S7, Ep 64: Hot Tips for Summer Fishing: Mastering Stillwater Techniques with Mac Brown

In this episode of The Articulate Fly fishing podcast, guide and instructor Mac Brown shares game-changing stillwater fishing techniques that will revolutionize your strike detection.

With summer heat making trout fishing challenging, Mac reveals how fishing farm ponds for bluegill and bass becomes the perfect training ground for serious anglers. Learn his proven floating line method using a hand twist retrieve at 50-60 feet, positioning your rod just 1.5-2 feet off the water to master visual strike detection by watching line sag at the rod tip.

Mac explains why traditional wet flies—the backbone of American fishing before conventional tackle dominated—remain incredibly effective for both lake fishing and stream applications.

Discover how eliminating tension from your fly presentation keeps fish holding longer, giving you that crucial visual strike indicator before fish reject the fly.

These tight lining principles and wet fly techniques transfer directly to trout fishing, making this cross-training approach invaluable for developing advanced skills.

Related Content

S7, Ep 16 - Simplifying Complexity: Effective Teaching Strategies in Fly Fishing with Mac Brown

S7, Ep 20 - Practice Makes Perfect: Mac Brown on Mastering Casting Techniques

S6, Ep 130 - Casting in Color: Mac Brown's Fall Fly Fishing Strategies

S6, Ep 136 - From Arkansas to Appalachia: Fly Fishing with Mac Brown

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Episode Transcript

(00:04):
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 are youdoing, Marvin?
Trying to stay cool and out oftrouble. How about you?
Pretty much the same. Yeah,it's been. We've been in a pattern
for sure, having some heat andthe breezes are real nice and, you

(00:24):
know, the rains keep bringingrelief in the evening, but it's been.
It's been hot for themountains the last week or so.
Yeah, we were talking beforewe started recording, so, you know,
we've. We've kind of hintedaround this a little bit, but, you
know, it's getting really kindof, you know, particularly if you
don't like getting up reallyearly in the morning, it's getting
a little too hot to go chasetrout. But there are plenty of opportunities,
you know, fishing farm pondsfor brim early and late and largemouth

(00:47):
bass and stuff like that. Butone of the things we, you know, we've
been trying to emphasize,folks, that, you know, even though
you may not be able to fishthe way you really want to fish,
you can still work on skills.And one of the things Mac and I were
talking about before westarted recording was, you know,
what you can learn, you know,fishing a lake, whether you're waiting
it or fishing it from the bankor fishing it from a boat.
That's right, yeah. I mean,there's just a lot of. A lot of skill

(01:09):
sets that transfer overidentical when you go back, you know,
and chase trout or trout on alake too, in the winter. And one
of the. There's a. There's alot of good. Like I've. I've been
throwing a lot of the newstill water line from sa, But. But
you can also go back and worklike most people have a floater.
Most people that are out thereusually are always fishing a floating

(01:32):
line. And that's the staplethat most people have at their disposal.
And one of the things that'soften overlooked with the floating
line is to. Is to put it out,you know, relatively, you know, 50ft,
60ft. Try to keep it out theresomewhere in that distance and practice
your hand retrieve and justreally pay attention to the sag coming

(01:53):
off the rod tip and have therod, you know, lower to the water
like a foot and a half, twofeet off the water is about ideal.
And just really study thatposition as you're pulling that fly
in different rates, coming offthe fingers with a hand twist retrieve.
And you'll see that elongate,you'll see that curve disappear.
And you can practice that thebest, the best place is find like

(02:14):
a bunch of brimming, you know.Cause they're going to be real willing
participants. Every time itcomes by a brush pile, you know,
buried cedar and whatever,just pulling a little, a little fly
through there and watchingthat elongate and practice your strike
protection because that'sgoing to pay off huge dividends with,
with trout.
Yeah, it's kind of like, youknow, folks, I would say, you know,
it's kind of like when we, youknow, fish without an indicator for

(02:37):
trout. And we're looking atbasically the angle between the cider,
the leader, you know, comingout of the water. Except you're looking
at the, that same type ofangle, but at the ride tip, right?
That's right. And that meansyou have strike detection. Whether
it's, you know, 40ft, 60ft,you know, 80ft away, the strike detection
is still instantaneous. We'renot, we're not elongates. That's,

(03:01):
that's a really good way to,you know, put a fly, you can still
fish down, you know, five,eight feet of water. And your strike
detection is just instant.When you see that start to lift straight,
I mean, you're getting theheads up, time to move and set the
hook. And of course, thereason it's so effective is it's
just there's not tension in ityet, you know, so the fish grabs

(03:23):
it. I mean, what makes allfish spit flies really quick is when
the tension's great, the, thegreater the tension that's on a,
on a fly, usually the fasterthey'll reject it and spit it out.
So with this, as that startsto elongate, they're still holding
onto it. So you're strikingoff the visual before the tension,
you know, has ever increasedfor them to reject it. So they usually

(03:44):
tend to hold onto it. We dothe same thing and with tight lining
techniques too. A lot of timeswe'll hold a higher angle and same
thing. So the fly has a deaddrift where there's no tension acting
on the flies. You know,there's times where that's really
beneficial and yeah, I'm surethey had to do that in the worlds
out there in Idaho for thecongrats to the US Women and the

(04:07):
youth kids too. We wanted tosay that, Marvin. So let's just get
that in too because they bothjust won, you know, first in the
worlds, which is a big deal.Big deal for America fishing. And
that's Kudos to them.
Yeah, absolutely. As a matterof fact, I just shared those stories
on my Instagram feed withinthe last couple of days. But you
know, just to kind of back upto the, to the fishing in the lake,

(04:30):
you know, what we're reallytalking about is not fishing an indicator
and not fishing a dry dropper,but literally tight lining, you know,
nymphs or really, really smallstreamers, right?
Yeah, it could be smallstreamers, it could be wets. I mean
we use a lot of wets on thelake too. People forget before conventional
tackle came about, you know,with Mitchell Garcia years ago, introducing,

(04:53):
you know, spinning rods andopen face reels and bait casters
and all that, I mean everybodythat, that fly fished in this country
until before the, you know,the early 30s when all that came
about, they were all flyfishing. And so what do you think
they threw, they were throwingthe wet flies, traditional Irish
wets, Welsh wets, Englishwets. They were throwing all the
stuff that, that is stillavailable pattern wise, you know,

(05:15):
today. And that's howeverybody did it. Of course. What
happened the. And there's aflip side of that. When it came about,
they had like 55 millionflyinglers in North America back
then and they lost most ofthem and dropped that number to like
6 million today. You followme? Because it's easier to, you know,
have a little Snoopy, youknow, Barbie doll, pink. Rob, will

(05:38):
you push a button? And I'm notsaying that's a bad thing, but how
many of those people will comeback and fly fish? I don't know.
Yeah, but it's kind of funny.You must be setting up your class
this fall with Davey that Isaw you post some things on.
Yeah, yeah, we're getting,we're getting some good interest
in that. Had some folks signup this week and last week and got
a couple spots left still forthat, that wet fly school. Fly fishing.

(06:03):
Pretty much a fly fishing bootcamp there, third week of, third
week of October. So I'm reallylooking forward to getting down there.
The water will be really nice,cold temperature that time of year.
Be a lot of fun. That's whatwe'll be doing. We'll be doing a
lot of the technique that Ijust described. That'll be one of
the things that we'lldefinitely be, be using when we're

(06:26):
talking about wets.
Yeah, it's pretty interestingtoo because that'll be probably,
you know, Davey will probablybe winding down his fishing season
not too long after that and goto bird, you know, guiding bird dogs.
Yeah, he will. Yeah, that'llbe a good time. I mean, we'll have.
We'll have grouse seasonstarting up here by the time I get
back, and hopefully I'll getto do quite a bit of that before
I get on the show season.

(06:47):
Yeah. Well, there you go.Well, I, you know, I know it's hot,
so people aren't necessarilythinking about fishing, but it won't
be hot forever. You want tolet folks know kind of how to reach
out to, to get a lesson, youknow, get a guided trip this summer
and also maybe tease yourschools that are coming up this fall.
Yeah, the easiest thing isjust Mac, Mac brown fly fish. And

(07:08):
that's on the, you know, dotcom, it's on Facebook, it's on Instagram.
And I do better, though offthe ones with email because it's
just easier. I don't miss anemail ever. But yeah, the social
media stuff, so a lot ofpeople direct message on that too.
But I'm not as savvy on thatas I am email. So I would say email
or call off the number on thewebsite, find out what's going on

(07:32):
and what's available. Yeah.
Well, there you go. Well,listen, folks, as I always say, this
time of year, first of all,stay cool. But if you can yo it to
yourself to get out there andcatch a few tight lines, everybody.
Tight lines, Mac.
Tight lines. Marvin.