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

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Marvin:
and we're back with another On the Salt with Captain David Blinken. David, how are you?

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David:
I'm great, Marvin. I'm starting to melt away a little in all this heat,

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David:
but I think I'll be around for the heat wave to break.

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Marvin:
Yeah, it's interesting. You're cooler out on Long Island than you are down here

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Marvin:
in the Carolinas, but the bummer for you is you've had a lot of wind,

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Marvin:
and so you probably are having a little bit of withdrawal because you haven't

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Marvin:
been able to get out on the water.

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David:
Yeah, it's been, it's, last week was rough. We were only able to fish certain

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David:
tides, and then the wind would just kick in big time.

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David:
And now the past two days, it's been blowing anywhere from 20 to 35 miles an hour.

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David:
So that's pretty much kept us on the beach, as they say.

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Marvin:
Yeah, that's a bummer. What do you expect to see when you get out on the water in the next day or so?

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David:
Well, you know, the fish have kind of had a few days off, right?

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David:
So I'm hoping to find some stripers in shallow water.

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David:
I think I'll probably be fishing crustacean patterns because there hasn't been a lot of bait in the bay.

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David:
So little mantis shrimp patterns and little crabs and little green and blue claws, like size twos.

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Marvin:
Yeah, it's funny. It makes me think about going to the beach as a kid and catching

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Marvin:
those things in buckets.

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David:
Oh, yeah. I mean, I used to take my kids to the beach and we would dig up mole

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David:
crabs and throw them in a bucket and they'd play with them and then we'd release them back.

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David:
And of course, kids have a great fun with mole crabs because they don't bite.

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David:
They just kind of scurry around. They're kind of fun.

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Marvin:
Yeah, it's neat stuff. Yeah, it's funny. I always think of myself as more of

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Marvin:
a mountain person than a beach person.

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Marvin:
But then every time I go to the beach, I really like it and say I should do more of that.

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David:
Yeah, I love it. But I love the mountains and the beach, but the beach certainly in the summer.

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David:
And, you know, you never know what you're going to see when you're hanging out

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David:
in the folding chair or staring out at the water.

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Marvin:
Hopefully a gin and tonic would be what you would see. That would be my call.

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David:
Yeah, that or a school of stripers.

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Marvin:
There you go. Well, we've got a question for you from Brenner,

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Marvin:
and he wanted to get your thoughts, David, on your favorite topwater flies and

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Marvin:
the favorite species you like to target with those flies.

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David:
Well, I think, you know, there's a whole bunch of topwater flies.

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David:
You know, you've got Boilermakers and Gurglers and Creaseflies and stuff like that.

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David:
But I'm really a big fan of JetGuard's H-Fly, the Gurgler.

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David:
Um and it it casts really easily it makes a lot of commotion it stays on top beautifully,

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David:
and uh over the years i've actually modified it

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David:
started tying it slightly differently just to

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David:
make it a little more robust and to make it float a little better and

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David:
where i can use bigger hooks so that's kind of

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David:
my go-to fly um and maybe

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David:
i'll send you a picture of it uh for for uh

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David:
further scrutiny um and and

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David:
i really there's two species of

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David:
fish i love throwing these things that i mean i like throwing it everything

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David:
but uh if i have my druthers um i want to throw them at big bluefish because

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David:
uh nothing nothing attacks uh nothing attacks uh topwater like bluefish there

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David:
it's just like an out-of-body experience when they hit those flies eyes.

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David:
They come so hard at them that they're sometimes two feet out of the water on

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David:
the strike. It's really exciting.

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Marvin:
Yeah, that's awesome.

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David:
And then another fish I love throwing garglars at is tarpon.

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David:
And you fish them very differently. With the tarpon, you just kind of literally

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David:
pull them through the water along the edges of mangroves, and they just leave a little view wake.

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David:
And it's just enough to make the tarpon kind of glide up behind them.

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David:
And if they're in in the right mood, they'll smash it.

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David:
And most of the time they just come up behind it like a giant trout and they just suck them down.

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David:
You'll just see a hole in the water where the tarpon's mouth suddenly opened

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David:
up. It's really quite exciting.

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Marvin:
And so back on the bluefish, you know, when you're fishing those or you,

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Marvin:
you know, you've got the bait busting, do you just kind of throw it in there and strip it out?

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Marvin:
Is the fly larger than kind of what you think the naturals are?

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Marvin:
Kind of what's the tactic there?

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David:
Well i'll tell you something really interesting you

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David:
know with bluefish we have them in different in different

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David:
areas sometimes we have bluefish on the flats and they're

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David:
just kind of daisy chaining or swimming around in strings so we're just throwing

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David:
it out in front of them or along the edge of a daisy chain and just um you know

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David:
sort of moderately stripping them back so the fly makes commotion but you're

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David:
not ripping it so fast that you're stealing taking it away from the

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David:
fish um and then other times you

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David:
know you're throwing it into boils you know where they're just

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David:
on top and they're raging and they're eating a ton of bait and you just kind

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David:
of flop it in there and you can almost dead drift it in in those situations

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David:
and they'll come and smash it off the top so you know it's always in in all

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David:
the fishing it's always very situational you know and you just have to adapt

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David:
and change to uh whatever's whatever the fish are doing yeah.

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Marvin:
Very very neat and you And you know, folks, we love questions at The Articulate Fly.

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Marvin:
Email me or DM me, or if you want to hear your question being read on the podcast,

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Marvin:
if you go to the podcast link at thearticulatefly.com, you can actually record

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Marvin:
your question, and we can actually drop it in and people can hear it.

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Marvin:
So if that interests you, you can do that. We love questions.

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Marvin:
If we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag,

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Marvin:
and then we're going to have a drawing at the end of the season for these,

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Marvin:
and the winner is going to get the Royal Wolf line of their choice.

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Marvin:
And I just love Royal Wolf lines.

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David:
Oh, yeah. I love them, too. I've had a chance to use many different lines.

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David:
And the one thing in sight water that you never want happening is a line to

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David:
get kind of coily or have what we call memory.

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David:
And one of the great things about the Royal Wolf lines are they just have no memory at all.

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David:
You can pull it off a reel after 10 days and it'll cast just like it had been

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David:
stretched. It's awesome. Yeah.

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Marvin:
And I know you've got the tropical lines. I've got the triangle taper for trout,

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Marvin:
and I just think they're great for roll casting and mending and managing line.

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David:
Yeah, I love the Bermuda shorts, but when I am trout fishing,

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David:
I definitely have my triangle taper.

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David:
And they also do a shooting head version of it too, which is really wonderful.

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David:
People should go on Royal Wolf's website and see what they got. It's pretty cool stuff.

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Marvin:
Yeah, and I'll drop a link to their website in the show notes.

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Marvin:
And David, I know you've got a trip that you're trying to find a couple more

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Marvin:
folks for in August to Mexico, but then you've got other trips going on and

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Marvin:
guiding to you. You want to let folks know a little bit about that?

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David:
Well, let's see. The Mexico trip, I have a couple of openings for August 2nd.

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David:
If anyone wants to join us, it's going to be me and the writer Steve Ramirez

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David:
is going to be joining me.

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David:
And we've got a couple spots open to tarpon fish for four days in Campeche,

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David:
departing August 2nd and returning August 7th.

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David:
It's four days, and it's prime time down there for tarpon.

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David:
And it's, uh, during the rainy season, it only rains after four in the afternoon,

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David:
but a lot of water gets, uh, stored up in the mangroves and flushes out and

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David:
keeps the tarpon, uh, on the outside of the mangroves, which makes it a lot of fun to go fishing.

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Marvin:
Yeah. And, uh, you got to get breakfast at five in the morning and be ready to go, right?

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David:
Oh, definitely. We're having breakfast five, five 30 and, uh,

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David:
and, and we're out, we're hopefully, you know, hooking up the first fish by 6 30 AM.

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Marvin:
Yeah. And so, but you've got other trips kind of as we kind of move deeper into

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Marvin:
the season as well, right?

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David:
Well, I'll be guiding Martha's Vineyard for a couple of weeks starting the 12th

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David:
of August, and I'll be there until the 24th.

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David:
And I've got another trip going to Mexico in November where I think I have one slot open.

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David:
The December trip is sold out. And, you know, if people are interested in going

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David:
to Belize in the spring, I may have a, I probably, I haven't really booked it

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David:
yet, but I've got a few slots open for permit fishing down at Copal Tree.

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Marvin:
Yeah, and so they should just go to davidblinken.com and get all the info and

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Marvin:
reach out that way, right?

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David:
Yeah, they can just reach out directly to me from my website.

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David:
And, you know, the info is not on my website. It's just something that they

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David:
can call and find out what the schedule is, and I'll fill them in.

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Marvin:
Well, there you go. Well, listen, folks, as I always say, you owe it to yourself

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Marvin:
to get out there and catch a few. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, David.

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David:
Tight lines.