In the Bucket #21 | Steelhead Fishing and the Illusion of Control with Adrienne Comeau and Eric Leininger

00;00;01;29 – 00;00;13;12 Eric And then at the end of the day, if they’re like, I can’t believe it’s like, really? I can’t believe it. That’s what I’m going to try to do this winter is like, drill that into all my clients instead of them. I never want to and you can say it. I’m not going to be like, Oh, you asshole, don’t ever say that again. 00;00;13;12 – 00;00;27;29 Eric But it’s like, Why are we saying that? Why are we saying, I can’t believe it? Like, I can’t believe I haven’t won the lottery? Yeah, really? Have you ever won the lottery like now? But you have got steelhead, so when you’re like, Oh, I can’t believe it, it’s like, well, some days you get some days, you know, like that’s just how it is. 00;00;27;29 – 00;00;53;22 Eric So like, what are we doing out here? This emphasis on like, we think we know, dude, if I don’t know and I’ve been out there pretty much more than half my life, like at this point, I don’t know, like I can’t see in the water they should be there. But if they’re not, it’s like, yeah, I’m done being surprised me like, wow. 00;00;53;22 – 00;01;18;12 Brian Welcome to In the Bucket. The podcast that explores the culture of space fishing in the Pacific Northwest, a spectacular land of mountains and wild rivers where every cast has a story to tell. I’m your host, Brian Niska. In today’s show, we’re going to be joined by two return guests who are both superb anglers and guides. Adrian Comeau is a full time Steelhead guide who’s made a name for herself, helping clients connect with the fish of their dreams on the Lower Skeena and the Dene. 00;01;19;02 – 00;01;38;28 Brian Erik Leininger is back for his third appearance on our show. Despite his use of adult type language, Eric is well respected in the fly fishing industry and has established himself as a talented, multi-species angler whose expertise includes a variety of fisheries. Today, Eric wants to share some wild ideas about steelhead fishing that may uproot conventional thinking. I’m looking forward to this discussion. 00;01;39;06 – 00;01;40;25 Brian It’s time to get in the bucket. 00;01;44;22 – 00;02;09;05 Brian It’s been a while since we’ve put out a in the Bucket episode, so I’m very pleased to say this should be a special one. We’ve got Adrian Cuomo and Eric Leininger here today. This is actually a collaboration. Eric’s got his own podcast called The Struggle is Real, and we’re going to actually release this episode on both platforms. So, Ed, most people are familiar with you, but say a few words, let people know what you’re about. 00;02;09;05 – 00;02;10;18 Brian And then Eric, tell him about your show. 00;02;11;03 – 00;02;28;06 Ads Well, my name is Adrian. I guide for Ski and Osprey, and I also guide for Complete Bay Lodge on the dean. I’ve been still heading for well over 20 years. I’m working in the industry for 20 years and got a lot of ideas about things that still don’t have it all figured out. 00;02;28;22 – 00;02;56;27 Eric I am Eric Leininger. I’ve been guiding for about 15 years and thrown the two hander for close to 20. And yeah, just said some interesting ideas over the last year or so about steel heading and skill levels and if anything matters. And yeah, I kind of had a little epiphany slash existential breakdown last fall with Adrian on the Skeena and got me thinking. 00;02;56;27 – 00;02;59;28 Eric So now we’re here to chop it up and talk about it. 00;02;59;28 – 00;03;00;29 Brian This is like therapy. 00;03;01;10 – 00;03;03;04 Eric I mean, every day, you know? 00;03;03;24 – 00;03;17;09 Brian So you know your idea. Eric I just want make sure I fully wrap my head around it. You just think nothing matters under certain conditions, nothing matters. And we put way too much thought into, you know, flies, presentation, sink tips, etc., etc.. 00;03;17;21 – 00;03;40;20 Eric Yeah. I mean, I’m going to say the long and short of it, but I’ll probably be the long and long of it is essentially what I want to talk about today is when the water is warm, that kind of 58 degrees and above whatever that comes out to Celsius, but that 58 to 60 to 63, you know, when you start getting into 65, 66, it could be kind of detrimental to fish. 00;03;40;20 – 00;04;21;27 Eric But that 58 to 62, I feel like they’re at peak aggression level and over the years watching people that have absolutely no business hooking a steelhead, doing that and watching people of really high skill caliber, not catching steelhead in the same kind of areas or whatever. Just got me thinking. Got the wheels turning and when people talk about, oh, like fly color, everybody’s got their favorite fly color, and you’ll hear people say, oh, you know, the color doesn’t matter, but then you’ll fish with those guides or those anglers and they’re so dead set, they’re like, Oh, this is the jam. 00;04;21;27 – 00;04;45;03 Eric And you’re like, Oh, do these people really believe that color doesn’t matter? Or is it just like something we say? But then everybody’s got their preference of like, but this one, this is the jam. So I think some of us still believe like they’ve got just that color that they like or whatnot. And there’s a million same tips out there, a million podcast about casting and presentation. 00;04;45;03 – 00;05;03;17 Eric And something that I saw while up there this fall for a few weeks is that none of that matters, in my opinion. And, you know, I’m a data guy, so I’m just I’m not basing I’m like, oh, I feel this way. Like, I don’t I don’t really care how I feel. I’m just looking at stuff and seeing what what actually are the contributing factors. 00;05;03;26 – 00;05;28;09 Eric And the biggest thing is water temp and if they’re there and if they are, I feel like whoever has that, that fly going through that piece of water is going to catch in a lot of the summer. Steelhead rivers are fairly shallow that I fish and the water’s clear. So I can’t remember a lot of times that we fished a run and then floated over it and saw fish spook out. 00;05;28;22 – 00;05;50;24 Eric I’m sure there’s times where they’re so camouflaged next to a rock or whatnot or just out of eyesight that I can’t see them. But I really feel like if a fish is in a piece of water that hasn’t been disturbed, a bunch low pressure and the water is above 58, it does not matter what you do, they’re going to eat that fly. 00;05;51;21 – 00;06;11;29 Eric So yeah, I just I kept a bunch of notes this fall in the Ron and yet called you guys and I just kind of want to like discuss that idea and get your guys opinions on it. And yeah, the podcast I do down here is called The Struggle is Real with my buddy Zachary Carruthers. He’s kind of a famous musician. 00;06;11;29 – 00;06;31;12 Eric He was in the band Portugal, The Man for many years and then wanted to do something different. So he started guiding and being at the shop and he’s doing a really good job. So it’s kind of us to chopping it up. A lot of it isn’t about fishing, so I mean, it is kind of a fishing podcast because we’re both guides. 00;06;31;12 – 00;06;53;02 Eric It’s kind of neat to have a juxtaposition, kind of of like a first or second year guide with a 15 year guide and kind of the takes on that tax cut. A lot of stories from touring. I got a lot of stories from guiding and we’ll just go off the rails sometimes and and talk about whatever We’re both, you know, we partied our asses off as well and we’re both sober now. 00;06;53;02 – 00;07;12;26 Eric Not that like, that’s a hell. I want to die on and tell everybody like, this is the best thing ever. Like, nobody gives a shit. Congratulations. Whatever. But just the angle of, like, just trying to be a better person as I get older and the struggles of that really. I mean, it’s just very easy for me to not be a good person or be judgmental on stuff. 00;07;12;26 – 00;07;30;15 Eric So yeah, it’s just a combination of guiding the struggles with that, being a good person in life, yada, yada, yada. And it’s been a lot of fun doing it. So we’ve had a pretty good response and it’s just something that we do early morning before we open up the shop. So it seems to work out pretty well. 00;07;31;01 – 00;07;46;09 Brian Ed, I got a question for you. When it comes to, you know, sort of what Eric’s talking about, if we start with the fly, there’s a lot of guides that like to fish the same color, you know, more or less the same fly most of the time. Is this commitment or is this laziness? 00;07;46;25 – 00;08;10;03 Ads I would say that it’s just all about confidence and you start getting feedback on a certain pattern or a certain color, and it’s hard to want to start experimenting, especially as a guide, because if you have confidence in something, you want to give your client the best shot and you know, for me, something I believed for a really, really long time is that it truly is. 00;08;10;15 – 00;08;31;29 Ads You know, confidence is one of the biggest players when it comes to having success. And so, you know, you can talk to ten different steel headers and they all have a different favorite fired favorite color, but they probably all have very similar success rate. And what makes the difference is that they they just have the confidence to finish it differently. 00;08;31;29 – 00;08;53;00 Ads And so if you can pass that confidence along to your client and be like, hey, you know, we’ve been catching fish on this color consistently, they’re going to go fish that fly differently than if, you know, if you’re like, Oh yeah, and okay, well, yeah, let’s try this right? Depending on, you know, their skill level and their experience. 00;08;53;00 – 00;09;07;02 Ads And I feel like the more experience you get, the more willing people are to have confidence in different, different patterns in different ways. But as a guide. Yeah, that confidence factor in a particular color can go a long way. 00;09;07;15 – 00;09;27;04 Brian Yeah, you know, I kind of an analogy. I like to I always find these comparisons and I’ve been watching a lot of hockey lately and it’s a little bit like the hockey team puts in the goalie that they have the confidence in. Until they don’t have that confidence anymore or the guy gets injured. And you know, the scenario where you would deviate from, I’m going to say pink, Right? 00;09;27;12 – 00;09;28;19 Ads Right. You’re like, you’re pink. 00;09;29;00 – 00;09;35;00 Brian There’s this scenario where you would like put something like black or orange on there. Describe what would trigger that for you. 00;09;35;15 – 00;09;54;02 Ads Well, I mean, I am a huge fan of thinking I fish a lot myself and we fish it pretty much exclusively on the bean. But again, it comes down to of their confidence. And, you know, oftentimes I like if I have two clients I do like to fish one client on pink or one client on black and blue. 00;09;54;13 – 00;10;17;27 Ads In the fall I actually transition a bit more into black and blue when the water gets lower and clearer. And again, that just comes from years of of guiding on the same water and and getting feedback and finding that sometimes my success gets better. Switching to black and blue when we deal with low clear water in the fall and the water starts to cool down a little bit. 00;10;17;27 – 00;10;40;23 Ads So and sometimes it’s just it feels right and feels right to put on something different. And you can’t always quantify it. It can’t be, okay, well, you know, the angle of the sun or the temperature of the water or, you know what I eat for breakfast this morning. It’s just you just get a feeling and you throw it on and sometimes you get them, sometimes you don’t. 00;10;41;05 – 00;10;45;28 Ads But every time you get them, just give you a little bit more confidence. Follow that intuition. 00;10;46;19 – 00;10;59;20 Brian So, Eric, with picking up on your idea there, regardless of whether you’re up here on the skin or you’re fishing in Oregon, would you be comfortable with me picking any fly out of your box, tying it onto your line and you just sticking with that? If you truly believe that it doesn’t matter. 00;11;00;07 – 00;11;26;22 Eric Previous to last year, I would probably be somewhere in the realm of like 60 to 70%. Okay with that. Mainly because I do like the challenge aspect of stuff when especially when people are like, Oh, we can’t do this or this is impossible, or like, Oh, try this. Even though I don’t think it’s going to work as well, or the odds are kind of against me, I’ll be like, Yeah, like, let’s do it. 00;11;26;22 – 00;11;41;12 Eric Like I can catch a fish on anything. Like without saying like that in a cocky way, like that’s the mindset that, that you think, right? It’s like, Oh, hey, if I, you know, if I’ve been doing this a long time, like I’ve seen them eat like leaves, I’ve seen them come up and like, take a barber off the top of the surface. 00;11;41;12 – 00;12;06;11 Eric So and they eat beads like crazy, and that’s just a circle of red or pink. So when I really think about that, like, put that in an analogy, then it’s like, okay, well, based on those facts, like you should now that since kind of last year and like this year on the Ronde had a lot of people that tied their own flies and so they would be like, Hey, what do you want, a fish? 00;12;06;11 – 00;12;20;00 Eric I was like, Well, tee time flies. Like, Yeah, I was like, Let’s see your box. And they all look good. But there’s a bunch of colors that, you know, I don’t like the fish, you know, fishing with Dak. He loves purple. I never fish purple. And he thought I was an insane person to not fish purple on there on. 00;12;20;01 – 00;12;35;22 Eric I just. I don’t even know if I’ve fished in the last couple of years. Thinks another one I’ve never caught or had a client catch a winter steelhead on pink because I never fished. So it’s it’s hard to catch on if you don’t put it on. But I know guys that are and women that are dedicated to that color. 00;12;36;08 – 00;12;56;01 Eric So watching them fish their own flies and catching fish on it, I was like, like every time it’s like, oh, there’s another data point. Like shit don’t matter. Listening to Kelly on his slide podcast when he’s streamer fishing and he catches a fish on a streamer, he cuts it off because he’s like, Well, I know they’ll eat this like we already got the proof. 00;12;56;01 – 00;13;17;05 Eric Like they ate that fly. I cut it off, throw something else on. Like, are they just eating that specific fly or can I catch more trout on a different flight? And some days and those are fish that are eating right there, they’re actually carnivorous and looking for food, but some days they won’t touch any other fly. And that is for whatever reason, the fly they want to eat and other days believe anything. 00;13;17;18 – 00;13;35;06 Eric So I like to be put in different scenarios where I can, as I’ve gotten more and more years under my belt, that’s like, Well, I should be doing something different to see if I can figure out answers. So I’m not expecting to because they are kind of a mysterious fish. But what else am I doing? Like, Well, let’s do it. 00;13;35;06 – 00;13;55;19 Eric So now, like if I come up this spring, yeah, whatever you guys want, I’ll bring a bunch flies, but I’ll fish whatever. Like if you put a brown fly on, if the water’s clear enough to see it, I’d fish it. But that’s kind of the only factor that I really think about like within the last year is the first question is can I or the client cast it? 00;13;56;07 – 00;14;19;23 Eric So just make it fishable. And the second is can the fish see it? And if both those boxes are checked, then yeah, I’d feel confident fishing anything. So yeah, I guess you know what? I would say is yeah, I would feel there’s always going to be that little thing in the back of your head like, well, maybe. But, you know, when I first started coming out there that shrimpy, you know, kind of like apricot, you know, just in. 00;14;20;04 – 00;14;40;01 Eric Adrian It’s much more analytical show, play different color schemes and be like, kind of like this. But like she, she more kind of like scientist slash, like witchy woman, like you just never really know. But she’s going to throw some shit that’s going to work. Those guys are like, It has to be apricot with peach. And, you know, I’m like, okay. 00;14;40;09 – 00;14;54;16 Eric And I fish those flies and like, we caught fish. But, you know, I came up, I think, you know, a year or two after that, I’m like, I’m fishing black and blue, Like, I’m going to suck like, I like this. And I caught a bunch of fish and then the next and I fished that one fly for whatever, two weeks. 00;14;55;01 – 00;15;15;24 Eric And then the next season people like, Oh, you go fish. That black blue is like, Now I’m going to fish. That’s orange and red. Completely different color scheme fish for two weeks catfish. So I like being able to like change stuff up. And if I’ve got a good angler, it’s like, Hey, let’s stick to this fly fish. It, you know, the whole day or a couple of days and see if stuff happens. 00;15;15;24 – 00;15;43;06 Eric Something I did this fall, which I’m going to continue to do in any steel heading, is if I’ve got two anglers, I’m going to put the poor angler in the lead or split up the run and put the poor angler through the place where we get them the most, the second angler in the second spot where we still got them, but not as much have them fish through and then in the guy in the back, the stronger angler is going to have my confidence fly and the guy in the front is just going to be a fly that I never fish. 00;15;43;06 – 00;16;07;23 Eric So I’m actually fishing pink this winter. The lead guy is going to fish pink. And then before we leave, I’m going to be like, Hey, Brian, come down here. Start right here, which is going to be maybe two or three casts above the bucket and go through two or three cars, pass the bucket. So maybe just like 10 minutes and have them fish through and see if they the better angler with my fly that I know catches fish, finds that fish behind him or doesn’t. 00;16;07;23 – 00;16;09;26 Eric And my guess would be they’re not going to. 00;16;11;24 – 00;16;34;16 Ads Today show is brought to you by visit Idaho and Yellowstone Teton Territory place that should be on every anglers list from the Henrys fork to the South Fork of the Snake and all the hidden creeks and alpine lakes in between. This region is built for fly fishers, who, like a little room to roam. You can head over to wet fly, swing, dotcom slash Teton right now for guides, lodges and trip ideas to plan your next adventure. 00;16;34;16 – 00;17;05;21 Ads That’s t time tet0n experienced the waters of Bristol Bay at Togiak River Lodge, where fly fishing meets Alaska’s rugged beauty. This is the place to complete the Alaska Grand Slam with all five salmon species, rainbow trout, arctic char and more. Where each day offers a new Alaskan adventure, you can visit Togiak Lodge dot com right now to start planning your Bristol Bay experience with Togiak River Lodge. 00;17;05;21 – 00;17;25;24 Brian This is a bit of a wild idea right now, but listen to your talk and I’m thinking we should do like bounty fly bingo or something where like put up some weird flies and each fly has something attached to it, whether it’s 100 bucks or a prize or whatever. And if someone catches a fish steelhead on this like bright yellow and beige fly, then they get a prize. 00;17;25;24 – 00;17;31;10 Brian And if people want to want to roll the dice on that for a while, might be a fun thing to try in conjunction with the experiment you’re talking. 00;17;31;29 – 00;17;48;08 Eric I mean, I’m coming up for basically your guys this whole season. I live there now, so go ahead and get the W2 out and get ready to employ me. Immigration papers, whatever you got to do. But I mean, I would happily do that the entire time I’m there this spring, if you want to tie up. I mean, make them look good. 00;17;48;08 – 00;18;17;26 Eric Don’t give me some bullshit, you know, make it look good, but you can tie it and yeah, yellow with white in there or whatever. Office the shit out of those. I’ll fish a different fly every day and it would be interesting to see, like, will they eat anything? Because we’ve been fishing. When I saw Shane McKay catch Giant Chrome hen out of a small little river in Canada on an all white fly with weird like sparkly U.V., I was like, what? 00;18;17;26 – 00;18;38;02 Eric And the like, what? White? And he’s like, Oh, yeah. And then, you know, when I saw David catch a number of fish behind me about a decade ago on the Thompson and All Red, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen anybody catch a fish on a red flag. I was like, mind blown. So I heard somebody say it. 00;18;38;09 – 00;19;00;12 Eric I think it was Braden on the slide and podcast. He’s like, We fish steelhead the way people fish like Atlantis. We got all our information from them, essentially, right? So we don’t even know if we’re doing it right, like we catch them, right? But like, there could be other ways to catch these fish. But as far as steelhead go, we don’t really like, push the limits as much, right? 00;19;00;12 – 00;19;15;06 Eric It’s like, Oh, we’re going to spend all this time figuring out a new way to cast. It’s like, Yeah, dude, like set of anchor, get the line behind you and then pull down and hold on. Like, okay, that’s great. People like, Oh, I’ll see you guys. I’m going to get on a little side here. My apologies. I’ll see you guys on the Internet. 00;19;15;06 – 00;19;36;10 Eric They’re like, Yeah, check out this new cast and they’re frickin rib and dancing that shit all over them. A million moves just to end up in like a periscope position and then launch it. And. And people are like, Oh, you’re the wizard. And I’m like, This is some bullshit. Meanwhile, the guy like, upriver that is doing, like a double spell or God forbid they know how to single spay. 00;19;36;11 – 00;19;56;04 Eric Not me. I suck. Don’t practice it. Yeah, they’re fishing twice as fast, three times as fast. And everybody’s like, Put that cast in. It’s like, okay, so do you want to be like a castor baiter Supreme where everybody’s just fucking giving you just high praise and you’re the man. Are you like, do you like to actually have fish? 00;19;56;04 – 00;20;21;01 Eric Yank on the end of that line? Because you can’t be both. You’re too worried about how that loop is going out. And if you’re fish in this gadget, you know, spoiler alert, it’s not going to be great. It’s just a means to an end. So, yeah, I think that we just we don’t even know what we’re doing. You know, there’s a lot of great guides out there and they, you know, air quotes know what they’re doing because we’ve caught fish. 00;20;21;01 – 00;20;42;03 Eric But essentially I’m like, do we know what we’re doing? Like you would think somebody that guides more and more years builds this confidence. And that was definitely me for years. And then I think I called you like last winter after eating a absorbent amount of mushrooms the day before. And I was like, I think we’re do you remember this phone calls? 00;20;42;03 – 00;20;58;09 Eric Like, I think I’m a do I think I’m a charlatan? Do I was I think I’m pulling the wool over people’s eyes like I don’t think any of this shit matters. Like we’re telling them that we know what we’re doing, but I don’t think we do. I think we’re just, like, basing it on some data. Maybe the fish is there. 00;20;58;12 – 00;21;22;01 Eric We’ve never seen one except Adrian and I on Maxima point that one year shout out 24 and then were either catching that fish or not catching that fish. So yeah, I kind of had that was like the beginning of like, I don’t know man. And then that following year was the fall. I came up and I look for fish behind Zach. 00;21;22;01 – 00;21;40;23 Eric That’s not like a slash to him. It’s just like, okay, cool. Like, yeah, I’ve been doing this longer. That should happen. And then I blanked for 12 days in a row and now I was fishing way behind everybody in no man’s land. You know, all the people I came up with were, you know, put them in the bucket, put them in the good shit. 00;21;40;23 – 00;21;59;03 Eric And I was watching them catch fish every day. You know, where the fish would stop. They were catching them and then they would continue their migration and I would see them swim past me three feet from my knees. And they were not eating my shit. And that’s when I was like, Damn, dude, I don’t think any of the stuff we do matters. 00;21;59;03 – 00;22;22;24 Eric I think if they stop and a fly comes past them, they’re going to eat it, especially your guys as fish. I know you get less of them, but not really hatchery program on that river. You know, wild genetics, not a lot of pressure when they stop something. I believe and this is just, you know, being stuff that like maybe something changes and all of a sudden they become a predator. 00;22;22;24 – 00;22;47;21 Eric As soon as that tail starts to kick in, they’re just like a migration animal where they’re just trying to get from A to B, But when they stop, it’s like, okay, if something comes into my wheelhouse where I’m comfortable and trying to relax, I kill it. So, yeah, I don’t know. I guess to answer your question again, I would happily fish any color, fly any length, any material. 00;22;47;21 – 00;22;59;10 Eric I’m surprised more people don’t tie flies out of ducktail in the Steelhead realm just because it’s so light and it has good movement, it’s durable and comes at a bunch of colors. I always wonder about that. 00;22;59;20 – 00;23;00;13 Brian And affordable. 00;23;00;22 – 00;23;01;18 Eric And affordable. Yeah. 00;23;02;10 – 00;23;04;17 Brian All right. So, Adrian. 00;23;04;27 – 00;23;05;08 Ads Yes. 00;23;05;21 – 00;23;24;19 Brian We’ve known each other a long time. Did absolute magician out there. Here’s the thing that I notice is if you guys I don’t care if it’s August or September or October the spring, a lot of times, it seems to me, when I’m not on the water, but I’m getting maybe text messages and my phone will start beeping and someone caught a fish and someone else catches a fish. 00;23;24;25 – 00;23;44;09 Brian It definitely feels that throughout the day there’s periods of activity and it would kind of make sense that maybe there’s a push, a fish coming through and people are running into them, except for people are spread out all over and it happens way too frequently for me to disregard it as mere coincidence that there’s a certain time throughout the day where the fish just get happy. 00;23;44;09 – 00;24;04;22 Brian Now, I remember as a kid reading the B.C. outdoors magazines and on whatever page they would have a little thing with the solitaire tables. And some people really believed that there were periods of activity throughout the day for wildlife. What is your thought on that? Am I nuts to think that this stuff is clustered or or do you think there’s just you know, it’s just times of the day where they get happy? 00;24;05;05 – 00;24;31;09 Ads And I definitely notice that there seems to be periods of activity. I have noticed that on the down and on the skeena. And is that something that we can figure out the why? Probably not, because it’s probably a combination of factors that we don’t even know are going on, whether it’s temperature, pressure, light, who knows? Maybe they’re putting out some kind of, you know, message signal that they’re all okay, now it’s time to go. 00;24;31;09 – 00;25;02;22 Ads We don’t know. We can’t we can’t get the answer to that question. But I definitely agree with you that there seems to be especially I think when conditions do get tougher and you get bigger temperature swings, I probably noticed it more throughout the winter than in the summer, but they’ll be yeah, it’ll all of a sudden it’s something there’s been a shift somehow and they get bitey and will be kilometers and kilometers apart or, you know, 20 kilometers apart from another guide boat. 00;25;02;22 – 00;25;19;21 Ads And, you know, within half an hour there’s multiple fish being hooked and then there’ll be other days where it is really sporadic and maybe the conditions are just more conducive the entire time for them wanting to bite. But I don’t think that you can really come up with any definitive answer as to why. 00;25;20;20 – 00;25;36;12 Brian So it doesn’t matter. Don’t get up early. Just go out there when you when you can and and if you’re lucky, because it’s better to be lucky than good. You had a great quote, Adrian. I think it might have been in one of the Sims films, but you were basically saying, like just when you think you know something about Steelhead, you realize that there’s so much you don’t know. 00;25;36;12 – 00;25;39;15 Brian I’m paraphrasing, but what was that quote exactly? Do you remember? 00;25;40;04 – 00;26;13;11 Ads Well, it probably had something to do with just the randomness that that you continue to encounter the longer you do it. And Eric, I’m sure that you see the same thing, too. We think that we’re going to get a more defined answer, the better we get. But it seems like we just get more questions and you see more randomness and more weirdness and stuff that you didn’t really think was going to happen happens and and it just leads you to the idea that you’re never going to be able to figure it out completely. 00;26;13;23 – 00;26;21;26 Ads And you might as well just keep trying new stuff and believe that it could happen at any random moment. What do you think, Eric? 00;26;22;10 – 00;26;45;09 Eric There’s a mark Twain quote or something. Paraphrasing, too. He says something like, you know, I can’t believe how smart my dad became as I entered my thirties or something like that. You know, basically saying like, you know, as you’re growing up, you think you know everything. And then I’ve seen this with myself a ton like teenager. You think you’re hot shit, then you’re in my ear in your twenties and you’re like, God, what a dumb ass. 00;26;45;09 – 00;27;00;24 Eric And then you get in your thirties and you’re like, Oh, by my twenties, what a dumb ass. And then you get in your forties, you know, like then my thirties, sort of dumb ass and like, you know, with that kind of trend, it’s probably going to continue to happen to my fifties and sixties. Well, hopefully, because then you, you know, you’re kind of realizing stuff. 00;27;00;24 – 00;27;21;21 Eric And I think that can be relatable to everything that when I first started thinking about it, I was like, Oh, like, that’s interesting because that’s like steel hitting, you know, like you start out and you just want to cast and you catch a couple of fish and then you kind of think, you know, what you doing, and you kind of tie a couple of flies and you have some success and you think, Oh, this is the ticket, and you see that not work or something else, totally work. 00;27;21;21 – 00;27;39;00 Eric And you’re like, Oh, okay, that just mixed it all up and then, you know, you keep doing it just hours and hours and days and months and years and you learn something new and then that just gets blown up. And I think that’s like, you know, without going all, you know, Zen one World stuff, it’s like, I think that’s it. 00;27;39;09 – 00;28;15;18 Eric I think that’s basically everything. Like, no matter what you choose to do, whether it’s a hobby or have kids or fish or bow hunt or rock climb or clean your house a different way, whatever. I think that’s just essentially, you know, living life is like the more you know, the less you’re going to know. As many people have said, I think that’s the fun and interesting part to where I’m kind of going through a little phase of that, where I really pigeon hole on stuff and will get obsessed with that for minutes or weeks or years. 00;28;15;18 – 00;28;45;17 Eric And that’s all I do, thinking that if I research test, put time in that I’ll eventually get the answers that I’m looking for. And like Adrian said, all that ends up happening is I end up with more questions. So I’m kind of within the last few, whatever, months or year kind of settled on the fact that I I’m not going to stop doing that because that’s just how I’m built, but I’m enjoying that in a different aspect. 00;28;45;17 – 00;29;20;13 Eric Rather than getting frustrated or digging in harder, just being like, Oh, that’s really interesting that like this is going to keep happening and with the Steelhead angle specifically enjoying the fact that I don’t think I’ll ever figure them out, which makes them kind of more fun in the sense that anything can happen. And that’s when that kind of epiphany hit me on the water in the fall, where the first part of it honestly was pretty rough because it was like a prideful ego chop. 00;29;20;17 – 00;29;47;23 Eric You know, I came in like all like thousands of hours. I mean, they talk about 10000 hours to be an expert at something. I know Adrian myself, you know, Pat, J.B. at one time when he was guiding yourself. Brian We’re well beyond that, You know, numerous times over that 30000 hours, 40000 hours, whatever it is, we have logged just an unimaginable time on water speed casting, fishing, rowing, looking at rivers. 00;29;47;28 – 00;29;48;29 Brian Fish list hours. 00;29;49;06 – 00;30;10;04 Eric Fish lost hours. And for all that to kind of hit me and just be like, yeah, hey, guess what, bro? Yeah, none of that shit matters. Like, your whole life has been a sham. Like, none of that. Bobby, Joe, Joe that shows up is going to catch the same amount of fish as you do out here. If the water’s 58 degrees and there’s a fish on that run, you’re not going to pick his pocket. 00;30;10;04 – 00;30;30;19 Eric He’s going to get it. And if you’re not in the right place, it doesn’t matter. And I was I’ve never been bored swinging flies before. I’m so engaged on like, oh, like I’m always talking about little flat spots that I see when I’m fishing with a client or somebody. I’m like, You see how just like levels out right there, it’s like the gradient, like it’s flat on the bottom of the river. 00;30;30;19 – 00;30;49;01 Eric Like that’s a spot where a fish can hold it. Six feet long. But like, that’s a good that’s like a little bucket. Like definitely focus on that or oh, as I’m, you know, mending or not mending, like trying to keep that perfect amount of tension because that’s the speed that I’ve had the majority of my fish eat on and all that stuff. 00;30;49;01 – 00;31;09;04 Eric Like I’ve heard people like, oh, like swinging flies is so boring because all you do is as cast and hang on and wait and nothing happens. And I’ve always thought, man, those people are missing the point. Like, how could you possibly be bored swinging flies when you’re 100% present and engaged the entire time? And at that moment, all of a sudden that just broke and I, I was bored. 00;31;09;04 – 00;31;29;10 Eric I was like, Oh, wait a second. All this stuff I’ve been doing and all this energy I’ve been focusing on and all this knowledge I’ve gained over 20 years means absolutely jack shit and at that moment I look up and I’m not going to say who, but one of my clients just bar south is cast in a pile means it, so it straightens out. 00;31;29;25 – 00;31;49;24 Eric It’s up like a 45. It starts get across and just gets absolutely cooked. This thing’s out of the water, just cartwheeling all over. They’re super stoked. Somebody goes down and that’s it. And then just like, damn, dude. Like, if that wasn’t like a sign from I’m not a spiritual person, but Mother Earth just being like, Yeah, this is what we’re telling you. 00;31;49;24 – 00;32;11;04 Eric None of this shit matters. So either keep casting or don’t or whatever. But so I kind of reeled up and that’s when I had my infamous little Netflix Netflix moment. I’m just like playing on the Jet boat and Adrian’s taking photos. I couldn’t do it. I’m like, I’m just like, kind of like in a cluster right now. I’m just kind of like, what’s some catch from some stranger thing? 00;32;11;04 – 00;32;41;18 Eric She’s like, you know, watch Netflix out of it. I was like, I got I got a little bit. I downloaded some stuff, so should I run Skeena in the fall? I was like, Yeah, yeah. She’s like, You’re right. I was like, Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, I know. She’s like, I’ll just leave you be. And like, I kind of just was watching stuff is good episode, by the way, and just kind of after being like that shot to the ego and pride and all that stuff and just feeling like piece of shit kind of like went full circle and just kind of enjoy. 00;32;41;18 – 00;33;00;25 Eric Just like having my feet up and like sipping a cup of coffee and watching my guys fish and realizing, Wait a second, man, this might be a good thing. Because if nothing matters this time of the year, it’s not a year round thing. Like if I was winter fishing and nothing mattered and spring fish and nothing matter, it might be different. 00;33;01;10 – 00;33;31;27 Eric But this little magic window of a couple of weeks or something where nothing matters and anybody can get absolutely rocked and have like a fish of a lifetime or like that first fish, you know, grab or you remember that first one forever. That’s kind of cool, especially for guiding. That’s like, Dude, you can go in every day now really believing that every single person, whether it’s their first day with the spare rod or their 30th year has the same odds. 00;33;32;06 – 00;33;46;16 Eric Like, imagine that mindset when I wake up guiding in the fall on the run and I’m like, We’re going to get them if they’re there 100%. Like if we go like, Oh, I’m just I want to get better cast. I’m like, Fuck it, dude, this is not the time. Hug it out, dude, and hang on because it’s going to happen. 00;33;46;16 – 00;34;04;00 Eric Like the confidence going into the run this fall was like, could not be tethered every day. I’m like, We’re going to fucking crush out there. Like I saw the water temp. I’m like, Nothing matters. Fish behind you guys. Nothing matters. Like and we would. And then other days we wanted people like, Man, I can’t believe it. I was like, Yeah, they weren’t there. 00;34;04;15 – 00;34;23;26 Eric Meaning there was probably a fish there, but not our fish. Or they got caught or whatever. But like, if that fish wanted to eat, I don’t care if DEC’s coming up behind you, he ain’t catching it. So it kind of made me feel a lot better about things as far as like guiding and the kind of mysteriousness about Steelhead. 00;34;24;21 – 00;34;50;21 Eric So that’s when I started taking those notes like I was talking about earlier, 30 of every possible, you know, atmospheric weather temperature gauge. I could detailed notes over a month of guiding the same river. And at the end of that, I looked at it, I looked at it. There was no correlation between skill level, you know, the water temp was warm a lot of those days. 00;34;50;21 – 00;34;59;12 Eric Then it got a little colder. Still didn’t make a difference. Fish, oil, people, fish and sink tips, small flies, big flies, like all that stuff. I couldn’t find a pattern. 00;34;59;29 – 00;35;26;05 Brian Eric I got this kind of funny scenario picture in my head right now because we’ve all been there. You know, the clients are like, What fly should I use? What not should I use? What tip should I use? Which cache should I use which, you know, the whole deal. And you’re just sitting there all Zen like in your flip flops going, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, Nothing matters If someone should steal your your phrase there because it’s pretty good you know to promote a Skagit like you know like what’s the sales line for this gadget alone? 00;35;26;12 – 00;35;33;13 Brian A means to an end. Nothing matters. Yeah. Check it out there. Who cares? We need a casting lesson now. Don’t bother. Just throw it out there. 00;35;34;00 – 00;36;00;24 Eric Yeah. Roll cast that bitch. It’s fine again. I think that’s. It’s a good thing. I think in speaking from experience, I was so focused on turning every single angler into the world’s best steelhead, or in 8 hours, just unattainable goals. And now that little magic window. And they’re just like, you know, there’s some wiggle room. But sometime between like September and the end of October or the majority of days, it’s like, man, just enjoy it. 00;36;00;24 – 00;36;20;09 Eric Like throw it out there. If it doesn’t turn all the way over, like mend it to fix it, but try to turn it over and just cover and like you’re going to catch them. And if you don’t, I won’t be surprised if you catch six. I won’t be surprised if you catch zero. I won’t be surprised. It just I guess ultimately it feels pretty good to not be surprised about Steelhead anymore. 00;36;20;19 – 00;36;40;04 Eric Whereas like so many days I’d be like, I cannot believe we didn’t touch a fish really boner. You can’t believe you didn’t catch fish. What are you talking about? Shit happens all the time. And then, like, we get five and I’d be like, Dude, we got five today. That’s like, unheard of, is it? Talk to anybody. There’s tons of people that catch five. 00;36;40;04 – 00;36;51;17 Eric Like, it also happens all the time. So that’s what I have kind of come around to really falling back hard involved with steelhead and it’s like, Yeah, both things can happen at time. 00;36;52;00 – 00;37;03;21 Brian So what you’re saying, Eric, is you’ve eliminated this one phrase from your vocabulary, and I know Adrian said it, I’ve said it. We all say it, though maybe not you anymore. And that’s after you fish good water. Well, you say, Man, I can’t believe there wasn’t one in there. 00;37;04;08 – 00;37;20;08 Eric Yeah, I’ll never say that again. That, you know, I just. I don’t care. And I don’t. I don’t believe it. Anyways, maybe that’s what I’m going to start saying when I, when they get done, they’ll be like, Oh, man, I’ll be like, Yeah, man, 100% believe there wasn’t one there. Yeah, does. 00;37;20;11 – 00;37;22;03 Brian Not. I’m not surprised you didn’t get. 00;37;22;05 – 00;37;36;01 Eric Yeah, I’m not Yeah, I’m not surprised you didn’t get one though. Like why. Because he wasn’t. They’re hard to catch in the third Marty Shepherd show, right. Yeah. It’s like. Yeah. Fucking reel it up and get in the boat. Let’s go find one that is there. I quit thinking about what just happened. Doesn’t matter anyways. Can’t change it. 00;37;36;01 – 00;37;48;23 Eric We’re not going to go through the rain a second time. Fuck it. Who cares? Move on. Get in the boat. Let’s go. And then at the end of the day, if they’re like, I can’t believe it’s like, Really? I can’t believe it. That’s what I’m going to try to do this winter is like, drill that into all my clients instead of them. 00;37;48;27 – 00;38;04;12 Eric I never want to and you can say it. I’m not going to be like, Oh, you asshole, don’t ever say that again. But it’s like, Why are we saying that? Why are we saying, I can’t believe it? Like, I can’t believe I haven’t won the lottery? Yeah, really? Have you ever won the lottery like now? But you have got steelhead, so when you’re like, Oh, I can’t believe it. 00;38;04;12 – 00;38;20;00 Eric It’s like, well, some days you get some days, you know, like that’s just how it is. So like what are we doing out here? This emphasis on like, we think we know, Dude, if I don’t know and I’ve been out there pretty much more than half my life, like at this point, I don’t know, like I can’t see in the water they should be there. 00;38;20;00 – 00;38;34;14 Eric But if they’re not, it’s like, yeah, I’m done being surprised me like, wow, that was like one of those things that hit me. It’s like when I was like, I can’t believe I was like, start thinking, like, What do you mean you can’t believe how many hundreds, if not thousands of times have you gone through run and not kind a fish. 00;38;34;14 – 00;38;45;26 Eric It’s like you should be like, Oh, that’s what I’m going to start saying. I’m going to roll up and be like, Man, I 100% believe that I didn’t catch one there. Yeah, that’s that. That happened. Anyways, come pick me up now. 00;38;45;26 – 00;39;05;08 Brian Eight. It’s a little different when you’re on the dean because you guys actually see fish jump there. We’ve talked about this before, the whole Pogo thing. And I recently listen to a podcast that Pat did with Jeff Lisk a great show. And Pat, you know, typical Pat. He had a really interesting idea on why those fish choose to pogo. 00;39;05;17 – 00;39;08;27 Brian You want to get into that for little bit. You know what? But Pat’s theory is right? 00;39;09;09 – 00;39;29;11 Ads Well, yeah, I mean, that that theory came about, you know, just a random conversation throughout the season this year, you know, because it is an interesting phenomenon and it’s not one that is witnessed that much anywhere else that I know of, that I’ve heard of where they they literally will jump straight out of the water and often multiple times in a row. 00;39;29;11 – 00;39;53;11 Ads And and so Pat’s theory was that I haven’t heard how he described it on the podcast, but essentially that as those fish move into the river because of the way the DNA is structured in the lower end, that they’re coming from very wide open deep water up onto a little shelf and immediately into a high gradient, very Boulder River. 00;39;53;12 – 00;40;20;02 Ads They don’t have a long estuary that they travel through where they’re spending time acclimatizing, you know, running into smaller sharks here and eventually into bigger structure. This goes from, you know, from nothing to everything, essentially. And so as they’re moving up the river and they’re not they’re not used to that structure, it happens so abruptly that they basically, you know, the idea is that they run into a rock almost and spooks them and they come up out of the water. 00;40;20;15 – 00;40;50;15 Ads Can you actually see that’s the case or is it just another interesting theory? I mean, why do any fish surface role jump splash? Do we know? No, but the DNA is very, very unique in that we do get to see them. And often where they jump is in what we we figure are the traveling. And that if we can put ourselves in a position to get a fly into that traveling lane, when that base that we’ve just seen goes through there, then we might have a shot at catching them. 00;40;50;22 – 00;41;11;11 Ads And then, you know, sometimes those fish are moving. So pretty quickly that, you know, they were gone past you by the time you get your fly into that lane. But it’s a very unique situation to be able to witness moving fish because you just don’t get to see them that often anywhere else. So I don’t know what your theory on that is, Brian. 00;41;12;05 – 00;41;15;11 Ads I don’t know whether I believe it or not, but it was a fun theory to come up with. 00;41;15;26 – 00;41;32;00 Brian Yeah, I mean, so, Eric, you probably know what we’re talking about, but basically, you know, the dean has this scenario where Steelhead will shoot more or less straight up, almost like they’re jumping a false. And obviously this is super exciting for anyone, anybody who’s got to fly in the water at the time because there’s that that elusive positive reinforcement. 00;41;32;15 – 00;41;51;21 Brian And it’s just something really neat to see because they can shoot out of the water a long way and it’s a pretty big splash. I really like Pat’s theory. I think, you know, it’s almost like an evasive type action and, you know, at some point fish are going to have to jump falls. And I don’t think it’s entirely unlike, you know, the mechanism where they’re going to jump a falls. 00;41;52;00 – 00;42;08;10 Brian You know, they come out of if you think of the cross section of it, right, coming out of the channel, they’re getting into, you know, much, much shallower water very, very quickly and then encountering big rocks when they hit those big rocks, where are they going to go where they can go up? So I like Pat’s. I like Pat’s theory. 00;42;08;10 – 00;42;23;05 Brian I think as he’s probably explained it, the best I’ve ever heard anyone say it. Obviously, we’ve heard other people talk about trying to get rid of lice or just jumping to look around or what have you, but or being chased by seals. But I do like Pat’s theory. I mean, Pat’s a smart guy and he’s got lots of time on the water. 00;42;23;15 – 00;42;29;13 Brian Sounds sounds like you don’t think he’s nuts on that either. So, Eric, have you heard people talk about this before, this this Pogo thing? 00;42;29;25 – 00;42;59;23 Eric I have and I heard that podcast. That was really a fun and interesting podcast that Pat did with Jeff. Each river is going to have its own unique stuff, right? I think that’s like the biggest thing. Like I think the Pogo thing on the Dave could 100% be true on that river. There’s another river that I was on recently where I walked into a pool and the steelhead were jumping like coho, and they were hundreds of miles from the salt and no big rock. 00;42;59;28 – 00;43;12;18 Eric I mean, I probably saw 30 steelhead just airborne like one after another for maybe 45 minutes or an hour. Nothing like I’ve ever seen. And just like is going on there. 00;43;12;18 – 00;43;14;19 Brian Was it the day you caught me on the mushrooms? 00;43;14;19 – 00;43;33;00 Eric I know, I know. That was just that was a real day. And I was just like, This is insane. Like, I’ve never seen anything like this. You know, you’ll get Coho specifically that flood stages in Alaska. And in late season, they end up in slews and they’re they’re free jumping all over the place. And there’s not seal to be found for, you know, 100 miles as well. 00;43;33;19 – 00;43;58;07 Eric And other fish will roll and do stuff. So I think the Dean thing, I mean, it makes sense to us also fish go through like two inches of water, no problem. So I think if they come into a big rock like that, it’s nothing for them to go around it up and over it to the side of it, hold like I don’t know if they’re that nervous of a fish to just blast up in the air and then blast up in the air again. 00;43;58;27 – 00;44;13;11 Eric Who knows? It’s one of those things that you won’t ever figure out. I like the idea. The best thing I ever heard was somebody you know, they always ask In Alaska, there are so many fish, right? I’m like, Why do they do that? This old timer had the best answer, and I love that this is my favorite answer to that. 00;44;13;11 – 00;44;27;27 Eric Whether you’re seeing a fish free jump or roll or whatever, I mean, it’s like, why did they do that? Eric? And, you know, I’m reciting all the basic shit. It was like my second year. And his buddy goes, Well, I just think because they can. Yep. And that’s my favorite answer. It’s like, Yeah, if you’re a fish, then you could fly out of the water. 00;44;27;28 – 00;44;52;13 Eric Seems pretty fun. Like it doesn’t need to be a specific reason. They’re just going in there. Like, let me just jump in. Let me just roll. Like, it’s just something they do. I mean, they do all sorts of weird shit under the water that we can’t see. Occasionally you’ll be floating over standing on a high cliff and you see some steelhead like scrape its belly on the side when it’s not spawning or, you know, like, do some fucking weird thing where they swim down river or put their head up. 00;44;52;21 – 00;45;11;04 Eric I mean, I’ll see like Tiger Muskie in Washington swim around with their head out of the water, just their head for like numerous minutes, just swimming around the top part of the water column with their head out of the water. And then that’s it. And then just go back down. And I don’t know what that’s about. I mean, Pike, don’t do that. 00;45;11;04 – 00;45;20;11 Eric Must you don’t do that. But apparently Tiger Muskie do that. So I think it’s just a weird thing. We’re like, yeah, it’s because they can a lot of stuff they do is because they can. 00;45;20;18 – 00;45;42;21 Ads Well, here’s an interesting thought process that I, I do talk about with clients, too, is that we’re always looking like as humans that our ability to rationalize and make decisions and be able to think in that way. We are trying to find an answer, a concrete reason why we think fish might be making decisions. Why did they do this? 00;45;42;21 – 00;46;04;28 Ads Why do they do that? And because we do that in our day to day lives all the time. We’re constantly thinking about analyzing, making decisions about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, how we want to do it. Fish don’t operate that way. And so for us, I think that there is an answer in that these fish are making decisions to do things well. 00;46;04;28 – 00;46;29;21 Ads It doesn’t really work like. And so that kind of goes hand in hand with this whole, you know, the more you think you know, the less you actually know, because there’s so many variables that we can’t figure out that comes to fish behavior. And so all we’re trying to do is make our best educated guess and satisfy our need to, have some kind of decision making process behind behavior. 00;46;30;01 – 00;46;52;29 Ads And it just simply doesn’t work that way in creatures who don’t think the same way that we do. So we think that we’re ever going to get a definitive answer as to why they do something, especially with fish that aren’t actively feeding. And I think coming coming to that realization for myself made it a lot easier to to accept trying different shit and all the weird random stuff that that happens. 00;46;52;29 – 00;47;14;23 Ads It’s like, yeah, well, there could be something happening that we don’t know, right? And we’re never going to be able to figure it out because it’s not a decision from the fish. 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I think the way I think about it, whatever is right or wrong, I’m looking for that fish, right? I want that fish to move. Wintertime, summertime, whatever. It’s got an attitude problem. It’s the it’s the Wolverine of of the fish world where again, it’s holding so it’s got its spot and they’re just they’re just they have an problem especially, you know, the wild fish. 00;49;08;15 – 00;49;27;06 Eric They’re just pissed off. They want to spawn, especially those winter fish. They’re ready to roll. Right? The summer fish. They got a bunch of energy. The water’s warm. They’re coming out of the ocean, too. They’re just they’re ready to do some shit. So when they get at least when I think when they stop and they’re just like, okay, I’m taking a breath and something comes into their wheelhouse. 00;49;27;16 – 00;49;42;20 Eric Typically in the summer, you’ve got a lot clear water. So they see it come and they’ve held there, or they’ve been holding there for 10 minutes or 40 minutes or whatever, or they just pull up into a tail out. They start, you know, holding air and here comes your fly. And it’s kind of doing the same thing. You know, you hook it out. 00;49;42;20 – 00;50;09;08 Eric However it hits that 45, it comes across, gets a couple of feet closer, it gets a couple of feet closer, kind of primes the pump that that fish is is seeing it. And each fish is different. But some of those fish, when it gets within 50 feet, it lights up and just smokes across the river. I mean, anybody that stood up on a bank and watched summer fish, sometimes they will move in an extraordinarily far amount to crush that fly other fish. 00;50;09;08 – 00;50;31;03 Eric You know, as you get closer and closer, maybe it’s a couple of feet, but we’re requiring that fish to chase that fly down like a predator and kill it, not in a feeding response, but in an aggressive destruction mode, which is that’s how I like to view all steelhead is. That’s why I’m not like, oh, you got to make it like a shrimp or like people that put sand on stuff and all that. 00;50;31;03 – 00;51;04;08 Eric Like maybe that makes a difference, but I don’t care about those fish. I want the that’s tuned up. Mentally unstable, just fiery as fuck anything that comes in their wheelhouse. They just come unglued and just want to absolutely kill it. So that’s the fish that we catch, the ones that are, you know, just smashed to the bottom. Maybe they’ve been hooked before, you know, maybe they’ve been traveling a long time and they just sit there or they a shadow goes over them, something something’s wigged them out and they’re just they’re aggression levels, knocked back a little bit. 00;51;04;22 – 00;51;28;27 Eric I think you could probably, you know, get a fish to eat your fly. The closer it is to them, the slower it’s going past them. But I just think that’s more of a winter trait of fish and not so much a summer fish. So, yeah, I just think that the fish that we’re looking for off the bottom, you know, even if it’s eight feet of water, they’re three or four feet off the bottom and they’re going to move a couple of feet up. 00;51;29;08 – 00;51;37;07 Eric The other fish I don’t care about. Those are the fish that people catch gear, fishing or running beads on Bobbers if you want to call that fly fishing, so be it. 00;51;37;21 – 00;52;00;27 Brian Well, okay, so you’re basically talking about like like you’re on and fishing is related to trout, but and so bringing that sort of technique wise into the steelhead realm, closest thing we have is is beads under bobbers. And essentially what you’re saying is swinging flies and moving quickly. We’re selectively targeting the fish that we want to be catching Those aggressive ones that you were just describing. 00;52;00;27 – 00;52;16;11 Brian I won’t even try and paraphrase. So once again, does it matter? Does anything matter? You put it out there. If there’s a fish there, it comes and grabs it. If you make the perfect cast in the world’s best band with a beautifully tied fly with jungle cock eyes and there’s no fish there, you’re not going to catch anything. 00;52;16;27 – 00;52;34;27 Brian The part I struggle with a little bit and this will probably come into something we’ll talk about towards the end is on numerous occasions I’ve seen a situation where something weird happens, where a guy like goes to like set his anchor. He just flips it out there. He’s not doing anything right. He’s not swinging the fly with purpose. 00;52;35;07 – 00;52;55;14 Brian It’s just landed there. He’s essentially doing nothing to it. And a fish comes in, grabs it, right. So that sort of speaks to this idea of reckless abandon on the part of the fish, which obviously we enjoy. So with that being said, why, what’s the point of any of this? Right. What’s the point of of making a make amend? 00;52;55;14 – 00;53;13;25 Brian What’s the point of, you know, trying to slow the fly down If the fish just wants it, it comes and gets it. I think for me at least, it comes down to this idea that I feel better about it. You know, I feel like I have a better chance. But if I completely were to abandon that and go with with your philosophy, either, you know, there’s this whole idea, Erik, of nothing matters. 00;53;14;09 – 00;53;18;29 Brian I think I would probably I would probably find steelhead ing to be a more spiritual experience. 00;53;19;12 – 00;53;40;04 Eric Yeah. I mean, I think why you would feel better about it is because you’ve caught more fish casting and swinging traditionally, right? That the times we’ve seen a blown for a fish kind of eats it. I saw my buddy Frank do a snap tee, and when the skater hit the surface behind him, a fish fucking exploded on it upriver of him right next to him. 00;53;40;09 – 00;54;04;22 Eric Like, shit’s going to happen, right? If he would have started above that fish and swung into it, probably would have caught it too. We don’t go out there and just throw upstream and dead drifted down, which I’ve seen steelhead caught on that too. So I think the data of doing it 99% one way and us catching fish and then randomly doing it a different way and a fish still eats it kinda does prove that it doesn’t matter. 00;54;05;02 – 00;54;28;10 Eric It just feels better to have that fly in your attention and what you were saying about, you know, stealing and becoming more of like a spiritual thing. Again, I’m not trying to align my chakra and charge my crystals here, but I have found it recently to be more enjoyable because I don’t think anything cares. So like, I’m not focused on like, I’ve got to throw it four more feet. 00;54;28;15 – 00;54;45;21 Eric I’ve got to reach that rock. I’ve got to, you know, get down to this run before this person. I’ve got to, you know, cover this section. I got to wade to the deep on that far bank because there’s a rock over there. I don’t give a fuck anymore. Now I’m like, Oh, man, that’s a Did I just watch a cloud up here? 00;54;45;21 – 00;55;02;08 Eric Sidebar? Have you ever had that happen? There has been staring at the sky and a cloud just appears like that’s some science shit that happened on the run. I was like, That’s. That’s maybe the coolest thing I saw all day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen blue sky. And then a cloud just appear out of nothing. Like it’s a magic trick. 00;55;02;13 – 00;55;24;29 Eric So that was like my favorite thing of that day. And we even caught a fish that day. I was like, wasn’t as cool as that cloud appearing. I don’t know where I’ve seen Steelhead before. I’ve never seen a cloud materialize like Bill Nye the Science Guy. So yeah, I’ve noticed that like, I see more stuff and I am perceptive out there, but we got down one day and there’s a couple of gear guys on the run and like, Hey, had to do it. 00;55;24;29 – 00;55;40;21 Eric And you know, they’re cutting steelhead up on the bank and I don’t know, it just rubs me the wrong way. Even if they’re hatchery, I’m just like, this is like not what I’m here for. We limited out my okay, again, I’m not knocking you. I know a bunch of people that keep fish. It just it gives me the ick as some women would say. 00;55;41;03 – 00;55;59;12 Eric And I was like, Yeah, but I was like, What would you think of that? Those giant bowls on top of the cliff above Eagle’s Nest, They’re like, What do you mean? I was like the biggest bighorn sheep I’ve ever seen in my life. They look like a caricature of, like an animated monster, like the ones that were like, over £1,000 that look like they’re like, Oh, we didn’t see it. 00;55;59;24 – 00;56;18;19 Eric I was like, What? Like they’re blocking out the sun almost. You didn’t see them like that? I was like, Did you see the golden eagle fighting those two bald eagles for like, an hour that like now? And it’s because they were staring at their bobber the entire time. And that could be the same thing. If they’re swinging flies, they’re staring at their Skagit, watching that tension. 00;56;18;20 – 00;56;40;15 Eric They’re like, missing all of this other cool shit so you don’t have to see that stuff. But after a couple hundred or thousand steelhead, the chances of you seeing £1,000 bighorn sheep and I don’t know, it could have been 200. I’m bad with weights. They were huge. Or seeing, you know, golden Eagle invert the bird like Top Gun and throw its talons at two bald eagles. 00;56;40;15 – 00;56;57;28 Eric Like I haven’t seen that more than once or twice, but I got to see it that day. So yeah, I’ve just been like, God damn, really, Now I’m some fucking hipster chill dude out there. Like, Look, I just saw a cloud form, you know, stupid. I sound when I say that to myself. The dumbest person on the planet. 00;56;57;28 – 00;57;17;26 Eric I sound so dumb. I just heard it out my mouth, the words and I sound like an idiot, but it’s true. It’s like, that’s how embarrassing that is, really. That’s what it’s come down to. The point of this whole podcast is me just being like, I’m embarrassing now out there because I don’t care. I don’t think anything matters and I’m having more fun than ever how I was. 00;57;17;26 – 00;57;20;29 Eric This happened. I’m 46. Is that what happens? So that was happened. 00;57;21;12 – 00;57;24;07 Ads Yeah. Brian you can tell us you’ve been 40 think before. 00;57;24;26 – 00;57;25;22 Brian Ouch. 00;57;25;22 – 00;57;26;13 Eric Snap. 00;57;26;25 – 00;57;42;27 Brian Yeah, well, you know, I think there’s something to this, and I was going to save this for the end, but I’ll just ask now. I want you guys to think of an example of something weird that happened that kind of goes along with this. And I’ll go first and I go back about 30 years ago to fishing the Berkeley. 00;57;43;03 – 00;58;01;15 Brian And at a time I had a fly that I thought was pretty hot. It was, you know, it looked what I thought different than what most people were fishing in a really sweet blue and purple color combination that wasn’t as common then as it is now. And, you know, fishing this thing and making, you know, beautiful casts. At least I thought they were beautiful and fishing, all good water. 00;58;01;15 – 00;58;19;19 Brian I mean, I’d been guiding there a bunch and I knew where the fish were and to no avail, I was catching nothing. And then I, I threw a cast that, you know, I wasn’t sure if it turned over properly. So I went to check my fly. And so, you know, you bring the fly close to you and you kind of lift the rod up and then you grab your line so you can pull the fly up. 00;58;19;28 – 00;58;36;04 Brian And as I was pulling the fly out of the water two feet from me, a fish came and grabbed it. So now I have it wasn’t a huge fish. And I have this like £12, £10 fish on essentially a hand line, a very short hand line. It’s right there. And so I let the fish go out and I have all this line strip there. 00;58;36;04 – 00;58;52;00 Brian And I thought to myself, it’s weird to put it on the rod at this point, I’m just going to try and fight this fish as I caught it because the cast didn’t matter. Right. This was it caught on a pretty cast. It was cut in a cast that I thought maybe it tailed or something. And so I ended up, you know, essentially hand lining this this fish. 00;58;52;14 – 00;59;07;13 Brian And I at that point, I had kind of a mini moment of what you’re talking about. Eric. I was like, wow, you know, priding myself on making these beautiful casts and fishing all this really good water. And here I am finally getting the skunk off, you know, essentially right where I’m standing. So what the heck is going on? 00;59;08;05 – 00;59;09;18 Brian You guys have any funny stories like that? 00;59;10;03 – 00;59;41;03 Ads Oh, I’ve got a couple. Where one was this couple of years ago on the copper and it was in the springtime and I pitched this run and big, beautiful run. I was making amazing cast water look great and fish the whole thing and thought I fish did really, really well and and got way down under the tail out because I always like to fish as far back as I, you know, further back then I think I should, you know, with into the bass, the gravity stuff and I was like okay, I’m done. 00;59;41;03 – 01;00;10;08 Ads And I started walking back towards shore, reeling in. So not only is the water fast, I’m also reeling like a motherfucker walking back to shore and a fish landed in rapids, essentially on a retrieving fly. And, you know, I’d gone that whole way fishing, all these beautiful things, beautiful cast, felt super good about it. And the only face I hook is it just in the most ridiculous, fast, weirdest way possible. 01;00;10;08 – 01;00;28;11 Ads So and I’ve had that happen a couple other times really Rod over my shoulder walking back to shore. Eric I know you’ve done the same thing, walking back to shore, really in with the rod literally over your shoulder and you get, you get a fish. So yeah, I don’t know if you have a need. I’m sure you have others as well. 01;00;29;13 – 01;00;30;07 Ads What, you’ve done that. 01;00;30;20 – 01;00;53;15 Eric Yeah. A lot of those end of the run walking out stuff. My favorite was on the Rhine like eight years ago or something. Good, buddy. Cory, we’re fish in camp water a, you know, a glass part of the night. It’s pretty much dark. I just tripped over a gigantic rock like rock my shit and went, as ever, teakettle into the drink. 01;00;53;15 – 01;01;10;27 Eric So I was, you know, Mother F and everything and walking up and I was like, I’m done, dude. Like, I can’t see anyways. And he’s laughing. He’s like, Yeah, me too. So like, walk up next to him and he turns around, puts his rod over his shoulder, you know, is reeling as he’s walking kind of upstream and out and the run. 01;01;11;06 – 01;01;26;05 Eric It’s really specific. It of below him. It kind of moves out into the middle of the river and it’s just a big shallow bar like two inches deep. So you have to, like, walk out to that bar and there’s a big boulder with a slot on it. But like the low is like, you know, whatever, six inches a foot deep. 01;01;26;05 – 01;01;57;19 Eric So he’s like walking out there and yeah, and just like, and I was like, what? I was like, fucking trout. He turns around and this thing just explodes. I mean, in no water on a fly again, being reeled over a shoulder on a floating line. So imagine. And he’s probably 616 to a space rock up in the air behind your shoulder, on a floating line with a hair wing, you know, basically at dark that was like pink and a little black and less than, you know, eight inches of water getting reeled and moving up river. 01;01;57;19 – 01;02;14;06 Eric You know, we always want that fly, you know, like, don’t touch it, like, let it come across all the stuff that we think that matters. And yeah, he reels in this like giant for you know the grand on like a £12 chrome which like 250 miles from the ocean while Buck and all of us are like, I cannot believe this. 01;02;14;06 – 01;02;36;26 Eric Like I just fished through it e fish through it. He walked back past where he had just fished in this fish, came out and ate it. So, I mean, that’s just one of a ton of stories where, you know, like another quick one, I fish, I think the runs called Studebaker right above or right below the fort. Tell the campground there on the Bulkley. 01;02;37;08 – 01;03;02;18 Eric And I obviously sucked it, you know swing and flies back then it was like 12 or 13 years ago. But I pushed whatever fish in it pretty good. I thought I was fish in a tip in America. Tube got done was walking back up the run. Big gust of wind came as the fall time, blew a bunch of leaves on the run and I was just looking at it and just saw a monster come up and just swallow a yellow fly like a dry fly just right where I just fished. 01;03;02;29 – 01;03;15;17 Eric And it’s like how like I’m fish and egg sucking leech on T8 in the fall. Like, I just flew there and this fish comes up and eats a leaf. Yeah, just. Yeah. Stuff you’re not going to make sense of. 01;03;16;00 – 01;03;33;09 Ads Well, and that’s one of the reasons why, you know, when people are fishing and they’re getting, you know, frustrated about the casting or they’re questioning what they’re doing because they’re like, Oh, I haven’t had a bite in while or something. And I just keep trying to say to them, like, if you’re flying in the water, you have a chance. 01;03;33;20 – 01;03;51;03 Eric Yeah, I did want to ask you to in the summer with the warmer water I like just, I like water down just because I’m built into it. And I like the fly coming across straight across. I don’t like it going down river and then accelerating. That’s his personal preference. Maybe I change that because honestly, now that I think about him, I don’t really give a shit. 01;03;51;03 – 01;04;08;09 Eric Maybe I just start throwing it out wherever I see people throw it upstream. My buddy Joe throw it upstream because he wanted to get it not caught on this log and he hooked it at a 45 upstream because he’s like, Well, there’s a rock down there. I’m like, Dude, it’s going to be going a million miles an hour with that rock and then turning the corner right? 01;04;08;09 – 01;04;30;21 Eric Then it gets smoked halfway down, going 100% downriver. But when we’re out there on the skeena in a friendly way, which I always laugh about, I’ve heard, you know, Adrian mid smoke yelling at my dudes in a friendly way. She’s like, Fuck, Eric, do not just throw it straight out and let it’s got to come across speed. I’m just crack it up behind her because they’re like, Well, I’m trying to mend it. 01;04;30;21 – 01;04;58;00 Eric So it was actually like, Quit doing that shit, you Oregon boys, and you’re over men and just straight out. Hold on, get some speed. So like, talk a little bit about why you like and I was telling them and maybe I’m wrong, but I was like, I think she knows that you’re not a great caster and that if you throw it straight across, at the very least, that fly is going to be under tension the entire swing, rather than trying to quarter down mend it. 01;04;58;08 – 01;05;14;04 Eric It’s not really fishing until like well past halfway through the swing. So I was like, maybe she’s betting on that fish, seeing it coming across quick, but under tension and chasing it down and eat it out in the middle rather than finding a fish on the inside. But you’ll have to tell me about it. 01;05;14;16 – 01;05;39;14 Ads Well, I mean, part of it is just the nature of the skin itself and the water that we’re fishing. It is heavier and, you know, it’s not super deep and we’re not fishing for fish that are really, truly holding fish. These are, you know, whether the resting or not, they’re still eventually moving fish. So and I do believe that most of the fish that we catch are are resting rather than actively moving. 01;05;39;27 – 01;06;02;03 Ads But again, who’s to say whether that’s totally true or not? But I want to try and get the fly into the zone that I think those fish are sitting in. But because it’s not super deep, I don’t need to get it down and I want them to, like you said, to see it actively moving under tension for as long as I can. 01;06;02;03 – 01;06;32;26 Ads I want that fly to be in the zone from almost the get go. And I’ve seen too many fish caught in that initial portion of the swing that you missed out on by doing a 45 down through cast. You know, obviously we get the majority of our fish on the inside on the last portion of the swing, but I definitely see a lot of fish caught in that initial portion of the swing on the main stems because it is shallow, the gradients and staying for a long ways out. 01;06;32;26 – 01;07;00;24 Ads I’m not I’m not looking at a specific way on the inside where I want that fly to come into the whole thing in the low. And so it’s more just about a getting the fly into that zone in that fast water and so that it’s in there for a longer period of time. And because they are relatively fresh fish and I think very aggressive fish for the most part, I think a faster presentation provokes a more aggressive response. 01;07;01;16 – 01;07;11;28 Ads They’re new. They haven’t seen a lot of flies. They’re not conditioned to it they’re hopefully pissed off and and something that has a bit more speed is going to trigger that the reaction quicker. 01;07;12;14 – 01;07;19;03 Eric Agreed. Yeah, That’s okay. Yeah. We’re going to be doing some experimental angles in your Honor this next. 01;07;19;03 – 01;07;19;14 Ads Fall. 01;07;21;01 – 01;07;27;11 Eric Just for fun. It makes it easier on me. It’s like fact. These are my shoulders. Just. Yeah, throw it out there. Hang on. 01;07;27;23 – 01;07;44;15 Ads And I mean, obviously that that varies. Great. You start to get into some of the tail outs where that speed really increases a tremendous amount and you know you can straight across and and you fly won’t have time to even break the surface until that last portion of this swing. So in that case, yes, adjust just cast me no. 01;07;44;15 – 01;07;52;14 Ads So it’s all dependent on, you know, a variety of circumstances. But yeah, for the most part, you know, this can hook it out there and Hang on. 01;07;52;24 – 01;07;55;09 Brian You sound like Mikey. 01;07;55;09 – 01;07;59;17 Ads Well, it might be catches a lot of fish. It doesn’t matter. 01;07;59;26 – 01;08;19;27 Brian I think we can agree that, you know, certainly when it comes to like, clients in particular, there is the tendency to get a little caught up in the minutia and, you know, worry about things that they probably shouldn’t worry about too much. And but it is fun with fliers, right? It is fun to, you know, to think that color combos are important. 01;08;19;27 – 01;08;30;19 Brian But I have always felt that presentation and luck are two things that I’d like to do well on. So. Question for for you, Adrian, is there a color that you wouldn’t fish? 01;08;31;16 – 01;08;54;07 Ads I mean, there’s colors that I would be hard pressed fish, but I don’t think there’s anything that I would I mean, it’s just again, it comes down confidence, right? And so, you know, Eric, you’re talking about fish in a brown fly like, well, I don’t have a tremendous amount of confidence in that. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t fish it or let somebody like yourself, you know, throw it on there and fish it. 01;08;54;07 – 01;09;10;25 Ads But when I’m personal fishing, I want to catch a fish. A fish? I don’t need to catch a million fish, but I want to give myself, you know, a good shot at it. So I’m probably going to fish that they have confidence in, and even more so with clients because, you know, I really, really want them to catch. 01;09;10;28 – 01;09;33;02 Ads I thought a lot of that, but I want clients to catch fish and so I’m happy to experiment a little bit. But it comes down to the client if they want to experiment and they have confidence in trying them different than fish, whatever the heck want. But if if they don’t have the ability to be confident in that, then I’m not likely to fish anything outside of of the proven stuff. 01;09;33;16 – 01;09;35;11 Brian So no mustard yellow and Kelly green. 01;09;35;24 – 01;09;38;06 Ads I and I’m I’m a big fan of yellow. 01;09;38;17 – 01;09;39;17 Brian Yeah okay nice. 01;09;39;22 – 01;10;01;27 Ads But yes and you know I’ve got lots of friends and I find more more though people from the state Washington in particular and Oregon as well where you know all of it is a big thing and we don’t fish a lot of all of up here. And whether that’s because it’s not effective or just because it’s not something that people have started fishing is, you know, who’s the. 01;10;01;27 – 01;10;21;26 Ads But I do believe that you catch steelhead on almost doesn’t matter. So it’s what you want, right? Like, what do you want out of your experience? Right. Do you want to be out there tasting? Well, you know, trying to get better, trying to get more, if that’s what makes you feel good. At the end of the day go do that. 01;10;22;09 – 01;10;41;22 Ads If you just want to catch fish, go do that. If you just want to be out there watching clouds form and looking for wildlife and happy to be thrown into the water at the same time, go do it right. That’s the beauty of the whole mentality that it doesn’t matter is that you can make it whatever you want it to be love it. 01;10;42;06 – 01;10;58;10 Eric Yeah. I mean, ultimately that’s that’s the key, right? It’s like, are you having a good time, whatever that may be. And yeah, I’ve gone through a million phases myself. So yeah, I don’t think any of them are right and I don’t think any of them are wrong, which again kind of circles back to. Yeah, nothing really does matter. 01;10;58;10 – 01;11;10;02 Eric It’s like it’s if you’re happy, you wake up and you’re thrown laser beams all day and you’re like, Man, casting was on point and you enjoyed yourself out there. It’s like, That’s awesome, dude. That’s what it’s all about. 01;11;10;02 – 01;11;21;24 Brian Well, let’s, let’s talk about fly size because, well, we might agree that color doesn’t matter. We’d probably have a harder time with the concept that the size of the fly isn’t important because everyone is fish and stuff that’s pretty similar in size. 01;11;22;11 – 01;11;50;09 Eric Yeah, I heard Travis Johnson do a winter steelhead talk when I first got started, so over 15 years ago and he had a bunch of data and flies and stuff like that. And he said that he’s caught steelhead on like seven inch rabbit strips, you know, like he’s thrown that guy I can cast, obviously. So if anybody can throw a seven inch rabbit strip, you know, T.J. can and probably further I can throw a white fly. 01;11;50;18 – 01;12;11;20 Eric But so I think and like he’s fished our local rivers and stuff. So I think really massive stuff. I mean, those fish, those six inch pink worms, you know, under a barber a lot on the coast when there’s a lot of color in the water. So, again, I don’t think size matters may it comes down to like being able to cast it. 01;12;11;23 – 01;12;30;29 Eric I mean, you want to be able to enjoy your casting. So I think anything, any size will work as long as they can see it to clear the water. I think the size is more of a dealer’s choice, like all fish, really big stuff. And Jen asked clear water all the time, especially in the winter, low and clear, you know, sunniest shit. 01;12;30;29 – 01;12;46;14 Eric I’ll still fish like a four inch rabbit stripping catch fish. No problem. Like, I got a lot of confidence in that because I’m trying to piss him off. I’m not trying to be. Well, do you want to, like, maybe inspect this all Black Summer fly? Because the water’s low and clear and there’ll be people like, Oh, we catch them on that too. 01;12;46;14 – 01;13;03;03 Eric It’s like, Yeah, let me guess, the river’s on pressure because it’s clear it hasn’t rained in like two weeks. So nobody’s out there fishing. The steelhead don’t know that, but they’ve been in a piece of water with zero boats going over them and all of a sudden something comes in the wheelhouse. Maybe it’s a green boat skunk, you know, on a T11 tip. 01;13;03;03 – 01;13;17;29 Eric Or maybe it’s a four inch egg sucking leech. Either way, they’re going to they’re going to annihilate it. So can the fish see it as my biggest thing? Can somebody cast it? That’s what it comes down to, I guess size, determination when I’m guiding or fishing. 01;13;18;11 – 01;13;37;06 Ads Yeah, that’s pretty much what it comes down to. And like you said, Eric, if you start getting more color in the water, then you know, most of the time I want to step up on the size. But if you’re dealing with, you know, normal clear water and good water tense, then relatively on fish, then yeah, I don’t think it matters either. 01;13;37;23 – 01;13;58;24 Ads I think once you get into fish that are being pressured a lot and are actively holding and have been in the river for a period of time and they’re seeing a lot of stuff. And I think that’s where, you know, size can make make a big difference. But for the majority of what what I do and probably a lot of what you do, that isn’t a huge factor a lot of the time. 01;13;59;10 – 01;14;08;06 Ads And so, yeah, there’s something that people can ask that to some degree and and that suits the clarity. 01;14;08;22 – 01;14;29;02 Eric What do you think about the whole you know, there’s so many, you know, with the gear fishermen when the water’s even remotely clear, like, you know, even like slightly clearer than that steelhead green. So maybe you got like three feet of this, you know, or even a little clear four feet. Those guys will go down to like £8 fluorocarbon when running beads or little jigs and stuff. 01;14;29;13 – 01;14;34;21 Eric But we’re all running £20 maximum mono. Do you think the fish are leadership at all? 01;14;35;12 – 01;15;00;29 Ads Again, I think it depends on on where you’re fishing and and the fish themselves that they’ve been in the river for an extended period of time if in a lot of different things you know they’ve been fished over quite a bit I don’t think for any relatively unknown, pressured newer fish that you know, even if you’re using a two inch ply, I mean what’s £20 maximum are going to spook them that a two inch plywood. 01;15;01;14 – 01;15;35;03 Ads Right. But if you’re trying to work fish that are another few hundred kilometers upstream or miles or you know and are actively getting heavily pressured, have been in very clear water for an extended period of time and are holding and and maybe are a bit spookier or a bit pickier. That’s where I think that tip, it makes a difference but again, for what I do, I have I want the aggressive fish and I want something that I know isn’t going to get broken off when they rub on rocks or do crazy cartwheels or, you know, abrupt changes in direction. 01;15;35;03 – 01;15;46;07 Ads And these are powerful fish in powerful water. And I’d rather get the aggressive one and have a chance at learning it. And then risk breaking and breaking my head off all the time. 01;15;46;19 – 01;16;14;13 Eric But yeah, the £20 maxima, that’s something I beefed up when I got up there because I broke them off on £15 or we tried some of that flora coated mono stuff. And it reminds me of when people have asked Brian like, what’s his set up when targeting steelhead on the skin and stuff. And I’ve kind of gone to that mindset, not that I need to land these fish, but I do like to see them do all their fun stuff before they want to throw the hook. 01;16;14;19 – 01;16;30;11 Eric Like if I could see him cartwheel six or seven times instead of one. Like, that’s fun to see. That’s fun to watch. Like, yeah, you know, or they like, they swim up close enough to where you can get eyes on them and you’re like, Oh damn, that’s like a high teens fish or whatever. And then if they throw the hook, you know, your fish and barbells or whatever. 01;16;30;11 – 01;16;53;17 Eric But yeah, that last fall where I got absolutely destroyed by that fish, zero chance of anything good happening. That’s when I was like, I think I need to up my gear for the Skeena not in a sense, again to land these fish, but to just like be on a level playing field. And then if they get off after that, which is probably still most likely. 01;16;54;00 – 01;17;11;08 Eric Yeah, your interactions just extended a little bit more. So £20 maxima, maybe a eight way like a real with a serious drag that you can set just enough to where they’re penalized. But it keeps the tension on there. Yeah, I just stuff’s always adjusting absolute it. 01;17;11;18 – 01;17;35;10 Brian Yeah. I think there’s sort of two camps. One camp is I want to fish as late as possible and so the small fish are more challenging. And then I think the camp and put myself in that one is I’d rather be loaded for the fish that I want to encounter. And whether it takes years to find that fish or not, you know, you’re always going to find me with a pretty big reel, with lots of stopping power, lots of capacity. 01;17;35;20 – 01;18;07;20 Brian I’d rather fish an eight or nine weight than a six or seven, that’s for sure. And you do run the risk or the benefit of, you know, hooking a 20 £30 fish in a scenario out here where they could take all your line. You know, with that all being said, you know, I think that luck does come into that a bit, too, Eric, because, you know, if you hook that fish when it’s a little bit tired or you hook that fish in a spot where, you know, you can kind of get a good hand on it and there’s not a lot of big rocks or anything for it to rub rub the line off, You 01;18;07;20 – 01;18;23;04 Brian know that that’s luck. If You hook that fish in a spot where the encounters over before it started. It’s not like you could have done anything different. But, you know, personally, I like to have a big reel. I like the high rate of retrieve. I like the capacity, I like the stopping power. But that’s kind of where I’ve ended up. 01;18;23;04 – 01;18;31;14 Brian Now, I know that you spent a lot of time with a click and Paul, though, that being said, for whatever reason, when you put that hatch nine plus on, you always seem to find some fish. 01;18;31;28 – 01;19;02;29 Eric Yeah. Yeah. I mean it’s those videos are just so smooth that, you know, I kind of feel like I’m cheating occasionally when I when they’re on there. I mean, a lot of people it’s the kiss of death when you start filming any, you know, fishing endeavor. We’ve been extremely lucky up there. I mean, when, you know, Connor and D’Arcy were up that one year, like we landed a bunch of fish and every time it seems as the bond and I go out, you know, it’s like we’re like, just like I just expect it to happen. 01;19;02;29 – 01;19;16;28 Eric I mean, the last time we went out, you know, I was like, Oh, I’m not going to catch anything. You’re filming. And I was like, I, I just was like, Nah, man. Like, we get lucky. Every time we went out the first round, we pulled in. We didn’t realize that the guy on the other side of the island had just fished that. 01;19;17;11 – 01;19;35;12 Eric And so we’re like, It’s open. Well, fish like this cast, like, I get it. Like he gets all the film he needs fish, cartwheels. We get a closeup of it, like we’re done in like 45 minutes the day starting now. If had a click and ball, yeah, it could have gone a different way. And you know, I’ve fished all over Oregon, Washington for many, many years. 01;19;35;24 – 01;19;55;25 Eric And just in that last three years of fishing up on the skeena, you know, this last fall, that was by far the biggest, most pissed off steelhead I’ve ever encountered. I mean, I’ll never forget that fish. Whatever I can’t I’m not going to put a weight on it. Just giant and did more shit in the air and took more line than like any not even comparable. 01;19;56;00 – 01;20;19;19 Eric I mean, better than any. I’ve got just absolute top tier specimen the previous spring. That’s the biggest steelhead I’ll probably ever see in my life. Shout out, Dave. The year before that. That’s the biggest steelhead I’ve ever landed. So within just like a couple of weeks of fishing up there, you know, I’ve just seen like interactions that like, are really enjoyable and really like, stand out. 01;20;19;28 – 01;20;45;17 Eric So I think with that being said, I’m definitely in that camp now where it’s like, you’ll go out. Yeah, you’ll hook some smaller fish and smaller fish. It’s like, what, 10 to £14? Oh God. But like when the big dog climbs on it, probably going to want to be fully geared up because those fish are so strong that you pull your drag off afterwards and it’s like it’s not moving. 01;20;45;17 – 01;21;12;26 Eric And they were taking it like it was no problem. So yeah, I kind of agree with you that at a certain point you’re like, it’s nice to steelhead fish full stop. But the occurrence that happens every now and then, when you know that fish shows up, you might be second guessing having a little clicker attached to your set up compared to something that might give you a a little bit longer of a rodeo. 01;21;13;06 – 01;21;30;03 Ads Well, and it’s it’s not just that, too. You got to think of the fish as well. Right. And it’s going to take you, you know, that it does stay hooked. It’s going to take you a longer period of time to play that version and potentially land it on a cliff. And Paul, when it is that hot, you know, you’re putting a lot of stress on that fish. 01;21;30;03 – 01;21;46;29 Ads And yeah, sure, it’s fun to play a fish on a cliff and get a really good fight out of it. But also need to think of these fish and the stress of the the damage that we’re potentially doing to them. And and, you know, I don’t I don’t think it’s fair to the fish to put them through if it’s not necessary and. 01;21;47;10 – 01;22;12;05 Eric Is just going to agree with you. I think somebody asked us we had a little Q&A on our pod last week and I was like, when do you fish clickers? And it’s like, Now, specifically summer steelhead, not in Canada, because obviously your summer fish are bigger than your winter fish. But down here, Oregon, Washington, you know, the disputes, you know, the Grand Ronde, our local fisheries here, they’re like four to maybe £9. 01;22;12;05 – 01;22;33;20 Eric Like maybe you get a £10 or people like, I got a two or better last fall, whatever. Most of those fish are around summer fish. So like people fish six weeks. But if you have like a 13 foot seven weight, like a Rolex or something and you hook a superhot £7 steelhead, you can put the wood to it and get that fish while they’re not in within 2 minutes max, if you want to. 01;22;33;20 – 01;22;52;01 Eric Whereas like you’re saying, you hook something that I saw swim by me on the Skeena last year where it’s pushing £25, it’s like, Yeah, we’re out here all advocating for wild steelhead and to treat them good. It’s like when you hook that fish, your job is to try to get that fish in as fast as possible or have it throw the hook. 01;22;52;02 – 01;23;06;13 Eric If you’re really, you know, on the fish side, that’s always a joke, you know that I is to say, when people lose a big Chinook in Alaska, they’re like, Oh, man, I was like, That’s all right, man. They’re like, What do you mean? I was like, Oh, I mean, I’m on the fishing side. I mean, I’m here trying to get you into him. 01;23;06;13 – 01;23;13;18 Eric But ultimately, like, yeah, I hope they throw that hook every time. They’re like, Well, that’s not real cool. I was like, Well, I mean, I’m their side, dude. 01;23;13;28 – 01;23;46;21 Ads Yeah. Ultimately, especially as did the, you know, stewards of the river, you know, that’s got to be a big factor in this whole game as well. Right. And the constant need to try and find better, more effective ways to catch fish. And maybe we should just be happy with one right, that one encounter and like you’re saying of more, you know, taking the time to look around and and see what else is going on out there and not be so hyper focused on making everything perfect to catch all the fish and just being like, Yeah, that happens. 01;23;46;21 – 01;24;10;27 Ads Then I get one. That’s amazing. That’s magical. I’ve had this moment with this one fish brief or long of whatever landed or not. But yeah, the, the whole trying to be a little more actively involved in just the entire experience, the less concern about, you know, being the most effective steelhead catcher out there. Now that’s a that’s a conversation in itself, right? 01;24;11;07 – 01;24;11;14 Ads Yeah. 01;24;11;14 – 01;24;34;01 Eric I heard somebody say recently when the goal is the experience, then every day is great and that could be used on anything. But it obviously makes a lot of sense for Steelhead in too. It’s like when you wake up and you’re about to do one of your favorite things ever. It’s like if you catch one, it’s great. But like it could still be a really, you know, we take it I take it for granted a lot. 01;24;34;01 – 01;24;53;27 Eric It’s like it’s good to spend all that time outside and like some of the prettiest places in the world shout out steelhead living in really pretty spots. It’s like, you know, I definitely have had many days where I was just a grumpy old bitch in my twenties and thirties, like, and this fucking sucked. It’s like, Oh, it like you floated down a gorgeous part of Oregon. 01;24;54;08 – 01;25;15;08 Eric Like you got to swing in a river where there’s steelhead and you happened in our catch one. But it’s your worst day ever. Like, you sound like such a bitch. Like you’re such a baby. That’s bad. Like, there’s some people that. That’s not their job. It’s like, Do you ever think of that? That there’s other people in this world that that’s not their job, to take people to do their favorite thing every day? 01;25;15;21 – 01;25;27;09 Eric So, yeah, I definitely had to have a little come to Jesus, talk with myself over the years numerous times of being like, you kind of got to like, see a bigger picture here, buddy, because you’re acting like a little baby. 01;25;27;22 – 01;25;40;20 Brian Well, I think I think that’s a nice way to put a bit of a bow on this discussion before we before we sign off, let’s just take a minute and talk about your podcast again, Eric, because, you know, it is pure entertainment over there, isn’t it? 01;25;41;14 – 01;26;00;29 Eric It tries to be. There’s a lot of really good podcasts out there, so we’re just trying to hang with, with the boys in the in the girls there. We just wanted to do a podcast that is revolves around fishing, but it’s not just the same. Like, tell us how long you fish for. Tell us your greatest memory. It’s more of like kind of like this, like it’s very fluid. 01;26;00;29 – 01;26;22;25 Eric There’s not the plan is no plan. So we kind of recap what we’ve been doing on the water as kind of a newer guide and and a more seasoned guide. And Zach’s super funny and got a bunch of good takes on there. It comes out every Monday, Apple, Spotify, whatever. Think we’ve got maybe 11 episodes out now. But yeah, it’s it’s called The Struggle is Real. 01;26;23;07 – 01;26;43;24 Eric It’s spelled like the fishing reel because he got to have a pun in there And yeah, we just been having a bunch of fun with it. We don’t do gas or anything. It’s just Zach and I bullshitting and yeah, just kind of finding our, our our groove. You know, we’ve worked together for a number of years and he started out just hiring me and teaching them how to steelhead fish. 01;26;43;24 – 01;27;09;12 Eric So, yeah, we’ve got a pretty good thing going and it’s been a lot of fun and it’s really nice getting just feedback to a lot of clients and customers from the shop have been kind enough to text me or do me and just say they been really enjoying it or talking to. You know, both of us have been known to sometimes go off the rails slightly and there’s absolutely no editing going on in this podcast. 01;27;09;12 – 01;27;37;15 Eric So I wouldn’t say it’s family friendly for the most part, although some episodes are like, Wow, I conducted myself as a normal, well-adjusted human being. There’s other ones that I didn’t. I have not. So I kind of can’t. Well, don’t stop a lot of the time. So yeah, we’ll just see if we get kicked off that platform if we’re, I don’t know, going to make we’ll just see. 01;27;37;15 – 01;27;38;04 Eric It’s up in the air. 01;27;38;21 – 01;27;54;01 Brian Adrian, you know, you fished with Eric when he wasn’t sober, Eric And you fished with Eric. Now that he is enlightened, nothing matters. But I’m sober and everything’s cool. Eric And you fished with Zach, too. What do you like most about fishing with with both Eric and Zach? 01;27;54;27 – 01;28;14;23 Ads Well, it was my first time meeting Jack this fall, and the guy has just an amazing. How is it about the whole thing, you as yourself not to be here and so excited and, you know, as much as he wanted to catch a fish, he never sort of went down the rabbit hole, at least that I saw. But yeah, just super fun. 01;28;14;29 – 01;28;22;14 Ads Really, really awesome to have out on the water. You know, definitely not as moody as Eric, particularly in the. 01;28;23;24 – 01;28;24;01 Eric Is. 01;28;24;02 – 01;28;44;13 Ads Anybody more wild days? No. The one thing that I love about Eric is that that you know when he wants the fish and he knows when he doesn’t want to fish in and when he goes especially he’s he’s giving it everything and I don’t mean he’s out there, you know, staring at his lion the whole time. But I know that when Eric starts fishing, if there’s a fish around, he’s going to find it. 01;28;44;23 – 01;29;07;04 Ads And when Eric does a lot of fish, he’s going to chill out and lay on his belly on the doghouse of the boat and watch Netflix. Then he’s going to be perfectly happy doing that. And yeah, it’s just, you know, the conversations are always interesting, always, always interesting. And getting the listener to tell a story is one of the highlights of my guide season because the guy knows how to tell the story. 01;29;07;11 – 01;29;16;11 Ads So even though I have a listening podcast is I am not a podcast person. Eric I have zero doubt that the entertain value is off the charts. 01;29;16;23 – 01;29;24;17 Brian Save it for a long drive. You know, it sounds like fishing with Eric is, is a little bit kind of like hanging out with your cat. 01;29;24;17 – 01;29;39;26 Ads It definitely is. You know, they pay attention to me, pay attention to me and don’t even talk to the I don’t want to look at you right now. So, yeah, you know, you just got to, you know, read the room know I love fishing with Eric. It’s always, always really good. Done. 01;29;40;11 – 01;29;57;08 Brian Excellent. Well, you know what? We’re going to wrap this up. I’m going to go pick up my kids from school and look forward to seeing you guys soon up here on the river. And we’ll get this show out on both of our podcasts at the same time, which we’ve never done before. Eric So this will be a this will be a good adventure, won’t it? 01;29;57;20 – 01;30;14;29 Eric That sounds super cool. Yeah, I was joking earlier. We’ll just rephrase that as the bucket is real. The bucket is just really, really drive that in a maybe a bi monthly recap of all the news. Stupid things that I think I know about Steelhead. And it’s like, Hey, come talk to this dumb new on the bucket is real. 01;30;14;29 – 01;30;26;12 Eric This guy thinks that you should throw the Maxima attached to your Skagit and then tie the fly to your sink tip. Oh, it’s going to get deeper. 2026 Tips and tricks leader Like. 01;30;26;20 – 01;30;27;06 Ads Who love it. 01;30;27;12 – 01;30;36;09 Brian Yeah and you know that would be a new thing Adrian can incorporate into guiding the bucket is real. I’m not a charlatan. There is a fish out there. Maybe. Maybe not. 01;30;36;24 – 01;30;38;29 Eric I need to get some hoodies made with that shit. I like that. 01;30;39;16 – 01;30;40;08 Ads Yeah, that’s good. 01;30;40;29 – 01;30;51;18 Eric Yeah. Thanks for chatting with me, guys. I love throwing out new ideas and getting your guys’s perspective. A lot of years between the two of you on the Steelhead and so. Yeah, I dig it. 01;30;52;00 – 01;30;52;26 Brian Right on you. 01;30;52;26 – 01;30;53;13 Ads Know, it’s fun. 01;30;53;23 – 01;30;58;01 Brian Cool. Hey, thank you very much, you guys really appreciate it. And look forward to seeing you again soon. 01;30;58;06 – 01;30;58;13 Eric Like. 01;31;00;18 – 01;31;18;07 Brian Well, that was a lot of fun. I want to thank Ed and Eric for taking the time to share their stories, views and expertise with us. Thanks as well. To everyone tuning in today. We’ll be back with another In the Bucket episode a month. In the meantime, please feel free to send in show comments, questions and ideas to me via email. 01;31;18;24 – 01;31;37;09 Brian You can reach me at info at skeena Space.com. Thanks again. I’m Brian Niska and you’ve been listening to In the Bucket podcast brought to you by the wet fly swing.