Troutbitten
Life on the water. Troutbitten is a deep dive into fly fishing for wild trout in wild places. Author and guide, Domenick Swentosky, shares stories, tips, tactics and conversations with friends about fly fishing through the woods and water. Explore more. Fish hard. And discover fly fishing at Troutbitten.com — an extensive resource with 1500+ articles about trout, friends, family and the river.
Episodes
215 episodes
Night Fishing for Trout -- Nymphs, Wets and Pushers
In this six-part series we’ve covered locations, water types, weather, water and light conditions. We’ve talked about the gear, about flashlights and headlamps and glow in the dark stuff. We’ve considered what a good night plan looks like, havi...
Night Fishing for Trout -- Topwater, Emergers and Streamers
This is the episode you’ve all been waiting for. Tonight, we talk about fishing the top water. And yes, that means mouse patterns — sometimes. We also dig into a fly style that we feel is often more effective, the mouse emerger conc...
Night Fishing for Trout -- Planning and Adapting Locations and Tactics
All fishing trips benefit from a good plan, and most of us couldn’t stop planning, hoping and dreaming about an upcoming trip if we wanted to. Our night fishing plans are a good beginning. Aimed toward solving the mysteries after dark, these pl...
Night Fishing for Trout -- Swinging and Drifting
We night fish with many different fly types: surface patterns, mouse emerges, streamers, wet flies, nymphs and Harvey Pushers. And all of these flies can be presented in two very different ways — drifting and swinging.There’s a lot of...
Night Fishing for Trout: Lights -- Natural and Artificial
In this second part of the Night Fishing for Trout Skills Series on Troutbitten, we consider light. First the naturals, like moonlight and starlight, then we discuss city lights and other artificials, like our own flashlights and headlamps. Las...
Night Fishing for Trout: People, Places and Things
This season is a skills series about fishing for trout after the sun goes down. And for the next six episodes, we’ll break down the night game into an outline that roughly follows the topics of a
Summer Catch Up '23 -- The Fishing, The Shop, Videos and More
We’re in between podcast season, and it's time for an update about what’s going on with Troutbitten. My wife, Becky, joins me to talk about the past, the present and the near future.The summer Troutbitten Shop leader sale launche...
The One With Sloop - Stories With a Troutbitten Friend
Every Troutbitten regular knows about Sloop. We’ve referred to our friend on nearly every podcast, especially in the last few seasons, as it’s become a running contest to see how we can sneak in a Sloop John B reference.So we’re excited...
The Airing of Grievances 2
We're back for the annual airing of grievances, here to call out what's wrong in the fly fishing industry.Some of our grievances are lighthearted silliness that doesn't really matter, but it’s fun to roast or to call out. But there’s an...
Why We All Love Big Trout
This episode is about big trout -- what they mean to us, why we chase them, and how catching a top tier wild trout often leaves a bookmark in the story of our fishing lives.We love big trout because they give us the shakes. Because they...
That's Not Fly Fishing -- What It Is, What It Isn't, Who Cares
“That’s Not Fly Fishing.” How many times have you heard this at the bar or seen someone write it on social media? When the way you are fishing isn’t up to someone’s standards, when it doesn’t align with their own preferences, it seems that this...
This Is The End -- A Story
This episode is a brief pause in season seven of the podcast to share something that I published to Troutbitten in the early years. The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of emotion and activity. The days were filled with energy and a...
Vest, Pack or Something Else? Carrying Your Gear
What’s the best way to carry your gear? Should you use a vest, a chest pack, hip pack, sling pack or something else?How you choose to carry gear is a personal and situational choice. It has everything to do with what you need to carry, ...
Talking About Tippet -- Size, Strength, Length and Rigging
The leader might be the most important piece of gear that we have -- more consequential than the rod, the fly line, or even the fly itself. And of course, at the tail end of the leader is the tippet.All anglers must make decisions about...
What to Love About Small Stream Fishing
This podcast is about small stream fishing — specifically, what we love about the places, the fish, the tactics and the experience of fishing smaller trout waters.These are trout streams that are no wider than the dirt road that you dro...
Good Wading, Better Fishing -- How Wading Skills Change Everything
This episode is about wading a river. Good wading. Better wading. Confident wading. Because, for a river angler, nothing is more important. Good wading is not just walking from place to place, it's an almost constant, fluid motion, and fly fish...
High Water, Dirty Water, Muddy Water
What can we do when the rains come, when the snow melts, or when the floodgates open?Rivers rise in many different ways. From quick and heavy summer thunderstorms, to the steady light rain that remains for days at a time. There’s the gr...
What Is More Difficult? Fishing Dry Flies or Nymphs?
We have a fun conversation for this episode, about what’s more difficult — nymphs or dry flies. This is not a talk about which tactic is better. And this discussion isn’t even about which one we might like more.What is more difficult? N...
Angler Pressure TWO -- What It Does to the Fishing
This is the second episode of our two part discussion on angler pressure. Last time, we talked about how fishing pressure affects the fish — how they respond to more fishermen placing more casts and drifts in the waters around them — how trout ...
Angler Pressure ONE -- What It Does to the Fish
Season 7 of the Troutbitten Podcast begins with a two-part discussion on angler pressure. This is a big one. It’s a topic that everyone in the fishing world loves to talk about. People complain about angler pressure, and they have theories abou...
Fish It Anyway -- A Story
Troutbitten is about the pursuit of fishing tactics. It’s about discovering new techniques and improving our skills. We don’t want to hope something will happen out there. We try to make it happen. And that element of fly fishing, where there’s...
Catching Up -- Spring 2023
Season Seven will begin on April 10th. But in between seasons, I want to catch you up on a few things that are going on with Troutbitten.Just a few years ago, Troutbitten was the website only. I wrote and published articles three times ...
Winter Fly Fishing Skill #8 -- Full Crew Conversation with Stories and Tactics
Here we are at the end of Season 6 -- the Troutbitten Winter Skills Series. This is episode 8 of the series, and I’m here with a full crew of friends to wrap things up, to hear some stories and dig into a few more tips for fly fishing in the wi...
Winter Fly Fishing Skills #7 -- Problems and Solutions
My good friend, Austin Dando, joins me to address many of the troubles with winter fishing. In this Winter Skills Series, we’ve been through the tactics, with dry flies, streamers and nymphs. We've talked about how to stay warm out there, and w...
Winter Fly Fishing Skills #6 -- Dry Fly Fishing in the Winter
With this Troutbitten skills series on winter fishing. We’ve covered locations and expectations, where to find trout, and their wintertime habits. We did two full podcasts on staying warm from head to toe. We talked about fishing nymphs in thes...