Today we're talking about the flies, materials, and patterns that have stood the test of time.

From Elkare caddust to balance leeches, hearing how one fly tire has built his family business around helping anglers tie better,

fish smarter, and keep the tradition alive. By the end of this episode, you'll know the top flies every angler should carry in their satchel.

How to match your patterns to local hatches and why tying a few dozen woolly buggers might be the best

education you ever get when you're new to fly tying. This is the Webfly Swing podcast where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing,

how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip, and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. Steve Smith shares how

Smitty's flybox grew from a small family-owned business into one of the most trusted sources

for fly patterns and materials and why the old favorites like the Royal Wolf, the Hare's ear,

the zebra midge, the Zeber Midge,

all these still belong in your flybox.

We also get into a few of his home waters, including the Logan River,

and discuss how he's fishing nymphs there with Tungsten.

And we also find out what's next to come here and why he believes that mastering the basics is really what you need to catch

big trout okay let's get this one going here you is steve smith you can find him at smitty's flybox

dot com how's it going steve great good to be back dave thanks for having me yeah i'm excited to

to uh to talk today with you about i'm always excited about fly tying because I think that flies and fly tying, especially for trout fishing, right? It kind of doesn't get more important than that, right, what you have on the end of your line. But then you hear people talk that, well, maybe flies aren't that important, right? Maybe these Euro nymphs that don't really look at anything. So we're going to talk about some tips for people to maybe have a selection of flies for trout in your area. But give us an update on Smitty's Flybox. The last episode we did has been a little while. We talked about, you know, what you have going. What's been happening in the last year with you out there? Anything new? Yeah, a lot of cool stuff going on with Smitties. We actually open up our website for, you can buy flies on there. It's not, we're not just a subscription box. And that's going really well. It's a great option to pick up a bunch of flies. We've got a pretty good selection on there, great price. And then we started doing a fly of the week. Every week, we send out a, you know, a new fly that we announced that you can get it for a great deal

if you buy a bunch of them. And then we also do a tying bundle associated with that fly. So if you see a fly that you like, one of the flies of the week, like this week we're doing a royal stimulator. We put together a bundle for like 20 bucks and you can tie a bunch of them. So it's like a really easy way to just, like, if you see a fly

you like, you want to just tie it, just get a little bundle. We take out all that guesswork of having to have a, you know, what hook, what's red, you know, and it's all put together in a nice little package. So we started doing that. That's been really popular. We post that every week on our Instagram page.

And a lot of cool stuff coming up for our tying boxes in 2026.

We're going to do... We post that every week on our Instagram page. And a lot of cool stuff coming up for our tying boxes.

In 2026, we're going to do in our intermediate tying box.

It's going to be all signature patterns with my patterns and Courtney Bailey, who also works.

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