October 09, 2025
By Fly Fisherman Staff
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Orvis endorsed guide and fly tier Tom Baltz on fly tying, fly-fishing history, and using the right rig to present flies.
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Truncated transcript:
00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:58.410: Hi, I'm Ross Purnell, editor and publisher of Fly Fisherman magazine. Welcome to Loop to Loop. It's a show where we make deeper connections with the people behind the magazine. We're sponsored today by Patagonia. If you enjoy this podcast, please support our sponsor and check out their new line of Swiftcurrent Waders. They've got two basic models, two basic men's models, Expedition and Traverse. I've worn them both. The Traverse zip fronts, amazing for summertime, hot weather, long distance adventures. The Expedition Waders are the ones you want for the winter time or when you're crawling around on your hands and knees. They've got padded knee pads for stealthy approach and it's a really great wader for cold weather, which is coming.
00:01:06.020 --> 00:01:33.280: We're also sponsored today by G. Loomis, American-made rods made in Woodland, Washington. I just got back from a trip to Bolivia and was using NRX+ 8 weights and 10 weights for golden Dorado. There was a lot of broken rods on that trip, but none of my NRX pluses and they were awesome for throwing, making like pinpoint casts with really big flies. So check those out.
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00:01:21.180 --> 00:01:48.420: If you enjoy this podcast, you can support our sponsors. And you can support us by subscribing to Fly Fisherman magazine. Please support our sponsors, and you can support us by subscribing to the magazine. It's quick and easy. Go to flyfisherman.com. There's a little subscribe button in the top right-hand corner, and you can subscribe to the leading magazine of fly fishing. You can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @flyfishermanmagazine, on Facebook @flyfisherman. And hopefully you are watching this podcast in its YouTube format on our YouTube channel it's @flyfisherman magazine. Please subscribe and follow us there.
00:02:16.720 --> 00:02:59.360: Our guest today is the legendary Tom Baltz. And I say legendary because as soon as I moved to this area over 20 years ago, he was firmly established as the grandmaster poobah of fly tying and guiding in Cumberland Valley. His flies are legendary, his expertise is well known. And he's a big player in conservation issues and all of the local things that are going on in Pennsylvania and Cumberland Valley, but you also travel a lot. So it's going to be an interesting conversation. Thanks for coming to the studio today, Tom.
00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:23.520: For the invitation. A lot of things to talk about today. There are aside from just fishing, there's always something else going on. Well, it's mostly all going to be about fishing. But I'm curious about a lot of things. One of the things I wanted to talk to you is about how you got started fly fishing. How does a Tom Baltz get created?
00:03:23.520 --> 00:04:04.560: I don't know. I just grew up fishing. My father was an avid fisherman, although not really a fly angler. But he had lots of at that time, lots of there weren't that many around. But angling books, fly fishing books, which I'm pretty sure my mother bought him for things like birthday presents and so forth. Whether he read them, I have no idea. But Ray Bergman's Trout and the old original Family Circle Guide to Trout Flies, which has been reprinted a million times as the Noll Guide to Trout Flies. It's been in there like fly tying kits and everywhere for 70 years probably…
