S1, Ep 46: Conversation with Blane Chocklett (Pt 1)

Marvin Cash: Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly, and I'm happy to bring you part one of our conversation with Blane Chocklett. Blane and I recently sat down at Ballast Point Brewing Company in Daleville, Virginia, and had a great conversation. So great, in fact, we talked for almost 2 hours. So we've broken the interview into two parts so that you guys don't miss anything.

Before we move on to the interview, just want to give a shout out to this episode's sponsor, the 20th Virginia Fly Fishing and Wine festival. The event will be held January 11 and 12th in Doswell, Virginia. And if you visit www.vaflyfishingfestival.org or our events page, you can get all the latest information on speakers, vendors, and classes. Now onto our interview.

Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly, and we're lucky to be joined with Blane Chocklett today. How's it going, Blane?

Blane Chocklett: I'm good, man. How are you doing?

Marvin Cash: I'm just trying to stay out of trouble. I really appreciate you taking the time to join me here at Ballast Point Brewing company in Daleville, Virginia.

Blane Chocklett: Absolutely looking forward to it. It's been a while. Been trying to get this done for a minute.

Marvin Cash: It's all good. You've been super busy. Well, I ask all of my guests to share their earliest fishing memory.

Blane Chocklett: Well, I have a couple, actually. My grandfather revolves around both of those. My brother and I were lucky to grow up within three or 4 miles of my grandfather. He would always kind of take us under his wing and hang out with us when we were little and make sure we stayed out of trouble.

But he had a big chunk of land in Botetourt County, where I live now. He had a pond. He had two ponds, actually. Both full of bream and largemouth bass. He would take us to one, had one of the ponds, had a lot of frogs in it. So he'd kind of show us how to catch frogs. And being a kid, that was your main focus at that point, trying to catch them.

He'd always tell me, because he had a lot of rabbits, because he had big fields he had. And he always say, man, if you can. We always wanted to catch the rabbits. He goes, well, the best way to catch a rabbit is put salt on his tail. So he would sit up there, hanging out, watching us in his hammock, trying to catch rabbits. And I'd get close, and he'd always give us the salt. We're running around trying to figure this whole thing out.

And never did get that rabbit, but he would always walk us down to those ponds, and they were really clear because they were spring fed. And you were able to see giant largemouth in them that wouldn't eat anything unless you had live bait. But the first fish I ever caught was a bluegill. And I remember it quite well. I mean, it was really cool. I mean, I fell in love with it immediately.

I mean, he kept us outside all the time. And my dad was a big part of that as well. I mean, he had to work, obviously. And my grandfather was on the retired side of everything when he was still living. And he would always spend as much time with us as possible, taking us to ball games and different things like that.

The other big, I guess the biggest part and biggest memory of fishing in my life is my grandfather and my dad taking me trout fishing for the first time. I mean, that's probably the thing that's gotten me where I am now. And those are the fondest memories that I have with my dad and grandfather. And there's a lot of stories involved with that that mean a lot to me and my dad. We were talking about that the other day.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, I mean, that's how I started. I mean, I started fishing around Amherst County with my grandfather when I was a kid, too. And that's kind of how I'm still in the game today.

Blane Chocklett: If you want, I could tell you that story. My parents property, my dad did pretty well for himself. Kind of like me. Didn't want to work for anybody. He did that early on in life, and it's like, this is not what I want to do. So he decided to get into the auto parts business and did pretty well with that for a while.

So he was able to buy some property in the mountains that bordered the Blue Ridge Parkway and National Forest. So we were able to grow up in the woods on the side of a mountain with no one except the bears and the deer and all the other animals that lived in our backyard, pretty much. And that was about four or 5 miles from my granddad.

And opening day of trout season, which we had back when I was growing up in Virginia, which we don't have now, was a big deal. It was always like the second or third weekend in March, and I remember getting up early, probably four or 05:00 in the morning. My mom cooking breakfast for us. And my mom would cook breakfast. She'd also have the lunch stuff going. And dad and I would pack the car up and all. I was eight or nine years old at the time, and we'd get going, still dark, go pick up my granddad, show up at his place, and my grandmother would be cooking breakfast for everybody, too, and her side of the lunch. So we were definitely set on the food and all that.

So we'd all pile in the car with all the gear, and the parkway was only about a mile, not even a mile, about a half a mile from my granddad. So we'd actually head back towards my house to get on the parkway. And once we get on parkway, my granddad would always be talking about my dad and him growing up and all their adventures and hunting and fishing and stuff like that.

And it was just amazing how some of the things that really stick with you is as we'd get to the top of the peaks, more about a halfway to our fishing destination, the sun would start coming up over the mountains, and you see that stuff, and you remember the stories that your grandfather's telling you about adventures that were getting ready to happen. I'd never done any trout fishing before, so all that stuff stuck with me.

And you just start seeing that. You have that light starting to come up and all that, and it stuck with me. And then obviously get to the water and back then, too, you have pretty much a shotgun start. I think I don't remember what time it was, maybe ten or 11:00 and we got there just to get our spot because people would stand in line. It's just kind of like they have in Pulaski in New York, but where it's just elbow to elbow.

So we get it. We kind of get there super early before anybody else. Right after the sun came up and a few people were kind of camping out and all that kind of stuff along the banks. And this happened to be North Creek and Jennings Creek, which is where I first started fly fishing, too, which was the next year.

But we got to the water, we'd kind of hang out. We'd get our spots and just kind of wait. And I remember the anticipation was unbelievable. It's just like Christmas. It's like, can I fish yet? Can I fish yet? Can I fish yet? And you could see the fish. So for me, that was pretty tough to take when you're sitting there looking at trout swimming in the water and you can't do anything about it.

And you have this pool to yourself, and right as the time starts to come up, somebody on the other side comes up in the spot you're in. So I'm like, man, at that point, I knew that that didn't seem right. You got all this water around and somebody's going to share the pool with you. At an early age, I was like, man, I don't want to fish near anybody. And that's how I am today, too.

So that's the beginning of my first real fishing adventures with my dad and grandfather. And it's got me pretty much where I am now. I mean, that was early eight years old, I think. And the next year I started fly fishing. Even though we were using fly rods.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, no, I can remember when I was a kid and started out, we were fishing with cane poles. Right. And fishing for bait for trout.

Blane Chocklett: Right.

Marvin Cash: That was opening day for me in like, Nelson and Amherst County. So how did you get into kind of really get into fly fishing, right. I understand you were using it as a tool, but when did you really get that bug?

Blane Chocklett: Yeah. So my dad and grandfather both used fly rods and fly reels, but they were using monofilament on the fly reels. And just using the long length of the fly rods to be able to adapt the water to get those drag-free drifts. And that taught me a lot before I even knew what fly fishing was about that first year. How being able to take, whether it be power bait or corn or a worm or dead minnows and stuff like that, how fish would react adversely or positive to the way the fly or not the fly, but the lure or bait was presented to them.

So I didn't know what was going on at that time, but I did figure out if I did this a certain way, that I caught more fish. So that I guess a couple days later, and it could have been a couple weeks later. I remember my mom taking this to, obviously going to the grocery store, and I believe it was a Kroger, might have been a Food Lion.

But they had a magazine section, and I remember walking by the magazine section and seeing this guy holding a big trout with a fly rod and this bright line. And I was like, what's this? So I pick it up and start looking through it, and I asked my mom if she'd buy it for me. She did. Of course, they were always there for me as far as anything I was into.

So I got that and started looking through it, and I was just totally in awe of the flies and reading a little bit about what they're doing. But the size of the trout, obviously on the cover of the magazine is like, I want some of that.

So not knowing anything about fly fishing, but I knew we had the rods and stuff like that. It was kind of funny. Later on that day, we went up to my grandmother's on my mom's side, and my grandfather passed away in a train wreck. He was a conductor. And there was. That's a long story, but he was head on by another train. But that's a long story. But anyway, he was a big angler, too, but I never got to meet him. He passed before I was born.

But my grandmother kept all his fishing tackle. And then I basically his man room down in the basement. And I was just kind of rummaging through all that stuff, and I came across this line in the basement. And it was bright yellow, very similar to the lines I was seeing in the magazines. And it happened to be an old Aircel Scientific Angler.

And I was like, that just looked cool because me being an artist, colors, stuff like that I'm attracted to. So I took that line home with me and put it on my fly reel, and I'm trying to whip this line through the air. My dad gets home one day that night from work, and he's looking at me. He's like, what are you doing? It's like, I'm trying to learn how to fly fish. He goes, well, he's laughing. He goes, first off, you got to get a flyline. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, well, that's weed eater line. I was like, well, no wonder. This is. I didn't know what that was either, but that was my first attempt at fly fishing.

So they knew at that point that I was really into it, into fishing in general, because I was bugging them constantly to take me. But that winter, that Christmas, I got my first real fly fishing outfit, and that following spring, they took me after opening day, morning at lunchtime, my granddad promised he would take me up to the headwaters of those streams, which happened to be North Creek, for me to try my first fly fishing deal with native brook trout up there.

And they also got me a fly tying kit for Christmas as well. And I tied a bunch of flies, not really knowing anything about what I was doing, but just messing around and reading the Orvis index. And that guy that fly tying kit that I think everybody, a lot of people at that time started with, the Thompson A vise and all that.

And that's where I started, tied some Royal Wulffs, which was incredibly hard. I learned early at that time is materials are very important on what you do, especially as I fished them, because they didn't float very well. So I knew I didn't have the right hackle after that.

But I remember catching my first brook trout, but probably only five inches long, but it ate a dry fly. And it's just like, this is super cool. I mean, it's beautiful. You couldn't paint a picture as pretty as a native brook trout. In my mind.

Marvin Cash: You know, and it's interesting, too, because, I mean, we were talking before we started recording, we're not old, but we're not young.

Blane Chocklett: No.

Marvin Cash: And I think what people don't understand, I guess. I don't know. I hate to say kids, but I'll say kids. Younger people in the sport today don't realize how hard it was to get materials and get information because you're talking about mid seventies, right? Mid to late seventies.

Blane Chocklett: 1982.

Marvin Cash: Yeah.

Blane Chocklett: So.

Marvin Cash: But it wasn't like there's a fly shop everywhere and you hopped on the Internet and you could get genetic hackle from Tom Whiting shipped home.

Blane Chocklett: No, I was. I've been, it's almost like I was destined in my mind, destined to do what I do, because there were so many things. And as we talk, you'll probably see that there's been so many stair steps that were just kind of paved for me as I've kind of grown not only as a person, but as a profession in the fishing industry.

That same year, Orvis opened up in downtown Roanoke. So somewhere, I think maybe it was 82, 83 I think they had. They opened their first store in Roanoke, and then shortly after, I think they. I think part of that deal was they would open a big distribution center in Roanoke, which is still here today. And that store is as well. So it might have been later, I could be wrong, but it was within the first two or three years of me starting fly fishing.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, that certainly helps a lot. And so you've talked about fishing with family as you kind of progressed in the sport. Who were some other people that mentored you and kind of helped you become a better angler?

Blane Chocklett: So, moving forward, and when I was 15, I really was getting the bug in high school, as a freshman. The Jackson River tailwater came to be in the late eighties, and they finally started releasing the cold water. I don't remember the timeframe, but they started stocking trout fingerlings, and then they opened it up as a special reg section right below the dam on all the way down to Covington, which was 18 miles of water.

And I found out about that by, like you said, there wasn't a lot of information out there. So the where I would learn stuff is getting my mom that I drag her down to the Orvis store downtown Roanoke and you'd hear people talking, you'd have little photo albums going. And I'd say, well, where do these fish caught this Jackson? I'm like, well, where's that? And finally I talked my mom into driving me up there because my dad, working all the time, wasn't able to do it as much as I'd like.

But not saying he wasn't there for me, because he was, he was head coach pretty much every sport I played, which was all of them. But dads got to do what they got to do, right? But mom was there for me and she drove me up to the Jackson River one Saturday in the winter, happened to be in the winter, and I was not knowing anything other than native brook trout. That was the biggest body of water I'd ever fly fished at the time. And I was kind of lost.

And I remember fishing for a little bit. I think I'd caught one or two fish. Nothing probably over twelve inches. And there was two guys there and they were just catching fish after fish after fish. I mean, I guarantee they caught 100 fish that day. No doubt about it.

And I finally walked up to him, being 15, it's like, first guy was a younger one of the two. I was like, what are you using, if you don't mind me asking? He goes, well, I'll do something better for you. I'm not going to tell you what I'm using, but I'm going to give you some vials, and I'm going to give you some alcohol, and I'm going to let you borrow this book.

And he goes, I see your mom's here, and that's pretty cool, and I love the fact that you're really into it. And his name happened to be Steve Hiner, and Steve wasn't. He's retired now, but he was an aquatic entomologist at Virginia Tech. And he didn't want to give me the answers, but he happened to be fishing with a very famous fly angler. In my mind, one of the best fly designers that's ever lived, and Harry Steeves.

And Harry's always been known, if anybody that's known him has always been kind of a curmudgeon type of guy, but he's super intelligent. He's an artist in all sorts of ways, not only in sculpting and painting, but he's an incredible designer. But Hiner has always been really into kids, and he was always the guy that was always playing jokes and hanging out. I mean, he was more approachable than Harry was. Harry was always kind of the older guy that was quiet and would talk trash when needed. Right. But he was very intimidating.

But Hiner gave me all these vials, and he said, just go check out these rocks. And he goes, pick out whatever you see and try to imitate that advice. And he goes, that's some of the best advice I give you. He said, by giving you the answers, you're not going to learn that much. And that's like, okay, so I did that, and it kind of. That's a whole story in itself, but that those Harry Steeves, Steve Hiner had been probably my biggest mentors in a way, because they got me started, really.

We, as you grow older, you lose touch. But those guys, they always will be somebody, in my mind, is someone that's really helped me as much as anybody.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, that's interesting. And so is that really, you get the vise when you're like eight or nine years old. And you're tying along. Was that really kind of what jump started your dive into fly tying?

Blane Chocklett: It is. It is. And the fact that he gave me this book. It's McCafferty's guide to aquatic entomology. And it's a college text. I mean, it's a huge book. I don't remember how many pages. I think he asked me to give it back to him. And I never did. And he never, whatever. But we stayed friends for a long time.

But this book, this is a very important thing in my whole evolution as a fly designer in itself is when I. And you got to remember, I was 15 at the time. And he gives me this book. I go and collect all these bugs. And it didn't take long. When I picked up the first rock. That there was a very prevalent bug on every rock. And not just one or two. I mean, hundreds, hundreds on every. It didn't matter if it was a softball size rock or a rock the size of a basketball. There were thousands of these bugs on this rock right below the dam.

And it happened to be. End up being a black fly larva. And so, obviously collecting these bugs and taking them home and starting to read about them. Looking at it, not knowing what it was. Looking at it in the book. I tried to match what I saw in the book. And finally realized that this was what it was.

And so the great thing about this book is it talked about the scientific side of it. But it also gave fishing and I guess not really anecdotes, but fishing advice and. But the big thing about it, the scientific side of it. It talked about where they lived in the streams, their life cycles and how they hatched and all this kind of stuff.

And what I read was that these larva, when disturbed by anything, would release themselves from the rocks. And hold in the current by silken thread. And kind of drop back until they found a new place to live. Right. Or a safe place to be. But by doing that, they're exposed to whatever in the currents. And I think this is a, later on reading about stuff like the. I think the miracle mile on the was, the San Juan in Mexico. That it's called the San Juan shuffle. You're not allowed to fish right below your feet. But back then, in this year, we're talking about late eighties at this point, I didn't know anything about that.

But so I'm reading about this stuff and the black fly larva suspended on a silken thread. And the black fly larva looks like basically a bowling pin. So I tied up some rudimentary black fly larva. The next thing I'm reading about in the book was that they, when they pupate, they pupate in this shuck that basically looked like a squid. So, but they'll pupate inside this and then cut themselves out as an adult and then rise to the surface of the air bubble again. This is like in the late eighties, this is way before beads and any of that stuff became very popular. So.

But at the time, when I was in school, the girls were wearing all these glass, little tiny glass beads on pins. And they were wearing them in their hair, they were wearing them on shoes, they were wearing them on their t shirts and all that kind of stuff. So we had a craft store in town, and I got my mom to take me to the craft store, and I bought all types of these little tiny glass beads, from silver to pearl to black to abalone. Every type you could think of.

So I tied these extremely simple beaded flies that had just a little bit of black dubbing, gray or black thread or gray dubbing or gray thread or whatever that I thought would look like a bug inside of a glass bead. So a lot of them, basically, I put the glass bead in the center of the hook and tied to thread on both sides, that kind of pinching in between. And I was like, well, that looks like maybe a bug in air, in a glass air bubble.

So I tied a bunch of those. And the next weekend, my mom took me up to the river. Harry and Steve were there, and I started fishing. Next I know I'm like catching fish like I'd never caught before. And I was like, wow, this stuff works. And what I was doing is I was taking that larva and then dropping about 2ft behind the larva, dropping that emergence. And I would fish it upstream on a basically, I think back then, it was those pinch on foam indicators, a couple feet four or 5ft above the lead fly, putting the right shot on there and just letting it dead drift.

And if I didn't get a fish, then I was letting it swing behind me, because in my mind the things hanging and then it's emerging, right? And it was just remarkable how the fish reacted. And the week before, you got to remember, I maybe caught three or four fish all day long. And here the first hour, I probably caught a dozen at least, maybe more.

And Hiner saw this, and he comes up to me with Harry, and they're like, it looks like you figured something out. Let's see what you got going on. And so I opened up my box and both of them started laughing. Immediately. I'm like, what are you laughing at? It's like I just started tying. I'm not that good. I mean, I've been tying since I was nine, but I'm fifteen at the time. It's like they. So they open up their box and it's pretty much the same stuff they were using. And they were like, thumbs up, you're into it. And we've been friends ever since.

And Harry Steeves and I later on became business partners and friends for a very long time. And those guys really started not only helped my passion grow, but they taught me an early lesson that flies matter big time. And that's been my goal, because I'm always looking for that next thing that's going to make not only my fishing better, but people that I know or people that I don't know better.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, that's awesome. And so you're 15, and so who are some other people along the journey that have influenced your tying?

Blane Chocklett: Oh, shoot, man. Harry being a big mentor of mine and a friend at an early age, got me to go to some fly fishing shows when I was out of school and just starting a fly shop. And he introduced me to all the big names in the sport. He introduced me to Ed Koch. He introduced me. You name it, man. The who's who of fly fishing. He introduced me to all those people. Lefty Kreh, Bob Popovics, Bob Clouser, all.

And all those people took me under their wing because I was young and they knew that I was passionate about it. And obviously, I had some, I guess, innovation, I guess, that I had a little bit to bring to the table at the time. And they saw that and they wanted to help cultivate it. And that's been, I think the greatest thing in our sport is the true greats want to help and share their knowledge. They don't want to act like jerks, like any place in life there are. You have both, right. But we're fortunate to have these amazing people. That's really kind of helped me grow as an angler and a tyer, for sure.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's funny because I always believe outdoors people are generous. But I think fly fishermen are generous in particular. And I think it's an interesting thing, too. Like, I always believe that when you share your passion, that gets reflected back to you.

Blane Chocklett: Oh, no doubt.

Marvin Cash: And really resonates. So. So you're 15. You're moving along. When did you decide you wanted to be a fly fishing guide?

Blane Chocklett: About that same time. Right then. Cause Hiner, he taught. I mean, he told me that he and Harry both would guide part time for Orvis. They weren't, they didn't work for Orvis, obviously. Hiner was a entomologist at Virginia Tech, and Harry Steeves was a biologist. And he's a brilliant. I mean, he's probably one of the most brilliant people I've ever met.

But so. But they would do it on the side. Hiner more than Harry. Cause Harry didn't feel like he needed to do it or whatever. I mean, I think he. His patience level for some people weren't as good as others. But not saying that's a negative. I mean, that. That's what makes Harry so endearing, man, he's that guy, and you know it. I mean, there's no holds barred. He's never gonna be. He's not gonna hold anything back. He's gonna let you know what he thinks. And some people can't deal with that, and he doesn't care. Right. And that's what makes Harry Harry.

Marvin Cash: Yeah.

Blane Chocklett: But for me having those people to help me get started and then introducing me to those other guys later on, I mean, it really made a big difference, for sure.

Marvin Cash: That's awesome. And, I mean, and so you get into the guide thing, but you also had a fly shop for a while, right?

Blane Chocklett: Oh, yeah. Yep, yep. So, yeah, that's a whole other thing. When I. I started guiding my first guided trip, I was 16. About a year and a so later, 16 years old. Year and a half later, 16 years old on the Jackson fishing. And I'm doing pretty well, obviously, because of Harry and Steve's teaching me the black fly larvae game.

And I want to make sure that say this, too, is. I'm not trying to act like I created glass beads or any bead stuff. I mean, this just happened to be something that came to my mind, and Harry and them did it. And then I think Theo Bakelaar popularized beads. And I got to meet him, too. So later on, much later on, about five or six, eight years later, but the whole guide thing for me, I was fishing that day on the Jackson. It happened to be a spring day, and I was catching fish pretty readily and just taking a break and some, a gentleman came up to me and said, man, he goes, I noticed that you're doing pretty well. And he goes, I've been struggling here. He goes, do you guide?

And I'm like, I don't guide, but I really would like to do that. And he goes, how about if I become your first client? I'm like, absolutely. He said, well. He goes, well, how about we meet up next weekend and you take me out and like, okay, we'll do it. So that was my first trip.

And then later on, I met Jim Finn, who was the original owner of Mossy Creek Fly Shop, who the Tros now own and have owned for a long time. But Jim, we created a pretty good relationship and he wasn't working the Jackson River and all that, so it worked for both of us. And I worked for him for a couple years on and off while I was still in school, high school at that time.

Because being 16 and when I was 1819 years old, graduating high school, not knowing what I was going to do, I knew I did. School wasn't my favorite thing in the world. So I didn't go off to school. I went to a local school, college, and just kind of trying to figure out what I really wanted to do, man. And my passion was fly fishing. I mean, I played a lot of golf and other sports, but fly fishing was it. I just needed to figure out how to do it.

And I knew guiding was an opportunity, but I just thought the next best step would be a fly shop. And at that point, working with Jim, I wanted to make sure he understood that I wasn't going to go behind his back and do this. So I let him know up front that I was planning on opening up a shop in Roanoke. And at this point, I think I was 22 and not knowing anything about business, just having a passion for the sport, I was terrible, terrible business person. Still am today. Horrible. But I started my fly shop at age 23. It took six, eight months to get it going. And I never looked back from there, but 22, 23 years old when I really got into the business full time.

Marvin Cash: And how long did you have the shop?

Blane Chocklett: 1516 years.

Marvin Cash: Wow.

Blane Chocklett: Yeah. So 2008 or 2009 is when I closed. Yeah.

Marvin Cash: When a lot of stuff closed.

Blane Chocklett: Yeah. Let's say, like I said, man, there's a lot of things, if you look back in my life, that how things are kind of paved. I mean, like I said, guiding is always in. Being on the water was my passion in talking, fishing with people that would come into the store. The behind the scenes part I hated, the taxes and all that kind of stuff and making sure you're doing all these things and that's like, that's not me. I got to get out of this.

And I decided just to close it. But when you do that, not having a storefront, it becomes harder to get clientele. Right. But at the same time, the Internet became more popular and that helped out a lot. But I was still more of an angler. Had not, I had, computers to me were foreign even then. Still are in the way. Right. I can get by. That's about it.

But I had friends that said, if you do this and do that, we can help you get clientele. It's amazing how anybody made it before the Internet, right? I mean, that was like, how the hell did I have a shop for that many years and was able to make it go without having social media or the Internet? It's crazy, but we all seem to make it happen.

But back then it was magazines that got you through and who, and it's still that, it's like, who and they, people that, people really, the cool thing about our industry is it's small, so it's a, you're able to network and they know people and they can tell people about you. And that's kind of, for me, it's, I've never advertised, ever. It's always been pretty much word of mouth, and it still is today. I mean, I have a website, but I never get on it. I don't even know how to use the back pages to even put anything on there, so it's bad.

Marvin Cash: So it was really. You were kind of chomping at the bit to get back on the water full time as opposed to, you were kind of, you had a passion but the shop wasn't really working for you, so it's really made it easier for you and the downturn to basically say, I want to go back to the water all the time.

Blane Chocklett: Oh, yeah, no doubt. I had a life of, with a divorce, too, that really made it easier. But for me, guiding is where I was most comfortable and enjoyed because not only being on the water every day, who doesn't want to be fishing every day, right? But I just didn't have the business sense either. I mean, we made it, but I could have been so much more successful if I had a business mind. And it just didn't make sense to keep trying to. Cause when I wasn't there, I mean, you build relationships with people, and they, people know that you know what you're talking about, and they want to buy from you, so you buy, you create these relationships.

But if I'm not there, people didn't buy. So I'd be guiding four or five days a week, and people would wait until I was back in the shop to buy the big rod or reel outfit that they wanted to get. And I was like, well, this is not making any sense. It's like, how could you, I'd have people and train them, and people didn't, they didn't want to buy from them. They wanted to make sure I knew that they were buying it for me or they want to talk to me face to face before they made that big of a purchase.

And it just, it's like, I get it, but it's like this. It's not working. So made it easy. We had the crash in 2008, too. It's like this might be a good way to get out. So that's what I did.

Marvin Cash: Well, that's awesome. And I've fished with you, and I'm not just saying this because I'm interviewing you, but you have a very unique approach to guiding and fishing. And I don't think I've ever fished with anybody when I say that, because I'm going to ask you a question about, like, how you develop the approach. But I want to kind of, when I say that, what I mean is you are probably the most dialed in person on fish behavior in terms of where they are at a particular time and what they're eating of anybody that I've ever fished with or been around with on the water. And I'm really curious about how you develop that approach?

Blane Chocklett: Well, I would first say there's a lot of things I'm not good at. I guess I've got this thing with being able to understand. I think part of this has that artistic side of my brain where I'm able to visually see things, whether I'm seeing it with my eyes or through my mind. And I just have this ability to be able to see one. Being on the water and watching how fish react adversely or positively to lures or flies, and being on the water a lot also through the seasons and being in Virginia, where we have a variety of different species of fish to target, whether it be super cold water trout or striped bass in landlocked or the coast, having native brook trout up in the mountains and the plunge pools and seeing how they react to different things and all the different season.

We have four seasons here. And fish change their behaviors through the seasons and be able to visually see that. But another big prominent part of my business now is smallmouth bass and obviously musky and musky being the fish of 10,000 casts. I mean, I've learned a lot about what I know by not catching fish. And you either quit or you figure it out.

And I'm obviously being, I guess known as a musky guide, which I don't necessarily like that title at all. I mean, not that I don't love muskies. I just don't feel like that I'm a one horse pony. I like to think of myself as being diverse angler. And that's what I want to be, because I feel like if you don't know a lot about everything, that you're not that good. And that's my goal, is to get better every time I'm on the water. And I don't care if I'm fishing for bluegill or if I'm fishing for Tarpon. I want to learn about that fish.

And I usually take a scientific approach about it, is I'll first look at that biologic makeup of that fish, how they grow up, where they're born and that whole journey through their life cycle. And as in Larry Dahlberg, he has a great quote on how fish react to certain things as a why? It's like a perfect example is one year ago, I mean, several years ago, we had on Smith Mountain Lake, we had a periodic cicada hatch and we had giant striped bass cruising the shoreline, sipping cicadas like a trout.

And it's like, why would they take the time to eat a bug like that? That's a 20 plus pound fish. And at the time, I'd never even heard of anybody catching striped bass on bugs. And I was talking to Larry about that and he goes, it's mother's milk. These all fish start off eating microorganisms and then moving on to bugs and then moving on to fish or fish species or crustaceans or whatever it may be. So it's like us, we never forget things that we grew up on, right? So that stuck with me. But I mean, and I knew that without knowing it, right.

He, Larry has a way of explaining things because he thinks, I guess, not saying I'm Larry, but we have a kinship and we kind of think the way, I guess we're kind of geeked out on what we do. I love, I mean, fishing's a giant part of my life, but the biggest thing that makes me tick is figuring out what makes them tick. I really enjoy the puzzle and putting those pieces together and like I said, trying to catch muskies on a fly is not the smartest thing in the world, especially back yourself in a corner and try to do it for a living.

Especially with a fly rod. But when I started doing that, there was not a whole lot there. I'm not going to say I was first person to catch muskies on a fly. I mean, Larry was doing it when he was nine. And I think Larry's like 68, right? So he would be the one, I would say that really kind of pioneered musky on fly for sure.

But it's just learning how the fish react. And like I said, what gets me more than the successful days are the days that we don't do well and not understanding why. And that drives me crazy because you could feel like you know what you're doing six out of the seven days a week, and you get that one day, it's like, why are they not eating today? Or what are they doing that? I know they're here, but why are they not eating what we're throwing? They were eating that yesterday and the days before that, right.

So those are the days that make me want to figure it out. And all that goes back to Harry Steeves and Steve Hiner when I was 15 years old, seeing how the fish reacted to the bugs that they were using or what I tied after, he pretty much told me what I needed to learn, right? So I do know that fish, they do not feed all the time, but they have to eat, right? So what is it that's causing them not to eat that day? That's what drives me.

Marvin Cash: That's very cool. And, I mean, growing up in Virginia, I understand fishing for trout, targeting smallmouth, and the availability of musky. But you've branched out. I mean, there are tons of pictures of you on Instagram with all kinds of stuff, and people call you to figure out how to catch fish in exotic locations. Where did the desire to catch everything that basically swims come from?

Blane Chocklett: I think growing up here, having all this diverse water and all the different species, I love trout, and I always will. I mean, that was my first real fly fishing experience. And all, every year, I always like to go up and fish at least one day on a native brook trout stream just to know that they're still there, right? But most of the flies I'm tying these days are bigger than the fish that we're catching in the mountains.

And like you said, we were talking earlier about mentors and I've been super fortunate to meet people like Lefty and become friends with them. And Flip Pallot and Larry Dahlberg and those two guys in particular, when I was in my late teens, early twenties, had those amazing shows that they had, the hunt for big fish. And Flip show, which is probably one of the best shows that's ever been on tv, period. Walker Cay Chronicles. I mean, that showed me early on that there's so many different species of fish out there to catch, man. And they're all cool in their own way, even if they're not popular by the average person. To me, I thought, it's like, I want to catch everything.

And there's a lot of people that I'm friends with in the industry that are into that. I mean, people. The one thing that I didn't love about trout fishing when I was, it's how people would get snobby about it. And not saying that's a bad thing, but people would say, well, I'm not even going to fish a nymph because it's just dry fly only I'm like, dude, why? I mean, I get it. That's your thing. But I mean, I want to catch them. So whatever it takes.

And to have that, that kind of turned me off. So I just want to catch fish. I want to catch the biggest fish a lot of times. And there's always a progression in fishing in general. When people start, they want to catch a fish, and then they want to catch a lot of fish, and then they want to catch a big fish, and then they want to catch a lot of big fish. And then this is something that Larry taught me, too. Then they want to catch fish the way they want to catch them. And I get that.

And. But I mean, I'm kind of in all those all the time, right? But I guess figuring out early on that there's all these different fish out there, and I want to learn how they tick, and I want to know what they eat, right. By learning their biologic makeup, learning what types of forage that they feed on in their different life cycles as they get bigger.

I talk about this in my talks. When I get that, I give across the country is a brown trout. When it reaches 20 plus inches, it becomes a musky. That's why they become harder to catch, because they don't have to eat all the time, because they become that predator that they can eat when they want, not because they have to. So. And there's all these different things that you learned, and if you think about it, we're all creatures of habit. It's just. It's a matter of figuring that out.

And when I was guiding all the time, and you would see these big fish, I don't care what it was. Stripers, smallmouth muskies, they're gonna be in those spots all the time. And I could leave the area for 50 years and come back, and there's gonna be big fish in those spots. It's amazing. And no matter where I go in the world, it's the same deal.

Marvin Cash: And we talked about this a little bit earlier, but the fly is a really big part of kind of your fishing system and approach, and you talked a little bit about being over on the Jackson. But how did that really get ingrained in the way you approach tackling fishing problems?

Blane Chocklett: Well, with the whole bug deal, like the black fly larvae, that was the biggest start for me. It's like learning the different cycles of that and then seeing how the fish reacted to them based on the dead drift versus the swing. Right. And then moving on to smallmouth bass after that. I had to learn a whole different species. And not knowing anything and not having a boat, I, my first memories of doing that is when I got my driver's license. I would drive up to the James River in the summers, and I would wade fish. I didn't know anything about bass on a fly at that point. I mean, Harry Murray up the road had his books out and stuff like that. So I read a little bit about it, but a lot of that was trout tactics for bass.

And so I used a lot of that. And then I started kind of taking some of that and then just seeing how fish reacted to different things and knowing, I started reading as much as I could about smallmouth and bass in particular, and how they. And I noticed that smallmouth especially acted a lot like trout in the way they live. But as they got bigger, their habits changed. And instead of finding a lot of fish and riffles, these bigger fish are lazy. And they'd move into these deeper pools, especially in the summer months. And I had to learn that.

And that was an interesting thing in itself, is a lot of people for smallmouth especially, so summertime in Virginia is a time for the fly angler to catch some of their biggest smallmouth. And it's always on top, generally. And it's these fish will selectively eat annual cicadas and forever I was always wondering why these big bass we were catching on the tree lines, especially on bright days where you just plop a bug down and let it drift for a long time, or not move it at all. And you could take your eyes off the bug, and it'd be gone by just a little sip, and it'd be the biggest bass you've ever caught in your life.

So I was like, trying to figure that whole thing out and then realizing that they're taking these as an insect, not as a minnow, which a lot of people would take a popper and pop it in the water. And our success was not that great by moving it. So there's a lot of these like puzzles and piecing things together and figuring things out, but it's all about fish behavior and learning what they do in different times of the year.

It's like pre spawn bass and figuring out where these big, giant pre spawn bass go in the spring before they get on their beds and before they even think about that. So all across the country talked about this with Larry not too long ago, up in Minnesota or even Wisconsin or Michigan. Pre spawn bass, really, they've got to put the protein on. They need that extra energy because they're not going to be eating a lot when they're doing it, going through the motions of spawning and then protecting their beds and all that kind of stuff.

So they're keying in on giant chubs. When I say giant, I mean seven, eight, nine inch chubs. I mean, I've caught a number of 20 to 22, 23 inch smallmouth that I have a chub in its throat and still will eat a Game Changer that's seven, six, seven inches long. So you're matching the hatch there, and it's the same deal. I mean, there was a film, I think I didn't get to see it, but they were talking about going back to that stripers and the cicadas. But there was this film, I think, where they observed Tarpon, giant tarpon feeding on locusts down in Mexico or somewhere that I heard about.

And again, that goes back to the mother's milk deal. So it's all about learning behavior, and fish will adapt to whatever food sources is readily available to them. But there's also these built in biologic triggers that cause these fish to react to whatever lure or bait or fly that you're throwing at them. And that's part that really gets me going.

Marvin Cash: Well, folks, I hope you've enjoyed part one of our conversation with Blane Chocklett. If so, it'd be great if you could give us a review in iTunes and subscribe in the podcaster of your choice. The next part will drop in the next week or so. Tight lines, everybody.