New Tips on Playing and Releasing Trout, with vs Jim McLennan
Podcast Transcript:
Tom R.: Hi, and welcome to the "Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast." This is your host Tom Rosenbauer. And my guest this week is Jim McLennan from Alberta. And Jim is a long-time fly shop owner, guide, musician, writer, star of fishing films, and all-around great guy with a lot of experience in the fly fishing business.
And the topic this week is playing and releasing fish. Not only how to do it efficiently but how to do it quickly with a minimum of stress to the fish and minimum of stress to you and getting those fish back in the water quickly. I know this is a common topic, playing and fighting and landing fish, and I get a lot of questions about it. And Jim relays a very interesting new, at least new to me, way of releasing fish from a barbless hook without touching them at all, and it's one that I haven't seen before or heard of before. So I think you'll enjoy that. Jim is always a great guest, and as I said, he's a wealth of knowledge.
Now before we get into the fly box, I wanted to give you some ideas on places to fish in the coming year. If you're making some plans to take a fishing trip I'm going to let you know about an Orvis-endorsed lodge, an outfitter, and a guide.
Before I do that, I probably should explain the difference to you between a lodge, an outfitter, and a guide in case you aren't aware of that. So a lodge is an operation that provides full service. So usually they give you transportation to and from the airport. You get there. They often have rods and reels and waders you can use. You'll have a room there, a really nice comfortable room. They'll feed you three meals a day, and they'll provide guide service every day that you want to go fishing. So that's kind of the complete package.
And then an outfitter is an individual, often a fly shop, but not always, who has a roster of experienced guides and they don't provide lodging. They usually provide lunch but they don't provide lodging or dinners, and you're on your own in this case and you're just hiring a guide from their pool of great guides.
And then an independent guide, and there are Orvis-endorsed independent guides, are just one individual who guide in a particular area and who we have vetted and fished with and know is going to give you a good time.
So all of these endorsed operations can be found by just going to orvis.com\adventures. And there's a map there that will show you all the Orvis-endorsed operations all across the country. We've inspected their operations and we know they're going to be great, so you know you're going to have a good trip and you don't have to roll the dice and take a chance ending up with a guide that's substandard.
So the first one that I'm going to talk about this week is PRO Outfitters. Originally, this was called Paul Roos Outfitters but it's now called PRO Outfitters. And this operation was started by the late great Paul Roos, a legendary guide in Montana. It's now run by Brandon Boedecker, who is a good friend and a terrific guide. And they're located on the north fork of the Blackfoot River. So river runs through it. Fans are going to be right in the center of things.
They have lots of variety at this lodge. They have spring creeks, big rivers. They have stock ponds on the property for a little fun after dinner. It's one of the oldest outfitters in that part of Montana, and you stay in pretty luxurious safari-style tents with private baths. This operation I looked has 56 five-star reviews and 1 four-star review, nothing lower than four stars.
And I'm just going to read you one of the comments I read in the reviews. "Spent two nights and two floats here. It was as good as you could ever want. On the second float day, we netted almost 60 fish between 3 fishermen in less-than-ideal weather. Additionally, they're a great company and understand how to take care of their clients. The lodge is gorgeous, food is wonderful, and the service is top-notch. The chef is a magician. We've already booked our return trip." So that's one of your peers, one of our customers writing that review.
And then second on the list of places you might investigate this year is also in Montana. It's the Bitterroot Fly Company. And they're an outfitter and they fish the upper Bitterroot, the Blackfoot, the Missouri, the Clark Fork. I've fished all these rivers and, you know, each one holds a special appeal. They're all unique rivers, all different, and all very, very interesting in their own right. I once had a wonderful day in April on the upper Bitterroot and I definitely want to go back to that water.
They're based in Darby, Montana, and they offer fly fishing, they offer raft trips, and fly fishing lessons if you want to learn or brush up. They have 272 five-star reviews and 1 four-star review. So we keep finding somebody that's doing these four-star reviews. I don't know who it is. Maybe it's the same person. But I'll read you a quote from one of the reviews on the website on this operation. "I recently went on three guided outings with Bitterroot Fly Company guides. They were patient, helpful, and fun to fish with. I learned new techniques and helpful information about Bitterroot River fishing. I can't wait to fish with them again in the spring. Really delightful people."
And then finally, our independent guide of the week, Mike Pease. He grew up trout and steelhead fishing in Northern California and he still guides in this area. Mike guides in Northern California and Central Valley Rivers like the Feather, Yuba, American, and the lower Sacramento. Mike is a Stanford-trained educator with a lifetime of fishing experience. So if you want to learn this area with a patient teacher, this is a trip for you. Mike specializes in walkway trips and personalized classes.
So I'll read you a review from Mike's listing on the Orvis website. This is from a customer. "This was my second time fishing with Mike, and this time I brought along a friend. It was one of the best couple of days fishing I've had in a long time and my friend said it was the best guided trip he'd ever had. Mike has the perfect combination of local knowledge, humble attitude, and amazing skill as a teacher to provide an experience that goes well beyond a typical guided fly fishing day.
He knows his water like the back of his hand, so you know you'll have the best chance to get fish. But you'll also come away with new skills regardless of how skilled an angler you already are. I've been fly fishing for 40 years and every day spent with Mike on the water teaches me something new or a different approach I can try on my own."
So those are the three ideas for you if you're planning a trip for the coming year. A couple of other quick announcements. I'll be at the Edison, New Jersey, show with the product developers and Pete Kutzer and George Daniel January 24th, 25th, 26th, 2025, if you're listening to this in the archives, and I'll be doing presentations every day at the show in one of the presentation rooms. But even better yet, we're going to do a live fly box at 1:30 on Friday and Saturday, and we'll have the product developers there, we'll have Pete Kutzer, George Daniel, and we'll be there to answer your questions live. So if you have a burning question that you want to maybe have a little bit of back and forth with and ask numerous people on the Orvis staff, we hope to see you there. We think it's going to be a lot of fun. Oh, and by the way, happy birthday to Spencer Dockery.
All right, the fly box. The fly box is a place where you ask me questions or you provides a tip that you think might benefit other listeners and I try to answer your questions or comment on your tip or just read your tip. And, you know, if I don't answer your question, it might be because I just answered it, and it's really not fair to the rest of the listeners to repeat answers to the same question week after week.
A person just asked me this week how he should wash his CDC. Well, I just answered that one last week, so you're gonna have to go back and listen to last week's podcast. That being said, no question is too basic. You know, don't be afraid to ask questions if you think it's a dumb question or too basic. There are no dumb questions and nothing's too basic. So don't be afraid to ask those kind of questions. I love answering these basic questions, and I enjoy doing it week after week, so don't be shy. Oh, by the way, I almost forgot, if you have a question for the fly box or a tip, you can send it to
So without further ado, first is an email from Mark. "Is there a difference in performance between a prefabricated leader versus a handmade leader?"
Well, Mark, you know, both of them perform really well. I used to tie my own leaders. I used to tie my own knotted leaders. And the knotted leaders in those days, this is going back over 50 years, the knotless leaders, and I was tapered leader, weren't very good in those days. But I'll tell you what, they're great now and I use knotless extruded leaders all the time. I start out with one anyways, then I end up with a bunch of knots because I might add tippet sections or I might subtract them.
But the knotted leaders perform just as well, and you can tailor the knotted leaders, maybe you want to monkey around a little bit with different leader tapers and you can do that with a knotted leader. But the knotless leaders perform really well. Both of them perform well. Knotted leaders do tend to sometimes catch on weed if you're fishing in weedy waters and they attract dirt and algae and stuff. But other than that, the leaders that you make yourself are great, and I think it'll teach you a lot about leader construction. So I often urge people to at least tie a couple of their own knotted leaders just to see how they're tapered.
Tom: Hello, Tom. This is Tom from The Woodlands, Texas. I want to say thanks for everything you do. And I just got back from fishing the Guadalupe River over in Gruene, Texas, and as you know, it's a limestone river. Also, I heard you talking to the gentleman from the UK explaining how limestone rivers have a lot of subsurface food.
I'm not a big fan of indicator fishing, and so I was curious, do you have any other recommendations of ways to fish for these trout and different maybe water temperatures when they may be moving up into the shallows instead of just hugging the bottom? Have a great day. Bye."
Tom R.: Now, Tom, I hear you don't like indicator fishing. You know, it's effective but it's not always fun to cast. And there are lots of ways that you can fish for fish without... I mean, nearly any other method you can use. Fish are rising, or you even just see a few rises. You might try a dry fly, you might try a dry dropper, which is using a fairly large high floating dry fly with a nymph hung under it. That's kind of like indicator fishing but it's a little nicer and cleaner.
And then don't be afraid to try fishing nymphs or wet flies without indicators. You can do this by high sticking, by keeping your standard fly rod high, and keeping all of the line and most of the leader off the water. You can try Euro nymphing, which is with a longer rod usually in a very, very long leader and no fly line outside of the guides, or you can try a streamer. So there's all different ways of doing it. And the fish are going to move into the shallows. Generally, they're going to move into the shallows when the water gets a little warmer when it gets above 50 degrees, and there are more insects hatching because it's a lot easier for fish to feed on the hatching insects in shallow water as it is in deep water.
So anyway, hope that helps. And again, there are lots of ways to fish besides indicator fishing. Just because everybody else is indicator fishing doesn't mean you have to do it that way.
How about another email? This one is from Preston "I live out in Boise, Idaho. I've been fly fishing for 10 years and tying for 6 years. I've been listening to the podcast for three years, and I, like so many other listeners, love what you give to the community.
First, some advice to consider for anyone wanting to get into fly tying. I started out tying only caddis flies and Chubby Chernobyls for the first two years. I mastered just these two flies in all shapes and sizes and it shrunk the ever-massive world of fly tying into something I could consume and use to my advantage on the waters out there. Many fish were caught on just these two flies.
I then moved on to master the classic Sparkle Minnow to cover the world of streamers. Today I tie only four to five flies in all sizes and colors. And while I'm no expert across the full spectrum, mastering these core flies catch 99% of the fish in my home waters and they're everything I need.
My advice is to consider focusing on depth, not breadth, meaning don't tie everything at once. It can be frustrating as your first 10 flies won't look like the ones in the store but your 15th fly of the same type will. Start with one or two and move on when you're comfortable. I tell people fly tying is 65% as much fun as fly fishing depending on how cold my garage is. It's meditative, and there's no better feeling than hooking into a fish with a fly you've tied yourself."
Well, Preston, I couldn't have said it better myself. Preston has a couple of questions. "I was told recently at an Orvis shop that trout start to lose their rods and cones at 17 inches or so, and given that I tie these Sparkle Minnows to target fish greater than that size, should I be concerned about marabou color or body color or be more focused on contrast and shape? An example would be using wine-colored marabou and an olive copper body, something that certainly I cannot find in the wild, except for maybe imitating a wounded fish. As such, I always grab the white one over it when out on the river.
Are there any other colors you would avoid when fishing a Sparkle Minnow? I mostly fish Idaho wilderness areas so the fish aren't necessarily that picky. I understand it varies by fishery but just curious what goes through your mind when you tie one on.
Question two. On July 2nd, 2022, I caught a 30-inch buck summer steelhead in the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. At the time, I thought it was a cool catch considering it was on a 5-weight rod with 3x tippet on a barbless blue Sparkle Minnow targeting Westslope cutthroat. After talking with several Ph.D. fish biologists, they told me it was incredibly rare for that time of year so high in the headwaters. Do you think the steelhead was going out, going in, or for some reason just staying there year-round that year?"
Well, Preston, regarding your first question, fish don't lose their rods and cones at 17 inches because if they did they'd be blind. If you got no rods and you got no cones you can't see anything. So I don't know... I think that maybe you misunderstood that. What fish do lose at about 3 or 4 inches long is they lose their UV vision. That is only a benefit to young fish that feed on plankton. The UV vision helps them see plankton because they're not very easy to see.
Once they get a little bit bigger they lose most of their UV vision but they still use their rods and cones. They use their cones mainly during the day, and then if they're feeding at night the cones retreat back into the and they use their rods because those help them use the available light. So they're not going to lose their rods and their cones. They're not going to go blind. They can still see color. However, does it matter? I don't know.
I generally start with a tan streamer or a tannish streamer just because I like tan. And if that doesn't work I'll go to a black one, and if that doesn't work I'll go to a brighter whiter one or something with a lot of flash. So not very scientific at all.
But I think in my own opinion, if a fish is going to eat a streamer, it's going to eat a streamer, and it doesn't really matter what color it is. Some days you might see a little bit more interest in one color over the other, but as you said, I would concentrate on shape and profile more so than the exact color of your streamer.
Regarding your second question, I don't know. Your biologists would have a much better idea than me. I would say if you got a picture of the fish, which you probably do, if it was relatively dark and had a nice red stripe, then it was probably one that had spawned and was dropping back late into the ocean. And then if it was relatively bright, then it was probably a fresh run fish. Steelhead can come in that early into certain rivers. So it could have been either one, and yeah, it could have been a fish that decided not to go to the ocean that year, in which case it probably would be relatively dark as well. So if it was bright, it's probably a fresh run, early run. If it was dark, it either was staying there or it's a drop back. But that's about all I can tell you on that question.
Here's an email from Greg. "Hello, Tom, and thanks for all the info you provide. My question is, being a new fly tier, what materials and tools would you recommend first? I realize there are many, but just starting out, which would be the most essential to begin tying effectively? A side note. I just purchased a PEAK Rotary Vise and will be fishing primarily nymphs, streamers, and dries in Pennsylvania. Thanks, and take care."
Well, Greg, I think probably my best advice would be to refer you to that previous question. What I would do is to figure out what works in that area and what you want to tie for your own use. Don't try to tie everything. You know, pick out a few patterns that you're going to be using, and then go online and watch a video of someone tying those flies, and then you'll be able to see what tools they're using. I mean, you gotta have a bobbin, gotta have, in fact, two good pairs of scissors, I think a fairly bigger, heavier, longer set of scissors, and then a set of really fine scissors for very precise cuts. You need those.
You don't need a whip finisher if you're going to whip finish by hand. Dubbing needle is handy to have but you can also take a sewing needle and stick it in a dowel with some epoxy or glue and make a dubbing needle. Other than that, things like dubbing spinners and... Oh, God, there's lots and lots of different crazy tools out there that fly tiers use. But I'd start with those basics and watch what tools the people that are tying the flies that you want to tie are using and then go from there. But start with those basic patterns that you want to tie, get the materials and tools to tie those, and then you can branch out later.
Ty: Hi, Tom, Ty from NYC here. Long-time listener, first-time caller. So a couple of questions for you. And the first is about winter storage. I don't have a ton of room in my apartment and I'm trying to get out as much as I can, so I keep my two clear water rods in the trunk of my car, which I know is probably not the greatest solution but hopefully, not the worst. You know, I keep them dry and I keep them in the cases, but let me know if that's going to do any damage to them.
And my second question is about jig streamers, which I heard are really effective but I've never used them before. And it's winter time and the bite's slow, so I'm just trying to get down deep. I was going to use them like any multiple nymph setup that I usually do, so jig streamer on the bottom and then a dropper tag above that with something small. I'm not sure if you have any experience using them, but any tips or tricks would really be appreciated. Huge fan of the podcast, and I really appreciate everything you and Orvis does. Thank you so much.
Tom R.: Well, Ty, this is one of those questions that I answer fairly regularly, but for people that are new to the podcast, you can keep your fly rods and reels and fly lines pretty much anywhere you want. You can keep them in your car. Freezing won't hurt them, hot weather won't hurt them. It would have to get up to about 300 or 400 degrees Fahrenheit in your car before it would adversely affect your fly line. And that being said, it probably wouldn't hurt your fly reel or your fly rod at all. You can leave them set up if you want. Not going to hurt them. You know, these things, they're waterproof and they're temperature proof and they're made to survive these conditions. So you can really store them anywhere that you want and it is not going to hurt them at all. The trunk of your car year-round is fine.
Regarding jig streamers, generally, particularly in the winter time when the water is cold, generally, I think the best way to fish a jig streamer is to fish it upstream, and you can either do this with an indicator or with a floating line and a long leader or with a tight line or a Euro rig or a mono rig, whatever, and kind of hop it along the bottom. So let it sink and then strip it once so that it jumps off the bottom or jumps out of the deeper water, and then let it drop down and dead drift and then hop it again and let it dead drift. You know, just casting to the far bank and stripping it like we would.
A lot of streamers will work sometimes, but I think those jig streamers are really meant to be fished more upstream and in deeper water. They'll dive right down into deeper water. And then just hop it around and move it. But as with all streamers, you should experiment because you never know what kind of retrieve or what kind of angle the fish are going to prefer. So just play around with it, but I would start with an upstream approach.
Here's an email from Grayson from Western North Carolina. "As you know, we suffered from a hurricane in September. I have a rather specific question, which is, in your experience, what is the effect of major flooding on trout streams and rivers, especially small native brook trout streams? Thanks for all you do."
Well, Grayson, generally, small brook trout streams are relatively protected from big floods because being so high up in the watershed they don't see as much flood water as those that are down in the valley. And yeah, the water gets high and the rocks get moved around a bit but the fish move around too and they find places to get protected.
Will you lose some fish? Maybe in a flood, but really not as many as we think. And in my experience with the hurricanes in Vermont, it took about a year and a half to two years for the populations to come back just as healthy as they were prior to the flood. Brook trout in the headwaters are pretty tough little creatures and they can survive this stuff. They've evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to survive floods.
Where you're going to have problems and where you're not going to see the rivers come back is where a highway department or a landowner put a bulldozer in the river and moved the river bed around. Generally, the rivers, if they're left alone, will heal themselves pretty well. And if a man made a lot of modifications in the stream bed, then it's going to take a lot longer for it to come back. So I wouldn't worry too much about brook trout. Only live to be about 3 or 4 years old, so you'll go through a new life cycle pretty quickly and there will likely be plenty of fish to survive and spawn.
An email from Landon from Wisconsin. "A few episodes ago, you had a back cast on winter trout fishing and you guys touched a bit on using nitrile gloves for winter fishing. I wanted to reiterate just how helpful they really can be. That being said, buying the correct size makes a huge difference. I found the 7 and 9-mil to have the best results. They are much more durable than your average nitrile glove. The 3 to 5-mil gloves will rip in a hurry and leave you wondering what people could possibly enjoy about them. I also recommend buying a box true to your hand size, as well as a second box a size or two larger.
On the colder days, I sometimes use the larger size to go over my wool fingerless gloves. Keeping those dry goes a long way in keeping my hands comfortable. Dry equals warm. Hope this can help someone else be able to stay a little more comfortable on those cold days of battling the cabin fever."
Well, thank you, Landon. That's a great suggestion. I haven't thought of doing that but I'm going to bear that in mind next time I get some nitrile gloves.
Here's an email from Greg. "Hey, Tom, simple, easy question. I have an H3F 9-foot 5-weight I purchased the first year they were out. I live on the Bitterroot and I fish a lot. My rod is great but I would like your opinion on whether I would detect enough of an improvement in accuracy to warrant purchasing a Helios 4 or the new Helios. Of course, it's not a matter of need but you know how that goes."
So Greg, I also wasn't sure how much of an improvement the new Helios would be over the Helios 3, and I had to be convinced, and once I started fishing them I was absolutely convinced. They are better. They feel lighter in the hand. They feel livelier, they're more accurate, and they're stronger. So I don't know what else we could want in a fly rod. I don't know what the next iteration of these rods is going to be because they are just so good. And I think you will notice an improvement in accuracy, even though the Helios 3s were super accurate. The new ones are even more accurate, and I think even more fun to fish.
Here's an email from Zoran. "Can you tell us a brief history of Superfine Graphite? What was your favorite weight? How the new release will look like, and is it going to be four pieces instead of two? Thank you, kindly. I look forward to hearing from you. Also, I am positive in 2025 you will teach Tim and Cheech a lesson. You let them win a few times intentionally but now things are out of control. Stop being nice and show them who is the boss."
Well, Zoran, actually I don't let them win. I try as hard as I can to win those monthly fly-tying contests, and those guys are just too good. They're better than I am, I'm telling you. They're better fly tiers. However, I actually, in last week's fly-tying contest, did win. Don't tell Cheech. We were sitting around after we turned off the live part of the contest and we just chat afterwards a little bit amongst us, and Davis looked at the tabulation and noticed that while we were talking some more votes came in and I actually pulled ahead. So I don't know, officially Cheech won but I feel pretty good about my performance there. It's hard to beat those two guys.
Regarding the Superfine Graphite, interesting. There have been many iterations of the Superfine Graphites. I mean, we kind of called the original Orvis graphite rods the Superfines for a while because they were slower than other rods on the market and they had those spiral marks on the outside. And then we've had things like the Superfine Touch and a number of iterations on and off of Superfines over the years.
And to be honest with you, I was never totally satisfied with the Superfine rods. I felt that they were all... They bent well down into the butt section and you could really feel a cast and feel a fish. But I always thought they were a little too stiff in the tip. There was one... The Superfine Touch I thought was way too stiff in the tip. The new Superfines are not some throwback to old designs. They are a new taper, a new material, and they are the Superfines that I've always dreamed of. And they are available now. They just hit the Orvis website and they are available.
But I find that they are plenty slow enough. Because with small streams, especially in delicate flies, I like a relatively slow rod. They're slow, but the tips are a lot finer and they just feel so much better and they cast I think so much better than the older Superfines. So I think that honestly, I am finally satisfied with the design of the Superfine rods.
That being said, yes, about my favorites. There was an old Superfine called the 7-foot 9-inch Ultrafine. It was a 2-weight that I really loved. But again, I always thought it was a little too stiff in the tip. And the new version, the new 2-weight, is really ultra-fine and it's a really, really wonderful rod to cast. And yes, they are now in four-piece instead of two-piece, so they're going to be a lot easier to travel with.
Here's an email from Ryan from Colorado Springs. "Hi, Tom. My family is planning a trip to Alaska this summer and I love using the Orvis Adventures website that you've been promoting recently. The interactive map is super helpful and makes a lot less daunting when thinking up ideas and options for a trip. I was fishing this past Sunday when I got to the river at 8.30 a.m. It was 1 degree outside. The forecast had called for 15, which is much more reasonable.
Eventually, I found some fish and managed to land a 14-inch rainbow on a weighted egg under an indicator. About an hour later, it was still cloudy and about 25 degrees. I was blessed with a winter hatch, large midge, or a blue-winged olive. I switched to a Harvey leader. Shout-out to Troutbitten for posting the leader build for me to copy. I had the pleasure of alternating breaking ice off the guides and landing 8 nice 14 to 18-inch browns over the next hour or so on a series of 18 to 20 blue-winged olive dry fly and emerger patterns.
This brings two questions. One, the leader was about 12 feet to the fly. I'm using a 9-foot 5-weight Encounter. How the heck do I land these fish even in knee-deep water without bringing the loop-to-loop connection into the guides? Number two, typically I shed my waders and boots and leave them outside in the shade to air dry before storing them in my gear bag. If the waders end up frozen, would that cause any damage? Lacking an extra bathroom or a heated garage, I'm making do with a hanger located in the basement, but the lack of airflow doesn't help me very much."
All right. So congratulations, Ryan, on having a great day in relatively inclement weather. Yeah, you can bring your loop-to-loop connection inside the guides. I have the same problem. I do it all the time, and all the good anglers that I know also bring their loop-to-loop connection or their nail-knot connection or whatever inside the guides. If the fish makes a sudden run, you just point the rod at the fish and it will slide through the guides just fine. So I wouldn't worry about it.
Where rods get broken with that leader-to-fly line connection is when somebody is getting started out in the beginning of the day and they pull straight down and that connection catches on the guides. But playing a fish, I've never seen a rod broken playing a fish with that connection getting inside the guides. I'm sure it happens, but that's because they had their rod straight upright and didn't point it at the fish. So don't worry about it at all. Let it come inside the guides because it's going to make it a lot easier to land those fish.
Regarding your waders, I don't think freezing your waders is going to hurt, but just to be sure, I would try to keep them in your basement or somewhere where it's above freezing. The lack of airflow... You know, they'll dry fine, and the lack of airflow isn't going to hurt them that much.
The other thing is you can put your waders in the dryer on a cool cycle or just a very slightly warm cycle and dry them out. That'll work out fine. Just don't put them on hot. Put them in the same dryer temperature. You're going to put a cotton shirt or a pair of blue jeans or something in. But you can put them on a cool cycle and they will dry pretty quickly.
Here's an email from Chase from Nebraska. "We have very dry cold winters as well as very humid summers. How do you protect your fly-tying materials with such a drastic change in temperature? And a tip for those who have to deal with bugs and pests, cedar wood is your saving grace. It repels unwanted pests when it comes to fly-tying materials."
Well, Chase, I don't think you have to worry. The key to keeping fly-tying materials in good shape is Ziploc bags. And they will keep insects out. If you have a quick temperature change, they will keep the humidity inside the bag the same unless you've opened it up in humid weather.
And I wouldn't worry about it. I don't think you're going to have any problem with any fly-tying materials from deer hair to bucktails to synthetics in dry, cold winters or hot summers. I don't think it's going to hurt your fly-tying materials whatsoever.
Cedar wood is great. I think it repels bugs. I'm not absolutely sure. I do know that mothballs, paradichlorobenzene repels bugs and kills them, but that's not good stuff to have around in your house. I don't use it anymore. I used to use it. And again, I found that Ziploc bags are the way to go. And if you want to cut down on plastics in your life, what I do is when I get a product in the mail or from the grocery store, I will save the Ziploc bag and use it for fly-tying materials. So even if you get food in a Ziploc bag, you can wash it with a little soap and water, turn it inside out, let it dry, and then you can use that for fly-tying materials. So I think that's the best way to go, and you're never going to run into trouble by putting your fly-tying materials in a sealed bag.
Steve: Hey, Tom. This is Steve from Northern Virginia. I've got another question for you about educated trout. I'm having a hard time getting my head around this idea that trout can actually learn from past experience. Maybe learn is not a right word for it, maybe it's conditioning, but anything to the extent that they all of a sudden become selective or that they remember that they got caught by a Woolly Bugger, had a traumatic experience, and ended up with a sore mouth so now they stay away from, I don't know, Olive Woolly Buggers or something like that.
I know from listening to your podcast that you do have I guess a basic belief that trout will become educated or develop certain behaviors based on experiences. And granting that you have probably forgotten more than I'll ever learn on the thing, I got to say I'm having a hard time getting my head around that idea that this little creature with a brain smaller than a pea can actually all of a sudden become selective in a way that we think of as humans. Maybe it's just more conditioning, and it's some sort of learned response that's more on a primitive basis. I don't know.
But I'm wondering if you're aware of any actual studies about how trout can become conditioned to either certain lures or certain practices or why certain trout act differently than other trout, such as cutthroat trout becoming more selective, or rather, I'm sorry, cutthroat trout being less selective than, say, brown trout or rainbows. Anyway, that's my question. I'm just curious if there's any actual solid research out of there other than just anecdotal experience. Appreciate all you do, and look forward to hearing your answer. Bye.
Tom R.: So Steve, I haven't seen any scientific studies that specifically call out trout learning because there really isn't much value in scientists studying that stuff. They tend to study stuff that's a little more economically important. And something like that that's relatively academic and of interest to a minor part of the population is probably not going to provide a master's thesis or a doctoral thesis for someone. But if other than Bob Bachman's study back in the 1980s at Penn State, anybody who knows anything about trout learning scientific studies, let me know.
I know they have done studies on goldfish, and they have proven that goldfish can learn, and other fish can learn to recognize different sounds and sights when they're fed. So these trout will get educated, I'll tell you. They do learn. You just have to accept it. There is a difference in pressured trout. Whether they're wild or hatchery stock, even hatchery fish, once they've been in the river for a while, they can get wise, and they become harder to catch.
If they didn't learn about dangers in the wild, they wouldn't survive. It's not that when they get caught on a Woolly Bugger they know there's a human behind it, they just know it's not food anymore. And it's the same way they learn how to avoid predators like herons and ospreys and eagles, and they learn not to eat sticks and pebbles because they don't provide any caloric value.
Now, they do make mistakes. Of course, they make mistakes or they would never take our flies at all. But fish in pressured areas do change their behavior, and they do become harder to fish. I can guarantee you that. And if you don't believe it, you need to get out and see some different streams and fish a stream where no one has ever fished or people have hardly fished at all with a fly, and then go to a place that's heavily fished, and you will see the difference in trout behavior or in tarpon behavior or bonefish behavior for that matter. So fish can learn, and I think you got to learn to accept it. All right. That is the fly box for this week. Let's go talk to Jim McLennan about playing and releasing fish.
Well, my guest today is my old friend, Jim McLennan. Jim, you've had a long history with the Orvis company, and you've been a guy and a fly shop owner, and now you're pretty much writing for a living. You have a column in "Fly Fusion," and you have a new book out called "Trout Tracks?"
Jim: Yeah, I've always done a bunch of different things. I'm doing less of those things. For the last 10 or 15 years, my wife and I have been teaching a lot of fly fishing schools, and we're still doing a little bit of that, but we're kind of winding it down. Father time has started doing its thing, although I don't normally like to admit that. But yeah, I do some writing and play a little music, and once in a while, teach some fly fishing stuff. So I'm trying to hang on that way.
Tom R.: Yeah, well, you are a multi-talented guy for sure, and you have had really a lifetime of teaching. And I was reading "Fly Fusion" magazine recently, and you had one of the best pieces in there I have ever read I think, and it was about playing and landing and releasing fish. And it's a topic that I've always struggled with both in writing and trying to create a video about helping people with that topic. And I think one of the reasons is that there is no formula, right? There's no do this, then do that.
With a small fish, it doesn't matter, but with a larger fish, the fish calls the shots, and you don't know what's coming next. So believe me, it's really tough to shoot a video showing someone how to play a fish because everyone's different. But I thought that...
Jim: Exactly, because you don't know what the fish is going to do and if he's going to do what you want to show.
Tom R.: Yeah, and I get podcast questions over and over again, either people, they don't hook fish or they lose fish, and they just don't understand that sometimes you're going to lose like five fish in a row. That's why it's exciting, right, that you're not going to land them all.
Jim: That's right.
Tom R.: But you gave some really solid advice. So I'm going to shut up and I'm going to let you kind of go through the steps that you did and just give people an idea and what to think about when you're playing, especially a larger fish.
Jim: Yeah, well, sure, I'm happy to. I mean, because we've been doing a lot of teaching, we see a lot of relatively inexperienced fishers, fisher people, catch a fish every now and again. And of course, they don't really know what to do because there's no reason they should if they've never experienced this before.
And I guess the main thing I see, I mean, everybody knows about keeping the fish wet and doing that, of course, it's a perfectly logical thing to do. But the shortcomings I see most often, and this is even with people who have fished a while, is that they play the fish too passively and it takes them longer than it needs to and thereby stresses the fish more than it needs to. And I think that comes from not really knowing what your gear is capable of withstanding.
And, you know, see, in the article I talk about, you know, if you don't know what it takes to break, you know, 4x tippet, you should find out. You know, rig up your outfit and hook the fly to something that's not going to move and then the combination of reeling and, you know, pulling back on the rod, see what it takes. And everybody who does this is surprised how hard it is to break that leader with their rod and the pressure they're putting on because the fly rod is a really inefficient lever, I guess because it bends so much. That's why it's, you know, good for casting and good for playing fish.
But you got to pull on it pretty hard to break tippet. And especially as, you know, year by year, the materials and leaders and tippets are getting stronger and stronger and stronger. So, you know, what would break 4x 10 years ago probably won't break 5x now as far as the pressure.
So it's good to I think find out what it'll take. And then it's a little bit hazy, I suppose, to think you've got to...okay, when I'm playing a fish on, you know, 4x tippet, I've got to pull not quite as hard as I just did to break it. That's a little bit of a, you know, hard thing to be accurate about. And the lesson mostly is just you can pull harder than you think as long as the fish doesn't get anything firm to pull back against.
Tom R.: Or if the fish doesn't surge, right, because you're testing kind of a straight, steady pull with that test.
Jim: Yes.
Tom R.: Do you also yank on it a couple of times, you know, to see how much it...
Jim: I hadn't... Yeah, you probably could as long as don't yank on the rod. Maybe yank on it by pulling on the line. Said the guy who used to sell fly rods. Didn't like it when they broke.
Tom R.: Yeah, because I know that...
Jim: Yeah, that's probably a good idea.
Tom R.: I know that knots behave differently when they're under shock. You know, we've learned that if a fish suddenly surges, of course, that increases the force on the...because you're pulling in one direction, the fish is pulling on the opposite.
Jim: Yeah. I mean, it's still going to... You're still going to lose some. And I think it's better to break a fish off than to, you know, play them so gently that you practically kill them before you get them blinded.
Tom R.: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Jim: You know, it's still going to happen. And that sort of led to the other thought that if you break a fish off, where does the break-off happen? And it should happen right at the knot between, you know, the tippet and the fly. And if it's not... And you can even test that by, you know, doing the same sort of thing and noting where it breaks once you finally get it to break. And if it doesn't break right at the fly, if it breaks up at a knot farther up the leader, I don't know, then you should probably do something about that. Make that knot stronger or make the knot that you tie the fly on with weaker.
And I'm sure that people read that and think, "What? Intentionally tie a weaker knot?" Well, maybe you might have to, you know, to get it to break in the right place.
Tom R.: I don't know. I had this...
Jim: That's probably better to make the other one [inaudible 00:49:54].
Tom R.: I had this discussion with Robert Ketley a number of podcasts ago. We talked about knots and I said, "No." I said, "No, I'm not doing that. I'm going to tie every knot as best I can. And it breaks where it breaks, but I'm not going to purposely tie a weaker knot on my fly. Sorry. Not going to do it."
Jim: Yeah. Maybe we should stick with making the tippet knot stronger. Maybe that's easier, but it will swallow.
Tom R.: I'll buy that. Yeah.
Jim: Yeah, we can go with that.
Tom R.: The other thing is that I noticed often when I break up a fish, it breaks off in the middle of the tippet. And I know what happened there. I had a wind knot in my tippet because wind knots reduce the knot strength somewhere around 50%. So if it breaks in the middle of your tippet, then, you know, I had a wind knot from...which is not really a wind knot. It's a casting knot.
Jim: Or maybe the fish scraped it across a rock or something, sometime, but yeah. So it's not the end of the world if you lose a fish. I know for quite a while after people take up fly fishing, they really don't want to lose any fish. And I understand that. And when I was working with new fly fishers, I didn't want them to lose them either. Later on, you get so, well, it's okay. I mean, you know, we could take the viewpoint that we hear quite a lot from non-fly fishers, which is, well, you can let them go anyway. Why do you have to...? Why does it matter?
Tom R.: Because we want that picture for Instagram, right?
Jim: It does. We want to get them in and see what he looks like and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. I think we're going to have to live with landing fewer fish as the future unfolds here with what's going on in a lot of senses, but anyway...
Tom R.: I think so. Yeah. Jim, let's talk a bit about rod angles and when to use what rod angle when you're playing a fish, because that's something that people just have trouble grasping.
Jim: Yeah. Well, you know, when you set the hook, you're probably going to raise the rod tip. And, you know, yeah, you probably get teased about this too, about assuming the Orvis position from your logo of the guy with his rod way up in the area. But initially, you got to tighten up on the fish, and that's going to... You know, the way you're going to do that is to raise the rod tip. And once you got the fish on though, I try and keep the rod bent all the time, but not particularly high. I don't know. I've never thought about the angle, maybe 45 degrees or something.
You need some bends so that if it's a big fish and he shakes his head, that there's some give, some additional give in the system, especially if you happen to be reeling at the time when he does that. It's pretty easy to break fish off if you point the rod right at him because then all of a sudden there's no give anywhere and something's going to break. So I keep it pretty low. And if it's a big fish and he runs really hard, I might lower the rod tip just a little bit during the run. Because if you're adding a bit of resistance with the line and leader in the water and the faster he goes, I guess that increases a little resistance. But I don't know. What about you? Do you do that?
Tom R.: Yeah, I do. I drop the rod when the fish runs just to ease up on the resistance. Yep. Now...
Jim: Yeah. You know, they used to... Oh, go ahead.
Tom R.: No, you go ahead.
Jim: Well, I was just going to say we used to be told if it's a big fish and he jumps, you should bow to the fish, drop the rod tip because his movements will accelerate in speed and be much more violent. And if the line is tight, you could break the tippet when he's in the air. That's sort of out the window these days with barbless hooks because a barbless hook is much more likely to come out during a jump if the line is slack than if it's tight. So maybe that's a bit of a change over the years.
Tom R.: Yeah. And, you know, in particular, I find a barbless hook with a beadhead nymph or a conehead streamer, they've got more weight. And boy, I lose more fish with beadhead nymphs than I do on anything else when a fish jumps.
Jim: I never thought of that, but I'm sure that's true.
Tom R.: Yeah. So you're advising not to bow to the fish, to keep the line relatively tight when a fish jumps.
Jim: I guess it probably depend on what fly I've got on and how light your tippet is. If it's a 5-pound fish on 6x, then I guess I probably would. But if it's 6x, it's probably a smaller fly, and it's probably not as likely to come out.
Tom R.: True.
Jim: But, yeah, if it's a streamer, I'm more inclined to stay tight these days I think.
Tom R.: Okay. Interesting.
Jim: I haven't run any statistics on it or anything.
Tom R.: No, I haven't either. I still mostly bow to them just because I do some tarpon fishing and occasional salmon fishing. And, of course, the weight of the fish can break the leader, and you do want to bow to them. So it's kind of almost a habit with me. But I probably should when I'm fishing those barbless beadhead nymphs. I probably should keep tight more often than I do.
Jim: I guess. Who knows?
Tom R.: Now, what about using side pressure to move fish, Jim?
Jim: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm glad you reminded me of that. Yeah, that's really important. And we used to show this to people a lot when we were teaching them. If you just pull up on the fish, all you're really fighting is gravity. The fish, he doesn't have to do anything to resist that straight upward pull kind of over his back, if you like. But if you drop the rod tip close to the water, sideways, but still with a slight bend in it, and you pull there, now you're fighting his muscles and he has to resist and work to not go the direction you're trying to pull him. And so yeah, I think that's a really good point. I mean, you can pull straight up on a fish forever, and he doesn't get tired. You do, but he doesn't.
Tom R.: Yeah, and also...
Jim: But lay the rod to the side and...
Tom R.: ...fish can't move backwards, and so if you pull in a direction, get the fish's head going in one direction, he's got to go in that direction.
Jim: That's right. Yeah, follow his head.
Tom R.: If he fights, right? He's got to go in that direction. So you can lead him into the direction you want.
Jim: And that's why you don't try and net a fish from behind because he can only go forward, and he can move forward more quickly than you can scoop.
Tom R.: Yeah, yeah.
Jim: If you touch his tail, he's going the opposite direction right away.
Tom R.: I've been guilty of that. So, you know, what I typically do, and tell me if this is right or this is what you do, is I tend to use side pressure almost all the time, unless there's a lot of weeds or rocks on the bottom. You know, if there's a lot of weeds and stuff, then you're going to have to use an overhead, mostly, you know, high rod just to get the fish from burying you in a log or weeds or whatever. And then when I get it...and I keep that side pressure on until I get the net ready or a buddy gets the net ready, and then I lift up. Is that the way you do it? And I lift straight up to get the fish's head up out of the water.
Jim: Yeah. Yeah, once you get to that point where you feel like you're starting to get the upper hand in control, then, yeah, if you can get his head out of the water just a little bit, then suddenly you can skid him across the surface for quite a ways as long as you don't stop. [crosstalk 00:58:14.480]
Tom R.: Yeah, even a fairly large fish with a fairly light tippet, you can skid him across the water if you want.
Jim: Yeah, once you get them there and body surfing, they move quite easily. So yeah, that's a critical point. And experience will tell you when the fish is ready for that and when he's not. But they'll all get to that point I think, yeah, and I think that's really important to work towards that. It's a significant point in the fight.
Tom R.: Are there any clues that you can give people that don't have a lot of experience fighting bigger fish when a fish is ready to lift its head up and try to slip the net under his head?
Jim: Just if it's a good-sized fish, know that it's not going to be the first couple of times you probably try. So if he's near the surface and coming towards you, that's a good sign, sort of coming towards you under the water but not far from the surface. That's a good sign. Then you can sort of try and accelerate him, and if he is able to resist that and keep his head down and turn away from you again, okay, he wasn't ready that time. But you might have got him a little more tired and then try it again. And one of those times you'll just get that tip of his nose out of the water and then you can really lean on him because he can't really swim very well that way. But just try it gently or try it a couple of times until it works. That's about all I would say.
Tom R.: Yeah, until it works or it doesn't, right?
Jim: The specifics. Yeah, if it doesn't work, just try it again.
Tom R.: No, that is the problem with, you know, trying to tell somebody how to play a fish, because every fight's different, every fish is different, every current is different.
Jim: That's it. Yeah. Exactly.
Tom R.: And it's tough to come up with a formula.
Jim: It would be a great video if you could get all the stuff, you know, including where in the river to land a fish and, you know, do you have to move out of fast water or what should you do in shallow water, deep water. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff there.
Tom R.: Yeah, you don't know how many times I've tried to do it. I'll get it
Jim: Well, you get everything else you try to do, so you'll probably get this too.
Tom R.: Every time we go on a video shoot and I say, "Okay, this is on the list, how to play a big fish in fast water," and we end up never getting it.
Jim: Yeah, well, it's part of the fun.
Tom R.: Yeah, yeah, no, it's a challenge. So you had a lot of good stuff in there about landing and releasing fish for, you know, a minimum of stress on the fish. Let's talk about that a bit.
Jim: Yeah, I saw this for the first time at Northern Lights Lodge in North Central BC. I host a trip there every year, and I've gotten to know the guides up there. And they showed me something last year that was really pretty cool. They're using the nets with rubber bottoms, and the flat bottom. You know, it's fairly shallow but with a flat bottom. And so they do everything we just talked about, get the fish skidding towards the net, the net should already be under the water, you skid the fishes in head first to the net, and then you raise the net just enough to contain the fish. You don't whip it up way out of the water and wave to the camera. But you get the fish, he's now under control.
And then what they do is they just hold the net up so that the frame of the net is out of the water, I don't know, maybe a foot or something, and the fish is just right at the surface. And they just sort of shake the net back and forth side to side, just as if you were, you know, sauteing vegetables in a frying pan or something, and the fish will kind of flop back and forth, you know, a couple of times each direction. And about 75% of the time, the fly just pops out on its own. And then...
Tom R.: This is barbless flies.
Jim: This is barbless. They have to be barbless. And if you're pinching them, you really got to pinch them careful, or otherwise it won't work. And then you just lower the net a little bit, you know, and point the end of the net down in the water, and the fish just swims away. And so you've got them in, and you've got them unhooked, and you've got them released without ever touching them.
And I thought now it doesn't work with everything. It doesn't work so well with small flies. We were fishing pretty good-sized Foam Stonefly, and it worked really good with streamers, especially, you know, coneheads or something, because they're going to flop around a lot.
Tom R.: Yeah, and with barbless beadheads, for sure.
Jim: Yeah, there you go. And it doesn't work very well, or it doesn't work as well with multi-fly rigs, because you don't get quite... It just doesn't quite work as well. So it depends a little on what you're doing, but man, it was really good. I think about 75% of the time with those bigger dry flies, away they go. If you hook a fish in the tongue or something, maybe not, but even if it doesn't work, you're no worse off than you would have been anyway. You can do the conventional sort of thing, hold the fish in the water, support them from the outside of the net under the water, and unhook them and let them go.
But this really caught my attention. I don't know whether they figured it out or whether somebody showed them. It just seemed... Sort of surprised me that I hadn't heard of it before, and I don't know if a lot of people have or not, but I thought it was pretty cool.
And, of course, if it's a big fish that needs reviving, if you've got the hook out, the fly out that way, you might not just sort of open the net and let them go down to the bottom and turn the belly up. You'd keep them in the current and do kind of a conventional release but having never had the fish out of the water. And I think that it works pretty well that way.
Of course, the other thing is the taking the pictures, and everybody takes photographs of their fish. And the weird irony is that the biggest fish, if they're caught, they're probably going to spend the most time out of the water getting their picture taken. And they're the ones who probably expended more energy and have more risk to damage by that.
So I've just decided I'm going to take the picture of the fish while the fish's head and mouth are under the water, even if it's just barely under the water, can still breathe there. And then I learned that modern iPhones, and I don't know about other brands, but modern iPhones can take underwater pictures and really good ones. So it took me a while to become convinced before I would try it with my phone. But I finally went online and looked at it, and they're waterproof.
Tom R.: They're waterproof until they're not, in my experience.
Jim: Well, that's right. Oh, really? Okay.
Tom R.: Well, maybe the newer ones are better.
Jim: Yeah, I forget. I think it's... I don't know, mine is maybe a 12 or something, over 15 I think.
Tom R.: Yeah, I think they're getting better and better with their waterproofing.
Jim: Yeah. I know that, actually, the people who convinced me of this were Dave and Amelia Jensen, of course, who get lots and lots of great photography of fish and underwater fish. They said, "No, you just put your phone under there." And nobody believes me when I do it until they watch me do it. Everybody is afraid to do that. But anyway, I've been doing that for several years now, and I haven't had a problem with the phone.
Tom R.: That's good. What I've done with my phone, not so much for underwater, because I still don't trust it, and I have a fairly new iPhone, is I bought these little plugs that attach to the back of your phone, and it's a little rubber plug that goes inside the charging port. And I mainly bought it because pocket lint kept accumulating in my charging port, and then the phone wouldn't charge, and I had to pick the pocket lint out. But I imagine those things would help it even more, you know, plugging that charging port.
Jim: I'm surprised. Yeah, I never thought about that. They got holes in them, don't they?
Tom R.: Yeah. And they got electronics in there. That's why I don't quite trust it. But with that thing plugged it should be. Maybe I'll throw my phone in the sink tonight and see if it survives.
Jim: Yeah. Just be brave.
Tom R.: Yeah.
Jim: I haven't seen the magazine with that story in it yet.
Tom R.: Oh, you haven't? Oh, yeah. It was a great piece.
Jim: Yeah, I haven't seen. So I don't know what to use for photographs, but I'm sure I sent them. If they're underwater photos, they were taken with the iPhone. So I don't know, yeah.
Tom R.: So what else... You know, I totally agree with you that just getting a picture of the fish without your mug in it is so much better for the fish. And it actually makes a better picture. They never look that good when you're holding them out of the water in front of your face. You want to remember the fish, right? You want to remember what the fish look like, and they just look so much better when they're still in the water, in the net, or underwater. The colors are better. They're more in their natural environment, and it just looks...
Jim: Everything is better. That's where they live. Yeah, I think you've got to... It probably means declining to take pictures, even if it's a big fish. I remember I read something written a long time ago that kind of applies here. I can't remember who wrote it. It was a big-time photographer, and somebody asked him what was his most memorable photograph and he said, "Well, I think it was one I didn't take. I was..." And I don't remember the situation. He was on a mountaintop in Tibet at sunrise or something, and everything looked just so beautiful. He was reaching for his camera, and then he said, "No, this one's for me. I'm just going to look at this one and remember it."
Tom R.: Oh, that's a nice sentiment.
Jim: I thought that was, yeah, pretty good, and you can apply it to lots of things. You don't have to take pictures of everything just because we're able to.
Tom R.: Exactly. Yeah.
Jim: I know. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, the fish's health or whatever has got to be the first priority with all this stuff.
Tom R.: Yep. Especially since we're getting so good at catching more fish.
Jim: Well, right. And the tackle, the strength of hooks, the strength of leader materials, and all that sort of stuff is... You know, the fish aren't getting equivalent advantages. Their advantages aren't changing as ours are.
Tom R.: Yeah. Good point.
Jim: And I think part of the game is if you pull too hard, the fish should get away. I think that's the way the game works.
Tom R.: Yeah. Or if you do something wrong, well, the fish gets away.
Jim: Yeah. Like the rodeo cowboy. If the horse buck's really good, you're supposed to fall off every once in a while.
Tom R.: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, a fish is only exciting when it has a chance of not being landed, right? So, you know, you're fishing in a small stream for 8-inch trout or whatever, and, well, a lot of them shake off. But, I mean, you're not breaking them off, and there's no fight to worry about. It isn't until they get to the point where, hey, I might not land this fish, that makes them more exciting, right?
Jim: Exactly. Yeah. The prospect of failure is that's where the excitement comes in. I agree. And that's why we like...well, big fish, they're big, but yeah, maybe you had to do something a little better to get the big fish in than you do to get the whole bunch of little fish in that. I don't know.
Tom R.: Yeah. And, you know, I think that's changed. I think that philosophy has really changed. In the old days... We shouldn't... I know it's a couple of old guys talking about this, but in the old days, you know, you wanted to catch a big fish because it was harder, right? They were usually harder to fool, harder to hook, harder to land. You wanted to catch it because of the challenge. And I'm seeing too much these days of you want to get the big fish to get the picture instead.
Jim: Yeah. Okay. Yep. I suppose that's probably it.
Tom R.: Yeah. And I think people should be more satisfied with the memory. And yeah, a picture will help with the memory for sure, but the memory is going to be a lot more valuable then.
Jim: That's right. And put it in your fishing diary, you know, because then you'll remember the day and the conditions and who you were with and all that. And that'll magnify the memory I think as well.
Tom R.: Yeah.
Jim: Yeah. I think we got to go that direction a little more.
Tom R.: Yeah. I think so. I think so.
Jim: Yeah. All right. Well.
Tom R.: Well, Jim, what else do we have to say about releasing fish? I mean, that shake and bake idea, I really like that idea of just shaking them around a little bit, particularly with a rubber bottom net, because it's not going to hurt the fish to move it back and forth a little bit.
Jim: Yeah. That's right. And, well, I think what it replicates a little bit is like a controlled version of what the fish does when he jumps, which is, you know, wiggle side to side. And you just do that in a more controlled place and the same thing happens quite often.
Tom R.: I don't think we should flip them up in the air like a pancake or something and try to dislodge the hook.
Jim: No, don't do that because you might miss like you do sometimes with pancakes.
Tom R.: Yeah. And it's probably not too good for the fish either.
Jim: Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think it'd be very good for them. I don't know, I was going to say something else. I don't know what it was.
Tom R.: Well, let's say somebody doesn't...
Jim: Oh, no, I was...
Tom R.: Okay, go ahead. Go ahead.
Jim: I was going to say I tried one day last fall to get a video of the shake and bake thing too, and of course, it didn't work.
Tom R.: It never works when you got a camera running, right?
Jim: Yeah. That camera business changes everything, right?
Tom R.: Yeah, it does.
Jim: And people are going to have to trust us.
Tom R.: Okay, Jim, let's say you don't have one of those nuts. Let's say you went fishing one day and you didn't expect to catch any big fish. You didn't take a net or you didn't have a big, wide, flat net. What's the best way to get the fish in and release it with minimal stress to the fish?
Jim: That's a really good question. And I think it's difficult to answer that if you're talking about bigger fish. Little fish, you can just basically strip them in until you reach down. Again, leave them in the water, run your hand down the leader, and just turn the fly upside down and shake right at water level and the fish will fall off. Or if you got a catch-and-release tool or another similar tool, you can use that.
But if it's a sizable fish, that's really tricky. And it's the main reason I am a real proponent of using nets because I think you can get a fish under control sooner with a net and, you know, released sooner with less stress than not using. I guess I would say don't... You know, in the old days when we were going to keep fish, a really good way to land the fish was to drag it up kind of on a beach. You know, we'd beach the fish. As you get half out of the water and start flopping his tail and that would drive him farther up the beach. But I don't think that's so good because it, you know, gets him out of the water and they're going to bang on the rocks.
So I would say don't try and get them out of the water very much. And certainly, if you've got them in your hand, leave them over the water. If he falls out of your hand, he's going to fall in the water, not on the rocks. So I guess the problem is I think you have to play the fish longer if you're going to try and land them by hand or get control of them by hand, I don't know.
Tom R.: Oh, much longer. Yeah. Much longer.
Jim: Yeah. And, you know, I would say put more pressure on. Yes, you're going to have more...you'll be more likely to break them off by pressuring them harder than you intend to, but that's still better for the fish. Yeah, man, I don't like seeing people fooling around with fish that are flopping in their hand, back out of their hand and on the rocks and they're still not unhooked, you know. What about you? What do you do? What do you suggest people do if they don't have a net?
Tom R.: Well, what I try to do is as soon as I hook a big fish, I look for a landing place. And what I'm looking for is shallow, fairly slow water with not a lot of rocks on the bottom, you know, mud or clay or sand or something, and play the fish and try to lead it into that spot where it doesn't have the current as its benefit, using side pressure, get it into that area, and then slide it into water, if possible, where it's so shallow where the fish's back might be out of the water and they lose some of their locomotion. And then, you know, kind of pounce on it, grab it, and then move it into a little bit deeper water and slide the hook out and then let it go. But, you know, it's really important to find that little pocket of slower, shallower water.
Jim: Yeah, so you're not fighting current and the fish.
Tom R.: Yeah. You're not fighting current and the fish, and you can really lead the fish around a lot easier.
Jim: Do you try and turn them upside down?
Tom R.: You know, I do sometimes. Yeah, I think that turning a big fish upside down does...and I'm not sure. I don't think it's bad for them if it's just briefly to unhook it, but...
Jim: Yeah, I've never heard of an analysis by a biologist, but it's certainly true that they flop less. Because funny thing...
Tom R.: They do flop less, yeah.
Jim: Yeah, I told somebody that one time. I said, "Turn them upside down." And so he was gonna fish with his head pointing at the water and his tail pointing at the sky. Not that upside down, the other upside down. So we got to be careful what we tell people.
Tom R.: Yeah, you have to be pretty literal and pretty specific in your instructions in that case.
Jim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tom R.: You know, the one time, the one thing, the one situation, and I shouldn't find myself in this position but I have occasionally, was being out in the middle of the river in a fairly fast piece of water and not wanting or being able to get to shore quickly and having to play a big fish in the current. You got any tricks for that? Because that's tricky.
Jim: I think you really want a net there.
Tom R.: Yes, you do.
Jim: And the only thing I would say is if you can move to a spot where you're standing by a rock that blocks some current, if there is, like if it's on a river like the Madison or something, with all the rocks, or even if you have to, and if you can do it safely, to block enough current that you can slide the fish immediately downstream of your body, there'll be a little bit less current there. That's about all I could think of.
Tom R.: Yeah. And I tend to kind of just trap them against my leg, you know, just kind of gently trap them against my leg downstream of me and then keeping the fish in the water to take the hook out. But, you know, you're right, you should have a net. If you're out in the middle of a river, you should have a net.
Jim: I think so.
Tom R.: But, you know, sometimes we don't.
Jim: I used to. I remember in all of...and you'll remember this probably, but lots of people won't, Doug Swisher's early videos, he always fished without a net. He was good at it. Of course, in the videos, we never see the ones that flopped around and made a mess.
Tom R.: Yeah, right, yeah.
Jim: He would slide his hand under there, pick it up, take the fly out, put it back. And it was never that simple for me without a net.
Tom R.: No, I think that if you care about releasing fish, then you should have a net, and it should be fairly wide mouth and fairly flat like you described. Those rubber nets with the flat bottom are real fish savers I think.
Jim: Yeah, it took a while to sort of arrive at the best kind of net bag I think and they seem to be it.
Tom R.: I think so. And they're better for taking picture because the fish isn't bent in half, you know. You can lay it out, still keep it wet, and get a nice picture of the fish.
Jim: Yep.
Tom R.: All right, Jim. Well, I want to...
Jim: Well...
Tom R.: No, that's great. And I want to thank you for sharing your wisdom with us today. It's a topic that...it's tricky. It's tricky, and again, as I said, there's no formula. You have to kind of play it by ear and watch what the fish does.
Jim: Yeah, and it's not even addressed that much, probably for those reasons that it's... There are no real rules. You just have to prioritize the fish's safety and keep some of these things in mind. They won't all apply all the time, but do what you can to get them in quick, get them out safe.
Tom R.: Yeah, and losing a fish, it's easy for you and me to say, because we've caught a few fish in our lifetime and we don't really mind losing a fish here and there because it's part of the game. But, you know, if I've only been fishing for a year and I hook an 18-inch brown trout, I want to land it, you know. And so it's important.
Jim: Holy cow, you want to get that thing in.
Tom R.: Yeah, it's important to people.
Jim: Yep, I agree.
Tom R.: Either I want a picture or I just want to at least touch it and release it.
Jim: Yeah, there is that, isn't there? I want to touch it.
Tom R.: Yeah, something about that.
Jim: Yeah, it's tactile I guess, or something.
Tom R.: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's the hunter in us I think. It's in our DNA somewhere.
Jim: I guess so, yeah. You know, I've often thought about the whole thing about, why do we need to catch them? And I can't answer that.
Tom R.: Oh, I can't either. Oh, I wouldn't even try to answer that.
Jim: I'm pretty sure I do need to catch them. I mean, not need to, but I really want to catch them. It's not just okay to see them or to know they're there, although that's part of it. I think I like to know they're there. But if I see a big fish rising, I want to catch them and I can't explain why.
Tom R.: I can't either.
Jim: And I'm not going to eat them.
Tom R.: Jim, we shouldn't examine it too deeply because if we do, we'll find that what we're doing is pretty silly anyway, and I think it would ruin our fun. So I don't think we should even go there.
Jim: Okay, I feel better already.
Tom R.: Yeah, just enjoy it, and don't try to psychoanalyze yourself when you're fishing.
Jim: Okay.
Tom R.: That's a slippery slope.
Jim: Okay, I appreciate that. That's a good counsel.
Tom R.: And you know that. I don't need to tell you that.
Jim: I do, but every once in a while, I think, "Huh, isn't it funny how bad I want to catch this?"
Tom R.: Yeah, I think of that all the time and I say, "Nope, I'm not going there. Nope, I'm not going there."
Jim: Okay. Well, I'll hear your voice in my ear the next time I feel that.
Tom R.: Just do it and enjoy it.
Jim: Okay. Okay.
Tom R.: All right, Jim. Well, I want to thank you so much. Really appreciate your time. And it's always great to talk to you. And keep writing those great articles and books.
Jim: Well, I'll try. Thanks, Thomas. This is always fun. And you keep doing what you're doing because it's one of the best resources anywhere is your podcasts and the videos you put up. I mean, everybody tells me, "Well, I always watch Tom's videos and listen to the podcasts because that's where I learn the most stuff." So good on you for doing that. Keep doing it.
Tom R.: Well, as I tell my friends, I'll keep doing it until I'm irrelevant or I can't do it anymore.
Jim: That's the plan.
Tom R.: Yeah. All right, Jim. Thank you so much.
Man: Thanks for listening to the "Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast" with Tom Rosenbauer. You can be a part of the show. Have a question or a comment? Send it to us at