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July 2, 2025 • 12 mins

Join Marvin Cash on this tactical episode featuring smallmouth guide Brendan Ruch for another insightful Ruch Report. With high water keeping anglers off their home waters, Brendan shares his expertise on optimizing Lamson three-pack reel setups for serious smallmouth fishing, breaking down the perfect trio of fly lines for varying conditions. Learn how to match fly lines to your rod's action, discover why intermediate lines require seasonal swapping to avoid sticky summer performance and master the game-changing Titan Sink Tip Type 3 for high water streamer fishing.

Brendan reveals his color selection strategy for smallmouth flies, detailing when to fish black and olive patterns with copper flash in green water versus natural white and ginger combinations for clearer conditions.

Whether you're targeting smallmouth in spring runoff or summer low water, this episode delivers actionable insights on line selection, fly color theory and seasonal adaptation strategies that will immediately improve your smallmouth bass fishing success across varying water clarity and temperature conditions.

To learn more about Brendan, check out our interview.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash,the host of the Articulate Flower,
back with a Ruche report withthe man himself, Brendan Roush. Brendan,
how are you?
I'm good, Marvin. Sitting inthe Costco parking lot waiting to
fill up. Drove in here on fumes.
Oh, there you go. So are yougonna get the hot dog, the pizza,
or the rotisserie chicken for dinner?

(00:22):
I don't know if I can stepinside. My clothes are soaking wet
for working in that hot heat.
Yeah, unfortunately, notfishing there, right?
No. No. Getting back tofishing asap, though. We got some
rain the next couple days, andI'm. I'm just gonna ride the high
water from now on. I'm. I'mdone riding the bench.
Yeah, because you've been kindof. It's been kind of iffy in your

(00:44):
neck of the woods for what,about a month, month and a half?
Like, you could fish if youhad to, but you're kind of like,
just didn't want to kind ofmake it happen, right?
Yeah. Yeah. I had to take theresponsible route and work. Work
when I could with the othergig. So now I'm kind of over that.
And I'm getting really. I'mgetting boat fever, I guess, or cabin

(01:06):
fever to get in the boat.
Yeah, it's always tough whenyou kind of have to live in the real
world, and you can fish whenthe real world lets you in. The fishing's
not good when that happens, right?
Yeah, it's. No. No bueno. Wedon't like that.
No. And so, you know, since,you know, there's really not a lot
to talk about on the fishingfront, we kind of thought about kind
of a question I was kickingaround with you. You know, I think

(01:26):
we're both fans of those lampsand three pack reels. I think we've
talked about them before, andparticularly for people that are
fishing smallmouth or they'rein some other kind of predator game
where they're either maybefishing a lot of streamers for trout
or whatever. Lamson makesthese great, incredibly affordable,
bulletproof three packs whereyou get a reel and two spools, and

(01:48):
then the question becomes,what on earth do you put on the spools?
And so maybe we've got anofficial listener question, but I
thought it'd be kind ofinteresting for us to talk about
for smallmouth. If you had topick your three lines, you know,
what would they be for smallmouth?
Definitely be. If you have asuper fast rod. We'll start at the
top. I'll do bass bug if youdon't have a super fast rod, you

(02:11):
can go with the infinity warm.That's going to cover your, your
top water bases and then somesort of full intermediate. I, the
SA stuff is great but, but youhave to switch throughout the season
which kind of gets under myskin a little bit. Um, so you've
got the full intermediatewhich is gonna be your like cool

(02:32):
to mild temperature line andthen the tropical clear tip. Great
lines, they fish really well,they last a long time. Uh, I know
airflow makes like a fourseason line. I've had some clients
bring that out this year basedon Mike Schultz recommendation and
they, they seem to like it alot and that you don't have to change

(02:52):
that line supposedly. So we'vegot that covered on the intermediate
side. And then this year Imentioned it at some point during
the spring, but the Titan Sinktip type 3 was crucial during the,
the high water that we had inthe spring this year. It was just
like money for fishing peanutsor nut jobs and being able to get

(03:15):
them down and keep them downon your kind of like erratic like
pop pop. And then on thatdrift the line's going to be sinking
and it's not going to alterthe fly, but it's going to keep that
head down. So the next timeyou hit it with a pop pop, it's going
to be a lateral movement, notgoing up and down.
Yeah. And so why don't we dothis? Why don't we go all the way

(03:37):
back to the beginning with thefloaters and we'll work through them
and talk about the selection?Because I want to kind of give people
a little bit of detail. Youknow, you were talking about superfast
and we were actually talkingabout this before we started recording
on the floaters that, youknow. So for example, I've got a
seven weight Scott Radian andI think that's a pretty fast rod.
But you're telling me Ihaven't fished the Loomis. That's
even faster. And so reallywhat you're doing is you're, you

(03:58):
know, trying to takeadvantage. I think, you know, some
of those lines are two lineweights heavy versus one lightweight
heavy. And that's really theadjustment you're making there, right?
Yeah. So the, the Titan seriesof lines and like for Rio you're
going to have, I think, Ibelieve it's outbound. There's going
to be two line sizes heavy,it's similar kind of short head,
but you can like. So every flyrod company is going to have a flagship

(04:23):
rod series. So you have NRXwith G, Loomis with Sage, you have
the R8 and then they're goingto have a faster rod series. So they're
going to have NRX Salt andthen R8 Salt. And those rods are
going to be a little bitstiffer and you can fish either a

(04:44):
line size under or theappropriate line size. It just depends
on how much you want your rodto bend. And then you have the streamer
specific rod designs. So youhave like the NRX swim fly, which
I've, I've really become a fanof. And it's. You're not gonna, you're
not gonna get your typicallike slow, smooth casting stroke

(05:06):
with that, or at least I don'tseem to. But I really enjoy being
able to toss those like airresistant, water absorbing flies
like a leggy boy. And there'ssome wheat in there too. So you're
able to like cast them withaccuracy without doing a ton of false
casts, which makes everythingso much easier. That's like springtime.

(05:27):
And then when you have yoursuper fast rods, they're gonna be
tailored towards the, thoselines already so you don't have to
downsize your line there. Butyeah, so it, when you're coming from
flagship series, I would sayyou can underline with the Titan
fly lines.

(05:48):
Yeah. But if we go all the wayback to the floaters. Right, so the
bass bug is two times. Right?
Yeah. I'm sorry. So the, yeah,the bass bug is a Titan long, so
that's just going to be alonger version of that Titan taper.
And yeah, it's two timesheavy. So if you have, if you have
a flagship rod, which theRadian was, you know, Helios, all

(06:09):
that stuff, like, if it's notstreamer specific, I would, I would
downsize that just so you canuse the casting stroke that you're
familiar with. And also you'renot going to be crashing into the
water as hard.
Yeah. And so that one backingoff a line, that's infinity because
it's one line weight heavy. Right.
The infinity, I would go trueto size on, on the rods you're using.

(06:33):
That doesn't matter if it'sflagship or the streamer rod, I would
go, yeah.
But I guess what I'm saying, aseven is really an eight. Like you're
not, you're not trying tomonkey around with it, but you're,
you know, you would put like,if you put. So like for example,
if you put a bass bug On a 7weight, it's really a 9 weight line
on a 7 weight ride. Right. Andthe Infinity is an 8 weight line
on a 7 weight ride.

(06:54):
Yep.
Yeah. And so, so that just tokind of. I don't know, we may have
confused the hell out ofeverybody and I apologize. But you
know, the short version isSuper Bass 2x heavy flagship 1x heavy
and that gets you the Bass bugtaper or the Infinity respectively.
Then we get to theintermediate lines and you talk about
changing and are you changingfor depth? Are you changing to adjust

(07:17):
for the fact that when thingsget hot, fly lines can get soupy?
Yeah, it's to avoid havingsticky lines in the boat. That full
intermediate just doesn't wantto shoot as much and I always change
them out. So I'm not familiarwith this, but I would imagine a
soft line is gonna get tangledmore often at your feet.

(07:37):
Yeah. And then the flip sideof that is, you know, you know, when
it gets cold, those lines getstiff, the tropical lines get stiff
and they don't shoot. Sothat's why you have to change. Right?
Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. So, so that'sthat. And then we get to the, to
the Titan 3. Right. Andthat's. Is that the i35 or is that
a different line?
No. So that line I believe islike a 10 or 12 foot sink tip and

(08:00):
that is going to be a cold tomild line. I, I don't fish that in
the summer just because offlows typically. I'm sure. You know,
I go out this week. I'm gonnabe fishing the i35 just because of
clarity. But yeah, so that,that line is gonna be a lot like

(08:20):
the Titan full intermediateand that it's not gonna be the best
in super warm temperatures.
It got you. But the benefit.Right. The great thing about these
new essay lines is that they.You don't have that hinge. Right.
To your point, what we weretalking about is the fly stays in
the zone because the line iskind of, you know, sinks at a. Sinks
almost level to the bottom parallel.
Yes. But I, I want to be, Iwant to be clear in saying that I

(08:42):
don't particularly enjoy thetriple density lines personally.
So I'm speaking of the Titansync tip, which is just a floating,
floating running line. Most ofthe head is floating and then there's
like a 12 foot sink tip at thevery end of the head.
Got it. Well, we cleared thatup for everybody. Hopefully we helped.

(09:03):
We figured since it's beenjust kind of high water and cruddy,
this would be a good thing totalk about and Then to get to the
real listener question,because I would hate to jip Jacob
out of a chance to win somecool rouge angling swag or to get
some stickers for me, Jacobreached out and he wanted to get
your thoughts on the topproducing colors for smallmouth based
on time of year and watercolor.

(09:27):
Yeah, I would say it's goingto be more of a watercolor thing
than anything. But to be morespecific to his question, time of
year, like green, green water,I'm going to be fishing black or
black and olive in the spring,and that's going to have copper flash,
whether it's in the tail orthroughout the whole thing. With

(09:48):
polar chenille, if I havesimilar water conditions in the summer,
I'm going to be fishing thesame fly. And if I have to size down,
I'll size down. But I'll startwith that like, you know, standard
high green water size, whichis going to be like 5 inches. And
then when we get to a littlebit clearer water, this is going

(10:11):
to be for the spring, summer,fall, I'm fishing a little bit more
natural. So could be white andginger, cream and ginger white or
cream with gray. And then youwant to have some with pearl or silver
flash and then some withoutany flash at all. Because some days

(10:31):
the fish really seem to key inon flash and some days they seem
to shy away from it.
Well, there you go. And youknow, folks, we love questions on
the articulate fly. You canemail me or DM me on social media,
whatever is easiest for you.And if we use your question, I will
send you some articulate flyswag. And as I've been saying recently,
that generally is going toinclude a few butcher shop stickers
too. And then when you'redrawing for some cool stuff from

(10:52):
Brendan at the end of theseason, and Brendan, before I let
you go, I know you're kind of,you know, fishing is a little bit
funky until we get back intothe fall. So we're actually going
to start putting these outonce a month through the end of the
year, and then we'll kind ofstart the next year and kind of get
back in the normal, like whenBrennan's really busy on the water,
we'll do them twice a monthand when it's a little bit slower,
we'll do them once a month.But why don't you let folks know
kind of what you haveavailable, where to reach out, where

(11:15):
your adoring fans can find youon logjam and all that kind of good
stuff?
Yeah, if you want to hang out.And I don't really know how to describe
Log Jam live if, if you're notfamiliar with it, but it's. I don't
know, it's basically we havefriends on there hanging out, tying
flies, and hopefully the jokesaren't too inside baseball, but.

(11:40):
But yeah, usually it's. It's afun hang. You got a few watchers.
And then we'll post when wehave a more legitimate episode coming
out. So we, we did one withRuss Madden back over the wintertime
and that was pretty good. Butyeah, so that's Log Jam fishing company
on Instagram. And then myInstagram is Brendan Roche. I'm also

(12:02):
on Facebook. And yeah, so ifyou want to go fishing this summer
or fall, just shoot me anemail@rooshanglingmail.com and we'll
try to get something togetherand make it happen. Do some bug fishing.
And do I remember correctly,is log jam 8:35ish on Tuesdays?
Yeah, 8:35ish on the dot.

(12:23):
Every Tuesday on the dot.There you go. Well, folks, as always
say this time of the year,first of all, now we got to stay
cool. But secondly, you owe itto yourself to get out there and
catch a few tight lines,everybody. Tight lines. Brendan.
Take care, guys. And don't beafraid of swamp bass this summer.
It's good for you.
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