Beyond the Bobber, with Ben Sittig

This week’s podcast is not about using alternative methods to a bobber or strike indicator.  It’s how to make your fishing more effective—and more fun—when you do use a bobber.  And my special guest is Ben Sittig from Colorado, better known to those of you who follow You Tube and Instagram as The HUGE Fly Fisherman.  His videos and posts are helpful but funny, and as he admits, a bit snarky.  But in a good way and his advice is solid.  Ben talks about how, by concentrating on the indicator itself we don’t realize what is going on beyond it, down where our flies are drifting, and offers some solid advice.  And then we run out of bobber stuff to talk about so we both get up on our respective soap boxes and talk about the state of the world of fly fishing, particularly when it comes to social media.  I hope you find our ramblings entertaining.

In the Fly Box this week we have lots of interesting questions.  One of the best batches in a long time.  Maybe I’m training you to ask questions I can answer or maybe it’s just because everyone is fishing and has some great thoughts in their heads.

When you make a heavier fly rod, do you use the same taper and just add material? How to I kill off carpet beetles in my fly-tying capes? Why can I catch brown trout in four to five feet of water but not in those 10-foot pools? I have to drive over two hours to catch trout.  How can I learn more about fly fishing? Is it easier to hook trout on a Tenkara rod than on a conventional rod? Is there any function in different eye types on hooks? Do you know of a good way to make an adjustable nymph dropper for a dry/dropper rig? Why won’t trout that are feeding on smaller flies eat my Stimulator? What is the best way to add four feet of level tippet to a fly line when streamer fishing? How far do stocked brown trout move? Why can I only catch trout on olive streamers when my river has sculpins in it? Why does my tippet get twisted when I fish big foam flies?