S2, Ep 114: All Things Game Changer with Blane Chocklett

Marvin Cash: Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, I'm joined by my good friend, Blane Chocklett. As many of you know, the release of Blane's long-anticipated book, Game Changer, is right around the corner. Blane shares how he developed the Game Changer platform and the journey of writing his first book. I think you guys are really going to like this interview.

But before we get to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items. If you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a review in the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out.

And a shout out to this episode's sponsor. We want to welcome a new sponsor to The Articulate Fly family. This episode is sponsored by our friends at Steelhead Alley Outfitters. Steelhead season will be here before you know it. If you're going to chase steelhead in the Lake Erie tribs, you need to do it with the guys at SAO. Spots are going fast, so head on over to steelheadalleyoutfitters.com and get set up today. Now onto our interview.

Well, Blane, welcome back to The Articulate Fly.

Blane Chocklett: Glad to be back, man.

Marvin Cash: It's great to have you. And what a difference a year makes. It seems like forever since we were at Ballast Point Brewery in Daleville. How's the fishing season been treating you?

Blane Chocklett: Yeah, it does seem like forever, like the year that never ends. It's been different. It's been a different world for sure. I went from having the best musky season starting last winter, late November through March being the best musky season I've ever had. Not only with numbers, but big fish. We had nine first cast catches, which is pretty ridiculous. Just one cast and caught one.

You might have even been a part of that, if I'm not mistaken. If that was this year, it's been such a long year. I can't remember if that was this year or not.

Marvin Cash: I think it was. I think it was technically last year, but it was close enough to this year that I think we should count it.

Blane Chocklett: Yeah, right after Christmas, right? Yeah. That's what I consider. So right after that, the whole pandemic hit. I got off a flight from Cleveland, doing a clinic up there and a talk at a shop and a group up there, and they closed down everything. So I got home about in the nick of time, I guess. And I've been fortunate that I didn't get caught up in all that mess.

Since then, fishing's been up and down. It's been such a strange year. I've had some incredible fishing, but I've also ran into some of the toughest smallmouth fishing I've ever had in my guiding career. That's a whole other topic for another time. But it's been good, man. I've had some super big fish and had some drought too. But that's part of the game.

All in all, I can't complain. Family's healthy, everybody's good. I've been blessed to have a lot of good clients check up on us. All in all, can't complain.

Marvin Cash: Absolutely. And I guess on a more positive note, I know you've been working on your Game Changer book for a long time and it's coming out soon. What's the release date?

Blane Chocklett: The official release date is mid October. I think November 1st is going to be the hard date, because I think the folks are supposed to be in the warehouse based on Jay, my editor, saying mid November. He's not giving me an exact date. He's saying it's kind of October 15th, but the hard date's going to be the 1st of November.

So we did launch the pre-sale and that's been going well. I've been super happy to finally have that behind me. I'm looking forward to seeing it. It's been a long journey. A lot of it's been put aside because of life and all that kind of stuff. So it's been a lot longer than what Jay would definitely want to spend on a book. But that being said, it's finally done. But there's also going to be a sequel to it. We can talk about that a little bit later as well.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And so you mentioned pre-orders. What's the best place for folks to go to if they want to kind of get in the line? Because I've seen stuff particularly from Flymen, where there are opportunities to get the book, get the book signed, get the book with Game Changers, all sorts of good stuff. Is that the best place for folks to go?

Blane Chocklett: Yeah, Flymen is definitely a partner. I have other partners. Renzetti is going to be a distributor of it. Carolina Dublin is going to be a distributor of it. Flymen's been obviously a big partner with a lot of the materials we come out with, like the shanks and obviously the selling of the flies and all. But yeah, Martin definitely over at Flymen's been a big part of it.

Of course other fly shops all over have been super supportive. Schultz up in Michigan, Schultz Outfitters, Mad Rivers, they're on board. There's a slew of friends out there in the industry. Part of being in it so long, like 30 years of being in the fly industry. So you form a lot of good relationships, and it's a small world. So super thankful and blessed to call a lot of people in this industry friends.

So Costa, Yeti, everybody's been behind it. TFO, everybody. But Flymen really kind of been super into it and super supportive of it and wanting to help out. Of course, if they want to get it directly from me, they can email me as well. So there's a slew of ways to do it. But definitely Flymen has kind of been on the cutting edge and kind of hopped on it first thing with pre-orders.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. So what I'll do is I'll drop links to all that stuff in the show notes. And I've been talking to you for a long time. I mean, I can't even remember the first time we met each other. And I know that the Game Changer book was a long time in the oven. What was the writing and editing process like for you, Blane?

Blane Chocklett: It's kind of funny. For me, writing is a means to an end, really. It's not something I'd love to do, but once I sit down and start doing it, I do actually enjoy that process because it teaches me a lot about what I do. And sitting down with Jay Nichols, my editor, he pretty much had to realize quite a while ago that if we're going to get the book done, he was going to have to come hang out, stay a couple nights at my house or me come up, stay with him. Or we go somewhere in a cabin and just kind of lock me in for a couple days just to get some progress done. Because he knew if he left me alone, I was just not going to do it. And he knows me.

So I guess that creative side of me, it's kind of hard for me to stay organized and stay focused on one thing. Like, I'll get going on it and next thing I know, I'm thinking about a fly or something and kind of lose track of the book. So there was a lot of droughts on that and me not doing anything on it.

So Jay stepped up and said, look, man, we're going to do this together, and you're going to do the best book that you can, and I'm gonna make sure we get it done. We're gonna – it's not gonna come out until it's right. And that being said, Jay is an unbelievable editor, but Lefty always considered him and Nick Lyons the best editors he's ever worked with. And Jay's track record would speak loudly that he's worked with the best in the industry.

But one of the great things about what Jay does is he teaches you how to write. I'm not a writer. I just have the information. But he also brings out stuff in you that you may not really connect on what you're trying to do when you're designing flies. And Jay has his way of bringing things out. Why are you doing this? He asks you questions that you answer and then that's kind of how he helps writers, fly anglers become writers.

So Jay's background is he was the editor of Fly Fisherman magazine before Ralph Cornell took over. And he's worked with Stackpole Books for years. And he has his own publishing company too, called Headwater Books.

And the other thing about it is Jay and I – Lefty set this whole thing up. He invited me and my wife Christy up to his house because he wanted to share some stuff with me. And his whole thing behind that was to get a book written. And he invited Jay to have lunch with us, which I didn't know anything about. He just told me, we're having lunch with Jay Nichols and you're gonna have a book contract by the end of lunch. That's how the whole process started.

And in the process of that too, Jay and I become really close friends. He was either going to do that or kill me. So what we did do though, not to ramble on, I had so much information, they decided to break the book down into two books. So the first one is basically going to be streamer style or baitfish imitations. Both of them are probably going to be called Game Changer. I don't think we're going to change the name of the second, the sequel to the book. But the second one is going to be basically a lot of the other patterns that I've had over the years just wasn't enough room to be a 6, 700 page book. So Jay thought it'd be best to kind of break it up in the different parts.

The second book would be Critters and Crustaceans and other stuff like that. So the book now is going to be the process of the Game Changer. How the development of the Gummy Minnow, the T-Bones, all this stuff kind of preceded the Game Changer and kind of built on the whole process of learning what, how to make a fly swim like a real fish and creating these triggers that causes fish to want to attack your offering or not.

Marvin Cash: Got it. And so that's really cool. And I think I've seen on Instagram some of the flies are probably going to end up in the second book. So when you were envisioning writing Game Changer, who did you want to write it for?

Blane Chocklett: Who did I want to write it for?

Marvin Cash: Like your audience? Like, is it for...

Blane Chocklett: Yeah, yeah. So for me, this book is obviously my life's work in the fishing game. Because everything I've learned is based on observations on the water and on a positive or negative on how fish react to what you throw at them. So for me, I think this book will definitely work for anybody that's into fishing or tying. It doesn't have to be just a tier folk because we do talk a lot about my thought process on predatory and prey and how I fish things. It could be anything from water clarity, ambient light, and all these on the whole process of how you would go into the game of predator hunting.

So I would say this book would be for anybody that's into fishing, fly fishing especially, obviously. But it's not just for fly tiers. I think it would definitely be very helpful for someone that didn't quite understand the predator prey aspect. And in my opinion, I think anybody that ties flies has a leg up on the others just because it helps them understand the whole process of how it all works. Because what happens with the tier, they have to learn the food item in the given water that they're going to be fishing. And by doing that, they also have to understand how the predator responds to that prey offering, whether it may be a nymph or a midge or a crayfish. Could be a shrimp or a crab, or obviously in this book it's baitfish.

So that whole process, to me is going to be beneficial to anybody that's interested in hunting predators and how you can up your game in that whole process.

Marvin Cash: No, that's really awesome. That makes a lot of sense. And you were talking earlier. I mean, you've been in the sport for 30 years and not only have you done that, you've done it at a high level. And you've gotten the opportunity to spend a lot of time with some of the greats in our sport. Who are some of those folks. And how did they influence your evolution as a tier?

Blane Chocklett: Oh, man. Yeah, I've been really blessed on that whole thing. I mean, when I was young teenager, the first people I saw and I admired were Flip Pallot and Larry Dahlberg. And here in the past seven, eight, nine years, I got to know Larry really well. We got to spend quite a bit of time together. Not as much here in the past couple of years. But seeing Larry hunt for big fish when I was in my teens, opened my eyes to the whole predator game there, because I remember seeing him going all over the world targeting these giant fish, not only on conventional tackle, but on fly. And it just really intrigued me at that point.

And then getting a chance to meet him and then I'm not ever going to compare myself to Larry because I think he's the fishiest person I've ever met. Definitely a true legend. I think it's probably underappreciated at this point. I think I don't think a lot of people realize how unbelievable Larry is in his mind and how he thinks about fish and predators and prey and his ability to be able to create stuff like all the different lures he's created and a lot of the flies, the Dahlberg Divers, iconic and all that. But being at a young age is very inspiring to see him targeting these fish and then seeing him catch a musky on a fly, I'm like, well, I have that in my backyard.

So Larry was a big part of that whole process. And then obviously the best show I think ever was Walker's Cay Chronicles with Flip Pallot. And here in recent years, I've got to know Flip really well and always admired him and he's just got this coolness about him and he always. His shows were just unbelievably well written. And obviously the way Flip would spin it and make his shows about the people he had on the boat with him and in the cinematography, the whole thing just made it something like, I want to do that for the rest of my life.

And then just being able to meet him finally and spend time with him, especially here in the past two years has been unbelievable. But the person that's helped me more than anybody, and not just fishing with Lefty, I mean, he helped cultivate my career. He helped guide me in the right spot which has paid huge dividends with this whole new world we live in now.

He always told me not to put all your eggs in one basket. If you're going to do something in the fishing world, you need to have five or six things that you can make money at when one or two or three are not going to make money for you at that time. So he helped teach me how to diversify and get me obviously into this book.

And obviously, somebody as a fly tier that's inspired me more than anybody is Bob Popovics. I mean, he's the greatest flytier that's ever lived and innovator too. So Bob is someone I've looked up to for 25 years, 28 years of being in the tying part of the sport. Been guiding for 30 years, but I think I first met Popovics probably about 26 years ago.

And there's that whole thing of me tying the Gummy Minnow and taking it to him down at Harker's Island and showing it to him at this party. And him introducing me to Lefty, which started this whole life change that I've had over my career. But Bob Popovics been an unbelievable friend and he's always had my back and he's always allowed me to bounce ideas off of him. He's always had time for me, just like everybody I've mentioned.

And another one's Bob Clouser. I mean, Bob has kind of been the same type of guide that I've been, warm water species, smallmouth bass. There's not a better classroom, in my opinion, to be a fly angler than targeting smallmouth bass on the east coast. Because you have clear water, you can see what the fish does positively or negatively to what you throw at them. And it's an unbelievable classroom. And Bob has always been super helpful.

So I've had an unbelievable career as far as falling into the right place and meeting the right people. And that's what made these guys so great is they always want to help. Lefty always wanted to help. I've never seen Lefty turn anybody down. Even though he'd be dead tired, he would always have time for everybody. And all these guys I mentioned is so they just want to share their knowledge, and that's one of the things that Lefty always preached.

So I try to do that too. So following their footsteps is really important. And Larry always would say you stand on the shoulders of those who come before you. You're not standing on their coattails. And it's true. I mean, I always wanted to tell them how much I appreciate them letting me hang out and learn from them, but they understood it. And as I get older, I do too. And it's super important to share what you know, don't hold back, because the future of our sport are the people coming into it. So we got to continue to help make this sport grow by teaching and sharing what we know. So I guess that's part of why this book come out as well.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And I know we mentioned you touched on this a little bit earlier. I know you've got a special relationship with Martin Bawden at Flymen Fishing Company. Can you talk a little bit about how the fishing tying problems you were trying to solve kind of intersected with Martin's vision for fly tying and how that helped you evolve your tying?

Blane Chocklett: Sure. I was always playing around at my tying desk, doing different stuff, trying to create the whole thing with the Gummy Minnow and the evolution of that and how that kind of was the predecessor to the Game Changer. And really they all are because they. And that's what the book talks about. So it talks about where I started and then where I am now and the whole process of trial and error to how all this stuff was stair stepping to where it is.

And during that process, I met Martin at some shows over the years and saw some of the stuff he was doing. And it kind of goes back full circle. Lefty wanted me to come hang out with him when he was going to be in Virginia and Martin was going to be coming as well and staying in a cabin in Mike Smith's place. And that kind of started the whole process with Martin.

And Lefty said we should work together because he saw how Martin was trying to be bringing new products to the fly fishing industry and how I was kind of stuck and not being able to – the big thing with a lot of the stuff is I had all the ideas, but I didn't have the means to get them done. I'm not a great business person. I love fishing, I love the whole process of creating and all that, but I don't have that business mind. And I understand where my flaws are, where my limitations are.

So Lefty being who he was always would try to help and saw opportunity for both of us. So he just thought we should connect and we did. And I shared a bunch of ideas with Martin over that time and we, it just kind of formed that relationship. I gave him the ideas and he had the means of getting them done. That's kind of the short answer to that. I mean we could talk about that for a long time.

But I really like how Martin kind of didn't want to stay in the same box that our industry was kind of in. It just was kind of stagnant. And there wasn't – not saying there wasn't great innovations, but it just wasn't seeing anything that was outside the box thinking totally.

So during that process with Martin, I'm like, I have all these ideas, I just don't have a way of getting them done. And I feel like the big thing is with this industry is it's such a small industry where you try to go to big companies that are outside the fishing industry. They want a half a million dollars or a quarter of a million dollars to even think about making something.

So Martin being who he is, he had ways of making things happen. And I totally appreciate how Martin can make things, how I give him the ideas and he can bring them to fruition. And the whole thing with the whole fly that we're doing now, I mean, the Game Changers that he's producing are as good as I can do. And if they're not as good as mine, they're right below it. And they're so good that I don't feel like I have to tie my own flies anymore.

And when I went with him on that whole fly game, like, Martin, I want you to make my flies, but the whole deal is I don't want to have to make them anymore. I want to be able to call you up, need another dozen white finesse changers or whatever. And I just want to make sure that they perform the way I want them to perform. And he has made that happen, and I couldn't be more proud of that.

And so I don't think people really know who Martin is. I think he has a vision, and I couldn't be more excited to be working with him because he is a go getter and he's in it for the right reasons, I feel like. And he loves the innovation, he loves making fishing easier. And that's kind of what it is. With this whole progression of making the sport better than what it was when you started, and that's kind of how Lefty and Popovics and Dahlberg and all these great people that I haven't mentioned, Dave Whitlock of the world, all these anglers, they've always brought something to the sport. They got it better than it was when they first got there. And that's kind of what everybody's trying to do now, and that Martin and I are just trying to make our little niche and make the sport a little bit better.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And speaking of that, I mean, I can't imagine that people that are going to listen to this don't really understand kind of one of the core things about Flymen, but I'll just say it, because I have a kind of a question I want to ask you about it. The biggest thing I think that Martin does is he takes a lot of the drudgery out of tying more complicated patterns. In the sense of, like, in the early days, you were literally in your garage with bolt cutters, cutting, making your own shanks. Right. So.

Blane Chocklett: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, Right.

Marvin Cash: So you go from that. And you and Martin work together and like, well, now we have a way to do this that's easy and scalable. And I was really kind of curious about that ability to get kind of base materials that work the way you wanted them to more easily, how that kind of helped the path for developing the Game Changer.

Blane Chocklett: Sure, yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, I had wire cutters and all that kind of stuff, and that whole process of having to do that and then make a fly, it just makes the whole process longer, more tedious. Not as exact, and things. For me, I'm not a production tier, and I just don't have more of that creative mind, and I do not enjoy production tying.

So for me to sit there and have to do shanks and all that kind of stuff, I would lose my inspiration of tying before I even got started because I had to spend so much time doing that before I could sit down and tie. And I would say, the average person doesn't have enough time to do what they want anyway. So if you have to do all these things or you can sit down and make a fly, that's going to take a while to make anyway, especially the Game Changer platform. Time is money. So it's – you just – I needed a shorter process.

Martin was definitely the man. He could get it done and make it affordable, too. So one, it shortens the whole process. We tried to make it as easy as possible for people to be able to get into it and not break the bank as well, and that's another thing I like about it. It's – we're making things that are affordable, making it a lot easier, with even with stuff that I'm not doing directly with Martin with, like, with his foam popper heads. Those are all great products that do a lot of different things that can make flies a lot easier to tie if you're into tying. But that also makes they last. That's the other thing.

So there's a lot of positives that Martin and I've tried to think about when we're designing these things. It's like, how can we make the process better? And that goes, kind of goes with the shanks, the micro shanks that we came out with this year. Taking that triangular platform in the back versus the circular, it shrinks the gaps in between the sections, which helps eliminate the gaps when people are tying the fly. It also makes the fly swim a little bit easier because it comes straight up and down versus kind of going around a circle to get on point in plane or in line with the vertebrae.

So there's a lot of little tweaks that we're doing and playing around with. And that's the cool thing about having that kind of freedom with a company that Martin has made. He's the right size that – you get going and get too big. It takes too many people to talk to to get anything done. So Martin's the guy that gets it done. And unfortunate thing, we don't have five or six Martins running around. That's the only limitation he's got. Too many jobs and not enough time to do them all.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that's really been interesting to me, particularly as I've interviewed guides and tiers that are outside of the trout world, is how much gear fishermen have influenced what they want to do with the vise. How has that impacted your evolution as a tier?

Blane Chocklett: Huge. And Larry Dahlberg was a big example of that, and his lure making, not just his iconic flies he designed years and years ago, but it's his lures like Mr. Wiggly and his Wide Glide. And he's got countless other lures. And being involved with the soft plastic companies and stuff that he's worked with, all that stuff as a guide. Early on in my career, was eye opening on how fish reacted to these lures.

And I mean, that was kind of the premise or genesis to the Game Changer. I mean, the Gummy Minnow was my first attempt to make a soft plastic style fly that would swim and act like a real fish, like kind of like a fluke or a Senko or any of these other soft plastic baits. So that failed miserably as far as the swimming action. But it looked. And it had the durability, and it definitely looked like the real thing.

So I can definitely speak for a bunch of other tiers out there that the conventional side of things is a big stepping stone as a designer, and especially in the predatory prey type of thing, because those actions that they've created, whether it be jerk baits or crankbaits or soft plastic and have these incredible triggering mechanisms built into those lures that fish absolutely love.

So seeing all that early on in my career made me appreciate how important that is, and we had talked prior about Harrison Steeves and Steve Hiner and being on the Jackson River when I was 16 years old and or 15 years old and seeing how important flies were and how fish on your success rate was, and so I had an open mind early on.

And the fact that Larry had his show, one day, one week he'd be fly fishing, or next week he'd be throwing conventional lures, or he might do both. Like, this is how I'm doing it on conventional. Let's see how they react to fly. So that was – that was huge. Like I said, Larry. Larry was that guy that. He's the crossover guy. That's really been a huge inspiration of mine and someone I've always tried to emulate, my career by. Because I feel like if you're good at all aspects of fishing, it just makes you that much more of a complete angler.

So if you know how to throw bait casters and throw jerk baits and be able to walk the dog with different baits, you can always bring whatever you see there and try to start incorporating that into design. And it may not work out exactly the way you want, but you learn from it. And that's kind of the whole process that I've been going through my whole tying career, is learning what works and what doesn't work, and just learn from it.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's interesting too. And I mean, I guess maybe starting with kind of the what I would consider to be some of the earlier articulated fly designs, like circus peanuts and things like that. It seems to me that realism and fly tying has really exploded over the last ten years or so. What do you think's been driving that change in fly tying?

Blane Chocklett: I would say, for one, social media, it's driven a lot of it. There's so much information out there now, and people are fishing all over the world, different places. And the whole predator game has exploded more. So people have kind of not saying that. I mean I love trout, always will, but and you could do the same thing with trout, man. You could turn a trout instead of eating a size 28 midge, you can take that same fish and turn it into the predator it is and have it eat a 10 inch streamer. So it's all dependent on conditions and you fish the conditions.

And for me, I would say that people have had their eyes open with all the magazines like Fly Fisherman magazine and all the videos that are out there on YouTube and the other magazines like The Drake and all these media genres have created a storm where people are traveling. The Oliver Whites, Yaks, all these people, Christian, they're all going all over the planet and catching these epic fish that people like Larry and Lefty were doing years ago. It's just, it's more available to people and there's no doubt that people like Kelly Galloup, like you mentioned, his streamer book, I don't know how old it's been now. The one he created, he came out with years ago, that kind of helped start it.

But and then you have the whole musky scene that's been going pretty strong for the past seven, eight years. It's just more information out there and people are realizing now more than ever before that all these things can be done. But like I said, people like Lefty and Dahlberg and Flip and Clouser and Popovics and people like Jake Jordan, catching a bunch of marlin on fly, giant marlin. I mean, that's crazy.

All this stuff has been kind of coming and it's a big tidal wave. It's just starting to crest now, and I'm lucky to be riding that wave. Just like a lot of other people that are in this industry right now. It's a real exciting time to see all these giant predatory fish, like arapaima and even these whale catfish. I mean all this crazy stuff out there that, I mean, several hundred pound fish are being caught on fly readily now. To catch a musky on a fly now is not a big thing. 10 years ago it was unheard of.

Marvin Cash: Yeah.

Blane Chocklett: So it's just a wave that I think media that's played a big role in. But it's kind of a lot of things. It's all the hard work that all these legends that come before us have laid the foundation for. And now we're kind of picking that torch up and running with it. What they given, they've given us.

But also the media and all the technology and all the new products that are coming out, I mean, all this kind of stuff in the fly lines and the rods, all of it, the reels, all of this stuff has made it easier to target stuff like that now too. And then some of it also is due to the conventional world and people having more of an open mind than what they did years ago. And fly fishing is not a snobby sport anymore. It's turned into more of a hip thing. And people are excited about it and they're seeing that they can go on vacation different exotic places and enjoy it.

Not only that, but there's a lot of really cool fisheries in your back door that you, and fish species that a lot of people don't, they never think about. And during this whole thing we've got going on now, that's something I've really been focusing on and spending a lot of time in my home state and targeting fish species that I'd never really fished for before, much that I always wanted to.

And it's an amazing deal. So, I mean, kind of rambling on about it, but it's. There's just so many different, I guess, points that you could cover that that's causing this to kind of tidal wave that we're having with this explosion of predator prey, streamers and whatnot. No, it's just a perfect storm of a variety of different things, really.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And I know for you, trying to figure out the strike triggers is really important for the way you fish and how you want to be effective on the water. How do you think this big push into realism kind of translates into strike triggers?

Blane Chocklett: Okay. Yeah. So for me, the movement is going to get this fish to your offering first. So if it doesn't have the right movement, they're not going to pay that much attention to it. But the last thing that – and I was taught this early on in fly fishing from trout and midges and nymphs and dry flies and all that. The last thing before a predator of any type does, before they eat it, is it the food source that I normally eat.

All that has, can be amplified based on water clarity, ambient light, all that kind of stuff. So the clearer the water, the more realistic it needs to be. The longer they have to look at it, the more realistic it needs to be. So on the other side of that, the dirtier, the darker, it's more about movement and it doesn't have to be as realistic, but if you can combine realism with triggering movement, you have the best of all worlds. And that's kind of where the lures have always kind of beat the fly deal.

On the streamer side now we can imitate almost exactly a mayfly nymph or caddis larva or midge larva. But on the streamer side of things, it was more impressionistic for a long time. There's been a lot of really realistic looking streamers that didn't have a whole lot of movement to them. But adding articulations and having these different materials come available now has really brought that to a next level and it's made the process.

And again, companies like Martin and Flymen Fishing Company, Hairline Dubbing and all these companies source out materials now that makes flies lighter, have more movement and has translucency. And there's a whole thing with too much flash, not enough flash clear. The clearer the water, the less flash, the more realistic. The dirtier the water, the more loud, more you want to make that fly be more obnoxious in the water to get more notice.

So you have a lot of different things you could talk about for a long time on that side of it. But the whole realism thing for me is a deciding factor. Especially a lot of times on a fish of a lifetime. And not only that, but size. I mean it's not always about a 12, 14 inch fly to get a 50 inch musky, sometimes, if the water calls for it, a 6, 7 inch fly works even better.

So a lot of times it's the movement that gets there. But is it the last second? Is it that food source that I, that's going to cause that last trigger to eat it, so yeah, absolutely.

Marvin Cash: And I was able, I think, to kind of look at the table of contents of Game Changer and it seems like it's kind of roughly organized around kind of the four main patterns I think kind of as your tying evolved over time. The Gummy Minnow, the Fly Pala, the T-Bone and the Game Changer. And I was kind of curious if you could kind of walk us through kind of the evolution from the Gummy Minnow, all the way the Game Changer, to kind of let us hear your thoughts on kind of the fishing problems you were trying to solve and kind of how each pattern built on the one before it to get you to kind of the Game Changer platform that you've perfected today.

Blane Chocklett: Sure. The Game Changer is the culmination of all of them. And that, and the reason the book was called that is because all these different flies you mentioned are game changers in a way because they changed how my thought process was on design and it was all based on the water observation.

So guiding early on, some 20 some years ago. The Gummy Minnow, I think is 22 years old now. Something like that. Crazy. I think '98. I believe that's when it hit the market. So the Gummy Minnow was a material that I had to create because there wasn't anything available out there for me to be able to make a fly that I thought was going to swim. Like I saw plastic bait.

I'm not a chemist, but I knew certain people that could help me out. And Harry Steve had a chemistry background. So I had people I could talk to and kind of ask questions on what I wanted to do and all this kind of stuff. So that process was first off was trying to create the movement that those Senkos and those, not Senkos but, back then, flukes, and different soft plastic baits. There's all kinds of different ones at the market. I'm forgetting some of the names, but anyway, that's not important.

But they had the movement, the realism, the profile, the silhouette, all that kind of stuff that caused unbelievable fishing. I mean, when I had a client that would bring a friend that didn't fly fish that put on some of these soft plastics and didn't have to worry about them, that they were going to catch fish whether they fished it right or wrong. It's just the lures did the work for the angler. So that was my goal early on.

The negative to it is that fly performed super poorly on movement. It didn't, it wobbles, but it didn't have that swimming action that I was looking for. But the thing that trig. The big triggering value that that fly had. This is a Gummy Minnow. Was that I could make it as realistic as any fly that's ever been tied. It could exactly mimic a sandeel, a silverside, a bay anchovy, a dace, you name it. I could make it look exactly like whatever baitfish that you wanted to look like.

So you have opportunities out there where fish are sight fishing and like albacore, any type of tuna species. And times for tarpon bonefish. It's been one of the top bonefish flies down in Los Roques. That was the fly for years. Still is, as those fish on the down in Los Roques face key and on glass minnows. And that fly looks just like them.

So even though for me it was a, I thought I looked at that fly as being a failure in a design for me because it did not do what I initially intended it to do. But where it did, where it made up in that is the realism. So I took that process and started playing around with, well, how can I make this move more?

And I played around with having ribbons in there and just, adding fibers, making half the fly look realistic. Another part of it looking, having bucktail or feathers or fur or whatever coming off the back. And you would have a little bit of movement at that point. But I wasn't sold on it.

And then obviously going to the next process, Popovics was doing the silicone clones with his lips and all that kind of stuff. So I just said, I could probably take this concept and make a lip out of this. So I took a hard mono and would tie it in off the front of the fly or the gummy. And then I would take Silly Skin and wrap it around it and then cut it. The outline of the lip of a Rapala. So it's just tying mono off the front, making it a perfect circle and then putting Silly Skin around it to clear. Then you could just trim it to the outline of that circle.

So that was a super quick way of making a lip. Then I had to work, I had to figure out balance and all that kind of stuff. So a guy named Rich Murphy, who wrote an incredible striper book, and he turned me on to some tubing material that he was playing around with that he wasn't super happy with and wanted to see if I was interested in that. So about that time, I was like, yeah, man, I'll play around with it.

So I just took it home with me, started playing around with it. So I tied in and I reverse tie it and then pushed it forward and tied down. And then you create this profile of a baitfish. Then if you wrap Silly Skin around it, it would have the texture of the of a real fish. It would look like a real fish. Put the lip on it, put it on a longer shank or a hook, a long shank hook, and you had a pretty much a fly and that's where the Fly Pala came from.

And I made that fly in the, had that fly in my mind for all summer long, and finally had a chance to tie it when my wife was giving birth to my daughter, 18 years ago. So that's why it was 18 years old, July 16th. It's kind of funny people looking at you bringing a tying kit into your wife's hospital bed while she's giving birth. And she happened to be, she was in labor for a long time. So I didn't have anything else to do while we were just hanging out. So that that fly was born the same time my daughter was. So that's kind of a fly I'll never forget.

But that taught me, long story short, taught me how to start creating movement by adding lips. Popovics kind of brought that idea by doing what he was doing. And then I just kind of took it and made it my own on what I was trying to do. So that taught me a little bit how you had to take surface areas and how that would change how the surface area of a fly, how hollow, how heavy it was in the water.

If it stayed like a solid body, heavy fly wouldn't swim. But having it light in underwater and having airy like having that hollow body and having that lip allowed that thing to really swim. And if you had a tighter, narrower body, would have a tighter wiggle, the wider you made it and have a wider wobble. So that taught me about head design and how head would affect the fly and how it would move.

So taking that same tubing moved into the T-Bone, and the T-Bone is basically taking that body tubing that I did with the Fly Pala hollow and making these spreader dams and then making different size heads with it. And that allowed me to have different swimming actions and then added, using different fibers from bucktail to synthetics and creating, taking another thing from Bob Popovics again and his hollow flies his style and then moving into his Beast Fleyes, creating that giant profile without adding too much bulk where it made it uncatchable.

And just taking that idea and adding the spreader dams with that body tubing and changing the different heads and then figuring out the more water diversions and all that kind of stuff and the larger the head, the more kick and swim that you got. That kept that, and you can make them narrower to get it to have it glide a little bit more. There's all kinds of different things and marrying fibers and changing different stuff that made the flies do stuff.

So that started teaching me how flow and head designs and everything going from there back to the tail affected how the fly would swim. So not just adding a bunch of different materials on the hook and then calling it quits, there was, I had to figure out putting materials in certain places to create the desired action.

And then started playing with multiple wire cutters and playing around with shanks and stuff like that. And there was always the old salmon shanks that I, that Flymen had and that kind of tried to play with those but I didn't like that upturn because that kind of messed with things, so even mess with paper clips in the beginning.

So there's all kinds of stuff. They even tried to try to get articulation by using backing and spider wire and I mean I even used beads back in the beginning where I'd take bead chain and tie materials off bead chain. But it was such a tedious process that made it way too hard for the average person to do. And part of that whole process of designing flies. You want to make it to where it's not a pain. You want to make it to where it can be repeated easily and not like a one time deal where this one works, but the other one don't. Because I could figure out what materials or how it was tied that was making it do what a certain thing.

So all that triggered the thought process of the final thing and the Game Changer. And that's a whole other process in itself of different fibers and materials and adding this and that and taking away things. And that's really what the book is talking about. That whole evolution of all those three flies that lead into the final product, which is the Game Changer platform and taking multiple articulations, multiple shanks, basically a vertebrae and adding fibers to the head and different head shapes and materials being used to create, in my opinion, the ultimate swimming fly with realism and movement.

So it's a whole process and to me, of failures over the years of 20 plus some years of trying to create that perfect, in my mind, that perfect fly to create that trigger of that ultimate predator, that fish of a lifetime to eat on a regular basis. I packed myself in a corner a long time ago targeting fish that don't have to eat and don't like to eat with muskies. So that taught me a lot about fly design and what fish want and don't want.

So taking something like that and taking that on and trying to create a consistent bite because I can control what I do with the fish and the environment that I'm fishing, but I can't control how often that fish gets targeted by other anglers. So you have that whole other thing and that whole process of being able to stay on the cutting edge above what that fish is, getting pressured and getting educated and all that, and then continually to try to evolve the tying and the fly design to kind of keep up with what that fish is going to want based on, they get trained. I mean, they see something enough times, they're not going to eat it again.

So it's just. It's been a fun process, but it's also been, not giving up and getting my butt kicked on a daily basis too. Yeah, I got caught a lot of bad flies, a lot of bad flies.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And I think one of the interesting things, Blane, about the Game Changer, if you kind of think, when I think about gear stuff, a lot of the actions on lures, they're not very versatile. Like, they do one thing right, crank bait, this is here, this is the action. This Rapala has this action. But to me, one of the neat things watching the Game Changer is it's a. The actions with it are really versatile. So, like, I've seen it fished where it scurries. I've seen it fish where you get that T-Bone action where you can make it jackknife. I think it's really neat that you can kind of, particularly given how long it takes to tie one.

Blane Chocklett: Yeah. That's the downfall, right?

Marvin Cash: Yeah. But I mean, it's great, right?

Blane Chocklett: It lasts forever. Yeah, it does. If you don't lose it, no Game Changer left behind. Yeah, I'm gonna have a T-shirt made saying that. Obviously, if you put that time in, man, you're not going to let it go. You're going to go get it.

But you're right. I mean, that was the whole process to try to have a very versatile, realistic swimming action that you can do five or six type of things with it, and. And that is, I don't feel like I'm a cocky person and I'll ever want to be seen that way, but. And that's where I kind of struggling with the name of the fly in the first place. I had friends tell me, I mean, I would always say, man, this is just this, this design is a game changer for me. And they think that's the name you need to name it. And I remember going back and forth with several people. Like, I don't want people to think that, that's not my style.

But I'm glad I did it because it is. It's been a huge, it's been a huge difference in my life. Not just on the water, but off the water too. I mean, it's, that platform and that fly is changed my life for the better. Especially in today's world with everything going on. I mean, like I said earlier, there's so many different avenues that Lefty tried to tell me to do. And just this process of coming out with the flies when we did really saved me when we couldn't guide for three months. I had income coming in from my royalties on my designs, which saved me. It just really did. And so I guess the Game Changer. And it was a definite game changer in my life for sure.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And I think too, I mean, I don't think you can underestimate, you're talking about earlier about, well, you got to decide bright day, sunny day, water clarity. And so you kind of make those decisions. But when you're trying to kind of dial it in on a day in the water and you can put on one streamer that you can. Once you've kind of made that conditions decision.

Blane Chocklett: Right.

Marvin Cash: That you can fish a lot of different ways about how, it's kind of that running yarn with guys. Like, if your fly's not in the water, you're not gonna be catching any fish.

Blane Chocklett: Sure. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. I mean, we ran into that thing past two days guiding for bass. Fish were playing with different colors. You'd have lulls on top. Cicada season here. And we were getting some nice bites on top. And then you had some weather moved through and they just weren't eating on top anymore, so we had to go under.

So we're using different types of Game Changer platforms. Started with the Feather Changer and a white, all white. And we're getting some bites and I'm like, doing this kind of herky jerky movement and kind of darting it around. I'm like, these fish are just not. They're not in a chasing mood.

So I said, look, go to the Finesse Changer in a tan, a real natural look, and you're just going to do a twitch and let it fall for a long time. And then twitch and let it fall. You're really relying on the realism of that Finesse Changer. With that slight twitch, it'll move like a struggling real bait. It'll have that swimming action, but it's like a dying look instead of a runaway.

And that at that point you're keeping the fly in the fish's face and you're letting them study what that fly is doing. So they're getting a very good look at it, but that's what they wanted. They didn't want to chase. And we just started catching fish every couple casts.

So there is a. Like you just said, there's a huge difference on how you can fish them. And that's why there are so many different styles of that fly and it. And you do you fish the conditions and you fish the fishes, how the fish their move. If they don't want to chase, you got to do more of a twitch and die type of deal and just keep it there. Might have to fish it deep and keep it down too. A foot a difference sometimes is getting them to go versus not getting them to go, so there's a lot of different avenues to kind of prospect as you go through a day on the water.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. Are there any fishing puzzles that you're trying to kind of solve right now? Blane fly tying puzzles?

Blane Chocklett: Yeah, there is. So that walk the dog, true walk the dog jerk bait style has been a big deal for me over the years. And I've finally got a fly that, Jerk Changer, because it does still have a little bit of that Game Changer platform, just a little bit of different design to it and it's. I've been playing with a lot this year, a bunch of different species on it. Everything from redfish to largemouth, smallmouth, pike heads, bowfin, and everything stripers.

So it's been fun. That's a fly that in the normal year where you're guiding a lot you just don't get time to sit down and design. And the one thing about this Corona thing is it did give me. It gave me a lot of time with family which I'm very grateful of. But it also allowed me to sit down and my creative juices started flowing and I had time to put things onto the vise itself. That's been on my mind and just wanted to know how it would look and how it would work in the water. Just didn't have the time to get there. And that's one of them.

There's a bunch of other like, the Critter Changers and all that kind of stuff that I've kind of had in the works for a long time. But started releasing some of that because the game, this book. But the streamer side of it is coming out now and then the predecessor of it's going to be more on the critters and the bug side of supply. So just tweaking some of that stuff and I've got some other designs that I'm working on right now that I'm real excited about with Martin. And it's a lot of cool stuff coming down the pipe for sure.

Marvin Cash: Absolutely. And so for your Critter Changer book, is that going to be a next year thing or are you going to probably skip a year and put it out the following.

Blane Chocklett: Yeah, it's probably going to take at least two years to get that finished. We have a lot of it done. Just because we did a lot of the photos and some of the writing of that that's just going to be some fine tuning and adding a couple and figuring out what's going to be in it and what's out and that's part of Jay's job. We just got to kind of narrow it down and get more specific about it and it's going to take probably this year we're going to probably get back on it here in the late winter, early spring, but probably take a little bit of time off here to kind of appreciate what we did. Took so many years to get it done. And hopefully everybody likes it. That's another thing. You put yourself out there. It's not sure if it's gonna be what people expect it to be, so hopefully it will be.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it will be. And kind of speaking about all that stuff, obviously COVID has impacted so many things. Do you have upcoming events to promote the release of the book, or are you kind of waiting to get the book out in the world and kind of see where COVID shakes out?

Blane Chocklett: Yeah, I mean, that's a whole. That's a whole fluid thing, right? In itself, show season. I'm not sure what's gonna happen with all that. That's usually where a lot of books get sold. And you get to meet people and sign books and stuff like that. So I'm kind of bummed that that's not looking real good.

But there's other avenues. I've had some shops reach out, so might do some, like, shop stuff and probably just go by the rules of the states and whatever they've got going on. And like I said, working with all the companies like Flymen and Renzetti and Scientific Anglers and TFO and Patagonia, all those companies, Yeti and Costa, all those companies have really helped me and they've helped promote it. So that's helped the process.

And Fly Fisherman magazine, they're doing a nice piece on it. And so, I mean, they're. It's like I said, having friends in the industry that you've been able to work with over the years, it's really helped in this. This new world. And it's like I said, I mean, other thing is such a small industry too. We all got to be there to help each other get through all this too, right?

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. So if like a club or a shop owner wants to catch up with you, is the best way to reach out to you by email or hit you up on your social media feeds? What's the best way for folks to kind of track you down?

Blane Chocklett: Yeah, email, chocolett@comcast.net or my social media, Blane Chocklett Fishing on Instagram or Facebook.

Marvin Cash: So what I'll do is I'll drop all that stuff in the show notes, and that way, people have one place to go to kind of track that information down. And Blane, I appreciate you carving out a little bit of time to chat with me about this. It's been a lot of fun.

Blane Chocklett: Oh, thanks, man. I always appreciate you having me. And thanks for everything.

Marvin Cash: Oh, dude, my pleasure. Well, listen, you have a great day.

Blane Chocklett: Thank you too, folks.

Marvin Cash: I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you like the podcast, please tell a friend. And please subscribe and leave us a review in the podcatcher of your choice and a shout out again to this episode's sponsor, our friends at Steelhead Alley Outfitters. Remember to go to steelheadalleyoutfitters.com and get set up today. Tight lines, everybody.