How Land-Use and Geology Affect Mountain Streams, with Dr. Nelson Ham

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 October 2022

⏱️ 98 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

I've long been fascinated by the way geology affects the character and richness of a trout stream, and I know other anglers are as well. My interview this week is with geology professor Dr. Nelson Ham [40:36], who has been studying the effects of both geology and historical land use practices on the character of our trout rivers. The discussion also goes into the value of ground water on how productive our rivers can be. I learned a lot in this interview and I know you will as well.

In the Fly Box this week, we have some interesting an unusual questions and comments, including:

I have six Helios 3 rods and want to sell one. Which one should I sell?

Do you think the affect of COVID on swelling the ranks of fly fishers will go down?

I found an Orvis 1856 bamboo fly rod in the attic of my new house. Was it really built in 1856?

A listener encourages me to keep making fun of various kinds of fly-fishing methods.

In places I used to catch brook trout I am now only catching chubs. Do you think trout will re-inhabit these streams?

A listener reminds me that organizations like Project Healing Waters promote the therapeutic value of fly fishing in young veterans.

Do you think tube flies would be effective for golden dorado?

If it's legal, how many flies do you think are too many on a single leader?

When I fish a dry dropper, why do the smaller fish take my small Zebra Midge and the larger trout take a poke at my dry fly?

What flies and gear are recommended for catching Atlantic mackerel on a fly?

If I don't want to use head cement, is a double whip finish a good way to increase the durability of my flies?

When I use a throat pump on trout, why do my samples sometimes come up empty?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi and welcome to the Forrest Fly Fishing Podcast.
0:15.6	This week my guest is Dr. Nelson Ham and I've been looking for the right guest to do
0:25.6	this podcast for a while. I've wanted to do a podcast on the effects of geology on
0:34.4	trout streams and their character and I got even more than I bargained for.
0:40.9	Nelson and I were corresponding on a totally unrelated subject and I happened to see that
0:46.4	he was a professor of geology and so I asked him if he'd like to do this podcast and he said,
0:53.3	yeah in fact I'd also like to talk about you know land use practices and historic land use
0:58.3	practices and how they affect the the character of what we see today in our trout streams and
1:04.2	especially in the groundwater resources that we have. So I found this to be a fascinating
1:10.7	discussion because I like this geeky stuff and I know a lot of you do as well when I talk to
1:16.5	scientists so I hope you enjoy the interview today. I'd also like to apologize for the background
1:24.1	noise today. I'm not sure if you can hear it but I have I'm home with a 13 week labored or puppy
1:30.9	who is not happy that he's in his kennel today so you may hear a little yawling in the background
1:39.2	so I apologize for the the background music there. But let's do the podcast.
1:46.4	Podcasts is where I try to answer your questions if I can and I don't I don't answer them all.
1:55.0	Some of them I've I've answered so many times that I don't want to answer them again and I don't
2:00.9	think it's fair to those of you who listened every episode and have to hear the answer to the same
2:05.9	question again and also I typically don't answer questions that someone could solve with a
2:12.6	quick search on the internet so anyway other than that I'm happy to answer almost any kind of
2:18.8	question you have or take your comments and you can send a question to the podcast by emailing me
2:29.1	at podcast at orvis.com. I read all of them. I'm the only one that reads them and answers them
2:37.2	and you can just put your question in your email or you can touch a voice file if you want and
	...

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