929 | Inside Catch Magazine: Todd Moen on Fly Fishing Films, Music, and Storytelling

WFS 929 Transcript 00:00:00 Dave: You can spend years chasing great fishing, but capturing it on film is a whole different game. Today, we get into what it really takes to document fly fishing at the highest level, from surviving a plane crash on assignment to building one of the most iconic film brands in the sport. Today, we’ve got Todd Moen on from Catch Magazine. On the show, one of the most respected filmmakers in fly fishing, known for blending storytelling, music, and visuals into something completely different. This is the Fly Swing podcast where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip, and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. We’re excited today because Todd is on the podcast, and we are going to talk about what he’s learned working alongside top level crews in his early days of filming. We’re going to get into this wild story of the plane crash we talked about and how he survived this. We’re also going to go behind the scenes of the reality of filming hundreds of casts, hours of footage, and sometimes spending many, many hours in the editing room getting the perfect film. That narrows down to just fifteen minutes of amazing footage. We’re also going to find out why steelhead might be one of the hardest species to film out there, and what it takes to get that perfect shot. All right, you can check in with Todd at catch magazine dot net. Here he is, Todd Moen. How you doing, Todd? 00:01:21 Todd: I’m doing great Dave. Thanks a lot for having me. This is going to be exciting. I appreciate the time. 00:01:26 Dave: Yeah yeah. No, I’m excited too. I think that anybody that doesn’t know you, you’ve got some of the best content out there. I mean some of these videos, millions of views. And we’re going to talk about that. We’re going to break down, you know, kind of where all this came from and success. We’re going to talk fishing. I know you know Brian O’Keefe. I see him occasionally out there at shows. I know you’ve done some stuff, lots of stuff with him over the years. But but yeah, take us back real quick on this, the whole video production. I’m not sure. I know you got a lot going, but how did you first get into this? Was this something you’ve been doing a while, or did you start with fly fishing and then went into the video? 00:01:57 Todd: Oh, You know, it’s, uh, that’s a really good question. I mean, as a kid, uh, I, you know, I’ve talked about this before, you know, I haven’t done a whole lot of, of these podcasts in the last, you know, in the last year. I’ve done a few. But before that, I really, um, I don’t know, I’ve just haven’t done many. So I think where all this started was back in Washington when I was a kid. And even in like high school, we had a little cabin up on the Skykomish River and, uh, my parents had an old camera. It seems like this happens with a lot of a lot of people who get into photography and, and video or whatever, but they play around with their, their parents gear, you know, and it wasn’t great. It was just an old video camera. And I would just kind of take that around up there on the Skykomish and play around with the video and take it home. And there was no such thing as really editing. I remember taking two cameras and like trying to put music to the video, and with a VCR, it was just like super bare bones. It was fun though, you know? And then like in high school, I’d, uh, head out to the Snoqualmie, which is kind of like my home water. And I do things with my friends, uh, fly fishing wise there. But, um, that’s kind of where it probably all started as far as just having my hands on something that I could hit the record button on really. Um, and then, you know, moving on to, I was actually born in Helena, Montana and yeah, my dad’s from Montana, so we’d always go back there and, um, I spent a lot of time around Bozeman. That’s where we went to school and my, my mom and, uh, you know, it just kind of spun out of control with like the technology getting better and just being on being in beautiful places and all that. 00:03:51 Dave: When did the, the idea of I’m not sure when Catch Magazine and this whole thing got going. And I mean, video is obviously a big part of what you do. Is that what stirred you on when you realized, man, this is. I’ve got something here. When did that moment hit you? 00:04:05 Todd: Well, you know, that didn’t happen when I was going to school in Bozeman. It was definitely happening. And I was, um. I was shooting a lot, but it was it was right around that time where the big turning point was the, when everything kind of went digital, the tapes were digital. So you had that digital eight type of tape where it was just easier to get around as far as the editing goes, like somewhere to store this stuff, you know? So but the big, the big change for me was when my wife, Kelly, we moved to Missoula and she got, she was going to the journalism school there. She got her master’s in journalism at University of Montana. I had to get a job. And so I went to this production company down the street, literally down the street. And they hired me like right away. And this was like, I remember walking in there with my like, my pelican and my camera case, like my camera case, like, you know, pro, you know, I’m like, okay, I’m going to do this. Like, who knows? It’s like, this is like ESPN level stuff. And so they hired me right away. And from there, I mean, I can’t even say that I really lived in Missoula, even though I did for like three years while she was going to school. But I wasn’t even there. I was on the road living the life as like the full on production. You’re somewhere for a week or four days or whatever, and then you’re back home for a day and then you’re gone. And that’s when it really hit where, wow, I’m really, you know, this I learned a ton. You know, everything is just like pounded into your brain, like constantly. I’m working with all these older guys that had been in production with the ESPN crews for a long time. And you could just see it like unfold, like how this all works, you know, this works, this doesn’t work. So a lot of the things that I learned was from that, you know, being on the road and meeting so many different people all over with these couple shows, fly fishing the world and fly fishing America. It was it was a good experience. 00:06:04 Dave: Yeah. So you’re in and what town were you in when you had that production? That was Missoula. 00:06:08 Todd: That was Missoula. 00:06:09 Dave: Yeah. So you’re in Missoula. You go down to the production company, they hire you spot on. And then what were you doing over that? Were you traveling? What were you covering? 00:06:17 Todd: Well, so, um, I started off as kind of a, I was working the, the audio part of it right off the bat. And then shortly after I was running and gunning, like you can’t really call running gun with this type of camera that we used to use back then, those basic old SP Betacam shoulder mount cameras, that’s all we use are huge, huge cameras. The tripods weighed just the tripods alone weighed more than all the gear I have in my backpack and camera these days. I mean, it was bulky stuff, but, you know, I was all over the place from, you know, I went to Ireland for fly fishing, the world show. I mean, I, as I did some local work, you know, a huge highlight was, uh, spending time with John McClane up at his cabin on Seeley Lake. Uh, that was a big highlight for being local right there. What else? I did, uh, I did a really neat shoot on a northern Quebec with Les Claypool. Primus. So there were a lot of musicians that the host would invite. Uh, so I was just all over the place. I mean, it was everywhere. 00:07:28 Dave: Wow. So that’s it. So you jumped in to this production company, which was producing fly fishing. I mean, that’s you jumped right into it. Full on. 00:07:36 Todd: Yeah. Full on. Um, you know, the host of the show had, you know, he would have guests from you name it. I mean. 00:07:43 Dave: Yeah. Who was the host at that time, John Barrett. Oh. John Barrett. 00:07:47 Todd: Yeah. He was his. Yeah. Barrett productions in in Missoula. I missed, uh, John Denver was out, you know, five years prior and then he passed away. But he was a he was on his show many times. I would have absolutely loved to have been part of that one. Yeah, yeah. But, uh, we did some New Zealand shows and, you know, we did, uh, you know, what did I say? Ireland. And there was a lot of, um, there was a lot of shows in the US, we jumped around and just did all kinds of stuff. So yeah. 00:08:18 Dave: And what year was that when you were doing that? Uh, running with them. 00:08:22 Speaker 3: That was, uh, two thousand and one. 00:08:25 Dave: I think. Yeah. 00:08:26 Todd: Yeah. When I went, moved to Missoula and it was like two thousand and one through five, it was working hard with those guys. 00:08:35 Dave: There you go. 00:08:36 Todd: Yeah, yeah, that was a lot of work, man. 00:08:39 Dave: Was it, was it? So you were just running and gunning and like, just like doing everything in audio and just. And at the end of that, when you left that production company, were you just dialed in? Did you have it? You were ready to roll. Get going on your own. 00:08:52 Todd: Yeah, yeah, I was pretty. I was, you know, actually, we were on a fly fishing the world show in the Bahamas, and we were in a plane wreck. We had, like, our plane was overweight. We had way too much camera gear. It’s funny you talking about the weight of this stuff. Like it was legit. There was a lot of weight to this camera gear. So anyway, after that shoot, I was like, okay, I need to think about something else. Like this was kind of it was kind of over the top, like the accident shouldn’t have happened. Everybody was okay. But I was thinking, you know what? This is this way of life when you’re just it’s so, um, it was so busy. There wasn’t any downtime, you know, it was almost like we were doing too much, you know, trying to knock out shows here and there. Um, it’s a super busy schedule. So after that, I was like, okay, you know, my wife actually was done with school. So we were like, let’s move. And so we ended up going down to Oregon. So we were down in central Oregon right now in sisters. And, um, we’ve been here for like twenty years, but that’s when the whole connection and the idea of catch magazine came to came to be. 00:10:01 Dave: That’s when it happened. Well, take us back to that. I don’t want to miss a plane crash. That, I mean, sounds pretty intense. We’ve heard of a few, you know, on the podcast over the years, but what was that like? I mean, you were actually literally crash landed in a. 00:10:13 Speaker 3: Well. 00:10:14 Todd: It wasn’t like we. Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t like we fell out of the sky, but it was funny. We were with. It’s funny. I’ve almost like blocked this whole thing out. I haven’t really thought about it that much. I can’t even remember who the guest was. It was a pro golfer. But I’m going to have to go back and look, I forget. I forget who it was. 00:10:34 Dave: Can we find these videos? 00:10:36 Todd: I don’t think the funny thing is, is I have a couple of them on DVD, that I burned when I was there. So I have like, I have the show and it’s actually two part show with John McClane, which is really cool. I have that like kind of on my desk because like, that was pretty special times. 00:10:56 Dave: But they’re not on YouTube. 00:10:57 Todd: No, a lot of these aren’t on YouTube. I think the Les Claypool one is, I think that’s on the Primus site. I think he has that on because he’s a huge fisherman. But back to the, you know, the plane thing was so the guest, the golfer, he had flown down, he was there already Acklins island’s way south of the Bahamas. And we, um, the host missed. Yeah, the host missed the plane. We had to wait kind of, um, at the airport. We ended up missing the plane then to get down the main plane because we were waiting for the host meet up with us, and we ended up chartering a plane. They just weren’t ready. We had to get there to start production. So it was a Seriously rushed situation to get down there. And we just were we had too much gear for this plane. It was like a two prop Cessna. I forget the actual what the type plane it was, but I remember just it took like way too long to get there. It took a long time to get off the ground. We were all just kind of looking at each other like, oh, what’s going on? We got we get there and we land. But as soon as we land, the pilot yells, no brakes. And we’re we’re just cooking down this runway. That’s like I felt like at the time. And I think it’s very short. It’s like one hundred yards. You know, you want to say it’s you see the end coming up pretty quick, you know what I mean? So we we just land in the plane. We must have been the back left wheel, the brake locked up and the plane like literally just shot off the side of shot off the side of the runway and up on its side, luckily came back down. But we went through, you know, a thick mangrove area and there was a bunch of rocks and all that. So all the landing gear ripped off. And like the mangroves, the bigger mangroves, you know, they’re pretty good size, you know, going through the wings and everything and yeah, yeah, it was not good. And we were all so lucky. 00:12:56 Dave: So no kidding. That’s the thing in a plane. I mean, literally right. Fuel and everything else. I mean anything can go. Yeah, yeah. 00:13:03 Todd: Buzzers going off. I’ll never forget it, but. 00:13:05 Dave: Oh my God. But you survived. You survived a plane crash, essentially. 00:13:09 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:13:10 Todd: Yeah. Luckily, it wasn’t an out of the air fall out of the air scenario, but, um, we all kind of knew what was up after, I think it was, you know, it was only like a forty five minute flight and we were still in the air like an hour forty five into it because of the weight was everything was just, just slowed down too much. We just had too much. Yeah. So anyway. 00:13:31 Dave: Wow. So you basically survived this crash. Then after that, you realize, man, I’m really pushing it. This is too much. It feels like it’s you’re doing a little too much. Is that when you start to look back and say, man, are there other ways to do this? 00:13:42 Todd: Is that the first? 00:13:43 Dave: Yeah. 00:13:44 Todd: Yeah, exactly. And Kelly, my wife, I’m, I can’t remember exactly, but I know she was probably just like, dude, let’s go, let’s, let’s go next level. You know, let’s go into the next thing you know and figure it out. So that’s what we did. And it was fine. It worked out. 00:13:58 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. No, it definitely did. I mean, it worked out catch magazine now I mean you look you’ve got, you know, millions of views on these videos, right? I mean it’s I love it, I love it to the top one is classic is a fly fishing which right on salmon fly right. You got I think it looks like. Yeah that’s Brian but you’ve got over three million three and a half million views on this salmon fly Deschutes River video. Do you remember that one pretty well? 00:14:20 Speaker 3: Yeah, that. 00:14:21 Todd: Was a good one. Yeah. And it was pretty special. When I look back, you know that because that was, uh, with my buddy Jacob, who’s just the greatest, just a hard worker. And he’s just, he’s one guy that, you know, you want if you’re going to film somebody, he’s the guy because he’s he’s just working really hard to think outside the box alongside me when we’re doing things. So. And he’s just good at what he does. He’s a great single hand caster and two hander, but kind of the jack of all trades guy with a good attitude. 00:14:57 Dave: So when you do these videos and you publish them, do you know which one? Do you have a good feeling which one’s going to hit better? Do some hit really good and then some maybe not so much. Or are they all doing pretty well for you? 00:15:09 Todd: Well, you know, I think I usually have a pretty good idea, but I’ve been, I mean, I’ve there’s some that you kind of like what’s going on here and I’m talking YouTube. It seems like with catch, you know, with this. Yeah. With the with this long I’m lucky because I’ve been able to just stick with. Brian says, just stick to your guns, you know, like. 00:15:30 Dave: Yeah, stick with it. It’s working. 00:15:32 Todd: Yeah. Like I’ve stuck with it and I’ve created this following. And it’s like, there is this, like I tell people there’s this like these days, there’s this catch love, you know, it’s just like people just love this stuff. I’ve just found the following people that enjoy what I make. Everybody doesn’t like it, but there’s a lot of people that do. You know, so it’s, uh, some videos on YouTube. Most of them do fairly well, but there are some that are I’m, I kind of like stand back and I’m like, why didn’t that one do very well? And it’s just, it just depends. YouTube’s tough these days. You just kind of don’t know, you know, what’s gonna. YouTube changes a lot with how it’s how it works, how it runs, what people that it finds for your videos. And, you know, it’s like there’s some kind of like special sauce, special magic to it in a way, because it’s it, the timing is it time of year definitely has a lot to do with that, but most of them do fairly well. But there’s definitely some sleepers that I’m like, okay, this one should have should have done better. But you know, can’t have, can’t have a winner every time. 00:16:39 Dave: The Gallatin River Lodge sits right in the middle of Montana’s fly fishing triangle, the Gallatin River out the door, the Madison and Yellowstone close enough that you’re fishing when conditions line up. The lodge is perfectly remote, yet close to everything private access nearby, solid guides, unreal food, and a lodge that understands the rhythm of a full day on the water. If Montana is on your list this year, don’t guess where to stay. You can call Gallatin River Lodge or head over to GR lodge dot com right now and plan your next Montana adventure. That’s g r lodge dot com. Check them out. Now, when it comes to high quality flies that truly elevate your fly fishing game, Drift hook dot com is the trusted source you need. I’ve been using drift hooks expertly selected flies for a while now and they never disappoint. Plus they stand behind their products with a money back guarantee. Are you ready to upgrade your fly box? Head over to Drift Hook dot com today and use the code swing at checkout to get fifteen percent off your first order. That’s drift hook. D r I f t h o o k dot com. Don’t miss out. And these days, what are you doing as you look out ahead? Are you still traveling a decent amount covering. I mean, how do you kind of choose where you’re heading next? Or have you have you covered everything you want to cover so far? 00:17:54 Todd: Oh no. I don’t think I’ll ever cover everything. You know, there’s so much greatness out there. You know, like, I mean, when I, I tell people like they ask about like New Zealand or whatever, it’s like, man, there’s not you couldn’t even fish all the rivers in a lifetime on the South Island. You know, there’s just like, it’s, you could spend so much time down there and it’s like everywhere else. I mean, there’s a lot of places that I love to go that I’ll probably never make it to. But, uh, I do, you know, with catch these days, it’s I put out four Additions a year. So that’s four films. You know, the films are kind of the cornerstone of the magazine. And we just, you know, I’ve been working with. Hundreds of photographers over the past twenty years and they’re just all great, you know, they’re all super, a lot of super talented photographers out there. That’s just, uh, it’s been a great experience talking and working with them all. And so I got to give a huge hand to all, all those guys and gals that I’ve worked with who’ve contributed to catch me over the years. So yeah, just keeping on rolling with it. 00:19:04 Dave: That’s cool. When you do your videos for somebody new who maybe hasn’t checked these out, are these a mix of are people coming here learning some tips and tricks, or is it more like, you know, cool shots? What are you? Because really, these movies are, you know, fifteen minutes at least the ones on YouTube, fifteen in that range, right? Twenty minutes. How do you how would you describe your videos? 00:19:23 Todd: Um, well, you know, it’s kind of the whole art and entertainment. So that’s kind of what we came up with at the beginning. Ketchum was going to be art and entertainment. There’s so many places. There’s so many great places to learn how to tie a knot right and or learn how to cast. But these days, so at the beginning, you know, some of these videos that I would create were like four minutes long and it was just all visual, like casting music. I mean, I love the music. Part of it for me is huge. It’s giant. I love it. Like that’s what keeps me going. So I love working with musicians and all that type of thing. But at the beginning it was mostly music and visuals. Now it’s more there’s a lot of narration. I think it’s just the progression of maybe it’s just growing older, you know? I mean, I love doing the music and the visuals, but I like the story. Part of it’s really important to me to not every time, but, you know, every angler out there has a great story. I don’t care who you are. There’s something cool going on there. You know what I mean? So I think I like kind of mixing it up these days. And I like, I like concluding narration now more than I did at the beginning. So but as far as learning, I want to say that, yeah, there is definitely something to learn when you’re watching my films, you learn about taking care of fish, and that’s like one of the most important parts. Like that’s, I think from day one, being in Montana and seeing how people, you know, just abuse fish, right? I think from the beginning, you know what? It comes back from the, you know, what it is, it comes back from those production days of like, um, mishandling fish for like those TV shows. 00:21:10 Dave: Oh, right. You would see that quite a bit. 00:21:11 Todd: Yeah. That’s kind of how, you know, I mean, it wasn’t perfect, you know, people holding fish out of the water, holding fish when you’re in a boat, you know, like bringing it into the boat and holding, you know, stuff like that. So I think I think with Catch magazine, when it started, I was like, that’s one thing that I really wanted to hammer down on is like, and that’s kind of what I’m definitely proud of that from day one, really keeping fish breathing, you know, properly. 00:21:38 Dave: Keeping them wet. So for the most part, yeah. 00:21:40 Todd: Yeah. And you can, you can learn. So you could learn these things. You can definitely learn about casting, even though it’s not instructional, you can learn all, you can learn so many things from watching these videos because of the anglers that I’m with, they’re, they’re good, you know, they’re, um, I, you know, when I go into one of these projects, like I got to be working with somebody that can get the job done or I’m going to be there. I learned that a long time ago. You got to be with an angler that can get the job done, or I’m going to be, I’m going to be going home with nothing. 00:22:13 Dave: Is getting the job done. Is that a big part of that? Actually getting fish caught on film? Is that is that what that means? 00:22:19 Todd: Yeah, I mean, you I could check. Not that I have a list, check list or production, you know, list of things that I want to check off. I got this thing in my mind, you know, of the things that I need to make sure I get the, the job done or the production done for the film. And I can have everything. I could have worked my ass off for a week. And if I don’t have that one fish, let’s just say it’s a steelhead. I can’t really, you know, I can create a story around one fish, but if I have no fish, like that’s, uh, I mean, you know, I’ve been told you got to create a video about, you know, an angler going out and not catching anything, but. 00:22:58 Dave: Right. 00:22:58 Todd: I mean, you show that on YouTube and that’s not if you’re worried about the stats. It’s, it’s just gonna yeah, not going to be good. 00:23:06 Dave: Right? Yeah. And still have everything you’ve done and you’ve done probably most of it. What are the top what are the hard ones. You’ve been out where it’s been a struggle to get that fish. Has it been a species. Has it been steelhead or you know, has there been one. 00:23:19 Todd: Yeah, I think Steelheads probably one of the hardest, probably one of the most. Yeah. I mean, steelhead are complicated and the weather’s just super complicated that, you know, that kind of tells the story of what’s going to happen. So steelhead are definitely tough. It’s a waiting game. You got to have just you know, the anglers got to have patience, but the camera operators got to have even more. And you got to be the crazy thing is, is you know, you got to be on. There’s no, you know, photographer. Yeah. You can you can sit back a little bit if you if you’re just getting shots, whatever casting shots. But if you want to shoot steelhead and get that action shot, I mean, you got to be on every second. 00:24:02 Dave: Is that how you do it? Do you just sit there or you just filming the whole time? 00:24:05 Todd: Yeah. So yeah, I’m I’m there, I’m there. Like I’ve, you know, panning, you know, on, on like you go to a run and many, you know, I’ve filmed hundreds of runs where you don’t hook a fish, but how many camera moves go into each one of those little sequences where I go and film an angler on one steelhead run? Like that’s probably like, I don’t know, four hundred camera moves and nothing ever comes out of it, you know, following casting. So yeah, it’s it’s crazy. I like think back to it. I’m like, man, I just an idiot for doing that. Right? 00:24:42 Dave: Yeah. They’re tough. 00:24:43 Todd: It all pays off. It all pays off. 00:24:46 Dave: It does. Yeah. And you’ve got a number of steelhead right. You’ve done a few shows on steelhead over the years. Probably more than a few. 00:24:51 Todd: Yeah. Yeah I’ve done, I’ve got a good handful with that run series that I did with Jacob Lund and Jeff Hickman. That’s kind of like The stand, you know, that. I mean, there were there were some steelhead films done years back. Uh, but for in the last twenty years, I think a lot of people go back and look at those. Those are some real classics like Fall Run. I mean, that’s just fall run. 00:25:15 Dave: Yeah. Right. Fall run. 00:25:16 Todd: Right. Yeah. I mean, I think back to fall run. It was one of those days where somebody there probably it was one of those days where no one would have a camera. You know, it shouldn’t there shouldn’t have been a camera there for what happened, you know. Meaning like, there’s so many days we’re out there and like, man, I wish I would have had a camera for that. That was one of those perfect days. But I was there that day. 00:25:37 Dave: Yeah. You were there. And what happened that day on fall run? What what happened on that day? 00:25:42 Todd: Um, it was just, you know, classic horrible weather. And, uh, we were just working really, really hard. The river was rising. Uh, it was rising fast. 00:25:54 Dave: Yeah, it was this. 00:25:54 Todd: Cold. 00:25:55 Dave: Winter winter stuff. 00:25:56 Todd: Um, it was Oregon. I’ll, I’ll, it wasn’t on the coast, but that’s about all I can say. Yeah, sure. Yeah. 00:26:04 Dave: It was Oregon. That’s all you need to say, right? Yeah. 00:26:06 Todd: Yeah. So, you know, it was the river was coming up so fast that it was picking up all this debris off the banks. 00:26:13 Dave: Oh, right. 00:26:14 Todd: So it was like, yeah, the. 00:26:17 Dave: Short window before it blows out on you. 00:26:19 Todd: Exactly. And we’re just like, seriously, you know, let’s just see what happens and leaves. You can see just the turbulence in the water of all this, you know, leaves and pine needles and everything. And you’re just like, seriously, like you’re going to, you know, hooking up on debris in the water. So anyway, Jeff makes this cast, uh, to the other side of the river. And man, I mean, one in a million, he gets it into the spot and, and he swings his fly through and it, he hooks up with the steelhead. And it was the biggest battle I’ve ever seen, like we were. It was a rod hand-off where he couldn’t get it. So there’s this big boulder going into the river and it cutting. It was a tight corner around this boulder and at the Boulder’s edge, it was like, I don’t know, eight feet deep. There’s no way you’re going to get around that. Well, the fish ran just like lightning speed fast downstream around this boulder. Jacob was up on the top of the rock. He’s like calling the shots, you know, like, because we could see we could barely see the fish in there. So he was kind of in position. We weren’t planning this at all. So Jeff runs down, runs up. He falls a couple times, hands his rod up to Jacob and Jacob like grabbed the rod and he’s Jake was fast. You know, he’s he’s just a quick dude. So he was able to scramble to the top of the rock as the fish is still in. The fish is probably like fifty to. I mean, it could have even been a hundred yards downstream by now with the current and everything. Jeff got to the top and they’re going back and forth. And it was like then they had to go down the other side. It was just this crazy thing and I was able to capture the whole thing. 00:28:03 Dave: Yeah, you got the whole thing. 00:28:04 Todd: Yeah, it was awesome. 00:28:06 Dave: Oh, man. Just so cool. Yeah, yeah. And that’s out there and we can check that out. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes. So people can take a look or they can just go to your channel there. Fall run. Yeah, you did the series and it’s interesting how these videos stick. I know one, you mentioned the airplane crash. You know, Lonnie Waller back in the day. I had his brother on after Lonnie had passed away. But he told the story about him crashing and how Lonnie really wanted to get back up and fly because he didn’t want to let that scare him, you know? But but I always remember Lonnie back in those Deschutes River days, he had this video, I think it was for scientific anglers, and it was probably in the eighties or 70s somewhere there. And he was catching this fish in the tail out and he was like, oh, steelhead. And it was this classic moment. And I fished the run. I’ve caught one of my best, you know, steelhead there. And I feel like I never forget about that tail out. Do you hear from people that are like, they know they recognize where you are and they’re like, oh man. 00:28:55 Todd: Oh, yeah. 00:28:56 Dave: Yeah. You hear that? 00:28:57 Todd: Yeah, yeah. Every once in a while you get like, oh, I know where that is. You know, if you know, you know, you know, it’s like, yeah, but yeah, I hear, I hear from people, I get a lot, a lot of feedback and there’s just zillions of comments on these YouTube videos and we get a lot. I get a lot of emails too. It’s crazy. You know, it’s just like, really? But yeah, it’s cool people, you know, you connect with people. I’ve connected with just thousands of people over the last twenty years because of these films and catch amazing. So everybody just, yeah, they really appreciate it. They get it that a lot of people do get it, that it is really, really hard to film this stuff. Some people don’t. They’re just like, wow, that’s another great one, you know? Right. 00:29:37 Dave: Yeah. All the right all the time and the like you said, I mean, literally hours and hours of video that you’ve got to kind of sift through to get that fourteen minutes, right? 00:29:45 Todd: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And you know what you just said Lonnie Waller video that steel. Do you remember that one? That’s yeah, that’s the one I mentioned. You know, there were some guys that were doing it back in the day. You know, I was thinking about that film. It was was that Scientific angler? 00:30:02 Dave: I think it was. Yeah, I think it was. 00:30:04 Todd: So those so so you got Lonnie out there, right, as the angler, but you’ve got the camera crew. So these were the guys that were they were the they were the real deal. 00:30:17 Dave: Yeah. Giant. 00:30:17 Todd: And they didn’t have tripods. 00:30:19 Dave: Right. Oh. 00:30:20 Todd: Man. They didn’t have a pre-record on their camera. They didn’t have any of that. They were just hitting the record button and letting the tape run and run. I mean, I can’t even imagine they must have had a truckload of Betacam tapes just to film a steelhead video, because, I mean, you had to if you wanted to get that footage, you were just blazing through tapes one after another. The batteries, I mean. 00:30:46 Dave: Oh, right. The batteries were giant. Yeah. Yeah. 00:30:49 Todd: Giant. And they didn’t last very long. 00:30:51 Dave: Man. It’s crazy. 00:30:53 Todd: So I give props to kudos to those guys like those older videos, you know, and then you, you know, you even go back to like Lee Wolfe and that. 00:31:01 Dave: Yeah. Lee Wolfe, that legend. 00:31:03 Todd: Geez. 00:31:04 Dave: That’s so cool. Yeah. We’re doing a really amazing. I wish this is one. I wish you would be there. This would be a classic video. I could see I’m picturing it now, but we’re going back to Fish Mountain Waters Resort, my first time fishing for Atlantic salmon in Newfoundland. And for me. And it’s where Lee Wolfe used to fish back. It was his, you know, his lodge. And so he used to fly in with his plane, right. He used to fly in with his float plane and land there. And fish were going to the same spot, the same runs. You know, you can imagine if you’re a video from your end, right? You can imagine. That would be amazing. If I was good at video, it would be something I’d definitely be documenting. 00:31:33 Todd: But ah, that is so cool. I mean, he was the man. 00:31:37 Dave: He was the man. Yeah. When you set these up, when you set up like this, I’m talking about a story. You know, I’ve heard people talk about, you know, YouTube’s different probably than doing other types of video, but people talk about, you know, you getting a hook, getting the hook before even doing the video or when you’re planning these things. Are you, how are you planning, you know, to get this or do you go there and just shoot everything and then do it afterwards? 00:31:59 Todd: Yeah, you know, I’ve got a pretty good idea. But there’s really I mean, I have a set in stone in my mind, like that shot list of kind of what you need, you know? But Mother Nature, you know, you’ve probably heard this from other camera operators or whatever, but Mother Nature kind of sets the stage of what’s going to happen. I mean, one hundred percent. So you got to go into it, you know, not really. I mean, you just got to kind of cross your fingers that it all works out and that the fish are happy, you know? But if you’re with a, if you’re with an angler, you can kind of have the idea of, you know, the last couple, a couple of years, I’ve had some really cool anglers on there that I’ve had told stories about. And beforehand I have a pretty good idea of like where it’s going to go, but you just never know what the fishing is. Fishing. So it’s fishing. Yeah. So I have a pretty good idea, but sometimes it can totally go sideways. 00:32:51 Dave: It can change. And when it does change, do you I guess you just work with it, right? You work and then the whole thing changes. And maybe it’s even better than your original plan, right? 00:32:59 Todd: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That’s right. That’s it. You really, I want to say, you know, be honest. You really don’t know. I mean, unless you have, you know, you have an angler that’s it’s going to be more about the angler than the fishing. But then you just don’t. Yeah, I don’t know. 00:33:18 Dave: You just don’t know. 00:33:19 Todd: Yeah. If you if you have a shot list, it’s never going to turn out that way. Right. If you try to like go into it like that. 00:33:24 Dave: Yeah. And do it. Exactly. Yeah. You don’t want to force it into something. Yeah. Yeah. That’s cool. Well, on this one, you know, like I said, we’re going to Newfoundland. It just take this for example. This is kind of just spitballing here. But if we were doing this trip, like we said, you kind of know the premise we’re going in, I’m going to be fishing in these waters. I remember as a kid, fishing for summer steelhead and reading these books about Atlantic salmon and always thinking like, oh man, wow, I’m learning a lot about steelhead from Atlantic salmon fishermen. So there’s this a lot of overlap, and I’m really curious to see how much Atlantic salmon feels like a summer steelhead and all this stuff. You know, knowing that and us going there, how would you be setting up that video? Is that pretty straightforward. Now, can you just picture already how you might do something like that? Or is that something where you have to think a lot more about it? 00:34:04 Todd: Um, I think I would, I, I don’t think I would change much, honestly. Yeah, I think it would, I would go in with that, that same set of, you know, those boxes that I want to check in my mind and just see how the fish, you know, getting to know how the fish react and that depending on how you’re fishing, if you’re swinging, you know, you’re skating flies, dries. 00:34:28 Dave: On the surface. 00:34:29 Todd: Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, that’s as good as it gets. So it just sometimes those fish, I don’t know, actually like how I would go out at that point, but you know, I would go at it by I can see the fly line, I can see the fly. And then wherever the angler is, as far as, you know, what we’re doing on the river, um, that’s kind of all the same. Yeah. 00:34:49 Dave: It’s all the same. You’re fishing. Yeah. 00:34:51 Todd: Yeah. But the Lee Wolf thing is really cool because I did that with, um. Okay. So have you heard of the film A Remarkable life. 00:35:00 Dave: Oh, yeah. Story. Yeah. Okay. 00:35:02 Todd: So what’s. 00:35:03 Speaker 4: That about? 00:35:03 Todd: Yeah, well, it’s. It’s Lee Wolfe’s film. But the thing is, is that Jeff Pill, who produced it, passed away like, half, like at the end of like the production, it was done, but it never really got out there. And I have it like, that’s another one of them I have on my desk here. And I was, I was part of that, um, filming where we went to Newfoundland and Labrador and Alan, his son, was on that trip and we went to all these places. We went to Gros Morne National Park where he used to fly his plane into. And just we, I was able to get um, drone permits to fly in the national park. And that guy, like just learning about Lee Wolfe was learning in depth. Yeah. I mean, that guy was epic. I mean, he. 00:35:49 Speaker 4: Was. 00:35:50 Todd: Just everything. 00:35:51 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:35:51 Todd: He wanted the adventure he had. Yeah. It’s crazy. So that’ll be fun for you. 00:35:58 Dave: Trout routes by Onyx is built for fly anglers who want better Intel without spending hours digging for the information. You’ll get access to public land maps, stream access points, regulations, and even road and trail maps all in one place. It’s become my go to app for scouting new trips. You can check them out right now. Go to web fly dot com and download the app today. Check out Jackson Hole Fly Company today. Premium fly gear straight to your door without the premium price. Jackson Hole Fly Company designs and builds their own fly rods, reels, flies and gear. Delivering quality you can trust at prices that let you fish more and spend less. Whether you’re picking up a fly rod for the first time or guiding every day, they’ve got what you need. Check them out right now. That’s Jackson Hole Fly company dot com. Jackson Hole fly company dot com. So yeah, we kind of do a different thing, you know, with the podcast, how we document things and cover things and tell stories, right? It’s a little bit different, but there’s similarities on it. You never know where they’re going to go. You never go, you know, you never know where a podcast is going to turn or, you know, it’s kind of it’s good to leave it open. You never want to set to force it down some path, right? I want to just ask these questions because that’s never good. So I feel like, I feel like it’s kind of similar in those ways. Yeah. When you’re out there doing this on the video, you know, just when you’re filming, do you know when you get that shot and you’re like, you know, it might be a steelhead, maybe it’s something else where you’re like, okay, I got it. We’re good for this, this movie. Do you feel. 00:37:28 Todd: Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I think, um, well, perfect example is like the video I’m working on now, but the I don’t feel like I’m ever really done. You know, I, I, you know, people are like, well, don’t you fish on these shoots? And I’m like, I would love to, but the fishing never is that good where I can be like, put my hands in there and be like, okay, I’m done. I can go fish now. I mean, there’s always. Okay, so every minute, every run, everything is going to be different, no matter how you look at it. Like every fish is going to take a fly differently. It’s going to be the more I have to work with when I’m back editing. Like it just makes my life a lot easier. So I’ve learned that like, these are, this is my job. So it’s great to hold a rod and a cast, but I’m there to work, you know? And so I guess that comes back to the production. Like, you know, you, you were this, you were working from sun up to sun down, getting as much as you could so you could hand off those files, those tapes to the editors. And they were happy if the editors came back and they said, because back then, you know, I was just it was one after another, you get back, hand off your tapes and you’re on to the next thing. And that’s hopefully, yeah, hopefully you hear back like in the next couple of weeks or a month when the show is going out that, hey, you did a good job on that one, you know? Right. So you tried to shoot as much as possible from sun, you know, when the sun comes up, sun goes down. So. Yeah. For for what I’m doing now. Um, it’s kind of the same thing where I feel, you know, I love to fish. I mean, that’s how I got into this. I love to fish. I love it all. But, um, putting in my time to get the work done is critical. So yeah. 00:39:13 Dave: Changed. That hasn’t changed. So you’re, you know, what you do now versus what you did back in those days when you were just producing the film. It’s the same sort of thing now. 00:39:21 Todd: Yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean, a lot of times, um, you know, so I was just down in Argentina on the Rio Gallegos and I was filming down there and we got the weather down there. You just go into that southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego area with the mindset, you know you’re going to get you could potentially get blown off the face of the earth, you know, because of the the wind is so, so bad. So it was like that. It wasn’t like critically windy where you couldn’t do anything. But it was, it was blowing. And, uh, I finally got this one shot of angler fish jump, and it was at the very end, and I was just waiting for that. The lighting was right. It’s a wide shot, so it’s not like it’s a real tight shot on the fish, but it’s something I’d been wanting to get. And I got that and I was pretty much, okay, I can go fish, I can go fish for. And I went and fished for like two hours, you know, the end of the trip. 00:40:15 Dave: Nice. 00:40:15 Todd: So that that sometimes happens, but there’s not like Rome. Yeah. I’m going to take a day and go fishing at the end, right? 00:40:22 Dave: Yeah. You’re not adding on it. You’re not adding a day on to or two to get your fishing in. Yeah, yeah. That’s it. 00:40:28 Todd: And that’s okay. I’m okay with that, you know. 00:40:30 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. You’re still out there. You’re still out there experiencing. I mean, you’re, you’re kind of like, really, you’re like a guide. You know, these guides out there for the most part aren’t fishing either. And they’re living vicariously through their clients, right? You’re kind of doing the same thing. Yep. 00:40:42 Todd: Exactly. 00:40:43 Dave: Yeah. You’re actually you have guides. They’re probably right. A lot of these videos you have, is that how it works? How do your videos work? Do you have a where you’re along with a guide, you kind of do everything to talk about that a little bit. 00:40:54 Todd: Well, that’s a good question. I think it’s kind of a fifty fifty. I mean, there’s a lot of lot of videos that I’ve done that were just kind of we’re going out to do them, you know, the classics, everything that Brian and I have done is just him and I, and we just work really well. It just works. I don’t know, we just have this special thing that when we get together, it happens. So it’s just and it’s Brian, you know. 00:41:18 Dave: And it’s Brian. 00:41:18 Todd: I mean, he, he’s fishy. 00:41:20 Dave: He’s got fishy. 00:41:21 Todd: In our family, we call it the F gene. If you’ve got the F gene, the fishing gene, you’ve got it. You just connect. Right. Yeah. 00:41:29 Dave: He’s got it. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. 00:41:31 Todd: Yeah. So but like the steelhead videos, like those are all on my own as far as just, you know, no guides. Even Jeff was a guide. So he was an angler. So I guess, but no guide standing at your side. You know, a lot of the videos, there’s no one there, but there are some videos where if I’m working for tourism or I’m with a lodge, there’ll be a guide in the video with the angler. That doesn’t really happen that often, honestly. 00:41:59 Dave: Right. 00:42:00 Todd: That just complicates things. So. But a lot of the times the guides are the angler. Yeah. 00:42:06 Dave: So they are angler. That’s it. Yeah. Yeah. And and O’Keefe. Brian. He’s never really I don’t think he has. Well maybe he has guided but I’m not sure. I know he’s been on the podcast a few times, but how did you first connect with him. You’ve known him a while. 00:42:19 Todd: Yeah. I’ve known Brian a long time. When I you know, back taking it back to like high school. Um, in Issaquah, Washington, there was a fly shop that opened up Creekside Angling Company when I was like, it was my senior year in high school. And it was like the coolest thing because I’d have to drive or get a ride before I had my driver’s license from my parents to go to Coffman’s over in like Bellevue. Yeah. So I mean, that’s where I ended up getting a lot of my first time materials and stuff. My first net I bought at Kaufman’s. But when Creekside opened up, that was like right there in town, um, where I was living. So Brian was in, he was repping, he was full steam ahead. He was in the like, right in the middle of it, you know, like he had s a and he might have had Patagonia at that time. He had a bunch of different brands that he was repping. But, um, I remember him coming into the shop a few times when I was in there. And, you know, we just, I think it’s one point I showed him some of the videos like that was even back in high school. So that was like back ninety three. That was probably ninety four is when they opened. Um, so ninety four when I’m showing him some videos back then. And then, um, and then it was really when I moved to Oregon, we connected up in that by that time, That was two thousand. That was two thousand and six. Two thousand and five, two thousand and six. And Brian O’Keefe was he was kind of just burnt out. You know, he was just like, okay. Yeah, he had just done everything. And as far as being on the road, you know. 00:44:01 Dave: Right. 00:44:01 Todd: And I was working when I first moved to bend, I was working at the bend bolt and doing Night Shift for the newspaper, doing video for them. And, uh, we just connected and we’re like, okay, what do you want to do? We should do something. Let’s do something together. Like he’s the photo guy. I’m the video guy. And we came up with all these different ideas for catch magazine. And it was before the whole online magazine thing had really happened. And, um, the amount of hours that I spent on that Adobe Flash version from scratch, building that page flipping thing and oh my gosh, I mean. 00:44:37 Dave: Yeah, crazy. 00:44:39 Todd: Crazy amount of hours to make that happen. Yeah. 00:44:42 Dave: But that’s it. 00:44:43 Todd: Yeah. So it kind of all just we just dovetailed really good. And you know, the video thing was really fun at the beginning. It was it’s always been fun. But back then it was really fun. You know, we were doing some really fun stuff and some neat locations and just, you know, it was, it was great. 00:45:01 Dave: That was cool. How has it changed from, say, those times or maybe even earlier when you were at the the Missoula plate? How has video changed over the years? Have you seen that? Lots of changes from fly fishing? 00:45:12 Todd: Yeah, the video, like the technology part of it. You know, the big thing that’s changed so fast was the drone technology because back then there wasn’t there wasn’t any such thing other than, you know, you heard a few guys out there with like those remote control helicopters trying to like mount, um, cameras under those, but it was almost impossible because it was, there’s just so much vibration and, uh, it was just unusable. And I was trying, I was trying to do that a little bit, but that technology, you know, it was huge. The giant machines that I had, like, you know, on this Lee Wolfe trip, I had this pelican that my kids could fit in that I shipped all the way across to Newfoundland with this drone, you know, and now it’s like, you know, you can, you can just open the box and hit the power button and go up. So that’s changed hugely. 00:46:03 Dave: Right. 00:46:04 Todd: Camera technology has changed too, you know, as far as digital and all the files are small, compression is great. Everything looks good. So yeah, that’s it’s changed. 00:46:14 Dave: Cameras have changed. I mean, obviously they’ve changed from film to digital, but have also like, you know, that’s a big part of it, right? Depending on what you’re shooting with because it looks different from just using your phone versus say, a video on a different camera. 00:46:27 Todd: Yeah. It does. You know, the dang, the iPhones are so good. They’re pretty good, aren’t they? Oh my gosh. Yeah. I don’t even want to get into that. Like you could shoot, you could shoot a cover shot with an iPhone. 00:46:38 Dave: Now you could. 00:46:39 Todd: Yeah. I mean, they’re just it’s crazy. But yeah, the cameras have changed. The file sizes have gotten smaller. And it’s just as far as shooting more. More is easier. Battery technology has gotten so much better where you don’t have to buy ten batteries to get through, you know, a day you can use one or maybe even two if you have to. That makes it a lot easier. Everything has gotten easier. The only fallback on that is you shoot more. So that means you’re back on your editing system with. 00:47:14 Dave: More. 00:47:15 Todd: ten times the amount of files you got to go through. So you got to be really careful. Like these days, I’m really careful when I hit that record button. 00:47:23 Dave: You are. I’ve heard that with photography too. You got to be, don’t just snap one hundred photos, like wait to get that perfect one photo versus one hundred. Yeah, it’s that balance. 00:47:32 Todd: Yeah. I think you can do you can definitely do that. There’s a balance there if you know your equipment. That’s. I think that’s the most important thing these days. It’s not the how many megapixels or with, you know, 4K five K six k, I mean, all the way up to eight K. Like, I mean, it’s crazy. The 4K is fine for what most people’s eyes are seeing, right? It’s knowing that camera. It’s knowing that in ins and outs of the, you know. 00:48:01 Dave: Like getting the right angle and all that stuff. 00:48:03 Todd: Yeah, yeah. And just and just how it works, you know, all the buttons having the buttons just set up properly. So you’re just fast, right? You know. Gotcha. That’s a huge part of yeah. 00:48:13 Dave: Especially. Yeah. The fish jumps. You gotta, you can’t miss that, that jump. 00:48:17 Todd: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 00:48:19 Dave: So wow. That’s so cool. The drone thing has been huge and it still is. I mean, I think when you see a drone shot no matter what, even though we’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of them, they’re still amazing. What do you think is, you know, could you predict is there going to be the next drone? Like, what is the next thing? Has there been anything after the drone that’s come out that’s been even close to as impactful. 00:48:37 Todd: Oh, boy. Seems like that. 00:48:40 Dave: One’s just so different. Like the tech. I mean, I guess there’s underwater is kind of cool too, right? Seeing some of that. 00:48:45 Todd: Yeah. Underwater is huge. I mean, that camera tech is that’s gotten smaller too. You know, there’s those old ikonos cameras I remember Brian used to have. I actually have an old one of those, but I really never used it. But, you know, the old underwater technology was giant and heavy. But the drone stuff, I would say, you know, watching the Olympics and seeing those guys with the FPV stuff where they’re following, you know, super fast action type, uh, drone, that stuff’s pretty next level. That’s pretty cool. I actually had a, um, I thought was pretty next level, like years ago. Like it was like the third drone I think I owned. It was a drone. You could actually land on the water. 00:49:27 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:49:27 Todd: And yeah, and you could. So with salmon runs, like I’d be able to land, turn it off like the props would stop and you just float in. Record and you could see the fish and then you just take off. But that didn’t. It was hard because the gimbals, you know, you couldn’t. It was fixed. The camera was fixed to the bottom because you couldn’t get it wet. The actual camera gimbal. So it was like stationary. So I just like after a while you need to be able to move. Now it’s just like you can move the gimbal everywhere. It’s just crazy. 00:49:56 Dave: Oh yeah. You can do anything now. Yeah. Yeah. That’s cool. What is you, you know, as you look out, do you give a do you kind of already know where you’re going in the next few years? Or do you kind of plan that as you go throughout, you know, how far ahead are you looking? 00:50:09 Todd: Yeah. I mean, so I’m almost to issue ninety. So, um, you know, getting to that one hundred is that’ll be great. And, uh, that’ll take a few more years. You know, my kids are getting older now. Charlie’s a senior in high school now and yeah, man, time flies. He’ll be going off to college in Bozeman. Oh, there you go. Yeah. It’s funny, like everybody’s going to Bozeman. But, you know, my parents went there. My I met my wife there. It’s just Montana’s always like that place. 00:50:41 Dave: Which is in Bozeman. Which college? 00:50:43 Todd: Uh, Montana state. Montana state Bobcats. 00:50:45 Dave: Yeah. 00:50:45 Todd: That’s right. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I’m excited about that. Getting back there and kind of to the roots and doing some of the things with him. And so that’s going to keep me going back and forth in between. So I’ll probably have some good videos coming up from Spring creeks and that type of thing and working with Winston and that. So that’s all going to be great. 00:51:09 Dave: Yeah, yeah, I think I feel like there’s, like you said, you can go to any region in the world and probably have unlimited footage or streams. You could fish. You know, I feel like we struggle with that too. It’s like, wow, you got all this Western stuff, but then there’s tons on the east and all the southeast too. I mean, there’s tons of all the saltwater stuff and redfish. I mean, we haven’t even touched the surface on that. Right? Is that something like, is there a species or a type of, you know, one thing you really want to dig into more and, you know, in the next few years. 00:51:36 Todd: This is a good question too, because you mentioned redfish. I haven’t even done that. 00:51:40 Dave: Right. 00:51:40 Todd: I know that’s one thing that I haven’t, I haven’t shot a video, um, redfish like on the mudflats. 00:51:46 Dave: That would be so cool. It’d be so cool to see that red like the whole right to see that with your, the way you filmed. That’d be really cool. 00:51:52 Todd: Yeah, that would be exciting. Um, I’d love to get to Japan at some point because those guys, the Japanese, those fly anglers, they’re just, it’s like a next level thing, you know, they’re just so technical and a lot of bamboo and the fish over there, those they’ve got these fish in the small river, small creeks. I mean, I think they have bigger rivers over there too. But, you know, some of the photo essays we’ve done in the past, like, it looks really cool. I’d love to be able to go do, do something over there. 00:52:23 Dave: That would be cool. 00:52:24 Todd: Yeah. 00:52:25 Dave: Yeah. But it’s, it’s always the struggle, right? The more you learn, the more you do, the more you realize you’re not going to. There’s more that you were not going to get to. 00:52:33 Speaker 5: Uh huh. 00:52:34 Todd: Yeah. I might never, not ever get there, you know? Yeah. And that’s okay. 00:52:37 Dave: Yeah. Um. That’s it. But. Yeah. Cool. Um. Well, I think we’ll take it out of here today with our, you mentioned earlier conservation. Uh, kind of segment. We have a, we’re always interested in really focusing on some of that too, on all of our events. We try to have a conservation group. We focus on, I know there’s tons going on around the country, right? Whether that’s Alaska, you’ve got this climate change and, you know, impacts and you hear people like lots of struggles. Like you mentioned, Montana, you know, there’s some big changes with bug hatches and stuff like that. But what do you do to describe that on your conservation? Do you cover that? How do you cover that in your films? And then how do you think about that as you’re going? 00:53:13 Todd: Well, I mean, gosh, it’s funny because it’s not funny actually, but it’s just a coincidence that right now we’re at about twenty nine percent snowpack, right? 00:53:23 Dave: I know. 00:53:24 Todd: In Oregon. 00:53:25 Dave: Oh, in Oregon is twenty nine percent too. 00:53:26 Todd: So where I’m at right now, like the Cascades down where I’m at, the three sisters are right out my back door. And I mean, it’s not looking good. 00:53:37 Dave: No. 00:53:37 Todd: So and I haven’t, I haven’t seen it like this ever. And so, you know, when you think about the effects of that for this, luckily, you know, the metolius, which is right down the road from me here, you know, it’s spring fed. So those fish are happy all year round normally like who knows what’s going to happen this year. But the water temperatures at like forty eight degrees all year. So they’re they’re going to be fine. But the Deschutes is a different story. And people it’s just very simple. You just got to take care of the fish. If the water temp. If the water temperature is too warm, you don’t fish. You know, like you just you’re just putting those fish under so much stress. And for what we got going on now, it’s going to be low. It’s going to be low water and warmer temperatures like really soon. Like, I think we’re like a month and a half. 00:54:29 Dave: Oh, really? So like July. We’re going to be hitting pretty warm. 00:54:32 Todd: Yeah. In this. Yeah. I think even earlier than earlier. 00:54:36 Dave: Like the sand flight. Right. You mentioned the biggest video you have out there right now is that sand and fly video from which is usually mid-May, right? Somewhere in that. 00:54:43 Todd: Yeah, yeah, that’s going to be. So that’s going to be kind of the indicator, I think, of what’s going on. If that happens much earlier this year, that’s going to kind of tell the story of what’s going on, what’s happening with the, with I think, I think so, you know, I mean, we’ll see what happens. I’m crossing my fingers for everybody out there, you. 00:55:03 Dave: Know, I know. 00:55:03 Todd: To fish and be on the Deschutes and just not the Deschutes. So many other streams. 00:55:08 Dave: Yeah. Um, yeah, they’re the indicators. 00:55:11 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:55:11 Todd: Just take care of those fish, you know, like, and you don’t need to catch a million fish. No. Right. 00:55:16 Dave: No, no, we can do that. I mean, you could get started earlier, right in the day and finish your day, even if it’s not a, you know, what do they call it when they shut down the streams? I don’t know if Oregon, Montana. You hear a lot more about it, right? 00:55:27 Todd: Yeah. The hoot owl in Montana is like, that’s legit. They really take care of that. Um, and put that in place, um, quite often. 00:55:38 Dave: But you can do that in your streams anywhere in the country, right? If you feel like it’s a little bit warm, which is probably just know the temperature, right? Know what temperature is a little bit too warm. 00:55:46 Todd: Yeah, exactly. I think that’s going to be a big deal for this summer for everyone fishing out there. Just, you know, keep track of if you can keep track of water temps. 00:55:55 Dave: That’s a good reminder. 00:55:57 Todd: Get out there really early if you can. That’s so. 00:56:00 Dave: That’s awesome. I’m looking at your website, catch magazine dot net, and you’ve got this mayfly on there, which is a beautiful shot. Is that now is that something where you’re taking shots with still photos or are you taking those from video or? 00:56:13 Todd: Um, a lot of those are taken, um, most of the big photos that you see are they’re taken with, uh, like Dslr’s. Yeah, they are type of thing. 00:56:24 Dave: Sure. 00:56:25 Todd: Um, yeah. So, um, you know, with that, that’s like one of the essays in our current edition and that’s I’m about to come out with a new issue of catch magazine coming up. So that’s been on there for a few months. Okay. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that’s definitely a still, that’s a, that’s a camera. 00:56:42 Dave: That’s a camera still. Do you remember what bug that was? 00:56:46 Todd: Mayfly. It was I, yeah. So this was from Paul who is from over in Europe. 00:56:55 Dave: Okay. Okay. 00:56:56 Todd: And if I if you look down on the the caption there, I couldn’t tell you the exact. 00:57:01 Dave: Okay. There’s some details. 00:57:02 Todd: Of that mayfly, but. 00:57:03 Dave: It’s cool. We’ve been doing some stuff with the project, the Salmon Fly project guys who are actually documenting all the bugs around starting in the West. And they’ve been, they’re a big you know, they’re all they’re both entomologists and they’re just trying to document and know exactly what we have now and how are things changing. And I feel like they’re one of those groups doing a good job, along with two and others out there. Right? 00:57:24 Todd: Oh that’s great. 00:57:25 Dave: Yeah. So we’re gonna. 00:57:26 Todd: Yeah, this essay is amazing. If you have a chance, go to the current edition. 00:57:30 Dave: Okay. Yeah. How would we check that out? Where would you send people right now to check out your newest stuff that you got going? 00:57:36 Todd: So ketch magazine dot net and you can get a subscription. You can usually get, um, one, you can look, you can see one essay for free, I think, and then you get the pop up that asks to subscribe. And honestly, that’s the only way I’m doing this these days. 00:57:53 Dave: Yeah, you’re. 00:57:53 Todd: Doing it depending on the people that love it, you know, with the subscription. So everybody out there that is subscribed. I really appreciate that. That’s just a huge game changer for what I do. Yeah. 00:58:04 Dave: So perfect. So that’s it. So people can subscribe to the magazine. And then then obviously the YouTube as a whole, another chunk. People can subscribe there as well. But as far as supporting you and all this stuff and getting all the access to the new, everything you have going. It’s just. Yeah. Go to catch magazine dot net. 00:58:22 Todd: Yeah, exactly. You get the new stuff with the subscription and then after a certain amount of months or whatever, then YouTube is kind of like that place for the overflow. I don’t even call it the overflow. It’s just like the videos, not all of them, but most of them go to YouTube after a while. 00:58:40 Dave: Or after a while. 00:58:41 Todd: But if you want the yeah, after you want the, the latest and greatest, like it’s in catch magazine and there’s no ads and they’re popping up in the videos and all that stuff. Like YouTube’s gotten over, it’s over the top on YouTube these days. 00:58:54 Dave: Yeah, yeah, yeah. YouTube. Yeah. Everybody’s kind of used to it. They’re almost used to it. Right? There’s so many ads, but yeah, well, this is good. Let’s take it out here. I always love music. You mentioned it earlier about the music. I’m curious because I feel like that’s something that really, I don’t know, it can make, make or break depending on what you’re doing. How do you, when you’re doing your, you know, all your movies, how does music you talked about creating, are you actually creating some of the music or is this something? Describe that. How are you thinking about music and how does that play into your movies? 00:59:22 Todd: Yeah, it’s a, it’s probably the most time consuming part of my job, honestly, because it really drives what I almost feel like. I know I get the feeling of it, you know, out there when I’m shooting, you know, like the feel for it, you know. 00:59:39 Dave: Like whether it’s like a LED Zeppelin or if it’s like a Mozart. 00:59:44 Todd: Yeah. Just classical or. Yeah, exactly. And so I do not create my own music. I work with different artists and there’s different music agencies online. 00:59:53 Dave: That. 00:59:54 Todd: I, you know, I pay to be part of. And then I get to work with these people. I mean, it’s, it’s, oh, that’s really cool. 01:00:01 Dave: So, right. So as opposed to there are the sites where you can just go grab music, write some music that’s already been made, grabbing that and paying for it. You’re actually going to work with artists who are actually creating the music. 01:00:12 Todd: I’ve done that. Yeah. I’ve worked with some of the artists for sure. Um, which is really cool. I mean, that’s a whole nother level, but a lot of it is, you know, you’re searching, you’re putting keywords in, you’re searching for the right track for what you’re doing. And that can take like, it can literally take days. Yeah. Find the right music track. 01:00:32 Dave: Yeah. 01:00:32 Todd: So that’s a, that’s a, and when you get it, you know it, you know, you know it right away. You nail it. You’re like, oh yeah, this is it. 01:00:39 Dave: That’s it. What’s your type of music do you like when you’re just listening on the road? On a road trip? Do you kind of love it all or oh boy. 01:00:47 Todd: I mean, I like, I kind of like everything, but I’ll go back to, you know, the Heartbreakers. You know, you got Tom petty. I mean, doesn’t get any better than that. Yeah. I mean, those. 01:00:58 Dave: Guys, he was pretty good. 01:01:00 Todd: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those guys are just great. So many albums, so much great stuff. But you know, I also listen to I love David Gilmour, Pink Floyd, when I’m just like kind of relaxing or whatever and even back like folk. Gordon Lightfoot, John Denver love those guys. I mean, talk about classics. And they’re just geniuses, really. I love classic rock. 01:01:23 Dave: Yep. It is good. 01:01:24 Todd: You know, and I grew up in around Issaquah and Seattle in the nineties. 01:01:28 Dave: Oh, you were ninety four? 01:01:29 Todd: Um, yeah. Like all that. 01:01:32 Dave: Was it Nirvana? Yeah, that was the Nirvana grunge phase. 01:01:34 Todd: Yeah. Nirvana and Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, all those. All those. 01:01:39 Dave: Bands. 01:01:39 Todd: Everybody just. 01:01:41 Dave: Yeah, that was good. That was good times. Nice. Well, tell me this. Let’s keep on this, uh, music. Obviously, we’re talking about movies or talking about your movies here. You mentioned John McClane. You know, we’ve done some stuff around the River Runs Through it. I think that time and that same time, right, ninety two, ninety three when that movie came out was obviously changed a lot in fly fishing. What’s your take on the River Runs Through It like that movie itself is you create movies yourself. What was your take on that one? 01:02:05 Todd: Just tears, you know, like I, I remember I was sitting in my dorm room in Bozeman, and my roommate that I just met had this little TV with a, you know, little VCR, you know, TV and VCR, something that, you know, you got college student, what have, you know, and I remember finding that the river runs through it just to watch it again. I think I’d seen it the year before or whatever, obviously. And I remember putting that in, just sitting cross-legged in my dorm room watching that in Bozeman. I was just like. 01:02:38 Dave: Man. 01:02:39 Todd: Wow. I mean, it really hit at that point. I was kind of in the thick of it, you know, like it was just kind of happening as far as the just how big that got. And I felt, you know, I was in in Montana, right? 01:02:52 Dave: You’re there. 01:02:52 Todd: The movie is unbelievable. Yeah, the movie is unbelievable. I know, I mean, it’s just it’s a classic, you know, I mean, I cry every time I watch that, right? 01:03:01 Dave: I know, you know, I know. 01:03:03 Todd: It’s so awesome. 01:03:04 Dave: It is. 01:03:05 Todd: It’s just a moving movie, moving story. And I think that’s why, you know, I have these DVDs on my on my desk from that show that we did with John. You know, it was like being there and being able to, you know, go to his cabin and just hear stories about, you know, that thing, the cabin being built and. Oh, right. 01:03:24 Dave: The cabin, that cabin. Well, I guess the one they filmed in the movie wasn’t the cabin, but the one where they. 01:03:28 Todd: No, no, no. Yeah. No, this, this was the cabin that his would Norman would go to in the you know, and he, he built and then his dad and his brother Paul they helped they helped their grandfather build that cabin in like five I think it was like five of the books were were. 01:03:48 Dave: Written. 01:03:49 Todd: Partly in that cabin. So it was like being there and walking in and seeing like the desk there. 01:03:54 Dave: Oh man. 01:03:55 Todd: Oh my gosh. I mean, River runs through. It was kind of like written partly in this cabin. It was really cool experience. 01:04:02 Dave: And then you did you do some videos on that or cover that with John. 01:04:06 Todd: Yeah. So we, um, we spent three days on the Bitterroot together fishing and filming. So we did a kind of a whole show around him, wildland fire. But obviously river runs through it with brought up many times in that time. But being a camera operator on something like that, where John McClain’s the the angler, that was kind of a next level thing. I’m just like, oh, Todd, you better be hitting the record button at the right times, buddy. 01:04:37 Dave: Right? Yeah. You don’t want to miss this one. 01:04:41 Todd: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So wow, that was a really, really special time. 01:04:46 Dave: That is cool, man. Todd, this has been a lot of fun today. I think, um, you know, we could leave it there and hopefully we’ll, we’ll follow up with you at a later point and talk more about all this. But like we said, we’ll send everybody out to catch magazine dot net if they have questions for you or want to connect. And hopefully, uh, you know, we’ll get some folks, uh, following you. And I’m guessing most people have heard about you, but at this point, you know, there’s lots of new people coming in, so we’ll hopefully get some people your way. And thanks for all your time today. 01:05:10 Todd: Sure. Thanks a lot, Dave. That was great. Appreciate it and have a good afternoon. And we will just have to talk again soon. 01:05:19 Dave: Hope you enjoyed that one. If you get a chance, please check in with Todd. Go to catch magazine dot net. If you subscribe there, you can get all of the early episodes and film footage from everything they’re producing. Also, you can check in with, uh, YouTube and follow Todd’s channel there and get some of the, uh, the films as well. Uh, if you want to check in with us, the best way is go to fly swing Pro, go to webflow, swing dot com slash pro, enter your name and we’ll follow up with you on details there. You can also send me an email, Dave at web dot com if you want to find out about trips. We’ve got some big ones coming this year, so we’d love to see you on the water. Hope you’re having a good morning, afternoon, or evening and we will see you on the next episode. Talk to you then. 01:05:59 Speaker 6: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit wet fly.