WOT 249: Smallmouth, Hard Work, and Perspective on the Kalamazoo River, with Jon Lee

In this episode we WadeOutThere with Jon Lee from Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Jon grew up in southwest Michigan, just outside of Kalamazoo.  He was introduced to fly fishing on the Pere Marquette River as a teenager, spending time with his great uncle, and slowly embracing the value of learning over catching.  

As a child, Jon would search through magazines depicting distant and exotic outdoor adventures that seemed out of reach, until he combined his love of fly fishing with an unapologetic work ethic and made his dreams of seeing the world a reality as a fly fishing guide.  After exploring many distant outdoor experiences, Jon moved home, to Michigan, to guide the waters of his youth, on the Kalamazoo River.  

We discuss smallmouth bass fishing on the Kalamazoo River, the value of perspective while pursuing fly fishing, and Jon’s book, A Guide’s Day Off, about the moments in fly fishing that make it special.

Learn More:

IG: @kalamazoo_river_guide
Jon's book: A Guide's Day Off
READ: WADEOUTTHERE | The Fish Are Always Biting - Mindset
READ: WADEOUTTHERE | Small Flies, Light Takes, and Lost Fish. It's Good For You

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In this episode, we wait out there with John Lee from Kalamazoo, Michigan. John grew up in Southwest Michigan, just outside of Kalamazoo. He was introduced to fly fishing on the Piermoquette River as a teenager, spending time with his great uncle and slowly embracing the value of learning over catching. As a child, John would search through magazines depicting distant and exotic outdoor adventures that seemed out of reach until he combined his love of fly fishing with an unapologetic work ethic that made his dreams of seeing the world a reality as a fly fishing guide. After exploring many distant outdoor experiences, John moved home to Michigan to guide the waters of his youth on the Kalamazoo River. We discussed smallmouth bass fishing on the Kalamazoo River, the value of perspective while pursuing fly fishing, and John's book, A Guide's Day Off, about the moments in fly fishing that make it special. Welcome to the Wade Out There Fly Fishing Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Shepchuk. 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. Welcome, John. Thanks for being on the Wade Out There podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Appreciate you having me on. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, it's always a pleasure to talk to folks out in Michigan. It's a fishery that I've always wanted to be a part of. And every time I talk to folks like you or Dave Hurley was the guy that recommended I give you a call, I'm always reminded of how great a fishery it is and uh great fishermen out there. So it's gonna be exciting to talk about Kalamazoo, some of the fishing you do out there, as well as your time in Florida, and then some of the other um stuff that you've worked with within the book. Um a guide's day off. I think that's pretty cool, and I want to talk about that with you as well.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Yeah, yeah, sounds great.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

When did you get started in fly fishing? How did that journey begin for you? You're from Michigan originally?

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Yeah, yeah, born and raised uh in southwest Michigan, just outside of Kalamazoo.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Cool, man. So your hometown, that's perfect.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Yep, no hometown, man. It's uh we had a family cabin that was actually real close to the Pure Marquette, 10 minutes away from the flywater, and during my summers, I would go and spend time with my great uncle, and that was my first dive into seeing seeing fly fishing for the first time, and I saw this, and I it just hit me what I had to have this, whatever this was, I I wanted it, right? And uh I went from fishing with cane poles up up north at the cabin, and then I finally got like a push button, and then saw fly fishing, and then kind of got into that maybe around when I was nine or something like that, and and then all the way up until like my early teens, mid-teens, something like that. I did both, uh both fly fishing and conventional fishing, and it wasn't until you know my my early mid-teens where I really started to focus in on just fly fishing. Like that's I didn't care about um you know, I didn't care about uh the numbers and and bagging as many fish as possible. I I wanted to take this thing and get as good as I possibly could uh you know at it. And um that has just always been there kind of throughout my my whole life.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

How long were you up there in the summers? Like all summer long kind of thing?

SPEAKER_03 4:25

Yeah, yeah, all summer. Yeah, that's it. All summer until I I learned how to trout fish on the PM, which came in huge way later in life when I became a Western trout guide, and I never caught a Western trout in my life, but I was I had a uh a rounded enough skill set to where I could go and catch trout on the Pierre Marquette, which made going out less easy.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Really? Why is that? I mean, I would think reading water would be like the main thing, like trout reading water, that probably translates most places, but why why do you say that?

SPEAKER_03 5:04

You know, the the pure marquette's always been uh incredibly high pressure river. Uh the catch and release, you know, when that came into effect, you know, now all of these fish started gaining these massive educations on anglers, right? And several of them have been caught many times over. And you know, it it it became a very, very technical fishery. And me taking that skill set out west to a place that's really not that difficult, and the fish aren't as heavily pressured. I mean, it was easy. It was really easy, and and I've seen that a couple of times, you know, these heavily pressured uh watersheds, whether it be, you know, the Pier Marquette, whether it be as far down as the keys, I mean it it really makes you work on your approach and your angling and can really help sharpen those skills.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Yeah. I it reminds me of my experience when I really got uh like probably the first time that I was fly fishing a lot more than than than I was at other times of my life was I was in school in Colorado and the South Platte River. People have heard me talk about this before, but it's pretty highly pressured. I don't know how it compares to the Pierre Marquette. I've never fished up there, but it's a pressured river. And what I remember is just it forced me to meet the fish on their terms, right? I had been fishing in Montana before that, and the the the thing that stands out is the size of the flies. And I never wanted to tie on these tiny little flies in Colorado because I'm like, ah, just I don't know, I don't have the confidence or whatever, like they're too small, like I can't even tie these things on barely, you know. Um but if you don't, you're not gonna catch fish. So there's no, I mean, you can't like fake it, you know, on these on these technical high pressure streams. You have to do what you have to do, you know.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

Exactly. You in the right place at the right time. You you learn that stuff, you know what I mean? I've done I've done the section between spinny and 11 mile.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Yeah, that's where I was all the time, man. I've it was the it was the closest drive for me, so that's usually where I was.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've done that, I've done that section through there, and you know, it's you work really hard on being at the right place at the right time, right? Not just I have a morning, I'm gonna go and see what happens. So you really start to focus in on okay, when is the best time for me to be there? Right, yeah. And and all of a sudden now you're adding that to your angling. It's like, you know, it's not just there in the side, you know, between spinning and 11 mile. I mean, you you take this, you know, into tidal situations, the right place at the right time, and you start trying to, you know, work on what's the best time for me to be there. Yeah, it goes along with right.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Yeah, it's more than also just the time of day and hatches and stuff, it's you know, time of year and seasons and flows and all that. Yeah, it took me probably longer, and I still don't have all that figured out for sure, but I think about it more now, especially with flows and things like that. Um you're planning a trip, right? We'll probably talk about this later when we talk about the book, but you're planning a trip to go someplace. You can't just pick a week on the calendar and say, this is it. You know, if you if you're real serious about making those memories and having those moments that we talked about before before we started recording, we were talking about these moments and stuff, but you know, a lot goes into those moments. A lot goes into that one little memory that you get to file away. Yep, you know, and I've got a lifetime of fly fishing behind me, but there's probably, you know, I can count on my fingers probably those moments that are really stick with me, you know. The ones that I'm the ones that I'm going for, the gems, the things that are like, that's the thing, man, that um that I'm trying to do, you know. Could be other things, could be skiing or mountain climbing or whatever. For for me, it's fishing, fly fishing. Right. Maybe hunting a little bit. Um okay, so Western Trout Guide. I wanted to ask you too, why do you think you had to have it? Why why you seem like someone who's very thoughtful in the way they approach fly fishing? Um, certainly you wrote a whole book about it. Not about that, but you care enough to write a book. Why why early on do you think it was easier for you to kind of approach fly fishing in a I'm not after the numbers, I need to have it? What was it that grabbed you and took you kind of to a place where it was more meaningful you for you early on than just where a lot of people end up, I guess, which is I want to catch fish, I want to catch as many fish as I can, you know. Why why did that kind of happen the way it did for you, do you think?

SPEAKER_03 10:34

I think by nature, um I am I am just I'm an absolute predator. I want to look for a shot, I'm looking for something, and when I find it, I'm gonna try to get really, really close, and I'm gonna try to take a shot, and I'm gonna try to you know seat that connection. Yeah, I don't I've never approached like my bull hunting versus my fly fishing, guiding. I've never there I do it the exact same way, right? The idea of getting in close, right? Yeah, of maybe watching and then making a move in and then going in, and then the moment that you had that the shot, right? And keeping it together, and hopefully, ultimately, you know, walking up to your whitetail or your bear or holding that fish and and and watching it go back, you know what I mean? That's to me it's it's that I'm out looking for something, right? And it's going to force me to you know dive into all of the things that I I find interesting, right? In the natural world, you know, I'm gonna if I see something, I want to know why, right? And it just everything about it just excites me. And it's it's uh it takes you into these incredible places, right? These places that very, very few people ever have the opportunity to see, let alone experience, right? So it was the the travel, it was the the experience, and then and then me being my best at looking for something, right? Yeah, trying to find it. So that's it just fit with me and you know my my interests and just me personally, you know, where where I'm I'm hunting the entire time.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Yeah. Did you find that making the transition professionally into this world was easy because of that? Or did do you have to fight, you know, some internal battle where you finally were like, no, this is the place I want to go? Uh you know, did you did you go anywhere else when as you're a young person coming up, or did you say, nope, this is it, I'm a hunter, I love being in outdoors, I love this place, and you you were you know immediately kind of in that I don't know, career path.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

No, it happened really fast, and uh you know, it was um no, I didn't I didn't have any struggle with it whatsoever, and the and the sacrifices that I've made for it don't really seem that heavy in comparison to what it's given me and the opportunity that I've had to share with other people, right? So it no, no, I never had any you know interest in you know I it's evolved, absolutely, it's evolved from where it started to to where it is now for sure. I don't um I don't do it for the same reasons that I have initially first got into it. You know, that changed over time and it settled in nicely to um where it is now, and that's my love for providing an experience for somebody, and then hopefully the reward is in turn, you know. I have somebody who gives a shit about the places that they're now experiencing, right? That they they uh they have this this now connection to the Everglades and cares about what happens, or the water that flows through their backyard, they they take the time to care about it. You know, and now you have a person on board with conservation and and somebody who cares.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Is that one of the biggest things that's evolved for you from the beginning? Are there other things?

SPEAKER_03 15:23

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, you know, we uh guides and captains, you know, we have the uh opportunity to, if successful, have these seasons that fall one after the other, and and we have this incredible view of the changes that happen, and every single one of us has a front row seat to the challenges that our natural environment around us faces, uh, either due to the people's intrusion, negligence, um flat-out accidents, you know, and you know, we're all doing this because we love these places and and love the everything that calls these places home that we get to spend time in, and we can we care about it very much.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

So we get to see this continual uh hits that keep coming to these places, and eventually, you know, we we we stand up and bring awareness to it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Yeah, it's a good way to do it, one person at a time.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

I want to go back to your teenage years and can you walk me through just a little bit more about how you transitioned into guiding and maybe hit a little bit on your your experience out west as well? Because not everybody out there gets a chance to go uh fish in those different areas.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

Yeah, you know, I I rebel I rebelled uh really hard against this Midwestern, you go to high school, you then go to college. You know, mind you, this is before the the uh you know 2007-2008 crash, right? So college was you know, that's what you do, right? You go to college and then you get married, you have children and the white pick expense and the career, and then after that's all said and done, maybe you have the health, maybe you have the finances to um you finally go do what you want to do. I rebelled very, very hard. Not that any of that stuff I think is uh you know not an honorable pursuit. I mean, they're great if that's for you. That wasn't for me. I understand. Yeah, I didn't like that. I didn't like that idea. Um, so at the time, you know, there's pre pre-google, pre-social media, is magazines, right? So I'm flipping through these magazines and I'm seeing all of these incredible places, all of these experiences. And since I didn't have a trust fund or a helicopter, I had to figure out some way to work my way through and and have these experiences, right? So I became I became a uh a guide and spent a decade, spent a decade on the road being just a hired gun working for lodges, fly shops, outfitters from Alaska to Louisiana.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Wow, man.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

And in that time learned a lot, saw a lot of things I really, really liked, saw a lot, saw a lot of things I didn't really care for.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

This is your 20s, you're in your 20s.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. And and you know, I had gone uh just seasonally, you know what I mean? I'd go to Alaska for the summer into the early fall, and then I was uh whitetailed guide um in the Midwest, and then I'd come back and then to Michigan, and then there'd be the uh you know the rainbow stuff in the wintertime, springtime, and then I'd go again and then I was off somewhere else. And went back to a few places a couple times, uh Yellowstone and uh did Alaska for two years, um, and just got the opportunity to have those experiences, but you know, I get to go and spend like six, seven, eight months at a place, and I get to see the whole fishery, it was incredible. Yeah, and didn't make any money, but made enough to just travel through and um get to the next place and and the have the next experience. And 2015 rolls around and Michigan changed its regulations towards bass and opened it up to catch and release year-round. We used to not be able to even fish for bass until Memorial Day weekend.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 20:59

So in 2015, I decided to go back to my home water, Kalamazoo, and I would start guide and start working the Kalamazoo and and see what I could what I could build off of that. That that's been that's been 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

A couple questions about uh follow-on questions to that. What was it like looking back? So before this decade, you're looking through the magazines and you're looking at these places. I would imagine there is a uh an enormous amount of pride or accomplishment to now kind of look back and and say that you were able to do those things, right? That you're able to kind of make your own way and kind of overcome the idea that this isn't possible for me, right? Because I know what you're I I know what you mean. You're looking at these places like, oh man, not only the monetary kind of like how do I get this to happen financially, but also like just the scale and scope of it, you know? The idea of like, well, I'm gonna have to give up a lot if I want to go out there and and try and figure this out because you don't necessarily hit a home run the first time, right? You you don't not every place you go is like, well, this is paradise, this is awesome, right? It's like exploring a new fishing area. There's some good days and bad days, there's some like, well, that was kind of a bust. I don't probably not come back here again. Can you talk a little bit about that in retrospect? And then I guess the second part would be why do you think it made sense after that to kind of settle in and be home? Now you're back home. They're two extreme kind of polar opposites, I guess, is where I'm saying, you know, like totally vagabonding wherever I land, you know, not making any money, like you said, and and just seeing these things. And now I'm sure you have got awesome little setup. You've got a place where you hunt, a place where you fish, you've got your business, you know. So I'm really curious about how you think about that.

SPEAKER_03 23:21

I didn't think that it wasn't possible, or I didn't. I was told from a very, very young age that if I worked hard enough, there was nothing that I couldn't do. And I still feel that way, even to a ridiculous extent. I feel like if I worked hard enough, there's nothing that I can't do, right? So, yeah, the failures were the learning experiences, right? They they didn't knock me down far enough to, man, what am I doing this for? It was just I need to work harder, right? And that traveling around gave me a much bigger perspective, and then I came to realize that where I was from really isn't that bad.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Did you think like you needed to get away?

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Get kind of like I need to see all these things so that because yeah, and then it yeah, oh yeah, where I was from is this, you know, this small do-nothing cornfield town on its way to absolutely nothing just outside of Kalamazoo. And uh, you know, it would be, I think, incredibly detrimental that this be your only perspective on the world, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Right.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

And I got to travel around, I got to see everything that I wanted to see. And uh I I had the opportunity like, you know what, this where you're from isn't bad. It's it's you know, getting away from it and then opening up my world to uh you know different parts of the US.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

And what did you see in Cal in I'm just gonna say Kalamazoo, but what did you see in your home that you didn't see before? Like what do you see now that was not there?

SPEAKER_03 27:43

You know, that Midwestern that that Midwestern work ethic that was just something that grew up with, right? You you take all of those circumstances that you have growing up as this is what it is, right? This is exactly what this is, and you don't know any better, and the hardness that Midwestern people carry around with them, based on just you know, we have to go and endure the winters and figure it out, and uh you know, the seasonal push of well, you only have so much time to get this done before this happens, right? Before we have three feet of snow on the ground. So I have to work really hard to get this done. And you know, that doesn't exist everywhere. You know, it's it's more of like uh you know, especially the further south that you get, you you get the uh, you know, we'll get to it.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Yeah, I've I've lived in the south and I've lived in the Midwest, and I know exactly what you're talking about. Not right or wrong, I'm not making a judgment on it, but uh it's a thing for sure. You can't like say it's not a thing because it is.

SPEAKER_03 29:08

No, it's it's absolutely a thing, and you know, the further south that you go into you know Mexico and the Bahamas and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

So yeah, now we're on island time. Now we're really exactly right.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

So all right. Uh that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense, actually, because because now you're home, you're in Kalamazoo, and you've got this opportunity with bass that you see. Can you talk a little bit about that transition into I'm gonna make this work for me, my passion for the outdoors and hunting and sharing these experiences as a guide in my hometown, and and kind of the way that that work ethic and culture that you were able to blend that into now your life and your profession?

SPEAKER_03 29:57

Yeah, the the Kalamazoo's home, the Kalamazoo River's home to me. I mean, I grew up fast fishing that and had way more time the on the Kalamazoo chasing smallmouth than I did um any of the trout fishing that I did up north. I wasn't as much as it felt like more like I was just coming home, right? And and showing somebody something that I had been doing my whole entire fishing life.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Yeah. Almost relaxing, like, okay, you can just settle into it. Like, this is let me invite you into my home and show you how cool this is, you know.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

Yeah, and I have a lot of pride in in my home water, and you know when I started, there wasn't anybody doing that there on the Kalamazoo. Nobody was guiding there on the Kalamazoo, not in the middle section of the Kalamazoo. There were the the steelhead guys way down low that were doing their thing, but there's this huge body of water, right? The whole middle section of the Kalamazoo, and there's nobody there at all. And this incredible bass fishery. The Kalamazoo, if you happen to look into it, I mean, you're gonna see like 10 negative things before you find anything positive about the Kalamazoo River, all right.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Right?

SPEAKER_03 31:36

So I had to fight through that, you know, between industry and development. Um, you know, before the Clean Water Act, 1971, I mean, the Kalamazoo was a dumping ground. And you know, 51 or 52, it made the cover of Time magazine for the biggest inland fish kill. Uh it's home to the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Ouch. When was that?

SPEAKER_03 32:07

I mean, this place.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

When was that oil spill?

SPEAKER_03 32:10

2010, I think. I think it was 2010.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Yeah. The uh Embridge pipe busted, and all of this crude just flowed into the river. Fortunately, it didn't make it down as far into the sections where I fish, but the watershed in itself took a massive hit.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:36

You know, um the dam broke a couple years ago and just caused just mayhem, uh, environmentally, just a complete disaster. So I I was gonna have to fight my way through that stuff, and I was going to have to get people to go out and fish and then show them like, hey, there's really something special here, and not that many people know about it, and there's nobody fishing it. Uh, to this day, I'm still the only guide there.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

The only guide on the Kalamazoo in your section?

SPEAKER_03 33:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Well, that's good, right? I mean, it's good for business, or no, it's not good.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

It's no, it's great. I mean, I you know, it's great. It's uh you know, we fish every single day, and in most cases, we have the place completely to ourselves, and we're catching fish, and if I do run across somebody, they're one of my dear friends.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Oh, that's cool. What are people most surprised by when they come there? You said there's not a lot of people on it, so pressure's low, but is there something that when you take people out that haven't fished the Kalamazoo for the first time that that stands out is that they always bring this up, or they always say this, and it's kind of um surprising to them.

SPEAKER_03 34:02

There's a couple of sections that everything's just stocked in with woods, right? There's there's very few houses, there's no real businesses until you actually get into downtown Kalamazoo. So we can be fishing through a riffle section of water that's beautiful, and the water's clear, and you're catching smallmouth bass, and you're a mile and a half away from downtown, and people have no idea. They have no idea, like this has been here the whole time. I'm like, Yeah, it's been here the whole time. You just you know, the the reputation and the very, very limited access that Kalamazoo has. Um years ago when I looked into it, 96% of the entire river was private property. Access is is awful on the Kalamazoo. So you don't have these spots where you could walk and wade in and check it out. Right. The boat ramps and I think like 40 miles of river is two.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Two boat ramps.

SPEAKER_03 35:19

Two boat ramps.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

What kind of boat do you run?

SPEAKER_03 35:22

I run a I run a jet.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:25

Yeah, I run a center council jet, smaller one, 1452.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

Uh I've been running the jet for maybe eight years or so. Yeah. I started with a drift boat because that's what I had.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

From doing the upnorr stuff and everything. And I I had to switch to a jet.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Just gonna say, with the distances that you gotta go, that must be helpful.

SPEAKER_03 35:54

Yeah, it's super awful. We'll make big runs. I mean, I'd I don't have a problem running 40, 45 minutes one way.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Now, do you still fish it kind of like a drift boat then? I mean, you still float sections like a drift boat and you row, but you just have the jet in case you or not in case, but when you need it or yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:14

We float down and then I'll jet back up to the ranch.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Yeah, go back up. Yeah. There's a lot of that on the um the White River. I have I fished that a little bit when I lived in Kansas City, but a lot of people have like drift boats with the motor and they'll drive back up and float down. And I thought that was kind of cool. That's the first I'd seen it when I was in Missouri and Arkansas. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. What's something that you um recently learned or relearned, or something that you know stands out in your brain, like, oh yeah, I forgot about that, or maybe just something that surprised you recently on the Kalamazoo.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

Um, you know, the the smallmouth bass, uh, how resilient they are, you know, how much abuse that fish can take and still thrive. It's such an incredible thing. It's I've seen it put to the test a few times now, and it never ceases to amaze me at how resilient and tough, and you know that fish is. Uh, and speaking of the the dam breaking and the environmental issue that that caused, I mean, it was hard to believe anything was going to be able to figure out how to spawn in that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:43

And then the water eventually clears up and things start kind of to correct itself, and I'm rowing across these shallow flats, and it's full of young smallmouth. And I'm like, how? How? You know what I mean? Like, this is this is incredible. I love I love this fish. My my absolute favorite freshwater fish.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

It's the old uh it's the Midwestern work ethic. It's in the fish, it's in the DNA, it's in the water.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

It has to be, then. It has to be.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

All right. Um how do you like to fish for them? Is there a technique or a tactic that you prefer, or is it um, you know, how do you approach the water tactically at different seasons? Or that's a big broad question, you know. So yeah, good question.

SPEAKER_03 38:32

My my favorite way to go about doing it is uh, you know, if I get the flows between 900 and 1100 CFS, then my go-to is going to be I'm gonna go and I'm gonna cast and pull streamers, right? Okay pretty aggressively, meaning that I'm going to the idea is that I'm going to pick a spot, I'm gonna get a really good cast to it, and then I'm going to uh fish that streamer, I'm gonna pull it out of there pretty aggressively, right? And then I'm going to try to prey on a bass's instinct, uh, those switches that you can flip, right? The the the darting motions, the color, and I'm going to try to break that fish out and get and by that reaction, right? By I'm gonna try to, you know, they're really susceptible to, and a lot of fish are, but really susceptible to that reaction bite, right? And with a little bit of work, you can figure out, okay, this is it. This is the uh, you know, if I get this here and move it this way, and there's a fish there, I'm gonna buy that reaction, right? So I'm gonna go and I'm gonna pitch timber and then fish the open water troughs and kind of figure out whatever the mood is for that day, right? Whether they're hanging out or whether they're sucked up closer into the timber, it changes all of the time.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:14

And but that's to me that I'm gonna I'm gonna watch people pull pull streamers, you know, off of timber or um through flats, open water flats and troughs and things like that, and then watch you know, get those reactions from those fish. You know, it's real visual.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:37

Um, I love that part of it, it's super exciting. You know, when you when you go and you make a good shot and then you pull it, and then the fish just breaks out of that timber and kills it, is uh super exciting. If I have an angler who can fish top water well, you know, that's uh that's another one that I really enjoy watching, you know, breaking fish out of timber with a popper. Um but that takes a different skill set, a different skill set in angling, which um some people have, and some people are working on it, you know. And if somebody wants to work on it, and I'm I'm absolutely game, you know. I I love the opportunity to help people develop as anglers, right? So even if the our catching is going to be shit for that day, right? But that that person goes, okay, I'd really like to work on this, then I'm I'm a hundred percent in.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:45

Right. Um yeah, maybe we could catch way more fish pulling streamers, but if you want to learn how to work like a topwater bug for smallmouth bass in current, let's let's go and I'll help you with that.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

So let's talk about those techniques. Well, let's talk about streamers first. You talked about getting the reaction and you talked about the visual. Is it is it sight fishing a lot of times where you see them ahead of time, or are you just talking about the visual take afterward?

SPEAKER_03 42:18

The visual take.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Okay. What are you? I I'm I'm you described it very well. I'm imagining like working different parts of different waters, trying to do different things to induce that kind of reaction. Um I mean, what are some of the things that you do? Like what you you must have like a kind of a I don't know, checklist or a list of things. Maybe it's this, or maybe it's the movement, maybe it's real fast, maybe it's I don't even know, man. But you you get what I'm saying? Like, what are the things that you're doing where you could be like, no, it's not that today. It's maybe it's try let's try this other thing.

SPEAKER_03 42:59

Yeah, I'm I'm following along with you completely. I a lot of the times when people get into the streamer polling, right? Is they it's like they zone out, right? And it becomes just this spray and prey.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Okay, yeah, I've heard this before. Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 43:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like they just kind of like zone out, and they're just casting and casting and casting and casting, and and they're in some cases getting it where it needs to be, close to the timber at a good angle, but the majority of the time it's it's either it's way short or the angle's really not great for uh uh for the approach. And you know, out of every 10 casts, you know, four of them might be where it needed to be, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:58

All right, yeah. So that's step one. Get it where it needs to be.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

Get it where it needs to be, and that in itself is requires an incredible amount of work in your your skill set as an angler, right? Yeah, it's um being able to confidently put it where you want it to go as often as possible, right? And from there um changing up the retrieve, you know, the again going back to people zoning out, and they'll they'll they'll send 60-70 casts up and they're pulling it the exact same way, like it's just this pull, pull, pull, cast, pull, pull, pull, cast, and they'll just do that the entire time until I actually have to say, like, hey, listen, you know, we've we've covered like 200 yards of river here, and you haven't had anything happen. Why don't you try changing up the retrieve? Right? The twitch, twitch pause, and then dead drift down, twitch pause, you know what I mean? Like changing it up, changing it up, changing it up until you get that reaction, and then from that reaction you can sit there and go, okay, I need to tweak this a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

Okay, so is it so speed, um speed, color, and go ahead, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 45:33

Yeah, yeah, speed and the color and um the actual movement of the fly. Right? I tend to use things with natural materials, bunny and deer hair clip throwing on a sink tip, and I want as much movement as I can possibly get with that fly. Um and usually that's enough. I mean there's there's smallmouth, right? It's it's usually not tough, but there are days, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

So you're picking the movement, the the fly, the color, and Then trying to come up with is it seem like once you find that combination then for the rest of the day, if you know kind of the water they're in, that you can replicate that? Like so, for example, you know, hey, I've got this deer hair fly, and it's this color, and it seems that if I strip, like you said, strip, strip, pause, that's working versus more aggressive stripping or faster or whatever. Like, does that seem to like okay, I've I've hit hit upon a rhythm of stripping that seems to be getting the reaction I want.

SPEAKER_03 46:52

100%.

SPEAKER_00 46:53

So it really is important to switch up the the the retrieve because you're searching that you're searching for something that works, it's some rhythm that you're that you need to kind of replicate that day.

SPEAKER_03 47:07

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And you know, the luxury of somebody hiring me and then having me in the boat with them, right? Yeah, is is I have the experience with the watershed, right? So in my experience, my time on the water, the work that I've put in, I can tell you, man, this section of water is a really good section of water that I consistently pull fish out of, and sometimes some really, really, really good ones.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Yeah, right. So you've got that kind of piece of the puzzle. Now we just let's find that rhythm.

SPEAKER_03 47:48

Yeah, and I have a jet. So I can go through, I can go through this incredible piece of water and may and say, maybe not move a single fish, right?

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Right.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

And then I can sit there and go, well, that's I don't buy that. I'm gonna I'm gonna motor back up, I'm gonna change up my whole approach, and then I'm gonna get this figured out for whatever it is for the the day.

SPEAKER_01 48:17

Right.

SPEAKER_03 48:17

Right? And if you don't have you know that experience and that time on a piece of water, you can easily just chalk it up to, well, they aren't there.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

Right.

SPEAKER_03 48:34

You know, where I I have the luxury of I know that the fish are there, I know exactly where they're at. I just need to figure out how I'm gonna break them loose that day.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

Yeah, the fish are always biting mindset. I wrote a blog post about this, but you know, there's this concept that I lived with for a long time, like, oh, the fish weren't biting today, you know, the fish weren't biting. But it's a it's like a safety blanket, you know, it's like this the make you feel good kind of thing to say, because the fish are eating, you know, like there's times where they're not eating as much, but they're eating and somebody else would have gone out that day and caught fish, right? So what's the difference between me and that person, right? It's not it's not just that they weren't eating, it's something else. And the the answer to that question is what you know, let's figure it out. Let's j let's motor back up and figure it out.

SPEAKER_03 49:28

Most of the time, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:30

Yeah. Um all right. How about a story? Can you tell me a story, maybe a fish that uh you caught, or maybe one that got away that stands in your memory as something where you learned something particularly or hammered home a lesson learned, or could be a guest as well.

SPEAKER_03 49:50

Yeah. Um man, you know, I spend every single June up on in the Straits of Mackinac on fishing wilderness for smallmouth bass. And a few years ago, one of one of the people that I fish who is just absolutely dear to me, um Big Mary. Big Mary is uh like five foot and ninety-seven pounds. You know, her it's Big Mary because she runs the show. Okay, and you know, we were fishing in the straits a ways out, and I had gotten onto some really, really big smallmouth bass. Smallmouth bass that were were I'm calling them out initially as carp. I think they're carp, right? I think they're cart sliding down this way out on this outer bank of the Straits of Mackinac, right? Okay, and she goes, No, John, those are smallmouth. And I said, Holy shit, okay. And we kind of go through the day, and I get back onto these fish, and I tell her, I said, you know, they're there, just go ahead and blindfish it, and we'll see what happens. And she hits one and whiffs the hooks at she, you know, she's losing her shit over it. I'm I am trying to stay as calm as possible. And I'm like, hey, listen, just make the cast again, fish it back out, and she makes the cast and she hooks up onto this fish that is incredible, right? Yeah, and she has no idea how big this fish is, other than it's pulling like hell, and I'm watching the entire time, and and the fish kind of does that top roll where the tail kind of comes right at the water's surface, and this thing is like it's like a boat paddle, man. And she gets it in close, and I'm finally able to bag it, and I bag this thing, and she sits down and I pull this fish out of the bag, and she immediately starts crying. Right?

SPEAKER_00 52:36

Immediately starts crying, and like hardcore crying, or just like tearing up just tears, man.

SPEAKER_03 52:43

Tears and she uh and we ended up taping the thing out. Um we ended up taping the thing out at uh it was over two feet with a 20-inch girt.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 53:00

And uh it was it was something that uh it was something that uh yeah, it was just that place and that experience and having her uh just just seeing that whole thing, man, was just incredible. It's like what more could you possibly ask for?

SPEAKER_00 53:28

That's pretty good, you know.

SPEAKER_03 53:30

It was just you know, uh, and then uh her husband and myself ended up having the uh a replica mate.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

Oh, cool, really? That's awesome, man.

SPEAKER_03 53:42

And surprised her with it. Yeah, King Sailfish Mouse did the mile, and they're like, dude, we don't have a we don't have a form that big. And I was like, figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 53:51

Yeah. That's why we pay you. Uh were you stream? Was it streamers you're fishing?

SPEAKER_03 53:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a Gobi pattern. Yeah. All right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

No, that's a good story. Big Mary.

SPEAKER_03 54:05

Big Mary. Uh lover. She's uh she's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

If you could only fish two days of the year, which two days of the fit of the year would you fish and how would you fish it? On the Kalmazou?

SPEAKER_03 54:20

I had two days. Yeah. Don't not have to tell me where, but you know, just I would I if I would pick the day where the water temp is in the high 50s and then hard dropping flows, right? So the bottom falling out of the flows. Uh so typically after a push of water, you're gonna have the the water you know crushed out, and then it's gonna start to fall, right?

SPEAKER_01 54:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 54:56

Um and overcast. That those uh give me those two days. Okay, it would be incredible.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

And those flows are coming up and down based on rain, typically?

SPEAKER_03 55:15

Yeah, too, typically, yeah. I mean, um, so like, you know, some high water event, right? High water event, I mean, real specifically, you know, flows at like 1100 CFS on Kalamazoo after uh and I and it's it's falling like a rock, right? That's just not the P that's just not Kalamazoo, man. That's you take a river and you take those hard dropping flows, yeah. The the fish come unglued.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

Okay. And how are you gonna fish?

SPEAKER_03 55:51

All the streamers.

SPEAKER_00 55:52

Streamers, okay. Uh do you have any? I'm a slightly below average fly tire. Are there any flies that I might tie that I could take out there that are maybe minimal material, maybe less complex to tie?

SPEAKER_03 56:06

That's my world.

SPEAKER_00 56:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 56:08

That's that's my world. I take a pattern and I see three materials on it, I'm always looking how to make it two.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

Okay. Well, tell me more about that. What are some of these confidence flies, or what are these how do you look at those flies and make sure that you're always fishing kind of minimal?

SPEAKER_03 56:26

Yeah, I'm going to throw uh a lot of bunny, zonker shirt style flies, and a lot of uh deer hair, head stuff, and then honestly, I'm good, man. Like if you give me some bunny on a rabbit, I'll I'll I'll catch billfish to bone fish to trout to snook. It doesn't matter. Give give me some deer hair and some bunny, and that I'm good. I'm absolutely good.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

All right.

SPEAKER_03 57:04

I'm not, you know, I'm not I tie flies, I tie a ton of flies, and I think uh the the um the revolution of this these incredibly complex patterns, you know, I I think that um it's it's great. Um I mean what a tremendous skill set to have, right? And how many options that you have um to throw at these fishes. I mean it's incredible. I I've always tried to fall back on honing in my angling and and my per my per my approach, my my approach and my angling, and I don't think that the uh you know like the the the big game changer flies and and the things like that, you know what I mean? I think that you know the the fish that you you catch on that, I I think I can I think I can catch that fish on just some deer hair and some bunny too, if it's fished well, right? So if I become a better caster and I I put that fly where it needs to be most of the time, I think that's it. I don't think it's a it's I it's you know you got a bunch of tools, right? It's a skill, it's a skill set, and that it takes time to work on.

SPEAKER_00 58:53

Sure, I get what you're saying. I mean, uh it sounds like what you're saying is it's not bad that you have a skill set to be able to make a more complex fly, but it's not a requirement to make a memory for sure, uh, but also to catch fish.

SPEAKER_03 59:10

Yeah, yeah, no, not at all. So I some deer hair and some bunny and maybe some flash, and I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

Okay. Uh I want to change up the direction a little bit. Uh I want to read something. This is a blog post you wrote for TFO. I don't know if it's for TFO, but it was in TFO on their website. It's called Transitions. And it's gonna be a transition into the next part of the podcast, too. Uh you wrote uh this article, and it's kind of about you, you know, you moving into the saltwater game and saltwater fishing for sure. And you said this at the at the end, this is towards the end of the article. Once in this world, you'll have stepped into a story with no ending, and that story is just now being told. Many of the anglers who made possible what we can do today are still with us. It's that new. The innovations continue with every single push toward the edge of what can be done. The cost is so high because the reward is so great. Once paid for, it has to be respected. So I wanted to read that because I wanted to see if you could expand on it a little bit and you know, talked a little bit about you know, we were talking about flies and the different things that people are kind of complexity of it or whatever, but it sounds like you're you're also talking about just pushing yourself in fly fishing and life or whatever. Um why is that important to you? Or or were you were you is that what you're getting at, or what were you what were you trying to say there?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:55

Well, um when I wrote that, I was thinking specifically about the men and the handful of women who kicked open the door into saltwater fly fishing, right? You know the the Ted Jurassics, the flip pallets, the stew apps, Jose Waheve, you know, all of you know these these men that were in South Florida in the Keys. Saltwater fly reels didn't exist until Ted Jurassic made them. Ted's still alive, he lives in Everglade City. There was no fly lines out there that were designated tarpon fly. It didn't exist. And these guys are out there pushing those boundaries every single day, right? They're they're pushing into we're gonna we're gonna fail and we're gonna fail and we're gonna fail, and we're gonna figure this out, right? The incredible amount of work that I can tell you that it takes to step into the backcountry and go fly fishing, and I and my feeling that we have a really uh long ways that we could we could continue to to push and continue to um hone in some of this equipment and flies and the approach and things like that. Like these guys were stringing up 400-pound mono, hand sanding this stuff down to make a fly line because you know it didn't exist, you know, and and these are all you know, we're starting to lose them now at a little bit uh regular basis, but you know, some of these people are still alive and well and doing their thing. I mean, it's it's that this saltwater fly fishing game, it's that that new. I always um and I have a ton of respect for somebody who's gonna sit there and and accept the failures that come with effort.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:37

Right? And and and this can't be done. I mean, everybody said you can't catch a tarpon on a fly rod. You can't do it, it's impossible. And you sure can.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

Where did your work ethic come from? Or where did your like personal kind of appreciation for work ethic come from? Sounds like it's been with you a long time.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:02

Yeah, it's but yeah, going back to the you know, if I work hard enough, there's nothing I can't do, right? Who told you that? That my dad.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:12

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:12

My my dad actually, you know, he was adamant on uh both my sister and myself was like, if you work hard enough, there's nothing you can't do. Nothing. And I I still carry that and believe that wholeheartedly today, that if I want to go do something, if I work hard enough, it'll I'll do it, you know. And there's uh this this this man uh by the name of legendary captain down in South Florida Keys, Steve Huff. And Steve Huff has been regarded as the barometer for being a captain, a good captain. And he he uh he had the saying that was um all guides work hard, very, very few work harder than the rest. And I wanted to be one of the ones that worked harder than the rest. And I don't think that that's anything that can be faked. I don't, you know, nothing stands out more than the actual work done. Nothing you can you can fake it for a little while, man. Instafamous is full of it, man. But when it comes time to when you have you know a person on the bow looking for something, and you come around you know a corner and it's right there, and it all you can't fake that, you know, and believe me, it is an incredible amount of work to get to the point of I've I where you can sit there and say, I've got this, I know this.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:16

Yeah. Is that the goal? Is it like what's the what's the metric or how do you say, is it a a way of being on the water? Is it a place you feel like you're at? Because I assume you're always challenging yourself and you're always learning and you're always trying to get better. So, how is it that guest experience? Is it you know what is it that makes you feel like you've done that?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:45

The consistency of success, right? Of having a run of really good days where I've found everything that I was looking for, that the person on the front of the boat had an incredible experience, and then you start stringing days and weeks and months and years of those, and and you know, you still have and still have really bad days, sure. Yeah, you know, and there's a lot of things that are completely out of my control, but yeah, um, I I think having put in the amount of work um that I have into some of these watersheds, I mean it it's come at an incredible sacrifice, you know, of failing and failing and failing, and eventually you're you're given this, you know, this this gift of success, and then you carry that with you, and you know, you you keep building off of that. And uh as well as carrying those failures along with you, right? Uh sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:08

Well that's that's helping you. I mean, there's an incredible amount of confidence, but also credibility that comes from Hard work in the sense that it sounds like you're describing with these failures and like overcoming and keep going and just fishing the hard days, fishing the hard water, like going through those times. Um if it was easy and all you did was fish the easy days, you wouldn't have the credibility. You wouldn't have you have to be able to say it was painful and I I had to I had to work hard on the hard days to have um you know if you just go tell people I'd knock it out of the park all the time, even if you're not lying, which you probably are, but even if you're not lying, nobody wants to learn from that person. Nobody like, okay, great, you're a superstar. Sorry, I'm you know, I graced your boat's presence with my, you know, right, with me being here, you're so awesome. Like there's a little bit of humility, I think, that needs to come with those experiences that uh yeah, it's healthy for teaching and you know, and that's part of work, that's part of the work ethic that you're describing. I think that's the way I look at it.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:27

Yeah. No, it's you know, um, yeah, the other side of that is I have the ability to um, you know, I fish with some incredible anglers too. Yeah, some of my friends are I think some of the best at this, right? Yeah, and fishing with people who are always pushing themselves and and pushing um you know what could be done. You know, I I've learned a lot from the people I've had the opportunity to spend time with in the boat. You know.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:18

Um that makes you better too, fishing with people. I mean, that's I love fishing with folks that are more experienced than me because I always learn so much more.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:31

Um it's not necessarily that it's not necessarily that.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:38

It's it's looking at somebody else's approach.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:47

Right? And they don't necessarily have to be doing it longer than you. I mean, honestly, one of the probably most influential people that I fish with today is um one of them would be Dave Hurley.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:08

Dave Hurley is not a 25-year captain.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:12

You know what I mean? But yeah, I talked to him on the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:15

He's just super, super thoughtful.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:18

Yeah, yeah. He he has this approach that he goes about a way of doing things that maybe necessarily I wouldn't think about. And I and I could sit there and say that man, I don't, you know, maybe I don't see that approach, but I see him go through it and do it, and the amount of work that he's put into it, you know, is uh, you know, probably one of my favorite fly tires as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:52

Polar opposites. I'm polar opposites, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:55

I mean, uh personality-wise, or or fly tie.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:00

Polar opposites where you know, he's like, I can build it this way and I can achieve this, and I'm like, well, damn, you're right. You know what I mean? And it's just it's it's just been really, really cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:19

You know.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:21

Yeah, that's one of the things that I took away from the conversation with Dave, is just how personally it's cool to be around people from different walks of life, different experiences. You know, he's a musician. Um, and it's one of the things I like about I and I I say that because I'm not a musician, but uh I appreciate art and I'm an artist, but I like I like that about fly fishing. Specifically, you know, this podcast helps a lot with that, but like meeting people from that are different and kind of having this thing that pulls you together. I think that's really cool about fly fishing.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:00

It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:03

Let's talk about your book. Sure. A guide's day off. We talked a little bit about this before the show. And I know that you have a lot of technical things that you could bring to a book that you wanted to put out there, and it's a lot of work to write a book. So why did you why did you not go the technical route and you went with these stories and um kind of more intimate moments?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:35

You know, uh yeah, I do feel I do feel like I have something that I could contribute to the technical side of the fly design, casting, fishing, the approach, and things like that. I I really do feel like I could um offer something like that. What I wanted to do was something I I think the one true judge of a really good book is how many times you want to read it. Right? And I wanted to try to I wanted to try to make something that had more depth to it rather than man, if you do this you might cast better. So put more of myself artistically and what I had to say out there versus, you know the technical side of the fishing.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:57

I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:58

No, that makes sense. Do you a lot of the book are these memories or I they're moments, right? They're moments in time.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:11

We've talked a lot about hard work on this episode or in this conversation. Yeah. Um and we mentioned it earlier when I was saying like these moments that you have that you can go back to. Do you think about that at all? Or is that a theme of the book? Kind of the work that goes into these moments or the background?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:32

It's everything it's it's it's all that's the reward to me is having these these moments, right? And but at the same time, you know, that that whole experience is going to be uh a bunch of failures and then successes, and it's all you know, it's all really meaningful, right? And it all it all takes you someplace, right? Right? The failures, you know, you're not going to be the same after a failure just as much as you wouldn't be the same after a success. Right? It's you'll change.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:20

Right. Yeah, not every story in the book is like, look at this giant fish I caught.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:25

Like it's not no, it's you know, no, it's um to me, you know, the the moment that I've always looked for is the moment when you take the shot. I have a piece there called uh that I wrote in there called Tarpin, and it's about taking the shot at the fish. It's just this laser-focused moment of taking a shot at the fish. But at the end of the story, I I cut it off with the fly going through the air. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that you put the fish in the air or you've landed it or you fail. You you're taking this shot at this 180-pound fish floating in two feet of water, you you're successful, right? You've you've done it. You're that's the moment that you've worked so hard for, and it's right there in front of you, and that's what I take away from it, right? Or you know getting um the experiences with the people that I have the opportunity to fish with and how it's affected them. It you know, it's it's about that stuff, right? Just just a very laser focused on that moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:04

Yeah, and all the things you know, when I'm I'm listening to you say this and I'm thinking about the moments in my life that I have that are important to me. And you know, I remember those moments and those memories exist for me, but there's all the stuff that goes into that. You have to get out amongst them, you know, you have to go go search out adventure and kind of they all came on the backside of something where I was going out and doing so. It's very rare. I don't have a ton of those where it's like I got up on Saturday morning and I went to my local stream and I caught this nice fish, and that was it. I mean, it was a great day, and I don't, I mean, I love those days, don't get me wrong, but they're not, they don't, they're not steered in my memories as it's always some sort of I went to this place and certain people were there, and maybe I lost a fish or I or uh it was bad day fishing the day before, or maybe we figured something out, like we finally figured it out that if we did this, it worked, and then we had great success that afternoon. Those things, I mean, I'm just thinking these things out loud in my in my memories are coming out, but those are all on the back of like some sort of going out there, and in a way, I guess that's work, you know. That's you had I had to put in time to make that happen. Of course, and it's not always as enjoyable as you know, the planning and the all that stuff is not always as enjoyable as being out in the water.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:41

Oh, yeah, but the the the misery that goes along with that effort is real.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:50

It sucks, man. When it's when it's a hundred plus degrees and you're getting chewed alive in the mangroves, it is really hard to. I mean, it's those stories, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:05

Those stories are not as exciting to read, I guess. Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:09

You know, it's well, it's you know, it's a part of the story, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:14

But it's not the uh it's it's yeah, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:21

It's it's not the it's not the zenith, but it is it's it's just as important, right? Because otherwise it wouldn't be as special.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:29

It is, it is. And my style of writing that I have, which um, you know, like I said, it's this it's this laser focused on on a moment, right? So it's short, it's all really, really short stuff. I mean, in no way in my lifetime am I ever going to redo the great American novel, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:52

Well, if you work hard enough.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:55

It is, it is, it is I'm old enough now to know. That's not that's not my train of thought, right? Like I can't stand, I can't stand any, you know, the the five pages of descriptive writing on how a room looked, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:21

Don't care. Don't care. It doesn't it doesn't do anything for me, but there's these you know this these moments, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:30

Yeah. What was some of the hardest parts of of writing the book?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:36

The actual work of writing the book opening myself up enough to write honestly. You know, uh in the book. Um you know, I wrote the story of I wrote the story of my dad's death, and then immediately afterwards picking up his old bird gun and shooting a rooster after his death with his shotgun. And the way that I wrote that, I had to basically just I I had to, you know, writing it, I was just living all through that shit all over again, right? And then rereading it and then editing it and hacking it apart and then writing it again, and I had to try to think about what it was like leaving the hospital after I sat there with him and watched him die, you know, and I I had to think about that, and I had to what was that like? And and I wrote it in the book as I felt like an incredible weight had been lifted from my shoulders and moved to my feet, and I left the the hospital like I was walking through wet concrete. You know, I I had to think about that stuff and I had to write it down honestly. Um and then in a few other pieces, you know, I had to, you know, I was I was voicing or or expressing an opinion, right? And I had to weigh out whether I had enough justification for that opinion, because uh an opinion without justification makes you an asshole. You know, so I had to, you know, do I have the justification behind this opinion? Um and I if I felt like, yeah, yeah, I I believe I'm knowledgeable enough to have this opinion, so I'm gonna write it down and publish it, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:13

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:14

Um, you know, all of that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:18

Yeah, it's really personal. Like, especially like you said, if you're gonna write honestly.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:24

It's uh it's brutally honest, right? And I'm not you know a massively public person, you know, my my life doesn't exist all over social media and what I have going on, it's business and fishing stuff. So I was going to put this out, and it was, I feel like, you know, if I wanted it to be successful, if I wanted it to be like really it was going to have to be brutally honest. Right? And so I I wrote it and I put it out there, and uh it's the it's been great.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:15

Oh that's awesome, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:17

Yeah. Yeah. That was hard. It was it was very, very difficult. And some of them were fun. I mean, some of them were great, you know. The some of the stories where you're you're you're taking a shot at a fish and you it goes right down the drain and it just ends up in a mess. You know, we've all been there. We we've all been there and you brush it off and then you go find another.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:47

You know, and you know, that's it's just those experiences, you know, hum human life experiences, love, death, success, failure, all that.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:04

I'm gonna ask you my last question. But first, John, how can people find out more about you? How can they find the book, read some of these stories, um, and follow along on your fly fishing journey?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:18

Yeah, so um, you know, Kalamazoo River Guide, that's the that's the uh the business name there, and that's on social media, both the platforms, Instagram, and then um just me personally on on Facebook, and then the uh the book, A Guide's Day Off, um, is available through Barnes and Noble. And then a whole bunch of other um online retailers as well that are trying to sell it for more than it's um more than its going price, right? It's retail price.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:11

So uh Barnes and Noble carries it.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:14

Go to Barnes and Noble, is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:17

Yeah, Barnes and Noble. Okay, yeah. And um yeah, man, it's is there a website?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:27

Is it just social media the uh Calamus?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:30

No, it's just it's just social media stuff that I run through. I've never I've never built a website, man.

unknown 1:27:37

That's okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:38

I just want to make sure that if there was a website that we have it there, but we can link to the book and we can link to uh the social media so people can get a hold of you. And um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:50

Yeah, I appreciate the time, man. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:52

Anything you're excited about coming up with your business or personal, just anything uh fishing-wise you want to get out there that you're like, I'm so stuck soaked for this.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:02

I'm always looking forward to June and the month of being up in the Straits of Mackinac and Wilderness State Park. Um, you know, sight fishing the big smallmouth and big carp and just uh being up into that place is something special all in itself. You know, it's this really incredible place that doesn't have much impact from people, and the fish are just big and wild and hungry. So I'm I'm always June's a big month for me, uh, work-wise up there. Um, so I can't I can't wait.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:53

Awesome, man. Well, like I said, we'll link to that stuff in the show notes so people can find it. Yep. Last question. Are you ready? Yep. If you could go back to when you first started fly fishing and give yourself two pieces of advice, one more tactical and one more philosophical. What would you tell yourself to help you progress as a fly fisher?

SPEAKER_03 1:29:17

Slow down.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:22

And slow down and is that tactical or philosophical? Could kind of be both.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:36

It's no, man, it's totally it's both. Okay. It's it's totally it goes there's that's it right there. Slow down, go slow, cast well, take your time. If you go too fast, you're gonna miss something.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:52

In life and in fishing, I would imagine. So that definitely qualifies us both. All right. John, thank you for taking the time to be on the show. I've really enjoyed talking with you. I appreciate your candor, I appreciate your honesty and just the way that you approach fishing and the way you approach this conversation today. So thank you so much for being on the show.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:14

Happy to be uh happy to be part of it, man. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:22

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 waitouthair.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.