Howard Croston on Competition Mindset and Loch-Style Fishing for Stillwater Trout (Littoral Zone Podcast #22)
Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing Podcast
Dave Stewart
4.7 • 530 Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2026
⏱️ 86 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
#881 Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/881
Presented By: San Juan Rodworks, Fly Fish with me Utah, FishHound Expeditions
Sponsors: https://wetflyswing.com/sponsors
Stillwater fly fishing rewards anglers who focus on presentation, depth, and efficiency rather than constantly changing flies. In this episode, Phil Rowley sits down with England's Howard Croston — former world champion, longtime England team member, Hardy product developer, and Fulling Mill fly designer — to unpack the tactical decisions that consistently put trout in the net.
From reading unfamiliar lakes and understanding stocked fish behavior to leader diameter, drift control, and eliminating "myths" about fly color, Howard explains how competition fishing sharpens efficiency and forces anglers to focus only on what truly matters. The result is a practical, systems-based approach any stillwater angler can apply immediately.
#881 Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/881
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Littoral Zone podcast. I'm your host, Felroli. The Littoral Zone, or Shoal Area of the Lake, |
| 0:09.2 | is at place where the majority of the action takes place. My podcast is intended to do the same, |
| 0:15.2 | put you where the action is to help you improve your stillwater fly fishing. On each broadcast, I, along with guests from all |
| 0:23.1 | over the world, will be providing you with information, tips and tricks, flies, presentation |
| 0:28.9 | techniques, along with different lakes or regions to explore. I hope you enjoy today's podcast. |
| 0:35.7 | Please feel free to email me with your Stillwater-related |
| 0:38.8 | fly fishing questions and comments. I do my best to answer as many as we can prior to each |
| 0:44.9 | episode, just before the main content. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoy today's show. |
| 0:53.7 | Today I am pleased and excited to have Howard Crosston join me from across the pond in |
| 0:59.0 | England to discuss Stillwater Flies and Tactics. |
| 1:02.6 | If you don't know, Howard is a longtime member of the English fly fishing team and a former |
| 1:07.6 | world champion. |
| 1:09.2 | Howard is a fly designer with Fuling Mill and the product |
| 1:12.1 | development manager for Hardy and one extremely good fly fisher. On today's podcast, Howard |
| 1:18.6 | and I are going to discuss his evolution as an angler and fly fisher and how his competitive |
| 1:23.7 | experiences have influenced his approach to fly fishing lakes and the thoughts behind the development of his revolutionary drop-back bung. |
| 1:32.4 | But before I join Howard, I want to respond to a question from Matt Burnett. |
| 1:37.5 | So in today's question, Matt asked a great question, and one I often get a lot. |
| 1:42.8 | And he lives in northeastern Tennessee, |
| 1:45.0 | and he says, I'm interested in fishing some of the still waters in my area for trout. To my |
| 1:49.8 | understanding, the fish are stocked annually with no natural reproduction or very little. I believe |
| 1:55.8 | the water is deep enough and cold enough to support holdovers, and that some of the browns will |
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