1000 | Deschutes River History with Ron Walp – Steelhead, Hunting, and Doug Stewart

WFS 1000 Transcript 00:00:00 Dave: Today’s guest pulled an old baseball scorebook off the shelf the night before we recorded this conversation, and inside was a name I knew very well. It was my dad’s. Today, we’re going back through more than seventy years of stories from baseball and coaching to the early days of the Deschutes River with jet sleds. We’re going to talk steelhead, old fishing camps, and a few memories of my dad that I haven’t heard before this episode. 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. Ron Walp is here, and he’s approaching eighty nine years of age. He spent more than fifty years running the Deschutes River. Today we’re going to find out his story and how he started out playing baseball at University of Oregon, and how he signed with the Baltimore Orioles, and how he homered in his first professional at bat. We’re going to hear about how he went from a four thousand dollars teaching salary and got his first boat, which eventually turned into his first jet, slid on the river, and we’re going to really get a feel for what it was like in the fifties and 60s before. This is pre dam on the Deschutes. What that was like. All the great stories of Ron and some of the people that he knew along the way. I’m excited to share this one with you. Ron has lived through a remarkable stretch of northwest fishing history, and today we’re going to be getting those stories firsthand. All right. If you want to check in with Ron, send me an email anytime. But let’s get into it. Here he is. Ron Walp. How you doing, Ron? 00:01:29 Ron Walp: I’m doing great. 00:01:31 Dave: Awesome. Great to have you on here. This is a really a pretty amazing moment for me because, you know, I love doing these episodes with people that I’ve known a long time. And I can’t remember the first time I met you on the river on the Deschutes. But we’re going to talk about kind of the history of the Deschutes. We’re going to talk about my dad, who you knew well, you know, and lots of stories there, you know, that we could talk about and and really just kind of hunting, fishing, education, you know, you’ve been sports, right? All these things. So maybe just take us back first. Maybe we just start off on the top with my dad. Do you remember when you first met, uh, you know, Doug on the, you know, in your life? 00:02:07 Ron Walp: Well, I would have to say it would have to be on the Deschutes River. 00:02:12 Dave: Yeah. 00:02:13 Ron Walp: And, um, you guys used to float in on a Friday. The deer hunt? 00:02:20 Dave: Yep. 00:02:21 Ron Walp: A drift boat and a raft. And I would always let you guys hunt that area behind your camp because I had a jet sled and I could move around. But we used to get together after a day’s hunt and visit and talk, and we’d talk fishing, we’d talk basketball, we’d talk dove hunting. And he had a friend that was usually there and. Azimuth. 00:02:54 Dave: Yep. 00:02:55 Ron Walp: And, uh, you guys were always successful. You guys were younger than I was at that time, but I was successful deer hunting down there, too. I’ll never forget this one trip. Your dad and Dean and I were dove hunting, and during that day, Dean lost his wallet. And a year later, I’m dove hunting in the same area, and I find his wallet. And his wallet is crusty. It’s leather. And, you know, he was a traveling salesman and he had credit cards and cash and all that. Long story short, I take it to your dad’s shop there on Halsey and, uh, give it to him. And so Dean contacts me and he says, you know, Ronnie, he says, I owe you one. Well, it was either the next year or a year after that. I’m deer hunting down on the Deschutes and my sled. I’m solo. You guys have harvested deer on Saturday, Sunday, and you’re going to float out on Monday. And I hadn’t harvested one yet. And I go down past your camp early in the morning and there’s three bucks hanging there. And anyway, I go down the river and I go up on the West Bank and I harvest a deer. Yeah, a buck, nice buck. I’m up in a deep canyon and I see you guys floating by and I yell, hey, Stuart, could I borrow one of your boys? And long story short, here comes four guys up the canyon and they grab a hold of. I think it was, uh, Dean. Nathan. I don’t know if you were involved in that. And Chris. 00:04:56 Dave: And Chris. Yeah. 00:04:57 Ron Walp: And you each grab a leg. And anyway, long story short, you haul it down to my boat and put it in my sled and Dean says, well, we’re even, right. 00:05:08 Dave: There you go. Even. That’s amazing. Yeah. We’ve had lots of those amazing memories down there, you know, hunting, lots of good stories. Um, you had, um, you know, I want to hear more about this sled too, because I think it’s pretty. You’ve had this sled a long time and you’ve got stories with I know me, me and Marty kind of teaching them and stuff like that. But you also didn’t you have a connection. I know you used to have some stories with my dad about baseball. And did you guys ever play together back in the day or was there a connection there? 00:05:38 Ron Walp: We never played baseball against each other, but Dave, last night I got out the scorebook from the park. Rose Junior High, nineteen fifty two nineteen fifty three, and we played Central Catholic. and your dad’s name is in the Scorebook. 00:05:55 Dave: Oh. No kidding. 00:05:57 Ron Walp: Yeah, yeah, I’ll show that to you sometime. 00:05:59 Dave: Oh, you’re kidding me. Oh, wow. So you have the scorebook from a baseball game that you played. So you guys did play each other in high school? 00:06:06 Ron Walp: Well, this was this was grade school. 00:06:08 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:06:09 Ron Walp: Or junior high school, I would say. 00:06:11 Dave: Yeah. 00:06:12 Ron Walp: Uh, at that time, Parkrose was a three year high school. And so this was the ninth grade team. 00:06:19 Dave: Oh, I see. 00:06:20 Ron Walp: Yep. And, you know, then I used to hang out at your dad’s fly shop a lot, and I got to know a lot of his people and so forth. And but I’d gotten into jet sledding in, uh, the late sixties. I got my first jet sled when I was teaching and coaching at Mount Hood Community College. Took me a couple of years to get a motor on it. But, uh, then I started running the Clackamas and the Sandy and the Willamette, and then I ventured into the Deschutes. 00:06:58 Dave: And yeah. 00:06:59 Ron Walp: So I had over fifty years on the river and it’s been a good fifty years. I’m into my fifth jet sled. 00:07:09 Dave: Oh, you are so this hasn’t been the same sled the whole time. What was the first sled? What was the model or what kind of boat? 00:07:14 Ron Walp: I bought my first sled from Cece Miller, who was a teacher and a David Douglas school district. And he bought this sled from Denny Moyer. Denny Moyer had somehow gotten a sled and run it on the Deschutes, and he wrecked it, and they sent it back to, uh, Smoker craft. 00:07:41 Dave: Oh, was a smoker. 00:07:42 Ron Walp: That was a smoker craft smoker. Crafts are riveted boats. 00:07:45 Dave: Oh, right. 00:07:47 Ron Walp: And anyway, uh, Steve Miller already had a sled, but he got Ahold of this sled and I bought it from him. And, you know, I didn’t have much money in those days. My first teaching salary was for four thousand dollars. 00:08:01 Dave: Yeah. 00:08:01 Ron Walp: And, uh, a friend built a trailer for me. And then after, uh, another year, I was able to buy a fifty horse jet pump, mercury tiller handle, and. 00:08:14 Dave: Yep. 00:08:15 Ron Walp: Then I was on my way. 00:08:17 Dave: And you did it. You were going. What was that first trip when you floated down the Deschutes through your first, uh, rapid. You used to put in right at Max Canyon and go down. Is that the usual route you did? 00:08:28 Ron Walp: Yeah, I put in at Max Canyon and I went as far as homestead and, uh, camped there and did some fishing, came back out, and then I bought a book. I should go get it if over in my book cabinet, but it was a map of the Deschutes River how to run it. And I used that a lot, but I had run a drift boat prior to that. And so if you know how to run a drift boat, it’s pretty easy to transition into a sled. 00:09:01 Dave: Oh it is. So you think so? If you’re good at behind on a drift boat, getting a sled and figuring that out is doable. Going through whitewater. 00:09:09 Ron Walp: Yeah. I mean, particularly if you’ve already run that section of the river. Yeah. In a drift boat. 00:09:16 Dave: Right. Because you know where the rocks are. Have you ever done the lower river down to the mouth to that other whitewater? 00:09:22 Ron Walp: Oh, for quite a while, on my third boat, I started running from the mouth. And I used to run up from the mouth for for quite a few years. Yeah. And then when washout came, that was about the same time that I moved to bend and then later moving to Maupin. Since washout, I’ve always been going in from Max Canyon that ideal road, you know. Yeah. 00:09:51 Dave: Right. Yeah. You do? And now, are you still down there? Right. You’ve. We’ve seen you. Are you still doing the trip? And you kind of live out in the Arizona, right? During the winter. 00:10:00 Ron Walp: Well, I’ve gone to Arizona. I moved to bend in ninety seven. Bend got too big. I moved to Maupin in oh five. And I have not spent a winter in mopping yet because I was always in Patagonia, Arizona, hunting Mearns quail. 00:10:20 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:10:21 Ron Walp: But, uh, the Deschutes, you know, it’s just so sad right now. 00:10:27 Dave: Closed for, well, for steelhead. 00:10:29 Ron Walp: With its steelhead being closed. And there’s not many people here in town and mopping. 00:10:35 Dave: Mhm. Right. 00:10:36 Ron Walp: Uh, but, uh. 00:10:39 Dave: So you’re there now. You’re in mop and it’s kind of summer. It’s, uh. Yeah, I mean, it’s summer steelhead time, right? 00:10:44 Ron Walp: Oh, gosh. Yeah. I made one trip. It’s a group of teachers and coaches. It was our forty third year this year. Oh, wow. We used to camp down in the canyon. 00:10:57 Dave: Yeah. 00:10:58 Ron Walp: But the last few years we’ve camped at Max Canyon as we’re older, and there’s even third generations coming now. 00:11:07 Dave: And who are the coaches? These are the coaches from um, I think I probably know some of them. 00:11:11 Ron Walp: Gresham. Scott. Carpenter. 00:11:13 Dave: Yeah. Carpenter. So carpenters still going down. 00:11:15 Ron Walp: Bill. Adam. Jim Mott, uh, Sam Whitehead, Jack Flitcraft, all those guys. 00:11:23 Dave: Yeah. Still going. 00:11:25 Ron Walp: And their kids, their kids are into it now. Yeah. 00:11:28 Dave: Right. So their kids are going now. That’s the I think that’s the amazing thing about the Deschutes, like the river thing, you know, because you like for me, you know, I think about myself, I talk about this sometimes the fact that I probably wouldn’t be hunting if it wasn’t for my dad. You know, that’s one thing that really he, you know, he got us into at an early age, and now I’m getting my kids into it, you know? And even though they’re not loving it exactly, quite yet, but it’s still, you know, do you see that? Right? It’s pretty amazing the power of how the outdoors transfers down through generations. 00:11:55 Ron Walp: Yeah, that’s a cool thing. Yeah. I see that with a lot of those guys. 00:11:59 Dave: Yeah, definitely. What was your talk about your teaching a little bit. Take us back there. When did you sounds like you did a lot. Mount Hood Community College. I mean that’s a they had like a baseball program, right. And things like that. What how did you get into teaching? Was that what you did for your life most of your career? 00:12:13 Ron Walp: Well, I graduated from Parkrose High School, got a baseball scholarship to the University of Oregon, played baseball at Oregon, signed with the Baltimore Orioles for three years. I played in their minor league organization. They told me that I should probably go home and be a teacher and a coach. 00:12:34 Dave: Right? 00:12:35 Ron Walp: And, uh, but I had a couple claims of fame in MLB. That’s baseball. 00:12:41 Dave: Yeah. Like the pros. 00:12:44 Ron Walp: Uh. My first year, I went to Bluefield, West Virginia. And for some reason, they picked me to start. There were two other catchers there that were signed for a lot of money, but they picked me. My first at bat in OB organized baseball. I hit a home run. 00:13:04 Dave: No kidding. First. First bat in like in a pro game. 00:13:08 Ron Walp: Yeah, I went three for four that night. Wow. And the next night, they had the thirty six thousand dollars bonus baby start, and he split a finger in about the fifth or sixth inning. So they go to me. I hit another home run. 00:13:27 Dave: Wow. 00:13:28 Ron Walp: Anyway, my other claim to fame. 00:13:30 Dave: That’s amazing. 00:13:32 Ron Walp: My other claim to fame. In my third year, I was catching in Leesburg, Florida. And when they released me, the guy that took my place. Okay, I’m giving you a question. 00:13:47 Dave: Yeah. 00:13:48 Ron Walp: His son played two thousand three hundred and thirty one consecutive games. So who would have replaced me? 00:14:00 Dave: Uh, that would have been Cal Ripken. 00:14:02 Ron Walp: Cal Ripken father. 00:14:05 Dave: Right. Cal Ripken father. 00:14:07 Ron Walp: Had been in the in the Baltimore Orioles organization, and he was a student of the game. And Paul Richards thought a lot of him. So they sent him down to Leesburg, which replaced me, and he became a playing manager. And then from there on, you know, that’s history. You know, he became the manager of the Baltimore Orioles and he had both of his kids playing for him, Cal and Billy. 00:14:37 Dave: Oh, right. So Cal Ripken’s dad was the manager. Yeah. Yeah. Why? Wow. That is an amazing story. Yeah. One of the greatest. 00:14:45 Ron Walp: But then I went on, uh, I started my career. I taught for one year as a student intern at the University of Oregon. 00:14:54 Dave: Mhm. 00:14:55 Ron Walp: Helped my college coach, Don Kirsch. Coach. Got a job at North Eugene High School. Was there for six years. And then I got the job at Mount Hood Community College. And I coached there for ten years. 00:15:10 Dave: Oh, so you coached the baseball team there? 00:15:12 Ron Walp: Oh, yeah. 00:15:13 Dave: Oh, right. And Mount Hood was good. I remember back in those times. I’m not sure. What year would that have been when you were coaching the baseball team? 00:15:18 Ron Walp: Sixty nine. I started sixty nine to seventy nine. 00:15:22 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. Because and I remember as a little kid because we lived over near there, it would have been probably in that time frame. When you were leaving. I was, I used to watch, I’d sit out there on the sideline and collect foul balls when they’d go on the street and. Right. And Mount Hood was for a time they. I think they were a, a pretty good, really good team, but it seems like it’s gone down a little bit. Now, I don’t know. What’s your take? Do you still follow Mount Hood Community College at all? 00:15:44 Ron Walp: I don’t really follow Mount Hood, but, uh, you know, we were winners. 00:15:49 Dave: Yeah. You were. 00:15:49 Ron Walp: We we took third in the nation. Uh, when we were playing the NJC, double A and then and then Mount Hood went into what’s called the Northwest Athletic Association with Linn-benton and Clackamas and then all the community colleges up in Washington. 00:16:10 Dave: Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. They’re a community college. But you really built. Yeah. The team, the baseball team was higher level than that, right? Because you were. 00:16:18 Ron Walp: Yeah. And, uh, Dale Stebbins took over after me. 00:16:22 Dave: Yeah. 00:16:22 Ron Walp: Dale had come to the job out of Bartow High School. 00:16:26 Dave: Yeah. That’s right. So baseball was a big part. It definitely sounds like you. What was that? What’s the difference between, you know, you were there hitting homers and the pros and stuff and close. What’s the difference between those players that make it into the majors, you know, versus, you know, those that don’t. Is it is it sometimes luck of the draw or is it more is there just something that you can see that gets you to that next level? 00:16:47 Ron Walp: Well, there’s a lot of things involved in it. Dave has to do with raw talent. You know, I would say that I was an overachiever, right? I can’t say that I had raw talent. I was a good player, but there’s a lot of breaks involved in it. You know, some young guys can’t play in climates that have heavy humidity, right. And, uh, there’s just a lot of factors that go into it. 00:17:16 Dave: Stonefly nets, handcrafts, wooden landing nets, fly boxes and reel seats in little Rock, Arkansas, using premium hardwoods and burls sourced from landowners across the United States. 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You can head over to Onda Mark lodge dot com to fish one of the great trout streams in the country. Sports is really amazing because it’s, um, you know, you never know, right? Any game, you never know what’s gonna. Like you said, you hit these two homers, went three for four, you know, in your first game and stuff. Like it’s that’s what’s amazing about sports, right? And I always feel like to the Some of the best fly anglers were big, you know, athletes. And my dad was one. You know, a lot of his friends have talked about how he was, you know, went to University of Portland, played ball there. And he was he was really close to, to probably taking the next level. 00:18:48 Ron Walp: But I want to finish up a little bit about baseball. You know, I was quail hunting in the winter down in Patagonia, Arizona. And when the quail season ended in February, I’d go up to Peoria, Arizona, and I was a groundskeeper for the Seattle Mariners and the San Diego Padres for nineteen years, wanted to get in twenty. But the Covid shut that off. 00:19:11 Dave: Oh, yeah. 00:19:12 Ron Walp: But I’m still doing baseball things because I have a dear friend who’s the minor league equipment manager for the Seattle Mariners, Isaac. And when I come home from Arizona, he loads me up with baseballs. And I came home this year with over five hundred baseballs, and I distribute them to Little League programs in high schools and stuff like that. They’re free, and all they have to do is have three or four young athletes, right? Isaac, a thank you letter. And it the program’s been going for about eleven years doing that. Huh? 00:20:00 Dave: Y and they’re getting, uh, baseballs from the Mariners, basically. 00:20:04 Ron Walp: Oh, yeah. And I give them out like, seventy five to one hundred at a time. 00:20:10 Dave: You do? Right, right. Yeah. 00:20:12 Ron Walp: And that helps little leagues and, you know, like Sherman High School and Dover High School and Decatur High School and some of these schools don’t have great budgets for athletics. 00:20:24 Dave: Oh, right. Yeah. So you’re basically giving them balls to play with to play the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s something sports is bigger than just the sport right? Just the game itself. I mean, that’s a huge part of it. But I feel like for kids, especially me, I know when I got when I was a kid, basketball was and I played baseball, but basketball was really the sport that kept me out of trouble. You know, I feel like giving kids something to, to really focus on. Right, sport. You probably see that over the years that sports is a good way to keep kids kind of moving forward and being successful. 00:20:54 Ron Walp: Well, it got me an education. Yeah. And, uh, you know, I wasn’t the greatest student, but when you’re involved in sports, you got to have a certain grade point average. And so you know that that motivates you. 00:21:10 Dave: It does. 00:21:11 Ron Walp: Talking about you, Dave, didn’t you play basketball for Scott Carpenter? 00:21:15 Dave: Yeah. Well, I was my story was kind of interesting because you know, the way genetics works, right? Kind of a little bit. But my dad was the great you know, he was amazing. Then Chris was really good. You know, he went to Central Catholic, went to play small college ball. Um, and then we had Jeff, who was really good, but he had some things going. And then Mike was the one who went to Greg. So we transferred out of Central Catholic. My brother Jeff, I think, had some great stuff or something, but they they transferred to Gresham. And so Mike was a sophomore, I think, when he transferred Gresham. And all of a sudden Gresham High gets this all star six two and a half. Mike. Right. Who now all of a sudden Gresham has this old central. And Mike was amazing. Mike was this athlete who. He was six two and a half. He used to shoot threes. He was amazing right. He was there all star. The funny thing was Carpenter looked at me right. It was the next coach after Carpenter. He looked at me and he said, Dave, when are you going to start growing a little bit, you know, because I was a little bit shorter and I just was never as good as my brothers, you know what I mean? I played, I played, I started in high school and stuff, but you know, I just was not at that level. And I remember my dad coming to the games and he was obviously knew more about sports than anybody. But yeah, so that’s the story Mike was I was kind of the least of all the athletes, but I still loved it. Right? I still loved the game. 00:22:28 Ron Walp: Yeah. 00:22:29 Dave: So I think Carpenter coached Mike there probably for a little bit. And then I think Knutson Knudsen or yeah. 00:22:35 Ron Walp: Larry. 00:22:36 Dave: Larry Knutson yeah. Knutson. Interesting. And he was Mike’s big coach when they went. And then Knutson took them to the year before I you know, they took them to the state championship. Gresham almost won. I think they were second in the state that year. Oh yeah. Knutson took them to it. But um anyways, you know, sports again, it’s one of those things I look back and I’m like, man, I wish I would have done things a little bit differently. But you know, for me, I look more back and say, you know what? It kept me out of trouble. I got a degree. You know, I did great stuff. So I feel like that that for sports was for me was big. You know, it sounds like it was for you too. 00:23:08 Ron Walp: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:23:10 Dave: Well, tell me this. 00:23:11 Ron Walp: Yeah. My dad had played some professional baseball, and that was another thing that motivated me to play baseball. 00:23:19 Dave: And he did. 00:23:20 Ron Walp: You know, uh, my father made such an impact on my life. And a guy by the name of Truman Osborne, who was basketball coach at Parkrose. Then he went to David Douglas. He made a great impact on my life. My college baseball coach, Don Kirsch, did the same thing. And and then I, I guess I got into fishing. 00:23:44 Dave: Yeah, you got inefficient. Well, there’s something about the coaches, too. And that’s what you were right. You were a coach. My dad was a coach. My dad was a teacher. You were. You know, there’s something about that. It’s so powerful. We could all think back of our teachers that influenced us, you know? And one of the coaches, my dad had a University of Portland, his basketball coach there, and they had this great team that went to the tournament back in, um oh, what was it? I can’t remember sixty one somewhere. They went to the first time you ever went to the NCAA tournament. But when my dad got going, he had this coach who was this really tough but a great coach. And I guess the story goes, he reached out, some of the kids were smoking, and the coach found out and he brought the kids in. And my dad was one of them had had smoked a cigarette or something. And he looked at all three of them and he said, all right, you guys, if you fess up to smoking cigarettes, I will let this pass. And you know, you can be good and we can kind of move on. And he said, okay, so who wants to fess up? And, you know, let me know you were smoking. And two of the guys reached out and said, okay, sorry, coach. Yeah, we were smoking. And my dad was like, there’s no way I’m going to let that guy hear that. And with those two guys said, we’re smoking. The coach said, you’re out off the team, booted the guys off the team. And my dad didn’t say he stuck in. Right. So it’s kind of this funny story, but but yeah, I think that he, you know, University of Portland for him was huge, right? That was a big part of his life. In fact, I’m trying to track down there’s six of his teammates that are still alive. I just reached out to the college. I’m trying to get Ahold of him. 00:25:06 Ron Walp: Is that al Negrotti. 00:25:08 Dave: Yeah. Negrotti. Yeah. Negrotti. Yeah, he played for the a b a I think he was a pro. He was a pro basketball player. 00:25:14 Ron Walp: Yeah. I don’t know that much about him. 00:25:16 Dave: Yeah. Negrotti. Yeah. He was a hard nosed, really good coach. But um, anyways, yeah, I think coach is is huge. Sounds like that for you. That’s big. What was your fly fishing? When did you are. I mean, I guess you did a little bit of fly fishing, but you did all sorts of fishing. How did you get into fishing? What was your first connection there? 00:25:32 Ron Walp: Well, my grandfather and his brother bought a piece of property on the Clackamas River in nineteen twenty six, and it was right across from where the Safeway boat ramp is. 00:25:46 Dave: Wow. 00:25:46 Ron Walp: And so I spent a lot of time there. Canoes, little rowboats, diving for bottles. I was pretty good with a canoe. You know, I could sneak up along the bank. I think that’s where I got my sex education. Education people along the river. 00:26:05 Dave: Oh my God. 00:26:06 Ron Walp: But. So you and I, with my water and and, uh, I don’t know, I just, uh, my dad was a volunteer fireman in Parkrose, and he met a guy who had access to the Southern Pacific Railroad, and I think it was in nineteen fifty two, nineteen fifty three. We took a train from mopping up the river, camped for three nights across from the Indian reservation. And, you know, we were just trout fishing and we were doing some fly fishing, but we were mostly fishing with bait in those days. 00:26:51 Dave: Yeah. 00:26:51 Ron Walp: And I just fell in love with the river at that time. And so, uh, that just kind of stuck with me. And that’s one reason why I wanted to end up in Central Oregon eventually. But from there, I got interested in fly fishing. I took my first fly tying class from Lola McLain. 00:27:16 Dave: MM. 00:27:17 Ron Walp: And, uh, started tying my own flies. Would hang out at your dad’s shop. I know he would mentor me too. And I just started running the Deschutes. I got pretty proficient at it. I got a guide’s license and I guided for quite a while. 00:27:38 Dave: Oh you did? 00:27:39 Ron Walp: Yep. And then the fish numbers went down. 00:27:42 Dave: Yeah. 00:27:43 Ron Walp: And then I guided again under Mark Bachman’s permit. 00:27:49 Dave: Oh you did? Yeah. Under Bachman. Yeah. 00:27:51 Ron Walp: And I, I ran my sled for him. For God. I think it started in two thousand and three. And we probably did it for ten years at least. He ran what he called the pH. D. Camp. And, uh, we would bring in people like Dick Hogan and Simon Bosworth, and they would be the feature. And, uh, those were good days. Yeah. 00:28:20 Dave: Yeah. Those were. Yeah. That’s right. That’s. Yeah. Bachmann. He had it. He had his program going for quite a while, I think he. I don’t think he’s up there as much anymore. Right. I don’t know if he. 00:28:28 Ron Walp: No, no. He’s retired. 00:28:30 Dave: Yeah. 00:28:30 Ron Walp: He sold his business. And so but, you know, I have the distinction of fishing the Deschutes River. Pre-dam. 00:28:40 Dave: Oh. Pre-dam. Right. What was that like? Pre-dam. Yeah. So you’re talking when is when was Pre-dam? 00:28:46 Ron Walp: Well, the dams were built in the sixties, and like I said, I took those train rides in the fifties. I fished at Potsdam. I fished it pre tower and post tower. So I’ve seen a lot of changes and. 00:29:04 Dave: Yep. What is the biggest change from if you look at Pre-dam nineteen fifties versus if you look at the Deschutes today, is there anything that sticks out. 00:29:13 Ron Walp: Well, I mean, you know, there were exceptional runs of fish and the real heyday Was when the Deschutes was so cold. And for years there were strays that would come in into the lower river. So we’d be catching fish that were from once in a while the Clearwater, the snake, you know, uh, a lot of these tributaries that are further to the east on the Columbia River. 00:29:43 Dave: Yep. That’s it. That’s why the Deschutes is great. You get these b run fish that that are heading hundreds and more miles up the Columbia, but they turn into Deschutes because it’s cool and, and all that, which is amazing. And yeah, it’s interesting because the river’s closed now, right? Because steelhead are the least. Steelhead fishing is closed. And I remember in the late nineties or the early nineties when my dad same sort of thing happened. My dad quit guiding in that period because the steelhead numbers were so low. I don’t think they even closed it. But he just quit guiding. And that was, you know, what was that thirty five years ago, right? Yeah. Thirty five. And we’re thirty five years later. That’s the amazing thing to think about it. I was Yeah, well, this time right there. 00:30:22 Ron Walp: There weren’t enough wild fish over Bonneville. Yeah. In the month of July and August. And they closed at August fifteenth. And now it’s closed for the season. And so is the John Day closed for the season? 00:30:39 Dave: Yeah. And the John Day. And at the same time there’s rivers around the Pacific Rim that are having some of their best steelhead runs. You know the Skeena River. I’m not sure the current numbers, but they had a great run this year up on the Skeena. So there’s these other places. So it’s hard to figure out what’s going on. You know, there’s the Columbia obviously is a different system. It’s got a, you know, with what’s going on there. But, um, but yeah, well, I think that, you know, today, you know, just getting a little bit of history is amazing. What about the, what about the hunting? You know, I feel like the hunting for you. Is it kind of equal. Is it, you know, or could you choose one or if you had to choose one or the other. 00:31:13 Ron Walp: Oh, it’d be fishing. 00:31:14 Dave: Yeah, it would be fishing. 00:31:16 Ron Walp: But I deer hunt other places and I. Elk hunt and you know, I’ve been a a die hard upland bird. 00:31:25 Dave: Mhm. 00:31:26 Ron Walp: The dog that I have right now is called Max for Max Canyon. 00:31:29 Dave: There you go. 00:31:30 Ron Walp: And he’s my ninth German shorthair. So, you know, that’s been a big part of my life too. 00:31:37 Dave: Yeah. Do you hunt the. Do you still. Or have you hunted the Deschutes a lot for upland? 00:31:42 Ron Walp: You know, I used to, but as those hills got steeper. 00:31:46 Dave: Yeah, those hills aren’t easy. 00:31:48 Ron Walp: Not that the hills got steeper. It just said I got older. 00:31:51 Dave: I know. Me too. 00:31:52 Ron Walp: And, uh, I haven’t hunted down there for some years. You know, I would hunt pheasants and chuckers down there. 00:32:01 Dave: Yeah. Are you still. You still bring the rifle down for looking for deer down there? 00:32:05 Ron Walp: Well, I did last year. I have I drew a tag this year. I don’t know if I’m going to buy the tag or not. They’ve changed the regulations. Let me think what the name of it? I think it’s maybe it’s grasshopper or something like that. 00:32:20 Dave: Yeah, they changed it. 00:32:21 Ron Walp: But you can only hunt the east side with the tag I have. Yeah. And it used to be that you could hunt both sides of the river. 00:32:32 Dave: Yeah. I know that’s an interesting thing. That’s for the people that hunted both sides like you did. You know, I mean, that’s a bummer, right? That makes it harder. 00:32:39 Ron Walp: Yeah. You know, another, uh, Dave, another way that I got to know your dad. Your dad was doing some guiding, and I think I met Doug Robertson through your dad. Doug Robertson was a young lawyer, and he was guided a lot from the now the mouth by a guy by the name of Jerry Todd and Doug Robertson ended up being a dear friend of mine. And he was very disappointed with the Deschutes River in the early eighties. There was no riparian zone. Their cattle had grazed everything. It was being abused. And being a young lawyer, you know, he knew how to get around. And he checked the records, and he found that two men in San Mateo, California, by the name of the company, Eastern Oregon Land Company, owned the lower twelve miles of the river. Those men, their intent was to put dams on the river. 00:34:05 Dave: Wow. 00:34:07 Ron Walp: And long story short, Doug, being a lawyer, he knew how to get from first base to second base and all that kind of stuff. He had the intent and he bought. I can’t say bought. Yeah, but he had an option with these men to buy the lower twelve miles of the river. And he had a vision of making a private fishing club. 00:34:43 Dave: Huh. 00:34:44 Ron Walp: He did some advertising to do that. And that didn’t fly? No. He ended up getting a piece of property across from the water tower. It’s called Robertson Point, and he is the initial person who started the movement of the state acquiring the lower twelve miles. And there was communication between Hayes and Northwest Steelheaders who were involved in it, and Governor Vic. 00:35:18 Dave: Oh. Right. 00:35:20 Ron Walp: And long story short, there was a transfer of this title. And in nineteen eighty three, the state of Oregon acquired the lower twelve miles of the Deschutes River. 00:35:33 Dave: Mhm. 00:35:34 Ron Walp: I have a project right now. I’m dealing with Oregon State Parks. I’m trying to get a recognition plaque for Doug Robertson at Heritage Landing. I’m a little upset that he has never been recognized, and all the recognition has gone to Governor Attea and a guy by the name of oh gosh, Dave. He was in charge of state parks at that time. I can’t think of his name right now. Dave Talbot, Dave Talbot was his name okay? 00:36:15 Dave: Dave Talbot. Right? Wow. 00:36:17 Ron Walp: And, uh, I’m waiting for word from the Oregon State Parks. I have Native Fish Society, and I have Deschutes River Alliance who are working in conjunction with me to put a basalt rock and a nice plaque at the mouth. Recognizing Doug. 00:36:45 Dave: Amazing. 00:36:46 Ron Walp: It would be similar to the thing that we did at Max Canyon for Oscar Lang. 00:36:53 Dave: Oh, there’s something at Max for Oscar. 00:36:56 Ron Walp: Well, I got involved with Sherman County BLM and the State Marine Board, and when they were building a new ramp, I approached them and I says, let’s dedicate this to Oskar Lange. He was one of the first true guides on the Deschutes had a flight or he had a sporting goods store in Madras. Long story short, BLM approached me and they said, Ron, we can do that. So I got Ahold of Oscar’s nephew. He’s the author of a book about Oscar. It’s called Sky fisherman. 00:37:49 Dave: Sky fisherman. Okay. 00:37:51 Ron Walp: Craig Leslie was Oscar’s nephew and Craig is a renowned writer. And he wrote the book Sky fisherman. But anyway. 00:38:06 Dave: Yeah, I see it. 00:38:06 Ron Walp: Sky fisherman Craig, uh, wrote some verbiage, and it’s on a plaque mounted on a big basalt rock at Max Canyon Campground. 00:38:18 Dave: Yeah. 00:38:20 Ron Walp: And on during that dedication, we we had one hundred people there. It was a cool thing. 00:38:26 Dave: So Oscar Lang was one of the first kind of guides or when did when was he fishing? When did he fish the Deschutes. 00:38:33 Ron Walp: Well, when I first started guiding, you know, when I first started running a sled on the lower river, I’d see Oscar putting his boat in. 00:38:45 Dave: Which was like nineteen sixty nine. Right. Nineteen sixty eight? 00:38:48 Ron Walp: Yes. And I told myself, I want to be like Oscar. 00:38:55 Dave: Was he putting his sled in? Did he have sled or drift boat? 00:38:57 Ron Walp: Pardon me. 00:38:58 Dave: Did he have a jet sled or a drift boat? 00:39:00 Ron Walp: Oh. Oh, well, he ran a drift boat from, uh, Warm Springs to Maupin for trout. Oh, wow. He ran his sled below Mack’s Canyon for steelhead. 00:39:12 Dave: No kidding. So he’d run his drift boat through, like all the boxcar and all the rapids through that whole section. 00:39:18 Ron Walp: No, no, he ran a drift boat on the upper river. 00:39:21 Dave: Oh. The upper. Yeah, yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. 00:39:24 Ron Walp: Yeah. He ran Twin Motors. He was. He was quite a guy. 00:39:29 Dave: Yeah. Oscar. So that was sixty eight. So he was probably he probably started fishing the river probably many years before that. 00:39:34 Ron Walp: Oh yeah. And then, you know, there were Sam Holmes and. 00:39:39 Dave: Oh yeah. Sam Holmes. Right. 00:39:41 Ron Walp: And, uh. Homer Baker. 00:39:43 Dave: Homer Baker. Right. 00:39:45 Ron Walp: Skip. Zappy. Mike Smith. 00:39:48 Dave: Yeah. Nate Smith. Right. 00:39:50 Ron Walp: Uh, a lot of the guys. Yeah. 00:39:53 Dave: Yeah. What year were you born? 00:39:55 Ron Walp: Nineteen thirty seven. 00:39:57 Dave: Oh, wow. Nineteen thirty seven. This is amazing. So you were. That’s the crazy thing about these conversations I have, because I’ve interviewed all sorts of people in their, you know, 80s 90s and all this stuff. But, um, you know, my dad was born in thirty nine, so he was actually two years younger than you. You know, he’s passed away this year. Um, you know, we’ve talked about that a little bit. What is it about you? What have you been doing to yourself to keep you going strong? What’s the secret to your success? 00:40:23 Ron Walp: Well, I have to say this, that I think being in the profession that I was in physical education, you know, I got a master’s in physical education. 00:40:33 Dave: Yeah. 00:40:34 Ron Walp: And I was a athlete. I stayed active. You know, I’ve always eaten good. My dad lived to be eighty three. I always said that I’d get five years beyond him. 00:40:50 Dave: Yeah. 00:40:51 Ron Walp: You’re past that for good behavior. And now I’m in that no man’s land. Right. 00:40:59 Dave: You’re in the land. You’re nineties. Right around the corner. Right? 00:41:02 Ron Walp: Well, in November, I’ll be Eighty nine. 00:41:07 Dave: The Gallatin River Lodge is the kind of place that makes a Montana fly fishing trip work the way it’s supposed to. You’re staying just minutes from private access on the Gallatin River with the Madison Yellowstone close enough that you’re choosing water based on conditions, not spending half the day driving. If you belong on the water, you belong at Gallatin River Lodge. Thoughtfully designed rooms, local guides who know these rivers inside and out, and a private casting pond right on the property. And when the day is done, you’re sitting down to some of the best food in the Bozeman area right at the lodge. 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This is something that’s come up, you know, quite a bit because my dad had you know, it’s no secret he had a problem, you know, an issue with alcohol. And I feel like it lessened, you know, some of his years. But what’s your take? Has alcohol been a part of your life? Have you, you know, uh, stopped doing, you know, what’s your take on that? 00:42:50 Ron Walp: Well, I got to tell you that I’ve never had a drag on a cigarette in my life. 00:42:54 Dave: Okay? So. No. That’s good. So no smoking. 00:42:57 Ron Walp: And and, uh, you know, I still have a cocktail or two. 00:43:00 Dave: Oh, good. Okay. But in moderation. I’m guessing. In moderation. 00:43:04 Ron Walp: Oh, yeah. You know, I can take it or leave it. 00:43:06 Dave: Yeah. I think that’s really the take home message is that I’ve talked to, you know, a lot of people in their eighties, you know, we’ve had, you know, both famous and not, you know, all sorts of people. And I feel like, you know, the story is those people that have moderated or quit at some point in their lives are still alive now. And the people that didn’t and weren’t moderating, like my dad, he was moderation was not part of his thing. You know, it just it takes off, right? It’s a hard thing. And, um, and yeah, I think that it sounds like, you know, you’re almost ninety and still got your boat still going strong, so you’re doing something right. 00:43:39 Ron Walp: Well, I believe so. Yeah. 00:43:41 Dave: Yeah. Good. 00:43:42 Ron Walp: And I think a lot of it has to do is to have a positive attitude. And I’m, I’m in a point of life when giving back. Yeah. You know, just like this idea with the baseballs. I say, you know, there’s nothing in it for me. You know, I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for baseball. 00:44:02 Dave: Right. Yeah. Baseball was huge for you. That’s so good. And but. Well, now, was that your main sport? Did you play other sports? 00:44:08 Ron Walp: Well, I gotta tell you this a funny story, Dave. We didn’t have good baseball coaches at Parkrose High School, and I was a better basketball player. Well, I was good at baseball, but I was good. I think I liked basketball better than I did baseball, but that had to do with the coach that I had. His name was Truman Osborne, and he’s the guy that got me started winter steelhead fishing. But, you know, that’s just that’s kind of an interesting thing that. Yeah. Uh, you know, baseball was my ticket. You know, I was a for being six two. I was a good basketball player. I, I held the Parkrose school scoring record for some years with thirty two points. 00:45:01 Dave: Huh? Wow. 00:45:02 Ron Walp: And then when Moore and I can’t think of that basketball coach that came. 00:45:08 Dave: Oh, yeah. Moore. Right. 00:45:10 Ron Walp: Uh, there was a basketball coach that came in there that made Parkrose a basketball school. 00:45:17 Dave: Yeah, he put him on the map. Yeah, he had that one guy. I remember it was somewhere in my time. He was just a. He was like a all star. 00:45:24 Ron Walp: But it was sad. Basketball players couldn’t play other sports because he wouldn’t let him do that. 00:45:31 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:45:32 Ron Walp: Anyway. 00:45:33 Dave: Yeah. So that’s it. What was your first, uh, steelhead. Do you remember the first steelhead you got? 00:45:38 Ron Walp: Well. First deal had on a fly. Was it jet pump rapids. 00:45:46 Dave: Okay. 00:45:48 Ron Walp: On river left. 00:45:49 Dave: Yep. 00:45:50 Ron Walp: And you know, I was throwing a nine and a half foot single handed rod Pflueger reel and I’m self-taught. 00:46:04 Dave: Man you are. 00:46:05 Ron Walp: I’m getting grabs. I’m trying to hook them. Pull them to the left. Pulling to the right. You know I’m pulling the fly away from him. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I fished with a fly rod in the shade. Then when the sun had come out, I’d get out my Pflueger Supreme and throw Steelies and I would wet Wade. I mean, you know, in those days we had seal dry. 00:46:40 Dave: Yeah. The rubber. 00:46:41 Ron Walp: Waders. And we had old tennis shoes that we put indoor outdoor carpet on the bottom. 00:46:48 Dave: Nice. 00:46:49 Ron Walp: It was pretty crude, right. 00:46:51 Dave: It worked though. 00:46:53 Ron Walp: But I got to tell you this in nineteen eighty three. My dad and I went to the sportsman show and I bought a book or he bought it for me. It’s the story of the history of swinging flies for steelhead, really? And it’s Arthur Woods. 00:47:19 Dave: Oh, yeah. 00:47:20 Ron Walp: Uh, it’s called steelhead. Salmon trout. Uh, Frank Amato’s company republished it, and that has been my Bible. 00:47:35 Dave: It has. 00:47:36 Ron Walp: I wouldn’t take people fishing with me for steelhead unless they read chapter four. 00:47:44 Dave: Really? Chapter four. 00:47:45 Ron Walp: Oh my God. 00:47:46 Dave: What did chapter four talk about? 00:47:48 Ron Walp: Well, chapter four was the guts of it. It you know, you swing a fly. the right speed. Broadside. A fish takes it in its mouth. This fly is tethered and when the fish realizes that he has steel in his mouth, which doesn’t take very long, he wants to get rid of the fly. So he turns. And when he turns. If you do nothing, the fish hooks itself. 00:48:27 Dave: Yep. 00:48:28 Ron Walp: And so, you know, Arthur Woods has been my mentor. Next would be Roderick Haig-brown. Next would be Bill Macmillan. Next would be Marty Shepherd. 00:48:44 Dave: Oh, there you go. 00:48:45 Ron Walp: And next would be Josh Lynn. 00:48:47 Dave: Oh, and Josh Lynn. Yeah. 00:48:49 Ron Walp: These guys have you know, they’ve helped me along the way or. because, you know, they’re fishing every day. Uh, I mean, you know, they’re full time guides. And so, you know, that’s their living. 00:49:02 Dave: Yeah. That’s it. No. Marty is all those guys. Yeah. You you talked about some younger guys and some older guys, but they’re pretty amazing. And, you know, a person I have actually on later today who is probably could fit in that list is Trey Combs, who’s going to be on the podcast. We’re talking he’s still out there going strong and we’re going to have him on with his, um, his son is going to be on too. So we’ll be talking to Trey and getting an update on him. Yeah. 00:49:26 Ron Walp: I got a library of fly fishing books and he’s in that library. 00:49:31 Dave: Yeah he is. I know one of my first books was a Trey Combs book my dad picked up somewhere along the line at the shop, probably the steelhead fishing. He had some good books, but. 00:49:39 Ron Walp: But you know, Marty and Mia Shepherd, they’re like my kids. 00:49:42 Dave: Yeah, yeah. Tell me about that. Where did you first meet? Connect with Marty and Mia because you guys have a pretty amazing relationship. 00:49:50 Ron Walp: Well, I got to tell you, I think Marty was working for Mark Bachman and on a pH. D camp, the first camp I think it was in oh three. Marty was on it. I think that’s how I ran into him. He liked the fact that I was jet sledding. Mark didn’t have a jet sled yet. Mark hadn’t gotten into jet sledding. I think he got into jet sledding because of me. So he could see the advantages of what, you know, what you can do. And it just kind of went on from there. I have helped him on a couple guide trips, and I taught him how to deer hunt down there. 00:50:47 Dave: Oh, you did right. You got him into deer hunting. That’s right. So. And now Marty is you have going strong, right? He’s helping doing some stuff with the big horn and getting other people into it. 00:50:58 Ron Walp: Yeah. Marty got cleared with BLM so that he’s. He’s legit. 00:51:05 Dave: Yeah. He’s legit. Exactly. Yeah. That story you told about the, uh, the lower twelve miles, that history. I remember that when I was a kid, there was this thing was it was that the period where they did I love the Deschutes, those pins that came out and they were trying to protect the river. And then because there’s a lot of BLM land now that also bought purchased up, right. That used to be private. Now is BLM is that was that all part of that same era? Yeah, yeah. 00:51:27 Ron Walp: Uh, and all along the river, there are key offs of people who donated significant amounts of money. 00:51:36 Dave: Oh, right. 00:51:37 Ron Walp: Burlington Northern, the bill Bowerman family. 00:51:41 Dave: Weinert. Weinert. 00:51:43 Ron Walp: Weinert. 00:51:43 Dave: Yeah. So they donated. So basically they came in, got some private donors to put money up to, to buy that all that private property and give it to the public. 00:51:51 Ron Walp: That was in eighteen eighty three. 00:51:53 Dave: That was eighty three. Wow. Yeah, that was amazing. 00:51:55 Ron Walp: Yeah. I have something framed on my wall here that I went into Larry Sporting Goods in Gresham and donated twenty five dollars. And so I have a certificate here that that I’m an owner of an inch by inch. 00:52:16 Dave: Oh, right. Yeah. So everybody could be part of it, right? 00:52:20 Ron Walp: Oh, yeah. They got contributions from a lot of different angles. 00:52:24 Dave: So cool. Yeah. And I know there’s been, I mean, that’s the great thing about the Deschutes is you’ve got this wild and scenic section, right? You’ve got a section that you’ve got a train that goes through there, which is just part of the atmosphere, but there are no roads in that lower twenty five miles. And it’s something that there’s probably been talk many times over the years in the past where they said, oh, let’s, let’s punch a road in here. Same with the the gravel access road down to Max. I feel like the fact that that gravel is probably a good thing, right? What’s your take on that? Do you see? Have you do you remember those times when they talked about getting more access into these areas? 00:52:56 Ron Walp: If people could drive down there on pavement would be totally different. Yeah. I mean, Dave, you know, a lot of what our problem is, we’re overpopulated. We got too many people that are fishing and hunting and our fish and our game aren’t sustainable. Fish and game is doing their very best. But it’s tough. And with global warming and wildfires and I mean, things are. 00:53:29 Dave: I know. 00:53:30 Ron Walp: I mean, you’re in that business. 00:53:32 Dave: Yeah. It’s not getting easier. That’s the thing. I mean the climate change is like the big X factor. You know, there’s definitely changes. And we’ve been talking to people all around the country, you know, on the East Coast just talked to somebody talking about brook trout in Pennsylvania. You know, they’re doing their best to try to protect those areas too. But, you know, it’s a challenge because as waters, you know, temperatures, warm water is warm. And these cold, you know, cold water species are going to struggle. 00:53:55 Ron Walp: Yeah. Another thing that makes it tough is that technology has gotten so well, you know, just like in bird hunting. My golly, you got a collar on your dog. You got a GPS on your dog. You use onyx, right? Uh, and it’s the same way on boats. They’ve got so much electronic on boats, they can see the fish in the bottom. Uh. Poor game, poor fish. It’s tough for them to survive. 00:54:28 Dave: Yeah. It’s getting technology is making it people more. 00:54:31 Ron Walp: Not to mention the dams. Right? 00:54:33 Dave: Yeah. The dams are still there. The dams are still going. There’s. There’s a lot. I think that, uh. Yeah, it hasn’t gotten easier than it was when we talk about the late sixties. Right. Like things, there’s more challenges, but, um, but yeah, that is something. Um, well, what else are we missing here today? Are we. Anything else you want to shed light on about your. I mean, obviously, we’re not going to hit on everything today, but, you know, anything on the Deschutes or have we kind of done a good high level summary of it? 00:54:57 Ron Walp: Well, I would like to say that one of the dear friends that I associated with is a guy by the name of Bill Tatom. 00:55:06 Dave: Oh, Tatom. Yeah. 00:55:08 Ron Walp: Tatom was a teacher at Gresham High School. 00:55:10 Dave: Oh, yeah. One of my favorites. 00:55:11 Ron Walp: And, uh, well, my kids, it was my kids favorite, too. And I’m proud of the fact that Ian Tatom caught his first steelhead with me on the Clackamas. They used to come out. Bill used to bring Ian and Tom New Year’s morning, and that’s when I lived on the Clackamas and we’d go out fishing and Ian caught his first steal. You know, we were pulling plugs, but still, you know, that was a. 00:55:48 Dave: Yeah. 00:55:49 Ron Walp: And Ian has grown and accomplished a lot of things for ODF and W. 00:55:55 Dave: Yeah, he’s doing good. Yeah. Ian’s Ian’s doing. 00:55:57 Ron Walp: He’s living in hood River now. 00:55:59 Dave: Yeah. He’s doing some good stuff. And and Bill yeah I remember he was definitely he’s the teacher that I think Scott Carpenter actually, you know he probably is right there. I, I, you know, he was I didn’t never had Scott as a teacher, but I remember at school and you mentioned Flitcraft. I remember all the coaches, you know, all those guys. I was back in high school. I was tying flies for him. Right. You know, making make some money. 00:56:21 Ron Walp: Scott and his son, Ryan and Jack and all those guys are. I’m still very close to them. 00:56:27 Dave: Yeah, well, as we take it out of here, you know, again, we’ll be following up with you on on more here. But, um, let’s just say you mentioned a couple plaques. I’ve thought about this for my dad too, you know, thinking like, oh, man, it would be amazing to have maybe down at our camp, you know, which a lot of people call Stewart’s camp. You know, maybe we put something there for him. But what if we were going to have a plaque for you at some point later? You know, in thirty years it had something. What would you want that plaque to say on it? If we had something there with your name on it. 00:56:54 Ron Walp: Oh, gosh. 00:56:55 Dave: That’s a that’s a tough one. Probably. 00:56:57 Ron Walp: Yeah it is. You know, I’m always thinking of other people and trying to do things for other people, but I’m pretty proud of some of the accomplishments that I’ve got done on the Deschutes River, like getting the water tower restored. 00:57:13 Dave: Oh, right. 00:57:14 Ron Walp: Getting Oscar Lang, uh, dedication of the boat ramp. I got this one that I’m working on right now for Doug Robertson, trying to get him recognized at the mouth and so forth. But, uh, yeah, I had another I had another interesting experience. This was early on, there was a fire on the Deschutes River River left on the east side. West side. Excuse me. And it was between the river and the railroad tracks. And I run up and down the river and my sled and get a bunch of people who are also in sleds. And, uh, we ran a bucket brigade. 00:57:57 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:57:59 Ron Walp: And we were able to get this fire under control until the railroad sent a, some kind of a fire train up to fight fires. But, you know, the train was going too fast and on a curve and brakes, and they make sparks and they started a fire. Oh. Well, long story short, I got a cool letter from Vicetia on my leadership. 00:58:26 Dave: Oh. You did? 00:58:27 Ron Walp: Yeah. It was. I was kind of surprised about that. 00:58:30 Dave: There you go. The governor? 00:58:31 Dave: Yeah. Vicetia. He was. What was his era? When did he. Was he governor? 00:58:36 Ron Walp: Well, he had to be governor in the eighties. 00:58:38 Dave: Yeah. Eighties. That’s right. Yeah. So really, I mean, the Deschutes has been I mean, it still is, right? That’s like, what is it? How do you explain that people listening now are probably, you know, maybe haven’t been on the Deschutes. How do you explain the Deschutes to somebody who’s never been there? 00:58:52 Ron Walp: Well, the Deschutes River is a canyon. You have sunrises and sunsets, uh, shadows. It gets really hot in the middle of the day. When the sun goes down, it cools ten degrees. Same thing in the morning, just the opposite. It’s just pristine country wildlife. The stars. Right? When there’s no moon out, it’s just, uh, it’s a wonderful place. 00:59:28 Dave: Just that right there. I feel like the mornings and the evenings, I mean, it’s all good, but there’s nothing better than an early morning. That’s why steelhead fishing is so cool. Because sometimes that’s your best time to fish, you know, getting out there and fishing first thing in the morning or just before it’s getting dark, right? Those are some of the best memories ever. 00:59:45 Ron Walp: Yeah. I’ve always been more of a morning guy because the winds and the Deschutes in the afternoon are sometimes they’re pretty bad. 00:59:56 Dave: That’s right. Yeah, definitely. 00:59:57 Ron Walp: Yeah. Up river winds. 00:59:58 Dave: Yeah. Don’t skip the morning fishing because you might not get a chance later in the day. Yeah. With the wind. Wow. And so in the boat you have now, what’s your current boat? 01:00:06 Ron Walp: I have a twenty one foot woolridge. 01:00:09 Dave: Yeah. 01:00:10 Ron Walp: Uh, twenty one by seven. I got a one seventy five off the max Mercury on it. It’s my third engine on that boat. My first four boats were tiller handles, and when I bought this boat, it’s. Well, I bought it in ninety nine, two thousand, and it’s, uh. I got a front steering with a windshield. You know, it’s interesting. Dave. Two years ago, I, as the original owner, I took it up to Woolridge in Seattle. Yeah, I’d taken all the floorboards out of it and power washed it and everything. There were twenty one breaks. Twenty one the aluminum. And they fixed them all for nothing because I’m the original owner. 01:01:01 Dave: Wow. You had twenty one. Like cracks in the aluminum. 01:01:04 Ron Walp: Twenty one cracks. You know, it didn’t leak. 01:01:06 Dave: It didn’t leak, though. Wow. 01:01:08 Ron Walp: Oh, no. It’s just in the structure of it. And, you know, I’m a conservative jetboat rider. I’m not into speed. 01:01:17 Dave: Right. 01:01:18 Ron Walp: I try to hit as much soft water as I can. And I think that part of those breaks were because of the road. I you know, it it takes me for seventeen miles. It takes me almost two hours. 01:01:35 Dave: Yeah, yeah. That’s a rough road. 01:01:37 Ron Walp: To drive down there because I don’t want to abuse my. 01:01:39 Dave: Boat. No, no. That’s good. You take your time. You’re one of those slow. That’s that’s good to have that. Yeah. Well, we had Woolridge on Grant, the son of the original. We heard the story of Woolridge. It’s a it’s a great one because they started. He’s one of the pioneers of Roy the Sleds and Roy the country. 01:01:55 Ron Walp: And drift boats in Grants Pass. 01:01:57 Dave: Yeah. And drift boats. It’s so it’s a really good. 01:01:59 Ron Walp: Oh they got a wonderful plant up there. You should see the things that they do with aluminum. They make fire engine boats. Oh it’s just amazing what they can do with aluminum. 01:02:11 Dave: Yeah. They’re doing good stuff. That’s amazing. Well you’ve got the boat going. It’ll be good to see you out there on the river. Hopefully we’re going to be heading back out there for the the deer trip again. We’ve been doing it for you know, I think I’ve been doing this for forty, probably six years since I was a young kid, you know what I mean? So I’ve got a few years under my belt too. It’s it’s pretty amazing. Um, but. 01:02:32 Ron Walp: How many tags do you guys have? 01:02:34 Dave: Uh, we have, uh, let’s see, We’ve got, uh, well, at least four. We have four tags, but we might have there’s a couple people we’re not quite sure on if they’re going to be there. Um. 01:02:44 Ron Walp: And but now you, well, you only hunt the east side anyway. 01:02:48 Dave: Yeah. It’s nothing’s changed for us. Yeah. We’re still doing the same thing. So that that’s a no no big deal. But, um, but, uh, we’ll take it out. We talked sports. I love the baseball. Let’s let’s get one baseball question out of you. You probably know, I’m not sure if you keep up with on the history, but who is you mentioned Cal Ripken. Who do you think is the the great, you know, maybe the greatest hitter, one of the great hitters out there? 01:03:09 Ron Walp: Well, I like guys like Cal Ripken. I like Tony Gwynn. 01:03:15 Dave: Oh yeah, Tony Gwynn. 01:03:17 Ron Walp: And one of my reasons for liking those two dudes is that they stayed with their same team. 01:03:26 Dave: Yeah they did. 01:03:27 Ron Walp: They didn’t chase the money. 01:03:29 Dave: No. 01:03:29 Ron Walp: They had some loyalty to the organization And professional baseball. I mean, college sports was the n I l and the portal. We could talk about this for an hour. That’s that’s out of hand. 01:03:51 Dave: Oh, really? There’s some changes in baseball there. 01:03:54 Ron Walp: Well, I’m just saying it’s, you know, baseball isn’t as bad. You’re under contract for a certain amount of time, and then you become a free agent. 01:04:02 Dave: Oh, yeah. 01:04:03 Ron Walp: And then you chase money. But, you know, you’re you stay with the same team until your contract runs out. And that’s what Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn, you know, they stayed with their same organization. 01:04:19 Dave: Yeah they did. Yeah it’s changed. Pro sports has changed a lot over the years. 01:04:24 Ron Walp: And when a college quarterback is making five to six million dollars a year, that’s absurd. 01:04:33 Dave: Oh, a college quarterbacks are making money now. 01:04:35 Ron Walp: Oh, I mean, in the n I l. 01:04:38 Dave: Oh, really? And I am in the n I a l n I l is what? 01:04:41 Ron Walp: That’s its name. Likeness. I don’t have the exact. 01:04:47 Dave: Yeah, yeah. 01:04:48 Ron Walp: Or the University of Oregon football team has three players. Their quarterback is making five mil. They have two other players that are making two mil. So they have three players that are making nine million dollars. 01:05:09 Dave: And who’s paying the university’s paying that. 01:05:11 Ron Walp: Oh alumni and. 01:05:14 Dave: Oh, wow. And yeah. 01:05:16 Ron Walp: And all that kind of stuff. 01:05:17 Dave: I’ve been out of the loop a little bit. So basically the like NCAA now has college athletes can actually make money now before they go pro. 01:05:26 Ron Walp: That’s what the n I l is all about. Yeah. 01:05:29 Dave: Oh I see okay. Yeah, I’m totally out of the loop. Yeah. And and the, the issue there is. Yeah, I don’t even know what the issue is, but it’s I mean, that person probably will be making millions when he as soon as he gets out of college, but probably keeps him in college longer, maybe. 01:05:41 Ron Walp: Uh, the rich get richer and the poor get poor with regards to schools. 01:05:45 Dave: Oh, right. Gotcha. Yeah, that’s that whole story. Okay. Well, Ron, this is. I think we can maybe leave it here till next one. You know, this has been a lot of fun. I, um, definitely just hearing the stories about the connections on the Deschutes has been amazing. And it’s always good to see you out there. So. Yeah, I just want to thank you for your time today, and we’ll look forward to seeing you on the river. 01:06:06 Ron Walp: I feel the same way, Dave. Thank thank you as an honor. 01:06:11 Dave: Hope you enjoyed that one. Uh, always good to dig into some Deschutes and old friends and family. Uh, appreciate Ron for coming on here. If you want to take this thing further, we got a big thing coming up here. Our boot camp, uh, wet fly swing boot camp. You can go to fly swing dot com slash boot camp right now. Sign up for this big summit we’ve got going, and you can connect with and get your questions answered directly live on our fly fishing boot camp. We’ve hit one thousand episodes, we’ve hit one thousand guests, and we are looking forward to the next one thousand. We’d love to hear from you. If you are new to the show or have been listening for all these episodes, please check in with me, Dave at Netflix dot com. Just send me an email and put one thousand in the subject line. I would love to see if I can hear some people that, uh, that have been here either for one or a thousand. Let me know you’re listening. That would make my day and we’re gonna get out of here. We got three more. As always, three more episodes lined up I got to get to right now, but appreciate you for stopping in. We’ll look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Talk to you then. 01:07:14 Dave: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit Wet Fly swing dot com.