Transcript
Marvin:
[0:04] Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly, and we're back with another Casting Angles with Mack Brown. How you doing Mack?
Mac:
[0:11] I'm doing great Marvin, how you doing?
Marvin:
[0:14] As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble and just kind of curious, I mean we're in that kind of, you know, tail end of the hatches for the spring and kind of moving into summer stuff. What are you seeing on the water?
Mac:
[0:25] We're still seeing a few bugs here and there, some coyotes. We got a little bit of mayfly activity still in these cloudy days. We'll have some blue wings and really there's starting to be a lot of terrestrials starting.
We're starting to see inchworms.
Um, the part I was up there last week, a couple of days, starting to see the green inchworms coming off the trees, ants and beetles, and all that's going to become a hot commodity the next few weeks.
Marvin:
[0:52] Yeah, absolutely. And it's kind of important to think about that sort of stuff.
Cause you know, The fast food restaurants getting ready to get picked over pretty well the first weekend in June, right?
Mac:
[1:02] Oh, yeah. Yeah, that first Saturday is when these will open up and they'll have, you know, kids only water till 12 noon for all the delayed harvest across the state. And then after 12 noon, it'll be open to harvest for all ages.
Marvin:
[1:17] Yeah, and it'll be a little bit different. I mean, you'll still have fish that'll last in the tuck for a long time because it's hard for people to get in there and fish them out like some of the other smaller pieces of water that are in the in the DH system, but, you know, kind of what you're talking about, seeing fewer hatches, I mean, we know, you know, unless something crazy happens at some point, you know, hopefully later than sooner, the water's going to start to really get low and clear, and so we're going to have to start to talk about changing things up a little bit.
Mac:
[1:43] That's right. It's going to get lower and it's going to get warmer.
And when that happens, then water temperature is going to become one of the biggest priorities, you know, come June, July, it's going to be really taking water temps a lot.
Using those underwater springs, there's a lot of underwater springs in Western Carolina, and knowing where those are is a huge, huge advantage.
You can learn those wet wading in the summer, but it's tough to learn those if people are in waders most of the time, but that's one of the reasons I still like wet wading better.
When it's the heat of summer, late spring, I'd rather feel the water temperature change instantly than be covered up with waders and it's hot out and sweat.
And I don't know why people wear waders to be honest in the summer months, but I know it's popular, but it's not with the local people up here.
Most of the local people I know, none of them wear waders in the summer. Yeah.
Marvin:
[2:37] And the interesting thing too, is even if you don't wet weight, if you fished a piece of water in the wintertime and then you found those fish potted up, pretty likely that's where a spring is in the summertime.
Mac:
[2:50] Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. And where there's a lot of them is, Nantahala has a lot of underwater springs.
And that's where we really hone in on those in the extreme temperature of winter and summer.
Those become gold, you know, knowing where those are.
Marvin:
[3:07] Yeah, and we talk about changing things up and you know when you say terrestrials it always makes me think about that because kind of one of the things I do particularly when I fish the South Holston and I need a change up is I'll fish a beetle right and it's just something that they don't see a lot right and you and I were talking before we started recording you know particularly on a piece of water like the tuck that gets a lot of fishing pressure and you know out west too I mean if you talk to guides out there they'll tell you that fish get used to getting stung with the flavor of the month and they'll stop eating it.
Mac:
[3:37] That's right. That's what happens even on, you know, small wild streams up here.
A lot of those we have to work on day after day.
And it's nice knowing that you're the one that worked it the day before because you know what you did and you know exactly what to do different the next day, the next day because you know who fished it.
So it makes it kind of easy if you're working the same, you know, the same bead of water, And you know what, you know, if you, if you used a jig, a jig pattern one day, or dead drift a nymph the day before, you can go in there and do something totally different.
Like throw a dry fly or swing a wet fly up near the surface and then use that and you'll find the tactics work better, you know, by doing, doing something a dramatic change, you know, drastic change rather than little bitty step.
Marvin:
[4:28] Yeah. we even talked about that too, like not just the difference between nymphing and dry fly, but you know, kind of the change up, like throwing the beetle, um, but also like if there's a hatch and, you know, you can't seem to match it sometimes fishing a dry fly.
That's not like crazy different, but a little bit different will be the, kind of the game changer for you.
Or, you know, I don't know a lot of folks that on like big blanket hatches will fish some kind of streamer, uh, to basically catch some of the bigger fish that are trying to eat some of the little guys that have kind of, you you know, forgot that there are big guys out there, right?
Mac:
[5:01] Oh yeah. Yeah, I think when there's that kind of activity, the dinner bell's gone off.
And I think a lot of times, I think it's easy that people overthink it.
You know what I mean? When they're really activated and the fish are all in a feeding, like a frenzy going on, I think you can get away with a lot of things at that kind of condition.
You know what I mean? When they're all up, like wet fly especially, like I would rather probably throw triple wets in that condition.
But, but yeah, you could, you could do a streamer too, or tandem double streamer rig could, could work wonders too.
Marvin:
[5:34] Yeah. And you're talking, when you say double rig, you're really talking about what people do where they'll like, they'll throw, they'll basically, the first fly will be a large streamer and there'll be a small streamer.
Well, actually it's the other way around, right? Small streamer in front and then trail the big streamer off the back. So, you know, they think it's a little guy running for his life. Right? Yeah.
Mac:
[5:52] Yeah. That's a really good tactic. tactic. I used to keep records of that a lot on the upper years ago in the 80s, early 90s.
It's an amazing difference running the double tandem rig over a single streamer.
It's a huge difference as far as productivity. It's not because there's two that it's twice as good.
It's not about that at all. I think it's more about what you just described of you're reinventing the food chain, which looks realistic because that happens quite often with a larger fish going after a bait fish. And I think that's what it boils down to.
Marvin:
[6:26] Yeah.
Mac:
[6:27] What gets the attention, you know? Yeah.
Marvin:
[6:29] And, you know, also too, I know you, uh, you just finished up a school.
You got any more schools hidden into the dog days of summer?
Mac:
[6:38] The next school, the next casting school is going to be in September.
And there's a bunch of little mini clinics throughout the, like June, July with, uh, like the cover, like weekend, wet fly, nymphing, dry fly.
I mean, it just goes over each, each school's dedicated to a particular, you know, tactic and we're going to run a bunch of those weekend schools starting up in a couple of weeks, but there won't be any week long schools till October now.
Marvin:
[7:07] Gotcha. But that's a pretty good thing too, right? Cause I mean, it's kind of, you know, particularly as it gets a lot warmer and you kind of want to be outside and do something, but the fission's generally tends not to be super, probably not a bad thing for you to come visit you and hang out at a school and visit the brewery and all that kind of good stuff.
Mac:
[7:26] Oh yeah, that's about to get really popular here in town coming up.
I mean, it's starting. I mean, we're starting to see a lot of influx.
Like the National Park opened up to campground a couple weeks ago and starting to see all these campgrounds getting full now.
There's a lot of people up here already. I think it'll get really big once school gets out.
Two more weeks or so, you'll start to see a huge difference in numbers of people here.
Marvin:
[7:52] Yeah, I'll stay away until the fall.
You won't see me until the leaves fall off the trees, so I'll go find some other spots.
But yeah, that I don't do. If I won't go to Montana between Memorial Day and Labor Day, I'm not coming to Western North Carolina in the thick of it either.
That's right. But you know, folks, we love questions at the Articulate Fly.
You can email them to me. You can DM either of us on social media.
We'd love to answer your questions. This is really something that we want to do for you and Mac, for your weekend schools.
I know you'll take people out on a guy trip and people can come out and maybe after it cools off in the summertime, about seven o'clock, meet you for a casting lesson.
Where can they find you and book you for all that kind of good stuff?
Mac:
[8:44] MacBrownFlyfish.com is probably the easiest, but there's also a Facebook account, MacBrownFlyfish, and then Instagram, all the same name.
And just to throw in there, I'm doing this, I told Marvin, and then we talked about standing here on the banks of the Tuck, and here's a good bug thing for everybody, I'm standing here watching, there's a Perillidae stonefly, that's the little chartreuse green, like size 18, three of those just come off.
And then of course, we're starting to get the yellow sallies.
There's a lot of nice yellow sallies going on. I'm seeing several of those come up off the water right now.
So that's a good sign.
Marvin:
[9:28] Yeah, absolutely. And you know, folks, you owe it to yourself before we lose the water and it gets too hot, particularly if you're chasing trout to get out there and catch a few.
Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Matt. Tight lines, Marvin.