Six Piece Fly Rods and Fly Fishing Austria with Jeff Ditsworth of Pescador on the Fly

00:00:00 Dave: Our guest is the founder of Pescador on the Fly, a company built on one big idea that a rod light enough to disappear in your pack shouldn’t mean giving up performance on the water. Today we’re going to hear how he took a six piece fly rod from a travel backup to everyday workhorse, using better blanks, tighter tolerances, and a new factory that’s turning out rods as smooth as any four piece on the market. We’re also going to hear about this trip to Austria, how he’s chasing browns in the alpine creeks of Austria, and how the Fish Police was his guide on this adventure. This is a good story today. This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast, where we 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. Jeff Ditsworth is here from Pescador on the fly, and we’re going to dig into the six piece rod design and how you can get this ready for your next travel trip, and why people are having this in their packs, in their luggage. Whether you’re keeping this as your main rod or your backup, we’re going to talk about it and how carry on to always have your fly rod always on you. The only way to do it is a six piece rod. Okay, let’s jump into it. Here he is, Jeff Ditsworth. You can find him at Pescador on the fly dot com. How’s it going, Jeff? 00:01:15 Jeff: Doing great. Doing great. How about you? 00:01:17 Dave: I yeah, doing good man. Just trying to, uh, look at the winner. Now that things are, you know, coming here on us, it’s upon us. Right. And I’m thinking, you know, what is the next trip? You know, winter times here. And I’m always. And also thinking about Denver, right. And everything and travel and give us an update because we’re going to talk about you’ve been on the podcast a couple of times. We’ll have episodes in the show notes here this time of year for you. Is it all Black Friday? What are you thinking about this time of year? 00:01:39 Jeff: Oh, it’s so funny. I’ve never been a huge, like, proponent of going nuts on Black Friday. Yep. You know, I don’t know. I’ve always I’ve always felt that it’s one of those things where I love just, you know, having a good value all the time. And I try to have spikes, but the industry almost demands it. So we have some stuff coming up for it. But I think we’ve done most of our strategic planning already, so we’ll have a good offering as normal and a few different surprises out there. But yeah, it’s part of it. I think I’m like you in the back of my mind. I’m always kind of like jonesing for that next trip. And right now I don’t have anything inked, so it’s kind of making me get extra antsy. I don’t know if you can relate to that or not. 00:02:15 Dave: Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. That’s the challenge is the, you know, with kids and stuff. It’s just hard. It’s hard to get out, right? You want to do something, you know. And so I’m trying to figure out a way to take the kids along. That’s my biggest thing. How do I get the family and all that stuff? But, um, but yeah, I think today we’re going to talk about, you know, focus on really obviously you have this amazing packable rod. We’ve talked a lot about it. The six piece rod, it’s super lightweight. Um, just a great rod. And and I think a lot of people don’t understand that. Right. The why you would need a six piece rod over a four piece. So we’re going to talk about that a little bit. Maybe get an update on if there’s any updates with your product line. But we also want to get into this trip. You traveled across the world, um, to Austria to fish the Alps. So I want to hear about that a little bit too. So maybe start with the update on on the, um, you know, on the rods. What’s new with you? Anything coming out? You want to give it a shout out for people that missed that last episode? 00:03:02 Jeff: Yeah. I mean, I think I think we’ve spent most of this year kind of like rounding out the product lines, right? So we had a really big strategic shift, and we changed where we were manufacturing our rods. And we have a new state of the art factory in South Korea. And we’ve rebuilt our entire LFA line, which is primarily our traditional four piece rods. Um, so we’ve rebuilt that entire product line. We have a couple different succession rods, but LFA is kind of our mid-tier line, um, of rods. And I would say the real value proposition here is we did this product line secondary after we focused on our packable niche, because packable rods is really our niche. This is the focus. This is why we started the company. Um, I kept getting requests for for suction rods and given our direct to the angler value proposition, we can put out a much higher level rod at the price point that we can offer it for. So we’ve made it and we’ve had a ton of success with it. And that, you know, that V2 line. And I think we’ve got, uh, as of next month, I’ll have three through ten weight built in the four section rods. And then, you know, the rod is really our flagship, you know, packable rod sections and we call it the G6. And I’ll have three through nine weight all done. We have everything but eight and six right now. And those will come out in December. So incredible reception for those packable rods. 00:04:29 Dave: Um, the six piece. Is this the six segment? 00:04:31 Jeff: Yeah. So, you know, our big niche in the market happens to be the six section rod. Right? We focused on it. We built these rods with better blanks, better components and all that and really double down on that market because I know there’s a need for it. Um, given how I started the company from my own, you know, need and desire to have something more packable that actually cast well and performs well. So being able to build a truly, you know, epic performing fly rod that’s that packs down into a six section is kind of a game changer in the market because other companies just weren’t focusing on it. They put their money behind the four piece rods and they built beautiful rods. Right. But, um, I wanted something that disappears in my pack and doesn’t feel like it’s with me, you know, and I’m carrying around this giant tube in, in airports or on my backpack when I’m out packing. 00:05:16 Dave: So, yep. 00:05:18 Jeff: That’s twenty twenty five has been been all about kind of like just redoing the entire product line basically from the ground up with a new factory that’s, you know, stronger rods, more sensitive rods, lighter rods, and just all around we just level these things up. The entire value prop. 00:05:34 Dave: Yep. And the one I have sitting here that’s with me, I don’t know if you remember what rod this is, this is the is it the. This is the El Rey, right? 00:05:41 Jeff: Yeah. You got the El Rey G6. We put you with a five weight, right? Nine foot five weight. 00:05:46 Dave: Yeah, I think so. It might, it might be a six. Um, might be a six. But yeah this rod is the. No it is actually it’s six. It’s a six. Yeah I’m looking at it here. So six six eight six oh six section. No no no no no you’re right. It’s nine foot five weight. Yeah you’re right. Sorry. 00:05:59 Jeff: Yeah I know you don’t have a six weight because I don’t have them yet so I know. 00:06:02 Dave: Oh there you go okay. Right. So there you go. I’ll tell you what the thing about it is, is that it’s, um, you know, I mean, the cool thing, it’s like. Yeah, the components, everything. It’s just a nice. And the action on it is really sweet. Talk about that first before we jump into the trip stuff. How did you get this thing with the action? Because I know we’ve had a couple other episodes we did with people you’ve been on the boat with in Montana, and they’ve talked about how responsive the rod is. Describe that that process for us. 00:06:27 Jeff: Yeah, I mean, I think it comes down to it is using a better blank. And I think that the industry back in the day, they used a cheap blank because they didn’t believe in the product line. And I wholeheartedly believe in the product line and know that if you build these rods and yeah, you have more ferrules. But at the end of the day, think about the evolution of fly rods, right? You go back in time thirty, forty years ago in a four piece rod was virtually unheard of. And it was, you know, everybody said, oh my God, you can’t use a four piece rod. These are terrible, right? Yeah. Um, turns out technology eliminated that, and it’s not a thing anymore. Right. 00:06:59 Dave: No. 00:06:59 Jeff: So fast forward a little bit and get to twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen. There wasn’t a six section rod in the market that was really, you know, epic field that felt great and responsive because people just weren’t putting in the money to put the right components on the blanks and build them in a legitimate factory. And, you know, so we’ve we’ve invested time and money into it and we’ve made it a product category. 00:07:22 Dave: Yeah. That’s it. 00:07:23 Jeff: And it’s like I just feel back to it. It’s like, you know, thirty years ago, a four section rod was a travel rod. I don’t think a four section rod today is a travel rod. No, I think that’s a fly rod. And it’s a ridiculously important segment of the market. And that’s why we play there with the LFA v2 line. But a travel rod is something that is much more compact, much easier to travel with. I mean, I think there’s ten different reasons to really focus on why a travel route is important, and it comes down to ease of transportation, comes down to backup capability, right? I think I’ve heard stories from dozens of our customers that have bought the fly rods. If they got back from a trip from the Bahamas where, say, their island hopping and the people wouldn’t let them put the rods on board. And I’ve had many times where you fly to a destination, it’s no big deal, but you go through the security on the way back out. They’re not letting you bring that rod on a plane. It just happens all the time because it’s so inconsistent in other countries. So yeah, if you want to bring a rod with you, make sure it gets into your carry on. And just in case, I mean, I just got off the phone with somebody last week that bought a couple of our saltwater rods, the six section rods. So he got the nine way and he got the seven weight because when he, his, the airline actually lost his fly rods on the way to the Bahamas and he had to use guide rods and they were terrible. Not all guide rods are terrible. Some have rods, I mean, obviously, but he was disappointed. And, you know, I think he actually found us through you guys, which is pretty cool. 00:08:48 Dave: Oh, there you go. That’s the cool thing about it is that I think the backup piece is a big part of this. Like, you know, the worst thing is you get on your trip, this amazing trip you’ve been planning for years, and then something happens and you don’t have your rod that you love. Yeah. You know, and so you’ve taken care of that here. You’ve always got it. And then also, if you’re on the water and you break a rod, you’ve got, you know, you’ve got another rod and it’s just easy. It makes things easier. And I think we can talk about that today. How you travel. 00:09:11 Jeff: Yeah I mean I also think it’s like I would never walk out or hike out to a stream to go fishing with only one rod, right? I mean, I got a backup rod when I’m leaving my car and I’m walking two hundred feet to go somewhere because a lot of times I might want to have a streamer rod and nymphing rod with me, or I might want to have a rod in a nymphing rig or whatever. And with these rods, you just you stick your streamer rod right on your pack and it’s not even there. Then all of a sudden you get into a situation, you’re like, oh my gosh, I have to fish a streamer and I want to throw a big streamer with my eight weight or seven weight or whatever. You got it ready to go. So I think about it almost like a risk management situation. You said. Yeah, I mean, there’s plenty of guys every year fall and break their rods, and you’d hate to have that happen three miles out in the middle of nowhere and then you’re done. 00:09:54 Dave: Yep. That’s true. And that goes back to another part of it, which we’ve talked a little bit about. I think on passes the packing of your backpacking trip, you know, there’s definitely a chunk of people. And I haven’t been doing a lot of that lately, but I want to get going on it again and again. That’s the whole thing. I remember back in the day I’d have the giant rod sticking out, you know? It was just crazy, right? You’re ducking under branches and stuff. And so I think for the backpacking, it’s huge, right? Having this shorter six piece rod because what what are we talking. We’re talking probably ten inches short. How much shorter is that. 00:10:20 Jeff: Yeah, yeah a normal a normal four piece rod tube is somewhere between thirty and thirty one inches, and ours are somewhere between nineteen and twenty one inches for the six section rod. So it’s about ten inches less and it’ll just disappear in there. Like you said earlier, you can just attach it to the outside of your pack and you don’t have to duck under the branches, which is always fun. 00:10:40 Dave: Yeah. cool. Well, I think we’ll touch on this as we go, but what I want to talk about was you did this trip, and you’ve got a blog post out there. This trip to Austria, to the Alps. So what I want to talk about is, you know, for some people who haven’t been over to Europe, talk about, you know, maybe just the whole travel thing when you were getting ready for that trip, you know, what was that like? First off, was that a good trip? Looks like you caught a few fish. 00:11:00 Jeff: Yeah, we got into it. Was probably one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been in my life. And it legitimately kind of, like, came together at the last minute. I wasn’t certain I was going to be able to fish until probably about two days before we actually fished. And it was a weird scenario. I can kind of run through it a little bit, but. 00:11:17 Dave: Yeah, let’s hear. 00:11:18 Jeff: It. So my wife had a really big birthday this summer, and her family came over, like legitimately on the boat to Ellis Island from Austria. Okay. So it’s always been a place on her list that she’s always wanted to go. And so we decided this was the year we were going to go over there and check it out and see, like we’re like like she says, where my people came from. Right. So. 00:11:37 Dave: Right. Right. Exactly. 00:11:38 Jeff: We went to the the town her grandmother grew up in and all this kind of cool stuff. So it was just a really cool trip. And again, you think about it, think about probably most of our vacations that we go on in this world. They’re not all fly fishing and exclusive trips, right? No, this was not a fly fishing exclusive trip. My wife’s grown to know and understand that the fly fishing world is so cool, because you’re going to see places that tourists never see everywhere. You’re going to meet people that tourists don’t necessarily meet. And, you know, trout don’t live in ugly places. And this was a great example of that, right? So I told her I was like, okay, I’d love to find a day to go over there. And so I started with some online research. Right. And I found a guy who was a guide. He had a website and all that, and we started communicating via WhatsApp and all that and pieced it together. I had no idea what it was going to cost. It was just one of those things where we’re going to see if this works out right. And I would just say, yeah, in general, I’ve had so many experiences where you find a person and then you end up booking a trip with them just through some communication and common love of fly fishing. I almost think he wanted to meet me almost as much as I wanted to meet him. So it was kind of a pretty cool thing. He ended up being like the I don’t know, for lack of a better term. Like he was like what he called himself to us was, I’m the fish police of this area. 00:13:00 Dave: Oh, the fish police. Wow. 00:13:02 Jeff: He was the fish police. And he actually issues personally every single fishing license for that district. And he’s also. 00:13:08 Dave: A guy, so he actually got you any guide. Okay. 00:13:11 Jeff: Yeah. So it was a really cool scenario. So he ended up picking us up in our hotel in Innsbruck. And then he told me that this is really far out of my way. So I gotta charge you extra. I’m like, that’s fine. It’s like, whatever, let’s just make it reasonable. He told me I was gonna charge and I was like, it was totally reasonable. But basically we had a a private one day tour with a local guy who knew more about fish in that certain area of Austria than any human being on the planet. It was amazing. 00:13:36 Dave: Yeah. There you go. So he knew species wise. And so what were the species you guys were catching? 00:13:41 Jeff: So we really only got brown trout. 00:13:43 Dave: Right? Yeah. These are browns. 00:13:44 Jeff: Out in that, out in those waterways. It’s flat out interesting that I don’t know. We had so many good conversations. One of them that shocked me was we’re driving by this really, really big river. It’s beautiful. Right. And I’m like, don’t you guys ever float this? He goes, float. Yeah. What do you mean, like in a boat? I’m like, yeah, this is like a thing over. 00:14:03 Dave: A. 00:14:03 Jeff: River. Oh yeah. It’s huge. And I’m asking him what’s in there. And he’s like, oh, tons of grayling, brown trout. And there’s. 00:14:09 Dave: Oh. 00:14:10 Jeff: Wow, there’s taimen. I’m like. 00:14:12 Dave: What? 00:14:13 Jeff: So I know. So apparently out there you know even Slovenia right. There’s taimen. We never got into those at all. But we fished this. No just mountain stream area. That was just ridiculously cool. 00:14:25 Dave: Yeah, I saw that high grade. I saw some of the photos. We’ll get a link to the blog post you wrote. 00:14:28 Jeff: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Absolutely stunning. It was like some of the most amazing canyons I’ve ever been around. The trout weren’t huge, but they were all, you know. They’re very spooky. They’re very native, but light colored because they match the grass. I mean, just absolutely beautiful. But this place was just like a place I’ll never forget. 00:14:45 Dave: Just. And you’re in the Alps, right? So you got mountain, giant mountains everywhere. 00:14:48 Jeff: Mountains all around you. I think we started out in this little tiny village that was like, right next to a ski resort, basically. 00:14:55 Dave: Yeah. 00:14:55 Jeff: And it was like, if you Google, like, I don’t know, picturesque Alps town, it’s like. 00:15:00 Dave: Yeah, that’s it. 00:15:00 Jeff: There it was. Right? It was it was just like my wife was taking pictures of all the flower boxes on the houses. It was super cool. But she loved the day because it was like so far off the beaten track. You didn’t see any tourists. It was all just being out with locals. I mean, we went to a grocery store on the way up and, you know, our guide was like, he’s like, okay, we gotta go get some of this cheese because I know the guy over there, he he has the nine cows and he makes this cheese and it’s so good. 00:15:27 Dave: I’m so local, so cool. 00:15:29 Jeff: So we had this. 00:15:30 Dave: Like, awesome. 00:15:30 Jeff: You know, if you think about the shore lunches we get in various places where we go. This was kind of like that, but off the charts it was super cool. 00:15:37 Dave: Were you fishing? Was this a mostly dry fly? What was the. What were you guys doing there? 00:15:41 Jeff: It wasn’t mostly dry fly. It was all dry fly. 00:15:44 Dave: All dry fly. 00:15:45 Jeff: Like, that’s legitimately just how he fished. He was like, yeah, I mean, we could if he’s like, if you want. But he’s like, I’d rather just dry fly. I’m like, hey, this is amazing. Let’s do it. So single dry fly the entire day I’m just fishing. 00:15:56 Dave: What were you fishing? 00:15:57 Jeff: Mostly, I think it was. So the first one was an elk, Arcadis elk hair. So nothing different than anything we would throw for dry flies anywhere else, right? There wasn’t anything crazy. He just. We opened the fly box up and he’s like, yeah, just grab that one. That one’s perfect. And if that one doesn’t go, we might go to this one. So I fished with the same dry fly probably three quarters of the day which is. 00:16:18 Dave: Just a little like what like a size sixteen Elk caddis or something like that. 00:16:21 Jeff: It was probably about a it was probably about an eighteen, I would guess. It wasn’t big. It wasn’t small. It wasn’t super tiny. But you know, again, these fish don’t get a lot of fishing pressure, which is huge. So you could use, you know, something you could see really good towards the end of the day. It started in different spots. The lights started getting pretty bad, so we had to change it up a little bit. But again, I mean to fish with one fly for almost an entire day. I don’t know if I’ve ever done that anywhere because usually. 00:16:46 Dave: You know. 00:16:47 Jeff: Snagging a tree or something, right? But it was it was one of those days. 00:16:51 Dave: I’m guessing you didn’t see many anglers, other anglers out there? 00:16:53 Jeff: I didn’t see one the entire day. 00:16:55 Dave: Yeah, the whole day. There you go. Yeah. No reason to change it up. 00:16:58 Jeff: That’s sweet. I ended up seeing one guy with a fly rod downtown Innsbruck casting, and I assume he’s trying to find a grayling or something like that. And I can’t remember the name of the river, but big river that goes right through town. Super easy to look up, but I can’t remember it offhand, but, um, I didn’t see him catch anything, but. 00:17:14 Dave: Yeah, so there’s some big rivers going through town that looks like you could probably go chase Taimen with if you had a boat or or swing for Taimen, maybe. I mean, you could do. 00:17:21 Jeff: I think you probably could, but it’s kind of like, you know, I know that each state has a different licensing requirement. 00:17:29 Dave: Oh yeah. 00:17:29 Jeff: And then each I almost think even different locales you have to check with like a fishing club, because every single town I was in, I could tell, okay, I could fly fish there, but I just didn’t research it because we were doing other stuff. But it was nice to be able to sneak two fly rods in that exact time. 00:17:45 Dave: And what rod did you take? What were your rods? 00:17:47 Jeff: I took a four weight and a five weight. 00:17:49 Dave: Yeah. So two six pieces? 00:17:50 Jeff: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So I put them both in the same tube. So the same tube you have the four weight and the five weight in. 00:17:56 Dave: That’s right. 00:17:57 Jeff: I probably if I were to go back and know exactly what I was going to be fishing, I had no idea what I was going to fish. I would have brought a three weight, but four weight was great. 00:18:04 Dave: And did you have to? I know you go light a lot of times where you. Is it just the rods, the reels and the line, or did you have other stuff? Other fishing stuff? 00:18:11 Jeff: No. I brought that little tiny versa pack and I just finished with that. And then, uh, a couple reels and a couple rods just in case, and just stuck them in the carry on and. 00:18:21 Dave: Yep. Yeah. And the versa pack is that describe the versa pack a little bit the size and how. Yeah. 00:18:25 Jeff: It’s like it’s like this big. It’s super small. It’s like a perfect little day pot. 00:18:29 Dave: Yeah, it’s like a little day pack. It’s like a box. You get a box of flies and some leader tippet. 00:18:33 Jeff: Box of flies and your leader tippet. All that good stuff. You know, you’re not going to be putting like, water bottles or anything like that in there. It’s it’s legitimately like I actually fish with that even when I have a bigger pack on because this thing just like sits right here. Right. 00:18:45 Dave: Oh, right. Right. So you have your big pack on and then you have the smaller one just easy. Yeah. 00:18:49 Jeff: Yeah. Just depends what’s going on. But yeah, yeah it’s a perfect little situation because it’s got a little external fly box for hooking some stuff in there. But it’s, it’s just really well designed. 00:18:58 Dave: Yeah. That’s the pack I use for steelhead fishing like summer steelhead. I love the tiny little pack goes on the chest. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that same sort of idea. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. For sure. Cool. Well, so on this trip, what else? I mean, let’s think about like, backup and more just in general fly fishing. So we’re going to talk a little about backup gear. Right. So we’ve got your rod. You should have some type of backup rod. What other items on that trip. Well maybe not this trip because this is kind of a little bit extreme. But on your typical trip, would you be bringing as backups for gear? Do you bring anything else? 00:19:25 Jeff: It depends on. Yeah. I mean, if you say anything else, it’s like. That’s a loaded question, right? 00:19:30 Dave: That’s pretty big. 00:19:31 Jeff: We love our gear and the fly fishing world on general trips. I mean, I’d say I used to bring a backup pair of polarized glasses, but I really don’t anymore. 00:19:39 Dave: Me, too. 00:19:40 Jeff: All my glasses are polarized, so I probably have something else anyway. 00:19:43 Dave: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. I used to bring glasses, man. 00:19:46 Jeff: Like, you know, people that lose sunglasses, like, every Tuesday. I really lose sunglasses. Knock on wood. So not really something that that affects. 00:19:54 Dave: No, I haven’t, I haven’t lost. Well, probably the only time I lost Perez when I dumped a boat in the river. That. That’ll do. That’s. Yeah. 00:20:00 Jeff: That’ll do. 00:20:01 Dave: Yeah. But. So you got glasses? Yeah. There’s really not much. I mean, the rod seems to be the biggest back. I mean, I guess you got. Wait. I used to do the water thing too, because waders. I don’t do that now because I think waders are maybe at a level where they’re, you know. But I used to do that. Um, what else could happen? I’ve had boot, I’ve had belts fall off of boots. I’ve had to duct tape. 00:20:18 Jeff: I mean. 00:20:19 Dave: Yeah, anything could happen right on the trip. And then you got everything else, I guess. I guess the rod maybe is your most important backup item, would you say? 00:20:25 Jeff: I mean, I think it is, like I said, you never know what’s going to happen. And I, you know, I don’t generally back up the same size of rod unless I’m going to the Bahamas Bonefishing or something like that. I might have an extra eight weight with me, because that’s just what I want to fish the whole time, but I’m just making sure I have multiple rods that can do multiple things. 00:20:41 Dave: Yep. Right, right. And so your rod you mentioned it. The four piece, the six. And that’s pretty much. And then you get them in all weights and you say what would you say most of your current customers are buying. Like what are they fishing for. Is it still kind of mostly trout. Then you got a little mix of other things. 00:20:56 Jeff: We do a good amount of saltwater, uh, business these days. Just because we have such a good value in saltwater. Fly fishing can get pretty pricey, as you know. So, I mean, you know, in the V2 lineup, just traditional four piece rods. I mean, we can outfit an entire combo for like five fifty. 00:21:13 Dave: And they’re powerful rods too, right? That’s a great thing. They’re pretty. Would you call them a fat, a medium? What kind of action would you call them? 00:21:18 Jeff: Medium fast is what I consider them. Yeah. So it’s a nice stiff. It’ll take it’ll it’ll cut the wind. You know, it’s a really good feeling, rod. 00:21:26 Dave: Is that something for you? Is salt water still like a big trip? You love doing the saltwater trips? 00:21:31 Jeff: It’s in my mind, but I haven’t done it for a while, so it’s like it’s one of those things where I keep. Oh, my God, I love saltwater fly fishing. I mean, I think I went at one point in time probably like, you know, call it seventeen or eighteen years ago. I had gone like seven or eight years in a row down to Ascension Bay, Mexico. And just like every April, I was down there. 00:21:51 Dave: You were there. 00:21:52 Jeff: Fishing permit, tarpon, bonefish, whatever we could find. I just I love it. It’s just sitting at the end of the boat for the entire day, just staring into nothing. Waiting to look for a tail or some sort of movement is. It’s awesome. 00:22:03 Dave: Yeah, yeah. You guys have. I mean, you’re. Where are you at? Remind us again in Colorado. 00:22:08 Jeff: So I’m actually in Des Moines, Iowa. 00:22:09 Dave: Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was thinking Colorado, I was talking yeah. You’re in Iowa. That’s right. 00:22:13 Jeff: I’m in Iowa. So it’s not necessarily like the Mecca of fly fishing, but I fly fish for carp here in Iowa a lot. And I’ve gone up to the Driftless Area. I go up there several times. 00:22:23 Dave: You have the Driftless up north, for sure. 00:22:25 Jeff: So I was I actually made it up, uh, to fish the Wisconsin Drift this this year for the first time. I’ve done Iowa several times. I’ve been in Minnesota. So Wisconsin is a pretty cool little slice too. 00:22:36 Dave: Yeah it is. That’s what we fished last time. Yeah, a couple of years ago. We fished that and then we had a guy, one of our group, when we left, I think they stayed another day and they went down and or. No, it was during the trip they went down to Iowa because there had been some pressure and they fished across the border and they had some. Right. It’s kind of funny, but. 00:22:52 Jeff: Yeah, well, one of the cool things about the Iowa Driftless is they don’t close. Right. So Wisconsin. 00:22:57 Dave: Yeah, that’s what they have. 00:22:58 Jeff: They have a season that closes. 00:22:59 Dave: Yeah. 00:23:00 Jeff: So Iowa’s open year round. And I love going up there in the winter and the heart of the winter because there’s less anglers. There’s no bugs. 00:23:06 Dave: Mhm. 00:23:07 Jeff: The weeds are beat down. So you find the right spots. I mean you can fly fish right in January and break the ice off your guides and do that whole whole good stuff. So hardcore. It’s pretty cool. Yeah. 00:23:16 Dave: Yeah I forgot about that. Yeah, you’re Iowa, so that makes sense with the travel too, because you’ve done a lot of travel. Obviously Iowa has some fishing, but if you want to get out and do some of these other things, you kind of got to spread out. 00:23:26 Jeff: Yeah for sure. 00:23:26 Dave: Yeah yeah yeah. Okay. Cool. Well that makes sense on that. So on your travel you know with what you have going again somebody is coming in. They’re looking for a new rod. They don’t know. You know what to get. Talk about this rod I’m holding here because I use this a lot. In fact my kid I had one of my daughters was using this on this amazing trip, and they caught a beautiful rainbow on this rod. Nice. But talk about, like, when you look at this thing, like the components, the real seat, the handle with the little, um, you know, it seems like you put a lot of effort into. And the guides talk about the difference between that and maybe another rod that doesn’t have quite what you did on this one. Describe that a little bit. 00:24:01 Speaker 3: You know, I think at the end of the day, every company. 00:24:03 Jeff: Has to choose whether, how much money they’re going to put into a rod. Right. And that affects the price at the end of the day. So I really tried on the El Rey G6 line to really spend where it made the most sense. We spend a lot of money on the blank. All the components and I don’t know, I even kind of like double down on the tube a little bit. And I probably spent way more on the tube than I ever have before. 00:24:28 Dave: But the metal tube, you know, what the metal tube does? It’s kind of like, um, it’s like, uh, what’s it like? Well is it. Now tell me this is it one hundred percent waterproof. 00:24:36 Jeff: Yours is carbon. So yeah, that that lg G6 is carbon. So it’s ridiculously light. 00:24:40 Dave: Is it one hundred percent waterproof? The tube itself. 00:24:43 Jeff: Defined one hundred percent waterproof. That’s kind of a hard one for me, right? 00:24:46 Dave: Right. Well, so this happened to me on a recent trip. I had some yeah, some spey rods in the boat. They got wet and I forgot to take them out of the case for a few days. 00:24:55 Jeff: I got you. 00:24:56 Dave: Yeah, right. And because of that. But this thing, I’ll bet you would have kept a lot of the water out of the. 00:25:01 Jeff: I don’t I don’t know if water would get in there or not. Dave. I haven’t like submersed it and tested it. 00:25:05 Dave: You should check that because I know it’s not. It’s probably a hundred percent, but it probably would have saved me a little bit because when I took those rods out, it wasn’t good. 00:25:12 Jeff: No kidding. Did they get moldy or. 00:25:14 Dave: Yeah, they got moldy. They got they got mold. I mean, it wasn’t again, your rod because it was small enough was actually in the boat seat, so it didn’t it never even got wet, you know what I mean? But the other ones were in the back. 00:25:25 Jeff: Okay. Yeah, that’s a bummer. Yeah, I that’s it’s one of these things you never think about. Right. But I don’t know, I haven’t tested that one to see what it’d be like. 00:25:32 Dave: Okay. But I do think that when you look at mine, I’ve traveled with it now a little bit. It’s got some, you know, little scratches and stuff. But the nice thing is, is it’s like I go back to the iPhone when I first got an iPhone, man, the box that came in, you were just, like, impressed by the box. 00:25:46 Jeff: The packaging was amazing, wasn’t it? 00:25:47 Dave: And so you kind of have the same. Right. That packaging of the case makes a difference. 00:25:52 Jeff: Yeah. And I also think it’s just it’s a well-made case and it’s as small as it needs to be. Right. So it’s not overly bulky. Again, I was hesitant to invest the kind of money I did in the tube in this one, just because I like to keep most of the performance in the rod. But I think it was worth it for for a rod that, like you said, is going to get nicked up a little bit because you’re traveling with it, you’re using it, and I think it was worth it. It was money well spent. 00:26:14 Dave: I do, I agree because I look at all my rods I have and again I, I’ve got a mixture of rods, but I think it’s the only one that’s aluminum or it’s, is it carbon or aluminum. 00:26:22 Jeff: Yeah. It’s it’s carbon. Yeah. 00:26:24 Dave: Right. Again. So it’s carbon I mean that’s the only so I feel like again, I haven’t even talked about that yet, but that’s pretty awesome. So you’ve got that going. But again back to the like your point is on the rods and the everything you put together, you just made a very nice looking rod. And what is the price point on the talk about your price points on the. 00:26:42 Jeff: The G6 rods, they sell for like six hundred bucks normally. 00:26:46 Dave: Yeah. 00:26:47 Jeff: So I mean again, the feedback we get from all the independent news out there, whether that be a magazine or just independent guides or customers of ours, they tell us that, you know, they fish like one thousand dollars for piece rods. Yeah. And that was the goal when we set out to make these things. And since we go direct to the consumer, we don’t have that retail markup. So we have a better price point for higher level gear. And that’s a big chunk of our value prop. And then you put on on top of it, you know, the packability of this rod. It’s just a nice little niche that we’ve carved out. We’re not a huge company, so we don’t have to sell millions of rods a year to make things happen so we can. We’re growing at a great pace, for the most part organically. Which is the best way to grow? Yeah. Um, through word of mouth and that kind of thing. So it’s been pretty fun. Little ride. But the G6 is kind of like, that’s the flagship, really niche that we have in the travel sector. Um, I was talking to a guy this morning from Texas that bought a couple of our LFA combos for a trip. He’s getting ready to go on in the Bahamas, and he’s got a few of our other combos. He just he he said it and I’ll quote him. He’s like, he’s like the full combo that you guys have in the discounts that you get for buying a rod and reel together. He’s like, it’s just unmatched, especially in the saltwater space, right? Trout for sure. There’s a lot more options than trout. But yeah, there are saltwater complete combos. We package up a perfect combo. And again, if you want to fish a four piece ride, that’s what my El Jefe V2 lineup is all about, right? It’s all about four suction rods. I built two six section El Jefe V2 rods just because I had a lot of demand for it. But the flagship that that product is going to be mainly four section. So we’ll have three through ten weight here in a month. 00:28:27 Dave: And the real and you can get an actual saltwater reel that’s going to be great for the salt. 00:28:32 Jeff: Yeah. So you got to have a fully sealed drag if you’re going to fish fish salt water. And generally the price points on reels like that are pretty high right. So direct to the consumer. No retail markup on a fully sealed drag. Stainless steel reel is a great little value prop that we have. 00:28:47 Dave: So and then line wise do you guys do some lines or talk about that a little bit. 00:28:51 Jeff: Yeah. So we just have private label line from a factory that we work with and they freespool the reels for us. So everything’s ready to go for the anglers, which is great. So, um, you know, am I going to compare this to a one hundred and fifty dollars fly line from the big brands? know, but it’s ridiculously functional. I mean, I fished this fly line all over the world and it castrate if you like to upgrade your fly line like a lot of guys do. We also have a scientific angler deals. We can do that for you too. So it’s just whatever you like, you know? 00:29:20 Dave: Yep. That’s it. Make it easy. I think that’s the thing. Make it easy for somebody to get going on this stuff. 00:29:25 Jeff: Yeah, yeah. And that’s been fun to be able to do for people to help kind of demystify some of the, you know, everybody’s been to the certain fly shop and they’re not all like this, but sometimes you walk into one and you walk out and you’re like, I don’t know if I just bought a car or what did I just get? But I got a lot of stuff. I know that, so I know. 00:29:42 Dave: Well, that’s the thing. I mean, yeah, if you have the money and you got money coming out of your ears and plenty of money, it’s not as big of a deal. But if you know, if you don’t, then it is important, right? 00:29:51 Jeff: Well, you want to get the best value for your money, right? I think we have a pretty good value prop when it comes to that. And obviously we have a lot of great competitors out there that make great stuff. But yeah, we carve out our little niche in the market and this is where we’re going to play. 00:30:03 Dave: Yeah, well we did talk to. And I just remember now, um, who’s the, um, to we had the episode we did remind me I’m drawing a blank on, um, the guest we had on. 00:30:12 Jeff: Yeah. You got, uh, I think I sent over to connect with Kurt Dieter, right? 00:30:16 Dave: Yeah. Kurt. 00:30:17 Jeff: Yeah, yeah. 00:30:18 Dave: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He. And so he talked about his whole program and what they have going. They got a lot going there. 00:30:23 Jeff: Oh yeah. 00:30:24 Dave: But he, he did a review on on your which rod was it that he reviewed. 00:30:28 Jeff: I think the same one you got in your hand. Yeah. The same. 00:30:30 Dave: one. Same one. That’s right. Yeah. So we talked about that. We’ll get a link out to that. But he had some really positive kind of uh, you know, take on it and all that. So yeah, again I think, I think there’s yeah. 00:30:39 Jeff: I was just going to say I really appreciate his perspective. Right. Because he talks to every single brand out there. He talks to anglers all over the country and he talks to everybody. Right. And to hear his conclusion was kind of yeah I agree. The technology has caught up. And this this is a ridiculously good casting rod. It’s great validation for us. 00:30:58 Dave: Yep. Perfect. Well, let’s go back to a little bit on the travel because we talked about that European vacation. So was that a day? So you had this trip, you did everything else, and it was kind of a day on the water with the trip. Or was it. Yeah. 00:31:10 Jeff: So yeah, that was it. So we had one day that I kind of like carved off that. We had some we went through like, I don’t know if you ever hear much about going to Austria, like the most touristy possible thing you could ever do is a bus trip that is like the Sound of Music tour, right? One of the most iconic things about Austria is the sound movie The Sound of Music. Right? Okay. It’s like there’s like hundreds of thousands of people every single year that go to this place to go on that tour, right? So we did that. And then like a couple days before we do this, like excursion off in the back country, dinner at a nice restaurant where people weren’t even wearing shoes in the place, and it was like a fine dining restaurant. It was it was amazing. Oh, wow. So like, we went off the beaten path and then we did the tourist to the tourist stuff. So we just had a couple of days planned just to go explore by ourselves. And fortunately the timing worked out with my new friend from Austria. 00:32:00 Dave: Yeah. And what was his name? Do you? Your new friend, the the? Well, he was a guide. But also the sheriff. 00:32:05 Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The fish police man. Yeah, yeah. Marvin. Yeah. Marvin. 00:32:09 Dave: Marvin. Yeah. Okay. And we could check out his find him. And you’re probably you talked about in the blog post. 00:32:14 Jeff: Yeah. For sure. I can get you his contact information too, in case anybody’s going over there. A really good guy. 00:32:18 Dave: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. Okay. And and anything else on that trip, was that a pretty standard? Did you guys, uh, you know, as far as what it is, just get your ticket over there and go for it. Or was there a lot of planning on all the logistics and all that stuff staying? 00:32:30 Jeff: We did a decent amount of planning. My my wife actually knew somebody that owned a travel business, and they kind of set us up and did all the bought, all the train tickets and all that kind of stuff and all the hotels for us. And it was it was worth it. My wife and I have actually never been to Europe. So I think what we realized and what I realized is that there’s actually a good amount of fly fishing over there. Yeah. And it’s kind of an amazing spot. I mean, we all know that German browns aren’t native to, you know, the white River. 00:32:58 Dave: So totally. 00:32:59 Jeff: It’s is where they all came from, all the Browns anyway, so it’s pretty cool that you can go over there and it’s like, I don’t know, I, I still get excited about fishing for native fish anywhere, right? So it’s that’s kind of a cool thing to know that that’s the native local fish. And they’ve been around forever. 00:33:13 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. Because that was it’s their German browns. But yeah those are native to Europe. Right. All those German brown trout are in that spread out. Yeah probably probably subspecies and different subspecies and stuff like that. But that’s where they’re from. 00:33:25 Jeff: Yeah. He was telling me that there’s actually a few rivers over there in Austria that have rainbow trout in them too. And he’s like, it’s basically an exchange program where they put a giant tank and a boat and shipped it over to America with brown trout, and they brought back rainbow trout, right? 00:33:39 Dave: It’s like, that’s right. 00:33:41 Jeff: That’s what they did. That’s pretty cool. 00:33:42 Dave: There you go. Yeah. No, I think Europe is definitely one of those places that there’s just a lot. I’ve heard a lot about it because we’ve done some episodes but also like team USA. Yeah, all the comp fishing because those Europeans man those anglers are, are like high level, you know, I mean it’s their whole life but yeah. Okay. Cool. And and so you do this trip, and now you’re back. I mean, what’s it like now when you’re thinking about now we’re going into the holidays, you’re going to get through this period. As you look out to next year. What should we be thinking about from our perspective? Are you going to be doing more of the same here with your rod line and everything you have going? 00:34:12 Jeff: Yeah, I mean, I see us like expanding a few new rods next year. This year was a huge rebuilding year. The entire portfolio, right. So I think we’ll probably add a few here and there. Like I’ve still got a little bit of a passion for those tiny fly rods. So I’ll probably redo my zero through two weight line. 00:34:29 Dave: Oh, the zero. 00:34:29 Jeff: That we had before. We’ve made those in the past and had some great feedback on them, so I’ll rebuild those in this new factory probably next year. 00:34:36 Dave: Zero two way. Okay. 00:34:38 Jeff: Yep. So those will be four section rods because they’re small. Anyway. 00:34:41 Dave: Talk about that a little bit because I’m not as familiar on the on the other end I have casting some small stuff between a zero one two eight. What when were you using one of those or the other? 00:34:50 Jeff: It’s plug and play, right? Use whatever you want. Okay. So you want to have a zero weight. Get a zero weight. You want to fish a one way? Like I fished the one way in the Driftless Area. Just fishing like a dry dropper. And it’s a ball, right? It’s just. It’s super fun. 00:35:02 Dave: How long is it? How long was the one you fished? 00:35:04 Jeff: The one weight that we made was seven and a half feet or seven. Maybe it was seven. I think it’s seven. Seven? Yeah. My two weight was seven and a half, but, uh, yeah, I mean, not super long. I think the zero weight was six and a half foot. Um, I’d say like, honestly, where I use those rods more than anything else is fishing for bluegills in a lake. 00:35:22 Dave: Oh, wow. Bluegill. 00:35:24 Jeff: Oh, my gosh. I mean, that is just all day, all day fun. 00:35:28 Dave: Yeah. And what reel do you put on a little rod like that? 00:35:30 Jeff: Just a tiny little reel that we built. Yeah, just super small. Yeah. We got a super tiny one. Yeah. 00:35:35 Dave: Yep. That does sound pretty cool. We hear a lot about that. You know, we’ve been talking about like, the native trout challenges and stuff. People are around. They’re traveling. It’s not just giant fish anymore. Right. People don’t. Everybody doesn’t have to catch. I mean, I’m the same way. It’s like if I was to catch a unique species in some headwater stream, and that’s the only rod you’re going to use. There is one of these tiny ones, right? 00:35:54 Jeff: Yeah, that’s probably that. The LG G6 are three weight. That’s seven and a half foot. The tube in that thing is like, you know, eighteen, nineteen inches long. That’s probably like our absolute most popular backpacking rod. 00:36:06 Dave: Oh, it is the three weight. 00:36:08 Jeff: So if you’re if you’re just going up to like the headwaters and fishing a little tiny mountain stream, like, honestly, that’s way more than you need ninety nine percent of the time. And it’s the smallest rod pack ability that we have. 00:36:19 Dave: It is. 00:36:20 Jeff: So it’s a sweet little rod. We actually sell a ton of those. 00:36:23 Dave: Oh, you do know I mean, that’s the thing. And that’s one rod. I do have some small rods. I got some weird custom rods and stuff. But yeah. What would be your I always go I think of the, the weights. If you had to get a quiver, you’re, it sounds like you’re getting your whole thing from zero up to whatever. But if you had to pick a few of those I always think of, even in odds. What are your ranges? Do you like more of the five, seven, nine? Are you more the two, four? Six? Eight? Ten? 00:36:46 Jeff: It depends where I’m going. I know that’s a horrible, horrible answer, but if I’m going to Montana, I’m a four, six, eight guy. 00:36:53 Dave: You’re a four, six, eight. And why is that? 00:36:55 Jeff: I want a four way about an eight and a half foot four way for dry fly. 00:36:58 Dave: Yep. 00:36:59 Jeff: And that might not be what pops out all the time, but that’s what I just like to fish, right? 00:37:04 Dave: Yeah. 00:37:04 Jeff: Um, you can obviously fish bigger rods if you got bigger fish and you’re fishing bigger bugs, like a squall, a hatch or something like that. Yeah. The six weight. If I’m fishing big water, a six weight is probably my go to rod for fishing. Montana. 00:37:17 Dave: That’s just me too. 00:37:17 Jeff: Does everything. And then I’m an eight weight streamer guy, so I just I like a bigger rod with a little bit more backbone, just in case. You know, there are situations where you have a heck of a lot more confidence when you’re pulling in a streamer, and all of a sudden something ginormous comes out and it’s just, I know I can get this fish in quicker, right? Yeah. So, right, I don’t know, everybody’s a little bit different. I love hate weights I always have. 00:37:42 Dave: Yeah that’s it. Yeah. And eight weights or and I’ve used a ton of eight weights because of steelhead fishing back in the day. 00:37:47 Jeff: All day. So yeah. Yeah I mean I go out like in Iowa. I’ll go out and I’ll carp fish a little bit. And yeah, I’ve done that with the five, with the six weight and everything. But, you know, I’m probably nine out of ten times taking an eight weight with me because I have caught thirty five to forty pound carp in that river system that I fished most of the time. And I mean that one that I landed that was probably somewhere between thirty five and forty pounds. That took an hour to get in, and I had to chase the thing downstream, like forever. So I don’t think I would have caught that fish on a five weight. 00:38:18 Dave: No. Yeah, that’s a difference. And the win the six weight is better than the win. Yeah for sure. More backbone. Yeah. Yeah I think I’m the same. I’m kind of more if I had to pick more evens. 00:38:27 Jeff: Yeah I mean I think if we look at it statistically in the fly fishing world, I think they say that like seventy percent of all fly rods sold are five weights. 00:38:35 Dave: Or five weights. Seventy percent. 00:38:37 Jeff: Yeah, something like that. Somewhere between sixty and seventy percent. And that’s a lot of percentage. But again, a five weights a beautiful rod right. It does. Yeah. It’s everything you need to do ninety percent. 00:38:45 Dave: Of the time. Yeah. It’s light enough. It’s just heavy enough. You could still do. Yeah. That’s why the. Yeah. 00:38:50 Jeff: Yeah. And it’s just it’s like everything else, man. It’s like, uh, six weight, five weight. It’s like, I don’t know, you tell me, as long as you’re fishing, who cares, right? But yeah. Yeah, that’s just that’s what I fish. 00:39:01 Dave: It’s always fun to go down that road, that trip in Montana. You guys, we’ve been talking about that a little bit. That trip was pretty. I mean, I’ve been looking now. I mean, you guys have some pretty big brown trout you caught. Oh my gosh. Yeah yeah. Was that a pretty good trip? 00:39:12 Jeff: I’ve been lucky enough to fish Montana a lot. I mean, our daughter moved out there in twenty twenty to go to school. So now we have built in reasons to go to Montana more often, which is kind of awesome. So I love going out there and I’ve met Jake. You interviewed Jake, and Jake become a really, really good friend of mine. He’s an incredible guy. Fishy as hell. 00:39:31 Dave: Super cool. 00:39:31 Jeff: Um, that dude will work harder for you than anybody to make sure that you get into fish, right? And like, we’ve never even had a day that was even, like, I would say, mediocre. It was just like, out of all the days we fished, we’ve just never had one. 00:39:44 Dave: Uh, Missoula Fly guy. Is that is that guy? 00:39:47 Jeff: Yep. That’s Jake. Yeah, he’s a stud. And, um, I don’t know how many people I’ve. I’ve recommended fish with him, and he’s great, but, um, I think, like, when you think about all the different places that you can fish from Missoula to get to. I mean, we go to the Missouri, you fish the Blackfoot, you have the Clark Fork, you have the Bitterroot. It’s all, you know, within an area. So no matter what’s going on in each river system, you got options. And then he got to make a call. It’s like, all right, what are we going to hit today? 00:40:14 Dave: Right, right. That’s amazing. 00:40:16 Jeff: So it’s super cool. It depends on the hatch. It depends on what you want to do and depends on, you know, skill level and risk level. Because some of the plays you’re going to go to out in Montana, you might be fishing for two or three hours with the hope of one big strike. Right? Yeah. And other places you might say, listen, we’re going to go hit uh, twelve to sixteen inch fish and we’re going to be in them all day. And both days are great, right? Just depends on what you want. 00:40:37 Dave: Yeah. What you want. Well, tell me this. So we’re talking you’re in Iowa. You’ve been going to Montana a lot. What’s your one rod for Montana right now. You’re one. If you’re picking what is your weight length. 00:40:47 Jeff: So generally speaking, when I go out there, um, I think the last couple times I’ve gone out there, I’ve only fished with the LG, G6. So I’ve brought six section rods and I’ve fished them exclusively out there with those. 00:40:58 Dave: It’s like a six weight. 00:40:58 Jeff: Yeah, well six weight. So I’ve had one prototype of the six weight L ray rod. 00:41:04 Dave: Okay. 00:41:04 Jeff: Which the line will come out in December. But I’ve been fishing that one out there as my primary rod. Um, we went we went to Alaska this summer too, and we fished that same rod. My son fished the six weight the entire time. 00:41:17 Dave: The six weight, the same rod I have. Just the newer version. 00:41:19 Jeff: Yeah, exactly. 00:41:20 Dave: How is the newer version different? What? Did you tweak your rod? 00:41:23 Jeff: The same rod. It’s not different at all. Yeah. The the G6 is. That’s our that’s the flagship on that one okay. The rods. Yeah. My son fished the LFA eight weight and seven weight quite a bit up there too. And that they were they were great. 00:41:35 Dave: Gotcha. So he fished seven eight and then. But your one rod for Montana would be. What would it be if you had to pick one, one weight. 00:41:41 Jeff: It’d be a nine foot six weight. 00:41:42 Dave: Yeah. Six weight. Okay. And then what about Alaska? What would be your one rod for Alaska? Only one. 00:41:47 Jeff: Uh, if I could only bring one rod with me. 00:41:49 Dave: Just one. 00:41:50 Jeff: Which you already know. My mantra on having more than one rod. So you’re hurting me a little bit. 00:41:54 Dave: That’s true. I am making this hard. I’m making this hard. 00:41:56 Jeff: I’m taking eight. Wait. 00:41:57 Dave: Yeah, eight. Wait. Yep. That’s a good call. And then. And then what about Iowa? Only one rod. 00:42:01 Jeff: Only one rod. In Iowa, I’m probably fishing. Nine foot four weight. 00:42:05 Dave: A four weight. Yeah. Good call. 00:42:06 Jeff: Yeah, I might go three weight. Just. 00:42:09 Dave: Oh, really? Okay. 00:42:09 Jeff: Well, I mean. 00:42:10 Dave: You wouldn’t be able to get the carp. Or could you get carp on a three weight. 00:42:12 Jeff: Oh. So sorry I had driftless on my mind. So yeah, if I only had one rod to fish the entire state six weight. 00:42:20 Dave: Okay. So there you go. Back to six. Okay. Yeah. And then what about saltwater? One rod for say where were you at in Mexico? 00:42:26 Jeff: Ascension Bay. 00:42:26 Dave: Yeah. Ascension. 00:42:27 Jeff: I’d take an eight weight. I could fish from it. I could fish bonefish. 00:42:30 Dave: So it’s the battle of the six versus the eight weight. It sounds like as we pick these. Yeah. Okay. And then I won’t even ask you to pick between the eight and six, because that would be too hard. But yeah. 00:42:39 Jeff: Okay, I don’t know. Well I mean, again, if I had to pick between one of those two, I’d probably pick the six and just, uh, realize that to be more careful. Right. 00:42:47 Dave: Yeah, exactly. Cool. Nice. Well, let’s give a quick shout out to our wet fly swing pro community. I want to do, um, talking to Bill this week. Uh, Bill Stone, um, we’re going to be chatting. He is. I was talking to him about what he’s into, and he really loves streamers. He wants to learn more about streamers. It’s a big struggle for me to man. Streamers are like, who doesn’t want to catch a big fish on a big streamer? Um, so first I want to give a big shout out to Bill Wet Fly Swing Pro, our community there. But for you, you’ve done a little streamers. What would be your tip? Would you have something to tell Bill to be like, hey Bill, this could help you with streamers. Are you at that level or are you still learning on the streamers? 00:43:19 Jeff: No, I love streamer fishing. I think every guy that knows me is like, they’ll be a rod with me in the boat. And he’s like, no, we’re only nymph fishing today. I’m like, yeah, but I’m bringing Streamer Rod and they’re like, yeah, I told you, you don’t need it. I was like, no, I’m bringing a streamer, rod. We’re gonna do it. And they’re like, fine. They usually they give up. So I love it. I just I love hunting, right. Yeah. And it’s all about hunting and being persistent and you know, just keep keep. 00:43:40 Dave: Keep going. 00:43:41 Jeff: Keep keep going. 00:43:42 Dave: So even if you don’t, it’s kind of like you’re not catching anything. You’re just like nothing, nothing, nothing. And all of a sudden, like, boom. 00:43:48 Jeff: Well it depends. Right? There’ll be signs. So you’ll see fish start to follow you. So if you see no fish following the streamer for forty five minutes, an hour. Something’s wrong. Maybe you should be fishing, but if you’re seeing follows and they’re coming, then you got to tweak your retrieve a little bit. It’s just a fun way to go. And I mean, half those giant fish, that’s what they eat, right? They’re gonna eat two meals a day and they’re gonna eat a ten inch rainbow and that’s it, right? Or maybe once a day or once every three days, I don’t know. Yeah, but if you can get lucky and get the fly in the right spot. Yeah. And that’s, you know, every bit of fishing takes a little bit of luck, right? Yeah. We’re all immortal, but it’s. No. Yeah, it’s. But I love the hunt. 00:44:29 Dave: What’s your best if you think of the most fish you think about that was this amazing fish. What fly took that fish do you remember? Or what’s a fly that sticks out to you? 00:44:38 Jeff: Probably like a like an olive sex dungeon. Like a size two? 00:44:41 Dave: Yeah. Okay. 00:44:42 Jeff: And that’s probably like, my favorite. Like bigger one size six if you’re fishing a little bit smaller area. Huge, huge water. I love the bigger ones. I’ve still been trying to find some really good kind of like rainbow trout and like looking flies. There’s a ton out there, but. 00:44:56 Dave: Oh yeah. 00:44:56 Jeff: Yeah. I mean, I just, I think about fish in the white River and I think about all the stalker rainbows down there that those big giant browns are eating every day. And it’s like, it’s just to watch those things come and strike a rainbow that you’re pulling in on. Your nymph rod is pretty. Yeah. Pretty exciting. And I’ve had that happen multiple times. 00:45:14 Dave: Yeah. Down on the white, right down south of where you’re at. 00:45:16 Jeff: I bet it happened on the white multiple times. And I actually had a bull trout eat about a fourteen inch brook trout and or not brook trout, but a cutthroat trout in Montana it was a monster. Bull trout, bull trout. And it was holding on to the fish like it was a dog with a giant bone in its mouth. 00:45:31 Dave: No kidding. And you had the fish hooked. 00:45:33 Jeff: Well, I didn’t have the bull trout hooked. No. 00:45:35 Dave: The brook. 00:45:36 Jeff: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The cut. And it was hooked. He was coming in. This thing just came out like a freight train and rolled it. 00:45:41 Dave: Like a what, like a five pounder or something. 00:45:44 Jeff: I’ll bet the fish was probably. It was three feet long. Easily. It was way bigger than giant. Way bigger than. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know what that weight is. If that’s ten twenty. I have no idea. But it was massive. It looked like a giant pike underwater. It was crazy. 00:45:57 Dave: That’s crazy. 00:45:58 Jeff: Pretty neat experience. We didn’t get that one on the boat, but it was. 00:46:01 Dave: Yeah. So you’ve done the white. That’s something that’s on my bucket list for sure. 00:46:05 Jeff: The white’s amazing. It’s just a it’s a fishery. That’s I mean it’s only like six or seven hours from me. So pretty easy to get to, pretty easy for a lot of people to get to in the Midwest. Right. 00:46:14 Dave: Right. Yeah. It is. 00:46:15 Jeff: There’s some good guides out there. They do a lot of spin fishing. So, um, you know, it just depends on on what you’re looking for. But I fished down there a ton. I grew up going down there. My dad used to be a pilot, and he used to fly us down because the little. 00:46:28 Dave: No kidding. 00:46:28 Jeff: Called Gaston’s actually has an airstrip, and you can actually land there. So when you go there and stay, it’s super nostalgic for me because I remember being, you know, four or five years old, trout fishing down there and staying there with my dad. And and it was a cool memories. 00:46:45 Dave: So your dad, so you guys would fly in, you would fly in with your dad on the plane. What type of plane was it? 00:46:49 Jeff: It was a little four seat Beechcraft Bonanza. He was a pilot. He was a CPA by trade, and that was like one of his things. He used to travel all over the Midwest doing audits on co-ops. That was kind of his little niche. He could he could go visit all these people. And it was pretty cool. 00:47:04 Dave: Wow. I heard something. So where I’m at, we’re kind of on the coast, really close to the coast, but there’s an airplane. Same thing. A strip, it’s just out in the middle of the woods, but it’s cool. And some guy was telling me that they have these clubs, these airplane clubs all around the country where people fly and they do these things, and they’re camping out. Right? So you know all about that. 00:47:20 Jeff: The cool thing about Gaston’s is like, they have this airship, right? So people will fly in from, like, Tennessee to have dinner because they have actually a really good restaurant at this place. So people fly, fly their plane in and go have dinner and then fly home. And it’s it’s just super neat place. It turns out there’s a ridiculous fly fishing right there too. 00:47:35 Dave: So that right there, if I had to say, sailing is still on my list too. But flying, I mean, that would be something I would love to have on that. How now? How hard is that? You have a dad who was a pilot. You must have thought about that before. Like trying the flying? 00:47:49 Speaker 4: I don’t know. I never really. 00:47:51 Jeff: Wanted. I never had the desire to become a pilot. I don’t know why. I had no idea. 00:47:56 Dave: Where did it come from? For him? From your dad. Where did that come from? 00:47:58 Jeff: I don’t know, I never asked him. 00:48:00 Dave: So you’re born and your dad was flying? 00:48:02 Jeff: Yeah. So I was born and he got into it, got his pilot’s license, and then he started, uh, you know, back then you could get a plane for a hell of a lot less than you can get one now. 00:48:10 Dave: Right. That’s true. 00:48:11 Jeff: And he was he was a CPA, so I’m sure it was a business expense. So he had he did well in that world. 00:48:16 Dave: Yeah, he worked it out. 00:48:17 Jeff: He told me I think before he passed away last year, he told me that he was like, I don’t think I could have pulled it off now versus, you know, like when I was doing it. 00:48:24 Dave: Yeah. Well, think of it. If a pickup truck costs one hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, yeah. 00:48:28 Jeff: His, his plane, he was like he said, yeah, this thing would cost a million five today. 00:48:33 Dave: Oh, yeah. 00:48:33 Jeff: It’s a different world. 00:48:34 Dave: But. Right. But you gotta experience. 00:48:37 Jeff: Yeah. It was pretty cool. Little experience. Yeah. A lot of good stories. My sister and I have of, uh, of some of the trips we took in that, but pretty cool. 00:48:43 Dave: That’s cool. That’s really cool. Awesome. Well, I think that kind of covers everything I want to talk about today. I just wanted to get that update from what you had going. Anything else you want to give a shout out to before we head out of here on? You know, I am noticing. Well, let me give you one question before you jump out of here. Your logo, your logo. We’re talking streamers. Talk about that. The airplane with the tail. What is that fly. What is the fly tail? Does that come from somewhere? What’s the material do you have? Is that a just come up with that? 00:49:07 Jeff: Yeah. So back in the day when I was making the logo’s, probably before AI was like a thing, right. But basically I wanted to combine a airplane with a fly, and we ended up taking a chunk of like a deceiver flying. Right. So deceiver could be like, Lefty’s deceiver, you know? Whatever. There you go. And we just, like, put them together. So that one question I had to put something on my frequently asked questions. What is that thing? Is it on fire or what is it? It’s like, no, no, no, it’s a it’s a fly. 00:49:33 Dave: Definitely material. 00:49:34 Jeff: Obviously. 00:49:35 Dave: It’s definitely. 00:49:36 Jeff: Making making. 00:49:36 Dave: Traps. 00:49:37 Jeff: Right. We got our start making travel gear. So it’s like that’s where it started and that’s what we did. So yeah. 00:49:43 Dave: That makes total. 00:49:43 Jeff: Sense. I’ve had a lot of people ask me like, what the hell is that thing? And I’m like, well, no. 00:49:48 Dave: Yeah, no, I like it. I my biggest question, I never had that question. Mine was is it a streamer or is it one of those or is it but it’s more of a deceiver. Yeah. At least that was your thing. 00:49:56 Jeff: Yeah. It’s a saltwater fly that we used in the prototype to make that. Yeah, yeah, I’ve actually had. Funny, I’ve actually sold a ton of hats to just airline pilots. 00:50:04 Dave: Yeah, your hats are great. You got the same one. 00:50:06 Jeff: So. Yeah, I’m wearing one right now. But yeah, it’s I just crack up because like, I’ll get this guy. He’s like, listen, I don’t even fly fish, man. Where do I get that hat? And I’m like, yeah, all right. You get you. 00:50:14 Dave: one. That’s right, that’s right. Is that the camo? The the not the what is that thing called. It’s not it’s yeah. It’s kind of camel right. 00:50:19 Jeff: Yeah I don’t know. It’s this is a sick whatever. We made these with Sims. So they’re super nice hats. I got stocking caps too, which are little beanies which okay, that thing never leaves my head in the winter, so I love that thing. 00:50:30 Dave: I know you gotta have a beanie. Cool. All right. Jeff. Well, I think we’ll leave it there. Well, do you want any other. Anything we missed today? I feel like we did a good job covering everything. Any other items out there? 00:50:39 Jeff: I don’t know, man. This this advice is self-serving, but, uh, get your next trip planned. I got I gotta get my next trip planned because it seems like, you know, if I don’t have something on the calendar, like I start getting moody. 00:50:50 Dave: So, yeah. 00:50:51 Jeff: Do yourself and your loved ones a favor and make sure that you have a fishing trip planned. 00:50:55 Dave: And you know what? The best thing I love doing when you’re on the trip and you’re on the trip, you’re already being like the next one. Yeah, here’s when the next one’s going to be before the trip’s over. 00:51:02 Jeff: Yeah, I gotta do something Caribbean this winter, man, I haven’t, I haven’t, I haven’t saltwater fly fish for a while. So it might Belize maybe something like that I got I gotta get out there again. So that’s on the list. We’ll make it happen again. Yeah. Let me know if you want to get in on one. We’ll do one together. 00:51:16 Dave: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. No, we’re trying to work some a couple of saltwater trips. We’ve been really freshwater focused, but we are trying to get some redfish, I think. And yeah, maybe something back to Mexico or something like that. So yeah, we’ll keep in touch. 00:51:28 Jeff: A lot of nine waits for guys getting heading down to the Baja to go after Roosterfish. So I think that. Oh and Roosters, that’s another one on the list. So I’ve never done that one. It looks amazing. 00:51:36 Dave: That’s right I know, I know, there’s so many. Well I guess that’s what keeps us, keeps us busy and dreaming. So we’ll, uh, we’ll set everybody out to, uh, Pescadero on the fly if they want to check in with anything and see more of the information we talked about today. But yeah, Jeff, thanks for all your time, and we’ll look forward to the next one. 00:51:52 Jeff: Sounds good man. Great to see you. Take care. 00:51:55 Dave: There we go. Another good one with Jeff. Uh, pesca on the fly dot com. You can check in with him right now on social media. If you’re interested in one of these rods and want to connect with us. Uh, send me an email. Dave. Com if you get involved in Wet Fly Swing Pro, we’ve got a special deal for you. If you get inside there and want to check out one of these rods, um, and, and we’ll get you hooked up with one of these sweet six rods. I had this rod in my hand during the episode today. It was pretty cool to be looking at it, talking about it with the experiences we’ve had now and then. Like we said, it’s it’s like that thousand dollar rod in your satchel for almost half the price. So it’s worth it’s worth checking into. All right. I just want to give a shout out. We got a big trip coming. Uh, the Pike school, uh, Northern Pike, uh, a species that we’re launching here, uh, this year, if you’re interested in heading up with, uh, with us to the Pike School, uh, you can check in with me on details, send me an email, and I’ll follow up with you. Hope you’re having a good day. Hope you have a good afternoon. If it’s evening, I hope it’s a great evening. And if it’s morning, just getting started in your day. I’m glad you stuck in today and listened to this episode to the very end. We’ll see you on the next one. Talk to you soon.