Foraging along trout streams, with Sam Thayer

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

🗓️ 14 July 2023

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I think most stream anglers are interested in foraging, since we're immersed in nature all day long and although we watch for fish and insects and birds, many of us don't pay attention to the plants. And there are many delicious plants along trout streams you can take home for dinner—most of which will be more nutritionally dense than what you buy in the store—and free. If you have done any foraging at all, you have probably read some of more of Sam Thayer's [40:38] books. In our household his books are the primary source. I was lucky enough to spend some time talking to Sam about why foraging along streams is especially good, and what we can expect to find there.

In the Fly Box this week, we have no phone calls but some great questions via e-mail, including:

Why do trout in small streams take flies more readily when the water is high?

Where do you recommend I go trout fishing in the East in July when I visit this summer?

A great story about a listener getting generous advice from a famous angler along a trout river.

A tip for keeping rod sections together using clothespins.

What is the best streamer reel, line, and leader for a 7-weight rod?

What do you do when there is a very heavy hatch and almost too many natural insects?

I am having trouble hooking fish using the hand-over-hand retrieve when striper fishing. What can I do to increase my hooking rate?

What are three things a novice dry-fly angler should pay attention to?

Do you ever tie up dry/dropper rigs at home prior to going fishing?

Will my 8-weight be enough rod for fishing for striped bass from a boat?

What are some tips on picking flies for striped bass fishing at night?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi and welcome to the Orvis Flyfishing Podcast. This is your host Tom Rosenbauer. And this
0:18.8	week's episode was pretty special to me. I think it'll be special to anyone who is
0:24.3	either a forager or who has walked along a trout stream or a smallmouth bass river or a spotted
0:31.4	bass or Guadalupe bass river. And wondered, I wonder if there's stuff I can pick along here to
0:37.5	take home for dinner. Sam Thayer, my guest today, is, I don't know, I think you'd call him the
0:46.9	lefty cray of foragers. He's written a number of books. He's a wonderful writer and is a real
0:54.8	authority on edible plants. In fact, in our household, we're my wife and 18-year-old and I are
1:04.4	all serious foragers. And you know, the first place we go when we are looking for a new plan
1:11.4	or when we want to check the identification is to want to Sam Thayer's book. Not only does
1:17.3	make the identification, but to read more about the plant and actually read some anecdotes about
1:25.1	the plant. He's a wonderful writer. He has a new book out called Sam Thayer's Field Guide to
1:31.2	Edible Wild Plants of Eastern and Central North America, which is an exhaustive, huge, thick,
1:38.8	exhaustive guide to edible plants. And so anyway, I really enjoyed talking to him and was an
1:47.0	honor to speak to him. And if you are curious about stuff like that and I know a lot of you are,
1:52.9	I think you'll enjoy today's podcast. Now before we go to the fly box, I got a tip for you.
2:03.4	You know, usually talk about products or books or whatever. I got a tip for you, something that I
2:09.2	tried recently that that's worked really well for me. When you're on a trout stream and you're
2:15.5	trying to find out what's in the surface film or what's floating below the surface of the water,
2:22.6	it's really difficult to find a net that will properly sample what's in there because all the
2:30.9	nets that I've ever used, little pocket nets, the water tends to flow around them and gets this
2:36.5	like this, this cushion of water in front of it. And the water flows around it and it kind of
2:42.4	pushes the bugs off to the side unless you kind of make an arc out of the thing. You really don't,
	...

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