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