3RM Ep. 17 - Brianna Bruce: Guiding Done Right

 Join us in studio this week as we get to learn all about Brianna Bruce! Brianna is a great guide and wonderful person! her happiness and enthusiasm is contagious, and time on the water with her, is time well spent!  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, you're listening to the Three Reverse Marine Podcast, a show that brings anglers and mariners down-to-earth advice that helps on and off the water. I'm Anthony Marisi, a fishing rep born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. I'm sitting down with the biggest names in fishing and boating to make your next adventure easier, safer, and more exciting. Hey everybody, how's it going? Welcome to another episode of the Three Rivers Marine Podcast. Today we have the intelligent, kind, wonderful, fishy, influential Brianna Bruce in the studio.

SPEAKER_04 0:36

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yeah. Thank you for coming.

SPEAKER_04 0:38

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Um I think a lot of people know who you are, just like me, but have a lot of questions about, you know, like you know everybody. You're on the water a lot. And you have a bunch of boats. Yeah. Yeah. You're a boat collector.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

I am a boat collector.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Alright. Um. And you know a thing or two about rods.

SPEAKER_04 1:05

Yeah, maybe just a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Maybe one or two things. One or two things. One or two things. Um those little ones for the kids' pond tomorrow are super cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:13

Aren't they cool? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

They're like these little like one piece like cane pole kind of thing, but.

SPEAKER_04 1:18

Yeah. We're calling them the mini cara. So we set them up like a. We set them up kind of like a ten cara, other than they don't like extend. They're just a three-foot, it's a three-foot blank from Talonrods.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:32

And a handle from Talonrods, which is actually their tapered foregrip, but we just made it the handle.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

It's amazing. It's really nice. Like it's comfortable, and like you pick it up and it weighs nothing.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

You got that little like just kind of you know, knot at the end looped up, so you can just put a little leader on there. It's gonna be so good for the kids. Like you know, those kid ponds events, sometimes you have all the reels and the lines just overwhelming.

SPEAKER_04 1:55

I've been for years, I've been trying to think of like how to make it better and like less chaotic. That's the solution. It's always like we got those spin cast rods, and kids always like back the drag off, and then a fish grabs it.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

The reel the wrong way, and then the like you know, the the anti-reverse is clicked off, so then they're just like the rods are like four or four and a half foot long, so they're like poking each other and getting away.

SPEAKER_04 2:17

Yeah, getting all the way across the pond. Right. It just turns into chaos, like they got a fish that's swimming around and has you know 50 feet of line off and everyone's tangled with them. It's like, well, how do we fix this? And I it's it's the perfect solution. Something more fun than a cane pull like I. And they actually like kind of get to pull on them, and like uh it's an actual blank that's like almost indestructible. They're super cool. Yeah, so they'll actually be able to play with them, and I'm excited about it.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

I know, I'm really excited. I'm I'm bringing my boy tomorrow, hopefully my niece too, and then some of uh my wife's like mom group.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

They're all gonna come too, so we'll have a little pasty to catch some trout with. Um, yeah, that's gonna be a good time. So on top of that, you are a fishing guide. And you guide on the sound for Kokney, Ling Cod, salmon. I mean, you kind of do a little bit of a wider variety than I would say most of the fishing guides do.

SPEAKER_04 3:14

I think that's kind of been my thing like the whole time. I've been guiding for 15 years now. And uh from the very beginning, I did like when everyone else was salmon steelhead guides, and like maybe they did sturgeon like in the off season. I've done everything. I mean, I'll take people bluegill or perch fishing if they want to go. Like I've always kind of done, and that's what I grew up doing. We grew up fishing for everything. About the only thing I don't think, yeah. Yeah, just go have fun, and I think it's been something that's kept me going. Like I haven't gotten burned out because okay, yeah, there's less steelhead season and less salmon season, but okay, then I'm just gonna spend more time walleye fishing or kokiny fishing or you know, wing cot or sturgeon or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

That's a good way to do it, and you know, I think that's a cool kind of way to think about you know, guiding, right? I mean, there are people, depending on where you are in the country, that guide walleye in Wisconsin 240 days a year or whatever, you know what I mean? So there's, you know, like someone bought a 34 Atlas to guide perch out of. You know, which is like amazing. It sounds kind of goofy, you're like, wow, that seems like overkill, but at the same time, you're like, well, if you can stack 14 people around that boat and just go and sit on top of them, it's it's the perfect boat for it. Totally. Right? Because what other kind of platform can you do that with? Right. You can't. Um so you know, in the Northwest, we do we are blessed with so many like really special fish, you know, Chinook, Halibut. Um that the opportunity sometimes for like perch and sunnies and kokiny and all this stuff is like grossly overlooked.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Um, particularly kind of the farther up the food chain you get in the fishing industry. So you know, it was always funny, like when I was, you know, guiding in central Washington, you know, you always have this like, okay, hey, we're, you know, we're we're just chasing hatches for trout, we're gonna go steal headfish, we're gonna do this. You kind of know it was fly fishing for me, right? And so, but you know, really that kind of, well, we want to do the bluing hatch, and you're focused on this kind of like premiere aspect of whatever it is that you're doing, and the amount of times that like the river would be blown out or whatever, and then you're like, well, we're gonna reschedule, and they're like, Oh, we're out of town, dude. Like, right, you know, we're either gonna cancel or you know, it's like, well, you know, we can go to the lake and catch whatever's in there, you know, kind of thing. They're like, sweet, we just want to go fishing.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

You know, a lot of people don't that live, you know, concrete jungle, all this stuff don't have access to it. So you do have to, I like that you kind of temper yourself where you're like, hey guys, like the weather's bad today, whatever, we can reschedule, or let's, you know, you have the expertise and knowledge, just be like, hey, let's not be intimidated by this issue and go fishing.

SPEAKER_04 6:04

Yeah. I actually did that last week. They um the second week of Blackmouth didn't open. I had a trip on Wednesday and was like, well, I can refund you your money, or we can go Lake Sammish Cutthroat, Lake Washington Perch, Lake Stevens Kokini, Puget Sound Flounder. Like, which one do you want to do? And they picked Lake Sammish Cutthroat. We went out and had a great day, beautiful day, caught some really nice fish, actually. They were in from back east somewhere and had a great time.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yeah, I mean, it's just you know, hey, we booked it because we want to go fishing. And you know, there's there are certain people that are like, well, if we're not killing kings, then I'm out.

SPEAKER_04 6:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

But in general, that's not no.

SPEAKER_04 6:46

I mean, I would have loved to get the kid is for salmon. Well, of course, you know. There's only so much you can do. There's only so much you can do. You know, I agree. Most people just want to go fishing, especially when a kid's involved. The other fisheries that I listed off probably were better fisheries for them than Yeah, because you're gonna I mean you probably caught a whole bunch of fish.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Ton of fish. Yeah, like all day long. Yeah. Just go, go, go, go. Yeah, like we know, I don't I don't know if I've mentioned it on the podcast or not, but you know, I never, you know, being so introverted, I never really wanted a birthday party or anything like that, but I wanted to go fishing. So I think when I was like maybe eight years old, my dad was like, well, we'll go on a guide trip for your birthday. We'll go for, you know, a weekend or whatever we're gonna do. And um I was eight and we started going to uh Lake Shallane.

SPEAKER_04 7:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

For the lake trout and the kokie and all of that stuff. And you know, that lake was it was just good, consistent. You're catching stuff and oh, absolutely. I didn't care what we were catching when I was eight. It was like, man, this is awesome. We're out on the lake, we're on a boat, I get to be with my dad, we're you know, yeah, catching these cool fish, and at eight, I couldn't tell you what one was a kokini and what was a lake trout. You know, it didn't matter. So um, but it did matter that we were reeling stuff in. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 8:03

That's the thing that I found. I have so many people that want to bring their kids out and go steelhead fishing or salmon fishing. It's like honestly, unless they're like hardcore little fishing people, like which they do exist. There are I I was also that kid too.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

I was like, it wouldn't really you know, I was in for whatever doing, but you definitely, you know, I still like to go catching.

SPEAKER_04 8:23

That's people ask me what my favorite fishing is to do, and my answer is always crappie fishing.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:28

And people like, but you go salmon and steelhead fishing and all these things. It's like, yeah, but when you can just sit there and like dead stick a little tiny jig on a little ultralight rod and just like pull in crappie all day, and they're delicious.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Yeah, and you know, I mean it's fun to go and do the schinook fishing and all that stuff, but there there is it's kind of a bit of a grind. It's sort of a higher stress lock-in type of fishery, and you know, you can just kind of you know, I'm assuming you have do you have a bow mount on your sleds? Yeah, I figured. Yeah, yeah. So you just throw the spot lock on and kick it.

SPEAKER_04 9:04

It makes it so easy. It's so yeah, it's just fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Um that was one of the things that like you know, I sort of um immediately admired about you is you know, because I sort of knew you from afar for a while, and it was like I saw your you know your Facebook posts and all this stuff, and it was, you know, there's a salmon fishery going on, and you were like, Yeah, we had an awesome day of mission for kokini today. It was super fun, and like you know, you have a picture of your customers and like they are having the absolute time of their life doing whatever it is that you took them to do.

SPEAKER_04 9:38

That's always been from the very beginning. Like, I didn't become a guide because I wanted to go catch the biggest fish or the most fish, or like even make the most money, or like be the cool person. I actually became a guide, like the whole backstory is as a teenager, my aunt was diagnosed with colon cancer. By the time they found it, it had spread to her pancreas and her liver. Uh and they gave her three months. She made it a year and a half, but she wanted to go do like one last big trip. And she knew my dad had always wanted to go to Alaska and isn't a traveler, so he wouldn't take himself. So she decided her last, you know, big family trip, she wanted to go to Alaska. So we did the whole like we went, stayed in Soldatna, did the Kenai Peninsula thing. We fished the Kenai, the Kasiloff. We went out of Homer in our Seward and did a fly-in trip for Sakai. And it was my first time around guides because we always had our own boats. We always were able to do it ourselves. You know, we fished out a sea queue and Neo Bay and potholes, and I mean, we were all over the state doing everything. So my first time around guides and being able to just get in the boat and spend time with family and make those memories and not worry about launching the boat, setting the gear, like doing all these things, but getting to enjoy the outdoors and the fishing with my family, making memories meant so much to me. And they're still some of my like favorite memories. So I decided that's what I wanted to do. And I came home. I had gone to WSU. I wanted to be a geotechnical engineer. I went fishing instead of going to class.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

I kind of did the same thing at Central.

SPEAKER_04 11:12

So I was like, well, I need to do something, should probably do something in the fishing industry. And then this trip to Alaska happened. And it's like, okay, this is this is kind of my calling, I feel like I can do this for other people. So I came home, got my Coast Guard license, got my guide license, and here I am 15 years later.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah, just loving it.

unknown 11:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yeah. I mean, I think the name of your business is Live and Life Adventures. Yeah. You know, and that's clear through, you know, the way that you not only talk about what it is that you like to do, the way you operate your business, and then also, you know, like we have I'll chat with people while I'm in here, you know, bringing product down or whatever. And oh yeah, we went on a trip with Brianna. And you know, like they never just say, Oh, we went on a trip with Brianna, it was cool. Yeah. It was like lock in because you're gonna hear about it for like a half an hour.

SPEAKER_04 12:03

I just I like to get people out there and have fun. Like if the fishing's not great, I try to do, you know, something that makes it a little more interesting.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

And for life of me, I feel so bad because I can I can't remember her name, but she has a sweet van.

SPEAKER_04 12:18

Jennifer.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Jennifer. Yeah, she's great, she's awesome. Absolute riot. Yeah. Um, so every time she's here, it's fun because we'll just like chit-chat. And you know, she's so outgoing that it's like, I'm gonna be your friend. You don't got a choice, so like just get ready to have a conversation.

SPEAKER_04 12:33

I call her my groupie.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah, that's kind of how it happened. Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, she she'd probably not fight you too hard.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

Oh no, she tells everyone I call her my groupie because that's like how it started. She started fishing with me, her and her friends started fishing with me, and then it turned into, oh, after fishing, do you want to go get lunch? And then it turned into, oh, after lunch, do you want to go play with our ponies? They had driving ponies, like little miniature ponies. I was like, who can say no to that? Yeah, like uh yes, yeah, absolutely. And then now here we are, and she's with me. I don't know, probably 80% of the time. Yeah, she comes and fishes and follows me around and she's got her own boat. We actually came down here. She had a 16-foot Fisher Pro, and she it lowsides, she tries to follow me everywhere. Like she took it out in the Columbia one day, surgeon fishing with me, like followed me out, and it was rough on the way back in, and it kind of beat her up, and it had like really low transom, and she wanted to had an older two-stroke, and she wanted to like fish some Amish or Sam ish and wakum and like stuff where you have to have a four-stroke, or you know, hers wasn't new enough to go in those lakes. So she wanted to repower. Okay, and then she wanted to like, well, if we're repowering, then I want to redo the seats and I want to redo the carpet and I want to redo all this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

The the boater's conundrum. Right. And I was like, should I should I add should I add a couple feet to this too? Should I, you know, change the material? Should I, you know, and then all of a sudden you're sitting there with a new boat.

SPEAKER_04 13:58

Exactly. And I was like, before we start doing all this stuff, like honestly, you're gonna be better off and probably money ahead if we just find you a new boat. Yeah. So we had this huge trip planned. Like we were across three states. We were gonna do Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and go to like all the boat dealers and look at boats so she could like pick what boat she wanted. And I was like, before we go on this like epic boat buying road trip, let's go to three rivers. Yeah. There was actually there was a 17-foot RH that had been here for a year and it was on sale. And I was like, let's go look at this boat. Her favorite color is blue. I was like, it's blue. Let's go look at it. We walked in, and Tim said, Oh, we sold that boat like two days ago. Oh okay. So we went out, we looked at the smoker craft. She like it wasn't that different from the boat she had. Yeah. And we came back in, we were sitting there talking to Tim, and I was like describing to Tim the perfect boat that I wanted for her, you know, something that was a lot safer. And he goes, Well, have you seen the 18 Duckworth Advantage? And it's like, I mean, we kind of looked at him. And he walked us out to the back, and it had that Northwest jet style door where it's like fully framed. And I looked at her and went, I think we found your boat. Yeah. And went, looked at it, sat in it, and she fell in love and handed me her phone and went, Here, you talk to David, her husband. She goes, You need to talk to David. So she rings it, and I'm, David, I think we found Jennifer's boat. Yeah. So we saved all that road trip and everything. And yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Just ring it up at home. And you know, and that's whether it's my buddies or whatever, you know, like on that. You're you're here. A lot of the fishing guides come here. Yeah, you know, because it it's it makes a huge difference to have a good relationship with whoever's working on your boat as close as possible to your place. You know, and a lot of people asked you, like, well, what's better? Yamaha, Mercury, Suzuki, all this stuff. And you know, I like Yamaha, I've always liked Yamaha because I you know, reliability is the number one thing for me over any other type of performance. So, you know, growing up, all of that, some of the others were not as reliable. I think that that's kind of less of an issue now than it years past. But you know, it it doesn't matter if Mercury comes out with the latest, greatest new thing now because, like, well, the guys that are gonna work on it and turn the wrenches on stuff, know Yamaha inside and out. And that's actually more important for making your stuff run than having the engine that's like the most reliable on paper. Right. You know, if you have a good tech to work on your stuff, that's a priceless relationship to have. And if they're close to your home, even better.

SPEAKER_04 16:40

Even better. I get Facebook messages from people and text messages and emails all the time about like, well, you know, I'm thinking getting a boat, or I like what shop should I go to? And I tell everybody like, figure out what shop you want to go to. If you like, you read reviews, you're gonna see good and bad on both sides.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, not you're never gonna make everybody happy. Exactly. And a lot of times someone has a problem that they didn't know they had, the shop that tell them about it all of a sudden is the boogeyman.

SPEAKER_04 17:09

Yeah. So I tell people like, go in, you know, if they have a tackle shop, go in, buy some tackle, go in, hang out, talk with them. If they have an event, go to the event. Um, like build a relationship with them and they're gonna take care of your stuff better. I mean, most shops are gonna take care of your stuff anyway, right? Oh, yeah. But there's definitely if you can build a relationship with them. I bought my first boat from Three Rivers, a little 16-foot dura boat. And from that point on, I would come in here and just hang out for hours.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

That's I mean, that's that's what a lot of people do.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Just come kick it, be a part of the family. It's awesome. Yeah, I mean, and that's it's also a cool part of having the local, like, family-run shop, right?

SPEAKER_04 17:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

You know, like come in and hang out with the owner, he's here every day.

SPEAKER_04 17:52

Right. You can chat with them, they'll tell you like fishing reports, they end up helping you out, and you know, yeah, and that's you know, the the minimum level of service at probably any shop that you go to is really high, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yeah. There's always you know, just like in anything in life, if you have a good relationship with someone, it's just gonna be that much better. You only stand to gain by being friendly and kind and show up, no?

SPEAKER_04 18:16

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Um just like your fishing guide. Yeah. You know, show up with an open mind and uh, you know, nice tip.

SPEAKER_04 18:26

Yeah. Always helps, but I mean, we never expect it. I know.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

But I mean that's there's I mean, uh, you know, like when I was a guy too, like, you know, you it you have the repeats, you know, and after you've been doing it 15 years, you have your your groupies, yeah, your repeats, and like some of them you're just really, really excited for the day. Oh, I yeah, like all right, today is gonna be awesome. Yeah. And you know, it's just it's just human nature that those days like where you're excited, they're everyone's gonna get your best. Yeah. Because it's just it's just how it works, right? You know. Um, so be that be that person in the world.

SPEAKER_04 19:05

Man, if you show up with like some spam masubi for boat snacks, that is that's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

I'm a deal on spam masubi. That is it's so good.

SPEAKER_04 19:14

It's such a good boat snack.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

I like it all of the time. And Olivia just teases me if I have like a little can of it at home and you know. Like, what are you doing with that? You know, we we eat lots of fish and eat well and all this stuff, right? But like I love spam.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

It's so good. It's so good. It's so good.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

So it's like, what the hell are you doing? Um and it's you know, I'm like, it's just good. It is. Leave me alone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:41

Sometimes you just need that like salty and sometimes you do.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

And I I tried to get my son into eating it because he likes bacon and stuff, and I was like, oh yeah, he's gonna be a deal on this. And you know, I plopped it out of the can. He's kind of standing there looking at it, you know. And I was like, buddy, this is good, don't worry. Yeah. He's like, just doesn't say anything, just kind of looks at me. I slice it and kind of like pop it off, you know. He just keeps looking and he's like, hmm.

SPEAKER_04 20:12

Not so good. Big one.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

And I was like, that's good, we're gonna fry it up. He's like, okay. And so he loves rice and seaweed and all that type of stuff. So give him give him some rice, put some like spam kind of next to it, yeah, you know, little bit of nori, and then tonkatsu sauce. He's obsessed with tonkatsu sauce. Like it's I know it's his favorite thing. And so he like hammers his rice, eats the seaweed a little bit, and then just like starts licking the spam. And I'm like, dude, you gotta eat it. And so he just like took a little bite, and he was I was like, oh man. You're definitely your mother's son, buddy. We're gonna have to work on this.

SPEAKER_04 20:47

He'll grow into it.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

I know. It was funny. Um so with you know, a lot of uh other fishing guides and stuff I've interviewed. Hey, what's your favorite fishery? It's almost always like I love I love Summer Kings or this or that. Same question. What is your favorite fishery?

SPEAKER_04 21:05

To guide or to fish myself.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Both.

SPEAKER_04 21:08

Uh guiding is probably Baker Lake Sakai. It's hard to beat. I mean, I go up.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

I did I I did it for the first time last year.

SPEAKER_04 21:17

Yeah. Yeah. It's there is not a more beautiful place in the state to fish. And I camp up there for like a month. So I'm just living up there. Like I'm my happiest in the woods and camping anyway. So like I'm camping for a month and fishing, and I camp, you know, like two minutes from the boat ramp. So it's easy, not a big commute in the morning. The fishing is fun. Like everything about it, I love the fish. I love Sokai. They're like big and bright and beautiful. You're fishing like right under Mount Baker. Literally can't get prettier. It's so cool. It's amazing. That's definitely my favorite, like guiding. And then I always like cause you know, I run, I launch at the south end. We run to the north end to fish most days. So it's like a little boat tour too. And you know, get close to the bank and whatever. It's a whole thing, which I love. I always love a good adventure like that. And personally, I mean, it is probably crappie, like eastern Washington crappie fishing. Even like I'll go around some of the like local lakes. They're just harder to find here. Yeah. Yeah, they're usually so much.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Although when I was a kid, there was so I grew up on Lake Washington. In the canals, but for some reason, when I was a kid, there's like several years where there are just giants in there. Like huge, like genuinely really, really big ones. Just just you know. Yeah. There's some there.

SPEAKER_04 22:51

I don't know, like I haven't fished in there in years and years, but I grew up fishing the north end of Lake Washington, like almost every day of the summer. My grandpa and I would go down and fish logboom and fish off the dock. And we never caught crappie. Like ever. We caught a ton of perch. I caught a crawdad that was like the size of a lobster. I caught some like six-pound largemouth off the dock. Never caught a crappie. And then when my now husband, Cody, and I were dating, we went, I went down there, like took him down to show him. Like, this is where I grew up on this dock. Like, this is if my grandpa was still around, he'd tell you I'd been guiding since I was like seven. Because I used to walk up and down that dock and there'd be grown men not catching fish and be like, Well, what are you doing? Oh, no, no, that's all wrong. And like dig through their tackle box and retie them and teach them how to catch perch. So, like I would took him down to show him, and you know, I had my I always have some rod in my truck. So I had like a little two-piece ultralight rod and like a I don't know, like a trout magnet little jig or something. Yeah. And we went down and there was like it was early. There was no milfoil or anything around the dock, but there was this one stick that you could like see just under the surface of the water. And I just kind of flung my jig down there and I saw this big mouth open up at it and like not grab it. There's no way that's what that was. And I flip it in there again and it bites, and it was a crappie. Like my whole life fishing here, never caught a crappie in here by just one stick. There's a couple crappie. And now I've actually run into them a little more often there.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

I like a little it's changed, you know, like growing up on it. I I fished my my folks got me a six-foot livingston, eight-foot livingston. Nice two-foot itis from a young age. Always uh and it had a six horsepower mercury two-stroke on it. It was a river. Yeah. Yeah. Just treated that thing absolutely awful. Ran it hundreds and hundreds of hours. You know. I think it had a water pump in it. I'm trying to even remember, it might have just been air cooled or something too. I mean, who knows, right? With that little thing. Um but yeah, I mean, I had five gallons of gas and like, you know, a quart of two-stroke oil would last me like all summer, you know, because you just rally that thing and I would go all over the place and go fishing. And, you know, it was always like cutties, smallmouth, perch, um, you know, bluegills, that type of stuff. And then after I went to college and came back, one of my my brothers was like, hey, let's go and fish a bass tournament. Because he was you know real into bass fishing. I was like, Oh, yeah. And the amount of largemouth and stuff that are in there now, and there's like shad and pike and shad. I know. Like a bunch of them.

SPEAKER_04 25:35

I want to go catch them.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

There's a bunch.

SPEAKER_04 25:40

I yeah. I saw one of my friends posted on Facebook the other day that he caught a shad while he was bass fishing.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Mm-hmm. Yeah, they're in there. Yeah. Absolutely. So there's like, you know.

SPEAKER_04 25:49

It's way better than driving all the way to the Columbia for Sturgeon Bay.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Right. Whether it's yeah, whether it's good, bad, and different. I mean, that it there's a whole wild ecosystem in that.

SPEAKER_04 25:58

Like, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Maybe someday we'll get to fish saw kainu again.

SPEAKER_04 26:02

I hope so. I actually I recently heard they were like thinking of changing the escapement.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Yeah, like cutting it. I mean, I think it was like cutting it like in half, but we're still halfway to half. You know what I mean? It's it's a weird.

SPEAKER_04 26:16

I mean, and you kind of have to remember that that's not a native run. Those are baker lake fish that they introduced there. So, I mean, really, why can't we fish them? I grew up, that was like the big thing. I think that's why I like sockeye fishing so much, because that was such a big thing when I was a kid that my dad's a contractor and he was actually building a house on the lake in um Lake Forest Park for a few years. Yep. When we had sockee runs, and the guy had a dock, so he let us park our boat on the dock. Nice. And then we just go to his house and we didn't have to sit at Magnuson for hours waiting to launch, just hop in, run out, and catch a fish real quick.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

And I wanna I have a good story for you with this for everybody, and then I want to back up to Baker Lake because I'd we're gonna vibe on that because that place is so cool.

SPEAKER_04 27:07

It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

So Lake Washington Sakai growing up, it was kind of open, yada yada. I mean, when when was the last time that was open?

SPEAKER_04 27:17

2006.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

2006. So I won't tell you how old I was in 2006, but I wasn't that old. Um I had just gotten, I think I had just gotten my like boater's ed card in 2006. And my family, like, I love to fish all this stuff, but you know, my brothers wanted to wakeboard and the whole thing, so we had a ski boat and the Livingston. The Sokka, everybody wanted to fish him down there, you know, kind of by the cedar, right? The south end. So growing up where we did, which was kind of like by the East Channel Bridge, um we had a boat there where we could do the Livingston. And like it would take me literally like all day just to get there in the Livingston, right? Um and I was like, Oh, we got I gotta do the sockeye thing, and like you know, some of my buddies' dads had like fishing boats and stuff, and they were like hammering the soccer and getting all these fish and stuff, and I'm like, I need to go, I need to go. Um, so my dad every single morning would get up at like four o'clock in the morning, we'd go go to the dock in the speedboat, and we'd try and catch these salmon. Couldn't catch them, couldn't catch them. They extended the extended the fishery, extended the fishery, extended the fishery, couple more days, a couple more days, a couple more days. We're going every single day. I've got this uh um like Okuma like halibut rod that I'm fishing with with a pen, like offshore reel.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

And a flasher, but like an 11-inch 360. Yeah, you know, wrong kit altogether, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

And they're like, we the important part is the is the the bear hook. Right. Red, whatever red hooks. Bare red hooks, whatever. And you gotta go slow. And I'm like, well, we have a speedboat, it doesn't go that slow. Yeah so I'm like tying, I think I have like four or five five-gallon buckets just like daisy chained, you know, to the back of like tied off to the wakeboard tower to just kind of like try and slow it down. And I'm I've got like a 16-ounce cannonball weight connected to the main line and a 360 and a bear hook on there, and I'm like, I'm gonna catch one. You know, like and everyone's like, well, where are you getting the fish at? And they're like, I don't know, 80 feet or whatever. So I'm like, okay, well, I'm gonna go out, you know, 100 poles or whatever the case may be. And the very last morning, I got one. We fished for like 12 days, not a bite for sure. Nothing, like hours. We were fishing all day. I mean, it was it was open for two weeks. We probably fished like 140 hours for these things, and we got one the last morning. I was so excited, brought it home, cooked it like four different ways. It was incredible. Yeah, and then we never got to do it.

SPEAKER_04 29:53

But they never opened it again.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

So I was like, all right, well, if we open it, I'm gonna bring Geo and my dad, and yeah, we're gonna have a different experience. Oh, for sure. Maybe not any more fun, but more successful.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

More more success, more fish.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Um all right, Baker Lake.

SPEAKER_04 30:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

That place is incredible.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

It gets in you. It really does.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

In a way that, like, you know, we so like I said, first year I went up, went with Brock, we we hauled the family wagon up, went to the campsite, you know, the whole thing, right? It's crowded, it's packed, but like everybody's kind of just vibing, having a good time. You know you go to the boat launch in the morning, it's super busy, but there's not anybody that's like, I'm gonna kill you, dude, because you can't back up your truck right, or you know, like all the kind of normal saltwater stuff, you know, and you're like, oh, this is like kind of nice, you know, and everybody's running, and you know, you get up next to some somebody and you're kind of going slow because it's dark, and they're like, dude, there's a stick there, you know, like people are looking out for you, and you're like, this is weird, right? Like, you know, normally in the saltwater, like the other dude's hoping you hit that log. Right. Um, you get down to the other end of the lake, you can just jump from boat to boat.

SPEAKER_04 31:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Normally, recipe for disaster, not on Baker Lake.

SPEAKER_04 31:18

Well, when you're trolling 0.8 miles an hour, you can come back.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

I'm not even just saying from a safety standpoint. I'm just saying, like, normally everyone's like, give me my elbow room, dude. Like, get out of here, and like, but everyone there's like, yo, dude, what's up? Like, yeah. It's a giant party. It is, and everybody's nice and everybody's having fun, yeah, and everybody's respectful. Oh, you you hooked four right now? Okay, I'm gonna move my gear out of the way for you.

SPEAKER_04 31:39

Like, right.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

What? It's crazy, it's amazing, and it's just how it goes there. Yeah, you know, like if you're the sour one, everyone's like dude, once this problem. Yeah, like what's going on, man? You know, like you are ostracized from the group if you're being mean. Yeah, and I love that.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

Right? And then you get back, like you fish in the morning, and then the wind comes up and you can't really fish, so you go back to camp and everyone's hanging out. And last year I had people like from you know, two rows over come over and like, hey, we made this like fish. Do you want to try some? It's like, yeah. Obviously, everyone's like hanging out and chill, and you make friends and totally hang around the campfire if we can have a campfire, and it's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

It was so cool.

SPEAKER_04 32:24

Yeah, the whole thing about it, like it's not just the fishing, and it's not just the place. Everything about it is cool. You go out and swim, there's like some awesome swimming holes. There's like you paddle, we go out and paddleboard and kayak after fishing, and you know, you go, you're done fishing, you go take a nap, and then you get up for your evening of paddleboarding and s'mores.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Yeah, uh it was just like the whole scene there. Yeah, was everything that I think people want the fishing community to be. Totally. Like in Washington, that is where I think we shine the brightest. For sure. And that was cool. It was like a really fun experience. You know, I didn't have a lot of expectation. I'm like, you know, normally like fishing for sake is kind of boring.

SPEAKER_04 33:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Um, but it's a blast.

SPEAKER_04 33:09

It's so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

They're like kind of bitey, they do their thing, they roll in packs, you get to like I was I was absolutely blown away by the experience. I was probably the last person in the state of Washington to not really know about it. Every now and then I find people that don't know about it.

SPEAKER_04 33:24

Or, you know, like you got a lot of east siders that go do Brewster. Right. And like Brewster's the thing over there, right? And I get so many people that ask me if I go to Brewster, and I usually do. The last couple years I haven't. Um, but it's so different. Yeah. Like Brewster is chaos, and I'm not afraid of like combat fishing. I kind of like it actually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

I mean, as the guide, you kind of gotta like lock in and focus and do your thing and all that. And then, you know, also when you're Brianna Bruce and everybody likes you.

SPEAKER_04 33:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

That helps.

SPEAKER_04 33:56

It helps.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

You know, because like, but that's not without like work, right? Like you have to, you know, you are the friendly face on the water, so like everyone sort of gets diffused when they see your boat.

SPEAKER_04 34:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Right? Oh, it's Brianna.

SPEAKER_04 34:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

It's fine. Hey, come over here, let's chat, let's talk about this.

SPEAKER_04 34:10

That's what I hope for.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

You know? Well, that's great. Like, you know, we need to have more people like that, you know, not like, oh, like let's kick it up a little bit and cork them. You know, it's like, oh, hey, it's Brianna. Like, let's slow down and like let her catch up and we'll chat. You know, like that's that's what happens for out for you out there, you know, and like that's that's a great reputation to have.

SPEAKER_04 34:27

I yeah, I've tried. I mean, I always just kind of kept my head down and fished, and like I've just wanted to I don't really have anything to prove to people, but I like I know I know how to catch fish. Yeah, just do your thing. I never had to be like, you know, front and center or anything. I just like catching fish and I like people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

So that's that really should be what it's all about. It really should be, you know, and your customers like that, everything on that. You have three boats?

SPEAKER_04 34:57

If you count the drift boat, four.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Okay. Four.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

I have three sleds.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Three sleds. I have another funny story from Baker Lake last year. You'll like this one. Okay. So um, you know, your guide service, you have a couple people that work with you.

SPEAKER_04 35:13

I've got one person running another boat right now. Okay. Um it's just your boat? It's well, he's like running under my flag, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Yeah, yeah, perfect. Zach.

SPEAKER_04 35:25

Zach.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 35:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

So we're up there. It's like me, Brock, my buddy Shane, a bunch of the other homies. And it's like too many people for Tony's boat. Yeah. You know, so we're like, okay, well, what are we gonna do? Like, we'll have to figure this out. And Zach was like, you know, well, you know, I think like a couple people bailed on this, you know, like let me figure it out. And so it ended up where my buddy Shane got into Zach's boat on like one of the last days because we were like one guy short. So threw him in there. And it's a little, it's really friendly competitive, especially like amongst the sort of friend clicks, right? Right. You know, um, everyone wants to be the first person back to the dock for sure. Always um Zach absolutely put on a click.

SPEAKER_04 36:15

He did so good up there last year.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Like unreal.

SPEAKER_04 36:18

He outfished me a couple days.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Like it was like he could do no wrong. Yeah, didn't matter what he did. They were just like, that one I'm in.

SPEAKER_04 36:26

That boat is so fishy.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

They got all their fish in like an hour. Yeah. It was crazy. It was like, I think we had like two. That you know, and he's like, Yeah, dude, we're going in for breakfast. And my buddy Shane, like sometimes like he fishes hard and stuff like that. And like he's one of those dudes that sometimes like it feels like whenever he gets on the boat, it's like a it's not the like most productive day of fishing, you know. Like, we all have that friend where it's like, yeah, all right. Sometimes that's Shane. And sometimes it's amazing, right? He's very polarizing, it's either epic or it's like kind of tough. But God, he was beaming. He was so stoked that he's like, Yeah, dude, like this that guy is an absolute like sock guy genie. And like it was so funny. He's like, Yeah, we're going to breakfast. We'll see you later. And we had to fish till like three or something. It was like a long, it was long. We we stuck it out, and we still didn't get all the fish we needed, but that was kind of the storyline. I mean, also, but like six is a huge limit.

SPEAKER_04 37:27

Six is and I honestly think that it should never start at six.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

I I I'm kind of with you. Like even four is a whole bunch.

SPEAKER_04 37:34

Four is a lot, and what happens, what I found is when the limit gets big like that, people like even if it's one or two guys on a boat, like six twelve fish is a lot.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:45

And those fish are so gear sensitive, like when they get a lot of pressure on them, they don't go deep really. Like, they don't really do go anywhere else, they just get locked off, like they just shut down. Yeah, so from the very beginning with a six fish limit, and you had so many boats out there, it shut those fish down so hard last year that it was kind of a struggle. Like most of the season, we had good days, and if you set on a like bitey school, you could do good. Yeah, but in general, most people had a really tough year last year. Yeah, and it was that I know like because we had the fish, like the only a ton, 90,000 fish at the end of the season.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Yeah, I think it was the like the biggest ever amount in there, right?

SPEAKER_04 38:24

Yeah, yeah. So, like we had the fish, and the only thing that was different was that six fish limit. And it, I mean, it made it hard for everyone except Zach most of the time.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

Yeah, except Zach, because he's just a magician.

SPEAKER_04 38:35

Yeah, and there's a reason he runs my boat.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Yeah, it was hilarious. Yeah, like even he was just you know, so pumped, you know, because like it's fun when you go out and like you're that boat. Absolutely, you know, and and on Baker, everyone's watching you, yeah. And when you don't get to put the net away and you have three or four on at a time, and everyone's like, we haven't even gotten bit yet, and you're just like, uh-huh, watch that. It's a good feeling, it's a good feeling.

SPEAKER_04 39:01

Yeah, so it is that boat he's running was my first guide boat. Okay, so it's an 18 and a half foot Willie Predator, and I guided out of that boat for 10 years before I bought the North River, nine or ten years. Okay. So, like, I can't believe I fished out of that boat for so long, but it's so fishy.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

I mean some some boats kind of just are that is one of those boats.

SPEAKER_04 39:25

Yeah, just it's a 99, it's like super old, but hey, it just when uh it showed everybody how to catch a sock. It always does. It it always does. I uh when my grandpa passed away, he left me a little bit of money, and the caveat to the money he left me was that I was not allowed to use it for school. So I like that. Got my guide license and I bought a boat, and that's that boat. So that's why I collect boats. Like that was a boat I pretty much got from grandpa that I uh can't really sell that boat because Yeah, no, that one that one's with you forever. That one's with me forever. The North River I got from uh Bruce was pretty much my mentor in guiding. He's the one that like when I bought that Predator, my dad hired Bruce to take us out on the cowlets and show us the cowlets. And we ran from Blue Creek to Barrier to Castle Rock and back to Blue Creek. He showed us everything and he like figured out that I wanted to get my guide license. And then he continued to call me every couple months and like, hey, you do your Coast Guard class yet? Hey, you get your guide license yet? Like, really kicked me in the butt and like kept me motivated and like made me like make sure I followed through. And then from then on, I mean, he was always kind of that like call in, check-in, fish with him, fish around him, you know, like whether it was showing me what to do or what not to do, he's kind of grumpy. We love him. I call him Uncle Bruce. Yeah, but so when he decided to retire from guiding, he called me and is like, I need you to have the boat. Yeah, all right, we'll figure it out. So then I got the boat from him. So, like, where can the North River go? Can't go anywhere. Yeah. And then the Raptor, uh, my like one of my very best friends, Sam Baird, he got that boat. That was his upgrade from I think he had a 20-foot, it was like a 19 or a 20-foot something. And he wanted a bigger boat, and he got that boat. That was like his dream boat. And then we lost him a few years ago to like a massive heart attack. So uh they were trying to figure out what to do with a boat and like couldn't really imagine anyone else running the boat, like seeing someone else in Sam's boat. So I got that one. Yeah. So I've got all these like sentimental attachments.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

They're they're tools, but they're also just like, you know, kind of parts and pieces of your family and what makes you you.

SPEAKER_04 41:36

Yeah, you know. So I say I don't sell boats and I don't sell guns. Yeah. There's always room. I can always find someone to park them in the driveway. For sure. I'd like to get more people to run them too. Like, I mean, that's kind of my overall goal. Um, like my big picture is having, you know, captains and having people running boats and like getting more people on the water. Um, but my thing is like I know that I kind of have a niche out here. Like people have a certain experience in my boat. And I want to make sure, like, I don't want to just hire anyone off the street that's got a captain's license. Like, you have to be able to, you have to kind of have a personality and be able to give people a similar experience. I don't want some, you know, grumpy person that's gonna be, you know, yelling at them because they didn't reel in fast enough or you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Yeah, you gotta be kind of chill and yeah, and you know, like as a as a fishing guide, you're like some days you go and catch all your fish and some days you just don't. Like even if the fishing was good for everybody else, like there's just so many factors on the phone.

SPEAKER_04 42:44

I tell people it's my least favorite saying that it's called fishing, not catching, but it is very true, you know.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

I mean, and like you know, managing managing the expectations and creating an experience that is consistent in a uh overwhelmingly inconsistent activity is really hard to do. Yeah, and you do a really good job of that.

SPEAKER_02 43:03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

You know, that's yeah. They have never I have never not one time heard someone have anything other than we had the best time, you know, and like almost always is like, yeah, we got our fish, it was cool, you know. But like everyone talks about the time they had before the fish they got. Yeah. And that's when you're like, oh, they really did have a good time.

SPEAKER_04 43:22

Yeah. That's like that's always been one of my like things I'm most proud of. Is that's usually like one of the first things people say is like, oh, there's Brianna, everyone's always smiling and laughing on her boat. Like, I don't tell very good jokes, or like I just go out and vibe and try to have a good time and like keep people happy and entertained. Yeah, the dogs help too. Yeah, the dogs do help. The the dogs are a huge help.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Everybody loves a good boat dog.

SPEAKER_04 43:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

How can you not?

SPEAKER_04 43:54

Right. Whalen's like the very best boat dog. Yeah. He's starting to get old, but old boat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Just snoozing.

SPEAKER_04 44:01

He just sleeps on a beanbag. I love now that I'm like in the sound a lot more often, he's got his beanbag on the bow and he just like he's old, right? And he just like curls into his beanbag and like he's got this little smile on his face when we're out there, and he's just like bouncing on the bow, sound asleep.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Just loves it.

SPEAKER_04 44:18

Loves it.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

Yeah, that's great. You have. Are you you're gonna fish kokini for a little bit, right?

SPEAKER_04 44:27

A little bit. I have had a lot less interest in kokie fishing over the last couple years, like it seems to be dwindling. Okay, more people want to go walleye fishing. So I think I need to start like transitioning into spending more time walleye fishing.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

I could see that.

SPEAKER_04 44:40

Um, but I've got a little bit of kokie fishing. Honestly, well, once I get the boat back, because it's in the yard right now, uh, once I get the boat back, it's just about Ling Cod season. Yeah. I'm gonna go pretty hard on Ling Cod for the first few weeks. Yeah. Yeah, it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

I know it's gonna be it's so fun. It's a good thing. Yeah, I mean, and you know. Yes, you can certainly go and sit with 500 other people in possession if you enjoy that. You know, John Kernigan's gonna outfish you, so just be ready for that, everyone. Um it's it's unfair.

SPEAKER_04 45:15

It's just it's it's just that's his butt. I can usually keep up.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

I bet. Oh, I know. I call him the the dark prince of possession. Yes. I think he likes that.

SPEAKER_04 45:24

He loves that. Yeah. The first time he heard that, the smile, I think I was in the house with him. The smile.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Um but yeah, you know, but there's also like there's so many other places to go catch a link cod.

SPEAKER_04 45:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

You know, like if it's not happening there, leave.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

It's usually happening there, but there is a lot of things. I know, but I mean like now it's just it's so popular because it's kind of it's turned into the spot where it's like you go into any kind of shop and like, where should I go linkod fishing? Oh, go to possession bar.

SPEAKER_04 45:57

Yeah. And then you just look for the boats, and they're all usually around John or I because our boats look the same. The same.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Yeah, you're both like you're both on the spot and you're like, you can get as close as you want, but like I'm on it. Yeah, like this is where they're at. Yeah. You know? Um just go somewhere else. Yeah. You know, there's so many places.

SPEAKER_04 46:16

I loved to do that when I had to do it.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

The sound is just like, I think the bottom is a carpet of flounder and like uh.

SPEAKER_04 46:23

Oh, totally.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

You know?

SPEAKER_04 46:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

Like there's so many.

SPEAKER_04 46:27

If you can find like a sandbar, if you find any like flat spot with a drop-off, some kind of structure, you can catch link cod there.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

100%. Yeah. Yeah, because they're like, you know, I was joking with Jerome earlier, right? But it's like they're just a toothy garbage disposal, you know. Yeah. That's that's kind of true. Like they're they're they're a huge predator and they do a good job of keeping sort of the the fish populations and stuff healthy, right? Like they they are not picky, they will eat everything.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

Their each other. Right. You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Their own tail comes around, uh, you know, they'll take a stab at it.

SPEAKER_04 47:02

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

Um, it's just what they do. It's cool.

SPEAKER_04 47:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

Go do it. Um, all right, so you're gonna fish Ling Cod May 1st, June 15th. Some salmon after that.

SPEAKER_04 47:13

I'll probably do some like resident coho in June. Um, do some of that. And then I go to Baker Lake. Um, it opens the 11th, 12th, something like I think it's the 11th this year.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Of July.

SPEAKER_04 47:28

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

So I think it was the 11th.

SPEAKER_04 47:30

I'll be we're doing Sitka this year for 4th of July weekend. Okay. We went up last year, loved it so much. We're going back this year.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Easy place to love.

SPEAKER_04 47:38

Yeah. So we're family trip going to do that. And then when I get back from that, I'll go set up camp and be up there. So I'll be Baker Lake from the opener till like August 10th. And then I've got the salmon charter this year. So I'm actually gonna go down and do buoy 10. Throw my hat in there.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

Okay. So it'll be fine.

SPEAKER_04 48:01

Yeah, go do that till like Labor Day weekend and then come home and pound on some coho.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

It's a good time to do this.

SPEAKER_04 48:08

Which is also, I mean, it's so hard when people ask me what my favorite fishery is.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

I know, the cohos are so fun.

SPEAKER_04 48:13

I grew up coho fishing. So I grew up in Shoreline and Shilshul was like 15 minutes from the house. Right there. So my dad would like leave the boat hooked up and we would go fish in the morning, and he dropped me off at school with the boat behind the truck. Yeah. Because we'd go get our coho, and you know, I that's coho are probably my favorite salmon. Well, not probably, coho are my favorite salmon to fish for, to fight, to look at, to eat. Everything about a coho I love. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

I usually like a lot of the kings for eating the best. They're kind of fun to like work out because they're very specific on what they like. So I like that puzzle sometimes. But without a doubt, coho are the most fun, active fish to catch. Yeah. Fish for, I mean, it's like it's it's so cool because like the the coho is one of those salmon that like you can really catch on your terms.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 49:08

I want to fish shallow.

SPEAKER_01 49:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:10

Great. I want to fish deep. Great. I want to go fast, awesome. I want to mooch, great. You know, like you can whatever it is that you like to do, the coho will meet you halfway.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

You know? Um and for someone that's caught a lot of fish and stuff, I know you're kind of in the same boat too. Like when you get a day off, it's like, well, we're still going fishing.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

Um, it's just what we do. But usually you don't just go and do the same thing you did guiding all week. You're like, well, that's I want to throw irons or I want to do just I want to do something different.

SPEAKER_01 49:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

And the Koho meets you there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:42

And then you follow them into the river, and there's so many options in the river, too. I know, I love that. And I love that. I mean, that is like running a jet boat up the river, down the river, whatever, finding like fish in little pockets and stuff. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 49:57

Yep. I think my favorite thing to do is throw twitch and jigs for Kohs and they're casting plugs.

SPEAKER_04 50:02

When they follow it to the boat and hit it, like you pause your plug to take it out of the water, and a you know, 12-pound coho grabs it and just starts spinning.

SPEAKER_00 50:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:12

That's so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

I know, it's so cool. I love those fish. Is there anything else that we want the people to know about you know who you are, what you do before we get all your contact info for people to call and book a trip with you?

SPEAKER_04 50:26

We've covered it pretty well. I mean, you mentioned rods at the beginning. Yeah. And I've not that it has a ton to do with anything, but I'm totally a rod geek. Uh when Cody and I started dating, like a lot of our dates were going to Cabela's or Sportsman's or here. And we'd like just grab every rod that was on the rack and play with it. And then I used to hang out with Jim Mercer at the X at X-Rods, and he taught me a lot. And then I got on with Feather Sticks, and when they were in Redmond, same thing as like here, I'd go hang out in the shop for hours and just like learn everything I could. And now it's gone into talon rods, and I'm like helping design rods, and it's pretty cool. Like to the point learning about different materials and everything. And I've rolled my own blank like on a rolling table from a flat piece of like graphite to it's awesome and carbon. And yeah, it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 51:22

All the pre-pregs and doing this and scrimming it and all that. There's a lot of work that goes into rods.

SPEAKER_04 51:26

There's so much.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

And like and there's a lot of things you can do with rods. It's amazing. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:31

Yeah. That's uh, I think that's a big part of I love a rod that's like super versatile. If I can do like three or four things with run one rod, I have rods like specific for everything, but I'll use the same like rod for link odd and on the downrigger and like running 360s and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

If you you know know your kit well enough to just kind of be able to make sure that you can apply it to whatever fishery you're doing, it's a powerful thing to have.

SPEAKER_04 51:59

It's pretty cool. So that's always been something. I mean, that's really the only thing we didn't like touching.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

Deep dive into well, this is just your first time here.

SPEAKER_04 52:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

We have a lot more to talk about.

SPEAKER_04 52:09

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

But how do we get a hold of you to book a trip? We want to go with Brianna.

SPEAKER_04 52:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

We don't care where we go.

SPEAKER_04 52:17

I am horrible at answering the phone. You found that out. I do know. Really horrible. Yeah. Um, but text I usually get back to. Okay. So 206-714-2112, but that should be like your last resort, probably. Okay. An email or a Facebook message is usually better. Okay. And I've got my personal Brianna Bruce Facebook, and then I've got my Live in Life Adventures Facebook. Um and website, liveinlifeadventures.com. Um message, email, text. Some like digital form is like always better to get a hold of me. You might get lucky, I might answer the phone, but I'll probably see your voicemail and think about it for a week and then be embarrassed that I didn't like get back to you and then feel bad about it, and then like not because I've like psyched myself out about it. Like, oh, they're gonna be mad at me.

SPEAKER_00 53:06

They're gonna be mad.

SPEAKER_04 53:06

I didn't get back to them.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

So it's fine. If you're looking for a fishing guide, I can't recommend this one more. You're gonna just have an absolute blast. You know, I think you probably are the best fishing guide for families and adventures, and just making sure that you know the priority is leaving the day safe and we had an awesome time.

SPEAKER_04 53:32

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

And that's that's the most important thing.

SPEAKER_04 53:35

That's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

You know, you nailed it. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_04 53:40

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

Gonna have to come back. We're gonna have to do a deep dive into talent and rod design. And we could do a whole podcast on rod design.

SPEAKER_04 53:45

Oh, totally.

SPEAKER_00 53:46

I think we should. Yeah, that would be great.

SPEAKER_04 53:48

I'll come back anytime.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

All right, let's do that. Um, yeah, get a hold of her, go fishing, enjoy yourself, and we'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. Thanks. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Three Reverse Marine podcast. We would like to give a special thanks to our sponsors, and run tackle, make your own bite window. Fisherman's gold products, everything we make, we fish ourselves. And Duckworth Boats, legendary adventure.