How to Behave on a River, with Todd Tanner

Summary

The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

Episode: How to Behave on a River, with Todd Tanner
Date: July 7, 2026
Host: Tom Rosenbauer
Guest: Todd Tanner, Fly Fishing Writer and Educator

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Tom Rosenbauer invites longtime writer and trout educator Todd Tanner to discuss the much-asked but seldom-examined topic of river etiquette. Drawing from Todd's recent Hatch magazine article and decades of experience both on the water and teaching others, the conversation explores modern guidelines for how anglers might conduct themselves—whether wading or floating. The focus: fostering more enjoyable, less stressful days for everyone, by observing a blend of tradition, common sense, and evolving norms given crowded rivers and the growing fly-fishing community.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining “Etiquette” and Its Evolution

Timestamps: 00:12–36:34

• Etiquette vs Guidelines:
  Tom notes that traditional advice often boils down to “use common sense and treat others as you want to be treated,” but different rivers and situations require more granular guidelines.
• Changing Landscape:
  Todd highlights a generational shift—older anglers’d be shown the ropes, but today’s influx of new fishers means mentoring isn’t as common, making these discussions more timely.

  "We've had a pretty big amount of growth in fly fishing these past few years, and more folks out there who aren't experienced...maybe folks who should know better aren't always setting the best examples." (Todd, 36:34)

• Humility and Kindness:
  Both agree: The core principle is respect—for others and the resource. If everyone’s just a little more thoughtful, everyone’s day improves.

  “We're not out there curing cancer. We're out there to have a good time.” (Todd, 36:34)

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2. The Rights of Way: Boaters vs Waders

Timestamps: 39:14–54:56

• Basic Principles:
  1. Downstream Angler Gets Right of Way:
     Whoever is further downriver—boat or wader—has priority.

     "The downstream angler has the right of way, that's true whether they're in a boat or wading, regardless." (Todd, 40:58)

  2. Wade Anglers Over Floaters:
     Wade anglers, with limited mobility and range, get priority over boats, which can more easily move over water.
• Giving Space:
  Boaters should give waders a wide berth, communicate intentions, and (where possible) use the opposite bank or mid-river to pass.
  • Tom relays positive experiences on the Delaware with drift boats checking which direction he was fishing and ensuring not to disturb him.

    "Every single boat...was totally thoughtful about my water." (Tom, 44:52)

• If Confused, Communicate:
  If river navigation is tight, the courteous default is to stop fishing, ask the wade angler their preference, and then pass behind (if safe).
• Tips for Floaters:
  • In big rivers, leave side channels to wading anglers.
  • Avoid blasting music—don’t impose your playlist on others.

    “Don’t impose your musical tastes on the folks fishing around you.” (Todd, 49:21)

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3. Spacing and Approaching Other Anglers

Timestamps: 57:42–70:38

• Observing Distance:
  If the river’s empty, don’t crowd the only other angler. As crowds grow, look to local custom for spacing, and always err on the side of more space.

  “If you’ve got a big stretch of river to yourself...give them a ton of room. Make their life better by respecting their personal space.” (Todd, 57:55)

• Combat Fishing:
  Todd’s story of New York rivers crowded “every 30 or 40ft,” and how this drove him west for solitude.
• What to Do If It’s Crowded:
  Tom: Find another spot—ideally a mile or more away on small streams, as even walking the bank can spook fish for a long time.
• Communication:
  If you must fish near another, communicate: “Are you moving upstream or downstream?” to avoid low-holing or crowding.

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4. “Low Holing” and Run Rotation

Timestamps: 53:16–69:51

• Low Holing Defined:
  Entering downstream of someone actively fishing that direction (especially bad with streamers or steelhead/salmon).
• How Far Is Enough?
  On crowded rivers, at least 100 yards, but when in doubt, go out of sight or to another bank.

  "Give people as much room as you would like them to give you." (Todd, 54:54)

• Combat Competition:
  Both Todd and Tom highlight the importance of not seeing other anglers as “the enemy”—fly-fishing is communal, not competitive.

  "Why view them as competition? If I knew those folks, they'd be my buddies." (Todd, 56:09)

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5. Sharing Small Streams

Timestamps: 69:26–70:38

• On Tiny Creeks:
  Tom avoids any stretch where another car is parked.

  "If you see somebody else on a small stream, you don't want to be anywhere near that area because they've spooked everything." (Tom, 70:38)

• Give a Mile of Space:
  On narrow water, even minimal intrusion can spoil the fishing for hours.

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6. Dogs, Drones, and Distractions

Timestamps: 82:04–86:32

• Dog Control:
  Don’t let your dog roam, bark, or swim near someone else’s fishing. Only bring a dog if it is utterly obedient.

  "If you bring your dog, keep it under control. If you can't, leave it home." (Todd, 82:05)

• Drones:
  Don’t fly over others without explicit permission; respect the peace of the river.
• Music and Noise:
  Quiet is a key part of many anglers’ enjoyment.

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7. Additional “Good Behavior” Practices

Timestamps: 75:12–80:40

• Handle Fish with Respect:
  Play and release fish quickly.
  Avoid prolonged “grip and grin” photos; keep the fish wet, and vary what you shoot—landscapes and friends make better mementos.
• Teaching Moments and Confrontation:
  Most instances of encroachment are arrogance, not ignorance—confronting rarely helps. Quietly relocate and avoid altercations.

  “Altercations on the river never end well... just go somewhere else.” (Tom, 86:42)

  • If approached by beginners, don’t volunteer advice unless asked, so as not to embarrass or overstep.

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Notable Quotes

• “Just treat other people like you’d like to be treated...the golden rule.”
  — Todd Tanner [36:34]
• “If you’re in a boat, give wade anglers a ton of space...You’re covering more water than they ever can.”
  — Todd Tanner [44:52]
• “Don’t impose your musical tastes on others.”
  — Todd Tanner [49:21]
• “If there’s nobody else within sight, the last thing you want to do is fish next to somebody.”
  — Todd Tanner [57:55]
• “I tell them your dog has to be dead obedient, dead set obedient, no questions asked...or you’re going to ruin somebody else’s day.”
  — Tom Rosenbauer [85:43]
• “If someone low holes you or gets in too close...just leave, because altercations on the river never end well.”
  — Tom Rosenbauer [86:42]
• “Most encroachment is not ignorance, it’s arrogance. I don’t think it’s a teaching moment.”
  — Tom Rosenbauer [89:08]
• “We should all aspire to be the best people we can be when we’re on the water.”
  — Todd Tanner [57:23]

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Practical Takeaways (Etiquette “Rules”)

1. Give more space than you think you need.
2. Waders have right of way over boats; downstream angler always has priority.
3. On small streams, avoid fishing behind someone or entering their stretch for a long distance.
4. Communicate if you must approach someone: ask about their direction, and get permission before leapfrogging or low holing.
5. Control dogs, leave loud music at home, and don’t use drones near others.
6. Handle fish quickly and minimize photos with outstretched arms.
7. If crowded or “violated,” move on rather than create conflict.
8. Don’t offer advice unless asked; let people enjoy their day.
9. Remember: it’s everyone’s water, and everyone’s out to have fun.

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Memorable Moments

• River Music Fails: Todd bemoans the rise of boomboxes on Montana rivers, wishing more anglers would think twice before sharing their soundtrack—with Tom agreeing he wouldn’t want someone else cranking AC/DC or Taylor Swift in his fishing day. [49:21]
• Steelhead on Ice: Todd recounts an epic (and freezing) attempt at a Pennsylvania steelhead river, including smashing ice with a plank and catching fish despite all odds. [70:51–74:46]
• Dog Barking On Cue: As Todd delivers his advice on dog etiquette, Tom’s dog barks enthusiastically in the background—perfect comic timing. [82:05]

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Segment Timestamps

| Segment | Timestamps | |------------------------------------------|-------------------| | Episode theme & intro to etiquette | 00:12–36:34 | | Boaters vs wade anglers | 39:14–54:56 | | Sharing space & crowd stories | 57:42–70:38 | | Small stream best practices | 69:26–70:38 | | Side topics: dogs, music, drones | 82:04–86:32 | | Final thoughts and “teaching moments” | 86:42–94:06 | | Closing & upcoming trips | 94:34–96:29 |

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Summary

This conversation serves as a practical, big-hearted masterclass in river etiquette for modern anglers. Though “rules” may vary by region and water type, the golden thread is kindness, communication, and respect—always considering how your actions affect others and the river itself. Whether you’re an old hand or a newcomer, Todd and Tom’s advice will help you avoid conflict, enjoy your day to the fullest, and share the water gracefully—all while keeping the sport’s best traditions alive.

Transcript

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Foreign.

Welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing podcast. This is your host Tom Rosenbauer and my guest this week is Todd Tanner. And it's a subject that I've, I've kind of avoided. People have asked me questions about fly fishing etiquette and what's the right thing to do and I've often answered it with well, it's just common sen to give people space and do unto others and so on. But Todd had a, an article recently in Hatch magazine about this very subject and he brought out some interesting points and I think the thing that resonated with me the most was that, well, on different rivers in different parts of the country, in different situations and depending on whether you're waiting or floating, there are some of kind of guidelines. I don't like calling it etiquette and, and really there are no rules in fly fishing, but these are just, these are just guidelines for number one, making sure that, that you don't look foolish when you're on the water and also that you don't disturb someone else's day and, and they don't disturb yours. So Todd goes through various things. I think it's really educational and hopefully it will help us all be behave a little bit better on the water. And before we do the fly box, I wanted to tell you about some places you can go fishing. One is Guy JD Roberts and, and JD's operation is based only an hour from Dallas and Fort Worth. But they float the remote and scenic Brazos river where you can find five species of freshwater bass, carp, gar catfish and they also offer top water striper fishing on Possum Kingdon Lake, mid May through July. Boy, I'd like to, I'd like to fish on Possum Kingdom Lake just because, just so I can say I did it. They also offer three day floats on the Pecos river with spectacular scenery and you can view some of the largest petroglyphs in Texas. It that one's a real adventure and you honestly won't believe you're in Texas. They even offer night fishing for big stripers and bass under the lights at Possum Kingdom Lake. So you can fish 24 hours a day and 365 days a year with them. Our outfitter this week is H2O bone fishing in Freeport, Bahamas on, on Grand Bahama Island. This is an operation that I have a long history with. I've fished with them for many, many years. It's one of my favorite places in the Bahamas. The operation is based in Lucaya, which is a kind of a little enclave on the outside of Freeport and it's a very lively kind of a tourist area but it's fun and you stay in a. Stay in a hotel Pelican Bay which is a very nice hotel and there's restaurants there. And there is also the world famous bones bar which is owned by the owner of H2O Bone Fishing which is a really cool place to hang out. But you stay in the Pelican Bay and then guides pick you up in the parking lot every morning and take you off into the. The remote flats off Grand Bahama. It's great bone fishing. Grand Bahama is known for its large bonefish. Known for bonefish of all sizes and of course there are small ones but it's known for. Known for large bonefish and, and good chance you'll see a double digit bonefish also. There have been more shots at permit then then in the past and the permit they are quite large. Not that you're going to see or even catch a permit there but the opportunity is a possibility. And they have barracuda, they have mutton, snapper, a few tarpon here and there. But the main attraction is the bone fishing. And my opinion, it's. It's some of the best in the world. And coincidentally I have a hosted trip this fall, October 18th through 24th at H2O bone fishing. So you can tell I like this operation. It's a good time of year to go because the weather is cooler and the fish haven't been pestered all summer long because very few people fish for bonefish and they don't come in the flats when it gets really hot. So these are fish that, that really are going to be a little bit more agreeable this time of year. And, and I'm really looking forward to hosting this trip because I'm very fond of H2O bone fishing. Our lodge this week is El Pescador. This is another operation that I've been to many times. It's in Belize that's located on Ambergris Key in Belize in the little town of San Pedro which is a long peninsula, comes down from the Yucatan and it has one of the. It's located right on one of the largest barrier reefs in the world. They have really experienced guides. They're natives of San Pedro and some of. Some of their guides are in their third generation of guiding and there's a great variety here. You have really good shots at permit tarpon, bonefish and snook. So there is a chance to catch a Grand Slam or a super Slam here which is bonefish tarpon permit in the same 24 hour period or at a snook for Super Grand Slam and a fair number of people that that do get a Grand Slam at El Pescador so it's also a great place to bring your family. The accommodations are really comfortable and welcoming. You feel like you're part of the family when you get there. They have 14 standard rooms. They have eight private villas, restaurant and a bar on site gift and a small fly shop, a small gym and and three pools. El Pescador has been around for four years and they've won numerous Orvis awards for Lodge of the Year for good reason. I think Orvis sends more people to El Pescador than any other operation and there's a good reason for that. All right, let's do the fly box. The fly box is where you ask me questions what or you pass along a tip that you found that you think might be helpful to other people and you can send your questions to me at my email box podcastorvis.com and either just send me an email message or attach a voice file with your phone and maybe I'll read it on the air. The first one is an email from Hannah from Washington, dc. I'm writing in now with a question or comment, but with a conversation starter as the world finds itself embracing AI, I'm struggling to reconcile how anglers should use this tool given its impacts on the resources we're trying to conserve and protect. On one hand, I see it as a way of making information on fly fishing more accessible to more people, which is great. On the other hand, the resources needed for searches and for building the data centers that support these searches is staggering. Every search on ChatGPT runs through a data center and requires energy to power the equipment in water to manage the heat that's generated. Some data centers use cooling systems that permanently remove water from the watershed, which reduces groundwater recharge and stream flow. If you or your listeners are interested in learning more, there are plenty of fantastic reports that detail the impacts of data centers as stewards of rivers and ecosystems. I think the fly fishing community should be a part of the conversation around responsible data center development and AI use. At the individual level, I'd encourage anglers to consider if AI is truly needed to answer a question. For example, stream gauge information for a river can be found on other websites, so using chat GPT may not be worth the potential harm. I'm still grappling with this topic and would appreciate hearing Your thoughts? Well, Hannah, I guess I have similar thoughts about AI. I've had AI give me wrong answers, and there are definite uses for AI and I found it helpful on many things. I think that, I think that given that that AI is drawing information from lots and lots of sources which may or may, may or may not be reliable. But I, I have found that things like insect hatches and fly selection are really useful in AI because it's drawing from a wide variety of places. So, you know, I get a lot of questions. I'm going to North Carolina in April. What fly should I take? And I don't answer those questions because somebody can look that up on the, on the AI is going to give you an probably even better list of hatches and what flies you might need. So things like that I think are, for AI are valuable. You should know that I do not use AI in any of my writing or my research for the podcast or I actually, I do use AI to equalize the, the sound quality of my guests because sometimes remote guests don't have a great microphone or in a kind of a loud, boomy room. So you may notice an increase in the quality of the, of the audio on the podcast. And that's, and that's one good use of AI, But I think everybody has to decide for themselves. And, and good point. Know that when you're using AI, you are using a lot of energy, and that energy has a cost. So, and I, I agree with you that we should all be involved in making sure that these data centers are responsibly placed and responsibly powered. The answer to that, though, is well beyond my knowledge, and I encourage people to do some research on it. Here's a question from Todd. The description for the Orvis waiting staff says it's self deployed. Is this really true? Is there a video of the staff deploying that I can watch? Well, Todd, there isn't a video, but I use this staff a lot and I can tell you it does self deploy. So it's very light and you put it on your waiter belt and sits behind you and it's not in the way. And when you need a waiting staff, whether you're in the middle of the river or along the bank, you just pull it right out of the sheath and, and it will. The sections will go together. Sometimes you have to give it just a brief wiggle to get the sections to line up, but it does self deploy. And then when you're done, you just fold it back up and put it in the holster. So I highly recommend it. And yeah, we should have a video of itself deploying, but it's pretty magical and it works extremely well.

Hello Tom, this is Tom from the Woodlands, Texas. Got a question for you. I had a recon 10 foot 4 weight that I was using as my go to rod and I would carry two different reels, one with a floating line and the other with a euro line. And I'll explain later, that rod is gone, period. But just wanted to know if you were going to go ahead and buy a new 10 foot, would you go with a four weight or a three weight? Knowing that I'm going to want to throw both floating line and throw a gyro, so appreciate everything you and Orvish does. Oh, and by the way, if anybody finds a 104 recon in a case somewhere near Priest Lake up in southwestern Colorado, please contact Tom and he can connect you up with me. And I'd love to get my rod back, period.

Well, first of all, if somebody found that Roddy mentions, you can contact me at the Flybox mailbox, which is podcastorvis.com and then I will contact Tom and hopefully get his rod back. If not, Tom's gonna buy a new rod. So I would, Tom, I would say that if, if you're gonna be like €50, €50 nymphing and, and dry fly fishing or even small streamers and nymphs, I, I would go the four weight. It's going to be more versatile. The three weight will be fine if you're for your dry fly fishing or your nim fishing. If you're making shorter casts, won't throw a streamer, that small streamer that well won't throw an indicator as well as a four weight. So I think that thinking for, for an all around rod like that, I think the 4 weight would be a better option. Here's an email from Clarence. This past winter we had high snowpack and rocky mountains in Alberta. And then in June we had historic rainfalls here in southwest Alberta. As a result, all my favorite small streams are running high and fast but clear. I am having trouble finding fish where I used to find them. What happens to fish in these conditions? Does their behavior change? How do you fish in these conditions? Do these high fast water conditions scrub the stream bed well? Clarence, there's a lot of people in the western United States that are very jealous of all the water you have because there are a lot of places that didn't have that same situation regarding high and fast but clear water fish. Do fish do one or two things and it probably varies with each individual fish and each little pocket in the stream. But they'll either tuck right down to the bottom behind a rock or somewhere behind a rock or maybe a lip on a, on a riffle that's dumping into, dumping into deeper water where they can safely avoid really, really heavy current. The other thing they'll do is they'll move into the shallows. They're always looking for water that's running about 1 to 2ft per second around their body. So often they'll move into the shallows. So you may find fish in shallow water where you normally wouldn't see fish or might place might be places that are normally dry. So those are the two places to look. And unfortunately when the fish are tucked along the bottom that's going to make it tough to get a fly to them. They're probably not going to rise for a dry through all that water and it's going to be tough to get a nymph down to them. Sometimes you can lure them out with a streamer but you know, you want to look for, you want to look for slower, shallower water. So fish will move into places during high water where they normally won't be found. So you want to, you want to look for different places than you find them during the summer. And every river is a little bit different. So you're just going to have to, just going to have to look around and, and know that it's harder to fish high clear water. It's just, it's just plain harder to show your fly to the fish and it's probably not going to be as productive. But if you do find one of those little hidey holes in shallow water, you're going to have some pretty good fishing and do fast high water conditions. Scrub the stream bed. Well, it depends on how fast and how high. Normal high water from, from spring runoff isn't going to hurt things much. These insects that live on the bottom have evolved through millions of years to survive floods. Floods are natural occurrence and unless the, the water gets so fast that it starts to move large rocks and boulders and logs down the river, it's not going to, it's not going to affect the insect population or the fish population that much they're used to. Will scrub, scrub the rocks clean of algae. Sometimes algae builds up especially in warmer, warmer temperatures and will clean up the rocks a little bit. But as far as hurting the invertebrate life, not so much. Doesn't really, doesn't really hurt it that much again unless it's a catastrophic flood.

[John]

Hi, Tom. My name is John and I been fly fishing for a few years up here in the northeast and been doing tenkara for like eight or so. Now that I'm retired, there's some time to really get deep, Encourage myself on all your wonderful podcasts. I was reading about a still water pattern and I guess a technique for fishing. It called the hovering leech. It was in a book by David Klossmeyer and this was a new one for me. The leech is tied with a foam core and he fishes it on a sinking line so that the line lies down at the bottom and the leech floats above the bottom, basically controlling the depth from the bottom up instead of, you know, counting from the way down. So here are my questions. Have you heard of this before? It seemed like novel to me. Would, would a poly leader work? Like, if I don't always want to switch to a sinking? Like, I could put a poly leader on the end of my floating line. And what other patterns make sense? I actually tried tying this leech on a six on a number six hook and, you know, needed about five millimeter cylinder foam in there to actually float it once you got all dressed up. And are there any applications for this idea on a river, you know, to float to fish from the bottom up? Anyways, you know how much we appreciate all you do and all Orvis does for our sport. But I just wanted to tell you that your demeanor and your inquisitiveness is so wonderful and so well suited for all of us who listen to you. So thank you and keep it going.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

So, John. Yeah, the hovering leech by the late David Klaus Meyer, who was a great guy and a good friend, and the fly fishing world lost him about a year ago. Um, this is a, this was a fairly common technique used by fly rod bass anglers for quite a while. And so it's using a sinking line and then using a deer hair fly or a fly with foam so that you can get your fly line right on the bottom. Yet your fly hovers a bit above the bottom so you don't get. So you don't get hung up. And it keeps the fly in that, in that lower zone. So, yeah, it's a, it's been around for a while. I think a poly leader will work as long as you're not trying to get too deep. You know, if you're in shallower water, I don't know, two feet deep, yeah, poly leader might work if you're going in five or six feet of water. It's going to take quite a while for that poly leader to get down. Plus, because they're relatively short, you're not going to be able to crawl your fly along the bottom for as, as long a distance as you would with a, with a full sinking line or even a, a long sink tip. And are there any applications for this in a river? I would think, you know, in normal fast current, it's not going to work because you're just not going to be able to get your fly line down that deep. But in slower pools, you know, where there's not a lot of current. Yeah, I think, I think this would work in, you know, relatively not dead water, but in slower pools where there isn't a, isn't a lot of current and it's not terribly deep. I think you should experiment with this in rivers. Here's a question from Keith, who I met at the Solid Sound Festival in, in North Adams, Mass. A couple weeks ago. We got to enjoy Wilco for three days. My Salmon river trip group, AKA Team Pulaski, would like to ask is regarding how you go about determining the correct amount of weight to use for fishing for salmon and steelhead. We've been trying to figure out the concept of just enough weight, but not too much so that the fly is floating low without getting hung up on the bottom too much. Presumably, we think it would be contingent on the flow rate of the river as well. Your thoughts on this or any tips you may have on presentation for salmon and steelhead would be appreciated. My Team Pulaski friends, Ray, Jeff, Dylan, Kirk and Sean wanted me to give you a thank you and hello as well.

Well, Keith,

the best I can. The, the best advice I can give you is that your fly should be ticking bottom occasionally. So if you are fishing with an indicator or a tight line technique, you just should see a little hesitation. That may not be a strike. Every, I don't know, every fourth or fifth cast that tells you that you're, you're close to the bottom and you're ticking. Maybe a rock that's sticking up a little bit more, but you're not on the bottom. If you're hanging up nearly every cast or every other cast, then you're fishing too deep. But, you know, if you're not losing an occasional fly, then you're probably not fishing deep enough. You're gonna, you're gonna lose flies with this technique. And so, you know, just occasionally ticking on the bottom, that's not a strike. It's usually a quicker. It's usually a Quicker hesitation in the line tells you that you're probably at the right depth. Now this is going to change. This is going to change in every pool. It's going to change in between the head and the tail of the pool. So you're going to have to adjust your weight or your flies as you move. You're going to have to adjust that weight. And I remember fishing on the bat and kill last summer with a French fly fishing champion who fish was fishing the bat and kill in the middle of the day and he got out in the river and he threw a couple casts, he changed his fly and he threw a couple more casts, he changed his fly and he threw a couple more casts. He changed his fly again. He was changing the weight, not the fly pattern. And when he finally got it dialed in, he was yanking fish out of the bat and kill at a time when I thought there's no way you could have caught any fish. So that adjustment of the weight, whether it's in your fly or on weight on the leader is, is incredibly important for doing this kind of fishing. Now if you don't want to hang up, you could swing a fly. You know, you get a two handed rod or even a single handed rod and, and swing a fly and you're going to lose far fewer flies but by doing that on the Salmon River. And that's a lot of fun and not as productive as, as nymphing or egg fishing but it can be, can be really rewarding when you catch a fish on the swing. Here's one from Jeffrey. I have a question all the way from New Zealand. I have an 8 weight Orvis hydros rod. When I'm putting the rod together the sections don't go all the way down to sit tight. Photo attached. Why is that? Will this have a negative impact of the rod? Is it something I should get looked at? So Jeffrey, you know if you're used to bamboo rods where you want to seat that metal ferrule all the way down, you don't want any gap in there. Graphite rods are different. Graphite and fiberglass rods are different. They're made with a little bit of, of extra in there because that ferrule will gradually wear down over time and you want to have some insurance in that feral. So graphite, graphite feral should never, at least Orvis ferrules. I don't, I think most graphite rods you don't want to seat that feral till it's all the way till you don't see any part of the male feral you want a little bit of that sticking out and how tight should it be? It should be hand tight. You know, it's tough to describe how much torque you put on it, but it should, you should put it together with a firm push, firm straight push or maybe a little twist and that should be enough. But it's perfectly fine for a little bit of that feral to be exposed. That's a, that's a feature and not a bug. Here's one from Buck from Illinois. I have just recently got into fly fishing for bass this spring and I'm really enjoying it. Most of what I fish for is largemouth and smallmouth bass. My question is about fly lines, specifically sinking lines. There's so many different sink tip lines and full sync lines, I'm having trouble trying to find the right one for me. I mostly fish small lakes and ponds and a smaller river that is usually around waist deep and is faster moving water. I'm just trying to make sense of all those different sink tip length sink rates and when a full sink or even an intermediate is best. Thank you for all that you do with your podcast and all the information you share. So Buck, my suggestion for that would be the, the bank shot sink tip line. It has a very heavy front taper to it and it's very heavy sinking line. And because you're in smaller lakes and smaller rivers, it'll get down quicker in that small water. This line does take a bit of getting used to because you have to really change your casting casting method. You need to spend some time playing with that line because it's almost like a shooting head. You really have to kind of lob it and, and your end your cast high and let the, let the floating part of the line shoot through the guides. But it's a great thing for smaller rivers. Gets down in, in short deep pockets and it'll throw big bugs. So I, I would look into that bank shot sink tip. I think that's, that's one that you may be happy with. But you are right, there are a lot of different sinking and sink dip lines and it is very confusing. Here's one from Jason from Alabama. Tom, I just heard on the podcast fulling mill will produce stainless steel beads to compensate for the price of tungsten. I was excited and happy to hear it until I googled weight of stainless steel. And and it says brass is 5 to 7% heavier than stainless. So why would I want this option versus brass? Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Hopefully there are other metals mixed in to get closer to the tungsten weight profile. Well Jason, on a, you know, on an 8th inch bead, 5 to 7% is not an awful lot. It's not going to make that much difference. And if that bothers you, I maybe put a little non toxic wire behind the bead. But there's a reason, there's a reason for going to stainless as opposed to brass. Stainless and tungsten beads are molded in a mold and brass beads are machined and you can't really get, you can't get slotted brass beads easily and that's what a lot of people use because it's just too difficult and expensive to machine brass to, to put that slot into it. So that's why tungsten and stainless steel and stainless steel is a little bit less expensive than brass. So that's a plus. And yeah, it's 5 to 7% lighter. But again, in a small bead it's not going to make that much difference. And also there is, there are trace amounts of, of lead in, in brass in most brass alloys. So it's probably good that we get away from brass anyways and use either tungsten and pay the price or stainless steel beads which I think will become the new standard for beads, especially slotted beads. Here's one from Rob. I am a 79 year old, 35 year fly fisher and lover of Orvis gear and apparel. I agree with you that the Helios fly rods are the finest fly rods in the world. However, I often hear you recommend the Helios F series. I would like to put in a plug for the Helios D series. My confidence rod is a Helios 9 foot 5 weight 3D and I love it. It has the crisp backbone and power for those 20 inch browns and rainbows on the green, the Madison and the Missouri. My favorite rod for those small alpine creeks and streams is my super fine six and a half foot two weight fiberglass. It is so much fun and ideal for an old guy like me. Thank you for your podcasts and videos and all you and Orvis have done for the sport of fly fishing for many decades. Well, Rob, absolutely. And you know, people ask me what my favorite rod is often and I tell them, but that's just my favorite rod. Everybody has a different casting style and, and a different desire and what they get out of a rod. And I prefer, I'm an old guy too, but I prefer a little bit slower rod. I like to feel the rod flex and I do use the D series in and for streamer fishing for trout and Also for all of my saltwater fishing. So I do like the D series, but in trout rods, I really like the F. You like the D. I would urge anybody that's that's on the fence between a D and an F to try to get to an Orvis dealer fly shop to cast both of them and to see the difference. That's the only way you're really going to know which one you like better.

[Paul]

Hey, Tom, it's Paul from North Carolina. I've got a tip and two questions. First, the tip. Sometimes I'll use UV resin to position misbehaving hair wings. When I'm tying, what I'll do is I'll first turn on my UV light away from the fly so it doesn't activate the resin. I'll take a small dab on a small pin, apply it to the base, position the wings, and then pick up the lamp and give it a flash. Usually turns out pretty good. Now the questions. During your discussion with Jason Randall, I was absolutely dying for you to ask the question whether trout emit stress hormone. He started talking about it with bonefish but didn't really get into it about trout. Sometimes I'll find a pool of fish will shut down so quickly I'm wondering if stress hormone has something to do with it. So appreciate your thoughts on that second question. When fishing a wild stream, I find that when chubs are snapping at my dry, I seldom catch trout. And conversely, when I get into the trout a little further upstream, chubs are nowhere to be found. Do you find this situation applies to your own stream? Just curious. Thanks for the great podcast and all you do for the sport.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Well, Paul, that's a great tip. And just go easy on the UV resin. You don't want the wings to be too stiff, but sounds like you just put a little drop on and that's a, that's a great way of doing it. Regarding whether trout and miss emit stress hormones, I don't know and I've never seen anything about it. I do know that carp release and bonefish release them, but I'm not sure about trout now catching it. It's interesting because catching a trout amongst other trout will sometimes spook all the rest of the trout and they'll, they'll swim away and hide and stop feeding or they could care less and they'll just, they'll just keep on feeding. Even though you play a fish right through the middle of them, it doesn't matter whether they're wilder hatchery fish. And I think it depends on How. How actively they're feeding. If they're really, really actively feeding, then there's not much that bothers them. But I don't know if they emit stress hormones. They may. Regarding. Regarding the chub situation. Yet. Chubs will typically prefer slightly slower water than trout. So if you're catching a lot of chubs, generally moving into a little bit faster current might get you away from them. Now, it's not always the case because I've caught chubs and trout side by side in the same water, but, you know, if you go into really, really fast water, quite rapid water, you're generally going to get away from the chubs and you'll find more of them deeper in a pool where the water is slower and deeper. All right, that's a fly box for this week. Let's go talk to Todd Tanner about how to behave on a trout stream. Well, my special guest today is my friend Todd Tanner. And Todd and I have been friends for many years. We fished together. I've taught in Todd's school of trout, special school of trout in. In Idaho. And, Todd, you've been a freelance writer for what, long time?

[Todd Tanner]

Way longer than I want to let anybody know about, Tom. I mean, it's been, God, more than 30 years now, which is, like, sort of crazy to me.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah. And you, You've. You've written. You were the fishing editor of Sporting Classics for a long time.

What other?

And now you're writing for Hatch magazine.

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah, just anybody with really poor taste, typically. Well, you know, anybody who. Who's willing to publish my stuff and. And doesn't really care about the quality that I do well with those.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Oh, that's crap. That's crap, Todd. And you know, the reason. The reason I asked Todd to be on the podcast today was sometimes I get questions about etiquette, proper etiquette on trout streams. You know, what should I do? I don't want to. I don't want to. Not that we need. Not that we need really etiquette on trout stream, but we don't want to look stupid, and we, you know, we don't want to do what's not customary on a particular water. And I always. I've always told people, well, it's just common sense. You don't. You don't get in close to somebody else. But your. Your article in Hatch magazine made me realize that there is more to it than that. You know, there are nuances in. In different areas. And so I thought. I thought I'd get you on to talk about. Because you obviously thought about how to behave on a trout stream a lot, around a river in general. And so you've come up with 12, really suggestions on how people can be. Be better, better neighbors on a trout stream and not make fools out of themselves and, you know, feel more comfortable that you're not invading someone's space.

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah, it's one of those things, Tom, where I think years and years and years ago, you know, we made a point of talking about etiquette and, you know, new anglers were sort of brought into the fold. Experienced folks would say, hey, this is how you handle this situation. I don't see that quite as much anymore, which I think is a little unfortunate. And, you know, we've had a pretty big amount of growth in the fly fishing world over the last few years, and we've got more and more folks out there who, who aren't experienced. And I've also seen some stuff where, you know, folks who should know better maybe aren't setting the best examples. And so, yeah, yeah, that piece in that came out and hatched a while back was just, you know, it was just in response to some bad experiences I had had on the, on the stream. And, and I just thought, yeah, it's time for somebody to revisit this and maybe maybe get people thinking about a little bit more. One of the things, you know, we're not out there curing cancer, right? We're not ending world hunger. We're out there to have a good time. We're not feeding our families with these fish. No, we're. We're letting them. We're letting them go. So, yeah, and if we're not having fun, there's no point in being there. So if everybody pays, you know, just a little bit more attention and it's just a little bit kinder, maybe. I know that's maybe not something that we think about much today, but just treat each other with a little bit more respect. Maybe the biggest single thing that overrides anything that we're going to talk about on this podcast would be just treat other people like you would like to be treated. You know, the sort of the golden rule, you know, if. If you're thinking, you know, am I too close to this person? Try and look at it from their perspective. What would you think if the, you know, if the tables were turned? So from. From my perspective, it's. It's just sort of paying attention and then, you know, doing things the way that you would want them done. So I think probably what makes the most sense from My perspective is maybe break things up, like if you're floating or if you're waiting and, and feel free.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Feel free, Todd, as you're. As you're giving these kind of suggestions to tell some stories, you know, tell tell some anecdotes on. On what stimulated this idea in your mind, because. Make it more interesting, I think.

[Todd Tanner]

Okay. Yeah, sure.

[John]

So

[Todd Tanner]

a couple of years ago, I was fishing actually with one of our school of trout students up in British Columbia, and I was in a side channel. The guy I was with was out of sight upstream, and there wasn't much traffic on the river. It was pretty quiet. It was October, or almost October, maybe late September. And I didn't think I'd see anybody. And I looked up and there was a drift boat floating down. And instead of staying out in the main river, they decided to come down a little side channel I was in, and there wasn't a lot of room in there. And so I thought, you know, okay, maybe there's a reason that they want to come down here and, you know, but they'll come in and they'll be kind and respectful and, you know, we'll work it all out. It's not a big issue. And instead they. The guy on the oars and. And he had one person in the boat. They were. The guy in the front was casting. They just literally rode right in front of me to the point where I could have poked them with my fly rod. And they. They fished all my water, which was not. There was not a lot of water in there. And, and never said sorry. Never, never really even acknowledged that I was there. And, you know, I was almost sort of lucky that they didn't run me over with a drift boat. So I thought, you know, I was back in a previous life. I was a fly fishing guide. And I thought, in a situation like that, how would I have handled things?

[Tom Rosenbauer]

So could they see you when they went down the side channel? Could they see that there was an angler in the side channel, or did they come around the corner and there you were?

[Todd Tanner]

No, they could see me. I could see, oh, this. I was probably 50 yards from the top of the side channel. And it was really easy to see that I was in there and there was nobody in the rest of the river. So it was just one of those things where, you know, they made a decision to come down there for whatever reason. Maybe there was a. A spot further down the channel they really wanted to fish or whatever. So, you know, it's important if you're in a boat you have to understand that the downstream angler has the right of way. The person who's downstream from the boat has the right of way. And at the same time, a weight angler always has the right of way over a drift boat or a raft. You know, the, the boat, the raft can maneuver. In a lot of situations, you know, an angler is going to be waiting and they've got a limited amount of water that they can access, whether that's because the water's too fast or too deep, or may there's big rocks or trees in the water or whatever blowdowns, whatever you might have. So the weight angler has, you know, the right of way. So when those folks came down from above, they apparently either didn't realize that or didn't care. And so, you know, if you're, if, if folks listening to this, if you're out with a friend or you're rowing yourself or you're out with a guide, you know, there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, I see that there's somebody down below us here, let's give them some space. Let's, you know, let's figure out, you know, how we can move around them because the boats are just way, way more mobile. Now in a big river, that's not as much of an issue, but in a smaller river or a river with side channels, that's, that's the pretty serious problem for some folks. So, you know, I think the two points that, that I've made so far are that the downstream angler has the right of way, and that's true whether the downstream angler is in a boat or is waiting, that that's true regardless. And the weight angler has the right way over the drift boat or the raft. So if you're in a boat, I mean, the single best thing you can do is just give weight anglers a ton of space. Don't crowd them. You're covering a lot of water boat, right? You might be going for a five mile float, it might be seven miles, it might be 10 miles, maybe it's only two miles. But it gives you a lot more water to access than the, than the weight angler. And I can tell you, as someone who has hiked into any number of remote spots, thinking that I'm going to have them to myself only to have boats float down through, right? It's really, really nice when, when the folks in the boat are just thoughtful and they're like, okay, we know that you put some effort into getting here, right? We know that you, that you hiked for half an hour or an hour or more to get to this spot. We're going to give you a little space. We're going to, you know, we'll, we're going to give you plenty of water to work. And what that would typically mean is that maybe a couple hundred yards upstream, if somebody's floating down a bank that a weight angler is on, maybe they pull out to the middle or go to the other bank and then, and, and pay attention. If you're in the boat, pay attention to which way the, the wade angler is fishing. You know, are they fishing upstream or down? If they're fishing upstream, then you can sort of pull in right, you know, reasonably close below them and not have an issue if it looks like they're working downstream. Well, you don't want to bang right back in on that bank and take the water that, that they're going to be casting into for the next hour. So, you know, just be a little bit thoughtful. Give them as much space as you can.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

I was. Sorry.

[John]

Go ahead.

[Todd Tanner]

No, go ahead, go ahead.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Well, I just say I was just down in the Delaware river for four days, which is a, you know, heavily fished west branch of Delaware, heavily, heavily fished river with a lot of drift boats. And I was wade angling because I like to wade, and I was absolutely delighted. I think 10 drift boats went by me and every one of them either, either went way behind me. In fact, a couple times they, they scraped bottom and I said, hey, let me move into the channel, but give you room. They said, no, that's okay. I'll, I'll get around you. And if I was, if, if they didn't know which way I was fishing, they would, you know, stop above me and say, which way do you want us to go around? Because I was in a fairly narrow channel too. And it was just, I mean, every single boat, every single boat go down river were, were totally thoughtful about, about my water. So I was really, really delighted with that.

[Todd Tanner]

That's, you know, that's wonderful. It makes me feel really, really good because. Yeah, you know, it doesn't always happen like that.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

No, it doesn't. But most, you know, I find more and more it does. People, you know, drift boat, drift boat guides are really becoming very, very respectful of weight anglers in my experience.

[Todd Tanner]

And, and that's the way it should be. You know, it really is. And, and like in a, in a situation like where you were right, where if they're, if they're coming down a channel and you're in the channel and, you know, it's, you know, one of the keys is for them to, you know, to ask you, do you want me to go behind you? Do we, do you want me to go in front of you? What's better for you? And it sounds like typically they did that, which is, you know.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

They did.

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah, that's, that's exactly what you want.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yep.

[Todd Tanner]

You know, where people get in trouble is where they don't communicate, where they don't exactly. Where they don't talk to each other. And so, you know, if you're in a boat and you're, you're in a sort of a tricky situation and you're coming down and there's a weight angler, you know, the first thing is stop fishing if you can't get out of that person's water. And then the next thing would be to just say, hey, where would you like me to go? You know, do you want me to go behind you? Do you want me to go in front of you? What's, what's your preference? And so having folks who are, who are willing, you know, and guides, for the most part, do a really, really good job of that. I think the majority of situations. And I did find out later that the, the guy who floated through me up in B.C. was not a guide. He was a. Just someone who was recreationally using the river. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. I love to see people out in, you know, in drift boats having fun.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

That's great.

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah, but, but they should hold themselves to the same high standard as.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Sure, absolutely.

[Todd Tanner]

Guide would. So, yeah, it's, you know, so if you're coming down on, on somebody, you know, ask them if, if, if necessary, anchor up and ask them. And, you know, there's nothing wrong with rowing behind somebody. If you have to, you can always jump out of the, the drift boat or the raft and walk behind somebody to, you know, to minimize any potential for conflict. And obviously the weight angler is going to let you, let you go behind them and they'll stop casting to let you get through. Any weight angler I know, any, any serious angler is going to be just as you were, really enthusiastic and happy about that. Right. As opposed to having somebody come in and row through their water, cast at their fish. It just, it just screws things up. There are a couple of other things, and I hate to say this, I was on the Missouri last week with a couple of friends, and one of the things that I'm seeing more and more is that with the Proliferation of portable boom boxes. People get really excited about playing their music on the water. Oh, and, you know, I love music, man. I, I, you know, there's absolutely nothing wrong with music, but don't impose your musical tastes on the folks who are fishing around you.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

So, you know, wear, wear something so that you can hear it, but don't have a, have a boombox that's blasting out so that, you know, somebody a half mile downstream knows exactly what you're playing and how far away you are. They just hear you getting closer and closer and closer. So that's, that's like. It's rude. You know, there's just no other way to, to.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah, it's just, you're right. Arrogant and rude.

[Todd Tanner]

And, you know, I was sort of thinking, okay, it was, I was on the, I was on the Missouri in May. That's more what I would expect down there in July or August with recreational flowers. But it was actually, it was actually folks in drift boats just cranking music as loud as they possibly could. And, you know, whether that music was to my taste or not, it's sort of irrelevant. I, I, I did not go to the river to experience somebody else's music. And I would never think of, like, wow, you know, what, that guy over there looks like he's really enjoying himself, but he'd like life a lot better if I crank some AC DC or Taylor Swift or whatever it might be. Right. So, you know, just, just all we have to do is be, you know, a little thoughtful and think, you know, would you want that experience if the roles were, were reversed? And, you know, I would say, you know, to the extent that we can, that we can avoid loud music on the water, it's going to leave the vast majority of us a lot happier. And, and have you, have you seen that yourself? Have you experienced that?

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Very little. Very little, no. But I've heard of it happening, and I'm glad it hasn't happened to me very often. I can only think of a couple times.

[Todd Tanner]

Okay. Yeah, it's. For some reason, here in Montana, it's, it happens way more frequently than I would ever imagine. And I'm not sure, you know, just, I, I don't know why, but it's, it's, you know, there's a lot of reasons that we, that we go to the water. Right? There's a lot of reasons that we're out there fishing and, you know, for a lot of us, it's, it's peaceful. It's, yeah. Almost therapeutic. You know, it's like, wow, life is crazy these days. And I can go to the water and get away from all that and just experience, you know, nature in its purest form and really enjoy myself. And then when somebody comes cranking tunes, it's like, oh, my God, you know, just please don't do that here. The last thing I wanted to mention for floaters, and there's a million things we could talk about here, is if you are in big water, big rivers, and it's feasible, leave the side channels to the wade guys. You know, we were on a little side channel on the Missouri last week, and, you know, I would say that we probably had four or five drift boats float down, and because the channel was so small, they, you know, there was just no room for them and for us. And so they definitely disturbed our fishing. There wasn't really room for them to, you know, to would sneak around. You'd hear boats grading. The water was low. You know, they're scraping on gravel and stuff like that. And so, you know, if. If you have that option as a floater, if you're out with a guide and the guide says, you know, let's. Let's head down this little side channel, just ask him or her, you know, is that someplace we're likely to encounter a bunch of weight anglers? Because maybe we want to give them a little bit of space. So is. Was there anything on the floating side that we didn't talk about or that you wanted to cover?

[Tom Rosenbauer]

No, I'm, you know, I'm just wondering about low holing. So you're floating down, somebody's anchored up and they're. And they're fishing to a pot of fish or whatever, and you can't help but low. I mean, you're. You're gonna low hole them somewhere, right? Because you're gonna go around them and you're gonna. You're gonna go downstream. How, how far should you go before you anchor up? I guess it depends on the size of the river, but, you know, let's say on the river the size of Missouri, how. How far do you go below somebody or do you go to the opposite bank or what do you do?

[Todd Tanner]

I would tend to go to the opposite bank or maybe even fish ste. Mid river. You know, there's something to be said for so many folks pound the banks these days that there's something to be said for spending more time in the middle of the river and, and maybe finding some fish that are pressured a little bit less. Yeah, that's one of those things that. That can happen I would tend to say at an absolute minimum, I would want to give folks 100 yards or more. And, you know, if things are crowded and it's tight and you're going down with a whole bunch of boats, I would say a minimum of 100 yards. If you're on a river without much pressure or without many boats floating by, I would say more than that. I would want to give that.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Go out of sight, go around the

[Todd Tanner]

bend if you can give them a ton. So it's going to depend a little bit on, you know, are you. Are you floating down with an armada? I mean, I've seen, oh, you know, a hundred boats or more float a section of the Madison in a day that I've witnessed myself, you know, and so in a situation like that, you know, it's sort of a narrow river that, yeah, everybody knows where the fish are going to be. That can get a little. A little crazy at times, but in general, yeah, you know, once again, it goes back to that golden rule. Give people as much room as you would like them to give you. And I don't think that you can go wrong with that approach.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah, I agree.

[Todd Tanner]

I was talking with John Jursik the other day, and John mentioned something that I found fascinating. I don't think I've ever seen this or read about it, but he said that he chooses not to view other anglers as his competition. We didn't discuss this. I would suspect that John is competitive with the fish. You know, he's an incredible angler and flycaster, and.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

At the same time, he does not want to ever feel like he's competitive with the other folks on the water. And I think that's a. That's an admirable attitude. I know John and then Jeff Currier and followed up on that, saying he felt the same way, that there's no. I think Jeff's point was that if I knew those folks in that other boat, they'd be my buddies, and we'd all be having a good time and having fun together. And so why view them as. As competition? So if we can do that, yeah, it opens things up to maybe being just a little kinder and a little gentler on the water in terms of, you know what? I'm not trying to catch every last fish out there. I want to leave some. Some good spots and some good places for these other folks to en. If I go out and have a great day, but I do that, and everybody else has a crappy day because I've cleaned out every single Thing coming down the river, you know, what does that say about me? It doesn't really say. Maybe. Maybe it shows that I'm a competent angler, but it doesn't show that I'm a great human being. And we should all aspire to be the best people that we can be when we're on the water.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

So that's a good. It's a good thought.

[Todd Tanner]

So. So let's. Let's throw the boat stuff out of this, because you and I are. Wade. Guys. You know, if you had Tim Romano on here, he'd be. He'd be like, no, we need to talk about boats more.

[John]

Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

So if. Back in the 80s, I was fishing, and you. You specifically asked for some stories. So I'll give you. I'll give you one.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

I was fishing the east branch of the Croton about, I don't know, 40 or 50 miles north of New York City, and I had it all to myself. It was. It had been raining. The weather was sort of crappy. There was a little bit of fog on the water, and it was really wonderful. And the weather improved, and I started seeing guys just pop up out of nowhere. And finally, as far upstream and downstream as I could see, there were people every. I say 30 or 40ft in the water, which, oh, my God, is not ideal. And no guy. The guy upstream from me was maybe. Maybe he was 30, 35ft, and same thing with the guy downstream. And I was like, well, this is not what I wanted. And then a gentleman, an older gentleman, I was in my 20s at the time, came in and got between me and the guy upstream from me, and I. I talked to him. I said, you know, you might be a little bit close. And he was from New York City, pretty obviously with his accent, and he said something rather rude and crude to me, and I thought about, like, just drowning him for a minute. I thought I could do that pretty easily to this guy. And then I thought, but. But, you know, why spoil my day, his day, everybody's day. I. I just left. But, yeah, you know, I literally, when he said he wasn't too close, I said, I can touch you with my fly rod without moving. That's a little too close for me. And it's one of the reasons I actually moved west. You know, I grew up fishing in New York and Connecticut and the Catskills a bunch, and the Housatonic in Connecticut, the Farmington in Connecticut. And. And when I. When I moved to Montana, it was like, wow, there's just so much more water. There are so fewer people and it just, you know, I don't have to deal with that kind of craziness but, but literally a couple of situations. I can remember being on the Housatonic and looking upstream and downstream for as far as I can see and just seeing an angler every, you know, 50ft or 100ft, regardless of whether the water was any good or not. And I just thought, man, and that was back in the 80s. I, ah, this is not ideal. And you know, I guess the advice I would give people who are wade fishing to whether they should, whether they can, how to figure out how, whether you're close or too close to somebody else is look around and see how many people are there, how close other folks are to each other, knowing that sometimes, you know, friends or buddies or family members will fish reasonably close and then err on the side if, if there's nobody else within sight. The last thing you want to do is fish next to somebody. You know, if you've got a big stretch of river to yourself or even a big stretch of creek and it's just you and one other person, give them a ton of room, who cares? Make their life better by respecting their personal space. And if you can, you know, if you can do that and you'll have more, you'll have water to fish, they'll have water to fish, everybody's going to be happy. The, the issue seems to be, and, and this is a bit of supposition on my part is that, you know, folks come in and they think, oh, this guy really knows the water. He looks like he knows what he's doing. I'm going to go fish next to him because that's the spot to be. And you know, I guess I could understand that. Back in like, oh, the combat fishing days, you'd see photo photos of like the junction pool on the beaver kill back in the 60s where guys were literally standing, you know, arm, arm in arm on like opening day. But it's, yeah, it's, you know, that's not something that it's going to make anybody have more fun out there. And I mean we're all going to the water to enjoy ourselves. So give, give people as much space as, as you possibly can. So I've got a question for you. Here in the West, I'm pretty comfortable with that. But I haven't fished in the east in a long, long time. It's been a decade or more since I fished back there. What, what rule of thumb do you use when you're out? You know, say you're on the west branch of the Delaware or the east branch, or you're fishing the beaver kill or, or one of your Vermont. The. Maybe you have on the bat kill. What. What's your rule of thumb for how close you can be to somebody else?

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Well, you know, I, I don't think. I don't think you see as many weight anglers these days. Honestly, Todd. People want to fish from boats on the bigger rivers and, and on the Delaware, the West branch of Delaware, as crowded as it can be. I had stretches of water where I couldn't see an angler upstream or downstream of me. Now, drift boats would come through. Yes. But, you know, I, I have my spots that I. That require a little bit of walking if you're a weight angler. So, you know, if you're willing to walk, you can get away from. You can get away from people. And it's so funny. I was, I was, I was in a. A side channel on the west branch last week. And nobody ever goes there, right? Nobody ever goes there. And, and I, I walking down this side channel and there's two young women, and I was about to fish this spot and they got, they got in right in front of me and I said, you know, it's not really cool to get in front of somebody, but that's okay. I'll go, I'll go. I'll go downstream more. And they said, okay. They were obviously, you know, hadn't done a lot of fishing. And then I went downstream and I started fishing and then two. And then two, two guys come. Young guys, teenagers or maybe, you know. Yeah, teenagers come. Come upstream. And I'm thinking, I've never seen anybody here before. And then I go around the corner and there's two more guys. I couldn't figure out what it was. And then I go around the corner and there's a. There's an adult with four or five kayaks pulled over the bank. And he said, oh, yeah, it's my fly fishing class from the high school. And I said, oh, and he's the, the kids caught a bunch of fish here before, so. And I said, oh, that's. That's great. And I just, you know, kept. Kept moving on. But it was, you know, I, I couldn't figure out why, why people were in my spot because, no, I've never seen anybody in there. So it was kind of cute.

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah, that is. That is really, really cool. What. I was teaching a class down in the Henry's Fork a couple weeks ago, and there was for the first, first few days we were down there, there was a college fly fishing class that had come out from, I think it was Washington and Lee University in Virginia. And there were probably a dozen of those college students there with, with one instructor, and they were fishing all over the place. They were having the best time and talking to those kids. It was like, wow, this is great. Really soaking it all up and enjoying themselves. I actually, you know, I. It put a great big smile on my, on my face. So that's pretty cool. If you're going to run into somebody where you're going to fish, way better that it's something like, like that rather than, you know, some guy coming down, cracking his. His music and, and, yeah, park parking where you want to fish for the rest of the day.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

So, yeah, and I had another situation where I was. I was. I walked downstream to another pool. I like to fish. And there was a guy in it. He was up in the head. Head of the pool, and he had like the only rising fish in the pool.

[John]

And.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

And so I watched him for a little bit and talked to him, gave him a fly. And then I said, do you mind if I go way down in the tail? Because a pretty big pool. And he said, no, no, not at all. And we, we fished together and kind of yelled back and forth. Never met the guy. But we had a nice time and nobody else came in the pool. And eventually some good fish started rising where I was standing, so. So I was kind of happy to be in the right spot at the right time.

[Todd Tanner]

Well, you did. I mean, not that I'm surprised, Tom. I would, I would expect no less. But you did everything right because you asked the guy, you had, you communicated with him, right. You said, would you mind if I did this? And, you know, yeah, if we just talk to each other, things would be so much easier and people would be so much happier at the end of the day. And we would eliminate so many, so many problems. Like one of the things you can, you can ask somebody, if you run into them on the waters, you can say, are you fishing up or are you fishing down? You know, if you walk in and there's somebody in the water.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

You know, you can say, okay. The guy says, or the gal says, I'm going upstream. Then you, you say, okay, I'm going downstream. It eliminates all these issues. And it's just, it's just communication that's just so, so important. You mentioned earlier low holding, which is sort of. I'm trying to think. I think it's probably Originally either an Atlantic salmon or a steelhead thing. I'm not.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

I think so. Yeah. Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

I'm not positive, but I, I would, I would guess. And it's, it's the idea that, you know, somebody comes in and there's an angler working downstream with a streamer or a wet fly. Typically, not always, but typically. And then the other angler says, oh, I want to get into the good water below them rather than, you know, follow them down through this run or follow them down through this stretch of water. And so one thing that, that, you know, we all want to think about is we don't want to cut somebody off. We don't want to jump into the water they're about to fish and, and, you know, take that from them if, if that's what their intention is. So it's, you know, once again, it's just, it's communication and paying attention, you know. And, you know, you or I would have no issue with walking out and seeing somebody on the water and just watching them for a few minutes and saying, okay, now I know what they're doing. I can, can, you know, I can avoid them confidently and not cause problems without talking to them. But for most people, I think it's like, wow, I really should, you know, I really should just say, hey, hi, nice to see you out there. You know, I hope you're having a, having a good time and catching a few fish. You know, are you, are you heading downstream? Are you heading upstream? You know, I'd like to fish this gentle area, but I don't want to disturb you at all. I want to give you plenty of space. One, one question for you. I don't fish many small streams anymore, spring creeks, which is a little different, but I'm not fishing like little freestones that might be 20ft or 30ft wide.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

And I know you, you guys in Vermont have a ton of that stuff. How, how do you handle it if you bump into somebody in a situation like that and say you're both working upstream? Do you, do you trade pools? Do you talk about that? Do you just assume that, you know, I'm going to walk up a half mile and give this person some extra space? Is there some other technique that you would use in, in that situation?

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Well, personally, I just leave and, and go find, like, I'll go a mile from that person or, you know, get in the car and go somewhere else. The small streams, you, you know, they're pretty mean. You, you, you walk, you, you walk up through a small stream. You're going to spook everything. That's. That's, you know, that you walked over, and who knows how long they're going to be spooked. So I'll just. If they're working upstream, I'll go way downstream or way upstream. If I see a car anywhere near where I'm going to park, I just don't go there because it's so sensitive. And, you know, you don't see a lot of people on those small streams. So it's not.

[Paul]

Not.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

It's not a big. It's not usually a big issue.

Right.

But, you know, and I advise people, you know, if you see somebody else fishing in a small stream, you don't want to be anywhere near that area because they've spooked everything you want to. You want to give them plenty of room.

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah, that makes sense. I've got a funny story for you. This is one I don't think I've ever told you. Back in the. Oh, God, early 2000s, I got a call from an outfitter who I will not name, who wanted me to fly to Pennsylvania and write about a steelhead fishery in a small stream or actually a reasonably sized river. And I. I agreed to go. But when I looked at the weather, which, it was in March and it was going to be super cold, and I was like, I think we should cancel. And he was like, no, everything's going to be fine. And. And so my fishing buddy who flew in from Connecticut, I flew in from Montana, We. We met in Cleveland, and the high temperature that day was about zero. And. And so we drove over and we were fishing in the Erie, Pennsylvania area. And we got there in the. And the. We met the guide for dinner who was supposed to take us out for a few days. And we said, well, you know, the forecast for tomorrow is a high of 16 degrees or thereabouts. You know, what are we going to do? And he's like, well, I hate to tell you this, but the. The river that I wanted to take you to is not fishable under these conditions. But I do have, like, this. This spot we could go on this smaller stream that'll have some steelhead in it. And we. We drove there. In the morning, there was a couple feet of snow on the ground, and we walked into where this pool was that he wanted to fish, and it was completely frozen over with, like, I don't know, maybe 8 inches or 10 inches of ice. And we're like, well, okay, that's it. We're all done. And he's like, oh no. So he went scouted around, found some like an old two by six that had washed downstream. And he goes out on the ice and he starts beating on the ice and he breaks through and he worked on it for a couple of hours and we're just sitting on the bank sort of incredulous, like, oh my God. And he fell in once or twice. He had gone through and went over his waiters and he's soaked in wet, it's frigid out. And so eventually he breaks out enough of the pool so that it's like, like a pretty good sized swimming pool is open. And, and I looked at him and I just sort of laughed and I said, you know, you realize that there's not a steel head in this pool anymore. And, and he's like, oh, I know. He said we've got to go upstream. There's another pool about a quarter mile up. We're going to go up and beat on that one and I'll come back down here. And so we, we walked up, we, we beat on that one for, for like, I don't know, half an hour or something and then we literally came back down and caught two steelhead out of that original pool, which was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. I, you know, so to your point, I mean, yeah, those, you don't want to follow anybody, you know, super close behind on a small stream. But in that particular case I would, I would, I would have thought we could have fished there for a month and never caught a fish. And yeah, damn if my buddy and I didn't both, both land one. And they weren't big steelhead, they were maybe five or six pounds. But it was, it was, it was pretty incredible. And then the next day we asked the guy what he was, what we were going to do and he's like, well, it only got down to like 10 last night. I think we could just go break, break that first hole back open and go back in there and, and needless to say, I didn't, I did not write that story. I asked, I was going to ask.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

You wrote the story. I think you should write it now though. It would make a good essay in collection of stories.

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah, it was, it was pretty damn funny. That's as cold as I've ever. It was, you know, May maybe 17 or 18 was the high that day and God, it was just no fun fishing under those conditions. But yeah, so I think we've covered floating and we've covered waiting. There are a couple of other things That I thought it might be helpful to. Just to mention.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

First off, and, and this, this fits under etiquette, but in a little bit different category.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Okay.

[Todd Tanner]

You know, play and release the fish you catch as quickly as possible. You know, we want to, yeah, we want to respect not only the other anglers on the water, but we want to respect our core. And you know, if we can do that, if we can. You know, I can't tell you how many times I've seen folks play a small to medium sized trout for 10 or 12 or 15 minutes and it's like, yeah, why would you do that? Just bring them in and let them go. Thank them and wish them on, you know, wish them well and send them on their way.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

Another thing along those lines is it seems like with the advent of smartphones that we've, you know, that everybody wants to take pictures of everything they catch and.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

You know, and Tim Romano, who's a friend of yours and a friend of mine and is an incredible photographer by the way, for folks who don't know, Tom is an exceptional photographer as well. But, but Tim and I had a conversation about fish photos not too long ago and I think the point he made was that it's hard to find something more boring than another picture of a fish. Somebody holding it up with their arms stretched out like this and just thrusting the fish at the camera. You know, take pictures of the landscape, take pictures of your friends, take pictures of the beautiful stuff that you see out there. They're going to be way more interesting to, to most folks than your fish picks. And if you have to take a few, there's nothing wrong with that. Just keep the fish wet and you know, don't, don't keep them out of the water for 30 seconds or a minute or two minutes while you're trying to take their pictures, you know.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

But you're right that you are. You hit my pet peeve. Those are the most boring pictures there's. They all look the same. I'm sorry. They all look the same and they're really boring.

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah, I, and sadly, I will say that I, I have a, A ton of buddies who are outfitters and guides and I still see those folks though, posting on social media some really terrible pictures. Yeah, it would be nice if, oh, Orvis or, or someone else would, would put together a thing for professionals on how to take great quick fish photos. So that. Or, or great quick trip photos would be better because, you know, I'd rather see a picture of somebody eating a great ham sandwich. And smiling and, or, you know, on the, on the side of the river than another picture of a 14 inch trout that looks just totally unhappy being,

[Tom Rosenbauer]

you know, Todd, I've done, I've done podcasts on that before.

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah, but Tom, I never listen to podcasts. You have to write stories in.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

And you won't listen to this one either, right?

[Todd Tanner]

No, probably not.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

But, you know, no, I did a, I did a great one maybe six, eight months ago with Chris Nichols from Petapixel does the Petapixel videos and podcast about using your smartphone to take great fishing pictures. And he talked, he talked about that very subject. You know, don't just take fish pictures. Take all kinds of different interesting. So people, I think people can look that one up if they're interested in pursuing that.

[Todd Tanner]

You should, you should link that. If there's a way to link that particular podcast in so that folks can find it easier, that would be really helpful because there are, you know, there are just, there are so many horrible fish pictures floating around out there that, you know, literally there's just no reason for that. You know, show us, show us stuff that, that's going to make us smile or make us laugh or make us appreciate the beauty of the, of the spot that you were fishing. Show us your friends or your family or your, you know, whatever, but, you know, don't show us. I do not know a professional angler who loves to look at poorly composed fish pictures. It's just, it's, it's rough. So if you can, if you can skip that as when you're out on the water, please do that. Another thing, and it seems this is not a, this is not something that happens all the time, but it does seem like more and more folks have drones these days. Now, my understanding is that now you need a license in most situations and, you know, it's. So hopefully folks who are flying drones have some degree of experience with that,

[Tom Rosenbauer]

but no, you don't, you don't need, you don't need a license. You need a, you need a, you just need to register them with the faa. But you, you really shouldn't and can't fly over people without their permission, so. Well, that is, that is a rule.

[Todd Tanner]

Okay. And that's what I was just going to say is, is give anglers, you know, if you're flying your drone, if you, you know, some people use them to scout, some people are using them for video or photography. Just, you know, be respectful with your drone, right? If, if you have one, you're flying it around didn't you have a drone incident on the Henry's Fork a few years ago? Or am I thinking of somebody else?

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Oh, yeah. I lost one in a Ponderosa pine and we spent two hours trying to knock it down with rocks because, not because I care about the drone, but I hadn't downloaded my footage, and we shot at it with a.32 about 15 times and couldn't knock it down. Finally, somebody knocked it down with the rock and I got the, I got the SD card. The drone was destroyed, but I got the SD card, which was all that mattered.

[Todd Tanner]

That's pretty funny. That's funny stuff. And hopefully, hopefully whoever was shooting was, was making sure that they weren't shooting, like, over toward Henry's Fork Lodge or anything like that.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

So, no, we were way, we were way into the canyon.

[Todd Tanner]

Ah, you're, you're fine then. And one other thing. This would be number 12, I think, of the various things that we've talked about. Oh, man, that's perfect. Thank you.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah.

Perfect timing for that one, right?

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah. Control your pup if you have to bring your dog to the water.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Right? Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

And man, what, what a lead in. People are going to think, oh, they just, they just added that.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

I guess we can, we can just let him bark through this. I don't know what's going on. Probably a squirrel ran across the driveway or something.

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah. I'm amazed my dogs haven't been barking.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

I,

[Todd Tanner]

I, I made sure everybody was out of the house and that I didn't think we had anybody coming in from UPS or FedEx or anything, but. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, folks, just if you, you know, I love dogs. I am a dog person. It's rare that I find a dog I don't like, and it's rare that I find people that I like as much as I like dogs. But when you take your dog fishing, if you have to take your dog fishing, make sure that you keep your dog under control. Just so it doesn't, you know, it doesn't cause issues for, for other folks. Right. So. And I guess the other thing would be sort of along, along those same lines would be, apparently I need to mute my computer. Along those same lines would be like, don't throw sticks in the river for your lab to retrieve next to somebody who's fishing. Right. You know,

[Tom Rosenbauer]

and the stick throwers are usually not anglers, though, and you can't really control that. Right. You just have to kind of leave. They, you know, they want to want their dog to swim. I've had this happen. I'D say, yeah, okay, go ahead. I'm. I'm out of here.

[Todd Tanner]

Right.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

But it's not. I don't think it's anglers to throw the sticks, I hope.

[Todd Tanner]

No, well, well, I. I know a few who have on. On occasion.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Really?

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah, really? Yeah, it's. It's one of those things where it always sort of makes me shake my head. But anyway, I'm, I'm, I'm good with dog people, but if, if you bring your dog, if you got them in the boat or your dog's with you on the, on the water, you know, just. If you can't keep that pup under control, then leave it back in the truck or leave it home or put it. Having somebody kennel it or whatever you need to do. It's just, you know, we. I was trying to teach. Molly wants to. To row, and I probably picked the wrong place to do it. We were on the, you know, where the Kootenay is up in northwest Montana, and our dogs were nuts and they would be in the water all, all the time if we let them. So we had them leashed into the drift boat. And I had a stretch. I thought Molly could row without any issue. And then it turns out that the one impediment in that piece of water was a big bridge pylon. And she somehow ended up heading straight for the bridge pylon. And I thought I had to jump up and get in the rower's seat because I thought if we ever flipped the boat, the dogs would drown because they were tied in. So, yeah, you know, always think about, you know, you don't want to put your dog in a bad situation on the water either.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

I had not given that any thought prior and, you know, I should have, I should have paid attention to something like that and thought, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really unlikely. But at the same time, serious penalty points if, if, you know, if there's an accident or a problem. So. So, Tom, What?

[Tom Rosenbauer]

People, people always ask me, how do I train my dog to be a good fishing dog? And I tell him, your dog has to be dead obedient, dead set obedient, no questions asked. And, and, you know, no tolerance. Your dog has to sit on the bank and stay there when you tell them to or else you're going to ruin somebody else's day. And it's just obedience, really. There's nothing else.

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah, which is why our Goldens are pretty young and they're usually good, but they're not a hundred percent. So I leave them Home, I don't take them to the water.

[John]

Yeah.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah. I have two labs, and even when I fish in the creek in the backyard, I, I leave them in the house because they'd be a pain.

[Todd Tanner]

So, so what didn't we cover that we, that we should have covered, or are. Do you think that we got through pretty much everything we wanted to talk about?

[Tom Rosenbauer]

You know, the only thing, Todd, that I was thinking of, that, that I, I never used to do, but I do now, is that if you're in a situation where somebody low holes you or gets in too close to you, I used to, I used to pop off to him and say something sarcastic, you know, am I crowding you or something like that? And I don't anymore. I just leave. I just leave because it's gonna ruin, like you said, it's gonna ruin both of our days. And so, you know, I might give him a, I might give him a dirty look, and then I just get out of the water and go somewhere else. You know, altercations on the river never end well. It's just going to ruin both your days. So just, just go, just go and go somewhere else.

[Todd Tanner]

It's, it's funny. I was, when I was doing a little prep work for this conversation, I talked to John Jurassic, and I was like, john, how do you deal with that when somebody, somebody comes in and, you know, you're fishing alone in the middle of Yellowstone park and there's nobody anywhere near around.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

And somebody walks right in on you and starts fishing next to you. You know, what, what, what do you say? And it's sort of funny, that Hatch piece, I, I, that piece on etiquette I wrote for Hatch, the grief that I received for writing that story from commenters. And obviously there's always going to be some folks who don't agree with what we say, and that's, that's fine. Everybody has the right to their own opinion. Was that when the, when the drift boat floated through my water up in bc. Because I did talk about that in the, in the story. I didn't say anything. I just was like, okay, I'm, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to make my experience worse by yelling at these guys.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

And, and, and that's what most of the people took exception to, was the fact that I let them buy without saying anything. And, and I talked, when I talked to John a little bit about that, his point was that he is never confrontational, but he always tells people, you know, just so that you Know, I think you're a little too close. And while I'm okay with that, I'm just going to leave. There are other people that you're liable to run into who will have a very different reaction than I do, and you probably want to try and avoid that in the future. So, you know, John. John is more of a gentleman than I'll ever be. In addition to.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Because I can see where it could be a teaching moment for somebody. But in my opinion, most of the time, when somebody gets in too close to you, it's not ignorance, it's arrogance. And. And I don't think it's a teaching moment. I mean, it might be if it's like a young kid, like those young girls, young women that I saw on the Delaware. Yeah, they. I knew they were, you know, they were new to it. And so. And so I. I just mentioned that it's not cool to get in front of somebody, but generally, I don't think it's a teaching moment. And John, you're right. John's more of a gentleman than I am, too, so good for him.

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah. And it's funny. I mean, when I was considerably younger than I am now, I am. I hate to say this. I. I'm gonna turn 66 this summer, which is like, you know, doesn't seem possible to me. But back when I was in my 20s or 30s and somebody got too close, I would. Would. And I am not proud of this. I would fish very intently and very hard, thinking that nobody wants to be around the guy who's catching a bunch of fish when they're not catching those fish.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

And I've had a number of guides put their clients back in the boat and leave because, you know, it's. It's never a good thing for a guide for the client to be saying, well, why is he catching all those fish? But, you know. Know, quite frankly, that was sort of dickish on my part. I shouldn't have done it.

[Paul]

But that.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

But that can backfire, too. If you don't catch any fish, then you just look like a fool.

Right?

[Todd Tanner]

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not like you're advertising the fact that you're trying really hard all of a sudden. But, yeah, it's. You know, I think the big thing is just, you know, for those of us who have been doing this for a long time and who care about fly fishing as a. As a sport, pastime are not really the right words. It's sort of a way of life for a lot of us. You Know, it's. It's incumbent upon us to. To share the positive stuff as much as we. As we possibly can and to refrain from, you know, this, the being selfish or being pigheaded or, you know, less than we can be because we are out there fishing. You know, the vast majority of the time I'm on public water, and so I have no idea who I'm going to see, you know, one either floating by me or waiting next to me or whatever. And. Yeah.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

You know, so I should be doing everything I can to set a positive example. And.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

You know, I mean, I think one of the hard things. And I wasn't planning on including this, but. But I. I'd love to have your. Your thoughts on it. When you see somebody who's out on the water and they're obviously not very experienced, they don't have, you know, they haven't been doing this for forever and they're struggling a little bit.

[Paul]

Yep.

[Todd Tanner]

Do you feel comfortable offering them some advice or some help, or do you think that's intrusive in that?

[John]

It.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

I think it's intrusive because they might feel like they're doing really well. And if I say you look like you need some help, it might be an embarrassment and an insult to them. And so I don't, I don't. I do. I do learn by watching somebody that's struggling so that I can do instructional stuff, you know, at a later date. And I might have that person in mind, whether it's casting instruction or, or presentation or. But I, I don't. I don't offer. I don't offer help to people unless they ask for it, you know.

[Todd Tanner]

Right.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Or unless I'm on a. If I'm on a hosted trip, then I might, you know, if it's one of my guests, but not, not someone I don't know. No, I don't do it.

[Todd Tanner]

Okay.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

You.

[Todd Tanner]

No, I bite my tongue. Really hardened in. In. And, you know, it's. It's tough because having been a guide and a writer and a fly fishing instructor for so long, and I don't. Obviously, I don't guide anymore. But, you know, you want people to be successful and you want them to have the best time possible. But you're right, it can come across as. As, you know, sort of just somebody inserting themselves into a situation where they don't need to do that. So I. Yeah. You know, unless somebody asked me, there's

[Tom Rosenbauer]

a few times when I watch people that look like they're struggling and then all of A sudden they catch a great fish and I say, okay, they're doing fine. So. Yeah, I know. I don't do that. I don't offer it. I don't. I don't think it's usually welcome.

[Todd Tanner]

No, I. I would agree with you there. So. All right, well, any other questions? Anything else we need to touch on, or have we done enough damage for one day?

[Tom Rosenbauer]

I think we've covered some good stuff, Todd. And, you know, unlike. It's interesting because unlike the Hatch magazine where there's comments where people can be anonymous when they send in responses to the podcast, I. I know where they live because I've got an email attached. And so I. I seldom get snarky comments, so maybe some people will disagree with us, but. But I rather doubt it.

[Todd Tanner]

So before I jump off, what trips do you have coming up? What are you. What are you looking forward to this year?

[Tom Rosenbauer]

I've got a. Got a hosted trip to Iceland, which is. Which is full.

[Todd Tanner]

Is. Now, is that brown trout or are you going for salmon?

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah, it's brown trout. It's summer is not sea run time. It's brown trout, possibly Atlantic salmon. They're. They'll be in the river. Arctic char and se run brown to a certain degree. It's really good resident brown trout fishing. I did it last year and loved it, but that one's full. And then I have a trip to H2O bone fishing on Grand Bahama in October. That one still has spaces available. And then I've got two trip to Argentina, I think, in. In January. February.

[John]

Great.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

With Jorge Truco, and we're kind of co hosting it. And then I have a couple of trips to Chile in late March. That's. That's what's on the. That's what's on the plan so far.

[Todd Tanner]

Well, that sounds wonderful. It sounds like you're gonna have. Have a bunch of fun.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah, I love it. I enjoy it.

[Todd Tanner]

Well, Tom, as always, it's been a pleasure.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

All right, Todd, thank you so much for your preparation and your thoughts. I think this will be really helpful for a lot of people.

[Todd Tanner]

Well, I mean, you know, the big thing is just that, you know, we want everybody to have as much fun as they can when they're out on the water, so. Absolutely. Anytime we could avoid aggravation or people getting angry at each other, that's. That's something that's worthwhile to do. So.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Yeah.

[Todd Tanner]

All right.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Sure is.

[Todd Tanner]

Okay, Tom. Well, thank you very, very much.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Thank you, Todd. I'll talk to you soon.

[Todd Tanner]

All right. Take care.

[Tom Rosenbauer]

Thanks for listening to the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast with Tom Rosenbauer. You can be a part of the show, have a question or a comment. Send it to [e-mail] in the Body of an email or as a voice attachment. You can find more free fishing [e-mail].