988 | Ultralight Backcountry Gear with Patrick and Daniel Bauman of Colter Backcountry

WFS 988 Transcript 00:00:00 Dave: If you could carry everything you need to fish and camp for several days in a pack that starts under twenty pounds, what would actually make the cut? Today we’re heading into the back country to find out. We’re talking lightweight fishing gear, native trout, staying safe when you’re miles from the road, and how a long hike on the Continental Divide Trail helps spark a company built specifically for backcountry fly anglers. 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. Patrick and Daniel are the guys behind Colter Backcountry. They’ve spent years backpacking and fishing across the west, and today they’re breaking down what they’ve learned along the way. You’re gonna find out why Patrick will carry two fly rods on a multi-day trip, even when every ounce matters. We’re going to find out about some safety gear that they use to stay safe out there while miles from civilization. We’re gonna hear about Daniel’s pursuit of native trout across the west. And we’re also going to get a little insight on what Patrick and Daniel are working on next with culture backcountry, including new gear and technical apparel. That’s going to be coming out. We get into all the gear you need, including a step by step checklist on exactly what you need to go into the backcountry this week. All right. You can find Daniel and Patrick at Colter Backcountry. Here they are, Patrick and Daniel Bowman. Let’s get into it. How are you guys doing? 00:01:29 Patrick: Hey, Dave. How’s it going? Appreciate it. Doing great. Thanks for having us on. 00:01:33 Dave: Awesome. Yeah. We’re gonna we’re gonna jump into, uh, the brand you guys are running here. We’re going to talk about cultural backcountry. We’re also going to talk about some fishing. You guys are in a couple of hot spots, California, Colorado. And we’re going to talk a little bit of fishing today and all that. But maybe before we jump into the deep dive there, maybe both of you can start with a little bit of how this culture backcountry came to be. How’d you guys how’d you find yourself? Patrick? Maybe we’ll start with you. 00:01:57 Patrick: Yeah. For sure. So Daniel and I are brothers. We’ve been fishing for a long time and sort of the flavor of fishing. One of our favorites is what we would call backcountry fishing. So, you know, we love to get to watersheds that are difficult to reach, that have less people that are in really cool areas. We love wilderness. We love backpacking, doing overnights. We also love native fish and chasing native fish in their native drainages, which usually involves quite a few miles across the west. And we did a thru hike of the Continental Divide trail a few years ago. And as it goes with those kinds of things, you have quite a bit of time to to think. And one of one of the things that we kept coming back to while we were on that long trip was that, you know, we love the style of fishing and we know other people that do as well. We didn’t really feel like there was a strong brand in the industry that was either promoting and championing this style of fishing or designing gear for it as well. You know, a lot of the times, most of the stuff that we bring, whether it’s our packs that we carry our fly fishing gear in our nets, our waders, our boots, all this stuff is sort of designed for an ecosystem where you pull your truck up to a river and, you know, you’re hiking maybe a mile or a couple miles, but really not ideal for overnight backpacking trips or super long day hikes or things of that nature. And we felt that way. And we felt like, you know, a lot of other people we suspected also had the same desire to go hit the backcountry and issues with their gear. So we figured we would start a business and we’d start a brand, and that brand would be all about backcountry fly fishing. At the time, we kind of didn’t really know anything about product development, but we figured we’d just dive right in and kind of go pain point by pain point. Like, you know, what’s the pain, pain in the butt for us when we’re trying to do this style of fishing and let’s design something that solves that problem and still enables you to get out there and, you know, use the best gear available. 00:03:50 Dave: Yeah. That’s awesome. Intro. And, uh, Daniel, maybe talk about that. It sounds like Patrick covered a good chunk of the business, But is that about right for you? You guys got into it for the same reason. 00:03:59 Daniel: Yeah, that’s pretty accurate. I had a whole experience. I tried to catch almost all the native fish of the West back during during Covid, I was on a gap year in college. And, uh, that was before we hiked this trail and just seeing the amount of incredible trout fisheries out there and all these different states and all these different mountain ranges and places in the country where not a lot of people go. Really opened my eyes to the amount of incredible fishing that you could find, not by kind of looking at the most famous rivers, the the well-known spots that you can get to by a car, but really just by, uh, exploring kind of deep into these beautiful wilderness areas. And so that was really a game changer for me. 00:04:41 Dave: Yeah. This is good because I think that it is a need for a lot of people because, you know, fly fishing is there’s a lot of gear. But yeah, it’s not really made exactly for going, you know, kind of ultralight into the country. You know, I mean, you can, I remember when I started doing it, you know, back a long time ago, you know, we had too much gear in your pack. Weighed like, you know, one hundred and fifty pounds. Right. It was this giant thing. Maybe talk about that. Maybe we’ll start off with that with you guys. What’s your, um, you know, kind of the gear. What is when you’re going on one of these, let’s just say it’s a multi-day trip. It sounds like you’ve both done a lot of hiking. What is the gear you’re bringing kind of on the fly fishing side that you kind of must have? 00:05:18 Patrick: We try to keep it pretty limited. I mean, I think for both Daniel and I, our, our favorite way to think about packing gear is just to think that, you know, the lightest possible way to go about something is just to not bring it. Um, so I, you know, that’s kind of our approach to everything. That being said, you know, one of the reasons why we like to have a light pack, especially on the hiking gear side of things, is so that we can bring as much fishing stuff as possible. I think it sort of depends, you know, what the trip looks like, what the focus is, what the styles of fishing are. But if we’re going for like a really robust backcountry trip where it’s going to be multiple days. It’s probably going to be different types of water. Maybe you’re hitting lakes and you’re doing small creeks. I generally will like to bring two different rods, partially because if you break one and you’re a day away from your car, then you just kind of shot from a fishing standpoint, but also because it’s nice to have a couple different rigs for different styles of fishing. So usually I’ll bring something heavier, maybe with a sink tip on it, especially if a leak is going to have like a deep drop off and you can do some streamer stuff there and then, you know, a lighter for weight or something that’s going to be more appropriate for small creek stuff. And then yeah, rods and reels for those. I try to kind of get everything into one fly box that I can bring along. That’s actually a little piece of gear that we’ve been noodling on in a current project we have is to have a fly box that’s designed to hold all types of flies, and it’s real slim profile. So you can just bring one, one box on a trip like that. And then we reorganize our gear. One of our products is called a thoroughfare Clip Kit. It’s sort of a minimalist fishing wallet, and it’s designed to hold basically all of your accessories in one accessible place that isn’t as big as a full size pack or something. So you can get a couple spools of tippet in there. Your nippers, your forceps, throw, you know, an extra leader, a few indicators, and then that will just clip on to your belt or your waders or anything that you’re fishing out of. So we got that. And then we also bring our collapsible nets that are also a backcountry product. And for me, that kind of rounds out the kit. I will typically just be wet waiting. If there is weather concerned, we might go to like a neoprene style wading pant. But for the most part in the summer I will just get wet and kind of enjoy being in the water. 00:07:39 Dave: Yeah. That’s cool. Is the I always go to the backcountry skins for the waiters. If you’re not bringing. Is that kind of the style or are there other things. If you guys are like, because I’m thinking if you were doing a float tube, sort of lake fishing trip. 00:07:51 Patrick: Yeah, the skin, the skins are what we’ve got. Danny is the one that has the flow tube between the two of us. Or actually, he has a more a more legit pontoon boat. 00:07:59 Daniel: But I don’t get out float tubing too much. I don’t have a great one kind of set up for, uh, carrying long distances and stuff, but, uh, yeah, those, those kind of neoprene pants can be nice, especially when it’s kind of shoulder season or something like that. When the water’s in the fifties or chilly wading shoes are also kind of a challenge for a lot of people. We’ve gotten to the point where just wading in like your hiking shoes is pretty effective. 00:08:25 Dave: Oh really? And what would be the hiking shoes? Because when I go to this, I, I think of some of the hikes that, you know, because everybody’s different. I’ve always been like a boot guy, but you know, I feel like running shoes. I remember the first time we were doing, we went into the, um, the snake River, the Hells Canyon. It was kind of around Hells Canyon. It was this crazy hike. And we, you know, we ran out of water and stuff. I remember this one guy, the baddest ass guy of the trip. He was just wearing running shoes the whole time. Total minimal. Right. And he had no blisters and he was loving it. Do you find that you guys are more of the hiking boot or more of you’re talking more like running shoes or like trail hikers or something like that? 00:08:58 Daniel: Yeah. I think, uh, Patrick loves ultras. These, uh, which are these ultra light kind of trail running shoes. I wear some oboz hiking shoes, so not the full ankle heavy duty boots, but more just like a hiking shoe style thing. 00:09:11 Dave: So you’re just waiting right in those shoes and they’re, you know, they dry out, you gotta shoe that dries out well enough. 00:09:17 Daniel: Yeah. As long as you have good socks. That’s kind of my, my biggest tip to people. We, it really helps to have like a liner sock, like a toe sock, some engine or the brand I think they sell. And then we’re like a good wool sock on the outside. Darn tough’s are pretty great. 00:09:33 Dave: How do you spell that? The in dingy. How do you spell that? 00:09:35 Daniel: I n j I n j I and so that extra movement helps you, uh, not get blisters when you kind of have wet feet. 00:09:44 Dave: Yeah. This is the toe sock. This is awesome because I’ve never worn the toe socks. So so those actually there’s something there. The toe socks, they don’t just look cool. They work a little bit better than your your typical sock. 00:09:53 Patrick: Yeah. We wear those under the regular sock. A little layer system. It’s solid. 00:09:57 Dave: And that just keeps you like you said, let the layer helps from getting blisters. And then also, is that the main reason you do the layering? 00:10:04 Patrick: Totally. Yeah. I think I feel like that helps a ton with blisters. It just gives a little extra movement without rubbing against your skin. 00:10:09 Dave: Gotcha. Okay, so you got the socks, the toe socks with the good wool. So yeah, that is the big thing is again, back to the old story where you don’t want to bring giant wading boots because they take up half the pack. Right. And all this are you guys, what is your pack look like? Are you guys super minimalist? Just bring in like, what is your other stuff when you’re out there camping? Are you bringing tents or no tents or what? Because there’s a whole bunch of gear that you could bring, right? 00:10:33 Patrick: Yeah, I would say we’re pretty light. I mean, I do know there is like a corner of the backpacking world that are like the ultra dirtbag, you know, their packs weigh like four and a half pounds or something. So we’re, we’re not in that category. Um, but we are pretty light, I don’t. What would you say, Danny? Like fourteen pounds before food and water. 00:10:51 Daniel: With fishing stuff, it’s probably closer to eighteen. Something like that. 00:10:56 Patrick: And then throw food and water in there and you’re, you know, thirty or something. So yeah, out of the realm of like the crazy stuff. But yeah, typically, you know, we’re bringing the tent. We both like sleeping quilts over sleeping bags. They’re a little bit lighter. I think they’re comfier to sleep in personally and smaller. 00:11:11 Dave: They pack up smaller too. 00:11:13 Patrick: Yeah. Yeah. They, they basically, I mean, the idea behind a quilt is that it strips away the back panel that you would be laying on top of, of sleeping bag, which when you’re laying on top of it, it doesn’t really provide any insulation anyway because it’s totally crushed. So they just get rid of that and then you’re just sleeping on your pad. So that’s kind of nice. Yeah. Bags, pads, pack, tent, water filter, and then pretty bare bones on the clothes. You know, I do like single layers and I’m just rewearing every day and something to sleep in. And then nice puffy jacket and a rain jacket. Things will change a bit. If you know, you’re getting into October, you’re getting out early in April. Then it’s maybe a different animal, but for the most part in the summer that that kind of gets you through. 00:11:52 Dave: Do you guys go with a lot of wool or more synthetics? I, I kind of throw this out because, you know, I’ve got some new gear from a company, Duckworth who’s like, does this really cool wool. And I’ve always loved wool, especially like wool gloves for fishing, you know, because it’s like your hands stay warm. But I find that wool every time I wear something that’s wool, whether that’s my like elk hunting pants or whatever, it’s always the best. It seems like it’s always the best. Are you guys do you do some of the wool or do you do mostly synthetic? 00:12:19 Patrick: Yeah, I love natural fiber. If I can get away with it, it’s awesome. The insulating abilities are sweet. We do the down sleeping bags over the synthetic. The only issue with the down is that if it gets wet then it doesn’t do so good. But we’ll obviously wet. It still keeps you warm, which is great. 00:12:35 Dave: Well, this is awesome. I think we’ve got we’re starting off. I always love getting the gear list because, you know, we’re talking about a lot of gear that’s going to make it easier for people. You know, if they’re out there. What else are we missing here on some of that stuff and maybe talk about this, you know, with with Colter. I know it looks like you guys have a couple of big products, the net being another one. Maybe talk about if we’re missing anything else there and what you guys want to shed light on. 00:12:54 Daniel: Yeah, I guess we can get into the, uh, the net a little bit. So this was our kind of main project that we, that we really launched. And our idea with the net was that we wanted to be able to carry in like a full size fishing net, your standard nice trout net when you’re going in hiking places. But one of the biggest challenges is, you know, you bring one of those nets and it’s like this giant tennis racket hanging out of your backpack. It’s really unwieldy if you’re kind of going through bushes or rough terrain, it just gets caught on. Stuff can get really beat up. And so we designed this net to be both lightweight and super packable. Um, so it collapses down and then you can into a little carrying case. And then you can just expand that into a full size net. And it’s a net that can land some good sized fish. I think my biggest in it was a twenty two inch brown from one, uh, backcountry river here in California. I think I even used it to help land my first steelhead. Uh, a twenty four inch steelhead. I I oh, wow. Got the head in there and then grabbed the tail. 00:13:55 Dave: Where was that? Where was that? In a secret water or is that was that in a place that people would know about? 00:13:59 Daniel: Uh, that was the, the Trinity. So one of the California rivers that people fish. 00:14:05 Dave: That’s amazing. Yeah. The Trinity flows into the, um, the Klamath, right. There’s a lot of cool stuff going on down there with. We’ve done a few podcasts on that, you know, with the dam removal and the just the trendy sounds like it’s in this place that is perfect for what we’re talking about, right? Because it’s, there’s a road out there, but there’s some remote parts of that, that watershed. 00:14:22 Daniel: Yeah. That’s a rugged region. I, I love it up there, but, uh, there’s some steep, steep hills on either side, rough, rough terrain. I see, you know, bear tracks every time I go up there. It’s pretty cool. 00:14:34 Dave: So cool. So the net is yeah, obviously the one of the big things here is that the net sticks out. I mean, if you think about the heaviest gear, the stuff like the net. The other thing we talk about is the rod. I feel like the rod is another thing that in my past, you know, the four piece rod or even I think back when I first started, I think I even carried it in a two piece rod when I was, you know, back in the day. But there’s a few rods out there, the six piece, you know, Pescara Fly, who we’ve been working with, they’ve got this six piece rod that I’ve been using a lot, which is cool. Do you guys are you kind of standard trying to find a six piece or is a four piece still part of your your game? 00:15:06 Patrick: We both still have four pieces. I have an I in six pieces. I’ve seen the Pescador one. I’ve seen Redington as little six piece package that that is super appealing to me. So I don’t have one in the quiver right now, but I can totally see the upside. 00:15:19 Dave: Yeah, just getting it to pack away. So do you guys, how do you deal with that when you have a four piece and it’s on your pack, you just kind of strap it on the outside or are you holding it? How do you do that when you’re hiking? 00:15:29 Patrick: Well, typically just put it into an existing rod tube. People that have heard us maybe on some other podcasts or have been following our stuff for a while, know that one of the projects we’ve been teasing for quite some time at this point is an ultralight rod tube that we’re super keen on, partially because, yeah, the rod tube as a means of protecting your rod is just unwieldy and cumbersome in comparison to, you know, the rest of this pared down kit that you spent so much time trying to get light, and then all of a sudden you’re just bringing this huge tube that seems totally unnecessary. But at the same time, you don’t bring a tube and like, you just feel like you’re tempting fate every time you go under a tree or you, you know, you put your gear down in camp and just take one boot step to crack something. So we, we run into that issue a lot. We typically do use rod tubes. I would say another, you know, bigger issue is that, like I said, we like to bring two rods. And so kind of figuring out how to get those into one tube is quite the challenge sometimes. Usually it’s just a squeeze and cross your fingers that nothing goes bad. But, um, yeah, that is definitely a pain point. And that’s something that we’re pretty focused on trying to have a great solution for that that people think is it’s awesome. 00:16:42 Dave: Today’s show is brought to you by Visit Idaho and Yellowstone Teton Territory, a place that should be on every angler’s list, from the Henrys Fork to the South Fork of the snake, and all the hidden creeks and alpine lakes in between. This region is built for fly fishers who like a little room to roam. You can head over to Wet Fly swing dot com right now for guides, lodges, and trip ideas to plan your next adventure. That’s Teton T e t o n. The Gallatin River Lodge sits right in the middle of Montana’s fly fishing triangle, the Gallatin River out the door, the Madison and Yellowstone close enough that you’re fishing when conditions line up. The lodge is perfectly remote, yet close to everything private access nearby, solid guides, unreal food, and a lodge that understands the rhythm of a full day on the water. If Montana is on your list this year, don’t guess where to stay. You can call Gallatin River Lodge or head over to GR lodge dot com right now and plan your next Montana adventure. That’s g r lodge dot com, check them out. Now. Shout out to Pescara because they. And Jeff has been talking about how he can get in there raw tubes which are actually pretty light. That’s the one thing I said when we were first when I got my first one, I was like, man, they didn’t skimp on the tube because it’s made out of. I don’t know if it’s carbon fiber, but it’s, it’s not your like heavy, you know, it’s pretty light, but he can pack two rods. He can get two rods in one case, you know, and one of those six piece cases, that little rod literally, you could throw it in your check on bag, right. And it disappears inside. So so that’s one good thing. And then what about reels? Do you guys are you getting down? Doesn’t sound like the weight. You know you’re under twenty pounds, but you know you’re just getting a normal reel that that doesn’t have to change. Right reel backing all that stuff. 00:18:23 Patrick: Yeah. For the most part. Um, I don’t know. Daniel. You what do you like those reels? Pretty light. 00:18:28 Daniel: That’s pretty standard. I, uh, it kind of depends what rods I’m bringing. Like if I’m bringing a four and a five, I’ll just bring one kind of reel with a five weight line on there. And then if I need to, I can kind of overline that for weight if I want to fish that if I’m bringing a kind of heavier streamer rod or something, maybe it’ll have a, its own real setup for, uh, doing what I want to fish. So yeah, obviously, I mean, you’re, you’re real and you’re more importantly, like your fly line kind of controls a lot of how you’re going to be able to fish and stuff. And so we kind of stick to matching that to whatever water we’re going to be fishing. 00:19:03 Dave: Yeah. Sounds like you’re fishing. Uh, Daniel, a lot of the kind of the slam sort of stuff, trying to get all those native, small, native fish. Is that something that you’ve, you’ve done a lot of around the West or mostly in California? 00:19:14 Daniel: Yeah, I’ve done a lot of that around the West. I’ve been exploring a lot of the California native trout recently. This past weekend I was just up got my, uh, little Kern golden trout and Kern River rainbow trout, which. 00:19:26 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:19:26 Daniel: Pretty cool to find. And then yeah, I’ve got most of the, most of the cutthroat around the West, which has been a fun project. 00:19:35 Dave: How many are there? We’ve this has come up before on the podcast. How many how many cutthroat are there in the West? 00:19:40 Daniel: I could nerd about out about this a lot because I’m a I’m a biologist and I work, work life, personal life in grad school. But, uh, they’ve been kind of rethinking the subspecies and stuff. Cutthroat. I think the, the broad consensus is that there’s like four major lineages. I forget off the top of my head, all the four. One of them is like coastal. And then you have Westslope and there’s like kind of those interior ones and then something up in Yellowstone. And then, you know, a lot of those split into different, those different subspecies, your, your bonobos, your bear River, you can kind of, you can kind of split and divide them as much as you want. And you might find populations that have then kind of distinct for millions of years, which is kind of cool, even if they’re the same subspecies, right? 00:20:28 Dave: Yeah, it is cool. I think it’s, I think finding native fish, you know, on their own range is, is kind of, you know, because not a lot of people have done that. And it’s kind of unique, even if there that’s a great thing is that some of these fish. A lot of times you’re in the back country. So they’re not giants, right? These are, I guess, cutthroat. I mean, what’s the largest cutthroat you’re seeing out in the backcountry, do you think like twelve inches? Probably a good good size fish. 00:20:49 Daniel: For a creek fish. Yeah. I mean, you go to a place like Yellowstone, a lot of those rivers have good size cutthroat, not to mention like Yellowstone Lake and those kind of fish. But, uh, a lot of those kind of creeks and states like Colorado. Yeah, a twelve inch fish is, is awesome. When you get into some lakes where they’ve been stocked or maybe existed naturally, then you can find some larger fish often. 00:21:11 Dave: Nice. This is good. Okay, so yeah, I’m trying to have a picture and set this packing list up. Do you guys have like on your site somewhere where there’s a, a list that we’re talking about where people can check off the boxes on what they need to cover and things you guys like brands and stuff like that. 00:21:26 Patrick: We do. Dave. We, uh, we actually published like a pretty lengthy guide that’s like our ultimate guide to packing. So that’s, that’s available for free on our website and kind of our entire philosophy about what to bring and what not to bring. And then it ends in a, in a full checklist of all of your fishing gear and all of your backpacking gear for like a standard three day trip or overnight or whatnot. So we think that’s super useful. And yeah, that’s live on our site right now. 00:21:50 Dave: Okay, good. Yeah. We’ll put a link out to that at culture backcountry dot com and yeah, cool. You’ve got the gear, the tarp tent, you’ve got everything with this is great. 00:21:58 Patrick: Yeah. We list like specifics that we’ve used to. And, you know, we’re by no means have we used everything that’s out there. But, you know, we, we have used quite a bit and we know what we like and what we stand by. 00:22:08 Dave: Yeah, this is it. And you got some, uh, some Patagonia gear is, which is awesome too sweet. Okay, so that’ll help. I think people getting into this because it’s, uh, I think the challenges are obvious. I mean, when you guys got going on this, do you remember when you first did your first backcountry trip or have you guys been doing this all your life? What does that look like? 00:22:27 Patrick: Yeah, we’ve been doing this for a long time. I mean, the first time I went out and felt like, oh, I’m in like true wilderness. And this is something that I haven’t done before. And we had to really focus on the gear and it felt like overwhelming and no idea what we were doing. It was probably on a trip to the Boundary Waters, and I was maybe, I don’t know, twelve years old or something at the time. That was that was probably the first like true wilderness area five day trip or whatever that I had gone on. And I totally remember back then, like the feeling of, you know, it seems really daunting of like, what do I need to bring? And there’s so much information out there. And sometimes the information is conflicting and, you know, you feel like you’re doing everything wrong. I think I go back to I was a backpacking guide for years. And so I’ve taken a lot of people out on their first overnight trips, gotten people kind of used to backpacking and something that I always tell people, especially people who are really nervous and they don’t are hesitant about their first trip, is that back hiking is really nothing more than just walking, eating, and sleeping. And you do all those things every day already in your normal life, right? 00:23:32 Dave: And sometimes the walking is a little bit hard, right? 00:23:35 Patrick: Yeah, totally. Totally. There are caveats to it. And like, yeah, you know, you can’t go in totally blind because you might be miserable or you might be doing something dangerous. But at the end of the day, just like, remember that these are three activities that you already do. Um, and you’re totally capable of doing them in a different context. 00:23:51 Dave: There’s such different levels of all this, you know, because I think that safety is part of this. Right? Obviously, you mentioned bears. You know, bears usually aren’t too much of an issue, although you do have the food stuff containers. But you know, there’s different levels of just going in for a day hike versus going in for a multi-day trip. Or if you run out of water, maybe like we said, we were in Hells Canyon. You know, that’s a big thing. If you don’t have water and then you have blisters on day one. But it’s interesting because I always go back to Alex Honnold. You know, you guys probably have heard of him, right? The guy that climbed El Capitan without ropes, the first guy to free solo. And he’s obviously at the pinnacle of extreme, you know, that sort of thing. But but you have all these different levels of of what you have going and like, how do you guys look at that? Is that it sounds like you guys have been doing it a while, but if somebody’s like listening now and they’re maybe haven’t done a lot of it, what’s that piece for them to be safe out there? Do you have something that, you know, advice you’d give them before they jump in their first multi-day backcountry trip? 00:24:45 Patrick: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think that piece is crucial. Like, on the one hand, we really want to promote people feeling like they can get out into the backcountry, and we want to empower people to feel like this is something that they can do. You know, it’s not for someone else, it’s for you if you want to do it. And we think that’s, that’s super cool. But like you were saying, you know, safety is paramount. And like, you can’t just expect to go out into the woods with no planning and have everything go. Okay. All sorts of stuff can, can definitely go awry. And I would say like the biggest single thing, if you’re sitting at home, you’re listening to this, you think it would be awesome to go pitch a tent and go overnight, do some fishing, explore a new area. If you think that sounds cool. Number one thing you can do to be safer, especially as a beginner, is to always go with someone else. It’s going to be way more fun anyway to go with the crew. Three or more is even better, but go with other people. That’s just a better way to make good decisions to, you know, sounding board. If people around you, that is the best way to go about being in the backcountry. And there are a lot of additional things you can do, you know, getting a wilderness first aid or even a wilderness first responder cert. You know, Danny and I are both Wolfers. Uh, that’s great information to have and makes you feel like you’re, uh, you know, maybe have some agency if things start to go downhill in a backcountry setting. 00:26:00 Dave: What’s the Wolfers again? Remind us on that. What is the Wolfers stand for? 00:26:04 Patrick: Uh, that’s a wilderness first responder. So that’s sort of a kind of like a first aid course that I don’t know. I think it’s about eighty hours of course work and sort of designed to, uh, practice medicine in a backcountry setting. 00:26:15 Daniel: I’d also add that, uh, if you’ve never been on a backpacking trip, there’s really great ways to go on your first trip. And I think just going like a single overnight or something kind of keeping things small, you know, you can kind of learn all these skills, backpacking, all these aspects of it, whether it’s packing your pack or kind of learning how to set up or break down camp or kind of doing all these things. These are skills. And so they take practice and kind of easing into these longer, more ambitious trips with kind of shorter trips where you test out your gear and you try things out. That’s kind of the best way to do it. 00:26:50 Dave: Perfect. Yeah. That first day and that’s something is obviously a big thing to have. And I’ve been on trips where people have gotten just basic stuff like stung, you know, and didn’t have, you know, weren’t prepared with the right gear, you know, just some Benadryl, right? Could save somebody’s life potentially. Anything else that, I mean, we’re probably not going to get into everything here, but what are I always kind of go back to the, you know, you got the main gear you have and then you got your luxury items, right. I see I see some other some shoes and things like that. What do you guys put on that? That’s some stuff that you take that’s maybe that luxury stuff that you don’t necessarily have to have, but you really love having it on the trip. Like I’m looking at the Krok classic. Uh, you know, Krok, which is like that shoe is pretty awesome. I mean, you could almost you could probably hike in that shoe, right? Is that something that could be doable? 00:27:35 Patrick: Yeah. Daniels, the krok fanatic of the two of us. He’s a he’s a believer. 00:27:39 Dave: I always wondered about that because I’m a big krok. I’m a big krok guy, too, and I wear it around the house and sort of thing. But I mean, sometimes I’ll forget and I’ll go out on the. You know what I mean? Just. Oh yeah, I’m wearing my Crocs and they’re super comfortable. Right. So they are, they are legit footwear. 00:27:56 Daniel: Yeah. I, I have a, I did a trip where I did my, uh, my wading, my fishing in Crocs actually, and kind of explored this whole canyon in, in Yosemite, which was, which was a pretty good time. And they did great. Honestly, they, uh, had pretty good grip on that, that granite, all that, that smooth rock and stuff. And I felt totally comfortable in them. So if you’re, if you’re a croc person, by all means you use them and enjoy. 00:28:22 Dave: Okay, good. Well, so and back to that is that one, uh, what other luxury items, what are on this list that you guys have here that you think you might not have to have to do a multi-day trip? 00:28:32 Patrick: For me, a big one is a Kindle. I like reading before bed. I have like they’re the smallest little Kindle option. I think that’s worth bringing. Maybe not so much in the summer, because you’re probably fishing until it gets dark and go to bed, but you’re doing a shoulder season trip or something and you know, it’s getting dark at four thirty or five. Little, little entertainment in your tent at night. It’s not a bad idea. Kindle is good. Fits the bill for that. 00:28:55 Dave: The Garmin you’ve got a you got a GPS. It looks like there. 00:28:57 Patrick: Yeah, I would I mean, in today’s day and age, like if you have the resources to buy one, you should definitely be bringing some sort of a GPS slash emergency communication device. 00:29:08 Dave: Yeah. Is that Garmin that you have there? Is that one that’s a or a lot of these the same now that where you can kind of pay for a service, you buy the product, you pay for a service, then you can text is the big thing that you can do. 00:29:19 Patrick: Yes, yes. They attach to an app on your phone and then you can text. And I know all the new iPhones are rolling out satellite connectivity. 00:29:27 Dave: Yeah. Does that is that still is that happen? I mean, I know it’s happening, but it’s not always one hundred percent. Is that something you can count on? 00:29:34 Patrick: I personally have not don’t want to count on that yet. I’ve had issues communicating like in canyons and stuff and like in a Garmin inReach might have a little difficulty connecting at first, but I’ve always been able to send messages with it no matter where I am. And the iPhone so far has not been able to do that. But I feel like that’s probably coming. And that’ll be awesome. When? Someday. 00:29:56 Dave: Yeah, especially in a canyon. Does the Garmin, if you’re in a deep canyon, does that still work or do you have to get out up a little bit? 00:30:03 Patrick: It works. It might take, you know, ten or fifteen minutes to, to shoot off your message, but it definitely works. And that’s nice to have peace of mind. I would say that it’s, you know, it’s no replacement. Like you can’t just press a button and your problem is going to get solved. So you should not, you should not think about it like that, right? 00:30:19 Dave: There’s not going to be like a helicopter necessarily dropping down to pick you up if you’re broken. 00:30:23 Patrick: Yeah, yeah. So like that, that isn’t like a cure all to bring, but it is nice to have peace of mind and to be able to communicate with people and update people on your plan. That’s another thing too, just to mention like a safety side of things, another easy thing you can do, especially if you’re a beginner, is to always leave behind a full itinerary with, you know, someone who’s not on the trip so they can know when to expect you back and where you’re going to be. And if you have a Garmin inReach, that’s something you can update someone throughout the trip. Let them know that you’re you’re on track on your itinerary. 00:30:54 Dave: Yeah, I always go back to some of the movies that have been out there. And, you know, there’s the guy, I can’t remember what was the name of the guy that had to had to cut his arm. Well, he didn’t have to, but he cut his arm off. 00:31:03 Patrick: Oh, yeah. I don’t remember that guy, that one hundred and twenty seven hours or whatever. Yeah yeah yeah. 00:31:08 Dave: Yeah. Right, right. And that was the biggest thing is he didn’t tell anybody a simple thing where he was going. And so but that’s definitely a good, good advice for sure. And I’m seeing now you guys also have a link out to an Rei backpacking checklist. So that’s a good, a good resource for sure. Well, tell me this on you guys. You know, you’ve got obviously your brothers, you know, I have three brothers, three older brothers. And you know, we don’t always you know, we used to actually, there was times where we did a lot together, a lot more. But as we got older, I feel like I’m the one that stayed in fly fishing and they slowly got out of it. Have you guys been always kind of doing stuff? I know you’re in separate states now, but take us back a little bit on that. Was your family. Did your your parents, were they big time kind of outdoors people. 00:31:50 Daniel: It’s funny. We we grew up going to the Lake of the Ozarks a lot. Our grandparents had a had a cabin there for, for many, many years. And so when we were really little, we’d go fishing for bluegills and bass and stuff on the dock. We could literally fish for twelve straight hours just in the, in the small confines of this little lake dock. Um, so I, we always love to fish and be outside, but I would say that kind of getting into fly fishing and backpacking and stuff in particular has been a thing that, you know, us and our dad and, and kind of sister and stuff have learned together and kind of yeah, I think in back in high school really got into into fly fishing and fly tying and got my first bites and stuff like that. YouTube is so good for learning things these days. And it really, really helps, uh, figure things out. At the beginning when we didn’t have kind of somebody to learn from necessarily, right? 00:32:42 Dave: Is that yeah, that’s the cool thing about it is there’s a lot of resources now for people out there. And YouTube is a good one for sure. Right? You can find find that was advice I had from I can’t remember who it was. I think one of the expert kind of, uh, team USA anglers, he basically said, you know, find one person to follow and get their stuff dialed in, you know, one of the experts out there. But yeah, YouTube is one good thing. And you know, Patrick, how about you? Is that how you kind of taught yourself? Did you guys teach yourself fly fishing kind of when you first got into it? 00:33:11 Patrick: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I would say like, yeah, looking back, like Daniel said, we have been fishing about as long as we can remember. And it yeah, it started with, you efficient worms under bobbers, and we were just obsessed with catching fish. And like at a young age, I think we didn’t even know what what fishing could be. It was just like this little like, like Daniel said, it was just fishing off of a dock and we would catch bluegill ninety five percent of the time, and then sometimes we’d catch something different. And it was super exciting and just became totally obsessed with that. And then over the years that grew and we saw, you know, all these different fishing opportunities that we get into. And at some point, I think I was ten when we were going to go on a trip to go fish for trout in southern Missouri. And so my dad picked us up some rods from Cabela’s, and I think he bought like a casting DVD or something. So three, three of us were in the backyard, like trying to, you know, trying to oh, cool DVD and I don’t remember what the program was. I wish I did. I know, I really wish I did because that would be awesome now, but, um, it. 00:34:11 Dave: Was probably like lefty cray or somebody like somebody famous. 00:34:15 Patrick: Yeah, yeah, honestly, probably. So anyway, we looked at that, you know. So that was like our first first outing with Fly Gear. And then, yeah, I think it really just became addicted to that whole side of things, as many people do when they start getting into the fly game. And yeah, Danny got more and more into tying all of a sudden, you know, we started to fish broader areas to go out west. All of a sudden we were on, you know, rivers that we had heard the name of that was, you know, exciting things like that. And eventually we also figured out how to catch fish or two, um, and started getting better. And then then things opened up even more. And so then. 00:34:50 Dave: Right, were you guys doing this as you were going like, was this after your parents? You’re kind of out of the house or were you doing this both, you know, kind of before and after you got out of the house. 00:35:00 Patrick: Both. I would say totally both. And, you know, the classic thing is like, your dad teaches you how to fish, right? In our case, you know, like my dad liked fishing, but that was certainly not something that he was an expert at. And so for us, it was really fun because it was kind of the three of us like learning together. So, you know, my dad like totally fostered our interest in fishing, but he wasn’t the one telling us how to do it. It was like, all right, you know, you guys want to fish? Cool. Let’s get this trip on the books and then we’ll figure out how to get it done. So it was really fun for the three of us to kind of learn together. 00:35:29 Dave: That’s cool. And is your dad still out there doing it? 00:35:32 Patrick: Yeah for sure. And we, you know, we try to get multiple trips every year with, with all of us going. And recently my sister’s been getting more interested in the fishing, which has been awesome. And so definitely like kind of a family thing, which has been really fun. 00:35:45 Dave: Yeah. That’s perfect. And where did you guys. What was the, what state did you grow up? Because you’re both, you’re in Colorado and California now. 00:35:52 Patrick: Yeah, we grew up in Kansas City on the Missouri side, so squarely in the Midwest. Maybe not what you think of as trout country, although there are some awesome trout and smallmouth opportunities, um, in southern Missouri and obviously in northern Arkansas too. But since childhood, we both sort of gravitated towards the West and all that has to offer from fishing standpoint. 00:36:14 Dave: Fly fish with me. Utah discover year round blue ribbon trout fishing on the Provo River. Choose a guided walk and wade or a scenic float and experience big trout, stunning canyons and unforgettable days on the water. You can book your adventure right now at Fly Fishing with me, Utah dot com. World class water. Incredible fishing. That’s fly fishing with me Utah 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. Nice. Well, yeah, I think we have a good kind of start to, you know, the list. And like I said, we’ll have a link out to that, that blog post you guys have there. But anything else we’re missing here? Just if somebody’s kind of thinking about putting this together on the, the backcountry trip or you guys, you know, the brand, what you guys have going, that’s going to help people. 00:37:26 Patrick: Yeah, we already touched on, you know, we have these collapsible nets. We have our clip kits that you can use to organize all your gear. So on the brand front, currently what we offer, although we’re really excited to keep digging in and solving pain points. 00:37:38 Dave: What are some of those pain points? What do you think those are like when you think about what were some of the first ones you got? Well, you had you’re talking about to the net, the rod tube, maybe we’ve talked about them all, but are there other pain points you guys had you’ve had that you’re still working on solving? 00:37:52 Patrick: Yeah, a huge one. Um, this is kind of a big project that we haven’t fully announced yet, but we will be publicly soon is on the apparel side of things. We feel like there is, you know, there’s obviously an awful lot of fly fishing brands that do fishing, technical fishing apparel. Most of that, most of the time is geared towards fishing out of a drift boat, fishing in your waders. Really lightweight, quick, dry stuff that excels in the environment it’s designed for. Oftentimes that stuff we found doesn’t hold up as well. If you are scrambling on your butt down a scree field, trying to get to the bottom of a canyon or bushwhacking through super thick chaparral and getting completely torn up. At the same time, a lot of the more, you know, heavy duty, like hiking brands that are out there that can hold up to that kind of use, are not geared with a fisherman in mind. It’s not stuff that is quick drying, can be exposed to water that you’d want to wade in. And so we are tackling like a full line of technical apparel for fishing in the backcountry. And this will be a, you know, pants, shirts, fleeces, hoodies that are designed for backpacking primarily and also fishing at the same time. And we’re super excited about this. This will be something that’s going to come out next year. 00:39:10 Dave: In twenty twenty seven. 00:39:11 Patrick: twenty twenty seven. Yeah, we’re hoping to kind of document how we’re making the design decisions along the way in public so people can can see what we’re what we’re doing and get excited about it. Give us a follow on Coulter Backcountry as our social media on Instagram is primarily our, our platform of choice. 00:39:28 Dave: That’ll be fun. That’ll be fun to watch. I feel like the and I know, Daniel, you got to get out of here pretty quick. So we’re going to let you hop out. But, um, yeah, I feel like with the gear, it’s, um, you know, I go back to the pants, you know, I’m an old guy now, so it’s like the zip off pants. I’ve got lots of them. I’ve always loved kind of those. And it’s funny because, I mean, I probably don’t wear the zip offs a lot. I probably usually just wear pants. I mean, are you guys what’s your take on that? Are you because I’ve heard people say, you know, it’s more like, well, just just have the pants. You don’t really need the, the zip zip off things. What’s your can you give us a shout of what you’re thinking about doing on the pants? And maybe, Daniel, you could take us away on this since you’re you’re heading out of here in a sec. 00:40:04 Daniel: I fish out of pants all the time. I think if they’re kind of nice and quicker drying, especially that kind of below the knee component. It’s really nice. Um, I’ll bring a pair of hiking shorts too. Usually like one pair of shorts. One pair of pants for a trip. We’ll, uh, we’ll tide me over. 00:40:21 Dave: Yeah, that’s the better way to do it. They’re light. And so why not just bring one pair of lightweight shorts and one pair of pants instead of having the zip thing is a little annoying because it’s like having to zip that thing up for some reason. That’s a little hassle, I think. But okay, so that, that covers that. So that’s what you guys are going to do. You’re going to have shorts and pants coming out. 00:40:37 Patrick: Just pants. Yeah, we’re just looking at the pants. Um, I think, I mean, once upon a time we both like to hike in shorts. That has its time and place. But you know, as soon as you’re doing anything off trail, which if you’re fishing, you almost always are. I at least don’t like for my legs to get completely annihilated by underbrush. And, uh, we both had our fair share of experience with poison ivy and poison oak. I don’t think Daniel can’t go more than fifty yards in California without running into a poison oak plant in the places he fishes. So, yeah, it’s nice to have full coverage for sure. And so yeah, a pant that is designed to be able to hold up to that kind of just absolute total abuse. You know, maybe something that you would find more in the hunting world, as well as being able to handle a ton of water exposure and quick drying is our goal. 00:41:22 Dave: Yeah, definitely. That’s a yeah, I wear my deer hunting. You know, I have just hunting pants and they’re great. I mean, I think the hunting that’s the thing about the if you look at that, the, the hunter, uh, brands, they’ve got some stuff dialed in. I don’t know all the names, but I mean, there’s some really super high quality stuff out there and. 00:41:40 Patrick: Totally. 00:41:40 Dave: Right. 00:41:41 Patrick: That’s something we look to for inspiration too, just from a fly fishing standpoint. I mean, we all, all these brands in the hunting space are, you know, all about backcountry stuff. And that’s what they love doing. And, you know, we think that there are just as many people who are doing backcountry fishing as well. Um, and so, you know, we’d like to be the champions of that in the fishing space. 00:42:01 Dave: Yeah. Are there that’s always an interesting thing with the numbers on that. Do you guys have any feel for that? You probably have done a little bit of that research on, you know, hunting compared to fly fishing is right. There’s a lot more hunters, I think, out there, right? Fly fishing is pretty small, but you guys are kind of bringing together the fly fishermen, fly angler, and the backcountry. So it’s this it’s a small niche, right? Fairly, fairly small compared, but you probably have some overlap people that maybe are hunters or whatever. And they also do some back or maybe they’re going to be fly anglers too. Do you think about that on on who you’re kind of target customer is that you’re looking at attracting here? 00:42:34 Patrick: Yeah, totally. I mean, the hunting side of things from a dollar standpoint, way bigger. You know, it dwarfs the fly fishing industry just in general. But yeah, we love, I mean, kind of our, we, we think of different customers. We have, we have the people that are already doing all of these things. And we’d like for them to look at us and be like, oh, those guys are like, you know, making stuff for the exact kind of activity that I do. And they’re thinking about it in the same way I do. And it kind of fits in with with what they’re already up to. And then, yes, we also think about all the people who are out there backpacking and they love spending time in the woods and they go by all these lakes and they go by all these creeks. At some point, many of them have thought, oh, you know, I should bring a fishing rod or I should get into fishing. And we’d love to have some good solutions for them to get a backcountry kit put together and just kind of integrate it into their, their backpacking world that already exists. So that’s totally another angle that we look at. 00:43:24 Dave: That’s it. Perfect. All right guys, well, I think we’ve come to that moment where sometimes we do our little rapid fire round. So let’s jump into that. And, and I got a few questions that we’ll we’ll jump in here as we go. But let’s start with you, Daniel, on this. Um, we’re going to get a few tips to, I want to get a few kind of backcountry kind of hiking tip sort of thing, but talk about your places. It sounds like you’ve been to a lot of places for these small trout. Is there an area you really love that you know really isn’t you’re spot burning or a place that you maybe would go back to for backcountry stuff? 00:43:56 Daniel: I really want to get back up to Oregon. There’s some stuff in just the whole all that canyon country, uh, central, eastern Oregon. There’s some some great river systems there that are really remote. It’s really hard to get to. 00:44:11 Dave: But right. Like the like part of the, I’m guessing the upper. Well, I don’t even know. There’s the upper. The Deschutes is a pretty big system, pretty known river, but there’s a lot of backcountry lakes and. Well, there’s the. You mentioned the trail. What was the trail you guys did one of the big trails out there. 00:44:27 Daniel: Uh, we did the Continental Divide. So the Pacific Crest Trail runs, runs through Oregon. Haven’t hiked hiked there too much. But yeah, there’s some there’s some awesome rivers with bull trout and even some good steelhead runs and stuff that I’d love to, uh, love to get back to. 00:44:43 Dave: All right. Good. So you got Oregon and Patrick. How about you? What do you got on your on your list? 00:44:48 Patrick: I am relatively new to Colorado, so I’ve just been in love with exploring Northwest Colorado. Um, I’m in steamboat or the business is based here in steamboat and, and anything that I within a two hour radius, I’ve just been kind of all over getting out whenever I can. So I love doing that and catching some of the native cutthroat here in Colorado. It’s been has been awesome. 00:45:10 Dave: Yeah. And what is the native? Are there a bunch of native cutthroat species or is there just one or two? 00:45:16 Patrick: Yeah, in my neck of the woods, the Colorado River cutthroat is the, uh, the species. 00:45:21 Dave: Okay, good. So you got more and more exploring there and. Yeah, you could spend your lifetime, I’m sure, hiking the backcountry in Colorado right through the Rockies and everything. Yeah. And we talked a little on luxury items and gear and, but let’s get into a couple tips real quick. And maybe, Daniel, we’ll start with you. What’s your. We’re getting ready now. We’ve got our list. We’ve got all the gear out there. We’re heading out for this trip. What’s a tip you’re telling us before we’re getting into that multi-day trip? 00:45:44 Daniel: Yeah. So one of my big tips I would say is around water. Always, I guess we put this on our gear. There’s probably, but the lightest and kind of easiest water system you can have is to take a smart water bottles as your water bottle. They’re super light, they’re indestructible and get one of the filters that can screw on to those type of water bottles. So, uh, Sawyer squeeze is a good example. I just got a brand new, uh, platypus one that works super well. That’s like thirty or forty bucks now. So they’re pretty cheap to get a good filter and bring two bottles. One of them’s your dirty bottle that you fill up in the river. The other is a clean one where you squeeze that water into it goes super fast. Um, and you can even just, uh, kind of leave that connected to the, to the bottle and drink right out of the river through the filter. So that’s a super kind of easy light way to, to get water when you’re out there. 00:46:36 Dave: Perfect. Yeah. And you’re just talking about the smart water, like the bottles, you can just buy the just right on the shelf, just your normal grab them with your water. Yeah. And that’s actually something I, I’ve had a lot of, for some reason, the smart, I don’t know why I’ve always leaned to that one. Maybe it is because of the water bottle. It seems like it is. It’s not your just disposable bottle. I feel like those are there’s something about them, right? I don’t know what they’ve done. They’re. 00:46:56 Daniel: They work pretty well. We’ve, uh, I would say on the seat we would hike with a single pair of water bottles for, I don’t know, five hundred miles or so at least. And so they last a really, really long time before you got to get a new one. 00:47:10 Dave: Yeah. Five hundred miles. And what’s the mileage? Is it. I always kind of used to think ten miles a day was was a pretty good day. But what are you guys doing when you’re when you’re hiking on the trail? 00:47:20 Daniel: That trail we got up to kind of when we really hit our our stride to twenty five to thirty a day. So. Wow. It’s a big day. You kind of got to adjust physically to be able to do that. And it takes at least a month, month or plus to be able to, to get there. 00:47:36 Dave: Yeah. Do you guys do that? Are you a full on, you know, training before a trip like that? Or what are you doing to prepare? 00:47:43 Patrick: Yeah, we’re I’m definitely big on the training side of things. That was actually going to be. My tip is that if you haven’t gone backpacking before, you should try to spend some time training beforehand. And it’s interesting that I found that other types of fitness do not translate well into walking in the mountains with a backpack on. So anything you can do to kind of simulate that back at home, especially if you live in a flat area. Going through your neighborhood with a pack on your back, trying to find a local hill to walk up. That’s pretty essential because if you if you haven’t done it before and you’re all gung ho and you’ve got all the gear and you know, everything’s mapped out, you’ve done all this planning and then you show up for your first trip. If you’re not in shape, you might have a miserable time, even if everything else goes well. So spend some time getting in shape beforehand and trying to spend as much time as possible with the pack on. You’re gonna have a lot better time out there when you show up. 00:48:32 Dave: Right. That’s it. That’s perfect. Okay, so we got we got a couple tips from both of you guys. What about one of my go back to my luxury items? And I guess we all have them now with the phone. I think that’s pretty cool is that you know, you’ve got your phone but but music or a podcast, like for me, I’d have some podcasts downloaded ready to go and probably have my AirPods. Are you guys doing music or anything like that when you’re and what do you do for your just like charging wise stuff for your phones and all that. 00:48:59 Patrick: Yeah, if we’re so like back when we did the CDC, there was a lot of podcast action. You’re hiking all day, every day. Nowadays, like we’re not, we’re, we don’t really hike that many miles anymore, only because that completely and totally cuts into your fishing time. But, you know, we’ll do a long hike to get somewhere. And then I like to be efficient as much as possible. It’s sort of the whole point of backpacking for me nowadays. That being said, yes, if you’re if you’re doing long days on the trail, especially after lunch, things get hot. It is nice to throw a pair of headphones in. Um, podcasts are great. I still have a little, uh, anchor I think is the brand a n k e r battery charger? Once upon a time, it held four full phone charges. I don’t know if my phone is bigger now and sucks more battery, or if the battery pack is not as good as it once was, but, um, that that doesn’t last quite as long. But it did last for four four battery cycles. And with my phone on airplane mode, that was more than enough for me to listen to music, use it as a camera, take video, do all that stuff. And it wasn’t that big. I don’t know what the weight was, but about the size of the palm of my hand. 00:50:00 Dave: That’s right. So just one battery pack. And yeah, the airplane mode helps it to. Or you can even turn off your phone, right, just to get your battery to, to. But that’s the one thing is that we all have the camera is right. What does your phone do? Right? It does a phone, although we do more things with it than even talking. Now, that’s the funny thing about the phone, right? Right, right. It’s become this thing. So it’s our camera, it’s our GPS. It’s kind of everything. What is your phone do when you’re out there on the other than listening to music, what else are you using it for? And photos. You got photos and maybe the the podcasts. 00:50:31 Patrick: I think the main thing for the phone is using that as a GPS. There are quite a few apps out there I like to use on X, O, and X, and you can pre-download maps. They have all sorts of layers on them. So you can see the topo lines, you can see satellite imagery, you can see boundaries with different land designations. And then, you know, like all GPS maps, you can see where you are in relation to the trail. So that’s what I’m pulling out of my pocket, especially if you’re doing, you know, some cross country travel where you’re not on a trail that’s super handy to have. That’s primarily what I’m using my phone for that. And then the camera, you know, Moose steps out on trails, right? You want to you want to snap a quick picture. Um, those two things are the primary use case for my phone. 00:51:14 Dave: Okay. Good, good. And, uh, and when you guys are out there, are you both listening to podcasts? Are you listening to music or what do you listen to out there? 00:51:22 Patrick: And we like to do a bit of both if it’s going to be a long day. I sink into a little podcast. Like I said, I don’t really do too much of that anymore. But if you’re if you’re hauling, yeah, and you’re hiking all day, then get into a podcast is nice. And I find especially on something like the CDC, where we were together with each other for so long, you know, eventually, well pretty quickly run out of things to talk about. So if, if, if both people plug into a podcast after lunch, then at dinner you can chit chat or whatever, whatever you listen to in the podcast and actually. 00:51:52 Dave: Have a conversation. 00:51:53 Patrick: Conversation. Yeah, totally. So that’s kind of nice. 00:51:56 Dave: That’s pretty good. Are you guys how close in age are you guys? 00:51:59 Patrick: We’re three years apart, so Daniel’s about three years younger than I am. 00:52:02 Dave: Okay. And you have a sister, too? 00:52:04 Patrick: Yes. I have a twin sister, actually. 00:52:06 Dave: That’s awesome. What about. I guess you’re probably not doing any, uh, watch and download a movie. I’m not sure if anybody’s even doing that out there on the trail. There probably are some. 00:52:16 Patrick: I’m not. I, you know, I do like to part of the backpacking for me is getting away. And so it is nice to unplug a little bit. Yeah, sure. We have our phones on and I will listen to stuff. But no, personally, I’m not watching any shows or TV in the backcountry, but I would I would not be surprised if there if some people are doing that and all the power to you, if that’s that’s how you need to get to sleep in your tent. 00:52:37 Dave: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Cool. All right, guys, well, any, any other items before we head out here that we missed today on Coulter, on your brand or anything you guys have coming up in the in the future? 00:52:47 Patrick: No, I don’t think so. Dave. I appreciate you having us on. And, uh, it’s super fun chatting. 00:52:52 Dave: Yeah. Thanks. This has been great. I really, uh, you know, this list is awesome. I think that we’re going to put this right up at the top so people can take a look, because I think you guys did a good job of covering everything. You know, most everything you need. And again, it’s not just your standard heavy. You were thinking about weight. I mean, you get so you get this gear and you’re under twenty pounds, right? Which is a pretty nice pack to have. I guess the one thing we didn’t ask was on backpacks. What do you. There’s a lot of different types of packs. I’m not even sure. I haven’t really been in the loop recently, but do you have that listed there on your pack? 00:53:22 Patrick: Yeah we do. I have typically used a internal frame pack. I have an Osprey. Exos is the model. Daniel has gravitated more towards the frameless packs, um, which got real popular. I don’t know, five to ten years ago, like the hyperlite, you know, dyneema style roll top bags that don’t have any frame. 00:53:42 Dave: What do you lose with the frame? I mean, it seems like you’d lose the just the, I mean, yeah, some comfort, but is that not how did the frame how do you do it? Are they just as comfortable or frameless? 00:53:51 Patrick: I think so. I again, I have not actually run a frameless pack. People say they’re pretty comfortable. I think they. If you keep the weight down in them, then they’re great. I think if you really load them up with weight without without the frame, they can get a little unwieldy and maybe uncomfortable. But I’m also not speaking from experience. 00:54:09 Dave: So no, definitely. Yeah. No, it looks like your Exos. It’s the Exos fifty eight. 00:54:13 Speaker 4: Yep. Yeah. Fifty eight liter. 00:54:15 Patrick: It’s a good one. And that’s another tip. Super quick tip right there on that. Is that the quickest way to keep your pack light is to have a smaller pack. You know, packs are if you buy the eighty five liter pack, you will find a way to fill the entire thing. So that’s. 00:54:29 Dave: Right. So that’s a fifty eight. So that’s a fifty eight liter. 00:54:32 Speaker 4: Yep. Yep. 00:54:32 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s a good tip. Yeah. So don’t don’t get the eighty five. If you want to go light. Yeah. Go smaller. The smaller the better. 00:54:39 Speaker 4: Totally. 00:54:39 Dave: Yeah. You could always strap stuff on the outside, but it doesn’t seem like that’s too smart of a move. I think getting it inside is better. Right? 00:54:46 Speaker 4: Yeah. Agree. Agree there. 00:54:47 Dave: Yeah. Okay. And then what do you do on that. Exos fifty eight. Where are you putting your four piece rod. 00:54:52 Patrick: That’s going on. There’s a side pocket and sort of elastic. And then they also happen. One of the reasons I like this pack is that it has a kind of a crisscrossing line of, of webbing or something that goes along that thing. So you can stick it inside both the side pocket and that webbing. And so it stays pretty secure. 00:55:09 Dave: That’s right. Okay. So good. So we got the pack we got. And if there’s any other questions, well, like we said, we’ll send everybody out to you guys there at Coulter backcountry dot com and they can follow you on Instagram. And yeah, man, this has been good. I know, um, you know, we did. I think we connected on an event we had, you know, and so that was, that was fun. I think we’ll, we’ll stay in touch kind of with some of the stuff we have going. And yeah, until we meet again. Patrick. I know Daniel had to step out, but, um, we’ll keep in touch with you on Instagram and yeah, thanks for all your time today. 00:55:37 Patrick: Yeah. Thanks, Dave. Appreciate it. 00:55:40 Dave: All right. I think the take home today is start smaller. That’s the best way to stay light. Patrick said it don’t go big. Don’t go with the biggest pack. Go with the smaller pack. That’ll force you to limit the size. Their talking under twenty pounds for their pack, which is amazing. If you’re interested in getting access to the boot camp that’s kicking off here, wet fly swing dot com slash bootcamp, you can sign up there. You’ll get information on the upcoming boot Camp, which is going to be kicking off this October. This is going to be our biggest one ever. We’ve got twenty of the best speakers around. They’re coming in to share their knowledge and updates on fly fishing. All right. Thanks again for stopping off. I’m getting out of here. If you get a chance, please send me an email if you’re interested in connecting. We’d love to hear from you. And I hope you’re having a great evening, morning, or afternoon. We’ll see you on next one. Have a good one. 00:56:29 Speaker 5: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit Wet Fly swing dot com.