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Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/915
Presented by: Golden Fly Shop, TroutRoutes, Jackson Hole Fly Company.
A music producer doesn't usually end up building a fly fishing podcast—but that's exactly how Pablo Signori got started. What began as a side project during the pandemic turned into The Newb and the Knower, a show built around learning fly fishing from the ground up.
Instead of positioning himself as an expert, Pablo leaned into being a beginner and documented the process in real time. That approach not only shaped the podcast but also opened the door to travel, deeper learning, and a completely new path in fly fishing.
Before we hit record today, we started talking about microphones, recording tricks, and how
to make a voice memo on your phone sound like a studio session.
And that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about today's guest because
Pablo Signori doesn't really do anything the normal way.
He started as a professional musician and commercial composer writing songs that ended
up on TV and in major campaigns.
Then somewhere along the way, he fell deep in love with flyfishing.
The same mindset led him to create one of the most unique flyfishing podcasts out there,
the Noob and the Noor, where the whole idea is simple start from zero and actually learn
flyfishing, step by step along the way.
This is the Wet 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 the fish species we all love.
Pablo Signori is here today and we are going to get his story and how it all came to be.
We are going to find out about how this pandemic project turned into a flyfishing podcast with
some of the best anglers in the world.
We are going to find out what he learned studying modern neuroniphing in Spain from one
of the best in the Spanish arena, but also find out about what this composer's brain
is like and how he approaches flyfishing differently and why he is now helping build a destination
fishery in one of the wildest places in the world.
And we are heading to Isch Galac, a tiny town with just a few hundred people near the
Belize border where permit tarp and bonefish are all part of the game and the place is
super unique.
I'm excited for this one.
You can find Pablo's podcast at thenewbanthenower.com.
Here he is, Pablo Signori.
How are you doing Pablo?
I'm alright.
Thank you for having me.
I'm kind of shocked I'm on this right now.
As a fan of your show, it's kind of a real weird meta thing.
Right.
Right.
Well, this is cool because you can tell right away just from your quality of your audio
that you've got a microphone there and the cool thing is you've got your own podcast
which is amazing.
I remember the first time I heard it, the newbanthenower, I was like, okay, this is a cool name and the concept
is awesome.
And I think we're going to talk about that today like this podcast that you have gone.
But then also you've got some travel programs, we're going to talk in Mexico today, isch
galac.
And really all this stuff you have going in, you've got a bunch, I mean, when you told
me about it a lot, so maybe take us back real quick on, I always like to start with
the podcast.
We're going to talk fishing.
We're going to get into that.
Sure.
But tell me this podcast idea, first off, where did this just pop in your head one day?
Well, no.
So like many things that happen, this was the random pandemic sort of occurrence.
So I was living in Los Angeles at the time and a commercial composer was like sort of
my main gig for many, many years.
And of course, during the pandemic, everything started to shut down.
So I was like, what am I going to do?
Like this is nuts, there's no work.
So in the downtime, aside from sneaking out to fish in the Sierra's, I was like thinking
about podcasting and I had a neighbor who was in biotech who approached me about producing
a podcast for him.
And so that kind of got the wheels turning and I was like, you know, I should do a fly fishing
podcast and, you know, sort of my mantra with everything I do is I don't, I try and do
things different and new and just not the traditional way.
So I was thinking about myself as an angler and because I had only been, you know, at this
point right now in 2026, I've been fly fishing for eight or nine years.
So you know, I was a relatively new, I was still am obviously new fly fisher, you know,
especially back then.
So as someone who was like, probably, I would say like a advanced beginner or like an intermediate
fisher, I was someone that was fishing like three, four times a day for, you know, two,
three years straight.
Like I was obsessed.
I'd wake up, you know, four a.m. and go do it before the work day or whatever.
So I put a lot of time in early, which I think advanced me quicker, but there's still so
many holes and stuff.
And I was thinking about it from the perspective of a beginner and I was like, if you're a new
fly fisher, like going on the internet is just this like, yeah, you know, it's a lot universe
of information, just like, it's so inundating, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
So I was like, how do I start like, how does someone start fly fishing right now?
And it's just really hard.
So my idea was we should do an educational podcast that's entertaining, of course, because
I like to have phone that starts from zero and just goes from there.
So our first episode is basically like, you know, it talks about fly fishing and what
it is, but it also is like, what's the difference between spin fishing and fly fishing?
So it's almost like, it could almost be considered like a course or something, right?
Especially season one.
And it just builds from there and it keeps building and building and building now.
Did you have Lance on that first one?
No.
No.
That was the second piece to this.
I was like, well, no one gives a crap about me.
So I got to find someone cool to have on the show.
And coming from the music world, you know, with that sort of pedigree, it was kind of easy
to get people's attention in the fly fishing space when I would just randomly like call
DM them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sliding into the DMs on Instagram.
And so I did that to George Daniel and he instantly replied.
And then we hopped on a call and then, you know, we're like, he's like, yeah, I want
to do this.
This is great.
You seem like a really cool person and this seems like a good idea.
So we recorded two podcasts actually.
Their pilots just to test the waters and see how it would work.
And also for me, as a producer, I was like, I don't know.
I mean, I like George Daniel.
I read his books.
He seems really knowledgeable, but like, how is he on a microphone?
Because that's, you know, everyone thinks they can have a podcast.
And I was thinking the same for myself, to be honest, you know.
So we got George Gian.
And he was great.
He was actually really good as, you know, as you would expect.
But, you know, he had just, we had this thing going.
We were about to start the thing and he calls me up one day and he's like, I feel so
bad, but I'm not going to be able to do the podcast.
I just got hired by Penn State University to like, you know, to take over the fly fishing
program.
It's like my dream job.
Like, I can't.
I'm not going to have a time.
So I was devastated, man.
I was so like sad.
I mean, it's happy for him, obviously, but it was just like, he got the job.
He got the big job of his life.
Yeah.
You know, I mean, I was so different.
And you could tell he was pretty giddy about it.
So I couldn't hate on it.
But I was really sad about the project because, I mean, you know, think about it.
It's like, you're a nobody.
You try and do your first podcast and you land George Daniel as your co-host.
It's kind of mega.
That is.
That is.
Yeah.
That's huge.
That's huge.
So, but George being like just the kind, sweet, amazing person that he is.
He was like, well, let's try and find someone to replace me.
You know, we can use my network.
And I was like, oh, that's huge.
There you go.
Nice.
So sort of tangentially, while this was happening, because I was trying to get work, I actually
hit up fly fish foods separately because I had weirdly created this internet relationship
with Cheech because Cheech did his Mormon mission in Corliba, Argentina, which is where
my parents are from.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So is this really weird sort of cosmic connection there that we discovered just from me,
like watching there, you know, they would have these live seminars and stuff.
And I would watch them in comment and whatever.
So yeah, total fish nerd, by the way, I was that guy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But somehow it came about, you know, and we were like side DMing basically.
And so when all this stuff happened with the pandemic and I was looking for work, I hit
him up and I was like, hey, man, I'm a composer.
You guys do videos.
Do you guys need anything?
So actually, if you watch the fly fish food videos, all the intro music in the video is
me.
Oh, it is.
That's, I made that thing.
Yeah.
So it's like, you know, it's actually the voice of Brig when he catches this big brown and
they sent me like this, like, it's from one of their videos.
Oh, cool.
His reaction, and I like turned it into a beat and a little intro.
So right now, the fly fish food, well, they may have updated it or is that that's your
no, it's been, it's like, I made like, I think 10 for them and they kind of were, they
picked five and then they used three or four.
And then they sort of just fell in love with this one and it's become like their signature
intro.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
So we'll listen to that right now.
Yeah.
I've been listening to it a little while.
So you made the intro and that's part of, we'll get into that today.
That's part of what you do too and the kind of this digital, what you do with your day job,
I guess, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
But so anyway, so I had that connection with, with Cheat, right?
And so when we were going to the list, George mentions Lance, he's like, I think Lance would
be really good for this.
And I was like, oh, well, I kind of have a connection with Cheat actually.
So it kind of, we hit it from both sides, basically, where George reached out to Lance, I reached
out the Cheat, Cheat reached out to Lance.
And then it was like, okay, let's get these two guys together.
And then upon first meeting me and Lance just clicked instantly and, you know, we're
pretty tight now.
Nice.
So after doing this for many years, you just become close to people.
We don't ever hang out, which is crazy.
Right.
Well, that's, that's the online space, right?
He's in Utah and you're in Chicago, right?
Mm-hmm.
How many episodes do you have now, because I know you break it up in seasons, so you got
episode like, you know, 10 episodes every season or however you do it, but how many told
you have?
Yeah.
Oh, geez.
Or seasons.
How many seasons do you have?
Let me look it up really quick, because I can't even get it up the top, man.
Because you break it up cool.
You've got different.
It's on the website.
The newbienower.com.
You've got different.
Your artwork is a different color for each season.
And then, yeah, so it's easy, but it'd be cool to...
Nice job.
I can't believe that you actually went and looked...
Oh, yeah.
It looks good, man.
I love it.
I'm the nerdy.
I'm the nerdy one, too.
I always love to see.
It needs a lot of work, you know, if I'm being honest.
But, you know, we were talking about this at the beginning.
I'm involved in so many things.
It's very hard to, like, to keep track of everything, like the little things, you know,
but...
Sure.
It needs to be.
And I keep running.
Exactly.
I think it's great.
I think it looks great.
I think it looks great.
We have 45 episodes, but not really not that much, you know?
Yeah, 45.
Well, you're 50.
You're basically, if you did one a week, you know, for a year.
That'd be a year.
I always feel like...
I feel like when I tell people about it, because we do, you know, I've kind of helped people
get into podcasting as hosts.
We have our hosts on our show, you know, Phil Roll and some others that are doing series
on the show.
But it's, I tell them, let's do, let's do 10 episodes, kind of like your pilot.
It's like a pilot.
I guess that's kind of like a pilot season.
Do one a month, over a year, and at the end, let's see if you like it, and we'll see
how you're feeling.
Because I feel like 10's a good little chunk, and then if you're loving it, you know, you
might be hating it.
But if you love it, then keep going.
But if you hit 50, you're definitely in the...
You're not giving this up, right?
You're not...
Yeah.
You're not into the game, you know, right?
Yeah.
Exactly.
No, I mean, this has become, you know, as the first season, we were released...
Well, the first three, actually, I think we released every two weeks, and we would
do, you know, kind of like eight months on, four months off type thing, because Lance
travels a lot, and I do now too, but at the time I didn't as much, but he's just hard
to pin down, and he, you know, he works all day, so all this stuff is typically recorded,
you know, for me, it's usually between like eight and midnight, when we record on like
a Tuesday, you know?
So it's not a big deal, but then the editing, I mean, you know how it goes, it's like,
I added all my own stuff, and, you know, season one and two, I was actually like full
of scoring, like everything, and we had another guest on Jen Ripple, who's well known in
the industry.
She would do all of our vocabulary segments, which was kind of a joke that I created within
the show, but...
So it was just like, you know, it was a lot of production, like just...
And so it was very time consuming, and so as time has gone on, we still want to do
the podcast, but it's like, it was very hard to sustain at that level.
So now we just kind of have been putting them out.
We'll start a new season, and we'll aim to put them out every two weeks.
But if we don't, we don't, we're just like, we're like, that's fine, we're not gonna
do.
Yeah, and I think at this point, you know, I don't have real, like physical evidence,
but I think our listeners are, they're cool with it.
They're like, okay, there's another one that came out, this is sick, like, well, and they
listen to it, and then they wait for the next one, and they know that, you know, we're
doing the best that we can, you know?
Yeah.
But it's not going anywhere.
It's definitely become like an institution in our lives.
Yeah.
That's it.
It's important, you know?
Yeah, definitely.
And Lance is an awesome guy.
I mean, we've had him on the podcast a few times.
He's just super laid back, and, you know, and they know one of the best.
I mean, English-wise, he talked about George Daniel.
I mean, he's Lance's right up there with, I mean, really, anybody that I feel like the
team USA thing, right?
That's a kind of George.
Yeah.
Actually, go back to what was his book, Not Modern Emphing, but...
The Dynamic Nymphing.
Yeah.
Dynamic Nymphing, which is like almost at this point, kind of the Bible of the...
Yeah.
And it's so old, you know?
And it's so old, but he was a comp guy, right?
And Lance is a comp guy.
We have...
Today, we've got our bootcamp on Norm Maktima is coming on.
He's a comp guy.
Nice.
I feel like all these guys, the team USA, even though it gets a little bit of, or has gotten
a little bit of flack, like comp fishing, but I think it's amazing because all these guys
are the top of the game.
There's nobody better than, you know, Lance or these guys that they're the best English
really, right?
I mean, is that kind of...
Yeah.
Is that kind of how you looked at it?
Did you look at this team USA thing and say, OK, that's what I want to go for with George
and Lance?
Yeah, because my fly fishing sort of trajectory was a weird one.
Like, being in Chicago, my, you know, I have this massive lake a mile away from me.
And so, you know, I started basically just fishing streamers at the lake, you know, didn't
catch a fish for four months because it's really tough fishing, especially for someone
new.
But so, I was very intimidated by trout, trout fishing to me just seemed like this, like,
you know, the apex of all things, because I didn't know much about anything.
Yeah.
And where do you go?
Like in Chicago, were you thinking like, oh man, where's the closest place I can drive
to?
Well, yeah, we're actually going to be surprised because we're right in between Michigan
and the driftless.
They're both equidistant.
So within three hours, you can get into this pretty good fishing.
But yeah, we don't have like a home waters, if you will.
I mean, I'm on the board at the Trot and Limited here at in Chicago.
And they always say that, you know, like our home waters are the driftless.
And I kind of wince when I, when people said, I'm like, dude, we got a lake right here.
It's nice.
Yeah, you have a lake.
I know.
Well, the three hour thing is interesting because we, I mean, my home water that's always
been my home water.
I've moved a little bit, but it's, it's three hours away.
Yeah.
You know, I mean, I'm, I'm on the west and the west, but it's, you know, I think three
hours is a, there's a ways, but it's like a lot of people do it.
Yeah, it's totally doable.
I think so, but I don't really have a choice.
So, but anyway, so I was trying to catch Trot.
I decided I was going to try and do this Trot thing and then just kind of poking around
and doing research.
I've discovered, I discovered urine emptying.
And you know, this is a, you know, almost 10 years ago.
So this is a while ago, but, you know, I went, I was in upstate in New York.
I made some, you know, leader and I just tried it and, you know, first cast at a fish
on it and my mind was just like, alone, that this would work.
Cut a trout.
Yeah.
So, from that moment on, I was like, this is the thing.
This is what I'm obsessed with.
I went to that, you know, straight down the deep dive and serendipitously my brother-in-law,
he's from Argentina, but he lives in Australia, Spain, which is northwestern Spain.
And that's where a lot of the most recent modern, like the modern version of urine emptying
is like micro-liter version was all developed there.
The Paragon comes from that region.
Oh, the Spanish, right?
Yeah.
And so, I looked up, I started, you know, following people and all this stuff.
I speak Spanish, which is a huge, you know, breaks down a massive barrier, but I got
in touch with one of the guys on the Spanish team, which at the time, you know, these dudes
were the best, best, best in the world.
For many years, actually, you know, everyone, not everyone, but many of the best anglers
that we know took their class, you know, Devon Olson included.
Yep.
So I went there and I, like, studied with the guy when I was visiting my brother, just,
like, family trip.
I went and I got really dialed, you know, like he just, he kind of, you know, kind of
schooled me right away.
He was like, what are you doing?
Oh, yeah, he was like-
By studying, did he, were you out on the water every day of what was studying?
Yeah, I was like, I was just taking lessons with him.
Yeah.
And so, you know, he saw my rig and he was like, this is, you know, an abomination.
And he was kind of like a, he's kind of mean, you know, right, right.
But it helped because it really, you know, kept me focused.
There was a certain point, actually, in the lesson where he got frustrated and he's
like, you're not focused.
We're leaving.
And he literally just picked up and we started walking.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah.
It was crazy.
Hard core.
Yeah.
So, and we walked, you know, probably an hour to get back to the car.
And we like, turn it on, like, on this other thing and he was like, okay, do you want
to eat lunch or do you want to try one more time?
And I was like, no, I want to come here.
I don't need to eat lunch and he was like, all right, let's try one more time.
But he was, yeah, I mean, he's also a buddy of mine, but he's like, you know, he puts
you to task.
So, he got me dialed really quickly, basically.
And so, when I came back, I had this perspective on your own infine that was cutting edge, you
know, and I would see what people were putting on the internet.
And I was like, oh, my God, dude, like, this is not how you do this, you know?
And I got really good at it.
And I focused on it for probably like two years.
But now I, you know, I have, I do it when I need to, but it's not really in my passion.
I'm more of a dry fly fisher now, but I, yeah, I've spent, you know, like, last three
years in my life just trying to get good at that.
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Makes sense.
How we glance, right?
That's how glance is now there.
Yeah, so that's how I knew about glance and then how we started when we started doing
the thing.
I think a big part of why Lance wanted to do it was because he's known as this like
Euro guy and it really irks him because he does.
Oh, it does.
Yeah, he doesn't like that.
No, man.
Because he is obviously a very well-rounded angler, but that's not even really his passion.
He put out those videos and stuff and at the time he was into it, but now he's in the
fishing for Lake Trout.
That's the only thing he cares about.
Oh, he's in the lakes, yeah.
People still see him as this the Euro guy and he probably does your own in being like
a handful of times a year.
And he fishes literally three times a week, you know?
Yeah, right, right.
So it's kind of funny, and I think, I can't speak for Devon Olson, but I think Devon
is someone who more lives in that world who's in the comp scene and like his jam, you
know.
And he's still going.
Yeah, and Devon's still on the, I think he's the oldest guy on the team on the adult
team.
Yeah, exactly.
He's still.
Oh, yeah, because Pat Weiss left, too.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right.
We had them on the podcast.
Oh, yeah.
And Pat, yeah, we did like a two-part comp.
Oh, cool.
Like two-part comp series, basically, where we discussed, I tried to do stuff that hadn't
been talked about already.
You know, I know you've had them on and they've discussed, you know, like the how the
thing works and the setup and all that sort of stuff.
I tried to get more in their mental game and like sort of unlock the philosophical side
of what it means to be a competition angler because I feel like the mind is like such a
big part of fishing and doesn't really get talked about that much, you know.
That's right.
That's true.
Yeah, it is.
It's like, I always love the sports analogies, right?
I feel like there's, you know, fly fishing, I guess technically it's kind of like a sport.
Yeah.
But there's a lot of similar, you know, golf comes up a lot, right?
The swing, the fly cast, but there's a mental in sports.
You hear it a lot.
Like there's the difference between Michael Jordan or whoever and the other, I mean,
mental is a huge part of it because if you lose your, you know, if you're, you know,
you're at the freezer a lot, you know, if you lose your mental, you know, stuff isn't
working.
And do you feel like a fly fishing?
Is that what you've learned from the new manure that the mental is actually an important
part of this?
A hundred percent, yes.
I mean, I think I would say it's like 50, 50, you know, and maybe that's just my own
personal experience.
You know, I think I, I suffer from anxiety and like, I'm in my head a lot.
I've never been diagnosed with ADHD, but I'm sure I have some weird permutation of it.
We all have it.
I feel like we all have some ADHD.
Yeah.
It's kind of true.
But so for me personally, you know, the two things that have like really helped me with
that as I've gotten to be, you know, an adult is fly fishing and climbing.
I got in climbing like three, three years.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So like actually like rock climbing.
Yes, rock climbing.
Yeah.
Oh, this is another.
See, this is the great thing about these podcasts is that there's so many topics that
I was thinking about for this.
Another one.
Again, just to take a little quick tangent, I've been on this, you know, how we do it.
The YouTube thing you get on and you're like, Oh, my God, you take this random tangent.
But I've been following Alex Hanold for a while.
Oh.
And it's like, Oh, my God.
I remember when I asked Yvonne Chanard on the podcast, we were talking about it.
And I said, because he's obviously the client that's how Patagonia started.
Yeah, exactly.
And I was like, because that video just came out, or I just had watched it late.
I didn't even know about the movie where he climbed Alcopitan free so long.
Free so, yeah.
And I was like, Oh, my God.
And I asked Yvonne, like, what do you feel?
Is that like he's like, Oh, my God, I couldn't even barely watch it.
But like, isn't that crazy?
Isn't that the craziest thing, like what that guy does?
I'm sweaty and just thinking about it to be honest.
Yeah.
It's not real.
He just climbed the building.
The world's the 11th tallest building free without any ropes.
I'm literally, if you slip, you're dead.
Yeah.
I know.
I mean, honestly, I think Alcop is much more impressive than the building.
Yeah.
You know, I mean, it's slippery, you know, movie makes in that movie where he has to
get the body kick.
Yeah.
And it's almost like.
Boulder problem.
That's the thing.
Yeah.
Boulder problem.
He does it.
And the crazy thing about him is as soon as he does it.
I mean, it's so easy, right?
You just think, Oh, one slip and he's dead.
But as soon as he does, he looks at the camera that's stationed there and he smiles.
I got it.
I got it.
It's such good TV.
It is.
That guy was awesome.
The producer of that movie was did a great job.
Yes.
Incredible.
So anyway, it's tangent over.
Yeah.
Backful.
Maybe we'll talk climbing on, you know, as we go here.
But so yeah, you got climbing too.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's all just all that is just for the mental, you know, especially the climbing
climbing.
It's obviously it's good, you know, physical fitness and whatnot.
But what it's done to my brain has been, I think, just much more important and it's helped
me.
You know, it's really helped me.
I mean, fly fishing too.
When I discovered fly fishing, it was like I was able to use the same analytical brain
I use as a composer, producer, but in another place so that like, I don't have to be thinking
about work basically like, you know, 18 hours of the day, which is, you know, that's a
recipe for burnout and that's where I was when I discovered fly fishing and I was like,
holy ****, I can actually take this mindset and put it on something else and, you know,
just gas out all that energy so that when I come to do my actual real job, it's like
I feel refreshed and I'm not like tired, you know, right.
So it's, I mean, I do, I kind of think it saved my career and my, my professional life,
I think in many ways, you know, and maybe take us down that road a little bit.
Your real job, I know you've got a couple things you do.
You know, the biotech startup, I think I wanted to touch on a few other things, but what
is it that you're doing?
You mentioned you were in LA doing some stuff, are you still producing, you know, content?
Yeah, so I'll give you the long short of it, but in my 20s, you know, I studied classical
guitar. That was my major in college and then I also got into songwriting while I was
doing that.
And so I moved to LA basically to become a songwriter and I put a band together.
We got signed and we did that whole thing.
And then it was at a very weird time in the music industry where what they call sink placements
was starting to become popular.
What year was this when you're doing this?
This would be 2005 ish.
Okay.
In a sink placement is just, you know, synchronized music.
It's music to picture.
So Grey's Anatomy was like one of the first big shows that like put people's songs in
it and it wasn't like you were selling out.
It was like cool.
People were like, oh, this song's so good and it's like in this show, you know, or Garden
State was another one of the film.
So anyways, you know, we got signed.
We did that and we had a pretty big following in LA.
We were one of the bigger bands there locally.
And we were friends with a lot of bands and, you know, one of the guys in one republic
was like, lived in our band house and we did that for seven years and then my drummer,
he had a side project and he was always working with this other dude and while the other
dude was Mark Foster, they started to foster the people, which is a, you know, a Grammy
nominated band now, really big band.
And so within six months, pumped up kicks that hit song, just blew up and so Mark was
like, I'm going to go do this.
We were like, you should go do this.
And so they took off.
We had, you know, we've, we replaced him with another drummer who's actually Miley Cyrus
is drummer now.
Oh, wow.
And what was the name of your band?
I'm embarrassed to say.
Yeah.
Why is that?
I mean, you've got, you've got Steve, you've got this, these famous people that are coming
off in these other groups, right?
So the band's name was Malbec, actually, like the wine.
Oh, Malbec.
Yeah, because my family was from Argentina and at this time, Malbec was not a ubiquitous
wine.
No one really knew the word at all except for in Argentina.
They hadn't done all the marketing that they were about to do.
Right.
So, you know, if you disassociate wine from the word, it's actually a really cool word.
And it's like a non-descript one.
So it was our band name for a long time.
Traditionally, you know, it became like the most popular wine of all time.
Oh, right.
So this is before Malbec became the, yeah, and if you do the old Wikipedia, it says Malbec
was an American indie rock band formed in 2003, you know, and all the stuff there.
Hip-hop beats, modern pop styling, Southern hip-hop influence, Brit pop.
Yeah.
Is that all pretty much classic?
So was this a culmination of you and everybody in the band's listening taste?
Yeah, exactly.
And we were, again, going back to the theme, we were trying to do something totally different
that hadn't been done yet.
We're kind of like credited as the first band to play in L.A. with a laptop on stage if
you can believe that, you know, because at the time it was like everyone sounded like
the strokes and we would come in, I remember we played the Viper Room and they used to have
this sound guy there, this Scottish guy.
He was so ordinary and mean all the time.
He hated everybody.
And we, because we were like running live beats, which was like such a strange thing to
do back then, he, you know, we required that, you know, the computers weren't powerful enough,
like they would just pick a **** on you.
We played House of Blues like one of our first shows and they have like the foundation
room upstairs on Sunset and, you know, the computer couldn't handle it, it literally
almost blew up and ruined our whole set.
And what we were doing was beats mixed with live drums.
So Mark and Sidney are a programmer, they would create the beats so that like it would
all sound like one beat, but actually you were getting a blend of electronic and acoustic
drums not on top of each other, but filling each gap.
So it was very complicated and cool.
But because of that we were running live beats and, you know, the Scottish guy was, we showed
up with these two G4 Mac towers and guys like, who do you think you are?
Oh, right.
Genesis, you know, he was like so angry.
Oh, Genesis, right.
Oh my gosh.
So it was like a, that was my Irish accent actually.
That was good.
That was good.
Thanks.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Wow.
So you're a rock and roll star, man.
This is like, I don't know about that.
But crazy.
I had a different life then.
Yeah.
Dang.
So you got this whole music.
Yeah.
I can't remember what track we're on, but yeah, no keep this.
Well, you know, the band did that and then we ended up breaking up and I did solo thing,
which did pretty well too.
So I co-wrote.
I was doing a lot of co-writing.
I have like a number one on iTunes with Alan Stone.
Yeah.
I wrote unaware.
What's the song?
It's called unaware by Alan Stone.
Okay.
It's like his biggest hit.
And then I had a solo song on Grey's Anatomy.
So that's called rock bottom.
So you know, I was getting placements and I was co-writing with people and doing that whole thing.
And then through that sort of transgression, I guess I started getting interested in commercial music.
And the first gig I ever did was for Fruit of Loom commercial, which won an Adity Award.
So that was kind of like, oh, maybe I should be doing this.
I'm just like this of it.
Hang on once.
I'm looking at so Alan Stone, unaware.
I'm looking at just the Google and Conan O'Brien.
He was live on Conan and played this.
So this guy is pretty huge.
Yeah.
He's legit.
So you wrote that song, so unaware.
And then so take us back in the Fruit of Loom.
So what was the, so you had a connection you started making commercials?
Yeah.
Well, I was actually just in the band and we were kind of like, in our friend's circle was
Moon 5.
And they were recording at Oceanway Studios and this producer calls Oceanway and they're
like looking for a certain style of voice.
And Noah Passavoy, who was like Moon 5's lead engineer still, he was like, oh, there's
this guy who has the voice you're looking for.
And so I got to call for my manager and he's like, hey, you have like an audition for a
commercial in two minutes.
They're going to call you.
I'm like, what?
I'm just like walk.
I'm like on the street.
I'm like, right.
So they call me.
They're like, hey, we, you know, we're on a time crunch.
We're trying to get this thing done.
We can't find the right singer.
They said that you would be good.
Can you do an audition?
I'm like, like, sure, what time?
They're like, no, no, right now.
On the street.
Yeah.
So they play this little melody on the piano.
You know, they play like two, three times or like, you know, trying to get me to memorize
it basically.
And they're like, all right, sing it back.
So I sing it back to them.
And they're like, all right, perfect.
You got the job.
Be here tomorrow at 1230.
Wow.
What is going on?
Okay.
What was the melody?
Oh my gosh.
It's like this little like.
It's like this little like, what they were doing was a parody of this cold play video.
And they wanted an addy award for it, because it's like an underwear commercial.
An addy is that a commercial award for what is that?
That's like the Grammys for add space.
For ads.
Got you.
Yeah, right.
So that kind of broke me into that scene.
And then since then, I've been doing commercial composing short films and stuff like that.
If you watch TV over the holidays and you hear like a Reese's commercial with Will
Arnett's voice over, I scored a bunch of those, Coke campaign, AstraZeneca, a bunch of
stuff.
Yeah.
So this is your, yeah.
This is what you do.
You've got tons.
I mean, obviously lots of good stuff going here.
So I did want to touch on some of the other things you're doing here, but I didn't want
to miss the, let's transfer this in a little bit right now, because I wanted to talk about
the lodge before we get too far into this, because I think that one thing that we do a lot
of is travel, like we said, trying to get around and find these new places.
And itchglaque is a place that I think a lot of people would love to go to, right?
Yeah.
Maybe take us there a little bit.
We'll swing back around with some of this other stuff that we have going with your, you
know, you're the day job, but, um, well, it kind of fits in actually.
Does it?
Yeah.
Because, you know, I read this book, um, it's called Awakened Your Genius.
It really kind of transformed away I thought about things, which was, you know, I've kept
seeing myself as this like musician composer guy, but never really felt fully fulfilled.
I read this book and it was basically like, your life is, is so long and so vast and
you can be many things and you're not beholden to like just what you think your identity
is.
And it really unshackled me to where I was like, you know what, I'm going to do a short
film.
And I'm going to, you know, see if I can get something else in flyfish, you know, and
all these different things and through that I ended up meeting this guy through the short
film that I was doing, which I filmed in a very like remote place in Argentina.
My guide ended up like offering me a gig to be like his basically his co partner, his co
founder for his, um, his travel agency, fly fishing, travel agency, and he was, it's an
outfitter.
It's called Kuntur fly fishing.
But he wanted me to be sort of my own thing in North America.
He's in South America.
So from that we started building, this was two years ago.
It was kind of a hair-brained idea at the time.
And I was like, you know what, this sounds really fulfilling.
I had such a good time when we shot the movie, like I wanted, I want people to be able
to access these places, you know, because typically a lot of these trips are for like
very wealthy people.
And I was like, how do we get just like a mechanic down there, you know, like that would
be so sick, which we did do, by the way, not to each clock, but yeah, to the mobile
lodge to fish for Dorado, which we can talk about in a second, but so yeah, so we, you
know, we're trying to get a mechanic down there, which we did.
And my whole thing was, you know, how can we get, how can we make these trips more affordable
for people from all walks of life, all classes of life to be able to go?
Now, of course, you can't, not everyone's going to be able to go, but like at least make
them cheaper, you know what I'm saying?
More accessible.
And so that was kind of my mission for a while.
And also sustainable tourism, like wherever we go, we should be like helping the community
and like getting the community involved and, and making a difference and not just having
it, not just pumping people in and out of places, you know, like really creating experiences.
So that's kind of where I started pointing and we started building this thing.
And while this happened, we were offered to go vet this new place in East Coloc, Mexico,
which is about five miles from the Belize border at the very, very end of the Yucatan.
It's like, you know, population 480, like there's nothing there.
I mean, there's a little town, but it was decimated by Hurricane in 1955 and it never really
got real established.
So a lot of the town is still kind of in ruin, which is so sad and the people are just
the sweetest, most amazing people.
I mean, you know, it's, it's been a joy to be able to go there and, and sort of meet
the community.
But anyway, so we, we went and vetted it and we fell in love with the place and we couldn't
believe how special it was.
And it's right, you know, there's the Mesoamerican reef, which is the second largest barrier
reef in the world, goes from a whole Bosch, Mexico, which is actually like north western
Yucatan and it goes around the bend where Cancunis and goes all the way down to Roatan on
Duras.
And each clock is in that.
So you basically have like this crazy reef that filled with fish that like blocks the
deep ocean.
And then on the other side of the peninsula, you have this gigantic, huge flatz bay.
Flatz bay, right?
So you kind of have like, you know, pick up the litter there.
I mean, it's, you know, you can fish for a permit.
You can fish for juvenile tarp in, you know, up to five, six feet.
And then in June, July, the big, big, big tarp in common, the migratory ones.
And then you get, but the bonefish, baracuda, triggerfish, what else?
You know, all the classics of the flats, you know?
And it's one of the few places you can catch the permit on what they call dry flies, which
is really just a foam floating crab pattern because of the sargasm as they say in English
to Sargaso and in Spanish, which is a plant that due to global warming has been basically
floating up from the Amazon and blanketing all the beaches in Mexico.
You know, anywhere you go in Mexico on the Yucatán side is going to have a Sargaso, but the Mexican
government has these like massive boats that come and clean it in the resort towns, you
know?
So you might not see it in Cancun or East of the Macriottas or whatever, they're ripping
it out.
Yeah, they, they collect it, but in a town of 4 and 80, they don't give a rip about us.
So it's, it's everywhere.
So the locals pick it up and there's like good seasons, bad seasons, you know, the last
time I was there about a month ago, there was hardly any, to be honest.
Now it's starting to come in.
Actually my, one of my guide friends there, Jorge just sent me a picture yesterday, he caught
a permit off the pier on a dry fly because they're coming in and there was a big patch
of Sargaso that went right in front of him, he didn't, you know, he did like two strips
and he had a permit on kind of crazy, but that's, that's so rare.
I mean, people go all the time and they can't catch permit.
They see them all everywhere.
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Well, Permit's kind of the fish that's known as one of the hardest fish to catch, so on
dry as I'm guessing it's even harder to catch a permit.
Yeah, I guess.
I've only, I've hooked one and I haven't landed one so.
Yeah.
And this is itch-black paradise lodge, is that the lodge you're working with?
Yeah, so the lodge also is just a cool story because the guy who owns it, his family comes
from a very big coffee family in Mexico, so actually the coffee you have at the lodge
is all like his family's company, but they have the only coffee museum in Mexico too and
very cruise.
And so this guy has been driving, you know, it's like a 24 hour drive from his hometown
to East Calac, but he's been driving there since he was like 17, 18 and sleeping on the
beach to fish.
And he's not a fly fisher, he's a spin fisher, but he just fell in love with this place
and he's been going there for years and so he finally like, you know, his business built
up because he does like nightclubs and hotels and all sorts of stuff all over Mexico.
So he's slowly like started building his business and now he's, you know, very successful.
And so he decided to build himself like a fishing outpost in East Calac.
So he did that, it was like one freestanding building when he's like, well, now I want
to have my family here.
So then he built like a whole other freestanding building to match the one.
And then he was like, well, maybe I'll turn into a hotel.
So and then he quickly realized that like no one's staying in a hotel in East Calac.
Everyone's going to lodges basically.
Right.
So then he was like, maybe I should do this fly fishing thing.
Everyone keeps talking about, right.
And that's where we come in.
We went down there and we took some people that had been fished quite a bit around the
Caribbean and they should have a good handle on what was, you know, to be offered.
And they were blown away.
They were like, we're never going back to the Bahamas like, yeah, because the thing is
it's like from the boat launch to when you're fishing is about 10 minutes.
It's crazy.
You know, it's like you're not in a boat for an hour to get to just a fish bone fish.
Like you can kind of be like, all right, let's go 10 minutes.
We'll fish for tarp in.
Like, all right, we feel like fishing for permanent now.
So you go 15 minutes into the bay.
It's all there.
Yeah.
And it's like you can switch up on a dime and change your plan and it's all there all
the time.
You know, so it's kind of insane.
You know, we deal with things like everywhere else.
There's, you know, weather and all sorts of stuff, you know, that's out of our control.
But as far as the fishery goes, I mean, they're all there and willing to eat typically.
You know, if you're a sound angler, you know, so it's been, it's been really cool.
And we've been building it like this project's, you know, just coming up on a year old.
So we've been building it.
We've had some pretty cool people go through there.
Phil Rowley, actually, who you're having on, on your thing today or earn a Monday said
you're on the boot camp.
Yeah.
And then so he went down there in November with a group.
He fell in love with it.
He's trying to put more trips together now.
And then house fly, I don't know if you've had them on the show.
Oh, yeah.
The house of fly.
No, there's house of fly, which is in San Francisco and house fly.
They're a fly shop in Pennsylvania, but they are really cool.
They did a collab with Filsen and they do a lot of stuff on the Delaware, like clean
ups and stuff like that.
And they're kind of part of this like tattoo community.
So when we were there, they had like Dan Santora, one of the guys in house fly.
He's like a really, really famous tattooer.
And then Danny Reed, he owns Crooked Creek Holler, which is also another really cool fly
fishing company.
He was there.
He's also a very famous tattooer.
So it's kind of cool to see that there's like, and they were telling me this too, is
I, you know, I have one tattoo of my dead dog, but yeah, but these guys are covered in tattoos
and gals because there was a woman there.
But they were telling me that there's a whole undercurrent in the tattoo scene of fly
fishers, which I did not know about.
Oh, Roy.
Yeah, it's kind of a big thing.
Okay.
And so, you know, they got their buddy Michael, Michael L to come from Michigan and he's
another really, really prolific tattooer in Ypsilani, like right by Shultz.
It was kind of a really eye-opening experience and also so funny because, you know, I was
like, oh, you know, all the tattooers are coming.
It's going to be a rowdy week.
Right.
These guys were in bed by 10, like up and ready to go.
So you're saying there's a, this under this tattoo segment of the fly fishing space, is
that exactly?
Yeah, exactly.
And this is just people that are into like tattoo fly fishing tattoos or just kind of tattoos
in general.
Kind of both.
But Danny Reed, as I understand, I'm not in the tattoo scene.
So, you know, this is all just sort of my filter.
Who would be the guy you're talking about that we could look up on Instagram that might
have the tattoo connection or have some tattoos?
There's two guys that are worth, I mean, they're all worth mentioning.
I think Michael does, that's Michael and his last name is AUL Owl, I think is how you
pronounce that.
I'm not sure.
And he does fishing tattoos, but a bunch of other tattoos.
Danny Reed, which is Crooked Creek Holler, he does a lot of trout tattoos and stuff.
He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
And that company is really cool too.
And then house fly, they have Dan Santoro, who is a really famous tattooer.
Actually, Danny Reed and Dan Sarantoro were just here in Chicago for an art show that
featured their work last week.
So in Dan, Santoro is part of house fly, which is a really cool fly shop in the Catskills
on Pennsylvania.
Oh, okay, house fly, okay.
But that was just, you know, you meet so many cool people.
And I was blown away just by house sweet they were.
And then the other person I haven't mentioned, which I do mention on my show because I found
love with what he's doing and I tried to help him out.
It's Forrests Outdoors, F-O-R-I-S Outdoors, Colin McElroy.
He's making like very stylish fly fishing clothes.
But like kind of in the old, it's like stuff Hemingway would wear.
Oh, nice, right.
It's like old traditional stuff that kind of has a new, exactly, spindle.
It looks vintage.
It looks vintage, right.
And when I saw him, you know, actually saw him in the airport, didn't realize that he
was one of my clients.
And I was like, dang, this dude's style is like,
really sick.
And I didn't realize that he was like fly fishing.
Right.
Yeah.
So he's trying to build that stuff.
I went to his showroom in New York two weeks ago when I was there.
And it's just so sick, you know.
You're in East Williamsburg and it's like a classic sort of what you would expect
like some, you know, all white inside.
And like there's like garments hanging and then like one corner of it.
He's turned into like this little like really cool fly fishing nook where it's like
all painted like sort of like nice light green.
And there's like stuff strippers and like netting everywhere and like flies everywhere.
It's a fly fishing like a flytine station and it doesn't look like you're in New York
city.
You know what I'm saying?
Right.
Right.
It's very authentic.
I mean, he's very authentic.
He's a really good angler.
Ties.
Insane flies.
So yeah.
And this is Forest Outdoors.
Yeah.
Forest.
F-O-R-I-S.
F-O-R.
Yeah.
This is cool.
And as you're talking here, I was scrolling on Google Maps looking at Ishkelac just driving
down the dirt roads taking a look because I haven't been down there yet, but it's pretty
amazing, right?
It's pretty amazing because it's just like you said, this is remote and this isn't like
a build-up part of this is like the end of the road kind of pretty remote out here.
Yeah.
The glass commercial cruise port that reaches Southern Yucatan is in Mahawal, which is
about an hour north.
So you're really just not, there's just nothing there, you know?
We did an episode recently with Will Blair.
I met him at the Denver show.
He's the one when I ran into him.
He was doing a Kamchaka trip.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And it was great.
But because of the war that ended for a while, but he was also, because of that, he
moved over and he was down at the Bahamas, down at Ragged Island, which is a super remote
island you got to boat out to.
But the theme was his stuff that he does is very remote, you know, like he's finding these
places that are totally not your normal place.
And it feels like you're kind of doing a similar thing, like you're making a trip that's
not your normal trip, that's just like, right?
Everybody's done.
Exactly.
So that's kind of something I wanted to mention when we were talking about getting on
there and discussing this sort of stuff is, so the outfitter, Creosio Camp Outfitters
is my outfitter.
Okay.
Yeah.
Creosio, it's a spell that for us.
CR, it's C-R-I-O-L-L-O.
So the word Creosio, and I say it with the Argentine accent because it's my Argentine,
but double L is a Y, so Creosio.
The word Creosio is the word to describe the native culture.
The native culture mixed with European culture, typically Spanish.
So you could think of it like Creole, like we have in New Orleans.
It's kind of the Argentine version of Creole.
In this case, it's not the French, it's the Spanish.
So like a classic example of Creosio cooking would be the empanada, which comes from
Spain, but was sort of usurped and modified by a lot of countries in South America and
Central America.
So that's like a style of Creosio cooking, but really it's that cultural mix of native
and European.
That's what Creosio, that's what that word means.
Yes, and it's a very sort of important word in Argentine culture because it describes
a lot of the people.
I myself am Creosio.
My dad did his 23 year whatever, and he's like 98% north-eastern Italian, like PM
on test, a quarter of Australia, he's like the widest dude you would ever meet in your
life.
Oh wow.
Do you know the whole history of how your family genes and all that stuff where they came
from and where they how they when they moved over?
Sort of, not fully, but my dad did that and then my mom, you know, sometimes people think
she's Filipina because she has a jet black hair and she kind of has a slightly Spanish
slash indigenous sort of, you know, native look to her, I guess.
And then my grandfather was like straight up like he looked, he looked like he was a native
from South America.
Right.
Right.
So much to my dismay, I am the widest person alive, but although growing up in Detroit when
I grew up was kind of helped me, you know, survive, but because I went to like an all
Catholic Polish Irish school, and my name was Pablo, so I have to be white, but so I kind
of have that mix within, within my blood, which is why it's important to me.
And that's why I wanted to call the company that sure.
And what we're trying to do, when I first started, I was like, oh yeah, I'll be an outfitter
because that's kind of how the idea was presented to me from Santee, my business partner.
But as has time's gone on, I realized, you know, there's so many great outfitters out
there, you know, like the yellow dogs of the world and, you know, Orvis has their trips
and stuff.
I'm like, I don't want to be part of any of that, right?
I want to do something truly unique and create experiences that people remember for
the rest of their lives.
It's none of its cookie cutter, you know, all of this is like very bespoke and like made
to order.
In many ways, you know, I think the large niche clock is like the furthest end of the
spectrum of where it's like, you know, we're putting people in there, they're fishing.
It's more traditional, I guess, but it still is in such a remote, special place that
it is kind of unique.
And every time we take people there, the, the feel of it is like, this is your home, this
isn't a lodge, you know, like we have a chef and we have a barman and all that stuff.
But like you, this place is yours.
You take it over, you know, it's really small, there's only room for eight people.
So yeah, eight people per week.
Yeah, exactly.
And there's four rooms.
So you're either paying for your own room or you're sharing it with your buddy, you
know?
Yeah.
I'm looking at it now on your website on Creole Joe Camp Outfitters and it's cool with
the Ish Black.
And the price is right here.
It's pretty amazing.
I mean, $3,500 for seven days.
Well, that's the old pricing, it's not going to be any higher.
Yeah.
So it's a little higher.
Okay.
So that's the old.
It's $4,500.
Okay.
I was going to say, because $35 was like, that was like, wow, because we do, we do these
trips.
I found that it's not easy.
I mean, what you're doing is not easy where you're building out these trips.
We kind of build out some stuff from like Airbnb's and we're still doing.
We got one with land in this summer we're doing that we got here.
Oh, nice.
And the nice thing about that is you can keep the prices lower.
You know, you can get, you know what I mean?
So you can do, but we were doing like three days, three days, four nights at Airbnb.
And you know, we try to keep the price under $3,000, you know, sometimes it's lower,
but it's hard.
That $3,000 range is hard for anything.
And I get, and you're doing seven days, right?
I mean, that's a, so 45 sounds about right.
That's, you know, for a good deal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, but when you look at the place, I just sent you the link to, to the website of
the lodge.
When you look at the place, it's kind of the nicest place in town.
It's very boutique, modern, like beautiful architecture.
So when you think about what you're getting in the price point, I mean, we've tried to
keep it as low as we can so that we can cover operationally and still cover our own
lives, you know, it's actually a pretty good deal.
And, you know, people have told us a lot of times that we have to jack our prices up.
And there's people that move a lot of people, that bring people, that host people, and they're
like, why are you so cheap?
When they go see the lodge, they're like, this is worth more money.
But we've, we've made a point to keep our pricing as low as we possibly can to cover
us operationally.
And then, you know, so that we can make some money to continue doing the thing.
To make as fair as possible, you know, and not only that, we also try and do like sales
and like, there's, there's times where we don't have the lodge full and there'll be some
spots left and we'll offer that for very cheap, you know what I mean?
Because for us, it's like, I don't know, it's like such a special place.
We're trying to share that with as many people as we can.
I've also tried to, for better or for worse, I have a whole mindset around like how you
build a business and I know who I am and I want to work with people that align with
who I am.
You know, that's one of the reasons I was like, you know, talking to you and interested
in you.
Because I feel like, I just, for whatever reason, maybe it's because I listen to your
podcast whenever I feel like there's a, there's a connection there.
It's like we're the same kind of people, I guess, right away.
And so with what I'm building, I'm trying to not just have anybody go to these places.
I'm trying to make it a little bit more curated where it's like a lot of people that would
get along and have the same mindset.
I think everybody wins when it's a situation like that because, you know, you're not stuck
with some person that you don't like, you know, and there's a spectrum of personalities
in the world.
Yeah.
We find that too.
I'm not judging anyone.
I'm just saying like, you know, we need to be thoughtful about that stuff, you know?
Yeah.
I think if there's a, we find out with our trips is that people come on these trips and
I'll go on them that are from all around the country that, you know, and they're listening
to the podcast.
That's the one thing they have in common.
They listen to podcasts and the backgrounds are totally diverse, but the trips always work
out great.
That's awesome.
You know, I mean, the people, the totally different backgrounds, but, you know, we have
a great time.
So, and I'm looking at somebody.
So you've got like six here on the Creole Joe camp outfiters.
You got South America, you got Patagonia, Northern Argentina, Fisher, Visit the Moon, the
Land of Enca.
You got some wine and trout, wine plus trout, Amazon, and then the Mexico we've been talking
about.
So are all those programs still at your focus all?
So that's what I was going to, so the website I'm actually updating right now and it will
be much simpler.
So what I've tried to do now is basically condense everything so that I'm only doing
very specific, very boutique special things.
Sort of the crown jewel and the whole thing is what we call the mobile base camp or the
mobile base camp.
Yeah, right.
So that's there.
There used to be a race in Argentina.
I think it's now either in Australia or South Africa, but it's called the Dakar rally.
It's one of the most arduous sort of overlanding races in the world.
So we have a leftover support truck for that race.
It's a Scania 420 Dakar rally support truck.
It's this massive sort of overlanding Mack truck almost.
And the top of it's been cut off and put on hydraulics.
So the second floor actually raises when we park it, we can raise it up and you can stand
on the second floor.
So what we're doing now is we're building basically, they're kind of like expeditions
in a weird way.
We have three offerings for the base camp.
The first one is really hardcore high altitude fly fishing for trout at around 15,000 feet
in the Argentine Alti Plano.
So it's a place that the only person that ever have guided it is my business partner.
No one really knows how to get there or where it is except for us.
And we take you on this truck and you live off the truck.
We have a chef that goes with you and then a support vehicle that goes along with the truck.
And you basically get into like some of the craziest remote places you could possibly
go.
I mean, Volcan Galan is the largest volcano in the world next to the one that's in Yosemite
which hasn't exploded yet.
So this is the largest crater I should say and it's at 15,000 feet.
So that's up there.
There's also like the longest, not largest, but longest salt flat in the world is up there.
And there's like petroglyphs from the Incas that haven't been studied by archaeology.
I mean, the place is just wild.
And in the early 1900s, the British were mining and they planted trout there, of course.
So there's all these spring creeks literally in the middle of this like vast, vast desert
landscape.
It's one of the coolest places I've ever been to in my life if not the coolest.
So we're putting together trips now to do that.
So we're going to we're going to start now in November.
And then we're also doing a version of that that's way less hardcore, much more easy
going in Corviba, where my family's from.
There's really good trout fishing in Corviba.
The thing is in Argentina, you hear about, you know, three things, Buenos Aires, Patagonia,
and wine.
And wine?
Right.
But it's a really long country and there's a ton of fishing, like fishing, you know, you
know, they talk about Golden Dorado too, I guess.
Which we also are, we do trips for Golden Dorado on the mobile lodge and then we also do
something very similar to Seats Monty Lodge where you see it on Instagram all the time,
small creek fishing.
But we do it without having to take a helicopter or any of that stuff again.
It's like affordable and much, much easier to access.
Is there a place we can see the mobile base camp out there online anywhere?
Yes.
So on the website, and again, I'm making a new one.
Yeah.
So that will page dedicated to it.
Criosocampoutfitters.com.
Yeah.
The Criosocampoutfitters, that's C-R-I-O-L-L-O campoutfitters and you go to destinations.
At the very end, you can click on Mobile Lodge.
Oh, Mobile Lodge.
I see it.
Mobile Lodge, all right.
Let's take a look at this thing.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
This is not, this is badass.
This is actually the, this is where you pull up and you're driving on a road trip with
your car and you see that giant truck that looks like it just drove, came from Europe.
And it's the baddest thing in the parking lot.
And it looks like it costs about $150,000.
And this is, so this is really, I was expecting, it's funny what you're expecting.
I was expecting like a, a broke down, shiny camper, you know, with a little bit.
This is the legit.
This is a full car.
No, it's, it's the real deal.
Wow.
We had, so we had, I just did a, the last podcast we put out was about Golden Dorado, a
trip we did on this thing.
And one of the guys that went was a mechanic, actually.
And he, he was very proud to be like, I'm just a blue collar mechanic, you know, and
I was able to do the trip, which made me so happy because that's been like the entire
thing I've been trying to build for so long and hearing him say it was just like everything
clicked.
But, but so he was obsessed with the vehicle, like he just couldn't believe this was a
real thing.
Right.
What is the vehicle?
What, what is it called?
What's the style?
Because isn't, isn't the one that, the Unima, or they call those, this is the one where
you can live out of it for like two months without, it's got water and everything, right?
Yeah, exactly.
I don't know.
His description was like a tractor trailer with like a sleeper put on top, but I don't
actually know what you would call this because it doesn't really exist in the US, right?
And, well, the, the Unimog is the name of the thing I'm thinking, right?
The Unimog camper.
It's an extreme, all-trained expedition vehicle based on the Mercedes-Benz.
So that's the thing you see these Unimogs.
And that's, I think that's, there's, one of the selling points is like, you can buy
one of these things and just travel the world, right?
Oh, looking at the Unimog now, yeah, I mean, the Unimog might be an older style thing,
but that thing's sick.
Yeah, but yours is actually a pop-up, so the top pops up and do like a camper.
Yeah, so that when we're driving the, the top's down.
And then when we arrive to our destination, we unlock the top and it's on hydraulics and
we raise the thing.
And it goes up, I think like three and a half feet or something.
Yeah, so it raises it.
So now you have room, is it like a sleeping area up top?
Exactly.
So that becomes like where you sleep, you can sleep, we're sleeping on like real mattresses
and everything.
Yeah, yeah, this is cool.
Well, it's interesting because we have a, you know, a four-wheel camper on our back of
the pickup, which is a similar idea, you know, the four-wheel camper pops up in ours
and it's obviously a lot smaller, but yeah, there's a king-sized bed up top, so you can
fit it.
That's cool.
You know what I mean?
It's a similar idea.
The concept is awesome because, but then you pop it down so you don't have this giant
camper, you know, knocking around as you drive.
Yeah, that makes sense.
My cousin has one of those campers, those things are sick.
Yeah, but this thing you're looking at, so the mobile log is cool.
So you basically drive this thing up to these amazing remote places and people have a
comfortable place to hang out.
Yeah, and the main thing about it that's so special is that you're not beholden to
one place.
So you basically, you know, we take this to the river side, you know, we camp, we fish,
and then we jump in a four by four and we, you know, we zip, you know, maybe three hours
up river and like a, you know, a pickup truck or whatever, it depends on how many people
we have that goes along with this thing.
So while you're fishing all day, your camp is actually moving to your next location,
and then we meet up further remote, you know, and so you can keep doing that, so you
really get access to places that normally you just wouldn't be able to get access to.
Because you'd have to eventually come back, you know, so it's pretty wild.
And because it's so large, you can go for a lot of days because it holds a lot of supplies,
like gas, water, amenities, etc.
Yeah, everything.
So it allows you to really kind of be out in the wild for, for extended periods of time.
So, so we're doing, we do one here, which you call Flyfish the Moon, which is the, the
Inca one that I was telling you about.
And then the other one we're doing is in Corlaba, which is in the Pampas, so it's like,
you know, Argentine beef country.
It's all meadow fishing basically with like kind of juddy rocks around, and it's like
nice brook trout fishing, nice rainbow trout fishing.
The, you know, people go to Patagonia and they have a certain expectation.
The trout actually in the Inca part in this, you know, large in the up in the 14,000 feet
area.
They're actually, a lot of times the average size is larger than you would find in Patagonia.
You can even believe that.
So there's also that aspect to it.
The one in Corlaba is more like mid-range size trout, you're not going to catch giants
or anything, but the setting is like so bucolic and beautiful and the experience is incredible.
Two days horseback, it's wild.
It's pretty cool.
And then the last one we're going to do, which we've been working on, and to be honest,
I'm not sure if I'm going to do it, is Chilean Patagonia with the mobile lodge.
And the reason I'm hesitant is because there's like helicopters involved and it's very expensive.
And it's sort of is pushing in that range where I'm like, this is so expensive for people
to go on.
It's only going to be a certain type of clientele and it kind of is bucking up against my ideology
of like keeping it in this like cool range with people that, that aligned with who I am.
You know what I mean?
So that's, that's the mobile lodge.
Wow.
Yeah, it's, it's nuts.
And to my knowledge, I don't think there's another one in the world or anything quite like this
in the world, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, this is unique.
This is unique.
So you have the mobile lodge and you have, it sounds like you'll be updating the website
too.
So we'll have links to that.
Yeah.
Well, we're going to take it out here pretty quick, but any other items, I know we've
been covered quite a bit today that we want to make sure to cover before we get out
here on your program and anything you have going.
Not really, I mean, if anyone has questions about in this stuff, they can feel free to
obviously DM me.
Yeah, I'm also, I'm Pablo Song, I'm Pablo Song 10 on Instagram if they want to go.
That's like my personal account though.
Pablo Song 10.
Yeah.
Okay.
But if they want the outfitter, they can just go to Criosio Camp or they can email me directly
which is Pablo at Criosio CRIOLLOCAMPOUTFITERS.com.
We're always putting trips together to Mexico.
We're putting trips together, obviously, to the mobile base camp.
We also do trips to Strobel.
Oh, yeah.
Let's Strobel, right?
Jurassic Lake.
Yep, Jurassic Lake, right.
We're putting together a pretty sick program, which is what I was telling you about Phil
Roles doing also in Iceland in a very sort of unique place, which has a gigantic lake filled
with big brookies and then rivers that go to the ocean.
So you get sea run browns, you get salmon, you get resident brown trout.
They have like 550 hectares that's all private.
And it's kind of a non-traditional lodge set up also because it's kind of like an Airbnb
where you don't get the chef.
You don't get those things.
You kind of have to drive the town, cook your own meals, you're going to like a local
bar or whatever, which I think is a cooler way to do things sometimes, you know, like
the lodge, nothing against the lodge experience, all about it.
Obviously, I operate exclusively the one in Mexico, but there is something cool about
this like mashup of like do it yourself and the setup that's already been done for you.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So this one kind of ticks those two boxes, which I think is pretty rad.
Yeah, that's sweet.
That's sweet.
Yeah, I think it is kind of cool.
We've done that too, where you go out and eat.
Go into town, get, you know, hit some restaurants, all that, you know, it's just kind of cool.
Well, let's take it out here.
We always love to get a couple of tips and we go taking it back to your own nymphing because
you're probably more on the your own nymphing because you've been around Lance and you yourself
did it for a while.
What would be your somebody sitting here?
Maybe they've thought about your own nymphing for a while.
Maybe they've tried it, but they'd spend a struggle.
What are a couple of things you would tell them to, you know, to mean have more success
out there?
Okay.
A couple.
I think they're good.
One's really well-known.
The other one I don't think it's talked about that much, so I'll start with the well-known
one.
But when I went out to fish with Lance, you know, we fished for like an hour and it was
winter time and I wasn't really doing very well and I was like, what am I doing wrong?
He's like, nothing really.
You look fine.
You look great, whatever.
And he's like, it's just tough fishing.
And that's when he's told me to switch to a jig streamer, which now you hear a lot about
jig streamers.
Yeah, you do.
But I didn't fully understand because I had, I had some, but I didn't, and I tried it
and I'm like, this doesn't work.
But obviously I was just doing it wrong.
So when I went there and I did it with him, he taught me actually how to fish a jig streamer.
And it was like someone turned a light switch on on the river.
I mean, within the next hour, I caught like 30 fish, catching the like two or three
at was, it was bananas.
And the biggest takeaway.
So you know, watch all the videos on jig streamer fishing, tie all the freaking flies.
But the key to jig streamer fishing is when you jig the fly as it's coming down, you're
not letting it drop.
That's the thing that I think a lot of people miss and no one says properly, they're like,
yeah, jig the streamer.
You just, you know, you got up and down, up and down, up and down.
Exactly.
You don't actually, you just pull up and then you set it down.
You don't let it fall, free fall in the water.
You're actually connected to it the whole time.
So I prefer the word setting it down or phrase, setting it down because you're connected
to it the whole time and most of the time they're going to, they're going to eat on the
drop.
On the drop, right?
So that's why you want to be connected to it even more.
So when they touch it, you know, exactly.
And then sort of an amend, an addendum to that jig streamer concept is don't get lazy
because I think jig streamer also allows you to do that because you don't have to have
a drag free drift and all that sort of stuff.
Make sure you watch the cider because you're going to feel a lot more takes on a jig streamer,
which means you start just not watching the cider and waiting for the takes that feel.
But if you watch the cider as a good chance, you'll like, you know, double your fish count.
Yeah.
Okay.
Cider.
So I have one more.
Okay.
And this is the one that I was saying a lot of people don't talk about.
But I would experiment, especially with this whole microleaders.
Yeah, the micro's right.
Moving.
So, you know, I've been fishing a microleaders now since my lesson with Andres.
So I would experiment with a lot of different cider materials because they're not all
equal.
And everyone's tastes are different too.
Some people like them stiffer.
Some people like them more supple.
There's a product that you can only get in Europe called Pezani Michel.
It's a French company that a lot of the companglers use and no one can really get it here
and I have a stockpile of it that I love.
But it's like super supple.
I mean, it's like, you know, Cherub's pub.
But it's like, you know, it bends so easily.
So I like that.
But some people fish it and they hate it.
They're like, I can't cast with this thing.
So I would try a bunch of different ones and see which one works best for you instead
of just being like, oh, just cider material in a certain diameter because it's not really
that simple, you know.
Right.
That's my advice.
That's awesome.
Cool.
Well, we got some bonus Euro Nymphing tips for me, which is always great.
Good.
Well, I think we can leave it there.
We'll send exciting today because we've got the newb and the knower.com.
We can already go out there and take a look and listen right now checking with some of
those episodes.
I think we talked about earlier your travel program.
We'll have Lisa as well.
But yeah, Pablo, this has been amazing, man.
I always, always, definitely, hopefully we'll have some surprises in the future too of maybe
some other stuff we might be working on.
Well, if that comes up, we'll be talking about that as well.
But I appreciate all our time today.
I appreciate you, man.
Thank you so much for having me on and thanks to the listeners for listening to you.
There you go.
Hope you enjoyed that one.
If you want to check in with Pablo and check in on anything that he has going, definitely
first off, the newb and the knower, you've got to subscribe and follow that podcast on
Apple or Spotify wherever you listen to podcasts.
And also his travel program, definitely check out.
We mentioned a couple of those sites today, check in there.
That would be awesome.
Let me know you heard this podcast.
Big shout out.
If you missed it this week, we had the Sam and fly project on the podcast.
If you're interested in an animal, if you take it into the next step, the Sam and fly
project, circle back earlier this week and let me listen that if you missed it.
And also want to give big heads up.
We are heading the Missouri River this year.
The dryfly school is back.
We're going to be there a prime time, fish and trichos.
We're going to be fishing terrestrials.
It's going to be on.
If you want to get access to this trip, find out if we still have availability, which I
know we should have at least a spot or two available.
Send me an email, Dave at wetflyswing.com.
If you want to experience Montana this year, the Big Mo, one of the big rivers were also
hidden bug fest, which is going to be the day before we head out and on our trip.
So if you're interested in bug fest in Montana, shoot out to me too as well.
We've got a bunch going.
It's all coming this year, Montana Wet Fly Swing Podcast.
I hope to see you there.
Check in with me anytime, Dave at wetflyswing.com.
That's the best place.
Shoot me an email.
Even if you're not making it to Montana, I would love to hear from you if we haven't
talked in a little while.
All right.
Deep breath.
Where are we going from here?
Right now.
We're heading out of here.
We've got, we're finishing up the boot camp.
If you haven't checked that out, the fly fishing boot camp.
You can check out the replays there and listen to the guests we had this month.
And that's all I have for you.
I hope you have a great evening, a great morning or afternoon, and I appreciate you for stopping
it all the way till the end.
We'll talk to you soon.
Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing Show.
For notes and links from this episode, visit wetflyswing.com.
Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing Show.

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