The Articulate Fly

Episode Overview

On this episode of The Butcher Shop fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash welcomes back Kirk Klingensmith for Part Two of their Science of Streamers conversation, this time digging into the physics behind swim flies and the Game Changer platform. Klingensmith brings an engineer's eye to the vise, breaking down why doubling a fly's length doesn't mean doubling its diameter and why that distinction matters more than most tiers realize.

The conversation opens with the geometry of drag: length scales linearly, but diameter drives drag by the square, so a modest increase in...

Episode Overview

On this Pennsylvania Smallmouth Report from The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash checks in with Captain Brian Shumaker of Susquehanna River Guides for a mid-August conditions update on the Susquehanna River system in Central Pennsylvania. After a heavy rain event pushed the river up, Shumaker reports flows are now falling and clarity is returning, with roughly two feet of visibility on the edges and more color still out in the main current. That in-between water dictates a two-tier approach: anglers can still pound the banks with poppers where visibility holds, but need...

Episode Overview

George Costa of TCO Fly Shop returns to The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast for another Central PA Fishing Report with host Marvin Cash, checking in on mid-summer conditions across the region's limestone streams. It's a mixed picture: recent weekend rain has pushed the Little Juniata River high and essentially unfishable for the next few days, while Spring Creek, Fishing Creek and Penns Creek remain in solid seasonal shape with manageable flows.

Costa reports classic mid-summer fishing, with mornings through late-morning and evenings producing the most consistent action. Tricos are showing sporadically, especially...

Episode Overview

How can anglers turn a slow, hot summer on the water into long-term improvement? On this Casting Angles installment of The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash and Master Casting Instructor Mac Brown of Mac Brown Fly Fish and Fly Fishing Guide School make the case for using the dog days of summer to build better habits rather than force uncomfortable and unproductive trips.

With trout fishing tough across the region during the summer heat and low water, and even bass and panfish uncomfortable in the worst of the heat, Mac...

Episode Overview

On this episode of The Butcher Shop fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash sits down with Kirk Klingensmith, a retired Corning engineer and lifelong angler, for a physics-driven breakdown of why streamers move the way they do. Klingensmith, who wrote the "physics of fly motion" chapter for Blane Chocklett's Game Changer book, brings a scientist's eye to the vise, translating drag, momentum and weight placement into practical tying and fishing decisions. In Part One of this two-part conversation, he and Cash work through jig flies and wrecking or kicking flies, saving swim flies for a...

Episode Overview

On this Pennsylvania Smallmouth Report from The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash checks in with Captain Brian Shumaker of Susquehanna River Guides for a peak-summer conditions update on the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers in Central Pennsylvania. Flows are running skinny with a stretch of cool mornings and low humidity, with rain in the forecast to bump levels back up. Shumaker breaks down a topwater program built around a heavy blue damsel bite, the arrival of the white fly hatch on both rivers and cicadas working the banks, along with the disciplined casting...

Episode Overview

In this Central PA Fishing Report on The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash checks in with George Costa of TCO Fly Shop in State College, Pennsylvania, for an end-of-July conditions update. Costa reports Central Pennsylvania's trout streams running a touch above seasonal averages after a recent shot of rain, with solid dry fly and terrestrial action across the region.

Water levels are in good shape for late summer, and while overnight temps have cooled into the 50s, Costa reminds anglers to keep checking midday stream temperatures on the region's bigger...

Episode Overview

What happens to smallmouth bass fishing in Southwest Virginia when a big summer rain event hits after weeks of low, clear water? On this Southwest Virginia Fishing Report from The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash checks in with guide and writer Matt Reilly of Matt Reilly Fly Fishing for a real-time look at a region caught mid-storm, with rain hammering areas south of Radford and across northeast Tennessee while the New River itself stays comparatively unaffected. Matt breaks down why the coming days of rising, cooling, discolored water will actually put feeding...

Episode Overview

With freestone trout streams across the Southeast pushing into the upper 60s and low 70s by mid-morning, serious anglers need a plan for beating the summer heat. On this Casting Angles installment of The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash and Master Casting Instructor Mac Brown of Mac Brown Fly Fish and Fly Fishing Guide School in Bryson City, North Carolina, break down how to keep catching trout — or productively wait it out — when peak summer temperatures push freestone fishing to its limits.

Mac and Marvin agree that the dog days of s...

Episode Overview

In this episode of The Butcher Shop, host Marvin Cash sits down with Mark Sedotti, inventor of the Sedotti Slammer and one of the pioneers of weight-balanced streamer design, to trace nearly 35 years of big-fly development for striped bass and bluefish. Sedotti explains why a lead keel and the right amount of absorbed water can make an oversized streamer cast further and more accurately than a small one, overturning decades of conventional wisdom that heavy flies are harder to throw.

Working from western Long Island Sound, where he first tied the Slammer to...

Episode Overview

In this Pennsylvania Smallmouth Report on The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash checks in with Captain Brian Shumaker of Susquehanna River Guides for a midsummer conditions update on the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers in Central Pennsylvania. Recorded following a stretch of triple-digit heat punctuated by heavy rain, the report finds Shumaker firmly in prime topwater season, with blue damselflies coming off heavy from late morning into the evenings and the white fly hatch on deck for the end of July into early August.

Shumaker walks through his day-to-day approach on...

Episode Overview

In this Central PA Fishing Report on The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash checks in with George Costa of TCO Fly Shop in State College, Pennsylvania, for a real-time midsummer conditions update. A cooler, wetter stretch of weather has replaced the previous week's heat, giving Central Pennsylvania's limestone streams a welcome break heading into the weekend.

Costa reports that Spring Creek, Penns Creek and Fishing Creek are all running a little above average and slightly off-color after a soaking rain earlier in the week, while the Little Juniata took on...

Episode Overview

How do East Tennessee anglers keep varied, high-quality fishing going through the peak of summer heat? On this East Tennessee Fishing Report from The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash checks in with guide Ellis Ward for a summer conditions update covering tailwater trout, musky and an evening-into-night program that few outfitters offer. The answer, as Ellis explains, comes down to water: East Tennessee's cold tailwater releases stay productive for trout even on the hottest days, while nearby musky water holds in the low 70s, giving anglers a rare menu of species and...

Episode Overview

How do skilled fly casters actually maximize distance by shooting line, and why do most anglers overestimate how well they have mastered it? On this Casting Angles segment of The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash reconnects with Master Casting Instructor Mac Brown of Mac Brown Fly Fish in Bryson City, North Carolina, for a deep dive into the mechanics of shooting line.

Drawing on college-level research using high-speed cameras and strobe lights, Mac explains why the vast majority of anglers who claim they shoot line well are really only releasing...

Episode Overview

A scorching Fourth of July heat wave is bearing down on Central Pennsylvania, and the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers are about to test every smallmouth angler's heat tolerance. On this Pennsylvania Smallmouth Report from The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash checks in with Captain Brian Shumaker of Susquehanna River Guides for a candid, safety-first conversation about fishing smallmouth bass through triple-digit conditions.

With water temperatures pushing into the 90s and a 101-degree forecast on the horizon, Brian breaks down how heat affects both the bite and angler safety on his...

Episode Overview

George Costa, manager at TCO Fly Shop in State College, Pennsylvania, joins host Marvin Cash on The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast for the latest Central PA Fishing Report as early summer conditions take hold across the region's limestone streams. Recorded in late June with the calendar almost at July, this report catches Central PA at an important seasonal juncture: stream temperatures have been favorable in the low 60s following a recent shot of rain, but a warming trend is on the horizon that will require anglers to exercise real discipline about when — and whether — to f...

Episode Overview

In this Southwest Virginia Fishing Report from The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash checks in with guide and writer Matt Reilly for a late-June conditions update covering the bug bite, streamer strategy and musky gear. With water running very low and clear across most drainages — and a near-94°F heat spike bearing down on the region for the Fourth of July — Matt explains why the current conditions are still worth fishing hard. Damselflies, dragonflies and terrestrial insects are out in force, and in technical low-water scenarios, Matt argues that surface bug presentations becom...

Episode Overview

In this Casting Angles episode of The Articulate Fly, Master Casting Instructor Mac Brown of Mac Brown Fly Fish joins host Marvin Cash for a focused deep-dive into the reach mend — one of fly fishing's most foundational presentation tools, and one Mac argues has been quietly undervalued since Doug Swisher introduced it to American fly fishing in 1971. The conversation serves as both a how-to for beginners and a useful recalibration for intermediate anglers who have been fishing without it.

Mac traces the technique to Swisher's landmark book Selective Trout, which he first read at...

Episode Overview

The Articulate Fly host Marvin Cash sits down with fly tying guru Allen Rupp, founder of Fly on the Water and Dave Whitlock's hand-selected legacy tier, for a deep dive into the classic fly patterns that built modern fly fishing. Rupp traces his fly tying education back to childhood phone calls with Bob Clouser, in-person mentorship from Lefty Kreh and George Harvey, and decades spent learning directly from Dave Whitlock, explaining why patterns like the Clouser Minnow, the Half and Half, Lefty's Deceiver and Whitlock's Near Nuff Crayfish and Sculpin remain so effective that newer...

Episode Overview

In this Pennsylvania Smallmouth Report on The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash checks in with Captain Brian Shumaker of Susquehanna River Guides for an early summer conditions update on the Susquehanna River system in central Pennsylvania. With late spawners still working through a post-spawn funk and a stretch of volatile weather keeping temperatures yo-yoing between the 70s and the low 90s, Shumaker explains why the region hasn't fully transitioned to topwater mode — and what that means tactically for anglers on the water right now. He walks through his two-rod, split-presentation approach: one an...

Episode Overview

In this Central PA Fishing Report from The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash checks in with George Costa, manager at TCO Fly Shop in State College, Pennsylvania, for a timely early-summer conditions and hatch update. The season is at a pivotal transition: the dominant spring hatches are winding down, the summer hatch calendar is coming online and terrestrial season is officially starting — all critical intelligence for anglers planning Central PA trout outings over the weeks ahead.

Costa delivers a full-picture conditions read. Water levels are running a touch below seasonal average, with recent ra...

Episode Overview

In this episode of The Articulate Fly's Casting Angles series, host Marvin Cash and Mac Brown — owner of Mac Brown Fly Fish and Fly Fishing Guide School in western North Carolina — deliver a timely early summer conditions update for the Tuckaseegee and Nantahala drainages. With the 2026 season running approximately 60 days ahead of schedule, Mac and Marvin unpack what that means for trout anglers trying to calibrate their approach as delayed harvest season closes and technical summer fishing begins.

Mac reports that terrestrial activity — inchworms, beetles and ants — is already in full force weeks ahead of...

Episode Overview

In this episode of The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash sits down with Josh Trammell, Head Guide at Mad River Outfitters in Columbus, Ohio, for a candid look at what it takes to build and sustain a full-time, four-season guide career. Josh covers the Ohio multi-species fishing calendar — smallmouth bass, northern pike, steelhead and carp — along with seasonal guiding in Alaska and destination schools targeting musky and trophy trout.

Josh traces his path from catching his first steelhead at age 11 on Elk Creek with Tim Hess — a swung fly — through early ye...

Episode Overview

In this Pennsylvania Smallmouth Report on The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash reconnects with Captain Brian Shumaker of Susquehanna River Guides for an early-June conditions check on the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers in Central Pennsylvania. Recent heavy rainfall pushed both systems well above normal — the Susquehanna approaching 12 feet, the Juniata topping 10 — and Brian breaks down how he's fishing the receding flows and what anglers can expect as the post-spawn transition plays out through summer.

Brian walks through his high-water strategy in practical terms: pounding banks where rising water has pushed smal...

Episode Overview

In this Southwest Virginia Fishing Report on The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash checks in with guide Matt Reilly of Matt Reilly Fly Fishing for a candid late-spring conditions update covering the post-spawn transition, dirty water tactics and the seasonal arc ahead. Recorded amid rising, stained flows on the New River and surrounding drainages — following months of below-average flows — the episode captures a moment when Southwest Virginia smallmouth fishing is firmly in between patterns, and angler adaptability is the only reliable edge. Reilly addresses the dual pressure facing anglers right now: a post...

Episode Overview

In this East Tennessee Fishing Report on The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash checks in with guide Ellis Ward for an early-summer conditions update focused on the Watauga River tailwater. After a dry spring that kept anglers grinding through tough conditions, a stretch of rain and rising water has Ellis bullish on what's ahead: bigger flows, off-color water, and the full slate of techniques that make East Tennessee tailwaters unique. He covers the current Watauga generation schedule (six days a week, five hours of afternoon generation), how that release window shapes a full-day float, and...

Episode Overview

In this Casting Angles segment on The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash and veteran guide and Master Casting Instructor Mac Brown tackle one of the most practical — and underappreciated — skill sets in freshwater fly fishing: how to adapt your approach when elevated, stained water follows prolonged rainfall. Recorded against the backdrop of a week of steady rain across western North Carolina, with more forecast ahead, Mac shares a framework for fly selection, water reading and presentation discipline that turns a condition most anglers write off into a genuine tactical advantage.

Mac and Marvin walk...

Episode Overview

This Central PA Fishing Report on The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast finds host Marvin Cash checking in with George Costa, manager at TCO Fly Shop in State College, Pennsylvania, for a late-spring conditions update across Central PA's limestone streams. Recorded in late May ahead of Memorial Day weekend, the report captures one of the most productive dry fly windows of the year: sulphurs, March browns and Drakes are all in play simultaneously, and Costa is emphatic that the Drake hatch on Penns Creek is just now getting started en masse. Stream temperatures are sitting...

Episode Overview

In this Pennsylvania Smallmouth Report on The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash reconnects with Captain Brian Shumaker of Susquehanna River Guides for a timely late-spring conditions check on the Susquehanna River system. The frog bite has been exceptional — two solid weeks of deer hair bug action — and Brian breaks down exactly how to rig, dress and present deer hair frogs for surface-eating smallmouth before the post-spawn funk sets in. Beyond the fishing report, Marvin turns the episode over to a listener question from Myles, a college angler eyeing a career in guiding, and...

Episode Overview

In this episode of The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash sits down with Jason Taylor — a Philadelphia-area fly tier, Tier's Row fixture at the Edison show and regular contributor to Masters of the Fly — for a wide-ranging conversation about fly tying philosophy, natural materials and the tradition of innovation rooted in Bob Popovics' work. On this fly fishing podcast episode, Taylor traces his journey from a 2008 Belize honeymoon that ignited his passion for the sport, to the early-2010s online forums — particularly Stripers Online — that connected him with a formative community of Northeast saltwater tiers includin...

Episode Overview

In this Casting Angles episode of The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash reconnects with Master Casting Instructor and veteran Western North Carolina guide Mac Brown of Mac Brown Fly Fish in Bryson City for a timely mid-May conditions update on the Tuckasegee River. With the delayed harvest season winding down and roughly three weeks left to fish the DH water, Mac and Marvin break down exactly what anglers are up against — and how to read it correctly. The Tuck is running well below its seasonal average at roughly 400–500 cfs compared to a norm...

Episode Overview

The Articulate Fly's Pennsylvania Smallmouth Report returns with Captain Brian Shumaker of Susquehanna River Guides, delivering a timely mid-spring conditions update for the Susquehanna River system in Central Pennsylvania. This episode cuts straight to the practical challenge facing every Mid-Atlantic smallmouth angler right now: how to fish effectively when an extreme pattern of temperature swings — 80°F one day, back to the 50s by mid-week — is compressing and disrupting the spawn, locking fish down unpredictably, and keeping the frog bite from ever materializing. Brian, a veteran guide with over three decades on the Susquehanna, breaks down how h...

Episode Overview

In this Central PA Fishing Report on The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash checks in with George Costa, manager at TCO Fly Shop in State College, Pennsylvania, for a real-time spring conditions update. With prime season fully underway, Costa delivers an encouraging picture across Central PA's limestone stream corridor: water levels are running near seasonal averages, a minor push of off-color water on the Juniata is clearing, and the hatch activity is firing on multiple fronts simultaneously. Sulphurs are coming up on Spring Creek with Penns Creek and Fishing Creek close behind...

Episode Overview

The Articulate Fly returns to Southwest Virginia with guide Matt Reilly of Matt Reilly Fly Fishing for a candid late-spring conditions update covering the 2026 striper run, the smallmouth spawn transition and the tactical realities of fishing during one of the most compressed and drought-affected springs on record. Marvin Cash and Matt dissect a season that accelerated and stalled simultaneously — an extended cold February followed by an abrupt heat spike of 85–95°F days in late March and early April, paired with persistently low water, collapsed the striper run and complicated every major seasonal transition on Southwest Virgi...

Episode Overview

In this Casting Angles segment of The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash and Master Casting Instructor Mac Brown discuss how to adapt when an unusually warm, drought-driven spring upends normal seasonal fishing expectations across the mid-Atlantic and Southern Appalachians. It's a candid, practical conversation for anglers dealing with conditions that have scrambled hatches, compressed water temps and pushed trout into summerlike stress months early.

Mac reports water temperatures in the mid-70s in Bryson City during mid-April — historically a July scenario — with corresponding low water on Western North Carolina freestone stre...

Episode Overview

The Butcher Shop goes deep on one of the Great Lakes predator fly world's most distinctive patterns in this conversation with Eli Berant, the Michigan-based fly designer and founder of Great Lakes Fly. Eli is the creator of the Optimus Swine — a reverse foam head-embedded, side-kicking musky streamer that has been turning heads and producing fish since around 2009. In this episode, host Marvin Cash walks Eli through the full arc of the pattern: the lake musky problem it was designed to solve, the unconventional decision to reverse a foam popper head to create a slower fa...

Episode Overview

This fly fishing podcast episode launches the inaugural Pennsylvania Smallmouth Report on The Articulate Fly, featuring host Marvin Cash and Captain Brian Shumaker of Susquehanna River Guides. The episode arrives at a pivotal moment in the Pennsylvania smallmouth spawn cycle, with an unseasonably volatile spring — swings from the upper 50s to the 70s in water temperature within days — compressing what is normally a methodical, staggered spawn into a chaotic quest to pattern pre-spawn fish. On the Juniata and Susquehanna, Shumaker reports catching spawned-out females alongside buck males, signaling that the first wave has already completed, whil...

Episode Overview

This fly fishing podcast field report features George Costa of TCO Fly Shop in State College, Pennsylvania, delivering the latest Central PA fishing conditions as spring hatches hit full stride. Recorded in mid-to-late April, the report captures a dynamic moment in the season — warm temperatures pushing hatches early, water levels running slightly below seasonal norms and sulphurs poised to come online within a week to ten days. George covers active hatches across Spring Creek, Penns Creek and Fishing Creek, including grannom caddis, Hendricksons, blue quills and olives. Nymphing has been the consistent producer, while afternoon dr...

Episode Overview

In this Casting Angles episode of The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash and Master Casting Instructor Mac Brown of Mac Brown Fly Fish tackle the science behind low-water trout presentation — the kind of technical adjustment that separates consistent anglers from frustrated ones. With drought conditions pushing Western North Carolina rivers to July-like flows in early April, Marvin and Mac deliver a timely primer on two interconnected concepts: Snell's window (the physics governing what trout can see through the water's surface) and the Rule of Six (a practical formula for calculating your safe approach distance). The co...

Episode Overview

In this episode of The Articulate Fly fly fishing podcast, host Marvin Cash sits down with Aaron Chine, guide at Steelhead Alley Outfitters and accomplished visual artist based in Warren, Ohio, for a wide-ranging conversation about the intersection of fishing, guiding and fine art. Aaron came to fly fishing through Pennsylvania trout streams in his early teens and eventually found his way to Steelhead Alley through a mentorship network that includes Jeff Blood and Nate Miller, two of the fishery's most respected veterans. He joined Steelhead Alley Outfitters when Justin Schachilli and Patrick Robinson took...