Newbie
This is Salmon River Newbie podcast here. And I just want to welcome Jared Simpson to the podcast. He is trout angler 15. What’s your Instagram account again?
Jared Simpson
It is trout underscore angler 15.
Newbie
That’s right. And I mean, I don’t I don’t have to really give an inch. Most people have seen trout. If you if you’ve been fishing the Salmon River or the tribes, you know, you know, this guy catches fish. And we I just just telling him I appreciate his demeanor. I appreciate the way that he goes about what he does fishing and and conduct himself himself on the river.
Newbie
So I’m really excited. I told everybody that we had talked yet last week and we forgot to record. We’re so excited.
Jared Simpson
Yeah, that was that was a great conversation.
Newbie
That was such a great conversation. And there was so many people on my end that were upset because I did not get to record it. They wanted to be part of that conversation. So. But anyway, let’s welcome Jared. So, Jared, tell us a little bit about yourself and when did you start fishing?
Jared Simpson
Okay. So I’m 23 years old. I lived in the New York area pretty much my whole life. So for a while, I didn’t really fish at all. I mean, when I was a kid, you know, sometimes with my parents or whatever, we’d go out and get some pan fish. But I remember when I was probably in about seventh grade, maybe sixth grade, I just got was getting bored over summer vacation and just wanted something to do.
Jared Simpson
So I saw the Oswego River was within walking distance from my house, so I just started going down there and fishing and I really wasn’t at that point in time. It was kind of just like a thing to just kill time and not be bored over summer vacation. But I remember one morning I was I was fishing right on the lawn we go and I was just fishing for back to the spinner bait.
Jared Simpson
I just get slammed by this unknown fish that I just had no idea what it was. It was rip and drag and I was freaking out and then it jumps and I see and I can’t identify, I’m not sure what it is. And some other guy yells, Well, that’s a King fan. And I’m like, What? No idea. I lived in Africa my whole life, had no idea there were salmon in Oswego River.
Newbie
Wow.
Jared Simpson
And I think I think from there it just kind of like I started not just fishing during summer vacation, but like I heard from people that a lot more salmon come in in the fall so that that very fall I ended up fishing for salmon a lot.
Newbie
So that lit your fire that that summer, that that salmon jump in your fire.
Jared Simpson
Yeah, it definitely sparked something in me. And I mean, ever since then, I’ve just been, like, completely obsessed with them. I mean, it’s probably a problem, but it’s okay.
Newbie
So when when did you start steelhead fishing.
Jared Simpson
On to that team? Probably a year or two later, I. I had caught a few steelhead. Well, salmon, I shouldn’t even say I’m from steelhead were brought to hand welcoming me and that definitely interested me a little bit, but I wasn’t sure how to target them. Yeah. So one, one day I was, it was late season vision for salmon and there was a local guy named Mike down there and he was a spokesperson for Deal Hat and I watched him catch a couple and I, I went over to him and I asked him about it.
Jared Simpson
He actually was nice enough to completely set me up with a patter flow and everything showed me the ropes. And once I started doing that, there was no turning back. It was all about this deal.
Newbie
Shout out to Mike out there, man. Shout out to Mike for getting this guy on, man. Yeah, thank goodness. Certainly. Thank goodness for all those mike’s out there, you know? I mean, like, people can say a lot of things about a Oswego and the Salmon River, but man, among all of that, there’s a lot of good people out there, guys like Mike, you know?
Newbie
Yeah.
Jared Simpson
I mean, if it wasn’t for him, I mean, I don’t know where I’d be today. I mean, Deal had been building in a big part of my life. I mean, I spend a lot of my free time doing something that brings so much joy and the like, aside from, you know, the obvious things like family and my my girlfriend, I don’t think there’s anything else I want more.
Newbie
Yeah, well, we see the joy. I mean, it’s really inspiring to see what you’re doing and just the pictures. You can tell that you’re enjoying what you’re doing. And I think it’s very authentic.
Jared Simpson
It’s funny you say that. Actually, a lot of people comment and say, I’m not smiling at my pictures enough.
Newbie
Yeah, you know, but regardless of smile or not, I mean, but I think that you can tell that you’re out there, you’re enjoying yourself, you know. So now, like, I mean, you’re a very prolific angler. You know, there’s a few out there that come to mind. Brand Hansen, you know, is one of those guys and and I get a lot of questions, you know, about him and I get a lot of questions about you, you know, do you know Jared?
Newbie
Do you know what he does out there? You know, so, you know, let’s help these guys and girls out, you know, let’s give them some tips on how to be able to get on some steelhead, get on some salmon. Do you have any tips for them?
Jared Simpson
Yeah, definitely.
Newbie
Okay.
Jared Simpson
I think I would start with having confidence in what you’re doing, as silly as silly as that sounds, because it’s not really something that like like it’s not like you’re bait, like, you know, like things that are really important to catching the fish, but like, it kind of is at the same time because if you’re going on the water and you have absolutely no competent in what you’re doing, you become complacent.
Jared Simpson
You aren’t pitching effectively. You’re taking Lady Kath, lady drama. You know, you’re not working the water to the best of your ability. So one thing that I keep in mind, especially with Winter’s deal, Heidi, I know the weather can get you down when you’re out with freezing cold temperatures, especially in upstate New York. I mean, it’s brutal sometimes.
Jared Simpson
Yeah, but one thing that really helps boost my confidence on the days I’m struggling it just to keep in mind that in the winter a lot of fish are pushed in the system by that point. So from the top to the bottom of the river, more than likely they’re in in all the fishable water, there’s multiple target, there’s multiple fish in each of those holes.
Jared Simpson
So that always helped me keep my confidence up is that I’m not I’m not looking for a fish. I’m looking to get a fish to bite.
Newbie
Okay. Okay. Oh, man. Wait, wait. That’s that’s that’s good right there. I’m not looking for a fish. I’m looking for a fish to bite, right? Yeah. Did I say that right?
Jared Simpson
Yeah. Yeah, you got it.
Newbie
But my offering, because that’s that’s like a big I mean, that statement is really pithy. That’s there’s a lot of good stuff in it. Like, I’m not looking for fish, I’m looking for fish to bite. So in other words, it’s like you look, you said the great thing about winter fishing is that you know that there’s fish in the system, right?
Newbie
Yeah. So go ahead. Keep going. I’m sorry. I just. It was so good. I needed to just to make sure I got it, you know? So go ahead. Keep going. Sorry. I didn’t mean to disrupt your flow or whatever, but keep going.
Jared Simpson
No, you’re. You’re good, man. You’re good. All right. So, yeah. So make sure that you are confident in what you’re doing on the water. You need to make sure that when you’re on the water, you were just doing everything right. Like I said, if you if you don’t have competent, you’re going to get complacent. You’re not going to do things right.
Jared Simpson
You’re going to not make the best cast you can. And it’s just at the end of the day, it’s going to hurt you. So just go on in the water every day with confidence that you’re going to catch fish. Well, and it more than likely will happen.
Newbie
If you’ve ever fished and you go out there basically. Right. I mean, part of this whole fishing thing is a mental game, isn’t it? I mean. Oh, yeah, that’s what you’re saying, that I mean, when it comes down, you’re saying conference mental game. It’s it’s how you look at that water, how you’re thinking. And if you believe that you’re going to go out and catch a fish, you will catch a fish.
Jared Simpson
Well, a perfect example of that, actually, is what a few my buddy would call confidence fakes. Mm hmm. So they’re their beads or a certain color exact or a certain size. A fact that you time and time again, you can’t fish. Are you confident in that? Be. Well, the funny thing about that is that my buddy can fish with my confidence bait and not catch anything.
Jared Simpson
And then I’ll I’ll fish with it and I’ll catch something out. And it’s just the weirdest thing. You’re like, you really wouldn’t think that just your mindset would affect your fishing abilities, but like, it truly is something that makes a difference sometimes. Like, it just my best days are days that I go in the water thinking I’m going to have a great day.
Jared Simpson
Hmm. I get to the river. I’m like, You know what? The conditions are perfect, the weather’s perfect, the fish are going to bite. And usually those are the good days. Not always. I mean, you have your days where you go under the water thinking you’re going to catch a ton of bash and it ends up being a slow day.
Newbie
Yeah.
Jared Simpson
You can’t always make them by, but confidence will definitely help.
Newbie
Comfort. I heard this story and I believe I read this thing too. Is that Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player in our lifetime, would wear the same shorts, you know, the North Carolina shorts underneath his uniform because he thought it was lucky. But also it gave him a confidence that that those shorts gave him confidence, you know. So I think having those confidence bait like you’re talking about really does help your mental game.
Newbie
And in turn, that will help you to be a better angler that day. So, no, that’s great. That’s awesome.
Jared Simpson
Yeah, definitely. So my my second tip. Yep. Is to understand the water temperature and what that means during the winter. So when, when the water gets cold, you’re really going to want to focus on slower moving, cool the fish get lethargic, they’re not going to sit in fast water as much. And that’s not to say they never sit in bath water in the winter.
Jared Simpson
I, I have surprised myself time and time again, casting into the water, thinking that they’re going to be efficient. It’s way too fast. So then you end up getting one. But for the most part in the wintertime, when the water gets real cold, I’m I’m mostly looking for slower, deeper moving pool. And most of the time that’s that’s where the fish are.
Jared Simpson
LANE They don’t want to be in that bass line, right? They want to use as little energy as possible throughout the winter because the less energy they expand, the less they have to eat and the happier they are. Another thing that I’ve noticed for in the winter, in the colder water temperature, is making sure you get the most natural dirt possible.
Jared Simpson
A lot of guys who enter pen, they always talk about, you know, trotting your float or checking your flow and stuff like that. And I, I have to admit, I am totally against that. I mean, as a center opener, my, my opinion on it is that you’re center opening to get the most natural growth possible. So why would you try out your flow and take away that natural drift when you’re, you know, using the center to do that?
Jared Simpson
Yeah, there are situations, you know, in the fall when the fish are really aggressive and really fast water, I will I will trot my well but nine out of ten times I’m trying to get the most natural grip possible. And in the winter that is extremely important, especially in that fall water.
Newbie
So let’s for those that don’t center pink, could you explain what trotting means?
Jared Simpson
So basically what trotting your float is. So if you were to if I were to take my center pin just cashed out and let it naturally drift my float should if I have everything balanced properly, my float should be sitting straight up and down. If I trot it, what I’m doing is instead of letting my center and spin freely, I’m flowing it down.
Jared Simpson
So instead of the float pointing straight up, it’s pointing back at me. And what that does is it makes your your presentation swing through the through the column differently instead of it instead of like if you were to be drifting a natural drift, a lot of times you’re you’re kind of dragging on bottom just behind your flow. But if I trot it, maybe it’s going to be in front of my flow kind of a little bit off bottom instead.
Newbie
Yeah. Okay. So how do we. I know that there’s lots of people in our audience and then there’s also fly people. So how would you how would you describe that in terms of fly fishing?
Jared Simpson
So I guess I guess if you were indicator fishing and I’ll be honest, I don’t fly fish very so this is just me watching how other people fish and kind of just coming to the conclusion. But it seems like a lot of fly guys when they’re indicator crashing the end of their drift, they are almost trotting their flow in a way when they when you cast upstream and then you you swing through at the end of your drift when you don’t have any more line to come out, your your presentation swings up.
Jared Simpson
Mm hmm. And that’s the kind of the same concept with trotting your boat center pinning. The only difference is, instead of it being at the end of your drift and that being a quick part of your drift that’s winging up your whole directive swinging up the whole way through, you know.
Newbie
So in just to summarize this one point, which I think is I mean, I’m a big drift guy, that’s why center spinning, although I’m a fly guy, center painting really calls to me because I think about the drift. How is that presentation going to be moving down in the current? So to summarize, you don’t like extra movement as that thing is floating, especially in the center spin because that’s what you want.
Newbie
That’s, that’s, that’s what you’re looking for, right?
Jared Simpson
Yeah. I want the most natural or what other people would call dead drift possible.
Newbie
Dead drift or.
Jared Simpson
I don’t.
Newbie
Yeah.
Jared Simpson
I mean and like there are situations where trotted near float does get that. Like actually in the last video I posted on my my Instagram, you’ll notice that as I get bit I’m actually mending. Hmm like I was I was mending my blow or my my access line and when I was doing that, I actually pulled my load up and I got bit right as that happened.
Jared Simpson
So I mean, sometimes it does get you bit for sure. But again, that was in the fall. That was that video was from the fall. So I mean, in the winter, you really in my opinion, you really want to try to get the most natural drift possible?
Newbie
Yes.
Jared Simpson
So my third tip for winter steelhead would be in the winter. I tend to downsize my my leaders, my hooks and my boat size. So in the fall, I might run, you know, a 6.2 to an eight gram pillow. But when winter rolled around, I’m really dropping that down to like at the max of 6.2. And it really depends on water.
Jared Simpson
Like if I’m pushing higher water, I’ll definitely run a 6.2. But in that current conditions running I think today one of that 500 from the gate.
Newbie
Yep.
Jared Simpson
I would probably stick to a five gram to a 5.5. And my reason behind that is in the winter when the fish get a little more lethargic, they’re not as aggressive then they’re not aggressively feeding like they are in the fall.
Newbie
Yeah.
Jared Simpson
So I don’t want to I don’t want to have to add more weight to my low or my shot pattern to try to get my float to drop easier. I’m just going to drop down low tide the when those fish light by my float still drops. Hmm. I was actually I was talking to a kid about this the other day.
Jared Simpson
He was asking me why I’m using such a small float. He was using an eight gram. Yeah. And I told him I was like, you’re probably. You called me an independent all day. I said, you’re probably missing bites. Who would that eight grand float it might not even register. I mean, my my five gram, when I have it weighted properly, it will barely be above the water.
Jared Simpson
And sometimes it still doesn’t even fully sink from a bi it’ll just lightly Bob and I’m like, that’s a bite and that the hook and there it is.
Newbie
Wow that’s a great I mean if if whoever is listening this is this right here is gold I think that this is the such an import. I mean, all the other points, you know, it’s stuff that people have talked about. But there’s downsizing and we know you got to downsize. I mean, if you want to get bit. But the whole issue of your float going down to a smaller size and even your line, you know, when you’re fly fishing, instead of going down to a smaller size, it helps you detect that that soft, that real gentle bite that steelhead have.
Newbie
I mean, that’s that’s what you’re saying, right? I mean, that’s that’s basically what you’re saying.
Jared Simpson
Yeah. I mean, if you if you ever watch as a guy on YouTube, I wish I could remember it. He has a ton of underwater footage of steelhead biting. And I’ve spent I’ve spent way too much time watching these video. They just think they’re incredible. And if you watch like a lot of time but you’ll see some and he’ll in some of his videos it’s wintertime and then another.
Jared Simpson
It’s like either spring or fall or something and you’ll see in the spring. In the fall, they’re taking that bait down like they’re running, overdo it and they’re grabbing it hard. But then in the winter, they won’t even move to it like they literally like the bait had to hit him in the nose and then they just mouth it.
Jared Simpson
They don’t, they don’t move at all. Yeah. And that was actually my some of my inspiration to using a smaller flow watching it video a while ago when I was just like like oh like it seems like in the winter they’re they’re not aggressively taking that was like I wonder if I’m even seeing some of my boys using my bigger flows.
Jared Simpson
And so I dropped down the next time I went fishing and it seemed to make a difference. And ever since then I, I’ve stuck with it and it definitely has seemed to to increase my, my catch ratio, you know.
Newbie
Well, if you are listening right now, folks, that’s that’s trout anglers, you know, deadly secret right there, man. Them the guy has just given it to us right here. I mean, and I think that it’s it makes sense. I mean, what you’re just saying it makes sense. I mean, because I’ve heard from guides and all of that that they just mouth it, you know, it’s like and so we’re like you just said, it’s we’re probably not detecting the bite, you know, and we’re missing.
Newbie
Yeah. Yeah. So that’s awesome. That’s awesome.
Jared Simpson
So at the same time, I say downtime and would be I might sometimes like especially recently when the water was running from the gate and really clear I was downsizing to eight millimeter being sometimes I mean they were still eating and just fine a lot of days.
Newbie
Yeah.
Jared Simpson
But with egg sacks that’s a different story. I actually fish smaller eggs in the fall than I do in the winter. In the winter I tend to run a little bigger and I mean to me, like I already run big. Exactly. Like I remember I was on the boat with a guy one day if asked me to borrow one of my eggs back and I said, Do you want a small one or a big one?
Jared Simpson
And your small one? I hand him one and he goes, This is small. He’d like bigger than anything I would ever tie. Like, Oh, that’s what works for me.
Newbie
Yeah.
Jared Simpson
I in the winter time, about the size of a gumball.
Newbie
A gumball.
Jared Simpson
If not a little. Yeah, if not a little bigger. Mm hmm. And that that definitely seems to be the ticket to getting by now.
Newbie
Why do you think I mean, how did you come to that conclusion?
Jared Simpson
Well, I kind of came to that conclusion through trial and error. If like when I when I used to take snacks, I would just I wouldn’t I didn’t have any method to it. I would just throw a pile of eggs on the mat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. Whatever size it was, it was. But I noticed I was getting by more with bigger bags.
Jared Simpson
And I think part of it is that in the winter time, they don’t want to move to base as much and they want a meal that’s going to give them enough energy to sustain themselves. So they’re looking for bigger meals. They don’t want to waste their energy moving to eat a small meal. That’s not going to give them enough nutrients.
Jared Simpson
You know, like it’s kind of like, I guess, is it worth it to them to eat them? Like, are they going to lose too much energy getting this meal? Yes. So I think I think that part it I think they they like the bigger bag because they want a big meal.
Newbie
The thing that I have seen from all the reading that I’ve done is that steelhead are an efficiency machine when it comes to end. So the movement and everything that they do, they’re so efficient that and and I think that what you’re saying is like, it makes sense that they’re being efficient. They don’t want a small meal. They want a big a big meal that they can get at, you know, and have enough energy for the rest of the winter.
Newbie
So and they’re being efficient by not chasing the small things, but just waiting for that large thing.
Jared Simpson
Yeah, I definitely think that is the case.
Newbie
It’s awesome. Join us next time for the conclusion to Trout Angler 15, Gerrit Simpson’s Tips. He has a few more important tips for us all hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss an episode.
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