- Chester Moore talks with Chris Johnson of Living Waters Fly Shop about affordable stream fishing options in Texas.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to More out Doors on News Talk five sixty
k LVI. This is just for more and I guarantee you,
if you love the fish, you love Texas fisheries, this
program tonight is gonna blow your mind because we're gonna
talk about a fish, a kind of fish most people
never dream we ever had in Texas, the true trout
(00:22):
of Texas Native waters streams have many conservation challenges that
sort of fly under the radar of a lot of
the other wildlife challenges, not only what you hear about
like in the corporate wildlife media, but also in the
hook and bullet media, which I do the bulk of
my work in.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
And today we have.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
A very special guest. We have mister Chris Johnson from
Living Waters, Fly Fishing and Round Rock, Texas. How you doing, Chris,
doing quite well?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Thanks for the invite to be on.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, I'm excited to have you here.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We got connected by Teres Thompson from the Western Native
Trout Initiative and with a common interest in a native
trout species in America, and we really first got connected
because of a common interest which you're way further along
in than me, with the Rio grande cutthroat.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Absolutely. That's one of the fish I enjoylert chasing, the
emotion of the fly.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Well, let's start there real quick, because what got me
going on this. I was talking to her on the
phone about this Western Native trout initiative and I said, man,
I sure wish we had a native trout here in Texas.
He goes, well, you did, and talked about the Rio
grand cutthroat, and it rang a bell to something I
very early in my career had read about but never
studied up, that there was this native trout that's still
native to New Mexico and Colorado, that was probably ninety
(01:40):
nine point nine percent out there in the trans Pagels
as a native fish. And we talked the other day
and you said that you even went out to some
of these locations. So can you tell us something about
the Rio grand cutthroat?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Certainly as it pertains detective the species, you know, there's
some big debate on whether or not it was here
or not. I personally believe that it was, Yeah, And
I just think there's a lot of evidence planting in
that direction. Uh. I know. The textis Parts and Wildlife.
You can actually dig a little bit on their website
and I think they still have the publication written by
(02:12):
Garry Garrett and Garrett Matlock. The argument, yeah, makes the
argument for native trout in Texas, and some of the
evidence is, uh, it's pretty strong, including they found uh,
you know, trout scales and fossilized Native American droppings and
things like that. There were also some reports of kind
of Civil War error reports of guys who have wildlife surveys,
(02:32):
the Evermond reports that went through there. It's interesting because
the color place that was used in that study were
actually from parts of Colorado that I fished, so apparently,
you know, it's one of those things that the page is,
well did they know what they were looking at? And
in this study, the color plates were actually from the
southern portion of Colorado where I go fish out of it.
So the thought is that they knew what they were
(02:54):
looking at, and even uh, you know, even though they're
not here now that the one time time we probably
had a native pelmmity in the state of Texas. So
that's pretty pretty incredible to think about.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, I grew up thinking that the native trout of
Texas was sent a sine nebulosis. The spotted sea trout,
the speckled trout and the sand trout and the gulf.
Of course they're not true trout in the semin or
a kind of way that we talked about, But it's
exciting to think that in the fairly recent past we
had these native trout here. But doing the digging that
I did for an article I wrote at highercolin dot net,
(03:27):
learned that there was some water issues that caused and
some development issues and things that caused these fish and
no longer live here.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
So there's a myriad of things that can can kind
of attribute contribute to that. The part I think that
the water issue being the fact that you know, things change.
I mean if you look, I mean if you go
out to Drip and Springs right now, you can go
find my great grandparents had a place out there, and
you could find plamed fossils and things like that all
throughout those fields and it was crazy. So I mean
you could find, you know, oceanic fossils all throughout house
(03:59):
Civil Texas know that obviously climate change, environments change. I
mean we have bully managed fossils right up the road
Waco and all around, So I mean there was once
an entirely different climate and I think what wound up
happening is at this point, you know, a lot of
the places like the Devil's River where they found some evidence,
but like it's a Baker Cave area, you know. Lympia
(04:20):
Creek is another one over the Davis Mountains that they
highly suspect had them in more recent past. And then
of course in the Kischer Creek and the Gloodily Mountain
National Park area that still has a wild, reproducing population
of rainbow trout that were introduced probably about one hundred
years ago but have managed to persist. So the water
technically still can support trout. There's just not our native
(04:41):
fish that we're here at one time. So at this point,
water I think is you know, kind of refeated. Habitat
is extraordinarily limited. To say that we don't have any
It was probably a faulsehood in the fact that we
still have a wild population of rainbows in what we
mountain National parks, but by and large we don't really
have the habitat we want before the fish.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, you know, I think that's one of the things
I think in terms of wildlife, people understand habitat more
than aquatic habitat, you know, I think sometimes there's a
disconnect when people see water, they think, well, this fish
must still be able to flourish here, And not necessarily
because you can even have the water on some occasions,
but maybe with certain try you don't have the right
amount of flow, you don't have the right habitat, the
right the right vegetation growing. So there's a lot of
(05:22):
factors that go into quatic habitat.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
There are and and with this with this specy specifically,
it has to kind of have a ripple run cool
environment where there is a little bit of you know,
spawning opportunities and good substrates for that. It also has
to have you know, nice cool, clean water that does
stay cold on a year round basis, which is something
that we have a lot of springs in texts, but
as far as the as far as that actual trout
(05:47):
cold water, that's pretty pretty hard to pretty hard to
come by in Texas at large. So it's one of
the things that I think is really limited opportunities for
this species is in the state. But I think the
only viable water we currently have, and there was a
grassroots reintroduction effort that was actually put forth by Techni
part and Wildlife and Guadalofa for troutl Limited to be
(06:10):
and explore the option of reintroducing the Rio Grand cut
throat back to Texas in the Catcher Creek at one point.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
But you know, the trout thing is fascinating in Texas
because you know, I remember the very first you know,
stockings going into the Guadalupe River and and then what
kind of the Canyon Lake tail race thing started kicking off,
and I remember thinking, man, that's just really really incredible
because here I am thinking I'm going to have to
go to you know, Montana or somewhere even up in
(06:38):
Arkansas to catch me a nice rainbow trout. And then
we have this pretty incredible fishery and a gigantic Trout
Unlimited movement based around the Guadalupe River.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Absolutely, it was. It's actually still currently the largest chapter
of troutl Limited in the world. Mind boggling mirth on
the board. Yeah, I've served on the board of that
chapter for several years and still very involved with the chapter. Uh,
And we're very involved with try To Limited as a
national organization. As a business. We're actually a Trout Unlimited
(07:12):
Gold level business here living waters, so doing doing conservation
efforts of course very near and dear to our hearts.
But the tail water fishery below Canyon Lake, that's incredible.
We guide it through the store. Uh And a lot
of people don't realize this, but not all those trout
die in the summer. A lot of those actually can
over summer if the water conditions are favorable, which some
years they very much are. And we do have some
(07:34):
wild wildfish in the river that were actually spawned in
the Guadaloo River itself, and so you have, you know,
this first generation wild fish that are showing up on
the scene, and it's incredible to see. It's something you'd
never in your wildest dreams think you'd find in Central
textis well.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Speaking of that, you know how people say guadalupeg tail,
you know, continulate tail race and all this stuff. How
big of an area is this, you say, is an
effective trout fishery? I mean they can they can possibly
sustain them through like say, a regular normal summer period.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I mean a lot of it does depend on flow
and just kind of a year we're having. I would
say on a let's just say on average year in,
year out basis, effectively, the first four to five miles
really sustained the fish from in the form of like
a temperature refuge where that daytime water temps is not
eclipsed seventy degrees. There are some things that do make it.
(08:26):
I mean, as with any fishery, there are a few
wild cards. And within the Guadaloue River the type of
fish that are actually stocked by Quadali river trout and
limited those come out of Crystal I think it's Crystal
Lake Fisheries out of Ava, Missouri, and that's actually the
Emerson strain of rainbow trout which has bred to be
temperature tolerant, and in talks with the hatchery out there,
(08:47):
they've done some temperature trials on those fish where select
specimens is actually weather daytime water tins in the eighties. Wow,
which is unbelievable that that'sn't heard of it. The trout
wild Yeah, that's not every fish they stock, but a
few of them will make it. So I've heard it
said that there will always be trout in the Gladilay
Tail Race no matter if there's flood or drought or whatever,
and so far that it proved to be true even
(09:08):
after the major floods, with that water's coming out of
the dam that's well over seventy see or excuse me,
seventy degrees fahrenheit. They're still trout in the tail races.
It's just absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
No, that's a great story and it's something that has
brought anglers together. And I don't know of a type
of fish on the globe that spawns the kind of
ferocious conservation ethic of trout, you know, even down to
like how you handle the fish. You know, there's a
lot of things out there. Maybe people who grew up
(09:40):
fishing on the coast have a completely different mindset maybe
than the guys out there. I was in Montana last
September watching people fish in a stream and it was
almost a scientific effort, you know. And so it's really
exciting to me in my home state to have this
great fishery. And we come back on More Outdoors we
talk more about the true trout of Texas. Welcome back
(10:02):
to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty kl the Eye.
This is Chester Moore talking with Ryan Johnson of Living
Waters Fly Shop about the true trout of Texas. To
be able to go do something like this, I've been fortunate.
I've caught like a thirteen pound brown trout in New York.
And you know, I've caught pretty nice rainbows up in
Little Red River in Arkansas and all those kind of things.
But a lot of people man if they can just
(10:24):
go out there and catch a fish, so then they
can book trips with you.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, we do run those through the store. Obviously you're
in the for the Guadalie River specifically for trout. We
run those in kind of the winter months, kind of
the November through yep, you know, March April time frames,
kind of our peak season. But yeah, we stay pretty
booked up. It's a busy season.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
We'll make sure and hook these up with these guys
because it's a great opportunity and go learn that water
and learn from the experts and greatly enhance your opportunity
at catching some of these tremendous fish. Now, when people
want to go trout fishing, maybe they're going to do
like we talked about a few weeks, go take up
to Utah of native trout slam or go out and
(11:02):
try to get him a you know, a rio grand
cut through a Yellowstone cutthroat or something like that. In
terms of conservation ethic, I mean like a guy wants
a great picture of a fish. What are some of
the handling tips you can give us for making sure
that the fish released actually live.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
So obviously, as a busy catching release, I don't think
anything's ever one hundred percent successful, but there's some things
that can be you know, huge contributing factors for the
survival of the fish and really really help with the
mortality rate. So, uh, first off, you know, when you
catch a fish, play it as quickly as possible. You know,
I know a lot of people love to feel a
fish fight and it's a lot of fun to watch them,
(11:39):
you know, come back and forth and do all that.
But for the safety of the fish, we recommend what
you look at, you know, put the woods to in,
try to get him in the net as quickly as possible.
And that's the other thing is use the net. There's
a lot of a lot of great products out there.
We don't really recommend the ones that are kind of
like the nylon netting that has all the tos and
stuff in it. You'll see those down on the coast
quite a bit. We use you know, clear rubberized net
(12:01):
or stuff. It's kind of like a rubberized coating on
its where it actually does not remove the slime off
the fish. We just wanted to do as much as
we can to kind of keep that fish in as
good as shape as it can be. And then when
we if we have to hold the fish or touch
the fish, which I mean a lot of people want
to do that for pictures. I'm no different. I like
to take pictures and the fish, but we keep those
in the water as much as possible. We'll try to
(12:23):
keep the fish with a selly touching the water, keep
our hands totally wet, kind of the little moto to
keep them wet. And there's a whole movement that's actually
centered around that. And then trout are you know there.
It's amazing how resilient they are on the actual like
habitat front and some of the places that they live.
But they're actually pretty sensitive when interacting with anglers. And
(12:44):
you know, a trout, if you keep it out of
the water for ten to twelve seconds, and that's any
sea piece of trout, you can do permanent damage to
their deals. And that's why we really tell folks, this
isn't the cat fish that you can you know, leave
it on the bank flopping around doing all this stuff
and then try to let it go and it's still okay.
This is something that you know, some care does need
to be taken for the fish, and especially with species
like Rio grand cut throat where they're technically listed listed
(13:07):
as a threatened species. They're not endangered, and we're fighting
tooth and nail to keep them off that list. But
they aren't threatened, so therefore they do deserve our respect
and care.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
What happened threatened to endangered in terms of fishing.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
So that that's an incredibly great question, and it has
kind of a long answer, but I'll just as short
as I can. You know, a threatened species still, so
it still allows a lot of your state entities and
you know, forest entities, tribal tribal acencies and entities, and
also you know, anglers and conservation chapters things like that
to be a part of the story of this fish.
(13:45):
To actually the conservation is something that you know, yourself
and myself that we can we can involve ourselves in
and you know, actually be booths on the ground for
some of this stuff. You know, I've been up there
and you know, planted willows and sedges alongside creeks, and
you know, we've done you know, a lot for education
and you know, photographing the fish and you know, making
films about it, raising money and doing all sorts of stuff.
(14:06):
It allows us to be part of that story. When
it goes endangered, it really kind of ties your hands
on some of the fishing aspects of us being actually
able to enjoy the fish. But it also can tie
your hands on a federal level as well, making funding
kind of hard to get sometime, and even just the
state involvement and some of the management can be you know,
it takes place there, it just gets a little bit tougher.
(14:26):
So if we can keep that off the list, then
that's something that we've still got a you know, a
threatened fish that only occupies approximately, you know, somewhere between
it's about eleven to twelve percent of its native range
somewhere in there. So it's minuscule compared to what it
used to be, but it's still doing well. We do
have a lot of populations that are persisting. As of
twenty sixteen, I believe it was, the range is at
(14:49):
eleven percent and then we're one hundred and twenty nine
populations that were in existence that were like conservation populations.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Well that's great.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
You know, basically, you have a fish here that's unfortunately
been exterpretated from eighty nine percent of its range, it
seems like. But in some of the areas where it
still exists, it seems like you're having some thriving populations
and things like that. Like I do a lot with
wild sheep, and there are some areas with thriving wild sheep,
but then you have entire hundreds of miles of habitat
that are barren. You know, it's a very similar thing
(15:21):
in terms of what going on the land versus what's
going on.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Down in the water.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
And you mentioned something earlier to me that was interesting.
You mentioned a strain of rainbow trout that was specifically
brought from a hatchery into in Missouri, I believe, into Texas.
Is that a created strain in hatcheries or is that
a subspecies?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
So oddly enough, without going too much into trout tactonomy
and biology, and I don't have a degree in this,
I'm just an absolute nerd.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Me too, I'm the same. Well that's why I ask
the questions.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
So I apologize if it starts getting a little nerdy.
But at the same time, it's one of the things
I'm very passionate about in terms of rainbow trout. There's
really in the lower forty eight you're looking at all
current day rainbow trouts that are stopped. For the most part,
you can trace that back to a common ancestor of
the McCloud River red band trouts in northern Kellas, and
(16:16):
I've actually been there to actually catch those in their
actual native range. It's an incredibly beautiful fish, and it
looks nothing like what you and I picture a rainbow trout.
There's some similarities, but not you know, not that much
in the small creeks, and actually were like not across
between a cutthroat and the golden trout that it looks
more like that and many of the drainages that are
fishing in. But the thing that's interesting with that fish
(16:38):
is that those are the ones that were transported and
propagated and bread and raised and so as you have,
you know, the current day rainbow trout. If you wanted
to look at it this way, it's great great, great
great great rate for a whole lot more grapes than
their grandfather and grandmother were all the cloud grip of
red bands, and there are actual true you know, like
the Alaskan rainbows, like the leftar rainbows, that itself, that's
a native rainbow, that thing that you know, they've got
(17:01):
steel Head up there in Alaska. I actually have a
brother that lives in Alaska, so part of him and
his family, he looks a few of us there, and
so that whole ecosystem is completely different. You're looking at
You've got a natrum of fish, You've got you know,
fish that remain in stream. You've got some stuff that
gets landlocked over years. It's just strange to see all
the all the different dynamics of all that. But nonetheless,
the native rainbows are only going to be off the
(17:23):
pretty much the western seaboard. You'll see like anywhere Steelhead are,
you know, which is California, Oregon, Washington, stuff like that,
exactly all the way into Alaska. That's that's where steel
Head runs. That's the extent of the rainbow truck. All
the Eastern states, all the stuff like you know, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas,
you know, Colorado, New Mexico's Utah. There is nothing, no,
(17:46):
no native rainbows from there at all. And there's actually
a lot of people don't realize this. There's not a
single native brown trout to the US.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yeah, they're European, right, They're from Europe, right, correct?
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yeah? Yeah, there were two strings. There was the bon
Bar Strain and lock Leven Stream. One was from Germany,
the other ones from Scotland. So you're looking at those
two strings are brought in stock in different places. One
was more of a river stream and one of the
lake red streams. And now the current neigh brown traft
that we have is, of course you know that the
ancestor of all of that, but in brook trout, which
obviously persists, they're probably the largest threat uh to the
(18:20):
high l Nation customer trout. I joking and call them
the cockroach of the West. They are beautiful in their
native range and they deserve protection. Everything that we do
for cut roat and just to protect them and to
celebrate that species, I think the brook trout deserves every
bit of that within their native range. It's a fish
we're protecting. It's it's I mean, it's borderline's sacred in
(18:42):
its native range and especially being the northeast, and I've
caught them, caught them up there as well, and they're
beautiful it's an incredible fish, but in the West they
just flat out and don't belong here. They're introduced.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Look, I got a bunch of me and my redneck friends.
If there's a bag limit, dude, we'll show up and uh,
you know, we'll put some on the grill.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Dude. Oh man, No, I mean that that can't food
or in an our place exactly. The thing that's really cool,
like that's actually one of the conservation efforts is the
Smilif Valley Chapter of Trout and Limited, which is right
here in son southern central Colorado. They meet Alamosa. They
actually have a creek that they've invested in a good
friend of mine, Kevin Terry. It's been a lot of
(19:19):
you know, livestock explosures to keep the elk and the
livestock out from over gradything and trampling down the stream
banks to kind of have the habitat restoration kind of creek.
And they're finding now that mc cut throat are actually
seemed to read they're rebounding pretty well. I heard it
one of the check stations on the Upper River right now,
like looking at about one in three fish or cut rops,
(19:39):
when that was not anywhere close to that number of
a few years ago.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
The last trout I caught was in New York last year,
some small brown trout and it was like in a
gully by some people's house. The I went turkey hunting
with friends of mine and my friend doesn't fish, but
one of his friends fishing.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Dude, you live by the finger Lakes.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
When we come back, we'll continue our conversation about Texas
stream fisheries. Welcome back to More Outdoors on News Talk
five sixty klv This is Chester More. You can follow
me at the Chester More on Instagram, Higher Calling Wildlife
on Facebook, my blog at higher Calling dot net, and
also check out the podcast in this program with a
(20:18):
KLVI dot conflict on the podcast at the top of
the page. Go back and listen to archives of the programs.
Continuing our conversation with Chris Johnson of Living.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Waters Fly Shop and so you can't turkey.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Hunt in the evenings there, So I spent my evenings fishing,
and I'm catching these like little one pound brown trout
and like a little ditch by some guy's house. And
you know, they knew they were stocked. But I was
talking to some locals there that really had no idea
that there were no brown trout native to the US
and kind of thought these fish are all native to
New York because they've been there as long as they have,
you know. So I think it's interesting to let people
(20:52):
know that we've done things to enhance fisheries and make
things great. I mean, like the Little Red River in Arkansas.
What an incredible fun fishery go go to. But it's
also important to look at what the Good Lord put
in America, you know, and take those native fish that
we have and prioritize them in terms of conservation.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And that's that's absolutely correct. And that's one of the
things that I know you mentioned that we got connected
by Terrese Thompson, who's a dear friend of mine, with
Western Native Trout Initiatives. That's something that I really just
have to sing the phrases of that organization, you know,
trud To Limited. They have a very broad focus in
the fact that it is cold, clean, fishable water. And
while there's a very very large emphasis on needing fish,
you know, there's also the emphasis on the recreational sailwater
(21:33):
fisheries and things like that as well, because I mean,
it's kind of the something for everybody. But that's the
part where Western Native trout initiatives just focused that their
sole focus is on what actually is you know, intrinsic
to the US and especially the Western States as it
concerns them. And that's the part where they pour one
hundred percent of their efforts into nothing but native species.
(21:54):
And that's the part that I just absolutely door than for.
They do such a great job of it.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, I think it's incredible.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
In our over ministry and one of the things we
do we call higher calling Wild Wishes expeditions, and we've
taken our second trip out to central Texas to take
basically our native trout.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
They'll go out a.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Loope bass, you know, a native bass out there. We
took the kids out and we were having them use
their social media to talk about native fish in Texas
and you know, problems with hybridization with small mouth and
stream problems and things like that. So you know, if
you look into all these states, most of these states
have some kind of a native fish that you know
that maybe something else is is disagreeing with that we've introduced,
(22:32):
and it's a good time to reflect on that and
prioritize the things that are here first, and also realize, hey,
there's nothing wrong with having these wonderful, incredible trout fisheries
all around America and enjoying that because you know, we
spoke the other day and like, I dig a bunch
of people going out fishing. I may not necessarily like
them on my whole all the time, but I like
(22:53):
seeing people out there because the more the more people,
the better voice we're gonna have at Congress when there's
a clean water app when there's Grant's going to be
out for clean streaming and things like that. The more
people behind it, the bigger the voice is going to be.
And in the end of the day, the better the fishery.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Is going to be. And I mean, and that's something
I know that you and I have chatted before. The conservation.
I mean, it's sad that it's been dovetailed into becoming
solely a political issue. Sure, and it's not at all.
It's all about heart. And I mean it's a lot
where where lovers will always work harder workers. So I mean,
(23:30):
if you cherish a fish, if you cherish an environment,
if you cherish habitats, and you fight for that, you'll
see that you're going to accomplish a lot more in
education and in spreading the good news of that environment,
that fish, whatever it is you want to pursue that passion,
you know, that's the part where you're going to make
a bigger difference than anybody pushing a pencil. And that's
the thing that is just so so important to know
(23:51):
that that voice is important and everybody has one, especially
this day, and I mean social media for better for worse.
I mean you're seeing Madeive Trout become a little bit
more popular, uh, in the social media platforms, just simply
because now everybody can kind of show off what they
cause and people are like, WHOA, I didn't even know
that was a thing. So it's really cool to see
more of an inmphasis put there. So it does have
(24:13):
its merit. But do know that even if it pertains
to our local species here in Texas, that you know,
we can fight for the water still, that's something that
we can still fight for water. Texas is growing so
fast and land's pretty hard to come by, but water,
there's so much of that public for you and me
that deserves protection and deserves conservations.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, and that's what we're trying to do with our
expeditions and things like that, and those of you guys
are fighting for and.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
It's you know, it's just an it's an inspiring thing,
you know.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
And I'm you know, most people in the that I
deal within, like the hunting realm, especially in most a
lot of anglers are more maybe generally conservative minded politically
or whatever. And I certainly am in most issues, but
I get sick of people. I've had people think, well,
you're an animal rights activist now because you're talking about
clean water. No, I just don't want to end up
(25:00):
in the cancer hospital. Uh, you know, I like to
have clean air. I want you know, you know, Chris.
Where I learned about the idea of clean water was
a gully by my house, a little stream. My dad said,
you can fish down there. We're not going to eat
anything that's in there because of this horrible pollution that
was going down there. There was like a factory that
was putting these dyes in the water, and it was
(25:20):
really in carcinongens and stuff, you know. And I learned
my first lesson of pollution in fishing, and I knew,
if we want to eat the fish and harvest the
fish and enjoy a great fishery. We need to have
clean water. I didn't learn that from a classroom or
a bureaucrat. I learned that from my dad in a
fishing hole by the house.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Absolutely same same here, man. I mean that the creek
that I grew up fishing, my grandparents had a place
down in Siblo, and they had fish kills through the
San Antonio dump and a bunch of stuff in the
water one time, and it's just it was a horrible deal,
and it's just one of those deals that they ran into,
these conservation issues that were very real and very present,
and that's something that you know, you see that as
(26:02):
a kid and it sticks with you. And I forget
which city it was that actually had this still I
don't remember if it was. I don't remember which one
on the Siblo, but I do know this, and that
was my grandpa is still telling me about that and going,
you know, we're just now seeing this fish start to
come back. You know, all that evidence was anecdotal. I
don't think anybody ever ran in an electric shock mode
or a hit through there. I mean, it's one of
those things that he noticed it for fishing. And that's
the part where there is a little bit of well,
(26:26):
I'm going to say that there's a ton of value
and and go to evidence from citizens science and people
being out there going hey, there's a problem. And sometimes
that's the first warning sign we had when biologists aren't
out in the field, you know, every moment of the day.
Sometimes our anglers realized that, hey, there's a problem here,
and that's something that that's where the rest flag goes
up and gets the attention of the departments that need
(26:48):
to go out and give it to look that it deserves.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
And I believe it's going to be even more important
in this post COVID nineteen thing, because I really don't
think our economic chickens have completely come home to roost
yet and has already been so vase canceled and lots
of things in a scientific rome. And if you know,
hopefully the economy bounces back, but if we have another
wave of this, we have more closures, there is going
to be people let go and fishing game departments around
(27:11):
the nation and they're going to be it may be
a more important role for that citizen science to concern
God to say hey, we can take up some slack
by reporting this and helping this and really being more
engaged than ever.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
And that's the truth. And I mean and the other
part about that is, I mean there's a lot of
people that have listened to this that are landowners. You know,
it starts with your own property, doing what you can
with you know, the ranch you've got, the little homestead
you got. I don't care if it's you know, doing
what you can on your front yard and your backyard,
you know, being conscious about you know, what you put
on the grass, you know what you you know, not
our sources play and how clothes are you to the creek?
(27:46):
Where does it train? You know, all that sort of stuff.
I mean, And that's one of the deals that we
run into with urban fisheries that it just it does
get very very complicated and very convoluted in a hurry.
But with that, you know, we can make a difference,
you know, one place, that time, one person at a time,
and it is important.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, that's really good stuff. Now let's say someone wants
to take up this kind of fishing. You know, there's
two different ways to do this. You can go fish
with ultra light spind casts, which I love, or get
involved in fly fishing. People can kind of figure out
the spend cast part, but the fly fishing part. If
someone wants to start fly fishing and maybe go after
the Guadalupe Rainbow trout, or maybe they're listening and one
(28:23):
of these other states like Nevada or Utah or wherever
and going after their native trout, what's the best thing
to do? They need to go get some lessons? Would
that really help them?
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Lessons are by fall one of the things that if
you learn from a really good casting instructor, that's the
part that that's probably the best money invested in the sport,
because if you learn the truth five essentials of fly casting,
you go through that you learn from a instructure that's
well versed in it wherever they are with here anywhere else,
you know, wherever you're listening, find a good certified instructor
or a good casting instructor, and man, I'll tell you
(28:54):
what it'll shape years off your learning curve and then
getting a guidance trip. You know, kind of doing that
is a one two punch. That's a really great way
to kind of get the casting under your belt and
immediately turn around and learn how to make that work
on the water. And one of the things that we
really try to do within our store is we try
to guide all public water. It's all possible within the
city of Texas. And that's the other part that's so
(29:14):
special is that you can go access those same access
points on foot by yourself after the guidance trip and
you'll recreate that experience. I mean, we teach so that
we can give it away. We really honestly want you
to go back out and into the resource even after
you finish that trip. It's not something that's like, hey,
you have to be with us to do this. We
want you to enjoy it because it's there for you
(29:34):
to enjoy.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Well, my opinion, the greatest man that ever walked the
earth say, given it will be given unto you. So
looking what you guys, When you guys are given back,
I'm sure you'll thrive in your business with that, and
you'll have people loyal to you and appreciate that because
it's been just too much ego sometimes in the fishing
and hunting worlds. I like it when people are like, hey,
let's help each other out, let's help the fishery out,
let's help the resource out, and have an incredible time.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
But I can't talk fishing and flashings.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
I ask you a couple of just persons questions here
if you don't mind, uh, what has been you? Do
you also saltwater fly fish?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
By the way, Yeah, I've done if my dad's actually
a missionary all over the world, some bone fisher.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Okay, so you got you, So you got me. I'm
jealous right now. So like I'm not a big fly fisherman.
I probably do everything wrong, but I've caught everything from
speckl trout to rainbow trout and brownies and all this
stuff over the years, just by going out and doing it,
you know. Right, we come back on More Outdoors. We'll
wrap up our conversation about Texas stream fisheries. Welcome back
to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty k lv I.
(30:36):
This is Chester More. Wishing you and your family a
very merry Christmas. And I want to thank everyone for
listening to this program. It's so exciting to be here
every Friday, and I'm just very grateful to the Lord
for this opportunity. Wrapping up our conversation about stream fisheries
in Texas. I've caught everything from speckled trout to rainbow
(30:57):
trout and brownies and all this stuff over the years,
just by going out.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
And doing it, you know, right.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
But uh, I put a thing on Facebook the day
I said, if you could catch one saltwater fish in
the world you haven't, what would it be? And I
put a bone fish? I mean, I would love to
catch a bone fish on or a permit, either one
of those two. So you've caught those. Uh, what about
in fresh water? What's been like your favorite catch? There's
been one that was really special to you?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Ooh fresh water favorite catch? You know? I mean, I
know this sounds redundant, but there for me, it kind
of depends on where I'm going and what I'm doing
it For me, the big fish doesn't necessarily do it. Sure,
there have been a fish that like really stick out
in my mind that you know courtse In Texas, we
have a ton of native fish that I enjoy chasing,
(31:43):
like the Rio Grand Sickles and the global pass and
so there I have favorite individuals from those species. But
as far as the one that like it'll melt my
heart and it gets my blood boiled, I mean I
can I can get some serious butt fever on watching
a big cut throat rise. Yeah, and that's it, man.
I mean, let's it's a it's a small fish. It's
not a really big fish. I mean the canty can
(32:03):
get big and laffish can get over two feet, but
you know, it's one of those things that in the creeks,
a twelve inch fish is massive in some of the
small water that I fish, And that's the kind of
stuff that I just love that. Man, that's still my
favorite fish to go chase, or kind of like the
kind of I guess the nostalgic I'm going to get
caught day dreaming about it, and I know it's because
(32:23):
that absence makes the heartbrow fonder thing, because you know,
I don't take for granted what I've got my own
backyard by any means, because I mean, my entire livelihood
revolves around it and a great mini fishing hours. But
the facts of the matter that I only get to
get up there a couple of times a year to
go chase Rio Grand Cuts, and everybody asks like, well,
are you going to go do all the other customers.
I'm like, yeah, lord will, and I'd love to, but
(32:44):
I have to get through New Mexico and Colorado first,
And just like that, ISHU just I think it's so cool.
How if you look at the Old Republic of Texas,
how it went all the way through modern day Texas
and then went up in New Mexico, followed the Rio
Grand all the way into Colorado. You know. I mean,
there's still native to the big old Republic of Texas.
So it's kind of cool to tile that together. Te
(33:04):
the ecosystems change and yet link together all at the
same time, and it seems like you're it's kind of
a home away from home for me when I go
up there. So there's a part of that that it
does make me real missed out there. It could be
in the assens and spruce and the furs and the
you know, being up there and seeing this blaze orange
fish come up and sip a try fly and I
do I just give a kick out and watching them.
I don't even have to catch them, but if I
(33:26):
were to say, the one that stuck out the most.
We made a friend of mine, Nathan Brown, and myself,
we made a film I think he released in twenty
fifteen called Unspoken. It's a fifteen minute short film about
us Jason Rio Green cuts in northern New Mexico, and
Southern Colorado and the conservation based film that we raised
money for the species with. But there's about halfway into
that thing, there's a fish that just comes up and
(33:47):
rises over and over and over and over all these
midges and you know, a little catads and stuff like that,
and he's coming up and just go into town. But
that fish. We caught that fish on film, and I
went up to the same creek two years later and
I wound up catching that fish in the same two
years later. It was kind of weird because it kind
(34:08):
of felt like you were seeing an old friend again.
One that we did all those viewings of that film,
and you know, you're watching that scene over and over
and over, and then to actually hold it again two
years later, so that you've gotten bigger, that he's healthy
and you're able to release him. Uh. I mean, he's
a bit of a movie star. And that was the thing.
It was kind of cool to see an old friend again.
So that's one that really sticks out in my mind.
Is kind of a special fish.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
What a beautiful story, And I love that kind of thing.
I'm like, uh, I've kind of the last couple of
years kind of gotten the thing for the Guadalupe bass
and the real grand cyclids out there in the hill country.
You know, just really it's really cool to know. And
it's like a long shot for me. It's like where
we go fishing, the nu Asis is about seven hours.
I live as far east as you go in Texas
and Orange and Louisiana border, so you know.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
It's a long shot.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
I love that out there. Of course, I want to
catch a musky. I like the other side of the
equation too, you know, I want to catch a big
old giant musky, you know. But I love you know,
we talk about fishing, you know, i' I've been blessed, man.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I've caught everything.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
From you know, huge sharks to you know, wels catfish
in Spain and peacock.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Bass and all that cool stuff.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
But you know, I would just as soon be out
in stream somewhere catching a big old cyclid, you know.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
So uh well, then you know you don't have to
drive that far next time it comes out with rushing
creek across the tree here and around right. Man, the
Texas Parks a Whilife just did a study, I think
the studies and one than two years old. I think
it is on the recent one. They've been doing a
ton of fishery surveys and creole surveys and usage surveys
on the fishery here. I've been talking with them for
years and said, hey, y'all need to become put loops on
the ground to check this out. And they did a
(35:35):
genetic study in our Gualu bats that are and Rushy
Creek are actually genetically pure there one of the one
of the few populations in the States that are actually
a grade genetically pure fishing.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Well, I'm on it.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
What to bring some of our kiddo's up there and
uh and rig them up. Matt, tell you what, this
has been a fascinating conversation. I would love to have
you back on and talk maybe some more in depth
trout stuff and maybe some fishing specific stuff in the future.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Any time and now.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
If people want to reach you for a guy trip
or information or that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Where do they go.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Absolutely. The name of the store is Living Water Sply
Fishing Wearing round Rock, Texas. You can get on our
website which is Living Watersply Fishing dot com. We're also
very active on social media with Facebook and Instagram as well.
And if you want to call the shop directly to
actually buil up. If you just call us five one
two eight, two eight fish or three four seven four
if you don't have letters like yourself, so five one
(36:24):
two eight two eight three four seven four if you're
trying to get all over.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
You know, I love having conversations like this. It's it's
so invigorating to be able to record these conversations and
bring them to you and talk to literally the top
experts on fishing, hunting wildlife from around the world. And
Chris Johnson is a great guy and has a great
conservation I think. And you know what, did you ever
(36:50):
hear that there were a native trout species in Texas?
You know, one hundred years ago, I mean, really fascinating stuff.
And all these other stream fishery things we learn about,
and of course right now we are right on the
verge of Christmas, and fishing and hunting and Christmas are
intrinsically linked in my world. I remember my uncle making
(37:13):
me a live trap when I was twelve years old
for Christmas to go live trapping in the woods near
my house. I remember getting my first shotgun. It was
a Sears single shot Model four ten, which I still
have and I remember getting a cast net one time
for Christmas and a lot of fishing gear. But this
year a lot of people are struggling financially, and that
(37:35):
includes even me and my family. It's been tough out there.
I want you to remember the gift of time, the
gift of time in the field, in the woods, on
the water. You know, maybe you can't afford to go
and catch a bonefish in the Bahamas, but you can
take your kids out to that. You know, canal buy
your house and catch grennel? I mean that is fun stuff.
(37:58):
Or maybe you can't afford a big deer hunt in
South Texas, but you can go and hunt on national
forest land. It's that time investment. It's gonna make the
difference in people's lives. You know, there's a gigantic wave
of loneliness out.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
In our culture right now.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
In our ministry, we're finding it even in little bitty kids.
The highest suicide rate growth in America is eleven to
fourteen year old. Something is wrong out there.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
In our culture.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
And part of the solution of this is quality time
spent by people who love you. So if you love
other people, and especially you love those young people in
your life, invest the time, and there's no better place
to give them a great gift in the outdoors. Maybe
you can't afford a gift, but maybe you can get
a card.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
You can put in that.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Card, you know, fishing trip, pick the date, hunting trip,
pick the date, camping trip, pick the date. Those kind
of things can make a big difference in someone's life
because as cool as a lot of gifts are, they'll
probably be forgotten years. But that fishing trip won't be,
(39:03):
that hunting trip won't be. Time means that you love
and care about people, and there is no better season
to represent this than the season when the Lord himself,
Christ came upon the earth as a baby and gave
us the ultimate gift. So with that said, I want
you to have an incredible Christmas out there and remember
(39:25):
that there are a lot of people out there struggling
and you can give them the gift of time this Christmas.
It's affordable, although it's a resource we're not ever going
to get any more of, but it is affordable. You
can take some time out of your schedule to help others.
We hope you enjoyed tonight's program. Follow me at the
(39:45):
Chester more on Instagram. That's the Chester. More on Instagram,
Higher Calling Wildlife on Facebook, checking out every month in
Texas fishing Game, Higher Calling dot Net the blog Every
Friday here from six to seven pm. God bless you,
and have a great outdoors weekend
Welcome to More out Doors on News Talk five sixty
k LVI. This is just for more and I guarantee you,
if you love the fish, you love Texas fisheries, this
program tonight is gonna blow your mind because we're gonna
talk about a fish, a kind of fish most people
never dream we ever had in Texas, the true trout
(00:22):
of Texas Native waters streams have many conservation challenges that
sort of fly under the radar of a lot of
the other wildlife challenges, not only what you hear about
like in the corporate wildlife media, but also in the
hook and bullet media, which I do the bulk of
my work in.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
And today we have.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
A very special guest. We have mister Chris Johnson from
Living Waters, Fly Fishing and Round Rock, Texas. How you doing, Chris,
doing quite well?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Thanks for the invite to be on.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, I'm excited to have you here.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We got connected by Teres Thompson from the Western Native
Trout Initiative and with a common interest in a native
trout species in America, and we really first got connected
because of a common interest which you're way further along
in than me, with the Rio grande cutthroat.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Absolutely. That's one of the fish I enjoylert chasing, the
emotion of the fly.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Well, let's start there real quick, because what got me
going on this. I was talking to her on the
phone about this Western Native trout initiative and I said, man,
I sure wish we had a native trout here in Texas.
He goes, well, you did, and talked about the Rio
grand cutthroat, and it rang a bell to something I
very early in my career had read about but never
studied up, that there was this native trout that's still
native to New Mexico and Colorado, that was probably ninety
(01:40):
nine point nine percent out there in the trans Pagels
as a native fish. And we talked the other day
and you said that you even went out to some
of these locations. So can you tell us something about
the Rio grand cutthroat?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Certainly as it pertains detective the species, you know, there's
some big debate on whether or not it was here
or not. I personally believe that it was, Yeah, And
I just think there's a lot of evidence planting in
that direction. Uh. I know. The textis Parts and Wildlife.
You can actually dig a little bit on their website
and I think they still have the publication written by
(02:12):
Garry Garrett and Garrett Matlock. The argument, yeah, makes the
argument for native trout in Texas, and some of the
evidence is, uh, it's pretty strong, including they found uh,
you know, trout scales and fossilized Native American droppings and
things like that. There were also some reports of kind
of Civil War error reports of guys who have wildlife surveys,
(02:32):
the Evermond reports that went through there. It's interesting because
the color place that was used in that study were
actually from parts of Colorado that I fished, so apparently,
you know, it's one of those things that the page is,
well did they know what they were looking at? And
in this study, the color plates were actually from the
southern portion of Colorado where I go fish out of it.
So the thought is that they knew what they were
(02:54):
looking at, and even uh, you know, even though they're
not here now that the one time time we probably
had a native pelmmity in the state of Texas. So
that's pretty pretty incredible to think about.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, I grew up thinking that the native trout of
Texas was sent a sine nebulosis. The spotted sea trout,
the speckled trout and the sand trout and the gulf.
Of course they're not true trout in the semin or
a kind of way that we talked about, But it's
exciting to think that in the fairly recent past we
had these native trout here. But doing the digging that
I did for an article I wrote at highercolin dot net,
(03:27):
learned that there was some water issues that caused and
some development issues and things that caused these fish and
no longer live here.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
So there's a myriad of things that can can kind
of attribute contribute to that. The part I think that
the water issue being the fact that you know, things change.
I mean if you look, I mean if you go
out to Drip and Springs right now, you can go
find my great grandparents had a place out there, and
you could find plamed fossils and things like that all
throughout those fields and it was crazy. So I mean
you could find, you know, oceanic fossils all throughout house
(03:59):
Civil Texas know that obviously climate change, environments change. I
mean we have bully managed fossils right up the road
Waco and all around, So I mean there was once
an entirely different climate and I think what wound up
happening is at this point, you know, a lot of
the places like the Devil's River where they found some evidence,
but like it's a Baker Cave area, you know. Lympia
(04:20):
Creek is another one over the Davis Mountains that they
highly suspect had them in more recent past. And then
of course in the Kischer Creek and the Gloodily Mountain
National Park area that still has a wild, reproducing population
of rainbow trout that were introduced probably about one hundred
years ago but have managed to persist. So the water
technically still can support trout. There's just not our native
(04:41):
fish that we're here at one time. So at this point,
water I think is you know, kind of refeated. Habitat
is extraordinarily limited. To say that we don't have any
It was probably a faulsehood in the fact that we
still have a wild population of rainbows in what we
mountain National parks, but by and large we don't really
have the habitat we want before the fish.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, you know, I think that's one of the things
I think in terms of wildlife, people understand habitat more
than aquatic habitat, you know, I think sometimes there's a
disconnect when people see water, they think, well, this fish
must still be able to flourish here, And not necessarily
because you can even have the water on some occasions,
but maybe with certain try you don't have the right
amount of flow, you don't have the right habitat, the
right the right vegetation growing. So there's a lot of
(05:22):
factors that go into quatic habitat.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
There are and and with this with this specy specifically,
it has to kind of have a ripple run cool
environment where there is a little bit of you know,
spawning opportunities and good substrates for that. It also has
to have you know, nice cool, clean water that does
stay cold on a year round basis, which is something
that we have a lot of springs in texts, but
as far as the as far as that actual trout
(05:47):
cold water, that's pretty pretty hard to pretty hard to
come by in Texas at large. So it's one of
the things that I think is really limited opportunities for
this species is in the state. But I think the
only viable water we currently have, and there was a
grassroots reintroduction effort that was actually put forth by Techni
part and Wildlife and Guadalofa for troutl Limited to be
(06:10):
and explore the option of reintroducing the Rio Grand cut
throat back to Texas in the Catcher Creek at one point.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
But you know, the trout thing is fascinating in Texas
because you know, I remember the very first you know,
stockings going into the Guadalupe River and and then what
kind of the Canyon Lake tail race thing started kicking off,
and I remember thinking, man, that's just really really incredible
because here I am thinking I'm going to have to
go to you know, Montana or somewhere even up in
(06:38):
Arkansas to catch me a nice rainbow trout. And then
we have this pretty incredible fishery and a gigantic Trout
Unlimited movement based around the Guadalupe River.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Absolutely, it was. It's actually still currently the largest chapter
of troutl Limited in the world. Mind boggling mirth on
the board. Yeah, I've served on the board of that
chapter for several years and still very involved with the chapter. Uh,
And we're very involved with try To Limited as a
national organization. As a business. We're actually a Trout Unlimited
(07:12):
Gold level business here living waters, so doing doing conservation
efforts of course very near and dear to our hearts.
But the tail water fishery below Canyon Lake, that's incredible.
We guide it through the store. Uh And a lot
of people don't realize this, but not all those trout
die in the summer. A lot of those actually can
over summer if the water conditions are favorable, which some
years they very much are. And we do have some
(07:34):
wild wildfish in the river that were actually spawned in
the Guadaloo River itself, and so you have, you know,
this first generation wild fish that are showing up on
the scene, and it's incredible to see. It's something you'd
never in your wildest dreams think you'd find in Central
textis well.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Speaking of that, you know how people say guadalupeg tail,
you know, continulate tail race and all this stuff. How
big of an area is this, you say, is an
effective trout fishery? I mean they can they can possibly
sustain them through like say, a regular normal summer period.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I mean a lot of it does depend on flow
and just kind of a year we're having. I would
say on a let's just say on average year in,
year out basis, effectively, the first four to five miles
really sustained the fish from in the form of like
a temperature refuge where that daytime water temps is not
eclipsed seventy degrees. There are some things that do make it.
(08:26):
I mean, as with any fishery, there are a few
wild cards. And within the Guadaloue River the type of
fish that are actually stocked by Quadali river trout and
limited those come out of Crystal I think it's Crystal
Lake Fisheries out of Ava, Missouri, and that's actually the
Emerson strain of rainbow trout which has bred to be
temperature tolerant, and in talks with the hatchery out there,
(08:47):
they've done some temperature trials on those fish where select
specimens is actually weather daytime water tins in the eighties. Wow,
which is unbelievable that that'sn't heard of it. The trout
wild Yeah, that's not every fish they stock, but a
few of them will make it. So I've heard it
said that there will always be trout in the Gladilay
Tail Race no matter if there's flood or drought or whatever,
and so far that it proved to be true even
(09:08):
after the major floods, with that water's coming out of
the dam that's well over seventy see or excuse me,
seventy degrees fahrenheit. They're still trout in the tail races.
It's just absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
No, that's a great story and it's something that has
brought anglers together. And I don't know of a type
of fish on the globe that spawns the kind of
ferocious conservation ethic of trout, you know, even down to
like how you handle the fish. You know, there's a
lot of things out there. Maybe people who grew up
(09:40):
fishing on the coast have a completely different mindset maybe
than the guys out there. I was in Montana last
September watching people fish in a stream and it was
almost a scientific effort, you know. And so it's really
exciting to me in my home state to have this
great fishery. And we come back on More Outdoors we
talk more about the true trout of Texas. Welcome back
(10:02):
to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty kl the Eye.
This is Chester Moore talking with Ryan Johnson of Living
Waters Fly Shop about the true trout of Texas. To
be able to go do something like this, I've been fortunate.
I've caught like a thirteen pound brown trout in New York.
And you know, I've caught pretty nice rainbows up in
Little Red River in Arkansas and all those kind of things.
But a lot of people man if they can just
(10:24):
go out there and catch a fish, so then they
can book trips with you.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, we do run those through the store. Obviously you're
in the for the Guadalie River specifically for trout. We
run those in kind of the winter months, kind of
the November through yep, you know, March April time frames,
kind of our peak season. But yeah, we stay pretty
booked up. It's a busy season.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
We'll make sure and hook these up with these guys
because it's a great opportunity and go learn that water
and learn from the experts and greatly enhance your opportunity
at catching some of these tremendous fish. Now, when people
want to go trout fishing, maybe they're going to do
like we talked about a few weeks, go take up
to Utah of native trout slam or go out and
(11:02):
try to get him a you know, a rio grand
cut through a Yellowstone cutthroat or something like that. In
terms of conservation ethic, I mean like a guy wants
a great picture of a fish. What are some of
the handling tips you can give us for making sure
that the fish released actually live.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
So obviously, as a busy catching release, I don't think
anything's ever one hundred percent successful, but there's some things
that can be you know, huge contributing factors for the
survival of the fish and really really help with the
mortality rate. So, uh, first off, you know, when you
catch a fish, play it as quickly as possible. You know,
I know a lot of people love to feel a
fish fight and it's a lot of fun to watch them,
(11:39):
you know, come back and forth and do all that.
But for the safety of the fish, we recommend what
you look at, you know, put the woods to in,
try to get him in the net as quickly as possible.
And that's the other thing is use the net. There's
a lot of a lot of great products out there.
We don't really recommend the ones that are kind of
like the nylon netting that has all the tos and
stuff in it. You'll see those down on the coast
quite a bit. We use you know, clear rubberized net
(12:01):
or stuff. It's kind of like a rubberized coating on
its where it actually does not remove the slime off
the fish. We just wanted to do as much as
we can to kind of keep that fish in as
good as shape as it can be. And then when
we if we have to hold the fish or touch
the fish, which I mean a lot of people want
to do that for pictures. I'm no different. I like
to take pictures and the fish, but we keep those
in the water as much as possible. We'll try to
(12:23):
keep the fish with a selly touching the water, keep
our hands totally wet, kind of the little moto to
keep them wet. And there's a whole movement that's actually
centered around that. And then trout are you know there.
It's amazing how resilient they are on the actual like
habitat front and some of the places that they live.
But they're actually pretty sensitive when interacting with anglers. And
(12:44):
you know, a trout, if you keep it out of
the water for ten to twelve seconds, and that's any
sea piece of trout, you can do permanent damage to
their deals. And that's why we really tell folks, this
isn't the cat fish that you can you know, leave
it on the bank flopping around doing all this stuff
and then try to let it go and it's still okay.
This is something that you know, some care does need
to be taken for the fish, and especially with species
like Rio grand cut throat where they're technically listed listed
(13:07):
as a threatened species. They're not endangered, and we're fighting
tooth and nail to keep them off that list. But
they aren't threatened, so therefore they do deserve our respect
and care.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
What happened threatened to endangered in terms of fishing.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
So that that's an incredibly great question, and it has
kind of a long answer, but I'll just as short
as I can. You know, a threatened species still, so
it still allows a lot of your state entities and
you know, forest entities, tribal tribal acencies and entities, and
also you know, anglers and conservation chapters things like that
to be a part of the story of this fish.
(13:45):
To actually the conservation is something that you know, yourself
and myself that we can we can involve ourselves in
and you know, actually be booths on the ground for
some of this stuff. You know, I've been up there
and you know, planted willows and sedges alongside creeks, and
you know, we've done you know, a lot for education
and you know, photographing the fish and you know, making
films about it, raising money and doing all sorts of stuff.
(14:06):
It allows us to be part of that story. When
it goes endangered, it really kind of ties your hands
on some of the fishing aspects of us being actually
able to enjoy the fish. But it also can tie
your hands on a federal level as well, making funding
kind of hard to get sometime, and even just the
state involvement and some of the management can be you know,
it takes place there, it just gets a little bit tougher.
(14:26):
So if we can keep that off the list, then
that's something that we've still got a you know, a
threatened fish that only occupies approximately, you know, somewhere between
it's about eleven to twelve percent of its native range
somewhere in there. So it's minuscule compared to what it
used to be, but it's still doing well. We do
have a lot of populations that are persisting. As of
twenty sixteen, I believe it was, the range is at
(14:49):
eleven percent and then we're one hundred and twenty nine
populations that were in existence that were like conservation populations.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Well that's great.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
You know, basically, you have a fish here that's unfortunately
been exterpretated from eighty nine percent of its range, it
seems like. But in some of the areas where it
still exists, it seems like you're having some thriving populations
and things like that. Like I do a lot with
wild sheep, and there are some areas with thriving wild sheep,
but then you have entire hundreds of miles of habitat
that are barren. You know, it's a very similar thing
(15:21):
in terms of what going on the land versus what's
going on.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Down in the water.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
And you mentioned something earlier to me that was interesting.
You mentioned a strain of rainbow trout that was specifically
brought from a hatchery into in Missouri, I believe, into Texas.
Is that a created strain in hatcheries or is that
a subspecies?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
So oddly enough, without going too much into trout tactonomy
and biology, and I don't have a degree in this,
I'm just an absolute nerd.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Me too, I'm the same. Well that's why I ask
the questions.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
So I apologize if it starts getting a little nerdy.
But at the same time, it's one of the things
I'm very passionate about in terms of rainbow trout. There's
really in the lower forty eight you're looking at all
current day rainbow trouts that are stopped. For the most part,
you can trace that back to a common ancestor of
the McCloud River red band trouts in northern Kellas, and
(16:16):
I've actually been there to actually catch those in their
actual native range. It's an incredibly beautiful fish, and it
looks nothing like what you and I picture a rainbow trout.
There's some similarities, but not you know, not that much
in the small creeks, and actually were like not across
between a cutthroat and the golden trout that it looks
more like that and many of the drainages that are
fishing in. But the thing that's interesting with that fish
(16:38):
is that those are the ones that were transported and
propagated and bread and raised and so as you have,
you know, the current day rainbow trout. If you wanted
to look at it this way, it's great great, great
great great rate for a whole lot more grapes than
their grandfather and grandmother were all the cloud grip of
red bands, and there are actual true you know, like
the Alaskan rainbows, like the leftar rainbows, that itself, that's
a native rainbow, that thing that you know, they've got
(17:01):
steel Head up there in Alaska. I actually have a
brother that lives in Alaska, so part of him and
his family, he looks a few of us there, and
so that whole ecosystem is completely different. You're looking at
You've got a natrum of fish, You've got you know,
fish that remain in stream. You've got some stuff that
gets landlocked over years. It's just strange to see all
the all the different dynamics of all that. But nonetheless,
the native rainbows are only going to be off the
(17:23):
pretty much the western seaboard. You'll see like anywhere Steelhead are,
you know, which is California, Oregon, Washington, stuff like that,
exactly all the way into Alaska. That's that's where steel
Head runs. That's the extent of the rainbow truck. All
the Eastern states, all the stuff like you know, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas,
you know, Colorado, New Mexico's Utah. There is nothing, no,
(17:46):
no native rainbows from there at all. And there's actually
a lot of people don't realize this. There's not a
single native brown trout to the US.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yeah, they're European, right, They're from Europe, right, correct?
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yeah? Yeah, there were two strings. There was the bon
Bar Strain and lock Leven Stream. One was from Germany,
the other ones from Scotland. So you're looking at those
two strings are brought in stock in different places. One
was more of a river stream and one of the
lake red streams. And now the current neigh brown traft
that we have is, of course you know that the
ancestor of all of that, but in brook trout, which
obviously persists, they're probably the largest threat uh to the
(18:20):
high l Nation customer trout. I joking and call them
the cockroach of the West. They are beautiful in their
native range and they deserve protection. Everything that we do
for cut roat and just to protect them and to
celebrate that species, I think the brook trout deserves every
bit of that within their native range. It's a fish
we're protecting. It's it's I mean, it's borderline's sacred in
(18:42):
its native range and especially being the northeast, and I've
caught them, caught them up there as well, and they're
beautiful it's an incredible fish, but in the West they
just flat out and don't belong here. They're introduced.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Look, I got a bunch of me and my redneck friends.
If there's a bag limit, dude, we'll show up and uh,
you know, we'll put some on the grill.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Dude. Oh man, No, I mean that that can't food
or in an our place exactly. The thing that's really cool,
like that's actually one of the conservation efforts is the
Smilif Valley Chapter of Trout and Limited, which is right
here in son southern central Colorado. They meet Alamosa. They
actually have a creek that they've invested in a good
friend of mine, Kevin Terry. It's been a lot of
(19:19):
you know, livestock explosures to keep the elk and the
livestock out from over gradything and trampling down the stream
banks to kind of have the habitat restoration kind of creek.
And they're finding now that mc cut throat are actually
seemed to read they're rebounding pretty well. I heard it
one of the check stations on the Upper River right now,
like looking at about one in three fish or cut rops,
(19:39):
when that was not anywhere close to that number of
a few years ago.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
The last trout I caught was in New York last year,
some small brown trout and it was like in a
gully by some people's house. The I went turkey hunting
with friends of mine and my friend doesn't fish, but
one of his friends fishing.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Dude, you live by the finger Lakes.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
When we come back, we'll continue our conversation about Texas
stream fisheries. Welcome back to More Outdoors on News Talk
five sixty klv This is Chester More. You can follow
me at the Chester More on Instagram, Higher Calling Wildlife
on Facebook, my blog at higher Calling dot net, and
also check out the podcast in this program with a
(20:18):
KLVI dot conflict on the podcast at the top of
the page. Go back and listen to archives of the programs.
Continuing our conversation with Chris Johnson of Living.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Waters Fly Shop and so you can't turkey.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Hunt in the evenings there, So I spent my evenings fishing,
and I'm catching these like little one pound brown trout
and like a little ditch by some guy's house. And
you know, they knew they were stocked. But I was
talking to some locals there that really had no idea
that there were no brown trout native to the US
and kind of thought these fish are all native to
New York because they've been there as long as they have,
you know. So I think it's interesting to let people
(20:52):
know that we've done things to enhance fisheries and make
things great. I mean, like the Little Red River in Arkansas.
What an incredible fun fishery go go to. But it's
also important to look at what the Good Lord put
in America, you know, and take those native fish that
we have and prioritize them in terms of conservation.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And that's that's absolutely correct. And that's one of the
things that I know you mentioned that we got connected
by Terrese Thompson, who's a dear friend of mine, with
Western Native Trout Initiatives. That's something that I really just
have to sing the phrases of that organization, you know,
trud To Limited. They have a very broad focus in
the fact that it is cold, clean, fishable water. And
while there's a very very large emphasis on needing fish,
you know, there's also the emphasis on the recreational sailwater
(21:33):
fisheries and things like that as well, because I mean,
it's kind of the something for everybody. But that's the
part where Western Native trout initiatives just focused that their
sole focus is on what actually is you know, intrinsic
to the US and especially the Western States as it
concerns them. And that's the part where they pour one
hundred percent of their efforts into nothing but native species.
(21:54):
And that's the part that I just absolutely door than for.
They do such a great job of it.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, I think it's incredible.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
In our over ministry and one of the things we
do we call higher calling Wild Wishes expeditions, and we've
taken our second trip out to central Texas to take
basically our native trout.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
They'll go out a.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Loope bass, you know, a native bass out there. We
took the kids out and we were having them use
their social media to talk about native fish in Texas
and you know, problems with hybridization with small mouth and
stream problems and things like that. So you know, if
you look into all these states, most of these states
have some kind of a native fish that you know
that maybe something else is is disagreeing with that we've introduced,
(22:32):
and it's a good time to reflect on that and
prioritize the things that are here first, and also realize, hey,
there's nothing wrong with having these wonderful, incredible trout fisheries
all around America and enjoying that because you know, we
spoke the other day and like, I dig a bunch
of people going out fishing. I may not necessarily like
them on my whole all the time, but I like
(22:53):
seeing people out there because the more the more people,
the better voice we're gonna have at Congress when there's
a clean water app when there's Grant's going to be
out for clean streaming and things like that. The more
people behind it, the bigger the voice is going to be.
And in the end of the day, the better the fishery.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Is going to be. And I mean, and that's something
I know that you and I have chatted before. The conservation.
I mean, it's sad that it's been dovetailed into becoming
solely a political issue. Sure, and it's not at all.
It's all about heart. And I mean it's a lot
where where lovers will always work harder workers. So I mean,
(23:30):
if you cherish a fish, if you cherish an environment,
if you cherish habitats, and you fight for that, you'll
see that you're going to accomplish a lot more in
education and in spreading the good news of that environment,
that fish, whatever it is you want to pursue that passion,
you know, that's the part where you're going to make
a bigger difference than anybody pushing a pencil. And that's
the thing that is just so so important to know
(23:51):
that that voice is important and everybody has one, especially
this day, and I mean social media for better for worse.
I mean you're seeing Madeive Trout become a little bit
more popular, uh, in the social media platforms, just simply
because now everybody can kind of show off what they
cause and people are like, WHOA, I didn't even know
that was a thing. So it's really cool to see
more of an inmphasis put there. So it does have
(24:13):
its merit. But do know that even if it pertains
to our local species here in Texas, that you know,
we can fight for the water still, that's something that
we can still fight for water. Texas is growing so
fast and land's pretty hard to come by, but water,
there's so much of that public for you and me
that deserves protection and deserves conservations.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, and that's what we're trying to do with our
expeditions and things like that, and those of you guys
are fighting for and.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
It's you know, it's just an it's an inspiring thing,
you know.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
And I'm you know, most people in the that I
deal within, like the hunting realm, especially in most a
lot of anglers are more maybe generally conservative minded politically
or whatever. And I certainly am in most issues, but
I get sick of people. I've had people think, well,
you're an animal rights activist now because you're talking about
clean water. No, I just don't want to end up
(25:00):
in the cancer hospital. Uh, you know, I like to
have clean air. I want you know, you know, Chris.
Where I learned about the idea of clean water was
a gully by my house, a little stream. My dad said,
you can fish down there. We're not going to eat
anything that's in there because of this horrible pollution that
was going down there. There was like a factory that
was putting these dyes in the water, and it was
(25:20):
really in carcinongens and stuff, you know. And I learned
my first lesson of pollution in fishing, and I knew,
if we want to eat the fish and harvest the
fish and enjoy a great fishery. We need to have
clean water. I didn't learn that from a classroom or
a bureaucrat. I learned that from my dad in a
fishing hole by the house.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Absolutely same same here, man. I mean that the creek
that I grew up fishing, my grandparents had a place
down in Siblo, and they had fish kills through the
San Antonio dump and a bunch of stuff in the
water one time, and it's just it was a horrible deal,
and it's just one of those deals that they ran into,
these conservation issues that were very real and very present,
and that's something that you know, you see that as
(26:02):
a kid and it sticks with you. And I forget
which city it was that actually had this still I
don't remember if it was. I don't remember which one
on the Siblo, but I do know this, and that
was my grandpa is still telling me about that and going,
you know, we're just now seeing this fish start to
come back. You know, all that evidence was anecdotal. I
don't think anybody ever ran in an electric shock mode
or a hit through there. I mean, it's one of
those things that he noticed it for fishing. And that's
the part where there is a little bit of well,
(26:26):
I'm going to say that there's a ton of value
and and go to evidence from citizens science and people
being out there going hey, there's a problem. And sometimes
that's the first warning sign we had when biologists aren't
out in the field, you know, every moment of the day.
Sometimes our anglers realized that, hey, there's a problem here,
and that's something that that's where the rest flag goes
up and gets the attention of the departments that need
(26:48):
to go out and give it to look that it deserves.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
And I believe it's going to be even more important
in this post COVID nineteen thing, because I really don't
think our economic chickens have completely come home to roost
yet and has already been so vase canceled and lots
of things in a scientific rome. And if you know,
hopefully the economy bounces back, but if we have another
wave of this, we have more closures, there is going
to be people let go and fishing game departments around
(27:11):
the nation and they're going to be it may be
a more important role for that citizen science to concern
God to say hey, we can take up some slack
by reporting this and helping this and really being more
engaged than ever.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
And that's the truth. And I mean and the other
part about that is, I mean there's a lot of
people that have listened to this that are landowners. You know,
it starts with your own property, doing what you can
with you know, the ranch you've got, the little homestead
you got. I don't care if it's you know, doing
what you can on your front yard and your backyard,
you know, being conscious about you know, what you put
on the grass, you know what you you know, not
our sources play and how clothes are you to the creek?
(27:46):
Where does it train? You know, all that sort of stuff.
I mean, And that's one of the deals that we
run into with urban fisheries that it just it does
get very very complicated and very convoluted in a hurry.
But with that, you know, we can make a difference,
you know, one place, that time, one person at a time,
and it is important.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, that's really good stuff. Now let's say someone wants
to take up this kind of fishing. You know, there's
two different ways to do this. You can go fish
with ultra light spind casts, which I love, or get
involved in fly fishing. People can kind of figure out
the spend cast part, but the fly fishing part. If
someone wants to start fly fishing and maybe go after
the Guadalupe Rainbow trout, or maybe they're listening and one
(28:23):
of these other states like Nevada or Utah or wherever
and going after their native trout, what's the best thing
to do? They need to go get some lessons? Would
that really help them?
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Lessons are by fall one of the things that if
you learn from a really good casting instructor, that's the
part that that's probably the best money invested in the sport,
because if you learn the truth five essentials of fly casting,
you go through that you learn from a instructure that's
well versed in it wherever they are with here anywhere else,
you know, wherever you're listening, find a good certified instructor
or a good casting instructor, and man, I'll tell you
(28:54):
what it'll shape years off your learning curve and then
getting a guidance trip. You know, kind of doing that
is a one two punch. That's a really great way
to kind of get the casting under your belt and
immediately turn around and learn how to make that work
on the water. And one of the things that we
really try to do within our store is we try
to guide all public water. It's all possible within the
city of Texas. And that's the other part that's so
(29:14):
special is that you can go access those same access
points on foot by yourself after the guidance trip and
you'll recreate that experience. I mean, we teach so that
we can give it away. We really honestly want you
to go back out and into the resource even after
you finish that trip. It's not something that's like, hey,
you have to be with us to do this. We
want you to enjoy it because it's there for you
(29:34):
to enjoy.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Well, my opinion, the greatest man that ever walked the
earth say, given it will be given unto you. So
looking what you guys, When you guys are given back,
I'm sure you'll thrive in your business with that, and
you'll have people loyal to you and appreciate that because
it's been just too much ego sometimes in the fishing
and hunting worlds. I like it when people are like, hey,
let's help each other out, let's help the fishery out,
let's help the resource out, and have an incredible time.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
But I can't talk fishing and flashings.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
I ask you a couple of just persons questions here
if you don't mind, uh, what has been you? Do
you also saltwater fly fish?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
By the way, Yeah, I've done if my dad's actually
a missionary all over the world, some bone fisher.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Okay, so you got you, So you got me. I'm
jealous right now. So like I'm not a big fly fisherman.
I probably do everything wrong, but I've caught everything from
speckl trout to rainbow trout and brownies and all this
stuff over the years, just by going out and doing it,
you know. Right, we come back on More Outdoors. We'll
wrap up our conversation about Texas stream fisheries. Welcome back
to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty k lv I.
(30:36):
This is Chester More. Wishing you and your family a
very merry Christmas. And I want to thank everyone for
listening to this program. It's so exciting to be here
every Friday, and I'm just very grateful to the Lord
for this opportunity. Wrapping up our conversation about stream fisheries
in Texas. I've caught everything from speckled trout to rainbow
(30:57):
trout and brownies and all this stuff over the years,
just by going out.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
And doing it, you know, right.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
But uh, I put a thing on Facebook the day
I said, if you could catch one saltwater fish in
the world you haven't, what would it be? And I
put a bone fish? I mean, I would love to
catch a bone fish on or a permit, either one
of those two. So you've caught those. Uh, what about
in fresh water? What's been like your favorite catch? There's
been one that was really special to you?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Ooh fresh water favorite catch? You know? I mean, I
know this sounds redundant, but there for me, it kind
of depends on where I'm going and what I'm doing
it For me, the big fish doesn't necessarily do it. Sure,
there have been a fish that like really stick out
in my mind that you know courtse In Texas, we
have a ton of native fish that I enjoy chasing,
(31:43):
like the Rio Grand Sickles and the global pass and
so there I have favorite individuals from those species. But
as far as the one that like it'll melt my
heart and it gets my blood boiled, I mean I
can I can get some serious butt fever on watching
a big cut throat rise. Yeah, and that's it, man.
I mean, let's it's a it's a small fish. It's
not a really big fish. I mean the canty can
(32:03):
get big and laffish can get over two feet, but
you know, it's one of those things that in the creeks,
a twelve inch fish is massive in some of the
small water that I fish, And that's the kind of
stuff that I just love that. Man, that's still my
favorite fish to go chase, or kind of like the
kind of I guess the nostalgic I'm going to get
caught day dreaming about it, and I know it's because
(32:23):
that absence makes the heartbrow fonder thing, because you know,
I don't take for granted what I've got my own
backyard by any means, because I mean, my entire livelihood
revolves around it and a great mini fishing hours. But
the facts of the matter that I only get to
get up there a couple of times a year to
go chase Rio Grand Cuts, and everybody asks like, well,
are you going to go do all the other customers.
I'm like, yeah, lord will, and I'd love to, but
(32:44):
I have to get through New Mexico and Colorado first,
And just like that, ISHU just I think it's so cool.
How if you look at the Old Republic of Texas,
how it went all the way through modern day Texas
and then went up in New Mexico, followed the Rio
Grand all the way into Colorado. You know. I mean,
there's still native to the big old Republic of Texas.
So it's kind of cool to tile that together. Te
(33:04):
the ecosystems change and yet link together all at the
same time, and it seems like you're it's kind of
a home away from home for me when I go
up there. So there's a part of that that it
does make me real missed out there. It could be
in the assens and spruce and the furs and the
you know, being up there and seeing this blaze orange
fish come up and sip a try fly and I
do I just give a kick out and watching them.
I don't even have to catch them, but if I
(33:26):
were to say, the one that stuck out the most.
We made a friend of mine, Nathan Brown, and myself,
we made a film I think he released in twenty
fifteen called Unspoken. It's a fifteen minute short film about
us Jason Rio Green cuts in northern New Mexico, and
Southern Colorado and the conservation based film that we raised
money for the species with. But there's about halfway into
that thing, there's a fish that just comes up and
(33:47):
rises over and over and over and over all these
midges and you know, a little catads and stuff like that,
and he's coming up and just go into town. But
that fish. We caught that fish on film, and I
went up to the same creek two years later and
I wound up catching that fish in the same two
years later. It was kind of weird because it kind
(34:08):
of felt like you were seeing an old friend again.
One that we did all those viewings of that film,
and you know, you're watching that scene over and over
and over, and then to actually hold it again two
years later, so that you've gotten bigger, that he's healthy
and you're able to release him. Uh. I mean, he's
a bit of a movie star. And that was the thing.
It was kind of cool to see an old friend again.
So that's one that really sticks out in my mind.
Is kind of a special fish.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
What a beautiful story, And I love that kind of thing.
I'm like, uh, I've kind of the last couple of
years kind of gotten the thing for the Guadalupe bass
and the real grand cyclids out there in the hill country.
You know, just really it's really cool to know. And
it's like a long shot for me. It's like where
we go fishing, the nu Asis is about seven hours.
I live as far east as you go in Texas
and Orange and Louisiana border, so you know.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
It's a long shot.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
I love that out there. Of course, I want to
catch a musky. I like the other side of the
equation too, you know, I want to catch a big
old giant musky, you know. But I love you know,
we talk about fishing, you know, i' I've been blessed, man.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I've caught everything.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
From you know, huge sharks to you know, wels catfish
in Spain and peacock.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Bass and all that cool stuff.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
But you know, I would just as soon be out
in stream somewhere catching a big old cyclid, you know.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
So uh well, then you know you don't have to
drive that far next time it comes out with rushing
creek across the tree here and around right. Man, the
Texas Parks a Whilife just did a study, I think
the studies and one than two years old. I think
it is on the recent one. They've been doing a
ton of fishery surveys and creole surveys and usage surveys
on the fishery here. I've been talking with them for
years and said, hey, y'all need to become put loops on
the ground to check this out. And they did a
(35:35):
genetic study in our Gualu bats that are and Rushy
Creek are actually genetically pure there one of the one
of the few populations in the States that are actually
a grade genetically pure fishing.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Well, I'm on it.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
What to bring some of our kiddo's up there and
uh and rig them up. Matt, tell you what, this
has been a fascinating conversation. I would love to have
you back on and talk maybe some more in depth
trout stuff and maybe some fishing specific stuff in the future.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Any time and now.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
If people want to reach you for a guy trip
or information or that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Where do they go.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Absolutely. The name of the store is Living Water Sply
Fishing Wearing round Rock, Texas. You can get on our
website which is Living Watersply Fishing dot com. We're also
very active on social media with Facebook and Instagram as well.
And if you want to call the shop directly to
actually buil up. If you just call us five one
two eight, two eight fish or three four seven four
if you don't have letters like yourself, so five one
(36:24):
two eight two eight three four seven four if you're
trying to get all over.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
You know, I love having conversations like this. It's it's
so invigorating to be able to record these conversations and
bring them to you and talk to literally the top
experts on fishing, hunting wildlife from around the world. And
Chris Johnson is a great guy and has a great
conservation I think. And you know what, did you ever
(36:50):
hear that there were a native trout species in Texas?
You know, one hundred years ago, I mean, really fascinating stuff.
And all these other stream fishery things we learn about,
and of course right now we are right on the
verge of Christmas, and fishing and hunting and Christmas are
intrinsically linked in my world. I remember my uncle making
(37:13):
me a live trap when I was twelve years old
for Christmas to go live trapping in the woods near
my house. I remember getting my first shotgun. It was
a Sears single shot Model four ten, which I still
have and I remember getting a cast net one time
for Christmas and a lot of fishing gear. But this
year a lot of people are struggling financially, and that
(37:35):
includes even me and my family. It's been tough out there.
I want you to remember the gift of time, the
gift of time in the field, in the woods, on
the water. You know, maybe you can't afford to go
and catch a bonefish in the Bahamas, but you can
take your kids out to that. You know, canal buy
your house and catch grennel? I mean that is fun stuff.
(37:58):
Or maybe you can't afford a big deer hunt in
South Texas, but you can go and hunt on national
forest land. It's that time investment. It's gonna make the
difference in people's lives. You know, there's a gigantic wave
of loneliness out.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
In our culture right now.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
In our ministry, we're finding it even in little bitty kids.
The highest suicide rate growth in America is eleven to
fourteen year old. Something is wrong out there.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
In our culture.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
And part of the solution of this is quality time
spent by people who love you. So if you love
other people, and especially you love those young people in
your life, invest the time, and there's no better place
to give them a great gift in the outdoors. Maybe
you can't afford a gift, but maybe you can get
a card.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
You can put in that.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Card, you know, fishing trip, pick the date, hunting trip,
pick the date, camping trip, pick the date. Those kind
of things can make a big difference in someone's life
because as cool as a lot of gifts are, they'll
probably be forgotten years. But that fishing trip won't be,
(39:03):
that hunting trip won't be. Time means that you love
and care about people, and there is no better season
to represent this than the season when the Lord himself,
Christ came upon the earth as a baby and gave
us the ultimate gift. So with that said, I want
you to have an incredible Christmas out there and remember
(39:25):
that there are a lot of people out there struggling
and you can give them the gift of time this Christmas.
It's affordable, although it's a resource we're not ever going
to get any more of, but it is affordable. You
can take some time out of your schedule to help others.
We hope you enjoyed tonight's program. Follow me at the
(39:45):
Chester more on Instagram. That's the Chester. More on Instagram,
Higher Calling Wildlife on Facebook, checking out every month in
Texas fishing Game, Higher Calling dot Net the blog Every
Friday here from six to seven pm. God bless you,
and have a great outdoors weekend
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