Latest / The Articulate Fly / S6, Ep 62: Casting Angles with Mac Brown: Warm Water Options and Cicadas
Transcript
- 0:03Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly,
- 0:06Marvin: and we're back with another Casting Angles with Mack Brown. How are you, Mack?
- 0:11Mac: I'm doing great. How are you doing, Marvin?
- 0:13Marvin: As always, trying to stay out of trouble. You know, it's interesting.
- 0:16Marvin: You had a great weekend. Your oldest son graduated from high school this past weekend.
- 0:21Mac: Yeah, that was a big, that was a fun time. I think that's the first time probably
- 0:27Mac: since Jennifer and I've been married with all the
- 0:29Mac: family on her side and my side was all up here in the great town of Bryson City
- 0:35Mac: and we had a big cookout on the deck and celebrating that so that was a lot of fun.
- 0:40Marvin: Yeah it's interesting you know so that's a you know transition to summer I know
- 0:44Marvin: you were telling me Duncan is working on Deep Creek with the tubers and Connor's
- 0:48Marvin: down in Alabama at a camp but you know the other thing that's happened is you
- 0:52Marvin: know kind of that traditional kind of fall winter spring delayed harvest is over in North Carolina.
- 0:58Marvin: And so it's maybe a time to think about maybe some other options.
- 1:02Mac: Oh yeah, there's a lot of other good options. You know, this time of year,
- 1:06Mac: I like going like the Little Tennessee or the Pigeon. There's a lot of other
- 1:10Mac: great places with like Brim and Smallmouth and farm ponds.
- 1:16Mac: We don't have that many ponds here, but like where I grew up in East Tennessee,
- 1:20Mac: there was literally probably a hundred in Greene County.
- 1:22Mac: I mean, great farm ponds, some of them two and three acres big.
- 1:25Mac: And of course, that was a big part of fly fishing growing up and would get into
- 1:30Mac: summer, would be going to the farm ponds a lot and chasing bass and brim and
- 1:35Mac: catfish and all kinds of stuff on the farm ponds.
- 1:38Mac: And, you know, catfish are a lot of fun this time of year too,
- 1:41Mac: because a lot of people think catfish, you know, throwing bait and fishing down deep.
- 1:45Mac: But catfish until they're about 17, 18 inches are insectivores,
- 1:51Mac: just like a trout. So they're beautiful, smooth, same size as a trout.
- 1:57Mac: And they eat in, you know, you go down to Little Tennessee and throw a single
- 2:01Mac: dry fly and catch all kinds of catfish that come up and eat it just like a trout.
- 2:04Mac: So there's a lot of other things to go after for sure now that the D.H. is gone.
- 2:11Mac: Kind of opened up and then of course we still got a lot of high elevation streams
- 2:15Mac: if they want to chase blue line and deep trout but i think i don't know it's
- 2:21Mac: a lot of fun still the water the water temp still in great condition here but
- 2:24Mac: i've been on deep creek a lot this last week and,
- 2:27Mac: and we're over at nolan creek and those creeks are still plenty cold.
- 2:32Marvin: Yeah it's interesting i mean i guess i would say you know if you were kind of
- 2:34Marvin: trying to figure it out i would say try to you know fish up on the blue lines
- 2:38Marvin: until maybe there's a water problem later in the summer.
- 2:40Marvin: And then the great thing about fishing farm ponds and lakes for bass and brim
- 2:45Marvin: and catfish is you can kind of beat the heat because you either get up really
- 2:48Marvin: early in the morning and you're done about 11 o'clock or you go fish that last like hour and a half,
- 2:54Marvin: two hours of sunlight at the day.
- 2:56Marvin: And, you know, it makes it a little bit easier to kind of fit in with all the
- 2:59Marvin: other stuff we do in the summertime.
- 3:01Mac: That's right. Now I'm hoping we're going to get, I've been crossing my fingers,
- 3:05Mac: we're going to get these epic cicada hatches that they're
- 3:08Mac: having all over the country but we still have yet
- 3:11Mac: to see a one like on where i live in
- 3:14Mac: the valley at deep creek i haven't heard one or seen
- 3:17Mac: a shock or anything but they're definitely happening in a lot of places and
- 3:20Mac: uh my aunt sent a photo from where i grew up in the ozarks and they're literally
- 3:26Mac: the husker like hundreds of thousands sitting around the bases of trees so i
- 3:30Mac: mean certain places are getting them and if you happen to have that you know
- 3:34Mac: if you're having a big cicada activity,
- 3:36Mac: there's some really good stuff you can do with that i mean we're just not getting
- 3:40Mac: it here but throwing cicada patterns on those same warm water cold water rivers
- 3:44Mac: whatever you got whatever kind of water you got that's going to be definitely
- 3:48Mac: preyed upon from a lot of different species yeah.
- 3:52Marvin: It's interesting because you know down here the periodics uh have pretty much
- 3:55Marvin: run their course and we're probably i would guess about a month away probably
- 3:59Marvin: from getting our you know normal annuals which is you know kind of what will
- 4:02Marvin: be the game kind of where i grew up in central virginia too but uh but yeah
- 4:06Marvin: it's interesting to see fish move to uh to crush those cicadas if they have a chance.
- 4:12Mac: Oh, yeah. I keep thinking maybe we're going to get them. I keep waiting at night.
- 4:17Mac: We sit on the patio every night on the back deck and sit around the caveman
- 4:22Mac: television with the big bonfire pit.
- 4:24Mac: I mean, if they're here, you'd hear them, but we're just not hearing them.
- 4:27Mac: I don't think we have them here where I live, but maybe they're where some of the listeners live.
- 4:34Mac: That'd be a fun thing to have. I've got boxes and boxes of cicadas just stuck
- 4:39Mac: in here. I'm going to have to go somewhere where they're happening because I
- 4:43Mac: don't think they're going to happen here.
- 4:44Mac: I might go up to, I think they're probably happening up there in southern Virginia.
- 4:48Mac: I've heard reports of some friends
- 4:50Mac: up there that talked about having some pretty good cicada activity.
- 4:54Mac: And I know up by Lake, by Hickory.
- 4:58Mac: What's the name of the lake that's on 40 as you're driving to Hickory? Is that Lake James?
- 5:06Mac: I don't know if they're having them.
- 5:08Marvin: Yeah, it might be.
- 5:11Marvin: Yeah, I'd have to think about that because it's not far enough east to be in the Pee Dee River chain.
- 5:15Marvin: But, yeah, I mean, they pretty much run their course here and around Greensboro
- 5:19Marvin: and kind of up into southwest Virginia because they've been out for,
- 5:22Marvin: you know, four to six weeks. And I think they only live about a month.
- 5:26Marvin: So, you know, if you figure they come out kind of over two weeks,
- 5:28Marvin: they pretty much kind of run their course. One thing I thought might be helpful
- 5:33Marvin: on the warm water front for folks, a lot of those bugs are pretty wind-resistant poppers.
- 5:40Marvin: Maybe talk to people a little bit about terminal tackle and technique.
- 5:44Marvin: I know one thing I do when I'm fishing poppers is I generally fish a pretty
- 5:47Marvin: short leader because it doesn't matter.
- 5:49Marvin: It helps those big bugs turn over a whole lot better. Sure.
- 5:53Mac: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then the small poppers too, like you don't have to go to
- 5:57Mac: these massive big poppers.
- 5:59Mac: Like on the little Tennessee, we throw poppers a lot of the time that are half
- 6:04Mac: the length of your thumb, you know, just little small poppers with some rubber,
- 6:08Mac: like Matamex rubber on the sides, you know, make an X pattern and then have
- 6:12Mac: a little bit of marabou on the tail.
- 6:14Mac: And those are quick to tie and they're real durable. we throw a lot of those for,
- 6:20Mac: red eye bass and there's a lot of brim and there's a lot of catfish and smallmouth
- 6:23Mac: that'll eat those small poppers and that's really the better pattern size to
- 6:27Mac: throw as far as to see a lot of variety and different numbers of what's in there
- 6:31Mac: and when you start going to the really big stuff,
- 6:35Mac: in hopes of you know kind of like a lot of the big flies in the,
- 6:39Mac: streamer game then you're going to be a little more lonely throwing a lot more
- 6:42Mac: cast and if you catch one yeah it'll probably be a good fish but
- 6:46Mac: But as far as on trips and things, if you're taking people down,
- 6:51Mac: we try to stay on the smaller size stuff because they can see a lot more numbers
- 6:54Mac: of a wider variety of fish, carp included, like glass carp.
- 6:59Mac: And of course, those are a lot of fun on a popper.
- 7:02Marvin: Yeah. And I would say on the streamer front, I would keep it simple,
- 7:05Marvin: folks. I would say woolly boogers. I would say small finesse changers.
- 7:09Marvin: I'm a big fan of fish and CK bait fish. I think they're easy to tie and they're absolutely killer.
- 7:18Mac: Yeah that'd be that'd be a good choice up here that'd be
- 7:21Mac: a good choice all over and uh it's a lot
- 7:24Mac: of fun i mean it's just kind of a different season a different time to time
- 7:27Mac: to chase different you know i remember uh one of the trips marvin since we're
- 7:31Mac: talking about going after different you know seasonal time change i remember
- 7:35Mac: several years ago it's probably five or six years ago the kids we went out did
- 7:40Mac: two and a half weeks on the buffalo river in Arkansas.
- 7:44Mac: It's a wild, it's like a national wild scenic river.
- 7:48Mac: And it was, it was amazing. I mean, we had the kids and the cousins there from
- 7:52Mac: Colorado and it was just so, so much diversity.
- 7:56Mac: I mean, Whitlock, you know, when he lived up there in Mountain Home,
- 8:00Mac: that was, that was where he'd go the most to try a lot of his different patterns and things.
- 8:04Mac: But it's an amazing fishing on the Buffalo. I'd like to go back out and do that.
- 8:09Mac: I'd do that again in a second if I had the time to do it right now.
- 8:12Marvin: It's definitely your busy time of year, and I know you know that you're guiding,
- 8:17Marvin: and although there's a little bit of a transition there, but you also have the schools.
- 8:21Marvin: You want to let folks know about kind of the upcoming schools and kind of how
- 8:23Marvin: to get on your guide calendar?
- 8:26Mac: Yeah, the best way is probably on the URL at backgroundflyfish.com.
- 8:31Mac: And the next big thing probably is September.
- 8:36Mac: As far as the casting school, there's a couple of spots left open for that,
- 8:42Mac: and then it will be full, and we'll cap it off.
- 8:44Mac: And there's a couple of specialized things still going on right now with –,
- 8:49Mac: And different specialized type schools of, you know, dry fly,
- 8:52Mac: wet fly type schools that are weekend courses. And those have been a lot of fun.
- 8:57Mac: It's kind of fun to have, you know, eight, ten people a weekend to teach that
- 9:01Mac: too instead of just like one person at a time.
- 9:04Mac: It's just a little bit easier efficiency use of time, you know,
- 9:08Mac: because you're going to cover all the same thing, whether it's one or ten.
- 9:11Mac: So it might as well be ten.
- 9:13Marvin: Yeah. And so just to help folks, you know, if they want to do one of those,
- 9:16Marvin: I know, have you had your wet fly one yet? I know that was one that we've been
- 9:19Marvin: talking about the last couple of times we've been together.
- 9:22Mac: Yeah, yeah, we did that. And that went over real good. And it was a good time
- 9:26Mac: of year, still really cold, cold water.
- 9:29Mac: And yeah, I have to look, actually. I don't even, I've been so busy with like
- 9:34Mac: casting clinics and trips this last week before the graduation that it's bad
- 9:41Mac: when you have to look at your calendar yourself to find out when stuff is.
- 9:44Mac: But that's kind of where I'm at right now, Marvin. and I'm a little bit,
- 9:47Mac: just from the last week of all the festivities, I'm a little bit behind.
- 9:54Marvin: Yeah, it's all good. You either need to hire somebody to keep you straight or
- 9:57Marvin: maybe just have a monkey paw and get reset.
- 10:01Mac: Yeah, that'd probably be a good thing.
- 10:04Marvin: Well, listen, you know, folks, we have lots of opportunities kind of in the
- 10:08Marvin: southeast mid-Atlantic, you know, still time to chase trout,
- 10:12Marvin: lots of cool warm water stuff, smallmouth bites just going to keep getting better,
- 10:15Marvin: or particularly if you like fish in topwater.
- 10:17Marvin: So as I always say, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.
- 10:21Marvin: Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Mac.
- 10:24Mac: Tight lines, Marvin.