Mending on the Fly

Cicada Madness_Audition_Edit Mixdown 1
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Devin: [00:00:00] today we're lucky to wade into fly fishing, nature, and craftsmanship with a truly remarkable individual named Dave Zielinski. Dave's passion and expertise span fascinating realms of fly fishing, cicada emergences, and the art of wooden boat making.

He has pursued the cicada cycles around the States for decades, translating these natural phenomena into unparalleled fly fishing experiences. His journey from crafting his first drift boat to exploring the waters during the rare Cicada Emergences showcase a profound connection to nature and the waters he navigates.

Beyond his own adventures, Dave authored a book entitled Cicada Madness, and he crafts wooden embodying the spirit of fly fishing. His story is not just one of personal achievement, but a testament to the bonds formed through shared experiences on the water, a deep appreciation for local ecosystems and the continuous pursuit of knowledge.

Thank you [00:01:00] for joining me as I learn from the life and insights of Dave Zielinski, a man who lives at the confluence of tradition, passion, and the great outdoors. Dave. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to Mending on the Fly.

Dave: Hey, thanks for having me. That was that was a beautiful introduction.

Really great.

Devin: Before we get started, I don't even know where I saw this or heard this, but, you're from outside of Buffalo.

Dave: I am. Is that

Devin: right? Yeah. And I'm, I'm outside of Rochester and, and just a massive Buffalo Bills fan. . And I wonder if we share the heartache.

Dave: Mm. Well, or if you've moved on the Eagle, you and Steelers. My, yeah. You, you and my mom share the heartache. She's a crazy Bills fan. Yeah. But I, I did, I I grew up outside of Buffalo. Okay. In ma in matter of. In fact I could hear, we lived so close to Rich Stadium on the edge of Orchard Park in Hamburg, New York, that we could, we could hear, we could hear the [00:02:00] roar of the games.

You could hear the Grateful Dead when they played in July 4th. Right? No kidding. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. What part of Rochester are you from? Or like what? Penfield.

Devin: Penfield. Little town named Penfield. Yeah.

Dave: Yeah. I have friends that are still there. Oh really? Yeah.

Devin: Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, it's a small world.

Yeah, Penfield was a great little town to grow up in and yeah I miss it. Oh, yeah for sure. I mean, yeah, I especially miss the snow I I have to say that i'm a you know growing up there. It's like the snow

Dave: is you know What snow

Devin: is part of life? Yeah, so I miss it, but but anyways The way you start off your book,

right on the dedication page. Yep. You say that this book is dedicated to my father, who always had the time to take me fishing. Can you walk me through, , just your personal journey finding fly fishing? Yeah. , and the importance of your, [00:03:00] your father in that journey?

Dave: Yeah, I started fishing, my earliest memories are fishing.

I don't, I don't remember anything, my, I really mean that, my earliest memories are fishing. With my dad, and it wasn't fly fishing, it was, . Gear fishing, whatever kind of fishing didn't really matter. It was fishing. My dad loved to fish. Yeah. , but yeah, that, that's how it, that's how fishing started and just always wanting to be outside.

, you mentioned, football and the bills and stuff, but I, I never, I wasn't a sporting guy. I never, even from a young age, I never played a sport. I, I wanted, I liked the, , I liked. Adventure. I liked, I liked like individual things like, , riding bikes, racing bikes, jumping bikes in the woods on trails and skateboarding was a huge part of my life.

, and actually still is quite a bit. Actually, I, I, , if I scroll through my Instagram and any day, it's probably 50 percent skateboarding [00:04:00] and 50%. Yeah, probably 50 percent skateboarding, 30 percent fishing and 20%. Short haired dogs. That's hilarious.

Devin: Have you moved on to like longboards yet? Or are you still like shredding?

Dave: I wouldn't say I'm shredding, but I'm still rolling around for sure. And I'm on the verge of 50, so I think I'm still winning a little bit. But yeah, I still love it. I love to follow it. I love to, I love to do it. Of course, not to the level that I was when I was a teenager and all that. But yeah. My activities were kind of loner sports or whatever you want to call them, like skateboarding and riding bikes and all that and just love to be outside, be in the woods and my, my parents didn't ever pushed us towards sports or anything.

They were very like, I don't know, like hippies, try everything, try what you want, find what you love. , and it was, that was the greatest way to grow up. I, I, and I actually, that's how I raised my kids too. It's expose them to a ton of things and see what sticks and find your passion and all that.

[00:05:00] And, for me, it was, it was just being outside. It was, oh, it was always fishing. It was fishing, fishing, fishing, skateboarding, and then playing music and all that. And that was all my dad. Like my dad played music, my dad fished and everything. So take it to fly fishing, I was about the age 13 or so.

And my dad took me to one of these big, , well, like the Buffalo outdoor show is what he took me to actually big sporting show, with all the, all the outfitters and stuff would show up there and show their big mounts and they'd book trips and all that. When I started. I begged my dad for a fly rod and at that show, he bought me one, bought me a little self bend fiberglass kit and it's all be enough and, and, and sad enough.

Just recently Kathy Beck had just passed away a couple of days ago. She gave me my first flies. at that show. No kidding. Yeah. I wish I still had them. [00:06:00] But yeah, she, she, they had a booth there and a table. I didn't know who anybody was when I was 13 years old and , had my brand new South Bend rig, , and was carrying it around there and went over and there was flies and they were one of the few, if maybe the only fly fishing.

tables there at that big show. And I remember her giving me a little box of flies and there was just like, six or eight patterns in there and stuff. Absolute legend. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The originals, some of the originals, right? Yeah. So that's, that was, that was the start of it. And then , didn't know anybody who fly fish.

My dad didn't know anybody fly fish. So it was a lot of just , he would bring books home for me and I would read those books and. Try to emulate and, , go out in the yard and ruin a fly line on the grass and didn't know how to zoom, but learning and then just taking it to the water and then doing it.

, I told the story before on, in other places, but , my first trout on a fly. [00:07:00] Was, , in one of those tributaries to Lake Erie there around, around Buffalo, , around Hamburg there, it was actually 18 Mile Creek, which if you know that between Hamburg and Eden, right on the west side of west side of Buffalo.

Yeah, Westside. So, he took me, I begged him to go fishing. That's where that dedication comes from. As I think that I begged him to take me fishing that day and he took me. And he always, he, he wasn't too hard to twist his arm to take you fishing. So he took me fishing and, , I took that fly rod.

I only took that fly rod. And, , I remember I, didn't know whatever. I, I threw that, that fly in and it was actually a dry fly. It was actually an Adams and it was sinking. So I didn't know sinking, floating, whatever, never seen a mayfly hatch by then probably. , and , it was fall. So steelhead were running the great lake steelhead and, , I threw that fly in there and, , , I watched it sunk and went under and one of those shale ledges and all that.

And I watched the fly line. [00:08:00] Move forward. I was like set the hook and blew up. It was a great like My first my first trout was like 20 some inch, steelhead landed it and everything took it home Oh, I had ate it and that's day one. Yeah, that was pretty much one of the first ones. Yeah. Oh, man Yeah,

Devin: yeah, that's got it.

The tug is the drug that yeah that got set early

Dave: Yeah. Yeah. So that was the start of it. Yeah. Yeah. So you were, you

Devin: were young, like 13 ish, I guess, around that time. , But then you wind up in Pennsylvania. Yeah. Where's the, where's the move from, ,

Dave: yeah. So the fly fishing thing, 10 to 13, somewhere in there, I don't know, something like that.

And then, but, so , my mom's family was from, , outside of Erie, Pennsylvania, and lived out in the country there. Dirt Road, old farm. It's been in the family a long [00:09:00] time. And they, , we would go visit there. It wasn't very far. It was , an hour and a half or something away from home in New York.

And, , the farm down the road had this beautiful farm pond. And, , I would just, I'd walk down there and fish it all day from morning till dark, that's where I was going to be full of big large mouth bass. And I would just catch every one of them in there and bluegills and everything. So I was like really learning how to fish.

That was my, . That was my training grounds. So that Pennsylvania connection starts there. So we'd spend a lot of our time in the summers there. My grandparents lived there and I would stay with them for weeks at a time in the summer when school goes out and all that just to be there just to be able to go fishing.

I just love to be outside. And what

Devin: an adventure too. If it's that kind of off the beaten path. Yeah,

Dave: It was like It's not dirt anymore, but it was a dirt road, dusty dirt road. And you take your bike and your gear and ride it, as far down the road and go to this pond and stay there all day, take food, whatever.

[00:10:00] And , there's no cell phones. There's no, it was like such simple time. And it was just like fish. It was pretty hardcore. It was, it was great. And then, , as a kid, you have your BB guns and whatever, and you're out right. Do anything you want. , there's woods and. , no one really, they knew where I was going to be.

I was going to be somewhere running around the woods or creek or pond. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. And then so, Quite the crucible. Yeah, right. It, it, it, you're always chasing for that again too, right? It's really funny how that comes back around because, , that left, that leaves an impression and if you skip a whole bunch of years, if you look where I ended up now, , I live in a very similar situation on a little old road in the country with a farm pond down the road and, , woods all around and, , neighbors that let you trespass and everything else.

And it's just, it's some, it's a funny thing to think about that. It just comes back around, , it's, it's really cool. But if you rewind, [00:11:00] yeah, yeah. It's part of who you are. But if you rewind and like the Pennsylvania thing is there, I, I ended up, so out of through high school, finished high school in New York there.

And then, , I ended up at Penn State and, , went to college there and then, , ended up in Pennsylvania that way. But around the, around my senior year, first year of college, like there was the, it was the, the, the, . Kind of tragic times in our family is my, , my parents were actually in transition of moving from New York.

And my grandparents had given them a piece of property where they were going to build their dream home. And in the middle of that, like literally a hole dug, a first floor up, my dad ended up having a fatal heart attack and dying. I was 18, 19, whatever you are, your first year of college, first semester.

Didn't finish just took the like leave [00:12:00] of absence and had to deal with all that kind of stuff. And , so my, my, we were, they were in the process of moving there and I was already in, in, in school and college. My older brother was at Fredonia actually university. And , My younger brother was 10 and so it was hard times for a number of years there, three or four years.

I ended up just working and And then I ended up going back to school. Always felt that I needed to go back. I worked some pretty crappy jobs and was like, this probably isn't the future. I should go back to school, finish school and stuff, but I ended up remaining in Pennsylvania and then moving South to I'm about 45 minutes to an hour east of Pittsburgh.

We are gonna delve into the

Devin: The mental health aspects or benefits that fly fishing can provide. , but before I forget, I, I know you said Penn State, , [00:13:00] did you ever, were you able to take a class with Joe Humphreys, , or interact with him at all?

Dave: No, I mean, I've interacted with him and George Daniel is the, the latest guy in those, in those shoes. , but no, so clarification, , I went to Penn State, I went to a branch campus. I went to Penn State Barron, which is outside of Erie. So that's where I went to school, but I spent a lot of time in center county, , in central PA.

So no, didn't, wasn't able to take those courses cause those were all, those were at main campus. Okay.

Devin: Yeah. I mean what a dream it would have been to

Dave: take those too. Yeah. I've talked to all those guys, Greg Hoover at the time was, was entomology department. So something there for a while.

And then Joe for a long time, seeing Joe on the, on the stream. Several times. And, , George Daniel talked to, I'll actually see him this weekend. And then, , we have a, we have a TU show here and he's, he's presenting at it. Oh, cool. Okay. [00:14:00] But yeah, , I did, I went to this branch campus, so we didn't have that course, , intro to fly fishing.

And so

Devin: has. Has this passion of yours for the water or the outdoors, has that now spread to your kids at all? Or are they just into totally different stuff? And I ask because I've got two boys, a two and a four year old. I don't know if you could just hear them crying in the hallway not too long ago. , thank you Chrissy, if you're listening for putting them to bed tonight, but , yeah, has it spread to them yet?

Have they,

Dave: do they have the itch? , they, they, so I've, taken them all, and, and it's fun because they, they do, and I think, I think we leave this, , as, when you're young like that, you, you, you come, sometimes you come and. Leave things like you do things for a while and then you leave it and then you come back to it and whatever, , I know a lot of friends now who, , left skateboarding behind back in their teens, but they're coming [00:15:00] back to it now.

, it's funny. It's, it's, but it's, it's a part of your fabric, I think. But with my kids, , we. We did a, we did a lot of time outdoors, spent a lot of time in the boats, , on the water and, never pushing it, but always at, always taking them and always invite, like bringing them along.

And I can remember, all of the times my kids caught great fish or shot a turkey or whatever, , , it, it is, and they don't, they, they're just on different parts of their life. , my youngest is still, so I have a 22 year old, , who's graduating college this year, which is crazy to me.

Nice, congrats. Yeah, thanks. And then I have one that's 20, and then, , and she's in her second year college and then, , I have a 16 year old home and, , you know, we've done different things with all of them. My oldest,, she, , so you know how it is like when you have the first kid and then the second one comes along, it's like kind of dad gets the [00:16:00] first kid and that's what happened, right?

So like I would take, actually I took her in one of those backpacks, 20. Two years ago, every Sunday I'd take her brookie fishing when she was tiny, six months, eight months, a year old, whatever I'd walk her around and fish and whatever. And we'd do that kind of thing. And, and then she was my buddy. Like we, we'd fish a lot in the boat.

She'd row and cast and catch fish and whatever. And it was always a good time. And, my middle one likes. Not so much as crazy about the fishing, but loves the outdoors and , I've taken her on Western trips and we hike and whatever. And it's pretty cool. She plays my photographer when I catch fish and whatnot.

Yeah. She, she just loves to be out, out in the wilderness and stuff. So that's cool. That's awesome. And then the younger one, , I say this to a lot of people, she probably can row, row a drift boat better than most of my buddies. I, yeah. Is she just she's natural. I watch her like I never, [00:17:00] I've taught her a few things and then like when we're in the boat and I just sit behind her and watch her and I'm like, she feels it.

She feels the water and like she just a subtle or stroke this or that. Like I can tell like that's, you can't teach that. It's it's become intuition and , it's pretty cool. And I was like, yeah. That's pretty neat.

Devin: Maybe she'll be guiding or something out in, Colorado, San Miguel or something.

That'd be

Dave: cool. Yep.

Devin: So before we get into cicadas and drift boats, which , just learning that your dad passed when you were 18. My dad passed later, but the morning my oldest son was born. And and so there was this like. Obviously, there's a lot of emotion that day.

You got

Dave: the whole thing. A variety of emotion.

Devin: But that and, and going back to what you said about taking a pause. I mean like when I was [00:18:00] nine, my parents brought me to my first Orvis store. And got me , casting lessons and, and., the basic 35 fly time kit at the time.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And so, I would tie like enormous pink, they weren't flies. They were just art projects, at that

Dave: point. Yeah. There were no rules. There were no rules.

Devin: , I mean, I still do that to some degree. Yeah. But took a long break from fly fishing. When my dad passed.

I realized something happened and I was able to kind of like get a more realistic picture of my own emotions somehow. I don't even know if that really explains it, but that's, I guess how I felt. And then, fast forward a year. We were overseas and then we returned to the States and I rediscovered fly fishing again in like 2021 and how for me, , it's, it's now a pillar of my mental health is, is just [00:19:00] getting outside fly fishing is really.

The main way I can do that and go explore these random corners of Maryland and Virginia. , So how much did your father's death impact your fly fishing? , did you just stop fly fishing or, ,

Dave: did it? I think I did it more. Were you able to help? Yeah. It was the easiest escape.

I mean, it was just, it was the easiest escape to like, to completely just go and wait, wait in a river and just be focused on something, fisherizing on the, far bank and getting trying to get a right drift and for like fleeting moments, you were normal. Yep. Yeah Yeah,

Devin: it's and then I saw on brood five your video , which is available on youtube and on the website for anyone that's interested.

It's great video. Really well put together and I think [00:20:00] You know not only highlights you and your drift boats, but, , just the, the spirit of fly fishing in general. But there's one point in the video where you guys have a car accident,, and like a little spat before, yeah, a little car accident.

But you know, in the video, I was grateful that you guys mentioned that you decided to just hop in the drift boat and go fish for a few minutes before. Getting everybody on board and, and heading down the river, . Can you just talk about that and that decision and

Dave: how it's cleared your head a little bit?

So with fly fishing and me, it's something that we obsess about. And if you're like me, I mean. I, I, I don't think I can make it through the day without fishing, , thinking about fishing. Huh? Yeah. So it's a fabric of like who you are and it's a part of you and you're, you're who you are because of a lot of things.

It's your life experiences. It's what you love, what you live for, what you, , everything, the [00:21:00] music you listen to all this stuff. And if you take any of that stuff away, you start to be less of who you are, I think. So, , I get, I, text, text a buddy and be like, I did this the other day. It's , man, I really need to touch a fish.

I really need to touch a fish. It's been a while. So, , it's that kind of thing. Like you're, you're, you definitely need it. But like in the, in that film, yeah, one way street made a left turn, tone a drift boat, and this guy was flying, blew a red light, and I didn't see him until he was. In my in my mirror in my car.

Yeah. Yeah, and , it was a bad day for for him He told me you know, he told me he's I'm sorry, you know I I didn't see you there and I probably you know made a mistake too I was doing a lane change and whatnot and , it just sucked all the way around and , that guy told me, he's , my, my father died this morning.

And it's Oh God, you don't need this. Like it's, no one needed it. So it sucked, but everybody was okay. And, , yeah, then we [00:22:00] got the, the truck take, you couldn't drive it. It totally, totally the front end. And, . Like my left wheel was laying sideways. So he's broke, broke tire rod, broke control arm and all that.

So, , they get towed it off and we were we were waiting for the other guys to run back to camp to get another truck and and Wade James who filmed that and put that all together gets all the credit for making that film. I mean He did a phenomenal, he's a videographer and did a phenomenal job with the product.

Yeah, it was a, it was a beautiful film. Super well done. Could be like amazing. And he is, he's made some other scents that are just out of this world. But, , I was just like, man, I, I just need to get out, I just need to go out, just go feel the water and, , clear my head and whatever, and then. And , we are all, we were all in a bad mood and yelling at each other and whatever.

So we all made up and, and got on with the fishing and it was therapeutic for everybody. , I can remember even that day, like you just, [00:23:00] we just wrecked a truck and could have been worse and this and that and you shook up and that shook up feeling hangs around. But I can remember that day that, that, that feeling didn't hang around a lot, very long because it's, We were fishing and the fishing was so good that day and the cicadas were screaming, all was right with the world.

Yeah. It fixed it, right, in a matter of minutes. Yeah,

Devin: yeah. Yeah. Right, and it could have been anything. I mean, you could have just woken up upset about something. Yeah. , yeah, I find that fly fishing can have the same effect. Even if it's not just like a singular incident or something like that, it's like broader anxieties or whatever, I mean, that stuff just disappears when you're on the water.

Dave: Yeah, it's, , it's definitely therapeutic for, , for me, I mean, I, I maybe dangerously sometimes it's an escape [00:24:00] that it's just, , and sometimes you don't want to deal with something, you go and escape, I'm going to go run off to the woods and fish, but maybe that gives you also clarity on how to deal with whatever you'd been dealing with, .

I get. Like I've run out of here. I work from home and you know run out of here of like just I, I like my job and, and stuff, but, , there's days you, everybody has those days and things are coming at you from every angle and whatever. And it's Oh man, I just need to run down to the pond before dinner.

And it's, it's walking distance and, and go and catch 10 bluegill on a dry fly. And then you, then you sit there and you go, man, why don't I do this more often? It's right here. And it's take advantage of it. Don't, don't let it become, just take it for granted, and then you're better and you walk home and you're clear again.

And now you're like, okay, I have perspective on tomorrow then here's what I'm going to tackle first and all that. So for sure. Yeah. We need that.

Devin: It's, it's like [00:25:00] such an important healthy pause to take, especially before you hit reply all.

Dave: Oh yeah, dude. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta walk away. It feels good to write that email or whatever.

Save it. Don't hit send. Yeah. Delete it. Delete it. Get it out. And then go take a walk and go fish. Right. And it's, and I mean, I tell you like, I don't know how old you are, but I told you I'm on the verge of 50. So we remember this world. You're about. You're about

Devin: 10 years ahead

Dave: of me, but you look 10 years younger.

Nah, there's no way. Well, thank you, but I don't believe you. You're being nice. No, you look good. It's all that skateboarding. Yeah. , but the the the, the, the, the, the childhood we grew up with. I mentioned the dirt road. You go and find me a dirt road today. And, and, we are so bombarded with.

Everything. But every second of the day, the phone, the whatever, we're all guilty of it. I'm guilty of it [00:26:00] too. Instagram and all that stuff. You're in, in what's dangerous about that stuff is the comparison it has on yourself. Right. So if you'd be like, Oh, look at this guy, he's travels everywhere and catches fish everywhere.

And why can't I, and, don't fall into that stuff. Yep. There's great things right around you like don't don't lose sight and that was It's just it's hard for kids today. I I don't I don't I don't envy him. It's well, that's great

Devin: advice. I mean, even me, I'm, just getting into this, , I wasn't on Facebook for probably 12 years, 14 years, but getting into this now with the podcast and just trying to start something, we'll see where it goes.

I mean, it's heavy. The only way to do it is through social media. I know. And man, the draw is

Dave: yeah,

Devin: it's there. It's real. And, , , checking the analytics and doing this and that when I could be out fly fishing or tying a couple flies. It's, , an important perspective to [00:27:00] remember for

Dave: sure.

Yeah. I, , I wrote a book in the, , in the social media age and nobody reads books or something. I don't know. Or , but my book sold pretty well. It's still selling pretty well, but, but you're right. To sell a, to sell a book. And you have to have Instagram. You have to have social media. You have to have a presence in the thing is you are irrelevant if you don't post every day and I don't post every day and I can see it in what you said, the analytics and stuff.

And it's , man, you made a big banger post a couple of days ago and it got all this attention and then you did another one and it went up and then it was like. It's a cliff. I took three days off, and it's , here it has been. You don't exist anymore. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Devin: Yeah. Right. It's important. , yeah, you gotta go into it purposefully and understand that, , it's just gonna be what it is.

, I mean, unless your goal is to have, hundreds of thousands of followers and subscribers and then you got to grind, but , then you're not fly fishing either. You're

Dave: [00:28:00] not. Yeah. I, I mean, it's something for everybody. That's not for me. I, I, what I, what I like about, about it. We can take that.

That's a, that's an interesting avenue, but like I've met, I met you here, right? So, , I met some people who've become, lifelong friends. Through all this stuff. So there's not all this you you'll find your little group and I think that's cool I don't want I don't need that hundred thousand follower group or 1 million follower group, but like that that small Connection like I have I have a I have a thing on my Instagram right now with all these guys That are just like me that are about the same age that fly fished and skateboarded and listened to punk rock music.

And we all have this common thing and we, we have, I've never met half of most of these people in real life. But we created this little group and we send videos of, skate tricks or punk rock stuff. I [00:29:00] found a flyer the other day from an old show and I. Took a picture of it and posted it to 'em and they were like, oh my God, I saw them in 1989.

And it's like you found your people and I love that.

Devin: Yeah. right. That's a great point. Yeah. I would not have found you, I wouldn't have found Susan Gates, who I just talked to from casting for recovery and Allie Cunningham from Science on the Fly. So yeah, right there, there are good aspects.

, it's just the balance.

Dave: Yeah. Yeah. So put down. Yeah. Yeah. So. Cicadas. Yeah.

Devin: I've not read your entire book yet, but I did get through a good chunk of it. The, obviously I'm looking more at the, the Maryland side of things, , and Pennsylvania, but, , I know, oh, we have a guest. Oh, cool. My two year old's coming in.

Sorry.

Dave: Hey.

Devin: Oh, is mama doing your nap time? Okay. Okay. Good night, Jax. Love you.

Dave: Okay. [00:30:00] Sorry.

Devin: Yeah, he's,

Dave: he's a wild man.

Devin: , yeah, he's, yeah, he, I mean, he's going to be a ham and I can't wait to see it. , So the, the book, so I've learned, I knew next to nothing about cicadas before starting to research, , for our chat.

, , and I'm certainly not an expert now, but I can give the broad overview that there are, , certain species with a 17 year cycle, a 13 year cycle in some regions and countries there are, , annual cycles. , you've got some great. Charts in here for folks that might be interested, , like on pages 33 and 34, there's great charts for the U.

S. , where you really give this specific, cycles , and the coloration and notes and body size so that you can tie your flies [00:31:00] accordingly. , which is incredibly helpful. So thank you for doing that by the way. , that should be a major selling point of the book I think. Why don't we start with just your kind of broad overview of what And, , and then I've got a list of some pretty specific questions,

Dave: But yeah, we can, I can dive right into that.

, so one of the largest groups of. Insects in existence is the cicada. There's probably 3, 000 to 3, 500 different species globally, worldwide. , and in particular, so my book in particular, the scope is limited to North America and, , there's, , there's some, there's a, there's a, there's a group of cicadas that are very, very interesting that only exists in North America, and these are the periodical cicadas.

A cicada is what's known as a true bug, and a true bug is characterized by a couple things. [00:32:00] They have this long beak, like a straw, on their face. They don't have a mouth, but that's their mouth parts. And that is used solely to Pierce into vegetation and suck out the sap and that's the food and

Devin: and I think I read that appendage.

Mm hmm is with them for their entire life.

Dave: Yeah. Yeah, they have it. Yeah, that's not they don't use it much as adults But yeah, so it's a it's a terrestrial insect. So this is not a but what's what's Crazy for us. And what's interesting for us is, , we've all heard a hopper fishing and cricket fishing and other terrestrials, but, , cicada is also a terrestrial.

It lives underground for most of its life. And, and when it emerges, it morphs into an adult winged insect. So it's it sheds its nymphal shuck, just like a lot of our aquatic bugs and a lot of other different kinds of bugs. And then flies around, the whole purpose is to mate and die. Just like our mayflies.

Right? Just like our [00:33:00] cataclysms. This is a ground animal though, so it comes out of the earth. So in the United States, which is just the weirdest thing, , is, is And this is funny because the books dated already, but there was just this, how science is, there's always something being discovered, especially in the natural world.

They just found that somewhere in Africa, they've identified a periodical species and periodical means that, what does periodical mean? Periodical means that all, all the members of that family of insect emerge in a synchronized fashion. So. They're all happening at once. They are not some happening this year, some happening next year.

They are, they're an age class of themselves. And in this case, 13 years or 17 years. And they, so in the, in the. 2004, there was [00:34:00] an emergence, and then 17 years later, which is this year, , the babies, the eggs survived into bugs that emerged. All of them will hatch. There would be No leftovers, they will all synchronized emergent.

So that's the key about periodical cicadas and it only exists in the United States. And then this new identified species somewhere in Africa. , and that's just this year, like Just found this out, like new information, right? Because your

Devin: book was published in 2023,

Dave: right? Yeah. Came out in October. Yeah. , So, but like crazy, crazy stuff.

It's awesome. Yeah. , yeah, very cool. So, , the other kind of cicada is much similar to. A lot of the other bugs that you know, , and these would be annual species, right? So what is an annual species means that every year there's some population of bugs that happen. Some years there might be more. And [00:35:00] some years there might be a little bit less, but you're always going to be able to find them.

So when we talk about annual cicadas, , where you live in Maryland, where I live in Pennsylvania is about the same. You're just a little bit south of me, but August, July, August, September, you're every year going to have some annual cicadas. , and these, these will emerge quietly and, they'll go and find their mates and you'll hear them singing and where they are.

There's more you're going to hear him congregate and saying, but it's not going to be this. The difference is there's not going to be a billion bugs, right? Well, that's interesting. So, cause we

Devin: had the 20, 23, was it just last year that we

Dave: had a huge emergence or brood

Devin: X in 2021. Okay. So I was here for that.

, but then, yeah, it's always , we, we go camping a lot and all that, but. I'm always like, why are there still cicadas? That's a, like that can't be,

Dave: but annuals, yep, which are [00:36:00] highly fishable. , I love fishing annual cicadas in the late summer. About the time when the kids, kids go back to school.

It is awesome. It's hunting season. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ,

Devin: What are, particularly for the 17 year periodicals? Mm hmm. What are the evolutionary benefits to the extended periods being underground, , as

Dave: compared to other insects? So the cool thing about cicadas is there's some science that's proven and there's a lot of, we think.

Theory. Mystery and theory. Yeah. And I love that. I, I think it's cause, , people are studying it all the time and learning new things. And there's a lot of really We talked about technology, but there's a lot of new technology that's really helping, , understand periodical cicadas and the why anymore.

But, , to answer your question, so it's, it's believed to be an evolutionary thing. So I [00:37:00] talk about this a bit in the book of there, there was some parent specie that had a, . That had a life cycle lengthening that maybe occurred due to, again, here's what we think, due to , climatic change events, , natural disasters, all this kind of stuff that kind of forced them, like an ice age kind of forced them to freeze or something, right?

Or whatever. Yeah. Killed things off or whatever. So there's all these things. There's, there's, there's speculation about. The regionality of the periodical cicadas, if you look at them, and you look at where all the little different broods occur, and the broods are the age class years, so you mentioned brood X.

, this year it's XIX and XIII, and next year is XIV. They're divided into the year of [00:38:00] emergence with these Roman numerals. But if you look at the map, they all fit together. So, the idea, yeah, the idea there is that they got shifted around somehow, , and it could be geological shifts, , interesting that the Great Lakes are north of us, and all this stuff is around the Great Lakes and south, and pushing towards the Great Lakes, if you look from the Appalachians, towards the Great Lakes.

So these land shifts, again, lots of theories, I'm not a scientist, but man, I've read everything about it, and, and talk to scientists about it, and there's just. these speculative events, but they evolved, the periodical cicadas evolved from a single parent species that they think had this, life cycle lengthening.

And then it settled in that some around like 13 years was the length of the life cycle, and then things got moved around. And then because of natural events, there was accelerations. And [00:39:00] the, the, Some of these bugs emerged late and the, the offspring of those just evolved into 17 year cycle. So there's some sort of, , , some sort of divergence from that parent species in a couple directions that created this handful of periodical cicadas and I go in this in pretty great detail in the book of these, , different species of cicadas.

, they are all classified under the, the magi cicada, , , name. , and there's, there's one called a septendecim, , septendecula, and then a Cassini and there's a 13 year version of each of those and there's a 17, 17 year version of each of those. , and they, the differences is a little bit bigger, little bit smaller coloration is still black and orange.

Some are more orange. Some are more black, but a real character characterization of them is [00:40:00] they won't interbreed because the males. That sing, sing of a specific frequency to attract a female that can only respond to that frequency. So and, and

Devin: they'll, they'll be emerging at the same time at the same time.

Yeah. So all the songs, the males are all, so you might have three different frequencies.

Dave: Huh. That's incredible. It's crazy. It's, it's really crazy. And it's just so happens like these are, you see the divergence from the parent group right there. And scientists study this and they're like, they're all 17 year cicadas.

And there's these three groups, three subspecies and they don't intermingle, they only mate with their own. And when they record the male singing frequencies, . Yeah, that's how they identify them, , they can tell, , that's a group of Kessonites, and that's a group of Septendeculas, and whatever.

Can you

Devin: have all three in the same spot, and they'll, [00:41:00] they're , oh god, what is the term? My biology teacher's going to kill me, but the, No, your

Dave: biology teacher's going to be happy you're actually talking about this. Yeah, well, they,

Devin: I mean, they, they, they, they're not predatory on one another.

Dave: No, not at all. Okay. No, they don't care. They're, you're, you're next to me and you're, a different species, whatever. It doesn't, and do we know

Devin: that that original, that first parental pair, do we know how long ago?

Dave: Yeah. It's in the, I'm sorry I haven't gotten through the book yet, but it's, it's in there.

It's in there and,, three, 3.9 million years ago was the parent species, 3.9 million. And then a divergence, , 2. 5 million years ago and then another, , half a million years. So yeah, interesting. There's a, there's a kind of a family tree in the book as well that you can, you can look at in, .

And then study and for to a fly angler, it doesn't really mean much back to your one [00:42:00] question. Do they coexist in the same area? And the answer is yes. And, in early emergencies that I've fished years and years ago, we never paid attention. They were just cicadas. It didn't really care. Like we didn't.

We didn't really understand the science or really go deep into it and in whatever and mostly lucked into those those events But then understanding a little bit about them. I can tell you a brood X where I fished in brood X for a whole month You you you could tell the difference in the calls You could start to hear the differences and then go and look and then you would find these huge groups of Giant big orange bellied ones, right?

Which were the the septum deculas and then go on the far south end of the body of water And the little black ones which are cassin eyes were over there. So they're all occurring. It was their year to to emerge And that's just why I'm [00:43:00] Same kind of general area. Yeah, it's crazy. It's that that's I mean, that's why it's cicada madness and yeah Apocalypse you use all the terms you want like it's just yeah, freak of nature

Devin: Not to bore anglers to death but I mean I'm personally interested in the science behind it so obviously cicadas are known for their, the mass emergencies, , particularly the periodicals that we have in North America. , but what, what role do they play in the ecosystem and how do these emergencies Yeah,

Dave: this is, this is a profound piece of their story, of Cicada's story and what they offer.

. And yeah, it, and if you, you study up on the, the, again, the, the parent species and why the, why are there all these different subspecies that are just periodical, you can actually start to look at the map of the U. S. and then see, , the 13 year ones are in [00:44:00] a, themselves and the 17s are in another area, but they fit together like a puzzle piece.

It's the craziest thing. So they're, it's just crazy evolution things. So the effect on the ecosystem system starts at the ground level. So, , I mentioned they have this beak, , proton is the word for it. , if you're a scientist, I probably said it wrong. I like it. , but it's a straw that comes off.

Take the beak. Yeah. And they poke it into the roots of trees and suck the xylem or the sap, and that's where they get their, their, , food from. And, there's thoughts that the amount of. Juvenile nymph cicadas under the soil is aerating the soil because they're big, right? They grow fast. The holes are like the size of a quarter.

Yeah, the holes are holes are about the size Maybe between a diamond and nickel, but that's a big hole, right? And they run they run three feet deep typically, right? [00:45:00] So The, they do aeration through moving around the tree root system, and then the, it's not well understood, but at the underground level there, there's likely an effect on the tree itself for.

It's, , it's gathering of water or whatever, like that. They, they actually help there or act as , pruners on the root system because as adults, they do the same thing, but they come out of the ground and they create these holes, which aerates the soil. So there's that. Talk of that. The sec once they're up above ground, they're edible

Devin: So Yeah, I, well, in brood five, I saw you guys eating them, so Oh, yeah.

Dave: Yeah. We don't eat, we don't eat a lot of 'em. , but you gotta, it's a rite a passage for a cicada emergence, man. You gotta, you gotta, I'm gonna have

Devin: to get on that train soon.

Dave: Yeah. It's not bad. . But once they [00:46:00] become above ground, they're edible and everything eats them.

So, , what you'll see if you go snooping around the woods at night, you're going to find skunks, raccoons, everything getting these bugs right fresh from the ground as they start to crawl up a tree. To, to, to crack out of their shell and become a winged adult. And so, that starts, , Every bird will eat him.

I watch robins and blackbirds and grackles and everything eat him around my house. And, and birds that'll normally So everything, when that food source is available, they switch to that food source, and they eat till they're sick, they eat till they can't eat anymore, or they don't want to eat it anymore.

, so, you're gonna find all kinds of weirdness going on. We find snakes eating them, we find turtles hunting them and eating them. , I've seen those big, giant fox squirrels on the river. Yeah. The big gray squirrels that are like red faced, like fox squirrels. [00:47:00] Eating those, eating cicadas like crazy and Mm-Hmm.

They're normally not eating that stuff, but like when it's on, it's on, , in Pennsylvania they, the game commission did a study about cicada years and said directly following a cicada year, Turkey populations boom every time. So, , just that mass amount of food, , that's available. So, the food interjection to the environment, we haven't even talked about fish yet, but, , is huge.

Everything will eat them. Will deer, deer will eat them too? I, I, I would imagine they eat some. I've seen deer eat, I've seen, I just saw a video of a deer eating a snake. It's the weirdest thing. Oh, interesting.

Devin: Yeah, , I just wonder, cause I know, I think it's just your standard white tail, the, the babies will feed on the mom's milk through fall, but then come like the end of fall, it's like they need to start eating on their own.

But yeah, that [00:48:00] whole time that the like energy consumption that the mom's going through, depending on what's around her, it's, I wonder if there's a,

Dave: I would imagine. Yeah, George Daniels shares a story and it's in the book about. Seeing a black bear and fan and cub every day, every day, just picking them off trees,

Devin: just eating all day and stuff.

So , yeah, when it's available, they'll, they'll eat them. I mean, the best example of that is our carp and when you get through the book, you're going to find that there's this love affair we have with cicadas and carp. . Because it's quite possibly the finest game fish that eats cicadas, if you can imagine.

But a carp is a down facing fish. Spends its life on the bottom, eating stuff off the bottom. And it's built for that. Its eyes are down facing, so it can see down and not up. , but somehow, and I could [00:49:00] tell you how in this book, the, the Cicada, the carp learns that at some point there's all this food that's floating on top and , they switch over to it exclusively for the duration of an emergence until it's gone.

That is amazing. And. I mean, that's a prime example of a fish that normally doesn't look up and eat up, finds it somehow and then begins to hunt it. Yeah, right. And, but like changes behavior. Yeah. Yeah. Consistent, , changes a consistent behavior quickly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Really interesting.

It's a, it's pretty amazing. , it is, , and I talk about the light bulb moment in the, in the book of witnessing a carp kind of realize that those things are falling out of the [00:50:00] sky and I'm going to go get my own, like pretty crazy to, to, to see and all that stuff, but yeah, the, , you, you said it great there, like they, they altered their behavior to eat this Food source that normally isn't available.

Yeah, and I I believe the things are that the nature is connected Right like nature provides these things for a reason. There's a reason it all goes together right when you when you take the When you make when you put dams up in the Pacific Northwest And we wonder why steelhead numbers are down like come on You took away spawning habitat and you silted in the stuff above it and everything else.

It's not the same anymore there's, nature has a way of taking care of itself, so these cicadas are there for a reason, and I think the Native Americans also spoke of it as a year of abundance that follows when these things would happen. Right, everybody's just, everybody's [00:51:00] fat, dumb, and everybody's eating, everybody's eating, more young survive whatever, but the, the cool thing about to finish the cycle there is the other environmental impact that the, the cicada has is.

When the female cicada lays her eggs, she has this saw like blade, the ovipositor, on her abdomen. This thing retracts, and she has this ability to slice through bark in trees. Oh, yeah, you've got a picture of that on one of the pages. Yeah. And that's how She will deposit her eggs, and then the eggs will quickly turn into larvae.

And that fresh young bark, when you cut that, what does it do? It bleeds sap, right? And then some of that dies. So when you go post emergence, like weeks after the last cicada is gone, you drive around and you'll see all the trees [00:52:00] have dead leaves. And they'll see them, they'll see these oak leaves that are hanging down, brown, crispy, dried out, dead, and they'll fall to the ground.

And that's, again, nature's They, they've been dubbed nature's pruners for that reason. So they're taking care of trees in some manner there through that. And, there's, there's belief that that's all necessary.

What sort of concerns are there around cicadas and, and climate change?

Well, I think. I think there is some and what is going to be interesting is, is because of my advanced age, we'll be coming around to cicada emergences that I have fished before a couple of times. So having that previous knowledge and data and dates on, when did the first one ha, when did the first one emerge?

And then when was it fishable? And Is there going to be an acceleration? Is some of the thought about it. Everything else is happening [00:53:00] sooner. Like another divergence that might I don't know if and scientists are studying that. Is there a possibility of, , , brood expansion or extinction, and there has been extinctions before there used to be a, like a Long Island, New York brood that has didn't show itself in its year.

So they, they've died out and it's not like they'll come back. Periodical cicada, it was supposed to be there. And if it didn't happen, it's done. So when you talk like climate change, it's an interesting thing that, there's speculation that their periodicity is because of some climate change, and there they, and through studying the bugs, like they've been a product of evolving through pretty crazy things, if you think 3.

9 million years ago. And sure. So lots of different events. They actually probably had the benefit of being [00:54:00] underground for, for times, and things like that. So, when we talk about conservation, we talk about what, what concerns us around cicadas, it comes down to , wild habitat and keeping it wild and mature trees and, they need, as, as explained, they need to feed on tree roots when they're young and they're underground and they need to lay their eggs in trees.

So if you take a hillside that had a, a million cicadas on it, And you deforest it, and you build it into condos and parking lots, they're, they're gone. They're not, and if you, if you pave over a cicada, tries to go up, he's stuck. He's not going to burrow through, , burrow through, , concrete. There is some interesting, , , some scientists studied some of that and like actually dug and whatever.

And they, they actually did castings of cicada emergencies, the holes, they poured like plaster down them [00:55:00] and then dug them up and they found yeah, they found like there was, they were trying to go under a sidewalk and they, they ended up making their way out like, Oh, that's awesome. , but that's not all of them.

Right. So, , there is that, there is that concern about like urban expansion. And, , loss of that kind of habitat is, is become less and less wild. , but there's survivors. , when I, when you, when you go to the Savage, you talk about Savage River and all that, like that, that area had Brood X in, , 2021.

You go to that big Savage wilderness and you look at it and you're like, that probably is always going to be like that. There's probably, there's always going to be skaters there, and that's a good feeling. Yeah, it is a good feeling. Especially when you see, developments popping up all over.

Yeah. , so you mentioned that Native Americans, , at least some refer to it as the Year of the Plenty. Yeah. , can you talk at [00:56:00] all about, , , and I know, Like the cicadas we're talking about are here in the U. S., but what sort of, , like myths or symbols cicadas have represented to various people, be it here in the U.

S. or around the world? Yeah, I didn't study that a ton, but I mean, I, it's, it's always an interesting thing. Like a lot of cultures do hold the cicada in high regard as rebirth. And then, , I know like Marseille, France is they have a symbol of a cicada. Everything is cicadas there when you go there.

You can go to any gift shop and it's all cicada stuff. Really? But yeah, I don't, I'm not an expert on it, so, , Yeah. But, , yeah, a lot, I know it's culturally a lot of, I mean, there was some cicada jewelry carved jade things that were dug up, and they're cicadas so they held some significance to cultures, yeah.

Yeah. And, what sort of, so, you've been looking at this [00:57:00] for, for a while, , and through kind of the, the computer revolution starting in the 90s, and what sort of impact have, you Technological advances, like whether it's drone surveillance or whatever, , or, or, or other, human based techniques, , how have those advances affected or, or revolutionized our understanding of cicadas?

Yeah, it's actually a pretty relevant question because so, so personally for me, the internet. It's become easier and easier to determine where we're going to go and try to fish cicadas because of the availability of information on the internet. So if you go rewind the clock and go back to 2008, say, 2008 would have been Brood XIV in [00:58:00] central Pennsylvania.

Go back further to the internet in the late 90s. And, and information availability, it was a fraction of what you have today. So it wasn't, it wasn't our primary way to mine information about where are we going to go fish cicadas. It was still going to the library, still picking up the phone, calling schools, universities, and science departments, and everything else.

I was expecting, Yeah! I mean, I've done it a hundred times, yeah, called, called all kinds of people at universities, , does anybody study cicadas there? And yeah, I And they want it, they love it, they like, holy crap, you made their day when you call with a question like that, like. Who is this wacko?

What the hell? Yeah. What are you, eating a fish with him? I think on April's podcast you were talking about, , how fly shops all [00:59:00] over advertise the, the thing, but I mean, in your book, the map, I think it's mapped out by county. No, it's not county, it's, it's region. It's not county? Yeah, it's region.

. Okay, well, there's this. The, , Earth Slip. The Forest Service, , Brew Distribution Map. Yeah, I mean, that almost looks like it's broken down by county, but it, , That is, it's like, very specific. So you've got some people, , Yeah, it was, I mean, Yeah, the funny, the funny thing with that is like, Misinformation was, was pretty crazy.

I mean, this goes back to What information's available. Go, go on, go on Google right now and just put in Cicada 2024 and see what happens. You're going to find a news article from every state that says, the Midwest is going to be plagued with an apocalyptic number that, that didn't occur for since Thomas Jefferson was president and all this.

Like you're going to find that article. You'll find it. A trillion cicadas expected [01:00:00] in Maine. Yeah. So, so it's . So, so everybody like that, that I love it because the hype is great and it's great for book sales, but I love the hype. But then I also go and read it and I go and then I go get the map out and I'm like, they're reporting on something that's not even going to be happening there.

And I saw that. I saw that through, just maybe in the last 10 years, a few different emergencies, fly shop saying, we're getting ready for brood, whatever. And I'm going there, like I chased this thing with a passion and I'm like. Then I'm like second guessing myself. I'm like, wow, they're promoting it.

Are they? They're gonna have it and then I start looking I'm like they don't know what they're talking about like they're not gonna have it And then you know, I'd I'd follow up afterwards like on July hey, how was the cicada fishing? Yeah, we didn't it didn't have it didn't happen here. They didn't come here.

I'm like, yeah, they didn't come here I'm like, oh boy, like they all flew [01:01:00] Country there. Yeah, I was like from the ground Yeah. I was like, alright, there's lots of misunderstandings here about these bugs, and, Right. At least it, it's probably, , from an area of just, misunderstanding. It is, yeah. It wasn't malicious or anything, yeah.

No, trying to, trying to get sales. Yeah, and, and, and, so there was that, and then, , technology, , a really big one that that I have to mention is, , so Dr. Gene Kritzke out of, , Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati. He was a big help for me. I, I talked to him on a couple occasions. We exchanged lots of emails.

Some of the pictures in the book came from his way. , one of the premier cicada researchers today, him, and then, , there's a couple of fellas from, , University of Connecticut that are a big cicada research. , So they're, they're really advancing the science through some pretty cool stuff. , and one is something that Dr.

Kritsky came up with [01:02:00] in, this is an app. You can go to your app store on your iPhone. , it's called Cicada Safari and he started this, . In preparation for brood X, he's in Cincinnati, which got a ton of brood X, right? It's pretty big distribution and he used it as crowdsourcing information to identify the geographic distribution as well as timing.

On when did, , who first posted the first picture, and when was the last one seen, and , so really refining using crowdsourcing to collect the information, which isn't a new concept, but the way we, the way he did it is pretty novel and created an app that basically you open up, it has your GPS location and everything else.

They urge you to take a picture of the bug and then [01:03:00] their scientists are all looking at it and going, there's the first one. And then they drive over there and then they date, get more information and more data. So, that was a, that was an extension of, of some, and I write about it in the book. I talk about Skate Safari as well as, in the 1890s, there was a scientist.

who worked for, , the Department of Agriculture that actually did the same thing through the U. S. Mail. And then basically said, if you, see this bug, send me a, send me a note or, I'll send you your stamp back because I'm studying these insects. And, and that's actually the inspiration for Dr.

Kritsky's app was. That is cool. Sitting around figuring out like, boy, I wish we could refine the. The range. And then he said, I wish we had an app in our pocket. Yeah. And then he was like, Oh my gosh. So the, the, he drew some funding and [01:04:00] got it made and it's out there and it's great for us, selfishly, because we're chasing it.

Not so much for science, but for somebody just posted a cicada on Lake X in Ohio and if there's one Periodical cicada, I'm gonna make you a deal right now that there's gonna be a million Yeah, so I'm going yeah, that's funny. So technology has helped us It's not hindered us. I'd say, , it, it, maybe it's going to hinder us.

And so is this guy who wrote a book about it. , but you know, the hype is that, , the hype is growing cause we're getting there. Right. So the hype started, I watch it all the time. I type in escape 2024 and then boom, one day in January, it was like, someone's hurting for news stories. And the hype builds.

And as we get closer, the hype's going to be real and you're going to have [01:05:00] recipes and everything else that happens every other time in every place. And, Well, that, that leads me to, , just, I think another question about cicadas, but what, , initiatives have you seen regarding raising public awareness?

about conservation and cicadas. Have you seen that are successful? There hasn't been much, and I'm not a, not an expert at, at that aspect of it either, but there hasn't been much other than, I guess it really goes back to the wildlife preservation and, I mean, you see it all the time. And I, and like that.

That every, the good thing is, is they do, so the media does eventually talk to scientists about it. And people just don't understand. So the general public sees it and is , creepy bugs, and the pesticides come out and everything else. And it's yeah, don't. They aren't gonna hurt you. They're, they don't bite, they don't this, they don't that and you're not gonna be able to eradicate them anyway.

There's this [01:06:00] thing called predator satiation. There's, there's a reason there's a billion of them. It's so the species can survive and you can't kill them all, so don't even try. , so there is that, , aspect of it. Don't, don't try to, , kill them and don't try to, Use chemicals on them.

And, there has been some, there has been some stuff of , there's people love their lawns, but chemicals or pesticides and whatever to keep nice fancy lawns. But man, if you got nice grove of mature trees and you're spraying your lawn, you're killing quite a bit of cicadas and that's not great.

And you brought up predator satiation, but is there any? Is there any sort of negative impact of that negative impact to, I mean, obviously it, it's great for, , the, whatever the population is, whether it's deer or Scott or whatever, that, an emergence is good for. It's good for the natural world [01:07:00] environment.

, people, pets get sick, I think. , I've heard a lot of that. , that my dog ate too many and is puking and sick. But, , So, Nature provides. I believe, I'm a believer in it. It happens for this reason that, the, the, the, the ecosystem needs to boost. And that's what, that's why it happens on a, Cadence it does and these things have a way of figuring themselves out now.

, For the anglers that have listened through all this and i'm just going to add a little blip in here That's like I promise you we will get to fly tying and fly fishing , but you have quite a few pages and a lot of descriptions about the various look and size of the cicadas , so there's a lot of guidance in there about how to tie the flies.

I mean, you, you take it step by step how specific do you need to be when you're trying to fly? [01:08:00] There's lots of patterns in that book. 15. Yeah. There's a lot, there's lots of patterns. And I mean, obviously you want to match the hatch. Right. But that's.

Yeah. I mean, you, you're going to find new patterns every day from now till July, probably. And some of them are awesome.

People are like, it's, that's the beauty of fly tying and the innovation and new materials and creative it's, it's arts and crafts. If it is, it's arts and crafts. And, , I'm even since the book, I'm evolving some patterns and changing things up and, identified a new wing material or this or that, and so it's always evolving and, and that, , but how specific do you need to really get is not very specific.

when you go to my book and you see the 59 patterns, it's like Where do you start? You start anywhere you want, like they're all going to work for, for what you're chasing that, that point of that section in my book is a collection [01:09:00] of, of some proven patterns. But also, if you read almost, almost every pattern has some sort of paragraph with it of the evolution, that pattern or who developed it, or where did it come from?

And that. That, that was a very big part of the service I wanted to do is give credit to people who have done this, I'm a, I'm a relatively nobody right in this whole thing. And, through, through my, years of, of chasing this around and I made a pitch to write a book, I wrote a book, but I wanted to collect as, as many.

Of the who's who's and you'll see the names all through the book and contributors and people who gave me their flies. and I wanted to collect that for, everybody, and tell some of the story there, the, the, the cicada patterns on the green river in Utah, there's several of them in there and they have a, they have some cicadas that are pretty predictable there.

but there's some, some [01:10:00] guys that are still alive and some guys that are not, that were cicada crazy and came up with these secret patterns and whatever, and they're in there. And it was, it was a little bit, you know, to, to keep it alive a little bit, right. , and, and stuff and, , so Dave, Dave Whitlock gave, gave, I reached out to Dave Wi Whitlock a few years ago in preparation for the book to get some of his patterns, and he sent 'em to me with a note.

And, Dave passed on that next year. And, , you know, so I have those, and I have that story and, his, conversation about how he came about that pattern and things like that. you ask anybody, like everybody fishes a chubby Chernobyl, but does everybody know the history of that fly?

Probably nobody does, but I wrote about it in my book. Well, you'll have to pick up the book to read about the history of the chubby Chernobyl. What, , what, what, what size would you say you're usually fishing for a sequoia? Yeah, , I'm So, periodical cicada. So, if we're talking about these ones [01:11:00] coming up, BruteXIX, XIII, , I'm using a number four.

, and I, I, I use a very specific hook, , for most all of my periodical cicadas, and that's a Gamakatsu B10S in a number four. And I actually have a box of a hundred right here. So, this hook right here. There you go. Is my favorite hook. It's a nice razor sharp, fine wire, strong, , last for lots of fish. , tiny little barb you can press down or, or keep tiny the micro barb.

But yeah, I'm fishing a number four. , Primarily I actually will downsize if I'm fishing for trout, to be honest with you. So, you're gonna, if you're gonna fish trout around, some of the water that I have. Here, when cicadas emerge, your average trout's 14, 16 inches going to get some bigger ones during cicadas for sure.

And you're going to get some smaller ones. And some of those big hooks will just [01:12:00] impale the fish and the way the cicada fly sits in the water, sitting in the film like that, they eat it and you get that dreaded kind of tongue hook up. That's fatal to fish a lot of times. So I'll downsize the pattern to a six, even an eight, like an eight long shank.

I don't know, 93, 94 TMC, which is , it's just your regular Wooly Bugger streamer hook. Any of them will work like that, but I'll go to a six or an eight on that. Close that gap a little bit. And get a longer fly, still get the profile I want, but, I don't think it hooks up any less on trout. , it's, I believe it's a little bit safer for them.

Yeah, right. I mean, I'm, I'm not going to be fishing carp, and I also don't want to tear up the trout. Yeah, the Gamakatsu hooks. Phenomenal for carp. Okay. I like that hook a lot for carp. I mean they just it's got the right [01:13:00] gap It's and they they don't have teeth or anything in their mouth They just have big rubber lips and that thing you never get a bad hookup.

It seems so But yeah, I'll change the hook for the for the fish Okay. Yeah. And the other kind of thing around trout, and I say this to everybody is watch your water temps. Especially if you're fishing free stones, it's June, it's May and June when you're going to have cicada, the periodical cicadas, and that's getting into the danger zone temperature.

So yeah, don't fish, go chase carp. Okay. Yeah. Fish tail waters, yeah, for sure. , well, we've got the gunpowder and the. I guess the savage would still be cold enough. Yeah, Savage is great. It's cold. , North Branch is great. , but they won't, they won't have bugs this year, so. Hmm. I'm gonna have to come up your way then.

Yeah, go south. Go south? Alright. You're not far.

Yeah, that's true. If, , if you still have [01:14:00] time, I would love to get into drift boats a little bit too. Absolutely. Yeah. Cool.

Talked to me a little bit about how you got into making driftboats.

Yeah. So the story that I tell everybody is, , we were, my wife and I are married, just married a couple of kids, maybe actually first kid.

and my wife was just, raised working home, raising the kid and stuff. And I was working and I was working actually two jobs. I was actually, By then I was an engineer and then I was also teaching at Penn State at night and I was playing in a band, just trying to bring all kinds of money in, right?

It was tough, bought a house and all that. So yeah, doing the thing that I'll young family start doing, you're trying to get by. And, still obsessed with fishing all those years and all that. And we, we used to just. That was our cheap fun was to go outside and go on the river and go to the parks and fish and whatever like Didn't cost anything.

So, I live near the [01:15:00] yaka Ganey River in Pennsylvania And that's what I guess I would call my home water One of my home waters the young of that place. I love it talked about him. I love the whole I love everything it offers and my son and I camped on it in Western, Maryland last. Oh, that's a great Part of it.

That's the big, the small, but big. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. it's a great place. And, I was fishing there a lot. Wade fishing. And then it was like, I had a little like inflatable, like a little one man pontoons with the little frame and the oars for a number of years. And it was like, man, I wish we had a, Like drift boat would be the greatest thing, and it started, I looked at like prices of a drift boat and it was like, that's cost prohibitive for me.

we can't afford that. And, but then, I, the other thing that I. I got from my dad was, he was the ultimate do it yourselfer. So I learned how to use tools from day one. Like I was always holding a [01:16:00] flashlight and working on cars with them and then building things with wood and all my skate ramps and all that stuff.

And, so I knew how to build things. I knew to do stuff and I, I still build stuff daily. I build everything. And, so I started looking around early internet of 2000, maybe 99, 2000, 2001, and found, plans for these wood drift boats. And, I said, I could do that. That's easy. So I bought a set of plans, which just wasn't that much money, which became a lifelong friend of mine, Roger Fletcher.

and he wrote the book on drift boats and river dories as well. we're on the same publisher actually. , and, , We became friends over the years, , but, , I got the plans from him and I'm a sucker for the traditional side of things. So , I want the real thing, like I want the that was the original.

So he had an original drift boat and he redrew the lines off of it. And that's the one I wanted. And, , And it just looked great and all that. So started to just gather up slowly materials and [01:17:00] everything else. And then. Built it built it in the driveway, single car garage, , spent all of my time obsessing about it and getting it done and everything else and got it done.

And then we had a boat and, , that's where it began and, ,

and so I know. That, , , there's obviously a significant difference between wooden boats and drift boats and that, are some fiberglass boats now advertise that they are good and skinny water, but what, what is the, what is it about a wooden boat?

That kind of makes it, makes it, makes it the best.

I don't, I don't, don't know that I'll go down the, the best because I can't define best for you. I can define best for me and , what makes it evolution is great of, of things, but what makes it a wood boat, like the wood boat, other than being made of wood, nothing rose lighter [01:18:00] in the water.

I can tell you that for sure. , And, , hull design has a lot to do with how boats, has almost everything to do with the boat's performance, whether it's rubber, , fiberglass, aluminum, wood, hull design is a major factor in any boat. , the material is the second factor. , for me, the wood is real quiet.

the design of the boats that I have, they, draft very little water. For an equivalent counterpart, my wood boat, so a wood boat versus the fiberglass in the same hull design, my boat's going to draft probably four or five inches less than the glass boat. And even more for an aluminum boat design. Now, again, hall designs, everything is a big part of all of that factor there.

but I, I like the lightness of them. I love the lightness in the water, the responsiveness. , They're not for everybody. [01:19:00] You got to have a place to store it. , so store your wood boat dry and it'll last a long time. I, I laugh when I hear about like the durability aspect of things. People will claim, yeah, people will claim, Oh fire, the most durable boat in the world is this fiberglass, whatever brand, whatever it is.

And. Okay, until you square crack it against a rock, the same thing is going to happen to your boat as it will mine. You're still going to put a hole in the side of the hull, but guess what? Mine's a lot easier home fix than yours is. you can't substitute good rowing skills. , but the the, the I don't know.

I, I, I, I like the material. I, I like it because it's, I think a lot of guys like it because it's an entry point just like I had. Guys who couldn't afford a boat could build it. I, I built my first drift boat for under 700 bucks. And, oh that, so yeah, that's, that is surprising. [01:20:00] Yeah. Go look at what a, cause go look at what a hide costs or a clack.

Yeah. Well, and it's cool on Downhomeboatworks . com, you guys sell plans, cause I, the, I mean, I think the unstated best thing about what you guys offer with the plans is the ability to make it yourself. I mean that, it's got, there's gotta be something special about, it's like tying your own flies.

Like when you catch a fish. With your own fly for the first time. I mean, there's something special about it. And it's gotta be the same when you, when you go through the time and effort to build your own boat, that's gotta be something else. Yeah, there's memories in that too, which is important.

Stuff as well. Like I, the, I have a couple of boats in my barn while more couple right now. And yeah, that becomes a little bit of a problem. I built one for my youngest daughter, she's 16 now, but I built that [01:21:00] boat for her with her when she was six or seven. It's just a little pram and we use it on the pond and stuff.

And it's I, I see it in the barn against the wall there. And it, it could use a coat of paint and it's been left outside and whatever, but I just think all the memories. I can't ever get rid of that one. Yeah, and then like the, the hall designs that I have are my own, like they've evolved from, and I always nod back to the, The, the, the, the guys who came before me, it's like, it's my iteration of this is all it is.

It's the same thing we do with tying flies. You tie a hopper, you borrow from this guy's pattern and this 1 and this little piece is your own here, but it's all iterative and, and I'm, I'm all like, very conscious to pay respects to the, those who came before us. But my, my iterations were purposeful, right?

So where I live and I mentioned the yacht and there's a couple of other rivers that we fish and some lakes that we fish, I didn't need the [01:22:00] kind of boat. Once we learned, I learned what I was doing on the oars and everything. I didn't need the kind of boat that they need to run the Rogue River, the Mackenzie River, or any of that stuff where those things initially were born.

And, my hulls could be flatter. Flatter gives me more surface area on the water. Maybe a little less responsive, but I wouldn't say not responsive. But what that did offer was higher draft or less draft sitting higher on the surface, which means all that summertime skinny water that we have, I can still float through and not.

How, what sort of like water levels are you looking at as a minimum when you, when you go out? I've, I, this summer I fished, I fished on the yacht during a pretty bad dry spell and it was skinny, skinny, skinny stuff. And oddly, Some of our best cicada fishing happens when the water is the lowest. Mm hmm.

I have a couple ideas. You just can't help yourself. You [01:23:00] gotta go. Yeah, so you gotta go. And I was going through places where I'm, I'm looking ahead I'm just looking, I'm like, okay, any second now is gonna be the This is the sound and then I'm gonna have to get out and drag and I'm like, we're still going like incredible, four inches of water or something, but one rock, one rock will stop you, right?

Yep. But yeah, my, my boats will sit, we'll sit, we'll sit in four inches of water. No problem. That is incredible. Yeah. But you put a foot of water under me. I'm good. 10 inches of water. And we're, we're good. I'm not, you're having a hard time. Your oars are hitting the bottom, but you're not, yeah, you're like.

Propelling along the rocks, but interesting and how going back to the cicadas to, so two questions. One is what sort of like technique are you using when you're when you're fly fishing? If you're just waiting and then secondly, does anything change when you're in the boat? [01:24:00] Yeah, I, I mean, so I'll start with the, with the boat stuff first.

I, I love fishing from a boat because of the access to maybe unpressured spots, right? It's less, you can ride a bike, take a long walk to get to a spot. Wading, you have this advantage to work a finite piece of water very thoroughly. Floating, you blow through stuff at times, unless you've got a couple of guys casting or people casting, you're not fishing at all and you're working on the oars.

So, there's advantages to both. Waiting, you're working what's in front of you pretty darn thorough and you're picking up opportunities to catch fish that you might actually blow by. I've had it on the boat where we're hooked up. And floating and then you're looking like, Oh my God, there goes another one.

And there goes another one. And there goes another one. And like you're past them now. And it's Hmm, got to roll back upstream and set back up and all that, or just blow on through and whatever. So waiting, that's. Awesome for [01:25:00] highly densely populated water because you're not missing opportunities like you're, you have the ability to pick it all through.

And I know like nymph guys, like they love, they will all wait and that's why, because they have a, they have a system of, gritting out the water and fishing three feet from them to 20 feet from them and, working a whole piece and all that. And that's awesome. Yeah. It's like spay fishing.

I do a lot of is another really meditative aspect of fly fishing and it's waiting to, you're, you're pretty hard to spay cast from a moving boat and all that can be done, but it's not, not necessarily what it's for. But then from a boat fishing cicadas I really, I really enjoy that. Because again, getting away from pressured water, new fish, fish that haven't seen a fake bug or whatever.

And the vantage point so if you think of standing, you're standing high, six feet up. [01:26:00] Yeah. Yeah. You're standing above the water at the front of a drift boat and we're. Fishing forecast towards the bank where the overhanging trees are, where likely cicadas are falling and where those fish are hunting them.

Now, cicadas will be all over the river and fish will take them wherever they, they happen. But I like that. And I like that ability to have that higher vantage point in fishing downstream to fish getting a long drift to them before they know you're there. Thanks. Are you, are you changing your, your fishing technique at all?

Four cicadas. It's actually stripping more. Are you okay. It's just to get that thing in the water I'll see you this year or definitely next year, but he'll laugh. I mean, I'm carrying, so if I'm weight fish and I'm carrying one rod and it's probably a five or six weight weight forward line, I like scientific anglers, bass taper for this stuff.

I have leader formulas in the book that I use and you'll look at my fly box. [01:27:00] You won't find anything but cicadas. I don't, there's no point. Well, I wouldn't expect you to. You, I don't carry anything else when, when it's a cicada emergence. There's no point to. I don't want to catch that fish that's not eating cicada.

Let's me, let me put it that way. Yeah. I want to, I'm hunting that fish. That fish. I'm hunting that fish that's hunting cicadas. So it's simplified, but it's, I talk about techniques a lot in the book. But the, the gist of it is this is a cicada. is only in the water by accident. And when it's in the water, it is almost certain death.

It's gonna die there. It's gonna get eaten. They have no ability to extract themselves from the water. Now, if they get swept into a log jam or a brush or something, they can grab on and crawl out, but by far and large, once they're in the water, they're dead. You'll find them Mostly sitting dead still.[01:28:00]

Either their wings folded up, like the cover of the book, like that. Or their wings spread out. You'll see some of them buzzing, and moving around. But eventually they stop, and it's a dead drift. I don't pop my flies, I don't strip my flies. Dead Drift. Interesting. Okay. Let them sit. A lot of times you'll get, you'll get, if a fish, if they're, if you're amongst fish that are like super actively hunting bugs, and this is like especially true for trout in densely trouty water, like water with a lot of trout, they're competing.

There's no doubt about it. Bug hits the water. Three fish come at it and one gets it. It's just like bluegill fishing on a pond. It's a nice problem to have. Nice problem to have, right? So you'll, you'll. You'll, you'll often get explosive takes just as soon as you hit the water, and then other [01:29:00] times you let that thing drift.

So casting above where a fish might be holding or whatever and just letting it dead drift and you still might get an explosive take. But it'll be after a five or six foot drift. So, yeah, it's that'll be fun. I got to go find the, it's sloppy too. It's imagine what you're fishing. You, I'd told you if size four fly all foam with some wings.

It's not delicate and you're using stout tippet. It's a whole lot of fun. It's it's like top water streamer fishing.

Okay, and for anyone that's listening, I see that we've got X I I I, and we have X I X potentially coming this year. We do, not [01:30:00] potentially, we do. Not potentially, sorry and it looks like we got, for the first one is Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, and then the other one is, A little bit farther south, yeah. Alabama, Arkansas, up to Maryland, Mississippi. If you want the full list, go get the book. But, so it could be, so it's going to be a good year for fishing in a lot of these places. Yeah, it's so it's an oddball year, right? So 17 times 13 is 221. So the last time these two broods, XIX and XIII the last time these both co emerged was 1803, 221 years ago, and Oh, right, because one is a 13 and one is a 17, okay. Yeah. So, that doesn't happen every year. So, sorry, what was the year? What was the year again? 1803, I think? [01:31:00] 1803. 221 years minus 2024, right? That is cool. So this is, is an, it's an opportunity to have 17 states maybe listed there, 20 states listed there, have, will have cicadas.

It's a will have, you got to go find it. Do some scouting the book, the big portion of the book is first understanding this bug and it's ecology around it. And then the second part is how do I go find it to fish it? And there's a lot to that. There's a lot to, looking things up, finding, finding areas that you know are going to have bugs.

But then, not only that, but going at the right time. I know lots of guys who went to, to 2021 to hit Brood X and they went too early. And they dismissed it and they [01:32:00] said, Yeah, we saw two or three bugs, fish weren't eating them, went golfing, didn't go back. If you went back three or four days later, you might still be talking about it.

Trillion fish in Maine. Or trillion, trillion cicadas that made it. Yeah, so that, that's how it happens. So you, you have to pay attention to the signs. Okay. You have to, you gotta, you'd narrow it down like from like a 40, 000 foot view. I know it's going to be in area A. Okay. What waterways are there?

Go lower. Now, where's there like big forests and like old parks or whatever it is, or a lake with a big shoreline. Okay, let's go. Further. And now we start hunting and saying okay when did the last go, go on the internet and find like, when did it emerge last? And Hey, May 24th, 2004 was like, someone said billions of bugs.

And I was like, okay, probably want to be there. [01:33:00] But you remember this just because the bugs are there doesn't mean the fish in the water know, know it yet. It takes some time. Right. So day one might not be day one. They, they don't know what it is and Oh, one hits the water. That doesn't constitute great fishing.

Wait a week when. You said a trillion bugs. Take one, one percent of that falls in the water, that's a million bugs. Yeah. Or whatever it is. You're gonna figure it out. Okay, so now, now fish know what they are. And so it's a, it's a game of And I know it's tough because, family with kids, finite time off and all this crap.

That's almost some of the fun, but it's almost some of the, Oh, it tastes bad when you were too early in it. You almost want to be too late. You almost want to be too late. If you're on the, if you're on the side of it where you're too late versus too [01:34:00] early, I'd rather be too late because fish knew what they were.

They're still around. They'll eat them all summer. I, I've proven this like after a cicada emergence here, I was still throwing cicada patterns into August periodical skit and I was catching fish and our annuals didn't really start yet. So I, I knew they, they were still there's one of those things.

I haven't seen one of them in a while. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Yep. Nice. Well, I have kept you over. I appreciate your time, but here on Mending on the Fly, we end with the whip finish. Yeah. Do you have any last parting thoughts or ways to get a hold of you, ways to follow you on social media?

Yeah, absolutely. So, I don't Facebook, never had a Facebook account. Good for you. It's gonna be 50, so it's not gonna sign up. Now's the time to join. Now's the time to not sign up. Right. Time to declutter. Right. Instagram is is a good way. My website, you mentioned [01:35:00] www. downhome. com. Boatworks. com.

I have a contact page there. It goes directly to an email that I have check every day. And I'll link that in the podcast description as well. Great way to get ahold of me there. Instagram is another way. Direct message me. It's. Public account at Down Home Boatworks hashtag Cicada Madness.

So if you just look up that hashtag, you're going to see a ton of my stuff and stuff I've found that I've tagged and put there. So I'm building that up. And do you have a preferred way for folks to buy the book? I know Amazon and then through the publisher is available. Is there one that can you say one benefits you more than the other?

No, it doesn't doesn't benefit me more than the other. Now I am going to be at the Penns woods chapter trout unlimited cabin fever this coming weekend in Cranberry township, Pennsylvania. So I'll be there with books. You can buy them in person. I'm also selling [01:36:00] some of my 17 year. Pattern fly and then on March 2nd, unfortunately, this won't come out until the 26th.

So yeah, that's I'll have to tell people about it. Yeah. And then March 2nd and 3rd, I will be at the Lancaster fly fishing show. So I'll be at the author's author's booth there. You can buy books there. I'll be selling some flies, tying some flies as well. Be there both days. And then yeah, I'm so to buy the book, Amazon has it.

The publisher has it anywhere online. You can buy books. You can find my book. It's on Stackpole books, which is a renowned sporting publisher there. They sell everywhere and distribute widely. And that that's the reason why I, I went with Stackpole books for this. If you do buy it on Amazon, please leave me a review.

Please leave a review for the book. That always helps, so. But reach out. I'm an approachable guy. Instagram or whatever. And always, always love talking fish and boats and cicadas. [01:37:00] And who knows, I might find, I might find my next best friend out there. Well, and like for anyone that's listened this far, I hope there are many.

It is almost nine o'clock at night. On a holiday. And Dave Still took the time to do this and talk to me. And he is a genuinely nice human being, humble. And it was really a pleasure talking to you, Dave. I really appreciate the time. And I look forward to sharing the water with you someday.

Absolutely. Damn. And it's I wish you all the, all the best in your podcast adventures. This was pleasurable on my end as well. So thanks for having me and I'll, connect soon. Yeah, man, that sounds good. And will you be in Towson by any chance? And towards the end of March, the Maryland fly fishing festival?

No, I don't know. Okay. Don't know. I won't be in Towson. No. Oh, okay. Well, I'll see if I [01:38:00] can make it up to Lancaster. That'd be good. Yeah, it'd be great. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Dave, thanks so much. I appreciate it. Got it.