Hey everybody, welcome to the MEN podcast, Tuesday's Tippets.

Tuesday's Tippets are going to get a little bit shorter as we go and keep them like more confined to practical tips and I'm going to do some other kind of rando podcasts that are a little bit longer.

So it's fall, water's low, you've been hearing about that on the podcast, but we're going to go a little different direction today.

It's not going to be so much like highly technical strategy, but more towards like holistically looking at how you plan your day and how you set your trip up.

Got shop manager Bob on the podcast.

I had to twist his arm to get over here.

He was working the counter, solving problems, helping people out, but I finally got him out of here.

So Bob, how are you doing this afternoon?

Oh, we're doing great.

Yeah.

Joe finally got me, got me over here to do this.

He's been, yeah, he's been begging me.

So hopefully it's worth, worth everyone's time.

A lot of people might not have even been listening to the podcast way back when, but one of the more listening podcasts featured Shop Manager, Bob.

Was it Campeche, Mexico we did podcast?

We did one about Christmas Island ages ago.

I think before we went, you were informing me about it.

And then, yes, I think we did a Campeche with a whole group.

That was pretty fun.

That was fun.

We cracked a beer and just turned the recorder on.

But, yeah, it's super to have Bob on the podcast.

So many of you guys know Bob because, you know, the thing about Bob that you got to know, he works with more anglers.

I would be willing to bet money he works with more anglers on an annual basis going fishing that day than any other shop manager in the country.

You know, sometimes he's quarterback and he's handed the ball off to, you know, the staff that you got there.

But the point is, Bob gets to witness testimonies, a lot of pre-trip and a lot of post-trip testimonies from, you know, both guided guests, but also, you know, the podcast really like angled towards do-it-yourself anglers.

You know, those are the ones we're trying to feed full of information that we're not going to be there on the river with to help.

But I got a series of questions here And one of them is What's the one thing you wish every angler knew Before they showed up at the shop Or launched their boat?

Well, that's a, that's a great question.

I mean, I think that the most important thing for the do-it-yourself angler is to spend some time observing and that's observing what the river's doing.

What are the other fishermen doing?

What are the fish doing?

What are the bugs doing?

Right?

So many people want to come and just have a magic bullet and this is what you need to do today.

This is the rock you need to stand on today.

And wouldn't that be great?

but that's not how it works.

So, you know, the one, one thing that I would suggest is just take a second and observe.

And, you know, that's going to immensely improve your fishing throughout the day.

That is an unbelievably good tip.

And I think a lot of our expertise doesn't always come from like you and I actively fishing, right?

Like you've got two little ones at home, wonderful beautiful little girls and you're not fishing as much as you used to but your knowledge is increased exponentially because you get to we get to witness and watch and what you said about watching like seeing what the what the guides are picking out seeing what the boats are doing are they stopping the boat and waiting are they fishing while they're moving are they casting toward the shore are they fishing in the middle and actually being a little bit of a fly on the wall and just.

I do this with spay fishing a lot.

Like when I go to, you know, I go to the snake river or wherever, where I'm not like, I don't intimately know every run.

I look for, I look for old guys with spay rods that look like they know what they're doing.

Absolutely.

I pay attention to where those guys are standing, but I think we do that here a lot too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, just, just like you're saying, I mean, are, are, are people fishing the, the deep pools?

Are they fishing the fast water?

Are you fishing the cut banks?

Are you not?

And if you're not paying attention, you can float right by a pod of feeding fish, especially out here this time of year where there's blue wings hatching and things like that, that aren't necessarily everywhere in the river, but they might just be in this 100 yard stretch.

Of shade.

Yeah.

And you could just miss it if you're not watching.

not paying attention yeah you can see bobbers on guide boats from a mile away which is usually what the guide boats are running or bobbers we've said this again on the again again on the podcast a guided trip is not your own trip i mean the guides manage double nymph rigs really well and we cover a lot of water we can afford to be noisy but yeah i like the observing thing one thing i noticed when i was on the river down there today are like the skins from october caddis i don't know why we don't see those adult bugs all that much but the pupa skins are all over those damn rocks right now so they must be out at like dark they must be yeah i mean they're everywhere you only see a couple but the fish seem to eat them if you give them a chance a lot of times yeah so that's like one thing of you know taking a look at the riverbank as well and just simply observing but yeah the you're right the the fish feeding on blue wings right now are damn stealthy i mean they just seem to be tucked back into the shadow the cliff shadows and uh man they're making like no disturbance.

I also like what you said about the magic bullet.

Yeah.

I wish there was one, man.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, we talked to, yeah, countless, countless folks coming through the fly shop and always try to give them the best advice we can, of course.

But I mean, I think that's another thing about that, that a well-prepared angler is they're willing to take some advice and maybe change their game plan, depending on what we say may or may not be going out on the river.

I'm instead of just being stuck into their, their, their lane you know what they are comfortable doing or normally might be doing you know maybe we say well shoot you should try skating a crane fly well i've never done that and you know how do you do that right and maybe they can have a great day yeah i think there's a balance between like you know humility is huge it was you know last week i had russ miller on the podcast and i was asking what it's like to fish in competition and one of the you know i've never done that before but what he he said it almost poetically when we were on the river and i don't know how it sounded the podcast but basically he said like anglers with no humility that fish competitively struggle like you have to be willing to go i didn't have the best idea today like you know somebody beat me convincingly using a technique that i thought was stupid you know and all of a sudden you're like well the data's on the board man like you know they caught twice as many fish you in an actually a quantifiable environment where there's no BS, there's no bullshit, there's no lying, there's no excuses, either you caught or you didn't catch.

That's one thing that's intriguing about competition to me, but he was saying that humility goes a long ways in that competitive world because there will be certain anglers he's witnessed that are very isolated and a bit stubborn, and he said they tend to struggle and they're not sharers.

And he said sharers are much more successful, and I think sharers are probably also.

Perhaps i mean we all know that that jerk that wants to tell you how great he is all the time but like that's bragging that's not sharing sharing is genuinely offering advice to to to help somebody but i think there is a bit of humility involved what about this like what so somebody comes in the store and we have i mean i don't know i'm busy weekend we have 100 customers I don't, I have no idea what it is, might be more.

You know, it's a big canyon here.

What are some of the mistakes people make, you know, when you see them embarking and you wanna like, You know, if you could just be like in that movie, Jim Carrey, you know, liar, liar, where you could tell no lies.

All right.

And somebody comes in with a plan or an idea and, you know, they're running it by you, kind of looking for advice, but you can give them advice and they don't listen.

Like, what are the mistakes people make?

Would you say that?

Oh, it happens.

Yeah.

Frequently, you know, we try to point out the best flies or what we might be using.

They're like, oh, that doesn't work.

You don't want.

You know, I, I tried that.

It doesn't work.

I tried.

And you're like, well, okay.

I mean, maybe you can try it again.

And when did you try it?

Well, I was out there first thing this morning.

Well, maybe the fish weren't active first thing when it was 40 degrees in the fall, you know, or whatever it might be.

But, but I mean, that's, that's one of them for sure.

You know, just because it failed once, you know, it doesn't mean it's a, it's a failure.

Even the best fly in the best spot doesn't always catch fish.

Oh, we all know that.

Yeah.

There's no steak oil, man.

There's no magic bullet.

So people who are like, they ask, but then they're resistant to advice.

Absolutely.

Okay.

So what other things do you have to talk people off the ledge?

Oh, you know, another one that's common in the fall time is, you know, we're using a lot of small bugs, small, small bluing olive nymphs.

Size 18, size 20, you know, and they're like, well, I, I can't even tie it on.

It's so small.

And you're like, well, yeah, it's, it's, it's difficult, you know, but I don't know if a size 12 is going to work.

You know and so sometimes that's a tough one yeah so people think about small bugs i just put i just did my little weekly trout snack you know instagram video and i i just love bugs that's why i i am passionate in love with trout fishing is because i i love the insects and i love seeing what imitates them i like tying my own bugs and i went down and just caught a few bugs you know right along the shore i'm like okay what little mayfly and stonefly nymphs are accessible without getting my feet wet.

I just grabbed a few stones and I put four or five nymphs in a little cup.

And when I'm looking at the nymphs, they look pretty good size.

I'm like, oh, these are pretty good size.

They'll show up on my little video.

And then I went and I got like a size 14 soft tackle pheasant tail and I threw it in a little Petri dish and got it wet.

And I'm like, dude, this 14 is three times the size of every nymph in here.

So then I went and got an 18 and I threw an 18 in there and the 18 was still bigger than a lot of these nymphs that I was picking up and I'm like I'll be damned this 18 actually looks big and I mean when I had the the actual insects I didn't they were just there I could see them plainly from three feet away you know I picked the rock up and look at the rock I'm like okay there's some little bugs I'll put them in here they're crawling all over and shoot even that 18 was like a monster yeah yeah I mean in the fall generally bugs are with the exception of a couple hatches bugs are much smaller so so people don't want to use their readers and tie small bugs on well and maybe that's fine you know but maybe then instead of trying to get away with a 14 that's not really going to imitate them well maybe we should try putting on an october caddis there you know something that you can tie on and you can effectively fish and you know you feel like you are getting close to what's in the river yeah That's something that makes sense.

Yeah.

Okay.

So yeah, people kind of resistant and I get it.

Like small bugs can be difficult to tie on, but like that was really an epiphany for me today.

I'm like, oh yeah, these are great bugs.

I'll throw a 14 in there.

I'm like, oh my God.

It's like, it doesn't even, it looks like a dinosaur compared to these little nymphs in there.

So 18s and 20s, you know, are good, but you get a little bit kind of resistance there.

But people probably should just get readers and get good at using them.

Oh, so, you know, I don't know if I told you about the guys I took wade fishing the other day.

They only wanted to.

Briefly, I think.

Yeah, so they only wanted to wade fish.

And I thought about inviting the guy on the podcast, but I mean, you know, some people you fish with them and then you get them on a podcast.

They're a little bit different, you know, than you anticipate.

But so i was like i don't know if i want to spend an hour podcasting with with this guy he was a super nice dude but my my observations of him were this like he specifically said i do not want to fish from the boat told me well in advance that we're not going to fish from the boat he's done the bobber lob thing you know he had fun guys are super nice caught lots of fish but he's like i want specifically to wade fish and i want to improve my wade fishing and i could tell it was a real hands-off guide trip, which is like one of the hardest things, right?

Like you can probably remember that guiding in Alaska where guys are like, I'm good.

I'll do my own thing.

And then they're out there off the reservation, you know, not catching anything.

And you're like, ah, you're in the world's greatest drought fishing.

I want to ask you about a couple of stories from Alaska at some point in the podcast too, but this angler was fiercely independent and I can tell right away, I'm like, okay, I'm not going to tell him what to do.

I'm going to put him in the spots and just kind of let him work and let him immerse himself.

Cause that's frankly what I would want to do.

I'd be a pain in the ass to try to guide, you know, for trout.

I'm sure you would.

I just like, part of that is I want skin in the game, you know, I don't want to be spoon fed.

So anyway, I just, I let him run and we had kind of a slow start to the day.

And then by the second or third spot, we stopped him and he was catching great fish.

I was able to give him a little bit of help and advice, you know, once he inquired.

But the thing that was so impressive about this guy, he had all sorts of crap strapped to him.

I mean, waiting staff, hip pack, net, and an extra rod.

Like, I mean, that's a lot of stuff and some kind of lanyard, you know, because he was efficient.

And I watched that dude operate and I'm like, you know, for most people, if I strap that much stuff to him, Like they would be so awkward and inept at dealing with their staff at, you know, netting their own fish at dealing with that second rod that's strapped to them.

And this guy, he could tie on all the little flies.

Oh, he had the cheaters too.

Right.

So he could tie on tiny tippet.

He could untangle a tiny tippet.

And then he had his extra rod and he had all this stuff.

And it was like just a thing of beauty seeing somebody who took the time to get used to all those little things that would be cumbersome for somebody new.

Be very efficient.

And by day's end I mean we only waited all day and he did excellent it was just I was very impressed, by his just his autonomy of being able to just go operate independently without you know the need for a lot of help but he appreciated the small amount of help I gave him but I mean he's probably in his 60s he had zero issues dealing with any of the small tippet because he just snapped his glasses together and bada boom bada bing I mean it's like something he'd practiced, you know and done all right is there anything like.

I did take a couple of notes here.

So there's obviously a difference between, you know, float fishermen and wade fishing.

And I have a term I wrote down here that I want you to try to guess what it means.

What is shuttle peeping called?

Oh, is that when everyone's looking at where else everyone has floated for the day?

Where are they going to put in and take out?

Oh, yes.

How many boats are in that stretch?

I like that.

yeah i was thinking more like when yeah what what bob is describing is guides and customers going through all of the pre-reserved shuttles and figuring out where the holes are so that they can be in a empty float now i'm thinking more in terms of like when we're running shuttles and we can keep on the ang the anglers on the river throughout the day yeah okay yeah so, shuttle peeping right it's like we're kind of a peeping tom while we're cruising up and down the road like hey what's this guy doing oh he's got a fish you know hey man he's in the same spot he was three hours ago yeah yeah so when like when we do shuttles we observe a lot of anglers like.

What like what would you say like strategically like on average weighed fishermen what are some of the good things that you see people do when when we're just observing cruising up and down the road and what are some of the mistakes people may make when they're on foot well i mean one of the things that you see which i would consider a mistake is is when you you're out waiting you want to wade you want to get out there you want to get after you want to get in the river well you've now gone beyond where the trout are and you should be casting back at the bank you know which is classic right guys waiting guys waiting way steep right in the middle of the bucket and then they're casting into the shallows on the other side when really they should be fishing backwards you know back towards the bank.

When you're in a drift boat, you know, a lot of times in the summer when there is water up on the banks, you're casting at the banks, right?

And so the wade fishermen, or as it would be in the summer, a bank fisherman, the fish are going to be pretty close to the bank.

You know, you don't have to be casting a tremendous distance.

But yeah, I'd always, I always get a kick out of it when someone's way out in the middle of the river and the fisher are back behind them.

What percentage of fishermen that we see wading, you know, just, you know.

You're, you're running a shuttle on a busy day, you know, you might cruise up the can, you might see a dozen wade fishermen, you know, or just, let's say 10, just to make the math easy for percentages.

What percentages of those 10 do you feel are standing in a spot where they can potentially catch trout oh i mean i think it's probably a pretty high percentage most of the time well yeah most of the time i would say it's pretty high above 50 oh absolutely i would say about half yeah you know myself you know they're like you know it's interesting because like when we're shuttling a lot of times we can read the water better from the highway sure yeah yeah like We can see, you know, we're like, we don't get this micro tunnel vision.

Cause like when you get out in the river, it all looks pretty good.

When you look at it from a distance, you're like, oh, there's a slope there.

The river's going blatantly downhill and then it flattens and then it's a long flat.

Then it speeds up again into a tail out.

But sometimes reading the water from the highway, you can look down and go like, dude, that guy, I can tell from a hundred yards away, the guy's casting into eight inches of water.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

And so not everybody's standing in a really good spot.

And so, yeah, I was going to say closer to about half, I think, are within casting distance of a trout.

You're saying more than that, but it's not 100%.

For sure not.

Yeah, we can agree there.

We see a lot of, you know, poor reading of water.

Back to your point on like the drift boats casting at the bank and the bank fishermen cast the mill.

That's one thing that can be solved which is watching for like a few minutes yeah yeah right yeah where is yeah where are the guides fishing where are the successful anglers fishing what kind of water that kind of thing absolutely yeah i mean if you see a guide anchored up in a white water rock garden you know that's actively like working that water you know that's very different than seeing guide who happens to be parked in a very deep long slope pool right you know spending you know expending the same amount of energy you don't have to fish like the guides but there are some things that we would encourage you to cheat off our paper for sure, Okay.

So any other, oh, we didn't talk about floaters.

So like, I would say there's people like in different types of boats and there's people in like a guide style skiff and there's rafters, et cetera.

But when it comes to floating, what are some of the wise things that DIY floaters do?

You know, like customers, cause you see a ton of regular customers.

I mean, we, that's one beautiful thing about a river is we have people who live close enough to fish all the time.

What do the diy boaters do well would you say like what are the common denominators among the successful diy boaters i mean i i think not picking off more than you can chew right the guides the guides are going to float long they love covering water and skipping water but most folks aren't going to do that right i mean i i'm guilty of it i like to fish when i'm out fishing I don't want to just float through a stretch and not fish.

So, I mean, I think a good DIY angler is not going to fish a super marathon long float.

So no time to change flies?

Yeah.

I mean, you want to be able to stop.

You want to be able, maybe you want to wade fish, you know, maybe you want to fish on anchor.

Maybe you get a pod of blue wings that are really going off.

You want to spend two hours there.

I was just going to say you could spend a whole afternoon on some of these flats once this blue wing olive hatch kicks up.

Yeah, because you'll catch a couple of fish and it'll turn off and then you got to wait for them to go again or move.

And I mean, it's a, yeah, you can spend just a tremendous amount of time.

So if you're going to be covering far too much water, you're not going to be able to take the time to do that.

Yeah, I mean, like you're, you know, you fall into the category of, you know, highly, you know, highly skilled or an exceptional angler.

But you're not guiding all the time.

I mean, you're the shop manager.

So if you were to throw the boat in today, like, how are you going to know, like, doing a long float, like, how are you going to know how to prioritize your high-grade or low-grade water?

Like, you wouldn't.

Right.

Right?

So therefore, you were like, hey, I've got to kind of test everything thoroughly.

Yeah, I mean, if you're not out there every day, you're not going to quite know, you know, what's fishing better today than yesterday or whatnot.

In the fall too, every seam line is accessible.

It's not like in the high water where, you know, certain seam lines, you might be kind of a one shot wonder and you can run a drift down it.

But right now you can walk across the river at every tail out.

It's very unique.

So DIY anglers that, that do well, you know, are generally just don't bite off more than you can chew.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

That, and the other, the other thing that I, I find, especially when you're talking to people and not necessarily floaters or not but you know you ask how their day's been and maybe they aren't having a tremendous amount of success or maybe they've had some but i don't i feel like a lot of people the old way of running a nymph rig is running a really long nymph rig right a nine foot long nymph rig or something and i think that was because you probably remember but you know that was because we were using little copper copper beaded flies no tungsten things like that I think people run the rigs too deep and they lose a lot of flies.

Totally agree.

They're, they're tough to control.

And I think we were rapping about this in the shop one day and those deeper rigs work okay.

If you're standing in like an inside bend and you lob the line upstream and it kind of trickles down, the nymph never really gets under the indicator, but like, yeah, tungsten's changed everything.

I mean, most of us are trying to get that 90 degree drop, you know, so we're directly under our indicator anymore, but yeah, there's a there's definitely a lack of control and i don't know my my memory's fuzzy anymore because we're doing so many of these podcasts but i don't think i mentioned this but like, so the other night it was about 5 p.m and it was i think it was last week thursday or friday last week and it was about 5 p.m and david was the only one on the shop floor yeah because the restaurant was open so it was one of those days of the week and so it was about 5 p.m and i'm just taking off i'm like hey david see you later he had a customer two in the store wasn't too busy well then like three college dudes are coming in, you know, coming to this shop.

And I'm like, oh man, that's going to overwhelm them.

I'm like, I'll just go back in and I'll, I'll just kind of help them get through this rush.

Man, I was in here for like an hour, you know, talking to these three college students.

Cause they remind me of myself so much, you know, freshman in college, you know, broke as a joke, just want to get some fish on flies.

And the advice I gave those guys is reminiscent of what you're talking about.

And that is, I said, man, just get good at one thing.

Like don't try to, you know, fish hopper droppers.

Dry flies are going to be isolated to like really fortunate timing on hatches and, you know, late in the evening at this time.

Just get good at fishing yarn indicator and a single nymph.

Like do one thing and do one thing extremely well and figure it out.

And I specifically told him, I'm like, do not run these damn things deep.

I said, you're going to lose these flies, man.

And I go, you guys are broke.

Because they told me, they're like, one of them bought a rod and a reel.

And he's like, this is all the money I got.

Like, okay, we're going to make the most bang for your buck here.

And so he bought a rod and one of them bought a rod and a reel.

The other guy's got like, you know, a half dozen flies.

And I was like, dude, you don't pay for them until you lose them.

Just take good care of these things.

But yeah, a really efficient angler is going to be able to run, you know, as short as possible while still being effective and not, I think, get too distracted by kind of the fringe fishing.

You know, like, you know, like, well, let's throw all there's, you know, like dry fly fishing is great.

It's the heart and soul of the sport, but again, it's isolated at very specific times.

And so I think there's a lot of value in people.

There's lots of different ways to fish, but like becoming capable at one thing is really good.

And those shorter line Nymph rigs, like ultra light Nymph rig, you're also getting a lot less false positives on the hook set.

For sure.

So people now like, you know, people now are like, was that a fish?

Hell, I don't know.

Like hitting the bottom all the time, like a shorter line Nymph rig, if you get it down, right?

Like, I don't know, hopefully more than half the time it's going to be a fish.

And then people learn much quicker and they fish more confidently.

But I had to laugh about those guys.

Cause I was like, dude these guys i mean aren't we we sell premium flies i mean they're three bucks three bucks yeah three bucks a piece like that's not we understand that but if you want a good fly and your time's precious like there's life's too short to fish bad flies.

But I really enjoyed, I spent a ton of time with those guys.

And another guy came in and I might have the lead on private access on a river I won't name on the podcast.

He came in and bought some hunting boots and kind of BSing with this guy forever.

He was so cool.

And one of those fly fishermen and yeah, he's got, he may have some exclusive access that we will discuss later.

But it was a worthy, it was a worthy stay into the evening that night.

Okay so define define define a successful angler you know we're talking just trout angler here like it could be applied to lots but like define a successful trout angler that you encounter in in store in your daily well success is a interesting way to put it i guess that can mean a lot of different things for different people but i mean i think someone that's successful is just you know that they're going to get out fishing they're going to cover some good water.

Maybe they catch fish maybe they don't but they you know really are effectively fishing you know they're not wasting their time monkeying about with all kinds of kind of like you're saying all kinds of different i mean you've got your euro rod i got my trout spay we're gonna drive life it's like let's do a couple things we're gonna do it well today and and maybe today i want to go trout spay fishing and that's it and that's and i know that i could go catch some more fish on an indicator rig or something but i just want to catch them on my trout spay we've got these two brothers that come in they're a hoot and and that's that's kind of how they are you know they come in they they went fishing they had a great time sometimes they're successful sometimes they're not but they did it how they want to do it and they always get advice maybe they buy flies maybe they don't and they take the advice to heart and, and, you know, half of the time they'll come back and say, man, that fly, you sold me.

I just got a 20 incher on it, you know, and they're so jazzed up.

But anyway, those guys, uh, those guys are a real hoot, but, but yeah, I mean, I think it's just someone that gets out, they get to go fishing.

Time is important for everybody.

You know, I don't want to be spending half of my day rigging up rods or trying to get my waders on or whatever it might be.

Right.

Get out, get out on the water, go fishing and, and have a good time.

Whether you're successful or not, I think we could all agree is, or the catching part isn't what the, the day is all about.

Right.

That's pretty much spot on with what I was going to say, because the catching will take care of itself.

Like you and I could choose 200 different flies today and go out and catch enough fish to be satisfied.

I mean, fish will eat a lot of different things.

You know, some fish are in the mood for one thing today.

Another fish is in the mood for another thing today.

Or maybe a fish was caught on that pattern yesterday.

And so, you know, he's not going to bite that, but this fish will.

You know, we don't know the fish's history.

We don't know if they had a good week or a bad week.

But that's pretty much spot on with what i was going to say is if anglers are operating in an efficient manner they're putting themselves in a position where they're in somewhat fishy water and they're having fun and they're getting a relatively good presentations per minute you know like in the competition thing like i'll go back to this because i think it's kind of an intriguing way to look at our own fishing but they actually measure like out of an hour they'll actually measure just so that they know, like, was I actually fishing for an hour?

Was I dinking around for, you know, half an hour, half of it.

So they'll actually, they count or time, like how many presentations per minute they're getting.

And then they know like, okay, I was operating really smooth with this, with this rig, this little dry dropper rig, whatever this dry fly, I didn't get any tangles.

It was high presentations per minute.

I caught enough fish, but when i was fishing that heavy nymph rig i was busting off a lot and i only were i only actually fished for about 35 minutes of the hour sure so i'm just making completely making those numbers up but the idea is that like if you're efficient the catching will take care of itself and you know our primal instinct is to get fish so we're we're naturally going to make decisions that are deductive i'm not catching on this i'm going to change but i think one thing i wrote down.

We'll talk about this i'll kind of skip ahead but yeah it's pretty much spot on with what i was going to say i don't think that the catching is necessarily at the top of the list because i think the catching is just a byproduct of efficiency and joy because everybody loves casting everybody loves drifting that fly and if you spend as much time doing that as you can with a reasonable fly selection reasonable water the catching success will fill in will fill in for itself there.

One thing I wrote down is like angler anxiety.

Like, you know, like you see some anxious anglers in the morning.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All the time.

Yeah.

Like tell us about some of the decisions they make that you might think are short-sighted.

Gosh, lately, this fall in particular, we're having extremely low water on the Yakima.

Low as it's been in decades.

And I mean, the guys that are, the DIY anglers that are coming in with their hard boats, with their drift boats.

And, you know, stressing out about the rocks and stressing out about where should I float and how far should I float.

And sometimes it's like, man, maybe you should just go like two miles and just really go slow.

Yeah, that's half the number of rocks of a four mile float.

Yeah.

Or leave the boat on the trailer.

You can walk across the river right now.

I mean, you can access anywhere.

So if you can walk one mile, you can access 1,500 trout on this river.

Oh, absolutely.

And yeah so there's a little bit of there's some anxiety about that lately for sure, you know a little bit about like you know what kind of flies should i use oh gosh do.

I have to use 6x tippet that's so small you know or whatever it might be only if you want to yeah if you want to you know i always tell them like do you want to catch or do you not want to catch yeah it's up use 2x you know and then and then you throw in a a curveball about yarn indicators you know well maybe you should consider using a yarn indicator they're more sensitive than a bobber type type indicator right and then then it's like well how do i set that up do i need a tool you know there's a diagram there's a diagram on the pack absolutely but you know this would be potentially good good things to consider before you go fishing for the day yeah like your pre-game yeah pre-gaming you know think about some of these things or or look up the fishing report you know joey you do a good job and jason does a good job of updating that relatively frequently but yeah i don't get stressed out about it though either i mean we're just going fishing yeah it's just fishing yeah there's a certain angst in the more oh man i used to have it so bad i remember i went in the grizzly hackle fly shop like 20 years.

Ago I made an ass out of myself I was just in such a hurry to get the shuttle signed up and you know get the flies and like once I got on the river I was like man I took what could have been like a really fun experience in the fly shop of asking some questions and really like embracing like oh man like tell me about the Blackfoot River tell me about the you know like.

You know tell me and teach me like and i could have taken like an extra 15 or 20 minutes and actually extracted like an experience out of being in the store in the morning doesn't mean i had to buy anything but i was in such a hurry to get my shuttle and get everything done and when i say i made an ass out of myself i didn't necessarily make an ass out of myself but i was in a real hurry to get like in and out of the checkpoint we see a lot of that that people treat that shop experience like a checkpoint and that's fine we're if all you need is a shuttle you know and an affirmation you're doing it right we'll we'll certainly give you that but our staff is so wonderful the staff that you built bob is so wonderful like ask them how they would do it sometimes like yeah i i think that is a missing you know component of don't just tell me what you're telling every customer because sometimes i think the staff might be like well here's what i would do, like, I would keep it really simple, like, or they might make it more complicated, but I think sometimes asking the staff exactly what they would personally do is an interesting question, because if somebody would ask me what I would personally do, it might not always be what I'm recommending, and it's not because I'm diverting attention away from a certain strategy or a certain pattern or something like that, but I might say, you know, if I were going out today, I'd probably just throw a sink tip and a little tiny streamer.

It's a cold morning and I can't tie 5X tip it really well when my fingers are cold.

Right.

Absolutely.

Not that it's bad advice, you know, but it's not the first thing that you would say.

Yeah.

It's not the first thing I would say.

So I think that that's like, you know, there's an experience value to being in the store.

I think that people, when they interact with shops have, and this applies not to just Reds.

I mean, this is like any shop you go to in the world.

So, I think you can have an experience in there that will exceed your expectations by just asking some more unique questions.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah, and what would you personally do today?

Where would you personally go?

And they might suggest something that's a little bit more challenging or more unique, and that might be intriguing to somebody instead of just providing the angle or the low-hanging fruit.

You know, which is, you know, I think that's our default answer is like, we're going to provide you the most low hanging fruit because we desperately want you to succeed.

Like if you succeed, we succeed.

You know, we're, we're, we're invested in the success of every angler.

And by the way, I didn't, I didn't give Bob these questions for the podcast.

This is like a pop quiz.

Yeah, I know.

You said that you weren't even going to have notes.

Dude, I used ChatGPT to make my notes.

Did you hear me doing the voice text thing to ChatGPT?

That didn't work worth a crap.

I was typing into ChatGPT.

I'm like, proofread this chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat.

And then I always have to tell ChatGPT, don't make me sound like a ChatGPT.

You got to make me sound like me, like keep in some of this stuff.

Yeah, the voice text thing didn't work, but that's how lazy I've gotten.

There's a lot of stuff here in the day.

So bob's doing well with the pop quiz and uh i think we kind of covered this but i want to talk about like successful anglers and how their gear is prepared like do you think that the if 10 anglers came in and you were to walk out to their vehicle or their boat are more than half prepared you know well well prepared well organized or less than half.

Oh, probably about half.

About half the anglers.

I'd say probably about half.

Yeah, I mean, because you've got, well, obviously we see all kinds of folks, right?

We see the guys that are out every weekend and their rods are rigged and they got a rod rack and, you know, whatever it might be.

And then you see who has enough time, right?

You see guys that are out for, maybe this is the first weekend they made it out this year because they've been busy and their kids are in sports.

Yeah.

And, you know, they got to get the rod put together and they got to get their waiters out of the closet and, and all kinds of stuff.

So you see all kinds, but, but yeah, certainly being prepared makes your day of fishing much easier.

Yeah.

What parts of the gear?

So like, you know, somebody has got a gear kit.

Let's just say you were to do it like a vehicle check or DIY anglers.

Can you imagine?

You know, that'd be pretty funny actually.

But if you were to walk out to their gear, what are the most important gear components for the trout angler to have well organized, would you say?

Well, I mean, I think obviously your kit bag should be, you know, fairly ready to go.

It's got the flies.

It's got your tippet, whether that's in a boat bag or that's in your hip pack.

I think that's super important.

Personally, I like to have a rod rigged up.

I might, I likely will change the flies that are on it, but just having at least one or two rods rigged up.

Just right in your forerunner.

Yeah.

Are you still doing the river quiver thing?

I have the river quiver, but I just, I throw them in half the time.

Half the time I throw them in the river.

Yeah, 10 foot rod fits in that.

Oh yeah.

Fits in every SUV.

And so, but man, I just, for me, that's really helpful just because you're nearly ready to fish even if you got to change your flies it's it's pretty quick versus putting all the pieces together and putting the reel on and putting a new leader on and well it's funny you say that because like anytime i go to the click a tad or the med how or the basin like you know an hour to two hours away from home and i i would say 90 of the time i will rig that rod up before i go.

So that i know everything's there i've got the reel i've got the rod you know i've got a basic leader a plan a fly and i'll put it on and i don't think we see that much as much as like i think we have an experience like i mean there's always somebody who forgets they're real yeah or you know they don't have the right line on there there's always a little hiccup but yeah it's just you're going to spend an hour in the car two hours in the car the last thing you want to do when you get there is put your rod together yeah i want to go fishing yeah i think there's a so pre-rig rods and then and i'm really bad about this because i jump back and forth between boat and wade fishing so much and this guy i fished with the other day was like such a good case study of what like a well-prepared angler is like i wrote like an instagram post that was way too long nobody will ever read it but if you follow us on instagram go back like you know somewhere like october 6th and just you can read that little post but man it was so cool to watch that dude because he had like his fly patch on the outside of his bag he had his tippet accessible his nippers accessible even down to his readers everything was tuned in and that guy was like so much more efficient than the average angler yeah i was like man if we could get people to be more organized like just know exactly where their their nymphs are where their tapered leaders are where their tippet is you know i always were i don't know what you do for a lanyard but i always wear a lanyard with tippet on my neck because that's the last thing i want to do is dig around and try to figure out which pocket my damn tippet is in when I need to make like a.

You know, some type of modification.

Sure.

But so, but the rod rigged up, I think is a good tip.

You know, if you're heading out this direction, like, you know, that's easy to do the night before.

Put the rod together, do it over a beer, get rigged up.

You can always audible a little bit when you get here.

And then if you were waiting, if you were going out waiting, are you doing hip pack, sling pack, backpack, fishing vest?

What's your kit?

What's your kit carry look like?

Oh, man.

I mean.

Not what you're using, what you could have.

I have one of each.

I could use any of them, but gosh, I mean, any more I like to use, it doesn't matter which one, I guess, but I'll, I prefer a smaller hip pack or a sling pack unless you're doing something real serious.

But I like to, anymore, I like to put a little puck of flies or a small fly box in my pocket and, you know, have some tippet handy, whether that's on a lanyard or in your pocket as well, and a set of hemos.

And I might have more stuff in my bag, but I like to keep the stuff that I'm likely going to use, like tying on new flies or switching flies, new tippet, putting on a dry dropper rig.

I mean, I want to have that like readily accessible in my pocket.

And then i'll keep the rest of the stuff in the bag but i find that really useful because you don't have to you don't have to dig in the bag you don't have to set it down you don't have to find a rock to put it on you don't spin a sling pack around your belly to get into i just hold the rod i got my what i need in my pocket i'll re-rig real quick i mean i don't have a fly fishing vest maybe that's my next investment because it's all right there you've been saying And for years, you're going to bring back the vest, you know?

Well, I got this new damn shit.

I know.

And I got this new chest pack the other day.

Yeah, the chest pack's cool.

Dude, I can't really talk about it yet, but I am going to pimp that son of a thing.

I'm going to have all my crap so ready.

I've realized after the other day, I'm like, just.

There's been a few times in my life where I've been trumped by somebody else's gear org, one of which was Curtis, one of our guides.

He's very orderly with his nymph selection.

He's a hell of a fishing guide.

And I was like, man, he's more organized than I am.

And I completely reset my bags.

I go, I'm getting new boxes.

I'm going to reset my bags.

I've got to be able to get to exactly what I'm looking for and have it at my fingertips.

And that was a little bit of an epiphany because I was like, man, I'd kind of been doing the fly tuck thing like most of the guides do for a long time.

And I was like, no, I'm going to get more organized.

He's setting a good example there.

And then fishing with this dude the other day, I was just so impressed.

I'm like, man, that guy's more organized than I am with his wading kit because that's all he does is wade.

I'll make an excuse for myself.

I jump back and forth between the boat and the wading all the time.

And then pretty soon, as you know, like you were steelheading last week, right?

So like you steal some tools and tip it for your steelhead bag and you put it in your trout bag and then you go trout fishing and you realize it's in your steelhead bag.

So I try to operate primarily out of just one bag, you know, then I go waiting.

But yeah, I think if people keep their flies organized, flies tippet, small tackle items, pre-rig that rod, I think that they'll have just a better mindset.

And then maybe they would have time to do the observation that you were talking about and actually look for a few bugs and clues, either from other anglers or nature itself to put them on the right path.

Okay, I'm going to skip a couple of these stupid questions here.

Do you ever see trends when certain flies are hot?

Okay, there's certain- Yeah, there's certain flies that are hot, okay?

Are they hot because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Like, you got a hot lead, or are they hot because the trout actually prefer them?

I don't know.

I've always wondered that, like, you know, what's the favorite- You've got a- What's your favorite trout fly, Joe?

Oh, today?

Just your all-time favorite.

Oh, I did this.

We had this discussion on a podcast and I made the guest choose one fly to fish trout the entire rest of their life.

Yeah.

What a brutal question.

I think Steve said he was going to use a rose as violet tag.

It was that it was going to be his, the rest of his life fly.

I mean, that's a good one.

I can't choose.

Mine was a small TJ hooker because I can fish as an infrastreamer.

But yeah, I mean, it's like whatever your favorite fly is, you're going to use it more frequently.

So it's going to work more often.

Oh, I'll catch it.

I'll catch that.

the hell out of them on that fly.

But is it working because you're using it more often or is it working because it works better?

Oh, it's because I know how to fish it.

Yeah, yeah.

So I think it's a confidence thing.

I think it's a confidence thing.

Certainly the fly has to be a good fly, you know, but also the confidence because there's a lot of good flies, right?

There's confidence.

Yes, and we're not talking match the hatch stuff here.

We're talking about your average day, like mediocre hatch nothing real unique happening just grabbing a bug obviously you know a hopper during hopper season could be effective yeah yeah right but okay so you're falling under the guys that like when these little flies get trendy in the staff and the guides are gobbling up it's part of it's effective because it's effective but it's primarily effective because you believe it's going to work i think so i think so yeah i'm with you i'm with you on that too i think it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yeah, so...

Yeah, we're going to skip the question on river etiquette.

That's a dumb question too.

Okay, so let's talk about steelhead fishing, Ben.

Yeah.

So you just went down with a bunch of knuckleheads down there to the click of tat and did some steelhead fishing.

Yeah, we had a great time.

Pretty good fishing.

The first day of fishing, we had two boats.

I think there was five of us the first day.

And man, the fishing was horrible.

like we caught one fish didn't hook any other fish no bobber downs nothing and you know you come into it thinking like man we're we're we really know what we're doing we're gonna get them today and we sure did not and oh you you know if you had like a a meter on the morale morale was low that night the guys were talking about oh if it's like this again tomorrow i'm just going to go home early and you know this and that and the other and then so anyway that was kind of funny i don't really i don't get that i mean i you still had fish and steel efficient sometimes you you don't get them you know you got to be willing to take a goose egg yeah i mean so then the next day we go out and fish we banged them up pretty good and had a great day of fishing what changed conditions wise i mean i it was water clarity i think the the first day was colored but not.

Really bad but it was certainly colored but it never turned green you know it was a little off color all day and then the next day we'd been hearing rumors that the river had been cycling from the snow melt from the previous day and so then that next day it did turn green at about 11 and it seemed like all of a sudden the light switch you know turned on yeah you were there when the lights came on.

Yeah.

Cause it was like for the next few hours, we, we were getting fish and then, and then it slowed down again towards evening.

Yeah.

And you guys caught Chinook and steelhead.

Chinook and steelhead.

Yeah.

And yeah, you were with Troy Lichtenager made that trip.

Yeah.

I'm going to have him on the podcast.

Oh, you should.

Yeah.

I totally need to, man.

I mean, he's just got, I mean, so much fishing experience.

Yeah.

We hired him.

I mean, he was 18 when we hired him.

I still remember.

Yeah.

He was saying he lived in a cabin on the property here.

Yeah.

He's one of, I think he and Steve are the only two that ever lived on property.

You know, for other than, you know, maybe a, maybe a late evening here and there.

We stay over once in a while but yeah i gotta have trey on the podcast but yeah i know like i'm a fly guy right i grew up throwing gear i haven't thrown gear you know hardly at all i've been a little bass fishing with my kids but a couple of the guys threw gear on the trip oh they were so jazzed they they got prawn or prawn or sand shrimp sand shrimp i think is what they are and you know they're still these are past hardcore fly only oh super fly fishermen If you told them 10 years ago, they would be slinging.

You know, trying to sling bait for Chinook or Steelhead.

They'd be like, I will never do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, uh, they were so jazzed up about trying to fish these sand shrimp and trying to fish these eggs.

And, you know, it's a mess and it's stinky and you got to put on your blue nitrile gloves and you look like a idiot down the river.

And I mean, no offense if anyone does that, but, but anyway.

It's not your norm.

It's not our normal.

deal you know yeah you feel like a poser yeah yes absolutely because we're like man how much eggs are you supposed to put on this thing are you supposed to put on eggs and a shrimp we called that the cocktail and uh it didn't work let me tell you it didn't work at all so you guys so we fish you caught way more on flies we didn't hook a fish on the gear rods we didn't hook a fish on bait and we did you know just fine on the fly rods and and some on the swing as well so that was pretty pretty telling and maybe it goes back to what you were saying you know pick one thing and be good at it and stick to stick to what you're good at right because yeah we we way out fished ish the gear so that was pretty fun and but yeah we caught we caught some chinook and we seem to be catching the chinook in the deeper runs and then the steelhead were kind of out on the fringes a lot of wild fish too.

The fish counts are good, wild, a lot of wild fish this year.

So that was fun seeing a lot of nice wild fish.

And we had one guy on the trip that had never been, he, he fishes in the ocean a lot and is a heck of an ocean fisherman for steelhead and, and mostly salmon amongst other things, but had never steelhead fished in a river like we were doing floating down the river.

And, and so the first day he, he hooked one and we, and lost it midday.

And then it was like three or four in the afternoon, kind of when you're like.

Man, is it going to happen for me today or not?

And gosh, he just hooked and landed this beautiful wild fish.

And so that was pretty fun, you know, that he got, got into one on the fly rod.

Did he, do you see him doing less big water fishing and more river fishing now or?

Oh, I mean, probably not, but it'll certainly be in his repertoire, you know, of stuff that he enjoys and likes to do.

Yeah.

If you're a fisherman, catching a steelhead on the fly is a box you want to check.

Yeah.

It's pretty fun.

It doesn't need to consume your whole identity.

And I think it is speaking to steelhead.

I think that with steelhead, oftentimes it doesn't take much.

I mean, you got to be there.

You just got to be there.

That's the first prerequisite.

It but steelhead aren't like some mythical fish it's not like a permit where a permit is highly discriminating and very spooky and you know permit is a saltwater flats fish for those that don't speak speak tropics but like a permit is really spooky very difficult you know nine times out of ten you're gonna you're gonna foul it up the permit's not gonna like your fly it's gonna be nervous fish but steelhead can be you know pretty vulnerable at times especially like in the situations you guys were in when, you know, you got, you had really tough water clarity the first day and all of a sudden the lights come on.

Well, those steelhead are holding in pretty vulnerable locations.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, they're back in the tail outs or they're on the weak sides and not even, not even in big deep water.

Yeah.

Not necessarily.

Two feet of water sometimes.

Yeah.

So.

Pretty shallow.

So yeah, it was really great.

Really great trip yeah what rod were you uh what rods were you fishing for steel because i imagine you swung some flies and through your single hand or yeah yeah both i mean 10 foot seven weights 10 foot eight weights are the you know preferred indicator rig out of the boat on the move or or waiting and then you know i think we were mostly throwing like seven weight 12 and a half footers you know full-size spay rods and you know not not anything too crazy what you know one of the guys though was fishing uh we sell it that ccfp the cuckoo for coco pup yeah that fly and you know because i'm almost always fishing a black and green or a black and blue or like maybe a wine if i'm feeling crazy but he was fishing it was either that pink one or the orange one real bright.

Ccfp something i never would have picked out of my box to fish yeah there's one that's like kind of yellow and pink yeah yeah it was that one yeah we fished that on the dean river for steelhead a bunch yeah i got to do that trip and i'm like i'm with you man i like natural i like blacks you know everything for steel and for the most part is blacks but the the guide up there picked that out of the box like that's the one yeah but so this guy travis was looks like shrimp dude it looks like a shrimp he could have put a sand shrimp on it and wouldn't have caught and he was right behind troy lichtenegger who just swung it heck of a heck of a spay fisherman right beautiful caster right and covered the water great with a dark color fly and travis went through that orange one and stuck fish travis is the guy that was his first steelhead different guy okay another different yeah there was there's two on the trip that i didn't know going into it but both great guys.

That sounds like a blast.

I can't, yeah, I'm going to get, get steelhead fishing later, later this month.

Yeah.

I, uh, the last question I want to leave you with, like we, you know, we work in this business because it's, it's certainly not because we get giant paychecks.

We work in this business cause we love it.

You know, we like fishing.

We like being around fishing and it's these feel good moments.

I think that leave us jumping out of bed in the next morning like we like getting to work what are things that what are the types of interactions you have that keep you like motivated to keep doing you know working with the public like yeah i don't know if i worded that very well bob but like there are things that you're like man, i was talking to a gentleman yesterday i think he was from the tri-cities.

And he called in and asked about an order that he had placed with us, which is a pretty standard phone call, right?

But then he happened to ask a question about fishing Rocky Ford.

And I hadn't even thought about Rocky Ford in months, you know?

And so we got to talking about that.

And then we got to talking about the Yakima and the Natchez and the Klickitat and some of the basin lakes.

And we just talked, I mean, like every fishery around, you know?

Yeah.

And that was super fun.

That was really enjoyable, right?

Because you get to share either your knowledge or the knowledge that you've inherited from some of the other people that work here.

And, you know, kind of get to relive those spots that we don't really think of, you know, we don't think about on a day-to-day basis.

You don't think about going up to Lake Lenore every day, right?

But it's super fun when you do.

yeah so anyway i i love talking to people about fishing and not just fishing here but fishing all over right yes it's the conversations yeah that we get to have i think that there's a man there's a large contingency of anglers that fish a lot of those non-outfitted fisheries like the yakima river canyon highly outfitted fishery as you know it should be it's a wonderful place to go it's a great easily accessible public water with lots of trout but like a bunch of those fisheries that you just mentioned although they might not be irrelevant to a lot of podcast listener.

Listeners some of the conversations that we get to share in where we get to hear about other people's experiences on these ancillary fisheries are very cool because every time I was in the shop like a week ago and man I talked to a guy for an hour and a half an hour and a half I didn't have, and I so enjoyed, I went home and told a bunch of the stories to my family that he shared with me because we had, I had fished and traveled to a couple of the different fisheries he was chatting about.

And I would agree.

Some of those conversations you get to have, those are places that we wish we could fish all the time and that we get to live vicariously.

I think the answer is we get to live vicariously through our customers at times, the same way they get to live vicariously through us.

Yeah.

I, uh, I do enjoy the conversations, especially when we get a chance to like be on that shop floor interacting with, you know, enthusiastic public and we get to see people at their best, you know, when they're getting ready to, to, to go fishing.

Yeah.

I love seeing, you know, regular customers or not, but those two brothers I was talking about, I sold him a trout spay rod.

I sold him the flies and then he comes in and shows me pictures of fishy caught you know it's a full circle right so stuff like that's pretty fun as well oh so i was i was chatting with a guy the other day i can't.

I don't like to say people's last names on the podcast, but I'll say their first names, but his name's Dick.

He's a local dude.

He doesn't come in the shop very often, but I'm telling you, for 25 years, he's been doing the same gig.

Like, I mean, he's getting older now.

I mean, as we all are, but he fishes this time of year, almost exclusively, and he'll cruise up and down the road.

He used to drive white Toyota pickup, and he'll cruise up and down the canyon just looking for fish feeding on blue wings.

And a lot of times when it's cold he'll just bring his net down and he'll just wear his jeans and he just casts from the bank and he'll find his feeders that are close to the highway and he just has his dry fly rod rigged up keeps his hands warm he'll jump out and he'll throw dries at these trout you know he does a nice job of handling the fish he'll net him from the shore he's got a long handled net you know typically i don't like seeing people do that but he's he's a mature dude he knows how to handle a fish properly he's been there before but he came in the shop the other day.

And man, I chatted with him for a long time, but it's, it's fun to see all these different characters that have all these different types of approaches.

Cause I'd long since forgotten about him and cause I hadn't seen him in a few years, but yeah, he just drives up and out of the Canyon till he sees them rising, pulls over, watches him.

He'll, you'll see him do it.

I see him from my boat.

He'll watch him feed for 10 or 15 minutes.

He'll figure out which fish he wants.

And then he's an extremely good caster and he'll go down and he'll target the largest fish in the pod.

He'll catch the largest fish oftentimes.

And then he'll go get back in his truck and he'll just kind of like listen to the Mariner's game or whatever the hell he's doing.

And then I kid you not, man, another fish will pop up and then he'll get out and he'll figure out which fish he wants next.

He'll take that next fish.

And, uh, what an interesting approach.

Yeah.

Totally interesting approach, man.

Like we all don't have to do, you know, you know, fishing the same way.

And I think that's the beauty of it is we get to chat with these people that have all sorts of different, you know, ideas and backgrounds.

Oh, dude, was it you that told me that he met the guy that had tied the fly that I had tied on YouTube and then caught fish?

No, but I was in the shop when that guy came through.

Yeah, what did he say?

I mean, basically that.

He caught a fish on the fly that you tied and followed along, and he was super stoked about it.

The shapeshifter sculpin.

Yeah, yeah.

You know how that fly got named?

No.

I was going to do a tying seminar a long time ago.

And they're like, hey, we need names for your patterns.

I'm like, I don't even name, I don't name these patterns.

And I wrote down shapeshifter sculpting.

And then I went to do this little tying seminar.

You know that they're not all that well attended.

They're not a big deal.

And then out of the blue, the guy that does the organization did it.

Like it was kind of a Michael Buffer style announcement.

And now tying the shapeshifter sculpting.

And I was like, okay, that name stuck.

Like it just kind of stuck with me, but I named it totally spontaneously.

But I always liked the name because I'm not convinced, you know, that fish doesn't know it's a sculpin, man.

It's a snack.

Yeah.

You know, so it could be a bunch of different things, but.

Sure.

All right.

Any concluding advice for somebody fishing month of October?

Oh man.

I mean, I think we've touched on a lot of these things, but, but small flies, small BWO dries or nymphs, yarn indicators.

And you know, if you're floating, don't go too far.

Definitely a shorter float in this low water.

I mean, five miles is plenty.

Oh, that's a lot of water.

Yeah.

I mean, two, two miles, three miles is great.

So.

Yep.

Use the boat to carry your stuff.

Don't be afraid to wade.

man i'm such a poor promoter i just for anybody still listening podcast i just posted our october fly bundle for trout and you can find that on our website under flies assortments and i think it's called the yakima river seasonal bundle and what you can do is you don't have to buy the whole bundle but go look at those patterns you can click on them individually and kind of fill in some blanks but those are really good patterns that a couple of us said would be really effective and unique in October, but I would pay special attention to the soft hackles that are in there.

The soft hackles have been fishing really well this week.

And that's partially because a lot of the nymphs are under the rocks, really doing a great job of hiding.

And a lot of the nymphs in the column are actually in a state of emergence.

And so that soft hackle can be really effective, but you can add that whole bundle to your cart and then just cull the ones that you, you, you're not, you're not feeling, or maybe that you already have.

So October fly bundles launch and then if you know women that are curious about fly fishing october 19th is our women's rendezvous it's 30 bucks it's a good open house big fun there'll be you know some kind of some cool party games and stuff it's a really good thing for people that just want to cast a little bit learn a little bit and be like hey i've always been curious like how am i going to get started without making a commitment to like a full plunge but that women's rendezvous it was a blast last year.

The gals all had a super time and it's, it's booking up pretty good.

So keep that in mind as well.

Other than that, thanks for listening to the men podcast.

Don't forget to shop at Reds.

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So all we demand is extreme loyalty when it comes to purchasing your flies and tackle.

Thanks folks.