S7, Ep 79: Building Bridges: Community and Content Creation in Fly Fishing with Spencer Durrant

Building Authentic Fly Fishing Communities Through Content

In this episode of The Articulate Fly podcast, host Marvin Cash reconnects with Spencer Durrant after nearly four years to explore the evolving world of fly fishing community building and digital marketing.

Guest Expertise: Multi-Platform Content Creator

Spencer Durrant serves as Director of Content at Ventures Fly Co. and News and Gear Editor at Flylords, while hosting the weekly Untangled: Fly Fishing for Everyone podcast. After transitioning from high school teaching to full-time fly fishing industry work, Spencer brings unique insights into authentic audience engagement and trust-building strategies.

What You'll Learn: Business and Community Building Strategies

Discover how podcasting creates deeper trust relationships than traditional digital marketing, why consistency beats sporadic content creation and how to compete with larger companies through authentic community engagement. Spencer shares practical insights on building customer loyalty through educational content rather than competing solely on price.

Featured Techniques: Content Strategy and Audience Development

Learn Spencer's approach to scripted podcast production, the power of recurring themes and personality in content creation and how to leverage user-generated questions for engaging episodes. The discussion covers effective gear reviewing strategies that maintain honesty while building industry relationships.

Digital Marketing Insights: Beyond Traditional Metrics

Explore why podcast ROI differs from traditional digital advertising, the challenges of measuring community-building success and strategies for competing with established brands through superior customer experience and educational resources.

AI and Content Creation: Navigating the Future

Spencer and Marvin discuss the responsible use of AI in content creation, distinguishing between helpful process automation and content that betrays audience trust, plus predictions for how artificial intelligence will impact authentic community building in outdoor industries.

Check Out Spencer's First Appearance on The Articulate Fly

Sponsors

Thanks to TroutRoutes for sponsoring this episode. Use artfly20 to get 20% off of your TroutRoutes Pro membership.

Related Content

S4, Ep 4 - Matt O'Neal of Savage Flies

S7, Ep 1 - Winter Fly Tying and Pre-Spawn Tips with Matt Reilly

BONUS - Tying the Circus Peanut: Streamer Secrets and Fishing Strategies with Russ Maddin

S4, Ep 150 - Soft Hackles with Allen McGee

All Things Social Media

Follow Spencer on

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash,the host of The Articulate Fly. On
this episode, Spencer Durantreturns to the podcast. Spencer updates
us on his new gigs withFlylords and Ventures Flyco, and
we discuss building authenticcommunities and fly fishing. I think
you're really going to enjoythis one, but before we get to interview,
just a couple of housekeepingitems. If you like the podcast, please

(00:26):
tell a friend and pleasesubscribe and leave us a rating and
review in the podcatcher ofyour choice. It really helps us out
and a shout out to oursponsor. Trout Routes. I've known
the team at Trout Routesalmost before there was a team at
Trout Routes. We all knowstreams are getting crowded and chances
are you're not the only one atyour local access point. Get away
from the crowds and busygravel lots by using Trout Routes

(00:48):
Pro. With over 350,000 accesspoints mapped across 50,000 trout
streams and much more, TroutRoutes has all the data you need
to help you find anglingopportunities that others will overlook.
Up your game and download theapp today. Use code artfly20 artfly20
all one word for 20% off ofyour Trout Routes Pro membership

(01:10):
at maps.troutroutes.com now onto our interview. Will Spencer, welcome
back to the Articulate Fly.
Hey, thanks, Marvin. It's goodto be back here.
Yeah, I was shocked. I think Ilooked at the date when I was doing
research for the questions andit's been almost four years since
you've been on the podcast,which kind of blows my mind. And

(01:31):
we were talking before westarted recording. I think the last
time we were together in thesame place was probably the last
AFTA show in Salt Lake City.Right. Kind of slightly on the other
side of COVID But to say thatthere's been a fair amount of water
under the bridge for you is anunderstatement. You want to catch
everybody up?
Yeah. Shoot. I didn't realizeit had been that long. That's. Oh

(01:56):
yeah, that has been a whilenow I'm thinking about it. Yeah,
we, my wife and I moved. Wenow live up kind of by Yellowstone
still in Wyoming. But we're upby Yellowstone now, so. But I'm far
enough away that the touristsaren't too bad. Nobody's trying to
pet buffalo near me. So I. Wegot that going for us. And then.

(02:20):
Yeah, I was. Shoot, I wasstill teaching high school last time
we talked as the day jobbecause, you know, fly fishing doesn't
always pay well enough for youto be full time in the industry.
So I was teaching high schoolfor a while, but I quit that. What
is it, 2025? When did I quit?2024. Because I ended up having an

(02:43):
opportunity to go full timewith Ventures Flyco, where I'm the
director of content. So I'mhelping to run our media side of
the company. I do our podcastevery week, the Untangled Podcast.
And then we've got all ourYouTube content that we're pushing
out. Beginner fly fishingmasterclass, Fly selection masterclass,

(03:06):
Fly tying Masterclass. Andwe're working. In fact, just today
I was editing the beginnernymphing masterclass. So we've got
a lot of content like thatcoming out and. Oh, shoot. What else?
Wife and I just had a baby inJune. No, she was born in May. She
was due in June. I keepgetting it mixed up. She was due

(03:27):
in June, but she came early.So I've got these two dates in my
head that I can never keep.
Straight.
But that's the first kid forus, and we're just kind of barely
surviving. So I think thatcatches us up pretty well, though
I can't think anything elsetoo major that's happened.
Yeah, but you're not with MidCurrent anymore, and you're officially

(03:47):
cool because you're a memberof the Flylords. I mean, you didn't
tell people that.
Well, I forgot. Yeah, no, Iwas with Mid Current for five years,
and then it was just one ofthose instances where it was just
time to move on, time to lookfor something a little bit different.
Because at Mid Current, I wasdoing Daily news every single day.

(04:13):
Saturdays and Sundays,Christmas Day, New Year's Day, every
day for five years and tons offun. I got to meet a lot of folks,
make some good relationshipsin the industry, but after a while,
it kind of wears on you doingdaily stuff. And I wanted to step
away from the daily grind alittle bit. And Flylords is a really

(04:35):
awesome opportunity. Camealong at the right time and I get
to rant about whatever I wantover there now. So they. They get
to publish my musings that we.We pretend are worth reading. And
I still do the gear reviewsover there as well. So I'm. I'm the
news and Gear editor is myofficial title over there at flylords.

(04:58):
Very, very cool. Yeah, it's aninteresting thing, right? Because,
I mean, you know, you weresuper nice to me because I just reached
out. I mean, this is how wemet everybody as I was starting the
podcast and I was like, hey,you know, if this is helpful to Your
viewers share my links. And sowe kind of developed a relationship
by me just flipping you linksto my RSS feed when I thought I had
something that was halfwaydecent for you to share.
Right.

(05:18):
Yeah. Yeah. And it snowballed,so. Yeah. Which is really good.
Yeah. Yeah. It's kind ofcrazy. We will probably, by Labor
Day, have a thousand episodes.
Oh, wow.
So I feel your pain on the,like, doing stuff every day because,
you know, putting out two orthree interviews a month and then
probably two to three piecesof short content a week. It's tiring.

(05:40):
It's a lot. Yeah. It wears youout more than you'd think. And I
don't think. In fact, I don'tthink. I know. Folks don't understand
the creative drain. They justthink, oh, you're making content
all day. That's fun and easy.It. That's fun and easy if you want

(06:01):
your content to suck. Butit's. It's a lot of hard work when
you're trying to make contentthat's actually going to help some
people and isn't justsomething for them to waste the time
with while they're sitting onthe toilet.
Yeah. It's kind of funny. Imean, I would say, you know, I haven't
done any kind of official timebenchmarking in a while, but I would

(06:21):
say pretty easy, you know, foran interview on the Articulate Fly
to take, you know, 12 to 15hours to produce soup to nuts.
Right.
You know, by the time, youknow, and you probably do this in
a different way for Untangled.We'll talk about in a minute. But,
you know, if you start out andyou need to do a little bit of research.
Right.
You know, like, I try to notask people the same questions that

(06:43):
got asked on another podcastlast week.
Yeah.
And then you want a story arcand then you, you know, you record
and then you want to edit and,you know, load the CMS and do all
the promotion. It's not hardto spend, you know, a dozen hours
on an hour, hour and a halflong interview, for sure.
Yeah, no, it's not. It's. Imean, shoot, on a good week, I can

(07:07):
put an episode of Untangledout in two days. That's two full
work days. So usually it takesme two and a half, three, just to
get everything dialed rightthe way that I want it. So. And it's
a short show. It's onlyusually 45 minutes to an hour, and
it's once a week. So, youknow, I'm over here fretting over

(07:32):
it and You're. You're puttingout two or three times more than
I am. So.
Yeah, I don't know. It's.It's. I mean, it's an interesting
thing. I. I love it. I've metgreat people just like you have.
But, you know, it's kind offunny because, you know, we always
kind of bump in. We always arekind of talk kind of. Our conversations
almost always end up kind ofin the same place. And, you know,
folks, we're going to kind oftake a deep dive on, you know, community

(07:54):
building around brands. And soI think kind of an interesting thing,
right, is, you know, youmentioned the Untangled podcast,
and you have a really uniqueformat, and it's actually a really
unique use case, and I waskind of curious if you could kind
of, you know, let folks know,you know, what it is, where to find
it, the general format and allthat kind of good stuff.
Yeah. So Untangled, the fullname is Untangled Fly Fishing for

(08:19):
Everyone. And I say that nottrying to sound sarcastic, but. But
actually meaning it where the.The idea was, how do we. How do we
make this stuff approachable?How do we. How do we take this from
a sport that doesn't make anysense, a sport that's incredibly

(08:40):
overwhelming to something thatis actually really simple? Because
at the end of the day, andsome folks get prickly when I say
this, but fly fishing ain'tall that hard, and it really isn't
all that complicated either.Your. Your whole job is put a fly
in front of a fish and make itlook real. However you choose to
do that is up to you. Butthat's your job. Whether you're fishing

(09:01):
for trout or you're fishingfor tarpon, you got to put that fly
in front of them and make itlook like something they want to
eat. And it's really thatsimple. You boil it down, you strip
all the other junk away fromit, and it's that simple. And that's
where Untangled came from, washow do we make this simple? How do
we make this approachable? Sowe started out with just purely a

(09:24):
Q and A driven show. So we'dget questions, I'd answer them, and
that was the show. And it'sevolved now to where I take a topic
once or I take a top one maintopic, whether it's from a question
that a listener sent in orit's something that I've noticed

(09:47):
folks talking about, I takethat topic and we go ahead and do
a deep dive onto that, andthen from there, we have a Q and
a section of the show. Andthen we end with a story from someone
out in the audience, someonewho's been out there fishing. They
send in their, their live reallife moment is what we call it. And

(10:11):
we get to connect with folksout there in the community who are,
who are fishing. So. And we'reon all the, all the major podcast
platforms. We're on YouTube,Apple, Spotify. Anywhere you find
your podcast, you'll find untangled.
Yeah. And I'll drop links toall that stuff in the show notes.
And so is it predominantly,you know, you're getting feedback

(10:31):
from the audience and it'sjust you, or do you sometimes bring
guests on?
We tried guests for a littlebit. My issue is just always audio
quality. I want to get thatdialed. And it's just kind of hard
with phone call interviews alot of the times and then. But yeah,

(10:53):
it's, it's almost allcompletely user driven. Even the
weeks where I mean I. Themonologue, the opening part of the
show is not directly tied to aquestion. Like I didn't get an email
from someone that week. It'sstill spurred by a question that

(11:15):
we've received. I've got over600 questions just this year from
folks, so there's no shortageof topics to dive into.
Very neat. And so when youprepare, do you outline what you
want to talk about or do youdo a little bit more official script?
Because I know you've gotlike, you've been an outdoor writer
kind of forever, right?

(11:36):
Yeah, no, I, I script it. Iscript it because I want to make
sure that I'm explaining it ina way that's simple and makes sense.
Because I tried go. I trieddoing a few episodes where I just
went with more of an outline.Just went off the cuff. And as much

(11:56):
as I'd like to be, I'm no, I'mno. What's the word I'm looking for?
Savant at broadcasting. So Itrip over myself sometimes. I don't
always say things the rightway. So I've got a lot of the big
points written out. The bigthings that I want to say are written

(12:16):
out so that I can articulatethem in a way that makes sense to
somebody who's never fly fishbefore, but it's still accessible
to someone who's been doing itfor a while. And that's important
to me to be able to reach bothof those people. And if I don't write
it out and think it throughbeforehand, I'm not going to be as
effective with how ICommunicate it. So it is a script.

(12:39):
I'll spend about a day,sometimes day and a half, just putting
the script together, thinkingthrough how I want to explain this,
examples, trying to rememberstories that I can use to illustrate
it with. And I don't scriptthe stories out. I'll literally just
write, share this story fromthis river on this day, and I'll

(12:59):
just tell the story. You know,I'm not going to script that part
out. I don't script out allthe jokes. You know, I try and come
up with my own jokes in themoment, something I think I'm getting
better at, thankfully. Andthen I, I certainly don't script
out all the. The love affairwith wings and Diet Coke that are
featured in almost everyepisode either. So that's just all

(13:20):
organic, but that's, that'skind of how I put it together.
Yeah.
Very neat. And so, you know,the interesting thing is, you know,
it's this, this podcast iskind of the linchpin for the community
building around Venture Flyco.And I was kind of curious if you
could kind of, you know, takeus behind the curtain in the land
of Oz and talk about kind of,you know, how you kind of came up

(13:42):
with, you know, we've got afly shop, and I, I don't know a lot
about ventures if they're,like, predominantly, you know, online.
Right.
And so this is a major part oftheir outreach, but this is also
kind of the springboard to allthe video stuff you were talking
about doing, too.
Yeah. So we're. We're onlinefor now. We'd love to have brick
and mortar at some point, butwe're, we're still. Still very much

(14:03):
in startup mode getting thisthing off the ground or. So we're
online for now, but yeah,it's. It was really like, why we.
We asked ourselves when we. Westarted getting into wanting to do
content and wanting to usethat to market ventures, why would

(14:28):
people buy from us? Well, theobvious thing is we can try and compete
on price, right? And we cantry selling flies for 99 cents, but
you find out real quick thatyou're not gonna make a whole lot
of money for selling yourflies for 99 cents. That's just.
You're just really not gonnaput money in the bank if that's what
you end up doing. So then the,the next natural step is, well, they're

(14:54):
gonna, they're gonna buy fromus because they trust us. Right?
They're. They're going to,they're going to trust us with our
money because we've helpedthem in some way. And so when you
look at it from thatperspective of business, it's okay,
we need to help these peopleas much as we can. And if you get
into it, if you get into itonly to make money or only to help

(15:22):
people, I don't think you'regoing to be successful. I think you
have to get into it with alittle bit of both. With your foot
in both worlds there. There'sgot to be a little bit of altruism
on your part in terms ofwanting to make things better and
wanting to help. In our case,wanting to help anglers begin and
learn and figure this stuffout. But then at the same time, we

(15:45):
got mortgages to pay, we gotfishing trips we want to take, got
things we want to do, so we'vestill got to pay the bills at the
same time. So just beingrealistic with yourself matters a
lot when you're. When you'retrying to build a community like
this. But it really. It seemedto us the best way to build that

(16:07):
community and to get folks tocome to us and to have our experience.
Because at the end of the day,we. We do feel like we're giving
the best experience possibleto anyone who comes to us. Because
we don't just have all thegear they need. We've got all the
resources they need to besuccessful. It's not just, hey, we're

(16:27):
gonna sell you this rod andreel in this fly collection, and
good luck figuring it out onthe water. It's, hey, here's every
fly that's in there. Here'swhat that fly is, here's what that
fly does. Here's when youshould use that fly. Here's how to
use those flies here, how tocast a fly rod. And if you think
you can't do it, here's abunch of stuff from other beginners

(16:50):
who've done it, who are inyour exact same shoes. And when you
can share that with people andshow that to people makes it very
powerful. And that makes itsomething that resonates with people.
And if you're going to besuccessful at whatever you do, I
don't care what businessyou're in, if you're going to be
successful at anything, yougot to figure out how to resonate

(17:13):
with folks and connect withfolks on some level. Because like
I said, if. If you're in itjust to make money, people are going
to sniff that out real quick.And if you're in it just to be altruistic,
well, then you're going toNeed a job in six months. So you.
There. There's gotta be alittle bit of both.
Yeah, it's interesting too,right? Cause I'm a hu. Like, you

(17:33):
know, I'm a big trust guy. AndI think the fascinating thing is
you're bringing. You'rebuilding the trust relationship that
people would normally buildwith the shop rats in their local
shop, and you're putting thaton the Internet. But the other thing,
too, and I mean, I'm kind ofbiased, right? Because I'm predominantly
a podcaster. That's why Ithink this recurrent audio medium
is so powerful, because itgives you this amazing way to build

(17:56):
trust in very, very subtle ways.
Right.
Like you talk for a repeatedperiod of time every week and they
like you, they don't thinkyou're an idiot, and they start to
trust you.
Right?
Yeah.
And I think that's somethingthat you can't. You can't really
shortcut. And I mean, yes, youcould do videos and do the same thing,
but then you can put out a lotless content. But, you know, it's

(18:16):
interesting, right, becauseto. I see lots of shops doing podcasts,
but they don't show upregularly for their audience. And
I try to tell them, I waslike, you would be better off partnering
with someone who's a moreregular content producer because
you're never going to get thenetwork effect if you're not showing
up every week or however oftenit is to get that payback on that

(18:37):
time investment.
Yeah, no, 100%. You have to beconsistent with it. And, oh, we had
a listener, I think it wasearlier this year, wrote a. Wrote
in, asked a question. But heprefaced this question with something
to the effect of, I feel likeI know Spencer because I've listened

(18:59):
to every episode of thepodcast on all my drives, and I think
I've listened to him talk morethan my wife this year is what he
wrote into us. And, you know,marital problems aside, if you're
listening to me more than yourwife, then I'm sorry, but that was
kind of a oh, wow moment forme personally to realize, oh, yeah,

(19:23):
you really are. It goes beyondjust talking to folks and it's actually
building that relationshipwith them. And it makes sense because
if you think about it from thepoint of view I. I consume quite
a few podcasts every week too,of my favorite stuff, and there's
one that I. I don't miss anyother episodes. I listen to them

(19:45):
every single day, and thoseguys feel like my friends. And when
they're gone for break, orwhatever. It feels weird because
I'm not listening to mybuddies talk. Even though I've never
met any of them, I. They feellike my friends. It's just kind of
weird to be on the other sideof that, to be the one making the

(20:06):
content that makes otherpeople feel that way. So it takes
a little bit of getting used to.
Yeah, I mean, it's super neat.But I would also say too, and you
and I have talked about thisin kind of one variety or another,
you know, it's really, youknow, I would say it's different.
It's not like earthshatteringly different because I
think they're, you know, thereare not a lot of people that are
think about it in this kind ofdeliberate trust way that you and

(20:29):
I are talking about it. Andthen I think there are a lot of people
that just don't think about itat all.
Right.
And then I think there are alot of people that have just made
the deal with the devil andthey love free stuff and likes on
the Internet. What was thekind of light bulb moment for you
where you were able to saywe're going to do this in a different

(20:50):
way?
That's a really good question.I think. I think looking at how some
of these other shops have beensuccessful and looking at why they

(21:15):
were successful was what mademe and the rest of the team Adventures
realize that we've got to go,we've got to go a slightly different
route because originally wewere writing a blog and we were just
doing written content andthought, yeah, we'll just build our
community this way. And that'snot a terrible way to go with it,

(21:35):
but it's also not the mosteffective either. You're certainly
not going to reach as manypeople with that as you would with
a podcast. And it was reallylooking at what Tom Rosenbauer does
over at Orvis. He's been doingwhat, 15, 14, 15 years now? He's
been doing the Orvis podcast,I think, and then the guys over at

(22:01):
Fly Fish Food who consistentlyput out a ton of pretty high quality
fly tying videos. And for along time that was most of their
content was fly tying videos.But are you going to buy your fly
tying supplies from the crustyold shop down the street with the,
the good old boys club withthe stale pot of coffee? Or are you

(22:23):
going to buy it from the funnyguys on YouTube who don't take it
too seriously and show you howto tie all the flies? You know, which
one are you going to pick? AndI think that Just looking at how
they'd manage to have successand how they'd managed to build community,
too. Because you think, howmany folks buy Orvis rods because

(22:45):
of Tom Rosenbauer?
A lot.
Yeah. He's more valuable tothat company than probably any other
employee there. I don't saythat as a slight. Any other employee
there. I know a couple of theguys who build the rods over there,
and they're fantastic. But youdon't sell near as many of those

(23:06):
rods without someone like Tom,because people trust Tom, and he's
built so many relationshipswith folks for so many stinking years.
And so when you're. Whenyou're looking at, okay, how do we.
How do we have success? How dowe run a business that's going to
be successful? The blueprintsthere, it's been there. You just

(23:28):
have to be willing to look atit or look for it. And that was the
aha moment. We realized, youknow, the blog's not the way to go.
We need to do a podcast. Weneed to. We need to do something
that's a bit more personal,that allows us to have more conversations
with people instead of justtalking to them. And that was the
issue with going with writtencontent on the blog, was it felt

(23:51):
like we were talking to themmore than we were having a conversation.
And now here we are on thepod. I can't tell you I mentioned
it earlier, but I. Couple ofthe running jokes on the podcast
are I love Diet Coke and Ilove buffalo wings. So there's always
a can of Diet Coke on the deskwhen I'm recording the show. And
then I always make some jokeor reference to me stuffing my face

(24:14):
with Buffalo wings. Right. Thefish. Fish is going to hit that fly
like I hit a plate of Buffalowings. And being able to inject that
little bit of personality intoit and have those recurring themes
helps. But I'd say probably60, 70% of our questions that we
get into the podcast,someone's chiming in on whether or

(24:36):
not Diet Coke's good or whattheir favorite wing sauce is. So
just. Just silly little thingslike that have built community in
ways that I didn't even really anticipate.
Yeah.
And it's interesting, right,because once you. I think another
shop that does a great jobwith this is Schultz Outfitters.
Right.
And, you know, in terms ofbuilding content and building physical

(24:59):
community and kind of reachingout to people and, you know, particularly
during the long Michiganwinters, they've got great tying
stuff. But, you know, once youkind of see kind of this aha moment,
it kind of flows downstreaminto all of your other content, right?
Yeah.
Because you just can't useInstagram and other tools the same

(25:20):
way, right?
No, you can't. You've gotta beauthentic and how you're communicating
or people are gonna seethrough it. Especially if you've
been authentic in one platform.
Yeah, it's. I don't know, it'san interesting thing. Is there something
kind of. And we'll drill alittle bit more into the social media
aspect of it, but, you know,is there something kind of, as you

(25:40):
like, made the transition fromblog to podcast that really kind
of surprised you? In additionto kind of the randomness of where
the community connections come from.
How much, how different it isfrom just writing. I think was the

(26:00):
big thing that surprised me interms of the medium itself is you
think, oh, I write pretty welland I've always been able to talk
well. So I thought, oh, it's.I just write my script out and I'll
read it and it'll be great.But then you play back and you realize
it sounds like you're readinga script. That's not what you want

(26:21):
to sound like, especially onthis kind of a show. There's some
shows where reading the scriptis what you want it to sound like,
but that's not what we wantedthis to sound like. I want to be
personal. We wanted it to besomething that engages with folks.
So that was, that was probablythe big surprise to me was how much
work and effort it takes tosound natural and sound conversational.

(26:43):
I think that surprises folks alot more than they would realize
if, you know, folks who'vetried to do their own podcast would
probably run into that, Iwould imagine.
Yeah. Interesting. And so, youknow, we've got kind of, you know,
I guess, I guess the way Iwould think about it, we were talking
earlier, I think there arepeople that think about it and obsess
about it like we do.
Right.
And I'm not saying that's likewe're geniuses or anything. It's

(27:05):
just kind of what we obsess about.
Yeah.
And then I think they'repeople that are just kind of doing
it it and don't really kind ofthink about these community building
things. They just do itbecause it's fun, which is fine.
And there's kind of a darkerside of influencer culture. And it's
kind of interesting to me.
Right.
Because I'm a Generation Xguy, so I didn't have technology
all the time. And so I see itas this great connection tool. But

(27:29):
there seem to be so manypeople that kind of get sucked down
this rat hole of hackingpeople's attention and not, I mean,
you have literally in the palmof your hand $1000 supercomputer
that can connect you withanyone in the world that likes the
same stuff that you do.
Right?
Yeah, no, it's, it's easy toget sucked into it and it's easy

(27:52):
to just, it's easy to just doit for the free stuff more than anything.
I mean, one of the big perksof the gear reviews and the writing
I do for Flylords is you getto keep a lot of the gear, especially

(28:12):
the waiters and boots. I can'tresell that stuff. So the soft goods,
especially fly rods, it's kindof a toss up whether you get to keep
those or not. But you get tobuild up this nice collection of
gear and it's a lot of fun andyou can really put, put some good
stuff, put a good collectionof gear together. And I don't know
anybody who gets into thisthat doesn't enjoy their gear in

(28:35):
some way or another. So thechance to get it for free or for
a discount or. Oh, you justgot to make a video about it there,
there's a lot of folks who getseduced by that and, and they're
willing to do just aboutanything for the stuff. But I think
the trend's kind of movingaway from that because the fluffy

(28:59):
gear reviews that you used tosee, especially by a lot of fly shops,
I don't know if you ever reada lot of fly shop gear reviews, but
the fly shops have a vestedinterest in selling you that product.
So why would they write anegative review of that product?
Right. You gotta ask yourselfthat question. So the really fluffy
gear reviews I think are onthe way out and there's, there's

(29:22):
still the cozy relationship orwhatever manufacturer is buying 50,
60 grand worth of ad spacethis year, so. And they've got a
new rod coming out. Are yougoing to say anything negative about
it? No, because they just paidyour salary for the whole year. So
there's still that conflicttoo. But I, I also think the brands

(29:45):
themselves, the manufacturersthemselves are more open to the honesty
now than maybe they werebecause folks are just seeing through
the, the influencers, theinfluencers who are just pushing
content to get free stuff. Andthat's something that I've tried
really hard to, to do is justto be honest and to walk through

(30:10):
the failings of any gear thatI'VE got the st. Croix Evos, 9 foot
5 weight. Their new flagshipall purpose trout rod. Don't know
if you had a chance to fishthat yet. It's an interesting stick,
but it's got almost no feellike 30ft. Just a very stiff, very

(30:33):
sort of unresponsive rod. AndI've been pretty open about that
and all my reviews about it.It doesn't mean I dislike it. I don't
think St. Croix bad company oranything. I just, it's, it's where
that rod suffers. Now if youneed a rod to chuck hopper dropper
rigs or streamers or heavynymph rigs from the boat, yeah, it's
a great ride. But if you needfine dry fly work in close, it's

(30:57):
probably not the directionthat I would personally go, just
it's a little too stiff. Butbeing able to have that conversation
and point that out to folks, Ithink people appreciate that more.
So to, to bring it all back,I, I think that darker side of the

(31:17):
influencer culture is stillthere, but I, I think people are
finally starting to seethrough it and there's just, they're
just not engaging with itanymore. I mean, it's why you see
this on, on a broader scale.If you take a step back and look
at all content, not just flyfishing, but if you look at all the
content that's popping off onYouTube this year, especially the

(31:41):
channels that are seeing themost, most growth and most traction
are the smaller channels, thequote unquote ordinary people. Because
those are the ones who strikepeople as more authentic. Because
once you get so big, you getreally big. You get almost too big
for your britches, you lose alittle bit of the spark that got

(32:02):
you there. And a lot of placesrun into that problem. A lot of media
companies run into thatproblem. They just try and grow and
grow and grow so much and theylose a lot of the sweat equity that
made their content great. Soyou look at these smaller creators
who are still puttingeverything they've got into their

(32:22):
content and they're seeingmore growth and success than your
bigger brands. And I thinkthat holds true for fly fishing on
the micro scale. When we zoomin on us is the people who are willing
be honest about stuff and tosay, hey, Orvis says the Helios is
however many, I forget thepercent off my head. It's however

(32:45):
many percent more accuratethan the H3. Okay, how do you measure
that? Is it actually that moreaccurate and doesn't matter. The
people were willing to go downthat road and actually question,
engage with stuff are thepeople that I, I think are getting
rewarded in the fly fishingecosystem right now. And that will

(33:06):
definitely come out on topfive to ten years from now.
Yeah, an interesting thingtoo. And you're not exactly in this,
this situation because you're,for lack of a better word, a captive
podcast for a fly shop.
Right.
But the lack of traditionaldigital media cost per click analysis
and podcasting makes it very,very hard when you start to talk

(33:31):
to. Because, I mean, I talk tomarketing managers and global brand
managers at tons of companiesall the time to. They feel in their
bones what you're saying, butthey can't prove it. And so they
know that. Well, the way we'vealways done it is we know exactly
if we pay this much forFacebook ads, this is the cost per
click and this is the roi.It's a much different calculus because

(33:57):
there's not a lot ofstandardization and there's not a
cost per click analog inpodcasting. And you can work on that
a little bit. But the realityis in podcasting, you have to be
huge, like public radio, espnto have the kind of tech to be able
to track some of this stuffdown. I think some of that is holding

(34:17):
back the shift where marketingmanagers will feel comfortable going
to their boss and saying,we're going to do this spend over
here in podcasts, because hereare all these soft reasons we think
it's better. And then theirboss says, well, gosh, can you show
me the quant? It's a lotharder to do for podcasts.
Yeah, it is. There's no doubtabout that. But you look at who's

(34:39):
successful right now, who'skilling it in the space right now
in fly fishing is the peoplethat are connecting with the audience.
And there's no way to, to stepback from that. Look at, look at
Sims, for example. They've.They've been going through, they've
been going through the ringerup there. And I feel for the guys.
I got friends who work forSims just with all the acquisitions

(35:03):
that I think they've beenbought by two different companies
in the last couple of years,if I'm remembering correctly. But
how much audience engagementhas Sims done in the last two, three
years? Just off the top ofyour head?
Not really a lot.
No, not, not much. And thenlook at Squala or look at Grundin's

(35:26):
with their new waiters.They've really invested a lot more
heavily in communityengagement with people with actually
trying to get folks to haveconversations with Them. And I mean,
shoot, look even at a red flyshop out there. Oh, I forget where
they're at. They're inWashington, I want to say. But you

(35:50):
just look at how great their,their YouTube content is, and they're
doing well. You look at aroyal treatment, fly fishing there
out of, outside of Portland.What Joel Offlette did for so many
years with his newsletter, itwas the gold standard for a lot of
fly shop newsletters, Right?And he's run a very successful fly

(36:14):
shop for a long time becausehe gets it. He's connecting with
the people. No newsletter is alittle bit different than a podcast
or YouTube channel, but it'sstill not as quantifiable as Facebook
ads. Right. So it really justcomes down to what. What's the perception
that you want of your company?And are you willing to have some

(36:40):
things be a little intangible?And if you are, I would love to know,
and I wish we could track it.I would love to know how many people
have bought something fromventuresfico because of the podcast.
We can track a lot, but Ican't track all of it, so I can't
peg an exact dollar number onit. And I would love to know just
to. Just for my. Even tosatisfy my own curiosity, I would

(37:03):
love to know, but I'd love toknow from a business perspective
too. But I do know for a factthat the connections that we've made
with people are worth itbecause people have stuck around
for a long time to buy stufffrom us and to continue to come back
to us. So I know even withoutbeing able to quantify what the podcast

(37:24):
has done for us and salesdollars, I know it's worked from
a community standpointbecause, I mean, shoot. Earlier this
year, we were out fishing. Iwas out with some buddies of mine
and we had the boat pulledover. I was re rigging and I was
in the back of the boat andthis other boat comes drifting through

(37:45):
the run. So we were lettingthem drift and fish the run. And
again, I'm in the back of theboat wearing hat and sunglasses.
I'm looking down and I'm tyinga fly on, and I just hear from the
other boat, hey, are you thatguy from that podcast? And my buddy
in the front of the boat? AndI wanted to. I wanted to drown him.

(38:06):
But he hollers back, yeah, heis. You want a selfie with him? So,
you know, it was, it was niceto meet the fans, but that, that's
been happening more and more,where just yesterday, Alex, my business
partner, who does the otherhalf of the media side of vfc, he

(38:28):
was out getting ice cream inPark City, Utah, and ran into a fan
of the show at the ice creamparlor. So, yeah, that's not quantifiable
in sales dollars, but that'squantifiable in actual. I met this
person, I talked to thisperson. I had a conversation with
this person. And when theyneed flies, when they need a starter

(38:52):
pack, when they need a new rodor reel or whatever it is, are they
going to go down the street toSportsman's Warehouse or Cabela's?
Are they going to come to us?So if you're. If you're willing to
take that risk of having a fewintangibles, you can have those human
moments that actually meansomething that are going to do more

(39:12):
for your business in the long run.
Yeah. And I think thesuperpower, you know, and I would
say podcasting, right? It'salways funny because people will
be like, well, you're antithis or anti that. I was like, well,
no, I'm like, anti makingmistakes and doing dumb stuff. I
think you. You know, it's partof an integrated strategy.
Right.
Analog and digital. But Ithink the super cool thing about
using digital delivery is ifyou can get really thoughtful and

(39:36):
granular about yourlistenership or your audience or
your customers, you know,you're not building the podcast for
everybody.
Right.
And you don't need a lot of atremendous amount of scale to get,
you know, the economic and theintangible returns.

(39:56):
No, no, you don't. And youhave to remember, you can't be everything
to everyone. There's a BareNaked Ladies album. Bare Naked Ladies
is my favorite band, andthey've got an album called Everything
to Everyone, and ironically,it's one of their least liked albums.
So. But you can't beeverything to everyone. And if you.

(40:17):
If you try to, you're nevergoing to meet it. So.
Yeah, it's interesting, too,because talking about kind of the
mix of, you know, analog, youknow, in digital, one of the genius
things, you know, talking tothe guys at Grundin's, you know,
they do that cappy hour, thefly shows, and they figured out that
it was actually cheaper togive someone a hat in their booth

(40:42):
to get them to become acustomer than it was to target them
on social media.
Oh, I believe that 100%.
Right.
The hat's, what, 15 buckstheir cost? Yeah, yeah, 15. Maybe
20 if you're getting a realbougie hat. Yeah. Oh, I believe that
100%.
And the people that are thereare, like, ready to buy and try.

(41:03):
So I think it's an interestingthing. And so, you know, it's interesting
because, you know, like, Idon't do questions on the scale you
do, but I, you know, literallyfor both the podcasts, because we've
got the articulate flying, youknow, to the point about niching
down. I've got the butchershop, which is only predator fly
stuff, but, you know, peoplesending questions and they get stickers,
and I literally write a noteto everybody and just drop it in
the mail.

(41:23):
Yeah.
And, you know, it's just kindof an amazing thing. And I mean,
I. I share that experiencewith you, you know, just kind of
random stuff. Like you, youknow, I can remember walking through
the atlant fishing show oneyear and people were like, you're
that guy. And I was like,who's that guy? And they're like,
you're the guy that's the voice.
That'S. Yeah, it's always funto get recognized out in. In. In

(41:44):
the real world. It's always fun.
Yeah.
So.
Because I'm always worriedthat I'm just some crazy guy, you
know, it's kind of likefishing affirmation. I feel like
I'm some crazy guy in my homeoffice making podcasts. And, you
know, when I fish, I need verylittle feedback just to know that
I'm not waving a veryexpensive graphite stick to. To no
fish.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So. So, you know, as we kindof, you know, we've got kind of,

(42:06):
we'll call IT Digital Media1.0, and, you know, within the last,
I don't know, year to twoyears, I mean, you know, AI has been
gasoline on the fire.
Right.
You know, you have anythoughts about where you think AI
will make the kind of digitalconnection work that we're talking

(42:26):
about better and kind of whereit will be too seductive and, you
know, create a lot of noisethat's not going to move things forward
very much.
Well, I think if we weresmart, we would take the documentary
Terminator to heart and we'dunplug the stinking thing, because
I just don't think it's goingto end well for anybody. You know,

(42:48):
teaching high school, thebiggest concern I saw was the use
of AI let kids just not thinkand engage with anything. And the
apathy among kids was mindblowing. Just, it was very hard to

(43:15):
get them to engage with andcare about anything other than what
was on their phone. And ifthey could get ChatGPT to write their
essay, then, yeah, whywouldn't they do that? Right, so
I'm not a big fan. I don'tknow that it's going to have a huge

(43:39):
impact though, because atleast for right now, you can still
tell the AI content from thereal stuff. So in terms of whether
we're trying to make contentcompletely with AI or just using
it to help, there's a coupleof things I'll have Chat GPT do for
me. It's really useful incoming up with titles and it's really

(44:03):
good at giving me a base foremail content. So I'll say something
like, you know, I need anemail about this topic. And I struggle
with being concise, as you canprobably tell, because I'm. I could
talk for hours and hours. SoI'm always aware of the fact that
I try to stuff too many wordsinto something. So when I tell Chat

(44:27):
GPT be concise and I can readit, it gives me ideas. And I never
use the Chat GPT stuff in anemail I send, ever. But it gives
me ideas of how can I say thisin as few words as possible, get
the point across and not takeup too much of the reader's time?
Because I don't want to. Idon't want to throw extra junk in

(44:48):
there that I don't need to.Right. So from that standpoint, I
think it's going to help thefolks who want to use it to improve
their own communicationskills. But I think overall it's
probably just going to makestuff worse because you're going
to have real people competingwith some Silicon Valley jack wagon

(45:15):
who went fly fishing oncebecause he went to Montana on a vegan
tofu retreat or some suchnonsense, and then he's going to,
oh, I'm going to make some flyfishing content and whatever. You
know, obviously that's anextreme example, but you might run
into stuff like that wherethey're gonna start pushing out just

(45:35):
junk just because they can.So. And, and then the low leverage
websites too. I mean, theplaces that do the absolute bare
minimum right now just to tryand get SEO traffic and sell affiliate
stuff or, you know, whateverit is, it's just gonna get worse
with them trying to soak upbandwidth because they've never put

(45:55):
a lot of effort into theircontent in the first place and now
they have to put even lessinto it. So it's going to make the
sport worse, it's going tomake it a bit more confusing for
people to figure out and thenit's just going to make our jobs
harder. The people whoactually want to connect with other
people, help other people, andwalk them through this thing, it's
just going to make it tougherfor all of us.

(46:16):
Do you think maybe there's a.I think there's going to be a lot
more noise.
Right.
But do you think in some ways,like, I kind of, you know, I've started
to kind of talk about thisstuff, and I think I talked before
recording. I'm actually goingto speak on AI down in Chattanooga
here in a couple weeks at theOutdoor Writers association annual
meeting. But if you lean intoyour humanity and your trust that

(46:37):
you may have to fight througha lot more digital noise. But I think
maybe you get to buildsomething that's even more valuable
on the other side.
Yeah. I think once we getthrough it, it just ties back to
what I said earlier. Folks aregoing to trust the people who've
helped them at the end of theday. So if you can do that and continue
to do it, I think. I thinkyou'll be okay. It's just gonna be

(46:58):
a pain in the butt for a while.
Yeah. It's interesting. CauseI don't really use it for, you know,
like, I would never use it fora newsletter. I would never use it
for a blog post. You know, I'mnot an avatar on the podcast. I try
to use it in places for kindof process stuff that has to get
done because, you know.
You know, you've never usedit. Sorry to interrupt, but. So you've

(47:22):
never used it forbrainstorming for a blog post or
brainstorming for an email before?
Oh, not for a post. I wouldsay, like, you know, every now and
again, I will, you know, popit in to get a research report on
a potential guest. But it'sreally just to see if there's anything
different. But it's not asystematic part of my process.
Right.

(47:42):
Do you think it's wrong to useit that way?
No, I don't. I think that thequestion you have to ask yourself.
Right.
Is, you know, if you're tryingto help people, kind of. We put in
the framework of our conversation.
Yeah.
The question is, where wouldyour audience feel that their trust
had been betrayed if you soldthem synthetic content that you didn't

(48:04):
disclose to them?
Yeah.
Right.
Oh, I agree with that.
Right.
100%.
Yeah. So I don't think that. Idon't think it's wrong. And I think
people. I think the mis. Like,you know, I'm not saying, like, Marvin's
way is the way. I just think that.
Right.
I'VE learned that lesson. I'vebeen around the sun enough times
to know better than that. Butwhat I would say is I think the real

(48:25):
mistake you make is not being deliberate.
Right.
Yeah.
And as I lecture my sons allthe time, trust is an asymmetric
asset. Hard to build, easy tolose. And to your point, if you've
got, basically people that arejust clickbaiting affiliate links,
they don't really care anyway, right?
No, they don't.
But I think the way I look atit is if I sent someone a newsletter

(48:48):
that I didn't write and theythought it was me, or they read it
and they knew it wasn't me, Idon't think that helps the brand.
No. 100%, it doesn't. Andthat's why, like I said, I only use
it for brainstorming. But it'snice. It's a good way to get around
writer's block sometimes,where if you just can't figure out,
how do I say this? It's niceto see it written out some other

(49:11):
way, and then you can think,oh, okay. And it sort of jogs that
loose in your head. At leastfor me it has. So it's been nice
to have another way to.Another tool to try and use to be
creative, but not to ever useit in the final product, because
that's. Yeah, that's justnever gonna go well.
Yeah. Do you know, like, forexample, in podcasting, there's so

(49:33):
many things that you have todo for every episode, Right?
Yep.
And I wouldn't say they areper se creative.
No.
And so if you can offload thatto some type of artificial intelligence,
you know the drill, Right.Like, whether it's like, well, here's
my main image, but I need thisin four other image formats, Right?
Yeah.
Or here's how I build mydatabase for all my show notes, or

(49:56):
here's how you can clean up mytranscript for me, I think those
are all things because, Imean, what's the reality? Almost
none of us that are doingniche podcasting are going to pay
to have a human being clean upa podcast. And then the reality is
they don't fly fish, sothey're going to probably make it
worse than it was when it cameout the first time. But I think there's
a ton of stuff like that thatyou know that from a creative perspective,

(50:19):
the way I look at it and theway I kind of talk to other creatives
like you about it is ifthere's all this stuff that you have
to do but doesn't really kindof make you have a better product
if you can offload that in aresponsible way where it either creates
more freedom for you to be creative.
Right?
Yeah.
Then I think that's a greatthing from a creator because. And

(50:41):
this is true, I think, notjust for, you know, I think. I think
creator is almost too narrow aterm, but I think for small business
people, even people in kind ofa traditional workplace or entrepreneurs
like, you know, the reality isyou can't hire all the people you
need, right?
No.
And so that's the place whereI've spent most of my time with it

(51:01):
is. And then there are thingslike, for example, you know, they're
great AI tools for like, youknow, taking out the garage door
opening in the middle of anepisode, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And there's all kinds of stufflike that. But, yeah, I don't know.
It's an interesting thing, andit's going to be interesting to kind
of see, you know, kind ofwhere it all settles out. But, yeah,
I don't. I mean, I don't thinkit's bad to use it for brainstorming.

(51:24):
You know, it's like, I talkedto you. I'm lucky. I know you. I
know you pretty well. Sothere's, you know, there's not a
lot of, you know, incrementalvalue for me trolling around and
chatgpt to learn more becauseI've probably got a pretty good basis
for the interview. But forother people, you know, where someone's
like, you should talk to thisperson, and I don't know a lot about
them, it's great. And you canjust say, hey, write me a research
report just to give mebackground, and you can kind of read

(51:45):
it and then you can kind ofpick questions out. I think that's
perfectly fine.
Yeah, I agree.
And I wouldn't even say, youknow, as long as it doesn't bother
your audience and therelationship that you have with them,
I just think the line's goingto be different for everybody. Right?
Yeah, it is.
And so, you know, I don'tknow, I could see probably not in
fly fishing, but I don't know,you probably. Do you remember Max

(52:05):
Headroom, the TV show?
No, I don't.
It was an old, like, like AIkind of chatbot that lived in a TV.
Right.
I think that TV show was inthe 80s probably, you know, I could
see for something, peopleactually finding that interesting.
Right?
Or, yeah, but, yeah, it's. Idon't know. It's a. It's an interesting

(52:25):
thing. But it's changingincredibly quickly that I.
Will say, yes, it is.
So. So, you know, before I letyou go this evening and play with
the two dogs and check in withthe family, is there anything else
you're kind of working oneither kind of personally or at Flylords
or, you know, with the podcastand with Venture Flyco that you want

(52:46):
to share with folks?
I think the big thing rightnow is we've got our, our nymphing
masterclass coming out ofVentures. Fingers crossed. Hopefully
the end of the month, the endof August. We'll see. I'm not sure
when exactly we're going tostart dropping them. Productions
just always take, take so muchlonger than you would think, but

(53:10):
that I'm really excited forthat. And then we've got a slate
of really interesting callthem how we Fish videos, where it's
a little bit of adventure, alittle bit of storytelling, but we
take you along for the ridewith us. So we show you how we fly
fish certain situations,whether it's lakes or streams or

(53:31):
pocket water or whatever, wejust walk you through, here's this
rig, here's why I'm using it,and then we show you whether it works
or not. So there's footage ofme getting skunked all over YouTube,
but we've got a, we've got allfour that are filmed and two more
we're going to try to do fornext year that I'm really excited
about releasing. We justwrapped up the fourth one last week.

(53:58):
Had a ton of fun. I got eatenalive by mosquitoes for it. But there's
going to be some really funcontent coming out on YouTube for,
oh, first half of next yearonce we get that stuff all squared
away. So I'm really excitedabout what's going on there. And
then I never know what's goingon with Flylords because I'm doing

(54:19):
the news over there and thenI'm editing gear. So it's always
new and different, whatever Iget to talk about or write about
over there, but there's alwaysfun stuff going on over there. So
it's. I know I've got a newWinston fly rod sitting here that's
going to get reviewed soon, soyou can be looking for that. But

(54:41):
yeah, other than that, it'sthings. Things are just kind of plugging
along, you know, don't, don'tmiss the show, don't miss the podcast
and don't miss what we'redoing, adventures.
And will your adoring fans beable to bump into you any of the
fly fishing shows. Like, youknow, I think you and I always go
back and forth. Are you goingto go to Denver or not or.
Oh, I want to go. We'll see ifwe go this year. It's. It's always

(55:05):
hard for me to want. We're.I'm on the road so much as it is.
It's kind of nice to get abreak in the winter sometimes. So
sometimes it's hard to pry meout of Wyoming, even in the middle
of winter. It's hard to pry meaway sometimes.
Well, I mean, you know, youknow, flying into West Yellowstone

(55:25):
in the wintertime is not forthe faint of heart. And you can find
yourself sleeping in yourtruck if you don't watch out.
Right?
Yeah, well, and shoot, youcan't even. Most the flights into
the closest airport to me getdiverted in the winter anyways. They
get diverted up to Montanabecause half the time it's too windy
or too icy to land in Wyoming.So then you're looking at a two and

(55:49):
a half, three hour drive homefrom the airport in Montana, depending
on how the roads are.
Yeah, that's unnecessarilycharacter building.
Yeah, well, it's something. So.
So what's the best place forfolks to kind of follow your writing,
your podcasting, and all ofyour adventures?
Yeah, it's just ventures flycoon YouTube for all the podcasts and

(56:12):
the videos and [e-mail] for all the
writing.
Well, there you go. Well,Spencer, as always, it's always great
to catch up. I appreciate youtaking some time and talking to me
this evening.
You bet, Marvin. Thanks forhaving me on.
You bet. Take care. Well,folks, we hope you enjoyed the interview
as much as we enjoyed bringingit to you. Don't forget to check

(56:33):
out the links to all of thisepisode's sponsors in the show. Notes.
Tight lines, everybody.