Conversation with Steve Joyce, Red's Fly Shop

Matt sits down with Steve Joyce, Montana native, lifelong angler, and partner and general manager at Red’s Fly Shop.

While his world revolves around rivers, Steve’s insights run much deeper — from guiding others with patience and precision to building a thriving business around passion and community.

In this episode, we explore how the lessons of fly fishing mirror leadership, focus, and finding flow — both on the water and in work.

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Transcript

00;00;03;25 - 00;00;31;24

Matt Watson

Welcome to Transcending Workspace, where we talk with leaders of organizations managing the greatest rate of change in human history. I'm Matt Watson, VP of development with Apex Facility Resources, an integrated services company that delivers and manages workspace change for clients of all sizes. We hope you enjoyed this conversation. Today we have amazing guest Steve Joyce, a Montana native who discovered fly fishing at age ten and never looked back.

00;00;31;25 - 00;01;03;27

Matt Watson

He honed his skills on the Big Spring Creek in the Bighorn River, later guiding for Paul Roots Outfitters while earning a mathematics degree and playing football at Carroll College. His passion for fishing led him across rivers in Montana, Washington, and Chile, building a reputation as a calm, knowledgeable, and adaptable guy. In 2000, after a life chasing float down the Yakima Canyon, Steve became a partner and general manager at Red's Fly Shop turning his lifelong love of fishing into a thriving business and community hub.

00;01;03;27 - 00;01;26;11

Matt Watson

Today, Steve guides full time on the rivers like the Yakima Click Attack and That cheese, sharing his experience with anglers of all levels. He's known for creating a memorable experience on the water, whether teaching beginners or refining advanced technique. Outside of guiding, Steve enjoys hunting, camping, and spending time with his wife Natalie and their three children in Ellensburg, Washington.

00;01;26;14 - 00;01;33;03

Matt Watson

His philosophy is simple it's not about the number of fish. It's about the stories you take home. Welcome, Steve.

00;01;33;09 - 00;01;34;24

Steve Joyce

Thanks, Matt. How are you doing?

00;01;35;01 - 00;01;54;03

Matt Watson

I'm doing well. So in all honesty, Steve's a good friend. And in addition to a guy who I love to fish with. So I thought it would be a little different for us to have a conversation around your work environment and kind of how the rate of change in today's world is affecting you. And how you deliver on the experience.

00;01;54;04 - 00;01;58;02

Matt Watson

Let's get started from the beginning. You know, how do you fall in love with fishing? 

00;01;58;06 - 00;02;18;00

Steve Joyce

Well, always liked the outdoors and fishing is something that you can do. I mean, hunting season comes around once a year. It's a short period of time. The weather can get a little bit rough towards the end of the season at times. And fishing was something where you get to experience the outdoors and you get to do it all year long.

00;02;18;02 - 00;02;21;21

Matt Watson

Another thing I didn't know about you a mathematics degree?

00;02;21;24 - 00;02;24;26

Steve Joyce

Yeah, mathematics.

00;02;24;29 - 00;02;28;09

Matt Watson

The more I think about you, the more it makes sense, though.

00;02;28;12 - 00;02;29;16

Steve Joyce

Definitely.

00;02;29;18 - 00;02;46;16

Matt Watson

So this year round, this I mean, obviously a Montana kid, you came out to Washington and fell in love with the Yakama. What's the background? I know Red's has a great story. Tell us a little bit about kind of how you engaged and started Red's and even got that going.

00;02;46;18 - 00;03;10;22

Steve Joyce

Yeah. So basically, my plan had always been that I was going to graduate from college, get into teaching and coaching. And it became apparent, you know, fall is my favorite time to be outdoors, whether it's hunting or fishing. That's right. During football season. It became apparent to me that you get into teaching and coaching, and your hunting and fishing opportunities are going to be limited.

00;03;10;25 - 00;03;38;21

Steve Joyce

And I had started guiding when I was in high school on Bighorn River, and then continued guiding once I went to college and really enjoyed that part of things. I mean, that's one of those jobs where where you're laying in bed at night, you're going, am I really getting paid to do this? So I had some opportunities as I was getting done with college, where I went down and guided in South America for a couple of our winners in the States.

00;03;38;27 - 00;04;06;27

Steve Joyce

That helped make that a year round occupation. Then when we discovered the Yakima River out here, I'd come over and worked for a couple of my uncles in the Seattle area and just came over here to float fish on my own. And when I came out to the Yakima, you know, I'm used to the Montana rivers where, you know, there's 3 or 4 fly shops on them and, and 2 or 3 lodges, and you come out to the Yakima.

00;04;06;27 - 00;04;29;20

Steve Joyce

The fishing is really good, the scenery is beautiful. And Red’s fly shot back then was just a trailer and they had the fly shop on the porch and the trailer. The owners, Red Marlin, lived next door in another trailer, and then they had a campground down below. And that's when the internet had first kind of gotten started. So you could do research on stuff.

00;04;29;20 - 00;04;47;20

Steve Joyce

And I mean, the research on fishing, the Yakima, everyone said, oh, yeah, you need to go to Red’s. That's where they do shuttles and boat rentals and all that. I showed up at Red’s back then. It was not a big fly shot by Montana standards. I'm just going, Holy moly, you know, there's an opportunity to do something here.

00;04;47;20 - 00;04;50;06

Steve Joyce

You know, that's kind of how it all started.

00;04;50;08 - 00;04;53;11

Matt Watson

And this was this was early 2000s or late 90s.

00;04;53;12 - 00;04;56;13

Steve Joyce

This was probably. Yeah 2000.

00;04;56;15 - 00;05;21;27

Matt Watson

Yeah. Yeah. So early on. And we're going to talk a little bit later about how technology, you've leveraged technology as you do today to really advance your business, which I'm amazed at how just in the 10 or 15 years that I've known you, how much your business has grown and you've been able to leverage some things there, then you've got your investments together and you approached Red's with an offer.

00;05;21;27 - 00;05;23;03

Matt Watson

I am assuming? 

00;05;23;06 - 00;05;43;21

Steve Joyce

Yeah. So basically, I fished out you're quite a bit when I was working in Seattle, and I would always stop in and talk to Red and Marlin at one point, the way their shuttles worked, you went and put your boat in the water, then drove down to their house and told them you were ready. And then they followed you to the take out and gave you a ride back up to the port in.

00;05;43;23 - 00;06;08;29

Steve Joyce

Wow. And so, I mean, I got to be pretty good friends with Red and Marlin. I'd go in and have a cup of coffee with them and, and at one point Red kind of said, you know, we're not getting any younger. We've been putting Band-Aids on everything. At some point we're going to want to sell this thing. And he just said, you know, if that's something you're interested in, you probably need to get your ducks together sooner than later.

00;06;09;01 - 00;06;29;06

Steve Joyce

And so one of my uncles, who I fish with a lot, Tony, I had mentioned that to him. He said, let's go out there and go fishing together and and let's sit down and talk to him, because Tony had come out here with me quite a bit, too. He knew Red and Marlin. I'd called them first and just said, hey, Tony and I are going to come out fishing and we'd like to sit down, visit with you and we did that.

00;06;29;06 - 00;06;48;26

Steve Joyce

And, you know, Marlin is really the one who kind of owned the property. So we sat down and talked to him and Marlin said, yes, it's not something that we're in a hurry for, but we're very interested in starting to explore this. You know, if we do do that, we'd like it to continue operating as a fly shop.

00;06;48;26 - 00;07;09;02

Steve Joyce

We don't really just want one person to buy this property and build a big house on it and close it down. Tony and I kind of talked then and, said, you know, this is going to be a process to actually develop this, and it'd be great to bring someone in who has some development experience. Tony mentioned that.

00;07;09;02 - 00;07;26;17

Steve Joyce

Yeah, I've got a acquaintance. He said, I want to call it a great friend. But then he said, I know this guy does some fishing and he's in the development business. That's what he does. And he said, you know, let's get him over here and get his thoughts on it and see if there's any interest. And so we did that.

00;07;26;17 - 00;07;32;14

Steve Joyce

And Richard Leiter was the third partner. We got Richard out on the river and kind of started mentioning it to him.

00;07;32;14 - 00;07;34;08

Matt Watson

And that didn't take long did it?

00;07;34;13 - 00;07;34;25

Steve Joyce

No.

00;07;34;25 - 00;07;35;21

Matt Watson

Right on the river.

00;07;35;21 - 00;07;52;24

Steve Joyce

No. By the end of the float, Richard was saying, well, we've got to get a letter of intent over to Red and Marlin. And, you know, let's find out everything that they kind of feel like they need out of a agreement that could make this work. And let's put it together and get it out to him right away.

00;07;52;24 - 00;07;53;22

Steve Joyce

We did that.

00;07;53;25 - 00;08;08;05

Matt Wastson

And the growth has been unbelievable. You you built it through the early 2000s. You're now looking at, you know, three, four thousand square foot fly shop, a grill and a lodge with how many rooms?

00;08;08;07 - 00;08;37;08

Steve Joyce

Ten condos in Lodge, two bedroom condos each. Yeah. Our timing. We bought it in early 2001. One is when we closed on it. I think it was February of 01. The permitting process took a full four years. I would say to get everything together. We started construction in 07, started putting utilities in in 05, started construction on the lodge in 07, and we finished it in August of 09.

00;08;37;14 - 00;08;39;19

Matt Watson

Perfect timing there with the,

00;08;39;22 - 00;08;44;23

Steve Joyce

It was probably the worst time. The timing, the timing could have been a little bit worse.

00;08;44;26 - 00;08;48;10

Matt Watson

Major obstacle with the downturn of 08, 09, right?

00;08;48;10 - 00;09;09;27

Steve Joyce

Yes. I mean, fortunately, we had our financing in place to, to build the lodge after we'd put, you know, 2 to $3 million worth of the infrastructure. And it the only thing that could have been worse timing for us would have been if we would have got all that infrastructure in and then not been able to get financing to build the lodge.

00;09;09;29 - 00;09;10;10

Matt Watson

Right.

00;09;10;15 - 00;09;40;15

Steve Joyce

So the timing was was not ideal. So we did a fractional ownership component of the lodge. It was basically ten condos. We split them into one six interest each. So 60 total shares available. And when we started construction on the lodge in 07, we were pre-selling those and we had we had signed purchase and sale agreements, 34 of those in place.

00;09;40;18 - 00;09;50;28

Steve Joyce

And we couldn't close on those until we got occupancy, which when we got occupancy in August of 09, we ended up closing on seven of those all.

00;09;51;01 - 00;09;51;16

Matt Watson

Wow.

00;09;51;20 - 00;09;53;29

Steve Joyce

And everyone else had dropped out.

00;09;54;06 - 00;09;54;27

Matt Watson

Yeah, yeah.

00;09;54;29 - 00;09;59;10

Steve Joyce

I mean, yeah, that that mortgage crisis was bad.

00;09;59;12 - 00;10;05;06

Matt Watson

And and that obstacle obviously the, the suffer muscle was in full gear.

00;10;05;09 - 00;10;05;21

Steve Joyce

Oh yeah.

00;10;05;22 - 00;10;07;17

Matt Watson

Stress and anxiety.

00;10;07;20 - 00;10;16;22

Steve Joyce

Yeah. We had calls every week. We had a call with the bank on Monday mornings and it was. Yes. Not super pleasant time.

00;10;16;25 - 00;10;17;01

Matt Watson

Yeah.

00;10;17;04 - 00;10;34;06

Steve Joyce

Yeah. I mean at that point we were basically running a hotel that no one had heard about. And I mean, no one was buying anything. It wasn't. The prices were too high. You know, we continued spending money on marketing and all that stuff, but it was just a futile effort.

00;10;34;08 - 00;10;39;09

Matt Watson

And as grandma says, and I'm sure she said it to you, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

00;10;39;16 - 00;11;00;18

Steve Joyce

Yeah. Yes. No doubt about it. And the reality is, our clients out here are such, you know, consistent people. I mean, a lot of our customers are out here once a week during a certain period of the year. And and at least once a month throughout the year. We've continued building that relationship through all of that stuff.

00;11;00;20 - 00;11;02;25

Matt Watson

How many employees today do you have?

00;11;02;27 - 00;11;08;08

Steve Joyce

Well, so between the Fly Shop, the grill and the Lodge, we've got about 80 employees.

00;11;08;08 - 00;11;23;17

Matt Watson

Holy smokes. Yeah, it's a lot and the other amazing thing is you've leveraged your location not just for fly fishing, but you have like a skeet shooting course. You have a bird hunting program.

00;11;23;19 - 00;11;46;18

Steve Joyce

Right. And the thing about that, I mean, the the outfitter that I work for in Montana, Paul Roos Outfitters, still have and continue to operate. I mean, one of the the best bird hunting operations in the state of Montana and really in the country, when it comes down to it. And so that was something we'd always been interested in in this area.

00;11;46;20 - 00;12;31;24

Steve Joyce

It's such a unique ecosystem out here. I mean, it really is some some great habitat for chucker, which is a bird species. It's very difficult to actually get out. And they live in in high elevations in steep terrain, lots of basalt cliffs and all that kind of stuff. And so it's not for everyone. So we had to added there's a program that the state has that you can get permitted for, called the bird Preserve that allows us to to plant pheasants out there too, which is a a really nice spring creek that comes through the ranch that we lease shortly after we got out here in 2001, we were able to get the the lease

00;12;31;24 - 00;12;46;22

Steve Joyce

on the bird hunting ranch. That's about 13,000 acres super conveniently located in the canyon here. And we set up that bird preserve operation and that gives us a really good opportunity for people that want to come out and bird hunt and fish.

00;12;46;22 - 00;12;48;00

Matt Watson

Cast and blast.

00;12;48;00 - 00;13;07;27

Steve Joyce

Yeah. Planet Bird Hunt is a, you know, three hour activity. You can come out and do that in the morning and then get a boat and go float for the afternoon. And we can tailor that to anyone. I mean, a lot of guys want to bring their aging dad out and, you know, some physical limitations that chucker hunting is just not going to work for you.

00;13;07;29 - 00;13;22;26

Matt Watson

Right? And the other beauty is everything is so close. You've got this diverse set of opportunities in so many different categories that complement each other. Yeah. Are within ten minutes of each other.

00;13;22;28 - 00;13;43;11

Steve Joyce

Right. That's amazing for sure. Yes. And that's one of the things I enjoyed about being out here. I mean, a lot of people still say, I don't know why you would move from Montana to Washington to do this stuff. And that is one thing about it. I mean, you know, we really are ideally located to where we can take advantage of all that stuff.

00;13;43;11 - 00;14;02;02

Steve Joyce

The bird season obviously is in the fall and winter months. Yeah. So that kind of fills in the downtime from the fishing part of the year. We picked up some bass lease stuff out here, which is a nice variety. And then we operate a steel head lodge down on the Klickitat as well.

00;14;02;02 - 00;14;24;14

Matt Watson

And that's that's the thing that Montana doesn't necessarily have that I think also makes it unique. You have access to a couple hours from your lodge. You have the Klickitat River, which you and I actually saw each other just a couple days ago. Yeah. It's a beautiful canyon just south of Golden Dale. It goes down to the Columbia, has an amazing fish run, both steelhead and salmon.

00;14;24;17 - 00;14;34;01

Matt Watson

The access to that being so close and as well as the Columbia River when it's open, is a really unique scenario for Red's overall.

00;14;34;04 - 00;14;51;10

Steve Joyce

No doubt about it. Yeah. When you start looking at operations and and listing amenities that they offer and activities, everything from activities to lodging to food, you start checking boxes often. There are not many places in the world that do what we do here.

00;14;51;12 - 00;15;06;10

Matt Watson

And you would know that because the other thing that Red's does that a lot of people may not know, which if they don't look at Instagram, they wouldn't. But you do trips all around the world, from Cuba to Chile to Argentina to Mexico.

00;15;06;10 - 00;15;13;24

Steve Joyce

to Mexico and Bahamas. Baja, We've gotten into a lot of the destination travel stuff too.

00;15;13;27 - 00;15;40;04

Matt Watson

Yeah, I'm looking forward to our trip to Norway next year. Thank you for including me in that. That is really exciting. Yeah. So what's really also interesting to me is how along the way in building an amazing, diversified business, I mean, we haven't talked about the fly shop, we haven't talked about the online operation, which really drives a lot of your revenue, but how you've brought in people put together process and developed culture.

00;15;40;04 - 00;15;52;13

Matt Watson

What kind of journey has that been for you? Because that's that's actually the key to any business. Yeah. And in your business it's especially important because you're delivering experience and you have to have the right people to do that.

00;15;52;16 - 00;16;16;27

Steve Joyce

Right. No doubt about it. Especially in the hospitality business, I would say. I mean, there's a number of factors that I would say have been very advantageous and beneficial for us. But the one thing that I think ties, you know, most of these people together, no matter where employees live, they're going to live in Ellensburg or Yakima. It's a 20 to 30 minute drive to get here.

00;16;17;00 - 00;16;39;18

Steve Joyce

It's a beautiful drive, but you need to appreciate where we're at and most of our employees, especially on the fly shop in bit. They're passionate about fly fishing. I would say that the key thing with culture, when it comes down to it, I mean, they have to enjoy what they're doing. And I think that it was very evident during Covid.

00;16;39;23 - 00;17;07;08

Steve Joyce

During Covid, we went through all the shutdowns stuff. It was determined, okay, we can keep our online store open because shipping personnel is a needed service. At the time, there were about four of us that were coming in to work every day, but it seemed like every afternoon we couldn't tell our employees to stay away. I mean, they were going to come in and they wanted to say hi and check in and see what was going on.

00;17;07;08 - 00;17;23;21

Steve Joyce

And all of our staff look forward to coming to work every day. And that's the key to culture, I think, is, you know, you get a group of people who enjoy what they're doing. They believe in what you're doing. You know, they don't dread going to work. They look forward to coming in and going to work every day.

00;17;23;21 - 00;17;49;07

Steve Joyce

With Red’s, it was much easier accomplishing that, I would say, just because they're so passionate about fishing with the Lodge and Grill restaurant component of it. Our chef in the restaurant is amazing. The stuff he does and the purely culinary part of what he does, anyone who's in the restaurant business, and really their goal is to do something at a high level.

00;17;49;07 - 00;18;03;26

Steve Joyce

They get that there. The bonding part of it that bonds all of these businesses together, I mean, the customer base that we've cultivated, I would say, I mean, they're just good people, our customers who come in here, it's always positive interactions.

00;18;03;26 - 00;18;25;26

Matt Watson

And the cool thing about Red’s and I've been to fly shops in Montana and Idaho and other places. When I was first starting out, 20, 25 years ago in fly fishing, I felt not just intimidated, been made almost to feel inadequate or, you know, it was just a bad experience because of the pretentiousness of the guys behind the counter.

00;18;25;29 - 00;18;58;27

Matt Watson

Your team, I have to say, is one of the best at engaging people. Whether I'm in it's experienced or less experienced. I've seen them engage. I've heard him on the phone. I think it permeates through that you're there to help and you're there to support any angler at any kind of level, get what they need, get what they want and deliver on that great compliment to you and Joe and Tony and the guys for recognizing how not to be the jerks that other fly shops experience can be, you know.

00;18;59;00 - 00;19;03;25

Steve Joyce

Exactly. Yes, that's very important. We talk about that a lot.

00;19;03;27 - 00;19;15;28

Matt Watson

Yeah. So you're delivering on experiences. The other thing we haven't talked about much we'll just briefly talk about is the housing community around you is amazing. You've built how many homes around the lodge now?

00;19;16;01 - 00;19;39;15

Steve Joyce

There are about 16 that are, well, 17 that are mostly completed now. At the end of the day, there's going to be a total of 20 home sites. So all of those lots have been sold and people build their own. Call it a cabin, right. And which they're, you know, not cabins. By what we grew up, term cabin was a little tiny place.

00;19;39;15 - 00;19;47;23

Steve Joyce

Some quarters, some of them didn't. I mean, these are beautiful homes. Yeah, but they're all part time residences for people.

00;19;47;27 - 00;20;11;17

Matt Watson

I'm amazed at how that has in the last 5 to 7 years just exploded over there. I think that the thing that you've done, which I really am kind of focused on, is how you've developed the community of people who love to be there and interact with one another. You have a grill with Kevin Davis, a world renowned chef who is unbelievable.

00;20;11;19 - 00;20;31;08

Matt Watson

Those on the East side, we don't have anywhere else to go for seafood. Marlaine and I, my wife and I come over, you know, 2 or 3 times a month just to get a taste of his seafood. So it's just amazing. But you've developed this core, this, this community hub that has attracted so many diverse people. It's it's really extraordinary.

00;20;31;08 - 00;20;34;24

Matt Watson

I hope you guys step back and take a look at that and appreciate that.

00;20;34;26 - 00;20;44;27

Steve Joyce

Yes, there was a period of time where we were kind of going, man, is this ever going to get there or not? But it's still a work in progress but continues to get better all the time.

00;20;44;29 - 00;21;07;07

Matt Watson

So on the last trip I was with you, my friend ring and I were fishing bass with you and we were talking a lot about the challenge and that perhaps some of the obstacles you have in creating these destination fishing adventures and, you know, going to Norway or going to Cuba, you kind of have to make sure the pH balance of the group is right.

00;21;07;09 - 00;21;15;00

Matt Watson

And I know that's something that you have to cultivate and manage. Tell us a little about how you do that and what you've learned along the way.

00;21;15;03 - 00;21;38;16

Steve Joyce

I mean, everyone has personalities. Oh yeah. And we call it fishues on on trips like this, we've all been at lodges or on vacations where, you know, maybe not the whole vacation, but you go to dinner with the group people some time, and one person kind of has a chip on their shoulder, or they need a, you know, monopolized conversation for the whole group of people.

00;21;38;19 - 00;22;01;15

Steve Joyce

What we've gotten into with that, we always send a staff member on those trips that we take and our staff members, you know, they're the ones who set up guide pairings for the next day. Because in a group of, you know, a fishing lodge like that, you're going to have 5 or 6 guides per group typically, and some of them may be better than others.

00;22;01;15 - 00;22;26;11

Steve Joyce

And of course, everyone wants to fish with a particular guide, and some people aren't too keen on sharing that. And when you're in a group of people you know, not everyone at the table knows everyone and if you don't have that staff host who yeah, who everyone understands is in charge and they're going to make things equal for everyone, you know, it can make for a miserable week.

00;22;26;11 - 00;22;30;27

Matt Watson

It can be difficult at times. You have to have hard conversations with your customers.

00;22;31;00 - 00;22;53;02

Steve Joyce

Yep, yep. And everyone has, you know, goals on those trips. I mean, those trips cost a lot of money. And and, you know, they want it to be the trip of a lifetime for them. And they've all got certain things on their trip that they want to accomplish. So, you know, a lot of times we'll have private conversations with each person about what it is they want to do and how they want to do it.

00;22;53;02 - 00;23;15;05

Steve Joyce

Then communally will make assignments and guide pairings and all that. You know, we just make sure that those things go as smoothly as possible. If there's any critiquing that needs to happen. I mean, it's just basic strategy at that point. We've been very successful with that. I mean, we do get a lot of single guys who have never been into the shop.

00;23;15;05 - 00;23;37;09

Steve Joyce

That book, some of those trips, they don't know anyone else that they're traveling with. And you know that those guys have a lot of anxiety. Man, I hope I like this trip. You know, I hope I like the other people on it. We definitely have had success in getting our our goals accomplished with this, because a lot of those people continued to travel with this season after season then.

00;23;37;11 - 00;23;51;26

Matt Watson

Yeah, and I know a lot of these guys and I would have to say they are lifelong customers. They have long relationships with one another, and that's a large part around those lifelong relationships are related to the experiences you guys deliver.

00;23;51;26 - 00;23;53;22

Steve Joyce

So right.

00;23;53;24 - 00;24;04;23

Matt Watson

Yeah, that's a really powerful community that you've built among the lodge, the grill, the housing, the hunting. It's just extraordinary.

00;24;04;25 - 00;24;07;23

Steve Joyce

Yeah. It all ties together in the end.

00;24;07;25 - 00;24;12;08

Matt Watson

We didn't talk a lot about how technologies really affected your business, but I know it has.

00;24;12;08 - 00;24;33;03

Steve Joyce

Yeah. I mean, as far as technology goes, when we first started this business, I would say that, you know, there was a culture around guides that was very secretive. I mean, guides didn't want a lot of people to know how they were doing things and what they were using, what their favorite flies were, and what they were catching fish on.

00;24;33;06 - 00;25;02;26

Steve Joyce

Yeah. And when we came into this, we said, okay, we're going to change this. You know, everything we do, we want to support people so that they have a great experience, whether they're fishing this river or somewhere else. And so we started giving a lot more information that wasn't super popular with the guide community right off the bat, but it it was very popular with with the customers that are coming out, be doing it and experiencing it.

00;25;02;29 - 00;25;15;22

Steve Joyce

And we still get a lot of people who call and order gear at the shop and they comment, you know, we're ordering this from you guys because I've, I've gained a ton of knowledge over the years from you and I want to support you.

00;25;15;24 - 00;25;41;00

Matt Watson

Technology has ultimately expanded the reach of Red’s. And just as a testament to that, I was sitting at a lodge on the skiing and river three weeks ago in BC with a man from Sacramento, California, who I'd never met who knew Joe Roeder bought product from Red’s love Joe's Instagram learning, opportunities and the YouTube education that you guys are doing.

00;25;41;02 - 00;25;43;28

Matt Watson

I mean, he was all over it. It was a thousand miles away.

00;25;44;00 - 00;25;45;26

Steve Joyce

Probably never even been in the fly shop.

00;25;45;27 - 00;25;59;11

Matt Watson

No. Yeah. No. And I know if anybody looks they can find Red’s on Instagram and Facebook and all the big social media. And Joe, your partner is an amazing teacher and does an amazing job with that program.

00;25;59;11 - 00;26;10;03

Steve Joyce

So yeah, well that's the name of the game. Everything we do marketing wise needs to be educational. So that's that's the underlying strategy with it.

00;26;10;03 - 00;26;18;14

Matt Watson

So having that ability to increase your reach has probably been a real key to the success of Red's.

00;26;18;16 - 00;26;23;20

Steve Joyce

Yes, for sure, and continues to be. Yeah. Yeah.

00;26;23;23 - 00;26;42;02

Matt Watson

Well Steve thank you. I know you're busy, man, because every time I reach out to you, you're either hunting or fishing this time of year. So thank you for coming on, talking about those obstacles that you've overcome and your work environment. Thanks again. Appreciate you spending time with us. And we look forward to the next time we go fishing.

00;26;42;05 - 00;26;44;24

Steve Joyce

No problem. Looking forward to it. Matt, thank you.

00;26;44;24 - 00;26;57;04

Matt Watson

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