CJ's Reel Southern Podcast #6 | Leeches, Trophy Trout, and the Versatile Fly Game with Landon Mayer
Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing Podcast
Dave Stewart
4.7 • 530 Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2025
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
#813 Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/813
In this episode of CJ's Reel Southern Podcast, Chad Johnson sits down with Colorado guide, fly designer, and author Landon Mayer to dig deep into the art of hunting trophy trout. Landon shares how leeches became the centerpiece of his fly box, recounting the day a broken Slumpbuster pattern forever changed the way he approached big fish. The two swap stories about fishing together, the lessons passed down from mentors like Dave Whitlock, and the subtle craft of teaching casting fundamentals that can make or break a day on the water.
From Colorado stillwaters to Arkansas tailwaters, Landon explains how leech patterns double as damsels, baitfish, or crayfish depending on how they're fished — a versatile key for turning followers into eaters. Chad adds his own Ozark perspective, highlighting the region's emerging sulfur hatch and how local anglers are discovering a brand-new dry-fly game for giant browns. Together, they dig into small-stream tactics, big-river strategies, and why introducing overlooked food sources — whether a micro leech or a catalpa worm — can unlock fisheries in unexpected ways. It's a rich mix of tactical tips, storytelling, and philosophy on staying a lifelong student of fly fishing.
Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/813
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to CJ's Real Southern podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | I'm your host, Chad Johnson, Fly fishing guide, storyteller, and Southern Soul through and through. |
| 0:14.0 | From the front porch to the river banks, this podcast is going to be about connection, friends, and maybe learning a trick or two about trophy fishing. |
| 0:24.8 | So grab a sweet tea, tie on your favorite fly, and let's go fishing. |
| 0:32.5 | Hey, I'm real excited about tonight and tonight's guest. |
| 0:37.7 | Before we get started, there's a couple of things I wanted to talk about. |
| 0:41.7 | One is, as these podcasts go on, guys, I'd like to kind of talk to the audience a little bit. |
| 0:48.8 | So I'm going to give y'all an email address. |
| 0:52.3 | It's CJ's Real Southern at Outlook.com. |
| 0:57.7 | And y'all send me in some questions. |
| 1:00.4 | We'll kind of pick a question or two a month and just kind of answer those and the best we can. |
| 1:07.2 | And it's just a little bit of a way for us to communicate all right thanks guys so i got one |
| 1:14.0 | more thing a little oddball but like all of you guys know mr dave whitlock passed away a couple |
| 1:20.0 | of years ago and miss emily has come to me and ben levin to see if we would help her sell some of his things. She's ready to clear some |
| 1:30.0 | things out. And so we're not exactly sure how the sale's going to go yet, but y'all just |
| 1:38.9 | start looking at either mine or Ms. Emily Whitlocks or Ben Levin's email or Facebook sometime around the |
| 1:47.5 | first of October and we'll start posting what we're going to do, how the cell will work, |
| 1:54.7 | and just kind of where we're going to go with it. See, I'll just kind of keep your eyes open for that. |
| 1:59.5 | And, you know, if you want to |
| 2:02.7 | be a part of that, we'll make that available to you. So tonight, man, I've got Landon Mayors out of |
| 2:10.2 | Colorado. He's been guiding there over 20 years. Most of you guys have heard of him. Good Lord, |
| 2:17.3 | he's done tons of books, you know, |
... |
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