June 4, 2024 • 55 mins
Imagine the gentle lull of the river, the artful dance of the fly rod, and the thrill of a catch in the stunning backdrop of North Idaho's waterways. Isaac unveils the secret behind the perfect 'river beer,' giving a spicy kickstart to our conversation.
We don't just talk fish—we dive into resources that make the sport accessible, like online fishing reports and free classes. Whether you're a seasoned fly fisher or have yet to wet a line, this episode is a treasure trove of inspiration and joy, capturing the essence of fly fishing in the heart of Idaho. Join us as we cast into the waters of knowledge and experience in this celebration of one of life's most meditative sports.
Find Ian and Isaac on Linkedin
Send questions to Mike Church or DM us on Instagram!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is the Kestrel Country Podcast where we discuss
the people, places and eventsall around Kestrel country
(00:41):
podcast.
I'm your host, mike church.
Of the Kestrel Country Podcast.
I'm your host, Mike Church, andtoday we got a fun episode
talking about fly fishing.
So this time of year I'm alwayseager to get out and enjoy
those rivers, and a couple of myfriends, Isaac Groucky and Ian
Kern, joined me today to talk alittle bit about fly fishing.
(01:01):
We talk about everything fromriver beers and what that is all
the way into how they got intoit, some tips, some places.
So hope you all enjoy talkingor listening to a little
conversation about North Idahofly fishing.
Are we going to drink thosebeers?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
a we got to do like a tutorial on the beers uh-huh,
because I would do.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
We should start with that yeah, if lead in, if mike's
a good producer, he's recordingalready.
So all right I'll leave that upto your.
This is where the imaginationis where the magic happens.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, so river beers.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Ian introduced me to this.
Actually, I think you have toknow how to do this to be a
guide right, a river guide.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Actually, I probably found it on Instagram.
There's an outfit out ofCalifornia Taco Fly Company
Pretty fun guys, they're intotacos, good Mexican food and fly
company Pretty fun guys,they're into tacos, good Mexican
food and fly fishing.
And I saw this video originallywhen they first posted it about
the river beer and I thoughtthat looks awesome.
(02:16):
And I think I introduced you,yeah, a couple of years ago on
the river, and it just becomes athing.
You bring all these ingredientsand you make them in the boat
and then you serve up these likefake beer cocktails that are
spicy and delicious.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It's a good way to take a plain lager and make it
drinkable.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah.
So, isaac, you should walk usthrough this as you go, because
we do have the phone rolling,but the majority of our audience
is certainly audio.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, so this is we only.
Normally you're not allowed todrink these unless you're on the
river, but we're going to makean exception.
Um, but yeah, no, we just gotlike a basic.
This is a 10 barrel brewingcompany pub beer lager.
Any cheap lager works.
And, uh, the way Ian taught me,you got to crack the top this
is the hardest part Verycarefully, cause you don't want
to pop it all the way.
Ian taught me you got to crackthe top this is the hardest part
Very carefully, because youdon't want to pop it all the way
.
Oh, just a little bit, I don'tknow if I can do this on.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
You need a teeny, tiny crack.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
You have to be floating.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
It might not work.
I'm not going to go too farwith it, just a tiny, just let a
little air out.
Okay, then we go lime and youwant to fill the top of the can
with lime juice.
(03:33):
We've got a fresh, cut limehere.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So do you want enough of a hole to where that lime
juice leaks in, or no, I mean?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
it's going to get in eventually.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
He says you do.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
You do, but the problem is that I only have
three beers, and so if you ruinone, I don't have any more.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, there's definitely variations on things
you put on the top, but therehas to be lime and tahini.
I like to add hot sauce.
Isaac's got a great setup there.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Some people use salsa .
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Salsa works A legitimate like salsa, liquid
salsa.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
All right.
So we got lime juice freshsqueezed lime juice on the tops
of the can.
Then we add a little salt righton.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Mmm, I can see how sunshine the river.
It would certainly enhancewhat's going on here.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
A hundred percent.
Okay, Tahini, you guys knowthis from your, you know your
margaritas.
This is like spicy, it's like Idon't know how would you
describe it.
A little bit of that on top.
More salt yeah, spicy saltTapatio.
You can use any hot sauce, butI like this stuff just a.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
I like a good, just a splash sauce tapatio is kind of
my go-to, like on eggs, andyeah, all right, it's good so
you got to take the first drinkbecause it's the action, is
opening it all the way, and thenall that stuff dumps in and
(05:11):
it's going to foam and pour out.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, so your first your first drink is is it?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
has to be.
Yeah, so probably not, notdirectly over the soundboard,
correct, it's probably.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I'll give you this video.
You can cut it into your mastervideo.
There you go.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well, cheers, Cheers hey cheers To talking about fly
fishing.
To talking about it and thenyou got to kind of monitor it
because it's going to want tocome fizzing back up again.
But I think I did a good, apretty good job.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, that's good.
That's good.
Definitely enhances the oldplain Jane lager.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Here's for the microphone.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
There you are.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Now that should be a Kestrel country.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Crack, that's right that should be our new opening.
Well, I definitely need to findmore guests who bring drinks,
although we do record a lot ofthese at 9 in the morning.
Yeah, well, for the record,it's 5 o'clock somewhere.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Yeah, river Beer, taco Fly Company.
Don't quote without it.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
That's the way to start a podcast, right there,
man.
So Isaac Grauke, with the introthere, and Ian Kern, hello.
Thanks for coming on, guys.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
There's going to be plenty of breaks when I'm
drinking beer.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
I suggest we record a third podcast at some point on
a boat yeah, on the river.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, that needs to happen for sure.
I often wonder why I don't dothat on location.
Well, different equipment On aboat's a little different, but I
mean like at a camp.
I often wonder why I don't dothat on location.
Wow, A lot of boat, Differentequipment, A lot of boats a
little different, but I meanlike at a camp.
That'd be easy to do.
Absolutely, Riverside.
You have the river in thebackground, so we are supposed
to talk about fishing.
(07:17):
But what I usually like to dostart off with a little
background, little intro.
So maybe, Isaac, we'll startwith you.
Just tell us a quick bit aboutyourself and maybe how you got
into fishing fly fishing inparticular.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
We're going to talk about fly fishing.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I mean it's the best kind of fishing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Sounds good.
Yeah, isaac Grauke lived inMoscow since mid nineties.
Um, I was 12 when we moved hereand so grew up here a lot, and
my parents, um, got into flyfishing and uh, took us out
quite a bit early on.
I wasn't really into it, but Iam great, very grateful that
(07:58):
they sort of drug me out thereand, um, we found the St Joe
river uh pretty early on and hada raft.
So I spent a lot of timerafting and time on the water
and trying to figure out how tocatch fish and we were pretty
terrible.
But we, uh we got started,which is sometimes the hardest
start or hardest part.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Wasn't there some story about you getting either
waders or or something for abirthday and being really upset
about it?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, I can't remember if I told that story
last time.
But um yeah, when I was 12 or13, I said to my parents you
know, I just I don't want totell you specifically what I
want, just think about me.
You know I wanted to be, Iwanted to be understood, think
about me and and get me what youthink that I would, I would
want, and uh, so I thought itwas going to be basketball shoes
(08:45):
, cause I was really into sports.
And and, uh, yeah, so I openedup a, um, a box that was the
right size for basketball shoes,but it ended up being a pair of
neoprene Hodgman waders and Icried, I burst into tears as a,
as a 12 year old, which iscompletely unacceptable, uh, but
yeah, so we laugh about that.
(09:06):
Uh, uh, tell that story a lot.
But now I got waiters again, um, I don't know 10 years or so
ago, and I didn't.
I didn't cry that time, but,yeah, no, for me, I just I was
into it a little bit, not muchas a kid and then, after having
my own kids, um, um, startedgetting into a lot more and we
started um camping.
We've got um like a seasonalcampsite.
(09:27):
Uh, we park trailers up on theSt Joe and we've got drift boats
and go up and and hang out,ride dirt bikes and and fish the
river, and so it's just kind ofbecome part of our seasonal
rhythm.
Um, so we do every year.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Was there a defining time when you remember okay, I'm
into fly fishing.
Yeah Well yeah, does it kind ofjust progress?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
No for sure.
Um, I think there was a.
It was a combination of gettingto a point in my career where
I'm like, all right, I'm settled, I know what I'm doing, um.
And then, um, just coming tothe realization that I live in
Idaho and there's all theseamazing things that we have
around us, and Mike and Iactually took a trip to rock
Creek just past Missoula andMontana, took my dad's camper
(10:14):
this was in 2009.
And just, we were like, youknow we should let's go fly
fishing, and I think at thattime we'd both done it a little
bit.
It felt new, um, and kind ofdidn't look back from there,
just started doing more and moreof that yeah, I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I had a similar question, but curious what that?
Obviously there was that timing, but what would you say?
It is about fly fishing.
That kind of got you eitherchanged your mind about it or
that keeps you hooked to it tothis day.
Hooked me with the puns todayyeah, I mean I what do you love
(10:50):
about fly fishing?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
yeah, well, initially I'll.
This is maybe just a very smallpart of it, but I think looking
out from the outside at peoplewho do fly fishing, it was this
mysterious thing that was likeI'd like those people, I think
what they're doing is neat andand I'm completely intimidated.
So, and this was the same thingwith, you know, hunting, um,
(11:16):
even like farming and likestarting to raise, um, raise
animals.
It was this thing, looking atfrom the outside that was
intriguing, but kind of like man, I have no idea how to do that.
And so then, crossing thatbarrier and just deciding to say
, you know what, let's just grabsome used gear, borrow some
stuff and go and be willing tocompletely make fools of
(11:36):
ourselves.
I think we caught like fivefish, like between the four guys
that were on that trip, allaccidentally, totally.
Yeah, tiny little fish, and wetook pictures with every single
one, you know it was like we didit.
I tricked a fish, Um and, andthen there, and then there's a
whole like stages to it too,because then you get obsessed
(11:57):
and then you can't think ofanything else and then it's all
about numbers and I'm like wewould be camping on the river
and I'd see a rise and it's likeI just had breakfast or whether
.
But I'm like I got to go catchthat fish and you're annoying to
be around.
You know your family's like, oh, he's out there again.
And and then you kind of settleinto this comfortable space
(12:21):
where you like to fish.
You catch fish, but like I'llhave times when I'll go drive
the river and look at the riverand I I don't even bring a rod,
I just want to look at the riveror a snorkeling, river
snorkeling, I was going to sayhave you ever swam?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah.
Watch fish, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Absolutely One of my like most, uh, the coolest
moments in nature.
Yeah, I guess that's the way Iput it.
The coolest moment in naturewould be this time.
I swam up behind a risingcutthroat and just watched it
from like 10 feet away.
You know, you just kind of goup and take a breath, come back
down, and it was just like itwould come up off the bottom and
(12:59):
grab something and go back down.
And then I just snuck away youknow it was cool.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
That's awesome, awesome, that was good.
Ian, yeah, what's your?
What was your journey like?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
where are you from?
I grew up in eugene, oregontrack town, usa, amen.
It's a beautiful location.
It sits like 45 minutes fromthe pacific coast, 45 minutes
from the cascade mountains, andthen it's in between two rivers,
or two rivers kind of comethrough the McKenzie river and
the Willamette.
So it's just a rich outdoorssports enjoyment environment.
(13:36):
And I grew up in a family thatloved getting out and family
camping, car camping, but reallydidn't do a you know much more
than that.
And I think in high school Igot into the boy scouts because
I loved being outside.
So I got involved in boy scoutsand mountain rescue and boating
and just anything I could dooutside.
So I didn't necessarily getinto fly fishing until probably
(14:00):
my senior year.
Sadly because it, because it'slike, oh, I had all these great
opportunities and I neverutilized it.
But for me I think I graduatedhigh school early, traveled in
Europe a bit, came back homeKids today call it a gap year.
I just was not in school or hadplans for doing that and became
(14:21):
a river guide.
So I took river rafting clientsdown mostly the McKenzie and
other rivers in Oregon the Wahee, the Klamath, the Rogue, the
Deschutes, um and I probablyjust saw guys fly fishing and
thought I want to do that.
I never really fished beforethat.
I wasn't a spinner guy and hadthe opportunity to just buy a
(14:44):
rod and fish like a lot.
So I can remember one summer Iwas guiding on the McKenzie
primarily, but I go up in themorning and fish for 20, 30
minutes before clients showed updo a raft trip and then you
know three o'clock when theday's done, fish for an hour or
two before I went home, all onthe McKenzie.
(15:06):
The McKenzie River is kind ofhistorical because that's where
the McKenzie River drift boatwas sort of first.
Yeah, invented, developed orused, which is a.
You know, we all know them asdrift boats.
But maybe some of our listenersdon't.
It's based off of an ocean thatwere big water, dory, so it's
(15:27):
got a bow and stern that lookidentical, and then the original
boats, which were all made outof wood, had a really high
rocker, so big round bottom soyou could maneuver the rapids,
and it just became a way offishing.
So the mackenzie drift boat wassort of a small version of the
dory and then I think theydeveloped even a couple others.
I don't remember what otherriver.
(15:47):
There's another one that'snamed after, but basically out
of oregon.
How do you get down theserivers and fish them all along
the way?
Yeah, so there were a lot ofdrift boats.
I mean it was.
You'd see them everywhere.
There were boat builders intown, people on the river and
boats, and so I was just kind ofaround it.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Is it a pretty major destination for fly fishing?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
It is.
I would not have known thatgrowing up, but when you get
outside of where you're from andtalk to people like, oh, one of
my bucket list rivers is to gofish the McKenzie, even in a
drift boat, and I've readarticles in different
publications over the yearspeople coming from other parts
of the world to come fish Oregonand fish fish the McKenzie
(16:26):
river, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Yeah, did you when you were first getting into it?
Um was, you were river guiding,so you're in rafts, right, yep?
Um, did you fish out of a driftboat early on, or were you,
like I think a lot of people andI know that was my experience
was entering it just, you know,waiting and from shore, I don't
know, it was probably only.
I don't think I'd been in adrift boat fishing until I went
(16:53):
in your boat a few years back.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, I can't even remember the first time I was in
a drift boat.
We didn't, I mean, we were inthe raft early on, but actually
like a hard bottom drift boat.
I don't know, I can't evenremember early on, but actually
like a hard bottom drift boat.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
I don't know, I can't even remember.
Yeah, I think you know I kindof got into river culture so I
was hanging out with a bunch ofpeople who loved the adrenaline
rush of rafting and doing stuffin rapids or kayaking.
But then there was also sort ofpeople who just love the water
and love fishing and love boats.
So I had a guide friend who hada drift boat and he'd let me
just borrow it and take it out.
So I definitely fished a fewtimes early on in a drift boat,
(17:28):
cause I had access to people whohad boats.
Um, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah, it's a different experience.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I still fish with that rod I bought in high school
.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
It's an.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Orvis Clearwater.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, that's awesome Classic, it's a great rod.
I have one of those, too, thatI think I was probably in high
school when I got it.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
And it's funny, you talk about the progression of
learning about fish, aboutfishing, about fly fishing.
There is ground to cover, youneed to learn a lot.
Yeah, there is ground to coveryou need to learn a lot.
Yeah, because I remember justprobably a good year of just
going out to like, oh there'swater, it's water, there must be
fish in there.
I'll throw something out thereand I'll probably catch
something, but I had no ideawhat I was doing and it only
(18:12):
enriches your experience, as youlearn more and experience more
and do more, that I think flyfishing becomes more fun.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, now we talk about targeting species, going
to certain places to fish forcertain fish and yeah, it's just
, yeah, and I still watch likevideos that I'm like man, I'm
casting wrong, Like, or I'm justI need to get my elbow in or
whatever.
You're still learning.
Um, it's kind of one of thosethings you're always getting
better.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, I think that that's definitely one of the
attractions to the sport of flyfishing is there.
There's a lot of a lot ofthings like that, but I would
honestly probably I think golfis has some similarities in
terms of it is you know, you can, it's gross, it's terrible.
No, it's something you can getinto and then you can always be
(18:55):
learning.
You can always be gettingbetter.
That's probably true ofanything.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
That's what it should be with everything.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
What it should be with everything, but I think
maybe not to the same degree,but it's something you can do
for a long, long time.
Right, it can be very physicalyou can hike way back into a
crazy place and wait right, butit can be relatively.
You know, something you can dowhen you're older and you can
learn your whole life about itand continuing to find new
(19:23):
things, new techniques, gear, Imean, I know I'm I'm a gear
hound I think most fly fishermenare.
It's like there's always somenew piece of gear, there's
always something to to get intoand learn.
I kind of felt that way.
Shooting clays this pastweekend was like it's another
one of those things, like Icould do this the rest of my
life and never and definitelynever master it Right.
(19:45):
Like, but on a dozen shotguns,yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
It's also interesting .
You know culturally what drawspeople to certain sports or
activities.
I remember, probably back whenI bought my rod in high school,
the local fly shop in Eugene.
You know they just talked aboutall the people who had watched
a river runs through it.
For the first time and thought Ineed to do this.
And they're usually, you know,middle-aged, they've got some
(20:10):
income, so they just come in andbuy everything and I'm going to
go do fly fishing now becauseit looks awesome.
You made a comment about sortof looking into the sportsmen
who practice fly fishing andwanting to do that.
I probably had the opposite,like I.
I didn't.
I wasn't really.
I was drawn in by river peoplewho loved water, nature, being
(20:32):
outside, doing stuff, and that'sprobably my first.
That was my love.
Then I did not think flyfishing or fly fishing people
were people I wanted toassociate with.
Yeah, cause there wasdefinitely a stigma of this is
the pure way of catching fish,this is the only way of catching
fish, and I, as I've done itmore.
I also think they make it moreharder to approach,
(20:57):
unapproachable, like they makebarriers that are too difficult.
Really doesn't need to be thatway.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yeah, I completely agree.
And actually I don't, you know,I don't think I was exposed to
those people who, you know, weresnobbish, wearing the fancy
gear, and yeah, that was, um, Ididn't know too many of those
people.
It was more like, especiallywhere we fish, there's not a lot
of money there, there's not alot of like rich fly fishermen
(21:23):
or anything like that.
Um but um, but that's totally athing.
So that's actually good, I mean, I, I think you know, grab a
pair of Chacos or sandals andjust go get in a river.
You don't have to go buy thewaders, you don't have to buy
the fancy rods.
One of my favorite rods is madein Oregon, um, and it's like a
couple hundred bucks, you know.
I mean, you can spend tons ofmoney on that kind of gear and,
(21:46):
and sure, it's fun to do thattoo, um, but I do think it's.
I think there probably arepeople who think of fly fishing
as that sort of thing, this kindof hoity toityity.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Elitist.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, and we'll drive upriver and I'll see those guys
standing in the river and I'llkind of laugh.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Maybe that was my experience growing up on the
McKenzie, because of themystique of the river, that's
who you'd see out there fishing.
You would look down on someonein an aluminum boat.
Yeah, like, oh interesting Iforget about that.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
So I'm glad you mentioned it because you kind of
have to like there are peoplewho that's what they think of
fly fishing.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Right.
What do you mean by?
Do you have some examples of?
You said you think a lot ofpeople put up barriers or make
it more unattainable than itshould be.
Do you have any examples ofthat?
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Just their attitude towards it, or I think it's the
level of knowledge and thingsyou need to know going into be
successful at fly fishing thatkeeps people from it.
Yeah, so like you're notthrowing out.
They make it intimidating yeah,and you need to understand fish
psychology and patterns and thecomplete bug cycle and like you
(22:55):
don't have a degree inentomology, then you're probably
not going to catch fish, andthat's not true because we all
make those purple.
Chernobyls very productive.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Our pink pony was one of our favorite early flies and
it's literally just a hugepiece of like pink foam Right
and, amazingly enough, catherineloves the San.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Juan worm, absolutely Just kills it, and you
shouldn't look down on that orbe ashamed of like, yeah,
throwing that out there.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, I'm fine with people who are like dries, only
they don't want to.
You know, nymph, or whatever,or they don't you know.
But I'm like, well what?
I want to catch fish.
So it's more about what's, whatare the conditions and you know
what, am I most likely to besuccessful?
Speaker 3 (23:36):
with, and I think the piece that I love the most
about fly fishing is thatrelationship between imitating
fish food and catching fish.
Right, but I don't getextremely deep into the weeds on
that, so I don't like buyingstore-bought bait and lures and
things to go out and catch fish,because my goal is not to catch
(23:59):
as many fish as possible.
I love the what's happening onthe river observation what are
the fish doing, what's hatchingright now, what's not, what are
my options and just tryingdifferent things out.
That that, to me, is a lot offun, absolutely so so explain
that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Um hatch dries versus nymphs yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Life cycle yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I think that you make a great point that one of the
really fun things about flyfishing is you get to interact
and actually see a fish come upand take a fly off the surface,
whereas when you're justthrowing a lure or something,
you know they eventually hit itbut you don't get to see it.
So there's a little like alevel of engagement where you
kind of get to front row seat towhat's happening.
Um, but yeah, I think there's.
You know there's lots of waysto catch fish on a fly rod.
(24:48):
But uh, ian was talking aboutyou got dry flies which imitate
bugs that come and like sit onthe surface of the water or lay
their eggs on the surface of thewater, and they've, you know,
made out of materials that allowthem to kind of float and
they're really lightweight andyou've got these fine.
The end of your line is calledthe tippet and you've got these
really fine tippets.
So when you throw it out thereit kind of floats down and just
(25:09):
sits on the water and then thefish thinks it's a bug and goes
up and eats it.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
And that's what most people think of when they think
of fly fishing.
It's kind of that image likethe royal wolf, it's like the
fly you see embroidered on stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Healthcare caddis yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
But then so what's nymphing?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
What's the difference ?
So fish do a lot of feedingsubsurface, underneath the water
.
When they're hanging out downthere, they're looking for bugs
that are in different stages oflife.
So bugs, a lot of bugs anyway,are in the river, in the water.
They float up and or swim upand they hatch on the surface
(25:48):
and the bug takes off and fliesaway.
Well, fish will use that as anopportunity to eat those bugs
while they're hatching, comingup out of the water.
Um, and so a nymph isessentially a fly that imitates
those subsurface uh, bugs thatare in some stage of hatching,
and so they they look all kindsof.
You know, you can make themlook all kinds of different ways
(26:09):
.
Um, some are big, some aresmall, shiny, whatever, and with
trout, like, anytime you putsomething shiny on it, it
attracts them.
Um, it's flashy, and and theythey seem to.
Sometimes that'll make them, uh,bite a little bit more
aggressively, Uh, but yeah, youcan have, um, essentially what
they call in fly fishing astrike indicator or a bobber, if
(26:31):
you, if, you, if you will Um,and so the bobber floats on the
surface and then you've got yourline down to your nymph, or you
can actually have a really bigkind of a dry fly that floats
really well, and then you canhave a line off of that dry fly,
so you can actually be dry flyfishing and nymphing at the same
time, which is something we doa lot of in the spring.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah, For new people listening the big difference
between fly fishing andconventional fly fishing or
spinner fishing is that you'reusing bait to catch a fish.
In fly fishing, the line yourfly line is what takes your bait
out.
That's why you have all thefancy casts and the way that you
(27:14):
have to send your line out totake your bait to the fish.
In conventional fishing orspinner fishing, you're waiting.
Your line, your line's prettythin, it's just strong enough.
Yeah, you're waiting the, thelure.
Yes, the weight.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
your bait has weight on it at that end slinging that
sucker out there, right, yep,and you're generally probably an
overgeneralization, but you'regenerally imitating other bait
fish.
Correct, like that's.
I know my background, but I gotinto fishing trolling in a boat
, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, Mike, you got to tell your story.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Lakes back in Michigan.
Well, in Canada, a lot of it.
And at that point you knowwe're we are imitating, right,
we're imitating minnows or otherfish, no-transcript.
(28:18):
I mean, the fish finder ispretty, pretty exceptional
innovation, but yeah, justtrolling along and hoping that
some big trout sees that andjumps on it.
You know we do some casting for, for bass or for pike and that
kind of thing, but generally allspinner fishing and fly fishing
wasn't even something I don'teven think, I really even you
(28:41):
know.
You maybe like see it and think, oh, it's kind of a cool old
school British thing or whateveryou know.
But it was very much.
It was all about, you know,bass fishing and deep big lake
fishing and that kind of thing.
And then my first exposure to itwas out here in Idaho.
We came out, you know, before Iever moved here, uh, years ago,
and my, my mom and sister weredoing teacher training stuff
(29:06):
here in Moscow and so we wentdown to McCall and just walked
into an Orvis shop and we wereprobably kind of those people
that some people hate right Of.
But it was like, hey, I thinkmy dad's buddy had been like, oh
, you're going to Idaho, likeyou need to fly fish, yeah,
something like that.
So we walk into an Orvis shopin McCall and like, hey, what do
we need to do?
(29:26):
And outfitted us with somestuff and hooked us up with a
guide to take us out and wentout and my dad I remember
getting snagged a lot, my dad, Iremember getting snagged a lot
I finally figured out.
But kind of that peek into howthis is so different than what I
had grown up doing was we wentto some I don't even know what
(29:46):
river it would have been.
We went somewhere in McCallafter the guide had been done,
probably the pay up, and juststarted casting and messing
around.
I'm like nothing, just nothing.
And then some guy walks up witha fly rod and he casts in a
similar area where we are.
Boom catches a fish.
Yeah, you know, boom catchesanother fish.
(30:08):
I was just like, hey, you knowwhat are you, what are you
fishing with, what are you doing?
And he's like, oh, this,whatever right, I don't know
what it was at the time and, uh,it's like, oh, I think I have
one of those from the fly shop,you know, tied it on first, cast
boom, you know, get held like,oh, this is different, right,
this is a very different thingthan like, hey, you put
(30:31):
something that flashes out thereand the fish is going to go for
it.
Um, that was, that was thefirst exposure to it, but after
that I was pretty hooked.
Um, but, uh, went back toMichigan and and did some
fishing and you know creeks andstuff near my house and up you
know Northern Michigan and stuffand and started getting excited
about it.
And then, coming to school inIdaho was like this is, this is
(30:53):
what I got to do.
Um, probably never put the timein to actually get good at it,
but I'm just felt like man, bekind of like you, you know, like
I want to be in these places,like I want to be in the
mountains, on these rivers andon the creeks, like this is what
I want to be doing.
And, as much as I still lovetrolling for fish and stuff,
just that active nature of it,like I get to be out here in the
(31:16):
mountains waiting around.
I get to be hiking, I get to becasting, I get to be active the
whole time, rather than justlike sit there with a pole and a
boat trolling reading a book.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
You know not passive.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, very active.
So even if you're not catchinganything, it's like man.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
I had an incredible day walking differences between
fly fishing and spinner fishing,the line and then the bait and
lures you're using.
Really, it seems like in thelast 10, 15 years there's been a
lot of crossover.
So now people are fly fishingwith mice minnows.
They're doing a lot of stuffthat normally wasn't done on fly
(31:55):
rods.
That now fly fishing seems tobe an approach and a way to fish
and it looks totally differentthan it did 20 years ago.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
That's true, yeah, streamers.
Yeah, I know a guy that ties atreble hook on a streamer.
Yeah Right.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
I'm like oh, and there's I mean there are no,
there should be no rules, thereare no rules, and so it's kind
of it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Well, to be clear to the audience, there are rules.
I'm pretty sure you have topinch the barbs.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, that's, that is another thing in Idaho.
That was kind of a new thingand maybe I will find out that I
was breaking the law all thetime in Michigan.
But it was like I never like wejust went out and fished and
there were like limits and somesize stuff, but we just fished
and I get out here and I'm likedude, you got to like there's a
lot of specific streams,specific rivers, specific bodies
(32:44):
of water and when can you usewhat and what can you use and
can you catch and release or canyou keep them?
I mean, it was like I alwaysthought you catch fish and you
fry them up, I guess what you do.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, there'll be points in rivers when it's like,
all of a sudden there's a signand it's like but beyond this
it's single barbless only,whereas 10 feet down the river
you could have used bait orwhatever.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Right, so definitely consult your Idaho fishing game.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I think my wife loves the fact that I fly fish and
loves fishing and that lifestyle, but she still doesn't
understand why you'd catch afish and throw it back.
She agrees Fish should becaught and fried.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yeah, what's the name of that guy that YouTube video
have?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
you seen that when the guy he's a fake guide, he
makes so much fun of the catcherTrying to explain it.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Trying to explain fly fishing catch and release to
these rednecks.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, that's funny yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
You do what now?
Oh, so you can catch them andeat them later.
It's like no, no, no.
Yeah, that's true, that's agood.
That's a good point, Cause alot of people think that a lot
of people fish for eating fish,but a lot of fly fishing is not
that way.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yep, yeah, Um, all I can say is if we I mean you have
in order to for there to be,like these, native cutthroat,
you can't allow people to takethem all to eat them.
I mean, it's just you're eithernot going to have the have the
resource or you choose to putlimits on it and people can
continue to enjoy those fish,catch and release.
But you know, if we, if weallowed um you to eat even one,
(34:11):
you know, whatever one perperson, it just wouldn't, it
would be, it'd be gone.
So, yeah, cause they've tried,I mean they've even tried
allowing catch and keep, andthen immediately they're going
to have to start stocking fishand the stocked fish out compete
the native fish and it's justit doesn't work.
They've tried different stuff.
Um, you can even still catch,um, you know, cutthroat when
(34:32):
they interbreed with rainbows,the stocked rainbows they turn
into cut bows and you'll stilloccasionally catch those,
because they used to stock therainbows Um, I don't know how
many years ago, eighties ornineties, um, but they stopped
doing it because the cutthroatwere not able to compete,
survive.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yeah, well, and that's.
I remember catching my firstcutthroat trout and I was like
this is so beautiful, yeah, socool, and just like the like,
that allure.
I think that's part of thosedifferent species and you know
what can you catch where and getthem.
And it's like, yeah, justcatching them, getting the
picture, whatever it is, that'senough.
(35:10):
Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Did you see the guy that just caught the new state
record cutthroat?
catch and release.
It was in the Clark Fork, sothere's a very small part of the
Clark fork that is in Idaho, um, so you can go.
Guys will go to Missoula andfloat, float the Clark floor
fork, um.
But once it comes into Idaho,you've got the small stretch
before it dumps into a pondarray, and so he must've been
out in a boat.
(35:31):
I don't even know what he wasfishing with or whatever, but it
was like a 26, 24 or 26 inchcutthroat giant.
Wow, pictures online Justrecently, yeah, recently.
Well, they only I mean, they'veonly come up with ways of
allowing people to do this sortof like take a picture and send
it in.
You got to show, demonstratethat you're measuring it, and so
they can actually see how bigit is, and then you, you release
it.
That hasn't been around thatlong.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
It's got little controversial too, though,
because I mean you don't wantthat fish out of the water too
much.
Yeah, you got to be careful.
You don't want to stress them.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
You got to be careful .
But because it's new, peoplejust are breaking the record all
over the place.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Huh, yeah, so locally then I mean, isaac, you talked
a little bit about the Joe, yeah, the St Joe River.
It's certainly one of what weget is like, hey, I'm moving to
the area, like I feel like Iwant to fly fish.
You know, I'm here in Idaho nowwhat are some ways, easier ways
(36:25):
for people?
I'm going to keep the puns,going to wade into fly fishing.
That's good.
How'd you get, did you?
When did you start fishingaround here, ian?
Was that when you were here forschool?
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, so I I mean I'd say I'm new to Idaho.
I moved back here three yearsago and really started fishing.
I was here in late nineties,early two thousands for college
and fished occasionally.
Then you know you're busy as acollege student.
And then I ended up inNashville, tennessee, having a
family raising young kids andwent through a phase where I
knew I wanted to get back to flyfishing but it wasn't going to
be anytime soon.
So I literally just had thatkind of in my mind.
(37:04):
I'm putting all this stuff up onthe shelf and I know it's going
to come back out in the future.
I don't know when, and I'dprobably say about five, six
years ago.
I started getting back into flyfishing in Tennessee, which is
totally different.
We don't have cold water riversthere, so you're fishing
tailwater stuff that's releasedfrom dams.
Where the water's cold enoughyou can catch trout and some of
(37:24):
the cold water species which Iwas more interested in than bass
and other things.
But now, moving to back toNorthern Idaho and fishing here,
it's um, I'm learning all thesenew rivers and rivers I've
heard of for a long time buthaven't fished and it's been
super fun.
So every year I hope to just atleast get to one or two new
(37:45):
rivers and fish.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Exactly.
I mean, just go like almost anyriver we have around here,
we'll have fish in it.
It won't necessarily be thehighest quality, but I think the
only one that, like you'reprobably not going to catch fish
.
I don't know, At least Ihaven't I.
Well, that's not true.
I did catch one in the Palouseriver, but I mean, Palouse is
probably one of our closestsmall, I was up around Laird
park and I've I've heard that ifyou go way up the Palouse above
(38:09):
Laird park and you go findpools, like you can catch there
I think they're a Brook trout upthere Um, and I did catch one
there at Laird park.
Um, but like most sections ofthe Palouse, uh, because of all
the grazing that we do and, um,the lumber timber company all
straightened all those riversout, so when runoff comes
through, it just like blows itall out and there's not enough
(38:29):
um food for the, the bugs, toeat, so the fish don't have
anything to eat.
But yeah, the Palouse, um, butyeah, there's the St Joe.
You go down to the Locksaw, theSelway, the Clearwater, kuski,
yeah, north North Fork of the.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Coeur d'Alene Clearwater.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
I mean, all of these rivers have have great fishing.
Um, it's just a matter of likepicking the right time of year
and go find a, go find a flyshop that'll post, you know, uh,
fishing reports online andpeople will put that information
out there and when to fish themand what to fish with and that
kind of thing yeah, we have theinternet, right.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Yeah, when I started fishing, there was no internet.
Now I was fishing on a river.
I know people catch fishingbecause I could see it with my
eyes.
But if you wanted to go to anew location, I mean now you
just google, you know, flyfishing, fishing certain rivers,
what to expect?
You potentially can find placesto go.
There's just a lot moreinformation now that you can get
on your phone when you're in aplace.
(39:22):
I got 45 minutes between mynext.
You know whatever I'm doing andI'm by a river.
Can I fish this?
What's here?
It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah, well, something on my to-do list this year.
I've never tried to catchcutthroat on the clear water.
Um, like up around cherry Lanearea, and I've read it's like
obscure blog posts from 10 yearsago of people who were like, oh
, I was up here and I caughtthis 18-inch cutthroat and I'm
like you know people alwaysthink of that as a steelhead
river or like you can catch bassin certain parts of the
Clearwater.
But I know there are cutthroatin there and my goal is to see
(39:53):
if I can figure it out, becausethat's like probably the.
That would be the closest placeto catch a cutthroat, if I can
figure it out.
Yeah, I mean, it's big water,so you're not just going to like
wade into most sections of that, or especially not this time of
year, but yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
So, speaking of that, right, like you said, you can
throw on a pair of chacos, andcertainly later in the season,
um especially.
But um, what about, like bigwater lake fishing?
Have you guys done muchmountain lake fishing for like
fly fishing, that kind of thing?
Speaker 3 (40:23):
I've hiked into a couple of different mountain
lakes and fished and have hadsuccess.
Usually it's very clear waterand you can actually see if
there's fish in there.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah.
So in Idaho stocks a lot oftheir mountain lakes and so
you've got these populations ofcutthroat and sometimes rainbows
rainbows that are pretty big.
I mean you can get my friends.
I haven't done a ton of whatmyself, but my, my wife's done a
bit, even like down in theWallowas or seven devils yeah,
(40:52):
there's others I'm blanking butI mean any of those mountain
lakes typically will have fishin them.
So if you're going to go on ahike, if you can manage to throw
a fly rod in, I totally would,cause sometimes those are the
easiest fish to catch and youcan keep them.
So when you're usually andcheck their eggs, of course, but
usually when you're fishing outof these mountain lakes because
they're stocked, um, you cangrill them up a lakeside, yeah
(41:14):
yeah, that's a sweet littlebackpacking perk, yeah, for sure
yeah, similar to golf.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
It becomes a lifestyle in the sense of I'm
going here for business or forpleasure, what's around there
that I can fish right?
That's how golfers think.
I'm going to this place for abusiness meeting or a vacation
or whatever.
Can I golf when I'm down there?
What's available?
So you kind of start looking ateverything through that lens as
you're planning your familytrips and vacations and things
(41:41):
to do.
You're like Hmm what water'saround there?
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah, that's totally like I was thinking.
Uh, you said you um floated onthe Deschutes.
We took a trip over springbreak um like a rafting trip.
We just went over and hung outbecause we like the Sun River
area, yeah, and I brought my flyrod and I was like, let's go
out and explore.
And like the Deschutes ismostly, I think, closed, or at
least the section that we wereon, but there was this little
(42:04):
tributary called like FallsCreek or something.
It had a hatchery up there.
I ended up catching one of thebiggest rainbows that I've ever
caught.
It was like the only fish wecaught was this one fish, but it
ended up being this like memorythat I'll keep for forever.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
So, yeah, it's fun to do that and back in high school
I think it's up river from well, it's up river from Sun River.
On the Deschutes it kind ofmeanders through this big meadow
and I was up there with afriend and I wasn't into fly
fishing yet but it was probablythe beginning of that phase or
stage and we had float tubes andso we just jumped in at the top
.
We told his mom to pick us upin a couple hours, you know, at
(42:46):
the other road down lower riverand I think we had a fly rod and
several spinner rods and justrandom stuff we grabbed.
We had a blast just in a floattube, going very slow down the
chutes on a sunny day, throwinganything we could in the water
to see if we could get fish.
It's a beautiful area.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Yeah, well, I do think that's like the floating
aspect of it is a totally.
It can be a game changer, right?
Like some of the, I rememberprobably still a lot of the
frustrations.
Fly fishing is like gettingcaught and stuff in your back
cast.
It's like I'm up against thesebushes how do I get out?
And then the ability to justfloat down a stretch of river
(43:26):
and hit different spots andthings whether that's inner
tubes, you can get those pontoon, inflatable pontoons you can.
You can do it, like you said,relatively inexpensively, um,
but being able to float that, uh, really allows you to cover a
lot of river and get to placesthat you might not be able to
otherwise get down to Absolutely.
Um, is that kind of Isaac?
(43:47):
I know you've got a boat.
You are into that, um.
Is that what you spend most ofyour time now doing?
Speaker 2 (43:53):
It is in the spring, like pre-runoff.
So this is we're middle of theMay, your time now doing it is
in the spring, like pre-runoff,so this is, we're middle of the
May, middle of May here, and sowe're kind of peak runoff right
now.
Um, although this year is goingto be a super low water year.
So, um, I don't, I think thesnow pack was.
Last time I looked it was like80% of of average or median, so
it's, it's a low snow year, um,and so far it looks like the
(44:16):
river may have already peaked,unless we get a ton of rain, um,
because we don't have any rainin the forecast currently.
So, um, yeah, like right now, weare basically fishing all the
way through runoff, which ispretty unusual.
So normally, because you've gotall this snow and then the rain
, spring rains hit, it'll warmup, and if it warms up and it
rains, at the same time the snow, snow starts mellowing, the
(44:39):
snow starts melting, the riverwill blow out and we basically
can't even fish it during thosetimes.
So we'll, we'll do a ton offloating and fishing in, like
March, april, early May, andthen usually you have to take a
break, um, because the most ofthe water comes out or is coming
down in mid-May and early Juneand then we'll get back to it
(45:01):
sometime in June or 4th of July.
It'll come back down far enoughto where you can we're almost
doing late June, early Julyfishing.
Now Seriously, and if someone isinterested in fishing this year
, be aware that by probablyearly August, it's going to feel
like late August, and so getout in July.
Um, that's probably going to besome of the best walkway
(45:24):
fishing that you're going to seethis year.
Um, because you know what'sonce the water levels go down to
their their lowest, whichnormally doesn't happen until
like September or that timeframe.
But if it, if it goes to itslowest point and it's also like
a hundred degrees out, which itcould be in August, the water
warms up and fish get stressedand they don't, um, they don't
(45:46):
feed as as often or as normal uh, normally as they do, and, um,
and also it, it, it's actuallyhard on the fish to catch them
and yank them out of the riverand so and sometimes you'll have
more that die because they'rejust not doing as well, um, so
and so typically it's likethat's the time of year you just
say like, hey, I'm not going togo out and fish, cause the fish
are stressed out as it is.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
So yeah, fish earlier this year and that's even even
going higher elevations and thatkind of thing.
No, I mean, is there, is therewhen it gets like that?
Are there other places to go,other types of fishing to do?
Speaker 2 (46:20):
That's a great great point.
So if you go further towardsthe source, um, it's typically
colder water and and closer towhatever you know, whether it's
a spring fed or whether thereare springs coming into it or
whether it's just a lake fedriver.
Anytime it gets warm, goinghigher up is going to be colder
water usually.
It just has like less time tosit there in pools and and get
(46:40):
warmer yeah, but smaller,smaller water um is better, yeah
, walkway and smaller fishgenerally.
Yeah, sometimes probably moresmaller fish in general, but
then you'll also have somereally big fish that are going
up to spawn, and so you can likeI've caught some of my biggest
fish, like way up in theheadwaters of these rivers, um,
(47:02):
that are going up there to spawn.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
You also get the aspect that when your water
drops in a Creek or river, youthen oftentimes will lose
continual flow in the river.
And then you get these sectionsof pools.
Well, fish get trapped in there, and sometimes they're big fish
, and so even they're hungry andthey're hungry and so late
season you can go target certainthings and just fish a pool a
(47:25):
bunch of different ways top,middle, bottom, streamers,
nymphs just to try and getwhatever fish are stuck there,
which is pretty fun, yeah yeah,that's awesome I was just
watching this fishing gameposted a video of one of their
um.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
It was a fish ladder with a fish Um.
It was, I guess, a trap, Idon't know what they call it,
but this was way up on the snakeUm.
So this would be Southern Idaho, um, and they have a population
of cutthroat up there and theykind of just showed their whole
design of the.
You know, basically, fish go upthrough this thing, they get
stuck, they grab them, theymeasure them, weigh them, get
(48:01):
all this data, sometimes theytag them and then they send them
on their way.
So they're able to do that withthese spawning, like these
giant spawning cutthroat trout.
That kind of stuff would be socool.
I should have been a fisheriesbiologist, since we're recording
this conversation.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Isaac, as an Idaho guy, what resources do you go to
?
What do you use for weatherstream flows, stream information
and then just news and fishingin the area?
I mean, where are you watchingfish and game catching fish?
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Yeah, we'll follow fish and game on there, like
they post on Instagram, theypost on Facebook, they're on
social media and so stuff thatthey're doing, they're putting
out there and there's a lot ofinteresting stuff that you can
stay up to date with.
There's a bunch of sites thatpost, like streamflow data.
I was just looking at the one Iuse, a waterweathergov, which
(48:52):
is the national weather service.
That's the one I and I alwayscheck for.
Like the St Joe, I'll look atCalder there, which is the
national weather service.
That's the one I and I alwayscheck for.
Like the St Joe, I'll look atCalder.
There's different ones thatthat do.
But then you can also go tosilver bow.
I think it's silver bowcom orjust Google it, but it's a fly
shop in Spokane, silver bow flyshopcom.
Sean is the owner, he's a greatguy and they post regular
(49:17):
almost weekly, I think it'sweekly fishing reports for five
rivers.
Yeah, spokane, north fork,quarter lane, they do like the
grand ron.
They were just saying that thisis.
There's a small window rightnow where you could go um catch
um, it's kind of like runoff,but not super bad runoff, and so
there's a window here where youcould go catch bass on the uh,
the grand ron, because all thesalmon and steelhead smolts are
(49:38):
coming out and so if you gothrow like a streamer.
the bass just are looking tohammer those things.
So go throw streamers on thegrand Ron right now.
So they, yeah, they, they, theyshould tell you these things
and they'll tell you what fliesto use.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Yeah, they give a little list of what what flies
are working and Tyler at whitepine.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Um, if you're not following white pine fly shop
here in Moscow, you should befollowing he does.
Guy lives on the river.
We see each other prettyregularly.
Um, they've got a camp, uhfurther up river from us and
they're on the water a ton Um,so they'll they'll post their
kind of stream side fishingreports from the Joe and other.
They go down to the grand Ronand float down there and lots of
(50:15):
um good information from fromTyler and um Snowtel.
If you're ever interested inlooking at average snowpack, I
look at Snowtel.
Um, I can't remember the actualwebsite, but if you Google it
you can probably pull that up.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
Um, and then obviously, once you have all
these tools, you need to know alittle bit about how to use them
and what flows mean and whatsnowpack means.
These tools, you need to know alittle bit about how to use
them and what flows mean andwhat snowpack means.
But yeah, you can learn thatpretty quickly in a season just
by reading and studying andtalking to people and figuring
things out.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Yeah, and I'm like I'm Googling the names of flies
all the time, right, you know,someone will say, oh, they're,
they're, you know fishing this,or fish are keying in on a
certain fly and I have no ideawhat it is, and just Google it
and lots of people out thereposting videos of different
patterns that they're doing andso you can get a feel for what
it looks like or what it'simitating.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Um, and then go to your fly shop and, yeah,
stopping in those fly shops.
There's always, always happy togive information and and tell
you what flies.
Yeah, and sell you some flies.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Yeah, Be aware of the .
You know the prices are goingto be top dollar for those those
flies at the fly show.
You get a little info.
You get the info.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Yeah, exactly sure yeah, well, and then and
tutorials.
Like you said, the internetwasn't, wasn't around, but it's
like.
Now you can learn how to castand everything on youtube, right
?
Yeah, there's so much goodinformation yeah there's
step-by-step, you know, orvisvideos and all kinds of good
stuff out there to just go andtry and put an indicator on, and
you can do it in your backyardand like they have an investment
(51:40):
in bringing up a generation ofpeople, either a future
generation or current flyfishermen.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Their resources are incredible.
Yeah, when we were in nashville, I started fishing for maybe a
year or two and then startedgetting my kids into it.
Well, orvis does free fly tyingclasses, fly fishing classes,
fly casting classes likeobviously they want to have
customers, but they're givingaway all this great information.
That is huge resource, like.
If you have something like thatin your area, it's a, it's a
(52:08):
great opportunity just to get inand learn a ton with no
overhead.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yep yeah, north 40 in lewiston, north 40 in
cordelaine, north 40 in Coeurd'Alene.
There's an Orvis shop in Coeurd'Alene, yep, um, there's people
don't know about Red Shed FlyShop on the Clearwater, but Red
Shed, go see a guy named Poppy.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
Dude talk about a great video.
Oh man, look up like the.
There's a YouTube video on Red.
It's awesome.
It'll make you want to get intospay fishing.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Yeah, so he's really good Spokane Yep Silver bow.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
I forgot what I was going to say.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
But yeah, the fly shops are great, a great
resource.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Awesome, good, good, yeah, just get out there.
I mean, apart from drowning,like nothing really bad can
happen.
You're going to spend abeautiful day out on the river
and, yeah, enjoy just being upin the mountains.
I don't, I don't remember if Isaid this on the last one or not
, but, um, like Catherine, firsttime I got her out fly fishing,
we were going up to the NorthFork of the Clearwater and we
(53:06):
were getting ready to leave andshe was just like I don't, I
don't want to go on this trip.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
I can't do it.
I just I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
I, catherine, just just wait, like you're gonna get
out there be standing in theriver in the mountains and just
like you're gonna love it, youdon't even have to fish she goes
.
I don't want to stand in theriver.
I'm like, but no, she, we gother out there and she loved it.
You don't even have to fish nowshe loves it.
Yeah, and yeah it is.
There's something about theseNorth Idaho mountain streams in
(53:31):
particular is just incredible,Like it's just amazing that we
get to be in that place and justexperience a day in those
absolutely beautiful areas andquiet out of cell range.
I'm sure I've said it before.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
But go find the small tributary streams and put on a
tiny fly, or maybe not even atiny fly, but just go catch
small fish.
They're out there and they'reeager and they, you know, like
if you've got kids and you'retrying to get kids into fly
fishing, go find these smallstreams that come into the.
You know, like, all the bigrivers, all the rivers we have
around here are fairly goodsized, um, the kind of river
(54:07):
that could sweep you away if youget in a little too far, but
but they all have tributariesand most of them have fish in
them and so those fish will tendto be smaller but they tend to
be more eager.
They will attack your fly andif you miss them they'll attack
it again.
And you sit there and you justpractice your timing and you
practice, you know, setting thehook.
Um, it's great for kids.
(54:28):
It's uh, I mean, honestly, I'vethat's what.
What I did the first time.
We went um back to the Joe, um,we got on one of those little
creeks and I think I sat thereand I caught like five or so
little six inches in a row andjust was like all right, pick up
a little confidence, have somefun and then go find something
bigger.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
It's awesome Any parting thoughts.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
Welcome spring.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
Yeah, when you live in north Idaho, people look
forward to the spring for manyreasons.
Fishing is just one of them.
Yeah, glad it's here.
When you live in North Idaho,people look forward to the
spring for many reasons.
Fishing is just one of them.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Yeah, it's here.
Awesome Thanks guys.
Thanks for the river beers,Thanks.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
Mike, this is fun.
We should do this weekly.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
I'd love to get together and just talk about
fishing if we can't actually behere, let's go do it on the
river next time.
Thanks for joining us Likeshare, subscribe.
Speaker 1 (55:19):
We'll see you next week.
This is the Kestrel Country Podcast where we discuss
the people, places and eventsall around Kestrel country
(00:41):
podcast.
I'm your host, mike church.
Of the Kestrel Country Podcast.
I'm your host, Mike Church, andtoday we got a fun episode
talking about fly fishing.
So this time of year I'm alwayseager to get out and enjoy
those rivers, and a couple of myfriends, Isaac Groucky and Ian
Kern, joined me today to talk alittle bit about fly fishing.
(01:01):
We talk about everything fromriver beers and what that is all
the way into how they got intoit, some tips, some places.
So hope you all enjoy talkingor listening to a little
conversation about North Idahofly fishing.
Are we going to drink thosebeers?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
a we got to do like a tutorial on the beers uh-huh,
because I would do.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
We should start with that yeah, if lead in, if mike's
a good producer, he's recordingalready.
So all right I'll leave that upto your.
This is where the imaginationis where the magic happens.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, so river beers.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Ian introduced me to this.
Actually, I think you have toknow how to do this to be a
guide right, a river guide.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Actually, I probably found it on Instagram.
There's an outfit out ofCalifornia Taco Fly Company
Pretty fun guys, they're intotacos, good Mexican food and fly
company Pretty fun guys,they're into tacos, good Mexican
food and fly fishing.
And I saw this video originallywhen they first posted it about
the river beer and I thoughtthat looks awesome.
(02:16):
And I think I introduced you,yeah, a couple of years ago on
the river, and it just becomes athing.
You bring all these ingredientsand you make them in the boat
and then you serve up these likefake beer cocktails that are
spicy and delicious.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It's a good way to take a plain lager and make it
drinkable.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah.
So, isaac, you should walk usthrough this as you go, because
we do have the phone rolling,but the majority of our audience
is certainly audio.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, so this is we only.
Normally you're not allowed todrink these unless you're on the
river, but we're going to makean exception.
Um, but yeah, no, we just gotlike a basic.
This is a 10 barrel brewingcompany pub beer lager.
Any cheap lager works.
And, uh, the way Ian taught me,you got to crack the top this
is the hardest part Verycarefully, cause you don't want
to pop it all the way.
Ian taught me you got to crackthe top this is the hardest part
Very carefully, because youdon't want to pop it all the way
.
Oh, just a little bit, I don'tknow if I can do this on.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
You need a teeny, tiny crack.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
You have to be floating.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
It might not work.
I'm not going to go too farwith it, just a tiny, just let a
little air out.
Okay, then we go lime and youwant to fill the top of the can
with lime juice.
(03:33):
We've got a fresh, cut limehere.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So do you want enough of a hole to where that lime
juice leaks in, or no, I mean?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
it's going to get in eventually.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
He says you do.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
You do, but the problem is that I only have
three beers, and so if you ruinone, I don't have any more.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, there's definitely variations on things
you put on the top, but therehas to be lime and tahini.
I like to add hot sauce.
Isaac's got a great setup there.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Some people use salsa .
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Salsa works A legitimate like salsa, liquid
salsa.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
All right.
So we got lime juice freshsqueezed lime juice on the tops
of the can.
Then we add a little salt righton.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Mmm, I can see how sunshine the river.
It would certainly enhancewhat's going on here.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
A hundred percent.
Okay, Tahini, you guys knowthis from your, you know your
margaritas.
This is like spicy, it's like Idon't know how would you
describe it.
A little bit of that on top.
More salt yeah, spicy saltTapatio.
You can use any hot sauce, butI like this stuff just a.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
I like a good, just a splash sauce tapatio is kind of
my go-to, like on eggs, andyeah, all right, it's good so
you got to take the first drinkbecause it's the action, is
opening it all the way, and thenall that stuff dumps in and
(05:11):
it's going to foam and pour out.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, so your first your first drink is is it?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
has to be.
Yeah, so probably not, notdirectly over the soundboard,
correct, it's probably.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I'll give you this video.
You can cut it into your mastervideo.
There you go.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well, cheers, Cheers hey cheers To talking about fly
fishing.
To talking about it and thenyou got to kind of monitor it
because it's going to want tocome fizzing back up again.
But I think I did a good, apretty good job.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, that's good.
That's good.
Definitely enhances the oldplain Jane lager.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Here's for the microphone.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
There you are.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Now that should be a Kestrel country.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Crack, that's right that should be our new opening.
Well, I definitely need to findmore guests who bring drinks,
although we do record a lot ofthese at 9 in the morning.
Yeah, well, for the record,it's 5 o'clock somewhere.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Yeah, river Beer, taco Fly Company.
Don't quote without it.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
That's the way to start a podcast, right there,
man.
So Isaac Grauke, with the introthere, and Ian Kern, hello.
Thanks for coming on, guys.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
There's going to be plenty of breaks when I'm
drinking beer.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
I suggest we record a third podcast at some point on
a boat yeah, on the river.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, that needs to happen for sure.
I often wonder why I don't dothat on location.
Well, different equipment On aboat's a little different, but I
mean like at a camp.
I often wonder why I don't dothat on location.
Wow, A lot of boat, Differentequipment, A lot of boats a
little different, but I meanlike at a camp.
That'd be easy to do.
Absolutely, Riverside.
You have the river in thebackground, so we are supposed
to talk about fishing.
(07:17):
But what I usually like to dostart off with a little
background, little intro.
So maybe, Isaac, we'll startwith you.
Just tell us a quick bit aboutyourself and maybe how you got
into fishing fly fishing inparticular.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
We're going to talk about fly fishing.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I mean it's the best kind of fishing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Sounds good.
Yeah, isaac Grauke lived inMoscow since mid nineties.
Um, I was 12 when we moved hereand so grew up here a lot, and
my parents, um, got into flyfishing and uh, took us out
quite a bit early on.
I wasn't really into it, but Iam great, very grateful that
(07:58):
they sort of drug me out thereand, um, we found the St Joe
river uh pretty early on and hada raft.
So I spent a lot of timerafting and time on the water
and trying to figure out how tocatch fish and we were pretty
terrible.
But we, uh we got started,which is sometimes the hardest
start or hardest part.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Wasn't there some story about you getting either
waders or or something for abirthday and being really upset
about it?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, I can't remember if I told that story
last time.
But um yeah, when I was 12 or13, I said to my parents you
know, I just I don't want totell you specifically what I
want, just think about me.
You know I wanted to be, Iwanted to be understood, think
about me and and get me what youthink that I would, I would
want, and uh, so I thought itwas going to be basketball shoes
(08:45):
, cause I was really into sports.
And and, uh, yeah, so I openedup a, um, a box that was the
right size for basketball shoes,but it ended up being a pair of
neoprene Hodgman waders and Icried, I burst into tears as a,
as a 12 year old, which iscompletely unacceptable, uh, but
yeah, so we laugh about that.
(09:06):
Uh, uh, tell that story a lot.
But now I got waiters again, um, I don't know 10 years or so
ago, and I didn't.
I didn't cry that time, but,yeah, no, for me, I just I was
into it a little bit, not muchas a kid and then, after having
my own kids, um, um, startedgetting into a lot more and we
started um camping.
We've got um like a seasonalcampsite.
(09:27):
Uh, we park trailers up on theSt Joe and we've got drift boats
and go up and and hang out,ride dirt bikes and and fish the
river, and so it's just kind ofbecome part of our seasonal
rhythm.
Um, so we do every year.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Was there a defining time when you remember okay, I'm
into fly fishing.
Yeah Well yeah, does it kind ofjust progress?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
No for sure.
Um, I think there was a.
It was a combination of gettingto a point in my career where
I'm like, all right, I'm settled, I know what I'm doing, um.
And then, um, just coming tothe realization that I live in
Idaho and there's all theseamazing things that we have
around us, and Mike and Iactually took a trip to rock
Creek just past Missoula andMontana, took my dad's camper
(10:14):
this was in 2009.
And just, we were like, youknow we should let's go fly
fishing, and I think at thattime we'd both done it a little
bit.
It felt new, um, and kind ofdidn't look back from there,
just started doing more and moreof that yeah, I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I had a similar question, but curious what that?
Obviously there was that timing, but what would you say?
It is about fly fishing.
That kind of got you eitherchanged your mind about it or
that keeps you hooked to it tothis day.
Hooked me with the puns todayyeah, I mean I what do you love
(10:50):
about fly fishing?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
yeah, well, initially I'll.
This is maybe just a very smallpart of it, but I think looking
out from the outside at peoplewho do fly fishing, it was this
mysterious thing that was likeI'd like those people, I think
what they're doing is neat andand I'm completely intimidated.
So, and this was the same thingwith, you know, hunting, um,
(11:16):
even like farming and likestarting to raise, um, raise
animals.
It was this thing, looking atfrom the outside that was
intriguing, but kind of like man, I have no idea how to do that.
And so then, crossing thatbarrier and just deciding to say
, you know what, let's just grabsome used gear, borrow some
stuff and go and be willing tocompletely make fools of
(11:36):
ourselves.
I think we caught like fivefish, like between the four guys
that were on that trip, allaccidentally, totally.
Yeah, tiny little fish, and wetook pictures with every single
one, you know it was like we didit.
I tricked a fish, Um and, andthen there, and then there's a
whole like stages to it too,because then you get obsessed
(11:57):
and then you can't think ofanything else and then it's all
about numbers and I'm like wewould be camping on the river
and I'd see a rise and it's likeI just had breakfast or whether
.
But I'm like I got to go catchthat fish and you're annoying to
be around.
You know your family's like, oh, he's out there again.
And and then you kind of settleinto this comfortable space
(12:21):
where you like to fish.
You catch fish, but like I'llhave times when I'll go drive
the river and look at the riverand I I don't even bring a rod,
I just want to look at the riveror a snorkeling, river
snorkeling, I was going to sayhave you ever swam?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah.
Watch fish, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Absolutely One of my like most, uh, the coolest
moments in nature.
Yeah, I guess that's the way Iput it.
The coolest moment in naturewould be this time.
I swam up behind a risingcutthroat and just watched it
from like 10 feet away.
You know, you just kind of goup and take a breath, come back
down, and it was just like itwould come up off the bottom and
(12:59):
grab something and go back down.
And then I just snuck away youknow it was cool.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
That's awesome, awesome, that was good.
Ian, yeah, what's your?
What was your journey like?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
where are you from?
I grew up in eugene, oregontrack town, usa, amen.
It's a beautiful location.
It sits like 45 minutes fromthe pacific coast, 45 minutes
from the cascade mountains, andthen it's in between two rivers,
or two rivers kind of comethrough the McKenzie river and
the Willamette.
So it's just a rich outdoorssports enjoyment environment.
(13:36):
And I grew up in a family thatloved getting out and family
camping, car camping, but reallydidn't do a you know much more
than that.
And I think in high school Igot into the boy scouts because
I loved being outside.
So I got involved in boy scoutsand mountain rescue and boating
and just anything I could dooutside.
So I didn't necessarily getinto fly fishing until probably
(14:00):
my senior year.
Sadly because it, because it'slike, oh, I had all these great
opportunities and I neverutilized it.
But for me I think I graduatedhigh school early, traveled in
Europe a bit, came back homeKids today call it a gap year.
I just was not in school or hadplans for doing that and became
(14:21):
a river guide.
So I took river rafting clientsdown mostly the McKenzie and
other rivers in Oregon the Wahee, the Klamath, the Rogue, the
Deschutes, um and I probablyjust saw guys fly fishing and
thought I want to do that.
I never really fished beforethat.
I wasn't a spinner guy and hadthe opportunity to just buy a
(14:44):
rod and fish like a lot.
So I can remember one summer Iwas guiding on the McKenzie
primarily, but I go up in themorning and fish for 20, 30
minutes before clients showed updo a raft trip and then you
know three o'clock when theday's done, fish for an hour or
two before I went home, all onthe McKenzie.
(15:06):
The McKenzie River is kind ofhistorical because that's where
the McKenzie River drift boatwas sort of first.
Yeah, invented, developed orused, which is a.
You know, we all know them asdrift boats.
But maybe some of our listenersdon't.
It's based off of an ocean thatwere big water, dory, so it's
(15:27):
got a bow and stern that lookidentical, and then the original
boats, which were all made outof wood, had a really high
rocker, so big round bottom soyou could maneuver the rapids,
and it just became a way offishing.
So the mackenzie drift boat wassort of a small version of the
dory and then I think theydeveloped even a couple others.
I don't remember what otherriver.
(15:47):
There's another one that'snamed after, but basically out
of oregon.
How do you get down theserivers and fish them all along
the way?
Yeah, so there were a lot ofdrift boats.
I mean it was.
You'd see them everywhere.
There were boat builders intown, people on the river and
boats, and so I was just kind ofaround it.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Is it a pretty major destination for fly fishing?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
It is.
I would not have known thatgrowing up, but when you get
outside of where you're from andtalk to people like, oh, one of
my bucket list rivers is to gofish the McKenzie, even in a
drift boat, and I've readarticles in different
publications over the yearspeople coming from other parts
of the world to come fish Oregonand fish fish the McKenzie
(16:26):
river, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Yeah, did you when you were first getting into it?
Um was, you were river guiding,so you're in rafts, right, yep?
Um, did you fish out of a driftboat early on, or were you,
like I think a lot of people andI know that was my experience
was entering it just, you know,waiting and from shore, I don't
know, it was probably only.
I don't think I'd been in adrift boat fishing until I went
(16:53):
in your boat a few years back.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, I can't even remember the first time I was in
a drift boat.
We didn't, I mean, we were inthe raft early on, but actually
like a hard bottom drift boat.
I don't know, I can't evenremember early on, but actually
like a hard bottom drift boat.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
I don't know, I can't even remember.
Yeah, I think you know I kindof got into river culture so I
was hanging out with a bunch ofpeople who loved the adrenaline
rush of rafting and doing stuffin rapids or kayaking.
But then there was also sort ofpeople who just love the water
and love fishing and love boats.
So I had a guide friend who hada drift boat and he'd let me
just borrow it and take it out.
So I definitely fished a fewtimes early on in a drift boat,
(17:28):
cause I had access to people whohad boats.
Um, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah, it's a different experience.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I still fish with that rod I bought in high school
.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
It's an.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Orvis Clearwater.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, that's awesome Classic, it's a great rod.
I have one of those, too, thatI think I was probably in high
school when I got it.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
And it's funny, you talk about the progression of
learning about fish, aboutfishing, about fly fishing.
There is ground to cover, youneed to learn a lot.
Yeah, there is ground to coveryou need to learn a lot.
Yeah, because I remember justprobably a good year of just
going out to like, oh there'swater, it's water, there must be
fish in there.
I'll throw something out thereand I'll probably catch
something, but I had no ideawhat I was doing and it only
(18:12):
enriches your experience, as youlearn more and experience more
and do more, that I think flyfishing becomes more fun.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, now we talk about targeting species, going
to certain places to fish forcertain fish and yeah, it's just
, yeah, and I still watch likevideos that I'm like man, I'm
casting wrong, Like, or I'm justI need to get my elbow in or
whatever.
You're still learning.
Um, it's kind of one of thosethings you're always getting
better.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, I think that that's definitely one of the
attractions to the sport of flyfishing is there.
There's a lot of a lot ofthings like that, but I would
honestly probably I think golfis has some similarities in
terms of it is you know, you can, it's gross, it's terrible.
No, it's something you can getinto and then you can always be
(18:55):
learning.
You can always be gettingbetter.
That's probably true ofanything.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
That's what it should be with everything.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
What it should be with everything, but I think
maybe not to the same degree,but it's something you can do
for a long, long time.
Right, it can be very physicalyou can hike way back into a
crazy place and wait right, butit can be relatively.
You know, something you can dowhen you're older and you can
learn your whole life about itand continuing to find new
(19:23):
things, new techniques, gear, Imean, I know I'm I'm a gear
hound I think most fly fishermenare.
It's like there's always somenew piece of gear, there's
always something to to get intoand learn.
I kind of felt that way.
Shooting clays this pastweekend was like it's another
one of those things, like Icould do this the rest of my
life and never and definitelynever master it Right.
(19:45):
Like, but on a dozen shotguns,yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
It's also interesting .
You know culturally what drawspeople to certain sports or
activities.
I remember, probably back whenI bought my rod in high school,
the local fly shop in Eugene.
You know they just talked aboutall the people who had watched
a river runs through it.
For the first time and thought Ineed to do this.
And they're usually, you know,middle-aged, they've got some
(20:10):
income, so they just come in andbuy everything and I'm going to
go do fly fishing now becauseit looks awesome.
You made a comment about sortof looking into the sportsmen
who practice fly fishing andwanting to do that.
I probably had the opposite,like I.
I didn't.
I wasn't really.
I was drawn in by river peoplewho loved water, nature, being
(20:32):
outside, doing stuff, and that'sprobably my first.
That was my love.
Then I did not think flyfishing or fly fishing people
were people I wanted toassociate with.
Yeah, cause there wasdefinitely a stigma of this is
the pure way of catching fish,this is the only way of catching
fish, and I, as I've done itmore.
I also think they make it moreharder to approach,
(20:57):
unapproachable, like they makebarriers that are too difficult.
Really doesn't need to be thatway.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yeah, I completely agree.
And actually I don't, you know,I don't think I was exposed to
those people who, you know, weresnobbish, wearing the fancy
gear, and yeah, that was, um, Ididn't know too many of those
people.
It was more like, especiallywhere we fish, there's not a lot
of money there, there's not alot of like rich fly fishermen
(21:23):
or anything like that.
Um but um, but that's totally athing.
So that's actually good, I mean, I, I think you know, grab a
pair of Chacos or sandals andjust go get in a river.
You don't have to go buy thewaders, you don't have to buy
the fancy rods.
One of my favorite rods is madein Oregon, um, and it's like a
couple hundred bucks, you know.
I mean, you can spend tons ofmoney on that kind of gear and,
(21:46):
and sure, it's fun to do thattoo, um, but I do think it's.
I think there probably arepeople who think of fly fishing
as that sort of thing, this kindof hoity toityity.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Elitist.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, and we'll drive upriver and I'll see those guys
standing in the river and I'llkind of laugh.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Maybe that was my experience growing up on the
McKenzie, because of themystique of the river, that's
who you'd see out there fishing.
You would look down on someonein an aluminum boat.
Yeah, like, oh interesting Iforget about that.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
So I'm glad you mentioned it because you kind of
have to like there are peoplewho that's what they think of
fly fishing.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Right.
What do you mean by?
Do you have some examples of?
You said you think a lot ofpeople put up barriers or make
it more unattainable than itshould be.
Do you have any examples ofthat?
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Just their attitude towards it, or I think it's the
level of knowledge and thingsyou need to know going into be
successful at fly fishing thatkeeps people from it.
Yeah, so like you're notthrowing out.
They make it intimidating yeah,and you need to understand fish
psychology and patterns and thecomplete bug cycle and like you
(22:55):
don't have a degree inentomology, then you're probably
not going to catch fish, andthat's not true because we all
make those purple.
Chernobyls very productive.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Our pink pony was one of our favorite early flies and
it's literally just a hugepiece of like pink foam Right
and, amazingly enough, catherineloves the San.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Juan worm, absolutely Just kills it, and you
shouldn't look down on that orbe ashamed of like, yeah,
throwing that out there.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, I'm fine with people who are like dries, only
they don't want to.
You know, nymph, or whatever,or they don't you know.
But I'm like, well what?
I want to catch fish.
So it's more about what's, whatare the conditions and you know
what, am I most likely to besuccessful?
Speaker 3 (23:36):
with, and I think the piece that I love the most
about fly fishing is thatrelationship between imitating
fish food and catching fish.
Right, but I don't getextremely deep into the weeds on
that, so I don't like buyingstore-bought bait and lures and
things to go out and catch fish,because my goal is not to catch
(23:59):
as many fish as possible.
I love the what's happening onthe river observation what are
the fish doing, what's hatchingright now, what's not, what are
my options and just tryingdifferent things out.
That that, to me, is a lot offun, absolutely so so explain
that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Um hatch dries versus nymphs yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Life cycle yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I think that you make a great point that one of the
really fun things about flyfishing is you get to interact
and actually see a fish come upand take a fly off the surface,
whereas when you're justthrowing a lure or something,
you know they eventually hit itbut you don't get to see it.
So there's a little like alevel of engagement where you
kind of get to front row seat towhat's happening.
Um, but yeah, I think there's.
You know there's lots of waysto catch fish on a fly rod.
(24:48):
But uh, ian was talking aboutyou got dry flies which imitate
bugs that come and like sit onthe surface of the water or lay
their eggs on the surface of thewater, and they've, you know,
made out of materials that allowthem to kind of float and
they're really lightweight andyou've got these fine.
The end of your line is calledthe tippet and you've got these
really fine tippets.
So when you throw it out thereit kind of floats down and just
(25:09):
sits on the water and then thefish thinks it's a bug and goes
up and eats it.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
And that's what most people think of when they think
of fly fishing.
It's kind of that image likethe royal wolf, it's like the
fly you see embroidered on stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Healthcare caddis yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
But then so what's nymphing?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
What's the difference ?
So fish do a lot of feedingsubsurface, underneath the water
.
When they're hanging out downthere, they're looking for bugs
that are in different stages oflife.
So bugs, a lot of bugs anyway,are in the river, in the water.
They float up and or swim upand they hatch on the surface
(25:48):
and the bug takes off and fliesaway.
Well, fish will use that as anopportunity to eat those bugs
while they're hatching, comingup out of the water.
Um, and so a nymph isessentially a fly that imitates
those subsurface uh, bugs thatare in some stage of hatching,
and so they they look all kindsof.
You know, you can make themlook all kinds of different ways
(26:09):
.
Um, some are big, some aresmall, shiny, whatever, and with
trout, like, anytime you putsomething shiny on it, it
attracts them.
Um, it's flashy, and and theythey seem to.
Sometimes that'll make them, uh,bite a little bit more
aggressively, Uh, but yeah, youcan have, um, essentially what
they call in fly fishing astrike indicator or a bobber, if
(26:31):
you, if, you, if you will Um,and so the bobber floats on the
surface and then you've got yourline down to your nymph, or you
can actually have a really bigkind of a dry fly that floats
really well, and then you canhave a line off of that dry fly,
so you can actually be dry flyfishing and nymphing at the same
time, which is something we doa lot of in the spring.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah, For new people listening the big difference
between fly fishing andconventional fly fishing or
spinner fishing is that you'reusing bait to catch a fish.
In fly fishing, the line yourfly line is what takes your bait
out.
That's why you have all thefancy casts and the way that you
(27:14):
have to send your line out totake your bait to the fish.
In conventional fishing orspinner fishing, you're waiting.
Your line, your line's prettythin, it's just strong enough.
Yeah, you're waiting the, thelure.
Yes, the weight.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
your bait has weight on it at that end slinging that
sucker out there, right, yep,and you're generally probably an
overgeneralization, but you'regenerally imitating other bait
fish.
Correct, like that's.
I know my background, but I gotinto fishing trolling in a boat
, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, Mike, you got to tell your story.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Lakes back in Michigan.
Well, in Canada, a lot of it.
And at that point you knowwe're we are imitating, right,
we're imitating minnows or otherfish, no-transcript.
(28:18):
I mean, the fish finder ispretty, pretty exceptional
innovation, but yeah, justtrolling along and hoping that
some big trout sees that andjumps on it.
You know we do some casting for, for bass or for pike and that
kind of thing, but generally allspinner fishing and fly fishing
wasn't even something I don'teven think, I really even you
(28:41):
know.
You maybe like see it and think, oh, it's kind of a cool old
school British thing or whateveryou know.
But it was very much.
It was all about, you know,bass fishing and deep big lake
fishing and that kind of thing.
And then my first exposure to itwas out here in Idaho.
We came out, you know, before Iever moved here, uh, years ago,
and my, my mom and sister weredoing teacher training stuff
(29:06):
here in Moscow and so we wentdown to McCall and just walked
into an Orvis shop and we wereprobably kind of those people
that some people hate right Of.
But it was like, hey, I thinkmy dad's buddy had been like, oh
, you're going to Idaho, likeyou need to fly fish, yeah,
something like that.
So we walk into an Orvis shopin McCall and like, hey, what do
we need to do?
(29:26):
And outfitted us with somestuff and hooked us up with a
guide to take us out and wentout and my dad I remember
getting snagged a lot, my dad, Iremember getting snagged a lot
I finally figured out.
But kind of that peek into howthis is so different than what I
had grown up doing was we wentto some I don't even know what
(29:46):
river it would have been.
We went somewhere in McCallafter the guide had been done,
probably the pay up, and juststarted casting and messing
around.
I'm like nothing, just nothing.
And then some guy walks up witha fly rod and he casts in a
similar area where we are.
Boom catches a fish.
Yeah, you know, boom catchesanother fish.
(30:08):
I was just like, hey, you knowwhat are you, what are you
fishing with, what are you doing?
And he's like, oh, this,whatever right, I don't know
what it was at the time and, uh,it's like, oh, I think I have
one of those from the fly shop,you know, tied it on first, cast
boom, you know, get held like,oh, this is different, right,
this is a very different thingthan like, hey, you put
(30:31):
something that flashes out thereand the fish is going to go for
it.
Um, that was, that was thefirst exposure to it, but after
that I was pretty hooked.
Um, but, uh, went back toMichigan and and did some
fishing and you know creeks andstuff near my house and up you
know Northern Michigan and stuffand and started getting excited
about it.
And then, coming to school inIdaho was like this is, this is
(30:53):
what I got to do.
Um, probably never put the timein to actually get good at it,
but I'm just felt like man, bekind of like you, you know, like
I want to be in these places,like I want to be in the
mountains, on these rivers andon the creeks, like this is what
I want to be doing.
And, as much as I still lovetrolling for fish and stuff,
just that active nature of it,like I get to be out here in the
(31:16):
mountains waiting around.
I get to be hiking, I get to becasting, I get to be active the
whole time, rather than justlike sit there with a pole and a
boat trolling reading a book.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
You know not passive.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, very active.
So even if you're not catchinganything, it's like man.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
I had an incredible day walking differences between
fly fishing and spinner fishing,the line and then the bait and
lures you're using.
Really, it seems like in thelast 10, 15 years there's been a
lot of crossover.
So now people are fly fishingwith mice minnows.
They're doing a lot of stuffthat normally wasn't done on fly
(31:55):
rods.
That now fly fishing seems tobe an approach and a way to fish
and it looks totally differentthan it did 20 years ago.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
That's true, yeah, streamers.
Yeah, I know a guy that ties atreble hook on a streamer.
Yeah Right.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
I'm like oh, and there's I mean there are no,
there should be no rules, thereare no rules, and so it's kind
of it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Well, to be clear to the audience, there are rules.
I'm pretty sure you have topinch the barbs.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, that's, that is another thing in Idaho.
That was kind of a new thingand maybe I will find out that I
was breaking the law all thetime in Michigan.
But it was like I never like wejust went out and fished and
there were like limits and somesize stuff, but we just fished
and I get out here and I'm likedude, you got to like there's a
lot of specific streams,specific rivers, specific bodies
(32:44):
of water and when can you usewhat and what can you use and
can you catch and release or canyou keep them?
I mean, it was like I alwaysthought you catch fish and you
fry them up, I guess what you do.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, there'll be points in rivers when it's like,
all of a sudden there's a signand it's like but beyond this
it's single barbless only,whereas 10 feet down the river
you could have used bait orwhatever.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Right, so definitely consult your Idaho fishing game.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I think my wife loves the fact that I fly fish and
loves fishing and that lifestyle, but she still doesn't
understand why you'd catch afish and throw it back.
She agrees Fish should becaught and fried.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yeah, what's the name of that guy that YouTube video
have?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
you seen that when the guy he's a fake guide, he
makes so much fun of the catcherTrying to explain it.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Trying to explain fly fishing catch and release to
these rednecks.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, that's funny yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
You do what now?
Oh, so you can catch them andeat them later.
It's like no, no, no.
Yeah, that's true, that's agood.
That's a good point, Cause alot of people think that a lot
of people fish for eating fish,but a lot of fly fishing is not
that way.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yep, yeah, Um, all I can say is if we I mean you have
in order to for there to be,like these, native cutthroat,
you can't allow people to takethem all to eat them.
I mean, it's just you're eithernot going to have the have the
resource or you choose to putlimits on it and people can
continue to enjoy those fish,catch and release.
But you know, if we, if weallowed um you to eat even one,
(34:11):
you know, whatever one perperson, it just wouldn't, it
would be, it'd be gone.
So, yeah, cause they've tried,I mean they've even tried
allowing catch and keep, andthen immediately they're going
to have to start stocking fishand the stocked fish out compete
the native fish and it's justit doesn't work.
They've tried different stuff.
Um, you can even still catch,um, you know, cutthroat when
(34:32):
they interbreed with rainbows,the stocked rainbows they turn
into cut bows and you'll stilloccasionally catch those,
because they used to stock therainbows Um, I don't know how
many years ago, eighties ornineties, um, but they stopped
doing it because the cutthroatwere not able to compete,
survive.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yeah, well, and that's.
I remember catching my firstcutthroat trout and I was like
this is so beautiful, yeah, socool, and just like the like,
that allure.
I think that's part of thosedifferent species and you know
what can you catch where and getthem.
And it's like, yeah, justcatching them, getting the
picture, whatever it is, that'senough.
(35:10):
Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Did you see the guy that just caught the new state
record cutthroat?
catch and release.
It was in the Clark Fork, sothere's a very small part of the
Clark fork that is in Idaho, um, so you can go.
Guys will go to Missoula andfloat, float the Clark floor
fork, um.
But once it comes into Idaho,you've got the small stretch
before it dumps into a pondarray, and so he must've been
out in a boat.
(35:31):
I don't even know what he wasfishing with or whatever, but it
was like a 26, 24 or 26 inchcutthroat giant.
Wow, pictures online Justrecently, yeah, recently.
Well, they only I mean, they'veonly come up with ways of
allowing people to do this sortof like take a picture and send
it in.
You got to show, demonstratethat you're measuring it, and so
they can actually see how bigit is, and then you, you release
it.
That hasn't been around thatlong.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
It's got little controversial too, though,
because I mean you don't wantthat fish out of the water too
much.
Yeah, you got to be careful.
You don't want to stress them.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
You got to be careful .
But because it's new, peoplejust are breaking the record all
over the place.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Huh, yeah, so locally then I mean, isaac, you talked
a little bit about the Joe, yeah, the St Joe River.
It's certainly one of what weget is like, hey, I'm moving to
the area, like I feel like Iwant to fly fish.
You know, I'm here in Idaho nowwhat are some ways, easier ways
(36:25):
for people?
I'm going to keep the puns,going to wade into fly fishing.
That's good.
How'd you get, did you?
When did you start fishingaround here, ian?
Was that when you were here forschool?
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, so I I mean I'd say I'm new to Idaho.
I moved back here three yearsago and really started fishing.
I was here in late nineties,early two thousands for college
and fished occasionally.
Then you know you're busy as acollege student.
And then I ended up inNashville, tennessee, having a
family raising young kids andwent through a phase where I
knew I wanted to get back to flyfishing but it wasn't going to
be anytime soon.
So I literally just had thatkind of in my mind.
(37:04):
I'm putting all this stuff up onthe shelf and I know it's going
to come back out in the future.
I don't know when, and I'dprobably say about five, six
years ago.
I started getting back into flyfishing in Tennessee, which is
totally different.
We don't have cold water riversthere, so you're fishing
tailwater stuff that's releasedfrom dams.
Where the water's cold enoughyou can catch trout and some of
(37:24):
the cold water species which Iwas more interested in than bass
and other things.
But now, moving to back toNorthern Idaho and fishing here,
it's um, I'm learning all thesenew rivers and rivers I've
heard of for a long time buthaven't fished and it's been
super fun.
So every year I hope to just atleast get to one or two new
(37:45):
rivers and fish.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Exactly.
I mean, just go like almost anyriver we have around here,
we'll have fish in it.
It won't necessarily be thehighest quality, but I think the
only one that, like you'reprobably not going to catch fish
.
I don't know, At least Ihaven't I.
Well, that's not true.
I did catch one in the Palouseriver, but I mean, Palouse is
probably one of our closestsmall, I was up around Laird
park and I've I've heard that ifyou go way up the Palouse above
(38:09):
Laird park and you go findpools, like you can catch there
I think they're a Brook trout upthere Um, and I did catch one
there at Laird park.
Um, but like most sections ofthe Palouse, uh, because of all
the grazing that we do and, um,the lumber timber company all
straightened all those riversout, so when runoff comes
through, it just like blows itall out and there's not enough
(38:29):
um food for the, the bugs, toeat, so the fish don't have
anything to eat.
But yeah, the Palouse, um, butyeah, there's the St Joe.
You go down to the Locksaw, theSelway, the Clearwater, kuski,
yeah, north North Fork of the.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Coeur d'Alene Clearwater.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
I mean, all of these rivers have have great fishing.
Um, it's just a matter of likepicking the right time of year
and go find a, go find a flyshop that'll post, you know, uh,
fishing reports online andpeople will put that information
out there and when to fish themand what to fish with and that
kind of thing yeah, we have theinternet, right.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Yeah, when I started fishing, there was no internet.
Now I was fishing on a river.
I know people catch fishingbecause I could see it with my
eyes.
But if you wanted to go to anew location, I mean now you
just google, you know, flyfishing, fishing certain rivers,
what to expect?
You potentially can find placesto go.
There's just a lot moreinformation now that you can get
on your phone when you're in aplace.
(39:22):
I got 45 minutes between mynext.
You know whatever I'm doing andI'm by a river.
Can I fish this?
What's here?
It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah, well, something on my to-do list this year.
I've never tried to catchcutthroat on the clear water.
Um, like up around cherry Lanearea, and I've read it's like
obscure blog posts from 10 yearsago of people who were like, oh
, I was up here and I caughtthis 18-inch cutthroat and I'm
like you know people alwaysthink of that as a steelhead
river or like you can catch bassin certain parts of the
Clearwater.
But I know there are cutthroatin there and my goal is to see
(39:53):
if I can figure it out, becausethat's like probably the.
That would be the closest placeto catch a cutthroat, if I can
figure it out.
Yeah, I mean, it's big water,so you're not just going to like
wade into most sections of that, or especially not this time of
year, but yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
So, speaking of that, right, like you said, you can
throw on a pair of chacos, andcertainly later in the season,
um especially.
But um, what about, like bigwater lake fishing?
Have you guys done muchmountain lake fishing for like
fly fishing, that kind of thing?
Speaker 3 (40:23):
I've hiked into a couple of different mountain
lakes and fished and have hadsuccess.
Usually it's very clear waterand you can actually see if
there's fish in there.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah.
So in Idaho stocks a lot oftheir mountain lakes and so
you've got these populations ofcutthroat and sometimes rainbows
rainbows that are pretty big.
I mean you can get my friends.
I haven't done a ton of whatmyself, but my, my wife's done a
bit, even like down in theWallowas or seven devils yeah,
(40:52):
there's others I'm blanking butI mean any of those mountain
lakes typically will have fishin them.
So if you're going to go on ahike, if you can manage to throw
a fly rod in, I totally would,cause sometimes those are the
easiest fish to catch and youcan keep them.
So when you're usually andcheck their eggs, of course, but
usually when you're fishing outof these mountain lakes because
they're stocked, um, you cangrill them up a lakeside, yeah
(41:14):
yeah, that's a sweet littlebackpacking perk, yeah, for sure
yeah, similar to golf.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
It becomes a lifestyle in the sense of I'm
going here for business or forpleasure, what's around there
that I can fish right?
That's how golfers think.
I'm going to this place for abusiness meeting or a vacation
or whatever.
Can I golf when I'm down there?
What's available?
So you kind of start looking ateverything through that lens as
you're planning your familytrips and vacations and things
(41:41):
to do.
You're like Hmm what water'saround there?
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah, that's totally like I was thinking.
Uh, you said you um floated onthe Deschutes.
We took a trip over springbreak um like a rafting trip.
We just went over and hung outbecause we like the Sun River
area, yeah, and I brought my flyrod and I was like, let's go
out and explore.
And like the Deschutes ismostly, I think, closed, or at
least the section that we wereon, but there was this little
(42:04):
tributary called like FallsCreek or something.
It had a hatchery up there.
I ended up catching one of thebiggest rainbows that I've ever
caught.
It was like the only fish wecaught was this one fish, but it
ended up being this like memorythat I'll keep for forever.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
So, yeah, it's fun to do that and back in high school
I think it's up river from well, it's up river from Sun River.
On the Deschutes it kind ofmeanders through this big meadow
and I was up there with afriend and I wasn't into fly
fishing yet but it was probablythe beginning of that phase or
stage and we had float tubes andso we just jumped in at the top
.
We told his mom to pick us upin a couple hours, you know, at
(42:46):
the other road down lower riverand I think we had a fly rod and
several spinner rods and justrandom stuff we grabbed.
We had a blast just in a floattube, going very slow down the
chutes on a sunny day, throwinganything we could in the water
to see if we could get fish.
It's a beautiful area.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Yeah, well, I do think that's like the floating
aspect of it is a totally.
It can be a game changer, right?
Like some of the, I rememberprobably still a lot of the
frustrations.
Fly fishing is like gettingcaught and stuff in your back
cast.
It's like I'm up against thesebushes how do I get out?
And then the ability to justfloat down a stretch of river
(43:26):
and hit different spots andthings whether that's inner
tubes, you can get those pontoon, inflatable pontoons you can.
You can do it, like you said,relatively inexpensively, um,
but being able to float that, uh, really allows you to cover a
lot of river and get to placesthat you might not be able to
otherwise get down to Absolutely.
Um, is that kind of Isaac?
(43:47):
I know you've got a boat.
You are into that, um.
Is that what you spend most ofyour time now doing?
Speaker 2 (43:53):
It is in the spring, like pre-runoff.
So this is we're middle of theMay, your time now doing it is
in the spring, like pre-runoff,so this is, we're middle of the
May, middle of May here, and sowe're kind of peak runoff right
now.
Um, although this year is goingto be a super low water year.
So, um, I don't, I think thesnow pack was.
Last time I looked it was like80% of of average or median, so
it's, it's a low snow year, um,and so far it looks like the
(44:16):
river may have already peaked,unless we get a ton of rain, um,
because we don't have any rainin the forecast currently.
So, um, yeah, like right now, weare basically fishing all the
way through runoff, which ispretty unusual.
So normally, because you've gotall this snow and then the rain
, spring rains hit, it'll warmup, and if it warms up and it
rains, at the same time the snow, snow starts mellowing, the
(44:39):
snow starts melting, the riverwill blow out and we basically
can't even fish it during thosetimes.
So we'll, we'll do a ton offloating and fishing in, like
March, april, early May, andthen usually you have to take a
break, um, because the most ofthe water comes out or is coming
down in mid-May and early Juneand then we'll get back to it
(45:01):
sometime in June or 4th of July.
It'll come back down far enoughto where you can we're almost
doing late June, early Julyfishing.
Now Seriously, and if someone isinterested in fishing this year
, be aware that by probablyearly August, it's going to feel
like late August, and so getout in July.
Um, that's probably going to besome of the best walkway
(45:24):
fishing that you're going to seethis year.
Um, because you know what'sonce the water levels go down to
their their lowest, whichnormally doesn't happen until
like September or that timeframe.
But if it, if it goes to itslowest point and it's also like
a hundred degrees out, which itcould be in August, the water
warms up and fish get stressedand they don't, um, they don't
(45:46):
feed as as often or as normal uh, normally as they do, and, um,
and also it, it, it's actuallyhard on the fish to catch them
and yank them out of the riverand so and sometimes you'll have
more that die because they'rejust not doing as well, um, so
and so typically it's likethat's the time of year you just
say like, hey, I'm not going togo out and fish, cause the fish
are stressed out as it is.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
So yeah, fish earlier this year and that's even even
going higher elevations and thatkind of thing.
No, I mean, is there, is therewhen it gets like that?
Are there other places to go,other types of fishing to do?
Speaker 2 (46:20):
That's a great great point.
So if you go further towardsthe source, um, it's typically
colder water and and closer towhatever you know, whether it's
a spring fed or whether thereare springs coming into it or
whether it's just a lake fedriver.
Anytime it gets warm, goinghigher up is going to be colder
water usually.
It just has like less time tosit there in pools and and get
(46:40):
warmer yeah, but smaller,smaller water um is better, yeah
, walkway and smaller fishgenerally.
Yeah, sometimes probably moresmaller fish in general, but
then you'll also have somereally big fish that are going
up to spawn, and so you can likeI've caught some of my biggest
fish, like way up in theheadwaters of these rivers, um,
(47:02):
that are going up there to spawn.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
You also get the aspect that when your water
drops in a Creek or river, youthen oftentimes will lose
continual flow in the river.
And then you get these sectionsof pools.
Well, fish get trapped in there, and sometimes they're big fish
, and so even they're hungry andthey're hungry and so late
season you can go target certainthings and just fish a pool a
(47:25):
bunch of different ways top,middle, bottom, streamers,
nymphs just to try and getwhatever fish are stuck there,
which is pretty fun, yeah yeah,that's awesome I was just
watching this fishing gameposted a video of one of their
um.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
It was a fish ladder with a fish Um.
It was, I guess, a trap, Idon't know what they call it,
but this was way up on the snakeUm.
So this would be Southern Idaho, um, and they have a population
of cutthroat up there and theykind of just showed their whole
design of the.
You know, basically, fish go upthrough this thing, they get
stuck, they grab them, theymeasure them, weigh them, get
(48:01):
all this data, sometimes theytag them and then they send them
on their way.
So they're able to do that withthese spawning, like these
giant spawning cutthroat trout.
That kind of stuff would be socool.
I should have been a fisheriesbiologist, since we're recording
this conversation.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Isaac, as an Idaho guy, what resources do you go to
?
What do you use for weatherstream flows, stream information
and then just news and fishingin the area?
I mean, where are you watchingfish and game catching fish?
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Yeah, we'll follow fish and game on there, like
they post on Instagram, theypost on Facebook, they're on
social media and so stuff thatthey're doing, they're putting
out there and there's a lot ofinteresting stuff that you can
stay up to date with.
There's a bunch of sites thatpost, like streamflow data.
I was just looking at the one Iuse, a waterweathergov, which
(48:52):
is the national weather service.
That's the one I and I alwayscheck for.
Like the St Joe, I'll look atCalder there, which is the
national weather service.
That's the one I and I alwayscheck for.
Like the St Joe, I'll look atCalder.
There's different ones thatthat do.
But then you can also go tosilver bow.
I think it's silver bowcom orjust Google it, but it's a fly
shop in Spokane, silver bow flyshopcom.
Sean is the owner, he's a greatguy and they post regular
(49:17):
almost weekly, I think it'sweekly fishing reports for five
rivers.
Yeah, spokane, north fork,quarter lane, they do like the
grand ron.
They were just saying that thisis.
There's a small window rightnow where you could go um catch
um, it's kind of like runoff,but not super bad runoff, and so
there's a window here where youcould go catch bass on the uh,
the grand ron, because all thesalmon and steelhead smolts are
(49:38):
coming out and so if you gothrow like a streamer.
the bass just are looking tohammer those things.
So go throw streamers on thegrand Ron right now.
So they, yeah, they, they, theyshould tell you these things
and they'll tell you what fliesto use.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Yeah, they give a little list of what what flies
are working and Tyler at whitepine.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Um, if you're not following white pine fly shop
here in Moscow, you should befollowing he does.
Guy lives on the river.
We see each other prettyregularly.
Um, they've got a camp, uhfurther up river from us and
they're on the water a ton Um,so they'll they'll post their
kind of stream side fishingreports from the Joe and other.
They go down to the grand Ronand float down there and lots of
(50:15):
um good information from fromTyler and um Snowtel.
If you're ever interested inlooking at average snowpack, I
look at Snowtel.
Um, I can't remember the actualwebsite, but if you Google it
you can probably pull that up.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
Um, and then obviously, once you have all
these tools, you need to know alittle bit about how to use them
and what flows mean and whatsnowpack means.
These tools, you need to know alittle bit about how to use
them and what flows mean andwhat snowpack means.
But yeah, you can learn thatpretty quickly in a season just
by reading and studying andtalking to people and figuring
things out.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Yeah, and I'm like I'm Googling the names of flies
all the time, right, you know,someone will say, oh, they're,
they're, you know fishing this,or fish are keying in on a
certain fly and I have no ideawhat it is, and just Google it
and lots of people out thereposting videos of different
patterns that they're doing andso you can get a feel for what
it looks like or what it'simitating.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Um, and then go to your fly shop and, yeah,
stopping in those fly shops.
There's always, always happy togive information and and tell
you what flies.
Yeah, and sell you some flies.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Yeah, Be aware of the .
You know the prices are goingto be top dollar for those those
flies at the fly show.
You get a little info.
You get the info.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Yeah, exactly sure yeah, well, and then and
tutorials.
Like you said, the internetwasn't, wasn't around, but it's
like.
Now you can learn how to castand everything on youtube, right
?
Yeah, there's so much goodinformation yeah there's
step-by-step, you know, orvisvideos and all kinds of good
stuff out there to just go andtry and put an indicator on, and
you can do it in your backyardand like they have an investment
(51:40):
in bringing up a generation ofpeople, either a future
generation or current flyfishermen.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Their resources are incredible.
Yeah, when we were in nashville, I started fishing for maybe a
year or two and then startedgetting my kids into it.
Well, orvis does free fly tyingclasses, fly fishing classes,
fly casting classes likeobviously they want to have
customers, but they're givingaway all this great information.
That is huge resource, like.
If you have something like thatin your area, it's a, it's a
(52:08):
great opportunity just to get inand learn a ton with no
overhead.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yep yeah, north 40 in lewiston, north 40 in
cordelaine, north 40 in Coeurd'Alene.
There's an Orvis shop in Coeurd'Alene, yep, um, there's people
don't know about Red Shed FlyShop on the Clearwater, but Red
Shed, go see a guy named Poppy.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
Dude talk about a great video.
Oh man, look up like the.
There's a YouTube video on Red.
It's awesome.
It'll make you want to get intospay fishing.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Yeah, so he's really good Spokane Yep Silver bow.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
I forgot what I was going to say.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
But yeah, the fly shops are great, a great
resource.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Awesome, good, good, yeah, just get out there.
I mean, apart from drowning,like nothing really bad can
happen.
You're going to spend abeautiful day out on the river
and, yeah, enjoy just being upin the mountains.
I don't, I don't remember if Isaid this on the last one or not
, but, um, like Catherine, firsttime I got her out fly fishing,
we were going up to the NorthFork of the Clearwater and we
(53:06):
were getting ready to leave andshe was just like I don't, I
don't want to go on this trip.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
I can't do it.
I just I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
I, catherine, just just wait, like you're gonna get
out there be standing in theriver in the mountains and just
like you're gonna love it, youdon't even have to fish she goes
.
I don't want to stand in theriver.
I'm like, but no, she, we gother out there and she loved it.
You don't even have to fish nowshe loves it.
Yeah, and yeah it is.
There's something about theseNorth Idaho mountain streams in
(53:31):
particular is just incredible,Like it's just amazing that we
get to be in that place and justexperience a day in those
absolutely beautiful areas andquiet out of cell range.
I'm sure I've said it before.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
But go find the small tributary streams and put on a
tiny fly, or maybe not even atiny fly, but just go catch
small fish.
They're out there and they'reeager and they, you know, like
if you've got kids and you'retrying to get kids into fly
fishing, go find these smallstreams that come into the.
You know, like, all the bigrivers, all the rivers we have
around here are fairly goodsized, um, the kind of river
(54:07):
that could sweep you away if youget in a little too far, but
but they all have tributariesand most of them have fish in
them and so those fish will tendto be smaller but they tend to
be more eager.
They will attack your fly andif you miss them they'll attack
it again.
And you sit there and you justpractice your timing and you
practice, you know, setting thehook.
Um, it's great for kids.
(54:28):
It's uh, I mean, honestly, I'vethat's what.
What I did the first time.
We went um back to the Joe, um,we got on one of those little
creeks and I think I sat thereand I caught like five or so
little six inches in a row andjust was like all right, pick up
a little confidence, have somefun and then go find something
bigger.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
It's awesome Any parting thoughts.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
Welcome spring.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
Yeah, when you live in north Idaho, people look
forward to the spring for manyreasons.
Fishing is just one of them.
Yeah, glad it's here.
When you live in North Idaho,people look forward to the
spring for many reasons.
Fishing is just one of them.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Yeah, it's here.
Awesome Thanks guys.
Thanks for the river beers,Thanks.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
Mike, this is fun.
We should do this weekly.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
I'd love to get together and just talk about
fishing if we can't actually behere, let's go do it on the
river next time.
Thanks for joining us Likeshare, subscribe.
Speaker 1 (55:19):
We'll see you next week.
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