We're back for the annual airing of grievances, here to call out what's wrong in the fly fishing industry.

Some of our grievances are lighthearted silliness that doesn't really matter, but it’s fun to roast or to call out. But there’s another kind of grievance too. Because a lot of the stuff going on in the fly fishing industry isn’t really good for anyone — or maybe it’s only good for a few. Because the industry — and by that I mean you, me, the fly fishing companies, and all the media around it — picks up trends. Then it pushes and pulls anglers in that direction. And sometimes, what is served up doesn’t benefit the average angler. It’s not helpful.

So there are problems. And this episode is for highlighting some of the worst. Because it's fair to call balls and strikes, and because it helps to acknowledge that things could be better and try to make a change.

Resources

PODCAST: Troutbitten | The Airing of Grievances, S3, Ep13

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This episode is about big trout -- what they mean to us, why we chase them, and how catching a top tier wild trout often leaves a bookmark in the story of our fishing lives.

We love big trout because they give us the shakes. Because they elude us. Because they are rare. And because fooling a top tier trout serves as an accomplishment that we know comes from persistence and from knowledge gained over seasons of fishing.

Time. That’s what it always comes down to. Because big trout don’t show up every day. The rarity of the occasion often puts the capstone on a special trip, and these fish serve as icons in our history. They’re something to look back on, to share with trusted friends, or divide part of our life into what occurred before a big fish and what happened after.

Because pursuing legendary fish takes us on a journey like none other, leading us into places unimagined and providing moments that bring a vibrancy to our daily life.

READ: Troutbitten | The Shakes, and Why We Love Big Trout
READ: Troutbitten | What Does It Take to Catch a Big Trout?
READ: Troutbitten | Some Days Are Diamonds, Some Days Are Rocks
READ: Troutbitten | Wild vs Stocked -- The Hierarchy of Trout in Pennsylvania

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“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 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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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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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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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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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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Thanks to Skwala

Use the code, TROUTBITTEN10 for 10% off your order at
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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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Use the code TROUTBITTEN for 20% off your membership at
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Use the code, TROUTBITTEN10 for 10% off your order at
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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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Thanks to TroutRoutes:

Use the code TROUTBITTEN for 20% off your membership at
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Thanks to Skwala

Use the code, TROUTBITTEN10 for 10% off your order at
https://skwalafishing.com/