Troutbitten

Latest Episodes:

Fishing Buddies Dec 18, 2022

Show notes

For the finale of Season Five of the Troutbitten Podcast and to wrap up 2022, we’re closing the curtain with an episode about fishing buddies — why we need them, how to find them and how to keep them for a lifetime.
We talk about what makes a good, bad or great fishing companion and share some experiences about a few would-be friendships gone wrong.

We Cover the Following

What qualities are needed in a great river companion?
How to meet new fishing friends
Why do we need fishing friends?
How many is too many?
How the Troutbitten crew came together
River friends who didn't work out
New Year's resolutions for 2023

Resources

Visit
Troutbitten Website
Troutbitten Instagram
Troutbitten YouTube
Troutbitten Facebook

What to Trust Dec 11, 2022

Show notes

One of the most captivating aspects of fly fishing is the seemingly endless variety of approaches, tactics and strategies that are available with a fly rod in our hands. There are so many things to learn that put trout in the net. And we quickly understand that there’s a lifetime of education for us if we want it.
So we combine our time on the water with conversations that we have with friends. We read books and articles. We watch videos. Maybe we listen to podcasts. And yes, we might even learn something from social media.
But with so many sources in easy reach, sorting through the flood of information can be overwhelming. How do you weigh the value or the validity of these sources? These days, conflicting information — conflicting opinions — seem to be right next to each other.
So . . . what should you trust? How do you sift through the overflowing bank of information and find what works?
That is what this episode is about.
We Cover the Following

Are there experts in fly fishing?
What is an expert?
Are the best anglers well known?
Who have you learned from the most?
How have you learned the most?
How can you pick out bad information?
Can we trust the trout?
Learning to trust yourself
Enjoying the experience

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Find Your Rabbit Hole
READ: Troutbitten | Who Knows Better Than You?
READ: Troutbitten | Explore - Learn -Return
READ: Troutbitten | What To Trust
READ: Troutbitten | Never Blame the Fish
Visit
Troutbitten Website
Troutbitten Instagram
Troutbitten YouTube
Troutbitten Facebook

Strategies for Fly Fishing In the Wind Dec 04, 2022

Show notes

Wind challenges our cast and changes our drifts more than any other element. It forces us to adapt our presentations, and it makes some of our favorite styles impossible. But there is always a way to beat it. There’s always a way to make things work. And no matter how rough the wind, there are strategies not just for fighting through it, but for fishing well and catching trout. That’s what this episode is about.
Here are our best strategies for fly fishing in windy conditions. Wind does not need to keep you home. And it doesn’t need to force you off the water. There are ways to deal with the difficulty of wind, to learn something from the challenge and sometimes even catch more trout than you might in calm conditions.
Most of the foul weather that bothers us just doesn't seem to affect the trout much. And if you learn to beat the wind and weather, or at least work with it and cut that edge, both success and solitude can be yours.

Forget the forecast. Just fish.

We Cover the Following

Do trout care if it's windy?
How does wind complicate fly fishing?
Fish closer
Low rod angles
How weight (in many forms) is what beats wind
Dry fly, streamer and nymphing tips
Advantages gained from the wind

Resources

Visit
Troutbitten Website
Troutbitten Instagram
Troutbitten YouTube
Troutbitten Facebook

Listener Q&A -- Mono Rigs, Tough Days, Trout Range and More Nov 27, 2022

Show notes

The Troutbitten crew answers questions from podcast listeners. These questions range from gear talk to ethics, from fly selection to reading a trout river. And while most of our podcast episodes are narrowly focused on one theme, this one is spread out across topics.
This is an entertaining conversation, with both stories and tactics.
We Cover the Following

How far do trout move for a fly?
Stories about bad days on the water
Carrying two fly rods
The Mono Rig from a boat
Tippet protection as a fly rod feature
The Mono Rig for steelhead
What we learn on tough days
Dream destination trips

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Podcast | The Versatile Angler
READ: Troutbitten | Design and Function of the Troutbitten Standard Mono Rig
READ: Troutbitten | Lightning Fast Leader Changes (with VIDEO)
READ: Troutbitten | The Best Fly Rods for Tight Line and Euro Nymphing
READ: Troutbitten | Convinced or Curious -- What Moves a Trout to a Fly
Visit
Troutbitten Website
Troutbitten Instagram
Troutbitten YouTube
Troutbitten Facebook

Streamer Presentations -- All About the Head of the Fly Nov 20, 2022

Show notes

The longer we toss around streamers, the more we realize that it’s the most subtle changes in presentation that make a difference. Faster or slower? Sure. But how about letting the fly free fall in the current? What about a slight cross lead before reestablishing a strike-zone path in one seam? Or let’s try sliding a streamer off the bank with a broadside look, because that often draws a strike when nothing else does.
I think most anglers start fishing streamers by casting and stripping, keeping it simple at first. And that works. But as time goes by, we realize how much control we truly have over the streamer. And we learn that making it dance, swoon or dart can bring trout charging and crashing into the fly.
Understand this: What we do with a streamer, the motions we give it and the manipulations we perform with the rod or the line start with the head of the streamer. That’s what we’re moving.
Trout care about the head position of a streamer. They recognize the head, and they feed in a way that is different from nymphs, wets or dry flies. The other fly styles are too small for a trout to care about where the head is. But there is no doubt that trout are keenly aware of the head of a baitfish. That is their target. And while chasing a moving food form, trout certainly recognize where the head is and where that food is going next.
So as streamer fishermen, we should consider the head as well, because all of our animations to the fly start there. It’s our attachment point to the fly. And what we do with the rod or the line hand directly affects the head of the streamer first. It’s how we bring the fly to life.
In this episode, we talk about the head orientation of the streamer in the water — how the streamer moves with the currents or against them, and what looks more natural vs what might look more attractive. We also dig into what added weight does to the head of a streamer, how that affects the action and how that limits or enhances the presentation styles that we have available.
We Cover the Following

What head angle converts the most fish in the net?
What head angle brings the most interest?
Do trout eat the head first?
What head angle looks like a baitfish that is holding, fleeing, dying?
How weight in the head affects the fly and the presentation

Resources

Visit:
Troutbitten Website
Troutbitten Instagram
Troutbitten YouTube
Troutbitten Facebook

Freewheelin' Two -- Stories and Experiences Nov 13, 2022

Show notes

The Troutbitten guys and I sit down to share a few stories — moments and experiences — from a life on the water.
There’s no layout for this episode and not much direction other than to share some of the remarkable things that have happened to us while fishing — the things we’ve seen, places we’ve been and the stuff that has happened, simply because we were there, on the river, with a fly rod in our hand.
From the beginning, Troutbitten has been about tactics, sure, but also about the experiences. It’s always been a balance between the two, across all the channels, the videos, the podcasts, the website and social media.
It’s the tactics that keep me interested and motivated to get out there day after day. It’s that refinement of technique and the endless problem solving in an ever-changing and shifting game. But sometimes, I catch myself with my head down, tying knots, staring and searching through the surface currents without looking around very much, without breathing deeply and soaking it all in.
But it’s the things that happen while we’re out there that make fly fishing for trout the all-consuming, never ending pursuit that it is for us. And, in truth, all of us need to let that happen. It’s in the choices that we make regarding where we’ll fish, when we’ll fish and who we’ll fish with. Those elements, the locations, the woods, the water and the friendships make all of this special.
We Cover the Following

Boat shenanigans
Austin's wedding
Family trips
Travel time
Fishing with a dog
Camping and fishing

Resources

Visit:
Troutbitten Website
Troutbitten Instagram
Troutbitten YouTube
Troutbitten Facebook

Strategies for Fishing Low and Clear Water Nov 06, 2022

Show notes

In this episode, my Troutbitten friends and I talk about one of the toughest conditions we face — fishing in low, clear water. It’s something that can happen in any season and in any trout river. Many anglers shrink from the challenge. They walk away or never string up the fly rod, using the excuse that trout are simply too spooky or they just aren’t eating. But I promise you, that is not true. Trout are eating in these conditions. It just takes a calculated approach to bring them to hand.

The truth is, low and clear water is a difficult challenge But if you accept these river conditions as a chance to learn and improve, then the extreme, sensitive nature of trout in low and clear water will force you to refine your approach, your cast and your drift.

Everything about your presentation in low water must be thought through. Success requires caution, planning and a willingness to strike out. But that’s how you become a complete angler — by fishing when it’s tough. And by fishing hard.

We Cover the Following

Does low water affect the whole river?
Are all trout more sensitive in low water?
Do trout maintain the same rhythms?
Do we need smaller flies?
Do we need thinner tippets?
Tips for stealth
Nymph, Streamer and Dry fly tips

Resources

Visit:
Troutbitten Website
Troutbitten Instagram
Troutbitten YouTube
Troutbitten Facebook

Catch and Release: Always or Sometimes? And How C&R Changes Things On The Water Oct 30, 2022

Show notes

Is catch and release a good idea all the time or just some of the time? In this episode, we consider the ways that the practice of catch and release changes the experience of fishing for us — how our approach shifts when the goals are different.

A lot has changed in the last fifty years. Releasing the trout we catch has become commonplace, especially in the world of fly fishing. In many regions, on many rivers, C&R has become the expected norm. We’ve come a long way. And it’s fair to say that the average fly angler for trout doesn’t fish for meat as much as they do for the sport — for the challenge of fooling a fish.
Catch and release often takes hold in the ethos of an angler because they are forced into it. Because specially regulated sections of a river might require it. And for many anglers new to the sport, or those coming from another fishing background, releasing a trout first feels comfortable because there’s no other option. After a couple of dozen fish are returned, and maybe after a few return trips to the same water, the effectiveness of catch and release becomes obvious, and it eventually feels more natural to let the fish go than to put them on a stringer.
We release trout to catch them again — so that our friends might catch them again, and so the next stranger to the river, hoping for the same experience that we were chasing, might catch that same trout that we just put back.
Catch and release works. There’s no doubt. But is it always the best choice? Is there also a place for catch and keep? And if we do decide to kill a few trout, how does that experience change the way we fish?
That’s our discussion here. . .

We Cover the Following

When is it okay to keep a trout?
Mandatory killing of invasive species
Does killing trout allow room for growing bigger trout?
Kill wild trout or stocked trout?
The hunter's mindset applied to catch and release
Put and take streams
How keeping trout impacts your own waters

Resources

Visit:
Troutbitten Website
Troutbitten Instagram
Troutbitten YouTube
Troutbitten Facebook

Weight In Fly Fishing: Beads, Shot, Sinking Lines and More Oct 23, 2022

Show notes

In this episode, we talk about weight and fly fishing. Because if you’re not fishing a dry fly on the surface, then weight, in some form or another, is part of the presentation. There are all kinds of weight options, of course, from wire ribs on a wet fly and heavy wire hooks, to lead wraps and tungsten beads on a nymph or coneheads on a streamer. Sinking lines, sink tips and even poly leaders will get you down. And of course there’s split shot, in a few different forms, along with drop shot.

Something has to get you through the surface and down deeper. As soon as your target zone is under the water, how you’ll get the fly into various parts of the water column becomes the question. And getting near the river bed is often critical to success. All of these weight types are useful.

Weight is weight. And I’ve often put it this way: Weight is the original sin of fly fishing. If you aren’t fishing dry flies, then you’ve already left the purist plantation behind. So accept it. Surrender to it, and enjoy the rewards of fishing flies where trout usually eat them anyway.

Embracing tungsten beads but thumbing your nose at split shot makes me chuckle. Insisting that a sinking line is superior to a conehead streamer for getting down defies logic. Oh for sure, the presentation may be very different, and that’s why we use all options. Choosing one form of weight over another form doesn’t make you a better angler. It doesn’t make it more FLY fishing. It just makes you an efficient angler.

So in this discussion with my Troutbitten friends, we walk through the various ways to get a fly under the surface. We’ talk about the advantages and disadvantages of each style of weight and talk about our preferences.

We Cover the Following

Is weight the original sin?
What makes it FLY fishing anyway?
Types of weight in the flies
Types of weight on the line
Types of weight in the line

Resources

READ: Troutbitten | Split Shot vs Weighted Flies
READ: Troutbitten | Don't Hate Split Shot - Have a System (VIDEO)
READ: Troutbitten | Stop the Split Shot Slide
READ: Troutbitten | Beads Are the Best
Visit:
Troutbitten Website
Troutbitten Instagram
Troutbitten YouTube
Troutbitten Facebook

The Spooky Trout -- What Scares Fish and How to Avoid Spooking Them Oct 16, 2022

Show notes

Success on the water starts with finding fish and not spooking them. No one ever caught a scared trout. All the tactics, the flies and the habits of river trout that we focus on mean nothing if the fish are on high alert and out of the mood to eat.
Don’t spook the fish. Achieving that is different from season to season. It’s different in various water types. And acceptable distances from the trout change even with the angles by which you approach them.
Being cautious, being aware and being attentive pays dividends. So reconsider your strategy. Maybe think first about your impact on the river before ever considering your first fly choice. Be a hunter. That might be the best advice we can give.
My friends join me for a great discussion about what it takes to avoid spooking trout.
We Cover the Following