Ep 127: Matching the Hatch, with Jeff Johnson
Jeff Johnson is a guide, fly tier, and cofounder of Identafly, an AI-based fly identification app. In this episode, we talk about whether new flies are actually still being designed, what’s important when trying to match a fly to a bug, how important matching the hatch actually is, how to make your fly stand out from the millions of real insects on the water, some useful features in the Identafly app, and much more.
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Katie
You’re listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 127 with Jeff Johnson on matching the hatch. Well, I start every episode by getting a background on my guests and how they got to the outdoors. So give me the spiel on how you got into fishing and specifically into fly fishing.
Jeff
Oh, absolutely. So really my biggest influence where I started out fishing was my grandfather, many of us. My grandfather, Bob Stockton, was an innovator long before. He came up with the most amazing things to catch fish that now we do commonly. From the time I was very, very young, I think I was on his boat when I was two months old. Obviously, I don't remember. Him and I started fishing together. He created this passion in me. He would call me and he called me JJ and he would say, "Hey JJ, you want to go fishing?" Of course, I would say yes. I would just leave school and I'd be gone for three weeks and we did this all the time. From there, it just grew from the natural progression of traditional fishing. He was a guide in Utah into fly fishing and then it became like everything. It is everything in my world right now.
Katie
And you said he was a bit of an innovator. What kinds of things did he kind of pioneer?
Jeff
So a lot of the storage systems that they're using today for you know The bass tournament fishermen and stuff like that. He modified the old tackle boxes and then for larger streamers He created the big streamer box. He didn't have the you know, the I can't talk Availability to get plastic and get things molded for him. So he created these wood boxes that did that and He was amazing. I'm going into jigging, you know using the fly system And creating heavy flies that we could jig it a hundred feet deep for Mackinac I mean he tried creating his own plastic jigs He did all these things back in the 70s and 80s before it was common
Katie
So this is expanding both fly fishing and conventional fishing. It sounds like.
Jeff
Yeah fish and have fun.
Katie
Now today are you primarily a fly fisherman or do you dabble in both?
Jeff
You know what, I do a trip once a year to Wyoming and we go I have a walleye tournament boat and so me and a couple of my friends go and we do a five-day walleye trip and that's about the only time unless I guide families that just want to you know the grandparents come into town when I catch fish, not sit on the shore all day, then we'll do traditional, but other than that, it's 100% fly is all I really do.
Katie
Yes, so tell me about the lake you got on. I know you and I talked briefly before we started recording, but it sounds like you live on a pretty cool bass lake. And I don't talk to a lot of people who do a lot of fly fishing for largemouth bass specifically, so maybe we can just dive into that for a little bit. Tell me about your guiding service and fishing for largemouth bass with a fly rod.
Jeff
Sure. You know, the biggest thing when you're going after largemouth is the action of the fly. You know, I'm really big on, you know, the first thing I do is size. The second thing is silhouette. And if we can get those mimicked from there, we're going to go into the action of the fly. So my favorite way for largemouth is obviously like a gurgler or a popper and really, you know, hitting that bank hard, working it and then obviously, hopefully catching the fish. But, The most exciting part is when that big bass starts chasing and you see that weight coming behind the fly. I mean, it's so amazing.
Katie
What weight rod are you using for large masts?
Jeff
I'm a big fan of a 6'7", 7-weight rod. Nothing too big. If I'm guiding, it's usually going to be about a 7-weight. I have 6'7", sort of that in-between right there. on the fly, we're going to change out the reels, we're going to either put on a sinking line, which I'm not real particular about how big of the head is, the sink rate and stuff. I just need it to go deep. So a fast sinking line. Most of the time we're doing floating lines, SA, a good floating line, and long leaders and just smacking the banks with them.
Katie
Is the weight rod more for the size of fish you're catching and the fight of the fish, or for the flies themselves to get them out there?
Jeff
For me, it's the size of the fly and the weight of the fly.
Katie
Okay. If you weren't fishing a fly that large, what weight rod would correspond to the fish? What would you need to bring in a fish of the size that you're fishing for?
Jeff
I'm a fan of six-weight rods. I'm a big fan of six-weight rods. You fight them, you do everything right. I fish for carp continuously in the area here, and I use a six-weight.
Katie
Okay. Tell me how you got from where you started to your guide service now.
Jeff
It was this progression of from where I was at to guiding is... I don't know. I really, really enjoy taking people fishing. I really enjoy watching other people fish and helping them get into that. Maybe it's not the biggest fish they've ever caught. Maybe it's a very small, small mouth that's less than a pound, but it's that joy that everyone gets when they hook into a fish. There's just nothing, there's truly nothing better.
Katie
So did you start guiding for somebody else or did you just open up your outfit? Like how did you get to where you are now?
Jeff
Oh, I'm sorry. So you know, my grandfather was an amazing guide. And then I just started guiding. I got the things and the things that I need to do to be able to guide the insurance and all those things. And I just started guiding.
Katie
So is it just you? Is it like a one-man operation?
Jeff
Yeah. I guess you could call it my part-time gig.
Katie
Okay. And the rest of the time, I know you mentioned that you're a fly designer and I assume a tier as well because I feel like it'd be hard to design flies without tying them yourself. But does that help pay the bills?
Jeff
No, you know, when I'm designing a fly or I'm tying flies, it's mainly just for me. And then some of my patterns that I put out there, they're not with any major company. So that's where it goes into that other part of flies and fly design and people that design flies that can't get in with a larger company.
Katie
Are there still new flies being designed? I know that you've mentioned that you are a fly designer, so maybe I can anticipate what your answer is going to be. But I also hear people talking about how anything that's new is very much an adaptation of something that already exists and is very similar. What are your opinions on fly design today? And are there still real innovations happening? Or have we kind of plateaued to the point that you're making minor tweaks to maybe match your specific waterway, but the big innovations are over? What are your thoughts on that?
Jeff
So there's still innovation. There's still people out there coming up with new bugs that match hatches or new streamers. I think a lot of the innovation right now is with new materials. So we have the basic flies. We have, you know, there are a thousand or more thousands of patterns, but they're all based on something that's probably already been tied. A great example of that is the sofa pillow. So the sofa pillow is a dry attractor fly. And if you look at it, what it is is it's been modified and changed, but it's essentially a stimulator, and which is a great fly, but you can find the roots to those flies back to somebody from the early 1900s all the way back to the late 1700s.
Katie
So is the idea that everything has kind of been modeled off of something before it?
Jeff
Probably, you know as much as I want to think that you were coming up with new stuff the more you get into looking at flies and Those things you just find over and over and over again Well, it's just this fly like the stimulator going to the sofa pillow They're very very similar.
Katie
And what new materials specifically are coming out and what do they do? I guess more importantly than what they are the name of them I guess is not that important but new materials are allowing us to do what with flies that wouldn't be possible before or you know, what have they enhanced?
Jeff
You know, I think the color variations the you know, some of the material that that they're sort of inserting into other materials when you use a tube and you can insert it with a colored you know metal inside of it you're getting the two-tone color that you previously really couldn't get when... With the fly still being dry, you could, but as soon as it got wet, everything kind of blended. So you're starting to see these synthetics and these tubes and things like that that are really, really making a difference. So the color you start with, you fish it all day and it's the same color.
Katie
Okay. Are you very much an embracer of the new technology, or is there any part of you that really clings to the natural materials, the traditional things. I'm sure there's people on both sides who are like, "These new materials maximize fish catching." And there's probably other people who really like the traditional art of it. Where do you fall on this spectrum?
Jeff
I'm for whatever it takes to catch a fish. I'm not a traditionalist or somebody who just wants to use everything new. I like everything in between. But when you start talking about natural materials. So we would talk about fur and feather. And then going into... Then do we do that with line? Do we go to the old catgut line rather than the synthetics and the glass line that we're using today?
Katie
So you could basically just keep making that argument for anything?
Jeff
All day long. Yeah. All day long you can make the argument of where do you draw the line of natural?
Katie
Are most of the flies you tie bass flies since that's what you're guiding most of the time? Do you also do a lot of trout fly stuff?
Jeff
I do a lot of trout flies. I'll tie any flies that I need. I still buy flies because sometimes it's just easier to buy flies when I'm going through, especially some of the larger streamers, but I'll tie anything. Some of my favorites are more the nymphs and obviously some of the bigger bass flies, the deceiver, things like that that I use.
Katie
I kind of want to talk a little bit about just matching the hatch in general and the whole concept of using flies to match insects. And we can kind of take this a lot of different ways, but I guess my first overarching question would be how important is it to match the hatch? And this is going to be general because I know that there's going to be a difference between species, there's going to be a difference between how pressured the fish are, and we can kind of dive into each of these scenarios. But if someone just walked up and asked you how important is it to match the hatch versus pulling a random fly out of your box. What is your your spiel on that?
Jeff
You know if somebody walked up to me and said that, I would say, "Are we talking dries or nymphs?" That's the first two things I'm gonna ask. So for a dry, I'm gonna say size and silhouette. Don't worry about the color right now. Just go size silhouette. Try to get as close as you can to one of those two because with that, that's what the fish is gonna key in on. If you're not, if you're You're still not getting anything, then try to narrow down the color. The problem with trying to match it exactly is that it's almost impossible. You can get close, but you can't make it exact. So start with size, start with silhouette, and then move from there. That's on a dry. I guess that would work on a nymph as well. When I'm nymphing, I'm a big fan of your confidence fly. If you believe in it and you're drifting it in the right column and you're doing the right things with it, fish are not that picky. you know, a high-pressure water shirt. But in general, I've caught fish on my favorite fly, which is the Frenchie. And I have caught fish everywhere with that fly, even when they said that, you know, that there's just no way.
Katie
Do you think you can will yourself into confidence? And what I mean by that is, you know, I hear confidence fly. I think I'm going to walk up to the water with a different pep in my step. I'm going to try harder because I actually believe it's going to work. And all these things that lead to potentially hooking a fish. Can you do that without confidence in your fly? Can you mimic it? Or is there something that cannot be replicated by pulling that fly out of your box that just feels right to you? And maybe this is not a question that is answerable, but I'm just curious. Why do you think confidence flies work so well?
Jeff
For me, I believe that it's -- I've fished it so often. I know how it's going to act. I know where it's going to sit in the water. I know everything about this fly that I could possibly learn because I fish the same flies all the time with like in that situation. So when I'm coming in, you know, and if I have to use a fly I'm not familiar with, well, I mean, that's okay, but I don't know where it's sitting in the water column. I don't know how it's floating. I don't know what it looks like. And so I'm really big on that confidence. When you come up to the water and I'm like, okay, the fish are feeding on bottom. I know I need this much line it's gonna sink this fast, that's how I'm gonna set that up.
Katie
In terms of, I know you mentioned like size, profile, things like that for dry flies, is there something different about nymphs or do you think that it basically follows the same pattern?
Jeff
You know with nymphs I think you need to be careful depending if you're doing, you know, a tailwater versus a free stone in the amount of flash that you have on things. I think when you get into those tailwater situations, obviously smaller most of the time is better. On a free stone, you're getting rid of the flash, making it so that it's as natural as possible in the right size and you're just going to end up doing better.
Katie
And how about the, you know, if we're talking about pressure, because obviously pressured fish are going to be a lot harder to catch. On one hand, when I think of pressured fish, I think matching the hatch is really important, mostly because I'm comparing it to fish that are not fished for. And I feel like if I go up into the mountains and fish for unpressured trout, I can throw almost anything and catch one. But there's also the downfall of if you match it perfectly and you're matching it the same way everyone else is, then they get wise to that pattern that the fly shop is recommending to everybody. So what's your approach difference between fish that are not pressured? You're choosing a fly out of your box for some mountain trout that rarely sees an angler versus a trout that is in deckers, somewhere like that where they are seeing flies all day, every day. How would you approach those two things differently?
Jeff
So on pressured water, when I'm approaching it, I'm going to try to figure out what hatch it is whether you know if like Deckers you've got a bluing olive hatch or whatever and then I'm going to downsize My opinion of it is that weary fish will eat something smaller rather than larger in those high-pressured areas If I can get as close to the hatch color Silhouette size as I can and then whatever that is. I'm going to downsize at one on the reverse of that When I'm up in a mountain stream or a mountain lake I'm gonna try to do what's their main food source and Then I'm gonna go to the same size or a size larger because those fish are hungry They have a limited amount of time to eat. So you go up a size because they're looking at they're going after that protein
Katie
Maybe that answers my next question, which is like how do you differentiate? Your fly from you know when you go out and there's like a mega hatch going on and it's like well How are they gonna pick your flight you want to match it? But how are they gonna pick your fly out of the hundreds? they have to choose from. Is that, are you primarily using size to do that if you're hitting a really strong hatch just to separate yourself from the group?
Jeff
You know, a great hatch that represents that's like on the Green River when they're, you know, the big mayfly hatch that comes off every spring. There's millions and millions of them. I think when you do that, you need something that shows a little bit different. So I'm going to go to something maybe that's got a little more flash to it. Maybe it's got a little bit of set of legs on it that are a little better movement rather than you know a spinner that's it's done it's in the water the fish are they've been gorging on them when they're sitting on the bottom this tasty meals coming across it's a little bit different color maybe a little bigger that's what I'm gonna key in on those really heavy hatches
Katie
and what's your process let's say you go out and you you know you you have a plan based on what's hatching what you've experienced before etc the first fly you throw doesn't work. What's your next step? Are you tweaking the fly a little bit just size-wise or are you going to kind of pivot entirely and try something completely different? Are you going to change just the presentation but keep the same fly? What's your order of operations, let's say, if you had to iterate through three or four changes in response to not getting something on your first fly? What's the order of operations there to figure out what's going on?
Jeff
So the last thing I'm going to do is change my fly. And as people who fish with me know, I will put on, if I'm doing a double tandem setup, those two flies are most likely going to stay on all day long because…
Katie
Okay, even the same size?
Jeff
Same size. I'm just...
Katie
Okay.
Jeff
I'm going to try to match as close as I can in that size and silhouette, upsize, downsize, and then I'm going to stay with it. I'm going to start working different columns of the water. I'm going to start adjusting, making micro adjustments till I find where those fish are feeding.
Katie
Hypothetically, what if that doesn't work? What if you've tried every set of the water column and it is time to change your fly? What are you changing about it?
Jeff
So typically I would leave my point fly in place and I would change out the back fly if there's a big stonefly hatch. You know, just stoneflies. I'm going to change it to something that's just a little bit different. Rather, it's a little bit heavier with a different color on it. It's got different legs. It's got just one thing different, but still pretty close to what I believe is going to work. So, if I'm going from like a rubber legs, a patch rubber legs, maybe I'm going to change that over to like a Arizona nymph, an Arizona hares nymph. They're close, but they have different profiles and silhouettes, but they're still close.
Katie
I'm maybe just taking this to the extreme just because I'm curious. What would it take for you to throw that fly in the trash and try something new? Like how long and how many iterations do you have to go through? And I know that I'm just having fun kind of like playing with hypotheticals here, but you know at some point you could have picked the wrong fly. You know you could have picked a purple stone fly and that is just not what they want in any size or any shape. So at what point do you say, "Okay, it is time." Like is is there a a time limit or watching a fish watching enough fish reject this flyer? Is there any sort of threshold that you have to like hit before you rethink your game plan entirely?
Jeff
If I can see the fish if I'm not blind fishing to him and I can see him just constant Refusals no matter if it's hitting them in the head and we're not in a heavily pressured area where they're used to it Um, so we're just in a normal River in Wyoming somewhere If my friends or somebody that I see fishing is catching fish and I'm not That right there is gonna be a big indicator that I'm way off but other than that I'm gonna stick with it most of the time You know a lot of people believe in changing their flies a lot and it works for them for me I'm a big believer in confidence and it's more about where you put the flies and how you drift it or the dry How where you're casting it and getting that mend in? That's more my belief than changing flies continuously
Katie
Yeah, I think the other thing is that often when people are changing flies continuously They're they're not necessarily getting skunked the whole time Like I like changing flies sometimes just for the fun of seeing if something else will work But often I'm doing it because I've caught a couple fish on something and I'm you know I broke it off and I'm ready to try something else not necessarily because I'm trying to figure something out So there's different scenarios too. I guess that suit different people better If someone likes changing their flies all the time, it might not be because they're fishing for fish they can't catch. It might just be that it's fun to do and sometimes you can catch a fish on 20 different flies. Sometimes they're not being picky.
Jeff
Yeah. Absolutely, you can. And maybe for me, it's just a part of... I don't necessarily like changing flies. I don't mind. I mean, I change them out for people all the time. But I get kind of set in my ways a little bit, how we sort of do, and then I get stubborn about it.
Katie
I wanted to ask about flies that are too realistic. I don't know if you've ever seen these flies that people tie and they're like, "They're hyper-realistic flies." You could look at it and think that there's an actual insect with a hook stuck through it. And I've always heard that these hyper-realistic flies never do very well. And part of it, my hunch is that they're made from a material that is just not very... It doesn't have good movement or something. Have you experienced any of these hyper-realistic flies as someone who's kind of in the fly tying and designing world? And do you have any idea why those hyper-realistic flies are known for being really good for photos and not for catching fish compared to a piece of hair tied on a hook?
Jeff
It's true, the really, really hyper-realistic ones, I think a lot of the times when you see them, most of the time you're talking about a nymph pattern or even sometimes a they've made it look exactly like a brown trout. You know, number one, you can never mimic something that close. I don't care how hard you try. A natural bug is going to have variations to it. I have tried some extremely, like, realistic flies, and I feel like there's so many... A guy I know, a friend of mine, tied some, and there's so much shine to them because the legs and the things like that that they're putting on, the UV and all of that stuff. I don't know. It just doesn't move and look like a real bug in the water. That's my experience. I'm sure others are like, "No, no. It's the best in the world." But there's just so much fake into it that makes it look real. Does that make sense?
Katie
Yeah. It's weird because I totally agree with you. I feel like that's got to be the case. But then you also have to think, okay, if it is so overdone that it looks fake, I would also argue that an elk hair caddis looks fake. Like it doesn't look like a caddis when you look at it. So it's like they both don't look real, but one doesn't look real in a way that fish don't want to eat. And the other doesn't look real in a way that they do. And the only thing I can think of is there's movement and something separating it from the surrounding bugs. But I've always just kind of wondered, you know, where does that line, where's that line crust where a fly looks so good that a fish is like, "No, that is not a real thing." Maybe the bugs they see in the water are missing legs and things. Bugs get kind of torn up and stuff in the water. But yeah, I just wanted to hear the opinion of somebody who's probably more into that world than I am.
Jeff
I mean, if you look at a blue-winged olive, just the mayfly, the dun stage, it's got its beautiful wings, it's in full color, right? If you caught 10 of them from the same hatch, All of them are going to have variations in their wings, in the veins, in their tail. Everything is a little different. What are you mimicking? I understand no one's tying a perfectly silhouetted mayfly done to fish because I don't know that it would float. Sometimes, the two reel, they're a little off.
Katie
This is kind of off topic, but I just thought of it when we're talking about little tweaks you can make with your setup. Are you a believer in an indicator's size or color dramatically affecting success in hooking fish?
Jeff
You know, I am. I've been proven wrong a thousand times. I'm a big fan of white or cork, one of those two colors. I believe it helps, but I've fished with so many people that use a bright pink one so they can see it, and they did just as well as I did, if not better. So I think it's more just me.
Katie
No, I'm totally on your side here actually. And I guess maybe my approach is the, science can't prove anything, it can only disprove things. And I feel like people using pink indicators just because they catch fish doesn't mean that that's not affecting them. It might just be that those fish don't care, but I've had instances where the only thing that has changed is the color of the indicator and suddenly things change. And that's kind of my version of, It only takes one instance to disprove something, but you need to prove something for eternity to actually show that it exists. So yeah, I was just curious, because I like asking people this question, and I get really mixed responses on whether people think that the indicator matters. But I've thrown all -- I keep one pink one in my pack in case I fish some really turbid and turbulent water that I'm just sure the fish can't even see what's on the surface. But I've switched almost exclusively to white and clear, because I'm superstitious about it at this point.
Jeff
Yeah, I mean, I have this very old, it's got the rubber top on it and it's beat up and it's dirty and it's cork and I love it. And I went swimming to get it when I've snagged up and it went under. I've had it for so many years and I just, it's my confidence indicator.
Katie
I'd never heard of that before, but I like it. The spin-off of the confidence fly. At this point, is it just good luck for you? you need that specific indicator because it's survived so long.
Jeff
Yeah, I mean it's like one of those things it's like your favorite pair of shoes or jeans or something. It's just it's my old friend.
Katie
The last thing I kind of want to touch on in terms of bugs and fly design is I know we're not going to go super deep into entomology here because we could spend you know an entire series on this. So maybe just hit on kind of the big groups of bugs that you mostly use. And I guess we're going to talk more about trout here because it's a whole separate set of flies to be fishing for things like bass. But in the world of trout flies, just talk about some of the major groups of bugs that we're imitating and maybe a couple of the flies that would be your go-to choices for each of the main categories. Like if you could choose only two or three flies for each of the... I'm thinking like stoneflies, mayflies, caddises, midges, things like that. What would be your go-to patterns for each of those things if you could only have a couple for each in your box?
Jeff
Okay. Let's start with caddis, which is one of my favorite hatches. On a caddis dry, I'm going to go with a pewterbaw caddis or a crowd surfer caddis. They're both great high riding. They've got a little bit of foam in them. They do wonderful. Moving into a nymph on a caddis, I have to go to the buckskin. The buckskin caddis is just one of the best flies. there we go into mayfly and you know I'm gonna go with on a dry the Adams dry is tough to beat you know it's just with that gray on it it gets a little wet it gets darker it's just a classic fly that has it's been around for so long that it's tough to say that it's a bad fly because it always catches fish going into the nymphs you know I'm gonna go to the Frenchy of course because it's a great all around pattern. And then I'm probably going to go to like a Juju Betis, Craven's pattern on that. It's just such a wonderful pattern. When I'm going into stoneflies, depending on which stonefly hatch it is, for the salmon fly hatch, I'm going to go with like a dry kamikaze dry, and then a golden stone, D ribbed stone, and then patch rubber legs would be the three that I use that I really - the D-ribbed stone is just a phenomenal pattern. It does so well, like for golden stone and all the way around.
Katie
How about non - these main category flies? If you had to choose two or three flies that don't fit into the big categories, maybe terrestrials or scuds or things like that, do you have a couple patterns that are kind of your go-to others that you find yourself using?
Jeff
You know, the others like a bread crust caddis, that's a really good pattern. Going into terrestrials, it's always hard to beat a Chubby Chernobyl. Different sizes, different colors, it mimics so much. I'm trying to think some of the other patterns that I use because I use more than just those.
Katie
Oh, yeah, of course, of course.
Jeff
It's one of those things that when you're doing that, you're going into spawn the eggs, patterns I'm going to use or anything like that. It's just, there's such variations in stuff. I'm going to have my confidence flies and then I have all the other flies that we all have, that we buy, that we love, that I use on the very rare occasions, but I still have fly boxes full of them.
Katie
You mentioned that an Adams is hard to hate. Do you find that you hear hate on the Adams Or were you just saying that you know, it's really good. Like I'm just curious if you hear people saying Like degrading things about the Adams. No Never
Jeff
heard of bad. I mean you hear bad things about some of the synthetic flies or maybe some other pattern But never like the Adams the Cahill the Catskill the Hendrickson which all are very similar different color Variations and hackle but still really just traditional good flies Yeah,
Katie
the Adams is the first fly I tie on almost every time I go out and I think at this point It's almost like a ritual for me. Like I don't care if that's not what's gonna work I will still start with one because it feels like that is the the Opening ceremony to fishing that day is to tie on an Adams if it's not working I can change it out later But that's kind of my go-to and I often don't have to change it at all for the rest of the day It usually gets the job done at least where I'm fishing which is usually mountain lakes and streams. They're not too big
Jeff
So you could almost call that your confidence fly.
Katie
I could, yes. Although I don't really feel like it's my confidence fly. It's just a fly I like a lot. Like I guess I don't feel like I have a confidence dry fly. I feel like all of my confidence flies are in nymphs. And I don't know why I would say that and how I would differentiate in Adams. I feel like for nymphs, my confidence flies are hares ears and maybe pheasant tails. But I would say hares ear is my top confidence fly or when I put it on, I just get the sense that I'm gonna catch something on it. And I feel like that's kind of, for me, what a confidence fly means, is when you put it on, suddenly you have like optimism. And I don't even think I have optimism for the Adams in the same way, because I don't put it on when other things aren't working. I put it on just as, I don't even think about it. It just goes on. And for me, the confidence fly, I think, means when things aren't going well, I pull that out of my box and I think, "Here we go, this is gonna fix my problem." And I feel that more in the hairs here nymphs than I do in the Adams.
Jeff
Yeah I mean the hairs ear, the guides choice hairs ear, the traditional hairs ear, the variations, the Arizona hair, they're just such amazing flies that can mimic so many things. Everyone should have hairs ear in their box. Everyone.
Katie
Are you, that I guess brings up another question, are you the type of person who really wants to specifically match the bug or do you lean more toward flies that could be one of a couple things? I would call a hares ear that. A hares ear could be lots of stuff. Half the time a fish takes it, I don't even know what they thought it was. I just know that it works. But then other people really get into the weeds of lifting up rocks, trying to match the size and color and shape exactly, and really be that insect. Do you fall into one camp or the other?
Jeff
I think I'm more of the stance of, "I want to get something that's a little bit of an It's close, but I'm not the guy that matches it exact. Rarely do I have that exact size, that exact color and shape, but I have something close. So I always lean that way. And on occasion, I've been known to turn over a rock or two.
Katie
Okay. How important... I think most people would say this is important. Whether you actually go through the process and do it is a different question. I know you just said you do flip over rocks sometimes, but tell me just your thoughts on the importance of observation in choosing a bug. When you get to the water, how much time are you spending observing things around you? What kinds of things do you observe beyond just picking up a rock to figure out what you're going to throw that day? When
Jeff
I walk up, the first thing I'm doing is I'm looking for those seams. I'm looking for the eddies. I'm looking for where fish are going to be holding and feeding. I'm just going to sort of check out and figure out what's going on with the water. If there's a big hatch, I'm going to try to catch one of those bugs and see what it is because I mean, you can tell the difference relatively easy between a mayfly and a caddis hatch, but on mayflies, you're looking at so many species. And once I figure out what's close, I'm not an entomologist. I don't know if there's three gills or four on one side or if it has, I don't know. But I know enough that I'm going to get... That's where I'm going to go. Typically if I see there's a hatch and they're feeding on top, I'm going right to top or I'm going to an emerger. But if you see those little divots in the water, it looks like hail or raindrops, you know they're feeding on emergers. So I'm going to work a dry dropper setup, something like that. And then I'm going to... I'll take five, eight minutes to watch what's going on.
Katie
And do you change the color of your flies at all based on weather conditions? I don't feel like I hear about this as much in the trout world, but since you fish for bass and are probably fishing larger things sometimes, like baitfish patterns and other streamers, do you put stock into whether there's clouds or full sun or anything like that when you're choosing a color?
Jeff
No, not really. I know that there's a school that does, that there's a group of people that really believe that and that works for them. To me, again, it's where am I working the column and what am I trying to achieve with that?
Katie
Okay. Yeah, it does make me wonder because the baitfish themselves are not changing color with the sun, you know? But it might be a difference between the material you're using and the actual fish. So if you've got a little minnow or shiner or something like that, that doesn't itself change color. So you could argue that as long as you match the color of that fish, then it shouldn't matter. It will respond the same way. But with the materials, that shiner is not made of the same material as your fly. So maybe they do respond differently to changes in the weather. I've heard a lot of people that do put real stock into it. I never have, but I also don't fish a lot of streamers. So again, I just kind of wanted to hear from somebody who fishes more streamers than I do if that really matters.
Jeff
Yeah. I mean, I am no streamer expert by any means. I have the streamers that I like, that I use a lot of, you know, when you're looking at... And I guess the reason I don't take stock in that is, I have caught so many fish on a white clouser in every condition you can ever imagine, and it made no difference. And it was just a white clouser with a silver dumbbell head, and it did wonders.
Katie
When you say that you have caught so many fish on this fly and nothing's changed, are you someone who keeps a record? Are you a data guy? Because I'm sure there's people out there who have spreadsheets and stuff. And for me, it's more of a gut feeling. Like, "I don't know. This tends to work, so I'll use it." Are you a tends to work kind of guy? Or do you actually keep track of...
Jeff
I'm a go by the gut kind of guy.
Katie
Okay.
Jeff
I don’t keep detailed records on the fish I catch. I don't have pictures of every fish I catch. It's more of just like, "I think this is going to work because I've done this before." Or if I'm fishing somewhere I never have before, then I look at some other resources and things like that.
Katie
Yeah in the same way I show these people out there who document every fish and the fly they caught him on and What the weather was doing and all these different a the moon phase and all this stuff And I'm happy for them, and I'm sure they catch more fish than I do But I would rather catch fewer fish I think and not have to do that
Jeff
I would rather just go sit on the side of the river and enjoy the day Then worry about all that data But I am very thankful for the people that do it because a lot of them because those data people don't know publish it or they'll put it out and then I can read it and then I learned something. So thank you to everyone who sits and writes all those things down.
Katie
Well, transitioning a little bit into your app and I guess the first thing I wanted to ask, which is kind of just a transition to it because this is something that I know the app will do and I know a lot of people care about it. I personally don't, but I find that it bites me in the butt sometimes. Knowing a fly's name versus what it looks like and what it's supposed to mimic. I am absolutely terrible with fly names. I know the basics. And if one is really, really good, I will learn its name because I'm like, "I would like to find that again at the fly shop and buy it." But I'm very much of the, "If this thing looks buggy and it's the right shape and size and color," most of the flat-side fish I do not know the names of. But I want to know, are you someone who really gets into the names because your app will obviously spit out a name of a fly? And I just kind of want to hear your thoughts on that.
Jeff
So I think yes, I love the names of flies. Obviously, I'm one of the co founders of an app that, you know, tells you what fly it is more than anything. It's more to the classification of the app of the flies and when to use them, not because it's going to the Apple, it won't tell you how to fish it necessarily, it'll give you tips. And there's things in it to do it. But, you know, when you when you're looking for a certain hatch, or something, and you just don't know what to use, because you're not catching fish or you've never been to this river and they're telling you that there's this giant mayfly hatch that's a hexagena hatch. I've never fished that hatch. But when you go into fly shops, my experience in fly shops has always been very good. And I understand there are people that don't have that experience. It's a joke that I tell that fly shop owners don't necessarily care for is that 80% of the flies in a fly shop are there to catch one thing and that's the angler, the other 20% catch fish. And so when you start narrowing it down to the things that you wanna do and catch, that's where the app really comes in. If somebody has a fly, you don't know what it is, you don't know what the name is, you take a picture of it, there's a good chance we have it in there. We do not have everything in there because there are thousands of flies of every variation and everyone names something different. So, you know, staying with, you know, like the hex hatch or the Drake Mackerel or any other mayfly hatch, which there are 26 major mayfly hatches, I think, 26, 27. You can't feasibly ever try to remember each one. And so if you're gonna fish that, or you just need something else. Now, everything we just talked about says that I don't use different things. I'm very stubborn and I like certain things, but I find myself going to the app to be like, okay, you know, on a blueing olive hatch, what else should I use? Because I'm not doing great today and it's like the last hour of the day. And when you go into it, you go to blueing olive, it'll give you three flies. Every species of everything will always give you three flies. Those three flies are the top three flies for that hatch based on massive amounts of research, talking to guides, fly shop owners, articles that go back to the 50s. And so if you don't have that, You can click on it and then we call it chasing the rabbit where you just keep finding a fly that sort of every fly corresponds to the other one and you can chase it for like an hour eventually to something that you have in your box. And then you can use that in your success just went up however much that day, I hope.
Katie
Yeah. So talk about the creation of the app and kind of how it works. Because that was one feature you just listed, but there's also like the take a picture and it'll tell you what fly it is or at least get close. I did some and I'm not trying to throw shade on the app or anything, but you know, I had to take pictures of flies and they didn't always get it right on. But I just said that I'm somebody who does not care about the name of an exact fly for the most part. And it would get close, you know, it's AI technology, so it's not gonna be perfect. But if it gives me a fly that's the same, you know, rough size and shape and color, that's probably going to be mimicking the same type of insect. And at that point, it doesn't really matter. Because what I want to know is, what am I trying to mimic here? So just tell me about the creation of the app, the photo taking, how the AI is working, and all that in-depth stuff about it.
Jeff
Sure. So the app was created, I came up with it years ago because truthfully I had asked somebody what fly they had and they told me no uncertain terms to sort of pound sand. And I'm one of the people that when I'm on the river, I'm talking to everybody, I'm happy, And if I'm catching fish and I see somebody not catching them, I'll be like, Hey, I'm catching them on this here. You can take where I'm standing because I've just caught two or three. Because I say this when I talk to anybody about the app or fishing, we have to remember it's just fishing. Yes, people make a lot of their lives on and stuff, but the rest of us, they just go fishing. Like I fish mainly for fun. It's my hobby. It's just fishing. So as I started creating this app, and there's two other co-founders, Phil Lux and Bud Johnson, who just so we always joke, we are not related. We started building this, started doing proof of concept and stuff. And with all the new technology that's out there and the stuff like that, we started learning a lot. And Phil Lux, who does an amazing amount of work in the AI section for us, it just keeps getting better. we're continuously upgrading and making it so that those errors aren't there. One of the new features is that when you take a picture, if it doesn't get it exactly right, if you look below it, it's gonna give you another option because so many flies look so similar that AI, the more we train, the more users we have that submit photos to us. So when you take a picture, we get a copy of that picture. And if it's wrong, we classify it correctly. And that way it's learning, it's always learning. From there, as we're learning about that, we built one of the largest databases that's just for phishing. You'll notice on there, there's no pop-ups. You can't buy anything in my app, as such as I'm not trying to sell you that fly. There are ways you can buy the flies through the app, but it's about phishing and that's it.
Katie
I don't know if, maybe I missed it. Did you say the name of the app?
Jeff
Oh, I did. (laughs) like identify but identifly and You know, it's it's one of those things we have apps that identify everything from coins to plants my wife she has my wife loves rocks and so, you know, she has a rock app and What I found a where I'm really using this a lot is all I don't know the name of every fly I know a name of a lot of them because I do this every day, but I'll take a picture of it I'll save it to the digital fly box and then I have it I didn't write it down on a scrap piece of paper and forget it Because even as much as I I tie flies and all of that You know, I still buy a lot of flies And so when I go to a fly shop or something like that, I have it right there I don't know that it saves me money, but it certainly helps me not forget
Katie
and what does the app? Give you you know when you take a picture of a fly and it spits out a result whether it's correct or not What I did find is that it was generally close. It would show me a fly that was very similar to what I put in if it didn't get it right on. What kind of information does it pull up? Because I think that's where the actual use is. Even if it didn't get the fly right, if I'm taking a picture of a fly, I want to know what bug it is meant to be, when that bug is going to hatch, things like that. What other supplemental information pops up when it spits out a fly for you?
Jeff
With fly patterns, it's going to tell you who created it. It's going to give you a little info about it. It's depending on what fly it is, it's going to be categorized as a dry and an amphiderm emerger. So at least you know how to use it. And then on most of them, it'll tell you what hook size to use. On the ones where we've gotten tips, not tips that were on the internet or that I created, but tips from people that fish these flies a lot, you'll see pro tips in there. And those pro tips are actually really, really good tips that really help you. They've helped me in the last year, they truly have.
Katie
What would be an example of a tip that might be listed? Like, is it like how to fish it or what kinds of tips?
Jeff
Sometimes it's how to fish it, you know, if you're gonna swing it, you know, twitch your tip of your rod. The one that comes to mind for me is when you're fishing like a tailwater midge hatch or just a midge hatch, in tandem, one of your fly's black, the other one white. I don't remember who had given me that tip, but I cannot believe how many fish were caught on that white little nymph.
Katie
Interesting. I really like that because it kind of goes beyond just the fly fishing and kind of more of a strategy of how to incorporate it with other things. That's kind of a neat spinoff.
Jeff
Yeah. And so, as we talk to people and I talk to guides and I talk to people and I sort of like you, I just say, "What's a good tip? What's your favorite fly? What's this tip that you would tell somebody to use it?" Then we put it into the app when we can. It's growing every day. There's tips being put in every single day. To me, it's like a child that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. It's very interesting.
Katie
I wasn't clear earlier when you said that it gets corrected. Is it getting corrected your end or if I take a picture of a fly and maybe gets it close but not right on, am I able to say, "No, this was a fill in the blank" to help it learn or is that not something that I can do on my end?
Jeff
Yeah, you can. So if you take a picture and let's say it says it does not come up, which happens, you can take that same picture and you just go to submit a fly. It's just in the tabs, submit the fly to us. That comes directly to me and then I'm going to find out what that fly is. I'll email you back and tell you this is what it was. And then I'm going to put that into the AI so that the deep learning portion of it starts to understand what that is to associate it with something.
Katie
Okay. So that's something that would have to be sent in to you. It's not like, you know, if I took a picture of an Adams, which I knew was an Adams, I couldn't just say, "Hey, here's a picture of an Adams. Here's this picture. This got it wrong. Correct to Adams." Like I have to go through you on the back end. I don't have a button there that I can hit.
Jeff
No, because it's got to go into the training section and make sure it's classified right. So let's talk about the Adams real quick. So you took a picture of an Adams. Is that right?
Katie
Oh, no. I'm just saying hypothetically. Because I did take pictures of flies that I knew. I took a picture of, I think, a Brassie and it came back a Copper John. So I see where it was going with that because they're both wrapped in copper wire, but not quite right. So I was just wondering if I had a button there that I could say, "No, this was actually a Brassie." I guess the thing is that most people submitting pictures probably would not actually know what the fly is or they wouldn't be doing it. I was just doing it for fun, like testing flies that I had in front of me that I actually knew the names of. So maybe it wouldn't be as useful for someone to correct it because if they already know the name of it, why would they be taking pictures of it in the app? But I was just curious.
Jeff
No, no. So one thing that I found that we all found as we built this out is it's funny because you and I have discussed the Adams a lot. The Adams, the traditional Adams has a gray body, period. An Adams has a gray body. So you take a picture of it that's got a yellow body and for 40 years, you have called this an Adams. It comes back and it says, "Cahill." You instantly are going to tell me that I'm wrong. That's okay, but it's not. I see what you're getting at. Yeah. It's a Cahill. So the variations of what human error is, is that we call it this. I've called certain flies. I called, I can't even tell you what it was called. I called it an Amy's Ant. I have called it that my whole life. And it wasn't an Amy's Ant. Matter of fact, I don't even know what fly it was because I don't have them anymore. But people tell you what an Amy's Ant is, I'm like, "Yeah." And in my mind, it went to some completely different pattern. And we all do that. But the app, as far as for beginners, it's wonderful because it will get you on fish. Going into the intermediate and expert, the people that are in that level and moving up, we just want... I understand you don't need the app all the time, but if you're going to go fish somewhere else and you don't know what to use, that's where it's at.
Katie
The part that I didn't realize it could do, which sounds more appealing to me because I don't care about the name of the fly necessarily is if I pick a hatch, having it tell me which flies would be a good match for that hatch. If I can't get my hands on one of the bugs flying around, it's like, I don't know, I see mayflies. What mayflies are hatching around me right now and what could I use to mimic that? That sounds like a really useful thing for me as someone who doesn't care about the name and all the stats around it, I guess. I'm sure that really appeals to some people, but I really like the, just give me flies that mimic this bug that I'm seeing in front of me.
Jeff
Yeah. And so within the app, you just hit search, and the first thing that comes up is a breakdown of all the different insects, from annelids to streamers, wet flies, everything. And you can just hit mayfly, and it's going to show you 152 right now, 152 separate patterns, and it's going to give you 27 species of mayflies. And you can just either look at all the patterns, you can go through all the species, you know, and just figure out what you want to fish with.
Katie
Is there anything hooked up for telling you what is hatching in your area at this time? Can it use your location and time of year to say, "What's hatching near you is probably this, so you should, before you leave, stock your box with these flies?"
Jeff
We are working on that. It's so hard because to us, we think of like, "Oh, just Colorado." We're in the United States and Canada, and every river has a different hatch. working on that portion. The one thing that we do do with GPS on that is if you on the home screen if you go down and it says hot flies in your area. So if anybody on the rivers within 10 miles of you and they scan a fly you will see what fly that is. It doesn't tell you where they're at or anything like that. We're just trying to share more info amongst everyone. The final thing I was going to say about the app, the Identify app is We talked about this earlier with flies and I said that I didn't have I I've designed five different types of flies and It's impossible to get them in with the big fly companies. I've tried Not that they didn't want them or anything, but lots of people do that So here's what we've done is on the on the in the app You always see a pattern of the month and you always see a featured fly tire So we talked to fly tires that sell on Etsy or they have their own website. We're gonna feature their flies We're gonna give you a link to their website You can buy them directly from them and we don't make we don't want anything for it The goal here is not to make money off other people that tie flies because they're doing out of passion They're doing it because they love it We're just trying to give promote them and let them do that and that's like my favorite part that I worked very hard to do that and it's If you're a fly tire out there and you've got Etsy website Facebook "I don't care and you want us to feature your flies? Just send me an email. Let's talk. Let's get your flies in the app." Even if there's a great one in there called the Pittsburgh Prince Nymph by PGH Flies. He's out of Pittsburgh. It's a green Prince Nymph, but he tied it and he named it and it's his. And he sells a lot of other flies, but he was featured for January. And now we have another one and we'll just keep doing that. So, sorry. It's truly like one of my favorite things.
Katie
That's really cool. I'm all for featuring people who just have a love for it and want to be creative and maybe make a couple extra dollars or maybe just share the fly with the world so they can see what else is out there. That's a perfect segue. Where can people find you and reach out to you? Either for that or for anything else if they want to find you on the web.
Jeff
Sure. On the web, we're identafly.app. Facebook and Instagram are both at identafly. And then the app you can find on Google and Android, I'm not Google, excuse me, Android and Apple. It's I-D-E-N-T-A-F-L-Y.
Katie
And does it cost money?
Jeff
It does. So there's two options. There's three options. There's the free option, which you get limited access, but you can check it out. There's the monthly, which is $5.99 if you just want to try it for a month, or it's $29.99 per year. And we felt that was a reasonable amount. It's the cost of 10 to 15 flies, and it hopefully will save you money so you're not buying things you don't need.
Katie
Perfect. Well, Jeff, thank you for coming on and sharing this. I'm going to keep checking the app out and see how it improves over time because I'm guessing that AI only gets better the more that people submit and the more it learns. So I'm excited to see how it progresses over the years. And thanks for coming on and talking about bugs.
Jeff
Oh, Katie, thanks for having me. I had a wonderful time. Thank you so much.
Katie
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 the contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram @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.
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