855 | Trout Spey Tips for Dry Flies & Streamers with Howard Cole of JD High Country Outfitters
Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing Podcast
Dave Stewart
4.7 • 530 Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2025
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
#855 Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/855
Presented by: San Juan Rodworks, On DeMark Lodge, Four Wheel Campers
Sponsors: https://wetflyswing.com/sponsors
If you've ever stood knee-deep in a Western river wondering whether a trout spey rod might change your whole approach, this conversation with Howard Cole will get your wheels turning. Howard's spent a lifetime shaping flies, shaping cast loops, and shaping anglers at JD High Country Outfitters — and he brings a river-smart perspective on everything from trout spey dry flies to yellow sally emergers. Trout spey tips show up often in this episode, and they sneak into almost every story he tells from the Snake to the South Fork.
By the end of this episode, you'll probably be digging through your fly box looking for your own emerger patterns — or maybe even picking up a short spey rod for the next drift.
Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/855
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today you're going to get the kind of tips that only come from fly fishing for lifetime. |
| 0:06.0 | Today we're going to talk about trout, spay, dryfly, streamers, reading water, and the small adjustments that make the difference on the water. |
| 0:13.0 | And our guests grew up fishing musky in Wisconsin. His first real spark came in the driftless after watching a brown trout rise to a dryfly. By the end of this episode, you're going to want to dig into your flytime bench and tie some mergers. You're going to start rethinking your streamer setup and maybe even grab a short spayrod the next time you're on the river. 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. |
| 0:43.7 | Howard Cole is here to share his magic with the focus on trout and steelhead. |
| 0:47.9 | We're going to talk spay rods. |
| 0:49.7 | Some of the highlights from today include we're going to find out how to use a trout spade rod when you're |
| 0:54.8 | fishing dries not just for streamers why shorter heads and simple leaders make casting and mending |
| 1:00.4 | easier we're going to find out how to approach emerges like fishing the yellow sallies and how to |
| 1:05.3 | fish these stoneflies that actually emerge from the water and when swinging streamers makes |
| 1:09.8 | more sense than stripping. |
| 1:11.6 | All right, we got a bunch of great stories, including a Jack Dennis siting. |
| 1:15.3 | Here we go. |
| 1:15.8 | You can find Howard at J.D.HC.outfitters.com. |
| 1:21.1 | How you doing, Howard? |
| 1:22.5 | Pretty good. |
| 1:23.1 | Pretty good. |
| 1:23.8 | It's trying to snow here a little bit, which is good for water. So we're liking that. |
| 1:29.8 | Yeah, it's kind of in the time right now we're talking, it's November. This episode probably goes live in |
| 1:34.6 | December. It's time for winter. Are you ready for the winter and all that? Well, you know, |
| 1:40.1 | I still had a lot all fall. Anyway, I'm kind of done with that. So now I've been bird hunting a little bunch. So just for roads and stuff like that, because I travel a lot for bird hunting. I got one more steelhead trip coming up here first week of December in Hell's Canyon. But then after that, I'll be ready for winter for sure. Cool. Well, that sounds awesome. I mean, |
| 2:00.9 | Hell's Canyon, Steelhead fishing sounds like a topic that we should definitely touch on today. |
| 2:05.1 | I also want to talk about where you work, which is a pretty amazing place in Jackson, JD. |
... |
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