Latest / The Articulate Fly / S6, Ep 41: Smallmouth Secrets and Streamer Savvy with Brendan Ruch

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S6, Ep 41: Smallmouth Secrets and Streamer Savvy with Brendan Ruch · The Articulate Fly

0:03
Intro: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly.
0:08
Intro: On this episode, I'm joined by Pennsylvania young gun, Brendan Roosh.
0:12
Intro: We talk pre-spawn smallmouth, tying predator flies, and his newly launched guide
0:17
Intro: company, Roosh Angling.
0:19
Intro: I think you're really going to enjoy this one, but before we get to interview,
0:22
Intro: just a couple of housekeeping items.
0:24
Intro: If you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave
0:28
Intro: us a rating and reviewing the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out.
0:33
Intro: And we're excited to partner with our friends at Jesse Brown's to bring the
0:36
Intro: Chocolate Factory to Charlotte on May 4th.
0:39
Intro: Blaine will be teaching private tying classes, discussing predator and prey,
0:43
Intro: and sharing his favorite rod, reel, and line combos.
0:46
Intro: Check out the link in the show notes for more details.
0:50
Intro: Now, on to the interview.
0:52
Marvin: Well, Brendan, welcome to the Articulate Fly.
0:56
Brendan: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. year yeah.
0:58
Marvin: I'm really looking forward to our conversation and we have a tradition on the
1:01
Marvin: articulate fly we like to ask all of our guests to share their earliest fishing memory.
1:06
Brendan: Uh there are so many memories i was trying to think about this earlier today
1:12
Brendan: um but basically just being on a reservoir with my dad throwing texas rigged
1:19
Brendan: soft plastics at lily pads heads,
1:20
Brendan: catching large mouth bass.
1:25
Brendan: My favorite memory from that era would be catching a very, very large fish on
1:32
Brendan: a top water frog and being heartbroken that he wouldn't let me keep it.
1:37
Brendan: Which, you know, today I totally understand why and I respect that decision.
1:41
Brendan: But man, I was pretty, pretty annoyed in the moment.
1:44
Marvin: Yeah. So before we go down the fly path, you know, what's your favorite color
1:47
Marvin: worm and what's your favorite color lizard?
1:51
Brendan: Hey, uh, for the worm, I think we were fishing a lot of, uh,
1:55
Brendan: I was grabbing the black and purple power worm.
1:59
Brendan: Then the lizard, I believe was pumpkin seed with a chartreuse tail.
2:02
Marvin: Yeah. Well, there you go. And so that's a really great segue into,
2:05
Marvin: you know, when did you start fly fishing?
2:09
Brendan: Uh, fly fishing came pretty late to me because no one in my family fly fish.
2:13
Brendan: So, uh, I had a pretty good foundation fishing for large mouth and some trout
2:18
Brendan: fishing, but But I started fly fishing senior year of high school.
2:24
Brendan: And it's only because I was getting outfished by fly fishermen on a trout stream in northeast VA.
2:30
Brendan: So it was out of necessity.
2:32
Marvin: Yeah, so the power bait and the spinners weren't getting it done?
2:37
Brendan: Yeah, those little jerk baits just weren't getting it done like those pheasant tails were.
2:42
Marvin: And so, of course, it's obviously been kind of downhill from there.
2:46
Marvin: So kind of who are some folks that have mentored you on your fly fishing journey?
2:49
Marvin: What have they taught you?
2:52
Brendan: There are a lot of people. Pretty much all of them are tied in with TCO one way or another.
2:58
Brendan: But John Parisi, Lenny Gliwa of TCO Bryn Mawr, that's where I got my start of
3:06
Brendan: my obsession in fly fishing.
3:07
Brendan: I got a job there like 2016.
3:11
Brendan: So they really got me dialed in on the trout stuff. We traveled a lot together
3:14
Brendan: in the state, but, you know, driving a few hours here and there on kind of like suicide run day trips.
3:21
Brendan: And then when it came to bass, it was it was Jake Golok kind of showed me the
3:27
Brendan: light that I could I could do what I loved, you know, as a kid, but with a fly.
3:34
Marvin: Yeah, that's pretty cool. And so when did you, you know, I imagine you probably
3:37
Marvin: kind of started out at TCO as a shop rat, right?
3:41
Marvin: Oh, yeah. And then, so when did you get the guide bug?
3:47
Brendan: Jake started to get busy enough to hire another guide.
3:51
Brendan: And it was right around maybe like my second year of employment there.
3:56
Brendan: There, he, we started kind of like float or he, he floated the idea past me
4:00
Brendan: and, uh, I bought a raft, started fishing, like you're floating every chance
4:06
Brendan: I could with, you know, guys from the shop, uh, from all four stores really.
4:11
Brendan: And, um, yeah, I mean, he, he brought me on and just kind of let me loose once he felt comfortable.
4:18
Marvin: Yeah. It's pretty interesting. We've had him on the podcast probably about the
4:21
Marvin: time, I guess his small mouth, you know, fly book came out and,
4:25
Marvin: you know, was interesting kind of how he was able to really kind of scale relentless yeah.
4:30
Brendan: It's there are so many uh you know guides under the relentless umbrella it's
4:36
Brendan: uh it's very very impressive and i had a great time working for those guys.
4:39
Marvin: Yeah it's interesting too because i guess uh naguski is under that umbrella
4:42
Marvin: too he's been on and uh as a matter of fact i think i met him when i met you
4:47
Marvin: at the probably the last fly tying symposium before covid right oh.
4:52
Brendan: Right yeah yeah.
4:53
Marvin: Um the It was a good time. Yeah, it wasn't. Absolutely, it was a good time and a simpler time.
5:00
Marvin: And, you know, so obviously I imagine Jake was influential. But,
5:04
Marvin: you know, who are some of the other folks that have kind of mentored you on
5:06
Marvin: your guide journey? And what do they teach you?
5:11
Brendan: So there are a lot of guides that work with TCO.
5:14
Brendan: And there was one in particular named Sam Galt that, I mean,
5:19
Brendan: he's been guiding for Trout in the state college area for years.
5:23
Brendan: And I was very nervous accepting money to take people fishing,
5:28
Brendan: especially like, you know, the first year.
5:30
Brendan: Um, and he, he kind of calmed me down and, uh, you know, he just, he told me,
5:38
Brendan: what, what the people expect, which I think is just to go out,
5:41
Brendan: have a good time, uh, and hopefully take something away from the day.
5:46
Brendan: You know, if it's not fish, it's going to be new tactics or,
5:49
Brendan: you know, some bad jokes or something.
5:52
Marvin: I like your jokes, actually.
5:56
Brendan: Sometimes they're pretty rough.
5:57
Marvin: It's okay. That's why this is a family show and we took some questions out.
6:01
Marvin: But anybody else that's kind of helped either steer you from a technical perspective
6:08
Marvin: or, you know, kind of what you were talking about earlier, kind of that kind
6:11
Marvin: of people skill, that expectation part of guiding?
6:15
Brendan: Um yeah i mean from the technical aspects like fishing
6:18
Brendan: with jake uh you know on the waters that we
6:21
Brendan: we got it on or we got on still um that
6:24
Brendan: was critical uh and then i traveled out
6:27
Brendan: to michigan with jake back in 2018 to fish
6:31
Brendan: with mike schultz justin kerbanek and james hughes and i don't think i've looked
6:36
Brendan: at smallmouth fishing the same since that trip i learned a ton of tactics from
6:42
Brendan: you Got a little piece of the pie put together from three of those guys.
6:48
Brendan: And yeah, I mean, the swim fly game out there and the way they use those flies
6:54
Brendan: to basically imitate lures that I was familiar with growing up.
7:01
Brendan: Yeah, I mean, it's an invaluable skill to have on the water.
7:07
Marvin: Yeah, you know, it's interesting because, I mean, I've kind of noticed that,
7:10
Marvin: you know, however you want to kind of brand them, the most successful people
7:16
Marvin: in our sport are, let's just say ambidextrous, right? They fish gear and they fish fly.
7:23
Marvin: And, you know, it's amazing because I know, you know, Blaine certainly does that.
7:28
Marvin: George Daniel does that. And I think that insight about fish behavior and how
7:34
Marvin: to catch them on gear and on bait, you know, really can make you a killer,
7:38
Marvin: you know, fly fishing angler.
7:41
Brendan: Yeah, I think specifically for presentations that require like a proper retrieve
7:48
Brendan: and you're fishing a fly as opposed to drifting.
7:52
Brendan: So like dry fly fishing, then fishing, maybe not learning a ton from gear fishing.
7:58
Brendan: But when you're working a lure or retrieving a fly...
8:04
Brendan: You know what's successful on the lure and over time you learn what's successful
8:07
Brendan: on the fly by fish input but um you're able to emulate lures like pretty successfully
8:13
Brendan: other than maybe like true bottom bouncing just because you're going to get
8:17
Brendan: hung up a lot more with a fly.
8:19
Marvin: Yeah it's interesting too because i mean you know we were
8:22
Marvin: both up in uh up in michigan for bob in the hood and
8:25
Marvin: i had never i'd been around mike but i hadn't kind of been in his shop and kind
8:28
Marvin: of seen the vibe there and i got to tell you that is an amazing operation that
8:33
Marvin: he's got with some incredibly um you know knowledgeable faithful and really
8:39
Marvin: just kind of great guys in the shop in terms of fishing gear and not gear.
8:42
Brendan: Yeah i was talking to
8:45
Brendan: someone about this recently um but they were like yeah man like the guys at
8:49
Brendan: mike's shop are always like super helpful and super knowledgeable and like he's
8:54
Brendan: been lucky enough to find guys that are sick for fishing like they're obsessed
8:58
Brendan: with it and some shops you know
9:01
Brendan: you have guys that are very personable but maybe not the techiest guys,
9:05
Brendan: um but yeah i mean they they've got a guy that does every kind of fishing you
9:11
Brendan: know available in the midwest and uh they're they're all pretty darn good at it yeah.
9:15
Marvin: Or you could walk into a fly shop in Montana in like middle of late September
9:20
Marvin: and basically have people super burned out.
9:24
Brendan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
9:26
Marvin: I've walked into that buzzsaw before, you know, so you've, I mean,
9:30
Marvin: yeah, it's just, they don't even care about fishing at that point anymore.
9:33
Marvin: Right. The, but, you know, so tell me a little bit about, you know,
9:38
Marvin: kind of as you've kind of worked on your guide chops, you know,
9:41
Marvin: what do you think is the secret to being a good guide, Brendan?
9:45
Brendan: I think it's being malleable and
9:48
Brendan: trying to be, you know, what the client wants you to be in that moment.
9:55
Brendan: I mean, especially when you're dealing with people that you've never met before,
9:59
Brendan: or maybe you've only chatted with on the phone briefly.
10:02
Brendan: Like from a personal standpoint like you know it's essentially,
10:09
Brendan: you know you're in customer service from the customer side and the fishing is separate in my opinion,
10:19
Brendan: same kind of thing with the shop like you can be a great shop guy but maybe
10:24
Brendan: defer questions to other people when it gets too technical,
10:28
Brendan: if you can be good at both I think that's what makes a great guide,
10:33
Brendan: Got it.
10:33
Marvin: And do you have a type of angler that you really, really like?
10:38
Marvin: I know you like, you know, you like to fish with everybody.
10:40
Marvin: But I mean, is there a particular type of angler that you like to get in your
10:45
Marvin: boat that you're like, this is going to be an exceptionally special day?
10:48
Marvin: Like, you know, I know some people like to teach. Some people like teaching kids.
10:51
Marvin: You know, is there anything like that that, you know, really gets you stoked for a day out?
10:58
Brendan: Uh, besides someone that is like down to learn and hunt big fish.
11:03
Brendan: I mean, like if, if I have a father son trip, that is going to be the best possible day.
11:09
Brendan: Like it just, it reminds me of, you know, being a kid fishing with my dad and
11:13
Brendan: fishing my grandfather and, uh, being a part of someone else's memories,
11:17
Brendan: you know, it's pretty special.
11:19
Marvin: Yeah. That's super cool. And so what do you think? I always ask guides this
11:22
Marvin: question too, you know, what do you think is the biggest misconception people
11:25
Marvin: have about the life of a fishing guide? Yeah.
11:28
Brendan: I think it varies for a lot of people, but, uh, you know, if you're,
11:33
Brendan: you're single, single income, you know, it can be kind of a little challenging in the off season.
11:40
Brendan: Um, especially if you're, you know, if you're not going to like,
11:42
Brendan: I'm lucky enough where I can muskie fish in the off season.
11:44
Brendan: I'm going to be doing some, some guiding here this coming year.
11:47
Brendan: But, uh, yeah, I think finding something to occupy your time in the off season,
11:51
Brendan: whether it be, you know, a side job or a different hobby, it's pretty important.
11:57
Brendan: And they don't go stir crazy.
12:00
Marvin: Yeah, and so it's kind of funny, and we talked about this a little bit at the
12:03
Marvin: beginning of the interview, you know.
12:05
Marvin: I mean, you know, people, I think, when they think about, like,
12:08
Marvin: central PA, they think probably trout first and not smallmouth,
12:12
Marvin: and, you know, you predominantly guide for smallmouth.
12:15
Marvin: You know, what kind of attracted you to them over trout?
12:19
Brendan: It's all about retrieving flies and fooling fish and watching them come in and
12:26
Brendan: just, like, If a fish is coming in kind of lazy and making it convert into an
12:31
Brendan: eat, that's really, really cool.
12:36
Brendan: Smallmouth provide chances for savage eats in the springtime.
12:41
Brendan: But you can get some sick eats in the summertime, subsurface too.
12:44
Brendan: But then in the summer, you can fish poppers aggressively.
12:48
Brendan: Watch them crush a popper or a whopper plopper if you're savvy.
12:53
Brendan: Savvy, but they'll also sip... The biggest fish in the river is going to sip
12:58
Brendan: a cork bug or a foam like Mr. Wiggly or something.
13:03
Brendan: For me, it's all about,
13:07
Brendan: being able to actively retrieve the fly and you're just a huge part of why that fish is eating.
13:14
Marvin: Yeah it's interesting i mean the uh kind of the summer bug thing i mean it's
13:18
Marvin: insanely frustrating to watch those guys skate for like six or eight feet behind
13:22
Marvin: a popper um and uh you twitch it and then they disappear which is kind of a bummer right yeah.
13:29
Brendan: Yeah and you could twitch it and have the fish do a 180 after it turns around
13:33
Brendan: or you could have a you you know, a fish spook off of it.
13:36
Brendan: I think that's kind of the cool thing about, about summer is like each fish
13:40
Brendan: shows its individual personality when you're bug fishing.
13:44
Marvin: Yeah. It's, it's interesting. Cause you know, kind of where I grew up kind of
13:47
Marvin: fishing the James and the Maury and places like that.
13:50
Marvin: It's, um, that heat is just so brutal, you know, and I have people kind of,
13:54
Marvin: you know, up in the mountains or maybe up where you are, they tell me that it's
13:57
Marvin: not as humid and hot, but you know, I always say, you know, So in July and August,
14:00
Marvin: you're not in the shade and the fish are.
14:04
Brendan: Yeah, exactly.
14:05
Marvin: And it makes, you know, 95 degrees and high humidity makes for a pretty grim
14:10
Marvin: outing. But yeah, it's good stuff.
14:13
Marvin: And, you know, it's interesting, too, because we were talking before we started
14:15
Marvin: recording, Brendan, about kind of the regional differences in smallmouth fisheries.
14:20
Marvin: Like I know, you know, the timber creates a certain element,
14:24
Marvin: you know, in Michigan, for example.
14:26
Marvin: You know, their seasonal differences, you know, based on how far north or south
14:30
Marvin: you are and kind of how big your water is,
14:33
Marvin: you know, how do you, you know, what do you see, I guess, in Pennsylvania that
14:37
Marvin: makes your smallmouth fisheries different than, say, Michigan and other places in the country?
14:43
Brendan: I think the lack of dams in the South Central PA region, like wood moves around a lot.
14:52
Brendan: We have a ton of ledges on every body of water I fish, some more than others, depending on the float.
15:00
Brendan: But you have bottom structure that's going to hold fish from bank to bank.
15:05
Brendan: Like some people go out there and pound the banks. you
15:08
Brendan: can go out there you can fish left bank middle
15:11
Brendan: sometimes you know the other bank's going to be good too but um
15:14
Brendan: the fish are going to be very spread out because there
15:18
Brendan: is structure almost everywhere in a
15:20
Brendan: lot of places they're on a lot of floats um so yeah learning learning those
15:26
Brendan: leggy sections during low water seasons is is crucial um because then you can
15:31
Brendan: hit those spots when you know the water's high and green and still be productive
15:35
Brendan: when they're not on the banks or per se yeah.
15:38
Marvin: Got it and you know it's interesting too because i think we're kind of really
15:42
Marvin: kind of in the thick of pre-spawn smallmouth fishing here kind of in the mid-atlantic
15:45
Marvin: and i was kind of curious if you could uh if i could pry a couple tips for you
15:49
Marvin: to share with our listeners about how to be successful during this time of the year on the water.
15:55
Brendan: Yeah, I think the most common mistake I see this time of year from people coming
16:00
Brendan: on the boat, and it could be friends, fellow industry guys, the fly has to kick, maybe kick twice,
16:10
Brendan: and then pause long enough for those fish to want to move out of their lie and eat it.
16:17
Brendan: We haven't really hit over 52-degree water temps yet.
16:22
Brendan: Um so like fishing has got to be slow right now and when i have a guy that can
16:29
Brendan: really dial in like rod tip movements or even like an aggressive upstream mend into his presentation,
16:38
Brendan: usually that's when i we're gonna have the most success that day got.
16:43
Marvin: It so it's almost uh you know the fish are kind of sluggish and so you kind
16:46
Marvin: of have to kind of bonk them on the nose a little bit and kind of um piss them
16:50
Marvin: off to get them to eat i guess.
16:51
Brendan: Yeah i mean it's it's
16:54
Brendan: kind of just like imitating a wounded fish it's gonna kick side to side and
16:58
Brendan: then right now we're fishing a lot of like circus peanuts um personally i'm
17:03
Brendan: fishing if i'm going out right now i'm fishing a leggy boy every time because
17:07
Brendan: i think that's kind of filled the circus peanut um role in my fly arsenal,
17:13
Brendan: but you're able to fish that fly as fast as you want or as slow as you want.
17:19
Brendan: And if you add enough legs to offset the weight in the fly, that thing's going
17:24
Brendan: to glide, hover, and then start to drop real slow.
17:28
Brendan: But it's always going to stay where you want it to stay as long as you give it slack or tension.
17:34
Marvin: Got it. I was getting ready to say. So really the attraction for that fly is
17:38
Marvin: really the ability to kind of hang it or suspend it.
17:42
Brendan: Yeah yeah yeah definitely like an unweighted changer and a sinking line isn't
17:49
Brendan: going to get you the same results that you can get with an intermediate line and a weighted fly that,
17:56
Brendan: it's weighted but there's so much drag from
17:59
Brendan: the legs and the brush head and you know if you tie the the body pretty dense
18:03
Brendan: with the feathers like you can make that fly hang there and that's when they're
18:08
Brendan: going to swim through at this time of year like they they don't want to see
18:10
Brendan: that thing diving to the bottom uh or being stripped you know perpendicular
18:15
Brendan: from the bank or something like that got.
18:18
Marvin: It and for people that i guess aren't familiar with the leggy boy i guess kind
18:21
Marvin: of the i guess the way i kind of think about it is it's kind of like a feather
18:24
Marvin: changer with a bunch of legs on it.
18:26
Brendan: Yeah totally yeah um so i i fish them with like a pretty long stiff marabou tail tail.
18:36
Brendan: Um, so if I can find marabou feathers, like maybe like the, you know,
18:41
Brendan: short stubby ones, um, still like uniform and good quality, but they have a
18:46
Brendan: little bit thicker, um, like vein or stem.
18:50
Brendan: Um, so I'll tie four of those in and that allows the tail to whip a little bit
18:56
Brendan: more like rooster tail, but still swim and undulate on those long pauses.
19:01
Marvin: Yeah. It's almost like you want the mirror boo that you don't want for kind of willy boogers yeah.
19:07
Brendan: Yeah like i don't want it to be too sparse otherwise you don't really get as
19:11
Brendan: much of a kick if you're hard stripping it.
19:13
Marvin: And so for you and in pre-spawn you know when do you expect to kind of to see
19:19
Marvin: see the bass kind of you know move from pre-spawn to spawn it kind of what's
19:24
Marvin: the water temperature that you
19:25
Marvin: kind of set like you know we got to leave them alone for a little while
19:28
Marvin: and go chase trout or go do something else uh.
19:31
Brendan: Usually it's right around like april 15th here um and you know like as you become
19:39
Brendan: more familiar with the body of water you know where the beds are going to be
19:41
Brendan: so you know you can row over there and say oh yep there are two beds and then
19:46
Brendan: you know go on about your way like fishing the middle of the river or fishing current seams,
19:52
Brendan: but uh yeah i'm i'm anti messing with bed fish at this point like not necessary
19:59
Brendan: you're still going to find fish that are either post-spawn or pre-spawn while their fish are on beds.
20:04
Marvin: Yeah i think it's a tough thing too particularly kind of like where i grew up
20:08
Marvin: and fished in central virginia we've had you know probably most years out of
20:13
Marvin: the last probably eight to ten we've had these scouring floods during the spawn
20:17
Marvin: um yeah and so kind of whatever you can do to leave them alone so that there
20:21
Marvin: are a few more in the river, I think is a good idea.
20:25
Brendan: Yeah, for sure. And, you know, if you're bed fishing, I feel like what you're
20:29
Brendan: doing is testing your, your accuracy at that point.
20:33
Brendan: Cause if something falls on the bed, like the fish is going to move it,
20:35
Brendan: you know, it is what they do. They're like programmed to do that.
20:40
Marvin: Yeah. It's kind of interesting. I don't know. Did you, uh, did you go see the
20:43
Marvin: F3T movies and there was one about them and then they were basically fishing
20:46
Marvin: for peacock bass on beds?
20:49
Brendan: Uh, I did not see them this year.
20:51
Marvin: Yeah, it was kind of interesting. I was like, that's kind of weird.
20:54
Marvin: I mean, you know, something that most fly anglers generally won't do,
20:57
Marvin: but I guess to each his own. I don't have a movie though, so.
21:02
Marvin: Not yet. Not yet. Well, it's coming, folks. And so, you know,
21:06
Marvin: the interesting thing is you've kind of gone out on your own,
21:10
Marvin: you've got Roosh Angling, and so I'm always curious too to kind of,
21:12
Marvin: you know, you've had time to kind of build, you know, kind of what you like
21:15
Marvin: your daily program to be.
21:17
Marvin: Why don't you let us know a little bit about kind of what a day on the water
21:20
Marvin: is like with Brendan Roosh?
21:24
Brendan: Um so we're gonna meet at the ramp put the boat in do a shuttle and uh i think
21:31
Brendan: one of the most important questions i ask for some people is uh do you want
21:34
Brendan: to listen to music on the boat,
21:36
Brendan: and uh if you say yes it's probably going to be a pretty fun day but uh yeah i mean i we're just
21:43
Brendan: locked in fishing hard with
21:47
Brendan: many breaks for laughter um fist bumps but
21:50
Brendan: yeah i mean it really depends on person to person but a lot of people at this
21:55
Brendan: point are you know they've been in the boat with me before um so we're kind
22:00
Brendan: of dialing in the program for that day um tactics wise and i'm joking around
22:06
Brendan: and having fun in between yeah.
22:09
Marvin: And so you know you've piqued my curiosity on the the music side so you know
22:12
Marvin: what are your three favorite boat playlists.
22:16
Brendan: Haha uh,
22:19
Brendan: Anyone that knows me knows I have to say, like, Doja Cat and Dua Lipa.
22:22
Brendan: But my guys I had today, we had a great experience last year fishing the DMX pretty much all day.
22:32
Brendan: You know, what these fishes want, that's a good one.
22:36
Brendan: But, yeah, I mean, you know, if someone requests music, we're obviously going to listen to that.
22:40
Brendan: But usually kind of upbeat, pop, or, like, future, for instance.
22:45
Brendan: Get some, you know, some hard vibes on the boat.
22:49
Brendan: Usually pretty confidence inspiring yeah.
22:51
Marvin: So you're not doing yacht rock like steely dan or anything like that.
22:54
Brendan: I've been known to play some yacht rock depending on the crowd.
23:00
Marvin: And do you generally do you prefer for people to fish your gear um or do you
23:06
Marvin: like them to bring their own or do you not care.
23:10
Brendan: I'll i'll give you a list uh and you
23:14
Brendan: know if you don't have an intermediate line you have let's say
23:16
Brendan: like a 25 foot sinking line type
23:20
Brendan: six then yeah you're fishing myself but you know
23:22
Brendan: if you have a an eight weight with an intermediate line and
23:26
Brendan: we're totally in good shape you can you can fish your
23:29
Brendan: gear I'll build you a leader yeah no preference for me but I do have you know
23:37
Brendan: a whole fleet of Loomis rods right now we're fishing the NX plus swim flies
23:43
Brendan: and it's a pretty good experience yeah.
23:46
Marvin: And so do you generally fish an intermediate or do you also like to fish a floater.
23:53
Brendan: I don't do a ton of floating line fishing in the springtime.
23:57
Brendan: Obviously, in the summertime, topwater fishing, yeah, definitely.
24:01
Brendan: But if we're on one of the bigger rivers in the spring, a sink tip,
24:04
Brendan: like type 3 or type 6, can be really useful.
24:08
Brendan: Because then you can kind of play a neutrally buoyant fly, almost like a leggy
24:13
Brendan: buoy, where you're letting that short tip dig when it has slack.
24:19
Brendan: And then you're working that column. And then, uh, you can either introduce
24:22
Brendan: tension or introduce slack, just like you would to the fly on a leggy boy.
24:27
Marvin: Uh, got it. And so I guess maybe your water's bigger. Cause I know some guys
24:31
Marvin: like to fish like floaters when they're fishing crayfish and things.
24:34
Marvin: Cause I like to get that up and down action. Right.
24:37
Marvin: Um, but it sounds like you're doing the same thing with deep in deeper water,
24:40
Marvin: uh, with sink tips, right?
24:43
Brendan: Yeah. With the same tip thing, that's, you know, spring flows on the bigger
24:47
Brendan: river, like Susquehanna, Juniata.
24:49
Brendan: A um it allows you to get
24:52
Brendan: that hard kick and you know almost
24:55
Brendan: glide out of those neutrally buoyant flies um like
24:58
Brendan: a brush head deceiver from alex lapkus is a big one i'm a fan of um but yeah
25:04
Brendan: so it allows you to get that kick pause and before the lines start dragging
25:07
Brendan: it down you can get a real nice like you know two count hang before it starts to get tension again got.
25:15
Marvin: It and you know know, it's interesting, you know, you know, I met you kind of
25:19
Marvin: through tying. So I was kind of curious, you know, when did you get interested in being a fly tire?
25:26
Brendan: Uh when i first started at tco i for some
25:29
Brendan: reason i didn't think i would tie flies i was like oh i thought
25:32
Brendan: i could just buy him i'll buy him um and then
25:35
Brendan: of course you know a couple months into working there uh my buddy uh
25:38
Brendan: casey the giovanni was like come on man you gotta tie flies like you can't work
25:42
Brendan: here and not tie um so he set up a vice and uh i think we tied a squirmy wormy
25:50
Brendan: that day um actually i tied an f fly with john parisi before that the brimmar shot,
25:57
Brendan: um i think it's called a fly it's like some sort of like tent wing dry fly maybe cdc,
26:04
Brendan: but uh yeah so i got i got uh i got into time shortly after working at tco and
26:10
Brendan: once i started streamer fishing is when i i just became obsessed with it i don't
26:16
Brendan: know how much money i've spent on streamer fly tying but i know i never want
26:20
Brendan: to see that number well yeah i.
26:24
Marvin: Was with you guys in michigan and it was kind of funny watching you and braden
26:27
Marvin: and austin talk about how much money you had in your baskets.
26:29
Brendan: Oh my god yeah schultz outfitters is like uh you know it's a place you don't
26:36
Brendan: want to be if you have loose loose morals when it comes to spending money Yeah.
26:43
Marvin: It's kind of like the world's largest cannabis shop, except it's for a predator fly tying material.
26:49
Brendan: Oh, yeah, for sure.
26:50
Marvin: Yeah.
26:50
Brendan: He's got everything you could ever want.
26:53
Marvin: So what do you tie on today?
26:57
Brendan: Um, I tie on a Renzetti presentation 2000 with the game changer jaws that Blaine designed.
27:04
Brendan: And I've been tying on that for like three years.
27:07
Marvin: Yeah. It's interesting. I've got two travelers here on my desk.
27:10
Marvin: I used to have one for the office and one for the house and now the office is at the house.
27:14
Marvin: So I have two of them. So, um, yeah, it's interesting. I mean,
27:18
Marvin: I, I love them. They're indestructible.
27:19
Marvin: Um, and now the next time I go tie on them, I'll probably break something.
27:22
Marvin: But, yeah, it's interesting, too, on the predator-fly thing because,
27:27
Marvin: you know, I kind of look at kind of the evolution, and it's kind of almost like
27:31
Marvin: the way that space is developed,
27:34
Marvin: it's almost kind of an old-school way where people had to go back and figure
27:38
Marvin: out stuff, kind of like, you know, previous generations had to figure stuff
27:43
Marvin: out because you couldn't just go watch a YouTube video.
27:45
Marvin: I mean, now you can for some stuff. But, you know, all of the,
27:50
Marvin: you know, design and thought process and problem solving to me,
27:56
Marvin: you know, in that space has been very, very old school.
28:00
Brendan: Yeah, I mean, they're basically starting from ground zero.
28:04
Brendan: I mean, they had hooks and shanks, but the shanks weren't what they are today, obviously.
28:10
Brendan: I think like, you know, the circus peanut, uh, I wasn't around fishing back
28:16
Brendan: then, but, uh, I mean, it's obviously made a huge impact.
28:20
Brendan: So that would be Russ Madden circus peanut, um, super versatile fly and,
28:25
Brendan: you know, getting the two hook platform going definitely changed everything.
28:32
Marvin: Yeah. It's interesting, you know, like talking to Blaine about him,
28:34
Marvin: like literally in his garage, cutting shanks with bolt cutters.
28:38
Marvin: Right. Now we just go and there are multiple companies and you just buy what you want.
28:43
Brendan: Yeah. You're pretty fortunate.
28:46
Marvin: Yeah. As opposed to basically drinking beer in the garage with a vice and a
28:50
Marvin: pair of bolt cutters every Sunday afternoon.
28:53
Brendan: Yeah. I mean, I was very lucky because the Schultz Outfitters YouTube was just
29:01
Brendan: kind of, I guess, getting started when I started tying these flies.
29:05
Brendan: Um so like you know the first feather game changer video i must have watched
29:09
Brendan: that while i was tying like 200 times like each shank like all right are these proportions right,
29:14
Brendan: um i definitely am a perfectionist when it comes to fly tying so i'll i'll spend
29:19
Brendan: way too much time on a fly just because i know if i don't like the way it looks i'm never gonna fish it,
29:26
Brendan: But yeah, YouTube and looking at Instagram photos for Density and Taper was
29:33
Brendan: definitely a very big influence on me.
29:35
Brendan: So that would be the Schultz Outfitters account and then obviously Blaine Chocolates account.
29:40
Marvin: Yeah. And so if you're a perfectionist tying flies, does that make it more likely
29:44
Marvin: that you'll scream at clients that lose flies on the first cast?
29:48
Brendan: We don't lose flies.
29:50
Marvin: Are you a scuba diver? or do you have like fins and a mask and you're like,
29:54
Marvin: you know, diving down, pulling them off of logs and rocks?
29:57
Brendan: No, I've been known to sacrifice a rod tip for a fly.
30:02
Brendan: But yeah, I mean, we get, we get them.
30:04
Marvin: Yeah. That's an interesting use of the lifetime warranty, but you got to do
30:07
Marvin: what you got to do, right?
30:09
Brendan: Yeah, for sure.
30:10
Marvin: So you mentioned Blaine and you mentioned the guys at Schultz's,
30:14
Marvin: you know, who are some other tires that have influenced you in your,
30:17
Marvin: your development as a predator fly tire?
30:21
Brendan: Um we're going back to michigan and it's going to be russ madden and alex lapis for sure,
30:28
Brendan: the lapis brush head deceiver i think that
30:31
Brendan: video dropped like three years ago and it was very interesting to me because
30:35
Brendan: it was basically like taking elements from maybe like the swing and d platform
30:41
Brendan: and applying it to a much easier fly to tie and cast,
30:50
Brendan: maybe not easier to tie but it's going to be a shorter time at the vice and
30:56
Brendan: it ended up proving to be really crucial in the guide program because someone that can't cast,
31:04
Brendan: 30 hen saddle feathers wrapped on a bunch of shanks they can cast this fly that's,
31:10
Brendan: bucktail, craft fur two shlopped feathers and two rooster saddle feathers for the tail Got it.
31:19
Marvin: And what about Russ's designs? What kind of caught you there?
31:25
Brendan: Um the circus peanut being like tied in the round like a changer like i i started tying peanuts,
31:34
Brendan: right around the time i started tying feather changers so
31:36
Brendan: like both of them kind of blended together as i
31:39
Brendan: was tying them because it was similar um i guess
31:44
Brendan: tactics and the way you tie them um or
31:47
Brendan: methods similar methods but uh yeah the
31:50
Brendan: peanut early on in my like pre-spawn
31:54
Brendan: fishing was crucial because you're you're getting those flies down right
31:57
Brendan: away off the bank or off the structure and depending
32:01
Brendan: on how you know you can put lead eyes tongues and
32:04
Brendan: beads you can put bead chain eyes but you can tweak
32:07
Brendan: that fly to match the conditions you have and i think that was really cool to
32:12
Brendan: like from a not a design perspective but just tying what you need to match the
32:18
Brendan: current conditions it's important and eventually you know i'm in year seven
32:23
Brendan: i think Like, I have all those flies still.
32:26
Brendan: And, uh, it's like you have a whole arsenal of different weighted flies to basically
32:33
Brendan: accomplish any task that you run into.
32:37
Marvin: Yeah. It's funny you say that while you were saying that it made me think about
32:39
Marvin: like my bonefish box, right.
32:42
Marvin: With the different, uh, eye weights, right. And you have them arranged and that's
32:46
Marvin: like the whole, the whole nine yards, right. One feet, two feet, three feet of water.
32:50
Brendan: Yeah.
32:51
Marvin: And so who, in addition, you know, to Russ, has kind of influenced you as you've
32:59
Marvin: kind of developed on the tying front?
33:03
Brendan: Um, so I, I did, uh, I spent a couple of summers on Jake's couch and we would,
33:10
Brendan: uh, you know, if we had the energy, um, we would stay up tying flies and,
33:15
Brendan: you know, going through our boxes and stuff.
33:18
Brendan: Um, we tied a lot of, uh, of changers. I still owe him some craft fair changers,
33:23
Brendan: but for a while I was paying rent and craft fair changers.
33:28
Brendan: But he was he was tying mallard flanks or mallard changers at the time which
33:32
Brendan: is something that i don't even have the patience for but uh yeah i mean jake's
33:37
Brendan: roamer um super effective,
33:40
Brendan: and uh i never got the hang of using laser dub but uh yeah i mean time with
33:47
Brendan: jake was always was always a good time and always learned something and.
33:52
Marvin: Do you have a favorite flavor of changer ice cream?
33:56
Brendan: Ooh.
33:59
Brendan: Favorite to fish would be a craft bird changer just because you can make it
34:02
Brendan: do a bunch of different things.
34:04
Brendan: I think craft bird is a really cool material, the way it interacts with water.
34:08
Brendan: But I would say, like, if we're speaking strictly changers, it would be like
34:13
Brendan: a brushhead feather changer with a moth tail.
34:17
Brendan: Maybe a 316 tungsten bead.
34:20
Marvin: Yeah, it's because you like the kick, right? Yeah.
34:23
Brendan: Yeah. Yeah. The tail absorbs water. I don't think I have any feather changers
34:29
Brendan: in my box that aren't a mock tail, honestly.
34:31
Marvin: Yeah. Interesting. And so, you know, kind of as you've evolved,
34:36
Marvin: I mean, are there any, you know, kind of patterns or techniques that you're known for?
34:41
Brendan: Um i've never i've never designed a fly but i would say if someone knows me
34:49
Brendan: through fly tying they know that i'm tying blaine's flies joltus flies and um russ and and lapkus,
34:59
Brendan: they're the the big four that uh you know i'm tying at shows or if you're at
35:04
Brendan: a show you'll see my box it's it's going to be mostly flies from those guys or variations of yeah.
35:10
Marvin: And you've told me that you you know you're kind of tying flies to solve problems
35:14
Marvin: which is what guides do right you know what are kind of the core you know fishing
35:20
Marvin: problems or presentations that you're looking for for smallmouth that you like to tie around.
35:25
Brendan: Well a problem that i run into often is uh,
35:31
Brendan: you know if someone can't do the rod tip movements that i mentioned earlier
35:35
Brendan: to to move their fly especially in a spot where i want to get more than one
35:40
Brendan: cast like i'm I'm slowing the boat down slower than the current.
35:45
Brendan: Tying a fly that's basically the leggy boy has solved those problems for me,
35:49
Brendan: but tying a fly that's able to stay down while they're stripping and still kick under tension.
35:58
Brendan: So someone might not be able to do the right Kelly Gallop jerk strip,
36:03
Brendan: but if they can get that fly to at least kick, kick, and then maybe stop with
36:10
Brendan: like more of a trout emend,
36:12
Brendan: then that's still going to be effective.
36:15
Marvin: Got it. You know, any other, you know, situations, either kind of specific triggers
36:21
Marvin: you like for smallmouth or other kind of, we'll just say, angler assist issues?
36:28
Brendan: Um, the angler assist aspect of like just casting these flies, um,
36:35
Brendan: you know, a lot of people that come out and it's their first time casting streamers,
36:41
Brendan: like they're not going to be able to cast a game changer off the bat.
36:46
Brendan: So single hook flies, uh, like the roamer, um, or articulated flies like that.
36:55
Brendan: Alex Lafkus brush head receiver, like those flies are crucial because they're
37:00
Brendan: easy to get them to kick, especially the Lafkus fly.
37:04
Brendan: Um, just because that little brush
37:06
Brendan: head pushes water like a Buford and the backend is kind of whips around.
37:11
Brendan: Um, so it's very simple to get that fly to kick, but it's also easy to have
37:16
Brendan: someone deliver it where they want to deliver it.
37:19
Brendan: Cause if they can't get the fly there, then, you know, why do you even have a game changer on?
37:24
Marvin: Yeah. Then you have to listen to Steely Dan, right?
37:28
Brendan: Yeah, or maybe the Smiths, because we'll be a little sad.
37:33
Marvin: Yeah, you could kill yourself if you listen to that stuff too long.
37:36
Marvin: So what is it that you see with the changers that people have problems with?
37:43
Marvin: Do they generally false cast too much and they dry the fly out and it becomes
37:46
Marvin: air resistant? Or is it just the entire thing of not having,
37:50
Marvin: you know, not having really practiced fishing, you know, casting big streamers before?
37:57
Brendan: Um, yeah, I think it's a combination of a lot of things. The number one thing
38:01
Brendan: is probably that I tie a pretty dense fly for the most part.
38:05
Brendan: So like, you know, if you get, if you buy a fly from the chocolate factory,
38:09
Brendan: will it be easier to cast than a fly that's in my box? Probably.
38:14
Brendan: Um, and I'm tying them dense just to get the most action out of them that you
38:17
Brendan: possibly can just to divert that water.
38:20
Marvin: So, I mean, if you're tying them dense, that seems, that would tell me, right.
38:23
Marvin: That probably most anglers you know they're going to hold a lot more water right
38:28
Marvin: and so yeah they basically have it's almost like a you know like a rock spinning
38:33
Marvin: around at the tip of the rod if they're not really smooth it's really kind of
38:36
Marvin: hard to kind of get a good forecast and a back cast right yeah.
38:42
Brendan: I mean most people especially you know coming from or living in an area where,
38:47
Brendan: trout is a predominant fly game species um you know most people are at most
38:51
Brendan: used to casting an an indicator.
38:55
Brendan: So teaching someone timing is very important, uh, especially,
38:59
Brendan: you know, their first time casting streamers, like, you know,
39:01
Brendan: turn your head, watch it, watch your back cast. Like that's crucial.
39:05
Brendan: Um, but yeah, I think, you know, some people don't have, uh,
39:09
Brendan: you know, maybe they're not locking their, their arm up in the right way to,
39:14
Brendan: uh, to stop that rod when that fly pulls back on them or something.
39:17
Brendan: But, uh, there, there are a lot of little issues we can work out on the boat,
39:20
Brendan: but for some people, uh, you know, very, a very small percentage of people like
39:25
Brendan: just don't, they don't get the change or they get the lab display.
39:28
Marvin: Yeah. It's interesting. Cause it sounds like, you know, when you solve those
39:31
Marvin: problems, it'll also make your musky casting life a whole lot easier. Right.
39:37
Brendan: Yeah it definitely like correlates to musky fishing for sure and it gets amplified
39:41
Brendan: once the flies get bigger obviously yeah.
39:44
Marvin: And then i'd imagine too is it kind of warms up and maybe you're trying to cover
39:47
Marvin: more water you know it's just it's like musky fishing like there is a huge difference
39:51
Marvin: between casting 75 and 60 feet right.
39:54
Brendan: Yeah and there's also a
39:56
Brendan: huge difference like most of the time when
39:59
Brendan: you're setting up on a spot uh you know if
40:02
Brendan: you cast right on what you're trying to fish like where you think
40:05
Brendan: the fish is none of the flies that we're fishing are
40:07
Brendan: really going to catch that fish so you're kind
40:10
Brendan: of like casting maybe like slightly beyond with the
40:14
Brendan: intention of coming across that spot or if you're fishing wood maybe you can
40:18
Brendan: if it's submerged wood you can cast past the wood do like a nice like uh reach
40:23
Brendan: cast or just kind of like raise your rod tip and reposition your line upstream
40:27
Brendan: um to get that fly where you want it but the line is already
40:31
Brendan: kind of sinking under that under that slack yeah.
40:35
Marvin: Yeah it's interesting and you know the other the other thing i always like to
40:39
Marvin: ask tires is i bet you've got some crazy goofball tool uh that no one people
40:44
Marvin: that tie with you know about right or people that watch on your instagram live
40:47
Marvin: know about but you probably can't live without it and you know when you tell
40:50
Marvin: people about they're gonna be like damn i should tie with that too.
40:52
Brendan: Um back when
40:57
Brendan: i was uh just started the gco i think i stole a comb from my my parents closet
41:03
Brendan: and that comb has traveled to every fly show with me and that's uh that's for
41:09
Brendan: like brushing out like craft or um crustaceans brush heads and things like that before i trim them got.
41:14
Marvin: It and uh is it like a like a comb made out of bone or something so it doesn't
41:19
Marvin: hold static electricity or is it just a good old-fashioned comb that you stole?
41:24
Brendan: Good old fashioned comb. It's
41:26
Brendan: about maybe six inches long. One side's a little finer than the other.
41:33
Marvin: Got it. And I know that, uh, I, I occasionally see your patterns for sale at Schultz Outfitters.
41:39
Marvin: I mean, are there other places where people can see your patterns and, uh, and, and buy them?
41:45
Brendan: Uh as of right now you can only see him on the boat i
41:50
Brendan: uh i got i'm working for one of my clients in the off season so the uh the tying
41:57
Brendan: orders are closed um you know unless you really want one but uh yeah it was
42:03
Brendan: very i was very fortunate to be able to you know have flies in shelter shop
42:07
Brendan: that was that was really cool um but uh yeah the selling flies is it's it's
42:14
Brendan: also getting tougher just due to the shortage of materials and the realm that
42:18
Brendan: i'm in like hen saddles were nearly impossible to find yeah.
42:23
Marvin: Got it and also too i mean it's just it's it is insanely time consuming and
42:27
Marvin: there's all kinds of stuff that people that that buy flies don't understand
42:31
Marvin: like federal excise tax and all that kind of nutty stuff that you know makes it.
42:35
Brendan: A little.
42:36
Marvin: Bit less fun than it should be. So I guess maybe, you know, kind of watch maybe,
42:41
Marvin: you know, Schultz Outfitters and see if like maybe for Bob in the Hood,
42:44
Marvin: maybe you tie some flies or something like that.
42:46
Marvin: But otherwise, they need to come fish with you and make you listen to Steely
42:50
Marvin: Dan and the Smiths until you cough up a fly.
42:53
Brendan: Yeah, I mean, you know, if you catch a 20-inch fish and you ask for a fly,
42:57
Brendan: you're probably going to get that fly.
42:59
Marvin: Got it.
43:00
Brendan: Kind of like as a little trophy.
43:02
Marvin: Yeah, there you go. 100%. I've got a few of those. As a matter of fact,
43:06
Marvin: I've got a circus peanut and a hat from Montana.
43:09
Marvin: Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
43:12
Marvin: And so before I let you go, Brendan, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners?
43:18
Brendan: Um, yeah, you can find more at, uh, at Brendan Roosh on Instagram.
43:25
Brendan: Um, website's not up and running yet, but it will be rooshangling.com.
43:29
Brendan: But, uh, yeah, I'm very happy to be on here.
43:32
Brendan: Um, I feel very fortunate to be in the position I'm in right now,
43:35
Brendan: uh, working for myself, lots of good friends across the industry.
43:39
Brendan: And, um, yeah, I'm just looking forward to see what the future holds.
43:43
Marvin: Yeah, for sure. And you also have been known to do some Instagram live tying
43:46
Marvin: stuff too on your Instagram channel, right?
43:49
Brendan: Uh yeah yeah so i recently have been doing lives tying with the log jam fishing
43:56
Brendan: company good friends over at log jam and uh that's been like tuesday nights
44:01
Brendan: at 8 30 uh but they'll they'll post whenever we do a live that that might change at some point got.
44:07
Marvin: It and so you know your small mouth guiding up in central pa kind of what does
44:11
Marvin: your season look like and you know when do you head to Virginia to do the muskie fishing?
44:17
Brendan: So my season in Pennsylvania usually starts mid-March.
44:21
Brendan: I was down in Virginia from mid-March this year, so I got back the last week of March.
44:26
Brendan: And the whole springtime flows, pre-spawn, post-spawn fishing,
44:32
Brendan: will go from then until about sometimes the first week of June if we have good water.
44:38
Brendan: And around that time, we'll switch over to more summer tactics.
44:43
Brendan: Go to go to some bigger water fishing ledges
44:46
Brendan: things like that on uh you know the juniata or the susquehanna and from then
44:53
Brendan: you know we move into top water season and you know fishing crayfish weighted
44:58
Brendan: flies uh that runs until the fall and um,
45:05
Brendan: It seems really far away right now, but we'll be there in a heartbeat.
45:10
Marvin: Yeah, and then I guess probably a couple weeks before Thanksgiving,
45:13
Marvin: you'll head to Virginia and guide that season out until you start all over again, right?
45:18
Brendan: Yeah. I'm not sure if I'll be working full-time down there for those guys,
45:22
Brendan: but I'll be down there on an as-needed basis, especially for group trips.
45:26
Marvin: Yeah.
45:26
Brendan: But yeah, I also do work with Virginia Trophy guides, That's the Josh Lafferty
45:31
Brendan: and Captain Austin Conrad, along with Brady Braden Miller.
45:37
Marvin: Yeah, Skippy Bridges.
45:39
Brendan: Yeah.
45:41
Marvin: Well, that's awesome. And so, you know, you want to let folks know,
45:44
Marvin: you know, your preferred way.
45:47
Marvin: You know, obviously we've got the handle for your website and Instagram,
45:50
Marvin: but, you know, what's the best way for folks to get in touch with you if they
45:54
Marvin: want to get on your guide calendar this year?
45:57
Brendan: Um my phone number you know give me a call or shoot me a text would be number
46:01
Brendan: one for sure um and then email it's going to be bruce angling at gmail.com r-u-c-h is bruce.
46:09
Marvin: Gotcha and i will drop your cell phone number in the show notes so everybody
46:14
Marvin: can get to that uh right from the episode great thank you awesome well listen
46:19
Marvin: uh brendan it's been fun having you on and uh look Look forward to seeing you
46:23
Marvin: on the water at a show soon.
46:26
Brendan: Yeah, you'll have to come up.
46:27
Marvin: Absolutely.
46:28
Brendan: Thanks for having me.
46:29
Marvin: You bet. Take care.
46:31
Brendan: Yeah, take care.
46:33
Intro: Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.
46:36
Intro: Don't forget to check out the link in the show notes for The Chocolate Factory
46:40
Intro: in Charlotte on May 4th. Tight lines, everybody.