678 | How to Become a Fly Casting Champion with Chris Korich – Golden Gate Casting Club, Maxine McCormick

Dave (2s): Do you know how a tiny 11-year-old girl can beat everyone to become the fly casting champion? And what do you think is the best length and action of Rod right now for casting? And would you like to know why some of the best fly casters in the world right now are using first generation graphite from the 1970s to win championships? Today we have the greatest fly casting coach in the world, and he’s going to get us lined out for success this season. 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 the fish species we all love. Hey, I’m Dave host of the Web Fly Swing podcast. I’ve been fly fishing since I was a little kid.   Dave (43s): I, grew up around a little fly shop and have created one of the largest fly fishing podcasts in this country. I’ve also interviewed more of the greatest fly anglers than just about anyone out there. Chris Kotch, legendary casting champion, legendary coach to some of the best in the world, including Maxine McCormick is gonna shed some insight on what it takes for success. And you’re gonna hear the whole story about Maxine, how she did it at 9, 10, 11 years old, how she beat everyone in the world. It’s an amazing story. You’re gonna find out today what the number one most important thing is to know about fly casting and a rod, and what gear to use. We’re also gonna get the history of fly rods and some of the famous names that got us to where we are. We’re gonna find out about how the feral was created, who that was.   Dave (1m 25s): We’ve talked about this before. And also some of the best brands who have rods that are focused on what we’re talking about today. And we’re gonna get into it all. Plus you’re gonna find out why a firm rod tip and a soft butt is what you need for success. Casting champion and casting coach, one of the best, Chris Kic from kwi fly casting.com. How you doing, Chris?   Chris (1m 50s): I’m doing great, Dave, how are you?   Dave (1m 52s): Oh, I’m doing good. It’s great to finally have you on here. We’ve been, we were talking behind the scenes a little bit on some of the podcasts we’ve had with some people, you know, including the Ray Jeff Brothers and folks around the Golden Gate Casting Club. We’ve done some, some podcast episodes there to hear the history. We’re gonna talk to you because you are one of the big guys. I think that maybe, well, we definitely haven’t talked in this podcast, but you’re a big person behind a lot of the people have won some of the events, including Maxine McCormick, who we’re gonna talk about today. I think she was 12 or 13 when she won one of her first events. So we’re gonna get into that. Your casting instructor, you’ve got all sorts of history here. So, but before we do, maybe just check in with you, how are you feeling? I know you made a big move. Are you feeling settled now and you’re in Portland, right?   Chris (2m 34s): Yeah, you know, born and raised in Oakland, California, right across the Bay Bridge. And you know, I just did a big move, And I have both my daughters now living up in on Portland and sister and, and mom moved up here. And so I decided, hey, you know, easier for grandpa to, you know, move than everyone else, obviously, and, you know, hard to leave the bear in, in a way. But I’ll still be traveling back and forth to help run the casting games. And I still compete and obviously coach the US casting team. So, you know, and, and the McCormick family moved up here back in 2017, so a lot of other friends like Steve and Tim just across the river, you know.   Chris (3m 14s): Yeah, exactly.   Dave (3m 15s): Well, like we said, we’re gonna talk casting, we’re going to get in some tips and tricks and things like that. But I also want to touch on the history. So, you know, where do you wanna start? I think we’ve got a lot going on here. We’ve been off air talking about this with Tim Ray, Jeff and Steve, and all the crazy stuff that they’ve done. I mean, really the the amazing stuff, you know, the Steve being kind of the Michael Jordan, as you’ve said of, of fly casting. But maybe take us back, let’s start with the history a little bit here. Maybe put us into fly fishing. When did you run into Steve and was that right around the time you started fly casting?   Chris (3m 48s): Well, you know, as I shared with you before, you know, I grew up in the Oakland Hills right across from San Francisco, and we of course have the famous Golden Gate angling and casting club in Golden Gate Park. There’s also an Oakland casting club that goes back to the thirties. And many of our famous members actually started at the Oakland Club and the casting pools in San Francisco. You know, that club started out at STO Lake and Golden Gate Park back in 1893. Dave. Wow. I don’t know, If you swung by the whole park. I know you went to the casting pools recently. Yep. But nonetheless, so, you know, my parents just happened to buy a home two blocks, you know, from the elementary school I went to, and two blocks the other direction from what we used to call my brother And I used to call the trout ponds.   Chris (4m 39s): It was just a beautiful park that was open the year before I was born. And the Oakland Casting Club had previously been at another Park Lake Temescal in the Hills, and they, along with other outdoor groups in, in the area, raised money. And in 1958, they opened the casting pools that were designed by some of the members. And, and of course many of the Golden Gate members came over for that. But the Golden Gate pools were built in 38, and the Oakland pools were built in 1958. And I was born in 1959, so it was either two blocks to the baseball diamond, you know, in the playground, or it was two blocks to what we, we called the trout ponds.   Chris (5m 19s): And it was actually a combination of these casting ponds that the Oakland Club built. And it was also actually a little stock trout pond with an old timer in, in a rustic shed. And you could take your grandkids down and rent a little bamboo pole and a little for two bits for 25 cents, a little, little bit of bait. And so you could catch your first stock to trout. They’d bring trout in from Northern California, from Las and hatchery. And, and so I got my first fish there with grandpa. And when I was eight years old, I actually got a job there every weekend helping people catch fish. Hmm. This was about a year before I actually started casting. Chris (6m 0s): So my brother And I hung out at the, at the trout ponds and And. we both got jobs helping people catch fish there. And then we graduated to our paper routes, you know? Dave (6m 11s): That’s amazing. So you started, yeah. This casting thing has been going, it’s in your blood. I mean, did you, so before that, were there any flight anglers in your family? Chris (6m 21s): Yeah, my mom’s side, both her and her younger brother, my uncle, they grew up with grandpa fishing a lot when they were kids, especially up in southern Oregon on the Rogue River. That was the favorite place of my grandfather’s. And so, you know, we had that, that’s not really why we got into, it’s just, you know, of course we had that great first fishing experience, you know, with the little trout pond where you catch your fish. And then my brother, And I started fishing the local reservoirs up in the hills that Lake Temescal with a club first had its casting activities back to 36. And you know, the crazy thing was that, you know, we used to kind of grab onto the, you know, coattails of the old timers and kinda like, Hey, Mr, what are you doing? Chris (7m 6s): And we’d see these guy casting at rings And. We kind of wanted them to let us try it, you know? Yeah. We didn’t own our own Rod And. we were just like pesty little kids, you know, playing around the park. And there’s a creek that went through there that flew through the trout ponds and, you know, and catching, you know, poly logs and things like that. And, but nonetheless, you know, they kind of gave us the cold shoulder. We were little, but as we were coming out of the creek one day, we had dammed it up, you know, to catch, you know, water skeeters and stuff. And my brother tripped and my older brother Stan, and he tripped on a rod. Somebody had thrown away a little plastic push button, closed face, spinning reel rod. It was all tangled and kind of rusted. Chris (7m 47s): And he goes, wow, look at what I found here. And, you know, it wasn’t castable or anything. And so we took it home. And I, I’ve always been a little bit of a Mr. Fixit kind of, you know, as it’ll come out. I’m kind of an equipment, you know, nerd. And that was the first rod and reel I actually worked on And, I took it all apart, I think I got some oil and stuff, and got off the rust and, and got it apart, cut all the line off. We went and bought a spool, bought some lead sinkers that were way too big. We just thought the bigger the better. Right? And, we go down to the casting ponds, to the trout ponds with this little rod and start slinging lead over the heads of the old guys that didn’t help us. Chris (8m 27s): And then they didn’t have a choice, Dave, you know, we were either gonna kill ’em with a piece of lead or they were gonna have to teach us. And they came over and they said, you can’t do that here. And cut off the lead and gave us a little official practice plug. And so that’s the start. My brother And I sharing a rod and casting at the hoop. So the, the, the rings in the pool with a little official plug. The guys introduced themselves and, and it turned out they were a couple of the best casters at the time. And one of ’em was left-handed, and I’m left-handed, and he became my coach. His name was Tony Perry. Huh. He was one of the top three or four flight casters in the country at the time. And, and that’s how it started on the, on the Oakland side of the bay for us, just going down to the trout ponds and, and sharing this little push button rod. Dave (9m 14s): Wow, that’s amazing. And there’s such, I’m excited about the history ’cause we’re gonna connect to some of the other podcasts we’ve done, like I said, with Tim Dray, Jeff, and hopefully we’ll have Steve on eventually, but I wanna hear about Maxine McCormick because, I mean, I think she was like 12 or 13 when she won her first, you know, whatever event. And to me, that’s amazing because I have a daughter right now that’s 12, and to think that she would be out there competing with, you know, other women, adults and men too. It seems crazy. So talk about that. How did you get to a point where you became the coach of Maxine and how did you take her to winning events at a such a young age? Chris (9m 51s): Well, you know, for me, I was about nine or 10 when the, this whole thing started when I, when we found that Rod. And one thing led to another. And you know, same thing with Steve. He’s about two and a half, three years older than me, Tim’s my age. And so we all grew up about the same age of nine or 10 starting out at the casting clubs. And you know, like anything, it’s magical when you learn early. So I had the benefit of starting very young and being mentored by these great casters and previous champions at both the Oakland Club and later the Golden Gate Club. And so, you know, I really started teaching people when I was 12. You know, my parents were teachers. Chris (10m 31s): So, you know, fast forward, we’ve had many champions, both teammates, you know, that I was able to learn from and coach along the way. And, you know, we’ve had tons of different great casters from the United States, but the San Francisco Bay area and our clubs have pretty much dominated the sport for a hundred years. And so Steve and Tim And, I were blessed. And, you know, about 11 years ago, I got a call from one of our US team members, Donna O. Sullivan, at the Golden Gate Club. I was working in the ski industry in, in Vail, Colorado at the time. And she said, Hey. She goes, you’ve been talking about we need a, a new kid. Chris (11m 12s): And at the club, we hadn’t had a kid in a while. And I was thinking some little Steve Ray, Jeff, or right. A little kid to show up like us. And she says, this little girl showed up today. And, and And I taught her the basic stuff that you teach in the grip and the stance and, and when are you coming back? You know, And I got this excited message. It was actually New Year’s Day of 2013. Oh wow. And I called Donna back and she was really animated and excited about this father and daughter that she met at the club on New Year’s Day. She was just, you know, taking the day off and enjoying herself. And she spotted this little kid and went over and she called me right away. ’cause we had recently been talking about the fact we hadn’t had a kid in a while. And I told her, don’t worry. Chris (11m 52s): I said, when the next kid shows up, I’ll be ready to teach ’em the, the Old Jedi master secrets and we’ll teach all these old timers at the club lesson. And, and, and so I got back, Donna started helping Maxine gave her a few things to just kind of step by step stuff to do to help her. And I flew back a little over a month later from Vail and after all the ski shows and everything, and I met Maxine, we picked a date. I met Maxine and her father, Glenn McCormick, and asked her lots of questions. And she was a very smart young girl. And, and she was into other sports and things. And I used some analogies, asked her about some different things she did, and, you know, gave her first lesson. Chris (12m 34s): And, and by chance we were having a memorial that day at the club. You know, sometimes things are just almost like just chance and special. But Steve came in about, oh, I guess about an hour or so later, his flight was a little late ’cause we had this memorial for one of our members that had passed away. And so I introduced Steve to Maxine and Glenn the father. And then we actually, Steve was like, Hey, why don’t we teach her how to, you know, score the targets and how to play a little game. And, and so we actually, you know, start teaching how to be a judge. And Steve And I did a little head-to-head cast off with one of the fun bigger eight weight games called Basketball, where the fly makes a big, you know, splash, like a popping bug, you know, so it makes a splash and it hits the target. Chris (13m 17s): And so the very first day, within about two hours, not only did Maxine get her first pointers from me, but she was scoring Steve Rage and me, and, and having a good time calling out the scores at nine years old. So, wow. You know, it’s kinda crazy. And I know that dad called me, I guess, you know, the next day or so And, we exchanged numbers and made a date to meet. And he said, God, I didn’t know how to describe it to, you know, my wife, that we went out to this casting pool and it was like, you know, getting lessons from Tiger Woods and, you know, Phil Mickelson or something. It was, you know, Steve And, I were both there, And, we had a good time. And of course, Steve didn’t live in the area, but that was the start. Chris (13m 58s): I started helping Maxine and her father a couple days later. We met on the weekend, and within a short amount of time, Dave, I could see how focused she was. And And I thought, okay, this will be the way to wake everybody up at the clubs and get people to start practicing their casting, you know? Yep. What about you? I mean, you started really young too. Yeah, Dave (14m 18s): I did too. The, the, the interesting thing is, that’s one of my things with the casting. I mean, I can cast a fly rod, but I, so my dad was a guide on the Deschutes and for my whole life. So pretty much, you know, I grew up around the fly shop. And I was same thing when I was 12. I was out on his guide trips, kind of helping new, new guys that didn’t, you know, didn’t, didn’t know how to cast, but I wasn’t an instructor, so I was just out there more helping catch fish or, and doing that stuff. And, I never really took a lesson. That’s my, my still my one downfall. I didn’t, never spent time or paid any money to do that. So I still have lots of struggles. And of course, spay got into that and still struggle with that. But that’s my story. I got started early ’cause of my dad and, but I, I do need, I still need a lesson. Dave (14m 60s): This is a good reminder for everybody. Yeah. Chris (15m 1s): Well, oh, we’ll have to get together and change that. Yeah. Best thing is the future, obviously of the young kids for all of us. You know, I’m 65 now and I’ve been doing this 55 years. So my real focus is, yeah, it’s great to help the, you know, the fellow teammates and the US team getting ready for, to go represent our country and stuff. But, you know, it’s all about improving your fundamentals for fishing and, and the kids of the future. So you can come And, we give you a pointer and you can bring your kids, your daughters daughters too. And, and you know, we can kind of help get them going on the right path. So they don’t, they don’t go as long as you did without 11. Dave (15m 39s): That’s right. Yeah. And I think actually one of them is pretty excited. So I think this will be something we could talk about here. But back to Maxine. So maybe take us back to her first event that she won. How old was she and, and what was that like? Was that a surprise for her? Or did everybody expect, what was the event? Chris (15m 56s): Well, it was, it was good fortune because after meeting her, it was February of 2013 that, you know, I came back and, and met her and her dad Glenn. But five months later we were hosting the National Casting Championships. You know, there’s different casting clubs in the United States, angling and casting clubs like Golden Gate in Oakland, And. we have an American casting association. I’m actually the current president of that. It’s kind of the governing body for the fun sport of casting games. And we were hosting the Oakland Club had bid to host the national championship that August of 2013. So, you know, once we started training, you know, and practicing, Maxine and the dad were just having a great time together. Chris (16m 37s): And, and the father had fly fishing a long time. Glenn had been fishing since a little kid. And he really just was praying that his, you know, his first child, you know, would wanna fish with him and she would go along and play in the rocks and, you know, help net fish and stuff. But she hadn’t learned to cast yet for the most part. So they were just having a wonderful time, you know, learning. And they’re both kind of perfectionists and they’re like, Hey, we wanna cast like Steve and Chris. So that was the start of it. We had a tournament, I think about six weeks after we first started little casting games. And I said, Hey, this is a good way to accelerate your learning. You know, people don’t, a lot of people think of tournament casting. I try not the word tournament. Most, most golfers don’t want an tournament, but they still want to go play games, you know, and they wanna bet and this and that. Chris (17m 22s): And, you know, the same thing, If, you know, the casting games are, the sport has different games to challenge you with different types of fishing tackles. So like trout fly accuracy or big fly accuracy, you know, with a, with a bigger fly and bigger outfit. And so the games was there just to work on the fundamentals of your casting. So I said, Hey look, let’s play these little games and you know, we’ll have you enter one of these little casting, you know, games or tournaments. And, and so that was about a month later. She had a great time. So they started training, even though at first they were a little reluctant. I said, Hey, you know, we’re gonna have this national championship. You know, Maxine could be the youngest fly caster, you know, she was still gonna be nine. Chris (18m 3s): I said, she could be the youngest fly caster we’ve ever had at a national, most kids start with spinning tackle and bay casting stuff. So, but she wanted to learn how to fly cast ’cause that’s what her dad was doing. So they both competed five months later in the national championship that we were hosting. And Maxine was in the junior division, but everyone took notice ’cause she was already, you know, casting, you know, with some proficiency and throwing nice loops and just this little tiny, at that time she was probably 68 pounds or something. And. we have a lot of photographs of it. And everybody was watching and it’s like, how in the heck is this little girl doing this? You know? Yeah. Chris (18m 43s): But they really got into it. I was practicing with him, you know, that summer leading up to the tournament, probably four days a week. And I, I don’t know if it was Maxina, the father Glen that, that, you know, that wanted to do it more. But Glen was, father Glen actually got out west. ’cause he played in the farm system for the Oakland A. He’s a great athlete. Big tall guy, six foot four. And he’d injured himself and didn’t make it to the majors, but baseball was his sport. And I grew up with baseball. So it was just something that was competitive and fun. And, you know, they were going fishing on weekends and, and if they weren’t away fishing and, and Northern California, they were at the casting club and, and they just got ready and they had a great experience. Chris (19m 25s): Maxine cast really good. So did Glen. And that kind of started it. And a year later we went to the national that was hosted in Tennessee by Angling Club out there. And Maxine outscored every, even though she was still in the junior division, she outscored every woman at the tournament. Hmm. And people were just shocked, you know, a year later how much progress she had made. And her dad did really well, you know, just for one year of experience. He did fantastic as well. And that’s what kind of got it going. You know, we took this trip and had a good time. The next year, the tournament at 11, Maxine went down, they competed at Long Beach. Chris (20m 7s): We have a great sister casting club in Long Beach, California. Long Beach Casting Club. And she not only beat every woman there, she beat everyone in the country except Steve and myself. And her father beat her by one point, and she made the All American team, you have to make top five in the country. And her dad got third and she got fourth, you know, and she was, you know, all of 11 years old. And that’s what kind of started all the media. The Chronicle, Cisco, Tom Steiner did a big article about this little kid beating everyone in the country except her father. And, and Steve and Chris. Chris (20m 47s): And, and the press started to take notice. And, you know, next thing you know, we’re getting, you know, interviews with Gink and Gasoline and Break Magazine and this and that. And, you know, so at 11 is when things really started to kind of hit, and social media people started to kind of follow the scores. Donna was only Donna who first met Maxine. She was always posting results on how Maxine was doing, you know, from nine to 11. But I handed Maxine the results to the world championships that took place. And I said, Hey, look, you know, in 2010, And I showed her the results and she did the math. And the games are a little different. And there’s a game in the World championship called Trout Accuracy. Chris (21m 29s): It’s at slightly different targets and different scoring. But about three days after I gave her the, the results and she looked at the scores and stuff, she went to her dad and said, Hey, I, I want to go to Norway, And I wanna try to beat those women. Hmm. You know, I said, Maxine’s a very competitive, you know Yeah. Young woman and at that time a young girl. And more than anything, she just can’t stand failing or losing. Huh. She gets that a lot from dad and mom. And so anyway, after she made the All American team and got fourth in the country that year, that was 2015 down, down in Long Beach, she said she wanted to go And I said, well, look, I said, you know, the world championship’s a lot of pressure and you’ll be competing against, you know, the best women in the world. Chris (22m 11s): There’s no junior division. So if we’re gonna do this, you know, we have to put a schedule together and, and work hard at it. ’cause I know you hate losing kid. And, and so we trained really, really hard that whole year. And as she was growing, you know, she was probably up to 85 pounds at that time. And by the time we got ready for the tournament a year later, she was all of like 99 pounds and five foot nothing. Dave. Yeah. We went over to Estonia. The, the Estonia Casting Federation was hosting the World Fly Casting Championships. And we traveled to Estonia, made a nice trip out of it, did some sightseeing and stuff, father and, and, and daughter Donna was there joining us on the team. Chris (22m 54s): And so the four of us went over there and Maxine slayed everybody in the world. She beat both the father and Maxine outscored everyone in the qualifying round. And at four o’clock in the afternoon when the finals came up, you have to make finals like track and field. Oh yeah. You know, top eight people make finals. And they were casting at the same time, both for the world title. I had already previously cast, and Maxine won the women’s division, shot the highest score, and I ended up shooting the highest score in the men’s father Glenn got the bronze medal. And so it was just a great start. But a 12-year-old becoming the youngest world champion in the history of any sport. Chris (23m 38s): And it was, everyone there knew it was something special and, and it’s just kind of exploded since then, you know. But she just, and the cool thing, something we want to get into, I mentioned the other day to you talking about the show, is I think people don’t realize, you know, they hear about tournament casting and people know about Steve and Tim and myself and, and then Maxine being the, the, you know, the latest champion we have. But like, how can this happen? You know? Yeah. How can a little tiny kid go in, in two and a half years and Outscore, you know, Paul Arden of Sexy Loops, right? And all these other casters that are fishing guides and, you know, big powerful people and very experienced women fly fishers and stuff. Chris (24m 22s): And, and how is it that’s, you know, not only could, you know, we do well as kids and then, you know, 50 years later a little tiny girl does it. And common denominator really is the equipment, the equipment that we learned with as kids, the Rage Up Brothers, And, I. We were really blessed. And that’s something we can chat about. Yeah. Because I think this is something that’s really holding people back today. And what about you? What are your experiences with different types of rods and Yeah, your first rods and equipment and stuff? Dave (24m 56s): I’m really excited to hear, have this conversation because I love that. I mean, obviously Maxine was a superstar. I mean, she, it reminds me of all the, you, you name the person Michael Jordan, you know, Kobe, probably any of the greatest of the sports were those you always Tiger Woods, right. Before he could walk or whatever, you know, Maxine was kind of in that range, right. And, and blew things out. So, and she had that work ethic, which is cool. But for me it was, you know, same thing, like a lot of people, you know, nine foot five weight. I mean, I still have one of the first steelhead rods my dad gave me here, lamb of glass. But it was pretty standard stuff. You know, just whatever Rod you would get off the, you know, off the shelf. Temple Fork Outfitters. And, and that was it. Just so you know, I started If you think about it, I am probably, let’s say probably in the mid eighties I was out there, so whatever the rods were then Chris (25m 44s): Yeah. Early generation, you know, mid eighties is like, or when second generation graphite was out, IM six graphite. And so the graphite was just starting to get lighter, right? As Tim talked about, you know, Jimmy Green, a a lot of this equipment stuff goes back to the great tackle designers and tackle tinkers at the Golden Gate in Oakland clubs. Jimmy Green, who many people know, as you know, he’s passed now back in 2006. But Jim was the first kinda world fly casting champion, amateur champion that went overseas and won big. He, he started at the Oakland Club in 1936 and started casting. Chris (26m 28s): And then he was discovered actually by a guy, a, a champion flight distance caster from the Portland area, from the Portland Club that used to exist. And Marvin Hedge, he had, he had set a new flight distance record. So there’s a lot of champions from the Portland area, actually. Dave (26m 46s): Yeah. Where was that Portland Club? Where, where was the actual casting? The ponds? Chris (26m 50s): Yeah, the ponds are actually built here in 1936. They’re located in Westmoreland Park, which is kind of just on the east side of the river, little south of the city, Southeast suburb. And Westmoreland’s a beautiful park. And back in the thirties, you know, with the Depression, they were trying to create jobs and the, the club, the Portland Casting Club, and they had a women’s club. They applied for the WPA grants that were building a lot of things to create jobs. Members of the Portland Club actually dug this massive pool, you know, they, they got, you know, paid to do it. Chris (27m 31s): And Marvin Hedge had set this flight distance record in 1934. So they kind of used that, Hey, we got this, you know, world record holder here, we need a casting pool. And this Westmoreland Park was just being built. So the casting pool is actually the centerpiece of the whole park. There’s, there’s baseball diamonds and Maxine’s brother plays Little League Baseball over there now. ’cause they bought a home five minutes away from that casting when they moved up from San Francisco. Relocated. But, you know, Westmoreland casting pool is, you know, right here it’s twice the size of Golden Gate. And, you know, you’ve been to Golden Gate, which is like the size of a football field. Yeah. With casting. And the pool here in Portland is actually like two football fields side by side. Chris (28m 14s): It’s gigantic. But the club died out in the sixties. The old clubhouse is sitting there. The city just uses it for tools and things and you know, it, it kind of needs to be revitalized and the pool needs some work, but it’s still a beautiful place. And, you know, it won’t be long with me just moving up here, you know, probably next spring when they clean the pool, they drain it for the winter. But when they clean it and stuff, we’ll, we’ll get targets out there. Oh, nice. And we’ve done training out there. And And I surely, you know, could see, you know, a youth program going again and, and, and getting local kids, you know, exposed to, to fishing and, and learning how to use their tackle. Dave (28m 53s): Grand Teton fly fishing is a premier guide service and fly shop that has access to some of the most coveted rivers and lakes in Western Wyoming. Their simple goal is to share their valued resource and have you experience a native cutthroat trout rising to a single dry fly in the shadows of the Tetons. You can check out Grand Teton right now at Grand teton fly fishing dot com. Let them know you heard of them through this podcast. Discover Smitty’s Fly Box for premium flies. Their monthly subscription service delivers expertly crafted flies and materials tailored to your fishing environment, boasting over 30 years of experience. Smitty’s is your trusted source for a diverse range of flies. Enhance your fishering experience and make life easier with their carefully created selections. Dave (29m 38s): You can subscribe right now at smitty’s fly box.com and join a community of passionate anglers. Well, going back to the equipment or staying on the equipment. So on Maxine, so what was it, what did you, what did that first year look like? What were the things she was doing to get ready to win this thing? Like what maybe some tips that people can think about And, I know, there’s probably some stuff people at home could maybe do, but what, what would you tell somebody who’s listening now and they wanna get better at their casting? Chris (30m 6s): Well, obviously the key is getting out, you know, as Tim says, away from fish and practicing. And of course when you have, you know, casting facility in your backyard two blocks away, or you know, a quarter mile away like myself and Lares had, you know, that’s a real blessing. But of course you can go out on a grass field. There’s plenty of soccer fields and parks around and there’s bodies of water and some people have access to swimming pools and things like that. It’s obviously best to get on the water when you can. But, you know, on the equipment side of things, you, you mentioned the nine foot five weight, you know, as one of your first rods and stuff. And Yeah. Chris (30m 46s): That’s kind of become, you know, over the last 40 years, the, you know, as soon as Rods started getting lighter, that became the, you know, defacto starting trout rod. And how many do you own Dave? Dave (30m 57s): Oh my God, I’ve got a lot. I’ve, I’ve had to put, make an effort to get, you know, over years. Did not get more knife at five weights. But yeah, I have more of those than probably anything else. Chris (31m 5s): Yeah, exactly. So it’s kinda like, you know, the golfer that’s searching for the magical putter that’s gonna help their putting and you know, and it’s not to knock any of the companies ’cause there’s a lot of wonderful rods out there, but you know, that’s not what most people learned on in the old days. You know, And we learned on bamboo and fiberglass rods and of course you’ve had a lot of shows. We’ve started to talk about fiberglass and fiberglass back. And so really that’s the common denominator is the Ray Jeffs and myself and, and everyone before us, you know, from when we started late sixties, early seventies, it really wasn’t a magical time in equipment. Chris (31m 47s): People don’t realize that the, the, the, the great bamboo rods and of course the fiberglass rods that really took off in the, in the fifties and the sixties before we introduced this graphite. And Jimmy Green was a big part of this Jimmy, this famous Astor from the Oakland Club, he went on to become the Fenwick rod designer starting in around 1960. And he was working down in southern California. They moved production down from Woodland, Washington down there. ’cause he was living by the Long Beach Casting Club. And he started working on, you know, these great affordable fiberglass rods. And he developed the feral system, you know, the tip over butt ferals that were patented by Fenwick. Chris (32m 32s): And a lot of people don’t know, like, you know, the Fenwick Rod company, when it was eventually sold off and stuff, they built a factory up in Bainbridge Island. And the sage factory is the old Fenwick factory. Oh wow. Steve And I used to go as kids crazy. The sage was started by Don Green, but Don was actually the blank manufacturer. Don had a company called Grizzly Rod Company, or blank company. He made tubular rods, fiberglass rods in the late fifties and sixties. And so Fenwick bought these blanks and they eventually, you know, brought Don into the company. They bought out Grizzly and you know, Fenwick kind of ruled the world, you know, in, in fishing with fiberglass rods in the sixties and early seventies. Chris (33m 17s): And then Jimmy started tinkering around with graphite in about 72, 73. And he launched, he was sending prototypes down to the casting club to his old casting mate, which was our coach, Phil Marelli, famous member at Golden Gate. You, you would’ve seen his picture up on the wall in the clubhouse. And you know, Jim and, and Phil developed a lot of things in the history of club. The, the shooting head with monofilament behind it was something that they came up with back in the forties. And, but Jim was the constant tinker and, and he would feed rods down to the club. And, and so he sent this first graphite rod down to Phil, his old buddy, and wanted, you know, Phil to have Steve try it and so forth. Chris (34m 4s): And then of course Steve let you know myself, Tim, try it. And, and so the first graphite rod actually came to the Golden Gate Club. And, but these fiberglass rods just before that were really magical. Mm. And you know, a lot of people think of, you know, bamboo and fiberglass as being slow action rods, you know, the old ones are really soft rods and And I almost. If there’s anything we can do on this podcast, it’s to strike that word from our vocabulary, you know, slow. ’cause people think, God, I cast too slow already. And I can’t get a good loop. And I don’t wanna slow rod. But actually what we’re talking about are full action, full flexing rods where you can feel the line extremely well. Chris (34m 45s): And that’s the key is feel. So back to Maxine, you know, early on, you know, I, I worked on our equipment, of course had the sand, all the handles down ’cause she was so small and tiny. And her dad did have a graphite rod for her. He had bought a bunch of rods for a kids summer program. He put together And I actually went through all of ’em and picked out the best one. It was one of the little, one of the little youth rods. But then very quickly I got Maxine on first generation, very full flexing graphite rods that we had come out with in the seventies and eighties. In fact, Maxine won that first world title and has won the casting since with old rods that we designed all the way back in the Fenwick days. Chris (35m 31s): And they’re shorter. Her, her rod that she had grown to was an eight and a half foot fly rod with a, a mandated five weight line. And Maxine and, and myself and her father were the only ones using shorter rods at that world, that first world championship, eight and a half foot rods. And it gave us a big advantage in the wind and their full flexing rods. So it gives us exquisite feel. And this is the key If, you can’t feel what you’re doing when you learn and, you know, think of anything you humans learn. I mean yeah, Dave (36m 6s): Like baseball hitting a golf ball or a baseball. Chris (36m 8s): Yeah. I mean, do we learn to walk fast? Let’s think about fast action rods and high modulus rods that everybody has sold today. You know, when they’re starting out. I mean, we don’t learn to walk fast. We don’t talk fast. You know, even though I’m talking fast now, we don’t draw fast. You know, everything we learn, we learn slowly if we’re gonna learn well, and yet we put people on rods that are so light and have so little feel when you’re first learning. And with a very short cast, they require a very short casting stroke And. we don’t learn any sport or any human activity like this. And yet everyone needs a high modulus fast action rod. Chris (36m 51s): I say wrong. Right. And you know, this is the problem. And it’s not to knock these rods. ’cause once you learn how to cast, you know, when you’re casting in really windy conditions, and when I’m out salt fishing and you got a 30 knot wind and you’re throwing eight weights, 10 weights, 12 weights, yeah. I, I want a, a lighter skinnier graphite rod to be able to deal with those wind conditions. But I don’t need that necessarily for trout fishing. Right. So basically it’s these full flexing full action rods that I was able to get Maxine and Father Glenn onto, just like Steve and Tim And, I learned with, and literally, you know, rods back to the sixties. Chris (37m 32s): In fact, the whole US team, we train on full action rods in shorter lengths and then we build up from there. Really? Dave (37m 42s): Can you get a, I mean, like now if somebody wanted to get a full action rod, where would they go to find one, Chris (37m 47s): Find? Well, you know, there’s more fiberglass rods and shorter rods becoming available. It’s just starting to happen. You know, like of course you know Tim. Yeah. Dave (37m 57s): Badass glass, right? Chris (37m 58s): Yeah, that’s right. Other companies, the badass glass that was actually, he came out with those at first, at nine feet. We were testing those in San Francisco and, and we’re actually cleaning out the parents’ home. And we were talking about it one day, And I said, Hey look, I said you And I can cast these nine foot rods, but like, we need shorter rods. You know, we need, like, we gotta get this thing shorter so that the average guy can move it through the air, especially salt water fishing. And that’s why he came out and he started tinkering around and, and shortening him a whole foot to the eight foot badass rods. In fact, that was the first weekend that he had watched little Maxine casting, which she was about 10. And he was just like, what the heck, man, this kid is doing great. Chris (38m 38s): And of course you saw her using these old shorter rods and later on that day we’re working on the parents’ home cleaning it out and talking about how we need shorter rods. So, you know, Tim is, and and the guys at Echo are working on it. You’ve got, you know, company like, you know, Scott, you know, Winston and Scott were both from San Francisco as kids. We, Steve And I used to go to the Winston, you know, factory down on Third Avenue and turn our handles down on our rods. And, you know, it was, it was owned by one of our famous members at the club before it was moved to Montana. People don’t realize a lot of the tackle evolved right outta San Francisco, you know, with Winston. And, and then later on Scott. Chris (39m 19s): But like Scott has some, you know, shorter rods today they make, in the trout series, they have eight foot four inch lengths and eight foot eight inch lengths. So it’s a combination of shorter levers, you know, kind of proportionate to your body size Dave (39m 34s): And full flex rods and full action. Yep. So you can feel it, you can feel the, the cast in the, almost in the handle, right? Is that kind of the idea? Chris (39m 42s): You have to feel the fly line. Yeah, the fly line’s at the end of the rod. And it’s kinda like, think about it in terms of rod length and faster action rods, these act like much, you know, stiffer longer levers. So if you’re learning an exercise at the gym, I’m gonna teach you a new workout exercise and I’m gonna hand you, you know, a 10 pound or 15 pound dumbbell to get the feel of the stroke of the actual exercise you’re doing. And you, you don’t hand somebody a 50 pound dumbbell when they’re trying to learn something new. And to a certain extent, you know, putting people on longer, stiffer, faster action rods that are very light where they can’t feel things, this is like handing somebody a dumbbell that’s, you know. Dave (40m 27s): Yeah. It’s so cool because I mean, I’ve done some things, you know, like with, I mentioned my daughters, I got them a fiberglass rod I think, can’t remember who recommended it, but I got ’em a couple of short rods. I think one might even be a seven and a half footer. I can’t remember off the look. But they’re super short. They’re super like, so now if somebody wanted to get one, can you, do you pretty much have to get a fiberglass rod or are there any graphite rods out? Or would you even want a graphite rod that’s like full flex? Chris (40m 49s): Well, there are some, you know, fuller action, shorter length rods out there now. Like TFO kind of worked with them a little bit on a, on on some social media and podcasts as we started teaching with those. Tim has his, you know, echo gecko rod for the kids. That’s shorter with a small handle. You know, the handle size is really important too for little people. You know, we hand ’em a rod with a big handle and this is just really tiring. And so all the way along with Maxine, I was constantly, you know, customizing the handles and as she grew, you know, her handles grew obviously, but you know, you’ve got the TFO has the little bug launcher series that are $99. Chris (41m 31s): They make that in a seven foot length and an eight foot length. Redington has not only their kids rod, but they have a series called the classic trout rods that are eight and a half. They make ’em in different lengths, but they do offer ’em an eight and a half foot lengths. Yep. Use When Dave (41m 48s): Would you get a, when would you get a seven foot length say that bug launcher versus an eight foot or eight and a half? Chris (41m 54s): Yeah. For the little tiny kids, we start out the little seven eight year olds. We do teach ’em fly casting. We use these little seven foot bug launchers or echo geckos that are like seven foot nine. Of course these are, these are graphite rods or combination graphite and glass rods and they’re less expensive. But, but we definitely need, you know, if there’s any challenge I wanna put out there, you know, with this podcast to the industry, especially now that I’m kind of, you know, resettled and semi-retired is, I think that this is an opportunity. Everybody’s got four or five, nine foot five weights. Yeah. And yet I stick a eight foot four inch or eight foot six inch rod in somebody’s hand. Chris (42m 35s): And And I don’t even tell them that it’s a shorter rod and especially if it’s a, a fuller action rod and they go, they get the three letter word. Yep. They feel what they’re doing and then they get a wow, you know? Right. And, and it’s a universal thing. They go, wow, wow, this rod, I can really feel the line. They almost can’t describe it except they go, wow, geez. That’s huge. Yeah. And you know, all you have to do as an example, maybe I think just before the pandemic, we had a new group of women fly casters at the club and they asked me to do a, a, a little session with ’em. There was 22 of them, And I went And I set up off to the side a seven and a half foot and eight foot fiberglass rod. Chris (43m 20s): Actually some older fenwicks from the sixties. Some real magical rods like Steve And I learned with and set up a couple of eight foot and eight and a half foot first generation graphite rods, which are also stretchier and more flexible, you know, from the seventies and eighties. And I said, here’s the deal, we’re gonna go watch you all cast and we’re gonna go over a few things, but I want you all to cycle through these four stations. And, I want you to try this, these seven and a half and eight foot rods and eight and a half foot rods. And they all tried it. And in fact all 22 women, when we were done, I took a little pull. I said, okay, what was your favorite rod that you cast today or that you tried? Chris (44m 2s): And 22 out of 22 women chose the seven and a half foot fiberglass rod. Wow. Now how can that be If? you know, they’ve been indoctrinated to buy a nine foot five weight or some package rod or something, but 22 outta 22 women go, wow. You know, it was just, you could really feel the line. And I could roll cast. There’s the other question, like think about it, you know, you’ve role cast before Oh Dave (44m 24s): Yeah. Love role casting Chris (44m 25s): And you know, Tim and myself, if there’s anything we do when we’re starting people out is just have ’em work on the fundamental roll cast. Of course it’s, you know, you kind of need to be on it’s best to be on water, but you can anchor your fly. There’s things you can do on grass. But you know, I, I remember once somebody was kind of arguing with me, I was talking about softer, fuller rods, And, we really need to, I was talking to a fellow instructor at a industry show, I think it was the Pleasanton show in fact. And he was kind of standing firm ’cause he was so proud about his a thousand dollars nine foot five way Rod And I said, well, I have a question for you. You know, what percentage of casting instructors in America would say that the role cast as an important cast to learn? Chris (45m 9s): And he says, well, everybody, I mean a hundred percent And I said, well, maybe it wouldn’t be a hundred percent. Some people would maybe argue. I said, but yeah, probably be 95% of the people would say roll cast is important. Right. For getting your line straight and being, you know, look at, look at spa casting today. Right? Yeah. Change of direction roll casting. Right, right. And I said. All right. So if roll casting is so important, And, we all agree that teaching the roll cast is one of the best ways to teach people good mechanics and good stance, good grip. Why are we selling them rods that don’t bend and don’t roll cast well at all? See most of these faster action rods don’t feel good when you try to roll cast and they don’t roll cast well at all. Dave (45m 53s): Right. And, and is it true that, and I’ve talked about this, it might have been with with Tim, but I mentioned that lamb aass I had in my dad’s old lamb of glass probably got in the eighties sometimes super flexy. You remember that one? Yeah. Yeah. That was a great, I mean it’s probably the, the most full flex rod I have And I love casting sinking lines with it. You would think that’s counterintuitive. You would think that exactly a fast action would be better. But this is it true that the slow or not slow, sorry, don’t say slow. The, the full flex rods are better at casting, sinking and weighted stuff. Chris (46m 21s): Yeah. I mean I don’t have this rod in front of me obviously to feel, but I know the lamb mcass rods from the past pretty well. Yeah. And you know, in fact Gary Loomis, who, who started, you know, g Loomis that Steve designed at for 40 years, you know, Gary actually was the rod designer at Lamb Mcass when we first Gary, he was working for lamb aas. And so he worked on a lot of those rods. Gary’s a great fisherman and wasn’t as much into fly fishing when we first met him back in the seventies. We were doing shows, the first fly shows ISE shows. Yeah. But you know, probably if, especially when you talk about how much you like this rod getting a sinking line out of the water, the great full action rods are actually firm tip soft butt rods. Dave (47m 7s): Oh, right. Chris (47m 8s): In fact, in the old days, in bamboo days, the famous bamboo rods that really took over in the, in the late twenties, thirties and forties, where the ec Powell rods from Northern California Marysville and also the Winston Rods from San Francisco, those were the bamboo rods that were in favor. Ec Powell had three different tapers he described in his rods when he was describing action where the rod bends and the A taper was a super fast action rod, even in bamboo, you know, they did make fast action rods back in the day. So it was, and he described it as a, a tip bending or a tip resisting If. Chris (47m 52s): you wanted to talk about the tip being firm. You would say it was a tip resisting rod. Right. Or a firm tip rod. So the A rod was a fast action rod. The C Taper was a firm tip soft butt rod. And he made it in particular for throwing big flies and, you know, steelhead fishermen Yeah. In the Northwest and British Columbia. And to get big lines and big flies out of the water and change direction. And you see, when you have a soft fast action rod, you don’t have good control getting a line out of the water, a sinking line, roll casting, changing direction. Chris (48m 33s): You want a firmer tip rod that bends more completely full down into the butt. So it’s kinda like an sea pal, sea taper, you know? Yeah. Dave (48m 42s): That is the rod. It’s a steelhead rod. Chris (48m 45s): So that’s what you’ve got is you have a, an old school firmer tip, softer, fuller action rod, and you can feel what you’re doing. But the firm tip allows you to get that sinking line up out of the water and change direction. Dave (48m 58s): So, cool. I also got a really cool, this is a, I’ve got an old rod, my dad used to make custom rods. And I. I, I’d love to, I, when I, when we meet, I’ll bring this up to you, you can take a look at it, but it’s a custom rod that a friend, actually Dick Sra from TFO, he’s such a cool guy. Dick came up to me and he said, Hey, he said, Hey Dave, I got something for you because my dad, you know, has been struggling with some stuff lately. And, and he broke out this rod old aluminum rod case. And it was one my dad, he said, you should have this rod. This is not. Wow. And so I have a custom rod And I. Don’t even have a, that’s actually the only custom rod I’ve ever had that my dad made. So it’s kind of cool. But I’m interested to hear with you, like, I’m sure it’s probably that old school style of, of action. I’ll bet. Dave (49m 37s): But does that also work for trout, does, does the slower action, like you said, the stiff tip, slow butt, is that better for casting like sink, like weighted stuff and all that, the sink split shot? Chris (49m 47s): Absolutely. You hit it right ahead. You know, another thing with these very light modern rods, and again, once you learn how to cast, you can cast anything. Right. And there is an advantage when it’s super windy. There are times when having a, you know, a low profile ultralight rod makes sense. Obviously, as Tim described when he was going over expensive rods and different price point rods that echo does, you know, the higher modulus material you use, the more suspect these rods are to potentially breaking If. You’re not careful or you whack ’em with your fly or whatever, you know, when you’re out salt water fishing or throwing a big stone fly or something. But in addition to the action of the rod and the length of the rod being so important so that you have good feel, it’s also the balance of the rod, especially in trout tackle lighter tackle, like, you know, five weights, 4, 5, 6 weights. Chris (50m 37s): And you know, a good way to describe it, you know, is that of course we have these beautiful reels today and reels are starting to get lighter. But as rods were getting a lot lighter in the late eighties and nineties when graphite three and then graphite four came out, like right when the river runs through, it came out, say with their super light rod, the first $600 rod. I think it was the SP at the time. And you know, before some of their later, later stuff. And you know, the rods got lighter and lighter, especially in the tip. And you know, to give you a comparison, like a fiberglass eight and a half foot fiberglass rod that we do extensive training with, you know, from back in the sixties, like Steve and Tim And, I learned with the, the top half of the rod weighs about 20, 22 grams for the weight of the rod. Chris (51m 27s): And then you get one of these modern super lightweight rods and the tip might only weigh 11 grams, you know, half the weight. And yet we have these beautiful reels that were evolving and the, you know, machine shot people making, you know, nicer and nicer reels outta solid stock aluminum and stuff. And so reels actually were too heavy. Rods were getting lighter upstairs. And yet the reels, you know, were getting heavier and you know, with fancy drags and stuff versus old click and Paul reels like old hardy’s and lighter reels that. And so that just takes away the feel even more because if the rod is, I balanced, especially a trot rod a little bit on the top heavy side, you know, with a lighter reel, again, you can’t, it’s like a phone call. Chris (52m 13s): You know, hopefully the phone today and our reception, you know, on sound is good. But you know, If, you don’t have five bars of reception with your fly line. You can’t talk to it. You can’t feel what you’re doing. And so we went through a period, it’s getting a little better now ’cause there’s more and more light reel options, but where a lot of people are still using reels that are way too heavy for the super lightweight tip rods they have. And then I put a seven and a half foot, or an eight foot rod or a rod that’s balanced with a lighter reel and immediately they can feel the fly line and they’re like, wow, here, here’s that four letter word. You know, the feel gives them the wow. Dave (52m 53s): Every angler knows the importance of impeccable gear. Jackson Hole Flight Company’s Fly rod combo kits are a culmination of passion, persistence, and craftsmanship. Handpicked and curated with care. Each kid is designed to provide an unparalleled fly fishing experience from the novice setting their eyes on the water for the first time with our beginner friendly Crystal Creek combo to the all-inclusive Flat Creek kit. Designed for season pros adventures. The lightweight Fall Creek combo ensures you carry your passion on every backpacking journey stream your enthusiast, let the White River kit capture your imagination, precision and accuracy are non-negotiable for you. The Missouri River combo won’t disappoint. Dave (53m 33s): Heed the call of the salmon with the Kenai River combo or explore vast salts with the Tarpon Alley kit. And for those who find joy in every faucet of sports, there’s always a kit tailored to your unique fishing style. Discover your perfect ensemble at Jackson hole fly company.com. I want to talk a little bit and pick your brain on the Euro nipping rods in a sec here. But I also wanna get people we’re kinda moving along here, get people to stand up. I know. Do you have some exercise that people listening out are probably sitting, maybe they’re in their car, but maybe for those that could get up, do you have some exercises maybe people can do that will help them with fly casting or anything like that? Chris (54m 10s): Well, let’s do something fun right now. ’cause since we’re talking about feel so much and the importance of feel when you’re learning in anything, I got a question for you. I think you probably own a butter knife, right? Yes. Do you have access to one right now? Dave (54m 25s): I could go find one, but yeah. Chris (54m 27s): Okay. I want you to go to your kitchen and grab a butter knife. And If, you got a spatula, a big spatula there. I want you to grab a, I want everybody on this podcast to go grab a butter knife. The biggest handle butter knife they have, not a steak knife where they’re gonna cut their hand, but a butter knife. And if they got a big spatula with a big top to it, I want you to grab that. I got a butter knife and a spatula right in front of me, Dave. Dave (54m 51s): Yeah. Perfect. Got it. So I got the butter knife, I got the, the spatula. Chris (54m 55s): All right, so let’s assume that a good percentage of the this is, this is the little challenge for the podcast, for all the people that wanna improve their fly casting and learn a little bit about their equipment and that maybe their equipment is, isn’t helping them as much as they think, right? Yep. So I want you to grab the butter knife, just like you know the handle of the butter knife. Just like a fly rod. Pretend it’s your handle. Yep. Go ahead and stand up. Let’s get a little, little motion in our bodies here. And I want you just to pretend like you’re making a 35 foot cast, a little trout cast, you know, with your five weight And I literally want you to pan aime. You don’t have a fly line on the end of this butter knife, but I want you to pan aime and make you know, back cast strokes and forward strokes, however you cast Dave. Chris (55m 38s): Yep. And as you do this, I want you to really emphasize the stop of the rod. You know, you’ve talked a lot with people about casting with Bill GA and the five essentials and stuff. And of course stopping the rod is something great casters do better than so-so casters, right? Yep. But when you’re making this casting stroke back cast forward cast, you know, each stroke’s about a half a second. I got a question for you. With this butter knife, you’re holding the handle, right? Yep. Does it feel like a fly rod or does it feel like a fly cast? Can you even feel anything on the end of this butter knife? Dave (56m 11s): Not really. It’s just a stiff butter knife. Chris (56m 14s): Yeah, exactly right. It’s not bending, it’s stiff and you’re holding onto the handle and you don’t really feel the fly line on the end of the rod. All right. All right, Dave, so I want you to take the butter knife and turn it around. I want you to carefully grab the blade of the butter knife as far on the end as you can so that the handle’s extended out in front of you. Okay? And I want you to close your eyes. And I want you to make the same 35 foot casting stroke and be real relaxed in your hand. And when you stop the rod, can you feel kind of a thunk feeling? Oh Dave (56m 50s): Yeah. Big time. Totally different. Chris (56m 52s): You feel that? Yep. Right. So all of a sudden you can feel the top of the fly rod, in this case, the heavy part of the handle of the butter knife, right? I hope you’re not cutting your hand here, but everybody’s casting and If you close your eyes especially so you can really concentrate on the feel when you stop the rod. You can feel the handle of the butter knife kind of shudder to a stop, right? Yep. Okay. That’s because we’ve got some mass out at the end of this fly rod, this butter knife fly rod and If, you turn it right back around and grab onto the handle and make the same stroke. Chris (57m 32s): Where’d the fly line go? Do you feel the stop anymore? Nope. Dave (57m 35s): No. You lose it. Yeah, Chris (57m 36s): It disappeared. Right? Dave (57m 38s): And the other one, it wants to, you know, the other one, it wants to shoot out. You could feel it wanting to go. This one you, you have to really struggle to do any Yeah. To get anything. Chris (57m 45s): Yeah, exactly. Like If, you make a stroke with the butter knife upside down and you’re holding the blade when you come forward and stop. It almost feels like the butter knife wants to fly outta your hand. Exactly. Aha. So let’s grab it again by the handle. When you have this feeling like you can’t feel anything on the end of the rod, that’s your thousand dollar ultra light, ultra skinny, stiff, fast action modern fly rod. And I’m supposed to ask you to learn how to fly cast when you can’t feel anything on the end of the rod. Dave (58m 22s): Right? Chris (58m 24s): And I’m trying to get you to stop the rod and you can’t even feel where you’re stopping it. Keep casting Dave. Dave (58m 29s): No, no, you can’t. Chris (58m 31s): All right, so turn the butter knife around. And now what you’re feeling is what little Steve Ray, Jeff and little Timmy Ray Jeff and 10-year-old Chris Corch, and 50 years later, little 65 pound Maxine McCormick. Got to feel. Yep. We had fiberglass rods and early graphite rods that had more weight out at the end of the rod. You know, more tip weight or top half weight. We happened to just be lucky that we had reels with these heavier rods that balanced ’em like the old fiberglass rods with fluer medalist reels, you know? Chris (59m 12s): Oh yeah. And it was just chance, the story here is that, you know, people have asked me for years, how is it that you know Steve and Tim and you and all these casters from Golden Gate, you know, are so good, and how did you guys get so good? And how can we be 65 years old, you know, six, I think Steve’s about to turn 68 in a in a few days. How in the heck are we still outcasting people? And I’m telling you, the story is not a story, it’s history. The great rods, the bamboo and fiberglass rods, and even the early graphite rods that we got to help, you know, put our input with Jimmy Green at Fenwick. Chris (59m 53s): These rods were balanced. You had more masks in the tip. The tips were firmer in most cases, And. we used smaller, lighter reels as the rods got lighter. Like we used our, our super small diameter like Hardy lightweights and Hardy Perfects and you know, the lightweight series of reels and other reels like it. And you know, when graphite started to evolve and higher modulus, graphite came out for the aerospace industry, sage and other companies all started saying, Hey, you know, faster, lighter, it’s like the nuclear arms race. And for 45 years, almost 50 years now, we’ve been actually, you know, while it’s a great tool for certain things, for teaching people how to cast and for people to work on their mechanics, we’ve been doing the wrong thing. Chris (1h 0m 43s): I’m sorry to say. Dave (1h 0m 44s): Wow. How is it that with everybody, you know, you’ve got, you guys FI mean there’s lots of people teaching this. Do you feel like people are just missing this? Do they know? Do they not know? Why does not, why doesn’t everybody start out with an eight foot like we’re talking about here? Chris (1h 0m 59s): Well, you know, I think it’s starting very slowly to change, at least it is at the Oakland Club and the Golden Gate Club. Because obviously they’ve had the benefit of me harping on ’em, you know, for the last, you know, 11 years. And really the sledgehammer was Maxine and her father, when they came along, I thought to myself, Hey, here’s a golden opportunity to wake everybody up and show them that what happened 50 years ago with a couple of kids in San Francisco and another little upshoot kid from Oakland, that it can happen again. And it really has never stopped happening. It’s just that, you know, industries get going in certain directions. Chris (1h 1m 43s): You know, I, I don’t what other sports you do, do you ski or anything else? I, Dave (1h 1m 46s): I’ve skied snowboarded, you know, but basketball and baseball were kinda my big sports back in the day. Chris (1h 1m 52s): Yeah, exactly. So, you know, skiing, I had mentioned skiing earlier. And I think Tim talked about a little bit. ’cause we kind of grew up casting and fishing and then, you know, skiing in the winter times. But nonetheless, I got into the ski business after I went to my first national championship. I spent all my money and went across the country and came back and said, I need a better job. And I need a winter job so I can fish And I can cast and travel in the summer. And so there was a famous Norwegian ski shop. And I started doing that. You know, this has happened in ski equipment. You know, not all the changes, you know, skiing went through this maybe 20 years before fly fishing where we, we had these long skis back in the, you know, forties and fifties and sixties. Chris (1h 2m 34s): And it was very difficult to learn how to ski. Used to reach up and, and you would size the ski by hitting it, you know, in like the palm of your hand or your wrist, right? Real long ski. And then someone came up with the idea in the late sixties, you know, Hey, why don’t we cut these skis shorter and, and, and let people learn on something really short that they can kind of pivot around and stuff. And so the short ski craze, and first it was called graduated length method, GLM. But you know, in the late sixties and early seventies, this is when most people today learned how to ski on shorter, slightly wider skis. They were called GLM Learning method than the compact skis. And I started working at the ski shop the same time this was really taken off. Chris (1h 3m 16s): And you know, the bulk of the baby boomers that are, you know, are just starting to retire from skiing now all learned on these shorter skis. And then late seventies and early eighties they started making the skis longer again. And the next thing you know we were back on two oh fives and two oh sevens and 2 0 3 centimeter length skis. And now where are we all these years later on skis? Are we still on long skis or have we come back to our senses? Dave (1h 3m 42s): I think I’m guessing, ’cause I don’t ski now, but I’m guessing, I think we are back to short stuff. Chris (1h 3m 46s): That’s right. Skis have gone back to shorter lengths and wider widths also influenced by snowboarding. Yep. Snowboarding. Yeah. ’cause of the great performance, you know, and powder and stuff. So you see other sports and other industries do this in golf. You know, shafts got too light, shafts got too stiff. Dave (1h 4m 2s): Oh right. The big Bertha What about the big ber the giant? Chris (1h 4m 5s): Yeah, exactly. The big drivers and you know, yeah, tiger Woods are, you know, going back in the day, Jack Nicholas or something. Once they’ve mastered their swing and their strokes, they’re moving this golf shaft so much faster than we are. And I obviously can rotate a fly rod and Tim and Steve and stuff. We can move a fly rod through the air far faster than the average person. And so yeah, great casters and experienced anglers will need a stiffer rod. We’re moving the rod a lot faster. And, we already know how to cast, you know, but I wouldn’t dare try to teach you with Tiger Woods driver, you know, a super staff driver. You’re not swinging the club that fast and yeah, Dave (1h 4m 47s): That’s Chris (1h 4m 47s): It. Roger Federer’s tennis racket, you know, strung at a hundred pounds of tension on the strings. Well that’s not right for somebody that’s moving the racket slowly when they’re learning. So I think we got an opportunity here. It’s kind of, you know, like a little bit of a back to the future or Renaissance And, I, And I. Think it’s just starting with some of the companies making shorter rods. Like the number one thing for instance that I do for And I, get these students from Silicon Valley, you know, these, these Silicon Valley guys that are going to the Seychelles Sure. 20, $30,000 trips around the world. And they come to me with, you know, two weeks and they want me to fix their casting, you know, before they go to the Sey shells. Chris (1h 5m 28s): Well, how am I gonna, I mean obviously I can help them with their mechanics and give them little tips, but they don’t have time to actually even tone their muscles. So the number one thing that I do for these students, for all of my students is I immediately am, am going through their tackle. And if they don’t own a fuller action, shorter length rod for whatever the trip is, whether it’s trout fishing or you know, salt water fishing, I’m getting them on shoulder rods, sometimes even loaning my students rods And. we don’t have time to get something so they can go on the trip and have a better experience. You know, Scott for instance, has an, they’re salt water rods and they have them in the nine foot lengths and they have two piece ones for boats at eight foot 10 inch lengths. Chris (1h 6m 13s): They also make an eight foot four inch series. And you know, that’s the number one thing I’m doing for my students is I’m fixing their tackle and I’m putting ’em on a shorter length lever where they can relax. So I’m going down the dumbbell rack to a lighter dumbbell, a less torquey weight, and I’m making it easy for them to go fishing for five days and I’m putting them on lighter reels and the whole outfit ends up, you know, a salt water outfit when I’m done ends up being like a, like a six weight trout rod. And they go, God, wow. And they get this, wow, I can cast this thing. It feels like my trout rod. It’s, it’s almost easier than my trout rod. Yep. You know, so that’s the number one thing that we have to encourage people to do, is to go out to these shows and go to the fly shops and demand to try shorter length rods. Chris (1h 7m 3s): And whether that’s a Redington classic trout at eight foot six or the Scott series at eight, you know, the G series at eight foot four or eight foot eight and other companies like the, you know, the, the budget rods like the bug launchers from TFO or Rods for your kids, like the Echo Gecko. Everyone needs to go out and go into the old closet, pull out grandpa’s rods from the sixties, seventies and they need to have their own. Wow. It’s something, you know, I’m gonna, you know, keep working and you know, I’ve done a lot of coaching and consulting over the last 50 years and for those companies, those American companies that actually wanna start to be part of this back to the future change, I think we need more full action, shorter length levers that we can start to offer. Chris (1h 7m 52s): People love it. Dave (1h 7m 52s): That’s awesome. Chris (1h 7m 53s): Everybody’s got nine foot five weights, Dave. Dave (1h 7m 55s): Yeah. Everybody got plenty of nine foot five weight. Well we’ve always kind of almost joked about that because that’s something I would ask occasionally is, you know, the rod and the nine foot five weight, it is kind of almost a joke now, but the, the great thing is, is that, yeah, I mean I remember my dad had a lot of eight and a half foot rods back in the day, you know, when we first got going, I remember that And I was always thinking as I got into it more, I was like, well, well I guess the nine foot, there’s lots of these now. So I guess that’s the rod. And you know, my dad wasn’t a instructor so he didn’t really probably know exactly, but he had those rods and he was a great caster. That’s the funny thing is that he was a way better caster than me. He could probably still outcast me and he’s 85. Chris (1h 8m 28s): Yeah. He learned on those shorter length levers and those fuller action rods that were a little bit heavier up top, like the upside down butter knife. Did you get a big spatula? Did you find Dave (1h 8m 40s): A spatula? Yeah, I got the spatula. What were you doing with the spatula? Chris (1h 8m 42s): Well, I’m the same thing. If, you grab the spatula because the spatula, especially If, you get a big one, like a big chef spatula with a big silicone head. In fact, I’m kinda like a connoisseur spatulas. Dave (1h 8m 54s): Is that because is, are you a connoisseur specialtist because of this flight casting exercise? Or are you a good cook? That’s right. Yeah. Not, not because you’re a great cook though. Chris (1h 9m 0s): Yeah, well no, I need to, I, my mom thought the dinner I cooked her last night was pretty good. But nonetheless, If, you get a, a long handle real heavy silicone top spatula. And I’ve actually sourced some here in, in Portland already. Yeah. You not only can get this kind of cat funky feel where you feel the end of the spatula as you stop the rod, as you Panama, but you can also stand in the mirror. Right. We know that we wanna make, you know, we wanna make casting strokes in a plane in some sort of a tilted plane. And you can, when you’re casting and panami with a spatula, you can actually hold the blade of the spatula. I mean it’s kinda like the paintbrush thing where many people like Tim talked about, you know, using a paintbrush to splatter, you know, water off, right. Chris (1h 9m 48s): Start slow and accelerate to a stop. And you know, you can imagine flicking mayonnaise off the spatula right now, stop the rod. Right? But by looking in a mirror, you can see whether you’re rotating as you make your backstroke and forward stroke up and down strokes, you can see whether the plane of the spatula is staying, you know, lined up in the mirror or whether you’re doing something mechanically to rotate it. And so big long heavy spatulas with heavy, you know, top ends are really good when I’m doing classes and they can look in the mirror and they can study their casting stroke as they Panama. So these are kind of the simple things that we can do. Chris (1h 10m 29s): But the upside down butter knife that got your attention, right? Dave (1h 10m 31s): Yeah, it did. No, that’s great. That’s great. Well, we’re gonna take it outta here a little bit. And I think, Chris, we’re probably gonna have to bring you back on and talk more because I, I’ve been loving the history. And I. I wanna dig more into this, but let’s just talk, you know, I mean the greatest fly caster of, of all time. I mean, who is the, is that person living now who is the greatest caster out there? Chris (1h 10m 51s): Well, there’s no question that Steve, you know, big brother Steve Ray, Jeff is, you know, the greatest caster in the history of the universe. Hmm. Dave (1h 11m 1s): No question. Chris (1h 11m 2s): Anyone that thinks otherwise is entitled to their opinion. They’re just mistaken. Steve is absolutely, you know, you mentioned Michael Jordan and yeah, we talked about guys like Kobe Bryant and stuff, Joe Montana, you know, in the Bay Area. We grew up with these great sports team. This is why we were all motivated as kids. You know, I didn’t know anything different and my Raiders and my Oakland A’s and my Warriors, you know, when I was learning all this fishing and casting, I was, I went to five straight world championship parades. And so of course we thought we could be champions as kids, but Steve is just an amazingly focused individual. And of all the great people as I, you know, grew up getting to fish with a lot of the northern California great, you know, fly fishing people like Andy Pion, And, we used to do the schools up in Idaho. Chris (1h 11m 53s): And I got to fish with Andy every year for several years and you know, just famous, famous fishing guides and stuff. But quite honestly, Steve is one of the most intense, you know, top fishermen I’ve ever fly fished with. And it’s, you know, he is just super focused. But starting with the old tackle and the old great mentors that we had and you know, coming after the, John Tarantino was one of our great young champions from the fifties and early sixties became a professional, designed a lot of rods. And Steve came right after John’s era and had the same coach. Phil. Phil Mirabelli was just a total gentleman at the club that had coached Steve. But you know Steve in both accuracy and distance and, and it’s not just fly casting, it’s all types of casting. Chris (1h 12m 36s): Yeah. He is the greatest in history. And surely if I look at, you know, the last 50 years, well, I mean, no question what Maxine has done now at the last world championship that she cast at, she didn’t cast this year ’cause she was doing an internship over in Germany. She’s 21 now. But we went to Norway two years ago and she flat out outcast myself and Henry Middle, our top caster there. She outcast every man at that tournament. Really? Dave (1h 13m 7s): She even beat So she outcast you the the instructor? Chris (1h 13m 11s): Yeah, Maxine at the last world championship that she went to in Norway two years ago right after the pandemic, you know, when all the restrictions lifted and stuff. Norway, Norway sponsored the world flight casting championships at a beautiful ski resort at 3000 feet outside of Oslo. And you know, we trained for, we only had about 10 days of training we could sneak in from when the college year she goes to UDub up in Seattle. In fact, Maxine works at a fly shop up there. Maxine works at Patrick’s fly shop Oh. And has been working there for the last three years. Part-time while she’s in school. She’s in her fourth year studying biology. But yeah, she called me that May and she goes, yeah, you know, I haven’t been casting, you know, I’ve been fishing, but you know, it’s like, what do you think? Chris (1h 13m 57s): Should I go? And I’m like, yeah, well, you know, it’s, all of us have been shut down for a couple years. And I said, you know, we’re gonna have limited time. But you know, after 3000 hours as a, as a kid, I mean she is an absolute assassin with a fly rod. And so we got together And, we put a plan together to, not overtrain, but just to work on the fundamentals. The basics. And she actually broke the record in accuracy. Excuse me. The accuracy at the world championships is 16 targets. You have four targets, you gotta shoot at ’em four times, you gotta go around the course four times and you only have five minutes. So 16 shots in five minutes. Chris (1h 14m 38s): And Maxine did not miss a single shot. Wow. That had never been done before. Really. She shot a perfect score. You get five points for every bullseye. So it turns out the maximum score is 80 points. And she scored 80 points in the qualifying round and in the finals I had switched, I was training a lot of new guys on the team. And I moved to the veteran division, which you can do when you’re 60. I said, well I’ll move over to the veterans and and try to, let’s sweep all three divisions. And. we did, her father won the men’s, I won the veterans. Wow. And won the, the women’s, she threw the five weight distance 130 feet and beat the many time world champion gal at that. Chris (1h 15m 21s): She won the sea trout dis she ended up winning, winning four gold medals. I won three and the veterans and she just outcast everybody. Wow. Two handed salmon fly Dave (1h 15m 32s): Two handed two, she’s doing two handed two. Chris (1h 15m 34s): Yeah. She actually won that the first time at her second world tournament, you know, world championships for every two years. And so she went when she was 12 and she actually got the bronze medal. I started to teach her the salmon fly, just to take some pressure off the accuracy with the two handed rod. She also did the spay event for fun. And she got the bronze medal when she was only 12. And everybody’s like, what the heck? How in a little tiny fishing rod, I mean I didn’t even have her on a full length rod or line or nothing, but her loops and her technique was so much better than everyone. And then, you know, two years later she was really determined to win that she cast 189 feet Wow. In the two hand flight distance and won the gold medal on back in 2018. Chris (1h 16m 18s): That, that championships was on the coast of England. And then that’s the only event she didn’t win in Norway, but she was casting it so darn far the wind was going sideways and it kept blowing it outta court. She was thrown at 40, 50 feet past everybody. And it kept, you know, blowing like, you know, two inches to two feet outta court. She was kind of devastated. She didn’t win that, but she won everything else. And in the overall, she outscored every man and woman there. Dave (1h 16m 45s): That is amazing. What about Maxine versus Steve? What happens there? Chris (1h 16m 51s): Well, you know, two weeks before that first world tournament when she was 12, you know, we, she set a goal early that she wanted to beat the coach. And Steve at that first national when she was nine, you know, she came to me afterwards, we were looking at pictures on an iPad that people, we had a lot of photographers and, and she goes, you and Steve cast so different and, and like, you’re so much better than everybody. And I said, well Maxine, I said, if you’re really having fun, you wanna keep doing this, I’ll, I’ll teach you the secrets and the things I had to figure out to beat Steve. It’s gonna take some time. But two years later, almost to the day, two weeks before we went to Estonia, Steve beat her in the first event, the first day and the next she was very upset. Chris (1h 17m 31s): She was off to the side crying ’cause she wanted him so bad. And the very next day in the trout accuracy, which was a great lead up to the world tournament, two weeks later, Maxine And I both beat Steve that day and the trout accuracy, she shot 99, I think Steve shot 98 and it was the first time she beat Steve. She only had, you know, once in a while she’d see him. He only shows up to the big tournaments. You know, he doesn’t come to the little small tournaments anymore. And so that was the first time that she beat him. And you know, what better timing than to beat, you know, the greatest caster of all time two weeks before you go to take on the world. Right? Wow. So beating the world two weeks later, you know, seemed like nothing after beating Steve Raje. Chris (1h 18m 14s): You know, Dave (1h 18m 15s): God, that’s so cool. And I mean as Maxine do Now I’m hopeful that we’ll get her on the podcast and hear her story directly. But does she, is she gonna stick with this and continue? It’s like, I think of like the, again, the analogies, right? Tiger Woods, I mean he obviously had a collapse in per personal life later in life, but he was on track to beat Jack Nicholas, right? Yeah. And, and is Maxine potentially gonna break Steve’s records if she was to keep going on this? Chris (1h 18m 41s): Well, you know, the casting has evolved. You know, the Steve, of course, you, you know, we grew up casting all the different types of tackle. We started with spinning stuff and fishing as kids with spinning reels and bait casting reels. And one of the reasons that, you know, we all got so good overall is because when you cast different types of phish tackle, it really helps your other casting. I mean, you know, spin casting and bait casting really helps your fly casting and vice versa. And, you know, we also had these two handed surf events. And so the, the sport of casting has casting games that simulate all the different types of fishing tackle. And Steve became the greatest all around overall caster as well as being, you know, hands down, you know, single-handed flight distance caster, the best ever and inaccuracy, you know, Steve And I have battled for years and that Yep. Chris (1h 19m 26s): So Maxine stayed very focused in on the fly casting. She did do plug casting for fun, spin casting, and she’s cast on our team. So she just really got focused in on the fly casting events that are now held over water. There are events internationally held on grass, you know, because a lot of countries just don’t have casting pools and, and things like that all the way back to the Cold War days, you know, we’d be casting against people from East Germany and Czechoslovak and things like that. So, you know, what Maxine learned was really predominantly fly casting and to be able to go fishing with her father. And you know, what Steve did in all these different types of events, Maxine, you know, is, is not interested in that. Chris (1h 20m 10s): Her, her old goal was to be able to fly cast and go fly fishing with her father. And, and of course they do that. Her little brother now is 13 and he plays ball and he is, and he’s a, he is a fly fishing nut and they’re out the Deschutes River all the time. So Maxine’s gonna continue to fish. She’s fishing up there out outside of Seattle in the Seattle area and working at the fly shop. She did her first salt water trip last spring. She went to Bay Lee’s and stayed a couple days extra with her boyfriend and went out salt water fishing for the first time, you know, in terms of the flats fishing and just had a fantastic time. Immediately she called, she called me right away, was all excited and sent pictures. Chris (1h 20m 52s): She goes, it’s just like the casting games, you know, it’s just you’re picking off fish right and left. Sure. I mean she really is an assassin when it comes to accuracy and of course distance. She can sling it as good as anybody. And she’s doing a lot of casting demos. People should pay attention. There are people reaching out to her now. She did a thing out at Red Shop. Oh yeah, Eastern part of the state last, I think it was last June, just before she went off to the summer. But she’s focused in on finishing her fourth year at college. She did an internship in Hamburg, Germany this summer. So she skipped the world championships and And I skipped a two. The, the team did extremely well, but I was renovating my home of 40 years so I could sell it, you know, just got that done. Chris (1h 21m 33s): And the father had to go through shoulder surgery, so dad and daughter and coach had to stay home this year. But you know, we’re hearing that the next world fly casting championships are gonna be in Italy in two years and, you know, if the dad’s gonna get another shoulder surgery and heal up and I’m planning on going with the team and coaching again. And Steve’s even thinking of going and he’s starting to get smart. He is like, I think I’ll, I think I should switch to the Veterans division too. And of course when we, when we we enter the veterans, sometimes we’re still out scoring the, the, the people’s division. So Yeah. You know, it’s like, hey, even the old guys, you know that they can still sling it, but yeah, depending on what’s going on Maxine’s life, she’s talked about becoming a doctor. Chris (1h 22m 19s): That’s something she thought about a pediatrician possibly, but she could end up working for, you know, Cal Trout or Right. You know, we’ve done things with Cal Trout and Trout Unlimited like fundraisers for the climate dams and things like that. She’s, she’s very conservation oriented, so who knows where her biology and her young career will take her. But you know, she’s a wonderful kid. She’s like a granddaughter to me. And, and we get together whenever we can and I think she’ll continue to fly fish and, you know, depending on what’s going on with her life and her education, you know, especially if her dad heals up and her dad decides to go to Italy, they’re, they’re kind of joined at the hip, you know, they, they like to compete at the same tournament. Chris (1h 23m 1s): So, you know, maybe we can talk Maxine into going to Italy with us in a couple years. Dave (1h 23m 5s): Amazing. Well, I think we’ll keep track of that on that event. If, you wanted to, are these events, can you follow them when they’re going? Is there any sort of coverage of, of the events? Chris (1h 23m 15s): Yeah. This year in Sweden, like they had the live postings of the scores. It wasn’t being like broadcast, you know, casting games and, and, and fly casting sport is, you know, it’s, it’s not a, you know, we all should have taken up golf instead of casting, Dave (1h 23m 29s): Right. Chris (1h 23m 30s): Tim And, I used to, we sit around drinking beers and joking like, why in the heck didn’t we not take up golf? Dave (1h 23m 34s): Yeah, you guys, you guys would be bazillionaires by now. Chris (1h 23m 36s): But then look, you know, I’ve been blessed to be able to coach and teach, you know, for, you know, 50 years and, and you know, Steve and Tim working in the industry and all of us consulting and stuff, and even though we’re kind of in our retired years now, I mean, I think we’ll continue to do that. And, I, And I think, and this is a challenge to the manufacturers out there, you know, everybody owns a lot of nine foot five weights, but they don’t own shorter, fuller action rods. And so I think to me, it’s a golden business opportunity to actually start to, you know, go back to the past and make some stuff that help people learn, help people improve, especially kids, you know, Dave (1h 24m 12s): Especially kids. No, I love that. I love where we’re going with this. And I think it’s great. Yeah. The, the the funny thing, we joke about that a lot in the podcast too. Like there’s not, you know, you don’t get rich and fly fishing, right? And, I mean the fact that you were, you guys are essentially the Tiger Woods and the Phil Mickelsons and you know, those guys are all multimillionaires. It’s, I mean, that’s the level you guys are at. You know, you guys are the Chris (1h 24m 32s): Yeah, but we know we’re, you know, we’re, we’re, we really are, you know, blessed in many ways the, the great outdoors and, and the comradery and the sportsmanship in fishing in general and fly fishing in particular. And that’s one of the neat things, you know, everyone’s willing to pass on their knowledge if they’re an expert on a stream or they’re a great fly tire, or they’re a great rod builder, or they’re, you know, they’re super knowledgeable and they, you know, they can share what they know about entomology and so forth. You know, I think that’s kind of the challenge I’d like to make to all my fellow, you know, anglers and fly fishers out there is, you know, okay, so And, I’ve, I teach the people and I’ve been focused in on the one-on-one coaching and helping, you know, whether it’s the people getting ready for their expensive fishing trips or a young girl and a father that shows up at the casting club. Chris (1h 25m 23s): But we can all do that, you know, and if you’re super knowledgeable about your home waters or you’re, you know, great at tying flies or whatever, you’re great at your tackle and your leaders. We can all take a young person under our wings or someone that’s coming up and taking up our great sport and, you know, pass on our knowledge, And I, think we all can be teachers and mentors and, you know, if we want to. And so I, I challenge people to, you know, take a young person under your wings and, and mentor them and, and expose ’em to our great sport. And we need all the future conservationists we can get. Dave (1h 26m 0s): Love it. Love it, Chris. We’ll, I, I think we’ll leave it there and we’ll send everybody out to koi fly casting.com, And I. Just wanna thank you for everything today. This has been amazing. I love, I always love getting into the history today, and like I said, we’ll probably have to get you back on and follow up on this one. But yeah, I appreciate all the, we’ll Chris (1h 26m 17s): Have, we’ll have to get the, we’ll have to get Maxine on your podcast and, you know, let her share her perspective. And, and like I said, you know, she’s giving back to the sport and having fun, helping people, you know, at the, at the fly shop she works at and she’s motivated a lot of women and a lot of young kids, young girls, to get into the sport. And, I, think that’s a healthy thing. That Dave (1h 26m 38s): Is great. All right, Chris, thanks again for your time. I’ll, I’ll be in touch. Chris (1h 26m 41s): Alright, super. Dave, thanks so much. Dave (1h 26m 45s): Your challenge, If, you choose today is to stop by your local shop and, and check out some of these faster, not faster. Check out some of these fuller action fly rods that we talked about today. Get some of these in your hand, however you have to do it and get a feel for it. My guess is it is gonna change your world, If, you haven’t done it yet. All right, we’re off to the next one. We’ve got another great episode coming up here. So If, you get a chance. Please follow the show. If you’re interested in any of the trips, we still have that landing trip going right now. You can message me by email, dave@weblifeing.com. If, you wanna go to Colorado and check out the Landon School. This one’s gonna be awesome. Sight fishing for big Browns, big rainbows in one of the famous rivers of Colorado with Landon Mayer. Dave (1h 27m 28s): Check it in right now. Check it out. Alright, hope you have a great afternoon. Hope you have great evening or fabulous morning wherever you are in the world. Look forward to seeing you on that next episode. We’ll talk to you then.