3M/Scientific Anglers chief line designer and all-around fly fishing guru Bruce Richards discusses fly line manufacture, the Sage Casting Analyzer, and why all those new rods are so darn stiff.

Listen to the Podcast (28:43 - 27MB)
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Interviewer: Zach Matthews | Itinerant Angler

Podcast Excerpt: "The basic process is simple. Use a braided or some sort of nylon core -- almost all lines are made on nylon cores -- and that core is run through an adhesive primer, because PVC doesn't stick to nylon, so you have to put a binder between the two. So then you have prime core material. Then that runs through a bath of PVC, which is a very viscous liquid. Then that runs through a sizing die with a variable orifice that opens and closes to give you the diameter of the line, which correlates to weight. And then it goes into a curing oven that thermal-cures the PVC, and there you have a finished line."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Author and researcher Dr. Robert Behnke is one of the world's foremost authorities on trout and salmon species. Listen to his down-to-earth explanations of the creation of cutthroat trout, the salvation of the Greenback and Lahontan cutthroat subspecies, and a fish called onchonychus clarki behnkeii.

Listen to the Podcast (43:29 - 41MB)
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Interviewer: Zach Matthews | Itinerant Angler

Podcast Excerpt: "When I first started working on trout in 1957, and I was a graduate student, that was my master's thesis, to set out to find the 'extinct' Bonneville Lahontan cutthroat. And I did that, and when I came to Colorado I began to look for the 'extinct' greenback cutthroat, and found that too. And the problem was, that if you found these fish, you wouldn't be able to recognize them because there was nothing in the literature, no descriptive or diagnostic information that you could use to get a positive identification."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dan Blanton is one of the world's top authorities on striped bass and saltwater fly fishing, particularly along the California coast. He shares an introduction into the intricacies of shooting head casting and fishing for world record-class striped bass, and he reminiscences on visiting Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria, as well as the good karma that comes with fundraising to protect fish in your own backyard.

Listen to the Podcast (37:50 - 36MB)
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Interviewer: Zach Matthews | Itinerant Angler

Podcast Excerpt:"Originally I designed the Whistler [fly] to compete with the bucktail jig. I didn't say I'm gong to design a shad pattern or a perch pattern. In 1964 the lead-head, bucktail jig was just kicking our butt in San Francisco Bay. Most of the fly patterns back then were pretty simplistic bucktails, like the Blonde series. Lefty's Deceiver was just coming around about then. So I wanted a fly that worked like a bucktail jig. Now if you ask what a bucktail jig represents, it represents a lot of things. It could represent any number of bait fishes. But basically the Whistler was designed to imitate any of the more deep-bodied bait fishes."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Renowned Arkansas guide and big-fish fisherman John Wilson discusses not only Arkansas's amazing White River system, but also distance casting and the tournament experience, both in the United States and abroad.

Listen to the Podcast (49:39 - 47MB)
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Interviewer: Zach Matthews | Itinerant Angler

Podcast Excerpt: "The difference between Arkansas and a place like Patagonia or Tierra del Fuego is that these fish are always here. Big brown trout are largely territorial. They all have the same feeding patterns. There are dominant holes in our river system, and you can go to any one of those, and any large fish that is in that river is going to be in that one spot. He might be twenty inches, and he might be forty inches. But that's where the big fish is going to be almost every single time."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

TFO President and founder Rick Pope talks about the foreign manufacturing of fly rods, his experiences with Lefty Kreh and other fly-fishing celebrity consultants, and the technology in the pipeline for future TFO products. He also sets the record straight on a few popular misconceptions about the fly fishing industry.

Listen to the Podcast (27:23 - 25MB)
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Interviewer: Zach Matthews | Itinerant Angler

Podcast Excerpt: "I'm not sure that many people have been displaced domestically because of fly rod outsourcing, because I don't think there are that many people employed in the industry to start with. Asia has made -- at least in my life time -- all of the affordable equipment, for the most part, whether it be general tackle or fly fishing. You know, we went to Asia not looking for the cheapest thing we could sell but looking for the best we could come up with."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MidCurrent editor and ormer Key West guide Marshall Cutchin discusses the thrill of tarpon fishing and the impact of twenty-five years of angling on some of the sport's most hallowed waters.

Listen to the Podcast (35:02 - 32MB)
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Interviewer: Zach Matthews | Itinerant Angler

Podcast Excerpt: "That's the one thing that actually has changed, is how you go out and find tarpon and fish for them. As fishing pressure increased, it became less the classic practice of a guide going and staking out on a white sport or a known route that the tarpon swam along and waiting for the fish to show up to one where you're actually hunting the fish. So if I had to describe what I learned as I learned how to become a better tarpon guide, it was how to put tegether all the various factors that determine where tarpon are, where the fish that will eat are -- which is a whole different question, and how to present the fly to the fish. And of course the techniques developed pretty rapidly once you had a lot of really good anglers like George Anderson, Fitz Coker, Dan Blanton and others spending a lot of time tarpon fishing."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Phil Monahan, editor of American Angler magazine gives us an inside look at the publishing side of fly fishing while talking about what it was like to go from academia to guiding in Alaska and Montana, to editing for Outdoor Life in Manhattan, and finally to holding the reins of his own periodical.

Listen to the Podcast (52:15 - 72MB)
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Interviewer: Zach Matthews | Itinerant Angler

Podcast Excerpt: "[Differentiation] is certainly one of the most frustrating topics that any of us in [fly fishing] magazines deal with. And in fact at the Denver show, I had this very conversation with one of the editors of Fly Rod & Reel. To us, our magazines are completely different. They're both fly fishing magazines, sure, but once you get past that, their focus and focus of American Angler seem to us to be completely different. The most frustrating thing is that you might be at a consumer fly fishing show and a guy will come up to you and say 'God, I loved that article you did on so-and-so.' And, of course, they are describing an article printed in another magazine."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Conway Bowman, bluewater captain and flyfishing adventurer extraordinaire, brings us first-hand accounts of landing boat-jumping, hand-chomping, kayak-charging mako shark on the fly.

Listen to the Podcast (44:57 - 82MB)
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Interviewer: Zach Matthews | Itinerant Angler

Podcast Excerpt: "The deal is, you make that cast, the shark takes that fly, and the shark makes a run. So it's making a bunch of jumps, and you need that shark to get through all those jumps. Once it gets through the jumps, like this big one did, you got him. Now we chase him down in the boat. We kind of let the boat work against the shark and the shark against the boat. You could never really break a shark that big without the boat, even on the heaviest fly tackle. It would be like going hunting for elephants with a BB gun."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Larry Kenney describes 1960s San Francisco, when he had a bird's eye view of the founding of the Scott Fly Rod Company and the early development of graphite rods. Don't miss his unique perspective on the surprising San Francisco, California roots of fly fishing, and the many ways the company scene has changed over the last fifty years. His comments on fiberglass rods may have you wondering whether the revolution in rod design is really over.

Listen to the Podcast (55:49 - 52MB)
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Interviewer: Zach Matthews | Itinerant Angler

Podcast Excerpt: "I got hooked into fly fishing in the mid-60s in college at Berkeley when I was doing a lot of backpacking. And I thought I had good equipment, but one of my friends, who had more disposable income that the rest of us, showed up one time with a 4-piece Winston glass rod for a number 5 line and my eyes were opened to that fact that the equipment I had, while decent, was nowhere near as good as his, and since my father wasn't going to lend me his E. C. Powell rods I had to do something."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In 1960, no one clamored for rods made by Glenn Brackett, Tom Morgan, or Mike Clark, but today those makers command top dollar for their exquisite bamboo creations. For Bernard Ramanauskas, this is 1961. At 36, Ramanauskas has achieved what some well-regarded craftsmen never do -- his creation, Eden Cane, became so well respected that he was offered the chance to bring a major bamboo studio, Scott Cane. back to life. The new SC rods he developed draw heavily from techniques pioneered at Eden Cane, putting other makers on notice. Listen as Bernard gives us a masterclass in the finer points of bamboo fly rod design.

Listen to the Podcast (38:42 - 35MB)
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Interviewer: Zach Matthews | Itinerant Angler

Podcast Excerpt: "For me there are two extremes in [fly rod] building. There are very simple rods that have continuous-action tapers on one side. On the other side there are very dynamic rods that capitalize on thinks like swells and drops at ferrule stations which transmit energy toward the tip completely differently."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let's face it: for mid-American anglers, all those saltwater magazines are nothing more than a big bait and switch. From reading articles about massive "silver torpedos," most anglers sadly turn to anemic and washed out stocker-sized rainbow trout. If you're an angler in flyover country, Bill Butts has the answer to your problems. Tune in and listen close, because Bill's going to give you what you always wanted: a real fish on the line.

Listen to the Podcast (36:15 - 34MB)
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Interviewer: Zach Matthews | Itinerant Angler

Podcast Excerpt: "From a tacke and fly standpoint, when you go after these fish, there's two basic categories, without getting too technical. That is when you've got fish, let's say they're white bass, small hybrids, small hybrids from one pound up to five or seven pounds, I think you're looking at a six- to seven-weight rod. A good seven is going to handle those fish and the flies you cast for them very, very well. You need to have a floating or intermediate line, something that is going to stay up close to the surface. I use a type III sink-tip, that's 12-15 feet of sinking tip. I can't tell you how important it is to have that line. I use it 80-90% of the time. With about four feet of leader. But then you also need -- for the deeper rivers, lakes, and holes -- something that is longer and heavier. That would be a 250-grain line, approximately, that's going to sink even quicker than that type III."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)