This Week on the Destination Angler Fly Fishing Podcast

00:02

What I try to do is get my fly a little higher in the water not on the bottom, but maybe six inches off the bottom foot off the bottom. I don't know just off the bottom. I'm trying to actually slow down as much as possible. So then that fish will move from the bottom it come up and eat the fly. Then I said some important what it's going to do then it's going to turn go down. And what that does is make the bite way more obvious.

00:27

That was competition angler Josh Miller. Welcome to the destination angler Podcast, the podcast for anglers who travel, and I'm your host Steve Haigh. We go right to the source, the local guides and experts to build your knowledge of top fly fishing locations around North America. It's a big world out there now go and fish it.

00:51

Going away for a while. But I'll be back soon.

Upcoming Shows

00:59

Anglers welcome back to another episode of the destination angler.

Up next on the destination angler We head across the pond to the birthplace of fly fishing the river test in the UK. Then we travel to Colorado with special guest Jeff Wagner CEO of Ross Abell airflow. For our first ever carp fishing episode folks, this one will blow your mind. In case you missed it be sure to backcast to catch part one and the little j with Josh Miller who dives in deep on Euro nymphing. you won't want to miss these shows. And if you liked the show, please be sure to hit that subscribe button and tell a buddy want to be the first to know about new episodes we'll head on over to the destination angler podcast website and become a subscriber. You'll be entered to win a four year subscription to trout routes pro and a three month subscription of anglers coffee, you can't beat that. We'll select a winner on the next episode. And speaking of winners, Leanne from Bend Oregon is our lucky winner this week. Congrats Leanne and thank you for listening enjoy the coffee and trout routes.

New Podcast:  Destination Angler Adventures

Big announcement folks coming in December is the destination angler adventures podcast the podcast about life and fly fishing from anglers just like you. Got an epic story you want to share? Drop me a line on Instagram or email and maybe we'll get you on the show.

Introduction of Josh Miller and the Little Juniata River, Part 2

And today our destination is a Little Juniata river, part two, in central Pennsylvania with competition angler and Euro nymphing aficionado Josh Miller, owner of trout yeah Guide Service. Yes, folks, the masterclass continues with life changing concepts on how to catch more fish, including strike detection, observation and sizing up a piece of water. Plus Josh's surprising philosophy on top fly patterns, the Frisbee cast and why he likes to keep his flies off the bottom. Stick around to the end for a chance encounter with Joe Humphreys. And some stories we captured after we turn recorder back on. So let's hear from Josh.

Sizing up a New Trout Stream

03:39

Josh, how do you approach a new piece of water? How do you size it up? Absolutely.

So that's kind of what I was talking about for the anglers earlier. If How do I What do I do when I go to a new place I just go and catch a fish. So what that means for Josh Miller what that means for me, is let's just pretend I'm no, here's a perfect example. I was in Maine the other day never was on that river I was with my son and my wife and I were camping a little bit and I walked up to the stream and don't know really anything about I know I'm a lot of fish that area I have my license and just you know, that's it. Check the temperature temperatures good. So what I look for is an area if possible, have a hole like something that has slower water and has depth and then a series of smaller pockets, smaller holes, maybe one foot, four foot 10 foot two smaller indentations in the river. So if possible, I would like to catch you know, fishing all day but when you have wintertime or sometimes even in the summertime, fish can pull up in those bigger bigger pools like in the winter they might not be fishing those pockets. But in the summertime, this fish might totally congregate in those pockets, where my technique flourishes where my connection flourishes or my strike detection flourishes or my Conversion flourishes you remember what conversion was? I do? Yeah. Give them a net light to net. Yep. Where that all flourishes is water between knee and waist deep. If I can be in knee deep water, and there's fish, and there's trout, and they're eating, it's going to be, I'm going to say, I'm probably going to catch fish. You know, when you see that big hole, and it's 26 feet deep, and it's Swiftwater. And it's 500 yards wide. I struggle, I struggle. Yeah. So you know, and that's where I'm at technique. D with a dry dropper or streamers or with indicators and flyline. You know, so that's where just being well rounded angler is important. Yeah, if I can fish in the fish are in water that is like that. I'm going to catch more. going farther. Once I catch one. Now I have a bunch of pockets, I can fish all those pockets. And when I fish pockets versus a big hole, the difference is in a big hole. When you make a cast one drift, your drift might have passed most of the fish or all the fish and they saw it. Whereas if you have a bunch of holes, little ones, you get a first cast in a bunch of little spots, you have a bunch more chance for a first cast in my book I write about you know, first cast, sometimes is your best chance. Yeah. First cast sometimes isn't your only chance. Now I've seen so many times we make a cast and the fish sees it. And the drifts bad or it's too fast or whatever. And the fish does not eat after that wonderfully grayling, the grilling in Bosnia, sometimes we make first cast official look at it move. You can make 1000 more cast. And they won't even think about moving after that. But no. So understanding your fish understanding how they react, understanding how they reset is very important.

Strike Detection for Euro-nymphing for Trout

06:37

Yeah, super interesting. Talk to me about strike detection. You know, I've watched you fish and I'm like, I did not see the strike. But you did. And what is like that is a trained eye.

06:49

Oh, yeah, it's more than a trained eye

06:52

What is it? Yeah, talk about that.

06:55

Strike detection is from sight to feel to intuition, there's all of it, there has to be all of it, you know, knowing or fish or going to be knowing when your flies where it is our guide in Bosnia, and I talked about this, but he really made it really important. You know, knowing where your fly is at all times, knowing when your fly sinking, knowing when you are giving it slack to sync knowing where it should be knowing when you make connection, you know, all that's so important. But when you're fishing, with tight lining the baits can be I mean, there's, I remember I had, I'm gonna I'm gonna throw my friend, I won't throw him under the bus. I won't say his name, but I write about him. Okay, I was with an angler, who's my friend. And I was teaching them a little bit. We're on spring, and we got into the spot, and the fish are eating and they're eating hard and they're eating high. So the fly would hit the water. And he would barely have connection because his mechanics weren't proper for very quick connection, it's you have to have like really good mechanics of stopping the rod or moving the tip or, or whatever it is to gain very, very quick connection. I remember I started fishing with George Daniel, in the spring and we both agreed on like, you know, just if anglers could have faster connection, they would just catch more fish, you know, so it was tight lining but so he would make a cast dude, he got a bite so fast. They might, you know, he looked at me he's like, there's no way you know, bite by, there's a point where so what happened in this situation yet? I'm not going to I don't know, he might have 20 to 40 bytes in 30 minutes. I mean, it was just like Atlanta, and he didn't. So what happened, this is what happened. That's what happens. A lot of the anglers that I'm guiding, the baits are so fast, and they didn't release the fly. So fast. I mean, so fast that the angler sets and feels nothing. And then they report in their brain then there's this, this neurological thing that they said they saw they set and they had negative reinforcement. So what happens is now there's a delay in there seeing this surrounding setting and then now they're really not getting that bite, bite feel. So they fall apart. He fell apart. He was just slow on it now because you almost don't believe it in a sense. I remember I said you can see that dang rod and I knew exactly where that fish was I call them first cast or miss them and then I caught another one another one another one. He's just like, oh my gosh, they're all bites. I was like yes. And not all work. But the thing like yeah, he told you guys cam Shafi we're a world love Wang was one of the best, you know, he does not make a cast unless he intends to catch a fish. When you have that high level of intention, high level of just do it. It's going to happen. You'll catch more. Okay, so

09:37

just pause you there for a second what exactly does that mean? Because every time I catch I'm hoping I catch something. You're just you're saying intent so that there's something intention like it's where I'm placing it, it's how I'm you know, casting it what is it? It's all that

Observation is Key When Fly Fishing for Trout

09:52

it's placement, it's feeling out where you think that fish is going to be, it's you walk to the stream and you don't make a cast, you walk in for things first you observe you observe the bank, you observe the bugs, you see, you see the rising fish, you see this so that you see nothing, okay, then you go to your next thing, you, you look at that water and you see the lanes and the seams and you break them down into even smaller lanes and seams, and then you break them down even to smaller lanes and scenes. And then you think where those fish are going to be looking at the depressions you look at the, the rocks with little spots behind the music of the rocks in the spots in front of them and you and you know your chip at length, because you've already predetermined you're fishing this amount, because I told you to and we know the way to fly you're going to use you're gonna use lightweight, and you're going to not hit the bottom if possible. And if you don't hit the bottom, anything that touches your flies is presumably a bite. So if you just go with some basic things, you can have a lot more intention instead of, oh, I think there's going to be efficient just kind of cast out willy nilly or whatever. When I see my anglers doing that, I'll say, hey, let's take a five Jones bank. I'm going to walk downstream. And I'm going to catch one here and give you some motivation that those are all fish again, you know, what I'm doing. So you know, a lot of I've been on hosted trips, and I've been with other guides that wouldn't ever, ever, ever cat catch a fish in front of a client and I respect those guides. I think there's guides for that. But I do not want to consider myself a guide. I do not like to be called a guide. And I'm instructed not to downplay any other guides, they can be just as instructors, but that's what I'm about. I'm about showing you that those are fish and I'm going to catch them to give you the motivation. Often instead they're right.

Why Josh Miller Keeps his Flies off the Bottom

11:27

Okay, I want to go back for a second because I remember you doing this in Pennsylvania that you were you're not on the bottom. And I just thought that's because there's all these chopped up TVs down there. There's the rocks that are in the bottom of Penge Creek, and you just don't want to get hung up all the time. But is that actually, that's not the reason you want to be a little bit off bottoms. All right?

11:46

So what's conversion conversions? Putting fish into the net? Okay, how do I put more fish into the net? I just serve more bytes. How do I serve, discern more bytes, if I hit the bottom, how am I going to learn anything you're going to feel I don't want to feed you site, if I can use my site with with feel as a secondary, I can discern more bytes and put more fish into the net. If I don't hit the bottom, there's more, more leeway in my site. Or if it's if it's any bump, I set on those things, and I'm going to catch more fish that are so finicky or so fast or so whatever they are, I don't sometimes I don't know. But that's where like split shot in an indicator. I mean, I steelheads guide and I use split shots and indicator we catch plenty of fish and I've done it before I've done it for chop, but there's water type that I cannot catch them with split shot and indicator while catch so many more tight lining. And maybe it's just me not understanding or as good of an angler as others. And I'm sure that's part of the reason. But the bite detection I have sometimes with with just one tiny light fly with light tip connected to my light leader. It's just so sensitive. Just shows me everything.

12:55

And it's so important to know the distance from your site or to your fly too, isn't it? Because he knows exactly how deep you are?

13:00

Of course, of course yeah. And what I said earlier in the podcast was winter in Pennsylvania green water, people think it's deeper than it is. And they what happens is you dunk your ticket too deep. Sometimes if I'm trying to do a specific technique, remember ABCD there's different techniques sometimes with let's say D I want a lot of tippet. But if I'm doing maybe my ARB, I am imagining my fly holding off the bottom. And okay, so everybody kind of close their eyes and picture this, like you're in this stream. And you're you'd say it's knee deep. And there's a couple rocks that are, I don't know, three, four inches, and those fish are sitting flat on the bottom behind those rocks, because that's probably sometimes what happens, okay? If my fly is just bouncing over those rocks, and up and down, it might bounce over that rock and fall into that little depression in the water where that fish is sitting. Okay, maybe it might. My goal is Josh Miller has my book. This is what my goal is, it's to hold that fly a little bit above the fish. And it's a slow the fly down as much as possible. Okay, so if I can get the fly to slow down longer if it's above the fish, it can encourage the fish to move from its position, come up and eat the flying go back down. Okay, so there's two things in that scenario, there's two important parts of this. So now all of a sudden I'm in really fast water. And there's all these big rocks and there's little rocks underneath and there's fish that are all in those little spots. To me, it's about crazy to think I can get my fly to go and all those tiny little depressions with how fast water is i It's crazy. So what I try to do is just get my fly a little higher in the water not on the bottom, but maybe six inches off the bottom foot off the bottom. I don't know just off the bottom, I'm training actually slow down as much as possible. Then that fish will move from the bottom it come up and eat the fly. Then I said some important what it's gonna Do then it's going to turn and go down. And what that does is make the bite way more obvious, because it's pulling it down, where if you put it right into its mouth desighter might just stop. But if you can get the flat fish to come up and go down to eat the fly, the bite is going to be more obvious. How do I how do I catch more fish? I see more bites. How do I get more fish in the net? I just certain more bytes. Yeah, the bytes are obvious. If I'm using a lightweight fly and a light leader, I know I'm not hitting the bottom and my slider moves. There's a good chance it's fish. So it's easy, or said than done, of course, and sometimes it just works. But then other times it's difficult, but those kind of that's kind of a secret to what I tried to do always.

More on Strike Detection

15:37

That's awesome.

 Josh, just for people that maybe haven't done a lot of tight line nymphing. What are you looking for in the line that could tell you that you've got a strike, so you're leading this fly? Six inches off the bottom? Think it's in a good slot? And what's the strike look like when you're real subtle strike, what's it look like?

18:20

So this, my sighter will be off the water. So I'll have my sighter in the air somewhere. And this iron, you know, that's colored piece, I'm looking for that colored piece, I'm looking at the bottom of it. So the bottom, I'll do a little perfection loop. And then I'll leave like a tiny little tag sticking out of the perfection. Gordon Vanderpool showed me that's great. And you can watch that little tag gives you a little more surface area to see if I'm watching that bottom and watching that not from where the slider goes to the tippet. And that thing just dips a little bit slows down and goes fast does something different. So this one, I'll tell my anglers, you make four or five cast and you kind of see what the normal is. And then if it does something that's not normal to set, you know what's against the norm. There's a lot of times people don't make a cast, and I'll set and I'll catch a fish and like, I didn't see anything. I'm like, I don't even remember if I saw something or not

19:12

became second nature. Well, yeah, that's what I

19:14

said. Remember, it's feel it's visual. And it's just intuition. You said wishing Yeah, it's intuition of we're in that comes with it. The more fish you catch, the more intuition you have where they're gonna you catch that day and that watertight the more you're like, Oh, I'm gonna it was thinking Bosnia was like, Oh, here we go. We're here comes another fish easy. You know, make a Catch. Catch a fish is easy. Some places, you know, and then other places really hard, but no, just having that confidence and stuff. Just I don't know. Yeah.

19:43

Just you have your stream that's been you. You just haven't been able to figure it out. Tons. Yeah, of course. Oh, really? Okay.

19:50

Yeah. Yeah. And then I always try to you know, that's why I try to go back and figure out what's going on or go with someone that's better. To me or learn from someone, as the coach of the LSU team, I want to try to encourage learning in getting people that are better and better to teach us. And yeah, I think that not just as anglers, but as you know, anything you do in life, there's people that are good at what they do take, use that resource. Right?

Water-load Casts and the Frisbee Cast for Euro-nymphing

20:18

Right. I also noticed you did a lot of water load casts, you know, because you're fishing very, very thin. I don't know what you call it, but it's almost like you had 20 hours of sighter. And it talks about the different types of cast that you got to have in your repertoire. Yeah,

20:35

casts are so important. The cast of what we're doing with that low angle cast, we call it the Frisbee tip cast. And we use the 180 rule with that cast. It's a low, low cast. it what it is, is a function of us fishing and Pennsylvania with lots of trees, you know, those oval and overhead cast, we just were in the trees all the time. And with heavy leaders, it worked, it worked well. But a lot of that casting, when you go to light flies and light leaders, it doesn't work as well, especially if you throw wind involved. You just kind of start doing this low casts 810 years ago. And that cast actually helps you set up connection a lot of times faster than than an overhead cast or a high arcing cast. In different situations with different depths and water.

21:24

You draw some line behind you letting the water load the rod and you're flicking it forward. And that's when you say 180, because wherever it's gonna go 180 degrees from the angle behind you. Is that what you're saying? Yeah,

21:34

so wherever the flies is downstream, it's going to go in the same direction through your leader. So it's going to go if you draw a line from your fly to your rod tip, it's going to continue that line. So if you need it across the river to the other side, you need to pull the fly like behind you towards the other bank to get it to the other bank. So it's a straight line. Okay.

21:55

Yeah, that was pretty cool. Are you doing a lot of typecast to to get that fly down quick?

22:00

You know, I there's a time and a place for type of cast I do maybe small, small ones. But I don't talk cast like the a bunch. I do use cast. I think it's very important at times, but I don't I don't, I don't a ton. I like to, to have connection with my fly as much as possible. And you can absolutely have connection with a tough cast, but you can lose some to, especially in fast water. A lot of times your fly will sweep underneath your rug underneath your sighter and you won't realize. So I try to guarantee connection if possible. And then before maybe I'll upsize on my flyweight, I will try to encourage more talk gassing harder talks with some slack for sure. And maybe some Colorado drifting you get to fly to sink faster. But there's yeah, there's just so many ways to do

22:51

this. Yeah. Okay. So if you're trying to hit a pocket that's a foot long, you're talking about breaking you know, seems down again, again and again. And now you're down to a you want to hit a little pocket, let's say it's a foot or two long. What do you do and to do that, how do you do that?

23:05

Well, knowing your leader length and having accuracy comes with time but having how much knowing how much leader you have out and your tippet it's just you can shoot it in there and like kind of going back I guess one step when you talk about casting with tight lining and remember, remember the the depth that I like to fish knee deep? Yeah, you don't really need to typecast too much. If I was fishing very deep water or really light flies, then I would maybe a little more tough casting. But you know what? Shallow water? I don't need my fly to get down. I don't I don't need it a lot of times to be down on when I get

23:41

down. Yeah. Alright, so love to talk about fly selection because you really like one fly in particular for a lot of situations, don't you as far as navy? Yeah,

Josh Miller’s 365 Day Approach for Selecting Trout Fly Patterns   

23:51

I do. Yeah, yeah. I like fishing. If I the few patterns that I use regularly like a waltz worm. It's a kind of a simple, simplistic caddis larva or give me sure it could look like a mayfly to put some tails on it. Just simple tan all of But truthfully, I don't it's funny sometimes an angler will fish for me one year and the next year like man your walls from color looks different this year. I'm like well, I ran a dubbing I just used it.

24:21

So it's not that important. Yeah. Yeah,

24:23

that and pheasant tails, Frenchies, you know, small thread bodies, Frenchies, pheasant tails, I love those. And France flies, a little blue wing olive, kind of beta or midge kind of fly you could change it in different colors and do, man, you can make any kind of may fly kind of with that thin body. That's a great fly. So that kind of covers midges, zebra Midge, you know that kind of was the gamut there for mayflies and caddis. So just on Penns Creek alone. And this is kind of the all talk about fly as much Because I don't want to go into too much, but just some Penns alone there's 100 identified caddis variations that Jonas was telling us. Jonas at the Feathered Hook. Yep. Yeah. Jonas is a great dude. And test they he's the man. Yeah, he's the man. They're great people. But, you know, like, there's 100 variations of caddis. So I'm fishing this riffle. And this brown trout just saw variation, 41 and 47. And that one saw 68. Yeah, I mean, to think I'm gonna like match it. It's ludicrous in my mind. So I'm just going to leave something simple at it. And I'm going to rely on my manipulation of my rod, my leader, my flies, my, my tippet my angles. That's how I'm going to try to encourage that fish to eat. I'm not and sometimes I'm gonna get burned by that. But that mindset gives me more of a 365 day approach. I'm not worried about the specific catch on the specific day with nymphing with dry flies is different with nymphing. I'm not worried about that specific day, that specific place because I fished so many places. I tried to more worry about….

Okay, so this is quick story. We were on the little J. And I was fishing with a friend and he had a heavy leader, which was fine. And he had a heavy fly. And he was castling across, and his fly was swinging across the water. And it was heavy and it was big. And the fish are eating like crazy and it was yellow. And they're sulphurs going like crazy. And He's catching fish like crazy. And I was fishing with tan Walts Worm and catching some I had to get close, I had to work at em, workout in order to get the right angles, and I teach them and I consistently call them in but he was just crushing it. You know, he was just standing fish from a whole bunch of different areas from one spot because they just thrown it wherever and they just eat it. But then the next day there is no yellow flies. He uses the yellow fly and swing is drifting didn't catch anything. And I can consistently still catch them when I was working on my technique slowing it down with both swarms. That's my approach.

27:04

So you didn't switch you didn't switch to his fly. You kept fishing the walls were him that day. No, I

27:09

just kept doing what I'm good at and just you know, sometimes I will for fun if I'm really getting crushed, but But to me, it was the purpose of seeing that I could still catch fish on a fly they obviously weren't eating but it was still opportunistic that the fly came down to them if it came at the right speed or drift or whoever and they they ate it. You know what? Yellow fly was hatching in they knew that fly and they wanted that fly was the difference. They're moving to eat it where they weren't moving. Meet my final thing. I had to get it pretty close in their wheelhouse. Punch him in the nose with it. Yeah, but in that situation, that angler might have learned a drift that is very specific for only a few times of the year. And he might not catch stuff when it's hard. That could be in a way. Not trying to say it that way but it could be.

The Little Juniata Hatch Chart

27:53

This is the hatch chart for the Little Juniata similar to Penns Creek. What's the Headstart like out there?

27:58

Oh, yeah, there's great little J has incredible Grannom hatch early season has some stone flies early and blue now lives in like January, February, March. And then the Grannom has come is really like turns the river and opens the river up. Grannoms are crazy there. I've heard there's that truthfully, I love the software hatchets. That's like the software hatches is incredible. There.

28:23

May Yeah, May June. Okay.

28:27

Yep. Just tons of bugs and, and there's so much river. You can hike into places you can park and fish right on the bank for people that you know it's a little harder to move. There's a handicap, little ramp spot. It's not much but it's but it's a great run. You can fish there. So it kind of has something,

28:44

buddy. Okay, I'm gonna ask you

How is public access on the Little Juniata?

28:49

Yeah, it's pretty good. There's access up in the gorge. There's a lot of public in the state forest. There's a lot of other pull offs with plenty of public access. Yeah, it's just a fabulous place. Yeah, pretty cool.

29:06

Josh Miller’s Childhood

Alright, so tell me about your what's your What was your childhood like and what you know what got you into fly fishing? Yeah,

31:31

childhood was kind of similar to a lot of people's in the way that I had luckily a mentor that took me fishing my uncle my my mom fish, my dad fished and they take me out with do brook trout a lot. I remember nymphing with my uncle when I was just a little guy and always been camping always being outside. I lived on a stream not actually it did have trout and it was cool is going through my book. My kid book not that long ago from from when I was a young guy and seeing like some little wild Browns I'd catch they're like seven, eight inches and literally behind my dad's house in the seat like not the CD but right in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. While brown trout I didn't realize like back then this guy, you know, that's

32:11

pretty cool. Yeah. And

32:13

I remember when I was young, walking down and seeing this bright red one I remember very vividly like this fish was 23 inches in that stream. And it's cool. So one of my friends who lives down here is talking about that stream and I told him the story and he went down and he actually got some wild trout out of it recently too. So I was alright. Trout around Pittsburgh. Yes. It's pretty much you know, I'm like, wow, that's that's crazy. But

32:39

ha so your uncle your uncle got you interested? That's great. Yeah, all of them.

32:43

You know, kind of all my family fish to some degree. My mom always like my mom's crazy about fishing. She loves it. She loves it. And you know, my, my dad would always go bunch of times a year to like cinema honing. Potter County, Cameron County, our county official, a little brook trout streams, which, you know, I caught somebody brook trout, my life I was like, where's the bigger ones that you know, not realize those things are like just the most beautiful gems now, but back when I was 15 at that time, like, Man, I want to get your big one, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And then I remember the first time I went to Central PA and is actually was the little J I was young, I don't know, young guy and in catching fish there and just being like, holy crap. And, you know, back then there was there's books and there's online, but not like there is now but it was I learned a lot of these streams. There's a book. Limestone legends are limestone, something I got when I was really young, a local fly shop guy gave it to me. He really went through a lot of the streams, the guy had the book and rated them or whatever, on some cool aspects like kind of volume. And just for back in the day, it was kind of advance. I thought it was cool. And then I did a lot of research on the ground deposits on where springs are in the state and dolomite and limestone and just kind of before there was a lot of trout routes and all these apps out there. But yeah, it was cool that it's you know, I'm happy.

Obviously I'm not that old. I'm 34-35, I don’t remember, but just to be able to fish and find fish back kind of the old school where in a sense using that. That's why, you know, looking at, it's neat if you go and look and look at like Penn's Creek, Penns Creek, it's there's a huge valley, just kind of wall sand, there's valleys and there's ridges, you look at this huge valley and then it cuts ray in Coburn and turns and that's where like a lot of the springs are so if you think about it, you have this huge water table where all this water runs down and it sits in this big bowl. And then where does it all need to seep out and all needs to go through that narrows or that cut. Same with big fishing Creek there's like that upper part of big fishing Creek awesome stream wide and then it goes through that narrows and the water has to get pushed through that narrows at some point and then you got on stream And then there's another narrows on it. So I was like, Man, this narrows the thing, so I look, I'll have all these maps and I was looking, I'm like, man, there's a lot more narrows, or, or gaps in Pennsylvania than we thought. And there's finally there's wild brown trout, a lot of them, you know, it's, it's neat. It's cool. It's good.

35:15

Yeah, it's such an awesome state. It really is. I want to go back to childhood, because I remember you were telling me, I can't remember if this was when we were in Pennsylvania together or just a month ago, and we talked, but that that childhood, like maybe it was your teenage years, were kind of tough, and that flyfishing got you through that. Can you talk about that? A little bit? Absolutely.

35:33

Yeah. You know, I have a blessed life. And I have a great family. But you know, there's hard times for us and my family went through some stuff and the fly fishing was definitely something that just kept me straight music was to being able to like kind of stick to bands with good positivity, even not knowing that it was back in the day. And I'm happy that I chose kind of some of the routes. But yeah, so this is kind of an interesting statement. And this makes me this might clarify it a little bit. A lot of it is self brought on to and so I don't have a radio in my van in that car that you know, my trout trout bus. I forget who I was with it was Joe, I think or my wife and we drove for a couple hours. And she's like, Why don't you listen on the radio and I'm like, my brains loud enough. All the time. You know, it's true it but it sounds funny. And it sounds great. And it's funny, but it's not because it's actually can be a hindrance at times, I don't know how to laugh. I don't know how to, I don't know how to kind of, you know, sometimes bring it into check. But fly fishing takes it there. It takes it right into check. And it puts me right in the zone. And I feel great afterwards. I feel great during even competition when I'm frustrated and losing fish, it's still something that it helps me it just it just keeps me you know, where I need to.

37:01

There's a lot of people out there were fly fishing has been, you know, really important to get them through life, certain timeframes of their life, you know, you

37:11

know, like TV is part of it, or going out west and seeing the mountains or jumping in the swimming pool or this and that but fly fishing it means the whole package. It's, it's the experience. It's the spiritual aspect of it. It's the it's the fish. It's the fishing, it's the mental you know, it's just everything. It's yeah,

Do you ever get sick of fly fishing everyday?

37:31

yeah, yeah. Well that I was gonna ask you what you love about fly fishing? How do you? How do you do it every day? You know, is it? I mean, do you ever get sick of it?

37:41

Not really.

37:42

Wow. No kidding.

37:44

What I look at nowadays, my favorite part of it. You know, I do I do love when I see people catching a fish and like, like the light bulb going off is really what I like, like, oh, do what you're trying to say is working. And it's like, like, in sometimes it just doesn't work some days, fish or fish and it just like, I don't know, you know what's going on? Because, oh, yeah, that goes back to what is the parts of fly fishing. So I went backwards. It's, it's, um, physical technique, it's mental. And then there's an aspect of just there's luck involved. Like, you don't realize a bird just flew overhead and spooked the fish or it's windy. So you're gonna catch less that day if you're tight lining or it's bright, sunny day and is low, or it just rained and it's cloudy, and you're gonna catch more. So there's a lot of that involved. And then there's an aspect of fly fishing and trout fishing that I don't think we can understand. It's just there's there's a variable of it, that's fish or fish. God is God. And we don't know sometimes what's going on, we can think we do but I don't think you know, that aspect there. It always keeps me coming back for more. So that's reason why like fly fishing is because like the what I liked the most about is going to Bosnia and looking at the Rybnik River and walking around by myself and catching a fish with no one telling me what to do or the fish or this or that it's it's that ability to go anywhere and catch fish in your cell. That's what's cool. I don't want to call the fly shop and say what's the hot fly? I don't care. I want to go and figure it out. You

39:11

know what I mean to you interested?

39:13

I don't care. I don't know. I'm trying to see flash up. That's not what I'm trying to do. But that's me. That's what I like about

39:17

you're able to do that. Jonathan, you and I both have faith is important to us. Right. And you've you've had some conversations about this and I'm curious how does faith and fly fishing come together for you?

39:28

Well, just being out there and showing you know, we all have different callings and what we do or different opinions or what it is but just being out there and experience fly fishing and being able to share the love of the fishing aspect and in just making new friends that love to with people and it's important to me. Yeah.

39:52

I feel like you're you're you found something that makes your heart sing. And I gotta believe God's in that. Sometimes I really do too.

39:59

So I'm sure he is. And then some days it just sucks.

Josh’s Favorite Places to Eat

40:05

Right? Oh my gosh. Are a well, we'll get to wind things down here a little bit. I always like to ask my my guests their favorite place for the hungry thirsty angler at the end of the day say you're you're in Central PA or fishing a little J. Where do you like to go? Or you go to your truck? I know. But can you think of some other places you'd like to go?

40:24

Well, the only time I go somewhere else is when I'm lucky enough for someone to take me somewhere. trufa Alright. Yeah, well, well, there is a good there is. There's a lot of good stuff on the little J. There's a pizza place. Oh my gosh, I'm drawing a blank. Marzano knees. I don't know. I

40:42

can't remember. We ate a little place off of Spruce Creek. Oh, St. Catherine.

40:47

Yes. I love that place. Yeah, April, dude. That's it. Okay.

40:51

Joe Humphreys was telling me that was his favorite spots. We were like, We gotta go check it out. And

40:55

you gotta go to the Tavern and then one year on Spring Creek, you gotta go to Miller’s Hogies. So ice cream, that's a staple, there's, it's cool. There's just a bunch of little staples around, you know, the fishing areas. Right? Right. Good ice cream. Of course. Do you gotta get your ice cream? Gotta go eat. So when you're out trout fishing, and you catch a small mouth with your friend, and it's not on purpose. You have to buy ice cream for your friend. Okay, but it is so yeah, if you're with me and and you catch ice cream or you're with me on a guided trip and you catch up smallmouth, you were gonna go and you're gonna buy it for me. I like that.

A Chance Encounter with Joe Humphreys

41:27

Oh, my gosh. Have you seen Joe Humphreys lately? Joe

41:31

and I were actually on Spring Creek doing. We had a few wrap up photos for my new book, I need to get a few things. And we're on Spring Creek and we went to fisherman's paradise and chose car was Aaron. We pull it in in the van and kind of just observed him for a minute. He was got out, took his time was putting his waders on, I was like, what just goes here? Yeah. He put his waders on and walked across the bridge and went into the woods. And I was like, I don't think there's anybody else here with him. So I walked across and kind of came up on him. And he's like, Oh, he calls me like little Miller. He's like little Miller, what do you what do you know? What do you know? And Joe? And he's like, Well, he's like, I was here a day or two ago, and I got my butt kicked. So I want to figure this out. Like, really? Joe said that, okay. Yeah, he's like, I need to figure out dry dropper. And I was like, sick. I was like, Let's go work on it. So he's like, can you help me down this hill? And I was I stopped for a minute. I thought I was like, Is this where you're gonna go by yourself? And he's like, Yeah, of course. I was like this. It was like, I mean, it was like, sketchy. I even got it for walk around that spot. He went down it and I was like, I was almost just happy. I was there for his safety.

42:47

I'm sure usually is with Tammy, his girlfriend.

42:51

Yeah, they're efficient. And yeah, he was just by himself. And we fish for a while. And in truthfully, it was cool. We caught a fish or two. And I was like, I want to see you do it. And I was like, Joe, I was like, I want to just hear your story. So we sat on a bench and for an hour, we just he talked. He's like, it was it was really like cool, because he says something like, you need to hear these stories. So you can pass them on. It's important to me and it's important to fishing and it was cool. And he told me a couple things about this the history of of him and his life and history of where we are fishing. Exactly what she was really cool. Oh, no, on Spring Creek, like, there used to be a time in the year and open like may 15. Yeah, there's like a bell that went off and in the morning and a bell at evening if you'd hook this fish after the bell, you'd have to break it off. And he said at this little bridge, there'd be big fish and on Sundays, it was closed and he'd throw that people would throw bread and so the the anglers would come right Monday morning and what the bread fly right under that spot, and then hook good, you know, a nice big trout right under the bridge. Just really, it was It wasn't cool. It was like surreal being there with them. And it just been to my

44:03

You’ve been with him a lot. This isn't your first time you've been doing Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course.

44:08

But this was different. This was like, this is this is a different feel. And it was it was special. Yeah. How

44:13

How about that, you know, for 90. Boy, I hope I'm as excited about something when I'm 94.

44:19

Joe and I, my Joe's with us, and we're like, dude, that guy is just so cool. Right? This is funny. I called Tim Cammisa, like, two three days later, and he's like, he's like, um, I was talking with Joe Humphreys or some I was like, ah, school. Yeah, I just fish with Joe. He's like, he's like you fish with Joe? Three days ago. Three days ago. He's like, Oh, he's like, Tammy was so mad or something. She didn't know what Joe what

44:46

was funny. Yeah, he's a he's an American treasure. That's for sure. So all right, Josh will, man thank you for being on the show. Great job.

44:56

Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And maybe someday will my when the book comes out, I'd love to do another one someday to advertise what's in it or? Let's do it. Well, actually, I'm working on the next book already. So

45:07

are you okay? There's more to say, hmm. Okay.

45:10

There's a lot more to learn, man. Well,

45:12

I tell you what, folks, Josh, you. This is fantastic podcast. I love hearing your philosophy and just how you go about this, your whole mindset. It's really fantastic. I'm glad we could get a chance to put you on there. I'm

45:24

very honored to be here. Thank you, Steve. Yeah, man.

45:26

You bet. How can people get in touch with you? I know you're booked out about a year and a half or two years, but what the heck they can try? Right? Yeah, I

45:34

don't know how new that's another thing. I don't know how I got so far. But um, yeah, my my phone numbers on my website trout. Yeah. Instagram. i Oh, you know, I always try to try to be down to earth and take everybody's calls. My wife hates it. It was funny joke. Someone said to me because I don't guide July August. I wonder. Really? Maybe a little September? Yeah, not August, September, October for Chai. And then I enshroud because they spawn on on fish at that time all. I'm going to steelhead. But someone said recently, they're like, like, Yeah, you don't work at all. During the summer. I was like, No, I don't work at all on Joe's like, do your work and everyday man. Yeah, you knows better.

More Stories from Josh Miller on Fly Fishing for Trout

46:16

You are. All right. Josh has got a couple of stories for us here. I did turn recorder back. I had to pick these up. So we got to hear these. So sure. Josh. Let's let's hear him.

46:25

Well, first of all, call me Josh and Joe is great. I work with guy Kurt. We we're so lucky to meet Kurt. He's our gun a captain in Ohio for steelhead guiding. He calls us Joe. Josh, Josh. Joe. He doesn't know which one we are working for him for like four years. I know. He knows now. But yeah, he just says Hey, Joe, Josh, Josh. Joe. Now he just calls us Hey, dummies. That's hilarious. But yeah. So I was thinking before we did the podcast, I was like I, every time someone asked me like, can you tell me a story. And truthfully, I've the real truth of this is, I don't know if it's my brain or what it is. But um, I've done so many things. I've been so lucky and so blessed to do so many places that like I don't have any stories that I think about I go so high, high remember stories, because I take photos and screen and you know, slide to the photos. I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's the memory. So, you know, when someone takes a picture, to laugh or whatever, I take a picture because it helps me jog all that memory part of my brain. You know, Uncle Steve, we are done with a podcast. And he is like, oh, yeah, that was good, huh? And I was like, Oh my gosh, I have so many stories I want to talk about. So one of them was when Joe and I were so excited. You flew out to Colorado to meet me and he was so excited to go to high mountain lake and we, like drove so far to get there and went so many hours hiked over 13,000 We got to the top and it was frozen. Oh really? Oh man. Oh my gosh. So next one, I went to Chile to meet a friend down there to fish. And I got to the airport. And my friend was hooking me up with a ticket. And he I realized there was no plane ticket when I got there. And I was young at the time. I think I was there when I was a lot of years ago and I haven't even paid money to buy a plane ticket. I've been the lady at the counter realize and literally, just by some miracle, I was in first class laying down. I don't know how you

48:22

got where you got to your port. You didn't have a ticket and she puts you on the plane anyway. Yeah. Nope. You must a really sweet talk to her.

48:30

I didn't I was just like, Oh my God. I was like, I'm flying by myself was my first time flying internationally. Yeah, it was incredible.

48:39

I remember first time I fly by myself. I threw my return ticket into trash. I didn't know what it was. I threw it away in the people at the airport. Like where's your ticket? It was, I don't know. 11 years old, I think. Anyway, yep.

Brown Trout, Atlantic Salmon in Iceland

48:53

So that was Yeah. This is a cool story. I was in Iceland with my wife. We went on a kind of a late honeymoon and we drove to the north part of the island. Minnesota kind of a two part story is neat. We I fished this river and Kado pile of fish. It was so fun. I was fishing at the mouth. And there was these brown cotton there in the river and I was swinging these browns and they're running into the ocean and it was the Arctic Ocean. So cool up there. Cool. And yeah, they were big 1820 inch brands and they just zip I mean they would pull so hard and then you get a once in a while you catch a a char. But I went up, walked up to the bridge and I looked down and I saw this fish. I was like I was fishing over that thing. That thing was four foot long. I think it was Atlantic salmon. It was the coolest thing. I was like Oh really? So I went upstream fished a little more caught some more fish and then you're supposed to sign the guestbook so I wanted a little house open, open the door went to the guestbook flipped it open. There's one page and it said so you're supposed to like say how many fish you caught what you caught it on and what pool it was in there was like I said caught three fish on Rainbow Warrior in pool one or four Will Humble and then like three here and I flipped to the next page that was my page. And then I realized only one person fish that river here.

50:07

Really? Oh.

50:10

And then we we were in a camper van in that area sleeping up there. There's like no people or whatever. And someone told us they're like, Were you sleeping in this area and fishing in this area that again, they told us that there was a polar bear floated over on a piece of ice. Really real close to where we are. Right? Yeah. Oh, we got my wife was freaking out. She's like, let's get out of here. You know,

50:34

you didn't didn't see the thing. No, no, of course not. But

50:37

I was. That's crazy. And the night before. It was neat. We're, we're hiking. And my wife and I were hiking like right on this edge of this glacier and just looking at the beauty of it. And like, Man, this is like really neat. Just surreal to be here. And we looked at the phone and it's at 2:30am I was like, What the heck, like, holy crap. It's 330 in the morning, like still light out. There still light as is so cool. Yeah, no, but it's pretty nice. It was really incredible place. Is it? Yeah. Another cool plains story. Where was Calvin? He was a previous head coach we're in I think it was Poland. Yeah. And this is neat. He walked up to the counter and talk for a minute. And I was just telling him that we would like to all go on together because he's in the military. And that like we could kind of go on as a team. So you know, because we all have different like, times we're going on like different, I don't know, one, two and three boarding or whatever. And all of a sudden he got us and we're all in first class. I was like, What the heck. I have luck with getting first class.

51:36

I'm traveling with you from now on. Yeah,

Slovenia and Chile for Trout

51:39

it was pretty cool. I remember there was a time and this is a neat story. We first time flying to Europe, we get to Slovenia for like three days. There's Oh, the ad Calvin throwing Calvin on the bus because I'm allowed to. Calvin was like, we're gonna meet at his house. We meet in Harrisburg with a couple a couple of the guys on the young guys on the team. We drove to Newark, and we're at Newark, and we're like, man, that plane, the plane is delayed or whatever it is. And right when we try to check in there's no check in because the planes not there. It's like Lufthansa air or something. And we're like I don't see it on the board. They realize it's a JFK the different airport. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah. So there and it's already gone. And they're like, what's $10,000 For you to rebook a person? Like

52:31

10,000 Seems a little extreme.

Bosnia for Trout

52:33

I know. We got anything. I was free tickets, of course, but like, yeah, that was one of the stories so it took us extra days to get there and then you know, you're sleeping in the airport for days and you miss the other night fun. Well, it's kind of like how it wasn't going to Bosnia was JFK and then to Serbia, we went to Serbia which is kind of a cool place to stay there for a day and then flew to Bosnia, but we get to Slovenia, and we get there. In our fishing passes. We can fish. Monday, it's Sunday night, you know, I like like 345 and got my waders on just was ready. So is that right? That's funny. Yeah, I was like it like you know, for something and you got out and fish and catch. Grayling. And that was a cool and cool. Getting grayling. Are they

53:17

strict about the fishing licenses over there? I imagine they are. Of

53:21

course. Yeah. So they're different programs or fishing clubs or whatever that has the rivers okay. So it's not like one license in one country? At least the places I've been it's different permits for different rivers are beats on

53:33

interesting. Yeah, super interesting. Now there's some good stories. Yeah,

53:38

for fishing all those places over there and realizing you we had to get permits even in Bosnia. There's a different person permit for each river every day and, and Slovakia, Slovenia, and Poland, Czech Republic, all different permits. And then you know, you come to Pennsylvania and you're like, Well, we have only like 1000s of miles of public water. Like, in like, a quarter posted on one place. And everyone's so mad. Of course, it stinks. But like, we're so lucky from what we have. Yeah, we were. Yeah, that one of the one of the clubs. One of the guys that was helping us on Greg or he's like, yeah, in Slovenia. I think that plays. I might be Miss mistaken. But I think you said you they can only fish the beat. Even if they're a Club member less than 10 times a year. You know, it's regulated. We're so yeah, we're so lucky with what we have. You know, there's always grass is always greener, that mentality, but we just got to remember, just if we have the attitude that we're lucky, we are lucky, you know? Yeah,

54:35

we share our blessed nation. There's for sure a lot of resources. So yeah. All right. Just It's cool, man. I'm glad we turn the recorder back on and caught the stories. You've got such an interesting life. People are gonna love this. Yeah,

54:50

we live a lot. There's so many more stories I'm thinking of, maybe next night.

Closing

54:55

Oh my gosh. Well, listen, I wish you extraordinary success and all your ventures the follow in folks thank you for listening to another episode of the destination angler will be shared I post Josh's contact information on our show notes and pictures of his top fly picks on our Facebook and Instagram pages. As always, you can DM me or email me with comments and suggestions at shaigh50@gmail.com. If you like to show please tell a buddy. that's how we get the word out about the show. So always Our music is by your brother's proud and a great little band out of Colorado. Hope you enjoyed the show and we'll see you again soon. Tight Lines everybody