In the Bucket #19 | Steelhead Spey Fishing Arts and Culture with Dec Hogan, George Cook, Scott O’Donnell, and Joseph Rossano

Dec (2s): But I’ll never forget the first day he goes, Hey, we got a day off. Shoot. We go fishing deck. What you would actually fish with me? And we went out. And that guy, he fished that dry fly all day long, all day long. And he caught six fish that day on the dry line. On, on, no, on a floating fly. Half of ’em were dead drifted. So That whole, that everything that I was intrigued about him all came to fruition. And by gosh it was true. So Brian (37s): Welcome to In The Bucket, the podcast that explores the culture of spay fishing in the Pacific Northwest. A spectacular land of mountains and wild rivers where every cast has a story to tell. I’m your host, Brian Ska. In today’s show, we’re gonna talk to some true legends in the Northwest spay fishing community. We’ve got George Cook back for another episode, joined by deck Hogan, Scott O’Donnell and Joseph Ano. I truly cannot overstate the tremendous contribution this group has made to steelhead spay fishing, arts and culture, space casting instruction, fly design, and many of the tackle innovations we enjoy today. This bunch has a long history of fishing together, so I’m excited to hear their stories. Brian (1m 17s): Let’s get into it. Right on folks. I am stoked for today’s show. We are blessed today to have George Cook, Scott O’Donnell and deck Hogan on in the bucket. George, why don’t you go ahead and tell our listeners a little bit about yourself. George (1m 34s): Well, good morning, gents. I’m George Cook. I live in Washington State and I have been with Sage Fly Rod since 1987 and a rep since 1990 in Oregon, Washington, Alaska. And I’ve known these two characters that are with us today since about 1988. And sometime today, I will tell some colorful history of this. Scott (2m 4s): I’m Scott O’Donnell here in Oregon, Troy, Oregon on the Grand Ron River. I’ve got a fishing lots Bay Water Lodge, still guiding Oregon Coast in the spring and been a Sage ambassador and Rio Ambassador for quite a while now. Don’t even know how long and yeah, I’ve known these guys a long time. And you too, Brian. Brian (2m 28s): Yeah, I remember running Tin on the Thompson ba basically. God bless the Thompson. I wish we were still able to fish there. Scott (2m 35s): Yeah, me too. Dec (2m 37s): Me three. Cool. Hey guys, I’m Deck Hogan. Started back with these guys way back when and and guided on the Skagit, cut my teeth there and, and Skagit Sky Coleman still gomish from 89 to 2003 ish and then had a big life change. But in that time I moved to Utah, and if you ask me where I fish for steelhead in Utah, I always say Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia. And, and through all that, I wrote a book called The Pass for Steelhead, which proud to say that it, it’s pretty well received and it’s 20 years now. And I we’re at that spa claim last week and I signed probably two dozen of them. Dec (3m 17s): So I’m just, I love this stuff. Still have, still just as passionate today as I was the, the day I met George Cook in 1988, so, and Scott O’Donnell in 1987. Brian (3m 28s): Yeah, I, I gotta say this is probably the most firepower we’ve had on this show, George, this is the second time we’ve had you on here. The last time we saw you, we were all excited to talk about the upcoming Sandy River Space Clave. So let me ask you, was the event as big of a success as we thought it was gonna be? George (3m 44s): Yeah, I think, I’m gonna tell you, there was about three, 400 people there in two days. There was a great percentage of new people that had never been to it, even though it had basically a, but it, there were a lot of new faces and these two boys along with myself, we all got to speak on the various days. And I think it was, it was a great success. And me and Marty, Marty, you know, passes all the ACC claim onto Mia, but between the two of them led by Mia, they did a great job. A fantastic job. Dec (4m 22s): They did, yeah. They really did. They were 150% dedicated to that too, just nonstop all day and proceeding and I’m sure, and even afterwards with her follow up, pretty cool. Scott (4m 34s): Mia did most of the work though. Dec (4m 35s): Yeah, of course. Brian (4m 38s): In that episode, George, we talked a little bit about the history of the clave and you know, the one thing with this community that never ceases to amaze me is the willingness of the, the OG members to share with the beginners. Right? I think that’s, that’s pretty unique. And you know, you three guys a little bit older than me, and I think that we’re really neatly positioned because you guys were there at the beginning and if there was anyone doing it before you, you knew who they were and you’re still doing it. So you’re not in that camp of, oh, everything sucks now and everything used to be good And you guys don’t know what you’ve lost, you’re still out there doing it. But I think there is, there is a real shifting baselines thing when it comes to understanding, you know, what used to be there. Brian (5m 21s): And, and certainly we’ve lost a lot of stuff along the way. I wanna open this with this question that’s been bugging me a lot and it’s, do closures actually do anything? Is there an example you guys can think of where we’ve seen a river get closed and then the population of fish comes back to a sustainable fishable number? Dec (5m 40s): I personally haven’t seen that defer to Scott or George, but I, I personally have not seen that, Scott (5m 46s): I think the Green River, but I, that’s an un unusual, that’s a different situation I think than what you’re talking about. You know, that after Mount St. Helen’s blue and they closed that river system up there and, you know, they thought, you know, that all those salmon and steel were just gonna get wiped out. And then, what was it not five, six years later, just huge returns started coming back in there after it had been closed for a while. But I, I think that’s a little different than what you’re talking Dec (6m 17s): Yeah, yeah. Yep. Even the then fish start returning to the Tootle River too, but that is a different situation. Yeah. But like, you know, for the Skagit for instance, you know, and Theus, you know, they close those rivers and they remain closed and then we’ll open them occasionally and numbers haven’t improved. They opened the Skagit this year thinking they had a bunch of new fish and they wound up emergency closing it during the midseason, the special season. I’m not a doom and gloom guy. Like you said, we’re all still here doing this and we’re still passionate, but, you know, it’s things, some things aren’t the same. Some things might be as good or better. I don’t know. Dec (6m 58s): Well, tell me where they are. George (6m 60s): Well, we’ve seen, you know, over the years, all of us, you know, all four of us, most certainly including Brian and British Columbia, but, you know, I never thought we’d ever fished in Wenatchee again. Right. But it’s been open a time or two, the met, how a time or two, I hunt archery, early archery up on the Okanagan every year up in that twist country, and I drive along the Okanagan, and there’s plenty of fish that have been in that the last couple of years. But, you know, the back and forth with the tribe has never quite allowed it to, you know, be open and there’s a lot of yummy water even on that ditch. George (7m 42s): But you watch these closures, we see ’em a lot in Alaska, right? With, you know, Chinook, the Chinook that, and I guess my viewpoint is Brian, is by the time, you know, let’s take Alaska for an an example. They’ll close something maybe, you know, it might be open five days and then suddenly it’s closed. There’s Joe, you know, and by the time they close it, the damage that led to it being closed, well that damage already occurred. And in the case of the Chinook, most of that damage is out in the big blue. So, you know, I think it’s reactionary and like deck says, you know, once they’re, they’re closed. George (8m 30s): Well, it’s a far cry to see ’em reopened, no question. Dec (8m 36s): Yeah, Brian (8m 36s): Right on. I, I wanna keep going on this topic for a little bit, but we, we gotta introduce our fourth guest. We’ve got Joseph Rosanna joining us here, fighting against the tech and prevailing nice work. Joe, Joe (8m 49s): It was the other link that you sent that worked nice to see everybody, Brian (8m 53s): Joseph. So we, the other gentleman already introduced themselves to our listeners. Why don’t we just take a minute and why don’t you tell everybody listening who you are and a little bit about yourself, please, Joe (9m 3s): In less than 20 words. In less than 20 words. My name’s Joe Rosano, and I’m an artist and I live in the valley of the Stillaguamish. I guess I’ve been here for 37 years or something like that. And I’ve had the benefit of bumping into each one of these individuals at least a couple of times. And we shared a, a unique period in time together, and I’m grateful to actually be on this call with them. And you, Brian. Brian (9m 36s): Wonderful. So once again, discussing this idea of closures and recognizing that fisheries managers have a, you know, they have a, a tough task in front of them, but they really have this one lever that they like to pull, and that’s taking away the anglers. And I just don’t believe it does anything. I think our impacts are so low, and I think in a lot of ways we, you know, we, we sort of self police ourself in the sense that if fishing’s slow, there’s not that many fish being caught. There’s not that many anglers participating. And there’s, you know, there’s I think a real legitimate upside to keeping people on the water, which is, you know, dissuading, poachers and Absolutely. And Scott, you and I were talking before the show started about these test fisheries that we use in bc these gill nets that we kill fish to find out how many of them are there. Brian (10m 22s): And you said, man, I, I could do a better job doing it with my rod and reel. And I, I think I truly believe that. So, you know, down the road, maybe there’s a way we can move away from these, these silly gillnet test fisheries. But Joe, what’s your thoughts on, on closures? Do you think that there’s any examples of a, a river that’s been closed and then saw some form of recovery when it comes to steelhead, Joe (10m 41s): This is a giant can of worms being introspective. I feel like I have to understand both sides of the, of the argument. And I agree with, you know, the whole concept that if you close the river down And you forget about it in your, you know, in your heart and your mind and in your annual activities as an angler, it’s hard to get that back. I mean, we’ve seen that play out multiple times. At the same time, I do think that, that we, we have a responsibility to bring people together. You know, we see things in a different way than a different type of fishermen might see it. And with the way steelhead fly fishing and see other fishing in general has become popularized. Joe (11m 27s): Certainly, you know, my home on the Skagit, I’m seeing many more non fly fishermen fishing in Kero East fishery. And they’re much more successful than us, much more successful than us. And I just, I know that what they, they calculate that there’s a 10% mortality, and if we’re not encountering a lot of fish and there’s a 10% mortality, does that equate to something grand in the, in the larger scheme? I don’t have an answer to that, but I’m not going to say that it, it doesn’t, because I think that’s hubris and that we have to sort of be aware that we have all had an impact regardless of our background or demographic, et cetera. Joe (12m 8s): We have to be responsible. Then they’ll maybe be opening for us because we show that we care. At least that’s my perspective. I could be naive, I could be an idea. I am an idealist. So, but that’s my opinion. Scott (12m 21s): 10% sounds really high to me for mortality rate on catcher release. That sounds absurd to me. I have a hard time believing that I kill one out of 10 fish that I release. George (12m 33s): Well, one thing, Brian, that, that I’ve kind of talked about around campfires and in stores with retailers is the idea that rather than close these rivers, put them on a permit, draw, put ’em into a situation much like big game where say the Skagit or the hoe or the Wenatchee or you know, pick your ditch, right? You put ’em on a draw and say there’s a six week season on the Skagit, on the sky, comish on the hoe, and you’re only gonna draw a certain number of bodies. Doesn’t matter if they’re fly or they’re gear, we kick the bait game out of the way, of course. George (13m 14s): And can you imagine a guy that waltz us into the local fly shop and says, Hey man, I drew the sky comish first week of April, I gotta get ready. I mean, can you imagine it’d be like a guy drawing a moose permit in northeast Washington or a sheep permit anywhere in the country. It would just be this. And then you’ve got these people that are absolutely the garden guardians of the galaxy. The galaxy being that steel had river that they’ve drawn a tag on, not to mention the revenue basis that could drive for this. I mean, fish and game could put whatever price they want on that permit and not dissimilar to what some of the big game tags are. George (13m 59s): They’d have a hell of a revenue source and at that point, the enforcement question ought to go away about not being able to afford enforcement. It would solve a lot of things in my opinion, but that’ll be my rant for today. Dec (14m 17s): Cool. Sign me up, Scott (14m 19s): Brian, on your test fishery situation. You know, something similar to that would be beautiful. You know, say put a hundred people, you know, a hundred anglers on the river for one day or maybe two days and put a draw permit on it and, and charge a premium for it and they’d make some money on it. Yeah, Dec (14m 37s): That’s a good idea. Brian (14m 39s): And we’d release them and, and I gotta say, Scott, I really agree with you. I think 10% sounds really high. I recognize that there’s science out there to support it, but when you, when you actually look into a lot of the catch and release studies that have been done, they’re not handling phish the way that that we do. And I, I think in you guys’ tenure, I believe deck you started guiding in the late eighties. We’ve seen phish handling practices, I think generally improve. We’ve done a few things, and I think anglers have driven these changes up here. We’ve got, you know, single barbless hooks. George talked about removing the bait. I think generally speaking, you know, we’ve done everything that we can to improve the survivability of an encounter with these magnificent creatures. Brian (15m 20s): What do you guys think? Is there more that we can do, you know, keeping fish wet, et cetera. What else can we do to, to lower catch and release mortality? Dec (15m 28s): We need to educate, educate, educate, educate. But we need to educate to other user groups as well. Because as fly fishers, we, we tend to be better at handling the fish. And I know there’s guys that hold ’em out for 27 fixtures for their Instagram posts, but in general, it’s, some of the other user groups would be nice if they, they got on board, and I know a lot of ’em are good at it, Barbara, you know, it was kind of tongue in cheek, but a few years ago when they were closing the Deschutes, you know, when the Deschutes river’s getting closed, you know, things are rugged, things are bad. And I’m still guiding over on the grand run, and we had some guys drop out very close to the, to the trip because they didn’t want to be responsible for killing the last wild steelhead. Dec (16m 13s): And my reply to one of these gentlemen who was a regular client of ours, I said, so when it was really good three years ago, arbitrarily, how many did you catch? Well, it got blank that week with you guys. Okay, why don’t you come on out? Yeah. So anyway, but yeah, but that’s how I feel, Scott (16m 35s): You know, on catch and release mortality. I mean, what, what’s the cause of death, right? I think probably what has to be the most significant cause of death on catching release fish has gotta be, you know, getting that hook just in the perfect spot in a gill r or the back of the tongue where they bleed out and oftentimes they’re dead when you land them, right? Yeah. Yes. And so I don’t believe that barbless hooks are, are the thing, I I don’t think a barbed hook or a barbless hook is a big deal nowadays with modern hooks. The barbs are tiny and it’s very easy to remove those fish without doing a bunch of damage. Scott (17m 16s): But I think if you put a barbless hook, or I know for a fact you put a Barb’s hook in the gill r right in the middle of that gill r you know, it’s gonna bleed out just as much as if it’s a barbed hook. I don’t think that, Dec (17m 28s): Or in the back of the tongue, like you said, yeah, Scott (17m 30s): Maybe the size hook is gonna make a big difference. You know, I think if the hooks are too large, they tend to grab ’em deeper. Certainly if it’s a double hook or a triple, you know, a a treble hook, they don’t slide out to the mouth like a single hook does. You know, I don’t know whether offset or non offset hooks make a difference as far as, you know, hooking ’em deeper. I think probably offset hooks tend to hook ’em a little deeper, you know, and we, you know, we want the hook to slide. Once they engulf the hook, we want it to slide out to the lip and get ’em in the corner or on the lip somewhere. Scott (18m 10s): And so you have to have hooks that will do that. But I don’t think barbed or barlass makes any a big difference. Dec (18m 17s): I I fish barbless for me. Scott (18m 19s): Yeah. Yeah. George (18m 21s): I would say guys, just based on Chinook in that idea, Scott, that it’s at Deep Hook, it’s at Gill Raker, and you’re right, they, you land them, they suddenly have that all of color. And when they’ve got that all of color that, that critters is dead as the last deer I shot. And I would, I would tell you guys It is probably if, if somebody said, well, what do you think you guys are killing, you know, eight days of Chinook fish in between three of you? I think we’re killing one fish out of every 70 that we know that, you know, oh yeah, this guy, we’re gonna feed him to the Eagles, right? George (19m 7s): Or Brown Boo is downstream, he might get this one. But yeah, I mean, I, I think 10% is probably just a number and it’s probably a number of convenience for somebody somewhere, because it’s just rare that you get one that that does that. And I would tell you guys on Chinook, it’s more often a jack that does that, you know, the big swallow than it is a mature fish that’s, you know, say north of 15 pounds Dec (19m 41s): Personally, if, if it would truly was 10% And you could prove that to me, I don’t know if I would fish anymore. Scott (19m 47s): Right? Yeah. Dec (19m 48s): Yeah. I can’t be responsible for that. I mean, like a lot of days my years guiding on the Deschutes, we’d have been killing a fish a day. Joe (19m 55s): I think the ratio that that George just, you know, put out there is about what my experience has been with steelhead in terms of, you know, them not reviving. And I found that the longer the hook, the greater the incident of that happening. So back in the days when we used to use those long carry Stevens before we started using tubes as much, that was more common. And yeah, so I think the number is more about having a built-in error that is in favor of the fish if we’re gonna have a catch and release fishery, not that it’s a real number. Does that make sense? So it’s probably 3% in reality, but they’re gonna say they’re gonna, they’re going to, in their model use, we need to talk to a biologist and a statistician, because that’s not me. 6 (20m 47s): When it comes to high quality flies that truly elevate your fly fishing game, drift hook.com is the trusted source you need. I’ve been using drift hook’s expertly selected flies for a while now, and they never disappoint. Plus they stand behind their products with a money back guarantee. Are you ready to upgrade your fly box? Head over to drift hook.com today and use the code swing at checkout to get 15% off your first order. That’s drift hook D-R-I-F-T-H-O-O k.com. Don’t miss out this year. I ventured into the heart of Eastern Idaho’s Yellowstone Teton territory where the fish were larger than life and the waters held the secrets of the best fly fishing out west with crystal clear rivers like the Henry’s Fork and the South Fork of the Snake, and enough lakes to keep you going all year long, make your way to Yellowstone Teton territory and embark on a journey to one of North America’s finest fly fishing destinations. 6 (21m 39s): It’s time to experience eastern Idaho for yourself and support this podcast at the same time. Brian (21m 50s): Well, I did pose the same question to John McMillan, and I got a, a fairly similar answer to the number you guys are, are using, maybe slightly higher, but in the same ballpark. And essentially the point that John made was that like everybody on this call, you know, his, his game is pretty tight. He knows how to treat fish. And when we’re looking at these numbers from a management standpoint, we need to take into account Joe Bagga Donuts who, you know, doesn’t treat fish the way Scott O’Donnell does. And once again, that comes back to education. And I, I look south of the border and I’ve never fished down there, but I know you guys have a, an interesting regulation where you’re not allowed to take a wild steelhead out of the water. And we’ve talked about that up here. Brian (22m 30s): And for whatever reason, that was never, you know, a discussion to, to turn into a regulation here, but becomes more of an educational thing. And I think in my view, education goes a lot further than regulation kind of goes, like, catch and release limits is a good example. How do you kill less fish? We’ll catch less of them. Should we make it a law that you can only catch a couple or, or should we just, you know, hopefully over time people figure out that, you know, when you’ve had your fill just to hang out and do something else for a little bit. Dec (22m 56s): Yeah. And then at the same time I kind of question how, like Joe’s saying, opening a can of worms. I mean, how much effect do we really have on, on the big picture? Some guys would, you know, out fly fishing who most of us suck anyway, you know, And you just get a lucky fish now and then because steelhead are aggressive. But I don’t think we’re, we’re the problem. We have to make our contributions, obviously, you know, anytime we’re connected to one of those fish, we have a responsibility. But I think that the much, much, much bigger than, than a few fly fishermen on the river. Scott (23m 31s): I think there’d be a big difference in technique too. I mean, we’re swinging, right? And so I don’t think they tend to get the flies as deep as somebody fishing a bobber in a bead that’s dead drift. And those, those go immediately to the back of the mouth. And so they, they probably hook, you know, those fish deeper a little bit more. I can’t speak for it from experience, but, you know, trout fishing in Alaska, you know, we’re catching 30 to, and these are, you know, I mean they’re as big of fish as I’m catching here on the grand run, right? And we’re catching 30, 30 to 80 of these fish a day and we’re not killing a fish every day. You know, we might kill one or two a week, but that doesn’t equate to 10%. Scott (24m 14s): Now I watch other guides and I think they’re killing more fish. I see ’em, you know, using nets and they gotta get that fish. They’re chasing ’em around out in the middle of the river with a net, and then they get ’em in the net and then they, you know, because they think they’re treating the fish better by netting them, and then they, you know, carry the, you know, they net the fish, they’re, you know, 80 feet away from the angler and then they carry the thing out of the water all the way back to the anger and set it down on the bank, you know, to get pictures. And then after about four or five minutes, they, they, they’re gonna hear me screaming from way down river, you know, Hey, put that fish back. You know? Scott (24m 54s): So there’s, yeah, there’s definitely a higher mortality rate with some people, but Dec (24m 60s): What’d you call ’em Joe or Brian Joe, bag of donuts. I like that. Scott (25m 4s): Yeah. Yeah. Brian (25m 7s): This kind of speaks to George’s point though about limited entry and managing, managing fish the way that they manage wildlife, because we’re way behind how they manage big game wildlife. And I’m just not convinced that, you know, our, our Canadian manage fish managers at least can make the distinction and fully understand the difference between how we fish and may maybe how another user group that dresses similarly and looks kind of like us and the impact associated impacts that can be assigned to technique. Once again, this educational thing, right? And to what role do the angling public help shape the way we’re managed? And the thing that, that I sort of see my now is when you have these closures, you get this waterbed effect, right? Brian (25m 50s): They close one river, boom, puts the pressure on another fishery. It’s a poor strategy. Joe (25m 55s): There is a, a strategy employed in Atlantic Canada where there is, there are zones of environmental conservation on each river, and there is public water on each of these rivers. And you can go in the day before or the day that you’re going to fish And you go into the office and they allow a certain number of rods on a given section and there’s some unlimited water where they don’t limit it. And then you pay your $10 or $15 or you know, $400 if it’s really exclusive water And you get to fish. And, you know, I’ve spoken to our brethren here about, you know, would we do, would something like that work? And there were a lot of people whose immediate response is, well, you know, I pay my state taxes, I pay my federal taxes, I don’t wanna have to pay to fish every day. Joe (26m 44s): And I don’t know that I completely disagree with them. You know, we might wanna have a different approach here, but I mean, George’s approach is something I’d never thought about. You know, like you pull its egg to fish the skagit, you know, this week. I mean, I do think people would be excited. I, on the other hand would be disappointed to put a fish every day. Hence we’d be great if we had sections of open water. But yes, some combination of that could work. And then there’s also, you know, this concept that, that we live in a technologically advanced world. I’m not gonna, my actions study do not prove that, right? But if we had an application that you, when you signed up or paid for your permit, you had to agree to participate in, and a non-interaction means you have nothing to report And you had to report so That we actually became directly involved in the management or the monitoring in a meaningful way. Joe (27m 46s): There’s another way that we could then become real stewards of the river. You know, some combination of those three things. One, Brian (27m 54s): One thing that you know, strikes me right away just looking at this crew is I think, man, between the group of us, we’ve put a lot of new anglers on the water over the years and, you know, now these folks need to find some water of their own to fish. And when we see this, this loss of opportunity, this loss of access, not everybody can afford to fly around the world and fish somewhere remote. You know, you need to have your local fishery. And it’s a tricky thing, right? Because I’m sure all of us at one point or another have caught a little bit of flack for creating these new anglers and, you know, maybe contributing to a river being a little busier than certain people like, like the way it was. So it’s, it’s a tricky one. Brian (28m 35s): And I, you know, as I get into my fifties here and I have these kids and I start to think, are they gonna be able to have a similar experience to what we all got to do? And you know, I I think you guys in particular had a really neat go of it because you saw the first spay rods on the water. You tied new flies that no one else had seen before. You know, you, you got other people excited. People looked at you probably at one point and said, what, what the heck are you doing? What, you know, I I’ll never fish a two-hander. And then they’re coming to you for lessons so no one will have that experience again. Right? Spay fishing’s just too, too widespread. But let’s get outta the politics for a minute. And let’s, let’s go back to the beginning deck. Brian (29m 15s): I know you started guiding in the late eighties. I’d asked George at our last show, you know, who put a spay rod in his hand the first time. And my memory’s not too bad. I remember it was the hardy rep at Kaufman Stream Board on a visit, but who put a spay rod in your hands? The first time deck? Dec (29m 29s): So first of all, the, the, the first guiding I did was in 1989. And then it was limited. And then I really started up in the nineties. The very first two-handed Rod I touched is the same one I believe Scott O’Donnell did. And that was our buddy Ed ward, the three amigos. We were hanging out together back then. And Ed got one, it was a Orvis unfinished, I think it was a nine weight, 13 and a half foot, something like that. But e either way, that was the first one that I touched. And then after that, if we wanna go that far, was that first 91 40 dash four that Sage did. Dec (30m 9s): And George George actually handed me one. And that was in 1990. While I’ve got the floor. I can tell you that when I grabbed that rod for the first time, even with Ed, it wasn’t about the cast. The thing that struck me most was now my rod tip is that much closer to my fly. So it’s swimming slower. And we talk about that mixer run on the s gadgets. We’d broad run and fish can be way out there. So we would cast our single handed rods as far as we could. We’d wait out pretty far and cast as far as we could and hold it out there to slow the flight out there. So when I grabbed that rod for the first time and put it out there, oh my gosh, you know, the, the clouds parted and the angels sang. Dec (30m 50s): My fly was swimming slow way out there. That’s, that’s what hooked me. ’cause none of us knew how to cast. We just overhead the ding thing for quite a while until George came along. He didn’t know how to cast either, but he was putting on a good show Brian (31m 5s): Deck. The mixer is that there’s that, you know, I’ll call it a famous photo. It’s one that sticks in my memory of you casting on the Skagit. I think maybe it could have been an airflow ad. I hope I didn’t get that wrong. Was that the mixer? Dec (31m 18s): No, that’s a, a run up above the mixer called Sutter Creek or Swift Creek. Same background, same beautiful background of those amazing mountains on the Skagit. But yeah, it’s upstream a little bit from there. Yeah. And that was originally the Fly logic ad took us two weeks to shoot that thing with a crazy guy called, named Walter Hodges, if any of you know him. But yeah, it’s a beautiful river and that’s a beautiful backdrop. Brian (31m 42s): Heck of a photo. Yeah. Heck of a cast. Dec (31m 45s): Yeah. Yeah. Took a while. Good. That cast was, it was off shoulder Snap t Brian (31m 51s): Oh yeah. Nice. Dec (31m 53s): Yeah, we were doing double spades getting it and then the wind blew up river and, and, and, you know, compliments to the wind. I mean, man, Brian (32m 3s): How about you Scott? So it was a, a rod of George’s, that was the first spay rod that you cast? Scott (32m 7s): Not George’s was Ed wards. It was Brian (32m 10s): Oh, ed, sorry. Ed. Scott (32m 11s): And, and I still have that Rod. Dec (32m 12s): It’s you have that 31. Oh Scott (32m 15s): Wow. And I have the one that Eddie built. Dec (32m 18s): Oh wow. No kidding. Remember that one? Yeah. Scott (32m 20s): Wasn’t that the one that got stolen that that, that you got back from the guy at the mouth of bakery who tried to sell it to you? Oh Dec (32m 27s): Yeah. See, I forget. I love, I love talking to you guys ’cause you remember stuff that you, you know, are reacquainted with things that you totally forgot about. That’s right. Scott (32m 36s): Yeah. And that was a 10, 10 weight, 13 foot, 10 weight, 10 weight. And yeah, we had a teeny 300 on it. That was our Yeah. But I don’t remember overhead casting it that much. I remember us trying to spa cast it Dec (32m 48s): On with Ed’s rod that day. Yeah, Scott (32m 50s): Yeah. Because, and, and what got us going, I remember, you know, ed spent one full year with it before we, we, we kind of, we poo-pooed it. We were like, you know, that’s, that’s silly. You know? Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, we’re fishing all together a lot back then and, and Ed couldn’t fish anywhere or cast any further than we could with our single handed rods. There’s nothing he could do Yeah. That we couldn’t do. And we were totally happy with what we were doing. We were catching fish. Yeah. And, and so was he. But, but then that by after that first year, he started being able to, you know, cast from those high bank spots Yep. Scott (33m 32s): What we used to call plug water. Yep. And that, you know, the, and and he was really getting it done. And we were like, okay, it’s time to step it up. And, and then we started using those rods. George (33m 44s): You Dec (33m 44s): Remember he used to where we, the three of us fish goes, you guys go ahead. I’ve got the long rod here, I’ll you, I I come in behind you. I, I, ’cause I’m gonna, I’m gonna fish water. You can’t water. I’m like, okay, thanks dude. Scott (33m 58s): Yeah, yeah, I remember that. George (34m 0s): Well Brian, this might be a great time to tell my story of meeting these two. I think Joe, I think I’d met you when I was working in Kaufman’s and I wanna say in the early eighties. Scott (34m 15s): Yeah. Probably like 87. George (34m 18s): Yeah. Yep. But I guided Brian, I guided, I ran the Isaac Ranch in Eastern Washington over in Douglas County for 29 years. For, I handed it off to my head guy, Darth Kenoble, who’s still running it. In fact, I fished it a month ago. And lo and behold, young Scott and Deck booked a trip with me and I had these two on, on what we call the upper lake on that ranch. And I got ’em out there casting single handers. Were probably fishing Willy buggers or Chrons or back and forth. And let me tell you something about these two A, they could cast and B, they could swear because they were both pretty fresh out of the Navy. George (35m 5s): And man, they could swear they, nobody had these guys beat on that. And it was about every seven words. And, but, but the coolest thing that happened the day I guided them Is that I was almost like a host to them talking about what they wanted to go do. Scott was freshly out of the Navy deck, I think you were at Boeing. Yeah. And those two about, you know, 30 feet apart on the, on the shore of a lake. These two were plotting the Steelhead Guide game. They were lit. I got to watch them plot it on a lake in Eastern Washington. George (35m 49s): And these two hauled off, they didn’t just talk about it, they made the break and it, and they talked about the fact that they were gonna have to drop what they were doing, make a break for the unknown and go for it. And by God they both did it. I mean, they both did it. And I’m not gonna tell you I was at the moment where this idea got hatched ’cause I didn’t, it had been hatched probably along with Ed Ward and the, the, you know, the, the three amigos. But I got to see it kind of get out on the table maybe a little further than it had. And I just stood back and listened to these two. And in between all the swear words, there were some real ploting Go on. Dec (36m 35s): That’s so cool to hear because Yeah, I mean Scott preceding that trip and we were just obviously ate up with all this stuff and we saved our money and went on that thing with you. And I remember Scott and I saying, I’m like, I was intrigued by you ’cause you were somebody that was doing what I wanted to do. And Scott wanted to do be in that industry somehow I remember foaming at the mouth and we knew that for us to, we, you know, I remember, you know, if you remember this, I was asking you how you got your start and what did you do? I got it in Alaska. Like, well then I’m gonna guide in Alaska and recruit Steelheaders. And yeah, that was pretty cool. Scott (37m 13s): Yeah. George taught us how to double haul that day. We were still very much in the learning Dec (37m 19s): Yes. Scott (37m 19s): Phase there. But you know, that was monumental, you know, and deck picked it up right away too. It took me another month or two to really get it going, but, but that’s where we learned how to double halls with George. Dec (37m 32s): That is absolutely a fact. Yep. I remember we were on the standing, we weren’t even, we, well we were over the water, but we were right there at the park at the top of the, the, the upper lake just below the parking area. Right. In that first George (37m 45s): You were in the Bay of Pigs, as we call it. Dec (37m 47s): Yeah. And I remember you. Yep. And kind of getting it, I, and I had that wiggly old little pal signature series Rod And you said, son, son, he is like, he’s 30 and I’m 29 or 26. He goes, put this in your hands. And he gave me a site, a five 90 RP and Sage rp. And I’m like, oh man, all day long. I’m like, God, I hope he lets me have this, I’ll need that back decker. Scott (38m 18s): There was no doubt we were actually way more excited to fish with George. Oh yeah. And to eat him than to fish Isaac Ranch. It was more about being with George and Yeah, Dec (38m 28s): Yeah, for sure. We watched him on the Kelly Watt video. Scott (38m 31s): That’s Dec (38m 31s): Right. Yeah. About 20 times. Didn’t they guide Joe (38m 35s): With you on, on Isaac Ranch? George? George (38m 38s): Probably. Joe (38m 38s): Jack did. Yeah. Dec (38m 39s): Yeah. Oh, I did. I started that, that for years, that was a big gap between my Skagit season and my Alaska season. Joe (38m 47s): You were working there part-time and with Tom Avid angler as I recall. Dec (38m 52s): Yeah. In the wintertime. But, but I would go work with George in May and in the month of May with George at Isaac wrench, I made more money than I did the whole season in Alaska in one month. George is smiling. He knows I was a cash cow. You would, George (39m 10s): You would call me after your, your sojourn And you would tell me about the lake steelhead that were hooked in the lower lake and Yeah, well, Brian, I did beat these guys to Alaska. I was guiding the same river system. These, these characters would be on, you know, ack. And I was there 83, 84, 85, and I was guiding with the likes of Jerry Sea, JD Love boy, just kind of a host of OGs both in the fly and the gear game, including some longtime Skagit guides that had gotten recruited to Alaska. George (39m 55s): And it was great. You know, 8, 8, 10 years later, these boys are up there going at it and I got to fish with ’em up there. So I, I kind of came full circle on that river. You, you know, you brought up Tony Sar and he harassed me to come up there and fish. He harassed me so hard. It, it just fundamentally became easier to say yes than to keep saying no. So yeah, I got some wonderful years in with Deck up there and we had a great go of it. Dec (40m 29s): He had some fun, Brian (40m 30s): That’s Kame, right? George (40m 31s): He was in Kame. I was at a Lana Lodge and JD and some of these other guys were at what was called a Branch River Lodge, which was owned by Bob DeVito Middle River. Brian (40m 46s): So question for you guys when it comes to Alaska, the episode I initially did with Eric Leininger, and I know it, everybody knows Eric, how could you not? Eric was a little critical of his initial Alaska experience. He felt that his compensation wasn’t at the level it should have been. And you know, some of the stuff that the guy you brought up with, I’ve heard over the years is that there’s this kind of experience in Alaska as a new guide where you get brought up there with illusions of, you know, catching all these fish and when you get there, it’s chore time. And the compensation on an hourly basis is, is far less than lower what you, you would call minimum wage. Brian (41m 27s): Was was that your experience? Obviously there’s, there’s levels to it and as, as you move up through the ranks, you can do better. But for the starting Alaska guy does it, is it really as bad as they say? Dec (41m 37s): Yes, yes. And then some, first of all, Eric is an angry person to begin with, but Brian (41m 48s): I think since he quit drinking, he’s a little bit more upbeat. Dec (41m 52s): But Oh yeah, for sure. I just, after his presentation at the spa claim, any questions that I said to him, ask him why he’s so angry. But he has, and he quit smoking and drinking. He is chilled out a bill, but, but you know, it’s all, it’s all a fun act with him. Anyway, was yeah, just fun. And Brian (42m 11s): You know, we’ve got to know Eric pretty good over the years. He started out doing a one week coasted thing at, at our lodge here on the Skiena. And this year I think we’re gonna see Eric for four and a half weeks total. So he’s, you know, obviously growing his clientele. Everybody likes him. He is a positive guy, but he, you know, he, he’s got a personality that is hard to ignore. And that this, this last show I did with him, which actually comes out before this one. Well, you know, I had him and a guy named Zach Cruthers. Do you guys know Zach? Anybody know Zach? Dec (42m 43s): Oh yeah, I know Zach. Brian (42m 45s): All right. Okay. So this to me, this is one of the most interesting stories in fly fishing. Zach was one of the original members of a band called Portugal. The man, they won a grammy, they had the song of the summer in like 2017 or something. Yeah. And Zach gave up the lifestyle of a touring musician to become a beginner fishing guide. So he’s in his first year of guiding there in Oregon, taking out the beginners and loving it. So yeah, I had, on that show I had Eric, who’s a pretty seasoned guy, and I had Zach, who’s pretty new and, and it was a good contrast. Joe, I never did ask you, how did you get into spay casting? When did you first get to cast a two handed rod? Joe (43m 23s): I would have to say that the first two handed Rod I saw somebody use was probably Harry. And that would’ve been on the mixer. And we might’ve all actually been there the same day. And then the first one that I really got close to was Ed’s. And Dec (43m 40s): That’s three of us. Yeah. Yeah, because we all started the same day. Joe (43m 45s): And like Scott Ed has bestowed rods upon me as well. I I have the, the 12 floor or you know, that that was on the, that he had, that he was fishing on, on the cover of the Sage catalog, like 96 or something like that. So yeah, so I’ve gotten a couple of rod, a couple of those, a couple of those rods from him. And then, and then I remember early on that we were certainly at that point when I tried the, the rod that Ed had, it had an 10 weight double taper with a sink tip. And then pretty rapidly everybody with one exception went to the, you know, went to the heads, you know, Harry and Bob were working with Jimmy Green in the development of these frauds. Joe (44m 37s): And George probably has much more, you know, background information on what was happening inside, inside Sage. But they really promoted the concept of the head. And that is the direction that I think everybody’s gone in now. And certainly I think a lot of that had to do with exactly what, you know, what deck and Scott were relating to fishing on the high side of the river when so many people are on the side that, you know, we normally swing from, gave you access to other fish and the head is really the, the best way to, to do that. So yeah, so That was my experience. And then I went on to work with, you know, I, as I said in the earlier conversation with you, with you, Brian had limited interaction with the industry, so to speak, although I imported stuff for Bruce and Walker right now. Joe (45m 25s): Yeah. That’s, that’s how it went. And, and I ran into these guys frequently. I have a fond memory of before we actually all went to the double-handed rod meeting Scott at the, at, in the parking lot there at the end of the, at the end of the road to go into the mixer. And he was in his, we were in his van tying flies. And then we went out onto the mixer and we were all talking about whether we, he and I were talking about whether 7,100 was good enough, you know, because there was a, a conversation about whether you, whether whether was really important to go to a double landed rod. Well, time has proven it was Brian (46m 6s): Nice and it’s interesting for me to hear, you know, that, that Ed Edward was kind of at the beginning of this story for most of you, wasn’t he? Scott (46m 13s): He had the rod. Now I think it’s important to say, you know, he didn’t start the spay rod experience on the Skagit, right? He, he got it from like, like Joseph’s a Harry lame and Mike Kinney and Albert. Yep. And, and so there was, and Strobel, so there was that small handful of guys, you know, John Farra, that that started at what maybe a, a, a couple of years before, before that. And, and it was their influence. They got him started on it. Brian (46m 46s): And up here, you know, Mike Maxwell is a big part of that story in Canada. And I was very fortunate. My first guiding on the Chena system was for Mike and Denise. And this would’ve been, this would’ve been like probably about 1998. And you know, at that point Mike was using pretty big stuff still. He was using like 15 foot eight weights and nine weights, those tiger eye blanks. So really soft, full flexing rods. But you know, Mike, I dunno if you guys knew Mike, but Mike was pretty set in his ways. Very opinionated guy, but in a lot of ways ahead of his time. And he was, the year I worked for him, he was filming a lot of video, him and Denise. And they were doing these VHS, you know, casting videos that they would push out into the world. Brian (47m 30s): And, and I have that stuff, I just don’t have a VCR to watch it anymore. But, but it, it was fascinating to, to think that over time, you know, Georgie, we, we talked in the last episode, we would see these rods get shorter, right? And we would see the lines get shorter. And you made a great point and I’ve actually brought it up to people a couple times since then. You said that there were, there were great rods that sage made that were probably underappreciated at the time ’cause we just didn’t have the right lines for them to shine. George (47m 59s): Yeah, no doubt. There was, well this, this whole little sequence, I had hardly been around the rods in his first year rep for Sage Deck, Scott, Joe, I’m sure you guys hadn’t heard this one, but you’ll probably like it. Gary Sandstrom, who owned the morning hatch in Tacoma, asked me one day when I was calling on him, can you teach a spade class? And before my brain really engaged, I said yes. And he would book it. And we did it on the upper Puyallup in a particular spot that wasn’t a bad river left spot. George (48m 41s): And before the class, number one, I had to come up with some rods. And so I had X amount of largely 14 for nines, probably a 15 foot 10 and maybe something out of the European basket that was shorter. You know, 12 something, eight weight. And then coming up with lines was like pulling teeth, double taper 10 if you could find something. Double taper, nine triangle taper, two handed line. I remember, which was probably the best casting one right at that moment. And I’ve never, hell, I’d hardly cast much less teach, but I signed up for this. George (49m 26s): So my antidote to get ready for the class was on the Friday before the Saturday class, I drove from my house in SBO over to the sage factory. I sauntered into the president’s office, Bruce Kirschner Kersner. And I said, Hey man, I know there’s a tape laying around here, Hugh FCUs Alki on casting. And he goes, yeah, yeah, lemme go find it. And he brings it to me. I go home, I watch Hugh FCUs from three 30 to 4 29 on Hugh Faki on casting at four 30 to 5 29. I watch it a second time and I go teach a class the next day. George (50m 8s): And I got enough out of it with the single spa in the double that I was able to go function with these characters. You know, what, what do they call it? Fake it till you make it. That was probably a pretty early rendition. But I mean, the Rods, you know, yeah, I knew Mike Maxwell ’cause I saw him at all the shows. And Mike was an imposing figure to physically as well as that booming voice and that ever booming opinion. And he lived and died on those monster rods. But as time would go by, yeah, we had some fabulous rods at Sage 91, 26 in the original GFL. George (50m 57s): We had various stuff, 12 foot eight weights, 12 foot 4 81 24 I can remember. And we just didn’t have the lines to support these things. You know, if we had the lines that we had just 20 years ago, much less today, we’d have been just insanely good business As casters. As promoters. I was just on the Umpqua the last few days, lower Umpqua at Reedsport fishing stripers. And I was fortunate enough that I hooked eight, landed all of them. And I’d fished down there in the early 1980s with the Dean of Striper Guides in Oregon, a guy named Denny Hannah who put me onto all sorts of these things. George (51m 45s): And I couldn’t catch my ass with both hands. We didn’t have the lines. We, we barely had some flies and we had floating fly lines and I didn’t catch single striper on those two days with that guy. And there were giants in there then. And I go down there on this trip and I got a striper sink tip and I’ve got a intermediate outbound and I’ve got this and I’ve got that hell, I’m equipped to the teeth and because of that and flies, you know, that are newfangled, this, that and the other. But it was, you know, I, I was in on all sorts of stuff that was infancy that we look back on now and just go, God, if we’d only had this, I mean, I think about Deck one. George (52m 31s): One of the things I saw with Deck and Ed and Scott in those early years, late eighties, early nineties, is we’d all kind of run around with a little packet of photos. You know, the original Instagram was a bunch of photos and these guys were no exception. And I remember one session that the three of them, and I think Deck, you were the one who had ’em, but it was largely a view three in a Jerry French photo, you know, dropped in there and it was just you guys holding one slob steel head after another, just long after another. And it was like, and of some big dollies. George (53m 13s): I remember Ed showing me a picture of what looked like a 12, 13 pound dolly from the Skagit or maybe the sock or you know, somewhere up there. But these guys, Brian, they weren’t just talking about it, they were doing it and they had the photos to prove it. Dec (53m 33s): Hit that one hour photo, man, get off the river, go right to the photo. I mean, speaking of that, I remember this is the George thing that the, oh, I forget when, but I caught a nice, a good sized fish on the Skagit. And I called George, you know, I was just, again, just new to it and all heat up and, and I said, man, George, I got a big one. I got a big one. He goes, how big? I said, I don’t know, 13 or 14 pounds. And he goes, I thought you said big. Dec (54m 15s): I since have come to appreciate where you were coming from, but to me it was ginormous at that time. 6 (54m 23s): Not many companies are building their own gear these days. But Intrepid Camp Gear is changing that. Based in Boulder, Colorado Intrepid designs and manufactures some of the most rugged, technically advanced rooftop tents and aluminum cargo cases on the market. Their gear is built in-house with patented designs that stand up to the elements and the miles. Whether you’re chasing elk deep in the back country hunting for fresh powder, or heading out for your next fly fishing trip. And Trepid gives you the confidence to go further. Their rooftop tents keep you warm, dry and off the ground. Their cargo cases bombproof weather tight and ready for just about anything. So stop settling for flimsy mass produced gear, level up with the gear that’s built to last and engineered for real adventure. 6 (55m 6s): Go to web flight swing.com/intrepid right now to get started. That’s I-N-T-R-E-P-I-D Intrepid Camp Gear get started right now. Brian (55m 20s): Do you guys think that social media and Instagram in particular has, has really screwed things up? Or do you think it’s, it’s good because it inspires people to get out and fish more. George (55m 30s): Who goes first? Boy, Joe (55m 32s): I’ll take it this way. Okay, Dec (55m 34s): You guys go. Sorry. We’re ready to do it. Joe (55m 37s): I, I think that social media, so I’ll just say this. I think that people like George and Deck and Scott are full-time professionals you know, there are guys like me and others like me that have been involved in this, you know, since we all started together and have chosen, you know, we have a different path, but we are all connected by fish. And instilling that connection and the appreciation for the resource in the the client and those that are around you is sort of the role of mentorship that, that these guys take on with hundreds of people a year. That to me is a very personal thing. Joe (56m 19s): And that is lost when all you see is a picture on Instagram or there’s a soundbite and we’re talking about it. And I don’t think it’s a replacement. I think it’s great advertising, but I don’t think it’s a replacement for how we appreciate resource. And if in reverse it brings people to where we’re all fishing and they get to have that experience with us, we’ll then we then have to think about maybe how our role changes a little bit. I don’t know. That’s my opinion. Dec (56m 48s): I have mixed feelings about it. You know, it’s, it helps me with my business. I can tell you that what I do now. It just keeps you kind of relevant and out there. And, and, and it’s a, a super way to communicate. Like you asked at the, at the beginning of this, so you said Brian, at the end, you can give a chance to give your contact info, whatever you want. Well, my contact info is, you know, deck Hogan and Instagram. Anybody in the world can reach me. Right. Without giving out phone numbers and emails and as regards putting people on the water. Yeah. I think it’s, it’s exponentially changed things since, since back when we were doing it prior to, to internet. Dec (57m 29s): I remember one, one guy whom we all know, I won’t say his name, but he was up on that Skagit sock system and he was the very first person that we knew that was posting on the internet about what was going on in the river. And he posted a daily journal, and I remember it drove us crazy. I could speak for at least Ed and I and Scott. I couldn’t believe what this guy was sharing with people. And it was putting people on the water. And I thought, why would you do that? And, and we’re all promoters of the sport. But that was something new. And it was, it was, it was intrusive and it was ugly. And you know, now at least people aren’t always naming names and where they are, you know, people, a lot of people are protective of that, but, you know, a lot of these places you can tell where they are. Dec (58m 18s): Doesn’t mean that someone’s gonna go and catch all your fish, but it brings people to the river. Absolutely. Anyway, and then, you know, we can joke about, well, we could say that about anything. It’s not just fishing, right? There’s all kinds of activities, whether it be mountain biking or biking in the alpine meadows or golfing or what, you know, what have you, or has effect on resources by bringing more people. Social media has undoubtedly changed the face of that landscape. Outdoor recreation among others. But Scott (58m 50s): It definitely has changed the, or my outlook on what we used to call the Roderick gr Hague Brown factor, right? We deck, and I used to talk about this all the time, the Rod Roderick Hague Brown factor. Of course, you know, we’re promoting ourselves and our guide service, and so we’re promoting our rivers. I remember, you know, when they closed the Skagit and I moved to the Oregon coast and I told Mike, I, I started working with Mike McCune and we started doing shows together and we started doing all this stuff together, promoting our guide services down there on the coast. And I told him, I said, look, you know, this is gonna be the new Skagit. I said, you know, in 10 years, you know, ’cause there was nobody down there. Scott (59m 32s): I mean, guys were floating the very lower section of those rivers and all, all the rivers down there upper reaches that, you know, with the good fly water, it was empty. We were floating those rivers every day by ourselves. I mean, there was just nobody. And I told ’em, I said, you know, we’re gonna be promoting this and, and we’re gonna change it in 10 years. It is gonna be crowded here, it’s gonna be, and and it was, it was right up at about 10 years. But, you know, we used to call it the Roger Hague Brown Factor where, you know, and, and I think that social media changed that the, the Roger Hague brown factor is this, it’s, he would say, he would tell everybody everything, right? He’d be on the Campbell and he’d be, you know, I don’t know, catching kings on dry flies or something. Scott (1h 0m 15s): And he would go and tell, I mean yeah, right? It wasn’t Kings on drives, but you know, Steele had on dry had drift in the bee, right? And, and, and he would go tell everybody this, and he would tell ’em where he caught him this exact spot and what time of day and exactly how to do it. And every day he would go to those spots and he’d expect some to see somebody there because he gave out all the information, but he’d never see anybody. And so you’re telling this your, your secrets, your phishing secrets, but nobody’s taking advantage of it. Right? And, and, and we saw that, you know, free internet. Scott (1h 0m 55s): And so we were really free with, with all our information because of Roderick. Dec (1h 0m 60s): Let me interject there, Scott, you, if you remember, Hey Brown also said that we had a moral and ethical obligation as anguish to share information. Scott (1h 1m 10s): Yep, that’s right. Yep. Yep. And we believed in that. Dec (1h 1m 14s): Yeah, we did. Yeah. Yep. We were kind of silly, silly, fluffy guys. We’d get on the riverbank and read to each other. Sometimes I would one day go, ed, I have some stuff I wanna read to you. And we sat on the riverbank and I’m reading from a Heg Brown book, and then you and I did at the house all the time. That’s kind of shaped and molded us. George (1h 1m 36s): I think it’s a full mixed bag. There’s no doubt it’s put bodies on the river, it’s put bodies into certain sections of rivers, watersheds of all type. But on the other hand, it’s allowed a messaging. Right. You know, the, we just, all three of us spoke at that. It was a great enabler of getting the word out for that. And I’m, I’m rather sure that of those 400 people that showed up those two days, if there was a way to survey ’em all, I would imagine most if not damn near all of them, were touched in some form or format by a social media post on that. George (1h 2m 21s): I think the other, I think maybe the coolest, I can certainly harp on it, both from a fishing and hunting perspective, because the, it’s impacted hunting, which is far more pressure sensitive than any fishing ever thought about being. But it’s allowed us to meet people that you randomly might have no shot ever meeting. You know, somebody from Michigan, you know, time flies. Somebody, you know, in Argentina with something to offer. It’s a great meeting place. And from that perspective, I think it continues to be pretty fascinating. George (1h 3m 4s): I bass fished two places this year that, you know, one in California on Clear Lake, and I’m going to Fish Lake near one of my deer leases in Texas in October. And they’re both with guides that I, I probably could have never stumbled into without some form or fashion of seeing something they were up to on Instagram. So there’s some great opportunity that comes out of that. And it’s gonna be a pro con thing, I think forevermore, right boys? Yep. Brian (1h 3m 38s): I wanna go back to the, the book for a second. ’cause you, you talked about Hague Brown and obviously Hague Brown’s probably the most important person in Canadian fly fishing history. Maybe it goes beyond that and definitely George (1h 3m 50s): Does. Brian (1h 3m 51s): Yeah. You guys were inspired, right? You guys were inspired. Yep. And then, you know, move this forward a little bit and, and deck a passion for steelhead, you know, the very comprehensive book. You didn’t miss anything in there. There’s people who read that book and were inspired and go back and refer to it. Right. And, you know, nowadays, I don’t know if Instagram replaces that, but it’s doing the same thing, right? People, it’s inspiring people to get out there, which is good. Obviously the, the danger is the information can travel a little bit too fast in real time. But one of the neat things, and I I said this at the beginning of an event, like the spa clave you guys just attended, someone’s reading their book, you know, you’re inspiring them to, they’re reading your book, they’re, you’re inspiring them to get out there and do this, and they show up at a spa claim and get to actually meet you. Brian (1h 4m 36s): That’s pretty fricking cool. Right. And has there been anyone for you guys that you know in, in your time that was essentially, I don’t wanna call, say hero might not be the right word, but anyone who really inspired you in the early days that you got to meet later on or even fish with? George (1h 4m 51s): I got one Joe Brooks. So I learned to fly fish when I was 11 years old. My first day of fly fishing was on the Henry’s Fork in Idaho. I was 11-year-old. And needless to say, I lost all my green Drake dries to some awfully good rainbows that day. And I had these Joe Brook books that my dad let me read his, and then he bought me one, one summer called Joe Brooks Trout Fishing. And that same summer, I’m sitting in a restaurant with my parents in Last Chance Idaho, and there’s Joe Brooks sitting at a table across from us. George (1h 5m 35s): And my dad just kinda looked at me and nodded. And I dashed my little butt out to the car, got that book, came in, walked up to him and asked him to autograph it. And he did. I mean, just the randomness of the whole thing, right? But, but no, that was a huge thing. And I looked back at that as an 11-year-old kid reading his stories, you know, striper fishing in Oregon, which is the what led me to even go down there was him talking about it, you know, this, that and the other. So yeah, it’s just, those are fabulous stories. I can’t wait to hear some more right now. Joe (1h 6m 15s): I’ve been very fortunate to have met some and hung out with some great steelhead fishermen. And I think before I hung out with Harry or, you know, officially the Monda Thompson and whatnot, I was really influenced by Lee Wolf and I was very interested in his hair, harrowing flies. And, and I was able to, I eventually, I took an Atlantic salmon fishing class with Lee Wolf and for some reason I was eaten up with Atlantic salmon fishing. And I actually called the house a couple of times after the fact and he picked up the phone and talked to me as if, you know, here’s this young kid that’s really interested in it. Joe (1h 6m 57s): And I saw him at a couple of shows and, you know, really changed my perspective on all this stuff because I, I had this, and I still hold this belief that, you know, you could pro experimentation is gonna lead to something that will, you know, make you better. And, and that was sort of the takeaway that I, that I, that I had from him because he instilled this sense of confidence in doing that. You know, doing the abnormal, you know, whether it was a short rod or whether it was no rod at all, whether it was, you know, dry flies, tiny waking, dry flies, I mean, tiny dead drift dry flies, or how it translated to what we had on the steely with the Walt Johnson and Mike Kenny and others, you know, with these 90 waking drive flies. Joe (1h 7m 48s): And, you know, and then that had, you know, so early on that had, that had a profound impact on me to the point that I called George one day and I said, George, you guys have a seven foot, four or five rp, you know, you probably don’t remember this, George, but you pulled the rod aside and I came to your office. I can’t remember where it was, it might have been out on Bay Bridge. And I picked up the rod here and I went down and lived in my Lee Wolf moment. You know, I went down to the Klamath, I put a mudman on, I was fishing with Kevin Perkins, the name you all remember. And this steelhead, like the first day I have the rod, the steelhead takes my fly. Joe (1h 8m 29s): And all I remember is strip, you know, this, the fly went straight stream. So it had a tremendous impact. Dec (1h 8m 37s): My Lee Wolf moment, I remember I was influenced a bit by Lee Wolf because of you, you know, I knew who he was prior to that and everything. But you’re intrigued because I thought you were pretty cool back then. I later came to learn, you know, the truth. But I thought you were pretty cool, by the way, Scott and Ed, or, or Scott, ed. Ed. But Scott and Joe were with me the evening that I caught my very first steelhead on a two handed rock, and which is kind of cool and a, a forever moment. So thanks guys. Good memories. I think that night we all caught something, but it was my first one on a two-hander. And, and, and I can tell you how far back it goes. I was still, you know, I was in the Navy with Scott and I worked on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier. Dec (1h 9m 20s): And my turtleneck shirt under my shirt is a flight deck jersey in the photo. So kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. But my, my Lee Wolf moment, just for fun, quick was, I know, you know, Lee cast, I think all of us can cast a line without a rod, right? We can all do that. And I had fun and did it quite a bit just for fun. And I thought, man, Lee Wolf did it on the water. I’m going to go do that. And I went it to one of those bars on the lag neck and I was gonna catch chum salmon without, without a rod. So I tucked that reel in my pocket in my waders, and I was a pretty proud Rod was caster. Dec (1h 10m 0s): And I’ll tell you what, out on the water no can do. I couldn’t do it. I tried and I tried and I tried and I could not cast that fly and deliver it on the water without a rut. So kudos to Lee Wolf, the person I met that was greatly an influence. Yeah, we all say Harry Lumiere and those guys, but they were right there. We were, I was by them already. But as far as somebody who, whom I, I looked up to and influenced me that I finally got to meet was Bill McMillan. I read all his stuff and was intrigued with him and down in the Washugal River and all his exploits with the dry line and surface flies and all that good stuff. And I actually wrote him a letter, a handwritten letter, and didn’t know who to mail it to. Dec (1h 10m 45s): So I don’t know where it went. You know, I was very young then. I wish I still had it, but all of a sudden, one day I’m on guiding on the Grand Ron River that George hooked me up with. And I think 91 was my first year there. And Bill McMillan was brought in to do his dry line steelhead school. I was just floored. So I’m going, taking my clients to watch Bill McMillan all morning long, put on his his little clinic and, and show all those techniques that I read about. And then I would take the clients out in the afternoon. We would, we would practice the methods that he taught us. But I’ll never forget the first day he goes, Hey, we got a day off shoot. We go fishing deck, what you would actually fish with me? Dec (1h 11m 28s): And we went out and that guy, he fished that dry fly all day long, all day long. And he caught six fish that day on the dry line on the floating fly. Half of ’em were dead drifted. So That, that whole, that everything that I was intrigued about him all came to fruition. And by gosh it was true. So That was my moment. And then meeting Scott and George and Joe was also, and now today you, Brian, I’ve, I’ve watched your exploits over the years because why social media? I wouldn’t know who you were without social media at this point in, in the game for me. Yeah. Brian (1h 12m 3s): And I’ve come to really pull back a little bit from social media myself. I feel like I just don’t really know what the heck I’m doing. I got a young guy that works for us, Esteban, he makes our videos that you see on Instagram and stuff and you know, you guys talked before about this network that one can create online. And you know, this kid’s got friends all over the world that he’s never met in person, but they’re good friends and they interact. It’s a real friendship and they collaborate on things creatively. And yeah, I just, I haven’t made an Instagram post in a long time for the business ’cause I just get him to do it. ’cause honestly, full disclosure, I hate the Dec (1h 12m 39s): Yeah, right. Brian (1h 12m 40s): I absolutely hate the, but I do recognize the power of it. And like you said, deck, it’s, from a business standpoint, it makes it so easy. George, what about you? George (1h 12m 49s): So in 19, I think it was October of 1984, it was a 22 page article in Sports Illustrated about Christmas Island. It was 22 pages, not not whole pages, but it was 22 pages. And I, I don’t remember who wrote it, but I damn sure remember by the time I finished reading it, I had to go to Christmas Island and I would go in March of 1985, which was pretty early on in the game. In fact, Randall Kaufman only beat me there by three weeks. George (1h 13m 30s): But two key factors to my trip, had I not heard them from a couple of legends, I’d have been completely lost upon arriving on the island. And one thing was Andre Pian from California, he told me, whatever I did, don’t take gray sunglasses. He said, you better find a pair of yellow or amber. He said, you’ll need that to see these fish. He said, if you have gray or bonefish you, you’ll never see ’em. You’ll, you’ll never see ’em. And so I managed to get a pair of teeny locators, Jim Tini locators in Amber. George (1h 14m 15s): Oh yeah, man. And I saw fish, right? And then the other guy then inspired on that trip was Mel Krieger. He told me what flies to Ty, little crazy Charlie’s, he said, A yellow body with a white rabbit wing with a little bit of pearl flash boo and tie a, a clear body with a tan calf tail. And he said, just take those two. Well, by God, that’s, yeah, I, I tied away. But had I not run into those guys, which both of them were at the Seattle Sports Show, I believe in the kingdom. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was in the kingdom. George (1h 14m 57s): Had I not talked to those two guys, I’d have showed up at Christmas Island probably with some, who knows what flies, who knows what sunglasses. I wouldn’t have gotten all stupid done. And so those type encounters of yesteryear are potentially daily encounters for any of us today on Instagram. So in a way, you know, those random meetings where just that they were random, right? But they were so informative and so helpful. And now some of that stuff, you know, I’m sure I’ll check one of my two feeds. I’ve got two of them a hunting one, a fishing one. George (1h 15m 37s): I’ll see something That’s cool. I’ll see something that’s informative. I’ll see something I didn’t know. Yeah. ’cause I can’t imagine if I’d have shown up at Christmas Island with gray sunglasses. What an unmitigated disaster that would’ve been. Dec (1h 15m 57s): Talk to us, Scott. Scott (1h 15m 58s): Well, first of all, you know, Joe mentioned Kevin Perkins and you know, I want to, I want to say that, you know, meeting Joe and Kevin Perkins was really special to me because, you know, those guys founded the Atlantic or the Seattle Atlantic Salmon Fly TTY Guild and you know, their flies, you know, were on a level that I, I had just never seen before. I, not in a book or anywhere, you know, I just never seen anything like those flies. And that was inspirational. But as far as idolizing anglers and then meeting them, I mean, there’s two that come to mind that would be hard to, to pit against each other. One was, you know, deck and I were headed to the upper sock and we were gonna launch in Darrington. Scott (1h 16m 45s): And I don’t know if that was the first time we ever did that, but it was close to it. And we ran into Harry Lame on the way. And, you know, it was, I mean, we were giddy just to talk to the guy and then, but deck, you know, had the gonads to just walk up to the guy and say, Hey, we’re going to float the upper sock. You want to come with us? And he said, yes. Dec (1h 17m 8s): Never turned down a chance to go fish. And Scott (1h 17m 12s): That’s right. And so we, that was an amazing day that I will never forget. And of course he caught two and we caught none. And, but there were lessons to be had there that I still talk about to this day. And then of course, the other one is, it was also with Deck. We had just got our steelhead Shangrila books. Oh. And we went and knocked on Ralph Wall’s door to get them autographed. And he invited us down to his basement. That that was Yeah, buddy. The most easily the most magical fishing, non-fishing day of my life. Scott (1h 17m 54s): That was incredible. Dec (1h 17m 56s): Holy. Scott (1h 17m 57s): We got to listen to, he had a, a giant filing cabinet right of that was completely full of hundreds of cassette tapes. Those guys, you know, they didn’t have YouTube, so they took a tape recorder with ’em and they would record on, on a, on a cassette tape. They’re fishing. Dec (1h 18m 19s): And Scott (1h 18m 19s): So he put one in where, and we sat there and listened to it with Ralph Wall of Ralph Wall and Enis Bradner Fishing Mystery Lake Dec (1h 18m 30s): Mystery Scott (1h 18m 30s): Lake in British Columbia. It was, it was Bel you could hear the creaking of the oars. That’s right. Oh, I got Dec (1h 18m 44s): Scott. Scott (1h 18m 44s): Yeah. Dec (1h 18m 45s): Yeah. He had that one that he set to music. And it sounded like old timey Disney music frolicking through the forest. And it was him reading from his journal, April 19th, 1952. It was a fine day at Grandy Creek Riffle. I landed three steelhead. One of 18 pounds, two of 14. Do you remember that? Great. I had recorded all that and I had lost it. I don’t know where it is. But that was a magic day. And he gave us each a fly. Scott (1h 19m 16s): Yep. Dec (1h 19m 17s): And I believe that I was, the photo I took of him was the last photo of him that was published. And I it was in that Skagit River Journal. Yep. And bless his heart. I remember we cropped it out because he had gravy on his shirt from his laus berry steak. That is lady. He made him awesome, Scott. Scott (1h 19m 42s): Yeah. Dec (1h 19m 42s): Yeah. Brian (1h 19m 43s): That’s good stuff. I wonder where those tapes are today. Eh? Scott (1h 19m 47s): I hope they didn’t get tossed out. Dec (1h 19m 49s): No, they didn’t. You can actually go listen to ’em. They’re at a, I forget where it is. It’s somewhere in, in the museum. This guy Sam Roka, speaking of, of social media. He, I can contact him ’cause I’d love to see him. There’s some library maybe in, in, in Vancouver that has all of that stuff. And you can, can listen to all of it. Joe (1h 20m 9s): I wanna thank you, Scott, for your, your kind words about that period of time. But I, I think I just, I need to say this with all of you guys on, on, on the call and that is that for as much as you might have been inspired by the ties, the flies that we were tying, I will tell you there was once why, I might get emotional telling you this dude, because we talked about it. But, you know, there are a lot of people who, especially when you’re young and you’re, and you’re steelhead fishing, you really focus on, All right, what fly are they gonna take? You know, if you really think that the fly is, is probably the most important thing because that’s what they connect themselves to. And Kevin and I used the so Scott religiously for a couple of seasons because we’d fish the, we’d be on the mixer at different times. Joe (1h 20m 59s): We’d run into each other at different times. And so this is a fly, Scott, you should give everybody the recipe if they dunno it. And there was a way to fish the fly, which, you know, in the evening required using a, a photo flash to activate, you know, the bioluminescent body so That fish in waning light, you know, kromer is coming in from the sea and the waning light would see that fly. But the influence goes both ways, my friend. So thank you. Scott (1h 21m 29s): Yeah, thanks. Dec (1h 21m 32s): Very cool. So I was with Joe, well, we had been up there a couple times when the sky’s been open when I was just up there two months ago with Joe and he was fishing his version of the sock Scott still. And yeah. And Kevin, speaking of Kevin Perfects, he was also there also there that night that I got that first steelhead on the two-hander. And I have one of Kevin’s flies, I never really put it together till just this moment. And it’s the color theme of the, so f Scott (1h 21m 60s): The green, blue and purple. Dec (1h 22m 1s): Yep. Scott (1h 22m 2s): And the tide, you know, the inspiration, you know, we were all using them, we call them Marus, right? They were George Cook’s Popsicle series that he had come up with Phish in the e agac earlier in the eighties. And everybody was using Marus. And nowadays they call ’em space flies, Just rabbus wrapped on a hook. And you know, it’s so funny, at tho at that time, the development of flies, there were, there were rules and we were constantly breaking those rules. I remember when Hogan first tied a purple and yellow mbu and everybody was just disgusted by this squad. Scott (1h 22m 44s): I mean, purple and yellow. You can’t put purple and yellow together. This, this has never been happening. It looks horrible, right? Yeah. Now it, now it looks beautiful to me, right? Because it works. But I remember, you know, you know, learning, you know, for dirty water, you know, the last colors that a fish can see before he loses all color is green and, and blues, blues and greens, right? And, but I, but the, the color that we were catching so, so many fish on was purple and especially the gentian violet, right? And so I wanted to mix that with Kelly Green because I wanted to use glow in the dark flashabou, and I wanted to put that on the Kelly Green backend. Scott (1h 23m 27s): And I couldn’t put green and purple together. It just clashed, right? It, it went against, I wasn’t willing to go there that far outside the box put green and purple in the same fly. So I bridged it with blue in the middle. And that was, that’s the So Scott story. Dec (1h 23m 46s): And you got fish on it the first night you used it, George (1h 23m 48s): You gave me one Scott. And I remember looking at it thinking probably Chinooks would eat this. I remember you talking about the colors. These would be the last ones to fade out. And of course this was all making sense in your world because you had coined the phrase, I’m fishing plug water now. Scott (1h 24m 7s): And George (1h 24m 8s): Yeah. And so it made a lot of sense. One of my great fly encounter stories was with a guy that you guys all know well, Scott, how? Scott (1h 24m 19s): Oh yeah. George (1h 24m 20s): You guys guided it with him on the Agac. And he was guiding on the Umpqua one year for old Jim Van Loan and Steamboat Inn and I, I was one of the few reps who actively called on Steamboat Inn, largely because with Jim Van Loan, you always learned something could be about fishing or history or some world news or event. He was fascinating to be around. And Scott guided for him one year, and I was working for Solitude Fly Company at the time. And Scott came in the library there to meet with me. George (1h 25m 0s): And Scott started out the conversation with, you know, George, I just couldn’t decide at this meeting if I wanna beat the out of you or I wanna hand you some flies. And I put out my hands Scott (1h 25m 18s): Because George (1h 25m 19s): Anybody who’s been around Scott Howell deck, you told me one of the great stories of all time about him hauling a motor by himself down a dock. Scott Howell’s the size of NFL linebacker and a division one college one by the way too, not NIAI. And I thought, holy shit, I’m fixing to get beat up here in the steam bone end. And he says to me, he goes, I’m bringing you my flies. He said, there’s all these versions of an Adams, you know, there’s an Adams standard, there’s a female Adams, there’s an Adams parachute, there’s an Adams this. George (1h 26m 1s): And he said, there might as well be a bunch of versions of intruders and I’ve given you mine to put into solitude. And he handed them to me and they were all the OG gangsters, all the colors. And I would get ’em into solitude, lty split and proceed to sell a metric ton of them. But it was quite a moment where I was, I was wondering if I was gonna make it back to my car. Yeah. Dec (1h 26m 32s): Sounds about with, George (1h 26m 33s): There’s a great intruder story, Joe (1h 26m 37s): You know, there, there’s been so much focus on focus, everything Skagit, you know, Skagit lines, you know, intruders, all this stuff. I think that we were all very fortunate to be at that place bumping into each other. And there were piles of influences that came out in different ways. And the Zeit guy stuff, Skagit is the proving ground or the, I don’t know, help me out you guys. It’s sort of the, it was the melting pot for so much of what modern steelhead fishing is today. And I don’t feel as though anybody has a, a monopoly on that. Joe (1h 27m 18s): I feel as though it was the outgrowth of, of these different little tributaries. All of which we represent a different part, you know, from clearly George’s popsicles and how those evolved into the things that we just talked about today. I get goosebumps now when I think about how we were all sort of, you know, telling that or evolving that story through this moment in this fall, Dec (1h 27m 43s): Definitely collective process. Yep. Pretty cool. Thank you Brian (1h 27m 47s): Joseph. We talked the other day about, you know, the importance of some locations is gathering points. And you know, the one that that I always think of to bring it back up here in Canada is, is of course Spence’s Bridge, the Thompson, you’d meet people from all over the world at that time of year and you know, the shared human experience and you know, see what everybody else was up to. I’ve heard it alluded to as the World Series of Steelheading, but maybe that’s a silly way to put it. I don’t know what you guys thoughts, what other places have been important in the history? Obviously we talked about the Skagit. What else has there been? Scott (1h 28m 18s): Gotta throw that in there. You know, the California boys, right? Mike Kennedy’s and those guys down there, you know, fishing the Klamath and the Trinity and e and Eel and yeah. And the southern Oregon coast rivers. You know, there’s, there was that group down there show too, you know, elk Dec (1h 28m 38s): Heller’s bar on the Grand Run, Joe (1h 28m 40s): The Klamath, George (1h 28m 41s): The fortune hole on the North Fork of the Distillery. Dec (1h 28m 44s): Hey, yeah, there you go. No doubt. No doubt you would, that was, you’d show up there in a who’s who, good point. Oh Scott (1h 28m 52s): Doubt. Picnic. Picnic. The picnic table just downstream from, right? Yep. That’s where you went when the fortune hole got too crowded Dec (1h 28m 58s): Getting, And you get in a lineup even there. Yeah. Joe (1h 29m 6s): I think though that I would change the definition of the Thompson. I would say that, I would say the Thompson is the Super Bowl of steelhead fly fishing, the rocks, the fish, the fact that they like floating lines. And every time you hook one, it’s jumping upstream because it’s taken your entire line across the river. And that giant river has changed the angle pull on that fish. You don’t see it if you’re looking downstream, you see that at the corner of your eye the first time that of that. And then you have to decide what are you gonna do? Are you gonna hold your ground or what are you gonna do? And then I think there’s been a lot of other places that are like the Pro Bowl, meaning that, that you have different groups of season anglers that know that place and they show up, you know, whether it’s, you know, the Umpqua, whether it’s, you know, Howard Miller, steelhead Park, whether it’s the list goes on, but Grand Ron. Dec (1h 30m 4s): Yeah, I mean the mouth of the, the Ron that’s a, you know, that Heller’s bar man, we’re down in there. Everyone shows up. It seems like most of the name brand, if you will, steelhead Rivers have that one or two spots. You know, the potato patch on the kiss, the Ben Howard on the sky COEs back in the day. Joe (1h 30m 26s): Wow. Dec (1h 30m 26s): Yeah. Yep. Or and hole stock bar. Well we called it Stock bar the mixer. Joe (1h 30m 32s): So Brian, can I ask you a question? Brian (1h 30m 35s): Please Do Joe (1h 30m 37s): Your most memorable fish? Brian (1h 30m 39s): My most memorable fish, well, landed or lost? Joe (1h 30m 45s): Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Hmm. Brian (1h 30m 48s): I got one that sticks with me. And it’s, you know, I, I was fortunate enough we talked about this in the episode we did before. It’s, you know, George, you’ve helped a lot of people along Kenny Morris, you know, blames you for putting him in Oregon in a good way. Trevor Kovich, you got him started guiding in Alaska or Elite, or sorry, out on the Sandy and I’m sure the list goes on. But I got my opportunity to go to the connect talk because of you. And you get a lot of positive reinforcement on the connect talk. There’s a lot of, a lot of connections there. You know, you see the fish blb, you know, you can grow as a Chinook angler pretty quickly there. And previous to that, I’d fished a river called the Lilette. And the Lilette might be the coolest Chinook River going, I dunno if you guys have heard of it, but it’s a, it’s a big river at the north end of Harrison Lake. Brian (1h 31m 36s): So these fish come up the Fraser, they go up the Harrison River, they go through Harrison Lake and then they’re in the Lilette. So these fish are quite a ways inland, but they come in early, they come outta the ocean in February. That’s right. February and March. So we’re fishing these fish in like late March, April, maybe a little bit into May. These are resh at Chinook in a system that has a couple giant lakes. And what’s gonna happen is after these fish go through the Lilette, they’re gonna go up into Lilette Lake. And then from there they’ll go into a river called the Birkenhead. And they will actually spawn in August and September. So these fish are in freshwater a long time. So, you know, there’s not huge numbers to them. But that’s where I really got, you know, the, the first Chinook I ever landed on the fly was in the Lilette. Brian (1h 32m 22s): And it was Chrome bright. And I, and I caught it on a big giant blue, I called it a sea creature. This big thing made outta Lama hair, if you can imagine. So there’s that, that’s the, the most, the most incredible one I’ve landed. But the one that got away that is I’ve never forgotten, was when we could fish the Chena for Chinook, I hooked a fish and I never saw the thing. It cleaned out a hatch 12 from the take I to this day. I don’t know if it was just a really angry 40 pounder or, I mean we, we get some big ones here, right? But I, I never saw this thing and I’ve never ever forgot that those are my two first, first Chinook landed and, and that one that got away that I never got a chance to see. 9 (1h 33m 2s): Nice. George (1h 33m 3s): Well I’ve got two great ones that involved two of the five guys sitting here, three including me. So I hooked a fish on Z bar one year with deck and on a spay rod, I think I, I think it might’ve been a 91 40, maybe a 10, 1 60. And this fish made it to what we call coffin corner on Z Bar. Which means you either getting in a boat or you’re kissing all your goodbye, it’s A or B and deck. And I got in a boat and chased this fish and this fish and, and we saw it deck you, you’ll recall it, it, it came outta the water and both of us went 50 plus. 9 (1h 33m 45s): Yep. George (1h 33m 46s): We got that fish off seven root wad snags. And on number eight we lost it. And so, but it was quite a story. And then a different year, Scott, I was in a boat with you and Brian O’Keefe. We went down to Manhattan Beach, which is right where she dumps into the Delta and Scott, you hooked a fish outta the boat and that fish breached. And I remember saying to you and Brian, 52, 54 and that thing got off and it was just like those giant ones just, they won most of the battles. But it was great to see ’em and it was great to see ’em with guys like you guys because it made it all the more memorable both then and now. George (1h 34m 30s): Yeah. Scott (1h 34m 31s): Yeah. You remember I launched you guys up onto a gravel bar that day when I was shit in the jetboat And you were, you were bragging on me ’cause I’d done it once already that day. And I, you know, went over to this dry bar, right Put push a wave up over this little dry bar and just rode the wave over the bar. And, and, and I remember George looking to Brian O’Keeffe going, that’s a lag kn train. And then, and then I was gonna do it again later in the day and I totally messed it. It would just put us high and dry up on this bar. We had to push that boat out, that bar, that was that day. That’s funny. Dec (1h 35m 10s): Wide trading. I have a bunch of them. I, well first of all, that’s kind of cool that for as much as you’ve kingfish George, that your two most memorable moments were with Scott and I and I, you know. Yeah. And I distinctly I could still picture that whole thing that we did running down that thing. One of my, it just made me think about it. One of my fun experiences was with a, a Chinook, a king, and I’m throwing this in ’cause we’re talking kings, but we used to, on the lag neck, after hours we would go, a bunch of us would get, get in a boat and like probably six of us, way too many. Dec (1h 35m 50s): And that was part of the game. And we called it no pussies. I wrote about it, I called it No wimps, but we call it no pussies. And we’d go fish for jacks in the spot where the jacks would load up And you, well were they five to 15 pounds, whatever, five to 10 pounds. And no pussies was, we were on anchor and using single handed rods. And no matter what that fish did, you weren’t allowed to pull the anchor. Right. No pussies. And we went out there a few nights and did it. And we had some fun antics and one night flu, I hit this fish and it just takes off ripping. And I’m going, boys, boys. And they’re like, no pussies dad. No pussies. And I distinctly remember this thing came out of the water, like I like the term breach for a big king salmon full breach. Dec (1h 36m 34s): And those guys were like, get the anchor, pull the anchor. I didn’t have to say anything. They saw that fish and the gate chase was on. I was using the 8,100 RPL. We chased this thing all over the place and laughed. And I got it in and we weigh it was 46 pounds. George (1h 36m 51s): Oh my goodness. Dec (1h 36m 51s): Yeah. Yeah. So That was a fun one for me with the Chinook bunches more. George (1h 36m 57s): Well, Brian, the Lana, when those guys, when I was guy Neil Lana, 83, 84, 85. And I felt like this prop, ’cause I fished it in the early nineties, up until 95, I felt there was, there were weeks within the Chinook run where one in eight fish landed was over 40 pounds, one in eight and we didn’t see, but maybe a, I don’t know how many you guys saw over 50, I didn’t see, but one or two in those years. George (1h 37m 37s): But it was incredible the level of ’em that were over 40 within, you know, the sample group, a lot of people don’t know this or remember this, but the knack knack had the, the highest number of fish over 50 was actually the knack by far the most over 50. And, and the ak, which had the most fish had very, very few over 40. I think I saw, I think I saw one or two, one summer when they had me stuffed out there for the whole event. So yep. George (1h 38m 17s): It it, the 50 pound king, you know, outside of the Kenai and probably, you know, the Chena and the, you know, the Columbia proper back in the, you know, early 19 hundreds. It’s a rare bird man. It’s a, it’s a rare critter. Oh yeah. Rare critter. Dec (1h 38m 36s): Yep. On the Al Agac I saw two, I saw they were gear caught by our guides. Herb Jacobson came in one day with a 62 on the aac. I saw you got the remember that. And then I think John Clark’s got got one that was 60 or 61 once with massive, massive, and you know, that’s all meat and stuff. But one thing I loved about the connect talk a few times I fished did it for Kings is I I like the size because they were for somewhat manageable Joe (1h 39m 6s): 2025. Dec (1h 39m 8s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brian (1h 39m 11s): Well Joe, we, you joined us a little late, but we’re happy that you made it, but we haven’t talked about your art and I think we should, we should take a few minutes here and, and talk about what you do. I’ve been checking out your website. It’s, it’s pretty damn cool. And I know you’ve got a, a phish related project on the go right now. Can we discuss that? Joe (1h 39m 30s): Yeah, so I would not be making the art that I’m, that I make if it were not for steel it fishing and not for developing a healthy respect for places through which steelhead rivers go. I mean, there are places, there are places like in the Palouse or you know, in Min Okanagan where river, you know, where we have steel that, but a temperate rainforest like a river going through a temperate rainforest, chrome bright creatures and that temperate rainforest, you know, sort of like the brooding clouds that permeate the valleys of those forests that we get to like hang out in it’s blink flies for those majestic creatures. Joe (1h 40m 15s): That is hopefully I’ve successfully conveyed that mood to whoever’s listening to this. That is the impetus behind why I do what I do. And I’ve been here fishing since 1987 and for steel bed. And I wanted to be able to use my voice as an artist to bring people together for the benefit of the fish and those forests. So I started a project called The Salmon School in 2019, and the goal was to get a group of people together to make something out of glass. A school of salmon out of laps, glass is, you know, fragile and transparent. Joe (1h 40m 56s): Reflective. And then mirror these fish that are made by contributors from around the world. Then assemble them in a school, in a quantifiable space like a basketball court and show the world what an endless resource looks like and travel this around the world and show people what an endless research looks like. And then have youth go out on streams with, you know, scientists and indigenous people and others and learn, you know, what’s really there. And then tell us the story of that’s happening in that big, bright, shiny object made of many grown salmon. So yeah, so that’s sort of my way of giving, of giving back to this place that has fed me as far as, as far as my art’s concerned. Joe (1h 41m 41s): So it is a, an experience, it’s a conceptual endeavor. And it was first exhibited at the Valor Museum, then it went on to the United Nations Global Climate Change Summit in Glasgow where it hung over, you know, a hundred percent of the international delegates and heads of state that could make a difference for salmon and steelhead round the world. And then subsequently it’s been to, you know, barrel mor castle. I got, I got to fish at ba mor at B Mors. Got, and then, you know, other, and it’s been to another other, a number of other places like Macallan Distillery on the spay and most recently was exhibited at the Museum of class. Joe (1h 42m 25s): And it will be shown in part at the Gale Severing Gallery in Ketchum, Idaho in, I think opens the 7th of August and it’ll be there for a couple of months. So that’s what I do. And you and anybody who’s interested in, in learning more about the salmon school or participating or making fish with us, you can go to www.thesalmonschool.com and we’ve had notable steelhead anglers that have come in and squeezed fish with us. Jerry French came in, I don’t know, I think you’re close enough, George. We may be able to, maybe able to get you to come up to the Museum of Glass and make fish with us. Joe (1h 43m 6s): John McMillan has been part of it, A list of people. You can see everybody’s name on the, on the website. So it’s a symbol. So my art in this instance is a symbol for the things that we’ve been talking. Brian (1h 43m 18s): Excellent. Well guys, I’ve, I’ve enjoyed speaking with you a lot and I, I feel like we could keep going for hours, but I know everyone’s got stuff to do. So before I let you go, I got a couple of questions and I wanna make an acknowledgement here, Scott, the mo tip. Okay. The mo tip is so crucial to our program here on the lower sche now. So what we do is we just pretty much fish the lower schema for steelhead. We don’t do much on tributaries at all. We’re focused on trying to connect with these fish in places that they rest as they’re moving through, you know, from tide water up almost to kitwana, but especially from, you know, the vicinity of the copper down to tide water. Brian (1h 43m 60s): And the idea of fishing a short sink tip enables us to fish proximity to structure, to keep the fly within six or eight inches of the bottom and have great control without snagging up, without the mot tip, we couldn’t do what we do here on the lower Chena the way we do it, whether or not it’s a, the two and a half sink or the five and five, it’s a hundred percent of what we’re fishing. So I know you, I know you were a big part of that. You’re the, you’re the o and Mo, so thank you for that. Scott (1h 44m 29s): You’re welcome. Brian (1h 44m 29s): How did you guys come up with that concept? Scott (1h 44m 32s): Long story short, you know, it was really Ed Ward who came up with phishing, the short tips, the and, and not just short tips, right? They had to be fast sinking, right? So really heavy or fast sinking, shorter tips, you know, four feet, five feet, six feet long. And so he was coming up and fishing with me and McCune on the Oregon coast rivers like the Neal and stuff. And, and so he caught us going on that. It was obviously something because of the versatility and presentation that it, that it gave you, you know, you, you could do more of a, of a grease line sunk fly technique, you know, where it’s downstream a little more downstream presentation. Scott (1h 45m 17s): Not quite dead drift. But anyway, so you had that, you know, and, and when it turned on the turn, it didn’t, you didn’t have all this fly line lag. You didn’t have this big belly, right? It came around much quicker. And so your fly wasn’t upstream and you’re not rubbing line on fish before the fly gets there. And so it, we thought that was brilliant. We, Mike and I started doing it right away, but the first thing you discover was when you put a five foot heavy sink tip on the end of your, your head, it windmills, right? It, it does a, a windmill effect as it’s going out. It it, you’re not gonna get, get a nice turnover cast with it, you know, it just didn’t work. Scott (1h 45m 58s): And so it was my idea to, to weld the, the floating section onto it. And I remember when I told Mike about that, I remember where, where we were standing and within seconds he left and went straight to his house to make those tips. And the next day he gave me a couple five and fives and we went out with ’em and they were brilliant and they, they cast beautifully and they fished, you know, the same. And so that’s, that’s basically the story. I’m also the o in schmuck. My and my crew calls me the o and a different word that rhymes with schmuck. Dec (1h 46m 40s): That’s quite the distinction that be in the o in schmuck. I know it right. George (1h 46m 45s): Well Scott, you’ve, you guys made me a lot of money ’cause I’ve, you know, sold the MO system since it came out for Rio and you know, what you guys brought to the table and the, your initial theories and theories and use that would, you know, literally spawn after that was nothing short of brilliant with you guys. And I actually have a huge writeup that I hand out at SPAN events, the brilliance of the most system and talk about you guys as I refer to you as the three spa ERs, the three of you. George (1h 47m 28s): And, you know, each one of you always gave a little bit different background or use, you know, care feeding usage and each one of ’em had something really great to take, take away from each one of you because I’ve listened to each one of you. I also was in the board meeting at stage when Mark Bale brought it to the table that this was something we could do. And I’ll never forget, Simon Goss were sitting there as a classic, you know, Englishman, he could not see his way around it for love nor money. George (1h 48m 9s): Nope. And you know, he was, he was absolutely the doubting Thomas in the room. Mark Bale wanted to give it a go. And it, you know, it was spay anything in my mind it was like, bring it, bring it. But, you know, eventually Simon got his head around it. But it was pretty amazing to be sitting there at the, the point of interaction. And in fact, I gotta get in the car here in nine minutes, Brian, to drive up to the factory to meet two new reps that just got hired for Far Bank Sage. And so, you know, what a great way to end it. Brian (1h 48m 49s): All right, so I said I, I said I had a question, so here it is. And so what we’ll do is we’ll go around. You guys can each answer my question real quick and let the listeners know how to find you. So I’m gonna start with, with you Joe, then we’ll go to George, then Scott, then deck. So the question is this, and it’s kind of redundant, we talked a lot about this. For anybody listening who wants to learn more, really get into this, give me one book that they should go and find. So Joseph, the book and then how people can find you though you did already throw out the, the Salmon website. Joe (1h 49m 22s): One book for steelhead fly fishing, Brian (1h 49m 25s): Any book, any book that’s gonna inspire people who on their fly fishing journey, if you will, or their spay fishing journey doesn’t have to be steelhead specific. Joe (1h 49m 32s): I’ll give you two books other than Decks book. So The Fish in the Fly by John Aon and 75 Years as a Drought and Salmon Fisherman by Edward Ringwood Hewitt. And those two books are available through your favorite Antic book deal. No, I’d add one more. And that is Flying Salmon by Balfour Caner because that is a bay book and it actually Flying Salmon by Balfour Cane. Those are the three I would pick. Brian (1h 50m 3s): Thank you. And, and if, and how can people find you and see your work? Joe (1h 50m 7s): Okay, so you can find me@josephrosano.com or the salmon school.com. Brian (1h 50m 14s): Awesome. Thank you George. George (1h 50m 17s): Well, I’m gonna tell everybody out there to read textbook most certainly, but then go find the Combs work and read ’em both because they’ll both tell you lots of great antidotes and lessons stories. I think those two would be my choice. Where to find me, I’m on Instagram at state of spay and then I’ve got a hunting, one separate known as Mule Deer 16 Mule Deer one six. So see you out there. Brian (1h 50m 53s): Thank you. All right, Scott. Scott (1h 50m 56s): So the books I’m gonna, I mean obviously add, just to add to the books these guys are are talking about. I mean, deck’s book is, like you said earlier, Brian is incredibly comprehensive. And then, and then you, you have to put Tra cos Steelhead Fly Fishing in Flies, it’s called. And then I’ll add, you know, jock Scott’s Grease Line Fishing, which I mean is con brilliant. And then I’m gonna add one more. What that I think is one of the most, I’ve read again recently, one of the most inform informative fly fishing books, it doesn’t have anything to do with Rivers or steelhead, is Randall Kaufman’s Lake Fishing With a Fly. Scott (1h 51m 39s): That, that is an truly incredible informative book. And then getting ahold of me, if you want to fish with me, get ahold of me. I’m exclusive with fly water travel, just find fly water travel online and they do all my calendars and bookings and everything for me. And, and those guys do a really great job. Brian (1h 52m 3s): Wonderful reason to give Kenny Morris a phone call. One of my favorite people to talk to out there. Scott (1h 52m 8s): There you go. Brian (1h 52m 9s): All right. Deck. Dec (1h 52m 11s): I’m jealous of Scott because he just has to show up. Scott (1h 52m 14s): You know, I love dry water travel. Dec (1h 52m 21s): Absolutely. So for thanks for the compliments on my book, and I, I I get it, you know, I’m humble about it, but I get it. I remember when I, it first came out, Scott came up to me And you are, you know, and it’s been 20 years now, I’m a little concerned about what my peers will think and what I might have missed and what they think might, you know, they different. But Scott came up to me and he had this little kind of the mean Scott look face and he said, you know, what’s wrong with your book? And I’m like, what? And he goes, you didn’t leave anything for the rest of us to say. And I thought, awesome. What a great compliment. So anyway, I’m gonna add to, to everything including a HA Wood, including Randall’s Lake book. Dec (1h 53m 1s): Do you remember? You and I used to just live in that thing, especially back in the day when we were meeting George and doing all that lake fishing. Pretty cool. So I love from my influence, and I said this in that book, Hague Brown should be required reading Joe (1h 53m 16s): Absolutely. Dec (1h 53m 17s): To all, to all those that venture forth to the steelhead rivers with Rod in hand. And my first book that I read of Hague Brown and I’ve since read it multiple times is a Western angler. So anything by Hague Brown is pretty good. Pretty influential Brian (1h 53m 32s): Deck. Anyone wants to work on their casting with you? How do they get ahold of you? Dec (1h 53m 36s): Yeah, so I teach well, and I’m with Sage in Rio now. Like Scott and George are pretty proud ab about that. It’s a big deal and I don’t think there’s been any real public announcement of it, but here you go. I’m with Sage, say, what do you call the elite ambassador? So it’s pretty fun and, and man, I just, I plugging, I, and I’m not just plugging, I’m saying this from my heart. I have not been so excited about a two handed rod since the R eight came out. I just am goofy over that. And we all cast, we can cast anything. All of us have been at it a long time. We can cast whatever we want, however we want where, and I’m excited about that. Dec (1h 54m 16s): Rod, you know, it’s up to this point, it’s been, oh, here’s another tool, here’s another tool. I can cast this one all day long. But man, that R eight, I’m excited about it and everyone I put in their hands is very excited about it as well, including my wife. So I teach these schools all over the place, and if any shop people are listening, you know, you can dial me up. And for any individuals that want private lessons or wanna attend those schools, it’s just Instagram, it’s Deck Hogan, all one word. D-E-C-H-O-G-A-N. That’s how you find me. Brian (1h 54m 47s): Awesome. Any, anything we missed, guys? Any last comments before I let you go? Yeah, Joe (1h 54m 53s): I should probably, I should probably say that you can reach me on Instagram at Joseph Rosano and that I, I’m an ambassador for Vision Fly Fishing and so if you have any questions about vision, gimme a shout. And I’d just like to thank everybody for the opportunity to be here with you guys today. It’s great. Dec (1h 55m 15s): Me too. Super fun. Brian (1h 55m 17s): Awesome guys. Well, I, I really appreciate you taking the time. It’s a real pleasure and I hope one day we get to get to all Fish together. Wouldn’t that be fun? Up here on the Skinna? Dec (1h 55m 26s): Oh, Brian, who’s coming up next year? When Eric’s there, by the way, are Brian (1h 55m 29s): You gonna come join us? Dec (1h 55m 31s): Hell yeah. Did we talk about it? Brian (1h 55m 32s): Yeah. Oh yeah. I didn’t realize it was a lock. So we’re, we’re good. All right. So we’ll have Deck Hogan up this spring. This is awesome. I’m stoked. Right on. You guys, enjoy the rest of your day. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Pleasure. Thank you. Thanks Joe (1h 55m 44s): Amigos. Thanks so much, Joe. Thank you. Brian (1h 55m 51s): Well folks, that was a treat for me to get to chat with this group. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. I wanna thank Scott Deck, George and Joseph for taking the time to share their stories and expertise with us today. Thank you as well To everyone tuning in. We’ll be back with another episode for you in the first week of August. In the meantime, please feel free to send in show comments and questions by email to info@skeenaspay.com. You can find in the Bucket podcast online at www in the bucket podcast.com. If you’re on Instagram, you can follow us at in theb bucket podcast. Thanks again. I’m Brian Ska and you’ve been listening to In The Bucket Podcast, brought to you by the wet Fly swing.