Latest / The Articulate Fly / S8, Ep 57: The Power of Habit: Mac Brown's Strategies for Fishing Success

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S8, Ep 57: The Power of Habit: Mac Brown's Strategies for Fishing Success · The Articulate Fly

• 0:04
  Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly.
• 0:06
  We're back with another Casting Angles with the man himself, Mac Brown.
• 0:10
  Mac, how are you?
• 0:11
  I'm doing great.
• 0:12
  How are you, Marvin?
• 0:13
  Just trying to stay out of trouble, you know, we're, we're getting ready to get the, the youngest kid off to college here in about a week up to App State in Boone.
• 0:20
  So a lot of packing, a lot of shopping.
• 0:23
  Oh yeah, that's going to be a great, great opportunity and a beautiful place for them to be.
• 0:29
  Yeah, like I, like I was telling you before we started recording, he's got his boots and waders, but I got to decide what, what rod and reel I trust with him to take up there so that, you know,
• 0:39
  I don't get a phone call that he lost to Winston or something like that.
• 0:42
  Oh no.
• 0:43
  You want to set him up with some, some really good stuff, Marvin, to send them off for the, the new chapter?
• 0:49
  Yeah, so it, you know, it's kind of funny folks.
• 0:51
  You know, it's kind of, obviously we've talked about this a ton kind of in the summer and we've had kind of a weird kind of yo, yo on the weather, but it's been kind of hot and the water's
• 0:59
  been kind of low for most of the summer, so it's tough for trout pretty much everywhere.
• 1:03
  And you know, when it gets really, really, really hot here in the dog days of summer, it's really almost not fun to go kind of sweat out chasing bass and panfish and stuff.
• 1:12
  And so one of the things that that does is the fishing slows down is, you know, there's an opportunity for you to spend, you know, if you want to get out, spend some time on the water, but you
• 1:21
  can also kind of work on learning stuff.
• 1:22
  And I'm a big advocate of process and habit and, and I know Mac, you are too.
• 1:26
  You want to talk about like why that's so important for folks to kind of think about process and habit on the water every time they go out?
• 1:34
  Yeah, I mean it'd be good to iron those little things out, especially when people are new or newer that you're not out.
• 1:43
  You know, when it's sub freezing temperatures and trying to do some technical stuff and you forgot how to do a double Davy or tie, tie a knot.
• 1:53
  That should be a simple three to four second process.
• 1:56
  And, and then you're wasting time, valuable time, and now you're trying to do it with cold fingers.
• 2:01
  So I mean all those, I mean I'm just using Knots as an example.
• 2:04
  But there's, there's, you know, hundreds of things we could talk about.
• 2:07
  But yeah, iron those kind of things out when it's nice and comfortable and you're not under any pressure with cold fingers trying to do that kind of thing.
• 2:15
  So there's a lot of different things, you know, could be casting, you know, if you're trying to do something and go into a tail water where you want to throw, you know, 50 foot cast in the wintertime, but
• 2:27
  right now you're a 25 foot caster.
• 2:29
  Chances are we could work on those kind of things.
• 2:32
  Get the extra 25ft.
• 2:33
  Now when you're not under pressure to do it, there's a, there's a good way to talk about it with the casting realm.
• 2:40
  Yeah.
• 2:40
  And I think it's important and kind of really just about everything from casting to knots to how you approach the water, to kind of how you pack and carry your gear every day.
• 2:48
  But you know, the advantage of the habit thing and the process thing is the more things in your fishing life that you can make, like brushing your teeth, the more productive you're going to be on the water because
• 2:59
  you're going to have the kind of the space in your mind to really think about the stuff that's really important, like what food do I see, what time of year is it, where do I think the fish should
• 3:09
  be?
• 3:10
  And if you're sitting there worried about you can't find your nippers and you can't find your 5x and you know you're having trouble tying your knots, it's a whole lot harder to kind of focus on those things that
• 3:20
  really will change the game for you when you're on the water.
• 3:23
  Oh yeah.
• 3:24
  Yeah.
• 3:24
  I think those little things too is like once you get the habits of even like whether you wear a vest or a sling pack or however you like to roll, I mean I like just to wear a lot
• 3:37
  of times just a T shirt.
• 3:38
  I mean with the pocket on it.
• 3:40
  It's like you remember the old necklace thing where you'd have everything on one necklace lanyard.
• 3:45
  I'd wear those a lot of times.
• 3:47
  And I mean in the park, just because it's the talk about minimalist.
• 3:50
  You're not carrying just a handful of things on a, on a lanyard around your neck.
• 3:55
  That's pretty simple.
• 3:56
  But yeah, you get in those habits of like where do you.
• 3:58
  I've always had my.
• 3:59
  I mean everybody's gonna be different but I've always had my nippers on the right of whether it's a pack or a lanyard, and you have all.
• 4:06
  You tip it on the left.
• 4:07
  And it's just like once you do those habits, I think they stay with you for life.
• 4:10
  You know, it would really.
• 4:12
  It would throw me in a.
• 4:13
  In a loop if I had it backwards on the water.
• 4:18
  It's just those little things become habits that are.
• 4:21
  That are always, you know.
• 4:22
  Right.
• 4:22
  Right where they are.
• 4:23
  So if you're night fishing or whatever, you know exactly where the.
• 4:26
  Where those things are on your.
• 4:28
  On your gear.
• 4:30
  Yeah.
• 4:30
  And I think all those little things really kind of add up.
• 4:33
  And I think, you know, the great thing.
• 4:34
  I always say that, like, you know, put aside however many fish you catch, that there are all these little victories every day you're on the water, Right.
• 4:40
  So, you know, like, I don't know how you are.
• 4:43
  You.
• 4:43
  Maybe you don't tinker with that stuff anymore, but, like, I'm always tinkering with, you know, do I like the way I have my sling pack set up?
• 4:49
  Do I like it?
• 4:50
  You know, I generally have things like, I'm funny, right.
• 4:52
  So I'm gonna tip it on the right guy.
• 4:53
  Right.
• 4:55
  But, you know, all those little things, you know, you can just go out one day and say, hey, I just want to try this and see what.
• 5:00
  What I like.
• 5:00
  And you just kind of stack all those individual habits and you get to really meaningful improvement.
• 5:06
  Yeah, that's a big.
• 5:09
  That's a big key, too.
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  And the other thing, since we're talking about tippets, I've started doing this.
• 5:13
  The one thing I did change years ago is it's hard to find, like, when I had one of those tippet spool, and I'd have all my tippet, you know, sitting there on a little spool, and you're trying to
• 5:22
  grab some 5x and the 5x has got it slid back down underneath, whatever kind of keeper you have it on.
• 5:28
  Well, here we go.
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  Have to disassemble the whole tippet thing and pull out the 5x and, you know, dig for it.
• 5:34
  And so having those kind of things on a.
• 5:37
  On those zingers, on those magnetic zingers makes it a whole lot more practical where you can pull it off and actually work on it and grab what you need, then put it right back up, which, you know, it
• 5:47
  took me a lot of decades to streamline that habit, because it was just the way I was doing it early on was always problematic because when it gets stuck, here comes the whole vest off or whatever I'm wearing
• 5:59
  to get to it, you know.
• 6:02
  So, yeah, there's a lot of ways to streamline a lot of these things that are totally irrelevant to like what rod we're going to take or what cast we're going to use.
• 6:13
  I mean, just all these little habits to make it easy to.
• 6:16
  Where you can focus on the important thing.
• 6:19
  And that's being out there and trying to work the water, making good decisions.
• 6:28
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:28
  And I mean, I think too, you know, you stack those things up and I mean in particularly like, you know, practicing your casting so that, you know, you're like, oh, well, I know that's about 25ft.
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  And I want a reach men downstream.
• 6:38
  Right.
• 6:39
  All those little things so that you.
• 6:42
  You kind of go from having to think through that whole process to just seeing, you know, the current problem you're trying to solve.
• 6:48
  You know, how you want to present the fly and you just go do it.
• 6:52
  Autopilot.
• 6:53
  Yeah, once.
• 6:54
  That's where it really gets fun.
• 6:56
  When you're kind of going through these.
• 6:58
  These habits, like on autopilot, where you're not really having any thought process to do the habit.
• 7:02
  It's just.
• 7:02
  It's just coming out.
• 7:04
  And that's where I think people start to find a sense of rhythm and enjoyment on a deeper level, you know, where they're not having to think about those things.
• 7:16
  Yeah.
• 7:16
  I mean.
• 7:16
  And so what I would say, folks, is, you know, if you're out with a in, the fishing is slow.
• 7:19
  Cause it's hot.
• 7:21
  You know, just say, hey, I want to work on this today.
• 7:22
  And just add that to your fishing day.
• 7:24
  And you know, you'll kind of stack some of these habits.
• 7:26
  You know, as we slide into fall and winter into next spring, you'll be better on the water.
• 7:31
  That's a good.
• 7:32
  That's a good motivating thing to leave on, Marvin.
• 7:37
  I try.
• 7:37
  Mac Brown.
• 7:39
  That's good.
• 7:40
  Well, before we let everybody hop and go drink lemonade and cool off today, you want to let folks know.
• 7:45
  I know we're probably what we're about.
• 7:47
  I don't know.
• 7:47
  Four to six weeks away from your first school or clinic, right?
• 7:52
  Yeah.
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  We're going to have several.
• 7:55
  Several fall programs coming up, and I'm looking forward to those.
• 7:59
  The first one, I guess, will be up in September and have a.
• 8:04
  Have our classic.
• 8:07
  That's what I call it, Classic.
• 8:08
  Because it's always probably my favorite two days of the year.
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  But it's the Fly Casting mastery workshop.
• 8:13
  It's two days long.
• 8:15
  And that's September 26th, 27th and then we go straight from that back into the schools for the fall.
• 8:23
  Fly fishing guide schools.
• 8:24
  So those are going to start up October 15th.
• 8:29
  Yeah.
• 8:29
  And that coincides with the DH program getting fired up again, assuming that it's cooled off enough for them to stock.
• 8:34
  Right.
• 8:36
  Yeah.
• 8:36
  I don't know what it's looking like for fall.
• 8:38
  I know it's been nice the last, last few days up here.
• 8:43
  I mean, we had, you know, a lot of hot, hot weather and high humidity, but really we're, we've cooled off.
• 8:49
  The humidity's not near as high.
• 8:50
  I think Today we were 80 degrees for the high, which that doesn't sound like a huge difference, but 80 and 90 is a big difference when you have like a hundred percent humidity.
• 9:00
  And humidity's back down quite a bit today, but I think it was 40% humidity, which feels good when you're outside at 80 degrees.
• 9:09
  So, yeah, if we keep on that trend, it's gonna.
• 9:12
  Starting to feel a little more like fall already.
• 9:15
  Yeah.
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  And so I would say, folks, you know, start, you know, think about some things you want to work on as we kind of slide into getting ready for kind of fall trout season and work on those things and
• 9:24
  you'll have a.
• 9:25
  You'll have a more productive fall and you have a more productive 20, 27.
• 9:29
  And you know, folks, as always, say yo to yourself to get out there and catch a few tight lines, everybody.
• 9:34
  Tight lines, Mac.
• 9:36
  Tight lines.
• 9:36
  Marvin.