BONUS: Designing the Perfect Glide: Chase Smith and the Spiral Spook

EPISODE SUMMARY

Guest: Chase Smith - Fly Tier and Inventor at Fish Chase Flies (Texas)

In this episode: Fly tier and inventor Chase Smith shares the engineering breakthroughs behind creating the Spiral Spook, a top water fly that replicates conventional spook action. Topics include precision weighting systems, foam body construction, leader setup requirements and the iterative design process for predator flies.

Key fishing techniques covered:

• Walking the dog presentation with 3-inch strips
• Top water fishing with floating lines and soft monofilament leaders
• Loop knot connections for proper fly action
• Short-strip cadence for glide action
• Rod tip down presentation technique

Location focus: Texas warmwater fisheries

Target species: Bass, pike, musky (predator species)

Equipment discussed:

• Spiral Spook flies (45mm, 55mm, 65mm sizes)
• EVA foam materials
• Wide gap offset eye worm hooks
• Gorilla Glue Clear coating
• Scientific Anglers Bass and Musky line
• Rio Aggressive short head tapers
• Texas Taper line
• Orvis Super Strong nylon monofilament
• 6-7 weight fly rods
• Soft nylon leaders (50lb to 17-20lb tippet)

Key questions answered:

• How to make a conventional spook glide on a fly rod
• What leader material kills top water fly action
• Why hook angle affects hookup ratio on foam flies
• How to achieve proper walking the dog action with flies
• What coating materials work best for foam fly bodies

Best for: Intermediate to advanced anglers interested in predator fly fishing, top water techniques, fly design and engineering, warmwater fly fishing and converting conventional lures to fly patterns.

Marvin Cash00:00:04

Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Butcher Shop where the Meat Meets the Water. On this episode, I'm joined by Chase Smith, the inventor of the Spiral Spook.Chase shares how he designed a fly that fishes like one of his favorite conventional lures. We take a deep dive into the fly's design and construction and what it takes to fish it properly.I think you're really going to enjoy this one, but before we get to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items to make sure you don't miss a single episode of the Butcher Shop. Be sure to subscribe in the podcatcher of your choice.We're only distributing episodes on the Articulate Fly for a limited time, and if you like the podcast, please tell a friend and subscribe and leave us a rating review in the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out. And finally, a shout out to our sponsor, Trout Routes.I've known the team at trout routes almost before there was a team at trout routes. We all know streams are getting crowded, and chances are you're not the only one at your local access point.Get away from the crowds and busy gravel lots by using Trout Routes Pro.With over 350,000 access points mapped across 50,000 trout streams and much more, Trout Routes has all the data you need to help you find angling opportunities that others will overlook. Up your game and download the app today.Use code artfly20 artfly20 all one word for 20% off of your Trout Routes Pro membership at maps.troutroutes.com and a shout out to our friends at Schultz Outfitters.Schultz Outfitters is Southern Michigan's premier flying tackle shop, and the guys at Schultz Outfitters are some of the fishiest dudes on the planet. Book a day on the water, swing by the shop or check out one of their many classes taught by some of the best anglers and tires in the game today.Check them out@schultzoutfitters.com or give them a shout at 734-544-1761. Now on to our interview. Well, Chase, welcome to the Butcher Shop.

Chase Smith00:02:00

Thanks for having me, Marvin. I'm excited.

Marvin Cash00:02:01

Yeah, it's great to have you back.And you know, folks, we're going to do what we normally do on the butcher shop and we're going to take one pattern and in the case of Chase, we're going to take the spiral spook and we're going to talk about the fishing problem, all the design and construction issues and how to fish it. So really, really looking forward to that. And, you know, Chase, let's get back in the time machine a little bit.You know, what was the hole in your fly box you were trying to fill when you started designing the spiral spook?

Chase Smith00:02:27

Well, I mean, it was pretty clearly a spook because I come with a conventional background. So I used to just absolutely love throwing a big white spook around. And there's nothing just quite like it with the glide in the fly fishing world.And so I started messing around with it. And then I started, you know, researching a little bit about what, what can a fly do?And I, I've seen the, I found the deer hair patterns, but I wanted something that was easier to tie, had a little more glide and durability. And so that's when I started messing around with. Trying to figure out a spook on the fly.

Marvin Cash00:03:12

Yeah. And so, you know, there are a lot of guys that have kind of come to the predator fly game from the conventional side.Do you still fish conventional or are you trying to solve kind of crazy puzzles like the spiral spook and fly fishing?

Chase Smith00:03:23

I have sold all my conventional gear. I'll go, I'll go flail around with a rod and just enjoy the casting before I'll catch fish with a conventional.At the moment, it's just kind of what I like to do. I'd rather cast fly rod. And even if that means I'm not going to catch fish, it's still where I'd rather be.So, no, I don't, I don't use any conventional anymore. But, you know, if it was shark fishing or, or something where you're having to soak some bait, I would maybe stoop down to it, I guess.But I try to stick to fly.

Marvin Cash00:03:57

There you go. So you might still have a few pyramid sinkers somewhere.

Chase Smith00:04:01

Probably somewhere.

Marvin Cash00:04:03

Fair enough. So who are some of the anglers and tires that helped inspire the design?

Chase Smith00:04:09

So for the, for the spook, it was. I saw Jeff Creamer's deer hair fly. The. His deer hair spook, because he's the first one that did that.I think I had already started messing around with the spiral spook and was just trying to find some inspiration and saw that he had originated it, which was really cool. And so, but I, I wanted to go a different direction.So aside from using the, the same shank with a hook on the end idea, it's, it's tied completely differently. And, and there's a few other people that have done where they take like a, a popper body and put them front to back.Two of them on a shank and just glue them onto the wire and weight them. But the.The biggest thing that I wanted with the spiral spook was to make it something where it's tied, and you can make the whole thing with no adhesives. And I also didn't want to be gluing weights into holes or things like that that you can see from the outside.I wanted it to be a clean body and still be tied, which. Which made it a really fun problem to solve.

Marvin Cash00:05:30

Very neat.And so for the fly fishing folks that aren't familiar with the spook on the gear side, you want to talk to folks about the bite trigger that you built into the fly.

Chase Smith00:05:39

Yeah, it's a spook's a really cool, really cool lure. There's all sorts of different variations. Now. They've got, you know, the walking Sammy, all these.All these styles and bodies and different amounts of glide, different amounts of chop, different amounts of turn. You can really dial them in. The problem is they. They use a lot of momentum to keep their glide going forward.And so when you're throwing a conventional spook, you.You can use a lot of weight because you're casting it on a regular rod, and you can dial in how much momentum it has to glide forward and all these different things. And on a fly rod, that's. That's difficult to do. But basically, with a conventional rod, you're gonna. You're gonna use your.Your rod tip to impart that slack and pull on the line, which is letting the lure dart side to side and glide. And it. It just cuts back and forth and walks the dog. And it's just. It's just a blast to catch fish on. And even if you're not catching fish, it's.It's a really fun, enticing action to watch, which is why it was always my favorite.

Marvin Cash00:06:50

Yeah, definitely better than watching a bobber, right?

Chase Smith00:06:53

Yeah, absolutely. Almost anything is.

Marvin Cash00:06:55

Yeah. So, you know, why don't you walk us through the original spiral spook? Let's just kind of start at the back with the hook and work our way forward.

Chase Smith00:07:03

Yeah. So the. The very first one, I had an idea for how I was going to make that tapered body, but still, it'd be a clean. A clean body.So I. I took a wire shank, strung a hook on the back, and then slipped beads onto the shank as I was building the shank itself before I closed it off, because I. I make all my wire shanks. And so before I put the second eye on the front of the the wire. I slipped a bunch of beads onto the back and then finished off that shank.And then I just wrapped a couple pieces of foam onto that wire body and then finished with a really long piece and spiral wrapped it over it, coated it in, like, bathtub silicone, and then took it down to the water and immediately saw that it wanted to go side to side, but it was, it was rolling. But I knew right then I was like, okay, this is a platform that I can dial in, and, and it's going to work. So that's kind of how it first started.And I immediately took a bunch of videos and sent it to a couple of my buddies and was like, guys, I'm. I'm going to make this super cool spook. It's going to work. So that's where it started.

Marvin Cash00:08:25

Gotcha. And to just kind of talk about the kind of. The shank you talked about, you know, gluing some pieces of foam.So is there play with the beads before you kind of overwrap it? You want to kind of talk about that in a little bit more detail for folks?

Chase Smith00:08:37

Yeah, so I originally, the, the beads were just slid onto the wire itself, but the problem is then the weight is in the center of the fly, and it can just. It doesn't want to orient. Orient itself in any particular way. So what I ended up doing was using inner body pieces of foam.So it's mostly tied with foam. And, and I, you. You tie on a long.A long strip of foam off the back of this shank, and then you put a couple pieces of foam onto the shank itself and wrap over it with thread and, and kind of build up a body that way. So you're still, you're tying it all onto the shank and building up a tapered body, and it's all ugly and covered in thread.And, and then you're going to finish off with that spiral wrap a foam that gives it a clean. A clean look and makes it look like a finished fly. But yeah, when it's, when it's right in the middle, it doesn't want to orient itself properly.And so what I ended up doing is embedding the weight into the bottom piece of foam as I'm tying the fly.So the, the foam or the, the weights hang at the lowest portion of the foam body under the wraps and gives it that leverage to turn it on its belly whenever it lands. And that's kind of how I advanced from the beads just strung on the wire to being slung under the belly. And righting itself.

Marvin Cash00:10:12

Got it. It's almost like some of the guys, it sounds like they use the teardrop beads, right.To get the weight away from kind of the axis to still get that kind of wobble.

Chase Smith00:10:21

That's the idea.

Marvin Cash00:10:23

Yeah. Now I've got it.And then of course, you've got this long strip of, you know, plastic foam slash vinyl material that looks like really like a long strip of like Wrigley's chewing gum, right?

Chase Smith00:10:33

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's. I use, I use up to like 18 inches or more hanging off the back on the really big ones.

Marvin Cash00:10:41

Very neat.And so, you know, as you were kind of evolving the design, you show it to your friends and I know you're, we were talking before we started recording your, you know, even though there's like spiral spook 2.0 there also there's like constant evolution. So there's like 1.1, 1.2. But any materials that didn't make the cut kind of in that original, you know, spiral spook 1.0.

Chase Smith00:11:02

Yeah, the, the stainless steel beads didn't make the cut. They were being on the wire, as we've already talked about. And then the silicone coating was terrible.It was way too lumpy, way too thick, way too heavy. I've, I've really tried to finesse how light can you make it until it stops walking?And that's, that's one of the hardest parts about the fly, is that it needs a certain amount of weight to make, to make it walk and glide. And it, it really limits the size you can make and what you can cast it with.But reducing, reducing the weight of certain materials has definitely helped. I've switched to lighter thread. I've switched away from gel spun thread because it cuts through the foam way too easily.And then I've tried, I've tried like neoprene wraps, I've tried latex. I've tried all sorts of stuff, but I always come back to it just being EVA foam all the way through.Just because it's the lightest and simpler and easy to repair. Just every, everything about it kind of ticks all the boxes that I need for the fly.

Marvin Cash00:12:21

Got it. And what about the outer coating? It looks almost like a type of like shellac or lacquer.

Chase Smith00:12:26

Yeah, it's the other, the hard part with the coating is it's got to be flexible, but it also has to be nice and slick and let the fly glide. It can't have any drag on the water. So I've, I'm, I, I'M looking at a box right now of probably 25 to 30 different glues that I've tried as coatings.And I've just, I've tried everything, but I always. What I've settled on is gorilla glue. Clear. It's a urethane single, single part coating.You don't have to mix up epoxies, you don't have to use uv and it dries to a nice hard but flexible finish.

Marvin Cash00:13:09

Gotcha. And I assume you're probably having to put that on a wheel, right?

Chase Smith00:13:12

Yes. I have a turkey roaster that's strung up on some two by fours that I, that I use to rotate flies. It's pretty janky.

Marvin Cash00:13:25

Well, there you go. And so you know, how long did it take you to perfect the action in the fly?

Chase Smith00:13:32

Honestly, I'm still, I'm still finding different ways to improve the fly. I.Most recently I'm, I'm trying to offset the eye of the shank to be lower under the front of the fly so that when you're pulling on it, it has a little more of a downward pool without actually sinking the fly. And it helps it go side to side. So I, I'm, I'm tinkering with it even as I'm tying huge batches.I'll tie a couple little changes I have in my head and go swim test them and see if it improves or not. And if it does, I'll tie multiples and test it out until it eventually makes its way into production. But it's.I've been through just dozens and dozens of iterations.

Marvin Cash00:14:22

You know, it'd be interesting if you could maybe break down for folks. I know you're kind of perpetually tweaking the action, but, you know, maybe what was like spiral spook 1.0? What were you working on?And then once you had that figured out, you know, what was the next thing with the swim you wanted to fix and kind of move through that? I think that'd be really interesting for folks.

Chase Smith00:14:38

Yeah, there's a. There's so many things to consider when you're trying to make the fly walk side to side.There's different types of walking, different types of gliding. There's all these different factors that kind of come into play to affect the action.And, you know, I'm, I'm having to think about it from a customer standpoint where I know people aren't going to use exactly what I have. So I try as much as I can to make things universal and try to solve problems in a way that don't require a super specific solution.But there's some things you just can't get around. Like for example, using fluorocarbon.If, if you use fluorocarbon on the front of one of the spooks, it just sinks too fast and pulls the front of the fly down. And then when you try to strip, it just goes under the water instead of cutting side to side. So you, there's just no way to get around that.And it something as simple as using a Maxima, which is a lot stiffer of a nylon, versus using I, I really like the Orvis super strong nylon material. Cause it's really soft.But if you use Maxima even in the same pound test, it's so much stiffer that when that fly tries to, to divert side to side, it gets pulled back online just from the strength of the maxima having memory. And it pulls it out of its glide and back forward. And you don't have to deal with that nearly as much when you're throwing a conventional spook.But with a fly where it's light and it's really hard to dial in the momentum and the glide and the waiting, it, it can really just completely dampen the action. Let's see, using using different types of knots, you have to use a loop, a loop knot.If you're using a clinch knot or anything that's directly attached to the nose of the fly, it's going to do the same thing where it just pulls it back into line. The fly can't fight the tippet enough to overcome that memory, even on the softest materials.

Marvin Cash00:16:49

Yeah. Interesting. I would imagine too probably with the design of the nose or the bend, it probably affects the dig as well, right?

Chase Smith00:16:56

It does, yeah. Where you put the mass of the fly, you know, you can, you can have a fat cylinder all the way through.You can have a tapered tail up to some shoulders.And that's kind of what I figured out in my opinion is best for the fly is having a, a real thin tail that goes up to some broad shoulders that helps divert. But still you don't have as much mass because you've got that thin tail. So you can kind of keep the weight down a little bit.And so it's, you can change where the shoulders are on, on the fly. But honestly the biggest thing that helped me was ending up splitting the weight into three different places in the fly.Because I realized, you know, with a conventional spook, it's got enough mass all the way through it.You can add weight at the tail and that'll divert the spook off its line, and then it's got enough momentum just from its intrinsic weight to push through and go side to side after it gets diverted. But with a fly, it doesn't have that weight because it's just foam.And so I ended up having to add weight towards the very front of the fly to give it enough momentum that once the tail is diverted, it has that momentum to carry through and keep on pushing forward. And once I, once I figured that out, it makes him a lot easier to walk.

Marvin Cash00:18:26

Very interesting. Do you have any kind of favorite sizes or color combinations?

Chase Smith00:18:32

Yes, I, I throw a bone spook almost 90, 99% of the time. It's just classic, and pretty much every color I make has a white belly anyway.So there's, you know, the, the fancy colors are, are fun to look at, fun to make, but I don't know if they make too much of a difference, especially with the top water where you're seeing that white belly and the commotion more than anything else. So I usually just stick with bone. And I've kind of graduated more towards throwing smaller spooks just because they're easier to cast.And I find that the little fish come up and hit the big ones anyway, and then they just don't get stuck because they can't eat the hooks. So I'll, I'll downsize more often now so, so that I can get some more fun bites and takes and, and still have the big fish as well.So I probably like the 55 millimeter. It's a medium size, and you can cast it on a six or seven weight. But that one, that one does really well for small and big fish.

Marvin Cash00:19:37

Got it. And for painting your flies, are you using an airbrush or are you doing something else?

Chase Smith00:19:42

I use an airbrush with flexible paints.I, I think I usually use leather, leather painting paints because they're made to flex and not crack since it's, since it's all foam and, and stuff like that, it's. So, yes, an airbrush and sometimes I'll use regular spray paint, but I found the, the airbrush just seems to work much better.

Marvin Cash00:20:08

Got it. And we kind of picked apart the action pretty well, but, you know, kind of. Any other evolutions in the spiral spook since the original version?You want to share with folks?

Chase Smith00:20:17

Yeah, One of the, one of the other big things that made a huge difference in the hookup ratio was switching to a wide gap worm hook that has an offset eye. So the point's still in line, but the eye is offset. And I was using a, a nice, a nice hook, an a rex curved saltwater hook for a long time.But the whole, the hook point is curved back towards the hooked shank. And so when that hook is pulled straight out behind the shank, behind it, the hook point is pointed down instead of up.So when you're pulling that foam body through a fish's mouth, lots of times you're prying the fish's jaws open because it's, it's a big foam body you're having to pull out of its mouth. So if the hook point is pointed down as it comes through, it misses their lips and gets just pulled out of their mouth.And once I switch to this, this other hook that has the downturned eye, it lifts that hook point up as it's coming out, and so it'll catch their lip as you're pulling the foam through their mouth. It made a huge difference. And I tested so many hooks before I kind of settled on that one.

Marvin Cash00:21:34

Interesting. And what are some common mistakes folks make when they try to tie the spiral spooky?

Chase Smith00:21:40

You know, probably not using enough of a body underneath the outer wrap. I see people mostly just wrapping foam directly onto a shank or something like that.Like, you do have to, you have to make a body underneath there and then wrap over it. And, and that's kind of how you fine tune the shape. And the final wrap just gives it the veneer of a finish.And besides that, probably not using monofilament. There's a, if you look on the back of all my spooks, there's a little loop of monofilament that sits right over the top of the hook shank or. Yeah.Of the, the eye of the hook. And it's resting on the eye of the shank. And so it prevents the hook point from coming up and over and stabbing into the back of the fly.Because if, if the hook has full play, it's not a hard bait like a conventional spook, where they don't need to prevent that and they can have trebles on it. But with this fly, if, if the hook swings up and over, it'll stab into the foam.But putting a, a sideways loop of monofilament on the top of that back hook shank eye prevents that from happening. That makes a huge deal with the amount of tangles and, and stuff, things like that happening when you're casting.

Marvin Cash00:23:07

Yeah, interesting.And so I understand, right, that you really are, you know, using that final foam wrap as a veneer, but, you know, to kind of help people that want to give this fly a shot at their vice.You know, talk a little bit about, you know, the gaps you can kind of have in that underlying foam or, you know, are you sitting there and there, you know, you can have the gaps if you know where to put them. Or do you have to, like, end up making a bunch of foam effectively shims to kind of smooth the underbody out first?

Chase Smith00:23:33

Yeah, I use, I use multiple pieces of foam under, under the body. And I try to, I try to cut them to the general shape of the, of the, of what I want the final spook to be.And then I kind of glue them top and bottom with the, with the shank in the middle.And from there you can then use little strips of the thin foam, like the same stuff you're using for the wrap, to help taper the body and build it up in certain places until you get the shape that you like. And then you can wrap that final. The final wrap. But yeah, you definitely. It's. It's all filled with foam.There's no real gaps because it'll get compressed under that outer wrap. So you do have to fill it with foam.But if you use too much and you do too tight a thread wraps, you'll compress that foam so much it becomes just like a rock and loses all of its buoyancy and flotation and becomes too heavy. So it's a fine line of building the. Building the bodies to shape and adding little shims to fill it out the way you like.

Marvin Cash00:24:45

Got it. And so we know you want to use soft mono in your leader system, but why don't you talk us through your preferred line and leader setups?

Chase Smith00:24:53

So for my line and leader, I'm, I'm not super picky on lines. I'm still probably trying to find what I like the best in terms of tapers. I've. I've thrown a few different ones that work really well.The scientific anglers, Bass and Muskie and Titan taper works well. Some of the Rio Aggressive short head tapers work really well.One of my friends down here at, at a local fly shop, Chris Johnson, he designed a fly line called the Texas Taper. And that one's got a much longer head, but works really well if I'm casting further with smaller, smaller spooks. So there's.It depends on your presentation. If you're, if you're throwing short and you're not having to fish really long casts, I definitely like a nice, heavy head.Makes it easy to Cast the heavy fly. It doesn't have any drag going through the air, which makes it really hard to change your angle of approach as you're casting.And if it's windy, it's kind of a bear. The wind will blow it everywhere.I've, I've cast it before and caught one of my friends on the side, and it left a perfect impression, hook and everything of, of that fly. So it's definitely a low wind, no wind kind of fly.And that's, that's where you'd want to be using it anyway because it can't really fight waves or things like that to, to get the action. So it's a fair weather fly when they're, when they're looking up on the surface. Got it.

Marvin Cash00:26:28

And obviously all those lines are floaters.

Chase Smith00:26:30

Yes, everything's a floating line. And I like to use maybe 2ft of 50 pound down to 2ft of 35 or 40.And then I'll use a final 2ft of 20, sometimes 17 to, to fish the, the fly with a fairly short leader. All, all nylon or monofilament I really like. The orb is super strong. It's, it's really limp. So that's what I use a lot.

Marvin Cash00:27:01

Got it. And of course, the, the secret sauce is the, is the action. You want to tell folks how to, to get the, the spiral spook to glide and walk.

Chase Smith00:27:10

Yeah. The number one thing I see when people try to fish the fly and get frustrated with it is they're doing too long of a strip.So I'm keeping my rod tip touching the water. I'm doing very, very short, sharp strips. So it's, it's almost just flicking your wrist maybe three inches.And if it's, if it's not acting right, it's probably because you're stripping too long. So. Yeah. Rod tip down. Short strips. You can strip fast, you can strip slow.I really like to make my cast do a couple fast strips to get it off axis and then work it more slowly because once it gets off its center line and starts going side to side, you can slow it down and use it. Use different tempos to get different actions, but definitely using short, short, short strips.And it's hard to even emphasize just how small of a strip it has to be.

Marvin Cash00:28:08

Yeah, got it. It's kind of, I think we would call it kind of like, you know, like milk in a hamster, right? Something like that.So, yeah, yeah, the, you know, in terms of the glide, you know, what should folks expect to see kind of in terms of kind of movement off center.

Chase Smith00:28:23

So it's, it's not the same as a, as a conventional lure where it's got a ton of forward momentum. But if once you get the action down and especially with some of the bigger ones, you can really get it to turn side to side.If you're just learning, you'll, you'll notice it.It kind of looks more like the pole dancer or something like that, where it's a little bit of a forward side to side movement and it takes a, a sharp cadence with a short strip to get it to turn that side to side action. And, and it will. You have to make sure your whole setup is, is tuned just right to get the full glide out of it.Just because everything is so precisely spaced and weighted. Like I have to measure my weights down to. It's, it's like tenths of a gram and, and the spacing has to be just insanely precise. I'll.I'll move the spacing forward by 2 or 3 millimeters on one of the weights and the action's completely different or just gone. It's, it's really pretty wild on these small sizes. Just how precise you have to be.

Marvin Cash00:29:39

Got it.And so, you know, if, if folks are feeling comfortable that they're imparting the correct action, but they're not quite getting the glide, is there something they may need to maybe tweak in their leader setup?

Chase Smith00:29:51

Just making sure it's a really soft leader and using maybe going down a tippet size, making sure it's not straight, it's not preventing the fly by being too stiff or, or too thick. So, yeah, making sure that that last section is really limp and using a loop knot and nylon monofilament. Should that.All that should in theory get everything working right. I've had a couple people where they couldn't get them to work at all.And if that happens, they can always reach out to me and I'll send them a replacement and go test it before I do. So I know it's something, you know, they can figure out whether it's something they're doing or the fly itself.But, but most of the time people, people get them to work.

Marvin Cash00:30:40

Got it. And of course, I know you're always tinkering with stuff, you know, anything kind of going on at the tying bench or on the fishing front.You want to share with folks tonight?

Chase Smith00:30:49

Yeah, I've got, I've got a few, a few new things in the works.I'm excited to get a really cool frog fly out with, with Blaine over at the Chocolate Factory and I. I've got some patterns with Montana fly and I'll be doing some more with them as well in the near future. So, yeah, there's plenty of. Plenty of stuff in the works. My problem is I spend so long working on each fly pattern. I've.I've been working on this frog for two years and I'm still making little changes before I put it out there. I just. I want things to be perfect when people do get to fish with the stuff that I make, which is why the spook.The spook took so long to get to market as well. But I. It's worth it in the end.So hopefully soon I was hoping it would be this year, but probably next year there'll be a couple of cool new patterns coming out.

Marvin Cash00:31:43

Guided. Any kind of tools or materials at the bench that you want to share with folks?

Chase Smith00:31:49

Let me, let me think.I've been really enjoying using a clear, like completely clear angel hair flash that doesn't have any sparkle to it, but that mixes really well with other materials and gives it a nice sheen without being flashy. And I've kind of started trying to use as much of that as I can over regular flash in a lot of my flies. So that's probably. That's probably the.The most recent thing I've been tinkering with is using a crystal clear flash versus something that actually has some sparkle to it.

Marvin Cash00:32:34

Interesting. And who makes that?

Chase Smith00:32:37

I think I bought it from an embroidery shop. So I. I don't even know.

Marvin Cash00:32:43

Fair enough. And will folks be able to find you on the show circuit in 2026? I'll.

Chase Smith00:32:50

I'm sure I'll be out and about around Texas. It's harder to get out because I've got two little kids, so I don't know if I'll be traveling to any shows.Maybe I'll go back to the Lefty Cray Tie fest if they do it again. But I'll definitely be around Texas. I'll do shows in. In Dallas and. And just all over the state. Anywhere I can drive to easily.

Marvin Cash00:33:12

Yeah. Well, you. Even within the state of Texas. I used to live in Dallas. It's like saying you wouldn't necessarily drive to El Paso, right?

Chase Smith00:33:18

That's true. That's very true. I was just in Dallas and it was a lot of driving.

Marvin Cash00:33:23

Yeah. So is there anything else you want to share with our listeners tonight? Before I let you go.

Chase Smith00:33:31

Let me think about it. Probably not off. Not off the top of my head. I can't I can't think of anything for that one.

Marvin Cash00:33:41

Well, there you go. I mean, you were, you know, repacking bearings on a trailer before we started our call.

Chase Smith00:33:45

I was thinking about, I was thinking about sharing that story, but it kind of diverts away from the fly tying realms.

Marvin Cash00:33:52

Yeah. It's its own reward, as they say. Right.

Chase Smith00:33:55

Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:33:56

And, and so folks. Yeah, yeah.And so if folks want to, to, you know, buy some flies, you know, follow your adventures at the bison on the water, you know, where should they go?

Chase Smith00:34:06

Yeah, they can find me on fish, chase flies on Instagram.My website is www.fishchaseflies.com and it's probably easiest to get a hold of me through Instagram and then you can also contact me through the website, but you can place orders through there or if you reach out to me on Instagram, I'm. I love interacting with people through the messages and trying to figure out how to make flies and do all that stuff. So, yeah, any. Anything at all.I love to hear from people.

Marvin Cash00:34:39

Well, perfect.Well, I'll drop all that stuff in the show notes and I appreciate you making some time this evening, especially under the adverse automotive situation. And I'll let you hop so you can get all the grease off your hands and get on with your evening. I really appreciate it.

Chase Smith00:34:54

That sounds great. Thanks for having me, Marvin.

Marvin Cash00:34:56

You bet. Take care.

Chase Smith00:34:57

You too.

Marvin Cash00:34:59

Well, folks, we hope you enjoyed the interview as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Before we leave you, one more thing. If you listen to the podcast, you know about trout routes.If you fish Midwest lakes, you owe it to yourself to check out its sister app, OnX Fish Midwest. OnX Fish takes the guesswork out of finding new places to fish. Search and filter lakes by species size and abundance.Plus get local details and background info so you can show up with a plan A and as many backup plans as you want. Make the most of your time on the water. Head over to Onyxmaps.com today. And remember, links to all this episode's sponsors are in the show notes.Check them out. Fish hard, folks.