S6, Ep 144: The Chocklett Factory: Conservation, New Products and a Legacy Remembered

Marvin Cash
00:00:04

Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly. And we're back with another Chockllet factory with the man himself, Blane Chocklett. Blane, how are you?

Blane Chocklett
00:00:12

I'm good, man. How are you doing?

Marvin Cash
00:00:13

Just trying to stay out of trouble. It's. It's been a minute since we've done one of these.

Blane Chocklett
00:00:18

Yeah, yeah, I've been busy trying to keep the train on the tracks, keep it between the mustard and the mayonnaise, you know what I mean?

Marvin Cash
00:00:24

Yeah. I heard you got a tune up on the Struggle Bus.

Blane Chocklett
00:00:27

Oh, yeah, always. Always on it. Always driving.

Marvin Cash
00:00:31

Well, it's good to be in control. And, you know, it's interesting.

I think probably the last time we caught up, you were probably halfway through a pretty extensive kind of summer fall travel schedule. We want to kind of let, you know, update folks on kind of, you know, where you've been the last couple months.

Blane Chocklett
00:00:46

Yeah, yeah. Finally home after like, being gone for most of 2024. The.

I don't know, I guess over the last two months, I was in Maine up there doing a really cool event at Oxbow Farms at the brewery up there with Tim Adams and. And they have this tournament up there and a lot of the pro.

Most of the proceeds go to ASGA and benefiting asga, which, you know, I work with, which is the Saltwater Gods Association.

We're the ones that kind of give the science to the policymakers to protect fish, saltwater fish, to be exact, from the Northeast all the way down into the Gulf. We're in all those states. So this particular tournament hadn't been to Maine before, believe it or not.

It feels like I've been everywhere in this country, but never been to Maine and got that opportunity and saw some beautiful fish, saw some, you know, landlocked salmon, some caught some main stripers with Tim and good buddy of mine, Ben Wally, who's an amazing fly tire in his own right and a disciple of Bob Popovic's, and we can get into that in a little bit.

But, yeah, so I left there and flew directly from there to Louisiana, where ASGA was putting on a science symposium for redfish and jackervalle research in New Orleans. And we had. We had a great turnout there for the first symposium. And then right after that, we're.

We hosted a fishing day when we had a bunch of guides. So any of the. Anybody that showed up within the industry to that science opposing, they.

They got a chance to get out and catch some reds and jacks and got an experience. Some of the science that we were talking about.

And part of that experience for me being down there is I'm part of this film that we're doing on jacks. A lot of people don't know Jack or Val.

People travel all over the world to chase jacks, which is the gt, you know, over in the Seychelles and other places.

But we have a great species that the jack creval here that's many years past got very little notoriety and was in my opinion, extremely disrespected in the fishing world. Flying lawyers now love jack creval but that doesn't help save them. So there's no education on, on jacks and there's no regulations on jacks.

So you could go out tomorrow and kill every jack or Val you wanted. Anybody could. So. So we were stepping up with asga.

A lot of people have heard of the Albie Project where we're doing DNA samples, acoustic tagging and telemetry stuff and finding out where these fish go and all that kind of stuff.

It's been eye opening with the research that we found with the Albie Project and now we're moving on to jacks because Albies don't have any protection. Jacks don't have any protection.

So these are both amazing fork fish really and they don't have, they don't have the notoriety in the whole scheme of the fishing world. And you know, without having this fish for a lot of fly anglers, a lot of, a lot of guides specifically will lose a lot of their guide days.

So that's part of what the Guides association is. We're all about recreational anglers and everything, but we're kind of like the watchdogs for it.

So we put, we get the, we raise the money, we get all the donations, we give it to the scientists to go do the research and stuff. Then they're able to put all that together and give it back to us and we're able to present this to the policymakers and try to get change done.

So it's been a amazing journey for me over the past couple years being associated with them and learning all the ins and outs of that and being able to have a film on it. So we're going to take this film. We had an amazing day, two couple days of filming on those jacks.

I mean I was able to take my skills of musty fishing and was able to figure 8 several jacks right at the boat, which is pretty cool and got that on film, which is pretty sick. 2530 pound jacks eating at your rod tip. What could go wrong. Right. So that was pretty amazing.

So we're going to film in all these different areas where we're going to be doing the research. And we're. I'm partnering with all the.

A lot of the companies that's helped sponsor me and our partners at YETI and Costa and Patagonia, Scientific Anglers, TFO or even working with Quantum and some. Some of the conventional side, because we need all the help we can get. Even though we're mostly fly, you know, it's.

It's good to bring the whole fishing industry together. So we left there and I came home for a couple days and flew up to Connecticut for another conservation tournament called the Tight Line Slam.

And that was a great experience too, which we were targeting stripers, bluefish, Albies, if you could. Weather was terrible, but got to fish the Connecticut shore and got to see people I hadn't seen in a long time.

And in between that ash, just a couple other spots. Oh, North Carolina, for the Albies. Um, been helped do the Albie Festival, which I've always enjoyed, and get to bring my family down for.

And, you know, it's been a whirlwind. You know, I. I kind of joked about it, but that really was not home at all this year. I mean, I think I was home maybe seven.

Seven weeks out of the whole year, something like that. So it's been. It's been amazing. I've seen a lot of incredible fishing, seeing a lot of amazing fisheries.

I've seen a lot of problems with fisheries and seeing some success stuff, too. But it's been a. It's been a opening journey this year and kind of tired, Be honest with you.

I've really enjoyed the kind of the holidays here and being able to, you know, kind of relax, see family and stuff like that. And, you know, I got this terrible text when I was flying into New Orleans.

A good buddy of mine, Jason Taylor, texted me, told me to call him as soon as he could, and he gave me the bad news about Popovich. And, you know, that was a pretty rough trip to Louisiana.

Even though, you know, we had some amazing fishing, I couldn't have my mind off Bob, who, as you know, it's been a big part of my life.

Marvin Cash
00:07:30

Yeah, I mean, it's. It's amazing, right? I mean, it's, you know, it's tough.

You know, we've lost Lefty, and we're just kind of at that place where, you know, we're losing so many of these great people in our sport. And I know Bob was super impactful for you. And, you know, every time I see a T bone, I think about a beast. Fly.

Blane Chocklett
00:07:46

Yep, yep. Bob, you know, he was very special to me.

We, Even though we wouldn't speak all the time, there were times where we talked for hours, but we never lost touch. We'd check in with each other all the time. I mean, Bob was always a sounding board for me on, on ideas I had.

He was a hero that helped me help jumpstart my career way back when in the late 90s, and introduced me to the Lefty with the whole gummy thing, which I talked about in my book and spoken about and with other people. But yeah, Bob, I mean, he was one of the greats, just like Lefty. I mean, we have all these amazing heroes that I've been very fortunate enough to.

To meet and become friends with and have. Have them be my mentors. And it's. It really, it's really. I.

It's really one of those things where kind of hits home, you know, and, you know, you never know. You look at those people like they're all. They're always going to be here. But, you know, in the end, none of us are right.

So we, you know, we, me and some bus buddies were talking and talking with asga and we've got. I feel very strongly about this.

I'm spearheading this, can't really talk about it yet, but I'm going to get a bunch of these icons and legends together and have a special weekend coming up in 2025. And we'll talk about that more later down the road. But it's going to be an event that I would never miss.

And it's going to be an event I think a lot of people across the country are going to want to go to, so we'll just kind of leave it at that on that one. But, yeah, I mean, a lot of people were touched about Bob and, you know, we. I just got back from his funeral a couple weeks ago.

You know, he fought it pretty hard after his accident, but, you know, just too much. And, you know, I think two or three weeks ago is when I went up to Jersey and said goodbye and got to see a bunch of people.

It was pretty amazing to see how much Bob affected all these people, whether it was in the fishing world or the culinary world, because, you know, he had the shady restaurant and, you know, he loved, he loved gardening. He had his rose garden and all. And just. It was amazing community up there, the seaside park, that whole area.

And having Bob being the Impact that he had and seeing thousands of people at his wake was really touching. So.

Marvin Cash
00:10:21

Yeah, and I think too, you know, you know, on the tying side of things, you know, that kind of old school. Like I think people now are spoiled, right? Like you know, even time game changers.

Like now you can buy shanks, you know, you don't have to go to the garage and bend wire for a couple hours to tie flies, right. And you know, I can remember, I guess it was probably the fly tying symposium, it might have been at Edison watching Bob ties flies.

And I mean he's literally, you know, gone to Home Depot or Lowe's. He's got, you know, tubes of silicone and I mean he's, you know, they just went and found it and Lefty was that way too.

Blane Chocklett
00:10:54

Oh yeah, yeah. I mean I kind of came up after them.

And you know, as he always, you know, Dahlberg always said, you know, I always say thank you guys for letting me ride your coattails. But be the first to say, now you're just standing on those that came before you, on the shoulders of those came for you.

And it's true, being a lot of the stuff that came from that era, they there wasn't anything right.

So they had to kind of like flip had to make the first shallow water technical skiff, you know, and you know, the modern day fly rods going from cane to fiberglass into the graphite era. I mean all these guys were part of all that and the history behind it and the fly tied.

I mean to me Bob Popovich was the greatest modern fly tire designer ever. I mean he just, he took things that weren't there and it was all about solving problems.

And that was one of the biggest things I ever learned from him. And you know, that's where a lot of his great patterns came from. It wasn't sitting at the desk just trying to come up with a new pattern.

It was something he was seeing on the water.

Like his surf candies which were out of epoxy were a necessity to try to one emulate the glass minnows, the bay anchovies, the silver sides, but also deal with the blue fish's teeth and having bucktail, little bucktail deceivers or whatever blondes and stuff are getting chewed up. So he needed something that was going to hold up to the bluefish.

So he went from bucktail to using synthetic crank, nylon, kink nylon and then putting epoxy over it and, and all. And then there you go, he's got a new pattern that's one Durable, but two, it. It looks like the real thing and fish ate it, you know, and my.

In my opinion, his most iconic and best get to gate to fly fishing or fly tying was his. His hollow flies. You know, the bulkheads, the hollows, all that.

If you look at any muskie fly like the traditional muskie fly, all that is, is a, as a, is a hollow bulkhead and then having feathers added to it and, and you know, that's how impactful it was.

And it's really funny, you know, knowing Bob really well and Jay Nichols, who was the editor for his books, especially his last one, you know, putting that beast fly and his book was. Was literally done at the Somerset show and just as an afterthought, you know, and it was.

They did the step by steps in the hotel room, which is pretty iconic if you think about it. Jay brought all this camera stuff.

They, they took all the step by step photos and did all the, you know, step by step verbiage and all that to get it all in at the last second because it had to go to, to get finalized and go to a printer because they were behind on a, on a deadline. And to me, that's one of his best gifts because it was solving a problem.

It was, it was taking him seeing these giant bunker and these other really big eight fish that these giant fish are feeding on and not having that platform.

So he did extensions with motto and then reverse tying, given it the illusion of a big, bulky, giant bait fish, but still having to be able to be castable with a fly rod. And that was, that was a game changer in fly tying. And it was a huge inspiration to me.

For me, I mean, that's where I first started catching muskies on a fly. And then, you know, a lot of my patterns have a little bit of Bob in, you know, or a little bit of something from Bob.

I mean, we could get into a whole thing about Bob and you know, his impact in my life and a lot of my friends that are my age or a little bit younger, I mean, he's left a mark in this industry that it's second to none.

Marvin Cash
00:15:02

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of an amazing thing, right, because you kind of take. His flies are really kind of the foundation for kind of all the predator flies of today.

And you kind of match that with the evolution and kind of fly lines and rods and I mean it's, I mean it's opened up the world of fly fishing to be able to fish for everything.

Blane Chocklett
00:15:19

Oh yeah, yeah. That, that generation Brought forth something that, I mean, it's an explosion now with the, with my generation now that's benefited from them.

And then people coming up from under me that are, you know, I'm at the air where I'm right on that, that cusp of not knowing much about computer technology and all that. And then everybody younger is like, you know, you're a button push away from learning anything. And back then you only learn from what you saw, right?

And then you had this little network which was Lefty Cray. Lefty was like Flip likes to say. Lefty was our Internet.

Lefty knew so many people and was traveling all the time that he saw something, somewhere or somebody he could connect you with with someone. Right. And that's what Lefty did and that's what made him so great. And you know, Bob was just like that.

I mean, he helped me and introduced me and got one of my first. My gummy minnows out there. And I mean, it's just, it's really, it was a really special time and me to be a part of that.

And then you see the transition and everything, sky just kind of blowing up now because of all the, all the available technology.

You know, it's just, it's really a, an amazing time to be in a sport and definitely was 20 years ago to see a lot of the things that I've got to see and people, people like him in their prime. I mean, it was, it was pretty special.

Marvin Cash
00:16:49

Yeah, absolutely.

And I mean, and a lot of that stuff is kind of, you know, people can find that in the chocolate factory because, I mean, I know you've been working like crazy, not just on flies, but on materials and shanks and all kinds of stuff. You want to give folks an update there?

Blane Chocklett
00:17:03

Oh, yeah, man, I appreciate that. Yep, I guess we'll do a shameless promotion here.

Marvin Cash
00:17:10

It is your, it is your show, you know.

Blane Chocklett
00:17:12

Yeah, I hear you, but. Yeah, but yeah, I've had a lot of stuff, as you know, we talk a lot and we've done a lot of stuff together.

I've had so many ideas, so many things on the back burner.

Just life changing and different things this and that, and I've had all these products that I haven't shared with the world and finally coming to fruition. You know, you, you kind of, you take your, you know, I don't know how to say it politely, but you learn from mistakes, right?

So I've kind of been through the gauntlet past seven, eight, nine years. And finally, as we know, I have My, my, my company that I can control everything. I don't have to worry about my back pocket or worry about something.

It's something somebody. Yeah, I will just leave it out. I'm not going to get into that. But anyway, let's go. Let's talk about my products.

I finally have some products I'm going to finally have hit the market. One of which are my original shanks that I designed.

And you know, I know there's shanks out there, but what I do know and it goes back to the problem solving thing, it's like you learn from first designs and all and you just kind of learn from it and you can tweak things, make and you just make the platform better.

And I feel like the shanks that I'm, that I finally have and we received them this past week or baggage bagging them up now and they're going to be at all my dealers and on my website coming up next week, which I'm super excited about. So we have that.

I have all kinds of other, other fly tying gizmos and gadgets and body parts and you name it, that's going to be gradually coming out throughout next year and I think it's, some of them are going to be revolutionary as far as making fly tying easier and making the whole game changer platform and other streamer patterns a lot easier for the average tire and the really good tires. So I can't, I don't want to let go, let too much of that out. But you know, we're getting a lot of things in.

You know, I'm really excited about it, new patterns. You know, there's a lot stuff coming down the pipe in 2025 and I'm excited to start sharing it with you.

We started getting some of my brushes in and hopefully we'll get some more of those. And I've got some new stuff like that coming so I can't really give out all the information yet but I do want people to pay attention to.

Not only do we have flies that are going up on my site and all the chocolate factory dealers, but we have a lot of new fly tie in products that's going to be hitting the market and real excited about those things coming and they'll, they'll be coming sooner than later and I think everybody's gonna like it because again it's just not a new product out there. It's a, it's a product that's gonna make tying better and make flies better.

Marvin Cash
00:20:24

Yeah. And if your feet are cold, you even have game changer socks, right?

Blane Chocklett
00:20:28

Yeah, yeah, yep. So we started getting into the apparel game and we just thought it'd be funny to get some socks and put game changers all over them.

So we, we got some blue with some pink game changers and we got a navy with some yellow game changers all over it. So if you're, if you're into the sock game, we got some pretty cool ones, unique. So grab them. And we kind of did it just to see what would happen.

I thought they were pretty cool, kind of, kind of a joke. But also you got to wear socks sometimes and you got to wear a suit and I hate wearing socks, you know, that wear flip flops all the time.

But, but you know, if I gotta wear a suit every once in a while, I might as well have game changer socks on, right?

Marvin Cash
00:21:10

Yeah. And you, and I saw you open the box, you shot me the, shot me the video.

So I imagine that'd be a great stocking stuffer for folks and, you know, we'll get through the holidays and you know, you and I both know kind of what a special time it is to be in Virginia for Christmas. But, you know, and so it's country ham and oysters and biscuits.

But you know, the other thing is then we kind of hop into 2025 and that's usually kind of show season. And I know, I think the only show show you're doing is you're going to be at Bob in the Hood, right?

Blane Chocklett
00:21:40

Yep, yep.

I'll be up at Schultes again doing that, doing a couple of classes and, and some demos and just looking forward to seeing all my buddies up there and. Great. You bet you were there last year. So it's a really fun show.

A lot of people, a lot of passionate anglers, a lot of, lot of very loyal customers that come in the Schultz and very appreciative of, you know, what they've done up there and very appreciative of having us there and make us feel at home. It's a great experience. And I'm only doing that show right now because of just trying to. I got a little big plans for next year.

We're going to be gone a lot too. So trying to stay home as much as I can, take care of grown up, you know, stuff and, and see my family as much as possible.

But I'm going to do a couple of events at some shops still. But that would be the kind of the only show I'm going to be at, you know, but you know, we'll never know.

I'm still kind of putting my schedule together, not guiding as much this year, but doing a couple clinics and classes with Mad River Outfitters. We're doing another musty school with Virginia Trophy Guides. And this spring we're planning on doing a small mouth school. So stay tuned for that.

We'll be launching that soon with Schultz. So we're going to do a Schultz Outfitters Chocolate Factory fly fishing school down near Virginia for smallmouth bass.

Everything you ever wanted to know about pre spawn, post spawn, summertime bass, fall bass, winter bass, all that kind of stuff. So that'll be a limited deal and we'll be working with Virginia Trophy Guides on that. It's.

It's going to be classroom day and then some guided days with that crew and Schultzy and I being on boat and kind of giving you tips, tricks and kind of showing you how we would approach different strategies and all that kind of stuff from A to B. And that's pretty much what we're doing on the muskie school with Mad River. Got the whole crew coming in from there. We had a rough weather last year.

Hopefully we'll have some much better weather this year, but we'll do it one day class covering everything from tie into techniques, tactics, casting, all of that. A couple days after that we'll be on the water showing you how to do it and basically guided trips with that.

And other than that, man, I'm not going to be guiding very much. I got a few days for with some good clients. Have been fishing for years, but other than that, not going to be gotten much for muskies.

Finished up a film here of last week with Dorsal Productions and it's kind of a spoof off of Dan's Pain, which has been an F3T a couple times.

So if you haven't seen that, it's got Dan's really terrible angler and he's in a full blown blitz and can't get a bite, you know, just hooking himself and all that. So what else? What better way to make Dan's fishing better than try to get him a muskie on the fly, right? So it's, we had some fun filming that.

I think everybody's going to get a laugh out of it. And you know, we had a good time and you know, I got it for muskies for a long time.

And I'll be honest, man, when it's high at 30 outside today, it's. I'm glad I'm not doing it, you know. So I've been There, done that. And I let. I let the other guys get into it, you know?

Marvin Cash
00:25:11

Yeah. I've seen you when you look like Kenny from South park and we had the heater in the boat.

Blane Chocklett
00:25:16

Oh, yeah, that's right, man. It's. Yeah, I think. I think I'd rather move south now, you know, getting older. Not that I'm that old.

It just, you know, if we've been out there that many days for that many years, it's just kind of not as mad at it as I used to be. And that was kind of my game plan is kind of I want to get new. These new patterns and these new materials and these new products out.

And I mean, that's going to be my focus moving forward. I mean, nothing else. Seeing my heroes leaving us. I want to. It just makes you realize that, you know, there's.

You're not guaranteed tomorrow, so don't put off something you can do today or tomorrow because you don't know tomorrow's not guaranteed. Right. So that it's. It's really, really been a, I guess, a shot to the chin here this past year, you know, last month.

So I'm going to do everything I can to get all my stuff out that I want. And gotta finish a book too, you know, with Jay. That's. That's going to be something that's. I'm gonna be spending a lot of time with Jay here this.

This winter trying to knock that out so I can get that out maybe for next fall. So see what we can do on that.

Marvin Cash
00:26:26

Yeah.

And, you know, just to back up just a little bit to Bob of the hood, you know, I would say, folks, if you are into predator flies, I would tell you probably.

I mean, I've done a lot of shows and, you know, in terms of the ability to find people that are genuinely, you know, super fishy and really good tires with. I mean, you can sit and talk to them for an hour, hour and a half, because, I mean, it's not a big show. You know, you kind of owe it to yourself.

And I mean, you know, take your credit card because you're going to be buying a lot of materials if you go up there too.

Blane Chocklett
00:26:58

Yeah. Yeah. That's what. That's one thing it reminds me a lot of. Back in the day, Tony, we used to put on this.

This show that was called Lefty Crazed Hot Fest.

It reminds me a lot of that where it was in a small area, small environment, limited number of people, where you could just really enjoy hanging out with people. And one on One with people and getting to hang out with buddies. It's a unique experience.

I'm sure he's already sold out on the, on the, on the tickets because I don't think he, I think he's got a.

I don't know what the number is, but he's, you know, you got the, the whole law can't have so many people in an area, so I don't think he can have more than 100 or a couple hundred people in there at any given time. So definitely limited, but it's, it's, it's experience. There's some.

Got some amazing people that come and you know, that's like the who's who of streamer fishing. That's, that's for sure.

Marvin Cash
00:28:00

Yeah. Right.

Blane Chocklett
00:28:00

Yeah.

Marvin Cash
00:28:01

And you've got, you know, the other headliners with you this year. You got Doug McKnight and Charlie Craven.

Blane Chocklett
00:28:06

Yep, yep. And last year we had old Kelly there. So, you know, it's a, it's a great time and Russ is always there.

All those, there's some really amazing tires and it's, there's a lot of upcoming tires that you don't really know about, you know, and I know you saw that last year too. So there's a, there's a really cool buddy friendly family atmosphere up there and they've really kind of cutting edge stuff. There's a lot of.

You start learning new techniques and new designs and it's, it's, it's an exciting time to be a part of, of the sport, especially fly tying. And Schultzy dead at the top of his game on that as well. So he's putting on an amazing event. Man, I know.

I'm looking forward to getting back up there. I know you are too.

Marvin Cash
00:28:55

Yeah, absolutely.

And so folks want to kind of stay on top of, you know, where you might show up at a show or a school or a shop or kind of, you know, when the new sock designs come out at The Chocklett Factory, where should they go?

Blane Chocklett
00:29:09

Yep. You could check me out on Instagram or Facebook. I have a link to on all of it.

Even The Chocklett Factory on Instagram or Blane Chocklett Fishing, you can go to any of those and take that click and takes you right to my website. And you know, it's, it's a work in progress. But you know, we got some cool stuff and you'll see a lot of cool stuff coming. We got some video stuff.

You're going to be popping out and I'm going to do some instructional stuff to kind of share with you tips and tricks and ideas with, with these new products. So just stay tuned, and I'm sure we'll be out here again with Marvin and kind of giving you what's up on.

On the new products that we come out as it happens.

Marvin Cash
00:29:53

Yeah, absolutely. We're going to try to do these, these chocolate factories while you're around a little bit more regularly before you disappear on the road again.

And I appreciate you taking some time away from your family this evening to catch up with me. And I'm sure we'll get together and maybe have a couple Coronas over Christmas holidays, right?

Blane Chocklett
00:30:12

Sounds good to me, buddy.

Marvin Cash
00:30:14

Yeah, you bet. Well, listen, folks, you know, we're in the holiday season. Have a great holiday season. Get out there and catch a few tight lines, everybody.

Tight lines, Blane.

Blane Chocklett
00:30:25

Thanks, man. You, too.