Transcript: On the Salt with GotOne
S6, Ep 7: On the Salt with GotOne
2024, Marvin S. Cash
The Articulate Fly
http://www.thearticulatefly.com
Transcript
Marvin:
[0:04] Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly, and we're back with the first on the salt with Got One of 2024 with Captain David Blinken. How you doing?
David:
[0:14] Hey Marvin, I'm doing great. Happy New Year to you.
Marvin:
[0:17] Happy New Year to you too, and you are not on the East Coast.
David:
[0:21] No, no. I'm right now residing for the next week in Colorado.
I've been a good powder week.
Marvin:
[0:30] Yeah, I heard the weather. It sounded like if you were a skier, you probably got a fair amount of good stuff, right?
David:
[0:36] You know, since last Thursday, which is not that long ago, we've received 51 inches of snow or maybe more after this morning. I don't know.
Marvin:
[0:47] Well, that makes up for any rain on the East Coast, right? right?
David:
[0:52] For sure right now. And of course, the other thing for all the freshwater anglers out there is, you know, the Yampa River runs right through.
And I was just staring at it the other day thinking, wow, wouldn't it be nice if a couple of midges were coming off and I could watch some rainbows sipping them down, but it never happened.
Marvin:
[1:10] Well, we can always hope. And, you know, we talked before we started recording, we did a little bit of a conversation last time about destination travel, and we touched on casting, but we wanted to talk about it in a little bit more detail this time.
David:
[1:24] Yeah, I think, you know, before you go on a destination trip, you know, the magic number, very often when you're casting, a lot of people talk about 60 feet, but a lot of fish you catch inside that.
And when I'm practicing, I think it's a really good practice to set up like a fly casting obstacle course. So what I mean by that is I'll buy like three hula hoops when I'm, I have three hula hoops that I keep.
So when I'm teaching casting, I set them up at like, I set them up at like 30, 40, 30, like maybe 45 feet and 60 feet.
And the key is with these hula hoops is you'll land it anywhere near or inside the hula hoop and get a big hula hoop.
The important thing in saltwater is to be able to deliver that kawaii in that zone within two to three false casts because that's all the time you really have in saltwater.
Unlike freshwater where you'll have a fish in a hydrome or behind a rock and they're just staying there sipping mayflies and you can take as long as you want.
But in saltwater, it's always a moving target. So, you know, and I'll, and I'll set those hula hoops sometimes into the wind or I'll set them across the wind and downwind so that you get a different perspective on casting when you're practicing.
Marvin:
[2:43] Got it. And do you like to kind of, you know, practice the way you're going to perform and, you know, hold the fly in your hand and have your line stripped out so that that's exactly as if you were on the bow of a boat?
David:
[2:54] You know, I do. What if you're waiting? And yes, I'll hold the fly, probably the leader plus nine or ten feet of fly line, and I'll keep a loop or two in my fingers.
And I'll just make one back cast to get it out of my hand. And then it's, you know, pick a 30-foot cast.
That one back cast and bringing it forward is good enough. maybe you need a second false cast for that 45 foot marker and the 60 foot marker, probably two or three false casts is, uh, would be ideal.
I mean, if you have to, you know, get four or five or even six, uh, if, if you're not accustomed to double hauling and really loading the rod, um, you know, certainly you're going to have to anticipate a little further ahead where the fishing would be.
But yes, that's, that's the way I approach it.
Marvin:
[3:45] Yeah. It's funny. Funny you say that. So I've been known to use a remote control car to simulate the fish moving because it's such a game changer for me when I try to fish any kind of fish that's kind of schooling and moving.
David:
[3:59] Yeah, I mean, especially fish that travel in groups of twos and threes.
Bigger schools actually travel very slowly, especially bonefish.
And you can really take your time and just kind of hang out.
But eventually they're going to close in on you. And if they are closing in fast, if that fly's not in the water, you know, waiting for them, you could get in trouble.
But at least when you see these bigger spools, they can be across, you know, a hundred foot area sometimes.
You know, that gives you a little more time. And it's kind of exciting, you know, watching 400 fish swimming at you.
Marvin:
[4:34] Yeah, for sure. And do you kind of from a visualization perspective, you know, are you trying to kind of put the fly on the outside eye of the fish and bring it across their nose or on the outside eye and bring it? towards you.
David:
[4:46] I mean, sometimes it takes a little experience. Sometimes I'll be watching the school of fish and I'll be trying to pick out a particular fish, one that might be feeding a certain way or maybe one that's a little bigger than the others.
So I might kind of lay back and decide, well, the fish I want is right in the middle.
And sometimes schools, when they're traveling, it's almost like a V-shape, just like geese flying south for the winter.
So to speak uh and sometimes the lead fish can be quite large uh if if you're lucky and other times um i might be throwing way off on the edges because i just don't want to spook anything um and and let the fish kind of swim over the fly um but you know it it's a it's an experience thing and time on the water and and you making those decisions kind of on the fly um but you For newcomers to saltwater or bonefish, if you want to fish to schools, I would be laying that fly right down the middle and don't have a drop in the school, but well ahead of them and wait for them to swim over the fly before you start retrieving.
In the retrieve, I know tonight we have a really interesting question about retrieves, and I know this kind of dovetails into it, but I'll let you go forward with that.
Marvin:
[6:15] Yeah, no, it's a perfect segue. And so Brenner asked us a question and he wanted to get your thoughts on retrieve patterns for baitfish, crabs, and shrimp.
David:
[6:26] So that's such an open-ended question for so many reasons.
So if you're retrieving for baitfish, crabs, and shrimp.
[6:38] It depends on the species, and sometimes it really depends on the mood of the fish.
Sometimes the fish are just going to swim up and bash anything, and you could strip like crazy, whether it's a crab, a shrimp, or a baitfish.
Other times, you've really got to suspend that fly and just kind of twitch it along very slowly.
I would say when I'm fishing shrimp-like patterns for bonefish, I might do a couple of short twitches to get the bonefish to see it.
And then I change the strip mid-flow and maybe do a long, slow strip until I see the fish tail on it.
And then, you know, then it's over with.
And then you're just doing your strip strike and you're off to the races.
If I'm fishing to bluefish and I'm stripping, you know, casting a baitfish banner, I'm stripping pretty quick.
Probably, you know, probably to like a 1-2-3 rhythm.
Kind of 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3. I always seem to have a waltz in my head when I'm stripping to fish that are moving fast.
And other times, I know some people are dying hard with this with false albacore.
They're going to tuck the rod under their arm and start stripping as fast as they can.
But that doesn't always work out for false albacore. Sometimes I find just a steady, easygoing, one-handed strip work is fine.
[8:03] So really to answer the question more accurately, again, very often it's time on the water, but a one-foot strip where you're always in contact with the fly and you can feel that fly.
You can feel it as you're pulling it through the water. As long as you're in contact with the fly and you can keep your eyes on the fish to see what they're doing.
[8:30] If the fish isn't moving to the fly when you're stripping at a certain speed, slow it down.
If they're moving to the fly when you're stripping fast, just keep it up, but don't strip it away from them.
When you see them swim up behind the fly and open their mouth, probably a good time to slow down just for like a nanosecond to let them get it.
Um uh for crabs very often i'm dropping the crab on the bottom i'll start stripping it like little twitchy one two inch strips and as the fish approaches it i might leap the fly off the bottom or just do these long slow drags um uh and that very often works uh and i can tell you last spring uh i was permit fishing in in belize and and i had a permit come up behind the fly And the guide on the back of the boat had me stripping it awfully fast, but he wanted to make sure Headfly was doing a mud puff on the bottom.
So he actually had me put my rod tip right down in the water and strip pretty quick.
Turning up the mud from that fly in the bottom where we were fishing that day.
And I couldn't believe how fast I was stripping for a permit.
I was doing pretty quick one, one and a half foot strips.
[9:46] And earlier in that day, we had caught a permit and we just dropped the fly in front of the permit, did one short strip and that was it.
So again, that sort of comes to the mood. You want to listen to the guides and you want to watch the fish.
Watching the fish is probably the most important thing you can do if you're blind casting then you just got to mix it up and hope one of the strips you're doing works but if you're sight fishing it's so important to be watching the fish and see how they're reacting to the fly when they're approaching it and that will very often tell you what you need to do, but it's a really good idea to understand the different strip patterns is keeping slack out of the line, which is incredibly important.
When that fly hits the water, probably the most important time when a fly hits the water is when it first hits the water and to make sure there's no slack in the line and you have control of the fly immediately because we are casting the moving targets.
And if you have to strip four or five times to get the slack out of the line before the fly is moving, that right there, that's probably the number one thing where people don't get a fish to take a pass at the fly.
Marvin:
[11:02] Yeah, I get frustrated just hearing you tell that story.
And, you know, folks, we love questions at The Articulate Fly, and you can email them to me or you can DM me on social media.
As I always say, let's make David's life easier and let me handle the questions.
And, you know, we have two great promotions.
You know, if you send in a question, even if we don't use it, we're going to need a drawing for a hardy reel and a wolf line of your choice.
But if we do use your question, we're going to draw from among those.
And the grand prize has been generously provided by our sponsor, Norvice, and it's going to be in Norvice itself.
So a great way to get your hands on a Norvice. And it's a good time to give a shout out to our friends at Norvice for generously sponsoring the series.
You know, Tim and the team are now, you know, show season is officially on since we're in January of 2024.
And, you know, Tim and the team at Norvice are going to be crisscrossing the country.
I know we're coming up. Denver will be this weekend, and Edison will be the weekend afterwards.
They'll be there, and you owe it to yourself to check out all the great stuff that Norvice has to offer. Put your hands on the vice.
Watch Tim and some of the ambassadors tie on it.
If you can't make it to a show, go to www.nor-vice.com, and you can see all the great goodies that Norvice has.
And, you know, David, I know that you and Lu Yen have been working really hard and you've had your first one or two Masters of the Fly. What have you got in the pipeline there?
David:
[12:26] We have. So we have a really cool thing. I'm going to start from the bottom.
We have, we've got, in March, I can't remember the date, we've got Blaine Crockett.
But on February 25th, of all people, we've got Tim O'Neill from Garvice, who's going to be tied.
So we're really excited about that show. And for those of you out there who have fished the crease fly, the crease fly was created by Joe Blados, and he's going to be our guest on February 4th.
And, uh, next week on the 21st of January from the, uh, from the stock, the box expo, we're going to have, uh, uh, Ben Wally time flies with us.
So that's going to be really cool.
Um, and I'm excited for all that. I happen to know Joe pretty well.
So, uh, that's going to be great. We'll see him talk about the crease line as light as a guide and stuff like that.
And I just want to say, there's no stupid questions. Some people called me up the past couple of weeks and said, I didn't want to send in a question because I didn't think it was very intelligent.
And I can't remember what the question was, but some of these questions that people think may not be good questions are really, really good questions.
And they lead you down some roads that might be unexpected.
So anything you want, I think it's a good idea.
Marvin:
[13:46] Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, you know, hit me up on Instagram.
We usually put the stories out asking for questions, but you can always literally just send us an email or DM me on social media.
Love to have them. The more questions, the merrier. And, you know, folks, it's pretty chilly in most places in the United States this week.
And so, you know, maybe not the best time to be out on the water, but, you know, spend some time at the vice.
And if you're close to a fly fishing show, you know, definitely check it out.
And if you're in Edison or Denver and you want to catch up with the articulate fly, just DM me on social media.
We'd love to catch up with listeners. and want to wish everybody a happy new year and a happy 2024. Happy new year, David.
David:
[14:26] Happy new year.