Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly,

Marvin: and we're back with another Casting Angles with Mack Brown. How are you, Mack?

Mac: I'm doing great. How are you doing, Marvin?

Marvin: As always, trying to stay out of trouble. You know, it's interesting.

Marvin: You had a great weekend. Your oldest son graduated from high school this past weekend.

Mac: Yeah, that was a big, that was a fun time. I think that's the first time probably

Mac: since Jennifer and I've been married with all the

Mac: family on her side and my side was all up here in the great town of Bryson City

Mac: and we had a big cookout on the deck and celebrating that so that was a lot of fun.

Marvin: Yeah it's interesting you know so that's a you know transition to summer I know

Marvin: you were telling me Duncan is working on Deep Creek with the tubers and Connor's

Marvin: down in Alabama at a camp but you know the other thing that's happened is you

Marvin: know kind of that traditional kind of fall winter spring delayed harvest is over in North Carolina.

Marvin: And so it's maybe a time to think about maybe some other options.

Mac: Oh yeah, there's a lot of other good options. You know, this time of year,

Mac: I like going like the Little Tennessee or the Pigeon. There's a lot of other

Mac: great places with like Brim and Smallmouth and farm ponds.

Mac: We don't have that many ponds here, but like where I grew up in East Tennessee,

Mac: there was literally probably a hundred in Greene County.

Mac: I mean, great farm ponds, some of them two and three acres big.

Mac: And of course, that was a big part of fly fishing growing up and would get into

Mac: summer, would be going to the farm ponds a lot and chasing bass and brim and

Mac: catfish and all kinds of stuff on the farm ponds.

Mac: And, you know, catfish are a lot of fun this time of year too,

Mac: because a lot of people think catfish, you know, throwing bait and fishing down deep.

Mac: But catfish until they're about 17, 18 inches are insectivores,

Mac: just like a trout. So they're beautiful, smooth, same size as a trout.

Mac: And they eat in, you know, you go down to Little Tennessee and throw a single

Mac: dry fly and catch all kinds of catfish that come up and eat it just like a trout.

Mac: So there's a lot of other things to go after for sure now that the D.H. is gone.

Mac: Kind of opened up and then of course we still got a lot of high elevation streams

Mac: if they want to chase blue line and deep trout but i think i don't know it's

Mac: a lot of fun still the water the water temp still in great condition here but

Mac: i've been on deep creek a lot this last week and,

Mac: and we're over at nolan creek and those creeks are still plenty cold.

Marvin: Yeah it's interesting i mean i guess i would say you know if you were kind of

Marvin: trying to figure it out i would say try to you know fish up on the blue lines

Marvin: until maybe there's a water problem later in the summer.

Marvin: And then the great thing about fishing farm ponds and lakes for bass and brim

Marvin: and catfish is you can kind of beat the heat because you either get up really

Marvin: early in the morning and you're done about 11 o'clock or you go fish that last like hour and a half,

Marvin: two hours of sunlight at the day.

Marvin: And, you know, it makes it a little bit easier to kind of fit in with all the

Marvin: other stuff we do in the summertime.

Mac: That's right. Now I'm hoping we're going to get, I've been crossing my fingers,

Mac: we're going to get these epic cicada hatches that they're

Mac: having all over the country but we still have yet

Mac: to see a one like on where i live in

Mac: the valley at deep creek i haven't heard one or seen

Mac: a shock or anything but they're definitely happening in a lot of places and

Mac: uh my aunt sent a photo from where i grew up in the ozarks and they're literally

Mac: the husker like hundreds of thousands sitting around the bases of trees so i

Mac: mean certain places are getting them and if you happen to have that you know

Mac: if you're having a big cicada activity,

Mac: there's some really good stuff you can do with that i mean we're just not getting

Mac: it here but throwing cicada patterns on those same warm water cold water rivers

Mac: whatever you got whatever kind of water you got that's going to be definitely

Mac: preyed upon from a lot of different species yeah.

Marvin: It's interesting because you know down here the periodics uh have pretty much

Marvin: run their course and we're probably i would guess about a month away probably

Marvin: from getting our you know normal annuals which is you know kind of what will

Marvin: be the game kind of where i grew up in central virginia too but uh but yeah

Marvin: it's interesting to see fish move to uh to crush those cicadas if they have a chance.

Mac: Oh, yeah. I keep thinking maybe we're going to get them. I keep waiting at night.

Mac: We sit on the patio every night on the back deck and sit around the caveman

Mac: television with the big bonfire pit.

Mac: I mean, if they're here, you'd hear them, but we're just not hearing them.

Mac: I don't think we have them here where I live, but maybe they're where some of the listeners live.

Mac: That'd be a fun thing to have. I've got boxes and boxes of cicadas just stuck

Mac: in here. I'm going to have to go somewhere where they're happening because I

Mac: don't think they're going to happen here.

Mac: I might go up to, I think they're probably happening up there in southern Virginia.

Mac: I've heard reports of some friends

Mac: up there that talked about having some pretty good cicada activity.

Mac: And I know up by Lake, by Hickory.

Mac: What's the name of the lake that's on 40 as you're driving to Hickory? Is that Lake James?

Mac: I don't know if they're having them.

Marvin: Yeah, it might be.

Marvin: Yeah, I'd have to think about that because it's not far enough east to be in the Pee Dee River chain.

Marvin: But, yeah, I mean, they pretty much run their course here and around Greensboro

Marvin: and kind of up into southwest Virginia because they've been out for,

Marvin: you know, four to six weeks. And I think they only live about a month.

Marvin: So, you know, if you figure they come out kind of over two weeks,

Marvin: they pretty much kind of run their course. One thing I thought might be helpful

Marvin: on the warm water front for folks, a lot of those bugs are pretty wind-resistant poppers.

Marvin: Maybe talk to people a little bit about terminal tackle and technique.

Marvin: I know one thing I do when I'm fishing poppers is I generally fish a pretty

Marvin: short leader because it doesn't matter.

Marvin: It helps those big bugs turn over a whole lot better. Sure.

Mac: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then the small poppers too, like you don't have to go to

Mac: these massive big poppers.

Mac: Like on the little Tennessee, we throw poppers a lot of the time that are half

Mac: the length of your thumb, you know, just little small poppers with some rubber,

Mac: like Matamex rubber on the sides, you know, make an X pattern and then have

Mac: a little bit of marabou on the tail.

Mac: And those are quick to tie and they're real durable. we throw a lot of those for,

Mac: red eye bass and there's a lot of brim and there's a lot of catfish and smallmouth

Mac: that'll eat those small poppers and that's really the better pattern size to

Mac: throw as far as to see a lot of variety and different numbers of what's in there

Mac: and when you start going to the really big stuff,

Mac: in hopes of you know kind of like a lot of the big flies in the,

Mac: streamer game then you're going to be a little more lonely throwing a lot more

Mac: cast and if you catch one yeah it'll probably be a good fish but

Mac: But as far as on trips and things, if you're taking people down,

Mac: we try to stay on the smaller size stuff because they can see a lot more numbers

Mac: of a wider variety of fish, carp included, like glass carp.

Mac: And of course, those are a lot of fun on a popper.

Marvin: Yeah. And I would say on the streamer front, I would keep it simple,

Marvin: folks. I would say woolly boogers. I would say small finesse changers.

Marvin: I'm a big fan of fish and CK bait fish. I think they're easy to tie and they're absolutely killer.

Mac: Yeah that'd be that'd be a good choice up here that'd be

Mac: a good choice all over and uh it's a lot

Mac: of fun i mean it's just kind of a different season a different time to time

Mac: to chase different you know i remember uh one of the trips marvin since we're

Mac: talking about going after different you know seasonal time change i remember

Mac: several years ago it's probably five or six years ago the kids we went out did

Mac: two and a half weeks on the buffalo river in Arkansas.

Mac: It's a wild, it's like a national wild scenic river.

Mac: And it was, it was amazing. I mean, we had the kids and the cousins there from

Mac: Colorado and it was just so, so much diversity.

Mac: I mean, Whitlock, you know, when he lived up there in Mountain Home,

Mac: that was, that was where he'd go the most to try a lot of his different patterns and things.

Mac: But it's an amazing fishing on the Buffalo. I'd like to go back out and do that.

Mac: I'd do that again in a second if I had the time to do it right now.

Marvin: It's definitely your busy time of year, and I know you know that you're guiding,

Marvin: and although there's a little bit of a transition there, but you also have the schools.

Marvin: You want to let folks know about kind of the upcoming schools and kind of how

Marvin: to get on your guide calendar?

Mac: Yeah, the best way is probably on the URL at backgroundflyfish.com.

Mac: And the next big thing probably is September.

Mac: As far as the casting school, there's a couple of spots left open for that,

Mac: and then it will be full, and we'll cap it off.

Mac: And there's a couple of specialized things still going on right now with –,

Mac: And different specialized type schools of, you know, dry fly,

Mac: wet fly type schools that are weekend courses. And those have been a lot of fun.

Mac: It's kind of fun to have, you know, eight, ten people a weekend to teach that

Mac: too instead of just like one person at a time.

Mac: It's just a little bit easier efficiency use of time, you know,

Mac: because you're going to cover all the same thing, whether it's one or ten.

Mac: So it might as well be ten.

Marvin: Yeah. And so just to help folks, you know, if they want to do one of those,

Marvin: I know, have you had your wet fly one yet? I know that was one that we've been

Marvin: talking about the last couple of times we've been together.

Mac: Yeah, yeah, we did that. And that went over real good. And it was a good time

Mac: of year, still really cold, cold water.

Mac: And yeah, I have to look, actually. I don't even, I've been so busy with like

Mac: casting clinics and trips this last week before the graduation that it's bad

Mac: when you have to look at your calendar yourself to find out when stuff is.

Mac: But that's kind of where I'm at right now, Marvin. and I'm a little bit,

Mac: just from the last week of all the festivities, I'm a little bit behind.

Marvin: Yeah, it's all good. You either need to hire somebody to keep you straight or

Marvin: maybe just have a monkey paw and get reset.

Mac: Yeah, that'd probably be a good thing.

Marvin: Well, listen, you know, folks, we have lots of opportunities kind of in the

Marvin: southeast mid-Atlantic, you know, still time to chase trout,

Marvin: lots of cool warm water stuff, smallmouth bites just going to keep getting better,

Marvin: or particularly if you like fish in topwater.

Marvin: So as I always say, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.

Marvin: Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Mac.

Mac: Tight lines, Marvin.