April 2, 2025 • 10 mins
In this episode of The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash reconnects with Mac Brown for another engaging installment of Casting Angles. Mac shares his recent experiences from various fly fishing shows, including the Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo in St. Paul, where he was thrilled to see a strong turnout of families and young anglers. The duo discusses the importance of community in the sport, especially with events that draw in both seasoned veterans and newcomers alike.
As spring unfolds, Mac shares his excitement about chasing dry fly hatches in the Great Smoky Mountains, reporting successful outings with March browns and black caddis. Marvin and Mac discuss the significance of warmer nighttime temperatures and how they contribute to increased fish activity, making this an ideal time for anglers to get out on the water.
Listeners will appreciate Marvin's insights on planning ahead for guided trips, especially during the busy spring and summer seasons. He emphasizes the need for early bookings to secure spots with quality guides, as demand increases with the arrival of warmer weather and tourist season. Mac outlines his upcoming classes, including an advanced line control casting class and a five-day guide school, encouraging those interested to reach out and reserve their spots.
With valuable tips, lively anecdotes and a shared passion for fly fishing, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to enhance their skills and enjoy the great outdoors as the season warms up.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash,the host of the Articulate Fly. We're
back with another CastingAngles with Mac Brown. Mac, how are
you?
I'm doing great. How youdoing, Marvin?
Just trying to stay out oftrouble and adjusting to no more
life on the road with flyfishing shows.
Oh, yeah, no, that was, thatwas fun. That was fun. I'm glad you
got to come up there toLancaster and hang out a few days.
(00:26):
And we did a little school upin Wisconsin and wrapped it up in
St. Paul at the Great Watershow. And that was a, that was a
really fun event too. Yeah.
I've got one more thing on mycalendar, I guess in about, actually
a little bit less than amonth, I'm going to go down to Lefty's
High Fest down in Vero Beach.It's a. They're bringing that event
(00:47):
back and ASGA is, is puttingit on and they're having a big fundraiser
to support Jack CrevalResearch and you know, a bunch of
OGs and young guns and flyfishing are going to be down there.
So it should be a good time.
Yeah, that sounds like fun.That'd be a good time. And one thing
I really liked about thatGreat Waters. It had a lot of families
(01:12):
show up with kids and, youknow, had a lot of whole family unit.
The women were there in bignumbers with their husbands and kids.
And I think the booth thatLith Hartz ran there for Fly Fishers
International, I think he saidthey ran close to 460 people that
two and a half days, which is incredible.
Yeah, I'm pretty impressed. Imean, I've been to several fly fishing
(01:34):
shows kind of in the, in theMidwest, and I'm always impressed
at how passionate all thepeople are that are there, even though
those are, you know, by kindof what we would consider kind of
on. By east coast or westcoast standard smaller regional shows.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's justhe definitely went after, I think,
you know, marketing to those,to that audience. And I was just
(01:56):
impressed how many in theseminars like Jason Randall and I
both did a bunch of seminarsand I did a lot of casting demos.
But when I'd look at theaudience during the demos even, I
mean, I'm seeing kids likesecond grade to fifth grade and the
husband, wife standing there.I mean, it was really kind of cool.
That was a cool, cool vibegoing on, for sure. Yeah.
(02:16):
And then of course we get tocome home and fish and you were telling
me you've been chasing thespring dry fly hatches up in the.
Up in the park.
Yeah, we got to do that thisweekend, which was a lot of fun.
And I had had a couple ofmornings I could go up there and
that was the big opening day,I think, in Cherokee as well. And
there's a lot of peoplecalling, asking questions about what
(02:38):
they should do up there. AndI'm not. I'm not really sure up there
because I mostly go up in thepark usually when I'm off. So I know
in the park we're stillgetting pretty good March brown hatches
and we had a really good blackcaddis hatch, few Betas still going
off. And so it was fun. I gotto play a lot with some wet fly technique
and dry fly technique ispretty much all I did on Saturday
(02:59):
and Sunday. I didn't reallynymph fish at all up there because
it's too good up in the middlecolumn. Yeah.
And the great thing, right,you know, I've been watching, you
know, you know, I would tellyou folks, you know, the real trick
to watch when the fishing isgoing to really turn on is look at
the lows at night, right. Andprobably, I don't know, in the last
week to 10 days, at leasthere, kind of in the Piedmont, the
(03:20):
lows have started to. They'resignificantly warmer, like 15 to
20 degrees warmer. And so, youknow, that just means that the water
is going to warm up even whenthe sun's down and the fish are just
going to get a lot more active.
That's right. Yeah. Thatreally made a difference. We had
a lot of. Well, I guess peoplehad seen probably on the news about
Table Rock down there, thefire there, and we have a big one
(03:41):
here in Larca. And I'm justthankful today. Rained a bunch today,
early this morning. So we gotprobably two inches of rain. So hopefully
that's going to help put out alot of these wildfires that are around.
And I think it'll help put outa Larka for sure. I don't know how
much water fell down towardsGreenville, South Carolina and Green
river, but hopefully they gotplenty of water too, because, yeah,
(04:05):
these fires grew fast. I mean,it was so dry when I flew back from
the show up there at GreatWaters. I stayed in Wisconsin for
a couple days before I flewback. And the humidity here was like
in the 15% for weeks in 30, 40mile an hour wind the first few days
I was home. So that just madefor some really bad fire conditions,
(04:26):
you know, which is whathappened. We had a lot of western
North Carolina fires there forabout a week and a half. So hopefully,
hopefully this rains reallyhelped put a lot of that out. Yeah.
And you know, and we've gotfolks, you know, kind of, you know,
fires are bad, HurricaneHelene is bad, still feeling the
impacts of that. And, youknow, so folks really need to try
(04:46):
to make an effort to get toSouthwest Virginia, east Tennessee,
western North Carolina to fishand spend some money with their family.
But, you know, it's funny, youknow, we were talking about, you
know, how busy you are beforewe started recording. And, you know,
one tip I would give folks is,you know, if you want to fish with
a guide, and I would say,particularly if you want to fish
with a good guide, you need toplan well in advance because, you
know, my general experience isthat, you know, most good guides
(05:10):
are booked pretty full forthis season at this point. And so,
you know, you need to reallykind of get on that if you're thinking
about fishing. And I would sayprobably, you know, for most of the,
of the really good guides,you're probably going to have to
get on a will call list ormaybe plan to fish kind of in the
late fall.
Yeah, yeah, I think that'sgood advice just because, you know,
during that great water show,I know it's opening day of trout
(05:32):
seasons this coming, thiscoming week. I mean, always the first
Saturday in April for WesternCarolina, for the state water. And
I know last week there was alot of, a lot of calls. I didn't,
I didn't get to talk to them,but you know, that left messages
when we're at the great watershow and they're calling it like
8, 9 o'clock at night, wantinga trip the next morning for three
and four boats. And that'sjust not going to happen because
(05:54):
it's too busy. It's too busyto be calling like literally the
night before. So I mean, justa little, little bit of planning
would, would go a long waysfurther experience, you know. Yeah.
And I would also say too that,you know, shops that have deeper
benches that can maybe be alittle bit more flexible, you know,
they don't have those collegekids home yet. Right. So, you know,
(06:15):
they don't have the capacityto call kids that are, you know,
home from school and areguiding for the summer to kind of
help fill things out. So.Yeah, I mean, kind of like everything
in life, right, Mac? A littlepreparation goes a long way.
Yeah, yeah, I think that wouldbe good. That's good advice because
we're about to be into it forApril and May and you know, Then
it starts getting into what wecall tourist season here in Western
(06:36):
Carolina with the nationalpark and what is it, 13 and a half
million people a year comingthrough here. So yeah, if they're
trying to do something, ofcourse a lot of those calls will
come in July, August, which isthe worst of the 12 months. But they'll
call like a lot that time ofyear just because partly they don't
know better, that's theslowest part of the year. But yeah,
(06:56):
it'd be, it'd be good to callearlier and say maybe fall would
be a better choice or springor some other time of year, you know.
Yeah. But if you're gonna kindof, you know, roll your own and in
fish on your own right now,you know, like we said, the water's
warming up and really prettymuch everything is going to work
at this point. Right. Youknow, you got hatches, streamer action
is good and you know, the fishare active so they'll take the nymph.
(07:18):
So you know, it's a reallygreat time of year as fish are starting
to put the feedback on andkind of fatten up through the summer
for, to get ready for next winter.
That's right, That's, I meanthat's really the, the case with
this warmer temperature andwarmer water temperature. Like we're
in the low 50s pretty muchconsistently right now. That just
makes for a lot betteractivity. And you can pretty much
(07:39):
work on any kind of techniqueyou want this time of year, whether
that's wet fly or nymph or dryfly. I mean it's all, it's all fair
game this time of year to workon those things because the fish
are really active and cooperative.
Yeah. And so, you know, as wekind of move into this, I know you've,
you've had a school, you'regoing to have some more schools and
then you know, you may havesome openings here and there on your
guide calendar. You want tokind of let folks know kind of, you
(08:02):
know, what's happening on theclass front, say maybe the next two
or three months and then howto reach out and all that kind of
good stuff.
Yeah, sure. The, the, thefirst thing I guess on the agenda
is the, the two day school.April 12th, 13th. We still got, we
could probably take a couplemore. Cause I just bring in more
instructors for that. Butit's, it's actually pretty well full
(08:24):
right now. But I couldprobably take a couple more if I
brought in another teacherwith that. But the other one is April
23rd is a five day school. Andthen what we started doing a lot
this year is taking the peoplethat only have like the weekend or
two or three days they coulddo for the weekend, like take off
a Friday, Saturday, Sunday,and just roll them into the schools
(08:44):
that we're already teaching.So then we came up with a different,
different plan for those.Rather than teach the whole thing
over again just for a coupleof people. To put them in a school
that's already rolling wasjust a better efficiency of scale
for what we're doing becauseit's, it's still the same sermon.
And that way they can get intothose kind of things for a two or
three day school and they canfind that information@macbrownflyfish.com
(09:10):
yeah, and I would say too.
So the, the first class you'rehaving, is that a casting class?
Cause I know that five dayschool is probably a guide school,
right?
Yeah, it's the first one April12th and 13th, all advanced line
control class for casting. Andthen. Yeah, the other one's a five
day school the 23rd. Andthat's, that's pretty much, pretty
(09:31):
much what's coming up. We'llprobably do another one in May, but
right now we're not listed Maybecause the thing is, we used to
list them all beginning of theyear and it's better to list them
out a little bit at tied tothe spring dates than do the fall
dates. And what happens is ifyou list them all, then people go,
go all over the spectrum andthen it's harder to, it's harder
to fill them up. If, if halfof them jump into the fall and you're
(09:53):
trying to sell spring, itdoesn't work out as well. So I haven't
even listed the fall yet. Yeah.
And if you have a great guideseason and these classes are good,
you may be in the Bahamas inthe fall and there may not be a school.
So people should sign up now, right?
Yeah, that's a very goodchance we might be in the Bahamas.
I actually talked to Peterfrom the department of Tourism down
there the other day and he'swanting to start, I mean, to do a
(10:16):
school program. So we might bedown there teaching school kids in
the fall instead.
Well, there you go. Well,folks, you know, as it's warming
up, you know, as I always say,you owe it to yourself to get out
there and catch a few tightlines everybody. Tight lines back.
Tight lines. Marvin.
Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash,the host of the Articulate Fly. We're
back with another CastingAngles with Mac Brown. Mac, how are
you?
I'm doing great. How youdoing, Marvin?
Just trying to stay out oftrouble and adjusting to no more
life on the road with flyfishing shows.
Oh, yeah, no, that was, thatwas fun. That was fun. I'm glad you
got to come up there toLancaster and hang out a few days.
(00:26):
And we did a little school upin Wisconsin and wrapped it up in
St. Paul at the Great Watershow. And that was a, that was a
really fun event too. Yeah.
I've got one more thing on mycalendar, I guess in about, actually
a little bit less than amonth, I'm going to go down to Lefty's
High Fest down in Vero Beach.It's a. They're bringing that event
(00:47):
back and ASGA is, is puttingit on and they're having a big fundraiser
to support Jack CrevalResearch and you know, a bunch of
OGs and young guns and flyfishing are going to be down there.
So it should be a good time.
Yeah, that sounds like fun.That'd be a good time. And one thing
I really liked about thatGreat Waters. It had a lot of families
(01:12):
show up with kids and, youknow, had a lot of whole family unit.
The women were there in bignumbers with their husbands and kids.
And I think the booth thatLith Hartz ran there for Fly Fishers
International, I think he saidthey ran close to 460 people that
two and a half days, which is incredible.
Yeah, I'm pretty impressed. Imean, I've been to several fly fishing
(01:34):
shows kind of in the, in theMidwest, and I'm always impressed
at how passionate all thepeople are that are there, even though
those are, you know, by kindof what we would consider kind of
on. By east coast or westcoast standard smaller regional shows.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's justhe definitely went after, I think,
you know, marketing to those,to that audience. And I was just
(01:56):
impressed how many in theseminars like Jason Randall and I
both did a bunch of seminarsand I did a lot of casting demos.
But when I'd look at theaudience during the demos even, I
mean, I'm seeing kids likesecond grade to fifth grade and the
husband, wife standing there.I mean, it was really kind of cool.
That was a cool, cool vibegoing on, for sure. Yeah.
(02:16):
And then of course we get tocome home and fish and you were telling
me you've been chasing thespring dry fly hatches up in the.
Up in the park.
Yeah, we got to do that thisweekend, which was a lot of fun.
And I had had a couple ofmornings I could go up there and
that was the big opening day,I think, in Cherokee as well. And
there's a lot of peoplecalling, asking questions about what
(02:38):
they should do up there. AndI'm not. I'm not really sure up there
because I mostly go up in thepark usually when I'm off. So I know
in the park we're stillgetting pretty good March brown hatches
and we had a really good blackcaddis hatch, few Betas still going
off. And so it was fun. I gotto play a lot with some wet fly technique
and dry fly technique ispretty much all I did on Saturday
(02:59):
and Sunday. I didn't reallynymph fish at all up there because
it's too good up in the middlecolumn. Yeah.
And the great thing, right,you know, I've been watching, you
know, you know, I would tellyou folks, you know, the real trick
to watch when the fishing isgoing to really turn on is look at
the lows at night, right. Andprobably, I don't know, in the last
week to 10 days, at leasthere, kind of in the Piedmont, the
(03:20):
lows have started to. They'resignificantly warmer, like 15 to
20 degrees warmer. And so, youknow, that just means that the water
is going to warm up even whenthe sun's down and the fish are just
going to get a lot more active.
That's right. Yeah. Thatreally made a difference. We had
a lot of. Well, I guess peoplehad seen probably on the news about
Table Rock down there, thefire there, and we have a big one
(03:41):
here in Larca. And I'm justthankful today. Rained a bunch today,
early this morning. So we gotprobably two inches of rain. So hopefully
that's going to help put out alot of these wildfires that are around.
And I think it'll help put outa Larka for sure. I don't know how
much water fell down towardsGreenville, South Carolina and Green
river, but hopefully they gotplenty of water too, because, yeah,
(04:05):
these fires grew fast. I mean,it was so dry when I flew back from
the show up there at GreatWaters. I stayed in Wisconsin for
a couple days before I flewback. And the humidity here was like
in the 15% for weeks in 30, 40mile an hour wind the first few days
I was home. So that just madefor some really bad fire conditions,
(04:26):
you know, which is whathappened. We had a lot of western
North Carolina fires there forabout a week and a half. So hopefully,
hopefully this rains reallyhelped put a lot of that out. Yeah.
And you know, and we've gotfolks, you know, kind of, you know,
fires are bad, HurricaneHelene is bad, still feeling the
impacts of that. And, youknow, so folks really need to try
(04:46):
to make an effort to get toSouthwest Virginia, east Tennessee,
western North Carolina to fishand spend some money with their family.
But, you know, it's funny, youknow, we were talking about, you
know, how busy you are beforewe started recording. And, you know,
one tip I would give folks is,you know, if you want to fish with
a guide, and I would say,particularly if you want to fish
with a good guide, you need toplan well in advance because, you
know, my general experience isthat, you know, most good guides
(05:10):
are booked pretty full forthis season at this point. And so,
you know, you need to reallykind of get on that if you're thinking
about fishing. And I would sayprobably, you know, for most of the,
of the really good guides,you're probably going to have to
get on a will call list ormaybe plan to fish kind of in the
late fall.
Yeah, yeah, I think that'sgood advice just because, you know,
during that great water show,I know it's opening day of trout
(05:32):
seasons this coming, thiscoming week. I mean, always the first
Saturday in April for WesternCarolina, for the state water. And
I know last week there was alot of, a lot of calls. I didn't,
I didn't get to talk to them,but you know, that left messages
when we're at the great watershow and they're calling it like
8, 9 o'clock at night, wantinga trip the next morning for three
and four boats. And that'sjust not going to happen because
(05:54):
it's too busy. It's too busyto be calling like literally the
night before. So I mean, justa little, little bit of planning
would, would go a long waysfurther experience, you know. Yeah.
And I would also say too that,you know, shops that have deeper
benches that can maybe be alittle bit more flexible, you know,
they don't have those collegekids home yet. Right. So, you know,
(06:15):
they don't have the capacityto call kids that are, you know,
home from school and areguiding for the summer to kind of
help fill things out. So.Yeah, I mean, kind of like everything
in life, right, Mac? A littlepreparation goes a long way.
Yeah, yeah, I think that wouldbe good. That's good advice because
we're about to be into it forApril and May and you know, Then
it starts getting into what wecall tourist season here in Western
(06:36):
Carolina with the nationalpark and what is it, 13 and a half
million people a year comingthrough here. So yeah, if they're
trying to do something, ofcourse a lot of those calls will
come in July, August, which isthe worst of the 12 months. But they'll
call like a lot that time ofyear just because partly they don't
know better, that's theslowest part of the year. But yeah,
(06:56):
it'd be, it'd be good to callearlier and say maybe fall would
be a better choice or springor some other time of year, you know.
Yeah. But if you're gonna kindof, you know, roll your own and in
fish on your own right now,you know, like we said, the water's
warming up and really prettymuch everything is going to work
at this point. Right. Youknow, you got hatches, streamer action
is good and you know, the fishare active so they'll take the nymph.
(07:18):
So you know, it's a reallygreat time of year as fish are starting
to put the feedback on andkind of fatten up through the summer
for, to get ready for next winter.
That's right, That's, I meanthat's really the, the case with
this warmer temperature andwarmer water temperature. Like we're
in the low 50s pretty muchconsistently right now. That just
makes for a lot betteractivity. And you can pretty much
(07:39):
work on any kind of techniqueyou want this time of year, whether
that's wet fly or nymph or dryfly. I mean it's all, it's all fair
game this time of year to workon those things because the fish
are really active and cooperative.
Yeah. And so, you know, as wekind of move into this, I know you've,
you've had a school, you'regoing to have some more schools and
then you know, you may havesome openings here and there on your
guide calendar. You want tokind of let folks know kind of, you
(08:02):
know, what's happening on theclass front, say maybe the next two
or three months and then howto reach out and all that kind of
good stuff.
Yeah, sure. The, the, thefirst thing I guess on the agenda
is the, the two day school.April 12th, 13th. We still got, we
could probably take a couplemore. Cause I just bring in more
instructors for that. Butit's, it's actually pretty well full
(08:24):
right now. But I couldprobably take a couple more if I
brought in another teacherwith that. But the other one is April
23rd is a five day school. Andthen what we started doing a lot
this year is taking the peoplethat only have like the weekend or
two or three days they coulddo for the weekend, like take off
a Friday, Saturday, Sunday,and just roll them into the schools
(08:44):
that we're already teaching.So then we came up with a different,
different plan for those.Rather than teach the whole thing
over again just for a coupleof people. To put them in a school
that's already rolling wasjust a better efficiency of scale
for what we're doing becauseit's, it's still the same sermon.
And that way they can get intothose kind of things for a two or
three day school and they canfind that information@macbrownflyfish.com
(09:10):
yeah, and I would say too.
So the, the first class you'rehaving, is that a casting class?
Cause I know that five dayschool is probably a guide school,
right?
Yeah, it's the first one April12th and 13th, all advanced line
control class for casting. Andthen. Yeah, the other one's a five
day school the 23rd. Andthat's, that's pretty much, pretty
(09:31):
much what's coming up. We'llprobably do another one in May, but
right now we're not listed Maybecause the thing is, we used to
list them all beginning of theyear and it's better to list them
out a little bit at tied tothe spring dates than do the fall
dates. And what happens is ifyou list them all, then people go,
go all over the spectrum andthen it's harder to, it's harder
to fill them up. If, if halfof them jump into the fall and you're
(09:53):
trying to sell spring, itdoesn't work out as well. So I haven't
even listed the fall yet. Yeah.
And if you have a great guideseason and these classes are good,
you may be in the Bahamas inthe fall and there may not be a school.
So people should sign up now, right?
Yeah, that's a very goodchance we might be in the Bahamas.
I actually talked to Peterfrom the department of Tourism down
there the other day and he'swanting to start, I mean, to do a
(10:16):
school program. So we might bedown there teaching school kids in
the fall instead.
Well, there you go. Well,folks, you know, as it's warming
up, you know, as I always say,you owe it to yourself to get out
there and catch a few tightlines everybody. Tight lines back.
Tight lines. Marvin.
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