742 | Saving the Big Hole River with Brian Wheeler: Trout Declines, Water Quality & Conservation Efforts

Dave (2s): One of the last remaining strongholds for Arctic grayling in the lower 48, one of the three forks to the Missouri River and the headwaters of the Missouri River. The big hole has been known for many years as a special place for Montana fly fishing. And in recent years we’ve heard about some of the declines in brown trout populations. Today we have one of the key players who is working to find a solution to these changes. And after this episode, you’ll have a clear understanding of what it will take to turn this around. 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. Brian Wheeler, executive director of the Big Hole River Foundation is gonna take us into all the issues around the big hole river and trout populations. Dave (48s): You’re gonna find out why and how water quality is the key here and what we can do to get things changed. We also find out why he submitted a petition to the State of Montana to get this stream listed for protection and what the bugs can tell us about water quality in a river. Plus we’re gonna hear about his love for boating and boating the canyons. And this epic 200 mile over 200 mile Grand Canyon trip he did with his wife. We get that story today as well. Here we go, man. Doing some of the hard work out there. Brian Wheeler from bhrf.org. How you doing, Brian? Good, Brian (1m 25s): Dude. Thanks for having me. Dave (1m 26s): Yeah, thanks for, thanks for doing this today. This is gonna be a a, a good chat. We, I’ve heard a lot about you guys over the years. We’ve done some episodes on the Big Hole. Right now we’re currently doing an episode in a series on the Missouri, because we’re heading out there fishing this fall in October with, on DeMar Lodge. And it’s, we’re pretty excited for that because I think we’re gonna get some good dry fly action and get into all that. But today I wanted to really talk about some of the things that you’re working on with the Big Hole River Foundation and, but before we jump into that, maybe take us back a little bit. I’m not even sure if you do any angling or fly fishing or anything, but first off, you know, are you into any of that? And then also we can talk about kinda your conservation background. Brian (2m 5s): Sure. I mean, short answer is yes, I, that’s why I moved to Montana, Colorado previous to that and East Tennessee. Previous to that I grew up in northeast Ohio where opportunities were pretty limited. So I kind of chased that around in the twenties, early thirties part of my life. And I’ve been a guide for about 20 years. I actually know Craig and, and have worked with him on the big Oh you do? Yeah. So, oh wow. So that, yeah, the connections run fairly deep. You know, my experience as a whitewater and fishing guide has me pretty tuned into river conservation issues and essentially I more or less shifted over the past 20 years towards making a, a full year living from that to kind of part-time guiding maybe 40 days a year. Brian (2m 51s): And then full-time with the Big River Foundation working on conservation issues focused on water quality. Dave (2m 56s): Right. Wow. So the guy, are you still doing some guiding now? Yeah, Brian (2m 59s): About 40 days a year. So, and gives me a chance to chat with folks that come from all over and, and kind of clue ’em into the work we’re doing and raise a bit of money and yeah, just kind of enlighten people to what’s going on here and maybe, you know, if we’re lucky, a lesson or two that they can take back to their home watersheds. Yeah, Dave (3m 19s): I love that. That’s a great idea to actually be out there guiding. ’cause you’re bringing people in from around the country to hear about your issues. Right. They’re coming to fish, but then they learn more about the big goal and nothing no better place than the executive director. Right. To hear some of the issues firsthand. Yeah. Brian (3m 32s): And no better place for a captive audience than sitting in a raft. Dave (3m 36s): That’s right. Nice. Well, I think we’re gonna definitely talk about some fly fishing and you, your guiding, you know, as well today. But I wanna talk about, you know, maybe just some of the, the things you’re working on. We’ve heard some things around over the last couple years about some pretty, I’m not sure you know, impacts from changes and I’m not sure if it’s like populations aquatic, you know, invertebrates, things like that. But maybe give us an update. What are you working on? What’s keeping you busy out there? Brian (4m 1s): So in my role with the foundation, I mean, everything is focused on our water quality monitoring program. We built a, a project to address a pretty significant data gap. IE nobody else was monitoring water quality in the big hole. So we identified that gap and was like, okay, how do we build a project to address this? And then how do we make it credible? How do we ensure it’s scientific validity? And we can chat about that later. But, but basically in 2019 we built that program. Ironically, one of the, the goals of that monitoring project was to prove the pristine nature of this headwater stream to the Missouri big hole’s, pretty well known, the last refuge of the Arctic Grayling headwater of the Missouri. Brian (4m 52s): And we said, well this is a pristine place. Let’s see how good it is. Let’s prove that it’s so good that it deserves outstanding resource water designation as an extra layer of protection. And funny enough, as we started building out the sampling program, we discovered that wow, we wouldn’t qualify for this. Actually we have a chronic nutrient pollution problem. So it was interesting and as in my opinion as science should be conducted, you know, you got a hypothesis and, and you, you just kind of go with what the data shows, not what you want to be true. Yeah. Dave (5m 29s): So that’s it. So that’s interesting. So you guys get into this with the idea that you want to just get the data and show how pristine this is, but you learn there’s some issues. And when did the, maybe talk about the fish population, because I think that hit some of the headlines. What, wasn’t there some stuff going on? Were there some, maybe some fish numbers were going down? Talk about that a little bit. Brian (5m 47s): Basically for about the last seven or 10 years, we’ve kind of been on a downward trend in the big hole along with the sections of the other rivers that, that comprise the, the Jefferson watershed. So you got the big hole Beaverhead, Ruby, they all flow together, formed the Jefferson, one of the three forks of the Missouri. This is not to say that every section of those rivers were impacted, or at least, you know, severely the big holes definitely got the most press, good, bad, and ugly. And I think at the end of the day, the important thing for people to remember is, is that this is the data from fwp Fish, wildlife and Parks and their biologists. Brian (6m 28s): It’s not folks in the conservation world that are, you know, making these claims. It, it’s the fisheries. Biologists have told us this is what’s happening. So we essentially dropped in 2023 to historic lows of populations, especially at the brown trout. You know, we were well below the 25th percentile for average historic populations and nobody really knew why that was. We did see an improvement last year, which was good. But you know, as far as data goes for fish populations, it’s kind of on a three year cycle, you, you collect the data, but you don’t really know how a generation of fish does until around two or three years later when they’re sizable enough that the biologists can conduct their electro shocking surveys. Brian (7m 22s): So there’s always a little bit of a delay there in figuring out how the juvenile recruitment was for a particular year. So we’re, we’re all waiting here with beta breath this year when they do their shocking in the spring to kind of see how we’re doing. Are we, you know, are we continuing to slowly improve? Like, like we saw last year, we’re still well below historic average, but there was some potential good news in last year’s shocking reports. So, you know, that that’s really kind of where we stand with regard to fish populations. That’s what I know. Dave (7m 58s): That’s an interesting conversation because the, you know, it’s probably not too dissimilar to steelhead in some ways where we’ve had these big drastic changes and closures and, and you’re sitting there at some point. I mean, that’s different. ’cause obviously these fish are heading out to the ocean. There’s all this stuff, but you’re thinking like, whoa, you know, what is going on? And nobody can quite figure out what’s going on. It sounds like this is the same thing where, and it’s not just the big hole, it’s the, you said the other three, you know, the beaverhead and the other ones there. So it’s this more, maybe more regional or, you know, watersheds area. What, what do you think is the big contributor? Do you guys have some guesstimates on, you know, some theories on, on why, what’s going on here? Brian (8m 38s): A theory is the right word because at this point we don’t have the data to, to say for sure on, on any of this. As far as the populations go, not really. I can say that in discussions with folks with our data and with other groups that are collecting data to kind of bolster what we’ve collected, especially dissolved oxygen levels. You know, my gut says that this is sort of a cumulative thing from chronic environmental stress that essentially, you know, causes negative impacts on physiology. It makes them more susceptible to disease, it negatively impacts respiration, growth rates, reproduction. Brian (9m 24s): There was a time in there where a lot of local folks, and a lot of fish biologists as well kind of thought there had to be this X factor, right? To explain all this. Yeah, there’s gotta be some pathogen that we’re not aware of. So, you know, the past few years we’ve gone out of our way as anglers and guides and even with clients, you know, sitting in one spot trying to keep a sick fish alive so that the FW FWP staff can get out to the river, meet us and do a live tissue sample. ’cause that’s what they needed. Right? And that’s turned up nothing, at least against known, known pathogen panels. So what we learned from them is, is basically they have no idea on that front. Brian (10m 9s): However, they’ll continue pulling at those threads. They’ve got some really good histopathologists working on, okay, this didn’t show up anything, you know, against our known pathogen panel. But if we continue to look at these tissue samples and maybe find abnormalities, we can let those dictate where we look next. So, you know, as with everything, it, it sometimes feels glacial and its pace, and that’s frustrating to folks and I get that. But you know that, that’s science, right? That’s how you have to unravel the mystery. Dave (10m 43s): It takes time and then when you look back on it, it gets clear, right? The hindsight. Yeah. So dissolved oxygen, water quality, sounds like maybe those are the big things. Are there also, I mean, probably some changes in climate, right? Temperatures, things like that. But is it the, is the water quality, it sounds like that’s the big thing that’s really affecting the, maybe and there probably are some human influences out there affecting water quality. Brian (11m 7s): Well, I mean, first of all, climate is the elephant in the room. You know, the data are unmistakable in the timing of our runoffs trending earlier and earlier and earlier. You know, less snow pack, more precipitation is rain and less of that snow pack, which slow rolls your runoff last year, I think our, our peak flow in the big hole came April 15th. I mean, that’s nuts. Dave (11m 31s): Is that early? Yeah, Brian (11m 33s): Yeah. I mean, this is a, this is a rocky mountain headwater stream. You know, runoff is typically June. We didn’t have a runoff this year. We, we got that early flush. And that’s sort of been the trend here recently, where, you know, later in the summer we’ve really struggled with low flows, hot water temperatures. So I mean, you simply can’t escape a changing climate as a driving factor in all this. That said, that feels a little overwhelming, right? Yeah, it does. But that said, there are factors that we do have an influence on individually or locally and, and human input. You know, we’re lucky in the big hole. We’re, we’re very undeveloped. Brian (12m 12s): There’s a lot of connected habitat, you know, for, for ungulate migration and there’s a lot of mountain ranges and just rural frontier type undeveloped areas. And the entirety, the upper big hole is like that. But, you know, all human land use has an impact on its surrounding environment, right? So cattle operations have, have an input for nitrogen and phosphorus certainly developing in faster growing parts of Montana is having a huge impact. I mean, you look over in Gallatin County near Bozeman and the Gallatin River is having its own issues with this from effluent, from Big Sky and that sort of unchecked development. Brian (12m 55s): So we’re lucky in the sense that it’s been much slower to reach here. But, you know, we’re still having sort of the, the data show these, these impacts of human influence. You know, one of our sample sites is the absolute headwaters of the big hole, and we’ve never come close to nitrogen phosphorus thresholds at that site, at the headwaters. And so it really kind of drives home the point that, you know, in that natural state, there’s natural inputs, you know, weathering of rock, atmospheric deposition soils, you know, things like that. They have an input. What we’re seeing is what you call eutrofication, right? Brian (13m 36s): It’s a human influenced excess of nutrients in the river. And with that comes, you know, algae blooms and with algae blooms, you get negative impacts on the recreational beneficial use. You get negative impact on bug life. And then of course, when algae is not conducting photosynthesis at night, and when it dies and is consumed by bacteria, you’re getting crashing levels of dissolved oxygen, which affects the bugs that trout eat and the trout themselves. So it’s sort of like this chain reaction that is made worse, that’s exacerbated by, you know, higher water temperatures, lower flows, all all these things that are bigger picture issues facing far more of the, especially the Northern Rockies than just the big hole. Brian (14m 23s): But yeah, it’s certainly a combination of things. What we’re trying to figure out at the foundation is how can we use quality data approved by the state of Montana? How can we use that to sort of compel a bit better accountability on behalf of these watersheds and resources? And that’s sort of what we’re working towards. Dave (14m 44s): Gotcha. That’s it. So you’re getting the kind of the baseline data so you know, you know, they’re on the water quality, right? And then you can over time, see if you are ma you know, you’re able to make changes, right? Maybe if you try to fix something or adjust, or obviously you’ve got the changes in climate and you know, warmer or whatever’s going on, but there are some other things that you might be able to change in the long term. Right? But you gotta base it on data and that’s what you guys are going for right now, just collecting that baseline. Brian (15m 11s): Yeah, and we’ve done it for six years if you include our pilot project. And so the last five have, you know, the project itself, our methodology, our results, everything about the program has been approved by the, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. That’s significant that, you know, that makes the results credible. It means you can, you can be assured that the, the results aren’t skewed. And as a result, you know, five straight years of the same issues, it’s like, okay, we got, we got an issue And we got limited resources. I’m the only employee. Oh, wow. Yeah. The Dave (15m 47s): Found Brian (15m 48s): Foundation. So, you know, whether it’s writing a grant or a newsletter or doing a public presentation or doing the field work itself, or you know, all the admin work, if you send us a donation and get a thank you letter that’s coming from me. So it’s a lot, but we recognize the value of it and the importance of it. And hopefully, you know, big picture, the goal is to build a model that can be applied to rivers elsewhere. I mean, like I said, these issues are being faced all over and concerned. Anglers are wondering, okay, what can I support to help protect the resources I care about my local trout stream, cold water fisheries, you know, what can I do at an individual level? Brian (16m 31s): It’s like, well, if we’re able to build a model that’s scalable to need, whether you’re a volunteer organization or you got a full staff, you know, we can share that with anyone and everyone say, Hey, go figure out what your state requirements are for water quality. Build a program to collect the data accordingly, and then, you know, hold them accountable for, for ensuring clean water for all the beneficial uses, which go far beyond just recreation and trout fishing, right? It’s drinking water, it’s irrigation, it’s aquatic life. So our surface waters, our our rivers have to be able to support all of those uses. Yeah, Dave (17m 10s): Definitely. What, what’s the, have you seen in the, I mean, especially since you’re guiding out there over the last six years, have you noticed it just in the fishing? Are you, are you seeing like changes in size or numbers of fish? Brian (17m 21s): So I’ve definitely paid a closer attention in the last six years since I’ve, I’ve started with the foundation while I’m out there. I don’t got as many days as I used to, but 40 still a lot. And I, my wife and I float a lot too for fun, especially in the early season before it gets busy. And one of the very interesting and concerning to me things that we’ve seen with these, some of these sick fish that have shown up with the head necrosis is that we’re seeing them early in the, in the year, in June. Certainly we’ve had lower water than normal in June, but not every year has been like that. Even good snow pack and good water years have, have still seen some of those fish. Brian (18m 1s): And it’s odd to me because that’s, you know, the rainbows are done spawning. You got plenty of cold water in the river, it’s not hot yet. Flows are typically good. So you got kind of great conditions for aquatic life. And to see some of these fish during that time is just, it doesn’t make sense. So at least to me, and hopefully, you know, the biologist can flesh out some of that stuff that I’m not qualified to do. But certainly observation, you know, anecdote from folks that spend a lot of time on the river, it’s like, okay, we’re seeing this, you know, it’s not rare and we’ve not been able to figure it out and we’ve not been able to figure out why it’s that early. Brian (18m 44s): You know, I do wanna say like there’s a certain amount of this that is pretty natural in, in trout streams, especially in the fall. Rainbows kind of got it easy because they spawn in the spring when water’s cold. There’s plenty of it. There’s not a lot of additional environmental stress on them. However, the brown trout kind of drew the short straw physiologically by spawning in the, in the fall because they have to deal with a stressful hot summer of low flows and hot water temperatures leading up to their spawn. So they’re really, you know, they’re stressed to the max in October. What Dave (19m 19s): Is their spawn? What is their peak spawning? Brian (19m 22s): Yeah, October, sometimes we see reds forming in September. Sometimes it’ll linger through, you know, parts of November. But you know, it, it’s predominantly considered to be the month of October. And you know, you talked earlier about, you know, closures for steelhead. Well, in response to some of these historic low fish populations, they implemented an October 1st closure on the big hole too, to protect those spawning brown trout. So, you know, you expect to a degree, some of that stress, that physiological stress from the act of spawning to result in fungus. You know, that’s pretty common. I looked back through my emails and, and I saw, you know, for the last like 11 or 12 years, I’ve been sending pictures of that to our fisheries biologist here. Brian (20m 10s): And that surprised me because I thought it was more recent. But some of that speria fungus is, it’s a result, it’s a manifestation of that, that stress and tough environmental conditions that they’re trying to spawn in. So there’s a degree of mortality that happens naturally because of that. Not just here, but everywhere. It’s really hard on the fish. But to see that kind of fungal skin issue, it’s hard to even describe it really. The head necrosis on whitefish and trout is just, it’s odd. And it’s not to say that there’s a, you know, it’s not to say half the fish have it. I mean, the most recent report that came out from FWP was that, you know, their sampling turned up like three fish out of several thousand that they sampled with that head necrosis. Brian (21m 1s): So it’s not rampant. However, I think that report may have been a little bit glossy because they didn’t sample when we’ve been seeing that problem, so, Dave (21m 11s): Oh, Brian (21m 11s): Right. So, you know, take that with a grain of salt, take it as you will, but the issues clear trout populations have declined fishing’s still good, turns out, turns out when there’s fewer fish they can get bigger. But when you look at the long-term and you look at the viability of these resources and the businesses that rely on the health of them for their existence and their sustainability, you know, we gotta start getting serious about the long-term vision here and not so concerned with, you know, oh, we lost a little business this year, we don’t want to help participate in these efforts. It’s like, look, we need to be, you know, honest with ourselves, good, bad or ugly. Brian (21m 53s): We need to know what’s going on so that we can address it until we can define it, we can’t chart a path forward to address it. And so, you know, if you want that business that, for example, that a fly fishing business or, or a tangentially related business, you know, hotels, cabins, bars, restaurants, all those things that really rely on that tourism business, we gotta start thinking long term for viability and not just that sort of short term vision for this year or maybe next year. Dave (22m 24s): Yeah. The long term, what you’re saying is there’s businesses out there that are thinking, Hey, we gotta keep this on the down low, because the more you talk about it, the more we’re losing people that could be out here. So what you’re saying is that we should be, we gotta get it out there because that’s the only way we’re gonna solve this problem. Brian (22m 39s): I mean, more or less, yeah. You know, some of the efforts to talk about this have been less than well received. And that’s unfortunate, you know, I mean, I get it. I get the concern and I’m sympathetic to it. Certainly I shoot, I make part of my living still guiding as well. Like why would I want this shut down? Right. Dave (23m 1s): But that’s why, that’s why because it it, at a certain point, you’ve gotta do drastic changes, right? If you don’t get to, I mean, you can’t let the, the species keep going down, right? You can’t let, because eventually, you know, they could be gone. Right? That would be a potential if you did nothing. Yeah. Brian (23m 15s): I mean, sadly that’s sort of true. I mean, you’re seeing some of these other places struggling with, you know, warming temperatures and, and sort of this migration of small mouth bass up into zones that were not previously small mouth zones. So this is a broad scale issue. You know, the big hole has gotten a lot of attention for it. Some of it has been well done and some of it has been sensational and, and not really helpful to the conversation. But at, at the end of the day, you know, fishing guides and ranchers, they, you know, we’re neighbors in this, in this southwest Montana zone, And we all depend on the health of that resource to make a living. Brian (23m 56s): So we gotta get, we gotta kind of turn that critical lens on ourself, right? And, and figure out where it is that we can have a positive net impact on the health of the resource that sustains us. And then sometimes that’s gonna be a little bit painful economically and otherwise. But if we don’t, you know, long-term viability comes into question And we got good biologists here. And part of what I wanna do with our data collection project is empower our fisheries biologists to do the best job they possibly can. And they can’t manage fisheries if we don’t address water quality. And so from the state, we want to see multiple agencies get together at the same table and talk about water quantity, you know, water quality, and then biology and pull in the same direction and kind of reduce that, that tendency to work in silos where nobody’s talking to each other. Brian (24m 51s): Yeah. Dave (24m 52s): That’s not good. Brian (24m 53s): Yeah. So hopefully this effort can kind of compel some of that. And, you know, I think the data are clear. We’ve got issues that we can address. We’ve got issues that are legally enforceable. And in fact we, we took that data set that we’ve built over the last five years and, And we filed a petition with the Department of Environmental Quality about two weeks ago to compel them to review the data and make an impairment designation decision for nutrient pollution. Oh, wow. And maybe that sounds scary to some folks, but at the end of the day, it’s actually a really good thing because, and we’ve even asked our fisheries biologists, is this a a good thing for you? Brian (25m 33s): Is it helpful? Is it harmful? Is it irrelevant? And, and with the designation, there’s concrete steps that the state has to take to identify and address the problem. They have to work with landowners to reduce inputs. They have to kind of create a plan. We can’t just rubber stamp a new development because that may have a worsening impact on water quality that’s already impaired. So there’s a lot of helpful things about that impairment designation, not least of which it opens up a pot of money available grant funding for our fisheries biologists to do riparian enhancement, fish habitat enhancement, you know, flow enhancement. Brian (26m 16s): So it may seem like a scary thing, like, oh, we don’t wanna say this river’s impaired. Well, we gotta be honest about it. It’s by the data. It’s, but the good thing is there are steps that must be taken by the state to address it once, once that happens. And, and there’s a lot of good work that can happen as a result. You know, there are other groups besides us working in the area, Dave (26m 39s): Who are some of those other groups that are out Brian (26m 40s): There? So we’ve got a Montana Trout Unlimited who I have a long running relationship with, going back to running our local chapter here in Dillon. They’ve got a Jefferson Watershed coordinator based here in Dillon. He works a lot on the Jefferson, but he works on all forks of the Jefferson, the big hole, the Beaverhead, the Ruby. We’ve got the big whole watershed committee where our focus at the foundation is data collection and advocacy because of what the data show, their focus is restoration work. So we’re very hopeful that with an impairment designation, opening up some of these coffers that our data can help inform and prioritize the restoration work that they’re good at doing and provide additional funding for it. Brian (27m 28s): You know. And then there’s a lot of individuals, frankly, that, that are just good stewards. We’ve got, one of our board members is a, a younger rancher in Melrose, right on the big hole, who is a great example of natural grass management, you know, using cows. He, he has an intact riparian area on his creek that flows directly into the big hole that’s multiple degrees colder, entering a big hole. All those little things add up and they all matter, especially when, you know, you’re, you’re concerned about low flows at this point, you know, we need more flow, but there’s not a legal mechanism to get it. Brian (28m 10s): A lot of groups are working on voluntary, put back from irrigators. A lot of folks are working on leasing Instream rights, trout Unlimited has done that. And then, you know, there’s other groups even out-of-state groups like a Western Rivers Conservancy that are buying ranches at market value with a water, right. And designating that water, right for Instream use. So there’s a lot of folks working on the flow angle. Is it enough? There’s those that would say it’s not, but at the end of the day, there’s a lot of people working on it. And so our little niche, our avenue that nobody else is working on is water quality. Brian (28m 51s): So if we can kind of bring all those things together, hopefully we can kind of redefine the paradigm of resource management and really have it be data-centric, have it be preventative in nature. You know, if we show multiple years of high nitrogen and phosphorus levels, well, it’s no surprise that somewhere down the line we’re gonna have an algae bloom. We don’t have to wait for that algae bloom to happen to start fixing these things. Dave (29m 16s): Yeah. You can start to predict some of this. Brian (29m 18s): Yeah, yeah. You can, you can be preventative in nature, which Montana’s constitution says that we should be doing. Dave (29m 25s): Right? It does. Yeah. We should be, huh? Brian (29m 28s): Yeah, I, I don’t wanna get caught in the doom and gloom loop because there’s a lot of good work happening here a lot, but, you know, we also gotta be just playing frank and honest with ourselves and, and be like, okay, good, bad or ugly, we need to know. And regardless of what it says, we use the data to help guide the next steps and just ensure that this resource is healthy and viable for all the people that depend on it, including the aquatic life. Yeah, Dave (29m 56s): No, it sounds like you guys have a plan. I mean, it sounds like, especially with the, the other groups you mentioned that together, you know, being able to do the restoration and the monitoring and you know, a tu and everybody involved definitely. Sounds like you know, that that’s a cool thing and then you’re taking some action with the petition and to get the state to move on some of this stuff. Right. I think it, it sounds like you’re on the right track. It’s just a matter of, like you said, it’s gonna take time. None of these things, you know, took us a short time to get here, you know what I mean? So it’s gonna take some time to get back out of it. Totally. But what would be like for people listening now, you know, there’s people all over the country, you know, even all over the world listening, but what could they do to help, or what would you want them to take away with this conversation? Brian (30m 35s): You know, I have some of these presentations for, especially fishing groups. Sometimes I’ll go out to a lodge and talk to the guests that week and different things like that, and they ask the same question, you know, what can I do? It seems overwhelming, right? And at the end of the day, what I usually tell people is like, figure out what you care about in your zone, and then seek out the groups that are working towards that end in your zone and support them. You know, if you care about the big hole, the Jefferson, Southwest Montana, the Missouri, you know, it’s all interconnected, right? These watersheds are all interconnected, so problems at the top will likely flow downstream, right? Brian (31m 16s): So Yep. If you care about any of those zones, you seek out the groups that are working there and support them as a volunteer, support them financially. I mean, we don’t operate from many grants. So this, this hit to the federal grant system hasn’t really Oh, right. Taken a big toll on us. Most of our funding, thankfully, I never thought I’d say that, but thankfully comes from, you know, individuals and small family foundations and things like that. But look for the groups that are, are gonna take a hit over these next few years with regard to their funding and see if you can help fill that gap. See where there’s volunteer opportunities. I mean, some of this stuff is so easy, Dave, right? Brian (31m 58s): Yeah. Like we talk about it all the time as an angler, you know, you treat the fish with respect, you gentle handle them, keep ’em wet, reduce these, yeah. It helps these fish pouring glory shots over a hard boat. You know, like it’s really simple stuff, you know, the rubber mesh net, you know, don’t keep them outta the water, don’t touch ’em with dry hands. Like all these little bitty things. Pick up trash when you’re on the river. Don’t leave trash when you’re on the river. I mean, it’s just so simple. And, and there’s folks that are doing it and there’s folks that aren’t. And I think, you know, a lot of those things can have a cumulative positive impact, not only on fish health itself, but, but just generally the environment that we recreate in. Brian (32m 39s): Right. Dave (32m 39s): Yeah. Makes sense. What is the, if you look at, you mentioned at the start of the big hole, if you look at the, the entire system all the way to the Missouri are, are they maybe start there, like talk about where its location is to the Missouri, and then are some of these effects being felt downstream below in the tail water stuff way down river? Brian (32m 57s): Yeah, so the big hole is the longest of the three forks of the Jefferson. And then down at Three Forks, Montana, on I 90 there is essentially where the three, the Madison Gallatin Jefferson formed the Missouri, and then it goes through a series of impoundments dams. And then of course down by, you know, Wolf Creek is the famous, famous Tailwater that you’re gonna go fish this fall with Craig. Yep. Below Holter dam. I suspect that that’s happening all the way down. If it’s happening at the headwaters, I suspect it’s happening all the way down, but I can only say suspect. ’cause to my knowledge, there’s, there’s nobody collecting specifically water quality data regularly. Brian (33m 39s): Maybe somebody does for a specific project that they’re working on. But, you know, the uniqueness of our project is that it’s annual, right? We’re, we’re identifying trends over time, not one and done for a specific project. So I would like to see, and we’ll be personally working towards expanding our big hole model and applying it first to the Jefferson Basin as a whole. I’ve already sketched up a potential growth plan for applying our model for water quality and bugs. We also collect bugs annually, And we try and determine how is water quality affecting bug life? Because bug life is a proxy for overall ecosystem health and fish health, right? Brian (34m 23s): So I’m trying to figure out, in fact, I’m meeting with the fisheries biologist tomorrow to discuss that expansion to the Beaverhead, the Ruby, and the Jefferson. And my hope would be that others take up the mantle. They see that effort and that drive to fill a data gap and use quality data to demand better health for our resources and accountability on behalf of the state and, and take up the mantle of that and call me and say, how do I do this on my own zone, my own watershed, and be happy to help? I mean, that’s, that’s the idea for me that I would like to see is like, okay, this isn’t happening everywhere in our little corner of southwest Montana. Brian (35m 5s): We’re building it. We want to expand it, and then we want others to take note and run with it. Do it on your own, in your own watershed that you care about, and let’s catalog the health of our rivers. ’cause I think for so long, everything about water quality and cold water and fisheries has just been taken for granted. Like, it’s Montana, right? It’s pristine, it’s, it’s Dave (35m 29s): Right. It’ll ever change. Brian (35m 30s): But if we don’t collect the data, we don’t actually know if that’s true. Yeah. And if you don’t know whether or not that’s true, then you can’t build a plan to address it. If it’s not, or you can’t build a plan to protect it if it’s so, you know, at, at its most fundamental level as unsexy as, you know, data collection for water quality is, it’s fundamentally important. It, everything else kind of builds on that. And it doesn’t hurt Dave that there’s, you know, these legal thresholds, these numeric thresholds that exist. So it’s, Dave (36m 3s): Yeah, that’s what they’re there for. Right? That’s why we have those. Brian (36m 6s): Exactly. It’s real simple. Here’s the threshold. If your data results show that you’re above it, well over time you can expect that you’re gonna have some negative impacts from that. So Dave (36m 16s): Yeah, over time then it won’t be as much of a surprise, right? When you, I mean, that’s the thing, it seems like it’s kind of a slow creep on a lot of these things where you’re, something’s going on, you don’t quite know it, and then all of a sudden you turn around and you’re like, oh my God, we’re in this place where the fish are going away. You know? But what you’re saying is, yeah, if you’re collecting the data, you can better predict at least know what’s going on. What are the, what are the water quality samples? What does that look like for you guys? Is this where you just go around to a set of places regularly, or how do you do that? Brian (36m 44s): Yeah, so, you know, when we first built the pilot project, we had to first figure out, okay, where are we gonna sample? What are we gonna sample for? And how often are we gonna do it? So we kind of threw together a plan, you know, the big hole’s over 150 miles long, so it’s a lot to cover. When I go collect water samples, it takes me two and a half days to collect and pack and ship and do paperwork. Three days really. And I’m driving like 450 miles every time. And we do that between April and October, nine different times. So what we built was, first we had eight sites. We had six on the big hole proper, the main stem. Brian (37m 27s): And then we had two on, on the primary tributaries Wise River and Deep Creek. And then our first year we were like, holy cow, there’s like really high nutrient levels in the upper river. This is a surprise. And so the second year when we got it approved by the state, we built a couple extra sites in, I had to raise some extra money and say, look, we want to narrow down where this is. So we added a headwater site And we added the north fork of the big hole, which is a third primary by volume tributary. And so that’s where we stand. We got 10 total sites, seven main stem, three prime tributaries, covering 150 miles of river from source to mouth near twin bridges for bugs. Brian (38m 8s): We do it, you know, in the fall. And that’s, I’ve got it fluctuates, but I got about six sites. We do four replicates in each riffle at each of those sites. And then we send those off to an entomology lab. We have a, we partner with the River Continuum Concepts in Manhattan, Montana, and they do the bug analysis for us, And we commission them to write a huge report. So it covers a massive swath of Southwest Montana. It’s a lot of windshield time. We take bottle samples for nitrite, suspended sediment, nitrogen, phosphorus, soluble reactive phosphorus. And then I got a, a fancy handheld probe that I can take pH water temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity specific conductance, all those results. Brian (38m 59s): It takes me like two weeks in January to put all that together, put it into the format required, and then submit it to the state water quality portal. That’s what, what makes it official, right? Right. So, and then, because we were like, man, we were seeing some crazy stuff with dissolved oxygen during the middle of the day, like, holy cow, like all this plant life, all this algae is acting like lungs. It’s literally inflating during the day while it’s doing photosynthesis and creating 150% saturation of dissolved oxygen. Well, if I’m seeing that in the middle of the day, I’m assuming rightly so, that at night that’s crashing. Brian (39m 40s): So we were like, well, it’s 150 mile round trip for me to go take a dissolved oxygen reading from Dylan. And so we raised some extra money And we got continuous data loggers that I put in the river at a couple sites. And it takes, I, I take a reading every 15 minutes for July, August, September, and the first week of October. So it’s thousands and thousands of readings of, of temperature, water temperature, and dissolved oxygen so that we’re able to graph how much it’s climbing during the day and how much it’s crashing at night. Well, it turns out, God, that’s great. Beyond, you know, those numeric thresholds for nitrogen phosphorus, there’s also one for aquatic life for dissolved oxygen. Brian (40m 21s): So if we’re getting below these levels of five milligrams per liter, well that’s problematic. We’re failing to achieve. And if it’s below eight milligrams per liter, that’s rough on juvenile fish that could be having an impact on recruitment. Right. Dave (40m 35s): Are you seeing that, are you seeing low levels? Brian (40m 38s): Yeah, yeah. Dave (40m 38s): What does that look like throughout the day or throughout that period? Brian (40m 41s): Well, the lowest level of the day is, is almost always kind of right before dawn. And the highest level would be kind of, you know, mid-afternoon at the heat of the day. And then we track every 15 minutes what they call the diurnal fluctuation. How high is it getting, how low is it getting? And I mean, long answer short, we’re dropping well below five milligrams per liter at times. And that is a known negative impact on aquatic life bugs and fish. You know, fish can move if you get, yeah, hot temperatures, low dissolved oxygen levels, they disappear. They can quickly move out of that zone, drop down into the canyon, get cold water ugia, they can move up into the tributaries. Brian (41m 24s): Well, the bugs aren’t so lucky they don’t move that fast. So they’re, they’re just, you know, in a hot pot with low dissolved oxygen levels. And we’ve seen that, that with our bug sampling, we’re seeing, it’s not massive, but it’s statistically relevant shift in these aquatic communities where some of these sites that are having these problems, especially up by wisdom, by Mud Creek, even Jackson, way high up, which is kind of surprising to us, but also down like by twin bridges at the bottom, we’re seeing fewer, you know, as a dominant percentage of species in each sample. We’re seeing fewer mayfly stone flies, cataly, and we’re seeing more of the pollution tolerant species of midges, more worms, more non insects. Brian (42m 7s): So it’s interesting because the biology is reflecting what we’re seeing in water quality. And to me it’s like, guys, this is so obvious, like let’s get on it. Everything’s pointing to an issue that’s pretty low tech to address. So let’s get on it. It’s gonna, it’s gonna take some resources, it’s gonna take some admitting, you know, what’s, what’s the first problem, right? You gotta admit there’s a problem. Dave (42m 32s): Yeah. What, what is that? What is it, let’s just say we kind of have those numbers. What would be a step you could do or people could do to reduce the impacts to those water quality? Like are there human things we can do? Brian (42m 42s): I mean, some of the work that’s being done is, is helpful in terms of enhancing the riparian buffer zone, right? So yeah, erosion is not only a problem for sediment, but it acts like a filtration system. You know, if you’ve got a healthy riparian zone of native grasses, deep rooted grasses, willows, things like that, not only are you getting good shade, which can make a meaningful decrease in water temperature one, two degrees when you’re getting close to 70, that’s significant. But I mean, that riparian buffer zone is everything as far as a low tech thing. It’s like sending all that land based flush off of nutrient loads and cow poop and things like that. Brian (43m 30s): It filters it out, it sucks it up and it uses it to its own advantage to grow. And it keeps it from getting in the river where we don’t want it. Things like offsite watering of cattle, a lot of that’s taking place. I’d like to see more of it, but it takes money, you know, and with an impairment designation that should open up funds to help landowners do this, where if we could keep cows off the stream bank, not only are they not crapping in the water, there’s also less erosion on the stream bank, healthier riparian zones, but it takes money to create an offsite water source for those cows. Wow. So I’m hopeful that if DEQ takes our petition seriously, they’ve got 60 days to respond, that we will get an impairment designation, we’ll get access to more money for groups that are doing that work and that will identify some of those zones where we can have, make the biggest difference, you know, the most bang for your buck. Brian (44m 25s): Like where are we having the biggest problems? And let’s focus resources there to pull cows off the river to do habitat projects, to improve the stream bank. And then offsite watering to keep some of that, that stuff flushing off the landscape from entering the river and let’s start there. And then it’s up to dq, you know, they’ll be charged with figuring out a plan going forward to address this, you know, long term. And I’m counting on ’em to do it, you know, they, they’re charged with maintaining water quality for Montanans and so I’m gonna keep, you know, gently throwing that elbow in there, nudging them to, to do that. Brian (45m 5s): That’s Dave (45m 5s): What they do. That’s amazing. That’s, that was well said. I think we could, we can kind of take it outta here real quick in a sec here with our kind of our trip shout out segment and, And today this is presented by, we mentioned before on Demark Lodge, we’re heading over to the Missouri and it’s gonna be pretty awesome because we’re excited to do some dry fly fishing, but also we’re doing a giveaway event, which is going on, you know, essentially right now as we speak. So we’ll put a link to the show notes to that for somebody that can get a chance to enter that wet fly swing.com/giveaway. And we’re gonna be talking more about this trip. So first off, I want to give that shout out to and de mark you were, as you were talking there, I was thinking about the beavers. I’ve heard some of these stories about where they’ve brought back beavers and I think a lot of farmers were like, oh, we don’t want the beavers ’cause they flood our property. Dave (45m 49s): But what they’re finding is the benefits actually to the adjacent land that they’re using for farming has actually been huge. So do you think there’s some of those things where right now people around in your area aren’t realizing the positive benefits of what this could do? You know what I mean? I think probably a lot of people are thinking about taking away their rights to do things, but are you seeing the other side of it too? Brian (46m 9s): I mean, with regard to beavers? Yeah, there’s a, there’s a lot of work happening, you know, largely led by the big hole watershed committee to implement these beaver dam analogs because historic trapping has driven a lot of beaver from the landscape and also the, the nuisance factor for irrigators and their ditches and, and canals and just landowners not wanting ’em around. Well, we didn’t realize historically as we were taking ’em off the landscape, how valuable they were. And so there are some groups working on coaxing them back to the landscape by essentially, you know, pretending that they’re there with these beaver dem analogs we’re, we’re taking the benefits of them in the high country on tributaries holding back the snowpack, they call it, holding back some of those flows. Brian (46m 56s): It saturates the ground, you know, you get bigger meadow areas and that, you know, that groundwater’s connected. So while it may be another small source, it is a source and it’s, in some places it’s quantifiable that you’re getting some groundwater return from these beaver dam analogs, holding back some of that water, letting it saturate the ground. And then through groundwater connectivity, it’s entering back into the tributaries and back into, I know if it makes it all the way the, probably not at this point, but maybe with time. But it’s certainly having an impact on tributaries and, and upland landscapes and there’s a ever working group in Montana. So, yeah, I think, I don’t know how widespread the knowledge of the value of that is, but there are folks here working on it and working hard at it. Dave (47m 43s): That’s good to hear. Yeah, I think those are, those are all great points. You know, and I think we’re making that point today is that there’s a lot of things we can do. You’ve talked about a few of ’em. Anything else we want to, you wanna highlight before we head outta here Today? We, we haven’t talked a ton about the phishing. Maybe maybe we could save that for the next one, but yeah. Anything else with your organization you want to check in on here? You Brian (48m 3s): Know, I do wanna maybe make a note to the phishing just because fishing, you know Yeah. I make a partial living on it too, so, so I’m, I’m sensitive to the concern that that folks with businesses dependent on the fishing are worried, you know, at the end of the day, fishing’s still been good. I mean, I’m out there a lot too. And, and just because these problems are, are, you Dave (48m 24s): Can still catch brown trout. Brian (48m 26s): Exactly. Dave (48m 26s): I think I saw something where there was a, I think like a 16 pound maybe was the biggest fish caught in recent years. 16 pound brown trout on the big hole. So there’s, there’s still some big fish out there, it sounds like. Brian (48m 37s): There are some, yeah. And, and hopefully, you know, we’re really looking forward to FWP electro shocking results coming up this spring to see where we stand. ’cause maybe things are continuing to improve. Maybe we’re building on last year’s better juvenile recruitment. None of that means that we give up what we’re doing, but it’s good news. So I, you know, there’s a lot of families and friends of mine that make their living doing this and so come out and support ’em, you know, support the local business. Like we, you know, that refrain is said everywhere, right. On all podcasts. Yeah. Like all these little businesses are dependent on your, you know, coming out to, to stay, go out and drink and eat and you know, shuttle service and guide services and fly shop retail. Brian (49m 26s): I mean, it’s so important. Yeah. You know, we know we, they’ve documented the economic importance of outdoor recreation in a lot of places. Beaverhead County being one of ’em. And it’s critical. Oh yeah. But let’s do it smartly. Let’s seek out folks that are working towards these ends, working towards the benefit of the resource that sustains them. And let’s seek out groups doing that work and, and let’s put our money where our mouth is, you know, essentially u use that purchase power to reflect our ideals. So what we care about. Dave (49m 57s): Yep. Perfect. Well, and gimme, I’ve got one random one before we get outta here. I know you have some experience on some river trips. What would be, do you still have any river trips you haven’t done yet that are like some epic ooh, things you’ve been thinking about doing? Brian (50m 10s): So I’ve been real lucky in my life. I’ve been able to do those five day Smith trips, like a whole bunch. Oh wow. Yeah. Like 35 times as a guide and got married on the third day of a SM five day Smith trip. I’ve unable to do the middle fork in the salmon for eight days in 2023, my wife and I had our own raft and did the entirety of the Grand Canyon 281 miles. Dave (50m 33s): Oh wow. You did? Sold. Yeah. Brian (50m 35s): So I’ve been extremely fortunate in my life to be able to experience some of those places. I got a few others on my list. One that’s sort of up there is, well, two, I wanna continue the next wilderness stretch on the main stem of the salmon put in where we took out from the middle fork and do the next 80 or a hundred miles, whatever it is, down to Riggins. So that I will have done, you know, a hundred, 200 miles on that. Then the other one that’s less about whitewater and more about scenery and geology is I really wanna do the yampa beyond that. I’d, I’d love to do the middle fork of the salmon again. That was just spectacular. Yeah. And challenging And really, really fun technical rowing, which I enjoy. Dave (51m 18s): That’s great. What was the, when you did the Grand Canyon with your wife, what was the boat you guys took down there? Brian (51m 24s): We had an 18 foot soar. We rented one. Dave (51m 26s): Yeah. Soar. Oh, you rented one? Brian (51m 28s): Yeah, my, my 13 foot guide raft would not have done it for us in 23. In 23 days worth of gear and beer. Dave (51m 35s): No, that’s right. Yeah, you gotta go big. That’s the thing you gotta have. And then, did you guys see many of the, the wooden drift boat doors on the river? Brian (51m 41s): We did not. We did, we were basically the whole month of April we launched on April 6th and we didn’t see a pile of groups. It, it was a really wonderful time to have drawn, the temperatures were great. We basically watched spring unfold over 280 miles and 23 days until, you know, the last like two weeks of the trip was like just I, everything was in bloom. It was incredible. We were, wow. We were lucky to be on the river. Luck might be in quotation marks, but we were lucky to be on the river for the high flow event that happened where they used that cold water discharge to push back the invasive small mouth bass back down into Lake Mead. Brian (52m 23s): So that was scary and fun all at the same time, you know. So Dave (52m 27s): Rage. So it came up on you guys and you had some big flows. Brian (52m 30s): Yeah, I was, I don’t know, 25,000 CFS, something like that. Dave (52m 34s): Oh wow. What was that when you started? Like how low and how high did it get? Brian (52m 38s): I think it was 14 when we started. It was higher than normal for that time of year. You know, they’ve struggled. Lake Powell has struggled. That’s no secret to anyone. But we were just really, really lucky when we, we went to the, you know, they debrief you at the beginning, the Ranger does, And he is like, well, you’re gonna have some high flows this trip. And we all just kind of looked at each other wide-eyed, like, wow. We, we weren’t expecting that. We were prepared for a low flow trip and wow, big flows are big time scary. Wow. And big time. Awesome. And it was shocking how small and 18 foot raft can feel. Dave (53m 13s): Yeah. And the big row. Yeah. 25,000. Wow. Brian (53m 16s): Or more. I mean, by the time we got down 200 miles in, you know, it was a lot higher than that with all the creeks and inflows and stuff like that. That, so Dave (53m 26s): That’s so cool. That’s so cool. Yeah, we, we did a little series, we did a drift boat series on the podcast and I interviewed a bunch of guests around companies and one of them was, we had Pete McBride with, he had Martin’s boat and they talked a lot about the Dory and the of Martin Linton. Right. And all that stuff. And really interesting, right. This guy that was all, well talk about protection. This is like, that was his whole thing to protect the Grand Canyon from development of all these, and they did, they stopped some of the dams and they built their wood boats all had names of, of the places they were protecting and you know what I mean? Like, that’s a good story of like, I feel like when you get into these things, we’re having these conversations, they do sound like a downer a little bit, but I feel like when you look at Martin Linton, you know, those stories you could see like, or even some of these other places around the country have successes. Dave (54m 7s): I feel like, do you still stay positive when you, you know, it’s gonna be a battle, but you can, you can get there because other people have done things like this. Brian (54m 14s): I do. You know, real quick to the point of the drift boats, although we didn’t see any after having done it, now I want to go do it in a drift boat in a dory and challenge myself further to run really clean lines. Right. So that’s, that’s maybe on the list as well. Dave (54m 30s): There you go. Well, maybe, we’ll, maybe we’ll stay in touch, put something like that together. But Brian (54m 35s): Yeah, to your point, yeah, it, at times it’s hard to be optimistic. It’s hard to stay positive, but at the end of the day, it’s like, if not me, then who? If not now, then when that classic phrase and then, and simply the work needs done and somebody’s gotta do it. And yeah, it’s frustrating and, and yeah, sometimes it’s, it’s hurtful frankly, that folks don’t wanna support those efforts or are outright antagonistic towards them. But at the end of the day, you just gotta shed that skin and keep pursuing the direction that, you know, is the right one. And if you’re fighting for water quality, you’re fighting for ecological integrity and you’re fighting for, you know, having a reduced negative impact on the resources that we depend on. Brian (55m 22s): I mean, you’re, you’re on the right team. You, you know, you’re, you’re moving in the right direction. Be thoughtful about it, be reflective about it, you know, be humble about it, but at the end of the day, you know, seek those like minds out and pull in the same direction. ’cause you know, one person can’t do it, even if one person’s the face of it or gets the credit for something, I guarantee it’s not one person that did all of it. So Yeah. You know, give, pulling in the same direction because the time is now And we need to get on this as outdoor recreationalists and as people that care about it and people that make money off the resource too. I mean, we owe a debt to those resources they’ve provided for us and our families and, And we, we owe a debt to their health. Dave (56m 5s): Yeah, I think and that’s well said. I think I, I heard this other person, I don’t have the quote exactly, but paraphrasing, it was like, the hard work is the stuff where the work you’re doing now, you’re not gonna see in your lifetime. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, it’s actually you’re doing the work that you’re probably your kids or maybe your kids’ kids will see the benefits that that’s like where the real, whatever that is, right? The real power comes where you’re doing that sort of work. Because I mean, that’s, that’s the case. Some of the stuff you’re doing now with this water quality, you know, might not even, it might take years to get to that point where you’re like, wow, realizing what you did made a difference. Right. Brian (56m 37s): I sure hope so. And, and you know, there’s a quote along those lines that I really like, I can’t remember the exact quote or who said it, but it’s something along the lines of the wise man plants a tree he knows he’ll never sit in the shade of, and that’s sort of the thought is that this, we’re playing the long game here, right? We’re making sure that generations beyond me still can enjoy these kind of resources. And sometimes that means it’s a little painful while you’re living in it. But like I said, the work’s gotta be done. It’s important and, you know, we just gotta do it. That’s all there is to it. Dave (57m 11s): That’s awesome. Well, we’ll put some links to the show notes to some of the groups we talked about, and I’ll get that, that Martin’s boat video from Pete McBride in the episode we did with him in there as well, so people can take out. But awesome, Brian, well this has been great. Appreciate you for spending the extra time here to, to dig into this and we’ll send everybody out to brf.org if they want to connect and help support what you have going. But yeah, man, appreciate all your time today and looking forward to staying in touch. Yeah, Brian (57m 35s): Really glad you’ve reached out. I, I love talking about this stuff and, and hopefully the broader reach of, of your podcast will kind of clue people into what’s happening. Dave (57m 45s): If you get a chance, please check in with your local foundation conservation group, whoever is in your area. If you don’t know who they are, look ’em up, find ’em out. They might be local, they might be more regional, but there will be a group out there. Check in with them and that’s how you can give your support as Brian said. Also, check in with Brian if you get a chance, let him know you heard this podcast and let ’em know you support the work they’re doing. A couple of notes before we get outta here. We mentioned at the start the Missouri River trip. Right now we are heading to the Big Mo this year, this fall. Go to wet flight swing.com/missouri right now and enter your name and email and I’ll follow up with you on details of the trip. If you’re interested in hearing more. This is gonna be a dry fly extravaganza. We’re gonna be out there boating, floating the Missouri with Craig de Mark and his crew going to a small lodge on the river. Dave (58m 32s): If you’re interested in dry flies, have you thought about the Missouri? If you want to get out with with me and some of the Wetly swing crew, now’s the time. All right, one last shout out to the next episode. Jack Dennis is on next week. He’s back baby Jack Dennis Monday. We have him coming on the podcast and he’s gonna give us a big update on what he has going. He’s got a big 50 year anniversary as well that we talk about. So subscribe to this podcast if you haven’t already, you’ll get that next episode delivered to your inbox. All right, I’m outta here. Hope you have a great morning, hope you have a great afternoon or a fantastic evening if it’s late in the evening or if it’s early, and we’ll talk to you very soon. Outro (59m 8s): Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly, swing Fly fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit wet fly swing.com.