890 | John Shewey on the History and Evolution of Spey Flies

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Today's guest has spent a lifetime swinging fly us for steelhead and paying close attention

to how space patterns actually work and move in the water.

And he's not just fishing them, he's studying where they came from, how they are constructed,

and why certain designs continue to show up on rivers around the world.

John Shui has been writing, tying, and fishing space flies for decades.

His work bridges classic space history with modern steelhead fishing, connecting old ideas

to the way anglers swing flies today.

This is the Weft Fly Swing Podcast where I show you the best places to travel to for

flyfishing, 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.

John Shui is back to take us on a deep dive into space flies, we're going to find out about

their origins and evolution, and then we're going to get into what decades of steelhead

rivers teach you about fly design, confidence, and fishing with intent.

In this episode you're going to learn what defines a true space fly and how these definitions

developed over time, why movement, proportion, and balance matter more than surface detail,

how traditional space fly concepts translate to modern steelhead rivers and what materials

and construction choices influence swing speed and depth.

Alright, take a deep breath, it's always great to have John in the show you can find him

at matchthahatch.com.

Here he is, John Shui.

How you doing, John?

I'm good, Dave, thanks for thinking on me for this again, it's been a while.

Yeah, definitely.

No, I was kind of thinking I was talking to one of my assistants and I was saying we're

doing a lot of content now and it's great because it allows me to talk to people that

some folks have never heard of them and people like you that a lot of us have heard of

you.

So it's good to get you back on because I want to do more of these episodes where we

kind of circle back and catch up from what we did last time.

So first off, it's been a little while, maybe just give us an update, you're still editor

of one of the big magazines out there, maybe give me a heads up for what you got going

and what's been going on the last few years.

Yeah, I'm 21 years into my seat as the editor-in-chief of American Fly Fishing Magazine.

I seem to be bolted to that desk, so to speak.

And the big news in my fishing and active life was that 10 months ago I had a pretty serious

shoulder surgery on my right shoulder.

So that took me, it's the first time I've ever missed a summer sealant season.

Yeah.

Right.

And I, you know, I discussed all the different forms of casting with my PT people and

they're like, no, no, no, none of it.

So even SPA, even SPA you can't do it with the, even a top hand, switch the top hands,

you still can't do it.

That's right.

That's funny.

What's it look like?

How long do you have to wait together?

I've got, well, I've got two more months until I'm clear to pretty much do anything

I want.

Yeah.

So we're getting there.

It's a little dog on the, on the physical therapy and, you know, you sort of have to be kind

of, I think you get the outcome you set yourself up for.

So yeah, right, right.

So put it in the water.

But it was not easy.

You know, every October for many years, my family members and I, my cousins and my brother

and my nephews, we do a lower-dissued steelhead trip with Brad Staples.

Oh, yeah.

And we've been doing that for a long, long time and I couldn't fish this year.

So I was sort of the designated heckler and designated photographer, which is actually

kind of fun because, you know, normally on that trip, I sort of set the photography aside

and just enjoy the fishing and the camaraderie.

But this time I really focused on the photography and it was kind of fun to do that.

That's cool.

Yeah.

Did you guys have a little bit of action out there?

You know, we did, Dave.

And the best part was that my 77-year-old cousin from Eastern Idaho got his first fly

run steelhead.

It turned out to be a 32-inch wild fish.

Nice.

And that was awesome.

That wasn't enough.

My 22-year-old nephew from Florida caught on that trip.

We also did some trout fishing and he caught his first trout and his first steelhead.

So that was pretty awesome.

Wow.

That was awesome.

That was cool.

Yeah, that's the thing about the disputes.

I think sometimes people might not realize is that it's got this great steelhead fisher,

which you hear a lot about.

But I mean, the trout fishery, it might be as good, right, depending on where you're fishing.

It is.

You know, it's funny in that lower end, lower 25 miles, you know.

It doesn't get the credit it's due for its trout fishery because it's such a steelhead

centric fishery.

Yep.

It can be great down there.

Yeah.

It's got him.

Yeah, that's something we always did down there.

I know we fished both steelhead and trout in that lower 25 and it was great because nobody

was trout fishing really.

That's right.

You're out there and swing.

I mean, well, lots of times you'd be fishing for steelhead and you might catch a trout

or vice versa, right?

That's possible, too.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Well, we took the kid out to my brother and my nephew.

I took him out to check a hominy reservoir before the Jishoots trip.

That was pretty epic.

It was, you know, they had held water for two years and that's the key.

And it was one of those, we had one of those two day spans where you could fish a size 14

or a size four.

You could strip fast, medium or slow.

You could fish a floating or sinking or a sinking tip line.

It didn't matter.

It was, it was all just really, really easy.

Wow.

So that was pretty epic.

That's awesome.

Nice.

Well, the wind didn't blow.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Check it on me.

That's out kind of in southeastern, right?

Yeah.

It's way out there.

Yeah.

Cool.

Nice.

Well, this is good.

And American fly fishing is everything still kind of as it was a few years ago.

You guys still kicking out all the content there?

Yeah.

We're plugging away.

And we're lucky that in this media climate that, you know, we have a dedicated subscriber

base that likes what we do, likes what we're different about.

You know, we're very destination focused and we're by that.

I mean, we're focused on publicly accessible destinations in the United States.

And you know, on our dedicated subscriber base, they stick with us because of that.

Yeah.

So people that come in, they want to know they know they're going to get some new, new

places to travel to, right?

Like new spots to think about.

Is that kind of a focus?

Exactly.

Yeah.

You know, and we talked about this on the last podcast, but when we converted from the

three regional magazines to the national magazine, you know, we upset a lot of previous subscribers,

but of course, as our former owner, you say they're not the ones that have to pay the

bills.

Yeah.

Right.

It is, but yeah, we've sort of come around full circle on that and gain not only a lot

of the people that stayed with us, but we've gained a new audience as well.

Right.

A new audience.

That's great.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Well, we'll put links to the show notes to those, we've done two episodes now in the

past with you.

We'll have those in there and some links to other stuff as we go today.

But I wanted to talk, you know, and the other thing you've done a ton of is some of these

amazing books, you know, and you've got this experience that we've talked about before

a classic flight time.

Today I want to talk a little bit about, you know, spay flies and deep flies, really just

the history and talk about how it's evolved maybe to where we are today.

Does that sound like a good place to start?

Absolutely.

Nice.

Well, maybe kick us off with your books first on that because I know there's going to

be, we're going to touch the skip price, skim the surface on some of this, but working

people follow up on this if we don't dig into it all on kind of this history.

Sure.

Well, so to give you the quick thumbnail story, about 26, 27 years ago, I put out a book called

Spay Flies and Deep Flies and that book was 160 pages long and was done largely without

the benefit of internet available research resources at that time.

And so a couple of things happened.

So one, I had to leave a lot of things on the cutting room floor and two, I didn't have

nearly as much information available to me as I do now or any of us do.

But the other thing I did is it opened some doors and in the wake of publishing that book,

I was able to travel to Scotland twice to the Spay River and continue a lot of my research

there.

And anyways, the culmination of that was more than 20 years later, a book called Spay Flies.

And that book is nearly twice the size and is just packed with historical details that

have never seen the light of day.

So you know, that was really a multi, it was a two-decade project.

I always knew I wanted to put everything in the book that hadn't made it before and also

expand on my research and I spent 20 years doing that and finally found a publisher that

sort of saw my vision with me.

And so yeah, so that book's out there and it has virtually everything that a Spay

Flies, Fishy and Otto would want to know about these slides.

Awesome.

That's perfect.

Yeah, that's the perfect resource.

So that'll be the follow-up.

So people can listen today and get fired up and then go pick up your book and take the

deep dive.

Yeah.

So you know, one of the things, when you put a lot of work into historical research and

then you sort of spew it all out and writing, you actually hope people will read it, you

know, because it's funny how unsubstantiated so-called history gets spread around so rapidly

these days.

And to this day, there's still things flying around on the internet and on social media

that are just not true about Spay Flies because people don't take the time to actually,

you know, sort of read the fine prints, so to speak.

Yep.

Exactly.

So maybe think just, you know, Spay Flies, where do you, and I'm not sure if we can kind

of follow the book a little bit, but where do we start?

If we want to talk about the history, was there a point in history you can go back to

a certain place and say this is kind of where it began or maybe describe that a little

bit?

Well, yeah.

So obviously the Spay Flies name for the River Spay in Northeast Scotland, the most famous

of all the Atlantic salmon fisheries in Scotland.

And it's really difficult to pin an origin date on the particular type of fly that was

invented invented on that river.

But the original Spay Flies sort of became what they were when somebody on that river in

the early 1800s decided to try wrapping the hackle the wrong way.

And so instead of tying it, for example, when you palm or a hackle through a fly meaning

tying it all the way through the body, normally we think about tying it in by its tip and

wrapping it forward.

But in this case, someone decided let's take that big rooster feather and tie it in by

its butt end.

So all the fluffy fibers are at the back of the fly and then let's spiral it forward.

And that sort of became the defining characteristic that separated, you know, that differentiated

an original Spay Flie, a salmon fly tied for the Spay River and on the Spay River from

the flies that were springing up on all the rivers in the United Kingdom.

And we don't know exactly when that happened, but the best I can pin it down would be the

opening decades of the 1800s when somebody came up with that idea.

And you know, it became sort of the signature style for that river.

And in the 1800s, all the Scottish and Irish salmon rivers had their own set of flies.

But at that time, if you were to take, say it's 1860 and I buy from one of the tackle

manufacturers, I set a tweed flies and a set of flies from the Shannon and a set of flies

from five other rivers and mix them all together.

I'm not going to be able to tell you which one goes where, but I would be able to tell

you which ones are spay flies because they were unique.

Yeah, they're unique.

Yeah.

So, okay.

So what you're saying is, yeah, the river spay, and maybe take us to the river spay.

Is there a reason was the river spay?

Why was that the river?

It was just happened to be the river that they came up with these flies on.

It's hard to really say for a certain day there.

If you read more modern, I bought by modern, I mean, late 1800s authors, you might hear

things like the because of how the gradient of the spay river, a pretty steep river compared

to some of the others.

So it flowed fairly rapidly that they wanted a fly that could sort of stand up to that

flow and have, you know, significant movement.

But I'm not sure that that was not sort of a misunderstanding that sort of came about

60 or 70 years after the flies were first invented.

It might be true, but it may also be that a simple, unique style kind of caught on,

you know, sometimes flies just get popular and, you know, there's no reason to think

that a stimulator is a more effective fly than a sofa pillow.

Right.

But boy, the stimulator just caught fire.

You know, it was unique.

It was different.

It was fun.

It was adaptable.

So sometimes there may not be a pragmatic reason and then that may have happened with

the spay flies.

I can't be sure nobody can.

But yeah, they were certainly unique and they were sort of relegated to that river for

a lot of decades.

But in the middle, starting in about the 1860s, English tourism exploded, English sporting

tourism.

And it sort of went hand in hand with the development of railways in the United Kingdom.

As the railways spread into the highlands, the highland rivers and the highland moors,

the grouse hunting areas became more and more accessible to the elite classes from England.

And they were able to sort of take advantage of that with easier and easier travel to

the Northlands.

And that's when salmon fishing, as especially as a paid pursuit where they were actually

leasing pools and stretches of river became a really big deal in Scotland.

When that happened, of course, the unique flies from the spay and other rivers spread

throughout the kingdom and became pretty well known.

So you know, by the by the 1880s, a learned salmon angler from London would certainly

recognize what a spay fly was.

Yeah.

And what were the other than the spay flies, what were the other flies of the time like?

How were they different than the spay fly?

Well, one of the big revolutions that had happened and was ongoing was the development of the

full-dressed salmon fly.

Oh, really?

The really regaled flies like jock scots and green highlanders and dozens of others that

were, you know, they could have 30 different materials in them and they were all relied

on the plumage of exotic birds.

And that was a revolution in salmon fly tying.

There was going on at exactly the same time.

And it's a testimony not only to the uniqueness of the much simpler spay flies, but also

to some of the spaceide gillies and anglers that championed them that they sort of held

on to their popularity, even as the full-dressed salmon fly was becoming all the rage in Great

Britain.

Hmm.

Wow.

That's crazy.

It was just as effective at the time.

It feels like, you know, full-dressed flies are more for looking at now as not as much

as fishing, right?

What was really fished?

You know, that's a great question, Dave, because, you know, like if you were to talk to

people that are really experts in tying full-dressed salmon flies today, you know, essentially

they're tying artwork.

Yeah, artwork, right?

And I know very few people that fished them other than like myself and a few others,

but, you know, primarily they are artwork today, but in their heyday in the 1800s and

Great Britain, they were absolutely critical fishing.

Oh, they were.

Yeah, they were tied by commercial tackle houses in Great Britain, both in Scotland and

England, and appeared in all the tackle catalogs, and they were sort of the most popular salmon

fly of the day.

Wow.

Yeah, so a lot has changed since then.

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It's pretty interesting world because again I want to ask you about this next question too

because I know we've had an episode on it.

It ties right into this but we had you know I'm sure you heard you know the feather thief

right we had the author of that and told the story of that and I feel like part of that

was you know the kid that you know did that at the time you know whatever stole broken

to the museum to steal these rare birds.

He was just an addicted tire of these types of flies right and he had to have the exact

fly pattern.

What's your take on that?

Do you feel like because you're kind of in that world of fly tying.

Was that just so out there I think like do you remember that I guess first off.

I do and absolutely it was just way out there I mean I think you're talking about it

essentially an addictive personality in that case but but nonetheless I mean I've known

many other fly tires over the years that would not go to the links that that that kid did

but they certainly have gotten addicted to the pursuit of rare feathers right and you

know and I always have thought that's kind of a juxtaposition of values really you know

as fly anglers maybe we should extrapolate our conservation ethic onto other genres including

you know ecology in general you know and so when you are when you are sort of addicted

to pursuing feathers for two reasons one they are used on some classic fly patterns but

two they're extremely rare which makes them more covetable you know I struggle with that

a lot myself you know I'm not a feather addict at all but I've certainly known a few.

So I think in a lot of cases you know if I had a if it was my perfect world we would we

would keep the old folder as flies alive for historical purposes but we would be willing

to where possible look for substitutes for some of the feathers that we probably shouldn't

be pursuing anymore.

Yeah that's right yeah I see and that's the people that I've talked to that that kind

of are in there that's exactly what they say is that yeah we shouldn't be so stuck to

the fly doesn't have to be perfect exactly what it was like with that same bird.

Yeah and I think that you know and equally to that point I think great fly tires who excel

at the minute details of constructing a folder as salmon fly they can highlight their

skills with substitute materials you know the same skills apply you don't need to have

the rare feathers to exhibit your skills right now there's a few feathers that I think

if you took them away we would no longer be tying traditional classic salmon flies I

mean a good example would be the crest of a golden pheasant or the the tip of feathers

of a golden pheasant that's pretty hard to replicate same with with jungle car pretty

hard to replicate that but but in those cases you know golden pheasants and gray jungle

foul are raised substantially in captivity and so you know those feather sources I mean

we would never want to in further endanger things like a gray jungle foul in the wild you

know by by creating a market you know that relies on wild birds but there seems to be enough

domestically you know cage raise raise birds in in some cases to sort of satisfy the demand

yeah that's there nice so yeah so that definitely is a kind of a crazy story and in the whole

the whole thing there but I want to jump back in just more you know like you're talking

on this history piece so we have really the spay flies and and maybe just for those that

don't know spay flies deflies deflies are in there too what what is the difference is that a

subtle difference between the two it's somewhat subtle but I mean I think first for people

that aren't familiar with these these words like D in spay the critical difference is that

deflies originated on the D river in Scotland which is south of and over a big mountain range

from the from a spay river drainage so each of the Scottish salmon rivers in the 1800s

sort of had its local anglers develop their own flies not surprisingly and those flies evolved

to become associated with their home rivers and in the case of the D flies by the 1880s they had

they had it evolved their own unique characteristics especially in the way the wings are assembled

on the fly so they're different but they share some commonality with the spay flies in that

some of the spay flies there's there's call back up here a moment there's two broad classes

of original spay flies there are the spay flies that are tied with a rooster side-tail

hackle through the body and as I mentioned earlier it's tied in the reverse way from normal

and then there's a class of spay flies that originally were tied with heron hackles so a longer

fiberd hackle deflies are tied with heron hackles for work and so they had they share that commonality

with spay flies but most of them are a little bit fancier than spay flies have a few more components

that borrow from from full-dressed salmon flies not all of them but some of them do so but the

primary difference is that they're they evolved on two entirely different river systems yeah I got

yeah it's cool to hear so you've got these people out there fishing they get you know the trains

come in to the uk and now they're able to fish these places in Scotland that are further up north

wherever and then they're and they're evolving these different techniques is there any are there

any similarities I take it over to the steelhead because I know you've talked about that where

California right the first days of steelhead and that happened yeah kind of a similar do you

think there's a lot of similarities there in the two you know those getting into the first steelhead

versus that Scottish area well in a sense yes and in a sense the groundwork had already been laid

for some of the early California steelhead anglers that sort of codified our sport because amongst

their first flies that they started using specifically to target at the time they called them salmon

trout and that's an interesting story too as an aside when in the 1870s 1880s even earlier in

California you had anglers going to the eel river and a few other rivers and they found these

these anigmatic fish that came out of the ocean like a salmon to go on their spawning runs

but unlike salmon they didn't die unlike pacific salmon they didn't die after spawning so

they didn't know what to call them so they took the most logical approach which is just to call

them a salmon trout yeah eventually that became what we call steelhead but yeah amongst the early

flies that were used in use on the eel river and dedicated for these fish called salmon trout or

steelhead were some of the old Atlantic salmon flies that that came from England and Scotland so

when you look at that reports of someone catching steelhead on the eel river with a blue charm

or something like that you have to recognize that the groundwork had been laid by the Atlantic

salmon anglers in Great Britain and not surprisingly you know one of the things that it was a

very popular and great bitten in the 1800s were the sporting journals and they were we've

called them magazine but they were these usually large format information packed periodicals that

reported widely on on sporting pursuits like salmon angling and certainly there was ample

opportunity for learned anglers in on the east coast of North America to absorb information

from those journals and to trade information with anglers in Great Britain so you know what

essentially what happened is the year 1849 ruled along and instantly in one year 300,000 people

moved to what would become the state of California because of the gold rush yep and so when

when the gold rush brought more than a quarter million people to the California territory in one

year those among them who were fly anglers brought the tackle that they knew they brought the tackle

that they'd fished with in New England or they brought the tackle that they'd fish with wherever they

came from and so that's how all the early flies were introduced to the steelhead coast was by the

by the 49ers so to speak 49ers and they had all sorts of trout flies and maybe some had this

information on old salmon flies yeah exactly yep god that's so cool and it's cool to tie in

I we just watched the you know Ken Burns you know came out with the American revolution his new

new documentary yeah it was awesome and it's cool to put it in place because really you look at

this time I mean you're 1849 you know that's after 50 years after Lewis and Clark and then it's

just before you know the the Civil War right that time of this crazy period but there's still people

out there you know traveling exploring and then again the 1880s 70s and 80s and more people now

was people were fly fishing so that they're out there that's the cool thing right people were

still they were doing it yeah absolutely one of the you know obviously one of the fascinating things

about history is the interconnectedness and you know there's no question that amongst many other

things the gold rush of 1849 had a profound influence on fly fishing in the west I mean it's

just inescapable and you know you could go into the myriad details of that but the fact is

inescapable that that that particular year had a profound influence on fly fishing and many other

pursues I mean when you throw you know in one calendar year when you throw 300,000 people into a new

landscape you know things are going to things are going to change and and they certainly did but you

know it wasn't if you think about us we fly anglers today you know so many of us are eager to try

new places that we haven't tried before eager to try new genres in fly fishing we haven't tried

before so they were no different you know they I mean it was not much of a reach for someone in

San Francisco in 1895 to say you know I heard these rumors about a river up in Oregon called the

Rogue River you know hey hey guys we should go check this out we should figure out you know how

how can we get there it's right God you know so by you know the early 1900s the Rogue River was

that the whole impetus of the evolution of fly fishing for steel headed shifted north to the

Rogue River oh no kidding it shifted yeah but you know even during those early founding years from

you know especially the early 1900s through about the 1920s there were individual anglers you

know making great strides in in forwarding the idea of fly fishing for steel head throughout the

Northwest we had people fishing the a few people fishing the dishoots river that early and in many

other places you know that there was a time as you probably know that anglers could jump on the

train in Portland and be dropped off along the dishoots river yeah I love telling that story my

dad and my grandpa used to do that I mean how cool would that be right I know they'd literally go

up there they'd stop and drop you off for your trip yeah yeah pretty cool yeah that's cool so

yeah you can't you just cannot escape the interconnectedness of historical events you know and

as you said you know there was you can have profound historical events occurring that are culture

changing societal changing it doesn't stop people from fly fishing necessarily yeah exactly wow

this is great I love that you went into the Rogue and the dishoots right I mean these are two of our

yeah if you think about Oregon you know there's a lot of great rivers but I feel like those are

maybe the two maybe the two biggest right in history just because of and the north I'm cool

and in the north I'm cool yeah exactly we up that's right well you know obviously Dave you think

about where summer runs steel had exist especially before hatch you produced runs were created so

the list of rivers that that originally historically have summer run life history steel head is

pretty short you know it's I mean in Oregon you've got the rogue and you've got the north

I'm caught and you've got the disputes and the you know the Columbia upper country territories but

a lot of the rivers like for example here in the Willamette basin anything above Willamette Falls

those rivers never had historical runs of summer steel head so our opportunities have expanded

you know owing to introduced runs of summer run steel head yeah exactly but in you know back in

the old days there was only a few choices and you know you had to have some anglers at the time

they're willing to say we're gonna we're going to do the hard work and getting there and we're

going to do the hard work and sort of they do they might not have called this but sort of pioneering

that fishery seeing what it's all about that's it that's in that's such a good point the summer

steelhead because back then winter steelhead probably wouldn't have been as easy to catch right

they wouldn't have the right gear so summers were probably the easiest probably the only way

almost to catch a steelhead back then and and you know that's still true today obviously fly

fishing for summer on steel head is much much easier yeah especially in terms of the tackle that

you need you know I've told people for many years that I've caught a lot of steel head on a six

weight trout rod with a floating line just because I haven't been driving by my local river on the

way somewhere else it's not all stop and fish a pool you know okay and all I had with me was

trout gear so it is not that complicated no no it's not and then there's a lot of overlap again

with Atlantic salmon right because summer steelhead are probably more like Atlantic salmon than

winter steelhead or at least the techniques very much yeah yeah I mean the techniques sir we we borrowed

you know the swung fly technique you know it dates all the way back to Atlantic salmon fishing

in Great Britain so yeah that's just something that we borrowed you know what it's interesting that

to this day despite plenty of historical evidence that's come to light

we did not you know this using spay rods using two antarods for steelhead is not something that's

modern essentially we took a hiatus what is what happens right you know but but you know you go back

to there's published accounts that I talk about in in my book called classic steelhead flies of

of John S. Ben winning the one of the early 200 rod competitions at the San Francisco casting club

so that was in the 1880s 1890s wow yeah and you know there's historical accounts of two

hundred rods in use on the north um qua river so yeah we just sort of took a hiatus from it yeah well

you and on the disputes maybe take us there for a second because you mentioned the train do you

know a little bit of that history on the disputes of how it went from say those you know the early

1900s into you know present day like well obviously the uh disputes was a very difficult river to

access in the early days uh didn't stop a few of the town elites from what's the the town of

condon and surrounds actually from going out and sort of pioneering it but they they and there

was a couple of them that were me including the original editor and the founder of the condon

newspaper um but yeah they you know in the early 1900s there were people going down to the

shoots figuring out that these salmon-like trout-like fish would eagerly grab flies but when the

railroad and the other thing that happened is the feats of anglers in those days tended to make

the newspapers uh so we don't do that anymore right I know you and I are the last generation that

can remember the how fly fishing feats catches you know remarkable catches remarkable journeys

made it into the papers the local papers you know we you and I can remember that yeah but that doesn't

happen anymore because we've sort of moved on you know I mean if you're not talking about the latest

your latest NBA hero you know you're not talking about sports anymore you and I can remember when

sports illustrated covered outdoor sports that's right that's right but that hasn't happened

in decades has changed yeah so it has changed but so so the publicity machine inadvertently

through the newspapers of the era of early 1900s help sort of propel the idea that uh you could

successfully fly fish places like the deshoots river but when the railroads went in in the early

1900s that sort of changed everything as we talked about just a little while ago it uh by by providing

that train service to the deshoots river for anglers in Portland not only did it open up the river

for anglers but it also created this amazing publicity stream because when the you you can go back

you can actually these days it's easy you don't even have to go to a library you just go to

newspapers.com or some of those other sites and you can find all the accounts of

Portland anglers you know fishing the deshoots river and getting there by train oh you can so

newspaper yeah so newspapers.com is a good resource to check out yeah and there's a few others too

you know and if you just a little bit cage you with your search terms you can find those old stories

oh that's great but yeah you know so that's sort of what happened is not only did the trains provide

access but the newspapers provided publicity and so then we had this you know the obviously the

thing exploded and uh and obviously things changed a little bit when the Columbia dams went in

that sort of changed the fishery but it certainly didn't change what we were doing as anglers in

those days and so you know by by the time like your dad was uh you know being a real active on

the deshoots river it was just a hugely popular thing. There was so by the time my dad and that was

probably in the you know he was born in 39 I think it was in the 50s him and my grandpa were going

up there and they were pro so by the time that there was already lots of people that have done this

before right exactly yeah but yeah you sort of look at the heyday you know like like like

you know your dad invented his famous five in the 70s and uh the 70s were just a huge decade

on the deshoots river and and for fly fishing in general and you know guys like you and I we started

it didn't you know you know in earnest in the 80s and uh you know the fishing was amazing

I mean it's incredible you know and and throughout the 80s the fly fishing for stele from a number

standpoint we can't I mean I don't know about you but I can't get people to even believe me anymore

no I know so it was just we lived in a little bit of a different world and today I it just seems

like there's more I'm talking about the deshoots specifically here it just seems like there's more

flying colors competing for fewer fish most of the time yeah yeah more than than what we had you

know but uh one thing you know well two things sort of stand out about the deshoots river especially

that lower end is you know one is the jet boats starting decades ago made that end of the river

very accessible and primarily accessible to guided clients right and the other thing that happened

was when the two-handed rods became very popular they became popular for good reason on the deshoots

river they just made it a lot easier yeah they did uh you know there's there's that river could use a

good hundred-year flood once in a while if not a good fire once in a while if you're a single hand

guy right right right you know that that that bank side brush and the and the altitudes make it

challenging uh but you know and the funny thing about that is the same thing the two-handed rods

did the same thing to all the rivers they just made steel efficient much more approachable much

easier and you look at the north umqual it's a great example of that there was lots of water on the

north umqual that you really had to be a pretty expert single-handed caster to cover effectively

and uh two-handed rods changed all that all the way to the extent that the legendary frank more

used to opine that the two-handed rods have just made it too easy right too easy you know and

maybe there's some you know and i always used to talk to him about that and i think i sort of

understood his point of view because you know there were parts of fly fishing that you know

should be challenging and should demand that you sort of level up a little bit and you know so

i understood his perspective on that but there's no question you look at the lower deshoots river

that uh two-handed rods changed the whole landscape yeah as far as flying going for steel head

yeah they made it definitely and for me i was always the single-hand rod i'm a okay caster but

you know you had some wind on that and cast an eight weight and sure not not the easiest thing to do

you've got to be a pretty proficient caster to get those out you know get the fly out there yeah

you know and i've always loved single-hand casting for steel head and especially when

my the late forest maxwell about 20 years ago started building cane fly rods and he

did the first two productions that he made were a match set of eight and a half foot eight weight

solid core bamboo rods with all the accoutrements and one of them was maxwell a and one of them was

maxwell b and he gave one of them to me and kept one for itself and i'm telling you Dave that the

thing was revolutionary for me because hooking and landing a steelhead on a cane fly rod is a

mesmerizing experience wow and i might add a very efficient way to do it to do it to land a steel

it on a on a rod bill like his were right what is that like what what is that like landing a fish

with the bamboo rod like that yeah you know i mean first off you have to learn to cast them a little

bit but secondly i would i i'm almost certain i could guarantee that i could land a steel head

faster on my eight and a half foot maxwell bamboo rod then then i could on any two-handed rod

hmm okay they're just they're just the the leverage on that particular bamboo rod and they're

not all built the same of course but the leverage on that rod just breaks the fish down very quickly

oh wow there you go but the more important part of it is that every nuance every breath that

fish takes is vibrated down that cane fly rod and it's so it's just an amazing feel oh that's

cool so those little those little tips and taps you get with the steelhead summer steelhead you

feel all those really everything yeah yeah yeah yeah you know funny thing about that that's

can i wander off on yeah yeah let's do it one thing i i learned over the many years that force

and i fish the nor sanny on first steelhead is you know you always wonder when you get that little

tap on the swing uh and it's not a tug it's a tap yes tap you're like okay well is that a steelhead

well after many years of sort of studying that force and i came to the conclusion that usually

it's a trout or a smolt oh really that was your conclusion yeah and then when you get that very

subtle like like sometimes you know the fly just feels like it's getting pushed a little bit yeah

you know it's not like a tugger attack it's more of that that's a steelhead oh right one of the

reasons we came to that conclusion is not only based on what happened in the immediate moments before

a hookup but we also started really watching on the north um qua where you can actually see in many

places you can even watch fish react to the fly and we realized gosh you know a lot of those little

taps and tugs that we thought were steelhead kind of missing the fly turned out to be trout so

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magical Missouri River trip that is interesting because that's one of our things out there we've

always joked about it's like well not even I you know you're guiding somebody or you're trying to

get somebody to fish and they feel something you know I mean it's like hey put that cast back on

that same right right yeah doing it and sometimes you do get a a tip and test steelhead yeah

it is steelhead right yeah absolutely so you never know and it's good stick with it one you know

one of the greatest things I ever saw when force and I used to hunt in north um qua was we had

stopped along one of the highway pullouts where the bank is really steep above the river just to

check a pool and sure enough we we see a steelhead laying on a slab of bedrock about eight feet

below the surface so uh you know it was forest turn we always used to argue about whose turn it was

but yeah we convinced ourselves that it was forest turn so he uh made his way down the rip rap and

this is long before two handed rods but you know you had to sort of master the steeple casting

places like that and so uh it was a really tricky spot but he had a big skunk fly on with a big white

wing and he you would get a good steeple cast get that fly out there and I can clearly see the fly

in the water from my perch up on the highway embankment so I'm watching that fly and he had no

choice but to throw a couple upstream mends to keep the line from just belling into a couple big

s curves well the funny thing was on his second cast he again made a great steeple cast got the

fly where it needed to be and started executing those two big upstream mends to straighten out the

fly line and it just so happened that the moment he was making that mend I was watching the steelhead

ascend and come after that fly oh yeah the problem was the men jerked the fly three feet upstream

and the fish just disappeared and I in my own head I said I am never mending again right never

mending I know yeah that's right well the cast is the cat I've been Atlantic Sam especially I've

heard this you know is that you've got a that first cast you got to be ready because the fish can

hit as soon as it hits the water you know yeah yeah and I've had that happen with steelhead I mean I've

had steelhead grab the fly we I mean I can't believe they could react that fast I mean I there's

one that I'll never forget on the nor sanny and I was fishing I tied a a great big traditional

space fly called a Karen which has an orange body in a black hackle and and I was fishing it was

a I was fishing a two handed rod with that one and I've made the cast over to the seam and this is

on the upper end of a pool and this is what we call the 10% water you know if you're going to catch a

steelhead in that pool only 10% of her going to come out of that upper end that fly I it just splashed

down and the fish was on and I thought how can that happen right how can they react how can they

see that react like that but but yeah it happens sometimes yeah you know I always tell people that

you have to fish every cast from the minute that fly splashes down to the minute it's you decide

to strip it back in and then you know the other part of it is you know for people that aren't

accustomed to steelhead angling you got to believe in the last cast of a fishless day with the exact

same faith that you believe in the first cast of it yeah you do because it can happen anywhere in

between I know the first or the last you know my my brother Mike he caught his first steelhead on

his first ever cast for steel it not first day not first pool first ever cast wow I almost

ruins a guy right that almost makes it the story gets better Dave yeah so I had him he come out to

he's he's always he still does he comes out to fish with me every few years he lives in Florida

and the one year I told you know it's time I introduce you to steelhead so I took him up to the

North Saniam and up to one of my favorite pools and we waited out about needy but I sort of

pointed things out to him and I explained you know it's real simple Mike I just want you to

throw the fly sort of down or across over to that current seam and then just let it you know drag

back to your side of the river you know we we steelhead anglers have this fancy word called swing

swing but what is a swing it's just a drag here's a dragon you know you're dragging the fly so I

explained it that way to him and he said okay I got I said but the other thing is Mike you want to

fish a short cast first so I just want you to make about a 10 foot cast over to this seam right

in front of you and just let that swing out then I want you to add six feet of length and then

I want you to keep pulling line off the reel until you've reached the amount of line that you can

cast and straighten out and then just stick with that and then I'm going to have you take two steps

downstream between cast so I I explained all that to him and he says okay I got it my first cast

I'm just going to flip a short cast over to that seam and and I said yep so I turned around

started waiting back to shore and he goes I got one it all it happened that fast I turn around

sure enough first right in short right a foot cast on his first ever cast for steel head well but

the moral of that story is be careful what you wish for because his next steel head came about 10

years later oh did that's funny yeah yeah so I mean 10 years sound like a long time but it might

have been like four or five shoes before he finally got another one but yeah he got punished

a little bit that's great what do you think is you know we talked about the disputes a little

bit the rogue the north they have somebody's listening now maybe they're from Florida or out of

the somewhere around the country and they want to come to Oregon to fish one of these iconic rivers

which one is the one do you maybe start with or what do you think I think you get a good guide

and you fish the disputes the disputes yeah and I think you know if you're a really good flycaster

you know and you're not from here I'd say you know just bone up on your two-handed casting

if you're not a good flycaster make sure the guide that you are hiring is a good fly casting

instructor because you know again with a two-handed rod you don't have to practice very long to

put enough line out to catch a fish on the disputes so but you know the some of the other rivers

like that the north on the clock and just be flat out punishing I don't care what rod you're using

the the rogue rivers different you know it's definitely primarily fishing for small steel head

right but I will say that if if anyone were traveling from somewhere else in the world or in

the country and wanted to have an incredible experience you know do a multi-day float through the

wild scenic in October you know in early October because it's just incredible yeah I mean it's in

you know some of the what the guides that do that they some of them are camping guides but some of them

they like Jeff Helfordch they do trips where they stay overnight at the historic lodge oh yeah

you know it's just and it's an amazing experience you know you know the steelhead are small they're

12 to 22 inches but you know the thing about the half-pounders is if you get into one you tend to get

into a bunch yeah but yeah it's a blast and it's just an incredible scenic experience yeah it's a

cool in the history there is umbley we just had a episode we did with Grant Woolbridge the great

grandson of Glenn and Glenn he told the whole story about Glenn how the the federal government

used to give him dynamite to go blast out the river to make it and have a go but it's really

interesting because I mean he's one of the he was right there at the start of jet boats and

and going up the river and stuff so it's a really cool store and then you go the rogue with all

the history of all the famous people that have been there and yep writers right I mean it's a

it's a cool Hollywood stars Hollywood stars yeah absolutely yeah so it's cool so so good well

that's right now take us back so we've been talking about this kind of some cool history now where are

the deep are the spayflies and all this so we've got all this steelhead our spayflies still out

during this time we're talking about the early 1900s are they still being fished or

what keeps them going out there yeah that's a great question so what happened in Great Britain

well world war one the Great War sort of interrupted everything and it interrupted things in ways

that we might not think about one of which was when the when the elite classes you know when the

the period of of England you know the people that are rich and famous and landed in a state

owners you know when they send their sons off to the trenches in world war one some you know there's

a lot a lot of casualties high casually rates and then all of a sudden you've got nobody to inherit

nobody to pay the inheritance taxes nobody pay the you know so so it was a massive social upheaval

in Great Britain and that had a profound impact on the whole concept of least rivers and you know

the thing about Great Britain you don't go to Scotland and just grab a you know you like you like

here we go to the shoes we fish wherever we want right that doesn't exist in Great Britain

you know all the water is private and accessing most of it even today costs a lot of money

and there's still many parts of for example the spay river that are held in private hands and

reserved for an exclusive set of people sometimes in a few cases it's it's not paid fishing it's

just held in the family's hands and they reserve the fishing for themselves but in many cases the

estates and the property owners that that hold the the property on the river they lease the fishing

rights where they sell the fishing rights on a rod by rod basis so it's not like here not not at all

but rolled the Great War world war one caused a massive social upheaval in that whole system

and so that's when a lot of the fishing went from owned by landed families on the

spay river and other rivers to owned by other property owners whose their business model was to

provide least fishing on a rod by rod basis or a year by your basis so so it was a massive change

but along at the same time you know fly styles tend to evolve and sometimes pretty rapidly but

so some different kinds of flies started replacing the traditional salmon flies not just the

spay flies but also started replacing the fancy full-dressed salmon flies so we had simpler

styles coming along but luckily for those of us who enjoy fishing a lady Carolyn or a Karen fly

or a purple king the spay flies were pretty unique they were different and they managed to survive

all the upheaval all the evolution in fly styles and still remain at least marginally popular

as did as did a few of the the full-dressed flies but as fishing tools as lures the full-dressed salmon

flies really took a beating they took it they ended up being relegated to artwork as they did

earlier yeah they took a beating for I for a number of different reasons yeah exactly the cost

getting the cost absolutely yep so if you were to go over to Scotland today or this year

would those spay flies work just as effectively as anything else out there if you gave them a chance

yeah you know and it's you know so like flies you know tube flies are popular there you know all the

sort of the same revolutions and flies you know that that we've seen over here you know and I would

it's the thing the funny thing about flies is you know for example I was mentioning earlier that

my cousin and my nephew and my brother and my other kind you know they all catch fish on the

judiciary around the same day they all catch them on totally different flies right yeah you know

so what matters with flies with steelhead is that you have faith in what you're using so you're not

spending your time questioning it you're not spending your time changing flies all the time that's

not to say that a five inch long articulated weighted leech swung deep in the flow is going to be

on equal terms with a size four max canyon swinging on a floating line on each blow of the surface

those are that's not a level playing field no but nobody can explain to me in logical terms

that a black skunk is somehow rendered less effective swinging one inch below the surface if it

doesn't have a green butt right right so yeah so I'm a big believer and you'll believe me evidence

is on my side it's just a matter of how one in individuals brains work right we're all a little

bit different some of us are more in tune to logical thinking and some of us aren't but nonetheless

if there was one particular style or color or size of traditional say harrowing steelhead fly that

was more effective than all the others we'd all be using it by now we'd be isn't it yeah because

we have plenty of years to let that sort out but instead we have a broader selection of patterns than

ever before but luckily within that broad selection of patterns we still have aficionados like

myself and many others who love to swing a lady carol exactly you know and it's because yes they

do work you just got to give them a chance but you know the other thing that I see is that the

influence of space flies in flies that don't look anything like a space fly so you take like some

of the the modern the most modern style of steelhead flies which are often tied on shanks or tubes

using died ostrich hurl for what counts for a hackle you know and and died guinea feathers and some

of them are you know even though that they're not a traditional fly in my definition they are a

fly that approaches artwork because of the way that the tires assemble and sort of conceive colors

and patterns so you've got these beautiful flies whether they're tied on a shank or a tube and they're

they're very different than a traditional fly but they've approached the realm of artwork

and and certainly they're effective but what I see when I see those flies is I see the influence

of the the long hackled space fly yeah exactly yeah even though the fly designer is you know you

might find a 25 year old fly designer creating these beautiful steelhead flies and he has no idea

where his influences came from his influences might go no farther back than the last person he saw

tying a fly in the style he's trying to exactly right but there's a deeper evolution there yeah you

see it yeah the space fly the especially those long hackles that are just beautiful and wispy on

the fly I mean that's definitely similar to like you said these articulate or not articulate but

these steelhead flies you know whatever the the new style is yeah yeah exactly you know intruder

intruder styles and intruder styles yeah exactly yeah and you know that whole style flies evolved

you know so rapidly and created this whole outpouring of these colorful you know well conceived

color patterns and you know they're they're just beautiful works of art now you know and I can

see where the influence is you know which is kind of interesting to me you know the as an aside

I don't know must have been 20 25 years ago I was reading an article in one of the magazines and

the article was about um spayflies and and their ilk and the author said something to the effect

that the reason that the spayfly is so effective is because of the way those long hackles breathe

an undulate in the water and my reaction to that is well I know a lot of guys that fish corkies

and they catch way more food than we do on spayflies and there's no breathing and undulating going

on in a corky nope so the outflow of that is if you believe that a breathing undulating hackle

matters then you better fish a fly with a breathing undulating hack yeah gotta have faith in what

you're doing confidence you know yeah I mean the steelhead fishing is not so much fishing it is

as it is there is not so much catching as it is fishing right we do a whole lot of fishing

for a tiny bit of catching so you really just have to believe in in in there's parts of that

process you just have to have faith in believe it and and have like you said have a good guide we

as you were talking Frank Frank Moore you know we had him on the podcast before he passed away and

I actually did it at his place and I remember when we were there I had never fished the north

I'm qua before it was my first time being there are fishing and and I asked him Frank what should I

put on tomorrow I'm gonna go fishing what what should I put on he said he told me where to go

and he said put on a skunk and I was like oh a skunk and I said a green butt skunk and he's

like he got mad at me and he's like no not a not a green butt skunk a skunk put on a skunk

and so I put on a skunk and I went down to hit the spot and I fished it and I landed my first

uh north umquasty on there you go on Frank's fly and it was just really but it was you know the

skunk is cool because it's pretty standard of black a white wing the pair wing what is the

hair wing style um when did that pop I mean I guess it's been out there but was there a transition

when that thing you had these other flies and then the hair wing popped up yeah you know for

steelhead it happened in the 1920s when uh essentially zane grave probably is mostly responsible

oh yeah because he had a fly he called the golden demon that he brought with him from New Zealand

and he asked a fly shop tackle shop owner down in grants pass if he could have that fly rendered

in a in a bucktail version because you wanted a more durable version of it the the original

golden demon had a wing made of of a mallard a mallard feathers and uh so zane rage

just wanted a more durable version so the the flies that were tied for him were tied by the

banel sisters who were two sisters from Portland who were commercial flight tires in the 1920s

and so they tied the banel sisters tied the first harrowing golden demons and I guess the idea

kind of caught on because the harrowings in the 1930s harrowings became all the rage and they

replaced all the feather wing flies pretty quickly yeah yeah on the feather wing right now harrowings

I think those kind of win away or it's changed back right I guess it goes back and forth yeah yeah

it definitely changes I mean the the traditional what you and I grew up with the traditional

bucktail winged steelhead fly is sort of a relic now yeah it's a relic uh not for me you know I love

them yeah me too I love fishing a golden demon but uh but yeah you know they're in the fly styles

evolved no question about it yeah awesome well anything else we're missing on they know we've kind

of hit high level on this um just the the space flies what else would you tell us about I was kind

of thinking maybe talking a little on just design on them but it sounds like that there's been a

lot of evolution there is there any anything we want to hit on before we get out of here in a bit

well I would I would encourage people to really you know take a deep dive into the not only the

flies themselves I'm talking specifically about space flies here but this what I'm going to say

applies to all genres but you know take a deep dive into the flies themselves but also into the

people that are behind them you know some fascinating angling personalities created these traditions

for us and it's it's pretty easy to sort of forget that part and sort of and I think it's important

that we sort of acknowledge that we stand on the shoulders of giants right yeah um you know

one of the you know my own in my own history when I was a teenager I went to work for Dave McNeese at

the East's fly shop in Salem and that shop became iconic and I'm not sure that most people

even these days in the Northwest don't recognize how much of the they themselves were influenced

by the fly tying that came out of McNeese's fly shop in the 1980s because it revolutionized

steelhead fly tying and we and I see that when I go to fly tying shows when I see flies that are

published I'm saying you know I'm seeing the McNeese's fly shop influence there and the tire

doesn't even know that anymore you know so I think it's important to sort of understand where we

come from and then we do stand on the shoulders of giants love that well tell me that before we

jump out of here about the first Dave McNeese and on also you mentioned forest Maxwell maybe give us

quick summary who was Dave McNeese for those that don't know sure yeah so Dave McNeese opened

McNeese's fly shop in Salem in 1977 and Dave was even at a young age Dave was a well schooled fly

dresser who had studied under some of the masters you know such as Preston Jennings he always liked

his work Dave had already traveled to New England to study trout flies under the wall the likes of

Walt Diddy so he was a well schooled fly tire even when he opened that shop but also sort of a guy

who's artistically minded so he always had these wonderful concepts of colors and patterns and how

they go together and he became a expert materials dire so he his methods for dying feathers and

fur made McNeese's fly shop just a really popular place for the people that wanted to tie steelhead

flies and Atlantic salmon full dress flies and I came on the scene there in the early 1980s

and Dave embraced me right away and I went to work for him and I even during my college years I

would work for him during the summer and anytime I was back and thereafter and by that time you know

by the time we got into the mid 1980s the place had already become iconic I mean we had a huge

mail order business specializing in hard to find materials many of which Dave died himself

our steelhead flies were all tied by us right in the shop myself and and deep

Meyer were publishing magazine articles about the the flies we were doing about steelhead fishing

and steelhead flies and it just became an incredibly influential in fact just one little aside

if you see any steelhead fly today that has a dyed golden peasant crest used as a tail

that's a direct lineage to Dave McNeese and that fly shop because prior to that you

can dig all the history you want you will not find a fly that's tied with a dyed orange golden

peasant crest as a tail really dyed orange golden peasant crest or dyed red or dyed fluorescent

pink or you know all the different colors that we worked with you know yeah yeah natural golden

peasant crest yes okay flies I think gold didn't but not dyed and so that was something that

that's sort of just one little aspect of the type of ingenuity coming out of that shop at the

time and it was incredibly influential at the same time force Maxwell originally was a customer

of days but then became a part-time employee as well and force and I hit it off right away now he

was 20 years older than me but we hit it off right away and we started piling around and we spent

years fishing all over the west hunting chuckers all over the west we spent years doing that he passed

away two and a half years ago at the age of 78 but you know the legacy that he and I forged together

was unforgettable and just a critical part of my own development as an outdoorsman because you know

we tie each other a lot of things you know that one of the great things about forest is you know he

sort of took me under his wing in certain aspects and I taught him things you know from my fishing

background and so it was just a great partnership a great outdoors partnership so yeah and it

just a very influential but yet to this day Dave I assure you that I can look at steeled flies

and tell you where the McNeese influence is yeah you can't that's so cool so you can see a fly

and you can see Davis influence yeah yeah yeah that's right and he's still out there right he's still

there is yep yep yep I saw him just a few weeks ago down in Eugene yeah yeah in Eugene okay yeah

it is the the show seasons kind of upon us is that going to be coming up here the the Albany is

that still going on strong yeah that's going on in March and I missed it last year because I was

a week out a week away from shoulder surgery and I couldn't really keep my right arm up in the

year right right yeah but you know the the I've been doing the March expo since it started in the 80s

down in Eugene and you know it's changed a lot it's a two day event now instead of a single day

event and you know we didn't use to have vendors we do now but you know the the thing that the one

thing that keeps me coming back is that you know like every year I go through this in my own head

oh boy I got to go sit around and tie flies for a few hours right and I'm not a guy that sits down

and does one thing for very long I just you know I got other things in my brain but yeah but then

every year I do it I end up with the three or four young kids standing around you know watching

and asking me questions oh yeah and that's where it all is worthwhile yeah being able to sort of

interact with the the kids and maybe have some influence on them and yeah right right exactly

well and it's a part way to for people to connect you know I mean everybody listening now that maybe

doesn't know the history being able to connect to you you know connects them to all that history

right I mean that's absolutely yeah that's what your books do yep that's great awesome well I think

we can leave it there I've got one little segment we've been doing on the podcast which is our

our partner shout out today and I'm going to do it really quick here and this is this has been

kind of a fun one with us we got some really exciting stuff coming through the podcast we're

testing the wires we might even have have some new events going here this year but today this is

going to be our Toyota trivia Toyota is a big partner of ours and the way this is going to work is

I'm going to ask a question and it's going to be something related to space flies today and then

for folks listening they can just go to the post for this because we're going to actually have a

post on Instagram that is going to talk about this podcast and and I'll have a little summary there

and whoever gets the right answer and I see it there I'm going to choose one winner and they can

just at mention Toyota Pacific and at wet fly swing there and then we're going to give somebody a

new fly line and it's going to be a we'll get a steel headline out here since that's what we're

talking about today so the question is is traditional space flies were originally designed to be fished

in what kind of water and so and John I'm sure you might know the answer this but what kind of

water you know was that pools was that riffles was that shallow was that deep so if you know the answer

throw that just say just mention it in the answer to Toyota trivia and we're going to give

somebody a new line so so this is kind of a fun thing we've been doing big shout out to Toyota I'm

a Toyota driver now with the tundra and stuff so that's all good as we take it out here John I want

to I got a couple of random ones for you first off tell me I'm not even sure we have it see

each other why what's your car of choice that you're driving these days you know that's a great

question Dave I'm I'm actually sitting right now talking to you in my Tacoma there you go

boom and I've had two tunders and yeah so I'm a big Toyota fan for two reasons nothing ever goes

wrong with it I know I know that's a big part of it yeah that's great well and mine mine

always end up having the Nevada pinstripes on them if you don't know what a Nevada pinstripe is it's

when you drive your Toyota through a desert road where the stage brushes just a little bit narrower

than your car is oh right right so you abuse them a little bit yeah use them for their mid four

nice yeah it's great well that's the perfect segment shout out to Toyota and we've been doing

some events we're going to be doing another event we're heading up to actually to Saskatchewan

I'm probably not going to drive up on that one but we're going to head up to northern Saskatchewan

and fish for Pike which I've never done before so a couple of the questions I want to have for you

as we take it out here just back to American fly fishing you know what is how do you choose

yeah I'm sure that's kind of a challenge right your next topics because everything's been done

you know give us a little insight on the magazine yeah so I like to choose locations based on

a couple things one is the contributor who's proposing the story either have expertise in that

fishery or talking to the right people who do have expertise in that fishery and two you know

has it been done to death and if it's been done to death you know if I mean we've all read about

the Lord to shoot wherever we've all read about the Henry's fork but can it be presented in a way

that's different you know that gives new information different information one of the little bits

of a pushback we get sometimes is you know you're you're you're basically low-hoeing us you know

you're giving all this probably you're going to send a swarm of people well that never happens

you know what we've been doing this for 27 years it's never happened no and you know because most

people like to read about cool destinations and then if they are motivated to go there it's not

everybody rushing there at once it's one or two going here and there and funny story if I got

them if you got them all here I definitely I did a story on it I'm not going to name the locations

because I don't want to to sell anybody short here but I was doing a story on a particular river

years ago and our ad people decided to call the local fly shop to see if they might want to advertise

based on the story now the story wasn't scheduled to run until four months later well within a month

of the ad people calling that shop was posting that we had sold them out by publishing this article

and that they were swarms of people on the river and I'm like the article hasn't run yet right

so you take all this stuff with a grain of salt that's classic story there you go exactly

nice so so and tell me about we talked about influences anybody else we missed on your influence

I mean I'm sure with all the research and history and everything you know that you've done over

the years you've got a lot but you mentioned a couple people any other else you want to you know

give a headlight to or spotlight to well you know I I mean just some people that are still living

is great to talk about you know when during those weaknesses fly shop days I got you know

sort of exchange ideas with some great flight tires and you know one guy that's sort of under the

radar but just a super guy an amazing fly tire is Brad burden you know I don't know if you've

ever had Brad on the podcast but yeah he's great and you know he was one of those guys that that

we got to hang a heat he'd hang out in the shop we'd exchange ideas and you know so that was one

of the steel had tires that that I think was great there was for those that are no longer with us

there was Al Brunel who was one of the last experts on tying the classic road river harrowing flies

you know and Al was great you know just very giving and generous and I learned a lot from him

but you know my other influences were people that are you know that are no longer with us like

Walt Johnson was a friend of mine and you know one of the the great flight tires and

sealant anglers from up in Washington so I could make a long list but you know like I said we

stand on the shoulders of giants for sure love it love it well do you have any other I know

you've written some of the most amazing books out there anything else you always have something

you're thinking about or anything in the hopper there you know there's always something I'm

thinking about in terms of fly fishing and I'm sure it'll come about right now I'm working on

another in my series of books about birds oh yeah yeah so I just did a book on owls and before

that a book on hummingbirds and so I've got another one I'm working on in that series so that's

sort of tying up my book rating time right there you go there you go and we can check the where can

we find the books on the birds you can find them all on Amazon yeah Amazon yeah okay yeah awesome

John well I think we could leave it there for now until we get you back on we'll do another

update this has been great I feel like again the classics I love the history I think that's why I

love doing these episodes and it's gonna get me fired up I'm gonna be actually fishing for my

first time for Atlantic Sam in this year oh awesome and I'm gonna be bringing some of the traditional

you know my steelhead stuff over to the other side to new fantastic so yeah I'll be I'll have

some stories there but yeah I appreciate all your time today this has been great and look

forward to catching up with you again yeah thanks for having me on Dave I appreciate it

before we head out of here today just a couple quick things I want to give a shout out to John

we want to thank him for this great episode if you get a chance head over to match the hatch.com

get all the details from him and you can get all of his books everything he's got going lots of great

resources there if you're interested we've got a bunch of good things going on right now as we speak

we're getting ready to kick off the fly fishing boot camp is your chance to get a taste of what we're

doing inside the shop and to listen to some of the best speakers and presenters from around the

country it's all on right now it's all gonna be free and it's all starting soon so if you go to

wetfly swing dot com slash boot camp you can sign up and save your spot for the next this next

big boot camp it's gonna be a lot of fun next week we're gonna have some more prizes to give away

for those that show up live and it's just an exciting time for us as we're getting into another

big event all right just want to give a shout out if you are interested in any trips again

wetfly swing pro is the best place head over there wetfly swing dot com slash pro and if you get

access to that you get first shot at all the trips we're doing this year and we're doing some good

ones including the t-ton valley so that is also upon us the t-ton valley the big trip and give

away we're doing there if you want to get more information on that you can check in with us

that wetfly swing pro right i'm out of here appreciate you for listening all the way to the very end

and as always if you get a chance you haven't checking with me yet Dave at wetfly swing dot com

always love to hear from new listeners or folks that i haven't heard from in a while

send me an email drop me in line let me know you're listening and i want to thank you again and

hope you have a great morning great afternoon or if it's evening maybe it's late in the evening

you're traveling to that next fishing spot you're uh you know it's late in the night you're getting

ready because in the morning you want to wake up and maybe get the trout gear out there and get

ready to make a few casts maybe get a shot at a fish and just experience the outdoors so i would

love it i appreciate you and we'll see you on that next one