Ep 81: All Things Leaders, with Barry deCocq
Barry deCocq is the owner of American Fork Anglers and specializes in custom leaders, including Euro, tightline, and standard. Barry believes the leader is the most important part of a fly fishing setup and has the experience to back it up. In this episode, we discuss Euro nymphing, the differences between custom and storebought leaders, how different styles of leaders vary, what goes into custom tying them, and more. At the end, we also discuss how social media has been detrimental to hidden gem fishing spots.
Website: AFAnglers.com
Instagram: @AmericanForkFly
Facebook: /AmericanForkAnglers
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 81 with Barry deCocq on all things leaders. I just love to start by getting a background on my guests. So I would love to hear how you got your start in the outdoors and specifically in fly fishing.
Barry
Fly fishing was something I picked up back when I was about 12 years old. I grew up in Washington State, and I really just found a love for it back then. And what really got me going was fly tying. I got into fly tying very early. And when I was 13, 14 years old, I started tying commercially. I got good enough to where I could actually sell to a local sporting goods store. And the more I got into that, the more, and I'm still very heavily into fly time today. But I was in the Air Force for many years. And that brought me to California, Southern California in particular, and didn't really have a lot of options for fly fishing there. There's some, but I sort of got out of it. And I didn't lose my passion for it. But I just didn't have a lot of opportunities to do it. And when I moved to Utah with my family here a few years back, I got back into it like gangbusters and just remembered what my passion was with it. Picked up fly tying again and got back into finding all the lakes and rivers around and then got heavily into leader building. And because I realized how important that was for a fly fishing system. And to me, it's the most important part. And I just, I got obsessed with it and learning all about it.
Katie
How many years did you take off when you were in California?
Barry
Well, I was in the Air Force. I retired, so I'm a retired officer. And probably, I was in 30 years in California.
Katie
Oh, wow.
Barry
So, yeah, I was there a long time. 26 too long, I'd like to say. Some people love California. I get it. It wasn't my favorite.
Katie
What was it like picking up fly fishing again after so long? Did it feel like riding a bike, like it came right back to you, or did it take some?
Barry
Pretty much did. Yeah, I picked it up again. I started, as everybody should, again in my backyard, casting with all neighbors laughing at me. But I think everybody should do that. You should practice in your yard and not out on the water. So two of the most important things you can do are learning to cast and learning to tie knots at home, not when you're out on the water, because that just wastes time if you don't know how to do it. Now I've gotten pretty darn good at doing knots with tying as many leaders as I've tied. I can do them pretty quickly. But casting still takes a lot of practice, and I still do that in the backyard sometimes. And just learning how to get distance, how to hit targets. So it's an important thing to do. And that's what I started doing when I moved up here again and realized, okay, I can still do this.
Katie
When you're casting in your backyard, do you set up targets like hula hoops or, you know, any sort of target you're trying to hit with your line?
Barry
Yeah, sometimes I just aim for something that happens to be in the backyard, but sometimes I'll usually set up some sort of a target so I can get better at at least being in the vicinity. So it's an important thing to be able to do.
Katie
Now, do you still tie flies commercially? It sounded like you were selling them to the shop for a while. Are you still doing that or just for fun now?
Barry
No, I just do it for myself. It's funny, I was talking to a friend the other day who's a commercial tire here in the Salt Lake area. And I mentioned to him that I don't know how he has the patience to tie that many at once. Because after about five in the same pattern, I have to move on. So I tie them pretty much for myself and my son. That's about it.
Katie
Okay. And you said you're still pretty active in fly tying. Like you've gotten back into both fishing and tying just as much as you were before.
Barry
Big time. Yeah, I love tying flies. So it's fun to be able to catch fish off of things that you've done yourself, whether it's leaders, whether it's flies. You just know that that's something you've put together on your own. And it just feels like a better accomplishment to me.
Katie
Yeah. I mean, part of it is also, I think, you know, the reward of realizing that you have figured out what they're eating. You know, that's something in itself. but then knowing that you've created that thing and did it well enough to fool a fish, I think, is part of the reward there.
Barry
It is. And, you know, I got into the biggest specialty I got into here was Euronymphing. So when I started up fishing again here in Utah, I got to know some of the people who were big in the Euro community and realized this is a pretty good way to fish. It's a more productive way. It doesn't mean any other ways are wrong. I just realized it was one of the most productive ways to go. Lance Egan, who you may know that name, he was one of the ones I started talking to. I realized that the system he was using, being on the USA fly fishing team, was very successful. And I followed him heavily and realized that was one of the things I wanted to learn how to do. And the more I've done it, the better I've gotten at it. So I tie all kinds of different leaders, but my primary focus is on Euro leaders. Because I've done so many of them, and they're successful. They really work.
Katie
So I know we're going to get into leaders as kind of like the main body of the conversation. But since you brought it up, for people who aren't familiar with Euronymphing or tightlining, and I don't know if you have a differentiation between those two, which I'd love to hear what the difference is if there is one. And B, if you could just give a summary of what Euronymphing is and why it works so well, I think that might kind of set up the conversation well for kind of diving into the specifications of the leader builds.
Barry
Sure. Let's start first with something that people are probably more familiar with and that's indicator fishing or indie fishing people don't like to use the term bobber but it's the little bubble that they put on the line there so that people are typically very used to fishing that way when they're fishing under the water and let's remember fish do it's really exciting to dry fly fish everybody loves to get that eat on top of the water that's one of the most cool ways to catch a fish seeing it hit the top and be able to reel that in. But primarily fish are eating under the water. They're subsurface eaters. So when you are indicator fishing, one of the issues that you have with that is that from the indicator down, there's a bit of a hinge. So your indicator is sitting on the water. The rest of the leader and tippet coming off of that are not in a straight line with the rest of the line that you have coming from your rod. That leaves an ability for if a fish strikes very gently, you might not see it. The benefits of Euronymphing or tight lining is that you're in contact with those flies at all times. If you're doing it properly, you will see every little hesitation and strike that hits that fly because there's no hinge in the system. So it creates a perfect line going from your rod all the down to the flies, whether you have one or two or three on, and you're able to detect those strikes, and it's a lot more productive that way. And you ask the question of the difference between the term tightlining and euronymphing. Euronymphing is something that started, obviously, in European areas. Some people call it Czech nymphing. There's Polish nymphing, French- nymphing. It's kind of all gotten encompassed into one term now called euro and it's primarily a heavy butt section of leader with a transition transition section and a cider and then below that site with a cider is just a usually about a 18 to two foot section of multi-colored monofilament that you can see and you hold above the water when you're leading it through the leading on the river through through a section tight lining is it's all tight lining Euronymphing is that also but that the Euro nymphing thing came out of competition competition nymphing and so there was a lot of rules that were associated with that so if you just want to go straight tight lining use longer leaders than the rules in the world fly fishing rules that that apply to some of the people who are competition fishing you can go beyond that and just go into what's called tight lining and you can make extra long leaders over 30 feet if you want to do that and add a lot of other things onto them that might not be allowed in competition fishing so I do that too I'm actually testing out some different types of leaders now that are just strictly tight lining and not just not just euro but they're called mono rigs and I'm gonna once I test those long enough I'm that onto our site too and be selling those soon. But I have a little bit more testing I want to do on them yet.
Katie
When you say add things to the leader, what types of things are you talking about?
Barry
Well, you can add on, you can do anything with gyro and tight lining. It's not just for nymphing. If you want, you can do dry dropper. You can use it for streamer fishing. You can do strictly dry dry fly if you want also can you cast as far no but it's saves you having to carry a whole bunch of rods around which I really like I don't know if you've ever done that but it's not fun to be packing a bunch of rods through brush and everything so a lot of times you'll have a dry rod and then a nymph rod but with a properly set up tight line system you can just switch leaders if you want, or put a different tippet section on there that has a dry dropper system versus two nymphs, and you're good to go. You can fish that with one rod the whole day.
Katie
Now, when you mentioned that the lack of indicator allows you to have a little bit more of a direct connection with the fish, it allows you to pick up on those subtle takes. I know every time is different when you go out fishing, but how many of these strikes are you getting? These subtle strikes that you think you probably wouldn't get with an indicator? Is it a lot? Is it one or two every time you go out? Are there a lot of fish that are kind of subtly taking flies that aren't being seen from indicators?
Barry
It's a really good question, and it's a continual learning process. When I started doing Euro and Tightline, I know I was missing a whole bunch of fish that I thought were probably just rock ticks. And you have to be ready to constantly set even if it is a rock tick. But if you do that, if you see any hesitation in that cider whatsoever, when you're leading a cider through a section, through a seam, whatever you happen to be doing, any little hesitation, the leader jumps one way or the other, even if it just moves something that doesn't, or moves one way that doesn't look correct, you set. You just, you learn to just set. And that was a tough thing to do at first because you a lot of times when you set you've got to you have to pull out of the of that seam and cast again and you don't always want to do that but you learn that's something you just have to do because if you anything down there could be a fish just just rising up barely and just sucking that fly in and not they don't necessarily strike it hard so it could be the most subtle take and it may be a rock or it could be a fish but I think I think you miss a lot more of those subtle takes with an indicator because you just don't see them. Now that doesn't mean that indicators aren't a good thing to use. There's times when I'm not bashing on them, I still use them. There's times when they're a great thing to use, especially in like really long, slow glides, clear water that happens to be a uniform depth and one where fish would be really spooky. That's a good place to use an indicator because it can get hard, especially after a long day of a Euro-nymphing to keep that fly really steady. And if you're in still water, that fly moves unnaturally at all through the column and fish just aren't going to take it. So the indicator keeps it steady.
Katie
In regard to depth, how do you plan that? Because I feel like with an indicator, you know, it's not an absolute science because depth changes, obviously, but you know, there's the rules of thumb, you know, one and a half times the water depth or something like that. When you are tightlining, how do you know exactly how low to get it? Are you kind of just holding the rod in a way that the flies are sometimes ticking bottom? Or how do you control the depth and know that you're at the right depth?
Barry
Exactly. Another good question. One of the beauties of the tightline system is that you're not stuck to wherever you happen to set that Indy on your line. If you set it at, let's say, one and a half times a depth, that's where you're going to be with every cast. With a tight line or Euro system, you can adjust that depth on cue, wherever you want to do it. Because, I mean, you still are going to have to set your tippet length to about what you think you're fishing. If you're fishing a really shallow section or a really deep section. But you can adjust. Like if you're going over a shelf, which you can't do with an indicator, if you're going over a shelf, you can hold your sighter up, let's say, a foot off the water. And as you go over that shelf, you can drop it down. And just as a nymph would naturally do, it might be flowing down across over a shelf, and you can just adjust it down by just raising and lowering your rod. So it's a really, really handy system to use for that, too, because it makes you so versatile. You don't have to be constantly pulling in your line, adjusting your indicator further up or further down the leader. You could just do it by raising and lowering your rod.
Katie
And what lets you know that you're at the right depth if you can't see your flies? Is it just when you start to kind of feel the bottom on your bottom fly, you know, occasionally ticking rocks?
Barry
Yeah, exactly. You want to be down there. You want to get down quick. I mean, that's one of the things that's really important with gyro is on that cast, however you happen to be casting, whether it's tuck cast or whatever, you want those flies to get down there fast so you're getting the most out of the drift. And you want to be ticking bottom just barely. So if you're ticking too much, you're going to be hanging up and losing flies, which you don't want to do. But again, that's one of the beauties of Euro is that you can be down at whatever depth you want to be just with one leader and making no changes other than just using your arm to raise and lower that rod.
Katie
So I have to know, what got you obsessed with leaders? Because even you mentioned before we started that leaders aren't the sexiest thing, but you seem to have become like a leader nut, if you will. What got you so interested in them?
Barry
Well, anybody you know who knows me, especially my family, will tell you that I get obsessed about weird things. So whether it's fly tying, whether it's running, which is another thing from my past that I was heavily into for a while, I get obsessed with things and I focus on them heavily. So one thing I realized is that if I can make something myself, I like to do it. So that's like flies. I can tie them. I do a pretty good job with it. same thing with leaders I thought well I could go buy these or I could just make them myself so I started doing that just for my own thing and the more I did it the more I got better at tying knots the more I started playing around with it realized realizing I could make leaders for exactly what I the water I was fishing the type of places I was going I didn't have to rely on somebody else making these I could make them for myself and adjust them and tweak them the way I wanted to And I got good enough at it to where I realized, hey, I can make a small side business out of this. And it's gotten pretty successful. So I do a pretty good bit of side business with these leaders. So I've got a few commercial places I'm selling to and a lot of just return customers, too.
Katie
So tell me, this might be a good time to jump into the benefits of having a custom leader. I think most people are probably familiar with store-bought tapered leaders. And most likely, if they're familiar with that, they're familiar with rebuilding those when they break. But often not with much... They're not building them deliberately to match certain specifications. It's, okay, my tapered leader broke up to where it's 3x, so I'm going to build some 4x, 5x, 6x sections back down to basically remake this tapered leader that I bought. but there's not a lot of science going into it. It's just, you know, guess and check. What are the benefits of really crafting a custom leader or buying a crafted custom leader versus the standard tapered 9'5x leader that you'd see at any fly shop?
Barry
Sure. Well, with that, I mean, the only thing I've really been talking about so far have been Euro leaders. I also do a lot of still water leaders too. That's the Castmax line you've got. and one of the biggest benefits of like the dry fight leaders that I build is they are their s curve they when you cast them they they flow into s curves rather than just a straight line so it's just they're called slack line and one of the benefits of that especially when you're on a river is that it aids not only in less mending because you've got you've got these little s curves in the leader when it goes out and allows you to get a better drift. So if you're casting upstream, you've got that leader coming at you. You don't want it tight. If it's tight, you're getting a really lousy drift. You want that to have a lot of slack in it and particularly a lot of curves. And that's one of the benefits of building a custom type leader that will do that when you cast it, if you cast it properly. Whereas just the standard tapered leaders don't do that. nothing wrong with the tapered leaders they work but one of the things I do with the leaders that I tie also is that I have tippet rings on the end of them so those leaders will last indefinitely until the sun breaks them down of course I shouldn't say indefinitely there's a point where you have to time they'll get brittle and you need to you need to put a new one on but every time you add tippet with a tippet ring on the end of those you're not having to reduce the size of your commercial leader you can put tippet rings on commercial leaders too but typically people don't so but I put those on the end of all the leaders that I tie. And it's just nice because that leader always stays the same length. So, but you make these for specific functions. So streamer leaders are different than a, they have a different butt section on them than a dry fly leader does. So I tie streamer leaders a little bit shorter and they don't have as many sections typically as like a dry fly or even just a standard nymphing leader. I also do nymph leaders for indicators too, which are going to be different than a Euro. There's a lot of different types.
Katie
I do want to get into some of the different types, but can you tell me why a custom leader makes that S curve that a taper, like a standard tapered leader does not?
Barry
It has to do with the way you're tying those sections and the type of material that you're using. At some point in the leader, you're using a, or at the top point, you're using a stiffer butt sections. You get into softer material in the middle sections that will respond differently as you're casting them than the stiffer monofilaments. Not every monofilament is the same. One of the ones that I use a lot is Maxima Chameleon. That's a very popular, well-known type of leader material. It's very stiff. And then the Chameleon, which is also made by Maxima, is a much softer type. So when you start mixing those pieces in the leaders, they respond differently because one's stiff and one isn't. So they'll just land differently during the cast if you've got a proper cast.
Katie
And for folks who don't know, I'd also love for you to cover the difference between leader materials, just kind of as a background before we get more into it. What are the different leader materials and what function does each one serve?
Barry
Well, I mentioned Maxima Chameleon is a really stiff type leader material that you use a lot for butt sections. It allows you to get really good turnover with your leaders. And some people don't know what turnover is, but you know what turnover is when you're looking at what your leader's doing. If your leader's piling up on you or if it's not responding correctly on a back cast, you're either not casting correctly or you've got a leader that's not set up right. So a proper turnover, you know it when you've got it when you cast forward and you've got that just beautiful loop coming forward and it just lays out nicely on the water. So different materials will respond differently for that. You want a stiff butt section and you want a softer forward or transition section in leaders. Tippet is also super important too. Like I'm a firm believer in any nymphing system that I use. I prefer fluorocarbon tippet. And some people say, why should I spend so much money on fluorocarbon? You don't have to. You'll be successful if you go out there with nylon material. but fluoro is stronger for the same diameter. It's less, it will braid less. So to me, a few cents more for a really good type of tippet or really quality tippet material is well worth it. It's not worth losing a fish over. So it's important to have even good tippet material, not just going out and buying some spinning, spinning rod, 3X, 4X, 5X material and throwing it on the end. It's not going to last as long and you're probably going to lose more fish that way.
Katie
Now, do you also believe that fluorocarbon is, you know, it sinks and it's supposed to be harder for the fish to see underwater? Like, do you subscribe to any of that or are you only using fluoro as your nymphing material just because it's more abrasion resistant? And I'd love to hear about nylon as well and like when that would be a good choice.
Barry
I honestly don't have a lot of experience one way or the other on the visibility part of it. I know Devin Olson, who is one of the people I've followed for a long time, along with Lance in the Euro community, has said that he's done some underwater studies and noticed that he didn't see really any difference in visibility. So that's a really good question. I know some people do bring that up, but I think it's more of an issue of for the same diameter, you're going to have a better strength to diameter ratio with floral. And if you're trying to get down deep, you want the least diameter possible. So if you've got 6x material or 5x material that you're using that is a smaller diameter than, say, a nylon, and there's a difference between nylon and fluoro, you're going to sink faster. And that's what you want. You want to get down to depth as soon as possible because those currents under the water are moving at different speeds than the surface. And you need as little resistance as possible to get those things down. So there's at least the least amount of conflicts between currents that are being affected by the line that you've cast out there.
Katie
Do you use nylon for your dry fly leaders or do you have a place for nylon?
Barry
Yeah, I use nylon sometimes. A lot of times it's because it's the first thing that I find on my eyes aren't so great. So sometimes I'm just looking for I'm trying to find 5x or something. go well there's there's 5x of it's nylon that's okay I'll just use it but yeah I typically I use fluoro for just about everything but there's times I use nylon not for any specific reasons but I guess I'm not as concerned with using fluoro when I'm fishing higher you know larger diameters like 3x or 4x sometimes I don't care as much but there's if you're fishing toothy fish it's a good reason to use fluoro because again, it's less, it'll abrade less. So you're not going to lose as many if they have to be breaking, breaking you off at the, from their, from rough teeth.
Katie
Now, can you explain polyleaders to me? I've never used one, but I hear them referenced a lot. And I'm actually not really familiar with like what, what a polyleader is.
Barry
Polyleaders. I'm not familiar.
Katie
Oh, really? Okay. So maybe it's not just me. I hear them referenced a lot in, in the context like sinking they sink fast but maybe I'll need to just do some some googling myself
Barry
yeah no it's not something I'm familiar with I strictly am just nylon or fluorocarbon so that's that's all I'm familiar with there's well there's other types too there's there's there's braided leaders too which I don't I don't use those a lot of people are really into especially dry fly guys are into dry fly fishing these braided leaders I don't that's not something I'm a fan of but they work for some people.
Katie
Describe a braided leader. Do you know why people choose them?
Barry
They say they are... Supposedly, they have a really gentle delivery on the cast.
Katie
Okay.
Barry
I've tried them one time and I just didn't care for it. I didn't really get it. I don't know if it's... Some people are just into more of the purist type thing and maybe that's what it is. I don't know. But not my gig.
Katie
It makes me feel better to know that the leader guy just sticks to fluoro nylon like I do and hasn't bothered to dive into all these other niche topics. So I guess the next thing I'd like to hear about is just kind of a general comparison of leaders. And I'm sure, especially if you're building them custom like you are, you can tailor your leader to the exact species, location, everything that you're targeting and make it just right for that situation. But kind of as a general guideline, like a nymphing leader, like an indicator nymphing leader versus a dry fly leader versus a streamer leader. If you're just going out for a day on a medium sized river for trout, what's going to be kind of the main differences between how these leaders are set up?
Barry
Are you talking non-Euro? So just like a just standard leaders?
Katie
If you'd like to go into Tightline or Euro-nymphing as well in this comparison, feel free to.
Barry
One thing with dry, you can use a dry fly leader, a custom dry fly leader, kind of interchangeably for indicator nymphing also. Not a whole bunch of difference between those, at least in the ones that I tie. So sometimes I'll just use the same one. But the nymphing leaders typically are going to be a little more stiff than the dry fly leaders are. But the streamers, for sure, are shorter. Like, I tie most of my streamer leaders for an average, you know, like a nine-foot, five-weight rod that a lot of people just tend to use. I'll tie those in, like, seven, seven-and-a-half-foot lengths. So they're not going to work for dry fly fishing as much as they do for streamers. And so there's, I mean, there's different ways to tie them depending on what you're going to be using for. If you're throwing really big streamers, you're going to be tying a type of leader that's going to have a different butt section on it than you would be if you were throwing really small ones. Because you need it to turn over properly. You can tell if you if you're using if you go throw a really huge fly on the end of the leader that's just not meant for it. You maybe you've done this before. You'll hear it back there whipping away and doing things it's not supposed to and coming right at your face. And so you have to be using the type of leader that's meant for the type of flies that you're throwing. So whether it's 18 to 20s or whether you're throwing 10 to 12s.
Katie
And then how about like a tight line? How would that compare to what sounds like a streamer leader versus a indicator slash dry fly leader? How's a tight line leader going to be a little bit different?
Barry
Well, like one of the things that I do with, I've got three main Euro leaders that I tie. And one is the standard one for people who are just learning. It's a thicker type leader. It's going to have more sag, which you don't want, but it's going to have more sag coming back to the rod because it's a heavier butt section. But it's easier to see and it's easier to cast. So people that are learning Euro, that's the one I recommend people use. Those are usually anywhere from about 18 to 21 feet. And you're generally not going to have, even though they make Euro fly line, for the most part, if you're using a long enough leader, that fly line doesn't even come out of the guides. I mean, unless you're really trying to fish a long ways away, but then sometimes that you can be losing your, losing contact and also losing your ability to have a really, really good drift. So I like to try to stay as close as I can. But then there's two other types too. There's the thin and then the micro thin. And I'm also developing now a nano micro one. So it's going to be even smaller. I'm testing that one out now and we'll see how it works. But the smaller diameter you have in gyro, the thinner that leader is, the thinner the cider is, the more sensitive it is. Harder it is to cast, but you really get a lot of sensitivity with it and get way better drifts because you're not getting that sag. The sag happens, like if you're out fishing an indicator rig with just say a standard nine foot five weight line, you'll notice that that fly line is pulling your indicator back towards the rod. That's creating a not good drift. It's creating an unnatural drift of those flies under there. You want those flies to appear exactly as the fish are going to see them. And that is with a nymph, whatever it happens to be doing in whatever stage it is, it's going to be flowing naturally in the water. That's what you're trying to imitate as much as you can. You don't want it going faster than the current. For the most part, there's times you'll do that. But for the most part, you want it to drift naturally in the current as a bug would. And the easiest way to do that is with a system, which gyro is the best that I've found for that, that doesn't create negative drag in there and create unnatural drips.
Katie
When you say you're developing this new, you call it the nano leader?
Barry
I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to call it yet, but I've already used micro. So now I've got to go to something even smaller than that. So ultra micro, nano, like, I don't know. So, but it's going to be really, really thin cider. So pretty much something where you have to use 6X below that and nothing else. So, and if you fish 6X, you know, that can be, that can be tough sometimes, depending if you catch something on the U, sometimes you have to baby it on 6X or even 7X. So 5 and 6X are pretty much what I stick with when I'm fishing Europe.
Katie
Okay. What I was kind of wondering is like, what do you, when you say you're developing it, what What is the process like of you developing a new leader?
Barry
So what I'll do is I tie up various versions of them and then I will just test them out. I don't want to sell anything that I haven't tested yet that I don't know that it works. So I'll tie up different butt section lengths, different transition section lengths. And real quick, on a Euro leader, your butt section is the really long piece. that is anywhere from just the butt section is anywhere from probably 13 feet to maybe 18 feet long. Then there's a transition section that's about three feet and then about two feet of cider material. So if I'm going to go to a really, really thin type of leader, I need to know that that's going to be able to cast well. And that can be tough to cast in the wind, those really thin ones. So it's because they just get thrown around a lot in the wind. But I want to be able to to be able to tell people that if you're going to fish this, it's going to work really well. It's going to be sensitive and you're going to find it even better than the micro. So, but I, the testing process, I usually take a few months doing that and just going out to different rivers and seeing what I think of them and make, make tweaks and changes to them and then we'll put them on the market.
Katie
And I know because you sell these leaders, obviously that, you know, I want people to come and buy these leaders from you, maybe give these custom ones a try over a store-bought leader. But if someone's trying to build their own leader but isn't sure where to start, do you have any resources on your website or somewhere you would point someone to if they're like, hey, I'd like to try making my own instead of getting the tapered leader like I always do? Is there a process to doing this?
Barry
Absolutely. There's three books that to me are like the main. If anybody's into nymphing and euronymphing at all, three main books. One of those is Dynamic Nymphing by George Daniel. So that's one that's really a really important book. Another one is Tactical Fly Fishing by Devin Olson. And the other one is Trout Tactics. And this one is probably one of the most important books there is out there. Everybody should own this one. Trout Tactics by George Humphreys. He is the master in the original tightline nympher from Pennsylvania. and I think he's 96 now still still kicking around and still just he's just one of the original masters of tightline
Katie
and so do these books kind of spell out how you would go about setting your leader up for whatever situation you’re?
Barry
they do yep a lot of them a lot of them have that in there those are a lot of those are how I started and then tweaked my designs from there so the the tactical fly fishing, Devin Olson's book has a lot of different leader formulas in it. Problem is, is for somebody who isn't doing it all the time, you got to have a lot of material and that can get expensive. So sometimes it's worth just going ahead and buying them, unless you're going to be building a lot of them. Like I have spools of material on these leader caddies all over the place that, because I'm building a lot of them, but you do have to buy a lot of material to do that. But if it's something you're into and a hobby you want to do and test your own leaders out, then it's working. You don't have to buy giant spools of them. You can get smaller spools of leader material.
Katie
What do you keep on hand compared to the average person who probably has some spools of tippet anywhere from zero to 7x or so? Most people don't have the thick stuff that's at the butt of some of these tapered leaders. What kinds of material do you have and where do you get it?
Barry
Well, there's, you can order smaller spools of them, which for the person who's not doing it commercially, that's what you're going to want to do. But I keep everything from 25 pound on down and just depending on the types of leaders that I'm tying. So I've got spools of 25, 20, 18, 15, 10, 12, going all the way down. So I can build pretty much anything. And for Tippet, I have everything from pretty much zero X on down.
Katie
Okay.
Barry
But the leaders aren't sold with Tippet. So the Tippet's just kind of for my own personal use. People add Tippet depending on their own applications. One thing I wanted to add, though, that we were talking about books a minute ago, another couple of really, really good resources, which I recommend for anybody if they're videos. And one is Modern Nymphing. and Modern nymphing Elevated. And those are by Lance Egan and Devin Olson. Excellent videos. They're just a great resource to go back and look at over and over again, not only teaching you about euro and other types of nymphing, but it teaches you a lot of the steps if you're wanting to build your own. That's another good way to do it. But back what you were asking on the materials, you can buy spools that just have 30 meters on them. of material. You can get them on Amazon. So just go on and order them on there if you want to, or go into your local sporting goods places to your local fly shop and get them too. You don't have to get huge schools of these things. You can get enough just to do your own personal leaders if you want to do that.
Katie
Okay. And let's say, I guess the resources you've given have kind of been where someone would start if they want to kind of follow, I would say maybe more of a recipe, the same way you might learn to tie a fly. And I guess this maybe goes back to your own leaders, but is the recommendation for someone who wants to just kind of play around is just to try things and then cast them and see how their fly responds to that?
Barry
Yeah. You know, there's no reason to reinvent the wheel. There's enough people out there who have been studying this for years and some of those resources were already mentioned. So start there. That's the best thing to do. And one of the most important things too, because you don't want to be, again, tying these things out on the water practice practice practice your knots at home and that goes for not only tying on flies but for tying leaders like I can do blood knots in my line in my sleep I tie so many of those things so you want to be able to tie those things quickly not only for tying tip it on but if you want to tie on a new leader and and that's a good point to make too a lot of people So welded loops, the welded loops on the end of a fly line are a thing that either some people don't care, other people can't stand them. One thing I don't like is a loop-to-loop connection. I absolutely hate those. And a loop-to-loop connection is when you have a perfection loop on the end of a leader that you, like when you buy a leader, and then you just loop that through the fly line. You have that big ugly mess on the end that catches in your guides and everybody hates that. So a really good thing that you can do is you can still go ahead and leave that loop on your fly line, but clip that perfection loop off your leader and attach it to the fly line just using the clinch stock. It'll make for a way smoother transition through your guides than having that big, ugly loop-to-loop thing. So I do that for almost all my leaders now because it's really fast. Because you probably know how cumbersome it is to do needle knots and all that. It's kind of a pain. So, yeah. So not for a needle, but nail knots.
Katie
Right, right. That's interesting you say that because I've gone back and forth between, I used to clip mine off and do a clinch knot to the welded loop. I have also gotten fly lines that didn't have a welded loop and have gone the nail knot route. I've also more often gotten a line that doesn't have a welded loop. I add the little bit of heavy mono on the end of it and just done the loop-to-loop connection, like made my own welded loop, if you will. nail knot of the piece of heavy, heavy mono to the end of the fly line and create my own welded loop with a perfection loop. But I, I usually do the loop to loop connection for myself. I don't get that bothered. I just try to keep my, keep my fly line at the end of my rod. But it sounds like you are often using leaders that are so long that there is, you know, there's no option to not have, or maybe I'm saying that wrong. You might have to have some leader back through the tip of your rod. Is that the case?
Barry
Well, no. And actually, that brings up an interesting point, too. I don't really know what people's aversion is to knotted leaders. You'll hear this all the time. If I buy a custom leader that has knots and it's going to bump through my guides, how often are you pulling anything other than your fly line back up through the guides? Unless you're reeling it in at the end of the day. For the most part, that's out of the guides all the time. So you're not even reeling it So, you know, the leader is the length of the rod, at least typically.
Katie
Well, I'm thinking of the 30 foot leader that you mentioned earlier. There's no way that that's all at the end of your guides.
Barry
No, no, it's not. But the fact is, is the butt section is so long that you've got no knots. So the butt section of those, the butt section of those leaders, if I'm using a 20, 25 foot leader, that butt section is 18, 19 feet long. So there's no knots coming back through there except for the connection, whatever type of I happen to have to the fly light. So, but I mean, I guess I go back to the dry fly type of leaders that are not it. People just hate that idea of having all those knots in there. But I'm thinking if you're using a nine foot leader, how often are you wheeling that back through the guides? You're really not. So why not have one that performs a little bit better just because it has knots in it? I mean, knots can collect weeds a little bit more too, but hopefully you're not in weedy water.
Katie
Yeah, I definitely agree with you there. My, I mean, I, I try to make a point to always keep fly line at the end of my rod just for the you know the convenience too of you know if I put my rod tip in the air that everything doesn't come piling back down through like it's just more convenient to have a little bit of fly line out the end of your rod and not pull that back through until you're ready to be done
Barry
exactly yeah and if you do that it just drags it all the way back through and there goes your nymph back through the end in the end guide and right get all frustrated trying to put it back through but I guess the other thing too that's really important to know is the type of knots that I think people should really learn to tie and tie quickly. And that's clinch knots, blood knots, double and triple surgeons. Those are all super important ones to know. And if you're going to use, try to get the smoothest connection you can to your fly line, then you're going to need to know nail and needle knots too, but those are even more cumbersome. So I tend to use leaders where I'm having them pretty dedicated and not trying to swap them out So I usually will, if it's dedicated, I'll have it on with a nail knot. But if it's one where I'm going to swap it, I just use a clinch to the loop.
Katie
Okay. So yeah, you beat me to this. I was going to ask you what, and I assume I know what your answer is going to be, but what knot is your preferred for line-to-line connections? Like when do you use a blood knot versus when do you use a double or triple surgeons?
Barry
Blood knots are good if you don't have a really large differentiation between diameters. If you are going down too much in diameter, the blood knot's not going to work well. So you can't drop down too much. That's why you have to do transitions when you're building leaders. If you try to go from like a 0x down to a 5x, it's not going to work. It's just it's going to make a big ugly mess. So blood knots are good for when you don't have large transitions between sections. Where you use double and triple surgeon's knots is when you're doing on your tippet. Like if you're tying on a tag, say 18 inches to two feet above your point fly, point fly being the bottom time, and you want to tie on a tag, then you're going to use double and triple surgeon's knots. And those can be cumbersome for some people to tie. I mean, I still, it's funny. I have sometimes the toughest time with fluoro versus nylon, tying those darn double surgeon's knots or triple surgeon's knots. So I get that first loop going through. I don't know what it is with fluoro, but it just gives me a hard time sometimes when I'm tying a double or triple surgeon.
Katie
And why the surgeon's knot for the tag end instead of a tag end of a blood knot?
Barry
You mean having a blood knot in there and then just bumping, just tying a tag against it?
Katie
No, I guess I'm saying, say you want to have a fly coming off a tag end. You know, a surgeon's knot produces tag ends and so does a blood knot. So why would you prefer a surgeon's knot to produce that tag end to tie your fly on instead of the tag end off a blood knot?
Barry
So I think it's stronger.
Katie
Okay.
Barry
For in a tippet section to have that on there. I like the way it lies better. One thing that's important too is that you know how your tags get shorter and shorter and you got to replace them. One thing that you do there, or what I do is once that tag, that original tag that you put on there with a double or triple surgeons, Once it gets too short, clip it off. Then you tie a new tag on above it using a clinch knot. Just go around the line, use a clinch knot, and then just slide it down against the...
Katie
Oh, I've never heard that before.
Barry
It's a stopper knot at that point.
Katie
Totally works. I will have to give that a try. I don't tie a lot of flies on tag ends, but I'm so intrigued by this that I might have to just play around with it. I'm sure I'll break flies off early enough to give it a try.
Barry
It's just great because that way you're not having to fiddle around with putting on another double or triple surgeon. You can just throw on that clench and slide it down against the old double surgeon's knot, and there's your new tag.
Katie
Now, what do you consider a big enough jump between diameters to require something like a surgeon's knot over a blood knot? You said the blood knot works better with more similar diameter tippets, but is it 3X to 5X? Is that too far? Where's that line?
Barry
That's about as far as you'd want to go. You get anything, you start jumping more than that, and you're going to get sections that just aren't going to get those nice barrels. So it's good if you can just have one step down, but two is about the most I would go.
Katie
And how often are you making these big steps down? Like, I assume most of your leaders are fairly well tapered. In what situation would you jump from something really thick to something really thin in a single knot?
Barry
It depends on the type of leader.
Katie
Okay.
Barry
But like the, we were talking about the slackline dry fly leaders, those have very gradual step downs and actually have, some of those have eight, nine sections in them. So, which can be tedious to tie, but they're gradual. So, you get those nice blood knots when you're making the changes. times when like with with euro sometimes you're going to have a large step down between the butt section and the transition to the cider so then you may have to use a different knot in there you know just use triple surgeons in there if you need to you can always use that so that isn't anything I would use to tie on a cider but you can go a little bit more than two like you mentioned going from a 5 to a 3x. You can jump it up a little bit more than that if you have to. You just have to be really careful about how you cinch those knots down. Because I've had to do that when tying on ciders that are a little bit more thin in diameter than the rest of the butt section of the leader. And sometimes the knot doesn't look that good, so you clip it off and redo it. And just sort of coax it. Sometimes you have to do a little bit of coaxing to make it work.
Katie
Are you as much of a knot enthusiast when it comes to line-to-fly connections? or are you a like clinch not for everything and you focus more of your not attention on the leader since that's kind of where your focus is
Barry
pretty much except for streamers if I'm tying on streamers I'll use streamer loops okay because I want those streamers to if that's what you're getting at but
Katie
yeah that's kind of what I was wondering yeah
Barry
and I shouldn't say I always do that I generally do especially if I'm using bait fish type patterns or something like that I want those things to flow so now those are also going to use up bigger your leader when you do that so you have to or your tippet I should say so you'll be changing tippet more often but it gives such a better action to streamers and even wet flies sometimes you want those for wet flies too
Katie
and what's your preferred loop nut you mean when I'm doing a streamer loop yeah like do you do like a non-slip mono or do you do you have a specific loop knot that you use?
Barry
yeah no the non-slip mono is the one I generally use so it it just goes exactly where you're wanting to put it. You know, I don't like to make giant loops, but you can kind of direct it pretty quickly and know the size that it's going to be when you're tying it. So that's why I like that.
Katie
And then for all other flies, are you a clinch knot guy or do you have any other special knot that you like for line to fly?
Barry
I always use clinch.
Barry
Clinch for everything else pretty much. Yep. I'm just, I can tie them fast, tap a blood knot, so I can do it pretty quickly.
Katie
You know, I see those charts where it goes through all the different various knots and it says you know the breaking I don't know what the word for it like the integrity basically like it you know it's a hundred percent or it it it fails faster than the line and I know those are probably valid but at the end of the day I feel like if I if my clinch knot fails it's generally because I didn't tie it well enough not because I would have been saved by tying a better knot I feel like at that point it comes down to if you can skillfully tie your clinch knot and you can skillfully play a fish, you should be fine. And I haven't put a lot of weight into learning all the different knots when the clinch knot is so fast and easy. And when I tie it well, it holds. And I think I'm usually the problem if it doesn't.
Barry
I agree. I have no problem with that. And I need to back up. There's one place where I'll use a different knot there and that's with tippet rings. I will usually use a uni knot tippet rings. And that's because sometimes when cinching down on a tippet ring because they're so small, sometimes I notice it can affect the integrity of the tippet or the end of the leader, like flattening it out, which I know is making that less strong if I'm using a clinch knot. Now, I guess I should go back. You could use the clinch knot and you could pull the tag end instead of just pulling the business end of it. But if I'm pulling that business end of the line, sometimes it looks like it's screwing up the line a little bit. So that's why I prefer to use unis when I'm putting on tippet rings. So I just think it makes a stronger connection there.
Katie
Yeah, I'll have to write that down because I haven't used tippet rings a lot. But when I have, I've generally used a clinch and haven't had a problem with it. But I have also used them rarely enough that my sample size might be too small for me to really notice a difference. Are you using tippet rings basically every time you fish?
Barry
Oh, yeah. Yeah, pretty much every leader I have, I'm using tippet rings. If the tippet ring breaks off, I will just keep using the leader. But I like to be able to use that leader and change out tippet whenever I want, not reduce the integrity of the length of my leader. Some people don't like tippet rings, as they say. They don't float well, and it doesn't weigh anything. They float fine, so I have no problem with it.
Katie
People are always looking for excuses.
Barry
Yeah, they do. I love tippet rings. I have so many of them on hand all the time, and I put them on the end of all the leaders I tie.
Katie
Well, there's one more thing I wanted to get to that was just kind of on your list of things you want to talk about. But is there anything else about leaders that you think we should have covered for for the person who's just trying to maybe expand their horizons beyond a tapered store bought leaders or anything else that you think we should have covered that we didn't?
Barry
I think people should try giving both a try and see what they think of the two different types, because the commercial leaders, you're a little limited you don't have a lot of options for those I mean there's you know the 3x 4x 5x whatever they're but they're they've all got that same taper so if you try out a custom say a dry fly leader or a euro leader that's made custom not something that's bought commercially I think you'll see the difference in how they work because they just to me are that much better that's why I started tying them especially I mean you'll really notice it with dry fly leaders. If you go from just a standard, say a 5X or 6X commercial leader that you can buy to one of these slackline leaders, major, major difference. It's way better drifts, longer drifts before that thing starts pulling through the foam back to your rod and just wrecking the whole end of the drift. You've got a much longer drift with a slackline. So try them out. Try both types out and see what you think, whether you're tying it yourself or whether you're buying it.
Katie
Yeah, that sounds kind of fun comparing the two. And I wonder, do you think that someone needs to be a decently skilled angler before they'll be able to notice a difference? Or do you think that the difference between a custom leader and a store-bought leader would be apparent to anyone regardless of skill level, assuming they can make a half-decent cast?
Barry
I think people who are more experienced probably would notice the difference a little bit more. But I caveat that a little bit with a leader that's designed properly to cast really nicely too. So that may help the person who's learning to cast a little bit better. If you're not going to get those spaghetti piles, maybe as much as you would with a commercial type leader. So again, I don't want to bash on the commercial leaders. They work great. You know, they do a really good job. So, but they're just, they're a little more limited. So you don't have as, you don't have as many options with those as you do with a custom leader.
Katie
I suppose it might be one of those situations where if it's working properly, you won't even notice because that's the whole point of it working properly is you're not noticing, you know, the trouble you're dealing with.
Barry
Yeah. If you're using, say, a commercial leader and you're getting a, say, a 15 second drift, and then you go to a custom leader that gets you a 25 second drift, that's 10 more seconds on the water for each cast. That adds up over the day and can mean a lot more fish. The trick that you want to do is you want to be able to have that line in the water more than you're not right if you're if that line's out of the water you're not fishing so the more you're casting the more you're not catching fish so you want to do as much as you can you want to do as much as you can to keep that line in the water if you're fiddling around with knots and tangles and or just bad drifts you're out of the water that's not that's not what you want to do. you want to maximize it
Katie
it's like when I first got started and I in my mind fly fishing was just casting just false casting and then it's like well you're not even fishing at that point you got to get your line in the water and stop casting if you want to catch anything
Barry
yeah and of course you want to be able to do that if you're you know drawing a fly off or something but yeah that's you'll see people out there that'll they're they're on the side and they're false casting like 10 times and you're thinking what are they doing what's the point here there's no line going out there's nothing out there's there's they're not they're not shooting line or anything it's just just the motion sometimes it's just fun
Katie
yeah that's true so the last thing I wanted to ask you about that is kind of a completely different topic here, but I saw you put it in your Google Doc, and I thought it was kind of a fun thing to just hash out, was your belief in keeping secret spots off social media. Because I really find this topic interesting and relevant, particularly relevant recently. I think the boom in fly fishing, particularly during COVID, I feel like this has brought this problem to the forefront. But I'd love to just hear your... What's that?
Barry
You brought up a subject for me. one thing that I noticed during COVID this is one thing that I and there's a local water that's really affected one thing that I really noticed happen is people took out three main things during COVID cycling golf and fly fishing and nothing wrong with that but what I noticed whether I was fishing with my son or other people that were out there on the waters that we were doing before COVID hit is there was a lot of people who were new which is great I'm glad to see people getting into that but not knowing etiquette and they trespass they're going on to people's land there's a local water here to us now that we can't fish the majority of it anymore because that symbiotic agreement that the fly fisher fly fishers had the anglers had with the landowners just kind of worked and they let people go on the water down there well people started trespassing and going through gates and everything and that ticked off the landowners And I don't blame them. And then they started pulling rank and pulling the rules that they technically own, at least in this state in Utah. They technically own 30 feet out of the river bottom and they shut off half that river. We can't even use anymore now. So it's it angers us. But at the same time, I get it because of what happened. And that's because people aren't paying attention. Now you asked about spots. I'm a big believer in it that can, to some people that can sound snobby, and I don't think it is at all. I'm a big believer in not burning your spots. You need to go out and try to find your own places. You know, if you start putting everything online on Instagram and saying, oh, here's where I'm fishing and I got this giant 22-inch brown, well, guess what? Everybody's going to start showing up there. You spent your time finding that. People can do that, too. They can kind of go out and spend their time doing some safaris out and finding their own spots. But I just don't like putting that all online. It's nice to show pictures, but I don't like to see spots being commercialized like that. So it just, especially with as big as a sport has gotten right now, just gets to the point where there's too many people out there. So if you've got a spot you like, kind of, you might want to just sort of keep that to you and your friends.
Katie
Yeah, this is a topic that we've, it's come up a couple times on the show. And I haven't heard the argument from anyone in person, but I have seen it online, the argument that you're somehow gatekeeping if you don't share your spots. And I just don't get that argument. Anyone has, like, we all have the same resources. We all have a phone in our pocket. You know, where do you think most people find spots that they go, and I don't mean like they found it, they saw someone posting about it and went and fished there, but they truly, like, they found it on a map or something. we've all found them in the same way. You know, you've gone online, you've looked at maps, you've pinpointed somewhere that you'd like to check out, maybe checked stocking reports or whatever. And then you've gone and tried it. And sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes there's no fish there. But that's half the fun is going and seeing what's there. But the idea that not sharing what you found with the whole world as being some sort of gatekeeping, I'm like, we all have access to these. We can all open up Google Maps and look at it. You know, it's not rocket science. It's putting in some time and hard work, and sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't, but it's always a good time.
Barry
Yeah, and I think if you put that time in to find those spots, you're more apt to not be giving them up to the world. And again, I don't think it's a snobby thing. I think it's just one of those things that we're protecting resources and keeping them from getting over-commercialized. Absolutely. Again, I've seen it happen to too many places around here that some places I just don't even like to fish anymore, because it's particular river sections that are very popular around here. You go out and just load it with people on Fridays and Saturdays. So I think it's an important thing to go do that work on your own. Or if you don't like to, you can always pull up that wonderful Fishbrain app, which I don't particularly like. But people use it. And a lot of people like to post, hey, I caught giant fish here. And then guess what? Next time you go out there, you're going to have 40 people there. So my two cents.
Katie
I think it's also nice to remember that there are some places that I feel like have already been sacrificed to the fly fishing gods in a way where there are spots that are not a secret. And so it's not really harming them to say that you were fishing the, you know, fill in the blank popular water that, you know, millions of people know about. I don't care if someone says that they were fishing the South Platte. Everyone knows about it. It's not a secret. But I think there's a difference between promoting these places, which, you know, I think that's a good thing. I think it's good that there are places that someone's just getting into it. They don't know where to start, that they're not turned off to picking up the sport just because they're not sure where to go. You know, there's some places that you can Google and easily find a good place to go. And I think it's good that we have those. But I think that doesn't have to, you know, it's not mutually exclusive. There can be places that are kept hidden amongst your group of friends. And there are places that can be advertised to the world. And they've already kind of been discovered. So it's not as big a deal.
Barry
Well, and if you're starting out, every state has resources for, you know, whether it's DWR here in Utah, it's different in other states. But every place has resources that will tell you, hey, fishing is really good here. Here's what you use. So you can use those state resources or Google, like you said, and find it. So it's not like you're locked out if you're a newcomer to the sport. Or your local fly shop. Yeah, exactly. And even local fly shops may not tell you exactly what it is you're looking for. They may fudge it a little bit because those are spots that they're trying to also keep.
Katie
Right, but they might at least give you a river name and let you go from there.
Barry
They'll always give you river names, but they may not give you the spots.
Katie
Well, and that's where the fun begins is you got to drive or hike and try it a couple places. And some are going to be duds and some are going to be hidden gems. And it's all like this full circle again. You brought up how rewarding it is to catch a fish on something that you've created. in the same way that it's really rewarding to catch a fish in a spot that you've discovered that you weren't told about it. You didn't just see it on Instagram. You went and tried a bunch of spots and some didn't work. And then you find one that it was just like a golden nugget. And now you have found this and you've earned it. And it just feels more rewarding the next time you go back.
Barry
Yeah. And I think you're more apt to try to probably not burn that place if you found it on your own too.
Katie
Right.
Barry
So, you know, there's spots that I've gone to that I just recently went to one with my son out here in Utah to a place that's south of where we are. Probably the biggest brush beating place I have ever gone. If I didn't put holes in my waders on this trip, I'd be amazed. But we didn't catch a lot of fish, but it was a lot of fun where we went. And it's not a place I would probably want to give up because we didn't see anybody else out there. So, but I felt like I was lost half the time up there because it was in a complete jungle of all the growth on the side of the river. So it was pretty crazy. Those are fun. Those are fun times.
Katie
Yeah. And again, you said the fishing wasn't great, but you know, you still had a fun time. The memory is still there. Sure. And it's comforting to know that these places still exist. Every time I hear people complaining about all the people moving to Colorado, which I agree with, But it's not that hard to get away from the crowds if you put a little bit of effort into it and get out there and you won't see anybody.
Barry
Big time. We've learned that recently, too, that the driving a little bit is well worth it, even with gas prices. It's worth making the drive to get away and get to places where it's not near the cities. There's not as many people fishing. So do that. You know, if you're going to go out, go and get Google Maps out, find some lakes, find some high mountain lakes, which are just a complete ball to fish. We killed it recently on an ice off that a really high mountain lake here in Utah with Grayling, which were just so much fun up in the Uinta Mountains up here. So, you know, you can go up and find some species that maybe you haven't caught before. And it's well worth doing. You know, go out. Don't just hit the same river over and over. Try some still water. make some hikes, hike into a place where maybe some people won't be, find that it's well worth the drive and the hike to do it.
Katie
I totally agree. I think Alpine lakes are some of my favorite places to fish. And you get the views. You often don't get the same crowds. You can spread out a little bit more. And like you said, there's often pretty cool species in them because at least for us in Colorado, a lot of them were barren. So CPW has just picked some species and thrown them up in there for people to come enjoy, which is great.
Barry
You know, what's interesting is my son, who works at one of the big fly shops down at Orem, he set up a shop challenge and took every species of fish that they have in Utah. They've got it up on a big chart. And everybody bought into this. And then whoever catches the, I can't remember how much they had to pay to do this, but whoever catches the most species by the end of the year gets the pot. And I think that's fly fish food. So a lot of people are going to know which shop that is. It's a well-known shop that we've been on. But I think the owners even upped the ante on that and put a bigger prize in there. So the whole shop is trying to catch as many species as they can right now. It's kind of a cool challenge that they did. You'd be surprised some of the fish that you didn't even know are in your state.
Katie
Oh, yeah. Colorado has a master angler program where if you catch fish over a certain length, you get a patch and stuff. And I was just looking through the list of all the different size requirements, and I was like, I've never even heard of this species. I had to Google it. And there are species that I think aren't native here, but have been introduced to like one or two lakes. And now they're listed under CPW. And, you know, they're not even from this country. And you wouldn't, you would have no idea that that exists in this state if you didn't, you know, stumble across it online.
Barry
Yeah. I mean, it's like golden trout. I think there's like two or three places to catch a golden trout in Utah. I've never caught one. I want to someday. So I know one of them is an insane hike. The other one is not. So I'm going to, that's on my list of things to catch.
Katie
Well, best of luck on whichever of those you choose to do.
Barry
Yeah, exactly.
Katie
Well, we're coming up on time here soon, so I want to make sure I give you a chance to plug your website and your leader company. So where can people find you? I know you run American Fork Anglers, but in case people want to reach out and buy a leader from you, where can they go?
Barry
They can go to afanglers.com. That'll go directly to the website, and contact information and everything is in there, So they can look at the different leaders I've got in there. And if you have any questions, email or give me a call too. I'm happy to answer any questions. But it's afanglers.com and American Fork Fly on Instagram. That's the other one that I try to keep that going quite a bit with all the latest catches and leader ties that I'm doing.
Katie
All your secret spots, I'm sure.
Barry
No, well, you may see them. I'm just not going to list what they are. Inspiration. Exactly. so yeah please do do that if there's any questions anybody has they can they can reach out to me I'm happy to talk to people by a phone or email too so yeah it's afangers.com and I do want to say too that before I you know I've been following you for a while but I was pretty humbled being on this especially with the last two people you had on as guests Brian chan and Phil Rowley those are people that are those are idols of mine so I'm pretty humbled to be doing this with you on here because Those are big name guys.
Katie
Well, like you said, leaders are kind of an unsung hero of the fly fishing setup that I think often get overlooked. So I'm hoping that people maybe take away something from this conversation that, you know, it's not just about the flies and the rods and the reels and all the fancy stuff that people love spending money on. It's also about the humble leader, which can make a huge difference in their success, which is what everyone's going for at the end of the day. So I wouldn't discount yourself at all. You're focusing on what other people don't have the patience to focus on. So I think that's great.
Barry
Well, I'll say it again because I said it at the beginning. In my opinion, the leader is the most important cog in that reel. And people might disagree with me. I think the reel is probably the least most important. Absolutely.
Katie
At least for trout fishermen, for sure.
Barry
At least for trout. I like my reels, but I really, as long as it has a good drag, that's all I care about. Yep.
Katie
All right, Barry. Well, I will let you get going. I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening. And just thanks again for coming on and talk with me.
Barry
Thank you very much for inviting me to do this. It's been very enjoyable. Nice talking to 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.
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