Mindset on the Little Juniata with Josh Miller, Part 1

Fly Fishing Podcast with Josh Miller, Competition Trout Angler

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This week on the destination angler…

…there's so many ways to tightline to present the fly with different speeds with different depths with different connection with different tightness or looseness or whatever. There's many ways and what we will do is we go through our progression, we'll call them ABCD EFG. And there's more so we go through my A would be the the technique that I believe produces the most. I start with that first and then I second and my third and my fourth and my fifth and my sixth and my seventh and my A's and my right before I changed my fly. And

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that was competition angler Josh Miller sharing some of his methods. 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 fishing.

The Destination Angler Trout Fly Fishing Podcast

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and today our destination is the little Juniata River in central Pennsylvania. And our guest is none other than competition angler and Team USA youth fly fishing Coach Josh Miller, owner of trout yeah guide service. A little J is a gorgeous trout stream known for deep emerald green pools limestone cliffs, scenic stone railroad arches and not to mention tremendous brown trout fishing. Hailing from Pittsburgh, Josh's journey and fly fishing began as a teenager propelling him to compete in regional and national events where he eventually secured a spot on fly fishing Team USA. In his early days, Josh was a drummer in a band traveling from city to city. And now Josh leads a nomadic life as a competition angler dedicated guide teacher in fly fishing mentor to many including me, and check out his new book called Euro nymphing tips, tactics and techniques. Today Josh shares insights about the little J and provides a masterclass on Euro nymphing, while sharing stories of the USA youth fly fishing teams victorious journey to Bosnia and the importance of the mental aspects of the game. Stick around to the end for a zero to hero competition angling story from the Deschutes River. Hey, let's hear from Josh. Well, Josh, welcome to the show.

03:47

Thanks, Uncle Steve.

03:50

I love that. Josh, it's been a while since you and I have talked. I mean, we met in central Pennsylvania. On a trip in in April. We're doing pench Creek and it's first time I met you man. I was really blown away with your whole philosophy. It's pretty cool.

04:05

It was kind of neat that when we drove over the hill depends Creek when we were fishing. Patty it was anything in my vehicle. We got to spend that kind of quality 40 minutes together on that ride.

04:16

We did we did and we had a guy named Caleb in the backseat and he told me afterwards his that was that was a life changing 45 minutes for me. I think he wants to be a fishing guide now because he listened to you talk about it. So

04:27

Caleb was so cool, man. I feel like after we got to hang out he was the most like, just excited to fish. I mean, because while he was there photos I remember every every moment he could he was grabbed a random addition. He

04:39

was I think he took a few photos. I'm not sure how many but did you get a chance to fish with him? One on one? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

04:45

Yeah, I definitely showed him a few things. Oh, you did? Okay. The cool thing is he just absorbed a quack. And he was off and running right away. Yeah,

04:52

exactly. So anyway, I really enjoyed that conversation. The whole lot. You kind of blew my mind honestly. Were some of your philosophies on fly fishing. So anyway, I'm super excited to have you on the show appreciate you doing this. But I wanted to start with your your big victory in, in Bosnia with the youth fly fishing team, tell me about that.

05:12

It was a pretty awesome experience to be over there. And not only representing the United States on fly fishing with youth, just to be able to win. Truthfully, I mean, just as simple as that we want to be a lot of people have been asking, you know, well, how or why or why this time? Or why did you win? Or what did you do differently? Or whatever? And, of course, there's so many speculations of why, but sorry, I'm probably answering questions you're gonna ask,

05:44

good, no, I wanna hear about this.

Team USA Youth Trout Fly Fishing Win in Bosnia

Yeah, the truth of it, if I could boil it down to my opinions, we had anglers that were not only the best of what they do, but they're really good at just being able to adapt to situations. And that doesn't mean just during a session. But that means during the third day, when one of them has the stomach virus, and the day before the first session, you break your rod on the bus, and this happens, and that happens, or you get air in something. And, you know, the parents were like, What can we expect? I said, Well, be prepared to expect something that just throws you off, because it always happens. No kidding. That's a big part of it. But truthfully, something we've been really trying to, I don't want to say the word preach, but something that's really important in our organization, is having the mindset to win as a team, and to win, you know, not just individually, but to win as a team for all of us, for our country for, you know, not just yourself, but for your fellow angler. And for me, too, you know, I'm there volunteering 20 days out of my life, not making any money trying to do you know, that was me, or this isn't about me at all. It's not but you know, having that attitude to just do it together was it's awesome. And it's not just about fly fishing. It's not just about gold medal. It's about teaching young anglers responsibility to show them respect, how to communicate, how to experience life experiences in these different countries. So, you know, you go to like, you fly to a different country. I don't know, I'm just going to pick a country Italy and you go to like, the main city and see like the Americanized area that or whatever we're going to, like, you know, Poland and Czech Republic, and this time was Bosnia. You know, anyone I talked to you in Bosnia? Was it safe? Like, dude, yeah, it

07:35

was like, has been safe for a while. Yeah,

07:37

it's incredibly beautiful. It's incredibly awesome. You know, shoot, just if this is about the changing someone's opinion about places this, you know, it was really, really incredible place. But what I'm trying to say is we go to these places that aren't the main city, you know, you fly into there, and you drive five and a half hours to the border of Ukraine, or this or that, you know, the border of Asia. And, you know, we get to see the, what I feel is more of the true countryside.

08:04

Right. Right. Do you get a chance to interact with some of the local people much do they speak English? Or how did that go? That's like,

08:10

the best part we love, like, you know, going into these little, of course, yeah, the whole time, we're interacting with tons of people, we're going into these little stores, little store friends in these tiny little, can't call in town, sometimes just villages, you know, ordering breakfast, but each country definitely throws its own vibes or its own flow. Bosnian was really, really awesome. But what made it great was our team manager. So when we go in a world championship, we usually have, there's five fishing anglers and one reserve sometimes two, but this time, we had one Reserve and the reserve is used to fish some sessions or watch or whatever, someone gets sick. They're like a replacement angler. I can't say the word replacement, cuz that's not the right word. We're a team. Well, they're all equal, but it's just someone that's, you know, so I was, you know, a coach. And then we had another coach, his name is Tucker. He's actually the manager, the team. He was honestly the backbone of the whole thing truthfully, in our, in our board, of course, at home the support, but he set up for a guide for the country, not only to show us fishing and fishing spots, you know, you go to a different country and yet oh, man, like look at that river. Like, let's just go get some fishing license on the line on the website. Like there is no website, there is no fishing license, you need to like middle down the road. He has like the green house, buy the red fence. speak the language. So it's having like a liaison right away, to be able to be with us. Oh, it's incredible. Yeah.

09:44

Josh, how do kids get into how do you end up going to Bosnia on the on the you fly fishing, you take six guys over there. How did that happen?

09:51

Yeah, so we do clinics in the United States, some Pennsylvania and New York, Montana. We're working on Maine, Colorado. Hopefully soon, different places in their different times, or different places just depending on like, river availability, or hotels nearby, or this or that, or if there's coaches in the area, whatever. And we have these clinics, and they're a couple of days, and you fish with anglers, like, you know, George, Daniel and Joe. And I don't know, I'm drawing a mind, you know, not me, but yeah, tons of incredible world, world class or, you know, some of the best in the country at what they do, and lunch and food and all this stuff and board. And then those anglers are then able, or encouraged to fish in our national championship. And we use their scores from competition. And we also use their ability to, you know, work as a team, and we watch that and watch how they interact. And, yeah,

10:54

so your kind of personality, you know, like you say, how their interaction is, do they are they team players, but also how well they fish. So it's a lot of things, team

11:01

players is really the thing, man, it's like, when I sold one of the hangars, I don't want to give too much personal story, because I don't know how they will feel about it. But when, you know, we're out there in in Bosnia, and the reserve is going to be this person. And we get there and I see different situations, I'm like, Man, this angler is really good at doing this specific thing. So maybe they shouldn't be, they should fish a session or two, because I think that could give us the advantage. And you know, those anglers, and I won't say what it was, but they're all you know, as a team, instead of me just being like, this is the choice we're gonna make. Let's let's let's work as a real team, because this is your team just as much as mine, or just as much or whatever. You know, so we all try to come to agreements and things and and then I think the anglers support that better and make sense. I really believe in, I tried to be in like I said, I don't want to make it about me at all. It's the kids did it. The young men did and you know, but just having the belief in your coaches and having the belief that we want the wind just as much as they do, and

12:02

yeah, right. If you don't mind, tell me about the kid who won, like, what was he doing? So well, that got him? Because there was one guy that got gold, right? Yes.

12:11

So Drew Belton took first place. He's from New Mexico, and then cage costs are took second place individually. And then Lawson Braun took fourth place. Here's like one fish away from taking third man, that'd be pretty incredible for first, second third, but they're just incredible anglers, we had a plan of what we're going to do, and you know, that's maybe how they started or what they do most of the time, but their instincts kick in and they just know how to adapt to the situations and catch fish. That's awesome. You know, they're really good anglers. Yeah,

Trout Fly Fishing and Euro Nymphing Expert, Josh Miller

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yeah. And just for all the listeners here, I wanted to tell a little story about Josh like, asking Josh for a bio. And he's like, Yeah, I don't like talking about myself. And he said, he got to send me some stuff here. I got it. You know, people need to know what you've been doing. So just I'm gonna read what you sent me and just know that folks that Josh did not. He definitely did not want to talk about himself, but I'm going to talk about him because Josh is awesome. And he's accomplished a lot. He's the head coach to the US youth team. He's a signature of flytographer Orvis and fulling. Mill. He's fly fish in over 10 countries, caught trout in over 30 States National competitive angler. He's an instructor for the youth team. He's also got a book coming out which I mentioned in the intro, your nymphing tips, tactics and techniques coming in January. He's been guiding since 2016. He owns a swim guiding service trout. Yeah, out of Pennsylvania and he fishes a couple states there and he's takes that truck on the road. He's been to South Dakota, Colorado, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Connecticut. And he's coached youth teams in Bosnia, Slovenia, Poland, Czech Republic. Does, he's traveling Euro nymphing schools. He's a presenter, key speaker been in many fly fishing shows. You may have seen him there and is tied at these events. I know he's been in lots of podcasts that I've just probably done a lot of other things too, but let me tell you this. He's got quite a quite a resume. For guy I think you're in your mid 30s Right.

14:12

Yeah. 34 Now maybe 35 I don't remember. Okay, I'm gonna make the other deals with you. I do not have to do the math to be as efficient you're too busy fishing.

Central Pennsylvania is Outstanding for Trout Fly Fishing

All right. Well, Josh let's let's shift gears for a minute and then let's talk about you know, Central Pennsylvania and you from Pittsburgh, but I know you like fishing that Central PA area. Tell us tell us what makes that area just such an awesome area for fly fishing.

14:35

Central Pennsylvania is beautiful. We're blessed with incredible trout fishing. We're blessed with great resources, good people, good conservation groups. And Pennsylvania is awesome. We just have a lot of miles of beautiful fertile streams with brook trout, brown trout, rainbow trout, wild fish, stocked fish, muskie, Pike, bass, small mouth, there's just so much here. And there's so much of it is public or walking permitted even on like personal private water, our state does a good job trying to, you know, get more water accessible. Like you said, I've been in a lot of places, and I've seen a lot of fishing. There's a big time in my life where someone asked, like, how do you get better? And one of my answers was, Well, I think if you fish a lot of places and a lot more streams and a lot more places on streams, you get to experience a lot of situations that when you're fishing your place or in a competition, whatever it is, you're like, man, I've seen this before, I've had something similar so I can really relate to that. So that was kind of my strategy for a lot of my life. The older I am out there, you know, maybe the more slowed down I get with traveling that extensively, but Central Pennsylvania like we're in Maine fishing last week in Maine is beautiful and in fabulous in its own way. And there's times where I'm like, Man, I just wish I was on little J or Spring Creek right now. It's like all right, no, I mean, I hate to say that cuz I don't want to you know, put down anything else but we just we have is great. It just really is.

Best Regions in the USA for Fly Fishing for Trout

16:08

Where are some of your I don't want to give away your honey holes. But what regions of the country do you really enjoy fishing in? In

16:17

Pennsylvania or the country all over the country?

16:19

Yeah, man.

16:21

I love fishing. This is me shoot everything. Every state has their own little hidden gems. But as a whole I really love Wyoming. I really liked Montana and Colorado, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia. Okay. I mean, and then just Pennsylvania.

16:36

Yeah, yeah, I was out fishing in on the Arkansas River in Colorado A couple weeks ago. In the guide said, the best anglers I get are from Pennsylvania. And I thought that was so interesting, you know, then like everybody tightline names in that state man, I tell you it's hard to find somebody doing anything with an indicator it's all tightline out there and I don't know I don't doubt it. Yeah,

16:58

we definitely have a lot of you know, goes back like a tradition Pennsylvania opening day fly fishing or just trout fishing tradition and a hunting is I don't hunt nor know much about it. But what I hear secondary is, you know, there's a lot more private lands so those hunting is flying and do fishing and fly fishing. So it's definitely you know, there's there's a lot of it

17:18

here. And it's so pretty out there too. And I think your limestone has something to do with the quality of the water. Two dozen it, for sure does.

Josh Miller's Life Story as a Drummer Before Being a Fly Fishing Guide

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Little J It's kind of what I call my son for awhile. His name's Jonah.

19:58

So before his era you call them little J Hey, hey, yeah, we could do it. Yeah. Is he okay?

20:04

I told my wife I was like no drums he just loves He has like a tiny little drum set in the back room and he might run back there and hit it for a few times you might hear it but

20:12

All right, that's cool. Now what uh you were a drummer wants to Weren't you? I was yeah for a while. What kind of a band Maria.

20:19

I was in a we call a headache music now with rock music and yeah, we had a lot of a lot of fun touring the country and since that's kind of like how I got my mobile lifestyle being in you know 16 years old jumping in a Ford Econoline 15 passenger van with a 14 foot dual axle trailer and going from Pittsburgh to Ohio to Indiana to Oklahoma to Texas to Calif you know, just do this crazy nomadic life in this van. You know, just do the same thing and

20:54

proficient you and you liked that.

20:57

I loved it. Yeah, I mean, growing up doing it at a young age it made it I don't know if it just desensitized me to being able to sleep in a seat of a car for days on end. You know, obviously you needed I needed to take a shower, but there's nothing scary to me about just having a nice night's sleep in a nice little camper van.

21:16

In your camper van or in your your truck truck. I've been in your truck truck. It's all tricked out for just for one thing trout fishing.

21:23

Yeah, I upgraded my battery recently. I got doubled my power so I got more amenities in there. Yeah, love. Yeah,

21:31

I think he told me the thing. It's like 35 miles to the gallon. I was surprised how good it does on gas mileage to

21:37

1. Yeah, yeah, it's still a little little five cylinder diesel, it gets pretty good gas mileage. How

21:41

about that? Alright, so what's the biggest audience you've played for drumming wise?

21:46

I've done some festivals whereas over a couple of 1000, but like an individual just show I remember some Texas shows me and some really big ones like in Dallas, Fort Worth area. And I don't know, maybe cornerstone. There's a festival we played in Illinois, some big shows there. Sunshine fest work.

22:04

Yeah, so pretty cool. Getting up there in front of all those people and hitting those drums getting their attention.

22:09

There's something when you're in a stream in you see glaciers, and there's no one for miles and there's no cell service and you hook a wild fish or native fish, there's something about sitting on stage, kicking your kick drum, and when there's so many subwoofers that the audience you could they could feel and they start yelling like, you know, there's some show about both of those things, you know, right. And I've always lived the life of kind of that in particular, it's kind of what I want

22:37

to talk you're kind of a performer, in a way.

22:40

Yeah, I don't put it that way. But I like to think of I want to do things kind of seldom seen or new experiences that lesser people have done or it's just kind of like what I like, you know, yeah, no, it's just something different. You know, it's neat. All right.

Why the Little Juniata River is so Special for Trout Fly Fishing

Well, let's let's talk about the little J a little bit more same kind of kind of rehab. I love that little sidebar, we just went down I was super curious about that. Tell us about the little J like just give us a sense of the the water like breakdown the sections, where does it start? Where does it flow? How big is it? Gradients? Those sorts of things? What can you tell us

23:15

little Jay has, best way to describe it would be it's many different rivers, there's places where it's fairly decent falling, there's places where it's, you know, more flat, there's places where it's warmer, and then there's places where there's more spring influence. So you kind of got like the upper end where it's real small, and there's some nice tributaries and some some nice springs. That the the positive and I want to talk about was there's some good conservation efforts up there, obviously help the stream be clean, there's a conservation called Little J River Association, they do a lot of good cleaning work. And they did some on the tributaries up there to keep you know, like the start of the stream, I kind of think I like the concept of of clean tributaries kind of clean river in a way helps it down flow side. Of course, that's not the last thing we need to do but I think it's a good but yeah, so the upper end of the river used to be stocked and the start stopped stocking it. There's some good wild fish up there. And then it goes down towards Tyrone rune it takes a hard turn through kind of the first mountain range. So in Pennsylvania, we have long valleys and we have ridges in stone belt, limestone belts, kind of the central part where I like to guide and fish. And I know to myself we have you know, just in the region of the little J within 50 to 100 miles there might be 30 more limestone spring or spring influence or limestone influence streams that fish sometimes incredible. I like to say that there's different streams in PA that kind of wake up and cool off at different times. Like maybe one over the mountain is fishing really well. The little Jays not quite is welcome up, or it's already getting too warm, you know. So there's, it's neat if you know, a lot of the region, and it is cool is watching the rain because I'm not a meteorologist or whatever. But there's ridges and it's neat to see sometimes the rain kind of keeps falling in that area. But if this ridge over here, I don't know that the clouds seem to like go around and that has, maybe it doesn't blow out as much or it's more it comes down faster, you know, so but but it's cool. There's, there's a lot of times there's something to fish in the region. But going back on a little j. So from Tyrone, there's a couple of streams in that region on the upper end above Tyrone that are great fishing for brook trout and wild brown trout on their own. And some of them do have some stock fish in them, but then the river turns through one of those over one of those ridges, so the Ridge was carved out in that area, there's a lot more spring influence and there's a lot more limestone, the stream runs over a lot more bare limestone that in that area. Okay. You know, I don't know exactly, but I kind of imagined in my mind, there's these ridges that are like sideways. And I just imagined the water kind of just cutting through those ridges going underground ebbs and flows and coming up in different areas, you know, and in some places, you can see these big springs, there's one called 100 springs, and there's one downstream of that with a lot of good cold water. And from just south, they're just downstream of Tyrone. There's the special regulations area from there all the way to the mouth. So from there all the way to spruce Creek, which is kind of a well known tributary, it's probably Yeah, sure is. In pa I'd say pretty, pretty close. And then from there down, we call it the Gorge in Bari through the gorge down through John by Allison Road all the way to the mouth. It's It's beautiful down there. It's a pretty wide river. It gets pretty big, you know, at 700 800 CFS, it's it's hard to move around.

26:57

Right? It's pretty wadeable the whole way or a

27:01

yo yeah, there's there's a lot of it. There's some there's some holes that are way over your head, but there's a lot of stretches that are nice and gentle. Especially from that 250 CFS CFS is kind of a nice in between easy way to you know, yeah, right. It's great. Like you said, it has that green tint. Yeah, call it the limestone green man. You know, if I roll up to any stream in the world, and I see that one, I'm still in green. I just feel at home. I love it. For those who don't know, it's like, it's like 10th of like, just fishing if I know this, it's so

27:35

cool. It's like emerald. It's like staring into an emerald, isn't it? Like, like a precious rock? It's beautiful.

27:41

You know, I've been to where there's like, you know, Blake Sheree streams, and they look a little, not the same. It definitely looks different. And then you go to North Carolina, and you're like, man, that stream I'm fishing this little spot and I'm like, man, it's probably two feet deep and I step in and it's 10 feet and it's hard to discern how deep things are but with the limestone green there's so many suspended particles where you can kind of tell a lot of times how deep things are in it's neat actually going towards technique and I know I'm jumping off subject here is a good time to say this. Anytime we fish in PA and I'm guiding or teaching or explaining whenever I always we're fishing and I always tell my angler I'm like just assume it's not as deep as you think it is. Usually isn't Oh really? Is not so I always err on the shallow side but that's more technique thought so but

Floating or Wading for Trout?

28:29

you like to wade versus float. Am I right about that?

28:33

I mean, I think I like wading but both have their ups and downs. Of course. As a whole I like wading because I like to be in control of everything I'm doing. I like to be in control of my movements and body position. To me body position is she's just as important as your cast is Your fly's drift it's just important because it all sets that up. Body importance position is so important. So I want to be if possible in control of that as best as I can. Well, okay, Josh Well then how do you fish this huge river? Well, I don't Okay, well, there you go. Some sometimes having a boat is nice or from streamer fishing obviously just covering water is better if it was a low density River and I it was only a couple of fish per mile. Yeah, I'd rather be on a boat but especially some of these rivers like the little J there's so many fish from mile, I might only move half mile and eight hours and we fished Spring Creek, Joe, Pat Weiss and I fish Spring Creek. It was like three days ago and I fished I think four or five hours of force before Pat came. Man. I don't think we were more than 100 yards don't I you know, we got plenty of fish. But it's just, it's neat. And I write about it in my book a lot how this the difference in anglers in the difference in what they want to experience or accomplish. And so anglers should go really fast, especially like with the nymphing styles. They're going to catch fish and that's what I did at first, you know, just just catch fish. Get them under your belt. But then, you know, if you learn to catch more out of one run, I feel like there's a lot of benefit to that, you know, picking it apart and figuring out that's where I like that, you know,

A Good Day Fly Fishing for Trout for Josh Miller on the Little Juniata River

30:10

that's enjoyable.

What's a good day for you on a little J? Oh, come on, man.

32:37

And I'm going to be honest, right now a good day is enjoying what God produced and catching some fish and trying to learn or expand on a technique that I've I'm working on or trying to understand. You know, catching numbers is something that I used to really try to, to do. And I would lie to everybody if I said I didn't care about it sometimes and didn't care about it. Often. I try not to make that my deciding factor for if it's a fun day or good day or whatever years times we're doing right, I'm having a bad day catching fish and I don't care how beautiful it is outside. That's just the mindset. You know, it's it's if I if I go into it, just knowing that I'm just gonna have fun and catch fish or whatever, but if I'm just trying to learn technique and get better at things and you know, yeah, yeah, it was neat. I be guiding a while and a lot. And in Pennsylvania and, and I get to I feel like I got it at a good level. I don't know how to say it any better than that. But and I people, people say like, how many am I going to catch or this or that and, and seeing you know, X Angler today or x thing or tomorrow or x angler a week ago? I'm like, Well, why did that do you catch 30 Why the sky catch seven wide sky catch 28 Like I'm realizing there's so many more variables to fly fishing than just like x or y you know, it's there's so much to it that can make or break the day like people don't understand. Shoot if I fish those runs yesterday's it might be hard for you tomorrow, even if it's a perfect Beautiful day with no wind and perfect emerald green color. Right? There's just so much luck and a story I

Fly Fishing Big Fishing Creek in Pennsylvania

34:22

Sorry, I'm really going off here on your good man.

I want to get into all this stuff. So you're perfect. This is the stuff I love. You know so big fishing Creek. We did it we were doing a competition. And I was fishing a beats worth so beats worth might be one 200 yards so it's a stretch stream. That's not the river we're gonna fish tomorrow. But it's upstream just a little ways or you know, something that's similar in practice that I can feel like I'm can relate that to tomorrow. That makes sense. So I fished it for you know, maybe two or three hours about a beats, duration and I caught I don't know I don't remember 20 Some fish or Whatever. And I was like, Okay, so now I have like a starting point. Because in practice, obviously, I'm not fishing my highest, I'm just kind of fishing and figuring it out and learning. And also, I always try to think because it's true that there's always gonna be better anglers than me at these competitions, because there always is. So going into the session tomorrow, I'm like, how many do I need to catch in that amount of time? And a beats worth? At least 20? Some,

35:26

right? Yeah, maybe? Yeah, I gotcha. Yeah. So,

35:29

you know, I jump in the river. And my session starts and I miss a fish first cast, I really remember exactly where it was at school, you know, and sometimes, just that alone, can throw my mind off, because sometimes, I'm learning that we'll talk about this, but I really think that a lot of fly fishing a lot more percentage of it is mental. It's mental ability to URL Yeah, definitely. But so putting that in a box for a minute, getting in my session. I missed that fish. I fished for a little while. And I remember catching my first one. You know, I'm putting it back safely. And then fishing a little farther dropping one missing another one, dropping ones. So that means you know, I hoped it in some time during the fight, it popped off. Yep. Which at that point, now I'm like, static. I'm a little phrenic. You know, and I think I landed I don't remember exactly. Maybe five or something. And I tried to go with a smile, but everybody can see it's, you know, I wear it on my shoulder. It's just who I am. I try not to and now I can talk about that later. But they walk back and like, you know, how'd you do? Josh? I was and I was like, Oh, my gosh, it was tough day. Yeah, tough day, I got five and I do the most cot was six. You know, I'm like, Oh, really? Okay. Or seven? Or sometimes? Like, what?

The Mental Aspect of Fly Fishing for Trout  

36:49

Because I know, You've had days where you go out and catch 100. You know, but but it was,

36:53

but here's the point of the story. There's two points to it. You know, if I wouldn't have gotten mental, I wouldn't have dropped as many fish because I was too friend. I can send it just having fun. And once I learned that and start my last competition I did. And I took second place that Team USA event in North Carolina. And maybe it isn't just because of that, but I just went had fun. You know, I tried to change my mindset because I'm like, relax a little bit. That but I realized it was hindering me. So I said, and a lot of people listening this right now and be like, Dude, he's fly fishing is why isn't he having fun? Well, we do things for different reasons. When I'm out just fishing, then it doesn't bother me. But I like the aspect of competition, not just to win, but I like the aspect of competition because whereas.me in life, it were is pushed me to be as an angler, you know, I get to do these things and fish with anglers who are the best at what they do. And I learned from them because I have been able to or whatever, I've been blessed to be able to be in this arena to fish with those people. You know, sometimes there are days where it's frustrating. And there are days where I come down in my head, head down, you know, but as a whole I love every move. I do. I just love it. You know? So I just want to like stop that. That attitude because people do get like, bummed out when someone's like, Man, how can how can fly fishing be a competition? Well, some people don't like basketball, some people don't like football. It's okay. I like the aspect of

38:16

competition for it. Makes sense.

38:18

But it's not for everybody. In the end. If we have that attitude towards it, then it's it should be just acceptable doesn't need to be something that everyone's agrees with. But it's it is

Competition Angling Beats for Trout 

38:29

it Hey, just tell us how these competitions work. Because you draw on a beat, right? Like you're getting, you just are given a beat, you don't get to choose, right. It's like there's 15 Bees and 15 anglers, you're going to fish five of them, right? Or something like that. Tell us about that. Yeah,

38:42

kind of. So each competition has different formats as how many days or sessions we fish. So just like a one day event might only be two sessions. And you're right. It's just a random luck of the draw, I get beat six. And I was like, Oh my gosh, so beat takes me to my next well, if before we do that, yeah, so you just get a real random beat, and you have a judge with you. And you're assigned maybe 100 yards, 200 yards over the river, and how it's it's predetermined the day before someone walks up the river and puts a flag and it says beat one, beat two. So you can just know your beats in that stretch. And you just have to catch the most fish in that session. And then if I caught the most we do what's called placing points. I took a one placing point if I caught the least I took the amount of of placing points is as many anglers on that section. So there's 10 people, if I took the last place, I took a 10 So at the end of each session, it's whoever has the least amount of points. So if I won, I took you placing points. So I won that won the competition. Yeah, so it's about placing

39:44

high interesting and have you been in competitions where you know, you just you're not getting good beats? I mean, are they all equal?

39:50

Of course yeah. So my nationals in Bend Oregon, it was the last time so my first nationals in Uh, Lake Placid, New York, I think I took like six plays at that nationals and made Team USA. So that was we do like regional qualifiers. And then we go to nationals to compete to make Team USA, the the adult team, then my next one to to re establish my position on the team was in Bend, Oregon. And it was a little bit stressful, to say the least, because it was for Lake sessions in one river session. So as a as an East Coast person, I want to say, we have a little bit of a disadvantage, because we don't really have lakes that have wild trout on lakes that have trout, where we can fish. In practice for a lot of duration, we might have some for a little while. But man, they're shallow or the weedy or they're just stocked fish, whatever, but we just don't have the opportunity out there as much. Yeah, you're going out there to some of where the team lives, and they're incredible anglers. But this is where team really shines. So I have to now rely on my teammates. And, you know, they helped me out with figuring out the lakes. We had to do. But getting down to it. I was I think I was in like, I don't know, pretty good placing, going into my river session. And I heard what we heard when we were the beginning of the competition, we all get together everybody, like all the judges and all the anglers and everything. And I remember them saying something vaguely about beat one on the river. It's like they're like, Oh, we apologize for beat one. It's sucks. You know what I mean? It was just we ran

41:35

out only admitted it. Oh my god. Yeah, I

41:38

don't remember exactly. Or maybe, maybe it was just conjured in my mind because I was so scared. But yeah, there's something about one in every session, I think it took last place for a second the last place or, or very close to that. And, you know, going into that, and I won't say what angler fish did, but there was anglers that, I think one world championship on the youth team that were you know, incredible anglers. And so mentally I was like, Oh, well, I got beat one, I'm gonna take a last place. And that takes me out of making Team USA, just something simple like that the unluckiness of it, but I went into it with a different mindset. I my teammates call me down. And, you know, this was in 2019 I think it was 18 I forget what it was. But, you know, from having getting married, and having a kid and being a father, being a homeowner, being a full time guide. Now coaching, I realize how much of a burden I was on some of my teammates for being too mental because it definitely rubs off like watching something the young guys over there and being too getting in your head too much. Yeah, the whole team so you know, it's it's cool that now I know that but I feel bad about you know, being so mentally super interesting. Yeah. But knowing that you you do have a bad beat of the only thing that you're good, you're quote good as the river you know, but the cool thing was the blessing of it. I went into my session just trying to fish in catch one fish and instead of just jumping into the water, I waited for the session started there three hours, and I waited for the shadows to go over the banks and the Deschutes River. Upper Deschutes. Okay, yeah, just felt comfortable and came out from the bank because because they've been walked on the last 10 hours from competitive anglers. This fish are so scared in my opinion, you know, thinking about it.

43:27

So you waited you didn't just jump right in you wait, oh, I waited and waited and

Catching More Trout

43:31

try to do a different, you know, different approach. And this is another reason why I think mindset is it's a skill walks, I'll explain it in a little bit. Mindset is a huge part of fly fishing. But yeah, so I waited and I wouldn't let my fly at the water until I was okay with my cast, it would hit the water, I'd get a bite and I'd pull my flat I wait five minutes before I made another cast, you know, fish, show me where they were. And I analyzed where the bite was and analyze how they ate the fly and analyze if I needed to make a weight change because I missed the flight or missed the bite because maybe I wasn't quite connected with it tight enough. Or maybe I was too connected, I felt the fish simultaneously of seeing the bite. So there's a lot of analyzation that a high level on that, too. You know, because I call it conversion, you need to have a bite in that fish needs to go into the net. Convert that thing. So what do I do to convert that? What do I do with my with my body position or my rod angle or my weight or my Tibbett length or everything because it's all very important things that can change that outcome? So I just you know, took my time I'd catch a fish and bring it to the controller and then I go sit on the bank and relax.

44:37

And was the controller going to What are you doing? Get out there and fish? Yeah. For the first 30 minutes.

44:41

He's like, What are you doing? Why aren't you fishing? Well, I wasn't I was mentally thinking just catch one. And that was my motto with the US youth team. The whole time. Every session I was like What's our goal and they're like, just catch one and then catch the next one. Like don't worry about the goal of needing to catch 40 or whatever some snack and worry about the next one. So, my kind of philosophy with with fishing is when you catch one fish, especially for the anglers out there who sometimes maybe do get to travel with or going somewhere this or that, I like to just get one under my belt, I like to just get a fish and I we've been talking with Todd about it this week, like, Who's telling you feel about holding a fish in just like catching efficients in physically seeing it physically seeing its body shape and size and how full it is and how and where it ate and where it was and, and how it took your flaw and how it fought gives you a lot of data on the rest of the fish like gives you intel on where they're going to be potentially or or how much they're eating or, you know, so if you just catch one and have that attitude, it's going to help you catch more, you know, and it gives you confidence in your fly gives you confidence in your technique because it obviously worked. So that's kind of like you know, my motto on on guiding and fishing or whatever. Yeah,

45:54

how'd you do that day?

45:56

I think I took a second place on that set. Really?

45:59

So you did okay, you turn that around, man? Yeah, I

46:02

took second place I caught in the high teens. I think there's a lot of single digits or less cut out of that beat. Yeah, and I took fifth place for that nationals and made no kidding made the team there. But truthfully, the victory of me doing well was way just shattered by my at my like, sadness, negative attitude going into that. And I just like, you know, I learned a lot, and just learned a lot from that. So

46:27

that's super cool. I remember you told me that story in Pennsylvania. Love this story.

46:30

I love it. Yeah. But it's a learning moment, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

46:34

Alright, so let's talk about tight line because it's really popular in certain parts of the country, not so much and others, but in your mind, what what is it that makes tight line nymphing? so darn effective?

46:47

Yeah, it's the connection to be able to see baits and fish different water depths in in different areas that are definitely less effective with other techniques. Or maybe in some ways, there's the other techniques, you have to be really advanced to be able to catch fish and some of the water that Thailand it just makes it it's honestly sometimes just easy. It's just just works.

47:18

Right? Alright, so tightline, what's your setup? How do you go about it? What

47:23

tight lining, I like to use a pretty light leader, maybe a 4x leader for my fly line, sometimes 4.5x, sometimes 3x, I adjust my leader depending on what I want the flies to do, or with wind. With casting. If I'm using really heavy flies, I'll use maybe a little heavier leader, I'm using really like flies, maybe I'll use a lighter liter from floating the cider. Maybe I'll use a little bit heavier cider to encourage it to float a little more. But there's definitely some adjustments that can be important or just some adjustments that seem crazy, maybe just to catch one or two more fish, but that's sometimes what we tried to do to catch those hard ones or the you know, yeah, but a lot of those I think a lot of those adjustments are are what make it fun for me to you know, just figuring something out and it working. It's cool. Right?

48:13

Right. And so you're talking we say your flyline is like a Forex flyline you're talking about it remember you had like lot of cider. Yes,

48:22

yeah, so some of the material we use looks, I mean, it's used as cider, but we just use it as a full liter. So there's material called P or CMP. There's other great leaders too out there and materials that we find and use that we use it as slider and sometimes we just use the whole thing your whole whole leader can just be slider,

48:43

right? Right. And then you really sort of measure your your tippet lengths to remember you kind of use your arm length armpit to and then to shoulder and then to full armpit arm lengths to measure out your leaders and tell me about why that's so important knowing how long your leader your actual tippet material

Technical Aspects of Euro-nymphing for Trout

49:02

I should say absolutely measuring everything's important from the knots in between your your tapered leaders and your level leaders your cider knowing what they are so you can replicate it and for one year fishing the amount of tippet underneath your cider it's even more important in my opinion. So you can duplicate so you can understand that if you fish a light fly on long tippity my fish similar as a heavy fly on short tippet or the opposite or you know so when you go and break a fish off in your setup is working you can replicate exactly what you're doing to have you know more scientific instead of oh I was about this much and then you make a cast there's too many times and competitions I'd be you know break a fish or be a little jittery and put on way too much tippet and then have to take the time to cut it off and retire so like why don't you just measure this every time it just makes more sense. You know, then you're good at you know I can almost close actually did it for an angler the other day a client back in June it was it was cool new video on it, I know where the fish should be in the run, I turn back to the angler, and it was looking at them and show them when you know, the mechanics of a cast. Because the point was, actually, I can't I can't ever see my sight or I can't ever find it. And I said, Watch like, if you know the mechanics of, of different casts, you can, I made a drift without even looking, I caught up, I'm caught a fish second class doing it, I felt the fish, which I don't love to do, but but it was neat. And you're just like, holy crap, like your drift was great. Not even looking at it. But when you have Mannix of things down, it becomes so natural, but in doing that, having that same tippet length, and knowing how much leader you have out, is very important, because it'll help you know where your fly lands and help you know, you know, when to move your rods for whatever, while DPR to write all of it. Yeah, I think it's being scientific. So when you get me talking about technique, I consider myself as a scientist, I want to, you know, figure out why this is this and make make educated guesses and then try to either figure out if it's true or not, you know, try to really understand what's going

51:09

on and then Apple give me example that what you mean by that, even

Having the Right Mindset for Fly Fishing for Trout

51:13

like so, so say, I was fishing a couple of weeks ago with one of my clients and he's like, I want to watch you for a few minutes. I was like, absolutely. And I wanted to really skinny water and miss the fish. Mr. Fish, Mr. Fish, Mr. Fish, and I was like, geez, if there's too much slack, so I went from a 2.4 to 2.8 and first gas I cut the next sufficient to beat sighs Yeah, yeah, it was the difference between just having a little more connection. Bite was just a little faster discerned. Certain that by faster, you know, just things like that. And or, or like Danglers says, I missed I missed the fish. They This is my favorite. I missed the fish. And I said, Wait, start like, No, you didn't? Yes, you did miss a fish. But that fish gave you so much information if you're willing to stop and analyze what happened. And like, okay, so I got the bite there. And I said, what's their meat? And they're like, Well, I just cast it. And I didn't really make connection yet. No, like, well, so then that means the fly is falling. And there's less tension on your fly. So the flight fly was kind of I imagined it like fluttering down to the water, right? Where if I had a heavy fly, it might seem too fast. And it might be too unnatural deficient. It didn't eat that. So you know, there's just a lot of scientific things we can figure out. So the more so then, okay, how can I make the fly flutter longer, that's then I go to floating the site or fish even a lighter fly and I can give it controlled slack and get that flight to flutter throughout the column longer and pick up more fish you know that? A lot of it comes with what's the goal? What are you trying to accomplish? When you kind of have that mindset? Then you can think of like, what can I do to accomplish this goal? Or

52:53

what kind of goals would there be? I mean, we're trying to catch fish, but you're probably much deeper than that on your goals, aren't you? Of

52:59

course yeah. What do you want to fly and do what so like in Bosnia the needs to get the flight arrives because the grayling like it to rise. We're like on Spring Creek yesterday, they want it or the other day they wanted to fly. Like just right in their face is suspended from the bottom. They just they how they wanted it to seem to be how they wanted to eat. Okay, I call it we call it how fish wants to fly if Joe and I who's

53:21

Joe real quick tell people Joe is

53:23

Joe Clark's a great dude, if you know, Joe, you're lucky because he's just one of the best dudes out there. He's your partner, and he's my partner and shout, yeah, okay. So what we talked about is, we feed the fly to the fish the way they want it. So we have different techniques with tight line, people think tight line, just like you know, I throw my name out there and I like pull it or like I hold it or like this and that which are both true. There's so many ways to tightline to present the fly with different speeds with different depths with different connection with different tightness or looseness or whatever. There's many ways and what we will do is we go through our progression, we'll call them ABCD EFG. And there's more. So we go through my A would be the technique that I believe produces the most, I start with that first and then second, and my third and my fourth and my fifth and my sixth and my seventh and my Am I right before I change my fly. So give the fish a lot of ways to see the fly before I change. And so it's I mean, you got you were standing there, Steve, remember we on Penn's Creek, and I said, I said some pretty bold things. I said, I'm gonna catch a fish in front of these 10 anglers that are one call it is. That's Penn Street,

54:31

man. I'm pinch Creek, you got like to like in 10 minutes. And I was like, well, they

54:36

exactly. To me, that was a little bit crazy. So I walked out. Remember, we were just standing there. And, of course, there's 10 People standing there. And I said, I said this, I said boldly. I'm going to catch fish. And I'm going to do it on this waltz worm with just a single little waltz worm with with nothing crazy and in show that fish are you know, they're not that it's not that complicated to some degree and And I walked out and I fished 10 casts with my, my first technique. And I reeled back or my, you know, the first angle or whatever. I remember yelling back like, yeah 10 cast, it was, you know, less than a minute, but it felt like eternity to me because I was like, Dude, this should have been a fisher first or second cast,

55:16

folks, I got some video of this, by the way, you've just lost me, I'll put it out there.

55:20

It's crazy. So then I switch to my second, I don't switch flies, I switch to my second technique, my, you know, not my best but my second best of producing over time. And scientifically, how I figure that out is I just catch fish over the last 20 years tight lining and, you know, I kind of a, b and c moves around sometimes because I get better at something else or, or figure something else out. But so you know, the B technique, I do the C technique. I'm thinking I was down to like my D or E and first half it. I remember, I remember I was like I'm gonna change my test and do something that's crazy. I did the Colorado drift. I remember first cast, I got a fish. And then I did it again. And I think at second cast, I got one with you guys. And

Fly Fishing for Trout in Colorado with Josh Miller

55:59

what is the Colorado drift for everybody listening.

56:01

We are in Colorado fishing. I was on the adult fly fishing team. It was prior to the World Championship in it was like in Vail and on the Eagle River. We were wasn't fishing on the team. But I was a part of this that was a part of Team USA. And I was there with the guys that were fishing and I was pre fishing just for fun. Joe and I on the Eagle River and there's these rocks, the Eagle River isn't too wide where I was at maybe 3040 feet. And there's these rocks that were just out of the water just submerged. Imagine fairly swift broken currents. But pretty clear, you can see the fish and there's these rainbows that would sit just in front of the rocks about a foot or two under the water. And when I was tight lining from behind the fish, because of I got in front of them, they would spook a lot of times my drift would swing around the rock and I couldn't get to slow down in front of the rock. So I changed my angles and I pushed my rod forward and didn't move my rod and my flies kind of pendulum under my rod tip and my fly push real far forward. And I taught one of them. I was like, Oh, that was weird. And then it's kind of just like a different angle, but drift and we call it the Colorado, others who have done things similar. I came crane show me something called a downstream drift, which is very similar. He's dead before but you know, it's just something we did. And it was a process of seeing fish. And instead of just walking past them and going to the next one, we're like how do we catch those fish? What can we do differently without changing our fly? What can we do with manipulation of our technique to a high level? That's what I'm all about? Yeah, emulation of what I do to a high level and it worked. It was That's proof to the constant. Yeah, I did it for you guys on Periscope and it worked for to fish back the bank.

57:45

We didn't know what you're doing. But all sudden you started catching fish. That's everything that I remember. Yeah, but it looks like you're doing the same thing to me. But you're doing something different. Totally different.

Being an Analytical Thinker for Fly Fishing for Trout

57:54

Yeah. But But that's what's cool. And that's what's that's what's neat to me about Thailand. That's what gets me all fired up. Because it's not just one thing. It's it's a lot of things, a lot of things in Bosnia. We fished with some of their their Bosnian team members. Man, I learned so much from them. I've got to fish with different world champions like Pablo and David Chlumsky and Julianne from France and just learning the things and what I said kind of profound earlier in our podcast was a lot about I think is mental. So when I break down fly fishing, I've said this, maybe on one podcast before, but if I break someone's like, break down fly fish for like, what, what is it and I'm like, well, not just fly fishing for fun, but fly fishing, in thinking tightline or checking anything or whatever you want to call it, and thinking to catch a lot. So that's kind of, or to catch harder ones or to catch whatever, not just specifically big fish or this or that it's just how to like catch a lot of fish. And, you know, if you take that into consideration, I think fly fishing is a percentage of physical skill, you know, because because I watch these anglers, I take anglers that have never fly fish before and I'm like, do this, this and this and then 10 minutes, they got four fish already. Sometimes I'm like, dude, like, that's not that hard sometimes, you know, I'm like, physically, they could do it, and they never fly fished. It's not that. I mean, maybe that's an easy day, or the conditions are this and that and that's part of part of it too. But just showing that sometimes it's not that crazy. So a percentage is physical skill, or technique. An equal part is mindset. It's understanding like the approach it's understanding now in Spring Creek, if I take a step and fit script, that fish right there, it's going to throw upstream and spook the next six or if I walk to the top of the run, I'm only going to catch one and I can pick my way up through in catch six if I work from the backup, it's there's so many ends ifs, there's so many but that's where I think. Yeah, anglers and catch more are thinking about or maybe sometimes they're not thinking about We call fish Enos. Some people just have the instinctual things of just fishiness I watched the youth club the youth clinics. I'm like, Dang, this kid dudes. Just fishy, you know? I don't feel like I was that fishy. I felt like I needed that repetition of fishing 30 places or 30 states or whatever and learning just the long way you got fishy, baby sometimes I feel like I'm not

1:00:26

where your your, you said earlier an analytical thinker. And but this really plays well into what you're trying to do here. You're trying to learn all the time, from the water and from the fishing. Yes, yeah.

Well, there you go, folks. That's part one with Josh Miller. Hey, thank you for listening. And be sure to stop by for part two with Josh in just a couple of weeks. To be sure to post Josh's contact information on the destination anglers show notes and some amazing pitchers who sent me on our Facebook and Instagram page. You can DM me or email me with comments and suggestions at US hc fifty@gmail.com And if you liked the show, please share it with a buddy so always Our music is by brothers fountain hope you enjoyed the show and we will see you again soon. Tight Lines everybody

1:01:12

will out go wild go we'll go we'll go from the man to the shining sea but I know why no one no one can see