Troutbitten

Latest Episodes:

That's Not Fly Fishing -- What It Is, What It Isn't, Who Cares Jun 11, 2023

Show notes

“That’s Not Fly Fishing.” How many times have you heard this at the bar or seen someone write it on social media? When the way you are fishing isn’t up to someone’s standards, when it doesn’t align with their own preferences, it seems that this frequent argument comes out easily — That’s not fly fishing!
Of course, there is no single definition for what fly fishing is. The fly rod is a tool. Flies are the bait. And how anglers choose to use them is where personal creativity comes in. It’s that inventiveness and room for imagination that makes fly fishing so attractive to us in the first place.
How can we do things better? How can we use these tools to catch more trout?
Every angler draws their own lines for what fly fishing is. And this episode is not just for talking through what fly fishing might be and where each of us might draw the lines. Instead, we’d like to acknowledge the absurdity of the lines themselves — the decisions we make about what is fly fishing and what is not.
How can someone be so adamantly against tight line tactics, but gladly fish a bobber and split shot all day? This makes no sense.
How can you be all in on tungsten beads but claim that adding split shot makes it not fly fishing?
Likewise, how can you be against a ball jighead on a streamer but have a full box of dumbell eyes? Is it because Bob Clouser told everyone it’s okay?
These absurdities, and these questions are what we’re here to talk about tonight. There’s a lot to this one, and we have plenty of conversations with a full house.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Where the Lines Are Drawn
READ: Troutbitten | Fly Fishing the Mono Rig Q&A -- Lines, Rigging and the Skeptics
READ: Troutbitten | No Limits -- Use Every Type of Weight Available

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This Is The End -- A Story Jun 04, 2023

Show notes

This episode is a brief pause in season seven of the podcast to share something that I published to Troutbitten in the early years.
The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of emotion and activity. The days were filled with energy and adrenaline, as my youngest son's Little League baseball team won the league championship. They battled through two weeks of playoffs and took the title in the last series, where every game was decided in the final inning.
I've coached Little League for nine years, and this was my last. My youngest son is twelve, and this was his senior year of Little League.
To see it all end in such dramatic fashion was a gift. But the biggest emotions, from caring about something so deeply, are always a gift, whether that's in victory or defeat, love or loss.
When the Knights were on the edge of winning or losing the championship series, the day before the final game, I kept thinking about an experience I had with one of the largest trout I've ever lost. Years ago, I wrote that into a story on Troutbitten.
This episode is a l reading of a story that I first published on July 15, 2015, titled, This Is The End.
It's also a little about baseball.
Resources

READ: Troutbitten | This Is The End
READ: Troutbitten | Some Days Are Diamonds, Some Days Are Rocks
READ: Troutbitten | Category | Stories
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Vest, Pack or Something Else? Carrying Your Gear May 28, 2023

Show notes

What’s the best way to carry your gear? Should you use a vest, a chest pack, hip pack, sling pack or something else?
How you choose to carry gear is a personal and situational choice. It has everything to do with what you need to carry, and how far you like to walk. Do you need to carry extra layers and a raincoat, and how many tactics do you want to be ready for? Streamers, nymphs, dry flies and wets . . . or just dries?
We have more choices than ever before, but it pays to think about efficiency when selecting a carrying system. Because a big part of being versatile on the water is having easy access to whatever you need, right when you need it.
We Cover the Following

Best to have one system or many?
Carrying a net, water, and other heavy items
Minimalist setups
The disaster of a sling pack
The benefit of everything up front
Storage and convenience
Large pockets or many pockets
What about getting wet?
. . . and much more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Pack or Vest? Why I'm a Vest Guy
READ: Troutbitten | 100 Day Gear Review -- Simms G3 Guide Vest
LISTEN: Troutbitten | PODCAST -- The Efficiencies that Waste Your Fishing Time
LISTEN: Troutbitten | PODCAST -- The Versatile Angler

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Talking About Tippet -- Size, Strength, Length and Rigging May 21, 2023

Show notes

The leader might be the most important piece of gear that we have -- more consequential than the rod, the fly line, or even the fly itself. And of course, at the tail end of the leader is the tippet.
All anglers must make decisions about tippet every day. What size and strength? What type of tippet? And how long should the tippet section be? Because, what might seem like a small decision, can have a big impact on the presentation of the fly, leading to failure or success.
Some of these decisions are almost right and wrong. Meaning, there’s a way to do it that works and a way that just does not work. However, there’s a lot more room for personal preference, style and situations in these tippet decisions than there is right or wrong.
In this episode, the Troutbitten crew talks through these tippet decisions around the scenarios of fishing streamers, fishing dry flies and fishing nymphs.
We Cover the Following

Fluorocarbon vs nylon
Fly size and tippet selection
The importance of flexibility in tippet
The importance of turnover in tippet
Dry fly leader tapers in the tippet section
Durability and abrasion resistance
Do you really need 8X?
Are trout leader shy?
Tippet selection for improved sink rate
. . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | The George Harvey Leader Design
READ: Troutbitten | Why You Might Not Need of the Crutch of 6X and Smaller Tippets
READ: Troutbitten | Fly Shop Fluorocarbon to Expensive? Try Invizx
READ: Troutbitten | You Need Turnover

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What to Love About Small Stream Fishing May 14, 2023

Show notes

This podcast is about small stream fishing — specifically, what we love about the places, the fish, the tactics and the experience of fishing smaller trout waters.
These are trout streams that are no wider than the dirt road that you drove in on. And for every blue ribbon trout river, for every destination water that is raved about in the guidebooks and makes every angler’s bucket list, there are numerous tributaries to these main rivers that are mostly overlooked. We see this everywhere we go — small streams get no respect. They’re mostly an afterthought.
We fish small streams for the adventure, for the exploration and the experience. We fish smalls streams in search of wild trout in wild places. And we fish small streams because the challenges of fly fishing these waters teaches us everything we ever need to know about fishing bigger rivers.
We Cover the Following

Finding solitude
Reaching back into our own history
Wild and native fish
Leader tips for small waters
Rod lengths for small waters
The purity of experience
Cooler temps, with more shade
Willing trout in smaller waters
Scenery
. . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Right Here
READ: Troutbitten | Where it All Started
READ: Troutbitten | Hardbody
READ: Troutbitten | VIDEO - The River Doesn't Owe You Anything

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Good Wading, Better Fishing -- How Wading Skills Change Everything May 07, 2023

Show notes

This episode is about wading a river. Good wading. Better wading. Confident wading. Because, for a river angler, nothing is more important. Good wading is not just walking from place to place, it's an almost constant, fluid motion, and fly fishing requires great footwork along the way.
I meet a lot of anglers who approach a river all wrong. They wade into a spot, set up, and then cast to every piece of water they can reach (at all angles) before picking up and wading again to repeat the process. But this is rarely the best approach.
Consider the variables: There’s a distance at which you are most accurate. There’s a light angle that is most advantageous. There’s a certain water type where trout are feeding more agreeably. So the best river anglers move, almost constantly, setting themselves up to best approach the next great piece of water.
As wading anglers, we must wade efficiently. It’s that simple. And good wading skills change the game like nothing else. When you are comfortable and confident in the water — when you can easily move to the other side just because the light angles are better, the river opens up in a whole new way.
The Troutbitten guys join me to walk through some of our best wading tips.
We Cover the Following

Should anglers move while casting?
Why does good wading make such a difference?
Wading, not walking
Constant motion
Reading the water
Body positioning
Polarized lenses for good wading
The best boots for wading
Boot studs and traction
The right wading staff setup
. . . and more.

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | It's Wading, Not Walking
READ: Troutbitten | We Wade
READ: Troutbitten | Tips for Better Wading and More Trout
READ: Troutbitten | VIDEO - The Only Way to Carry a Wading Staff

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High Water, Dirty Water, Muddy Water Apr 30, 2023

Show notes

What can we do when the rains come, when the snow melts, or when the floodgates open?
Rivers rise in many different ways. From quick and heavy summer thunderstorms, to the steady light rain that remains for days at a time. There’s the gradual release of melting snowpack and then heavy rains on that same snow that pushes high volumes of cold water into the rivers. Then too, there’s the generation of hydroelectric dams where the river might triple in flow, on a schedule.
In all of these ways, rivers rise. And the responses from trout can be different in each case. Yet, as anglers, there are some things about our approach to high water situations that always hold true.
Muddy water is miserable. But to us, dirty water is an invitation into some of our favorite tactics on a fly rod.
These conditions are an opportunity. Because a changing river system offers trout new opportunities. It breaks trout from their routines and can have them feeding fast. However, as anglers who are approaching high water conditions, we need to assess those changes and see the river anew.
High water can be a wonderful time to be out there. At flood stage? Or in the near-zero visibility of muddy water? Probably not. But there’s a wide range of conditions that exist between what most anglers see as perfect and then . . . blown out. And for many of us, we’d rather fish on the high side of things than the low side.
We Cover the Following

What is muddy and what is dirty?
Do trout feed more in high water?
How does high water help the angler?
How can we avoid high water?
When is high water too high?
How do we change tactics to approach high water?
Is it better on the way up or the way down?
. . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Dirty Water -- Tight Targets
READ: Troutbitten | River and Rain
READ: Troutbitten | A List of Fisherman's Excuses
READ: Troutbitten | Fish It Anyway

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What Is More Difficult? Fishing Dry Flies or Nymphs? Apr 23, 2023

Show notes

We have a fun conversation for this episode, about what’s more difficult — nymphs or dry flies. This is not a talk about which tactic is better. And this discussion isn’t even about which one we might like more.
What is more difficult? Nymphs or dries? This is a valuable exercise and an important discussion . . .
Just because nymphing might usually produce more trout, doesn’t mean it is easier. And how many trout we catch on each style is not the point. Try getting true, convincing dead drifts on a nymph. It is, quite simply, harder to achieve than a dry fly, because you can’t see success on the invisible flies underneath, and because the complexity of currents is far more intricate in three dimensions.
But many people just don’t take it that far with nymphing. They think their drifts are good enough, because they caught a few fish (maybe more than they did on dries.) But excellent nymphing requires excellent effort. And a lot more trout can be caught by acknowledging that kind of difficulty. The ceiling is high. And realizing that is the value of this discussion.
We Cover the Following

The confusing boundaries of this conversation
Why anglers are protective of what they like best
How that holds an angler back
Tight line complexities
Dry fly complexities
Where bias comes from
A few streamer thoughts
. . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | The Nymph Angler is Sustainable
READ: Troutbitten | The George Harvey Leader Design
READ: Troutbitten | That's Not a Dead Drift
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Find Your Rabbit Hole
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Angler Pressure TWO -- What It Does to the Fishing Apr 16, 2023

Show notes

This is the second episode of our two part discussion on angler pressure. Last time, we talked about how fishing pressure affects the fish — how they respond to more fishermen placing more casts and drifts in the waters around them — how trout change, both short term and long term.
And now, we’re building on those thoughts and offering some solutions. Because if trout are adapting their habits in response to us, then we must modify our own approach to stay one step ahead of the fish.
I used that phrase in the last podcast a couple of times too. And it’s a good way to think about it. Our fishing is based on fooling a trout. What are they looking to eat? How can we attract them to a fly and then convince them to eat it, right? And while you might have the methods and flies necessary to fool your local trout right now, it might not work just a few years from now. Because trout and the rivers they live in are always changing. So our approach must keep changing too. It’s just another aspect of trout fishing that makes it all so wonderfully complicated.
It’s also why we like to fish for wild trout . . .
We Cover the Following

Water selection
Finding fresh fish
Wild vs Stocked response to angler pressure
How long until a trout resets from angler pressure
Genetically passing on the effects of angler pressure
Presentations, convinced or curious?
Patterns, natural or attractive?
. . . and more

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Front Ended -- Can We Stop Doing This to Each Other?
READ: Troutbitten | Natural vs Attractive Presentations
READ: Troutbitten | Why Everyone Fishes the Same Water and What to Do About It
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Rude On the River -- Front Ended and the Golden Rule
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Angler Pressure ONE -- What It Does to the Fish Apr 09, 2023

Show notes

Season 7 of the Troutbitten Podcast begins with a two-part discussion on angler pressure. This is a big one. It’s a topic that everyone in the fishing world loves to talk about. People complain about angler pressure, and they have theories about how it changes things.
In this episode, we discuss how angler pressure affects the fish. And for the next episode, the topic will be how angler pressure affects the fishing. One topic sets up a good conversation of the other.
Angler pressure probably isn’t going to trend the other way. For most of us, more casts are made to the waters we fish, by more anglers than ever before. Because there are more fishermen, just as there are more runners, golfers and bikers. Every sport these days has better access to information about techniques, about where and when to go, and there’s specialized gear that is easily available and fun to buy.
We Cover the Following

Trout selectivity
Feeding patterns
Migration
Growth rates
Trout conditioning
Grouping up or spreading out
Mortality rates
. . . and more

Resources

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