Ep. 1181: Adventures in the City with Marc Fryt

You're listening to The Adventure Sports Podcast. Thanks for adventuring with us as we

discover what incredible athletes and outdoor enthusiasts are doing all over the world.

Now here's your host, Kurt Linville.

Hi friends, happy Wednesday. Isn't it fun in the middle of the week to take a break,

listen to a great podcast about an adventure that you might have on the weekend or maybe

when you go on vacation. But in today's episode, Mark Fritt shares with us that we can

do more things right in the cities. We can do things that we might think of as wilderness

activities right on the way home from work, maybe on our lunch hour. We can do things

close to home where they're accessible and tons of fun. So stay tuned for that. And I

want to remind you, the number one thing that you can do that helps the Adventure Sports Podcast

is to share it with your friends. If you hear an episode you find interesting, then share

the episode with your friends and maybe grab a friend and try some of the stuff that

Mark is talking about in today's episode. Thank you so much for joining us today and now on

with the show. Hey friends, welcome to the Adventure Sports Podcast. I am excited to share

with you today's subject and guest. It's going to be a little bit different kind of taking a

detour off of the normal diet, which I think is always fun. In way of orienting you, we did an

episode years ago with a world, I guess a record holding. I don't know about world record

because you can't do that. But an Appalachian Trail record holder for fastest self-supported

hike. But what she had started doing was urban hikes. She started backpacking in the cities and

she said that it was just the most wonderful way to actually see some of the amazing cities in

the United States. And I thought, wow, now that's different. We're used to backpacking in the woods.

Well, today we're doing the same thing for fly fishing. We're going to be talking today about

urban fly fishing with Mark Fritt from Spokane. And Mark is an author. He is a fishing guide,

urban fishing guide. He is a photographer and he's here to convince us that urban fly fishing

is a worthwhile thing to do. So, Mark, welcome to the Adventure Sports Podcast.

Awesome. Thank you so much for having me, Kurt. Glad to be here.

Well, we were talking before we hit record and I thought, this always happens. We start getting

into it. And I mean, why didn't I record that? We were having a lot of fun. But the idea of

urban fly fishing, I think, I mean, people can imagine someone on a river or a pond or a stream

somewhere with a fishing pole. But fly fishing, at least in my mind, I think in a lot of people's

minds, fly fishing is out on the remote river, you know, deep somewhere in the wilderness.

So, talk to us a little bit. What got you into urban fly fishing?

Yeah. And that's a great question. And also kind of like mental framework to think through,

like, yeah, when we picture fly fishing, yeah, the first thing that really comes to mind is an

angler, a fly fisherman kind of standing in a river alone. Maybe there's like a trout jumping

out of the water, majestic kind of mountainous background. And that's definitely what I had in

mind when I picked up fly fishing like years ago, back when I was in the army. I wanted to kind of

get away and get out into the mountains. And it was perfect. I went out and fly fished for trout,

you know, day in and day out, hiking way way into the backcountry, my little pup tent and fly rod.

And I couldn't, couldn't have asked for anything better. After getting out of the army, I moved to

Columbus, Ohio where where my wife was finishing up her schooling. And I went from essentially like

outpine backcountry wilderness to a Midwestern city of about two million people. Wow. Yeah. And I

still wanted to go out fly fishing. And the closest trout stream was about an hour away. But it

ran through like corn fields. And so next thing I know I'm trying to fly fish for trout. And there's

farmers plowing fields of corn right next to me. So I was like, wow, this, it just didn't feel,

it didn't feel the same anymore. Quite honestly, I kind of stopped fly fishing for a little bit.

I put the fly rod down, put it into the corner of our bedroom. And it was, yeah, it was something

that I kind of picked up every now and then. I would travel out to West Virginia. But it wasn't

something I returned to until ironically enough, I was traveling out to Los Angeles to visit my

brother for a week. And I was like, okay, good. I'm traveling to LA. Let me see if I can get up to

the sear as you know, the mountains somewhere nearby, you know, for a day trip. The LA traffic

had other plans for me. Right. And I couldn't get to the mountains. And so I did a quick Google

search of local fly fishing around Los Angeles. And these photos kept popping up again and again

and again of these anglers fly fishing in the LA River. Like that we can all kind of remember the

scene from the movie Greece where they're driving the cars through that concrete channel. That's

where they were fishing. And I was like, okay, this has to be an April Fool's joke or something.

But I looked at the map and I was 15 minutes away. So I drove over there, parked the car,

kind of scooted around, you know, got out of the car, scooted around a chain link fence,

looked down into the river and was kind of blown away because there were trees and bushes growing

like in the middle of the of the channel, like in the bottom of this concrete Yeah River. And

all of a sudden I looked across the LA River and lo and behold, there was a fly line going through

the air. Somebody else is doing their fly fishing. So I was like, okay, so this someone's not pulling

a massive prank on me. Let me let me give this a shot. So I walked down to the river and that was

the first time I ever spotted a giant fish. It's called common carp and they're they're prevalent

in all pretty much all cities in the US and in and over in Europe as well. And so I saw this fish.

It was the biggest fish I'd ever laid eyes on and I spent the next hour trying to catch it and

I eventually caught it. And after that moment, it was just like a lights on moment for me.

Being able to fly fish in in a place where there was essentially more concrete than there was

water, there were power lines overhead, there was traffic and I had this incredible experience,

this incredible adventure that just pulled me in and I completely just was absorbed by the whole

experience. I flew home when I was back in Columbus, Ohio. I walked for the first time from our

apartment over to the river. It was like maybe a five minute walk away and I finally looked

down into that river and it was carp up and down for as far as I could see and then I was like blown

away again and I ran back, grabbed my fly rod and kind of the rest of this history. I just couldn't

get enough. Nice. Yeah. You know, I love that. We're going to have to rewind a little bit and

share what fly fishing is all about our guests. But I love the adaptability and I have found that

more and more and more people are finding ways to do some of their favorite adventure sports in

places you wouldn't expect and I applaud that because if it's doable, if it's convenient,

if you can get there, you know, you can do it in places you wouldn't expect to do it. I mean,

I've interviewed a lot of rock climbers that rock climb in places that you didn't even know

there would be a rock wall. But they've explored the area and found places and they're having

amazing rock climbing experiences in places where people just don't climb. But why not?

You can hike anywhere, right? You can mountain bike anywhere. There are places that we might call

them Mecca, you know, of whatever sport for sure. But being able to do something, a five minute

walk from your house in the city that you thought you had to go to a wilderness for. That's cool.

Yeah, very cool, very cool. That is very, very cool. Let's rewind a little bit fly fishing.

First of all, let's not make any assumptions. They're going to be people out there who are listening

and we don't talk about fishing much on the adventure sports podcast. So it'll be fairly new.

But they probably don't know the difference between fly fishing and any other sort of fishing.

So will you describe what fly fishing is for us?

Yeah, totally. And that's a great question. So in fishing in general, there's several

ways that you can go about catching a fish with a fishing rod. You can, a lot of us,

we might have grown up as kids casting like a snoopy rod or like a Mickey Mouse rod,

the little push button rods, had a little bobber in a hook and a worm on it. That was a great

introduction for many of us to get into fishing. So that's kind of one example. Another example of a

fishing method is spin fishing. So you have like a little spinner, it's like a little piece of

metal kind of has a treble hook. So like three hook points on it. You wind up with the fishing rod

and you cast forward and the fishing line comes off the the spool sending the lure out into the

water. All of these these methods are pretty new relatively speaking like post world war two. They

kind of came into their own as technology change. Fly fishing is a little bit different. Fly

fishing in one form or another has been around for hundreds of years. Some historians of fly fishing

will even trace it back to like accounts of Roman times where yeah where Romans were talking about

essentially what we would categorize as fly fishing today. Even in hundreds of years ago in

Japan they had a style of fly fishing called Tinkara fly fishing. Tinkara is also very much a part

today as well. The main difference with fly fishing and what I'll kind of call conventional fishing,

spin fishing, bait fishing is that with fly fishing we're using the weight of the fly line itself

to send our hook out into the water. All the other forms of fishing they they rely on the weight

that we add to the hook whether it's pieces of metal split shot or bait and we you have to rely on

that that weight in order to wind the rod up like kind of tuck it over or tuck it over your shoulder

and then cast forward with the fly line there's actually weight built into the line and so as you cast

the rod and as it bends back it loads it with energy and then as you cast forward the rod releases and

then sends the line out there. So the huge advantage with that is with fly fishing we can cast out

a hook that has essentially no weight to it it could be you know literally the weight of like a feather

with conventional fishing you have to have enough weight on there to actually you know cast it out

into the water the only problem is is that once it hits the water it's going to start sinking and

it's going to start sinking fast and so you have to immediately start retrieving

reeling that line in back towards you with fly fishing I can make a cast that fly that hook can

then land on the water and it can sit on top of the water and I don't have to move anything I can

just sit there and wait with with fly fishing as well I can also use fly patterns like hooks that have

different materials tied onto them that have different weights as well and so if I see a fish

in the water that's chasing other smaller fish well that's telling me I need to use a fly that kind

of mimics what I'm seeing and cast out a fly that has weight to it that might look like a small fish

and then that gets pulled under the water and then I can again retrieve that through the water

so the big advantage with fly fishing kind of to round this all out is that it is an incredibly

versatile adaptable way to fish I can see something that the fish are feeding on in the water

and chances are really good that with the fly rod I can mimic or imitate what those fish are feeding on

whether it's a small little bug floating on top of the water or maybe it's a crayfish that's being

chased by fish I can imitate all those things and everything in between and in urban areas a fish

feed on all sorts of wacky things so having a fly rod that that I can adapt to the situation is a

huge advantage good or conventional fishing that's fun I think that most of us you said it yourself

you've got the Mickey Mouse rod and you have a bobber and you have some bait and you're sitting on

you know on the bank and you're trying to watch the bobber going cross-eyed trying to watch

the bobber falling in my case falling asleep by trying to get in the water because I can't stand to

be on the bank in the heat why am I not swimming instead of watching the bobber as a kid that was

fishing and I did have fun because I was with my grandparents a lot doing but the first time I got

a fly rod in my hand and the line casting that you described takes so much skill so much practice

and it's it's very active I wasn't watching a bobber anymore I was doing something

and I was doing something challenging and the end result is a better presentation to the fish

and so I fell in love with it I thought that this is fishing this is something I can really get into

and I've talked to or heard from like bass fisherman fisherwomen who try a fly rod for the first time

even fishing for bass and they're blown away they're like this is so fun you know it really is

it's so elegant I think there's an element well there are a lot of things out there in the

adventure sports world that if you try to wrestle it by the horns you're gonna lose yeah and fly

fishing is kind of one of those you can't fight the rod you have to find the meter the rhythm

the action and flow with it and that takes you somewhere different and I really like that

I do you have to work with nature instead of trying to beat nature to death right maybe I'm

exaggerating but maybe not maybe not no no and talking about yeah casting and kind of that flow

state that meditative state that really puts you in the moment 100% absolutely it's really

tough to be yeah being able to stand in a river or stand in the ocean with like the waves kind of

going past your legs and you're casting a fly rod almost almost like rhythmically yeah it really

kind of that alone just kind of puts you it connects you more with the place that you're standing in

that you're that you're a part of in a very kind of meditative mindfulness way and there's

actually a lot of groups that kind of do like mental therapy and things like that or like a rehab

with with just casting because it is it is that therapeutic side of fly fishing I do want

listeners to also realize that with fly fishing in general but especially with urban fly fishing

you you don't need any casting skills to start what's crazy is there's plenty of time so I

I fly fished in a lot of different cities big big cities like New York Chicago Minneapolis

Los Angeles Denver and it was what's astounding is the number of times that when we're walking around

like we're not in boats like I mean I'm wearing sneakers half the time or flip flops and we're

walking around in a downtown area and a lot of times there's like you know a concrete walkway

or a pathway that's right up against the water and you're walking around and all of a sudden you

look down and there's a fish like maybe a a few feet away from you you don't need you don't need

to cast at all you can essentially use the fly rod like a glorified like cane pole hold your arm out

dunk the fly into the water just put it right in front of that fish and often the fish will eat

the fly and that's all it takes what another funny story is so my wife and I every now and then

we'll we'll go down to downtown Spokane we'll we'll go have dinner in the summer and then

afterwards we'll walk over to the park that's the river cuts right through the park in downtown

and we'll have a a fly rod with us right in car rod just kind of packed away and we'll walk over

to the park and one of the evenings she was standing on one of the foot bridges

just dunked her fly right into the water at her feet 19-inch trap took it no way

it's like a like that just doesn't happen like but it was it was so cool and so I don't want people

to feel like intimidated to get into fly fishing because they they think they have to perfect

this this cast that you you'll see like when you pull up a video and there's someone casting in

that line is going overhead and then and and back and forth you you don't have to master that

right away just to get into fly fishing so don't don't let perfectionism hold you back from wanting

to to explore what fly fishing is eventually yeah you'll you'll want to figure out how to cast

and things like that and there's a ton of amazing tutorials online about how to do that but the

other surprising thing is like I mentioned back at the beginning of the episode is I mean if

Romans and people hundreds of years ago were able to figure out how to cast like essentially what

what is a fly rod without YouTube I think in the 21st century we can also like instinctively

pick these skills up as well it's we try to make it way more complicated than it needs to be and

and sometimes all it takes is walking down to a park like a grass lawn or something

and just waving the rod around that's all I did when I first figured it out I just like I don't

know what I'm doing I'm just going to go weigh this thing around and figure out how to straighten

the line out in front of me you know Mark that so many things come to mind there one is there a lot

of different fishing styles with a fly rod and maybe we should briefly list those but another in my

mind is you know fishing with the bobber sitting on the bank I already said that I got bored with that

but one thing I used to do is I would take a just a wound up wad of fishing line in a hook and I

would hike into the wilderness where I could find a stick and I could dig up some grubs or worms

and I would just fish the little streams and I would catch fish build a small little fire on

the bank and roast the fish you know and I thought this is like the funnest thing ever I didn't even

have a fishing pole you know but you can do it and people have been doing that forever yeah so like

you said the big fancy beautiful dry fly cast is maybe a way to think about it it's fun to develop

it is a really fun skill to have I'm not great at it but it's a lot of fun but you don't have to be

able to do that so my family helped with the world youth fly fishing tournaments that came through

Colorado several years back and almost all of the competitors were doing your own nymphing

yeah and so that's not the big cast but it seems to be the way to catch the most fish in a hurry

unless the fish are all rising after something that you can mimic really easily I guess but your

own nymphing describe that to us how is that different yeah yeah and so so now we kind of get so

with within fly fishing there's a bunch of other subsets of methods of how to fly fish and

your own nymphing also known as tightline nymphing check nymphing it comes from Europe and was kind of

born in the competitive era of fly fishing and it is it was mainly developed for for trying to

catch trout but it is also a really effective technique to catch bass small mouth bass large mouth

bass common carp even even bluegill and things like that what you're what you're essentially doing

with that style of fly fishing is that you have an even longer fly rod it's usually about 10 and a

half feet long and you're making shorter casts and what you're trying to do is you're trying to

keep your fly as close to you as you can with keeping the line off the water and so it's essentially

just the fly that's in the water or on top of the water and there's very minimal like fishing line

that's even touching the water and so you get the when you're in a river or a stream you get these

amazing drifts where the fly is just moving at the same speed of the water and that's mimicking

a lot of these a lot of the insects that are drifting through rivers and streams and so you're

essentially you're really you're mimicking those insects and that is what can then fool the fish

into thinking oh you know that's a piece of food let me let me bite down on it and and let me

yeah with with fly fishing as well you know I've already mentioned like a couple different species

you know there's trout bass carp there's an entire you know world of saltwater fly fishing again

people might think oh like if I get into fly fishing it can only be for trout again not

not true at all like if you if you're walking along if you're in your city or your your neighborhood

and you're walking along and there's a there's a body of water any body water and you see a fish in

there chances are really good that you could catch that with the fly rod some fish are easier than

others to catch with the fly pattern because again we're not using bait we're just using material

that's tied onto a hook and so it takes a little bit more of trying to convince that fish to bite

but I have caught all sorts of species of fish everything from pike like northern pike

to I guess I'd common carp catfish I've caught on a fly rod I've even caught goldfish and sometimes

like other weird aquarium pets that people can release into ponds and urban areas and you know

you're you're reeling in the line and you're like man I I have no idea what's on the end of this

line and then it you know it emerges out of the water and into your net and it's just like okay

you only take a photo of that and then figure out what that fish is so five fishing yeah you're

catching all sorts of crazy things when I was a kid I grew up with with Pokemon we kind of

that Pokeball and you're catching all these different Pokemon with with a fly rod I kind of

think about it the same way like it the fly rod is like my Pokeball and you can just catch all

these crazy species because it gives you that ability to adapt to to where to to the conditions

in the situation that's in front of you you open up your your fly box and you can change out

your fly and then really convince that fish to to bite down have you ever gone through all the

hassles of getting on the plane security luggage long waits at the airport all that kind of stuff

and then when you finally arrive at your destination not only are you worn out but you also might

feel a little bit disconnected I know that I do when I hop scotch around the planet on a plane

that's one of the reasons why I love the great American road trips where you get to drive

from one place to another and connect all of those dots you get to experience the changes in the

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limited time offer that's outdoorsy dot com promo code ASP I have a story that is really

funny to me because I was there I'll try to explain it in a way that people will get but my son

who became the fly fisherman he just absolutely loves it we took him out when he was five maybe

and we were in a mountain lake but not super high elevation and he was trying to fly fish

but he hooks something and gets super excited you know because it's his first time to ever catch

anything you know he's he's bringing it in he's bringing it in he lifts it out of the water

and his eyes get as big as saucers because what he got was the biggest crayfish

oh yeah that I have ever seen in my life it would look and I'm not exaggerating it was the size of

a small lobster it was definitely edible size I mean this thing was huge it was probably over six

inches long maybe seven inches long and it had massed to it it probably way to half pound

anyway he lifts it out and he just screams I don't know what it is but it's got pinchers

you know that's a little kid it was just a classic moment but it was such a surprise for him

and I think that's what hooked him on fishing for life because you pull something out sometimes

it is the complete surprise yeah oh yeah but I could see how fishing in populated areas

anything's possible yeah I mean when you're on a trout stream you expect to get a trout

but when you're fishing in an urban environment everything's in there or things are in there

that you may not expect yeah yeah absolutely cool yeah to kind of to kind of provide an example

of yeah what you can the adventures that you could have in an urban area and the things you can

come across there there are anglers that I spend time with in in Los Angeles and really you know

they they have a ton of fun fishing in their city and what they'll do sometimes is that they'll go

down to Santa Monica Beach right there next to that pier with like the Ferris wheel and everything

like it's it's a popular area but they'll they'll get down there first thing in the morning before

anybody else is down there walk up and down the beach and they'll they'll cast their fly rods and

they can catch you know different species of fish this might not ring a bell for for

listeners but there's like Corbina surf perch there's even a species called leopard sharks

and and they can be like five six feet long and they'll be catching leopard sharks from the beach

with the fly rod and then they'll hop in their call like once you know other beach goers are out

there by by mid-morning then the anglers will hop in their car drive over either to MacArthur

Park or the Ellie River and then try to catch a a common carp or a large mouth bass or a green

sunfish like or or a channel catfish anything in in freshwater and so it's a fun little challenge

that they call the surf and turf challenge and they try to complete it all in in the same day like

right there in the city and and I you know kind of came across the same thing with like other

anglers and different cities just exploring like urban their urban waterscape and again like

wherever they saw water they had to cast in there and they had to see okay is there actually

fish down there and and if there is like what what kind of fish is it well that's fun

so you got into your urban fly fishing kind of out of necessity but now you guide it you teach

people how to do urban fly fishing I mean it's really become a part of your life

yeah yeah it was really kind of out of necessity with that that trip that I took to LA like years

ago and then it became a passion like a like a really fun passion where in Columbus Ohio I was

Columbus is a great city because it has a ton of different ponds reservoirs and in several rivers

that run through the heart of it and being able to walk down to the river like hop off the walking

path and and when I when I was first getting into urban fly fishing like there'd be other people

on bicycles or scooters or walking by and I would have a fly rod and and I'm getting these sideways

stairs because I think you're on the wrong and some people will even would even say to me hey

you're in the wrong place like people don't fish here you know there's no fish down there and

but little did they know that like just yesterday I caught like a fish that I needed both by hands

to hold up and so I was a little like self conscious I was like ah and I would like wait until

nobody was looking and I would sneak through the bushes and get into the river and then once

and it was like crossing this threshold to a moment ago a moment ago I was in the heart of Columbus

Ohio bustling city I kind of squeak through this little gap and now I'm in this river and I'm

feeling the water against my legs I'm watching for signs of fish I've instantly been transported

into like a different world and nowadays you like a lot of people will kind of even get upset like

if they get into fly fishing and they spend all the time money to get to a place where they

where they can fly fish for trout and they get there and it's crowded and they get upset because

they think that oh I should be alone in doing this by myself and and look I just traveled hours

outside the city and now I'm surrounded by all these people and then here I am in the middle

of Columbus Ohio a city of two million people I'm the only one there and I'm just gonna fish that

we're like 24 30 inches long wow and the fun the funnest part was being able to explore my city

through a different lens and had these unique adventures where I would look down the river

and if it if there was a little bend in the river or kind of disappeared under under a tunnel

or a bridge like where does it go like let me go let me go explore like what am I gonna come across

and and such unique adventures and every time you know I would step into the river or go to like

a neighborhood pond or or the reservoir or anything like that like it's always changing there's

always something different going on and that was a shock to me as well because we kind of look at

these places and we think that well there's really not a lot to them but with the flyer out in hand

you're you're put in a different kind of mental landscape and these places just open up in a

totally new world for you that's so cool you know that's kind of parallel to deciding what to cast

yeah since you already mentioned it but fish aren't super smart but they kind of get fixated on

eating what they're eating that day you know there's some sort of an insect hatch and aquatic insect

hatch or something like that and so they're eating that thing and that's all they see everything

else is something else because that's that's what they're focused on that day and so what you

were just talking about is viewing the world through a different lens right and how fly fishing

can do that for you but even just trying to sort out what the fish are interested in that day

causes you to view the world in a different lens it's like what is nature doing right now yeah

what's active what's going on I'm not even noticed and then something lands on your collar and you

look down you say oh look at that I'm gonna throw that pattern right describe that kind of an

experience yeah and and I can make it even a little bit more relatable to to pretty much anybody

that's listening so we all of us have probably walked around a body of water at one point in time

in in a urban area or a suburban area fed the ducks or the geese with with bread and when you're

kind of throwing out the bread or things like that or watch somebody else do that you'll notice

that fish also come up and start chewing on the bread and so with fly fishing like oh there

are there are someplace some some fishing regulations in urban areas that prohibit using any sort

of bait so you can't put so what there's so what these regulations are telling you is that you

you're not allowed to put those pieces of bread onto a hook to try to catch that fish well fly

fishers like urban fly fishers they're pretty creative they they use you know their their curiosity

and their intuitions and their inventiveness to make their own fly patterns and they'll sit down

at a table with with their vice and they'll put the hook in the vice and they'll tie a pattern

a fly pattern that looks like a piece of bread and so they're not using bread they're not using

bait but it imitates that quote unquote that hatch that bread hatch that's going on

and so you know we'll walk around a park a city park and you know maybe the fishing is really slow

maybe there's nothing going on and then all of a sudden somebody comes walking down to the

park with like a loaf of wonder bread and they start throwing out pieces of wonder bread and you

just get all these fish that are kind of going bananas and then there's your moment there's your

bread hatch and you get to cast out and catch that fish and now I've even seen some crazy examples

of there was one there was one pond that an angler took me to and he was like yeah almost every day

this or every day during during the weekend this this family will come down to the pond and we'll

kind of walk around and the kid one of the kids has a bag of Dorito chips and he throws Dorito chips

out there and sure enough you know the family came out you know the kid was throwing Dorito chips

into the water like the little orange triangle pieces and the angler that I was standing there with

he opened up his fly box and he had patterns that were tiny little orange triangles of foam tied

onto a hook and that's it out and he was like yeah that's my Dorito fly

that's hilarious and so it's like it's like you you get to what's really cool about fly fishing is

again just it being like a little neighborhood pond you can see things like that like like you can

observe things like that occurring right in front of you and be able to to watch that observe it

and then kind of start solving the puzzle piece by piece by piece and it's really fun because then

like it you know like I said like you can you can if you get into fly tying or things like that

you can then start to tie up these patterns that imitate whatever it is that you think the fish

might be feeding on and it's just you know you're if you're if you have any ounce of creativity in you

like and we all do as humans like man you're you'll you'll just keep following these puzzles as

they're they're unveiled to you on the water I have a fun story that kind of parallels that

we were actually in Rocky Mountain National Park on a stream and I saw a small trout that was

it a little pool and so I cast to it of course and it ignored me and I thought huh so I cast

again and again and again nothing and I thought okay well let me try a different pattern so

I tied a different fly on I didn't know what I was doing right I cast to it it ignored me you know

just this went on for probably close to an hour and I finally found a pattern that was similar to what

it was interested in that day right and when I cast I casted this thing dozens of times but when

I casted it immediately hit it yeah you know and it was like whoa it was a mystery I figured it out

you know it wasn't that the fish didn't want to to take something I just had to find the thing

that wanted to take and for me that's hard I I'll confess this is the part of fly fishing that I

find frustrating I have a hard time seeing the the monofilament and trying to get it tied onto the

hook and it takes time and I feel like I'm not fishing when I'm doing that because there's no

line in the water yeah and I have to learn patience Mark yeah go ahead and take the time to work with

that little beauty tip it and try different things and that's actually part of the fun yeah and

that patience with it yeah to be sure like I I've guiding here in the city there's there's a

pond that I'll take people to and I've taught you know especially with kids small like you said

yeah your son was about five years old I've taken families with with their with their son or

their daughter to this pond and they're you know five six seven years old and especially with kids

and some adults you really want to help them to get a fish onto the line quickly because then

they'll kind of lose interest or things like that so so going to the pond and catching blue gale or

green sunfish is an easy way to do that but yeah that patience will eventually have to be learned

and accepted as well that things won't come to you just because you're you're casting a hook

out into the water like fish might not be there that day or they might not be feeding and sometimes

it takes repeated trips to the water in order to finally catch something when I when I traveled city

to city fly fishing with other with other anglers talented talented anglers there were some days

that that they and I we struggled to catch anything like whether it's a fish or a wet sock floating

through the the urban river and but we but what was really fun about that adventure even even

in those moments where it was like our patience was being tested was as a group you know there'd

be like two two three four five of us kind of exploring urban waters together and the moment that

somebody at least got a fish on to the line was just a massive celebration for all of us and we

were we were all there we're all just kind of helping to to do what we we could to help them land

the fish and then if that fish slid into the net I mean it was it was a party for everybody and

it was it was success for everybody there that day and so you're not alone in those moments which

is nice I do enjoy fly fishing by myself and in having those moments to just decompress cast

forget about the immediate world all around me and just focus on what is right in front of me

but with urban fishing there are there are those wonderful experiences that you can have

with family members with friends heck with complete strangers like I've hooked into fish

and I'm trying to net it and then the fish swims under a bridge or through a culvert or something

and goes out the other side and a stranger a complete stranger is walking by or riding their

bike and they're like hey do you need help and I'm like well yes yes I do either hand them the net

or I'll hand them the fly rod and be like uh yeah just just keep the fish on the line and

and all the time on that the fish and then there it's like this cooperative moment talking about yeah

another another thing with patience there's there is a notoriously difficult fish here in Spokane

that I am still I mean it is it is a an enigma it is a puzzle of a puzzle to try to figure out

what fly this fish wants and it's it's a fish called it's it's it's it's a weird name but it's

called a large-scale sucker and it's a fish that that lives in our in our urban river here in Spokane

and there's a spot in downtown where it's a bunch of concrete steps that that go into the river

and so I'll walk down to the bottom to the bottom step and these fish are maybe six feet away from

me and they're feeding on the bottom of the river there may be like two feet under the under the

surface of the water and they're feeding along the rocks on the bottom of the river they're eating algae

and kind of decaying organic material like on the bottom and it's really you know as as fly

fishers we don't think oh well that thing's ever going to take a fly and there was one day I

I thought that I had picked like the right fly pattern and I you know I didn't even cast I kind

of held my the rod out and I dumped the fly into the water and it and it sunk down to the bottom

and that fish was just kind of acting like a vacuum cleaner along the bottom of the river and it

eventually got towards my fly it was maybe an inch from it kind of looked at it and paused

and then it finally took the fly with its mouth and I was like oh my god fine after like maybe

a you know like a good like six seven months of trying to figure this fish out it finally bit the

fly and then ironically enough after I released that fish in the river I hear this voice behind me

and he's like hey you know I turn around and it's a security guard and it's a public area I'm

like I'm allowed to fish there and he's like hey like I've noticed that you know you've been

trying to catch these these fish and I'm like yeah yeah and he goes you should you should try

coming like an hour earlier in the morning and I was like what is like yeah so he he has the

security cameras and he's watching the fish like on his little television screen like in the building

that he's a security guard for and he's like yeah I noticed that they kind of act differently

earlier in the morning they're swimming around a little bit more and he and he was like I think

that they're feeding more and so you should probably come like an hour earlier and I was like

okay one like thank you and two like okay like let me let me come back the next morning and sure

enough like these fish they just looked way more active and they looked like they were feeding you

know more readily than when I had been coming up you know going down to the river and and then

that that day yep caught another one because it took that fly pattern with more readily than the

previous day and I kind of short-circuited the patience a little bit because that security guard kind

of you know getting some tips as well but but that's also like fishing in urban areas yeah

you take what you can get because sometimes the the deck of cards is stacked against us and you uh

yeah you'll you'll you'll take any sort of tips that that are kind of throwing your way

well mark think about this for a minute you can uh you've written for fishing magazines and

things like that I mean this is a bit but you can look at these articles blogs which you have a

blog to yes and they'll tell you you know a hundred different ways to catch this species of fish

in this location and this is what works you know yeah you don't get a lot of that probably for urban

fishing no one's out there saying this is how you're going to catch the sucker fish on the

bottom of the steps exactly yeah and and so that's so when I when I wrote my my book um I realized

that as well so there's there's so many different species of fish and trying to give readers like

specific fly patterns and specific conditions to look for I mean the the it would be like an encyclopedia

of of for all these different fish and rather than than relying on that a lot of flyfishers they

rely on other skill sets in order to catch fish and so these different skill sets are are called

one of them is called reading the water so reading the water is you you look out onto a body of water

again whether it's a neighborhood pond a creek flowing through your neighborhood a beach um maybe

you're on a boardwalk going around like you know the Boston Harbor or something and you you look

down into the water and you just watch it and you can pick up on these patterns you know these

things that that the water the way the water is moving or not moving and you start to interpret

okay what might be going on under the surface of the water uh and then you start picking up on other

visual cues as well like maybe maybe there are bugs that are flying around and landing on the water

maybe maybe you do see a crayfish that's kind of crawling around the rocks or maybe you look down

in that boardwalk that you're saying on maybe has bridge pylons and then down near the base of

the pylon you see schools of a small fish that are kind of corralled together so those are all

kind of like leading you in the right direction of like okay those are lowered down on the food chain

so you know maybe the fish that I'm trying to catch might be eating some of those things um

maybe you look out and there's birds that are diving into the water again they're probably feeding

on something you're reading the water you're interpreting all of those visual uh clues in order to

kind of guide yourself to where the fish might be and then if you're if you're lucky enough to

be in a spot where you can see the fish well then there's another skill set that you can that you

that we all have instinctively and it's just watching the fish's behavior watching what is it doing

or what is it not doing is it stationary is it moving how fast is it moving um is it chasing other

fish is it coming up to the surface to feed on something or like that large scale sucker is it

acting like a vacuum cleaner on the bottom of the water and so again that's telling you you know

okay the behavior of the fish you know is going to give you ideas onto like where you should cast

and then what fly you might want to try and then once you cast your flying to the water and you get

close to that fish well then you watch how it's beat how that fish's behavior changes

in the moment you're now interacting with that fish you and the fish are kind of having like this

negotiation sure in real time and that fish is going to respond to your fly in so many different

ways maybe it it it gets scared and it flees maybe you cast it right on top of that fish and it

got spooked and it swam away or maybe you casted away from the fish and you pulled that fly

closer to the fish and once that fly pattern got within you know once that fish was actually

able to see it well then that fish stops and then it turns towards your fly and then it starts

swimming a little slowly towards your fly and that's when your heart rate starts going up

so you're like oh my gosh I I think it's finally going to take the fly and you have to you know

you have to kind of stay as calm as you can like don't let your nerves get the best of you

and then that fish can swim close to it and then grab the fly and you set the hook and yeah you

you did everything right in that moment what I guess what I'm trying to to let listeners know is

there's a ton of fantastic books out there there's a ton of fantastic videos blog articles I've

written plenty of plenty of articles for for different magazines and blogs getting into the very

nitty gritty details of how to catch specific fish in specific ways but you really don't you don't

need all that stuff just to get into fly fishing like I said like a lot of these these skills are

intuitive to us as as human beings even though that that many of us have been living in urban areas

maybe for the past like you know especially as urban areas like really kind of grew and expanded

over the last like 150 200 years it's not like human beings forgot how to go fishing in that time

span it's just a little you know pushed to the side and it's crazy being able to grab a fly rod

go down the water and then these these instincts just awake inside of you in these moments and it's

like well where did that come from that's cool well you just described as connecting with nature

yes so many ways you can do it and it doesn't have to be fishing but when people go on a hike and in

urban areas around the front range of Colorado people like to go to the foothills and go on a hike

they hike up the hike down the getting the car they go home I I walked somewhere in the woods

the reason I bring this up is if they took a moment to look at a tree and say what kind of tree

is that and what is it trying to tell me or what can I learn from it or you know you might find all

that tree was struck by lightning a deer was not you know dragging the felt off of its antlers right

there this tree had a virus and it grew in a funny way or you know there are all these sorts of

trees have maybe a hundred years of of history yeah that is evident if you look at the tree they tell

a story suddenly you've connected in a different way it's not just a tree anymore right that's

what you're doing with urban fishing and it's beautiful because anytime that people can connect

with nature I think we're connecting with something more primal more ancient that is a part of our

epigenetics as part of who we are and it's really good for us Mark it's really good for us

it's so good and yeah it's that that sense of especially well especially with with fishing words

I mean it's a literal connection with these fish I mean you you are tethered by like a very thin

fishing line and so it's so striking when you are in a very urban area like I I fly fished with

with a guy in New York City in Manhattan in Central Park and talk about dense urban areas

and to be in that area it to be in such a dense city and the moment you you cast that fly out

and something hits the fly and you feel that that that line start to shake and strum like a

guitar string sure I mean it just gets your heart going because there's life down there and it's

calling out to you and it is just it's like a wonderful sensation and then all of a sudden you look

around and and there's all these massive skyscrapers and yet you're having this this incredible

beautiful moment where you are kind of forming this like new like relation relationship with this

aquatic world that's right there in front of you a lot of the anglers that I that I spent time with

they're they're they're incredibly dedicated urban anglers and they do it for a variety of reasons

we all kind of have our own personal reasons of why we go fishing in our cities whether that's

you know spending time with our family maybe we we want to go fishing more but it's tough because

we have you know our kids that that are are young and so we can't take them you know we can't

always go out into the mountains or something like that and so being able to spend time with

them in the city fishing together building these memories is is a great way to yeah to experience like

this adventure together other anglers yeah they they love fishing so much that doing just just

keeping it as a weekend activity isn't enough for them like they wanted they want to do it before work

or during their lunch break or after a you know they're on their commute on their commute home they

pass by you know a body of water and they're gonna pull over they have their fly rod kind of in two

pieces in the trunk of their car they're gonna pull it out cast the line for 15 minutes and see

what they can get other anglers you know even in today's era a lot of us also want to do what we

can for these these habitats these ecosystems we want to have like a better way of relating to

nature and to and to do what we can to to kind of bring about you know a healthier environment and

things like that and urban urban fishing is a gateway into that that realm as well and it provides

an avenue for for people who didn't know that that they could be advocates and stewards of these

these rivers of of these coastlines and they can do that where they live since getting into urban

fishing I now dedicate a lot of my time to you essentially doing like quote unquote conservation

right here in my own city like 15 minutes from my house 10 minutes from my house I'm down there

I'm doing you know helping out with different organizations I'm doing trash cleanups I'm doing

water monitoring like taking samples of water I'm looking at different bug life different things

in the water and trying to even you know interpret like what those those are telling us I'm speaking

at at different meetings in town and kind of letting people know like hey yeah like there's all

this other stuff going on in the river and kind of bringing that to to people's attention as well

and so I yeah in many ways myself and so many other anglers in in various cities like yeah we're

we not only love catching these fish but we also love being a voice for these habitats and

for the fish and and for all the communities also you know that rely on these places

mark I love it it's beautiful so the name of your book is the guide to urban fly fishing and where can

they get that uh yeah you can buy it um so one I I encourage listeners yeah buy uh go down to your

local bookstore they they should be able to order it you can also buy it at bookshop.org and then

it's on Barnes & Noble Amazon and and uh any other place that that you can yeah purchase online

so find it at your local shop first is that what you said yeah yeah support your local shops we need

that that's always great yeah and you might you might if I just touch on one last thing about fly

fishing real quick to to absolutely go for it uh so so so a lot of listeners they right now they

might have gotten motivated to to get into this and the last kind of like barrier that I'd like to

dispel is fly fishing does not have to be expensive I I just mentioned that a lot of times and I'm fish

you know myself and other anglers when we're fishing in urban areas we're wearing sneakers and

and flip flops so we don't have to have waiters necessarily there's times where I'll even go waiting

through water when it's warm enough with that without waiters of fly rod there's a lot of great

companies out there nowadays that they'll sell an entire setup so it comes with the rod the line

and the reel for around a hundred dollars and it gets delivered to your house and it's ready to go

all you have to do is tie a fly on and you're into fishing so there there are those companies out

there don't feel like you have to buy that eight hundred dollar fly rod no you can you can get

into fly fishing for yeah around a hundred bucks you know I was in a fly shop and a sales rep was

showing us all the the latest fly rods and I mean they're beautiful you know you can really get

into it eight hundred dollars nine hundred dollars I mean it just I was like holy cow and he goes

you know what the difference is between this nine hundred dollar rod and that hundred dollar rod

right there I'm like what he goes five feet you can cast five more feet with this nine hundred

dollar rod because they'll get the cheap rod and have a great time exactly yeah there's no reason

I mean if you can get it into this sort of thing as deeply as you want to but you can have just as

much fun without doing that too yeah it's it's great yeah you can if you save the money and you

just kind of work on your your own skill you're you practice casting and it's easy you know like

like I said you go down to like a city park and you find an open space on the grass and just cast

and have fun figure out what works and what doesn't work and you're gonna save yourself hundreds

of dollars that way it's a lot of fun you also have a blog the triple haul and I was laughing

because I thought oh I know what a double haul is but I don't know what a triple haul is what's

that about yeah so yeah this is more more nuanced and fly fishing so for listeners there is a

specific cast called the single haul there's another cast called the double haul and though the

double haul is especially like kind of a tough cast to learn it's like patting your your head while

rubbing your stomach yeah it's not easy but it's it's a really fun cast to eventually develop

there's no such thing as the triple haul cast yeah I name my blog that just kind of as like a

tongue in cheek yeah just kind of like having fun with it but yeah on my blog I have a lot of

instructional articles on kind of how to get into fly fish how to get into like urban fly

fishing and things like that and and so yeah listeners are interested they can head over it's

so it's the triple T-R-I-P-L-E haul h-A-U-L dot com the triple haul dot com mark thank you so much

for your time today and for sharing with us something that we can do on our own backyards even

if we live in the city I love it I really appreciate your time yeah thanks so much kerf

for having me it's been a blast yeah it's been lots and lots of fun so everyone this is another

way that very simply inexpensively you can get out there and connect with nature and have some fun