S4, Ep 4: Matt O'Neal of Savage Flies

Marvin Cash: Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, I'm joined by Matt O'Neill of Savage Flies. Matt shares his passion for fly tying and how it led him to become a YouTuber. 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 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's 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 the fly fishing shows, the Virginia Fly Fishing and Wine Festival, and the Texas Fly Fishing and Brew Festival.

So if you're in the Richmond, Virginia area on January 15th or 16th, stop by the Norvise booth, the Virginia Fly Fishing and Wine Fest. If you miss them there, you'll have a chance to catch up the following weekend at the fly fishing show in Marlboro. Now onto the podcast. Well, Matt, welcome to The Articulate Fly.

Matt O'Neill: Well, thank you, Marvin. It's great to be here. I really appreciate this opportunity.

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

Matt O'Neill: Oh, great. I love this one. Like a lot of folks, I imagine it goes back to your dad, and it does with me. My dad, when I was probably seven or eight, we used to go fishing at Hackmill Lake. That was a small lake in Dalton, Georgia, where I grew up in North Georgia.

So, yeah, he got me interested in it and I think I would have naturally been kind of interested in it as well, just being an outdoors kind of guy. But we would go there, just stop by the convenience store or the bait shop and pick up a tub of worms and go do some bobber fishing from the banks at Tag Mill Lake.

And I do remember a couple years into it, we got a john boat. We went out and picked up a small 10-foot john boat with a little trolling motor. And so we upped our game fishing there. We got to get away from the bank a little bit and go out, you know, just target different fish from a pretty. It wasn't a huge lake, but it was a little bit bigger than the typical farm ponds that I would ride my bicycle to.

So good times there and you know, pretty fond memories fishing with dad back in the. I guess this would have been probably the early 1980s.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, very neat. And when did you come to the dark side of fly fishing?

Matt O'Neill: Oh, that is a different story, I guess maybe just a few years later. So we're bobber fishing, spin fishing with the ultralight gear. Still doing a lot of the farm ponds and that kind of fishing. But I remember very distinctly being in seventh grade.

And I don't know, a lot of your listeners might be, you know, our age I guess, and probably remember department store Kmart. I don't think there are any more of them around, but you know, this was pre big box stores and really before a lot of malls. So we had a Kmart in my hometown, pretty much the main only department store.

And they carried a fly, they had a fishing department. So they carried a combo fly rod which was Cortland. I don't remember the model or anything, but I do remember it was an 8-foot two piece rod, five, six. So it wasn't either a 5-weight or a 6-weight. It was a 5/6. And it came with a reel and some flyline, 5s floating line. So just level flyline. And maybe it came with a half a dozen flies or anything.

So I remember very distinctly the kit was probably about $25 and I really wanted it. My dad wasn't a fly fisherman and we didn't know a single fly fisherman out there. But I thought this looks so cool. And so I asked him for it and he said okay, I'll tell you what, if you get all A's on your report card this next term, I'll get you this fly rod combo kit.

And so, you know, seventh grade at the time, how hard is school? Seventh grade, it's not all that hard to get all A's. Of course I did have to pay a little bit more attention to schooling at the time, which is kind of hard to do for a kid in middle school who loves getting out as much as he can.

But yeah, I remember for about three months studying kind of hard and just maybe a little bit more than normal and coming back. And I believe it was six A's and one B. So I get all A's except one B on the report card. And I'm kind of frustrated. I'm thinking is he really gonna hold up to what he said or is he gonna give in a little bit and, and lucky enough, I've got a great dad. He said, all right, that's pretty close. Let's go on downtown and get you this fly rod.

So he got me the fly rod and, you know, I have no idea how to fish with it. This is pre Internet days, and I don't have a single fly fishing book. Library doesn't even carry any at my school, so I have no idea what the heck I'm doing. But I strap it to the front of my BMX bike and just drive down to the nearest farm pond and try to learn how to fly fish.

So that was my introduction to it. And I'd love to look back and see how horrible and terrible a fisherman I was back then. But I did learn a lot just by flailing around on my own on the banks of these ponds. I probably learned how to roll cast before I even knew what it was. Just because by necessity, you don't have waders. You're just walking around the bank of a pond with trees all around you and trying to figure out, how do I get my fly out there where there might be some fish?

So that was really my introduction into fly fishing. Just playing around with it, riding my bike to the ponds that I could reach from there, really up until you get into high school and you get a car. And then had a couple other buddies that they decided to get fly rods too. And we thought, all right, we're gonna tackle this. We're gonna figure out how to do it.

And growing up in the mountains of North Georgia, we had plenty of trout rivers around within, you know, 20, 30 minute drive. I remember fishing Conasauga River all the time. There was another one called Jack's River and Holly Creek we used to go to.

So during high school, my buddies and I used to go up there. And again, we're still pretty new at it. We're still kind of rookies. Nobody has waders. So pretty much your fly fishing is limited to the seasons where you can wear your shorts and wade out in the river. So it was a spring through late summer kind of activity, but that's where we learned it.

And yeah, really, I developed a lifelong love for it back then. And I'd like to say that, you know, I've been fly fishing continuously since, but that's not necessarily the case because I went off to college and then I was in Charleston, South Carolina, so weren't a whole lot of trout rivers there. But we did get to go back. When I came back for holidays in the summertime, we kept our fishing up through that.

And then after college, I was in the Navy. So wherever I was in the Navy, it's pretty much a coastal town. So I was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, and Monterey, California, and actually New York City. So lots of places I was stationed in the Navy didn't really have trout water nearby, so I would stay there for the next 15 years or so. It was just fishing when I could.

Then I'd say after I got out of the Navy and came back into the Navy as a scientist, as a civilian. And that's pretty much in my 40s when I started picking up fly fishing again, because I lived in areas of the country where, you know, good trout water wasn't too hard to find.

So I'd say, really, the last 10 years is when I've been fishing as often as I could and when I got into tying and all that. So it started in middle school and, you know, fish off and on through the next 20 years or so. And then the last 10 years, I've been fishing all the time. And every vacation we take, I try to work into a trout stream nearby. So that's where I am now, and then hopefully be able to keep that up until I retire.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, there you go. And so when you kind of came back to fly fishing in your 40s, were you still basically teaching yourself, or did you have some mentors that kind of helped you get better?

Matt O'Neill: Yeah, still teaching myself, but by now, you know, I have access to books, and we have access to the Internet, so it's a lot easier to learn. By now, you know, it's no longer the 1980s. We're talking the 2010s.

And I didn't have any specific mentors. I didn't have a buddy that fly fish. If anything, I got into fly fishing and then brought some buddies along. You know, some of my other buddies. That looks pretty fun. I want to do that.

So, yeah, I pretty much, I would say I knew what I was doing by then because I'd fished off and on for the last 25 years, and I knew how to cast. I'd picked up a few books here and there over time. And back in the day, in the 90s, you could buy DVDs, so you'd buy books that might come with a DVD. I remember Lefty Kreh's book How to Cast. Just all the casts out there. Had no idea there were that many different ways to cast a flyline.

So yeah, by the time I'm in my 40s, I generally know what I'm doing. And then I really got into it when we moved here to Southern Maryland. And I'm looking around where to go and then I see the Gunpowder and I go into the shop up there and just, you know, fell in love with the river. And I've been fishing there pretty much consider that my home water. So been fishing there ever since. In fact, I'm probably going up. If the weather holds out. I'm going up in a couple days. I'll be up there Saturday fishing.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. Well, there you go. And so when did you get the bug to start fly tying?

Matt O'Neill: Well, that is an interesting story too because that goes way back as well. So I've been fly fishing through middle school and high school and I'm off to college in South Carolina. After my freshman year I come back to Georgia for the summer and the first week I'm home I break my ankle.

So that's frustrating because now I'm in a cast, pretty much going to be in a cast the whole summer. So I'm thinking I'm not going to be able to go fly fishing. I'm not going to really be able to do anything with this big cast on. So that's what I'm thinking. Okay, I'm gonna, I want to learn to tie flies.

Again, pre Internet, this is probably the late 1980s and we had where I grew up in Dalton, Georgia, it was maybe 45 minutes from Chattanooga, Tennessee which was the nearest place that had a fly shop, a true fly shop. It was called Choo Choo Fly and Tackle.

So buddy and I get in the car, we drive up to Chattanooga to go to Choo Choo Fly and Tackle and say I want to start tying flies. And I was just astounded that of all the materials and looking back, it probably wasn't a huge shop, a big shop, but I just had no idea that all this whole world existed.

So I probably had $30 or $40 at the time. And I picked up a vise and enough hooks and materials to come back and you know, teach myself fly tying. I think I did pick up an Orvis guide, a small three ring binder that had some patterns in it and a few techniques. So I had the basic materials. I didn't get a kit, but I picked up I believe it was a Double A vise. Yeah, I know it was a Double A vise and then some just standard scissors and a bobbin and nothing exotic. No hair stackers or hair packers or anything too crazy. Just the very basic tools and a few feathers and cork bodies to make some panfish poppers with and came back and that summer is when I really taught myself to tie.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, very neat. Do you remember the first fly you tied on your vise?

Matt O'Neill: Oh, yeah, I remember it. I wish I had it still. But thing has probably been lost to the ages. It was a cork bodied bass bug, big popper, had red and white saddle hackle feathers for a tail and then the cork. I just, I don't think I put any rubber legs or anything on it. But I did have the cork body. It was a bullet shape kind of. And I got out my red and white model paint and just painted the head red and white.

So, yeah, that was it. I probably tied a handful of those and probably caught a few fish with them and the farm ponds around there back then. But I always think, just, I remember thinking, this is pretty cool. You know, people sit down and create these bugs that they're going to go out and fool fish with. And I'm thinking, I can do this. This is a pretty cool hobby.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, that's pretty neat. It reminds me of all the bottles of Testors model paint I had when I was a kid.

Matt O'Neill: Exactly what it was. Testors model paint.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, yeah. I just remember how the fumes on the glue were pretty noxious too.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, absolutely, they were.

Marvin Cash: So that was kind of a project for you in the summer during college. And obviously to say that you're eaten up with fly tying now is an understatement. Who are some of the folks that you follow today on the tying front?

Matt O'Neill: Oh, yeah, I've got so many out there just off the top of my head, I guess Barry Ord Clarke, probably my favorite to watch out there. And of course Davie McPhail got Lindsay Simpson, another great one. And come to think of it, those are the top three that come to mind. But, and they're all European, they're all Western Europe.

So don't think I don't follow the other American tiers. I certainly do both. The Tim's. What, Cammisa and Flagler. I watch them. Brian Wise, I watch a lot of his stuff too. And who else? Oh, guys like Shawn Hulsinger and Kelly Galloup watch them pretty much. Any of the major fly tiers that have YouTube channels. I watch them and there's some great channels out there, some great body of knowledge, really, to learn from.

And, you know, obviously, I've got some favorite tiers out there that don't have YouTube channels, which. So when you say, do you follow? I guess I would say I follow Mike Valla, because every time he released a new book, I buy it immediately. And I kind of, you know, I respect and admire guys like Mike and Dave Hughes, some of the, I won't say elder statesmen of our sport, but some of the folks who've got the 50 years of tying experience. And you can certainly learn a lot from reading their books and if you're lucky enough, visiting with them at tying shows.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I mean, you know, Barry was at the fly tying symposium in New Jersey where I bumped into you, and I mean, a bunch of those guys you just mentioned were there, too.

Matt O'Neill: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that was actually the first fly tying show I'd ever been to. You know, I would say in growing up and through college and in my Navy days, I was a tier off and on. And maybe I would sit down in the spring and tie a few dozen flies that I'm going to use through the rest of the year. So I wouldn't say I was a devoted and dedicated fly tier.

And a lot of my stuff for the first several years, I kept it in a couple of shoeboxes and tied at my mom's kitchen table. But then I graduated to, you know, maybe a big Rubbermaid coat that I lugged around through all my moves in the Navy. And then maybe 10 years ago, when I got back into fly fishing, deeply jumping into the deep end. That's when I started amassing all the craziness I have around me right now.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, but I watched the video of your fly tying desk. It's pretty neat and pretty orderly.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, well, thank you. And that's one of the pluses of doing a YouTube, having a YouTube channel, and being a tier on here. Because if I wasn't making videos, the desk would be a mess and a disaster. So as it is, in my process, as soon as I finish a tie, maybe I've tied half a dozen flies. If I'm doing it for a video, I've got to clean that area up right after I'm done because I'm going to film the intro and the rest of the video. So that kind of forces me to keep it neat and organized. If I wasn't making videos. It would probably be as messy as anybody else's out there.

Marvin Cash: Well, there you go. And, you know, one thing I always like to do when I get serious tiers on the podcast is I ask them to share tips, because it's always interesting what you can learn. Like we were talking before recording about your condiment cup tip for storing flies and beads and things, but I was wondering if you had two or three tips that you could share with our listeners that you think they'd find helpful in their tying.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, absolutely. I could probably come up with several. Give me a few minutes to sit down and think about it. But I guess the first one is good lighting. And I didn't realize how important good lighting was until, you know, now I'm in my 40s and 50s and my eyes aren't what they were. But get good lighting, bright lighting, and get, play around until you get the right color temperature. That works well with you.

Fluorescent lighting is not the best for tying flies if you're in a room with fluorescent light, and they make all kinds of LED bulbs now in different color temperatures. So, yeah, that. I think that's a tip. If you haven't put a lot of thought into lighting your bench area, step back and give it some thought because it will make your tying so much easier and just allow you to tie longer, you won't fatigue as much. So that, I guess would be my first tip.

And then let's see another tip. And a lot of folks are going to say this, you know, get the best tools and materials that you can afford. And it might be heresy for me to say this, but that's not always the case. And that's not necessarily true. I mean, there are Whiting dry fly capes out there that you could spend $100 on, but, you know, for a new or casual tier. Yeah, don't get all crazy with this kind of stuff. You can buy a grade three half cape for $30 that it's going to work just perfect for you.

So my advice there, yeah, don't be afraid to, you know, not buy the top end of everything out there. Get what makes sense for you, just. And if it's cheap, strong saddle hackle and you make a lot of streamers and bass bugs, yeah, absolutely, go for that. So that's kind of what I say there.

And there are some tools that, yeah, I do splurge on. I've got a nice vise and sometimes I'll use really nice bobbin holders. But for the most part, yeah, don't get wrapped around the axle. Think you have to have the best of everything out there. People hundreds of years ago were tying without a bobbin holder. They were wrapping thread with their fingers. There are people that tied without a vise. I can't even imagine doing that. But yeah, that's my advice there.

If you want them, if you just really get into the sport and like tying on some high end equipment, yeah, it can make it more pleasurable, more enjoyable. But I don't think it's always all that necessary.

And then I do want to wrap this last one up with, I think the most important tip is just have fun fly tying. You know, it's as much an art as anything. There are a lot of tiers out there. I think they get wrapped around the axle and trying to make the perfect imitation or, you know, perfectly imitate a bug or perfectly imitate a fly that someone else has created, I'd never concern myself with that too much. I just, you know, certainly if I'm tying flies for fishing, I really don't stress trying to make them perfect. What I'll call them, you know, an Instagram fly. I don't tie a whole lot of Instagram flies. That means perfectly tied that I take a great picture of and be happy to post it on Instagram. I tie a lot for fishing and you'll hear me say that on the channel a lot. Hey, this is a fishing fly. It's not perfect, but you can follow it and you get the steps and you'll be good to go. So, yeah, that's my last tip. Have fun. If you're not having fun, why be doing it?

Marvin Cash: Yeah, there you go. It's interesting too because I mean, you know, perfect flies have a place maybe on tailwaters, but a lot of us don't really fish that kind of water. So, you know, you can get away with a lot more on a freestone.

Matt O'Neill: Oh yes, absolutely, absolutely. I mean some of the Catskill flies, those things, the dry flies up there in the Catskills, those can be hard to tie and the masters at it and make some really perfectly looking bugs and yeah, it's, that's an area I've been branching more and more into trying to learn that part of our history and some of those type flies. But yeah, you're right, a lot of the bugs, the sloppier we make them, and the fuzzier we make them, the better they might end up working.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's interesting as you. If you haven't yet, you should try to grab a copy of Dave Brandt's DVD for tying the Catskill flies, if you're getting into that, because it's really well done. And I was lucky enough to be able to spend time with him before he passed away. And he's an engineer draftsman by training. And so he's incredibly precise in proportions and the way he does materials. It's really interesting to see.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, excellent. I will definitely check that out. That sounds like it could be on my to do list for 2022.

Marvin Cash: There you go. And, you know, another thing I like to ask tiers that tie a lot is you always have a squirrelly tool that no one knows about or most people don't tie with that you couldn't live without. And I bet you have one.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, you know, actually, I don't necessarily have anything specifically. I tie with all the standard tools everybody else has. And, you know, okay, maybe a hair packer. Everybody doesn't use a hair packer or the Stonfo deer hair razor blade holder. So I've got some tools like that. But, you know, a lot of other people do too. So it's not that they're that unique.

But maybe I would say, something that I have that maybe other folks don't do is it's my light. The light that I use. It's a utility light, just came straight from Home Depot. And I got this out of my chicken brooder. So it's just one of those metal conical type lights. And I hang it down. It's not very heavy. I hang it down from my ceiling with an LED bulb in it. And I put the right color temperature, right brightness bulb I have on it.

And yeah, you ask what's something that I probably couldn't live without, it'd be that, because I tell you, I don't have that at my tying bench out at my farm. So when I'm out there for a weekend and I'm tying, I really miss this cheap little light hanging down from my ceiling about a foot over my vise. I've got, you know, a standard tying light there, which is an arm with an extended arm. You kind of reach around it. But so I would say that. That I use that. That might be a little bit unusual. A lot of folks probably don't do that. But yeah, it's hard to live without good light.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And so do you have a smart light bulb in that you were talking about temperature, where you're using your phone to set the temperature and the brightness?

Matt O'Neill: No, but that is a great idea. Oh, wow. No, I do not have a smart bulb. I've got remotes and that I can turn all the lights on since I do record videos. I've got, you know, a big flood light and then a few other LED lights that I turn those on with a remote. But you've given me a great idea to get a smart bulb that I can change the color of the light because sometimes I am tying a different color bug and I'm thinking, I wish this wasn't a 5700 kelvin bulb up here right now. I wish I had something just a little bit warmer now. There you go. A smart light that I can change. I'm making a note of this one.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, there you go. Hopefully you've got a couple leftover gift cards from the holidays so it'll set you up.

Matt O'Neill: That's right.

Marvin Cash: So, you know, one of the things I noticed from watching your videos, is I can tell that you're really disciplined about learning about tying. Because it seems like you have a pretty extensive, but ever changing stack of fly tying books that you're reading. And I was kind of curious if you've always been that way or is that a habit that you developed later in life or it's something that you only apply to your fly tying.

Matt O'Neill: Wow, this is such an interesting question. I find it fascinating that you pick up on that because I really am pretty much a disciplined learner now. I haven't always been. I would say I coasted through high school and college like lots of young kids do, put in the effort that you needed and not much else. But then in graduate school, I learned pretty quickly that the path I've been on is not going to carry me the rest of the way. So I had to come up with some kind of systematic approach to learning.

And I did. Really. And I've used that not just in college classes and schooling like that. I taught myself how to code and write computer programs, do web designing and a lot of the aspects I've used, in this type learning, you know, learning how to learn really. I did take that into fly tying and certainly running a YouTube channel. There's a lot to learn about building a YouTube channel, making videos and trying to figure out the algorithm and just. Yeah, there's a lot more to content creation than a lot of folks that watch the videos might realize.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, for sure. We could probably have a short series of podcasts talking about that, because there's a lot behind the scenes for podcasting too. And so just to let folks know, what are the three or four books you have kind of on your timetable that you're working through right now?

Matt O'Neill: Oh, let's see. I'm here in my bench area on this, doing this interview here and just looking at my bookshelf, I got close to 200 books it looks like. But I guess the ones that aren't on the bookshelf that are on my table or on the bench are the ones that I'm actively using. And I would say it's almost always one of Mike Valla's books. Right now it's the Tying Catskill Dry Flies. That is just an amazing book. And he is, I said this before that I think he's the foremost historian in our sport. His books, he's an outstanding tier and certainly accomplished there. But how he researches and the history he brings to the sport, it's just fascinating and amazing to me. It wouldn't surprise me if he spends five years on writing a book like this.

So, yeah, that one, Mike Valla's Catskill book, and then another one that I'm just off the top of my head that is up on my nightstand. It's Joseph Bates. Now he's got a book. I suppose he's probably had several books called Streamer Fly Tying and Fishing published sometime in the 1950s. And this book is, you know, an old book. It's not going to have a whole lot of color pictures. It's going to have hand drawn pictures of flies in it. But I was just captivated by this book and somebody recommended it to me on the channel. I did a video and said, hey, leave in the comment. What are some of your favorite tying books out there? And that's how I pick up a lot of books from recommendations from folks out there.

And someone recommended this book and I found an old copy on ebay and got it and it was just really amazing. So you can learn some of the skills that our forefathers used in tying, but you can learn a lot of the history that you really don't see a whole lot of folks out there tying. And that's another one of the things that I like about some of Mike Valla's books is flip to the back and look at his references. And then I just start thinking, that sounds like an interesting book and I'll look it up and see if I can find a used copy of it somewhere out there. I picked up dozens of books that way. So yeah, my library is already kind of big, but it's growing all the time. And, you know, maybe I'm a book junkie, I don't know. But I love finding an old book that a lot of people are out there either aren't familiar with or that, you know, mostly forgotten. And then you can pick up some nuggets here and there from flipping through these type books.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's funny you say that because I love books too. And I have a habit of I have a handful of used bookstores that I regularly go into and I think over the holidays I found a copy of the Fly Tier's Nymph Manual by Randall Kaufman and it was signed by him and it was $6.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, wow. What an amazing find. I've got a couple of Kaufman books. I don't have that one you mentioned, but. Wow. Was it a hardback?

Marvin Cash: No, it's a softback. It was from 1986, but I was blown away and I opened the front and it had a very generic and like inscription with like all the best Randall Kaufman, 1986.

Matt O'Neill: That's still pretty cool find.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's pretty neat. And so we've kind of bumped around it a little bit. Matt, so you've got a YouTube channel, Savage Flies, and I think you are getting close to your two year anniversary. And, you know, it's one thing to be crazy about fly tying, it's another thing to be crazy about fly tying and want to be a YouTuber. What made you make the leap?

Matt O'Neill: Oh, yes, that. Well, that's a great question. And I'll say it wasn't necessarily an altruistic goal. It's kind of evolved to being that. I mean, the channel is really about. Early on I decided the mission of the channel is to reach new tiers and teach as many people as possible how to get into the sport and then get back to the tying community whenever possible. But so we do that. But really my ultimate goal, I think is I want to write books.

And I'm thinking if I can spend eight or 10 years growing a following and building a YouTube channel and teaching lots of folks and getting people into the sport, that it should be a natural progression to when I retire from my day job to be able to write fly tying books and, you know, follow in the footsteps of the Dave Hughes or Mike Valla out there, some of the legends in the sport. I don't know if I'll ever be up in their league, but you know, that's a goal I'm setting for myself.

So, yeah, building a YouTube channel, I think was really a way for me to hone my own craft and learn as much as I can. At the same time helping other folks and bring other folks into the sport and then build enough, I guess, a name recognition that when I do go to a publisher a few years from now and say, hey, I'm considering writing this book here and here's a little bit of my background, I think I might carry a little bit more weight if I have a successful channel and a little bit of a following when I start approaching some publishers.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, very neat. And it's interesting because you really don't know what you're getting into, whether it's podcasting or YouTubing, or live streaming until you do it. And I was really kind of curious. I've looked at some of your early videos and obviously they're different than what you're putting out today, but how has your approach evolved over the last two years?

Matt O'Neill: Oh, well, I don't know if it's necessarily an evolution, but a growing skill set. Me getting better and getting a little bit more comfortable on camera and making it, I won't necessarily say collaborative, but more of a community where I listen to the viewers and interacting with the folks in the comments and then through email and other social media. I mean, an example was the first video I did where I started talking about the history of a fly. Because, I guess the first few dozen tying videos I did, I didn't show myself on camera and I didn't talk about the background.

But when I did that, I got so much positive feedback saying, oh, this is great, this is great. I didn't know this about this fly. Thank you for, you know, educating us on the history of it. And so I've started doing that pretty much every tie that I can dig up a history on it. I do that. I start off with a minute or two at the beginning of the fly, talking about it, talking about who created it and sometimes how to fish it. So give just a little bit of the background and then I'll have 8 or 10 minute video of me tying the fly.

So yeah, that was, I guess, evolved from fairly early on. And I like that format And I'm pretty much sticking with it. And you know, maybe I won't always do that. Who knows how I might evolve in the future. But for me, listening to the viewers and taking their comments and feedback on board and then steering changing course as needed, I think that's, you know, that's one way I've evolved with the channel.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's interesting too because I mean, you get a lot of engagement. I mean, I looked, I mean you, you know, you're getting quite a few very, very substantive comments on your episodes.

Matt O'Neill: Yeah. And I love that it sometimes right now, you know, the channel is still pretty small. We're not huge. But I'll post a video and maybe I get a hundred comments on it in the first couple of days. And I'm still small enough that I can answer every comment usually. But it's getting to the point where, okay, if I publish a video on Tuesday morning, Monday night, I will have created the video. It will go live Tuesday morning. Everybody has pretty much all day to watch it. And then before bedtime Tuesday night, I'll sit down the computer, the time to answer the comments and maybe I've got a hundred of them that I've got to go through.

And when someone just say, hey, nice tie, thanks. Okay, that's a, you know, I appreciate that. I appreciate you leaving a comment and I just give them a thumbs up and say, appreciate you watching. But yes, you're right, there are a lot of substantive comments there that, you know, I feel a little bit of an obligation to sit down and respond to each of them. And right now starting to get to the point where, okay, I could sit down in one hour, answer everybody's comment. But now that it's starting to take an hour and a half to two hours, I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to keep this up, which I don't want to lose this personal interaction and touch I have with the viewers.

I'm getting to know a lot of great folks out there and not just in the comments. I've gone fishing with a couple folks that I met through this YouTube channel. So yeah, it's starting to feel like a real community. And the engagement, it's really blown me away and it's been so positive and just reaffirming that why I do this and why I love doing it.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. Very, very neat. Can you. Is there a kind of a greatest challenge or surprise over the last two years that kind of jumps into your head.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, I guess that I had no idea how much of a grind running a YouTube channel is. Or creating a channel and then growing it from 0 subscribers to, you know, a successful channel on the platform. It can really, you can spend a lot of time on it. You can spend hours and hours a week doing this. And then that's pretty much what I do. But I'm also finding that if it's something I love doing, it's pretty easy to stay motivated. I'm doing three videos a week and three tying videos a week and I'm still loving it. And I like interacting with the community and I'm learning a lot from the other tiers out there as well. The tiers who leave comments and say, consider doing it this way. And I say, great idea or consider using this material or you could have substituted this for this instead of what you did. So I learned a lot from interacting with the folks out there too.

So yeah, I guess the biggest challenge with starting a channel on the YouTube platform is that it can really be a grind. And you hear a lot of folks saying, okay, push through your first hundred videos and then reevaluate, maybe adjust your schedule, you want to avoid burning it. And you hear that a lot that you really can burn out. But so far in two years I haven't burned out yet and I'm still doing three tying videos a week. So and maybe that's just because I'm enjoying it. I'm really liking what I'm doing.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean it's kind of like that in podcasting too. I mean, if you, you know, you're lucky to have really good guests and you know, you kind of listen, I mean, it's amazing what you can learn, because everybody has a different take, right?

Matt O'Neill: Yeah, I imagine so. Yeah.

Marvin Cash: And so, you know, also too, you know, when I talk to people that are their creators, I'm always interested because when they do these long projects and you have kind of a large open ended project which will move you on to then becoming a book publisher. You know, what have you learned about yourself in the last two years that's kind of maybe surprised you or you didn't.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, I guess one thing I've learned is that it's not hard to stay motivated if you're doing something that you really love. I mean, we talked earlier about, setting up a systematic approach for learning something Whether it's a new skill. Well, I've done that with lots of things. I've done it with computer coding, and I built some successful websites, so I think that was a success. And I've also done it with, or try to do with other things like learning a language or learning how to play the banjo. That was a New Year's resolution. A couple years ago, I got a new banjo for Christmas, and I set up a training schedule and a plan, and I still can't play the banjo. So after two months of doing that, I failed at it.

So, yeah, that's what I've learned about myself, that doing something hard and challenging, I can do it if I'm enjoying it. So pick something that you really enjoy and that you can have a good time with. And then the grind isn't so bad. And it doesn't necessarily seem like a grind at all. So the burnout that everybody tells you to watch out for and to avoid. Well, I haven't hit that wall yet. So I'm still happy and still going strong.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. It's interesting too, because at least, you know, my experience in podcasting is some of that is in addition to kind of learning the core fly fishing, I spend a lot of time learning about how to make the process better.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, yeah, I believe it.

Marvin Cash: And I imagine it's the same for you on the video side. There's always either better software or shortcuts or ways to make things work a little bit better.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, yeah, yeah, there absolutely is. And, I cringe when I go back and watch a video I did almost two years ago and thinking, oh, what was I thinking? That was terrible on camera back then. And, you know, now I look at it and I'm doing the best I can right now. So maybe a year from now, I'll look back at the videos I'm making today and think, what was I thinking? That was terrible. Why did I edit this right here? Why did I do this jump cut or. You know, I wasn't even looking at the camera right then. So hopefully I'll continue to grow in another year from now. I'll look back these current videos and have improved even more.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you were talking about your format. So you're putting out three videos a week. And, you know, I think you're doing, you know, you. I think you've got kind of three flavors of ice cream, right? You've got kind of pure tying videos. And then you. I would call. You've got what I would call maybe like a skill or a knowledge. Like for example, fly tying thread or bobbins. And then you do product reviews or if I kind of got that.

Matt O'Neill: Right, yeah, that's it. You've nailed it. That's really the three things I'll do. Three tying videos a week. And right now, in all through 2021, they were published on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. And that's just really base that schedule on a couple days in between each one to give me time to make them. And you don't want to. Even if I could publish a video every day, you don't want to inundate people with that. You're going to. People will be tired of seeing my face in their feed all the time. I think three might even be pushing it a little too much. But right now I'm doing three videos a week, all tying videos. And then Sundays I reserve that for anything else. It's a hodgepodge. And yeah, like you said, sometimes I'll do all about hackle or the most recent one was all about bobbins. And then I'll do, you know, how to whip finish and various tips and tricks, those kind of videos. But also product reviews.

I do these usually on Sunday. Whether it's a book review. I think I'm the only one out there, the only YouTube fly tier out there that will review books. And I thought, okay, that, why doesn't anybody do that? And what I've learned, because these videos aren't usually popular. My subscribers watch them the day they're published, but nobody comes back six months or a year later and watches a book review of fly tying book.

But one of the things I did decide early on when I review a product or a book, I want to give it away. I want to give a little bit back to the community. And since the channel is monetized, you know the annoying ads you have to watch on any YouTube video, it does make a little bit of money. It's not a lot, certainly not getting rich here, but it's making enough that I can pick up two copies of a book, you know, keep one for myself and review it for the channel and then give one away to somebody out there. So to me, I like doing that. I think that helps, it'll help some new tiers out there and it helps people and stay engaged, you know, to leave a comment and to try to win a book. And it's not usually anything fancy. A $25 book isn't going to break the bank, but, you know, it might make somebody's day.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, Very neat. How do you pick the patterns and the products that you feature on your channel?

Matt O'Neill: Oh, well, I get a lot of requests. A lot of people will either request something in a comment or they'll email me and, or tell me the history of a fly that they created. Say, hey, I created this one when I was fishing at so and so place. And it's done well for me. And they sent me a picture of it. I said, this is amazing. This looks great. Let's tie it up for the channel and then I can talk a little bit about you and the history of it. So I do get a lot of requests, and unfortunately I get more requests than I have time or space to tie with only three videos a week. But I'll write the request on index card. And I'm looking at it right now. My cork board has probably 20 plus requests of flies out there that sometimes when I'm figuring out what to tie, I'll just go through that board and say, oh, that one looks fun. Let's do this one tonight.

And then sometimes I just look at my last 10 videos and say, oh, I haven't tied a streamer in a while. Let's do a streamer. Or last three videos were nymphs with tie dry fly today. So if that's the case, I'll just grab one of my books, one of the pattern encyclopedias, and then just flip through it until something catches my eye and I say, do I have all the materials to make this one? Yeah, let's do it for the channel. And so, yeah, that's no real systematic approach to how I select the patterns. But, yeah, sometimes it does seem pretty random.

And then for products, again, a lot of people will say, hey, I'd love it if you could review the Dyna-King Dan vise. And I'd say, okay, let me add that to the list. And. Or a Regal medallion or any other product. And so when we. I just did the All About Bobbins video and I've gotten a lot of comments there saying, oh, man, I would love to see this one. Or have you ever considered this bobbin holder? So, yeah, now I've just added about three or four more product reviews that I want to do in the upcoming couple of months from the feedback I've gotten from people watching that video.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, very neat. And we've kind of talked about the creation process. And so, you know, you're putting out three, say 10 to 15 minute videos a week. You know, it takes multiples of that time to put that content together right. Even if you like, don't count the planning time, like working the cork board. Do you mind sharing with folks kind of your process for creating a video?

Matt O'Neill: Oh no, not at all. In fact, I love answering this question because not enough people ask this or even think about it because yeah, they sit down and say, hey, there's a new video that's an 11 minute video on how to tie X Y. But here's what goes into it first off, okay, And I'll tell you my specific process. Lots of folks probably different, but I have a full time job. I'm not a professional fly tier. I have a day job and I have kids that do after school sports and whatnot there. So lots of times my afternoons and my day and my afternoons and then till supper time and then time with the wife. All that's spoken for. And I might not come down to my bench until 9 o'clock at night.

So on any given weeknight I might come down at night, 9pm and I've got a video that I'm wanting to publish the next day. So I will sit down and maybe I have one in mind that I'm wanting to tie already. If not, I do what we just talked about. I'll grab one off the cork board or I'll flip through the book, say, let's do this one. So I sit down and I tie it and if it's an easy tie, I might just have to make one or two to practice. And if it's hard tie, I could end up tying half a dozen until I figure out the proportions or just feel comfortable enough tying it. Then I turn the camera on, I tie it for the channel and I walk through and talk through the steps. So this whole process, we're probably now an hour into it with practice fly and then turn the camera on. That might be another 12 to 15 minutes of recording it.

And then okay, if all that went well, I'll sit down the computer and I will do some research. And I've already done a little bit of research on it. When I'm picking the fly, I might say, okay, this was created by Polly Rosborough, so we know a little bit about him. Then I'll sit down at the computer and I'll do a little bit of history maybe on the fly and say, okay, here's when it was created and here's where it was used. And here's some interesting tidbits about this. So I'll write sort of a script, not really, but I'll just write down on my index cards. Here are the three points I want to talk about. Introduction to this fight.

So then I change cameras and I put on a shirt, you know, logo shirt. And then I will roll that and I will record an intro. And that sometimes you probably know this when, as soon as you hit record, that's when you freeze up and you say that's not what I was wanting to say. Or you fumble through your words. And it might take three or four takes on certain things. So a two minute intro might be eight minutes of raw footage that I've got to then go back to the editing. So now I'm probably an hour and a half to almost two hours into the video creation.

So I sit down at my editing software and I use pretty much open source software. I don't have anything fancy. I use just whatever I could download out there for free to do my editing. I'll do some audio editing to clean up the audio and then the video editing. And for I would say a 12 minute video, that's probably an hour's worth of editing. And then you've got to, so you've cut out a lot of the stuff you're not going to use. And I guess the editing, how long it takes to edit really also depends on how well you did in the filming. If you just messed up a lot and you're cutting a lot out. Well, the editing might take me a little bit longer. But okay, after I'm done editing then you have to render it. So rendering video files takes quite a bit longer than just cleaning up and doing audio. But you probably know that process to render it to get your final product. So that might take 25 or 30 minutes. I don't have a real high powered computer, so it's not real fast. But while the rendering is going on, that's when I go back to the bench and break out a different camera and change my lighting around and I take the still shot for the thumbnail. So I get that back to the computer, edit the thumbnail for it, and by then the rendering is probably done.

So I go to YouTube, upload the raw or the final video, upload the thumbnail and then add in the description, that I've, you know, some of that is what I've researched. So then I, when you're all done with that YouTube run it through their copyright checks and whatnot and make sure it's appropriate and it meets all the tags that you claim. I'll have it scheduled to release at 7am the next day. So that process from starting about 9pm If I'm lucky, I'm done in three and a half hours or so by 12:30 or so. And that's from thinking of the fly to it being uploaded on YouTube. And sometimes it's a four hour process and sometimes the practicing of the fly would just kick your butt and you've wasted an hour. And you say, there's no way I'm gonna be able to get a video of this one done. Like the Humpy that I was trying to do a couple months ago. That one just kicked my tail all over the place. So an hour and a half into that one, I say, all right, starting over, picking an easy pattern.

Marvin Cash: Squirmies.

Matt O'Neill: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, at best it's a three and a half hour process. And usually I'd say it's somewhere between three and a half to four hours from when I decide on the fly to I have done with it and it's uploaded to YouTube.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, so that's, I mean you probably, you're probably spending 15 to 20 hours a week then.

Matt O'Neill: Yeah, yeah, that's been the norm. So if you'd say four hours of video, that's 12 hours. The book review videos, those are quick and short, require a lot of editing or research. It's me flipping through the book and holding it up for the camera and then going, I can almost say I'm going to review this book and then an hour later be done, have it edited and uploaded. So the Sunday videos are typically a bit easier unless it's one, you know how to dye materials, which might be an elaborate process that I could spend six hours on doing a video like that.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, Very, very neat. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean I, it's. Yeah, so you're basically spending, gosh, let's see, 10 or 15 minute video and you're spending three to four hours. That's a pretty big multiplier.

Matt O'Neill: Yeah, it is, it is. And maybe it's just my skill set isn't where it should be yet. So maybe I need to. But, well, if you think about it, a 10 to 12 minute video that I spend four hours on, if it was a 15 or 18 minute tying video, it's still probably going to take me about the same amount of time. So it's not a linear relationship between how long the end product is and how much time goes into it. Even a quick tie that's going to be the final video, might be an eight minute video even that's still going to probably take three hours to make. Just because some of the steps, you're not going to be able to shorten them.

Marvin Cash: Yep. No, exactly. I mean, it's kind of, it's sort of like the difference between the fishing reports I do in the long form interviews. Right. You know, whether the fishing report six minutes or 15 minutes, it's about the same, you know, same thing. Right. Images, load, the content management system, all that kind of good stuff.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, right, right, yeah.

Marvin Cash: And so it's interesting, I know one of your kind of new things you brought into the world is that you now have Savage Flies merch, right?

Matt O'Neill: Yes, yes.

Marvin Cash: And you've got an online store. You want to tell folks about that because that's a relatively new development for you, right.

Matt O'Neill: January 1st, what, three days ago. Really, it's nothing major, but I've had enough folks. I had some shirts created with the logo on it and then a couple hats just for myself so that I could wear while filming. And a lot of folks have asked and said, hey, I'd love to get some merchandise there, so can we order some shirts or these hats and. Okay, well, you know, this was early in 2021. I said, I'll make that a plan for 2022. We'll do that.

So, yeah, I did that. I've ordered shirts and hats and had them made up and some mugs and just some basic items. Nothing nothing fancy or major. And at savageflies.com you can go there and buy these and note, I'm not a drop shipper, I don't. Or a print on demand type thing. I didn't really want to set up a store like that where people could go and then something like Spreadshirt, where, okay, they're putting an order in for Savage Flies merchandise. But I would never see this merchandise. It gets produced and made somewhere else and then I get 2% of the sale price of that. And I just didn't want to do that.

Anything I wanted to sell on there, I wanted to have it and to be able to look at it myself. So it took an investment up front to buy enough hats and shirts and mugs that, I did, I ordered. And there's lead time to getting these things embroidered and printed. But I got them all in and they're sitting right here in the spare bedroom here beside my tying room. If somebody goes to this storefront which is run by Shopify, so it's a pretty respectable online E store. Yeah. I will see the order and then I will walk to the room next door and package it up and box it up and drop it off at the post office the next day on my way to work. So yeah, it's a simple store, but I did it not necessarily to add a revenue stream for the channel, but because a lot of people have asked for it and I thought, okay, well I will try to help you out and if it does help spread the word of the channel, then great. You know, that's what it's all about. And if it gets new tiers and folks excited about watching the videos here, then hey, I'm all for it.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And I will drop a link to your shop in the show notes.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, well, I appreciate that, Marvin.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, any other 2022 announcements you want to share with our listeners?

Matt O'Neill: No, I guess I would have just mentioned that I did start the store and check it out for anybody out there, any of the profits that that store is going to make is going to really just help run the channel and give back to the community. The more ad revenue the channel makes, the more I'm able to give back. You know, we, I like to give back vises and tying tools and certainly books, those type things. So I do at least a raffle maybe a couple of times a month. So we try to give something back at least a couple of times a month.

Yeah, and let's see. Oh, here's one thing. I didn't even think about this. We've done some Name the Fly contest. So we did one at Thanksgiving and Christmas where I just sat down at the bench and maybe with some recommendations from some recommendations from some of the tiers out there, let's tie up a Thanksgiving themed streamer, Christmas themed one, and then I'll do that and come up with something crazy that's fun to tie and we'll release the video and we're calling it a Name the Fly contest. So hey everybody, leave your comment what you think we should name this fly. And I'm, I think the last one, I got 150 or so entries of people trying to name the fly. So I will flip through that and through all those names with my kids and say, hey, which one do you like? Which one sounds cool? And then we might put it up for a vote with the folks out there. And then whoever's name comes up the winner. We name the fly that. And then I'll send them a gift card to J. Stockard, which is one of the fly tying shops that I use the most.

So that somebody asked, hey, let's do this for all the holidays of 2022. And I thought that's a great idea. So we did a New Year's Day streamer and we're going to do one for Valentine's Day and St Patrick's Day, then Mother's Day. So there'll be a series of holiday themed flies throughout all of 2022 that are name the Fly contest. So I think that's going to be fun. We get a lot of engagement when we do something like this. So yeah, I'm looking forward to that in 2022.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, very neat. And what's the best way? So we've got your online store and you know, obviously your YouTube channel, but what's the best way for, you know, folks to keep up with your adventures at the vise and on the water?

Matt O'Neill: Well, really, it's just the YouTube. I mean I have an Instagram account and a Facebook page, but I haven't been all that active on them. I haven't been really active at all. Maybe that's a 2022 resolution, is to start engaging with Facebook and Instagram. But I'm just having enough fun right now on YouTube. So leaving, watching a video and leaving a comment right there or through the through my email, which you can see in a lot of the videos or on the contact page at savageflies.com. so yeah, just through email or follow the YouTube channel. That's really the best way to reach me. Like I said, I do read every comment and I try to respond to all of them and most of them I still do. So, usually not too big of a turnaround time between when I see something and when I can respond to it.

Marvin Cash: Well, very cool. I will drop all of those in the show notes. And, you know, Matt, I'm glad we were able to spend some time together and we worked it so that I'm on the day after your first video of the week. So, I appreciate you making time for me.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, you got it, Marvin. I really appreciate it. So we're recording this on Tuesday, so tomorrow's Wednesday. Tomorrow I'll be tying Thursday's fly, so. Yeah, we have perfect timing.

Marvin Cash: Well, perfect. Well, listen, thanks so much for spending time with me.

Matt O'Neill: Oh, you bet, Marvin. It was my pleasure. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. Take care. Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Again, 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. And don't forget to head over to www.norvise.com to see all the fly fishing shows that they'll be at this 2022 season. Tight lines, everybody.