766 | Fly Fishing California with Matt Callies – Loon Outdoors, Fly Gear, Carp and Bass Fishing

Dave (2s): California is one of the most populous states in the US and one of the most diverse places to fly fish. From the base of the s Sierra Nevadas to the Pacific Coast, steelhead in the North carp on the flats and salt water opportunities in Southern California. It’s just about all here. Today you’re gonna get an inside look at where to fish and what to expect straight from a guy who reps some of the top brands in fly fishing and helps design gear you’re probably using right now. This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip And what you can do to give back to fish species. We all love Matt Calise, product designer at Loon Outdoors Fly Tire and longtime fly fishing rep joins us to share some of his go-to tips from years in the game. Dave (49s): You’re gonna hear which Loon product tops the charts these days and has for a while, what new gear is turning heads and what life on the road as a rep really looks like. Plus Matt’s gonna break down one liter he always carries. And why building your own might not be worth the hassle anymore. Heading back to Cali, Here he is, Matt Calis from loon outdoors.com. How you doing, Matt? Matt (1m 14s): I’m doing well. And yourself? Great, Dave (1m 16s): Great, great. Yeah, it’s always good to get these update episodes. We had you on way back in, I think it was, I think it was June of 2020, episode 1 47. And you know, we’re, we’re approaching 800 now, so it’s been quite a bit ago. I’m, I’m excited to hear because Loon we’re always hearing a lot about loon out there. Just the other day I had a, a guest that brought up one of your, I can’t remember what it’s called, it’s the circular thing that holds all of the fly materials. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, but he throws it on his wall and he has all of his, you know, fly patterns and all that stuff. All the Matt (1m 45s): Materials. Oh, the bench rings. Dave (1m 46s): Yeah, the bench rings. Yeah. It was actually, it was, it was Brian Wise, he was talking about, he was like, man, these things are awesome. And so I want to get an update on Luke, ’cause I’m sure there’s been some new products in the last five years, but also the area you cover for kind of the brands that you work with and, and that includes, you know, a lot of stuff in California, which we’re always, you know, working on there. So, but take us back real quick. How’d you get, give us a little update maybe just from the last, you know, last five years, what’s been new with you? Matt (2m 12s): Oh man. Lots of different things. You know, loon, we’re always continuously growing and I do product design there, so I get to, I get to kind of invent all of the stuff that we’re coming out with. We’ve come out with some new floats, a ton of new tools, you know, tungsten, carbide, you know, we’ve reinvented shapes and styles of scissors that added posts, kind of, if you look at like the hair industry, right? Like you get a high-end pair of like hair cutting scissors and they have like posts to rest your fingers on. And so we, we just do like a lot of things just a little bit different. And so yeah, we, we’ve we’re kind of just continuously evolving and trying to introduce new ideas. Matt (2m 59s): Probably my favorite thing that we’ve done in the last five years is a product called Fly Dip, which is, you know, I only lit my garage on fire once creating that. So it was, it was a win. But you know, it’s like a, it’s an evaporative that isco friendly, so it kind of, it’s not like a petroleum based product, so you know, it’s not gonna, it’s not bad for the environment. Dave (3m 21s): And is this the dip, is this a where like a dry fly floating? Matt (3m 24s): Yeah, it’s kind of similar to like the gra stuff. Just Lynn’s healthier spin on it, I guess I would say. Which, you know, is always the hurdle. Designing products that work as well as other things, but don’t have like, the harm that other products have, you know, so Dave (3m 41s): Yeah, totally. Those are a few for sure. Maybe talk about the other, you know, let’s just go around, let’s keep it high level here for a second. And so you obviously have a lot going with Loon being, you know, designing products and everything there. What are some of the other, you know, brands out there that you’re working with? Matt (3m 56s): So I, I am like the Southwest, which kind of encompasses California, Nevada, Arizona, and unfortunately Hawaii. ’cause who wants to be there, right? So I work with Scott Fly Rods, I work with Echo Fly Rods. I recently picked up Lampson. Oh, nice. I work with Foley Mill flies, you know, they do great Flies materials, trout Hunter leader and Tippet Casey Underwood. I do clinging, I do corks. I have a cool net company called North Fork Nets that we just brought kind of under the ln umbrella for distribution and they’re American made nets and that’s kind of fun. Matt (4m 36s): That’s been a fun project to work with those guys. And, you know, so yeah, I do, I’m forgetting stuff because I have a laundry list of products, but those are kind of like the main hitters. And I don’t know, I, I kind of think like in the, in the terms of most of my brands are kind of still the, the cool indie rock bands. You know, they’re, it’s, it’s small night tight knit crews, kind of like the dudes you would wanna go or women too like that you would wanna go fish with the people that like you get on the phone and it’s like, Hey, this is gonna take five minutes and 40 minutes later you’re like, hey, so stoked for the update, man. Like that was fun. Yeah, Dave (5m 13s): That’s awesome. You know? Matt (5m 15s): Yeah. It’s just a cool like group of brands and like-minded individuals that I get to work with. Dave (5m 22s): That’s cool. So yeah, no, I love what you’re saying here. I mean all these brands are great obviously, and you know, Lampson, you know, Nick at Lampson, we’ve talked to him and you know, I’ve been on on the River with him as well. I mean I think that’s, that’s kinda the fly fishing space, right? I mean you’re lucky enough to, you know, kinda work with all these great people, you know, and, and Loon I guess is the one, you know, going back to that because you’re more connected there, right? Just because of the product stuff. How did, give us a little update for the people that didn’t listen to that last episode. How did you come into the loon world? Matt (5m 53s): Man, you know, I mean this is, I have a friend who teaches at like a, I don’t wanna call it an alternative high school. And he’s like, dude, I want you to come to career day and tell the kids how you got to be a fly fishing rep. And I’m like, dude, that would be the worst idea ever. Right. You know, ’cause it’s not this glorified pathway of like, oh I went to an Ivy League college and you know, studied for my MBA and now I’m here, or you know, whatever. Honestly, I was a firefighter paramedic living in the back of my truck so I could fish more. Kind of like, I mean this was like early to mid two thousands probably. So like this was far before Van Life guiding, getting put on pro staffs. Matt (6m 37s): And I got invited to IFTD in I think Reno maybe. And walking down the exhibition hall, there’s like this tall blonde lady and I’m like, whoa, it’s, I know this woman, she grew up five doors down for me. It’s Brett, the owner’s wife Andrea. She like gives me a huge hug. I haven’t seen you since we were kids. What are you doing here? I’m like, oh I live in Redding. She’s like, whoa, we live in Ashland, we own loon. Wow. Like, and from there it was like, hey, I wanna look at like, you know, talking to them. And it was really just like one of those things where I like somebody from my past like that, you know, grew up five doors down for me in San Diego, mind you right. Matt (7m 18s): Is now two hours away from me in Northern California. Crazy. And from there I started doing tying videos and then one day just like, hey, we want you to help us with product design. Like there was like obviously a ton of evolution inside of that, but like, it was like one of those days with like a job offer comes in the mailbox and you’re like, whoa, this is rad. And at the time I was kind of like being a pro staff guy going into repping all of that stuff. And yeah they, they kind of took me outta that for a while and then I kind of circled back to getting to rep again, to which I love. So, but yeah, it’s not like the story, it’s like dude, I got where I was because I was super focused. I got where I was ’cause I was like a total dirt bag trout bu yeah Dave (7m 58s): You’re in the right place at the right time. Just it happened. All happened. Yeah. Yeah. Matt (8m 1s): So Dave (8m 2s): I guess that’s the thing. I mean when you hear, ’cause there are some people out there listening right now that are probably thinking, man, I would love to be doing something like you’re doing or you know, repping, I mean that whole thing, is it always pretty, do you think most of the stories from people you talk to who are reps are in similar things of you? Or it’s pretty random how they got there? Matt (8m 20s): I think it’s all pretty random. You know, some reps come in as like a sub rep where they have a guy who’s established and you know, like it’s like the elder statesman takes you under the wing and it’s like you’re gonna be the lineage. And I know a lot of reps like that and I kind of went like the school of hard knocks where it’s like you’re gonna get this brand and there’s three accounts. Like dude, go get ’em Tiger. And you’re like trying to explain to your wife why you just purchased. ’cause nothing’s free despite what everybody thinks. Right. You know, all like, you went in the whole like 10 K in product to go show it to three shops and your wife’s looking at you like you’re nuts. Dave (9m 1s): Right man. So that is, that is some pretty good pressure’s. Yeah. Matt (9m 6s): Yeah. It, you know, it’s like trial by fire and you know, it’s a tough thing to do. There’s, there’s no easy way into it. No, Dave (9m 12s): There isn’t. Well I think like in business, you know, if you have a good product that makes it easier. Right. And I mean I think everybody you talked to, you know, you mentioned previously are pretty, you know, pretty top of the line products in the fly fishing space. Right. So I’m sure going to fly shops and stuff like that makes it a little bit easier when you walk in with those folks behind you. Right. Although there’s still, yeah, there’s still competition. Right. ’cause I mean, Scott’s an amazing rod but there’s so many amazing rods out there. Right. How do you, do you still do the fly shop? Are you cruising around, checking in with fly shops? Is that part of your regular process? Matt (9m 41s): Absolutely. Yeah. I mean I was, I was in a fly shop yesterday. I’ll be in a fly shop on Sunday. Yep. Dave (9m 48s): Right. So you’re still going into shops and basically doing, you know, updates on what you have, your kinda your lineup and all that stuff. Matt (9m 56s): Absolutely. Yeah. Like I think SI mean my weekend’s gonna be pretty chaotic. Both my kids play pretty high level competitive soccer. So we have a, they both have a tournament this weekend, so there’s like four games Saturday and then Saturday night I’m ditching my wife to deal with the Sunday Mayhem. Sure. And going to an awesome event. Actually live music barbecue at Tahoe, fly Fishing Outfitters in Southlake. We’re doing a full day customer appreciation day event for like spring kickoff. It’s scheduled to snow so that should be great and fun. And then, yeah, I’m actually in shops the whole next week doing education and training on new products just prior to kind of like that, you know, we kind of already had trout opener even though that’s a more of a historical thing here in California because regulations changed. Matt (10m 49s): But you know, trying to get in their early season, get all the young guys that like maybe just got a job tuned up, get all the guys who have been there a while tuned up on the new products. You know, we’ll get ’em, pizza, bagels, whatever time of day it is. Right. Like dial ’em in and just go hit like 12 shops in the next five days. Dave (11m 7s): Right. Gotcha. Matt (11m 8s): So, Dave (11m 9s): So that’s it. So pretty much you, you go around so you get, you’re ready to go. It’s more checking in with people and, and just letting them know what’s going on and just keeping people kinda on the same page. Matt (11m 18s): Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, here’s some new stuff, here’s why we did it. You know, give them, give ’em the features, advantages and benefits and make sure they understand it and don’t have any questions. Right, Dave (11m 28s): Right, right. Because yeah. ’cause people are gonna come in the shop and now it’s like, okay, you need a new fly rod, you know, here’s a Scott or whatever. And then they can talk about the, the features and benefits and everything in more detail. Right. Yeah, exactly. That’s cool man, that’s, that’s pretty awesome. And of course you, you’re able to get out on the water ride occasionally with the, with folks. Matt (11m 45s): Yeah. The, you know, besides like being a rep is like the most glorified office job ’cause there’s a ton of backend work. Oh yeah. Is most of the guys from the shops will point you in the real right direction. Like, Hey, go hit this. I’ve been fishing for the last three days, it’s I gotta work, but you know, go fish this and this is the bugs I was using. You know, check it out. Like see what you find. It’s like cool. Right. So yeah. That’s Dave (12m 9s): Cool. Well, we’re talking a little about California, which is good because I wanted to do a little kind of walk around California maybe, and I’m not sure if we can cover the whole state ’cause it’s huge. I mean we were just down in San Diego on a podcast and you know, we’re up in northern a lot. But let’s talk high level California fly fishing. I, I know you know, you know it quite well. Where do you start, if somebody’s thinking about just understanding California, how would you break up the state in a fly fishing kind of perspective? Is that pretty crazy? Is that pretty hard to do since it’s such a huge state and all that? Matt (12m 40s): You know, not totally. For me, I always think back of like those funny meme maps, you know, and you know, it’s like Northern California, it’s like always gets pinned as like rednecks and hippies. Dave (12m 52s): Oh it does. Right. Matt (12m 53s): You know, like whatever it is. So like kind of like say we’ll take, we’ll take like Bay Area Sacramento and just push geographically north. Like that’s like kind of, you know, that’s like kind of like the northern California trout area and up here everything’s looking pretty awesome. Water is not an issue. We had too much water, quite literally too much water for the second year in a row. Dave (13m 19s): Oh right. Yeah. You guys had some, that’s right. You had those massive, some pretty decent flooding events, right? Matt (13m 24s): Yes. I mean just this winter alone, you know, winter flows for the lower stack, which is like my backyard literally I live on the river is about 3,500 and it’s this awesome Midge tail water all winter long with nobody on it. It was at 64,000 for weeks on end. Geez. Dave (13m 43s): No kidding. 64,000 for a week. Not just a day of bump, but weeks, Matt (13m 48s): No it was sustained 64,000 just due to the fact that we have Shasta above us creating our tail water obviously with the large dam. But you know, like right now it’s starting to clear up. It’s backed down into normal spring ranges. The back door has a ton of randomly of PMDs on it this morning. They’re about a size 14 to 16 if anybody’s curious. And I’m starting to see some cadis, our bass scene up here for our Highland, I call ’em like highland reservoirs. That’s kind of would be like your shastas, stuff like that where they take a deep canyon, dam it up, Oroville our bass are moving out of, they’re in a various stage of spawn, like there’s some late spawners, but I think the, the majority of the spawn push is over right now. Matt (14m 36s): Float and fly action has been super fun. I’m sure you’ve talked to guys about that, you know, as we move. So there’s opportunities up here right now for everything. I think the Bay area, surprisingly it’s probably one of the fun funnest places for beach and surf fishing. I’m seeing guys post fish everywhere there, the deltas, you know, heating up so that like large mouth bass, striper fishery is gonna be going off. There’s just a ton going on as you move like up into the mountain region say like, ’cause I kind of, I kind of start this year Nevada’s mountain range, like below lassen as it changes from like plate tectonic movement into more volcanic mountain ranges. Not to be a geology nerd, but I think, I think the Sierra Nevadas are still holding like a pretty good amount of snow packs. Matt (15m 21s): So we’re gonna see a little bit higher flows throughout that for a while. You know, probably well into June, but there’s still a ton of great fishing happening right now in the spring. I know the guys in South Lake and in Truckee are posting fish that they’re catching with the shop. You know, the shop guys are going out and fishing and so that looks pretty vibrant Mammoth. I’ve, I’ve heard good reports from like that whole Owens Valley down, you know, like kind of that whole region. I would probably say the mountain streams like might be a little aggressive at times right now just, just due to snowpack and this, you know, San Diego’s gonna be 67 and sunny Dave (15m 57s): Always, Matt (15m 58s): Always having grown up there. But like right now it’s probably, you know, well postponed for freshwater fish and you know, the ocean’s probably gonna be start to really kick off. So guys, it’s interesting, I’ve seen a huge rise in equipment for IC species on the fly down there in the last few years. Oh Dave (16m 17s): Really? Yeah. And what are IC species? What’s that again? Matt (16m 20s): So like your tuna, your Dorado, you know, anything that’s following surface temperatures and bait. Also, there’s just been a huge influx of dudes running down to Mexico, which like growing up there, we were renting Pangas all through the nineties, you know, like, and you could go out and like have these epic days on fiberglass, ate weights and click pauses and just get Dave (16m 44s): Oh wow. So you would go down there. So you, when you were a kid you would go down into the Baja and fish off. Is that kinda what with Pangas? Matt (16m 51s): Yeah, we’d, you could go and rent like not, you’re not renting the Panga, like literally you’re kind of finding a fisherman and just being like, Hey, will you take us fishing if we give you money in the fish? And back then, you know, like I’m not a purist in any capacity as far as fishing goes. Like I wasn’t brought up that way. I’m more of like, you know, so it was a mix of like whatever we had. Sure. And you know, some spun adventures and then the afternoons, you know, you’d go surf for the rest of the day if the wind was right. Dave (17m 19s): Fish to Fly Guide service is dedicated to sharing the incredible fly fishing opportunities around Jackson Hole. Whether floating the Scenic Snake River in search of native cutthroat trout or hiking into the mountains to explore pristine tributaries every day on the water is an adventure. You can join them for an unforgettable fly fishing experience in the heart of the Tetons at fish. The fly.com Pescador on the fly offers a full range of fly fishing gear for any angler at any budget with premium mirage delivered directly to you. The L ray G six is the most packable high performance fly rod on the market performing like a four piece rod, but with unmatched portability in six pieces. And you can get 10% off your next order right now if you use the code wet fly Swing at pescador on the fly.com. Dave (18m 3s): Never fly without your G six. Discover the L Ray series and more at pescador on the fly.com. Yeah, you definitely hear a lot about that. The Baja was a place that I think it seems like it’s super doable, you know, because it’s not super expensive. There’s lots of that sort of stuff you could do. Right. Or you could probably find a lodge down there if you wanted to. Right. Matt (18m 22s): Yeah, I mean it’s very DI able, there’s something for everybody. Like, so if your wife or you know, if you have friends that aren’t into fishing, like there’s all sorts of excursions. Like everybody can, oh yeah, I’ll go fish with you, but we’re gonna surf later or I’m gonna do this la you know, like whatever it is, there’s a little bit of something for everybody and it’s a cool place. So Yeah. Dave (18m 43s): And it’s pretty mu and it is safe, right? There’s, you always, people worry about the safety thing, right. But it’s pretty doable down there. Matt (18m 49s): I’ve never had anybody come back even recently and be like, oh, I felt so unsafe. Like I just, I just have friends in Cabo and they’re like, oh dude, yeah, we were, the kids were running around all over the place and it’s like they weren’t freaked out, you know? Dave (19m 2s): No, I think that’s just, that’s the news. Like that’s the media stuff. I, I think it’s, yeah. Kind of whatever, but, okay, so you got the Baja, so we’re going into another country down there. But then what about like between the one area, you know, you don’t hear as much about like between the Bay Area and say San Diego, like what’s that middle portion of California? Like, you know what I mean? I guess, I guess Bakersfield north of Bakersfield into like, you got Fresno, all that area. The, well, I guess so Soko National Park, is there fishing opportunities out there too? Matt (19m 30s): Man, one of the, one of the craziest things is there is the whole West Slope, you know, a shout out to Sonora Fly company, Brian down there, he’s on that side kind of covers down through that like, you know, Merced, quame, that whole drainage and, and I really feel like the general population of Southern California just focuses so heavy on that east side that they forget that there’s just this epicenter. Literally just like when you’re looking from the Eastern Sierras and you get up in the mountains, it’s like you see the top of everything and right over that peak that, oh, that’s the west side. You know, like, yeah. And it’s super, it’s a little different. Matt (20m 10s): Yeah. It rolls like from grasslands into like scrub oaks and then into your Alpine environment. Tons of access, tons of fish, way less people. And it’s a place that I explored a ton as a backpacker in my youth. And Brian does a great job over there. You’ve got Yosemite Valley, obviously that’s touristy lots of people, but just outside of that region, throughout Sonora, like you can go talk to Brian, he’s gonna steer you in the right direction. And it’s a whole different world. You know, it, it’s kind of weird, like the current, like Guy Gene’s like does a killer job in the current drainage and as you just curve up that Western slope, it just seems like it’s never, it’s not part of the lore as much. Matt (20m 54s): Right. Like as, you know, the Owens or Hot Creek or any of that stuff. And it’s, I’ve had some of my best trips over there. I always fish a ton of stuff over there. I won’t blow up any spots. But you know, like Right, Dave (21m 6s): Right. Yeah. We don’t blow anything up. It’s like, Matt (21m 8s): Yeah. But that’s like part of the exploration, man. Go find your spot. Go out there. Experience that. Like it’s part of the whimsy I guess in the world, right? Like figure it out. But there’s, there’s cool places to go adventure over there. Dave (21m 19s): Well you can always yeah. Hop in like your local fly shop, like you said, Sonora Fly Co and Guy Jeans, we both who have been on the podcast and, and we’ve got good resources there so they could check in there and check, you know, pick their brains and figure out where it goes. Yeah. But, but yeah, the Sierras are crazy, right? The Sierra Nevada range is gigantic. I think when you look at it, does it go, I mean it starts in the northern and goes all the way down towards Bakersfield, is that kind of Sierra Nevadas and, and everything in between there? Matt (21m 44s): Yeah. Like man, the Sierra Nevada starts like literally where Gaia is at, like that current drainage. Like I believe that to be the true southern terminus of the Sierra. Like if you were a PCT hiker, you’re rolling through like Borrego big Bear, like cool hit Big bear and you drop out and you’re in just this like desert and then all of a sudden it’s just like, boom, the Sierra’s, that subduction plate is there and nothing just looms. And then it technically, you know, it transitions up north, like right about Lassen from like, and you can see the geology change. You’ll have granite, which is Sierra, and then you go more into like a metamorphic rock. Like a lot of volcanic basalt, like right about lassen. Matt (22m 25s): So right about that, like Redding line is where the Cascades begin, I think, technically. So yeah, it is a massive stretch of Cal. I mean that’s, two thirds of California are covered with a spine of the Sierra Nevada. Dave (22m 39s): Wow. Lassen, volcanic national park. So that there’s another national park in there. Matt (22m 44s): Yes. Yeah. Lassen lassen 45 minutes from me. Dave (22m 47s): How many national parks are in California? This is nuts, right? I haven’t even been to, I haven’t been to Lassen. That’s, I didn’t even really know about it. Matt (22m 52s): Oh man, Dave (22m 54s): There must be a time, because you got all the big ones. You got Yosemite and Sequoia, right? I mean, Matt (22m 59s): Sequoia. Yeah. And I think Pinnacles, it was a national monument. Now it’s a national park. Dave (23m 5s): Yeah. Oh, right. So that’s what happens. Yeah. The national monuments become parks is how they do it. Matt (23m 9s): Parks, yeah. Yeah. So I think Lassen be, was a national monument and then became a park, you know, Lassen Sen’s. Insane. Like you can go look at like, it’s super cool rumors. Like geologists speculate that it was larger than Everest before. Oh right. It erupted just due to like angulation of like, oh yeah. Inside the crater. Right? Like when you find the outside of the crater, which is almost in Red Bluff, like below Red Bluff kind of a thing, you know, like 40 miles south, 50 miles Dave (23m 38s): South. That’s the cool thing about the geology. I’m a, I’m not a big, like, I’m not a nerd on it, but I, it’s interesting because it’s been, like you’re saying these plate tectonics, the whole Pacific plate or whatever is moving inland and it’s been doing that for probably, you know, millions of years. And so, you know, like Yosemite or Yellowstone right. Is kind of the epicenter, all that volcanic activity. But that wasn’t there, you know, a million years ago or what. Right. It’s, it’s moved its way there. It’s kind of cool. Yeah, Matt (24m 2s): There’s like a, I mean there’s just a ton of, you know, so like why you’re nerding out on trout. Like there’s like a million other things to nerd, you know, like, oh look it, there’s edible mushrooms and Dave (24m 12s): Right. You know, all Matt (24m 13s): Of that. Well this took this much. Like, I don’t know. That’s what I try to teach my kids at least. Yeah. And they seem fairly receptive. Yeah. For teenagers, but Oh Dave (24m 19s): Yeah, they’re teenagers right there in that range. That’s good. It Matt (24m 22s): Depends on what you got. It’s a mixed bag. Right, Dave (24m 24s): Exactly. You know, I think this has been awesome. So we’re popping around California. This is always a hard thing to do. I know, but if I was to say, you know, somebody’s going to California and they’re thinking, what are our top some top places or maybe region doesn’t have, we’re not going to, you know, give any places away. But what would you say, because we haven’t even talked steelhead yet. I mean, they’re steelhead, right? What are the species, what do you think are the top, maybe maybe not your favorite, but what do you think are the ones when you think California, they’re kind of those top species in California? Or is it so diverse that it’s hard to, you know, put that out there? Matt (24m 52s): Man, it’s, I mean the tribal, I mean as far as like tribes go, like, ’cause I always think of fly fishing kind of as tribalism, Dave (24m 59s): Right? Matt (25m 0s): Like we’re all kind of the same dude, like with the same pursuit. Like our approaches are all different. And yeah, I mean like the steelhead tribe guys right now, you know, like their season’s kind of coming to that there, it’s coming to the end, right? Yeah. Dave (25m 13s): Let’s think of that. This is a good way to do it. I love the tribes first of all, but also just maybe a year in review, right? Of California. So right now it’s may just early May, so this episode probably goes out a little bit later, but so may, so this steelhead season is kind of wrapping up right now? Matt (25m 27s): Yeah, I mean, I would say I would leave ’em alone. I wouldn’t put that like, you know, mid-April, like early April, like it’s done, done. You know, like if there’s anybody left they wanna spawn, leave ’em alone, let ’em do their thing. So like right now we start transitioning way more bass fishing. So like a lot of our reservoirs will have spa, you know, we we’re pretty blessed here in California. So it depends on where you’re at. Like March, April Southern region, that’s gonna be your bass spawn right now, like April, may up north, depending on weather temps, like that’s our spotted bass. Smallies will start going off in June. Matt (26m 7s): You’ve got stripers 24 7 up north. So if you’re the bass tribe guy, like all of that, that’s a, that’s all available. And you know, trout’s available year round in a lot of the northern and eastern region, I would say. Like, and you know, we’ll, we’ll lump the west slope of the Sierras into that more eastern side just due to geography. But you know, like right now you’re gonna see a lot of your valley car fisheries. Although if you ever have talked to Deur Dave (26m 34s): Oh yeah, I have. He’s catching, yeah, that’s right. Deur. Matt (26m 36s): He’s catching carp on those beautiful lake flats all winter long on a hot pink reel. So nice. Dave (26m 44s): Yeah, the lake flats. Yeah, he talked about that when we had ’em on. Yeah, he’s got these, you got the lakes, you got the carp in multiple places, but those lake flats are sweet. Matt (26m 51s): Yeah. So, you know, the carp action will really start, like, as the water warms, they’re gonna go into their spawn cycles and stuff like that. Like that’s all gonna be picking up like right now as well. So it’s, I mean, there’s not really a place you could throw a dart and you’re gonna be super bummed. Yeah, Dave (27m 4s): There’s, you know, it’s all open. Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s there. Yeah. Yeah. So I love it. So you got Steelhead tribe, you got like the bass tribe, you got the carp tribe, the trout kind of the small, you got the mountain trout, but then what other, well then you have, like you said, the sack. I mean, you got these tail waters, right? There’s, are there quite a few tail waters around in California? Matt (27m 23s): There are. There are. And they’re more so, you know, they’re more so up north, you know, like, so when you look at like, all of the, the older water storage systems and you like, you just look at ’em and every river coming off of like, like off Oroville, you know, the Yuba, like everything, it’s kind of a, it’s kind of a Tailwater fishery. So there’s, there’s actually quite a bit like, and they’re fairly big rivers. They’re very intimidating too. Like if you were a walk and wait angler, like, everybody’s like, oh, you need a boat to go there. And you know, one of the thing I always tell those guys is like, dude, big Rivers have all the same features as a small river. It’s just a little bigger. Matt (28m 3s): You know, you just gotta find the access point with that access to, oh look, it, it’s slow inside. Okay. Or picks up right there on a riff. It’s like a, it’s just a bigger version. The fish sit in the same spots, the the playing field’s just bigger. Right. So, you know, there’s a lot of cool tail water, so you can go fish. Dave (28m 21s): Yeah, definitely. No, it, it’s cool. I think it is, it is hard because it’s so, you know, diverse California from the north to south, right? With the change in the environment. I am looking at a, a blog post. I just looked@drifthook.com. They’ve got one, they’re doing this like 27 Places to Fish California. I’m interested, I always love to check this out to see, you know, how this looks. So let’s, let’s run through this list a little bit and see what you think on this. So we’ve got, I guess we’ve got 12 here. We’ll just start with the 10. So Carson River, now, the Carson Rivers now, do you know that one? Matt (28m 49s): I do, yeah. So there’s, that’s actually like, kind of flows out of, starts like just south of Tahoe proper up in the Sierra Nevada. So there’s East Fork of the Carson, then there’s also the West Fork. There’s, and that’s actually like, that’s like probably one of the main guide zones for Tahoe Fly fishing Outfitters is that Carson. And then that actually meanders, I believe, I haven’t looked at it completely. When you get down into like Gardnerville, Minden kind of like that below the Sierra Valley line back there, I think it goes all the way back through there quite a ways. It does warm up. The species can change on you at a certain point. Matt (29m 29s): You know, you’re gonna get smallies and Oh, okay. You know, carp and stuff like that. But yeah. Dave (29m 33s): But it’s a trout. So the Carson East Fork is a, probably a trout fishery or it can be Matt (29m 38s): Super trout fishery. Yeah, Dave (29m 39s): Super trout. Okay. So two on this is a Crowley Lake. Do you know that one? Matt (29m 43s): I do know that one. So that’s, that one’s awesome. That’s kind of a, it’s a super cool, like Kran mid fishery. Dave (29m 50s): Oh, okay. Matt (29m 51s): Yeah. Yeah. They also, so like when you get to Mammoth Lake’s proper, if you’re gonna go out on a boat, you go to Crowley and like by boat, it could be kick boat or a motorized boat, canoe, whatever you got. Right. Like you can, there’s access and the guys, there’s like a cool little, it’s super fun. There’s like a little perch hatch there. And the trout eat the perch fry. That’s a great chron Stillwater fishery. Mildly alkaline lake. When the lake’s lower, actually on the east side there’s some like really crazy like steg tight looking things. Dave (30m 21s): Oh, nice. Matt (30m 22s): Like Instagram girls go and walk through ’em. But like, it’s actually kind of cool to look at. Yeah. Like if you know, you’re, it’s, yeah. But yeah, no, it’s super cool Lake, super fabled, east side fishery for sure. Dave (30m 35s): Oh it is? Yeah. East side. So yeah. So that’s on the east side of the Sierras. Yep. Okay. East side. Okay. So we got, and then, so we got, what about Eagle Lake? I’ve heard of that one. That’s a big one, right? Matt (30m 44s): So Eagle Lake. Yeah. Like that’s in the northeast part of the state. Big Lake fishery. There’s the Eagle, Eagle Lake Rainbows. I think it’s one of those, I don’t think it’s like one, I don’t think it got widely distributed as say, like the McLeod River Redband through like hatchery programs in the forties and fifties, I think was the right timeline on that. But the Eagle Lake rainbows are, are massive big bodied trout, super cool Stillwater fishery. Dave (31m 9s): And that’s not far from you, right? Or it’s far as west of you? Or it’s east of you? Matt (31m 13s): It’s east of me, surprisingly. It’s about two and a half hours, two hours. Dave (31m 18s): Oh, it’s a little, yeah, it’s a little ways. Okay. Matt (31m 20s): It’s a little jaunt. Dave (31m 21s): Yeah. Yeah. And I think we did have a podcast with one of the old guy, old timers on the Eagle. I’ll have to, we’ll have to put that in the show notes if we can find it. Let’s keep going. Now we got a few more here. Let’s, we got East Walker River. I haven’t heard of that one. Do you know that one? Matt (31m 33s): Yeah. So the East Walker is Bridgeport, California. Super cool. It’s actually Tailwater. Dave (31m 39s): Oh it is. There you go. Another Tailwater. Matt (31m 41s): Well, and it’s, and it’s a weird Tailwater. There’s Bridgeport Reservoir and it flows out of the Sierras. Okay. There’s East and the West Walker. Both of them flow out of the Sierras. One, the West Walker flows through Walker, California. And then the East Walker, which is, I think there’s like two lakes above it. Twin Lakes, which is like, the first part goes to cattle land, Bridgeport Reservoir. And then everybody fishes kind of below Bridgeport Reservoir, big brown trout fishery, you know, kind of lower like sub alpine type activity there. Like as far as like trees and stuff. A lot of juniper, but just huge browns. Dave (32m 20s): Oh really? Giant browns. Yep. Matt (32m 22s): Yeah. And that’s a great town. I’ve worked there as a firefighter paramedic. Oh wow. Dave (32m 28s): Yeah. In Bridgeport. Matt (32m 29s): In Bridgeport. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And Jim over there at the Ken’s Sporting Goods. There is. Dave (32m 36s): Oh, okay. Yeah, there’s no fly shop, but there’s a sporting goods. Matt (32m 38s): It’s, but you go into those shops on the east side, like, and everybody’s like, they don’t know, like he’s got more bugs. Dave (32m 44s): Oh, really? So they got lots of fly stuff. Matt (32m 46s): Oh dude. Like 10 bins stacked to the gills. Nice. Like, anything that you need, he’s running, you know, he is got guides that he works with out of the, the sporting goods store. Super historic building to the town. Super cool place. He’ll point you in the right direction. Definitely fun place to fish. Dave (33m 2s): No, this is great. I’m, I’m loving this because I get it. It just opens up all these places where you realize, man, it’s, it’s so huge out there, right? There’s so many And they’re all amazing. Like, you’re talking about this thing I’ve never even heard of, I guess I have heard of Thero Walker, but I didn’t realize it was this epic tail water brown trout fishery. Yeah, Matt (33m 17s): Yeah, Dave (33m 18s): Yeah. Matt (33m 18s): So super puns. If you, if you’re a streamer guy, that’s where like a lot of streamer dudes end up too. Dave (33m 22s): Yeah. Okay. All right. Let’s, let’s check off a few more. Here we go. Yeah, keep going. What about the Fall River? There’s lots of fall rivers around the country. What do you know that, what they’re talking about here? Matt (33m 30s): Yeah, it’s the, it’s the one up east of Mount Shasta. I have, I have friends up there. It’s a, it’s a cool fishery man. Huge hex hatch. Kind of just this flowing weed bed, crystal clear water and just really big healthy trout. Typically you’re gonna want a boat. Dave (33m 48s): Oh, you will. So this is Fall River near Oroville, right? East of Orville? No, no different one. Matt (33m 53s): No, north. Oh, north River. Fall River. Like Fall River Mills. Dave (33m 56s): Oh, mill. Oh yeah, mills. I see it. Right, right, right. Gotcha. Fall River Mills. Matt (33m 60s): Yeah, it’s kind of this, it’s kind of cool, like everything it seems east of the mountains are just these like kind of high alpine planes of pretty awesome places. Dave (34m 9s): Yeah. So that’s kind of the way California, so you’ve got the Sierra Nevada. So everything east is obviously more the desert on the west side, it’s different, right. It’s more forested and probably not as much trout fishing. Is that kind of what? ’cause what do you have down there other than steelhead? Well you have the Redding, right? Or or do you have the, the sack, which is huge. Huge. Yeah. But do you have a lot of west side, west side streams that are great for trout fishing? I guess you go north. Yeah, totally. I guess you do North. I’m thinking more like as you go south, right? Southern California, you get down to where you lose that stuff eventually. Matt (34m 39s): I mean, you are not gonna lose it till the southern end of the Sierras. Dave (34m 41s): Oh really? Okay. So you have West, so all the way southern end of the Sierras, you’ve got west side trout fishing. Yep. Decent. Okay, cool. All right, well let’s just for a good measure, let’s get a six on here. So we got, this is one I think we’ve heard about Hat Creek. Matt (34m 54s): Yeah. Hat Creek. Super great fishery as well. That’s pretty close to home as well. I don’t fish it that often. I mean it’s, it sounds funny, but like, honestly time constraint with like my office job that I do of order entry and designing products and Right. Kids in sports. Like Dave (35m 10s): You’ve got a limited time. Limited Matt (35m 12s): Time. Dave (35m 13s): Yeah. You can’t hit everything. No, I’d say Okay, cool. Well, well we broke this out. Let’s circle back, you know, as we kinda, you know, get back into the loon thing. I want to hear about that a little more because I know people are gonna be interested about that. So you mentioned a few products at the start, the the dry flight floating. What do you think are loon’s kind of right now, some of the top selling products you guys have? Do you have things out there that people are just loving or anything that you just recommend we, we’d like to check out for your fly tire? Matt (35m 36s): Yeah, yeah, totally. Number one selling product has always aqua. So it’s like my benchmark of things to Deron Dave (35m 42s): Aqua. So Aqua, so, and why, why is Awell always been? It just, why is that the one? Because you mentioned that and Awell is the, is it, it’s got multiple uses, right? But is it mostly the dry fly part? Matt (35m 52s): It’s a floating. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and for me, like personally, I think it’s like, I think I mentioned it earlier on, you know, like we were talking about EarPods and or earbuds and it’s like, oh yeah, everything that’s wireless kind of gets named like every insulated cup is a Yeti. Dave (36m 7s): Right? Or, or the trout hunter and trout hunter leaders. Right. Almost are getting to that level. Everybody knows they’ve got this amazing, unique leader, right. Which is, it’s got its own life. Oh, Matt (36m 16s): It’s crazy that like, the lack of education on leaders, like that’s a whole nother tangent. But like trout hunter actually, like a fly line builds a very specific taper into their leader. And that’s why I love Trout Hunter. Yeah. So, you know, it’s like guys are like, wow, this leader cast’s really good and it’s like, mine don’t do that. And it’s like, dude, it’s because of old taper thought processes of guys tying stuff together to create an action, right? Like Dave (36m 43s): Yeah. Talk about that a little bit because this is great. I think this conversation, I know it’s huge. We can talk an hour on this, but let’s talk leadership a little bit because I know Trout Hunter is, this is amazing for a number of reasons. They have like super narrow diameter, but, but I know a lot of people tie their own leaders. We just did one with, who was it? We had somebody, Jason Randall I think was talking about his leader build, you know, he’s got a specific type of leader build, and I’m not sure what he’s using there, but talk about the building your own versus say the Trout Hunter or any of these other ones that are, you know, like you’re saying the diameter’s, right? Matt (37m 12s): Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, back in the day you used to walk into fly shops. And this was, I started fly fishing when I was 11 and I learned how to, like my first fly fishing experience was Sea Run Cuts in Washington with my uncle at our family cabin. And he’s like, no, no, you can’t use that store-bought thing. ’cause they had kind of the store-bought guys, you know? And that’s what I showed up with. And he goes, you’ve gotta build them. Dave (37m 40s): And he goes, right. Now, was there truth back in those days when you were 11, do you think those were not good leaders or you think they were solid back then? Dude, Matt (37m 46s): Honestly, I think my uncle was cheap and material was cheaper than the store-bought thing. And you know, he was, he was a renaissance kind of guy, you know, like you wanted to frame a house or like weld something or speak about something really scientific. And he had already learned it, you know, so like I, I have think he enjoyed the tinkering side of things, but also it was like more economical, right? So like back in the day, yeah, everybody had, I mean, I have books of stuff I get at garage sales still to this day. Like cool old leader wallets and weird stuff that I enjoy owning. And you look through it and it’s, it’s like, this is lefties. So, and so this is, you know, and it’s all of these infamous fly fishermen’s leader formulas that they developed and then shared, you know, and it’s like six feet of, you know, say 30 pounds and then 18 inches only of 20 to fi you know, whatever. Matt (38m 39s): And it’s like these, and it’s all of this series of knots, you know, unity unis or Bloods or whatever your, your flavor was to create this turnover for a fishery. So it’s, it’s almost like fly tying to me like a fly Italian recipe. So trout hunter. And the reason they’re cool is like, you know, they’ll have a 14 foot liter and you’ll notice like, wow, this is super, super, super thick. And then oh my gosh, there’s this rapid change. And what that really creates is as your fly line ends, if your leader’s not right, that transfer of energy is gonna essentially die. Dave (39m 14s): Right. Matt (39m 15s): You know, so like as you have stripper materials for a certain amount of length, that transfer of energy can, has more of an opportunity for continuation into the final turnover of your presentation. And so that’s where these leader formula guys come in, right? Like they’re creating that. And Trout Hunter just has some really, really cool ones where it’s like, you could cast a 14 foot leader and you’re like, this feels like a seven and a half footer. Like, this was not as bad as I thought it was gonna be to turn over. And, you know, so for, for your application, everything does have a design, right? Dave (39m 50s): And if you were to try to make that leader yourself, you probably wouldn’t get it right because it would be hard to do that, right? To get that perfect transfer of power to the leader. Matt (39m 58s): It would take time and energy. And I feel like, I feel like Trout Hunter does a really good job of just putting something out there that’s user ready, especially for the guy who maybe is busy in life and doesn’t have all of this trial and air time that all these other people have that, you know, they make it their life to go through, which it’s a huge benefit to the angler, right? Dave (40m 20s): Waters West. Fly Fishing Outfitters is your gateway to the heart of Northwest fly fishing, renowned for their expertise in spa casting and swung fly techniques. Waters West boast an unmatched selection of fly time materials and the knowledge to help you explore the region’s most iconic rivers. I’ll never forget that morning when Ed landed a steelhead just behind me, A perfect moment that reminds you why we chase Chrome and why every day is a special one on the water. Whether you’re a seasoned angler or swinging for the first time, ed and Kyle are here to take your fishing expertise to the next level. You can visit Waters West, fly Fishing Outfitters right now and mention this podcast when you stop by, join your community for both freshwater and saltwater fly fishing adventures. That’s waters west.com. Dave (41m 3s): Yeah. That’s the fly fishing thing, right? There’s always, like you say, you can go as deep as you want on anything. You know, if you want to go deep on the building, your own leader, go for it. Figure it out. Matt (41m 12s): Yeah. You can get, you can go into that tribe. Like, and it’s such a small subspecies, like Dave (41m 17s): Right, right. It’s super small. What what about the, well here’s, here’s the subspecies. This is on my mind because I’m just curious. It’s so, such a crazy story and I just did an interview, actually we have another one we did on it, but The Feather Thief. Oh Matt (41m 29s): Dude, that’s awesome. Dave (41m 29s): Yeah. So we, I just interviewed the, the author of the book and it’s such a crazy story, you know, but it’s the tribal thing is what it gets down to really. You got this tribe of, of, you know, Atlantic salmon, fly tires, some people that don’t even fly fish and they’re so extreme that they’re willing to like, you know, a few people break into national museums of, you know, of of crazy. Right. What are your thoughts there on, on the tribal? Like, first of all, do you know that story a little bit on that whole thing? Matt (41m 57s): Absolutely. Absolutely. No, it’s, it’s insane. And you know, I love, I’m not an Atlantic salmon tire, like I would never, you know, but do I like two Dave (42m 7s): Hours? Matt (42m 8s): No, no. I mean, I will tie really marrying together six different feathers on a wing. Oh, Dave (42m 14s): You do? Matt (42m 14s): Oh yeah, yeah. I’ll nerd out on it just to like challenge myself personally as like a fly tire. But you know, it’s, it’s insane. Garage sales are great places to get some of that old stuff. I have this will trip you out. I have like some super exotic stuff and the labels on it say Abercrombie and Fitch. Dave (42m 34s): Oh, right now that’s because of the, the hats? Matt (42m 37s): Well no, they used to be an outdoor store. It was a sporting goods store in New York. Oh Dave (42m 41s): Right. Matt (42m 42s): Like this, like frat boy pop culture icon of today, like used to sell high end side-by-side shotguns and fly fishing Dave (42m 50s): Equipment. All right. They made Matt (42m 52s): Fly Dave (42m 52s): Rods and fly fishing. Yeah, no kidding. A Abercrombie and flinch. Yeah. So you get flight materials at Abercrombie back in the day. Matt (42m 59s): Yeah. I have like materials that were shipped to somebody here in Redding, like a very old guy from there, like mail order style. But yeah, no, the Atlantic salmon tires, like, it’s a whole different world. Like the stuff that they get, I have some friends that do it that are really into it. And when I find like some goofy rarity at like a garage sale, I’ll like send ’em a picture and I can just like watch them. Their excitement level is like, I’m like, dude, it’s just a blue feather man. Dave (43m 27s): Right, right through the roof. Yeah. They’re trying to get the exact feather that was in the, well talk about recipes. They’re trying to get back to that exact flight time recipe. Exactly right. With the exact bird. Not a, not a imitation Turkey. Something like the exact exotic bird. Right, Matt (43m 40s): Right. And you know, some of those birds, there’s like four left in a zoo on the, in the world. Yeah. Dave (43m 45s): And that was the weird thing about that story. The crazy thing is that the guy literally stole some of like Darwin’s birds and some birds that are crazy, you know, it’s, Matt (43m 54s): It’s insane. Dave (43m 55s): It’s that. Okay, so, so we took a little tangent there, but take us back into, I think we were talking products and, and loon. Give us a few more of loon. You aqua you mentioned. What, what are some of the other flagship products that Loon has going right now? Matt (44m 6s): Oh man, one of the ones that I’m seeing blow up is Fly Dip. I will preface this with Fly Dip can be messy. Dave (44m 13s): How is Fly Dip different from Aqua? Matt (44m 17s): So like all of the base chemicals are actually different. And then, so that’s one I designed here. And I’m not a chemical engineer, so like when I was joking earlier like, hey, I lit my garage on fire once. So like I, I learned very quickly, and I probably should have remembered this from si like, you know, seventh grade science class that like, you know, things have like a different boiling point and vapor pressures at which they ignite and whatnot. But so fly dips a pretty awesome liquid concoction of stuff. And the one thing that I’ve found is guys are like, dude, this stuff’s really weird. Like, I, I had a video going around when you introduce a new floating, nobody believes you. Matt (44m 57s): Right? And so I took a cup of water and I took a four aught bass hook and dipped it in fly dip and set it on the surface film of tap water, which is far less, you know, than that of like in a river, right? Like the surface film in a river has, Dave (45m 12s): It should sink fast, Matt (45m 14s): It should sink faster in the tap water ’cause it’s so clean. There’s nothing to help stabilize it, in my opinion. And, and the guy, I have a guy of a shop guy, he’s sitting there like shaking the cup, like aggressively more Oh and more violently. And the hook’s just like won’t see laughing there. So, so the cool thing is, is it’s super hydrophobic as a liquid towards water. So you could take actually a wet fly, which is a huge issue for dry fly fishermen. You know, they’re always like trying to dry the fly out before retreating. But this stuff, you can dip it in, throw it back out, the water gets displaced and it floats instantly again, like fish slime, nothing affects the fly. Matt (45m 54s): It does get on things and never come off. I had a guy who spilled a bottle in the bottom of his boat and a year later he goes, water won’t stick there. Dave (46m 1s): Wow. That’s crazy. And, and this is just a thing that you came up with on just in the mad scientist sort of thing in your garage? Matt (46m 9s): Yes. Dave (46m 10s): That’s pretty cool. Matt (46m 11s): So like, so kind of like I said, you know, like that’s, that’s one of my favorite products. Dave (46m 16s): How do you do that? This is just a random, so how do you do that? Would, do you go through the products, there’s all these chemicals and stuff. How do you get that certified through the, just the whatever it is, the government agency that certifies stuff, right? That’s on your hands. And is that a whole process? Matt (46m 30s): So it’s actually, yeah, like you can look into human safe chemicals and then you can look at other industries chemicals like, so say if you’re looking for an evaporative, let’s just say you’re looking at evaporative, you’ll get this list of all of these, technically some of them women put on their face every day, you know, Hey, I have this wet makeup that turns it’s a liquid to a solid or to, you know, like as of something and you’re like, wow, what does Revlon use as a base chemical there? Right? Like, and you can request such information sometimes and it’ll get you into the right ballpark. And then oddly enough, the test species for a ton of chemicals, when you’re looking at like MSDS and like SDSs and just digging through like piles of things inside of categories, the, the test animal for a lot of these things, like for mortality of cons like concentration moralities are rainbow trout because of their sensitivity levels. Matt (47m 26s): So you can actually go in and be like, how much of this product has to come in, say it’s in a five gallon bucket, what concentration gradient has to be achieved to kill a fish? And the concentrations for fly dip are insane. So like, you’re like this putting this into an environment. Like we feel safe with that. So like there’s like, there’s, there’ll be a ton that you find that it’s like, oh, two drops, kills everything instantly. You’re like, wow. That’s Dave (47m 54s): Right. Matt (47m 55s): Brutal. Dave (47m 56s): No kidding. Damn. Matt (47m 58s): But yeah, so like that’s, that’s like a, a big look into my process is find somebody like, you know, and like, and like I make the joke like, man, I was walking through the mall and I looked at this ad and my, it said liquid to a dry. I’m like, wow, that’s what I wanna do with floating. Why? What is that? You know, like, maybe it’s Maybelline, like maybe that’s the answer to making flies float. Like, yep, let’s go explore that for seven or eight months. Dave (48m 20s): Gotcha, gotcha. That’s how, how, how it happens. And then eventually it’s on in the, in the vest or in the sling of somebody out there on the water and they’re loving it. Right? Matt (48m 28s): Yeah. So, you know, like the, the product design flow kind of comes from everywhere. Like, like it could be like a nuisance, like one day on the river. Like, dude, this, this forcep hurts my hand. Why does it do that? How can I, what can I do to improve that? Like, and then it’s three DI taught myself a lot of 3D cad, I’m not super great. I have like, I have a college kid that I work with sometimes, like I’ll pass stuff off to him and he’s like, I think he designs like underground drilling machines from the ground up. And he’ll like, look at me. And he is like, dude, can I just clean this up for you? And he, he’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah, please help. Please help me. Dave (49m 4s): Gotcha. You got some inside insiders in there. Do you guys do the like ambassadors? You have people with loon out there, ambassador team and all that stuff? Matt (49m 13s): Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned like Brian Wise. Dave (49m 15s): Yeah. Brian. Matt (49m 16s): So Brian’s been a longtime friend, you know, of the brand AIDS us. We’ve got like, we’ve got Hillary, she, Hillary Hutchinson probably one of the most amazing, friendliest people I’ve ever met in my life. And she loves Loon. We’ve got Paul Sier out of Canada. She’s awesome. We’ve got reluctantly, highly reluctantly. Nick Davis, the owner of 2 3 9 flies. We started hanging out with Nick and being friends with Nick probably a decade ago. And he and I connected super well, he’s a firefighter. I did that whole fire medic thing, both kind of transition. So it was a cool way to have like a friendship. Matt (49m 58s): And now he owns two shops and he’s super busy and he’s like, dude, I’m not doing anything like I used to with like fly tiny videos and we’re like, Nick, you’re just an og. We’ve got, you know, Pete Erickson? Oh Dave (50m 11s): Yeah, Pete, yeah. Right. Totally Matt (50m 12s): Grand master of I think, I don’t know what they call like the, the older generation. They still compete, but it’s like Grand, Dave (50m 20s): The team USA Yeah. Team. USA, yeah. Team USA. Yep. Matt (50m 24s): So he’s an amazing resource on the at Loves Fly Dip, fly Dip Lover, you know, and a great story as a guy like school teacher during the school year, guy during the summer. And it was super, it’s super fun to get to go and hang out with all these people. We’ve got Beach and Curtis from Fly Fish food. Dave (50m 42s): Oh yeah, sure. Matt (50m 44s): Yeah. They, we, we hung out with them originally when I think they were in one of their basements and it was an online store and they still had corporate jobs, you know, Cheech and is like tiny little money makers as he, we make fun of his hands ’cause he’s like got massive meat hooks. Dave (51m 0s): Oh, he does, right? Yeah, he does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got a good crew. Matt (51m 5s): And you know, we’ve got a bunch of like local ground level guys too. We’ve got some like Redding boys that are fishing bass, they’re fishing steelhead. They’re, they’re fishing the Fall River. They’re, they’re all over the map. Or we’ve got guys in SoCal, like Von Podmore running offshore, catching huge calicos and pelagics with guys on the fly. Just tons of friends and all super cool like-minded individuals. Dave (51m 28s): Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s cool. Yeah. And we’re just talking. Yeah. I mean California today, talking a little bit on that, it’s so, it’s so huge, so diverse, but there’s tons of opportunities. Then you’re, the rest of your area is, you mentioned California, Nevada, Arizona, and then you pop over to Hawaii. What is Hawaii? That sounds like an interesting one. What, what’s, give us a little update on the Hawaii. I don’t remember seeing a fly shop at Hawaii last time I was there. Matt (51m 50s): So, so up until, so Sean owned Nervous Waters and Nervous Waters Hawaii and he, he closed unfortunately, you know, there’s a few little operations that do a little bit of fly here and there. Dave (52m 5s): Yeah. ’cause there is a bone fishery, right. There’s a, there’s a nice, there’s a big bone fish down over there in other species. Matt (52m 10s): Yeah. They all only live on the pancake flat. There’s no bone fish anywhere else on the islands. No, I’m joking. Dave (52m 16s): The big island. Isn’t that where you, you can get the big bones. Matt (52m 19s): I would venture to say like, just on my exploration, like there is very large bonefish throughout that island chain, but, you know, yeah. Like a lot of guys really associate the Hawaiian fly fishing scene with, you know, like right near the airport in Honolulu. And, and I, I’ve gone and done that and it’s super fun. It’s really amazing. It’s an amazing fishery. And like, if you have any guys that listen that are going to Christmas Island, right? Like, you know, reach out, you’re gonna have a day in Hawaii like that flight goes and it’s like, man, you’re already doing this whole trip. One more day isn’t gonna be the end of the world, but like, go and experience that. Matt (52m 59s): Like you can do everything right. And that fish will just like look at you, give you the middle fin after looking at your fly for seemingly an hour. And you’re like, even though it’s 10 seconds, you’re like super, like, are you gonna eat it? And he’ll just like blow off and then you’ll look and there was like eight other fish that you didn’t, you know, like eight other Heineken bottles that you didn’t see. And you know, I’ve, I’ve got, I’ve gone over there and done it a handful of times and some stuff on Maui and found, you know, fish blind stripping on Maui. ’cause it’s not always flat fishing. Some of the, you know, it’s a volcanic island chain. So the topography change is very drastic, you know, from, you know, you could be offshore like a half mile and it’s like, whoa, this is 400 feet deep. Matt (53m 41s): Whoa. Okay. You know, so like some blind casting, there’s tons of jacks, there’s tons of fun stuff to do over there. And they also have like a crazy bass fishery over there. Dave (53m 50s): No kidding. What, what kind of bass? Matt (53m 51s): They have peacocks, but, and I forget the name of it, but I think it’s like, it’s almost like a small mouth. I’d have to Google it and I don’t have that capability at the moment. No, Dave (54m 2s): That’s All right. Matt (54m 3s): But there’s like a, there’s like a bass slam over there and it’s like a peacock maybe, like, you know, and it’s, I think it’s, I know the guys do it over there and I, I feel bad ’cause I haven’t like explored it completely. And a lot of times when I go to Hawaii or was going to Hawaii for work, it was like go there for four days. Like two of those days are like travel days in the circuit of like getting to see everybody inside of a timeline for like deadlines. And so like that kind of limits a lot of the fun. Dave (54m 33s): So when you go there for work, what, how do you, do you hit one island or do you hit a few or just what do you do there? No, Matt (54m 39s): Most of the time I’d probably just like, honestly I’d just end up in Honolulu, hang out with Sean, captain Chris, fly Fish Hawaii or Yeah. Is it Fly Fish Hawaii? He’ll kill me and Chris is awesome. Chris hang out with those guys, you know, get plate lunch and go fish for a day. Kind of check in at the shop for a day, take the wife with you and do some dinners and get home. Dave (55m 3s): Yeah. That’s it, right? I know. Yeah. You can’t, you’re in Hawaii. That’s pretty nuts. Yeah, I’m looking at Captain Chris Wright. Yep. At Aloha Fishing Hawaii. Matt (55m 12s): Aloha fishing. Yeah. Dave (55m 13s): On Instagram. Yeah. Yeah. Matt (55m 16s): Probably one of the most amazing, happy so stoked. Like if, if you just want fun content, you should follow him on the gram. Dave (55m 23s): Yeah, I see it. Yeah, he is got some big bonefish right there on his gram. Geez. Oh, and he is got all sorts of other fish. Yeah. Matt (55m 30s): Keys, plugs, gts too, which they’re just awesome. Yeah. Dave (55m 34s): Sweet. Matt (55m 35s): I’d recommend hanging out with those guys. Yeah, Dave (55m 37s): Yeah, definitely. Definitely. We’re gonna, we’re gonna be hitting them up for sure. Before we get outta here, anything else you wanna leave us with? I know we’ve kind of been pretty general high level today, but it’s been a lot of fun as far as any of your other brands, products, anything you want to check in on before we get outta here? Matt (55m 49s): Oh man. I mean, I will say this like, I don’t know, given the current world and timelines, like with Loon, I know I have, I wanna say like four years worth of really fun new products. Dave (56m 3s): Oh, you do? Yeah. You got a lot of stuff. Matt (56m 6s): I mean, you know, the, in the product design world, it’s like we get so much to that 90% and that last 10% just getting it over. Like honestly, the owner’s probably main job is just to like, go, Matt, we can’t do 35 things. Yeah. Dave (56m 21s): Filter in your stuff. Matt (56m 22s): Yeah, it they’re the filter, right? Like, or the skew police. Like, they’re like, but there’s a lot of really new interesting, fun ideas coming out Dave (56m 32s): There is Now, before we get out here, the, the owners, that’s kinda interesting. I mean, you’re kind of the face really, I think the face of the loon out there, they’re, I mean you have their ambassadors, but who are the owners? Have they been, were they the ones that actually started the company at the, the start? Matt (56m 47s): No, but oddly enough it is a family organization. So the, the two owners are Alan and Brett. Alan started working at Loon when his sister was married to the founder of Loom. He ended up unfortunately passing away. Alan and his sister ran it for a while. Alan ultimately bought his sister out and is married to Brett, the other owner’s sister. Oh wow. So like That’s crazy. The chain, the chain, like Dave (57m 19s): It’s family. Matt (57m 20s): Yeah. It’s super family. And then, you know, like, I like laugh and it’s like, wow, my connection was, you know, this like childhood friend Dave (57m 28s): Oh yeah. Family in a way, right? Matt (57m 30s): And, and kind of everybody and like the, our, our guy Tyler, who is our warehouse guy, like, and he’s not like the warehouse guy. Like we have more people like, you know, like all of our chemicals are mixed in Boise, but he’s our warehouse manager. He runs all of the ops, all of the shipping manages all of that stuff. He was Alan’s like childhood friend from like fifth grade. Oh Dave (57m 53s): Wow. Matt (57m 53s): Huh. So like when I talk about these like cool tight-knit cultures of people, you know, like that, like loon literally is family. Like, you know, and like I always say, I like to say it’s like you’re, you know, you’re born with a family, but then you have the family that you choose, which are like your closest friends throughout life. And like, that’s just kind of the way a lot of loon works. Dave (58m 14s): That’s really cool story. Matt (58m 15s): Yeah. So those, those are the dudes that own it. And so technically it’s been family owned since its inception just by different family members. Right. But yeah, so that’s, I mean, and I kind of gave it away, but you know, if you add Hogan Brown in there Oh yeah. Hogan and Yeah, and Hogan runs with us now and we have this awesome dude named Dom who’s like photo video. Dave (58m 38s): Oh yeah, Dom. Yep. Matt (58m 39s): Dominic Bruno runs with us now too. That’s right. And it’s like, you know, everybody’s friends, everybody’s family and it’s just a small organization. It Dave (58m 47s): Is. Right. It’s a small organization and, and like you said, you got some of those other brands that are you’re connected to but are also kind of cool, you know, like you said, what was the word you call it? You call ’em like a The indie The indie band. The indie bands. Matt (58m 59s): Yeah. Yeah. I always tell people, I’m like, man, you, yeah, you’re hanging out with the cool kids that aren’t afraid to do kind of the right more edgy things. I doubt, you know, like, and as far as music would go, like, you know, it’s like you hang out like not to take this longer, but you hang out with like Barie or like the Ray Jeff Boys and it’s like, yeah, we’re gonna release this rod. Oh yeah. And we’re gonna sell like a hundred of them. Yeah. But it’s so cool. Dave (59m 24s): Yeah, exactly. Che’s the Scott. Matt (59m 27s): Yes. Dave (59m 27s): Yeah. Yeah. That’s who I wanna be hanging. I wanna hang out with Ray Jeff while he’s coming up with an idea for a new Rod. You know, like that’s, that’s the guy that’s like for sure is has his finger on the pulse and it maybe he testing some crazy thing, which is what you do too, right? With Loon is similar deal. Matt (59m 44s): Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s like, and sometimes even with that, like you could put something out there and it doesn’t even become, it’s a failure for five years and then all of a sudden everybody like figures it out and you’re like, oh yeah, we don’t make that anymore. Dave (59m 60s): Right. It’s gone. It’s gone. Matt (1h 0m 3s): And then there’s, and there’s this like weird cult search for like Oh yeah. Secondhand versions of it. Right. Dave (1h 0m 8s): Oh man, that’s so good. So yeah, this is cool, man. But yeah. Well, yeah, I think, like we said the start, maybe give us a, a shout to your Instagram. Where can people find you? Matt (1h 0m 17s): My Instagram is, so Callie’s 23. So it’s just, that is it. That’s where I’m at. And then I’ll apologize in advance. It’s like kids fishing mostly because that’s, that’s what happens. Dave (1h 0m 31s): You got teenage kids, young, younger teenage kids. Matt (1h 0m 33s): I have an 11 and a 13-year-old. Dave (1h 0m 35s): 11 and 13. Yeah. That’s cool. Yeah, I’ve got a 11. Oh, actually no, that’s crazy. I guess we talked about this last time. My kids are almost 11 and 13. Yeah, it’s a crazy age. Is your daughter the younger one? Matt (1h 0m 45s): No, my daughter’s the old one. So it’s like, you know, if you catch a picture of her with a fish and her fishing, can I please approve that? Because I want to make sure and you’re like, Dave (1h 0m 57s): I know Matt (1h 0m 58s): Nobody’s gonna care. Dave (1h 0m 59s): I know, I know. It is. I, those, that world of teenagers is a crazy world to be back into. Yeah. You know, after, after, for me, however many years it’s been, you know, 40 or not quite 40 years, but you know, I, you remember ’em, right? You remember those days like it was yesterday still you’re like, God, I remember those days. They weren’t always the greatest, but sometimes they were awesome. Matt (1h 1m 18s): No, I spend a lot of time, I’m sure you can relate, like explaining to your teenager, I’m like, dude, this seems so huge right now. Dave (1h 1m 24s): I know, Matt (1h 1m 25s): But it’ll never matter. Dave (1h 1m 26s): Nope. It will never matter. Exactly. Cool. So All right Matt, well we’ll we’ll send people out there and then also loon outdoors.com and then we’ll have links to all your other stuff and yeah, this has been a lot of fun, man. Good to catch up with you and excited to hopefully be doing some other good stuff moving ahead. Matt (1h 1m 41s): Awesome. Thank you so much. Dave (1h 1m 45s): There it is, Matt, back on the show round two. That was awesome. If you enjoyed this one, check in with Matt. You heard his Instagram handle, do that. Check in with Loon Outdoors if you’re into any of their stuff. And let Matt know you heard this podcast. If you haven’t yet, please click that plus button and follow this podcast so you get that next episode delivered to your inbox. Next week we’re coming back with a strong week, a strong episode, and a big trip that’s on the horizon. We are launching the project Healing Waters, white River Rendezvous. This sounds good, doesn’t it? It rings. Go to white river rendezvous.com right now and you can check out what we have going there. We’re gonna be doing this event coming up this year and we’re doing a giveaway that just kicked off, or that’s just kicking off on Monday. Dave (1h 2m 28s): So if you wanna get a chance to win a spot to go on this trip and hear all about why, why we’re doing this now and what it’s all about, you can check in there. All right. That’s all I have for you right now. I’ve got, I can hear outside my door, the lawnmowers. It’s that time of the year. Lawnmowers are going strong. They’re, I’m not sure if you can hear on the mic, they’re cranking away outside. I don’t have a lawn actually these days, so that’s actually nice. But I’m hopeful that I’ll be back to mowing the lawn soon. I’m not sure if you’re out mowing your lawn right now. I’m guessing you’re not because it might be hard to hear this podcast. But if you are, gimme a shout out anytime, Dave, at wet fly Swing dot com. If you haven’t checked in with me, do that. Please. I would love to hear if you enjoyed this episode. Dave (1h 3m 10s): If I haven’t heard from you, I always love to get those random emails that makes my day. And if that’s you right on the very end, you can do it right now. You can make my day Dave at Wetly Swing. Let me know you heard this podcast and what you’re enjoying and I hope you have a great afternoon. Hope you have a great evening, and if it’s morning, you’re enjoying a nice glass of orange juice. Hope you’re enjoying it and, and I will look forward to seeing you on that next episode. We’ll talk to you then. 2 (1h 3m 32s): Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly, Swing Fly fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit wet fly Swing dot com.