Ep 113: Fishing, Writing, and Chocolate-making, with Tom Rosenbauer
Tom Rosenbauer is the author of over 20 fly fishing books, host of the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast, Chief Enthusiast at Orvis, and one of the biggest names in the fly fishing world today. In this episode, Tom and I talk about how he got started in fly fishing, what it’s like to watch a trout stream go through seasonal cycles, beaver activity on his home stream, what gets him excited about fishing these days, making homemade chocolate, and much more.
Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast: Apple Podcasts
The Orvis Learning Center: link
Instagram @rosenbauert
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fish the backcountry. This is episode 113 with Tom Rosenbauer on fishing, writing, and chocolate making. I start every episode with getting a background on my guests. So I would love to hear how you got your start in fishing. I'm sure a million people have heard it at this point, but I can never remember. So tell me how you got introduced to fly fishing for the first time.
Tom
Well, you know, I was one of those kids who just took to fishing. You know, some kids do and some kids don't. My dad took me bait fishing along the shores of Lake Ontario for catfish and white perch and things like that. Worm fishing when I was a kid. And, you know, I really took to it. I liked it. I like chasing frogs and turtles and snakes and all that stuff, too. and when I got to be I don't know 10 11 12 years old can't remember when I decided that I wanted to try something different you know I went to kind of ultralight spinning and my father went off and and got into golf and I stuck with fishing and so I thought fly fishing looked interesting you know I saw it in Field and Stream magazine I saw it on TV on the American Sportsman it looked It looked interesting. So I just bought a rod at the local hardware store and bought a fly tying kit and just taught myself for many years. While I was a kid, my father didn't and I didn't know any other adults. I had one other friend who was interested in it and we kind of learned together. You know, we hacked our way through many difficult years. But the cool thing is when you're a teenager, you got lots of time. You got lots of time to do this stuff and to practice it and to learn and so on. And there were no videos. There was no internet. There were a few books around. But really, a lot of my stuff is self-taught. Up until I was probably up until I was in college or even after college when I first started working for Orvis, I started to realize that there was this big world. Well, at that time, it wasn't a very big world, but there were people that knew a shitload more than me. I thought I was pretty hot, and I realized that there were people who knew a shitload more than I did about fly fishing. So, yeah, that's how I got started. I was one of those geeks who didn't really do much with sports or social stuff in high school. I went fly fishing. And nobody else that I knew except one person fly fished.
Katie
So it's completely new to you, kind of a foreign thing when you first started, I assume.
Tom
Yeah. And it's so cool these days that you see, you know, high school fly fishing clubs and college fly fishing clubs and class. I mean, George Daniel is a professor of fly fishing at Penn State. It's really cool seeing the young people now getting into it. I think it's so exciting.
Katie
And was that not a thing? I know you said that you only had one friend who did it, but did it feel like there was anybody your age doing it? Or were you kind of the only one that was like in your greater circle that was taking an interest to it?
Tom
There was nobody. You know, I went to the New York State College of Environmental Science and Forestry. And you would think in a school like that, there'd be somebody that fly fish. There was nobody. There was nobody in the whole in the whole college. It wasn't a big college, maybe 2000 people. I had one teaching assistant who was a fly fisher. And that was it in the whole college. So, you know, it wasn't a big thing with young people in those days at all.
Katie
Well, I'm always curious when people describe a similar situation that they grew up, they had an interest in it. Maybe they had seen it on TV, but they didn't have anyone to like actually go out and teach them. And they're kind of self-taught.
Tom
Yeah.
Katie
What did you think fly fishing was? Because I feel like when I first saw fly fishing, I didn't understand that there was a leader on the end of the line and there was a fly on the end of that. And I like I didn't understand what the casting was. I just saw the really thick line. I remember thinking, how would any fish ever fall for that? Trying to equate it to spin fishing and thinking there was something right on the end of that thick fly line. Did you have a good concept of what it was before you actually started? Or did you just say, I'm sure this works, I'll give it a try?
Tom
I don't remember. I think somehow I knew that you needed a leader. Because I was an ultralight spin fisherman when I was young. So I knew that there had to be something between that thick line. And I think there were enough books available in those days where you could at least get that much. Not much more, but you could at least get that much.
Katie
Yeah, it's crazy how far we've come now with the ability of, you know, with YouTube and everything. Oh, my God. I think books absolutely do still have a place. But the ability to read about something and then go watch it done, I feel like that's just such a, I know it's overused, but a game changer to be able to see the motion of it and everything instead of just reading it. I think there's a place for both, but I can't imagine the difference in growing up without it and with it.
Tom
Yeah, especially the casting. I hacked away, Katie, for years at casting. And it was 10 years before I really got it because I never really saw anybody else casting, except on the American sportsman, Kurt Gowdy and Lee Wolf and people like Joe Brooks and people like that. But as far as being able to practice it and see how it's done, I didn't have that.
Katie
Well, I feel like there's a big difference, too, between watching someone do it and having someone explain how it's supposed to feel. Because I feel like for everybody, there's that one moment where you suddenly feel it load properly and come forward and you're like, that's it. Like, I just felt it. And it's really hard to describe, but you know it when you feel it. And if you're just watching someone cast, you're like, okay, I see what they're doing. They're going back and forth. And then if you just go back and forth, you're not going to get that. It's probably not going to work very well if all you're doing is going back and forth. And so I think there's a big difference, too, between watching that in a movie or video that's just meant to show the person catching fish versus an actual tutorial, an instructional video that's meant to explain to you what you're supposed to be feeling. So I can imagine being frustrated watching that and then going out and thinking you're repeating it, but it's just not going right.
Tom
Yeah, you're exactly right. Yeah. And of course, when you're starting out with a rod that's not very good, I mean, the whole feedback thing is the rod bending and building up that energy and delivering the line. With a cheapo rod from the hardware store, probably not going to feel much there.
Katie
Yeah, just kind of a stick.
Tom
Yeah, yeah.
Katie
And so is this in Vermont? Did you grow up in Vermont or New England?
Tom
I grew up in upstate New York outside of Rochester. And then moved to Vermont in 1976.
Katie
And is the fishing pretty similar in those places? Do you feel like how you grew up is similar to the type of fishing you do today?
Tom
Not really, because where I grew up, where I learned was more or less a spring creek. A very technical spring creek where you were fishing 22s and 24s. And when I came to Vermont, Vermont is a lot less technical. We have a lot of small stream fishing, you know, big attractor dries. I mean, the bat and kilt can be pretty technical. But most of the other streams, the little streams, it's, yeah, it's a lot different.
Katie
Do you have a preference one over the other? Are you kind of like any trout stream or any stream in general? Like there's something to be found there that you can appreciate?
Tom
Anyplace. You know, give me a dock with some bluegills on the end of it. I'm a real generalist and I just enjoy it wherever I am.
Katie
And so now in Vermont, I know you live kind of on a, I don't know if it's on a, on a trout stream or if a trout stream flows through your land, but I'm really curious what that's like to have kind of your own home water in a way that's much more personal than somebody who just has a stream nearby. Like I'm assuming you get to see this stream go through the different seasons and the different stages in its life as a stream. Has that been a unique experience to have that?
Tom
Yeah, it's been fascinating. It has wild trout and it goes through cycles. My land is the only land in the valley that I live in that's not in agriculture. And so a lot of the stream has been bermed and rip-wrapped. And where I live, I let it go. Suddenly, the velocity of the water just blasts through. So it's very unstable and it changes every year. You know, I'll have beavers some year and they'll build a dam. It won't last, but they'll put some woody debris in the river. And, you know, I periodically have, invasions of mergansers that, that really decimate the stream. And then I'll have a good year. And so, and I look at the river. I walk my dogs on the river every day. So I look for fish. I look for changes in the pools and the structure and the course of the, it's a small, it's a small stream, but it floods pretty severely in the spring. So it, it does blow out and move around. So it's been fascinating. You know, it's been fascinating to watch it. You know, I wouldn't recommend that people go on Google and find out where I live and go and fish there because it's not great, but it does have wild browns, rainbows, and brook trout. It's not stocked. And, you know, it fluctuates every year. It really fluctuates.
Katie
I feel like that's almost – I mean, I'm sure in a bad year, it's not fun to have a bad year, but it's almost fun to have kind of this cycle where you don't know what you're going to get. I'm sure every spring you come out and it's like, what's it going to be like this year? It's like playing a slot machine. You might hit the jackpot. You might get the bankrupt, but that I think anticipation has got to be kind of fun and exciting versus going to the same place. And it's, you know, you can only catch the same trout the same way so many times in the same pool before you're like, okay, you know, I know how to do it.
Tom
Yeah. I get, I get pretty depressed in years when there aren't many fish, you know, every spring I never see the fish early in spring. And I tell my wife, oh, there's no fish. It's, you know, it's going to be a shitty year. And then some years, all of a sudden they appear from who knows where. And some years they don't. And sometimes it's kind of depressing to go down there and not spook any fish, you know, when I walk the dogs or when I go down and fish. So it's always interesting.
Katie
Do you do any work on it? Like any restoration work or anything? I don't know if it requires anything, but do you try to get your hands dirty at all and try to improve the stream in any way to facilitate more fish?
Tom
I have tried. Yeah, I have tried over the years. We had a project where the Forest Service and the state came in and we did some work. But I've really learned that those things just don't last. The river does what it wants to do. And we're kind of arrogant at thinking we can engineer a trout stream because we can't. And so I've kind of given up, honestly. I've kind of let nature take its way. And I'm really happy to have some beavers there because they do bring a lot of woody debris into the river and they change it. But, yeah, I've I've pretty much given up. And, you know, it requires it's expensive. You know, if you really want to do something, it requires heavy machinery and that's expensive and bringing big rocks in and and root wads and stuff. And I just I don't have the money. And anything that I can do by myself with a chainsaw and a come along, it's not going to last.
Katie
Yeah.
Tom
It's not going to last.
Katie
So do the beavers pool it up near you? Like, I don't know what activity they're doing there, but do you get the fish and water ponds?
Tom
They pull it up during the summer and then the first flood blows it out. And so, you know, I get some more woody debris in the river and it changes the course. And I think they're beneficial, but, you know, you have to rely on what they want to do.
Katie
Yeah.
Tom
But it's fun to watch them. I enjoy watching them. I had one year I had a pretty good beaver dam that held all summer. And I would go down and fish in the evening. There were a lot of fish in there. And this beaver got used to me or beavers. I don't know how many, but they would actually swim up to me and kind of swim right up. I'd sit on the bank and they'd kind of swim up to me and look at me and they stopped slapping their tails. They got used to me and it was kind of fun.
Katie
Did they ever slap their tails at you and startle you? I've gotten slapped two or three times where I feel like I'm going to have a good attack.
Tom
All the time. All the time. But you know what? Once the trout got used to it, it didn't bother the trout a bit. The trout would just keep rising. The beaver would swim right through the rising trout and they would just didn't even miss a beat.
Katie
Wow.
Tom
It was interesting.
Katie
I mean, I guess I don't think of beavers as being like trout predators necessarily, but I'm still surprised.
Tom
They're not. They're vegetarian. They eat mostly willow and aspen. But you would think a big mammal swimming through a bunch of trout, but I guess they get used to it.
Katie
Well, I mean, you learn something new every day. Maybe you got to get like a trout costume or a beaver costume or something so you can get a little closer to the fish. I should. I think, was it the Orvis podcast maybe in the last year or two that, did you interview somebody about beaver ponds and their, as a beneficial aspect of trout streams?
Tom
I think it was Jonathan Goldsmith. I forgot his name. He wrote a book called Eager.
Katie
That was it, yeah.
Tom
About beavers. Yeah. And I learned a lot from him on the podcast. You know, I learned, you know, we tend to think that beavers get into a small trout stream and they back it up the water, right? Because it's more stagnant. But actually what happens is the water goes up into the ground around the beaver dam and then flows through the ground and comes back out in the river. And of course the ground is always cooler than the air. So it actually cools the water. That was a real takeaway that I got from my own reading about beavers and then doing the podcast with him.
Katie
Yeah, that was, I think, one of my favorite episodes of yours, just because, A, it was a little bit different than the normal fly fishing talk. But I had the same reaction where I just, I had never thought of it that way. But it makes sense. I mean, I think about everywhere there are beaver ponds, I always find fish in them. You'd think if they were so detrimental that when you find beaver ponds, there just wouldn't be any fish around. But I don't remember the last time I came up on a beaver pond that didn't have, you know, tons of little little brook trout rising behind it. Lots of little fish sitting below the dam. Like it seems, you know, like it's benefiting them.
Tom
So, yeah, I mean, early on, early on, they were making dens in the bank and the bank was caving in and it was eroding. And I actually went to the warden to get permission to shoot him. And he said, yeah, as long as you don't poison him or dynamite him, go ahead and get rid of him. And now I've totally gone the other way. I like seeing them. So it's been a learning experience with beavers.
Katie
Speaking of hunting, do you do a decent amount of upland bird hunting or any other kind of hunting?
Tom
I do. You know, I don't do as much. I used to do a lot of upland hunting and I used to do a lot of duck hunting in my backyard. I did a lot of duck hunting. I don't do as much as I used to. My two labs would be totally useless in a duck blind. I've had really good labs over the years, but these two that I have right now would be... So I do some, I do a little, but not much.
Katie
Is there a reason that you've kind of tapered off or just other things have come into your life?
Tom
The grouse populations have gotten not so... They're not as abundant as they used to be with development. Well, two reasons, development and then a lot of our woods going back to big forest instead of second growth. so they're not as abundant I do I spend a lot of time in the woods wheat forage and for mushrooms and plants and things like that my with my family and I don't flush that many grouse anymore so I'm not as I'm not as and I don't have a good dog you know it's all about dog work to me and I don't I used to have a setter and then I used to I had a couple good black labs that I hunted with but I I don't have the dogs anymore. And I didn't feel it was fair to the dogs I have now to train them for duck hunting because I just don't do enough of it. It's not really fair to them.
Katie
Was it primarily like a fly tying motivation to hunt or was it do you just like hunting?
Tom
No, I enjoy bird hunting. I mean, I always save the feathers, but I love to eat duck and grouse. So it was a, you know, I used them all. I used it all. I ate the birds and saved the feathers. And I'll still do it, but not just not as much as I used to.
Katie
The foraging, it sounds like maybe that's kind of where you've transitioned your, you know, go outside and get food. Do you like to forage while you fish? Is that a double activity or are they separate in your life?
Tom
Yeah, they're pretty separate. I mean, when I'm fishing, I'm pretty, you know, maniacal about it. I know, you know, if I see some good mushrooms, I'll pick them. But the foraging hikes are generally with the family, and I don't take a rod with me then.
Katie
I found the same thing. If you take a rod, suddenly any trip becomes a fishing trip.
Tom
Yeah.
Katie
You've got to leave the rod behind.
Tom
I mean, even taking pictures, right? If you want to take pictures, you've got to leave the rod home.
Katie
And do you do a decent amount of photography then? Like, is that a...
Tom
I do. Yeah. I do a fair amount. A lot of times I'll go with a friend, and I won't fish. I'll just take pictures.
Katie
Do you find that that gives you as much satisfaction as fishing? once you leave the ride behind and acknowledge that you are on a photography mission? Or do you find yourself being like, oh, I should have brought the ride with me?
Tom
No, I like bringing home a bunch of good pictures. You know, they're usually for books that I'm working on. I learned early on that if you're going to write fishing books, you better take your own pictures because you can't afford to pay a photographer. So I learned very early on in my writing career that I needed to get my own pictures.
Katie
Speaking of your writing, I kind of want to hear about the writing part of your life, because I feel like you've written so many books. And I've talked to quite a few fly fishing writers, and I feel like everyone has a different answer on whether they're a fisherman first or a writer first, or if they really feel like these parts occupy equal parts of their life. Do you have a thought on that? Are you a fisherman who writes, or have you really taken to the writing part?
Tom
No, I'm a fisherman who writes and, you know, the stuff that I do is almost entirely educational. I mean, occasionally I will do essays like I did. I did some essays in a book with Andy Anderson about saltwater fly fishing. And I did a book with Brian Grossenbacher called Trout about trout fishing. And I wrote essays there and that was fun. You know, it was really it was really fun to to kind of branch out. But my forte is really communication and education.
Katie
That was going to be my next question because looking at all the titles you've written, they all do seem to be focused on education. But I wasn't sure if that was because you really like that. Do you really love the educational aspect of fly fishing in general, like sharing that with people? Is it that you don't think you'd be a good, more philosophical writer or you just really like sharing information with people?
Tom
Well, there's a number of reasons. One is that how-to books sell better. And, you know, I'm not going to write something because I want to write it. I'm going to write something because people have asked me too many times about this issue. So, you know, I'm very careful about writing things that I know people want to read. And also, I just feel that an awful lot of these fly fishing essays fall flat. You know, it's just unless you're Tom McGuane, you can't capture the feeling of being out fly fishing. I just don't. And I'm not I'm not a good enough writer to to do that. And I think there's a lot of people also in the world that aren't a good enough writer to express it. You know, it's not easy to put in words. And I don't want to read endless stories about how somebody got started in fly fishing.
Katie
Yeah. No, I know what you mean. I actually have never heard someone voice that. But the only two writers that I feel like I've really enjoyed more of the philosophical side are Tom McGuane and John Gierach. Like I don't – I encountered the occasional one-off article in a magazine that someone writes about at one specific experience they had that really moved them or something.
Tom
But for the most part – Yeah. Sometimes they're really good. I'll read one too in one of the magazines and I'll say, wow, this is great. This is really – this really caught it. But Tom McGuane, John Gierach, Ted Leeson, and Jim Babb are two others that I think are able to catch it. There's an awful, it seemed like post-pandemic or during the pandemic, there were a lot of people that hadn't been fly fishing for that long and wanted to, just wanted to express their feelings about what it felt like. And I'm sorry, but a lot of it falls flat.
Katie
Yeah, I think the common theme I've noticed among the good essays or books is that they find a way to capture some small moment that isn't necessarily related to the fish itself or the fishing itself. It's usually something else that they've been able to notice that this is a profound, makes it sound maybe more profound than it actually is. But just a little moment that's something that only someone who is deep in the fly fishing world would notice and appreciate, I guess, versus just I went out and I caught a bunch of fish and it was a good day. And that's, I don't know. There's only so many ways you can say that that are really capturing.
Tom
Yeah. I mean, if people can tell a good story, like two sort of fly fishing books that come to mind that I absolutely loved were The Feather Thief, which I'm sure you probably read. And Monty Burke's book about tarpon, I think it was.
Katie
Lords of the Fly?
Tom
Lords of the Fly. Yeah. I mean, those I couldn't put down, but they were telling, you know, they were telling a real story. You know, they were telling a real story and it was just, it was riveting.
Katie
Yeah. I haven't read Lords of the Fly, but I got the impression that it was more of a, like a history of like how the, how this whole culture came to be, which is a bit beyond just this one.
Tom
Oh my God. You have to read that book. It is like, it is like you can't put it down. And Monty's a good friend. Monty's a good friend. I should, I should, I should, you know, full disclosure, he's a good friend and a fishing buddy, but I, you know, I absolutely love that book.
Katie
Okay. Yeah, you're not the first person to say that, so I will have to pick it up. But I did read The Feathered Leaf and was equally enthralled with that one. That was, I mean, it was not even really about fishing at all, but just
Tom
No, no, it wasn't.
Katie
I have no idea that that whole side culture, underground world existed.
Tom
Yeah, yeah.
Katie
Do you have any other favorite books? Any that come to mind as just kind of a classic in the fly fishing world?
Tom
Well, The Longest Silence, Tom McGuane's book, is the best, I think, that's ever, ever been done about, about fly fishing. You know, I, I mean, I, I have a, my library here, I have a lot of fly tying books, you know, because fly tying, you're all, you can always learn something new, right? So I have, I have, you know, shelves and shelves of fly tying books. And I, and I also have a lot of books on hydrology and, and, you know, trout stream ecology. I guess I'm just more of a kind of a linear, you know, nonfiction type aficionado of fishing books.
Katie
You want to learn something. You're going to come out with a new thing.
Tom
Yeah, I want to learn something.
Katie
Is that what gets you excited about fly fishing these days? And maybe this isn't it, but a picture when you've been fishing for so long that, of course, it's still fun to get a fish in the net. But, like, what is really drawing you to go fishing these days? Is it like the desire to learn that one incremental thing each time you go out and be surprised? Or like what is it that gets you?
Tom
Learning something new. I mean, that's the beauty of fly fishing is that you'll never learn a quarter of it. And I love going out with somebody on a new stream or for a different fish that I haven't caught or I've caught very few of and learning from them. You know, I'm still learning to trout spay, still really learning to euro nymph. I don't think I like it much, but I'm still but I still do it. And it's and it is interesting. And, you know, there I mean, stuff is cool. Stuff is happening all the time. It just keeps just keeps growing. And, you know, I just love learning. And I'll keep learning until I stop fishing.
Katie
What new things are you? You mentioned your own nymphing. But what other things are you doing? I know you do a lot of carp fishing. Is that still newish to you? Or do you feel like you're pretty solid on carp fishing at this point?
Tom
Well, I think I'm pretty solid, but I've been skunked a lot of times. There's Lake Champlain is a big lake in northern Vermont. And it has huge carp. and we still haven't figured them out. I have a friend who actually guides on Lake Champlain and we go up and we try to figure them out and we still haven't cracked the code. You know, it's, I don't know if we'll ever figure it out. We see them, we cast to them. We usually don't hook them. So that gets to me. And so I just keep going back, you know, I just keep going back to try to figure it out.
Katie
Now does Lake Champlain have like flats that you can fish from a boat?
Tom
Yeah, there's some flats. I mean, it's a big lake and it's varied. There's some flats. There's weed beds. There's shallow bays. But I suspect, this is why I suspect a lot of them feed in deep water and they come in shallow in the afternoon to just kind of digest and laze around. That's my theory.
Katie
Is Lake Champlain the one that has like a ton of species?
Tom
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything from landlocked Atlantic salmon to, you know, drum, freshwater drum to lots of smallmouth bass and every panfish you can imagine and catfish. It's a two-story lake. In other words, it's deep enough to support cold water species, but it also has shallows that support warm water species. And it's a big lake. So, you know, there's always something. I went out with my buddy to try to catch as many species as we could in one day this year. It was a lousy day. It wasn't really very good. It rained and thundered and everything, but we caught 12 species of fish on a fly.
Katie
Holy cow. And I assume the techniques must have been all over the place.
Tom
Yeah, all over the place. All over the place. Bluegill, perch, catfish, gar, bowfin, all kinds of stuff.
Katie
What do you use to catch things like gar and bowfin? Just big streamers?
Tom
Gar, we typically use a yarn fly. It's made from nylon rope, marine rope, and you just tie it to a shank. And you put a little hook in there because in Vermont, legally, you have to have a hook in your fly.
Katie
Really? Or what?
Tom
Or it's illegal. I mean, the wardens have caught this friend of mine and said, you know, you really need to put a hook on here. And he said, yeah, I know. So we put a little hook on it. But their teeth get caught in the yarn. But they're fun. It's all sight fishing. And then what was the other one you asked me about? Bowfin. Oh, Bowfin. They're in really shallow water, in very, very shallow water, in pockets, in the weeds. and you kind of just dap a weighted fly in front of them until you piss them off and they grab.
Katie
Oh, fun. I've only caught both in on bait, so I don't know what the fly techniques are, but it definitely looks like dapping.
Tom
Yeah, it's sight fishing though, so it's cool.
Katie
Yeah.
Tom
But, you know, mostly it's really dapping.
Katie
Just whacking at them until they get upset.
Tom
Yeah. You sometimes tickle them right on the nose with the fly and then they get pissed off and eat it.
Katie
That's one thing I really miss about out east fishing. I grew up in Pennsylvania, and it was kind of the same thing. The river I grew up on had – I must have caught at least 10 species out of there over the time I lived there. And being out west now, I'm in Colorado, and I love it out here because I love the mountain fishing. I love the backcountry streams and everything. But we just don't have the same diversity of species out here. Normally when you show up somewhere, you kind of have a rough idea of what you're going to catch. You might have one to three things that you could pull out. And I really just love the surprise of who knows what is on the end of my line. It could be anything.
Tom
Yeah, and that's why saltwater fishing is so exciting because you never know what you're going to tangle with there.
Katie
Absolutely. You've done a decent number of trips, I know, around the world, but I'm curious to hear what your experience out west has been compared to New England because I only really have experience fly fishing out west. I spin fished when I lived back east. And I feel like the culture out here is maybe a little bit different than in New England because you guys have such a rich history. What are your thoughts on out west versus out east? Do you like one more than the other? Do you notice any particular differences besides just the species present sometimes?
Tom
No, I like both of them. I try to spend a couple trips a summer in the West, and I typically fish Idaho because I think it's less crowded. Montana's gotten really – I mean, it's not bad. I still fish the Madison in the fall and the spring, and it's not so bad. But summertime, wherever you can put a drift boat, it gets pretty crowded. But the fishing is really so much better in the West. The rivers are richer. They're bigger. They're richer. They have, most of the time, better hatches. We have some pretty good hatches in the East. The Batten Kill at certain times, and the Delaware and the Beaver Kill have great hatches. But, you know, it's just there's a lot more in the West. There's just a lot more opportunities.
Katie
What about the culture itself just having such a longer history in the Northeast? Is that something that you connect to a lot and can kind of dive into? I feel like out West, it's kind of new. The fishing is good, but I don't feel like there's that deep history out here.
Tom
I guess it's not as deep, but there's a pretty good history in the West. People like Dan Bailey and Renee Harrop. Yeah, it's more recent. It's within my lifetime, but there's still a pretty rich history in the West. I don't think it's been celebrated enough.
Katie
Okay. I mean, that's a nice perspective to hear because I feel like that's another thing I'm kind of jealous of is I just feel like New England has these styles of flies and stuff that come from that part of the country. And I feel like most of the names I hear are from that part of the country.
Tom
I don't know. I use a lot of Western flies in the East now, Chubby Chernobyls and all the foam flies. I use them on our small streams. You know, I'm not so sure I'd want to live in the West, even though trout fishing is better because it's too far from the salt. And I do love my striper fishing and false albacore and bonita in the fall. So, you know, it's pretty far from the salt.
Katie
So is most of the saltwater fishing you do just off the East Coast, like near you versus the more exotic destinations?
Tom
Well, I love bonefish. I love bonefish and tarpon. And I do that as much as I can, not as much as I'd like. stripers are closer and I can drive to it. I don't have to get on a plane. But I do love tropical fishing as well. I don't like permit.
Katie
Why is that? Just the frustration?
Tom
Yeah, the frustration. I like to catch fish, Katie. I like to hook fish once in a while, at least a couple in a day of fishing. Permit fishing is, I don't know. I mean, I'll throw to them, but I wouldn't go on a specifically permit fishing trip.
Katie
That's funny. You mentioned that we just got back from our first saltwater trip, actually. And I think more than half of the people that were at the lodge with us were there specifically to catch a permit and they didn't want to really go for anything else. They were permit or bust. Some of them got one, some of them didn't. And I don't know. It was our first trip. So naturally we wanted to catch anything, but I just, I wondered if I will ever be the person that goes on a trip with the sole purpose of catching a permit and nothing else. And I just can't imagine not being enticed by all the bonefish I'm looking at, you know, as I walk around the flat.
Tom
Yeah, yeah. And bonefish are, you know, bonefish are really interesting. And if you do things right, you can catch them. You can do everything right and not catch a permit.
Katie
Yeah, yeah. They seemed, I mean, they seemed to live up to the difficulty hype while we were there. I mean, there were people that spent the whole week chasing them and saw a handful and didn't hook one. I hooked one and it got off, but I considered that a win. That's pretty cool. Yeah, thrilled with that result. But the bonefish were the most fun.
Tom
Then again, I chased carp and carp can be as difficult as permit. So I don't know. I'm probably not being fair about it.
Katie
Have you ever chased carp with the, is it the mulberry fly that people use on the surface for them? I've never done that.
Tom
Yeah, I have.
Katie
Is it fun?
Tom
Oh, it's amazing. It's a short window because the mulberries are only dropping for a short period of time. But yeah, to catch a 20-pound carp on floating flies is pretty cool.
Katie
What do you like so much about carp? Because I feel like I hear you talk about them a lot, and you seem to really light up when you talk about them. And I don't know if it's just the challenge or that it's newer to you than trout. What specifically about carp really draws you in?
Tom
Well, it's the challenge for sure. And it's also the fact that it's one of the few freshwater fish that can get way into your backing.
Katie
Yeah.
Tom
You know, they're strong and they go. I mean, they're ugly, but they're still, and they're interesting. Every place that you find carp, they behave differently. And it's that education thing, you know, it's that figuring out the puzzle. You figure them out in one body of water, you go to another one and the same things don't work.
Katie
They seem like a fish that wouldn't be difficult to catch, but then they actually seem way smarter than all the other fish I go after.
Tom
Well, they're not smarter. I think they're like a wild turkey. They're cautious. Yeah. They're not very bright. They're just cautious, and they feed in weird ways.
Katie
Yeah, they seem disinterested, I guess, in whatever I'm doing. I feel like trout, they're either scared of me or they're interested in what I'm throwing. but they're kind of aware of me in some way. And I feel like when I walk up and see carp in the water, if I don't spook them, they just kind of seem like they're living in their own world. And whatever I'm doing to them, they may or may not even notice that I'm there.
Tom
They do a lot of cruising because they kind of tend to go in packs. And a cruising carp is not a high percentage. You've got to find them when they're actively feeding, when they're mudding on the bottom or tailing or, you know, you got to find that. And so a lot of it's just moving around and finding places where they're going to feed.
Katie
Yeah, that's, I've struggled with that. I haven't done a ton of carp fishing, but when I have, I tend to come across the cruising fish and I think I just haven't figured them out. Like when they're frustrating.
Tom
You know, you occasionally get a cruising fish to eat, but fast cruising fish, never. If they're moving slowly, maybe. You know, I kind of equate them to tarpon. You know, when tarpon are mainly nocturnal feeders and when we're casting to tarpon in clear water on the flats, we're just trying to convince them that there's a little snack that's close by. You know, they're not really busting bait or actively feeding. You're trying to just get them to almost a reaction strike. I think the same thing is true with cruising carp. They're not actively feeding, but crayfish darts ahead of them. They might eat it.
Katie
It's like if someone slides a plate of French fries in front of you, it's going to be hard not to reach forward and grab one, even if you weren't going to go out of your way to go find French fries.
Tom
But you got to learn exactly where to put that plate of French fries and how to cook them and how much salt to put on them.
Katie
Do carp follow any sort of daily cycle pattern? I think of trout, especially on the hot days. morning, evening, but do carp follow a similar kind of predictable feeding pattern?
Tom
Yeah, carp seem to. And it depends on where you are. It depends on the water temperature. But yeah, they seem to, you know, a lot of places they're in deep water and then they come in in the middle of the day. But yeah, they will. They definitely will have daily patterns. Yeah.
Katie
Last thing I wanted to cover that's before I want to finish up kind of talking about your podcast and, you know, sending people your way. But I wanted to know about your chocolate making. I know that you make chocolate. And every time I've heard you mention it, it's in passing. And I'm really, really intrigued by what goes into chocolate making because I've never met anyone who makes their own chocolate. So just tell me about it.
Tom
Well, it started, my son is allergic to nuts, mainly peanuts, but we stay away from tree nuts. So we have no nuts in our house. And it started years ago at Halloween when they'd come home and couldn't eat any of the chocolate because, you know, a lot of it's cross-contaminated and it's made on machinery that has peanuts. So I said, well, maybe I can make chocolate. And I hacked away at so many weird ways of trying to make real chocolate. And it wasn't very good. And then I came across this website of a guy named John Nancy, who is really the person who started the whole bean to bar, the whole artisan chocolate industry. Prior to John, you'd have to have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of machinery to make real, you know, smooth, tasty chocolate. And he has a website and I went on there and I realized I'd have to buy a bunch of these. He hacked it so you could use kitchen appliances to make real, real chocolate, really good chocolate. And, you know, he's the he's the one who is as much as they won't admit it, like people like Mass Brothers and a lot of the artisan chocolate makers are using starting with the methods that he developed. in his kitchen and he has a website and he sells the machinery and he sells the beans. And, you know, you have to get really good, organic, free trade, fair trade beans, or you should anyways. And, I started doing it and I just, you know, I mean, it's a process like fly tying or anything else. It took me a while to figure it out, but now, you know, I make chocolate almost weekend. I got a batch going right now in the basement. And, you know, I mean, people love chocolate, right? So I give most of it away because people are so, you know, they're so appreciative when you give them a bar of chocolate. And my chocolate's damn good.
Katie
Yeah. You've really perfected it at this point.
Tom
I've perfected it. Yeah. I've perfected it. I've learned a lot from John and I've learned a lot on my own. And what I like is the different beans. Every bean from Belize or Colombia or Peru has a different flavor. It's like a wine or a beer. And so I cycle through various beans and it's all different.
Katie
I know that it's going to be way too complicated, obviously, because it took you a long time to even figure out how to make it properly to describe everything that goes into making chocolate, but at a very high level, like what are the steps in making chocolate? It goes from a bean to how does it become a chocolate bar?
Tom
You get these raw beans that come from places like Chocolate Alchemy, which is John's website, or another place I use is Uncommon Cacao. I think it's the name of it. Anyway, it's in Colorado.
Katie
Okay.
Tom
And you get really good, really good, high quality beans. It's not the same beans that Hershey uses or, you know, the commercial makers. They get their stuff from Ivory Coast and Ghana and it's it's commodity cocoa. It's pretty it's pretty bland. And you get it. And the beans have been already fermented on site. So wherever they're grown, they're fermented. Chocolate has to be fermented. And so you get these dried fermented beans. And first of all, you roast them in a coffee. I use a coffee roaster, Baymore. Baymore is the coffee roaster that works for cocoa. And then they sit overnight after I roast them. And I roast by smell. I hover over the coffee roaster. And when the smell is just right, I turn it off and cool the beans. Then you have to crack them. And I crack them in a champion juicer, which is a machine that's no longer made. I don't know what's going to happen when my champion juicer breaks down. That's a big kind of big heavy duty juicer. And that cracks the beans and separates the hull from the nibs, the stuff. And then I have to winnow the husk away. And I do that in a machine that John Nancy developed. It looks like this Rube Goldberg thing that hooks up to a shop vac that takes all the husk away from the nibs. And then I grind them in what is called a melanger, but it's actually a device that East Indian people use to make, I don't know. They make something with rice or something. It's a wet grinder, basically. It's got granite wheels. And I run that with sugar for 24 to 48 hours, and that smooths everything out. It just keeps running and running and running. And then I take it out and temper it and put it in molds. So it's about a four-day process.
Katie
Okay. And does it come out as dark chocolate then, or is it milk chocolate?
Tom
Well, you can make whatever you want. I don't make milk chocolate much. Most of mine is 70%, 72% cocoa. And yeah, I try to make it very consistent so that I can taste the difference in the beans.
Katie
Do you still tweak your recipe at all or is it just right as it is and you don't have to tweak anything anymore, but you could use it in different ways after it's done?
Tom
Yeah, I tweak the roasting depending on the bean. But after that, it's pretty straightforward.
Katie
It sounds like you've got bottomless Christmas gifts to give people forever. like I've said no one turns down getting a homemade chocolate bar for a gift
Tom
yeah you know at the uh at the what used to be IFTD the trade show I used to come with I don't know you know a lot of chocolate and I'd give it to all my buddies and when I host trips like to Idaho or Cuba or Bahamas or whatever everybody gets a bar of chocolate I have to bring chocolate with me
Katie
that's very cool. I've never met someone who makes it before.
Tom
It's really easy. I mean, it's a process, but it's not… You can do it in your kitchen. You can definitely do it in your kitchen. I feel like
Katie
that's much like many kitchen processes where the first time you do it, it feels daunting. But once you've done it 10 times, you're like, I could do this with my eyes closed, even if it feels daunting to somebody else. You just got to do the same thing over and over again.
Tom
Yeah. No, and it's fun. It's very satisfying.
Katie
Awesome. Well, the last thing I wanted to ask about is your podcast, which I assume most people who are listening to this show have heard of the Orvis podcast before. But for anyone who hasn't, tell people what the format of the show is, because it's kind of a bit different than most of the other fly fishing podcasts with your question and answer and then the meat of the show, which I find really interesting that you have those two segments like that.
Tom
Yeah, it's evolved over the years. And originally, it was just me talking, you know, and that was pretty boring. But what I do is I take questions. I have an email box that I check and people can either send a voicemail, attach a voice file, or they can just ask a question. And I spend about 30 to 40 minutes at the beginning answering those questions. People love that part. Well, some people love it. Some people don't. A lot of people really like it. And what they do is they try to answer the question before I answer it, just, you know, to see, see how close they can get to my answer. Um, and then I do an interview. So I, I try to, you know, I, I try to get, I do a lot of conservation podcasts. I do a lot of them with biologists, when I can find a really interesting one or resource managers or hydrologists. And then I do, you know, the standard how to with an expert. One of the things that I've learned is that I never have a guest on the podcast where I know more than they do about a particular subject because it keeps me curious and keeps me asking the right questions. And there's lots of people that know a lot more than I do about lots of things. So it's an endless vault of people. And I'll meet somebody somewhere, I'll meet a guide or something. I'll say, ah, this person would be a great podcast interviewer.
Katie
Yeah. I found that podcasting, at least the interview style ones like this are kind of a selfish game a lot of the time. Cause it's like, well, I can just, you know, I mean, I'm talking to you right now, which I never thought I would do, but like you reach out to somebody and people are generally willing to talk and then you get to pick their brain about whatever you want.
Tom
Yeah. I learned so much from those podcasts. You know, talking to people, I'm always taking notes about this fly I got to tie or I'm going to try this leader. So I learned a ton. My two favorites were the one I did with Tom McGuane, who I've been trying to get for years on a podcast, and then with John McPhee, who's two of my really real literary heroes. So those were really thrilling to do.
Katie
Tell me about the fly box a little bit more. Do you ever get questions that you genuinely don't know the answer to? And in that case, would you just say, I don't know, or do you go and do your own research to provide an answer for somebody?
Tom
My rule is that if I have to look it up on the internet to answer their question, I'm not going to answer it because they can look it up on the internet. They've got a computer in front of them. And I don't do like, I'm going to Idaho in July, where should I go fishing? I don't do that. I don't do that because they could call a fly shop. And then if I don't know the answer and I can find the answer from one of my coworkers, you know, a lot, sometimes people ask technical questions about rods or lines or something like that. I do have a pretty good network that I can reach out to and say, Hey, do you, you know, do you know the answer to this? And, you know, sometimes if I, if I don't know the answer and I can't find anybody to help me, I will say, I don't know. I don't know the answer. Maybe nobody knows the answer.
Katie
I think I've heard you say, I don't know before. And the nice thing is enough people listen that I've heard listeners then write in and they might have the answer or at least an alternative or something that they can offer.
Tom
They do. Yeah. Sometimes they'll call in or write in with a tip. Oh, you know, you forgot to mention this on your answer. Oh, yeah, I should mention that. So, yeah. So we do that. But it makes it their podcast. You know, it really gives them, makes them feel like it's really their podcast because they're contributing to it.
Katie
And is there one type of question that you feel like you get more than anything else? Like, is there a common thread where you're just like, oh, my God, this gets asked every week or anything like that?
Tom
I hooked three rainbow trout in a row and I lost all of them. What am I doing wrong? Nothing. Sometimes they're going to get unbuttoned. Yeah. Yeah, I get that. I get that a ton.
Katie
Yeah, I feel like I don't listen to the fly box too much anymore. I used to listen to it a lot. Now I often – you give the little button that I can skip right to the interview, so I'll sometimes do that. But, yeah, I felt like I could sense your frustration sometimes in, you know, like, I don't know, man. It's just I've answered this the last four episodes, and I'm not going to do it again. I've written in once or twice to you, but I've always tried to make a point not to write in a question that might make you rip your hair out.
Tom
Have I ever answered your questions?
Katie
Yeah, I think I've written in twice, and you've answered both. I don't remember what I asked, but.
Tom
Well, they were good ones.
Katie
Yeah, I must have gotten the answer I needed because I don't even recall anymore. So it must not be a problem I struggle with anymore. Great. Well, we can get wrapped up. I know you're a couple hours ahead and you've got company over. So just if you want to direct people, what's the name of the podcast? It's Orvis, which I'm sure will bring it up.
Tom
Yes, it's the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast. Okay, simple enough. Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. And it's on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or all the other podcast aggregators.
Katie
Okay. And I assume that people can find your books where most books are found. Is there any place that you direct them to in particular to find your books that would be better than Amazon? Or is Amazon the place to go?
Tom
I prefer they go to their local bookstore, but they may not have it. So sometimes you got to go to Amazon.
Katie
Sure. And then I know you're on Instagram. Is it RosenbauerT on Instagram?
Tom
Yeah, I don't post much. I kind of don't spend much time on social media. I mean, I look at Instagram a lot and I answer people, but I found that I was spending too much time staring at my phone. And there's more things I want to do in life, like go fishing and make chocolate and hang out with my family than stare at my phone to find out how many people like my post.
Katie
Those sound like good alternatives for sure.
Tom
Yeah.
Katie
Well, Tom, I really appreciate you taking the time. I know I just had to contact reach out to you and you've been very generous to take a chance on a podcast, a much smaller podcast than yours. So I really appreciate you doing this and wish you the best going forward.
Tom
Well, thank you, Katie. You ask great questions and it's been really fun.
Katie
Thank you. All right. That's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. If you want to find all the other episodes as well as show notes, you can find those on fishuntamed.com. You'll also find a contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram at fishuntamed. If you want to support the show, you can give it a follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. And if you'd like to leave a review, it would be greatly appreciated. But otherwise, thank you all again for listening. I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode. Take care, everybody. you
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