Secrets of the Battenkill, with Doug Lyons

The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

James Hathaway

Sports, Wilderness, Education, How To

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2023

⏱️ 101 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Battenkill is an iconic and often frustrating trout stream. It's a gorgeous river with a healthy population of wild trout but it has had its ups and downs over the years. Doug Lyons [49:48] is a lifetime Battenkill expert and knows the river perhaps better than anyone, and his new book Fly Fishing Guide to the Battenkill unravels many secrets of this special river—perhaps more than many of us locals are comfortable with! Doug and I had fun sharing our theories and thoughts about the river.

In the Fly Box this week, I have some especially interesting questions from listeners, including:

I have been experimenting with streams on a floating line with a short leader with no success. What am I doing wrong, and what do you suggest?
Is there a way to tell the various subspecies of cutthroat trout apart?
What are the pros and cons of smooth vs. textured lines?
Why are reel prices so expensive these days? Aren't they just used to store line?
How can I tell what line size a bamboo rod takes? I bought an old rod that has no markings on it.
Why don't more fly shops sell nymphs with matte beads?
Will I save money by tying my own flies?
How can I identify the various mayflies and caddisflies I have in southern Michigan?
Why do I get tippet curls just ahead of my fly when I tie it on? I have tried a couple knots and they still seem to do it.
Will a Spey rod with a larger line size cast farther than a lighter one like a 6-weight?
A reminder from a listener about the perils to wildlife of using lead weights in fishing.
Will it hurt to store my fly line on the reel in the off-season?
What tools do you personally use in fly tying and which are the most important?
If I am making my own leaders should I use blood knots or surgeon's knots to connect the sections?
Does it matter which way your fly is oriented when fishing?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast, this is your host Tom Rosebauer, and
0:15.6	I guess this week is Doug Lyons, Doug is the author of a recent book called The Fly Fishing
0:22.1	Guide to the Baton Kill.
0:25.5	It just came out and it's a fantastic book.
0:29.2	In fact, a lot of us locals feel it's a little bit too good of a book because it gives away a lot of secrets.
0:38.0	But Doug has been a lifelong angler on the Baton Kill.
0:42.1	He really knows the river as probably as well as anyone I know, and we're going to talk about
0:48.4	the Baton Kill and it's an iconic stream. It's known for its difficulty and it has had some
0:59.7	problems over the years. No one's sure exactly why because the water quality and the habitat
1:06.0	are really good in the river, but the drought population in the 1990s kind of crashed,
1:12.9	particularly the brown trout population. The Baton Kill has come back and it's looking really
1:20.8	healthy these days. Doug and I are going to talk a little bit about what the river is like,
1:28.0	why the population perhaps crashed, why it's come back. There's a bunch of secrets here that some
1:36.3	of the locals aren't going to be very happy about, but that's okay because it's a public resource
1:43.1	and it's a wonderful river and worth visiting. Just don't expect to catch any trout.
1:50.9	No, actually it's been pretty good this year.
1:55.8	Before I do the fly box, I just had a couple of announcements. One is that you probably
2:03.7	notice that the podcast has been dropping on Monday instead of Friday. It just works out better
2:09.8	or mainly for our producer and editor, Jamie Hathaway. Jamie was the original instigator of the
2:18.0	podcast and convinced me to do it many years ago when he was working social media for Orvis and
2:24.7	he's now taken on a big job. He's head of the Make a Wish Foundation in both New York State
2:32.3	and Vermont, but he still continues to edit the podcast because he loves it and it means a lot to him.
	...

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