0:05

Hello everyone. And welcome back

0:07

to season two of loop to loop.

0:10

I am your host. Ash.

0:14

And we are so glad you are joining us

0:16

for season two. What

0:18

to know about season two is we're going

0:20

to be doing things a little bit different. We

0:23

have the Midwest fly fishing expo

0:25

coming up. So we're going to be talking

0:27

to a lot of the vendors, flied

0:30

hires featured. Anglers.

0:34

All sorts of people that are

0:36

going to be supporting and coming out

0:38

for the show. So stay tuned.

0:40

We will have a few special episodes on

0:42

that. We have some really

0:45

cool upcoming guests. We

0:47

have reeling in recovery

0:49

coming up. We have Erica

0:51

from awkward angler. We

0:54

have wild bill

0:56

from the

0:58

Jordan river in Northern Michigan.

1:01

And so many more wonderful people

1:03

that Krista and I are

1:06

working with. To bring

1:08

you their story, bring you why

1:11

they chose to

1:14

come into the world of fly fishing.

1:16

How they make it work for themselves.

1:19

As a reminder.

1:22

As to why you.

1:25

Is an angler step out onto the

1:27

water. So we're here to really

1:29

share those. I

1:32

would say emotional or spiritual

1:34

journey is around fly fishing. Because.

1:38

As we all know, there's just these

1:40

moments that we have where. The

1:43

water. The smells.

1:46

The scenery. Being

1:49

in the water, it just. Moves

1:52

yah. If

1:55

you have a chance, please come out and visit

1:58

us at the Midwest fly fishing expo.

2:01

On March 11th and 12th.

2:04

McComb community college. You

2:06

can go to www

2:09

dot mid-west, fly fishing expo.com

2:12

to learn more. And

2:15

let's go ahead and step into

2:17

this. Week's episode,

2:20

we have Diesel

2:23

many of you know him

2:25

as someone who for a while

2:27

there was tying flies.

2:30

Almost every day he was doing it every

2:33

day for, I think he said two

2:35

and a half years. He goes into details

2:37

in the episode here of Why was

2:39

he doing it? Why do you

2:42

decide to take on a challenge like that?

2:44

We also talk about the balance

2:47

between how do you.

2:50

Chase your passion in fly fishing,

2:53

but also w what do you do

2:55

to make a living? And

2:57

how do you balance your family life,

2:59

your fishing life, your work

3:01

life? How do all of these things balance out

3:04

together? So that you can

3:06

have an enjoyable existence

3:08

is what it's all about we

3:12

were we had a great time and

3:15

spend has so many wonderful

3:18

stories to share about even using

3:21

His flies that he's tied

3:23

for ice fishing purposes so we

3:25

cover the gamut of life in

3:28

this one And. Christa,

3:30

and i hope you enjoy it so let's

3:33

go ahead and dive on in

3:36

we are so excited to

3:38

have spend diesel, join

3:41

us, spend tell

3:44

us about yourself. What, got you into fly

3:46

fishing and, what you're doing

3:48

in the industry? So

3:52

what got me into fly fishing was I actually

3:54

was up meeting a girl's parents

3:57

that I was dating, and her dad was an avid

3:59

fly fisherman. And so the way he got

4:01

to know her boyfriends

4:04

was taking 'em on the river. And so

4:06

I got to experience catching a

4:09

four, four

4:12

inches and maybe three eighths of

4:14

a brook trout up in northern

4:16

Utah. And I was hooked. It

4:18

was amazing. And I went home

4:21

and bottle of stuff I needed

4:23

and ended up fishing the river four

4:25

or five days a week. And even

4:28

after I broke up with her and then

4:30

that kind of started my

4:32

entry into fly

4:34

fishing and

4:37

I did that for about two summers and

4:39

then had an injury that basically

4:41

don't know if you can see it. I sliced

4:43

my hand open, crawling out of a

4:45

uh, fishing hall and

4:48

hung up my waiters cuz they had holes in

4:50

them from tumbling down a ravine and stopped.

4:55

Didn't really pick up a fly rod for about,

4:57

oh, 12, more 12 years, maybe 13

5:00

years. And then my

5:02

wife's cousin, cousin's really heavy into fly fishing

5:04

and decided to get back into it.

5:06

And it was downhill

5:09

spiral from there. So,

5:11

is that, that 12 year moment

5:13

of someone just saying, Hey, let's go back out, that was

5:15

the catalyst that got you right back into it? It

5:18

was one of those things that when I first got into

5:21

it, as most fly fishermen

5:23

have experienced or fly anglers

5:26

it's very frustrating if you don't understand

5:29

what you're. And I didn't go

5:31

out with a guide just besides

5:33

that first time with this girl's

5:35

dad. And he didn't really show me. He's Hey, here's

5:37

a fly and tied it on. And I went

5:39

down and was just slapping it on the water. I didn't

5:41

know what I was doing. And luckily somehow

5:43

magically caught a fish and

5:46

I didn't even know how to take it off the hook at that point

5:48

he had to come and help me. I was just like, what do I do?

5:50

What do I do, And

5:53

so I never really had a guide or someone

5:55

explain it to me, and I never really had to

5:59

the I didn't have the desire to get on YouTube

6:02

and figure out how to do it by myself.

6:04

And so I just sat there every night trying

6:06

to throw what I didn't know

6:08

was the wrong flies at the wrong

6:10

time. And so naturally

6:12

the fish were rising, but they didn't want anything

6:14

I was feeding. And I did that all summer.

6:18

That's, commitment. I

6:20

just figured I was doing something wrong.

6:22

And so then I started going into, I

6:25

went up to Cabela's and I'm like talking

6:27

to the fly fishing manager who I didn't

6:29

know at the time was Lance, and

6:31

he's a, he's on the US Olympic

6:33

fly fishing team. And I didn't know who

6:36

he was and he's here's what you need. And

6:38

I'm like, are you sure? Cuz somebody told me that

6:40

you're supposed to be using this. And he's yeah,

6:42

I'm sure. And looking back I

6:44

was like, oh man, I sounded like an idiot cuz here's

6:46

this guy. That's all he does. And

6:50

that didn't really help me much. I didn't know

6:52

much about presentation. I

6:54

wasn't drifting the fly correctly.

6:57

And it was a very frustrating experience.

6:59

So when I got injured it was kinda alright,

7:02

I'm good. What's

7:04

the next hobby? And so I got

7:06

into some other stuff, but then

7:10

my wife's cousin opened

7:12

a fly shop online selling

7:16

flies and fly rods and things

7:19

I can't remember that he had, and

7:21

it was around Christmas time. My wife's Hey,

7:23

let's support my cousin if you wanna fly Rod.

7:25

And I said if I buy one from him, he's

7:28

gotta teach me how to use it. And

7:30

so he took me out a few times and

7:32

that's when the addiction really

7:34

started. Hi,

7:37

Krista, how are you? Hey

7:39

guys, how are you doing? Thank you for being patient

7:42

and waiting for me while I took my fussy

7:44

dog outside waiting for her to use the bathroom.

7:47

I appreciate it. Ben super

7:50

great to be talking to you and meeting you.

7:52

Yeah. Big fan for a long time. Nice,

7:54

to meet you too. Yeah. I've

7:57

been following you now for a couple years

7:59

and I've loved seeing your growth on

8:02

the social media platforms and I

8:05

love that you, what you bring

8:08

to the table is just

8:10

genuine uniqueness and

8:12

you get you put, a little

8:14

comedy spin on things that you do and

8:17

I love it and keep doing

8:19

you. And I'm excited

8:21

to hear more about your story and more about you.

8:24

I appreciate that. Yeah. I try to keep it as

8:28

I wouldn't say there isn't any fake

8:31

reality in my life. Cuz I'm not posting

8:33

all the negatives like getting

8:36

skunked every night fishing. I don't ever post about that,

8:38

but I try to keep

8:40

you as real. I wanna keep it

8:42

as real as I can. I remember one time I

8:44

did post that I got skunked

8:46

carping. And I

8:48

had three guides go off on me

8:51

like, you don't know anything about carping

8:53

and you don't, blah, blah. And I just I

8:55

ended up one of the guys who wanted to get in the fist fight

8:57

cause I knew him And I said,

9:00

tell me where you're at. I'll come meet you because

9:02

you're a freaking a-hole. Like you freaking, I

9:04

don't think you should be guiding. This is

9:06

not what the fly fishing is about. It's

9:09

about a community. Building

9:11

each other up, taking whatever knowledge you have and

9:13

spreading it. And you're

9:15

doing the exact opposite. And so let's meet

9:17

up right now. And he's I'm not gonna, I'm

9:20

not gonna meet you. You're like, six four or two 20.

9:22

I said, then quit talking crap on

9:24

your keyboard warrior. Yeah.

9:27

Yeah. I, agree. And

9:30

to be fair, I went carping for three

9:32

or four years before I even got one. So

9:34

it's not in it depends on the fish

9:37

and anywhere you go, but Carping

9:39

in itself is hard. But to have a guide

9:41

put you down for going out and trying it,

9:43

yeah, that's not, cool. Not

9:45

something that we, are striving. We're,

9:48

that's something that we're striving to change in the industry

9:52

we wanna uplift people and

9:54

encouraging of the guard, changing

9:57

of the guard. Yeah, absolutely.

10:00

The guard's been trash for the past few years. it's

10:03

time for change. That's a

10:05

little bit about what me and Ash try to do, is

10:07

really just to shine some light on things like

10:09

that no, don't worry. I, saved the voicemail

10:11

he left me in, so I'll use that one day

10:14

for, it's my blackmail voicemail, yeah.

10:17

Smart. But no there's not a, I

10:19

feel bad, I think everybody should defend themselves

10:21

and I feel bad that some people just take

10:23

it. I'm, I

10:25

don't know how well you know me, but I dish

10:28

it back like. I had a

10:30

guy, somebody was making fun of me one

10:32

time, so I did a whole week of posts

10:34

just about him making fun of me. buying

10:37

stupid flies that don't catch fish.

10:40

And he, didn't think it was very funny.

10:43

live for the pettiness sometimes so

10:46

I use a hashtag and it's called

10:49

one of the hashtags I use is ridiculous

10:52

flies. And I actually had

10:55

somebody tell me one time that my flies that I

10:57

tie are so ridiculous

10:59

in a negative way. Yeah, like they're just

11:01

like hideous. Like, why would you even fish that?

11:04

That's not gonna catch anything. And so

11:06

I called my shirt guy and I go, Hey man I

11:08

need you to change my logo and put ridiculous

11:11

flies across it. And

11:13

I, ended up using it and I knew his address

11:16

and shipped him one of the shirts and

11:18

he didn't think it was very funny. Yeah.

11:21

But, that's me. That's what I do. And that's

11:23

a, I hope everybody has the courage to do

11:25

stuff like that. That's king of the comebacks

11:28

right there. That's

11:30

almost you. Even, you even gifted, you were even

11:32

kind enough to be like, you know what? Thank you.

11:34

Like I figured he needed his shirt and

11:37

I actually like the hashtag and now

11:39

people think it's like prideful. Like

11:42

ridiculously like awesome flies.

11:44

Yeah. But nobody knows the story

11:46

that it was actually a hideous fly

11:49

and somebody telling me that I tied hideous

11:51

flies. I spend it.

11:54

That, is awesome. I live for that

11:57

That is hilarious. And it sounds like something that I honestly

12:00

would do myself, but you just took it a step further

12:02

and you were like, I'm gonna make shirts now. it's

12:04

a thing. But we only made

12:06

three or four and, but I,

12:09

thought about making 'em, but whatever. I,

12:11

think it's it's

12:13

a, it's got that double meaning. If someone

12:15

knows you, they know like the backstory.

12:17

But if Yeah, someone's heck yeah.

12:20

That's ridiculous. It's like surfer

12:22

slang. It's

12:25

it's a vibe to it. Yeah.

12:27

I feel like in the fishing industry it's how

12:29

you handle things, right? And

12:32

I think with people like that, that come for you

12:34

for the most ridiculous things, the way that

12:36

you handled it is probably the best Because

12:38

if you show them that you've let it bother

12:41

you in a much worse way,

12:43

they'll just keep coming for you. Cuz they know it bothers

12:45

you. But when you show

12:47

'em up the way that you did, then they they

12:50

back off and they know better from then

12:52

on Oh and don't get

12:54

me wrong I'm human. I have feelings

12:56

too. Like when people criticize you I,

12:59

take it negatively, but I always try to

13:01

think okay, what are they really

13:03

doing? What do they

13:05

have. Issues in their life, they're lashing

13:07

out at me. Or is it something

13:09

like really that bad of a fly that I shouldn't

13:12

be fishing at? And I actually think that way and

13:14

I'm like, no, it was a good fly.

13:16

Okay, he's just being a-hole. But yeah.

13:19

Yeah. 10,000 people can

13:21

tell you the fly is good, but when that one person tells

13:23

you that it's trash, you might listen

13:26

to that one person, but

13:28

it's not really up to us. It's

13:30

up to the fish. That's what I've talked,

13:32

it's where the beauty, some fish on beauty is weird

13:35

flies and whatever works,

13:38

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great, excellent way

13:40

of putting it. I wouldn't have put it any other way myself.

13:43

So if you, in any point being

13:46

like in fly

13:48

fishing, have you ever found yourself

13:50

being like so frustrated at people? You're,

13:52

you haul off and go fishing just to have time

13:55

to yourself? Or is that

13:57

something that doesn't happen so much anymore?

14:05

Fly fishing is just a hobby for me. My

14:07

work is extremely frustrating.

14:09

I do I

14:11

deal with I

14:14

wouldn't call the mechanics ornery

14:17

but the situation they get placed in every

14:19

day where people are yelling at them, parts

14:21

are wrong. Oftentimes they're very

14:23

frustrated and so I'll have them lash out

14:26

at me quite frequently during the day.

14:28

And so I think that I've learned

14:31

to deal with it more so than some people.

14:33

So when somebody sends

14:36

me negative feedback, I don't

14:38

really take it personally,

14:40

if that makes sense. Like it's

14:44

one thing if you know they're doing it on

14:46

for example if, I post something and they

14:48

comment, a negative comment, That's

14:51

for everyone else to see that they're not

14:53

doing it to actually have a conversation that's

14:55

part of their personality. Whereas if

14:57

somebody sent me a private message saying,

15:00

Hey, why did you do this? What's

15:02

up with this? Then they want to have a

15:04

conversation and I realize that it's not

15:06

their personality per se, and

15:08

they're not doing it to see

15:11

what have other people, see what they're doing. Does that make

15:13

sense? Yeah. Yeah. And so

15:15

u usually if I get something negative, I just

15:18

brush it off or I've

15:20

learned over the years just there's a little thing called

15:23

restrict and then I never see their comments

15:25

again and they think they're commenting,

15:27

so they still get their satisfaction,

15:29

but I don't have to see it unless I want to.

15:33

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I think

15:35

that it's important when we get negative comments

15:37

like that to for our own mental health

15:39

and for us as for us to just

15:41

be carrying on throughout the day and doing what we

15:43

do. Putting the haters,

15:45

putting the restrictions on them like you do. Me

15:48

and Ash have dealt quite a bit with the haters

15:51

these past couple years. So we definitely can

15:54

resonate with you on a lot of that. And

15:57

it's, a sport that is it

15:59

brings so much joy to so many people

16:02

and personally me, ask

16:04

you asked if I lash

16:07

out or I, I try and go fishing

16:10

instead. For me, going

16:12

fishing is a huge privilege. Like I don't

16:14

have a lot of time and so when I go

16:16

fishing and see sunrise rise as I'm throwing

16:18

line on the water, it is just like one of those

16:21

moments that nobody can take away from me.

16:23

That is I wish everybody could like,

16:25

visualize or have that experience

16:28

and catching fish. That's just the bonus.

16:30

I love the adventure of it and getting

16:32

out. So I never really

16:35

go fishing to

16:37

counteract a feeling. going

16:40

fishing just brings goodness into it's

16:43

like feeding the soul if,

16:46

you wanna get, it's like a moment into it, a

16:48

moment that you get to take a pause

16:50

and fill your own glass. Oh yeah. Just standing

16:53

outside. Yeah. It's one of

16:55

those things you can't even like, capture it. I

16:57

see some fantastic photos of

16:59

people anglers on the water, but

17:03

you, never can capture it the right way. You

17:05

can't capture that mood, that feeling. And,

17:07

that's what fly fishing does for

17:09

me personally. There's

17:11

like a certain smell. Like even,

17:13

there's certain days that you just know

17:15

mid-may, like the smell of a mid-may

17:18

day. You're like, Ooh, there,

17:20

there will be something hatching. Yeah.

17:23

But usually when you're carping, that smell

17:25

isn't really that pleasant depending

17:27

on the water you're in I

17:29

guess that is true. Hundred percent true. Yeah, I

17:32

can, yeah definitely, smelly especially

17:34

ro carpet. It's, not pretty. Sometimes

17:37

I wanna throw the waiters away after,

17:39

but you gotta have a special

17:41

pair of waiter just for the carp. Yeah.

17:44

Yeah. You got a bath, you gotta take a bath.

17:46

Even if you were wearing waders kind of thing. Yeah. So

17:49

is that what you've been doing quite a bit of is,

17:51

going out and looking for carp then? Lately

17:54

or like when you do your net chains to

17:56

fish? So I don't necessarily,

17:58

the last few years I don't have a luxury of.

18:03

Going targeting a certain

18:05

species for a certain amount of time.

18:07

Like it's more, okay, it's, let's

18:09

see, what month is it? Okay, it's May, I've got a Saturday.

18:12

I can go in the morning. Okay, what can

18:14

I go for? Okay. And then I figure out

18:16

where I'm gonna go and what I'm gonna

18:18

fish for. There's

18:20

only one, maybe two trips

18:22

a year that I won't cancel that

18:25

I go every year. And that is

18:28

for some small mouth bass. I love

18:30

small mouth bass fishing. And there are a couple

18:32

days on my calendar that are blocked off.

18:35

And it's

18:40

I, love bass fishing on a fly rod.

18:43

I love carping. I love catching trout.

18:45

I love going to the High Mountain Lakes, hiking

18:47

in, catching small brookies

18:49

or tigers. The

18:51

only thing I don't really like is fishing really

18:54

small creeks. And that's just

18:56

because three four

18:58

inch fish are that fun for me. Yeah,

19:00

but practicing your accuracy,

19:03

that's fun, but also frustrating because

19:05

that's probably where you're gonna hear the most swear words from

19:08

me. Snagging on a read,

19:10

hanging over with the Telegraph and,

19:12

I Yeah, they do. Yeah,

19:14

they do fr yeah. It's too frustrating.

19:18

So I, don't really like

19:21

doing that, but I've done it. It's, fun.

19:24

Excellent. And where do you go for your small

19:26

mouth trips? Oh that's,

19:29

on the, you do not talk list. Otherwise I might

19:31

get murdered in my sleep. I'm

19:34

state wise, can you gimme like a general where Oh

19:37

I, don't have the luxury. I'm, here in

19:39

Utah, so I, actually fish a lot of reservoirs

19:41

here locally for small mouth. I've

19:46

I've done really well. I've figured out how to do

19:48

it because of my work route. I,

19:50

go, there's three or four

19:52

reservoirs that I drive past for work,

19:54

and so I figured out depending

19:58

on the time of year, how to fish for

20:00

'em. And had a lot of success and a lot of fun

20:02

with it. Awesome.

20:04

And you tie your own flies for that? Yeah,

20:08

there's been a few times I've forgotten some my

20:10

fly box cause I'm in my work

20:12

truck and so I've forgotten the fly box at home.

20:14

I didn't sneak it out before the wife could see me grabbing

20:17

all my fishing gear. And so

20:19

I've had to stop at some local shops and

20:23

purchase some flies, but generally I tie all

20:25

my own flies. Awesome. That's cool.

20:27

So you, when you get a, oh, go ahead

20:29

Krista. I just wanted to ask

20:32

I do this a lot. When I find out a, pattern that

20:34

works really, well I'm

20:36

the kind of person that likes to share the wealth.

20:39

So if I've been fishing an area and I have a

20:41

stack of flies that have been just crushing

20:43

it for these fish in this one area, and

20:45

I see someone walking into it as I'm walking out,

20:47

or vice versa, I'll hand

20:50

them like a few, like a handful of my flies

20:52

that I've tied. Do you ever find yourself doing that?

20:56

Yes and no. The culture here is a

20:58

little different. Most

21:00

of the people are very friendly, but

21:03

they also are like ultra secretive.

21:06

So they don't really wanna it's

21:09

kinda do not talk to me about

21:11

what you're doing, but I'll take all the knowledge

21:13

of what you've done to benefit myself,

21:15

if that makes sense. Yeah. Sense.

21:18

I've handed out anywhere from

21:20

a couple flies to a whole fly

21:23

box to people just because it's

21:25

easy for me to replace it. And

21:28

everyone always asks me like, what's working?

21:30

What are you using? And I go,

21:33

just check my feed. I'm posting

21:35

everything I'm using. Like I'm not,

21:38

I can tell you the fly,

21:40

the size the time of day,

21:42

but it's not that's just certain

21:44

variables that factor in. There's some common

21:47

sense you gotta apply when you're

21:49

at the water. Yeah, absolutely.

21:51

And but yeah, I fish a

21:54

lot of balanced leeches and I post

21:56

a lot of balanced leeches. I,

21:59

bass fish using skirted creepers.

22:01

And I post them all the time and I

22:04

use clouds for bass and post 'em

22:06

all the time and there's no secrets. Awesome.

22:09

I love that you're open about that. You

22:12

mentioned the

22:15

so you mentioned that you drive

22:18

past some of the used reservoirs while you work,

22:20

so you're not somebody who

22:22

is 24 7 living in

22:24

the industry. You have a career,

22:26

you have a job outside of fly fishing

22:29

and flying ties or tying

22:32

Yeah. Yeah. I,

22:35

work about 70 to 90 hour weeks

22:37

on the road in an automotive

22:40

business. And so fly tying

22:42

is a very, side

22:44

hobby for me. Although it

22:46

may not seem like it. I used to. Not

22:49

sleep much and it would just

22:51

tie flies. And that's where

22:53

I think most of my knowledge

22:57

or skills or mediocre

23:00

tying ability comes from was

23:02

I wanted to get better at tying flies.

23:05

I got super frustrated with commercially

23:07

bought flies falling apart on me and

23:09

I thought that I was wasting

23:12

my money. And so I said,

23:14

I'm that type of guy that if I'm having an issue, I

23:16

thought I can build it better. And

23:19

after years and time

23:22

flies and thousands of dollars and

23:25

countless hours of sitting at the vice,

23:27

I've learned that my flies fall apart too. But

23:29

I sure enjoy tying flies and

23:32

so Awesome. Yeah, a couple, there was, when I was really getting

23:34

into it I'd say this was probably

23:37

three, four years ago,

23:39

I made a goal to tie a different fly

23:42

every day. And I

23:44

used Instagram as my. Check

23:49

check mark that I would tie a

23:51

fly, take a picture and post it. And

23:53

that was my way of basically

23:56

journaling my experience

23:58

of my skills or

24:01

my progression in fly time. And

24:03

I really think that's what helped

24:06

me gain all the knowledge and skills

24:08

that I, do possess is tying

24:10

variety and challenging

24:12

myself with new patterns. Cuz some nights I'd sit

24:15

down and I get a first try. Other

24:17

nights I'd have to tie a dozen and the next thing I knew it

24:19

was three in the morning or four in the morning and works

24:21

at five. So it

24:23

was a different time in my life when I

24:25

just lived for it. And now I like

24:27

sleep. I

24:29

have been, posting near as much as I'd like

24:32

and tying near as much as I'd like. But sleep.

24:34

It's something I need a lot of. Yeah.

24:37

Yeah. I can relate to that as me and Ash

24:39

getting to our older years as well. Do

24:42

you think that's what really started your

24:44

Instagram page was posting every day

24:46

and then people started taking notice

24:49

to it and following along in that journey?

24:52

Yeah. It's a weird thing. We've, me and

24:54

my wife, we've talked about this and I've, had

24:56

a, I've been on a few podcasts where we've talked

24:58

about it and I still don't get why

25:00

people follow fly

25:04

time or my fly time cuz I'm not

25:06

a professional guide. I'm not

25:08

a. Somebody that spent

25:10

countless hours researching material and product.

25:13

I just have fun tying and being a

25:15

little bit creative at the Vice. And so it's been

25:17

crazy that some

25:20

people say my account grew and it,

25:23

definitely has some followers, but it,

25:26

I still don't get why. But

25:28

I definitely think that during that time when I was

25:30

posting, there were some people that were falling

25:33

along with that. And I had about

25:36

at different times in that, cuz I did this,

25:39

it was supposed to be for a month. It ended up being

25:41

for six months and then it

25:43

turned into a year and then it turned into

25:45

two years. And I ended up doing it for about two and

25:47

a half years. And during that time

25:50

I think there was about 30

25:52

to 40 people who tried to do it

25:54

with me. And I was just

25:56

like, Hey, jump on board, let's do it like start today.

25:58

And they'd last three days, they'd last

26:01

a week. I had one guy laugh 22

26:03

days. That was the most. I'm

26:06

sure there's other people who have done it, but just that were

26:08

letting me know that they were doing it with

26:10

me. And then

26:13

we did fly time challenges. I

26:15

tried that. I did a few contests,

26:18

I hosted a few contests and just

26:21

really trying to, tried to spread the

26:23

love and passion for fly time to

26:25

people who may or may not want

26:28

to try it or think they could do it.

26:31

Just that it is possible you can do it.

26:34

That's awesome. Yeah, I love how you got creative

26:37

with that and came

26:39

up with these challenges and these like daily

26:41

posts and stuff like that. I feel like that's something

26:43

that people don't put a lot of commitment

26:45

into, especially somebody who has a full-time

26:47

job or for your case, nearly

26:49

two full-time jobs just

26:52

in the one job that you do have. Yeah,

26:54

kudos to you for doing that. I

26:57

think my little sleep I

27:00

think my favorite challenge has always been the tur. The

27:02

Turkey is the best. Oh,

27:04

the Turkey Challenge. That was a fun one. I

27:07

think Fly Lords jumped on board with that

27:09

the one year. The

27:11

first one was, let's

27:14

see, Spinify, it was tie

27:16

something, anything creative. We

27:18

did a spooky streamer. That was

27:20

really fun. There were some crazy

27:23

flies that came out. I think

27:25

we did a Christmas fly

27:29

shoot. I can't even remember all of 'em now. But the Turkey

27:31

fly was a fun one. You did

27:33

the one with the household items. You have

27:35

to tie flies with only stuff found around the house.

27:38

Oh yeah. You had to, oh no, that was one

27:40

I entered that was put on

27:42

by who

27:45

was that? I can't remember. And

27:47

I ended up finding just some random stuff and

27:49

making like a p It was fun, But

27:53

yeah fly tieing is fun. For

27:57

most people out there that don't tie flies

28:00

or sorry. Most people that tie

28:02

flies tie the same. Dude,

28:06

10 to 20 flies their whole life or

28:08

whole there isn't a lot of variety.

28:11

Cause you know, like a guy like me, why would I tie

28:13

saltwater flies when I live in the

28:16

Utah. But I find it

28:18

very interesting because when you tie a salt

28:20

fly pattern, like a crab, for example,

28:23

you're learning new techniques that you can

28:25

apply to one of your favorite trout flies.

28:28

Or you're perfecting a technique

28:30

that is more difficult on a crab

28:33

versus a trout fly, if that makes sense. And so

28:35

by trying other styles and other things

28:38

like that, you actually make yourself better overall.

28:41

Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. And same

28:44

I, can relate to that with my casting and that

28:46

when I was trying and learning different styles

28:48

of casting my, on a

28:51

two-handed rod, my, my cast and my one-handed

28:53

got way better. I was like, where the hell

28:55

is this even coming from? But it was, because you can

28:57

almost turn it into a switch cast.

29:00

So once you like, turn that over, you

29:02

can use it a little different. I

29:04

can see that. Yeah.

29:06

For me, everything was more dialed in. And

29:08

I can totally see that with fly tying too.

29:13

That's pretty dope. So why, have you

29:15

never made the jump to say, all

29:17

right, I'm gonna leave my automotive

29:19

business and go for fly tying.

29:23

Cause I hate

29:25

commercial time. I hate tying for

29:28

orders. I hate it with like I learned

29:30

right off the bat. I hate it.

29:34

and Ty spending all these countless

29:36

hours tying flies that

29:38

other people are going to fish bring

29:40

some enjoyment. But the,

29:46

there's not a i, don't mean to sound greedy,

29:48

but there's not a lot of money in time

29:50

flies for other people. Usually

29:52

people want it a heavy discount. You're

29:55

competing against imported

29:57

flies from overseas that

30:00

are you go in a fly shop, you're what,

30:02

three bucks a fly? Whereas that's,

30:05

that takes a lot of time to tie and

30:07

when you factor in materials also

30:11

the excise tax and manufacturing the fly

30:13

that you gotta pay to the government. There's not a lot

30:15

of margins. I do know

30:17

guys that do it full-time, but that's

30:20

not their only gig. They

30:23

have, they tie orders, they

30:25

have flies produced by companies

30:29

that sell their flies. So they get a royalty check

30:31

from it. They're monetized on

30:34

social media like YouTube, so they're making

30:36

ad revenue there. There are usually

30:39

a guide in the peak seasons,

30:41

and so they're making money guiding. They

30:44

either work in a shop or, do

30:46

some sort of side hustle, or if

30:48

they're not doing all of that and they're just tying flies.

30:51

I've also found that their spouse

30:53

or girlfriend is working and has a really good job,

30:56

and that's where all their money's coming from. Or

30:58

they had a career where they made a lot

31:00

of money and now they're just living off of

31:03

what they made, and they don't need a lot. And

31:06

so I, so for you it's really more

31:08

about the art, the form, the

31:11

creation of the process. I

31:13

enjoy and when I tried

31:15

to tie orders for people, I learned

31:17

that I hated it. And I, I still

31:19

feel like it's been, I

31:22

shut my shop down about two years,

31:24

a year and a half, two years ago. And I still

31:26

am struggling to go tie flies

31:29

cuz I just remember how much I hated it. Yeah.

31:31

And so it's trying to find this new

31:34

found love for it. And I want to,

31:36

but I just have these like memories of sitting

31:39

there. I remember, I, I forgot

31:41

I to set a limit on for one

31:43

pattern. It was a, crayfish

31:45

pattern and crayfish

31:48

pattern takes me between 15

31:50

and 18 minutes to tie, depending on the size.

31:52

And I got an order for 270

31:54

of 'em and I'm like, oh no. And

31:57

I said, I'm gonna do it. And so every waking

31:59

minute, free minute I had for about three

32:01

weeks I was tying crayfish. And I have not

32:03

tied 1 cent. Yeah,

32:06

I don't blame you. It's unfortunate that

32:08

the reality of it is with the time and the

32:10

money that goes into tying it, it

32:12

truly is blood money. And

32:15

my buddy figured that out really quick

32:17

after he had a similar order like that,

32:19

400 of these dark

32:24

black mouse patterns with like bare

32:26

hair and Nice. So I can't 4s

32:28

400 of 'em. That's, that sounds way too

32:30

hard. Way too much time. Yeah. Yeah,

32:33

so I came over and was helping him with it for

32:35

a little bit. Wow. Because he was just like

32:37

way over his head. So Yeah. It

32:39

does get down to being blood

32:41

money and a lot of people that I know that started

32:43

out fly time have either gone towards

32:46

guiding and they do that as well, or

32:48

they've stopped fly tying and they're just

32:50

doing something else in the industry. Yeah.

32:53

And I, don't wanna sound like, I don't

32:56

wanna tie Flos, but with

32:58

my day job, my

33:02

Last year I ended up buying

33:04

out a competitor. And

33:06

so I basically I service

33:08

between a hundred and 110

33:11

shops in a week, and now I've got 170.

33:14

And so I basically don't

33:17

have time. And where I came up with the time

33:19

to do that was fly and fly

33:21

fishing, sadly. So

33:24

you haven't you, were telling me earlier,

33:26

you haven't been on the water much lately. You've

33:28

got little ones in ski and all sorts

33:31

of Yeah. Yeah. We I

33:34

it's, depressing cause I used to fish two, three

33:36

days a week. Which for some people

33:38

that are on the water every day, that thought a lot for me.

33:40

That was quite a bit.

33:44

The last year with everything I

33:46

had with my workload, I had eight

33:49

full days on the water. And that was

33:51

it. It was just like crap.

33:53

That's it. you're family

33:56

man. You're the family man. So

33:58

yeah, this is the kids. We,

34:01

each boy was playing on two different

34:04

accomplishing travel baseball teams.

34:06

And so my daughter does Jan dance

34:08

and gymnastics. And so we said we

34:10

got focus on the kids for the next few years and

34:13

if I can get out fishing Tomorrow

34:16

after the race, actually I was talking to my boy, I'm like, Hey

34:19

we're right by a reservoir

34:21

that I know really well. Did

34:23

we go ice fishing? And he's do

34:26

you want to go? And I'm like, in

34:28

my heart I'm like, yeah, I wanna go. wanna

34:31

go, because we're right there. It's 15

34:33

minutes detour. And so

34:36

he's if you really, want

34:38

to go, but I wanna play with my friends when

34:40

I got home. And I'm like, okay,

34:43

we'll go home. And he's but do you wanna go? And I'm

34:45

like, only if you want to go. I'm

34:47

just trying to be respectful cuz

34:49

they're only gonna have friends this age once.

34:51

But it's so hard cuz we're so

34:54

close to one of my favorite reservoirs to fish

34:56

and I've never ice fished there I

34:59

do have all my gear loaded in my truck already,

35:01

so just in case you're a good dad,

35:03

cross, cross your fingers for me that

35:05

I get to go out. You're a good dad.

35:08

My parents have been like, do you think you don't have a say Yeah.

35:11

Do you think you could bribe him if you're like, Hey,

35:13

I'll get you like a exercise candy

35:16

or something. It's

35:18

one of those things like my kids are just really,

35:21

good. And there's

35:25

three or four nights during

35:28

the weekdays that they have baseball,

35:30

piano another

35:33

practice for the other team and they're just so maxed

35:35

out on top of homework or

35:37

they've got ski training and so there's,

35:40

if they have a night where they can actually hang out

35:42

with friends, I'm like, let's

35:44

make it happen. Yeah. And that's usually

35:46

Saturday night and I'm

35:49

like, Hey, you don't play Xbox all night.

35:51

I don't care. Have your friends come over and

35:53

play video games cuz you don't get to do that

35:55

often. Yeah, those are special.

35:58

Those are special moments. I can remember a lot

36:00

of sleepovers from when I was a kid that were really

36:02

fun. Yeah.

36:04

But yeah, keep your fingers crossed.

36:06

We might be going after some perch and some rainbow

36:09

trout tomorrow night. My

36:11

fingers are definitely crossed for you. I hope that

36:13

you are able to do that. Me

36:15

personally, I've never been ice

36:17

fishing before, but I've always wanted to

36:19

go. It used to be really

36:21

good in western Maryland. So I'm in

36:23

Pennsylvania now. I came from West Virginia.

36:26

I lived there for eight years.

36:28

I'm in Pennsylvania now, but there is,

36:30

we're in the tri-state area, so

36:33

Western Maryland has really great fishing and they have

36:35

a really great lake to do some ice fishing on,

36:37

and I've never had the opportunity to go and do

36:39

it. It's been getting warmer and

36:42

the, lake just does not freeze over like it used

36:44

to. So big

36:46

bummer. But kudos to you for being

36:48

able to. Get those cold temps

36:50

and keep going out there. I hope you, make it

36:52

happen. No, you gotta have the right gear.

36:55

It's it's, funny cuz let's

36:57

see, two, two

36:59

years ago I was ice fishing

37:01

almost every weekend and I

37:04

was committed to only catching

37:06

'em on flies. And

37:08

so that was a fun and very

37:11

frustrating year because so

37:13

were those like jig flies almost? Oh,

37:16

I'd use anything from balanced

37:19

minnows, balanced leeches. One

37:22

of my, it was funny actually,

37:24

a frenchie worked really,

37:26

well at one of the reservoirs. We

37:30

we used a lot of zebra midges. I

37:32

tried making jigs out of

37:35

resin and seeing

37:37

how that worked. I tried a lot of uvs.

37:39

It was just a really fun, experimental

37:42

year. And that

37:44

transition's not going back to fly

37:46

tying, but or fly fishing.

37:49

But when you're going out on the

37:51

water a lot and tying your own flies, that's the

37:53

funnest part about fly tying is. going

37:56

out, having success with a fly that you

37:58

tweaked and manipulated to

38:01

react well on that water in that given

38:04

conditions, and then going back the next day

38:06

and it not working at all. And then

38:08

you have to figure out, okay what, was

38:10

different? What was the lighting, what was the water

38:12

clarity, what was there, wind? All these

38:14

different things. And then going back to the vice,

38:17

trying something new, going back to the next

38:19

night. And, that's one thing I do miss

38:21

was the, is trying

38:24

that and having the ability on the

38:26

water to test new flies and

38:28

new creations. That's, where

38:30

a lot of the fun is in fly tieing. That

38:33

is so cool. Also, with those frenches

38:35

and those zebra images, were you just jigging

38:38

them around or were you letting them just drop? Both.

38:41

So jigging some,

38:44

sometimes they were just sitting there.

38:47

Most of the time though, it was active movement

38:49

and. To be honest,

38:52

it's very, similar to

38:54

lake fishing. If you do a lot of

38:56

lake usually the,

38:58

fish are gonna hit it as that fly is dropping.

39:01

And so you'd have to sit

39:03

there and just watch and watch until

39:06

they'd usually hit it on the way down. If not,

39:08

then you start jigging and

39:11

I treat ice fishing like I do a

39:13

river. If you don't have

39:15

success in a

39:17

small stretch of time, move

39:19

on. And so people don't like ice

39:21

fishing because we'll drill anywhere between

39:24

30 and 40 holes and hike between

39:28

20 yards to three miles in a day.

39:30

And it's, a lot of fun when you treat

39:32

it that way. It's a lot more active than just

39:34

sitting in a hut and doing this for

39:37

10 hours. Yeah, on

39:39

social media, they don't show people drilling

39:41

40 holes. They show them sitting at the

39:43

same hole with a huge wooden hut

39:45

with a heater sitting at the same hole

39:48

for hours, days even. So

39:50

yeah, I don't see that side of it on social media

39:52

at all. But that does sound like tons of fun.

39:54

So you have No it's, a lot of fun. It's

39:57

a lot of fun. So it's

39:59

also a lot of work. So

40:01

that work part of it, you have to have Do

40:04

you carry like a spud, do you carry

40:06

like a fish finder? All of that stuff along

40:09

with what you're fishing with? So

40:11

over for, ice fishing? Over

40:13

the years I've, gotten

40:15

more technical in

40:17

the fact that I used to hand

40:20

drill all my hauls and my shoulders would be

40:22

really sore. It was a great workout. Now I have an

40:24

electric auger, and so we can just rip

40:26

through holes. We have spare batteries. I

40:28

use fish finders now so

40:31

that I know what

40:33

they're wanting. So when

40:35

you drop a, fly down and

40:37

you have a fish come and look at it twice, you change

40:40

the color. It's taking

40:42

the guesswork out of fishing.

40:46

You, you can't you don't know what they want,

40:48

but you can eliminate what they're not wanting quicker.

40:52

And so if I don't see any activity,

40:54

I move to a new area.

40:56

And the real reason why I like

40:59

ice fishing and using some of that technology

41:02

is. I lake fish in

41:04

the summertime, these same lakes.

41:06

And so I know where structures are. I

41:09

know where weed

41:11

beds are. I know why

41:13

I had success in this one area last

41:15

summer because nowhere

41:17

else on that beach, there's a clump of rocks right

41:19

there. And that's why I had all the structure.

41:23

And so it's really fun ice fishing

41:25

too, cuz you can actually see the bottom, see

41:27

what's down there. And a

41:29

buddy just called me today and he is dude, I was at

41:32

our spot on our lake yesterday and

41:34

dude, I freaking crushed it. Fish were coming through

41:36

all the time. It took us nine

41:39

trips to find that spot and

41:41

figure out where the channel was and

41:44

where the fish are coming through and schooling through

41:46

it. And so it's good. It is of

41:48

fun to hear that he's still going there and is still working

41:50

good. I wish I would've got

41:52

an invite, but I probably couldn't have gone anyway.

41:55

Yeah. What's your what's your PB

41:57

ice fishing for? Any species.

42:01

Oh, pb oh.

42:07

I don't know. I haven't ever thought about PB and ice fishing.

42:12

Be a ballpark. Yeah, I don't

42:14

know. Probably just a 20, probably

42:16

like a 23, maybe a 24

42:18

inch cutthroat. That's

42:21

probably my longest fish, so nothing massive.

42:25

Cuz sometimes ice fishing, that's pretty big ice

42:28

fishing though. You can get like some really,

42:30

big fish. Because you're, targeting

42:33

'em at different depths. Like I know guys that

42:35

are catching huge lake trout

42:37

here at a few red, some in Utah

42:40

that are just you can barely fit 'em out of the hole.

42:43

Yeah, I know my personal best, I

42:45

never actually got out of the hole cuz I saw

42:47

its tail as it, the line

42:49

broke and it turned out of the hole

42:51

and swam back down its tail was like, it

42:54

was big it was just freaking massive.

42:57

But I've had

42:59

a couple hundred fish days. Those

43:03

are really good days on the ice

43:05

mainly catching like perch for example.

43:08

But I

43:11

don't know. Now do you take

43:13

all your perch home or do you take that

43:16

for food? It depends

43:18

on where I'm fishing and which water I'm

43:20

fishing at. Okay. So I, do love

43:22

perch tacos. I

43:25

had for the first time crappy tacos,

43:27

this or crappy, and that was so

43:29

good. We, caught it at a perfect

43:32

reservoir where the water was nice. But

43:35

there's a few lake here in Utah I don't take fish

43:38

home from, and I'm

43:40

not a huge, I don't prefer,

43:42

I don't really like the taste of rainbow trout

43:45

and but I have figured out how to smoke

43:48

it really nice and my kids love it. Most

43:53

of the time I'm catching release. Nice.

43:56

Awesome. Yeah, that, that rainbow trout

43:58

does hit a little different when it's smoked Oh

44:02

it's I, had a, in

44:04

a old house, I lived next to a lady that used

44:06

to work at a lodge on

44:08

a lake, and she taught me how

44:10

to cook rainbow trout, and

44:13

I can't even it, tastes like just

44:15

like the most delicious I,

44:17

don't know, like a cod

44:20

almost. It doesn't taste like rainbow

44:22

trucks. I'm used to growing up where

44:24

we were on the campfire and it tasted just like a

44:26

fish scale, and Whaley.

44:28

And Yeah. And

44:31

that, that's not my favorite. But on

44:34

the smoker with the right seasoning and

44:36

lots of butter, it's just delicious. Yeah.

44:39

I definitely would take your advice on how

44:41

to smoke a good rainbow trout, cuz I've seen

44:44

some of your, feet on smoking and some of your other tasty

44:47

meats, yeah. Seems like you're

44:49

also a master smoker there. I

44:51

wouldn't say that, but I, do Eating

44:54

good meat on the weekend. So we,

44:57

the smoker's usually running on Sunday. That's the only

44:59

day I'm home that's

45:02

the day I get to cook for the family.

45:04

Awesome. Jack of all trades thing going

45:06

on for you. So I wanted

45:09

to ask do you have a certain

45:11

ro go-to Rod for your ice fishing

45:13

and then alternatively a go-to rod

45:15

for your fly fishing? Ice

45:21

fishing? No. I've tried a few different

45:23

ones. And I don't even know what

45:25

it's called. I got the new one this year

45:27

that's got the shoot,

45:30

this shows you how I can do it. I am it

45:32

looks like a fly rod and you've got a release

45:34

trigger. It's made for pan fish.

45:37

I don't go after pan fish that often, so that's

45:39

why I don't remember. It's called something. But I

45:42

have some Alga Garcia

45:44

poles and rods, but I

45:48

definitely the medium

45:52

action on it, and

45:54

then I put like a soft tip on. But

45:56

for fly

45:58

fishing, I love

46:01

the way the loop cross

46:04

S one casts. It's like one of my favorite

46:07

rods. I fish in eight weight when

46:09

I'm going carping or bass fishing. And

46:12

I love that. Rod,

46:15

it's it just, I

46:17

can chuck line. It just,

46:19

I just love it. And so is

46:22

that more of a intermediate or a fast action?

46:26

It is an intermediate. I

46:28

don't like the fast I have a, let's

46:30

see, two fast

46:32

action, and that's mainly say

46:34

on a four weight and a three weight

46:37

for when I'm in the high mountain lake throwing dries. That's

46:39

when I like the fast. But the

46:42

the, process one, and I've got it in a six

46:44

eight and I

46:46

think I have it in a couple eights, but that,

46:49

I definitely like in the intermediate. Are

46:52

you using different Rod series

46:57

for trout? I

47:01

used to, but not anymore. Now

47:03

I'm, basically using loop.

47:05

I've tried a few startup rods. was

47:08

that one? That I was

47:11

trying, they're local too.

47:13

I can't even remember what they call, they're outta business now.

47:16

I've got a couple sages. I've

47:18

tried some fiberglass. It's

47:21

not me. Is

47:23

it too slow? You have to wait forever.

47:25

You're like, okay. So

47:27

when you're fishing balanced

47:30

leeches on the lakes, you're doing a lot of roll

47:32

casting. Okay. And that

47:35

soft, fast action, you can't

47:37

get the ability to, I can't

47:39

roll it over as Nice. Turn

47:42

that one heavy line over. Yeah.

47:44

Basically I'm limiting myself, tend

47:46

to. 30 extra feet, I feel.

47:49

And so I like that. It's, funny

47:51

people, I'm like, they're like, why'd you bring an eight way in? I'm

47:53

like, just watch. And then it's and

47:56

the, line just freaking goes forever. That's

47:58

a lot of fun. Oh, I need

48:00

to get into that two-handed or a switch rod.

48:02

I've always wanted to try that. Honestly.

48:05

Crazy cra once you get it down.

48:07

So I took I

48:10

got a rod, it was a switch rod.

48:13

And I started teaching myself

48:15

the casting. But I took a trip out to

48:17

the Olympic National Peninsula with

48:19

fly guide who was super cool.

48:21

I like him a lot. And took

48:23

some lessons on the trip while we were doing some

48:26

fishing for steelhead out there on the two-handed rods.

48:28

And after a little bit,

48:30

his instruction is great. I was just shooting

48:33

lasers across the river,

48:35

like a hundred foot casts, like nothing. It was

48:37

crazy. So if you're a fan of long casts,

48:39

like definitely give it a try.

48:42

It's even like really attractive for tight

48:44

space too, cuz like we use it a

48:47

lot of the rivers around here in Michigan,

48:50

so you're gonna make fun of me. But I actually bought a switch

48:52

rod two

48:55

years ago and it's still staying

48:58

in the packaging in my office because

49:01

one of the lakes I go to and I'm throwing

49:03

roll, casting out I'm actually up

49:05

against some cliffs and so you

49:07

can't, there is no back cast. And so

49:09

it's all roll casting and one day

49:12

I saw a guy with a switch rod there and I'm like, oh cool.

49:14

Like I need to get one, but then

49:17

I just haven't taken it. Cause

49:20

it's one of those things I gotta practice, yeah.

49:22

And how long how long of a rod

49:24

is it? Oh, you're

49:26

asking me questions? I don't remember now, but I

49:29

called 11

49:31

or 12 feet. You're fine. Yeah,

49:33

and it'll you, love the eight weight,

49:36

once you start shooting the line out of that two-hander

49:39

Yeah. I think you'll be picking up a

49:42

different style of casting real quick. Rolling

49:45

back to having a social media

49:48

account that with

49:50

some followers. It's, one of the real perks

49:52

of it is I can reach

49:55

out to companies with questions. I

49:58

messaged Luke and I just said,

50:00

Hey, I'm looking for a switch rod. And then I

50:03

get a message, here's what you need and

50:06

that's a luxury I,

50:09

feel like I get answers, whereas I don't know if Joe

50:11

Blow off the street would get the same response.

50:15

Yeah. And so I, really

50:17

take advantage of that. And one

50:19

thing about me is I never ask for handouts

50:21

or free stuff. Like I wanna support

50:24

small businesses cuz I'm a small business and I

50:26

get support. And

50:28

so I'm always paying for everything that I can

50:32

when I'm purchasing things. Whereas a lot of people

50:34

would try and if,

50:37

people aren't selling the product, they're not gonna grow and

50:39

develop new product. That's how I view it.

50:42

Yeah. And luckily I am not

50:44

relying upon fly fishing as

50:46

a business. I have another business that is paying

50:48

for my hobby. And but

50:52

I'm not, that situation is not the same for everybody.

50:55

But yeah, that's that. What advice would you have

50:57

for someone that's maybe on the fence about

51:00

quitting their day job and throwing

51:03

it all to, to fly fishing, depending

51:05

on like lots of different

51:07

situations like lifewise. But what

51:09

would be your best advice to give someone? Stick

51:13

out. Like with anything,

51:15

it's gonna have its ups and downs. It's gonna be frustrating.

51:18

There is ways to do it. Like

51:22

it's affiliate mark,

51:24

affiliate marketing is huge. Now

51:27

I know I have several people that are, that

51:29

is their full-time gig. I

51:32

just can't be that guy that's oh,

51:35

hey, look

51:37

at this new era hat go to my

51:39

website and use this code

51:41

for 15% off. That's not like,

51:44

I can't bring myself to do that. But

51:47

if you can, there is a real industry

51:49

in that just using social

51:51

media as a way of making money.

51:53

Now, would that be your only

51:56

source of income? That's gonna be really

51:58

tough. I've talked

52:00

to enough people out there and unless

52:03

you have a huge following.

52:06

If you've got a podcast

52:09

on the backhand, if you've got a

52:11

clothing line for merchandise, if

52:13

you have a there's all these things that can

52:15

funnel in to make that income for what

52:17

you need. You're

52:19

gonna have to be a guide. You're gonna have to work

52:22

in a fly shop, you're gonna have to grind

52:24

for, I don't know how long.

52:27

But the real question is not

52:30

can you do it? It is possible. It

52:32

just depends on your, what

52:34

you need to live off of. So

52:37

if you don't need much, then

52:39

yeah, you can tie orders for

52:41

people and make your ends

52:43

meet. But if you want to go

52:46

saltwater fishing in at

52:48

Christmas Island down the road, that

52:51

costs physical money, or

52:54

you could do a hosted trip if you had the following.

52:56

There's ways to do everything. But

52:59

it's just a matter of grinding

53:01

and sticking with it. And that's the

53:03

part that I think people get frustrated with

53:06

is they think they're gonna

53:08

become a guide and the, guideline

53:10

and make all this money but it's

53:13

on the water. You're only on the water.

53:16

What a full day trip. Eight

53:18

hours. You're forgetting

53:20

that on the back end, you're tying flies for the customer.

53:23

You're doing meal prep for

53:25

all, cause I'm assuming you, if it's a full

53:27

day trip, you're providing lunch, you gotta

53:30

have a vehicle to tow up and down the river.

53:33

There's, all this backend stuff that it's not just on

53:35

the water. It's, real work.

53:37

Like I respect anybody that's a full-time

53:40

guide. I was a snowboard instructor for six

53:43

years and in the end I just couldn't

53:46

do it anymore. Like it's just

53:48

too much. And but

53:50

ev for everybody, it's a different story.

53:53

The labor of love, I think for,

53:55

yeah, for some of us, I,

53:59

had a conversation with a really good friend

54:01

who I feel

54:04

has been very successful in the

54:06

fly tying and fly fishing

54:08

industry. However, he

54:12

has books where he sells

54:14

the books. He does guide

54:16

service, he does hosted trips. He

54:20

has fly patterns that are being produced

54:22

by all these manufacturers. He

54:24

does collaborations

54:26

with companies that they pay per post.

54:31

It's not just fly time.

54:34

He has I think it was

54:36

eight to 12 different sources of revenue

54:39

that all make a small chunk of

54:41

money that allow him to have the lifestyle

54:43

that he has. And so

54:45

it's not, can somebody

54:48

make a living just fly tieing or just fly

54:50

fishing? Yes. But

54:52

it's, I think it's gonna be much more than that

54:54

personally, from what I've talked

54:57

to enough people and you're gonna have to

54:59

have multiple sources of revenue or

55:01

multiple projects going on all at once. So

55:04

what you're saying is there's a lot to

55:06

think about. Like they're I,

55:08

talk to a lot of kids that are so

55:10

excited cuz they get really, they

55:13

get good, at tying, they're in college

55:15

and they have time to do it and they're like, I think

55:17

I'm gonna quit my,

55:19

side hustle job and just tie it flies

55:21

and it's it's

55:24

of that like strange. You

55:26

should do it, but at the same time, you're like, maybe

55:28

keep the weekend job just in

55:30

case. That's

55:33

everybody's gotta go out on

55:35

a limit one point and Yeah. If,

55:38

you don't, like for me, for example, I'm

55:41

in a completely different situation

55:43

cuz if I quit my day job right now, I've

55:45

got three kids, I've got a wife, I've got a mortgage,

55:47

I've got I'm set up where I can't,

55:50

I couldn't do fly time, full-time.

55:54

But if I fly

55:58

tying is a great, side hustle

56:01

and I see a lot of people do a lot of success

56:03

with it as a side hustle. However

56:06

for anybody listening, just in case

56:08

you don't know this, fly

56:10

tieing and selling flies is a

56:13

business that the IRS wants. You

56:15

to be registered with form

56:18

seven 20, I think it is, where

56:21

you have to pay an excise tax. That's

56:23

10% of every fly you sell.

56:26

So if you sell a fly for 10 bucks,

56:28

they want a dollar. And

56:30

a lot of people are doing this under the table, but

56:33

if you ever get audited, you

56:35

could be in some trouble. And

56:38

so if you're thinking about doing it, make

56:40

sure you talk to somebody that's in the industry

56:43

or somebody that's done it for some time

56:46

and really see

56:48

what they say because they might have a different

56:50

opinion than me. But that's because

56:53

I, know I'm not a commercial tire. But

56:56

I know it is something that if you

56:58

want to do it, there is a

57:00

way to do it. And that's my belief.

57:03

But whether it's just fly tying,

57:05

I think it's encompassing the whole industry

57:08

as a whole. Yeah.

57:10

Yeah, there's a lot to think about too. And your

57:13

buddy having those eight or 12 streams

57:16

of revenue coming in, probably the best way to

57:18

do it, considering like the tax

57:20

and the cost of everything, like you just mentioned. Yeah.

57:23

To be successful at it. But at the same time,

57:25

being able to manage all those streams of revenue

57:28

coming in is also its own challenge, so

57:31

Oh, for sure. It's a whole,

57:33

and I don't want it to be discouraging to anybody,

57:35

like I want No, that's the reality. Reach cars

57:38

and, go out for it. But I'm more of a realist

57:40

as you just said. But

57:45

I wish I,

57:47

was talking to a one of these companies one time

57:49

and he told me that and

57:52

these numbers are way off, like I, I don't

57:54

remember the numbers, but he said the fly fishing industry

57:57

is like a 1.7

57:59

billion or trillion

58:01

industry, and I'm like, oh, that's

58:04

a lot of money. And he goes, no, it's not. He

58:06

goes pet food

58:08

for example is like a 600

58:11

trillion or, 600 billion

58:13

business pet food. And he

58:15

is they have money where they can

58:18

pay people to advertise for 'em. Like

58:21

a fly time company is such a small

58:23

portion of the fly fishing industry.

58:26

They don't have extra money. Usually it's

58:29

a, husband and wife packaging

58:31

up dubbing in Ziploc bags at

58:33

their on their weekends at night after

58:35

working a full day shift somewhere. They

58:38

don't really have money to pay an influencer

58:41

or somebody to 500

58:44

or a thousand dollars a post. They

58:46

just don't have that. And so

58:49

it's, a really, a smaller industry

58:52

where companies will send you free stuff but

58:54

not really pay you for it,

58:56

if that makes. also

58:58

feel that's why

59:01

all of us in the in fly industry are also

59:03

clamoring to get more people involved

59:05

in the industry because it is so niche

59:08

right now. And it always has

59:10

been. And with more people

59:12

entering the market to provide services,

59:15

fly tying and all sorts of stuff like

59:17

that, there needs to be more revenue coming into

59:19

it too. So there is room for people to exist

59:22

and thrive and grow in it. And

59:25

I do see a lot more people year after you're

59:27

getting into fly fishing. I think something

59:29

we need to work on and also think about

59:32

is the longevity of people, new

59:34

people coming in and staying

59:36

in the industry. Yeah.

59:40

I hope there's, I see companies starting

59:43

up and I hope they make it and do really well.

59:45

And the only way they're successful is if we support

59:47

'em and That's

59:50

that's what we got. We gotta do. Yeah,

59:52

absolutely. If you were gonna go support

59:55

a small shop, and we ask,

59:57

Kristen knows the question. If

59:59

you had to go support a small shop

1:00:01

and you could only walk out with one fly,

1:00:05

what would be the first thing you would pick? Would it be

1:00:07

a nymph, a dryer, streamer,

1:00:10

Hands down. What

1:00:14

That's not even a, that's not even a question.

1:00:17

I'm talking to the wrong people. I'm, a diehard

1:00:20

nier just because I primarily

1:00:22

target trout. And don't get me wrong, I

1:00:24

still use streamers for trout. I

1:00:26

lecture ash about this all the time,

1:00:28

but there's always a time and place for streamers.

1:00:31

Because my success has always been mostly

1:00:33

on NIMS and sometimes drives, and

1:00:36

I've definitely got a lot of big fish on streamers.

1:00:38

But she is die hard. She will

1:00:40

die take, she will take her streamers to

1:00:42

her grape with her It's,

1:00:46

one of those things. Nipping is more effective.

1:00:50

You're gonna catch more fish. Dryly

1:00:53

has its time and place. I

1:00:56

actually fish with a lot of people that are die

1:00:58

hard dry, like they will

1:01:00

throw dries all day because

1:01:02

they would rather catch one fish on a top

1:01:05

water dry, eat than

1:01:07

throw nips all day and catch a

1:01:11

yeah, I was fishing, so what's one day? And

1:01:14

I think we caught 76

1:01:16

fish nipping. And

1:01:19

the other group caught three fish throwing

1:01:21

dries and they, felt

1:01:23

like they had won. And I'm like, it's not really

1:01:26

a winner or lose, but we, caught

1:01:28

more fish. And they're like, yeah, but we caught ours on

1:01:30

drives. And I'm like, what

1:01:32

are we arguing here? So

1:01:35

you go after streamers for bait,

1:01:37

fish, leach patterns those,

1:01:40

sorts of things since they're always

1:01:42

bait fish in the water. Yeah

1:01:45

there is always big fish and water for sure.

1:01:51

I, definitely live somewhere where streamer fishing

1:01:53

is pretty successful

1:01:56

year round. And

1:01:59

I'm not gonna sit here and say I suck at streamer fishing,

1:02:01

cuz I don't, I actually started bass fishing

1:02:04

like on a spinning rod and then transitioned

1:02:06

to fly fishing. And all I used for the first

1:02:08

two or three years of me transitioning

1:02:10

into fly fishing was streamers. But

1:02:13

then after I started using nims, I was like, This

1:02:17

is my, gig now. I'm Oh

1:02:19

yeah. Only use streamers if I have to Yeah.

1:02:22

We actually started doing

1:02:25

if you're bath, I do a lot of poppers

1:02:28

trying to fish the top water. Yeah.

1:02:30

And one of the reservoirs we fish, we noticed

1:02:32

that they were feeding just

1:02:35

below the surface. So we tried the popper

1:02:37

dropper. So we were fishing the popper

1:02:39

droppers. And everyone's what are you doing?

1:02:41

And we're like if they come up and hit the the,

1:02:44

popper bonus. But

1:02:46

they were mostly feeding on the nim down below.

1:02:49

Yeah. Yep. I've seen

1:02:51

some of those popper droppers before and I've seen people

1:02:54

tag off some

1:02:57

streamers with dumbbell eyes. So they're just with

1:03:00

a little bit of tip it on

1:03:02

it, some pick, tip it on it to just

1:03:04

stream under that popper to make it look

1:03:06

like there's a little bait fish coming after that

1:03:08

popper just to check it out. So

1:03:11

I've always wanted to use those. I haven't gotten

1:03:13

the chance yet, but yeah. I love

1:03:15

some small mouth bass fishing with

1:03:18

the poppers for sure. It's

1:03:20

a lot of fun. Yeah. Nothing like it.

1:03:23

Is there any, so is

1:03:25

there anything fun that you

1:03:28

are, so we're, coming to the quarter

1:03:31

hour mark, and I know you've gotta,

1:03:33

you've gotta get up super early. So

1:03:35

is there anything that our audience

1:03:38

should be aware you're working on or

1:03:40

anything that you,

1:03:43

wanna talk about to

1:03:45

get the word out? Oh I've

1:03:49

got a list of stuff I've

1:03:51

wanted to do. I've got projects

1:03:53

and I've got video

1:03:55

ideas. I've got patterns

1:03:58

that I wanna test and do,

1:04:01

and I just, I'll be honest, I

1:04:03

haven't had the time to do any of it, and

1:04:06

so current project is

1:04:08

not really happening.

1:04:12

Sadly there's nothing really to draw people

1:04:15

in. However, I

1:04:17

keep mo trying to motivate myself to start

1:04:19

doing that, tying a fly again and sharing it

1:04:21

so that more people can

1:04:23

see or hopefully get

1:04:25

a feel of what fly tying is because

1:04:28

there's, it surprises me how many people

1:04:30

are in the fly fishing industry that have never

1:04:32

tied a fly. And

1:04:35

so if anybody out there is listening

1:04:37

to this and they've never tied a fly,

1:04:40

it's not rocket science. Go

1:04:42

to your local shop. They probably have a class.

1:04:45

Watch a few YouTube videos. There's a few

1:04:48

books that you can pick up that teach you how

1:04:50

to type lies. Because

1:04:52

even if you Taiwan and hate it, that's

1:04:54

great you tried it. It's something

1:04:56

that you can say you've tried and

1:04:58

I'm all about trying new things that

1:05:00

can maybe better you as an angler

1:05:03

and does fly make you a better

1:05:05

fly fisherman? I

1:05:08

would say yes. But I

1:05:10

also can agree with other people that if

1:05:13

they I've, told a few people when they say, should

1:05:15

I get into fly time? I'm like, no, just if

1:05:17

you don't have a lot of time, just buy your flies and

1:05:19

spend more time on the water. But

1:05:22

Flyting is a lot of fun. It

1:05:25

is. I feel like some people get on the vice

1:05:27

for the first time and they're naturals

1:05:30

and they do really well. And

1:05:32

the reality of it is a lot of people

1:05:35

get on the vice and it takes them maybe

1:05:37

a dozen flies to get that. One

1:05:39

big inner pattern learned really well.

1:05:41

And then to move on from there, I know it took me about

1:05:45

12, probably a dozen. Yeah, a dozen

1:05:47

flies before I was working on it

1:05:51

was, it's called a pink squirrel. It's a

1:05:54

Wisconsin nymph, scud

1:05:56

looking kind of thing. Love

1:05:58

tying them. They're super effective. During the wintertime,

1:06:00

which is when I first started fly, tying like

1:06:03

a dozen of those in, and I finally saw, made

1:06:05

one that I was like, I can live with this Other

1:06:09

than that, it was just terrible.

1:06:11

But I feel like people should know that going into

1:06:13

it, that your fly's not gonna turn out like

1:06:16

top shop quality material.

1:06:18

You have to put a little work into it. And

1:06:20

Krista, you gave me a new appreciation

1:06:23

for what everyone called trash flies

1:06:25

because I came down and visited her and

1:06:27

she's here throws this like piece

1:06:29

of like rubber on the desk. She's we're tying

1:06:31

with this stuff. And I'm like, I'm from

1:06:33

like Northern Michigan where we're use elk care

1:06:36

and stuff like what is this? She's come

1:06:38

on, let's use it. And sure enough, a

1:06:40

few days later it was catching fish. But it

1:06:42

was so funny because of how

1:06:44

it stretches and moves when

1:06:46

you're actually starting to wrap it. That I

1:06:49

realized. I'm like, these aren't, why do people

1:06:51

call 'em trash flies? They work really well. Yeah,

1:06:54

we were fishing a section of a stocked

1:06:56

trout creek and if

1:06:58

it was a wild trout creek, probably wouldn't have used

1:07:00

that. Definitely fish over the wild

1:07:02

streams are much more finicky. She

1:07:05

stayed the streamer the whole time.

1:07:07

I caught like maybe three or four fish

1:07:09

and she caught zero I

1:07:12

was like, you gotta use this like weird worm thing

1:07:14

and you have to use like this nip. And she's nah,

1:07:16

I'm using the streamers But

1:07:19

it's I know you've probably heard of the Quamin,

1:07:22

big fan of Thein. Big

1:07:24

fan of the ator for the stock fish I

1:07:28

know the ator real well. We

1:07:31

actually won a carp tournament with Thermin.

1:07:33

That's, yeah. So I've never tried

1:07:35

that for carp, but I

1:07:38

imagine the hook doesn't

1:07:40

hold really well to the weight of the carp,

1:07:42

is that correct? I'm

1:07:45

using an A Rack FW

1:07:47

five 50. It's a jig hook, and it

1:07:49

is perfect for those

1:07:51

carp. Like we've let's

1:07:54

see. The one the biggest one I've caught on that

1:07:56

was a 20, let's see, it was

1:07:58

28 pounds. Whoa. On

1:08:00

that hook, and it held. It's,

1:08:03

the hooks that I have are not as strong, so I will need

1:08:05

to get some stronger hooks that

1:08:08

FW five 50 is

1:08:10

a stall hook for carp.

1:08:12

If you want a list of car hooks for streamers,

1:08:15

I've tested quite a number of them and

1:08:17

I've got my favorite stall. And

1:08:19

what size ator were you using

1:08:22

for the cart? So

1:08:26

where we were at, I was using

1:08:28

a number four discriminating.

1:08:33

Yeah. Fours. And

1:08:35

locally though, I used

1:08:40

let's see, eight to

1:08:42

12. But

1:08:45

yeah, up there they're bigger carp and they

1:08:47

feed we, we

1:08:49

were site fishing for 'em too. And having

1:08:53

that bigger egg on there

1:08:56

allowed me to see when they took. Were

1:08:59

you just scooting it along the bottom or

1:09:01

just dropping it a little bit

1:09:03

away from them and, no, we were like,

1:09:05

they spook cause where

1:09:07

we were at they, they get bow fish

1:09:10

quite a bit and so they spook

1:09:12

really, easy. And so we're doing some

1:09:15

pretty, pretty long casts and

1:09:17

basically stripping it very,

1:09:19

slowly through like

1:09:22

the, grass and trying

1:09:24

to find them in the bottom of the, like the,

1:09:26

their channels cuz you know, sometimes you

1:09:28

can see 'em, sometimes you can't, depending on which way

1:09:30

the wind's blowing. But a

1:09:33

blind cast for a carp and when

1:09:36

they eat is more fun than site fishing.

1:09:38

But site fishing's fun. But

1:09:40

it's probably like when, it's always that surprise, any

1:09:43

of us steelhead hit on a swing.

1:09:46

You're just, yeah. Probably You get

1:09:48

so bored and you're standing there with a rod and then all of a

1:09:50

sudden it's oh, like you almost throw

1:09:52

it in the water. You don't know. Yeah.

1:09:54

That sense of like excitement. I've

1:09:57

got a, I've got a honey hole back

1:09:59

in right over the border in West Virginia

1:10:02

that has just like these massive

1:10:04

mirror and grass carp that are 35,

1:10:06

40 pounds easy. Just

1:10:09

massive. And sometimes

1:10:11

they do get bow fished

1:10:13

a little bit. most

1:10:16

of the time people try to fish for them and they're not successful.

1:10:19

And the only one I've been able to pull out of there

1:10:21

is one that was five

1:10:23

pounds, which is still like a a pretty big

1:10:25

carp. But I'm,

1:10:28

going back this year for those 35 pounders.

1:10:32

And just try up some different patterns,

1:10:34

try some different techniques on what you're doing.

1:10:37

And hopefully, I think car fishing

1:10:39

is one of, it's a really tough thing to do.

1:10:41

People think it's easy, but to get one

1:10:43

to eat and catch it on

1:10:45

the lip is super tough. Do

1:10:48

you ever scent your flies, or is that cheating?

1:10:52

I don't scent my flies. Some

1:10:56

places you cannot scent your flies.

1:10:59

I know of some people that sent

1:11:02

their flies, and I don't

1:11:04

know if it makes a difference or not, but

1:11:07

for carp fishing, I've never actually tried

1:11:10

or thought about scenting them. I've

1:11:15

never got it, but I didn't know if it was worth my time

1:11:17

to do it. I, know there's some materials

1:11:19

I've tried from some companies and are like, oh yeah, you

1:11:22

this, like this will hold the scent. And I'm like,

1:11:24

for what? That's

1:11:27

not how I fish, but I guess,

1:11:29

yeah, I guess I

1:11:31

should try it. Yeah. So

1:11:35

I'd have to try that, but I

1:11:37

know some of the waters I fish, you cannot

1:11:39

scent it. And it's, actually

1:11:41

mentioned that you can't, so

1:11:45

regulation wise yeah.

1:11:49

It's kinda cheating. So,

1:11:51

what, I guess what would be, since

1:11:53

you right now you're you

1:11:56

are living the family life, you're doing the family

1:11:58

thing. What

1:12:00

advice would you have to

1:12:03

wrap it up and then how

1:12:05

can people find you? So

1:12:08

what, advice would you have to any anglers

1:12:10

that are just in

1:12:12

general life advice? What would be your

1:12:14

life advice? Take

1:12:18

what you know and pass it on and don't

1:12:20

be an a-hole. Be,

1:12:22

nice to everybody. Treat

1:12:25

with the water, with respect. Pick up

1:12:27

trash when you leave. That's a huge

1:12:29

thing that I believe in. Fill your net

1:12:31

on your way to your, cotton. Just

1:12:34

because other people leave it there doesn't mean you can't

1:12:37

leave it better than when you got there. Yeah.

1:12:41

Love it. And if, you're looking for me

1:12:43

spend diesel, it's the same on all platforms.

1:12:46

Instagram, TikTok, Facebook

1:12:50

YouTube, and what's the other one

1:12:52

I'm forgetting? Vero and

1:12:55

I, have a Twitter account, but there's not really much on

1:12:57

there okay. I

1:13:00

just like seeing what Elon, I like seeing what Elon

1:13:03

Musk post, so I have a Twitter account. Who

1:13:05

knows? It could be one thing one day

1:13:07

and the next about selling

1:13:10

off. Yeah. I'm just waiting for him to get into fly tying

1:13:12

and then he'll really dominate the world. It's

1:13:15

like when Justin Bieber try to do some ads with

1:13:17

fly fishing and the whole industry was like, no,

1:13:22

That's funny how that works. Yeah.

1:13:24

Yep. That's we definitely gate keep

1:13:26

it, but yeah, we we turned

1:13:28

on him real quick. Yeah.

1:13:31

Yeah. Did you wanna, did

1:13:33

you have time to do the rapid fires or

1:13:35

did you wanna end on that note? I

1:13:39

think we can end on this note. We've,

1:13:42

had, I've, this has been a

1:13:44

lot of fun. You, have

1:13:47

a lot of knowledge in the fly tieing

1:13:49

space and I'm sure people will

1:13:51

definitely appreciate all the time you gave us tonight.

1:13:54

Yeah. Thank you. So what's the rapid fire though? I'm

1:13:56

curious now. rapid fire. This is just

1:14:00

these rapid fire questions that we have. They're

1:14:03

a little silly but just they go really quickly.

1:14:06

Do it. So we can do it. Do it. Alright.

1:14:09

I'll go, I'll do the first one and then Nash, you can do the

1:14:11

second two. By the way, Ash

1:14:13

made these ones up, keep that in

1:14:15

mind. We already did two by

1:14:17

the way. Okay.

1:14:19

Yeah. Okay. I'll do the top one. I'll do the top

1:14:21

one. So pretend

1:14:23

you're a WW WF wrestler

1:14:26

and they are j Hulk Hogan

1:14:30

Oh, sorry. I thought I was supposed to be rapid So

1:14:33

he's, a Hulk Hogan. Okay

1:14:36

we'll go into it like that, but after I finish

1:14:38

the question, you can tell it. So I have

1:14:40

to wait for you to finish. Okay. So it's not that rapid.

1:14:43

Okay. Yeah. they

1:14:45

are doing your big intro while you're

1:14:48

going to the river. What would your theme song

1:14:50

be? Huh? It's gotta be something

1:14:52

by tool or Metallica, anything. Awesome.

1:14:55

Awesome. I like that. Head

1:14:57

banging. The head banging. Yeah.

1:15:00

So we went over your

1:15:03

fishing goals for the spring. But

1:15:05

you'd probably fish streamers for

1:15:08

the rest of your life, cuz the second question is if you

1:15:10

could only fish one for the rest of your

1:15:12

life, it'd probably be streamers out of the, about

1:15:14

specifically balanced leeches. I would

1:15:16

fish balanced leeches for the rest of my life. Awesome.

1:15:20

Yeah, those were our rapid fire questions. Awesome.

1:15:23

Oh, that was easy. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

1:15:27

Thank you again so much for your time. I loved your

1:15:29

answer. Hulk Hogan and

1:15:31

he's the man, he was one of my favorites. Like

1:15:33

he was one of my favorites. Like you can't just the

1:15:36

whole look and that he is still like crushing

1:15:38

it with all his stuff, he's still, yeah,

1:15:40

he's still the man. He keeps rein. He just keeps reinventing

1:15:43

himself Somewhere in Florida, Florida

1:15:45

just showing up random. Yeah, let's go up randomly.

1:15:48

It's okay. No. On Hulk Hogan,

1:15:50

you're like, what the crap? I still cool. Yeah. I

1:15:52

still quote him to this day, so yeah.

1:15:54

Excellent. Excellent guy. Excellent fighter.

1:15:56

10 outta 10 Thanks

1:15:59

for having me on, guys. Thank you. And appreciate

1:16:02

you guys. And yeah,

1:16:05

once we, and once I get ready to do all

1:16:08

the publishing and stuff, I've got one I'm

1:16:10

finishing up right now and then I'll get onto this one.

1:16:13

I'll send you over a preLink and

1:16:15

if there's any sort of sound bites that you're like, Hey,

1:16:17

let's grab that, just let me know. Okay.

1:16:21

Awesome. All right, Ben, thank you again.

1:16:24

They always say Don't meet your heroes. I'm glad you and

1:16:26

I had the chance to talk tonight. You're

1:16:28

very humble and down to earth and thank you

1:16:30

for being you and being genuine and

1:16:32

honest through all of this. You were awesome.

1:16:35

Thanks for spreading the love and doing

1:16:37

what you're doing and trying to get the next generation

1:16:40

of being better on the water and everything.

1:16:42

So now if you guys wanna come over and help me tune

1:16:44

skis, that'd be awesome. I can

1:16:46

definitely do that. I have experience they

1:16:49

throw me on the ski. She, they threw

1:16:51

me in the ski shop whenever I was instructing for snowboarding.

1:16:54

Like you did. If I was just bored

1:16:56

and they wanted me to do stuff. I

1:16:58

definitely have a, few skis that I've tuned

1:17:00

in my time before. Yeah,

1:17:02

I actually hate it. Like I, I'm too

1:17:04

o c d with it, and so each pair's

1:17:06

gonna take me like an hour. Yeah.

1:17:09

Yeah. It is a labor, and I it's

1:17:11

too cold here, and so I have to lay a tarp

1:17:13

in my kitchen and like such

1:17:15

a pain. The little puppy's gonna run all through the

1:17:18

metal shavings and yeah. It's gonna

1:17:20

be a nightmare. Yeah. You have fun

1:17:22

with that. Thanks lot Yeah, it's gonna

1:17:24

be a blast. But hey, thanks for having me on,

1:17:26

guys. Thank you. Have a good night,

1:17:40

All right, folks. There you have it.

1:17:43

Interview with spend diesel.

1:17:46

From Utah. I'm

1:17:48

still blown away. That for over

1:17:51

two years, he tied flies

1:17:53

every single day. That is. Absolutely.

1:17:57

Amazing and kind of bonkers.

1:18:01

We want to remind you guys

1:18:03

that the Midwest

1:18:05

fly fishing expo is coming up.

1:18:09

We are going to have some really cool people

1:18:11

to talk to such as

1:18:13

Jerry Regan, Tim Flagler.

1:18:16

The people over at TFO

1:18:19

Brian cause. I

1:18:22

could keep naming people cause it's a

1:18:24

family reunion for all of us

1:18:26

back here in Michigan. So please

1:18:28

join us for that event. If

1:18:31

you haven't. Please

1:18:33

head over to. The

1:18:36

link at the bottom of

1:18:38

this episode description.

1:18:41

That says support. And

1:18:43

give that a click. If

1:18:45

you decide to support monthly

1:18:48

at $10 a month, we

1:18:50

will happily get you on

1:18:52

the show to talk about. Your

1:18:54

experiences with fly fishing.

1:18:57

As well as talking about

1:18:59

what it is and why you're supporting

1:19:01

us. As always,

1:19:04

we appreciate you. We're

1:19:06

excited that you continue to join

1:19:08

us week after week. And

1:19:11

keep doing that. And

1:19:14

as always loop to

1:19:16

loop is a mindful

1:19:18

trout production.