Traveled #11 – Henry’s Lake Foundation with Damon Keen – Fisheries Biology, Conservation Efforts, Restoration Projects

Dave (2s): Welcome to Traveled, where we take a journey to a specific region. So you discover what makes this part of the world so unique. Before we get rolling with our guests this week, I wanted to share the love with our Traveled sponsor. This podcast is powered by Swing Outdoors, the Wet Fly Swing podcast and Yellowstone Teton territory. Please head over to Wet fly Swing dot com slash teton to connect with the great brands that make up this amazing region of the country. Let’s do it. Let’s jump in and find out where that road less Traveled is gonna lead us today. How, you doing, Damon? 1 (37s): Doing great. Thanks for inviting us on. Dave (39s): Yeah, thanks for, thanks for coming here today to talk about Henry’s Lake and everything you have going around some of the conservation efforts, and I guess it’s probably more than just that. I’m sure that, you know, we’ve done a few episodes in that area now and, and we’ve got a little bit of background. I wanna talk about, you know, talk about the importance of Henry’s Lake and then, and what you do as well. But, but first take us into, you know, how you got into your job. How did you get into this line of work where you’re working for the foundation? 1 (1m 8s): Great question. I, I was worked as a fisheries biologist on Henry’s Lake for about 15 years, and I started in 2000. And at that time, when I first started, I made connection with the Henrys Lake Foundation. They were a N G O that was really contributing to habitat restoration improvement on the lake. And so that’s where I made my first contact with the Henry’s Lake Foundation. Worked with them over a period up until 2018 when I retired. Then post re retirement, I stayed involved with the foundation and, and currently the vice president of the foundation, so. Dave (1m 51s): Oh, gotcha. Wow. So you did, and what were the, when you were working there as a biologist on the lake, what were your, you know me over the years, what were, was your focus? 1 (2m 2s): My primary focus was simply Henry’s Lake. We, we had a dedicated employee for decades at Henry’s Lake. Henry’s Lake has been one of the top most important fisheries in the state of Idaho. And so the Idaho Fish and Game dedicated an employee there full-time. And so most all of my work focused on Henry’s Lake, whether it be Fisheries Management Act, aspect of it, the egg cake program, the hatchery side of things, the habitat restoration, that side of thing. And then cooperating with landowners without, without the landowners, we wouldn’t be doing restoration on Henry’s Lake. Dave (2m 41s): Yeah, that’s right. And what is the significance, you know, maybe just give us a primer on that, of Henry’s Lake. You know, we’ve talked, you know, obviously the Henry’s fork, everything downstream. Why is Henry’s Lake so important for that, you know, that whole area, the whole basin? 1 (2m 57s): Well, it’s, as I mentioned earlier, it’s, it’s, it’s one of the most important fisheries in the state, but it’s at the, the top of the system and really feeds the entire Henry’s fork. And most people probably know that the Henry’s Fork Foundation is very active down below Henry’s Lake. We’ve always been dedicated. We’ve been around for over 40 years. You know, a little bit of a contrast between the Henry’s Lake Foundation, Henry Sport Foundation, the Henry’s Lake Foundation just focuses on Henry’s Lake. So we do work on that. But, but yes, significant. It, it’s at the top of the, the system. It’s, it, it feeds everything below it, obviously. 1 (3m 37s): And so critically important. Dave (3m 40s): Yeah. So, or what are some of the, kind of, the factors is, is water temperature, is that something you’re thinking about? Water levels? What are the, and it sounds like you’re also got fish, you know, populations that you’re with a program there, but yeah, what are the major things that you’re thinking about? Like, you worked there for a number of years, is it, or is temperature a ma a major player? Here 1 (4m 0s): It is. Henry’s Lake is a, a nutrient rich shallow lake. So an average depth of 16 feet, 15, 16 feet, really a maximum depth about 23 feet. And really non-st stratified for the most part during this number. So there’s, the surface temperature of the bottom temperature is, is very close to the same. And given the sh it’s such a shallow lake, water temperatures are a concern. And so restoration of the tributaries to feed more cool water to the lake, protecting that or, or keeping that temperature low as it, as it drains down to the lake is, is critically important. Water quality, I, I always said being a nutrient rich lake fish grow very rapidly. 1 (4m 46s): And then Henry Lake, and we have some, you know, trophy size fish. It’s always been considered a trophy fishery and nutrient-rich, though, that also leads to problems in the winter. So high nutrient levels can contribute to potential for low dissolved oxygen in the winter. And so Henry’s lake, you could say is, is somewhat prone to winter cable. So, so restoration and projects, and then also monitoring dissolved oxygen levels through the winter has been a critical component of, of fisheries management. Dave (5m 25s): Right. So what do you do when you monitor dissolved oxygen? How do you, if you feel that the levels aren’t quite right, how do you deal with that? 1 (5m 33s): Well, it’s, you know, that that’s, that’s a real challenge. In, in 91, 19 91, there was a large winter kill on the lake. And so after that there was a variation system put into the lake that has been in place for over 30 years. It’s got really, in my opinion, it’s got minimal benefits because it is, even though it’s a large system, Henry Lake is a 6,400 surface acre lake. And it, you know, once that dissolved, the oxygen drops below a critical level, it’s, it’s hard to restore that oxygen level. And so, but by monitoring and the fish and game monitors, all, all winter now, you could at least kind of project what’s gonna happen and then maybe do some change up on your, on your egg egg in the spring to the, you know, maybe get more, more fish hopefully for the, for stocking in the fall. Dave (6m 33s): Right, right. Gotcha. And this is, yeah. And so Henry’s Lake is the, essentially the headwaters of the Henry’s fork, 1 (6m 40s): Correct. Dave (6m 41s): Yeah. And it’s interesting ’cause when you look at the map, you see, you know, Hebgen Lake, right? Which I’m not sure how far away that is. How, how far away is that if you’re to drive over from Henry’s? Yeah, 1 (6m 52s): Probably about 10 aerial miles, but over the Continental divide. Yeah, Dave (6m 55s): Yeah, right. So it’s pretty close, but over the divide. So you’ve got this, you know, which is a very, probably maybe as famous of a lake right? As Henry’s is the, is Hebgen because of the Madison and all that. Are those pretty similar, are the lakes what they have going or, or I’m not even sure, I guess I’m thinking one is more, a little more natural or what do you know much about Hebgen? 1 (7m 16s): Yeah, we a a little bit, so Hebgen iss in Montana, so we didn’t work, you know, being from I Idaho. But yeah, Hebgen is a, is a, is a, a top fishery. I would, I think Henry’s has, it probably is a much more fishing pressure and fishing hours Ebdon, but, but yeah, two totally unique systems. Ebdon is a fairly deep lake hebgen, you know, Henry’s lake fish grow real rapidly and don’t live very long. So on Henry’s Lake, you fish on three or maybe four years of age class fish, where Hebgen you have several more years of age class Fitch, they live longer, grow slower, not the trophy size. 1 (7m 58s): If you, if you catch fish on, on Hebgen, you’ll see more of the river shaped fish. They’re not, you know, the fat deep fish like you see on Henry’s lake, Dave (8m 6s): Right. Because in those fish are able to migrate out of, well, I guess maybe talk about that with the, the Henry’s Lake. So fish that are in Henry’s, are they migrating, are they able to get outta the lake downstream? 1 (8m 18s): They can’t get downstream. There’s a, there’s a dam in place, but they can go upstream in the major tributaries and hence the restoration efforts over the past 40 years. So they are ad flowal fish, they, they spawn in the tributaries live their, most of their life out of the lake and, you know, head up the tributaries to spawn in the spring. They’re Yellowstone cutthroat primarily as the, is the native fish. They’re also also hybrid trout in the lake cutthroat rainbow hybrids, and then brook trout, hybrid. Hybrid. The hybrids and the brook trout are both sterile. So those are managed in such a way that can control the numbers, so they can’t over peak the, the Yellowstone cutthroat. Dave (9m 2s): Right, right, right. Okay. And what are the major trips? I’m trying to think, are there a few major trips that, that they’re spawning in upstream? Yeah, 1 (9m 9s): Absolutely. Targe Creek would be the largest tributary. Howard Creek, duck Creek, hope Creek. We’ve done some work on, on Hope Creek, timber Creek. Those are, those are five of the, of the big one Dave (9m 22s): Timber. And what are some of the projects that are going on or that have gone on? Just some of the big ones that have helped for Lake habitat restoration there for, for those Yellowstone Cuties? 1 (9m 31s): Yeah. The largest project that we’ve been involved with and, and we’ve been in the Henrys Lake Foundation has been involved with pretty much every project over the last 40 years. But the largest project was a bridge replacement project. We, we had some culverts that were acting as a barrier on Highway 87. So we got involved and it actually initiated the project to replace those Culvers with bridges on both Targe Creek and Howard Creek. And that was a almost $2 million project. So that was our largest project. We’re, we’re currently involved with one of our very large projects, restoration on lower Targe Creek with a, a new landowner there. 1 (10m 12s): Robert t with the Bear Tooth Group. He’s well known for restoration throughout the the West. Dave (10m 18s): Okay, wow. And this is interesting. So, and then on Henry’s, so you have all the work with the restoration, you know, kind of keeping the habitat at a high level. What about the fishing, you know, you hear about these, you know, you got these large fish. How does that look as far as fishing pressure? Do you find that, you know, that it gets pretty, you know, what could somebody expect if they were going there to fish? Or do you have any advice for somebody that that’s maybe gonna be fishing that? 1 (10m 43s): Yeah, I mean it’s, it’s, it’s, it varies greatly. Like I mentioned earlier, we, we fish on just a few year classes of fish though. If you, if you have problems with a year class, you don’t have good survival with one or two year classes. The fishery really tanks and, and catch rates drop dramatically. The benefit to that is when those numbers do drop, that’s when you see your largest fish. So like Right now we’re in a period where we have, our numbers aren’t the best, but we have a very large fish. So if you go to Henry’s Lake, you can expect, you know, if you catching some fish, you may not catch a fish an hour, which is a pretty high catch rate on Henry’s lake. 1 (11m 25s): But you may catch a, a seven pound hybrid or eight pound hybrid. Oh wow. So the, the right, you know, up to 14 pounds larger fish, geez, the largest fish I ever measured on or weighed on Henry’s lake was 14 pound, Dave (11m 38s): 14 pounds. Is that something that was caught by a angler or by, by you or by somebody out there? 1 (11m 43s): That’s a fly angler that caught that. And what we’ve caught, you know, you see a, a good number of fish over 10 pounds over the year. Hundreds Really? And you get, you know, that 12 pound, 13 pound mark, then you see very few, I think over the, over the 15 years I was there, I think I saw four fish over 13 pound. But this, the state record brook trout came out of Henry’s Lake, seven pounds, one ounce. So you you’ll see brook trout four pound, there’s an uncommon, Dave (12m 12s): Right. So you got a chance to get not only some nice, well, and you’re talking, when you say 14 pounds, what, what species is that? 1 (12m 19s): That would be the hybrid, usually the, the largest fish you’ll see, you know, just, just generally speaking, you’ll see cutthroat up to six or seven pounds. Hybrids is up to that. 14 pounds would be the exception, but certainly 10 pounds. Dave (12m 32s): Yeah. And what is the hyper, again, reminds again, what are the species mix? 1 (12m 35s): It’s, it’s rainbow. Cutthroat. Cutthroat. Yeah. Rainbow, rainbow, rainbow, Milt. Dave (12m 40s): Okay. Rainbow, rainbow cutty. So that’s the, the big ones. And then you’ve got also Yellowstone Cutthroats, and you have brook trout. So, and then why is it that, you know, when there’s, there’s a kill or less fish kill, you know, there’s these bigger fish. Is that just because there’s more of an opportunity to, you know? Yeah, just explain that. Why do you get a chance to, to make fish when there’s less fish, 1 (13m 2s): Less competition. So you’ve got, you the, the cow and the pasture analogy. You, you get, you know, there limited resources out there. So if you have a, a large number of fish, fish growth is slower and fewer fish, you, they’re gonna feed better and you’re gonna see large fish. Yeah, Dave (13m 21s): Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay, nice. Well this is a good, you know, starting point here. And as you look around, it sounds like when you were working, so you work exclusively at the lake. Are there other lakes in that area that, you know, I mean, I know I’ve heard of a few of ’em, I guess, what do you think about when you, if somebody’s thinking about doing some fishing in that area, are there other lakes that people could target on top of Henry’s? Yeah, 1 (13m 47s): As you mentioned, Hebgen is a, is a great fishery. And of course that’s in Montana, but Island Park is, is oh yeah, down the road. And it, it can be a pretty good fishery as well. Flat, a steel water fishery. There are, you know, over in, in Montana there’s some other smaller lakes, elk Lake and, and Hidden Lake, cliff Lake, Wade Lake, those are all long Montana, but relatively close. They’re within a half an hour or so. Kind of Dave (14m 12s): Close by. What about, what about Sheridan Lake? Have you heard of that one? 1 (14m 16s): Absolutely. And and we fish that all the time. Sheridan’s a Oh you do? Yeah. Sheridan’s a a private lake and a lot since my retirement, I, I also do a little guiding, so we Oh, okay. And yeah, Sheridan Lake is a, is a popular fishery. It’s, it’s a, it has rainbows in it primarily, but yeah, really, really terrific Private Fishery’s Limited, I think the 12 rods per name, the public can fish there by paying a rod fee or they can hire a guide and, and yeah, it, it it’s, oh, it’s a great fishery as well. Dave (14m 47s): So, so on Sheridan there’s a limit. So there can’t be more than 12 anglers on the lake at any time? 1 (14m 52s): That’s correct, yeah. Dave (14m 53s): Correct. Gotcha. So, okay. And, and so in is, how does Sheridan size-wise compare to, to Henry’s, 1 (15m 1s): Sheridan, Sheridan Lake and, and it’s kinda like Henry’s, it varies over the year, depending on population fish population, but Sheridan can have their, their really robust rainbows thick, deep up to 20 inches is, you’ll see fairly common over that. Not as many, but I think we’ve cut some 22, 23 inch fish, and then over the years, some larger, but yeah, they’re, they would be, size-wise, a a step below Henry’s lake. Dave (15m 32s): Right. And and is that mainly, why is that, maybe explain that, how is it different from what’s going on at Henry’s? 1 (15m 39s): Yeah, well, each system’s different and, you know, baits on the water temperatures of course feed what’s the Yeah. Nutrients, what the, the feed in the lake. And Henry’s just as you know, I emphasize that Henry’s is just an exception to, as far as steel waters go, it’s, it’s just one of the best for growth. Dave (16m 1s): Yeah, that’s, that’s the thing. It’s not that it’s not the Sheridan or any of these other ones are, are kind of weird. It’s, it’s literally that, that Henry’s is the one that’s just this almost maybe an outlier with these giant fish. 1 (16m 12s): Absolutely. Dave (16m 13s): Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Wow, this is great. And, and so on, maybe just take us back to the Henry’s Lake Foundation. It, it sounds like it’s been going a while. Do you know the history of how that originally got found? And maybe even think about that, you know, and then also just take us back a step further beyond that and talk about why is, you know, the dam, why is that there? How did that begin? You know, and I have some guesses, but do you know the whole history there? Yeah, 1 (16m 39s): Yeah, pretty much. Most of it. And I’ll, I guess I’ll, I can start at the Dam. Henry’s is a natural lake. It’s always been a, a productive lake and, and produced, you know, back in the 18 hundreds, Henry’s lake with fish were harvested there commercially to supply miners in, in Montana area, lake Butte, Montana area, and others. But then in 19, the around 1920 there was a, a dam was installed to increase the capacity of Ries Lake, and that was installed basically for irrigation purposes. And then years later, and, and I’ve kind of forgotten, I I wanna say excuse, but the dam was elevated to actually store more water. 1 (17m 23s): So it’s been, it’s, it’s a natural lake with a dam in place to, to ra raise the level to store more water. North Fork Reservoir Company is, owns that water above natural lake level so they can, you know, do how they see. And so the good thing really about that is they do a great northfolk Reserv company does a great job of trying to keep water up in Henry’s Lake. Obviously once, once you let water out the dam and go down, you can’t get it back up to the lake. So it takes, if, if the lake level is dropped dramatically like it did in 2001, if it’s down below 50%, it, I think we projected that that would take about three good water years to fill that lake once it went below 50% and that, and that was the case. 1 (18m 11s): But Henry’s Lake Foundation was started in the late seventies. The fishery was, it was in the dumpster for the most part, poor water quality, the, the fish numbers were down. Fishing was really, really tough. And so a group of, of folks got together and started the Henry Lake Foundation and, and they, you know, to see what they could do to help the fishery, and they really ended up with tributary restoration. The tributaries were in poor, poor shape. They, there were fish that were, you know, going up the tributaries to spawn and then, then the fry and the adults were, were diverted out by irrigation diversions and flopping out in the, in fields, pastures, things like that. 1 (18m 57s): So that’s, that’s the, the genesis of the Henry’s Lake Foundation. And it really took off running cooperated with initiated contact with landowners, basically said, Hey, if we can fence and protect, you know, the rip area areas and the tributaries, if we can pay for all that and, and do maintenance work on that, you know, we will, will you allow us to, to do so. And landowners are very cooperative. They wanted to see good water quality in Henry Lake as well, cooperated with the Idaho fishing game. And, and that’s been a, a really an important relationship for over four decades. Dave (19m 38s): Yeah, it sounds like, from what I’ve been hearing, it’s a pretty cool, pretty unique, well, not, maybe not unique, but a very healthy relationship with, you know, the landowners, everybody out there is that we, you know, everybody understands you need, need food. Right. You know, they all Idaho potatoes. Right. That’s kind of the, you know, the, the fun, the joke. But it’s true, right? I mean, it’s a important part of it, but at the same time, the fishing is also important. Do you find that with recreation, you see this in some areas, you know, where you have one industry that really has an important role and then that decreases, and then another, maybe other industry becomes bigger, right? Like, say fishing. Do you see, has that changed over the 40 years? Have you seen less, less demand for water, or do you see now, especially with kind of the, you know, a ification or whatever we have going on now that there’s actually more demand and it’s getting more challenging? 1 (20m 30s): I think, I would say from my perspective, about the same. There’s always been a high demand for water for regions you mentioned. But again, they worked real well. The Northfolk Reservoir company and I don Fish and Game realized the importance of keeping water up high in the system. And so they’ve done a really, really good job. It’s, it’s over, you know, every couple decades we have events like we had in 2000 where we see big, big drops in one. Dave (20m 60s): No, that’s cool. I see it. Yeah. So basically there were groups that basically saw the importance of Henry’s lake and just the fishing. So it’s all, and that’s what you hear, right? So the Henry’s fork is, you know, the Henry’s fork, the South Fork, these famous Rivers. And it got me thinking, we had an episode recently, we were talking about the, you know, the Grand Canyon, the Colorado, like Lake Powell, because they have, you know, because this, the drought or you know, that’s going on, one of the reservoirs is below, don don’t even think it’s really being used because of the intakes, right. They’re below the levels. And I think, I think something like, it took Lake Powell, I think 30 years to fill up, right? That’s how big it is, you know, and then, and then now it’s been going down for many years and, and so it’s getting lower, but I guess that’s a little bit different and maybe a much smaller lake easier for it sounds like easier for you to keep that lake full. Dave (21m 46s): Is it, is it, is that the case like in any given year you can pretty much, unless it’s a crazy drought, you, you can keep a lot of water in there. 1 (21m 54s): Yeah, yeah. For the most part. That’s, that’s true. And you, it’s water in, in Idaho, most people I’m sure know it, it’s a really complicated system. And there, there’s water trade, so they’ll trade trade water from Henry’s lake to, to another system and keep water up in Henry’s lake. It, it’s a, it’s a very, very complicated system. And water rights and, and water issues in Idaho and probably elsewhere in the west are far above my little bit, but, but very Right, very comprehensive. Dave (22m 24s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s not an easy thing to, to think about. And that, that is always the, the water trades, water rights, and, you know, groundwater, you know, how much water is, you know, is out there, the, all these big questions. But, but that’s good to hear. So it sounds like things are in a pretty stable place. I mean, what was it, what was it like for you going from your position in, you know, kind of before you retired to now? Do you, how does that feel where you’re at now? It sounds like, so you’re president of the, of the foundation 1 (22m 53s): Vice president Richard Hod is a president and, and yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s been fairly unique. Hi, Henry’s Lake Foundation, as I mentioned earlier in the, in the early eighties, started off with a bang and really was very active, and towards the turn of the century it became less active. And then we had a, when I moved up there in, in 2000, 2001, it became active again. The, the Henrys Lake Foundation installed a very active president and a very active board, and they really took off running and, and, and started doing projects again in, in earnest. And, and Richard Hodge took over as president four or five years ago. 1 (23m 34s): And that’s about the time I retired. And since then, we’ve been just even more active. We’re as active today as we’ve ever been. And we’re, we’re fairly unique with NGOs. We don’t have have a, it’s all volunteer. We don’t have paid staff people short Oh, wow. Short of one bookkeeper. So every dollar that’s donated to Ary Lake Foundation goes back to restoration, fishery management, research projects, things like that. We’ve, we’ve helped out with research projects as well. So that, that’s the uniqueness of, of our organization. And it’s, we’re composed primarily over the years, historically fly anglers. 1 (24m 15s): But as you probably know, Henry’s Lake over the last decade or so has, has become quite a popular ice angling. Oh, it has, yeah. All right. It has, and and regulations were changed. We didn’t always agree with, with the regulation changes, but, but they’re in place now. But, but we’re, you know, that probably all anglers have benefited from the restoration work and the dollars that the Henry’s Lake Foundation have put out for these projects. But yeah, we would like to see some of the other anglers that, you know, join us and, and because they’ve all benefited from the, from the work, there’ve just been dozens and dozens of projects really. 1 (25m 4s): You can say, I think without, without exaggerating that, that the fishery today exists in a great part by what the Henrys Lake Foundation has done. We, we’ve helped out it, it back about 15 years ago, the Idaho fishing game was considering not stocking Brook Trout because they are, you know, can be an invasive species. And really the only way of stocking those would be to sterilize them. So the Henry’s Lake Foundation purchased pressure machine, which they use still today, to basically sterilize the hybrids and the brook trout so they can, the numbers can be re controlled. 1 (25m 44s): They’re not reproducing, they’re not overpopulating. And that was, that was paid, you know, that the Henrys Lee Foundation paid for that. We’ve always been a, a group that, you know, when when, when cash is needed, we step up. We, we stepped up this year with almost $30,000 in, well over $30,000 in cash commitments for four projects. And that’s kind of an annual basis. We’ve contributed over the years, probably several hundred thousand dollars. Dave (26m 15s): And does that funding come from like just direct contributions from people that are, you know, members or how, where does, where does the bulk of that, the cash come from? 1 (26m 25s): Yeah, members donations and the lifetime, we have a, we really push for lifetime membership that’s $500. And, and with that, you Yeah, we, we give her, what we’re, we teamed up with Temple, the Temple Fork Foundation. And so you, you get a $300 fly rod with your $500 online. Oh, wow. Commitment. So it’s a, it’s a great commitment and helps us out. We turn that money right back into projects, like I mentioned earlier. Dave (26m 53s): This is awesome. so I love this. so I mean in $500 for a lifetime membership. Sounds, it’s definitely reasonable. That’s a great thing. So essentially $500, now you’re part of this, which is great, you know, and also the Temple Fork Foundation. I didn’t know about that. So you’re talking about the Temple Fork rod. So they, so they had to talk about that foundation, how that works. 1 (27m 14s): Yeah, and I, and Temple Forks, rod, I, I should have said probably rather than foundation, but, but yeah, temple, they give us a, a great price on rods. So we, we purchase rods from them and we have our, the Henry’s Lake Foundation, a name emboldened dog on that rod. And then if you, if you purchase a lifetime membership, we give you a choice of one of those rods. Wow. Dave (27m 39s): I love that. That’s a great idea. So you can get a, so it’s a little incentive there to get people in the door, but it also, you know, for $500 and once you get in, what does that look like? What do you see people that, I mean, you probably have all levels, people that just donate money. Do you find people also donating and want to get, you know, kind of on the ground volunteering to other opportunities there for people? 1 (27m 58s): Yeah, absolutely. We, yeah, they, they not only, and we have some, we have some fairly large contributor year after year that will contribute monies, but our volunteer work is really second to none. We have a, we have a great, a volunteer coordinator and she’s on the ground if, if the fishing game or any other entity that’s doing good work. The B L A M, we’ve done a lot of work with B L A M, the Forest Service. If they need, if they need additional hands, we can quickly organize, volunteer, get on the ground and, and, and help them. We’re doing monitoring on, on Targe Creek Right now as we for water flow monitoring for Object with Robert e that I mentioned earlier. 1 (28m 43s): So that, that’s all organized by, by the Henrys Lake Foundation. Dave (28m 47s): Okay. And monitoring of water flows, is that something where you’re taking iStream gauge measurements just to document, kind of make sure the flows are staying up? Or what, what does that look like with the monitoring? 1 (28m 58s): Yeah, just, just, just monitoring flow because our work that we’re, that we’ve initiated, and we already have a project plan in place on lower target. So restoring, storing this, the, the stream on, on lower targe to initiate the floodplain once again and, and restore the hypo reic flow. So the flows, you know, groundwater flow, good water quality that contributes to good spawning potential good water quality throughout the, the summer and winter. And so that’s, that’s a very large scale project. And so yeah, this is just pre-project monitoring. Dave (29m 40s): Today’s episode is sponsored by Eastern Idaho’s Yellowstone Teton territory. Idaho’s most renowned zone for fly fishing. From the Henry’s Fork to the South Fork of the Snake and all the high alpine lakes and streams in between Yellowstone Teton territory provides anglers and other outdoor enthusiasts with all the information they need to plan their next big trip. You can visit wetly Swing dot com slash teton Right now to get the full list of Outfitters lodges, fly shops and all kinds of inspiration to get you started on your next trip to Eastern Idaho. That’s Teton, t e t o and wetly Swing dot com slash teton. Dave (30m 21s): And so we’ll talk about tar, let’s just focus on Taree real quick. And so the issues or the, you know, kind of things you’re trying to deal with, there are, what are the big ones? It sounds like riparian fish passage, you know, what are the big things you’re thinking about? Like you need to make sure to keep the, the river or, you know, targe healthy, is it Targe Creek or Targe? It’s Targe Creek, right? 1 (30m 41s): It’s tar, yeah, targe Creek. And Targe Creek, i, I might have mentioned earlier is, is the largest tributary to Henry’s Lake. So restoring water, we’ve done, targe Creek, I believe has four fish screens on that. So Target Creek, there are laterals going off from Target Creek to irrigate pastured for cattle grazing. And so we’ve installed and paid for installation of fish screens so that adult and, and fry fingerlings won’t be pushed out to those pastures. It can actually be pushed back to the, to the tributary. 1 (31m 21s): That’s a, that’s a big part of it. Maintaining flow, of course, we’re very supportive of, of irrigation and that cattle watering and making sure that those landowners have the, the, the amount they need. But we’ve cooperated, so did they get the amount of water they need? But yet excess water is still diverted down target creek, so that we have constant flow throughout the, the lake summer months and restoring the, the, you can picture lower targe over the, you know, decades ago there was cattle grazing. Now there’s not cattle grazing any longer. There’s actually conservation easement in place. 1 (32m 2s): But over the years that degradation of the riparian area led to an, an entre stream. That tree stream instead of reentering, is shooting right down to the lake. This project that we’ve we’re working with Robert Keith on will involve restoring the ity to the stream. And you know, a lot of people think that, you know, when, when streams flow out of their base, that’s a bad thing, but that’s really not a bad thing. You’re flooding, you’re reengaging the flood plane and, and restoring groundwater flow, hyper reek flow and, and that’s all good. And so that’s what we’re trying to do. Turn that, you know, restoring those, the wetland areas down there, that’s, that’s a big focus. 1 (32m 43s): Targe is, is relatively healthy overall, but this, this project is one of the more exciting projects that we’ve been involved with. Dave (32m 52s): Amazing. Yeah, that’s a great explanation. Or of what you got going there, talk about, you mentioned the $500 are where people can get involved, so where would we send ’em Right now if somebody wanted to just donate some money and help the, the everything you have going on 1 (33m 6s): Two places, you can just search on Google Henry’s Lake Foundation or on Facebook, Henry’s Fork Foundation. and we do have links there where you can, where you can join up and your lifetime membership where we have an annual membership as well. But that yeah, that’s, that’s fairly easy. It’s like I say, there’s, her naming is a little, sometimes people boom confuse us with Henry’s Fork. Malian, but Dave (33m 34s): That’s right. Henry’s Fork. Yeah, it’s, it’s close. Henry’s Fork Foundation, Henry’s Lake. but I mean you’re right there, you’re all connected. Do you, do you actually work closely with the Henry’s Fork Foundation or are you always talking, is that something where you’re meeting up regularly or how, how does that look? I 1 (33m 49s): Wouldn’t say we meet regularly with them, but, but we have, we have contact, they’ve, they’ve supported us in some of our projects on the lake. And, and again, they kind of stayed downstream of Henry’s Lake. They, they leave Henry’s lake to us, but, but they have done some research a few years back. They did the, so they did some, a research project on Henry’s Lake and we helped to, we, we contributed cash to that and helped to complete a grant for that. So we’ve worked, they, they supported us when we initiated the tardy Howard Creek Bridge projects. So they, yeah, they’re supportive. We, and we work in conjunction with them, but primarily they have their area of focus, we have our area of focus and it, it works in tandem basically. Dave (34m 34s): Right. Are there other conservation groups or groups similar to, you know, what you have going and, and the Henry’s Fork Foundation out there in that area? 1 (34m 42s): Yeah, to some, some land trusts organizations, but really as far as NGOs that are active, there’s a, there’s a new one, Henry’s Work Wildlife Alliance that’s doing work of course focused on wildlife. They do other work and they’re very active as, as well. And they, we’ve teamed up with them. We’ve, we’ve just completed a project on the South Shore line of Henry’s Lake in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management, where we restored b l M as as lead in that we installed some large woody debris, some, and then we, we planted that area as well as the west shoreline of Henry’s Lake with Willows. 1 (35m 26s): And so we contributed volunteers to that and cash. And then Henry Fork jumped in and con contributed some volunteers as well. Henry Fork Wildlife Alliance. Dave (35m 36s): The Wildlife, yeah, wildlife Alliance. This is good. Okay, so you got the Wildlife Alliance, Henry’s Fork Foundation, Henry Lake Foundation. When you look at Henry’s Lake, if somebody was going to be, want to know about, you know, how, whether, like you said sometimes there’s fish kills, could somebody find out about that? Like where, where would they go to figure out, like, are there a lot of fish in there? Is this a good time to fish? What would be your recommendation there? 1 (35m 59s): Yeah, your best contact. I mean, we have some, we have some knowledge of you’re always welcome to contact us and, and, but, but the Henry, the, the, the best, the best contact is the Idaho Fishing game and the region, upper state region in Idaho Falls. They have a, a terrific biologist. He’s been there a couple years now, Nathan Tilston and Henry’s Lake is, there’s a lot of work completed on Henry’s Lake. It’s one of the most aggressive gill net operations every spring to monitor the population trends. So, so that’s done. Nathan does that work, you know, from ice o until, you know, eight or 10 nights of gill netting and then they have a good idea of that tree and they have a target they shoot for, so they can tell you if they’re above or below the target and, and size, yeah. Dave (36m 49s): Be up. How do you spell Nathan’s last name? 1 (36m 52s): Lemme see. I might get a wrong t i l i s t o n I believe. Dave (36m 57s): Okay. Yeah. Tilston. Tilston, yeah. Okay, good. So, so there is a good chance, well, if you wanna just find out more, we can dig in there with, with Nathan, but essentially it sounds like, yeah, I mean, in any given year there’s gonna be some fish there. Some years there’s gonna be even larger fish and, but, but ultimately, you know, I mean if you’re coming out there again, let’s take it back to that you’re coming out there fishing. What is your, you know, recommendation? I mean, or who would we talk to to find out more information on, you know, where to go, what to do if we wanted to kind of, you know, find some fish, you know, get some action out there. 1 (37m 31s): Yeah, again, that old fishing game, primary contact, but, but we, you know, our entire board is composed of avid anglers that really the most of us belong because we love fishing. Henry Lake, Henry Lake of the Are Dave (37m 46s): You a fly angler too? 1 (37m 48s): Absolutely, yes. Yep. Dave (37m 49s): Yeah, there you go. Okay. 1 (37m 50s): Yeah. And, and it’s, you know, Henry’s is a fairly technical lake. It, it, it, it’s really, it can be a challenge with, and it’s, it’s fun from that respect. You probably know it’s a, it’s an infamous for being a sinking line lake, you know, far back as Ted true in the early sixties, talking about a lake that with fish rising that you couldn’t catch with a, with a dry line. And so it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s really, it’s, it can be a challenging lake and it’s, it’s good to know where the fish may be, where the fishing’s, you know, in, in lines and, and of course, you know, mines Flies, you know, depth all that stuff. 1 (38m 31s): And so it’s, yeah, you’re welcome to contact us again. We have several very avid bo board members. Dave (38m 39s): Yeah, gotcha. Okay, good. We, and we have Phil Roy is one of our main contributors for our Stillwater stuff. He’s, he’s gonna be, I think, you know, we’re gonna be putting together a trip there next year and we’re gonna be talking more about this, and he’s, a lot of his techniques, you know, he does a lot of the stuff with like indicators, curid, fishing, you know, he really focuses on some of the other stuff. But do you find much of that out there that people are doing some of the other types of still water fishing on top of just sinking lines or dry lines? 1 (39m 12s): Yeah, absolutely. And it, you know, dry lines using indicators of course is, is getting, and, and yeah, indicators have really over the past decade or so, really grown in popularity. You see a lot of that now. And so, yeah, I, as a matter of fact, one of our board board members, Kevin Skin Door, I think took Philly fill out a couple years ago through the Drift Lodge, and I might mention that Drift Lodge, there is a, is a fly shop there on the lake that does a good job too. They keep, they keep up to date on, on the fishery and, and do a really good job of, of relaying that information to the public. So they’re, they’re a great contact, Dave (39m 51s): Yeah. Drift Lodge. Yeah. That’s awesome. Okay. And between the brook trout rainbows and cutthroat on the lake, are there is one of those species, do you find a lot of differences in the way they, you know, take the fly, any of that stuff? Or are they all kind of similar? 1 (40m 7s): No, they’re really, really all, all different. There’s some, the, the fishing game did a research project a year, about a decade ago or so, and a diet study and yeah, it was, it was really interesting to see the, the differences in the diets between the, the, the three types of fish, the, the hybrids and cuts throat were, were very similar, but brook trout were a little bit different. So yeah, there’s, there’s certainly some differences. Brook trout, you know, seek out the, some of the coldest water, so you’ll see them move around a little differently than you see the, the hybrids in, in the cutthroat. But yeah, there are different techniques and, and different habitats for, for all the fish and Dave (40m 48s): On brook trout. Yeah. I’m just kinda curious about this, why, you know, have brook trout there, it seemed, you know, I mean there’s other species rainbows. What do you think, what does Brook Trout provide that say Yellowstone cutthroat or rainbows can’t provide? 1 (41m 2s): Yeah, Brook trout are, are one of the, probably the most popular fish on the lake. And even though they’re a, a non-native, you know, they’re, they, they fight hard. They, you know, they’re, they’re blocky built. They’re, they’re, you know, anglers really, really like to it. It’s in the, for the lower 48 certainly, you know, catching a four pound brook trout is just almost unheard of. And so, you know, you can catch a, a, a brook trout of a lifetime at, at Henry’s Lake. And so I think that’s some of their popularity. All three types of fish though are just, you know, a a a 20 inch cutthroat is, is great to catch and yellow. 1 (41m 42s): It, it’s a tremendous fishery. Dave (41m 44s): They all have their own thing it sounds like, like, I mean, you know, Brook trout, right? You can go back to the East coast and go find places with trophy brook trout, but I mean literally that’s one of the cool things you can go out to this place in the west and have a chance at catching a trophy brook trout. That seems pretty, pretty awesome. 1 (41m 60s): It does, yes. Dave (42m 1s): And good. Well, as we look at, we’re gonna take it outta here in a bit here. Any other projects you wanna highlight with what you have going out there? You’ve mentioned a few of ’em. I, I think just high level with like you talked about the fish passage and screening and, and riparian. Anything else, you know, coming up or anything else you wanna highlight here? 1 (42m 22s): Yeah, just it, it, it’s, you know, pep that, so we’re always looking to the future. There’s the Shoreline work is something relatively new. We’ve done projects on Pintail Point Shoreline restoration. We’ve worked with Fremont County to do shoreline fencing near fro Park, and as I mentioned the, the Hope Creek area and the South Shore Shoreline Restoration. But one of the really big things that was just, just just happened was ownership change. Tom Cole was a large landowner on Targe and Howard Creek, and he passed away a couple years ago and we were very concerned. The Henry Lake Foundation was very concerned about the, the change in ownership. 1 (43m 4s): And Robert Keith, as I mentioned earlier, bought the Target and Howard Creek property that the Howard Creek property was turned over then and sold to the Nature Conservancy. And so that is something big. Although we work, I, I don’t, I wouldn’t say that we initiate, we, you know, we just supported that project, but protection of, of the Howard Creek property and enhanced protection, I should say, of the Targe Creek property is just, is just gigantic and, and the Henry’s Lake ecosystem. Dave (43m 38s): Yeah, right. This is, this is good. Okay. And, and I wanted to do a quick, we usually take it outta here when we can, doing a little kind of listener shout out segment. And I wanna do that really quick as we start to take it outta here. But gimme a background on your fly fishing. How did you first get into fly fishing? 1 (43m 58s): I first got into fly fishing a year, several decades ago. I worked at for Good Store and had some, actually some really good friends that got me involved. And they were avid Henry’s lake fishermen, and so they actually got me involved. I kind of faded out. I I did a lot of hunting for quite a few years and didn’t do a lot of fishing. But once I, once I moved up to Henry’s Lake in 2000, that’s where I really became active in fly fishing and obviously living on the lake, living on the North Shore, 365 days of the year, you, you, you see the, the benefits of, of going out there and fly fishing on that lake. So that, that was, that was my real active involvement from that point till now. Dave (44m 39s): Gotcha. Gotcha. And, and you still, and like you said, the, a lot of the board members are fly fishing focused. Where are people also fishing? Are you fishing like the streams heading down to the down below, or is it mainly focused on steel water? 1 (44m 52s): Yeah, I focus primarily on steel steel water. I do, I fish year round. I’ve got, I live up in north central Idaho, so I, steelhead and salmon fish and, and, and all that. But really in, in the summer, I primarily focus on, on Henry’s lake. It’s, it’s, it’s hard to take myself a away from that. I, I do fish he a little bit, but, but yeah, Henry’s lake is just a, it’s just almost an addiction and, and we’ll see anglers that fish every day that the, the weather will allow them all summer long. Oh wow. You know, many. So it’s, yeah. Dave (45m 26s): The addiction, is it kind of like a, it sounds like, you know, like, you know, a steelhead right? Especially when numbers aren’t as large as you expect to be out there without touching a fish that takes some addiction, right? Is that kind of what the way it is at Henry’s? 1 (45m 39s): It is, it is. And and it’s, there’s a, there’s a social aspect to it you like, that you’ve known for, for decades and decades and, you know, some of my best friends or I’m sure fishing this morning out there and, and so yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, you, you talk about it, you, you fish and if you go there year after year and it’s just, it’s, it’s one of those things that it’s, you know, you, I always kind of kick myself for living up there that many years and not fishing other waters as often as I should have, but yet Henry Lakes is just one of the best fisheries and it’s just like, it hard to pull yourself away from that. Dave (46m 14s): Perfect, perfect. Well let’s do a quick listener shout out and then we’ll take it out here with a couple of, a couple random fire questions. So we have Alan Bergal sent an email in and, and we will tie this into some of the stuff we’re doing, but Alan said, he said, Dave, I listened to your podcast with Justin at Cape Brenton today. He says, I have been fishing Cape Brenton for many years. I’ve been fly fishing and tying for over 50 years and have a commercial fly tire and raw builder, custom net maker. He said, if you want to talk to someone in Kate Brenton, who knows salmon fishing, you should look up Robert Cha chaison the dryly salmon.com. So, and then at the end, you know, Alan said, you know, basically just let us know where we can go to find this person, because we were in that, in that episode, we were talking about salmon fishing, Atlantic salmon fishing, and first gonna shout out, Alan said, keep up the great podcast. Dave (47m 7s): So thanks Alan for checking in by email. But turning back to you Damon, what is, you know, again, somebody’s coming to Henry’s, like who would be that person, you know, you would, or where would you send somebody if they wanted to kind of get that guide, get the information to maybe get on Henry’s Lake and have some success? Any, any recommendation there? 1 (47m 26s): Yeah, and, and I’m, I’m a little hesitant be because I do, I am a, a licensed guy in the lake and I don’t Oh, Dave (47m 30s): Right, yeah. May maybe you’re the, maybe you’re the, the person we should be caught is that Well let, let’s not put you on the spot. We don’t have to put you on the spot here, but 1 (47m 38s): Yeah, yeah. I, I, I, I, I guess I’d rather not to, I, again, you know, as far as, as far as the retail outlet that Drift Lodge is, is I the best, but I know fishing game and, and there are, there are numerous guides on the lake and, and yeah. Dave (47m 51s): And how do you do, so talk about your guiding, where, where are you, how does that look? Is that something you’re just doing on the site and where are you guiding? Is it just the lake? 1 (47m 60s): So yeah, we guide on, we, we work for Eagle Ridge Ranch has a, a license on Henry’s Lake. And, and so we, we’ve worked for them on Henry’s Lake. We also have a, a, a small group, a, a small company that where we guide on Sheridan Lake. So again, working under Eagle Ridge and yeah, we, we, we guide on those, those two bodies of water. And yeah, we, there, there are about five of us that, that are involved with that. And yeah, it’s a, it gives us a great opportunity to, you know, I, one thing I really enjoyed working at, at Henry’s Lake with not only the fishery but the anglers in contact with anglers and really guiding allows me to keep in contact with them anglers the new angler. 1 (48m 43s): And there’s nothing like I, I don’t know how many times over my, you know, over the last 23 years there that I’ve been involved with entered Lake don don’t know how many times that I was either out monitoring or had somebody out and said, Hey, this, I just caught the largest trout I’ve remember caught in my life. And that’s, has anyone that fishes Henry’s lot knows that’s fairly frequent, you know, and so it, it’s, that’s a unique aspect of being out there and being involved with people. So, Dave (49m 10s): Yeah. How does that work with the guiding when I know the, the Idaho has some regulations on that with the guiding on Henry’s Lake, is it open to whoever wants to guide or is it restricted to certain shops or guides? Can fish the lake? How does that look? 1 (49m 26s): It, so it’s, it’s restricted to, there’s, there’s outfitter license on the Lake. Eagle Ridge Ranch holds one, and that’s who we work for. There’s, I think there’s a total, I I believe seven or eight licenses and that’s limited. There’s no more they, there can be, you know, a set number of bolts on, on the lake at, at one time only, only two for each, for each license. So yeah. And you have to be a licensed guide so you, you’re licensed under that outfit or, and no one and look quite a bit different than, than Montana. Dave (49m 57s): Yeah. So if we wanted to, you know, for example, Phil, if Phil was coming in, you know, we would probably wanna be working with, we’d have to work with an outfitter out there or maybe he wouldn’t even be guiding right. He would be just teaching or maybe just working with the shop or whoever has that license. That would probably be the way that would go down. 1 (50m 14s): Yeah. And not being an expert by being Yeah, if you’re taking somebody out and then you’re not doing it for monetary purposes. I mean obviously you can, you can help people or whatever and that, but yeah, I think the Drift lodge, they, I think they booked Bill in the past. They have license guides, so Dave (50m 31s): Right. They book Bill. 1 (50m 33s): Yeah, Dave (50m 33s): Yeah, yeah. Perfect. All right. And I want to on quickly on Sheridan. So back to Sheridan. So if you were, somebody was getting ready to fish Sheridan, what would be your advice to them? Is that, is that lake a little bit easier to catch fish than, than Henry’s or what, what, what do you, how does somebody get prepared for that? 1 (50m 49s): Yeah, Sheridan is a, is an easier lake to, to catch numbers of fish. And it’s pretty, pretty consistent throughout the year or June, July, there’s a dry fly fishery that we, we normally see in August, fish move up towards the, the, the mouth of Sheridan Creek. And so that, that’s, that’s real exciting. The September fishery can be good. So yeah, really, I, I would say more consistency in Sheridan Lake. Little smaller fish, but really a fish and good numbers and, and it’s, it’s, the nicety again, is, it’s limited to those 12 rod. Right. Dave (51m 27s): So that 1 (51m 28s): Yeah, that’s, Dave (51m 29s): Yeah. If it wasn’t limited to 12 rods, it might be a different situation with the fishing there. 1 (51m 34s): Correct. Yeah. Dave (51m 35s): Cool. All right, well let’s see. Any, anything, anything else you want to give a heads up? I think I was gonna just take us outta here and, you know, a couple of my random questions, but before we get there, just are you, are we good covering all the topics? It feels like if people wanna dig deeper, they can head out to henrys lake foundation.com? 1 (51m 52s): Yeah, yeah. I just, I just emphasize that, and again, even if you’re, you’re not in a fly angler or you, you have, you know, you’ve had, I, I think the, the best use of your money to help protect and Henry’s lake and, and maintain the fish, the great fishery we have is to belong to the Henry Lake Foundation. And, and rest assured that your all all your dollars go toward good projects and, and, and not towards payroll. Dave (52m 21s): Yeah. That’s amazing. That is amazing. Well let, let’s do our quick little rapid fire round. We’ll take it out here, Damon. So are you, I always love the podcast or music question. Do you, do you, have you listened to any podcasts or do you listen to more podcast music? What’s it look like when you’re on a road trip? 1 (52m 36s): Yeah, I’ve got it over the past couple years. You know, I haven’t listened to yours yet. I will now, but I listen to, I listen to a lot of hunting podcasts. Okay. Yeah. And so, yeah, I, I’m Dave (52m 48s): What’s one, what, what would be a hunting podcast you listen to or what’s in your, in your feed? Right now 1 (52m 52s): Elk Talk is, is a good one. Raddy Newberg in in Bo and Bold and, and Corey Jacobson. It’s a great one. But you know, there’s, yeah, that’s, that’s one i I listen to. Oh, good. Almost every one of those. Dave (53m 3s): Good, good. And, and what do you like, it sounds like you’re obviously, you know, information is, is key. What do you love about the podcast? What, like, listening to those podcasts? What, what is it, why not listen to music? Do you, do you just love the, the tips and tricks, or what do you get out of a podcast? 1 (53m 18s): Yeah, the tips and, and, and I guess I, I hate the realness of it and, and you know, I, I like the technical aspects great. And, and, and good. but I I do like the realness of it. And, and when you, when you get people that are talking about what, you know, I, it’s great to hear someone, for instance, in, in a fishing podcast, talk about maybe how tough fishing would on Henry’s late last week instead, how it’s always good. It’s, it’s, it’s good to know that, that people are real and they’re recording, you know, good stuff like that. So Dave (53m 50s): That’s a great, that’s a great point. I mean, today, do you feel like we’ve done it justice? Like we haven’t, as far as expectations, we’ve, we’ve painted a picture that people can be understand what, what to expect? 1 (53m 60s): Yeah, I think, you know, this is the first one. I’ve, I’ve been interviewed a lot, but never, I don’t think done podcast. But yeah, I think you’ve done a, a terrific job. I, I, yeah. I think you really covered good. I can’t, I can’t can’t think of anything. I, Dave (54m 13s): That’s great. All right, David, well, we’ll send everybody out, like we said, henry’s lake foundation.com and then hopefully we can get some more, some more funding coming in there. And, and we’re gonna be heading out next year and we don’t have all the details yet, but I’m excited because I can’t wait to drive out there and cross, you know, some of these creeks that you’ve talked about today and Roy maybe even see some of those projects. Could somebody actually go drive? Is there public areas where they can drive up and actually see one of these projects anywhere there? 1 (54m 42s): Yeah, there, there’s a number of them, but the, the best, probably the best a access Right. now the recent project would be the, what’s called the Cliff area, the South Shore of Henry Lake by Hope Creek. And that’s the right, their Red Rock RV park and you access it via that, go down to the, what’s called the Cliff area and look at that great project at the B L A M spearheaded and, and in that installation of that L w d large woody debris. And, and it’s just, it’s gonna make such a difference and it’s very visible. Dave (55m 16s): Very visible. And give us one more before we get outta here. If we’re coming there next year and we’re getting there late or getting there for dinner time, where’s the place we should go? Do you have a restaurant or some food you would recommend Anywhere in that area? 1 (55m 29s): Yeah, there, there, there are a number. Is there a lot? Yeah. Colonies. I, as far as our side of the, the divide, you know, Connie’s is, is great. There’s Pond Lodge has great pizza and yeah, they’re, they’re, there are a number of probably missing one or two of ’em in there. That’s normally where we headed it. Oh yeah. Great. Mexican restaurant on the river. Dave (55m 51s): Oh, which, what’s that called? 1 (55m 53s): No, I lost the name. I’m sorry. But yeah, Dave (55m 55s): Yeah, yeah. Downstream. That’s on the Henry’s Fork. 1 (55m 57s): Yeah, that’s on Max in Yeah, that it’s, that’s for Max Dave (56m 1s): In, 1 (56m 2s): Yeah, right, right by Max in on the river. Great Mexican restaurant. Yeah, Dave (56m 7s): Max in. Okay, great. All right Damon. Well I think we’ll leave it there and definitely, I think we’ll probably also be in touch with you heading, you know, forward because we’ve got some trips coming up here. But yeah, I appreciate all your, you know, everything today and all the work you’ve done over the years for, you know, obviously protecting and you know, all the conservation work you’ve done has been amazing. So thanks for sharing that today and we’ll talk to you soon. Thank you. That’s a wrap on travel part of the Wet Fly Swing podcast and Swing Outdoors. This podcast was supported by Eastern Idaho’s Yellowstone Teton territory. You can support this podcast in eastern Idaho by heading over to wetly Swing dot com slash teton Right now. And you can let any of the brands know that you found them through this podcast and click in there and check out all the great brands. Dave (56m 52s): We’ve had a number of ’em on this podcast and, and we would love you to find out all the good stuff they have going. You can also check in with me anytime Dave at wetly Swing dot com if you have any questions or feedback or have an idea of where we should be traveling to next. And one big reminder before we get outta here, the Stillwater School is going Right. now, if you go to wetly Swing dot com slash Stillwater School, you could find out if we have any slots available for the big trip out to this part of eastern Idaho. Phil Roy is gonna be our guru. He’s gonna be breaking out the Stillwater Magic and if you wanted to up your game this year, this is your best chance Right. now you can check in there or send me an email, like I said, Dave at wetly Swing dot com. Dave (57m 34s): And as we roll outta here, I just want to thank you for taking the time today to check out the travel podcast. And I appreciate you for your support and all the listens here, and I hope you have a chance to experience that road less travel.