What to do When you Encounter Lousy Fishing Conditions, with James Spica

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

🗓️ 13 October 2025

⏱️ 94 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It happens to all of us, and sometimes it seems like every time we take a fishing trip, conditions are less than ideal. Water too high, water too low, water temperature too warm or too cold. Dirty water. You know the litany. James Spica [34:18], writer and fishing manager of the Orvis store in Royal Oak, Michigan, has some great tips on what to do when you encounter these situations—where to fish, how to fish your fly, and some patterns he would never go anywhere in the world without that help him deal with adverse fishing conditions. James gives us tips for both freshwater and saltwater trips and I took a lot of my own notes on this one!

In the Fly Box this week, we have some great tips and interesting questions, including:

Are all fly lines today one size heavy? Can I use my 5-weight line on my new 6-weight rod?
A tip from a listener on the best way to carry multiple fly rigs to the river after constructing them at home.
How can I start my roll cast to get a decent amount of line out when I have no back cast room?
Can you skip a tippet size when adding a new tippet to a leader?
Do you think adding a small piece of orange or white yarn to a standard dry fly for visibility impacts fishing?
A tip from a listener on adding a lightly weighted nymph to his streamer rig when swinging flies.
A tip from a listener on how to seal the thread when finishing small flies.
I had trouble getting beads on some nymph hooks until I pinched the barb first. Does everybody do this?
I recently saw some freshly stocked trout chasing each other in circles in a pool. Is this spawning behavior or something else?
Do juvenile trout eat the same thing as adults? If I am only catching small fish should I try a different fly?
What is your favorite flotant for keeping a dry fly on top?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing podcast.
0:18.0	This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer.
0:19.7	And my guest this week is James Spica.
0:23.7	James is a fly fishing journalist. He currently writes for Tail Magazine. And James is also the
0:31.5	fishing manager at the Orvis Royal Oak Stories, a very experienced fly fisher. And the topic today, which I think is a great one,
0:39.2	James suggested it, was what to do when conditions aren't perfect. Let's say you're on your way
0:46.3	to a fly fishing trip. You've been planning it for weeks or months and you get there and the water's
0:51.6	too high, too low, too cold, too warm. What do you do? What kind of
0:56.5	tactics do you employ? What do you look for? What kind of water do you look for? What kind of flies do you use?
1:02.4	And we've all been there many, many times. It seems like most times for a lot of us. And so James has some
1:09.7	great tips on both presentation techniques, water to
1:14.8	look for, and some special fly patterns that he would never go anywhere without. And I know
1:21.0	you love those lists of must-have fly patterns. So I hope you enjoy the interview. And before we do the fly box,
1:29.4	just a few announcements. One is that people ask me frequently if I guide and no, I don't guide
1:36.4	or I rarely guide. The only time I actually guide is for charities that I care about. And Daniel Kimbrough, a musician, who is responsible for the theme music on the podcast these
1:53.9	days, my new theme music.
1:55.4	Daniel and I are going to auction off a fishing trip and a private concert with Daniel.
2:03.5	So we're both going to guide someone.
2:05.7	I think it's two people that are in this auction.
2:09.6	And then Daniel's going to do a private concert.
2:13.5	I'm going to shut up during a concert.
2:15.1	You don't want me either singing or playing an instrument. So Daniel's going to do the concert. And we're both going to do the guiding. The guided trip is through Candade, which is a great organization. In this case, it's called Instruments for a Change. And they amplify the power of music for inspiration, learning, and
	...

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