Back Cast: 15 Tips for Fishing Emergers, with Pat Dorsey

The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

James Hathaway

Bass, Fishing, Bonefish, Wilderness, Flyfishing, Trout, How To, Steelhead, Bluegill, Fly, Orvis, Sports, Salmon, Panfish, Education, Rosenbauer

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 July 2025

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode was originally aired on June 16th, 2023.

OK, I lied. There aren't 15 tips. There are probably more and if you want to count them up you can e-mail me and correct my mistake. But I get a lot of questions about fishing emergers, and I thought a podcast on how to identify when fish are taking emergers and how to fish them would be welcome. Not only that, world-famous and beloved fishing guide and author Pat Dorsey [36:05] gives us his favorite fly patterns for fishing emergers including a couple secret ones.

In the Fly Box this week, we have some thoughtful questions and a few tips from listeners, including:

A great tip on casting with your non-dominant hand

Will wildfire smoke affect trout populations?

If I hear there are native brook trout in a stream, how do I find out where they are?

A nice tip on untangling snarls of fly line.

Bigger brook trout started taking my nymphs on the swing instead of dead-drifted.

How should I take advantage of this next time?

How much of an incline in a small mountain stream can trout survive?

A listener was disappointed in my podcast with John Gierach because we did not discuss how anglers can have a positive impact on climate change.

Two listeners want to know what type of floating line to put on their Euro rods when they switch to dry flies.

Why are some articulated streamers tied with the hook down and why are some tied with the hook up?

I have a busy life. Am I missing opportunities by not tying my own flies?

Brown trout are invasive in my cutthroat stream. Should I take them home to eat them, or just kill them and throw them up on the bank?

Is it ethical to back and fish a place on my own if a guide showed me the spot?

I have heard if you cut the welded loop off a fly line you can't use it any more because it will absorb water. Is this true?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing Guide podcast.
0:14.5	This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer.
0:16.4	And my guest this week is my old friend, Pat Dorsey.
0:22.0	Pat is one of the most experienced and highly regarded walkway guides in the Rocky Mountains.
0:30.6	And, you know, if you're going to be talking about bugs and flies and how to fish him, Pat's the man.
0:36.9	And I get a lot of questions about
0:38.9	emers. People are uncertain about emerges, which are kind of a nymph, kind of a dry,
0:45.4	kind of in between, kind of a wet fly, and exactly how to fish him and how to recognize when
0:51.7	fish are taking emergers. So I thought I would get Pat on to talk about his experiences with the mergers.
0:58.1	And it's interesting that Pat and I, both people who have been around the block a little
1:06.3	bit and have fished a lot of emerges, approach it in different ways and actually have different
1:11.3	techniques. So it's good to have a, it's good to have a differing opinion on how to fish these
1:17.8	things.
1:21.7	Pat talks about the major flies that we, we fish emerges too, midges, catas flies, and mayflies.
1:31.4	And it's mainly in the catas flies where Pat and I differ in our approaches.
1:35.4	So I think you'll find that interesting.
1:37.4	Anyway, stay tuned for my podcast with Pat Dorsey on Emergers.
1:48.2	But first, we're going to do the flybox, whether you like it or not.
1:53.5	You can skip to Pat's interview if you want. We give you the time code if you don't want to hear these questions. But the flybox is where you ask me questions or you offer tips for other listeners and you can either type your question
2:03.7	into an email or you can attach a voice file either way works for me and I do read all of them
2:08.8	I don't answer all of them but I do read all of them so let's start with an email and the
2:16.7	first one is a tip from Rob.
	...

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