June 03, 2025
By Fly Fisherman Staff
Fly tier Jake Villwock grew up the son of a commercial fisherman, and is now a Pennsylvania fly-fishing guide for smallmouth, Great Lakes steelhead, and spring creek trout. Jake is also a fly-tying innovator and author of the book Smallmouth Bass Flies Top to Bottom. Jake and Fly Fisherman editor/publisher Ross Purnell debate the age-old question, “What’s better, bass or trout?” They talk about frog patterns for trout and bass, the “Godfathers of Bass” (Clouser, Kraft, and Whitlock), and dive into the creative process behind Jake’s match-everything baitfish pattern called The Roamer. Listen to the end and you’ll learn some unusual secrets about how to catch muskies on small flies, how to target mudding carp, and why some smallmouths turn black.
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Truncated transcript:
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00:00:03.460 --> 00:00:46.200: Hi, I'm Ross Purnell, editor and publisher of Fly Fisherman magazine. Welcome to the Loop to Loop podcast, where we make deeper connections with the people behind the magazine. We are sponsored today by G. Loomis, American-made fly rods manufactured in Woodland, Washington. We are also sponsored by our friends at Patagonia. Check out their new line of Swift Current Waders, the Traverse and Expedition. They are PFAS free to keep our waterways clear of forever chemicals.
00:01:14.320 --> 00:01:41.440: Today, our guest is Jake Villwock. He's a fly tire guide author. He graced the cover of our summer issue last year with a smallmouth bass. I run into Jake on the river all the time. He's an extraordinary guide who chases multiple species in multiple states. Welcome to our studio, Jake. It's good to have you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
00:01:41.440 --> 00:02:10.600: We're kind of fortunate today that you had a cancellation and were able to get you here in what is basically, well, maybe not the middle of your season, but it is a hot time of the season. It feels like the middle of the season. I've been going straight for almost three weeks now, but maybe it's because it's been so cold. It was like in the '70s in March. And then we hit April and it's been 40, 45, just cold, wet, and windy.
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00:02:10.600 --> 00:02:31.320: Well, this is a good break for you to get you in out of the weather. It's nice, yeah. Although it's nice outside today. I wouldn't have hated being on the water. You can never hate a day on the water no matter what it's like. No, you can't. But we're in here. So let's talk fishing instead of actually doing fishing. And I'll probably see you on the river in a few days. Sounds perfect.
00:02:31.320 --> 00:02:52.040: Let's start in the way back time machine. The hot tub time machine. Let's do it. So your dad's a commercial fisherman? Yep. Almost retired at this point, but he's still out there doing it. So that was your early introduction to fishing in general? What's it like being the kid of a commercial fisherman?
00:02:52.040 --> 00:03:29.040: It's–it was–when I was a kid, I didn't really know what it was all about. But I know that since I've grown up, I've really realized how lucky I was to spend the majority of my childhood on the water. Some of my fondest memories were four-day-old peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the boat with my dad and grating crabs and helping him rebuild nets when I was a kid. I was more or less running around in the garage while he did all the work, but I was at least with him, which was great. But it was a hard life. He spent–he'd get up at 2 in the morning, and he was out of the house by 3.
00:03:29.040 --> 00:03:52.760: He'd be back by around noon, 1 o'clock. And then during crabbing season, you have to rebait. So he did trot lines, not pots. So it was a 12 to 1,400 foot trout line with–every six feet, there was a chicken neck or bull lip or eel or something like that. And so the crabs would hold on to him, and he'd scoop him in manually as they'd come up…
