S7, Ep 38: The Shift to Summer: Post-Spawn Fishing Insights with Brendan Ruch

Marvin Cash00:00:04

Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly. We're back with another Roosh report with the man himself, Brendan Rusch. Brendan, how are you?

Brendan Ruch00:00:12

Oh, what's going on, Marvin? Doing well. Currently out of state. Things are blown out, but last week was good and I'm sure the drop is going to be good.

Marvin Cash00:00:22

Yeah, there you go. So for extra credit, folks, if you know what state Brendan's in, if you DM me on Instagram, I'll send you some butcher shop stickers. So.So, Brendan, let's drill a little bit in before. I know you guys got a ton of rain in pa.What, what was going on kind of before, I guess you kind of started to shift into the post spawn thing, right?

Brendan Ruch00:00:46

Yeah. So this time of year is interesting, and I think it was kind of like a week late, just due to some colder weather we had.But I was catching fish that were pre spawn and post spawn. Last week we were using like, we had pretty interesting conditions. It was like dropping water, but it was very stained.So I had some guys out that were excited to throw some bright flies. And throughout the week, I think we covered like, probably like 25 miles of river like between the days and some floats.The fish were definitely mostly spawning, it seemed. And then lower on the river, I think we were catching more, more of that post spawn bite.So fish on mid river structure, fish on hard currency that were still willing to eat that like, 6 inch fly trying to catch up from the spawn.

Marvin Cash00:01:46

Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I guess. You know, post spawn they'd be a little bit chasier, right?

Brendan Ruch00:01:51

Yeah, it depends. Sometimes there's. There's fish that, I mean, we definitely experienced a lot of like, like shitty eats.Like they're just eating the tail and you can like watch them like that. You know, they.They come up to the fly and you can see the fish and then you can still see the whole fly, but you feel something and then you strip and you can, you know, you strip it right out of their mouth because they're just kind of like nipping at it. Um, so yeah, there is, there is a small portion of the year where fish do kind of just grab the tail.But 99 of the time when you turn around and look at your guide and say, oh, he was just nibbling. You were. You're wrong. But this time of year, you're not wrong.

Marvin Cash00:02:27

Yeah, got it.And so, you know, kind of interesting too, right, Because I looked at your weather and it's like we've gone from being kind of a Little bit warmer than normal. You've got kind of cloudy and chilly weather for the next week to 10 days, right?

Brendan Ruch00:02:39

Yeah, yeah. And we're gonna have some high water. So it's kind of a perfect storm for a good like post spawn bite.Uh, hopefully it's not messing with the fry too much, but, you know, it is what it is.

Marvin Cash00:02:52

There you go.Well, I got a question for you from Josh and he's, you know, getting even more optimistic about later in the season, and he wanted to get your thoughts on your favorite summer crayfish patterns and how you like to fish them.

Brendan Ruch00:03:04

Uh, so I don't fish a ton of like proper crayfish patterns. I do a lot of like MFC mini gallop stuff. Whether it's going to be a boogeyman or sex dungeon, peanut envy.Like, I just, I like to get low fishing an intermediate tip line. Typically that's going to be the SA tropical Titan tip or you can fish the Titan intermediate tip.So that's gonna give you the, the full color throughout the head, whereas the clear tip is obviously clear. So, yeah, I'll fish them close to the bottom and if you can get some bottom contact, great.I don't fish crayfish flies a ton with people unless they're like really dialed in. Um, I know some people, like Jake is very good at teaching fishing crayfish flies. And it's. I don't know, I'd rather fish poppers.But you do catch a lot of big fish on crayfish. So to sum that up, I'm not a huge crayfish fisherman with fly rods, but I do fish a lot of crayfish lures.

Marvin Cash00:04:20

Got it. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, you know, I've got, you know, other people that, you know, are on the show and they have kind of a similar thing.It's like they're not against it. But you know, to your point, if you take an angler that's not used to fishing that way they're going to get hung up and lose flies.And you can have, you know, great top water and kind of mid column meats on bait fish, right?

Brendan Ruch00:04:39

Yeah, yeah.And like fishing more buggy kind of stuff that time of year, I think you could catch a, you could catch a smallmouth bass 350 days a year on a crayfish pattern. Whether it's, I would say, like a tube or something that's going to get down and drag the bottom.Like there are some jig hooks out now that you could drag that thing for half a mile and not get snagged. And bottom contact is really the trigger that's triggering those fish.I don't think it's so much like an action of a particular plastic bait or anything. It's just the fish are responding to that, that jig, the lead hitting the rocks.But yeah, so there are some flies you can tie specifically like changer crawl type, maybe with like a, a jig shank and one of those like spawn football beads. Like that would hang up a lot less than your traditional like straight eye hook with lead eyes.But yeah, so if you can cast out, get a good mend in and then just watch the tip of that line as it starts to bow, that's going to be your strike indicator. And if you start to see ticks, you'll get familiar with, you know, the, the pattern of ticks that the rock bottom is, is going to present.And you won't be setting the hook every five seconds when it's just a rock. But if you get down there, drag some rocks, that's how you're going to catch bass on crayfish flies.

Marvin Cash00:06:06

Sounds like indicator fishing.

Brendan Ruch00:06:08

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:06:10

Well, you know folks, we love questions on the articulate fly. You can email me or DM me on social media, whatever's easiest for you.And if we use your question, I will send you some articulate fly swag and it very well may include a, a butcher shop sticker and we'll learn you're drawing for some cool stuff from Brendan at the end of the season.And Brendan, before I let you go, and from your remote interview location in the Pacific or the mountain time zone, I can't remember which, but why don't you, why don't you let folks know, kind of, you know, what you have availability for kind of moving into the summer, how to reach out and all that kind of good stuff.

Brendan Ruch00:06:45

So I am going to be guiding in June. I told a bunch of people that I was not going to be guiding in June.So I've got availability there and I'm gonna do some sporadic dates in July as well for some, some top water bug fishing. And yeah, you can reach out at Brendan Roush on Instagram Logjam Live on the Logjam Instagram account or I guess mine.That's gonna be 8:35 Tuesday nights. And then Brendan Roche on Facebook and check out the, the nut job video if you haven't yet.I'm assuming if people are listening to this and they have, but there's a video on Schultz outfitters YouTube. And there's one on the Eric's YouTube channel called, like, Leggy Hair Day.

Marvin Cash00:07:29

Yeah, I think I dropped last time. I think I dropped the link to the new Schultz Outfitters video in the show notes, but I'll do that again. And I think I even added it from a to the.From our Friends channel on our YouTube channel, too.

Brendan Ruch00:07:43

Beautiful. Thank you.

Marvin Cash00:07:44

I live to serve. You know how it is.So, you know, folks, as I always say, you know, we are getting ready to kind of head into, you know, if you're into warm water fishing, we're getting ready to head into a great time of year. Yo, it's yourself to get out there and catch a few tight lines, everybody. Tight lines. Brendan.

Brendan Ruch00:08:01

Take care, guys. See you, Martin.