Mousing at Night for Monster Brown Trout, with Joe Cermele

Tom: Hi, and welcome to "The Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast." This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer. And my guest this week is Joe Cermele. You probably, know of Joe through his podcast, "Cut and Retie," and also Joe's work for many years with "Field & Stream." Joe's [00:00:30.339] a freelance writer, and the topic is night fishing. Joe is someone who really likes to catch big trout. And Joe spent a lot of time learning about night fishing, particularly in the eastern United States. And so, he's sharing his, his tips with us. Joe's always fun. He's always interesting. And I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I enjoyed talking to Joe. [00:01:00.039]
And before we do the Fly Box, I wanted to tell you about something, a product that I'm really, really fond of. The Ultralight waders and boots, which are slightly less expensive than the PRO versions of waders and boots. And honestly, these have become my go to waders in boots for everything. [00:01:30.030] Not just traveling, but day in and day out, I find myself reaching for the Ultralight waders and the Ultralight boots. They have an obvious advantage if you're traveling because, you know, particularly if you're going overseas or you're going on a long trip, you got clothing and fly boxes and things to pack, and you don't want a lot of weight in there with the waders and boots that you're packing. And these are gonna save [00:02:00.084] you considerable weight and bulk in your packing. I love them for travel, but honestly, I use them day in and day out unless I'm wet wading. I've used them early in the season with some warm long underwear and under-wader pants under them. I use them during the summer if the water's cold or if I'm gonna be fishing through the evening and I really don't wanna wade wet after the sun goes down. [00:02:30.425]
And I just think they're fantastic. They're they're super comfortable. The waders are super comfortable. They're super light. You hardly know you have them on. And the boots give you plenty of support. Not as much support as the more substantial PRO boots. But, you know, if you've got strong legs and ankles, you're gonna get plenty of support on these boots. And the sole on them is a new sole that is [00:03:00.294] a new rubber compound from Michelin and a new tread pattern. And I find that these boots, these rubber-soled boots are almost as good as felt on slippery rocks. Something about the new tread pattern and the new rubber compound that are really grippy on rocks. And of course, when you're walking on trails or walking up and down a muddy bank, they're far superior to felt. And I fully intended to put studs in these [00:03:30.074] boots, but I haven't put studs in them yet and I haven't slipped. So, anyway, it's a great system. They're available. And I urge you, if you're looking for new waders and/or boots, to really look at that Ultralight system. I think you'll find, as I did, that you'll be using them year round.
And now the Fly Box. The Fly Box is where you share a tip or ask [00:04:00.314] me a question, and I try to answer your question. And if I can't answer your question, I'll reach out to some of my coworkers. And if I have to go to the internet or some sort of AI program to answer your question, then I probably won't because you could do that just as well as me. So, you know, a lot of times you're asking me for my opinion, which you're not gonna get on the internet. And I'm happy to share my opinion. I don't know how [00:04:30.134] much it's worth, but I'll share it with you anyway. If you have a question, you can send it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You can either just type your question into your email or you can attach a voice file and maybe I'll read it on the air as I will with a couple of questions this week.
Now, the first one is an email from Harry. "I'm a fly fisher from Germany and have [00:05:00.185] spent many years fishing the beautiful rivers of the Bavarian Alps between Munich and Rosenheim. A few weeks ago, I sadly broke my beloved 9-foot 5-weight rod, which had been my trusted companion for many seasons. After a short period of mourning, I'm now ready to look for a new true all-around rod. That's how I came across the new Orvis Clearwater series. I'm hoping you might have a recommendation for me. My home waters are classic trout rivers. I mainly [00:05:30.365] fish for brown trout, rainbows, and grayling. Most of the time, I use nymphs with an indicator, but I've been getting more and more into high sticking, which has been working really well. When the fish are looking up, I switch to dries. And when the water is high or dirty, I'll tie in a good old wooly bugger.
So here's my question. Would the Clearwater 10-foot 5-weight give me an edge for nymphing and high sticking, or would I be giving up too much performance for dry flies or streamers compared to the more traditional 9-foot 5-weight? [00:06:00.000] Is there another rod in the lineup you'd recommend for someone like me? I truly appreciate your insight. You're a legend in the fly fishing world, even here in Bavaria, and I'm grateful for all the passion and knowledge you share through your podcast and beyond."
Well, Harry, I think that that 10-foot 5-weight is gonna be the ideal rod for you. The extra foot that you get over a 9-foot rod, [00:06:30.089] obviously, is gonna help you, especially for high sticking, but also for mending line. You can lift more line off the water and hold more line off the water with a 10-foot rod than you can with a 9-foot rod. It's slightly better on longer casts and it's a great rod for either water loading or for roll casting. Just gives you a little bit more length on your roll cast. [00:07:00.290] The only disadvantage is gonna be slight. And that is that once you get beyond 8.5 feet for a fly rod, any increase in length is going to decrease your accuracy slightly. Now, the traditional 9-foot 5-weight rod is not that much longer than an 8.5-foot 5-weight. And you know, I've [00:07:30.060] read some articles that say that the most precise, most accurate rod is gonna be an 8.5-foot rod for a 5 or 6.
So, you know, when you go to the 10-foot for a 5-weight, you're gonna sacrifice just a tiny bit of accuracy, but I don't think it's enough to matter. And it makes sense because the longer the rod, the longer the arc at the end of the cast. And if the rod has a little bit of wobble [00:08:00.189] to it, then that's gonna be magnified over a longer length. And they all, even the Helios rods, are gonna have a little bit of recovery. They just recover quicker. But, you know, I think it's a toss-up, but I think that you're gonna be happier with 10-foot 5-weight based on what you do most often. And it's not gonna hinder you much at all on your dry fly fishing and streamer fishing.
Brook: Hi, Tom. This is [00:08:30.180] Brook from the Catskills where we have pretty great hatches in the spring and the summer that tend to begin as the sun goes down, and some nights they keep going strong well into the dark. As a result, I have tried tying larger parachutes onto my dry flies and using lighter color flies when plausible, which helps [00:09:00.059] a little bit. Lately, I've borrowed a technique from tight line nymphing or Euro nymphing where I'll shorten up my fly line to be only maybe 3 feet out of the end of my rod with a 10-foot or so Harvey dry fly leader, a couple of flies on the end of that. And before it gets dark, I try to build up good muscle memory [00:09:30.080] for knowing where those flies are in relation to the end of my fly line, which is the last part of my rig that I can see in the dark. And it's kinda like watching a shock absorber of a car going down the road. You may not know exactly where the car is headed, but, nevertheless, you can still get some pretty good information about where approximately the flies are located and how fast [00:10:00.225] the water's moving right there.
So that works to some degree and, you know, you're left kind of setting on anything in the general area. Usually I'm standing pretty close to where the fish are rising, so I can get away with, you know, having 12 to 15 feet of line out of the end of my rod. And I guess it's pretty similar to Tenkara fishing at at that point. I was wondering [00:10:30.384] if you had any other suggestions. I've seen some people use glow-in-the-dark fly line, which I don't really have trouble seeing my fly line, so that didn't make too much sense to me. And I talked to one fellow who ties in some glow-in-the-dark material on his parachutes and then charges them up with UV light, which seemed kinda interesting. Or do you pack it in and call it a day when it gets dark and come back the next night? [00:11:00.434] Just curious what your thoughts are on this. Thank you. Bye.
Tom: Well, Brook, that sounds like a great method that you've developed, kinda high sticking into the dark, and that's a really good way of doing it. Like you, I haven't found any advantage to glow-in-the-dark lines or glow-in-the-dark...glow-in-the-dark flies actually, in my experience, seem to put the fish off because the natural flies don't glow in the dark [00:11:30.004] unless a lightning bug falls in the water. So, I don't hold much stock in the glow-in-the-dark stuff. I've experimented with them, and they seem to be counterproductive.
The only thing that I might suggest for an alternative, and it's something that I do, if I'm fishing into the dark and the hatch is over and I can't see my fly anymore, what I'll often do is [00:12:00.070] turn around and tie on a soft tackle that's about the size and...you know, the color probably doesn't matter after dark, but about the size of what's been hatching. And I'll swing a soft tackle through the area where the fish were rising before or are still rising because, you know, some of the duns get drowned and there might be some emerging nymphs. And also, if there's a spinner fall, the spinners get drowned. And yeah, the soft tackle is gonna have a slight amount [00:12:30.320] of drag, but being underwater and after dark, it doesn't seem to matter that much. So, and then the advantage here is you're gonna feel the strike or you got a tight line, and you're gonna feel the fish take your fly. So, honestly, that's what that's what I do, I put on a soft deck.
The other thing is that in my local waters, we have a lot of bats on the water. And after dark, the bats tend to pick dry flies off the water. And [00:13:00.629] I don't like that very much, and I don't like hooking bats at all. So by swinging a soft tackle, I keep my fly under the surface and keep it away from the bats. So another thing to try, but I think your high sticking method, sounds like a good way to go.
Here's an email from Caleb from southern Appalachia. "During the heat of this summer, I've become a bit of a carp fanatic. I first caught carp on the fly a few years ago during the periodical cicada [00:13:30.490] hatch and had a blast, but had not caught one since. This summer, I've started pulling mud flats on my stand-up paddle board and sight fishing for carp with success. I've quickly become enamored with this kind of flats fishing from the SUP, but I have a couple quick carp-related questions since I'm new to the game.
First up, a knot question. I've always used the double or triple surgeon's knot for my leader to tip a connection. This has served me well for streamer fishing for [00:14:00.120] larger brown trout and smallmouth bass and even some small pike. I really have any problem. But in the last couple weeks, I have broken off three carp at my surgeon's knot using 16-pound saltwater tippet. The main issue is that these carp are making runs for submerged brush and logs and I have to put considerable pressure on them to keep them in open water. These are not huge carp. They're probably 10 to 15 pounds." Well, that's pretty good carp. "My tippet should be strong enough to play them, so I'm [00:14:30.190] concerned that the surgeon's knot may be the wrong choice for these thicker diameter connections. What do you recommend? I've scoped out the blood knot and uni-to-uni knot as options, but would also like your take. For that matter, do you have any tips on playing carp to keep them away from underwater snags? The larger fish that I hook seem to make an immediate dash for the structure. Is this just a matter of the proverbial angling luck or is there something I can do to boost my odds? I seem to land about two-thirds of the carp [00:15:00.115] I hook from the paddle board and would like to do better.
Next up, a fly question. I started tying carp flies years ago after my first encounter with them. There were some flies in my box that I seem to remember coming from one of your videos. It was a conehead woolly bugger variant, but with no hackle and rubber legs. I seem to recall you talk about a dubbing collar that is optional in the video commentary. Well, I caught a few carp on this fly and went back to find the video [00:15:30.274] of you tying it. I've scoured YouTube and cannot find it. Do you know the fly I'm talking about? Can you point me to the name of the video? It's easy enough to tie that I don't need to consult the video. It's more a matter of sanity with the closure that comes with finding what's lost. Thanks for the attention you've given carp fishing. Keep that content coming. It has been quite helpful. Like you, I'm becoming something of a carp on the fly evangelist and cannot figure out why it isn't more popular. [00:16:00.495] I live near the South Holston tailwaters, so there are a lot of local fly shops. I cannot ever remember seeing a carp fly in these shops, and I have never talked to another local angler who targets them intentionally. I suppose I shouldn't complain. More for me."
Well, yeah, Caleb. I wouldn't complain because, you know, the more carp spots get pressured, the even more difficult the carp can get. So keep those spots [00:16:30.075] to yourself, even more so than your trout spots. Regarding the video, I think the one you're talking about is the Keslar's Mini Gulp Sculpin, and you can find it on the Orvis YouTube channel. Look up "Orvis fly fishing," and then...so go to the Orvis YouTube channel. And then there's a playlist there called "Tying with Tom." And in there are [00:17:00.044] archived all the tie-offs that I've done with Tim Flagler and Cheech and also some ones that I've done by myself. And it's under Kesler's Mini Gulp Sculpin. I think that's the fly you're referring to.
Regarding your knots, you didn't say what diameter you were tying that 16-pound tippet to. And in general, the surgeon's knot seems to be a little bit better [00:17:30.029] when you're going more than one-thousandth of an inch between sections. But personally, I've had surgeon's knots break on me too. And the knot is easy to tie, but it's actually really critical that you tighten it properly. When you tighten a surgeon's knot, you need to grab both long ends and both short ends or tag ends and pull them together, [00:18:00.009] all together so that the knot tightens tightens evenly. If you don't do that, I find the knot is much weaker. So that may be a problem. What I do, honestly, is to use a blood knot. I think I trust the blood knot more than I trust the triple surgeon's. I've just had fewer blood knots break than than triple surgeon's or double surgeon's. [00:18:30.190]
And if you're going from a fairly heavy section to a lighter section, let's say you're going from 25-pound to 16-pound in your leader, you can do what's called an improved blood knot. So if you're going more than a thousandth or two-thousandth of an inch difference in diameter, you wanna use an improved blood knot. And what you do is you double over the lighter strand, whichever the lighter strand is, in this case, it's [00:19:00.140] gonna be your 16-pound tippet, and you use that as one piece. So you just fold it over, form kind of an open loop, and then you tie a blood knot with that. You have to be very careful tightening that, that you pull all the ends, both tag ends, actually three tag ends, two on one side and one on the other, when you tighten it. But I found that that improved blood knot is really strong. In fact, I use it [00:19:30.049] on my my tarpon leaders. So, you can try that instead of the surgeon's knot.
And then as far as leading the carp from the snags, it's best to just use as much side pressure as you can to turn the fish's head away from the snag. And that may be a little more difficult from a paddle board because you're probably being pulled around by the carp. And so, you know, if you can stake out your paddle board or [00:20:00.255] you can maybe get off the paddle board and wade if it's not too deep and mucky, I think you'll have an easier time steering those carp away from the snags. But, you know, if you're fishing for carp around snags, they're strong fish, and you're gonna lose them. And you're losing two out of three, I don't think that's so bad if you're in a really snaggy area. So, try to use more side pressure, try to use better knots, and, hopefully, you'll land a greater percentage of [00:20:30.115] them.
Here's an email from Matt from Clemson. And Matt is a South Carolina aquatic toxicologist, which is important when you listen to the first part of his email. "I have a comment and a question. First, I was listening to your back cast this week with Pat Dorsey. A listener asked whether wildfire smoke would negatively affect trout populations. I agree with you that the wildfire smoke at the time would likely not have a measurable impact on the [00:21:00.005] local trout. However, if one considers the issue more broadly, particles in the air, in which wildfire smoke is a great example, can negatively affect water quality and, thereby, sensitive fish life stages. As is often the case, it's a matter of magnitude and frequency. Air particles and pollutants attached to them settle on the landscape and can be washed into water bodies. Some types of air particles can also contribute to stream and lake acidification. [00:21:30.815] So the point is, we as anglers and stewards of nature should do all we can to take care of the air just as we do our waters.
Now for my question. I recently returned from smallmouth fishing in Kentucky. I took along several Murdich minnows I tied after watching your video with Tim Flagler and listening to your podcast with guest Tim Landwehr on modern smallmouth tactics. The fish absolutely loved the fly. [00:22:00.019] But I noticed that the googly eyes invariably came off. I flattened the sides of the fly head by trimming away the body material and attached the eyes using super glue. Maybe fly-tier error, but this got me thinking. Rather than litter the river or the fish's gut with googly eyes, could you simply put two black dots on the fly's head using a permanent marker or perhaps no eyes at all? I'm just wondering how important the eyes are on this and similar patterns in attracting fish. Thank you for considering [00:22:30.500] my comment and question."
Well, Matt, thank you very much for your comment, and that is important to remember, and I appreciate you educating us about that. Now, for your eye issue, do eyes make a difference on streamers? Well, that's a great question, and I don't have the answer to it. Some people believe that they're absolutely essential. Other people don't think they matter. And most people like me are somewhere in the middle [00:23:00.309] where, they don't wanna take any chances, so they put eyes on their streamers anyways. Plus, they look sexier in your fly box when they have eyes on them. They look more finished. And yeah, you can do that, you can put eyes on with a permanent marker, and you might even put a dot in the center with a white marker or some sort of white paint or yellow paint so that you have a pupil in that. But there is a way of keeping those googly [00:23:30.380] eyes on your fly.
The best way that I've found...and I learned this one day when I was watching the great Enrico Pugliese tie one of his peanut butter flies. And he would make a little impression in the side of the yarn that he ties the fly with, with a cauterizer, as you're doing, you're putting a little depression in there. But then, I complained [00:24:00.000] that my eyes were always falling off. And he said, in his great Sicilian accent, "You gotta use da goop." And so, I started using "da goop." And I buy online stuff called Marine Goop. It's like, I think, the same company that makes Shoe Goop. It's also great for reattaching felt soles on waders, by the way. And once I started using this Marine Goop to attach my [00:24:30.309] eyes, they didn't come off anymore or rarely came off. So, yeah, you can paint them on if you want. You can use model airplane paint to make eyes. I used to do this. But try using try using "da goop," and I think your eyes will stay on much, much better. Superglue doesn't hold very well putting eyes on the side of flies.
Here's an email from Dave from Kentucky. "I'm currently hiking [00:25:00.015] the Appalachian Trail, and I'm thinking that I'll have some of my fishing gear mailed to me for the second half of the main section so I can finish my hike in style fishing along the way. From what I've gathered, the 100-mile wilderness along the Appalachian Trail mostly consists of small streams and many ponds, small lakes that hold brook trout and potentially other species. This brings me to my question. I'm wondering if you'd recommend that I bring my 7.5-foot 3-weight glass rod and bat-and-kill reel setup, or would I be better off [00:25:30.115] with a 9-foot 5-weight clear water setup I mostly use for trout fishing? I'm drawn to the 3-weight in this scenario if I'm mostly presenting dries to brook trout, but I think I could be under-gunned in the pond and lake scenario. I'm only bringing one rod as I am backpacking, and I prefer to keep a light pack. Not sure if you have any experience fishing in this area, but curious as to your thoughts in the matter."
Well, Dave, a lot of the streams I fish here in Vermont are near the Appalachian [00:26:00.545] Trail. And you're right, there's some great brook trout fishing all the way up through into Maine on small streams. But I think once you get into Maine, you're gonna be finding more ponds and lakes. And you know, I think you're gonna be better off with a 9-foot 5-weight rod. A 7.5-foot 3-weight fiberglass in a lake when you're restricted to fishing from shore, it's gonna make it tough for you. It's gonna be tougher to make a long roll cast with it because you're gonna be fishing from [00:26:30.115] the bank. And so I think that 9-foot 5-weight will be better. And in a small mountain stream, the 9-foot 5-weight is not a bad rod either. Typically, these small Appalachian mountain streams are quite open because they have a big flood plain and they're rocky. And so, you should have plenty of back cast room. And so I think, definitely, I would go with the 9-foot 5-weight over the 7.5-foot 3-weight. [00:27:00.214]
And here is an email from Jude. "I'm in the middle of an annual two-week vacation with my family in Telluride, Colorado. I learned to fly fish here five years ago and have become hooked ever since. I live in Arizona, so I don't get too many days in throughout the year. But while I'm here, I fish every day. Today, I landed a very nice 15-inch or so cutbow in the San Miguel River. In fact, it may have been the largest trout I've ever caught. Anyway, I was in a [00:27:30.009] very tricky area as the bank of the river was piled with trees from a recent beaver dam creation. I hooked the fish and brought it to the riverbank quite quickly despite all the obstacles around me. I was surprised by the lack of fight it gave me. I was expecting double the fight since it was nearly double the size I usually catch. The fish shook the hook out when I netted it, and I immediately took a quick picture before releasing. As I attempted to release him back in the water, he flopped out of my hands and rolled upside down and slowly [00:28:00.380] floated lifelessly downriver. I was shocked as the total time from hooking it to releasing it was quite fast. I felt horrible and tried to retrieve.
Due to all the aforementioned obstacles, I wasn't able to retrieve it right away. I was able to track it down after a minute or so as it was slowly floating away. I felt horrible the whole time while trying to retrieve, thinking it was futile and destined to die anyway. As I scooped the lifeless upside down fish into my net, I [00:28:30.099] turned it right side up. It was a matter of a second or two and it miraculously regained life and swam out of my hands and back into the river. My question is, what do you think happened here? Why did it nearly die when it was an ideal catch and release except for flopping out of my hands? And why did it miraculously come back to life once I got it right side up? I very much enjoy listening to your podcast and have learned so much in doing so. Nothing beats practice in getting better at something, but [00:29:00.180] I have grown leaps and bounds by what I pick up from you and your guests. Hope you can provide some insight as to what happened here."
Well, Jude, that upside down thing is fairly standard. If you can hold a fish right side up, it will regain its equilibrium much quicker and swim away. And boy, when they're upside down, I guess they're disoriented and [00:29:30.230] they just can't come back to life as easily. So, you know, but it happens all the time. If you release a fish and it goes belly up, you wanna grab it if you can, like you did, and hold it right side up and wait until it takes off under its own power. And maybe that fish will die anyway, but at least it's left your hands under its own power, and hopefully it will survive. [00:30:00.049] Why exactly is this the case? I'm not quite sure. I'm sure there's a biological reason for it, and maybe somebody can weigh in on that. But, yeah, fish that goes upside down is just not not gonna make it. And turn them right side up, and usually they at least swim away.
Regarding why that fish was so exhausted, I think there's a couple scenarios here, and it could be one or the other, or a combination of the two. [00:30:30.259] So you didn't tell me what the water temperature was. Sounds like the water might have been over 68 degrees, might have been quite warm. And if the water wasn't, if the water was in, you know, the early 60s or the 50s, then I suspect that that fish had been maybe caught earlier in the day. Cutbows are are pretty gullible, and I know I have caught the same cutbow twice [00:31:00.240] in the same day because I remember once I was releasing a cutbow on the Madison River. It shook its head and snapped my tippet and took my beetle with it, and I tie a kind of a unique beetle. And later on that evening, I went back to the same place, and I caught the fish and got my beetle back. So I know that they can be caught multiple times in a day. And perhaps that fish was caught earlier [00:31:30.265] in the day by someone. And you know, maybe the water temperature was too high. If you don't travel or fish with a thermometer, in the summertime, you really should because that's gonna tell you if the water is too warm to stop fishing. And if it's over 68 degrees, you wanna quit because you're gonna probably kill a lot of the fish that you try to release.
Here's a similar email from Chris [00:32:00.315] in New Jersey. "I recently saw a social media post from a big fly fishing company, not Orvis, that said, "If you really must kill a fish, Alaska is the best place to do so." While I am exclusively a catch-and-release angler when it comes to trout, I don't like the taste, this post got me wondering about the fly fishing culture which promotes catch and release as mostly morally superior. However, my question is, who really has the moral high ground, the [00:32:30.105] catch-and-release angler or the angler who keeps a fish to feed himself or herself? It's been said that everything on this planet lives at the expense of something else. So with that perspective, keeping a fish for the purpose of food is morally justified.
But where the one angler is fishing to feed himself, the catch-and-release angler is fishing solely for his or her own pleasure, for fun. There is no purpose of gathering food. When we hook a fish, regardless [00:33:00.164] of whether the fish feels pain or not or whether we use barbless hooks, we are clearly causing that fish to panic. The fish goes in a survival mode fighting for its life. So while it is, of course, good for the fish to release it, what I struggle with is the morality of trying to catch it knowing that I'm going to cause it great distress purely for my own pleasure. I'm curious what your thoughts are on this. Do you think fly fishing culture should encourage anglers to reflect more deeply on this?" [00:33:30.049]
Well, Chris, as someone who works in the fly fishing business and whose livelihood depends on the fly fishing business, I hope that more anglers don't reflect too deeply on this because you make a good point. In my opinion, it's morally superior to kill a fish and eat it than to release it. I don't think anybody thinks [00:34:00.309] they're morally superior when they're releasing a fish. I think most people wanna put the fish back in the river, and it's really a selfish reason. It's so that someone else can catch that fish or you can come back and catch it at a later date. You know, what what catch-and-release fishing does really is it doesn't do much for the environment, so it's not morally superior. It's stockpiling fish so that we can have better fishing. You know, [00:34:30.070] it doesn't take very many spawning pairs of fish to completely repopulate a river. So, you know, catch and release is not helping a population. It's not helping the species. It's just what we do because we want more fish in the river, honestly.
And to tell you the truth, I don't think much about whether this is moral [00:35:00.409] or not. One of the greatest compliments to my fishing I ever had was, I think it was Todd Tanner that was watching me fish, and he called me a predator. There is something satisfying about that predatory instinct and holding a fish in your hand that you fooled and you've captured. And yes, they are fighting for their life, and it's actually a pretty bizarre thing [00:35:30.000] that we do. I mean, I remember hearing that Jacques Cousteau called catch-and-release angling a perversion. And you know, maybe it is. So I don't wanna think about it too much. I do know that it satisfies something in me very deeply. And you know, if people are really worried about causing a fish anguish or whether it's morally right or wrong, then I would suggest that maybe they [00:36:00.400] just observe trout. You know, trout are beautiful creatures and a lot of times, in clear water late in the season like this, you can get on the bank and you can watch a fish in the water and watch it feed. It's a fascinating thing to do. And if you don't wanna torture them, then don't fish for them.
But, again, I'm not gonna think about it too deeply because if we examine catch-and-release fishing, or fly fishing, or any [00:36:30.039] kind of fishing too deeply, I think we're gonna give it up because what we do is pretty weird. So, yeah, I would hope that...you know, there's other things to reflect more deeply on. The friendships that you make on the water, the water quality, your family. There's lots of things that we should reflect deeply on, but catch-and-release fishing is one of those things [00:37:00.210] I don't think we should reflect that deeply on.
Charlie: Hi, Tom. It's Charlie from Maple Plain, Minnesota. Say, I am wondering what your thoughts are on the following. I think it's well understood that trout will often hold in slow water adjacent to faster water and then dart into the faster water to eat things that are flowing through the faster water. I am wondering, when the summer gets hot and water warms up, might the trout still hold [00:37:30.050] in the slower water but choose to go into the faster water for a brief period of time to take advantage of the oxygen in the faster water and then head back to the slower water to continue holding? I don't know if that's nutty or not, but I'm curious what you think. Thank you.
Tom: So, Charlie, yeah, I agree with you. You know, what I see during the summer on on rivers that I observe throughout the season [00:38:00.335] is that fish move from the slower and often protected pools with deep water and they move into faster water. Now, I think there's a number of reasons, maybe not just oxygen. I think there's a number of reasons that fish move into riffled or more broken water during the summer. One is possibly oxygen. Although, if a fish is adjacent to faster water and slower water, it's probably gonna get about the same [00:38:30.704] oxygen from the water right next to it because there's some mixing, there's some turbulence in there. But I think that other reasons fish move to the faster water in the summertime, or in low water in general, is that, number one, there's more food there. I think that fish that are in a pool, and when that water in the pool starts to slow down, I don't think they get their food at a rapid enough rate. And I think they [00:39:00.295] move up into faster water so they get more opportunities at food because the faster water brings food at a faster rate.
The other reason, I think, is that riffles provide pretty good cover late in the season. The surface of the water is broken, and things like herons and osprey and eagles can't see the fish as well in the broken water. So it could be any one of those things. It could be oxygen, it could be cover, and it could be more available [00:39:30.355] food. But, you know, we do see them moving into the faster water. So, even riffles that were, you know, not that productive earlier in the season, good idea to check them out during the summer.
All right. That is the Fly Box for this week. Let's go talk to Joe Cermele about night fishing for big brown trout. [00:40:00.114] Well, my guest today is my old friend, Joe Cermele. And you probably know Joe through his podcast, "Cut and Retie," which is a lot of fun, a podcast that I highly recommend. And he's actually had me on his podcast, which. I don't know, Joe, you really must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel for guests, but...
Joe: Hardly. Hardly. I threw some hardball [00:40:30.204] questions at you too, Tom. We had a lot of fun. That was that was actually one of my favorite shows of all time.
Tom: Really? Yeah, it was fun. We did it with Sean Combs, not that Sean Combs, another Sean Combs, the Orvis rod developer. And you also write. You write for
"Field & Stream." Where else are you writing for these days?
Joe: So I'm writing for "Field & Stream." Well, see, I'm a freelancer now. So the last time I was on your show, I was still working full time for "Field & Stream." [00:41:00.014] So nowadays, I'm independent, so I can kinda do what I want. So still work for "Field & Stream," "Angler's Journal," "On the Water." I do a lot for "Outdoor Life." As a matter of fact, so I have two podcasts. "Cut and Retie" is my weekly, and that's my baby. That's the fun, entertaining one. But I've been doing a biweekly, very short tactical podcast for "Outdoor Life." And as of September, that's going weekly. So as of September, technically, I'm kinda like a full time podcaster.
Tom: Wow. [00:41:30.815]
Joe: Yeah. I don't know how I'm gonna do it all, Tom, but I'll [inaudible 00:41:33.783], I'll figure it out.
Tom: One a week is all I can handle, I'll tell you.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. And even then, butthat can be tough too. So, but organization is key, and I'm fairly organized. So we'll see what happens.
Tom: Good. Well, I know you're organized. So, I've had a couple of questions recently or requests to have a podcast on night fishing for trout. And I [00:42:00.144] know you do a lot of it. I used to do a ton of it, and I don't as much anymore. I don't know if I'm getting old or I just like sight fishing, but, you know, so, and I know you still do it a lot. So I thought we would would have you on to talk about night fishing for trout.
Joe: That's one of my favorite topics. I'm happy to do that, though I have to laugh because we're both getting old. So here's a funny thing real quick. I still do this every [00:42:30.159] year. Right? It's a thing I look forward to every summer, and I love it, I truly do. But it's funny because the last time we talked about it was years ago, and I got to thinking about it. And at the time, I hadn't been doing it that long. It was sort of on the back end of a video that I shot for "Field & Stream" on the Upper Delaware that got a lot of attention. And it sort of chronicled the first time me and our mutual friend, the legendary Joe Demalderis, ever tried night fishing for trout with mouse flies. And we filmed [00:43:00.110] it and this video went huge. And at that point, man, I was gung ho. I could not get enough. I night fished as much as I could. Stock trout, wild trout, I didn't care. I'd go to the Upper Delaware three times a summer to do it. And boy, a lot has changed in about 10 years, not the least of which is the amount of time that I have. So I don't do it as much as I used to.
But ever since then, it has been an unbroken tradition that at least once a summer without fail, we do what we [00:43:30.079] call mouse camp, where we get that old crew back together, a friend or two, and then we go we go crash at Joe's up on the Upper Delaware and, you know, do a few nights of mouse that we haven't missed. The funny thing is that now, I'm 42 now, it's fun, but, man, it is, like, devastating. You know what I mean? We are absolutely destroyed from it. Because you show up all fired up, you know, you're getting on the river at 8:00, and if it's good, the next thing [00:44:00.010] you know, it's 2:00 in the morning, and you're getting off. And then you're drinking beers and grilling sausage at 4:00 in the morning. And you know, back in the day, my body would let me sleep until 10, 11:00. Now with two kids, I'm up at 7:30 whether I pass out at 4 or 9:00. So we have never missed. In fact, we just made plans to set it up for this summer. But, yeah, that's the funny thing. You know, like, it gets a little less rowdy every time we go. And the day between the floats [00:44:30.789] is just like a bunch of old guys sitting around drinking coffee and barely talking. But the second night, by the time it gets dark again, man, we are just as fired up. Like, we still love it. I absolutely love it.
Tom: Now, you've done it other places too, right? You've done it in lots of other...
Joe: Yeah. I mean, I've done it a ton locally. So I'm in eastern Pennsylvania. I'm a Jersey boy. So I mean, throughout the Poconos and the streams up there. I've done it the most on the Upper Delaware system, but I've even traveled...we did it in Michigan [00:45:00.539] once, which was quite an experience. I mean, legendary water out there and so much night fishing history because the hex hatch and everything in that part of the country, and that was cool. But man, it was a lot more challenging out there, you know, much smaller streams, tighter rivers, more overhang. But, yeah, I was so tore up with it that for a while there, I would I would travel, you know, a good distance to just huck mouse flies in the dark.
Tom: Well, [00:45:30.869] let's kinda take it bit by bit. So, the first thing is time of year. Time of year and weather. You know, what do you look for when you're gonna go night fishing for trout?
Joe: So, I mean, really, this is a summertime thing. But interestingly, years ago, when we first started doing this, we had it in our heads that this was really a dog days thing. Now, granted, I'm speaking [00:46:00.280] mostly to my experience on the East Coast. Right? So I haven't done this in the Rockies or anything like that. But here, we always thought, well, that makes the most sense, you know, late in the summer when it's very hot and it's kinda doldrumy and there's not as many bugs as there are in the spring. And really what what what we found out, and more so, you know, my buddies, Joe included, up there who do this a lot more than I do, is that really that's [00:46:30.135] not true. I mean, you can get fish to look up at a mouse in May if the conditions are right, you know, in June. We used to go in August and September and now we've started doing it more in late June or into July has actually seemed to be better at least in our area. But really it's all summer.
And the only thing that can really shut you down is high water, high dirty water. We've tried it, that's, you know...but [00:47:00.985] it really plays with just sort of stable summertime conditions. And the beauty of it is that there's no weariness. So as you certainly know better than anybody, by the time you get into summer and you have clear water, especially in a pressure piece of water like the Upper Delaware, those fish have seen every dry fly, you know, by mid-July from every shop and they can be very, very hard to catch. The lights go out and they lose that weariness, you know?
Tom: Yeah. [00:47:30.244] They seem to. They seem to, for sure. Let's talk about weather conditions that are they're suitable. You know, most most people think of hot, humid nights, still nights. Do you find that to be true? I mean, if there's some wind, does that affect it?
Joe: Yeah. I mean, [00:48:00.394] truth be told, we've been doing it long enough now where I feel like we've had some level of success in almost every kind of condition because, like I said, now that it's become mainly this once-a-year mouse camp for a few days, it's sort of like, well, you know, that's when we have the time to be there. So unless it's completely blown out and we have no chance, we're just gonna go for it. But stillness certainly matters, but I don't think that it matters so much. It doesn't make the fish eat more necessarily. [00:48:30.184] It's just once the lights go out, part of the fun is it's Jedi stuff. Right? It becomes a game purely of feel and sound. So, you know, the more breeze, the more that the trees are rustling, it can work against you in terms of hearing or seeing that hit, but I don't know if, like, a breezy night would necessarily shut the fish off. But if you really had to drill it down, what do you want? Sure, yeah, [00:49:00.195] you want a still night.
And people will argue with this because there's a lot of mouse experts out there now, we tend to not like full moon. We actually find that the darker it is, the better the fishing is. And you have a lot of people say like, "Oh, you know, the full moon, it was so bright, I could actually see my fly coming back. I don't wanna see my fly coming back." And I personally am also not a fan of glow lines and [00:49:30.195] glow flies. Success comes from training yourself to do it on feel and sound. If you're always trying to see the fly, then you're sort of missing that skill set. So we've always found that new moons or cloud cover, anything, but, you know, a bright shining moon lighting up the river tends to fish better.
Tom: Yeah. I remember a number of times when I used to do a lot more night fishing, I would be out there and it would be 9, [00:50:00.159] 10:00, and it was a late moonrise for what whatever reason, whatever phase of the moon, or maybe it was cloud cover, and the fish were just smashing stuff. And then as soon as that moon came up, done. Done.
Joe: Yes. We've seen that very scenario I don't know how many times, Tom. You have a bite and then the clouds part or the moon comes up and it will die. Another thing that I've noticed that I think is [00:50:30.070] important for people who wanna try this...and again, this is just based off our experiences, somebody will always argue with you. But we tend to find that you know pretty early in the night whether it is or isn't. In other words, I don't remember a scenario where nothing has happened until 1:00 in the morning, You know? Because I think a lot of the correlation we have seen, it's like you have a night with a really good...or actually I should say maybe [00:51:00.349] not such a good spinner fall, but a scenario where at dark, it seems like the fish are already looking up. They're waiting for a spinner fall that doesn't happen. They'll be quick on it. But in our experience, there always seems to be some sort of hard shutdown, you know, throughout the night. It's fire, fire, fire, and then it often gets so late that it just sort of dies.
Now, granted, when we do this, we're doing it from a drift boat, which is a whole other [00:51:30.190] story and a whole other challenge, but we're sort of all in. We're putting in and covering 5, 6 miles of river in the dark. But I bring that up because if you're an angler on foot, maybe you're not going to put in that kind of time. You just want to go mess around, you know, give yourself until, I don't know, 10, 11:00, and if you haven't made anything happen by then, it's not impossible, but we've just sort of noticed that you know pretty quick if they're looking up and it's gonna go down.
Tom: Yeah. And I've also found [00:52:00.284] that there's a period between, like, evening hatch time and when they'll eat at night where it's kinda dead. And you know, it it takes...their rods and cones shift around after dark so that they can see better. So it takes them a little bit of time, I think, a half hour or so for the rods and cones to switch places so that [00:52:30.034] they have better night vision.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. And that's spot on. I didn't even think about that, but it's true. We've put in so many times where, I mean, you can see heads up all over just at dark and you go, oh, man, this is gonna be fire. And they sort of peter out and nothing happens for 30 minutes or so. So you're absolutely right. Like, they do, they seem to readjust.
Tom: Yeah. Now, some places I know, they don't even start until 11:00 [00:53:00.255] or midnight, but...
Joe: Sure. Yeah. And that's what I mean. I mean, I've heard that. I've talked to so many guys who do this in different places, and I'm not saying that what I'm passing on here is the be all end all information. There may be places where that's absolutely the case. But, you know, here, that's just been something over the course of ten years that we've noticed, but there could be, I don't know, several factors that maybe on your river, wherever you are, they don't kick [00:53:30.054] on until late. But, I don't know, maybe I'm just passing that information on for the old timers like me so that you don't feel like you have to be out there until 4:00 in the morning. Like, it's okay if you don't do that. But, you know, and it's funny because mousing is one of those things, and I don't care whether you're on foot or in a boat, it's like if it's going down just a little bit, just enough to keep you interested, enough movement, enough pops, even if you're missing, you know, just [00:54:00.065] to keep you engaged, it's the greatest thing in the entire world. Nothing sucks more than a mouse trip where nothing is happening. And all you're thinking about is like, I should have just...we could have been having a cocktail back at the ranch, you know, like reasonable people. So it's definitely a commitment in that regard, you know.
Tom: Yep. Let's talk about water types. What kind of water types should someone look for? Let's say they're on foot and they don't have a drift boat because, you know, drift boats at night, [00:54:30.085] that's kind of Ph.D.-level guide stuff.
Joe: And you're not kidding because I own a drift boat, and I've run the rivers up there many times, but still not enough where I personally would be comfortable rowing any of them in my boat without the guidance of one of our guide buddies up there who could legitimately row it with their eyes closed. So I only do it with somebody on the sticks who, you know, they are super dialed. Because you can get in trouble very easily if you just kinda wing that.
Tom: Yeah. [00:55:00.284] So you're a wading angler and you're kinda scouting it out during the day. And I definitely would advise someone to make sure you know the water before you go in there at night because, you know, you wanna know where the drop-offs are, where the rocks are, where the logs are, and it's probably a good idea not to go by yourself too. It's probably a good idea to go with a buddy.
Joe: Yep. Yeah. And I've written about this, I don't know how many times in my career, and that's [00:55:30.054] one of the biggest tips. You know, this is not the time to go explore. This is when you wanna be on a river that you do know like the back of your hand and have a plan, I'm gonna fish spot A, and then if that doesn't work, maybe spot B, and I'll explain why. you know, I've heard people say like, oh, we went...you know, you try and cover a mile of river in the dark. That's just asking for trouble, right? This is not a streamer fishing covering water kind of deal.
So you asked about water type. The easiest one is just, [00:56:00.440] you know, everybody's river has those one or two pools that are the heads up dry fly pools when things are good. You know, the river widens out or, you know, you have sort of that walking speed of water. There's hundreds of them. You and I fish the same ones on the Upper Delaware, and these are the places that are packed with people, right, during the day because that's where the hatch is going down. You know, as much fun and challenging as mousing is, and [00:56:30.000] that's part of the appeal. Let's call it like it is too. You have a highly pressured river like the Upper Delaware that's a stream of drift boats and waders all day, the beauty of being out there at midnight is you have the pool to yourself. Right? So I mean, a lot of fish get caught sort of right where you left them. So wherever those big glassy pools are, the famous spots, I always see the big one against the back wall, those are great places to mouse.
But another thing that we've noticed too [00:57:00.050] is that a lot of good stuff happens in what you, by day, might consider junk water. Because you have to remember that brown trout, they're not gonna travel maybe miles and miles at night, but they'll come out of a lie or out of a hole and they'll go out and they will actively hunt in the dark. So we've all seen these stretches of water, they're just kind of nothing, you know, fairly shallow, barely moving. It's not quite frog water, but, you [00:57:30.119] know, the sun's lit up and you can see everything on the bottom and you're like, ah, there's no reason for me to fish that during the day, trout's not gonna be there, and you're probably right. But if that's in close proximity to good holding water, you know, deep riffles or a deep hole or something, it's very feasible that browns holding in the good stuff are gonna slide into that junk water in the dark because that's where it's easiest to find food. That's where the toad or the real mouse or the leftover [00:58:00.230] bugs or whatever are gonna collect.
So those are my two suggestions. It's, you know, go to those pools that are like the well-known dry fly pool, and then fish the junk water. And I mentioned that you're not really gonna cover water. You're not gonna cover miles of stream. Really, the thing to do is have one or two spots picked out, pre-planned, and you can slide up or down within those pools, but commit to them because I think a lot of [00:58:30.005] what happens is night fishing tends to be more about letting fish come to you than you going down and hunting fish, when you're on foot that is. So you have a spot that you have confidence that a big brown or, you know, any brown is gonna feed in at night, don't be afraid to swing it over and over again methodically, you know, work down and work back because, at any point in time, a fish that wasn't there can cruise in looking for something in that zone.
Tom: So it's [00:59:00.164] worth just...it's not like fishing a hatch where, you know, they're either there or they're not, and you gotta move on. Here, the fish are moving.
Joe: Yeah. I mean, and not necessarily all of them. I mean, you know, but we've had a lot of success in water that I know by day you would you would skip right over. And they do, they let their guard down, they're more comfortable. And you know, on foot, you're [00:59:30.155] not going to cover everything the way you want to. I mean, it can take you 10 minutes to walk, you know, 30 feet if you're climbing over rocks and, you know, you gotta remember too, headlamps, bad in this game, you know. So you obviously need a light source to walk into where you're going. But really, once you get in that water, like, you do not wanna shine a headlamp on there. So you wanna get into a position where you know you have the back cast room, right, so you're not snagging behind you all day. And you can just, [01:00:00.534] you know, work gradually. That's where the pre-planning comes in. But a lot of the guys that I know who do a lot more wading at night than I do, that's what they do. They'll go pick a pool and they'll stay in it for the entire time they're out. And they will pick fish in it, you know, throughout the course of the night without going very far at all.
Tom: Yep. And it is always a crapshoot, right? Because these...and it's mostly brown trout. These big brown trout, they don't eat every night. [01:00:30.155] Right? They probably don't...they're not out hunting every night because if they eat a mouse or a couple of crayfish or a couple of big creek chubs, they're probably...it's gonna take them a while to digest that.
Joe: Sure. Sure. But I think there's also something to point out, you know, with that, that I also think is sort of another misconception about this. You know, when I first started doing it, you have this notion that I'm gonna be really hardcore and I'm gonna go out there all night and I'm gonna do this [01:01:00.255] because I think that, like, my best shot at the biggest brown trout in this hole or in this system is at night on a mouse. And there's still people...right? I won't name names, but there's people on social media who still play that up. You know? Like, I'm mousing so I can catch the 30-incher all the time. The biggest brown that I've caught at night on a mouse in all these years was I think 23.5 inches. Now, that's a fine brown trout. But [01:01:30.295] it has not proven to be, for us at least, this thing that's like, oh man, if there's a 30-incher in this hole, this is what's going to get them. It could, right? I think there might be an advantage to that with their guard down. I've certainly hooked a couple of fish over the years that busted off, you know, that could have been much bigger.
But really, you know, what I preach when people ask about this, because I get it a lot, is like, don't go into it thinking that I'm doing this to catch [01:02:00.315] the biggest brown trout in my life. I hope you do...and you might, but it's almost like for me, I do it because it's just a different challenge. I like to fly fish and this is challenging your senses, right? It's touch and it's sound. And you know, we catch a lot of fish in, like, the 17 to 19-inch range. Right? It's rare that we catch really small ones, but that 17 to 19, at least on the Upper Delaware, is fairly common. Well, if you ask me, [01:02:30.500] a 17-incher that you swung up on a mouse in the dark is just like a little bit cooler than the same fish you'd catch during the day. So you can catch numbers and you can catch size, but do I really think that's the ticket over picking, like, a really, really good streamer day in April or May and catching the biggest brown of your life? Not really. You know, it's just a different challenge and a different level of fun. But I can't swear [01:03:00.019] it's the meal ticket to your PB, as they say, Tom.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Now, you keep talking about mice. You keep talking about mousing. Let's talk about fishing mice. You know, what do you do? And by the way, my favorite mouse pattern is still your master splinter. Easy to tie, durable, and it works. I've used it in Labrador, [01:03:30.659] I've used it in Chile, and it works great.
Joe: Well, it's so funny because that might lead people who don't know me to believe that I'm, like, this commercial fly tier. That's my one and only. Chances of me ever having another fly make it are slim, but that was also just a product of the time. And what we noticed was, you know, when we first started doing this, you show up with whatever mice you have. Well, what are they? They're bass bugs. You know, they're spun hair, [01:04:00.070] big flies and stuff. And we just kinda noticed that, yeah, the trout are hitting these, but they're not getting pinned on them. So the splinter was just something concocted in 20 minutes in a motel room that was just slender. And I'm like, maybe they'll get this. And they do. The fly doesn't miss. So there's nothing special about that fly other than I think it connects more.
But you asked about fishing them. You know, really, this is a game of subtlety, and [01:04:30.355] I think people have a tendency to think of it as an aggressive presentation. Like, man, I really wanna swim that thing. I want that thing to wake its butt off or, you know, gurgle or pop. Tell you the truth, I lay it out there and just creep it back, just try and stay as tight to the fly as I can. You know, there's a challenge there because you can't see. So I can't tell you how many times, you know, you'll be stripping and you think, man, I'm laser. [01:05:00.224] I'm straight on that fly. That fly is right there. And then you hear a pop, like, up or downstream and realize, I had bow in the line. Like, my fly was not wherever I thought it was. So you do your best just to keep as straight on the fly as possible. And I just do very slight hops, if not just very light strips, and it will create its own wake streaming across. And if you think about, you know, I wanna say mouse, but, I mean, you and I have talked about this before. The amount of mice [01:05:30.074] that the brown trout on the East Coast eat is probably zero. I think these fish think they're toads or Dobsonflies. It's really just a target, right? It's a little wiggly thing.
Tom: It's a lure. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. It looks like it could be food. But there's no need to be aggressive because if you think about the natural prey, I mean, something that falls in the water is gonna wanna make, you know, as little commotion as possible for that very reason. So you just sorta, you know, [01:06:00.025] throw downstream, or upstream rather, and just lift your own foot and just slowly bring that thing back and let it creep across, trying to stay as tight as you possibly can.
Tom: So you sometimes fish it upstream? I assume that's when it's really slow current.
Joe: Yeah. In froggier water, you can do that. And I'll tell you, we've had some incredible times. In fact, last summer...I'm hoping for a repeat. This doesn't happen all the time, but every once in a blue moon, you'll get into some really soft water [01:06:30.094] and anchor the boat. And man, you throw in any direction, and it's like a striper blitz. And that happened to us. So if you're in soft enough water where you can fish upstream, as long as you can stay relatively tight, because that's where you miss the most. And you're gonna miss. Right? Make no mistake. Like, I don't care how long you've been doing it. Like, you will miss fish. They will catch you off guard. You know, another thing too. It's like, well, how far am I right now from the boat? So you go to pick it up thinking I'm ready for another cast and you were further than you [01:07:00.054] thought and, you know, you hear the slap and you miss. But, yeah, in soft water, you can throw upstream and fish it more like a streamer. To me, from a boat, it's basically just streamer-style fishing slowed way down. But then on foot, you know, you're swinging more than anything.
Tom: Right. Okay. Okay. Because the you want a wake, right? You want them to key in on something waking on the surface because that shows up a lot better from down below.
Joe: Yeah. And like I said, it takes very little and the current does most [01:07:30.204] of the work, but I mean, you don't want something flying, right? You want something...you want them to be able to grab it. And you know, another interesting thing that I...it's a hill that I will die on. I've done this many times now with first timers, which is always interesting. We can talk about that, but it's always interesting. But people have this expectation of just having their heart stopped by, like, you know, the water opening up like a toilet flush. It's the complete opposite. The more [01:08:00.045] you hear, the smaller the fish is. It's the little fish that come up and slash around and make themselves known. All the bigger fish that I've caught and seen caught, man, most of the time you hear nothing because that fish doesn't have to expend that kind of energy to come nip a little toad or something off the surface. He's just gonna come up and go...and it's gone, which is why, you know, ears, and then feel is everything. You know what I mean? You feel it with the big [01:08:30.060] fish often, you know, before you hear it. So we have noticed that to be true. Bigger the fish, the less you will hear it eat that fly.
Tom: And you probably, as I did when I did a lot of night fishing, use a short stiff leader, right? Because you don't need a light tippet, and if you hang it up, you wanna be able to yank it out of a tree. What do you use for a leader when you're [01:09:00.100] mousing?
Joe: So I'm a big fan of...I personally like a 12-pound mono leader, like a Maxima or something. I'm sure Orvis has something similar. But, yeah, you're right. I mean, you can get away with, I don't know, 3 feet a leader, 4 feet a leader. And frankly, with it that short, I don't even worry too much time about a tapered leader necessarily. You know, and to your point, it's kinda has multiple [01:09:30.159] things going for it. For one, you know, we're very cognizant of water temperatures. So even if we're fishing at night, if the river up there is too hot to be healthy, we're not going, right? So the water is always gonna be warmer in the summer regardless. So okay, you know, I'm stunning this poor fish that has no idea what's going on because it never expected to get hooked in the dark. So, yeah, we're not gonna fight it in the dark on 6x for, you know, five minutes or whatever like you would [01:10:00.189] with a dry fly, so we can get those fish in and released very, very quickly. But you made the second point already. You will be in the trees. It's gonna happen. And if you have a nice strong piece of leader on there, most of the time, you can yank it out without having to pull the boat over or go hike back into the woods. So it sort of has, you know, multiple benefits.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah. I'm surprised you go as light as 12-pound. I typically go 20, 25-pound.
Joe: [01:10:30.779] Well, no, you're laughing, but our our bud, Joe Demalderis, same thing. You know, he's like, "Ah, put a decent 25 on there." And you can, and there's nothing wrong with doing that. It doesn't get him any fewer bites than it gets me with 12. I guess that's just like a...I don't know, man, I feel slightly barbaric using 25 pounds, but it's effective. It's not hurting the fish any more. So you're absolutely right. You could put a chunk of 20 pound on there and [01:11:00.439] you're fine. But I don't know, 12, 15, I'm comfortable.
Tom: Yeah. Okay. You're kind of a light line kinda guy, huh?
Joe: I'm a light tackle [inaudible 01:11:09.798].
Tom: I think you could probably use 40-pound.
Joe: You could. The only thing that would stop you is getting it through the eye of the fly. You could tie the darn thing at the end of your fly line. They probably eat that too because there's nothing., there's no...you know, and that's what I mean. Some of these summertime fish. [01:11:30.060] There's been a handful of times we go up and the hatch is so good before we start. I'm like, "All right, give me the dry." Like, I gotta try. And, you know, you've seen it. You can send a bug over a fish perfectly 10 times and they won't eat it. As soon as the lights go out, man, there's nothing. So there's no need to be dainty. There's no need to worry about leader-shy fish or spooking the fish. And I'll admit, it's kinda cool in that regard, you know, because I am the most nervous guy in the entire world when I have a big brown on a midge or something. I just expect that I'm [01:12:00.159] gonna lose it. But you stick one in the dark on that rig, you're not losing it. Plus, you're using a 7 or 8-weight rod, you know? You don't have to necessarily. Like the master splinter, one of the things it's been praised for is that you can throw it on a 5 if you have to. It's not some big bulky hair bug, but kinda like a 7, you know? So yeah, you lean into them, musky style, they're in the net, over, off healthy, not a problem, very quickly.
Tom: So, you have [01:12:30.229] been talking just about fishing mouse flies. And over the years, I've found, not so much of the master splinter, but other mouse flies, I get a lot of short strikes, you know, you get a lot of pops. You get a lot of boils. And actually, my favorite nightfly is a either a big wet fly, [01:13:00.329] like a size 6, you know, great big wet fly, or my all time favorite is an unweighted Woolly Bugger. So that, you know, it's just under the surface, and it's gonna wake when that line tightens. And I just feel I get more more solid hookups. Do you ever fish anything other than a mouse at night?
Joe: Well, I almost hate to admit this, but no, [01:13:30.354] not really. Now, I have tried nighttime streamer fishing, you know, as a younger, impressionable man. Some fly shop owner once jingled that in my ear on Penns Creek. I was all about that and thought, man, that sounds really, really cool. We achieved nothing. It was so dark I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, and I gave up on night fishing for a while until we did the mouse thing years later. But no. And you know what? And it's a matter of stubbornness, Tom, to be honest. Your way...I mean, we probably [01:14:00.284] should be more open to that. I mean, that makes total sense. It's just sort of like, you know, I'll use the snakehead analogy. I love fishing for snakeheads. You can catch them a million different ways, but the fun way is watching them blow up on a frog. So when I do it, that's just how I want them. You know what I mean? So I do it that way. And you know, you come away from that night on the river and you have your foam fly. It's all chewed up and you laugh at that. You take the picture for Instagram and you see all the teeth marks. It's just sort of part [01:14:30.135] of the experience for me. So we don't really deviate from floating mouse patterns.
Though, I will say it's interesting you brought up the stinger hook. A lot of mouse flies have a stinger hook in the tail. And I also see a lot of people doing their own [inaudible 01:14:46.048] in their tutorial videos, which I love. I think that's so cool. I'm not one of these guys to be like, "Don't copy me." No, I think that's great. And I can't tell you how often people put a tiny stinger hook in its tail, like they just [01:15:00.185] can't resist. And it's a controversial...that's the wrong word. It's a sort of to each their own kind of thing. I believe in, you know, being confident in what you're throwing. So if having that stinger hook in the tail of your mouse fly, you know, boosts your confidence, go for it. Years ago, we messed around with some things like there's one called the Mr. Hanky. That's a big Alaskan fly that has no body hook at all. It just has the tiny hook in the tail. Though that was designed more, I think, for swinging [01:15:30.345] rainbows than browns.
But what we found were two things. We caught a really nice brown, and it only had that teeny stinger hook in it. You lose them a lot. It just doesn't give you as firm of a hook set, you know, hook placement as the big hook. But most of the time, I mean, a brown's a pretty vicious predator. And if it wants to take that thing down, especially something slim in profile at the splinter that rides low, it's taking it down. And then you got one [01:16:00.225] hook in its mouth and then a stinger hook in its eye or in its gill plate or something like that. So, and this is just a personal thing to me and the guys that I roll with. We've sort of adopted the mentality of, like, just fish the main body hook. You know, if you miss something, it wasn't meant to be because, in my opinion, it's like, again, if a trout's committed, it's committed, it's taking the fly. So if it boiled behind it and missed, maybe it turned off a bit or whatever. But rather than muddle things up with [01:16:30.154] a teeny tiny egg hook or whatever it may be in that tail, we just fish with one, you know, size 2/0 Gamakatsu body hook and don't really seem to have any problems landing the ones that take it. It fits them perfectly well.
Tom: Yeah. No, I'm totally with you. I do not own a fly or tie a fly with two hooks in it. I don't think it's necessary. And whether it's just a trailing hook [01:17:00.204] and a shank or just a body hook, I don't think it matters that much. A big brown trout is gonna eat it. It's gonna crush it.
Joe: Yep. Yep.
Tom: Well, what else do you have to suggest for somebody that wants to try night fishing? Be careful. Go with a buddy. Know the water.
Joe: Well, it's fascinating [01:17:30.875] because fishing at night for trout is one of those things that, I mean, I see it piques so much interest. I've talked to so many people who were like, "Oh, man, I'm dying to try that," or, "That looks so cool," or, "I really, really wanna do that." And it's funny because it seems to be that when you take somebody to do it for the first time, it's either love or hate right out of the gate. Something happens and they sort [01:18:00.185] of get a little bit zen about it and sort of understand the challenge and embrace it and absolutely fall in love with it or it's the complete opposite and people will try it once and go, "I'm never doing this again." Because, you know, you think...and this is not knocking anybody, it's just the truth. A lot of people listening, you spend time on your favorite river during the day. You know it well. You know all the runs. You know the hatches. You know everything. So you sort [01:18:30.034] of think, like, well, I'm just gonna go out there at night.
Night is weird, man. Like, you hear things that you don't know what they are. You know? Places that you walk, no problem during the day, you're stumbling all over yourself. You know, if you pop a trout in the first 10 minutes, good for you. But if you spend the first hour picking every third cast out of the trees or, you know, I said, you know, light on the water is bad, but you need something, right? We use red lights, which is supposed to be a little bit better, and we [01:19:00.125] try and keep them off the water. But you're constantly checking your leader after every few cast to make sure it's not twisted up. I mean, your eyes are worthless. And like I said, using glow-in-the-dark fly line, which I tried once and never again, or, you know, trying to make your fly glow is really not the answer. I've tried that stuff, and I think it's limited advantage, if any at all. So it's almost like teach yourself to do it right and learn how to just [01:19:30.265] use feel and use your ears. But, you know, it's just sort of a cautionary thing. I think everybody should try it. It's very, very cool. But, you know, just be prepared. It is a far cry from whatever experience you have had in those pools, you know, by daylight.
Tom: Yeah. I remember...I used to do a lot of striper fishing at night too, and we found the same thing. When glow-in-the-dark fly tying materials came out. We thought, oh, man, this is gonna be cool. [01:20:00.289] And the fish ran from them. I mean, because, you know, their prey doesn't glow in the dark. I mean, yeah, there is some plankton and there's bioluminescence in salt water, but, you know, most of their prey doesn't glow in the dark. And certainly, for trout, it doesn't glow in the dark, so.
Joe: Yeah. Well, I did this with a buddy of mine once years ago. Here's another fun fact, you know, because people live all different places, right? I've done this for wild [01:20:30.229] browns and stock browns. And just quick funny story. I had access years ago to one of those trout clubs that are also controversial. But regardless, I had access to one, and this place is loaded with giant Kamloops rainbows, right? Many more of them with some stock browns mixed in. So, I asked permission, I said, "Does anybody care if I go crawl around up there at night? I just wanna see what happens." And what happened was I only caught the browns even though I knew that [01:21:00.069] that fly on any given cast was coming over 15 giant rainbows. So if you live somewhere where you only have access to stock trout and, you know, your state stocks browns, they don't lose that instinct. Stock or wild, like, they'll come up and, you know, they'll eat at night.
But the glow line thing, somebody gave me some once. I took it actually on that trip to Michigan. I laid it out one time, and I said, this is scaring more fish. [01:21:30.439] I don't like anything about it. And then I moused with a friend years ago who had some glow fly. The guy spent more time recharging it with his UV light than fishing. So it's like, dude, I'm in the water. Like, I'm out there in the dark, like, actively fishing. Every time I turn around, you're just recharging your fly. You know?
Tom: So did he catch any fish on that glow-in-the-dark fly?
Joe: He might've caught one and had, like, another pop, but I think I had, like, I don't know, a half dozen that night, something like [01:22:00.229] that. So it's just a distraction. You're spending more time fiddling with glow stuff than you are fishing. So I'm anti. You know?
Tom: Yeah. Yeah. I don't think you need it. You need to learn...and, you know, it really helps your casting because you have to feel the cast. And I found that I think it makes people better casters fishing at night because they have to pay more attention to how the rod feels and how the line feels.
Joe: And [01:22:30.210] to that point, Tom, you know, here's the thing, just to sort of, you know, be blunt about it, right? And this is for safety reasons. For one thing, you might consider a pair of safety glasses when you do this, especially if you're fishing on a drift boat, right? it's worth it. But what I was gonna say is, you know, if this is something that interests you, that you really wanna try, really, like, do some soul searching and ask yourself how good of a caster are you by day? Because if you're [01:23:00.020] not that strong of a caster when the sun is out, it's not gonna be any easier in the dark. So you don't have to be you, Tom. Right? You don't have to be that good. But, like, if you're just starting...if you just picked up a fly rod the first time last month and you're still learning all the strokes and everything, maybe settle down before winging it around there at night.
And you know, guide buddies of mine who run mouse trips, that's a question, you know. Like, they have to say, like, what is your skill level? [01:23:30.119] And I've actually heard guys say, like, "Well, this guy wanted to go, but he doesn't cast that great at noon. So there's no way I can take him out on a mouse trip." You do have to be comfortable with your cast. Because, again, it's all feel. You go out there, you think you know how far away that other bank is, but truthfully, whether it's from a boat or on foot, it's all a guessing game, man. It's like, I think I'm landing close to that bank or close enough. You don't really know. [01:24:00.010]
Tom: No, you don't.
Scott: You know, I think I'm not overcasting into the reeds, but you did. You know, and that stuff takes getting used to. You know? It takes some time. Even if you are a proficient caster, you know, do it with your eyes closed and try and hit a mark. You're never gonna hit it perfect at night. But, you know, a lot of times with mouse fishing, you just gotta get close enough because those fish are moving around.
Tom: Yeah. It's probably a pretty good idea to practice with, you know, the ride you're gonna use in a mouse fly during the day [01:24:30.319] so that you can gauge your distance because, boy...
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, things like the short leader, stuff like that. You know, I will say there's a huge benefit to sort of the these lines now. I think you guys make one that's a really aggressive front taper. So it just turns over so much easier. You know? It's very...it's heavier in the front there, because you don't wanna do a ton of false casting either. You know? Ideally, it's like, pick up, boom, go right back. The [01:25:00.000] less time you're in the air at night, you know, the better. So little things like that will make a trip more enjoyable. You don't wanna be flailing around out there and untying all night. You'll never do it again.
Tom: Well, false casting also catches bats, and I do not like hooking bats.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. No. I've hooked a few bats. They don't like mouse flies, but dry flies, absolutely.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah. All right, Joe. Well, that is [01:25:30.229] a great introduction to night fishing. I think you've probably convinced some people that it's gonna be cool to try this summer, and probably some other people are gonna be scared of it and never wanna do it again, or never wanna do it, like you said. But, it is so different. You know, it's a whole different world, and it's a neat time to be on the water.
Joe: Oh, and that's really the cool part of it, I think, is, you know, [01:26:00.000] having some some great water, especially, like I said, if it's pressured, all to yourself for that short window. And when it's good, it is real good. It is, like, one of the highest highs in fly fishing when you have a good night. Again, that's not even catching giants. It's just catching fish out there with your buddies in the dark. So I would say, you know, make sure your casting is good enough. But if you thought about it, try it at least once. You might hate it, but it might be your new thing. You know? And think about it, like guys like me with little kids, they're [01:26:30.085] short on time. You know? Well, the kids go to bed eventually, Tom. You know? So, like, maybe that's your chance. You're a nighttime guy. You know? And it goes through...if the weather holds, we've done it as late as the first week of October. You know? So there's a good long window to do it out here.
Tom: You know, I read a study once, and I've never put it to test, that said that brown trout actually even [01:27:00.185] feed at night in the wintertime.
Joe: You know, it's interesting. And I don't disbelieve that. And over the years, I've had a few people reach out and be like, "I moused this one in January." And I find it hard to believe. I don't disbelieve that the fish will do that because they're opportunistic, and winter brown trout fishing can be very good. It just feels to me like, why would I go out there and...? It's like you're proving a point. Like, I feel like I'd have to go [01:27:30.135] out there and beat the water for two days just to prove I could get one to come up in January, like, the right fish. So I've never messed with it. But if that's the kind of quest you're into, I'm sure, you know, on good water, even when it's cold, you get the fish at the right depth, he's not gonna pass.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah. I'm not gonna find out.
Joe: No. I was gonna say, Tom, you wanna come up to mouse camp this year and just be exhausted for the rest of the week? You're welcome.
Tom: Yeah. We used to call [01:28:00.135] it astronaut training on Martha's Vineyard when we were night fishing for stripers. I know the drill.
Joe: Yeah. I'm wrecked for days. It takes me days to recover. But I'll never miss it.
Tom: All right. Well, I'm gonna expect a full report on the mouse camp.
Joe: You got it. I will let you know, Tom.
Tom: Okay, Joe. Hey. Thanks...
Scoot: Thank you, sir.
Tom: Thanks for taking the time today. We've been talking to Joe [01:28:30.085] Cermele of the "Cut and Retie" podcast. So, thank you, Joe. Appreciate it.
Joe: Thank you, Tom. Anytime, my friend.
Tom: 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 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. in the body of an email or as a voice attachment. You can find more free fishing tips at howtoflyfish.orvis.com. [01:29:00.492]