S6, Ep 134: Wrapping Up the Smallmouth Season with Brendan Ruch

Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly, back with the final Ruch Report of the year with the man himself, Brendan Ruch. Brendan, how are you doing?

Well, Marvin just had some time to reflect on a really fun, good first season with Ruch angling and a little sad to wrap it up, but, you know, time to. Time to move on and start just wishing for spring.

Yeah, you were telling me that it's not like you can't go out and catch them, but it's kind of not worth it at this point, I guess is maybe a way to say it.

Yeah, I mean, from a. From a guiding standpoint, I think. I mean, it's kind of unseasonably consistent right now, but, yeah, my, my schedule is empty.

I'm back to side work and. Yeah, but, you know, the, the rivers, I. Fish are very, very low, very, very clear. Fish are potted up.

You can definitely still go out and catch them, but my season has ended.

Got it.

And I guess, you know, obviously you've got other stuff to do, but I guess your point really is that it's like, you know, you're probably covering a lot of water just to get to pods of fish. It kind of spaces the day out a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah.

The way to do that in an unpowered vessel is either spend a lot of time recycling water in a short float or take a really long float and you're hitting water, pushing through, you know, dead water and then hitting spots. But, yeah, maybe that'll be more of a thing I'd want to do in the jet next, next fall. But right now, thinking musky.

Going to get back to tying flies a little bit, which I'm looking forward to, and getting some good, Getting some good inspiration from friends on Instagram, like Hand Tied Market, seeing some stuff coming from Russ Maddin, that's getting me a little bit more inspired to sit down and tie some weapons, as you would say.

Yeah, there you go.

Well, you know, also too, it's kind of funny, you know, because you could float that water and you could listen to like, every song that Morrissey and the Smiths ever put out before you got to the next spot.

God. Yeah. I mean, we. That's. That's more of a musky thing. I'll.

I'll start, you know, weeping in a couple weeks here after we get some rain to some Morrissey and the Smiths just kind of like, you know, visibly, visibly upset on the water.

Yeah. I would think that muskie fishing would probably be better for death metal, but that's just me.

Yeah.

Usually, I mean, I don't know if I'm feeling real cocky like you know, the either modern hip hop, like future or some like older stuff, you know, just to put some pep in your step, some Black Sabbath. But sometimes just embracing the sadness kind of helps.

Well, there you go. Yeah. You don't want to listen to the Cure on a warm day and dance around on the bow of the boat or anything.

No. Yeah, I mean, at least has to be a little cloudy.

Yeah. So you're, you're off the water for a few months. Uh, you're going to be tying some flies.

So, you know, when are you going to start gearing up your muskie season in pa?

Right now I'm just waiting on some rain. Not a ton of interest in going out in the conditions we have right now, seeing fish like, you know, on the last few bass floats of the year.

But I don't love, I don't love casting the muskies I can see. So once we get some rain, some green water, I'll be going out there and hitting up the guys that, that want to go out.

And I'll be sure to keep you posted and you know, update on Instagram when, when conditions are right. But yeah, right now I'm just kind of. And lying in the wait.

Yeah, but that'll be on the other side of the holidays. I mean, that's probably going to be like, you know, early January probably, right?

Yeah. Yeah. December, early January. Open. Started getting into a rhythm in the next few weeks if we ever start to see some rain in the forecast.

I sound like a broken record at this point, but everyone's, everyone in the mid Atlantic's been dealing with it.

Yeah, I would tell you like we're expecting some this week, but we literally haven't had a drop of rain since Hurricane Helene came through here. I mean, so that's been, you know, what, five weeks? Something like that. Five weeks.

So, you know, you're going to kind of, you know, do your non fishing stuff for a while. We're going to get back on the muskie thing.

But you know, folks, I took all the questions and there were a lot of them and I really appreciate you sending them in and you know, it's important to like, to help Brendan feel special. So that was good. And I put them all in the Google random number generator.

And the winner for the Ruche Angling Log jam housefly swag pack is Frank Landis. And Frank, we know where you live and so you can reach out to us.

Or we can reach out to you and you can get hooked up with all the goodies from Brendan.

Yeah, I'll reach out to Frank and luckily I won't have to print a label to deliver these goods.

There you go. Right. Because you crashed this place when you fish, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. And folks, honest to God, you know, hand, hand in the air, like I used the Google random number generator. It wasn't a hookup for Frank.

Yeah. Unlike unlike some elections, this one, you know, this contest was not rigged.

It was not rigged. And so, you know, that was a.

Total joke, by the way. You were the one made political.

Yeah. We don't want to have anything bad happen to you.

So, you know, folks, we will have Brendan drop in kind of during muskie season as he kind of gets back in the groove.

But we figured it was probably not helpful for the next, I don't know, eight to 10 weeks for him to check in every two weeks and tell you, you know, where he got his burrito for dinner. And so, so we'll do that.

And you know, it's been fun working on this with you this season, Brendan, and, you know, look forward to getting updates and kind of catching up on the other side of 2025. If folks want to get on kind of your when the conditions are good, call me list for muskie fishing or they want to get on your pre spawn book.

Well, where should they go?

I would say just reach out on Instagram at Brendan Ruch or just shoot me a text. Then I will get you on the books.

If you want to call and talk about pre spawn and kind of like how the weeks usually shape out through mid March through like first week of June. I love to chat about that. And yeah, I mean, that's my by far my favorite time of year to be on the water and I'm very enthusiastic about it.

So love to have you out on the boat and skip some big flies food, big happy fish.

Yeah. And so let's see. So we know that you're going to be at Bob in the Hood in February up in Michigan.

We know that you're going to be chilling in Edison in the house fly booth for the fly fishing show. Any update on tying with the folks at Log Jam on Instagram Live?

Yeah, I was actually just talking to Dave about that today. So we're going to be getting back after it, I would imagine sometime in November towards the end of the month.

But yeah, now that my schedule is much more predictable and it gets dark so early, the tying bug is getting at me.

So Dave and I will release some information as far as who we're going to have on what it's going to be and hoping to mix things up a little bit and maybe even have some structured teaching style. Instagram lives, the one we did with wilrom last year was pretty incredible.

And that's just due to, you know, he's very intelligent, very dialed and a great speaker. But I would love to do some more stuff like that and, you know, try to keep things light hearted but also make it worthwhile for the viewers.

Take something away from it.

Yeah.

And so let's see, I'm trying to think any kind of other kind of tying events or places you're going to be kind of during kind of the early part of 2025 during show season or, you know, tattoos and booze or crazy stuff like that you want to let folks know about?

Well, as, as far as I know, it's Bob in the hood and Edison right now.

Well, there you go. Well, I know you can definitely get a tattoo at Edison, so there you go.

Yes, we can buy the house fly booth got Danny Reed and Dan Santoro. They'll be. Probably have to reach out a couple months in advance, but they will be there. Tattooing.

Well, you should get a Rouch Angling bass tattoo.

All right, I'll get a smiley bass tattoo this year.

There you go.

Well, folks, even though it's kind of cooling off and Brendan's kind of hanging up his smallmouth cleats for the season, you still owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.

Because I promise you, in February when you look out the window and it's cold and miserable, you're going to wish you'd spend a few more days on the water. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Brendan.

Take care, guys. Thanks for a fun 10 weeks.

There you go. It's been a blast. I've enjoyed it. Take care, everybody.