S6, Ep 29: Casting Angles with Mac Brown
Join Marvin Cash and Mac Brown on a fresh episode of The Articulate Fly, where they navigate the unpredictable spring weather and its impact on angling strategies. Mac shares his recent experiences on the river, highlighting the challenges posed by sudden temperature drops and gusty winds that can turn a day of fishing into a lesson in perseverance.
As they delve into the importance of adaptability, Mac recounts a recent school session where they witnessed how preconceived tactics often fail in the face of fickle spring conditions. He vividly describes the success of wet fly techniques and the excitement of students discovering effective patterns through a process of trial and error.
As the episode concludes, Marvin encourages anglers to seize the moment once the cold front passes, reminding us of the abundance of water and the promise of tight lines ahead. So, gear up, embrace the process and enjoy the ever-changing dance with the river. Tight lines!
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Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly,
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Marvin: and we're back with another Casting Angles with Mack Brown. How you doing, Mack?
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Mac: I'm doing great. How are you doing, Marvin?
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Marvin: As always, just trying to stay out of trouble. And, you know,
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Marvin: it's kind of funny, we got spoiled, I guess, this past week,
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Marvin: had temperatures well up in the 70s. And I mean, we've got a freeze warning
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Marvin: tonight, and they're talking about 30 and 40 mile an hour wind gusts.
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Mac: That's what we had we had a lot of wind today on the river and and yeah it's
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Mac: a lot colder yeah at least it makes it feel a lot colder yesterday i think we
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Mac: were 72 i think today it was 42,
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Mac: with 30 mile an hour winds floating we got about blown back to webster from
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Mac: bryson city so yeah it's brutal when it's that kind of wind all day in a boat
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Mac: i got a little bit of wind burn yeah Yeah.
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Marvin: You know, the interesting thing is we're kind of like, as we ease and we're
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Marvin: almost officially to spring is that, you know, the conditions bounce all over the place.
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Marvin: And so one of the big takeaways is I think you have to be a little bit more
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Marvin: nimble as an angler, right.
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Marvin: To really focus on taking what the river gives you. Cause you can't go out with
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Marvin: a mindset that you want to do one thing.
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Marvin: And if the river is not willing to give it to you, you're gonna have a really bummer day. Right.
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Mac: Oh yeah yeah we saw that in webster and we just wrapped up a school yesterday
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Mac: and um yeah it was real obvious you see a lot of boats there was a lot of boat
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Mac: traffic up the day we went to webster,
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Mac: and it's kind of funny and some of them are banging the big five inch streamers
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Mac: to the bank and hoping for the best and others are golf ball size indicators
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Mac: doing the same thing the whole float it's just funny how many i mean you get
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Mac: just the right thing it's like we did a wet fly game,
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Mac: for the um students in the school it was every cast for 30 minutes every cast
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Mac: boom fish fish fish and then you watch all these people float by till they're
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Mac: out of sight and they got a certain,
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Mac: i think that's what happens i mean people have preconceived notions and once
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Mac: you're on the right thing you stay with it till it quits work and then you get
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Mac: to go figure it out again but But I think a lot of people try to force things this time of year.
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Mac: Yeah, there's a lot of fish in the DH, but when they show up and try to force
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Mac: their technique, with that, as you said, being nimble, I think that can definitely
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Mac: backfire on people real quick.
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Marvin: Yeah, because, you know, we look at colder water temperatures,
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Marvin: and you and I were talking, it's like if you walk out and you don't see fish
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Marvin: rising and there are no birds, right, and you don't see any insects,
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Marvin: you probably may want to skip the dry fly, dry dropper action for a while.
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Mac: That's right. I mean, yeah, and it's tricky.
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Mac: Like today we had an epic Granum and Hendrickson hatch, but you got fish that are relatively new.
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Mac: I'm not sure when, because I hadn't even looked at it. I don't look at it.
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Mac: I just know, you know, the DH, they're back in March, April, May.
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Mac: As far as adding to the replenishing what's in there, and it's like you got
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Mac: fish like today with literally thousands of dries on the water that totally
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Mac: got ignored. So go figure.
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Mac: I mean, it's a cold front. Yeah, there's serious clouds and wind blew.
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Mac: But literally to have that many bugs and realize nothing's coming up and even
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Mac: looking at them, I wonder if you were somewhere where those had been there.
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Mac: You know, they probably would have responded, wouldn't they, if they were there.
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Mac: Born and raised there, I'm saying they'd know what that meant.
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Mac: But here's a dinner bell going off and they totally got ignored.
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Mac: So I guess because the Hendrickson doesn't look like a pellet, you see.
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Mac: So it takes them a while. Sometimes it takes them longer, you know.
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Mac: This year, it seems like it's taken them longer to figure out, hey, that's dinner.
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Mac: And the swallows were there. Like you said, I mean, we had a lot of swallows.
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Mac: I was like, yeah, there's a hatch. And we started looking at the water,
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Mac: and you could see all the insects in the phone line.
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Mac: But, yeah, the fish really didn't know what that was.
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Mac: Yeah, people get away with a lot of things. It wasn't their first put in,
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Mac: but you've still got to be working a system. system, you know,
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Mac: work in a system, like try something, doesn't work, change, doesn't work,
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Mac: change. I mean, change until you figure out what it is.
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Mac: And I think that's, what's real common, like this time of year,
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Mac: when you see boats, that was the theme of the whole week with the school is
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Mac: just telling them, look, here's your process and going through the process where
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Mac: they've got a process, you know, to figure out what it is.
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Mac: And then they get a big smile once they figure it out on their own.
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Mac: And that's the way it's supposed to be.
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Marvin: Yeah. It's interesting. You know, I always think this time of the year,
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Marvin: unless you see something that tells you to do something different,
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Marvin: you start at the bottom and work your way up the water column and try to figure
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Marvin: out where they are and what they're eating.
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Marvin: I imagine that's probably why the wet flies were so successful for you because
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Marvin: the fish were active and eating mid-column and you were able to pick them up there.
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Mac: Yeah, yeah, that was a good, that was actually the most productive thing that
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Mac: we did during the whole week.
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Mac: I mean, the wet fly game ended to work pretty good the whole week.
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Mac: So, and even today, that's what I did.
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Mac: I have a, I have a guy here from Connecticut for five days and we did a little bit different.
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Mac: We fished real similar to Davey's technique,
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Mac: like a muddler daddy up top with an unweighted wet in the middle and just have
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Mac: a little bit of just a brass bead on the bottom fly, a little small brass bead on a 14-size hook,
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Mac: and just by enticing them.
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Mac: It was pretty funny when the guy got the hang of it. I showed him one cast of
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Mac: how to move the rod tip back and forth as he's bringing the top fly to make
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Mac: it undulate on the surface.
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Mac: Had a rainbow come up and he missed the drive, that 21-inch rainbow today.
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Mac: So it was pretty, then he got really excited.
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Mac: You know, then he did it again in the same spot, same rainbow came up.
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Mac: And he tried to get the dry fly again, but he got excited and yanked them all
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Mac: away. And I said, no, remember what happens.
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Mac: When that happens, you bring the dropper up to the surface next, you know.
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Mac: But he got excited and set the hook, even though the fish never ate it.
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Mac: So a little bit tricky. Tricky.
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Mac: A little bit tricky because people get excited, you know, when they see something
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Mac: close to it, they get excited thinking he might get it.
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Mac: But, yeah, that was fun.
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Marvin: Yeah, I mean, the good news is, right, you know, the longer the fish are in
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Marvin: the system as it warms up, things are going to start to stabilize out.
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Marvin: So it'll start to be a little bit easier, you know, for people to dial things
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Marvin: in because the fish will more likely be doing what you would expect them to
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Marvin: do. But you still need to have a process, right?
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Mac: Eight oh yeah yeah because it's going to move around it's going to move around
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Mac: from from the bottom to the top and on you know more overcast days maybe from
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Mac: the top to the middle um it's you know it's just it's it's fun figuring that
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Mac: part out that's really the whole fun part about it,
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Mac: Yeah, doing the process, and when it's working good and it stops working,
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Mac: that's the part I like the most is get to go back through and work it again.
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Mac: That's the fun part is the process to go back and figure it out.
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Marvin: Yeah, and then, of course, the really fun part of the process is you're officially
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Marvin: done with show season for 2024 because you just got back from being in Michigan last weekend.
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Mac: Oh, yeah, that was a lot of fun. That was a really fun show,
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Mac: and I love how they kick that off every year. I've got the Pied Piper's name
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Mac: and email and all that, but I really like that.
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Mac: They have him do that every year and play the pipes, kick off the show each day.
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Mac: And so I had a fun time talking with him about where he learned to get into
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Mac: playing bagpipes and all that.
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Mac: And we used to go to the Highland Games always in Boone as a kid for Grandfather Mountain, you know.
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Mac: And that was always fun going up there, seeing all the clans come from all over
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Mac: the world, watching them throw the caber toss and all that so yeah there was
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Mac: a really good attentive crowd,
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Mac: up there in michigan the demos and seminars went really well and it was fun
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Mac: it was fun to see everybody up there but i'm kind of glad we're done till next
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Mac: year i don't have to do any,
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Mac: any more of them till sometime in 25 yeah.
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Marvin: You know it's interesting too because i think they They have a really,
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Marvin: really unique fly fishing culture up in Michigan.
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Marvin: I mean, and it's not just trout and steelhead. I mean, there's big smallmouth,
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Marvin: you know, culture up there on the fly as well.
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Mac: Oh, yeah. There's a lot of good. They've got a fantastic Atlantic program going
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Mac: on in Michigan as well. There's just a lot of fun things you can do up there.
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Mac: It's a heck of a fishery. I mean, that's where, when I was a kid,
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Mac: we'd always go up there from the Ozarks. because my dad had a couple ants that
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Mac: lived right on Lake Michigan.
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Mac: So we'd go up there and we'd fish. My granddad would go up there with us and
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Mac: we'd go up to the UP. I remember going up there a lot as a kid.
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Mac: And I hadn't been in. I missed about 15, 20 years of being up there.
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Mac: I'm going to definitely keep it on the radar every year to make a point to get
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Mac: back up there because I think it's a wonderful state for everything about fishing. fishing.
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Mac: So yeah, it's got a lot more opportunity to get on a river and kind of get away
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Mac: from people up there, I think, too.
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Mac: Up in the UP, you can get on things and disappear and not see anybody, which is kind of fun.
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Marvin: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, as we sort of, you're back at your home base,
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Marvin: that means kind of two things for you, right? It means schools and it means guiding.
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Marvin: So you want to kind of give folks an update on your schools and also where they
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Marvin: can find you. So if they want to book you and float down the river with you, they can do that too?
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Mac: Yeah, that'd be good. The fly fishing schools are on the flyfishingguideschool.com page.
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Mac: We're still going to have April, May, June, October, November.
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Mac: And those are going well.
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Mac: And I guess the way to get a hold of me for the other, I mean,
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Mac: you can message too on like social media stuff.
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Mac: But macgroundflyfish.com is where all the info is for like outfitter stuff.
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Mac: Stuff and um that's that's
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Mac: the easiest place to get information on on doing
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Mac: it online you know like just to go online and do it
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Mac: and this time of year it's also you get the time of year where lots of people
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Mac: are planning their spring trips and it's like today it's funny because you get
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Mac: calls from people are like we're coming we're gonna be there in june you get
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Mac: off the river calling back we decided we're going to a whole other state it's
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Mac: just like i'm glad i didn't answer those calls.
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Mac: But it's just funny. People don't even know, I think, a lot of times when they
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Mac: call, they're like, we might go to the Smokies.
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Mac: And it's like, it's probably a good thing to screen on a voicemail like that.
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Mac: Because it's kind of funny. I'm like, oh my gosh, two hours later,
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Mac: now you're not even going to a whole different state.
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Mac: But it's just funny. I'm glad I get those things taken care of before you.
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Mac: Because I text them back, yeah, you want to talk about this?
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Mac: No, we're going to Wyoming now. Oh, great.
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Mac: But yeah, Yeah, that's kind of funny.
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Marvin: Yeah. Well, you know, folks, when we get on the other side of this little cold
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Marvin: front that's passing through here in the southeast, it'll be a great time to get out on the water.
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Marvin: We got plenty of water in our part of the world, which, you know,
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Marvin: has not been the case the last few years. And you owe it to yourself to get
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Marvin: out there and catch a few.
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Marvin: Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Matt.
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Mac: Tight lines, Marvin.
Mac Brown
Guide | Casting Instructor | Author
Mac Brown is the owner of Mac Brown Fly Fish and Fly Fishing Guide School in Western NC. Mac created the first full-time fly fishing guide service in Western North Carolina. The first Delayed Harvest on the Upper Nantahala River in early 1993 was also a result of his efforts.
Mac Brown is the author of “Casting Angles” which is a fly casting handbook for those on the journey of understanding the mechanics of the cast. The ACA, FFI, and others have endorsed this text as a reference for instructors as well. Mac is a Master Casting Instructor through the Fly Fishers International.
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