A great way to kill time while you’re driving to and from water is to listen to podcasts. I follow quite a few blogs and subscribe to a number of podcasts, one of which the Reno Fly Shop produces.

They recently interviewed Devin Olsen of Team USA. I really learned a lot about a great many things, and I really recommend it (link here).

They covered a lot of ground: fly selection, reading water, why you don’t want nymphs completely at the bottom while tightlining, and others.

One important topic they covered was how to play fish quickly. Devin says that he can bring in most fish within 30 seconds and that he can land a 20″+ fish within a minute. If you’ve seen the Modern Nymphing videos (here and here), you’ll see he isn’t exaggerating. He and Lance Egan are extremely efficient.

For a few years, I’ve been working on getting in fish as fast as possible. For me, the keys have been to keep low the rod to apply side pressure, utilize the fighting butt to exert a lot of pressure, slide the fish away from fast water, and keep it above me so that it must fight both the current and the fly rod.

Sometimes, things don’t work out as planned. But, fortunately, that has been pretty rare, particularly if I double-check my knots after making them, and if I think of where I would go if a fish bolted downstream and into white water.

With freestone temperatures rising rapidly during this heat wave, I hope you’ll consider racing the fish to the net.

Enjoy the podcast, and tight lines to all!