Newbie
Thank you all for joining us for the rest of Brian Hansen’s episode. This is probably the most important part of the episode, so let’s just jump back.
Brien Hansen
That is a big one, like when I’m not steelhead fishing, I streamer fish for brown trout down in Pennsylvania. And people ask me about that all the time. What do you find streamers use it’s like did. It does not matter what the streamer is I pretty much fish one or two streamers the entire time and I’m just fishing it confidently, putting it in every little spot where a fish could possibly be sitting and then and then move and being like, all right, yeah.
Brien Hansen
You know, a fish didn’t eat it in any of those spots. I’m just going to assume that there is no fish in there and then move on. And then the next time you come around, you can try it again and hopefully there’s a fish in that time.
Newbie
So so I think like one thing that I’ve always talked about is that it’s not so much the, the, you know, the offering that you that isn’t important, but it’s the technique of that drift of how you’re offering it. Right. That makes the difference. So you’re you’re you’ve got it down to two different streamers you’re using, you know, and so there’s no there’s no questions about like am I am I got the right, you know, exactly.
Newbie
Matching the hatch. Am I doing all this stuff you’re concentrating on getting your offering, going through that whole but the right speed at the right depth. I mean, that. That’s right.
Brien Hansen
Exactly. And it’s kind of like narrowing down, you know, it’s narrowing down your variables. So if you can if you can fix one of your variables, which is the stream pattern, and then you can just worry about how I’m actually fishing and then you can dial that in. And now you’re completely confident in the way you’re fishing. Now you can jump back on to the fly side and be like, all right, let me maybe that, you know, maybe that black deceiver isn’t the best flier to be used.
Brien Hansen
Let me switch up that. Now that I know I’m fishing correctly. Let me jump back to that. And it’s kind of, you know, separating what you’re going to change. Don’t change don’t, you know, change three things and then have go to the water, have a good day. And then then you’re like, all right, well, what did it what what was the reason that it was a good day?
Brien Hansen
Because you just changed three things. You can’t point to it. If I go, I’m still fish in the same streamer but the same fly. And now I just, you know, try a different technique, a little bit more weight, a little bit less line. And I started hitting on me like, Oh, well, that’s what’s in it for me right there.
Brien Hansen
And you can, you know, take that and move on with it.
Newbie
So I think I think I think.
Brien Hansen
Right. Yeah, I’m a background. I majored in mechanical engineering in school and I’m a professor engineer now.
Newbie
Okay, so does that help in your fishing? Like cause like the world view of fishing that you’ve just dropped on us? It’s very precise, like that. Like that phrase narrowed down your variables. Like. Like that’s that’s that’s good stuff. Like, I mean.
Brien Hansen
Like it it’s definitely that’s definitely the engineer speaking. Yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t I didn’t even really think about it until it came out of my words that I just said fixed variable about something in fishing. I think that’s a pretty, you know. Yes. Quote unquote scientific term to be talking about in fishing. But yeah, it’s it’s definitely I mean, that’s just that’s just who I am.
Brien Hansen
So it’s not even that I apply it to fishing. It’s just that’s that’s how I think about everything.
Newbie
So that’s don’t I think that that’s an important distinction to make now. I love guides. I love professional guides. And I’m hoping to have guides come on. But my initial I guess my initial purpose in getting people like yourself to come on, you know, and do this podcast with us is to is because you talk from a different discipline or a different paradigm, because when you talk to a lot of people that are fishy, you know, and are in the industry, they, they have a lot of industry jargon and industry industry talk and, you know, like they’ll tell you, do this, do that and this stuff.
Newbie
And again, it’s good stuff. But I just like the way that you just said, hey, you know, narrow down the variables because of yeah. Because that it’s the truth, you know, in, in, in, in, in for a lot of us that do fish is that we don’t live in a guide’s world. We don’t live in a fishy world.
Newbie
We live in our occupations, we live in our district. And, you know, so for me that really but I mean that drove it home for me fix you know, narrow down your variables and.
Brien Hansen
Exactly if you can cut one out of the equation completely and then just worry about one thing and it’s just going to make your it’s going to make your truck. It’s not obviously going to give you the answer right away, but it’s going to it’s going to shorten your trial and error.
Newbie
Yeah.
Brien Hansen
While like you’re not going to be playing around for two years or two seasons before you finally feel like you’re dialed, you may dial in, you know, a year into it, you know, halfway through the season.
Newbie
Yes.
Brien Hansen
Stuff like that.
Newbie
Beautiful. That is beautiful. It’s good stuff.
Brien Hansen
Yeah, that was.
Newbie
So what’s your last number? Your highest.
Brien Hansen
And it kind of this kind of it wraps up. Well, number one, all of these I’ll even wrap it up back to the layer up point the layer up just makes you comfortable. If you’re uncomfortable out there, you’re not going to want to, you know, retire, rig, you know, switch a fly, you know, change your leader, change your weight.
Brien Hansen
You’re not going to want to do any of that stuff. So that’s the biggest thing I always tell people is it’s kind of convoluted with what I just said about confidence is key and kind of stick with something. But when you’re playing with the hey, I, yeah, I have the mechanics of it down I can cast, I know where to put everything now I got to deal with my rig switching floors, retyping often like even if you you stick stick yourself in a tree once you get a little bit of ice on your line, read Thai often.
Brien Hansen
Mm hmm. And then just changes stuff with that. So switching floors, which even the size of floors, like if you got, if, if, you know, a fly work for you and it’s not working that day, try to make sure you got, you know, a size up or a size down from that pattern. And even little itty bitty changes like that have, you know, switch days around for me and then for the Salmon River specifically, especially in the middle of winter, people seem to get scared about using £4 for pound fluorocarbon for steelhead.
Brien Hansen
But in the middle of winter.
Newbie
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know.
Brien Hansen
It’ll be the difference between a two hook up day and a ten fish hitting the net day. Like I definitely I’ve I did even in early season like early steelhead fishing. I’ll be sitting there trying to, you know, float fish with six and £8 thinking, all right, this fisher, they’re they’re dying, right? They’re hungry, they’re ready to eat it.
Brien Hansen
Like, if they’re not going to eat this, they, they, you know, they’re not going to eat in general. But then they’ll be somebody right next to me that is beating them up. And I’ll go ask like, what the hell, man? Like, what are you doing is like, I’m using £4 like, holy crap. Like it’s, you know, when all else fails, go light, go light and play with your weight a lot.
Brien Hansen
If your life, your weather, your bottom bouncing, your indicator new thing or, you know, just float fishing with a center pin, switch around your, you know, your shot pattern on your center pin. Take a split shot off if you’re, you know, indicator or bottom bouncing with a fly rod, take a shot off. You don’t want to be dragging bottom, but you definitely don’t want to be, you know, up in the first foot of water.
Brien Hansen
You kind of want to play around with all that stuff. And eventually all it’s going to take is, yeah, you know, one, one positive thing to happen in, you know, the monotonous casting and be like, Oh yeah, wow, that work. Let me try that again. Let me see if I can do that again and maybe do it again and then it works again.
Brien Hansen
And that’s you’re just dialing in and stuff like that. But for pound, I’ve saved a lot of days on £4. People love to use six and eight up there if you want to get real biters. Yeah, you actually want to start beating up on a ton of fish that are pressured for pound will be will be your savior.
Brien Hansen
I know there’s going to be a lot of guys out there that are going to scoff at that and be like, oh, if you catch them on six, you don’t catch them. It’s like, well, okay, yeah. Like I, I love, like, I don’t like the before, but when all else fails, put on that light one and you may have to chase that fish forever, but you’re going to, you’re going to at least hook them.
Brien Hansen
Yeah. So don’t be afraid. Definitely. People get lazy with changing and just switching your rigs up flies later lengths and later.
Newbie
Yes.
Brien Hansen
And like what pound later that is if you can switch those up and just keep doing that all day, kind of have a rotation of flies or beads or, you know, egg sacks if you’re confident in them and just keep playing around because generally they want one thing one day they really are picky.
Newbie
Yeah, yeah. So, so to to kind of just sum up the highest priority would be that and again, going back to from the first thing that you said is that you you got to be you got to you got to commit to being out there. That’s that’s what you’re trying to say by layering, being comfortable, you got to be able to withstand the cold, withstand we be comfortable out there, be be ready to go out and not come back until, you know, it’s time.
Newbie
It’s and while you’re out there to be confident in the things that you have used, but also to be able to intelligently kind of change up things. Right. They’re not working, you know, and, you know, through in a you want you use the word monotonous there, which is which is a really interesting thought, you know, because you do have to put in a little bit of work with what you’ve got on try it.
Newbie
And if it’s not working, then switch that up. But you got to you’ve got to get your you know, you got to get your cast and you got to get your right in the water, basically. And I and then.
Brien Hansen
Like the go ahead kind of summing all this up commit that is a good way because I was trying to yeah I’m looking at like kind of like, you know, chicken scratch list here of priorities and I’m like, uh, yeah. I mean they’re kind of all over the place is kind of like a shotgun pattern, but no committing.
Brien Hansen
Like if you’re just, just you got to get out there like these fish aren’t going to fall onto your lap. You’re going to because a lot of people think that, you know, so many people just you know, they’ll ask people that they know fish a lot. Hey, I’m trying to get up there for the first time like I can I can write you, you know, a ten page letter on what I think you should do.
Brien Hansen
But until you just get out there, you get accustomed and, you know. Yes. Confident in what you’re doing. Not not really. Many people going to help. Yeah. So yeah. Commit. I like that you want to you definitely want to commit to it because there’s no half assing winter steelhead fishing on the Salmon River that sure.
Newbie
And you’re committing and then you’re like again because of your engineering background, your you’re switching one thing casting, seeing if that’s going to work. And after a little bit, you’re, you’re going to change something else. So you’re being you’re being I guess you’re being very intentional in your in the things that you’re doing rather than just haphazardly, you know, seeing somebody else doing that.
Newbie
I’m going to try that, you know, and when it and then when it all comes down to it, I mean, you’re basically like going back to your narrowing down the variables, you know, like if something isn’t, you know, in the engineer background or something isn’t working, one that you’re just narrowing it down to coming down to the absolute solution, which is in a lot of times, like you’re saying, £4 fluorocarbon is going to be one of the key things, you know, that is going to make it right.
Brien Hansen
And even if like, like even going back to the £4 thing, like I’ve done that where I’ve a lot of people want to be like, I’ll put the heavy line on first and just see how it goes. But I kind of like to do the opposite. Yeah. If I put four put on the lights. Oh and if you hook a fish right off the bat and break them off immediately, you’re like, Oh well there it was like At least I know that fish in there when if you did the opposite and had £6 on that, didn’t touch a fish for 3 hours, you’d be like, I’m out of here.
Brien Hansen
Like I’m leaving like little stuff like that. But definitely the methodic kind of if you can, if you can try to choose one thing to work on the time rather than the whole, that’ll definitely help new people. I mean, as somebody that’s new into steel at fish and they may not know where to start with first, like, you know, what to what to fix, what to not and stuff like that.
Brien Hansen
And I honestly wouldn’t know where to start either, but kind of just pick one and go with it. That’s probably the best thing you want to do. Whatever you feel like don’t really.
Newbie
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then just just just work your way through. Just try to be methodical, try to not like, cause, I mean, still have. Fishing is a lot like golf. I mean, I see a lot of people get upset on the golf. Yeah, I see a lot of people get upset and I’ve seen a lot of broken rods and broken golf clubs.
Newbie
You know what I’m saying is so yeah, but people get frustrated, you know, and if I think that that’s the cold waking up early, having too much to drink the night before, you know, and and all of that. And then just like going out there and just like I’m going to, you know, and, and, but being methodical, thinking it through, committing to that day.
Newbie
Right. That process. Right. That’s that’s excellent. Excellent. Thank you. I think that I think that those are really great keys. I mean, like, again, I’m really thankful that you know, and and like I said, it’s like I, I wasn’t just looking for like, well, put this dream or pad or on put this egg pattern on. And I’m sure there are there’s room for for all of that.
Newbie
But they can get right from any other place, you know, any other publication. I think that the real this for me is the real deal. Like you’re out there, you’re working this thing, you’re working this thing out in your own angling life. So I’m like, Man, this is good stuff. This is gold.
Brien Hansen
Yeah.
Newbie
This is like, you know, this should they should pay you the guy. Sorry, guys.
Brien Hansen
I’m taking money straight out of their pockets. I don’t think that like that.
Newbie
Yeah, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t really believe that out of it. No, but this is really good stuff. I mean this is really good stuff because it’s like a lot of times people are and again, people are looking for the easy answer, like, hey, just do these five things. And but this is for me, it’s it’s great advice, great fishing advice.
Newbie
And it doesn’t take away from the learning experience because, you know, so thank you so much. And this is really good stuff. Yeah. Any final word? Yeah, go ahead.
Brien Hansen
All else fails. When all else fails, you try. All this stuff is still not working, but you are out on the river. You know, you may have just failed all day. Just talk to other anglers. I know. I know. You’ve even brought it up on your page about, you know, just blindly damning people on Instagram and you’re not really going to get too much info out of just people you don’t know.
Brien Hansen
And that’s true. Like nobody’s going to hand you a free launch over the Internet. If you were if you just spent all day out there and there’s other people with you, and even if they’re seeing you struggle all day, just go ask them. Like I like a lot of those.
Newbie
Yes.
Brien Hansen
Yes. A lot of people are can be very mean and brutal up on that river. But that feel like that really?
Newbie
Yes.
Brien Hansen
It’s a salmon season thing. I’ve had nothing but good experience with just chatting up random. As long as you’re respectful, you’re not trying to pull them out of their spot or take the.
Newbie
Yes.
Brien Hansen
Yes. That you’re just being like, hey, man, like, I sucked it up today and I. I couldn’t figure it out. Like, what do you mind? Like, is there something that you did today that worked for you? Like, I know, I know. If somebody did that to me, I’m going to I’m going to give it up on them because we’re not doing anything secret.
Brien Hansen
So when all else fails, chatted up. Yeah, yeah.
Newbie
Man. That’s yeah, that that’s that’s really good. I mean, just, just the way that you that you presented your question or your your query, like, hey, I’ve just been struggling, you know? And I think that that along with that is that when you show that hold, don’t be a jerk.
Brien Hansen
You won’t get any.
Newbie
Input. You know.
Brien Hansen
That, you know, People magazine writers will get like, I’ll be that guy. You can be super nice to me and I’ll give you all the info in the world and I’m going to be thrown at you from the other side of the river. Like it’s purely how you act on it. And a lot of people heard very short fuzes out there.
Brien Hansen
So don’t give them don’t give them any sort of, you know, reason to go off. Be give people that room they could have. For all you know, they were there at 3 a.m. to hold down that spot. And if you walk in at sunrise and you start touching elbows with them, they’re not going to be happy. I wouldn’t be there.
Brien Hansen
So, yeah, respect, respect, respect. And generally they’ll pay it back, they’ll help you out if you’re struggling and they’re doing well. So.
Newbie
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Thank you, dude, this is so good information. I mean, like, so good. I’m good. Just like, you know, and I’m always like, you know, wondering what kind of tips are they going to bring? And you have blown me away with the tips that you get. I’m serious. Like I was. Yeah, I have a I have an expectation that.
Newbie
Yeah. You know, with your experience, I kind of have an interest, you know, but these tips of just blow good. Honestly, just like, just blow me, blown me away and and whoever people that are listening to this man, it’s like, you know, like, write these things down. I’ll have a written I’m going to try to transcribe all the podcast.
Newbie
So hopefully I’m going to try to put the what the points down, clear and concise for people to be able to grasp. But man, these are such cool points that you gave. That’s today. So thank you for coming on, man. Thank you again for you.
Brien Hansen
Got it, man. Any time. I’m glad I’m glad you’re even getting this started. I’m anxious to see what this is all going to turn out to be. If this is going to be a reoccurring thing or not, I think it’s going to be. Can I ask you that?
Newbie
I hope so. I you know, the thing is, is that my goal is to, you know, change the culture of the river. In other words, it’s just been a lot of bad stuff that’s happened and in the history of stuff. And, you know, but I think that the better like like the the more people are better at fishing and they don’t have to snag.
Newbie
They don’t have to go out and, you know, do weird stuff out there and be rude and all that stuff. And listening to guys like you and just put a spotlight on you and say, Man, this is a great guy. Not only as a great fisherman, ethical fisherman, a good guy, you know, willing to help people. I mean, that actually motivates people to be better.
Newbie
And I’m hoping that people.
Brien Hansen
Definitely.
Newbie
Better, you know, and I’m glad to talk to you. I’m glad to know you. And, you know. So, yes, I hope that is something that we can continue, because, again, the more the better education, the more the better that people are fishing. It’s going to be a better.
Brien Hansen
Time, right? It sounds good. I like it. I dig it. I’m on board.
Newbie
Thank you, Brian Hanson, that was great. Join us next week when we speak with Trout Angler 15. So many anglers are waiting for this episode. Join us next week as we speak with Jared.
Leave a Reply