The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

This week, my guest is Thomas Larsen [45:47] from the Orvis Outfitters team. Thomas is a stillwater expert and gives us some great tips on how to find trout, and how to target them, when you don’t have the benefit of a watercraft. Maybe you don’t have a boat, can’t afford a raft, or backpack to high mountain lakes—this podcast is for you.

In the Fly Box this week, lots of good comments and questions as I have been gone for a couple weeks so the mailbox is filling up.

Thanks from a listener to turning him onto the Griffith’s Gnat dry fly

Euro nymphing seems just too efficient for me.

Am I being irrational by fishing less effective indicator rig?

A customer relates a great trip he had with Orvis-endorsed Brown Trout Flyfishing

What are the five or six “must have” items (after getting a fly rod outfit) you suggest for someone new to fly fishing?

Please give me five or six recommended flies for starting out.

I had a snapping turtle eat a trout as I was landing it.

What effect do catch and release fishing efforts have on fish populations?

For fishing the beach and canals and creeks in Florida or the Carolinas, what is the best all-around fly line?

I want to tie my own leaders. What sizes of tippet do I need? And can I tie my entire leader with surgeon’s knots?

Is a wire shock leader too much for lake trout? And what flies should I use?

How long does it take trout to recover after a spell of warm water?

If I can only catch trout on Rapalas and crankbaits but not on flies, what other types of flies should I try?

Great advice from a beginner on how much he learned about fish behavior by fishing dry flies

If fish can always see tippet, why is there a difference in effectiveness between tippet sizes?

What should I do if my fly line is cracked?

What is the difference between a standard clinch knot and improved clinch knot?

Why, when I catch multiple fish out of the same run, is the third or fourth fish often bigger than the first ones?

A guide attached my leader to my fly line loop with a clinch knot and the coating on the loop cracked. Should I cut off the loop and put my leader on with a nail knot?

This week, my guest is guide BJ Gerhart [33:50], a longtime veteran guide at Three Rivers Ranch in Idaho and one of the savviest anglers I know. He shares his tips for getting around the common problems of early season trout fishing, mainly cold water and high flows.

In the Fly Box this week, we have some helpful tips from listeners, and some interesting questions for Tom, including:

• If adult trout can’t see UV light, as you said in last week’s podcast, what should I do with all the UV and flashy materials I have in my fly-tying collection?
• What kind of standard trout flies are closest to the kebari flies used in tenkara fishing?
• When fishing a dry dropper, all the trout took my dry fly yet when I removed the nymph I stopped getting strikes. What caused this?
• Why are beads on nymphs usually gold?
• Why is my casting worse when I use beadhead flies?
• What are the main differences between the 9-foot and the 8-foot, 5-inch Helios rods for a 10-weight line?
• Why is fly fishing for salmon in Great Lakes streams not as popular as steelhead fishing?
• When choosing a fly line for a two-handed rod, should I add the grain weight of the sinking head to the grain weight of the Skagit head?
• A great tip for wading safety with a buddy
• A listener raves about the Orvis rod repair team
• Do you think I should stop trout fishing at 60 degrees just to be safe?
• Are there public resources I can use to find out if a river might be too high to fish?
• A listener gives a tip for adding a long mono rig easily without the need to tie a clinch knot to the permanent loop in a fly line.

I occasionally receive a fishing book that really strikes my fancy as being totally original, and last winter I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson. Much more than a fishing book, it’s the story of a young Atlantic salmon fly tier who stole priceless bird skins from a British museum and then used them for his own tying and sold them on the internet. Kirk researched the story thoroughly and even tried to trace some of the feathers that were purchased to get them back to the museum. The book truly reads like a whodunnit and I found it fascinating reading. To use a well-worn cliché I literally could not put it down. Some of you fly tiers may be not agree with the stance he takes on tiers obsessing over rare and unusual materials so I think it may create some lively discussions. Regardless, I think you’ll find our discussion fascinating. In the Fly Box this week, we get into more conventional and non-controversial questions, such as these: Why do two dry flies work better than one? How do you fish a Sneaky Pete for smallmouths in fast water? What size and color Woolly Bugger is best? What does the Woolly Bugger imitate? What color polarized sunglasses are best and what are some good brands? Why can I land 18-inch fish but not the ones that are over 24 inches? Are grayling selective? Is it normal to tie a Clouser Minnow with a red head? Is it normal to reel all of your line in before playing a fish? Why am I not catching bigger brook trout on streamers?

[Rachel Therkildsen interview 36:25] [Brett Damm interview 1:04:52]

I have been interviewing guides across the country on their techniques for small-stream trout fishing and I want to get these out sooner rather than later, at the peak of small stream trout season. So this week, we have a special double feature on small trout streams East and West. We have Rachel Therkildsen on fishing high altitude streams (and lakes) in Colorado, and then we move East to hear about small stream brook trout fishing in the Rangeley region of Maine with Brett Damm of Rangeley Region Fly Shop. In the Fly Box this week, we have the following questions: I use mostly streamers in high mountain lakes. Should I be using nymphs and dries? Is there a good resource for organizing my fly boxes? Are there any podcast episodes on panfish? A suggestion from a listener on wearing a wetsuit when fly fishing. Do you have any tips on how to fish difficult waters? I think carp are eating blueback herring spawn on my local river. Do you have any suggestions on how to catch them? Can I fish emergers upstream? If I take my new Mission rod to Florida to fish deep channels, when should I use a Scandi line and when should I use a Skagit line? Is it OK to carry two rods with different rigs to maximize fishing time? Is it OK to leave my wading boots wet for a day or two. I always dry them but do I need to do it every day? If I plan to use my Euro nymphing rod for more conventional fishing, should I overline the rod?

• Can I fish steelhead with a single-handed rod? I can't find any information on it.
• What type of stream bottom is best for rubber with metal studs on the soles, and what type is best with just rubber soles?
• How can I find small wild trout spring creeks in the Northeast?
• My flies don't look as good as the ones I buy in a fly shop? Should I still fish with them even if the bodies do not have as nice a taper or the wings are too long?
• Does it matter where I put the rubber legs on my panfish flies?
• A suggestion on how to hold onto big trout when they jump
• If a fish in a certain feeding lie gets caught every week, will it move away or will it just become harder to catch?
• What is the best knot for tying a light tippet to a hopper imitation?
• A tip from a physical therapist who has developed an Instagram channel on mobility and strengthening articles just for fly fishers
• Which H3 rod would be best for trout streamers and fairly large bass?
• What is the difference between a good and a really great fly fisher?