BONUS: Swine Design Secrets: Eli Berant Discusses the Optimus Swine

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 Eli Berant, the inventor of the Optimus Swine.In the course of doing interviews for the Butcher Shop and working on my streamer project, Eli's name kept popping up. I met Eli at Bobbin this year and asked him to come on to talk about the Optimus Swine.

Eli shares the lake muskie problem he was trying to solve the design and evolution of the swine and his preferred way to fish it.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 and 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 podcast app of your choice. And in the age of AI, it's more important than ever, and it really helps us out. And finally, a shout out to our sponsor. Trout Routes.We all know streams and rivers 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 now on to our interview.

Well, Eli, welcome to the Butcher Shop.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. You know, folks like we always do, one pattern, one designer, you know, problem to be solved, how it was designed and evolved and how to fish it.And tonight we're going to talk about the Optimus Swine. And you know, Eli, I have to.

Ask you, where did the name for.

The fly come from?

So I get this question every time I'm at some event, right? And the, the simple answer is I make my flies are named after things that make me last, right?I think a lot of the fly names out there are really crude and like, not family friendly. So I tried to make them pretty like dad joke friendly. Dad joke funny. I live on a farm. My wife runs a farm. Runs a farm that we Live on.And there's a day camp here in the summer, and one of the groups, one of the counselors ran a couple of years, like, I don't know, right about the time this fly came out. So about 2010, 2009, something like that. Their group for the summer was Optimus Swine.And he was a really good artist, and he drew like, the Autobot logo with a pig, like, combined, like the two things together, and it was just really cool and really funny. And I keep a list of things that make me laugh, like family friendly stuff and on my phone.And when that fly kind of came together, I'm like looking at it, looking through my list and like, like Optimus. My Optimus flying. That fits. And so it kind of came together.And then not too long after that fly or three years after that flag kind of gotten out there, I did a. The tying event, the bar flies event with Schultze at his shop.And they did the recording and they did some editing with some old Transformers footage in it. And it's. It's just awesome. It's just like. It's one of the cooler things I've been a part of in the fly fishing world, right, that.That they put together. I still kind of pull it up and look at it. Makes me laugh, makes me smile. It's pretty cool.

Yeah, it's funny. I watched that earlier today, and so.

Was the drawing from camp, the same.

Drawing of the swine that shows up in the video?

It was not. It was not, but it was. It was pretty. Like, it was just pretty cool, man. Like, I love it.

Yeah, absolutely.And so, you know, Eli, tell me, you know, what was the kind of the hole in your fly box if we jump back in the time machine that you were trying to fill when you started working on the Optimus Wine.

So when I started working on that fly, there wasn't a small hole in the fly box. It was a fly box sized hole. Right. I had just begun fishing for muskie on a fly rod or fishing for Muskie, period, right. 12, 18 Months before that.And I dove hard into fly design through like 2000, through, like 2008.And most of what I was looking at, like, for pike and like a lot of the stuff to get all started, kind of the snowball started for me, was moving away from trout and looking for bigger fish, right? And here in Michigan, we've got the. The Great Lakes, we've got the. Those. The big migratory fish that come in and off the shoreline.And I got really into trying to fish migratory Species surface on the Great Lakes.And from an article I read with Kelly Galloup and Russ Maddin, like, early 2000s, and which led me down this path of learning a lot about the fly design for stripers right on the east in the northeast. And then also, I also had this, like, pike. I want to fish for pike. Muskie wasn't even in my.In my view, when I was looking for this type of flooded design, but.And eventually when I started to go for muskie flies and I was looking at all these bigger pike flies and things like that, there was a common theme amongst those flies that they all had that heavy epoxy head, right? Like, they finished and they cut. They coated those. Those threads in the front with the eyes and then the heavy epoxy.And all I was trying to do was give it a different shape in the very beginning, right? Like a different shape. And then also I wanted the fly to fall slower in the water column, right.Instead of having that heavy epoxy head, like a jig head, I wanted it to just slow. So I'm, like, playing around looking on my bench at this point. I didn't have as much experience with all these different materials at that point.And I had a pack of, like, foam popper heads laying on the bench, and I was looking at them, and I'm like, what if I, like, reversed it and put it back in the back part of the fly? That would make it fall slower, right. And when I first took the fly out to do that, got it wet. It did that.But it also, because of where that foam was positioned near the back of the hook, it really made that fly wiggle and move side to side like a. Like a glide bait almost right. With a pretty good cadence.And first time I cast it, I raised a muskie on it, and on the second catch, lifted back out on the second cast and got. It wasn't a big guy. It was like 28, 30 inches. But I was just showing it to Eric Grassy. I'm like, hey, look at this thing I got going.Because I tried it in, like, a pond. And just to see how a little bit. The first time I actually fished it, I raised the. Raised a muskie on the first cast. Yeah.

Very, very neat. So you kind of want to, you know, sounds like there are a lot of influences in there.You want to kind of unpack that for folks in terms of, you know, anglers and tires. That kind of inspired the design a little bit.

Yeah. So, like, I mean, the. The. My network of.Of who I like bounce ideas off of and fish with at that time, I mean, I was fishing with Eric Grajewski and I was tying flies for him and he was getting my flies wet and fishing them and giving me like some more direction. He was getting on the water a lot more than I could. And Matt Grajewski brother, who is an incredible tier, really thinks outside the box.And him and I kind of, we grew up together fly tying kind of on in the fly tying forum, in the fly fishing forum days. It was crazy the amount of talent of tires that came out of there. It was like me, Matt, Mike Schmidt, Rich Strolis.I mean we were all sharing patterns and techniques and things in there and there's guys I didn't name. But like, it was pretty weird how this, how we all kind of found this online community. This is before Facebook and then killed it all and stuff.But it was really the amount of talent that kind of came together there was pretty spectacular.

Very, very neat.And so, you know, was the, you know, what was it about the hover that you thought was going to be a really productive bite trigger for the Optimus Swine?

It was just that like I wanted to because again, I was still learning. I didn't really know what I didn't know at that point. Like, everything was just nothing but green pasture in front of me.And I was just trying to do something a little bit different than everything else that was out there. Right. That was, everything was pretty standard. It was either the, the European pike fly that had the big bulkhead deer hair head.

Right.

And then they also had the, the epoxy head. And that was pretty much it. That was out there. So I'm like, let me see if I can find something different.And I just like picked up the, the laser dub and started to use that a little bit that I used in the head. That does a really good job, doesn't hold water, but gives a great profile.And you know, it was kind of the combination of finding the right materials together that work. Like the tailing material that I use, the synthetic yak air, like that's just. It's just perfect.Like it's just kind of a few things just kind of stacked up together to, to really come together to be a really good fly.

Yeah. And so were you a gear guy before?So were you kind of bringing like, you know, bait ideas to the fly design or did you kind of come to it purely from a fly time perspective?

I came into it purely fly. I had a, I had a. I don't think I picked up a spinning rod in the in like 2000 to 2000, I. I did.I did for like, throwing for salmon, but for like anything else, it was. I didn't. Didn't do it. I was all fly all the time. And if you didn't do fly, it was. It was wrong.And except for this other minor application fishing on the years for salmon here in Michigan. But other than that, it was just fly. So I didn't really have a lot to pull on from. From the conventional tackle pick spot.

Got it. And so if we kind of start with the original Optimus one, you want to like, walk us through the fly. So kind of from the tail to the head.

Yep. So the, the frame of the fly, like the hook is a spinner bait hook. Right. So it's got a big long frame on it.On the, the fly that started it was really funny. This is a fly that I reversed. I, like, I scaled it down over time. Right. Like, the original one was the biggest version.Usually, like, you get a good fly and then you make it bigger and bigger and bigger. This one, I started with the biggest version and then I've over time found ways to make it smaller to more applications. Right.So it started on the six odd Mustad 6208 or. Yeah, I think that's right. 32608. That's it. Which has the biggest platform available for like a sly like that. Right. Like, it's got the.It's the Gamakatsu comparable. They go to a 5.0and it's bigger than like a Mustad 5 ought, but it's just. It's still not that big. Right. So it doesn't have that long platform.I always wanted to have a rattle on these flies. So I have a rattle. I use the, like the rubber spider collars that they use on bass jigs. And I kind of tie. It hangs off the back so that the, the.The rattle is there, but it's not taking up any room on the platform. And then the tail section. Right. So like the, the part that comes off of.Off of the hook, it begins with this synthetic yak hair that I blend myself with the flash that I want in it.Another one of those things that kind of found these materials, I kind of found the technique on one of those saltwater fishing boards from Steve Farrar, and I kind of like learned how to do it myself. And I developed this really good material. And it's stiff enough to hang off the back and not fall completely down, but it still moves around. Right.So I use that off the back and Then I flank that with feathers. And muskie flies are. They get the reputation of using those really long wispy saddle feathers. And those are great for certain types of flocks.But you know, you've got this fly, you've got these saddles that you use these long feathers from.But what about these little shorter ones that still have some motion, kind of like a schlopping feather kinda, but these long saddle feathers, and I use those as the flanks down that synthetic yak. Give it a little bit of color variation, give it some motion, right? If that. I'm not a. I'm not.I, I gleefully look at flies that are misshapen, right, that have a little bit of curve to them, that have. They're not just the perfect feather because that just adds more to your fly, adds more wiggle, adds more woundedness.And then I use the, the Magnum flashaboo, depending on the color variation, right. But I use that under it there's. And then comes in that popper head, right. So I've got that stuff tied on and I take that proper head.It's the radies mini me. The medium is the one I use for the big, the big version of the swine. And I fill that gap, the cup right of the, of the popperhead.I fill that with like a silicone adhesive like goop.And then I like after I cut the line, cut the thread and I spread that, that on there and I, you know, fit it on and try and make it as true as possible. I think one of the, the questions that you had on the list and that I saw is how you can tune it, right.And you know, what makes it swim better than others. I've never really been able to dial in exactly what it does, but I think how I let that go settle may have some impact on that, right.If I now I hang them from a magnet like straight up and down. But before I tie him and just lay them on the bench, maybe that gave some of that goop would settle on like heavier on one side than the other.So I'm thinking that might be part of what gets it to run. You know, some to run a little bit better than others, but they all run really, really good.So after that topper heads on there, I go to bucktail and to go back to talking about the saddle feathers, right? A lot of those European style flies with the big bulkheads, they use those really long wispy feathers. They also reverse tie insanely long bucktail.I've never been completely on board the train of those incredible pump bucktails I use, like, I, I like to call them like the everyday bucktail. You can just kind of find them wherever.And I like to use the bucktails that are closer to the butt right where they, they, they act a little bit more like a deer hair where they have some grip as you're, as you're pulling down on that. And then I tie in some more flash crystal flash and some of that mag flashaboo. And I finish off the head with tying in some tufts of that laser dub.And one of the things I've developed, like that's changed over time. As I was preparing for this, I'll look at some of my older ones right into where they are now. Strikingly similar.Very like, not a lot of changes there. But one of the big changes I did change with was the eye that I put on. The eye I started with was 38 and I went up to a half.And the reason why I did that was if you fished any fly with that laser dub on the head, over time it gradually just disappears. Right. As you fish it, the more you fish it, it just kind of works its way out.And when I put those eyes on there, I put that goop, that same goop I used to put the popper head on and fix it there. I put it on the back of those guys and I really sandwich it really good on that and that laser dub.And that helps A, warm the head of more like up and down. And then B, it helps hold on to those fibers. Right. It works its way in and then it dries and it's just, it's never letting that stuff go.So you'll use a little bit, but you're. It's still going to hold that shape really good over time.

Yeah. And it just kind of let folks know on proportions. That's a half inch eye on what, the original 9 inch fly.

Yeah. I call it 8 to 9 inches somewhere in there. Yeah. Yeah.

And so as you were kind of working through things, was there anything that you thought was going to be awesome on the fly that just didn't make the cut?

A couple things. Like one thing was like when I originally started tying him, I talked about that rattle I had. The rattle was really floppy.Cause I thought that would be like, would make that rattle go more. And I wound up over time cinching it really tight.Cause I think it keeping it tighter to the body does that a little bit better than like having it a little, like a little floppy at the end. But other than that, like I said, it's pretty strikingly similar. Actually.The first couple I tied, I would tie the rattle right to the hook and then use like a UV glue to hold it on. But those would snap off. And that's when I switched to the rubber. I don't know, holder there.

Yeah. It's interesting too.

Does that.

Does that rubber rattle maybe also give a little bit of support to the tail? So the tail has a less of a tendency to kind of drop down over the bend of the hook.

That. That might be the case. But that synthetic yak where at the length that it's at, if I were to go a little bit longer, that would probably be a more.A bigger problem. I think the stem of the feathers I think helps do that. And then also it's reverse tied and it's got a pretty good support system from the.From the part that's aiming back before you reverse it. So.

Got it. Any kind of. I don't think you. You weight these generally, right? Yeah. So the.All the business is in the line, but you know, kind of any tricks for folks on kind of sizing and proportions.

That's probably the biggest thing that I get from anybody trying to tie any of these flies and any one of my flies that I have. Proportionality, I think that's true. Like streamers, probably the most. Right.Because it's the bigger platform and you're trying to get those things together. But proportionality is probably the. The biggest piece of it. And it's really the bucktail is where it comes in. Right.There's no one where that bucktail. And knowing how much to put it in. I can do it now in my sleep.I've tied so many flies with so much bucktail and, you know, I can just pinch it and I know exactly how much I have. And that's the biggest like crowd and hook.The great thing about these big platforms is if you crowd the eye of the hook generally if you hold your vice really good and you can kind of work your fingers back and you can get yourself that extra eighth quarter inch, sometimes even a half an inch that you may have taken up as you kind of push things forward.

Got it. And so, you know, do you have. And I guess I'll kind of wrap this.Like I know you were, you know, your original focus was on lake muskie, but, you know, as you've kind of spread out to other species, you know, what are your. And let's include muskie in that too. But what are kind of your preferred hook sizes and Kind of what are your preferred color combos?

So I started with that 6 od for the musky fly, right? And that's where it kind of went. And then similarly, you know, it. The proportionality is how. Like, how can I.The just the pieces fit so good for the big one, right. And as I wanted, over time, people like, hey, can you make this a little bit smaller? Right? Maybe I want to go for.I mean, I don't live in a place for musky, but I'd love to use this flag for. For, you know, pike or for lake trout or for stripers. I get that a lot too. And then I kind of.It kind of the materials kind of fell together and, you know, I scaled it down with the smaller popper head to a four on a four ought hook, right.And instead of using my synthetic yak, I use the Farrar blend fibers, which aren't as stiff, but they don't need to be because they don't go back as far as. Right. Lots of color combination there. Really good flash built into those. I can use smaller feathers that I wasn't using on any other fly, right.So I'm using the whole saddle now with that and a little less flash because they're not as long to put it in there. But, you know, that came out. That's why I said more between five and a half to six and a half inches in most cases.So then I had people asking, can you make it like, what about for. For smallies in the river and things like that, which. This fly, the Swine junior, is my favorite smallmouth fly to fish on Lake Sinclair.Because if they're eating that, you're only getting the big boys. It's a fun flight of fish. And like you. You eliminate like the bottom 95%. You're only getting the tanks.And so it's my favorite fly to fish for smallies in Sinclair, but for the rivers, you know, getting a fly down, you know, four inches. A couple years ago, I kind of finally figured out how to make it because the popper head piece was gone. Like, I couldn't.The popperhead is too small or it would break pushing it over the hook the way that I wanted to. And I found that fettuccine foam right where you can put the strips. And I was tying it in where I put the foam topper head.And because there's so little material in there, because I was using a little bit less of the. The Ferrar blend, there's less bucktail there. The getting it to fish Right. Took a little bit.And what I wound up doing is, and this can be an applicant, you can use application you can use for a lot of flies.If you want to do this is I would have those pieces of the fettuccine foam hang off like a half an inch, and I tie in like six to eight pieces in there. And then I tell people when I, when they're getting those flies from me, I'm like, hey, you might need to tune this yourself. So you want to fish it.And if you need to pluck out 1, 2, 3, 4 pieces of that foam to get it to balance right, that's something you can do. And that's worked out really, really well is being able to, you know, you put in more than you need.I think something I read when I first started getting into this Pike Fly Muskie 5 thing was from Barry Reynolds in one of his pike books. And he said, always tie in more flash than you ever think you'll need. You can always cut it out, you can't add it later.Number one, I've never cut any flash out of a fly.Number two, but I have done it with this foam right, where you put in more than you need because you can't add it later, but you can kind of tune it that way.

Yeah.And so when you're talking about tuning, are you trying to tune just kind of the hover or the drop, or are you trying to get the foam to be asymmetrical so that you're getting that, that kind of jerk on the glide?

The first thing is you want it to swim. True. Right. You don't want it to spin, you don't want it to, you know, kick to one, you know, tilt to one side or the other. So that's the first thing.And then you can kind of tune it a little bit with the, the side to side action as you're working it. You know, all of the, you know, aside from the, from the, the pot belly swine, that's what I call that little one. Right.Aside from that one, the swine and the swine Junior, all of them swim side to side and you're doing that jerk strip retrieve. Some do it way better than others. They're all going to do it.And I can actually say that the junior probably, like if I lined up 10 slides of that junior, they all swim in pretty tight comparison.Where if I lined up 10 of the traditional, of the traditional swines, I'm going to get two or three out of there that swim like you just like you look at it. You're like, that's incredible. And then the rest of them are going to swim pretty good. I've got one that is a 100% chartres.I call that one snot rocket. And what's great about that flag, you can see it the whole way in. And it shoot like it's like two and a half, three feet to the. To.To a side every time you strip it. I don't know what I did to that fly, but it is, It's. It's magical to sketch. It's really fun.

Very, very neat. What are. What are some common mistakes you see folks make when they're trying to tie the swine?

It's, it's. It comes down to bunching that. Bunching the bucktail, like either trying to tie in too big of clumps and then.Then finishing the head, tying in a little bit too much of that laser dub. Right. And it just throws out, like, it doesn't look proportional. You want to make. You want to make sure that it looks right.The great thing about that laser dub is you can. You can play with it and get it to the way you want it to. The most important thing when it comes to that is getting everything to one length.So I'll kind of pinch it, pull off all the loose stuff, stack it back on top, and then get it to where there's no loose pieces coming off the ends. Then you can see exactly what you got, and then take some out or add some more if you need it.But I'm usually taking some out then, then adding some more.

Yeah.

And I mean, you're tying it in almost like people would stack like rams will. Right. Kind of in sections.

Yep. On the, on this. On the. On the traditional, the regular swine, I do two, right. Top and bottom, and then move forward top and bottom.On the junior, I only do one to keep those proportions in line.

Got it. And I don't know. You know, I'll say we'll do. We'll do proportions on bucktail. Since you said that was important.And you either hate talking about pencils or you think pencils are helpful. I have, like, it's about 50, 50 sometimes.Like, I don't believe in pencil measurements, but, you know, just from a ballpark, you take that kind of original, you know, 8 to 9 inch guy, you know, what are we talking about in terms of, like, size of deer hair bundles?

So I get it. When I pinch it, it's about the width of a toothpick. Right. So maybe like an eighth of an inch somewhere in there.And then probably, like, as I'm pinching it, right? So the width is like the width of a toothpick.And top to bottom at that point, it's probably like the, like the length of a, or the width of a popsicle stick, right?And so you've got this length, and I take that, and I put that on that top of that hook, and it starts to, to the point where it starts to go right and left. And then I tie it in. And on the, the traditional optimus swine, it's five sections on top and bottom.For me, right now, you're tying in bigger sections. And you don't have that discipline that I have, like, of knowing all that. You might not get that, but I do, like, top and bottom move forward.I do five of those before I get to that lasered up head.

Got it. Any, any kind of tips or tools? Because I also know you're tying these, so you, you got to be super efficient, right?You probably got some pro tire tips, too. But, you know, what about tips or tools to kind of help people not lose their mind at the vice when they're tying this wine?

So when it comes to pushing back that synthetic yak, get yourself a thick, like a, one of those thicker pens. Pull the guts out, and I use that to push, push those materials back. That's extremely helpful to help get it back. It helps portion it.Like, make sure it all goes back evenly around the hook, surround it. That's the, the first and foremost.The, the other piece was, would be, you know, you talked about the, the efficiency if I'm tying them in great quantities, right. I am tying up to the point where I add the popper head, and then I hang them and let them dry, and then I go back and I'll finish.Well, then I'll do all the bucktail work, right? So I kind of split it that way when I'm tying them for production, but probably, you know, letting that glue dry in the way that you like.I hang them, like, straight up and down on magnets. That might be a really good thing to do, as you're kind of building them out to allow that stuff to not have a sag one way or the other.And then the eyes, too, same thing. I'll do it to the point where I finish that laser dub and I wait for until I'm gonna do a bunch of eyes and I do them all together.I'm very intentional about putting those eyes together.I, I, this is probably one of the questions I get the most at a show when I'm, when I'm talking with folks is, you know, how do you get your eyes look like that?Because I, whether it's the Optimus Swine, my rattling merge minnow, a few of my other flies, my eyes, they line up really good and they're, they're not, they're pressed tight against the head. And I say, you touch them twice, right? You get them on and you get them where you think you want them, right?You set them down, leave them there for five minutes, let that glue start to that goop, right.Start to cure a little bit, and then you grab them again and then you hold them exactly where you want them for, I don't know, 5, 10 seconds and then I set them down and don't touch them again until they're like dry like next day. Like, I don't touch them again.Especially if you're doing like change lanes a little bit where you're gonna put that epoxy over the eyes and over the thread. Because if I rush it, you, you'll hit that eye when you're drying that glue and it'll move and you'll get an air pocket underneath the, the epoxy.So, but not that you let him dry all the way. And it's, it's, it's not going anywhere and you're going, it's going to be, you're going to get a much better look on that slide.Whether that makes it fish better or worse, I have no idea. But from the aesthetics part of it, you don't want to get that air.

Bubble and Makes sense. And so, you know, pattern's been around the original Optimus swine for about 15 years.You talk a little bit, you know, you talked about the Potbelly Swine, you got the Junior. I think at one point there might have even been an articulated verge you.

Want to kind of talk about on the secret menu. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I, I saw those, I was like. But they're not on the website. But I'm gonna ask anyway.

The Maximus Wine and the Maximus Wine Junior. Yeah. And so, so the Maximus wines about the same size as my B1G. So it's like a 1011 inch fly.

Yeah. And so kind of walk us through. Like I understand, you know, the juniors are smaller versions, like small mouth size versions.But then I guess you've got the Pot Bellies wine, which is the one with the fettuccine.

Right.

Foam.

Right.

So does that leave then the Maximus Swine. Is there a Maximus Swine Jr.

I think too. Right?

Yeah.

So the Maximus Wine Jr. Is about the size of the reg of the original. Right.But it's just got that articulation in it where I use like a 40 short shank, spinner bait hook in the front and then the back section I think is 4 too regular.The same hook that I use for the big one just in the 4 ot size and the, the foam is in the back piece and on the front where like the comparable B1G I move the foam is in the front hook and not the back and the rattles in the back. So we kind of flip flopped in that in that regard. But tied very similarly with a tight, tight joint with two beads.So it's not like I'm not extending it out a lot between the two pieces with a lot of beads and a lot of wire just giving a little bit of motion. It wasn't a need I was trying to fill in my fly box. It's things.Things that some of my really good customers and guys I know are asking for and I've said I'll try it and they, they liked it. So there we go.

Yeah. So if we break that down, you've got kind of like everything, including the popper head on the back hook.And then everything else is, you know, forward of the articulation.

Yep. Almost like it just broke it. Right. Like, and then stuck it together.

Got it. And so do you have to have a secret handshake to get them on the special menu? Do you just need to reach out and know what the deal is?

My 15 year old, like you got to get those on the, on the, on the website. Your website's terrible. It's so old. Looks like it's older than a knee. Like you got to get that updated.So I told him after we get done with all the shows and stuff this year, him and I will work on putting my website together and I'll get them back up on my. I'll get them up on my site. But you know, most of the time when I know one of the questions we wanted to talk about was colors. Right.It varies so much by region and location. Right. Like down where you are, there's a color that's really, really popular.Green, like olive and pink for those on head shoves when they get all fired up where that color just doesn't do anything anywhere else. Right. Like in Wisconsin they got that really tannic water. So like pinks and yellows and things like that be really, really good over there.But also you'll get some string, like the traditional sucker stuff. So I literally tie colors all over the place, whatever, you know, people want. I.More often than not, I'll get an email, I'll get an Instagram message and like, hey, I want to order some flies, but I want this color, and it's not on your site. The colors that I have listed are suggestions, right?And well, you're like, okay, just order five white and email me what you want, and I'll make sure I tie them up for you. Like the combinations and things like that. Like, like the Willens villain color.Like, that came from something that Chris William put together and had done really, really well for him. Black, white, and yellow.Like kind of on the white on the belly, white on the tail with the yellow grizzly flanks on the back, and then just alternating the black and the yellow on the top. And that was a color I never would have thought of, the way that kind of came together. And it is. It does really, really well. Wisconsin. And in.It does really well in a lot of places, but it's definitely a Wisconsin superstar.

Yeah. Interesting. So it's almost like it's not just kind of a.Some variation of dark on top, light on bottom, but it also sounds like maybe you're imitating, like, hard bait color combos, too, right?

Yeah, for sure. Like, there. There's some hard bait colors that I do for sure. Like, there's a. A black perch. Like musky.Musky baits have some really cool, like, color combos and such. And they got this black perch color, which is almost all black with a really faint gold. And I use the.The gold speckled lashabu does a really good job. And then at the very bot. Very end, the throat is like chartreuse and orange. Like one.One tie in a chartreuse bucktail and like, a little bit of orange over that. So it's almost. And it. That does really, really good. I like fishing. That one.Like, that's one of my personal favorites to fish, especially when you got dirty water. But it. It does vary so much. There's a couple colors that are more popular than others that have.That have done really, really well and gotten some really good pictures. Right. Like, you get. You get one with a pink lemonade hanging out of their mouth, and it just kind of pops.That the chartreuse in pink with a white belly. That one does really good. Wisconsin to Schultz, when they did. They did a trip with Chris Willen a lot.And a lot of those guys would say, give me the think Lemonade. Give me the Willem villain. And then another one of my favorites is Mardi Gras, which is pink with a chartreuse belly and a black head.So kind of that one does really, really. That one done pretty good in a lot of different spots too. Then you get a place like western Pennsylvania.And like, I'll get guys from there and they'll ask me what do they should do. I'm like, that is a blind spot I have. And so I got. I'll try and do some research for. For customers who really are getting into it.And like, your black and yellow and orange kind of does really well. And then some of your traditional hard bait colors, like fire tiger, like, I don't know if it's. People love it and they just fish it a lot.So that's why it catches a lot of fish or fish actually like it, but it does catch a lot of fish. Yeah.

Very, very neat. Kind of shifting gears to actually the fishing part.And I guess we'll say why don't we start with like, Lake Muskie, since that's kind of where you started your game. Tell us a little bit about kind of your preferred line and leader setup when you're going to chase. Yeah. Muskie in the lake.

So Lake Sinclair is a very unique fishery in that there's no snags, really. So you can rest assured, like when you're casting, you're not gonna hook a log or hook a rock. So you can fish pretty freely in that regard.10 Weight will throw a traditional swine really easy. You can even throw it on a nine and then with a sinking line, like depending on the time of year, 350 through like a 450 sink tip.I like the, like the striper line or the. The line from SA that's got that 20, 26 or 28 foot tip on does really, really well.And the swine, what I like about when fishing it is I'll have like a B1G or something that's a little bit heavier that I've gotten like an 11. And like, the swine is like your off pitch, right. Where you can kind of like take a little stress off your arm. You know, you. You not.You can't substitute for having a fly in the water, so you can't take a break. So the swine is a good one to have if you're. If you're.If you're hunting with a bigger fly and you want to still have something really productive in the water, go along that way. But the jerk chipper retrieves sink tip.What that sink tip does is, you know, it holds in the water column lower than the fly and it gets that butt end of the fly to tip up and kick to a side. And then that's when you get that jerk strip that's going to get you that side to side motion. I like short leaders.Like for streamer fishing, I would say 4ft, 3ft. Somewhere in there is like from, from loop to end, right. Is, is where it's, it's going to be with like a butt section, like 40 and then with wider.I like 2ft of, of that butt section and then wire right to the hook. Now if you're, you know, in a river or you know something that you have to worry about getting hung up. Right.Like you might want to put some, some type of break in the middle between that wire and that, that mud section. But you know, that pretty simple, pretty easy. I use snaps on the end of that wire so I don't have to keep re tying that wire.Use those good cross lock snaps so you don't have to worry about that fly coming off. But pretty simple on the leader front. Yeah.

And in terms of the jerk retrieve, I mean are you jerking it almost like a kind of like a gear guy would pump a jerk bait. Is that kind of, kind of the style or are you strip jerking it kind of. What's that kind of hand rod motion?

Strip jerking it? Yep, yep.So like I'm right handed, so you know, stripping with the line with the left, like a good two feet, you know, one way and then two feet the other way. Kind of like pull them. Like how you're trying to rip, rip a bag open.

Almost got it.And so, you know, if we kind of shift gears, you know, when we either are going to go fishing rivers for muskie or we're downsizing the pattern to go maybe chase smallmouth or stripers, you know, do you, how do you change kind of your, you know, your line and leader setups? And how do you maybe change your.

Retrieve so that, that definitely with the smaller size, they're not doing as aggressive, maybe just less aggressive. Right. Like, like. But sometimes you're trying to trigger something and you're trying to stir like change it, changing it up.If I, if I retrieve, I get you get yourself into that trance where you're just casting and retrieving the same way, the same way, the same way, but nothing's happening to pull you out of that trance. You got to like consciously like think, okay, I got to change this up a Little bit.Maybe you'll do like a stutter, stutter strip right where it's little. Like you cut it in half, but you do it twice really quick.And then you let it stand in the pause on this because it has that copperheads when the water gets colder. And you can leave fy hang there.

Right.

You know, that's really a benefit of that fly is having that foam piece in it that allows it to hang and not gets hung up on the bottom that allows especially bass or they're just staring at it, they're just waiting for it. And then you just twitch it again and they, and they just smash it. Yeah.

And are you, are you backing off? I mean, are you, you're still, are you still fishing a 350, 450 line? Are you backing off a little bit?

Probably like a, like on the, on the swine junior, you know, seven or an eight weight with like a. Anywhere from a 200 to a 350, just depending on the conditions.

Got it.And kind of, as we start to kind of wrap things up this evening, Eli, kind of, you know, anything kind of on the fly tying or the fishing development front you want to share with our listeners.

I mean, from the, the problem, a good problem of having, of creating some really successful flies is that I haven't had. I've had probably about five to ten years of pretty. Not a lot of really new things coming out. Right.As far as like flies go, I mean, I scaled flies up or scaled them down from the, from the B1G and the, and the Optimus Wine, but, you know, trying to play around things. Most of my fishing these days, I've got three young boys, 15 through 7 who are really into fishing.It doesn't make like the musky thing is kind of on the back burner. Not really something I can do now. So we're really playing around with smallies locally and bluegill and all that type of stuff.So a lot of that is me doing a knowledge transfer right now to my kids. That's really where a lot of that's been. And, and so we, we play around with that and toss those ideas around a little bit.But my 15 year old, he's getting to the point where he wants to go trophy hunting a little bit more than just getting a good bend in the ride by, you know, smiling. So he's starting to, you know, ask a little more questions and, and get more into how do I, how do I get the big ones now?So that's where a lot of my focus has Been lately, very neat.

Anything kind of any new materials or tools or adhesives on the bench that you've been playing around with?

I can tell you that probably the most impressive thing I've dealt with in a while are these scissors by anadromous fly company. The tungsten carbide razor scissors. I've got two pairs on my bench that I've had for two years.I've always got two or three pairs of blaine roms in case I drop one and I. I know one's there, right? They are as sharp as when I pulled them out of the package two years ago.And for cutting as much bucktail and as many materials as I have with these things, like scissors from other brands, other companies have done well in the beginning, but they fade. These have not. So I'd say that's probably the most impressive thing I've seen as far as fly tying stuff, new stuff.There's always some interesting stuff you see out there. You know, you want to get your hands on it. And synthetics. I always tell anybody, you find it synthetic. A lot of people like to.They find something they like, they want to kind of shield it from the public. If you find a synthetic fly tying material that you like, tell everybody about it. Because we've had some really good materials go away.Because not enough people do it. Because none of the synthetic fly tying materials that we use were designed for fly fishing or fly time.There's something that something saw something, and they're like, let's put it in a package and see if anybody can do anything with it. And if nobody buys it, they go away, and they go away forever. Right?So, like, having some of those materials, if you find a synthetic material, like, tell everybody about it. Show everybody how you can. What you can do with it, or else it'll go away.

Yeah, it's interesting. A long time ago, I interviewed the guy at Kreinik flash or a Kreinik, right?And you know, everything they had was basically like embroidery fiber, carpet fiber. And he was a funny guy because he didn't fish. And I was like, you need to get this in the hands of the.Of the kids that are tying and have them, you know, show people what they can do with it. Because it's kind of hard to just go look at stuff hanging in hanks on a wall, right? And say, I can tie with this.

Right, Ed? For sure, yeah.

Anything else on the bench? Adhesives, tools, hooks?

I mean, the hooks. There's just. There's so many types of hooks out there. Now they literally, there's a hook for everything. But, you know, I like the Mustads.They don't get. Everybody kind of looks down on them a little bit, but couple strikes on a, on a good hook file and they're as sharp as any other hooks you can find.So, um, you know, I, I like those, those Mustad hooks. Great value. Strong, right? They don't break. They're. They do the dirty work.

Got it. And so, you know, you know, we've mentioned this a little bit tonight.You know, you're tying the Optimus Swine and your other patterns, but you're also are selling materials, I think most significantly probably your synthetic yak fur. Right. So if folks want to, to pick up some flies or they're like, gosh, I love the Optimus swine, but I don't want to tie them.Where should they go to get the hookup?

I get that a lot. I tell that all the time. Like, I tie them so you don't have to because it's a, it's an endeavor. Right. You got to get the material number one.And then you got to know that like the first couple you tie are probably going to suck. Right. As you kind of learn in it. And just to watch like those materials go, go out. I say it all the time. I tie them so you don't have to. Yeah.Greatlakesfly.com or hit me up on Instagram at GreatLakesFly if you got questions. And I'm more than happy to, to share information.Like I, I send step by steps to people all the time of me tying that flyer direct into that video that Schultzy did. You know, I'll show you how to do it and then if you don't want to, I'll tie them too. So I've got all the stuff to do it right at the ready.You don't have to go put those things together and do it that way.

Yeah, I will drop that video from Schultzy.It's probably, I mean, there are other newer ones like the one you did with, with Matt and those guys, but you know, that one's only like three minutes and 40 seconds. So that's like the super concentrated version.I'll drop that stuff in the show notes and for folks to track it down and you know, yeah, it sounds like time these things is a two night job because you got to let the adhesive dry, right?

Yeah, it depends. Like I can crank out. Uh, I think if I wanted to tie em straight up, I could probably tie three or four of em in an hour. Yeah.If I was really like, headphones on, distractions away, all the materials out, I could probably get about four of them done in an hour.

Gotcha. And so what's cranking in the headphones to get you to that production pace?

Uh, Tool, for the most part of late, um, I. In the month of February, going up to that Midwest show where I tied.I don't know if you saw the table shot I had on Instagram of all the, all the Optimus swine that tied. I tied 136 of the regular sized ones and 72 of the juniors in a three or four week span. I listened to a lot of tool.My son, my oldest son, March 1st came around and he barged in when he got home from school. He says, dad, the month of February, you listen to 30 hours of tools from the.From the Amazon Music gave us our like, monthly report or something like that. And you're like, that's crazy. I'm like, that's show season. That's tying a lot of flies. Getting fill in the boxes. So. Yeah, very, very neat.

Well, listen, Eli, I really appreciate you spending some time with me this evening.

Oh, it was great. Love chatting.

Absolutely.

Take care of. Thank you. Thanks.

Well, folks, we hope you enjoyed the interview as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Don't forget to check out the links to all this episode's sponsors in the show notes. Fish hard, folks.