Ep 55: Trout Fishing for Stripers, with Steve Culton
Steve Culton is a writer, guide, and fly fishing instructor with a passion for stripers. He has taken a somewhat out-of-the box approach to catching them, employing techniques typically reserved for trout. In this episode, he walks me through his approach of “trout fishing for stripers,” including reading the situation before taking the first cast, using currents to drift small flies, making use of floating lines, and working the shoreline for cruising fish.
Instagram: @stevecultonflyfishing
Website: currentseams.com
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 55 with Steve Culton on trout fishing for stripers. yeah so just to start off I just love to hear how you got your start in the outdoors and fishing in particular
Steve
from a very young age I i think I have a in a bio somewhere that I wrote my first essay about fishing, about a fishing trip that I took with my dad when I was six years old. So I remember fishing from a very early age with a bobber and worms for bluegills. We had these, we call them the clay pits. They were former brickyard ponds that they mined clay for bricks. And eventually they hit spring and they all filled water. But I remember many evenings as a child going down to the clay pits with my dad fishing for bluegills and sunfish. And then later, bass and carp in these ponds.
Katie
Now, I assume they stock these?
Steve
No, no, it's all nature. Nature finds a way. They talk about birds and amphibians transporting fish eggs. You know, all you need is a boy and a girl and, you know, Yahtzee, life goes on. But I also trout fished with my dad and I remember him. I have very vivid memories of back when there were opening days. You know, Connecticut, there's essentially no closed season now if you just want to catch and release. But back in the day, you couldn't trout fish before third Saturday in April, 6 a.m. And I have very vivid memories. I remember everything from when I was a kid of, you know, I'm talking kindergarten, first grade. I remember my dad getting up really early on that Saturday morning and coming home and just kind of counting the days, weeks, months and years till I could join him. So I've been I've been trout fishing. I believe the first year I went was 1971, which would have made me 10 years old. So I've been trout fishing for a very long time. Fly fishing, not as long, but I was a pretty good trout fisherman with a worm and an eagle claw, snell hook from a very young age.
Katie
Yeah, it's interesting that the cultural differences between the states that have, like you said, the open season all year versus the closed season, because I grew up also with an opening Trout Day. And it was just such a different experience, having everyone get excited that night before and lining up shoulder to shoulder that morning at trout camps. And that just doesn't exist out here.
Steve
We finally got tired of it. We finally at one point, I was the agent of change. I finally said to my dad, you know, another thing that I'm proud to say is that I have been catching and releasing since the 70s, which I made very consciously as an environmental decision and also as a, if you will, a pacifist decision. I got, you know, we would bring our stringers. We always kept our fish and we ate all our trout. It's not like they went to waste, But I remember it was, it would have been the mid seventies. So I'm a teenager and I remember it was on Blackledge river, which is a small and medium sized stream in, in Eastern Connecticut. And I caught this really nice Brown trot. I remember it was behind a rock. I can picture the day it was sunny out. Like I said, I've got this, this crazy stupid memory. And I got the fish and I got my stringer out and I put the fish on the stringer and I put it back into the stream. And I very, I remember this like it was yesterday saying, nope, I'm not killing any more fish. I'm putting this fish back. Cause I, I got, basically I got tired of watching fish slowly strangle on a, on a stringer. And, you know, I could have whacked him in the head with, with pliers. I could have broken their necks, but I just, I got tired of killing fish. But more than that, because Connecticut was so largely put and take at the time for trout, I thought, if I let this fish go, I can come back tomorrow and catch them. And that's how that started. So I have not kept a fish in many, many, many, many years. And, you know, mind you, I have nothing against anyone who wants to legally creel their catch and eat it. God bless you. And I, you know, as a matter of fact, we're having swordfish tonight in the Colton household. Someone else, I, I, my hypocrisy extends only as far as my conscience allows. So I'm perfectly happy to have someone else kill the swordfish and I'm going to grill and I'm going to enjoy that piece of meat. But, you know, we had long since stopped creeling fish. And I finally said to my dad, dad, why are we getting up at four in the morning when we're not even keeping these things? We can go the day before and be relatively alone, avoid the zoo, catch fish and let them go. So we did that for many years, for a few decades.
Katie
And at what age did you say you started picking up a fly rod?
Steve
Oh, I was, boy, that's a good question. Was I in my 30s?
Katie
Oh, OK. So much, much later.
Steve
Much later. Now, I was in my early 40s when I started fly fishing. But you see, it's not an apples to apples comparison because I picked up trout fishing and in particular nymphing really quickly because I'd been fishing for trout for years and on all of these same rivers. So I already knew where the fish were. I already, just from, even though I wasn't paying attention to hatches, I already knew about hatches and hatch activity. and I already knew how to read water and I already knew how to bounce a worm along the bottom. So when it, you know, I, I, I remember reading, I'm a voracious reader and I'm an autodidact. So, you know, I'm self-taught in just about everything that I do. I remember reading a ton about fly fishing and, uh, reading a lot of people being mystified and confused and having trouble with nymphing. And I just thought, what's so hard about that? You bounce the fly along the bottom, the fish eats it, you hook it. It's like fishing with a worm. And I understand it now. I understand why some people, why it presents a challenge. But for me, it was a very seamless transition. And I've often thought that if I was ever going to teach a weekend class in nymphing, I might start that class by giving everyone a spinning rod and a worm and a split shot. And bounce those things along the bottom. And, you know, cause that's, that's basically tight line, dead drift nymphing.
Katie
So. I do think that's something that's often overlooked when, um, you're trying to get somebody into fly fishing for the first time. Cause it's obviously extremely overwhelming with all the new gear and the terminology and all that. But I think it would go a long way to helping people when they first got started to let them know, you already know the hard part. If you, if you fish, you know, if you spin fish or bait cast or whatever, you already know the hard part of being able to see where a fish might be, understand behavior, when they feed, what they're eating, all you have to do is translate that over to a new technique, which you can learn in a couple days. You won't be great at it, but you'll at least have the basics down and you're 90% of the way there at that point.
Steve
Yeah, hard to argue with that. Again, if you know where the fish are and how to read water and what their behavior pattern is I mean that's you know that's that's 90 of the battle I like to say so you talked about about fly fishing being overwhelming and it can be and I think people want to really complicate things to not intentionally no one says consciously I want to make this as hard as possible but people start to focus on things that are either unimportant or irrelevant and it gets very confusing and I like to to me fly fishing is if you want to distill it down to four things or very simple thing it's What are the fish eating? What do I have in my fly box that most closely resembles that food in size, color, and profile? How are the fish eating that food? And then finally, how can I present my fly in the same manner that the naturals are behaving to get the trout to eat them? It's ridiculously simple. And if you think about it that way. And I mean, you know, I get going back to nymphing. I got a lot of people who come to me who say I suck at nymphing and I need help. And very often those people will say, you know, I get to the river and I don't catch anything. And so I change my flies. And I always tell them that's that's the last thing you should do is change your flies. And I tell them the story. There was there was one 45 day stretch on the Farmington River. This had to be 10 years ago. 45-day stretch on the Farmington River where I fished the same two. I was on a nymphing kick. It was late August into mid-September. And all I wanted to do, I get into these habits when I'm fishing. All I wanted to do for that month and a half for whatever reason was nymph. And I used the same two flies for those 45 days. Not the same pattern, the same two flies. I had a tiny size 18 soft tackle beadhead pheasant tail as my top dropper. And I had a beadhead squirrel and ginger, which is a caddis pattern of mine as the point fly. So I had a caddis bug and I had a kind of dark generic bug. And I caught fish on both flies every time I was out in those 45 days because I, you know, I had my bases covered. And so it's not, you know, you know, if someone said to me, you can only fish pheasant tails for the rest of your life as a nymph, I would say, okay.
Katie
Yeah, you wouldn't be too worried.
Steve
Okay. Because a pheasant tail looks, okay, maybe it doesn't cover a green caddis that well. But I mean, you know.
Katie
Yeah, I was just talking to somebody else about this, about how, especially for nymphs, it seems like the fish are generally not very picky about what it is that's there. And it's more picky about your actual presentation, how deep it is, how much weight you have on, things like that. And with dry flies, I've noticed a little bit more pickiness. Like I've had fish come up and reject dry flies. I switched the pattern over to something really similar and then they'll take it. But for nymphs especially, I feel like it's not that hard to find something that something's willing to eat.
Steve
Yeah, you know, another thing that kind of blew me away when I was doing all this research way back when, and you still run across this, people seem to think that nymphing is more difficult than dry fly fishing. And I couldn't, I'm not right, but I couldn't disagree more. I mean, you know, anyone who says that dry fly fishing is easier than nymphing has never dry fly fished on a technical tailwater, like, say, the Farmington River. I mean, if you have a Hendrickson emergence and the fish are acting like drunk teenagers at a party, they're being very reckless. They'll do anything. They behave very, very stupidly. Okay. But I mean, you get into some of these trico hatches where you're talking about long presentations and technical men's. It's like, oh, yeah. The other thing with nipping, you're fishing subsurface. So you never see what's going on down there. You don't know how many times a fish looks at your fly and it says, yeah, I don't want that. You get to see that with a dry fly sometimes.
Katie
Yeah, you get to see a lot of rejections and you wonder how much that happens underwater.
Steve
Yeah.
Katie
So what took you to stripers then? I assume, you know, it sounds like you were already living in the area. But did you start fishing for stripers before you picked up fly fishing or was that afterward?
Steve
Boy, that's a, you know, you're asking me these questions and I feel like you're asking me what time it is and I'm telling you how to build a watch. So you have to bear with my long answers.
Katie
No, no problem at all.
Steve
So, well, first let me say that Connecticut is a fantastic place to live if you're an angler. Because you've got the Farmington River, which is a world-class blue ribbon trout fishery. Very well managed by the state. Little shout out to the Connecticut DEEP for their management of the Farmington River. Fantastic resource. Very lucky. You've got that. You've got wild trout streams. Small native char are another passion of mine. You've got, I love smallmouth fishing. Plenty of places to do that in Connecticut. and we're also on Long Island Sound. So that's another fantastic resource. We're very close to Rhode Island, which has more of an open beach setup and also easy driving distance to Cape Cod. So Connecticut's a fantastic place to live. So I decided I wanted to catch stripers because I saw pictures of big bass and I read about them. I'd also been going to Block Island, which is an island off the coast of Rhode Island. I've been going to Block since the 70s. and saw these fantastic pictures in restaurants of guys with big striped bass. And I thought, I want to catch one of those. So it took me three years to catch my first striper. And again, I mentioned I'm an autodidact. So I do everything. I learn everything myself. I do my own research. Well, in this case, it kind of screwed me up and made it far more of a process. So I went out to Block one summer with – I had no idea what I was doing. I went out to Block Island with a bunch of sluggos, which is a big, big soft bait. And I caught nothing. I had no idea what I was doing. Caught nothing. Went back. That's not entirely true. I caught a couple of bluefish, but they also sawed – bluefish have very sharp teeth, And they just cut these soft baits in half. I went back the next year with a very cleverly rigged sluggo that had two hooks attached by a wire within it. And, you know, I probably should have been using plugs at this point, but really didn't know any better. And I also caught nothing. But I ran into this guy on the beach who was fly fishing. And I said to him, no, I just started fly fishing for trout, I told him. And I really, I want to catch a striper. And what you're doing really interests me. Can I see what you're using? And I should mention right now, too, it's one of these little sidebars I go off on. So even now as a fly angler, I just got back from Block Island. Whenever I see a spin angler walking along the beach, I'm an introvert by nature. So I, you know, I tend to want to keep to myself, I almost always call out to someone walking along the beach with a spinning rod. How'd you do? What are you using? What size is it? What color? You know, if it's a plug. Oh, you know, it'll say I'm fishing a plug. What is it? Needlefish? What color? You know, is it a swimming plug? What do you, is it a slug? Oh, how big is it? What color? I'm always looking for intel like that. Because I, you know, I just, I recently wrote an article about what, what fly anglers can learn from spin casters and vice versa. I think both can learn a lot from each other. But anyways, I saw this fly angler and I said, like, can I, can I see what you're using? So he was fishing a two fly team, which I, you know, what blows me away is that I've rarely seen this since. You very, very rarely see someone fishing two flies in the saw. And the flies were so small. I thought, wow, really trying to get these big fish on those little flies. And he said, yeah. And I kind of asked them what you know, how are you doing this and what are you doing? And and he showed me. And so this this kind of put the seed in my brain. So so that winter I hooked up with a guy who was just a guy on an Internet forum and who I knew from the forum. And he had been out with his fly rod in the wintertime catching striped bass, which you can do in Connecticut. I said, hey, can I can I tag along? So I asked Santa for a fly rod and I got one and went out and got incredibly skunked because I had no idea what I was doing. But but that summer I went out to Block Island and I hated this fly rod in this line I had. So I borrowed one. I borrowed someone else's rod in line and I went out to Block Island. and I was out fishing in the middle of the night and boom and right away without ever having done it before I knew it was a striper because of its power and because I caught bluefish before but because of its power and the way it hit the fly I said this has got to be a striper and the drag on the reel was set very improperly. Um, this, this fish took all the line and a ton of backing. Um, it shouldn't have, you know, finally I, I, I got it in really by, by any accounting, I should have lost this fish, but I got it in my, my first striper ever on the fly was, you know, over between 10 and 15 pounds, which spoiled me. I thought every fish is going to be like this wrong, But, you know, I landed it. I took a photo of it. I let out a very powerful whoop. And that was it. That was it. I've been catching striped bass on the fly ever since or trying to at least.
Katie
Now, when you said that you met that first fly angler and he was using really small flies, what size are we talking is small for stripers?
Steve
He had on, he had on, and by the way, I fish a ton of small flies these days. So he had on a shrimp that must've been on a, probably a size four hook. And he had a sand eel. It was probably about the same sand eel, maybe, maybe three and a half inches long.
Katie
So arguably on the larger side of what most people probably use day to day for trout, but extremely small for stripers.
Steve
Sure. I mean, I'll tell your listeners right now, I tie up a little soft tackle fly. I call it the tick. It's supposed to be a crab larva or some kind of small crustacean, sand flea. And I tie that on as small as a size 12 scud hook. So a scud hook is a 2X short hook. So in effect, that's a size 16 fly.
Katie
Do you know what causes fish that are so large to waste their time, quote unquote, going after such small flies? I mean, you think of like a large brown trout and how you want to use like a big streamer and not your size 22.
Steve
Yeah, but that's a great question. And the answer is simple and elegant. So you're at a Super Bowl party, Katie. And what's your favorite little snack? You like popcorn? You like Doritos? You like chips? What do you like?
Katie
I will do a jalapeno poppers.
Steve
Something small. Pick like a chip or a snack.
Katie
Okay, we'll do popcorn then.
Steve
Popcorn. All right. So you got a bowl of popcorn right next to you, and it's really good popcorn, and you're digging it. Okay. Are you going to eat just one?
Katie
No.
Steve
No. No. You're going to get a handful of those, and you're going to chow them down. You're going to eat just one handful?
Katie
Probably not.
Steve
No. No. No. Come on. You're not. So there might be jalapeno poppers across the room, but this is really good popcorn, man. And it's right there. The bowl's right. All you got to do is reach out with your hand and get those kernels, those tasty kernels.
Katie
But here's where I'm going to ask another question, though. The difference, I feel like, is that I don't have to expend a lot of energy to go find all this popcorn. It's right here in a bowl for me. So are they feeding on like schools of this small stuff or are they actually swimming around?
Steve
Exactly. Neither does the fish. The fish sits in the current and waits for the food to be brought. It's the same reason that you can catch very large trout during a spinner fall in very shallow water. Okay. Those fish, the 22 inch brown is not in a foot of water, six feet off the bank at noon. Okay. One is very vulnerable to predation and there's nothing going on there. Okay. Maybe, maybe there's an ant coming in once in a while. And during a spinner fall, right? that magic hour, if you're in the East, that magic hour at dusk, that is a feeding lane. And all that fish has to do is sit there and open the mouth and have everything delivered to it.
Katie
I see. I guess I didn't realize that you were, maybe we'll get to it when we kind of transition more into the actual tactics of, or like trout tactics for stripers. But I guess I didn't picture them being in a current. I kind of thought they were out just swimming freely and didn't realize that they were actually sitting in a current in this situation.
Steve
Well, sure. I mean, if you, so the other thing is that I like this because you're asking questions that someone who doesn't have a lot of knowledge of the salt might ask. And I don't mean that as a pejorative. These are great questions because they're basic and fundamental and they're going to help people understand this. So, you know, that first bit about the fish feeding on station on these really small baits. I mean, that's one of the core principles of trout fishing for stripers. Okay. The other, the other thing is that the ocean, you mentioned, you know, just swimming around freely. Well, they do that. Okay. But the ocean, I look at the ocean as one gigantic river. Okay. There is current everywhere in the ocean. There are currents that are created by waves coming in and then flowing back. You don't really know it or see it. But on a day at the beach, if you're at the ocean, I mean, my boys experienced this on Block Island a couple weeks ago when we were out. It was not a windy day. They were playing with a tennis ball in the water. They were throwing it back and forth. One of them missed it. And that ball was gone out to sea. The wind didn't blow it out there. There are currents that are moving and carried that. You know, there's surface currents. That was a surface current, obviously. You've got subsurface currents. There's all kind of current action going on in the ocean.
Katie
Yeah, I guess I have experienced that while diving before, you know, getting caught in a current or even just you have current dives where you get in the water and you just go along and can keep your face in the water and see what's going on below you. But I guess I just didn't picture being able to harness that for fishing the same way, like almost thinking of it as a river that's within the ocean and that fish would use that the exact same way that they would in your local trout stream.
Steve
Right. No, they do. And again, that's the core principle, I mean, of the whole trout fishing for stripers. It frustrated the heck out of me that so many people approach striped bass fishing with such a small corpus of knowledge or just treating it like it was, all you got to do is show up and cast a line out and rip it back in. When times are good, now that works for anything, but there's a lot of times when that doesn't work. And once you understand, you know, it's the same principle with stripers, you know, what are they eating? How are they eating it? And also importantly, where are they? Where are these fish? How can I find them? I use current all the time when I'm when I'm striped bass fishing to deliver my flies to the fish. I mean, even little fish can be lazy. You know, I we there was a say I come from an advertising background. That was my job for many years. And all you're doing is you're making it easy for the buyer to buy. That's all you're doing. Make it easy for the buyer to buy.
Katie
And same thing here. Sounds like.
Steve
Yeah, exactly.
Katie
Now, when you're using these currents, are you aware ahead of time? Like, are there resources that you use or are you able to know which way the current's flowing? Or are you just identifying a place you wanted to cast and then kind of seeing what your fly does and how your line moves to figure out where the fish might be at that point?
Steve
Well, part of it is just basic common sense. So, for example, if I'm fishing a river mouth, if I'm fishing, we have the Housatonic River here in Connecticut, for example. So I'm fishing down at the mouth of that river, okay, on an outgoing tide. That tide is always going to be flowing to the sea. So I already know that's the direction the current's going. Now, when the tide is incoming, I might have two currents to deal with. I might have, you know, a top layer of water that's moving out to sea and a bottom layer of water is coming in. You can feel very quickly with how your fly is behaving as to where the current's going. But I fish a lot of estuaries, you know, river mouths, farther upriver, salt pond outflows, breach ways. So you quickly, either by sight or by what your fly and line are doing, you quickly are able to gauge what direction things are moving.
Katie
Okay. Okay. And before we get into maybe some of the more nitty gritty techniques you use that are, you know, typically thought of for trout, can you just give me a brief overview of striper fishing in general? Like what kind of gear are people typically using? What kind of techniques are people typically using? What's the season? Just it's kind of like a 30,000 foot view of striper fishing if you had to give someone almost an elevator pitch on it.
Steve
Yeah, and it's a great segue into how I glommed on to this trout fishing for stripers thing and why I think it's so important. Let's just take boats out of the equation here. This is just from the shore. So the vast majority of striper anglers fish with a nine foot nine weight rod, an intermediate line, which is a line that sinks very slowly, typically at a rate of two to four inches per second.
Katie
And I want to come back to that because I saw your article about the myths and I noticed a lot of them were related to the intermediate line. So I definitely want to touch on that again at some point.
Steve
Oh, we can, whoa, whoa. We can talk about all this for as long as you want. And the fly selection is typically, it's very basic. People love their Clouser minnows, you know, which is a fantastic pattern. I mean, I'm not, you know, props to Bob Clouser. Someone, I read this today, someone said that they think that almost virtually every angler has fished the Clouser minnow or something like it at some point. And it's hard to argue with that. You know, lefties, deceivers, another big favor. So these people fish these flies. If you go on a striper forum and you ask people, what flies do I need? You're going to get, you need clousers, olive and white. You need deceivers, charcuterie and white. And in many situations, it's really hard to argue with those decisions. And I can tell you that because that's how I started out. My first setup was a nine foot nine weight and an intermediate line. And I think if you searched our cut, you could probably find somewhere me saying online that my favorite fly is an olive over white clouser. And I'm laughing because I just didn't know any better. Again, not because that's a bad pattern. It's just that it's limiting. It's kind of like saying, what's your what's your go to trout pattern? And someone's saying, tungsten, olive woolly bugger. And that's great. But what happens when the fish are on trico spinners or Hendrickson emergers?
Katie
For me, I'm thinking the high mountain beaver ponds we have here where you're catching four inch brook trout who are slowly rising to a size 20 black gnat.
Steve
Yeah. So I, so that's, that's the, and, and, and the average presentation, you asked me, you know, what's the, what's the 30,000 foot view. And then the average, the average angler will go where they think they're going to catch stripers and they'll cast and strip and cast and strip and cast and strip. Now, if you've got a pot of hungry stripers in front of you, you can catch a lot of fish that way. So I know all this because that was my first setup and that was my first experience. That's how I fish for stripers. And I caught hundreds of stripers. This, of course, is back 15, 20 years when there were far more stripers around than there are now. Striper stocks, as you may or may not know, are very stressed right now. I caught hundreds of fish. And the problem was I realized at the end of the second year, I am so bored with this because it was nothing like the trout fishing that I loved. It was the same thing all the time, man. Show up, cast and strip, show up, cast and strip. With trout fishing, it was show up. Okay. What's hatching. Okay. Those fish are way over there. If I make a cast and if I let out a little bit of line, oh, but they're not on that. I got to go higher. I got to change. It was analytical and thinking. And, you know, it came down to that. What are they feeding? How are they feeding on it? That whole, that really basic thing. So plus it just, I got bored with cast, strip, strip, strip, strip, strip, strip. And I thought to myself, I don't just get a spinning rod. Because if all you're going to do is cast and strip a fly in, you might go get a spinning rod. does the you you cast a lot farther and you can reel that thing in a lot faster it's a lot easier and it's that that's also I want to be very clear it's not a disparagement of spin casting which which is a true art form I mean I I'm fortunate enough to know some gifted spin casting striper anglers who are just you know really really good at what they do and and nothing like you know you'd expect to see you know someone just you know the casual spinning like these guys were in a class by themselves but I just thought there's got to be another way and it turns out there is and it's it's what I call trout fishing for stripers which I didn't which I didn't invent you know I was taught all this by a man by the name of Ken Abrams who is a really really interesting talented guy. He's an artist. He's written a couple books. He is probably the best fly angler, spin or fly, best angler, spin or fly that I know. And I was fortunate enough for us to, we hit it off. I met him. We hit it off. We became really good friends. We're still really good friends. I had the good fortune to be able to go out with him over the course of a couple years in Rhode Island at night. And just the things he taught me were eye-opening and a revelation. You know, it was kind of like, it was kind of like, if you wanted to be a painter, you really wanted to be a painter, you met this guy named Picasso. And he said, come over to my studio and let me show you how you can hang out but we're gonna paint together like what what yes please so ken helped me with that you know he doesn't call it trout fishing for stripers it's something I created. a presentation and I decided to call it that and the name sort of stuck
Katie
but that's funny you mentioned that because my buddy who turned me on to you he he just kind of described what you do like he he employs trout tactics and catches stripers that way. And I was like, oh, I'm going to call this episode Trout Fishing for Stripers. And then I go to your website and I'm like, oh, this phrase is, I'm not the first person to think of this phrase.
Steve
Yeah. Yeah. And it's a little frustrating too, because some people either don't get it or twist it or don't want to get it. I've had some people use it as a disparaging term, because I think it means strictly light tackle. It doesn't. It can be. That's a whole other topic we could talk about, using light tackle for stripers. We won't go off on this, but just for your listeners, just so they know. In certain areas, I did this two weeks ago on Block Island. I'll use a five-weight rod with a nine-weight line and three flies and trout fish for stripers. It's fantastic. We can talk about that later if you want. But trout fishing for stripers isn't using light tackle. It can be, like I said. It's not, oh, you set the hook by raising your rod tip. Well, if you want to lose stripers or trout on streamers, that's a great way to do it. It's only about using small flies. Well, I cast foot-long flies on my five-weight sometimes. It really depends. I cast footlong flies on my two-handed 12-foot, nine-inch rod when I'm trout fishing for stripers. So I kind of feel like these people want to poo-poo it or they don't want to learn it and they don't want to take the time to know what it means. So trout fishing for stripers, you know, and it doesn't mean ultra light tippets or anything. I don't even use, you know, between you and me, seriously, I haven't used 7X for trout. I can't remember the last time. It wasn't last year. It wasn't the year before. It certainly hasn't been this year. And the farm region river, it can be, that's a fairly technical fishery. I hardly ever use 7X, but there we go.
Katie
Yeah, I was actually going to ask you, one of the things I wanted to ask you, which I think you may have already answered, was just like what the benefit of using these different techniques for stripers is. But I'm getting the impression that it's just, it's a way to mix it up. It's a way to take advantage of situations that other people might not be able to take advantage of if they're set in their ways. Do you have anything to add to that in terms of like why you would recommend this strategy to somebody?
Steve
Yeah, because so didn't happen this year, but I keep going back to Block Island. It's a Block Island is a sacred place to me. I just I've had so many really good experiences out there that didn't happen this year. It was a really tough week when I was out there, so it didn't happen. But it seems like every year when I'm out on Block Island, I get to the beach and I'm gearing up. And anglers with fly rods come in from the beach. And I'll do my, you know, what I told you. Hey, what's going on out there? And this happens once a year. Ah, there's all these stripers busting out there everywhere. We couldn't catch them. And nine times out of ten, they've got an intermediate line and a sinking fly. And I'll say something like, oh, that's too bad. And on the inside, I'll be going, can't wait to get out there. Because I know exactly, I know that I'm going to catch them. And I know exactly how I'm going to do it. You know, on Block Island, that time of year. So nine times out of 10, the fish are on very small sand eels. And nine times out of 10, they've either rooted up a school or they found a school that hasn't bedded down for the night. And they're there as we, as, as I use with that popcorn, the popcorn tail, they've got all this bait in the water and they're just either letting the current bring it to them or they're just picking these, these stray sand eels off in the current there. So what I'm going to do as soon as I get out there is I'm using a floating line, right? I always tell people this. I say, if you got to a trout stream and you saw the river was simmering with rising trout, okay, would you put on a tungsten beadhead Euronymph? Now, if you want to catch fish, would you put on a tungsten conehead olive woolly bugger? No. So why would you fish a sinking line and a dumbbell-eye weighted fly to catch stripers that are pounding, turning the surface into a frog?
Katie
I guess my question here is the trout world has obviously molded to all these different situations. Trout sometimes feed on the surface. They sometimes feed right under the surface and almost appear as though they're rising. They sometimes feed way at the bottom. So there's so many different techniques that are involved in trout fishing. People will fish anything from heavy nymphs to feather-light spinner flies. why has the striper world kind of attached itself to a technique when, you know, it sounds like obviously the fish will sometimes be boiling at the surface. Why is the community not kind of, you know, become more malleable and said, how can we take advantage of this if they're not eating what we're doing?
Steve
I put that question to your listeners. I mean, beats the tar out of me. I can guess. I mean, I think part of it is popular culture. People get set in their ways. I think people don't want to be different. You know, when I tell people I fish with a five-weight rod, I can see some people, their eyes roll back in their head. They just, they can't process it. And I get it. It's unconventional. I get that. People have a certain idea in their head about what striper fishing is. And I think, I think also a lot of, they just don't know. They're not, they're not taught this. And, and I think perhaps this might be the biggest factor is that, I'd be prepared to say that the majority of time, even if that's 51%, I don't know, but the majority of time, all you need to do to catch stripers is find them and put a fly in front of their face doesn't even need to be the right fly okay they're very aggressive especially the smaller fish you know another reason why I started this and and I'm glad I i mentioned the smaller fish thing another reason that I started this trout fishing for stripers I was bored with the intermediate line and the other and the weighted flies and and just the rip and strip I was bored with that because I was catching a bajillion stripers between 20 and 26 inches I'm like where are the big fish? Where are those big fish? I know they're out there. I see other people catching them. And, you know, sir, my first, my first bass out on Block Island, the 30 inch striper. Okay. But I couldn't repeat it, you know, consistently that was luck. Anyone can get lucky and catch a really big striper. Right. The thing is, can you repeat that? And in a good year when there are big fish around, I can't because big fish are lazy, right you know they're it's like that brown trout you mentioned you know it's it's easy to imagine a two foot long brown trout on a river hiding under a log jam and waits for a torrential downpour when the the banks are bleeding night crawlers and a fish comes out and chows down on some worms and a salamander or two he goes and hides under that log for the next two weeks okay same thing with big stripers they're very there's a pattern to them they can be very lazy it's no coincidence that the three biggest stripers I've ever caught on the fly from shore have happened at almost dead low tide when there's hardly any current and hardly anything's moving. It's because it's not a lot of work to get from point A to point B and they can work their will. So that's my best guess as to why it's a cultural thing.
Katie
The same way a dry fly purist might not want to throw a nymph even when that's the obvious thing to do at the time.
Steve
Sure. And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, you know, I, I don't Euro nymph. I've never a Euro nymphed in my life. I don't, it's, it's not as Austin Powers would say, it's not my bag, baby. It's just not, you know, I, I drop shot nymph. I love, I, I love indicator nymphing. People, people make fun of me all the time. Oh, you're using a bobber. I'm like, well, you should come out and see me sometimes because, you know, I, I have, I have witnesses on this. I, I've got my, my steelhead guide in New York could tell you, tell you about this. He's seen me when I make my own yarn indicators and I'm really, really dialed into them. And he's seen me catch big steelhead. And all that yarn indicator did was twitch. Didn't go under, didn't disappear. It just twitched a weird way. Boom. And I was on. So, I mean, there's something to be said about getting into the nuances of what you're doing.
Katie
Right. And some techniques just don't appeal to you.
Steve
No. And I think some people, and the other thing is some people, this doesn't appeal to them because it's work. I mean, I'm writing a piece right now on using a floating line from the shore, which is somewhat related to that mainly misunderstood article I did. Just because, again, there's so much bad, and there's a ton of bad information out there. Breachway parking lots and internet forums can be very dangerous places because everyone's got an opinion, right? And everyone is considered equal, but you know, all, all those places do is throw information at you. They don't filter out the good from the bad. Okay. And, you know, some of these, some of these people, I wish they would, they would come out and fish with me. And, and I could say, see, now if you were doing this, you'd be catching a ton of fish every once. And, and, and what I was, what I was trying to say was that some people just think it's too much work. It's too much work for me to want to go out and throw my line out and mend it like I'm dry fly fishing. And I've had people say this and it just blows my mind. I'd rather spend my time fishing. I'm like, I don't know how to respond to that. And I can't help you. You're going to blank. I can't help you. And you know what? And I don't judge you. I want you to have fun. I want everyone to have fun. And if you're happy fishing that way, then God bless you. And I am absolutely not going to judge you for that. Just don't complain to me that you're not catching fish or that, you know, it's not the fish's fault. You know, people, they don't want to take responsibility. You know, I mean, here's another block Island story. I've talked about this before. I'm out one night and every once in a while, you run into someone who will listen, who does want to learn. And some of these people are people that hire me to go, you know, I, I, I give striper fly fishing lessons and I tell people you need to, understand we're not catching a fish when we go out. We are not catching a striper. There is the greatest probability we're not going to come within 500 yards of a striper. What I want to show you is how to do it when you're there. I mean, because I do most of my fishing at night, right? You can't teach at night. People can't see. They can't see what they're doing. They can't see what their cast is doing. They can't see what their line is doing. They can’t see what their fly is doing.
Katie
Just a quick interruption. Is night fishing pretty standard for stripers? Is that when people tend to be targeting them?
Steve
If you want to, unless you have a, say like the spring run at the mouth of the Housatonic, where there's just thousands of fish moving in and out of the estuary, unless you, you, you have a, a, a scenario like that. If you're fly fishing from the shore, by far your best chances at night, because you're catering to the big striper's feeding schedule in shore in shallower water. So, you know, why people, why people don't do this more? Well, occasionally they do. So we had a night, night on block. It was a really good night. I remember it was, I don't know how many years ago it was, but, I remember it was the first night of the trip and there was a whole school of 10 to 15 pound bass out right off the beach. And I, you know, I got to the spot first, found them first, and I was right in their wheelhouse. And this, this went on. It was the kind of night where after a while I got embarrassed. And after a while it was, I just had to say, okay, I can't, I can't do this anymore. This is crazy. I mean, a couple of times I thought, all right, I'm done. And I started reeling my fly and bang, 15 pound fish. Like, oh my God. And there was a, there was a, a spin angler to my left who was fishing and he completely blanked. The fish were feeding on sand eels. He was throwing a big plug. I could hear it when he threw it into the water. I could tell it was a big plug, like a bomber or something like that. And there was a fly guy to my right. And he was catching, but he was catching like maybe one to six or so. And not as big fish as I was catching. So finally, it must have been around 1.30. And I said, this is it. I got to do it. And I was reeling my flying in, my flying. And I caught a fish again. And I said, that's it. Too bad. I'm going home. We were all going to the beach the next day. I got to go home and rinse my gear up and get in the bed. So I reel everything in, release the fish, walking down the beach. This guy comes chasing after me. I thought he was going to hit me. Maybe he's angry with me. That's a joke. But I got to know what fly you were using. And I said, this is what I will do. I'll say, well, why don't you start by showing me what you were using? So you can probably see where this is going. He's fishing an intermediate line, sinking line. You know, all these stripers pop, pop, pop, bang, boil all over the surface. He's using a sinking line and a weighted fly. So I said to him, that's your first problem. That's, you know, and I went to that whole dry, do you trout fish? Yes. I love when the answer is yes to that. And I say, so if you got to the pool and you saw all these trout boiling on the surface, would you put on a tungsten beadhead nymph or would you put on a dry fly or an emerger or something? I could see the light going off in his head. So I gave him the fly I was using. I was using one of Kenny Abrams' big eelys. You can find that pattern on my website. I gave him one of those flies. I might have given him a couple ones. And went off on my way. Never saw him again. Until like three, four years later. And I'm out on Block Island. It's like two in the morning. There's fog. It's the dark of the moon. Can't see anything. and I hear about 50 yards behind me, is that Steve? I'm like, who the hell is that? I'm like, oh boy, I'm, you know, my mind's going in a million different directions. I go, yeah, who's that? It's John. I'm like, John, you have to forgive me. He goes, I'm the guy, I met you here three years ago. You gave me that fly. I was like, oh, how'd you know it was me? I saw your cigar. I smoke cigars a lot when I fish at night. So that's the great Steve Colton identifier at night is that guy. Who's that guy way offshore on a rock where a 60-year-old man shouldn't be? Oh, he's got a cigar. That's Steve. So I came in, and he says, man, I got to tell you. He said, after you gave me that fly, I went back, and I read all your stuff, and I totally changed all my fish. I had the best week ever this week out on Block Island. I've been doing all the stuff you said, using a floating line, using these. You wanted to show me all these flies he tied. So I have the highest respect for someone like John who says, you know, this one I'm doing is working a little bit, but I want more. I want to do better. And he goes out and he does it. I have nothing but the highest respect for any angler who takes that attitude.
Katie
Someone who's willing to learn.
Steve
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I give lectures at the fly fishing show and people pay me to come to their groups and talk. And I give classes and I'm a guide and all that. Boy, is there so much I don't know. And I mentioned being out on Block Island this past week. I fished. I've been fishing that island for decades. And I fished places this most recent time that I'd never fished before. And, I mean, that's just a sample of stuff of, like, how could you have never fished in this spot before? You've been coming to this island for years, and it's right here. And, you know, one of them, as it turned out, was my skunk saver. So, I mean, I'm constantly learning. I look at fishing as one big giant science experiment. You know, I'm constantly experimenting with whenever I release a fly on my website. I didn't just make that up last week. I made it up two or three years ago and I've been testing it and refining it and playing. I never publish a fly unless I've noodled with it for a minimum a year, usually two or three years. So we all have something to learn. and I am far from figuring anything out. On the other hand, I don't stink on the other hand. I know a little bit.
Katie
Those people are always more fun to be around too versus somebody who's so set in their ways that they're not even willing to give you the time of day.
Steve
I had one guy once on a forum accuse me. I was just asking basic questions. What were you doing? How were you fishing? What kind of line were you using? And he took that as, oh, this guy Colton has no idea what he's doing. He was asking me these really stupid basic questions. And again, I just thought to myself, I can't help you. I'm asking a lot of damn fool questions because I'm curious.
Katie
This might be a good time to bring up the article, Mainly Misunderstood, because we've been talking about lines. So I read all five of the myths. And again, this is coming from somebody who has no experience striper fishing. But I did get the general idea reading that people tend not to use floating lines and seem to have some qualms with them and prefer the intermediate line. And I did write them all down if you want me to list them or if you know off the top of your head, I'd love you to go through them quickly and talk about them.
Steve
Well, if you want to talk about them one at a time, let's do that.
Katie
Sure, sure. I mean, we don't have to spend a ton of time on each one. No, that's fine. The first one was that a floating line is a specialty line for surface presentations only.
Steve
Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the basic attitude you get. They, I mean, I use a floating line for trout. I use a floating line for smallmouth bass. I use a floating line for steelhead. I use a floating line for stripers. I use a floating line to present on the surface. I use a floating line to present mid-depth. And I use a floating line to present on the bottom. It is the most, people call it an intermediate line. I'm probably jumping to another point. People call it an intermediate line versatile. It's not. You can do two things with an intermediate line. You can cast it out and do nothing, or you can cast it out and strip it in. And that's it. And with a floating line, you can do so much more. It's the ultimate Swiss Army knife of lines. And do they require more work than an intermediate line? Yes, they do. And I think maybe that's part of the non-appeal is that, well, I might as well just get my intermediate line because everyone else is using it. But a floating line is the key that unlocks all the mysteries of presentation.
Katie
Well, this is interesting, too, because even as someone who hasn't experienced stripers before, I feel like I can even understand this just in that to think that a floating line is only for surface presentations negates the fact that there are, you know, I mean, you use a floating line for streamers much of the time. Use a floating line when you're fishing nymphs down at the bottom, you know, five feet underwater. Just because the lines on the water doesn't mean the fly has to be. So this one kind of made intuitive sense to me. Like, of course, a floating line is not just for a specialty surface presentation.
Steve
Yeah, but that's not the attitude. And it's, again, it's a cultural thing. And, you know, people just don't understand. I think as a teaching guide, and I see this a lot, I suspect that many, if not most anglers who aren't at an advanced level really don't know what their fly is doing in other words where is it in the water column and and how deep is it they really don't George Daniel once he I was interviewing for for an article and he gave this advice and I was delighted to see that was something that I've been doing for years and George said if you want to know what your streamer's doing tie your favorite pattern in the most obnoxious color like fluorescent chartreuse and hot pink and throw it out there because you can see it from 50 feet away. And you want to know what it's doing with a six foot sink tip? Put that fly out there and see what it's doing. You want to see what it's doing with a three foot leader as opposed to a nine foot leader? Put out that bright fly. Then you can really, you can dial in your presentations to do exactly what you want them to do.
Katie
Absolutely.
Steve
Point two.
Katie
The second point was that you might lose contact with your fly because the line has been caught up in the waves.
Steve
and the surface. Yeah, that's another one. So you lose contact with your fly. See, people are deathly afraid of slack, okay? Losing this. There's this whole kind of culture of, I got to be in contact with my fly. You know, when you're on a triple black diamond difficulty, technical tailwater, fishing a 15 foot leader of 6X, it tapers down to a size 18 emerger. You don't have a tight line for that trout you just hooked. The fish took the fly, and yet somehow you managed to hook that fish. Okay, stripers feed because a trout, you know, eats the fly, engulfs it, right? And it's done. Okay, so stripers are kind of doing the same thing, only they open their mouths. Imagine, you know, the striper has no teeth. So the entire thing is creating this big vacuum suction black hole, right? So it's sucking that fly in. You feel those hits. Okay. And, you know, people are, when they're fishing the surf, they're terrified of losing contact with their fly. Well, if I was losing contact with my fly, how did I catch all those stripers two weeks ago on Block Island? How did I catch all those stripers, whatever, six years ago when Hurricane Arthur was approaching Block Island and I was casting into four foot swells with a floating line and an eight foot leader? How did I catch all those stripers you know they they think the wave's going to crash and move the line and to some extent they're right what do you think it's doing with an intermediate line it's doing the same thing see people just they don't understand what is really happening it's just it's something they've been taught to believe they've been given permission to believe that and you know I i feel like most critics of the floating line unfortunately haven't spent a lot of time fishing it and If I could only, I don't ask anyone to just take my word for it. Okay. I say, I'm not an expert. I'm just a guy who loves fly fishing. And I don't have all the answers. I'm still learning. So I ask you, if you think you're going to be missing fish by using a floating line, why don't you go get a floating line and go out and at least play with it and see how many fish. Why don't you go out and try to not hook fish. Try to not hook stripers with your floating line. Let me know how that goes.
Katie
Well, I think that's a good way to wrap up that point. Third point, which you already kind of brought up, is that the intermediate is the most versatile. I guess the third myth, not the third point. The third myth is that the intermediate is most versatile.
Steve
Yeah. Yeah, it's not. It's not. I always want to ask people who love striper fishing with intermediate lines. If they're so great for streamers, why aren't they ubiquitous on trout streams? When was the last time you saw someone on a trout stream with an intermediate line? I can tell you the last time. I saw it four years ago. I haven't seen someone on the Farmington with an intermediate line in a long time. And even then, I didn't know what they were doing.
Katie
Yeah, I don't see intermediates on moving water. I hear about them in lakes occasionally. But moving water, I feel like the most I hear is maybe a sink tip.
Steve
And listen, if people want to think I'm an anti-intermediate Nazi, I'm really not. I mean, I've been actually thinking about getting an intermediate line for my two-handed cannon just because when I'm making 110-foot casts, I can't. For me, the whole reason for a floating line, generally speaking, is I want to be able to mend it and control it. I can't throw a 110-foot mend. And there are some situations where I know I'm just going to be casting and stripping. So I thought an intermediate line, I'll tell you, I'll tell you a benefit. I'm not against intermediate lines. I just, I just think they're misunderstood. An intermediate line is easier to cast than a floater because it's denser and it's got a thinner diameter. So if you're into a headwind, an intermediate is going to be easier for you to cast. and again if all there there's there's a reef on long island sound I started fishing that I'm thinking about trying an intermediate line on now the downside to that that is they sink a little bit you know the floating line I i know my fly is not going to get hung up on a rock 80 feet away from me and no one wants to to break their very expensive fly line but intermediate lines are not not versatile like I said you can do two things with them and when that works that's fantastic but when you're one of those people coming in from the beach saying there were all these stripers there and we couldn't catch them and that's because all you could do was rip and strip and and and that's why you weren't catching them
Katie
yeah that kind of leads into the the fourth one you had listed which was that the intermediate is always the best choice in the surf because it'll sink underneath the waves and not get thrashed around?
Steve
so this spot that saved my bacon on Block Island a couple of weeks ago, had surf every day I was there, every night I was there. I went there five times. I caught fish four of the five nights. But I was doing the same thing every night. And the surf was anywhere from two to three, maybe an occasional four. So we're not talking about an insignificant surf. So what I would do, and see if y'all can picture this, a wave comes in and crashes. Okay. And then I make my cast. So I make a cast and I was doing a small, it's not even stripping. I call it gathering line. It's kind of like if you're doing a dead drift upstream presentation with a wet fly, it looks like you're stripping line, but you're not, you're just, you're keeping, you're eliminating slack. So all I was doing was gathering line. Okay, now all of a sudden a big wave's coming in, big three-foot wave. If I do nothing, whether I'm using an intermediate line or a floating line, that wave's going to get, take that line and toss it down. But with a floating line, what I can do that I can't do with an intermediate is, all I got to do is flip it over the top of the wave. Mend it. It's called mending people. It's a fantastic tool, right? All I got to do is flip that line over the wave and re, you know, eliminate that slack. And I'm back to where I was before. So I did that. And I have to tell you, you talk about losing contact with your fly. Every single hit I got on that beach and I landed, I had no misses on that beach. I landed every fish that touched the fly. They were powerful. Those fish were committed to that fly and they were bang, good hits. Really, you know, the kind of stuff that you, we all, we all love when a big trout gently sips are dry and you know we don't you know there's no sense of immediate of of weight right off the bat but I think we all can identify with that that titanic whack of a substantial fish that just lets you know oh yeah he likes that fly I'm on baby so I mean being able to mend you know if not and the other point to that is if I'm fishing off a jetty so I'm fishing parallel to the waves. It's a good point to do a quick sidebar. And most people fish beaches wrong. They want to get to the beach and they want to cast straight out as far as they can. Okay. That's generally not a good idea because the fish are cruising very often within a few feet from shore. If there's a trough in the sand, they're using that as a travel and feeding lane. So whenever I'm fishing a beach, if there's this beach I was talking about in the previous story, Couldn't wade into it because it's a very steep slope and the surf's big and I don't want to get sucked out to sea. Okay. But another more gentle beach with more gentle surf. Man, I wade out. I find where that trough is and I'm casting parallel to the shore. Okay. Same thing when I'm on a jetty. Most people, when they're on a jetty, they want to go out to the very end because that's the deeper water and there's got to be bigger fish out there. And sometimes that's true. But a lot of times there's a lot of fish in what I call the pocket, which is the maybe 30 feet out from the jetty to the shore, all that whitewater in there. So when I'm standing on a jetty, and this is a great place to learn a floating line in the surf. Go on a jetty, throw the line in between sets. And when a wave comes in, pick that line up and put it where you want it. Mend it right over the wave. You lose no contact with your fly. You know, as a matter of fact, I mean, there are plenty of times when I've thrown a man that all of a sudden I feel, you know, fishes about to hit it. So you really, you don't lose anything. There's, there's so many advantages to a floating line.
Katie
And it sounds like, I don't know if this was intentional to kind of relate it back to trout, but kind of the same way that if you're on shore fishing for trout, you're trying to cast as far out as you can. But if you're floating down the river, most people are hitting the banks with their flies. And it's like, well, you know, you stand on the bank a lot of the time. You could just cast it straight down below you or straight up above you. And there might be a big fish holding, you know, two feet offshore. But everyone's first instinct is to get it out as far as you can into the river because it's deeper out there.
Steve
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I remember another block island story I remember I was sight fishing with my with my mind on the beach when it was a family day at the beach and I'm just walking up and down the beach looking for cruising bass no no fly rod or anything so I see these three cruisers and just then this guy walks up with a fly rod and I i go hey come here come here there's three fish right in the trough there's about 20 feet off the beach not only does it does this guy start casting 60 feet straight out nowhere near the fish actually wades and charges into the water and goes about 20 feet past where the fish are and is casting even further out away from them and I just thought to myself I can't help you yeah I i can't help you I mean there were there were yes you practically ran through them they're right there you have polaroid glasses and everything so I mean that's it's a great lesson in where the fish are they're they're a lot of times they're they're closer than you think you know spin spin pluggers for strivers will tell you you got to be really careful when you're getting close to the end of your rod reeling that plug in because a lot of times they're following that that you know your bomber your needlefish your sluggo they're following that in and right at the last minute is when they decide to grab it so it's a it's a it's food for thought next time you're out you're out fishing for bass
Katie
all right now the last myth you had which I was actually shocked that kind of like the first one where it didn't occur to me that people would assume that a floating line would only be for surface presentations. This one is that floating lines impart undesirable action in flies, which was also kind of a shock to me that that's a myth just because I know that a lot of stillwater anglers around here prefer some chop on the water because it gives the fly some action. So I would assume it's got to be the same kind of across the board.
Steve
Yeah, this is the mindset that exists out there. Not everyone. And again, I want to be careful here. I want to, my intent is not to disparage anyone or put anyone down or make anyone feel uncomfortable or judge people. It's, it's, I do feel frustrated when I see things like that. Oh, if you have a floating line, your flight's going to, you know, do all these crazy things. It's, I wish people would, would take the time to think about that research it and then I think I use the example in that story of sometimes when waves are current grab your line it's not a bad thing I do a presentation where I'm smallmouth fishing and I tell people you see this see this rock in this video here I'm gonna throw and it's current it's in a river I'm gonna throw my fly line out and I'm gonna do nothing because I know there's gonna be a big belly in the line and that fly is gonna come whipping past that rock and smallmouth bass, you know, God bless their tiny little minds. They just, they can't help themselves. I mean, I mean, you know, a big lunker fish might say, yeah, I'm not chasing that smallmouth. They're like, I see that that's getting away. I better get that now. Let's get it now. You know, and you know, the, the, the, the fly goes whipping past the rock and all of a sudden my rod's bent over in two same way with stripers. I mean, sometimes, you know anchovies are a great example anchovies are a fragile bait fish they're not strong swimmers they migrate along the shore of Rhode Island and I think and I think that's where I told the story of one night where there were anchovies all like in a trough you know literally a rod length off the beach and anytime we tried to kind of dap or dead drift or you know manipulate the flies nothing happened we threw the fly into the mess and let the waves tumble them like the naturals we were on almost every cast it's just and that goes back to you know what are they eating how are they eating it I i I don't get where people have this fear that a floating line is going to do something you know strange to your fly and I also make the point somewhere in their article that if the surf's big enough it doesn't matter what kind of line you're using I i was fishing I i fished the south side beach on block island and the surf this is a couple weeks ago the surf was way too big and I was throwing my line out. I was trying to mend it, but the surf was so big. It kept ending up in a pile at my feet. That would have happened with an intermediate line too. And I, I, I've had experiences where I've got a floating line and someone else is using an intermediate line and both of our lines are ending up at our feet. It's, you know, you can, you can use the floating line to mend and defeat current and waves to an extent, but the ocean, The ocean is always going to win.
Katie
Well, just to wrap up, are there any closing remarks you would give just on this concept as a whole? I don't know, maybe the theme I've picked up on is kind of just like, be open to adapting to the situation instead of coming in with this rigid idea of what you should be doing for this species. But do you have any sort of kind of concluding thoughts or tips for somebody who might want to kind of be a little bit more flexible and give these techniques a try?
Steve
Sure. Well, I've written a bunch of articles on the subject. You can find them on my website. I think there's probably even an article that's titled Trout Fishing for Stripers. And one thing I didn't get into was really when you're talking about what are the actual techniques. So what is Trout Fishing for Stripers? It's using trout and salmon tactics to catch striped bass. So that means stuff like, you know, I nymph for stripers sometimes. You know, I'll get a weighted. I want your listeners to know I don't poo-poo weighted flies. I don't use weighted flies a lot, but I will use them. I'll hop a little kind of clouser-style shrimpy thing or crabby thing along the bottom. I use that when I'm sight fishing. It's the same way I would do so with a, I fish these small kind of quasi-nymphs. streamer jigs. You know, they'll bounce those along the bottom of the Farmington River. It's the same thing. I use three flies for striped bass. Using multiple flies is an old wet fly tactic. As a matter of fact, I was fishing three flies for striped bass before I tried it for trout. It's a great way to, if you don't know what bait is in the water, but you suspect it might be one of several, it's a great way to cover your bases. So for example, when I fish a Rhode Island estuary in September, I am going to have a clamworm fly on, I'm going to have a silverside fly on, and I'm going to have a peanut bunker fly on, because I know those are three food sources that are very likely to be in there. And the other thing is that if there's a specific bait, small bait that you know the stripers are on like matchstick sand eels or grass shrimp a three-fly team is a great way to attack that problem because you got more targets in the water you know that's another thing learn how to grease line swing the grease line swing is an old Atlantic salmon tactic. It's how to present your fly across and downstream with the current. It creates the illusion that the bait is moving downstream and across the river towards you, and it presents the fly broadside. I particularly like that tactic when I'm fishing a large flatwing because it presents the bait, the fly in profile. The striper gets the full, they're feeding on river herring or bunker in an estuary. You're putting this big profile in front of the striper and saying, kill this. This is what you should be eating. That's another thing. And I think last but not least with trout fishing for stripers is that don't be afraid of a floating line. It's not a specialty tool. No one's going to make fun of you. I mean, and I say that because I was terrified the first time I used a, terrified's the wrong word. I had trepidation the first time I used a floating line for stripers because I thought everyone's going to look at me. I was using a raised fly. The first time I used a floating line, it was at the mouth of the Housatonic spring run. I had a raised fly, which is a very sparse bucktail. And I thought, I'm not going to catch any fish. Everyone's going to look at me. Everyone's going to ask me, gee, we're catching dozens. Why aren't you? And it's so easy to laugh at myself now because I caught four billion fish. And all I was doing was casting and stripping. I didn't know any of these presentations. All I was doing was casting and stripping. I mean, go get a floating line. Go learn how to use it. Go trout fishing. You know, if you don't trout fish, get a floating line. Go learn how to wet fly fish for trout. I mean, I would say the benefits of this are so huge. I've learned from striper fishing to streamer fishing for smallmouth bass to wet fly fishing for trout to, uh, all I take all of these disciplines and I interpollinate them, right. And cross match them. And I use them. I mean, I use wet fly swings for small mouth all the time. I fish wet flies for small, I fish wet flies for stripers. It's, it's, it's amazing what you can do. There's this, what I, what I want this talk to do to you. You don't have to agree with everything I say, I don't ask that. What I want you to do is I want you to say, hmm, that's at least interesting. I want to at least get you interested or get you curious. And I encourage you to go out and explore, right? Figure out what works for you, figure out what doesn't, and above all, have fun. And most people I know want to catch fish. And the more arrows you have in your quiver, the more fish you're going to catch.
Katie
Absolutely. Well, where can people find you if they want to, I know you said that people can come to your website to get your articles, but if they want to reach out, what's the best place to find you or contact you?
Steve
Well, the website is currentseams.com. It's a site that's got fly patterns on it, fly tying videos. I mentioned I'm a writer. Every article that goes into print eventually finds its way onto current seams. It's almost all original content. I typically make three to four posts a week. I like to tell people I have nothing to tell you but the truth. So it's not all Steve went out and caught 20 trout. Steve went out and caught three 30 pound stripers. I mean, when I blank, I tell you. When the fishing stinks, I tell you. You can go read my Black Island report and see how miserable I was. I have nothing to tell you but the truth. So you're going to get accurate reports from currency. seams. Um, I, I, there's steelhead too. I am a, I'm a huge steelhead fan. So everything from small mouth to striped bass, to trout, to steelhead, you'll, you'll find a lot of info on currentseams.com. I'm also on Instagram. That's a Steve Colton fly fishing. Uh, I put mostly original, unique content on there. In other words, stuff from current seams doesn't hardly ever gets onto, Instagram. You can find my phone number and email on my website. I love to hear from people. I answer all my emails. If you have a question, I'm happy to answer it. And I want to thank you for being such a gracious hostess.
Katie
Oh, yeah. Thank you, Steve, for taking the time. And you got me pumped up to go chase stripers at some point. I'll have to make my way over east and see if I can do it.
Steve
You got me pumped up to find this steelhead guide on Lake Erie from a few episodes ago who says he's never had a client skunk. Oh, dude, the horror stories I could tell you. I want to go with him just so I can be his first skunk. I'm kidding. I don't want to do that. But just the stories he told was great. Now, I'm delighted to meet you. And I know I'm not your usual audience, but I hope people get excited about this. And most of all, as a teaching guide, I hope it's helpful.
Katie
Oh, yeah, absolutely was. And I like kind of going out of my comfort zone and learning something new. So this was definitely that for me.
Steve
Well done, you.
Katie
All right, guys, thanks for listening. Don't forget to head over to the website, fishuntamed.com, for all episodes and show notes. And also, please subscribe on your favorite podcasting app. That'll get my episodes delivered straight to your phone. And also, if you have not yet, please consider going over to Apple Podcasts and leaving a rating or review. That's very helpful for me, and I'd greatly appreciate it. Other than that, thank you guys again for listening, and I will be back in two weeks. Bye, everybody. Be happy.
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