S5, Ep 131: David Blinken of North Flats Guiding

**Marvin Cash (00:00:04):**
Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, I'm joined by saltwater guide David Blinken. David shares his journey to the salt, his fishery off of Long Island, and some of the challenges it's facing today. 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 on the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out. And a shout out to this episode's sponsor. This episode is sponsored by our friends at Nor-vise. Their motto is, tie better flies faster, and they produce the only vise that truly spins. The holidays and show season are just around the corner. Head over to www.nor-vise.com today to find the perfect gift for the tyer on your list. And if you'll be in the Somerset, New Jersey area on November 11th or 12th, swing by the International Fly Tying Symposium and spend some time with the great folks at Nor-vise. Now, on to our interview. Well, David, welcome to The Articulate Fly.

**David Blinken (00:01:15):**
Well, thank you. It's good to be here.

**Marvin Cash (00:01:17):**
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to our conversation. We have a tradition on The Articulate Fly — we like to ask all of our guests to share their earliest fishing memory.

**David Blinken (00:01:27):**
Wow. My earliest fishing memory is probably in a backyard pond when I was, I don't know, probably five or six years old. I was rummaging through a closet in a den, and I found all these long skinny things with reels, and I had no idea what to do with them. So my father put one together for me and took me into the backyard. I could see fish swimming along, and I think one of my first casts I got a largemouth — and no pun intended — I was hooked after that. You never forget the first fish you ever catch, and that one I remember clear as day, even though I was six years old.

**Marvin Cash (00:02:12):**
Yeah, that's awesome. And so when did you come to the dark side of fly fishing?

**David Blinken (00:02:18):**
It's a dark side? There is no dark side of fly fishing, really. Fly fishing is kind of the melding of art and sport. And anything you can do with a fly rod, if you're truly committed to it, is sort of a wonderful thing. You know, some people are fly rodding versus fly fishing — using a fly rod, going for, doing bait and switch. Other people are using sinking lines. Some people who fly fish are like dry or die. It's all good. It's all good. There's really no dark side. It's all the light.

**Marvin Cash (00:03:07):**
And so you've been walking on the path for a while fly fishing. Who are some of the folks that have mentored you on your fly fishing journey and what have they taught you?

**David Blinken (00:03:16):**
It's really interesting. I can't really pick out a mentor per se, but there are a couple of people in my mind who really stand out, who really influenced me. Probably first and foremost over the years would have been Captain Eddie Whiteman down in Islamorada. I think Eddie lives in Tavernier now. But the first time I tarpon fished with him and my father, I learned more in those first five days with Eddie than I think I learned collectively in my previous 28 years of life. It was just an incredible learning experience. I mean, I've been using a fly rod since I was six years old, and I'd had a lot of experiences doing different things, but there were certain nuances that I really don't think I fully grasped — probably more saltwater-wise than freshwater-wise. And wow, Eddie really drove it home. It was pretty incredible. And I remember saying, I'm going to do this for a living. And Eddie said, don't say that on the boat with me. Your father will never hire me again.

**Marvin Cash (00:04:33):**
I'll never forget that — I was laughing hysterically. But it's interesting because you and I are roughly of the same vintage and we kind of had to learn this stuff pre-internet.

**David Blinken (00:04:45):**
Absolutely. I mean, I was lucky — way back I got a little experience fishing with Al Caucci, and Al and I are friendly. Lou Tabory — you know, these are people who you're lucky enough to meet over the years. Some of us went and got our Federation of Fly Fishing casting certification — the organization has a different name now. I have that. And Lou taught me a couple of things, and we stayed in touch over the years, on and off. But I would say my greatest learning experience — not having a mentor, but being a guide — is all the feedback you get from being with different people every day. And that's invaluable. That taught me more about how to fish, more about how to work with people, more about how to open my mind to different things in fly fishing than any one person who's ever had me learning things.

**Marvin Cash (00:06:04):**
It's funny you say that. I spent a little bit of time visiting with a friend who was running a guide school this past weekend in Western North Carolina, and we were talking about that kind of constraint of having to fish through someone else who may not be the type of angler you are, and how that actually helps you become a much better angler and a much better teacher.

**David Blinken (00:06:26):**
Yeah. As a guide, you're on the back of the boat. I like to be on a push pole more than anything. When I'm guiding, some people guide out of boats and use electrics and stuff like that, but there's a certain intimacy that you get being on pole and working with people. It's a team. Fly fishing — shallow water fly fishing as a guide — is really the most cooperative thing you can do. You really need to gel quickly with your angler on the bow. And once you make that connection with the angler, however you figure out how to make that connection, once all those things sort of fall into place, it gets very exciting. People are learning and people are feeling each other. Communication gets easier. It's really interesting.

**Marvin Cash (00:07:25):**
Yeah, it's neat you say that, because when I fish with a guide, I always want to be an extension of them and be able to do what they need — they've done all this work to put me on the fish and I want to be able to kind of execute. So I think when that happens, it's pretty killer.

**David Blinken (00:07:41):**
It is. Someone once said to me, you're doing all the fishing. All I'm doing is casting the rod. And I thought that was kind of interesting. It was sort of telling, but sure, I'd love to feel the fish tug the line. But boy, it's really gratifying to make people happy and to give them a great day out there. They get off the boat and they're all smiles, and they're going to have a good night's sleep because they caught a few fish and they got to see things they might not normally see. I mean, I literally got off my skiff about 40 minutes before you and I got on tonight, and we fished until sunset tonight. It was a tough day. It was a really tough day. We were fighting, trying to find fish earlier in the day. We had sort of an incoming tide that was really slow to stop and really slow to get going — you know, fall. And finally, at around 3, 3:30, things started to happen. And then we got into this tiny little backwater — maybe we went into a creek. The creek couldn't have been more than 15, 20 feet wide. And all of a sudden we've got waves of stripers coming out, and we had stripers up in the grass. They were feeding on — I don't know what they were feeding on — shrimp. I could see some baitfish jumping out. And both of us, when we came back from this experience, me and my sport Steve, we were both completely faded and elated all at the same time. It was incredible.

**Marvin Cash (00:09:35):**
Yeah, that's really neat. You know, we had a really great conversation planning the interview, and one of the things we talked about was how fishing became a safe place for you when you were growing up. I was wondering if you would mind sharing what you meant by that with our listeners.

**David Blinken (00:09:51):**
Sure. We all have — so many people have issues one way or another. I had the unfortunate or fortunate experience growing up of having a severe learning disability. Now they call it learning differences, but when I was growing up it was dyslexia or learning disability or however they want to call it. It doesn't matter, but it takes away your confidence when you can't read. I couldn't really read until I was in seventh grade. But I had a particular intelligence for the outdoors. There's a great psychologist named Gardner, and Gardner talks about multiple intelligences — math smart, nature smart, and all these different things. I guess I had the nature smart one. I felt very at home in the outdoors, and fishing I really capitalized on. It gave me the confidence to keep pushing forward, to learn how to read, and to kind of stay out of trouble. It was something to look forward to. If I didn't have fishing, and also another sport that I really enjoyed, I can't imagine what kind of person I would have been growing up without those kinds of outlets. I was very fortunate that I was able to experience those because people who are impoverished or just don't know what direction they want to go in may not have those opportunities. I'm very grateful that I did, and so I try to give back as often as I can. I was allowed to fish. It was just a wonderful thing.

**Marvin Cash (00:11:51):**
And was that kind of the germ or the foundation of your desire to become a guide — kind of being able to share that peace with other people?

**David Blinken (00:12:00):**
I think so. It didn't really formulate in my head till college. You love it and you want to do it all the time. When you're really young, you don't know that you can do it for a living. And then you watch things like American Sportsman or Chasing Silver or stuff like that — and that came well after I was more mature; I had already been a guide by the time that came up. But you're watching American Sportsman and Mark Sosin and Saltwater Journal and stuff like that when you're eight, nine, and ten years old. And you're like, well, these guys are guides and they're making money at it. That's kind of cool. By the time I got to college, I realized it's something maybe I do want to do, but I would never say it out loud because everybody in my family were incredible overachievers, and far be it for me to be a fishing guide when everybody else is doing much more, you know, heady things. But eventually I closed my eyes, and — what is it that you really want to do? — after having a couple of failed careers and not really liking the direction I was going, I was like, yeah, get back to your roots, do what you love.

**Marvin Cash (00:13:20):**
Don't make it recreation —

**David Blinken (00:13:26):**
— make it a vocation. Yeah. I think I started my guide service when I was 29 or 30, something like that. I think something like that — in 1996. I did a little guiding up on the Delaware River for Al Caucci for a couple of springs, and I liked the trout thing and I liked guiding up there, but I really kind of wanted to do my own thing. I was very close to saltwater — that was really a lot of the fishing I did. Two of my grandparents lived on Martha's Vineyard, and I spent a lot of time growing up there and loved the fishing there. I was in Long Island, too, with my parents, but I was really influenced by the fishing of Martha's Vineyard in so many different ways. And that eventually brought me home, as I would say, to what I do now.

**Marvin Cash (00:14:26):**
And do you mind sharing a little bit more about your journey and how you got to the jumping-off place when you were 29 or 30?

**David Blinken (00:14:33):**
Yeah. Before that I was an assistant producer in advertising, and then I started producing and directing some smaller commercials. I kind of was tiring of being in the office and all the pressures — not self-driven pressures, but outside pressures to do certain things. I think maybe my learning disability had an effect on me there. So I stopped doing that. I worked at Orvis for a while, and then I moved on to Eddie Bauer, where they had me helping run something called the Forde Shop Division. I was doing that on the East Coast for them. While I was doing that, I was taking my Coast Guard exam. I just can't be in a store — I left advertising because I didn't want to be in an office, and being in the store was almost as bad, even though it was a wonderful company to work for. So I started getting my Coast Guard license. Then one summer I bought a boat and sort of stuck my toe in the water, saying, let me see if this is going to work. By my second summer, I was already 75, 80 percent booked between May and the end of October. And I was like, this is going to work. So one day I walked into Eddie Bauer and I said, thank you, it's been a nice ride, but this is what I'm doing full time. And I wish I had just taken the 65 sick days that I didn't know I had.

**Marvin Cash (00:16:25):**
Yeah, you could have scouted a little bit more water, right?

**David Blinken (00:16:28):**
Yeah, that's right. That's right. But that kind of, yeah, that was sort of it. There was a little bit of emotional clicking on my part. Certain things don't come easy for me, and change is not always so easy. But I always hit these little doorways in my life where I'm like, you know, you've got to go through it. If you don't, you're going to regret it.

**Marvin Cash (00:17:00):**
And how did it feel when you kind of realized that you had connected those dots and were able to align your life with your passion?

**David Blinken (00:17:09):**
You know what, I was super happy. It gave me a sense of freedom — emotional freedom. Here you are, plainly doing what you love to do. Some people get to do it earlier in life. For me it was around age 29, 30. And I said to myself, wow, I'm so lucky to be here. And I don't think I've ever worked harder in my life than when I finally started to become a guide and really appreciate how lucky I was.

**Marvin Cash (00:17:56):**
Yeah, it's a phenomenal thing. It's always kind of amazed me to be around really talented people that didn't feel like they had very much agency over their lives.

**David Blinken (00:18:07):**
Yeah.

**Marvin Cash (00:18:08):**
And to basically spend your entire career doing something you really don't like, when if you could just muster the courage and make it happen, you could do it. You know what I mean?

**David Blinken (00:18:20):**
Yeah, I do. When you're working in an ad agency or something, people — I think this is the thing for me — people lack transparency and are always holding things very close to the vest. When you're trying to work in an ad agency, if you're doing something right, it would be nice for somebody to tell you you did a good job. And if you're doing something wrong, it would be nice for someone to come up and kind of put their hand on your shoulder and say, you know, why don't you try changing this and you'll be much better. I think it's such a cutthroat world out there in many ways that people just don't want to do that. And you find yourself kind of floating in space, not knowing what direction to go because somebody wasn't willing to give you the proper direction. I mean, I had a wonderful person who I worked for in advertising who seemed to be as close to a mentor as possible, but I just didn't get the full benefit of it.

But going full circle back to the mentor thing, I would say every single client I've ever had has been a mentor, because of what I learned from all these different people. And it just made me a much better guide. I don't know if I'm a good guide, but I can tell you in my heart and in my head, I'm better today than I was yesterday. And I was better yesterday than I was the day before. The learning process is ever going and it just doesn't stop. Each day is a different experience. The fish are always in a certain mood. You get out there and you're with a client and they may be in a certain mood. You might be in a certain mood. And you're just picking up all these things as you go along. And it just doesn't stop.

**Marvin Cash (00:20:49):**
Yeah, I think that posture of curiosity and hunger is so incredibly important. Some of my old work colleagues, we used to joke about the race to the sofa, right? And I think that way of being in the world can be incredibly frustrating. You and I talked the last time we spoke to prep for the interview about how when you do things that way, a lot of days the wind is blowing really, really hard in your face. But every now and then you get some wind at your back and it feels pretty good.

**David Blinken (00:21:28):**
It does. It does. Both metaphorically and literally. As I said earlier, we were having a really tough day today. And finally I just pulled the plug on what we were doing. I said, we're going somewhere else. We had a dead boat tide in the evening, and I went way up into a creek, dragging the belly of my boat. And here we are finding fish. Don't be afraid to try something new or experiment. When you have enough confidence in your ability, it allows you to try a new thing or go to places where normally there's not fish on this tide, but let's see what happens. We went back there half an hour before sunset and we really got rewarded. It was quite an experience.

And I can say that about tonight, but I can say that about a lot of things. Every season I'll have a client who I fish with a lot, and I'll say to them, you want to do the usual, or do you want to go someplace different? You want to try new places and new gear and new flies. I love it when they're open-minded and we kind of connect on that level. You're not always successful, but you always have a great time.

**Marvin Cash (00:23:03):**
Yeah, and I think going with that curiosity — cultivating that posture — it's really difficult, I think, in today's environment to learn how to fail quickly.

**David Blinken (00:23:13):**
Yes. Absolutely. When you fail quickly, it's just like striking out in baseball. Don't let that one time at the plate get you down. You've got many more times to get up to the plate and bat today. So if you failed quickly today or you failed quickly in the morning, just shake it off and get back there and get the bat in your hand and start swinging again. You've got three strikes and four balls — take advantage of all of them.

**Marvin Cash (00:23:57):**
Yeah, most good hitters are hitting, you know, in the .300s. So there you go.

**David Blinken (00:24:02):**
That's right. And all the .300 hitters strike out every game — they either pop out or strike out every game, but they're still batting .300. So that's something. They just shake it off.

You know, you have trips every season where you might get the skunk. And people who know fishing know that can happen. And unfortunately in striper fishing here in the Northeast, it might be happening more and more. Because the numbers of bass have just dropped precipitously. But with enough experience and enough time on the water, even with lower numbers of fish, those experiences happen fewer and fewer times.

**Marvin Cash (00:24:50):**
Yeah. I also wanted to get back to the mentorship thing because it's one of those things I'm absolutely obsessed about. I think it's an absolute force multiplier. Being generous with your time with people who want to learn is one of the greatest things you can do — it's really the most valuable thing you can give is your time, right?

**David Blinken (00:25:12):**
Yeah. I worked with a group in New York — I actually helped start it, or rather I was on the ground floor of it — called Veteran Anglers of New York. Two good friends of mine, Rich and Tamar Franklin, founded it. I got a call from them saying, we need some casting instructors. And I was like, count me in. We were working with veterans with PTSD, and we were using fly casting as a vehicle to help get them through that. And eventually we started taking some of these people on trips. I remember one trip — we took six or seven of these guys to the Bahamas bonefishing, and we also took them fishing out of Montauk. We had an all-day-long blitz of albies and stripers. And one particular guy, Andy — and Andy, if you're listening, you know it's you — said to me at the end of the day, which I couldn't relate to but I understood, that when his adrenaline went off fishing that day, it was almost like being under fire when he was in the Middle East. And I was like, what? He was like, it's crazy — the hair was up on the back of my neck, I felt the excitement, everything was crackling. And I couldn't relate to the under-fire thing, but I could relate to the excitement of the moment. Teaching him how to cast was one thing; teaching him how to appreciate being in the moment fishing — that's a whole different story.

**Marvin Cash (00:27:12):**
Yeah, that's fantastic. And I'm kind of curious, David — how did the salt win your heart over freshwater?

**David Blinken (00:27:19):**
It's hard to say. I still love freshwater, and I think I just keep freshwater for me. When you're on a stream or in a river, you can't always be alone. There are times when I've been working a glide or a ripple and a nice run where it tails out — very often that's sort of the sweet spot — but you want to work your way down to those sweet spots. I'll be out on the river and people will just walk right out into the middle when they can see us working our way down. And I'm just like, wow, why did you do that? I'm with somebody and we're clearly working our way down to the tail end of this thing, and you just walk right in. This happened to me a whole number of times, even personally. I'll give people the benefit of the doubt — they just don't know any better. It takes time on the water before you develop proper etiquette.

So all the times I've been saltwater fly fishing, I've just been out there alone. I can get away from it all. My experiences in Martha's Vineyard growing up as a kid, very comfortable in the fall — it was sort of a natural evolution for me. I still love trout fishing and largemouth bass fishing and doing that. But I'll do that for me, because if somebody walks into my pool and I'm alone, it doesn't bother me. If I'm guiding somebody, I might get very upset. And I don't want that to happen. In saltwater, I can just pull the boat in another direction and get away from somebody if they're in my way, or if somebody drives a boat onto a flat I'm on, I can just pay them no mind and put my motor down and drive somewhere else and find another place. There's a certain amount of freedom in saltwater.

**Marvin Cash (00:29:55):**
Yeah, I'll confess — I walk quite a bit to get away from people when I'm fishing for trout.

**David Blinken (00:30:02):**
Yeah. I've been known to do that too. This past summer, I'm visiting my dad in Idaho and fishing all the usual spots. Finally, there were a whole bunch of people in a few spots I wanted to go to. So I finally drove my car to a trailhead and walked a mile and a half upriver where I knew nobody would be. And I had a beautiful — I don't know — three-quarters of a mile long stretch of river where there was not another person. And I got to catch a few fish.

**Marvin Cash (00:30:35):**
Yeah, it doesn't get much better than that. I also understand that you've sort of developed an expertise in Long Island and up around Martha's Vineyard for chasing fish on the flats. How did that come about?

**David Blinken (00:30:51):**
Well, when I started my business, I was based out of the Hamptons in Long Island. I'm very fortunate that there's a family home here, so I could base my business out of here. And even though my grandparents are long gone, I was still spending time up on Martha's Vineyard. But I really started to study the water differently in Long Island. It was post-moratorium, and there were loads and loads of fish. You could pretty much go anywhere you wanted on eastern Long Island in the mid to early '90s and walk away with loads of fish every day. It really wasn't a huge effort to find fish. And because there were so many fish, it kind of allowed you to go far and wide and fish in places that you might not even think there would be fish. That experience of that kind of freedom, because the numbers were so huge, allowed me to study tides, water temperatures, water depths, and figure out some of the spawning areas where stripers spawn. Because we do have a local spawning population of fish out here — it's kind of been decimated over the past 10 years. But I was able to locate some spawning areas where I could find some really big fish in some really small places. And doing all that in a skiff on the pole really gives you a more intimate understanding. I'm not just out there drifting in rips. I would say 90% of the fishing I do is probably within 100 feet of shore, or maybe even 50 feet. And that really gives you an intimate understanding of the area you're fishing and how to fish it.

Of course, time on the water is everything. I started in 1996 and now it's 2023, soon to be 2024. And as much as I've learned here, I'm still learning. You know, I say to a lot of my clients who are rushing their cast — rushing is a waste of time because the cast will fall apart. Same thing about learning an area and how to fish it. Rushing through is a waste of time. Sometimes you have to take the time to really feel it out and look really closely, look deeply. I don't know if that explains it, but that's how I approach it.

**Marvin Cash (00:34:03):**
No, I get it. It's an interesting thing, and I find — probably in the last five to seven years — I'm a much more patient angler. I've never been a fish counter, but there are so many other things other than just catching the fish that make the day special, and just learning things. Even back — you were talking about the skunk days — I always tell newer anglers, even on days you get skunked, you learn all kinds of stuff. How to deal with your gear, how to tie your knots. Even if you don't catch fish, I have to believe the hard days teach you a lot. If you go out and just whack fish, I don't know that you learn a whole lot. But yeah, it makes a lot of sense to me.

**David Blinken (00:34:58):**
Yeah. If it was easy, I don't think any of us would do it. The challenge is so good. There are days where there are fish all over the place and they're just not eating, and you want to crack the code so bad. You're going through the box, you're changing the leader, you're changing the retrieve — you're doing whatever you can to crack the code. And those tough days when you're seeing fish but they're not eating really well — I think those are the most interesting, fun days there are.

**Marvin Cash (00:35:34):**
Yeah, I would definitely not fly fish if it was easy. For me, it's one of those things — I'm wound relatively tightly. One of the things that attracted me to fly fishing was a problem I couldn't consistently solve. In my work life, you just basically put more time and mental energy into it and you crack the egg. So yeah, I would a hundred percent have zero interest in fly fishing if it was easy.

**David Blinken (00:36:09):**
Yeah. I was just thinking when you were talking — I have a lot of compassion for fish counters because they're going to be disappointed a great deal of the time. They're not taking the time to look around. Yeah, we all want to catch fish and that's why we're doing it. But I would say the process and the buildup is what gives us all that gratification once we finally get a fish.

And very often while I'm on pole, I've got my camera dangling around my neck — and it's not a light camera. It's not an iPhone. I've got a DSLR with a 300-millimeter lens dangling around my neck very often. And sometimes there are things that come up and you've got to let the camera do its job, and it allows you to express yourself. At the end of the day, you show the picture to the client and you're like, you want a copy of it? This was your day. They might not have caught a fish, but they're getting a beautiful photo because we're taking the time to appreciate where we are. It's not just about ripping lips.

**Marvin Cash (00:37:28):**
Yeah, it's interesting because on this trip I just got back from, we were fishing mice. I think one night we were out until three in the morning and the other night midnight. And that is not a high probability game by any stretch of the imagination. You might as well say you're going to try to go out and catch lightning in a bottle. But it's interesting all the things that we saw — the wildlife, and just the experience of being on the river in the dark. And so I guess where I am on my fly fishing journey is I just want to be able to catch fish the way I want to catch them.

**David Blinken (00:38:12):**
Yeah. I remember a few years ago I was in Belize, and we went until like 7, 8 at night one night. We decided to take the panga up the river directly to camp instead of going into town where we normally have a car pick us up. We're going up the river, it's pitch black, and the guide knows where he is. We're in a zigzagging, windy river. I have no idea what's going on. And then all of a sudden the trees are lighting up on opposite sides of the river. And I'm like, what the? And we've got groups of fireflies in a tree on one side of the river lighting up an entire tree. And the fireflies across the river are answering them, flashing back at them. We didn't catch a permit that day. We didn't catch a single fish that day. I will never trade that experience of seeing the fireflies do that display. I would have rather seen those fireflies doing that than catch three permits that day. It was just incredible. It's an amazing experience.

**Marvin Cash (00:39:19):**
Yeah, and you always have these really interesting, serendipitous encounters with other anglers and other people, right? Whether you bump into them at the gravel bar and it's after fishing all day and it's really, really cold because it's October or whatever it is, or you run into an old fishing buddy — there are just all those little colorful vignettes that happen that have really nothing to do with the fishing.

**David Blinken (00:39:47):**
Yeah. Sometimes the best thing is you're out there fishing and another guide friend — or you're out there fishing not as a guide but on your own — and you see another skiff and it turns out to be somebody you know. And you end up wrapped up together having lunch, normally just eating on the run or a quick 20-minute lunch, but you end up hanging out for an hour, boat to boat, just talking about the day, saying how beautiful it is. And you know, it's kind of a wow.

**Marvin Cash (00:40:21):**
Yeah, absolutely. So David, what is a typical day on the water like with you?

**David Blinken (00:40:27):**
Well, it all starts the night before, really. After a day of fishing, I have to make sure the rods are rigged and everything's clean. The flies aren't beat up from the day before. I don't like to get things ready in the morning — I like to get things ready the night before. Then I'll wake up, meet my clients somewhere or pick them up, and slide the boat in the water after picking up lunch somewhere or making it. I try to make sure, if clients bring their rods, that they're rigged before they get on the boat, because rigging a rod once you're on the boat means you're missing opportunities. You want to have everything rigged at the car, at the trailer.

Each day is a little bit different, but you try to get into the flow of the day. You slip the boat in the water, you get in. You talk about expectations if somebody's new to the game — what to expect, what they're going to be seeing, what they should be looking for. You start feeling out the person on the bow and see if they're understanding what you're talking about and if they're seeing the fish. And if they're not, and if people are open, there's sometimes a little bit of fly-casting instruction or a little bit of fly-casting help. You fish until either the tide is doing something that won't help you — maybe you'll stop. Sometimes you eat lunch at 10 in the morning. Sometimes you eat lunch at 2 in the afternoon, depending on the tide. Sometimes you're just fishing through an entire tide and not eating lunch until the end of the day.

But that's kind of how the day goes. It's kind of hard to explain. At the end of the day it can be the high-fives and the thank-yous and you're airdropping photos from your phone to the other person's phone. They show their appreciation — or not. Then you get the boat back up on the trailer, go home, prepare, and do it all over again the next day. It's not super exciting until you're the one on the bow of the boat.

**Marvin Cash (00:43:22):**
But you also told me — you only fish your own flies, right?

**David Blinken (00:43:27):**
For the most part, yes. There are a couple of flies I will buy — occasionally I'll buy some crease flies. But I would say 90% of the flies used on my boat I tie myself. If I look in my fly box right now, I can probably count on one hand the number of flies that aren't mine. And I've got a big box. The three boxes I carry probably have about 300 flies apiece. Most of the flies are essentially the same — I probably have five or six different patterns but I vary them in size and color. And part of my day, in the evening, if I feel like I'm running out of a particular color or hook size, I'll tie up a few for the next day. Usually I'll do that after dinner.

**Marvin Cash (00:44:33):**
Got it. And for folks that aren't super familiar with your fisheries, do you want to let folks know about the arc of your guide season?

**David Blinken (00:44:43):**
I would say as soon as the weather breaks, May through November — May through like early November. It used to be May through the end of October, but I've definitely seen a change in weather patterns and climate. The seasons have become longer, where I'm fishing earlier and earlier in May and I'm fishing later and later in October or November, I should say. And there are probably more open spots throughout the season where we don't find as big a density of striped bass as we used to. Again, that's not just a function of climate, but also a function of management of the resource — or, as I like to say, mismanagement of the resource.

We have three primary species we fish for here: striped bass, bluefish, and false albacore. Occasionally we'll get a weakfish and some bonito. Early in the season it's usually striped bass first, then bluefish come in shortly after. False albacore usually show up either the very last couple of days of August or sometime in the first week or two of September. Last year I was getting albies until November 5th, November 6th. Then we have our shoulder season — it's a big shoulder season here in the Northeast from November until May. But during that time period, if I'm not teaching skiing, I'm taking groups to Belize, Mexico, or the Bahamas, hosting trips for tarpon, permit, and bonefish.

**Marvin Cash (00:46:42):**
Sounds like a horrible existence.

**David Blinken (00:46:46):**
Terrible.

**Marvin Cash (00:46:47):**
Terrible. So we were talking when we were preparing for the interview about how fly fishing is such a powerful solvent and connector among people. I was curious about your thoughts on why you think that's the case.

**David Blinken (00:47:05):**
I think fly fishing is kind of weird in that it's looked upon as almost a cult-like existence or sport. When you tell people you fly fish, they're like, ah, you're fishing in a river for trout or you're whipping the rod around and catching fish. A lot of people don't fully understand it, but when you explain it to them, they like it. But all the people who do fly fish — it's a kindred spirit. It's not that unique. People come to me and say, well, I do regular fishing, and I'll be like, well, what's regular fishing? Well, I use a spinning reel. And I'll be like, I don't think there's any such thing as regular fishing. There's bait fishing, and there's light tackle, and there's trolling, and there's fly fishing. I would contend that fly fishing is maybe one of the earlier forms of rod and reel fishing. What could be more regular than that?

But there's that connection among fly anglers. People who fly fish may have — I don't think they have a greater appreciation of nature and the environment, but in many ways I feel like they're often more connected.

**Marvin Cash (00:48:40):**
I think it's interesting that you say that about tying, because I always explain to people that even if you don't tie seriously, it's just another way — when you can't get out on the water — to kind of touch that thing that makes fly fishing so special to you.

**David Blinken (00:48:54):**
Yeah. If you think of fly fishing as a way of expressing yourself, then fly tying is certainly a really good way to express yourself. My buddy Luyen and I have a wonderful little show called Masters of the Fly. Everyone go to mastersofthefly.com and see what we do. We have fly tyers come on, and they're so fascinating and so connected. When people are talking about the flies they tie, they can't help but talk about the environments they're fishing those flies in — how to do it, the places they've been to, how their flies work. It's really interesting. We've had a lot of really good feedback from both the fly tyers and the people who've listened to the fly tyers.

When I'm sitting down and tying flies, I'm thinking about the fish I'm fishing to, but I'm not just thinking about the fish. I tie my flies to mimic a particular environment. So if I'm fishing a bottom that's got a lot of grass and a lot of green, my flies tend to be a little bit darker or a slightly different color pattern versus the flies I use when I'm fishing over a sandy bottom, because the bait takes on the characteristics of the environment that particular bait lives in. I know that stripers are much lighter in color on a sandy bottom versus if I'm fishing stripers over eelgrass, where they'll be very dark and mossy in color. So all these things are taken into account when you're tying flies. And it's that understanding — that connection we all have and all see — that makes it possible for us to relate to each other so well.

**Marvin Cash (00:51:18):**
Yeah, and I really don't think you can be a truly effective tyer and designer if you don't fish a lot, because you can't really understand the fishing problems you're trying to solve unless you've actually experienced them.

**David Blinken (00:51:33):**
Yeah, I think you're right. The flies I tie — they're not super innovative. But what they do is take into account color and size. When you're connected to the environment and you're seeing things, just adjusting color and size is sometimes all you need to do. I can tie Deceivers — I'll tie Deceivers maybe a little bit differently than the next guy. I might tie them sparser, or more dense. I'm using Deceivers as an example. Maybe I'll use some synthetic materials in Deceivers versus natural materials in Deceivers so I can mimic what I'm seeing. Maybe some Deceivers that I tie have morphed into something that's not a Deceiver at all, but it certainly was the genesis of what I was tying. Or things like hi-ties. You take those, and you figure out the color and size, and you do a hi-tie. And then you're like, well, I'd like this hi-tie, but I bet if I make the hi-tie a full collar and then throw some feathers behind it, it'll give it a certain kind of action. And I'm going to fish it over this particular bottom, so I'm going to make it this color. Things start to evolve, and you can see how the fish are reacting as you experiment with your fly tying, your colors, and your sizes.

**Marvin Cash (00:53:30):**
Yeah, that's pretty neat. And for folks that aren't familiar, do you want to tell us a little bit more about what Masters of the Fly is, its genesis, and what you have on tap for 2024?

**David Blinken (00:53:46):**
Masters of the Fly came about — my buddy Luyen and I were tying flies online during COVID. We had a bunch of people and Luyen actually invited me in on it. Then we started doing it together, both of us tying flies. We had a whole bunch of us in the Zoom call. I think the first couple were like four or five of us. And eventually there were like 15 or 20 of us. We realized that there was something needed in the fly fishing community. So Luyen and I started throwing around ideas for doing these Zoom casts — sort of a visual podcast, if you will. We started figuring out names, and we came up with the concept of Masters of the Fly — not because everyone's a master, and in fact it's just the opposite. To master something really has to do with being part of a community and finding joy from it. You don't have to be an expert to be a master. It's like being a Zen master. You can master your own domain. So we came up with Masters of the Fly because we wanted to serve the fly fishing community by getting speakers and fly tyers.

We've had the American Saltwater Guides Association, which kicks off each season, talking about the environmental issues and fisheries management and what they're trying to do to help keep fisheries alive. We've had Chris Wood from Trout Unlimited. We had Andy Mill, who's probably one of the greatest tarpon fishermen of all time. We've had Jonny King, who's a phenomenal fly tyer. And a lot of other people. I'm really hoping we get Joe Blados this year, who invented the crease fly. And a whole bunch of other things. Of course, we're going to have the American Saltwater Guides Association kick off our show this year. The talk is probably going to be about the decreasing striper numbers, as well as tagging programs for false albacore, which we hold very near and dear. So that's Masters of the Fly in a very long nutshell.

We've also done some content. There's a very funny one of me and Luyen catching sharks on fly rods two years ago. There's another one of us catching bluefish. There's another one of me and Luyen with one of our co-hosts, Eric Schatzker, where we're out doing great bass fishing in shallow water. And of course I'm the one on the pole, and Luyen and Eric are the lucky ones catching the stripers. We do have some content on YouTube as well. All of our past shows can be accessed through YouTube, and you can get to it through our website at mastersofthefly.com. Thanks for asking.

**Marvin Cash (00:57:33):**
Oh, for sure. I'll drop links to all that stuff and all the related social in the show notes. David, did you want to talk a little bit more for folks that aren't super familiar about the conservation and fishery management issues? I know stripers are a really hot topic. I know there are some management issues and some data issues. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that so our listeners get a better feel for what's going on?

**David Blinken (00:57:58):**
We just recently had some horrible numbers come out on striped bass recruitment, or spawning. It was the second worst spawn, I think, since record keeping began. I can't remember the last really, really bad one — I think it was like 2012. That, on top of overfishing the 2015 year class. And I'll backtrack a little bit. We had a moratorium in the '80s into the early '90s on striped bass — they weren't allowed to be targeted — and the stripers fishery came back roaring. If you leave something alone, it will really heal itself. So all the fisheries management people in all their wisdom pretty much forgot the lessons of the past. We had a limit of one fish at 38 inches, then it went to one at 36 inches, then they went to two at 28. And when they went to two at 28, things started to change. Most people did not recognize the change right away because there were still lots and lots of fish out there. But within five years, I was noticing changes.

Then, three years ago, they decided to create a slot limit and do a 17% reduction in harvest. And they said that would help bring the stocks back. But the problem was that it will help bring stocks back only if recruitment stays constant, which it wasn't, and the numbers have generally been declining since 2015. So us at Masters of the Fly and the American Saltwater Guides Association are trying to put things out there through letter writing campaigns or people going to hearings to talk about what's going on so that the managers at the ASMFC understand that we are concerned about this.

A robust striped bass fishery is super important because so many people make their living as guides. Manufacturers as far away as Washington State count on a healthy striped bass fishery to sell rods and reels. And there are hotels and delis and primary, secondary, and tertiary effects of this fishery that are so very important — not just economically, but also culturally. So it's really, really important that we all fight for a healthy, robust fishery, which it is not right now. We're at a crossroads. We're all hoping that through our efforts something gets done, and it needs to be done in a hurry.

**Marvin Cash (01:01:31):**
Yeah. My understanding is it's also complicated by poor management decisions in the past, poor data collection — which I know is something I discussed with Luyen, who's trying to help with that. But also my understanding is that one of the challenges is the multi-jurisdictional management issue, because the stripers are from north of you all the way down to kind of where I am. So you've got not just commercial versus recreational, but all these different states and the federal government involved as well.

**David Blinken (01:02:04):**
That's right. I don't know why we call it fisheries management — it should really be called fisheries mismanagement. It's so complicated with all the different jurisdictions and everybody wanting their piece of the pie. When it's all said and done, there's going to be no pie for anybody. Everybody wants the same thing, but not everybody wants to make the sacrifice. It's kind of like the pay me now or pay me later scenario. Everybody wants to make the money now and catch the striped bass — the biggest or the most or whatever. When there's talk of we don't need restrictions, and then when all these restrictions that have not been put into place finally come into place or people are told they can't catch striped bass anymore — all the people who wanted to be catching the striped bass, I feel like they're all going to have their hand out saying, well, why didn't you tell us this was happening? I can't run my business anymore.

And I kind of say to those people who weren't heeding the warning signs: those people were the cause of the problem. If we could have all just been on the same page understanding how to manage our fishery properly, we all could have had a nice equal piece of the pie. But now that's not possible any longer. And it's very unfortunate.

**Marvin Cash (01:04:09):**
Yeah, it's an interesting thing — what clears things out when people have to roll up their sleeves and give something up or do a little bit of work, right?

**David Blinken (01:04:18):**
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with making a little sacrifice for a lot of gain further down the road. Not every day is going to be a wonderful day. Not every day are you going to get a ton of bass. Not every day is the fishery going to be open. But you know that at least you're going to stay in business. And you know that you're going to wake up that first day in May when you can start fishing stripers and know they're going to be there. I don't know they're going to be there next May. I just don't.

**Marvin Cash (01:04:57):**
Yeah.

**David Blinken (01:04:58):**
I mean, we had some fish this May and it was very nice, but you had to work hard. There were not a lot of stripers on the sand. People are catching outside the Hudson and maybe the Chesapeake Bay — catching a lot of big fish here and there. I remember when I first started guiding, and even up until probably seven, eight years ago, we'd be catching multiple year classes out of any given school of fish, or out of any given day pulling a flat. It's not that way anymore. It just isn't.

It used to be — this is how maybe arrogant we all were in a way — I wouldn't let clients cast at a fish that was under like 27, 28 inches when I first started guiding. That's how many big fish we had in shallow water. I'd be like, hold on, don't cast at that fish. Wait — there'll be a really big one coming along that you can make a shot at. Because if you catch this 26-inch dink right now and a 35-inch fish comes along, you're going to regret it. That may have been a way for me to appreciate the bigger fish, or not. But now, I don't care what size the striper is — if it swims along, I'm like —

**Marvin Cash (01:06:19):**
Cast at it. Yeah, it reminds me a little bit of the smallmouth fisheries around where I grew up in Virginia, where you see the same thing. You go out and spend a day on the water and you can see the holes in the year classes, because you're just not catching those fish at that size, right?

So yeah, it's an interesting thing. The problem there — there are some management issues, but it's also that during the spawn in the spring we've had these scouring floods that basically wash everything down. But knock on wood, in the last five or six years that's gotten a little bit better, so we're starting to see the recruitment come back. Not that dissimilar from —

**David Blinken (01:06:58):**
— what you're seeing fishing for stripers now. Yeah. I know there's a lot of poaching. There are a lot of people whose subsistence lives depend on it, and I feel for them. They're probably going to take any fish they catch — you can't really blame them because they don't have a lot of money or resources, and they're going to eat whatever they catch. But there are also a lot of charter boat captains, fly fishing captains, who might take fish. The people are there really to catch fish, but I don't know if they're necessarily there to kill the fish. So it's just about re-educating the client — come out, catch a striper, but we're going to put him back. We're going to put him back all this season. We're going to put him back all next season. Because the season after that, we get to start keeping them again.

I'm strictly a catch-and-release captain, and I have been since the day I started. I've had people call me up saying, I want to bring stripers home. I'm hiring you for the day. I want to bring stripers home. And I'm like, that's not who I am. You want to bring stripers home? They'll be in a photograph. And they're like, well no, we want them. And I'm like, no. I'll give you the name of somebody who does it. But that's not what I do. I'm here to use the resource but not abuse it. And they respect it. They're disappointed because I got recommended to them, but that's not my thing.

**Marvin Cash (01:08:38):**
Yeah. David, before I let you go this evening, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners?

**David Blinken (01:08:46):**
Most importantly, if you are in the striped bass fishing community, make your voices heard. Say, hey, it's time to do something about the declining numbers of stripers. Speak up loud, write letters, write your congressmen and senators, get a membership with the American Saltwater Guides Association. Do whatever it is that you need to do to preserve the fishery. It's super, super important.

And there's a great app — Luyen developed a wonderful app called GotOne. What you can do is put all the stripers you catch into your GotOne app. You go fishing and you log it in, and you can share your data of the fish you're catching. I think the state of Massachusetts and some other people are using data from private anglers to help track fish and see what their numbers are. Download the GotOne app and use it, and find out from GotOne how your data can be shared for science and research. It's super, super important.

**Marvin Cash (01:10:09):**
And I'll link back to my interview with Luyen, and folks can learn everything about the app. The cool thing about sharing the data is that it's anonymized — basically shared with the management agencies in 10- and 15-mile strips. So you're not spot burning.

**David Blinken (01:10:26):**
That's right. You're not spot burning. The scientists couldn't care less about what your spots are. They only care about the fish — how big they are, what tide they were caught on, what the numbers are, the density. I'm a guide and I use this app every single day. I do not have a care in the world about spot burning. It is completely anonymous.

**Marvin Cash (01:10:51):**
And rumor has it you're the most valuable beta tester.

**David Blinken (01:10:58):**
Well, I've been finding some problems here and there with the app. Fortunately, I have a direct line to the creator, so we get it fixed really quick. But it's such a wonderful app — it's kind of incredible. It's one of the easiest apps to use. It's really quite self-explanatory. If you use it, you'll figure it out right away.

**Marvin Cash (01:11:21):**
Yeah. So David, before I let you hop off, do you want to let folks know where they can learn more about North Flats Guiding and kind of follow your adventures on the water and on the slopes?

**David Blinken (01:11:31):**
Sure. For North Flats Guiding you can go to davidblinken.com or northflats.com. You can find me there, you can find me on Facebook. And you might also find me on the Hardy website — I think I'm listed as one of their pros. That's the easiest way to find me. My phone number is on my website, so you can get me that way. Feel free to email me, and I love it when people email me just to ask questions. Even if they're not necessarily going to fish with me, I'm happy to engage in a conversation. It's a lot of fun. I do what I do because I love it. It's my way of life. It's my lifestyle. It's who I am.

**Marvin Cash (01:12:24):**
Very, very neat. And I'll drop links to all that stuff in the show notes to make it easy on everybody.

**David Blinken (01:12:31):**
Great. Well, thank you. This has been great fun.

**Marvin Cash (01:12:35):**
Yeah, it's been tremendous fun. And we'll tease this for folks — we've got a multi-part series that will be coming up shortly, so you'll get to hear a lot more from David in the future. David, I really appreciate you taking some time. Hopefully I caught you after dinner, maybe before fly tying for tomorrow, and we got to hang out a little bit.

**David Blinken (01:12:57):**
I only have four or five flies to tie tonight, Marvin. All I've got to say is hopefully this gets you excited for striper fishing because I hope to see you on the bow of the boat sometime next spring.

**Marvin Cash (01:13:10):**
Yeah, that would be tremendously fun. I'll have to work on my seasickness, though.

**David Blinken (01:13:15):**
You won't get seasick in a skiff. We're fishing flat water. You're rocking less in a skiff than you are in a canoe.

**Marvin Cash (01:13:22):**
Well, sounds good. Well, listen, David, I really appreciate it.

**David Blinken (01:13:26):**
All right, Marvin, thank you so much.

**Marvin Cash (01:13:28):**
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 on the podcatcher of your choice. Be sure to head over to www.nor-vise.com to check out all the cool things going on at Nor-vise. Tight lines, everybody.