The Joy of Spey Fishing: An Insightful Discussion with Austin Rose and Todd Hirano

As we cast our lines into the world of fly fishing, we're fortunate to have the expertise of Austin Rose and Todd Hirano guiding us. With Todd’s decades-long love affair with spey fishing, our conversation wades into the evolving trends in the sport, the artistry of fly tying, and the adrenaline-filled thrill of high-risk, high-reward scenarios. Yet, amidst all this, we remind you that fishing is not merely about the catch but also about the profound joy of being one with the river.

Dive headfirst into the technicalities of the sport as Austin and Todd share their discoveries in the realm of two-handed casting. We draw upon their wisdom about the importance of being able to identify and correct problems with the cast. Whether you’re a novice or an adept fly fisher, you’ll appreciate the conversation around starting the cast with the right depth and height and the significance of evolving your style through an open mind.

Our catch of the day explores the intriguing world of steelhead fly fishing, including the art of catching this elusive fish with skater flies. As we wrap up, Todd gives us an exclusive look into his book on fly fishing, "The Honest Flies". Expect rich insights about the art of hand-tied leaders and the perfect setup for steelhead fishing. Together, Austin and Todd share their experiences with different leader setups, the inspiration behind their ideas, and the importance of having unwavering faith in dry fly fishing for steelhead. So, grab your fishing gear, tune in, and let's catch some wisdom together.

•The Honest Flies. By Todd Hirano
https://www.amazon.ca/Honest-Flies-Todd-Hirano-Springfield/dp/B0CFZFVF4R/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=31143HN3NL27J&keywords=the+honest+flies+of+todd+hirano&qid=1696559374&sprefix=the+honest+flies%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-1

•Todd Hirano’s Instagram
https://instagram.com/toddhirano?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

•Austin Rose’s instagram
https://instagram.com/rockin_flies?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

That book came came about as just a really great opportunity. Jay Nicholas, you know, is the guy who put the book together. He had approached me. A friend of mine, jeff Hunter, had told him, you know about me, so he approached him. So it was just an opportunity that came about kind of randomly and it's just been a great honor and privilege. You know that that this opportunity came about.

Speaker 1: 0:30

So Jay had contacted me and it's like I'd like to put a book together about you and the flies, and so, even though it's just, it's actually just a little journal, but it took me a couple of years just to kind of pull text together and photos. Some of the articles came off my blog. It's free use stuff.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Welcome to Dead Drifter Society, a fly fishing podcast to share information, our adventures and our opinions. We want to see where everyone is at in life and on the water. We'll ask questions and get answers so we can learn everything there is to learn about fly fishing. And now here's your host, andrew Barony.

Speaker 3: 1:18

Welcome back, dead Drifter. So I am finally back on Vancouver Island and happy to be home. I'm currently getting everything sorted for me to go back to work. My guiding season here on the island isn't really a thing right now, so I'll just be back on the construction, which is all good. That'll give me a chance to really get the podcast going back up. We're getting close to episode 100. So five more episodes and we'll be there, or six, maybe six. Anyways, pretty excited about that.

Speaker 3: 1:54

One thing I did want to kind of mention is that I'm definitely starting to see a bit of a pattern what people really like to hear and see on the podcast. So if everyone could just kind of start shooting me some messages of things that they really like about it or things they might not like about it, and that can kind of give me some more grounds because I'm going to start really grinding on the next 100 episodes what, how? I want it to kind of keep going, because obviously I'm still new to this and just trying to figure out the flow that I like to be in. So anyways, back to the podcast. Today we are going to be sitting down with a couple of spay anglers Me and Austin Rose, who has been on the podcast before, have decided to team up. He's going to be kind of a co-host and we're going to be doing all about spay episode every once, or I should say once a month. We'll be doing it all about spay, finding a guest who in the spay community has made some groundwork or is just super passionate, whatever it would be. And so for this episode we got Todd Hirano. He is very passionate about spay, he has been doing it for a long time and something that's a little bit unique about him is he really likes to do topwater flies, so dry flies for steelhead, which is definitely possible, but it's probably one of the harder ways of doing it, and I guess Austin has been chatting with him and reading his book that he wrote, so it was just a great opportunity to get him on and pick his brain a little bit and just talk fishing. So I really hope you enjoy this episode. We get into a lot of good stuff. Some of the audio quality was a little challenging to work through. Sometimes, when we have three or more people on, it can get a little interesting. Two people out of the three can be really loud versus the other, so I did my very best to make it as seamless as possible and, yeah, I hope you enjoy and I'll see you down at the end.

Speaker 3: 4:06

Welcome to the podcast boys. We've got Austin and Todd over here, both from Oregon. How's it going? Pretty good, great, great on. So, todd, you have spent a little bit of time doing some spay fishing. When did you start that? I got into spay fishing back in 1995.

Speaker 1: 4:27

So that was quite a long time ago. Yeah, back in those days two handed rods were just starting to become more popular and more mainstream, but back in those days it was still pretty much in its infancy in terms of becoming more popular. In fact, then you definitely didn't have the assortment or selection of rods and lines that you have today. Basically, back in those days you had some of the sage models, some G-Lumis models, some other models, european models, and basically lines were either a double taper or the one that was used to make the spay fishing. So basically, lines were either a double taper or the wind cutter. It was a different world.

Speaker 3: 5:23

Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy because I was what? 1992 to 1995. That's three years old. I was three years old, Austin, were you born at that point?

Speaker 4: 5:32

No, I was born the very next year. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 5:40

I just turned 60 a couple of weeks ago, and so my son is your age.

Speaker 3: 5:47

Okay, right on. Well, congratulations on the birthday, and Austin just had his birthday, so I'm the only one that's left out of this club.

Speaker 4: 5:56

Happy belated birthday, Todd. That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 5:59

Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 3: 6:02

You were saying that there is like the wind cutters. Does that mean like it was just an outrageously heavy shooting head or?

Speaker 1: 6:11

That was one of the early. It wasn't a shooting, it was an integrated line, but it was kind of like a weight forward line designed for two handed rods, because prior to that it was mainly you know guys using double paper. And so the wind cutter was one of the first developed that was like specific or fake at, and along with the wind cutter, airflow had their Delta spay, which was basically a really similar. And then Rio also had some other longer lines, I think they were called like the grand spay and couple other, but those lines were like the early lines of you know lines that are specifically developed with bacon. That was before Scandi gadgets came on the scene. Back in those days the wind cutter was considered a short game, you know, and it's like 52 to 56 feet or something Pretty long by the day. Back in those days the wind cutters were considered short.

Speaker 4: 7:30

Back then was it long bellies, mid bellies and short bellied lines. That was pretty much all that was available at that time.

Speaker 1: 7:39

Yeah, for the most part. Like I said, the folks in UK, I think, were using double paper for the most part. And then it was the wind cutter and the Delta, and the Delta long was like a longer version of the Delta and I think Rio had what was called the pit spay and the grand spay Lines were a lot longer.

Speaker 1: 8:03

Ironic, these days longer lines are becoming more popular, midbelly and long bellied lines, things that kind of come full circle. And I think for myself, you know, I've kind of gone in the long line direction as well. So I've kind of come around from using those wind cutters to getting into the Scandies, you know, like back in one of the early Scandi hails with the Rio, and then the Airflow Scandi Compact came on the scene and that Scadget came out in full force around 2005. Then everybody was going to shorter rods and shorter lines for the longest time. And then just recently you see more and more guys using longer rods and longer.

Speaker 1: 8:57

And for me what happened is I just happened to come across this young guy that connected with me. He's a Facebook. He had a 16 foot 7 inch 7-way rod built by Steve Goshall in Southern Oregon, and he tried it, you know, and he decided he was wanting to go on to the next best thing. So he had me test casted and said, hey, if you want to buy it, I'll sell it to you for a good price. I couldn't pick this one. Once I got into that rod, I ended up getting more long rods and getting into more long lines. So it's kind of been a fun journey.

Speaker 1: 9:32

So over the past couple years on this, stick with longer rods. I have a couple of rods that I would stick with. I have like a 17 foot 10-11-way miser. Steve Goshall built 9-10-way at 17 foot, a Bruce and Walker assistant 9-10. So it's kind of been. Yeah, I go through phases with these. I think that's what keeps me going. When I'm not catching fish, I'm out there trying to figure out the casting and the balance with rods and lines of the latest jump.

Speaker 4: 10:08

That's awesome. You know it's funny me and David Flair, you know I'm obviously. He ran into you the day before I met up with him on the North Umcaw and he said you had that miser and you were casting like this ridiculously long line and he's like I couldn't believe he was casting that thing. He's like I feel like I'm a pretty good caster and I had a hard time turning that thing over. I was just like, yeah, I couldn't even imagine. I probably couldn't even do a roll cast with it probably.

Speaker 1: 10:45

But you know, like anything else, you know, once you get used to it, the mechanics of moving a longer line with a longer rod. It's just like learning anything. So you know, it's just a matter of a learning curve, you know and. I think anybody who wanted to get into a longer brought in longer and learn it, just like getting into spay casting to begin Right. It's like a big look to begin with, like what am I doing? And over time yeah, so true.

Speaker 4: 11:21

Like this year, I picked up Scandi casting and I'm zero for five on Steelhead. I've had five hookups and lost all five of them. But Scandi is so much fun. I love those light lines and being the longer heads and just creating those super nice tight loops and I don't know Like I'm starting to really fall in love with the touch and go casting like the single spay and snake rolls Like those are just so much fun, especially on a Scandi setup.

Speaker 1: 11:57

Yeah, I agree with you. You know you can get into a really nice rhythm. You know every kind of equipment has their advantages and disadvantages. You know, and like when you're fishing, like Scandi, hits they. You know, when you're in tight quarters, like along when you're fishing along the bank on the deshoots bridge, you're right up against the trees and the bushes and all that stuff. So you don't have space for a big deloos. You know, and you know a lot of the time I tend to select equipment based on the water and fishing. I'm fishing a big river with, you know, a lot of room for deloos. You know a big gravel bar or whatever. I'll fish the longer stuff. And then you know, on tighter quarters, like you know, fishing along the bank, on the deshoots for instance, like Scandi setup with a shorter rod, or on the north ampli, you know, as you know, austin, I mean, a lot of places up here are tight and the lane that you're fishing is not very far up.

Speaker 4: 13:01

Yeah, no, like using a big rod on that river. Like when David told me that you were swinging that rod on that river, I was like how is he even doing that without breaking it on a tree? I'm like that's insane, yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:17

I think it's spot. You know, and on the north ampli, for instance, I often have two rods, like for the pools that have space and you know that are bigger and wider. You know I'll bring the bigger rod out and those spots where the pools are tighter and you've got trees behind you. But sometimes you just feel like fishing with what you're in the mood. Several years ago I was on the bulk of the river in BC, which is a huge river, and but I had just gotten into switch rods back then and I had cheap Cabela CLR switch rods. You know I get them on sale for like 60 bucks and I was just on a kick, you know having fun with these cheap equipment. And so I was up on the bulkly with 11 foot six weight and using that the whole time.

Speaker 4: 14:09

Oh my gosh, that's crazy. That's awesome, though, like using such a small rod on such a big river. That's, you just went from one extreme to the next. You fish a small river with a long rod and a big river with the short rod.

Speaker 1: 14:26

That's awesome, I love it. And when he's back in 2011 or so, where I was into single hand glass rod, I was buying up all these Benwick fiberglass rods on eBay and the fishing like 8 and a half foot, seven weights and eight weights, you know, on the main stem, arm floor with the ambush line, you know, on that huge river, you know, just fishing little fiberglass rods, I was catching winter steel here Catching catching just on dry life on the Milan. That's so sick.

Speaker 3: 15:01

Yeah, that's pretty crazy, like just the idea of like I don't know, I like how you said, like you just wanted to use the equipment or like you know, you get in the mood for it and I feel like spacing fishing is like that. Where you're like in the mood for it, You're like, oh, you have that fly, you got your rod. You're like I'm doing this today, like whether it works or not, like I'm in the zone.

Speaker 1: 15:23

Right, dry fly fishing in general. I fished dry flies, you know, 90 some percent of the time in the warmer periods from spring through fall into early winter. I mean, you know I'm fishing dry flies just about exclusive, just because it's that's just the way I like to fish and that's the way I like to hook fish, you know. So it is yet just developed into a crazy mindset that I've got.

Speaker 4: 15:57

I was going to ask Todd, yeah, what led you into this whole dry lining for steelhead? Because, like, you talk to pretty much anybody in the communities and they're like that's like the most unaffected way ever to catch a steelhead. Like, why would you waste your time going and skating a fly or dry lining for a steelhead when they don't want to come up and eat that way?

Speaker 1: 16:26

That's a great question and you know it's sort of like what you just said is kind of like the whole point. You know you get. I got to a point where you get fairly early on, you know, where, you know it became less about how many fish I could catch versus how, just enjoying the way that I like to fish and, of course, reading, you know, bill McMillan's book Dry Line, steelhead. I just kind of absorbed his mindset, you know, and his sense of ethics around fishing and so that kind of just took over for, you know, so it became more about being happy about the way I'm fishing, you know, rather than if I'm actually catching it, which sounds totally mental. So you know, that's why a lot of the time, you know, in the middle of mid-rack fishing, right, that's so awesome, I love that I just spent three days with a client who, like all he wanted to do was fish, like one certain fly.

Speaker 3: 17:33

He was like, do that one, and then he just wanted to hit the certain water. I was like there's fish over there. And he's like, no, that's not, I want to fish this fast sea. And like he did great, we're just, you know, doing cutty fishing, single hand casting. But he was. He's been fishing for so long that that's what he wanted to do. He was like I'd rather hit the spot on the scene in a fast bank and watch my fly do a dead drift down it and not catch anything than go catch fish over there, like he was so specific. So that's kind of relating to that, where it's like I know I can do this and catch fish, but like to have this exact scenario play out is super rewarding, so that's where I want to go with it. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:19

That's pretty much where I'm coming from and it's just kind of a mentality that I have kind of come to. You know, it's not you know where I'm. Not to prove anything, it's just become the way that I approach fishing. Yeah, Sometimes I run into folks who might feel like you know, I'm trying to prove something, I'm trying to, you know, be superior or something. When I've been on a couple of trips on BC and I'd be talking to guys at the end of the day and comparing notes and asking me what I thought I'd steal it and I just love, you know, the thrill of seeing a steal come up.

Speaker 1: 19:14

And yes, sometimes the guys have kind of gotten offended. It's like oh you seem superior. It's just the way I like it and I'm willing to forego, you know, numbers of fish for those oftentimes rare experiences To me. It's, you know, worth the wait. Real limit.

Speaker 4: 19:35

That's so awesome.

Speaker 3: 19:37

It's like high risk, high reward kind of thing, but the risk is just not catching and the reward is seeing that like nose, come up and take that fly.

Speaker 1: 19:48

And you know, the cool thing about this sport is like everybody develops their own style, their own preferences. So the way that I think and look at stealing fishing, you know I have friends, you know, that they've caught stealing on time and they think, yeah, this is great, you know, and they feel like they just want to catch a fish, to put on a tip and do whatever they need to to catch a fish. And you know that's just their approach and their style of doing stuff. And you know, for some guys, if the runs are gone, or you know fishing is just not optimum for catching numbers of fish. They just as well not fish, like for me. I enjoy fishing, you know, just for the sake of getting out there, even though it sounds cliche, you know yeah, it's just great to get out you know, but it really is true.

Speaker 1: 20:46

for me, you know, for just the satisfaction of being out on the river, casting, getting into the rhythm and enjoying nature, catching fishes. In fact, right now I live where I live, my home water is the middle part of the dam. It's kind of like this little known stretch of river. It's not like on you know somebody's destination list of places to go steal fishing, but it's 10 minutes from my home and the numbers of steelhead up this way this year is just the worst. There's like maybe a thousand and 66 fish over the Lamar Falls. So watching those fish count and you divide that potentially by four, there's four rivers above the falls that are getting these past the steelhead. It might be 250 steelhead in the river and fishing.

Speaker 1: 21:44

So I haven't, I haven't even I may have raised one steelhead. Since October of last I've had this incredibly long rise. But I'm good, I'm content. You know, due to life circumstances I haven't been able to. You know, fish some of the rivers that are, you know, producing better right, but it's all good, and that would just just getting out playing with my equipment, dialing in that's awesome, yeah, have you been playing around with the bridge lines?

Speaker 4: 22:17

much at all.

Speaker 1: 22:20

I haven't. I saw one come up for sale on the space page it's classifieds and I almost pulled the trigger on it. But I had just bought another line. I bought this cost long 910 line to try on my Bruce and Walker 16 to have the time. So yeah, it's endless, all the lines and gadgets.

Speaker 4: 22:44

It's so true, it's so true. Just the endless opportunities of equipment, combos and casting capabilities. And, oh, wood line batches well with this rod and balances out with this reel. You know, it's just such an endless like endeavor in that particular subject.

Speaker 1: 23:08

Oh yeah, and that you know. This is all the stuff that makes the sport fun. You can be. Everybody develops their own style and everybody has their own tastes of what kind of equipment they like. I tend to be a hoarder, so I tend to just keep buying stuff and rather than, you know, selling off something since I'm getting something new, I keep just filing everything.

Speaker 3: 23:32

That gives me a bit of a question. What, how many rods do you think you have, or do you know the number?

Speaker 1: 23:38

Man, that's a tough question.

Speaker 3: 23:39

Yeah, so over 10.

Speaker 1: 23:42

Yeah, yeah. As far as two-handed rods, I think I'm over 30 at this point.

Speaker 3: 23:54

You're basically a two-handed fly shopper.

Speaker 1: 23:57

That's crazy. Like I mentioned, I got into two-handed casting back in 1995, you know, I started off with what they call the 9140 Brownie. It's a 14 foot nine weight, but the way that they rated those rods back then was different than it is. That rod is at seven, but at any rate I still have that one from 1995. Wow, that's awesome. Even though I got two stars.

Speaker 3: 24:28

Well, that kind of also leads me into another question how did you get into fly fishing in general?

Speaker 1: 24:37

I was born and raised in Hawaii, okay, and we don't really have at that time nobody that I knew of fly fishing, but I developed an interest in it from fishing magazines like the Field and Stream, sports and Field. Back then there was this other fishing magazine called Fishing World and there were articles about fly fishing in these magazines in my granddad. So I kind of became interested in it and some of our local fishing shows. They'd show little clips of fly fishing with crowd fishing, with people going after Atlantic salmon, and for that little bit of exposure got me interested and I bought a fly outfit in the Yellowstone area when we came to California to visit. But I didn't know what I was doing. It didn't really balance out very well. Then I ended up getting a 10 weight glass, seven foot five weight, but I was probably in like seven, three, eight or so Without having anybody else around that was doing it. I had no idea what I was doing. I learned to cast a little bit through this book called McLean's Fly Fishing Cycle, but it wasn't until I ended up coming to Oregon in 1989, rather, I was a bum club musician back in those days so I joined a band in Honolulu that was from Oregon. Their drummer had quit in the middle of their engagement there so they gave me their drummer's plane ticket and I flew to Oregon with them, got exposed to people actually fly fishing and experience Fly fishing was a part Initially, like under the Sheets River, it just blossomed from there, got into trout fishing and got into steelhead fishing.

Speaker 1: 26:44

Got into steelhead fly fishing through those Lonnie Waller videos. Those are the best Lonnie Waller videos. I lived in the Portland area so the Kauffman Streamborn fly shop existed at that time. Frequent thing that fly shop lived is my exposure to that. It was my first time. It was really awesome from there and then I fortunately ended up moving back to Hawaii in 1990. So I was kind of a long distance fisherman from 1990 until I returned to Oregon in 2000. And it just became more and more obsessive about fly fishing and tying over. That's awesome.

Speaker 3: 27:45

Yeah, that's pretty cool, like so you played drums, yeah yeah. And then how long did you stay with that band?

Speaker 1: 27:54

I was at that band for about just a couple of years. Musicians are kind of playing to people. The initial incarnation of that band lasted for about six months and then people split off and then the leader of the band he and I and several other guys put a couple other bands together. It was just kind of this feast of them and lifestyle, yeah, that you have a gig from week to week and barely surviving that kind of got out of it afterwards, yeah. Yeah, I still play drums to this day, but I just play drums at my local church as well.

Speaker 3: 28:41

There you go, yeah, and so this whole two handed game kind of caught you off. Like you knew, that's kind of where you wanted to stick with. I mean, do you still do single hand?

Speaker 1: 28:54

I still single hand cast once in a while. Yeah, very, there's decent trout fishing around where I live, but I'm so occupied with skill at that. Yeah, I don't really coach fish. But actually when I got into two hand casting back in 1995, it was with some hesitation because I was, you know, as far as I knew, up until that time I was still hitting with single hand. While I was doing so, creating dry line skill hit and looking at those Lonnie Waller videos, those that media was before two hand casting.

Speaker 1: 29:41

But when I lived in Montana for a couple years, from 93 to 95, my wife's family was from Wilkirk for like a year and there was this fly shop in Bosnia called the River of the Beach and a couple of the guys in that shop they take trips to the beach. And one of the guys was telling me you know, check out a two handed rod. And to me it just sounded overshadowing. You know they'd be fishing a 14 foot rod. But you know I thought about it and I thought, well, a long rod would keep you good line, good control of the swing.

Speaker 1: 30:23

So I decided to try it and once I tried it, you know I bought my that sage rod. I bought it as a kit. I built it up from a blank, from my angler version, but once I got into, you know, staying around with it and casting it, yeah, I just really, you know, found enjoyment out of it. So it was a state cast where, even though I was, you know, early in the day, I'd begin with because all I knew at that time was like a double taper line. So I bought a single hand Portland double taper nine weight. You know that's one of the hardest lines of the year.

Speaker 4: 31:06

I could imagine that would be very difficult.

Speaker 3: 31:10

Yeah, so you like, because nowadays you know, like how to change something on a vehicle or how to spay, cast or anything you want to do. You just look on YouTube and at least you can get an idea. Right, what were your sources back then? Just books and trial and error.

Speaker 1: 31:32

Books and VHS videos Okay.

Speaker 3: 31:36

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1: 31:37

Yeah, one of the early sources. I had bought this VHS video with Al Freer and he had a lot of single hand technique and he had just a short little section about through handed casting. And then I bought this book by Hugh Falkus back in 1995 or six and then I got a hold of a video by this guy, Derek Brown, who's a guy from Scotland, and then later on I got deck holding spay casting video. So yeah, it was mainly from watching videos, Wow.

Speaker 1: 32:16

And just kind of self, you know, just self teaching. Otherwise I didn't have any instruction for me. I developed a lot of that, but I probably still have.

Speaker 4: 32:29

So I always saw everlasting learning.

Speaker 1: 32:35

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 32:36

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:38

And you know, the key to spay casting is being able to, you know, self diagnose what's going on with the cast. You guys probably experienced where in certain runs, in certain conditions I mean you're like a champ every cast goes out and ganks at your real arbor. Something small changes, the little change of direction with wind, or how deep you're waiting, or something in your cast just falls apart. So being able to diagnose what's happening Another key, but I still struggle with that.

Speaker 4: 33:18

Yeah, I completely agree. I think being able to self diagnose yourself is probably one of the key, key components to becoming a better spay caster. Like, if you can't self diagnose, then you never know what's really going on. You really don't know what's happening with your cast or why it's not working. You know being able to see oh hey, I blew anchor there, okay, so I need to either slow it down or bring my anchor a little closer. You know placement. All those different things come into factor, and just being able to self diagnose yourself without having someone else there telling you what's happening just makes it so much easier as a caster. It's frustrating at times because, like, sometimes you see what the problem is and it takes you a while before it changes. You're like gosh, I know what I'm doing wrong, I just need to do it.

Speaker 3: 34:22

You know, or it's the next time you go out and you're like you know, you had like a week or whatever five days to think about it. And then you get there and you're like you do it perfectly. And you're like what do I do there? And then all of a sudden it's back to where it was and you're like no, come back to me.

Speaker 2: 34:38

What was it?

Speaker 3: 34:39

What was it? But definitely like the like where you're waiting, the height that you're starting your cast from. That's something that always gets me like. So I always try to match my depth and stay within that kind of range. Or else, you know, I mean when I was younger and didn't know anything about where fish were, you know, I'd always weighed deeper than I needed to, so that. And then trying to spay cast, I started on single hand spay casting, just cause that's the person that taught me he was doing single hand. And then one day he showed up with a two handed rod and he was like I was like what's that, you know? And he's like it's a two handed rod, you don't know. And I was like, no, I don't know. And then I tried to do. I bought myself a two handed rod and I was like, oh, that's cool too. I like single hand, but I also like double hand. I like everything. I'm not a pierced on any of it, but Like I said, I kind of go through phases.

Speaker 1: 35:37

Right now I'm kind of going through time, for your casting is just in a different way I was going to. I've been going through that right now. In fact. It was to the point where I finally decided to videotape myself here. I put my cell phone on a tripod and what worked my way up around and videotape myself, cast and you know kind of again, you know, trying to diagnose what I'm doing. And with longer lines it's like there's less room for air with technique. So there's times where, yeah, I think I can do this, and then other days it's very true, Well and then you know there's so many factors.

Speaker 3: 36:23

I mean you even throw on a new bug that doesn't shed water, or like drags, you know whatever weight. It's kind of crazy and like you know, that's what. That's what surprises or not surprises me, but that's what I'm thinking about. When you were first starting, like how much information was there on there, on like you know what you're using, like the fly selection, were you tying your own flies?

Speaker 1: 36:48

Yeah, yeah, that was not the first time.

Speaker 3: 36:51

Okay.

Speaker 1: 36:52

Yeah, I was back in those days. I fished like the Mcmillan steel head, you know, which is very streamlined and easy, okay. I was because I was watching those Lonnie Waller videos. I was tying my own modified versions of the Waller weight and of course that flies. You know bulge. So it makes a difference, you know, when you're lifting your line with a bulky fly versus a streamlined. So you have to account for those differences too. And some a lot of you know, like subtle changes of direction from the wind and just really for me the worst is like a breeze that blows towards you sideways rather than straight upstream or straight downstream.

Speaker 1: 37:40

It kind of blows at you from the side of whatever angle it is.

Speaker 3: 37:44

Yeah, the wind shall get you. It shall get you for sure. So yeah, and you were tying your own flies. I mean, we won't go too much into tying flies, but same thing. Like the sources you had, it was mostly books.

Speaker 1: 37:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I had this little book by Dave Hughes called I don't know it was like American flight time annual or something. It was a pretty short book but it laid a good foundation on technique. You basically flight patterns to try trying, you know, like the character in there, you know he gave step-by-step instructions on various patterns. That would kind of give you somewhat of a rounded foundation to branch off the other pattern. So there was like the hair's underneath, like K-Hill Dryfly, the green butt stunk, the steel head, the muddler minnow and some other. But so that was the foundation I had. And then I did get into a few VHS videos. After that it was this guy that had a bunch of flight time videos. I'm trying to forget his name, I'm trying to remember his name. He was a fly fishing guy in Wyoming and I had a couple other flight times. Nice, you know, like back in those days we didn't have like the YouTube videos.

Speaker 4: 39:26

Well, I do got to bring up Todd, even though this isn't really about fly time. You're kind of known for your dry line flies, I mean the Bizz V Bomber, some of those skated foam flies that you have that are just like the little wang. I mean, let's talk about that Like what made you come up with these pretty intricate skating flies and what was kind of like the inspiration behind those.

Speaker 1: 40:04

Well, you know, from the very beginning, when I started using dry flies, was like the two main criteria I wanted in a dry fly would be number one, that it stays on top consistent. You know, because otherwise what's the point of fishing a dry fly if it bobs under all the dry line? And some guys are good with fly as they kind of go in and out of the surface. That's why a lot of guys love muddlers and but for me I'm not too much of a muddler fan, even with how well they work because they don't stay on surface super consistent. So I want, you know, the first criteria is a fly that stays on top consistent and the second criteria is a fly that I can see as consistently as possible. So visibility and scalability are the two main criteria with the flies that I've developed. So that's how, like with the little wing, you know that's where I arrived with that. You know just the way that, with the, where the, the way the poem is set up, and you know having those strange poem posts on the top which got the fly its name, you know that was the motivation behind it and I wanted something I could see. And then with by visibomber I'm good friends with Adrian Cortez. You guys probably all know him. He ties, is amazing, atlantic salmon flies in hand. He's, you know, quite the drive like Christian himself as well the mirror pattern to steal it. But with, you know, being friends with him, I kind of started getting this conflict about needing to use natural material without using foam. So that's how the by visibomber came up.

Speaker 1: 42:03

So with that pattern, you know, when I was looking at tying a pattern with natural materials without foam, I experimented with, you know, regular bomb and no matter what I did I couldn't get them to stay up consistent. And again, you know, if a pattern doesn't stay up consistently I get frustrated with it, I'm like I gotta do something. And so that's where I came up with the idea of taking that patch of towel and squashing that down between the fundier body and the split wings in the front and that kind of took the place of foam. So it gave enough stiffness and resistance that it stayed up pretty reliably and that fan of health care makes it easy to see. But again, you know, I was looking at those two criteria because it's skate-rich, reliably. And then most recently, a more recent pattern I kind of developed further was the free bird and basically it's a wang that doesn't have foam on it.

Speaker 4: 43:16

Again. I saw you post this one on spay pages. You talked about it and you posted a picture in the small description. I was like, ooh, what? It's like a little wang with all natural. I was like that's so cool yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:33

Yeah, like with fly tying and you know that's kind of the cool thing about it too just like with, you know, skillet fishing. In general, everybody develops their own style and preferences and way of expressing. You know what they're doing. So it's like, you know, my brain's always, you know, anchoring with thinking of what's the next best thing, what's this other way, that's what makes it fun.

Speaker 4: 44:01

It's super cool. I'm really glad this come up. As far as those flies, I was really curious because you know I previous to this podcast, we you and I have talked before through spay pages and social media. You reached out to me during a dark time of my life and sent me a hand tied leader and some of your flies. You sent me two Bisbee bombers and a little wang and one of your other skaters and I love those flies. They're so much fun. I had it was just a red band, but I had a red band smash that Grinch that you sent me and that was just the coolest thing. I was like oh my gosh, yes this. I totally understand why it's odd. Does this now Like that's addicting?

Speaker 1: 44:53

Yeah, you know, there was this guy through Instagram you know, who reached out to me for a dozen of flies and he's up in BC and so just yesterday or the day before, he messaged me and he got his first steelhead on a drive fly and so so he's he's hooked to. It was on one of the little wings that I sent and I get it. I get why you like this.

Speaker 4: 45:22

It's so true. You know I haven't had a steelhead yet on any of the skated flies. Like, keep hoping I always like my first first thing I do before I put on like a wet fly or any of my more complicated wet flies like a lady Caroline or something like that. I'll always skate like your Grinch fly that you sent me through first, because I always I really badly want to get one of those skated eats and see a steelhead come up and eat that. I think it would just be the absolute coolest thing.

Speaker 1: 45:58

It'll happen. It'll happen, especially on the dish. You know they're pretty surface oriented but the thing with the dish you toss them is the real. I tell you the reality. It's like most people fish like small, hairy wing, wet on the dry line on the, and people doing that are going to out fish.

Speaker 1: 46:19

A guy with skaters you know, probably five to one at least, for whatever reason just having a fly, you know, right in the surface film, you know, makes a difference. Or if you're going for numbers, but you're still going to come across steelhead, that that'll commit to the fish. You know, stay with it. And the wet fly, you know the wet fly is always great on the comebacks, you know, because there's gonna be times where you have a fish, you know, kind of you'll have fish that I call players that are just kind of messed with your head. You'll just kind of explode right at the fly and miss it and then you know, maybe that fish will keep coming back after multiple casts. It's like it's almost as if they're intentionally that they're messed with, where they intentionally come right behind the fly and miss it or explode and then miss it and then and then they stop rising for a little bit and then you go back with a small wet fly, you know, and it's almost a sure thing, but it's a thrill because you know that fish is there.

Speaker 4: 47:27

Yeah, that was like this last weekend, me and my buddy, we walked down to a run below max and we were walking in and I was like, hey man, I just have a feeling this run I have a feeling we're gonna hook into some steelhead here. I just I have a feeling and it had to have been like third cast through, had the gnarliest rip and hook up. It was so awesome. And this it was not a super big steelhead, it was probably anywhere from like 25 to 27 inches. It wasn't big, big, but it was a good fish and just exploded on surface and we're like oh yes, and it came off after a minute or so and I was like oh no. And then later that same day, at the end of the run, I hooked up again in the tail out and this fish I never saw this fish.

Speaker 4: 48:26

I just know that it was a. It had to have been a pretty good one because it actually broke my reel and yeah, so it ripped the line off my reel so fast that it broke the spring inside my click and pull and sent my spool free spooling and I was just like no, and obviously see the steelhead come off down river. I'm just like, but yeah, it's a. You know, it's just one of those things like when you know that they're there or you know that like something feels good about a run, you're like, oh yeah, this just talks to me. Or when you see them like exploding on surface for some, whatever reason they're exploding on surface, you're like you get all excited, your heart starts to beat a little faster. You're like, all right, here it goes, we're into it now.

Speaker 1: 49:22

You know, and that's yeah, that anticipation is like the juicy part of the sport as well. And as time goes by and you know you fish certain rivers and certain runs repeatedly, you know you become familiar with steelhead and sometimes when you're fishing actual places where you've hooked fish before, or you're fishing a location or a part of a run that looks like, you know, intuitively, you know looks like places you've hooked fish before, just having that.

Speaker 3: 49:56

It's funny because I was just thinking about this, but we like being Austin. Well, last season for winter steelhead I had like five good grabs, a couple of them on for like 30 seconds, most of them off by the time they like were on and then, but yet all of all three of us are in the same boat where we haven't really had a steelhead in a while. But yet you know you keep going out, you keep trying because there's something more than just like you know, between the spay cast making the flies at home and then you know that one shot when it happens and you're just like here we go and then you know whatever happens happens. But it's incredible that you know because you look at like trout fishing, that's what I guide for. You know you go like an hour without a fish and everyone's like it gets weird on the raft. People are like what's going on here or like is it the fly? And I'm like you know, like my best guess kind of thing. So we change out flies or whatever.

Speaker 3: 51:03

But with steelhead you could go all day, get in your truck and be like, yeah, that was a sweet day, I had some good casts in there. You know, like there's the satisfaction level doesn't always come from the fish. That's like you were saying, todd, earlier. That's like the cherry on top, you know.

Speaker 3: 51:22

But being out there, I've been looking up more and when I'm spay casting and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm in this like beautiful setting, like there's a bird over there, there's this beautiful flow in front of me, this nice tail out down there, and when you reach that soon, when you can just zone out so hard you know, winter fishing, you can be frozen and keep moving, you're just like it doesn't matter, I forget to drink water. You know, when I'm out fishing I forget to like, do so many of these normal human things. And then I get in my truck and the heat's on and I'm like, oh, I'm frozen right now, like that's why I could have tied my knots properly, because my fingers don't work. You know, yeah, it's such a magical kind of I don't know. I don't even know what to say about it. It's just something else.

Speaker 1: 52:18

Yeah, but you know, and if it wasn't for our passion for going in for steelhead, you know we might not be out in those places 100%. Oh, Cheryl.

Speaker 3: 52:32

Yeah, you don't see many hikers or like people walking down paths during the winter, when there's like snow on the bank and you see your breath in front of you and your guides are freezing up and you have to keep like breaking the ice off each one just so you can make like 10 casts before you have to do it again.

Speaker 4: 52:51

Yeah, yeah, it's so true. You know, like this last weekend, with those two fish and stuff, we started to make our way back so we walked in so early and I'd never been down below max before, I'd never walked down below to some of the runs that we went to, and so we went in so early. It was dark so I couldn't see any geological features, didn't know what it looked like down there. I'm all walking in with a headlamp. It's like all right, another runs down here. I'm hoping they're steelhead too, you know.

Speaker 4: 53:28

And then it gets to like sunshine and you start seeing like the canyon walls and you're like oh, whoa, this is sick. Like there's a big horn sheep over there, like that's cool Wild horses over here. Like abandoned railroad that I was walking along and didn't even realize that it was a railroad track. You know, like it's just all the cool aspects that you run into, like you don't in the moment you might not appreciate them, until you like start looking at the bigger picture and you're like, whoa, okay, there's just. Yeah, it's like you guys said, it's not always about catching that fish, it's sometimes just taking in the landscape around us or the animals or even other people. You know, seeing someone else hook up and lay at the steelhead I'm like yo, awesome, good job. You know that's super sick, you know, and I'm super stoked for them, but it's just, you know, it's just so much fun being out there and seeing it all and being a part of it all. You know.

Speaker 1: 54:39

Yeah, and I like just saying who's Austin? It's a sport that tends to pull good people. You know the community of people that get into this. It's like there's like a natural bond. When you run into other fishermen, you get to talk into other steelheaders that you know tends to attract, and a good group of people and folks that are not competitive and like you're talking about you know wish each other well. It's a great community, like.

Speaker 4: 55:17

I agree completely. I think I have run into maybe one toxic person in the whole Spake community out of a couple of hundred and I gotta say that's a pretty good ratio, you know considering. So I'll take those odds all day of running into just awesome people pretty much 99% of the time, and I'll get that one person every once on a blue moon. So you know it's very cool.

Speaker 3: 55:47

Yeah, and who knows, they might've just had a bad day out fishing. Maybe they broke a click and pull reel or something. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 55:58

Yeah, I won't lie, I was pretty sad, and more than anything. I was walking back and I was like, thank God, we have a friend that's coming, that has an extra reel, so I'll get the fish tomorrow.

Speaker 3: 56:12

Yeah, it's a thing Like I remember I was on the cow agid just doing my thing and I thought I hooked up on something but quickly realized it was a stick and so I started like dragging my rod up. And this was once again when I was first starting. So I was just using the tip of the rod basically to bring the line to my hand and all of a sudden it just popped and I just like looked up and I was like, oh, I just broke my only rod for doing what I was doing. And my friend and his girlfriend at the time were there and she was like, oh, I have this seven weight echo ion in my truck with the same shooting head that you're using. So at that time I was using the commando groove. Oh no, the commando, there's just the commando shooting head.

Speaker 3: 57:04

And then, yeah, she puts it on and I was like, oh well, I don't want to get a steelhead on this, like it's not my rod, kind of thing. So in my mind I put it in there. I was like I'm just going to swing for browns, because we have browns there that sometimes we'll grab, and so I'm just doing my thing with the single hand and then all of a sudden, mid run, just like boom, boom, boom, beautiful hand comes up and we like land it and she was like looking at me and I like saw that she was happy, but then she was also like that's my rod. And then she's like I haven't caught a steelhead on that rod yet. I was like sorry about that. Well, I just broke it in for you, though. You're welcome.

Speaker 3: 57:48

But you know, and it's happened to me multiple times where I give up on catching a steelhead, and that's when it happens I'm like mentally like done with it. I'm like nope, it's not happening today, no way. And then I just like all of a sudden, my casting gets better because I'm like not trying hard, I don't know, something happens. You know, in the atmosphere, the winds change, the stars align, yeah, yeah, it's a, yeah, it's an incredible little little slice of heaven when you're just on the water with your own thoughts and like everything else doesn't matter. You know, it's just beautiful.

Speaker 4: 58:27

Yeah, I agree, I agree completely.

Speaker 3: 58:31

Well, before we end it, I would love to hear what inspired you to write your book. And is that the only one there, that one, that one right there in Austin's hand? No one can see this, but Austin is holding it up, so that book came about as just a really great opportunity.

Speaker 1: 58:51

Jay Nicholas, you know, is the guy who put the book together. He had approached me. A friend of mine, jeff Hunter, had told him, you know about me, so he approached him. So it was just an opportunity that came about kind of brand away and it's just been a great honor and privilege. You know that this opportunity came about. So Jay had contacted me and it's like I'd like to put a book together about you and the flies and so it, even though it's just, it's actually just a little journal.

Speaker 1: 59:28

It took me a couple of years just to kind of pull text together and photos. Some of the articles came off my blog. It's free use stuff. So yeah, it was just kind of a really great blessing and privilege that just came about. It just came to me, not something that. I was pursuing or anything. I just feel really blessed and honored. They put all that work into putting that book together.

Speaker 3: 59:57

No, that's like it is really cool. I mean, you know you said randomly, but I feel like organically it came up. You know you're just doing yourself, you're doing what you love to do, and you know that shined out in the world to the point where someone was like let's do this. You know that is really cool.

Speaker 1: 1:00:17

So it took you two years, though I mean, you know, obviously you're putting some thought into it, though yeah, you know, just because life's so busy, you know everything else that goes on, so in grandkids and everything else that was happening, it's like, you know, just having periods of time to work on stuff, having uninterrupted periods of time where I have the energy and motivation to put things together. It just took quite a bit to get it together but Jay was just so patient. You know he was so patient with me and just really you know just his skills with. He took all the photographs of the flies and the step by step stuff and some other things and just his talent with putting the layout really has just a grand opportunity.

Speaker 4: 1:01:12

I would say, todd, this is a phenomenal book. Like for any steelheader that wants to be in the drylining, this is a must have book. I mean, I've probably read through it twice now and it's so good, I love it. I love reading. You know, what's probably the most fascinating part about this whole thing is your ideas and thoughts on leader setups. You're 14 and 12 foot leader setups in your 60 to 20 to 20 ratio from butt to mid to tip it. And I just like that whole concept of setting up a leader that way, with different from chameleon to whatever else you use for a tippet section to create that leader is just, it's awesome. And for anybody that doesn't know anti leaders or hasn't ever tried a hand tied leader, I'm going to tell you right now. It's challenging at first but once you get it down as far as casting wise, it makes a world of difference in your casting. It really does.

Speaker 1: 1:02:30

And the concept of how to tie a leader that way came from those old old books that I read, that my claims fly fishing encyclopedia. Yeah, it came here, you know, and what the rear you know. It's like I said. You know it's not an exact science. Leaders are because, like the leader I sent you right, Austin was just kind of a straight leader. I think I sent you a 20 pound to 10 pound leader or something, and so you can go from these complicated leaders with all the knots and everything. Or that guy Bruce Croft, you know he likes to just use a straight section of 18 maximum and tie it to the piece of tippet and and and that worked as well, you know. So it's kind of like you know, whatever, whatever works for an individual.

Speaker 4: 1:03:19

Yeah, I think it. You know I took, I took a lot of inspiration from that section in particular and I've done so. When I was out on the North umpaw with Chandy and David, we David introduced me to Pauli leaders and then adding tippet onto Pauli leaders to create my longer leader setups and I have fallen in love with that setup.

Speaker 4: 1:03:46

I think I've got 10 foot Pauli leader of whatever kind of whether it be an intermediate or floating, and then I add about four to five feet of 12 pound and I absolutely that's like my bread and butter right now for a Scandi. But it all came from the concept of this whole hand tied leader and just what you did with your leaders. So thank you for that and thanks for giving the community such an awesome tool to learn from. You know, it's a, it's a. It's a very good piece of knowledge and information for people to reach from.

Speaker 1: 1:04:29

You know I'm really honored that you find it, you know, helpful and useful. You know, because you know my whole thing is is if I can encourage other guys you know to get to. You know, do dry fly still hitting. I love doing that because, especially for guys who are newer at it, you know it seems like such a huge leap of faith. You know, to steal hit are hard enough to catch the begin with and there's fewer and fewer of them. So why would you want to make something hard even harder If I can encourage more guys to you know, just take that leap of faith I love doing.

Speaker 4: 1:05:13

Yeah, I got so. When we were out this weekend, just to instill some more faith in your whole dry lining thing, every single one of us all three of us we all three of us skated a fly at least once, and I skated probably two to three times while we were out there. But we all were like all right, we got to try this. Like it's just too cool not to. And so much fun to watch that fly just creating that across the surface and not knowing whether something's going to come up and hit. It is just like the anticipation is just so enticing.

Speaker 1: 1:05:50

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:05:55

So someone wants to sorry to cut you off? Is someone wants to find that book? What's the best way of going about that?

Speaker 1: 1:06:03

Um, you can get it on your Amazon. Basically, it's like that Amazon self publishing deal that J does, so so you can order it through Amazon. I currently am going to have just a few copies on hand that J and I are going to sign, so if, if anybody wants to get a copy directly from me, they can reach your state pages, maybe I'll end up with probably a. I had about 15 guys committed to one of the direct copy from from us and I bought a few extra, thinking that's awesome, yeah, that's super cool yeah thanks, I'm glad.

Speaker 1: 1:06:49

I'm glad you were finding it useful and you're making sure. Yeah, I'm.

Speaker 4: 1:06:58

Thanks for coming on and doing this podcast with us. I mean it's you know, we're not like big names in the industry or anything ourselves. You know I'm pretty new to the spay game and Andrews just a. He's a really good guide up there in Canada and does his thing and it's just a good dude that brings a bunch of awesome, interesting people on to his podcast. So you know, thanks for coming on here and doing this with us, you know.

Speaker 1: 1:07:26

Thanks, thanks for having me, and I wanted to be on and always love talking steelhead, so thank you.

Speaker 3: 1:07:34

Yeah, well, we'll wait for your second book to come out and then we'll do it again. That's about two years. We'll give you two years. That's it, though it's on a time schedule now, now that we know how long it took. That's it.

Speaker 3: 1:07:47

You're the best yeah yeah, no, that's a yeah and same thing with what Austin said and thanks for the kind words. And, yeah, I mean it's always cool to just see people kind of flourishing in their, their element when they're, you know, doing what they love and and like we were saying earlier, with the, the community of fly fishing in general, you know most people are always just there to share and help each other get better and you know, see success across the board versus anything else. And I think, like you know, you're writing a book about, you know, something you love so much. You know to you it might have been like, oh, I'm not sure if people like it as much, but then you know that's what people are just out there looking for. So, yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:08:35

Thank you, appreciate it. Yeah, stay in touch and maybe get together sometime.

Speaker 3: 1:08:40

Yeah, for sure I'll come down, absolutely I'll go. We'll go do some steelhead and with some dry flies It'll be awesome, oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:08:50

Not in the meantime, keep me posted on how you guys are doing with your dry flies. I love, I always love, hearing Christian.

Speaker 3: 1:08:56

Yeah, amen to that, absolutely All right. Well, yeah, thanks again for joining us and yeah, we'll chat soon. All right.

Speaker 4: 1:09:05

Thanks guys, thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:09:07

Thank you for listening to dead drifter society. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. In the meantime, keep up with the show and get to know Andrew on Instagram at dead drifter society. Until next time.

Speaker 3: 1:09:23

And there you have it. That was Todd Hirano, so me and Austin will be continuing to do this. As far as Todd, if you want to go follow his adventure along on Instagram, it's Todd Hirano. I'll have that down in the description and you'll be able to kind of follow along and see what you like about his journey, because he's got not only beautiful flies but just a great personality and much respect for everything he's done. And as far as the book that he wrote, like he said, he can get it on Amazon. I'll definitely have a link for that down below. And yeah, if you want anyone else on the podcast, as always, just shoot me a message over at dead drifter society and I will see what I can do. Until next time, I'll catch you later.