S1, Ep 54: Conversation with Ethan Martin of TaleTellers Fly Shop

EPISODE SUMMARY

Guest: Ethan Martin - Owner of TaleTellers Fly Shop (Lynchburg, Virginia)

In this episode: Virginia fly shop owner Ethan Martin shares his journey from self-taught fly tier to small business owner, offering insights into production fly tying, opening a retail fly shop and building a fly fishing community in downtown Lynchburg. Topics include the realities of commercial fly tying, fly tying material selection, fly shop startup challenges and creating accessible fly fishing education programs.

Key fishing techniques covered: • Dry fly fishing for native brook trout in Shenandoah streams • European-style nymphing in tailwaters • Indicator nymphing techniques • Streamer fishing for smallmouth bass and musky • Figure-eight retrieves for musky on the fly

Location focus: Lynchburg, Virginia; South River (Waynesboro); Shenandoah National Park streams including Rapidan; James River; Percival's Island; Chesapeake Bay; Central Virginia small streams

Target species: Brook trout, rainbow trout, smallmouth bass, musky, bluegill, striper, bluefish, speckled trout

Equipment discussed: Wapsi fly tying kits, HMH and Regal vises, Thomas and Thomas rods, Loop rods, Reilly Rods (smallmouth specialty), Syndicate Pipeline Pro (Euro nymphing), Scientific Anglers lines, Whiting hackle, Nature's Spirit materials, Broden nets, Smith sunglasses, Loon products

Key questions answered: • How do I start production fly tying and what are the challenges? • What should beginners know about selecting quality fly tying materials? • How do I open a fly shop in a small market? • What are the hidden costs of selling flies commercially (excise tax)? • Where can I fish for brook trout near Lynchburg, Virginia?

Best for: Beginner to intermediate anglers interested in fly tying education, aspiring commercial tiers, Virginia fishing destinations, small business entrepreneurship in the fly fishing industry and building local fly fishing communities

**Marvin Cash (00:04):**
Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash of The Articulate Fly and we're here with Ethan Martin of TaleTellers Fly Shop. How's it going, Ethan?

**Ethan Martin (00:04):**
I'm doing good today.

**Marvin Cash (00:04):**
Well, that's good. No cars in the shop. That's a good thing.

**Ethan Martin (00:04):**
Yeah. Not today anyway.

**Marvin Cash (00:04):**
Well, so for people that don't know, we were talking before the interview about three weeks ago, Ethan had the great misfortune of having someone drive their car all the way into his shop. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that and how things are coming on the recovery side, Ethan?

**Ethan Martin (00:30):**
Yeah, I was sitting. I tie a lot of flies as I'm in the shop for people, for whoever. So it's like 9:30 in the morning. I had just started up on another order for some people and then all of a sudden the ground started to shake and then I went like half deaf. And as I looked up, I've got two aisles in the shop that are pretty large, I guess like 14 foot or something like that, and the front one was about three foot off the ground. Then there was a table flipping through the sky and glass shooting everywhere, and I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was like half deaf. So I stood up and then round the corner real quick, and then of course there's a vehicle that has decided to parallel park, or at least they were attempting to parallel park in front of the shop and they somehow cleared the curb and then crushed in my entire window and were completely in the shop and nobody was harmed. So that was good, obviously. We lost a fair amount of product, but it's been good ever since. I mean, I had to bust my butt to get everything back in shape before Father's Day. But yeah, it was a very exciting day. And it was just an elderly guy who just mistook the, or something happened with the accelerator. I'm not really sure what it was, but one thing led to another and he came through the shop door. So it was not something I'd like to repeat again, but there was a lot of lemonades out of the lemons.

**Marvin Cash (01:58):**
Well, that's good. Yeah, I know. Luckily, nobody was hurt, and I think you were offline for a little bit less than a week. I think you really got after it and you were reopened the Friday after the accident, right?

**Ethan Martin (02:12):**
Yeah, I worked many long hours because I built everything in here. So I had to rebuild a couple of the aisles that got smashed and then picking up all of the inventory that got ran over and then sort through everything on the pegs. Pretty much flew off. So you know, I had to sort through all the inventory, see what's damaged, see what's good. And we built a couple of extra little gizmos and gadgets while we had the whole shop in disrepair. So yeah, we had a couple of really long days, but it came together. I wanted to be open before Father's Day just because I knew that I had a fair amount of people that already said they were trying to get rods and stuff for their grandpa or for their dad. So I was like, if I can get open before then. And it's easy for me. I'm kind of a goal-oriented person. It's like if I can set the goal, then I can work towards it. But if I'm just like, yeah, I'll open whenever I feel like it, it probably would be close right now, but maybe.

**Marvin Cash (03:08):**
There you go. Well listen. We'll go back to kind of the traditional Articulate Fly format. And if you've listened before, you know that I ask all of my guests to share their earliest fishing memory.

**Ethan Martin (03:21):**
Yeah. And honestly, I've been trying to rack my brain around what it is. I know I fished with my grandpa. He's the one that taught me to fish. We fished mainly spinning gear or whatever. And then, so I grew up in Waynesboro, and I'm pretty positive that like, the first time I actually remember fishing was actually on the South River at Ridgeview Park. So there's this small park, and back in the, well, before everybody got all safety conscious about like, playground equipment, they had all these like, wooden playground things. You get these gnarly splinters in. Like, the splinters, like, as long as your forearm somehow slide to your toe, it's like, what the heck? But I remember I was probably like three or four, and we fished the South River right there. We didn't catch a thing, but we saw these suckers everywhere. And they've got this green metal bridge or whatever that goes across the river. And I remember as a kid, I would walk over the bridge and look down, and you'd see these just huge suckers. And I had no clue what they were. But I always remember every time he came, we tried to catch them. And he always told me that they ate worms. But we never had success with that. But I do also remember, I was probably five or six when, yeah, I was definitely five. I don't know how I remember that. I just remember. We would go to Montebello, which is like a trout pay pond, essentially. So I grew up wasting my grandpa's bank account up there because every fish you catch, you have to pay for it. And you know, as a kid, you're like, oh, let me catch one more. Come on, grandpa, please, please. So I remember those two places for sure. And I just don't know really which one came first. And then I also fished a whole lot with my grandpa just in downtown Lynchburg off of Percival's Island. Did a lot of fishing there, and he would make me collect these little terrifying hellgrammites. And I was always petrified of those things because you see the big old crazy-looking jaws. But those three things are really what mesh in my mind too, like the beginnings of my fishing career.

**Marvin Cash (05:31):**
Well, that's super cool. Yeah, I did some time on pay ponds too. If I remember maybe going to Hough Creek when I was a kid and catching trout. And I can remember the big question mark for the parent always was, do you pay by the hour or do you pay by the pound? Like how lucky do you feel?

**Ethan Martin (05:52):**
Yep. Well, that's really cool. When did you move to the dark side of fly fishing?

**Ethan Martin (05:52):**
So, like I said, when I fished with my grandpa, he was more of your style fisherman that was just chuck it out, sit down, you wait. And if they're going to eat, they're going to eat. And I'm not that, like, I'm kind of an anti-getting-stuff-done individual. So when I was 10, I remember my grandpa, when I was 10, wanting to figure something else out for me. Because we would go and fish, and I would be like, wanting to run around or throw rocks in and stuff. And he was fine with that, but I think he finally caved when I was 11 and got me a fly rod, and I had no clue really what it was. I'd seen his, he had a bamboo one that was like a South Bend. I remember casting that sometimes in his front yard with one of those automatic retrieve reels. I actually have it. He gave it to me. So I remember him giving me the rod basically because I would go and spend a week at his house in the summers here in Lynchburg, and we would just go and fish and I would be his shadow following around everywhere. And I think after a while he just wanted to get stuff done. So he was like, if I give this kid a fly rod and just tell him to go start practicing casting, then he's going to leave me alone for maybe at least 40 minutes. So that's what we did. He got me a fly rod from Kmart. It was just one of those entry-level things, had a couple poppers in it. And he would set up hula hoops in the yard and he would leave and I would try and cast them into the hula hoops. And then we went to a couple farm ponds like two or three weeks after that here in Lynchburg. And we just demolished bluegill. And as a, like a, not even a teenager, you know, 11 years old, catching like, I think the first one we called like 40 or 50, which was just unheard for me. You know, I was just a kid. I was used to like throwing a bobber and a worm and you'd just sit and wait and they would eat it obviously but yeah and then watching the take, it captivated me. So pretty much I got really comfortable with the whole fly fishing game pretty early on because I just liked all the different aspects to it. I'm constantly active, constantly casting, watching the take was always cool because I did a lot of just bass fishing and bluegill fishing for most of my early teens before I really got into any sort of trout thing. And I did a little bit of time with a spinning rod again in my late teens. It was kind of like a dual interest thing. I think it was my fly rod broke or something like that. And so I went through a little span where I was like, I'll just pick up the spinning rod again. And then once I turned 19, there was really no going back because I could drive, I could go wherever I wanted to. And I had a little bit more money from working summer jobs. So I got a little bit nicer rod.

**Marvin Cash (08:48):**
And then, yeah, that's been all she wrote ever since then. Well, that's pretty cool. And you know, obviously your grandfather was really important to your fishing development. Who were some of your other mentors in the fly fishing world as you kind of learned more about how the game worked?

**Ethan Martin (09:03):**
Well, that's one of the funny things about me is I never really had any mentor. I always joke and say the river. The river was my mentor because I didn't have like one particular person who taught me anything. I listened to a butt ton of podcasts. And so that was super helpful because I was listening from all these great people that had been fly fishing a long time. And then I read a lot of books because I'm kind of that generation that was like, I learned fly tying when I was 12 because I went to the library and got books about fly tying. And then as I progressed towards my early 20s, when I really realized, hey, YouTube is a thing. So I feel like that transition for me was like I got a whole lot of weird knowledge from a whole bunch of random places because I've watched so many YouTube videos of like Streamer Chronicles or you name it. So it's weird to me because I never really had like one person. Most of it was just I fished a lot, and I would, you know, like five, six times a week. I had the South River in pretty much my backyard, and nobody's going to say, hey, don't go travel two minutes so you can fish for an hour. So I could go whenever I wanted to and make a whole bunch of mistakes, but learned a lot too. So yeah, I don't really have like, one mentor other than the lake and books and in Google. In Google. Yeah, later in life. Google's helped me now.

**Marvin Cash (10:38):**
Well, that's really cool. What's your favorite species to chase on the fly?

**Ethan Martin (10:43):**
Oh, man. So that's another hard thing because I kind of like it all. I guess if I had one, I would probably say brook trout. Brook trout or just native trout were some of my, we call them native trout here. A bunch of the old guys that come into the shop, they call them mountain trout, stuff like that. But the native brook trout here have been the one fish species that I've chased probably the longest out of the trout family. Because I always just like the fact you can just go take a hike here in Virginia and catch a whole bunch of brook trout on a fly rod. And usually it's a dry fly. So that's the one that I spent a whole lot of time doing. However, I say that I like fishing for everything. Like yesterday was on the Chesapeake Bay. We were catching the striper and bluefish and the specks. And I mean, I like doing that. Musky on the fly. I like doing it. I have a love-hate relationship with musky on the fly because, you know, it's really, I love it when they eat the fly, but I hate it when they just, you're musky fishing and there's nothing for days. Not one day, just days.

**Marvin Cash (11:52):**
Yeah, no, no. It's humbling. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think it's a, I don't know that it's a better challenge than steelhead fishing, but it'll test you.

**Ethan Martin (11:59):**
Okay. But then when you get a fish that eats on the figure eight right at your feet, like that, that makes it worth it. So yeah. And then, I mean, I like trout fishing, just rainbow. I do some of the European style nymphing stuff. Done two-hand, you know, fly rod stuff. So I kind of have a, if you look in my closet of gear, there's just a little bit of everything.

**Marvin Cash (12:25):**
No, there's nothing wrong with that. And are you willing to share some of your favorite places to fish? I know that can sometimes be a top secret thing.

**Ethan Martin (12:32):**
I mean, yeah, if anybody comes to the shop, they know I fish the South River a lot. That's a river that it's got stock fish in it, it's holed over fish, and then there's some wild fish that are starting to populate there. That one's kind of close to my heart because, like I said, that was one of the first ones that I remember fishing as a kid because I lived in Waynesboro. And then with the fly shop that's up there right now, South River Fly Shop, it was cool because I was kind of with the wave through of us getting all the regulations changed with it. Because before it was just the downtown section was the late harvest. Then all the regulations have gotten switched to be really in the favor of the fishery because it's, I mean there's spring fed so the fish hold over really well and so now it's a catch and release and single hook artificial only and then there's an upper section that's fly fishing only. So that's one of my favorites just because I mean I kind of know like every little nook and cranny of the river from fishing it for many hours. So yeah, that's one of my favorites and then I like a bunch of the small streams. I can give you specific, like I like Shenandoah National Park and some of the streams that aren't quite as well known. The Rapidan fishes really well so if you're looking for a stream in Shenandoah National Park you can go fish to Rapidan.

**Marvin Cash (13:54):**
That's a fun stream. Well there you go. I won't waterboard you for any more spots. You're fine. So how about telling us a little bit about how you got interested in fly tying?

**Ethan Martin (14:07):**
Yeah, so that's a pretty simple one too. So this is also why I think fly tying kits can be very helpful because I was 12 at the time and a friend of my dad's found out, he wasn't even, he lived in Ohio but they lived near us when I was a lot smaller and he found out that I got a fly rod and so he was big into fly tying and fly fishing and so he just, they came to visit one time and he had this fly tying kit that he got from Cabela's I think it was like a Wapsi one or something and he gave that to me and that was like that was a game changer because I was always like the kid that liked you know going out doing a bunch of stuff, making things, Legos you name it. As a kid you know, by the time you're 12 you're kind of like oh I don't know how I feel about but then I was like hold up, this is like arts and crafts for adults that I can now make and then go use to catch fish. So that was, that's when I started. And basically it was a Wapsi kit that had enough, you know, for like 20 patterns or something, had a little booklet that told you, you know, here's how you tie all these patterns. Here's this crazy thing called a whip finishing tool, which was terrifying to use as a kid because it was like, nobody taught me. All I had was pictures that say this is how you do it. So yeah, I couldn't do that for like a year but then one day it just lucked out and happened. But most of that I mean I grew up on a farm too so not like chickens but hay you know and birds and squirrels and deer so like we would shoot a deer and I would take the bucktail and turn it into these things called Clouser Minnows and then or not Clouser Nymphs, just a Clouser Minnow or any random thing with bucktail. So I started doing a lot of stuff with bucktail too, because my dad, he had a couple of just tanned hides that he had gotten throughout his life. He wasn't like big into hunting, but he lived in Texas. So he had like a mule deer, tanned hide, the full thing. And then I had a couple of people who had access to like skins and like I had a whole elk hair skin for a while. And so that was pretty cool. Let's see. And then I had stuffed turkey. So naturally I always found myself pulling a couple of turkey feathers to make nymphs, that sort of thing. And then we shot a lot of squirrel. We had fox squirrel, all sorts of stuff around. So like a lot of my materials came from the other part of stuff that I enjoyed at that age, which was hunting. I don't do much hunting anymore because fly fishing has kind of taken full reins of my life. So yeah, that's kind of how I got into it there.

**Marvin Cash (17:05):**
That's pretty cool too. Cause you know, one of the toughest things, I mean, you know, and it's funny cause you know, I'm older than you are, but I grew up in Lynchburg and you know, there were no fly shops. And I mean, and just, and you know, this cause you really tie, you know, getting good materials. I mean, you basically were making your own.

**Ethan Martin (17:21):**
Yeah, and they weren't always the best.

**Marvin Cash (17:24):**
So did you learn fly tying the same way you learned fly fishing, or were there people that helped you in your tying journey that you remember?

**Ethan Martin (17:32):**
No, it was just me on my own. That's kind of, it's funny because even when I think about the shop, opening the shop has been the thing that I got the most outside help on. But my personal fly fishing and fly tying, it was kind of like I just wanted to do it so I did it like and I looked up books and we were fortunate because I don't know who must have donated all the books to the library but there was a pretty good selection and so I had checked all those books out probably like eight or nine times a piece over the years and I mean it was just like really common like the Orvis Guide to Fly Fishing, you know, like, oh, well, not the new revised one, or like the LL Bean Guide to Fly Tying, and it's like, so it's not like they were even these like, super specific, it was just, a lot of them were this more generic, but you got a whole bunch of different people explaining it, which were super helpful for me, because, you know, I might not click with the way one guy wrote it or something, especially as a kid, because it's not like this is, you know, I wasn't a huge reader at that time. So having all those little pictures were super helpful. It sounds childish to say it that way, but that's just the reality. And so I really learned most of what I learned at that stage just by reading people's books and then trial and error and figuring it out. So yeah, that has been a lot of my things that I've learned in life.

**Marvin Cash (19:04):**
That's really cool. You mentioned earlier that your first vise came out of a Wapsi tying kit, and I can literally see the cover on that box. I think it's got a brassie on the cover, right? Which means you probably had like a Griffin vise or something like that. That was probably what was in the kit. Obviously, you've moved on and you tie professionally now. What is your rig of choice these days?

**Ethan Martin (19:23):**
Yeah, I have an HMH. That's what I tie everything on. I have a Regal that stays in the shop. I tie a lot of stuff on that. But when I was like full into tying for other people, which was a lot of hours behind a vise, I upgraded, obviously, from that Wapsi one a long time ago. And then got another vise that was decent. And then I was having problems with the hooks slipping all the time. And it was like frustrating to know it. But I didn't feel, I mean, it's not like you're making a ton of money tying flies. That's one of the other realities that I think some people neglect or just don't realize.

**Marvin Cash (20:08):**
So that's not your Lamborghini out front of the shop?

**Ethan Martin (20:10):**
No, no, that's not. But yeah, so I tied flies for a long time, even for, you know, I guess I would say professionally, but tied flies for a long time for other people on a vise that was still like, eh. It was good. It had a five-star review on Amazon, all that jazz. But then I always told my wife, I was like, because this was by the time we had gotten married. We got married. We'll have our fifth anniversary coming up here. And she had always heard me talking about getting a new vise. And I showed her an HMH. I was like, man, that's the one I want to get one day. And then I came home one day and it was sitting there on my table. I was like, what? So yeah, my wife is a great wife, Miranda. She got me the vise that I've been tying on that for a couple years now and I don't know that I would go back because I just like the simplicity of it and when you punch down the lock it locks down, it doesn't matter what's in there.

**Marvin Cash (20:10):**
And is it a specific model of HMH or?

**Ethan Martin (20:10):**
The one she got me was the Spartan because that one is the mid-level one. So it's not, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of like the standard, but that's what we could afford. And so that's what I got. So now it's just, it's sentimental cause it has like crap all over the base. And so I don't know if I could get rid of it if I could, cause it was a sweet memory, you know?

**Marvin Cash (21:45):**
There you go. No, that's awesome. And I know that TaleTellers started as a fly company. And so, you know, you learn to fish, you learn to tie. When do you make the decision that you want to do production fly tying?

**Ethan Martin (22:00):**
Yeah, so that was an interesting one. Because, so basically, this was my philosophy. Just do your best. Just tie flies. I never anticipated selling my flies. That was not something that was on my radar. I wasn't trying to like, make it happen. And I just tied flies. I did the best that I could, and I tied flies. And I tried to stay as consistent because I have that little bit of that OCD strain within me. And then I would show other people my box or whatever. And they'd be like, will you give me some of those? And I'm like, okay. So I started off really honestly. I didn't have that business vein like, let me make money on this this second. It was, yeah, I'll just give you some flies.

**Marvin Cash (22:51):**
Got tired of your friends mooching off of you.

**Ethan Martin (22:53):**
Well, not even that. Then they showed the flies to their friends, and then their friends showed them and gave them to them. Then eventually, I got phone calls from a couple of people. I don't even know who they were, but it was like, hey, I'm going to Montana. I've seen some of your flies. Would you be willing to tie me a box? It was like, I've read stuff about flies in Montana. I would be like, so what flies do you want? Then the natural thing was like, I don't know. Whatever fishes in Montana. I was like, okay. So then I would be like, ask them, you know, well, where are you going in Montana? What time of the year are you going? And I would get a couple of questions and then, or I'd call a fly shop out there or something. And then I would tie flies for them. And then that sort of led to, I was tying a couple of boxes for people. And I still have those original people that I don't, some of them I don't really honestly know how they found me. It could be you know, social media because I started, I like photography too and that's one of the other things that I think helped was because like people ask me what was my how did you start selling flies and it's like I just took pictures of flies and tied lots of flies and I tried to do the best I could but like I have a guy in LA who's an artist out there that he was one of the first ones that gave me quite a large order of flies and it was like two completely filled boxes because he just purchased a pretty large plot of air but that guy, I mean he's, I'll keep him anonymous but yeah, the artist, I mean he still contacts me, sends me pictures of the fish that he's catching and actually I'm working through an order for him right now because I'm still doing it a little bit even with the shop being open. But yeah, so most of my progression was I was just doing the best I could you know, tie every fly as well as I could as similar to the other one as I could and then people liked that so it was just hey, you know, can you do two dozen of this two dozen of that and then I sold a whole lot of flies to South River Fly Shop in Waynesboro and that was part of the other thing that helped get me going because I tied a lot of like patterns that I had seen in books and that sort of stuff. And then when I started tying for them, it was, you know, more patterns that people are buying on a more frequent basis, obviously. And so I started tying for them. The most I remember doing in one night was 22 dozen flies. And that was a long night. And so it got to the point that so like this is sort of the progression of things for me was it got to the point where it was like five, six hours a day I'm tying and then when you actually like review how much you're making it's like oh like this and it's not just, it's really honestly because I could have charged more you know or there could have been other things that I could have done but I mean it's like yeah would you be happy with eight dollars or ten dollars you know it's like you're still, it's not very much like a little bit better than minimum wage and a lot of time that goes into it and it was fun, don't, I still tie for people but yeah it that is part of the reason that led me to where I'm at today because I realized how much I enjoyed doing fly fishing related work. I didn't want to be a commercial tier full-time like you know Patco and those guys, it's cool. I mean they can have all that acclaim because that's not me. I'm not the type of person who wants to sit behind a desk for you know because I mean to make money at it that you can live off of you'd have to be doing like 12 hour, 12 hour tying or tie bigger patterns or tie a lot more than what I was wanting to tie and it was nice. I got a lot of money for fishing gear so I got a lot of fishing trips. I paid for a couple of trips with my wife. But yeah, that's kind of what it led us to. Like when I look back over the books, it's like I tied thousands of flies. That's crazy. What the heck was I thinking? My vise got halfway destroyed because of how many flies I was making. And it was good. You know, most of the patterns too were fairly simple. It's not like I was tying these like four hours for one fly that I'm going to charge 180 bucks for or something like that, which some guys do that. That's cool. To each his own. That's kind of where I'm at.

**Marvin Cash (27:44):**
No, that's really cool. And I appreciate you sharing that with us. And I want to ask you too, about where the name TaleTellers came from.

**Ethan Martin (27:53):**
Ah, so there's two sides to this coin. The first side is I like telling stories, I like listening to stories. So when I was an early teen I remember I was like talking to my mom and I was just like jabbing her ear off because of how much I was talking about probably hunting or something that she, she loves me but...

**Marvin Cash (28:18):**
You know it's not like she cares about hunting so she was listening politely.

**Ethan Martin (28:23):**
Yes, yeah and I remember her telling me like you're such a TaleTeller and then I don't think she was like you know trying to be mean or anything but that name sort of stuck with me like in my head and then when I was later in my teens I got into like woodworking a little bit when I say a little bit I mean like a little bit, I could make some basic things you know and I remember at the top of them I was making this guitar pedal case because I play guitar too. And so I wanted to have like, you know, some sort of cool thing in the top corner. I don't know what, but I remember writing in TT and not for Thomas and Thomas or anything. In my mind, I was like, if I ever had a company, I would call it TaleTellers. And I had no idea what that would be. I had no idea that that would actually happen. But then when we went to, you know, starting the shop, I was like, there's only one name I'm going TaleTellers. And that was just the fly side of things you know and I'm saying everything tells a tale you know every fly you can catch the biggest fish or anything that you do you know you can create a tale out of it and then it was TaleTellers Fly Fishing, that's what I sold flies through and then as we have progressed to where we're at today we switched over to TaleTellers Fly Shop to better show what we do which is we're a fly shop and it's been cool. A lot of people ask about the name and so yeah that's how it happened.

**Marvin Cash (29:51):**
That's super cool. And I want to talk a little bit more about time before we talk a little bit more about the shop so you know you obviously you've shared with us that you can spend a lot of hours at the vise and yeah you don't get paid a lot of money necessarily. What are some of the other challenges that I guess we'll just call them normal fly tiers would be surprised to hear that you face as a production tier?

**Ethan Martin (30:20):**
Yeah. Well the first one that I don't hear a lot of people talk about, but it's the excise tax that's on flies. Because like if you scroll through Instagram, everybody and their buddies selling flies, which, you know, some people don't care about extra taxes, but that's one of the things that you got to keep in mind if you want to sell flies is there's a 10% tax on your wholesale product. So keeping, it's not like you can just buzz out 100 and forget about them and be like, oh, whoops, because Uncle Sam's going to not be happy. If that ever came to light, would it come to light? I don't know. But that's one of the first things. If somebody is trying to up their game, you've got to get that stuff right.

**Marvin Cash (30:58):**
And that's the same tax that's on gear that we use to fund conservation, or is that a different excise tax?

**Ethan Martin (31:04):**
That is a little bit different. So that's on, I don't actually know what the heck they do with that money but it's on like diesel, tobacco, a couple other random products, fishing tackle boxes, and then anything that has to do with flies. There are some interesting exclusions, such as if you put a marshmallow in your fly, it is excluded from the tax. And there's a couple other random things like that, but I've thought through, people like, let me use marshmallow as a dubbing wax and then I'll be, but yeah, I would, I just, I'm a type of guy that just rather have everything on the books, do everything clean and clear. We're all good. Don't have to worry about anything. Not everybody's that way. I get it. So you know, have fun but that's one of the first things that I just I really wanted to mention because I see it a lot and people ask me questions a lot and that's one of the first things like if you're not willing to do that you know well should you consider maybe not because it's a ten thousand dollar fine if they catch you. So now I don't honestly think that that might ever happen but I'd rather just do everything by the book.

**Marvin Cash (32:08):**
Makes it easier to sleep at night.

**Ethan Martin (32:09):**
Yeah, for me especially. So going back to more specifically, for people who are just tying flies and they just want to enjoy tying flies, they're not trying to sell them, that sort of thing. One of the things that I tell a lot of people that come through the shop is just tie your best. I mean, it's not like it has to be some fancy Davie McPhail, perfectly articulated, you know, whatever, you name it. You're just tying flies to catch fish. And, and like, if you're trying to up your game, well just tie your best, you know, if you make a mistake, go back, correct, whatever the mistake was. Or, and that's the other thing why I like tying flies is because it takes like a couple minutes to tie a fly depending on what it is. Maybe not much time at all. But if you're going to mess up, you know, you can go back and you can fix that. I mean, you're in charge of the fly. That's one of the, when we have fly tying classes, that's one of the main things I like to try and get across. Like you're in charge of what happens on the fly. Like if you don't like the way that it looks, well then there's just something that's off that, you know, in all reality you've done, you know, it could just be, you had too much thread tension or not enough thread tension. There's all sorts of like little, it could be's. But the bottom, like underlying principle is just you're in charge of tying the fly. So just tie it the best that you can. If you're not happy then tie another one, you know, that's my philosophy and getting into it was like I'm more the person that I don't really care if I screw up the first hundred times because I think maybe my hundred and first time I'll get it right and so when it comes down to tying the flies it's like just keep tying flies. I mean it doesn't matter what they look like, you know, tie flies and then go fish with them.

**Marvin Cash (33:58):**
Yeah, it's just kind of like there's no substitute for being on the water. There's no substitute for just cranking stuff out at the vise either, right?

**Ethan Martin (34:07):**
Yeah, yeah. And there are other nice, like some of the other tidbits, you know, buy good materials. That's going to help you if you do how I started and you're just grabbing random pieces of animal and tying them on a hook. Well those flies did catch fish, not a doubt about it. I mean we had a bass pond not too far from our house that I caught a lot of fish on because you know I just tied flies and they didn't look pretty. I have gallon bags of the old flies that I tied, I mean like I think there's like four or five of them at this point like whole gallon bags completely filled to the brim of all these crappy flies that I've made over the years that I keep them because it's kind of a recollection or helps me remember where I came from and then just how much work it really did come to get to being a decent tier, you know?

**Marvin Cash (34:56):**
Okay, and then in theory you tell yourself that some rainy day you're going to sit down with a razor blade and get all the hooks back?

**Ethan Martin (34:56):**
Yeah, that's never gonna happen. Yeah, in terms of picking out good materials. I mean synthetics are one thing but natural materials are another and you know obviously it's great for people that have access to a shop like yours where you tie so if someone calls you, yeah you kind of speak the lingo so you kind of understand what people are looking for but what are some tips you can give people particularly if they've got to buy over the internet, right? Because you know not everyone's lucky enough to have a local fly shop to like get good stuff that actually won't create more problems for them than it'll solve.

**Ethan Martin (35:35):**
Yeah well and that's one of the things too that is just one of the difficulties of buying stuff over the internet is you never know what you're going to get. I've bought a lot of stuff over the internet that you get it in and it's questionable, you know. And I say that now because like, I know what I'm looking for. But like some of the things are, if I find a deal, it's too good to be true. Like if you are searching through eBay and you find a hackle cape that's 22 cents, you might want to stay away from that. You know, like it's one thing you save like, you know, three dollars. Okay. But now you've got this weird thing that could be like beetle infested or who knows, that is this stuff from, you know, India that's come over because especially if you look at some of the older style stuff, that's one thing that I see a lot of guys, they'll bring in like an old fly tying kit that their dad handed down to them. They're like, tell me, is this stuff any good? And yeah, you can use it for sure. Like a guy's brought in this, I don't know if it an Indian cape but it had, it was like an Orvis package from like the 70s that said dry fly hackle and the like, I have you know the thing was sitting in the palm of my hand this little tiny like dry fly hackle, you had to take like four or five hackle feathers to make one Adams you know.

**Marvin Cash (37:03):**
Yeah that's probably, it's pre-Tom Whiting right?

**Ethan Martin (37:08):**
Yeah it's like how many feathers do we need? Anything Whiting you can buy and that's one of the funny things is you know if it's really old, the materials do stay together. I mean, don't get me wrong. Like, here's your dubbing. It's going to be fine. Like, there are some products like that that a lot of dubbings I'm fine with. Just, you can buy it over the internet and you're not going to have to worry about that. It comes down to like, hair. You know, when you've got, what's good deer hair, belly hair, you know, for spinning up bugs. And my answer to that is usually if you buy Nature's Spirit stuff. That's what I've gone. I'm not a rep of Nature's Spirit, but every time that I've got their stuff, I've been pleased with it. And there's a couple, you know, here and there that it's like, but it's still all usable really well stuff. If you just buy a huge whole deer pelt on eBay, like I said, for like four dollars, yeah, you never know what you're going to get. But yeah buying a reputable brand helps things. When it comes to hackle, Whiting hackle, I mean that's you're not going to have a problem buying Whiting hackle. That's another one of the things I tell a lot of guys that are just getting into tying, it's like if you want to tie dry flies you know you can get a nice hackle and it seems crazy to spend you know 100 bucks or over on feathers, but you really do use them. I've got hackles that I bought when I was like 17 that I still have plenty of feathers on. It's a great investment as a starter. And then some of the other things too. So like I said, synthetics, fine. You don't have to worry about that. But like CDC, stuff like that, feathers, you never really know what you're going to get with that. Like when you're talking mallard flanks, you know, like a buddy of mine just got back from Idaho and came from Kelly Galloup's shop and he had a bag of mallard flanks that were ridiculous. I mean the things are enormous and I guess that's what he, I mean he's tying his Zoo Cougars and stuff like that with them but I have never seen a bag of mallard flanks that is as perfect as that bag. A lot of this stuff that you buy on the internet like that, you know, it's, you get these tiny little shriveled, like half semi-circle flanks. Then you get like four or five good ones. So some things like that, you just buy it. It's like three bucks. You know, you might buy two, three bags and you'll get a couple of them that are good. And like what I, what I'm thinking good, I mean, like I want something that's pretty flat, has a little bit of a curve going down to it and then a pretty decent size, you know, but like some of those feathers that my buddy gave me are like four inches long. They're insane.

**Marvin Cash (40:04):**
So there's some things like that, if you just get two bags instead of one. Yeah. It's funny. I always keep a list on my iPhone of tying stuff. And whenever I'm in a shop like that, I just basically hit it.

**Ethan Martin (40:16):**
Yep. Oh, if I, yeah. If I was there, I would have a trash bag of that stuff because that's one of the things I'm always looking for. And finding it, when I find a good source, I buy it all.

**Marvin Cash (40:28):**
Yeah, there's another shop. If you haven't heard about it, there's another fish camp that's up the valley from Kelly's Place and the guy is a Whiting dealer. And the whole room is full of it. And he's like, and if I don't have it here, I have a bunch more upstairs. So, like, yeah, that's a place.

**Ethan Martin (40:28):**
That's good to know. Yeah, something to file away. I think they close at the end of September every season. So we talked a little bit about how your frustration with being a production tier, you liked it, but you realized you couldn't make a living doing it. And that sort of pushed you towards becoming a full-service fly shop. What else kind of drove you to open a full-fledged fly shop in downtown Lynchburg?

**Ethan Martin (41:11):**
Well, so my dad owned a small business for a pretty long time, six years, 27. And then he sold it four years ago. So as a kid, I grew up, helped him on the farm, helped him in the shop a lot. And so I got kind of a firsthand look at small business, what that was like. And that's kind of, so my philosophy going into it was, first off, a fly shop is a small business. There's not a way around that. I think I've heard some people like, it's in its own subcategory, it's like yeah it's a small business I mean that's what it is. And so opening up a full servicing it was I was tying four, five, six hours a night and I was enjoying it but I knew that there would be an easier way or maybe not even easier you know but a way that I enjoyed more making money and all my family lives in Lynchburg and I love fly fishing and I'm not like super salesy I guess I'll say it that way, like my vibe is not like you know you walk into the shop the first time I'm trying to sell you like the most expensive rod that exists you know. But I can sell stuff. I know a fair amount, I'm always learning stuff about fly fishing. Learned a lot about you know like bluefish and stuff like that yesterday so I'm always learning stuff. But through the years I've amassed a bit of random knowledge, like jack of all trades that doesn't know a ton yet. Still learning. But I thought it would always be awesome to own a fly shop. And so my wife and I had been contemplating that through, been saving for, you know, we didn't really know what we were going to be doing in the future because I worked at a church before this. I was a pastor. And then there was a school affiliated, so I worked at the school too. And I enjoyed that. And I, the whole time I was taking like teens out from the school, take them out and go fish and a lot of stuff like that. And then I did a couple of the fly shows that was just like, I showed up with a butt ton of flies. And so I really enjoyed like different aspects of that, teaching people how to fly fish, teaching people how to tie flies. Cause I did that too. I taught some of the teens, you know, how to make Woolly Buggers and that sort of stuff. But so that was some of the things that I saw in myself that I enjoyed. And I thought if I could do that full time, that would be awesome. Like that would be the dream. And so for myself, that's what my wife and I just started working towards, which was, you know, what's it going to take to open a fly shop of our own? Cause that's one thing a lot of people have been asking me too. And the other funny thing too is I think a lot of people think it was like, because I mean, I didn't tell a lot of people as we were thinking it through because I didn't want somebody else to come through. Because I wanted to have a fly shop in downtown Lynchburg because my wife and I, we got engaged in downtown. I proposed in downtown. I fished off Percival's Island when I was a kid and I got a lot of memories down there for catching smallmouth. And so I thought if I ever do it, I would love to have it downtown. So, you know, I can just like walk around or people can just walk in that sort of vibe. And I wanted it to be in Lynchburg. And so we just started looking at places.

**Marvin Cash (44:47):**
So tell us a little bit about the manufacturers that you carry in the shop.

**Ethan Martin (44:51):**
Yeah. So that's been another cool thing is a lot of the brands that I've been able to get in are ones that like I've personally always liked and used a lot of. I use a lot of Scientific Anglers lines and I got SA. I like their stuff. I've got, you know, a lot of the fly tying companies, Hareline, Wapsi, Nature's Spirit, that sort of stuff. I do a lot of stuff from Nature's Spirit. I like the quality of all the stuff, bucktails. They do like just good quality stuff. I like that. Thomas and Thomas, that's another one that I like a lot.

**Marvin Cash (45:30):**
That's your comp route showing through, right?

**Ethan Martin (45:33):**
Yeah, that's, man. And then I got my dad, Thomas Thomas Zone, for Father's Day. And so we took it out two Mondays ago. And that thing, it was awesome. Because my dad, he's getting into fly fishing about the past three years. And so I don't think he ever would have dreamed of me giving him a rod that was over 60 dollars. Because he used a lower end rod for the whole time I was getting him into it. When he you know I wouldn't just hand him mine but yeah and he was like casting right where he wanted to he's like this thing is awesome so that's some of the cool stuff too is you know getting people into stuff like Thomas and Thomas when you realize you know your casting could suck because your rod does but not all the time I say that. But I've also I got a couple other brands. One I also like a lot is Loop. You don't hear a lot of guys on the east coast at least I haven't, talking about Loop, which is a company out of Europe. I don't really know how that one happened. I mean, I know the rep, and then it was just kind of like I was asking him about another company, and he was like, yeah, sure, you can have that one. And have you ever heard of this company called Loop? And I was like, heck, yes, I have. And so I got some of their stuff in. I like their products. I used one of their rods. It actually, the rod that I got from my Loop rod got snapped in half when the guy drove. That was the only rod that broke when the guy drove through the shop was my Loop rod, which that stunk a little bit, but it's okay.

**Marvin Cash (47:07):**
Well, there you go. You also carry Reilly Rods, right?

**Ethan Martin (47:09):**
Yep. That was the next one I was getting to. That's the local stuff. I like that one too. That's Chuck Kraft. I've got his whole lineup in here, which is the smallmouth. That's the golden ticket right there for casting a lot of the bigger flies that we throw, especially, you know, like Clawdads, that sort of thing. So I've got Reilly Rods and I think with on the reel game, you know, it's like, three, Tan, Loop, make some pretty sweet reels. A couple of others. So Maxon Outfitters, which is a newer company too. And they sell a lot of the affordable equipment, that sort of stuff. So I'm still working on beefing up lines, lines being mainly reels right now because I'm pretty happy with my rod selection from Reilly to TNT to Syndicate Rods as well which is more of my I own, I've got a Syndicate Pipeline Pro too that's a like a European style nymphing rod and I've used that rod a whole lot and I like it a lot.

**Marvin Cash (48:13):**
Well that's really good and you've got some Umpqua stuff over there too don't you?

**Ethan Martin (48:17):**
Yeah so I've got Umpqua, Falling Male and yeah I like my shop. I got Broden Nets you know like. So it's been cool because, Smith sunglasses. It's been cool because I feel like my shop is like me. Loon you know like stuff that I am I've always used or always like admired or liked and then somehow it worked out that they wanted to do business with me.

**Marvin Cash (48:41):**
Well, that's awesome. And so you do your tying classes every other Thursday. So do you have one this week?

**Ethan Martin (48:52):**
Yes. And so for people to know this week is the 27th, is what it's going to be? Yeah. So if you know, then that basically every other Thursday from the 27th of June. And what time are they?

**Ethan Martin (49:05):**
It's from seven to eight 30 at night. We meet at the shop and I set up a camera to my TV. So we pretty much, if you are brand new at fly tying, if you've been tying for, you know, 180 years, you can come. I wheel the aisles out of the way, set up chairs in the whole shop and we have a lot of spouses that'll come to learn to tie with their husband. And that's been pretty cool too, because, you know, I think one of the things too is there's been a fair amount of women that are looking to get into the sport, which is really cool. And tying as well. I've had a couple of people who want to learn to tie, don't care about fishing. They just, you know, they're used to quilting and stuff like that. And they were like, I've always, I saw my grandfather do this. I want to give it a go. We always have free decaf and cookies. You can bring whatever you want to drink, but I don't want to mess with all that licensing stuff. So I just say I bring decaf.

**Marvin Cash (49:59):**
There you go. Do you need to register ahead of time or can you just show up?

**Ethan Martin (50:02):**
No, just show up. So you just show up. You can bring yourself, bring your spouse, bring your kids. It doesn't matter. And we just hang out and tie. And if we, I've got loaner gear in the shop. So if you have nothing, you know, you can show up. It's a free event. And then we open up the shop afterwards. So like if you want to get a tying kit after, or buy a vise, or buy a vise. Yeah, you're good to go. We've had people do that. So, yeah, that's one of the other cool things has been on the business side of stuff. Everybody's like, why don't you charge for this event? It's like, because I want it to be free. That's not going to change. I want people to get into fly tying, not just because I'm being a selfish businessman, but because I got into it for free. An older guy paid for me to get into fly tying, and now here I am. So that's one of the little things that I can give back and help people understand. And I'm all for that, teaching people how to tie flies or fly fish or you name it.

**Marvin Cash (51:05):**
Well, that's really cool. And I know that you don't officially run guide trips out of your shop, but I know that you have guides that are affiliated with your shop. So who are some of the guides that are affiliated with TaleTellers?

**Ethan Martin (51:15):**
So my good buddy, Matt Miles, would be the first one. He's who I send or tell everybody about. That's the first one if they're looking for, to catch smallmouth or he does musky on the fly trips, a lot of trout trips. So Matt Miles is the first one that I send people to. And then if you're looking for something out in the Bay, there's Chris Siess is the guy, like I said, I just went with him yesterday. There's a couple other like local guides too, that if somebody is in a bind and, you know, Matt's tied up, then I'll send them to them too. Guy Sam Scott with Blue Ridge Musky. If somebody just wants to catch a musky and Matt's booked up and they don't care if they catch it on the fly or on gear, Sam and Brent, they'll put them on musky. So that's kind of been, and then Matt Riley. So my philosophy with the shop has been I'm just one man, so I can't do everything. And I can't, I don't feel comfortable guiding, especially, like, I'm not going to guide right up Matt Miles' area, you know? Like, he lives like 15 minutes from here, and I'm good friends with him. So, I'm not interested in doing that. I'm interested in the retail teaching side of things. That's where my vein is. I've taught people how to fly fish, not for money, but a fair amount of times. And so, where I'm at is I just like being friends with the local guides, push them, give them business. Then they send their clients back to me if they're trying to gear up or anything like that. And I'm happy with that. The guides are happy with that. And so that's one of the interesting things about my shop is, you know, and you could say, well, it's just because you don't have a very big shop. But, yeah, that might be true right now. But, yeah, I don't have any guides in the shop that's like, you know, if you call me up tomorrow and say I want to fish the James River, I can tell you exactly, you know, where you can fish the James River, what flies, what gear. I can hook you up with one of the guides. But it would be unlikely that I would take you, if that makes sense. Because somebody has to run the shop. And if it's not me, it's because we're three months old, you know.

**Marvin Cash (53:34):**
No, dude, I completely, I've got it. So I know you've got some new manufacturing lines that will be coming in soon that you're kind of going to keep on the hush-hush. But what's your vision for TaleTellers Fly Shop in five years? You know, if you fast forward in five years, what do you want the shop to look like and be like?

**Ethan Martin (53:54):**
Bigger. So right now we're in about 650, 700 square foot space, depending on if you view the bathroom as being square footage. But, yeah, it'll be in downtown Lynchburg. But bigger. That's kind of my thing is I like the outfitter. So when I say outfitter like clothing to me doesn't really get me going you know I'm not like I may have a shop filled with clothing, that's cool. A lot of shops are like that, that's fine. It's just not my style. I like having pretty gear heavy shop, lots of fly tying stuff, lots of flies, that sort of thing. So you know if we're talking five years it'll probably be bigger location in downtown with a whole lot more flies and whole, like a lot more product and then the other side of things too that I'm still kind of floating around because like I said I'm one of like the dreamer fellows is doing more of the like destination trips with people. So like you know for example, well so this is just one of the funny things. I always thought it was funny that people did destination trips and they always go like halfway around the globe and it always costs like 20 grand or like or you know super expensive so I'm still floating around with the idea of like doing destination trips so like my shop or people who would just sign up on the list, pay the money, we go to places that are closer to home, more affordable for the everyday people like there's some really great streams in Pennsylvania, really good stuff in Tennessee, do a trip out to Montana. So stuff like that, that people here in Lynchburg or like just logo to Virginia or whoever can tag along. Like do it, if somebody wants to go on a trip to the Amazon, then I come up with Matt Miles, you know, cause he does that every year, Belize, he does that every year. So like for me that's kind of where I would like to point towards in the future is just doing stuff for sort of both branches so like people who really just want to hang out with other fly fishers and go fish out of a drift boat, we can all go down to the South Holston and run a trip down there and I wouldn't be guiding because you have to have you know fancy licenses and things for that in Tennessee. But go with a guide group that's down there. So that sort of thing is what I'm more interested in in the future. And then just having a lot more product, a lot more outdoor product too. That's another thing. I'm still floating around with the idea. But even if I get into tents or stuff like that, that's like outdoor gear that fly anglers, we can take it up to Shenandoah National Park. Or, you know, if it is your everyday guy who comes in who's just looking for quality outdoor materials and stuff, then he can get that too. But it would always be TaleTellers Fly Shop geared towards fly fishing.

**Marvin Cash (57:07):**
Got it. Well, before we go, why don't you let folks know, one, where you're located, when you're open, and where to find you on the internet.

**Ethan Martin (57:14):**
All right. So we are located at 920 Commerce Street, downtown Lynchburg. So we're one street off of Main Street. A lot of people come here to downtown. They stay in the Craddock Terry. It's this huge hotel. It's got a red boot out front, or I guess it's a high heel or something. But there's a lot to do in downtown. There's bike trails, walking trails, the river's close, a very close walking distance, a lot of places to eat. And that's another thing I always tell people. When they come in the shop and they're visiting, it's like, where are you going to eat? So a lot of cool places to eat. I'm friends with a lot of the downtown business owners in the downtown. There's a business association here. It's been really cool watching it grow. And so that's where we are physically located. We are open right now, Tuesday through Saturdays. So we are closed Sundays and Mondays for right now. And again, that's just because it's just me and I like fishing. So I spend Sundays with my family and Mondays I fish. And that's been pretty much my vibe because I like to still stay on top of things. And it's easy, too, since the James is right there. I can just walk down to it and fish the James in the afternoon or morning. And then if you're looking online for stuff, you can find us at TaleTellersVA.com, which is our website that's got a lot of the rods that we carry, the fly lines, rods, reels. I'm still getting the tying equipment up. Stuff like that, tying equipment or little tiny odds and ends, I don't have up just yet online. But you can always call the shop too. You can find the number online if you just type in TaleTellers Fly Shop or it's 434-818-2007. So I'm sure anybody would hear or remember that. But now they will since I said that.

**Marvin Cash (57:14):**
Well, and I'll drop it in the show notes too.

**Ethan Martin (57:14):**
Oh, that'll work too. Yeah. So yeah, that's all the places you can find me. I do a lot of stuff on the Instagram machine. I like taking pictures. So that's TaleTellersVA, which is just like TaleTellers Virginia, in case you were wondering what the VA, not you, but anybody else. So, yeah, that's pretty much where I'm, if you are looking to find the most common updates, Instagram is the way to go for me because I've got a Facebook page too, but it seems to be like most of my interactions were like, if you send me a message or an email, I'll respond to it. I mean, I've responded to some dumb things. But I usually always like to respond. So, yeah, you can always send me a message if you're looking for a place to fish in Virginia. You can send me a message. If I don't know the answer, I find the answer. I'm that kind of person. It's like, I just never liked it when somebody just said, hey, this is where you should fish. So that's what I do. I'll ask other people and say, this person is talking about possibly fishing in this area. Where should they go? Or stuff like that. So, yeah, you can always send me a message. Anyway.

**Marvin Cash (01:00:22):**
Well, that's awesome. And, Ethan, I appreciate you spending time with us. And, folks, I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I enjoyed bringing it to you. And if you like the podcast, do me a favor. Leave us a review in iTunes and subscribe in the podcatcher of your choice. Tight lines, everybody.

**Ethan Martin (01:00:37):**
Bye.

**Marvin Cash (01:00:37):**
Bye.