Podcast: Reading Water to Find “Inside Places,” with Simon Perkins


This week, my guest is Orvis COO Simon Perkins, a lifelong fly fisher who spent eight years guiding full-time in Montana prior to working for Orvis.  The subject is “Seek the Inside,” getting detailed about reading the water in a place that many anglers ignore—and one of the best places to find trout.  Learn how to find these inside places and how to fish them from a highly experienced guide, who is also a great story teller.

In the Fly Box, we have these questions and tips:

  • How do I keep my fine scissors sharp?  What should I avoid cutting with them?
  • I have an 8 ½ foot 5 weight Encounter rod and need something bigger as well.  What weight rod should I think of for my next one?
  • A great tip on how to relieve lower back pain when fishing all day
  • Why don’t we have wild rainbow trout in more streams if they are so easy to grow in a hatchery?
  • What is causing my leader to twist when fishing with a dry dropper?
  • What are some good fly patterns to tie for panfish, ones that are easy for a beginner to tie?
  • What would cause a large brown trout to suddenly dart erratically in all directions and then return to the same spot?
  • What can I do to keep the tip of my floating line from sinking?
  • Why am I having so much trouble making short casts on small streams?
  • Is a 5-weight rod too small for bass?
  • Can Antron be used as a parachute post material?
  • Why do the wings on my poly wing spinners sweep back along the body and how can I fix it?
  • How would you approach an unknown stream if you only had a few hours to fish?

If you don’t see the “Play” button above, click here to listen.

Simon Perkins with a Battenkill brown trout caught on a dry fly.
Photo by Andrew Pierce

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