10 Tips For Better Line Mending, With Mike Pease

If you think mending is just lifting your rod and flipping it upstream—well sometimes it is—but there is so much more you can do with line mends to add slack in just the right places, and to deal with tricky currents. Mike Pease [30:41], Orvis-endorsed guide and great storyteller, gives us 10 tips for increasing the utility of your line mends. I learned a bunch of new tricks on this podcast and I am sure you will as well. There are some helpful tips from listeners and some questions that may answer things you have been curious about, including: When would you use a drop shot nymphing rig? Have you ever used a dry fly, nymph, and wet fly at the same time? I am debating about which Helios rod to buy. Should I get the 9 foot 5 weight or the 9-foot 5-inch version? Can I use the longer rod for wade fishing? A listener gives his version of a Euro rig for steelhead. Which 10-foot rod should I get for Lake Erie steelhead? Do you think tying a dropper to the bend of a hook is any hindrance to fish taking the upper fly? Sometimes when I hook a big fish it takes line right away and my tippet breaks. Do you think my drag is set too tight? How tight should I set my drag? A great tip from a listener on an easy way to remove split shot with a tool everyone carries. You say that trout can always see the tippet. If so, why would I ever want to use something as fine as 6X?

You can listen to 10 Tips For Better Line Mending, With Mike Pease online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

10 Tips For Better Line Mending, With Mike Pease is an episode from The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast by James Hathaway.

This episode is 01:13:11 long.

This episode was published on Feb 16, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.