab fly. I should also mention the giant clouds of juvenile sand eels that were also present. I imagine you and everyone else are thinking the same thing. It's tough to get noticed in such a crowd. I'll rely on a quote from Lyle Lovett, [00:33:30.539] 'What would you be if you didn't even try? You have to try.' My question is, what would you have done in that situation? Break out a sandwich and enjoy the show? Hit the starter and look for a scenario with better odds? Is there a fly presentation or approach that comes to mind? Once the flats did fill up, we motored up onto them and had a great afternoon of surface activity. Once back in the truck, though, we were all thinking and talking about that highway full of [00:34:00.099] fish that cruised past our gunwale earlier that day."
Well, Matthew, I just got back from Cape Cod yesterday, and I've spent many, many years chasing the stripers on the flats on Cape Cod. So, I have lots of theories and sympathize with your problem because it happens. There's a number of things that could have contributed to that. First of all, I've found that [00:34:30.460] where you find striped bass in a fast current and moving in the fast current, it's difficult to present a fly properly because you really need to have that fish coming at you, and you need to strip the fly away from the fish. If you try to cast at the tail end of a fish, it's going away, like most saltwater fish, nearly impossible. Even a crossing shot can be a problem. [00:35:00.179] To try to get yourself positioned so those fish are coming at you and get your fly down to their level and keep it moving is tough. So, sometimes I will try to find a place where the current is a little softer, where the fish are kind of cruising out of the current. They'll move in the current and then some of them will peel off and go into a little bit softer water with less current. That'll sometimes help where you can get a better presentation.
[00:35:30.880] However, I think your main problem is that the fish that you saw in that channel were not feeding. They were migrating. My theory on the Cape Cod strippers is that the fish come in migrating from southern New England or the mid-Atlantic, and they're moving up the coast to find places to feed. They [00:36:00.420] feed at night offshore, and then they come into the shallows, into those flats, to warm up and digest. That's why you see them, I think, in big schools, and they don't appear to be feeding. You'll see them flash occasionally, but they're generally just moving, moving, moving. You don't see them feed. You'll see them swim right through those schools of sand eels, and they're not eating them. I think that you need to [00:36:30.460] intrigue them into just thinking there's a snack right in front of them that's going to be easy to eat because they're not actively feeding. Boy, doing that, I have friends who fish a depth charge, a sinking line. They cast it way ahead of the fish, get it on the bottom, get the line away from the fish, and then strip the fly when the fish comes in range. Now, I don't like that because [00:37:00.380] I think those sinking lines, when they hit the water, spook fish and you can't pick it up quickly and reposition. I use a clear tip floating running line with an intermediate clear tip.
I also use a long leader, basically a long tippet, a long 12-pound tippet. I know 12 pounds is a little bit light for a lot of striped bass anglers, but I think that it helps get my fly down [00:37:30.440] a little bit better and it's a little more subtle. In those cases, there's not a lot of snags. It's mostly sand, and you're not going to break off a fish in a snag or something, so you can get away with 12-pound. I use various flies, but mainly, I use a very small sparse fly, something that doesn't antagonize the fish or doesn't threaten them. It's just [00:38:00.179] small and a little clouser, a little shrimp fly, and just make it look like a snack, and get it in front of them, and twitch it, and then let it drop, and then twitch it, and let it drop. Now, I have other friends that are very successful who use a very fast erratic strip. But in general, those migrators, and I'm sure they're migrators, are you just need to keep trying, and you just need to keep trying different things. [00:38:30.639] Sometimes a bigger fly might work, sometimes a smaller fly. You just got to keep at it. And some days they'll turn on, some days they won't.
Those fish you saw later on, once the flat filled up, were probably either the same fish or maybe totally different group of fish that have already come in for the season and are settled in and are actively feeding. Probably a whole different group, but those guys you saw, I'm quite certain were migrators. And they can be [00:39:00.039] caught. Your idea of parking a small crab fly on the bottom with a deep sinking line, that does work. I've seen that work. But you just have to keep trying. And I would say 1 out of 100 shots to those fish, you're going to get a connection. You're going to get that fish that peels off and decides to eat your fly. But you've [00:39:30.199] got to have a lot of fish. You've got to find a lot of fish, and you've got to just play the odds.
Another email, I had a question a couple of weeks ago from David from Charlotte about sunglasses after I did the podcast with Renato on choosing polarized sunglasses. And he had a couple of questions. One was, how does Bajio recommend you clean your sunglasses? And then also, what would Bajio [00:40:00.059] recommend you do to prevent your glasses from fogging up? And I wanted to get the expert, so I posed these questions to Renato. And here is his answer. "So, for cleaning sunglasses, wipe away smudges and fingerprints with a premium microfiber cleaning cloth. Always be sure to rinse off dust and debris before wiping lenses. The cloth locks in skin oils and [00:40:30.179] grime. So, toss it in with regular laundry to maintain optimum cleaning performance. For tougher cleaning jobs, we recommend lens cleaners or a dab of liquid dish soap on each side without lotions. Apply cleaner, rub into lens with fingers, then wipe dry with tissue. Rinse first with water if using soaps."
And that's pretty much what I do. A lot of people I know, and I do this by these [00:41:00.500] Zeiss lens cleaner packets, little foil packets, and you can stick them in your fishing pack or even in your pocket, and they have alcohol there, an alcohol cleaner. And this is especially good in salt water because unless you rinse your glasses with fresh water, you're going to get a kind of a salt haze on your glasses. So, rinsing them with fresh water and then using these alcohol lens [00:41:30.539] cleaning cloths will work pretty well. And then if you're home, you're near a sink, then I do the same thing. I rinse the glasses first, make sure there's no debris on them. Then I take a little dishwashing liquid and rub it onto the lens. And then I use paper towel or cotton cloth rather than tissue because I think you get more lint from tissue and [00:42:00.219] paper towels seem to have less lint, so you have less lint on the glasses.
And then the second question, how do you prevent your glasses from fogging up? Renato says, "I recommend choosing a sunglass that does not fit tight against the cheeks and face as there may be little ventilation to prevent fogging. In very hot, humid weather, it can become more difficult. For occasional use in extreme weather situations, it may be helpful to have anti-fog cleaners or [00:42:30.280] wipes in your tackle box. Here's a product that can help." And then he gave a link to a product called Nano Magic Anti-Fog Solutions. So, again, Nano Magic. I don't know anything about the product, but if they recommend it, sounds good. And this will help to eliminate. It's a military-grade fog stopper that was originally designed to provide Navy SEALs [00:43:00.079] with fog-free vision in the most extreme conditions. So, it should work for us fly anglers.
Donald: Hi, Tom. This is Donald from Queensbury, New York. I'm calling about fishing smaller dry flies. I'm 27, and I know some people who've been fishing a lot longer than me and are probably a lot older are going to laugh at this, but I have really found that fishing smaller dry flies can be pretty frustrating, especially here in the East, [00:43:30.320] where to my knowledge, you need to bake pretty far cast in order to not spook the spooky wild trout around here. And if there's something really small coming off the water, number one, it's a little hard to see what it is, but number two, I found that it's just really annoying to try to find the fly on the water and to keep good presentation, like know if I need to mend or something like that. I know I can see the line, but I like to see the leader as well and the fly. And I find it's a lot easier, obviously, [00:44:00.679] throwing like a larger Royal Wulff or something like that, where I can tell really easily. So, I'm wondering if you have any tips on just really seeing that fly on the water other than just focusing...well, getting regular eye exams and stuff like that. Maybe it's worth going to the specific run that I want to fish with a larger fly and just kind of practicing and figuring out exactly how that run works to where [00:44:30.159] I can kind of have a better idea in my head of how that area of current works, or just suck it up and do it. So, thanks, and appreciate the podcast, and hope to hear an answer on the air. All right. Take care. Bye.
Tom: So, Donald, there are a bunch of solutions. None of them are optimum. And as you said, you may just have to suck it up and estimate. But here's a few things you can do. One is [00:45:00.219] grease your leader. Use fly paste or line dressing or something that's oily and put it on your leader. Now, I know a lot of people say that your leader shouldn't float because it casts a shadow. I don't think it matters. I know a lot of good anglers who do this. By having your leader float, you may be able to see the leader on the water and it'll lead a trail to your fly. So, that's one thing to do. The other thing that I'll [00:45:30.159] often do is use a desiccant powder. Not only does a desiccant powder make the fly float a little bit higher, but it makes it a little lighter. And sometimes that will help you see the fly. Other things you can do, change positions. You know, if you change your position a little bit, you may get a different light situation, and you may be able to see your fly better. Get a little closer if you can. If you can wade closer, [00:46:00.059] be careful. You don't spook the fish, but wade closer.
Another thing you can do is to...if you're wearing polarized sunglasses, take off your sunglasses and use either safety glasses or yellow lens shooting glasses. You always need some glasses over your eyes to protect your eyes when you're fishing. But sometimes glare is your friend when you're dry fly fishing. And I have found that many times by taking off my sunglasses [00:46:30.079] and wearing my regular prescription glasses, I have a little bit better resolution because I'm blocking less light. And also, the glare will sometimes help you spot that fly. So, you know, sometimes glare can be your friend. Another idea is to make a slightly overpowered cast so your fly lands with a little bit of a plop and, you know, do it far away from the fish or above the fish and see [00:47:00.300] where the fly lands. Your idea of practicing first with a bigger fly so that you can see the drag situation and the presentation situation is a good idea. I have a spot where I fish frequently right into the dark, and I always go during the day and make a few casts with a dry fly so that I can see what angle I need to cast it to avoid drag.
[00:47:30.500] And then, you know, you can always use a bigger dry fly and trail a smaller fly dry behind it or even a little tiny indicator on or a piece of some of this wax that they use for siters for Euro-nymphing. I don't like doing either of those things when there's a hatch on because it's a little bit less subtle and it seems to increase drag when you have a bigger fly in front of your small fly. So, none of those are [00:48:00.000] great ideas. But you may try some of them in different situations and see if they help. All right, that is the Fly Box for this week. Let's go talk to Chad about some very interesting and innovative ways of stillwater trout fishing. Well, my guest today is Chad Critchley. Chad is from the UK and is a guide. Chad, how long have you been guiding in the UK?
Chad: [00:48:30.694] I've probably been guiding for about six years, really. I've put a lot more time into it in the last couple of years. Prior to that, it's just been a bit sort of sporadic, as in, when we put more time into it, probably in the last 18 months.
Tom: Yeah. And before that, you did a lot of competitive angling in the UK, correct?
Chad: Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. I've done a lot of all types of angling, but fly fishing started really with [00:49:00.039] stillwater, and then sort of never aimed to get into competitions, kind of fell into it really. Just fishing with friends and then some friendly competitions and then got into it a lot more. And that was pretty much all I did for quite a good few years.
Tom: Well, the listeners will be glad to know that we're not going to talk about competitive fishing today because I don't think there's a lot of interest amongst my listeners. But what we are going to talk about is [00:49:30.300] what I think most people perceive as the much more sophisticated way that you in the UK and in Europe, in general, approach stillwater trout angling as compared to how we do it in the States. So, let's talk about some of those things that you do in stillwater that are [00:50:00.159] probably aren't very popular or even well known over here.
Chad: Without knowing exactly what goes up over there, I'll go into what the sort of things we do really with stillwaters. Is it more about sort of just the tactics we use and how we change tactics, etc?
Tom: Yeah, I think for the most part, with the exception of people like Phil Rowley and Brian Chan up [00:50:30.000] in Canada, most stillwater anglers in the States either chuck a streamer out there and strip it back. They throw a dry fly to rising fish, or they might throw a nymph out there either under an indicator or not. But beyond that, I get the impression, I don't do a lot of stillwater angling, but I get the impression that beyond that, we don't do an awful lot.
Chad: Yeah. Well, not sort [00:51:00.420] of linking too much into the competition side of things, but techniques when I go out sort of pleasure fishing on stillwaters, which again is what I used to do before I started looking at the rivers a lot more. Changing the tactics on a regular basis seems to be one of the key points rather than just where you're saying putting streamers out or putting nymphs out, rather than just going out and sticking with one method. The thing that I really learned was to change as [00:51:30.820] the conditions change throughout the day. And at the minute over in the UK, the weather is still unpredictable in the space of the day. Changing the tactics may be from fishing buzzers, nymphs, straight line in or under an indicator, changing your depth with your droppers, then next minute you're going on to a fast sinking line that's a Di7, 7 inches per second pulling lures through. And then you might just end up [00:52:00.199] cooking wets out, just fishing through the surface because the fish aren't directly on the surface, but just under and getting the wets just under that surface film might then sort of get that take. And the fish at the minute I've learned, especially this year, have been changing in depth that they've been feeding at consistently throughout the day.
Tom: Yeah, you were telling me about how many different lines you carry with you?
Chad: Yeah. So, again, this came from the competition side of things that I started to realize just [00:52:30.260] the impact the lines have. So, obviously, when I first started all them years ago, as most people do, it's just a floating line, and off you go, and you're using your flies to change with your depths. But I've probably got about 35 different lines.
Tom: Oh my God.
Chad: That's probably underestimating it, all on cassette reels and that ranges. I mean, when I first started, I'd have a float in an intermediate, [00:53:00.199] probably a sink 3 and a sink 7, something like that. Whereas now, I've got different types of floater, I've got different types of intermediate with fast, slow, and then on top of that, I've then got floating lines with intermediate tips or with ghost tips, which is like a clear tip that's 10 foot long. Then I've got others with a...for fishing the buzzers, I like to fish quite a lot with a midge tip, which is probably something you've heard that you [00:53:30.079] probably already used that over there, I would imagine.
Tom: Now, tell people what fishing the buzzers is because that may not even be apparent to most of my listeners.
Chad: Buzzers, so it can be absolutely deadly buzzers. The right time of the year, and I would say...I mean, they'll take buzzers all year. I mean, do you use buzzers at all over there?
Tom: Well, I think what you're referring to as buzzers is midges, right? Chironomid?
Chad: Yeah, pretty [00:54:00.199] much, yeah. That's it. I mean, I've got thousands of different buzzer patterns and have probably got two or three that are my go-tos that I know work all year round, but we'll fish them in teams. There's a number of different ways of fishing buzzers, again. So, fishing buzzers are high up in the surface on something called a washing line, which is fishing a floating line, or maybe something with a midge tip where the tip just sinks underneath. You [00:54:30.320] could also fish this method on a sinking line. So, basically, in a nutshell, the point line is very buoyant. So, it would be something along the lines of a booby with big foam eyes that allow it to float or a really big muddler or something like that. So, a very buoyant fly is the point. And then the flies then coming up the line that you'd fish on your droppers would be buzzers or different types of nymphs. [00:55:00.119] So, it's basically creating you this slight bow from the buoyant fly up on the surface. And it's a bow through the surface that then comes back up to your floating line. So, if the fish are feeding quite high up, fishing that on a floating line, it can suspend your buzzers just underneath the surface. So, it's a way of fishing the flies quite high up.
Tom: So, how do you attach the [00:55:30.500] droppers? What did you call them? We call them droppers. What did you...?
Chad: Yeah, droppers, yeah. Just fishing droppers.
Tom: How do you attach them to the leader?
Chad: Well, I'd generally use surgeon's knot or 3-turn or 4-turn water knot, something along those lines. And the way you'd fish, there's a bit of...people have their own preference with [00:56:00.039] attaching the droppers, but I always fish them with the dropper. So, if you imagine, you should tie your knot on, and I have it with a dropper so that the dropper coming off is pointing away from the knot towards the end of the fly line. Does that makes sense?
Tom: Yes.
Chad: So, as you're retrieving, it's always pushing the dropper away from the main line. I've seen quite a few people tie it the opposite way around, but then if you're retrieving, [00:56:30.460] it's pushing the dropper against your line. And I've had quite a few fish that have took the fly and actually bit through the leader. The dropper come up, took the fly, and then bit through the leader. So, I'll try and put the droppers on that way. And I'll fish anything from...I mean, competitions, generally, you have restrictions on the number of flies that you can fish with. Very rarely would I fish more than three, maybe four flies on a leader. [00:57:02.380] So, in regards to that washing line, I'd have the point flying the point. Then before that, I would probably have three droppers with two buzzers and maybe even put on the top dropper a dry or a wet.
Tom: Wow. So, you have to tie three or four surgeon's knots in that leader when you're doing it.
Chad: Yeah, yeah. [00:57:30.000] Hence why I fish relatively strong leader material because, obviously, the more knots I'm putting on the weaker, I'm making the overall strength of the setup of the leader with all the droppers on.
Tom: Right. So, your bottom fly, your last fly in line is a floater, booby or a muddler or something like that. And do you...
Chad: Yeah, something buoyant.
Tom: And you use that both for an indicator and a way to suspend the [00:58:00.079] flies?
Chad: No, that won't be an indicator. Again, I'm just retrieving and obviously changing the speed of the tree. So, it might be a slow figure of eight retrieve or just slow pull. Generally, you'll fish the washing line relatively slow. Not always, but generally, you're fishing quite slow, keeping them buzzers or the nymph tie-up in this or the wet tie-up in the surface. And just the same as...I suppose you'd chuck streamers out and you'd be pulling or retrieving or letting them swing around, [00:58:30.239] and you're waiting for that pull. Same sort of thing really with a washing line setup. If I was using a fly as an indicator, there's a number of different things that we use that you probably do, but in the competitions, a lot of the indicators have to be capable of taking a fish. So, they have to have a hook in them. So, there's a fly called an aero bump [SP]. She's tied by a company over here. And it's [00:59:00.059] like a booby basically, but with almost like a poly yarn/antron is the body. So, it stays up high. And then a bit like the New Zealand style with a ring whipped on the shank of the hook. And then the leader, tied direct onto that, dropping straight down under the indicator. And I'd probably have a team of three buzzers on that. But I would use the indicator.
So, like, this time of the [00:59:30.039] year at the minute, buzzers are quite right all around the waters and the buzzer fishing is quite good. And I would always set up initially the buzzer fishing in that method with an indicator with a team of three buzzers, probably anything between sort of three, probably around three feet apart, each one down to the point line, and use the indicator to try and gauge an idea...as the buzzers fished underneath the indicator, try and gauge an idea of what depth the fish are at. Normally, [01:00:00.039] that will be dictated by the fly that's been taken the most. And then once that's happened, what I'll also do is while I might tie an extra dropper on the leader, and depending on what depth I'm getting the take that the most [inaudible 01:00:19.577] top dropper is being ignored. And then I know they're not that high up. If I'm getting everything on the point or my middle dropper, what I'll do is I'll have spare droppers tied in between those. So, I'll [01:00:30.000] take the fly off the top dropper and just leave it and move that fly down to a lower dropper. So, actually, my three flies are now fishing all roughly around the same, the depth I think the fish are roughly in. So, I could tie leader sometimes with four or five droppers on, but only actually fish three flies. And those droppers are there to be able to basically move the flies on the leader, depending on what depth I think the [01:01:00.019] fish are.
Tom: Right. In this case, do you move that indicator slightly?
Chad: No, the indicator stays. Generally, what I'll do...I don't know how the guys fish the indicator there, but I would fish the indicator quite close to the fly line. And I would always use something like...I mean, I use Maxima a lot of the time, which is a nylon float. And [01:01:30.320] I'd only fish probably a length of nylon, probably about 2 to 3 feet at the very most from the fly line to the dropper. And then I'd have the leader obviously then straight down from the dropper. And the reason I would fish a shorter length of line between the fly line and the dropper, if we're talking about floating line, is what I don't want to do if that line sinks, is start to pull the indicator closer. I want that line to stay on the surface. But also, if I hook into a fish and I've got a lot of line between [01:02:00.619] the indicator and the fly line, I'm going to be struggling to get the fish in if it takes the bottom dropper because of how far down it'd be. The shorter the line I've got between the end of the fly line and the indicator, the longer it allows me to fish the leader.
Tom: And, Chad, how deep might some of these flies be on this rig, below the indicator?
Chad: [01:02:30.860] As deep as you want to set it below the indicator really, but what you've got to take into account is if you're going to be able to land the fish. Now, if I think the fish are quite deep, I might set the leader about, I don't know, probably between 10 and 15 feet, but then I've got to be able to land the fish if it takes the bottom dropper. Now, if the distance is 15 feet from the indicator to the point fly, and I'm fishing a 10-foot rod, obviously, I've got a 5-foot difference that I've got to try [01:03:00.059] because that indicator is going to come right into the eye of the rod. So, sometimes I'm actually stood on the seat of the boat getting myself up. So, I'm sort of giving myself an extra few feet to try and land the fish so I can make it a bit tricky. And I have got myself in some situations before doing that, trying to fish just a bit too deeper than I should do. And it's taken me a long while to net the fish. But, yeah, you're limited really, I think, when you're fishing an indicator as to what depth [01:03:30.119] you can go to.
Tom: Yeah, I know that my friend Phil Rowley has a method where his indicator detaches from the line but slides. He somehow puts a loop inside the indicator, and then when things go tight, when a fish is hooked, the indicator slides down so that you can land that fish a lot easier. Have you ever done that?
Chad: Yeah, I've [01:04:00.400] done a similar thing with...so, rather than actually having the indicator tied to the line, it's put on with a silicon tube. And that allows it. So, the silicon tube just goes on the shank of it. I just put the tube on the line and then all I do is just thread the hook through that silicon tube. And then if it does hit the eye, it just slides down the line. So, that's it. I found that quite the simplest method and your indicator then stays [01:04:30.079] attached. That's worked quite well for me in the past. But generally, when I'm buzzer fishing, normally here, I'm not fishing that deep. If I want to get that deep and the fish are that deep, I'd be putting a sinking line on.
Tom: So, if you're fishing a buzzer or a team of buzzers, which is a relatively small fly, and you're using a sinking line for those, how do you [01:05:00.059] rig your leader then?
Chad: It depends how deep I want to get. So, if I want to get the buzzers right down, so a lot of times early winter, it might be fishing on bloodworms, so I want to get the buzzers right down to the bottom. I would generally go a relatively shorter leader because the shorter the leader, the quicker those flies are going to get to the depth I want them. If I fish a longer leader, obviously, the [01:05:30.239] line's going to be getting to the bottom before the actual flies do. So, again, I would potentially fish a team of three flies probably, sometimes four, and I might on a heavy sinking line... It depends on the method. I might put a booby on the point again with a heavy sinking line, a shorter leader with two buzzers on the dropper to get them down quicker. But the booby is just allowing that line, the leader just to suspend [01:06:00.059] above the surface because if I put a heavier fly on the point, and I'm fishing a heavy sinking line, and I want to get down to the bottom quick, then I'm risking that point fly getting right to the bottom and everything's just snagging up on the bottom all the time. So, in that sort of situation, I might put a booby or a FAB. I don't know if you've used FABs out there, Foam Assed Blobs?
Tom: I think you should describe [01:06:30.679] both a booby and a FAB because I don't think most of my listeners are going to know what they are.
Chad: Yeah. Well, a booby is basically a fly tide and it's got a wing on the back. I mean, you can tie any type of fly as a booby version. And it's just basically got two bulbous foam eyes tied onto it. So, you'd have your cylindrical foam, you'd whip that on just behind the eye of the hook as though it's [01:07:00.059] two eyes, and then you can trim it down with a pair of scissors to shape it if you wish. Some people just leave it cylindrical really. And then you put a lot of boobies that are tied with marabou wings on them. Numerous different colors, pinks, whites, sort of cat's whisker colors, black and green. You can go on forever with them like you can with any fly. And that's a booby. Now, that's very buoyant. [01:07:30.039] So, you could fish it on the surface, pulling it through the surface on a floating line, fish it so that's on a washing line, on a floating line so your actual flies on the dropper sink and your booby sits on the top, or you could fish a booby on a sinking line and that gets you this big arc in your leader as your sinking line goes down to the bottom and your booby is sort of following the sinking line down.
And that can be a good method sometimes if you want it. The fish are really deep, fishing on the bottom. I remember fishing Rutland in a competition. [01:08:01.099] Rutland Water was just huge water and the fish were really deep. Fishing a Di7 sinking line, so sinking a 7 inches second to get down quick a short leader with a booby on the point, two nymphs on the droppers, and fishing it really slow. So, I was probably dragging the fly line across the bottom, but the actual leader, because it was suspended with the booby, was just hovering above [01:08:30.239] the bottom. A lot of fish were taken as you start to pull the sinking line back up, that booby was just finishing the arc, touching the bottom and coming up, and they were hitting it as soon as it was reaching the bottom.
Tom: Now, do fish ever eat the booby as well as the nymphs?
Chad: Oh, yeah, booby will probably take most fish in that sort of situation. Yeah, I've won quite a few competitions and done well in competitions fishing boobies. Yeah, the boobies can be a [01:09:00.260] deadly fly. Yeah, really, really good.
Tom: Really simple and really deadly.
Chad: Yeah, really simple. I mean, if you look online at different types of boobies, there's not much to them. Really easy to tie, very little to them. And to be honest, if I was fishing that sort of style, I'd fish it with the booby probably being my key fly, the one that I think I'm going to take the fish on, hence they're on there as a bonus, really.
Tom: Right. Okay. And then what's a FAB?
Chad: [01:09:30.411] So, a FAB is basically a version of a blob, which [crosstalk 01:09:36.249] when I first started fishing. Again, if you look online at blobs, it's basically a fly tied up. There's a bit of debate over what it represents. I mean, the main debate I've done here is it represents something called Daphnia, which you'll probably have out there.
Tom: We do.
Chad: Daphnia obviously clumps together. I generally like it, an orangey, greeny, sometimes [01:10:00.600] pale color, it all clouds up, but they bunch up. And what FAB does with material is tied with...and there's numerous different materials you can tie it with here. And again, just look online, you'll see all the different things you can tie it with. And it looks like a blob. That's the blob of color. That's the best way I can describe it. And I probably in competitions, won more competitions fishing blobs. [01:10:30.220] And a Foam Assed Blob is exactly the same, but with a piece of foam in the center of it.
Tom: Oh, so FAB is Foam Assed Blob.
Chad: Yeah. So, the foam sits in the center of the FAB, but at the back of it. So, it sits at the back of the hook. And what that does is you're retrieving, it gives it that sort of movement. So, it sort of tilts back and forth as it's coming through the water. And what it also does with the material it's [01:11:00.560] tied with, is you pull it through with certain materials, it releases lots of little air bubbles. When you watch it in the water, I think can look a bit like Daphnia. But when you look at it, and I remember first looking, I was thinking, "Well, what's that supposed to represent?" To look at it, represents nothing, but it's a big attractor fly, really. But the fish will hit it. And I've probably took [01:11:30.100] most fish on that fly than any in competitions. And fishing that either a FAB or the blob on the top dropper, just fishing two flies, so that on a long leader, that was a dropper, and then the lure of some description on the point, pulling that through. A lot of the times you'll get them hit the dropper. Sometimes the blob will act as the attractor, and they'll hit the fly at the back. Not really any massive pattern in relation [01:12:00.119] to that. You could have chances catching on either, really, the blob or the dropper, or the point fly, sorry.
Tom: Yeah. The FAB may just attract the attention of the fish, and then they see the slightly more logical nymphs and eat them.
Chad: Yeah, yeah. But then I've watched fish swim, I've fished a team of four flies, so a FAB or a blob on the top dropper, a booby on the point, or a lure on the point, [01:12:30.060] and two nymphs in between. I've watched fish swim past all three flies from the point to two nymphs and take the blob.
Tom: Oh, wow. Interesting.
Chad: That's happened quite a few times where they'll just come past everything and hit the blob.
Tom: The blob. I got to start tying up some blobs.
Chad: If I had to pick one fly for competition fishing or stillwater fishing, I had to stick with, that would probably be the one.
Tom: Okay. How big are [01:13:00.439] these blobs? What size hook do you tie them on?
Chad: When I first started fishing, they were probably on a size 10 hook. I'll fish them down to a size 14. Generally, my favorite color in a blob is orange, like a hot orange. One of the most popular ones is called a Tequila Blob, which is like a fiery sunburst yellow [01:13:30.119] with an orange patch to it, like a combination of colors.
Tom: Okay. It's just kind of like jelly. Isn't there some kind of jelly yarn or something that they use to tie those?
Chad: That's it. Yeah. The jelly one that they use, it's like a fritz, basically, a jelly fritz. There's loads. Initially, it was like...the jelly fritz kind of came at second time. Before, it was [01:14:00.000] just almost like a chenille fritz when they first started. And then it's just developed from there with different materials. There's loads of different materials that you can tie it with, really, and people have just played about. The jelly fritz is probably the one I use more than anything. It's just one I've seen to add a lot of takes on it. It sits quite well, quite durable as well.
Tom: You just wind it on a hook, right? That's all you do.
Chad: Yeah. Yeah. [01:14:30.020] There's very little to it. The really easy fly-to-tie will take you seconds to tie one up.
Tom: When you put the foam...
Chad: These ones, I quite like. Sorry, say again.
Tom: When you make a FAB, where do you put the foam and what kind of foam do you use?
Chad: Use it towards the back of the fly, so towards the ass end basically of the hook, just before it starts to bend around at the bottom of the shank. You could use any foam. [01:15:00.220] It's just the buoyancy you want with it. Any kind of foam really you could use, you don't have to just go buy fly and stuff. You can buy anything you want. I'll tend to use, probably depending on the color of the fly, so from fishing in orange, what we call a Tequila Blob, which has the orange at the front and the yellow sort of in the back end of it, I'll probably use yellow foam on it. But to be honest, I don't think it really matters what kind of foam you put in it. So, it's more about giving it that buoyancy. [01:15:30.060]
Tom: Excuse me for being ignorant of the tying technique, but people are going to want... Do you use flat foam and tie a fold-over piece of foam, or how do you attach the foam? What kind of foam and how do you attach it?
Chad: Yeah. So, you can buy the foam. It depends on the size of the blob I'm using, but I buy it already cylindrical and quite narrow. And what I'll do is I'll [01:16:00.319] cut a bit of that off towards the end. So, I'm tying it on with a small amount of the foam. So, there's less foam through the center of the hook. So, there's more foam at the ass end of it basically. So, I want less foam in the body and more at the back end of it. Whereas the booby is working in a completely different way. The foam is at the front of the fly. Whereas on a FAB, it's at the back, [01:16:30.532] and both effective on different methods in different ways, really. I mean, I've fished competitions where I've fished a team of three FABs.
Tom: Oh my God.
Chad: And there are no nymphs or anything, just FABs on there, or FABs and boobies. It's a case of just having a play around. And like with anything, with the rivers, with everything, you get confident in certain flies that you use because you've had good results on them. [01:17:00.060] But again, back to the fly lines in relation to FABs and boobies, I'd fish a booby on a floating line all the way down to a Di7, same with a FAB. Change the speed of the retrieve, change the...a lot of the time people think you're fishing...you tell someone you're fishing, you've had all your fish on a Di7 line. They'll think you're fishing deep. But if you're retrieving fast, it's not going far down at all. So, you're still fishing relatively high up. [01:17:30.020] It's just that the fish are a foot, 2 feet under the surface, and they want the flies moving fast. Other days, I'll turn up and they want the flies moving as slow as you can possibly move them, or even static. And again, it's just trial and error on the day and working out, one, where they are, and, two, how deep they are and how fast they want the flies moving. You find it's more interesting...
Tom: You can never predict that, can you? How deep the [01:18:00.220] fish are going to be feeding and cruising?
Chad: No, and that it'll change the amount of days I've had out, especially on competitions, but just on pleasure days where you're out and when I'm guiding on stillwater, where you think you've cracked it, and then it just stops. And it's just a case of thinking, "Right, well, that's not working." So, changing methods, going down in the water, coming up in the water, changing flies. And it's just trial and error really with that. And over time, you start to build up when certain conditions [01:18:30.479] arise, what will work and where the fish are likely to be and what depth they're going to be. But, yeah, they'll change depth constantly throughout the day, I'd say. Same with buzzers. There are fish teams of buzzers, and for the first, I might go straight out, start hitting fish straight away and everything's taking the top dropper just under the surface. And then all of a sudden, it goes quiet, and then you switch on again, and they're all taking the point fly, which is another 6, 7 feet below it, and nothing's taking [01:19:00.000] the top. That could be the bright weather that affects it, could be the temperatures. And generally, in this country, later in the year, it gets...the warmer the water temperatures, they push into the middle. And if we have constant sun, the fish just like to go deep and become really difficult to catch. And then we start using flies that turn some traditionalists in the graves like snakes and things like [01:19:30.260] that.
Tom: Well, let's talk about that because I know a lot of the lakes in this country, particularly the Northern Lakes in Maine and Vermont and New Hampshire get warm during the summer and the fish go deep near spring holes or whatever. What are some of those dirty techniques that you use?
Chad: So, yeah, I call it a blank saver. [01:20:00.500] When you get those conditions, your calm condition is very little in the way of breeze, constant hot weather, sunshine, clear skies, and you know the fish have gone deep, you've got to go deep after them. So, I'd probably fish...one of the lines I have is called a booby basher. And it's a really long sinking head on it. It's all body to the head of it. This Di8, so 18 per second, [01:20:30.640] sinks incredibly fast. I chuck that out, put either a booby, or I think my pretty much guaranteed blank saver is a snake.
Tom: Now, what is a snake?
Chad: So, a snake would be a bit like a minky, the minky type fly. So, it's tied with sort of mink fur on the back of it, which gives it that [01:21:00.779] sort of movement and that realistic movement to it. But you'd fish it long. We have different types of snakes. It's nothing to do with a snake, by the way. Nothing like a normal snake, just because of the length of it and the movement that it makes. So, probably about...I would say the snake eye fish is probably around 4 inches long, 3.5 to 4 inches long. Now, it has two hooks. It has a hook, the original main [01:21:30.220] hook, which is at the top of this fly. The problem is with fishing a snake, if you don't have another hook down towards the tail end of the fly, a lot of fish you'll get just bite in the back of the fly. So, you'll get pulls, but never hook up because they're just attacking it from the back. So, to negate that fly, we would put a fly in the back end of the snake as well. So, there's one at the front and one at the back tied with a really tough nylon [01:22:00.640] or floss in between the two. It's just that when you put it in the water, the movement in it, it moves like a snake, where you get that sort of constant movement through the body.
Tom: So, it's like a leech, probably. It's something like what we would call a leech fly.
Chad: Yeah. I think that's probably is very similar. I mean, I don't know how long you would fish the leech flies over there because they're relatively long, aren't they? Yeah, [01:22:30.359] typically, not as long as 4 inches, though. That would be a long leech. But maybe we should be trying longer leeches.
Chad: Yeah, they're all effective. They're really effective. I mean, they didn't really start becoming massively popular here until, I don't know, probably six, seven years ago when they really started getting used by a lot more people. But chucking that on a sinking line, fishing it really slow, even just chucking a sinking line out [01:23:00.079] and just leaving it static and just letting the whole thing sink to get it down as deep as you can, and then just start weaving it.
Tom: When you tie that, is it just a strip of mink or rabbit or whatever, or is there anything...?
Chad: Yeah, you could just do that, or you could put...my favorite one is a black one and then I tie sort of silver and UV, long strips of [01:23:30.060] silver and UV flash from the eye as well. Same length as a snake. So, I tie that on from the eye. So, it almost sticks to either side of the minkie, basically the mink fur. So, it just gives that bit of a flash. But sometimes you could do a combination of colors, or like a green flash or a green yarn or something like that on it if you want to fish black and green. You can tie anything you want into [01:24:00.140] it, really. The main part of the fly is the length of the body and tying it up with the mink fur. So, you get that movement as it pulls through, that snake movement in the body, but also the pulsating through the mink fur.
Tom: Is the second hook attached to the mink fur as well, or is that just swing-free?
Chad: Yeah, no, that's tied to the mink fur as well. So, the two hooks are obviously tied with either the really strong nylon or a strong floss between [01:24:30.800] the two. And then the both hooks are tied onto the mink fur so they're both attached. And, yeah, it's my blank saver. If it's one of them tough days where nothing's working, chucking one of them on a sink line, fishing deep, and like you say, deep and dirty, that tends to be a real good way of getting the takes.
Tom: It sounds [01:25:00.359] similar to an intruder steelhead fly, kind of.
Chad: All right. Okay.
Tom: They're a little more ornate, but a similar kind of long wiggly thing usually.
Chad: Yeah, there's nothing pretty about these flies. Also, fishing them, so some you'll tie with a bead chain eye if you want that bit of weight on it, some you'll tie with nothing like [01:25:30.239] that. Others, you could tie a snake as a booby version, you can put two foam eyes on it. Again, fish that on a sinking line, or you could fish on a floating line, there's nothing to say you can't, but fish that on a sinking line and let it come deeper. And you get that movement from the side like a snake, but you're also getting that movement up and down because you've got the foam eyes at the front of the fly. If you give those little tweaks and sometimes just pulling it through and just little short jerks on that fly line as you're pulling it [01:26:00.060] through, it just gives it that sudden movement and that wobble. Kind of along the line, you're fishing lures, really, big lures.
Tom: Yeah, well, a lot of the streamer fishing or lure fishing that we do is just like lures, right? Spinning lures, very similar at times.
Chad: Yeah. And I'll fish a snake as well if I'm fishing that sort of method. I'll more than likely put one of the fly on a dropper, then I'll put probably a blob on. [01:26:30.119] That'll probably be my go-to, hot orange blob, something like that. Have that there as the attractor. If I'm wanting to get really deep and quickly, I'll fish a much shorter leader. So, I'll fish a total leader of maybe 7 feet. If I don't think the fish are ridiculously deep and I want to pull fast and just get that attention of the fish, then I'll fish a much longer leader. Sometimes it's twice [01:27:00.340] the length of the rod, if not more. It depends how I'm fishing it. It all depends on what method I'm fishing, really, and what depth I think they are. If I want to get deep, and that's my rule, if I want to get deep quick, shorter leader. If I'm staying relatively higher up in the water, I'll fish a much longer leader with the flies further apart. Then on top of the sinking lines, where I mentioned before [01:27:30.260] with the number of lines that I have, have you heard of sweep lines?
Tom: Sweep lines? No.
Chad: Yeah. So, where we'd have...so, to give you an idea of the lines that I have in my box, so I've got numerous different floaters, then I've got different types of sink tips. I've then got a neutral density, which pretty much hovers just under the surface film of the water. So, it doesn't really sink, really float. It's just like [01:28:00.180] a neutral...some people call them hover lines, but the one I've got is called neutral density. Then I'll have a slow intermediate that will sink about an inch to an inch and a half per second. Fast intermediate, there'll be 2 to 2.5 inches per second. Then I'll have a Di3, Di5, Di7, Di8, and the number dictating it, obviously, the inch of second it sinks. Then of those versions, sink rates. I'll then have those versions in [01:28:30.119] a sweep line.
So, if you're fishing a straight sinking line, obviously, as it sinks, it sinks in like a curve from the rub tip through the water along the body of the line, as you're pulling your flies back. You can then fish by sinking line, or use a sinking line that's a 5/7. So, the top end of the fly line sinks at 5 inches per second, the bottom end sinks at [01:29:00.600] 7 inches per second. It's almost like a multiple-density line, dual-density, or even triple-density. And what that does is it means the line sinks almost straight because the head of the fly line is heavier than the body of the fly line further up. And I find those lines incredibly effective because you're fishing that line almost straight, so they're a lot more sensitive. So, you hook up rate [01:29:30.380] if you get a take and you feel the take is much higher on those sort of lines. Now, what a sweep line does...but obviously, if that line sinks, you're going through a different depth of the water.
What a sweep line does is it has all the weight in the main body of the line. So, say you've got a Di7 body, but the tip of the fly line might be a 5 and the top end of the fly line or the running end of the fly line will be a 5, so that then sinks in [01:30:00.640] like a U-shape almost. And as you're retrieving, it stays in that shape because you've a lighter... Once you get a good idea of what depth the fish are at and judging the speed of your retrieve, once you get to the depth you want retrieving at the same speed, that keeps that fly roughly at that depth, depending on how deep you want them to get it. So, whenever that fly has [01:30:30.079] been retrieved is always in that U-shape. And that's basically the simplest way I can explain a sweep line.
Tom: Is it sweep, S-W-E-E-P as in Peter, or a sweet line?
Chap: Yeah.
Tom: Sweep. Okay.
Chad: That's sweep, S-W-E-E-P. Yeah. And again, in certain circumstances, you can find those lines are effective because they're allowing to present the fly at a consistent depth rather than when that [01:31:00.079] fly line is a Di7 [inaudible 01:31:02.533] 7 inches per second all the way through, it sinks in that curved shape from the end of the rod tip and then it curves down into the water. But that fly is always sinking in that shape. Whereas you can fish the dual density, so a sink 5 to a sink 7 or a triple density. So, it could be a sink 3 to a sink 5 to a sink 7. And that means that that fly line is always [01:31:30.300] in a straight line to wherever that fly is sinking. I much prefer that type of line because there's no slacking it. But the minute that fish takes, you feel it. It's just straight as a die all the way through to the fly and constantly in that...
Tom: I think that most of the sinking lines that we sell in the States are density compensated so that they [01:32:00.699] retrieve straight.
Chad: Yeah. Yeah. And to be honest, I think that's probably where it started coming from over here. Whereas with the initial sink fly lines, we're just sink 7 all the way through, or sink 5 all the way through. And it wasn't until, again, relatively recently when we're talking in years, probably about 10, 15 years ago when these dual densities [01:32:30.220] really started turning up and being used a lot, and then the sweep line started coming out there. I mean, they've been about quite a while now, but they're effective. But again, in a competition or on a pleasure day, I might use four or five different types of line. It's jumping and changing between different methods. And again, depending on the area of fish, what the lake bed is, where the drop-off is. So, I might want to put that fly right on the edge of the drop-off and keep it there, or [01:33:00.260] I might want that fly to fish down and along the drop-off and just keep going down with the drop-off to try and work out where the fish are. And so, again, the best thing I can say is just keep changing. If things aren't working, don't just stick with it and think eventually it's going to work. Just try different methods.
To give you an example, I was out with a guy from New Zealand who came over. I was guiding him on the stillwater called Carsington Water, which is [01:33:30.239] between 400 and 500 acres, beautiful water, a lot of features. We started off fishing buzzers, not a couple of fish straight away, just fishing under an indicator. And then it just went that we didn't touch a thing. So, within sort of half an hour of nothing working, I went the exact opposite end of the scale and was fishing a Di8 line pulling fast and then changing my [01:34:00.119] retreat, pulling a bit slower, chucking it out, counting to 10, letting it sink a bit deeper, then pulling it fast. From when we did that, that's where we found the fish. They were probably about 6 to 7 feet down and wanted the flies pulling through as fast as we possibly could. And they were just hammering them. And then about two hours later, we were back on buzzers again on a floating line and catching on all three. And as soon as they went quiet and changed, it was a case of just switching. [01:34:30.543]
Tom: Well, I guess that's a pretty much the same as in most fishing, except most people don't like to switch, but it sounds like in stillwater, you really need to be versatile, and you really need to experiment.
Chad: Yeah, you do. Yeah. And you'll find methods. And my methods that work for me may be completely different to other people. And they think, "Well, I've tried that, it doesn't work for me. I'm not confident in it." And that's the same with everything, [01:35:00.319] isn't it? Once you find a method that works for you, you fish it a lot more because you're fishing with confidence straight away. You tend to fish a lot better.
Tom: Absolutely.
Chad: The other thing on stillwater that I've noticed a lot is you come off at the end of the day and people are saying, "I blanked, I've not caught this," but then you've looked at the people out in the boats, and they've just gone to one area and just stayed there and not moved. And they might manage to maybe pick one fish up or might be looking to get a couple, [01:35:30.140] but that's it. And then you come in on a boat and you're in double figures, if not more. But that's because you found a couple of fish, it's gone quiet, then you've changed tactic, and you've moved to another area. And on an average day, on the water, like casting 500 acres, I will probably do the whole circumference of it, the whole perimeter of it, and maybe depending on the time of the year, through the middle as well, just looking for different areas. But if you land on an area and it's alive with fishing that they're at [01:36:00.060] it all day, obviously, you're going to stay on them. The problem is with that competition fishing, if everyone stays on them, they just switch off. They'll go deep, they'll move, they'll switch, and you risk doing the same as well when you're out for pleasure. If you're constantly hitting fish in that same area, eventually, they're going to switch off.
Chad: But, yeah, being very versatile and just having as many tools as you can. And if something's [01:36:30.039] not working, change it, change it to something else, you know, what knows, you know, works. But also, have an open mind and just have a play about with things. And I tend to do that quite a lot. And every now and then, you stumble on something that works amazing, like fishing wet sometimes, you know, fishing a team of three wets when people are fishing nymphs, buzzers, boobies, blobs, whatever. And you think the condition is right, just giving it a go. [01:37:00.140] And every now and then, you stumble on something that you wouldn't think would work. But then all of a sudden, it does. And there's another tool that you think, "Right, I remember these conditions. I remember when it worked. I remember where it worked." And there's something that you then sort of make a mental note of the next time.
Tom: Yep. Well, those have been some really interesting, and I think probably eye-opening to most people here in the States. [01:37:30.159] I have one final question for you, Chad. What's your go-to rod for stillwater fishing?
Chad: My go-to, but generally the most things I use, the Orvis Helios in a 10-foot, 7-weight.
Tom: Ten-foot, 7.
Chad: Yeah, I find that for me...and I use the F. The D is great if I'm fishing sinking [01:38:00.359] lines. It gives you that bit of extra power behind you. But to be honest, the F copes with everything for me. Now, I'm not one to have multiple rods set up, main reason being I've stood on too many in the past when I've got another rod set up.
Tom: Well, you got all those lines and spools lying around. You don't want to have a bunch of rods, too.
Chad: But, yeah, 10-foot, 7-weight, for me, [01:38:30.159] that's a great all-rounder. And the F, I like the F because it will handle that sinking line. But it'll also fish really well with nymphs and dry fly. I do have a 5-weight as well, a 9-foot, 5-weight, which I may sometimes put fish dries on that. One, just for a bit more fun and having a bit more of a play with the fish. But I find with dry flies, you're not generally chucking as far out as you would with lures and nymphs. Generally, [01:39:00.119] you're picking flies up quick and getting them out to a rising fish if the fish are on the top. And I think with a 9-foot, 5-weight, I think you pick the line up a lot quicker. And it's a slightly shorter rod. Whereas the 10-foot, 7, when I'm casting distance with nymphs and sinking lines, it just tends to have a bit more to it for that.
Tom: Okay. Sounds like a good plan.
Chad: The Helios rods, for my guiding, I'd use the clear waters. And [01:39:30.699] the clear water, I think they're absolutely superb rods for the price bracket they sit at. They don't often handle sinking lines unbelievably well, far more than you'd expect. But again, 10-foot, 7-weight is what I use in them as well.
Tom: Okay. That's great.
Chad: Generally, for stillwater, that's my all round, and what I would advise people to go for a 10-foot, 7.
Tom: Okay. Good. [01:40:01.579] All right, Chad. Well, I want to thank you for taking the time today. I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge, and certainly, I learned lots of things, and I'll bet that my listeners did, too. So, thank you for enlightening us.
Chad: Yeah, no problem. Hopefully, it'll give people something to think about and just something to play with and try it. Any of the methods I've [01:40:30.060] said, if you don't really use them or do anything similar, just have a play with things, get online, have a look. Look at FABs, look at boobies, look at snakes, and different sinking lines, and just build up your armory, and have a bit of a play.
Tom: Yeah. I hope people do.
Chad: Yeah. It'd be interesting to know how people get on with different methods out there.
Tom: Well, if I hear anything, I will let you know.
Chad: Yeah. Fantastic.
Tom: All right.
Chad: Brilliant.
Tom: Okay, Chad. Well, thank you so much. And if you get over here in [01:41:00.039] the fall, don't forget you have an open invitation to go trout fishing.
Chad: Yeah, lovely. Next year, hopefully, that's the plan.
Tom: Okay. All right. We'll look forward to seeing you.
Chad: Okay.
Tom: All right.
Chad: Thanks, Tom.
Tom: Bye, Chad. Thank you.
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