S6, Ep 114: Streamer Fishing and Boat Tips: Dustin White's Wyoming Update

Marvin: Hey folks it's marvin cash the host of the articulate fly we're back with another

Marvin: on the water with dustin white dustin how are you.

Dustin: Marvin i'm enjoying my evening i just got home a little late from the water

Dustin: but i can't complain yeah.

Marvin: I hear you've been keeping it on the dl on the mile and doing pretty well.

Dustin: Yeah i've had some water to myself uh the last few days out there so that's

Dustin: been great but you know kind of across the board you know we have a ton of stretches of water to cover.

Dustin: And so it's kind of that really fun time of year. Everyone's kind of spreading

Dustin: out a little bit and kind of finding their own little stomping grounds of where to fish.

Dustin: And so we're really grateful for that.

Marvin: Yeah, it's a little different than the high season where you're taking turns

Marvin: rolling counterclockwise through a pool, right?

Dustin: Yeah, yeah. None of that. There's none of the carousel really happening now.

Dustin: We're just, yeah, in that really, really fun time of year to where you have

Dustin: a ton of water to fish, a ton of options.

Dustin: I think Blake, our owner, tallied the total number of river miles at some point.

Dustin: And I think it's north of 130 miles of water we have to row.

Dustin: And additionally, beyond that, we're hitting that time of year,

Dustin: we're kind of hitting our stride where we really have some just fantastic streamer

Dustin: fishing, really dynamic dry fly fishing.

Dustin: Machine so folks can come out and they can you know targets fish multiple ways

Dustin: whether that's stripping streamers swinging flies throwing dry flies hopper

Dustin: dropper we can indicator nymphs still if we want it's it's just it's just a ton of fun it's.

Marvin: Always good when you can get things to work out for the strippers and the swingers.

Dustin: Exactly. And in the same day, you know, two for one, that's that that's that's fantastic.

Marvin: Yeah, that's just that's just good, clean fun. And so absolutely.

Marvin: You want to you want to break down kind of the three major sections for us?

Dustin: Sure, absolutely. Yeah. So for the gray reef section, I would extend that beyond,

Dustin: you know, just the, you know, the top eight to 12 miles of the reef.

Dustin: But we go, you know, the whole way, you know, through Casper right now.

Dustin: And so right now, they've just dropped our flow, so we're sitting at 500 CFS now.

Dustin: So it's going to be there at winter flows for really the duration of the winter

Dustin: into the spring, feasibly.

Dustin: So with that, it is pretty grassy right now.

Dustin: We just started getting those really, really kind of cool nights.

Dustin: So that grass and that moss that grows on the substrate is starting to break

Dustin: off, and it's kind of suspended throughout the column.

Dustin: So if folks are bobber fishing, you're going to find yourself probably pretty

Dustin: frustrated on a good bulk of the river.

Dustin: The kind of way to get around that, obviously, throw in drys,

Dustin: dry dropper, hopper dropper. And oddly enough, a streamer fishing,

Dustin: there are some ways to kind of combat that.

Dustin: So I would say, you know, probably avoiding the bobbers is the way to go.

Dustin: But thankfully for that, we've got some pretty killer hatches.

Dustin: Tricos are coming off in the morning.

Dustin: Caddis are kind of following slightly after that.

Dustin: In the evening uh the caddis hatch is still

Dustin: pretty sick and only increasing but we're seeing

Dustin: some other cool bugs too you know we're seeing blue wings coming off uh midges

Dustin: uh also some sulfur some some um

Dustin: you know crane flies there's there's a i mean a verifiable smorgasbord of of

Dustin: bugs in the evenings on the mile section i'd say the hatch is pretty similar

Dustin: but we have clean water there so you're not contending with all the grass, with all the moss.

Dustin: It's pretty clean water. Most of the grass on the mile is still attached to the substrate.

Dustin: And the water temps are a little bit warmer, a touch warmer there,

Dustin: so that's kind of why it's not breaking off quite yet.

Dustin: On the horn, still pretty mossy, still pretty grassy.

Dustin: Same sort of bugs, same sort of hatch you're going to be seeing, um but

Dustin: there's there's definitely a lot more nymphine

Dustin: options there if folks want to do that in terms

Dustin: of you know on all three streamer fishing um has

Dustin: been more kind of tan natural colors have been working best i've

Dustin: been having my best success marvin um really avoiding

Dustin: kind of inside corners with all that moss that that's

Dustin: kind of gumming up it's kind of on those inside turns so

Dustin: finding the structure finding the shelves um pitching on

Dustin: those lanes where their grass is still kind of of connected this those fish

Dustin: are hugging on that um and i've been fishing with my clients a sink six to kind

Dustin: of punch through that real quick and then get that rod tip nice and low in the

Dustin: water so you're kind of stripping uh below that that suspended uh moss that's

Dustin: that's kind of breaking off right now uh.

Marvin: Got it and got a question for you from jay we got your question this time jay

Marvin: and uh jay is a uh is a newbie boat owner and wanted to get your thoughts on

Marvin: you know advice for newbie boat owners and must-haves for the boat.

Dustin: Nice, nice. Yeah. So advice would be, I mean, get it out there,

Dustin: get on the sticks, row in a lot of different conditions.

Dustin: Learning how to scull, I think, is the most important thing.

Dustin: So realizing what the, how would I say, tendencies of your boat would be with

Dustin: power application on your strokes, how that boat responds to what you're doing,

Dustin: where you're at in the water.

Dustin: But learning how to, some folks call it, we would call it sculling here in Wyoming.

Dustin: Some folks, I know in Michigan, they call it sliding.

Dustin: But it basically is a little bit of the pat your head, rub your belly,

Dustin: sort of disjoining two different things at once.

Dustin: To learn how to crab or crawl that boat so that as you're rowing and kind of

Dustin: holding a line for your angler.

Dustin: That uh you're not putting one in a

Dustin: really kind of awkward position by having that boat sort

Dustin: of cockeyed a little um much

Dustin: an extreme way uh we'll say so part of

Dustin: part of the rowing process is is kind of learning what

Dustin: you know what you're hoping to do with your angler so you know

Dustin: if you're streamer fishing you know kind of rowing is

Dustin: going to be uh just trying to keep pace bleeding off

Dustin: a little bit of of the current and pounding the

Dustin: banks generally speaking uh you know if you're throwing dries you're wanting

Dustin: to kind of stay out of eyesight of those fish but if you are indicator fishing

Dustin: really the goal is to have your clients cast as little as possible and so part

Dustin: of that is you know once they cast off the side of the boat you really are trying to keep that boat.

Dustin: You know pretty much in pace parallel to your to your anglers indicators to

Dustin: their lines whatever they're fishing and minimizing the need necessity to recast

Dustin: over and over and over again that really becomes the more so than I think honestly Marvin.

Dustin: Um fly selection really is uh really

Dustin: if if you're fishing indicator fishing from the boat it

Dustin: really comes down to rowing those lines and and minimizing the necessity to

Dustin: recast over and over and over again uh for success um that that really is going

Dustin: to come down to just time and so learning the stroke so you know first stroke

Dustin: you're going to want to learn uh paired with your Your concept of what a ferrying angle is, is,

Dustin: you know, your reverse stroke, push stroke,

Dustin: and then starting to learn how to scull, how to crab that boat.

Dustin: That's going to be the thing that starts to set folks apart.

Dustin: Generally speaking, you get about, I don't know, 80 to 100 days on the water,

Dustin: and you're going to be pretty comfortable on the sticks at that point.

Dustin: In terms of things for the boat, it kind of depends on what storage would be.

Dustin: Um but you know i you know obviously you want to

Dustin: have all your are your safety gear on it so your uh

Dustin: your life vests a throw bag and then

Dustin: uh some some first aid uh in the boat beyond that you know good rod storage

Dustin: good storage for um your gear your tackle um and then uh you know you know cooler

Dustin: some uh good beverages and snacks for the day and and uh if applicable some uh some good tunes yeah.

Marvin: I would say in a bottle opener and some toilet paper how about that.

Dustin: Well yeah you well yeah you and you mount that on the on the leg locks if you

Dustin: get that mounted on the leg lock uh yeah if you get a tp dispenser and a bottle

Dustin: opener right on the leg lock you're you're in pretty good shape there.

Marvin: You go maybe we'll get uh get dude wipes to sponsor the fisher important next year.

Dustin: Oh yeah there you go that'd be that'd be a plan well.

Marvin: You know folks Cooks, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.

Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media.

Marvin: If we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly schwag.

Marvin: We're going to enter a drawing for a half a day of fishing with Dustin,

Marvin: and we've got one more shot to get your questions in.

Marvin: And then two times down the road, we're going to actually have the drawing.

Marvin: So you've got one more shot to have a chance to win a half day on the water

Marvin: with Dustin, which I highly recommend.

Marvin: End. And Dustin, as I always say, we have to give a shout out to a local Dibar

Marvin: bar slash restaurant in the Casper area. What have you got?

Dustin: Yeah, I want to definitely shout out Salt Tree Brewing. They're just down the

Dustin: road from our friends at Mountain Hoffs, but just a really, really great little

Dustin: hole-in-the-wall microbrewery.

Dustin: But they definitely have the bougie beers there.

Dustin: So a little bit of the opposite end of the spectrum from the PBR Tallboys we

Dustin: were talking about last week, the last episode.

Dustin: But just a great, great hang. They're really, really active in the community.

Dustin: And so we want to champion them.

Dustin: They make a killer product, friendly staff, great hang.

Dustin: And as I said, they're constantly involved in stuff going on here in Casper.

Dustin: So we're grateful for them and happy to shout them out.

Marvin: There you go. I guess if you're looking for like a sour or a gozer or something, head over there, right?

Dustin: Yeah, or the quadruple IPAs, the insane stouts.

Dustin: They're such a great spot. And you never kind of, kind of never know what you're

Dustin: going to find on the menu there. So, so we're, we're big fans of Skulltree.

Marvin: Well, there you go. Well, listen, I know your, your Western season is starting to wind down.

Marvin: If I remember correctly, you were pretty booked in October, but you want to

Marvin: let folks know kind of how to get on your guide calendar out West,

Marvin: or I know you'll be back East kind of around the holidays to do some steelhead

Marvin: fishing, how people can catch up with you and get on the books.

Dustin: Yep. If you want to reach out to me, you can find me on Instagram at Dustin

Dustin: James White. you can give the ugly bug a call area code 307-234-6905.

Marvin: Well there you go well folks as always say you owe it to yourself to get out

Marvin: there and catch a few tight lines everybody tight lines dustin tight.

Dustin: Lines marvin thanks so much.