S7, Ep 88: Low Water, Big Adjustments: Mac Brown's Essential Tips for Fall Fishing Success

EPISODE SUMMARY

Guest: Mac Brown - Master Casting Instructor and Owner at Mac Brown Fly Fish and Fly Fishing Guide School (Bryson City, North Carolina)

In this episode: Master casting instructor Mac Brown shares essential low water leader building techniques and stealth strategies for North Carolina's delayed harvest season. Topics include leader design fundamentals, energy transfer principles, nymphing with ultra-light tippets and fall fishing strategies for technical conditions.

Key fishing techniques covered:

• Building 18-22 foot leaders with proper taper design
• Half-half-half formula for leader construction
• Ultra-light tippet nymphing (7X-8X) in low water
• Circle pickup technique for leaf management
• Indicator-free nymphing in technical conditions

Location focus: Western North Carolina, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina delayed harvest waters

Target species: Trout (stocked and wild)

Equipment discussed: Maxima Chameleon monofilament, nylon vs fluorocarbon tippet materials, tippet rings, three-weight rods

Key questions answered:

• How to build long leaders that actually turn over
• When to use nylon vs fluorocarbon tippet in low water
• Why leader "hinging" is a casting problem not a design problem
• Where breaking strength actually matters in leader systems
• How to stay stealthy in crystal clear fall conditions

Best for: Intermediate to advanced anglers interested in technical leader design, low water tactics and North Carolina fall fishing strategies

Marvin Cash00:00:04

Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. We're back with another Casting Angles with the man himself, Mac Brown. Mac, how are you?

Mac Brown00:00:11

I'm doing great. How are you doing, Marvin?

Marvin Cash00:00:13

As always, just trying to stay out of trouble. And you know, we were.Everybody's excited in North Carolina because DH started at the end of October, but they unfortunately we don't have a lot of water, do we?

Mac Brown00:00:24

No, just the last few months it's really, really dry, dropped. I mean we had plenty of water spring and summer and really the last two months we hadn't had just a trace of rain probably in a couple of months.And so the water's definitely low. The dh, the wild streams, everything's really, really low. And I like low water.I mean everybody complains about low water, but it concentrates things. Makes it a lot easier to read when it's this low. But you know, it adds a lot more technical challenges.You gotta be doing things a little further away. Lengthening the leaders, of course. I thought that'd be a good topic to talk a little bit about.Let's just talk about some of the adjustments we make with this really low water.

Marvin Cash00:01:07

Yeah, it's interesting, right, because we were talking about how, you know, a lot of people, you'll say, oh, we want to have a 14 foot leader or whatever and they'll take like a standard seven and a half or nine foot, you know, store bought leader and they'll just tie a bunch of tippet on the end.And that just generally doesn't work very well for energy transfer because it just the end of that, that leader system is just going to basically crumple into a puddle, right?

Mac Brown00:01:31

Yeah, especially if you got dry fly on. I mean that's, I've seen that ever since I started down this path in like 87.People do that all the time and they just add, you know, a bunch of tippet to something that's a store bought leader. And I'm really a bigger, bigger fan. If you're going to do something like that, have it, have a butt section that's lengthened.You know, if you're gonna say, yeah, we need to fish a 18 foot or 22 foot or 30 foot leader, you start adding a whole lot more butt and midsection to the leader and still keep your tip it, you know, relatively short then where you can have precision and energy transfer, it's gonna go where you want it to go. And especially if you're talking about dry fly or dry dropper and things like that. In this low water, you have to do things further away.And one of the quickest ways to do that is just lengthening these leaders out. That that's always been kind of backwards.And the other thing is once you have that perfect setup for the fall that really no one talks about a lot is I used to see this always back in my early years guiding off. What are you doing? And they'd be changing the leader out every time they fish. And I'm like.So I shouldn't probably say this, but my leader that's on my three weight right now has been on there since the life of the fly line. That makes sense. There's no reason to ever take. Take that off. Monofilament butt section at 15, you know, 18 pounds. Usually 15 for three.I think that's what's on mine. But It's. It's literally 22 foot leader right now. That's my. You know, I leave it on there for these low water kind of periods. But you're not going to.Mono's not going to disappear. I mean, what is the life cycle of nylon? I think it's like half a million years. Isn't that right? That's what they say. Mining takes forever to degrade.So you don't change your leader every time you fish. Like I don't understand why people always do that. But.

Marvin Cash00:03:18

Yeah, but I would also say one of the things for you is, you know, you also, you know. Cause I was at. I can remember we talked about this at the advanced line control class in Bryson City.You know, you don't have to have 20 different sections to have a 23 foot leader to get good energy transfer.

Mac Brown00:03:35

That's right. Yeah. People, that's all a misnomer too. Like to turn something over. I remember here's where it comes from.So we'll just set the record straight for those that are interested in knowing the history of it. My granddaddy's generation, who taught me to fly fish in the early 60s, was using gut. That's why they use cat gut for. For leaders. Okay.Gut was a very different material. You couldn't just take like one size and then jump like four sizes difference because it wouldn't transfer as well.Because the use of nylon though is a whole different entity.So what tended to happen with a lot of the books from the 30s and 40s when people started talking about these more modern techniques of leader design using nylon monofilament, what they failed to realize is they were still copying the old stuff with gut, which is talking about apples and mangoes. So it's not the same thing. So nylon, absolutely. You could take. Let's go back to the three weight, for example, we were talking about.You could easily take 15 pounds. You know, use your favorite, you know, stiff. I like stiff material, personally. Some people like supple.But once we get talking about energy transfer, stiffer material will transfer that energy way more effectively than a soft material. So, yeah, that's the best way to, to say it. So you want a stiff monofilament, you know, at £15, but you could lengthen that out, you know, pull off.If you say you're going to build a 20 foot leader, go ahead and start with 10 foot of 15 pounds to start with. Then you just taper it out from there. Go from 15 to 12 to 0 to boom, straight 4x and you're ready to go. You just got three different designs.I mean, nylon's going to transfer just fine with that type of setup. And I've always heard that too, at shows and cracker barrel discussions on the road where people talk about a leader hinges.And I'll be honest, I've never in my life, as much casting and teaching I've done. I've never seen a leader that truly hinges. It's not like a door that opens and closes. You understand what I'm saying?You'll never see a leader that forms a nice loop. Then all of a sudden it just hinges like a door opened up. That's a casting mistake, not a leader mistake. That makes sense.So the whole hinge concept is totally a made up confusion part too, for talking about this energy transfer stuff.

Marvin Cash00:05:58

Yeah. So to help people. So, you know, if we've got 10, 10ft of we'll just. I personally. You probably like this too. Maximum camellia, right?

Mac Brown00:06:06

Oh, yeah. For the butt section stuff. Absolutely.And I use a lot of the, I use a lot of that in the butt just because it's probably the stiffest material that I know. But I, I like, I like a lot of the. And then what I use is the. When I get to the co polymer, you know, nylon stuff, I use a lot of the sa. Like for.If I'm going to Fluoro or whatever and I'll go to, you know, usually nylon. If I'm dry flying, I'm still fishing nylon. And to be honest with you, Marvin, I'm fishing nylon a lot. Nymph.And this time of year with this low water. And part of the reason is fluorocarbon breaks a lot easier and smaller tippet sizes. So I'm still a huge fan.Like this time of year I'm fishing like nymphing. I'm using a lot of 7 and 8X. Well you can't even buy the fluoro and 8X. Okay. So it's. That's not the only reason.But the nylon, you'll find it, it's much stronger in those small sizes.And as far as fish sand it and all that other hoopla that people talk about, I don't think that's near as important as saying it holds its not strength. Way better to fish that small size in this low water, you know. Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:07:10

So just to give people the formula. So if we've got 10ft of 15 pound maxima chameleon, you know, give folks the length of the next two sections as you step down to 0x.

Mac Brown00:07:22

Well, what I'd do probably from that is go. I'd take half of that. Just go half, half and half. I mean that makes it pretty simple.So, so, so the next length you, you go 5ft say of, of like 13,000ths. Then of course 0x is 11 thousands. Right. So. So all you gotta do then, let's say you're gonna put tippet on.You wanna be say at 20ft, whatever it is you're trying to do. So then if you had five feet, the next section then at 11,000 is two and a half feet and then put your tippet on and go fish.But the idea, and I think that's a good meaningful topic, you know, when we were talking before we started, because over the years doing this, everyone that I've ever worked with, God and always just takes a standard 7 1/2 or 9 foot leader and adds 6 or 8 foot of tippet. Then they wonder why they're struggling, having trouble.It's like totally a garbage setup to try to transfer energy effectively to, to aim it somewhere and actually hit what you're trying to hit. Because the leader is, is what's holding them back to begin with at that point, you know.

Marvin Cash00:08:27

Yeah.

Mac Brown00:08:27

Very rarely do I see people starting at the butt and midsection. They always want to add tip it. And that's the wrong answer.

Marvin Cash00:08:33

Yeah. So I would say to keep people from having to get the calipers out.So if we do 10ft of 15 pound and then we're gonna do say like 5 pound of maybe like 10. 10 pound maxima. Right.

Mac Brown00:08:45

Let's see. Yeah, I'll just go down, I just drop it that way from. Don't worry about pounded. If you're using the same stuff you know what I mean?That you use for the butt. And then of course, when I get to the tip, it. I'm using a different, different thing entirely. But I'd just say 15,000ths, you know what I mean?Drop it to 12 or 13. Either one, it's not going to be a catastrophic difference, to be honest.If we're talking about dry, dry fly accuracy or dry dropper with this low water. And then go 11,000 is 0x. Okay. And from 0, you're not going to have any problems. Hidden and going straight from zero and dropping down to 4x. Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:09:23

And so I would say, right, put a tippet ring there. Right? So if you got 10 of 15, right. Then you got say, you know, five of, you know, 10 or 12. Right.You know, two and a half a zero X put a tippet ring in. And then, I don't know. You know, I personally like double uni knots because I think they're faster to tie.But I know a lot of people like blood knots, right?

Mac Brown00:09:45

Yeah. I mean, I don't use blood knot. I mean, I can, I can time really fast. I just moved away from it years ago.I mean, there's a lot faster knots that are way smaller. And yeah, I'll use the ones that are much faster. I mean, to be honest.And, and that's another good point on all this discussion is talking about, you know, a lot of these knots all have different braking strengths and things, but the only thing that's important is the braking strength of what's going on to your fly. So let's say that there's knots that are 60% breaking strength when we're talking about that at 15 pounds. But we're fishing 1 pound tippet. Where.Where's the only place that's important in a, in a knot strength is where you're tying the fly on. Okay? So a knot could be even an 80% knot because 80% of 15 pounds. You see my point?Don't get hung up on thinking you gotta use some knot that's gonna be 95% or whatever for the butt and midsection. Cause you're already using something that's 15 times stronger than what's going on to the fly to begin with.So it's okay to use knots that are, you know what I'm saying? Like a 75% knot, for instance. Well, of course that gets in the whole thing on knots. We're not trying to go there.But my point is don't get hung up on all the breaking strength stuff. Just worry about Breaking strength where you're tying your fly on.

Marvin Cash00:11:01

Yeah. And I would say the other thing too is when the water is low like this, try to do everything you can to stay out of the water. Yeah.

Mac Brown00:11:08

Don't even get in the water if you can. That's a good. That's good advice, you know, that's. That's a good, good thing to do.And if you do get in the water, then hold still for a long time, you know what I mean? Like, just get out there and blend in and watch. Watch a blue heron if you want to learn about holding still.But just look at a blue hair and it gets there and it sits for a long, long time before it ever gets to go down and get something right in front of it. But it sits motionless for a while. And if you do get in, you can work pretty much like the pools that are in the national park here.You don't have to be moving all around. Cause every time you move, there's a percussion wave, you know what I'm saying?It puts everything down in the slow water and it's working against you in a huge way. So reach out and touch them from casting further instead of walking closer, you know? Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:11:52

And I would say too, you know, once you kind of, you know, get comfortable fishing this longer leader, don't go back because, I mean, you're just stealthy all the time.

Mac Brown00:12:01

Yeah, yeah, that's stealthy. That is a whole lot more stealth. And right now it's really a pretty big necessity for what we're doing. Like on the Freestones.I mean, the D8 different.You know, it fishes a little different than Freestones, but it's still real low on the dh and it won't take these fish long, another week or so to get pretty wise, you know what I mean? With. With what's going on even out there. I mean, the first few days, people can throw streamers and things and do well on little streamers.Give them a couple of weeks of getting hit with that no turn. Just like the wild fish. I mean, where you have to get drifts and do the same kind of stuff.

Marvin Cash00:12:36

Yeah. And you've got a school later this week too, right?

Mac Brown00:12:40

Wednesday. Yeah, Go Wednesday to Sunday. And yeah, we're looking forward to getting that started. Then we get a couple days rest after it.And you coming up next week, get to. We're going to Arkansas the very next Wednesday. So. Yeah, that's going to be. It's going to be fun.The next few weeks we're going to see some color Somewhere along the line.

Marvin Cash00:12:59

Yeah. I would say.I think looking at the charts, I think there are a lot of places in your neck of the woods where you're right within, you know, peak foliage for now, for about the next week.

Mac Brown00:13:07

Yeah. They're saying it's going to be like. Yeah. Coming up. It's still real green. Like my.I have a few trees here in the yard, like dogwoods and hickory trees are bright yellow, but we still got quite a bit of grain. I think it's. It's going to be close to at least a week from here, you know, from this date.And I think we're going to start to see it really color up the next week.

Marvin Cash00:13:29

Well, before I let you hop this evening, you want to let folks know where they can. They can find your. Send you a smoke signal so they can get on your boat, take a class or maybe take a private casting lesson.

Mac Brown00:13:39

Yeah, just probably the best thing is on the website URL macbrownflyfish.com or the fly fishingideschool.com and I'm gonna look at that. I mean, I'll look at emails. I don't really look. You know, there's days and days go by before I look sometimes for a. Like, I don't really look.It's not really a good way to message like on Instagram or Facebook. I know a lot of people like it, but I don't look at that stuff very much.

Marvin Cash00:14:05

Yeah, I'm with you. Well, listen, folks, as I always say, yo it yourself to get out there and catch a few tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Mac.

Mac Brown00:14:12

Tight lines. Marvin.