945 | Carp Flats, Bonefish Trips, and Idaho Steelhead with Drew Evans from House of Fly

00;00;01;29 – 00;00;24;28 Dave The best site fishing in North America might be hiding in plain sight. Today, we’re talking to Drew Evans about a fish that can sharpen your casting and prove your accuracy, prepare you for saltwater trips, and completely change the way you look at fly fishing. Today we get into carp flats tactics, the carp claim. We’re going to talk about steelhead and a remote Idaho fishery that belongs on every swing anglers bucket list. 00;00;25;06 – 00;00;41;04 Dave 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. Drew Evans is back on the podcast today. He is from the House of Fly and the Fly Project. 00;00;41;04 – 00;00;57;12 Dave We’re going to go over what he’s been up to the last few years here, including a couple of carp caves. Talk about saltwater fishing. You’re going to find out why carp may be the closest thing to bone fish you’ll find in freshwater. We’re going to find out about this drag and drop presentation. And that consistently gets fish to commit. 00;00;58;01 – 00;01;14;24 Dave And we’re also going to hear how to tell the difference between a fish that’s feeding and one that’s not. And also what a productive carp flat actually looks like. All right, let’s get into it. This is a good one. Here is Drew Evans. You can find him at the house of Flygskam tied in. 00;01;14;24 – 00;01;20;16 Drew Evans Drew I’m doing great, Dave. I’m stoked to be back. It’s it’s an honor and a pleasure to get to chat with you again. 00;01;20;25 – 00;01;37;09 Dave Yeah, Yeah, It’s. It’s going to be fun. We talked. It’s been a couple of years now. The last episode 615, back in 2024, we talk carp, all things carbon ink. Today we’re going to get back into carp because I wanna hear about the carp Clay. We also are going to talk about some other good stuff you have going with steelhead fishing and travel. 00;01;37;21 – 00;01;47;26 Dave And we’re just going to cover everything you have at the Fly project, the House of Fly and all that. So but maybe take us back first. What’s been going on? It’s been a couple of years, what you’ve been up to last last two years out there. 00;01;48;08 – 00;02;18;26 Drew Evans Yeah. So, yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of travel, like you said, mostly saltwater trips. But digging deeper into the carp game. We’ve had a couple of carp claims since the last time we chatted and that was kind of the the thing that got us talk in the first time, but just been trying to get in as much saltwater experience as I can and, you know, dialing in some of the small mouth fisheries a little bit further here in my local home waters and trying to catch those elusive steelhead whenever it’s possible. 00;02;18;26 – 00;02;23;01 Drew Evans But I kind of suck at it. So you got to work twice as hard. 00;02;23;01 – 00;02;26;04 Dave Yeah, it’s tough. And remind everybody where your home waters is. 00;02;26;15 – 00;02;53;00 Drew Evans Yeah. So I’m here in Lewiston, Idaho, so I fish mostly on the Grand Ronde, the Snake and the Clearwater, but a little bit on the salmon as well. So those are the main places that I fish for bass, carp and steelhead. And then if I do sneak out to go do some trout fishing, we’re talking about like the locks or the spillway, the Saint Joe, the north fork of the Clearwater. 00;02;53;00 – 00;02;54;17 Drew Evans But that’s kind of where I call home. 00;02;55;00 – 00;03;10;20 Dave That’s it. Perfect. Well, in the carpet we talked a lot about on the last episode. We’ll have a link to the show notes to that one. But maybe talk about the carp gave us an update. How has that been going? Has been a couple years. Is that something that’s been getting bigger? Is carp still growing out there? What’s that look like? 00;03;11;06 – 00;03;31;25 Drew Evans Yeah, I think it’s definitely getting bigger and growing. We have more and more interest all the time in the shop, people looking to get into it and finding a different avenue to to have something to occupy their time to fish for other than trout. But we had a couple of those claims. We took a pause on it this year to kind of let it breathe. 00;03;31;25 – 00;04;07;13 Drew Evans And then I think we’re going to come back with a new format next year. But we had it in Boardman two years in a row. We had a Bill master Bill Akins, Ryan, Mark and Eric Linenger speak at the event both years, and it was great. Lots of people getting into the fishery because of it. And last year, the last time we had it, we got some really great media that kind of allows people that weren’t able to make it to the event to see what we were talking about in those classroom presentations on the water. 00;04;07;13 – 00;04;22;17 Drew Evans So if you go to how to fly or fly projects, YouTube channels, you’ll be able to see those videos and learn about techniques like the drag and drop, learn about fly selection approach, all those types of things. 00;04;22;27 – 00;04;23;13 Dave That’s cool. 00;04;23;28 – 00;04;24;11 Drew Evans Yeah. 00;04;24;29 – 00;04;31;04 Dave So the Fly project. So on the YouTube channel you guys recorded like Live on the River and then put it up on YouTube. 00;04;31;18 – 00;04;50;24 Drew Evans We did. Yeah. That was kind of the goal with year one, but just due to some weather factors, that wasn’t going to be conducive to that. So we wanted to make sure and and get some footage on the water so that folks could see in real time. What are we talking about here when we when we talk about some of these techniques? 00;04;51;07 – 00;05;06;10 Dave That’s awesome. Okay. That’s perfect. We’ll put a link to that out there in the show notes as well so people can take a look. And that’s a great idea. So people can not only if they’re in person, you know, obviously get some in person and ask questions, but now they can watch the recording and you can connect with a lot more people, right? 00;05;06;27 – 00;05;30;01 Drew Evans Absolutely. Because I know it is kind of like speaking a different language at first when you’re talking about this flat fishing thing. And that’s really what we’re trying to copy with the carp game. You know, people come in and ask, Do you use a sinking line? Do you use like big streamers? And, you know, not at all. We’re using completely different stuff. 00;05;30;13 – 00;05;45;05 Drew Evans So when you’re starting at a baseline where you just don’t have any clue, it’s kind of hard to to know, What are you talking about when you say casting in a shallow flat? So yeah, being able to have those videos helps a ton, I think. 00;05;45;16 – 00;06;01;16 Dave Yeah, that’s sweet. And what is it that you mentioned? You’ve been doing some travel around in the salt and all that. How similar is it to it? Sounds like it’s very similar, but is it pretty much the same? If you were fishing for carp and headed to salt or fish and salt and headed for the first time in carp, would it be pretty identical? 00;06;01;27 – 00;06;27;26 Drew Evans Absolutely. And I mean, really, it’s kind of funny. That’s how I came to get into saltwater. Fishing in general was through flats, fishing for carp. There are so many opportunities to do it here locally and my really good friend and guy that works in the company as well, Tyler Ball actually manages our Cortland shop. He just kept saying over and over again for a couple of years, We’ve got to go carp fishing. 00;06;27;26 – 00;06;52;13 Drew Evans You’ve got to come try it. He hosted Bonefish trips to Christmas Island for the better part of a decade. So for him, it was obvious. For me it wasn’t. You know, I was very skeptical at first and I couldn’t get it. And once he took me and showed me these different approaches and techniques and the challenge of it, it kind of got me really interested in this whole flat fishing thing. 00;06;52;29 – 00;07;12;28 Drew Evans And once I was able to stick a few carp and get some experience under my belt, he invited me to go to Texas and Fish for redfish. It just opened a whole new world again. And now saltwater is like the only thing I obsess over. And just any time I can go do a saltwater trip, that’s what I want to go do. 00;07;13;10 – 00;07;25;03 Dave That’s it. That’s cool. What is the you mentioned the new the approaches, techniques. What does that look like for carp? What are the things you guys are doing out there? Is this in the the snake, the Columbia system? Kind of a lot of places out there. 00;07;25;14 – 00;07;53;02 Drew Evans Yeah. Both I fish on the snake mostly just because it’s close from my doorstep to the boat ramp. I’m about 7 minutes and from the from the boat ramp to my favorite flat, that’s about another seven. So very, very close. But yeah, we’re using basically a saltwater setup, right? We’re using seven weight to an eight weight, some kind of line that’s really tapered like a saltwater line. 00;07;53;02 – 00;08;17;22 Drew Evans Or if it’s warm enough, you can just use a straight up saltwater line like a bone fish taper any all purpose flat taper. But we’re using something that’ll cast at distance into the wind just like in conditions that you’re going you’re going to experience on saltwater flats. And we’re using in most cases along the leaders like you would use for really picky bone fish. 00;08;18;07 – 00;08;36;19 Drew Evans And we’re trying to feed these pretty discerning fish, this little fly on the fly, just like you would bones or redfish or permit, but super, super similar. And it’s great practice for that first saltwater trip or the 100th saltwater trip you’ve been on. 00;08;37;01 – 00;08;52;12 Dave Yeah, that’s the great idea. That’s that’s probably because you can I mean, practicing in the wind just on the lawn, you know, in the grass is good for sure if you can do that. But getting on the water actually doing it for carp with the because the Columbia rate system now, there’s plenty of wind out there. If you hit it at the right there, is it probably windy? 00;08;52;12 – 00;08;53;23 Dave More days than not out there, isn’t it? 00;08;53;27 – 00;09;11;25 Drew Evans Oh, yeah. Unbelievably windy in same can be said for the snake here lately. Over the last few years I get so discouraged because there’s so many days I want to take the boat out and I’ll look at the look at the wind and it’s going to be like 20 and there’s whitecaps out there. So yeah, you can’t go. 00;09;11;25 – 00;09;36;27 Drew Evans But yeah, it’s, it can be very windy and you, you definitely want to pick your days but yeah, the just the sheer number of targets that you get when you’re carp fishing it’s great great practice for that saltwater trip because in some instances with bonefish or redfish or whatever it may be, not so much with reds but with bones and permit, you’re not going to get that many targets. 00;09;37;12 – 00;10;01;07 Drew Evans You got to make every shot out. So if you can sit there and get in reps that, you know, a hundred carp in a day and you can replicate that over several, several outings, you’re going to be tuned up and ready to stick that £10 bonefish, to stick that trashcan lid sized permit. And that’s that’s what we’re all hoping for when we go on those trips. 00;10;01;17 – 00;10;15;08 Dave Yeah, exactly. What is the distance for the carp and say if you take it to the also the flats, you know, what is that distance you need to be able to cast accurately in there. You’re trying to get it within about a pipe plate or something like that. I would describe that a little bit. 00;10;15;25 – 00;10;50;19 Drew Evans Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, just like with any scenario in fishing or fly fishing specifically, it all depends, of course, right in my walk and in wading or in my on the bow of a boat. How good is my guide? How good am I? Those things all play a factor. But I think if you know, okay, I can dial in a cast at 50 feet pretty accurately, you’re going to be in good conditions to make a good cast of fish, whether you’re talking carp or bones or whatever you got. 00;10;51;04 – 00;11;10;04 Drew Evans You know, I think that’s a big fallacy about saltwater flats fishing. And obviously, I’m not I’m not flip pellet, I’m not draw on. I’m not one of these guys. But I don’t think you need to be able to cast 100 feet at all. No seldomly if ever do you need to do that and with carp and saltwater both. 00;11;10;04 – 00;11;13;01 Drew Evans I really don’t want to make the 100 foot cast. 00;11;13;01 – 00;11;14;13 Dave No, that’s a long ways. 00;11;14;18 – 00;11;33;02 Drew Evans It’s a long ways. And not only that, but I might spook for other fish that I didn’t even see When my line hits the water. Trying to get that one fish that’s that I can see that’s 80 feet out. And let’s say I made a bad cast or cool. Now that flat’s probably ruined because all those fish are scared. 00;11;33;24 – 00;11;59;07 Drew Evans And especially if you’re walking and wading, you don’t really have the ability to find new fresh fish very quickly. So you really want to be able to dial it in, I think at about 50 feet, you know, if you if you can cast further in that. Awesome. But yeah, definitely that pie plate scenario is great with carp, not so much with those other species, although I think it would work. 00;11;59;15 – 00;12;02;13 Drew Evans We use that dragon’s your up technique. 00;12;02;18 – 00;12;09;01 Dave Yeah, yeah. Describe that again. Just in case we got some new people that didn’t hear that one. What is that drag and drop? Is that something just for carp? 00;12;09;01 – 00;12;46;11 Drew Evans Mainly it. Yeah, I definitely use it a lot more for carp, but the drag and drop includes finding your target, casting past the fish’s face, lifting up your rod tip so that your line in your fly and your leader are basically just all up out of the water. You’re going to drag, drag, drag, drag and drop it so that it’s either dropping at kind of a 45 degree angle on the left or right side of the fish’s face within eyesight of there that side of their body that towards the broad side so they can see that fly drop. 00;12;47;00 – 00;13;12;06 Drew Evans That’s what you’re after and you’re kind of just killing it immediately. Once you get that fly to that 45 degree angle, you’re just going to let it fall. And that technique seems to work the best for getting carp to eat that we’ve found so far. But yeah, we use that a ton. With Bonefish. I don’t necessarily use that same technique because they they’re always moving, right? 00;13;12;06 – 00;13;30;20 Drew Evans They never stop carp. They’ll kind of hang out, do their own thing. They’re, they’re weird, moody fish that are unpredictable. You’ll hear people talk about sunning carp, which means they’re just sitting there, laid up you know, on the have fish will never eat. Yes, it will. They will they will eat. 00;13;30;27 – 00;13;31;15 Dave No kidding. 00;13;31;23 – 00;13;53;08 Drew Evans And sometimes they won’t, you know. But a lot of times they will. And that drag and drop seems to get them to want to eat and then even fish that are cruising. But with bones, you’re probably going to lead them a lot further. Same thing with Permit. The closest thing I would say to kind of that laid up style of fishing is is more with tarpon. 00;13;53;20 – 00;14;09;03 Drew Evans And again, in that case, I don’t really want to cast past them. I want to hit them in that dinner plate. So I think that, yeah, carp is really more particular to that drag and drop thing that we’re talking about. 00;14;09;03 – 00;14;18;27 Dave Drag and drop. Cool. And then you have maybe talk about flies. I know you have a new flier, too, out there. Describe what you’d be using or maybe what somebody else could use out there for carp. 00;14;18;27 – 00;14;44;11 Drew Evans Yeah, definitely. So I use a lot of like crab style flies. They’re just smaller versions of strong arms. They’re, you know, something like that. That’s an epi style bodied fly. And the reason why I do that is because they land soft. But they sink quick and I can kind of control with that drag and drop where they go really effectively. 00;14;44;24 – 00;15;08;26 Drew Evans So I really dig those. But I have a new fly that I just came up with that I stole a lot from for my buddy Darryl Aikens. He’s got a flight called the Detroit Mob City and mine is the the yada yada. But it’s very, very similar. It’s kind of like a grub tail. I use galaxy mop chenille from hairline to tie it. 00;15;09;12 – 00;15;32;06 Drew Evans And it kind of came to me after I was teaching bass worms. So if you’ve ever tied bass worms, you know, kind of be able to picture this, but you get a worm hook like you would get from your regular old bass fishing department and you tie in a length of chenille and then you tie in another length that’s about twice that length. 00;15;32;20 – 00;16;09;03 Drew Evans And you kind of wrap over those two pieces and braid it together and then tie it back together on the shank and burn it so that it all kind of sticks. Well, I, I started thinking I could make a tail that was like that. But, you know, half an inch long for carp. So I used those two materials and wrapped them and made this cool little tail that has a ton of movement and kind of aids in making not only the flies hook point lift up, but also gives it kind of this wobble once it hits the flap. 00;16;09;03 – 00;16;20;13 Drew Evans So you get movement without having to move the fly. And to me, I think that’s what makes it work pretty well. But yeah, I’ll have to mail you some of those so you can check them out. 00;16;20;24 – 00;16;23;29 Dave Yeah. Are those can people find those at the house of Flier anywhere out there. 00;16;24;10 – 00;16;46;13 Drew Evans Yeah. So they’ll be available on our website House fly dot com. In our small batch section. I kind of curated all the fliers for our American Small Batch program, so I always feel corny putting any of my own stuff on there since we’re we’re getting fliers from a lot of really good tires, but this is one that I feel like is kind of worthy. 00;16;46;13 – 00;16;48;14 Drew Evans It’s been a good pattern for me so far. 00;16;48;22 – 00;16;54;15 Dave That’s cool. And we’re and so on. The House of Fly Ecom, you would go under. What section would you go under? 00;16;54;24 – 00;16;59;15 Drew Evans So you go under flies. And and then there’s there’s a tab for American small batch. 00;16;59;23 – 00;17;01;02 Dave American small batch. Okay. 00;17;01;03 – 00;17;23;20 Drew Evans Yeah. Yeah. So that one should be in there, but it’s got tungsten bead on the front and then it has two little bead chain eyes, and that bead helps it to sink really fast with that tail up in the air. And then those bead chains, again, like I said, they kind of just help keep it stable and it kind of promotes that wobble and that little wobble. 00;17;23;20 – 00;17;47;19 Drew Evans It seems like it drives them nuts. So it’s been been cool to experiment with. It’s still pretty new, but yeah, that one, that one’s been working great. And then I have another weird little crab style fly that I call the Urban Sombrero, and it’s basically just an EP crab that’s just small with a and I do different tails on it. 00;17;47;19 – 00;18;10;26 Drew Evans You can use like squirmy wormy style tails. MFC has a great material. It’s called Squirm and it’s just like, I think it’s just coated chenille like the super chenille that you would use to tie a San Juan worm, but a lot more durable than than that. I’m blanking on the name of that material that you tie squirmy worms with. 00;18;10;28 – 00;18;14;08 Drew Evans Okay, yeah, that stuff. 00;18;14;20 – 00;18;37;22 Dave This episode is brought to you by AVC Rig Adventure Vehicle Concepts out of Colorado. These guys build next level adventure vans designed to help you explore farther and stay out longer. Are you dreaming of a full van build? Or maybe you just need the best aluminum cabinets and storage for your DIY rig? AVC Rig makes it easy to turn your vehicle into the ultimate mobile base camp. 00;18;37;28 – 00;19;00;02 Dave You can check them out right now at AVC Rig. AECOM That’s a v c rig. AECOM. I want to go back to the line. You mentioned the taper. What is the the taper you want to be able to cast into the wind, you know, the salt or or like on the carpet? What would be the line if you were going to pick one up? 00;19;00;02 – 00;19;03;27 Dave There wasn’t like a saw that was more of a cold water line that you could use out there. 00;19;04;14 – 00;19;30;20 Drew Evans Yeah. If you’re just going to get a line that you can find really readily available at any fly shop. Scientific anglers impex is a good one. And depending on the the stiffness of your rod, if you’ve got a really fast rod, you might go up a line size just to give you a little bit more punching power. If you’re pretty good caster, you can even just use the infinity also from scientific anglers. 00;19;30;29 – 00;19;34;14 Dave Yeah, and the infinity. What’s the difference in the infinity and the impacts. 00;19;34;26 – 00;19;45;13 Drew Evans Just a much longer taper. I think the impacts, as I remember it, is about 37 feet and then the infinity is 47 feet I think. 00;19;45;15 – 00;19;58;12 Dave Oh 47 and ten or 15. So it’s longer, it’s more of a that’s interesting about the fly lines. You know, you’ve got all this. That’s why it’s great to have a fly stop to go in and be like, okay, what do I need here? Because I’ve got this rod. And that’s kind of challenges. Like, what have you have this rod? 00;19;58;13 – 00;20;03;16 Dave How do you know? You know how fast the rod is? How would you tell somebody if they’re sitting here with the rod and they’re not sure? 00;20;04;00 – 00;20;08;11 Drew Evans Well, the first thing that you don’t want to do is pick up the rod and wiggle it. 00;20;08;23 – 00;20;23;24 Dave So that’s the way you go. Well, I’ve heard that before. The the old shop will go right. You’ve got 30 feet. I’ve asked this isn’t fly casting instructors like, is that really a good thing to do it? Actually, the three ply is if you’re like an expert in, you know, Yeah, you will know. But most people won’t be able to tell no. 00;20;23;24 – 00;20;34;01 Drew Evans And I would argue, even if you are an expert, I don’t think you’re going to be able to tell that. Well, but I think maybe you can. I don’t claim to be an expert at anything. 00;20;34;01 – 00;20;34;20 Dave I gotcha. 00;20;34;24 – 00;20;42;25 Drew Evans But I think the best way to tell is pretend to be cast and watch where the rod bends when you’re pretending to make the test. 00;20;42;29 – 00;20;45;12 Dave You mean without a line? Just to. Just with that? With no line on it? 00;20;45;17 – 00;21;06;21 Drew Evans Yep. Just pick it up and. And just pretend like your cast and watch where that rod bends the other way is that you can take the rod tip and put it on the floor lightly and bend it and see where that flex happens. If it’s a deep flexing rod, what we call a deep flex rod or a slower rod, it’s going to go back towards the handle or the mid-section. 00;21;07;04 – 00;21;29;22 Drew Evans If it’s a faster rod, it’s going to stop, you know, towards the tip more so depending on those factors. And then also if you ever house a fly any of our locations, we’re all nerds about this stuff and we’re all super happy to inform you or just take you outside and go cast so we can put a line and the real on and go try out whatever rod you want to try. 00;21;29;22 – 00;21;39;13 Drew Evans And that’s, that’s probably the quickest, best, easiest way to figure out what’s my casting style and how does that best match a fly rod. 00;21;39;25 – 00;21;41;14 Dave Right? Yeah, Just get out and cast it. 00;21;41;14 – 00;22;02;15 Drew Evans Yeah, totally. And if you have somebody with you that is watching you cast, they can say, You know what, man? I think this rod is actually going to work better for X-Y-Z Reason and you’re going to want this line for it. I think no matter where you are leaning on your local fly shop, it’s always a good idea to dial in all your gear and technique. 00;22;02;24 – 00;22;21;29 Dave Yeah, that’s the way to do it. Go in the shop, bring your rod in, bring your gear and say, Hey, I need. I need something that fits. And like you said, it might be up sizing you. So if we had the let’s say we have this rod that bends, you know, a little bit deeper, you know, and it’s kind of more of a medium or full flex then you would want to go with potentially like the Infiniti, right. 00;22;21;29 – 00;22;29;04 Dave The line, the longer line, because it can handle that kind of situation for those fast action. You want more of a shorter head. Is that the situation? 00;22;29;16 – 00;22;51;13 Drew Evans Yeah, 100%. No, definitely agree with that. And then also some of it’s just your ability to if you can turn over a line and a fly pretty easily, you’re kind of open to cast whatever you like. But I think that those heavier weighted, shorter tapers are good training wheels. If you’re not an experienced caster. Yep. 00;22;51;21 – 00;23;09;10 Dave That’s it. Yeah. And it’s interesting because there’s there’s the pluses and minuses of each right. Because the Infiniti the longer probably has more of the gradual taper it’s going to be more a little more subtle right. For landing things probably a little bit in the others. It’s like that speed difference, right. This gadget versus this candy, it’s kind of the same sort of thing where you got this. 00;23;09;10 – 00;23;16;20 Dave Are you fishing for summer steelhead? Really want this subtle thing? Are you fishing for winter steelhead where you want to focus these giant flies? It’s kind of same thing we’re talking about here, right? 00;23;17;03 – 00;23;38;11 Drew Evans 100%. Yup. And when I talk about tapers and fly lines on the wall, when I do my one on one classes, I talk about them as being tools. You know, like when you look at the wall, there’s screwdrivers and hammers and everything else in between. It just depends on what the task is and figuring out what tools are going to work best. 00;23;38;23 – 00;23;54;14 Dave Yeah, that’s it. Okay, cool. So we’ve got a couple in scientific anglers, obviously. Great. There’s a bunch of good companies, I’m sure that have similar lines, but we got a couple out there, so. Yeah. And then Rod Wise, let’s just remind folks on that. Do you like a what’s your length of the rod you like to use for carp? 00;23;55;00 – 00;24;18;16 Drew Evans I would say in general, just nine feet is going to be good. There are some newer rods on the market that are really big flip pallets rod that he just came out with. With Echo, it’s a93. It’s called the Overcast and it’s got tremendous power, but it’s a deeper flexing rod. So very unique. I think that’s a really, really cool rod. 00;24;19;04 – 00;24;50;07 Drew Evans But I do dig shorter odds two St Croix has They’re tannic and I love that Rod Echo also has the eight for B, so if I’m making short little stab casts off the bow, my boat and I know I’m not going to need to bomb anything out, I reach for those shorter rods and then if I’m going to go walk and Wade and do some target practice that distance, then I’ll probably just stick to that nine foot or even, like I said, like a93 in that flip pellet rod that I think is sweet. 00;24;50;17 – 00;24;57;08 Dave Yeah. Okay. And so you don’t have to go to like a ten foot or something long like that. There’s no real advantage out there on the flat. 00;24;57;19 – 00;25;15;19 Drew Evans You know, I think back in the day a lot of guys did that to me and my style and how I cast it doesn’t seem to give me an advantage. But if you have that or you have access to a ten foot or you use it, it’s going to be great. But for me personally, it just doesn’t seem like it does that much extra. 00;25;15;19 – 00;25;24;29 Drew Evans I think really more than anything, it’s just dialing in the right line with the rod that you have, your fly lines, everything. 00;25;25;09 – 00;25;39;08 Dave Yeah, that’s why this is so important. I know if you get and you mentioned over lightning, how would you know? I guess going back to that for a second, how would you know when to up at a line, you know you’ve got an eight waiting to move up to a nine way. Just I guess you’d have to cast it or what are your thoughts there. 00;25;39;23 – 00;26;04;21 Drew Evans Yeah, definitely casting and see how the rod interacts with the fly line. I think being really careful to when you pick out a fly line because some of them are already over lined. So you can always ask a fly shop, talk like me, is this going to work? Well, because like I said, some lines like, for example, scientific, English, bass, bug line, it’s another good line for carp, but it’s two line sizes heavy. 00;26;05;04 – 00;26;24;14 Drew Evans So I’ll play with the numbers there a little bit and put like a six weight on my eight weight or maybe even a seven weight on my eight weight. But it just depends. Sometimes I might want that extra flex and I think it’s just going to depend on that. Rod And then also your casting style is a big part of it too. 00;26;24;27 – 00;26;48;25 Drew Evans If you’re a great caster or a newer caster, that’s maybe not so good. Using that little extra heft from a heavier weighted line can help flex that rod a little bit more and get you some better feel and contact, especially when you’re you’re learning the double hull, which is another critical aspect of not only carp on the flats, but anywhere you go flat fishing. 00;26;48;25 – 00;26;56;21 Drew Evans I can’t stress enough. Please, please practice the double hull cast before you go on one of these trips. If you don’t, you’re going to be sorry. 00;26;57;03 – 00;27;04;01 Dave Yeah. The double hull. That’s a key. A key part of it. Because you can just line speed, right? That’s a huge part of this. Getting your line speed up. 00;27;04;26 – 00;27;19;27 Drew Evans Line speed and constant control of your line. Everything with the site casting thing on the flats is all about control. Being able to control where that fly lands in a hurry is the difference between catch and fish or not. 00;27;20;11 – 00;27;35;12 Dave Yeah. Yeah. I think it and it applies to almost a lot of places in fly fishing, you know where we’re heading out for Atlantic salmon here at the end of the month and of course the same sort of thing. We got, you know, a similar set up. It’s going to be windy there probably. We’ve got to be accurate. 00;27;35;12 – 00;27;49;13 Dave You know, Atlantic salmon are a little bit different because for these because they’re on the surface, you got to land it like nice and straight. You can’t do a pile one out and do a big man. You got to be like accurate, you know, So you’ve got all these things planned, so you got to have this lying and rod that can same thing. 00;27;49;13 – 00;28;02;02 Dave They can shoot out there and you have control of it. So it’s a you know, I guess in the double haul will obviously be a big part of that. So I think that’s a you know, I think everybody could probably practice the double haul a little bit and get a little bit better as you go. 00;28;02;18 – 00;28;21;02 Drew Evans Definitely. Yeah. I think no matter where you’re fishing, what you’re fishing for, once you learn that double haul, it’ll just it’ll just be the way that you cast after that for the most part, because it just makes life easier. But especially on the flats, it’s, it’s very imperative that you know how to do it. Where are you going to go? 00;28;21;02 – 00;28;22;06 Drew Evans Fish. Atlantic. 00;28;22;06 – 00;28;25;12 Dave So we’re heading out to Newfoundland to Mountain Waters Resort. 00;28;25;23 – 00;28;26;24 Drew Evans Oh, cool, man. 00;28;26;25 – 00;28;41;16 Dave Yeah, it’s pretty epic. We’re going to the same waters that Lee Wolfe, his lodge was back in the day. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, He had a camp on on the same Portland creek, the same exact place. We’re going to be fishing. The same runs that Lee fest back in the day when he flew his plane in there. You know, that’s pretty cool. 00;28;41;25 – 00;28;47;02 Drew Evans That’s super cool. That’s high on the bucket list for me. It’d be be cool to go do that trip. 00;28;47;14 – 00;29;01;08 Dave Yeah, totally. We’ve been re I know since I’ve been young there’s been a lot of I mean, really summer steelhead. You know all about summers out there where you’re at. I mean a lot of the people, when they first started fishing for summers, you know, they learned they use Atlantic salmon techniques and there’s a number of books out there. 00;29;01;08 – 00;29;06;26 Dave Right. So a lot of that grease line fishing and stuff is really comes from Atlantic salmon, which is kind of cool. 00;29;07;07 – 00;29;13;09 Drew Evans Yeah, it’s still huge out here. I mean, that’s kind of the the thing that everybody lives and dies by. 00;29;13;09 – 00;29;23;08 Dave Is it still head still, Yeah. Out where you’re at. I mean, you’re in this place. I mean I’m like lower way down and we have it here too. But you’re in a place that’s pretty, pretty epic, right, For steelhead? 00;29;24;00 – 00;29;42;03 Drew Evans Yeah, I would say so. I’ve been fortunate enough to get to grow up here and fish for him basically all my life. But, you know, spey and fly fishing for him is pretty new to me. Only in the last probably seven years, six years, something like that. 00;29;42;17 – 00;29;55;15 Dave Right? That’s cool. So you got into Spey like a little bit more, more recent. You’re not back in the back in the the old school, you know, I got into it late as well. So it’s I’m still you know what I mean? I’m still learning a lot of stuff to learn to. 00;29;55;24 – 00;30;20;21 Drew Evans Yeah I grew up gear fishing for him a bunch you know my dad is an excellent angler, so we always had fish. We always got fish. But the spey thing, and especially like you’re talking with mid bellies, long bellies, grease line. And so skating dries or, or running a small little Atlantic salmon style patterns that that was all a brand new paradigm to me. 00;30;20;21 – 00;30;27;18 Drew Evans But yeah, I always jokingly call this GB’s country because everybody just wants to fish green but skunk. 00;30;27;27 – 00;30;34;04 Dave All right, the green. Is that the classic If you had to pick the most classic steelhead pattern out there, is that one of them. 00;30;34;12 – 00;30;55;22 Drew Evans In this area? At least? I would say, yeah. I would say pretty much everybody that comes to visit here, unless if you’re a coastal guy that mostly just fishes gadget stuff, you’re pretty much going to have green But skunks and every fly box that you see on the river, everybody faces them, or Blue Charms or, you know, all those OG patterns like that. 00;30;55;28 – 00;31;03;04 Dave Yeah, all the old stuff, all the. So you’re fishing. So typically out there fishing, you’re using kind of the standard traditional wet flies out there. 00;31;03;19 – 00;31;28;00 Drew Evans Yeah, I use them some. I’m not as much of a traditionalist or a purist. I use a lot of hobos on a scandi and an intermediate and are in a lot of floating stuff too. But this year I’ve gotten obsessed with Todd Hirano patterns and book bugs, and I just wanted to get one on the surface really bad early, so I’m going to focus on that. 00;31;28;00 – 00;31;31;12 Drew Evans But yeah, all the Todd here on those visor really, really cool. 00;31;31;25 – 00;31;45;15 Dave I love it. Yeah, we just had John Hazel on from the Deschutes Angler and he, we were talking about space. He was one of the early guys. He was actually the guy that brought spay Roy kind of to the Northwest. He was one of them, you know, And I was asking him about, you know, just the on the surface. 00;31;46;01 – 00;32;01;22 Dave And he said, you know, a lot of people that do it, they try it. You know, they have their morning session, don’t get anything, you know, And they start thinking second guessing themselves, like, oh, man, if I put on a wet fly, I could hook a steelhead. And they just don’t put the time in, Right? He said, You got to just put that dry on. 00;32;01;28 – 00;32;10;26 Dave But that’s later on. Just fish it, fish it all day, you know, and it’s the same thing and you’ll get them. That’s the cool thing about summer steelhead is there when the conditions are right, Right. They will come up. 00;32;11;12 – 00;32;33;23 Drew Evans Yeah. And you know, it is kind of punishment at first. It’s brutal. It is kind of hard. I have not caught a lot of steelhead on the surface. I’ve caught them, you know, with a mud layer just below more. But I can’t say that I’ve got tons of them on the surface. But it’s again, because I’m in that same camp of dude, I just want to stick a fish. 00;32;33;27 – 00;32;57;05 Drew Evans So I’ll put on something that I feel like I can get them on. But yeah, I mean, there’s so many different techniques to learn what surface fishing to like claws free more. He did a cool presentation last year at the space gathering, talking about like even putting in a cast at a 90, putting in a big belly in it and speed mat fly along and kind of popping it. 00;32;57;23 – 00;33;06;29 Drew Evans So he’s got like some different techniques of fishing, those boat bugs on the surface that kind of blew my mind. So definitely going to give that stuff a try come July. 00;33;07;13 – 00;33;21;15 Dave Nice. Right on. And we’re going to jump back and forth here and probably jump back in the carpet. I want to hear you mentioned kind of we were getting started off air about kind of a new primer, the Shep Ranch. Maybe you can describe that a little bit. I’d love to hear what’s going on out there for Steelhead. 00;33;22;05 – 00;33;48;19 Drew Evans Yeah, it’s a to me, probably the coolest and I haven’t been everywhere, but to me in the lower 48, I think it’s probably about the coolest steelhead fishery there is or if not the coolest, that’s definitely one of them. So you’re in the wilderness of the Salmon River, so the only way that you can get in is by a 40 mile boat ride plus from Vinegar Creek, which is quite literally the end of the road. 00;33;48;21 – 00;34;07;26 Drew Evans There’s no more road once you reach that point. Or you can float down from like Salmon, Idaho. It should be quite a ways or by helicopter or plane. So pretty remote. But, you know, the the accommodations are crazy. The the ranch itself is very, very, very nice. 00;34;08;01 – 00;34;10;24 Dave So there’s an actual ranch like structures and all that stuff. 00;34;11;05 – 00;34;34;05 Drew Evans Correct? Yep. My really good friend Travis DeBoer is the ranch manager and the head guide. And there’s just there’s too much stuff to list. It’s amazing. They’ve got like gongs that you can shoot out to a thousand yards. They have horns, they have these big mule teams. They’ve got, oh, wow, elk hunting, bird hunting. They’ve got bear hunting. 00;34;34;07 – 00;34;35;13 Dave I always say, you it all. 00;34;35;21 – 00;34;41;01 Drew Evans But they’ve got all kinds of stuff, man. I’ve just been there to steelhead, so I just barely scratched the surface. 00;34;41;09 – 00;34;45;13 Dave Right where you when you were there for steelhead fishing with the other guys there for hunting and everything else. 00;34;45;24 – 00;35;07;23 Drew Evans No, we got some pretty meager hospitality. So all the crew there is kind of there. Just just for us, it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever been a part of. And I owe a lot of gratitude to my buddy Travis and everybody at Shep Ranch. They they treated us really, really well. But amazing meals, they’ve got really great chefs there. 00;35;07;23 – 00;35;32;22 Drew Evans You’ve got these cool little cabins that are all done up that you get to stay in and their world class, I mean, truly for especially for being out in the wilderness, they’re amazing. And not only that, but that place is just completely full of history. There’s a cabin or a ranch right across the river. That’s the Polybius Ranch, and I’m probably going to butcher the stories so people should go look it up. 00;35;32;22 – 00;35;59;11 Drew Evans But basically, Polybius was sold into sex work by her parents when she was little way back in the day, like 1800s, for like a bag of rice. And this guy and her chef, he bought her basically and set her free and later in life, they found each other because he liked water in a poker game. Again, I’m pro screw on this so go look it up. 00;36;00;02 – 00;36;19;04 Drew Evans A really interesting story full of history. And then, you know, he was actually killed I think in a poker game on that property as well. So a bunch of cool a bunch of cool like gnarly old West history and crazy. He’s buried there on the site so you can see where his grave. 00;36;19;04 – 00;36;21;27 Dave Is on the site, the sheep ranch. He’s there. 00;36;21;27 – 00;36;54;05 Drew Evans Mm. And there’s a, there’s a movie about Polybius from, I think like the nineties, I think it’s called The Thousand Pieces of Gold. So that that would further illustrate that whole story. But super, super cool. And then in addition, all that the fishing is just world class. Like I said, the huge runs, tons of structure, really beautiful big B run fish and we did not see a single person swinging or really even fishing that much for that matter. 00;36;54;22 – 00;37;10;08 Drew Evans The entire time we were up there and we were up there for, I think four days. So very unique in that regard because if you go to the snake, the Ronde, specifically the Grand Ronde or the Clearwater, they’re pretty busy. 00;37;10;08 – 00;37;29;16 Dave The Gallatin River Lodge sits right in the middle of Montana’s fly fishing triangle, the Gallatin River, out the door, the Madison and Yellowstone. Close enough that you’re fishing when conditions line up. 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Discover the El Rey series and more at pescado or on the fly dotcom. 00;38;14;23 – 00;38;22;12 Dave And where are you in relation to Where is this ship? Ranch on the salmon. Fill us in to the Snake River system, the grand run and where it’s located. 00;38;23;03 – 00;38;34;18 Drew Evans So It’s going to be down below all that stuff. So I’m sitting what am I am probably about 2 hours and some change from the Vinegar Creek boat ramp. 00;38;34;25 – 00;38;37;01 Dave And you’re in romance again where you’re at the city. 00;38;37;12 – 00;38;38;22 Drew Evans I’m in Lewiston, Idaho. 00;38;38;24 – 00;38;39;13 Dave You’re in Lewiston. 00;38;39;13 – 00;39;03;13 Drew Evans Okay, So if you’re looking on a map ship, ranch would be closest to like Oregon’s Idaho. And it’s kind of funky because right there there’s a time change. So it’s always kind of hard for me to to gauge how far stuff is. Yeah, it goes from Mountain Time to Pacific. So I’m in Pacific Time here in the Valley, whereas they’re at ship there. 00;39;03;16 – 00;39;04;26 Drew Evans They’re on mountain time. 00;39;05;08 – 00;39;24;03 Dave Right, Right. Gotcha. So it’s kind of from Lewiston, It’s kind of south southeast, right. You just head out into the. Yeah. Until the wilderness. Well, is this partly because you have the middle fork of salmon, which is out there somewhere, too, Right. Which is this 2 million acre wilderness area. It’s kind of in the same roughly same area by the national forest and all that. 00;39;24;15 – 00;39;44;08 Drew Evans Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It’s like the Frank Church. I believe so. And it’s pretty cool. I’ve seldomly ever been out there, which is funny, you know, I don’t live too far from it, but it’s the first time I’ve ever been out into that wilderness section. I’ve been up to Vinegar Creek before and fished like Short’s Bar, which is just below that. 00;39;44;17 – 00;39;57;13 Drew Evans But yeah, I’ve never, never fished any of that stuff. So it’s truly amazing that if you’re a steelhead angler, and particularly on the swing, I don’t know if it’s not on your bucket list, it needs to be now. 00;39;57;25 – 00;40;02;06 Dave Definitely it is. It is. And now did you guys fly in there or how did you get to the ship ranch? 00;40;02;12 – 00;40;04;20 Drew Evans Nope. Travis picked us up in a jet boat. 00;40;04;20 – 00;40;06;05 Dave So from Riggins? 00;40;06;16 – 00;40;08;12 Drew Evans No, from Vinegar Creek. 00;40;08;18 – 00;40;09;04 Dave Oh, Vinegar. 00;40;09;04 – 00;40;24;11 Drew Evans Okay, so you drive. You drive through the town, Riggins, and you go on beyond that, down probably another 20 miles till you hit Vinegar Creek. It might be more than that, but you’re on this epic, picturesque boat ride all the way up to the ranch. 00;40;24;15 – 00;40;27;20 Dave Wow. What’s the water like in there? Are you going through some whitewater and stuff? 00;40;28;01 – 00;40;38;00 Drew Evans Absolutely. Hip. And that’s that’s another big barrier to entry to getting there is you can’t just be Joe Schmo with your little 14 foot trout boat. 00;40;38;04 – 00;40;41;16 Dave Yeah, this is a flat water. You need a boat to get through some big stuff. 00;40;41;27 – 00;40;56;20 Drew Evans You need a boat to get through some big stuff and you’ve got to be kind of a bad ass on the sticks. You got to know how to navigate through some rapids. You know, I have a jet boat and I grew up on them, but we were running through some of that stuff. I was puckering a little bit. 00;40;56;27 – 00;40;57;11 Drew Evans Okay. 00;40;57;19 – 00;41;00;18 Dave What do you think? If you could handle it, you could get it in a boat? 00;41;00;29 – 00;41;09;21 Drew Evans No, absolutely not. It would take me some some training. Yeah, Maybe need a spotter to get through some of that stuff. 00;41;09;29 – 00;41;19;16 Dave Wow, that’s amazing. What are the runs like when you get on the salmon there at the Shep Ranch? Are these. What would be the comparison? Is a similar to the Ronde or the other snake or other areas. 00;41;19;28 – 00;41;40;23 Drew Evans You know, it’s a funny thing because I really compare it to like a combo of like Clearwater and Snake. So they’re really long runs. Like I fish a lot on the on the snake, but they’re just dotted up with all this amazing structure like you would find on the Clearwater. So you kind of have the best of both worlds. 00;41;41;04 – 00;42;03;17 Drew Evans And it’s definitely, for me, an area where I would greatly encourage you to fish a sink tip because it’s it’s quite a bit deeper. At that time when we were there in October, the water was already in the high thirties, low forties. So using the tip was kind of the way to go. We’re using like intruders and hobos and that kind of thing. 00;42;04;13 – 00;42;33;14 Drew Evans But yeah, you’ve got all this great structure to swing over so. There’s plenty of area for fish to be from edge to edge and it’s not like super wide. I would say like the snake can be or the Clearwater can be in some spots it’s a little bit narrower, more towards like what the Ronde is like. But definitely in terms of structure, it’s it’s got a lot more boulders like the Clearwater and then just these big long runs like on the snake. 00;42;33;14 – 00;42;36;29 Drew Evans So kind of a combo of all of it. It’s pretty cool and unique. 00;42;37;08 – 00;42;50;24 Dave Wow. Yeah, that sounds great. Cool. Well, we we hit on that, so we got a little steelhead. Let’s take it back as we start to kind of take it out of here, back to the car, because I want to get a few tips. And what we talked about here on I think because obviously that’s going to be the easier one. 00;42;50;24 – 00;42;53;28 Dave I think a lot of people can really all around the country can hit carp. 00;42;54;02 – 00;42;54;28 Drew Evans Absolutely. 00;42;54;28 – 00;43;10;24 Dave The Shep Ranch is probably one that’s a little bit more more the bucket list, right? Yeah, It’s going to take some time. Totally. But talk about the carp as far as you know, we mentioned the drag and drop. So we got that that covered. We know that technique. How do you know the say you’re on there, You’ve got carp. 00;43;10;27 – 00;43;18;16 Dave How do you know when fish is kind of ready to take? You know, when you come up to carp, do you can you tell whether it’s ready of feeding all that stuff? 00;43;19;01 – 00;43;39;13 Drew Evans Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, just like with flat fish, the easiest way is to see a tailing fish. So they’ll have their face down in the mud rooting around with their tail, literally out in the water kind of way of an ant. You throw a fly at me, I’m ready to eat. So that’s that’s the easiest way to identify a happy fish. 00;43;39;25 – 00;44;03;17 Drew Evans But usually I’m looking for those fish that are kind of slow moving. They’re cruising, but they’re moving it like a little bit like a lazy walk. I’m looking for that guy because he’s he’s actively looking for food. Usually those fish that are kind of hauling ass, they’re on a mission. They’re usually not interested in eating, although sometimes they will. 00;44;04;01 – 00;44;24;20 Drew Evans And then again, those laid up fish that are stunning, those are usually not fish that’ll eat. But again, sometimes they will. So it’s either those tailors or those fish that are just kind of cruising slow. And if you’re way too fishing, I would say a big, big tip is to steal a play out of my buddy Bill Martz playbook. 00;44;24;20 – 00;44;55;11 Drew Evans You want to fish like a hero. And what he means by that is you’re you’re walking extremely slowly and very, very deliberately so good. You know, you’ve got to really have your head on a swivel and walk super slow. And this this will pay dividends again on that Platts trip to the Bahamas, to Belize, wherever, because if you’re just tromping through the water, splashing everywhere, making a big trail of mud behind you, it’s just a dead giveaway to those fish. 00;44;55;25 – 00;44;57;07 Drew Evans Something’s up. Let’s leave. 00;44;57;19 – 00;45;11;22 Dave Yeah. So the heron. So, yeah. And the heron. It’s amazing If you’ve ever seen the heron, the great blue heron or any heron. Yeah. They just sit there and they’re just still and they’re just waiting and then they, and then they attack. Right. And they do their stuff and we also saw we were out on the river, we saw some Osprey. 00;45;11;22 – 00;45;19;24 Dave Right. That’s a little bit different technique, but it’s pretty amazing to see an Osprey from 50 feet or however far the up dive into the water. Did you guys see a few Osprey out there? 00;45;20;06 – 00;45;36;19 Drew Evans Yeah, Yeah, definitely. We’ve got a bunch of them. It’s pretty cool. And in the heron, they’re coming back and there’s actually a really cool rookery right next to one of the runs that I fish on the snake. It’s pretty neat. Little spot. But yeah, for some reason we have pelicans now too, so. 00;45;36;19 – 00;45;37;17 Dave Yeah, pelicans. Wow. 00;45;37;25 – 00;45;43;29 Drew Evans Yeah, that’s kind of a bummer because I think they eat a lot of a lot of everything everything. 00;45;43;29 – 00;45;44;08 Dave Yeah. 00;45;44;09 – 00;45;52;20 Drew Evans Uh, they’re here now. There’s lots of them, but yeah, same thing. You see those guys from way up, just dive, bomb and go grab whatever they’re grab and. 00;45;52;25 – 00;45;57;17 Dave Going for it for what would be a perfect carp flat. How would you describe that to be out there? 00;45;58;02 – 00;46;18;15 Drew Evans So I’m looking for something that usually has a tan if I can like that’s, that’s perfect and ideal, even like sand colored. And the reason for that is the fish are just going to stand out way more. I can, I can see them, but I’m looking for something that’s pockmarked or dimpled. It’ll look like little craters of the moon. 00;46;18;24 – 00;46;42;08 Drew Evans And that’s very indicative of fish failing, going down and stirring stuff on the bottom and eating. If I just see this flat, barren landscape, it’s nothing. You know, usually there’s not going to be fish in there eating. But those little craters are a good sign that they’re going to be there eating. I’m looking for, obviously, if I can if I can get it a little bit. 00;46;42;08 – 00;47;10;08 Drew Evans Stiller conditions something that’s about, I’d say a foot to three feet deep. I don’t really want anything deeper than that. And something that’s got just tons of forage. So whether it’s going to be insects or crayfish, you know, any kind of little crustacean, even clams, freshwater clams, they eat a lot of those. So those are kind of the things I’m looking for most. 00;47;10;23 – 00;47;29;03 Drew Evans And then obviously, if I see fish in there rooting around spawning, there’s going to be fish peeling off that are going to go eat. So that’s kind of the perfect flat, something ten, something shallow and something with a lot of signs like pockmarks. 00;47;29;12 – 00;47;36;00 Dave Gotcha. What is the is there a kind of a best time of year? When do you really like to get out there and go for it? Can you I guess you can fish year around. 00;47;36;12 – 00;48;01;12 Drew Evans Yeah, I would say summer, of course, is going to be the best time. Sometimes the spring can be really great, but it can be full of challenges too, depending on how much rain you get, how much runoff you get if you’re fishing in a river, in a river system like I am, because obviously that foot deep flat now becomes a six foot deep flat and just not going to work. 00;48;02;03 – 00;48;23;14 Drew Evans Also, you know, I’m looking for water clarity. That’s a huge thing. And if I can find a spot that doesn’t have weeds, a lot of these areas are going to be full of weeds that those fish can just kind of tuck into and you don’t see them anymore or they’re going to screw up your presentation. But yeah, a runoff is going to kill the water clarity. 00;48;23;14 – 00;48;43;15 Drew Evans So like right now, the time that we’re recording this, it’s the first part of June. So it’s shaping up to be great where I’m at right now because runoff is kind of done. We’re not going to get much water. So this is a good year to go get your carp set up and go try it or small mouth set up. 00;48;43;26 – 00;48;53;28 Drew Evans The mountains are going to be pretty unforgiving to our trout. So I would say, you know, try some warm water stuff you can fish for those guys. Not heard anything. 00;48;54;08 – 00;49;12;15 Dave Right. That’s that’s the great thing. And so it’s it’s tough because it might be probably going to be it’s impacting a lot of the West because the snowpack is low and all that. But I mean, I guess, you know, looking at that as a positive, right, is that these fish carp and smallmouth bass, really everything, all the warm water fish is going to be they’re going to be loving it this year. 00;49;12;29 – 00;49;35;17 Drew Evans They’re going to be loving it. And, you know, I love trout. I love going to that some of those rivers that we talked about, Luxor, Salt Lake City, Joe, North Fork, all that stuff. But at the end of the day, to me, there’s just so much more diversity in ways that I can approach the fish. The challenge of fishing to, you know, fisheries like small mouth or carp. 00;49;36;02 – 00;49;44;09 Drew Evans So I really encourage people to just give it a try. I know trout are cool, but try this stuff out. It’s it’s a lot of fun. 00;49;44;24 – 00;49;57;10 Dave That’s sweet. So you guys have this carp clay that’s you’re going to it sounds like you will be back this next year when you did this setting this up, are there other carp events like this around the country, You know, East Coast, West Coast, they do a little research there. 00;49;57;22 – 00;50;25;02 Drew Evans You know, I’d never seen a purely info driven event around carp like that, but there’s a lot of cool carp events that have started probably before. And since then there’s that dirty carp in New Orleans. There’s been the dirt or the Denver carp slam for years now. There’s I think they call it carp aside, and I think it’s like Minneapolis, Saint Paul. 00;50;25;22 – 00;50;48;17 Drew Evans And then I think in Oklahoma City, those guys at JT Adams and Sons, I think they have something called carp palooza. Don’t quote me on that. Wrong. Yeah, but in any case, it’s it’s catching on there’s definitely starting to be a lot more interest in it. And I think that’s the coolest part about that fishery is it’s so utilitarian I can do it literally anywhere. 00;50;48;17 – 00;51;00;12 Drew Evans There’s carp in the Grand Ronde in this crystal clear river where steelhead live, and there’s also carp in this scummy gross urban area there. 00;51;00;13 – 00;51;06;29 Dave And yeah, we’ve done those on Arizona, right? There’s those canals in Arizona, right in the city. You know you totally yeah, in Phenix and. 00;51;06;29 – 00;51;26;15 Drew Evans Stuff and everywhere in between. You know I’m pretty lucky. I’ve got some flats where I’m not going to be bothered by anybody. And it’s in the picture as backdrop of the Hills Canyon and stuff like that where I’m at. But, but I also have those flats that are in town that I can go fish. So I think that’s what’s cool about it. 00;51;26;15 – 00;51;44;19 Drew Evans It’s also just a really conservation forward fishery. Again, when it’s too hot to fish for those trout, I have something to fish for and it’s not a lesser than thing or a compromise. For me. It’s actually something I seek out more these days because I think it’s kind of more fun. 00;51;45;02 – 00;51;51;23 Dave Yeah, exactly. What is it like when you hook a carp? The playing of the carp in the landing? What’s it how’s it compare to anything else? 00;51;52;09 – 00;52;19;00 Drew Evans Well, in most cases, the the fun part about it is it’s pretty much always going to take you to your backing. So that’s a difference there between trout fishing and carp fishing. And you’re going to let that fish just run just like you would a bonefish or redfish until it stops and then you’re going to fight it and you want to apply side pressure this way or that way, depending on which way it runs, you kind of want to just go the opposite so that you can kind of bring it to heal a little quicker. 00;52;19;14 – 00;52;44;20 Drew Evans But you know, where we’re at, it’s not uncommon to have carp run 75, 100 yards in your backing. So sometimes I’ll set my reels up just like I would for bones with 250 plus yards of backing on it. We’ve got big, big fish that can range anywhere up to the £30 class. So when they decide to go, it’s not like a bullet train taking off, but it’s like a big freightliner. 00;52;44;20 – 00;52;45;14 Drew Evans That’s just all. 00;52;46;01 – 00;52;46;18 Dave Right. 00;52;46;25 – 00;53;15;19 Drew Evans Poland and going out for a long time. So it’s fun to pull on something that that heavy and play a fish that’s that big. I would say you know if you if you got a net, it helps a ton, obviously, just like with any fish to land them. But you want to be careful if you’re going to lead or I broke a rod a couple summers ago just being silly and I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t give myself enough slack when I went to leader a fish and it was significantly smaller. 00;53;15;19 – 00;53;35;24 Drew Evans It was like an £8 fish. So you ought to be cognizant of that if you have a friend with you, which helps, especially if you’re in a boat. I think that’s kind of the fun part of. It whether you’re carp fishing or flats fishing somewhere, it’s a team sport at that point, right? Everybody wants you to catch a fish if you’re on the bell, because then it’s the next person’s turn. 00;53;36;07 – 00;53;48;13 Drew Evans So calling out shots, being able to help a friend and help land fish is is pretty cool too. But yeah, just play the fish till they’re tired and and scoop them with a huge net. 00;53;49;04 – 00;53;55;25 Dave Big net. What is the the boat you’re using out there. What’s is it matter. Like it sounds like you’ve got a kind of a flat style boat or what do you use. 00;53;55;25 – 00;54;26;12 Drew Evans And Yeah, I have a Hog Island skiff. It’s a little 16 foot shallow water boat with a pulling platform on it. And I’ve got a casting platform on the bow. But I think if you have even a John boat or a kayak or a paddle board, just anything that will get you elevated and that will talk you into some water that you otherwise can’t get to very easily, you’re at a big, big advantage if you can get up higher off the water. 00;54;26;17 – 00;54;36;29 Dave Higher even a drift boat. Right. You could get out there and stand up on the deck and it’s not promoted. You’d be. Yeah, right. It’s not flat. It’s not as flat as you want it to be, but you could do it totally. 00;54;37;08 – 00;54;47;09 Drew Evans Unlike Adipose has those little platforms. Oh, yeah. And I bet that’s what other companies have them too. Yeah. If you can just get yourself elevated, it changes the game. 00;54;47;17 – 00;54;51;29 Dave It does. And are you pulling out there? It sounds like you’re. You like. Just like you would be out on the flats. 00;54;52;17 – 00;55;06;26 Drew Evans Yep I use a push pull. You don’t have to go crazy with it. I have one of the tfo push poles and I think it’s like 500 bucks. So compared to like some of those one piece stuffies that are way more expensive. 00;55;06;28 – 00;55;07;23 Dave Like, a lot more. 00;55;08;25 – 00;55;10;17 Drew Evans I think they’re thousand plus. 00;55;10;17 – 00;55;12;15 Dave So yeah, that’s all. 00;55;12;15 – 00;55;23;27 Drew Evans Yeah. You can, you can get it done. And I mean, you could probably even do it with like my buddy Jordan, one of our curb claims he built one out of like one of those extenders that you use for painting. 00;55;24;12 – 00;55;27;14 Dave Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, how long is the pole typically? 00;55;27;26 – 00;55;30;22 Drew Evans So you ought to be three feet longer than your vessel. 00;55;30;23 – 00;55;36;05 Dave Usually than your vessel. Oh, wow. So, yeah. So you’re looking at like 20 feet or maybe more potentially. 00;55;36;11 – 00;55;37;06 Drew Evans Exactly. 00;55;37;07 – 00;55;38;02 Dave That is pretty long. 00;55;38;09 – 00;55;45;06 Drew Evans Long is good. If you can go longer, you go longer. But yeah, three feet longer than your vessel is what you’re after. 00;55;45;13 – 00;56;00;03 Dave Three feet longer. Wow. This is great. Yeah. I think that, you know, and maybe the next one we didn’t talk much about smallmouth bass, but I know that’s a species that you guys are also chasing. Maybe just leave us today with. You know what we missed on other species? Give us a run through. It Sounds like you guys are kind of all over the place. 00;56;00;03 – 00;56;04;16 Dave Do you have any any big trips coming that you’re excited about you want to share through your program? 00;56;04;26 – 00;56;27;06 Drew Evans Yeah, we’ve got tons of trips that we do through our hosted program, A house to Fly. So I think next spring I’ll be doing Billie’s spring of 27. We’ve got trips to the Bahamas. I just came from there this February. That was that was probably my favorite saltwater trip I’ve ever done. Huge bonefish, tons of them. We’ve got trips to Puerto Rico. 00;56;27;06 – 00;56;48;16 Drew Evans We’ve got our Texas Red Fish program. We’re to start some stuff in Florida for tarpon and snook and reds. So we kind of run the gamut of things. And in addition to that, we have like our trout spay camp that we have on the Missouri in Montana. Yeah, that’s a pretty cool one. But we’re always kind of adding and tweaking those things. 00;56;48;16 – 00;57;18;26 Drew Evans So yeah, if you head over to house and go to the travel tab, you’ll see a lot of opportunities there for you to do one of our trips if you want to go fishing with us. Otherwise we always have like these DIY curated little trips that we can recommend to you. But yeah, here locally we’ve got so many opportunities for different fisheries, whether it be pike up north of us or the steelhead, obviously carp, small mouth, West Slope, cutthroat full trout, you know, we’ve kind of got it all. 00;57;18;26 – 00;57;21;27 Drew Evans That’s, that’s what keeps me here is right. 00;57;21;28 – 00;57;22;26 Dave You’re in a good spot. 00;57;23;08 – 00;57;24;13 Drew Evans Totally, totally. 00;57;24;13 – 00;57;39;24 Dave You’ve got a lot you’re right in the you’re right in the middle really of it when you think about it, because you’re Idaho is, you know, you go east and you’ve got Montana and all that, all that stuff, trout. And then you go west and you got more steelhead and yeah, it’s, it’s a pretty good spot because if you’re out, you know, kind of on coast, it’s great. 00;57;39;24 – 00;57;44;17 Dave But you’ve got to go a lot farther to get to, you know? Yeah, yeah, there’s some of that stuff. So it’s cool. 00;57;45;07 – 00;57;49;03 Drew Evans Actually. I take it back. It sucks. Nobody should come here. Yeah, right. 00;57;49;03 – 00;57;59;18 Dave Yeah. No, nobody should move there. And where are you at? So describe your because you’ve got the the house, the fly. There’s a few fly shops. Describe that for people that know like what shop are you at and what are the other shops in the, in the fleet there. 00;58;00;03 – 00;58;28;21 Drew Evans Yeah. So house flies these little Not little they’re pretty big. They’re these fly fly shops that are inside of this feed store. It’s called North 40 Outfitters. So there’s, I want to say seven locations I have. Stop and think about it for a minute. We’ve got Mead in Washington, which is near Spokane. We have West Spokane. We’ve got Coeur d’Alene, Ponderay, where I’m at here in Lewiston, Idaho. 00;58;28;21 – 00;58;50;20 Drew Evans We’ve got Great Falls, Montana. And then we we also own the trout shop on the Missouri and Craig. And we have the trout lodge there and the Hub Saloon. So in that little area of Craig, we’ve got kind of a lot going on, but it’s a pretty cool little spot there. They’ve got tons of trips. They run out of there. 00;58;50;20 – 00;59;06;06 Drew Evans There’s a deli with amazing food, full service guide shop, of course. So anything that you would need there and then on top of it, we’ve got places to stay and a place to eat. And of course we run shuttles for you to do. 00;59;06;16 – 00;59;24;17 Dave Yeah. And this year going to be I know the the salmon fly. We had the salmon fly project folks on, but they’re studying the bugs out west. You know, that’s a big thing they’re trying to document and they’re doing a like I think you call it bug fest. I think bug fixes has come out. So yeah. So they got a little event there and that’s out I think that’s out of Craig too or in that area. 00;59;24;28 – 00;59;25;05 Drew Evans Right. 00;59;25;05 – 00;59;38;18 Dave On. So they’re going to have I think I think there’s going to be some good speakers there covering that. But I think that’s a big part of it. But maybe maybe on the next one, we’ll dig into some more of this, Drew, and we’ll talk more about the maybe some small mouth bass. But yeah, this has been awesome to see. 00;59;38;18 – 00;59;44;10 Dave Appreciate all your your wisdom here and we will be sending everybody out to house to fly and thanks again till the next one. 00;59;44;21 – 00;59;53;17 Drew Evans Yeah thanks Dave it’s it’s been awesome to be on and like I said last hour, it’s one of my favorite resources for learning about sports. So thanks for doing what you do. 00;59;53;29 – 00;59;55;11 Dave Sweet man. I will talk to you soon. 00;59;55;23 – 00;59;56;22 Drew Evans All right. Thanks, Dave. 00;59;58;20 – 01;00;14;10 Dave There you go. Lots of calls to action for you today. Check out the video. We talked about that today. Lots of video action. If you want to take this next step further, you can check out there Carpe Clave of the last year. And just check in with Drew if you haven’t yet. Give him a shout, checking in with him on Instagram. 01;00;14;20 – 01;00;37;07 Dave Well, I’m know you heard this podcast. We got a big, big month coming up here. July, really big month coming up. Hope you are getting a chance to enjoy it. Check in with us at five swing dot com slash pro and we are going to be launched in about five swing pro very soon. This is your chance to get access to masterclasses, webinars and the community and take your fly fishing to the next level. 01;00;37;07 – 01;00;52;10 Dave This year, White fly swing pro It’s happening right now. All right, I’m going to get out of here. We got a bunch of podcasts in the queue getting backed up so we get to get those knocked out today. I hope to see you soon. And I hope you’re having a good afternoon, evening or morning, wherever you are on this planet. 01;00;52;10 – 01;00;58;09 Dave And we’ll talk to you and see you on the next episode. Thanks for listening to the wet fly Swing fly fishing show. 01;00;58;16 – 01;00;59;21 Drew Evans For notes and links from. 01;00;59;21 – 01;01;10;01 Dave This episode, visit Wet Fly, swing, Dotcom.