In this episode of The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash welcomes back fly angler, tier, author and educator Tim Cammisa. They dive into Tim's 2025 hosted travel calendar and explore his latest book, "Tying Euro Nymphs and Other Competition Favorites." Tim shares insights from his interviews with top anglers, discussing the evolution of Euro nymphing techniques and the importance of understanding the "why" behind fly design. The conversation covers Tim's fishing adventures in 2024, including successful trips to Iceland and Alaska, where he pursued Atlantic salmon and achieved an Alaskan Grand Slam. Tim also highlights new materials from Semper Fli and shares his experiences with Lamson's Euro nymphing rods and reels.

This episode is packed with valuable insights for both fly tiers and anglers interested in Euro nymphing. Whether you're a seasoned angler or new to the sport, Tim's passion for teaching and innovation in fly fishing shines through, offering listeners a wealth of knowledge and inspiration.

Thanks to TroutRoutes for sponsoring this episode. Use artfly20 to get 20% off of your TroutRoutes Pro membership.

Thanks to The Fly Fishing Show for sponsoring this episode. To find a show near you, visit our Events page.

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Helpful Episode Chapters

0:00:00 Introduction

0:02:00 Upcoming Hosted Travel

0:11:37 New Fly Tying Materials

0:14:00 New Gear Recommendations

0:19:38 Tim's New Book

0:31:51 Lessons from Writing the First Book

0:40:22 Highlighting Memorable Interviews

0:48:14 Overview of the Book

0:54:38 The Evolution of Fly Tying

1:03:58 Upcoming Appearances

Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly. On this episode, Tire angler, author and educator Tim Cammisa returns to the podcast.

If you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a rating and review in the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out and thanks to our friends at the Fly Fishing show for sponsoring the episode.

Head over to www.and a shout out to our sponsor Trout Routes It's a fact none of us get to fish as much as we want. Almost overnight, planning a fishing trip went from a gazetteer in word of mouth to the entire Internet.

There have never been more resources available for fishing, but it's a challenge trying to wade through the digital noise to find the most current and relevant information. Spend less time surfing the Internet and more time on the water with trout routes.

With over 350,000 access points mapped across 50,000 trout streams and much more, Trout Routes has all the data you need to help you make the most of your time on the water. Where I fish in Southern Appalachia, figuring out how to get off the water can be as important as finding it in the first place.

With trout routes, I can mark the best spots to get out of the water so I don't find myself in a valley I can't climb out of. As the sun goes down, up your game and download the app today.

Use code artfly20 artfly20 all one word for 20% off of your Trout Routes Pro membership at Maps. Now on to our interview.

Well Tim, welcome back to the Articulate Fly.

Marvin, it's great to be back. Thanks for having me back. It sounds like it's been about four years since our last recording.

Yeah, I was kind of shocked when I went back and looked.

I was actually looking for the PDF review copy of your first book before you like, got hundreds of copies to give to people before your book launched.

Oh my gosh, that was back in the day. Even though I Guess that's talking four years ago.

But listen, at least I always get a chance to see you at all the shows and just, you know, we communicate frequently, so. And I, I'm a. I'm a fan of your podcast, so I hear you on a pretty regular basis.

Oh, my gosh, it was a great season. I mean, you know, I'm very fortunate, besides all the travel and that type of stuff, because, you know, we'll. We'll go down those paths eventually.

Some of the fish that, you know, a few years ago, probably when, when you and I last spoke that I said I was really starting to, you know, chase a little bit more, include muskies. And this year had a couple days out for muskies, and just some banner days, you know, hooked a number of fish, landed a bunch of fish this year.

So anytime you're. You're out there and you land multiple fish, multiple muskies in one day, that's. That's, you know, that's the goal.

So, you know, had a couple of days like that in the 24 season. That was great. We went to Iceland again. My. My first time chasing Atlantic salmon over there.

So I was able to land a handful of Atlantic salmon over the course of a week. That was just insane. Something I'd never even envisioned doing. And now I'm like completely down that rabbit hole.

And then I guess the other aspect of it, my family all fishes. You know, my wife, her name's Heather, she loves to fly fish. We have two children, Angelo and Fina.

They're, you know, nine and four as of this recording. And they, they get drug along on our adventures all the time. So we had an awesome season the whole way up to, I think December 28th was our last day.

We were fishing the Lake Erie tributaries for steelhead. So we. We tried to maximize as many days fishing together as a family as we could. And we. We all caught fish that day.

Yeah, that's pretty neat. That was before the. The after Christmas slush hit, right?

That's all poor Erie.

I mean, for all of your listeners from Erie, Pennsylvania, I mean, they had around Thanksgiving, after Thanksgiving, they just got bombarded with feet of snow. And then again after Christmas, they just got bombard snow. It just. It's one of those. Those places if you live up there, it's you.

You're just kind of expecting the worst at times.

Yeah, it's also hard to find green vegetables up there. Every time I go up there to fish, it's basically like steak and pierogies.

Oh, my God. That's, that's, that's the place. You know, Erie.

Well, yeah.

So, you know, it's interesting you had mentioned Iceland, and I know you've been going there multiple years, but I also noticed on your website you've got a 20, 25 trip to Alaska. Is that a relatively new thing for you?

Yeah, I mean, I've been hosting trips to Iceland for I don't know how many years, and I love it. And going to a European country like that, really, there's a lot to tackle there.

And I'd always said I probably wouldn't host too many trips in the United States, maybe Montana, but just because, you know, it's a little bit easier. The entry level for trips is a little bit more doable for the average angler, but Alaska is a tricky spot.

And I started doing research on Alaska maybe four or five years ago, just knowing that I wanted to get to Alaska. I want to fish a remote area of Alaska.

I was looking for fly in lodge, a place that we could fly into, be away from everybody else, have the river to ourselves.

But I also want to find a lodge that wouldn't break the bank because a lot of those fly outs, I mean, you can really just drop thousands of dollars in a heartbeat, and it's tricky.

So I was trying to really balance that and figure it out, and I, you know, I found the right outfitter a couple of years ago, took a trip for king salmon. Loved it. I mean, just had a wonderful experience. Then last year, went back for the silvers. Love the silvers.

But then we also started tackling the rainbow trout and the, the grayling. And, you know, just. We just found a little bit of everything, including Dolly Varden. So we just had a blast.

And so that's kind of been added to the docket. So as of right now, that's another trip that I'm making on a yearly basis.

Gosh, I'm, I'm very fortunate. Most of my trips sell out in a pretty short amount of time. I want to say one of the, the Iceland trips, we're.

We're kind of rotating that trip around waterfalls, so we're kind of calling it the highlands waterfall trip this year. I forget the actual name of the trip, but that one sold out Very quick. You know, it was. It was pretty much gone before I listed it, which was.

Which awesome. It's really cool to know that people, you know, know I put a lot of time and I have a lot of experience fishing over there.

So in that trip, the premise is every day you're going to have an opportunity to fish below a waterfall. And the waterfalls there are like, I don't know, straight out of the Lord of the Rings or something. They're just. They're absolutely insane.

So that's Iceland trip number one. That one's. That's unfortunately sold out. My second Iceland trip is kind of a newer one. This is the Atlantic salmon trip.

But with Atlantic salmon, what I've realized is all those rivers in Iceland, they tend to be private. So for you to book an Atlantic salmon river for an entire week, that. That's definitely going to drive the cost up.

And I was able to work with an outfitter over there that, that, you know, everything just worked out really well. He happens to be right.

You know, also have access to a river that's just known for brown trout that like to eat dry flies, and they're all these monster brown trout. So we, we found a way to kind of balance the trip to make it a little bit more affordable. So it's a half Atlantic salmon, half brown trout trip.

So it's kind of for those newer people, newer anglers to Atlantic salmon fishing because, you know, a lot of anglers will, you know, chase them all around the world and they'll go an entire week and they have like an eat or, you know, they missed one or maybe they felt a fish and that was their week. And like, the expectation when we're there is that you're going to have an opportunity to land one every time you're out.

You fish for salmon twice a day, so it's. You have a chance, you know, you're expected to catch somewhere around six Atlantic salmon in a week, which is awesome.

Plus you have brown trout every other day that love to eat dry flies and streamers. So that trip's newer one, I believe, as of this recording, there's spots on that.

I know I have some people who are kind of in the reserves, are waiting for a couple things to happen, but that's another fun trip. Last year we made that trip and a couple of us caught. Gosh, what's it called. When you catch every salmon in Alaska, they have a name for it.

It's not a hat trick. It's probably bigger than that, right?

Gosh, I'm blanking on it. Yeah. I'll come up with the name of it, like, halfway through this recording. But they have five. Five salmon up there.

And, you know, we went up there targeting the silver salmon. That was kind of the trip. It was like silver salmon, some rainbow trout, some dollies. You know, that was kind of our focus.

But then, like, after a couple days, you know, I caught a pink salmon. Then next thing I knew, I caught, like, a king salmon. Then, you know, you just. You. I. I kept catching them.

I caught, like, another one that's called the dog salmon. I'm like, oh, gosh. Like, I've caught four of the five, and then I caught the fifth, and I was like, oh, my. You know, I got all fifth. I got.

I got all five of those salmon, which was just. It was not something I was chasing. It was something I knew was possible.

I know before I had gone, I talked to my friend Suntal, and he's like, tim, you're gonna have a chance to do this. And I'm like, I'm gonna try if the opportunity's there. And, you know, I went after it.

And my goal for that trip was after I caught my fifth salmon, I'm like, I'm gonna catch every fish that's up here. You know, I. I got a grayling, I got dolly. I got the rainbow trout. And I.

I remember I'm eating dinner, like, before the last day, and I say to my guide, I'm like, hey, I think I've got them all. What do I have left? And he's like, there's pike up here, Tim. We're going pike fishing tomorrow.

And I spent half the day pike fishing, and I could not get a pike to eat my fly. So now I have a new goal for the summer. Who says they go to Alaska to catch a pike? But that's me.

There are people that do it, but, you know, also, I bet you. Is it. Is it a slam by chance?

I think it is. Yeah. I think that's what it's called. The grand slam. Exactly. I would think we were calling it the Malchot in a Grand slam.

We're on the Malchot in a river.

Yeah. And I was going to ask you about your Atlantic salmon trip. Do you get to hang out with Eric Clapton?

Oh, my gosh. Eric is no. I. No. The short answer is no. I wish I Did. From what I understand with Eric, he. He rents those rivers or he'll.

He'll lease a river for two weeks whenever he's Atlantic salmon fishing. In the first week, no one fishes it. And those fish just rest and then he comes in, he fishes it for a week. At least that's what I've been told.

So I think Eric and I, we run in two different circles. But I would love to have the opportunity to fish with him because I've heard he's a pretty darn good darn good angler.

Yeah, I bet you the music at the lodge is pretty good too.

Oh, that'd be so could you. Can you imagine hanging out with Clapton? I mean, after a day on the river chasing salmon, that'd be awesome. Life would be good.

Yeah.

You know, and so it's funny too, you know, you, you mad scientists tying folks, you're always playing around with stuff. So I guarantee also too, in your book homage to like all of your brands that you work with.

So you have to be playing around with some new materials or tools at your bench. You have anything you want to share?

Oh, gosh.

Well, I'm sitting at my fly tying bench right now and, and yeah, like to tell your listeners a little bit about my background, I actually learned how to tie flies first because before I learned how to, to fish, I was 10 years old. I took this like, after school fly tying class. Just fell in love with it.

It was more of like a craft until I realized, like, you can actually catch fish on these flies. And then, you know, that the addiction just kind of spiraled from there a little bit out of control with materials. I am constantly tinkering.

I'm just constantly trying to figure out new stuff. Probably the newest one that I've really been the most animated about, it's, it's based on one of my, my sponsors. It's a company called Semper Fly.

I'm an ambassador for them and I believe they make the best fly tying materials around the world. And they have, they're really known for their threads. They have some great threads, but they pretty much make all their products in house.

The other nice thing about Semper Fly is they have this ability to dye their materials. They spent thousands of dollars on these dye machines, and whatever color they say they want to have, every one of their products matches that color.

So if they have a red, every product in red will look exactly the same, which is, you don't see that across fly tying.

A lot of these manufacturers will actually send their, their products out to get dyed somewhere else or they just, they dye whatever, you know, they dye with whatever they have. And it's, the consistency is questionable at times. So the product that they had released years ago is called Kapok dubbing.

Your listeners may have heard of Kapok before. It's a natural fiber. I mean it's been out for decades.

What's been tricky about Kapok is from, from a fly time perspective, you use it for the bodies of, of dry flies. It's super easy to dub. I mean it just dubs on your dubbing noodle. It just, it makes you like look like you're a professional.

I mean, I'm just, it's one of those dubbings that just blows you away. The, the tricky part about it was that it was very difficult to die over the year. So Semper Fly ran it through their dye process.

They, they dyed these awesome colors. You know, K pop came out, it was released. It just, to me, it's the best dry fly dubbing on the market. And I've, I've told people that.

And then just recently we had a little fly jam.

It's kind of what they call it when they bring all their, their pros together and they release new products with us first we can play around with them.

And they released these products called Kapok Fusion and UV Kapok Fusion where they blended like some crystal flash and some UV fibers into the kapok and it's just like they didn't make it too overwhelming. But, but just imagine like your favorite dry fly.

I don't know if the Adams Parachute and you still have that, that, that traditional gray, but there's just a little bit of sparkle in there just to kind of grab the fish's attention. I, I don't know. I'm not saying dry flies need to have that sparkle, even though most of them do have that, that shell look whenever they're adults.

But there's something about that material. Whenever I'm dubbing with it, it looks awesome.

And then whenever I go to fish with the flies, I don't know, maybe this is just me, but I just have more confidence whenever I'm grabbing those flies. It just, they look better. And whenever you look at a fly and you say this is going to catch fish, you fish it with confidence.

So for all you fly tires out there, Kapok Fusion, the UV K Pok Fusion. Check it out.

Yeah, I'll try to grab some links and drop them in the show notes. And you know, again, you're also a gearhead. Right. So aren't we all? Yeah.

Well, the, so, you know, I'm kind of curious if you've got kind of a, a doodad, a rod line, tippet, anything kind of like that you want to share with folks because I know you're always playing around with that too.

Oh, gosh. I'll share two things.

And for your listeners, I got to give a quick shout out to Marvin because prior to the podcast he sends like a list of some of the topics we're going to discuss. And he told me about this question ahead of time. And Marvin, you do an awesome job with this.

I mean, you are so prepared for this and you kind of made me think about it and I, there's kind of two paths that I'll go down for the rods and for the reels. I mean, I love Euro nymphing. I've used a lot of different rods over the years.

The one rod that I'm playing around with now, I'm not gonna, this is not a glowing endorsement. I literally just got this a couple weeks ago.

I work with a company called Lamson and Lamson tends to be known for their reels, but their fly rods just, they're really, I don't know, they're a kind of a mid range fly rod. They're right in the 500 to 600 range. So you're not dropping a thousand dollars, but you're still getting a heck of a quality fly rod.

I've used their rods for, for, you know, a number of years. If, if you look at my social media, most of my big fish have all been landed on my lamps and velocity.

Either my 9 foot 6 weight or my 9 foot 8 weight. But they just recently introduced some Euro nymphing sticks.

So they, they sent me a, I think it was around a 10 foot something 2 weight and they have a new Euro nymphing reel. They're just cool. I don't know, there's just, it's Lamson.

I just, I've always loved their flywheels and now to know they're kind of entering that Euro nymphing market, I'm excited. I'll just say that I'm going to be excited.

I'm kind of holding off any endorsement of the rod yet, but just something to kind of plant the seed down that path. And then the, the other thing that I, I, I, I, I'm constantly just messing around with my, what I call the ideal fishing vest.

I don't think it, it exists. If you have it, please Tell me. Because, I mean, years ago, my first one was like a Filson. I had like a Filson chest pack.

And then I went to the Filson that had two sides. And then I, you know, just started experimenting. I went with sling packs. I've worn backpacks. I've used every single pack that I can think of.

I was keeping a waterproof backpack on, and it would, like, hold, you know, my larger boxes, maybe a camera, just whatever my necessary gear was. But it wasn't that Orvis Pro backpack. It was like a smaller one. I literally found this backpack on Amazon. It just. It was nice. It was waterproof.

Everything was great with it. But I still wanted a chest pack. But I don't like a chest pack that's too cumbersome. And I found this one from Umpqua.

It was called the ZS2 waiter chest pack. And what's nice about it, it's. It's smaller. It's.

It's got just enough room for some tippet, a small fly box, you know, split shots, some indicators, you know, some floating. Just like, just a little bit of everything. You need to survive for a little bit on the water. But it has these clips, and they go around. Around your.

Your chest straps for your waiters. So it's super lightweight. You know, your fly line doesn't grab onto it. It's been a cool pack.

The downside is if you're going, if you're wet, waiting that day, you know, you got to figure out something else to attach it to. So that's the one downside that I've had. I think it goes with the whole Umpqua system. I didn't invest in the whole system.

This is just the only piece that I bought. But, you know, for people who wear waiters all the time, and you don't want a giant pack in the front. Check this one out.

Yeah, it's amazing. I have. I kind of have a love hate relationship with pack slash slings, slash chest boxes. And I'm always fiddling, right.

And I always tell people, they're like these small victories on the water. Right. Like, if you have a box and you, like, get it configured exactly the way you want it. Yes.

You know, or I Have, like, I have a sling pack and I have a. Actually a fly trap holder on a zinger that holds all of my tippet on behind so I can reach behind me and pull the spool.

Because I hate having stuff on my chest.

Me too. Yeah.

Because it always gets hung up. It's always a mess. And then, of course, when you get older, you need readers.

And then that's a completely different problem where you're trying to push the chest pack down your waist so you can see what tippet you want to pull off.

But, yeah, well, hey, listen, if any of your listeners or if you have.

I'm looking for a very good, you know, something whenever you're done fishing a fly and something where you can put it inside and it dries it off, but the flies won't fall into the water. You know, sometimes. Sometimes I have like those little Velcro patches or the foam ones. There was one that I got from Hanic competition. I think you.

I don't know if you can see it right now. It's like a leather one. It's got Velcro on the back. And when you open it up, you can see my squirmy wormies and some other stuff.

But it's got these little. So it's nice because it protects them. This one's nice, but I've realized I don't think they make this one anymore.

So I'm afraid whenever this one's done, it's done. I mean, do you have one that you use to keep your flies dry?

You know, the one that I use is the fly trap holder. And you can actually hook it between your suspenders on your waders. And it holds tippet, and it's got those silicone rings. And you can.

You can put the hook. Put your hooks in, and it keeps flies really well. The other thing it does is you can spool them and you can actually pre wind droppers.

Oh, wow.

And keep it on there. We can go down. We'll go in that rat hole offline in. In Denver when we see each other in person.

Flytrap. All right, I'm gonna check this out.

Yeah. There you can actually get them on Amazon.

Okay.

And there's a great. They have a great magnifier, too that will clip onto, like a strap of your waiters. And it has a magnet, so it'll catch flies. So two things like that.

Yeah. So it's kind of funny, right?

That was when Fly Tying for Everyone came out. But you weren't scared away. So you've got a new book that's coming out. Well, I guess it's for people on the inside.

They've got copies for people on the outside. You got to wait another week or so. But tying Euro Nymphs and other competition favorites. And I was kind of curious.

I always like to hear the kind of the Creation or Genesis story for the project.

Um, I had never written a book before that wasn't part of like my master plan, you know, for everyone listening. My day job as a teacher. I'm an elementary school teacher. I teach sixth grade, 12 year olds.

So, you know, the most writing I do is like sending parent emails back and forth, you know, maybe helping to write curriculum and, and assignments for students. So writing is something I loved.

But you know, in my head I was kind of always thinking, you know, I would retire from teaching, you know, down the road and maybe write this fictional story collection of stories. Kind of like John Garrick. That was kind of like where I placed myself.

Even though there was no plan, there was no goal, there was no, there was nothing. So whenever I ran into Jay Nichols, long story short, you know, we had spent some time together at some various shows. We knew each other.

He had asked me to write the book.

I didn't believe he was really asking me when he had sent me a message on Facebook and I thought he meant to send somebody else because he was like, hey, do you know anyone who could write a fly time book? And I'm like, he's not talking to me. I better just let this message hang so he can delete it. He didn't.

And I wrote that first book, you know, knowing so little.

It was just, it was definitely an overwhelming process with the photography especially because whenever you're taking pictures of flies, you know you want to be perfect. There's no like Photoshop. You don't have a. I didn't have that luxury. I couldn't like just mess it up and don't worry, somebody will fix it.

Post it was, you know, whenever you look at my first book, wherever I put that first hook in the vise from that Point forward. Those are all shots in a row of that same fly.

So some of them were shot, like they took, you know, hours to shoot from step one to step, even 15, if that's all the number of steps there were. So that. That macro photography part was really. That pushed me to kind of a new. A new place, if you want to call it that.

So the book was well received. I appreciate you having me on your podcast to talk about the first one.

And, you know, I kind of in between that, that book being written and, you know, I guess meeting Jay years before that, I had really fallen down that rabbit hole called European Nymphing or Euro Nymphing, where, you know, you know, kind of, you know, it came out of Europe, and it really came out of a lot of the fly fishing competitions, because in the United States, we just, you know, I'm not a competitive angler. Like, I'm competitive on the water, like, with my friends and with myself, but I don't fish in competitions.

But I just, you know, I heard about the competitions, and I heard the United States really got our, you know, our butts kicked. It seemed like, on a regular basis from countries like Spain, France, the UK and, you know, I didn't know why. Just, are they better anglers?

Do they have tougher fishing? I had no idea. But it kind of. It came out of this.

This notion that they were doing things a little bit different than what we were doing in the United States. And the information eventually kind of trickled out to us.

It came from, like, people like George Daniel, Devin Olson, they, you know, they were learning about these techniques in the competitions and then sharing them on their YouTube channels, on blogs, on podcasts. They were writing about it. And the rest of us just kind of.

We just started lapping this information up because we realized you're catching way more fish using this technique. And even though it's called Euro nymphing, you know, there's. There's many ways you fish dry flies as well, and streamers. And, you know, it.

It was just a really interesting way to fish again, another learning curve, as is all things in fly fishing. But it was one of those things where I. I looked at it as. This is like another arrow in my quiver.

I mean, the first year I tried it, I remember coming home, Marvin. I got home from.

From a day in the water talking to my wife, and I'm telling her about my fishing, and she kind of looked at me and she was like, are you telling me a fishing story? Like, what are you talking about? She's like your number of fish you're catching this year compared to last year is like triple.

And I'm like, heather, it's this thing. It's Euro nymphing.

Now, we've been lucky because it seems like over the last few years, all the different European styles have been kind of converging down to one style where it seems like, know you're going with lighter and lighter leaders and tippets, and that kind of seems to be the trend. So you don't see all these pockets of. Of different leader formulas as much as you used to. But now. So. So that's kind of it.

So I'm getting into this European N thing. I'm falling in love with it. I'm catching more fish. And a few years ago, I find out one of my good friends, his name's Josh Miller.

He lives in Pennsylvania. Like me as well. Josh had. Had. He put in an idea to write a book on Euro nymphing.

And.

And Jay Nichols, publisher, Stack Pole, was like, let's go with it. So Josh starts writing that book. You know, he's talking to me about it. I'm like, gung ho. I'm like, this is awesome. I'm so excited for my buddy.

And in the meantime, like, Josh had asked me to tie a fly or two for the book. And I say to him, how much are you going into the fly tying aspect of just the flies of Euro nymphing? And he's like, not really that much.

It's really, you know, concentrating on rods and casts and leaders and, you know, technique and, like, all right, cool. So I'm like, I just kind of plant that seed. And I'm like, I wonder if I can do a book on the flies. So I kind of wait a little bit.

And I decided to set a little time with Jay. I talked to Jay and I proposed the idea. I'm like, hey, what do you think about this idea? I'm going to write a book on, you know, European nifs.

And he thinks about it for a moment. He's like, yeah, I don't think that's going to happen.

And he's like, tim, I have so many different people that could write this book that are better than you. I could get Devin Olsen. I could get George Daniel. I could get Josh Miller. And he's naming all these just top angler, these top people.

And he's just like, you could just see me. It's like a balloon that someone just popped. It's just so deflating. And he's going through this list.

And I'm like, all right, well, that was a bad idea, Tim.

So Jay keeps talking, and then he eventually kind of turns and he's like, well, the issue that I would have is that, you know, this person would write about his flies, and this person would write about his flies. And he's like, so.

So basically what you got to do, Tim, you have to interview all these anglers, and you gotta, you know, kind of be more like an editor in this one where you still gotta tie the flies. You have to pick like 15 flies, but then you have to interview them about. About their flies and incorporate all that.

He's like, and you know these people, Tim. And. And I think you're the only person in fly fishing that can write this book. And that's where the conversation ends.

And I'm like, what the hell just happened? Sorry for swearing. I'm like, what happened? I'm like, like. So I'm like, jay, let's just recap.

I am definitely not the person to write this book, but I'm the only person to write this book. And he's like, exactly. He's like, get started. Tomorrow. I'll draw up a contract and we'll go. So, you know, that's. That's kind of how the book.

That's how it came to be. And from that point forward, you know, it took me about a year and a half to write it. And I. I was very lucky because I was friends.

I am friends with a lot of the top anglers in the United States and some of the top fly tires for. For Euro nymphs around the world. So I went. Went about.

And I just started contacting these individuals and said, hey, are you up for doing like an hour and a half zoom interview? And I told them the premise of what I was going to be talking about. I sent them the questions ahead of time.

And then, you know, we had a zoom call and it was face to face with, you know, individuals like Howard Cross of the uk, a world champion. Devin Olsen, the United States. He was the captain of fly fishing Team usa. Lance Egan, Josh Miller, Pat Weiss. I mean, the list just can.

Goes on and on. Then I decided to have.

I had to have some Europeans as well, because besides Howard, like, I wanted to get some people that the top anglers in the world. So I got Lubos Rosa from the Czech Republic. He was a former world champion. I started to interview a couple members of the youth team.

So I got them involved as well. Then I was like, why not get Pete Erickson? He's on kind of the adult senior team. He just won the gold medal as well.

So I'm like, let's get Pete in there too. And it was a heck of a lot of work sitting down, interviewing them, writing up those interviews, transcribing them.

Because then separate from that, here I am writing the skeleton of the book and saying, all right, these are the 15 flies and these are their. The 15 variations. So the fly, the book starting with 30 flies.

But then after interviewing them, I'm like, well, I got to delete this fly and add this fly and get rid of this one and add this one. So, you know, I have a new 15 flies, 15 variations.

And so then I start writing those sections and then I realize you can't write a book on flies and not talk about fly fishing. Like, that's, they just go, they're so hand in hand.

So then I have to have a section on rods and leaders and reels and European what is euro nymphing and hooks. And you know, next thing I know, like, it turned into just an all out book just on. It's. It's a euro nymphing book with a focus on the flies.

Then the last step was, was the trickiest. It's where I took all their quotes and I started putting them back into the sections where they belonged.

And I got that kind of all lined up and I'm like, all right, I think I have this ready to go.

And then I realized at the end of my first interview with Devin Olson, I asked him, hey, if you were going to fish anywhere in the world and you could only bring five flies, what would your five flies be? And Devin just rattled them off. He's like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I'm like, cool. And I decided to keep that question.

I asked everyone that question and I emailed people as well. People like Tim Flagler and, you know, Phil Raleigh, George Daniel. And I asked them that question and they all answered it. It was wonderful.

And I realized that now not only do I have quotes from, you know, some of the top anglers from around the world, I also have Confidence lists from 30 of the best anglers and fly tires from around the world too. So I was able to incorporate all these confidence lists of flies, which to me like, that alone was like worth the buy in for the book.

And then you get everything else as a bonus.

Yeah, very, very neat. You know, it's funny too, because I, you know, that's, it's a really different process.

But, you know, let's talk a little bit about kind of who the ideal reader for the book would be, like, who did you write it for?

Gosh, that's a tricky one because with my background being a teacher, I wanted to make sure that everything was broken down into really digestible pieces for those, you know, individuals that love pictures. My book is just. And you know, this, you, you have a copy. It's just loaded with pictures. I mean, so much photography in there.

So I wanted to a minimum of one picture on every page plus all the macro photography. So I wanted people who are visual readers as well to, to have a takeaway from this book.

I didn't want to get it so niched down that this was only going to be for people who were already into euro nymphing, because that's not the target audience. I mean, for those people who consider themselves, you know, beginners and intermediate anglers in Euro nymphing, absolutely. This is for you.

It's also for those who are interested to learn a little bit more about nymph fishing, because I know a lot of anglers, they really like to target trout with dry flies or with streamers. They want to learn a little bit more about nymphs. So in every section, I don't just tell you about how to tie the flies.

I also give, you know, tips and techniques on how to fish the flies. And then for individuals who are fly tires out there, I didn't want it to just be a book on here's 15 patterns and 15 variations.

Here's your 30 flies. But I also have a section for each fly on just different nuances with the materials to say, hey, I tied it with this material.

But for those of you who love variations or you love to experiment with other materials, here's another suggestion on something else you can do. So I tried my best to target a bunch of different audiences. I wanted to target fly tires.

I wanted to target fly fishermen and fly fishers who are into European nymphing. I want to target those who are kind of peaked and who are kind of interested in dabbling and going down that path.

So I tried my best to make it as well rounded as possible. And then just for that, for that conventional fly fisher, the person who's like, hey, I'm not even into fly fishing.

I'm sorry, I'm not into fly tying. That's where those confidence lists came into play because it wasn't just like, here's Devin's five, it was here's his five, five flies.

But now he's going to talk about one of them in A little bit more detail to tell you how he fishes it and his techniques with it. So, you know, I tried my best to really have a little bit of something for everyone in there in this book.

Yeah, very neat, you know, and, you know, obviously the first book was very, very different, but, you know, were there lessons from writing the first book that you brought to the second book to make that process less traumatic?

Oh, I don't know. The first book, the biggest issue that I had was the macro photography. That was number one. I think I talked a little bit about that.

So in this book, I said to myself, I want to jump on that a little bit earlier. I want to dial in my photography. I wanted to really start that first because the writing really came naturally for me in these books.

I mean, I was very lucky for both of them.

I was able to wake up pretty early in the morning, somewhere around 5, 5:30, you know, make it a, you know, double espresso and then just write 500 words every day. That was about my target. So I was. I was pretty, you know, regimented with that. And I did a really good job.

I mean, even when I was in Alaska a couple years ago, I'd wake up every morning and have a coffee and type my 500 words and move on with my day. So the writing part came really quick.

But the photography was something that had to be so perfect because, you know, every single image is just going to get blown up and enlarged in the book. And I wanted to make sure it's professional. That was. That was my takeaway. So whenever I'm thinking, what's that lesson?

It was start my photography earlier in the process. So I didn't, you know, turn this book in as late, but it was still late. That was lesson number one. Then lesson number two.

One of the fly fishing shows, I think it was at the Denver show maybe last year, I met somebody. He had bought my first book. I'd signed it for him. And he said to me, hey, I'm looking for a book on. On Euro Nymphs or Euro Nymphing.

And I'm like, oh, perfect. Like, you know, I know there's, you know, the bookstore here, Ben Frimsky, you know, runs it. Why don't we walk over, I'll recommend a couple books.

And there were two books that kind of rose to the top of the list. And I grabbed those two books and I showed him the two books and I kind of explained the two. And in my mind, one of them was not necessarily.

I don't want to say the better book. I just thought there was more information for what he was looking for, but I didn't recommend one over the other.

I said, hey, these are two great books. And he's like, great. He picked up this one and he said, this is the one I want. And Marvin, it wasn't the one that I wanted him to get.

And I said to him, I got lucky. I was like, hey, I'm curious. Why are you going with that book? And he's like, there's more pictures in this one. He's like, I'm very visual.

And that's something that I kind of forgot in the first book. My first book, there's definitely a lot of images, but it was really word heavy outside of the macro photography.

And I wanted my best to really incorporate more images. That was a lesson I learned. I'm like, people love pictures.

And I just got a text from somebody today, and the text starts off with your photography was like. Was amazing. That made my day. I was like, it wasn't just the pictures of the flies. It was the pictures that the anglers included as well.

And, you know, I just have so many different types of. Of pictures in the second book that I'm proud of that I'll say it that way. Yeah.

And it's neat, too, because I think people don't understand that, you know, almost. Well, I don't know anyone that had someone take pictures for them for any of their fishing, fly fishing books.

So, you know, you're doing your pictures, you're writing the book, you're doing promotion. There's a ton, ton of stuff you have to do. And, you know, in this book, it wasn't. Let me pick some patterns and tie them.

So your challenge was the photography. It's like, I got to go wrangle, you know, 30 anglers. And, you know, that's.

That involves, you know, getting like, releases, like all, all of that stuff.

Why don't you let folks know a little bit about kind of, you know, that interview process with each tire, you know, maybe highlight what we talked really kind of about the people that. Some of the people that you interviewed, but also too, just that whole process.

Because you're trying to write a book and you're chasing basically 30 squirrels, right?

More than that, maybe 35 squirrels. I don't know what the total number. It was over 30. First of all, this book, I have to say this. I mean, it's not possible without those individuals.

I mean, it was Jay's idea. And then these people said yes. And that's Something that really I have to reinforce is that these are anglers.

These are some of the top anglers in the world that were willing to not only just give me an hour and a half or two hours of their time and all my text messages and my DMs and all my emails after that, but it was also people that were willing to say, like, this is what I'm doing right now. Like, this is where we are right now in the world of fly fishing. And I want people to know, like, this is how you get better.

And I, you know, I think in fly fishing, at least in my perspective, I've been, I've been angling for a heck of a long time. I think, you know, I've been fishing for 35 years, fly fishing for 35 years. And, and I mean, I remember at the beginning, like information was tough.

I mean, there was still information out there, but I always felt like there was just that there's always a secret, you know, besides a secret spot. There was that secret flyer, that secret technique.

And it's, and I think we're really fortunate because in the current world, like, I don't know, it's almost like there are no secrets. There's almost too much information. It's almost like the information's there, but you have to really do your best to solve, sort it.

And by selecting these anglers, I was lucky because I, I got to the people that they found a way to sort the information and really just take off with it and you know, to kind of walk you through, we'll just stay with like Devin Olsen. I used his, him for the example because he was one of the first anglers that I interviewed.

And with Devin, I mean, you know, imagine sitting down with Devin Olson or Lance Egan and you have them on a zoom call for an hour and a half and it's like a master class. You can ask them anything you want, but you, you don't want to be too off task. And you know, I was doing my best.

Kind of like you are in these, in these podcasts where you have to ask a really targeted question and then just let them talk and then really, you have to really listen because at times I kind of thought I knew what they were going to say and they didn't.

And they would say something and if you weren't listening well and you would ask a follow up question, I would kind of want to lead them in a direction and you could tell like, like sometimes my question didn't kind of match up with the direction they were Heading. And then I realized, like, oh, shoot, what I. The way I fish or the way I tie is different than this person. And I got to figure out how now.

And that was. That was.

That was a challenge on itself to also kind of extract the information, because for them, for somebody like how, you know, Howard Croston, he's a perfectionist in so many different areas of fly fishing and tying, that. The way that he ties his pheasant tail is completely unique to the way I tie mine. So I couldn't make an assumption like, oh, he does it this way.

This is how he ties his pheasant tail onto the hook. This is how he fishes this fly. I had to really pick that stuff apart and extract the information. So, you know, there's.

Those Zoom calls were very targeted. And then I had to follow up with emails afterwards to say, hey, this is what you said. Is that what you meant or was it something else?

And in most instances, whatever they said in the Zoom interview, that was kind of what they. What they intended to say.

And a big takeaway for me was that, you know, we have these top anglers in the world, and, you know, there was a lot of just conflicting information. It wasn't. I shouldn't say conflicting. Their opinions and their experiences led them down different paths.

And if you take a fly that, you know, we'll say like an egg fly or a worm or a mop fly, and we're talking about junk flies here, but there were some anglers that. That was like a top one, two or three fly, first fly, they would fish in a competition. And then there's other anglers that I.

That I interviewed for this book, that that was a fly they would never use. And they believe that if you use one of those flies, it's completely ruining your technique and making you a much less effective angler. And as.

As the editor, slash author of this book, I had to make a decision, like, what am I going to write about? And, you know, I believe I took the right path. And I said, I'm putting all these thoughts and experiences and opinions in there.

So whenever you read, like, the section on worms, you're going to hear, like, some people who say, I love them, you know, I can't fish without them. And you're gonna. You're gonna hear others that say, I would never fish this. And whoever fishes them, you're less of an angler than me. And I.

I want to have those quotes in there because those were the quotes from those individuals.

Yeah, it's an interesting thing.

You Know, I think comp anglers in particular, they're so phenomenally process driven that they're, they're really like, they don't do anything accidentally. Right. So if you can find the way to ask them the right question, you're going to get to that point.

But it's also funny too how, you know, you get that a and not a response and they're kind of both. They're not really both true, but they both work for the anglers that are fishing them, right?

Yep. Oh yeah.

Is there a particular interview or tire that kind of stands out in your memory kind of from the whole process of writing the book?

Oh my gosh. I mean, there were so many.

I, I think, you know, in the acknowledgments of the book for, for your listeners who have a copy, please read the acknowledgments.

I put a lot of time, I probably put as much time into the acknowledgments as I did into some of the chapters because there are so many people I wanted to thank. And I think I, I remember writing in the acknowledgments that Lance Egan's zoom call was a master class in fly fishing.

He, he was just so dialed in and so thoughtful and so intentional with everything that he did that it was a true masterclass. So his stood out for sure. Some of the Europeans were a little bit more difficult because there was a little bit of a language barrier.

So a lot of that turned into just emails back and forth versus some of the zoom calls. But for sure, Lance has stood out. I'm looking over my list right now. There's a great section in there by Tom Rosenbauer.

You know, I've been fortunate. You know, I've been on his podcast a couple times. I've fished with him. We've done events together, you know, so we're friendly.

I consider him a friend and you know, I asked him to be a part of this. And, and, and I said, I know you're, you know, €nymphing is not a word you necessarily like to use, but I still want your take on this.

And I asked him for a little write up and he did a great job. I kind of highlighted a section, you know, with him and he kind of asked the question, what is a euro nymph?

Does it have to be this super skinny fly that's tied in the round that sinks to the bottom in a hurry, like, and, and he kind of alluded to, you know, these are the flies that I fish. Are they Euro nymphs? Or are they just nymphs? And you know, if I don't call them Euro nymphs, am I out of the cool kids club?

And I thought he did a really good job with his, his section to kind of illustrate that, that idea that, you know, these are just flies.

And then probably the, the last, the last person that I'll mention that I thought said something really important was Lubos Rosa from the Czech Republic. Lubos. I actually finished the book right before all the biographies. There's, that's where I put his confidence flies.

And I chose to put his last because his first words, I'm going to mess it up. I don't have it in front of me.

But his first words kind of said something like, you know, the flies are important, but it's your technique that really matters. And I really wanted to reinforce that at the end of the book to say like, hey, this is a book on flies.

And I know the word flies are in the title, but you know, it's great to have your confidence flies. But no, like, you know, this is just here to help you catch some fish. And if you're not doubting on your technique, the fly doesn't matter.

And I, I thought Lubos did a really nice job of saying that before going into his confidence flies. But that was another interview that stood out for sure.

Very, very neat. And you know, I always have to ask authors, you know, you know, what was the big surprise or kind of lesson you learned writing the second book?

And we could have a follow up question. Are you so traumatized at this point there won't be a third one, right?

Well, I'll answer that one first. No, I'm not traumatized. I enjoyed the process. I can't say my family did.

It's kind of like a running joke in our house right now that everything has kind of revolves around fly fishing. That's just, you know, it's just what I love to do. And you know, my family gets drug along with it. Luckily my wife does too.

But she now like walks around and you know, first comp, first thoughts every day around the fly fishing. That's just, that's what I think about all day long. And with my book release, you know, that's been a major thing in our house.

And it's really funny because she'll ask me, hey, what's going on? I'll talk, talk to her about an email or, you know, like your podcast. I'm like, oh, I'm doing Marvin's podcast. And she just will look at me. She'll.

I won't yell, but she'll be like trout and feather. And she kind of announces it every time I talk about it. So that's kind of the funny thing. So I.

I tell her after the book, you know, I'll wait at least a minimum of six months before I start another project. So the short answer is, yeah, I'd like to do another one. Don't know the idea yet, but that will come. And your other question, was it takeaways?

Is that how you kind of phrased it?

Yeah, like surprises or lessons. Like, you know, things never.

You know, it's kind of like every battle plan is great until, like, the first contact with the enemy, something had to kind of crawl out of the woodwork and kind of bite you during the process. Right.

I mean, I think I mentioned this at the beginning with Euro nymphing. That was that there's a drive right now to go as light as possible. Not every angler that I interviewed is going as light as possible.

But when I say light, I'm talking about light rods, light leaders, light tippet, light flies. So that was. That was one of the huge takeaways. But to dial it in even more, I'll start with, like, you know, the. The leaders.

There was a European that I interviewed, and I asked a lot of them, like, hey, can you tell me about your leader if you feel comfortable sharing that? Which they all did, and they would give me their dimensions and all that stuff. And, you know, he emailed me his dimensions and.

And I looked at them and it was like 6x or something. And I'm like, no, no, no, not your tippet. I'm looking for your leader. You know, it's 15ft, and, you know, I'm doing the conversions.

And it was comical because he immediately replied back. And he's like, Tim, 6x is my leader. And I'm like, oh, my God. So that was like, you know, I had gone down at the time, I think 4 1/2 x was my.

The leader that I was fishing. That was my micro leader, or my micro thin leader or whatever you want to call it.

And then I realized, like, these anglers, they are going, like, super, super thin. They want, you know, as little resistance as possible going down to their fly.

But then the next takeaway was, you know, as I kept dialing down with these anglers, they would talk about, sure, you need a light leader, but then you better have a rod with a really soft tip that's going to protect that leader.

So then that's you know, now you have the, the rod junkies that are like, all right, we, we got a really, you know, three weights, Four weights are way too heavy. Now we're going down to two weights and less than that, but did still have rod recovery.

So that was like the next takeaway and then kind of the final one. That really made me change some things. As I. We. We talked about flies, I would always ask them, what are your favorite hooks?

And you know, a lot of them, they like jig hooks. You know, I interviewed Frontahonic of Hanic competition, which he told me, you know, his number one selling hook right now is the, the H450BL.

Yeah, it's a, you know, it's a downeye jig hook. And so I just, I don't want to say I made the assumption. I just. The first few anglers talked a lot about jig hooks.

Then, like, I got an angler who talked about, you know, pretty much all they're using now is this downeye dry fly hook and the next angler, this dry fly hook, and the next angler like this fully mill dry fly hook. And I'm like, oh, wait a second, like, what's going on here? And then I realized, I started connecting the dots.

And it's like you have this really flexible tip for your rod. You have a light leader, light tippet. You don't want to be fishing like a heavy wire nymph hook. You have to pair your equipment with your hook.

And that hook is a lightwire dry fly hook. And what these top anglers were doing is, you know, still fishing slotted tungsten beads on a downeye dry fly hook. And they would invert them in.

In a manner that then that that hook would ride or have a tendency to ride hook point up as well. So I was like, oh, shoot. Like, I had more of the flies originally being tied on, on jig hooks. And I'm like, well, scrap that now.

I had to cut some photography and now I'm starting. I put a, you know, a portion of them on, you know, down eye dry fly hooks.

But I had to be careful because these are also competition anglers and their goal is to catch, you know, as many fish as they can in a session.

And fortunately, I, I still interviewed other people that were, you know, they were still in competitions, but they looked at it from other perspectives. There was one individual, Ollie Bassett, I believe he was from, I believe, New Zealand. And I'm like, oh, so are you using dry fly hooks?

And he's like, well, If I'm in Spain, yes. But if I'm targeting like a 24 inch fish in the back country of New Zealand like that, that hook's gonna be. It's gonna be torn apart.

Like they're just gonna bend it. I'm gonna lose the fish.

So, you know, it also brought back that reality, like I can't tie every single one of these flies on that style hook because that's not what the average angler is about, you know, here as well. So I had to kind of drive down that pathway.

Too neat.

And, you know, for folks that haven't been able to put their hands on the book yet, you want to kind of give us the kind of 30,000 foot kind of overlay of kind of the chapters and kind of the lay of the land.

Yeah, I mean, listen, I'm proud of this. I won't, I'll be, I'll be honest with you. And I have, I do have a copy here. I'll kind of just talk briefly through the chapters.

Let me see if I can open it up. I love seeing the pictures. I start off, chapter one is just European nymphing. So we get into, you know, what is European nymphing?

You know, what are some of the tools that you use? The rods, the reels, the leaders, the lines. Just an overview of that then. And that's a pretty, you know, I don't want to say a long chapter.

It's about, you know, 16 pages somewhere around there. It's a bigger book. I'm not sure if you realize that it's like a three pound book. So it's. This is a bigger book.

Then in chapter two, I get, I dial into just Euro nymphs. What are Euro nymphs? What are the materials being used today to tie them?

That's a longer chapter where we really get into kind of the niche down process where we get into. If you are fishing dry fly hooks, how are you going to pair rods to them? What are some of the best bead colors out there?

When are these anglers using that color bead over a different color? Just, you know, stuff you can nerd out on if you're really into that. After that, then I said, all right, we have to get into the actual fly.

So there was just a brief overview of the flies and then I broke it into a couple different sections. And I'll.

I'll pay homage to Devin Olsen here because when he was talking about his fly box and how he sets it up, he, he and I had done previous videos together and he talked about this, his system and his format, and it made sense to me. And I broke my chapters based on his system where I have an entire chapter dedicated to paragons. And like, paragons are very slender flies.

They, they sink like a pellet and they're just a highly effective fly. Originally I was using paragons and fishing with them in really fast water.

But after talking to these anglers, like, they're using really small paragons in slower moving water as well. So I, I dedicated an entire chapter to the fastest sinking fly. Then the next chapter is on nymphs with dubbing and soft tackle.

So these are flies that have a little bit more material that will just slow their sink rate a little bit. So we have paragons really fast.

Now we, we bring in flies like the waltz worm, the pheasant tail, you know, flies that are going to sink just a little bit slower. I think one of my favorites, the France flies listed in that section. Then I got into something called slow sinkers.

And this is kind of like junk flies, you know, the mops, the worms, the eggs, that type of stuff. And we talk about why are they such slow sinkers? What's that mean? Why is that a good thing? How can you use that to an advantage?

Like, for instance, a lot of people know that the mop fly, it takes a long time to get to the bottom. It's just a weird sinking fly.

But I talk about how you can use that to your advantage on a windy day, because if it takes a long time to get to the bottom, once it's there, it takes a long time to get back up. So, you know, I just kind of break apart those sections, especially like why you would select this fly when you're fishing and how to fish with it.

And then I realized that a lot of these anglers, especially the competition anglers, it's not just about the nymphs. They also fish streamers and dry flies.

So the last two chapters are about streamers and dry flies where I mentioned, you know, for the streamers, a super quick bugger. I mean, the woolly bugger is a fly that's just caught fish for everybody around the world.

And I give a nice, I don't want to call it a, a dialed down version of the bugger, but a fly that, you know, that I use, that many of these anglers use, it just catches fish everywhere. I mean, some of my largest brown trout this summer, some in Iceland, were caught on this fly.

So, you know, I, I share a number of patterns There, I think I share two flies in, in their entirety, two streamers and two variations of those streamers. So four streamers.

And then the last chapter is on dry flies, because so many of these anglers use a setup called the dry dropper, where they're fishing a dry fly and then a nymph below it.

And.

And I talked to them about the dry fly because I thought maybe the dry fly was just something that was sacrificial, that was meant to just float a heavier nymph down below. And it wasn't like that for many of them because, you know, you know, let's just talk about brown trout.

Like, brown trout definitely love to eat dry flies. And you want to really dial in your dry fly game whenever you're Euro nymphing and you're fishing dry dropper.

And what I learned, you know, in that chapter, and I share in that chapter, is that, you know, you want to pick a dry fly that is going to be something they're going to eat, but also something that's going to barely float your nymph. So you're selecting dry flies, not like the chubby Chernobyl, something that will, you know, float the Titanic.

You're looking for something it's almost struggling to float, so that if anything touches your dropper, anything touches your nymph, there's going to be some indication of an eat. So I really bow into, like, you know, just the background on, you know, what kind of dry flies are being used by some of the top anglers today.

Then I think I finished with just some. An overview, some biographies of all those individuals that contributed to the book.

Yeah, the dry fly thing is kind of a neat thing. I know, too. Like, a lot of those guys, they. They don't fish them in line. They fish them at a right angle dropper.

And it's almost like an insanely sensitive strike indicator. Right?

Oh, it's highly effective. And. And there were flies that I learned of after the book that I was like, oh, shoot, this one probably would have been a good fly as well.

And I was luckily able to take some pictures of them, at least include other flies in that section, too, because, I mean, you know how this is, Marvin. It's like, it seems like every couple months, like something new is just, you know, opening our eyes in fly fishing.

And I wanted to make the book as current as possible. So if I found something, like, right.

I mean, we're talking like a week before print date, I was still, you know, emailing images and saying, hey, swap this image. Put this one in. The United States fly fishing team won the bronze medal. I want this picture of them in there now.

Like, I, you know, I was able to really just. I just kept bombarding my poor publisher until the very end.

Yeah, it's a neat thing, too. I mean, talking about having, you know, kind of things moving quickly. I mean, Euro nymphing and competitive angling has moved super quickly. Right.

And so I think about, like, you know, my kind of gateway drug into that was George's dynamic nymphing book. And I mean, in the world has changed. I mean, even George will say, well, like, I'm not doing anything in that book now.

Thanks. Yeah, I mean, my first book, Fly Tying for Everyone, the premise was kind of like, this is fly tying today.

Because I didn't want to have flies in there that were already tied like the Adams parachute. Like, that fly's been done in so many other books. There's no reason to just rehash the Adams parachute.

But I was trying my best in that first book to kind of say, this is a snapshot on where we are in fly tying. Here's some modern flies being tied that are highly effective that you could use around the world.

And then I kind of took that same line of thinking in this book to say, you know, this is. These are the flies that people are using today. This is the current state of European nymphing.

And I'm sure, you know, in 10 years, people will look back at my book and be like, oh, this is where we are now. You know, But I believe there's definitely a foundation that I set there that hopefully stands a little bit of the test of time.

It's neat, too. I mean, you know, I kind of.

I mean, I'm not unique in this observation at all, but, you know that you can't design flies if you're not on the water solving problems. And I thought that that was a.

A really nice theme that really kind of came through in the book, that it wasn't like, here are the steps and here's your fly. Right?

Yeah. I mean, that was definitely one of those tricky aspects, because if you look at it like, they're just flies. It's.

That's a tough rabbit hole to go down. And I know there's many anglers out there. There's Many tires out there that just. They love to tie for the sake of tying. And I get that.

I think earlier in my tying career, like, I love to sit down, tie flies, fill boxes, give them away, do whatever. Now I kind of. I tend to tie. You know, it's part of the addiction. It's like I'm tying flies to catch fish, and I'm trying my best to tie each pattern.

I don't want to say to solve a problem, because I feel like that tends to be a little bit overused in a sense, but for a certain situation or.

And even more so, I think the flies that I'm selecting, these aren't necessarily doubt in where, like, hey, if you find the green drake hatch in Pennsylvania, you know, around Mother's Day, like, this is the fly to use. Like, it's not that.

Like, I'm looking for flies that are so general that I don't care if you're in Montana, if you're in Alaska, if you're in western Pennsylvania, if you're in state College, or if you're in Iceland. Like, you know, there's flies in there, like, we'll say Devin's blowtorch that I've caught fish on around the world on that fly.

And those are the types of flies we're kind of focused on. I mean, the one fly that I think kind of stood out, out of all the fly. All the confidence list, because I interview all these.

All these anglers, and not one angler had the same list as somebody else. And they were very few flies that found their way onto every list.

There was kind of one fly that I would say was pretty much considered the staple for everyone. You want to guess what it was?

Oh, gosh. Probably some variation of a pheasant tail.

Exactly. You are awesome, man. Exactly. That was. That's the fly. It was the one fly that kind of belonged everywhere is the pheasant tail.

And I think the dilemma that I had with the book was, do I include the Frenchie Egan's Frenchie? Because that's kind of like the current pheasant tail. But I'm like, oh, that book. That fly's been done as well.

Like, I shared a lot of information in my first book about the Frenchie, so I still had to have a section on it. But I also want to kind of share and highlight another pheasant tail. That's a highly popular one. So.

But yeah, that was the one fly that really just everybody was. The pheasant tail was the one fly.

Yeah. It's interesting too.

Because, I mean, I, I thought, you know, first of all, it's a ton of work reading the book, you know, where you go and you have a particular tire, who's like, this is why I picked this material, or this is why I like to do this technique.

And I was kind of curious, you know, if that kind of focus on why, you know, is that kind of seeing that as kind of an outgrowth of your background as an educator?

Yeah, I think so. I think. You think you definitely hit onto something. And that's an aspect of my own content that I really hadn't understood about myself.

Because, you know, for instance, you know, I do a lot of presentations at places like the fly fishing show, where I'm a national speaker. And I get, you know, I get emails from clubs on a regular basis. I receive one today and they're like, hey, could you come to our club?

We have a banquet coming up. We want you to be our speaker.

And it's such a compliment to get invitations from so many clubs and to be, you know, a featured presenter at, you know, multiple fly fishing shows this summer or this, this winter at the Midwest in Michigan. Like, it's, it's, it's so awesome.

But I'll tell you, from like, that other side of me, I'm always like, man, why are they selecting me to be this speaker? Like, what makes me stand out?

And I always thought like, maybe I just do a good job with my PowerPoints or I'm a strong talker or, you know, or maybe my titles are really catchy. And it's not that it's my background as a teacher.

I mean, when you're teaching 12 year olds every day, I mean, I've taught math, Ela, like language arts, writing, science and social studies. I mean, you got to find a way to, number one, motivate them and then number two, break down information into digestible parts.

And for me, kind of writing books and making YouTube videos and giving these presentations on a regular basis, it's the same thing. Except I'm lucky because when I'm giving fly fishing presentations, I don't have an audience who doesn't want to be there.

They want to learn on how to effectively, you know, fish, dry flies. They want to learn about throwing streamers. And for people with this book, like, they want to learn about Euro nips. So I have the audience already.

They're ready to go, they want the information. And then I'm just able to kind of pull into my teaching background and say, how can I break this apart?

Into things that are digestible and also, you know, informative but still entertaining for the reader.

Yeah, I think I, you know, I really wish, I think it's kind of one of the things that we don't do well kind of as a fly fishing community in general on the education side. And I wish more people took that approach because I think, and you know this as a teacher, I think trying to. People are like, well, what should I do?

And it's like, don't you really want to understand why we're doing what we're doing?

And then you don't have to remember all the downstream stuff because you kind of, you know, it's the drill with like, you know, why comp guys don't fish tapered leaders. Right. Because the current's faster at the top than at the bottom. And so you get rid of that problem.

And so I think we make it so much more complicated than it needs to be because people feel like they've got to put the Encyclopedia Botanica on there, put Britannica on their back and take it to the river to have a good day on the water.

Yeah, that's for sure. And you're right, we don't have to do that. That's once you at least understand the premise of something and the why.

I mean, everything else just kind of rolls from that point forward.

Yeah, it's funny, I, you know, did a talk, I guess, last year and I'll probably do it again this year, about trout food and you through the seasons. It's like, you know, what's the food doing? What's the trout doing? What should you do?

Right.

It's really that simple?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it is. That's, that's true. That's really it.

I mean, at times I think about my, some of these presentations that I give and I'm like, I know they want me to give this presentation, but I think the entire presentation should just be about like breaking down sections of water and how I would fish it, what flies I would use based on that time of year. And I have a couple of presentations that are like that and I. Those are the ones I love to give the most because they're just so educational.

And if once you understand that you fish this water in the fall, in the morning, and here's why you do it, like, that's it. You figured it out for the, for the next 20 years, like, they're fish, they're not going to change. I don't care where you're fishing.

You could be in, you Know, the uk, you could be down in Argentina. That's where you're going to fish that time of year. And, you know, those are, those are the areas of fly fishing.

You know, we definitely have to push.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, close to far, back to front. It's all good, actually.

You got it.

So, you know, book is getting ready to officially hit the market here in just a few days. You know, where can folks find it if they want to grab a copy?

Yeah, probably the best spot right now. I mean, all autograph copies come from my website, which is trout and feather.com. so, you know, I would appreciate you to at least check that out.

As an author, it's, you know, this. I'll, I'll do a push for the other authors out there.

Prior to being an author, I thought you just buy a book and the authors get royalties, which is true. You know, we get royalties if you buy it from any other place. I mean, I'm lucky. My, my book is featured everywhere. It'll be on Amazon.

It'll be Barnes and Noble. I mean, you name it, it'll be there, which is awesome.

But if you're thinking about buying a book in the future for the listeners, try to reach out to the author, see if they have them for sale. You know, they just make a little bit more on it. It stinks whenever. Well, that's. I guess that's all I'll say.

But so TroutAndFeather.com is the best place.

Yeah. And I will say it's not a little bit more. It's a lot more. Right. So it's.

You know, folks, what we're talking about is the difference between the wholesale and the retail price. And, you know, if you want, you know, Tim, keep doing this just like everyone else in the industry, you got to support them.

And that generally means finding some way to give them money. So that's the. I can say that so that you don't have to.

Luckily, I have a day job, so I don't rely on this, but yeah, for sure. I, I do appreciate that.

Yeah. And you're a staple on the fly fishing show circuit. Which of the shows are you doing this year?

Oh, gosh, I love it. I. I love that. It's like a family. You know what I mean?

Just what's wonderful about the fly fishing show is that you, you run into the same people on a regular basis. So it's. Besides, just like, I'm gonna see you in Denver, like you, I'm gonna see a lot of people there that like I recognize and that I know.

And you've kind of, you know, you've, you've had this connection now and, you know, you talk every year about these different topics and you share your fishing stories. So I just love that aspect of it. For this year, I think I'm gonna be doing three shows with the fly fishing show.

I'll be at Denver, I'll be in Edison, New Jersey, and I'll be in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. So those are the main three of the fly fishing show that I cannot wait to get to.

Yeah.

And I know you're a hustler, so I bet you've got a long list of other events and appearances either to give a talk at a club or to promote the book too, right?

Yeah, I do. Yes and no. I shouldn't say I have a long list. I. The probably the other main club or the main show that I'm doing is the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo.

So it's a really great one up in Michigan. I did that one a number of years ago. And I love that audience, love the club.

It's a great group of people up there and they just know they're fishing up in Michigan as well. So that's the other, you know, big one that I'll do.

I do a few others, but for the most part, I'll, I'll only accept like maybe two or three, maybe four, depending on the clubs and their proximity to where I live in Pennsylvania. Only because I, I do have a day job. I'm a teacher and my, my events are public.

And, you know, I don't think my, my superintendent or my students for that matter, you know, need me running around the country talking about fly fishing on a regular basis.

So it's such an honor whenever I get an email from a club saying, hey, we really want to have you as our guest speaker, you know, Wednesday night in the middle of March. And I'm like, I'm sorry. So I, I turned down the majority of club appearances.

The one thing that kind of came out of the pandemic is, is this what you and I are doing right now? This is on Zoom. So because of that, because I, you know, I had to teach Hundreds of lessons, 12 year olds on Zoom during the pandemic.

I also offer Zoom presentations for fly fishing clubs and for those clubs that are able to have a projector at their meeting or sometimes clubs have some winter meetings where they just tell everyone, stay at home, we're just going to do a Zoom call. Instead, they bring me in as a guest speaker. Super Nice. Very convenient. I'm able to just, you know, have a really interactive conversation.

I still can run my PowerPoint presentation. I have all my jokes and all the information kind of built into it. We have dialogue with the club members.

Then they don't have to pay me to travel there as well. So that's also kind of like a win, win for everybody. There's just my speaking fee and not a travel fee.

The downside is I don't get to meet all those, you know, those great guys and great girls, all those fly fishers in person. That part stinks. Because I'd love to, but, you know, that's just the trade off that I have.

Plus, as I mentioned, I have a couple children, so it's, you know, it's tough to be away from them on a, on too many things. Fly fishing.

Yeah. And you've got a list of all this stuff. If folks go to your website, I got a list of all the appearances, even like podcast recordings. Kind of cool.

You know, Tim, before I let you go this evening, is there anything else you want to share with our listeners?

Yeah, I guess the biggest takeaway I'm going to tell your listeners, I mean, we talked a lot about my new book. And for, for those of you out there that are like, hey, I'm, you know, I love fly fishing.

I don't know if I could ever do this, you know, to the point where you're a presenter at a show or write your own book. But I'll just tell those people who are even like thinking down that path, like, just keep, keep pushing, keep going down that path.

I mean, fly fishing and fly tying, they have such steep learning curves. Like, they are like, we all know we went through them.

You know, even when I was learning Euro nymphing, like new techniques, it would just hurt my brain with certain casts. And I was like, I'm never going to figure this out. Then it just clicks.

And it's the same thing with, you know, the presentations and, you know, having this professional side and fly fishing and, you know, writing a book. So for those people out there that are, that are thinking like, hey, do you think I can do this someday? Like, yes, like, absolutely.

Like, push yourself down whatever path that really just drives your interest and shoot me an email or a message or reach out to me and I will help here in any way that you can to, to kind of get to whatever your next level is because, you know, that's what we do in fly fishing. I think we're here to help build everyone up And I, I want to pull as many people up with me as I can.

Yeah, we've got a great community and I would agree. I think, you know, the secret is just to relentlessly show up. Right.

You know, after the seventh year of going to a show, I guess they're like, well, we'll have to be nice to him now because he's not going to go away.

He's not leaving. He's here to stay.

He's here forever. So.

So, Tim, what's the best way for kind of folks to kind of, you know, keep up with your adventures at the vice, I guess, at the word processor and on the water?

Yeah, I mean, probably the best way is, you know, if you, if you're into social media, you can either search for my name, Tim Kamisa, or Trout and Feather. It doesn't matter which social media platform.

I tend to post on them all just because, you know, I want to, I want to meet people where they are right now. I know not everyone's just on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or, or Pinterest. I know, you know, there's a variety of people all over the place.

Then the best way to contact me would probably be through my website, which is troutandfeather.com I have a contact button there. That's where I kind of host all my videos. I have a blog there. That's where you can purchase my book.

And that's kind of where all things kind of get housed all together.

Well, Tim, I super appreciate you carving some time out this evening and really appreciate, I didn't realize it, that I'm your first book interview. So super honored to do that too.

Oh, my gosh. Come on. You know, I love, I love having conversations with you. The podcast is just like, this is like the cherry on the icing.

And I know I said this last time, and I'll say this every time for the listeners. Marvin puts in so much time.

I mean, before we started this, we were talking about recordings and the stuff that you buy and the purchase he just made. I won't tell you how much money he spent on stuff that's going to make this show better.

I don't think people realize the amount of time that gets put into it by people like you, Marvin, that just continue to help make our sport better. So, you know, on behalf of the whole fly fishing community, thanks for everything you're doing.

Oh, I appreciate it.

And I would also say, you know, there's so many folks out there, you know, like you and other podcasters and other outdoor writers and other educators, you know, kind of picking their lane to do the exact same thing. So you know, what I would say to folks is, you know, support all those people.

Find the people that you want to hang out with and spend more time with them. And we have a great community. I think we are. I think fly anglers are some of the most generous people on the planet. So find your people.

You got it. Well said. Thanks, Marvin. I appreciate you having me on.

Oh, it's been great. Have a great evening.

Well, folks, we hope you enjoyed the interview as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If the fly fishing show is coming to a town near you, head over to flyfishingshow.com to plan your visit.

And don't forget to check out trout routes pro@maps.troutroutes.com Use ArtFly 20 Art Fly 20 all one word to get 20% off of your membership. Tight lines, everybody.