S7, Ep 73: The Chocklett Factory: Sneak Peek at New Products

EPISODE SUMMARY

Guest: Blane Chocklett - Founder/Designer at The Chocklett Factory

In this episode: Fly tying innovator Blane Chocklett shares breakthrough materials and conservation insights for modern anglers. Topics include revolutionary flex eyes, premium foam materials, custom brush systems and jack crevalle research collaboration.

Key fishing techniques covered: • Game Changer platform tying • Finesse brush applications • Hybrid tying methods • Jerk Changer techniques • Realistic movement integration

Location focus: Michigan, Texas, Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana, South Dakota

Target species: Jack Crevalle, trout, various game fish

Equipment discussed: Flex eyes (crustacean/minnow/bug styles), premium foam materials, finesse brushes, support brushes, hybrid brushes, jerk changer brushes, critter brushes, cicada kits, shrimp body parts

Key questions answered: • How to solve mono eye problems in fly tying • What makes foam materials more durable • How to add movement without moving the fly • Why jack crevalle need game fish regulations

Best for: Intermediate to advanced anglers interested in fly tying innovation and realistic pattern design

Marvin Cash00:00:04

Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. We're back with another Chocklett Factory with the man himself, Blane Chocklett. Blane, how are you?

Blane Chocklett00:00:11

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

Marvin Cash00:00:13

I'm a little bit tired. I was just. Just got back yesterday from the OWA annual meeting and it'll take me three or four days to kind of get my mojo back.

Blane Chocklett00:00:22

Totally understand. That's what happens when you leave you.

Marvin Cash00:00:25

Yeah, you travel a lot more than I do, but I just kind of find that the re entry is pretty violent. If you go away for a fair amount of time, it kind of gets you out of your. Your work routine for sure.

Blane Chocklett00:00:34

Oh, catching up, man. That's what. That's what it's all about.

Marvin Cash00:00:37

Yeah, but you've been. You've been logging a few oil changes since we last spoke. What have been your most recent fishing adventures?

Blane Chocklett00:00:43

Yeah, I was. Yes.Last time I spoke to you, I was heading up to Michigan doing some filming with Schulte and showing him some of my new flies that we're going to be releasing and getting video content on the water and in his studio.And I left there and turned around and went to Texas for part of that Jack project, fishing with Yaku and Ben Meadow from Dorsal that Dorsal Productions and getting a bunch of stuff with Marcus at Mississippi State.That's just part of that ASGA tagging and acoustic and spaghetti tagging, Jax, to get the research done and documenting that in film, which we plan on releasing with the support of SA and Costa Yeti Quantum, several sponsors. And we're really excited about it because, you know, Jack Creval are one of the greatest game fish in the. In the country.And it's a shame, as I've said before, that there's no regulations on them.So I want to do everything I can with the help of Mississippi State, Florida International, the Keys Guide association and ASGA to do what we can do my part to help document it and work with the scientists to get the information done so we can get the science to the powers to be that make regulations. And it's on us to. To get all that information so they can make an educated decision to.To start getting these fish treated the way they should be, which is treat them like a game fish and put regulations on them like all the other fish that we love to target.

Marvin Cash00:02:34

Yeah, Very, very neat.You know, and it's kind of funny, too, because we, you know, most people are kind of, you know, if they got kids, you know, they're getting ready to kind of get. They're already slightly into back to school. They're getting ready to get ready for back to school. But you know, you're already looking ahead.You've got a ton of products dropping fly patterns and tying materials that are be coming out here as we get ready to kind of slide from kind of busy fishing season into winter, winter and fall tying season.

Blane Chocklett00:02:59

Yes, I do. You know, we have tons of tine material. We could start there.I've got, you know, I've searched, me and the team have searched pretty hard to find best foam that we could find that's available in the world. And we finally found that. And it's super durable. I love it.We're going to be sending that out to ambassadors to get them to start playing around with it. Sent samples and stuff to Hairline and looking forward to working with them and obviously all of our chocolate factory dealers.So our new foam products I think are going to be the best out there and I look forward to seeing not just what they do with my type of platforms, but you know, regular terrestrial stuff, other bait fish patterns or whatever. I mean, you know, the sky's the limit on foam, so foam is home, as we say when we're fishing eddies and stuff like that.So, you know, I've always been a big fan of foam and it was important to me to find the best and most durable foam out there. I feel like we have that. So excited about that.You know, as you know, I've been setting a lot of products here over the past 10, 15 years and finally have the ability to come out with them.And some of the first things that we're dropping are some of the new weighted head systems that we'll be releasing over the next couple months, just in time for tie in season, obviously. The brushes, they'll start being available starting into September, October. And the other things are like the, the crustacean flex eyes.As we've always talked about, great fly patterns or, or great designs come from problem solving, solving. And you know, one big problem is mono eyes.One, they're stiff, they're round, hard, they're, they're not easy to tie in because they want to roll and you have to usually pinch them down, which adds a weak spot to get them to set where you want on your platform. And you know, I just said, well, why don't we come out with something that will move in the water, be flexible, more durable, a lot easier to tie in.So I have a whole series of crustacean flex eyes.One, when you go through grass and weeds, you don't have that stiff, stiff arm that's coming off of the eye where it'll catch grass and not release it. You know, as it goes through grass, it'll fold back and it undulates and moves.So as you go through grass, it'll bend back with the grass and release the grass as you go through it. So there's so many advantages to this, but one is it adds more movement, it's more realistic, it's a whole lot easier to add on to your platform.It doesn't roll around so it sets in place once you attach it to a hook or a shank or whatever you may be using it for.And we're adding that not only to a, a standard version, but we're also adding that to a floating version and a weighted version along with flexible bug eyes and flexible minnow eyes that will also be non weighted, buoyant and weighted. So those are gonna be a huge deal. I can't wait to share all that stuff with the world.But I'm obviously releasing it now to the public with you to share that.But those are some really cool, I think game changing products that we're going to be coming out with here in the very near future within the next month or so. So that's some of that. And obviously on the, on the fly side of it, we're, we're going to be releasing the, the nymph changers, the leech changers.We have some really cool shrimp patterns that we're going to be coming out with and releasing soon as well as a lot of different terrestrials. Obviously the annual cicadas are on their way here now as well as quite a few other terrestrial patterns and match the hatch type stuff.You know, I wrote an article with fly fisherman a couple years ago about the, the, the importance of movement with nymphs and, and other invertebrates and stuff and, and then wrote, wrote an article about the, the how important it is as well with top water.And I've spent the past couple years honing in designs obviously on top as very important because as you know, if you've come from the trout world, fish will come up and especially the slower the water and analyze and scrutinize your fly and adding a little movement without moving the fly and giving that, that super realistic realism and adding all that stuff which are the big triggers as I've talked about in my book and obviously countless times with you on this podcast, having all that stuff coming out here in the near future is very exciting. And I believe truly game changing in the fly design world. And the results I've had on the water will prove that.So some of that stuff and you know, still working on some really cool realistic with that whole design aspect of, of movement with crab patterns. Still finalizing some of that stuff.But we got a lot coming down the hopper and, you know, it's just as, you know, I'm not going to settle and everything that I come out with and the chocolate factory comes out with is going to be totally different. Something that adds to the whole body of the tying world and, and the fly world.We want to make it better, improve existing things, improve problem solving, really, you know, so I'm super excited about all that stuff and looking forward to the. The next six months. It's going to be pretty cool. And I think the world's gonna enjoy the things that we've. I've been sitting on for a while.

Marvin Cash00:09:16

Yeah. Very neat. Can you give us a little bit more detail on the brushes?Because I think it's pretty special to, you know, have the guy that invented the platform get the brushes that he exactly wants because, I mean, you know, yeah, it's kind of a nutty, like there's buying different brushes and like you kind of make compromises because it's not. You don't design it. But then the next level is, you know, it's like crazy square to go. Start rolling your own and making your own brushes.So tell us a little bit about what folks can expect on the brush front.

Blane Chocklett00:09:43

Yeah.So obviously with the game changer platform, there's many different styles of these flies, whether it's crustaceans or insects or bait fish imitations. And you have the whole problem with as you go smaller, what type of materials you use, and as you go bigger, you run into realism with castability.So all those designs that I've created over the years will reflect in the brushes. So we have the finesse. Finesse brushes that will give you the realism that you need from half inch up to 3 inch.So you could tie super realistic stuff like the finesse changers up to as big as you want. We have the support brushes, which aids in the hybrid style of tying. We will have which.Which that will allow you to be able to tie bigger, shedding water and making the flies more castable. Right. So along with that, we'll have the.The hybrid brushes, which is a combination of the support with a finesse style material where you can make the flies much faster without adding two brushes together. And we also, we're be releasing the jerk changer brushes.So that's a blend of specific materials that allows you to get that, that game changing style of action that the, the jerk changers have, which is a jerk bait, fluke type of movement.And it takes several different types of materials to achieve that rigidity with the laminar flow that requires that fly to be able to slide and glide and move like it does. And then we're going to have these what I call critter brushes, which goes into the more of the insect crustacean style stuff.And we also have what I would consider, for lack of better word, brush heads, which are great for not only the heads of flies and game changer style stuff or whatever type of, of head that you use on any type of streamer, but it also is a good substitute for body material as well. So those are just a few of those things that we're coming out with.But again, you know, I, I know I'm forgetting stuff, but I've got so much on the plate and been just grinding like Schultze says, grind to shine over the past year and a half, just getting all these things to come to fruition. Some things I did forget about are a lot of the body parts.We're going to be coming out with cicada kits and cicada body parts along with the shrimp body parts and all that that we've come out with already this year with the hellgramite body parts and the, the ga. The crawl changer body parts. So we're just adding on to that whole body of work.And you know, along with all that stuff, we'll be coming out with kits to make the whole thing easier as well.For fly shops and those that are trying to dive into the game changer platform for the first time, we'll kind of just give you the secret sauce to all of it and that way you could see how it all works and make it a little easier for you.

Marvin Cash00:13:00

Yeah. Well, there you go.And as I would imagine, you know, I'm actually shocked I was able to catch you at home and I appreciate you doing this with me on a Saturday morning, but I suspect you're out the door pretty soon and all over somewhere else in the United States.

Blane Chocklett00:13:12

Yeah, buddy. Yeah. I'll be hitting the road again here next week.I'll be hitting, hitting going back to the factory up in Ohio and then come back, then hit hitting Louisiana doing some more jack stuff and then then Indiana, then South Dakota and then got several other things moving forward throughout the winter. So definitely grass is not growing under these feet. There you go.

Marvin Cash00:13:39

So you'll be home in time for Halloween or Thanksgiving, right?

Blane Chocklett00:13:42

Yeah, Thanksgiving, I'll be home. Not going to be home for. For Halloween. I'll be on the road.

Marvin Cash00:13:47

Well, there you go. Well, I appreciate you taking some time and I'll drop links to all this stuff to the extent that I can in the show notes.And folks, as always, say yo to yourself to get out there and catch a few. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Blaine.

Blane Chocklett00:14:00

Thanks, Marvin. Appreciate it. You, too.