Dave (2s): Today’s guest wrote a Western fly tying book that I have known my entire life, from his books to his videos, to his one fly event, to the fly fishing team, USA and Euro nymphing. He has been a leader and in many cases started many of these events. And today you’re going to hear some of the greatest fly fishing story in history. From Curt Gowdy to Ted Williams, to Dick Cheney, and many more. Today’s guest has an amazing history and you are gonna be inspired for your next big adventure. 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 today. Dave (45s): Jack Dennis is back on the show to take us into his great and crazy world of fly fishing circa 1960, 1970, 80’s. We’re gonna talk about it all Today. We hear more about this fly fishing manual that he wrote and has sold over 300,000 copies. Now we find out more about his friendship with Lee Wolf and how it relates to us this year as we are heading up to Lee Wulff’s Lodge. And we find out why the toughest sports are hitting a baseball, hitting a golf ball, and fly casting as Ted Williams saw it back in the day. Plus, you’re gonna find out how the Berlin Wall following affected team USA and why the Spanish team was protesting the USA. Dave (1m 26s): Lots of great stores in this one. We always love a Jack Dennis sighting. He’s a man who’s been highlighted many times. Here he is JD’s Wide World of Fly Fishing on YouTube. Jack (1m 38s): This is Jack Dennis. I have a YouTube channel, which is called JD’s Wide World of Fly Fishing and Tying. And I have a typical Facebook, which is, I have two of them. Jack Dennis, fly Fishing and Jack Dennis. You know, it, it’s different ’cause most of the people, you know, are on these things have something to sell. Right. You know, or something to thing. And you know, I really, honestly, I right now, I Dave (2m 9s): Oh, you do? Jack (2m 10s): Well I, all my books are sold out, so, oh, there are, we’re outta print. I have a few of my Jack Dennis Western trout kind fly tying manual, but it happens to be the 50th year. Yeah. I never would’ve thought I was gonna last these 50 years to, to see it to that. So I never really planned on it when I tied the flies for the book in 1972, ’cause it came out in, in late 74, it took us a while to get it published. And so the flies were tied in 72 and I put ’em in a plastic bag and there they’ve remained through moves and Dave (2m 53s): You still have them Jack (2m 54s): In that plastic bag. And my thoughts were always to put it in a, you know, into fly plates were really big and back in those days. And I thought, well, I’m gonna put it in a fly plate. Well, you know, I just never did it. I did a lot of other fly plates and, and it just kept going on and on and all of a sudden 50th snuck up and I said, what am I gonna do? And I, my friend Randall Kaufman has put together over 200 fly plates of all the well-known fly tires in the country and some outta the country. And he is going like, what do I do with this? Jack (3m 34s): He won’t sell ’em. And I’ve been trying to say, look, we need to get these things into a museum. And all this, you know, we’ve, we’ve come into Lawson and I and Randall, we’re all in our 78 Randall’s a year younger than I am. And Mike’s a year older, but Mike and I were born on the same day, September 30th. So we knew what it was like to be the youngest person in our, in our class. And we we’re going like, okay, here we are. What do we do from here? So I finally figured it out over a year. ’cause I’ve been doing, every year I did a small collection of 27 fly boxes just to celebrate anniversaries. Jack (4m 22s): And I decided, well, maybe I should take these flies that have been in there and take, put away 65 books, which I have just barely enough to do that. And draw a picture in there, take the actual fly, either put it in a book or, or in a separate box and go from the start of the book from one to 65 flies. And obviously that makes 65. And last year we received a award from my Jackson Hole, one fly foundation called the Heritage Award. And they asked me to make up all the winning one flies in a, in a presentation box for auction for the museum. Jack (5m 11s): And then I said, well, wait a minute. It’s the 50th anniversary of a book. And I picked number eight, and they put it in an auction with a fishing chip from my old guide service. They got $16,000 out of it. Huh? I got, wow. And then, and the museum says, oh, oh, wait a minute. You know, we want one of these. It, so like, okay, we’re gonna do it. Well, that’s, that was a year ago. And finally I did one for the Hemingway trying to limit chapter every year they get some stuff for me. And so, and I was great friends with Jack Hemingway and all respected, all the things we did. Jack (5m 51s): Thanks together TV shows and all kinds of things. And so I always make sure that, and and that was number seven, I thought, and then I have guys that want, that have already had numbers and wanted it. And I said, well, here I am. I’m back in the business. Dave (6m 7s): You’re doing Jack (6m 7s): It. It was a very short business, 65 books and I’m out of it. So a few DVDs, the people, you know, they don’t realize that once you did a, a program in A DVD, it’s never gonna go away. You just gotta be able to play it. And that’s easy. You can transfer from DVDs over through thumb drives. Really simply, simply, a lot of people aren’t gonna do that. ’cause does require a little bit of knowledge. Where Dave (6m 32s): Can people track that down? Because you have a, a wealth, we have a episode we did with you, like we said four years ago. We’ll put a link in the show notes to that. But you’ve got a bunch, you know, from the western trout, you know, flight tying manual to all this other information. Could people find like, Jack (6m 47s): Well they can find me on, they can find me on eBay and Amazon. I’m not putting any of the limited editions on that, on any of those things. They’re, they’re very, very personal and I’m gonna put ’em in the hands of the people. You know, I’ve given ’em a fly that I tied 50 something years ago. I wanted to go to a good home. I’m not gonna be around to see it. And I didn’t wanna put it in a fly plate because only if it made it to a museum, people could enjoy it. But then if one person bought it, they can only enjoy it. The worst part of it. I look at the flies and it got God, I was really that bad back then. Dave (7m 29s): Right. Jack (7m 30s): We just didn’t know any better. Dave (7m 31s): Right. What was it about that book? Because for me, you know, I I actually just turned 50 right? This year. So it’s pretty awesome because I remember that book when I was a little kid is is my whole life literally, you know, was that I remember seeing that book. My dad had it along with all the other old books he had, you know, and that was a new book at the time. But what is it about that book that, you know what I mean, resonated to 300,000 copies sold? Like what do you think it is? Jack (7m 54s): Well, it’s, you know, like in anything, there’s a lot of factors. The first thing is I saw books and all they would do is put in like three or four pictures. And like, what about in all the stuff in between? They’re just assuming you know that. And I thought, well, why can’t you, you know, not knowing that where video was coming, you just put in every step. And next thing we know, we had between 700, 900 pictures and they were, they were about 50 to a hundred dollars a picture to get in a book. Geez. And that, that’s a lot of money spent. And I think what, more than anything, it was just nothing was out there other than personal lessons. Jack (8m 39s): There really wasn’t any book that really took you through the step by step. And, and, you know, I look at it and yes, a few of the patterns are still around, you know, the Royal Humpy and Mudman and what, you know, a lot of in those days, those were the flies that Dan Bailey sold. Who would, at that time it was Orvis and Dan Bailey and mail order shops, you know, at the, we’re talking about in the sixties. And that’s what I was an influence. I was an influence from the shop that I had grown up with. The Moose Tackle Shop, which had Roy Donnelley and Martinez Don Martinez tying form, which were two of the top fly tires in the Rockies and or the West Coast. Jack (9m 26s): And he was just a stickler to have flies that were balanced. He was from Pennsylvania, Bob Carmichael was. And so I had that influence. I got to watch Roy Donnelly, Ty at my age. He was in his late seventies. And, and I could notice his eyes were getting bad. I have some of his old older F flies. And I go, wow, I guess that, I hope that isn’t me now. I’m now I’m struggling. But here’s the thing. We took it, it was a marketing deal. First of all. We went to Gun Digest, went to all the places Winchester Press. They sent me a letter back, which I keep saying that it was too regional, you know, you know, it’s a great idea for a book, but we’re not interested. Jack (10m 11s): And so I took the letter to my banker who was a fly fisherman. And he says, what, what are they talking about? You know, this is the hub of western fly fishing here. I’ll back the book. We never even thought like, what did it take to print a book? Right. And we found out how cheaply it could be done in those days and how much money publishers were making compared to the author who lucky to get three or $4 a book. Of course, in those days, three or $4 meant a lot of money. It was not bad. But we came out And we decided that the fly shops really couldn’t sell books. And they were mail order. They did better selling books. Jack (10m 51s): But we went to General Sporting goods stores and that was the key. And eventually Cabela’s Oh. And we took it to places. I remember going to Eddie Bowers when they were selling, they were selling fly fishing gear back then. Probably people don’t remember that. They remember the Eddie Bowers of today. And they had a, a beautiful store downtown Denver. And I went there and that weekend sold 900 books. I’d grab 900 books. It was just like nothing was out there like it. Wow. And in looking back on it, if I was smarter, I probably would’ve just called it a fly time manual. Jack (11m 31s): But Randall and I and Dennis Black, who was the founder of Qua Feather Merchants, we all tied for Orvis in the sixties. And we saw the type of patterns that they were tying were not what you’d use in California. Some of ’em were, I mean, obviously atoms and, you know, your, your standard flies. And, and there wasn’t a big of emphasis on nymphs back in there. It was very much a dry fly culture. And they just didn’t know how to handle or even think about hair flies now. Hair dry flies, even though the wolf was from the east. Jack (12m 12s): But, but, you know, Lee Wolf, of which I became lifelong friends with, he really made the popularity from Dan Bailey. Dan Bailey’s the one that really popularized the wolf. In fact, he wasn’t even gonna name it for himself. Dan Bailey talked him into it. And Dan Bailey promoted Lee Wolf because he could sell far more flies. He developed that fly for Canada, not for the US Oh yeah. Yeah. He had his, his lodges up there. And I, you know, what was really lovely in my life and I, I used the word love because Lee was a very complex man. Jack (12m 53s): Joan would be lovely Yeah. To be around. And I’ve been around her all, gosh, since she first got married. And we have a wonderful relationship. Dave (13m 4s): What was Lee? I I, I am interested in Lee too because we were heading up to one of his lodges up to Mountain Waters Resort, which was, I think he ran before it was the mountain waters up in Newfoundland. Yeah. And he, he used to fly his plane up there and land. So we’re actually gonna be fishing the same, in the same cabin. Right. To where, and I’m really excited about it ’cause I love the history. But what was it about Lee Wolfe that, how would you describe him? Jack (13m 26s): His, well anyway, Lee Lee tied everything by hand. And so he couldn’t tie the flies he needed to fish with. So that’s how his relationship with Bailey was. Oh, and Bailey. ’cause you’re using the wrong material. And he used calf tail on these and he really put the wolf patterns, said Lee, you need to name it. Well, they’ll think it is like, it’s gonna be a wolf, you know, wolf woof wolf. Right, right. Yeah. No, no, they won’t. But it’s interesting. I haven’t shown it very much, but I got the last conversations between Lee Wolf and Kirk Gowdy before Lee died. And it, it’s kind of an interesting story because I’m, Lee wanted to come to the one fly. Jack (14m 10s): He was a very competitive angler. And at that time, we’d only been going about four years. It was 1990 and he wanted to come. So I, I visited him at his, at his farm and he and Joan And we shutting out on the deck. And he says, didn’t, didn’t you fly? And I says, well, I flew a little bit. My father was a test pilot and a World War II bomber pilot. And, and I said, yeah, I, and he says, you know what? I haven’t flown that plane in three years. It was sitting there on the runway in front of his house. And he said, you know what I’d like to show you is I’d like to show you my old lodges and Labrador and newfound and, and take you up there. Jack (14m 54s): He said, can you fly well enough to help me with the flying? I said, of course I could. You know, you know, and I’m not gonna be very good at landings. And he says, well, I can handle all that. He says, but I gotta get my license renewed. And So we had always set it up for May and that cleared my, my calendar, you know, speaking during that time. And, and that was the plan. And of course he passed away getting the license and Joan was very wanted to know the, the inspector was a friend of Lee and he lived, he was in the plane accident. Jack (15m 35s): But what it turned out is Lee died not, he had already qualified for his pilot’s license and they were landing and his aorta broke. Oh. And he had died instantly. And he fell on the stick. Geez. And which caused the plane to go, you know, go, go into the ground. Luckily there’re only about 300 feet above the ground and he was able to just pull the stick back enough so they didn’t, you know, crash straight into the ground. Dave (16m 4s): Oh, wow. And who was in that? Who, who was in the plane? Jack (16m 7s): Well, he was an instructor, but he was also giving him his pilot’s license Oh, okay. To get it renewed. So he was an inspector and luckily, you know, I mean he was 86 years old, you know, but, you know, we had filmed him. He, he was getting around pretty darn good. He was an athlete. A lot of people don’t realize that he was a All American basketball player and baseball player. Oh really? Yeah. At Stanford. Dave (16m 35s): What position did he play in basketball? Jack (16m 37s): Well, he was about six two probably in those days. He probably was a forward, you know, Dave (16m 42s): For small forward. Yeah. Jack (16m 43s): Yeah. At, but he was very agile And we, he, he loved sports. We talked a lot about that. And, but, you know, one of the neatest sessions we ever had is Devon Sheard, who’s the founder of Patag Go, came to me and he says, gosh, I hear Lee Wolf is in town. And he said, can you introduce me to him? I said, why? We’re gonna go have breakfast at the work tomorrow. Come, come down. And, and he tied two size 28, or was it 32? I can’t remember. I got the fly for one for Yvonne and one for me. And that was a real thrill. Jack (17m 25s): And I got to watch, I knew Yvonne when he was a, what we used to call a dirt bag climber. And he would sleep in his car. ’cause he hadn’t made any friends at the climbers ranch. And I used to bring him across when I was 13. I got to run, I I had a summer job running boats at Jenny Lake and I’d go over, he was never on time coming back. And so nobody wanted to pick him up. And so I’d go over there and fish ’cause none of the other people fished and waiting for him to come down. So that was our star of our friendship, which still is today. Oh wow. And I got to von and I got to do lots of things together. Jack (18m 8s): I, you know, he still lives in the same house that he built back in the sixties. Gave his company away. ’cause he didn’t wanna be a billionaire. But, you know, we had a lot of, we, we did a lot of things together. And one of my managers became Bill Klein became his right hand man in the fly fishing. Dave (18m 29s): Oh, okay. Yeah. Jack (18m 30s): I was really lucky. You know, about the, the books my whole life has just been amazing little things. Dave (18m 40s): Grand Teton Fly Fishing is a premier guide service and fly shop that has access to some of the most coveted rivers and lakes in western Wyoming. Their simple goal is to share their valued resource and have you experience a native cutthroat trout rising to a single dry fly in the shadows of the Tetons. You can check out Grand Teton right now at Grand teton fly fishing.com. Let them know you heard of them through this podcast this year. I ventured into the heart of Eastern Idaho’s Yellowstone Teton territory where the fish were larger than life and the waters held the secrets of the best fly fishing out west with crystal clear rivers like the Henry’s Fork and the South Fork of the Snake. And enough lakes to keep you going all year long. Dave (19m 20s): Make your way to Yellowstone Teton territory and embark on a journey to one of North America’s finest fly fishing destinations. It’s time to experience Eastern Idaho for yourself and support this podcast at the same time. What do you attribute that to? Because, you know, Yvanna, we actually had him on the podcast And we had a really great discussion and, and he’s obviously a huge name, a huge inspiration to a lot of people with conservation. And I think you’re maybe as big of an influence of people in fly fishing Right. To everything you, you mentioned Bill Klein, but lots of people I’ve talked to on the podcast of, you know, were influenced by you. What do you attribute your success? Do you look back at that and say, man, it was this one thing, it was the book, or it was the shop? Jack (20m 3s): I’ll absolutely tell you the one thing. There is just one thing I think I’m good at. Yeah. I can tie flies. Anybody can tie flies with the right stuff, you know, and I, I never like writing, I did the three books ’cause I needed to be done. I’m never been a fan, but I love video. And when we did the first American Sportsman, I just fell in love with, with filming and did a lot of filming with my own cameras and then TV shows and stuff. But here’s what my one thing was. I had the ability to look at a person and say, that person has ability. And that’s when I wanna be a friend with him. I want him to work for me or work with, that’s wrong thing. Jack (20m 44s): Yeah. That’s a bad thing. Work for me. Nobody works for you. They work with you. They have their own life. What you do is provide an environment that they can work under for themselves. So throughout my life, I, you know, I’ve been able to pick the right people from the people that photograph my book. Randall Kaufman. I knew when met when I was 16, I, I was really lucky. I had partners together for 40 years. I, I had a pretty good job at the ones I picked. Were good ones. And, and I’m a bit, I’m a big believer in the book Blink that your first instincts tell you a lot. Jack (21m 28s): I remember when Jeff Courier walked in this young punk kid, kind of a smart ass. And he, I said, well, what are you interested here? He says, well, you know, I want to, self life is some gear I wanna learn. I want to travel. I want to do all these things. And he says, you, you are in the place. There’s nothing better than Jackson Hole. And I says, well, if I give you a job, what, what are you gonna do with this? He says, well, first of all, I’m gonna end up being the manager of this part. No, I don’t want to own anything, but if I can be the manager, I can learn a lot. And so, whether it be a friendship with Jay Buckner, a friendship with Scott Sanchez, I pick these people And we had, oh gosh, from the standpoint we had probably 20 people were with us over 30 years. Jack (22m 20s): And one’s still running our fly, our guiding operation, which I sold to our, to our guides. So he’s over 50 years. Dave (22m 27s): Yeah. That’s Grand Teton fly fishing Scott. Right. Jack (22m 30s): Yeah. And you know, I, that’s been the, been the thing I, and I’ve also, you know, one of the big turning points in my life was knowing Kirk Gowdy. And here he was one of these kind of people that, that came from a nowhere place of Wyoming and became the greatest sportscaster. And you can talk about all these guys, but nobody did what Kirk Gowdy did. Nobody in this day and age did the Super Bowl, the World Series, the college basketball, every single solitary big event. He did. Dave (23m 6s): Oh, he did. He did all of those. Yeah. He was the broadcast, the, the commentator for all those and Jack (23m 11s): Everything changes. But Kurt evolved. He was a big influence in my life. He was the one that introduced me to so many good, really good people. And he taught me what it was like to be humble. And one of the greatest thrills is you said, you gotta come to Chicago. And I said, what do I want to go? I’m, we have two kids, another one on the way running a guiding operation, a little small tackle shop. And he says that, you know, you need to come to Chicago 10 day show. I’m gonna give the the talk. It’s gonna be a wonderful time. And I said, well God, I can’t afford that. Jack (23m 52s): He says, no, no, you stay with me. Just buy the ticket and get here. I’ll take care of you. And I did. My wife says, man, you know, she really liked Kurt. And she said, you listened to him. And I went there. And so I checked in Ambassadors hotel. I went in there and said, okay, I’m Jackson says, oh, you’re with Mr. Gowdy and Mr. Williams. Okay, they’re, yeah, we’ll take you up there. So I’ve been in there and, and it’s an open room, like a bar setting and fireplace and everything. And there’s three bedrooms. And he goes, okay, you got the one on the right. And I says, Mr. Gowdy will be with you. Jack (24m 32s): Walked out there, who is there? But Ted Williams. Oh, really? And I got to spend the next 10 days with Kurt and Ted Williams. And I remember I asked so many things that Ted Dave (24m 46s): Was, was he already at that point, was he already a, a famous baseball player? Jack (24m 50s): Oh my gosh, this is 78. I mean, Ted Williams Sears products made him a billionaire. He didn’t make it in baseball. He made it a Ted Williams equipment. That’s why he was at the show. Not ’cause he was Ted Williams. He was there for Sears. Dave (25m 6s): Oh, right, right, right. Ted Williams. And he was the Right, the Yankees. Right. What was his, was it the Yankees? What was his team? Jack (25m 13s): It was Diaggio. All of those guys. Yeah. You know, they, they all benefited the game. They didn’t make that that much in, in real money like they do now. But Ted knew how to do it. But he wanted to reacquaint ’cause he was, he had got into a fishing operation with George Hamel and Billy Pate called Worldwide Sportsman. And so, you know, they, they were kind of his silent Georgia’s silent partners, which now was when everybody died, bass Pro Shop bought worldwide sportsmen. Dave (25m 48s): Oh Jack (25m 48s): Really? Yeah. And they, they don’t allow chains and Isle Marata. So he was able to buy existing business and build a great big store called Worldwide Sportsman. But so, so Ken had a lot of, he had a lot of interests, but he, but I got a lot of good wisdom from him. And he says, when you’re, when he, I asked what was the difference with being good and great? And he says, well good is, you know, you get to play in the major leagues. And he says, it’s a very small thing. He said, the three hardest things in sports is hitting a baseball, hitting a golf ball and casting a fly rod. Ah, Dave (26m 24s): Right. So Ted Williams said, the three hardest things are hitting a, a baseball, hitting a golf ball and casting a fly rod. Yeah. That’s amazing. Jack (26m 31s): And let, If you crate to told me he thought that Ted Williams was the greatest fly caster I’d ever lived. Dave (26m 37s): No kidding. Jack (26m 39s): He’d have been in graphite rods and stuff. He never did. He might have used the very end of his life some graphite rods. But he used these big heavy glass rods and cane rods. He was using God probably were eight ounce cane rods for in casting 120 feet with them. You know, nothing like gouty said the same thing. He’d never seen anybody cast. I I put my palm of my hand on his wrist and I got small hands. Yeah. And I just covered his wrist. His wrist was, but he said, here’s the difference. He says, you fail hitting a baseball six outta 10 times and you become the greatest hitter it ever lived. Jack (27m 24s): You fail seven outta 10 times and you become a player in Major league. You fail eight outta 10 times. You don’t play. You know, it’s, and he said, but here’s the key. He said, everybody makes a mistake. The pitchers make a mistake. I make a mistake. I learned to, he had great eyesight. Yeah. So that, that really helped him. He told me he could see the seas. He knew what the pitch was coming. He didn’t know it was a ball or strike, but he knew what it was, what it Dave (27m 53s): Was. Right. Which is huge if you know it’s a curve ball or a fast ball. That makes a huge difference. Jack (27m 57s): And he says, he said, when he threw me my pitch, the difference of being great and being good is you don’t foul it off. Yeah. In other words, when these opportunities come, you move on. Those, when Kirk Gowdy asked me, God, hey, I need a guide. I I had only been guiding for a couple, three years. He said, I need a guide for American Sportsman Show. Yeah. Can you be my guide? I always dreamed to be on the American Sportsman Show. I didn’t say, well, maybe I said yes. Then I’d figure out how I was gonna do it. Jack (28m 38s): You know? And so, I mean, every time I had an opportunity like that, you know, I I tried not to foul it off. Dave (28m 46s): Yeah. What is the American sportsman for those, you know, maybe the younger crowd listening here, what was that show? Why was that so big? And what was you talk about your, your opportunity there. Jack (28m 57s): First of all, most people don’t realize the American Sportsman’s first host was not Kurt Gowdy. It was Joe Foss, who was considered the number one ace in World War ii. Became the governor of north of North Dakota, or just South Dakota. I think it was South Dakota. And eventually became the Spokesmans for the Liberty Mutual. Hmm. But he was the first one picked. He was a, it was mainly, it was a show by a B, C. But the interesting thing, what happened and how it started, and you could actually see the very first pilot, you might call it, it was done in Argentina. Jack (29m 43s): Roone Arley, the famous producer was a field director and they wanted a film. This was the Wide World of Sports. And so they thought Wide World of Sports, that’s bird shooting. That’s everything. And so they wanted to do a, a program. And he says, look, if it’s sports, it’s gotta be a contest. So Joe Brooks, the famous Joe Brooks of Fly fishing fame and Kurt Goey went to Argentina with Roone ar as the producer. And they did a film with this contest with Babe and Soreta. Jack (30m 23s): And Oh gosh, I can’t, I should remember, you gotta realize I’m turning 78 this year. Dave (30m 28s): Yeah, well that’s all good. Yeah. Jack (30m 31s): But anyway, the two most famous fishermen in Argentina, and they, they did spin fishing, they did fly fishing, they did brook trout. And when it got done, Argentina was ahead at the very end, Joe Brook hooks on a spinning rod, great big brook trout, like about, you know, 8, 9, 10 pound brook trout enough to win the contest. Oh wow. And the two Argentines sat down and cried. ’cause they’d let their country by night. And that’s when Narley looked over and said, the krill of victory and the agony of defeat, which became the, you know, the hallmark of American, you know, the wide world of sports is, it didn’t come from the guy watching a skier go down, which it was that came right then that was told to me by Kirk County. Jack (31m 22s): And so that went on into the Mar. And so they decided, wait a minute, you know, we can’t have bird shooting along with baseball and all the other sports that Wide World sports are doing. We’re gonna form the American sportsman and we’re gonna get Joe Foss to be the, the guy. And the first person he’s gonna have on that is gonna be Kurt Gowdy. And so Kurt did guest appearances with him, but then something else happened called the American Football League. And who becomes the first commissioner? Joe Foss. Oh, wow. Well, who’s gonna head the American sportsman? Well, I can do that. Kurt Gowdy again. He un understood, you know, you don’t foul it off. Dave (32m 5s): Yeah. Take the opportunity. Jack (32m 6s): And so he started the show with A, B, C. And a lot of people don’t realize that Kurt actually did work for all three networks. Can you imagine that? Right. CB had all of them depending on what the event was. But anyway, what they did is they brought Bird shooting into it to Africa. He had every, I mean, major movie star sports figure. Dave (32m 36s): Is that how it was set up? Was the show set up? Like they’d go to a different destination and they’d have Kurt along with some famous movie star? Absolutely. And would they have a guide? That was it. Jack (32m 46s): I I did the one with Phil Harris, which, you know, he was a, an incredible band leader, voice of jungle and jungle book part of the Rat Rat Pack. An unbelievably funny guy and just perfect for the American Sportsman. And he loved a bird shoot. I I actually got a chance to go bird shoot with him. He walked into this room, there must have been 150 guns or shotguns in there. He says, well, just take your, take your pick. The only problem was we were all 28 gauge. Oh, Dave (33m 21s): 28 gauge. Wow. Jack (33m 23s): And we went to me, we went to Mexico and I got to shoot a, I mean, they’re all ones I, I got, I always wanted to do, do one of the, you know, European brownings. It was, I mean, just a wonderful life of having these neat things happen. But Kirk did Peter O’Toole, they, they went to, went to the Middle East and fished. And Dave (33m 48s): Were there any other famous fly fishing episodes that you, you remember with Oh Jack (33m 53s): Yeah. We, geez, there were probably the best one. This is a great story. Yeah. This is kind of a little section of my life, how things happened. So the traveling Fly fisherman, that’s when Gary Lata, Mike Lawson and I started this idea in 1986. And for the next 12 years we lectured around the world and through the country with these wonderful programs. And Fly Rod and Reel was actually the one that had had the idea of doing eastern fly fishing shows before Fensky started his, the fly fishing show. Jack (34m 36s): And we did one in Boston and we did actually several in Boston. And we were at the show, and afterwards we had the, the Irish bar across the street from, from where the event was held. We sort of held court and got up on the stage and answered questions from people and to let his voice in the back goes, Hey, tell us how good of a fisherman is Kirk County. And I said, wow, he could be one of us. He just doesn’t have the time to get, he’s really good. He’s a great caster and really good. But no, he could be one of us if he gave up broadcasting. Jack (35m 18s): And it turned out to be Kurt mimicking the voice. Dave (35m 23s): Yeah. Jack (35m 24s): And he says, okay boys, you’re coming over to my house, nine Pierce Road, Wellesley Hills. And we went over there and they got to see all the sports memorabilia, Gary and, and Mike. And we, I remember sitting there on the couch and, and Mike says, what’s your greatest American sportsman show? And he says, well, you know, the ones in Wyoming were special. But he says, the one I remember the most, and it’s, to me the favorite was Terry Bradshaw. Dave (35m 57s): Oh, nice. Jack (35m 58s): And oh, I said, the man, I remember, I remember that Dave (36m 2s): The Pittsburgh Steelers, right? The Yeah, Jack (36m 4s): No, they were fishing for Tarpon. Yeah. And he cast out hooks of tarpon. Dave (36m 10s): Is this with the fly or is this with conventional Jack (36m 12s): With No, this with the fly. Dave (36m 13s): Oh, wow. Jack (36m 15s): And the fly rod goes flying out of his hand, the fish jumps flying out of his hands and he jumps in after the rod Dave (36m 24s): Nice. Jack (36m 25s): Gets the rod puts it between his teeth and dog paddles back. Dave (36m 31s): That’s gotta be, I would love if I could find that on YouTube too. Jack (36m 34s): Oh yeah. I saw it the other day. Oh good. It was actually on something. I’m just too busy to that guy. Dave (36m 41s): I’m gonna put a, we’ll put a link in the show notes and right now everybody can pause this and go watch that Terry, Brad show. Ah, but the famous, but Jack (36m 47s): Here’s where it gets good. So Gary flies back to Montana, Mike and I go to Baseball Hall of Fame. Kurt says, oh, you are gonna really enjoy that. And we see Kurt’s, you know, his presentation there. He, he was, you know, obviously in the Baseball Hall of Fame, basketball, hall of Fame, hall, the Hall of Fame. And So we saw that. And then we drove back to Pittsburgh where my really close friend I had earlier in life. And he was head of the simulator program for US Air. So we got, Mike and I got to fly in the simulators. Jack (37m 27s): It was really a fun. And then Mike had to go back to Idaho and I had to go to for the stop over in Texas. So I get on the airplane to go to Texas and then on back to Jackson. And I’m, I, I flew enough, I got, I flew 7 million miles lecturing, you know, a hundred lectures a year for almost 40 years. And so I always got first class. I’m in the very front, front deal and who comes and sits beside me now, this is Pittsburgh, but Terry Bradshaw. Dave (38m 2s): Oh, nice. Jack (38m 3s): And I said, I am not gonna believe this. You know? Yeah. This is, and So we got to talking and he, he just laughed. And I told him that Gdy had talked to me. He says he was the only sportsman announcer that was nice to me when I broke into the, into the business. Dave (38m 21s): Oh, really? Yeah, because he was a, he was a, what was Bradshaw? Yeah, it was the Steelers. Right. He was a Super Bowl champion and the great, one of the great quarterbacks of all time. Jack (38m 29s): Yeah. And they didn’t, they weren’t that anxious to have those kind of guys in there. But anyway, Kurt was great to him. So, you know, that’s kind of way my life has been. Dave (38m 40s): Yeah, it sounds like it, it sounds like you’ve had these things and you know, they’ve just been connections with fame. Does that go back to Jackson Hole? Do you think that’s a big part of the reason why? Oh, Jack (38m 49s): No question. If I was doing a fly shop and anywhere else, maybe West Yellowstone, you can get a little bit of it. Or, or Livingston, you know, nowadays you’ve got the Bozeman. But Bozeman was way down the list. Jackson was just a magnificent place. Dave (39m 8s): And what is it about Jackson? ’cause you had the Jack Dennis outdoor store, right? Yeah, Jack (39m 13s): We had, we had the store, which I, and then we had the outfitting business and I had my book publishing and video business. And then we had two ski shops. So we had about a hundred employees. Oh wow. Dave (39m 26s): Oh, you had a big shop. Jack (39m 27s): We were ski. I mean we had a hundred and a summer and hundred in the winter. But Dave (39m 32s): You had a fly shop there too. There was a fly shop within the outdoor store. Yeah. Jack (39m 36s): The fly shop was within the store. I mean, we sold more North Face gear than we sold fly fishing gear. Yeah. This way. Yeah. And, but I mean we, we sold a lot of fly fishing gear and you know, we were the premier shop and all the other shops ended up people that had worked for me. And I mean, I’m really very pleased I say worked with me. And we get that back to that the guy that, you know, we had an all close relationship. The guiding was the big thing. And in 2007, I got one of the great thrills of, of my life. Jack (40m 17s): And that was Dyed Magazine. Did a outdoor equipment awards, the best of the best one time deal. And they gave the best fly rod, the best ski boot, the best, the best ski area. You know, the best of the best when it came to the best outfitter in the world. We got that award. Hmm. That was unbelievable. Dave (40m 43s): So that was 2000. So you still had your guy business in 2007? Oh Jack (40m 46s): Yeah. We had everything till about 2013, 14. It was, it was just time. The, we had, two of my partners got Alzheimer’s and it was just starting to, he had 2008 banking crisis. Oh, right. And little did I know that I had a, I would get a, a really bad virus of all things from China would get in my heart. And, and I luckily got out a year, you know, and decided that was enough. 50 years is enough and everything kind of collapsed. The fly fishing speaking business went down the road. Dave (41m 27s): Did it? What? Why is that just a change in the industry then? Jack (41m 31s): Yeah. Oh, social media, all kinds of things. Dave (41m 34s): Oh, right. Yeah. That was a big time. Yeah. Podcasts, actually, that was about the time podcasting got going back in 2012 in there. Jack (41m 40s): Yeah. Well, let me tell you how it all transpired. We had a, a really nice group of speakers from Jim Tini to Mike and Gary and I, and, and Lefty and Dave Whitlock and some other more Eastern guys and everything. But there was probably a group of about 20 of us. And we fought hard to get and, and, and a lot of really good clubs. Not so many of the regional fly fishing shows that we have now, both the commercial and chapter clubs. But we had a, we had a going rate now, now we’re gonna talk about 1980s and into the nineties. Jack (42m 25s): And we were getting anywhere, lefty was getting about seven 50 And we were getting 500 to seven 50 a day for what? And some of the deals, when I did a couple of the TV shows, it was $1,500 a day. And, And we were, we, we were making decent money. I had income from the store. I mean, boy, I had a wonderful lifestyle. Could go anywhere. And, and then I hooked up doing work with, with Australia at the start, and as advising and doing to help ’em with fly fishing travel. Then I, I hooked up with New Zealand and that lasted for almost 25 years. Jack (43m 10s): And I mean, I got all these wonderful opportunities. And So we were making a, now let’s vault forward and let’s vault forward to about 2008, nine, when that crisis comes in. Dave (43m 25s): So like 30 years later Jack (43m 27s): And $500 is the best you could get. Dave (43m 30s): So same price 30 years later. Jack (43m 32s): Yeah. You tell me how that flies. Yeah. Dave (43m 35s): Doesn’t add up. Jack (43m 37s): And everybody had to pay for people to come, you know, it wasn’t, now everybody’s in the business, the clubs which have survived, not as many as there used to be. I don’t see them paying anything or very little because somebody has something to sell. I got trips. So I’ll go to this club and tell ’em about the trips and they’ll pay for the motel room. You know, they may pay a little of it, but, and If you go to the fly shows, they might work a deal out with, everybody has a deal. And you get a booth, you do a class, they take 50%. Jack (44m 19s): I remember telling this to this Hollywood lawyer friend of mine. He says, what they got 50% of your take? He says, man, that’s good. Nobody Hollywood ever gets 50%. Dave (44m 31s): Oh right. Jack (44m 32s): It’s just that, that whoever’s doing that is the greatest showman of all time. Dave (44m 37s): Right? Yeah. There’s not, there’s not too many show and things have changed, obviously now, I mean, YouTube and as we do this right, we’re audio and we’re, we’re recording this over Zoom, like we don’t have to travel anywhere to do it. Oh. Jack (44m 48s): You know, and I think the pandemic then put Dave (44m 50s): Yeah, it changed, it, Jack (44m 52s): It all came together. You know, all one, one storm. You might, you might say, but you know, nothing beats at least the fly shows. And I think the rinky family has done a wonderful job with it. Yeah, they have. And so, so is a few still good regional sports shows, which have fly fishing, international sportsman show and Dave (45m 12s): Yeah, the expos Jack (45m 13s): Pacific Northwest Show where they have, you know, they, they’ve been able, ’cause people need to shake hands. They need to talk to people in person. Yeah. And I think that, but lemme tell you how I got, so, so I was, in 19 86, 1 of the most profitable things I ever did was put together streams and ponds in a Arnold Palmer endorsed course in Jackson Hole called Teton Pines. And we, our idea was to put a fly fishing, not so much a school, but to do lessons and provide fishing for the people that bought homes there. And so I got to work with Arnold Palmer. Jack (45m 54s): And when the grand opening was in, oh, I’m gonna say 85 some, you know, Kurt’s still a big deal. And So we had the fish planted in there. I mean like $50,000 for that. I mean that was just incredible. And so we’re, we’re have, Arnold has to catch a fish in the pond to start the day out. Dave (46m 20s): So this is a golf tournament and fishing. Well, Jack (46m 22s): Yeah. It’s Oh, grand opening. Yeah. We had a fishing contest where Gowdy and Mike Lawson was involved and you know, we had celebrities there and a lot of sports guys, art Linkletter was there and, you know, just, just a bunch of golf people. So anyway, Palmer and were out there and man, I said, man, you using too much wrist? He says, I’m the only golfer who used his wrist and was successful. He said, So we had a lot of fun. And I ha I had to play golf with him afterwards, which I was just learning the game. And, but we caught the fish and I’m just looking over my shoulder here. Jack (47m 4s): It’s right there. My, my scorecard for four, four holes. Thereby. Yeah. But, so he says, well, tell me about this fly fishing field. And he says, now how do you rank? I says, well, you know, we don’t have any kinda rankings, you know, I’d say it’s best about how much you make. He says, well, how much does do you make? And I said, well, you know, it’s pretty, pretty good. 500 to seven 50 a day. And he goes, and they pay all my expenses. And, and then you sell a few things. And he says, well, what’s the best in your field get? And he says, well, he might get 1,500 to seven 50. Jack (47m 46s): Yep. You know, I looked at me, he says, it’s a very, very small field, isn’t it? He says, I get 50,000 a day and you fuel up my airplane. Wow. But it was a good deal. We had it for 30 years And we ran, it was amazing. We only had one year down And we saw fly fishing grow like about 5% each year. We had one year where it didn’t grow, but it was, it was an interesting concept. We were teaching trout fishing, just like you teach golf, you know, you get out there and learn to catch and catch a few fish. And we would, it was really good If you say, well, I’m a beginner. Jack (48m 26s): I’m booking a trip. Well we’re gonna book you a fly fishing casting lesson before the trip. Yeah. So it, you know, everything kind of fell into place. And the nice thing about it is that my people could handle it. The more and more I became less and less a part of the store because everybody did their job. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Dave (48m 48s): We’ve heard many of the stories on this podcast. Togiak River Lodge is one of the great destinations for swine flies, for chinook stripping, for coho all day and unwinding in a lodge right on the river bank of the Togiak River. With access to all five salmon species plus rainbows, Dolly vardon and more TOK offers a true Alaskan experience. Picture over 30 miles of river season guides, high quality boats and low fishing pressure. It’s fly fishing Alaska at its best. I’ll be heading up to summer. So reach out to Jordan and the crew to see what dates they have available this year. You can learn more right now@wetflyswing.com slash togiak. That’s togiak. Dave (49m 28s): T-O-G-I-A-K Alaskan fly fishing like you’ve always dreamed about. Why do you think fly fishing is so much smaller than golf, but you know, all the other, everything else. It seems like it’s the smallest tiny little niche. Maybe it’s not, there’s probably smaller, but in the sports field, it seems like it’s, Jack (49m 50s): Well first of all, Lee Wolfe put it best. He said, you know, there’s only so many fishing streams and there’s only so much resource you got out there. And he said back in 91, his comment was the ocean, you just gotta find the fish. They’re, they’re easy to catch once you find them. And he says, you know, catching release is the only thing that’s gonna save fishing. He said, did, but you can build any number of tennis courts and and golf court. He says, it’s never gonna be big because of just the amount. But then I’ve even gone past that and Lee probably would not, because as Joan said, Lee was an inspirer. Jack (50m 33s): He inspired people. He was not an instructor, he was not a teacher. Joan was the teacher. And so he looked at it from a different way. It was not that he needed to, to teach a bunch of people to be in fly fishing. Dave (50m 47s): Yeah. He was the inspiration for so many, including today. Think of this. I mean, you, and you know, today, like I said, we got people that are inspired to go fish in the same areas where, where Lee used to fish, right. For Atlantic salmon. Oh, Jack (50m 59s): Absolutely. And Yellowstone, yeah. Yellowstone place. It hasn’t, you know, Yellowstone Lake is con firing back nature if given the right terms. We held them by, by getting the population down on Lake Trout. But they learned the Ros learned in Yellowstone, how to deal with them. Just get big as they are. Yeah. If you get big they can’t eat you. Dave (51m 24s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got No, it’s good because it’s the same for us too with with what you’re saying, your operation. Grand Teton. We’re gonna be fly fishing with Scott and we’ve done some podcast episode and it’s cool because it’s a connection to you, you know, through Scott, right? Like I’m sure, well, Scott Jack (51m 38s): Is, I can’t, but see Scott came up through the store influenced by Jeff. Dave (51m 44s): Oh right. We, Jack (51m 45s): We, we just had it down. And I know the, you know, Scott San wrote, wrote a wonderful article in our 40th year, year celebration. It was in fly tackle dealer. He just put it all to line of how it worked. And, and it wasn’t just fly fishing in our store. We had the best boot fitter in town. We sold a hell of a bunch of shoes. ’cause we had guys that knew how to fit shoes. And we inspired people And we had a wonderful hunting department. ’cause we had guys, you know, you just, but in the store I always believed, and the for all after you did have stores and you’re dealing with the public, I I, the thing influenced me the most about the store when I was struggling and you struggle, I was lucky enough to get some partners that could provide the financing when financing wasn’t available. Jack (52m 40s): And it turned out to be, I think we, we went through the whole downturn 2008. We didn’t lose any money. It was good because the people, what I thought people made a difference. My partners maybe didn’t always agree with it, but I, what I did was pay the people more, have a few less people, but pay ’em more during that downturn and remodel a store when nobody else was doing it and giving a guy a task. And I said, it’s your store. How would you run it? He went from making 50,000 a year to 200,000 a year. Jack (53m 20s): And then, because he was put in, in charge. But I remember, remember when we were struggling, we had a Albertson supermarket in town. This is small one now, it’s one of the biggest Albertsons in the country in Jackson. But it was, they had a commercial where they actually took their people and they, and the slogan went, this is Joe Albertson supermarket, but the meat department is mine. And he then he’d sing a song and it hit me so hard to say, wow, there’s your Harvard Business School and one ad. Yeah. So when Courier had answered the phone and he knew I was calling, he’d say, he’d go, hello, this is Jeff Courier’s fly shop. Dave (54m 10s): That is amazing. Jack (54m 11s): So, I mean, Dave (54m 12s): Yeah. Well I think what it is too is this, like you said, you learned it along the way. The being humble, I feel like Scott, Jeff Courier, I feel, even though these guys have all done amazing things, they’re humble. You know what I mean? They’re, they’re very great to talk to and probably be around. Right. Jack (54m 27s): Well, each person had their own way of doing things and Scott Scott’s running the store for the Chicago group. I mean, the influence hasn’t gone away. Yeah. You know, it it, yeah. But you know, there’s just so much, you know, I look at it now, I probably the most humbling thing this year, last year was to get my one fly to get the Heritage Award for the Museum of Fly Fishing. Dave (54m 50s): Oh, this is for the One Fly competition. Jack (54m 52s): Yeah. For the one fly. That’s been, that’s been the, the love of my life. There’s Dave (54m 57s): 40 years, right. Jack (54m 59s): It is coming up on 40 years. Yeah. Yeah. But just to see how we’ve put over $20 million into stream restoration in the scheme of things when we talk about billionaires and trillionaires and stuff doesn’t sound like a lot of money. But that really, we didn’t go to the places we’ve done and and see the difference. And we were able to get a wild and scenic bill too that I was the co-chairman on. I got to testify in Congress, which is a, you know, when you have a bill, you can only have one person testify for the bill. You don’t have a whole bunch of people getting up there saying they’re peace. You get one guy. Jack (55m 39s): And that was a, a great thrill. And unfortunately the senator that proposed it, who’s a Republican, died five weeks after it was introduced. Oh wow. So it took some time getting it through. I was able to convince two Republican fly fishermen, senators to vote against their party. And we got it through And we were able to tag on the Wyoming Range bill, which protected over 25 streams from oil expiration. And that’s not one that anybody can turn over. That’s, well, Congress I guess could go back and do it, but highly unlikely. Jack (56m 22s): But the Wild and Scenic is there for forever. Dave (56m 25s): That’s the wild and scenic for is that for whi, which Rivers, snake Jack (56m 29s): River drainage and the Snake River drainage and the Wyoming Range is goes north from Evanston, Wyoming, all the way to Hoback. And there’s all kinds of wonderful wild trout streams. It’s, you know, I feel awfully good about where things have gone and, you know, there’s a lot of stuff, when you get some influence, you gotta be very careful how you use it. I remember Republican governor said, when you get influenced you, you’re handing him a six gun, they’re handing you a six gun. You know, be cautious how you use it. Jack (57m 10s): You only got six shots. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were able to do that in Wyoming. But you know, I’m sure you people out there, you know, where’s fly fishing going? I mean Yeah. Hoo. Dave (57m 21s): Yeah. Where, where is fly fishing going? I, I’m, I’m interested to hear that as well. And one thing I want to go back on the Argentina versus us, you mentioned the Joe Brooks back in the day. I really, that got me thinking about another big thing that you had a part of which was like a team USA competition fly, which has really gotten big, you know, and, and I just, I’ve been talking to people that have, you know, obviously, but talk about that. Why did you think, when you got involved, why did you get involved in Team USA when you did? Because you were the first person that started that whole thing to now there’s, well, Jack (57m 50s): We started the one fly in 86. Okay. And I was doing work for the Australian government at that time and for New Zealand. And of course, you know, they, they were looking for any opportunities to promote their fisher and in 88, they were gonna have the World Championship in Tasmania. And they said, man, we gotta get you involved. How do we do it? And I said, well, I got a guy who was the editor of a magazine who’s interested in bringing a team over and the other, and another guy who got the franchise for it from the, and he said, I’ll put a team together. Jack (58m 29s): We had no idea how to put a team together other than I would be one. And then we got a friend of mine who, who is, well, right now is the most influential lawyer in Hollywood history. Avid Fly fisherman. His name is Skip Brittingham. And he, he wanted to do it. And then we had Ti who is the founder of Fly Rod Real Magazine. He was a well-known writer. And we put this team together. Oh. And then Walter, Walter was the money behind it too. He had the franchise. Well, and off we went to Tasmania, not knowing. Jack (59m 12s): And I, I told my one five people, because just a few of us, it was just, you know, we had 17 teams. I think I can learn something from this. And So we went there And we didn’t, we didn’t do, we learned that not good, that they were a little more serious than we were about the thing. Dave (59m 30s): Yep. So was this the first time team USA was together as a team? Or were there events before that? Yeah, Jack (59m 36s): This was the first time. Dave (59m 37s): First time ever. But before this, there were already European teams that had been competing. Jack (59m 41s): There are nobody from the US had competed. Yeah. It was just Europeans and, and New Zealanders. ’cause it, it, it came out of the, they always had the Commonwealth Games and the people that were doing the Commonwealth Games then went to Europe, non-con, you know, non-con wealth countries have put together this organization. So as it went along, the next year was a big year because that’s when the Berlin Wall came down. Oh, wow. And teams from Europe, like Poland and Czechoslovakia could now compete. Dave (1h 0m 21s): Geez. Jack (1h 0m 22s): So the next year in, in 89, this young Polish guy came in there and stunned everybody. The name was Vladi. And, and he had more points individually than the top three teams. So, in other words, he was the world champion and his team won. But he had more points than the Dave (1h 0m 45s): Wow. And was this, and we’ve heard about Vladi before. What did he, was he from the Czech Republic? Jack (1h 0m 51s): No, he was from Poland. Dave (1h 0m 52s): Oh, that’s right. Poland. So this, and this is Polish nipping. Right. Jack (1h 0m 55s): The Czech Republic looked down on the polls. They’re always considered them to be the, the elite of the communist led republics. And then of course it went down. That would the Ukraines and all this crazy stuff. But, and they had what they called Check Nim. Yep. But it wasn’t as evolved. Vladi had it to a different level. And they started then watching him. So Walter said, we gotta get this, keep this thing going. Man, that was just a busy time for me. And I said, you know, we had a store, our store burnt down in 90 Oh geez. Jack (1h 1m 38s): One. So we had to rebuild that. And so I kind of out of it, but Walter kept the team going. And I had well to do people that could afford, I, the people always asked me, what, what your requirements to be on Team USA? And I said, you had to have a Gold American Express card that, you know, you gotta realize how many years ago that was 40 years ago. Yeah. Right. And in other words, we didn’t have any type of schedule or we just, whoever could afford Walter had a couple of his friends. And then Walter coming out for the one fly. He started coming to One Fly, he meets Jeff Courier and he meets some other characters that were guides and said, man, you’re, you’re gonna go to Poland when you go to Poland. Jack (1h 2m 24s): And so he started helping them go, Jeff started going Dave (1h 2m 28s): And Jeff was the first US person to, to medal. Right. Jack (1h 2m 31s): Yeah. Well, that we’re coming to that. So we kind went back and forth with these well to do people, but all of a sudden these guys say, God, you know, we need to have this in America in Jackson Hole. So they’re starting to figure out, you know, okay, how do we get this to Jackson? You know, of course I’m doing the One Fly. And, and these are my friends that are working with Walter to try to get, So we get the rights to do it in 1997. And so I was required to go to the Czech Republic, which I was gonna say that would be 92, 93, somewhere along that. Jack (1h 3m 18s): And I went with the, went there with these well-to-do people to fish and watch ’em get their ass kicked and started figuring out, you know, this is something, you know, nobody seemed to care whether we got our ass kicked. Hmm. All it was is that we were competing. And I said, this is a good thing. Bear could, can just enjoy being there. And, And we were building, you know, idea of, of, you know, building on that down the road. Well, we had in Jackson, I was completely uninvolved with the team. Yeah. And I was involved with making a film for the conservation part. Jack (1h 3m 60s): And I was on the committee and I was, the guy had to figure out how you’re gonna finance $330,000. And lucky enough, we had the director of Mitsubishi who was in the one fly. It took me about 20 minutes and he funded the whole thing. And we did A-E-S-P-N Oh you did? On the thing. Dave (1h 4m 24s): He funded the World Championships. Yeah. Jack (1h 4m 26s): We had the World Championship Jackson Hole. We went all out. We had the support of Halliburton through my friend Dick Chaney. Oh yeah. We had, we had all kinds of money. We did it first class. To this day, everybody says that was the best one ever done. Dave (1h 4m 42s): No kidding. 1997. Yes. Jack (1h 4m 44s): So after that, Australia wanted me to come and help them. They hired me to go to Australia. ’cause they had the World Championships and I believe that might’ve been 2000 or 2001. And so at that point I kinda watched, you know, how we were doing it. We had better fishermen. It wasn’t about money then. We were just picking fishermen. Jeff Courier obviously was one of them. And it was going along pretty good. And, but again, they were, it was not a European Nim thing was all lakes. Yeah. Jack (1h 5m 24s): And we, we failed horribly. And the fishing venue wasn’t very good. So, okay. Walter invited me to be on the, the board, like I needed to be on another board. And he says, look, you know, help us out. What do we need to do? Well, he started hiring Vladi to teach him how to, to fish European Ming and Vladi started coming to all the events and had v’s. Bootcamp when of my partner’s wives died on an airplane coming back from Africa. And he really took it hard. Things were going great in the store. Jack (1h 6m 5s): And my partner said, If you can work it into your speaking schedule and everything, would you consider taking over the team? So now it’s 2003 and a lot has happened. I mean, I’m involved when Dick Chiney became Vice president. Oh, right. I started taking him because the Secret Service, well, you know what happened? I, I was with him three days before nine 11. Oh wow. And we were doing a 60 minute special where I had cocked him into announcing that they weren’t gonna drill in the Alaska Wildlife area. Jack (1h 6m 45s): And Saturday morning he went on the plane, he had to go back to Washington. And we did, Liz was, I had to explain to him how fishing with a camera’s different than fishing without a camera. And we, we had a, a good show except it was scary because Liz looks up and says, look at those airplanes coming over us. Look at the Secret Service. They’re not even looking at ’em. You know, dad, they could come down here and hit us and kill us. And he, he says, well, why would they wanna do that? Everybody in that plane wants to live. Yeah. And he says, I don’t see why the Secret Service should be worried about em. Jack (1h 7m 28s): So we completed that the next morning, Randall Kaufman and Kelly Gallup and my friend Tom McCulloch, who was running Courtland at the time, we all went off for a fishing ship over in the Wind River. And we got to watch Air Force Two take off, blah. We had coming back on Tuesday morning, September 11th, my sister’s birthday, I’m listening to XM Radio, beautiful music. We’re all going different directions. Kelly’s going back to slide in, Tom is going back to New York and Randall’s going to Portland and they’re all gonna fly outta Idaho Falls and we’re gonna go fishing. Jack (1h 8m 10s): I pull in and Kelly runs out and says, plane just hit the World Trade Center. And I said, A plane. I said, well, it won’t be, it won’t be just one, it’ll be many. He comes running back, how did you know? Well, during that time they had put double the Secret Service Protection that morning in. And I said, what’s this all about? He says, bin Laden wants to kill me and you talk about fishing. And so I’m gonna tell you how crazy this thing went down. Of course, you know what happened from then. Yep. So during that time, I was the only one that could take him fishing with the clearances and everything. Jack (1h 8m 55s): So, you know, that’s a whole another story about that. The 60 Minute Show was never aired because obviously we were a little busy on Wednesday. Dave (1h 9m 5s): Yeah. A little busy. Right. Jack (1h 9m 7s): Air. So, you know, you had a, you had a lot going on. Dave (1h 9m 11s): Yeah. There was a lot going on. Well, and, and Dick Chaney, I mean, that’s interesting what you mentioned about the wildlife area, the not drilling. ’cause that sounds like something you were able to kind of talk to Dick Chaney and say, Hey, this is something, it’s important. What, what was that conversation like with him? Oh yeah. Jack (1h 9m 26s): It wasn’t hard at all. Dave (1h 9m 27s): It wasn’t, it, Jack (1h 9m 28s): No, it realized they just squeaked in and, you know, and I, I had convinced him and that it would be a good political move. Remember this is, you know, we’re talking about September and I had been back to the White House to the West Wing talking with him in April right after the election. So we were trying to get one of our native sons, John Turner, who had been under the first Bush administration secretary of, well, he was the Fish and Wildlife Director. He was the one that handled the spotted out deal. Oh yeah. So we were trying to get him and his interior secretary and we just, he was head of the conservation fund. Jack (1h 10m 13s): He was too much of a Republican conservationist. And, and the, the conversation was easy at that point because they were looking for something good and it could be put on hold. It wasn’t a big issue. And I was his, I was his conservation advisor. I still have the pm I have. Dave (1h 10m 33s): Oh, so you were actually Dick Chain’s conservation advisor. Jack (1h 10m 36s): Yes. The only problem was nine 11. They weren’t very interested conversation. Dave (1h 10m 43s): No, no. That changed the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. Jack (1h 10m 46s): So I went through a lot of, I mean, that’s a whole story of all the things that happened. Dave (1h 10m 51s): Yeah. And that was 2009 11, 2001. So that was literally after he, they get elected. Right. Cheney and Bush in two that year, in January. And then that fall 2011, Jack (1h 11m 2s): Everything changed. And I, I cook him fishing and, you know, during the times and helped the Secret Service develop. And eventually we had to move it to the South Fork ’cause it wasn’t secure. And the South Fork was in the canyon and didn’t get much to it. And then Idaho people took over and I backed out. Dave (1h 11m 20s): That’s right. And you backed out. Yeah. And we’ve talked about that with the Idaho now at the, and actually it’s kind of a full circle a little bit too, because now Team USA is coming back to eastern Idaho, the Henry’s Fork, it’s gonna be there the, this year for youth. Jack (1h 11m 33s): I didn’t know if it was the women’s or it’s the men’s or both. Dave (1h 11m 37s): Yeah. So it’ll be the, the youth and women’s are this year and then next year I think it’s gonna be the men’s. Jack (1h 11m 41s): Oh, that’s great. I’d love to. They loved that. I mean, that was nine seven and, you know, when that was. But okay, let’s vote forward real quickly to 2003. Yeah. Or it could have been 2002. That’s when I was put in charge of the team. Oh, Dave (1h 11m 58s): Okay. Jack (1h 11m 58s): And I had tryouts on the Green River And we picked, we picked the team And we had a pretty good team Dave (1h 12m 9s): Who was on that team. Jack (1h 12m 11s): Let’s see, that was Jeff, er, Walter Ungerman, Jay Buckner. Dave (1h 12m 17s): Oh yeah. Jack (1h 12m 18s): And Pete Erickson. Dave (1h 12m 20s): Oh, and Pete Erickson was on it. Yeah. Jack (1h 12m 22s): Pete Erickson was on it. We had actually, see, I picked extras and I, and what I was doing is planning and bringing people over there. We raised enough money where people that were trying to get on the team could go over and see what it was all about. And So we were starting to build a structure. And So we went over there and Ja And we did, we got, I’m trying to remember if we got fifth place or sixth place, something like that. The closest in all the years of, of the US being involved was 17th. Dave (1h 12m 57s): Okay. Jack (1h 12m 58s): So, you know, I was feeling pretty, pretty good about that. And Jeff got the medal. ESPN covered it. It was, it was in Spain. It was, but we had to have Spanish Secret Service protection because the Spaniards were protesting against us. Oh, really? Yeah. When they raid the national anthem, everybody turned their backs on us. Dave (1h 13m 21s): Why were they protesting? Because Jack (1h 13m 23s): Of our, you know, going into Iraq. Dave (1h 13m 26s): Oh, the Iraq. Right, right, right. Jack (1h 13m 27s): And that changed, well, what, the week before we got there, a, a general car was blown up by Bass Terrace in the town we were at. Geez. So there, there was a lot of tensions going on. And it was a wonderful event. Jeff did fantastic. Pete did fantastic. But we were developing, we were developing a, a structure. And then we, the next year was in Slovakia. And that was an interesting deal. And I, I had, we did pretty darn good. But we again realized we go into one pool and let’s say it was a, you know who, whomever, a check, but an experienced Polish, Czech diming, euro diming, whatever you want to call it. Jack (1h 14m 17s): You got 50 fish. Then another person went in and got oh, 25 fish. Same pool. ’cause you, the way you fish it is you, you know, you fish it in the morning, then you have a morning session. You have an afternoon session. So you’re gonna be fishing the same water. Yeah. And our guy goes in and it was, it could have been Jeff, it was one of our better. We got no nine or 10. And then the next day they go back in and slammed it again and said, man, you know, I’m working with Vladi and we’re getting Vladi interested in coming to the US and figured the only way we’re gonna do better is to try to up our, our skill levels with that. Jack (1h 15m 2s): And, you know, we had plans started teaching it and at, at events. And, and then I got, the next year we went to Sweden. And boy, we got our ass handed to him. We were the most prepared we ever been. We brought guys like Lance Egan and, you know, some of the up and comers to over to see it. And then I got approached, well afterwards, it was just a terrible, we did everything right in meetings. We put the money into it and the French just crushed us. And what we found out that you gotta have other techniques. Jack (1h 15m 43s): They were doing their French technique, the Spanish were doing their technique. And they realized that this was the multi technique type of deal. Now we did, I’m trying to remember if there was any lakes in that deal or not. But anyway, it came back with our tails between our legs, you know, and I got, man, I got really upset. And I started working with, we started having different regional events. We had one out in California, we had one in Oregon and then Colorado. And then the Colorado group came together and said, we’ll form you a national championship. Jack (1h 16m 25s): And it just started to move into regionals and we’re seeing the first chance. And we had a very fair national championship. And I started studying the French. And the French should say, you know, we fund it by having 40,000 people that start out in the contest paying a lot of money. And it gets down to the same guys. And what they, having these people, having these people, having these people compete, gave them the money they needed. And, you know, which we didn’t have that kind of a, a way of doing it. But we, we started getting sims. We started getting companies behind it. Jack (1h 17m 9s): And I mean, if they would’ve been able to see what was coming and how they resisted this, they’re going, boy were we ever foolish? But is, and I never knew it was gonna, but, so the next, So we had the championships. We, we went back to the world champ. We had a, a deal in Portugal, which we had the world championships. And then we had the national or International Fishing Championships where the first con they had a fly fishing saltwater contest, which we won. Jack (1h 17m 49s): Huh. I mean, I wasn’t involved with that. Carter Andrews was kind of the leader on that. And, and they were able to, to really, but it was a amazing, it was like, it was like a big Olympic event. I mean, in the stadium. It, it was a pretty cool deal. Oh wow. And that was my first time having George on the team. And I remember the French guy of five world championships. And he, and we’re up, you know, I’m driving around watching everything and George is fishing up this little stream in Portugal. It just could be a duplicate of his streams in Pennsylvania. Jack (1h 18m 29s): And I’m talking to George Daniel, I didn’t say Daniels, but this guy says, you know, I’ve been watching him all morning. That’s the best fly fisherman I’ve ever seen. Yeah. So that we’re done with Portugal and now we’re, we’re moving in the next one. We’re feeling pretty good now. We got regionals. We really built up a very good team. One that I had a lot of confidence in, a lot of support. We go to Finland Lakes and screams. We’re now beating the English at lakes, which we never did before. Jack (1h 19m 10s): And in the midst of that time, by the way, I took two guys. I had Denny Crum who’s the, who had coached the Olympic basketball team. Oh yeah, yeah. Denny. Right. And I brought Charlie Myers, who had covered eight Olympics. Very close friend of Andy Mill. And we had a, a session where they talked about leadership and what it was like to win. And we all met in a beautiful private scream in southern Colorado. And they got the wisdom of these guys. So we went in there feeling pretty darn good. And, And we did do good. Jack (1h 19m 51s): And we, we made, we ended up with a threeway tie for fifth place and one of our team members, we found that the French and check team had gone out of the, of the fishing boundaries, the places hadn’t been fished. Oh. And caught fish enough to put us in that five way tie. And we did a protest and he had to put up $500. And the guy that saw him was, he had to put up the money ’cause we weren’t gonna do it. Jack (1h 20m 31s): ’cause I said, you know, you just, these guys are not gonna let us win. Huh. Not gonna happen. And so If you, you’re going at Midnight Sun, so it’s like one or two in the morning, you know, sunshine out. We had the big meeting and it’s now decided we’re gonna toss a coin wrong. I’ve never been good at that. I’ve been captains on sports teams. I don’t think I’ve ever won a toss. I lost both tosses. So we ended up in fifth place. Dave (1h 21m 4s): There you go. Coin. It was on a coin toss. Jack (1h 21m 6s): Yeah. Not on coin tosses. Oh man. And then the check guy who was notoriously part of the KGB is a professor. They always, you know, you hear all these rumors and that pretty, pretty tough guy. Good writer, but kind of did everything his own way. You’re not supposed to take pictures of any of the event station. And he had a whole book on it. I mean, it just, he comes up and he says, you don’t understand. I said, what I mean, understand. He says, we’re not gonna let you have any of this maybe down the road. And we get out of the Europe, but says, you don’t understand these kids that are fishing, they’re part of the tourist bureau. They don’t bring back anything. Jack (1h 21m 47s): They, they’re gone. Oh wow. They live their living. What do these guys do? They have other jobs. They got some financial support. This is everything to them. Dave (1h 21m 56s): Oh right. Yeah. That’s huge. Jack (1h 21m 58s): You just have to understand that and don’t feel so bad. Dave (1h 22m 1s): That’s a big, that’s a, well what I love about the chat with team USA is it goes back to competition. You know, and I, I go back to like Kurt Gowdy, I feel like he was a big influence on you and you really had a big part of, you know, that competition team USA, do you look back at that and see that as a Jack (1h 22m 18s): Was our a absolutely. He was our first honorary chairman in the one fly. Dave (1h 22m 22s): Right. And the one fly. Yeah. And you have this one fly, which is an amazing competition. Jack (1h 22m 27s): And the thing is, there’s no money involved in either one. Yeah. Dave (1h 22m 30s): What would you say to people, Jack, what would you say to people that are like, man competition and fly fishing is just not good for fly fishing. Jack (1h 22m 38s): I, this is interesting ’cause I had a, a brother-in-law who’s since passed away, but he was the GM engineer, head engineer in charge of the radiators cooling systems. And he used to go to the Indianapolis 500 and all the big races. And I said, why do you do that? Well, we learn from that. What do you mean you learn from that? Oh, we test everything. This is our testing ground So we can put that technology back in a passenger car. Dave (1h 23m 9s): Yeah. Right. The highest level. Jack (1h 23m 11s): And he said, this is what we learned from. And so I look back and say, okay, what have we learned from this? What have we learned from this? But we’re learning from this. First of all, you look at all the names that from Lance to Jeff Courier to all, all the people there we’re developing young people in our field of fly fishing that has respect. Dave (1h 23m 39s): And I love that you went to this because the youth team, which is gonna be this year in that part of eastern Idaho, they’ve won the last two world championships. Yeah. So you’ve got this youth team that are just dominating right now. Right. And that’s, that’s the new, new kids coming. Well Jack (1h 23m 54s): You gotta realize too that that senior team, there was a, there’s a senior competition just like in golf. And that original group that was in Spain won the championship one year. And the next year Pete Erickson won the world championship. Dave (1h 24m 10s): Yeah. Pete just won it a couple years ago. Jack (1h 24m 12s): It was like the exact same team. Yeah. Dave (1h 24m 15s): It’s coming. It just Jack (1h 24m 16s): Took a little, it’s coming. Little wisdom. So let me end this and tell you where for this, Dave (1h 24m 22s): Let’s hear it. Jack (1h 24m 23s): After that we’re going to New Zealand 2008 and I, you know, 30 trips to New Zealand, I figured we could probably do pretty well. And then the ax fell. 2008 financial crisis. Mm. Dave (1h 24m 40s): Right. Collapse. Jack (1h 24m 42s): I’m out. It’s time to go back to what feeds you. Dave (1h 24m 46s): Yeah. Right. Jack (1h 24m 47s): And so, luckily enough, there’s another guy, another hero. Walters now is getting sick. He’s fighting cancer. In comes another group. They don’t do well in New Zealand, which was a shame. And they come back. But Jerry Arnold, who is a lawyer from Texas kind steps in, takes over from Walter providing the funding and they even do better at making regionals and really giving it the push. Of course, having the, they brought the championship back to the US in Vail. And I just, you know, stepped out of it. Jack (1h 25m 29s): It was ready for a new group of people to take it. And I think Jeff did the same thing except they went on to the seniors. And I just watched it and say, wow, this is great. You know, I had a nice head of part of it. Nobody asked me for anything, you know, it was, and that’s the way it should be. It’s your, the meat department is theirs. Dave (1h 25m 49s): Love. Love it, Jack. Well, this has been awesome. I think we can definitely talk all day. I think we’ll have to maybe get you back for another session of this. But this has been great. We, we’ll send people out to j d’s Wild World of fly fishing to follow up with you. And I’m gonna be tracking down a bunch of these old videos. I wanna watch some of the Kurt Gowdy. Yeah. Jack (1h 26m 6s): What I’m trying to do is, is get as many of the old VHS tapes and stuff. I’ve, I’ve Dave (1h 26m 13s): Got, oh, are you putting those on there? So yeah, you’re putting some of this old stuff on your YouTube channel. Oh Jack (1h 26m 16s): Yeah. Awesome. I’ve got my original American Sportsman show that I, Kurt Gowdy, it’s on there. But, you know, I’m working, the problem is it doesn’t make enough money to really justify the time. And so I do it kinda as when I have a labor of love and pull things out. But I’ve got 2000 hours of video that nobody’s ever seen or they’ve seen part bits and parts of it. You know, and I, I try, but see, I still, I still don’t want to just roll over, you know. I know I’m at the end of, you know, I can see the end of life. Yep. And now I’m, I have a grandson who’s a guide. One grandson’s already graduated from college as a senior. Jack (1h 26m 58s): We have a vacation home in Pinedale, Wyoming. And I’ll do 60, 70 guided fishing trips a year. Dave (1h 27m 7s): Oh wow. So you’re still guiding Jack (1h 27m 8s): Se 77. Yep. I’ll be 78 in September. That’s amazing. And I have a nice little group of people I’ve known for a long, long time that I can deal with. I don’t want, you know, I don’t think I have just the right amount. I don’t want anybody saying, Hey, will you guide me? ’cause I’m Right. Right, right. I do not wanna teach anybody anything. I want to take really good anglers that are at the top of their field. I’m just like Ted Williams. I wanna teach people that are good and make ’em great. And that sounds a little bit of egotistical, but I don’t have that much time on the earth. I want it to be fun. And I have a nice group of people that I love being with. And we, I do that. Jack (1h 27m 50s): It gets me out. I stay there for the one fly. I’m there watching this magnificent event keep getting better and better. And we, I think this year they raised $700,000. Dave (1h 28m 5s): Geez. That’s Jack (1h 28m 5s): Amazing. I mean, it was, it’s just amazing. Now, last thing, I’ll leave it with this. Yeah. What I wanna do, and we can talk about this at another time, and really is to try to get a satellite museum from the American Museum of Fly Fishing Board of Directors are interested in the idea of satellite museums. They already have one at Bass Pro Shops main store in Springfield. And it’s been very, they just put in Dave Whitlock’s tying Bench. Dave (1h 28m 34s): Oh yeah. In Missouri. In Jack (1h 28m 36s): Missouri. And they’re interested with now coming, they’ll be back at the one fly this year. The Heritage Award goes to Oliver White who runs the South Fork lot. Dave (1h 28m 47s): Yep. South Fork Lodge. Yeah. Or Jack (1h 28m 48s): I mean, yeah. He’s one of the partners with Jimmy Kimmel. And that again, puts the focus in our area. And it is my hope to all your listeners out there, there needs to be a Rocky Mountain Museum of Fly Fishing. I mean all this stuff, the hun the 200 plates of Randall Kaufman’s is gonna go down the road. Randall has no relatives, but he is got a brother that’s older than him. No children. And I, you’d be surprised how much is out there. I have access to Norman McLean’s Fly Rod. Dave (1h 29m 22s): Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You got a bunch of Yeah, I, well that’s something I wanna, yeah, we would definitely on the next one, talk Jack (1h 29m 28s): About, now John and I have been, have become friends in our older life and he still has Norman’s and his uncle’s fly rods. Nobody’s ever asked for ’em. They’re in the historic collection. Distorted. Wow. And he believes the same way I do that the river runs through story. All the Montana guys from George Grant to Bud Lilly, Bob Jacqueline, Dan Bailey, there’s a little small museum from the Federation of Fly Fishermen, which is international, which If you didn’t learn from Koch, don’t change your name. Jack (1h 30m 10s): Right. Dave (1h 30m 10s): Don’t change your name. Right, right, right, right. Jack (1h 30m 12s): I, that’s one of the focuses that I’m gonna try to do. I can’t do it. I’m too old. I need people who want this happen. Dave (1h 30m 20s): Well, I think we can definitely help on this. I think this will be a good way to keep in touch moving ahead. So let’s, let’s circle back on that on the next one. And yeah, Jack, this has been great. I really appreciate, you know, everything, all the inspiration and looking forward to that next conversation. Jack (1h 30m 34s): Well, it’s been a pleasure talking with people like yourself and I’m really happy to, to talk about team USA because when Cabela said, this is a pretty interesting thing, it’s a good one to leave on. He said, you’ve got this idea and we wanna do it. This video that has all these, are we gonna call it Czech ing? There’s a, and i, I was getting pressure and it just, but we got Spanish, we got Polish, we got French, we got Bask. And I said, well, why don’t we just call it euro ing? Oh. And I, so I made it and put it on a Euro nipping. Dave (1h 31m 15s): That’s right. Yeah. You came up with that. Yeah. You, you, you coined Euro Nipping. Right. Jack (1h 31m 19s): And if I was a smart guy, I would’ve trademarked that. Dave (1h 31m 24s): Right. You’d be a, but Jack (1h 31m 26s): I’m not a smart guy. That’s Dave (1h 31m 27s): Right. That’s awesome, Jack. So, Jack (1h 31m 29s): But it covered the whole thing. And to sit there and look at it, can you imagine a Czech nipping Rod couldn’t work. Dave (1h 31m 37s): Yeah. Well, next time I want to ask you about American Nipping. Right. Talk more about that. But well, Lee, that’s the next one, Jack. But thanks again for all your time and we’ll be in touch. Jack (1h 31m 47s): Alright, take care Dave. Dave (1h 31m 50s): Alright. Quick call to action for you today. If you’re interested in a trip to Jackson Hole, If you wanna fish, If you wanna fish with the crew that took over for Jack Dennis, that was one of Jack Dennis’s disciples, Scott and the gang at Grand Teton, fly Fishing can take you out. We’ve had a couple episodes with them. You’ve heard how amazing those guys are. So check in with them and also check in with Jack. If you haven’t checked out the YouTube channel, subscribe to Jack’s channel and j d’s Wild World of Fly Fishing and let Jack, you know, let Jack know you heard about this podcast And we can take it from there. We also have our own fly fishing channel going right now at Wetly Swing. If you go to YouTube at Wetly Swing, we’ve got a bunch of great videos. Dave (1h 32m 32s): We are basically doing some cool summaries of some of the podcast content we do. And If you want the quick snippet summaries of some of that content and get in a nice five to 15 minute blast and have a little entertainment along the way, check out our YouTube channel and share it with a friend. I wanna highlight one trip we just launched the Missouri River Dryly School. We’re heading to Missouri River, the Mighty Mo. The Big Mo. This is gonna be a big one this year. So you can go to wetly swing.com/missouri right now. That’s M-I-S-S-O-U-R-I, wetly swing.com/missouri. If you sign up there, put your name, email, I’ll fill up with you on availability, let you know we’ve got a small number of people available. We’ve, it’s a really cool small lodge right on the banks of the river. Dave (1h 33m 15s): If you’re interested in some of the best fishing this country has to offer, now is the chance. Hope to see you there. All right. Appreciate you for stopping in today. Hope you have a great morning. Hope you have a wonderful afternoon. Oh, A fantastic evening. I dunno what that was, that was kinda like a, almost like a dog. It was like the inner dog coming out of me. The, the Gerr. The gir that reminds me of Tommy Lynch, the gir he was talking about on the episode. If you haven’t listened to that one, Tommy Lynch, the G of those brown trout where there, there’s a couple ways. It’s like a, a dog grabbing that, you know, grabbing that toy G right? And kind of playing. That’s what the fish are doing, Tommy mentioned. Dave (1h 33m 56s): So If you want some of that action, you’re gonna get that in Missouri. Well as well, the Gerr. So just remember that going to the next episode is, is find the Gerr. If you find the G, you’re gonna find the greatness. All right. Appreciate you. I appreciate you for stopping in all the way till the very end of this episode and I am excited about seeing you on that next show or on YouTube. Talk to you then. Outro (1h 34m 16s): Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly, swing Fly fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit wet fly swing.com.