Dead Drifters Society: A fly fishing podcast
Family, Fish, and Everything In Between: A Deep Dive with Jordan Poggenpohl
Have you ever wondered how to tackle the challenging art of fly fishing? Meet Jordan Poggenpohl, an Alberta native with a lifetime of experience fishing in the Caribou region of BC and Alberta. A knowledgeable guide and an instinctual angler, Jordan unpacks the nitty-gritty of his craft with passion, from trolling flies and dry fly setups to the art of setting up tandem and triple nymph rigs, all while avoiding casting foul-ups. His insights into the instinctual intelligence of brown trout and the fascinating encounters with curious pike create an engaging narrative.
As we navigate through the waters of the Red Deer River with Jordan, expect to be immersed in diverse fish species and the importance of persistence when fly-fishing. Jordan's fly-fishing business has not just been a source of livelihood for him, but a vessel of joy, allowing him to spend more time with his family and share his love for the sport with others. His unique perspective towards fly fishing as a 'jack of all trades' rather than a 'master of one' and his knack for adapting to ever-changing conditions will leave you inspired and ready to tackle your next fishing adventure.
Our dialogue with Jordan does not end with just fishing. We discuss the critical skill of teaching fly casting, the benefits of tying your own flies, and buying in bulk. On a personal note, Jordan opens up about the significance of spending quality time outdoors with family and the joy of hunting. We round off the conversation with an exploration of the dangers and precautions of ice fishing. This episode is a treasure trove of knowledge for anyone passionate about fly fishing, outdoor life, and family - a definite must-listen!
•Instagram
https://instagram.com/hustletroutflyfishing?igshid=ZXVreGgxcXBneGhy
•Website
https://www.hustletroutflyfishing.com
Have you ever wondered how to tackle the challenging art of fly fishing? Meet Jordan Poggenpohl, an Alberta native with a lifetime of experience fishing in the Caribou region of BC and Alberta. A knowledgeable guide and an instinctual angler, Jordan unpacks the nitty-gritty of his craft with passion, from trolling flies and dry fly setups to the art of setting up tandem and triple nymph rigs, all while avoiding casting foul-ups. His insights into the instinctual intelligence of brown trout and the fascinating encounters with curious pike create an engaging narrative.
As we navigate through the waters of the Red Deer River with Jordan, expect to be immersed in diverse fish species and the importance of persistence when fly-fishing. Jordan's fly-fishing business has not just been a source of livelihood for him, but a vessel of joy, allowing him to spend more time with his family and share his love for the sport with others. His unique perspective towards fly fishing as a 'jack of all trades' rather than a 'master of one' and his knack for adapting to ever-changing conditions will leave you inspired and ready to tackle your next fishing adventure.
Our dialogue with Jordan does not end with just fishing. We discuss the critical skill of teaching fly casting, the benefits of tying your own flies, and buying in bulk. On a personal note, Jordan opens up about the significance of spending quality time outdoors with family and the joy of hunting. We round off the conversation with an exploration of the dangers and precautions of ice fishing. This episode is a treasure trove of knowledge for anyone passionate about fly fishing, outdoor life, and family - a definite must-listen!
•Instagram
https://instagram.com/hustletroutflyfishing?igshid=ZXVreGgxcXBneGhy
•Website
https://www.hustletroutflyfishing.com
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, foul ups do happen still, but if you're running like a two foot plus drop or you don't really see that very often, where you will see more foul ups actually is when you're running like double or triple nymph rigs and they're 18 to 24 inches apart and maybe that fish goes to hit your pop fly and you have, you know, your lead fly and I'm very simplistic, with my tandem and triple nymph rigs I just same thing clenching on off the band, the second and third flies, but you will see the odd foul up and I think it's because the fish goes to take that top fly and you go to set and maybe you missed, and then that subsequent fly comes up and it follows them up a little bit there and I think that's how that happens.
Speaker 2:Welcome to dead drifter society, a fly fishing podcast to share information, our adventures and our opinions. We want to see where everyone is at in life and on the water. We'll ask questions and get answers so we can learn everything there is to learn about fly fishing. And now here's your host, andrew Barony.
Speaker 3:Welcome back dead drifter. On this episode we sit down with Jordan pugnple. He is an Alberta native and is just a super fishy guy that started guiding service and just has a love for teaching. So we get into it. Unfortunately I was pretty tired the day we were recording so it was maybe a little loopy. But say love V and we keep plugging along. As far as what we talk about, there's quite a bit of streamer talk and how we set up our dry fly or hopper dropper setups and all that. So lots of good content and I hope you enjoy. I'll see you down at the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm in between Dawson Creek and Fort St John.
Speaker 3:Okay, just what are you doing up there?
Speaker 1:Building a gas plant for a shelf, canada, oh wow.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, that's pretty cool. How long is that?
Speaker 1:project. 10 months We've been up here, started the planning phase in Calgary under corporate office and then we'll mobilize to site May 8 and we've been here for a two and one, so 14 and seven since.
Speaker 3:Do you work for Shell, like that's where do?
Speaker 1:you get. I'm a contractor here, yeah.
Speaker 3:Understood. Have you done this one? Have you done this project before?
Speaker 1:Well, I've worked for Shell. They're a legacy client from the company that I contract to. I contract my services to a construction outfit that specializes in facility construction, okay, so yeah, I mean it's the same old company once you've built one or two gas plants, or they're all the same, yeah 100% Pretty sweet.
Speaker 3:So you've been doing this for a bit.
Speaker 1:It's only real job I think I've ever had. So, yeah, I guess ever since I finished high school, started working in the oil and gas industry and it was, you know, pipe fitting was the trade that I pursued. So I'm a pipe fitter by trade and construction manager now, so more of a desk jockey than anything these days, but it's great. It fuels the real passion which is why we're talking tonight. Yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:I guess that's a good way to lead into a welcome to the show. Jordan, and how's it going?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know it's going great, thank you. Thanks for reaching out and I'm super stoked. This is my first time getting on anything like this and know it's. It's awesome. I'm very happy.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm fired up. So yeah, I guess we can now talk about the real addiction is. It's usually not working, so that's right. Fly fishing. So you're from Alberta, mainly correct, correct? Okay, so fishing the bow river or it's a.
Speaker 1:It's a bit of a story. So, no, my, my fly fishing experience has actually started it in the interior BC in the caribou region. Or my dad. My dad is from Hunter Mile House so he moved away from there when he was a young man and moved up to Northern Alberta. That's where he met my mom and that's where I was raised and moved down to Central Alberta once, once I graduated. But we moved from Northern Alberta down to slave lake Alberta and then from there I'm. Once I was able to drive those.
Speaker 1:I was looking for places to fish down south in the central region, but no, the fly fishing kind of started really early, early on in those little lakes there's just a million million lakes in the Camoops Hunter Mile House area and from the time I can remember we've we've been in little thinner boats, mostly trolling, though right, we were trolling flies back then, and that that's always has been a thing. I've been very blessed to be brought up in the back country and in the outdoors. My, my dad and my mom are both avid anglers and outdoors people and hunters and it's just always been a big part of who I am.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's pretty sweet. So yeah, I mean, and then you're also in another good place to be fishing, alberta, so just feel through there as well. I guess, what's your preferred style of targeting swings, streamers or?
Speaker 1:It's, it's subjective to the, to the day, I guess, to the trip. I mean, I don't know it's. I've been thinking about like what my favorite thing is, and lately it's just everything. It's what it's. Whatever I'm doing that day, that trip, I do kind of like it all kind of a jack of all trades, maybe master of none, but hey, usually that's more valuable than a master of one, I think. But I just I love it all. Whatever is happening out there is just trying to immerse myself in what's happening. I haven't really technically swung flies with a spay rod, it's a single hand stuff, but nothing real traditional, I guess, so speak.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and what are you kind of finding that you target mostly trout, yeah trout, the fly fishing thing you know trolling flies.
Speaker 1:As a kid it was all trout and cocanee. And then when my parents moved to slave Lake Alberta that's a big pike and walleye lake and remember it was my 14th or 15th birthday or something they got us another. Well, evidently my birthday is also on Christmas. So everyone got fly rods for for Christmas slash my birthday in that year and it was that spring that we took them out on the lake, as my parents lived on the lake and we would target these pike on top water frogs with spin rods and figured it'd be kind of cool to try it with a fly rod. And as much as I am a trout fisherman, that's really what gave me the bug to really dive into fly fishing full time and put away all the spin rods and start using fly rods. 100 percent was pop water pike on frog patterns and just floating lines and streamers.
Speaker 1:And once I got the few tugs there, I started doing research where, okay, what's fly fishing all about? And think about fly fishing. You Google it and it's trout and that's the main thing that you start seeing it when you research it. And I started thinking, okay, well, I got to try this out. I mean I remember trolling for them and be seen the lakes. I see all these people on the internet doing it in rivers and started looking at my closest rivers and that was the central Alberta region. So the Rocky Mountain House, yeah, Nord Nordeg, sundry, and I just gravitated to there, so it's kind of the closest area. I mean, I've done a lot in the Hinton and Jasper area as well, but I would say that Rocky Mountain House area has been probably my go to and I eventually moved down there some time ago and by myself, targeting the bull trout and the brown trout more than any other species.
Speaker 3:Yeah, bull trout, I've had a recent encounter with those ones. They were awesome, awesome. Nothing to do with me, but I did get some small ones. So life's not too shabby. Well, it's all good. It's all good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I actually I did some paving up in, well, I guess in Jasper, but I stayed in Hinton in a little trailer park that right when you first get in, kind of deal, and I had some encounters with some pike up there.
Speaker 3:Didn't really get them because I've never really experienced pike, but there are some curious fish Never really seen a fish like come and then stare at me but that happened and just stared at me for like actually it was behind me. When I noticed it, like I walked onto the dock and I was like, oh, there's a pike right there and I, like you know, left him alone because those like chances of him, you know, attacking a fly when he's staring at me is probably pretty low. But I noticed he was still there and then, like five minutes later, I noticed he was on the other side of the dock just still clapping his fins, just doing that thing, and he finally left and I started casting and then he came for the fly, but he didn't, he didn't want anything but such a curious fish. You know, never really experienced that going with like rainbows and browns and cutties all the time.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's pretty funny. That is cool. That's funny that that actually is a pretty common trait with with brown trout in our little spring creeks. They're so keyed in to their surroundings that even though you're standing there motionless, maybe wearing earthy tones, not looking to out of place, they know they'll sit there and they'll kind of like look at you. You'll see their eyes move up and down. They're they're kind of wondering what's going on and they take a moment to kind of soak it in and determine if you're now accepted into their niche or if they need a bolt. And that's funny that you experienced that with the Northern Pike too, because I haven't in there. They're very voracious and they can no hit almost anything at times.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was making my mind melt because I would like my fly and swipe at it with its mouth closed, which was like whatever that you know that can be possible, but multiple times you'd come out of nowhere. So he would obviously like leave and then be watching from a distance, I guess, and every time I did the right thing or changed the fly, he would pretty much come back at it. But I was expecting that too was you know a fish to just climb on and there you go, caught a fish, happy to go. And yeah, yeah, brown trout though. Yeah, I mean, it's funny when you see a brown trout and it just like it doesn't move until you like either walk directly on it or you know you cast at enough times and it's like, no, not taking it, but for something that's not that smart. They seem to be pretty smart, or they at least outsmart me, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:No, there's something there, some instinctual smartness, that I think that's sort of part of what we're so drawn to. And yeah, they're cool like brown trout they are amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so now that you're kind of working in our BC, are you able to get like is it five days a week, or are you able to do that? I mean, watch full time right now?
Speaker 1:Doing this with the construction. Yeah, it's full time. It's seven days a week for the full shift, so a 14 day shift, then a guy, then we go home for seven days. Okay, then come back for 14.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I guess that's nice too, because you just kind of get it done out of the way and then you got like seven days off, which two days off never seems enough.
Speaker 1:No, I mean seven isn't enough either. It's to be honest, it's never enough.
Speaker 3:It's never enough, especially when you want to go fishing. I sit like I went over on Saturday, went to a creek and everything was blown out and we knew it, but we still drove up there, just in case, right, we've seen water levels, we know what we're getting into, but we'll check it out anyways. And then, like all week, it was just mid perfect while I'm at work and then it's supposed to rain Friday and I'll probably still go up on Saturday. You know it's crazy what we'll do for that potential fish. Oh, man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, do you have kids? Or?
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, yeah, I've got two boys a four year old with four and a half, his name is Tucker, and then a two and a half year old boy. His name is Rowan.
Speaker 3:Oh man, rowan and Tucker, like my son's in the middle, and awesome, he pulls some crazy stunts. That that guy. You know what I mean. It's crazy. The only imagine boys. They probably get up to some mischief.
Speaker 1:Yep, no, they're. They're a handful, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no doubt Are they. Do the. I'm assuming they like the outdoors just as much.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, we live out in the country, so every every day is kind of like being out in the outdoors for them and live on a little acreage and yeah that we're very, very blessed that they get to have that outdoorsy life on the gate and they love it. To me, we live out by Keringland, which is a little tiny redneck village out just south of Rocky Mountain House, and it's very, very outdoorsy I guess, and that's awesome for them, for us.
Speaker 3:Is it mostly lakes up there? I know there's some rivers and creeks, but what are you usually targeting when you're up? I would say mostly, mostly rivers.
Speaker 1:Yep, there's quite a few watersheds.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, and I guess so Rockies, yeah. And then what style are you mostly? Nymphing or streamers? What do you tend to do? I guess this is all into winter right now.
Speaker 1:So Okay, so I guess that's. I guess that's a loaded question too, because every day is different. Yeah, go out there, go out there with a few rods usually a streamer rod, a nymph rod and a dry fly rod and just kind of suss the water out a little bit and see what's what's happening and see usually a little bit of everything. Yeah, I don't mind throwing an infrig all day, if it's gonna be the thing. I also don't mind committing to nothing but dry flies or nothing but a streamer rod. I do like a streamer eat. I mean that's, that is fun, I mean it's explosive a lot of the times or sometimes it's very delicate. I mean here in Alberta, these Boltrout especially, they like almost like a dead drifted streamer right in front of their face, kind of dangled and fluttered, and if you're sight-fishing, I mean that's, that's a very delicate way to streamer fish, so to speak, and then that's pretty fun too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, the Boltrout are an interesting one as well. I had, like I only had small ones, but every time I would catch a cutty we'd have like the biggest Boltrout come out and smash the cutty and I'm like, why wouldn't you take like the streamers the size of the cutty? Like you know, it was a coakney at the time because those when the coakneys were heading up to spawn and all that, but yeah, they're funny. And then we saw a couple like sitting in some deep pools, but they don't really seem to, you know. I don't know if it was just because you know it was so deep I couldn't even get a fly presented, but they didn't seem to want to do much when it was super deep. Do you find that you find them more in like riffles or kind of all over?
Speaker 1:the place still. I guess it's all dependent on the time of year. Like right now, our season's over on most of the waters in ES2, which is the Central Alberta region. The Bolt River is still open, but most of our mountain streams are all closed but post spawn like we don't really fish for them during September. And then come October, when their posts spawn, we'll start seeing them dropping back down into the main stems of these rivers.
Speaker 1:Most of our bolt trout in the Central region, like they don't reside in lakes at all, they're all just fluvial, which means just stream dwelling, and they'll drop out of tributaries back into the main stems of larger rivers and their residents of those rivers.
Speaker 1:So what you'll see is you'll see them dropping back into that main stem, into deeper water and usually kind of right where the deepest part of the pool transitions into the tail. Out is where you'll kind of see them stationed. Yeah, but that's not to say you won't see them in six inches of water chasing whitefish right now as well, and that's kind of what we've been seeing here the last few weeks before the season closed. You'll see them stationed down deep, not really interested in anything, just like what you're saying, and then, as soon as you hook that little juvenile brown or whitefish, this thing explodes on your hooked fish but then you can't get anything. Like I was fishing to this one bolt trout and I was literally like dangling the fly like as it was, like drifting and and fluttering like this. It was almost like tapping off of his cheek and he wasn't spooking, didn't care, didn't give, didn't give any type of care to it at all. And then I hook a little whitefish and he comes 15 feet over for it that's so funny.
Speaker 3:I I got real dirty down to it. The last day I had an opportunity to actually go for the bolt trout and I threw on a nymph rig and I watched multiple flies basically how you describe there, just like go right next to their face, not don't glance, know nothing. And then, yeah, sure enough, you know small fish that you're like damn it. And then all of a sudden it explodes on you like well, yeah, I have no idea what I can do here. Yeah, it's, it's funny when you got to give up on fish you can see. It's easier when you you don't see them, but when you see and you're like I should probably leave these fish alone, or I should go, like you know, suss out something else and see if they're, you know, some up, maybe I'll come back down. But yeah, I always find I'm so much better when I'm guiding, so I can like sit there and be like that's not working. He should change it. Okay, we're going to change it. But when I'm fishing I can get a little stubborn. I'm like no, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm the same way, especially when you're like when you're on the boat. So I'm on my drift boat or on one of the rafts and you have you have to also a schedule looking to, so you kind of have no choice. At some point you have to give up and just hope there's something else downstream that's willing to play ball yeah, if I could guide myself the way I guide others, oh, I'd be deadly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So how much time do you get on the water you find?
Speaker 1:um, not as much as I used to, especially having young kids. The last, the last couple seasons have definitely been a lot. What more? So, especially with the little outfit that I run, kind of getting busier and busier. It's been a blessing. Blessing in the skies. I've been able to be home a little bit more to be on the water, and even though I'm working on the water, I'm still home seeing my family at night, and then that's. That's been awesome. But I would say and we've got a long season here much like the island, like I can fish the Boal River all winter, I can fish the Red Deer River all winter up until March, and there's a couple little spring creeks that are open as well. They don't, they don't freeze, so I'm gonna save my. My total season for fishing is around a hundred days nice.
Speaker 3:How is the Red Deer River? I've used to well, my dad used to live around it and I used to look at it a lot, but I never fished it and I definitely have a buddy that lives pretty close to it. I'm like I should go stay there and fish it, but is it worth it, I guess?
Speaker 1:I like it. Yeah, yep, I like. I mean you, you. It's one of those rivers where you have to put in the time, yeah, and you have to learn its secrets and then it can be quite. It's very productive. It's a little tail water, especially down, like downstream of the dam there's a Glenifer Lake, so the Red Deer River comes out of Banff, flows through Sundry, then kind of winds back around up to the north and then into the reservoir Glenifer Lake and then there's a dam and then downstream of that dam is where it's the tailwater stretch and it's it's open in the winter up until March for a certain stretch and, yeah, it's great, it's a great white fish fishery. It used to be world-class brown trout fishing and they're.
Speaker 1:You know we had a flood years and years ago I cannot remember exactly what year was, I want to say 2008 that drastically changed the spawning habitat for the brown trout and some of the the holding water and it just hasn't been the same, but it it's in my mind.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, I do a lot of head hunting, a lot of target site fishing, and when you know, when you get to know that water, you kind of know where the fish are and then it doesn't really matter. Yeah, fish per mile trout wise, aren't what it used to be, but I mean, if you're looking at a cool, diverse fishery, I mean if you're fishing from the dam down towards, let's say, innisfail, you can catch white fish, brown trout, the odd long lost rainbow trout still reside in there and I don't know if they've just escaped from local ponds or what the deal is, but you'll find like small population of rainbow trout there, as well as upstream of the dam too in the mountains you'll find the odd rainbow. But then you start getting into your like warm water species and you can catch pike, gold eye, moon eye, walleye, sawger and you catch. You catch all those on the fly rod too. Then you start getting into the sturgeon as well, which I've never caught on a fly but enter.
Speaker 3:Crazy. Yeah, I would love to catch a pike on the fly in a river. I think that would be super cool. I don't know, I mean on the lake for sure it's awesome, but I feel like a river that would just be that extra little.
Speaker 1:I mean they would just come out I'm assuming and crush things right, yeah, yeah, they essentially they essentially like river fish in the rivers kind of seem to have similar behavior traits. In my mind. I mean, yeah, you have different differences, but like they all got a face upstream, they're all looking for the shelter from predation and the current and the elements. So they all kind of like the water that you read is very similar and they're all gonna sit in similar spots, like when I'm fishing for walleye in a river, like I'm still fishing those buckets and those drop-offs and those edges and those seams, just like you would for rainbows or browns or anything, and then they're there. They're just doing the exact same thing, yeah it's true.
Speaker 3:I guess that's the key, I mean being persistent. Just keep going for it. Yeah, I know that and I've seen that too, you know, or it's like, even though everyone has kind of their own little zones, they like they're all in the same spots. I mean, I've caught rainbows where browns should be and I've caught browns where rainbows should be.
Speaker 3:The rules of thumb that are meant to be broken, hey, yeah, so the outfit, or that you started it by yourself, or yeah, yeah. And how many years you said it's just getting going. So it's been four years. Four years and what kind of sparked you wanting to start that, start diving and all that?
Speaker 1:Man, it kind of happened on accident. You know, we had we started having kids four years ago and my fly fishing passion was taking a backseat, and which was fine I mean, the kids obviously come first and but it was even before that like it's something to seem like I wasn't, I wasn't growing and I actually took actually took this, this guide school and and with with that, to just spark a new devotion for wanting to give something back, and I'm still trying to figure out what that is, but right now I'm really really enjoying teaching, like I. So I didn't know what that guide school was gonna be. I didn't know if I wanted to be a guide, I just wanted to see if it was gonna open up some doorway and it kind of did within myself and I just kind of went with it.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, we, we get a lot of new anglers that have never touched a fly rod before and it's really awesome to to witness their progression through what we can, we can offer and we don't know everything, but we we work our asses off to try and give our guests the best day possible and that's very fulfilling and I think that's a direction I want to continue in and I got a really good team a couple guys you guys actually that are on the team there and it's. It's been awesome so yeah, hundred percent.
Speaker 3:I love everything you said there, cuz I can feel that a hundred percent. It is like super cool to see someone that's never caught a fish or never touched a fly rod and then you get him a fish and their eyes light up and they're just like yeah, yeah, it's like changing them back into a kid and just seeing that like pure joy. Yeah, it's pretty special, man. It is like a really cool thing.
Speaker 3:I haven't really had a bad day, but I mean I've had tougher days or days with you know a few sequence of events that would leave people pondering oh yeah wonder how that really played out, and but at the end of it it's just like, yeah, it's such a cool journey and and sharing that with people and sharing what we love about it, that's pretty sweet. So, yeah, and you say you got a couple people. You want to keep that kind of going, I'm assuming, and I guess well, you're. Also, if you're away working, they can keep working as well, and yeah, so how many months out of the year do you get to do, or how your service get to guide for so?
Speaker 1:we offer trips from April right to the end of the season, so October 31st, and we kind of pick away in the early season. Yet a few trips here and there, and then it gets busier for us July, august and September.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, that's cool. I mean it's pretty. It's a decent season, especially with the kind of snow you guys get out there. Mm-hmm, how's it been this year as it started, has it?
Speaker 1:begun snow, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny, we got that six inches of snow right before Halloween and I came off shift and I came home and I mean it's Chinook area too, so it all melted, is gone yeah, yeah, has it been drier and not in our region, not in central Alberta we've been very blessed with consistent precipitation.
Speaker 1:We had, I would say, a mediocre runoff, a bit of a later runoff. We had a really great pre-runoff season and then runoff hit and it kind of hit quick and fast, but not too crazy, and then the water levels flow is stabilized and we just kind of kept getting like small spurts of rain throughout the year and we just had this really gradual, beautiful water temp and levels all season long, where I know, like the southern part of the province was not the same boat and who, the owl got invoked again. And you know we we don't have that in central Alberta yet, but we wouldn't have needed it. This year we had beautiful, beautiful temperatures. It was really awesome. The fish needed it, because last year we had very bad flooding and it had pushed a lot of fish down and it bummed a lot of them up and this year they're looking a lot better.
Speaker 3:There we go yeah, that's good, the who all is well. As far as guiding, it's pretty challenging, especially if the fish aren't cooperating early morning, you know. So that's definitely was a bit of a challenge, but obviously for the fishery it's, it's important. Do you find that like I guess a lot of hawker dropper setups and like, is that mostly where you guys are running? Are you trying to do a little bit more than just nymphing? And honestly, it's?
Speaker 1:it kind of really depends there, andrew, on on the day, but we do find ourselves nymphing a lot more than anything else. To be honest with you, it's so productive. It's, in my opinion, one of the most productive ways to fish. So why not right? It's not about catching fish. Well, fishing is about catching fish at some point, but it's about the experience and it's about learning, and part of that learning experience is actually feeling fish on the end of your line. So we do resort in a lot of nymph fishing, and in some days it's the only thing that will work. But yeah, we like to switch it up a lot too, though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I guess with anyone's ability you can see what they can really do. But I Euro nymph a lot so I love nymphing. It's so effective. I didn't do a hopper dropper setup, I pretty much just stuck. I fished the bow in I guess what. October, no, September, Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right before because I was guiding in Cranbrook. So after that I went to the bow river and I couldn't even believe the amount of weeds. I guess it just started getting cold enough, so all the weeds were ripping off the bottom or dying off and floating down the river. So the first day I got there I was just mind blown. I was like people fish this. That's crazy. But obviously, being the first time, so yeah, that was a bit of an eye opener with how big the bow river is and just seeing weeds everywhere.
Speaker 3:It took me a few days of fishing it before I really got into it and then I had a guide and actually fished two flies for the first time in my life, two streamers, oh yeah. And then I got a little leech behind it. That is effective way of doing it. Yep, yep, oh yes, that was pretty fun and then got a few on the dries and the mergers. Pretty late season, coming from Cranbrook, I wasn't really seeing near the end of the season. You didn't see a ton of hatches happening, but the west slopes would still come up and take flies off the surface. So that's not something I'm really that used to back home or on the island, like brown trout will do it, but rainbows there's just so many nymphs in the water. Once again, why it's so effective. Yeah, exactly why look?
Speaker 1:up when they can just sit on the bottom.
Speaker 3:How do you set up your hopper dropper?
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, very simplistic. I just run a clinch knot off the bend of the hook down to my dropper.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and for me it was like when I was first tying on two flies in my head I was like this is going to tangle so much and it never did so. When you have that clinch knot right there, do you find that I guess you have so much tidbit in between the two flies that you're not really getting knotted up or having the fish get hooked twice or whatever Is it usually. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, foul ups do happen still, but if you're running like a two foot plus dropper, you don't really see that very often. Where you will see more foul ups actually is when you're running like double or triple nymph rigs and they're 18 to 24 inches apart and maybe that fish goes to hit your pop fly and you have, you know, your lead fly. I'm very simplistic with my tandem and triple nymph rigs I just same thing clinch, knot off the bend, the second and third flies. But you will see the odd foul up and I think it's because the fish goes to take that top fly and you go to set and maybe you missed and then that subsequent fly comes up and it follows them up a little bit there and I think that's how that happens. But don't see too much of that with the hopper dropper. You don't see too much of that at all.
Speaker 3:No, in my opinion, I'm not talking about that because, once again, like coming from BC, I could never imagine fishing with three flies when I'm still already getting my flies stuck in the trees with one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, water loading, lots of water loading and wide loops, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and teaching that, I feel like, is also a bit of a skill that you've learned. I mean knowing how to fish and how to open up your loop. That makes one thing, but if someone's got a few flies on, I guess beginners obviously are getting pretty tangled up either way. But do you have like extra techniques for teaching people to toss those out or roll cast those out?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, if you've never touched a fly rod before and it's a, we're on the river, like the bow or a larger river, where the fish are used to maybe seeing some drift boats and this, and that they're a little bit more habituated than yeah, the water loading technique works really well. Just look it up, yeah, you get it behind you and you let the water actually load it and then you're just then casting forward. Yeah, almost yeah, similar, I guess, to a roll cast where some of the line is loading up and the water is helping as well, but this is just directly behind you and then you're just sending it forward. And then, once they can start to do that and lay that out straight, then maybe you'll start doing some false casting. But I mean, if we're teaching fly casting, we're not throwing an indicator with three flies either.
Speaker 1:We're going to stop, we're going to anchor up, we'll probably put on a hopper or something that's easy to transfer over. We're going to cut down the leader and tip it length to something more manageable. We want these people to get confident, we want them to learn a skill so that way, when they're done on the water with us, they've got something they can take away and then use on their own. So we'll do the water loading and we want to see some bobbers go down, we want to see some tight lines, but we also want to see some smiles on their face, just through their own, I guess, evolution and skill building.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, because I know when I was on the wrap trying to teach people to flip out a bobber, a lot of people especially if they had we were doing dry fly most of the morning and it just wasn't working. So the same thing you get a fish on and then maybe go back to dry flies. In the Kootenays I was told to try to stick to dry flies as much as possible so we'd switch back to that a lot. So people would get they would forget how to do certain things, especially with the bobber setup and that trying to make a tight loop and just did it again. You're like, oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Here we go, hell yeah.
Speaker 3:I could. Only I'd be nervous with three flies, but I guess you're right if you're just teaching and getting people to load it with the water because it lays out, it's all flat, it's not going to have to tangled up and then just flick it forward.
Speaker 1:And it does, it still gets tangled and you're.
Speaker 1:you know, we can do it, we can do it, oh yeah, and you most definitely can do it with three and you sit there and you're untangling a knot and asking yourself why, why are we doing this? And then a lot of times you will actually drop it down to a nymphs or whatever the case might be. It all depends. But oh yeah, knots are a thing and it happens to the best of us. It happens to me all the time. I'm nothing special, but it's yeah, it happens. That's part of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, sometimes they can look so like the tangles, can just look like the scariest thing, and then you pull a few pieces and you're like wow. And then other times it's like you know, especially with a bobber on it, that extra, like the way it loops around or does whatever, it's like insane what a bobber can do, especially when you got a long. You just tied it on and you're like, no, okay, yeah, that looks like a new one, new rig entirely. Oh, yeah, yeah, are you tying a lot of your flies? Are you buying them? Maybe for personal You're tying them a little bit more and then for work you're buying them. How does that work out?
Speaker 1:Kind of transitions. I used to tie, I would say, 90 plus percent of my flies and that's streamers, nymphs, drys, you name it. But now, just with the growing quantity of flies that we're going through, I've been buying more for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean there's some really good sources out there. I did the same while I was doing the dry fly. Like I tied nymphs and streamers and all sorts of other things, but dry flies, the small ones, I don't know. I got big gloves I guess, but yeah, I found and I didn't even have my vice up there, which I'll never do again. I'll never leave my vice behind. That was scary. But yeah, buying flies when you're going through a lot of flies is definitely kind of the way to go, especially if you can get a picture on them.
Speaker 1:For sure, and I think it still is. Yeah, like you said it's. It is important to have that vice too, because there's always those guide flies. Yeah, like you're in Alberta, like I'll be the first to say man worm patterns. I mean if you're fishing you're not fishing worms. Or like, like a Jimmy legs or Pat's rubber legs, stone fly nymphs. I mean you're missing out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%. Now I luckily had a good buddy in the shop that I was working out of that had spared time, so he would tie all the guide flies, and then we had, like the main, awesome, oh man, shout out, kale. He saved my ass so many times. It would be like a tough day, but everyone else was catching fish and it was my first time in that area, and you know I only had the flies I had, and everyone would be like, oh, you don't have this. And I'd be like nobody told me, like how am I supposed to know this? I would start working and I'd be like, oh my God.
Speaker 3:But yeah, having a vice, that is rule number one, and I will never leave it behind again. Not for that long of a time. It was a bit of a separation. When I got home, though, I started laying down some threads, so it was pretty good. Now your streamers, though for yourself. I know I like. Out here on the island they like to the Brown specifically like to kind of nip at the back like a trailer hook, but when I went out to Cranbrook going for like bowls and even the kites, they seem to smash a lot more in the front. The bowls up there? Are they like all pretty much smashing the head and not so much yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:I think so For the most part, if they want it deliberately and it's a predatory response. I mean, that's how a predatory fish wants to eat. They want to eat head first. So the scales and you know that's nothing's going against the grain that slides down their mouths, into the throats and stomach a lot easier. So I think that's what they try and do and I don't know, I don't know, but maybe those tail nips, maybe that's more of a territorial thing where the Browns and most fish and rivers do exhibit territorial responses. So maybe they're just trying to nip at that smaller big fish pattern to say, hey, get out of my prime life. That could be a thing.
Speaker 1:And I also heard this was like from a lake fisherman that the lake dwelling trout and maybe this is a thing too, if you're fishing leeches that they'll actually bump the leech pattern and the leech well, the real leech in real life, you know it's swimming, it's undulating in the water and then it gets bumped and wants to ball up as a defense mechanism and those trout will actually bump it, it'll ball up and then they'll hit it. And I used to notice that a lot trolling flies like leeches. Way back in the day when we were younger, we'd get those bumps. You had a bump and then, and then you get a hit, and so maybe that's something that's happening to you if you're fishing like leech patterns a lot to where maybe they're bumping it and I don't know.
Speaker 3:I think we just got special browns. They nipped a lot of the times. I've even had a few times swinging streamers were I'll be fishing. I'll get like a few bumps, thinking and say they're steelhead or maybe I know it's a brown or assume it's a brown. And then, like usually when I like sit there, I'll just very slowly kind of draw it, like let my fly swing down river. It's like done its swing, it's just sitting in the current.
Speaker 3:I'll kind of like lift it or do peri pokes or something, just like do a little bit of movement but leave it in that zone. And then I would feel like a few bumps and if I let my rod down and it kind of go back down river, I would get the grab from the brown. So me and my friends kind of think that maybe they nip at the fish to try to like stun them or something, and then they have swallowed them, because I know what you mean by like swallowing them. But like yeah, we don't fish with front hooks for the browns here we can only fish with one hook. So it's either a trailer or a front hook. Oh yeah, yeah, I think they're just special man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, are they. Would you consider them pressured?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they are pretty heavily pressured. The best, the only river with brown trout is the cow gin on the island Gotcha. It has basically all the salmon, brown trout, cutthroat rainbows and then get steelhead. So pretty much, yeah, I'd say it's fished pretty hard. Lots of boats going down and maybe not like in the, it's only, I think it's like under 30 kilometers to the ocean, so it's from the, so it's really not that big. And then there's like multiple different sections, so trout would more so be on the upper section and then, you know, bigger browns will kind of disperse throughout as you go down and then, yeah, so there's there's quite a bit of pressure, especially from like there's a footpath all the way down, basically, so you can go hike a trail and find fishing spots.
Speaker 3:But yeah, as far as I can remember hearing about streamers on the cow gin, it's always been trailer hooks on our steelhead and salmon. We usually do trailer hooks. It's maybe like leeches and stuff. It doesn't matter once you're in smaller flies, but if you're going bigger flies, you know nipping, a lot more nipping from these guys. Yeah, yeah, so I don't know, I usually tie with both and then leave them in the box now just in case. So luckily when I got to Alberta I had some flies that had both the trailer and the and the lead hook on it, so I was definitely able to kind of work with some of my flies. But of course I didn't really have the flies that the boat river browns wanted. I didn't have enough white flies, so something I feel was pretty good for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, white, and they like to sparkle too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was thinking about it earlier. You mentioned um coakene. Did you use to fish for coakene?
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah, yeah, I was a kid and I haven't fished for coakene in over 10 years and I remember we would just be trolling full sink fly lines and smacking them on clouds or minnows and Sprat leaves and yeah, just whatever, right I?
Speaker 3:don't think we were too.
Speaker 1:They're just like searching for food, they're feeding, yeah, and this would have been their feeding season, like definitely in the summer, okay Early spring to mid late summer, and that was, yeah, we'd catch them. They're like 10 inches. You get, yeah, 10, 12, you get the odd one that's 16 to 20, but yeah, yeah, that would be a pretty sweet little fishery for kids.
Speaker 3:For sure I was thinking about that for my son because that would be a cool way. Landlock salmon I didn't really think people targeted them, but recently enough I've seen a few people that actually like will try for them and stuff. Um. So I was kind of curious how they did that, cause I would assume, being in a lake and stuff, they're still eating quite a bit of bugs, leeches and all that, like they're not just chasing bait fish around. But yeah, when did you start tying? Was that pretty early on as well?
Speaker 1:Um yeah, right, when I got to the after I caught that first pike on the fly in my teenage years. So, um yeah, I bought a vice and me and my buddy there we went to the one of the fly shops in Edmonton and loaded up with. We don't even know what we bought, we just bought anything we can afford and figured that we'd be able to make something with it. But yes, we started tying great away as soon as, as soon as that bug hit, caught that pike on the fly, and then we started realizing we had Arctic grayling in our local streams and we started tying nymphs and dry flies.
Speaker 3:That's awesome, yeah, I mean just having like a lifelong of fly fishing, that's that's pretty sweet, and then to actually now be able to share that with everyone, yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you have?
Speaker 3:some do your kids kind of show interest in fishing. Yet, or I know, once too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they both do. They're both very. They're stubborn and independent like dad and mom. So it it is a challenge to get them out there and you know, they, they, they think they can do it all themselves and it's actually quite hilarious cause they have their own little kid rods. But no, I know they have to use a, they have to use dad's rod and they want to use dad's black and white rods and those are the Helios Orvis models and yeah, so can't say no. So the four year old flings, flings the Helios three around, and the two year old tries to do the same thing and he can barely lift it. And I'm just sitting there cringing. But they're smiling and yeah, it's good. The four year old's got a pretty good cast already. They haven't landed a fish on a fly yet, but we're we're getting really close. He's a great net man, so I'm really stoked about that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:That's funny. That's my son loves the net. He'll do the same thing. He'll be like no, I got this yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:And we we got one of those fish pond like boat nets and like it's heavier than the kids and they're trying to like lug it around and you know, yeah, it's awesome, it's funny.
Speaker 3:Oh man, that's awesome. So have they been on a boat like a rap?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they come on the raft, both of them, and, and and the drift boats not at the same time in the river, yeah, one at a time, still one at a time, but in the on the lakes, on this little trout lakes in the area. I'll get them both on the boat and they're good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they like it. No, that's really sweet and I mean, yeah, I guess you kind of grew up with fishing. I didn't really grow up with fishing tells a little older, but I imagine for my son, you know, spending that much time outdoors with your dad that's going to be a good time. So I think you're on the right track.
Speaker 1:I think you're on the right track. Thanks, man. That means a lot, it's. It's hard Not really knowing if you're doing it right and not trying to take everyone's advice is trying to figure out on our own right, so I appreciate that. Thanks for saying that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no worries, man. I mean having, you know, started a business and and having two kids two boys, I'm assuming girls would be just as challenging, but in different ways. Kids have a high energy. That's really what I'm getting at. Sometimes you're running around crazy and you're like it's like seven o'clock, how could you have so much energy right now? But yeah, do you do any hunting as well, or?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, not so much, but I try to. I like shooting, archery, and that's the style of hunting that I do like to get out and do, but I don't have much time. I haven't shot anything for a couple of years. I think 20, season of 2020 was the last time I harvested an animal, a little white tail, with my bow, nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, bow hunting, that's definitely. It's funny because a lot of people that fly fish and well, not a lot, but definitely a number of them that I've talked to it's like, yeah, I like bow hunting. I think we just we like that challenge that extra little bit of difficulty. I think so, yeah, um, so when did you start hunting?
Speaker 1:Same thing. I mean, it's just kind of always been something that's been part of my life ever since I can remember.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's pretty sweet. More with rifles when you're younger and then when it's yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my dad's amazing hunter. He's one of the one of the best stuff all of us I've ever seen with with Elk and Moose, and it's it's always been that that game. You know, call them in and then it makes a good shot and then you Go grab them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I also experienced put a bit more game. Neat was and Cranbrook and I have to say awesome.
Speaker 3:It is pretty good. I don't. My side of the family didn't do any hunting, so Never really ate much game had deer a few times when I was younger but I didn't really remember it. So yeah, I was going to do that and Definitely the archery. I did that for quite a few years. I haven't shot a bow in a while now, but it's definitely something I think about more and more in the last recent. But yeah, it's busy. We're always so busy. We got work and then we want a little time for fishing and then Back to work, but we've got young kids right, so it's hard.
Speaker 1:We can't, we can't do everything, so we have to pick and choose. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's definitely made me, you know, appreciate how much time I did get on the water prior. And, yes, when I, when I had few less Responsibilities, it's like, oh yeah, it was good too. But now I feel a little bit more calm, I don't know, and I get out there, I don't feel as like pressured, I'm like alright, I know that there's going to be another day fishing Where's Little you know get skunked one day. And that was a rough drive home. Now it's like, oh yeah, that was still enjoyable. But when does the like actual ice kind of start to form on your guys's rivers out there?
Speaker 1:Well, the smaller streams, a little creeks there are you starting to ice over right now, okay and the bigger rivers, like the red gear and the north scotch. When the clear water there, they're still completely open and flowing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, have you ever done that like ice fishing, or like standing on the shelves of ice fishing and that kind of cold, cold weather on the rivers? Yeah, yep, yeah, how do you like? I don't know, I always imagine that and I'm standing on a block of ice that could break off. So how far out do you really go, or do you usually still see a bit of the bank and then there's just these shelves of ice everywhere?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you really have to kind of experience it and it's like anything else, you kind of get to understand the limit, but it's dangerous. I mean you, I try and stay as close to the bank as possible and, yeah, sometimes, sometimes there, especially when you get like the freeze thaw, the freeze thaw Late in the winter on the bow, I mean you're, you're fishing certain areas and the fish are hanging out right on the edge and you have to be still six to ten feet away from the edge because that little bit of ice formation on Along the edge is only an inch or so thick and you can't get out there and it can be quite, quite difficult, but it's dangerous. I mean, you definitely need to pay attention.
Speaker 3:I've seen crazy. I'm sure you've seen on Instagram the people that are like floating down and fishing on me. Yeah, I'm like like how does that even end in a positive way? Like, yeah, a million years, do that for one because, like I don't think that would be safe. But like actually, if you just like fell in, it would be so cold whether you get out or not, like you're frozen.
Speaker 1:So the things you do for clout, though right, the things you do for the ground, I think you know there's a couple of them I see in there on the bow river and a couple of spots I know and you can tell they're just in a riffle, that's. That's only six inches deep, so it's. Then maybe that's not as sketchy, but still you don't want to like, you still run the risk of Hypothermia and this and that, but there's, there's a lot of hazards with that right. Some Maybe you get, maybe get sucked under the ice when it's, if you fall off, and yeah, that's definitely wouldn't be a good time.
Speaker 3:No, I would survive way back in the day because I'm always thinking like that looks dangerous, I'm not doing that, or try to do it dangerously very carefully, that's yeah that.
Speaker 1:That that was my old model, like the 20s. There was pretty much no whole bars like you, just you just went, yeah, yeah, that was kind of the perks of working in the oil and gas industry out, work all winter and then take More often, just trough, bum around and and just to happen there is. There's no rules, no responsibility, no wife, no kids. And a guy looks back now and just I shake my head at some of the stuff Me and the boys got into, some of the perils and the close calls. Yeah, never in a million years that I'd be doing that now and now I got like backcountry messengers, like the garment in reach is what we run and you know it's really nice you can text the wife and say, yeah, we're here, made to the spot or the floats going good, we're a little bit behind and didn't have any of that back in the day and it was kind of around even 10, 10 years ago and we didn't use it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, no, those like Different what you can do to get signal when you're out in the bush and actually be able to contact people. It's pretty crazy. Yeah, I even like I don't know. Being out with no service is Like now you kind of gets in the back of your head. But yeah, when we're younger, we know I'm not that old, but even a handful of years ago you didn't get service anywhere and there wasn't really. We didn't have any satellite phones or anything.
Speaker 3:Now that you kind of mention it, yeah, we did get into some crazy shit. That's pretty good. Yeah, it is a good time and I feel like, you know, with all those precaution things, especially having kids, you definitely like get to a point where you're like you think a lot more about that. I mean, even when I'm on a roof, I think like have little flashes and like, yeah, I don't want to fall off this roof. But Five years ago, before the kid was born, it was like, oh, run up that roof, all good, I Guess that's good. That's why our species has, you know, made it to where it's at. Yeah, so what's your, what's your upcoming season going to be? I guess it's pretty much, because you said it was pretty much wrapping up now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure we. We've been wrapped up for a little bit. But the upcoming season, I mean, looks like we've got some early season stuff. Some people want to want to get out and experience Free runoff on on the ice shelves, cold water, lethargic fish there's some interest in that and that's, I guess, what we're gonna kick off with. In Alberta, in the central region, we'll refocus our rivers open April 1st, I think. Yeah, we'll be Be hitting the ground running, I think yeah, and would you be?
Speaker 3:you'd be still drifting down the river. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, it'll have to depend on. We'll have to see how it goes with, with the thaw for sure. But yeah, pretty much right out of the gate, there's some rivers that we got, some stretches that will float and It'll take some time, like normally in the spring. What we have to do is I'll get out there in the raft I mean one of my good buds and we'll go with a chainsaw and or a machete or whatever and just kind of groom the run a little bit.
Speaker 3:So we gotta get out the ice off wherever it needs.
Speaker 1:Well that, or even if there's been some, some driftwood or some trees that have been moved around or little bits, and Last thing you want to do is get clients on the river and he come around a corner, drop into a riffle, or drop out of a riffle down into a run and come around a corner and there's a 24 inch spruce right across the river, and that would not be a good time. So, yeah, we that's how our season usually starts, as we go out and scout, we'll scout for a bit until we know it's going to be safe. Yeah, and then, and then we can start Getting people out there. Yeah, a lot of their little rivers are so skinny man, like that's only skinny water. So you know you can't be fighting with logs. You mean your ore strokes are one thing and if you miss one You're you're kind of hooked, and so then have to contend with the logs. I mean you're really hooked.
Speaker 3:I guess in a raft too, like you can bounce off the ice pretty good, but you don't want to be really hitting a drift boat on like super hard surfaces by any means, no, no, yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 1:Most of that early season stuff is all raft anyway, okay, but still, I mean you want to? Yeah, I don't know how I want to hit stuff, yeah, I'm just yeah, exactly ideally nothing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, no, and then pretty early season, I'd imagine like nimson streamers is pretty much the name of the game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, big on leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches, early season, and then super slow presentations, even like an upstream Present to presentation, pop back downstream just to get that leech bouncing around off the bottom, okay.
Speaker 1:But if you're drifting, you know that means getting out and then kind of Waiting a little bit and presenting your fly like that. But yeah, if you're, if you're a lot of our rivers too, if, like, you're drifting like our rafts we're not fishing out of them 100% of the time, like they're more of a vessel to get you From point a to b, to get you to that water when you know those fish are holding, and and then you get out, you beach it like some, some of the rivers that we float, like they're 20 feet wide so it's not a lot of room to Professionally fish out of. So you just use that wrap as a vessel and you get down and get out and then fish. But yeah, so the black leeches have been great bunny leeches, one of my favorites with a gun, metal gray Unxtend bead or nothing at all and just split shots. And then the nymphs nymphs are always clutched, like the stonefly nymphs in the worms.
Speaker 3:Yeah, one's like hopper season really kind of start to unfold. August I would say, yeah, august. Yeah, I have a. Even in Cranbrook we had hoppers all over the grasses, but rarely would it really be a hopper day. I think I had like one or two days where I got a decent amount of hopper action. It happened to both be very windy days and both on like grass bank cuts, so obviously made quite a bit of sense on while it was working. But you guys get like pretty much the whole month of August and maybe a bit into September, it's all hopper, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's situational too, based on the watershed, like the spring fed, slow moving brown trout creeks, like they're awesome hopper streams and yeah, they're great. And then some of our freestone streams, like the clear water, I mean it's fast moving and it's got so much like floodplain and gravel bars that the others, like you're saying there's like hoppers in the grass but you don't really see them that much in the water, so that river is not the greatest hopper river. And then some of our mountain cutty streams, like they're cut 200 feet into a canyon and you're wondering how efficient. They never see a hopper but they do and it's, yeah, it's. I guess it is all situational, but August seems to be that prime time if you are going to throw a hopper on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then you're going to throw it right on. Well, that's definitely I don't know. I think everyone should experience a good hopper day on the water. It's pretty cool, like I like tying or throwing like pretty small dry flies. I do enjoy that, but you just have a big, chunky dry fly on. You know it's easy to drift it. You can like move it around on the water a little bit, but I'd say most of the times it's such an aggressive take on those big flies. Yeah, I do love watching fish come up from the bottom and I guess sightseeing those browns too. That can be pretty thrilling yeah.
Speaker 1:It's the closest thing to hunting that I get these days. It seems like you see that fish and maybe it's a pet fish that you've got to know over the last few years and he's hiding behind that same stump and you know he's going to be there and, yeah, it does seem like you're stalking them and very intimate, yeah, very intimate yeah, and that's like one or two casts and that's pretty much all you get at them if you're lucky.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I'll definitely have to make a trip up that way because it's something. Once I like got a little bit of fishing or a lot more dry fly than I've ever got on the island being Cranbrook. The one thing I was thinking about was like how cool would it be to be chasing those browns and, like you know, stalking them, basically being in the grass like you're lying or something you know yeah, yeah, you know, and it's got hundreds and hundreds of thoughts Like that just fires me up thinking about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and sometimes you're sitting there for what seems like forever, and sometimes it's like an hour. You're sitting there and you're waiting for that one lane. You're waiting for that fish to cycle through its little territory and give you that little opening, because you've got nothing but spruce trees or willows behind you and you have this one little opening to make a two false cast and let your fly out. And you're running long leaders. Yeah, it's special. Yeah, think about it right now, it might be my favorite way to fish.
Speaker 3:Yeah, do you find like obviously when you're taking clients out you have to kind of pick the water. You're getting them to fish, but are you getting like some pretty seasoned anglers as well?
Speaker 1:Not so much. So we're mostly getting them on the waters where they're going to have a bit of an easier time with casting and learning the ins and outs of breeding your standard riffle run pool setups and stuff like that. But we have had a couple of really experienced anglers and we've taken them out on some of the slow moving technical brown trout streams and that's been really fun to watch some guys have a go at some of those big browns in those waters.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely when you can watch someone that can cast or fish as well as yourself and then you tell them to do something and they do it and it works out. I mean it's all a satisfaction, the teaching in general, but you know it's either someone that's never caught a fish and they explode in such like a happy way, or someone that can fish the way you can and you're like, yes, that was the cat. Oh, no, you can live back here Seriously through it. It's pretty sweet, I agree. Yeah, I do like having all anglers on the raft, but brand new beginners, and then like someone that's just like or better fish or better angler than I am, or something, and I can just sit there and just like, be like, yeah, you know, I had one of my last trips.
Speaker 3:I had this guy who he had just lay out a dry fly so well and it was like blowing like almost 30 and he was just like do a tight little and I'm just like watching, like all he wanted to do was fish fast, seems to. So he was like super relaxed kind of guy, just did not care about like anchoring up or stopping. He was like just put me on these big seams and I'm happy. And then in the wind and I'm like trying to hold the raft straight, because you know, rafts and wind, they just blow around, yeah, crazy Popping around you, oh man. But yeah, it is such a treat to be, such a blessing to be able to share this with others and, you know, help people. The teaching aspect that's a really cool one as well, because I don't know if you were teaching much before, but there's something really nice about teaching, like seeing someone like pick up some information you said and then you watch them do it and you're like that is beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's maybe the most fulfilling part to me anyway. Yeah, it's hard to explain, yeah, but that's been very satisfying yeah.
Speaker 3:So your next few years you're going to keep doing the guiding and construction. Do you see yourself kind of leaning towards just eventually doing the guiding thing, or are you probably always going to stick with both?
Speaker 1:Well, I've been saying it now for the last two seasons that I wasn't going to sign any more construction contracts and I keep signing on the crooked line. I guess this economy it's hard to turn down that end of thing financially. But the goal is to definitely be full time on the water spring, summer, fall and then pick up some construction contracts maybe in the winter months going forward, and that's the goal I mean. Ultimately we just want to keep spreading what little knowledge we have and when we can and getting on the water and showing people our home waters and just the cool little things that live within.
Speaker 3:Yeah, nice. Well, it's definitely getting a little later. I know you're probably in mountain time right now as well, right? Yep, yeah, so you're a little later than me, but yeah, no, it was really nice having you on. I definitely love hearing that story fishing like your whole life and now you're just kind of doing the thing that you're meant to do, so that's a beautiful thing. Yeah, definitely. Thanks, jordan for coming on. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, yeah, thank you very much, andrew. Anytime, dude, I'd love to chat with you more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure. If people want to find your guide outfit, what's the best way to get in contact with you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, first HustleTrow fly fishing is the Instagram handle and HustleTrowflyFishingcom If you want to check out the website, I guess.
Speaker 3:Actually, that's a good question. How did you come up with the name?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a okay, that's a good story. Well, I used to. I used to really like snowboarding and it's something I haven't done so much since. I've had kids and there was a brand, lrg, and they used to have these hats called HustleTrees and I used to run the hats all the time and I'm always, when I was snowboarding, hustling in the trees and I just kind of how it was, hustletrees was the thing, and then it just turned into HustleTrow. Just one day, someone's just like HustleTrow and I was like, yeah, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 3:Lrg was the sickest brand. Back when I was a kid as well. I remember I don't know everything they had was sweet. I actually still have an LRG shirt that I don't wear it anymore because it's like vintage now, but it's like an elephant with like a cane and a top hat and it just says LRG and it's all. Their stuff was so sick, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, totally. I lived by that brand when I was riding?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, straight up. Well, yeah, man, once again, I really appreciate you coming on and, yeah, I hope all goes well. How many more days do you have at camp?
Speaker 1:Just got here yesterday, so 13 more days 13 more days.
Speaker 3:Well, you got this and, yeah, I definitely hope the season goes well and all that Awesome. All right, man, we'll talk to you later and you have yourself a good night.
Speaker 1:All right, Andrew. Thank you very much, sir.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to Dead Drifter Society. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. In the meantime, keep up with the show and get to know Andrew on Instagram at Dead Drifter Society. Until next time.
Speaker 3:And there you have it. That was Jordan Puggenpult. If you would like to follow his ventures along on Instagram, it's Hustle Trout Flyfishing and he also has the same handle for his website. You want to book a trip? Anyway, super nice guy. If you want to go chat with him about anything, he is an open book. And as far as the podcast, if there is anyone else you'd like to hear on the podcast, just shoot me a message over at Dead Drifter Society on all the different platforms and I will see what I can do. Until next time, I'll catch you later.