Jason 0:00

In this episode, we wait out there with John Duncan from Tellerride, Colorado. John grew up learning to fly fish in Washington State's Olympic Peninsula, hiking and backpacking to access fishing in small streams and remote lakes. His love for the mountains drew him to attend college in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he fell in love with the weather, the skiing, and the fishing. Telluride became the perfect place for him to grow a life around the fly fishing industry. John has been a guide, a marketing and sales rep for Scott Flyrods, and has been helping people enjoy the fly fishing of his beloved Telluride for years through the fly shop and guide service Telluride Angler. We discuss tactics for fishing small freestone streams and high country backpacking in both Southwest Colorado and the Olympic Peninsula. Welcome to the Wade Out There Fly Fishing Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Shemchuk. At Wade Out There, we believe fly fishing is special but not elite, and that anyone can become a great fly fisher if they are willing to go, learn, and teach. Join me as I talk with other fly fishermen and women about their unique journeys into fly fishing, the rivers they fish, and the tactics and philosophies they practice. For those who can never leave the river in their hearts, this podcast is dedicated to helping you make the memories that keep us all coming back to Wade Out There.

John 1:32

Hey, thanks, Jason. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me on the show.

Jason 1:35

Of course. I'm excited to talk to you. We talked about this before the show, but I've had I mean, you are one of my most requested podcast guests from listeners. I've had like several, three or four of and these, and you should be proud too of your loyal shop patrons because it's all been people that go to your shop and it's all been people that uh listen to the show and they're like, you haven't had anybody from Telleride Angler. You know, you should call John. I just get like you know random email from somebody. So I think that's pretty special and like you're unique. I want just I was I don't want to embarrass you right out of the gates, but too late. That is special, dude. Like I'm telling you, not I don't get a lot of that. Maybe I don't know. Anyone listening, it's welcome. You can always do that, but like some they your your patrons seemed motivated to get you on the show. So I appreciate them and I appreciate you.

John 2:29

No, I just think my friends don't have many, many other friends. Thanks, Jason. Glad to be here, man.

Jason 2:36

I'd like to start the show with how you got started in fly fishing. We talked about this before, but I I know you're not from Colorado originally. Can you let's talk let's talk first about how you got started fly fishing and then a little bit about um maybe some of the challenges you faced early on.

John 2:56

Well, that's a that's a long list.

Jason 2:58

Well, you could keep it short. You could just say, I started fishing with my buddy and challenges were the challenges were many.

John 3:04

There's no rule of self-inflicted and and and many.

Jason 3:07

Yeah, yeah. Maybe a better maybe a more specific question is appropriate.

John 3:11

Yeah, yeah. Well, like you, I grew up in the Seattle area. I grew up on Bainbridge Island. Um, and when I was 16, my parents were foolish enough to let me take the family car, the little Honda Civic, and take it out on the weekends and and drive off into the mountains. And so, so you know, I guess I should thank my my mom and dad for introducing all four of the Duncan family kids to the outdoors when we were young. We'd we spent a fair amount of time backpacking, car camping all around Washington and and Oregon.

Jason 3:43

Yeah, beautiful.

John 3:44

Amazing.

Jason 3:45

The Olympics are well overlooked, man. My parents took me there a few times.

John 3:49

Way overlooked, yeah. Not necessarily from a fishing standpoint, from the standpoint of like a wilderness area. Yeah. They're just a spectacular standpoint.

Jason 3:57

Yeah, it's a rainforest in the Pacific Northwest. Like just that alone is kind of like, wait, what? What did you say?

John 4:04

I know, I know. And it's a fishy place, but it's actually kind of a strange place to learn to trough fish, but that's where my friends and I learned to to trough fish. My uh uh kid I grew up with named Todd Field, who now lives in southwest Colorado, lives in Montrose, actually. Um he and I were best friends in high school and and we um we started heading out and backpacking together and just exploring and kind of figuring out figuring out the backcountry and learning to use our you know, our whole camping kit. And we love to hike, you know, we love the hike and we love the mountains. And um so we'd go we'd go do that kind of 12 months a year. It's interesting winter camping and backpacking excursions, you know, we're heading out to our favorite summer trailhead and found that you know the the road was closed 15 miles before the trailhead by you know washed out road or or trees down or no maintenance, whatever. And you know, so we just put on our backpacks and and go. And we always took our we always took our fishing rods. And you know, at first it was it was spinning rods, yeah. Um, which we didn't really know how to use either. Okay. We really had no idea. We just we found them, you know, we had them. Yeah. Had them in our garages. Or I didn't have a garage, we had a shed. We still have the the shed, the old Duncan family shed still there on South Beach in Bainburg Drive.

Jason 5:23

I'd like to explore that shed with you.

John 5:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I went and cleaned, I made the mistake of cleaning it out um a couple of years ago, and I found a lot of this stuff still, the original spinning rods. Um and an old wooden priest my dad made for uh, you know, beating cod and flounders on the head when we caught them off the dock in front, that kind of thing, you know. I mean, so we grew up on the water and we and we we we we my brother Scott and I grew up uh doing a lot of backpacking, and when my best friend Todd and I were old enough to drive a car, we we we would head out every weekend and go explore. And I think Todd really found a fly rod in his garage first, and then I bought one at a yard sale, and I think I paid five dollars no, I think I paid ten dollars. I offered the guy five dollars for a bamboo fly rod and an automatic retrieve reel and a little leather fly wall wallet with like faux sheepskin and a bunch of 1940s flies and he I offered him five dollars and he said, I think it's worth at least ten dollars. And so I paid him ten dollars and boom.

Jason 6:37

I also started with the automatic retrieve reel that we had in the garage. Yeah, those were super popular at some point, I guess, but I don't know.

John 6:45

Yeah, we got it. We picked up a rod somewhere along the way that same year, this would have been about 1983 or four or so. Picked up a rod from my younger brother Scott, and to my recollection it was made out of aluminum. Um and if you ever wonder why fly rods are no longer made out of aluminum, I can tell you. Yeah.

Jason 7:06

Um you said something that's what we started with, you know. Yeah, yeah, that's great. You start with what you have, and that that kind of goes to my my my next point is you said something that you know I think is important. You said it seems like a strange place to learn. And I think that it's important for people to hear that, or I wonder if you could expand on that, because I think, you know, not everybody lives in Montana, you know, or Colorado, Southwest Colorado. And I think the naivety of some people, like when they're young and they like the mountains, is a blessing because they're like, oh, well, I'm just gonna do what I can where I am. But I think that that I I mean, can you talk more about the importance of that and like the DIY aspect of kind of getting after it wherever you are, you know? I mean, because I think a lot of people are less inclined to do that. I certainly was when I was in the Air Force. I took it for granted and I was like, oh, I can't wait to get back to the mountains where there's fly fishing and stuff. But, you know, the Olympic Peninsula is a wonderful place, but it's not like the trout haven of the world, you know what I mean?

John 8:20

No, it's kind of an odd place that way, but I think you're hitting on a huge thing here, Jason. Um, the best place to learn to fly fish is wherever you live. And fly fishing has become, and this is something that's really changed since 40 years ago. Yeah. When I first picked up a fly rod, uh almost 45 years ago now, is that fly fishing really has become a backyard sport for people. And so we're fishing that for everything that swims with a fly rod, bass and bluegill and and and and carp, all of that. And it's just an incredible way to not only learn, you know, you can learn to fly fish in your backyard, no matter where you live in this country or beyond, um, and enjoy it on its merits. And if you if you if you if you if you really connect with with fly fishing um at whatever level, whatever opportunity presents itself, then then you're just gonna go from there, right? And in a way, I I I I've always felt that if the first place you ever that you learn to fly fish, or the first place maybe you go on a guiding trip is Montana or Argentina, you're you're wrecked.

Jason 9:25

You're wrecked. Well, it wrecked me. I mean, it wrecked me. I I mean that's where I started fly fishing, and I fished in Colorado, and then I, you know, I was joined the Air Force and I moved around and you know, I closed my mind to it. I I didn't, I was like, I am not in the Rocky Mountains. That equals no fly fishing. And my audience is probably tired of me hearing tired of me saying this, but I, you know, I don't know if regret is the right word, and I was certainly busy in the fighter squadron, but dude, there was opportunities for me to fish and enjoy fly fishing that I just didn't like really awesome opportunities like Germany and the Southeast and Stripers and stuff that I just kind of like, eh, not nah, not gonna do it, or didn't even know to even think about doing it.

John 10:13

You come back around to it, you know? Yeah, and and you know, you're but you for the first thing you have to do is just get a rod in your hand, no matter where you live and what your perceived inclinations or abilities are with this. Hey, we all start as beginners, and the best thing you can do is start fishing on your own. So you you you you gain an appreciation for all the little things, and you have an authentic attraction to you know you become connected not just with the act of catching a fish, um, but with everything that comes with it, which we we all know is just part of an unbelievable lifestyle. If you spend you grow into a lifetime of fly fishing, fly fishing travels so well and is so wonderful in its most basic basic elements. I mean it's just you you just have to get started. And the reason the Olympic Peninsula wasn't an odd place to get started is because is because it's the the there are a whole lot of fish out there that are really easy to catch. Uh they're all in the high country, and they are brook trout up to about eight inches long. And so so if you backpack into the Olympics to this day, you're still likely to catch a ton of fish, and a really big one's six and a half to eight inches long. Then there are the famous steelheaded salmon down that down on the coastal rivers, and those fish are almost impossible to catch. Uh that is that is beyond graduate school. Yeah that's post-grad studies and fly fishing. And so, and so, you know, if if you if you live in Washington State and you learn the fish to catch out there is is a steelhead, and you try to learn to fly fish by catching, you probably fishing for steelhead on the Olympic Peninsula, you'll never learn fly fish. You gotta go learn to fly fish first and come back to that way, way, way later. It's way too hard. It's awesome, but it's it's super, super hard. So fly fishing for us was the reason we got pulled into fly, you know, Todd and I and my brother Scott got dragged into fly fishing, or we we found ourselves kind of exploring fly fishing, was was because fishing was just an accessory to to backpacking, and backpacking is a DIY activity. And so we started bringing these spinning rods along, and then fly rods when we when we found them or bought them, and you know, it became something that we did while backpacking.

Jason 12:29

What was the biggest unlock that you had? Like, what was the thing that you were like, oh, like light bulb went on? Do you remember way back then when there was was there anything that you were like really eye-opening for you? Like for me, like it could be for like for me, even just going to Colorado, I really had never nymped before. And we're gonna talk a lot more about dry fly fishing later on during the show and how how unique that is and how you enjoyed to do it. But you know, prior to me being in Colorado, like it was the summer in Montana, it was big fluffy flies. That that was all that was available to me. That's all I knew, it's all I thought it was. You know, I had no idea. So when I started to kind of realize that fishing at different water um parts of the water column and stuff, that was an unlock for me. Anything like that for you?

John 13:16

Or you were like, sure. I mean, one thing comes to mind, and and that's sight fishing. Um, you know, we one cool thing about fishing alpine lakes, and this is one of the reasons I still love alpine fishing and alpine lake fishing to this day, it's really a first love for me, is because you can see what you're doing. You can see the pitch, and every cast is per purposeful. Uh, and if you choose to fish alpine lakes uh with a dry fly sight fishing, you'll never cast a fish you don't see. And that's just like wow. It just in a cellular level, it just grabs you and never lets you go as long as you live. And you learn a ton, right?

Jason 13:52

You you you can you're learning like the fish is response for the fly or left there of. You're like, well, that's not working, and it's not you don't have this question mark. Is it because there's not a fish there? Right? You know that there's a fish, so it's like, okay, it's not it's not a fish problem, it's a JSON problem. Like, what do I need to do to adjust like absolutely and when you don't have that site fishing, you don't have that kind of opportunity to to you don't have the I don't know, you don't have the confidence to know that variable, you eliminate one giant variable, I guess. And so now the problem solving becomes more specific.

John 14:27

Oh absolutely, absolutely, and also that that for me, fly fishing from the beginning was hand in hand with be being in beautiful places and um exploring and DIY and hiking and and you know, every everything that um fly fishing is enhanced by all of these other elements, you know, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it personally. And it's also true, it's still true, whether in Washington State or Colorado, that the harder you work to get off the beer beaten path, the more likely you are to be rewarded just from a fishing standpoint.

Jason 15:03

Yeah.

John 15:03

So you know, Colorado offers a great playing field for that, for people who like to explore, people who like to hike. Um and and you know, even our even our we have terrific, easy access and public land here in Colorado, with a lot of public land access to great trout streams in Colorado. Some of it's really easy to get on, but for someone who's coming from harp from far away, that too constitutes an adventure, right? They've got to go get a layout, not just to Denver, but some r to some rural part of Colorado, like Tell Yuri Ride, and then they've got to figure it out from there. And so um, you know, we realize that when we when we meet people who have come to fish in in in in Telluride, we know they've already had it, they're on a journey. They've already, they've already they're they're putting themselves out there and they're trying to get someplace a little bit further away, otherwise they wouldn't have chosen tell your ride. And they there's still some work to do. Unfortunately, we have this, you know, it's one of the things that attract attracted me to tell you ride in the first place. We have the mountains and rivers and lakes that kind of look like where I grew up. Um, and it's a heck of a playing field for the crew or put something into it.

Jason 16:09

Yeah. Well, I want to talk to you more about Southwest Colorado and the high country fishing opportunities you have there. But before we transition to your move down to Colorado, I want to talk a little bit about I don't usually do this. Uh I don't know if this is a plug or not, but uh I fish like uh I've never like yeah, I fish a Scott Flex and I love my rod. You know, I'm there's plenty of great rods out there. I'm just saying that that's the one that uh was recommended to me by a real fishy guy, and I love it. And uh they don't make it anymore. I think now it's the session.

John 16:44

Dried up during COVID.

Jason 16:45

And I don't know how this came up. Yeah, I know. I don't know how this came up in conversation before the show, but you worked for Scott for a little while, and um I'm intrigued. I want to know a little bit about I I'd like to know how that uh opportunity working for a fly rod manufacturer, how did that um not so much just like what was I doing, but more how did it influence um your progression in fly fishing?

John 19:30

Well, it kept me in it among other things. So I had guided guided for four years um for the fly shop. Well, there wasn't a fly shop, and then the guide show was just called Tell You Run Outside, and um there wasn't a fly shop actually in 1991, but I had guided for four years and was kind of wondering where that was leading, and then one afternoon in the fall of 1993, uh the guy who who who founded our our guide service, go white, walked into the shop and said, Scott Flyrods is moving here to Telluride from Berkeley, California.

Jason 20:07

Really?

John 20:07

And it was the most improbable thing I'd ever heard in my life. Um, but sure enough, Scott Flyrods was under new ownership at that time and looking for a new place to to to build rods and kind of establish their identity, and they had chosen Telluride, Colorado. And you could have um you could do a whole podcast show on trials or trying to set up a manufacturing operation in in a ski resort town. Like that shouldn't be its ownership.

Jason 20:34

Well, I can just imagine all the like the owners of of Scott like sitting around a room being like, All right, where can we ski and fish? And there's not pre like just like what's the best place for us to like do the things that we like to do, you know? Yeah, I feel like that's how the decision was made, you know.

John 20:51

Well, it kind of was, but unfortunately we also couldn't get people to come to work on a powder day and that kind of thing, too. So yeah, you know, and so anyway, Scott Scott has now been in Montrose about an hour, hour and a quarter up the road for um for all the years since he, you know, quite happ happy down there in Montrose and and um has everything it it needs, but for me it was just this improbable opportunity to kind of take a sidestep in the sport and um getting on the manufacturing. And for me, that became a sales and marketing job, and ultimately I became the marketing director for a few years. Uh the company was really, really small back then. And this is in the 1990s, um, the uh the decade in which the whole industry just exploded, not only because of what was going on economically in this country, but also the movie, as they called it, came on the flavors now.

Jason 21:38

That must have been really exciting. It's like being a part of a startup super. That's unbelievable.

John 21:43

Yeah. And the new owners of Scott Um were unwise enough to basically put the hands, they basically hired a bunch of young people and said, here, figure it out. So it was kind of lightning in a bottle. Um, myself and and five or six other people about my age, including my old friend from Dambridge Island, Todd Field, were suddenly in a room together trying to figure it out. Um and um everything, everything, the only thing Scott was good at at that time was designing fly rods one at a time. And as a company, we weren't good at anything else in 1994. Okay. So there was a lot to figure out, right? And so um it was uh it was a period of seven years from 1994 to 2001, in which I had the chance to grow up, um, to grow up in the industry. And uh I'll forever be grateful for that. Uh I got to work with just amazing people, um, all of whom were good at fishing. Um almost almost none of us were had any idea how to how to run a business or what needed to happen next or what the trajectory of the industry was or anything like that. And as we, as a sales and marketing guy, knew nothing about branding or advertising. You know, we just learned it as we went. And so that was that was a rare and wonderful opportunity. And for me, I I had a chance to travel a bit internationally. Got to help set up the you know the modern Scott distributorship in Japan, for example, and met a uh a lifelong best friend in Maso Kachimata, um, who lives outside of Tokyo there.

Jason 23:14

And it's just too much fly fishing out in Japan?

John 23:17

There's so much I I've only done a little bit, but it's it's it's a really, really, really fishing place.

Jason 23:23

And that's cool to hear.

John 23:25

I think on a per capita basis basis, it's probably we probably have as many fly fishermen, fly fisher people in in Japan as we do in the United States. No way fishing is really huge in Japan. Oh yeah. When did it become so high?

Jason 23:40

Yeah, what I don't know if you know any of this. I'm just it's you know what it I I would I mean my understanding is that fly fishing has its roots in European kind of heritage. So how did it migrate or when did it migrate over there? I mean, I could see where in Japanese culture, which I'm not super familiar with, but I could see where they would like it's it seems very like like you can embrace that with that kind of like stoic kind of like attention to detail, you know, type of thing. Bonsai tree type of thing.

John 24:13

Yeah, the flag type part part This huge thing, the art form and the precision and the self-discipline to tie flies, to tie flies of of to the standard of Japanese fly tying, um, and cast a fly rod and enjoy the art form in its purest possible form. Um it's just yeah, and it's easy to identify with. I mean, it was like a purifying experience for me getting to meet the the the anglers and and fly shop owners um in in Japan was just a real eye-opener for me. It was just it was just I I fell in love with their spirit for the sport immediately, and I still have a lot of that with me. Maybe that's why I mostly like to fish dry flies now.

Jason 24:57

Um is that their game out there too? Mostly dry flies? Oh yeah. Yeah, that's the way they do it, huh?

John 25:03

It's is it's dry or die. That's like dry or die. That's right. So anyway, I you know that was one of my many interest interesting experiences as Scott. The b the biggest thing was the biggest thing was just um, you know, the people, the people that I met from all over all over the country and all over the world, so many of whom are are great friends of mine now, still to this day. And yeah, it's part of what's you know, all these decades later, um, you know, it's been a long time since I've guided a fly fishing trip, but but I love I love how tangible it is to stand in the fly shop every day, talk with all the guides, talk with all the customers. I love the tangible elements of still participating in the industry, going to the trade shows, going to special industry events, fishing around the country, fishing around the world. And the main the the number one thing that I love about it is is these people, the b the the people, the interesting, genuine people who have figured out how to stay in fishing their whole lives, uh, in some cases as professionals, in other cases just as as anglers. Um, these are people that such deep-rooted values who love this sport and who are so connected to they're so connected to the land and the water and the fish and the environment. I mean, but just at a genetic level, um these are people with whom I I share those values.

Jason 26:33

That's cool, man.

John 26:34

I love that say, you know, that's who I am after all these decades, and um there's just uh, you know, incredible tangible value in that to me.

Jason 26:43

Yeah, and you talked a lot about humanity there. We talked about Japan and like cross-cultural, cross international kind of boundaries, and to me that speaks to the universal humanity of fly fishing. Like it's it's um it's uh it's a it's something that connects with people on a deeper level. It's not so much commercialized. It it can be commercialized, but like the part of fly fishing that that you get to witness or when you're with your friends, or these types of opportunities do you have, uh you can't like fake that. You know, you can't like take fly fishing over to this country that's never experienced it and and see it grow and see them have the passion that you see in America and and be like, oh, it's because we're just trying to sell fly rods, or oh, it's just because we're like trying to make money.

John 27:36

Like that's it's not it binds people immediately. Like people when we meet new new friends, new guy friends, for example, um, on an international hosted trip in some place like Argentina, Hawaii. We the predisposition is that everyone wants to be friends, yeah, and everyone wants to share knowledge, and everyone wants to do this together.

Jason 27:59

That's why the show is so awesome. Because I get to experience that. I get to like meet people and talk to them, and like I can't tell you, like, it's not hard to get along. Like, I I've I've had over 250 episodes or something, and like every time it's like we both have this thing in common, and it feels like we've known each other for a while, and it it usually kind of ends up. I don't know, I don't know if my audience would agree, but like I mean, just my personal perception, like the way my reality is when I get to talk to different people from different backgrounds. You know, I have a very unique background that's different from everybody else's background, and uh it's not it's very similar kind of interaction every time, you know?

John 28:43

It's not no fly fishing binds people, binds people together and attracts people to each other like nothing else that I can think of.

Jason 28:50

That's cool. Well, let's talk more about the friendships and the and I do want to touch a little bit more on the social aspect and the DIY stuff and and um and that, but since we've kind of landed back in Colorado, can you give me a real quick two minutes like how'd you get down to Colorado and then uh and then we'll talk a little bit about that fishery southwest Colorado and the the high country fishing and why that's special?

John 29:19

Sure. Well, I went to college in Colorado Springs and within about three days um fell in love with the weather.

Jason 29:28

Yeah.

John 29:29

And uh Yeah, coming from Seattle.

Jason 29:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John 29:32

Yeah, yeah. And I've been telling I you know, I was I'm the Seattleite who who was, you know, for for a couple of decades after I moved to Colorado, I I would still tell people um falsely that no, I love the rain and I love the gray, and I thought I love the green, like those are the colors of life and all that kind of thing. Nope. Uh I love Colorado. I love the weather here, and within, you know, the first year knew for sure that Colorado, and for for me anyway, both better, better trial fishing and better skiing than Washington State. And I still love Washington State and everything it offers, and I love those limiting mountains. But I can't, I I I I doubt that I'll ever leave Colorado now. And I loved it so much. Um, and I loved, you know, be in college for four years, had a chance to drive around the state quite a bit and yeah and check out all the different mountain towns. I knew I wanted to be in a mountain town, just had it figured out. I didn't know how I was gonna be able to stay in a mountain town. I had no idea that I would someday end up being a fly fishing guide. I mean, I assumed I'd never have the skill set. I mean, I was I was such a bad, a bad angler back then.

Jason 30:35

I mean, I've been I feel like I'm gonna be able to get inexperienced, inexperienced angler.

John 30:39

Listen, when I showed up, I was still using I still had my Daiwa Eliminator fly rod, which I bought out of a rubber garbage can at Warsaw's Warsaw's hardware store, which doesn't exist anymore, the corner of first in Madison's shell, the Daiwa Eliminator, which I later learned was a six slash seven weight fly rod. And I my fly line was yellow, and that's all I can tell you about it. I bought it because it was yellow. Yeah. And it wasn't until I I was probably a junior in college before I realized that there was any relationship whatsoever between a fly line weight and a rod. You just grabbed it. I had no idea what a five-weight was or what a seven-weight was.

Jason 31:18

You picked it for the color. It's like betting on a horse because of the color of the jockey, right? Yeah.

John 31:22

Yeah, absolutely. So the fact that I was offered a job guiding two years later is actually kind of scary.

Jason 31:27

Well, they didn't have that shop when I was down in Colorado, but they had uh Walmart, and I I did almost the exact same thing out the Southgate of the Academy. I snuck out with my friend and bought a Walmart, Walmart special.

John 31:40

Well, Warsholz is back in Seattle. So that's I bought I bought that. That was like the first fly rod I ever bought. And um, and that was the rod, that was the rod that I I started guiding with. It was like my guide rod. My guide rod here, try mine. Yeah. So many fly rods that way. So, you know, uh uh that's how I got to Colorado, and that's why I stayed in Colorado. And I will like I will say in tribute to my hometown, tell your ride here, that like so many others, I will never forget the day that I drove into tell your ride the first time. It was in 1988, spring of 1988. I'd come out to fish and ski with my great friend Scott Campbell, who still lives in Caracas Springs. Uh, another one of my early fly fishing partners and mentors. He's always a better angler than I am, and he still is to this day. His kids are better anglers than I am.

Jason 32:31

That's why you fish with them, right?

John 32:32

It's right. And Scottie Campbell, he knows what to do out there. And he had a friend of family, a guy named Ham Loki, who uh had a little cool old cabin down on the San Miguel River. And so I came out with Scott for a long weekend, and we we skied in the morning and and we fished in the afternoon. Uh, and it was late February, it was kind of warm, but we had we had a big snowstorm roll in, and we drove up into the Telluride Valley and and and saw those mountains for the first time and skied 17 inches of new snow. Uh and that was my first skiing experience in Telluride, and then and then that afternoon went and caught a bunch of rainbows on the San Miguel. And you know, I mean it's a good day. It's a good day. And uh I at that point m my fate was sealed, and you know, I came back after college and had a things were pretty, you know, things were pretty telly ride was telly ride was a very quiet place back then. It was a really it was a really small resort town, and it is kind of still a small resort town. Um but you know, if you were 22 years old getting out of college and trying to figure out how to how to be in a telly ride, there was a there was a lot to figure out. So I moved down here and right out of college and moved in uh with a couple friends of mine from college from a previous year. Um, and I became the ninth person in a four-bedroom house. And houses are 10,000 feet up on Sunshine Circle in the ski area. There's a five-story house built as a spec house for rentals only, and it was built without insulation in it. So yeah, no, there was no, and someone, the previous renter, had punched a hole in the wall to see if there was insulation. And so this is a reminder to us all of how cold it was going to be every night. There's a hole in the living room wall that kind of went kind of went nowhere, but revealed the fact that there was nothing inside of the wall. So it was so cold at night that it was so cold at night that we slept in sleeping in our beds, in sleeping bags, with bottles of hot water in our sleeping bags to fall asleep with. And everything was frozen every single morning. Our heating bill, we had baseboard, baseboard heating, our heat our heating bill was $900 a month in 1991.

Jason 35:04

Wow.

John 35:04

So anyway, we got through that and all of us had you know, all of us had ridiculous jobs. I was making $5.35 an hour or making beds for the new Sheridan Hotel. Uh new Sheridan Hotel at that time was today, it's a beautiful historic hotel. It's gone through a couple of renovations, a couple of really really well-executed renovations, but in 1991, it was probably the worst hotel in southern Colorado. Um and I was the housekeeper. Nice. So it's kind of like rolled into talents.

Jason 35:35

When you have a day like that, it's it sounds like it's kind of like how I I know I want this to happen, and now all my energy is going to be focused on how am I gonna make this happen? How can I be down here all the time?

John 35:50

Well, that that's exact that's exactly right. Like I have to figure this out. I gotta figure it out.

Jason 35:54

I gotta do it I gotta do it. If it means I'm gonna be cold every night, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do what I have to do.

John 35:59

Oh, sure. That was easy. You were skipping on the weekends, and and there were always plenty of jobs in a mountain town. So we all had our jobs. My friend Mike was line cook at a funny little restaurant called Watson's, and you know, uh we all had our little colorful, colorful, funny, funny job that didn't reflect the fact that her parents had just dumped uh tens or hundreds of thousands of thousands of dollars on her education. Um, probably not that excited about us making five dollars and thirty-five cents an hour, but no, probably not, John. No, but you know, uh so we yeah, and we did. So I had this idea that I wanted to I wanted to do something with fishing. I was so in love with fly fishing in 1991. I I I couldn't think about I really couldn't think about anything else. I mean, it's all I could think about. And so when I got into tell your ride, I I went around and introduced myself to anyone who looked like they might fish. And one person I met was a guy named Bill White, who who is the owner of Tell Your Ride Outside, uh, our which is still our guide service to this day. Bill had started the guide service in 1984 with his wife Marty, and he was kind of just hanging out in his office. I mean, there's no fly fishing in Tell Your Ride in January, and so uh the son wasn't in anyway. And so he was doing whatever he did in January in his office, and I walked in and I showed him some flies I'd tied and asked him if he would like to buy the flies. Could I sell you flies? Could I could I sell you flies on a on a on a wholesale basis? And it was a pretty short conversation. He had no need for my flies. My flies were nowhere near commercial quality, they were terrible. Um you know, my skill level with fly tying was the same as it was uh in every other every other district of fly fishing at that at that point. It's an entrepreneurial spirit, though. That's cool. I didn't even know what the flies were supposed to look like. So anyway, that spring, that spring ski rate closed, and I had my little Subaru all loaded up, packed with everything that I owned, and I was heading back to Seattle to to go back to the real world. And I was at the grocery store, which at that time was called the Rose Victorian, which is the Rose Victorian grocery store, buying snacks for the road, drive back to Seattle, and you know, go seek out a job and insurance or something, who knows?

Jason 38:16

Um and this is at the end of college.

John 38:20

So this is at the end of college, at the end of my first winter in Tell Your Ride in 1991. Okay. Uh move moved out of the four-bedroom house with the So you're done with college and now it's like get a job time. Yeah, yeah. I tried Tell Your Ride, it was cool, skied quite a bit, didn't know where it was leading. And uh so I was standing in line at Rose's grocery store, and the guy behind me in line was the white. And as I was buying my beef jerky and Oreos, he said, Hey, aren't aren't you that guy who likes to fish alpine lakes? And so we started talking, and he offered me a job on the spot to be a fly fishing guide, which I didn't see coming. It was totally, completely unreasonable, irresponsible idea.

Jason 39:08

Why do you think that he made you the offer?

John 39:11

Here's why. He needed somebody to paint his house for five dollars an hour for the next two months and get that done before summer.

Jason 39:20

Okay.

John 39:20

So as a condition of becoming his fly fishing guide, well, it turned out it was his fly fishing guide because he didn't have any other fly fishing guides.

Jason 39:27

Okay.

John 39:28

I didn't know that time, but you only need one. So you're a number one. As a condition as again, I didn't know the time, but but no sooner he offered me a job as his fly fishing guide than he he told me, well, you'll warm up for this by paying my house by five for five dollars an hour here until you ride. So that's all win. I mean, at least you're outside five dollars an hour? Yeah, that's right. And it was a it was a a house that was known in town town as Boothaw Log House. So it wasn't just painting the house, it was you know brown, yeah, then white, and then brown and then white, and I see why he wanted somebody else to do it. And that was that. That was that.

Jason 40:11

That is a funny story, but it's also intriguing because he asked it sounds like what you're saying is he he was interested in your guide service services specifically for Alpine Lakes. Or maybe that was just his kind of like, hey, I know that you like to fish Alpine Lakes, so can you must be a fishy guy? You know, can you talk a little bit about I mean, I I know you weren't just fishing alpine lakes as a guide, but yeah, we and we really didn't fish any Alpine Lakes as a guide.

John 40:44

It was just, you know, it's just a conversation point. You know, fishermen we connect with each other and we we we remember these details about when you have a when you have a detailed conversation with with any other with any other angler, you meet it's it's it's funny the things you remember. And that's just what Bill remembered from from our conversation months before. Um even though it's a lot of that's you like to fish Alpine Lakes. Yeah, fish Alpine Lakes turned out that he liked to explore too. He wasn't he did like to fish Alpine Lakes, but what he really liked to do was likened the black canning of the Gunison. And so, you know, we we in ensuing years we spent quite a bit of time together um doing both, which is cool.

Jason 41:25

Well, let's talk about high country fishing. Let's talk about that because it that is uh you know, that is a way that you like to fish. It's a special fishery for you. Can you talk a little bit about what makes it a special fishery for you? Specific because you have great rivers and creeks and streams, you know. But it sounds like you really enjoy the the high alpine lakes. It stood out to to um was his name, Bill.

John 41:54

To Bill, yeah.

Jason 41:55

Yeah, it stood out it stood out to Bill, so it must be important to you. Can you talk a little bit about why?

John 42:01

Well, you know, I think it just goes back to when I was when I was 16, 17 years old hiking around with with Todd and Scott in the Olympics, you know. I've fly fishing is always an accessory to high country for me. And um and and so, you know, co Colorado is an amazing playing field for for backcountry exploration and high country fishing. It's not just the Alpine lakes, it's it's the creeks and just the ability to get away on any of our rivers, even even the bigger rivers, rivers like the Colorado or the Gunnison, um have you know uh sections of them that that offer some real some real exploration for people who are willing to put a little bit more into it. And it's still true, you know, something that I learned early on, and I think everyone knows is that the harder you work to get away from people, the better fishing you're likely to find. And and so a lot of the real secrets are still someplace way out in the mountains and canyons, and and that's just an awesome fact about about fishing, and no place is that more true than than Southern Colorado.

Jason 43:07

Do you have um special times of the year that you like to go? I like to ask this question, but if you let's say you could only go up into the mountains twice, two times in a year, which two days would you go up and why? Like how would you fish it and why would you go up then? You don't need to tell me where or whatever. I'm not looking for but like you know, what's the and not and not even like what's the best fishing or where would you take a uh if you're guiding, but just like for for John, what are your two days if you could only take two?

John 43:38

Absolutely. So mid-July for the creeks and late September for for the Alpine lakes. And you're gonna go fly your dry fly fishing? 100%. You bet. You bet. I mean, just why cut that dry fly off? We can fish dry flies all spring, summer, and fall around here someplace. Yeah. Um, I just I just can't cut that dry fly off.

Jason 44:01

Well, it's something about the lakes too, the those high lakes. And I remember this from when I worked in Montana, and we would go up in the lakes or hike up into the Bear Tooth, and it they're just hungry. You know, they're just like they don't see a lot of flies, they're they're hungry, they gotta eat, you know, they're it's gonna get real cold. And I don't know what it is. I'm not like a fish biologist, but I just know that it's fun fishing. And as my kids get older, that type of fishing, like what you're describing, like getting away and finding those W's is more important to me now. Like I I realize that the problem solving and like the things that I enjoy about fly fishing are not the things that a 11-year-old boy enjoys about fly fishing or a five-year-old girl, you know. So the more that I can start moving them up into the UNTAs and and doing some of the things that you're talking about is the is the sooner the better for me. That's why I'm that's why I wanted that's why when you said I love to fish alpine lakes, I'm like, oh yeah, a selfish like little I'm gonna learn a ton about this from John.

John 45:09

No, I just no, I just loved it. I loved hike. And for me, fly fishing is always accentuated by hiking better than fly fishing is fly fishing and hiking together.

Jason 45:19

Yeah.

John 45:19

And it turns out that's a great way to to get to relatively unfished waters and to make some authentic discoveries, things that you talk about with your kids or with your fishing partner, you know, years later. You remember that time that we we went to you know such lengths to get into this part of the Black Canyon or up to you know explore some some chain of lakes that we never fished before, way up in the Wem and U trains or something like that. Yeah, I mean, those are but that's what makes lifetime memories, absolutely.

Jason 45:45

Without disclosing locations, can you give me uh can you tell me a story, John? Like something that stands out in your mind as maybe a a fish that uh a resulting fish that is memorable or a um, you know, a particularly difficult kind of like way back there kind of thing that you did that was super um either successful or unsuccessful, you know, like lesson learned type thing, or maybe the one that got away, but just something about going back there that is really like stuck with you, a story.

John 46:15

like that well um I I I I the lesson learned the lesson learned as soon as you said that's kind of stuck in my mind you know so many so many stories and so many mishaps misadventures from when I was back in high school and and in college um exploring out in the Olympics um often on the wrong trails i i I remember I remember um remember Todd Field and I hiked up the upper elwa river now in recent years the dams on the Elwa River have been torn down um which has repopulated the river with salmon but back then there were two dams on the lower elwa river um prevented prevented fish from traveling up and down up and down um up and down the elwa all the way up into the national park uh in its day the elwa was a tremendous salmon and steelhead river uh when those dams were built I believe in the 1920s that more or less ended that Todd and I had it in our minds that the Elwa was a steelhead and salmon river so um we we headed out in January um to a trailhead called Whiskey Bend and um to get to Whiskey Bend you have to drive up a pretty long park access road pretty long dirt road um and it was a place we've been a number of times before but certainly never in the wintertime. So our first problem was the road was closed by fallen trees and we didn't you know we had no no plan B so we just shouldered our backpacks and started hiking. We figured we could find our way to the trailhead which we did um but it added a whole extra day to our trip we hiked in 10 miles just to get to the trailhead camped and then started on the trail that we that we have planned following up the main branch of the Owa River um up eight or nine miles to a camp that I believe is called Mary's Falls. And Mary's Falls is a place that we had been a number of times in the summertime really beautiful area in this old growth forest and lots of wildlife um really nice trail or a couple little creeks you can fish along the way so for some reason we still had this summer vision of the river and the whole environment in our minds we were heading up the upper Elwa and the purpose the purpose of our trip in in January yeah January the purpose of our trip was to go explore the upper Elwa for steelhead which didn't make any sense at all. But that was that's what we had made no sense at all. But that's that's what we set out to do. We brought on not only fly rods but also spinning rods with steelhead plugs and we headed up we headed up the upper elwa to go to go steelhead fishing. So we hiked up you know this so this is 25 30 miles above the Lake Mills dam on the Elwa River uh above which no steelhead has swum in the going up over in the backside almost yeah yeah well well and it turns out the trail conditions are not the same in the wintertime as they are in the summertime you know we had old growth old growth Douglas fir trees down across across the trail every every 500 yards or so it was an all day it was an all day event to to get anywhere near that campsite snow everywhere um you know we couldn't get a fire going we couldn't get our camp stove going nothing worked we had so so we you know but we fished we fished for steelhead and what I remember most about that weekend um is actually what we ate because we couldn't get any form of fire going and our camp stove didn't work and we couldn't fix it um we ate spam we ate spam for three days you brought enough that's good spam we did we brought a ton of spam that was our favorite thing of course we intended to cook it but we didn't cook it we cold spam for three days don't need to cook it but probably a little bit of whiskey too so what's the name of the ocean that's the name of the trailhead right the whiskey whiskey vent right we were trying to honor the place yeah and uh and I don't think we honored the place at all we had a great we had a great time how was the fishing the fishing the fishing was um well how do you think the fishing was probably not good not probably not good yeah there were I thought for a second you were going to say we ate sushi like we ate raw fish for that but there probably wasn't enough fish for that yeah no there were there were there were no fish to say the least I had some sushi uh up in the in the mountains with my son this summer because I just didn't cook this fish long enough and my son was hungry and he's like let's just eat it I'm like all right you know let's go for it that's all part of the that's authentic backcountry experience do you not want to yeah that was some huge lesson learned for my culinary backpacking you know skill sets on that last one I'm be I will be much more prepared and I have a bet a much better plan for the next fish that I eat with my kid up in the mountains.

Jason 51:20

I hope I didn't ruin it for him because he was no no it was a little like squeamish. He's like yeah it's it's pretty good pop you know it's it's not too bad. I think he's just trying to like not hurt should be a little bit squeamish.

John 51:31

He mucked it down I think for his for his old man well you know we we we do fish in the backcountry a lot here in in Colorado I think everyone in Colorado does as much as they as they can and it's just it's just amazing to live in a place that offers so much of that. And it's about you know fishing for for us is about it's about the whole experience. It's about the whole journey I mean fishing isn't fishing without a good hike and fishing isn't fishing without a daughter or a fishing a fishing buddy and a shared experience maybe your dog along um it is it is a lifestyle and and it's it's super we're so lucky with our accessibility here the rivers. You know Colorado Colorado has a lot of small water and Telluride is characterized by small water and um and by by high country creeks and lakes but even the main branches of our rivers here in Telluride, the Dolores and the San Miguel these are small rivers and they're super accessible. Whether you you choose to to do some hiking or you just drive your car down and find a gravel uh pull out and chop out and start fishing we have accessible rivers here and and that's actually really really uncommon it's a giant it's a giant asset for DIY fishermen and it's great for guide services too um but this is I I've always felt I've honestly always felt that tell your tell your ride area is one of the best places that I've ever that I've ever been for learning how to fly fish um because we're remote um we have a really good fish to fisherman ratio the fishing here is you know you and I were talking about this before the show just a little bit the fishing here is as different from front range tailwater fishing as anything you can find on the planet. You know here we fish you know a size 18 fly is considered really really small here. I'll go whole a whole year without tying on a size 18 fly.

Jason 53:32

That's cool. I think that's cool. Sorry I think that's awesome.

John 53:36

Yeah no no no and I appreciate the other too but it's it's really it's it's always super fun when we have people come in the shop who come down from Denver or Colorado Springs or Fort Collins and we talk about their their fishing experiences and their reference points and what the strategy is and they show us their fly boxes we're like man that is an incredible tail water box now put that away what you need is a size eight Turks tarantula let's go three X. And and you know that's that's that's the difference between fishing tailwaters and fishing high country ish Freestone rivers and that that's the that's the nature of our fishing here. So we we fish dry flies all year long and um and we fish big flies on on relatively heavy heavy short leaders as compared to what you what you need to fish on in tailwater.

Jason 54:22

Well let's put a pin in that and talk a little bit more about some I want to talk some tactics with you and I'd like to keep it in the context of kind of this this dry fly fishing type of uh fishery that you find yourself in like you talked about um before I go into some of those types of questions you talked about flies and um I'm a slightly below average fly tire and um but I like catching fish on the on the flies that I tie. If I was to come out there and fish with you are there a couple of flies that you would recommend not so much that like hey these are the hot flies or these are my you know my best flies or whatever but flies that that I could tie minimal material minimal kind of like um difficulty you know that if I brought them out there you'd say yeah these are fine we fish these these are good good flies you know absolutely and and and the cool thing is that all time pattern yeah all the old time patterns work you don't need ultra modern modern materials you don't need a glue gun and you don't need to be able to spin deer hair or anything like that.

John 55:30

So so we fish big bushy dry flies. And that's just because those are the insects that live in in these rivers. These are caddys and stonefly rivers. We have a really good PMD hatch as well and uh we're warm we're down here in in in southwest colorado we're we're not we're not up in the northern northern Rockies we have terrestrial fishing is just a giant part of the sport you can fish terrestrials for eight or nine months of the year here um and never tie on anything else so hobbers and beetles and ants and all kinds of crazy attractors so first of all whatever you whatever you've tied or whatever flies you fish on your home waters are going to work here. And they might work better than what we're gonna sell you in the fly shop because our fish have never seen them. So we have a we have a really broad spectrum of aquatic insects and all the terrestrials here. So anything goes there's no wrong fly choice. And for people who are learning to tie flies and want to go catch that first fish on a fly they tied them there's just no better place than to tell you right earlier for that the San Miguel River and the upper Dolores are it you're going to catch your first your first fish that way here for sure if you come here and do that. So favorite flies you could tie are the ones that we all used to fish and seem like innovative patterns 40 years ago um a stimulator an El Kercatus a trude I mean our we don't even sell truds in the fly shop anymore there's nothing that works better here. You just can't you almost can't buy them commercially which is ridiculous. You know we've moved on as fly patterns advance we're always trying to figure out how to catch fish better. And on tailwater fisheries we're trying to show them something that they had seen before right so it's got to be new but you think about this why wouldn't a size 14 orange stimulator work just as well today as it did 40 years ago it turns out it does. I mean the fish only lives four or five years they're not passing along this knowledge genetically to the next generation to a rainbow trout in the city I agree with that whatever worked whatever's in your dad's fly box is going to work great here you can roll out on the Sandigel with a handful of stimulators and regular old non-beadhead prince nymphs and just wreck 'em okay caddis, prince nymph.

Jason 57:44

I'm guessing like hair's ear, pheasant tail, those are pretty good.

John 57:48

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah come come with with those you know it as John Girack once said if I had a hair's ear in about five different sizes I think I can catch a fish just about anywhere. And nowhere is that more true than here. Come with basic general imitator patterns like hair's ear nymphs in every version of a pheasant tail any version of a prince nymph you ever tied or bought and they're gonna work for sure. In dry flies, you know we have our best hatches in the year are caddys and stone about six different species of stoneflies early in the season. So we fish a lot of big bushy dry flies and nymphs early in the season and then as the season goes on we fish smaller flies uh because the hatching insects tend to tend tend to be smaller. July is kind of mayfly month we have pale morning duns um which for us is just a kind of a broad term for about three or four different you know yellow orange pink mayflies that are between about a size 14 and 18 lots of different species of PMDs all over this part of the state uh and we start getting into the terrestrials so we fish smaller aquatic insects but lots and lots and lots of terrestrials um basic grasshopper patterns parachute hopper a regular old Dave's hopper um we'll work oh the chubby that's right and if you want to that's my go-to easy tie for stonefly or a grasshopper right right right exactly a chubby in a chubby is the most popular fly in our part of the state really and for really good reason yeah sure and in any size from a size eight to a size just as we're tying tiny chubbies now like sixteens and eighteens and they I've never seen or heard I've never heard of an 18 chubby why not I don't know I'm not out there enough. If you can't buy one I bet you can tie one so that's a pretty easy fly to tie. So you know come with a box full of chubbies okay and a couple of pheasant tails and the you're gonna be you're gonna be so in the game.

Jason 59:42

Alright I'm gonna ask you kind of a lightning round there's no rules on how long you answer but I've got you know six to nine questions here that are more tactics driven or um related I guess so first and this is kind of let's stick with the context of this dry fly discussion it doesn't have to be the high mountain uh alpine lake stuff it could be but just kind of in this dry fly world that we're what that we're talking about um what do you change first when you're not catching fish?

John 1:00:19

Fly size size okay absolutely in fact a great here's a little tip you can put in your pocket if you would is it always smaller sorry I interrupted keep always smaller. Okay keep going I interrupted sorry keep going no no no just I get excited John all right yeah like that there's one tip from my guiding days that I still find myself passing along a lot to people who who come into the shop and say hey you know I saw these fish rising on the valley floor of the San Miguel and I wasn't getting refusals. It seemed like they were interested in my size 16 parachute items but they you know I keep getting refusals my tip my tip is always the same and it's been the same for for the last four years. Try the exact same fly one size smaller. Okay.

Jason 1:01:04

And it'll work 90% of the time what do you um this is somewhat related maybe different but what do you consider underappreciated in fly selection in general terms?

John 1:01:18

Do you think that people don't pay don't give enough credence to yeah absolutely I think I think most commercially tied flies are over tied. I think that that they're too bushy they're they're too big they're too bushy too big of a profile too much going on there I think flies in general should be sparser. Okay all right what are two one or two techniques for reading water that you most often rely on sure sure sure so great question and here again we have a we have this is a real teaching point for us with the guide service and it's really really fun even people who have fished a ton sometimes don't read pocket water on freestone's streams um just don't have much experience with that so when we're tear water fishing on a river like the South Platte in so many cases we identify where the fish is likely to be let's say on a heavy scene line and we make the same cast twenty times in a row on Freestone rivers like the San Miguel and the upper Dolores we never make the same cast twice in a row. The fish is m very likely if the fish is going to going to eat if the fish is gonna is going to play it's gonna play on the the first time it sees that fly because they're programmed to do so these fish have a short growing and feeding season and they live in fast water. So for just a few months of the year they're seeing a lot of food coming by quickly and they need to make a decision quick. So when we fish this is something we teach people in the shop all the time calculate when you're fishing up a river like the San Miguel first of all cover a lot of ground. You know in a tailwater fishery you might set up on a pool and fish in the same pool like the Texas hole on the San Juan or someplace in Cheesement Canyon you might stand on on one or two spots all day long. Here you need to cover ground fish are spread out and the fish are the holding lies are a lot more varied. So if you have a classic example if you have a boulder midstream um everyone everyone's trained visually to like cast downstream of the boulder because you can see the big obvious the child could also be in front of the boulder in the soft little pillow or it could be on either side of the of the boulder um as the water kind of pillows off of the rock like that. So what we teach people is make a cast or two right behind the rock but make sure to to check all the little holding lies around that rock whether they're visually obvious to you or not and that's super fun for people. The first time you catch a fish that's on top of a you know that's just up string of a rock or along the side that's that's awesome. But diversely a lot of times when people come into the shop and they say hey I'm not catching any fish and we ask we learn how they're fishing we get the sense that maybe they've made 40 casts behind every rock that they saw and they only covered 200 yards over the course under the over the course of the day.

Jason 1:04:19

If you fish San Miguel all day you need to cover some miles do you think that that you mentioned I mean there's a bunch of stuff you said there I want to hit on but real quick so when you're saying cover miles is that to you know I've heard like don't leave fish to catch fish right so if you're covering miles are you gonna are you gonna are you likely to get to a spot where you're like oh this is a good spot and you'll fish it longer are you just kind of always moving or I mean you there's places you're gonna get to that like oh I found a good spot. I guess is the goal like hey I because I've fished rivers where it's like I'm not gonna catch more than one or two fish here period. So I'll just have to keep going. But then I've fished so that's kind of the goal of the moving is to kind of just you have to it's the numbers game and you have to kind of keep going statistically you're gonna cover more ground and if you're only catching one fish in each place then you know um but then also there's times where like I'm just not catching fish but if I keep moving I finally get to a place where they're like all right now I found a place that they're catching fish right my skill level didn't increase from here to there you know and maybe I just found fish that are feeding or I don't know how how do you think of it that way?

John 1:05:38

So I you you're actually hitting on something that's really really important when when you're thinking when when fishermen are thinking about how to fish a freestone river. One of the really cool things about these free flowing rivers is you have a lot of natural variables present that aren't present in a tailwater fish. And probably for me the chief among them is water temperature. The water temperature changes is constantly in flux. It's rising or it's falling at all times every day. If we have rain that instantly changes the water temperature and possibly water the water clarity. So these are variables that we don't even consider when we're fishing on a major tailwater fishery but we have you know fish distribution you're talking about places where you might catch a whole bunch of fish there's no there's no place on the San Miguel where you might catch a whole bunch of fish. This is a small river it's 40 or 50 feet across okay um you know that there are you might catch a whole bunch of fish over the course of your fishing day but you're gonna have to cover a lot of ground to do so where you have small holding lies not big holding lies we don't have a pool like the Texas hole there's more than a thousand fish just in one pool. There's nothing like that on the San Miguel these are these are one fish spots so you're looking for the fish on each cast not some fish on each cast you're looking for the fish. And and so you look for the fish behind the rock you look for the fish above the rock and along each side of the rock and then on a couple of back pockets or under the tree then you keep moving.

Jason 1:07:01

Yeah I think that's really important for people to hear because if you don't approach it that way you might be like well I'm just gonna keep especially like there's a lot of rivers that aren't like that. So if you are you know you move and you catch a fish you're like oh I found the good spot let me stay here and you can waste time that way I guess well yeah and you know I think the guides would tell you that water temperature is just such a determining factor.

John 1:07:27

I mean these are cold blooded animals and if their water if their environment changes every day they've kind of optimize their lives around the best opportunity and how they're feeling as cold blooded animals. So in any given time period of the year whether it's March when the water's really cold or in July when the water's much warmer there the fish settle into a happy zone whether it's let's say water temps from 60 to 63 degrees in the summertime or in March it might be water temperatures from 42 to 45 degrees. The fish seasons change slowly enough the fish adapt with that over time but on any given day water temperatures will be more optimal in any given stretch of the river in a certain time. And so if you fish a great looking stretch of river and you don't catch any fish at all my first my first answer to that is always Try it again in four or five hours.

Jason 1:08:17

Yeah.

John 1:08:18

Or get in your car and drive downstream, not one mile, drive downstream 20 miles where everything's different. And try it again.

Jason 1:08:27

That is such a wonderful insight, John. I am thinking back to so many experiences that I've had fishing streams like that. And I know that I mean I I understand intellectually that water temperature is important and that fish prefer certain temperatures at different times of year. I also I I think about it a lot in the context of hatches, though. I think of it as like these is the this water temperature is affecting where the hatch is. Um and maybe that's maybe that's the same thing that we're talking about.

John 1:08:57

But well, that's a that's a that's a really important variable too.

Jason 1:09:00

It sounds like different it sounds like they're different though. You know, it sounds like it's like the fish might be more active in one area than another, or is it just where does the water temperature changes so much every day?

John 1:09:11

The fish are forced to respond to that because they're cold-blooded animals. Their bodies are literally shut down by colder water or by significantly warmer water and activated by optimal water temperature. So water temperatures, I mean, we're talking about the big variables here. It's a water temperature, and this is again just a everyone, everyone, I think, is aware that hatches are a giant variable. When you have a good hatch, when there are a lot of insects present, the fish are likely to be feeding on them, and um you have productive fish. So that that's also true. And we have we do have all kinds of we have so many different aquatic insects in these rivers. Again, they're free stones, so that in a lot of tailwaters, the the the variety of insects gets reduced in freestone rivers, it tends to be more broad. We have lots of stone flies and calves, we do have midges and small mayflies like like on the tailwaters, but really, really broad menu out there for the fish. So there is food available to the fish at all times, whether it's nymphs or it's dry flies. When we have a good hatch, the fishing is absolutely triggered by that. Yeah. But there's this other overriding, there's this overriding factor for the fish. And it's if the fish are shut down by cold water, yeah. Like physiologically shut down, right? Then they won't feed.

Jason 1:10:23

No matter what, or or not even not even like not even as black and white as shut down, but there's a there's an in-between, right? It's not like I eat, I eat, I eat, I don't eat. Maybe they just eat a little less or a little more, but uh, it sounds like what you're saying, which was what I think is what I was saying is insightful, is that the the water temperature is important for for there's like two variables that water temperature affect. It's not just the hatch, it's also the fish behavior. Is that is that true? Is that what you're getting at?

John 1:10:53

Kind of absolutely for sure.

Jason 1:10:54

Yeah, and I don't think about it that way, John, and that is cool. Yeah.

John 1:10:58

Well, a super fun way to, you know, I think a lot on a lot of these Freestone Rivers, guys everywhere, not just your entire ride, but guys everywhere, love to fish dry drama. So they'll set their their clients up with a big bushy dry fly, let's say one of those chubbies we're talking about, and and uh, you know, a high percentage and nymph of some kind. And and one reason why that is such an effective way to fish is that what we're expecting that at some time, at some point during the day, the fish are going to be willing to eat dry flies really, really well. Um, and we're also expecting that first thing in the morning the water's gonna be coldish and the fish aren't going to be willing. So so you can kind of you can kind of observe that transition by fishing dry dropper. And if at 11 o'clock in the morning you've had a couple of fish, two or three straight fish in your dry fly, um, rather than the dropper, cool, you cut the dropper off and fish dries for the rest of the afternoon. And that's just a really super easy thing for people. That's something we teach people in the shop a lot too. Like a lot of people haven't fished dry dropper that much. Um, and and we're okay, you gotta try this year. You're gonna learn something you'll take with you the whole rest of your fishing life, and you're gonna catch a whole bunch of fish doing it, but also what you observe will really teach you something about fish behavior.

Jason 1:12:11

I want to talk about dry dropper now, but I think that this going back to what we originally kind of were talking about, it's the it's the idea that hey, keep moving. And while you're moving, what you're doing is you're moving from different water temperatures in the river, right? Because these what these rivers are not tailwaters, and there is such differences based on you know creeks coming in or um you know springs or rain or you know these different water depths, probably. I mean, those are gonna affect in a freestone. And so what you're doing when you move, it sounds like what you're saying is you're giving yourself an opportunity to get into those different water temperatures. And I would suspect that you and your guys and your people that are more experienced are more attuned to where those temperatures might be more optimum for fish behavior, right?

John 1:13:00

And so temperatures and water clarity, you know, because more complex in July and August when we exp we usually have monsoonal rains. The monsoonal rains are totally critical for preserving the fishing of the time of the year. Without those rains, the water would get too warm. Um, but they also add a variable, a complex variable. You know, people, you know, what we guides and private anglers will go to plan A and plant and at the plan A spot, the water's brown and six inches too high and 38 degrees. Like, okay, what do I do from here? What caused this? So, you know, fishing Freestone Rivers is so much fun because you you have to be your powers of observation are just critical. And and there's nothing complex about them. And it's not rocket science. You know, did it rain? Yes. So that's why the water's water's dirty here. When did it rain? If it rained 20 minutes ago, you can probably get away from this by either driving upstream or driving downstream. Even just 20 minutes downstream, you're gonna get away from it where an isolated rain shot shower blew out the river for for an hour or two. Some of the best fishing that we experienced all summer long is right after that batch of dirty water cuts through, especially on the sandy depth. Midsummer, our biggest fish of the year are invariably caught on large flies as water is clearing. The guides will specifically target it. Like, okay, nice big rain, blew out the river. Yeah, bummer. Okay, let's go fish a creek for a couple hours now. Come back at the top end of that clearing water and fish big flies when you have, you know, 12, 14, 16 inches of visibility in the water, and boom, not only are you hammering fish, but you're catching the biggest fish of the day and the biggest fish of the week as well. So these are like these are free stone strategies that you work out over time and that you can and they're all premised in just the most fundamental observations of a changing river.

Jason 1:14:45

What other observations? We the um temperature, we talked a lot about temperature, which is uh I think it's forgotten uh for me, I guess, sometimes because it's not like it's not like I'm when I'm looking at the river, I don't see the water temperature. But it's very much an observation. You just have to dig a little deeper. You gotta just put the thermometer in the water and check it and observe it, right? But it's not like you don't see the sun or the clouds. You don't see the flies in the air, or you don't you don't see it. So I think that's a really important one. Are there other kind of less obvious or more obvious, like kind of observational pieces that you think that are important?

John 1:15:34

So fishing on small freestone rivers, you know, this is this is another nuance that really it's really important. Um especially if you're coming from the front range or coming from someplace where we're coming from the green or something like that. And that's that you you have to find your own space out there. You can't fish behind somebody, and you also can't drop into the fish in front of somebody. That that the fish the fish here are are one and done. Um and it's not like on a big tail water where even if you spook spook ten of the fish in the pool, there's a hundred and ten more. Here, one of the reasons you have to cover ground is just to you're weird. Incredibly uncrowded fishing here in the scheme of things. But the flip side of that is that these smaller rivers can't handle pressure.

Jason 1:16:23

Right.

John 1:16:24

And if someone's fished through that water um earlier in the day, whether it's one hour earlier or five or six hours earlier, it's not gonna play.

Jason 1:16:32

Well, you've already said there's only like one or two fish, so that fish is done, you know.

John 1:16:37

The fish is done, right. At least for a period of time. It's not like the pool will settle down and the other hundred fish will will get happy again. So, so sometimes, like midsummer, when we have most people on our rivers, which is still very few as compared with most places, it's one of the it's one of the it's it's one of the real differences between fishing in a relatively remote area and fishing um our major tailwaters, is you know, you're seeking solitude. You come here for this experience, and it turns out you kind of you kind of need some solitude in in order to see the fishing at its best. So seek it out. And even if you're just fishing from your car along the side of the Dolores or the San Miguel, move, move. You you need to cut you need to cover ground, whether it's on foot or by getting in and out of your car a number of times during the day. It's part of the fun of fishing these rivers, but it's also a requirement for fishing these rivers. And um, you know, if if there's even a chance someone might have tracked that water before you did, then you know get in your car or hoof it up or down and go go get off a beaten track and go find some water that hasn't been fish. It's exciting for me to hear that. Water that's been fished will never fish. It will never you'll never do well fishing behind somebody on a river, on a river like on any small freestone, as you can say. No same down the upper door. This is the whole classification of rivers and a strategy and reality of fish and small water. Um, but if you do, you you if you are on fresh water, then you know you can expect you can expect excellent vision with the most basic old-world tactics.

Jason 1:18:07

I I'm excited to hear you say that, and it brings me back to kind of where I fell in love with fly fishing. We we talked earlier about you know, you love to hike, and fly fishing is part of the way that you get to go out and hike or part of the reason you go. And when I was fishing, you know, the first place that I fly fished ever in my life was the Stillwater River in Montana, which is a freestone. And I love moving. I I I the way that I love to fish is to move on the river, to just to see the river, to wade in the river, to just around the bend, the new log, the new thing, right? And so, like you said, it's an exciting way to fish. And I realize now that that technique or it's not always suited for every river that you fish or every fishery. Like if you grew up that way or you learned that way, it's just I guess important I I'm just recognizing in hindsight that that's a way to fish and to be thoughtful about how you fish, like the speed at which you fish. It depends on what river you're fishing, and like what we're talking about is kind of that's kind of what we're talking about is it this is a way to fish that's successful in that area. Um but I just I I think I learned that way, and like I was very I'm very hesitant to stop. Like if I'm fishing a tailwater, I will tend to do the same thing. I'll tend to move more, which sometimes is good and sometimes is bad, I guess, you know.

John 1:19:37

Absolutely. And I think the smaller the river, the more you need to move. Yeah, and you should always assume, you know, we always fish on the assumption that the fishing is going to be good, that the fish are there, and the fishing is going to be good.

Jason 1:19:52

Yeah.

John 1:19:52

And if it's not good, then we we our minds immediately go to two or three reasons why we might not be catching fish there. And and some of those reasons would indicate coming back and trying later. Like, you know, oh, it was a really cold night last night, or some some dirty water just came through. Okay. Some of those, some of those observations would would lead you to to you know, go fish downstream and come back up and try it again in four or five hours. But if if what you observe is that like there are three other cars parked in that gravel, you know, in tailwater fisheries, ten cars parked in a gravel pullout is nothing. Right. It's nothing, it's nothing. That means that's the place to park to fish. This is the parking lot. Yeah, and we get that, right? Like we get that. We'll have a dying car pulled up and a gravel pulled out, and they'll come back up from their fishing, and there'll be two other cars parked right right next to them, like nice and even, real parallel to them, pulling up just as just as far, leaving a little space so the car door can be opened adequately. Yeah. So we get that. We're like like nothing more needs to be said. We see what's going on there, and that's just a completely that's in that's an that's an that's an opposite thing here on small rivers. We don't ever park, never, never, never park your car where somewhere else is where somewhere else is parked ever on a river like the same gallery dwarfs. And again, like you say that to people, and it it's not it's not their fault. It's not their fault. You know, on the South Player. Here's the parking place. Here's the parking place for that whole new same.

Jason 1:21:23

Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Let's talk about dry droppers. Give me two give me two techniques about fishing dry droppers that that you think don't get enough love as far as um being successful with the dry dropper. And I guess what I'm thinking of the if you're new to the dry dropper or you don't fish it a lot, or you know, you understand the concept, when you actually get into the weeds on dry dropper, you know, there are some complexities that maybe people haven't thought of. It's not always like put a giant fly on and then a fish underneath it, or you know, I I maybe maybe this is coming to mind or not, but I'm curious like how do you think about a dry dropper when it's not a chubby that you know can elevate this this this nymph. What kind of flies are you are you using to optimize that setup?

John 1:22:19

Well, the first thing I would say is fish one dropper.

Jason 1:22:23

Yeah.

John 1:22:24

Not two droppers. Okay, that's or three droppers. On a river like the San Miguel, the holding water is really small. And in fact, I think it's a case against dry droppers entirely. One of the reasons I like to fish just one fly on the Sandigel, usually the dry fly, is because I can put it exactly where I want it.

Jason 1:22:41

Yeah.

John 1:22:42

The Sandigal, fish on the Sandigal or the Aberdolores, are not particularly picky. They're not selective fish, but they need a good dead drift. And because the currents are are very complex in a Freestone River and a fast pocket water river, there are a lot of things that can cause a bad dead drift. And one of the things I would say on the Sandigal, you know, when we're talking about dry dropper fishing, there's two things that immediately raise a red flag for me. One is when someone is fishing a dry fly with two droppers, because you can't there isn't room in the pocket or on the little C line for three flies. At most, there's room for a dry fly, and then a dropper, a drop a dropper will fish really well only if it's relatively dense and it gets right down to a 90-degree angle below your your dry fly.

Jason 1:23:35

Yeah, talk more about that. Talk more about why that's important.

John 1:23:39

Yeah, so so so uh a couple of things. First of all, on the San Miguel, a long dead drift is about five seconds. So you need to get your fly in play immediately. And if you have a two or three or four fly rig and these flies are all over the place, one or two are in the pocket, one or two are out of the pocket, none of your flies are drifting. They're not fishing. None of them are where they need to be. Yeah, they're not fishing. So you need to get your fly right where, yeah, whether it's a big fly or a small fly. This goes back to the sparse fly thing too, Jason. I think that flies that fish well, especially nymphs that fish well, are dense and sparse. Whether they're large flies, and this is one of the reasons why euro nymphs fish so incredibly well, whether you're euros nymph or not. I mean, um, those are very effective flies because they're super, super, super dense and honestly incredibly sparse. You know, many of them have no feathers on them whatsoever. So those flies fish really, really well. Um you want to, you know, you want to you want to fish a relatively short dropper leader on the Sandy Gallo. Because a four-foot-long dropper leader, like you might run on a on a tailwater, is just gonna be all over the place. It's never gonna be there, there are no places where you can fish a four-foot deep dropper on the sand of gallo. You need a short dropper leader so you control your cast, get your flies right where they're supposed to be, and that fly needs to get down beneath your dry fly and be in play right away. And then you do most of your line control work with the fly rod. Do a ton of reaching, real athletic reaching and little twitch line mends, um, quick light gestures, trying to keep as much of that line off the water as possible. Right. The shorter casts, the better. You're gonna do most of your approach work is gonna be done with your feet, not with a fly rod. Long casts never drift well in the sand to go. If they drift well, they don't drift very well for very long. So, first of all, when you're rigging your dry dropper, well, first of all, it's an overall approach tactic. Get as close as you can to the target. Fish upstream. This is one of those old-time rivers where fish from downstream to upstream. The fish can see, you're fishing the fish that are sitting in fast current. Um, and this is downstream current. We don't have a lot of big back edges on the San Miguel. This is a this is a small river. So you're fishing upstream. Fish upstream, make short casts, control the line with your rod, and fish a dry dropper rig that gets that nymph in position quickly on a relatively short dropper leader so you can control where it is. Yeah, that's really good. Second thing I would say is um this is a technique that's used pretty broadly, but isn't discussed that that often. And I I've noticed the DIY anglers are really hesitant to put it in play because it's it just, I don't know, seems a little bit scary or a little bit weird. But um a couple of our guides, William and Frank Smeters, started calling this years ago. They refer to this as fishing banjo. Banjo, all right. Banjo. So dry fly, and so fishing banjo is an incredibly effective way to fish an unweighted nymph deep. So let's say you're using a little midge nymph, mayfly nymph, mayfly emerger, something like that. It doesn't have enough, it doesn't have a bead. Right. Um, maybe a flash is undesirable, or it's just a small pattern that isn't going to sink quickly below your dry fly. Use a little bit longer dry dropper leader, let's say two feet in length, and take one of those little round micro shots and pinch it onto your leader about six or seven inches above the fly, and then tie an overhand knot in your leader that seats itself right on that lead. So you have dry fly, 18 inches lead, six inches fly. And it's a way to it's simply a way to you to add a little tiny bit of weight to an unweighted dropper system and get that fly down where you need it. And that overhand knot won't become a breaking point because it doesn't actually cinch. It just wraps gently around the round the round weight and prevents the the weight from slipping up and down your leader, and you can fish with it like that all afternoon long without your without your weight slipping around. And it works really well, especially for smaller.

Jason 1:27:41

Why is it called banjo? I have no idea. Okay, and then so the overhand knot, that scares people. Maybe that's the weird thing. So you're saying that you put the overhand knot above the nymph, and that is to keep the micro split shot from moving.

John 1:28:00

Well, you tie it well if you if you you pinch the micro shot onto the lever. Yep. And your fly's already tied on two, and then you take that whole section of the of the dropper lever and you just tie one big overhand knot in the whole system. That knot will seat itself right on, it'll wrap around the lead itself. On the top of it, not a pinch down on top of it, yeah. It it wraps it up like it's giving it a hug.

Jason 1:28:26

Okay. All right. Well, I love fishing split shot, and I this is a thing that I have all the time is like, well, I really, really want to fish this fly, and I want and I think a dry dropper is a good technique right now, but I'm not sure how I'm gonna get this fly down, and I don't think about that like micro split shot option.

John 1:28:48

A lot of people always fish beadhead flies when they're fishing dry dropper.

Jason 1:28:54

Yeah.

John 1:28:54

Or really dense haired flies like your paragon. Yeah. They always do. Well, think about the rest of your fly box. Thinks think about what this tactic opens up for. Right. All of those flies that don't have beads. Yeah, I love it.

Jason 1:29:07

Yeah. Uh what about the opposite side of that rig? So now back up to the dry fly. What you just kind of experiment with how buoyant of a dry fly you need to use to make that whole thing work so you're not getting dunked all the time. I mean, like I said earlier, it's easy when you are just tying a chubby on, but sometimes, you know, if it's not stoneflies, if it's caddis or this is the hardest one, Mayflies. How do you approach that? You just kind of, uh, maybe I'm not going to do a dry dropper because it's Mayflies, and those are smaller, lighter kind of flies in general, or what do you do?

John 1:29:47

You know, fishing small flies as a as a as a point flyer in your dry dropper system still works pretty well as long as it's a point fly and and your and your your dropper isn't too heavy. So material? I would just question. Well, uh my first question goes like to what are you trying to what are you trying to do accomplishment?

Jason 1:30:04

What are you trying to do here, Jason?

John 1:30:08

Exactly. If you think if you really think that the fish is is going to be you know, when you're fishing a big chubby, yeah. You will you you can't you're gonna move fish.

Jason 1:30:18

Yeah.

John 1:30:18

You're gonna move fish. Whether you whether they eat the big chubby or not, you're gonna move fish with a big dry fly. A floating streamer, as Todd Field would say. You're gonna move fish. So you learn something from that. A lot of times when we're fishing a big chubby, uh or any other big, great, big uh point fly and a dry dropper system, we're really just nymphing shallow walker, right? Yeah.

Jason 1:30:40

You're really just you really just Yeah, a lot of times I tie the chubby on because I want a light landing on the water, and it's a it's a soft indicator uh for my nymph.

John 1:30:52

Right, and because it looks like a bug to us, we think that the fish will be less scared.

Jason 1:30:56

Oh, there's a chance he'll eat it, yeah.

John 1:30:58

That's right, exactly. So so so my question then is since you're not gonna move fish using a size 16 caddis. Yeah. Why would you choose that as your point fly? Well and if you think that the fish are going to eat that caddis, you know what my answer to that's gonna be? Cut off your dropper. Okay. You can fish a dry fly better. If you even think that if you think that that I mean, as soon as we start catching 30 or 40 percent of our fish on that top fly, for me, I'm cutting that off that dropper right away. Okay. So I just want to fish. And I can fish the dry fly better. So the if it doesn't have something hanging off of it.

Jason 1:31:42

So the reason why I would do that is because I'm thinking the the hatch that is that I'm going into, like we talked about this earlier in the day, maybe it's colder, so the the the fish are not rising yet, right? But I know that at some point that that hatch is gonna happen. Maybe it's a catass or a mayfly hatch that I'm expecting as I move forward. So maybe I have a Mayfly nymph underneath, but like I want to be prepared for that dry fly hatch as it approaches so that I am not wasting that opportunity, right? I don't just have a chubby on when I know they're not gonna be eating chubbies anyway, like you said. So why don't I have a fly on that at some point in the morning as we get up here, they're gonna start taking that. And then sure, maybe then I take I type I I take off that dropper at that point. But it's for me, it's a transition, or it's you know, I think they might eat this nymph and I think they might eat this dry. And it's kind of like I'm trying maybe I'm trying to do too many things at once.

John 1:32:40

Maybe it's just like you know, I think I I I buy that for the 45-minute transition period between when you know they're not going to eat a dry to when you assume they will eat the dry. Yeah, but I wouldn't I don't buy that as an all-day-long tactic.

Jason 1:32:53

I agree.

John 1:32:54

I'll buy that. Uh so so um, and I'll also say that I would probably get to that arrangement backwards. I would probably have already tied on my single dry fly, fished it for an hour and not moved any fish. And so being too lazy to then re-rate a liter to like 2x for a chubby rather than say 5x for my caddis, I just tie it on a little section of 6x and a size, you know, and a size 18 something that won't then won't swap my dry fly and fish for a while that way to see if I'm catching fish on the bottom fly, you know, let's say caddis with a smaller caddis you murder or may fly murder beneath it. And then if I'm catching fish consistently that way, but still not hitting fish on top, I'd stick with it. But to me, that sounds like a transitional. I know a lot of people do this, but to me that is a transitional strategy, and that transition should be pretty fast between not needing willing the dry fly and willing to eat the dry fly.

Jason 1:33:46

So you're looking at it sometimes as a transition, but in general terms, when you are doing the dry dropper, you're more prone to treat that dry fly more like a kind of indicator kind of setup type of thing. Is that what you're saying? Or no? I don't want to put words in that.

John 1:34:02

Yeah, yeah. Um yes, but also because the bigger dry fly is more is is likely to not only is it a better indicator, it's also likely to move fish. And and my assumption is, you know, when I'm fishing on my own anyway, I my assumption is that I can catch fish on dry flies all day long. It just needs to be the right dry fly.

Jason 1:34:21

All right. Uh we could keep talking about this all day. I want to I want to start wrapping it up, but before we do that, what are we is there anything that you want to talk about with regard to tactics and the dry fly and the the type of conversation we've been having that you think you gotta get out there? Like if we if we we I gotta get this out. If we don't if we leave this part of the conversation without bringing this up, we've done a disservice to the conversation. Anything like that?

John 1:34:50

Absolutely. So my my overall suggestion to people for at least for fishing in our our area is keep it really simple. Okay. I think that the modern tactics in fly fishing it made the sport really intimidating. And the first people the th when people aren't catching fish or when people are thinking about getting on a new river, um it is a a misconception that using all of the modern techniques and rigging a very specific way with very specific flies is going to be the key to their success. I would say that all that gets in the way of catching fish. I would say I would advise people to start by fishing one fly, whether it's whether it's a dry fly or an inf and and fish it really, really well and observe what's going on going on around you.

Jason 1:35:49

Alright. I think that's good advice.

John 1:35:52

Uh leave everything you've read on the internet about this cool new technique or this new leader material or um neuronymphing or whatever it is that you've that's been that's been getting your attention a little bit. Leave all that behind. Bring rig one fly, fish it well.

Jason 1:36:11

All right. I like that. Rig one fly, fish it well. Before I ask you my last question, um how can people find out more about you, more about Tell You Ride Angler, and um follow along with what you guys are doing out there?

John 1:36:25

Uh that's nice. Thank you. Well, um yeah, tell your ride angler is just right in the middle of Main Street, right next to the new Sheridan Hotel, the sunny side of Main Street in downtown Tell Your Ride. And we're open pretty much every single every single day. And I guess I just want to invite people to come to come see us and and dive into some old-world DIY fishing here on rivers that have tremendous public access and fish that are that are willing to be a really wide variety of flies through a long season here. We also have a super instruction-oriented guide service, all about teaching beginners. The resort is resort's kind of a wellspring for us here too. And we have more experienced anglers rolling into the shop. We have all kinds of interesting things to suggest to them and and and to talk about. Um we want to be a wealth of information for you. We want to help you. We also want to impart some some local ethics in the process, some of which we've we've talked about during this um during this podcast, like, like, you know, allowing, you know, like don't park your car right next to to someone else on a gravel, a gravel turnout. Um we want to help you be be successful and enjoy this enjoy the sport on on sustainable terms and um in a may in a way that'll make you want to come back. And we also want you to learn something. Um it's really fun for us, and it's so it's so fun, so tangible for us to just be able to interact with people every every day who come in come in the shop and ask these type of questions. Really welcoming to that. Um, we'll never be the quiet guys behind the camera who who don't really want to talk to somebody who just rolled into the fly shop or we're the opposite of that. We're the friendly shop in in Colorado, or at least I'd like to think think that we are. Um and I love it too. I mean, this is what keeps keeps me in it. Um, 35 years into this, I love to talk to people who have questions about our rivers and our lakes and about exploring the backcountry and and about fly fishing. So come find me at Telly Rideangler. Go to tellyrideangler.com as well.

Jason 1:38:21

Okay. Yeah.

John 1:38:22

Tell yourideangler.com is a wealth, a wealth of information for for people visiting this area and for and for Angrish as well.

Jason 1:38:29

We will link to that in the show notes so everybody can have access to that. And it's become obvious to me that that you love to talk about your home waters and your tactics and stuff because you've been so generous with your time and then also just like the information you've passed to me. So thank you for that. Last question. Are you ready?

John 1:38:48

We're lucky. We're lucky, man. I think I'm ready for you. I wasn't ready for the first 20 questions you asked, but maybe I'm ready for this.

Jason 1:38:54

All right. You were you did good. Um if you could go back to when you first started fly fishing and give yourself two pieces of advice. One more tactical, one more philosophical. What would you tell yourself to help you progress at fly fishing?

John 1:39:11

Well, one is I would say tactically learn how to fly cast early. Okay. Learn how to fly cast, take fly casting lessons, um, fish with friends, practice casting on its own merits. We'd love to say that there's a difference between casting and fishing in this sport. Oh, it's not really fishing, that's just casting. But but a fly casting skill will enhance your enjoyment of the sport from start to finish. For your whole life, you'll enjoy fly casting um just for the sake of fly casting. And it will absolutely make you a better angler. Uh, we do fish with people, you know, because we fish with a lot of a lot of different people, all types in the guide service, we do frustratingly run into people, you know, a lot of a lot of customers every summer who, in some cases, they fished with us for years and years and years, which is really frustrating because we should have taught them to fly cast sooner. But fly casting is a skill, okay. Everyone can learn it, and the sooner that you learn to fly cast, um, you will you will immediately begin enjoying the sport more and it will open up for you um the likelihood of being really successful with more advanced forms of the sport like saltwater fly fishing.

Jason 1:40:23

Okay.

John 1:40:23

And philosophically, the best thing in the world you can have is a fishing partner. Find a fishing partner, learn the sport together. Um you will you will become you will not only enjoy the sport more if it's shared, um, but if if you're like me, by the time, you know, by the time you've been fly fit fly fishing for 40 years, a sport that might have seemed like an isolationist activity at the beginning will become your social life later later in life. Uh fly fishing for me is the ultimate social activity. And we always fish with friends, and every fly fishing experience is a shared experience. Um, and that's just it's just been a huge, huge part of my life, and it has nothing to do with the fish. Uh, it's everything else.

Jason 1:41:09

All right. Good advice. Thank you for your time, John. It's been super fun talking to you. I loved talking the tactics with you. It's been great. Um, I'm happy for you. I'm happy that you found this kind of social part of fly fishing that is still special for you. And like I said before, it's obvious that you are still super excited and passionate about sharing ideas and tactics. So thank you for that today. It's been a real pleasure talking to you, John.

John 1:41:38

Well, thank you, man. I love it more now than I did 40 years ago, and I really mean that. And um really thanks for giving me the opportunity to to um to be on the show with you today. I just really enjoyed talking with you, Jason, and hope this resonates with anglers all over the place out there.

Jason 1:41:58

Thanks for listening to the Wade Out There Fly Fishing Podcast. You can learn more about some of the topics we discussed in today's episode show notes. For more fly fishing ideas, stories, and artwork, check out my blog and online gallery at waitoutthere.com. If you want to make Wade Out There a part of your own fly fishing journey, please subscribe and share. Until next time, Wait Out There.