Choosing the Right Fly Rod with Gary Davis of San Juan Rodworks

00:00:00 Dave: Choosing a fly rod is one of those decisions that sounds simple until you actually have to make it. Action. Length. Weight. Species. Water type. Suddenly, there are dozens of variables, and most anglers are left guessing on how to put it all together. Today’s conversation is about slowing that process down and making sense of it, one decision at a time. Gary Davis is the founder of San Juan Rodworks, a rod company that started in the garage and has grown into a full operation with a new showroom an education focused space in New Mexico. Gary’s background spans fly fishing, golf instruction and that mix shows up clearly in how he thinks about rods as the tool that should match the angler’s tempo, water, and goals. This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast, where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip, and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. In this episode, we walk through how to actually choose a fly rod without overcomplicating things. Why action matters more than marketing terms, and how thinking about species, flies and casting styles leads to better decisions. Whether you’re buying your first rod or if it’s filling out the quiver. This is going to be a good discussion today. And and I think you’re going to love it. So. Right. Let’s get into it. Here we go Gary Davis. You can find him at San Juan. Com how you doing Gary. 00:01:22 Gary: Doing great Dave. Thanks for having me back on. Looking forward to the conversation. 00:01:26 Dave: Yeah, yeah I think we’re going to get a nice little update on what you have going. Um, we were just talking off air on some big stuff you have coming up. We could talk about it the you’ve got a new place where you’re you’ve moved into a bigger place. You’ve got a, you know, kind of a showroom slash educational center, which we’re going to talk about. You do a lot of good stuff with to a lot of the groups. We’ve got, uh, another episode I think with, with Tricia that’s going to be coming out soon. So we’re excited to share some of that. But San Juan Rodworks. You’re doing some good stuff out there. We you know, we’ve heard a lot about, you know, just your rods. And so we’re going to talk more about what makes them tick and actually help somebody decide, you know, maybe what rod to choose. Right. Fast slow medium all the things. But give us an update. It’s been you know this last year you’ve been so talk about the show maybe start there because that’s kind of is that the biggest thing you’ve been working on. 00:02:14 Gary: Yeah. So you know we’ve been extremely fortunate. You know I started the company back in twenty twenty basically out of my garage. And we’ve been really you know the support has been incredible. We’ve really grown tremendously over the last three years in particular, uh, to the point where it’s like, all right, this has to move out of the house. So, so but I was really looking for something, you know, I didn’t really want a retail space. I really wanted something that was more of a showroom that had an element of it where, you know, we could start to do some things with the community. And, you know, particularly we’ve done a lot of work with, you know, the Trout Unlimited chapters here, you know, particularly in the Albuquerque Rio Rancho area. There’s a new organization called New Mexico Lady Anglers, which you’re again, you’re going to be speaking with Trish, who kind of heads up that organization. And then New Mexico trout. So we’ve been pretty involved with those organizations helping them out with fundraising and stuff like that. But I really kind of wanted to find a space that would not only allow us to, you know, kind of move our, our inventory, you know, shipping, receiving all of those kinds of elements of the business, but also something to help us to, you know, kind of give back to the fly fishing community through education programs. So we’re fortunate we found a space that allows us to do that. You know, we’ll be able to hopefully in the very near future, start offering fly tying classes with some of the, you know, some of the guys we work with and kind of become our brand ambassadors. And again, working with those organizations, you know, they do some fly fishing, you know, one on one classes, casting classes, that kind of stuff. So we we’re fortunate to find a space that will kind of allow us to at least start going down that path with some of these organizations. Um, had some initial conversations with them and was really just trying to get the place, you know, set up the way we wanted it. And then hopefully in the near future, we’ll have, you know, the representatives of those organizations coming in and, you know, figuring out like, okay, what’s a good game plan and how do they feel like they can help, you know, and best use of the space. So that’s kind of been our big push the last three months. 00:04:19 Dave: So yeah, I think that’s a great idea. You got uh, kind of starting local, right. All the local communities and we’ve talked a lot about the importance of obviously without them, you know, whether it’s conservation or education, you know, you kind of that’s the start of it, right? All these great groups and it sounds like you have a bunch and you’re reminding us again, which city are you located in? 00:04:37 Gary: The showroom is in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, which is basically a suburb of Albuquerque. 00:04:41 Dave: Okay. 00:04:42 Gary: You know, so so we’re really, really in the metro area here and, you know, pretty convenient for, again, those in the Albuquerque metro area, Santa Fe to get to. So. So yeah, it’s like I said it showroom is basically kind of by appointment only. 00:04:56 Dave: Yeah. Right. This is not like a retail store. 00:04:58 Gary: Yeah, exactly. So we’re not, you know, open nine to five, you know, Monday through Saturday or anything like that. But yeah, if people want to come check it out, see the rides, get it in their hand, you know, we’ve got space outside where, you know, if a customer wants to come in and, you know, go cast a fly rod outside and then kind of get a feel for it and the action and. Yeah, and all that stuff. We have the space to do that now. 00:05:19 Dave: That’s sweet. Yeah. I think that’s the you know and we talk a lot about that, you know. Okay. You’re choosing a new rod, you know, how do you get a feel for it. You know. So this is one way if you were coming either out in that area or maybe coming through to fish, it is you are in kind of one of those famous places around the country right to hit. So yeah, you know, I know it’s still on our bucket list. So I think it’s a good chance that people could swing by, maybe send you a DM or something on social and then, you know, meet up with you and do some casting. 00:05:46 Gary: Yeah, exactly. You know, contact us on social media, send us an email, you know, give us a call. You know, I’m a little bit older school. I’m really good at email and I’m really good at phone calls. I’m still trying to navigate my way through the whole all the different channels and social media, right? I usually get to it. So yeah. 00:06:03 Dave: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Social is tough to keep up with. There’s always yeah, it’s always a lot going there. So good. Well today we’re going to walk through a little bit on maybe just imagine that somebody coming in you know to your your shop there and trying to decide on a rod. Right. Like actions. And I want to kind of walk through because there is some confusion on that. You know, what is the right action to get. So maybe. Yeah. Let’s take it to I think starting with different species might be a good way to do it. Obviously trout is big. Um, there’s a lot of people that trout fish I think probably most of us do some trout fishing, but also there’s all these other species out there. But what do you tell them when somebody’s calling you? Maybe talking on the phone and they’re talking about they’re not quite sure on action. Is there a big difference these days? Is it mostly medium. What do you do there at San Juan? 00:06:48 Gary: Yeah. So we have three different models of rod in our lineup. So our model is our euro rod. We do our Gunnison rod which is our fast action rod, and then our fryingpan which is our medium fast action rod. And then we do obviously various lengths and weights and, and all of those, you know, in those three particular models. So altogether we have sixteen different rods you could choose from. So you know, what I generally do is, you know, I generally try and start with okay, number one. Or is this going to be your first fly rod. Do you already have a fly rod. You know, what do you generally you know what kind of species are you generally targeting. You know what size and what kind of flies you know, do you prefer to throw? Are you more of a dry fly guy? Do you kind of, you know, do you mix it up? Do you throw dry droppers? Do you throw, you know, two nymphs under a, you know, a strike indicator kind of what’s your preference. So, you know, once we kind of get an idea of number one, what they already have as far as fly rods. Number two, you know, kind of what their preference is for, you know, and, you know, and obviously that has a lot to do with the species they’re fishing with or targeting. And you know, where they’re fishing. You know, what kind of water are they fishing in. Those are a lot of different variables that go to it. So you know, obviously most people and you know, in this is I think a very a great place to start is your first fly rod. If you’re just starting out, get a nine foot five weight. It’ll do ninety percent of what you need a fly rod to do. And you know, as far as the fast action or the medium fast action, you know, I again, you know, my background, we talked about this a little bit last time is in the golf business. And I did a lot of, you know, I did a lot of golf instruction, a lot of club fitting. And the interesting one of the interesting things to me about that is, you know, a graphite golf shaft is basically made exactly the same way as a fly rod. And, you know, so within that world of of golf shafts. There’s all kinds of different flexes and weights and, you know, what’s the bend point? All of these different things that, you know, influence the flight of a golf ball? Well, it’s it’s very much the same, you know, with a fly rod, you know, a faster action fly rod is going to feel a little bit stiffer in your hand. It’s primary, you know, it gets the most of it’s bend towards more towards the tip of the rod. Whereas a medium fast action rod’s a little bit more towards the middle. And then you, you get to medium and slow that the slower you get and quote unquote the action, the more the rod or the deeper in the rod. The majority of the flex is. So a slow rod is going to the majority of the flex is going to be down more towards the grip fast action rod. The majority of the flex is going to be towards the tip. So in general it’s going to feel a little bit faster or a little bit stiffer. It generates more line speed. So it’s really good in the wind. Um, you can generally cast a faster action fly rod further because again, with that, you know, with the majority of the the bend or the flex being towards the tip, you know, it allows you to generate, you know, a little bit more speed with the line. So again, that helps in the wind, helps you with casting distance, that kind of stuff. I also feel like a lot of it has to do and this and this really comes back to my golf background. I feel like what’s going to feel good in somebody’s hand is kind of their tempo. Somebody who tends to have a little bit of a longer, smoother cast, you know, our tempo is going to probably prefer a rod than more of the medium fast action category, whereas somebody has a faster tempo and a kind of a faster casting action is generally going to, you know, be more successful with a faster action rod. You know, we’d see the same thing in golf. You know, people who had kind of a slower, smoother swing preferred a softer, you know, more flexible shaft as opposed to, you know, somebody who had a much faster swing speed and tempo. So that’s kind of where we start, you know. And then once you’ve, you know, once you’ve kind of got that first fly rod, you’re going to learn a lot, right? You’re going to learn how to cast, you’re going to learn proper technique and you’re going to you’re going to get a feel for, you know, what your particular swing or you know, your particular cast fingerprint is, right. Kind of your motion with a rod. And then, you know, from there, you know, you can start, you know, going into the different, you know, different lengths and weights rods depending on what kind of species you’re targeting. Are you throwing streamers? Are you you’re fishing. You know more, you know, are you targeting redfish in Louisiana? Are you throwing poppers for Bass Lakes in the Midwest? You know, then you can start getting into, okay, now, maybe I want to look at a nine foot eight weight rod or a, you know, I really want a small stream rod. So we do like a six foot, six inch, two weight rod, you know, which is a ton of fun. You know, on small little streams, when you’re targeting, you’re generally into smaller fish. So so there’s a there’s a lot of ways you can go. There’s yeah, there’s a lot of rabbit holes you can go down. 00:11:48 Dave: No there’s good. Well maybe let’s do it by. I think part of this by species might be fun, you know, because we kind of cover everything, you know, and and I think trout obviously is big. I think we will cover trout. But let’s get into maybe some other species and talk about, you know, how you would choose based on that. And maybe it’ll probably be some overlap here. One to start off with I think is is pretty easy. Is the bass right. You’ve got bass and there’s different levels of bass, whether that’s small or, you know, or the large one or larger fish, but safe for smallmouth bass. Is it because there’s some areas that they get quite large. What would you recommend as far as action on on bass? 00:12:27 Gary: So what I generally try and you know, what I generally try and steer people towards is generally again, a lot of it to me comes back to what, you know, what type of fly you’re using. So when you’re casting poppers, you know, maybe streamers for bass, you’re going to want a little bit heavier, faster action rod generally. So with those a lot of times we’re steering people more towards like a nine foot six weight and our Gunnison line, which again is the fast action rod. Those faster action rods also, you know, deliver those bigger flies. You know better than you know, more of a medium fast, shorter, smaller rod. So that’s kind of where we generally steer people is, is, you know, that six seven weight um Gunnison rod is great for that. Yeah. So that’s kind of where we steal people kind of in the bass kind of Stillwater type realm a lot of times. 00:13:17 Dave: Okay. And what is the biggest thing on the fast action rod, do you think the the variable is that kind of the you mentioned the speed is there also the recovery the weight. What do you think are the biggest variables when you get a fast action? Or is it that fast tip? Is that the most. 00:13:31 Gary: Yeah, the fast tip in just the way that it’s able to handle bigger, heavier flies. 00:13:37 Dave: Yeah, it’s just a heavier. It’s not necessarily. Well, you you have the different weights in the rod, right. Which makes it heavier or lighter. But you’re just saying the faster just being faster. A comparable five weight is going to fast. Action will be able to cast bigger stuff easier. 00:13:51 Gary: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. You know, we we really think of our, you know, our frying pan, which is the medium fast action rod. It’s a great dry fly rod. And part of the reason for that is, is with that, with it generating a little bit less line speed, it tends to present a fly in a much more delicate way. So when with that medium fast rod, when you’re throwing a dry fly, you know, it tends to lay that fly out on the water, you know, a little bit softer, which a lot of times when you’re fishing dries, you know, you you really want that. You know, you know. And that’s not to say you can’t cast a dry fly with a fast action rod. But, you know, once you kind of get to that point, like I say, where, you know, you start to you start to say, okay, I want rods more specialized for a purpose. That’s when, you know, that’s when we see people starting to go. 00:14:40 Dave: That’s the clubs. That’s like the golf analogy, right? You get your new I always get back to the Big Bertha. You know, your specialized club, right. The old driver. Yeah. But you get the, you know, and then, then you got your, your quiver or your golf clubs. Right. And your bag, your. 00:14:53 Gary: Exactly. 00:14:54 Dave: Whatever. Exactly. Okay. Let’s talk about another species. So another one we talk a lot about is steelhead. And you know, we definitely talk spey a lot. But there’s still lots of people using single handed rods for steelhead especially smaller streams and stuff like that. What would be what’s the rod there. Is that again probably depends on what you’re casting. But yeah. 00:15:12 Gary: It depends on what you’re casting. But generally, you know, that’s going to be you know, that’s going to probably be depending on the size and the size of the fly, you know, the size of steelhead you’re targeting. You know, the six, seven, eight weight generally in the in the Gunnison line are great for those. You know, our six, seven and eight weight in the Gunnison line, I’ll have a a fighting bud on them. Which which again makes fighting those larger fish a little bit easier. Um, you know, you got that fighting, but behind the reel that you can kind of really, you know, get locked in, you know, with that in your forearm and, you know, as your as you’re fighting the fish, which gives you, gives you a little bit more leverage, right. 00:15:50 Dave: Or use it just as a fighting. But. Right. 00:15:52 Gary: Yeah. 00:15:53 Dave: Yeah. It’s up to your, your stomach or whatever. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. 00:15:56 Gary: Exactly. If you’re in a really big one, you can just kind of, you know, wedge that up against your waist or, or whatever you want to do. 00:16:02 Dave: So yeah. What’s the longest rod you guys have there on in your lineup. 00:16:06 Gary: So one of the new things we introduced this year, and this was came from a lot of feedback from the guides that we work with, particularly up on the San Juan. What we do, our Euro rods are both ten footers, um, a ten foot two, eight, ten foot three weight. But we introduced in our Gunnison line a ten foot four weight and a ten foot five weight. And one of the things that they really like about that. And honestly, it’s kind of become one of my favorites too. Is that extra foot of reach makes a ton of difference when you’re mending. And so a lot of people, you know, particularly if you’re fishing out of a float, you know, if you’re floating a river out of a boat, that extra reach, you know, people love that. And so that’s become quickly become one of our best sellers. Is that ten foot length in our Gunnison? Four and five weight, you know. So and there is you know, I think there we have kind of started to see, you know, that trend coming along. It seems like more and more companies are starting to look at, you know, adding those, you know, a little bit longer, you know, four or five weight rods to their, to their lineups. 00:17:12 Dave: Right. So not quite the, the euro nymphing sort of the two and three weight but a little bit heavier. So yeah. So you’re doing some other stuff. 00:17:19 Gary: Yeah, exactly. You know the big difference. You know obviously the weights the same. You know you got the ten foot weight. But you know the Gunnison again is a is a faster action, more traditional fly rod where you start getting the euro rods. You know those generally have a fairly robust butt section. But the tip sensitivity on those is is what you’re really, you know, really trying to find. So you know, because again, you’re not using any sort of indicator, you know, strike indicator or anything like that. So you’re really fishing by feel. And so the sensitivity and the tip of those things, you know, is, is kind of really a very important element. 00:17:57 Dave: So yeah. Is that a fast action. What would you call that. Your rod. What. 00:18:01 Gary: Yeah. So that that would be kind of fitting more of a medium fast action. But again you know when you’re euro fishing it’s such a different technique. You know it’s you’re not making a traditional you know, what people think of, you know, a traditional casting of a, you know, a way forward fly line. Right? You’re you’re really just almost, you know, I almost think of it as you’re flipping the flies out. 00:18:21 Dave: Yeah. That’s it. Yeah. 00:18:22 Gary: You’re one of the things that’s really cool about your rods too, is a lot of times they make a great dry fly rod. So the way I set my euro rods up is, you know, I’ll put a standard, you know, if I’m fishing the three weight, I’ll put a, you know, a standard weight forward, you know, floating three way line on there. But, you know, one of the things we sell is, you know, scientific anglers. I believe Rio makes one too is a it’s called Euro nymph kit. And so basically you know you can extend off of that. Oh way forward floating line that Euro kit. And so basically you can run it as a euro rig. But all of a sudden you’re out. 00:19:00 Dave: There, cool. 00:19:01 Gary: Fish start rising. You can basically take that Euro nymph kit off and just, you know, put a standard leader on it, throw dry flies with it and gotcha. Again, kind of because they’re they’re a little bit softer. You know they’re great at presenting dry flies. 00:19:15 Dave: So that’s sweet. That’s a great tip. 00:19:18 Gary: You know euro rods really can be multi-purpose. I mean you know you wouldn’t really want to went through heavy nymphs with it. 00:19:24 Dave: Yeah. Heavy? Yeah. You’re not tossing giant stuff, but. 00:19:26 Gary: Yeah, exactly. But throwing, you know, throwing dry flies. 00:19:29 Dave: That’s cool. 00:19:30 Gary: Fish start rising. It’s it can be a lot of fun. 00:19:32 Dave: Yeah. We had, uh, we’ll put a link out to the episode. Norman Mock who? I know you, he’s up in your area. He’s he’s obviously a superstar. I mean, he knows his stuff. Team USA and he I think on that podcast talked about that, how he doesn’t like to have a ton of rods. He’ll just have that one rod that does everything kind of. Yeah. And. Yeah. And so I think that’s the same idea. 00:19:53 Gary: Yeah. Norm’s a legend. He is particularly in this part of the world. 00:19:55 Dave: Is he a legend out there? 00:19:57 Gary: Oh yeah. Absolutely. So he, uh, he definitely knows his stuff. So he’s probably forgotten more than I’ll ever know. 00:20:05 Dave: So that’s awesome. Yeah, he’s doing, uh, he’s going to be on this is coming up right around the corner. Actually, I’ll probably be right around when this goes live our our fly fishing, uh, boot camp, where we’re having some guest speakers. And, Norman, he’s going to be one of those, uh, one of those speakers. So he’s going to talk. I think he’s going to talk to your own nymphing. So it’s perfect. Maybe. Yeah, well, I’m sure we’ll have this conversation go a little bit deeper. Um, yeah. Good. So, yeah, I think we’ve hit a couple of the, you know, on the fast action. I’m guessing the next one I have for you will be maybe a little bit different is kind of the, you know, the crappie bass, sunfish. What would be the rod there? What’s the action there. 00:20:40 Gary: Yeah. So you know, you can you can definitely go more of a medium fast action because generally those are going to be you know, particularly sunfish and crappie are generally going to be a little bit smaller. So you know, for me personally I like erring toward the side of lighter rods. Right. So and for me it just has a lot to do with, you know, the fight of the fish. Right? You know, if I’m pulling out, you know, bluegill with a, you know, and this is the extreme way, but if you’re fishing for bluegill with an eight way rod, you’re just like ripping them out, like, yeah, there’s no too much. You know, it doesn’t feel like you’ve got a fish on there. But no, you know, so a lot of times go to, you know, two three weight rod, you know, and some of those things particularly if it’s, you know, smaller panfish and stuff like that. But like I say, I, I kind of always prefer to go lighter with that kind of stuff, you know. And then it’s, you know, when you, when you get to that lighter stuff, you’re generally, you know, you’re throwing smaller flies, you know, even smaller, you know, streamer popper type stuff. You can do that with, you know, the frying pan, more of a medium fast action. You’re generally not, you know, trying to cast as far. So again, I prefer, you know, and again, I think a lot of it goes back to, you know, a personal preference kind of your casting tempo, you know, that kind of stuff. I always tend to lean more towards, particularly the smaller species towards our frying pan or medium fast action rod. I just like the way it feels. Again, it’s it’s a little bit more fun once you get the fish on, in my opinion. And you’re, you know, you’re you’re working to get him, you know, to the net. 00:22:16 Dave: So what would be the length there and when would you go down to say, eight and a half or even a shorter rod. 00:22:22 Gary: Yeah. So, so for us generally, as you know, with the exception of the euro rods, um, you know, in our Frying Pan series, we do our four ways, an eight, six, four way, and then we do a seven, six, three weight and a six six, you know, two weight, actually, that’s in the Gunnison, which is a fast action, which is a little bit different. But I fished the Pecos here in New Mexico a lot because it’s really the closest water to my house that’s, you know, of any substantial size just outside of Santa Fe. And the rod I generally take up there is our seven, six, three way frying pan. And again, you could fish that river with a, you know, a nine foot five weight all day long and have a great time. But, you know, I just love that seven, six, three weight. You know, again, I can throw a dry dropper with it. I can throw, you know, some smaller nymphs under a strike indicator or I can throw just dry flies with it and it’s awesome. 00:23:13 Dave: So yeah. Threw it and that would be A good sunfish rod as well. The crop? 00:23:17 Gary: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. 00:23:19 Dave: Well, you said frying pan, but yeah, the frying pan sized fish. Right. That’s the. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, okay. So that’s a couple there. Um, one we have coming up is a trip I am excited for. And, you know, it’s more of a, I think more of a destination bucket list probably. I’m sure a lot of people it’s on the list. But Atlantic salmon, you know, I think that’s similar to steelhead probably. But what would be the rod there. And well first to stay on the action. What would that be. What would the action be. And then what would the the wait the rod be. 00:23:48 Gary: Yeah I what that kind of scenario. I’d probably again be sticking more towards the faster action, you know. And I would probably be leaning towards you know six seven six seven weight rod for that, that sort of application, you know, and the best of what I tell people to do is, you know, when you’re going to these locations, you’re going to a destination like that, you know, generally, you know, you’re going to be fishing with guides or you’re at a, you know, you’re at a location where there’s a lot, you know, a ton of local knowledge. And you know what I tell people to do, you know, reach out to the guides you’re going to be working with or the lodge you’re going to, because they will tell you exactly what you need. You know, given their specific set of circumstances. I’ve got a couple customers that are heading to Patagonia down in Argentina later this summer. And and, you know, one of them, he’s like, yeah, we were talking to the guys. They say bring nine foot eight weights. And then, you know, another another customer said, you know, they’re going not to the exact same place obviously, but they’re also going to Argentina. 00:24:47 Dave: Up in the mountains or something. 00:24:49 Gary: Yeah. And they said, you know, bring, you know, nine foot five weights. Yeah. So. 00:24:53 Dave: Right. 00:24:53 Gary: So again, those guys who fish that water every day and know exactly, you know, what they’re going to be getting into and what’s going to perform the best. That’s particularly if you are, you know, doing a bucket list trip like that. You know and you want to get, you know, maybe you only have a nine foot five weight rod and a, you know, seven foot three way, you know, you’re going on a trip like that. I think it’s absolutely worth it to talk to those guys and say, okay, if I’m if I’m going to do this, you know, I want to do it right. You know, what kind of rod should I be bringing? 00:25:23 Dave: That’s right. No, that’s a great that’s probably the biggest tip we should have highlighted here is that. Yeah. If you’re going somewhere new, you know, call the if you have a guide, obviously call them. But if not, call the local fly shop. Somebody who’s been out there that knows because I think where we’re going, it’s definitely going to be I know I’ve talked to those guys and there’s the fish are bigger. It could be, you know, there are some like I mean potentially hopefully we’re going to see some fish over twenty pounds and they even get up to thirty pounds or more. Um, so I think we’re going to be like nine way, you know, in that range. Right. But I’m also the eight weight steelhead rod is, you know, good enough to write and all that stuff. 00:25:59 Gary: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You could, you know, you get into a fish that size, you know, eight weights probably the smallest you’re going to want. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but yeah getting into nine, nine, ten weights. 00:26:09 Dave: But we’re also going to be fishing for brook trout, which some of them a good sized brook trout. Up there you might get a four pounder, you know, in that range. So that probably would be, I think, perfect to have a, I don’t know, something a little bit smaller. Right. Maybe a six weight or seven weight somewhere. 00:26:23 Gary: Yeah, absolutely. 00:26:24 Dave: So it’s always it’s always that thing. Like how many rods can you bring. You’re probably only going to bring two rods or three maybe. Yeah. You know and so you got to choose wisely. 00:26:32 Gary: Exactly. 00:26:33 Dave: What about the setup. So we kind of talked about that a little bit on the steps. So if somebody is going to be choosing you know maybe they’ve got one of these trips coming up. What is the steps. What do you walk them through if you’re if they’re in your education center, what’s the first thing they think about? First call the local guides. You talk to their what else on getting the right rod action. Maybe think about durability. Are there any other features. 00:26:53 Gary: So yeah. So basically again for me I kind of always start with, you know, what do you already have if you are looking for a rod for a specific species or body of water, you know, fishery that you’re looking at, you know. What is that? You know, are you are you going to be going to Montana and fishing, you know, big wide open rivers. You know, are you looking for something to, you know, put in your backpack. You’re going to, you know, on a backpacking trip and you’re going to be hitting, you know, small little streams, you know, you want you want something that’s a little bit smaller and lighter and, you know, and all of that stuff. So that’s kind of always where I start is, you know, what kind of species are you targeting and where are you fishing? You know, because once we get to that point, then we can kind of start to narrow down, okay, in those two specific scenarios, once we’ve kind of figured that out, you know, what kind of flies are you going to be using? Are you going to be throwing streamers or you’re primarily going to be throwing dry flies or, you know, is it going to be nymph rigs or what is it going to be? And and once I kind of start to narrow that down, like I say, if they’re going to be leaning more towards, you know, lighter, lighter flies, you know, dry flies in particular, you know, I would steer them towards the frying pan or more of a medium fast action rod. If they’re going to be throwing heavier rigs, you know, more, you know, double nymph rigs under indicators or something like that, I would steer more towards, you know, a faster action rod or a Gunnison. 00:28:16 Dave: And the other one, you’re you’re slower. What was your third one? Uh. 00:28:20 Gary: Well, that’s, that’s the which is the euro rod. Oh. So. Yeah. So yeah. So again, to me, euro euro nymphing is really kind of more of a if you’ve never done it, it takes a while to learn the technique. Um, but I will tell you this. I’ve never caught more fish than I’ve caught Euro nymph. Right. And, you know, much like normal probably talk about, you know, virtually every competitive fly fisherman or, you know, or woman is there Euro nymphing like they are. 00:28:49 Dave: Yeah. 00:28:49 Gary: Yeah, they’re. 00:28:50 Dave: Good at it. Yeah. That’s one of their. 00:28:51 Gary: They’re really good at it. And it’s, you know, you just got such a direct connection between your fly and you know, the fish when the, the fish takes it that, you know, it’s, you know, most people will tell you again once you get the hang of it, and there’s a bit of a learning curve. But man, once you’re able to, you know, feel that strike as opposed to watching a strike indicator. And usually, you know, a lot of times when you see the strike indicator move, it’s too late. Yeah. 00:29:17 Dave: You know. 00:29:18 Gary: And so that’s a very productive way to fish. But it’s also a different way to fish, you know. 00:29:24 Dave: So yeah you got to feel it. What about the the durability of the rods. What makes are there any a couple tips. Like if somebody has this rod, what do you recommend to make sure that the rod will last for a lifetime. 00:29:36 Gary: Yeah. You know, one of the great things about kind of the modern carbon fibers and, you know, the epoxies that they use nowadays is, you know, the durability of rods has really improved. I mean, you know, that’s not to say if you slam one in a car door, it’s not you’re not going to end up with a, with an extra piece or. 00:29:53 Dave: Hit it with a split shot sort of thing. 00:29:55 Gary: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, you know, but if you take care of your rods, you know, we always recommend putting them in a rod to, you know. That’s usually what we see when we get a customer who’s broken a rod. They’ve either shut it in a car door, stepped on it, or had it in the back of their, you know, truck or SUV. 00:30:14 Dave: Without an A rod tube. 00:30:15 Gary: Yeah. Something rolled over it and broke it. 00:30:18 Dave: Right? Yeah. 00:30:19 Gary: Very rarely. And I mean very rarely do we ever see one that’s kind of a manufacturing defect. You know, and one of the things that, you know, one of the things we do with our rods is we offer a lifetime warranty with every rod. So and in addition to that, you know, we ship every rod with two tip sections. So the most vulnerable component or part of a four piece rod is going to be the tip section. You know, so it’s just the thinnest it’s the most fragile, you know something’s going to break. It’s generally going to be that so. So that’s one of the things we do that’s a little bit unique. I know you know one other company does that. But you know you’ve always got a backup tip section. So if you are out there on the water and something happens, at least you you’ve got an opportunity to finish your day or trip, you know. But our warranty rate again, we do a lifetime warranty. Again, if it’s a manufacturer’s defect, we cover it. We don’t charge anything for that. If it’s, you know, a breakage accident. You know, we charge thirty eight bucks for a replacement section. Um, you simply go on our website, you know, order that. That covers shipping. You know, we generally ship everything out the latest, the next business day. You know, the nice thing about, again, the consistency of how fly rods are built now is, you know, they’re basically interchangeable. I mean, we don’t we don’t require somebody to, you know, send in the part that was broken so we can evaluate and all that stuff. 00:31:38 Dave: We match it up. 00:31:39 Gary: We feel like people are pretty honest in this world. Yeah. And so if somebody calls us and says, hey, you know, it broke and it’s a manufacturer’s defect, we take care of it. But very rarely does that ever happen. 00:31:50 Dave: See, a lot of. 00:31:50 Gary: Those vast majority of people are like, yeah, like stepped on it or whatever. 00:31:54 Dave: No that’s true. 00:31:55 Gary: And so but but that being said, going kind of back to the question of durability. I mean, our warranty rate is probably less than half a percent. You know, we’ve shipped north of twelve hundred rods now, and the number of replacement sections we’ve had to send out is is very, very small. So the durability of them has been, you know, been pretty impressive. 00:32:16 Dave: Yeah, that’s kind of a non-issue. What about trout. You’re obviously in you know kind of that area. Tons of you know, the Mecca right. What do you keep busy like what is your you know, it sounds like you do a little bit of everything, but are you do you have a specific stream or do you cover everything out there? 00:32:33 Gary: Yeah. You know, so for me, like I said, for me in particular, I fish the Pecos a lot, which is, you know, about outside of Santa Fe. And, you know, it’s kind of a really, really nice, you know, freestone stream. And, you know, we like I say, I’ll take a seven foot six weight frying pan, three weight up there. And again, I can pretty much do everything I want to do with that. Or I’ll, I’ll, I’ll take that and I’ll take a euro ride and I’ll kind of go back and forth. But, you know, for that, you know, I’m using something like that. We have a couple streams up in the Jemez Wilderness that are much smaller. So again, I’ll either take that three way frying pan or our six, six, two way up there. You know, when you get up to the San Juan, um, again, a ten foot, four way, ten foot five weight has become super popular on that water, you know, and then you can get a lot of streamer action up there, too, you know, for some of the bigger fish, you know, so most people up there using, you know, the nine foot seven weight Gunnison fast action rod to throw the streamers up there. So yeah, there’s you know, again it’s there’s a lot of variety. But again, that’s not to say that if you’re new to fly fishing, you know, you can’t fish in all of those scenarios with a nine foot five weight because you absolutely can. 00:33:46 Dave: Yeah you can. So those are yeah. You mentioned a few of those. Uh, what are the handful of the top streams that people would, uh, would know of or have heard of in in New Mexico. 00:33:56 Gary: Yeah. So obviously our part of the world I mean, San Juan is the one. 00:33:59 Dave: That San Juan. 00:34:00 Gary: The most, the most well known. But again, the Pecos, the Rio Grande, you know, particularly up, you know, in the Taos area, there’s a great fishery, the, the, um, the Chama. Yeah, the great river, you know, there’s a that’s up closer to Espanola, obviously. Chama as a city or a city, a town up in northern New Mexico. You get down in kind of the southwest, you know, the Gila River, you know, is a great fishery down there. And they actually have what’s called it’s a it’s a species called the Gila trout, which is unique to that, you know, that part of the state. 00:34:35 Dave: And is that like a rainbow, a rainbow species, the Gila? 00:34:38 Gary: Uh, no, it’s it’s kind of hard to define. 00:34:42 Dave: Yeah, yeah, we’ll look up some do. 00:34:43 Gary: Yeah. Pull up a picture of their beautiful fish. You know, and I’m quite honestly, I’m not sure kind of what they are a descendant of, but you know, so then you get up in the air again, some of the smaller streams up in the Jemez and, you know, Red River up in again in northern Colorado, the Cimarron River up in northern Colorado, you know. But but those are kind of the kind of probably the most well-known fisheries in the state of New Mexico. 00:35:07 Dave: Yeah, yeah. Those are yeah. I’m looking I think I’m not sure if I’ve seen here’s a blog post here, and this is one from Drift Hook. I always love to look at some of the ones Matt has because he tries to cover the country. And these are there’s a few this will be let’s run through a couple of these, because I think you’ve got a lot of them covered and uh, a couple of these haven’t. So one of them here is the, um, the Brazos. Brazos River flows through northern New Mexico. Are you familiar with that one? 00:35:33 Gary: Yeah, that’s up near. That’s up near Chama as well. It actually flows into the Chama. Yeah. 00:35:38 Dave: Oh, it flows into it. Okay. 00:35:39 Gary: Yeah, yeah. Another really good river. 00:35:41 Dave: Yeah. There you go. And we got and you mentioned the the Chama. Of course up there you’ve got another one. The Cimarron. 00:35:47 Gary: Cimarron. 00:35:47 Dave: Cimarron. 00:35:48 Gary: Cimarron. Yeah. Cimarron River. Uh, Exactly. That’s a kind of in the. They call it the Enchanted Circle. And, you know, Red River Angel fire that area. 00:35:56 Dave: Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then. And then you’ve got Costilla Creek. Is that up in. 00:36:01 Gary: That Rio Castillo? Yeah. Okay. That’s another one up in northern New Mexico. Great. A great river as well. 00:36:06 Dave: Okay. And then he’s got some lakes. Uh, the Gila River. Yeah. I mean, there’s a ton. So it’s not just. And it’s not just rivers and big rivers. You have a mix of lakes and everything. 00:36:15 Gary: Yeah. There’s some. Not as many as I would say, like in Colorado, but there’s some pretty good high alpine lakes that you can, you know, you can access. You know, it takes some work to get there, which is usually where the best fishing is obviously. You know, but yeah, there’s there’s no shortage of, you know, quality water in the state of New Mexico. Right. Want to bring a fly rod out. So. 00:36:35 Dave: Yeah it is. And the cool thing about it is, is that you’re because you’re south of Colorado, just south. You probably have some maybe some better weather during the like. What is the winter? I mean, I guess depending if you’re up in the mountains, but where you’re at, what are the winters like there? Here. 00:36:48 Gary: Yeah. So it’s interesting. You know, Albuquerque in particular is is basically the same elevation as Denver. Oh, wow. But a lot of people, you know, it is more of a high desert environment. So a lot of people, you know, particularly they aren’t familiar with the area kind of think, oh, it’s it’s like Phoenix. 00:37:05 Dave: It’s like Phoenix, right. 00:37:06 Gary: You know, one of the what I said, what I tell people is, is, you know, it’ll get cold in the winter. We get a little bit of snow in this part of the world, but it doesn’t last very long. And we don’t get as hot as Phoenix in the summer. 00:37:19 Dave: So it’s like the best of both worlds. 00:37:21 Gary: Yeah. One of the, you know, one of the great things about New Mexico in general is we get I say, I tell people we get four pretty mild seasons, you know, the summers get hot, but not again. Phoenix hot winters get cold, but not, you know, like Denver, Colorado. Cold fall is absolutely the best time of year. Spring gets windy. But other than that, I mean, that’s that’s kind of our biggest from a weather standpoint. You know, the wind in the spring is kind of the biggest, you know, biggest challenge we have. So. 00:37:51 Dave: Okay, I’m looking at the Gila trout now and it says, yeah, it’s one of the rarest trout species in the United States. 00:37:58 Gary: Yeah. It’s and you get over just across the border in eastern Arizona. And, and they actually have another species over there called the Apache trout. Oh, yeah. Which is, you know, another one that’s pretty pretty rare. 00:38:09 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. The Apache. That’s right. So you can you’ve got a few of these Western. We’ve talked about that a little bit. Well this is where this is I’m looking at the Western Native Trout initiative. Yeah. Which they are great at helping people find and do the I think trout slams and all that. Right. Finding all these native species. 00:38:25 Gary: Yeah, exactly. I’ve actually never fished the Gila. It’s kind of one of the things on my list. But one of the places I’d like to get to but just haven’t made it yet. 00:38:34 Dave: Yeah, it looks like you’re in one area then. Also, there’s a little range of them over in Arizona too. Yeah, a couple of. Yeah. That’s cool. Okay, so we got some history. We’ll do a little more research on this and put some, uh, some links there, but, um. But good. Well, anything else on. You know, we’ve been talking rods. I had, you know, a few other questions, just like components. Maybe, maybe give us a little rundown on that. How important are components when you are choosing a rod like, you know, because there’s different levels and all that stuff. 00:39:01 Gary: Yeah. You know, if you get a rye, you know, any, any rod kind of, you know, I would say in our price point and above, you know, it’s generally going to have quality components to it, you know, for, you know, if you’re fishing saltwater, you know, that becomes, you know, that can become a challenge. So you really want to make sure, you know, you’ve got an anodized aluminum reel seat. Obviously with the reels, you know, you need a quality sealed reel, you know. But other than that, you know, what we use on our our six, seven and eight weight rods, you know, all come with an anodized aluminum real estate so that you could use them in the you know, you could use them in saltwater. And we have several people who’ve done that with good success. You know, our two way through five weights. Well, our six weight actually in the frying pan as well. We use burled wood. Real seats on those, you know, and they’re they’re extremely durable. They’re beautiful. Like each one of them is obviously different because it’s, you know, it’s wood. But man, they’ve got some really cool. A lot of them have some really cool. You know Burling to them you know, which is just kind of different patterns in the wood you know. And then you can get into grips you know generally on larger rods you’re going to have, you know, more probably a full wells type grip which is a little bit bigger and beefier. Whereas, you know, on the, you know, the smaller rods, we use a half wells grip, you know, so there’s those are kind of the things that we look at. I mean, obviously you got the guides, you know, we do what’s called snake guides on our frying pan series for the most part. And we use single foot guides on the the Gunnison Series and the Gunnison because it is a little bit faster action rod. It’s, you know, it’s it’s a touch heavier, you know, so the single foot guides help reduce weight a little bit. I mean, obviously with fly rods, we’re, you know, fly rods. You’re not talking about pounds here. You’re talking about grams, right. So but that is important to a lot of people. So yeah, it’s um, you know, the components. 00:40:54 Dave: They are important. Like you mentioned the handle, the reverse. How many are there, how many types of handles is it just the the full. I mean, I always think of I’m looking at it now I’m looking at a site here, the full wells. And I always have a hard time keeping them straight. But you have one that’s really kind of more finer, right. Maybe more of the fly. And that’s kind of your half wells. 00:41:14 Gary: Yeah. I mean, there’s all kinds of grips you can get. I mean, there’s one called a cigarette or I mean a cigar grip cigar. 00:41:20 Dave: Right. 00:41:20 Gary: And, you know, and one of the things, you know, that’s kind of cool is, you know, we don’t really do it. At one point we had a custom shop where we would build rods, you know, and basically turn our own grips. But you can kind of do anything you want if you’re if you’re turning your own grip, but far and away the two most common ones that I would say you’d find on any sort of production rod, or either a full wells or a or, you know, Wells. 00:41:43 Dave: So yeah, that’s it, that’s it. Yeah. And the full Wells is just the it’s kind of the bigger, uh. Right. The full Wells is kind of it’s got same size on both ends essentially. 00:41:52 Gary: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Whereas the half wells is tapered more towards the, you know, more towards the tip of the rod. 00:41:59 Dave: So yeah. And that makes sense for the, the finer stuff, the dry flies you want probably want to have a half wells. Yeah. So that’s easy. That’s easy to remember now. Yeah. Half wells are full wells and. Yeah. 00:42:08 Gary: Exactly. 00:42:09 Dave: So you got that and then um yeah. What else do we have here. Anything else to be thinking about? As far as you know, choosing a rod. Have we kind of covered the big pieces? 00:42:18 Gary: Yeah, exactly. You know, then you start to get into, you know, spey rods, you know, two handed rods, that kind of stuff, which, you know, is kind of out of our wheelhouse at the moment. We are. 00:42:26 Dave: Are you guys thinking about it? Are you guys looking at that a little bit. 00:42:29 Gary: Yeah, a little bit. I mean, you know, we really try to listen to our customers kind of our first thing is, is we’re getting more and more requests for like nine and ten way rods. 00:42:38 Dave: Oh, yeah. 00:42:39 Gary: Not so much. The two handed stuff. Because they’re, you know, not that we don’t. We ship all over the United States. But, you know, we also kind of want to try and stay in our lane a little bit too. Right. And you know, and stick with what we’re good at. I mean, that was that’s been kind of one of my philosophies since day one. Starting a business is I think a lot of a lot of companies, not just fly company, fly rod companies, you know, you can you can get out over your skis a little bit for lack of a better term. And so we really try to, you know, when we’re bringing new products online, we go through a really extensive, you know, testing program. You know, before we brought our reel line out, we fished those things for two years before we ever, you know, put them to market. It was kind of the same thing with our fly line that we came out with, you know. So again, we don’t we don’t necessarily want to be the biggest, you know, but we want to be, you know, we’re striving to be the best kind of at our price point. And, you know, backing that up with, you know, with the level of customer service that, you know, is kind of hard to find these days. And in a lot of instances. So, you know, we’ll slowly start to expand and add stuff to the product catalog. But, you know, we definitely are trying to do it in a, you know, a controlled pace that, you know, that, um, you know, keeps the level of quality where it needs to be for, for us. 00:43:57 Dave: Yeah. No, I love that that makes I think that’s a smart way to do it. And and the service is huge, right. I mean, that’s being able to call you up and, you know, ask questions, stop by the showroom here eventually and talk about the reels a little bit. You got the the reel, the Gila and the Pecos. What are the difference between those like if we’re setting these up, are they describe that a little bit. 00:44:17 Gary: Yeah. So the Pecos is, um, a fully sealed reel. Um, all of our reels are CNC milled. You know, they’re they’re extremely durable. Unless you’re, you know, really, the Pecos is you’re not going to want to use that unless you’re using, you know, seven, eight way rot. You know, it holds a ton of backing. It’s a little bit heavier. Like I say, it’s fully sealed. It’s, you know, great. If you’re if you’re fishing those bigger rods, you know, or salt water. 00:44:43 Dave: Yeah. So you could take this, you could grab your like seven or eight weight and go saltwater. That could be your setup. 00:44:48 Gary: Exactly. So you know the Gila we do you know on a two or three weight, which is a great little small way. It’s kind of a classic design. And then the kind of sits in between, you know, we do that in a three, four or five six and a seven, eight. Um, you know, it’s a large arbor. We’ll reel picks up line really quick. You know, aesthetically it’s kind of my favorite. It’s kind of we do it in a gunmetal and red, but we also do it in a black and red that yeah, I think looks really cool. 00:45:15 Dave: It does. Yeah. 00:45:15 Gary: The black and red and the, the charm is kind of what we call semi sealed. Um, it’s not fully sealed, but it’s, it does have a, you know, kind of a dust cover component to it that kind of keeps out debris and stuff like that. But but yeah, those are our three, you know, the three rail lines we have. Again, we’re looking to, you know, probably right now what we’re looking to do is we’re looking at some other real designs that we’re working on, you know, so that’s kind of probably the next thing on the product roadmap, I would say. That being said, we are we’re also in the process of very early stages of a looking at designing another another rod that’s going to be a little bit lighter. It’s a little bit different carbon fiber that we’re we’re currently working with. But yeah, we’re still really early in that in that process. 00:46:02 Dave: So yeah. Yeah. So this is going to be an even lighter than your. Yeah. The euro rod that you said. Yeah. 00:46:08 Gary: Exactly. 00:46:09 Dave: Yeah. So good. Well this has been good I think that um you mentioned a few. We’ve got some big another trip we have coming to is the Belize, you know, some Belize stuff going on. So I think that you mentioned it, the Paco’s reel with the, with the seven weight would probably be a great one to have in the quiver. 00:46:26 Gary: Yeah. Exactly seven or eight way for sure. 00:46:28 Dave: Yeah. Okay. good. Well, let’s do a quick wet fly swing pro shout out, and then we’ll take it out of here. Um, today I wanted to, uh, give a shout out to another rod builder. He’s got a, um. He does his own custom. He’s working in the bamboo space. Ed’s been on the podcast Ed Fuse. So we’re gonna give a big shout out to Ed. We’ve been doing some stuff. Um, we’re trying to theme some of our months, and we’re just coming out of, like, a sp-a kind of wet swinging theme. And we’re getting into really single hand casting is coming up. So we’re going to be talking all single hand casting. So first off, I want to give a big shout out to Wet Fly Swing Pro and Ed in there who’s doing good stuff. Um, as we get into our random segment here, maybe talk about that a little bit. So first off, we have this, you know, this community of people that are interested in getting better at fly casting. What is your recommendation for them to take it to the next level? What do you tell somebody when they’re thinking like, well, I’m okay, but I really need to get how do I get twenty more feet? What do you tell somebody like that? 00:47:23 Gary: You know, I think if you’ve got a fly casting instructor in your area or even a buddy who’s, you know, been doing it longer than you have. Just go out and spend some time with them, you know, and and I mean, at the end of the day, in my opinion, casting a fly rod, it’s not a hard thing to learn to do. It just takes some practice and some understanding. 00:47:43 Dave: It’s easier than swinging a golf club, right? 00:47:45 Gary: It’s it’s it’s way easier than swinging a golf club. 00:47:48 Dave: It’s way easier. So not just easier. It’s way easier than swinging a golf club. 00:47:52 Gary: Exactly. So, you know, and I think a lot of, you know, a lot of times is, is once you kind of understand that technique, you know, then go out and practice, you know, go out to a local park, you know, with your fly rod, you know, throw a paper plate down or a hula hoop, you know, and practice, you know, getting, just getting that fly to land, you know, and where you want it to land. You know, one of the things that I think, you know, people should do, probably early on in their fly fishing journey is, you know, get with a guide, go do a Wade trip, you know, with a guy, a good guide in your area, or even if you’re doing a float trip, you can learn a lot with that. But I think, you know, doing a weight trip with a good guide and learning how to, you know, read the water and do all that. And, you know, and you kind of tell the guy like, look, you know, I’m new to this. I really want to kind of use this as a fly fishing lesson. And those guys. Right. There’s no better people to learn from than those guys. 00:48:44 Dave: Yeah. Like instead of going out and saying, I want to catch the biggest fish today, you could just say, hey, I just want to learn how to maybe get better at my cast, all that. 00:48:52 Gary: Exactly. So I think, you know, it’s definitely worth the investment to do that kind of stuff. You know, it’ll definitely speed up, you know, your learning curve. I mean, once you get out there with somebody who really knows what they’re doing and can kind of educate you on, hey, here’s what we’re looking for. Here’s, you know, here’s how to read this water, here’s where we need to be trying to put our fly. You know, here’s the kind of fly we should be, you know, fishing in this type of, you know, this time of day or here’s what we’re looking for with hatches and that kind of stuff. I mean, you can just really shorten the learning curve, just spending a day or two with a guide on the water. 00:49:27 Dave: Yeah, those are huge, I think. Yeah. You mentioned a few of the practice and there’s a free thing, right? No cost at all. And we should all be practicing more and but yeah, I think the instructor and the guide are two big ones to. It costs a little bit of money. But your time the time and you know you’re going to save right over time is going to be amazing. 00:49:45 Gary: Exactly, exactly. 00:49:47 Dave: Yeah. Good. 00:49:47 Gary: You know and then you know again going back to the practicing, you know, it was the same thing in the golf business, right. You know, have a student come to me and be like, well I want I have I have this goal, I want to get to a two handicap like all right. Wow. 00:50:00 Dave: So somebody will come and they’ll be actually not just I want to get my swing straight, but they’ll say, yeah. 00:50:04 Gary: And so it’s like, all right, well, how much time do you have to practice a week? Well, I can practice on Saturday morning for an hour. 00:50:09 Dave: Oh, God. Right. 00:50:10 Gary: Not your expectation does not match your your goal. 00:50:14 Dave: And what is it, an a two handicap means you’re going to be almost a par golfer. 00:50:18 Gary: You’re shooting around par a couple over. 00:50:20 Dave: Which is crazy, which is my guess is there’s probably only a small percentage of people in the world that can do that. 00:50:25 Gary: Yeah, it’s definitely the much more the exception than the rule. But but yeah. So it’s you know, I think I think when you’re learning anything, you have to match your expectation to the amount of work that you’re willing to put into it. Right. So, you know, if you want to go, if you want to go fly fish once a year, it’s just a fun thing for you. Great. I mean, do that and then, you know, enjoy your time out in the wilderness, and you’ll probably get to the point where you can catch some fish. But, you know, if you really want to, you know, if you want to really want to get to a, you know, to a high level. Yeah, it’s going to take some work like anything. So yeah. 00:51:01 Dave: That’s great. Yeah. We I’m glad you mentioned this. I mean I think that if you have first start locally you mentioned a few. I’m sure there’s FFI has some certified instructors and we have in our pro community, we’ve got some instructors in there that will actually, if you want, send in a video of yourself casting and they’ll analyze and give you some tips online, which is kind of a cool way to do it too. 00:51:21 Gary: Yeah, absolutely. That’s the great thing with video and technology nowadays is. 00:51:25 Dave: Like the golf, right. Saying that’s probably where it came from. 00:51:27 Gary: Yeah, we did a ton of video work when I was in the golf business, you know, and even back then, I mean, the technology now is you take a better video on your iPhone than you could take with some of the expensive cameras we had. So cool. 00:51:39 Dave: That’s a great thing about it. So anybody here, everybody’s got the phone. You could literally just set it up and just film yourself casting and send it in to either in our group or anywhere else. And if you can’t get into somebody, at least get somebody to look at it to give you some tips. Yeah. 00:51:52 Gary: Yeah, exactly. 00:51:54 Dave: Okay, cool. Well, what about I want to here. So we got I know you got some guitars around there. Two guitars. Golf, fly fishing, fly casting. Is it harder to learn the guitar or golf to master those? 00:52:05 Gary: Wow. I mean, I guess I would say golf. I mean, the, the challenge with golf is, you know, you being able to put, put the club face on that ball consistently and being able to control where it’s going, you know, and being able to to get to, you know, again, if you want to get to a really high level, I think. 00:52:25 Dave: Really high. 00:52:26 Gary: Level. I think golf is the hardest sport. It is, in my humble opinion that there is just because and there’s so many variables to it. You got the, you know, you got no. Two golf courses are the same. No. Two golf shots are generally the same. You’ve got the short game, you’ve got putting, you’ve got hitting a driver, you’ve got hitting an iron, you know, navigating around trees, you know, all of this kind of stuff. And to me, the hardest part of golf, particularly once you get to a level where you’ve developed the technique to be able to consistently hit a golf ball, consistently hit a good chip shot. Yep. Then at that point, the mental aspect of the game is, you know what really sets great players apart from, you know, from people who may have the, you know, the technique and the talent aspect of it. But to really get it to a level where you know, the tour players are is, you know, it’s a whole it’s a whole different thing. 00:53:13 Dave: Yeah, it’s a whole nother it’s crazy. 00:53:15 Gary: You know, like I’ve always said that the hardest thing about golf is it’s not inherently a reaction sport. You got way too much time to think, and that’s what really kills most people, you know? Whereas, you know, I ski more than I do anything else. And, you know, once you once you learn the technique of skiing and you’re cruising down a run, you know, you don’t have time to think about it or think about playing tennis or basketball, like all those things. You’re, you know, you don’t have time to think. You’re just reacting to what’s in front of you, you know? So that to me is one of the the biggest challenges with golf, particularly when you get to a level where you’re pretty consistent in your ball striking and all that stuff. But, you know, being able to being able to overcome the mental challenges that that game tends to, to bring out is a big, big thing. You know, playing guitar, I mean, once you learn, you know, some basic fundamentals, you know, it’s, you know, to me it’s really about just putting in the hours and the work, you know. But again, I’m not by any stretch a great guitar player. I love doing it. But you know, I also I also don’t put as much time into it as I, as I one of the things I’ve learned to do as I’ve gotten older is manage expectations for myself. And so it’s like, alright, yeah, I’m not, you know, I’m not going to be playing at Carnegie Hall and that’s okay. 00:54:30 Dave: No, you’re not, you’re not the highest level. But yeah, you probably never will be. Most of us will never be. Right. 00:54:34 Gary: Yeah. I enjoy doing it. So yeah. And that’s that’s what I think that’s true for a lot of things in life. Right. And as we get older, we probably start to understand that more is it’s like, all right, what is really my goal here? What is what are my expectations need to be given the amount of work and effort I’m willing to put into it. 00:54:51 Dave: Right. And golf’s the same way, and fly fishing is maybe a little bit different, but kind of the same too. You’re never you just might not ever get to, you know, most people will never get to the Steve Rajeff level of fly casting. Exactly. Or any of these. But, um, what about your what about your guitar player? Do you have somebody you really love either live or dead, that’s out there? 00:55:12 Gary: Yeah. You know, I’m a big I’ve always been a big blues blues rock guy. Like, I mean, I love Clapton, you know, Stevie Ray Vaughan was like, one of my favorites. You know, B.B. King, you know those guys? Yeah. I just love kind of the that element and that, you know, that element of guitar. And that’s really what I play the most as a result. You know, I play a lot of blues and I love just, you know, putting on a, you know, a kind of a backing track. They call him, which is, you know, kind of drums and bass, you know, and then just noodling around and kind of making stuff up as I go along, which is, you know, you figure out the key the song is in and then, you know, just, you know, play some licks over that. I have a lot of fun doing that. 00:55:52 Dave: So, yeah. That’s good. Yeah. Stevie was awesome. He was the I mean, he was up there with all of them, right? Jimi Hendrix and. 00:55:58 Gary: Yeah, I, I loved him. He was definitely my favorite. 00:56:01 Dave: What’s one that has a, uh, one of the good guitar solos? There was a song that we could listen to on the way out of here. 00:56:06 Gary: That would be, oh, man. You know, honestly, one of my my favorite band is the Eagles whole Eagles. Yeah my favorite. You know my favorite song is Hotel California. 00:56:16 Dave: Hotel California. 00:56:17 Gary: The outro solo to Hotel California is is my favorite. 00:56:21 Dave: Okay, good. So can you play that? 00:56:22 Gary: I can muddle my way through it. 00:56:24 Dave: Yeah, because the Hotel California is one of those cool songs that everybody tried it, but it’s hard. 00:56:28 Gary: Yeah, the chord progression with that song is is a lot of fun. But, you know, the cool thing about that solo is, is Joe Walsh and Don Felder. It was kind of this, this dueling thing back and forth. 00:56:39 Dave: And so. 00:56:40 Gary: It was. 00:56:41 Dave: It was. 00:56:41 Gary: It was a really cool. 00:56:42 Dave: I’m glad you said this is one of my favorite parts. We’ll put a link to the show notes to that video so people can listen to it. And yeah. 00:56:48 Gary: Everybody should listen to more Hotel California. 00:56:50 Dave: We’re gonna do it right now. We’re gonna play Hotel California. Get it, get it going. So good. And then I also want to mention an episode we had, which was really awesome. Phil Blackmar was on. He was a PGA tour veteran. Do you remember Phil at all? 00:57:03 Gary: I do, yeah, I remember him from his playing days and he was he was also in the announcing world for a while. So yeah. 00:57:08 Dave: Yeah, he was a big guy. He was. I think he was the tallest pro golfer to ever make the tour. He was like six nine or something like that. 00:57:13 Gary: Yeah. He’s a he’s a big guy for sure. 00:57:15 Dave: Yeah, Phil was awesome. He said some of the same things. We were asking him about how to become a better golfer. And he said, get good at the short game. Right? Something people, everybody go out there, you’re like, okay, I want to drive this thing and do it. But really, the short game is a huge part of golf, right? 00:57:28 Gary: Yeah. If you want to shoot good scores in golf, spend your time working on the short game. And it was, you know, again, I taught golf for years. And you go to a driving range and there’ll be fifty people out there just pounding golf balls, you know, getting frustrated, ingraining their poor swings. And you look over at the short game area and there’s maybe two or three guys over there, and they are all the guys who are the good players. So. So it was pretty easy to see if you really want to get good at it, work on the short game. Not that you don’t have to learn how to hit the golf ball. 00:57:59 Dave: Oh yeah, you gotta have both. 00:58:00 Gary: You know, if you really want to learn to score, then you have to work on the short game. 00:58:04 Dave: That’s right. Short game. Cool. Awesome, Gary. Well, I think we’ll leave it there for today. We’ll send everybody out to San Juan. Com if they want to check in more on everything we talked about. And yeah, this has been a fun one Roy. Always great to catch up. And I’m going to be testing out some new species coming this year. So I can’t wait to, uh, you know, get some saltwater on the rod and you know what I mean? Yeah. Do some stuff out there. So. Yeah. Thanks again for all your time. 00:58:26 Gary: You got it. Appreciate it. Dave. Thanks. 00:58:29 Dave: All right, before we head out of here, one last thought. If you get a chance, check in with Gary and check out their lineup. Take it further if you have any questions about rods. Find out why people are talking so much about San Juan. Rod works right now. And and check in with Gary. Let them know you heard this podcast. I want to give you a big heads up. Our next episode, the Great Lakes Dude Podcast is back. Uh, Jeff is here and he is going to be bringing some good stuff, whether it’s a solo episode or a guest interview. Uh, you know, Jeff brings it. Jeff Lasky Great Lakes Dude podcast coming tomorrow. And I want to let you know, Teton Valley Lodge right now we are doing a giveaway if you want to get a chance to win the Teton Valley Lodge trip to Idaho Eastern Idaho, you can do that right now. Wet fly giveaway. You can enter there. And if you want to get more information on that trip, just let me know. Check in with me anytime. Hope you enjoyed this one. We are going to be in the middle of a casting month. In fact, that’s what we’re just getting started here. So if you’re interested in Wet Fly Swing Pro and want to take your cast to the next level, get some of the access there to our pros. Go to Wet Fly Swing and we’ll help you level up your cast this year. All right. That’s all I have for you. I hope you have a great morning and great afternoon or evening wherever in the country or world you are. And I appreciate you for stopping all the way till the very end here. We’ll see you and talk to you on the next episode. 00:59:51 Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit Wet Fly Comm.