Notes from the podcast:

Tying faster
Production fly tying – not just for pros.
- Faster you tie, more flies in your box, more proficient & efficient
Planning & preparation
- choose simple patterns over complex
- Elk hair caddis, x-caddis over Goddard
- Joe Roope patterns from the FFOTW board.
- Bunny leeches & zonker strips instead of buggers
- Zebra midges, shop-vac, etc instead of copper john
- Plan to tie a bunch of a single pattern
- Clear your tying desk
- only have the tools & materials you will use out on your desk
- clean, uncluttered workspace
- Prep materials
- size and pull hackles off the neck/saddle
- put beads on the hooks
- spare spools of thread pre-threaded on spare bobbins

While tying
- sissors in hand. Get used to it
- mind your wraps.  2 to 4 wraps instead of 10 to 12
- keep a couple of inches of thread out of bobbin
- put each tool down in same place, put each material in same place
- hands are good tools
- Use fingernails to strip hackles, chenille, etc
- hand whip finish
- Don’t skimp on durability, though
- half hitch here, drop of glue there doesn’t add too much time
- learn from experience. I rarely counterwrap palmered hackle now, but always secure peacock

Its also makes for a pretty good addition to my collection of fly fishing gadgets. Here are several ways that my iPod enhances my fishing experiences. Add some comments with your ideas.

Getting there

The areas that I love to fish have a couple of things in common, they are beautiful and remote. Getting to my favorite streams involves lots of driving. Usually only one radio station is audible and invariably that one radio station plays both kinds of music: Country AND Western.

The iPod helps pass the time on those lonely stretches of road. I usually shuffle all the music to get some randomness, or listen to a particular artist.

Getting Information

There is a lot of great fly fishing information available as podcasts. Podcasts are generally audio files distributed over the internet, to be listened to on an iPod or other digital audio player. Some podcasts are videos.

I’ve taken to listening to these on my commute to and from work. Instead of being frustrated about traffic, I’m learning about fly fishing and day-dreaming of my next trip.

Many of these podcasts are available directly in iTunes, or are easily imported. Here is the list of podcasts that I know about:

Ask About Fly Fishing – This is an internet based live radio show, approximately 90 minutes long. The hosts, Rodger and Dave, interview a fly fishing expert, while live listeners participate via questions and comments passed through the web site. The past shows are archived and available through iTunes. I won’t bother listing the experts they’ve interviewed. Think of a name; their interview is included.

Fly Fish Radio – Wylie Thomas and Mike Overton host this podcast, and they bill themselves as the original fly fishing podcast. They also get great guests to interview. Both hosts have full time jobs in technology, which probably explains the frequency of podcasts (average every 6 weeks or so between episodes).

Fly Fishing Weekly – Todd and Jason are the newest podcast that I know about, and they are targeting people starting out in fly-fishing. Each Friday, a new hour long podcast is posted, with regular features like beginners corner, equipment picks of the week, listener emails, articles, and a discussion of one of the 50 places to fly fish before you die. This is the funniest of the podcasts, at least those that are intend to be funny. Jason and Todd laugh at themselves, pretensions in fly fishing, and frequently drop comedy movie references. Their sound quality is the best of the lot.

Global FlyFisher – Martin Joergensen is a Danish fly fisherman, giving us the northern European perspective on fly fishing. His podcasts are interesting stream of conscientious thinking, sharing his thoughts and experiences.

The Itinerant Angler – Zach Matthews is the Itinerant Angler, giving us podcasts that mix interviews of interesting fly fishing personalities with blue-grass music. The Itinerant Angler has featured several podcasts on improving fly fishing photography. Check it out.

Orvis Fly Fishing Guide – The author of The Orvis Fly-Fishing Guide, Tom Rosenbauer, is the host of the Orvis fly fishing podcast. These 10-minute podcasts are packed with instructional information – targeted for the beginner – but accomplished fly fishers can learn something from this expert.

Rise Form Studio Fly Fishing Video Podcast - These video podcasts are published every 2 weeks – and usually feature tying a new fly pattern.

The KFBK Outdoor Show – If you live in Northern California, or plan to visit for a fishing trip, you need to become familiar with Bob Simms. He hosts a 3-hour show on fishing and hunting each Saturday morning, starting at 5 AM. I don’t hear the entire show each week, so catching up via the podcast is a good way to fill in the gaps. His show is about fishing in general, though he does toss a fly on occasion. This is a good resource to find out about current conditions in a variety of fisheries in Northern California.

On Stream Refresher

Sometimes, you need an on stream refresher for some aspect of fly fishing. Last year, I took a Spey casting class prior to a week of steelhead fishing. Spey casting was brand new to me, and I needed a refresher on the second (and third, forth, and fifth) day. Luckily, my friend had a Spey casting DVD from the same instructor that taught the class. Also luckily, he copied the DVD to his iPod Nano prior to the trip. I was able to watch the segment on double spey casting and corrected my casting in time to catch a couple nice steelhead.

My friend also has a video for correcting common casting errors. I can really use that one.

Information about copying DVD to iPods can be found in wikiHow.

Afterwards

We love to take photographs while fly fishing. Hero shots, nature shots, pictures to document locations, etc. We often want to share these with our friends afterwards. I use Photoshop Elements to organize and edit my digital photos. Albums from this software can be automatically syncronized to my iPod. Besides showing off, here are several other ideas to have pictures in your iPod:

• Take picture of bugs you find, ask the guys at the flyshop to help identify the hatch and pattern
• Photograph landmarks to help you find fishing locations, copy these to your iPods. I used this to document a hole by aligning landmarks and using the camera/iPod as a memory guide.
• Take screenshots of maps or save to a picture format (eg. jpg), and copy these maps to you iPod.

Hopefully, you’ve taken an idea or two from this blog entry. Please leave a comment if you know of podcasts or radio shows that I didn’t list.