Fly Fishing Podcasts - General

Description: In addition to your questions in the Fly Box, Tom is joined in the studio by Orvis News Editor, Phil Monahan. Tom and Phil discuss what makes a great fly-fishing video, touching on subjects such as the ideal length, the proper use of a GoPro, and considering the amount of profanity in your soundtrack. Phil also introduces the new Orvis fly-fishing video theater, The Tug, which has been completely redesigned and updated, with over three hundred of the best videos online. Check it out at orvis.com/flyfishingvideos.

Description: This week I interview Shawn Brillon, the King of Swing here at Orvis. He’s a master at strategizing on swinging flies for both Atlantic salmon and steelhead, and his strategy works for trout streamers and wets as well. It should serve to get you jazzed up for steelhead season—I know it did for me. In the Fly Box, we talk about landlocked Atlantic salmon, best all-around line for a switch rod, a basic saltwater outfit and flies for almost anywhere in the world, plus I get pressed to pick which three fly rods I would pick if I could only have three for all of my fishing.

Description: In this week’s podcast I interview my good friend and fishing buddy Aaron Adams on tailing redfish. As a marine scientist, director of Bonefish Tarpon Trust, and a great all-around saltwater fly fisherman he gives some great tips on finding tailing (or otherwise) redfish and how to select a fly and present it to them. On this week’s Fly Box we concentrate more on freshwater fly fishing, and cover such topics as cracked fly lines, night fishing for trout, circle hooks for streamers, and pigtails above knots on light tippets. Then I try, unsuccessfully, to resolve a dispute between two brothers.

Description: In this episode I interview my old friend Reynolds Wolff of the Weather Channel on the impact of weather on fishing conditions. As it usually happens on this show, we get off the main topic quite a bit. I am not sure who was interviewed more here, Reynolds or me, but we cover a lot of ground on various topics. As usual, I answer your questions in the Fly Box.

Description: After a hiatus for family vacation, a trade show, a tarpon trip, and just plain sloth and procrastination, we finally have a new podcast and it’s a long one, well over an hour. In the podcast we talk about keeping hold of big brown trout, big browns chasing hooked fish, rusty hooks, broken hooks, and dubbing problems. Quite an eclectic mix. The main part of the podcast is “Five Reasons for Breaking Out of Your Comfort Zone” and I think you’ll be surprised at some of the benefits of trying new places and new techniques. There is a bonus feature of Big Pete Kutzer explain Tom’s big casting mistakes on long casts with big rod—hopefully pointing out my problems will help you as well.

Description: This week I have a chat with Jess McGlothlin—author, blogger, photographer, conservationist, and a very accomplished fly fisher. She’s a Montana native and had her own business in the equestrian business before she fell in love with fly fishing and decided to devote her life to writing about it. You have probably read pieces with Jess’s byline over the past few years, but you’ll be reading more of her in the future as we hired her last winter as our outdoor copywriter—but Jess adds so much more to our team than just words on paper or on a screen as you’ll learn in the interview, where we compare Eastern to Western fly fishing. We have the usual fly box topics like when to wear landing gloves, when to use a “hitched” fly, how to set up your fishing vest, and a philosophy for tying or buying flies by size—in other words, if someone recommends Prince nymphs in sizes 14-18, can you just get away with a size 16? In case you don’t get to the podcast until later in the week, I’m speaking at Orvis Pittsburgh this Thursday (June 12) on Fishing Small Streams at 3 pm and Reading the Water at 6 pm. The seminars are free and I’ll be in the sore all day if you want to stop in and give me your podcast suggestions in person. Should be fun and I am looking forward to it.

Description: This week I had a great talk with Henry Cowen on freshwater stripers. Henry is a saltwater angler and fly tier of great experience who brought his talents to freshwater stripers, and he has some wonderful tips for finding these big guys, flies to use, and techniques to get them to eat your fly. Also, we have lots of good fly box questions on saltwater fly tying, bad loops on fly lines, and other tidbits. Also a young listener takes me to task for banning cell phone calls to the request line and I should have known better. He says the only people he knows who have land lines are his parents. Guess I am showing my age, so please do use your cell phones for the podcast request line—just please not from your car and from a place with good service!

Description: This week I don’t have much of a Fly Box, because I just have not been getting many questions from listeners. Where are you? I’m lonely here. But I do have a big interview with the great Joe Humphreys, a savvy, iconoclastic fly fisher that I’ve admired for many years. He has a unique take on nymph fishing and has never used an indicator, so you may get some new ideas on how to fish nymphs on this one. By the way, Joe will be at Orvis Pittsburgh this Saturday and Sunday morning, so if you want to see him in action or ask some questions, get over to Orvis Pittsburgh.

Description: This is a special time of year for me as it is the start of trout season in my hometown. I treat today like a religious holiday. it seems appropriate then that I should interview my mentor, and someone who many view as a fly-fishing god, Lewis Coleman. Lewis has taught some of the best in the world his techniques and he will share some of those with us today. There is no fly-box section in this show as I wanted to give Lewis as much time as we could to go over his insight into spey casting, how he is pushing the limits in Tenkara and all about how he runs his lodges all around the world. We are lucky to have him on the show.

Description: It’s still fly-tying February, with our Fly Tying photo contest going on, plus 20% fly tying materials on our web site and in our stores. So although I do answer a question about poly leaders in lakes and one on whether to take a spinning rod when fishing with a 10-year-old, most of it is about fly tying, and should be helpful to anyone from a total novice to advanced tiers. I know I learned a number of very cool tricks in my interview with Tim Flagler of Tightline Productions (who does our awesome weekly tying videos). In the Fly Box, I also answer questions about hook quality, wool for fly tying, what to use for Comparadun wings, fly quality, and some theories about why we attach certain materials to a hook. I apologize in advance—Tim and I ramble quite a bit, but with a fly tier of Tim’s caliber the ramblings are interesting and educational.

Description: This week is all about fly tying. I took a whole bunch of questions that came in over the past week (thank you very much for your great questions) and we spend about an hour going over some tricky and not-so-tricky questions. The hardest one for me was to list the essential fly tying materials every tier should have on his or her bench (and I was not allowed to use CDC, rabbit fur, or peacock herl, which made it even tougher) and it took me two days to decide on that one. I ended up cheating and coming up with a trout list and a saltwater list. Other questions included emergency procedures for when you break your thread, when to use wax, most under-utilized materials, substitutes in fly-tying recipes, tips for tying with deer hair, and many others. Don’t forget that this month, fly tying materials at Orvis are 20% off, so now is the time to think about what you’ll need for next season.

Description: This week we talk to Paul Moinester, who we should all envy. He quit a good job in DC to simplify and de-stress his life, and spent 6 months traveling the US to finds out more about fly fishing. He drove from the Keys to Alaska, fishing along the way, and came up with some very eloquent pointers on improving your fly fishing game, based on his many experiences. These are great tips from the perspective of a relative novice (at least he was when he started his trip!).

Description: **This is a fixed version of "The Return of Fiberglass Rods". The originally posted version contained an editing error.** We’ve had a lot of requests to do a podcast on fiberglass fly rods, but I wanted to wait until the Orvis rods were in stock before I did one. The Orvis Superfine Touch Fiberglass are now in stock and on our web site, so this week I cover the basics of fiberglass rods: A little history, some brief technology notes, and why you might want to at least test cast a fiberglass rod to see what all the fuss is about. They are not like the glass rods you remember from the 60s or 70s!

Description: This week, the main event is a fascinating podcast with Tom Bie, editor and publisher (and founder) of The Drake Magazine, an unconventional, edgy fly fishing publication that addresses the new, media-related fly fishing culture. Tom talks about his favorite fish, the steelhead, and about his passion for swinging flies, East vs. West, hatchery vs. wild steelhead, using Spey rods, and lots on the philosophy of the best swing speed for steelhead. We also touch on steelhead flies, and the future of fly fishing in general. It’s a great interview and a little more cerebral than we usually get on the podcast. Also in this week’s Fly Box, we circle back to fly tying materials to get a little more clarity on thread sizes and types of elk hair. I answer questions on fighting big trout in confined quarters, what to do if a big trout sulks, the difference between a creek, brook, and river; the characteristics of spring creeks, tailwaters, chalk streams, and freestone streams; sight fishing to trout in shallow water without indicators, and just why a Zebra midge with a pink body sometimes out-fishes one with the standard black-and-white body.

Description: In this week's podcast, besides an interview with Kirk Deeter, author of The Orvis Guide to Fly Fishing for Carp, we talk about how fly fishing can be a pain in the neck, fishing above waterfalls, jeans under waders, split shot on spring creeks, Tenkara and kids, minimalist equipment for fishing, hiking, and camping, and when to look for Trico duns this time of year.