942 | Steelhead Migration and Satellite Tagging with Matt Thornton from The Wilderness Calling

WFS 942 Transcript 00:00:00 Dave: The biggest mystery in steelhead fishing isn’t how to catch them, it’s where they eventually disappear to. Today, we’re going beyond the river into the part of the journey nobody really sees. We’re talking steelhead migration, satellite tagging, Alaska guiding. And what happens after these fish leave the freshwater. We all know this is the Wet Fly Swing podcast, where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip, and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. Matt Thornton is here from the wilderness calling a guide and outfitter around the country. He’s building something that’s starting to answer one of the biggest unknowns in fly fishing, where steelhead actually go once they hit the ocean. Today, we’re going to find out what it takes to tag steelhead with satellite receivers and how that all works. What early tagging data is starting to reveal about steelhead migration, and how his guide trips are being used to fund this research. Plus, we’re going to get into a little fishing. The difference between covering water and actually fishing your fly. Plus, Matt is going to talk about how he approaches steelhead on the swing and what you need to pay attention to. All right, here we go. Matt Thornton you can support him. Get a guide trip. Find out all the information right now at the wilderness calling dot org. Here he is, Matt Thornton. How are you doing, Matt? 00:01:16 Matt: Hey. Good. How are you, Dave? 00:01:18 Dave: Great, great, great. This is this is going to be a fun one. I always love these episodes where we have a ton to talk about. You’ve got a, a nonprofit that’s super interesting where you’re tracking steelhead migrations. I don’t even know all the details. We’re going to talk about that. This thing that sounds like it’s taking over, you know, maybe your, your life and you also are a guide. We’re going to talk about that a little bit for steelhead. It sounds like Alaska, all the good stuff. But take us back real quick. Let’s go right into the wilderness calling. How did this idea come to you? Because I know for me, I always think about steelhead. That’s one of the questions that come up. You know, you’re fishing and you’re like, okay, we know these salmon are kind of going out here, but the steelhead feels like nobody really knows where they’re going. Is that was that kind of the the focus of this thing or talk about how it came to be? 00:02:02 Matt: The idea behind it really came from sitting in boats in Alaska with billionaires and millionaires and multi-millionaires, and hearing these guys be like, man, I own a bunch of businesses and I’m getting absolutely robbed this year. You know, there’s so much money I have to give to the government, and what a bummer that is and all this kind of stuff. And you know, my little my little hamster on the wheel started running and going like, man, like, what if you, uh, you know, helped to like allocate some of those funds towards fish and fisheries since, I mean, that’s a lot of what we do out there anyways, right? Is we introduce people to the place and the sport and they fall in love with it. And, you know, next thing you know, they’re spending more time out there and, and, you know, at the end of the day, more resources would be great, right? So that was inception. And then prior to that, I had dated a woman. I had moved to Alaska from from Portland, Oregon, here where I live. I had moved up there with a woman that became a fisheries biologist and, um, uh, got accepted to UAF. And so, like, we lived in Alaska for a couple years together. And, uh, that was where I met some of the guys who are like the postdoc, um, brains, uh, behind this project. And I called, you know, like, I’m like, oh, man, I really should get into conservation, right? I’ve got these like, you know, multi millionaire billionaire dudes with right way too much money being like, man, what am I going to do with all this cash? So the government doesn’t eat it? And I’m like, okay, so I call my buddy Kevin. I’m like, what are you guys, you know, Kevin Fraley’s awesome postdoc guy, fisheries biologist. I’m like, what are you guys working on? You know? And he’s like, oh, minnow traps and, um, you know, coverts and stuff like that. But the coolest thing that we’re working on is, uh, we took the tags that we’ve been putting on sharks and tuna for all these years, and we made them small enough that you could put them on anadromous fish. And, um, you know, you should check out my buddy Michael’s study, which I did. Michael Courtney is like the foremost telemetry science scientist in the world for freshwater fish. Um, and he did a study on the Seatuck River up in Alaska where he tagged, uh, sixty, I think it was like sixty three fish for a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. And like, when I saw that paper and what was possible, how you can like track ocean migration routes of spread, I was like, whoa. And like, and then you’re exactly right, Dave. You’re like, as an angler, you’re like, you know, I wonder where these suckers go when they go back out, right? You know. 00:04:36 Dave: Because that’s a part that’s a big part of it because you know, something’s going on, you know, ocean conditions changing and stuff like that. But there’s also fishing. You know, you look at the Chinook fishery, we’ve heard a lot about the the trawlers and stuff, but I mean, we’ve got protections on our waters. But when they get out to the ocean, right, there’s some stuff going on out there with harvesting that might, we might be able to make a change. Right? 00:04:55 Matt: Absolutely. And it’s I mean, it’s a I love that I’m a part of a community that’s so active in conservation. You know, that’s just who we are as anglers, right? It’s like built in and but there’s so much on, on, uh, freshwater, you know, and, and what’s happening here, like dams and stuff. I love the Kalama thing, you know, all this stuff. The Elwha was cool to watch, but, you know, there’s less of a spotlight. I’m not going to say no one because there’s some there’s some folks that have come before me that have put in some good groundwork here, but it’s less studied. 00:05:26 Dave: And that’s because because salmon are always, you know, Chinook is number one. You know, the salmon get the love because they’re the the big fish, right? Steelhead aren’t as as good of eating as Sam is that kind of why why it’s not hasn’t been studied as much. 00:05:40 Matt: Yeah. I mean, I really do think it comes down to commercial viability. Man. At the end of the day, unfortunately, it’s just like everything else that we touch. It’s like, can we sell it? Do we buy it? You know, because we tried actually like two years ago, we tried for a, we tried for a federal grant and we found out that steelhead are not a federally managed stock, and therefore we weren’t qualified for that, for that grant. I was like, what? They’re not like, no one in the federal government is managing this. Like no one cares. I’m like, no, man. Like, they don’t know. Yeah. 00:06:13 Dave: Unless it’s a ESA listed fish. They don’t really have. Yeah. Wow. So that’s it. So you guys got maybe describe, uh, you know, kind of and we’re going to get into some fishing too for people listening, you know, we’re going to definitely talk a little fishing. 00:06:25 Matt: Yeah. Well, we, we still love fishing. 00:06:28 Dave: Yeah, yeah. We’re going to talk about that. But tell us about the, uh, telemetry and stuff, how that works, how you track because kind of there’s a thing there, you know, you’ve got this thing that’s out there, how do you, you know, batteries and all this stuff describe that and what you’re doing, what the project is now, what it could be in five years. 00:06:43 Matt: It’s not easy. I, I’m one of these guys that just kind of does stuff and then later goes like, oh, yeah, right. 00:06:52 Dave: Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s just jump in. And then you realize, man, there’s actually, it’s like going to the moon. It’s like, oh, this is, this is not going to be easy. 00:06:58 Matt: Yeah. I mean, I literally learned sink or swim style. So that so that’s congruent with the rest of my life. And, uh, yeah, so it’s telemetry. Science is no joke, man. It’s really, it’s really difficult. So the way these tags work is that they record depth, temperature, speed, light, uh, acceleration and location. So I will like, I just put ten tags out this year, right? We have sixteen tags out total. We have, uh, the first tag that was ever, uh, deployed and successfully like recorded information in Oregon. And now actually we’ve got a couple of them. I just got, I’m getting, I’m getting data back right now. There’s a tag that’s sitting in the ocean. I’m not going to say where. Yeah. 00:07:44 Dave: Right. 00:07:45 Matt: But there’s one that’s transmitting to me right now. And so the way it works is I’ll catch a fish in um, in the, uh, river and we’ll put the tag on. It’s about a three minute process. If you’re, if you’re quick, you know, and um, once that tags on, it’s in sort of like sleep mode. And, uh, once the fish hits the salt water, it triggers like a countdown on that tag, um, for the burn pin to release. And when the burn pin releases, the tag floats to the surface and feeds me all that data. Does that make sense? 00:08:24 Dave: Yeah, yeah. Describe that again. So you put the tag in and once it hits salt. So the estuary once it hits the estuary because there’s some salt. Or is it a certain amount? 00:08:31 Matt: It’s a certain amount. So I had to take a salinity rating. 00:08:34 Dave: So you want it to go when it hits when it’s actually going out of the estuary into the ocean, kind of. Or when does it hit? 00:08:39 Matt: Yeah, yeah. You want it to turn on when it actually gets to the ocean. There’s a, I mean, basically, like we already know the freshwater roots of the steelhead, you know. So we don’t need any more data there. 00:08:51 Dave: Although we don’t know exactly kind of how long they’re staying or maybe. I mean, yeah, that’s the thing like fish and it kind of and some of these fish. Well, we can talk about that. But so it hits the salt water, you know, what’s going on and then what? And then you can track it from there to where it goes. 00:09:07 Matt: No, I wish it was live. I wish it was like, find my phone. That would be really cool. But it’s not. It starts recording when it hits the salt. And most of my texts are sixty, uh, to ninety to one hundred and twenty days are like most of the tags. Like I had, you know, uh, three at sixty three at ninety three at one twenty this year that like I programmed, um, the interval for how long it records. See, this does get real complicated real quick. Um, how much it records, uh, depends on how long you set it right. But eventually, uh, either the animal will get eaten, um, and the tag will float to the surface, or the countdown will end. Say it’s a sixty day tag and it hit the salt sixty days ago. Now the burn pin, which is kind of like a fusible link. Okay. Think of it like like a fuse that like, gets hot and burns out. And now the tag floats to the surface. The tag has an antenna on it. The antenna transmits to Argos satellite. And I start getting emails saying like, hey, I’m over here. And here’s the information that I recorded while I was going. 00:10:14 Dave: Right. So basically what you’re getting is when that tag floats up, I mean, the fish gets eaten. What if the fish doesn’t get eaten and comes back to spawn another year? 00:10:25 Matt: Then great. Then awesome. You know? 00:10:28 Dave: And are you able to track that? 00:10:29 Matt: No, because well, I mean, I did put a two hundred and forty day tag on this year. 00:10:36 Dave: But that’s the limit. That’s the challenge here is radio tags have a battery and there’s a limit on how long it can go. Right. Is that your biggest limiting factor for that. 00:10:45 Matt: That and just you can’t get the damn things to stay on a fish that long. 00:10:49 Dave: Oh, and where does it go on the fish? 00:10:51 Speaker 3: It goes on the dorsal. 00:10:52 Matt: Like around a little bit behind and below the dorsal. Um it weighs seven grams. It is two percent of the animal’s body weight, roughly two percent. 00:11:03 Dave: So it doesn’t affect it doesn’t make it a more of a easier for the predators to get. It’s not not doing any of that. 00:11:08 Speaker 4: I mean, I think. 00:11:10 Matt: It probably doesn’t help. Right? Yeah. Right. If you’re running away and even, you know, if I still have two percent of my, uh, body weight, you know, on me at night. 00:11:22 Dave: It’s like wearing those basketball heavy shoes. You know, when you’re trying to jump, you’re like, damn. You get used to it a little bit, right? 00:11:29 Matt: Right. Yeah. So so yeah, it probably doesn’t help them to have the pack on them. But, you know, at the end of the day, I think having this information for future generations is gonna be a big net positive. You know, and the fact that we don’t know is just mind boggling to me. I’m like, what? Like, we can, but we don’t, you know? 00:11:47 Dave: Yeah. We don’t. So out of the date and it sounds like it’s fairly new, but what have you seen? Like, where have these fish gone? Where are they heading? 00:11:53 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:11:54 Matt: So really not enough to like, I don’t have enough yet to like make any sort of, you know, statements about, about that. But I can tell you like, you know, if you look up, uh, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management study the seatuck. Uh, Michael Courtney study, you can see those fish traveling right along the Aleutian chain. And we already sort of knew that, like Alaska and Japan were kind of the two destinations where, um, we had like mark recapture stuff going on studies from like the eighties that where they just tried to like follow the fish around in ships and they put, um, you know, mark recapture tags on, on steelhead. And there was some, you know, kind of anecdotal evidence as to where they were headed. There just wasn’t any sort of exact migration routes. 00:12:41 Dave: Now, you guys are obviously early on in this. Where do you think this could go? As you look out, just maybe, you know, again, look at the ten year or more. You know, what would you love to see? What’s your vision here? 00:12:52 Matt: Okay, dude, this is this is cool. So what I’m learning about telemetry science is that, like, what we could do is build a map of the West Coast. Somebody tried this out of Monterey Bay aquarium out of California. And so they’ve got like, I think they put like six tags out. By the way, the tags are five grand a piece. Wow. They’re ungodly expensive. And it’s not, it’s not cheap to do this. So we, we could potentially have live real time data of where steelhead are going when they go in the ocean. We can right now only apply satellite tags, but we could apply acoustic radio tags if we knew where to put the radio towers. So if we get like a real consistent line where the fish are traveling, then we can throw radio towers in. Suddenly the tags are only two hundred bucks instead of five grand, right? 00:13:48 Dave: And just like they go through, you can see them going through the dams of the Columbia. It would be the same sort of thing. 00:13:52 Speaker 3: Exactly. 00:13:53 Matt: Yeah. Like every time it goes through it blips. Right. And then, you know, so yeah, that would be cool, I think, you know, but let’s right now, I just want to work on building the West Coast map. Michael’s doing Alaska and he started doing like Prince of Wales Island. And you know, he’s kind of he’s kind of migrating south. And then we’ve got this and we’d love to do Washington, you know, but I think it’s going to take us three to five years to get this study to where we’re like, okay, let’s, you know, we can sign off and say like, yeah, we now have a map of ocean migration routes. 00:14:26 Dave: That’s it. That’s awesome. And this is all the wilderness calling dot org is the place people can go. And what could people listening now, how could they help your, you know, your, what you have going here? 00:14:35 Matt: Oh man. Uh, so donate, you know, donate, donate, donate. five thousand dollars. A tag is not cheap. And then there’s a list of community needs on the website. I encourage everyone to watch our our short film that we put out. Sean Burke created a little short film about the origin story of the org. And then just getting involved, man, we’ve got monthly meetings and we’re always looking for new members and new volunteers. Um, we’ve got yeah, like I said, a list of community needs. That’s, that’s significant as, as you kind of get into the org building stuff, there’s a lot to do. So I need help. 00:15:14 Dave: Perfect. So we’ll send everybody out there to take a look and ask you questions on, on all that. And but yeah, let’s hear about on the guiding your, it sounds like you’re getting ready to head up to Alaska. That’s always a big place for us. We’re always thinking about what’s your program, I guess, and steelhead fishing. Is it over for you now on the coast? Maybe talk about that. Where are you fishing right now? And I’m not sure if you even have any openings for next year, but what’s that look like? 00:15:35 Matt: Yeah, man, I am sick of fishing. I hope I never go again. 00:15:41 Dave: Really? 00:15:42 Matt: No, no, but okay. But I did have, like, a rodeo of a of a season. I moved out to the north coast and lived on a river for for a few months. Um, which is great. You know, this is normal. This is par for the course for me. I’m, I’m, uh, twelve years into my career in Alaska, so, but I haven’t been doing steelhead as aggressively as, as this last year is really like when, um, the most bookings I’ve ever had. And, you know. 00:16:12 Dave: This episode is brought to you by AVC rig adventure vehicle concepts out of Colorado. These guys build next level adventure vans designed to help you explore farther and stay out longer. Are you dreaming of a full van build? Or maybe you just need the best aluminum cabinets and storage for your DIY rig? AVC rig makes it easy to turn your vehicle into the ultimate mobile base camp. You can check them out right now at ABC dot com, that’s a v c rig dot com. 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 fly dot com slash routes and download the app today. Now I’m looking at your website. People have to go here because the wilderness calling dot org, at least right now when we’re speaking, this might change, but you’ve got this video of two steelhead spawning. Yep. And they’re holding their and they’re just I mean just watching them. Right. I could just sit here for an hour just watching. 00:17:23 Matt: Isn’t it cool man. Yeah. 00:17:25 Dave: And now is that a is that a repeat? What what timeline is that repeating on? How long is that clip? 00:17:30 Matt: I think we’re about, uh, 40s or something like that. 00:17:34 Dave: It’s cool because you even see the the scrapes, you can see the air bubbles coming out of his breathing. You can see the scrapes of the the female. And then the female takes off and then the male takes off. Right. And then that’s it. Yeah. I mean, and oh, and then they come back and then and then it wraps around and there they are. That’s pretty sweet footage, man. 00:17:52 Matt: Yeah, yeah. So my friend writer likes to, uh, freshwater snorkel. So we went out to, uh, the coast there and. 00:17:59 Dave: Yeah. That’s great. Are you working with, uh, you’ve been in touch with John McMillan. No, no you haven’t. You should definitely connect with John. He is. John is the guy. He will be all over this stuff and really help you out. He’s, uh. 00:18:11 Matt: What are the chances of an introduction, Dave. 00:18:13 Dave: Oh, yeah. Yeah, one hundred percent. He’s he’s like, uh, you know, he was working with t u and, um, I’m drawing a blank on the conservation group he’s with now, but he’s, uh, just doing sweet work. He’s, but he, what got me thinking is that he does if you go to his Instagram and again, my old age has drawn a blank. I’ll get it here. I’ll have links to this. But he has videos. He’s a big snorkeler. He does freshwater snorkel all over the place and he’s got tons of video tons, but he’s just super cool, dude. So I’ll connect you with him. Definitely. 00:18:41 Matt: I would love that. You know, the speaking of like, kind of like fishing and the freshwater. So writer my, my bro that does the freshwater snorkel. Like, I mean, you swing flies, right? You know, like, and this is kind of the data where I’m like, okay, man, I think one in fifty for winners. 00:18:59 Dave: Oh, really? One in fifty. 00:19:00 Matt: Yeah, yeah. But I don’t know. But I know this. I’ve been out there with writer and like swung around and been like, dude, I’m on it. Like my cast is perfect today. I like know where these fish hold. I know each boulder in this run and I like put that fly where it needs to be to get bit. And I’m like, writer. There’s no, there’s nobody home today because I nailed it, you know, and then he’ll go and snorkel it and he’s got like the GoPro and he like ends up with a big smile on his face and shows me Eight fish. 00:19:33 Dave: Yeah. Eight fish. 00:19:34 Matt: Yeah. And I’m like, what? Dude, there’s eight in that run. Like they’re all in there. Just, you know, they see your fly and they’re like, nah, I think I’m good. 00:19:43 Dave: That makes total sense. That makes yeah, there’s so much there that like, yeah, well, I just found it too. And it’s John McMillan go to at rainforest underscore steel. 00:19:53 Matt: Okay, cool. 00:19:54 Dave: Yeah. So tech and then he’s also he’s with the conservation angler. 00:19:57 Matt: Oh, nice. Yeah man. They do great work. Yeah. 00:20:01 Dave: Yeah. And he’s, he’s definitely an all star. He’s, he’s got some good stuff. So cool. So that’s John. He’s been on the podcast to a number of times. We’ve talked to him on on stuff. So that would be good. But but yeah, so your program is so you’re out on kind of the northwest. Are there rivers that you’re fishing that are there people are knowing about? Is that something you could give a highlight or these kind of secret rivers you’re fishing out on the coast? 00:20:23 Speaker 4: I mean, I try not to. 00:20:24 Matt: Talk too much about them, but let’s just say like the North Coast territory and all the like, you know, the big ones that I’m cool with is like the Wilson and the Trask. Um, and then there’s like three other rivers in there that all go fish and, um, yeah, my deal with my, my guests when they come out is, you know, I’ll fish anywhere within two hours of Portland where I think will best catch a fish. So during steelhead season, I’m up at, you know, three thirty or four every morning. I’m looking at charts. Everybody wants to know where we’re going. And I refuse to tell them, you know. Right. 00:21:01 Dave: So you don’t tell them. So this is like like blindfold to get to the spot. Yeah. 00:21:05 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:21:05 Matt: That and I don’t know, man, I don’t know until maybe six, ten hours before we go because it’s like when, you know, I chased him by my like on my own for many, many years and like, I realized like, yeah, dude, it’s, it’s so conditions based and like, this is how I do it. I wake up that morning, I look at all the charts and I go to the best spot, you know, so when my clients come and they want to get one, I’m like, duh. I show up on the North coast and I’ll tell you, you know, like, I’ll send you a text. We’ll get up early, you know. 00:21:35 Dave: That’s cool. Yeah. So late in the season, is there anything you’re fishing? You know, right now it’s as we’re talking, it’s almost may. Are there any things on the coast you could fish, you know, because fish are obviously spawning in some areas. Is there still places where you can find fresh fish? 00:21:50 Speaker 4: Uh, Wilson’s. 00:21:51 Matt: Got a summer run. I’m kind of done, man. Like, even like mid April seems to be pushing it out there. So, but I, I fished up till like April twenty, I think twenty second was when I got the last tag on this year. I put in ten tags on fish in the, in the fresh water was like, that was a challenge, man. It was like one of the coolest things that I’ve done. And I, you know, the clients got a few of them, but we. 00:22:16 Dave: Oh, really? 00:22:17 Matt: Yeah, yeah. But we got to the end of the season and it was like, well, dude, we still got four tags. 00:22:23 Dave: Yeah. Well, so you got ten tags. And the interesting thing about this, it sounds like it would be really cool to be on a trip with you just to be able to tag, you know, a fish or have a chance to. Do you feel like that’s something you’re going to keep doing? Uh, you know, fishing for the tagging. 00:22:36 Matt: Yeah. So this was, you know, in a lot of ways, this is the, as guides, like, you know, we designed trips, right? And this was the coolest trip that I’ve ever designed. When you have to get government permission to like, do the, the trip, right. You know, you’ve reached the next, you know, you’re cutting red tape just to like accomplish the thing. Um, so yeah, and like the, you know, I guess the fly or the, the bait that I can dangle that, that other people can’t is that, you know, like, sure, you maybe have have traveled, you know, my guys from Alaska, it’s like they get to fish and do whatever they want. They can go wherever they want. You know, they got private jets and stuff like that, but most of them haven’t had their name included in a scientific paper. And they will if they come fishing with me and we catch the right fish and we’re able to tag it, they get credit for that, you know? 00:23:26 Dave: That’s awesome. So is that the it seems like yeah, that would be a cool way to do it is actually, you know, I think about it like you’re guiding, you know, you bring these guys on maybe who have some cash, they get to experience what you’re doing. And I’m guessing they would give more money to be like, hey, I’ve got, I’ve got a stake in this game now. I’m catching the fish. It’s tagged. It’s out there. I want, you know, I want this to succeed. Is that kind of your how you see it too? 00:23:48 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. That’s the vision and it’s worked a few times. It’s not exactly how it’s worked out. Like we ended up, you know, working with smaller clubs and stuff like that to get funded. But definitely there’s been a few like private donors that were. And it’s like, so all the fish are hens. We don’t tag bucks. Hens are more likely to, to head back out right after they’re done spawning. And so we’ll name them after like, uh, you know, the guy’s wife or something like that. 00:24:15 Dave: Oh really? 00:24:16 Matt: Yeah, yeah. So like, or like we had Fort George, uh, brewery sponsored a tag last year and we called the Kelt that was most successful. Georgette and made a little illustration of what happened with their fish that they were able to share. 00:24:30 Dave: Oh, cool. How was it successful? How was that one the most successful? 00:24:34 Matt: It just it made it thirty days in the saltwater and, uh, gave us the most data about the migration route, you know? 00:24:43 Dave: How far did the furthest one migrate? Did it go three hundred miles? Three hundred miles? So three hundred miles. This is the one coming out of Alaska or where was it coming from? 00:24:51 Speaker 5: It just we. 00:24:52 Matt: Tagged it on the Nehalem River and it went up near forks, Washington. 00:24:57 Dave: Oh, yeah. So it went up to forks. Yeah, yeah. There you go. So it’s heading north at least to the start of its journey. 00:25:03 Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah. Although I will say. 00:25:05 Matt: There’s been some other tags that we’ve put on that seem to like show them going left out of the rivers too and heading south. So you’re just like, it’s inconclusive as of yet. 00:25:15 Dave: Yeah. You hear some of this. We’ve done a few episodes on The rogue and you know, as the steelhead numbers have been up and down, you know, we’ve been kind of asking like, okay, how’s it going? It sounds like the rogue in that area down there has been a little more stable. Maybe. I’m not sure if that’s totally true, but it sounds like from the guys it has been. Do you feel like that whole area down south, Northern California is like totally different than the North coast up in Washington and everything where they’re going. 00:25:37 Matt: Uh, yeah, I do, I do, I have noticed that it seems like if they’re having a good year, we’re having a bad year and vice versa, you know, and so that’s one of the things that like we’re all super curious about. It’s like, oh, I wonder what’s going on in the ocean that’s making that happen. You know, is there a current or something like that? Because like, it seems pretty obvious to the guide community that that’s like a theme, right? Like, oh, South Coast is ripping this year. That means North Coast is going to be a little bit of a bummer, you know? Okay. 00:26:08 Dave: Yeah. 00:26:08 Matt: So yeah. And vice versa, you know, um, like I heard they had like a mediocre year this year where we just, we had them. 00:26:16 Dave: Did you, you had a good year this year. 00:26:18 Matt: Oh my God, man. It was, it was the best year I think I’ve ever seen out there. Dave. 00:26:24 Dave: No kidding. 00:26:24 Matt: Yeah, yeah, it was nuts, man. 00:26:26 Dave: Wow. Now, were the conditions good for. Is that part of it? 00:26:29 Speaker 6: Yeah. Conditions were decent. 00:26:31 Matt: Yeah. They were, they were pretty good. We had a good you know, we had good movement on water levels and good storms and stuff all year. I ended up canceling five days, I think, out of the season. But the rest of them, um, I fished and yeah, there was one good like blowout, you know, storm. And so yeah, it was lights out, man. And really like, yeah, like the, in the end of the season was so good, man. Like that, that last like two weeks or whatever. Once everybody left off for kings fishing. 00:27:03 Dave: Oh, is that what happens? 00:27:04 Matt: Oh my gosh. Yeah man. Like yeah, there’s like a certain time where it’s like the first Kings come in and then like everybody on the all the gear dudes just bail. We man the river. We got it, dude. We got the place to ourselves, you know. 00:27:18 Dave: Well aren’t the aren’t they with the gear isn’t like, for example, the Nehalem isn’t that mostly wild fish there? Or you get some hatchery fish there. 00:27:26 Matt: Yeah, yeah, the North Fork has the hatchery, but the main stem where I fish. But that doesn’t keep anybody. And dude, I gotta just put this out there right now. I’m not an anti gear dude. I think it’s rad that people go fishing. My whole mentality is like, hey man, they’re not doing meth. You know, like they’re not not like breaking into my house, you know, like, yeah, it’s a bummer to have have, you know, your your favorite run get bobber dogged, but it is what it is, man. I’m glad people are getting outside, you know? 00:27:59 Dave: So yeah, that makes sense. So that’s the program here. And then you’re heading up now. Do you go up to Alaska and have you been guiding. Where are you heading up to there. 00:28:07 Matt: Yes, sir. Uh, so it has been, uh, twelve years that I’ve been working up there. I worked on the iliamna side of things for a bunch of years, and then three years ago, I moved over to the knick knack area. And so I’m on the knick knack. I’m at Crystal Creek Lodge. It’s a fantastic program, super fun place to go fishing, you know, obscenely cost prohibitive to fish. 00:28:33 Dave: Yeah, it’s a lot. 00:28:34 Matt: At Crystal Creek. 00:28:35 Dave: Yeah. What’s it like? Is it closer to fifteen thousand dollars or closer to to ten? Is it in that range? 00:28:42 Matt: Uh, it’s twenty. It’s twenty grand a week right now. 00:28:44 Dave: Oh, wow. Twenty grand? 00:28:45 Matt: Yeah, yeah. So we got we got seven airplanes and we got probably thirty jet boats littered around. And like, you know, we just it’s like exceptional. Yeah. 00:28:56 Dave: And people are coming for the, the big rainbows for the most part. 00:28:59 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:28:59 Matt: But you know, we’ve got all the salmon and stuff too. Man, I’m actually getting excited. Um, you know, we do a lot of pro trolling out on the, on the Nasdaq. And when I’m not mousing for rainbows up the American, I go over to, to the NAC. It’s like if you can’t fly out and I like, you know, this year I went to the sportsman show and got all sorts of fun pro trolling stuff. I’m like, I’m getting into it, dude. Don’t tell anybody, you know? Right. 00:29:25 Dave: Yeah. You’re doing it. 00:29:26 Matt: Yeah. I even got one of those little cameras that, like, you can film the bite, right? Like it like. 00:29:30 Dave: Oh, right. 00:29:31 Matt: Goes on the line. And then. 00:29:33 Dave: Yeah, that would be cool to have on the end of a fly to see that. 00:29:36 Matt: They’re big cameras. I don’t know if we can make that happen, but yeah, we could try. 00:29:41 Dave: God that’s cool. So what about Chinook? Are there any Chinook fishing? Is that on up there? NAC. NAC yeah. So that’s not hasn’t been closed because we’ve heard about some of these Chinook closures down in Kenai and stuff. 00:29:52 Matt: Totally. Yeah. No, NAC is still open. Um, and the Noosh is, is like the other one that we fish a lot. And right outside my front door at Crystal Creek is a small creek. I’ll just not name it. But, um, but there’s a little creek that you can go up and swing flies on and it’s, it’s awesome. It’s a super fun place to go fishing. So I’m excited about that. I’m, I’m like eight years in on the spey rod, I guess nine years now. And it’s still it’s still like my my fun time, you know, and like. 00:30:23 Dave: You still learning. 00:30:24 Matt: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent man. Yeah. I think every time I go fishing, I’m still learning, you know? But learning to teach it too has been interesting and fun, you know? So I’m looking forward to getting back up there and, and trying to talk clients into learning Spey and taking them out and swinging up. And, you know, it’s a blast. 00:30:42 Dave: Going for it. Well, when you’re down in on the coast, back to the kind of the lower forty eight on the swing and talk about that. What is the the program you’re doing there, you guys, it sounds like you’re fishing up through mid-April. Are you guys fishing? Maybe describe the what you’re using rods and kind of gear lines this year? Typical stuff. I guess it depends on flow a little bit. 00:31:01 Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, it sort of depends on flow. 00:31:02 Matt: But I think you can get away with, um, you know, ten feet of T11 and Skagit line for like most things, you know, um, my, my go to rod is a, uh, thirteen three Bula G2 platinum. I became a Bula pro after the first time I fished that rod and like, have just been like, super into it ever since. It’s a great teaching rod because it’s a little bit slower. It’s still a quick rod, but it’s got some finesse. And like, you know, I just feel like the level of feedback that I can get and my clients can get from it. Like if you, you know, think about making a wrong cast it, the tip wiggles, you know, how those things feel, you know, so yeah, so, but like, you know, when I’m fishing out there, I, I mostly kind of focus on like, okay, where do we think there’s a fish today? And how are we going to show that fly to that fish, you know, and sure, there’s some like, you know, you can get kind of precise about how you’re going to show the fly to the fish. But mostly it’s just like, let’s get the fly in front of the fish and then let’s cover what like the Nehalem, uh, is one of those rivers That’s got so much good water, so much good fishy water. Like the traffic is a little different, right? Like Trask has these little funnels and I can like show up and be like, yeah, man. Like there’s a ten by ten square where like, I’m almost certain there’s a steelhead, you know? 00:32:30 Dave: Yeah. But it’s different. It’s not like a big, big, long run. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:32:36 Matt: And the halem, I’m just like, okay, like yard it out there, man, and start stepping, you know, because yeah, we’re just the name of the game today is cover water and, uh, you know, let’s, let’s find one. Right? 00:32:48 Dave: So that’s right. So you’re pretty much just getting on the they’re just. Yeah. Fishing, swinging flies. Get your tip pretty standard what you’re doing there and, and just casting step and swing it any what’s it like, you know, down there, like any little micro tips you would throw in there when people are swinging, I feel like sometimes you get stuck in this thing of just, you know, swinging the same thing without fishing the fly. What are you telling your clients if they’re in that zone? 00:33:11 Matt: Oh, yeah. man. I mean, in some ways it can be kind of good, right? To just shut the brain off. And just because I think with swinging, I think a lot of us overthink it, you know, and it’s just like, it’s a pretty simple game, you know, like, yeah, I mean, you learn that trout fishing, it’s like, oh, you swung a soft tackle and it worked. And like, now you kind of got, you’ve got some feedback, right? So but with winter steelhead, it’s definitely different, you know, trying to get that fly to slow down enough to make a fish move. And I think really like, for me, it comes down to like every little situation is different. Um, let’s stay engaged and try to, yeah, just try to be fishing that fly to a fish all day. I’m just using my imagination all day, man. 00:34:00 Dave: Stonefly nets, builds handcrafted landing nets that are as tough as they are beautiful. They’re shaped, sanded, and finished by hand from premium hardwoods. You’ll feel the difference the moment you land your first fish light in the hands, strong at the hoop and made by someone who knows what it means to earn your trust. You can head over to Stonefly Nets dot com right now and see what they’ve got in the shop today. That’s Stonefly nets dot com. 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. Are you mixing like being. I think like you got this big run. You know, it’s one hundred yards long and you’re like, all right, I’m gonna start at the top. I’m gonna fish down, you know? But within it you could mend upstream. You can mend down. You can maybe as it goes into the current right. make it speed up. Those are little mini adjustments you could do. Do you think that’s a good thing to be mixing up or just would it be better just in that whole run? Just stay with that same swing. 00:35:19 Matt: Anything that keeps you casting, right? But in my mind, there is a pace. There’s like a, like a cadence to the swing that gets bit. There’s like a certain pace. It’s somewhere between walking and jogging. There’s a swing, there’s like a pull on my line that I can feel. And I feel like if you do this enough, all of us that do this enough, you can feel it, right? You step into that section of the run and you’re like, okay, like I was maybe going to get bit up. Like if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna be now, you know, and you take your, you know, whatever, two, three steps. And, you know, I tend to slow down a little bit in those really kind of juicy zones. And, uh, yeah, I don’t know. In the best of all worlds, I’ve got two of the best runs on the Nehalem right in my backyard. 00:36:09 Dave: So you live up there too? This is the place you’re at now? 00:36:12 Matt: Yep. Yeah. Which is also kind of forming into a lodge that we can we can use to come. In fact, I’d love to have you out, man. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you should come. You should come fish. 00:36:23 Dave: Yeah, we’ll definitely, definitely put this together. 00:36:26 Matt: Yeah, yeah. So you know. Yeah. Not to not to divert from from the fish talk. Right. 00:36:32 Dave: Well I think there’s a chance. I think obviously, you know, there’s probably some people listening that would love to help with the non-profit, you know, maybe getting them out on the river. And I know obviously steelhead and swing and flies, people are interested in learning about that. So this is great. 00:36:45 Matt: Yeah, yeah. No, this is like a perfect opportunity to and you get to marry like a meaningful act of like doing conservation work with, with fishing. Right? So, but yeah, I try to envision especially particularly those two runs that are in the backyard all like fall asleep thinking about how can I swing that perfectly, you know, and at what level, you know. So in a lot of ways, Spey fishing for me is about doing something, this one thing really, really, really well. And you know, there’s, there’s layers to that onion. And one of those layers is, you know, you ask like, do you men, do you, you know, fly first? Um, you know, all that kind of stuff. Like that’s, I love the idea of like sitting in the morning and visualizing before I step in to the water, the whole dance all the way through the run, every cast, what angle it needs to be to be the most efficient to get that fly fishing as soon as possible. Yeah, man, I live and die for that, right? 00:37:50 Dave: Yeah. There’s the whole there’s that whole thing on that river. Is there a flow? What’s too low of a flow to. Actually, I’m not sure if you’re floating it, but if you were going to float it, I mean, you can get down can you can float that pretty low because it’s big, right? 00:38:02 Matt: Yeah, totally. Yeah. It’s one of those ones where it’s just like if everything’s gone low and clear, then, um. Then stay out of my river. No. Yeah. 00:38:11 Dave: That’s right. It’s still, it’s still fishing, but. 00:38:14 Matt: It’s definitely one of those places that you, you know, a lot of people go as things tend to get low and clear and yeah, I say, you know, three and a half at three and a half feet like you probably, I mean, but you can just keep, you know, it’s that’s anybody anybody’s call. 00:38:29 Dave: And you’re do you do a raft or you float in a raft or drift boat. 00:38:32 Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got one of those net slipstreams. It’s awesome man. 00:38:35 Dave: That’s awesome. God that’s great. Yeah. It’s, uh, the raft. I’m, I’m actually in the market for a raft right now, and, um, there’s a lot of options, you know? I mean, the last raft I had, it’s like, okay, there’s, there’s a ton of options. And I’m like, man, I’m not quite sure. You know, I’m testing out some. But yeah, the interest, it’s hard to go wrong with them. I mean, they’ve been in the game so long, they’ve got just tons, right. Tons of great stuff. 00:38:56 Matt: Do you fish out of the boat? 00:38:58 Dave: Um typically no. Typically this would be more of a like a, the most. Well, it’d probably be if I got it, I’d do a little more fishing out of the boat. But no, not. I’d be thinking this would be more like a Deschutes multi-day. Like have the kids. The kids, you know, and the wife could take, you know, the gear boat down, right? Teach the kids how to run the boat, that sort of thing. 00:39:17 Speaker 8: Dude. That’s awesome. 00:39:18 Matt: I’m stoked for you for that, man. Are you guys. You think you’re gonna do like Trout Creek to to hair foam or something like that? Or are you going to do the white horse and all that business? 00:39:28 Dave: Yeah, yeah. That’s the thing we’re definitely that is on the the next thing is to get the white horse. That would be my ultimate when I the day that I see, you know, one of my daughters rowing through white horse, I’ll be happy dude. 00:39:40 Speaker 8: Yeah, totally. 00:39:41 Dave: That’ll be a happy day for me. 00:39:43 Matt: That’s amazing man. That’s so cool. Yeah. Um, you know, I, I got a lot of friends that like have families and like homes and stuff like that. And they’ll, they’ll like, hit me up and be like, man, like, look at you with your, you know, you’re in a bush plane and you’re like flying around like, I’m so jealous. Like I have to be in this office or whatever. Dude. It’s the opposite for me. I’m jealous of guys like you that, like, put in the work and have like an awesome, you know, a family and, and are able to like experience that whole thing. So that’s cool, man. I hope, I hope that’s a, what do you, when do you think they’re going to be ready for it? 00:40:18 Dave: Well, it’s, it’s interesting. It’s an interesting question because I remember when I grew up, it was totally different. And I grew up with, you know, a dad who I learned I was down the river when I was five. I was literally going, I remember the rapids as a kid being like, oh my God, I’m scared. I don’t want to go through that rapid. And my dad was like, all right, get in. We’re going. 00:40:36 Speaker 8: Yeah. 00:40:37 Dave: You know what I mean? Yeah. And then I was rowing the boat when I was twelve. I was rowing the boat down the river, you know what I mean? And my brother, that was the funny thing. So I always go back to my brother because my older, older brother went through Whitehorse the first time. This is a crazy story for me. But he was thirteen when he took my uncle through Whitehorse. 00:40:55 Matt: Nice man. 00:40:56 Dave: Right? And I’m like, my daughter right now is almost fourteen, so she’s not even close to that level. But sure, you know, the days were different, but I. But I feel like, you know, it’s just it’s everybody’s got a different thing. But I think that, you know, you plant the seed with the kids and then they, they might forget about it. But I think eventually they remember and they probably. 00:41:14 Matt: Do they enjoy it or is it like, oh, dad wants us to go fishing again? 00:41:17 Dave: Oh, no, no, they’re they’re, they’re not like the hardcore anglers, you know, but they can cast and they can do it. They’re more like just the outdoor stuff. They love the river trips. 00:41:26 Matt: General outdoor. Yeah. Love. That’s awesome. 00:41:30 Dave: Totally. No, I mean, I think we’re all in it for the same, you know, the same game. And I feel like the grass is always greener as part of the thing, right? You’re like, okay, I’ve got this. And I’m like, oh man, I want to be just living up in Alaska. You know what I mean? Because, because what you’re doing is, man, I mean, think of that man. You know, most people, a lot of people don’t have twenty K for a trip and you’re just doing that. That’s your daily, right? You’re up there. 00:41:51 Matt: Yeah, totally. No, I definitely, in a lot of ways fell ass backwards into a really gorgeous life and lifestyle, you know, when, when like billionaire kids are like, you know, you hear from them being like, yeah, man, I did it wrong. Like, I should have been a guide, you know? 00:42:10 Dave: Right. 00:42:11 Matt: Like, okay, my quality of life is pretty good. Yeah. 00:42:15 Dave: Like, yeah. That’s it. Well, you know, again, it’s money is life is short. And, you know, you got one time to do it and like, hey, you could be a billionaire, but when you die, that money is not, it doesn’t matter. 00:42:26 Matt: Totally, totally. Yeah. The experience is really valuable. I’m pretty sure I would be doing the same thing that I’m doing now if I had a trillion dollars. 00:42:36 Dave: This is awesome. Well, tell me this. I want to hear because obviously we’re on a podcast here. You are in a podcast too. You’re part of this podcast. The struggle is real. Talk about this because it feels like what we’re doing now is kind of what you guys do. But talk about this podcast, how did this come to be and who are? And we’ve had Eric on, he’s been on in the bucket or in the bucket series that we have going. But talk about what this is. 00:42:56 Matt: Yeah. So it’s, it’s a fish and efficient podcast that’s not really about I mean, I wouldn’t say it’s not about fishing, but it’s not about fishing that much. It’s a it’s us goofing off and chatting. And, um, it’s the realest of the real. It’s a lot of like, uh, what’d you throw a temper tantrum about this week? You know, tends to be the topic of conversation, but in a fun and funny way. And it’s with Eric Linenger and Zach Carruthers, and we’re starting to kind of branch out and do guest. Um, the inception of it was from Eric who did, uh, Friday night flies from northwest fly fishing outfitters for a long time. Man. I think he was like nine years of, of Friday night flies like never. I never had a Friday night, you know, because he was, he was busy doing F and F, which was, dude, I, I don’t know if you, I’m sure you tuned into like, those things are awesome, you know? Um, so he did that and then it was like, okay, I’m kind of like, I want my Fridays back, but I’m not done talking about fish and fishing. And so here we are with the struggle is real and it’s like it’s one of the highlights of my. I drove back from the coast like probably ten times this year to do the pod. 00:44:07 Dave: To do it. 00:44:08 Matt: Yeah. Because it’s that much fun. Do you need to be back to Portland for anything? No, but I do need to go like I do want to go hang with the boys. 00:44:15 Dave: That’s cool. So you would go in go in just to do the podcast for the most part. 00:44:19 Matt: Oh yeah man. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I. 00:44:21 Dave: Would. 00:44:22 Matt: Do some other stuff while I was around Costco and stuff like that. But yeah, it was a lot about joking around with the boys. Early morning. Yeah. 00:44:30 Dave: Yeah. How many like when did this, uh, how many episodes do you have out there and how often do you do it? 00:44:35 Speaker 9: I think we’re on. 00:44:35 Matt: Episode twenty nine, you know, and, uh, yeah, we’re looking forward to doing more. 00:44:40 Dave: Yeah. Do you do it every, every when does it go live? 00:44:43 Speaker 9: It should be like a weekly. 00:44:45 Matt: We’re we’re trying, you know, it’s what you want to balance. You don’t want it to become a job. Job. I’m sure you identify with this, Dave. Yeah. Yeah man. It’s enjoyable. But you know, it can also be kind of a lot. So we’re trying to just kind of like, you know, keep an even one a week pace and, and, and keep it fun too, you know. 00:45:04 Dave: That’s right. Where would we go to, to find it right now? I guess just the struggle is real. 00:45:09 Speaker 9: Yeah. 00:45:09 Matt: The struggle is real. R e e l um, on Spotify, Apple Music. If you go to our Instagram too, it’s like t s I r or something like that. 00:45:18 Dave: So there you go. So the struggle is real r e e two e is not so real. Yeah, real. There you go. So cool. Yeah. You guys got some? Yeah, definitely some, uh, some good content here. And it looks like you’re popping out regular episodes. So this is good. So we’ll definitely follow that podcast and have a listen here. Well, tell me this as we, you know, start to think about taking out of here a little bit. What’s the, you know, what you have going, what do you want to leave people with today? You know, just we talked about the nonprofit, you know, we talked about some next steps. What have we missed today? 00:45:48 Matt: Uh, the big thing, Dave, is like, if you want to do conservation and fly fishing. There’s a couple things. One, I want you to everybody to know that I’m just some dude, you know, like I am a high school dropout. Yeah. You know, I, I started working construction when I was fifteen, and I’ve been able to cobble this thing together. We raised forty grand last year, man. We’ve so far put sixteen satellite tags, the most anybody’s ever put on on steelhead in Oregon. We’ve been the most successful. I’m just some dude that like really cares about the subject. And, and so yeah, I want, I want people to kind of take away for them to be like, yeah, I can also do that, you know, and yeah, please, please hit up my website. Please reach out to me. I want to plug you in. Um, there is a lot to do, you know, if you want to book me and come fishing or Zach, Zach or others is also on my board and a trained tech. Um, so you could book Zach or me this year and that’ll, that would be super helpful that would, you know, give us another opportunity to go fishing, pay our bills. No one’s getting paid from the wilderness dot org, you know. So in order for us to stay alive, book us. Let’s go swing up a steelhead. Let’s put a tag on it. Let’s discover ocean migration routes. We’re going to start like on February. Probably February first this year. And I’ll have um, an opportunity to sign up for week long’s that have there’s a chef Shannon Feltus will support that. Um, so you could just come out and just, you know, plug and play. It’s make it easy, like come out for a week, you know, go fishing, um, hang with Zach and me and catch fish and get fed and, you know, have a good time with it. 00:47:34 Dave: That’s awesome. Yeah. So you got this full thing. We mentioned it before the wilderness calling dot org or dot com. Either of those places. 00:47:42 Speaker 9: Yep, yep. Either one. 00:47:43 Matt: Just reach out, man. I, you know, people are going to email me and I’m going to go like, yeah, let’s get on a phone call. You know, that’s usually how I’m, I’m a big audio guy, you know. 00:47:53 Dave: Oh, you are, you’re big. Yeah. You want to talk to somebody? 00:47:55 Matt: Yeah, man. I want to get a feel for him and stuff like that. Yeah. So. 00:47:59 Dave: Yeah. Good. And Zach, we’ve mentioned on in the bucket they talked about that but he Portugal the man which was a is it Grammy. Grammy Award winning. 00:48:07 Matt: Uh yeah. Grammy Award winning band. He was in another band called anatomy of a ghost that my bands used to play with. 00:48:14 Dave: Okay, so you were in a band, too? 00:48:15 Speaker 10: Oh, yeah. 00:48:16 Matt: Yeah, man, I’ve been. 00:48:17 Dave: Playing. 00:48:17 Matt: For twenty five years. Yeah. Same thing with, uh, the, uh, biologists that wrote all our project proposal for, um, for the wilderness colonies and this band called, uh, the builders and the butchers, which is prolific and like their tours in Europe here in a couple. 00:48:30 Dave: Really? 00:48:31 Matt: Yeah, man. So it’s like we’re all, we’re all musicians. And I think that’s part of like, what allowed us enough time to be able to like, do something like this. 00:48:40 Dave: God that’s crazy. What was your, um, what did you play? 00:48:43 Speaker 10: Uh, I play bass. 00:48:44 Matt: Yeah. And, um, you know, just been in like punk and hardcore bands for, for like twenty five years. Yeah. 00:48:50 Dave: There you go. Yeah, punk. The more I’m learning about music, mostly just from talking to people through here, it feels like punk is something I missed out on. I should be listening to more because it sounds like it’s a pretty cool genre. 00:49:01 Matt: It’s not too late, Dave. 00:49:03 Dave: It’s not too late. 00:49:04 Matt: I got a show at High Limit Room on May twenty sixth. 00:49:08 Dave: Oh, really? 00:49:08 Matt: Come on out, my friends will give you a black eye. It’ll be a blast. 00:49:12 Dave: Oh, good. Good. So, May twenty six. All right. Good. This is in Portland. 00:49:16 Matt: Yeah. 00:49:17 Dave: Nice. All right. Good. That’s awesome. Yeah, I think that. So you’re still going. So you’re still in the band. You’re still guiding. You still got the you got all this going. 00:49:23 Matt: Oh, yeah man. Yeah. I juggle things. Like I said, I, I tend to just bite off more than I can chew and then chew it. Yeah. 00:49:30 Dave: That’s perfect. Good. Well, well, like we said, well, we kind of touched on a few of these items today. We’ll send everybody out to the wilderness calling dot org if they want to connect on trips or really just help you out with your program here at the nonprofit. Um, but yeah, man, this has been great. I really appreciate the time and definitely looking forward to getting on the water someday with you. And we’ll be in touch. 00:49:49 Matt: Would love that, Dave. Thanks. 00:49:51 Dave: All right. If you get a chance. Uh, your call to action today. Check in with Matt Thornton, the wilderness calling dot org, and definitely check in with him on trips if you want to support this great program he has going. Understanding where fish are going is critical to making sure they come back and survive. So we can all experience more of that amazing chrome action on the water. If you want to check in with us anytime, Wet Fly Swing Pro is usually the best place if you want to join a community there that’s thriving, that’s building trips together, that’s answering questions, that’s holding you accountable to make sure you experience your best trip this year. Check in with Wet Fly Swing Pro that’s wet fly swing dot com slash pro. Sign up there and I’ll let you know when we open this thing up for our next cohort, which we’re going to be doing soon. You can check in with me anytime. Also, Dave at webplace dot com would love to hear from you if you’re new to the show or if you haven’t chatted for a while, send me an email Dave at web dot com. Always love getting feedback and listening to new hearing from new listeners or people I haven’t talked to in a while. All right. That’s all I have for you. I hope you enjoyed that one. We are going strong here all summer long, so if you get a chance, definitely check in on the next episode. Hope you’re having a good day and hope you have a great afternoon evening. And if it’s morning, if it’s early in the morning, maybe it’s late in the morning and you’re just sitting there enjoying a cup of coffee, listening to this episode, thinking about what you can do to give back to steelhead. You just heard one thing today. Right now you can find out more information, hit that right now and and check in with us. Thanks for your support. We’ll see you on that next episode and we’ll talk to you. Have a good day. 00:51:24 Speaker 11: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing Show. For notes and links from this episode, visit Wet Fly swing dot com.