874 | How Grundéns Turned Commercial Fishing Survival Gear into Fly Fishing Essentials

00:00:00 Dave: Most fly fishing gear is designed for comfort, some of it is designed for performance and very little of it is designed for survival. Grunniens didn’t start in fly shops. It started in the North Sea, building gear to keep commercial fishermen alive in freezing spray, heavy weather and conditions where mistakes don’t get a second chance. That mindset never went away. Today’s guest, Justin Waters, works inside that legacy, helping translate nearly one hundred years of blue collar fishing experience into gear that fly anglers steelheaders and guides now trust when conditions turn ugly. 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 gear and tools to prepare for that big trip, and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. In today’s conversation, we’re going to talk about why durability matters more than features, how guides actually destroy their gear, and why some of the best fly fishing insights still comes from commercial and conventional anglers By the end of this episode, you’re going to find out how guns made the jump from crab boats to fly fishing without changing who they are, what the Vector Waiter was built specifically for, and how anglers abuse this gear. We’re going to find out about commercial fishing jackets, how they became standard issue on steelhead drift boats, and why community conservation and showing up, or what matters most in marketing. Have you ever wondered what fly fishing looks like when it borrows its toughness from the hardest fishing jobs on Earth? This episode is going to connect the dots. Here he is, Justin Waters. You can find him at Grundy’s com. How you doing, Justin? 00:01:34 Justin: Oh, real good man. I’m stoked to be here. 00:01:37 Dave: Yeah, yeah. Me too. It’s going to be a fun conversation. I always love talking gear. We got a bunch of. I’m kind of. I consider myself a gear nerd. I’ve used kind of a little bit of everything. And, you know, Grunions has been really a big name. You’ve seen it a lot out there, especially in fly fishing, because I think you guys have had some new products that have come out recently, or at least updating some stuff. And, and I know there’s been some buzz around. So we’re going to talk about kind of your lineup and all that and get into. And we were just on a trip, actually went down to one to checked off on my bucket list trips to Togiak up in out of Bristol Bay. Had an amazing trip catching, you know, some fish there and connected with some of your team, right? Was up there fishing with us that week. It was interesting because there was some there was a little bit of a bug going around that week. You probably heard about that one. 00:02:16 Justin: Oh yeah. I think a I think CJ. CJ caught it on like one of the most epic fishing trips of all time, and he was laid up in a cabin for a couple days. 00:02:26 Dave: Ah it was so rough too. And I remember one morning because I got it to oh no. Yeah I had it. And I was just like, all right, now what do I do? Do I basically sit here or do I, you know, just like I got out that morning and the funny thing was, is I landed like my best fish that morning half into it. 00:02:43 Justin: Yeah, that’s that’s kind of the worst. Like when you have, like, the dream trip and your health is what knocks you out. 00:02:48 Dave: Oh, I know, but it was all good. It was a great trip. And so we’re going to talk about that a little bit on Grunions. But maybe take us back real quick on fly fishing. Are you, uh, have you been fly fishing? Have you been doing this a while or what’s your experience there? 00:02:58 Justin: Yeah, I, uh, I’ve been. I mean, I’ve been fishing my whole life. I mean, I grew up in Homosassa, Florida. Uh, Crystal River, Florida area. And, uh, I’ve been, you know, regular spin fishing and all that kind of stuff. Flats, fishing since I was a little kid, bass fishing, all that. But then, uh, I moved up north and up to Wisconsin and found an old fly rod in a barn and taught myself how to do it, and then moved out west and in the early two thousand and and ended up working for Mike Lawson and, um, guiding out in Yellowstone and then out back out here in the Puget Sound for about two decades and been doing it ever since. 00:03:46 Dave: Wow. That’s it. Yeah, that’s a good chunk of time. So back to Lawson. I love the connections because obviously Mike’s an all star out there. Been doing it forever and well, as we go, there will probably be some connections. We’ve got some definitely some podcasts with him and others. We’ll put it in the show notes. But so that brings us back. So Florida up north and then out west. And when was your connection kind of to the Grunions. Is that more a recent thing with them? Because you’ve got a pretty cool story about your how you connected to them. Let’s hear how that all happened. 00:04:12 Justin: Yeah. So I, uh, Matt and Mike Jackson are locals here in Poulsbo. I was guiding Puget Sound and I took them out one day fishing, and, uh, they were trying to tell me about this company. And again, I grew up in Florida, so they were like, you know, the orange, the orange rain gear. And I was like, yeah, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Um, they’re like from Deadliest Catch. I was like, yeah, I only care about fishing. Like I don’t watch TV. Like I just didn’t. I didn’t know what it was. And, uh, obviously everybody when you say you work at Grunions and they go, what’s grunions? And you go, Deadliest Catch. The orange stuff. Everybody knows what you’re talking about. Uh, it didn’t work on me. 00:04:55 Dave: Yeah. So you didn’t know at the time you hadn’t heard of Grunions or. It just didn’t at all. 00:04:59 Justin: Well, I, I knew what it was. I just didn’t know that I knew. So I had associated grunions with, like, the white rain gear that all like the offshore and commercial guys in Florida wore, like, the white rubber stuff. I didn’t I just didn’t put it together that it was this stuff, that it was, uh, that they were talking about the same thing, just in a different color. It’s famously the orange bib everywhere outside of Florida. Oh, so we fished all day and I eventually I caught. They laughed. They were like, where are you from? You know, all that? We really hit it off. And then, um, I took them. I took him fishing a handful of times, and they. When Covid hit, they heard that, you know, Washington shut, they shut fishing down for like, three months or something like that. And then when they opened it back up, they closed, guiding down for another quite a long time. And, uh, I was good at guiding and I made a pretty good living doing that. But I did not make the good living because I was good at accounting, and I did not take advantage of any of like, the Covid bailouts or anything like that, unfortunately. And, uh, at the time, unfortunately, it worked out great. Mike heard I was like, chopping wood for customers and like, just trying to figure out a way to make a living. And he called and he was like, hey, I heard you’re you’re having a hard time. Like, you know, kind of grunions, you know, Grunions has been helping fishermen forever. Like, why don’t you come work for us and and we’ll just find we’ll find stuff around the office for you to do. I was like, oh, man. You know, like, I mean, truthfully, like the Jackson family, the owners of Grunions are, like, just great humans and they really stand by what they say. And they had me in customer service, and I don’t know if my reputation precedes myself, but I, I kind of, uh, have a reputation for being a pretty good talker. So customer service worked out great, but, uh, they immediately realized, like, hey, let’s bring you over to marketing. Like, we need to be talking to fishermen, not, uh, and, uh, that was, uh, that was kind of my niche. And I’ve been I’ve been over here as the community marketing manager for ever since. 00:07:21 Dave: Oh. That’s amazing. Wow, what a story. 00:07:23 Justin: Yeah. It was it was like a true, like, bailed me out of a hard time story. 00:07:29 Dave: Yeah. The Covid thing is, is crazy because I’ve heard now, you know, with years after hearing these stories and there’s been a lot of these amazing good things that have come of it with all the bad. Right? That’s the crazy thing. 00:07:39 Justin: Oh, yeah. My wife definitely, definitely reminds me every day that I’m a lot nicer when I’m not worried about weather and, you know, worried about chasing the next trip and all that stuff, I, I, uh, guiding out here. I ran a little flats boat, and we have big water out here. And it was, uh, she’s like, you’re just you’re just so much less stressed. It’s like, I have stress. But, you know, my stress, it’s it’s not a I’m not worried about killing any of my customers. 00:08:08 Dave: No. 00:08:09 Justin: Yeah. They really, uh, it really changed my life in, like, a really awesome way. Um, it worked out great. 00:08:16 Dave: What is your. Were you guiding for their. 00:08:18 Justin: Uh, sea run cutthroat trout, primarily, and then salmon. I, uh, you know, back in the early two thousand, I tried my hand at steelhead fishing, guiding for steelhead. And I immediately, man, I felt like a poser. I, I knew all the guys who were really good at it, and I was like, I’m not as good as them. I shouldn’t be doing this. And, uh, I’m a big believer in kind of playing to your strengths. And that was not I like steelhead fishing. There’s people who are who their life revolves around it. I made I made the right choice. 00:08:51 Dave: Well, that’s so good. You’re. I mean, you’re very similar to me because I guided for steelhead, too, and it never felt, you know, I always just it just I had the pressure. It just was never. And you’re right, there’s these guys out there that are just like all stars. 00:09:01 Justin: Well, when when I took people, when I took people on cutthroat fishing, something that I think all guides should probably think about more. Um, and I think most good guides do is that, like, guys like me, I’ll save up all year to go on that trip that I, I’ve been thinking about all year. Like, and I, when I get on the boat, I’ve done my research I, I think I’m going with the best guy. And when I took people around cutthroat fishing or salmon fishing, I was like, yeah, you got it. Like, I’m I’m really good at this when I take people. When I took people steelhead fishing, I was like, man, I wish you were in someone else’s boat. 00:09:42 Speaker 3: Like I wish. I wish we were with that guy over there. He really knows what he’s doing. 00:09:46 Dave: No. That’s cool. Well, I think we could chat more because this is great sea run cutthroat. We definitely have a lot of people that ask questions. You know, listeners about Sea Run and and Sam and Roy, there’s a lot in Puget Sound. It’s pretty unique area because you got these, you know, you don’t see the same type of sea run fishing. So I want to touch on that. But let’s get into a little bit first and hear about some lineup, because I feel like there’s been a lot going. I mean, you must feel that talk about that from your position. What has it been like the last few years in Groton? You must have been seeing this. You know, how everything’s been rolling out, but there’s been some new products, right? 00:10:17 Justin: Oh, absolutely. Man. Um. 00:10:19 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:10:20 Justin: So Grunin started in nineteen twenty six. So we’re going on one hundred years, and they started by making commercial gear out of sealskin for commercial fishermen. They were trying to protect fishermen in the North Sea. So freezing cold weather, gnarly ocean conditions, all that kind of stuff, and it kind of continued, like obviously technology got better and everything we started using like PVC and stuff like that up in, I mean, our Hercules bibs, fifty, fifty something or sixty years old now, almost. But, uh, that’s like the famous one from Deadliest Catch. And then in the eighties, when the Jackson family took it over, they brought it to America, brought it here in Poulsbo. And we immediately upon bringing it to America, we noticed, like the offshore fishermen started using it. And for quite a few years, it was pretty much just a commercial fishing and offshore fishing company. The guy started using it. As they got closer to shore. We started adapting and making lighter weight gear for for the guys that were sport fishing. And that progressed, you know, they got as we made lighter gear, it got closer to shore and closer to shore. And eventually, like the flats, guys started wearing it a little bit and we were like, man, where’s the market? you know, where’s this going to stop? So we started making breathable gear in the bass fishing world. Started wearing it. And when the bass guys started wearing it, they needed like really, really like techy, techy gear for running a boat, like, ninety miles an hour across the across the water in a rainstorm. So we were like, all right, well, Gore-Tex. And once we got that Gore-Tex license, everybody in the company that was about when I started, everybody in the company was like waiters, you know? Um, we were like, all right, let’s, you know, let’s try this out, let’s see what we can do. And everybody at the company is a bunch of fly fishermen. 00:12:15 Dave: Oh, they are right. 00:12:16 Justin: Yeah. So we were all like, this is kind of a it’s a very organic, you know, organic thing for a bunch of fishing nerds in the Pacific Northwest to make Gore-Tex waders. Once we started on the process, we were like, let’s try to make it in a very grunions way. You know, like what we’ve been known for for the entire hundred years is that we protect people in the harshest environments. Let’s make sure that that doesn’t change when we go into fly fishing. Let’s make sure that we have the safest wading belt. Let’s make sure we have, you know, a suspender system that you can layer with and you can wear and you can wear all day hiking and and bushwhacking, because our gear is made for the most hardcore fishermen. And, you know, I think beyond our Gore-Tex waiter or the boundary waiter, we really hit our stride with the vector waiter. The vector waiter is our kind of mid-price point. But like, I think it’s it should be what represents grunions in the fly fishing world. It’s a very durable. It’s made for guides, like when we designed it, like we were like we were like, all right, the guy that’s on the water two hundred days a year, jumping in and out of boats, sliding down banks, you know, pulling clients out of the river, all this stuff, all the stuff that a guy does. Um, we wanted to make the most durable waiter ever. And the vector waiters, it I, I personally took that and I slid down the cliffs that on the Yakima River out here, and we were just we were laughing. We were like, they were like, if anybody can destroy it, who can do it? And they were like, all right, Justin, what are you going to do? And I slid down the cliff like on my ass, slide down the cliff. And, uh, and then I went and sat in the river and I was like, I didn’t destroy it. Like I couldn’t believe it. I was like, all right, this stuff is unbelievable. The material did everything it was supposed to do. 00:14:12 Dave: And now the waiters. It’s a cool story, especially the history, because when you look at waiters, there is a time you can go back when. I mean, it was even before my time a little bit, but there was, there was rubber waiters back in the probably the like sixties somewhere in there before they actually had the neoprene. Right? Yep. And um, and I’m not sure who was making them, but there were definitely these super. So they were around. But the evolution you know neoprene was there and then eventually Gore-Tex. I can’t even remember when that started. It was probably in the eighties, I’m guessing. Right. Somewhere in their nineties, I think. 00:14:41 Justin: In the nineties. Yeah. 00:14:42 Dave: Nineties. Yeah. So this thing comes out when you go back to the the gear that like you said, they’re known for the bibs. I think the orange, the deadliest catch is that really the show that put Grimsby. Because before Deadliest Catch I mean they were everybody was using them to. But is that kind of what you think of. 00:14:57 Justin: It’s what made it kind of a household name, you know, like, uh, when people think of Deadliest Catch, they think of, you know, the wild crabbers out in the Bering Sea wearing the orange bibs, you know, like, and it’s funny because, you know, I’m a fly fisherman. I’ve been a fly fisherman my whole life. I mean, my whole adult life, I guess. And, uh, I’ve been passionate about punk rock and fly fishing. That’s about it. Um, and when I started at Grunions, I didn’t expect to fall in love with not commercial fishing, because I’m not a commercial fisherman. But, uh, I fell in love with that culture, like the people that do it. And it’s so awesome. Like, there’s such tough people. But, uh, the one thing about Deadliest Catch is like, because it’s a TV show and it’s dramatizing commercial fishing, they kind of focused on a lot of the negative aspects of it, and these guys are like unbelievable people, like they’re the toughest humans alive. Um, it’s a real hard job. 00:15:58 Dave: Located in Boulder, Colorado, Intrepid Camp Gear is dedicated to designing and manufacturing the best and most highly engineered automotive camp gear on the market. Intrepid Camp Gear specializes in rooftop tents and aluminum cargo cases designed for skis, rods, hunting gear, and any other gear you may be hauling. Elevate your adventure with Intrepid Camp gear right now. Head over to Netflix. Right now, that’s intrepid. I n t r p I intrepid camp gear. 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. Yeah, it’s a hard job. Anybody that knows the Deadliest Catch is I mean, I’ve never been up on one of those boats, but, you know, I had a friend who was it lived that life. He was like crabbing up there and everything. And he was man, he lived exactly what? That show on the seat of his. You know, he was on the edge. 00:17:11 Justin: It’s wild. Like. I mean, I talked to him every day. 00:17:14 Dave: Yeah. You talk to those people, right? I mean. 00:17:16 Justin: Yeah, those guys are. Those guys have become like friends to us. 00:17:19 Dave: Right? Because it is a legit I mean, it’s one of the deadliest. It is one of the deadliest jobs you can have. 00:17:24 Justin: Oh, yeah. The West Coast, like the West coast Dungeness fishery out here in Washington, Oregon and northern California. And then the Bering Sea crabbing fishery fishery are I mean, they’re super deadly. Like one wrong move and you’re gone. But they, uh, I forgot where we were getting at. But, like, they rely on our gear to keep them alive so we don’t sponsor the show in any way. Like, they just that that’s like an organic. 00:17:52 Dave: Yeah, that’s just what they wear. 00:17:53 Justin: Yeah. And it’s funny because they’re. I don’t want to talk bad about other companies, but, um, there, there are companies that do sponsor that show. And when it gets gnarly, you watch them all bring out the grunts. 00:18:05 Dave: Oh, right. Yeah. When it’s running. Yeah. 00:18:06 Justin: Yeah. Which is kind of cool. 00:18:08 Dave: Yeah. Well there’s something to that. I mean, even if you’re not at that level of commercial fisherman, I mean, just like you mentioned winter steelhead fishing, man. I’ll tell you what. I’ve been out there in my waders and stuff when it’s nasty and then, you know, take a dip in the water and all that stuff, you can die there too if you’re not careful. Right. I mean, winter steelhead can be cold. So I think, like you said, having the right gear. Winter steelhead fishing or whatever it is, is important. 00:18:28 Justin: Yeah. And I mean, you see it now, you see, like the Mike Z’s and Justin Kinsler and a lot of those like kind of og Olympic Peninsula guides. Now they all wear our commercial fishing jackets while they’re rowing their boats. If they’re not swinging for steelhead, like if they’re not actively like standing in the river, walking up and down swinging with their clients like they’re wearing our commercial jackets over top of their waders. 00:18:56 Dave: They are. And what are those jackets? If you wanted to find those, what would those? 00:18:59 Justin: It’s our Neptune, our Neptune. It’s a stretchable. And we make a we make a tourney jacket that’s even lighter than that. But a lot of those guys are wearing, like our Neptune, our Neptune insulated. 00:19:10 Dave: Okay. Yeah, I see it. There’s like, the Neptune Neptune thermo jacket. 00:19:13 Justin: Yep. And it’s become a thing. I mean, like, even like waters west. Now they they carry it in the store because so many people started switching over to it. 00:19:20 Dave: And is that a rubber. What is the material on those? 00:19:22 Justin: It’s a polyurethane rubber. And I mean, if you’re not like. I mean, if you’re sitting or nymphing or swinging for steelhead all day where you’re not active, like constantly active, you’re not going to be building up a sweat that requires like a breathable jacket. Um, so a lot of those guys were like, man, the it keeps your body heat in and keeps the rain out. That’s all I need. 00:19:46 Dave: So that’s the big difference because you have the Gore-Tex. I mean, you know, good Gore-Tex is one hundred percent. Well, I guess it is one hundred percent waterproof, right? But it breathes, so it’s not quite it’s letting some of that warm out. Right. That’s the difference. 00:19:57 Justin: Absolutely. Yeah. We’ll dump it will dump heat where that’s the downside of rubber is it doesn’t dump heat when if you are like, you know, bushwhacking through the woods and stuff, then you probably want to use our portal portal jacket or something. If you’re sitting in a boat all day or standing in a run all day, you’re a you’re probably you’re probably not sweating. I can’t remember the last time I was out in the Olympic Peninsula and was sweating outside of a outside of like hiking into a spot. 00:20:25 Dave: Well, that makes sense. So that’s some of the gear. Maybe just go through a little bit of that. I mean, I know you guys have a ton of gear, but what would be if we were going to break down, say, Top Gear, you know, gear that say fly anglers are going to be using from your lineup. What would that look like? 00:20:37 Justin: Yeah. Um, right now I would say our vector or boundary waiter. Those are our two, like high end waiter. If you were to, like, go with a system, I would say our vector or or boundary waiter, our bank side boot or our bedrock boot as our wading boot. Right now we have a new one coming in the spring. That’s unbelievable. Um, a new wading boot. And then, uh, I’ve been I’ve been testing it, and then, uh, I’m sitting looking at our jackets. Right now, our portal jackets are our kind of top of the line that goes with the. Our portal jacket goes with the boundary. Waiter. And if you reach in the pocket of our portal jacket, you can actually unzip the inner pocket and reach into the waiter pocket without taking your jacket off. 00:21:29 Dave: There’s the portal Gore-Tex waiting jacket. 00:21:30 Justin: Yep, that’s the portal jacket. Um, that’s why we call it portal, as you can reach in and your waiting pocket. Um, we built our vectors pockets to line up with that as well. And then for base layers, our turbulence or our for below the rain jacket are turbulence. Jacket for the winter is definitely it’s a extremely durable waterproof or not waterproof waterproof insulation okay. 00:21:58 Dave: This is the turbulence turbulence insulated hoodie. 00:22:01 Justin: Yep. That one. Even if you soak it in the river and then put it on, it will still keep you dry or not dry. It’ll keep you warm and the face fabric on it is extremely durable. Honestly, if it was a if we were greedy on that one, that would be a very expensive jacket. It’s a very affordable. 00:22:18 Dave: Yeah, because it’s like two twenty, which isn’t bad for. Is that a down or is that a synthetic? 00:22:23 Justin: It’s a synthetic. It’s called jitloff. 00:22:25 Dave: Synthetic down. 00:22:26 Justin: Yeah it’s called g loft insulation. 00:22:28 Dave: G loft. So if it gets wet, it’s not the end of the world with that thing. 00:22:31 Justin: Exactly. 00:22:32 Dave: That’s always the X factor. You know, I’m not sure what you guys have on the down side of it, but, I mean, down wool, you know, some of those natural things are, like, the greatest. But like with down, if you get it wet, man, you’re in trouble. 00:22:42 Justin: Yeah. We don’t even make it our one. Like I would consider grunions like a blue collar premium brand. Like the price of premium of down if we want it to. The quality that we kind of require everything to be, we would have to charge a lot of money for it. And then the other thing is, like, our customers are the guy that’s going to go out and beat the hell out of things, and down just doesn’t hold up once it gets wet. We do like we do target the consumer. That’s going to find the end of the life of all of our gear. Um, we do go after that guy that’s gonna that’s gonna go spend two hundred days on the water and not care if they rip holes and all that stuff. It’s kind of funny, like our, uh. I had a guide call me the other day asking about our warranty program, and I was like, yeah, man. We have, you know, all of our all of our waders have a have a warranty, you know, just send it in. And all of all the guides have a little better warranty than the guys that aren’t guides. And, uh, I was telling him about, he goes, man, it’s just a pinhole. Can’t you just send me some? Uh, can’t you just send me some, like, epoxy to stick on it? I was like, I yeah, I guess he’s like, I’m, I’m a I’m a fisherman. I’m gonna rip it. I was like, yeah, we can do that. Like, I think you can just go to the store and buy that. But he just he was in Alaska and he couldn’t he couldn’t get to a store. Um, yeah, he was just. It was just funny the way he said it. He was like, I don’t need to. I don’t need a new pair of waders. I just have a little hole I need to patch up. I was like, yeah. And then at the end of the season, call me up and we’ll figure it out. But, uh, yeah, they’re our guys. Do find the the limiting factor of every piece of equipment. Um, which is cool. 00:24:26 Dave: Well, that explains you out. I mean, you got the waiters, the boots, the portal jacket, the turbulence, and that. That’s kind of the full outerwear, right? 00:24:33 Justin: Yeah, totally. For outerwear. And then we make our cry all pant and, uh, I mean, my favorite, like, is, uh, like our Bering Sea pant and hoodie. Um, they’re made obviously for commercial fishing, but, like, if you’re sitting in a boat or ice fishing or anything like that, like they are cozy, warm. They are. 00:24:54 Dave: They are like fleece fleece pants. 00:24:56 Justin: Yep. The fleece pants and jacket or hoodie. Um, they’re they’re super, super warm. 00:25:02 Dave: Oh, and look at the in a great price. Like one hundred and thirty bucks for a super nice. 00:25:05 Justin: Like I said, like our brands kind of the blue collar premium, all of our stuff. We know we could charge more. We just. We just don’t. Um, it kind of is like. What? I don’t know. We we want to support fishermen. Not not not get rich. I guess one day, maybe one day. 00:25:24 Dave: Right. Well, some of this stuff I know, I’ve heard, you know, like the waiters, the Gore-Tex, it’s like, you know, there’s some things that, you know, like the zipper, the zip. Right? That’s not a cheap thing to put on to waiters. And you kind of that’s going to just cost you more. 00:25:35 Justin: Yeah. Yeah. It is, it is wild on a how much of a difference it makes the difference between a zip and a non zip where I mean, if you’re on the water more than a couple days a year, you’re going to get the zip waiter. 00:25:48 Dave: Yeah you are. Well especially in the cold like you said the cold environments. Because if you got all these layers man that’s so annoying. 00:25:54 Justin: Oh it’s a nightmare. It’s a nightmare. Yeah. It’s a it’s funny. I, uh I fought it for so long, and then, um, I think back in the day, I think Patagonia gave me a pair of waders, and they had the zipper. And the second I. The second I put it on, I was like, I’m never going back. I am now, I am now spoiled. Yeah. 00:26:15 Dave: It’s true. Yeah. You know, some people that are a little vertically challenged that maybe for just waiters in general with the sip, it maybe doesn’t go down as far as it needs to at times. Right. 00:26:24 Justin: Yeah. There’s a joke. There’s the joke there. But. 00:26:27 Dave: Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. That’s right. So this is good. So we got a good lineup here. Um, anything else we’re missing? Just on if you want to talk about some of the gear with grunge, you want to give a shout out to. 00:26:39 Justin: Yeah, I mean, I mean another I mean, another thing like, our footwear is like, kind of a thing that sets our brand a lot apart from a lot of other brands. 00:26:48 Dave: Oh, yeah. Well, you got the footwear, the shoes we haven’t even talked about. Right. Those are like a synonymous with the water. What do you guys call your shoes, your boots. 00:26:55 Justin: Our deck boots or our. Uh, yeah. Either either our ankle boots or our or all the way up to our full, like, on deck work boot. Um, we, uh, that is something that sets us apart from most fishing brands is like, we’re a. I mean, for a lack of a better way of saying it, we’ve kind of become a footwear brand. We didn’t exactly. I don’t think that was anybody’s intention. But like, it’s just they we make really good footwear and it’s become a it’s become like a big thing for us. 00:27:26 Dave: What makes a good. And I’ve heard this because I’m not obviously I’m not haven’t been guiding for a while, but I’ve heard guides that are out there and they love using the like. Not even waiters like going bibs with boots and like, especially if you’re on a boat. Talk about that. What makes a good that boot. Like if you’re on a boat, what are you looking for there. 00:27:43 Justin: Yeah. So I think I think one thing for sure is, uh, is like the support in the, in the foot bed. Most boot brands, they’re all boot brands pretty much are made like, I’m trying to think of how I can say this on a podcast or people to understand what I’m saying. Um, the way they get support is like a baffling system in the foot bed. Um, most brands use that baffling and just have air inside of it. So if you’ve ever walked behind someone that has like a pair of deck boots on and it almost looks like they have a flat tire. Um, and they all wear out kind of the same. We prevented that by filling ours with Eva foam so that you never like if you get a pinhole, it doesn’t let the air out and give you that, like, flat tire. Um, almost like an old pair of, like, Nike airs. If you pop that hole, um, how it would, like, kind of look goofy. Well, you definitely feel that under your feet, especially if you’re standing in, like a center console all day or up on a poling platform all day. But a lot of guys now, like on a lot of guides who are guiding, like Arkansas or something like that, they’re not wearing waders. They’re they’re putting their drift boat in. They’re hopping over the bow, walking to the rowing seat. And that’s where they’re at all day, you know, and they’re telling their clients to throw big streamers and catch big ass brown trout. Um. 00:29:02 Dave: And they have big nets with long handles. Right? 00:29:04 Justin: Yep, yep. And they’re never getting in the river anymore. Um, so if you’re if, if you can get away with not wearing waders, why. You know, a, a bib is way more comfortable. 00:29:14 Dave: Yeah. It’s interesting. I’ve been in the always in school because I just love waders and I’ve always just worn I’ll put them on the, you know, first of the day, wear them all day long and and it’s and you stay warm in them too. Right. Because they’re Gore-Tex. But I have heard um, one of those guys that was telling me about he wears the boots. He was saying that especially when it’s really cold waders and the way the boots are set might keep your feet colder than if you’re wearing the boots. Right. So because you’re not. Do you understand? You guys probably talked about that a little bit there. 00:29:38 Justin: Yeah, totally. And and I think that’s why because in a Dec boot you have a lot more play around your feet. 00:29:45 Dave: Yeah that’s what it is. More play. It’s not you’re not frozen. You’re not hard and frozen to a stiff thing. You’ve actually got room to move. 00:29:50 Justin: Yeah. Stocking foot’s going to squeeze your foot. 00:29:53 Dave: Especially if it’s frozen or super cold out. You’re going to be just sitting there in your boat with frozen feet versus, you know, you could go this other option, but but yeah, you guys kind of have both. I mean, that’s it sounds like you got both options you find with the anglers that are getting your stuff. I guess you see people buying both all these products that we’ve been talking about. 00:30:10 Justin: Yeah. I mean, what’s been awesome is, uh, is like, I think because we’re not just a fly fishing brand, you know, we’re we kind of I mean, our slogan is we are fishing. As long as you’re ethically fishing, we’re into it. You know, um, I mean, everything from ice fishing to Bering Sea to fly to offshore. And I think we see way more crossover in product because of that. Because if you do, if you do follow Grunions at all, you kind of get exposed to it by proxy. I also think, I mean, correct me if you’ve if you’ve seen this, but like the guys who do other fishing, like I’m going to get crucified for saying this, but like if you look at the Midwest fishermen, like if you look at like an angler from Michigan, those are some of the best fishermen in the world because they’re exposed to so many different kinds of fishing. And like I if I were to build an Olympic Olympic fishing team, it would probably be a lot of Midwest guys because they’re doing a lot of different things. 00:31:11 Dave: Yeah. That’s right. No, we have heard that a lot. I think we have heard people, you know, whether it’s, you know, you name the person Kelly Gallup or whoever out there, the people that have an experience in conventional fishing, you know, steelhead fishing too. I mean, if you because you get a lot more opportunities to learn about the fish, the species. Right. 00:31:28 Justin: Yeah. I went and I was swinging flies. I was super lucky, uh, to be swinging with, uh, ed up at Waters West and Justin Kinsler. Justin Kinsler is a fly fishing guide who also does conventional tackle or conventional tackle guide that also does fly fishing, depending on how you look at it. Um, but he he’s amazing. But because of like, running jigs through runs and everything, he just knew where fish stood. So like, we would go up to a run and I would start at the top and he would go. Don’t start there. There’s no fish up there. Start here. And I’m like, we saved. We got to hit so many more spots because he knew because of running jigs and everything through. He knew where not to fish. Yeah. Um, which I think is way more important than knowing where to fish, but. And because he does everything like, I don’t know, I think grunions. Grunions lines up really well with his, uh, his style of fishing. 00:32:26 Dave: Well, I think that, you know, I think we’ve touched on a good chunk. Obviously, we’re not going to be able to get to everything on on grunions today with the gear, but, um, but I think it’s a cool story, you know, hearing about, you know, you guys coming here with this history a hundred years, right. What does that feel like there? When you look back at a hundred years of a company, it sounds like you’re pretty well intertwined with the social media. Maybe describe that a little bit on your role there. How do you talk about what you do there and how that’s helped guide what, you know, your role there? 00:32:52 Justin: Yeah. So, um, we’re a tiny company, you know, like we, uh. It’s funny because we because we do so much in so many different disciplines of fishing, a lot of companies, a lot of people will call us and be like, oh, you’re a huge company sponsor. This sponsor that. I was like, I’m like, we’re we’re a marketing team of three. We’re we’re tiny. We, uh, you know, I’m in the office right now and I know every single person’s name and probably their kids names. 00:33:20 Dave: Right. And your office is where where’s the headquarters. 00:33:23 Justin: In Poulsbo, Washington. 00:33:24 Dave: And where is that at? 00:33:25 Justin: Uh, across the water from Seattle. So across the Puget Sound. Um, right next to, uh, we’re right down the road from far Bank on Bainbridge Island. But, uh, we being being a tiny little company that kind of projects that we’re a lot bigger than we are. 00:33:41 Dave: It does? Yeah. It seems like from the outside. And again, this is my first time I’ve chatted. I didn’t talk that much with the guys when we were at Togiak about, you know, any of the details. But yeah, it seems like you guys are a really massive company just because your name is kind of out. But I guess again, if you’re in the fishing, you’re going to see Grunions because you’re out there doing, like you said, everything. 00:33:59 Justin: Yeah. And it’s, it’s a it’s like a blessing and a curse. Right. But we’re, uh. I forgot where we were. What we were, what you asked me there. Um. Oh, my role, my role, my role. Um, yeah. So I I’m the community marketing manager. But being a tiny little company, my role kind of, you know, I’ll help out customer service. I do pretty much all the different. I touch most of the different jobs of marketing, but primarily I run our community. So like, I do events, um, I do our ambassador team, our pro teams, and then I do a lot of our communications, obviously. But, uh, yeah, we it is like a really big thing for us to be part of the fishing community. It’s kind of I use this all the time internally here. But I say, like, when we show up, we win because we are like we are authentically just a bunch of fishermen that run a fishing company. You know, we’re not like a bunch of investors that that work in a fishing company or anything like that. 00:35:03 Dave: So you guys are all everybody there is pretty much in the fishing, whether that’s. Yeah, you name it some, some part of it. 00:35:09 Justin: Yeah. And we uh, and we love it, you know, like it’s it whether we go down to Louisiana, we, we did Venice, Louisiana for offshore fishing. And then we were over in Hopedale, fly fishing the next day. And, you know, we did events at both places and threw a party for the guide community. And we really we really try to celebrate the the people who have dedicated their lives, lives to fishing. 00:35:33 Dave: Yeah. What does that look like? Talk about that event, maybe a typical event that you would put together. Is that a small event? Big event? Is that something where the public can be connected to it? 00:35:42 Justin: So yes, for the guide events, I mean, we try to limit it to just the guides. Um, just because that can get expensive. But typically if it’s a guide event, we’ll go and open a bar tab and. 00:35:55 Dave: Yeah, there you go. 00:35:57 Justin: Yeah. Hey. Drinks on Grondin’s tonight, which is a lot of fun. Um, but we do like all the shows and everything like that. We we like to do, like, we call it happy hour. We come out and make custom hats for, you know, we’ll be at the Denver fly fishing show and the fly fishing show and all that. We’ll make custom hats for everybody. And and our booth is always kind of a party. Um, yeah, we try to we try to make it that way. 00:36:23 Dave: And what are the custom hats? I haven’t seen these. Yeah. 00:36:25 Justin: So we’ll we’ll print a bunch of, like, patches that are relevant to the Denver fly fishing scene. Uh, and, you know, they’ll say grunions. They’ll have trout or flies or, you know, stuff like that. And then you can pick whatever kind of hat blank that we have there, and we have our hat press there. So we’ll heat press all those patches onto the hats for people as they come by the booth, and you leave with a free custom hat. 00:36:49 Dave: That stuff definitely works. I’m holding. It’s funny because I’ve got this cup here that’s a Yeti cup. And I got it at the one of the shows. I can’t remember which one. It was quite a while ago, but you know. And on it, it says, it says businesses for Bristol Bay. You know what I mean? It’s just that little reminder. I’ve always liked the cup because, well, one thing, it works really well. You know, it’s a good cup. It keeps that for him because he obviously has a great product. But then, you know, they had a little part about Bristol Bay, which again is a good reminder that you know their partnerships probably. And you guys probably I’m sure think about that stuff too right. These partnerships. 00:37:19 Justin: Oh yeah. That’s the other part of my job is I run I run all of our partnerships with like nonprofits and things like that. So we do currently right now officially we we are with a commercial fishermen for Bristol Bay, which is also Bristol Bay forever. And then we do, uh, backcountry hunters and anglers and captains for clean water. And we have a handful of other, other organizations that we help out on smaller scales and stuff like that as well. The Henry’s Fork Foundation, because it’s kind of near and dear to all of our hearts here, which is awesome. It worked out that, like all of us, just love that river. 00:37:55 Dave: Nice. Well, I mean, again, you said it. I think that it’s always important to, you know, the community, the connections to these nonprofits. And, you know, we’re trying to do some of the same stuff. You know, I wanted to talk again. The fishing. Right. We mentioned that at the start. Maybe, maybe tell me, let’s swing to that a little bit on your the guiding like you did that before. Are you still getting out fishing as much as you were before you started with Grunions? 00:38:17 Justin: No, no, I wish. Uh, unfortunately, I mean, even back then, like, I was fishing a lot, but I was fishing, like, through customers. Not as often as I would like being on the pointy end of the boat, but, uh. No, I still fish. I still fish quite a bit, though. Typically now I fish like, while I’m out doing events and things like that. Like we go up to Bristol Bay every year and, uh, do a commercial fishing, dude, do an event for, uh, the commercial fishing community up there and partner with, uh, the different groups that are, you know, fighting pebble mine up there. And then on the back end of that, a couple of us will go out and and go fish with one of the lodges up there for a day or two. Um, which is, which is always awesome. 00:39:00 Dave: I love that you’re talking about the stories, and I think that’s interesting from your perspective, because you’re trying to do similar things to what we’re doing, right? Tell stories and all that stuff. And that’s what everybody always talks about stories. But what makes what do you think makes a story worth telling or we’re sharing with what you do? 00:39:15 Justin: Man, I that’s an awesome question. Let me think on that for a second. Um, you know, I think every story has to have, like, a purpose. Like, if that makes sense. Like, we talk a lot about, like. I mean, right now we’re in the heart of budget season at Grumman’s, which is the least favorite part of every marketing person’s, right? 00:39:34 Dave: Like you’re deciding where to put the marketing dollars. 00:39:36 Justin: Yeah. Where the marketing dollars can go. And we’ve really I think one of the really cool parts of my job is looking at it and going, all right, how can we tell a community story? Like in twenty twenty seven, we’re launching a new side of fly fishing that we haven’t really touched on much yet. And, uh, it’s super exciting. Like, it’s relevant to everybody, I guess. But, uh, it’s this new products that kind of support, like an expansion on our fly fishing portion of our business. And we’re like, okay, we can. So to tell that story, well, we need to we need to make sure we have friendships in this area with these guys. So my job this year is to go out and make friends and go fishing and take some photos and, and hopefully take some video and all that kind of stuff in that area and really like it works out really well with me because I’m a Chatty Cathy and I like meeting people and I like. 00:40:35 Dave: Exactly. Yeah. You’re one of those people. You can tell you’re one of those people that gets energy. You can talk to people all day and you still have energy at the end of the day, right? 00:40:42 Justin: Yeah. Um, I get made fun of for that a lot. Um, I drink a lot of caffeine and talk a lot of, um, but it’s it’s my favorite part of my favorite part of life, really is, is, is connections. And if you’re going to tell a story, you want to have a good connection and and have some sort of purpose for being there or telling that story. Like if we go into a community, I don’t know, we’re going into ice fishing in twenty twenty six, I’m breaking breaking news. We’re going to go into ice fishing and ice fishing. 00:41:16 Dave: So you haven’t been in ice fishing yet? 00:41:18 Justin: We have, uh, based off of, like, just products that are that like, carry over to it. A lot of guys wear our base layers and like, our grundys and thermals and all that, but, um, you know, socks and everything, but, uh, we’re launching, like, a full on ice fishing category of the business. I probably shouldn’t be saying that, but that’s okay. That’s fine. Um, nobody’s going to be upset about that. But anyway, we’re launching into ice fishing in twenty twenty six, and when we tell that story we want to tell about, like, we want to go all in, like we want to make sure that we have a we want to make the community better than what we found it like. We saw some holes in the products that were available and said, hey, we can do this better, and we can. We can be like an asset to that community. And that’s kind of how we’ve decided every step of the way, which sometimes isn’t the best business decision over like, but like if we can make it better and we can make fishing better for a community by being there, we it’s kind of our job to do it. 00:42:21 Dave: It’s a great answer to the question of, you know, the stories, right? Because you do it with making better gear. Now they can come in and those people will share better stories because maybe they’re out there longer. They’re able to do some stuff they couldn’t do before. Right? 00:42:34 Justin: Yeah, yeah. And that’s kind of like our, our mission whenever we make a product and then in turn, from marketing, go tell the story is like, how can we tell the story of this product making making fishing more enjoyable or making fishing making it more tolerable depending on what kind of fishing it is? You know, like if you’re a Bering Sea crabber, it might not make it more enjoyable for your back, but it will make it. It’ll make it more comfortable or make you, make you be able to be out there longer or safer. 00:43:05 Dave: Yeah. And the hoodie, that’s the thing. Especially for the cold. If you’re not in the cold environment, you might not realize it. But the hoodie is a game changer. You know, you see it on those Deadliest Catch, right? They got the heavy hoodie and then they got the rain hoodie. You know, at least those two. And I mean, God, there’s something about, you know, the back of your neck. You got to keep that warm when you’re out in those environments. That’s a big a big part of it. 00:43:24 Justin: Yeah, it is funny. It is funny, uh, being a fly fisherman. And then, you know, my day to day, I have a lot of I have a lot of calls with the commercial fishing world and, uh, the things that like that’s different. Like, well, I look back on like when I was guiding and I, you know, oh, I got a pinhole in my waders. This is terrible. And then someone’s like, yeah, I got a thousand pound crab pot dropped on my foot and it ripped my boot. Could you help me out? I’m like, oh my gosh, dude. I was like, I’m. I wasn’t that tough when I thought I was, I thought being out there for a hundred days in the summer was a was a pretty awesome season. They’re like, no, I, I was out in hundred foot seas. 00:44:09 Dave: This has been good. I think we’re going to take it out of here. We’ve got a little segment talk about community. We have our segment, our wet fly swing pro community. And uh, I just want to give a quick shout out to, uh, Colin. Colin is in the group there. And we have, uh, probably a smaller community than you. But, you know, I think for us it’s really cool because it’s a way to do a lot of the stuff we’re doing. How do we get out there, spend more time fishing, you know, do more cool trips. So today this is presented by Drift Hook, who is another one of our partners. And they’re they’ve got some flies that I’ve been using for the last couple of years now. So I want to give a shout out to Drift Hook and also to Colin in the group. And Colin was interesting because we were I was asking him, you know, what are you struggling with or what he’s working on? And two handed casting, right, is a big part. It’s like the the whole Spey thing, you know, that’s a big part of the community. So so first I want to give a shout out to those two and tell me you’ve done a little bit of this. Have you had a Spey. Can you talk about your are you fully do you still do two handed casting or is that something. 00:45:01 Justin: Oh yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of why I, I mean, it’s one of the few reasons why I love steelhead fishing. I love casting rods. Like, I think it’s just fun. Um, I’m definitely not as proficient as I am with a single handed, but I, I still love it. And it’s a lot of fun. 00:45:18 Dave: Yeah. What’s been your. Do you remember, I mean, your journey there, has it been, you know, like, has it been going for a while? What have been some struggles. Are you, are you doing like what’s your what’s your go to steelhead setup. 00:45:29 Justin: Um right now, I, I love I have a twelve foot, I have a twelve foot sage and, uh, with a hat trail on it and but, uh, yeah, my my spade, my spade journey. I guess I once upon a time lived on the Stillaguamish River, and, uh, I was out with a deck, Hogan, like thirteen foot three echo. And, uh, I was just flailing on the water, getting frustrated, you know, in my. I, like, twenty years old or something like that. And, um, and I, I’m flailing and not doing good. And, uh, we were at a spot called Hazel that I don’t even know if it exists anymore, but, uh, and up, up the river, uh, there’s a big guy walking up towards me, like, walking up because he had to walk past me to get back to his car, and he stopped and, like, gave me some pointers. And I went to shake his hand goodbye. And he introduced himself. And it was Dick Hogan. Yeah. So I got, like, a free little mini casting lesson from, like, the nicest guy in the world. And, you know, he was like a I didn’t know. I didn’t even know who Dick Hogan was. I just got his rod for cheap like at the time, but ended up being like a huge fan of his, of all his books and everything. But I will say of any kind of casting I’ve ever done, like every time I’ve ever taken a casting lesson for Sp-a, I have gotten substantially better at it. Like having like a real casting lesson from, from like one of the pros. 00:47:04 Dave: I know that’s a big part of it. Yeah, I we say that a lot. It’s like, if you can, if you got a little extra cash, I mean, you’re gonna spend the money on a rod and all that stuff anyways. You know, a lesson isn’t that much more and it’s worth it. Yeah. 00:47:15 Justin: A thousand a thousand dollar rod with a four dollar cast never helped anybody. Um, yeah, I do a I do a trip. I do a trip to Yellowstone every year, and, uh, I get the fish with, I get to do a little fishing trip. We kind of have it with a guy, uh, Matt. Claire. And. Yeah. And he’s taught me a tremendous amount. Part of it is just watching him cast, and then, uh, part of it is him. Like taking the time to show me different things with Trout Spey, because that’s new to me. I’ve recently got into Trout Spey, which is a tremendous amount of fun. It’s like a whole new world for trout fishing. 00:47:56 Dave: Discover the Montana Fly Fishing Lodge, nestled along the federally designated Wild and scenic East Rosebud River. With one point five miles of exclusive private frontage, their all inclusive luxury experiences combine world class fly fishing on legendary waters like the Yellowstone, the Bighorn and Stillwater rivers with rustic elegance and their spacious lodge and luxurious canvas cabins. 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And is this off the beaches in a boat? And then give us a couple of sea run tips. If somebody’s listening, they’re going to be up in the Puget Sound. What would you be telling him? 00:49:22 Justin: Yeah. So cutthroat is a cutthroat trout that spawns in the rivers, goes out to the saltwater lives, its life in the estuaries and the of Puget Sound and Hood Canal. That’s where we fish them anyway. They’re technically, they’re from Alaska, all the way down to California. But where we fish them in Puget Sound and Hood Canal. Preferably Hood Canal, because it’s the most beautiful place in the world. We fished them for years out of the boat and off the beaches. But I think like one, like, giant misconception for cutthroat fishermen is that, like, they I don’t think they realize that once they hit the saltwater, for the most part, they’re like an apex predator. So like, they’re feeding pretty ravishingly in any, any month. That’s not hot. Um, if they’re in the saltwater and it’s not hot out, like if the water temperature is still below sixty degrees, they’re like a pretty, like, ferocious feeder. and from the boat you could really watch them in day in and day out, like they would shock you at how aggressive. 00:50:27 Dave: What are they eating? Mostly. 00:50:28 Justin: There’s a handful of different baits out there, but, uh um, herring, uh, sand lance, um, uh, outgoing outmigrating salmon smolt and then, uh, like aquatic worms and things like that. Um, but they’re, they’re so aggressive that they, uh, that like, they, they almost look like they’re trying to get caught if you’re, if you’re fishing them correctly. So, like, my wife and I fish together for years, my wife is a Brita Fordyce, the fly designer. And, uh, we fished together for years for him. And we fish very differently. But we’ve, like, established like like I used to say, you have to fish faster. Like, I strip really fast, and she would strip really slow. Um, and we, like, kind of came to the conclusion that as long as you don’t stop stripping, it doesn’t matter. Um, like so the pause is what makes them because nothing stops when it’s being chased. 00:51:22 Dave: Oh, so they don’t like the pot? So that’s the funny thing because yeah the pot. So see run. Do not want the pause. You don’t need to pause. 00:51:27 Justin: No no. That’s like the big thing is like be aggressive while you’re fishing and like and then they just they want moving water in anywhere where there’s moving water adjacent to a place to deep water. They want to chase bait up on the flat, but if the flat has like a drop off nearby, it’s probably pretty good fishing. 00:51:50 Dave: Okay, so that’s where you want to beach. If you’re on a beach, you want to get one with a little bit of a drop off. 00:51:54 Justin: Yep, yep. And then if you’re on a boat, you want to be off the drop off so that your fly will drop. Um, and typically the bigger fish will sit right on that edge, um, almost like a trevally or anything. 00:52:06 Dave: What lines are you using for those guys? 00:52:08 Justin: Um, I’ve always been a big fan of like a type if you’re off the beach, an intermediate or floating line, but an outbound short. And then if you’re on the boat, a type three with the outbound short, I just think that line is it’s the perfect line for what we do, like throwing flies with some weight on them that they’re small, but they’re weighted. Um, in the outbound shorts. Just such a such a pleasure to chuck really hard. Um, and a lot of times it’s windy or or whatever. The outbound short will still get it off. Get it out there. 00:52:42 Dave: Yep. And what’s your, uh, what would be one fly you’d use out there for the sea run? 00:52:47 Justin: I love the, uh, the Rio flash drive. Um, that that’s like a it’s a cone head bait fish with a lot of flash in it. And that cone head I like better than dumbbell eyes, because I feel like dumbbell eyes get caught in the oysters, and the, uh, the Coneheads can pull. You can pull them out of the oysters easier without snapping your line or cutting your line on the sharp shells, because they pretty much every flat and hood canal is covered in oysters. 00:53:18 Dave: Yep. There you go. So the cone. Yeah, that’s a cool fly. That’s just basically. And the color wise, does it matter like gold or what’s the best color? 00:53:24 Justin: When I would say when in doubt white. Um, every bait fish out here has a white belly. Um, and a lot of the cutthroat attacks are from the bottom. They’re like real surface oriented fish. They’ll chase bait right up to the top. They’ll. I mean, I’ll throw a gurgler a lot to, like, a, like a on a floating line. Just chug it along the surface. But, uh, those are probably my two favorite flies as a gurgler, a white gurgler or a white flash drive. Yeah. That’s a those are my those are my absolute favorites. And really when if you said this is coming out around mid-February, it’s going to start getting good. Like towards the end of February. Oh yeah. The bait. Then the chum fry start coming out around. 00:54:08 Dave: Oh is that what happens. So yeah because the sea run talk about that just a little bit on the life history. What are they doing? Why is the end of February? Why does that start to get the hot time in the estuary? 00:54:17 Justin: So in Hood Canal particularly, um, that’s where I guided for for the longest time in Hood Canal, you start seeing. So the cutthroat will follow the chum, which is like the last salmon of the year. They’ll kind of follow them into the, like, real close to the estuaries, like real close to the little creek mouths and stuff. And they’ll eat eggs and they’ll eat. They’ll eat flesh coming down the river. Not not as like effectively as you could like Alaska, but they definitely will eat eggs and everything. And then, um, and then when they spawn, they tend to spawn like early January into early February. And when they drop back out, they typically drop back out with the chum fry, and they’re just gorging themselves on chum fry. 00:55:02 Dave: Oh, wow. So they follow the chum fry out and just eat them on the way. 00:55:05 Justin: Yeah, yeah. You’ll net them and they’ll, like, puke up bait fish. Um, if you, if you hit it. Right. Um, and then pretty much like every back eddy on every back eddy in all of Puget Sound, that is, uh, that is north of a chum river, will have a ton of little bait fish in it and cut their eating them. And that’s kind of that’s kind of how they disperse as the chum chum for the best swimmers. So as they get bigger and start swimming away, that’s kind of how the cutthroat disperse on the beach, um, is when those schools kind of dwindle, they tend to hang in those spots. That’s where they live for the whole summer. 00:55:45 Dave: Yep. And then can you catch them throughout the when is it not good for on the beaches? 00:55:49 Justin: Really? January. January is pretty much like the only time that you’re I mean, it’s not bad. It’s not like you won’t catch them, but, um, it’s it’s the worst time of year to be there is probably January. And then if, if you’re living in, like, the real Deep South Sound or the Deep Hood Canal. The water temperatures rise, so like January and August are really the only two times a month or two times a year that are not great cutthroat fishing. When that water temperature gets high. They’ll still eat, but they’ll they’ll die. Like you’ll see them. You’ll go to release them and feel real bad about yourself. And you shouldn’t do that. That’s like it’s kind of a crummy thing to do. I wish, I wish that, uh, Wdaf would put Hoot Owl on the Hood Canal like they do on Yellowstone. 00:56:37 Dave: Right. Wow. That’s interesting. No, this is good. Well, I think maybe we will save some of this for a future episode if we can follow back. I think the sea run cutthroat is an interesting species, especially up there. But let’s take it out of here with our one random one you mentioned at the start, the punk rock. I’m always interested. I love getting the music background. What’s your, you know, your preference? It sounds like you’ve got a good background. Are you a what if you had to say what is a group, a band? What could we listen to to hear your your taste? 00:57:04 Justin: Oh, man. Uh, if I were to, if I were to sum my music up, it would probably be Bad Brains or Gorilla Biscuits. Um, Bad Brains being probably the most important band of all time. Um, yeah. And then Gorilla Biscuits, probably my favorite band of all time. Um, uh, Bad Brains is out of Washington, D.C., and Gorilla Biscuits is out of New York City. 00:57:30 Dave: Okay. And is the punk rock. What is that, uh, scene like? Because it’s interesting. Because Seattle, it wasn’t punk, really, but, I mean, the back to the early nineties, right? You had Nirvana in that whole alternative thing, which was kind of there was a little bit of that right there. 00:57:44 Justin: Yeah. So I’m a I’m, I’m, I’m like a, a real music dork. Um, so like my, my version of punk rock might be different than other people’s, but like, I love, like hardcore punk rock, like the music that actually, like, tries to make the world a better place, which is kind of funny to say, right? 00:58:03 Dave: Yeah. What is what is that for? Somebody who doesn’t know punk rock. Because punk rock, you think of it, if you didn’t know it, you’d be like, you know, it’s some crazy whatever, you know, just, you know. 00:58:12 Justin: Yeah. So, so I think a lot of the, a lot of like the, a lot of punk rock is like burn the world down, fuck authority, all that stuff. I think that’s trash. Um, I like, uh, I like, I like, like positive, positive hardcore music. Like, uh, like Bad Brains sang about positive mental attitude and trying to make the world a better place. And, and and their willingness to, uh, their willingness to maybe be a little violent and be a little be a little aggressive to make it that way. Yeah. Um, and I, I just love the energy of, of hardcore music and and, I don’t know, it’s it’s, uh, it’s I think it’s made me a better person. It’s certainly a it certainly makes me a nicer person. And. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, going to live shows and the energy of that is, is amazing. I got to take my daughter to see seven seconds this summer and and it was it was incredible. 00:59:16 Dave: Um yeah. And seven seconds. Is that another another group. 00:59:19 Justin: Another punk rock band? Yeah. She is about to be eighteen. Yeah. She’s seventeen. Yeah. 00:59:26 Dave: Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. There you go. That must have been pretty cool at a at a show. And what is it like at a punk rock show? The, uh. What was the name of the group again? Seven seconds. Yeah. What was that like? Is there a place in there where you got to be? I’m not even sure. It’s been a while for me, but is there a pit in there where you got to be careful to not go in there? 00:59:42 Justin: Uh, no, we were in there. 00:59:44 Dave: Oh. You were? Yeah. 00:59:45 Justin: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, it’s crowdsurfing and and pile dog piles, and. 00:59:52 Dave: You just got to be careful, right? You just got to know where to. Yeah. 00:59:54 Justin: Yelling into the microphone and and making sure that you take care of everybody in there so no one gets hurt. But that’s I think that’s the difference between like, hardcore music and like and like, uh, like that dirty like trash. Punk rock is like, you go to a hardcore show and everybody’s it looks really aggressive and really mean, and it can be. But like most people are trying to take care of each other and make sure no one gets hurt while they’re doing that. But, uh, yeah, it was a it was a lot of fun taking taking my daughter to see that. And, you know. Yeah. I don’t know if you know, uh, Joe Cermelli. 01:00:28 Dave: Yeah. Yeah, we do know Joe. Yeah. Joe’s been on the podcast. 01:00:30 Justin: Oh, he’s he’s he’s such a cool guy. But that was something we bonded over, too. Um. 01:00:35 Dave: Yeah. He did. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah, I can’t remember. It’s been a while. I think this was a few years ago with Joe, but. Yeah, he’s. He’s a super cool guy. 01:00:42 Justin: Yeah, yeah, we, uh, he’s there’s a there’s a group of people, um, Andy from Durango and, uh, yeah, there’s, there’s a bunch of a bunch of guys who are, uh, who are into punk rock and fly fishing. Um, Chuck Ragan is one of our ambassadors. He’s the lead singer of Hot Water Music. 01:01:00 Dave: Oh, nice. Nice. There’s a whole whole thing. Well, this is this is cool. We’ll have to follow up with you again on on some of the music stuff. But we’ll get we’ll get definitely bad. We’ll get bad brain. Is it bad brains or bad brain? 01:01:10 Justin: Bad brains. 01:01:11 Dave: Yeah. Bad brains. And we’ll get them in the show notes so we can listen to some of that on the way out of here. 01:01:15 Justin: Oh, perfect. Perfect. 01:01:17 Dave: And, uh, and then we’ll get that going. But this has been great, Justin. I think we can leave it there. We’ll send everybody out to, uh, grundeinkommen. If they want to connect, and and they can connect with you by. Yeah. Social. Right. You’re out there. Are you the one that’s out there on social media answering questions and stuff like that? 01:01:32 Justin: Um, I’m one of the one of the two guys that kind of runs our social media. Um, CJ, CJ manages the day to day, and I’m typically the guy if you, uh, jump into our DMs on on the person that will respond to that. 01:01:45 Dave: Cool. Well, we’ll send people there. And I did want to mention too, I know I saw Marty and me out there. They’re they’re definitely friends of the podcast and. 01:01:53 Justin: They’re another set of ambassadors. 01:01:55 Dave: They were the first ones I remember when I when you guys were getting going. I remember seeing them and I think can’t remember if it was me or Mario, but they were talking about and I was like, oh, cool. Yeah, because that’s that’s what it is, right? You got these people that really are, you know, outspoken, I think, cool people and a lot of respect, you know, and. 01:02:10 Justin: And they’re doing the and me is doing the Sandy River Spey cleave again this year. Um and uh she’s she’s amazing. Marty’s amazing. They’re such good people. And they work so hard. Again. Again. Way better than I ever was at it. Um. 01:02:26 Dave: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, they got some good stuff going. So cool. Justin. Well, like we said, grundys. Com and if anybody has questions, they can take you there. And, uh, yeah. Thanks for all the time today. This has been a lot of fun. And we’ll we’ll keep in touch with you. 01:02:36 Justin: Awesome. Thank you. 01:02:40 Dave: Before we head out of here, I just want to remind you, if you haven’t yet, check in with Justin, check in with us, let him know you heard this podcast. That’d be amazing. You can always check in with us. Go to and sign up there and we’ll get some information on when Pro opens back up for you and want to let you know we’ve got some great stuff coming up here, including a Montana Spring Creek trip right now you can go over to that’s wet, and you can actually check out what spots are available still for this school and others. It’s your best chance to find out what we got going. The giveaway just ended and we are announcing the winner soon, so if you didn’t win, you still got a chance to go on this amazing trip. Let me know and I’d love to hear from you. All right, that’s all I have for you. I hope you’re having a good evening. I hope you have a good morning or afternoon. And and we’ll catch you on that next episode. Have a good one. 01:03:30 Speaker 4: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly swing Fly Fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit Wet Fly Comm.