Welcome to the fourth annual Airing of Grievances on the Troutbitten Podcast. Buckle up. Because it’s time to clear the air about a few things, to complain about some other things and get all the frustrations out in the open. We look forward to this episode every year, because honestly, it’s a lot of fun. I know that listeners anticipate this one as well, and just like last year, we have a bunch of guest grievances to add to the mix. We’re here to complain. Why? Because acknowledging the absurdi...
Jun 22, 2025•1 hr 18 min•Season 15Ep. 10
We talk a lot about our frame of reference in fly fishing. Wherever you get into the game, a lot of your baseline is set by whatever is popular or widely accepted at that moment in time. My friend, Matt Mickey, recently argued that Gen X anglers are uniquely positioned, that this generation has experienced development and had a wide variety of influences that will never be duplicated. We’ve learned through every form of media. We grew up in a time where good information was sparse, and most of u...
Jun 15, 2025•1 hr•Season 15Ep. 9
So . . . how was it? How many did you catch? This is always the question for every fisherman, right? Whether I’m talking to my friends about a fishing trip from last week, or as I walked in the door this evening, my wife asked the same question — how many fish did you catch? It’s a fair question. Because that’s the goal out there (usually). We go fishing to catch fish. But the answers we give can also reveal a different story. “Well, I caught eight this morning, but I missed another handful unde...
Jun 08, 2025•54 min•Season 15Ep. 8
When you fish long enough, things break. That’s the nature of life, really . . . things fall apart. But if you're resourceful, you put them back together. Sometimes it’s out of necessity. Honestly, a couple decades ago, I simply couldn’t afford to go through gear as fast as it was wearing down, so I learned to patch waders, fix a fly rod, mend a fly line, resole my boots, sew tears in my fishing vest and fix my landing net. Likewise, we’ve all run into those moments on a fishing trip where we ne...
Jun 01, 2025•1 hr 7 min•Season 15Ep. 7
This episode is all about breakthroughs. For each of us, as a personal account, what have been the biggest changes, or the biggest steps forward, in our fishing? I call these breakthroughs because they're the landmarks or discoveries or changes, along the way of learning, where we can look back and say, “ Now that, really made a big difference. ” We talk a lot about a life on the water. And really, each of us here at Troutbitten has fished for most of our lives. And the truth is, it’s not really...
May 25, 2025•1 hr 7 min•Season 15Ep. 6
For our Season 15 Intermission, my wife, Becky, joins me for a lighthearted look at what's going on in the Troutbitten world. We talk about the upcoming leader sale in the Troutbitten Shop (May 23rd). We talk about the New Trail Troutbitten beer, the upcoming book on Fly Fishing the Mono Rig and a bunch of videos on the Troutbitten YouTube channel. Becky also covers a couple favorite fishing terms near the end. :-) Resources VIDEO: Troutbitten | Fish and Film - Tight Line Tracking, Nymphs in the...
May 21, 2025•37 min
The trout is prized as a gamefish because it’s picky. It’s selective. Often, it requires a refined presentation to fool a wild trout. And in large part, that’s the draw toward fishing for them. In every region, in every stream, trout habits can differ from others in neighboring watersheds. And across the fishing landscape, we find places and even moments when trout are more picky — more choosy — about what, where and how they want to eat their food. We’ve all seen fishing change in just a few mi...
May 18, 2025•1 hr 8 min•Season 15Ep. 5
There are two ways to tell the experience of an angler: how he holds a fish and how he keeps his secrets. The latter is probably more important. A seasoned angler intuitively understands the vulnerability of a river. Spot burning is a real thing with real consequences. Good anglers understand this concept. Good people understand this concept. Every piece of river is someone else’s favorite place. So we respect the spots — for others, if not for ourselves. Here's the article: READ: Troutbitten | ...
May 16, 2025•24 min
Let’s talk about fishing big rivers. For the most part, all of us here at Troutbitten are river anglers, meaning not much stillwater. Furthermore we’re mostly wade anglers. We spend most of our time wading rather than floating, because we enjoy it, and because in a lot of cases, wading gives us the best chance for success. But over the years I’ve noticed some misunderstandings about where and how we fish. I hear from a lot of reader, listeners and watchers of Troutbitten stuff. And one thing tha...
May 11, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 15Ep. 4
We spend a lot of time thinking about tactics and working on techniques. We devote our energies toward finding fly patterns, tying up our confidence flies and testing new flies. We research new waters and explore unfinished sections in familiar waters. We spend a lot of time doing fishy things. This is a life on the water. The guys and I have been talking a lot about reading water. It’s one of the biggest deficiencies we see while guiding — just choosing the right piece of a river for your next ...
May 04, 2025•1 hr 22 min•Season 15Ep. 3
Here's a topic that starts with an interesting question: What puts more trout in the net? Is it knowing your water or knowing your tactics? Of course, the easy answer is . . . both. Refine your skills and learn your rivers. Then put all of that together, and you have a great formula, not only for catching trout but for having a lot of fun. The truth is, as frequent anglers we’re always involved in improving. It goes way beyond filling the fly box with new patterns. We know our deficiencies, and ...
Apr 27, 2025•1 hr 13 min•Season 15Ep. 2
Here are twelve tips for delivering a fly into waters that are heavily canopied, with greedy branches, ready to grab your fly and make life difficult. The best small stream fishing happens in these places. We call it brush fishing. Learning to cast a fly on small streams forces an angler into proper form. There is no forgiveness, and every error comes with consequences. But the reward is there. Small streams demand real accuracy. We learn to punch the fly under limbs and around tree stumps. And ...
Apr 25, 2025•30 min
Across the country, there are rivers, creeks and streams stocked by the state, often referred to as put and take (they put trout in, you take them out). And especially early in the season, opportunities for stocked trout can be a solid choice. Other places stock fish under catch and release regs or delayed harvest. Also, some rivers, for various reasons, cannot support wild trout populations and they are entirely reliant on hatchery trout. In other places, it’s a mix of wild and stocked. Troutbi...
Apr 20, 2025•1 hr 14 min•Season 15Ep. 1
What's your favorite fly rod? This most frequently asked question now has its answer in the Troutbitten Riverside Series. Riverside is a place for sharing and presenting stories and articles from the Troutbitten website. And one of the most popular articles at Troutbitten has been about the qualities to look for in a rod well suited for the Mono Rig. This past winter, I wrote the manuscript for my upcoming book, Fly Fishing the Mono Rig. And I adapted the fly rod article into a full chapter for ...
Apr 14, 2025•43 min
This season has been all about options for moving the streamer. Our focus has been on the animations available to attract and then sell the trout on the streamer presentation. In this season finale, we talk about river scenarios and share some tips and strategies that help tie all of the previous episodes together. We discuss the following: How different fly designs suggest fishing them different ways Should all streamers have flash? How to adapt to big rivers Discipline in approach and followin...
Mar 30, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Season 14Ep. 10
The tight line dance is another collection of movements to the streamer loosely grouped together into a system or framework for covering many water types and gaining reactions from the trout. It's all about taking the advantages of a tight line, Mono Rig system to the streamer game and using contact to control every aspect of the streamer's course through the river. We use a visible streamer for the tight line dance. We watch the streamer dip and swoon around rocks, tree parts and the river bank...
Mar 23, 2025•49 min•Season 14Ep. 9
With episode seven of this Troutbitten Skills Series, we’ve finally come to the point where we’ve covered all the different ways to move a streamer and give it some animation. Now it’s time to put all of that together. This whole series has been about what motions might sell the presentation. Because how we move the streamer fools the next trout. And there’s such a wealth of options that it can be very helpful to break things down into individual parts. So we talked about jerk strips, glides, sl...
Mar 16, 2025•1 hr 8 min•Season 14Ep. 8
Speed leads happen mostly in one lane, and they go faster than their parent current. Lane changes are exactly what they sound like — the fly is traveling in one lane, and then we deliberately bring the fly over to a nearby lane and travel down that one. The speed lead is a term coined by our friend, Josh Stewart. Way back in 2017, I published a few articles about low-riding streamer presentations , with streamers tied on lead ball jigs. I’d gotten the idea from Rich Strolis, and it was a bit of ...
Mar 09, 2025•35 min•Season 14Ep. 7
We've covered many animations in these series. We’ve talked about the streamer head position and its direction, about cross current movement vs holding one lane. We've covered jerk strips, glides, slides, fast, slow, quick or smooth, we talked about drop rates and a lot more. And now, we're here to talk about one of the most basic movements performed on any fly, lure or bait — jigging. Moving the fly up and then letting it drop — it’s such a simple motion that it might seem silly to spend much t...
Mar 02, 2025•50 min•Season 14Ep. 6
This steamer presentation is what streamer anglers probably do most — swinging the flies. From what I see on the water, what I read in articles and watch in videos, I think it’s fair to say, swinging is a pretty popular look. But it’s also fair to say that swinging is what we do the least. I think part of that is regional. Swinging streamers is a good tactic. It’s not our preferred method, but that might not matter to you and to the trout in your waters. That’s kind of the point to this whole St...
Feb 23, 2025•47 min•Season 14Ep. 5
For us, streamer fishing is best when we actively and intentionally move the fly. But with glides and slides, our animations are often subtle, because sometimes these are the most natural or convincing looks. Rolling the bottom, gliding mid-current along a knee-deep riffle or slow-sliding off the bank — all of these maneuvers are just as enticing, and they catch just as many trout as flashy retrieves (sometimes). But we tend to forget them. Or rather, we might not have the discipline to stay wit...
Feb 16, 2025•42 min•Season 14Ep. 4
The Head Flip is a pivot. It’s a simple change of the streamer's head angle, from down and across to up and across, or from upstream to downstream. This pivot doesn’t necessarily move the fly out of its area, but the motion might seem pretty dramatic to a trout. The Head Flip shows trout an opportunity for an easy meal, and it might signal a moment of vulnerability. It's one of our favorites animations to a streamer. We Cover the Following What it is and why it works Best water types Angles to c...
Feb 09, 2025•41 min•Season 14Ep. 3
The ability to move the fly with the rod tip and not just the line hand is a fundamental skill that opens creative options for the streamer angler. Almost two decades ago, Kelly Galloup’s first streamer book changed the way anglers thought about moving a streamer. All these years later, the jerk strip isn’t just one way to move the streamer. It’s a technique for using both hands, in concert, synchronized, for presentations that are impossible to achieve any other way. Move the fly with the rod t...
Feb 02, 2025•44 min•Season 14Ep. 2
This season is a ten-part Troutbitten Skill Series, all about Streamer Presentations. We've been looking forward to this one for a long time. We spend a lot of our time dead drifting dry flies and nymphs. But with streamers, we’re trying to make them look alive . Instead of no motion, we move the fly. And this is exactly why we love to fish streamers. Because we get tired of dead drifting. And we love to think about everything we can do with a streamer to make a trout eat the fly. A lot of angle...
Jan 26, 2025•44 min•Season 14Ep. 1
We're talking about how to shorten your time at the tailgate or the trunk. Just get your waders on, your boots laced, and get to the river. It should be as simple as that, but it’s not uncommon for anglers to waste a half hour or more just getting ready to go fishing. Most anglers hate this wasted time. In fact, all of this preparation just to go fishing puts a lot of anglers off in the first place. And the colder it is, or the longer you plan to be out there fishing, or the more tactics you pla...
Dec 23, 2024•59 min•Season 13Ep. 10
We're here to celebrate ten years of Troutbitten. December 8th was the tenth anniversary of the first article ever published on Troutbitten. All those years ago, I never expected this Troutbitten business — this media company — to become what it is. Honestly, I had no intentions other than to write and publish stories about fishing, simply because I love the process of writing and I enjoyed fishing. I like being creative. In this episode, we talk about history and upcoming plans. Where has Trout...
Dec 16, 2024•1 hr 39 min•Season 13Ep. 9
This discussion is about the differences between trout species. How are the habits of brown trout different than rainbow trout? Where do brook trout tend to hold and feed vs brown trout? What about cutthroat? Do they have different tendencies or habits than their counterparts? Because the habits of these trout are different, our target water changes too, as do our fly patterns and our approach. The guys from the Troutbitten crew join me for a great conversation. Resources READ: Troutbitten | How...
Dec 08, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 13Ep. 8
For our Season 13 Intermission, my wife, Becky, joins me for a look at what's going on in the Troutbitten world. We talk about the upcoming leader sale in the Troutbitten Shop (December 6th). We talk about upcoming podcast and video plans, books, fly rods and more. Resources SHOP: Troutbitten | Category | Leaders Visit Troutbitten Website Troutbitten Instagram Troutbitten YouTube Troutbitten Facebook Thank You to Pre-Roll Ad Sponsors: Skwala and Orvis Thanks to TroutRoutes: Use the code TROUTBIT...
Dec 04, 2024•37 min
I fished for two decades before I finally realized that not every river, not every creek or stream has big fish. For most of my early days of fishing, I thought there was a different class of fish in some of my favorite waters that I simply never encountered. And I liked to think that if I fished certain ways at certain times, I would finally catch those fish. But many years later, after more experience and after finally fishing all of the ways that are supposed to help you find the biggest fish...
Dec 01, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 13Ep. 7
Tonight we’re here to talk about why we fish. It’s a simple question. Why do we commit so much of our free time and efforts, our thoughts and our daydreams . . . to fishing? Why, after all these years, do we keep coming back? Why, when we could do hundreds of other things — with three hours on a weekday evening or every daylight hour on a Saturday, from dawn to dark — why do we choose to lace up the boots and string up the fly rod? In all the seasons of this Troutbitten podcast, we’ve often said...
Nov 24, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 13Ep. 6
