Ep 92: Using Competition to Improve Your Skills, with Josh Miller
Josh Miller is the owner of Trout Yeah Guide Service and coach for the US Youth Fly Fishing Team, as well as a former member of Team USA. Josh has used his experience competing around the world to hone his fly fishing skills in a variety of settings. In this episode, we discuss how competition fly fishing works, the pros and cons of making fishing competitive, some of the lessons he’s learned over the years to make him a better angler, and how every angler can learn where to put their focus in order to improve their skills. Josh also has a book coming out soon called Euronymphing Tips, Tactics, and Techniques.
Trout Yeah Website: link
Fulling Mill Flies: link
-
Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 92 with Josh Miller on using competition to improve your skills. all right cool I always love to get a background on my guests so I would love to hear how you got your start in the outdoors and specifically in fly fishing?
Josh
Well, I guess it was my mom when I was young and my dad were fishing all the time. It was just when I was young and they'd take me out to the mountains, catch a brook trout in north central Pennsylvania. And it just kind of, you know, being young and being in a backpack fishing in the mountains or whatever, my family just kind of just instilled in me, I guess. It was a fishing lifestyle from very young and just kind It grew with me until my teens and got into it more, I guess, making the mental choice to go fishing on my own, fly fishing. My uncle taught me nymph fishing in the beginning. I went from there to just be a crazy lifestyle. It's all I think about, dream about, eat about. It's just great.
Katie
Do you still go after a lot of wild brook trout in central PA? Because I feel like that's on my bucket list to go back and do. I'm a little bit jealous if that's where you got your start.
Josh
Absolutely. Yeah. Brook trout are beautiful in PA. We have so many streams. Pennsylvania is blessed with just miles and miles of beautiful brook trout water. And I do it sometimes. Not as much as I want, but yeah, it's beautiful. It's great.
Katie
So what's your primary species that you like to target, if you have a single species? Or do you have a handful of favorites?
Josh
I would say because of trying to be the best at what I do, I target trout, and that being mostly brown trout and rainbow trout. That's because we have an abundance of them in PA, and that's abundance in the United States. but my target would just I mean any trout I love but I do like catching browns and rainbows
Katie
when you say like in in regards to what you do are you referring to guiding like that's is that what clients usually want is to catch you know brown rainbow trout and that's why you kind of have to cater to that?
Josh
I think the reason I guided was because of my competitive background so being how I said I target trout because that's what I want to be the that would be very good at what I do. So that's kind of, you know what I mean? I put the time into that where I think there's things you can learn being well-rounded, you know, like you fish, pike, musky, you learn how to strip set better. This species, you learn something, how to read water better. But being to me, like, you know, people come to me, they're like, why? Like golfing, fly fishing and hunting. I'm like, I just fly fish and usually just for child. Cause I want to be very good at what I do, if that makes sense.
Katie
Yeah, absolutely. I'm one of those people that you just described where I mean, I do really want to be good at fishing, but I also have, you know, three or four other things that I do, probably just as like feverishly throughout the year. So I would describe myself more as a jack of all trades, but I do envy some of that like real heavy focus where you're, you know, all of your mindset is going toward one thing and being really good at that thing, because I know I'll never be the best at any of these things I'm doing. And I, you know, in some ways, I envy that kind of mindset, that focus mindset.
Josh
I think sometimes I'll miss out on things being that way, but it's okay. It's, I enjoy it and I love what I do. It's all good.
Katie
So tell me more about the competitive fly fishing. Cause that's something I've, I don't think I've ever personally met anybody who has fished competitively before. So I I'm completely new to the whole idea of it. So give me like a, from square one, like just the, the basics of, you know, what goes into competitive fly fishing? And then maybe we'll dive deeper after kind of like a, an overview at the beginning. Sure. There's different,
Josh
I guess in a way there's different leagues or different competitive mindsets or competitions. Ones are like a one-fly event or maybe use one-fly for a session or the whole competition. And then there's more localized, smaller kind of regional things. And there's Team USA kind of events. And then there's national events and everything. So what I was a part of was the Team USA cycle where we would fish competitions. and it's based on catching more like numbers of fish and size versus like how you're doing it you know some people like oh is it like a casting competition or this no it's like you know getting down nitty gritty catching fish is kind of you know the competitions we are doing and it was based on you would you get like a little section of river and the river would be broken down into local beats maybe like 200 yards long and you just randomly get drawn a certain one you get draw beat six on river a and then tomorrow you get beat 22 on river d you know and so so the cool thing about it is you get locked on that one piece of water and you want to win or at least I want to do well for my team's sake and for my own sake so it pushes you to be an angler that could fish you know something that you wouldn't regularly want to fish or wouldn't regularly be comfortable fishing so it pushes you to have to do it because you're in that situation and it pushes you to be I'm not just a better angler. I don't want to say it like that. I want to say it pushes your mind to grow deeper, to think things through at a different level. And that's kind of like how it started for me.
Katie
I definitely want to come back to this idea of like kind of using that competitive environment to better your skills. But I kind of want to come back to just the logistics of it. Because like I said, I'm totally new to it. So when you're on Team USA, I assume you're competing against other countries. Does this happen like in an annual event, like an annual tournament?or how's it set up?
Josh
So how Team USA works is there's like regional qualifiers. So each time too, it changes the cycles a little bit, but they're a two year cycle. You fish of various regional qualifiers in your region or in a different region. So let's just pick one of the regionals I tried. Let's say like Lake Placid, New York. I'm from Pennsylvania. So I got fished Lake Placid, New York and maybe North Carolina and then Colorado was a regional. So they would take three regionals and you would take your points so if like if you win a tournament it's like it's somebody explained like golf I don't understand golf how they use the points but you want low numbers of points so when you when you're in a session and you win you take like a one placing point so the whoever has the low amount of placing points at the end of the day has a better result at the end if that makes sense and then they take your points over the competition and then you get invited to fish nationals and then they take nationals points and your regional qualifying points to make Team USA. It sounds complicated, but it's not. But yeah, it's cool because there's only a few spots on the team and there's a good few people that try out for it. So it's kind of cool. It's neat to represent the Team USA. It's cool.
Katie
What is the governing body? Is there like a, you know, like for example, FIFA is soccer. Like who oversees these like regional tournaments and then, you know, in the end, Team USA.
Josh
So there's a FIPS Mouche that's like a worldwide thing. I don't know. I don't know where like the headquarters is. I'm not sure. But there's different organizations that have different, and then there's different competitions that have different like rules and stuff for things like size limits or dry fly only sessions, which is really cool, or lake sessions. But yeah, I don't know. It's fun. It's fun. There's a lot of like positive learn out of it. There is some negative about it too. And as a whole, it's just, I enjoy it.
Katie
So what are the positives and negatives? Because I can think of some in my own head of like what I would consider positives and negatives, but obviously I have no experience there. So I'd love to hear from somebody who's been in it. Like what are the ups and downs of it?
Josh
Absolutely. If anyone knows me, they know that I like to just be, I don't know, I live this stuff and I like to share truths of things, you know, just like the truth. And some of that's just personal opinion and some of it is factual things too. But I think just camaraderie and what you learn as an angler is, and no book can teach me what I've learned. At least I don't think it could. And just the opportunity to fish with these people that are the best in the world of what they do or the best in the world at showing that they can be that. Because there's anglers out there that could look butt, but they just don't compete. And that's cool. That's cool. That's what they want. That's cool. And some of us want to compete to each their own. And that's what makes the world awesome. but you know some negatives of course we're fishing rivers that maybe someone wants to fish that day and we're you know we're touching a lot of fish sometimes which in a sense isn't good but you know and that's why I like to share a light on both sides to show that there's things that we can do better and things that we can learn from and you know it's cool
Katie
what about competition fishing could make you a better fisherman? there's a lot of like different parts of it that come to mind you mentioned the beets where you're kind of forced to fish a section of water. I'm sure we've all experienced good and bad sections of water. Like a lot of areas I walk right past because I'm like, I don't want to fish that. And you might be forced to. And you know, that's a way to grow, obviously. But also, I assume that like being around other people who are really good is going to teach you something. And also just being forced to have your primary goal for the day to be catching the most or the biggest fish. You know, I feel like there's a lot of days I go out and I, you know, I learn something every time I fish. But at the end of the day, I usually have a good time if I've just like been out, had some nice weather and maybe gotten a bite or two. So it doesn't force me to really focus on catching the most number of fish possible. I can get a lot of things out of fishing that aren't that, but that isn't really an option when you're competition fishing. So what do those things bring to mind? Like, have you experienced any of these things? Or is there one thing above all the others that you think really contributes to like what you've gotten from the experience?
Josh
Absolutely. I know there's people listening to that are probably like, oh man, like just one of those, another person wants to catch every fish in the river. And you know, that mindset is it's, you can learn from things like that and also can be negative too. You know, I want to, how do I say it? I want to push myself to be good and learn as much as I can, but I also want to be a good steward of the river and, and appreciate things too, you know? But you're right. It always, it isn't always about just catching fish. We don't, you know, and everybody does it for a different reason. Sometimes I don't go out to the river and my mindset is let me catch every fish. Sometimes I don't even care to catch a fish, but people do want different things for different reasons. And I also think, and this might hurt too sometimes, where people that catch more might know more technique to be able to catch more. And people that might not know that technique have the mindset, they're like, well, I don't care if I catch any because they're not at that. level. I don't mean to say that meanly, but it could just be true too.
Katie
I mean, that's definitely true about me. Like there's certain species I fish for a lot because I catch a lot of fish. It's like, it doesn't require me to alter my technique. And I often have to almost give myself a goal where it's like, Hey, for the rest of the day, I'm fishing, you know, this streamer that I've never fished before. And I'm going to see if I can make it work. And it's like, I have to force myself to do that because if I don't, I don't care enough about pulling every fish out of the river that I'll just stick with what I know how to do. And I know what you're saying where people will hear that and think like, oh, just another guy who wants to rip every fish out of the river, which I sympathize with, because I often have kind of a similar negative opinion of that. But I think all these people would be lying if they said that they didn't want to have the skills to pull every fish from the river, even if they chose not to. You know, if I could choose to have the ability to catch every fish in front of me, I would choose to have that ability. Whether I actually followed through on it, that's a different story. But I think you're right that there's a lot of people who might kind of scoff at that. But secretly, they wish they could also do that, even if they chose not to.
Josh
Sure. And I'm not saying I catch every fish in the river. You know, I'm just saying that there's definitely techniques that with a little bit of mindset change. And that's the cool thing about a competition. So let me step back one. You know, I've been guiding for nine years. And the reason I started guiding was to teach what I've learned from my teammates and from, you know, traveling overseas and fishing with these awesome anglers. And then I fish with guides. And, you know, there's two different mindsets, in my opinion. There's like a guide and then there's instructor. There's two different things. And I like to consider myself an instructor, you know, to teach, to not, oh, I put you on fish. Man, that doesn't do much for me. It's, you know, what technique and how do I fish those fish better? And that's kind of like why I do what I do, what I've learned, what I've learned. I like to share that too, if that makes sense too.
Katie
Yeah, absolutely. Do you prefer guiding beginners then if you view yourself more as an instructor than somebody who's just like getting you on fish?
Josh
I think even people that have fished for a lot of years, I could still teach something to just maybe a different thought process or mindset too. Because there's always something. I learn from everybody, learn all the time. And if someone doesn't have that attitude, it's kind of a bummer to me. But, you know, you can learn from anybody. I do love taking beginners. I love it. I love someone who's like, because they don't have any, how do I say it, like set expectations. You know, when the angler tells me, man, I just want to stand in the river and just like cast my line. I'm just like, oh, yes, we're going to have a great day. You know, because they just don't know what's coming. You know, we just have a blast and catch a bunch of fish or don't or whatever. You know, it's all good. But I love that.
Katie
This is making me think back. I used to do a little bit of guiding and yeah, I would always be really excited when someone's like, you know what? I just want to learn to fish. And I would be like, perfect. We can make that happen. I can guarantee that this is going to happen. But if they're like, I really want to catch like some giant fish. I'm like, I don't know how to tell you that where we're going, like doesn't have that as an option. Like I, I want to set realistic expectations, but I don't want to make you mad off the bat. And so there's kind of that delicate dance of, you know, how do you show this person a good time when they are almost guaranteed to not have a great time based on what their expectations are going in and beginners tend to have a mindset of like I'm just happy to be here which is such a nice mindset to work with
Josh
yeah for sure it's it's cool I always like kind of screen all my clients prior to even booking them to see kind of what they want out of a trip to to know if it is something for us as you know as like as a couple and it's neat that way because you know I have that ability and I like that too to be able to kind of say so if someone's like I want to wet fly swing all day I'm like well here's three guys that know better than me it was like I want to learn the hatches I'm like well here's a bunch of guys that know better than I do you know if you want a certain thing I could teach you that kind of thing which like I said it kind of looks bad on me because I'm not great at everything I put my time into being better at one thing if that makes sense
Katie
so a couple more questions about the the competition fishing can you put your finger on like maybe one of the biggest like learning moments you've had in that because we talked about how it's just a great place to soak up knowledge. But was there any like defining moment where you're like, oh, like, I would have never learned this had I not been put in this situation? Like, does anything come to mind? A specific skill or anything you learned?
Josh
It would be crazy and probably unreasonable and believable if I said tons, because it's true, tons and tons and tons and tons of things, just like incredible amounts. But a lot of them were things that were so minute and small, that just changed a little theory or a little just a little mindset different it's not like oh it's a this special rod it was never that or it's like this special setup it was never that it was just something like a little bit a little thought of something or you know think like the fish a little bit or this or that you know one thing in particular I say if I had to point down one that was kind of cool when I fished our first nationals in lake placid and I was fishing with some of the the team USA guys and I did well my session and the coach is kind of like you know debrief debrief the other other your other teammates kind of what you did in your session and stuff so you know we have like three minutes or whatever real quickly because they're going into the session and I'm going to the next session or whatever we're traveling in between you know beats and I kind of blurred off like oh I caught the fish on this fly and I did this and this and they said you know like wait wait wait we can only retain like so much information you need to like boil it down to what's important you know fly pattern is not important it's like where were the fish in the where were water type of the end or that shallow deep fast slow how do you approach it you like tight line you draw a dropper you know fly wise like this person's going to be confident in his pattern maybe a pheasant tail this is confident in a waltz worm this one's confident in a rainbow warrior you know but that didn't matter and to me that was just like the fly didn't matter like and then now you know years later like this entire year I fished I kind of made it a point just to fish like one fly pattern all year with all my clients and we caught more fish than ever before. And it's not the fly. It's the mindset of don't rely on your fly to be your change. Change what you're doing before you're, you know what I mean? Like, and that, it's just the way we try to think things through differently.
Katie
I really like this, kind of this, like, thought. And I'd love to kind of explore it a little more. It's making me think of, so I also hunt. And one of the things I hear a lot from people I respect is that there's a lot of people who really think that the gear like buying buying gear will get you to where you want to be and what they what people should be focusing on is animal behavior like getting comfortable in uncomfortable environments learning to learning to move correctly learning to sense things and like all of these things like yeah you can buy gear to make yourself more comfortable or make things more convenient for yourself which will definitely help but at some point the gear runs out like you can't buy any more gear that's going to help you you need to kind of switch focus And I feel like that's kind of a similar vein to what you're talking about here where, yeah, I mean, everyone wants a nice rod. Everyone wants a nice reel and nice waders. And, you know, all this stuff helps. No one's going to choose to have a worse piece of equipment. But at the end of the day, you can spend $2,000 on a fly rod. And that doesn't mean you're going to catch 20 times more fish than somebody who has a $100 fly rod if that person with a $100 fly rod knows what they're doing. And hearing you talk about like where the fish are in the water and stuff, that's something I don't hear about as much when I'm reading or listening to like tips and techniques. It's a lot of like flies and how you set up your stuff and not as much kind of the big picture view of like what needs to happen to get a fish to eat right now. And then focusing on how you can make that happen. Is that like, does any of that resonate with kind of like what you took from that?
Josh
Totally. I just wrote a book. It'll be out in the next year. That's a lot of what it is. I look at, okay, let me step back one. There's going to be people that are like, fly pattern matters. And it definitely does. It matters in different situations for sure. I look at fishing as a 365-day approach for all the rivers. I don't look at the Little Juniata River or the North Platte on Thursday, May 7th, when there's a specific catch. I don't look at that. I look at 365 days wherever I travel in the world. I've caught fish in many, you know, 15 states or 15 countries, 30 states I've caught trout in. And that's kind of how I picture it. I don't, you know, worry about what's specific. I worry about finding where the fish are in the water and getting a good drift to them. There's going to be times where that's going to kick my butt. There's going to be times where specific things are going to do better. But maybe in two more days or if I just work on better drifts during that day, I'm going to still produce fish. You know, I think that's kind of a competitive mindset, too. That's kind of where that came from. Because, you know, we travel from state to state and spot to spot. We don't know exactly, you know, how many legs are on the exact color of sulfur nymph of this exact, you know, it doesn't matter to us. We're just kind of, but I'll take one step back. There's times when it does. I think, you know, when the fish are coming to the surface a lot more, you know, it might matter a lot more than when they're eating underneath, you know, and that's what we're doing most of the time. So as a competitive angler, as an instructor, I like to put my time, my technique into what I feel like is the highest percentage technique. So everything to me is mathematical fly fishing. I'm going to go over where I feel like the highest percentage of fish is with the best percentage of technique that I, that, and how they're like, Oh, well, how do you know what the best percentage? That's just with time, time on the water with, with learning, with competing, with whatever takes time, you know? and, and negative, not catching fish is also learning. You know, people think, you know, I'm not catching fish, but that you're, you're learning, you're learning what's what, you know, and I go into my book a lot about like, you know, when you, when you catch a fish or you have a bite, you know, that's data. We use all this data mathematical to come up with more, theories on what's going on and what to do, how to change things. And I don't know, it's cool. I don't know. You're going to start getting me going. I'm going to get excited about it. I do. I get too excited.
Katie
Well, on the fly pattern thing, I mean, there's a reason that certain patterns are kind of universal. Like, yes, there are specific hatches on specific rivers that you might go to that fly shop and say, I want the pattern that's been tied for this river because it's what works from 1 to 3 p.m. in this month, you know, every year. But there's a reason that the parachute atoms should be in every person's fly box across the country like that. It just works. And what you do with it is going to make more of a difference. And there's a lot of those patterns where it's just, you know, you could probably take 10 fly patterns and never need another one and still catch almost as many fish as you do now. Like if you know what you're doing with those patterns. And I want to ask, like, are you more or less of a gear junkie then? Because I have to imagine that like in competition, you get, you know, you get exposed to a lot of different types of gear. You might have access to more gear than someone who's just, you know, doing it casually. But also it sounds like you are more focused on kind of the big picture. So I just like wanted to get your idea of, you know, how much does gear matter? How much do you get excited about gear?
Josh
I think good gear is good. You know, there's some good companies that make good stuff out there, but it's not a game changer for me. I think, you know, I could get it done with other stuff too. I can catch fish with minimal stuff. And I really have tried to boil everything down to very minimal. If someone comes to my pack and looks at it, they're like, oh my gosh, there's only like a couple of things in here. You don't even carry a book bag. Now I just go to, when I'm guiding and fishing myself, I don't even carry a fishing pack anymore. I just carry a little CNF fly box with just literally just Walt's arms and one dry fly in there for dry dropper. And like, it's almost a bummer in a way, because it seriously the seriously like I want people to understand this like you and the listeners like I don't want to like make fly fishing so simple that it's almost like degrading in a sense for like everybody that ties beautiful flies and makes it beautiful because we can all make it what we want and that's what's cool I don't like when people disrespect if someone likes to just fish a streamer cool that's their own thing someone just a fish a chocolate cool if I want to only fish one stupid wall swarm forever and I catch fish on it whatever you know what I mean I i just Learn to fish it better. Learn to focus on that. I like to tie a fly that takes less than a minute because I'm not afraid to cast it where the tree is. I'm not afraid to lose it. I'm not afraid. You know, I think I fish it better. I fish it with confidence. I fish it because I know it works because I fish it everywhere. And once again, it's not that pattern. Okay, let me take one step back. I was on this river in central Pennsylvania and there's sulfurous hatching. This kid I was with was fishing. This yellow nymph, and it looked, yeah, the sulfur's were, you know, bright yellow coming like crazy everywhere. And he was swinging his nymphs, tight lining your nymph thing. And what I mean by swinging is he wasn't, you know, there's a lot of drag on his setup with a heavy leader. And those fish were literally swimming like five feet to eat that fly. They're just crushing it. I was fishing a Walt’s worm that didn't look anything like was hatching. But I wasn't, you know, I wasn't having that success. But if I would slow the nymph down, and that's a big thing in my book, I talk about how to slow your flies down all the time you know to me speed is the number one thing now you know speed of my drift is the number one thing and that's kind of like what I learned with indicators way back in the day and I kind of forgot about that I was worried about the flies and like my leaders and like my top cat all this stupid stuff now I'm just like worried about the speed how do I slow my flies down the most so getting back to the story this yellow fly was getting getting swung and they're just getting crushed crushed crushed so many but I would just kind of you know not kind of keep up but just I was the old faithful were fishing my waltz worms and slowing my drift down if I could get it to the fish they would still eat it and I look at it this way a a simple nymph with no frills and flashes just like a plain piece of pizza doesn't mean you love it but you're gonna eat it if it's there if you're hungry you know it's just something plain if flies with hot spots you sometimes might catch fish but they're gonna also spook fish flies with extra movement sometimes will track but they'll also spook something that's non-intrusive small is just plain and bland can pass by a fish without spooking then all of a sudden they eat it in my opinion more than something that might make the fish move eat it sometimes and then spook sometimes does that make sense 365 day approach that's what I'm looking for so long story short I i you know could sick consecutively could just kind of catch fish all day where he was just catching a bunch then you know three days later there's no sulfurs he comes back with that that drift crazy swinging didn't you know no fish caught all day I can just consecutively just keep kind of catching fish with the wolves from to me sometimes having the right fly in a bad technique can solidify bad technique because you're still catching fish whereas if you can concentrate on your technique with a fly that just works I think you can learn deeper does that kind of make sense a little bit
Katie
yeah yeah I mean, this makes me think of, I heard it recently we were watching the Ohio state game and one coach had said about another coach just because you're on third base doesn't mean you hit a triple like you could walk out to third base and just stand on it and it's it's kind of what you're saying there where you could get you could get a random bite on a fly but it doesn't mean that what you did was what you should have done if you wanted to maximize your chance of success like you could you can still occasionally mess up and a fish will will bite but that doesn't mean you should say wow I should be doing this 100 of the time because I want to catch fish again like this it's like well maybe you would have caught five had you done something differently so and you'll never know that. You'll never know what could have been. So you have to take... I think there's value in recording what worked so you can try to recreate that in the future if you want to, but also not to put so much stock in it that you're like, well, nothing else could have possibly worked because that did. You have to be able to see both sides at the same time.
Josh
Totally. That was another... You just brought to my mind a giant learning thing from Team USA. so I was with one of my really good friends Sean Crocker he's been on team yesterday a bunch of times and you know we're practicing at this river and you know we're like oh this fly's just we're just we're catching like crazy you know what we do we cut the fly off we change to another fly no anglers would do that but to us we want to see what all works and then the next one catches fish take it off then the next one catches fish but you know then that shows us that the fly didn't really matter as much as what we're doing but like a lot of anglers won't think would never do that Because that sounds crazy. But to us, you know, it's not really about catching the fish in the moment. It's kind of just more learning and data. You just want to come up with more data, you know. And getting back, I would like to take one step back for everyone that's listening. You know, all this I'm talking about generalizes about around, you know, using a long rod, a long leader with weighted flies. Just so that's clear to everybody. You know, it's Euronymphing. I feel like I like to manipulate my rod angle, my sighter angle, the angle where my flies enter the water and proceed through my drift. Those are the things that I am working on changing over fly pattern. In doing so, that's changing the speed of my drift, where the drift is in the water, where it's in the water column, and those kind of things. That's what I'm worried about over fly patterns. Just so people kind of get where I'm – because I kind of jumped into that without background data. I don't know.
Katie
Well, I think it's applicable to other techniques as well. You know, it's not the same things that you're varying necessarily, but, you know, if you're nymphing, you know, where is your indicator on your leader? How much split shot do you have on the end? Like, are your flies tied to the eye or the bend of the hook? And how is that making the flies move in the water? Like, there's all these different things with dry flies, you know, how much distance is between your dry flies? Like, you know, you could vary all these different things. So I know that what you're specifically talking about is more related to your own nymphing. But I think the general spirit of the point kind of applies across fly fishing. I also wanted to mention going back to your statement about how you know you don't want to make people feel like you know you're simplifying it too much and if you get in the weeds that you're doing it wrong I think that's kind of the fun part about fly fishing is that you can make it whatever you want you can add all the bells and whistles you want like if you really want to make beautiful flies I mean there's people who tie flies who don't even fish because they just love that so much and if if what you love is tying beautiful flies then by all means and if what you love is trying all your different flies and seeing what works, then that too. But that's kind of the beauty of it is because everyone's getting something different out of it, you can make the experience what you want. I think the point is that you don't need to do all these things in order to have success. You can do it very simply by focusing on a few key areas. And if what you're focused on is catching fish, the bells and whistles aren't absolutely necessary to make that happen if you have a good understanding of what you're doing.
Josh
Yep. I think there's always going to be some outlier weird situations that change you know and as much as I put my finger on what I think it is there's always going to be things I'm just like throw me a curveball all the time you know I'm always learning always figuring something different out but but that's why I want to that's so like you know like what you said earlier you might sorry my dog's barking you know I'm sorry if you can hear my son out there too he's going crazy but you know so some people might go to the river and it's expectations that's what I mean some people might go to the river and just want to see like the bird fly you know some people might want to see you know catch five fish but what I like and this is this is josh mill this is what I like it's going to a fishery that I don't know don't know anything about it don't care about the flies and going to catch and figure out how to catch fish in that situation I know that's just what I like it's what I like it's just what gets me going it's just you know and in my life kind of the reason I fly fish there's there's more to that and you know my life has had some ups and downs Let's just leave it at that. And, you know, fly fishing mentally is the only thing in my life that just takes, you know, all the pain of my whatever away. It's the only thing that just lets me be brainless and focus. Like I have a brain that just kind of goes constantly. And the only thing that can like, like, you know, like even right now I'm thinking about seven things. But when I'm talking about fly fishing, it's I just focus on fly fishing. So, you know, that's what makes me tick. That's what makes me just love fly fishing to that degree because it takes my brain power away from everything else. And I can only focus on that. And I walk out like a new man every time. I'm just like, wow, life is good. Even if it's not, but I can still, you know what I mean? It's cool.
Katie
Does your desire to solve the puzzle when you arrive at a river stop you from looking up things ahead of time? Like looking up what's working on this river, looking up what works this time of year or what to expect? Do you prefer to go in blind just for the challenge of figuring it out from scratch, kind of as a practice? I don't know if you still compete. I think I saw that you're a coach now, which I'd like to get into that as well. But I just want to get your thoughts on whether that's kind of, you know, is that your goal to come in? Or is that the achievement when you figure it out from scratch without having to get prior information?
Josh
Totally, totally. The only things I'll look up is, like, so there's two things I'll look up. You know, obviously, if the river's, like, flooded or whatever.
Katie
Yeah.
Josh
You know, if it's fishable. and the only other thing I ask if I could I ask a lot of my students this like after they fish with me for the day and kind of like figure things out with me and start thinking I'm like if I were to flash up tomorrow in let's say Basalt Colorado or you know frying pan anglers or this or that or wherever I was in the world if I could ask them one question then you know I get all these things like what would you like the hot fly or like what what times the sulfur's hatching or like you know you know the one thing that I would ask is are they wild or stock trout in that river because that tells me how I'm going to approach it that tells me you know I'm going to fish the stocking points or if there's wild trout I'm going to just go right to the the confidence water that I believe in with like with my highest percent chance technique that I've done over you know the years of fishing for that for wild trout in that kind of water you know so knowing what kind of fish they are is how I approach and how I move through the water throughout the day and I kind of want my next book to be on that actually like I want to I want to write it it's call it river tempo it's how I move through my day depending on different factors that the river shows me and one of them is fish species, are they wild? you know being wild or stocked
Katie
are you able to dive deeper into this? I don't I know it's gonna be different for every river like what what good water like what counts as good water where the fish hang out or whatever it is but yeah do you have kind of like a general blueprint of like you show up to a river for for the day? and let's say it's a river you might be familiar with, but you're not, you're not an expert. You don't know every hole and where every fish sits. Like it, you're relatively new there. How do you, what's your blueprint for the day? How do you go about figuring it out? What's going to cause you to move spots and change techniques and things like that? Like what was your overall plan?
Josh
That's a great question. I love this question. It's like one of my favorite things to think about because it's true. It's what we do. You know, what I do all the time is as an angler. So, you know, like I, you say I'm in Bend, Oregon fishing nationals and I'm on the Deschutes River. I've never fished before. And I look at my beat And I'm like, there you go. The question you just asked is exactly what I do with, you know, so first off water stock trout. That's the first thing I think of. Second is what's the temperature of the water? Warm or cold is a winter mode or is it summer mode? So to me, I don't know if that's a true thing, but I think of other fish metabolism, you know, above 55 to 60. Are those fish happily eating? Are they in the kind of more colder, slower? So that tells me where I'm going to focus my time. I said it earlier, I'm going to maximize what I think is over the highest percentage of feeding fish. Feeding fish, highest percentage of fish. So there's going to be times where there's a thousand fish in the slow, terribly hard water fish. Or there might be like 10 up in that water that's a little bit faster. But those are the ones that are eating. Those are the ones that are more eligible to be caught, if I should say it that way. You know, so that tells me kind of, so if the water's warm, I'm going to go to water that is between, if they're wild trout, if they're brown trout, especially if the river's not giant or, you know, I guess it's the grade of water if it's fast or slow to the river overall. But if I was driving up and down the road and I saw a stretch of river, actually, let me ask you this question. Would you rather fish one hole that has 100 trout, like a big hole with 100 trout, or 100 very small little spots with one fish each?
Katie
The latter.
Josh
Why?
Katie
Because I think it would give me a more diverse way to approach it. So if I shove it one and I can't get that fish to eat, then I can go to the next hole and try to get that fish to eat. Whereas if the fish in the single hole are not cooperating, I'm going to end up banging my head against a wall trying to figure out what to do when I'd rather move on.
Josh
Exactly.
Katie
That said, I do love trying to stick it out for a single fish that I'm watching. I will sit there and sometimes work on one fish for an hour and never get it to do anything. I do fall into that trap sometimes just for fun, but I would take the variety of runs with a fish in each one.
Josh
I would exactly do the same. And the reason is I look at a hundred spots with one fish is a hundred first cast. Your first cast, your best chance. The first cast is that fish is seeing your fly for the first time. So your best chance to get an eat. And if you have a hundred first chances, you're going to have way more, way more success. Yeah, of course. So, so that being said, I want to look for a series of pocket water. If I can, if the water's the right temperature from, let's say, shin to just below the waist is kind of my favorite water depth. If the fish are in that and they're going to feed to some degree, I feel like if I throw a wolf's worm and I'm, you know, I know there's people out there that are being like, not on my fishery. They only eat midges size 26 and maybe they do a lot. But if you find a certain water type and it's fast and they're going to eat a wolf's worm, you know. But at least I would think so, a lot of degrees. But, you know, I would fish the frying pan and all these rivers, you know, fishing these little bugs and they work. And then you find a certain water type where the fish are a little more comfortable. if they're not spooked is the key you know those first few drifts they do eat you know little slightly larger flaws of course I remember I was in the south Holston in Tennessee and I was with John Hooper a good friend of mine I was down there at the river lodge and he was showing me how he fishes it with so you know 22s and 24s we're catching fish we got up to this pocket stretch of water and he's like he's like what are you going to fish here and I size I put on a size 14 Frenchie he's like that's way too big for this river way too big and I kind of showed him tight line I caught a couple fish and I gave him my rod and he made like two casts and he caught like a like a 23 24 inch brown he's just like oh my gosh you changed my life you know I actually put the picture in my book you know because it's just like something he's been guiding it for years and that's that but my mindset was so different than his because I just come from a different background of it you know I think like this is my thought you know you go to the fly shop and they're like you know this is the hot fly well everyone's using that fly I don't want to use that fly I want to something different. The fish is seeing it. It's just a different mindset. Right or wrong, it doesn't matter. It's just my way of thinking. Well, that could be what solves it.
Katie
Maybe they do tend to eat the really small stuff on the river you were on, but maybe seeing something different is what triggered that fish to eat because he's so sick of seeing the same thing. You'll never know, but it's a thought. And I think thinking outside the box like that can be really helpful. If what you're doing isn't working, maybe try something that you would never have thought would work. And maybe it will. Like, you don't know until you try. So, I mean, what's the worst that happens? It doesn't work. And then you just try something else.
Josh
It's fun. It's all fun. And, you know, I want to also say that, you know, I think there's tons of ways to catch fish. There's tons and tons of ways. There's, there might, in some situations, I think there's a better for numbers and maybe there's a better for a big fish. You know, like a larger fly might, in that situation, that fish might have been sitting in a place where a drift might just not have been possible. It might have been in between two rocks with fast current just on top and you just might not have ever gotten drift there. But that larger calorie might made that fish just move up for that fly. I move out of this lane to eat, you know, so a little bug, maybe you would have caught three from that run and not that big guy. So, you know, I think there's just there's a lot of techniques that work. But I always try to think as a competitor, what's my higher percent to get you more? You know, and usually it's not bigger. It's more, unfortunately, because that's just that's what I like to do to some degree. got. You know, and it's just fun. It's just cool to go there and figure out streams you never fish and catch fish on. I just love it.
Katie
When they set the beats up, are there like intended to be some good fishable water like in every be? Because I know some will obviously be, you know, better. I don't even want to say better because like maybe better for your style, like better for the type of fishing you want to do. But can you, is it possible to draw a beet that's just like crap? Like this is all terrible water? Or do they kind of prioritize making sure that everybody has at least like something fishable?
Josh
In both. Both. Absolutely. There's sometimes in the smaller ones with more regional events where they're going to take priority and trying to make it a little bit more fair. And then there's times where it's a big field of anglers and it is what it is. You just get what you get. Like someone will take 200 steps or 100 steps and then that's where the flag goes. And then another 200, that's where the next flag goes. It doesn't matter, you know, wherever it is. And unfortunately, I got that. We were at Nationals in Bend, Oregon. And I remember we got to the Deschutes River and we walked in. We're like, you know, beat 17 looks good. Beat 14 looks good. Beat 13. Beat nine sucks or this, this, this. We got to beat one and we're just like, oh, no, what happened here? We're at the draw the night before. So there's five sessions over three days. And the supervisor said, we just want to say that we ran out of water on the Deschutes and we had to use beat one. Whoever gets it, we're sorry. It is what it is. And I drew it last session of the last day. Most unfortunate, most unlucky beat. It took a last place every session. It took a last place. There's one fellow who fished it, one of the USU teams who was, I think, a gold or silver medalist. And he took a last place on it. And I went into it last place. So I went in with a mindset different because I knew what I was up against. I went into a different approach than I would have on a normal basis. And I took second place on that beat out of 17 anglers.
Katie
Oh, wow.
Josh
Because I went in just thinking, I just say, what do I do to catch one fish? and it was cool so it was an evening I think it was an evening session or maybe it was the morning but it was the last day and the my my judge said go start your session and I waited and my thought was I'm gonna wait for it was the river was pretty small so I was gonna wait for and they're brook trout a lot of brook trout so you know having a little brook trout knowledge in my head having that prior experience in Pennsylvania and knowing the wild fish. I let the shadows come over the bank when the fish were hiding out so the shadows came out and then I started my session and there was only like a foot lane usually on the sides where there'd be shadow and I'd crawl up in the grass and I'll make a cast and not let the fly hit the water until I was absolutely happy with the spot so you know as a guide as an instructor I tell of be in have intention of where you put your fly you don't just cast you have intention of where you're putting it for a reason okay so I I let my flight hits the water and I get my drift and I miss a fish. I won't cast back. One minute, two minutes, three minutes. Just wait. Let those fish all relax and do the same thing. Come on the grass, just on my knees, make that cast. I get a bite, catch a fish. I go sit down for five, six minutes. Don't do nothing. Just relax. Take your time. I did that throughout my whole beat and I caught a lot more fish than I thought. I didn't know if I catch one or two, but yeah, I caught a lot. And it's somewhere in the teens. But I thought that was just a, it was different. I've never done that before. But I knew what I had to do, and I knew that to me this was the best chance if I just take my slowest time. And only fish where I fought was the highest percent chances. I thought it was a cool story.
Katie
Yeah. What was wrong with beat one? Can you describe what type of water this is? Because it sounds like you made the best of it. So there were fish there, obviously. So I'm just trying to picture what was wrong with beat one that made it so undesirable.
Josh
In its length, there was only like two little spots that really had water that held much many fish at all. It was very, just very skinny, just shallow gravel, just not really much holding water. And at the top, I found some white fish which scored in this really fast little skinny channel right by the bank. They would just go right under the bank. You could see them just kind of slide under. But if you'd let them relax for a while, they'd come right back out. Once they come out, they feel safe. So first cast through, they kind of would eat it or not right away.
Katie
What, how does the water vary between competitions too? Like, is there some sort of standard for like kind of the size of water you'd be fishing? You know, this is an extreme example, obviously, but like, would you show up to the Midwest and be told to fish the Mississippi and then you go to Pennsylvania and fish like a creek that's two feet wide? Or is there some kind of like a rough average of like the size of river that you're going after?
Josh
More so, I think a lot of the places on the East Coast, it's more about, there might be like prime areas of water but we try not to use those waters because that's like we're more anglers fish so sometimes it might just be more random like okay this is like your b section of your good stream which maybe is a certain width but no I wouldn't say there's you know so it could be the lower Colorado river or it could be you know a small spring creek in Pennsylvania okay so no and that's so what the point of that is we want to be we want to kind of get a team well-rounded that fishes different places because when you go overseas you don't know what it's going to be it could be a giant spring creek like you know coaching the last time I coached in Poland it was the sand river and it was like you know really wide and really skinny something it shoot it was like the Mississippi river you know if the Mississippi was shallow it was like that is crazy so just being well-rounded on a lot of water types and and that's where that 365 day approach to mine comes from you know it's it's it's more about just figuring out where the fish are and you know figuring out good drifts and techniques to catch them over a fly pattern
Katie
how do you work as a coach now? like what goes into coaching the team using what you experienced while you were competing? how does that transfer over to being a coach?
Josh
it's it's really really awesome to work with these young men and ladies that are just so talented of anglers but it's sometimes it's challenging because sometimes you go in this situation like we're and that's that in Poland and man I've never it's just so unlike anything I fish right I was so out of out of my place you know and that's where sometimes we'll well not sometimes but we'll absolutely hire guides that are good at it you know we hired a guy that I don't know what his accolades were but they're very high of competitions in this country you know and we learn from them too and that's cool because I can take that information back and then apply it to rivers here like the techniques that we learned it's and sometimes these techniques are something that's so game changer but it's so little of a spin on something that we already all do or a lot of us do but it's just a little way to think of it a little way to adjust something differently and it just opens up a lot more fish and then the more that happens, the more we realize like maybe the fly pattern isn't as important. Just like learning how to manipulate things in different ways are.
Katie
Is that kind of the approach you take to coaching somebody? Because I assume it's not very useful to just tell them, you know, like do this or like use this fly. Like that seems completely ephemeral. Like it's not going to work after today. Like I could tell you what fly to put on now, but that's not going to transfer knowledge to you that you can then use on your own. So are you teaching more like how to approach a situation? Or do you teach about your experiences I've had and how I approached that? What does a teaching environment look like in this case?
Josh
All of it. It's everything. It's anything that you can use in the situation because the situation is different every time. And every angler and every person learns different ways. So as a coach, I try to see what they're absorbing and try to change my style to match with that person. That's hard at times. Because some people just so boneheaded where it's so hard, you know, just being honest, you know, a lot of times I'll say on the river, I'm like, Hey, like I can tell you're using your instinct, which is good, but turn it off and just use mine today. Cause that's what you're paying for. That's what you, you're, at least hopefully you want to learn. If not, that's okay. But you know, I can't do my job as well as if you don't, you know, listen to that, but you know.
Katie
So it sounds like a little bit of both, like maybe outside the competition, it's more like how to like mindset, how to approach something. But when you're actually in the thick of it, it might just be, Hey, you need to listen to me right now because I've got this experience and I'm just going to tell you what needs to happen to make this work right now.
Josh
I remember it was cool. There was an angler that I look up to very well. I don't know if he'll be excited or not about me telling this story, but he did really well. I will tell his name. Let's just say that. Very good angler from Pennsylvania. He was in a youth competition and he did kind of that. I watched the sector for multiple, this was in Czech Republic last world championship. I watched the sector for each session. So it was like, I think it was one of the last. And he's like, I was like, what are you going to do? Explain to me. And he's like, I'm going to do this, this, this. I said, that's great. I said, he said, what do you think I should do? And I was like, well, I think you should do this. And he's like, really? It's just something that he's never done before. And it's hard to tell someone to do something, maybe not never done before, but never like confidently in a session. You know, that's a different degree. I said, you know, do this with a bright orange. We were using like these little pitch jig streamers I said you know fish it this way it was like first Cassie you know he hooks on he looks at me just like smiles you know like holy crap this is you know he did he did awesome but he believed in me as his mentor or helper or whatever in the moment because he knows I want him to do as best as possible too you know and and sometimes that's sometimes that's I don't think a coach is to not tell them maybe how to fish, but just believe in them. Say, you know, I believe in you. I believe you could do it. You know, each kid kind of, or each adult, young adult needs their own encouragement in a way too. Sometimes it's maybe focus, maybe they won't see something or I'll see, you know, focus on this water type. But a lot of times they know how to fish. They're great anglers, especially in this, in that situation, in a world championship, they should already be polished where we're not teaching them technique. It's their, you know, should be comfortable with those situations and maybe just a coach in that manner is just to help them get to the beat, you know. So each situation is different and it's really cool because of that. You know, I love it.
Katie
And you still coach then too? In addition to guiding?
Josh
Yeah, one of the instructors, one of the managers, one of the coach. Yep. Yeah, I've been there. I think I've been doing it for around nine or 10 years now too.
Katie
Oh, cool.
Josh
So it's been a while, yeah.
Katie
So I'm sure a lot of this out as we've talked, but just to kind of wrap up, do you have any like advice you would give just having had such a rich experience doing this both as a competitor and as a coach? Like I'm sure you've had exposure to more situations than most people will have in their entire lifetime. Do you have like one piece of advice that you would give just as kind of, you know, a culmination of what you've learned that you think would make everybody, regardless of what they're going out for, just a better angler overall?
Josh
First thing that comes to mind is go and put around surround yourself with people that are better than you and know how you learn if it's listening to a podcast if it's watching a video if it's going on the water learn how to know how you learn best and go and do it and go and put the time it put put put some money to it you know I was grew up without very much money still not very much money you know but I know that some things have so much value and time in that it's worth it you know so I think that's that's just a it's and it's hard for me to say it because I am you know That is my job, you know, teaching people. But I really think that is the best, is one of the best ways to learn. And another thing is there's really good guides and stuff out there. I, you know, I want to thank the best of everybody. But before just booking guides, talk to people that you trust in your area. Ask, ask who they recommend. I think that's really important to you. But not to undercut anybody, just to, I think that's important.
Katie
Well, it might even be a matter of like, do you mesh well with the guide? You know, maybe the guide is better at not like working with beginners because they're just, you know, they want someone who's got more of an experience and somebody else is going to really thrive with somebody who's never picked up a fly rod before. And so it might not be a matter of who's a better guide. It's just who's a better guide for what you're looking for.
Josh
Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's, I don't know, I think there's just, especially Pennsylvania, we're blessed with so many good waters, so many good learning opportunities. And there is a lot of really good guides here in Pennsylvania. It's a really awesome state. if anyone's ever interested to come out here, it's pretty great fishing at times for sure.
Katie
Well, this is a good opportunity. Go ahead and plug. I want to hear about your book coming out. What, you know, when it's going to be out, what it's called. And then where can people find you if they wanted to come fish with you, book a trip with you, find you online? Where can they do that?
Josh
Yeah, my book, it will be published through Stackpole Books. It will be Euronymphing Tips. Tips. My gosh, I don't remember. tips tactics techniques I knew it so bad the three t's yeah oh man I should do a podcast on writing a book because that was the most insane crazy liberating terrible thing I've ever done it was it was just I don't know crazy so I'm still fried but yeah so that'll be out pretty soon I'm excited about that I hope it goes over well and if it doesn't I'm just excited to do so trout yeah.com is my guide service I'm in Pennsylvania mostly central Pennsylvania the limestone belt the wild trout streams out there just beautiful fishing beautiful so you were from Pennsylvania too you said earlier yeah yeah from the western side so I i didn't do a lot of
Katie
trout fishing there I think I maybe caught like one trout in Pennsylvania before I moved out here but I did a lot of like smallie fishing, smallie walleyes stuff like that. pike on kind of the bigger rivers, less so the small trout streams. So I want to get back and like spend some time on the trout streams because I've heard so many amazing things since I've left and I've come out here and really gotten used to the Western fly fishing, but I'd kind of like, it'd be so fun for me to go back and spend like a month just kind of experiencing that at some point. I think it'd be a fun just experience.
Josh
Absolutely. Yeah. It's just so great here. And each stream kind of has their own like little, it's their own little gem, you know, their own little thing that makes them special. I just love Pennsylvania
Katie
yeah it's it was a great place to grow up it was like an outdoors person's like it was good for an outdoors person to grow up there for sure
Josh
yeah yeah so yeah I'm working on that doing some shows and hopefully some good clinics with the us youth team if anyone's under the age of what is it like 13 or 14 to 18 we have some really good clinics and opportunities to learn so George Daniel's now our head coach George Daniel is just amazing fisherman and mentor is an awesome ambassador to this sport he's just just one of the best dudes and he's he's now the the head coach of the U.S. youth we're doing some clinics in North Carolina Pennsylvania hopefully out west so if anyone's listening wants to do that ever it's just a great way to learn from coaches that are you know just really really really good anglers
Katie
yeah I mean like we talked about today whether you're in into the idea of competition or not is kind of a personal preference but there's no denying that being in competition fishing is going to make you a better angler like there's there's no way around that I'm sure that every single person on that team would outfish me 100 to 1 if we went out on the river together so it's I definitely see value in it if someone is in that competitive mindset if they want to become a better angler to to go in that direction
Josh
yeah and even if they don't compete that's not you know that's okay it's not about that it's just learning learning new cutting edge techniques from people that are doing it at the high at very extremely high levels you know and it's crazy you know another another thing that I see in this industry and I'll hear day to day is you know we've been doing that urine thing for many many years and it is a little different the stuff we do is our mindset is a little different you know iphone 6 isn't the same as the 14 you think things change over time techniques change mindsets change yeah so there's things to learn every day. If you don't have that attitude, you're going to be kind of left behind a little bit.
Katie
Absolutely. Well, Josh, I will let you get going, but I think you've inspired me to maybe like force myself to, you know, approach water a little bit differently, like kind of treat it as a learning experience, even if it doesn't look like, you know, the best water I would want to fish, you know, maybe turn it into a personal challenge and see if that can just kind of make me a more well-rounded angler. I think you've maybe inspired me to do a little bit more that this coming summer
Josh
my last tip I'll give I always try to get one fish under the belt first right off the bat just to give confidence for the rest of the day that's like I'll try to go to like that juicy sweet looking spot first to get one then go to that crappy water you know just so you have confidence in what you're doing you know always just put one in the net because then you know it's just like you feel good after that so yeah that's my last piece of advice
Katie
just cherry on top
Josh
right just gravy
Katie
yep all right Josh well this is super fun I'm sure we'll again and maybe I'll see you at some point when I come back east.
Josh
I love it. Thank you so much for being a part of this. This is so great.
Katie
All right. Thank you. 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.
Note:
These transcripts were created using AI to help make the podcast more accessible to all listeners, including those who are deaf or hard of hearing, or anyone who prefers to read rather than listen.
While I’ve reviewed each transcript to correct obvious errors, they may not be 100% accurate. In particular, moments with overlapping speech or unclear audio may not be transcribed word-for-word. However, every effort has been made to ensure that the core content and meaning are accurately represented.
Thank you for your understanding, and I hope these transcripts help you enjoy the podcast in the way that works best for you.