Latest / The Articulate Fly / S6, Ep 70: Hot Weather Fishing Tips and Techniques with Mac Brown

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S6, Ep 70: Hot Weather Fishing Tips and Techniques with Mac Brown · The Articulate Fly

• 0:04
  Marvin Cash: Hey, folks, it's Marvin cash, the host of the articulate fly. We're
• 0:07
  back with another casting angles with Mac Brown. Mac, how are
• 0:09
  you?
• 0:11
  Marvin Cash: I'm doing great. How you doing, Marvin?
• 0:13
  Marvin Cash: Uh, I'm just trying to stay cool. It's kind of funny. You were belly aching about
• 0:16
  how hot it is where you are, and it's at least 15 degrees cooler than
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  where I am.
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  Marvin Cash: Well, it's still hot for here, for this
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  early in, well, late June,
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  you know, early summer. We've been. We've seen
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  some hot temperatures already the last couple weeks, but,
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  yeah, hopefully it's going to be a big cool down coming up
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  next week.
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  Marvin Cash: Yeah, and it's interesting, you know, last time we were coaching
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  people that this was coming, you know, the DH was
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  over. It's getting warmer. You know, you're going to end
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  up, you know, having to fish either early or late or head high up into
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  the mountains or go chase warm water species. And we thought
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  one of the things would be helpful for folks is, you know, a lot
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  of people, uh, uh, are reluctant to go
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  fish, like farm ponds and lakes for, like, bremen
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  bass, um, um, because they're trout anglers,
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  predominantly. Um, um, but there are a lot of things
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  you can do fishing for bass and brem that,
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  you know, give you good skill translation for when it cools off and you
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  get back on the water again in the fall.
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  Marvin Cash: That's right. Yeah. There's a lot of line control
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  tricks and, and strike detection tricks. You can
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  learn, you know, on stillwater or,
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  like, little t is pretty slow moving
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  water. A lot of those big, big pools, it's like you're
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  barely moving this time of year because it's not a lot of water in
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  them. So, um, yeah, so if you're
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  subsurface fishing, you can do a lot of
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  things for strike detection. You know, play around with
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  different rod tip actions and line retrieval
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  speeds with your hand and just watching the line,
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  keeping the rod tip low to the water and watching the line where it has
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  that little curve coming off from the rod tip
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  to where it meets the water, you know, and detecting strikes
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  from far out. You can, you can see
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  it instantly on, on that section of the line. So you can practice a
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  lot of these things on the brim and bass,
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  and it'll. It'll correlate, you know, directly to your trout
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  fishing as well. So it just gives you better,
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  um, attention, I guess, to the small
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  details for your trout fishing. That's. That's one of the
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  main. There's a lot of tricks, but that's one of the
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  best things, I think, on this time of year to play
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  with warm water fish for that reason.
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  Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's interesting, right? Because it's exactly like just coming back to
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  euro nymph. Right. And so you're looking at how deep your fly is
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  based on the angle of your line to the water,
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  right? Uh, uh. And then, and then to your
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  point, right. You can, um. Um.
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  You know, if you, if you're watching that angle, when that
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  angle changes, it probably means you've got a fish.
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  Right?
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  Marvin Cash: Yeah, that's it. And then you go ahead and go straight into
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  reacting to that, you know, with your strike.
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  Go uh, ahead and moving the rod and putting it on.
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  And you can, you know, you can strike
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  deliberately like that in a
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  short motion to test it. And if it's not there, then just keep
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  fishing it. So I mean, it's really good
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  for becoming disciplined and,
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  um, how to strike. Like you learn that on warm
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  water as easy as you do with trout. And,
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  um, that would really be beneficial just
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  because I would say
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  over the course of 40 years of guiding that most people strike
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  on an emotional response more
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  so than a human computer or thought process. You
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  follow me? So, so it's just all an emotion. By saying that, it's
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  like think about chimpanzee. Uh,
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  there's a good book, the chimp paradox that Steve Peters put
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  out. And it talks all about
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  like when people fish on emotions, it's like,
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  I think I got a strike. So what do they do? They just basically make a
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  back cast and the whole setups flying the other direction 40,
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  50ft. And it's like, that's totally emotional
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  because that's not the way we would ever set the
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  hook. Does that make sense? And I would say the majority of people that
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  don't go enough, that's how they set the hook. Um,
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  so you learn that on warm water, like what we're talking about,
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  to be deliberate, but short. I mean, you could do a line strike
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  using your lined hand, move the rod just 810 inches to check
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  and see if it's there. And if it's not, you're still fishing. You didn't, you didn't
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  put it in the air and make a back cast or
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  worse, say the fish was on, but you struck
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  emotionally and now everything's broke off. So it's like,
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  it's a great, great training methodology
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  for becoming deliberate. Using the human computer part of
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  your mind to set the hook
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  rather than emotional. Set the hook, you know?
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  Marvin Cash: Yeah. And then, you know, we've talked in various episodes
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  about how, you know, there are times when you want to dead
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  drift, but there are times when you want to
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  animate the fly. Right. We talked about cattus. You know, we've talked
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  about you fishing with Davey. Um, and so one of.
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  Yeah. And so one of the great things you can do, right, a very common
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  thing, right, in the evening is to fish some kind of popper,
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  right? And, you know, particularly even if you're on a river, you
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  know, fishing some kind of popper, probably with some rubber legs on it
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  for smallmouth and understanding,
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  you know, you know, how to animate
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  that fly. Um, um, not just to make it move any
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  which way, but just to start to understand, like, if I do this with the
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  rod or if I do this with the line, what does that do to the
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  fly? And that's going to make you a. A
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  way better streamer angler and a way better dry fly
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  angler when you get back on the trout stream.
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  Marvin Cash: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And also playing around
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  with the, uh, patience game, you know, with
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  smallmouth, a lot of times on the popper is you
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  can animate it, and then during the pause, when it's
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  back at drift and animate it. And then during the pause,
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  it's easy for people to want to rush that whole
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  process, you know? And then, okay, I'm going to make another cast.
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  But if we animate and pause, we can leave it out there
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  for a very long time until it actually gets something.
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  And usually you'll find that the better quality
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  smallmouth around here are
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  usually when it's sitting there for quite a while after
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  it's been animated. And I mean, like, up to 90 seconds,
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  most people are, I want to rush that back in 15 and
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  let's launch another task. But I'm saying the best quality
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  fish that I've seen over the years, like, even
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  with, like, hoppers and cicadas and things,
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  is, is the ones that stay there a very long time in a
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  fishy spot, and all of a sudden the water boils,
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  you know, sometimes as long as two minutes of
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  waiting. But people don't tend
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  to wait a lot when they're. When, when you're trying to
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  get them to wait, they're. They're usually trying to rush that process. And I'm like,
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  no, keep fishing it. Let it stay.
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  But, yeah, the better quality fish usually,
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  usually happen during that long pause game.
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  Marvin Cash: Also teaches you, too, to kind of reinforce that, being
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  deliberate about your presentation. Right. So, you know,
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  some of it is pause with slight movement. You know, if
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  that doesn't work. You can start short strips, you know, if you're
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  fishing sliders or something that's got an open face,
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  you know, do you pop it and leave it alone, or do you pop, pop,
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  pop? And so it's the same things that we do fishing for
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  trout, just in a slightly different situation.
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  But if you, if you get in that mindset, like, you know, if you've been fishing
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  it one way for an hour and you haven't caught anything,
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  you might want to try something different, right?
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  Marvin Cash: Oh, yeah, no, that's, that'd be good. And it's like, yeah,
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  there's a lot of great, great lessons, um,
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  from, from the rivers and ponds and lakes, you know, that you
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  can transfer back over. And Matt, Matt did a good post the
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  other day, but, um, I think it's, it's
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  spot on, you know, with these kind of temperatures.
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  He posted that up in Michigan. I guess Michigan's been really hot, too.
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  And, um, but, you know, it's, it's,
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  it's okay to give, give trout a break when it gets hot. You
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  know, I see it here all the time. People still
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  pressuring a lot of the private stuff in north Georgia,
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  and it's just like, it's too warm.
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  It really is. When you have two weeks of 80, 90 degree
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  temperatures, chances are you'd be better off to go warm
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  water and let the trout, let the trout alone for a
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  while, you know, because the mortality rate's going to go way up the next few
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  weeks for trout. I just think it's an ethical thing to leave them
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  alone, you know? Yeah.
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  Marvin Cash: And I think, too, you know, you know, it may sound kind of
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  complicated to say we'll try all sorts of different things that people don't know
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  where to start, but, I mean, I think it comes back to stuff you and I have talked about
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  a lot, right. Is observation. Right. And so if you're
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  on a farm pond or a lake or river, like, what food do you
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  see? Right. If you're putting the boat in and you see
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  lots of minnows, maybe you need to, you know, fish a ck
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  bait fish or a woolly booger. Right. If you see dragonflies, like,
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  I mean, it's just, you know, the water is going to tell you, you
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  know, what's there to be eaten.
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  Marvin Cash: Um.
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  Marvin Cash: Um, you know, ah, you know, the, the fish don't
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  have uber eats. Right?
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  Marvin Cash: That's right. Well, I like the dragonfly idea because I
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  fish a lot of dragonflies this time of year. Um, um,
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  as far as the nips and I fish a lot of them, you know, as a
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  dry with extended foam bodies. I mean, I really
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  enjoy fishing a lot of the dragonflies and
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  warm water fisheries. And actually, even
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  for trout, I mean, there's times a year, you know, you do. Well, if
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  we were somewhere where the water's cooler, it's getting tough
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  to find cool water right now.
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  And so, yeah, the dragonfly is a really fun,
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  fun pattern. You know, you really can't go wrong with
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  dragonfly anywhere in the southeast on one water fishery
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  right now.
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  Marvin Cash: Yeah, so I would just say, you know, folks kind of take all that and, you
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  know, don't let the hot water keep you off the water. I mean, one of the
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  benefits of the summertime is you can fish either really early or really
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  late and you can go do other stuff, you know, if you're on a family
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  vacation or whatever, you know, it's not going to be like you get
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  to go out and fish all day long. Um, so just all sorts
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  of stuff that, um, you know, Mack and I thought you guys might find
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  helpful. And I know, Mack, you're done with your schools
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  until the fall, but I guess, you know, you're guiding regularly and you've
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  got, you've got some spots left in some of your casting schools in the fall.
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  You want to let folks know kind of where they can find you. So if
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  they want to go down the river with you, they can do that or get a casting
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  lesson or fill one of those, uh, class slots for
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  you.
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  Marvin Cash: Yeah, that'd be good. It's a, uh, best way is at the
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  URL. Mac brown fly fish. And then
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  same name as far as on Instagram and Facebook.
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  They can send a message on that, too. And that's
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  probably the best, best way to reach me in the casting school, I
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  think. September 17, I got two slots left in
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  that still. So those will go probably the next
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  couple weeks and then it'll be full. But, yeah,
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  we're looking forward to that.
• 10:09
  Marvin Cash: Yeah, we've got all that stuff in the show notes. And, you know, folks, as I always
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  say, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few. Tight
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  lines, everybody. Tight lines, Mac,
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  tight lines.
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  Marvin Cash: Marvin.