Today's guests have spent a lifetime swinging flies for steelhead and paying close attention to how spay patterns actually work and move in the water.

And he's not just fishing them. He's studying where they came from, how they are constructed, and why certain designs continue to show up on rivers around the world.

John Shui has been riding, tying, and fishing spay flies for decades.

His work bridge's classic spay history with modern steelhead fishing, connecting old ideas to the way

anglers swing flies today. This is the wetfly 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.

John Shui is back to take us on a deep dive into spayflies.

We're going to find out about their origins and evolution.

And then we're going to get into what decades of steelhead rivers teach you about fly design, confidence, and fishing with intent.

In this episode, you're going to learn what defines a true spayfly and how these definitions

developed over time, why movement, proportion, and balance matter more than surface detail,

how traditional spayfly concepts translate to modern steelhead rivers and what materials

and construction choices influence swing speed and depth. All right, take a deep

breath. It's always great to have John on the show. You can find him at match the hatch.com. Here he is,

John Shui. How you doing, John? I'm good, Dave. Thanks for thinking of me for this again. It's been

a while. Yeah, definitely. No, I was kind of thinking I was talking

to one of my assistants and I was saying, we're doing a lot of content, you know, now and it's great because it allows me to talk to people that some folks that never heard of them and people like you that, you know, a lot of us have heard of you. So it's good to get you back on because I want to do more of these episodes where we kind of circle back and, you know,

catch up from, you know, what we did last time. So first off, it's been a little while.

Maybe just... do more of these episodes where we kind of circle back and, you know, catch up from, you know,

what we did last time. So first off, it's been a little while. Maybe just give us an update. You're still editor of one of the big magazines out there. Maybe give me a heads up for what you got going and what's been going on the last few years. Yeah, I'm 21 years into my seat as the editor-in-chief of American Fly Fishing

magazine. I seem to be

bolted to that desk, so to speak. years into my seat as the editor-in-chief of American Fly Fishing Magazine. I seem to be

...