Transcript: On the Water with Dustin White
Transcript
Marvin:
[0:04] Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly, and we're back with another On the Water with Dustin White. Dustin, how you doing?
Dustin:
[0:13] Well, Marvin, doing great. It's a little sweaty here in balmy Wyoming, but otherwise doing just fine.
Marvin:
[0:20] Yeah, it's pretty funny. I think you had a 50 degree temperature swing today, went from 53 to like 102, right?
Dustin:
[0:27] Yeah, we were 102 this afternoon. afternoon, so a little hot on the water this afternoon, but fishing's been good, and as long as we're, you know, prepping for the conditions, pretty enjoyable days out there.
Marvin:
[0:40] Yeah, so last time we spoke the flows were super messed up. Is things kind of gotten back to normal?
Dustin:
[0:47] We're getting there, you know, on the reef. They actually bumped us last week up to 1,500 from a thousand CFS, and we're expecting another bump here any day now to hopefully get us up into at least over the 2,000 CFS hump, which will be really, really great.
That'll start flushing out both the sediment and the moss that's kind of prohibited us from fishing the lower sections of the reef.
And so that's just going to be good for the fishing, good for the fish, good for the anglers. And so we're really looking forward to that.
And we're grateful for the bump that we got a few days ago.
Again, fishing's been pretty solid even with that. Fish are eating PMDs and yellow sallies pretty regularly.
So we are really excited about that and seeing some Some heads even looking up in the afternoon as well.
The mile is still holding around 3,000-ish, probably a tip below that.
It has been fishing pretty darn good.
The goldens have shown up. We're seeing those big rises of fish just crashing on the surface.
The dry fly action right now on the mile has been a ton of fun.
Then the bighorn is actually going to be dropping down to 3,500 CFS tomorrow.
[2:12] So that gets us back down in that range of where you want the bighorn at.
So I think we're through all of the overwhelming amounts of water that we were getting this late spring and early summer.
And so flows are starting to fluctuate back into what we would expect to see as normative flows for this time of year.
Marvin:
[2:35] Yeah, so you don't have to worry about either floating over the bridge on the bighorn or getting decapitated, right?
Dustin:
[2:41] Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, the 8th Street Bridge, we're just gonna go over it rather than having to duck to go under it.
Yeah, so we're back into that camp now, or we'll be shortly, yeah.
Marvin:
[2:51] Yeah, or you have to go seal team six and go over the rail and hold onto the boat, right?
Dustin:
[2:57] Exactly, yeah. That's made, I mean, honestly, as they did start taking us down over the last few weeks, and so we've been able to float the horn, but we've had to kind of augment the flow of going from one of the waters down to eight and kind of running that multiple times, or doing that and then jumping down below State Park and floating the lower sections of it.
But as we've been dropping down, it's been fishing pretty solid and we've been happy about that.
Marvin:
[3:26] Yeah, so have you made your clients eat their Wheaties in the morning so they can help you portage the boat?
Dustin:
[3:32] We haven't had to do the portage thing, thankfully. So we haven't done that.
Like I said, we'll kind of just take out at 8th Street and kind of recycle the top or jump down low to Wakely and fish some of the lower stuff in that section.
But all in all, pretty good. And like I said, we're thankful that flows are dropping down.
We've just been announced that tomorrow they'll hit 3,500.
And so we won't have to do the porridge game or the cycling back around thing.
So we should be back to what folks would normally see this time of the year on the horn as well. Yeah.
Marvin:
[4:09] And so how long do you expect your dry fly fishing to last?
Dustin:
[4:13] We should be in pretty good territory for dry flies from here through the remainder of the fall.
[4:21] Typically, you know, at least on the mile, the big thing that keys them in really is those golden stones, which we are right in the thick of now.
It's a ton of fun. If folks are in the area or willing to make the drive, to make the jaunt out to the mile, this is the time to do it.
This is the time of year where all of us guides just get so stoked to go fish it. We are, you know, we're on cloud nine now there.
And then on the reef, they'll start to see hoppers.
Hopefully those tall grasses we've had are going to start to dry out a little bit near the river, going to drive those hoppers near it.
And that's what really keys those fish to start looking up.
[5:08] They'll eat some PMDs, some cadduses. We're starting to see a lot of fish eating caddus on the surface in the afternoon.
So that's really exciting. And as we progress into August and the hatch starts to shift, the fish really get eager to eat trichos.
In a lot of the spinner fall, the trichos, you'll find a lot of fish eating there. And then we just keep progressing on through the hatch of the season.
As we get into the early fall, blue wings start becoming more prominent on the surface, caddis as well.
It just gets better. So the dry fly fishing is going to be here, but it's just going to continue to get better as we progress through midsummer into late summer and then into the fall.
It should get real good for folks.
Marvin:
[5:56] Well, there you go. And I've got, I tell you, I've been doing this a long time, probably one of the most thoughtful and introspective questions I think I've ever gotten on the articulate flyer from Tony English.
Oh man, let's hear it. Yeah, so he wants to know, would you consider a bead to be a trout a merger.
Dustin:
[6:16] Wow, that's a great question. What I would tell Tony is, it's not rocket surgery.
I understand this for some folks that might not have a total grasp on entomology, that a bead wouldn't be a merger.
They're not going to float up, they're not going to rise up, as we would expect to see with our aquatic insects.
A bead that would be mimicking a trout egg or a sucker egg that we have here in the North Platts or any other fish species that's spawning, most of those eggs are going to hang pretty close to the bottom.
If you're fishing during a particular species spawn that the trout are eating on, again, we just came out of the sucker spawn where the trout were really keyed in on sucker eggs, you know, we would utilize a bead for that.
You know, we're gonna go a little deeper, a little longer, a little heavier, so that those beads are hanging near the bottom. So that's a great question from Tony, and really encourage him just to, you know, keep pressing in and learn it, and that's great.
Marvin:
[7:25] Yeah, you think he should try fishing them on the swing?
Dustin:
[7:28] You know, a swing on a bead, I've had clients unknowingly actually get a fish, you know, forgetting the men, and they're looking back, talking to me, chatting, and as their bobber swings and the bees under it, they'll get a grab or two.
So you never know, it just depends. But to Tony, I'd say give it a whirl.
Marvin:
[7:50] Yeah, and is candy apple green your favorite color to paint your beads.
Dustin:
[7:57] Ooh, great question as well. No, I'm all over the map with my beads.
We get pretty techy with them, especially in Northeast Ohio with our fish that come off of Lake Erie, but even our fish here in Central Wyoming.
You're always trying to stay ahead of the rest of the trend from the other guys, the other anglers.
You're trying to get that little bit of uniqueness to your pattern, whether it's scaling up or down a size, maybe shifting the color, customizing it with some of the nail polish.
We're big into that. But I haven't tried the Candy Apple Red yet. Yeah.
Marvin:
[8:36] And then we'll just stop there. I won't even ask you about the flavored nail polishes, if those work for trout.
Dustin:
[8:42] No, it works great for catching me. I just sit there and nod them the entire time. So it's not great for the fishing.
Marvin:
[8:48] It's like power bait for Dustin.
Dustin:
[8:49] It is. Especially if it's Skittles flavor, that's, that's, that's my, my, my jam there.
Marvin:
[8:56] There you go. Well, listen, folks, you know, we love questions on the articulate fly.
You can email them to us. You can DM us on social media. If we use your question, I will send you some articulate fly swag.
And we're going to drawing for a half a day of fishing with Dustin.
Great way to try out central Wyoming fishing and Dustin, before I let you hop, you want to let folks know where they can track you down and book in fish with you this season.
Dustin:
[9:16] Absolutely. I guide proudly for the ugly bug, which is located downtown Casper on South Center Street.
You can swing in the shop or you can give them a call at area code 307-234-6905. Well, there you go.
Marvin:
[9:29] Are you doing any center pin trips for them this season?
Dustin:
[9:35] No, I haven't been pinning this season. Not yet. We'll see. I actually saw a guy out the mile not too long ago with a pin set up and had to ask him if he was from the Great Lakes region. And he goes, yeah, how'd you know?
We gave it away. And I thought, well, you're pinning there.
It's not quite caught on here to Central Wyoming, but it's definitely popular back in the Great Lakes region.
So we had a good chat about that and talked to the guy and then been able to, the client's like, what kind of rig was that he was using? So it made for a good educational conversation point.
Marvin:
[10:10] Yeah, and he wasn't even Canadian.
Dustin:
[10:13] No, can you believe it?
Marvin:
[10:16] Well, listen, folks, show it to yourself to get out there and catch it for you.
Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Dustin.
Dustin:
[10:22] Tight lines, Marvin. Marvin. Thanks so much.