- Oh, it's huge.

Oh my gosh!

Wait a minute.

- [Ashley Peters] Woohoo!

- [Chance York] It's not a real one.

(Ashley laughs) (upbeat music) - We're out here in the beautiful southeastern Minnesota, also known as the Driftless area.

We have 700 miles of trout streams.

So you know what that means.

We're about to put the fly in fly fishing.

Conservationist and outdoors person, Ashley Peters, gonna show us the 101 of fly fishing.

- We'll get you rigged up and get you on the river.

- Yes, let's get it.

Fly fishing allows you to explore places you've never been before.

What primarily sets fly fishing apart from spin rail fishing is the gear.

Fly fishing uses a weighted line to cast an unweighted object, whereas spin rail fishing uses a weightless line to cast a weighted object.

For gear, you'll want waders, wader boots, rod, and reel.

I rented all that for about 30 bucks at a local bait shop.

You'll need a fishing license, which you can also get there.

And if you're fishing for trout, you'll need a trout stamp.

Of course, some fishing basics are needed too such as dry flys, wet flys, a knife or a multi-tool, a landing net, as well as some outdoor safety gear.

There's also the option of booking a guide from a local outfitter that has knowledge of the area, and will provide all the gear you need.

So what kinda trout are out here?

- [Ashley] This area has mostly brown trout.

- All right, so these are the flies.

- We're gonna start you with a popper that will give you a sight of where the end of your line is.

Later on, we'll switch to more of a nymph which is a wet fly that goes under the water.

You have a couple different types of flies on to catch their attention.

This is on top of the water, and I've got a wet fly down here.

- We've got two different opportunities to get hooked.

- Correct.

Think of the river as a conveyor belt that brings the food to the fish.

It's presenting in very similar same way that a bug floating down the river would look.

I'm just gonna have you do a roll cast, which is essentially rolling that line forward.

We use this all the time in the Midwest because there's often a lot of vegetation.

(Ashley and Chance laughing) - [Ashley] You're just kind of flipping it out there.

Manipulating the line with your hand.

- Come on, trout.

- All right, grab the line.

Pull that in so that there's not as much slack.

- Did you say it's called mending?

- [Ashley] Yeah.

- So in all the fly fishing movies I've seen, they're going (imitates whipping sounds).

(Ashley laughing) - So that's called a double haul, and there are a few reasons you might do that.

One is just to load more line basically, so that you can cast out farther.

Sometimes you might fling the fly back and forth to get the water to fly off of that dry fly.

So when it lands on the water.

- So, it's not about casting.

It's about drying off the dry fly.

- [Ashley] Yep.

- That's a long cast.

The Driftless area is a region that spans through four states.

Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois.

The name Driftless represents why this landscape looks so different from the rest of the upper Midwest.

It's rolling hills and bluffs are unique to the rest of our state because it was never covered by the glaciers that flattened most of the Minnesota landscape when they receded.

The topography makes it one of the most scenic regions in the state.

- [Ashley] All right, this looks like a good spot.

Cast upstream as far as you can and try to float the fly as close to that rock on the other side of the river.

- All right, come and get it.

Oh, branches overhead.

A lot more hazards here.

- And you can cast to the side too.

- And there we go.

(Ashley laughing) The thorniest of branches.

(upbeat music) And I get the tree again.

Ah!

I'm not gonna lie, fly fishing is way harder than I expected.

I was frustrated, but as they say, failure is success in progress.

Is there any advantages to fly fishing versus any other type of fishing?

- A big piece of fly fishing was originally too hard to get these small bugs onto a traditional hook.

You want to try to mimic the bugs that these fish actually eat.

- [Chance] Biomimicry, or just being a lot more closer to what they'd find in this habitat.

- Fly fishing is great for kind of battling the fish as you bring it in.

And it's just more of a challenge, right?

So if you're just getting started fishing, fly fishing might be a bit of a step to take.

It is next level of fishing in a lot of ways.

- I can feel it too, especially by how many trees I've caught today.

Do you always fly fish in a stream or a river, or is there other places you can fly fish?

- [Ashley] You can really fly fish wherever you want to, and you can fish for crappie, bluegill, smallmouth bass.

Smallies are actually one of my favorites to fly fish for.

- I would like to reel in a bass on a line like this.

Oh, I got a bite!

Yo!

Little action.

- I saw that come up.

- I didn't mend it the way I should have.

That's where I'm at in my process is I get a good cast, but then I don't get the slack out of the line fast enough.

- You'll figure it out.

- Hey, they're biting.

So today for this adventure, we had to get a trout stamp for my fishing license.

Is there a lot of regulations fishing for trout?

- Catch and release is almost in any trout stream.

But the Minnesota DNR has a book that actually tells you, depending on which stream you're on, what the regulations are.

- Yeah, so it's to protect, you know, overfishing and population of that specific kinda trout.

- That's exactly right.

- [Chance] Spending a little time with you, it's quite easy to see you're super knowledgeable about a lot of stuff regarding nature.

- It's helpful to have a mentor, and I really enjoyed getting out and learning from them.

But at some point, I was going out by myself.

It is very empowering to feel like I know where I'm going, I know what I'm doing, and I can catch a fish out on my own.

We found the ripples this time.

- [Chance] Oh my gosh.

A little bit more current.

Uh-oh.

- You got cut?

- Oh, we're so close.

What is this?

- It's a way to learn meditation around knots (laughing).

- We'll be right back.

Even though we haven't caught anything, I feel really clear, connected to nature, soothed by it.

What a day, learned a lot about how different fly fishing is from regular fishing.

I found out you can fly fish anywhere.

Doesn't have to be in a river.

If you enjoy fishing, and you wanna up your game a little bit, fly fishing is definitely something to try out.

Even if you don't catch anything on your first time, don't get discouraged.

Everything is about practice and progress.

It's Chance signing off.

(upbeat music)