938 | Water Lines with Riverhorse Nakadate – Patagonia, Boundary Waters, and Stories from a Life on the Water

WFS 938 Transcript 00:00:00 Dave: If tomorrow was your last day on this planet, would you feel like you left enough out on the water? Today’s guest has spent decades chasing that question. Across marshes, oceans, rivers, surf breaks and wilderness trails around the world. We’re talking about a new book, years in the making, the adventures behind It, and why some of the best stories begin when you leave the easy road behind. Today we’re joined once again by River horse Nakadate. River horse is a writer, conservationist, Patagonia ambassador, filmmaker, and lifelong wanderer whose new book, Water Lines, brings together some of the most unforgettable adventures, lessons, and reflections from a life spent following water wherever it leads. 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. Today, River horse is going to talk about water lines. This new book and the incredible story of working with Patagonia and getting this published. We’re going to find out what it was like recording the audiobook here and in the studio with some of the biggest names in music. We’re also going to find out about this publishing process, what it felt like, and also get into some conservation concerns out there, including the Boundary Waters. We’re going to get an update on the Boundary Waters and some of the crazy adventures River horse is on. This is a fun one. Always good to get rid of horse on. You can check in with him at River horse underscore Nakadate on Instagram and you can check out water lines. A life lived on marshes, rivers, seas and in the rain. You can go to Patagonia dot com right now and check in with that book. Here he is. River horse Nakadate. How you doing? River horse? 00:01:44 Riverhorse: Oh my gosh. Best day ever. 00:01:46 Dave: Nice man. Always good to hear your voice on the podcast here. Get caught up with you. It’s been a little while. I was looking back. We’ve got, uh, you know, I guess the first episode takes us back to twenty Nineteen twenty one. The last one we had on was twenty twenty three. So it’s been a few years now. So we’re looking forward to an update with you. But maybe just for since it’s been a few years, give folks just a little update on what you’ve been up to, who you are out there. For those people that haven’t heard your name before. 00:02:13 Riverhorse: Cool. Well, I’m Texas journalist and environmentalist and fisherman, kind of known for just running wild all over the earth and writing stories for magazines, doing some movies. And, uh, I’m Patagonia ambassador, so that’s pretty, pretty amazing. I never dreamed that I would get to hang with all those rock stars and legends and in our fly fishing world, but, um, I’ve been pretty head down since we last talked. Just the last five years. When I’m not out in it, I’ve been working on this book and it’s just been, it’s been such a cool path. I feel like I don’t know, you know, we had the pandemic and all that and these were wild times to be creating art and trying to leave my barbaric Whitman yap for the world. But here we are. The books out and I’m thrilled. I could tell you about the the road to it soon when we talk about that, because that’s just been. 00:03:10 Dave: It’s been talk about your because you’ve written a lot, obviously, but as far as books, how does this book relate to everything else you’ve done before? 00:03:18 Riverhorse: Um, you know, it’s the different world. You have a little more room, but I made it a point to not change my voice or writing style. I like things really tight. Who was that? Tom petty, the musician with the Heartbreakers. He always said, don’t bore us. Get to the chorus. And I’m a big fan of that. Just really tight, clean prose, poetry writing. So when you get the book, you listeners out there, I mean, the stories just fly by and they’re really fast. And hopefully, really, you know, each paragraph takes you a long ways instead of those, you know, just slugs that some books can be a bit. I did open it up a little bit. Um, I will say I feel like I kept the best pieces for the book. Uh, there’s pieces that were crazier than ever and pretty just, you know, near-death adventures and surfing and guitar. And I always save that stuff for the book. I know I’ve been in a lot of magazines, but the cream of the crop is in there and a lot of a lot of that nobody’s ever known. So and then there’s some obviously just some deep down, heartbreaking stuff and there’s some romance in there you can check out. Oh yeah, you can check out all my moves. So, uh, fasten your seat belt right on. 00:04:33 Dave: Right. That’s so cool. Yeah. We, you know, it’s interesting with the, with authors and writing, you know, we had, uh, John Gierach on a while back and, you know, obviously he’s passed away and, um, and he was a big influence to a lot of people. And the way he wrote was, I think some people said he wrote for the common man, you know, and but his writing was so unique. And, you know, I’ve been chatting a little bit with Tom McGuane because we’re going to be talking to him too. And I know he influenced John Gierach. Right. And there’s I’m sure there’s all these connections. What does that take us back there on your writing? Who were some of those people that were influential and maybe who are some writers out there that maybe are similar or write similarly to how you how you write? 00:05:15 Riverhorse: Yeah, McGuane and, and Gierach are awesome. And you know, the guy who actually first made a living as a fly fishing writer. So he’s, he’s and that was wonderful reading all those books. But that wasn’t really my, you know, I was always looking at the transcendentalists and reading a bunch of Gandhi and Muir. John Muir and Emerson. And I’d be just crazy for all the old stuff, Whitman and Thoreau. And I know that’s old school, but God, I could never, never get enough of that stuff. So a lot of it’s in the book even. 00:05:50 Dave: That is. That’s awesome. Yeah. So and your influence is where did that start again? You know, I mean, we’re gonna kind of take it back a little bit here, but just on the conservation ethic. And I and I want to bring that into the Patagonia because I think that’s a pretty powerful connection. But when did that start for you? When did you the conservation movement moment start for you? 00:06:08 Riverhorse: Well, I mean, I always was crazy for it just being out there. Like, I guess even as a kid and going into high school, like on Friday nights, I don’t know what other people did, but I was hauling ass into the woods alone and fishing and hiking and just learned how special these places are from the get go, but talks about it in the in the very introduction of the book. But, you know, I was watching Jacques Cousteau and, and Wild Kingdom and that I mean, watching him sail all over the world drove me crazy. Like I was like, listen, I may be first or second grader, but I gotta, I gotta, I gotta get out there. You know who needs this school stuff? 00:06:50 Dave: So that’s it? That’s it. Let’s just highlight that really quick. The name of the book that’s out there, people can pick it up right now. And, and, and then we’ll get into maybe some of the stories there. What is the title of the book? 00:07:02 Riverhorse: So it’s called Water Lines A life lived on marshes, rivers, seas and in the rain. Thirty two stories and an introduction and an index. And, um, even, you know, I didn’t know they would ever do an index of my book was just that listing at the end of all the different places and people and moments in the book. So even reading that just, wow, it’s so much fun. I look back, I’m like, wow, what a triptych of my life, right? It’s like baboons, Buddhism, yoga. Like it’s just, just hilarious. 00:07:36 Dave: Right? Does it cover what range? Do the stories go way back or are they are there more and more recent? 00:07:43 Riverhorse: Oh, definitely recent the last few years. But then, you know, I’m in the midst of a three a m drive somewhere. I’ll I’ll reflect on some other things. So but I talk a lot about as a kid, you know, nobody wanted to. I mean, I’d have a buddy that would fish or something and they’d only last an hour. And I was like, well, I just I couldn’t find any people that could hang that long or wanted to be gone for days. So I feel that that’s just all those transcendentalists, like they got it, you know, just running wild on your own. So, so many of the stories of that, even my years and years chasing surf all over the world, like same thing. I didn’t didn’t have anybody that wanted to fly to Africa for two months and hiked the southern. 00:08:30 Dave: Right. 00:08:31 Riverhorse: So yeah, the books, there’s so many stories in there for, you know, those rock stars and an NFL quarterback and drug cartel backed machine gun, boat chases and mountain. I mean, it’s just I’m looking at them like, wow. 00:08:50 Dave: So you’ve been you’ve been close to, uh, on the brink a few times close to death, all that. 00:08:56 Riverhorse: There’s three or four in there. 00:08:57 Dave: Yeah. 00:08:58 Riverhorse: There were. It’s like, wow, I think this is it. 00:09:00 Dave: Yep, yep. But you’re still here. What is the, um, you know, Patagonia. We’ve been working with them this year talking about their swift current waders and just all the good stuff. And I’ve been talking about them for years. You know, I think that they’ve led by, you know, example for a long time and, you know, inspired people. But what was that? When did you first connect with them? Was that a little bit ago? 00:09:20 Riverhorse: I think it’s been about ten years now. And they were supporting first, um, Blackfish Journal and Patagonia did that film called Love and Water following me all over Texas. And they supported that. And then I did the Boundary Waters film and this recent, um, Lapland Sami tribe reindeer journals film. But I think been an ambassador for six or seven years. But even those years before, you know, they would say stuff or send a little gear. And the way the Patagonia ambassador, this is the funniest question, but how do you get to be an ambassador? I’m like, wow, you gotta like walk the walk for thirty years and pour your heart out your community in the earth. And yeah, good luck with that. Like you should have already been doing it. But yeah, that’s, I never dreamed it. I can remember even ordering a some gear from them and calling up on the phone, you know, years ago and being thrilled that I even got to talk. Wow. I just talked to Patagonia and, you know, it was like, you know, because well, even now with the book coming out, it’s just it’s hard to process. It’s such an honor. And, um, I mean, a bunch and I wrote me a long letter about the book. He read it before it came out and his wife and he’s like, these words are so powerful, you need to keep doing this. And I was like, God, this is this is pretty. It makes me want to inspire me to keep going. And, um, so many of those projects that I’m doing with the environment are really heartbreaking. And especially this new Boundary Waters news. Like you just, I worked three years of my life to make that movie and I’m like, wow, this is we got it. We’re still trying to push those guys back and keep a foreign billionaire out of our public wilderness. So it’s crazy times. A lot of work to do. But like, without a doubt, that’s just the honor of my life being a part of that Patagonia team and having this book with rockstars like Gerry Lopez, Liz Clark, Swell and Yvonne’s books. And I’m, I can’t even imagine seeing it in the store. I’m like, this is crazy. It’s you know, I get it. Like, I know I have my deal and my own just wild take on life, but it’s just such an honor. And what’s funny is the book, um, I did the proposal for the book with this guy John Dutton, the editor of Patagonia. And I always felt that’s where the book would be. But, um, so I turned in the proposal because I wanted it. And that’s right. When Yvonne made the earth the owner of the company. And so for a year, the manuscripts out there, because they’re getting a new CEO, Ryan Gellert, and they had to see what, you know, what they’re going to do. Are they going to be more books or how many do we do? And so it’s up for a year. And then I got a call one day. It’s like, good, congrats. It went in front of the board, which was Yvonne and Melinda and Ryan and a couple others. They had all read the the previous stories and the proposal. And so they greenlighted it. Had a meeting on Zoom the next day with Carla and the team. And they’re like, here we go. I’m like, wow. And they sent the contract and it was amazing. And so I hunkered down for another year or so writing, turned it in, and the next day, my editor retires. MM. So it sits for another year. 00:12:51 Dave: Oh no way. 00:12:52 Riverhorse: But they, they give it to one editor to just like read it and say, yeah, he did his job. This is killer. And let’s do it. And, and then I, I get assigned another editor. This mountain climber, uh, Matt Samit who worked for outside. And so we spent a few months just bearing down on it. And I thought, okay, here we go, here goes the book. And then they’re like, great job. Now we’re giving you to over to Sharon, your next editor. I was like, what? Another one? It’s three editors. 00:13:20 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:13:21 Riverhorse: She was incredible. And you know, we did that. And then it goes through three copy editors to proof it. And you deal with each one of those and a design team. They were flying around the country interviewing artists. So there’s twenty four watercolor paintings with the book. Even the cover wraps around. It’s just incredible. So then once they had an artist I really like, they asked me and I was like, yeah, let’s do this. And so I had meetings with her and sent her all these photos for moments in the book, and she’d do sketches and we’d talk about them and the colors and, um, we got to pick those together. So finally, here we go. The book is out and I can’t believe it. 00:14:08 Dave: Sounds like a lot of work. You know, a lot of time to get there. What do you think it would have been, you know, if you were, let’s say, just doing this on your own. I mean, some people are actually even self-publishing, right? I mean, that’s still. How do you think the book would be different if you did something like that versus working with Patagonia? 00:14:23 Riverhorse: Um, just the beauty of the packaging and the, just the artistic statement of it. Like as an environmental, um, statement in the front and there. I mean, even doing the audiobook. Did I tell you about this? 00:14:37 Dave: No. Huh. 00:14:38 Riverhorse: So there for the audiobook. You know, I always figured it was me, but they farm out the audiobook to random House Penguin, which is huge. So I get an email from them and oh, listen, we’ve got five different legendary voices, voice actors, and here’s their samples of your book. And I didn’t even listen to any of them. I wrote back, wait, what? Like I, I, it’s my book. Like I lived it, I was there and I have a decent, I feel like I’ve narrated movies and Toyota commercials like, hey, give me a shot, guys. And which was still I thought, Holy Bleep you know, I can’t. This has got to be tough. So they say okay, you do it. And they book me into the studio where Beyonce has recorded a bunch and Beck and Ludacris. So and it’s here in Houston huh. So I get in there and there’s all these Beyonce records, and there’s a. I put the headphones on. There’s a big screen and an iPad and a producer there and a guy from LA, and we’re all on live and he’s like watching me read the whole book. 00:15:41 Dave: Oh my gosh. 00:15:42 Riverhorse: This great microphone. And I just went for two days straight. It was supposed to be three days, but I rocked it out in two days. But even that was like, wow, you know, you have to read three hundred pages, almost every word perfect. And, um, and I just, you know, I just closed my eyes and just locked in and, and then they called me back and there were only nine words to correct. 00:16:06 Dave: No way. Nine word. And how many words is the book? 00:16:10 Riverhorse: Oh, it’s like eighty thousand. 00:16:12 Dave: Eighty thousand. Only nine. How? Obviously you know the book better than anybody else, but that still seems. I mean, if I was up there reading it, I mean, you would think, yeah, there would be hundreds and hundreds of mistakes, right? Because how’d you do it? You just kind of you said locked in and you’re kind of in that zone probably. Right. 00:16:27 Riverhorse: Yeah, I just story time. 00:16:30 Dave: Yeah. Story time. Exactly. 00:16:31 Riverhorse: And even, uh, I got story. Spring Creek master. There’s a couple hilarious big fart noises, and I was like, oh, you know, you can always. How do I make this? But I’ve done it at readings. But, um, I just made a couple huge ones and I stopped. I asked the producer, how’s that magnificent? I’m like, oh, okay. 00:16:54 Dave: Oh, really? 00:16:54 Riverhorse: I was like, all right, glad that works. 00:16:57 Dave: Oh that’s awesome. 00:16:57 Riverhorse: You know, but one of the nine words was John Mayer and they’re like, it’s a mirror. And I was. 00:17:04 Dave: Like, oh. 00:17:04 Riverhorse: I was like, well, John Mayer. And they’re like, listen, I’m a Texan and withdrawal and a slow roll and it’s John Mayer and they’re like, no, it’s a mirror. And I was like, okay, fine. And then the other one was this French Renaissance philosopher, Michel de Montaigne, who’s awesome. And they wanted the French pronunciation. I was like, what? What? So it was Michel de Montaigne. And I was like, wow, okay, I don’t agree, but I’ll change it. You guys are the pros. You know, stuff like that. I was like, it was funny to me. 00:17:42 Dave: Yeah. That is so good. Wow. And you know, you mentioned John, John Muir and John Muir a couple of times. But I mean, talk about that a little bit for those folks out there. I mean, I think probably most people have heard that name before, but how did he, you know, maybe describe what he did out there? What was his, you know, influence? 00:17:59 Riverhorse: I mean, it’s pretty famous for Yosemite and his books and writing around there and lived in California coast. But boy, just like Thoreau, like I really feel he walked the walk for caring about the earth and not just caring about it, but being blown away by it because I’m a weirdo, you know, I just I’m still just staring at sunsets and clouds, and I could not believe how incredible this earth is. Like many things that I’ve seen, and I’m just crazy for it. I mean, I’ll look up and watch rainstorms in the canoe and I just nonstop even the full moon. That was last night. I was up at five o’clock this morning. Um, hiking under the moon. I’ve been out in the marshes alone under that moon. And as it built up and and even I swam a mile before this podcast at the pool, and I was like, the first rays of sun were coming down into the water and reflecting off the bottom of the pool, and I was just freaking out. Oh, this is beautiful. It was crazy, you know? So those I feel like those are my kindred souls. And I’ll tell you, John Muir book that nobody talks about. So listen to this. When he was a ninth grader, he would read all these botany books and he was living on a farm in Indiana. And he told his dad, hey, I, I think I’d like to go to Florida to see all these flowers. And this is the time of the Civil War. 00:19:21 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:19:22 Riverhorse: And he’s a ninth grader on a farm, and his dad goes, all right, cool. Go for it. And so he’s going to walk from Indiana to Florida at the very end of the Civil War, like right through all the, you know, the South, everything. So he puts this backpack together, a knapsack with sandwiches and some books, and he takes off all the way to Florida. And these guys try to rob him and they like, look in his pack and there’s a peanut butter sandwich and three flower books, and they just look at him like, what the hell, dude? You know, he’s just a kid. And they let him go and he makes it to Florida. A thousand mile walk over there, and then he gets typhoid or something because he’s trying to catch a freighter to Cuba. But he sees all these plants. He’s in the, you know, the the forest there and just blown away. And that was as a ninth grader. Wow. No, nobody talks about that book. No, I never meet anybody knows that. I’m like, this is great. You know, all of us. No GPS? 00:20:18 Dave: No. Wow. That’s crazy. And what was the name? What was the name of that book? 00:20:23 Riverhorse: A thousand mile walk to the Gulf. Geez, I’m crazy for that book. And it’s old school writing like it’s cheese, you know? But it’s. 00:20:31 Dave: Yeah. Oh, yeah. 00:20:32 Riverhorse: You know, like there’s that. Well, it’s it’s great. 00:20:34 Dave: That is so cool. 00:20:36 Riverhorse: You want to talk about some street cred? Come on man. 00:20:39 Dave: Yeah, exactly. That’s what you’re talking about. Like living, living it. Right. You’re actually doing it as a as a freshman in high school, right? 00:20:48 Riverhorse: Yeah. 00:20:49 Dave: God, that’s so crazy. Yeah. I always go back to that with the kids, you know, thinking about like, man, if I was to send my, you know, my daughter’s pretty close to that, actually the same age. She’s going to be in ninth grade next year. And I mean, I can’t imagine, right. Like, how do you look at that? Do you think this world, I mean, obviously you’ve got the Civil War was a crazy time, you know, and environmentally things are changing always too. We got some crazy stuff going on now. What’s your take on that? Do you feel like we repeat ourselves or is it getting worse? Getting better? What’s your take on it? 00:21:21 Riverhorse: Oh, that’s a lot of work to do. But I think these generations, these young kids coming up like your kids and they smell a rat. They’re like, oh, man, you guys left us a big old mess. And politically, both sides are just weird. Like, I’m like, come on guys, everybody’s do right for our like, our country is so awesome. And it’s just a, a divided time and we need to pull it together and great leadership. We can turn the tables, but I just focus on doing my part. Like if I pay too much attention to it, it just, it just, it’ll slow you in your tracks. And we can’t have like, the only answer is either to do the work and take care of each other or to roll over. And I’m not here to roll over. I’m here to open a can of whoop ass and keep rich billionaires out of, you know, the Boundary Waters, where twenty percent of the fresh water and the entire forest system is like that of all the things people value in life other than love, like clean water is the most precious thing. You can’t live without it. 00:22:26 Dave: So no. 00:22:27 Riverhorse: No, there’s work to do. And I love these kids coming up. And I think that I think they’re pretty cool. It’s a weird world with all their technology and everything, but I think they’re just going to call BS on stuff and get us back on track, even though it’s a big old mess. 00:22:44 Dave: I know, I know, I think you’re right, they’re they’re going to be on top of it. They well, we were on another podcast. We were talking about Alaska, actually, some of the conservation issues up there, including like some, you know, they’re proposing a new dam on the Susitna. They’re like giant road builds and stuff like that. But on that episode, they mentioned the Boundary Waters, the fact that there were some changes there and I hadn’t heard all the details. Can you give us a little update on that? It sounds like maybe there was like some some steps back on the status of protection up there. 00:23:14 Riverhorse: Yeah, there’s a there’s a lot the Sierra and they used to do legally and interpreted it wrong to um a senator of Minnesota Rep Stauber who’s just awful. He’s just awful. And somebody’s getting a payback somewhere like big kickbacks. We know they are at downtown at the Pennsylvania Avenue, but he proposed that they use that to allow mining with no review and such an incredible America’s most visited wilderness. And, um, and I’m not going to go into all the details. There was a six million dollar mansion given to the administration, and his daughter and son in law moved in by the Chilean billionaire, gave it to him. It was in the times and blah, blah, blah. Same old thing. Just money, money, money. 00:24:04 Dave: Right. 00:24:05 Riverhorse: And they’re they’re supposed to do great things. And I’m not a fan of either side right now. I just think everybody’s they’re not getting along. They’re just not working together and not representing us. So all of them, like all of them, I’m like, wow, you guys are a mess. And anyway, so the Boundary Waters, even in that act, they said that there can be no review. Like we can’t even discuss it. 00:24:29 Dave: So no Environmental Protection Agency, no. 00:24:32 Riverhorse: No. And bypasses the Clean Water Act. Wow. Everything. 00:24:36 Dave: Wow. 00:24:37 Riverhorse: And the crazy part is that hard rock mining is the most toxic thing in the world. There’s never been one of those mines in history that one hundred percent of those have failed and decimated the areas. So it’s like a no brainer, but it’s a bad thing. Eighty percent of Minnesotans are against it. Um, right now the outdoor industry provides up to eighteen thousand sustainable jobs there. And they think like building a mine there would bring in two hundred some jobs. And this guy has promised that any copper he gets goes to China and Russia and not us. Like, is this a joke? Yeah, right. Come to our country, ruin a wilderness, and then send it to Russia and China, and you keep the profits, like at the very worst case scenario. Yeah. Let our own, you know, keep the copper for our country, our phones and, you know, air conditioner lines and whatever, like, and let the profits go here and let’s just kick back after kick back, I’m sure. But so now that that KR was used for that in the boundary waters, they can they’re saying they can use it all over the country. 00:25:47 Dave: Oh wow. 00:25:48 Riverhorse: It sets a precedent and it’s illegal. The good news is that Minnesota there’s this thing called the bad actor bill. And, you know, if somebody’s just a terrible person to come into your state and they’re going to do wrong and harm. But the bad actor bill, you can if the majority votes and say, hey, no, you can’t come here. No matter what federal says, Minnesota can say not still our state and stay out. So hopefully waltz is you know gets it together. And he’s just been you know nobody’s hearing much from him. But they can block it. And there’s a couple other things they can do. And each of those mines has to get a lease from Minnesota as well. 00:26:28 Dave: So so there’s another step. It’s not a it’s not a done deal yet. And I remember, you know, you hear that too in Alaska. So we’ve covered Alaska quite a bit on some of the issues like Bristol Bay and stuff. And it feels like it’s just it’s not like a done deal ever. You know, you can you can stop the mine, but there’s going to be a new company coming back at it, right? Trying to find there’s going to be change in politics too, right? So it feels like you’re always going to be there. How do you, you know, if somebody’s listening now, how could they, you know, maybe help get involved? You know, what would you tell them if they want, if they’re interested in protecting these areas. 00:27:02 Riverhorse: What would act locally, like find community and act locally, like here, even in Texas, outside of Austin. My buddy Alvin. Dido. 00:27:11 Dave: Oh, yeah. Alvin. Right? 00:27:12 Riverhorse: Yeah. He just did the loco, the Lower Colorado trash pass. And every year for his birthday, he brings everybody he knows together to clean up trash on the river. Like that’s his birthday party is spending his time pouring his heart out for the river. Like, just act locally. Find your community. It can be overwhelming otherwise. 00:27:32 Dave: And yeah. 00:27:33 Riverhorse: It’s so nice to have a group of people that you’re into the same thing. And down here, there’s a the coastal conservation and Patagonia always has cool events at their stores. And with the action that you can take and people to join. So I like just the power and local communities. Me, I like with being an ambassador, I get to do huge, you know, global and national pieces and talk about the reindeer and climate change and movies and stuff. But locals where it’s at. You know, there’s so much. There’s so much work to do. Like you can’t go to Florida and deal with big sugar, right? I mean, it’s everywhere. Striped bass on the East Coast. Like it’s just I’ve been working on this piece on the Lavaca River in Texas, and I did a big Patagonia event at the store in Austin, but it’s the last free flowing river in Texas. And there’s a Taiwanese chemical company called Formosa. And they make Ziploc baggies, all these plastics, and they’ve had more pollution fines than anybody in the history of Texas in those rooms. And all that empties into the bay. They’re already on a different river, and they bought a bunch of land on the Lavaca, and they want to do it again. And so I’ve been down there meeting with old school Republican ranchers and, you know, young, hip, liberal environmentalists and everybody’s like, get, get out of here. We don’t want Taiwanese. So. 00:29:00 Dave: Right. 00:29:01 Riverhorse: You know, there’s so much work to do. And even paddling that river like a barred owl came down and I was like, oh, nice. What a beautiful place do we want to chemical plant here that pours microplastics into the Gulf? No. And the crazy thing is there is there other plant that’s already in Texas on a river gets like a thirty thousand dollars fine every month there for, you know, pollution. Fine. And I’m pretty sure they make over thirty five million a month. Like I got to look at that. But it’s like they don’t care. 00:29:33 Dave: No, they don’t care. 00:29:33 Riverhorse: So who is, who is making these fines so small? 00:29:36 Dave: It’s like, right. 00:29:37 Riverhorse: It’s like your parents say, oh, if you, you know, we want you home at ten o’clock. Here’s your curfew. We’re worried. We want you to be safe, but go have fun. But if you come home past ten o’clock, uh, you get one less, you know, bite of food at dinner or something. They don’t you don’t care. 00:29:55 Dave: Like doesn’t matter. Yeah. It’s got to mean something. It’s otherwise. Yeah, you’ve got to have something that it’s got some teeth. Right. That is going to. And it sounds like some of these stories are in in the book. Maybe you could break that out a little bit. You know, maybe you can grab a couple, two or three. Where would you start if you’re going to pop out a couple of your essays and talk about some things that really kind of resonated with you. You know, folks, what would you pull out? That’s probably a hard question. 00:30:22 Riverhorse: Well, I mean, I feel the book, you know, there’s a lot of flow to it and there’s a lot of life moments that are obviously in sequential orders. But are you asking environmentally or just fun stuff? 00:30:35 Dave: Yeah, just in general, maybe just a couple of, uh, you know, and I kind of go back again when I think about, you know, different authors and it’s hard because you kind of write similarly, right? With these essays, bringing things together, maybe what are, what are some, you know, you talked about Yvonne, what do you think would be something that he would pull out and say, oh, this is one you got to read. This is one that really resonated. 00:30:56 Riverhorse: I minivans a surfer. 00:30:58 Dave: Yeah. 00:30:58 Riverhorse: And he loves loved surfing. And listen, you know, that was for ten years. I was a staff writer for surfing magazine out of California. And I still love surfing. And, um, there’s a piece towards the end that that is in Africa and I’m, I was a little boy had seen this fish called the potato fish in a book my dad gave me. And when I was a kindergartner and I always wanted to see that fish. And I read through these scuba dive websites that they live in a certain place and they stay there for years. And I had read about one in Mozambique. And so I was like, all right, I’m going to fly to Africa and just like, try to get into this village across the border from South Africa into Mozambique. And I want to like free dive and try to find this fish. Wow. But on the way, of course, like I’m going to I’ve got maps on a napkin from the surf spot that I knew about on a VHS tape. So. And there’s some crazy things that happen in there. And, and it’s, um, you know, there’s, it’s tough out there. There’s a lot of carjackings and right. And soloing in there. So that’s, that was a crazy piece that towards the end, I will say the last story is, was just, you know, that that I bet he loved that. But this, there’s a total eclipse about to happen. And I’m like dreaming of being on this, uh, empty forest lake in the middle of the Texas, Oklahoma border where nobody is for the four minutes and twenty one seconds of totality. And I’m like, could I catch a bass under the exploding eclipse and got all this? So that’s a rad adventure that ends it. Um, there’s some, you know, some romance in there and that’s pretty fun. And so many cool pieces I tried to temper. There’s some heartbreaking stuff, some terrifying stuff. And I tried to temper it with the really buckwild, rowdy, you know, hilarious stuff like being in a country club golf course on national television. I didn’t know they were there filming, but it was a national televised golf tournament. I’m sticking this eight pound bass right underneath all the cameras. The cops are coming after me and, you know, silliness like that or, or, or a yoga studio. This is just silliness. So I tried to blend all that. Um, so cool to be in there with my buddy that’s an NFL quarterback. There’s z.z. Top in there. And I just, you just have to read it from the top. They go so fast. Like even the reviews coming out, Kirkus Reviews and Fly Fisherman magazine, they’re just like, wow, these just what a flow and the font, everything. That was one thing. Patagonia, that team like, their books are just beautiful to hold in your hand. 00:33:52 Dave: Right? Right. This is cool. Wow. So. So this is one where. Yeah, just pretty much just pick it up and go. Don’t even worry about picking out stories. Just read it. 00:34:00 Riverhorse: Read it straight to you. I would say straight to you, I would love it to be read that way. And that was the intention. But even that awesome organ stuff, a couple pieces and Arctic Circle and yeah. Wow. 00:34:13 Dave: What were the if you had to run down some of the species, you kind of mentioned it, but what were, what did you cover? How many? Well, maybe not even how many, but what were some of those species you covered? It kind of sounds like you covered a little bit of everything. 00:34:24 Riverhorse: I mean, a world record snuck in there on the fly, um, bass after bass, after redfish, all kinds of trout. Huge pike. Yeah. Arctic char. 00:34:38 Dave: Where was the where was the pike? Where were you at for the pike? 00:34:41 Riverhorse: Lapland. Lapland using using bass frogs with thirty pound wire leader just rocking them. 00:34:49 Dave: Wow. And then and then what about Oregon. What was the Oregon connection? 00:34:53 Riverhorse: Um, so when I was growing up in Austin, it was just a young single mom going to UT. And I mean, we were no money. We’re on food stamps, and government’s giving us cheese and clothing were in this little apartment. And but in the backyard is the river. And so I got to grow up with the river in the backyard. Like I just felt like billionaires back there. And my mom falls in love. When I was a kindergartner with a teacher, an English teacher at the University of Texas, but he happened to be a Stanford grad who’s a steelhead from Oregon. Like he grew up in Portland, and his dad’s a steelhead or so in manzanita. 00:35:34 Dave: Oh my gosh. 00:35:34 Riverhorse: Right on Neahkahnie Mountain is our cabin grandpa’s fishing cabin. So he marries my mom. He’s the coolest dad. Like we start, you know, sharing literature talks right off the bat. He gives me that book with the fish that’s in Africa. And Every summer we drive from Austin, Texas to manzanita, and we bounce between there and Portland. So all my summers were in Oregon and it just opened up. I was like, wow. I started Skimboarding and then surfing, digging clams and catching big sea perch down at Garibaldi and Oregon just changed everything for me. And then there’s a great piece in there about Brian O’Keefe. There’s a story in there, a long piece, where he and I go on all these adventures. Just one of them’s a near death, one in Oregon. And. But, man, Oregon, Oregon, Oregon. What a place. And gosh. 00:36:31 Dave: Yeah, it is pretty cool. That’s really awesome, man. Yeah. That’s like right, right next door for me on the coast. I mean, that’s the cool thing about it, right? You got these towns, you’ve got you’re right on the beach. You know, you can the oceans, you can hear it out the door. But and you have these steelhead, right? You also have the winter steelhead that are migrating in during this time, which is cool man. So this is awesome. I think that, you know, there’s obviously a lot here to cover. How do you maybe describe on your when you’re getting putting one of these essays together, are you thinking first about the species, the conservation, you know, issue? How do you go into these things? How does it, how does like one of these stories evolve? 00:37:11 Riverhorse: Um, well, it’s none of that even I’m just running hard, living my life like a lot in the book, you’ll see me just getting interested in a place. I’ve been reading books about it or something, and I fill the the floor of the sunroom with maps, and I’m reading everything about it. And I just like, well, you know, just like the first time I ever went to the Boundary Waters, I would read and read and I had maps and I found that there was a two hundred foot cliff with the waterfall and the very last lake between the US and Canada, and it’s actually A five hundred foot. But the waterfall is like two hundred. And I thought, how how could I make it to this place? And I figured out all the maps and just went up there and went for it. So I’m never thinking about writing or stories. I’m thinking about, you know, chasing some cool moment out in wilderness, seeing something I’ve never seen. And I’m journaling the whole way. Like there’s just all these stories are from stacks of journals, but it gets to the point where you do something and, you know, it’s such a, a beautiful or incredible experience that you’re like your whole body, your ribs, your stomach, like you just can’t wait to write this down. And, and to even, you know, I use writing to make sense of my life and the world and my place in it. So none of these stories are I set out to write them. I set out to live the experiences and then. And then you just know when it’s a it’s a piece worth writing. You just think, oh, this is that was crazy. I want to write about it and share it with people. And, um, that Patagonia did gently push me to be more, even a little deeper on some heartbreaking, uh, stuff with a parent. And they’re just like, oh, man. And I was like, okay, I’ll just let it all hang out here in hopes that, um, all of us, you know, who read it and just know you’re not alone when you go through those things. And so that’s in there. And gosh, and you know, those funny stories of a stolen truck and chasing after the guy with the sage rod tube. 00:39:23 Dave: This was your stolen truck? 00:39:24 Riverhorse: No, no copy of the Fly Fish Journals truck. 00:39:28 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:39:30 Riverhorse: And Rolfing are there, but yeah, that’s, you know, you when something like that happens, you gotta write about it. 00:39:36 Dave: Yeah. You do. You do. Wow. So the stories in this book are was that hard to choose which ones to bring in there? Or was it pretty much just that was an easy one. 00:39:46 Riverhorse: I think I narrowed it down to thirty five that I just thought were primo and wrote the pieces, and then I kicked out three of them. Just thought, oh, let’s make this thing even just more just creme de la creme. And they could have been in there, but I just wanted anybody who blows thirty bucks on this book. I wanted every word to be as amazing as it could be and inspiring. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fly fishing book just, you know, do all these things. Everybody seems to have their little geographic location, or they go to lodges and write about it. And that’s not me. 00:40:24 Dave: Right. Yeah. That’s not you. This isn’t like going to a fancy lodge, you know, wherever and kind of writing the story and doing a review of, of the lodge there. It’s totally different. You’re out there choosing a place just you want to experience that place. It sounds like. Yeah. Just connect. 00:40:41 Riverhorse: No, I’m. I’m in the canoe sleeping in there with a blanket and got a fire going on some island or in the middle of winter. There’s one lodge in there in the Yucatan where somebody bailed out of a trip to this incredibly fancy place. And so my buddies at the fly shop were like, it’s it’s all paid for. And I was like, well, cool. Can I buy my ticket down there and, and find some way to hike into other places, like just leave there and go into the backcountry and they’re like, nah. And I’m like, well, I’m going to do it. So you’ll read that story about the Yucatan in the book. And I get down there and I find a guy who’s got a little wooden boat. I’m like, hey, take me into the back country. I’ll pay you however much you want. And we go in there and we’re eating peanut butter sandwiches on Mayan temples that are abandoned. And something happens in that story. That’s it just gets bananas and testifying at the end of it. The lodge guy is in there. He’s like, hey, don’t you want to? We’re the number one destination for permit. And I was like, I don’t care about permit. Like, who cares? Like, I’ll go stick a jack or something like look, right? Like I want to be in the back country where nobody goes and I’m going to wait and hike in there and take a little like, look, I want to do that. I’ll be gone all week. So I just can I make a bunch of sandwiches? And he just looked at me and was like, wow. He’s like, dude, you could be on a permit boat all day with guides and your meals. And I’m like, yeah, no, sorry, I just. 00:42:16 Dave: That’s not you. 00:42:17 Riverhorse: This is a step step. This is base camp. And he just loved it. He’s like, this is great. You know, he guided rocks like, you know, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd. Oh yeah. Buffett and Raven had all these. He was a guide for Buccaneers and Bones. And, um, so he and I end up going on an adventure together at the very tail end of that trip. That’s. It’s the craziest. 00:42:40 Dave: Oh, right. With the owner of the lodge or the manager? 00:42:43 Riverhorse: No, just the manager. Yeah. Todd Platt, who’s, uh, now he’s up in Langara Island in British Columbia, running that lodge up there. That salmon lodge that you helicopter in. 00:42:56 Dave: Wow. 00:42:56 Riverhorse: But even that, like I’ve, like, I got some maps together and I said, hey, Todd, if I catch a helicopter to your island, can you have somebody boat me thirty miles up into this rainforest and I’m going to hike into this rainforest and see the, the Haida indigenous community. And I’m going to bring an ultralight packraft and wrap this river out where it looks like there’s wild cutthroat. And he’s just like, yeah, I got you covered. And I was like, okay, cool. He goes, you don’t want to stay here. Like, we got this chef. And I was like, no, just have somebody boat me up to that rainforest. He’s like, oh God. Okay. 00:43:36 Dave: Wow. How long do you think? You know, it’s interesting because, you know, we’re all getting older, and some of these, you know, experiences sound like, you know, not everybody can do them. You know, you get to a point and you can’t get around like you used to. Do you ever think about that a little bit, how this is going to evolve once you maybe can’t carry that canoe over or you know, or experience it the same way you’re doing now, will you still be doing it? Or how do you think you’re going to change in the next twenty years? 00:44:02 Riverhorse: I mean, I just think I’m going to go and I’ll just like explode in the air one day, just from, from running like that car engine, that truck engine that just, you know, just does it. But I do think about it a lot. And I feel like I have a lot of perspective on the horizon. I don’t know when I kick out of here, but I mean, I’m just like, like I said, I already hiked five miles under the moon this morning and swam a mile. 00:44:26 Dave: And man. 00:44:27 Riverhorse: Like, I’m, I’m rolling pretty hard and I’m feeling it. And I’ve already got an entire Six to eight adventures that are just crazier than ever in the canoe. For another book, if anybody, if anybody would Patagonia, maybe who knows what they’ll say. I would love to travel with them, but. 00:44:45 Dave: So you’re done with this book. You’ve got another one that you’re already thinking about. 00:44:49 Riverhorse: Oh man, I can’t wait. You wouldn’t believe the maps I’ve got and all the things I’ve got lined up like that rainforest thing. 00:44:54 Dave: And yeah. 00:44:56 Riverhorse: Yeah, I’m going to roll it. I am, you know, I, I founded this creative writing program for high school kids and, um, it gives me health insurance and it’s like thirty four months or thirty four weeks out of the year. So when I’m in Houston, they still give me a lot of leave from there. But I’m going to do that one more year because I just, I just love giving back to the community and young writers and, but I think that by next May, I think it’s just like just going to pull out all the stops and and see how hard I can go tell it to the truck. Engine explodes. 00:45:36 Dave: That’s it. Yeah. Don’t leave. Don’t leave anything out. Right. Put it. Leave it all out in the field. 00:45:42 Riverhorse: No, no. But I can tell you that if something happened today that I’d still be laughing, like all the way out of here. I’d be like, wow, I never. What, is he kidding me? Right? What a lie. Like this is. That was the greatest. 00:45:55 Dave: Yeah. 00:45:55 Riverhorse: Thanks, everybody. 00:45:56 Dave: Right. 00:45:57 Riverhorse: Thank you. Thank you, mom, for getting me here. Like, what a ride. But that said, like, you know, that’s out there for everybody. Everybody’s these people are home watching TV and on their phones and gosh, it’s not a dress rehearsal. Like, this is our one and only life. I’m sorry, but I mean, worst case scenario, ride your bike somewhere to a park and have lunch. Or Alastair Humphreys. You ever heard of that author? 00:46:25 Dave: No. 00:46:26 Riverhorse: Uh, to England. He wrote a book called Micro Adventures. and that’s a great book to get if you’re like, maybe you’re a business person in the city or you’re working nine to five, which is awesome. Everybody has to make a living. But he talks about like on a Tuesday night, find some place where you can sleep, you know, in the woods or camp out at a park near your house and then be like, get up early, make coffee, like have that experience, hear the birds and then go into your office job or whatever. Like these micro adventures, right? 00:46:57 Dave: You can do it. That’s it. Right? 00:47:00 Riverhorse: Yeah. Micro adventures. And that’s Alastair Humphreys. He’s got another book called rewilding just about to come out. I already pre-ordered it, but I love his work. He had a book where, um, he wanted to walk across Spain and he didn’t have any money and so he, he paid for a few violin lessons even though he’d never played violin. And he sucks like he gets he’s like squeaking out these tunes. He admits it, but he goes to Spain, and in every little town he comes to, he sets up and just tries to play his three tunes and see if anybody will give him money and wow! And it’s a rough road, like he. 00:47:37 Dave: Makes. 00:47:38 Riverhorse: It, but he does it like he’s like people give him a couple bucks and he feeds himself and and hikes. And that guy was a National Geographic explorer. He. So he’s the real deal. But his books are great. If you get a chance to after you buy water lines. 00:47:55 Dave: Yeah. Water lines, water lines is first. Yeah. We’ll definitely we’ll be hitting that up first. And the cool thing is that the books out there now, and there’s also an audiobook so we can listen to you, uh, which is going to be cool to try to find, you know, I mean, I feel like the audiobook again, for those people that are on, you know, the road, obviously it’s not as good as reading the book. What’s your take on that with the audiobooks? Do you think when if somebody was just able to listen to it, how much you know, would they miss or get out of the book versus, say, reading it? 00:48:24 Riverhorse: I think both, But that’s seven hours and ten minutes of just Flavortown, man. Yeah. 00:48:30 Dave: That’s you. I feel like it’s almost more because you get to listen to you. It’s almost like this podcast, right? We get to hear your voice, which is so unique. 00:48:37 Riverhorse: So if you’re on a boring drive or something or just like, let it. I love, I can’t wait to hear it. I heard just a tiny snippet and I was shocked. I was like, wow. But I said, what is this microphone? That’s. Oh, no. That sounds incredible. And the producer goes, this microphone is called the Broadcaster’s Dream. I was like, oh. 00:48:59 Dave: Right. 00:49:00 Riverhorse: I was like, that sounds good. Because when I had to do redo the nine words, they. I got to hear that sentence played back and I had to punch it in. So no, it was whatever you dig. So, you know, I don’t even know if there’s a, um, a digital book. 00:49:17 Dave: Oh, digital. 00:49:18 Riverhorse: Yeah. 00:49:19 Dave: Yeah. That’s a good point. Yeah. It feels like. Yeah. You don’t see that as much. It seems like it’s audiobooks or you just buy the book, right? The real thing. 00:49:26 Riverhorse: Yeah. And you can get it on Patagonia dot com or all the big bookstores. Um, you know, if you get it from some big companies, then they get to, they take a little extra cut and use it to buy soap pillows for their mega-yachts. And we won’t name anybody, but we know, but. 00:49:45 Dave: Oh. 00:49:45 Riverhorse: Yeah, you know, small bookstores can get it. I even saw it for sale at target, which just cracked me up. Oh, wow. What? Oh, boy. 00:49:53 Dave: Oh, man. So right now, people can go, like you said, Patagonia. Or where would you send them? If they want to pick up the book? Where would it be the best, easiest place? 00:50:01 Riverhorse: Patagonia for sure. Bookshop dot org is a great one. Or, but if you Google it, I’m sure you can find it or just order it locally and. But it’d be great to support Patagonia. Yeah. 00:50:13 Dave: So yeah, definitely. That’s always awesome. That’s, that’s always our focus, you know, definitely supporting the great companies out there as we kind of start to take it out of here a little bit. What was, you know, I’m just thinking about, again, the book, you’ve already got this new one coming, but it seems like water, right? You mentioned surfing. We haven’t talked about your music background at all, which is just as amazing, I think, as everything else. But is water always how does that shape, you know, your adventures versus, say, maybe just the forest, the deserts, or, you know, or do you separate those two? Is it always around water? Is that always, you know, talk about that a little bit. 00:50:48 Riverhorse: I think so I think water, you know, I’m crazy for it. And I talk a lot about it in the book. There’s a passage in the Boundary Waters where I talk about the magic and beauty of water. So at that moment in the book, I’m on this lake and there’s a wintertime scene where I’m paddling these ice sheets in the canoe and before everything’s frozen out for good, that’s like the last lake. And I’m just like, where? Imagine where this water could have been. Like the whole concept of it, that maybe it was in the Caribbean and some shimmering, you know, turquoise blue reef. And it floated into the clouds. And then storms brought it all the way to Minnesota. And it, it came down as rain and then it froze. And like, this water could have gone all over the world. So my whole life, I will be bananas for anything to do with water and being in it and riding across it, surfing, feeling like I’m flying seagull and the whole thing seems like voodoo. Like, I cannot believe we get to be on this earth, even to walk along the ocean and just stare out at it like the Pacific there in Oregon. And I could do that all day, every day, the rest of my life. Like I just and never not be floored by it. Right. But yeah, water, water, that’s what’s called water lines. 00:52:07 Dave: Exactly. Yeah. Water lines. 00:52:09 Riverhorse: Even when I climb some mountain, I’m looking for an alpine lake. So yeah, there’s a great, great, that’s the second story in there. is a big alpine lake adventure where I mess up pretty good. Or a Black Canyon story down in the Gunnison and yeah, that’s. Yeah. Now you you you got my number. 00:52:31 Dave: Yeah, yeah, we know it. You know, it’s all about the water. And for all of us, I mean, everybody listening here, you know, we we’re chasing these fish, right? And really it’s not just chasing the fish. It’s it’s that experience. You know, the more the more we do this. You know, I just had Calvin, you know, shout out to Calvin. He just sent me a photo from a Atlantic salmon. He caught up on the Restigouche. And we’re going to be fishing Newfoundland for Atlantic salmon this year with Calvin and some folks from the podcast. And I’m excited because it’s my first time fishing for Atlantic salmon. And but it’s not just about the fish. You know, if I go there, you know, if I don’t even catch a fish, it’s going to be an amazing trip. You know what I mean? I feel like that’s always the I mean, I’m sure that’s how you feel about it, but what is it about fly fishing? You know, because you hear people talk about, oh man, they’re chasing this. The big fish. What do you think they’re missing there? Do you think they’re missing something or they just haven’t got to that point yet? Or do you think we’re all in this evolution? And, you know, how do you describe that? 00:53:26 Riverhorse: Well, I mean, in the first place, it gets you outside to beautiful places. Like if you’re going to fly fish, you’re going to be somewhere beautiful, even if it’s the killer bass pond on a farm or something. It’s just good to be out there. But I’m glad you brought it up because there’s been, you know, an evolution in me. I’m alone in those Texas and Louisiana marshes, in the canoe and in the back country. And sometimes I’ll come around along on so many big, beautiful redfish, some days on the good days, and I catch only one or two that whole day like I. There’s so many fish that I could light up and I just like. I’m so happy to watch them and paddle. And I’ll be out there with a good coffee or bring a cold beer on ice and some, you know, some tacos and a piece of pie, and I could have caught so many fish and I, I just that’s. 00:54:22 Dave: You don’t have to. 00:54:23 Riverhorse: And no, no, no, no, even in the book, it’s like there’s a line. How many fish do you need? Just one. 00:54:29 Dave: Just one. 00:54:30 Riverhorse: So that part of it. But there is something, you know, fly fishing is such a form of meditation. Finding that rhythm. And it’s almost like it changes your breathing. Just that when you when you get in time with your line and you get to really be with it and connect with it instead of just bait checkers and conventional fisherman fly fishing, you’re just, it’s just like you’re a conductor just orchestrating in the sky and you can’t do it without having, uh, to get in sync with it. Your whole body and your arms and the line. And it’s really special. It’s just this almost a form of tai chi fluff, you know, and everybody thinks it’s rocket science or voodoo. And flycasting is so easy. It’s once you once you get it, you get I mean, it’s I’ve taught so many kids that I’ve come. Hey, let me take you a bass fishing kid, you know, a neighborhood kid or I’m. And they’re like, this is. And I get it. Like, as long as you have the right rod set up, like, remember this old sage bass rod series that came out with. 00:55:38 Dave: Oh, no, I don’t was this this is back in the day. 00:55:40 Riverhorse: Yeah, I talk about that a lot, but that’s my favorite rod in the world is the seven foot eleven sage bass rod. They had that bass series and they’re short, and that is the greatest fly rod to teach somebody to cast on. Like you can’t find them. They’re all, I broke one a couple weeks ago. That’s up there at sage now getting fixed. 00:56:00 Dave: Oh, they’re fixing it. They’re fixing it. Yeah. 00:56:02 Riverhorse: Supposedly I got it’s it’s been there a while. I’m gonna call this guy’s. 00:56:06 Dave: So it’s a seven foot, almost an eight foot, basically like a, a kind of a medium. A noodly rod. Lots of flex. 00:56:13 Riverhorse: So it’s cool. It’s a really cool. It’s called the bluegill, but it’s really. They named it wrong. Like it’s I’ve stuck juvenile tarpon on it. 00:56:23 Dave: Oh wow. 00:56:24 Riverhorse: Big pike. And um, there’s seven foot eleven and it feels like an eight weight, but that tapers into the sweetest six weight you’ve ever had. 00:56:33 Dave: Nice. 00:56:34 Riverhorse: And they, they came with the fly line and a carrying case and they were like three hundred and twenty five bucks when they came out. But I got three of those. Maybe you could, people could look online, but don’t get anyone but the bluegill. Like that’s the magic. And you know, in the canoe, that type of rod length is perfection. 00:56:53 Dave: So. Oh, it is. So that’s a you don’t want to go for a nine foot. 00:56:57 Riverhorse: You can do it. Yeah, yeah. Nine foot is great. But I like short tight like I’m in mangroves and grab forest lakes. And I just love I love shorter rods. It just Oh, man. Well, I mean, I love casting underhanded and sideways and. 00:57:12 Dave: Right. 00:57:13 Riverhorse: So. 00:57:14 Dave: Yeah. God. And that canoe, is that canoe. You’re. Are you taking that canoe? I guess you’re taking it around the country, right? Is that is that pretty much always going with you? 00:57:22 Riverhorse: Yes. I have three of those. The same one. 00:57:25 Dave: Oh you do? 00:57:26 Riverhorse: Yeah. And I’m crazy for it. It’s the Merrimack Osprey, and they’re just a fortune. I think they’re five grand. 00:57:33 Dave: Wow. Wow. 00:57:35 Riverhorse: But I’ve had mine in every ocean and I’ve had it. Unfortunately, it was caught in a hurricane last summer, and that’ll be in the next book. Oh, wow. Quite a night. It was midnight and I was wearing flip flops and out in it and oops. 00:57:50 Dave: Out in a hurricane accidentally. 00:57:53 Riverhorse: I wasn’t, I just was. 00:57:55 Dave: Well, yeah, it wasn’t planted on it. 00:57:57 Riverhorse: No, it was, it was bad. 00:58:00 Dave: God. Crazy. Okay, so that’ll be in the next one. We’ll, we’ll track you down. When do you think that next book, do you have a. Do you already set a date or have a goal for when you want to get that thing out there. 00:58:09 Riverhorse: We’ll just see what happens out there. I’m not worried about it. I just want to go live it. 00:58:13 Dave: Yeah, just do it. 00:58:14 Riverhorse: I have no idea, Dave. Yeah, but. 00:58:17 Dave: I feel like goals are are nice to have because it kind of keeps you, you know, on track. But sometimes it sounds like the way you do it, you got to just you got to focus on just living it. Just experience it. It’ll come. It sounds like it’ll, it’ll, you’ll know. Well, you know, when this book is ready. 00:58:32 Riverhorse: Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, especially after all I learned during this book was such great editors and the team and I like, okay, that’s how you do a book now on the highest level. Like, you know, like I said, Patagonia was flying around the country interviewing painters like, right, God, they just like to a t they want everything to be the greatest. It can be like, that was nuts. 00:58:57 Dave: Yeah, this is exciting. Well, we’ll definitely be checking this out here. Give me one. We’ll just take it out of here. You know, you mentioned we kind of been going back and forth, but if you think of a a younger river horse back in the day, what do you think? You know, maybe just take it back to your let’s go back to your twenties or 30s somewhere in there. What do you think would surprise that River horse about about this book and kind of where you’re at now? 00:59:21 Riverhorse: I mean, I always dreamed it. I even at the very beginning of the book, I’m in the public libraries reading in Austin, and they had a contest one summer where for every book you read, you write a little thing about it, and they give you a train car with your name on it, like a fake construction. So I’m sitting at the public library in Austin as a six year old, and I read so many books, my train goes around the entire library. 00:59:48 Dave: No kidding. 00:59:49 Riverhorse: And it’s like the end of June. And I’m loving I’m like, yeah, I’m just gonna, I’m gonna fill this whole library. And they stopped me and I was like, what are you talking about? They’re like, dude, you’re good. You took your train around. We’ve been putting up your train cars. And so obviously I’m crazy for books and words. And I feel that that’s our human experience. So it’s its own form of art, just painting. And I always dreamed of doing a book someday. And so I would just tell myself, yeah, keep going because it’s going to happen. Chase that dream and it’ll happen. And then never know for sure what would happen with the publishing company as incredible as Patagonia. So even the Carla, the publisher, Patagonia, I saw an interview she did once and she told the interviewer, hey, we’re in a position that no other book company in the world is in. And he’s like, what do you mean? He’s like, we don’t publish a book to make money. We publish a book because the world needs it. And I was like, Holy cow. And so then they that they take water lines and they say, yeah, the world needs this. And I’m like, well, just Just an honor. But I think that book kicks ass, and I would love for everybody to take the ride. 01:01:08 Dave: I’m super excited. Now. This is this is going to be a great, uh, a great year. I think we’re excited to jump into this, uh, and kind of go deep with you and maybe just give a shed light. You’ve obviously got this going. Are you still doing some other are you still writing in other publications, or does the book just consume you fully? And you know, that’s your focus? 01:01:27 Riverhorse: No, I’m in the Fretboard Journal right now. Uh, a cool story about an old tape player and my rescue cat driving across the country. I’m in the journals publishing the Gunnison Canyon. I’m in the Town Crest Report with all these guitar stories, and I just love writing. 01:01:47 Dave: Yeah. And the music. Yeah. Well, we, we have, we talked about a little bit of the music on the last episode, I think we did, but maybe just give us a take us out of here with something on, on your music. Like maybe give us a I can’t remember, you know, describe your style. What’s your, you know, do you kind of cover it all or because you play the guitar, right? 01:02:06 Riverhorse: Yeah. This house is filled with old guitars and amps. Um, I am Hendrix and Pink Floyd. Crazy. 01:02:13 Dave: Okay. 01:02:14 Riverhorse: Love Gilmore and Hendrix, but I’ve played with orchestras. I did all the music for a modern ballet Houston Ballet did years ago. And I love acoustic stuff. And in the book, there’s a story where I’m in the water behind the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, fishing. But I talk about like these, my band experiences and music and guitar and, and there’s another part of the book, even where, um, Stevie Ray Vaughan amp was stolen and I get it back and a super eight hotel parking lot, and this guy’s got a shotgun. These druggies, it’s just a weird one or z.z top, You know, the famous singer and my buddy, he comes to the house and that’s the story called Big Tex in the book comes over for. 01:03:04 Dave: Yeah, it’s easy Tom shenanigans. 01:03:06 Riverhorse: So there’s some good music stuff in there. 01:03:08 Dave: But that is a good stuff is easy top. Are they from. Do you know their story? Are they from Texas? 01:03:14 Riverhorse: Oh yeah. They’re Houston. 01:03:15 Dave: Yeah. They’re Houston. 01:03:16 Riverhorse: Billy’s. Billy’s pretty cool when he shows up, you know, to take you out for a drink or to dinner. It hasn’t happened a lot of times, but it’s just weird. It’s like, wow, that’s there’s. I mean, there’s nobody that looks like him. 01:03:30 Dave: No, this is with the big the full beard. 01:03:32 Riverhorse: Yeah. Billy. Like he pulls up in a black Cadillac with a driver and comes in the house and he starts playing your guitars and it’s like, this is this is cool. 01:03:43 Dave: Wow. That’s easy. Top. What is the easy top? I mean, they had what would be a song. We could take it out and maybe listen to it on the way out of here today. What would you throw out there? 01:03:52 Riverhorse: Oh gosh. I mean, the. I just, like waiting for the bus. 01:03:59 Dave: Oh, waiting for the bus. Okay. 01:04:00 Riverhorse: Jesus just left Chicago. Those are just slow. Brown sugar, bluesy. 01:04:05 Dave: Oh, nice. 01:04:06 Riverhorse: I mean, he just milks those leads. 01:04:08 Dave: That’s right. 01:04:09 Riverhorse: You know, whether you’re religious or not, it’s not about that. It’s about, you know, just that Texas groove. 01:04:15 Dave: But it’s. 01:04:16 Riverhorse: So Texas is the place. 01:04:17 Dave: Yeah, Texas is the place. 01:04:19 Riverhorse: Willie Nelson. Like if you play guitar here, you better throttle that thing. You better. You better get it on. 01:04:26 Dave: Man, I love, I love the Willie Nelson story because it’s, it’s, uh, you know, he goes to Nashville back in the day, right? And he tries to do the thing, the music thing. And it just, it never works right until he, he moves back to Texas and says, I’m just going to I’m going to do my thing. And that’s where it feels like Texas. Is that what is it about Texas? You hear a lot of people loving. Why are people drawn to Texas? 01:04:48 Riverhorse: Just that panache and that just, you know, it’s bigger than Spain. So you got the dessert? 01:04:53 Dave: Yeah. 01:04:53 Riverhorse: It’s huge. West Texas, big bend. You got the hill country. There’s seven spring fed emerald rivers. You got East Texas with the piney Woods. Just all the hilarious, you know, somewhat quasi cheesiness of Dallas. 01:05:09 Dave: Right? 01:05:09 Riverhorse: There’s great food, chef medicine, all the oil money. So the art world’s crazy here. Um, it’s just got so much going on. Holy moly. And just like, the Latino culture is so awesome, so awesome. The food and the people that comes with them and the Tejano music and the country music, like it’s, you know, we got three hundred and thirty miles of barrier islands to go read fishing on like three hundred and thirty miles. 01:05:38 Dave: Like that’s. 01:05:39 Riverhorse: Insane. Holy moly. 01:05:40 Dave: Yeah. 01:05:40 Riverhorse: That’s it down to Padre. And even space is down there. Like there’s a, there’s a piece in the book where that where I’m undercover with the game wardens and we got bulletproof vests and machine guns. Whoa! We, like, go down there to stop. The drug cartels are forcing these indigenous fishermen to do longlining and shark finning. And, wow, we chased these guys and bus and save. It’s a crazy story. Like, even when I when Patagonia found out about it, they had a meeting and they’re like, dude, this is reverse. You know, we’ve never had guns in a story and you guys are freaking us out. And I was like, well, this is on me. And they’re like, okay, go do it. 01:06:24 Dave: Yeah. Wow. 01:06:26 Riverhorse: So that’s in the book. 01:06:27 Dave: That’s in it. 01:06:27 Riverhorse: Too. It’s a Texas story, and it’s some of that takes place right down there near space. It’s crazy. 01:06:34 Dave: Oh man, this is good. Well, I think we’ve definitely highlighted a good chunk here today. And I think we could maybe leave it there and take everybody to a river horse Nakadate on Instagram if they want to track you down or Patagonia to find the book and River horse. Thanks again for the great episode. We will obviously be in touch with you and thanks for all the inspiration out there. 01:06:53 Riverhorse: You bet! Big love from here buddy. Love you so much. And the podcast that you do is just amazing and I freaking could so happy when you’re going to have me on because I just you just such a good hang and and doing great work and I want to, I want to be up there on highway twenty six hanging with you and, and getting together sooner than later. As soon as I. 01:07:17 Dave: Yeah, let’s do it. 01:07:18 Riverhorse: Since I’m coming through there for the book, I hope I didn’t give away. 01:07:21 Dave: Yeah that’s right. Yeah. Well we’ll follow up. That’s what we need to do. You’re going to be doing a tour or two right here on stopping. 01:07:27 Riverhorse: Oh man. I’m everywhere. That tour Patagonia doesn’t mess around. Oh good. I’ll be Portland on the twenty third Seattle port. Patagonia Austin on June twenty third. 01:07:38 Dave: Okay. 01:07:39 Riverhorse: And June twenty fourth. Seattle Emerald waters. June twenty fifth Bellingham Port. I’m doing Houston, Dallas and Austin right before that. And then like Boston, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Saint Paul. 01:07:54 Dave: Oh, man. 01:07:54 Riverhorse: Just Boulder. Bozeman. 01:07:58 Dave: Wow. What are those tours? What does that look like when you’re out there? You go to the fly shop or the Patagonia store and you just describe that. What is the what is it like at those stops? 01:08:09 Riverhorse: Oh, it’ll be like three guys that look like they’re extras on on Golden Pond. Three old dudes. And I’ll be sitting there awkwardly. 01:08:17 Dave: Yeah. 01:08:18 Riverhorse: Right at the end of it, they’ll come up and tell me about the biggest brown trout they ever caught, and they won’t even buy the book. And then they’ll walk off and I’ll be like, yeah, this is this is the big time, right? No. I’m kidding. That’s what you worry about, right? 01:08:33 Dave: That’s what you worry about, right? Nobody shows up. 01:08:35 Riverhorse: Shows up. Not some, you know. 01:08:37 Dave: We’re gonna get some people to show up at least a. 01:08:39 Riverhorse: Few. But emerald water sells out. Like Houston will sell out. Okay, so many of these events sell out, and Patagonia usually has beer and food and giveaways and know that it’ll be awesome. But some gigs are, you know, more better than others. And a lot of them are weeknights and it’s summertime and fall, so that’ll be killer. Sometimes they show one of the films I’m in and have a band play, and. 01:09:05 Dave: This is good. 01:09:06 Riverhorse: Okay, I was going to tell you Willie Nelson story. 01:09:09 Dave: Oh yeah. 01:09:09 Riverhorse: Let’s talk about. 01:09:10 Dave: That. Let’s hear Will. Yeah. Do you have a Willie is now Willie Nelson. Is this in the book or is this just another story? 01:09:14 Riverhorse: No, it’s not all right. But you brought it up. We’ve talked about it. But I was over there in his ranch doing a story with him and Freddy Powers, who was Merle Haggard’s guitarist. 01:09:25 Dave: But oh. 01:09:25 Riverhorse: Anyway, I did a story for the Fretboard Journal on a guy named Paul Buskirk who’s not alive anymore. But Paul Buskirk was playing on all these old Lefty Frizzell albums. He was like this electric mandolin, just wild Man cowboy. And Willie would listen to Lefty Frizzell. Willie was a clean cut DJ in the fifties at a little radio station. 01:09:48 Dave: Right? That’s right. 01:09:49 Riverhorse: And he’d always hear the music. And Buskirk played with Chet Atkins and. And he would travel around with, like, a covered wagon and drop the back down in a small town. And so when the back goes down, it made a stage and he just jammed for money for all these. Anyway, Willie, Willie gets Ahold of Buskirk and says, hey, can I interview on the radio? Like, listen, this is you on all these albums. And so Buskirk comes in for the interview and Willie’s just this short haired, clean cut, you know, dude and Buskirk system. Do you want to play guitar? Like, I give lessons I can teach you to play a little. I’ll keep you one lesson ahead and you go for it, dude. And Willie, Willie starts and. 01:10:36 Dave: Wow. 01:10:36 Riverhorse: That’s kind of the chrysalis of Willie, as I understand it. 01:10:39 Dave: That’s it. But that’s where the guitar is. And of course, now his famous guitar. 01:10:44 Riverhorse: Yeah, we could definitely queue up on the road again. 01:10:47 Dave: Yeah. 01:10:47 Riverhorse: For if you want to. Even better than the z.z. Like who knows? 01:10:51 Dave: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah, yeah. No, I know, I know. I’m, I’m always, always been my top. Yeah. Just everything. Yeah. I mean, he’s been such a songwriter too, right? He’s written some amazing songs for other greats. 01:11:02 Riverhorse: Yeah. And that live, those live covers of whiskey River. They’re so fun. Yeah. I wish there was less harmonica. That Gaga is an incredible harp player, but I want, I want, I want to, I want to be. I want to play guitar with Willie. Like, give me let me take a solo, man. 01:11:19 Dave: Yeah. That’s right. So but you’ve sat down with. Will you you’ve you’ve chatted with him. 01:11:23 Riverhorse: Pass through there. Yeah. For a story on on uh, Freddie Paris. Very cool. 01:11:29 Dave: Yeah. 01:11:29 Riverhorse: But even the deer like you’ll find out in the book that I’ve never done a drug in my life. 01:11:34 Dave: Like you. 01:11:35 Riverhorse: Haven’t drug. No, I’ve never even tried a cigarette or weed or anything. 01:11:38 Dave: No kidding. 01:11:39 Riverhorse: I talk about it in the book, you know? 01:11:41 Dave: Yeah. 01:11:41 Riverhorse: I don’t need that. And I like a dairy Queen ice cream cone. 01:11:45 Dave: Right. Well, and I guess alcohol is technically. But that’s a little bit different, right? 01:11:49 Riverhorse: But I’m so like, imagine if I smoked a joint like I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be able to tie my boots for a month probably. Like I’m already so, so crazy. But anyway, as I’m driving through Willie’s ranch, there’s all these wild deer there, and even those deer look like they’d been smoking them. Like, look at everybody. This whole branch is probably blasted. 01:12:10 Dave: Oh, yeah. 01:12:11 Riverhorse: It was so funny. And sure enough, he’s like, do you want some reefer boy? 01:12:14 Dave: Did he offer you? He offered you some. 01:12:16 Riverhorse: Not Willie Paul. I mean, Freddie did. And I said, oh, I’m driving a truck. I’m good. 01:12:22 Dave: Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, it’s, it’s, it’s pretty cool. I feel like we have a person we follow. Well, I’m not even sure if we’ve talked about this before, but Superman, he is a, a Native American artist, a hip hop artist out in like Wyoming. and and he is same thing. Never touched. And obviously you know you think you know some of the background there with some of the I can’t remember the name of his you know the native tribe he’s with there. But he talked about not in his life. He hasn’t. And he describes it. Right. And we’ve been to a couple of his shows. And I think it’s pretty powerful because I know in my family we have huge. Alcoholism is a big struggle, you know, and drugs. And you hear these stories and I have I have friends that have died. I don’t know, I guess it’s it’s pretty powerful, right? I think that at some point, even if you’ve done it before, like right now, I’m kind of like, I’m out of that, right? I do even beer. I’m kind of on, on the wagon trying to be like, you know what? I think trying to go totally without anything is cool. 01:13:20 Riverhorse: Well, the first beer is the best beer anyway. Yeah, like the second beer doesn’t taste. 01:13:24 Dave: No. Yeah. You really only need one if you take if you have a beer. Right. 01:13:28 Riverhorse: Yeah. But I always look at it as our body and our incredible brain. That’s your light. And you only have one light. And if you dim your light. That’s right, boy, you’ll never get it back. And but I just I can’t risk that. Like I don’t, I don’t, nor do I need it. Like I said, like a dairy Queen ice cream cone to me feels like a gateway drug right there. Like, I’m so happy rocking one of those dip cones. And there’s plenty of dairy Queen in the book, but. 01:13:55 Dave: Oh there is. Yeah. That’s right. 01:13:57 Riverhorse: Yeah. I just there’s so many ways to get high. Well, I say it in the book, like if you can’t be beyond high from being out in wilderness, like you’re not living. Right. 01:14:08 Dave: I know, I know, that’s what it’s all about. Cool river horse. Well, I think we will leave it there for today until we get you on here in the next one and maybe talk about that next book. Thanks again for all your time and we’ll be in touch. 01:14:20 Riverhorse: Okay? Take care. Brother. 01:14:23 Dave: Please check in with River horse. Let them know you heard this podcast and please check in with his book. Go to Patagonia dot com or check in with your local fly shop. Uh, this is an exciting one. Can’t wait to get this out to everyone out there. I’m going to be listening to the audio book as well as I go and get a little bonus River horse on the on the phone today. And if you want to check in with me, join the crew here. Wet Fly Swing Pro we’ve got a bunch of great stuff coming this year, including, uh, this next week. We’ve got the Stillwater School is back with Phil Roy. We’re launching the Stillwater School. This is going to be a big event. We are going to be doing a giveaway next week. If you want to get access to save one of the spots that are going to go quick for this one, we’re heading to, uh, back to Henry’s Lake, and we’re going to be fishing some of those great waters around eastern Idaho. If you want to check in and fish one of the great fisheries with one of the best in Stillwater. Send me an email, Dave at web dot com. If you want to assure that you can get a spot, you can just join Wet Fly Swing Pro at web dot com slash pro. That’s the best chance to get access. And we always let our pro members have first access to trips. So if you haven’t yet, check in there. And, uh, and that’s all I have for you. I’m gonna get out of here. We got a busy day today. As always, I want to remind you to, like, follow subscribe to the show. If you haven’t checked out our YouTube channel, we got some big stuff coming this year where we’re basically summarizing a lot of these episodes and adding some new full length content there. So check out with our YouTube channel. Deep breath. All right. Final thoughts today. The fish are great, the stories are better, and the stories that happen as you go. River horse always inspires us to remember that it’s not just about the fish, it’s about that journey. And that’s why you should be planning that next trip. And I hope you’re having a good one. I hope you have a great afternoon, evening, or morning, and I hope to see you and talk to you on the next episode. We’ll talk to you then. 01:16:13 Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing Show. For notes and links from this episode, visit Wet Fly swing dot com.