S4, Ep 17: Musky and Smallies with Chris Willen

Marvin Cash: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, I'm joined by Wisconsin guide Chris Willen. We discuss paying your dues and all things musky and smallmouth. I think you're really going to enjoy this one, 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 rating and review in the podcaster of your choice. It really helps us out. And a shout out to this episode sponsor—this episode sponsored by our friends at Norvise. Their motto is tie better flies faster, and they produce the only vise that truly spins to see for yourself.

In 2022, the folks from Norvise will be at all of the fly fishing shows and the Texas Fly Fishing and Brew Festival. So if you're in the Denver area on February 11th, 12th or 13th, stop by the Norvise booth at the fly fishing show. If you miss them there, you'll have a chance to catch up in two weeks at the fly fishing show in Pleasanton or the Texas Fly Fishing and Brew Festival in Mesquite. Now on to our interview.

Well, Chris, welcome to The Articulate Fly.

Chris Willen: Well, thanks so much for having me on. I appreciate it.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, I'm really looking forward to our conversation. And we have a tradition on The Articulate Fly. We always ask our guests to share their earliest fishing memory.

Chris Willen: Fishing with my dad probably, maybe not my youngest memory, but the youngest one that I can, or the first time or whatever. But the earliest one that I can remember is probably at my Uncle Bob's cabin, which is up here in northern Wisconsin. It's over in Eagle River and fishing off his dock there for bluegills and perch and all that stuff.

And it was a musky flowage. And so when we got older or whatever, my dad would take me out there and go try to catch them. We never did too well. But that's definitely my first probably, one that I can recall is just being up there in the north woods, just a couple hours from me right now, and over there on the Tamarack flowage.

Marvin Cash: Very neat. When did you move to the dark side of fly fishing?

Chris Willen: I didn't start fly fishing until a lot later in my fishing career, I guess. Later than most might think, being a full time, pretty much fly fishing guide now. I mean, I do conventional tackle as well, like a lot of guys do, but most of my business is fly fishing.

But it was after high school and it was my buddy Tim Fisher kind of got me into it. We went to the same high school. His parents were friends with my parents and stuff. We didn't hang out too much in high school. But after that we ran into each other a few times. And I was talking to him about musky fishing because that's what I was doing, just all the time.

And he was showing me pictures of steelhead and brown trout and stuff like that. And I was like, oh, that's cool. And he's like, well, you should take me musky fishing. And I'm like, well, yeah, take me fly fishing. So we started doing that and trout fishing, stuff like that. And then smallmouth fishing with him out of a drift boat.

And then he's the first guy I caught a musky on a fly with too. So we kind of got into that at a real similar time as well, because we both once we started musky fishing more, we kind of stopped. I stopped going trout fishing and stuff with them, and we just kind of musky conventional tackle fish. And then he brought it to my attention that we could be fly musky fishing. And I was like, okay.

And he got hooked up with a couple guys, did some of it, and then we went and it was just like the first time I saw a musky eat a fly, it like took me out of the game for a complete. For a second, it was just like, wow. They smoked it. It completely ate that thing. Like I've never seen a fish eat a bait, just like smashed it. And I was just really impressed with it and intrigued.

And that day we ended up catching three, which is pretty dang good for your first time ever musky fly fishing, right?

Marvin Cash: Yeah, for sure.

Chris Willen: And from that, from then on, I was pretty hooked, man. And we did it for a couple months straight there. And then the next year, it's all I did. I pretty much moved up north and so I did.

Marvin Cash: And it's been all downhill from there, right?

Chris Willen: Yeah, pretty much.

Marvin Cash: And so you kind of get the bug. You get super turned on to chasing musky on the fly. But there's a bit of a journey from that point to becoming a full time guide. Who are some of the folks that kind of mentored you on that journey?

Chris Willen: Definitely Timmy for sure. Brian Porter for sure, who I worked with. More recent years, Larry Dahlberg for sure. In the last like four or five years, we've been fishing together a lot and opening my eyes to a lot of other things, and it's been a lot of fun.

And Mike Schultz definitely was a big mentor in my guiding and business running. Really good friend of mine and somebody that always tries to help me out. And he'd been in the business longer than me. I met him, met Schultz guiding. He came up to Wisconsin on a trip and that's how I met him. And we just became friends immediately.

And between all those guys and then meeting Blane and various other people throughout the industry, a lot of people, it's hard to even. You don't want to leave anybody out. Jeff Legucky down in Florida and Naples, he's taught me some stuff for sure. And also just someone to talk to about guiding stuff and things. A completely different world, saltwater sight-fishing versus blind casting for muskies all day. Right. But same church, different pew.

Marvin Cash: Interesting. And so as you were kind of completely consumed with chasing musky on the fly, when was that kind of aha moment that you're like, I want to be a musky guide on the fly?

Chris Willen: Well, I kind of always wanted to be a musky guide. I didn't know that it was going to go to fly quite like it did, but I just got ate up with the fly stuff. And it was at a time talking about over 10 years ago where musky fly was kind of newer to the mainstream.

There was guys doing it, but there wasn't like a ton of people doing it. And it was like before Instagram, so it was like you didn't connect with people as quickly either that were also doing it. So there was people doing it all over the place. Facebook was around. I remember I didn't even have a Facebook until all that stuff because it was just like, well, I guess this is a good way to start spreading the word about guiding.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, for sure. And I guess too, I guess Instagram is just such a great way because the flies are so specialized and they're big. Right. It's a great way to kind of for people to share those ideas too.

Chris Willen: Yeah. So I just, it was an interesting time the first few years. Definitely really lean, but a lot of fun. Brian and I fished together a ton. Some other guys in the area too, definitely. And just wouldn't trade it for anything. I definitely didn't have much. Didn't have two nickels. But it's a lot of fun. We do a lot of fishing, a lot of camping, learning the area.

Marvin Cash: So I think you're being a little, I guess polite maybe, or kind of underselling. I mean, you really paid your dues. You want to kind of let some folks know kind of what it was like kind of grinding it out those first few years.

Chris Willen: Well, the first couple years I lived in various spots with my camper. Which was not a great camper by any means, but it was nice. It kept me dry. And it was cool moving it around and living at various places. And sometimes in my buddy's places, depending on where the fishing was.

And then in Tennessee, I lived because I was guiding in Tennessee in the winter for a while there. And I slept at the Towee Factory for a while. Towee Boats Factory. The original Towee Boats Factory. I'm really happy I don't ever have to spend another night. It was like the creepiest building. I've told this story before, but it warrants a couple minutes just because it's kind of funny.

It was creepy. It was a super creepy building. The boats were built on the complete other side. And then I was in more of like the office type area. Right. And like, half the lights didn't work and it would flicker. And there was like all these other empty offices that were super creepy. And you had to walk down the super long hallway where the lights would flicker. It looked like a Saw movie is what I always related it to. Like, I was sure that it was gonna be like a puppet that was gonna murder me at any moment.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, as you were saying that, that's exactly what I was like. Gosh, that sounds like some kind of gothic horror movie.

Chris Willen: Yeah, it was pretty funny. And then Chris Franzen actually lived with me there for a little while. He was another guide who was off in the wintertime. And he was working at Towee helping build boats. And so he was living there for a while too. So that was a little less Saw-like when there was another person there.

And then lived in the back of a fly shop for a while. Schultz Outfitters. Shout out to Greg Seno for making me a bunk bed. And so that was interesting. Definitely never lived in a retail store before for a few months.

See what else? I had another camper that I had in Tennessee. That one was all right. It got broken into one time or animals. I'm not sure what happened to it. I was gone obviously all fishing season up here in Wisconsin. And packed up one night up here, drove down there, drove all day. Take quite a while to get down there, get there pretty late at night I go into my camper and it was sink broken off. All the stains all over the carpet. The worst, like I couldn't even, like I can't describe it as well as like an unattended barn for like months.

Marvin Cash: Oh lord.

Chris Willen: Is what the inside of this 26 foot camper smelled like. And that was fun. After driving all day and then you get down to where you're trying to just pass out and then you have about seven or eight hours worth of cleaning to make that place livable. That was pretty fun. But you know.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, that means you really love chasing musky. Was it the eat that attracted you or what was it exactly that made you really obsess about him?

Chris Willen: I don't know exactly what it is. I think a lot of it equates to maybe when I was a kid like they were unobtainable. I've described it like that before where like you just couldn't catch them when you're a little kid. And I just tried. I tried all the time. Every time I go up to my uncle's place or places around that when I was able to get to them, had muskies and just didn't do that well. Caught pike, the lake I grew up on at pike. So I caught pike my whole life, tons of pike. But the elusive musky, right?

And then you get into high school years, you get your boat and your buddy's got boats and you're traveling around, you're catching them and you start catching me. Start thinking you figured something out, right? Really you haven't figured out much. But it just, I just. Every single one you learn something from, and it's never really easy.

You might have an easy day or a fruitful day where you catch multiple fish or even, I've seen it before, double digit fish. But there's so many days that build up to that day that's so epic. There's so many days where you're just digging the ditch and you're not having any fun, really. You're not catching them, you're not moving them, whatever. But and then it happens, right? And it's just like.

I've done a lot of guiding now. I've done a lot of fishing all over the country. Haven't done very much all. I never left the country. So not very well traveled by any means. But in the fishing circles, it's hard to compare the excitement of someone's first musky or a very large musky getting caught to other fish that I've seen.

People's excitement is different, and maybe I just see it that way through my eyes because I'm so excited about it or it means that much to me. So I project it onto them. I'm not sure, but I think that's part of it. It's just something that just, they're just really cool. I don't know.

Marvin Cash: And so obviously they're hard enough to catch on gear, but why get obsessed and do it on a fly ride?

Chris Willen: At the time it was, it was so new to me and it was so new to a lot of people, and it was new to. This is going to sound funny, but it was kind of new to the fish. And so it was really productive. Like right away we caught a lot, and we continue to catch very good numbers on flies.

And I think it has a lot to do with just the natural approach to that. Like, especially in our shallow waters where we do a lot of our fishing up here in northern Wisconsin and these shallow, rocky rivers, being able to present a fly to them without a big, giant splash of a lure is, there's something to be said for that in certain situations, for sure. I see it.

We had a pretty low water year this year, and our water was really clear. For us now, compared to a southern fishery, clear is a relative term, right? You can go down south and have clear water where it's as clear as the water that's coming out of your sink, but our clear water is kind of more like the clearest pea that you could imagine.

But you'd still see them up on these sand spots or whatever. And it was apparent that they knew that we were approaching them with the boat. It was that low and that clear. And in that situation, that fly, if you can get it out in front of them, or if you can get, you can present that fly to them before they, the jig is up or whatever, they bite it, and it's pretty cool.

And just the act of casting, I think, got me into it too. Just having to learn how to cast the fly rod, especially a 10 or an 11-weight, out of the gate. Because all the fly fishing I had done before that was all kind of nymph fishing, a little bit of dry fly fishing. Hadn't with Timmy, I hadn't done any big streamer fishing. I didn't even do any pike streamer fishing really, before the musky stuff. So the big rod thing was kind of a hurdle to overcome. That was kind of fun, too.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, and do you think it's also maybe obviously they're soft lures on for the gear guys. But also there's a big difference between like, biting into a game changer and biting into a big plug. Right?

Chris Willen: Yeah. Yep. Just different. The plug is just gonna. You gotta move it. It's just. I think that's the biggest difference is just like setting the hook when you got to move a plug in a fish's mouth or a jerk bait or a big rubber bait, versus having to just straight strip set. And that's the biggest disconnect that I honestly see. And the last decade of musky fly guiding is. That's where. That's where everything goes haywire, is when they bite it. And that's where it's make or break time. You either set right or you don't. And you catch them or you don't.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, I've experienced that. And I'm very trouty. And so when you're pulling it and it feels like you're in a brush pile, it's a fish. And you think you're hung up so you don't want to yank, and you're supposed to be pulling line in and strip setting hard. And I've missed a few that way.

Chris Willen: Everybody has.

Marvin Cash: So one of the things that really interests me doing the podcast is, while fish are fish, there are always regional differences. And so how are, for example, your musky different than the say, the musky that Blane targets in Virginia.

Chris Willen: Yeah. So a lot of that has to do with like, time of year and when you're able to fish them. Like in the summertime, our fish can be spread out and they're a lot more solitary. Whereas like, in the summertime during the hot months, it's not as safe to be targeting muskies in states like Tennessee and Virginia and West Virginia and stuff like that. If the water temperature gets around or exceeding 80 degrees, you really should just kind of give them a break.

So a lot of the hardcore musky fishing is done in the winter, fall and winter months in the South, the whole southern range of musky fishing. So during that time, those fish are a little bit more congregated together in certain areas. So there's a lot of the river that may not hold fish. And now that is true also in our rivers up here in the north. But it's a little bit more of a consolidated time.

We don't have months of it. We might have like a month and a half of it or maybe two months of it. And they're moving throughout the system and kind of doing other things during the rest of the year. So you target them in that way, where we're kind of more stick and move up here. Whereas like, a lot of the southern fishing that I've done in Tennessee, it's just kind of like you kind of got to just kind of fish certain areas because that's where everybody's going to be at, because that's where the bait's at. So it just, it's water temperature and clarity and time of year. And those three are the kind of the magic three that you just gotta figure out.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it must make it really challenging. I mean obviously the advantage like down here in the mid Atlantic is it bunches those fish up for several months. But it must be really challenging to have to go out and consistently catch musky when they're kind of spread out in the system.

Chris Willen: It's fun, man.

Marvin Cash: So what's kind of that general process look like, say, for people like me that are used to fishing for them down here in the south.

Chris Willen: There's a few ways to approach it, definitely. The old cast by numbers approach, where you just go out there and cast your arm off and see what you move and then learn from that. And when you're approaching new water, sometimes that's what you got to do. And that's maybe not so fun with a big fly rod, but that's just the way that it is.

But haven't been on these systems for a while now, and other systems throughout the country and just kind of like learning how they move through these little rivers and stuff like that really just dictates time of year and dictates what you're doing with the time of year and where the fish are going to be at. And just looking back at notes and being like, okay, last year, this is what was going on. This was the water temps. This is what they were doing the last couple years. Go back five, six, seven years. And all that really helps to be able to compile that and look at it and go, okay, well, try it. This is for some reason, this is where they're at this time of year.

And then you can look at it further, which is a lot of the stuff that Larry taught me, like, because I could figure it out where they were after how many years of doing it, right? But the why was like, why are they there? Why are they there? And that's where having a mentor like Dahlberg really helps out, because he knows why. And so the pieces of the puzzle kind of fit together a little easier when you got somebody showing you.

The biggest thing with musky fishing. That's what I always tell people when they're like, how do you get started? What do you want to do? You just have to go. You just have to go. And you have to go a lot. And the more you go, the more you see, the more you learn.

And the last time I remember, I had a fish coming in and I rubbed my tip of my rod on the bottom of the river and it didn't go into the figure eight. And next time I'm not doing that. And the next time the fish comes in, you don't rub it against the bottom of the boat, but you hit your rod against the gunnel of the boat and the fish freaks out and they go, I'm not doing that next time. And it just. Everything piles together, right? And you start becoming a more proficient angler. You start having the mechanics to do the right things when the fish comes in.

And that's a big deal, setting the hook right, casting right all day so you're not totally exhausted. All that stuff's really big and all that kind of just comes into just more time. Time, time.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And like, I know, for example, like in Michigan, the smallmouth water up there is a lot more woody than it is down here in the mid Atlantic. Do you have big differences in kind of structure and cover, say, compared to musky rivers in Virginia or Tennessee or something like that?

Chris Willen: They're totally different. We've got just like shallow, rocky rivers that'll turn into sand, that you'll have rapids and big eddies and long riffle pools and stuff like that. And a lot of the stuff in the south is more like that ledge rock, that limestone and all that stuff. And it's more like flat, and so there's like cut and big deep pools. And it's just like the topography of the river is just totally different. So it's like apples and oranges.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. Interesting. And also, one thing we don't have down here is, we don't have musky and lakes. And how does that change the game?

Chris Willen: Yeah, definitely different than the river stuff, for sure. And I love it. I'm a big lake fan. I just like musky fishing in every facet in every way. If they're in a pond, I want to go try to catch them out of it, to see what do they look like.

And so the lake stuff, breaking down lakes is. It's fun, man. You got to have good electronics. That helps a lot. Whereas the electronics in the river isn't like a huge part of the game. Depth, maybe, but in the lake, the better your electronics are, the better off you're going to be. And so that's cool.

And just depending on what you're talking about, too, whether you're talking about small little natural lakes up here, or you're talking about the Great Lakes, or you're talking about flowages or reservoirs, it's all. You approach it all differently. And it all comes back to that same thing, though, whether it's lakes or rivers or what with muskies, it's water temperature, time of year, and kind of. And what they're doing, what you've been seeing.

Marvin Cash: Got it. And so are they sort of ambush predators where they'd like to kind of sit deep and have the bait come over their head, or is it just kind of, it's too varied to even really give a general rule of thumb.

Chris Willen: Oh yeah. I mean, there's no one spot. They could be on a weed line, they could be on a rock reef, they could be on a rock pile. A lot of these little natural lakes up here we have what's called a fish crib. So these guys will sink these big pallet cubes basically for panfish. And sometimes the muskies are hanging around those cribs.

Flowages. You've got the original river channel. That's always a big thing in the fall. Other times of the year they could be up in the shallows. There's no one blanket answer for it. There's, in places for short periods of time, changing infinitely throughout the season. And they move in and out too.

Some of those really big girls, they're not sitting up in the shallow, catchable areas. Often they're out in that deep water, maybe 30, 40, 50 feet of water out there, suspended, hanging out. And maybe only come up to a feeding area in the early mornings or in the evenings and that's the only really shot you have at them or something like that.

It's not quite like a river, but one of the biggest things that I tell people, the differences between lakes and rivers. And this doesn't really answer your question, but it does kind of give you a little bit of an insight to the difference. A river, I can't go back on a fish that day. Let's say I got 28 spots on a float where I've seen muskies. If we see a spot in spot five, I can't go back to that fish at low light in the evening or at a moon period or at a feeding window. I've been seeing like between 2 and 2:30. I've been seeing some action lately. Like I can't go back on that fish right until the next day or the next time, which could be a week from then or two weeks from then whenever I get back on that particular piece of river.

Now on a lake, if we move a fish in the morning, 8 o'clock, 7:30, something like that, and that fish is hot, okay? That fish wants to bite something, maybe it's not gonna eat right now, but we have a major moon phase. Major at 1:30. So at 1:30 I'm gonna go park on that spot and cast with that fish. And that's a really good way to catch one or I'm going to come back at that fish.

We had a weather change or wind direction change or it's low light now, it's the evening, fill in the blank, right? Some sort of variable changes and you can go back to that fish and see if it wants to eat now. See if something changed, if it reset right in the river. It's kind of a one shot deal for that day.

Marvin Cash: Interesting. And why is that?

Chris Willen: Because I can't go back. I can't go back because I'm in a drift boat and we're doing 10 miles a river. So wherever that, whatever my moon phase is or by low light period, I'm further down the river and I can't row back up five, six miles to go see if that fish is hungry.

Marvin Cash: Now I got you, I got you. It's a rowing or a jet boat problem. It's not a different difference in the system type problem. I got it.

Chris Willen: Well, see, a lot of our rivers too up here aren't really conducive to jet boats. It's dangerous. There's rocks everywhere, there's not clear paths. I mean we're rubbing in drift boats, we're hitting stuff. I mean it's. Some of them are some stretches and some areas. Yeah. But a lot of the ones that we fish are not jet boatable.

Marvin Cash: Got it. And so kind of shifting more to kind of tackle and things like that. What are your favorite flies for targeting musky?

Chris Willen: Time of year? It kind of depends on what I'm throwing. Earlier in the year. I don't throw the super big stuff. Single double Bufords. Double, uh, nickel is a fly that I have someone throwing quite a bit. I always joke around and say I got one pitch and that's it. That's my fastball, is the double nickel. And it just works, man. It works for me in the lake, works for me in the river. It's a good bug. Good size, manageable to cast and kicks around good.

Definitely game changer for sure. Can't go wrong. Somebody wants to cast one, that's always a good way to go, man. They move really good and they definitely eat them.

Don't do a ton of top water stuff. I just. It's like Heartbreak Hotel with those things. They miss them all the time or it's really hard to hook them and just feel like fly fishing for them is hard enough, isn't it? But we do catch them on, not a lot. Not a lot. Couple a year. I get guys that been fishing with me for a long time and they want to catch one on top. And we're skating a fly over some riffles or something like that. Actually, it's pretty fun.

When it's hot out, they'll be up in that crazy shallow stuff in some of the rapids and you can kind of get some real visual eats like that with just like a big bulky Buford head or a bulkhead on like an intermediate or even a floating line sometimes. That's pretty fun.

Trying to think, bunch of. I fish a lot of Eli Brandt stuff. Optimus Swine, the single hook fly that clients can cast that, maybe don't fish a ton, or even to be honest with you, like my good buddy Timmy, who I've been talking about, who guides with me in the fall, that's the only fly he likes to fish. And he's perfectly capable of casting anything that he wanted to. He just likes that fly and he's caught tons of big fish on it.

And I'm looking at a picture right now. One of the biggest fish I guided to up here was a guy, and it was his first fish of any kind on a fly rod. It's one of those kind of stories. And he caught it on a single hook. Optimus Swine. It's probably a six inch fly. So you never know. And that was late fall, where usually we'd be throwing something giant. So you never know, man.

I just. The fly that you throw is whatever you're confident in and you're gonna fish, right? I think that's the best answer. I think they'll eat just about anything as long as it's presented to them. Right. You just got to be confident and do it correctly. And I think a lot of doing it correctly has to do with the confidence that you have in it because then you're doing, you're fishing it right and you're knowing that like you're visualizing that fish coming up behind it, right? Every single time. That's what you got to be doing when you're musky fishing. Because when you feel that little tap, you got to be ready to just start hammering those strip sets. Or like you said, you feel like you're dragging on some logs or something. Just set it, smash them, see what happens. Let's go. You're hung up. Let's go get it. Who cares? Can happen a bunch. I got a hook file, right? Just, you just gotta whack them all.

But honestly, I think that's the biggest thing. I know I just said it, but whatever you're confident in, throw that thing and it'll get bit.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. Neato. And so in terms of like rod line and leader setup, what do you like? And I know you've got kind of lakes and rivers and so you probably have one or two flavors of ice cream, but kind of. What are your favorite setups?

Chris Willen: Well, the rods that I use, I helped design one on G. Loomis, so I use that one IMX Pro M. The number one thing that is the 11-weight. I use that one a lot. The 12-weight is more of a spot rod. So if I've got a fish in a spot where I'm like, I want to throw the biggest fly that I've got, the biggest, craziest, biggest thing with the heaviest line and get it right in its face and see what happens, then you bust out the 12-weight, but you're not going to cast that one all day.

The 11-weight, really nice cast all day lines, just depends on the water level really. You got to adjust. This year we fished a lot of intermediate stuff. I fish a lot of Scientific Anglers lines. The Sonar Titan intermediate, full intermediate, really good place to start with an intermediate line. Kind of a do it all intermediate. You can fine tune your intermediate too. You can go to a clear tip or hey, this one sinks a little bit faster or the tropical one works a little bit better when it's warmer out.

So as detailed or fine tuned as you want to get to it, Scientific Anglers has lines to do that. But that Titan full intermediate is a really good place to start and it's a really durable line. That line's gonna last you for a while and you're gonna be able to use it for a few times out without cleaning it and stuff. And then the more you clean it, the better it's gonna treat you. But that thing's a workhorse.

The sinking lines, it just depends a lot of the stuff that we do up here in the north, I like the floating runner with like a 25 foot sinking head. A lot of the stuff in the south in the wintertime, I like more of that gradual sink, intermediate sink three, sink five or even sink three, sink five, sink seven in the sonar, triple densities if I really want to get down or if I'm cutting current.

So it's a lot different than it was 10 years ago with fly lines and musky fishing. I'll tell you that. It's a lot easier to completely dial in and have four for me guiding. I got four or five, six rods in the boat with different lines and different flies and all that stuff. So I know I can present to where I want it, present the fly where I wanted to to the fish. So it's not a one line answer. You just gotta adjust to the conditions. Yeah.

Marvin Cash: And I think one of the great things SA has done, and I know the other manufacturers have as well, but just having the color transitions in the line to help the caster makes a huge difference for sure. And you touched on this earlier, so maybe we'll see if we can find something in addition to screwing up the hook set. But that and having a fly that you have confidence in. What are some other mistakes that you see kind of the average musky angler make?

Chris Willen: Changing flies a lot. I see that a lot. When we're grinding, when they're not biting so good, or we're in a period where we're not moving them, not the fly. We just got to find one, you got to find a player. And that's what it is. They see a lot of people that just want to spend a lot of time changing flies and seeing different ones swimming. That's cool, I get it. But I'm much more cast is better. Kind of a thing.

The hook set really is the number one disconnect. Especially when I'm teaching conventional tackle guys how to musky fly fish. Everybody wants to set with the rod. Or you get trout guys that want to set with the rod. Or even bass dudes do a lot, really proficient bass anglers, which I fish with all during bass season and they come out musky fishing and you gotta kinda remind them like this isn't a mixed bag combo thing where you kind of strip set and set with the rod. It's a completely. Do not pick that rod up at all. I'm gonna yell at you.

So that's definitely the number one thing. And I think it's just like, you just gotta just. I just repeat it to people all day long. They probably get sick of hearing it. For me, they probably make fun of me on the way home. How many times did he tell us a strip set today? We didn't even see a fish. But it's just what it is with musky fishing. You just gotta constantly tell yourself, strip set. When it bites, strip set, rod tip down, don't lift the rod at all until you can't strip any more line. And then you can start pulling up on that rod and giving them the butt end of that rod and seeing what happens. But it's a three, four, plus strip set. Sometimes before you start lifting up the rod.

Being noisy at the boat, that's a big one. I think people get excited, it's understandable. But the more you move your feet, they don't like that. They hear it, they feel it. And sometimes that's the difference between a big fish eating at the boat or not, or a weary fish eating at the boat or not.

The more you can just kind of set yourself up for what you know you're gonna have to do if there's a fish behind it as you're stripping the fly in. Does that make sense? Like get in position?

Marvin Cash: Yeah, for sure.

Chris Willen: That's huge. Just always being ready for it and also not being ready for it because that's when they bite it. So that's always good to throw that out there every few hours, spice it up.

But completely stopping the fly also, I mean, it's probably a long winded like seven part answer, but I see all different kinds of things all throughout the year. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But what doesn't work a lot of times is just completely killing the fly all together. Seems like unless they're in, unless you've got some good current or you've got maybe a situation where the fish is like crazy hot. But even then I'd like to keep it taking it away from them. The best thing that you can do is kind of just try to take it away. I always just say, hey man, if you're a baitfish, you're a sucker, you're a shad, whatever you are. And this musky's trying to eat, you're not gonna stop, you're not gonna sit there, you're gonna run away. So that's one other thing too.

But definitely the hook set, and really the cast. If you can't certain times a year especially. But I mean you gotta be able to cast the musky fly at least 50 feet to really be in the game.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And that's even on the hook set. That's even before you have one blow up on the figure eight, which makes it super difficult.

Chris Willen: Yeah, yeah. Cast 50 feet that way, but also be ready at your toes.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. But changing gears a little bit, I know you also guide for smallmouth and I just thought maybe you could share a little bit about your smallmouth fishery with us.

Chris Willen: Yeah, man, we have a phenomenal smallmouth fishery here in northern Wisconsin. I'm really looking forward to April. Our pre spawn stuff starts getting rolling around then and last year was out of this world. So I'm really looking forward to this year.

It's fun, man. Fly fishing for smallmouth up here is. I'd put it against a lot of other places, and that's not just my region, that's throughout the whole state. And Minnesota as well. Just phenomenal smallmouth fishing up here in the Northland. And it's fun, man.

I used to do it in Michigan too. Michigan's got phenomenal smallmouth fishing as well. Our rivers are a little bigger, a little different than the Michigan stuff. Used to guide there for Schultz too. So spent a couple years guiding smallmouths there. Totally cool place to fish them as well.

Ours is a little unique. We got the dark water, we got the rapids, we got the boulders, we got the kind of bluff sometimes depending on where you're at. I'm really looking forward to seeing some double barrel popper action. That's kind of my favorite. I like that mid sized one on an 8-weight and getting a four to five pound smally on that, it's pretty fun. Can't beat it.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, I think they're great fighters. I mean there's just no other way around it.

Chris Willen: Yeah. For a guy that's always musky fishing too, it's nice to go out and catch a bunch. That doesn't always happen small fishing, but generally, it's kind of more of a numbers deal than musky fishing. So it's fun to go out there and set the hook and get the net wet all day and laugh and it's just a lot more relaxed.

And maybe that's just me because like when I'm musky fishing, I kind of musky fish at one speed and it's like fast and going at it and taking it super serious. I don't, I have a hard time like lackadaisical musky fishing I guess. But smallmouth fishing is a lot more relaxed to me.

Marvin Cash: And that's funny. So tell us a little bit about your guide service and kind of what your guide season looks like, Chris.

Chris Willen: Yeah, so, coming into my 11th year guiding and so that's pretty exciting. I'm going to start getting rolling here in April. Mid to end of April is when smallmouth starts getting going, which is new for us in the last couple years. They just opened it up to an all year catch and release season for our smallmouth and better regulations and stuff, but we get to fish for them a little bit longer. It's all catch and release.

So that's pretty cool for the early part of the season. And then our musky season doesn't open up here until the end of May, the last Saturday in May. I'm in the northern zone of Wisconsin. The southern zone opens the first Saturday in May. And up here in the northern zone we are the last Saturday. And musky season rolls from then all the way through December.

Now, which weather dependent, and getting into the D word there, that can be a little crazy up here in the Northwoods, but definitely fish through a good portion of November for him and chasing pretty hard that whole time, lakes, rivers, fly fishing, conventional tackle fishing a little bit. Whatever people want to do, but mostly throwing the feathers at them.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And then I guess you spend four months tying flies, right?

Chris Willen: Yeah. Well, I used to go and guide in other places but pandemic kind of made things a little bit interesting for me in the South. I just wasn't getting the. It's all travel, I didn't have a lot of local people. So it kind of made things a little weird, and it was hard to keep the bookings.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And so were you coming south to basically guide our musky season down here?

Chris Willen: In Tennessee? Yeah, I used to go down there from, like, I would leave here. Depends. Sometimes I would go down right before Christmas and then come back for Christmas, or I'd go right after Christmas and then be down there until April.

Marvin Cash: Got it. And I think folks have gotten an idea. We know that you'll yell at people for lifting the rod tip. But what's a day on the water like with Chris Willen?

Chris Willen: No, I think yelling at him is. It's more of a laughing yell. I'm not. I'm not.

Marvin Cash: No, I understand. You're not like one of those Florida Keys guys yelling at somebody.

Chris Willen: I'm not sergeanting anybody until like, the fourth or fifth one. I just hope that everybody leaves with learning something. It's kind of the main goal. I obviously want everybody to catch fish, too, and PBs are nice. I always. It's always a feather in the hat of the guide, right, when somebody gets a PB. So that's always a lot of fun. We got a few of those this year. First muskies. Really great time, too. I always love seeing that. We got quite a few of those this year also.

A lot of float trips. If you want to do a float trip, you're looking at nine to 10 hours on the river. Your arm's gonna be tired at the end of the day. You're not gonna be lacking a cast, that's for sure.

I always tell people, if they're coming from far away, give me three days. Let me show you some stuff. There's a lot of really beautiful things up here that people should experience. And three days is a good window to get a musky. They don't always bite every day, or we don't always find a player every day when you're searching with a fly. So that's a good little time frame if you're coming from far away.

The lake stuff, pretty cool. If you want to go for a really big musky. You want to go kind of do something that's a little bit different. Maybe you've done the river musky thing a little bit and you want to go try something a little different. Vice versa. If you've done lake thing before and you're like, oh, man, I want to see what some of this river stuff's about. It's completely different experience in the lake. So it's all fun to me. I just love those muskies so much that I just don't care where we're going. I just want to go catch them and find them the best way I can.

But yeah, I mean, just hopefully people learn stuff. And one of my favorite things guiding is when somebody comes to fish with me and they spend a couple days with me in the boat and through talking and experiences that we have together and whatever happens and the fish that they catch and then they go back to wherever they live and they go to their fishery and catch something. Doing something that we did together, and then they hit me up afterwards and say, oh, man, we did this. I tied the double nickel, and we got two muskies on it. And all that stuff's really cool. It's always makes you feel good.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And I know talking about COVID is starting to kind of recede. Are you going to be doing any shows kind of in the upper Midwest or anywhere else in the country during show season?

Chris Willen: I was scheduled for a couple of them, but our booth got canceled because travel restrictions within some companies that I was working with. So I'm not doing any, and I'm okay with that. The shows are a lot of fun. I miss seeing my friends and stuff like that, but safety is important, and I just hope everybody's being safe that's going to the shows and miss everybody. Hopefully it'll get back to normal in the next couple years and we can all get back together. And I certainly miss catching up with everybody.

You get. Make friends and even some of the people that come to the show, you get to know them and see them over the years, or they come fish with you and you hadn't seen them in a while, but you go to a show in their area and you get to see them again. It's fun, man. It's definitely a part of the stuff that I miss.

I miss going to ICAST and seeing everybody, because that's kind of like you get to see all your guide buddies and people throughout the other companies that you get to work with and put names to faces and stuff and you get to get stuff done. I don't think I would have ever been able to work with Loomis and work with Steve Rajeff and all those guys if I wasn't doing the ICAST stuff back in the day and trying to be present for that stuff so we could build a musky fly rod.

Ten years ago there was no musky fly rod. So it's cool that all the big major companies, TFO, Sage, Loomis, Thomas and Thomas Echo, a lot of these companies all they now have musky fly rods and. Pretty cool.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And before I let you go tonight, Chris, you want to kind of let folks know the best way to kind of keep up with your fishing adventures and to reach out and book?

Chris Willen: Yeah, you can follow me on Facebook just that, Chris Willen and then on Instagram is kind of more relevant. Up to speed stuff, CW guide and try to post pictures and stuff. I don't post a ton of stuff, but I try to put up some musky and bass picks and share some stuff. That's a good way to keep up with me. Or my website is just ChrisWillen.com shoot me an email and get you out on the boat. 22.

Marvin Cash: Well, there you go. Well, Chris, I really appreciate you taking some time to chat with me this evening.

Chris Willen: Well, I appreciate you having me again and hopefully we can fish together soon.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. That'd be awesome. Take care.

Chris Willen: Thanks so much.

Marvin Cash: Well folks, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you again. A shout out to this episode sponsor, our friends at Norvise. You owe it to yourself to head over to www.norvise.com to check out all of their great products and all of their show appearances this season. Tight lines, everybody.