Another Tuesday means another River Rambler and this week I’m joined by Tom Mahan. We talk about growing up with a backyard fishing spot, firefighting, learning the many forms of spey, guiding, different fishing ideologies, Alaska’s chinook and rainbows, jiujitsu and martial arts mindsets, muddlers and Swedish Fish.
The Ten Seven Switch
Many of my favorite steelhead rivers in Alaska are no place for a full-sized spey rod or even an eleven-foot switch. I needed something that I could spey cast with either one or two hands. I needed a quick, short rod for these overgrown streams capable of casting large flies with no backcast whatsoever and […]
Casting with Joe
“Hey, look at what I got today,” Joe said. And he rushed to bring out two new bamboo rods—big rods—one 13 feet long, the other 15 feet. These were overhead casting rods (not spey rods) for an upcoming Atlantic salmon fishing trip with Bing Crosby to the Cockermouth Castle Estate in England for an episode of ABC’s The American Sportsman.
Episode 100 – Bill Pfeiffer
We’ve made it to triple digits and for the 100th episode I’m joined by Bill Pfeiffer. We discuss his time in Cuba, picky fish, parents, parties & food, Sculpin, Bill’s Super Secret Fly and his incredibly difficlut fishing apporach, trout spey, law schoold dogs, Zach Williams, and Bill’s moose rivalry.
Teaser: Kruk’s Spey Casting Secrets II
Coming in a couple weeks for Swing the Fly members: Bruce expands on “Line Follows Rod Tip”
It’s All Trout Spey
In contrast, rivers like the Sol Duc, the Queets, and other coastal rivers tend to be smaller, steeper, receive more rainfall, and have less volcanic geology, all of which tends to make them inherently less productive for growing large trout.
10 Years of Swing the Fly
10 Years. 29 Magazines (9 digital only from June 2013 through 2015), 20 in print (2016-2020). And now four books with a fifth soon to come (2023 Anthology is due out in September).
Episode 98 – Alice Gilibert, Elaine Gong, and Whitney Gould
On this episode Alice Gilibert, Elaine Gong, and Whitney Gould are going me and we have a fantastic chat. We cover how they all got into fishing, competitive casting, pace cars and medicine chests, competition nerves, The American Casting Association, spey casts vs Belgian casts, movie recommendations, Golden Gate Angling Club and Angling Foundation, and […]
Episode 97 – Dan Gates
Dan Gates of the Grey Drake is joining me for this week’s episode. We talk about the Nashville Network, fishing with his dad, skating, tying at expos, Yellowstone, the OP, conspiracy theories, The Grey Drake, Trout in the Classroom, conservation, trout spey, fish tacos, and Sasquatch.
Conservation Corner: Disappearing Summer Steelhead – The Fate of Overshoot Steelhead Seeking Cold Water in the Columbia and Snake Rivers
Overshoot steelhead have long been understood to be a factor among Columbia Basin populations, but a pair of recent studies using tagged adult fish (Richins and Skalski 2018, and Murdoch et al. 2022) have demonstrated the phenomenon is much more extensive than previously thought. This has huge implications for steelhead management and recovery, and the operation of the basin’s hydropower system.
Gary Marston, the Science Advisor for Trout Unlimited’s Wild Steelheaders United, writes in-depth about the studies and their implications in a pair of articles published by @wildsteelhead and summarized in this ‘Conservation Corner’ for @SwingTheFly.
Episode 96 – Mark Martin
On this week’s show I’m talking to Mark Martin. We discuss how he started fly fishing, James Sampsel, the Middle Fork, hybrid trout, his internship turned job, starting his steelhead obsession, western fishing culture, home repair, and muddlers & drinKing.
Icons: Kerry Burkheimer
In this installment, we visit with Kerry Burkheimer in his shop on main Street in Washougal, WA, where he shares the meaning of “hand rolled soul,” explains how he became one of the most innovative spey rod designers in the world and why his mom slept in the trunk on fishing trips.