Transcript: On the Water with Dustin White
Transcript
Host:
[0:04] Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Flower, back with another On the Water with Dustin White. Dustin, how you doing?
Guest:
[0:12] Marvin, I just got back from a little jaunt down south for vacation, and so I am recouped and rested and feeling great. How are you?
Host:
[0:21] I'm living the dream. So you were keeping it a little hot and salty, weren't you?
Guest:
[0:25] A little bit, yeah. our annual jaunt down to Jekyll Island, Georgia, and got to do a little red fishing, a little tarpon fishing, and yeah, great time, great time with family, great time on the water, so happy and healthy, are we?
Host:
[0:41] There you go, how's re-entry been for you?
Guest:
[0:45] You know, pretty good so far. Yeah, I mean, great stuff's firing all cylinders here, so it's just kinda right back into the swing of things, had about a half day to, you know, get off the plane, get back into town, unpack a little bit, decompress and, you know, get right back on the water.
Host:
[1:04] There you go. And it's interesting. I looked at your weather and like, it's actually going to be like in the seventies where you are, which is like a 20 to 25 degree temperature swing, right?
Guest:
[1:13] Huge temp swing. Yeah. Yeah. We got a bit of a cooling trend.
I don't trust it to stick around.
Uh, anyone that knows Wyoming weather knows, you know, our, uh, our kind of hyperbole cliche is if you don't like the weather, wait an hour.
It's definitely true here. We'll see how long it sticks around, but we've got a cooling front coming in, and so that actually is going to be really welcome here on the waters of the Gray Reef and downstream.
It's been a bit warmer water temp, so we'll take some cooler temp for sure.
Host:
[1:47] And you were telling me too, you've got kind of a unique flow situation in all three of your rivers.
Guest:
[1:53] Yeah, really, really interesting. All three drainages of the trout fisheries we fish of both the Miracle Mile and the Gray Reef of the North Platte, as well as the Thermopolis stretch of the Bighorn, are all right around 2,000 CFS.
So that doesn't happen often where all three are basically just about the same low as each other, but that's where we're at right now.
The unique thing, as I kind of alluded to before with the gray reef, is the intake from the top of the Alcove Dam is what they've been pulling water from.
So those water temps have actually been on the warmer end of things and coming out of the warmer weather that we've had, you know, those water temps, you know, starting the day were in the 60s and, you know, by mid-late morning, we're in the mid-60s and definitely in the afternoon, that mid-upper stretch.
So our guides, we've been trying to exercise some caution and encouraging folks, hey, keep a thermometer with you.
[2:58] Be diligent in taking some ongoing readings of the temps in the water.
And certainly, when you start creeping up north of 65 degrees and getting closer to 70, please consider just letting those fish be and come back earlier in the morning to fish. Early morning fishing's been good.
Plenty of bugs out in the water, plenty of fish eager to eat.
But as you get closer to that lunch hour, we're asking folks just to be a little more respectful of our coworkers, so to speak.
Host:
[3:29] Yeah, which means get up early and don't eat your lunch until you're off the water, right?
Guest:
[3:34] Exactly, exactly. Yeah, just it's a real allocation of, you know, what you do in your day. But yeah, get up, get out there a little earlier.
Trico hatch has been happening early in the morning, you know, by the time it's been, you know, 6.30, getting on the water, that spinner fall of the tricos has already happened.
So those bugs have already been up and out and doing their thing.
The fish had been chomping on them earlier.
So yeah, I encourage folks get up there a little earlier, call it quits a little earlier, and, you know, like I said, just be mindful, be respectful, take care of the fish we got there.
[4:16] That's specifically on the gray reef and downstream section.
The mild temps have, you know, of course, any time you get in this time of year and you get real hot temps, you want to be aware, but the mild has not been and in that sort of dire straits, so to speak, with water temps. It's been stable.
Game and Fish was out for a few days this past week.
Shocking to do assessments and just make sure that the fishery is still healthy and everything's good there.
We eagerly await the report from that. So if folks had been out in the mile and it had been funky for a day or two this past week.
That's why, but it should be swinging back around. This fish should be recovering and ready to get back at it.
Host:
[5:08] Got it, and so what else have you got going on other than the Trico Hedge?
Guest:
[5:13] Yeah, PMDs have been really good. I mean, and honestly, it's kind of take your pick of whatever PMD pattern you want.
Most of them have been around that size 16 to size 18 size range, But I mean, this is PMD, PMD season.
Caddis, definitely seeing those now. But, you know, so early in the morning, trichos, as we said, is what you wanna be focusing on. But as the day gets going, PMDs, and then, you know, mixing in some caddis here or there, those patterns would do pretty well for you.
And that's across the board with all three fisheries, in all honesty.
Host:
[5:50] Yeah, got it. And, you know, even though we've been talking trout, I have a carp question for you from Seth.
Guest:
[5:55] Love it.
Host:
[5:57] Yeah, so Seth wanted to get your thoughts on the best line for fishing for carp and then to kind of go with that, kind of your rod preference as well.
Guest:
[6:08] It really depends on fishery, on what section of water column those fish are feeding at.
So for me personally, if I'm going to be subsurface with those fish, I typically am using a nine foot eight weight in terms of my rods on the surface.
And now whether that's...
We get a cottonseed hatch out here out west, but then we also get carp really eager to eat on the surface for Calabasas and chironomids, some bigger damselflies, some bigger aquatic insects that would be on the surface.
Those patterns, I might scale down to a seven-weight, just to have a slightly more delicate presentation.
But by and large, a seven or eight-weight is going to do fine for you.
The line that I love to use for carp nine times out of 10 is the Scientific Angler's Grand Slam, which, yes, is typically a saltwater line.
But as I tell a ton of folks, for all intents and purposes, carp are freshwater redfish.
They are so similar in how we approach them, how they behave.
You might get more shops with a carp than you would a redfish.
[7:35] And yes, the carp might be a little more spooky, a little more particular, a little more demanding of some precision in our presentation.
But for all intents and purposes, there's a ton of similarities between the two.
And so using the SA Grand Slam line floating does well for us.
At times, I'll use an intermediate sink tip if those fish are hanging real, real low in the water column.
But other than that, I'm using a floating line that the Grand Slam line is really, really great.
And that's both for traditional kind of slow stripping crustacean patterns, as well as those surface or just barely subsurface eats that we would see with chironomids, calabetas, damselflies.
Also, that cottonseed hatch we talked about. And that's something I've also used back east to when we get our mulberry hatch.
If folks fish for carp in the kind of Midwest states where they'll come up and eat mulberries, same sort of thing there.
Host:
[8:50] Got it, and I would imagine, I'm not familiar with that Grand Sound line, but I would imagine if it's for redfish, it's probably one, a tropical line, so it takes the heat better, but it's probably got like a really short, aggressive front taper, right?
Guest:
[9:03] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It turns over really well. We love to use out this way two tandem flies.
So we'll run...
It might be a tarantula to mimic some of those surface insects that they're fishing and run dropper off of it, or even just running two different crustacean patterns right off the back.
And so, it really does a great job of turning over.
They're not overly heavy flies in and of themselves, but when you're running two of those, one off tagging and off the other, it really does turn them both over really, really well.
And enables you to kind of shoot some line out there with minimal false cast.
Because when you find those tailing carp, it's get that cast in real quick, but without a ton of aggressive false casts where that movement might spook that fish.
Host:
[10:00] Yeah, it's always funny. It reminds me of bone fishing and you're like at 10 and then you like your false cast. He's like, now they're at noon and now they're at 2 o'clock and now they're gone. Yep, yep.
Guest:
[10:08] You know, we can, we can find that with carp honestly, uh, quite a bit, uh, we jokingly and lovingly call them golden bones.
Um, but you know, you find some of those that are, that are cruising and you know, you're, you're setting your client up at, okay, we got them at 45 feet on the clock. Oh, now they're at...
Exactly what you said. Now they're at noon and now it's gone.
What we really love to find is those fish that are tailing in that grass on those flats and are just gorging themselves and without too much of a care in the world and not really paying attention to anything else.
Those are the ones you really want to find. But that's That's not the norm.
A lot of times, it's those very, very slow cruising carp.
We always say they're carp.
So, they've got a little bit of mind of their own. You can never really peg them down or try to predict what way they're cruising or not.
They can humble you real quick. So, having a line like that, they can get it out, shoot some line with some minimal false cast, and it gets you a good presentation is always great.
Host:
[11:13] Well, there you go. And, you know, folks, we love questions on the articulate fly.
You can email them to us or you can DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you.
And if we use your question, I will send you some articulate fly swag, and then we're going to enter a drawing for a half a day with Dustin at the end of the season. And Dustin, before I let you continue your post-vacation reentry, you want to let folks know where they can find you so they can book you and fish with you?
Guest:
[11:36] Yeah, I proudly guide for the Ugly Bug Crazy Rainbow Fly Fishing out here in Pasco, Wyoming.
Our number is area code 307-234-6905.
Folks can also find me on Instagram at Dustin James White.
Host:
[11:52] Well, there you go. Well, listen folks, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Dustin.
Guest:
[11:59] Tight lines, Marvin. Thanks so much.