Ep 37: Why We Do It, with Nick Viau
Nick Viau is a traditional bowhunter and fly fisherman, and cohost of the Traditional Outdoors Podcast alongside Steve Angell. Nick is a dive-right-in kind of guy who always goes straight for the type of activities others build up to. He’s an avid smallmouth angler, but also loves chasing trout, panfish, and anything else that’ll take his fly. In this episode, we cover everything from why Nick is drawn to fly fishing and how he likes to do it, to what different species and techniques offer, and some of his favorite memories. We also start off with a short discussion of how fly fishing’s social media presence has evolved over the years and how the forum has gone by the wayside.
Instagram: @nick.viau
Traditional Outdoors Instagram: @traditionaloutdoors
Website: Life and Longbows
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. all right welcome to episode number 37 of the fish untamed podcast Now, if you listened to the last episode, you heard me talk with Steve Angell from the Traditional Outdoors podcast. And this week, I'm actually talking to his co-host, Nick Viau. And if you've listened to their podcast before, you know that their chemistry works out pretty well. But if you have not listened to their podcast, you might be surprised after hearing Steve and my conversation with him versus my conversation with Nick today. Because they're two very different people, and naturally we had two very different conversations. But Nick is a really fun guy, really easy to talk to. So I'll go ahead and cut it off here and just hop right over to my conversation with him. I am sitting down today with Nick Viau, also from the Traditional Outdoors podcast, which I was talking with Steve last week. So how are you doing tonight, Nick?
Nick
I'm doing really well, and I'm stoked to be on your show, Katie. It was fun to have you on our show, and I'm happy to be on yours.
Katie
Yeah, I know we almost ended up talking last week. Steve almost had to back out at the last minute, but then he was like, you know what? You should reach out to Nick. I think he'd be a good guest. And I was like, yeah, I don't know why I didn't think to just have you both on. So it's good to talk to you guys both kind of one after the other.
Nick
Yeah, yeah. And we both kind of bring something different to it too. So Steve and I are an interesting combination just in generations. And, you know, we're kind of a cool friendship that just kind of developed, especially being states away and stuff like that. So it's, it's, we kind of have a cool dynamic that way. Known each other a long time.
Katie
Yeah. How did you guys meet?
Nick
We met on Twitter.
Katie
Really?
Nick
It's really, yes. Like, so there was a while before Twitter was an absolute cesspool. Like we used to, it was a place where a lot of hunter hunters and fishermen and outdoorsmen and men and women in general got together and just kind of found each other. And, you know, that was before Facebook messenger. So it was kind of like, you know, for a while we were just, we had this hunt chat. It was just hashtag hunt chat and somebody hosted it every week. I wish I remember who that guy's name was, but, Steve would get on that and I would get on that. And, and a lot of people kind of came from that. In fact, one of my best friends, John Buesheen, who's the president of the Michigan Longbow Association. And I served with him there and he, he was, I met him on Twitter too. And he lives in Kalamazoo. He's not even 45 minutes away from me. We hunt together all the time and I had never met him prior to Twitter. So there was a whole bunch of us that met on Twitter on this hunt chat thing. And we kind of just started DMing each other. And, I wanted to, I had a blog going called life and long bows. I still do. And Steve had simply traditional and Steve's a computer guy. And I really didn't know much about web hosting or anything like that. So I was like, hey, you know, I, I got to get off. I wanted to start a blog and basically one of the guys that work for my web team said, well, you can jump into a server with us and, you know, just split the cost or whatever. And it was ridiculously cheap. It was like $5 a year or something like that, but I didn't have control over anything. And it was like their server. And I'm like, what if this person just shuts it down? He goes, well, you're just kind of out of luck then. So I was like, okay, well, I need to get out of this. And I talked to Steve about it and he helped me through kind of making life in longbows, its own sustain self-sustaining thing. And, and, we were both writing. We've, we've always written and I helped Steve out with some writing early on. And then I started contributing some things to simply traditional. Then I became like a simply traditional pro pro field staff guy. Um, it was just a, just a thing. And, and we kinda, I went down to visit him a couple of times with our mutual friend, Tom. and you know we just became friends but yeah I remember the first time I hunted with him it was the first time I'd ever met him in person so that's kind of funny
Katie
I just you know I know this is a generalization but just thinking of kind of the older who you'd expect to be the the mentor in maybe like the outdoor world in Steve but instead he's the one helping you with your website it's kind of the reverse roles of what you'd expect
Nick
yeah and Steve like I I never really envisions Steve as being older when we first met I kind of just you know you don't really ask like you know you're just kind of one of those I thought and then when I first talked to Steve I thought he was ancient because he's got that like he's got like that like southern drawl you know and he sounds like an old soul like older than he is and I was like man how old are you and you know we got talking and you know I don't think he I don't think he ever really thought of me as being young either and there were a few other people on there that well we were all different age groups and it was it really didn't matter so when I first met Stephen found out you know he was quite a bit older than me not not way way older than me but older brother older you know like kind of thing it was it was just interesting like people always ask me like how'd you end up being really good friends with that guy he lives in Georgia and he's you know pretty you know a lot older than you are and I'm like well my friends tend to be older anyway so it doesn't really matter. Like even with the MLA, you know, the longbow association, a lot of that audience and the law and the longbow audience, when I got into it, that was an aging demographic anyway. So I've used to, I'm used to being around people, you know, that are older than me and always being the young guy.
Katie
So. Now does he know that you thought he was ancient?
Nick
Oh, he, I make fun of him all the time about that. I give him all kinds of hell. He he's yeah. I mean, I'm 38, So it's not like I, you know, I'm like 25 or something like that. You know, when I met him, you know, I was 28, 29 years old. So, you know, it's really not a big deal, but I like to make fun of him for being old. He goes, well, how old do you think I am? One day he asked me and I just bricked it. I don't know. But anyway, enough about Steve being old, I guess. He's going to hear this and be like, man, he had to get into that. Oh, he will.
Katie
We spent the majority of the episode just talking about how old we thought you were.
Nick
yeah and that's funny though how you don't really know like when you just meet somebody's online and again this was twitter this was more ambiguous this wasn't just like facebook where you like know what you're getting into and then once we and the funny thing about twitter to wrap that up like when facebook messenger became a thing and facebook communities came out and kind of and kind of just like destroyed the forum you know because everybody was on forums and stuff before that like people stopped all the people who were on twitter twitter got super noisy like all twitter was about was pushing content out and not not communicating anymore and we kind of got over that and everybody that was on twitter kind of left twitter and went to facebook before facebook got ridiculous and you know that that's kind of it was kind of weird and I've seen some people gravitate back I've tried twitter a few times again and I used to love twitter that was my social media that was my thing and then I discovered instagram and like you know what I really just like I like to look at pictures so I'm like I like instagram like I don't really do much on you know twitter and I only post on facebook occasionally not that this is just social media podcast but twitter twitter used to be like this this place where you know hunter hunters and gatherers and fisher people fishermen fisher women all got together and like met and talked every night like every night I used to spend like two three night two three hours at night on Twitter just multitasking you know watching tv hanging out and just talking to these people and it's funny how that one day that just kind of died everybody was like well we're tired of this and then we all moved over to something else
Katie
yeah and what I've found is that I feel like most of the people that I engage with on social media are it's like an Instagram crowd that's where the majority of the people that I follow. I mean, Instagram's besides Go Wild, which is still a pretty small community, and that's outdoor specific. But as for like the big ones, like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Instagram's the only one I'm on. And I like it because I like seeing people's pictures, and it seems to be one that everyone uses, which is great, but it's not very good for discourse. And I really wish there were, you know, like I'm not on Twitter, But it sounds like what it was back when you met Steve on it is like what I'm kind of wanting is almost more of just like straight up forum. I kind of wish there were more forums that were, you know, people were active on them and could write eloquently. And, you know, it's just there's a lot of forums where you go on and you're like, oh, this is a topic I'm interested in. But it was posted 10 years ago and, you know, had three replies. And Instagram's just not great for that.
Nick
Yeah, it's not at all. And I still think it's funny that Instagram, like you can't even, you have to have like a third party application just to repost. Like it's just, it's, and then you can't post the links and stuff. And you know, you have to do the link in bio and all these workarounds and stuff like that. And then they keep trying to push stories and then Facebook bought it and they were trying to make Facebook stories and all this stuff. And it's kind of like, I, you know, I've talked to a few other people, even outside of that, who were like, man, I miss forums forums were like you had like an identity and there was still a little bit of mystery and since they weren't like since they were kind of clunky you had to think more of what you had to say before you got on there and just spewed a bunch of terrible grammar you know drivel and then just flaming people like you know you had to think about it and then your reputation was on the line because it stayed there it didn't die immediately like facebook just everything gets buried you know or twitter everything gets buried
Katie
and you're not pushing your own content it's it's not about like creating your own image because you're just responding to basically texts other people put out so it's not you're there's not that weird like you're engaging with people while also trying to like push this narrative about yourself that may or may not be real it's just it the forums don't have that like fake aspect to them they're just people talking
Nick
they take more work to get invested like people don't really if you're going to contribute people expect that you're going to contribute and know what you're talking about in a forum the problem with forums is like you know it once they pick up steam you know they start getting they either start going too fast or the opposite they start going way too slow they start to die and people find other things and then you get the whole crowd where like you know I remember people all the time in the traditional bow hunter forums and stuff and they still exist people still use them but people used to get really mad when people would ask the same questions over and over again and say oh check the stickies and I'd be like look if you guys don't let people like ask the same questions over and over and over this is not we're just not going to have the content to keep this going
Katie
I mean by that logic it's just like well then just google it you know the whole point is that I want to have it's it's because it's more than just I want my question answered it's also like I want to talk to people about my questions it's it's rarely asking like a yes or no question you want to discuss with people you want to hear people's answers to your specific post and then and then give them also personalized responses back to their responses to you and just looking through the the stickies for your question it's like well that by that point I can just google it and hope that that pops up but it's not the there's not that engagement
Nick
and there was more of a I guess there was a cost of entry with a, with a forum. Like if you got on there, you know, it, it did take a little bit more work to find a topic and to, to find it again and stuff like that. And, you know, I, I think the reason why I just quit being on forums, you know, when Facebook communities came out, I pretty much stopped being on forums. Cause I was like, okay, well, I can't keep up here and I can't keep up here. And then, Ooh, Facebook's got notifications and I can message people and I get notifications for the message and it's on my phone and all this other stuff. And I was like, this is awesome. And then now it's to the point where it's like overload, you know, because everything's got a notification. You're like, man, it would really be cool if we could just go back to forums. I could check a topic like, you know, a couple times a week and it wouldn't be so, so buried where I couldn't find it again. And there's like no healthy medium. I remember Reddit tried to be that healthy medium. I was just about to bring up Reddit. Reddit became an absolute, because it gives all the people who were in the social media that were all about the, you know, basically arguing all the time, you know, just thought, oh, look, I can get the ambiguity back that I had when I was in the forums, but I can also move it faster, like on Reddit and with Reddit. So I can just, it's just a total garbage fire. Like, it's just, you know, I can, I can do anything I want on it. It's like the wild west. So, you know, I was on that for a little while and I was like, I can't do this anymore. this is insane. Like I, you know, at least, at least with Facebook and like stuff like that. And Instagram people are really good about, you kind of know who you're talking to, right? It's not total, like you're not hiding behind a call sign. You're showing a lot of your life. So it's not like you can just, you know, pretend to be whoever. Right. People pretty much know who you are if they're following you, which is why another reason why I really like Instagram. But so yet, like you said, though, it's not really a connection thing. It's more like, okay, let's exchange information and dm and then let's move to a different platform
Katie
yeah and like like you said I mean you might be engaging with someone in the comments but then they click on you and now they see your whole thing too which is which is kind of nice in a in a way because you can't just hide behind an anonymous name like if you're calling people out for something and then they can go back and check to see if you've ever done that in your pictures like basically you could be called out for being a hypocrite whereas in a forum unless they happen to find a reply that you you left a long time ago you could you could change who you are in every single engagement you know you you participate in in a forum whereas instagram it's not really the case because you also have this kind of public history of yourself just out for display but like I I'm still on reddit but my one big complaint like specifically for fly fishing because I'm I follow the fly fishing subreddit and my my big complaint is that I want to go on there and treat it like a forum where I want to go on and ask questions and answer people's questions and then basically that's it but the the fly fishing subreddit is I feel like 80% just people sharing pictures of the trout they've caught which is great but I'm like this is this is for Instagram this is like where this kind of content belongs where it's just you sharing a picture being like look at this rainbow which is great you know I definitely want people to you know be excited about their catches and want to share them but I don't really care to go to reddit which is a basically a forum website and just see pictures of people's trout with no sort of questions or commentary or anything about it it's just like look at this fish and I'm like this just isn't the right place for this and so I I find myself not wanting to engage and like actually go through and find people's questions that I like I I want to go on and engage with people and answer questions they have but I just don't want to sift through you know 10 pictures of stalker rainbows to go find that question that someone is genuinely like trying to get into fly fishing and really wants to know what rod to get like I'm not going to go look for that
Nick
and it's funny on like instagram too you know I follow quite a few hashtags for fly fishing on instagram and and you can only look like yeah I wish people would talk more about what that was what the what the fish was actually about like you know what they did you know usually it is like you said it's just here's a brookie here's a rainbow here's this you know and it's every day yeah and you're just like oh here's my rod and reel you know this is a great colorful shot of my rod and reel on this you know that's awesome I love to look at that stuff but the only thing I miss with it is that yeah you don't get that story behind it you know I like I want to know whoa hey well you know I want to know a little bit more about this I don't that's great you know other than the you really ought to take that fish out of the water or really stop taking that fish out of the water and up in the air you're gonna kill that kind of stuff because that happens all the time too you always get that one person
Katie
there's someone in particular I'm thinking of and I'm not gonna name any names but I've seen a couple fish held up recently that I'm like that fish is dead oh yeah you're like you can't just reach out and be like hey you know loving the content but just want to let you know that the last three fish you've held up didn't make it
Nick
exactly you're like I hope you bring that up I'm like you might as well eat that because It's not going to be right. I know. And it's the same thing too. We're like, when I, you know, people beach these huge fish and I'm just like, wow, that thing is just, okay. It took you way too long. Like, like when I catch something, I'm so freaked out about it. Like, I know it's going to happen. You know, sometimes it's just going to happen. Yeah. And I, but man, I like, you know, cause you're stumbling to get your phone. Like, there's not a good way to do it. Like you're stumbling to get your phone out and you don't want to drop your phone. You're doing this, this, and this. And like, I've tried a bunch of different ways to do it. And, you know, that's fine. Finally, I'm like, at first I didn't use a net. And I was like, I just, you know, I'd land the fish. My buddy was like, you don't need a net. You just land it, land it right. You know, bring it up to you and get, you know, keep your ride, keep the line tight and land it. You don't need a net. And I'm like, yeah, but if I want to take a picture of it, you know, like I'm not coordinated enough to like get my phone, keep the rod up. I'm six foot four. So if I'm keeping my rod way up in the air, you know, it's just looks, it's stupid. Like it just feels all wrong. And, you know, I either the fish gets off or I dropped the fish or I almost dropped my phone or all this. Like, finally, I'm like, you know what, if I'm going to do this myself, because no one's usually around when I fish, then I at least if I have a net, I can net the fish, keep it in the water, you know, take a quick shot of it or whatever I need to do and then let it go.
Katie
And it's that easy. I'm in the same boat. I probably nine out of 10 times I go fishing. I'm by myself and that that leads to nine out of ten of my fish photos are just my hand holding a fish in the water like right in front of me like I'm not in them it's just my hand uh-huh you know putting the same and I'm like I know people who fish alone and they carry you know a nice camera and a tripod and set it up on shore so the camera's already on them and I'm like I just don't have that that drive to to get good photos and so all my photos just end up me being like an awkward angle of my hand holding a fish in the water.
Nick
I know you try to get all creative with it and nice with it. And like, yeah, there's like two shots I can take. And one's just like the river with like, put my rod in it for context. And then there's the, just my hand holding a fish thing. And, and, or now I just got to have a bunch of fish in that. And I would love to figure that. Like I was telling Steve one day, I'm like, you know, I really like to start, you know, just like videotaping it, you know, using the, you know, GoPro or something like that. And I did end up getting a chest mounted one and stuff but it's just such a pain like when I go fish like I'm like what am I doing this for am I doing this for content or am I doing this for because I want to fish and I don't get to go out and fish enough with two kids at home to be in especially with everything going on now like I don't have if I'm going to go out I'm not going to fiddle with a camera and everything else and just I just want to go fish and enjoy it where if you feel if you're doing it for content constantly it's just like this is just becoming like you know like what what is my what is my my goal here at the end of the day and my goal is not to share tons of content so it's kind of like okay one thing like I like to write and stuff but I don't need to be producing content constantly it's it's something I do at work I mean I'm a multimedia coordinator at a university so I mean that's all I do is produce content all the time and work with content and I'm like man I want all this outdoor stuff to be simple I've always been about that and you know that's kind of just like it just puts a little bit too much responsibility a little bit too much pressure a little bit too much it feels like a job when you're doing that all the time
Katie
yeah because you're constantly looking around for like what can I take a picture of and I've gone through the same the same kind of progression of really really wanting to get better photos and like try to try to make something work buy tripods or something and I'm like you know what at the end of the day I most the pictures I'm taking are just to document like if I got a nice fish I want to remember that I caught it and I want to see what it's like and so it's like yeah I can see that in the net and I'll just take a picture of it in the net or holding it in the water in one of my hands like
Nick
yeah yeah exactly and I don't know if you're into you know fly fishing literature or not but I love the old stuff you know a lot of people you know know Traver and things like that and when you read you know even some of the old like Charles K Fox and things like that and and Gord McQuarrie and I love all those old literature I love to write and I love all those old literature outdoors books outdoor literature is like my thing and you know they didn't have all that then so you had to read about it and they paint such vivid beautiful pictures that it's like I don't need to see it now I see so much that I'm kind of just like I'd rather read about it I'm like even going back further because like then I can imagine what it looks like rather than here's a fish
Katie
I agree completely I mean it's almost like you're jaded to it like like you said you just see picture after picture of like here's a brookie here's a rainbow here's a brown it's like there comes a point where you see it and you just don't even look at it anymore because you're like yes I know what a rainbow trout looks like
Nick
and then you're like and why do they always look so much better than mine like how come every time I'm like why does the scenery and everybody's stuff look way better than mine
Katie
because they're trying to get good photos
Nick
exactly it's like I'm taking it with a flip phone or something like that and I've got some old like you know low budget lo-fi thing going on and I'm like everybody else has these big fish and like these beautiful rainbows and browns and brookies and salmon and all this stuff and I'm just like struggling just to take a decent photo with my camera with my with my phone you know and I'm like I can't compete with that anyway so I'm not sure why I'm trying so now I just kind of just you know I I kind of do it just to show hey I'm out doing this you know and just to have it on record because actually I almost I almost treat instagram like a photo album sometimes because I got you know I can go back like if I'm writing or something I can go back and remember that day and be like oh yeah that's when I caught oh it was this day not this day and then it's almost like making a journal entry you know it's more selfish than it is anything else
Katie
yeah I've had the same experience because if you're looking for a photo just in your your photo roll or whatever on your phone it's like you have to compete with okay I took 30 pictures of my dog yesterday eating the biscuit I gave her so I'd have to sit back but on but on social media you're like okay well I probably just posted the highlights of of fishing so I don't have to go back that far to what I'm looking for
Nick
I caught like you know go out and I had a really good bass trip this year a couple really good bass bass trip with small mouths and things like a small mouth I love small mouth fishing on the swing with streamers I absolutely love it and there's a couple places to go here the flat river is really good for it and yeah it the it's like you know when I have a good day because my phone's got like I you know if I catch 20 small mouth and I have 20 pictures on my I'm like I really need to take a picture of every single small mouth that I caught get I'm just like flipping through it I'm like did I go into auto on my camera what did I do here or did I just they all look like the same fish over and over and over again I don't feel why I felt like I had to take a picture of every single one but you know when I was growing up a successful trip fishing when we were bait casting and stuff like that was you brought a bucket of bluegills or whatever home or and and it was kind of like proof that hey I caught something so now with catching release if I if I feel like I don't get a picture I didn't do anything I'm like I had to get something you know I can't just enjoy it
Katie
I feel the same way and like I grew up fishing almost exclusively for smallmouths too and I would like as a kid I would I'd venture away from like we had a cottage on a river and so I I'd go out there and then just go up and down the river and I was the same way where I've never really kept any of the small mouths but I would have to bring them back to show my dad that I caught them and get a picture of them and I would sometimes bring them back like half a mile like I just I just like drag them through the water and walk back because I'm like I will not let this opportunity go to waste to show someone that I caught a fish
Nick
oh exactly and it's funny because the first time I went fishing my wife was like fly fishing she's like well did you get anything did you bring it home I'm like that's not really what you do or my you know her dad asked me that my father-in-law asked me that he's like well did you bring any home to cook up and I'm like no and he's like well why not I'm like because fly fishing you catch and release so I mean that's what the bulk of everybody does because they want to catch him again the whole point's catching it it's the whole you know it's not necessarily eating it not that I'm against it but you know I he didn't like get it I was like you know because he's from he's not really an outdoors person. And he said, well, growing up, if you caught anything, like that was dinner, you know? And I'm like, yeah, that's not really why I am in it. And I didn't really like fish growing up to eat. I like it now, but I mean, I don't, I don't think I, I think the last time I had fish was, I finally like ate something. Um, I went this summer, I went with my dad to, to fish walleye. He's been fishing walleye all his life. And I never went with them. Like fishing just wasn't my thing. It was, I was too boring. Um, back then, funny, I don't think it's boring now. I think it's one of the most exciting things you can do, but then it was really boring. And my dad would stand for hours down when the walleye were in and the salmon were running and stuff like that and catch it. We finally, you know, my dad likes to go out and catch a walleye, bring it home and cook it. Like, and that's what we did. And, and, you know, it's hard to pass up, you know, Parmesan encrusted walleye, your grilled walleye, you know, stuff like that. I mean, it's just, it's so good, but I think that's the first time I actually ate a fish that I caught in probably over a decade maybe 20 years so yeah
Katie
well it's also weird because there's almost like a hierarchy of like what you eat so like I've I've been getting more into keeping fish but I always seem to find an excuse why I should let this one go you know like I'll go out like okay I'd like to keep some fish today I want something I want some fish for dinner and then go out and catch like a cutthroat and I'm like well you know this is a native fish it's it's our state fish I really should let this one go but maybe next one and I'll catch that one and be like yeah this one's got really nice spots you know
Nick
oh yeah I have a real I have a really hard time with that
Katie
yeah so I'm like I just want to catch like a dozen stocker rainbows so I can keep those and then and then appreciate the beauty and the rest of them but I always come back with fewer than I intend to keep because I always find some reason why this one needs to live
Nick
and we have a lot of a lot of the rivers I fish, you know, I have a lot of, you know, we have some wild trout, but a lot of them are plants. So, you know, that's, they're probably ain't going to make it anyway. Right. But to be honest, but I mean, you know, and then I've had a lot of people tell me, you know, oh, well, you know, my dad always said, you don't want to eat a trout. You know, he's like, if you're going to eat a trout, you're going to eat it right away. He's like, cause it's, it's by the time you get at home and whatnot. And he goes, they're just not a fish that, you know, they're oily and, and they're just not a great tasting fish. And he's like, you almost got to cook it right away. Like right when you get off out of the river. Um, and, he goes, that's something you just catch cause it's for sport. And, you know, we used to lake trout fish downrigger style when I was a kid. Um, my, my dad's friend, Ron had a boat and we used to go out on the great lakes and lake trout fish and that those were great. You know, they'd keep those and eat them. But like, otherwise there's very few fish that I really like to eat, you know? So it's more of just an entertainment for me.
Katie
So how did you get your start in the outdoors or fishing and specifically fly fishing? How did you get started with that?
Nick
I'm an adult onset hunter and fisherman. I really didn't care for the outdoors at all when I was a kid. I like to be in the outdoors. We grew up in the woods of northern Michigan. I'm from Sheboygan, Michigan, right up by the Straits of Mackinac and right off Lake Huron. And, we spent a lot of time in the woods. I mean, I went out with my dad all the time and, and, you know, hiked and squirrel hunted and stuff like that. But I wasn't really into the whole, you know, hunting and killing kind of thing. I wasn't into fishing. My mom had to bribe us with baseball cards and comic books. Cause my dad liked to fish and they'd be like, well, if you kids go out, I have two little brothers and you kids go out and catch the biggest fish. You guys get a pack of hockey cards or you guys get comic books or whatever. My, my one brother, my middle brother, Matt, he was all about it. my brother Isaac and I weren't really into it. You know, we were always getting snagged. My dad would flip out, you know, it was, it was not, it was not entertainment for my dad to go fishing with all of us. Like it was a stressful endeavor. Like you could just tell, like he just, you know, he'd go from one and he'd break off one snag and retie. By the time he did that, he'd go to the other kid, do the same. Then my mom, and then he'd have to go back to the first kid because they'd be snagged and break again. He spent the whole time going back up and forth along the blank, complaining, trying to get us all situated. So it really wasn't like it was a great family outing whenever we went fishing and I just didn't, I just didn't dig it. It like, it wasn't my thing. Um, when I went downrigger fishing and stuff with my dad and my pseudo uncle Ron, you know, not by blood, but basically my uncle. Um, that was more about me just hanging out with my dad and Ron and having a, and just, it was almost just like a bonding thing or it was like, Hey, you're one of the boys now, you know, and when I got to go out and do that, you know, and they used to, they used to make me, I mean, I was like, you're talking to 10, 11 year old kids steering a boat in the Straits of Mackinac and the shot and like in a chop, you know, while they're, you know, hitting down riggers, like it was a, it was a stressful kind of situation, but I really liked it. It was fun to go out with that, go out with them and wake up early and have that experience. So I did some fishing and thing like, and things like that. And I liked ice fishing and all kinds of stuff but it wasn't my thing I mean it just deer hunting wasn't my thing fishing wasn't my thing I didn't know anybody that fly fished I'd never even heard of it so I didn't know anything about fly fishing I also didn't know that people hunted with traditional bows like longbows and recurves so had I been had I known about that stuff I probably would have been more into it but to me it looked really easy like hunting with a gun and stuff like that looked really easy to me and since I wasn't a big fan of eating fish or eating wild game I really didn't care if I went or not and I always was in sports I wrestled I played football I wrestled I played baseball I did everything so I really didn't have time so I just never did it the seed was planted unknowingly but at the time I did not I didn't have any interest well fast forward to when I would like I was 27 years old I just you know I was out of college I was actually I was pursuing I was just finishing up with my master's degree I had a job my wife Jessica and I were we're you know we were dating and I kind of just like no we were married but like we didn't have a family or anything yet we I just one day I just I'm like you know I'm really stressed out with all this adulting I'm doing I need to do I need something for stress I'd always had an anxiety problem and I'm like you know I really would like to I really would like to shoot a bow and arrow and jess is like well a compound and I'm like no like and I was reading this hawkeye comic book at the time it was like a rainy day or a green arrow comic book I mean and I was like no I think I want to shoot a longbow and she's like that's random and I'm like oh it is random but I kind of want to do it and before I knew it I got into it I found hunting through that and the community around it and that really I mean within a year I was out and had my first dough on the ground and in the freezer. And that really got me in to the outdoors. And it kind of reignited that spark that I had when I was a kid, that I didn't really know it. It made me, it made me think of home and, and hanging out with my dad and, and all that stuff. So, you know, I bow hunted for years. I bow hunted for, you know, I started in 2009 and I, and I, you know, I've been bow hunting ever since. And, then one day, my friends on that, you know, I'll never forget it. It was a, it was a Memorial day weekend and they were like, Hey, you know, let's go fly fishing. Like they, they all got rods and stuff the year before they got entry packs and stuff. And they're like, let's go, let's go fly fishing. Nick, you need to get a fly rod. Everybody was telling me, Nick, you need to get a fly rod for like a year. And then finally in Memorial day, they're like, just go get a fly rod. Let's go. You can get one for like a hundred and some dollars little did I know everything costs a lot more than that the barrier for entry for flatfish it is not just 150 like you can do that but it's very quickly adds up so I because I needed waders and I needed all that you know how it is so I did it I just took the plunge and we went out and started splashing water and I mean I think I got one of those cabela's kits the prestige or something like that it wasn't a very good rod and reel and it wasn't the rod is biggest thing the rod was a brick I mean it was just a fast action brick and it just did not you know I think I had a think I had a six weight or something like that and we were going after these little browns and it just wasn't I couldn't cast it very well but we had a blast it was me and two of my buddies and we were just laughing the entire time and I'm like if this is what fly fishing's about this is awesome like I absolutely love this you know just wading down the river and just, you know, going after browns. And like we fished all day. I fished all weekend. Then I started going. I eventually, I think I upgraded the next week. I immediately got into a better rod. And then I got, immediately got into, I got more flies and I immediately got into, you know, like a, you know, better line and a better reel. I mean, I upgraded the whole rig. I took everything back to Cabela's, turned it in and got all better stuff. And, you know, then I started to learn, I really got hooked when I got the new rod and it was, it was a slower action rod and I could feel it load. It's, it was a Cabela's vector and I could feel it load. And I was just like, okay, I get it. This is starting to make sense now. And, I started fishing every time I had the chance. I'm like five minutes away from the rogue river and, and about 10 minutes away from the flat. And then like 20 minutes away from the white river. I got tons in the Grands right there, but I don't fish the Grand, but there's a ton of rivers here in, in, Rockford, Michigan. That's where I live. And I can go, I'm, I'm, you know, it's a short car ride to go anywhere. So I'm like, I'm in the perfect spot. Like I can, I can get in my car and I can go fishing after work or I can go in the morning or I can do whatever. And I just wanted to fish all the time. And I got absolutely hooked. And, you know, now that I, again, I think had I known about fly fishing when I was younger, I think I would have really liked it. not as much as I do now but I think I would have got into it
Katie
that's kind of a backwards story. I feel like from from what I hear most often that you kind of dove right into the like quote unquote harder things that people usually you know they kind of work up to you know they start with a spin rod and and a probably a gun and then move to a compound bow and then traditional bow and that gets hard but you just dove right into like traditional archery and everything that's pretty impressive that you got a deer down your first year I feel there's a lot of people who don't get deer down their first year hunting at all let alone with a compound bow let alone with a traditional bow
Nick
yeah and I don't I didn't do the tree stand either I've never really hunted much. I have never had one and part of it's because I'm so big and I got big feet and I'm like you know I'm I've never been I'm okay with like really being really high up in the air on like a roller coaster or something but you put me at 10 15 feet and for some reason that's like ladder on house height and for some reason I just get really weird about it I'm getting better but I was like you know what I don't know how to do any of this I'm just gonna buy a seat and I'm gonna walk out into the woods and sit there I'm gonna make a little blind and I'm gonna hunt out of it my dad never hunted out of a tree stand he always hunted on the ground with a rifle he'd sit on a stump or something yep and that's how we did it and I was like that's how I'm gonna do it and yeah it is I am really different that way though where I've just I've never like I've never shot a compound I've never I've never shot anything with a gun and I you know I did spin cast for a lot of years you know that because that's what we did and I do enjoy that I I can't say that I don't enjoy it like I honestly fishing for walleye with my dad and and you know and crawler harnesses and stuff. That was a lot of fun. That's just a different kind of fishing. I love fishing, pan fishing that way, you know, just, you know, throwing for rock bass, sunfish, bluegill, all that. That's fine. I'd rather do it with a fly rod though. And that's the way I felt with a longbow when I hunted too. It was kind of like, you know, I could shoot it with this, but then I would have wished I got it with my longbow. I could catch this fish, but then I wish I had got it with my fly rod. Um, so I just go right for the thing. And I'm like, you know what the whole, I'm an experience driven hunter and, fisherman. And the catch is second to me. It's I I'm really hunting experiences. That's really all I'm doing. And I love to write and I, and I, I write about everything and that's just what, that's what drives me. It's to, it's to write about it and to create literature and, and do all that. It's not about, you know, I go through droughts with deer. I probably get a deer every two, three years. Hopefully that improves in the near future, and I guess I'm getting better. But, yeah, I never got into it to have a high harvest rate or success rate. It was always just I want to do the activity.
Katie
The interesting comparison between – because I know fly fishing and bow hunting get compared a lot, and that's obviously the two main topics of your podcast. But what's kind of interesting is that I feel like traditional bow hunting is objectively harder than hunting with a rifle. Like you can't argue that at all. The only argument you can say for bow hunting, at least out here, is, for example, for elk, you know, you get to hunt them in the rut if you're using a bow. So you get the benefit of hunting them in the rut. But apart from that, just weapon to weapon, there's no comparison. A rifle is just straight up easier to use than a bow at all, let alone a traditional bow. But with fly fishing, I do feel like in general, it's considered kind of a more artistic, more of a finesse, difficult activity. But there's a lot of times where I feel a lot more confident with a fly rod. Where if I walk up to a trout stream and you handed me a spin rod, I would feel almost handicapped. Because I'd be like, I don't really know what to do here. Whereas a fly rod, I feel like I would know what to do. And there's times where I feel like the fly rod actually is the preferred method. And that's not necessarily all the time. But I can't think of a situation where if you handed someone a traditional bow, they'd be like, oh, well, actually in this situation, this is going to give me an advantage over the rifle hunters. You know, like that's not the case.
Nick
You know, it's funny you mention that because so I went out one year and I love the turkey hunt. My buddy John and I love it. I read 10th Legion, and Colonel Tom Kelly wrote that, and it's a turkey hunting classic. Even if you're not into turkey hunting, you read 10th Legion, you want to turkey hunt. It's just one of those books. It's just so beautiful in his pursuit. It's just amazing, just a great storyteller, and I even had it on audio because he reads it, and it's fantastic. Well, one year after reading, after reading 10th Legion, I was like, okay, I've been chasing turkeys with this bow and it's really hard to get a turkey with a traditional bow running gun. And I love that style of turkey hunting, the call and the move. And that's what my buddy John and I do. We call, we move, we go after them. We, we get down into a, you know, we quickly get undercover and we try to, we try to shoot it with our longbows. And that's what we do. And a lot of guys hunt it that way, but it's not the most successful thing. I've been doing it for five, six years now. We still don't have a turkey on the ground. We keep saying we will. And like, it's been close every year, but every year we go, you know, it would be really easy to get me one with a shotgun. We've been in that range. Well, one year I did, I, you know, I broke down and I brought, I bought a, I bought a shotgun and, you know, I, I got that all matched and all figured out and got the choke and everything all figured out. I was really stoked about it. Well, I went out and I had a great opportunity at a turkey and I missed it. And I always said, how can you miss anything with a shotgun? It's a shotgun. Like, you'd have to be an idiot to miss something with a shotgun. It's a big bird, and you're shooting it with a shotgun, and you're like 15 yards away. How could you miss that thing?
Katie
I have also missed a turkey with a shotgun, and I wanted the same thing.
Nick
And it's a different thing. Like, it's not, and for one, I practice with my bow all the time. I don't practice with a shotgun all the time. And I came back, and my wife goes, well, how'd you do? because she really wants me to get a turkey because she'd actually eat that. She doesn't eat red meat, but she eats turkey. And I'd be like, okay, well, I missed it. She goes, you took your gun, right? I'm like, I did. He goes, how did you miss it with your shotgun? And I'm like, I don't know. But if I can miss it with my shotgun, I can miss it with my longbow. And I'd rather take it with a longbow. I'm just going to take my longbow and I put my gun away.
Katie
If you're going to miss it anyway, might as well have the experience of a bow.
Nick
Exactly. I put my gun away and never got it back out for turkey season again. So now, you know, it's just one of those things. And it's like, I feel more confident with a longbow cause I know the weapon. I know what to do with it, you know? And that's one of the things, but I kind of feel like, I mean, I'm sure if I practiced with a shotgun, it would be a lot easier and I'd get it. And that's with anything, you know, I'd like to black powder hunt and it's the same thing there. But even when we were like walleye fishing, I put the, I put the, the spin cast rod down cause I was seeing bass cruise by on the shore. And I was like, I think, I didn't get that.
Katie
Right.
Nick
Like large mouth, you know, I'm like, I can get that with fly rod. I'm not messing with this, you know, this here. you know so I had my I took out my far weight and I started casting it and I was like you know I just had a blast I didn't actually have like I didn't have what I needed you know I didn't have anything for that but I was just kind of just you know throwing it out there and I was having way more fun and you were talking about like the you know the art form of it and the casting I enjoy casting a fly rod so much like I the reason why I like to fly fish and bake you know spin casting for a while I like cemented it that was different because my dad was there and I could talk to him but I like fly fishing because you constantly are doing something
Katie
that is exactly the reason I give too. like it's it's not like a snooty like oh this is the proper way to do it it's like it keeps me busy it keeps my mind active and my hands have to be doing something the whole time
Nick
oh exactly and like you know I'm sure 60% of my casts suck but I mean it doesn't that's the that's the best thing about it it's like well I could just do it again gives you something to work you know exactly and you know the scenery changes and it's just if you kind of like you're like an ADHD kind of person like I'm really like I I get super distracted and it's perfect for me because I can go out there and like oh I don't want to go here I'm going to move here I'm going to wait over here oh this piece of river looks different the water looks different here you know this is great you know and I just you know then I can tie on a different if I get bored I can tie on a different fly if I'm not getting something and you know that changes it up for me a little bit well you know what I'm done nymphing let's throw a dry on you know kind of thing for the just for the hell of it you know let's let's try a streamer here there's like a slack water portion of the river I'm gonna try a streamer here like yeah you could do anything you know there's a lot of freedom to it
Katie
yeah I think one of the things too is so I and like I said I grew up spin fishing mostly just casting lures out and I feel like when I made the switch to fly fishing it became the the goal had to kind of narrow for every cast where when I was casting lures the goal every cast was just like I hope a fish bites this and obviously that's still you know the overall goal but now it comes down to like okay I need to get my fly in that spot right there and like right now that's all I'm focusing on and then once I get it there then it's like okay now I need to get a drag-free drift and it's like you almost forget sometimes that you're actually waiting for a fish to take it and it yeah have you ever been surprised when a fish takes you're like oh I was I was focusing way too much on just getting my fly where it needed to be I forgot that I was actually waiting for a fish to come up and take it
Nick
that actually okay so I'm gonna tell a little bit of a story here so this year I got my very first my very first decent brown on a fly that I tied on a dry and I just I tied like a basically just a you know some kind of parachute Adams kind of thing you know kind of deal and I was like okay you know the whole purpose of my trip was to throw dries that I tied like I'd been working on it I'm like I'm going to do this I went out and you know it was a great you know it was it was you know perfect time things were heating up on this little run that I liked when I was on the on the rogue it's just a great little you know piece of riffle you know just with a with a bend and into the water everything's just perfect and you got to wait a bit to get to it so it's a hot it's a hot run but you know they're they're usually when people just see you they just keep going so I got out there really early and I went out there and the whole time I hadn't fished dries in a while I love to nymph I usually too I tight line nymph I don't use any you know indicators or anything it's just too complicated for me I just like to kind of just like feel just feel it and I probably get more fish if I went that other way but I just don't because it's too complicated for me but I love to nymph
Katie
so that's hilarious to say that sorry to cut you off but the fact that you're saying that an indicator is too complicated I'm like that's what most people are doing because the tight lining is too complicated for that
Nick
well it's funny so just to back up for just a second so I actually changed my rig this is the most complicated rig I've ever had since I started in the last three years like I had I used to just go out there and I had nylon leaders and all that I didn't get real technical with it and I'd throw one nymph out there with a bead head on it like a hare's ear or pretty much in Michigan if you have a hare's ear or a you know all you really need is a for dries is a caddis and a parachute atoms arguably and then if you have a hare's ear and then a pheasant flashback or a pheasant tail something like that that's pretty much going to catch you a lot of trout same here yeah it's just those they're not exciting but they work so that's all I did I'd go out there and I'd fish downstream and I'd and I'd kind of just you know I tight line it I just watched the tip of my just the tip of my line and and try to hit you know I didn't even work that hard to try to hit bottom because I didn't know what I was doing I wasn't using split shots or anything and somebody's like well you need a you need to put a hopper dropper on there and you need to do all this stuff and you need to tie, you know, basically what are those little, I can't, you know, the little bobbers. Like the theme of bobbers. Yeah. Yep. So I put one of those on there. I'm like, that's a bobber. Now I feel like I'm bobber fishing. I can't do that. You know? So I took that off there and, and, it's just too complicated. So I was like, all right, you know, I was catching the fish, their plants or whatever. I don't, I didn't care. I was having a blast. And then, so then I discovered fluorocarbon and I was like, oh man, like the day I tried fluorocarbon with this. So I went to the fly shop and I'm like, here, I want a tight line. And he goes, well, what are you tight lining with? I'm like, well, right now I'm using just this normal setup because you can't tight line that way. And I'm like, well, what do you mean? He goes, if you're good at your own end for tight line, you need to build a leader and you drag list, you know, you need to do furrow leaders. Good. You know, you build it all the way down until you get, you know, this little cider portion. And then you do this. And I built this fricking line and it took me all day to do it. Like I'm sitting there and I'm like, all right, I got it. I took it out there and man, I failed miserably. I got all tangled up. I got a bird's nest out of it. It was awful. Like I had my nymphs kept on catching on each other. I had stuff stuck to my waders. I'm like, I took that thing off there and threw my old line on there, but I kept the fluorocarbon on there and I started catching fish. And I was like, this fluorocarbon is making a huge difference here. So I just said, you know what? I'm going to just, let's, let's take a next step up let's evolve a little bit let's go I'm going to go with a two nymph rig and I'm going to use a fluorocarbon leader and fluorocarbon tippet and I'm going to use shot so I get down there and I'm just going to adjust and I started catching a lot of fish that way and I was like okay this works for me and I never got away from it and I got to the point where it's almost like a crush I never threw dries I was always nymphing because I never know when I can go out fishing I haven't been through too many hatches because it's just not convenient for me to go out at night and stay out till all hours of the night I've done that a couple times but with the kids at home and stuff and you know it just it if I go nymph and I can go fishing anytime really so that's I started doing subsurface fishing more well anyway the to get back to my story with the dry I'm like okay I'm gonna make an effort here to actually like I had just gotten a glass three-way and I I'm like what this rod wants to throw dries I'm going to go throw dries and I'm going to throw the since I'm going glass I'm going to just do stuff I tied and we're going to go out and we're going to do this so I went out there and I tied my my very I you took I think I got four flies tied because I was still learning so I got them in there I'm like these look decent enough to fish they at least look like a dead insect or a dying insect I can at least get away with that you know so I went out there and you know I I was just I was just having a day and I was just casting I didn't care like I was so worried I was so worried about my casting like you said I didn't I just forgot I was fishing I basically went out there to cast and I was just casting and then all of a sudden I hit I hit like a brookie and then I hit another one and then I hit a little brown and then I was like oh this is kind of fun you know I'm catching some fingerlings this is pretty cool you know know and then I hit a beautiful roll cast right on the right off a riffle right around going into this deep pool on this bend and I caught like a 13 inch brown on that fly like immediately and the moment and there's not a lot of big fish in this in this river and that's a big fish for me or it was at the time and it still is actually so the moment that fly hit the top of the water that fish grabbed it and I was shocked in fact I was so shocked I didn't realize what I that I had left my bag open and I dropped my fly box into the water while while I was fighting this fish and I had the fish on then there was my fly box and I'm like all right the current's not too bad like I had to make a decision like I think I'm just I gotta get this fish you know so I said to hell with the fly box and I just got the fish and I landed the fish in my net and I lost the fly box And I had like $150 in junk bugs, streamers. Like that was my junk bug case. Like all the stuff that costs money was in that case. And I didn't care. Like I didn't care. I cared later, but I didn't care at the time. I was like, I was so shocked. I got that brown on that fly and just, I felt so good about it that I immediately packed up all my stuff and left. I was like, this is so awesome. but I wasn't trying to catch a fish. I mean, really all I was doing was casting that glass rod with that dry. That's it. I was working on my dry fly and I caught that fish. And it just, it shocked me so much that I dumped that out and everything else. I bring one beer with me into the water in a can, like an IPA. I feel like I have to. It just feels like the thing to do. Yep. And the only thing left in my bag was the IPA. That's good. That lasted. So I immediately drank the IPA and I left. But it's got to be one of my best fly fishing experience to date was on that. And just like you said, I wasn't even paying attention. It was not my intention at all, and that happened. I could have tried to fish for that fish for an hour and not catch it, trying to.
Katie
I'm glad you mentioned that story because I'm sure you didn't listen to the episode of mine that came out today, but it was with Darrin Schenck. And he was talking about, like, one of the main topics we talked about was how his favorite fish he caught wasn't his biggest and why. And he just, you know, talked me through the story and everything. And we were just like, yeah, you know what? I mean, obviously the biggest fish you ever caught could be your most memorable fish. But often it's not. And I feel like that's probably the same way for you in this story. It's like a 13-inch brown. Like, not a tiny fish by any means, but probably not the biggest fish you've ever caught. But just the whole experience around it, you know, what was going on at the time, the gear you were using, probably the weather, just like everything that goes into every fish you catch. There's times that I catch 20 fish a day and I don't remember any of them. And then there's other times I go out and have, you know, objectively a pretty bad day of fishing. I might land one fish, but maybe that fish is super memorable because I spent, you know, three hours trying to cast this one fish and it finally took my fly. And suddenly that fish means more to me and like jumps up the ranks, even if it's not anything special, maybe a stock or brown trout. But, you know, I still will think back on that years later and remember that specific fish. And it often rarely has anything to do with how big it was.
Nick
Oh, totally. Like, yeah, I totally agree. Like, not that there's a lot of giant fish around here and I got to get into some bigger fish. Not that the size really matters all that much to me. I catch a lot of stuff that's probably in the, in the nine to 13 range that are just in there. Like that's kind of what we have. But, but you know, I, I'm, I'm also really new to this and I have, I have to go to, I have to travel and get to some places and, and, you know, kind of get into, getting into that a little bit more. But the same thing happened to me actually, when I caught my very first, one of my very first Browns, even nymphing, I threw it out there and my buddy was right behind me. He was kind of mentoring me through this. And, his name is John Mudry and he, I kind of got him back into fly fishing or me and my, our, our mutual friend, Rob got him back into fly fishing. Cause we just started and he fly fished for years, but kind of put it aside and, us wanting to get into it, got him into it. So he kind of mentored us and took us under his wing and, and taught us good habits and bad habits and, and just having fun. And, and I remember he was watching me cast, like trying to teach me cast. and I, and I threw a, I just threw like a hair's ear in the water and I let it drift. And I was like, well, did I hit that? All right. You know, I looked around and he's like, you got a fish, you idiot. And I turned around and sure enough, I'm like, oh, I thought I had a snag, you know, like it was, it was funny. Cause I didn't even know I had a fish on it because that's how a strike feels. And I was like, oh, you know, so yeah, exactly. Like it's all about, again, it's all about the activity for me. Um, but I do get, I'm getting to the point now where I've seen so many, so many fish on fishagram that I'm just like I want to get into a brown that big I like I don't even know what to do
Katie
my fish are generally about the same size as yours I feel like average nine to 12 inches or so and every once in a while I'll catch a a bigger one but then I'm like even my big ones are like 16 to 18 I'm like that was a solid fish like I really feel good about that yeah and then I go like log on and I'm like well that fish is like 25 inches
Nick
oh yeah I love to follow people who fish in new Zealand and then the browns they pull out of new Zealand and like six inch water I was just insane these big mutant brown trout I'm just like oh man I'm like I don't even know what I would do and like honestly the first so the first the the best I honestly to be just to go back to smallmouth for a minute like that's my thing I love doing that like a buddy introduced me to that a year ago year and a half ago and told me where to go and he's like try this and throw throw a black streamer because it looks like a hellgrammite they'll eat that all day long and just throw it on the drift so I went out there and I tried it and I caught the first time I went out there I caught like 20 smallmouth and then every time I've gone back to that spot since I've I've had a day I've just caught a ton of fish and just dead drifting it yeah just dead drifting it yeah like once in a while you'll get like a rock bass or something it'll hit it as soon as it hits like a popper but you know most of the time I'm just dead drifting it you know and they get it right on the end of the swing and I really got into some big bass this year like I never caught fish that big and I love the way bass fight so my first experience with really fighting big fish on a bigger fish on a fly rod was this year and I actually I didn't think I was going to get anything that big and I took my that glass three-weight out that it's my Scott Spray he he made that rod he's a builder here in Michigan and a friend we had on the show and I tried that rod and it's like a beautiful blue glass three-weight and I love to fish it but I started getting into some of those big big bass with those three-way that three-way and it felt like I had whales on the end of my line I mean it was just insane oh yeah I was like oh this is awesome so yeah if I can't if I can't get big fish I'll just use a lighter rod
Katie
yeah or just go fishing for bass that always feel twice the size they actually are
Nick
oh yeah totally and they're so fun to catch like if you just want to day I told my dad like dad if I ever took you fly fishing if I ever convinced you to go fly fishing I think he tried it once when he was a kid I'm like I'm not taking you trout fishing I'm taking you small mouth fishing I'm like because we'll sit there and hook up all day long and you'll just be tired by that my arm hurts when I'm done yeah like it's just great
Katie
yeah I've said this more than once but I mostly fish for trout because that's what we have here mostly you know and and I will prioritize the area I'm fishing in over the fish themselves so if I can be in a beautiful place by myself I don't really care what I'm catching so so you know in Colorado that translates to your fishing for trout but I would I would take small mouth over trout any day trout don't really fight very hard and the fighting is my favorite part. growing up with small mouths it's like you can't even large mouths like you can't really compare to the the spunk that those smallies have
Nick
well my buddy's spoiled on that too my my other buddy my turkey hunting buddy john buchin he's he's really trying to get me into steelhead I've gone out with him a few times and I've seen I mean I've seen him cruise by and got you know all the hair on my arms stood up and I'm like that is a monster like I can't even imagine getting that on a you know nine weight or whatever so I'm like I I'm I'm all about it I want to try it but again that's really boring fishing to me because it's like you're you cast so many times and these fish are so picky and you may not you may cast all day and not get one hit and you know but I cannot he's had a couple on a fly rod in the last couple years and he said if you if you lay into one of those with with one of these rods you are never going to want to fish anything ever again because he said nothing feels like that yeah he's like they're just they're huge and I'm like I don't know if I agree with you there I'm like, I'm sure it's great and all, but he says that totally spoiled him. He's like, I don't even have a little fish rod. I only go after Steelhead now.
Katie
You know, that's one of the reasons I haven't wanted to chase Steelhead too much. I was just reading a Field and Stream article about some people who were – it was one of last year's editions, but it was about people who were fishing below Niagara Falls, like farther down on that river, and you could catch browns, Steelhead, and lake trout there. and they were complaining that there were too many lake trout because most like most of the time that's what you were catching and they were the pictures they were sharing of these lake trout they were like 30 plus inches like on average lake trout oh they're bricks yeah and they were like oh yeah it was just another lake trout I was like if I caught a 30 inch lake trout I would be so excited but but they were going for steelhead and they caught like you know it was a long article it was talking about kind of over the course of three days and they they finally landed one it was super exciting because it ran so hard and everything and and I'm kind of torn between I've caught one steelhead and it was it was very exciting but I think I need a little bit more action than that for for the hardcore like I would go steelhead fishing for sure again but I don't think I'd ever become one of the people who only chases steelhead because I do like getting a fish on the end of my line more frequently than they tend to and and I don't really care how big those fish are I mean I go fish for six inch fish all the time and and I just like you know catching And I don't think I could ever become one of those diehard steelhead anglers who is like, yeah, I might catch one fish every five times I go out. And I'm like, ah, that's, that's what I was like growing up, you know, when I didn't know what I was doing. I was catching one fish every couple of times I went out and, and I like generally being able to get something to the net when I go out now.
Nick
Sure. Yeah. I don't think I could do that either. I mean, to me, I guess I don't really care much about the species. It's really hard to romance a bass. Like, I mean, you, like, there's so much, there's so much romance to fly fishing in the, and trout you know I just all the all the mystique and all the literature I've read about people you know trout madness and trout magic and all those you know volkert and all I mean all those those stories I mean it's such a there's so much of that old romance to it where you know bass vision is like they're gonna eat it like you know something mad and they're gonna and they're not exactly the most like the prettiest fish you know they got huge mouths and they just they're vacuum and but it's all in the fight you know I mean that's if you want to fight there there's there's no no fish like it really I mean my dad it was funny because when we were walleye fishing we kept catching sheepshead and you know just drums you know and just like that they just they're like a carp or they're not like a carp but they're they fight harder than that like they'll fight like a bluegill but they're huge so
Katie
that sounds like a fun fish
Nick
oh man so I got yeah so you're probably not very familiar with it then huh
Katie
I'm familiar with what it is but I've never fished for them
Nick
it looks crazy like it's just it yeah they look like massive bluegills that just have these big bulbous heads and they it's funny because when you throw them back in the water they float upside down because their head's so heavy before they can flip back around and he's like you can't kill them you trust me he's right every time you throw them in the water they go smack and I'm like that fish has got to be dead and then nope flips up and goes but yeah when you these are huge fish and when you when you get into one I mean they fight like a bluegill they take off they go side to side and it's like this is amazing and my dad's like those things are such a pain blah blah blah blah blah and I'm like I would catch these all day long I don't even care like my buddy Scott's like that with carp too he'd rather fish carp he loves fishing carp and that's something I like to get into too he's like that that's a fish that's just you know it's a game fish in other countries
Katie
that's something I never understood and that's the thing that I get into out here with whitefish so I don't know if you've ever fished for mountain whitefish not mountain whitefish okay so we have them out here and they're you know they're not they're not in a lot of rivers in Colorado but they're the rivers they are in there's a lot of them and they fight really hard like you you could have a 15 inch whitefish on it feels like you've got like a 20 trout. They just, they really tug. They like to sit down at the bottom. It's almost, it's almost like a walleye mixed with a smallmouth, like that kind of heavy, just tugging feeling of a walleye, but also, you know, making runs like a, like a smallmouth does. And I love them because of that. You know, when I hook one, it's like, I have no idea how big this fish is because it's pulling so hard. And they're kind of considered a trash fish out here. And then people will be like, oh, it's just a whitefish. And I don't really understand where the kind of ranking system of like which qualifies being like you said that like the romanticization of trout I mean I like fishing for trout and I'm assuming the the romance behind it comes from the fact that they're they're picky they might be harder to get to take a fly like you said a small mouth is kind of like a vacuum you put something in front of it it's going to suck it in but like I don't I don't really understand where the where the hierarchy has come from of like oh this is a respectable fish and this is a trash fish I'm like for me whichever one is gonna take my fly and pull the hardest that's what I want to catch and so that leaves me with whitefish bass and bluegill as my favorite things to catch
Nick
oh I mean I could all day on a popper for bluegill I mean that's oh that's so fun like I will do that all day long and I'm the same I'm like and it's funny that people call it trash fish but most of the time you when you're eating anything at a restaurant it's trash fish right and I'm not I'm not eating trout so I mean I somebody just decided one day that oh man these trout they're majestic you know and I think a lot of it is just how pretty they are
Katie
yeah they look they look chic you know
Nick
they do they got and especially if you get into the really colorful ones they're just you know you you pull in a rainbow or whatever and you're like wow it's a beautiful fish you know and you're like you're all about it that's why you know nobody really cares you know people I like to see really small fingerling trout on instagram all the time because sometimes you just pull up the ones that I mean the color is just it pops so hard and you're just like that is how could how could a fish like this exist right like it's just amazing
Katie
I mean it is hard to beat like a small like I feel like a 10 inch spawning color brook trout is about as pretty as the trout come
Nick
oh totally yeah that's like they're but it is interesting that one day somebody just decided that trout were were the majestic with the majestic fisherman's pursuit you know and that's that's it right and no other fish would would come anywhere close to that because nobody's writing like nobody's writing like art you know artistic novels and short stories about catching bass or you know there's a carp book but it's about how to catch carp it's not like written with beautiful language or anything like that you know or nobody does that with pike right and stuff like that and and I'm like I would love to catch pike too I've seen people there's a few instagram I follow that where it's just people who people who pike fish and with just like articulated big articulated streamers and and fly rods and in all strip and then oh man that looks awesome like I don't think I'm really I could ever limit myself to one species whatever gets me into the water like I'm good with it
Katie
I feel the same way and yet we need to have like a john gear rock of like bluegill fishing where there's just like chapters devoted to I think I think the problem is that the the romance of it comes from the fact that you're trying so hard to get like an elusive fish to come up and if you had somebody trying to write that about bluegill be like and then I cast out for the 30th time and cut my 30th bluegill that day like there's there's no like waiting or patience or you know the pursuit it's just like oh I cast out and there it was
Nick
oh I know it's like I can't for some reason I can't picture like somebody with like some flannel shirt and like a brimmed hat like a you know like a pipe out there bass fishing with a fly rod like that would really flow that would really floor me I would be really thrown because of that stereotype but whenever you think somebody's a bass fisherman I picture somebody with like a jersey on and like a big boat yep and like a million rods like
Katie
Sponsors plastered all over
Nick
sponsors yeah and it's like you know and people are really into that but it feels like so sports fisherman I don't know if it's because I grew up playing black bass on super nintendo or something or like oh man like I used to love those games and I never fished I just like the games but I it's just it doesn't feel right to me I don't know and it's funny how those stereotypes exist though yeah it really does
Katie
really is yeah like the stereotype of like you said the kind of the tweed wearing like pipe smoking it's always in the context of trout no one ever pictures that person standing at the edge of like a muddy pond with cattails around
Nick
no yeah it's not elegant that's the other thing too like bass fish is not elegant at all like you go after any other species like you're in these mud pits and like that exactly with bugs and like you know well in my first year I didn't even bass fish like I I would like take the temperature I'm like I only trout fish so I would like I didn't know anything about that I didn't know where to go and when it started getting really warm and in the summer the dog days of summer, I would like check the river reports and I bought a thermometer and stuff like that. And I was like, okay, I can catch trout today. I can't catch trout today. When somebody told me about bass fishing, that opened my world because I was like, oh, you can catch bass all summer long and it's this fun? Like, I don't even care what season I'm in anymore. You know, that kind of thing. Like, it was just, it was amazing. I'm like, and I can go do this and I don't have to worry about, you know, all this stuff. And this is just, it's totally relaxing to me. But yeah, I'm looking forward to, you know, again, I haven't been doing this very long. I'm looking forward to expanding my horizons and going after different things.
Katie
Yes, that's something I wanted to ask you, being someone who's newer to the sport. Like, what barriers to entry did you find? Or not necessarily barriers to entry, because I know you just went out and got a rod and picked it up. But like what, what major challenges did you find, with kind of jumping right into fly fishing between then and like where you are today?
Nick
Um, I didn't know where to go.
Katie
Okay.
Nick
That was my big thing. I didn't know anything about fishing. So as far as like river fish, I mean, when I was a kid, you just went to the bank or you went to a pond, you know, and threw a line in. Like I didn't, my dad took me. So, I mean, I didn't really pay attention. Like I didn't know a big barriers learning about trout. I had to learn about brown trout and I had to learn about rainbows and where to find them and what to throw and what they eat, what they eat and why. I had to learn about just learning about the stages or what they actually are and why you fish with a nymph and what column you fish in and what column, when to throw in a merger, when to do. I had to learn all of that. So that's probably one and two. The first one, well, I should say the cost of entry because everybody had always told me that fly fishing is super expensive. Don't get into it because it's going to cost you so much money. And I was looking at waders and stuff, and they were like $600 and all this stuff like that. And I was like, I can't afford that. And then some reels were fine. I would see pictures of Able reels and stuff, and I'd be like, wow, $500, $600, $700 for a reel or more. who can afford that? Like, I thought it was a, it was a sport of luxury and I wouldn't be able to afford it. And I kind of wrote it off. So those three things, like having a spot to fish and actually knowing where to fish, like in when, and then the education of what a fly actually is and why fish eat it. Cause I had only thrown nightcrawlers before that. I didn't know anything about it. And then price, that was the three biggest things. And what really broke that barrier for me was just having one or two friends, one for actually one friend who knew about it, who had done it and did it for years, showed me, showed me it, took me out and showed me, took me to a spot, you know, and said, here, we'll go here. We went to a fly shop. We asked the fly shop owner. He said, where to go? He said, you can go right over here. Okay. And then got me into the water, showed me, showed me a couple of basic things, how to do a roll cast and just how to do a basic cast and that's it you know and that that's all it took n
Katie
ow do you think the barrier for like not not knowing about like the different stages of the insect and everything like that was that more of the transition to fly fishing or more of the transition to trout because I kind of feel like it's hard to narrow it down because like with if you're just you know checking out bait or lures or whatever you're not really worried about I mean you're probably not fishing insect imitations anyway sure but you're also not really imitating different stages you know so you might be throwing out like a minnow or a minnow look-alike and but but it's also kind of just related to bass I mean that's that's what you throw out for bass is just something that looks like bait fish so it's kind of like switching to fly fishing and trout at the same time it's kind of hard to narrow down like where where or like which thing that was more related to as a barrier
Nick
well and there's a reason to that because I didn't think anybody fly fish for anything but trout okay the only thing I'd ever heard of literally my introduction to fly fishing was I read I was somebody told me I needed to read the gordon mccrory duck hunting treasury basically and he fly fishes in that too quite a bit and I read one fly fishing story that absolutely floored me I was and it made me want to fish and that planted the seed and that was a trout fishing story and everything I'd ever read about fly fishing that I liked was trout. I didn't even look at anything else. So all I thought when you fly fished, you fished for trout. And then I kind of found out after that, no, you fish, you know, Scott fished for carp. And then there's this guy fish for smallmouth. And you know, this, I just started learning there was other things you could do. So really that was all one barrier for me. I figured if you wanted to fly fish, you had to know all about trout and the feeding patterns of trout and sure you could go out there like when I first started I just somebody said you know the I think the fly shop owner said you want a hare's ear you want a deer hare caddis and you want a parachute atoms and you want a pheasant tail and that's literally what I bought and put it in my box and I went out and I tried it and you know the nymphs caught more because I didn't know what I was doing on a dry and I fished a hare's ear and I fished a I fished those four flies that whole first year. Um, so yeah, I mean, I didn't know, I didn't know anything about the patterns of the trout and why I was fishing them. I just knew that fish bit those flies and that somebody told me you fish dries at night, you know, when there's rises and during the day you can fish nymphs if there's, you know, unless there's rises and you can throw whatever.
Katie
So I, somebody, I just picked up information from people. Um, you just trusted what they said and it worked so you have no reason to question it
Nick
exactly because I was totally overwhelmed and part of the reason why I was out there is because I wanted to hang out with them anyway so it was a social thing and a lot of times it's a social thing for me and I was just having fun so when I realized I love to do this that's when I nerded out about it and started learning about fish and what was happening and why and you know how you are when you first start into it you like something it's like a sponge you just kind of just like get obsessed with it I was fishing on days I had was fishing I mean anytime anytime I had a chance you know rain extreme heat whatever I was fishing it didn't matter but yeah I gotta I think that was it just just understand what I was doing but honestly I think the biggest thing though I if I could break it down to the one barrier would be just knowing where I had where I could go like I just didn't know where I could fish people don't like to give up their spots
Katie
well that's still a hard thing to overcome yeah exactly river I mean so comforting to have your river with your spots that you know you can go to but looking at a new river I'm always like well I know I can fish the river if I get to it but like I have no idea where to go on this river a to I mean you can look up public land and stuff that doesn't mean it's going to be an accessible spot it might be you know cliffed out or or the runs aren't good or whatever so you get there and you're like well this doesn't look very good but like now where do I go
Nick
exactly and then you know I did find the Michigan the Michigan fly fishing there's like two Michigan fly fishing facebook groups and I wish I had found them early on because there's a lot of guys on there that talk about fishing where I fish and where to go they don't tell you exactly but you know they they won't show you on a map or anything but they'll tell you you know you're below the dam here you're above the dam here you're here you're here nobody ever gives up steelhead spots you just don't do that for some reason like if you know where you can get steelhead nobody really talks about it but you know they'll open up enough about it and I ran into some cool people on the river too that have told me you know I noticed that when you find a fellow fly fisherman right outside the river going into the river or coming off the river usually better coming off the river because they're in a good mood they're willing to give you a lot of information
Katie
right and they're leaving so they're like I don't care where you go exactly now because it's not competing
Nick
exactly I'm not gonna tell you right where I'm at but I'll tell you if you go here around that bend and try right there and they're hitting on you know sulfurs or they're doing whatever you know go do that and you know you'll you'll be fine but usually when you show up at a spot and you see another fisherman they ain't gonna tell you anything because they're like I'm gonna go out and have my day and and do whatever but if the only contact you have with fly fishermen is somebody you met down by the river who doesn't know who you are you're just not going to get a lot of information out of that person it's just not going to happen I was actually shocked when I got on that fly fisher bin facebook group and people were talking about their spots I was like were you insane why would you do that like I don't tell people we're on bow hunting right you know but because of that that was kind of a barrier I mean a shop might tell you because they're selling you stuff so they'll tell you well yeah you want to go out here and you know I'll guide you if you have money yeah you know
Katie
yeah they want you to buy their flies and stuff so it's in their best interest to make sure you're happy
Nick
yeah they'll give you enough but they won't give you exactly what you need but I totally believe like in bow hunting I believe mentors are so important just having that one person one or two people that can that can just that know you and want to educate you because they they see that you're passionate like they are yeah and you know it's nice to have a friend that can do that because they can take you in and just like splash let you splash water with with them for a while and you know then it's kind of on you to to pass that on after
Katie
and I've noticed like as like I really enjoy helping new people who want to get started but the one the one requirement I have is that I have to be able to tell that you really really want to learn like I don't know how I'm sure you've experienced this too let me know if I'm wrong but where you mentioned that you fish or fly fish specifically usually because you know most people can go out with a bobber that doesn't feel like a big barrier to entry to most people but fly fishing does and so most people don't want to give it a try unless they have someone to show them how to do it but you'll mention that you do it and they're like oh I've wanted to try that but you can like tell the difference between someone who's like in passing like oh that sounds fun I'd like to try that versus someone who's like oh my god I've been wanting to try that for so long and I've never found someone who could take me out and those are two very different people where you know you might be out with one person and they're like checking their phone while you're trying to tell them how to cast and the other person is is looking at you like they've never looked at anything before like they are they're trying to soak in every word you say and they're asking questions and like that's the type of person where I'll spend all day just helping you I don't need to fish but I don't have a lot of interest in working with somebody who I can tell is just kind of like in passing like yeah I'd like to try this but like I probably won't go out many times after this like I don't have much interest in spending time on that person
Nick
no that's I feel the same way with hunting and stuff too you know the other thing with fly fishing as kind of a barrier now that I'm thinking of it is you could just look really stupid you do look really stupid when you start out that's for sure you don't really want that many people around you I mean like yeah like my you know we rib each other all the time it's non-stop but when we first started it was it was hilarious because I mean like john took my buddy rob and I out john mudri who I mentioned who's the guy that's mentored us from the start for fly fishing and he took us out we're all the same age but he we kind of really looked up to him to to kind of plow the way for us well at one point he's tying and he looks back and rob's in a tree you know wading towards the thing and I've got like a I'm all wrapped up and you know I've got a big old nest in my reel and like you know because I just I got a huge wind knot and I got it wrapped around the end of my rod and I'm all you know messed up and and you know he just kind of laughed and just made fun of us the whole time because it's just it's funny like he was in a good educational way light-hearted way but we felt comfortable with him but if you're like just around people like even going into a fly shop like I at first I didn't even want to try a fly rod in the parking lot you know I let you go out and cast in the parking lot I didn't want to do that because I'm gonna look terrible like he's like oh you know just give it a haul a few hauls I'm like I don't know how to haul and you're not going to give me a lesson. So if I go out there, I'm going to look like a moron. Like, and I don't want to look like a moron in front of a store full of people in the parking lot. You know, like that's, that's kind of a, even going out into my yard and practicing in my yard with a yarn fly was embarrassing at first. I was like, I didn't even want to do it. Like, I was just like, I felt really, you know, I just felt really uncomfortable and really insecure about it. Cause you know, you could just look so stupid, so foolish. It's, you know, and it's almost to the point where, like, you don't want to be criticized about it. You know, you just want to fish. But, you know, I was thankful I found John because John was very patient. He'd let you fish. He'd show you a few things, but he'd let you fish for a while before he corrected you again. Because if you just sit there and you're just getting corrected constantly and critiqued, you just don't want to cast anymore. You know, you're just like, okay, I'm not having any fun. I'm just getting, you know, just getting critiqued. So there's that too. Whereas like most things, like you can look more humiliating learning how to fly fish than you do a lot of other things.
Katie
Yeah, because everything you do is critiquable.
Nick
Exactly.
Katie
I've tried to get better about that when I'm helping new people is to give them a tip and let them run with it for a while, even if they're not doing it. Because I'm like, it's in their mind. They'll get it eventually. But just letting them work it out themselves. Because like you can tell someone to do something, but it's in so much of its muscle memory. It's not as easy as just being like, okay, I'll just do that now. You know, you kind of got to give them time to work it out themselves.
Nick
Yeah. Then you figure out like every time you have a bad cast, you're like, oh, I'm crumpling. I'm doing this. You know, I'm like, I'm creeping. I'm doing, you know, there's all kinds of things. You just, you know, you're doing it yourself. Like, you know what you did. I've seen some people get it. And it's funny now, like now that I've got, I'm decent at it. And, you know, I go out into the water and I'll see somebody come in, you know, like, I can tell they're new because you know they're doing that snap are you know you're healing you're in the whip and you're hearing the they're they're coming down too far too hard like they're throwing a baseball and the rods hitting the water and all this stuff and they just look awful and you're just thinking like oh man oh just don't know don't do that don't just stop you know like that looks painful I really want to help this person like yeah
Katie
there's one person I can think of specifically the the worst caster I've ever seen they came down when I was fishing it was last year sometime they came right down along the river where I was fishing they went right down below me and I was already thinking like I think you're new here because they they started fishing you know about 100 feet below me and I'm like this there's no one else on this river like why why are you right here next to me but he would he would look at where he wanted to cast he would give like a big sigh You know, you could tell he was preparing for what he was about to do. And then, like, he was really focused. And then he took his rod, and he went back and forth, I want to say, like, two times a second. Like, forward and back within one second. And he was hitting the water with his rod on both the forward and the back cast. Like, making a full 180-degree thing. And the rod would hit, and he was going so fast that the line was, like, not catching up. Like, it was making, like, an S shape in the air. because it couldn't catch up with one cast before he started the next one, and the next one, and the next one. And the line would just land in a pile in the water, and then he'd fish it. And I was like, man, I really, really want to commend this guy for his dedication to each of the casts he's making. He's really trying to fish it out, but man, I don't even know where to start with this person.
Nick
Yeah, I think the... Getting a rod to load, it doesn't feel like a natural thing at first, but it's like the most natural thing in the, I mean, because if you think about the, one of the best analogies that somebody ever told me when I, when I was learning is they like, think picture, and this may be a common one. I don't know. They're like, picture you've got like a, like a, a stick and they're like, no. And you got to write, you know, like when you were a kid, did you ever put a rotten apple on a stick and then throw this, like, you know, wrench the stick forward and let the, just, just enough to let the apple fly off the top of it. And that is the exact motion. like that's all you're doing you're trying to make that you're trying to make the top do that well once they told me that I was like I could envision it it was still really hard for me to do it but I can at least see what you're trying to what they're trying to do
Katie
I've never heard that before but that's a good analogy
Nick
yeah and my problem was I'd come I just I'd muscle it I'd try to come through I wouldn't let the rod load and to compensate for it I would come through like a pitcher on the end of a wind up and I would just throw it too far like too hard down and I get the same thing every time and, a lot of when nots, that was really, really tough for me to break. And I, and what happened to me is I ended up going to, our, our flight kind of, kind of resident pro around here is Glenn Blackwood and he owns, he's also big into literature, but he, he owns the Great Lakes Fly Fishing Co. And, he was actually on traditional outdoors, one of our earlier episodes. And, I went over there once and he said, after, after we recorded with him he's like nick let me give you a lesson just I'll give you a free lesson so he took me out in the parking lot and he gave me a like a t tfo rod or whatever and I went out there and he's like try this and he goes okay this is what you're doing you're muscling it you need to you need to work on you need to do less is basically what he told me he's like you're just not letting the line get back there and he worked with me for 15 minutes and after that I think my casting improved 40%. Just that one thing. And I'm like, now I know why people pay for lessons and stuff like this, because you really can accomplish a lot more than thrashing around. You can thrash around for a week. And if somebody shows you the right way to do it in 15 minutes, it's like a light comes on, you know, but it's hard to break that down. Cause a lot of people are like, I'm going to learn how to do this myself. I don't need any help. Right.
Katie
And YouTube is not going to tell you what you're doing wrong.
Nick
No. And I really tried to, I really tried to learn off YouTube. I learned a lot of things on YouTube for fly fishing, a lot of stuff. Yeah. But, but casting never helped me. That's, I mean, it's just not something that works, you know, for me. Like I can watch it, but I need somebody to show me what I'm supposed to feel.
Katie
Well, it's so weird because once you've, once you understand what that loading feels like, it's really hard to unremember it. Like it's, it's hard for me to picture that like the feeling of not feeling the rod load and not understanding like when to come forward after the rod's loaded like when I see someone new I'm like I totally understand that this was me when I started too but then there's a part that's like but how do you not feel it like how do you not feel it load or or not loading
Nick
I mean because it it does like you know right away after doing it for a while that the rod's not loading yeah because it's literally not doing anything
Katie
right you're you're when there's I mean there's times where you still have just like a bad cat like something happens the wind catches it whatever and you kind of have to like you know pull it in and restart because it was just something crappy happened but but you feel that coming you're like oh man this cat I'm losing it I'm losing this cast I need to just you know take a breather and restart the cast but you you are aware of that when it's happening you're like this is bad I need to I need to stop and to it's hard to picture not having that feeling of like this is good or this is bad and I and I know which way it's going
Nick
I think that's a pretty common one though with a the real hard forward motion when you're just which comes from another thing is like my problem is is when I'm having a bad day I I lower the rod too much like I just don't the rod's too low you know I'm trying to fish like I actually sometimes I honestly think I cast better side
Katie
I do too I think I do like best 45 degree angle
Nick
yeah and where I where I fish there's just a lot of overhangs and stuff like that like we just got a lot of real thick brush and I get I got used to just casting sideways and I can cast and haul sideways way better than I can over my head because whenever I'm over my head I've snagged and lost so many flies and overhanging trees I've almost got like a some kind of a like mental issue like a phobia I'm like well if I bring yeah exactly like if I bring my rod up too far over my head I'm going to snag a tree there might not be a tree within 300 yards of me but I'll think that way where if I'm side I feel very comfortable out the side because I'm like I know I'm not going to hit anything and most of my best casts have been from the side
Katie
I think more people need to give… so I don't cast full sidearm most of the time unless I'm trying to get underneath something but for me the natural the natural cast is about a 45 degree between straight up and full sidearm and I think and casting overhand for the most part feels a little too robotic to me like I feel like I'm just going through the motions instead of feeling what what feels right and I feel like more people who are starting out would maybe benefit from giving those other angles a try because I think you know they always talk about the overhand like 10 and 2 or 11 and 1 like right overhead and that's great when you're just starting and you need to bring your rod up feel it load and then bring it back down but I think that might hinder some people who like like me it feels too unnatural to go straight up and straight back down so I'm glad you mentioned that because we don't I don't hear about people casting, at different angles very often.
Nick
Yeah. I always, I always call that the must be nice, the must be nice style, because I don't ever have an opportunity in a river where I can open up and have this big overtop cast. Like I just don't have that. So if I ever go out West and fish a big wide river that doesn't have much around it, I'm really, I'm going to look really weird. Cause I don't know how to fish. Like I didn't learn how to fish that way. I'm always working around obstacles and and like trees and and stuff like that and you know bridges and all kinds of crazy things like in the water is just not that like I'm using short leaders you know I mean there's just not a lot of room
Katie
so like must be nice to not have trees overhead
Nick
must be nice exactly must be nice to be able to wave your rod up in the air and look awesome and and all you know you know the majestic and all that and the poetry and emotion meanwhile I'm just trying not to hit this stump
Katie
yeah I mean so I mean and how many of your casts end up just being like a roll cast or just water loading it and oh throwing it back out
Nick
oh yeah I roll cast all the time in fact my buddy kind of taught me some really well he's a he loves spay casting so he he does a lot of you know spay type twirls and stuff he's really good at it just really short working both sides of the river stuff and he caught me he taught me a few basic like just ways to do that like creative roll casting and getting into the other side and stuff like that and I probably learned it probably took me longer to learn because he was teaching me how he knew and that's how he knew how to fish because he had been fishing in areas where you basically had to do that to fish because there's not enough room to do anything else so I've got a bunch of weird habits I picked up where it's like partial space stuff and like you know I mean I just like you know I'm kind of like a hybrid now but some of the stuff I learned of that is actually it's really good in Michigan somewhere else it might not be right whatever works yeah I'd like and I'm sure if somebody just small creek fished all the time you know with a really short rod and stuff like that and learned how to fish that way they'd look they'd come into the rogue and it would look way different to them too it's funny how that first year shapes you so much you know based on where you fish same as like with a rod I had I started out with a with a medium action rod the the cabela's vector I still have that rod that's a that's a medium it's a little bit slower and because of that I went to glass very well I like it wasn't a hard transition for me I actually prefer that because I the way that rod loads it feels like a glass rod where if I try to fish somebody's like you know super fast action rod you know that's like a graphite like a full graphite I have a really hard time with it interesting because just the way yeah the way I learned how to fish I have a hard time making that rod load I don't know why it just probably just because I've always had a slower rod and I and I really let it I really got to make it in my head I got to really tell myself to let it hang back there a little bit longer than I think I need to and I just don't feel it you know not a faster rod but I'm getting there you know I'm probably correcting a lot of mistakes at this point
Katie
yeah and I feel like you're you might be working in an easier direction because I feel like it might be easier to go from something that really requires that extra you know waiting for that slower rod to load going to faster I feel like so many people coming from graphite rods it feels like a completely foreign object when they pick up a glass and it's like it feels like you're waving around a wet noodle
Nick
oh yeah and I love that feeling like I think, I think, well, it's, it's pretty par for the course, for me, I pretty much do everything backwards from everybody else.
Katie
Typical you to go for the, go for the thing that everyone else is working toward
Nick
. I'm super, I'm super surprised I didn't just jump into a bamboo rod right away and be like, well, I'm going to build a bamboo rod and I'm going to fish with it because that's, you know, and it's just kind of my thing, but I think it was just challenging enough where I was like, no, I don't need to go any further with this. This is fine. But yeah, I mean, everybody's built differently. Everybody fishes differently. And I mean, I've never seen two people cast the same.
Katie
So at the end of the day, it's, I mean, it's whatever feels comfortable for you. I mean, people can do things that are technically incorrect. If you were to watch like a casting video and they'll still make their fly, you know, cast twice as far as I can. So at the end of the day, it's whatever, whatever you can make work, you know, go for it.
Nick
Yeah. I mean, all pitchers are taught the same kind of wind up and know what a wind up is and the best way to throw a baseball. but look how many there's no two pitchers throw the same exactly I mean you just you're just not built the same and I think you know I see that a lot in bow hunting I have a really hard time telling people how they should do something because it works for me I had a lot of that at the beginning of anything I've ever done people do that bow hunting especially and it's like look I'm not you and you're not me it ain't gonna work for you the same way so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit here and tell you how to do it. I'll tell you how you should do it. I can tell you how I do it and I can offer that up, but I'm not going to show you or tell you that that's the way to do it.
Katie
I agree. I find when I'm telling people what to do, I generally say things like, I find that when I do this, this happens. Or when I do this, it feels more comfortable. Just so I'm very clearly stating, just so you know, I think this is probably what you need to do, but you might hear differently from somebody and you don't necessarily need to get into an argument with them about what's the right way to do it.
Nick
Oh, totally. I had, I had a great bow hunting mentor for the longbow. When I first started out, we called him his nicknames bullseye. And he was always at the range when I started shooting and we became friends. And whenever I'd shoot, he'd never try to teach me anything, but whenever I'd shoot and I'd have a bad shot, he'd go, Oh no, that's all you do. That's all you do. And I would just sit there and be like, He'd wait for me to ask him. I'd be like, Bill, what did I do wrong in that shot? And then he would tell me. But he never would offer that up. And he's like, well, you don't shoot the same as me. So if you ask me, I'll tell you. Otherwise, you know, that was his whole thing. But, yeah, I always just remembered that.
Katie
It's like I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. It's almost worse.
Nick
Yeah, kind of. It was, like, fun. It's like, yeah, I knew that was going to happen, but I didn't tell you because I figured you'd figure it out anyway. So, yeah, anyway.
Katie
Well, Nick, I was going to ask you for your last funny story that you had mentioned. If you want to tell it, I'm more than happy to listen, but I know it's getting late where you are. So if you'd like to wrap it up soon, maybe we can save it for another time and come back on and just maybe tell some funny stories.
Nick
I think we should save it for another time. I think we should do that because honestly, that one event is based on a whole, my first trout camp fishing trip. And so much happened in that trip. I don't think I can. I think you'd go another half an hour with the way I talk.
Katie
Yeah, that's what I was worried about. Not in a bad way, but I was like, I feel like if we get into one more story, it's going to be another three stories and then we may be going all night.
Nick
Well, we didn't think we were going to get into such a riveting social media and content conversation at the beginning.
Katie
Well, I know you're actually going to be the episode right behind Steve. So everyone has already heard about the Traditional Outdoors podcast, but go ahead and I'm sure after this and Steve, people are going to be like, I really want to hear these two guys talk together because these are such different conversations. So maybe just remind people where they can find your podcast and your blog specifically separate from the podcast.
Nick
Sure. You can find the Traditional Outdoors podcast at traditionaloutdoors.com. We also have a Facebook community. Just look up Traditional Outdoors community and we should pop right up. And that's actually gaining a lot of steam. A lot of people are joining. A lot of great conversations. And it's not too big yet where it's getting to the point where, okay, it's getting ridiculous. It's a really nice group. of people who like to share all kinds of things outdoor related. And again, that's just traditional outdoors. And my blog is actually called Life in Longbows. It's lifeinlongbows.com. I wrote a book of the same name in 2018. That's just called Life in Longbows. And you can get that there if you're interested in any of my bow hunting stories. But I'm also in the process of right now writing my second book. And I got a fishing book coming too. I'm kind of, I'm kind of working in two at the same time. And the, the, the fly fishing one, my, the, the first book, Life and Longbows is a lot about me just as a beginner fumbling my way through learning how to bow hunt. Um, and it's all short stories and I want to do the same with fly fishing. I just got to get a little more mileage under my belt and a few more stories to finish that one off. But, I'm working on that one too. And, you know, I'll probably talk more about it on the show. So, you know, stay tuned to traditional outdoors and check us out. And we're also we're also on Instagram and we don't really do a whole lot on Twitter, but you can find us on Instagram and Facebook mainly. That's where our audience is. Perfect. And that's just traditional outdoors, both places. And thank you so much, Katie, for having me on. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, this is this is a fun chat.
Katie
I like these ones that are just, you know, you just go on about whatever comes up. These are probably some of my favorite ones. So I really appreciate coming on. We'll have to come back and talk about some of those stories that you had mentioned. Because I get the impression that your funny stories are probably on the funnier side of funny stories.
Nick
Oh, yeah, they are. In fact, you know, I'm getting to the point now where all my friends are just not going to want to do anything with me anymore. Because they know I'm just watching them. And whatever happens is going into a book or a blog post at some point. And it's told from my perspective. And whatever I say happened, it happened.
Katie
You should start giving them the old, mm-hmm, every time they do something. I should.
Nick
I should, but it's usually me that's the butt of the joke.
Katie
So, yeah. All right, Nick. Well, I'll let you get going. I know it's late on the East Coast there, but thanks so much for coming on. And we can hang around a couple minutes afterward just to chat. But really appreciate you coming on and hope to talk to you again soon.
Nick
Okay, thank you.
Katie
All right, and that is all. As always, if you liked what you heard, I'd love for you to go over to Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen to podcasts and subscribe there. If you've got a couple extra minutes, a rating or review would also be much appreciated. It doesn't take too long and it makes a big difference on my end. You can also find all my episodes on fishuntamed.com in addition to fly fishing articles every two weeks. And you can find me on social media under my name, Katie Burgert, on Go Wild or at fishuntamed on Instagram. And I will see you all back here in two weeks. Bye, everyone.
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