Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
Svend Diesel is a Utah fly tier with a large Instagram and YouTube following who ties almost entirely for himself. He got better by tying and posting a different pattern every day for about two years, treats tying as a stress release rather than a business, and fishes Utah stillwaters for whatever will eat a balanced leech.
Svend Diesel is a Utah-based fly tier known on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok for elaborate poppers and streamers and for tying flies for his own use rather than for sale.
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How did Svend Diesel get into fly fishing and fly tying?
The first fly fishing trip was a college girlfriend's father taking him to the river to size him up, where he hooked a brook trout of about six and a half inches and had more fun than he had ever had. He bought a waders-and-rod set at Costco for around $60 a few weeks later and fished all summer, then quit after an injury he traces to buying the cheapest wading boots on the shelf. He came back to it roughly four or five years before this 2020 conversation, took up tying to understand the bugs, and instead fell for the craft of fastening materials to a hook shank.
What is the fastest way to get better at fly tying?
The habit that moved him from beginner to competent was setting a goal of tying one different fly every day for about two years and posting each one, using the post the way a dieter uses a friend who checks in. The second piece of advice is not to learn a pattern from one person: watch ten different tiers tie the same fly and collect the small tricks buried in the middle of each video. He also scrolls the fly tying hashtag rather than his algorithmic feed, because the hashtag is still chronological and surfaces tiers from Scandinavia, South Africa and Canada he would never otherwise see.
Why does Svend Diesel refuse to sell flies?
The math is time, not skill. A dozen balanced leeches for himself takes an hour to an hour and a half; for a customer it takes closer to two, because he will not send out anything less than perfect. He works 68 hours a week and is on the road constantly, so tying for someone else has to earn what a working hour earns or it is not worth the time away from his kids. Poppers start at $35 because each one takes three coats of resin cured overnight, is sun-checked for tack, and then has the fly itself tied to the finished body and cured again.
How did the Lego parachute Adams happen?
Another tier posted a photo of a Lego piece clamped in a vise as a jab at modern fly tying being nothing but gluing parts to a hook, and roughly 30 people forwarded it to Svend Diesel assuming it was aimed at him. A follower then suggested he actually build a fly out of Legos. They narrowed it to five patterns traditional enough to make the joke land, and the parachute Adams was the one that worked. He avoided glue everywhere he could, conceding only on the hackle pieces, which had to be attached to read as a Coachman brown and a grizzly.
Why fish Utah stillwaters instead of the rivers?
Too many negative encounters over access and trespass on rivers pushed him to lakes, most of which in Utah sit in state parks reachable on an annual pass of around $80 to $90. The Provo River runs more than 20 miles from the high mountains down to Utah Lake and takes enormous pressure because it is the closest water to the population. Driving two hours to a lake instead means a few boats and a couple of shore anglers, room to explore, and water safe enough that he can send his kids out in a kayak while he fishes.
What lives in a Utah reservoir besides trout?
Fishing one similar stretch of shoreline through a single spring, he caught brown trout, rainbow trout, largemouth bass and smallmouth bass on very similar flies, changing mostly color. The same water holds tiger muskie, chubs, and wiper, a hybrid of a male white bass and a female striped bass that Utah has been stocking into more reservoirs, in part to control unwanted forage species. A wiper in the eight-to-twelve-pound range nearly took the rod out of his hand before charging the boat and coming off. In one reservoir stocked with wiper and tiger muskie about three years earlier, a winter that used to produce a hundred chubs now takes work to produce one.
How does he fish a balanced leech?
He fishes balanced leeches under an indicator rather than on a sink tip with a twitch retrieve, and is blunt that the reason is often two hours of sleep and an indicator being easier to watch. He also runs a one-inch indicator instead of a three-quarter-inch one, because the larger indicator has occasionally set the hook for him. Confidence in the pattern comes from carrying a few colors of the same leech and letting the color, rather than the fly, do the changing.
Key takeaways
- Tying a different fly every day and posting it publicly for about two years is what took him from beginner to competent.
- Watch ten different people tie the same pattern rather than one, because the useful trick is usually buried in the middle of a video.
- A custom popper starts at $35 because it needs three overnight-cured resin coats before the fly is even tied to the body.
- Utah's state park pass, roughly $80 to $90 a year, opens up lake access that avoids the access disputes and crowding of rivers like the Provo.
- A wiper is a hybrid of a male white bass and a female striped bass, stocked in Utah reservoirs partly to control forage fish like chubs.
- A one-inch indicator over a three-quarter-inch one will occasionally set the hook for you on a balanced leech.
