Traveled #16 – Snake River Cutthroats with Dave Pace – East Idaho Fly Fishing Expo, Trout Unlimited, Idaho Falls

Dave (2s): Welcome to Traveled, where we take a journey to a specific region. So you discover what makes this part of the world so unique. Before we get rolling with our guests this week, I wanted to share the love with our Traveled sponsor. This podcast is powered by Swing Outdoors, the Wet Fly Swing podcast and Yellowstone Teton territory. Please head over to Wet fly Swing dot com slash teton to connect with the great brands that make up this amazing region of the country. Let’s do it. Let’s jump in and find out where that road less traveled is gonna lead us today. how are you doing Dave? Dave Pace (38s): I’m doing good. Dave (39s): Good, good. Thanks for setting some time aside here. It’s been a little bit of work. I appreciate you for hanging in there. To put this one together, you’re in a neck of the woods that we’ve been to recently. There’s a lot going on there. It’s kind of a mecca, you know, the South fork of the snake, really just eastern Idaho. So we’re gonna talk about that today, talk about how people can maybe put together a good trip out there. But also you have the expo coming up. I think I want to hear about how that went this year and, and describe that. So before we get into all that today, let’s take it back to your fishing, fly fishing. What is the first memory? How’d you get into it? Dave Pace (1m 10s): Oh, I grew up in a Fishing family, although my dad tended to do more spin Fishing and trolling fishing. Yeah, probably my first memory of fly Fishing is probably at High Mountain Lakes. My dad liked to go to the High Mountain Lakes and so it was probably fly fishing High Mountain Lakes when I was six. Okay. Eight. Dave (1m 27s): That’s it. So you got started early and were you guys doing, was this kinda off the bank or in float tubes or how are you doing it? Yeah, Dave Pace (1m 32s): Mostly off the bank. It’s, we were doing High Mountain Lakes you had to hike into, so at that time, carrying float tubes in was kind of prohibitive. Dave (1m 40s): Oh, gotcha. Yeah, so, and who was in the, with your dad who was on the trip? Was this the whole family thing? Dave Pace (1m 46s): Yeah, we did whole family. I have a sister and my mom and dad, and then sometimes just my dad and me and then sometimes my dad, me and another friend and a son or something. Gotcha. Dave (1m 57s): And where’d you guys, did you grow up in Idaho? Dave Pace (1m 60s): Yep, I’m born and raised. Local boy, born here in Nile Falls, Idaho. Dave (2m 3s): Yeah. So you’re in Idaho Falls currently? Yes. Oh, perfect, perfect. Yeah, we’ve been doing quite a bit because we’ve been doing our travel series, so we’ve talked to a number of people from that area. I’m sure you know most of ’em that we’ve covered, but yeah, there’s a lot of amazing waters in that area. Not only lakes but streams. What is your, what do you consider, do you kind of have a home water that you consider one? Yeah, Dave Pace (2m 24s): Our, our Home Rivers is the South Fork of the Snake River. Yeah. Dave (2m 27s): South Fork Snake. And, and not is the Henry’s Fork, I mean obviously that’s nearby too. Is that kind of just not quite as big or why do you go for the South Fork? Dave Pace (2m 37s): South Fork Fish fits my interest efficient, I guess better. The Henry’s Fork’s a smaller river, not as fast a banks, so, and not as big a season either. So I tend to fish the Henry’s Fork more first thing in the season. And then when it gets more into the summertime, I switch over to the South Fork and fish it clear into the fall. Dave (2m 57s): Oh, right. And so right now as we’re looking, looking, it’s kind of close to mid-December. Are you guys still as fishing done now for the season? Dave Pace (3m 4s): Yeah, people are still fishing. I kind of switch over to other things myself, but yeah, I would say even later in the year than I used to go back to Fish to Henry’s work, but I’ve not fished in this, this time of year as much more recently. Dave (3m 17s): Okay. Then in the, the expo that happened this year, we’ve been talking a little bit about this. I wasn’t able to make it out, I’m hoping to make it out this next year. But how did that go? The East Idaho flight tying and, and Fishing Expo? How’d that event go this year? Dave Pace (3m 31s): Yeah, we had a great event this year. It was our first time back since Covid. We took three years off for Covid and in the meantime we got a new facility, the Auto Falls Mountain America Center. It’s a, a hockey facility, multi-use facility was built. And we were actually, I think the first venue to, to book with them and they were just kind of finishing it up as we put on the show this last spring. And it was a lot of new things. Yeah. Several years off and new facility and, you know, all the costs and everything were different, but everything worked out really well. We had a, I think about 3000 people show up. Wow. We run it for, for two days. So yeah, we had 3000 people show up and had a good time. Dave (4m 12s): Right. And this is kind of a mix between a lot of fly tying and then some companies that are there presenting products and things like that. Maybe describe, you know, when you walk into the, the center, what you’re looking at there. Dave Pace (4m 24s): Yeah, so the reason we put on this is for a fundraiser for our, our club where a trotted unlimited chapter, the Snake for Cutthroats. And we’ve been doing this, oh, expo now for 27 years. So this new one, this coming year will be the 28th year. And we’ve always considered ourselves a fly tying centric show. So we do feature a lot of tires. A lot of the other shows, there’ll be some fly tires, you know, in a small table in the corner. And our fly tires are right out in the middle. There’s, we have about a hundred demonstrating fly tires over the whole time of the show. This year we had 46 tables going at one time, and then around the outside. So this is basically in, in the hockey rink, there actually was still ice on the floor and they, they put a floor insulated layer down over it. Dave Pace (5m 9s): So that was interesting too. Couldn’t tell the ice was there, but yeah. Amazing. And then we have, we had 40, 45 vendors that kind of go around the outside. So our show has a open feel ’cause the, the taller vendors with the backdrops are just around the outside. So yeah, we got a pile of fly fishing vendors, boat vendors, equipment vendors, clothing vendors, all sorts of that kind of stuff. And then we also run workshops, tying workshops. So if people wanna sit down in a small environment with, you know, 10 other people and, and learn to tie specific kind of flies, you know, those are kind of three hour events. And then we have destination slideshows. Dave Pace (5m 52s): People can sit down and we have a person talking about kind of where or how to fish in our area. And then they have a women’s program. So it’s, she does a all day kind of introduction to fishing and then a separate class she does, this is Leslie DeLago runs our women’s program. She does a, a tying class, so something specific for women. They’re fine, women are uncomfortable when they’re hanging around a pile of men. So she does really well with that and women enjoy that. And then the second day we kind of wrap it all up with a, a banquet and a live auctions silent auction. And that’s kind of our main fundraiser. Oh, nice. And the whole show, the only thing we charge for is coming to the banquet, obviously for the food and tying workshops. Dave Pace (6m 35s): All the rest of that is free and open to the public. Dave (6m 38s): Oh wow. Great. And does it look like you guys are gonna be doing this again in 2024? Dave Pace (6m 43s): Yep. Yep. We signed a three year contract with the center when we did that, so certainly I don’t ever see us wanting to move from that. It’s a wonderful new facility and yeah, we’re already in the planning phases. We’ve been working on that probably a month already. And the dates this year are March 22nd and 23rd. Oh, great. Dave (7m 0s): All right. I’ll put those in the show notes and we’ll get a link to all this in the show notes so people can check it out. But it sounds like if somebody’s listening now, maybe they’re, you know, around the country listening. I mean, how far are people coming from, I know this is in eastern Idaho. Are you getting folks kind of from around mostly the, the adjacent states or what, how does that look? Dave Pace (7m 18s): Yeah, adjacent states, we get a lot of people that come from California. We’re kind of a summertime area from California. A lot of our tires will come from California, Oregon, Utah, Montana, Wyoming. And then even further, we have some that come from back east. We’ve had Charles Jardine come over from England even. So yeah, it, it draws people from a wide range. Dave (7m 39s): Right on. What was the most memorable thing that happened there? I mean, you guys planned this whole thing. I imagine it’s just a ton of work when you get it going. Did anything interesting happen that sticks out in your mind? That’s a tough Dave Pace (7m 53s): Thing. Yeah, it was. It was just a big juggling effort. Dave (7m 56s): Was it, what’s your role? What’s your role there with the, with the event? Dave Pace (7m 59s): I’m a co-chair. I’ve been, we kind of call my category people, the senior advisors with the club ’cause we’ve been here long enough. But with the expos specifically, I’m a, I’m a co-chair. I’ve, I’ve organized most different parts of it throughout the years. I’ve been working with it for almost 20 years, so. Wow. Yeah, just there’s three of us that are co-chairs and yeah. With going to a new facility, it was a lot of stuff to juggle a lot of work last year and we always said, okay, we’ll put in the work last year and reap the benefits this year. ’cause it’ll be a lot of, it’s already done. So hopefully that’s true. Dave (8m 34s): Yeah, that’s right. And so did you guys find, I mean, I guess you probably had some goals set to think like, Hey, we’re gonna get this many people there. Did it meet your expectations and, and all that looking back? Dave Pace (8m 44s): Yeah, the facility people were like, oh, you’ll do much better. And we’re like, eh, it, it’s a more expensive facility. So we were worried about that and how it’ll come out financially. But yeah, we, we saw a significant increase in the number of people, you know, it’s been three years and Idaho is getting more popular. Yeah. So there’s a lot, a lot of new faces here so that we have those people to draw on. So I think that helped with the numbers and being in the new facility that everybody wanted to see helps out too. The fact that we’re a free show, it was kind of the first, I think we were the free, first free show to be in that facility. So people I think took advantage of that just to come see the facility too. And then financially we did better than we expected. Dave Pace (9m 25s): We did well. So yeah, it was, it worked out best all round. Cool. We got, we got hosed by the weather. It was, it’s that time of year, it’s, that’s always a crap shoot. Oh right. You, you get bad weather, you get, I think more people show up, but then we’re planning on having some casting classes outside and you know, it snowed, I think two inches during the show. So we had to scramble and luckily one of our people that helps, helps out with one of their high school track teams and it was their spring break week. So we ended up being able to use the high school gymnasium for the casting at the last minute. So that, that worked Well, Dave (9m 59s): There you go. Yeah, the weather is always, I mean, I guess it’s fly fishing, right? We were, we were in New York last week and, and the weather, same thing. It, it snowed two inches the night before. We weren’t expecting it. And so it actually kept the rivers a little bit more turban than we were hoping. So, you know what I mean? It kind of, it’s, it’s tough when, but it’s far efficient. Right. You never know what’s gonna happen. Same with your event, that type of year. Yep. Yeah. Dave Pace (10m 21s): Yep. Yeah, we, we like having it, like I said, it’s, it’s better when the weather’s crappy, people are out doing yard stuff and they come to the show, but you pay for it on some of the other things like the casting. Dave (10m 31s): Yeah. Gotcha. How do you guys go about finding all of the, you know, the guests? The vendors? Do you kind of just put a shout out to everybody or how do you choose who’s gonna be there? Dave Pace (10m 40s): Yeah, we’ve got, our vendor chair right now is John Stenson and he works for Clack of Craft and he’s been going to shows in that role for a long time. So it’s another person, Gary Barnes was involved with Loop USA, now he’s running Semper Fi. So we’ve got some people, local people that are involved in the chapter that are kind of involved in that industry and go around to shows and, you know, talk to people and see who we can get bring to our show and build the kind of show that we want. So. Dave (11m 10s): Nice. Yeah. And these events are around, I mean, they’re definitely spread around the country. This one is, you guys with the Snake River Cutthroats are with Trout Unlimited. Talk about that a little bit with Trout Unlimited. How I know one, there’s some big things going on in that area, right. Especially in the South Fork. What is Trout Unlimited doing? Give a little shout out to them, some of their programs. Dave Pace (11m 28s): Yeah, we’ve been Trout Unlimited, we were fortunate here to have a, they have what they call the Home Rivers Initiative and that’s kind of a nationally funded person working on projects for Trout Unlimited. And we have that position here for probably 10 years. And that was good for our chapter ’cause that gave us, you know, good projects to be able to put the money we generate through the expo into that are local projects. And we did a, they did a lot of of work on the South Fork and we’re still doing a lot of work on the South Fork. They decided to kind of back off on that Home Rivers person. That person retired and they did not replace that. But the South Fork Initiative, which is a, a branch of the Henry’s Fork Foundation was formed and their goal is just the South Fork as well. Dave Pace (12m 12s): So we’ve been teaming up with them more recently to work on conservation projects on the river. The South Fork is kind of our main area and Rainy Creek is one of the main tributaries on the South Fork that should be. And you know, going back 50, a hundred years ago was a main stocking, spawning, tributary for the river and hasn’t been, they have wear fish wears on ’em so they can count the number of stocking fish. And it hasn’t been, you know, in the last 20 years been something, been a producing tributary. So we spent a lot of work trying to get that figured out and hopefully get that turned around. So it is a fish factory again for our cutthroats and pumping them into our south work. Dave (12m 56s): Right on. And I’m, I’m assuming people can just go to like Trout Unlimited or they can they go to your website and maybe give a shout out to that? What is your website for the Snake River Cutthroats? Dave Pace (13m 4s): Yeah, it’s just snake river cutthroat.org and you can see what we’re up to there or try to limit it or the South Fork Initiative. All three of those would would have, it’s the South Fork of the Snake River. Dave (13m 16s): Yeah, perfect. And the, and we’ve had a number of episodes now. We’ve had the Henry’s Fork, lots of people talking about the areas, but it’s the South Fork of Snake, the Henry’s fork come together to make the Snake River, which is a massive western river that eventually flows into the Columbia and, and all that. So there’s a lot going on up there. What is, you know, maybe talk about, I think one thing we talked about in the past was the, the some of this, I’m not sure if this is kind of a political thing, but some of the removal of the rainbows, is that something that Trout Unlimited is working on? Or what’s going on there with that current? Is that still going on? Dave Pace (13m 49s): Yeah, trout Unlimited supports native fish. I mean that’s one of their, their stances and in our area that, that is the cutthroat and yeah. And they’ve been here for centuries and the rainbows are introduced and the rainbows are in 49 of the 50. Dave (14m 6s): Right. They’re everywhere. They’re all around the world and Dave Pace (14m 8s): Yeah. And the South Fork actually is considered the last main stem river. So like you said, a, a major stem, major artery river. It’s the last main Stem river that still has cutthroats in it. So Oh wow. So we kinda, our chapter, you know, we’re called the Snake River Cutthroat. Yeah. We take that personally and, and we wanna protect our local fish. And there are some people, and even a couple of outspoken guides that want the rainbows and ’cause they fight harder and you know, if you want to fish rainbows, go fish the Henry’s for Go Fish, you know, the Madison, there’s Yeah, there’s a lot. There’s 20 other rivers in within two hour driving range of our area you can catch rainbows on. And we don’t agree with that. Dave Pace (14m 49s): And the think that the cutthroat should be here. The analogy I like to put is that’s kinda like telling an elk hunter that you should let Cape Buffalo, right. Let’s replace elk with Cape Buffalo. It’s really the same thing. No one in their right mind would ever consider that, but No, but you know, Cape Buffalo or they’re stronger, bigger, tougher. I mean that would be a better trophy. But the Rocky Mountain elk or, or what’s here, and that’s the same thing with the cutthroat. They’ve been here forever and a lot of guides like the Cutthroats. Yeah, I certainly like the Cutthroats ’cause they like to eat dry flies a lot more. So if, if you’re into dry fly fishing, especially with bigger flies, cutthroats are easier prey and more aptt to eat a dryly and not so much with the rainbows. Dave Pace (15m 29s): So Dave (15m 30s): Yeah. Not so much the rainbow. Yeah, no, that’s, I’m glad you clarified that a little bit. And I think that, yeah, I mean I tend to agree. I think that there’s some areas, obviously every river’s different, but if this is the last remaining main stem stock of Cutthroats, you know, I mean there’s some stuff you gotta do sometimes drastic if it means protecting the diversity of a, a native fish, you know? And so those choices aren’t always easy. Right. Dave Pace (15m 51s): Yeah. you know, fish and Game is spearheading that We support their work, you know, I, we volunteer and help ’em travel limited supports at work, but it, they’re the ones that are really pushing that and it’s, it all comes down mainly to a, a listing. I mean, they’re, the populations are getting low enough that it could potentially be listed as an endangered species. And, and the whole worry there is then it gets out of state fish and games control and gets put into federal control and then you have no, no control control of Yeah. And they’re, they’re gonna, they’re gonna save the fish and that may mean not being able to fish the river. So, yeah. you know, we’re, and some people get wrapped around the axle too. I mean, they are, fishing game is actively, they tried to let the, the fishermen do as much of it as possible. Dave Pace (16m 34s): So they came up with a three-pronged approach. They wanted to increase the spring flesh up froze flows, the rainbows spawn in the, in the main stem where the cutthroat spawn in the tributaries. So if they could get a historical flush, and that’s really why the rainbows have taken over is, is it’s not a natural river anymore. We’ve got Palisades Dam and Jackson Lake Dam in there that control the big springtime flows. The historically would’ve, would’ve favored the cutthroat that are spawning in the side tributaries and disrupted the, the rainbows. So now that, that’s not natural. That’s, that’s why the rainbows have done so well in the rivers. So, but their, their approach was that flush, fresh, fresh at, they call it, you know, try, try to dump a bunch of water in the springtime and mess the reds up, but that they’re just water’s, the river’s, water management system’s not really set up at all for, for the fish. Dave Pace (17m 24s): It’s all for, for irrigation. And, and they just haven’t been able to get the flows. And they’ve learned a lot and found out okay, they, they almost have to get the flooding idle falls levels to really be able to do it. And then they instigated no, no ke for their cutthroats and then, man, not mandatory, but no limit on the rainbow. So, you know, they had some public meetings, the anglers said, Hey, we wanna be able to, to help you solve this problem, don’t do it yourself. And they did that for I would say 10 years. And it kind of kept it even, but hasn’t got to where they wanted. So this, I think three years ago they started shocking and removing the rainbows off of the reds. They transplant ’em, they move ’em to some of the fish and ponds and other areas. Dave Pace (18m 5s): Oh. They move some over to the Henry’s fork. And so they’re trying to see how that works and, and I gotta give them credit for, for going as, as far as they can. They originally didn’t think, you know, it’s a big river Yeah. For summertime flows or 14,000 CCFs. But they were, they do it in the springtime and they were successful. I’ve helped once with them net and fish and, and did, well they, they, when I helped, we transplanted ’em over on the Henry’s fork and they actually moved him clear over to central Idaho. Wow. They had a Oh wow. Tributary to one of the medium-sized rivers over there. And they put a whole bunch of ’em over there and got a really lot of great feedback from the people that were fishing over there. And that’s what they wanted do is have good feedback. So like, all right, we’re gonna take more over there. Dave (18m 46s): Right. Wow. Yeah, it’s, I think any of these operations are never easy. Right. It’s just invasive species in general. It’s hard to get rid of ’em, you know, you imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Dave Pace (18m 55s): I think a lot of people look at it as you’re taking fish out of the river, that means there’s gonna be less fish. And it doesn’t really work that way. When you look at the biological setup of it all, you’re just taking fish out. There’s always more fish in the river to fill the available slots. So the fish, the river can handle so many fish per mile. And if you take X number of fish out, there is an excess of fish waiting to fill those spots. So you don’t really see a, a drop in in your ability to catch fish. You’re just catching more cutthroats than rainbows. Dave (19m 25s): Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying that. We were, we were over there this year in early October, and we fished the Henry’s Fork and the South Fork and we were doing like a euro nipping school with Pete Erickson. And so it was really focused on nipping, but, but it was fun. It was like it’s a beautiful river floating, like drifting. Is that kind of how you do it? What, what, what’s, talk about that a little bit. Your Fishing are, it sounds like you do some dry fly fishing. Are you floating mostly? Dave Pace (19m 47s): Yeah. The, especially in the summertime, the South fork, it’s a big river and in the summertime the water’s, the water’s up, up to the bank. So it’s not, you know, there, there are waiting opportunities but that tends to be more in, in gravel bars, riffles out in the middle. So it’s not really a, a bank fishing friendly river in the middle of the summer. It is this time of year and early in the spring for sure. ’cause the water’s a lot lower and, and you can get foot access to some of those gravel bars a lot easier. So the majority of the time I fish it, it is from a boat. And I kind of first learned to fish the south fork, what we call bang in the bank. So it’s back rowing. Dave Pace (20m 27s): Yeah. The oars always slowing the boat down. You’re back rowing it. And I always tell everybody, if you can cut the distance, your fly is from the bank in half, you’ll double the number of fish. So you try to get it as close, you know, if people are throwing it a, a foot from the bank and catching a dozen fish from the day in a day, you can cut that down to six inches from the bank. ’cause our banks are deep, they’re brushy and deep. So the fish, they ha wanna hang out the current, so they’re tied against that brush with the current drops off and the closer you can get it to the brush, if you’re bank Fishing like that, the better you do. And that’s the kind of Fishing I originally started. Fishing, I enjoy streamer fishing too. And I, I streamer fish quite a bit floating. Dave Pace (21m 8s): A lot of people think streamer fishing Iss just a shady fall, shady day fall kind of thing. And that’s not the case. No. You can catch fish on streamers anytime, anytime of the year, you know, and it’s, I always tell everybody, if you’re not catching fish, do something different, you know? Yeah. If you’re fishing the bank, banging the banks, you’re out catching ’em. Try streamers, try, you know, kinda the last thing I’ll try in the middle of summer is an infant, but hey, sometimes that’s what it takes. Dave (21m 32s): Yeah. Right, right, right. And and are banging the banks, are you doing that with dry flies mostly? Dave Pace (21m 36s): Yep. Usually a big dry fly. Some people like to try droppers, but you can’t get it real close if you got a dropper. So it’s usually a, a big Chernobyl an or a big foam fly and we tend to, to twitch ’em a fair amount too, just to get more attention. Dave (21m 52s): Right on. And what’s your, what kind of boat are you running down there? Dave Pace (21m 56s): I mostly fish with friends in their drift boats. I, I’m kind of a, a boat geek. I own 14 boats, but don don’t own a drift boat. Oh wow. Dave (22m 4s): You have four 14 boats. So, so what, what are these boats? Are these a mixture of rafts or what are they? Dave Pace (22m 10s): Yeah, I’ve got, I a whitewater guy too. So I’ve got a bigger whitewater raft that we run down the middle fork and the salmon. Oh right. Whitewater stuff. I’ve got a smaller raft that I run down smaller rivers that you can’t, don’t have access. And then I’ve got lots of kayaks, three whitewater kayaks, sea kayaks, duck hunting kayaks. I got a couple of lake, a lake boat, a jet boat, so. Oh, okay. But all my friends have drift boats. Dave (22m 33s): So you got everything but the dr and I guess you don’t need it just ’cause your friends have the boat. Yeah. Dave Pace (22m 37s): You always have to go fishing with somebody. And all my fishing friends have drift boats, so I fish out of a drift boat most, you know. Yeah. On the river for sure. But Dave (22m 44s): That’s right. And most of those boats that drift boats hides or cls, are those kind of typical Dave Pace (22m 50s): Yeah, hides and klaas are the, the two popular, I would say on the South Fork it’s more CLS than hides. But then if you go over on the whitewater, you know, upstream some around Jackson, then you see more of the hides that are higher sided. They’re a little more whitewater. Dave (23m 6s): Yeah. More Dave Pace (23m 7s): Whitewater whitewater ish. Dave (23m 8s): That’s right in the middle fork. You see some boats there. Right. Some of the, the wooden drift boats that are floating. That one. Dave Pace (23m 13s): Yeah. I’ve seen some drift boats on that river on crazy low waters that I have. I would’ve loved to see how they rode through some of that stuff. Dave (23m 21s): I know, right. Dave Pace (23m 22s): Well, you know, ’cause Yeah, they’re beautiful wood drift boats and, and the one trip it was 2.4 feet, which is extremely low and Yeah. And even the outfitters, they were running flying in their clients to the Yep. Dave (23m 35s): Flying in miss the low stuff. Dave Pace (23m 37s): Yep. Miss the high stuff or the high stuff. Right. Where the, where the water’s, water’s really low. Yeah. And, but the boats have to get there. They can’t fly a drift boat in. So, you know, we started from the top with a private trip and, and they even run those crazy huge sweep boats at crazy low water levels. Oh wow. And we were, you know, it took us three days to get to the, the Indian Creek airstrip and here comes these drift boats, you know, it’s the guides, they call it dead heading. They get it put in and they gotta go all the way down to any creek in a day. ’cause that’s how their permits work. So here comes these drift boats down here, just, just one guy in the boat. And usually you’d only see, you know, one or two and then it’d be, you know, half an hour you’d see another one. They’re kind of all on their own. It’s like, how do you do that? Dave Pace (24m 17s): Right. Amazing, amazing rowers that they can take. Beautiful wood drift boats. Dave (24m 22s): They’re wood. Right. Because they’re mostly And why, why are they mostly wood drift boats down there do you think? Dave Pace (24m 27s): Don don’t know. Dave (24m 28s): Yeah. Yeah. Because you think a fiberglass or something else might be a little more durable. Dave Pace (24m 32s): Yeah, a fiberglass would probably be more durable, but don don’t know. They’re historic and beautiful. But yeah. You, you wouldn’t wanna ding ’em up but, you know, aluminum one’s gonna get banged up and fiberglass one’s gonna get banged up. I I, I, like I said, I would just pull up to see them run a couple of the rapids. ’cause we’re, I know, I mean, there’s barely enough room for your raft. There’s no room for your oars. So your oars are lifted up going near, you barely fit between the rocks and you know, you, you go through a slot like that and you gotta do a 90 degree turn and slide over and you know, we’re rafts we’re constantly bouncing off the rocks and Right. They, they can’t be doing that. So. Dave (25m 5s): Yeah, totally. No, it’s a cool area. ’cause you have that, the middle fork, we talked about the middle fork on a recent episode as well. And then, and then you said the salmon, I mean you’ve got the main, the main salmon. Is that something you guys do quite a bit? Are, are you doing these trips typically every year? Dave Pace (25m 18s): I would say we do a big whitewater trip every three years or so. This year we did float the main salmon and the Smith River over in Montana. Dave (25m 27s): Oh, Smith. Yep. Dave Pace (25m 28s): And we, we did float the middle fork last year, so Dave (25m 31s): Yeah. How was the middle fork? Was it low or high? Dave Pace (25m 33s): It was medium. Medium. Dave (25m 36s): Yeah. Dave Pace (25m 36s): I think it was running three, three feet. Three Dave (25m 40s): Feet. Okay. Dave Pace (25m 41s): I think the lowest ran was actually 1.4 and I think last time it was like 2.7. And I was surprised. It felt low, but I couldn’t believe we ran it at, at the lowest we had when it felt low at this level. But yeah. Dave (25m 53s): Do you get any, I mean are there any rapids there that you kinda get fired up that, you know, get a little anxious on? Or you you got ’em pretty dialed. Dave Pace (26m 1s): The middle fork is, is a yeah. Impressive river. It’s a hundred miles and there are a pile of, pile of white water and when it gets lower it gets more technical and not so pushy. You still can wrap boats pretty easy. Then the rocks are more, more prone. So you can wrap boats easy. But maybe the odds of flipping a boat in the middle of a big rapid are, are lower ’cause it’s more technical rather than big. Dave (26m 25s): Gotcha. No, it’s a good, I’ve been hoping to get back out there and do that trip again. And when we did it, we, it was really low and it was, like you said, it was technical. We were hitting a lot of rocks, but it wasn’t as crazy. So, I mean, have you been at the higher flows where things are really pushing and boats are flipping and it’s, I mean there must be some crazy things that have happened, you know, with all that whitewater, Dave Pace (26m 44s): The highest we’ve done it at is five feet. And I did that in a kayak and that was, that was a pretty comfortable, friendly level. I’ve got some friends that have, you know, been doing it for way longer than I have. And they’re the kind of rule of thumb, once it gets above six feet, it gets really pushy and crazy. And I think this last year it, it hit seven feet, so Oh wow. Our rule of thumb is, I mean, I don’t don don’t do whitewater for the excitement. I do it for the, the scenery and the right, the Fishing and that kind of thing. So I, I’ve never been one that sought out the craziness of it. But our, so our rule of thumb is always we’ll get on it. If it’s you, you never get on it while it’s going up. Dave Pace (27m 25s): So if it’s going up, you know, if your, your limit is maybe five feet, you don’t get on it at 4, 4, 4 and a half feet, five feet when it’s going up. You wait until it peaks and then you wait until it’s coming down and then you get on it because it can go, it can get crazy. you know, you can get on it at four feet and it can be seven feet in, in three or four days and you’re like, what did I sign up for? Right. Dave (27m 47s): How how do you do that with the passes? ’cause isn’t this a, like you get your pass for a certain time of week or something like that? How do you do? Yeah, yeah. It’s Dave Pace (27m 54s): A lottery and so there’s four rivers in the state of Idaho. The cell way, the middle fork, the main salmon and Hell’s Canyon are the four that, that are lottery systems. And yeah. So you got, I’ve only drawn once but got enough friends that we built with that I’ve, I’ve been down it like, I think eight times the middle fork. Hmm. Dave (28m 13s): Yeah. So it’s doable. So if somebody’s listening now and they wanna do this trip, I guess they just go to the website. Is it a national forest or forest service sort of thing? Or how do they get their permits For the middle fork? Dave Pace (28m 24s): Yeah. It’s all our rivers are managed by the forest service. So yeah. And then all the outfitters, I mean, if someone just wants to go on a trip and wants to go with an outfitter, they, they get launches every day. So yeah, pretty much can just buy a trip on an outfitter. They sell it pretty quickly, so Dave (28m 38s): Yeah. Perfect. What, so Idaho Falls, so you’re in, you’ve been there a long time. What, what is, what do you love about Idaho Falls? What keeps you there? Dave Pace (28m 47s): It’s close to a lot of things. A lot of outdoor things I guess. So it’s, it’s not that pretty of a town. It’s a desert on the edge of the desert. So it’s not, I mean I’ve recently been to some other places in Arizona. We, I just spent a month in Arizona and, and Flagstaff and, you know, all the big pretty ponderosa pine forests and spent a week in pace in Arizona and you know, there’re, that’s prettier than here, but you know, we’ve got oh, what, five blue ribbon rivers? Yeah. Within, within two hours. I, I was an outdoor person. I’ve been, have been an outdoor person my whole life, so I did backcountry skiing, rock climbing, fishing, hunting. My dad was a big, he came from here from Nebraska to be a hunter, elk hunter. Dave Pace (29m 27s): So hunt hunted a lot when I was growing up. Dave (29m 31s): Yep. Dave Pace (29m 31s): Just a lot to do here. Dave (29m 32s): Yeah, that’s right. I think that’s what I keep hearing is that not only is there the fishing and the hunting, but there’s everything else. You got all these, especially the winter sports, I think it’s known as, you know, I think it’s the snowmobile capital of the world. Right. You got all these different things going on out there. It seems like there’s just a, like right now are you guys getting, I guess you’re getting some snow or when, when’s the, when’s the season come where you kind of, you know, get into the skiing and all that? Is that right now? Dave Pace (29m 54s): Depends on the year. Last year, so I help out with, I follow ski club. I maintained two wall tents above ski hill, just above town for cross country skiing. And we always put those up late November, early December. And last year I got back a week before Thanksgiving and there was already two feet of snow in the ground. Wow. And we hadn’t put the, we usually put the floor drive the drive in and put the floors down, you know, at end of November and we weren’t doing that or we had to change our plan and haul everything in by snowmobile. So last year was different. It was, you know, like I said, middle of November when we had two feet of snow in the ground. Dave Pace (30m 35s): But usually it’s a couple weeks, middle of December usually is when this skiing ski season starts. Dave (30m 41s): Mm Okay. And so those tents, so this is something where you put these up for the season and then you’re just what there to help people? They’re cross country skiing or how does that work? Yeah, Dave Pace (30m 51s): They’re warming tents for cross-country skiing. And then the one tent actually people can reserve it and spend the night and it’s a 12 by 20 tent that they both got wood stoves in them. And yeah, just kind of a, a resource for the local cross country skiers. Dave (31m 5s): That’s awesome. And then you and then people man, it, there’s somebody there manning the, the tent throughout the season? Dave Pace (31m 11s): Nope, nope. We just put the tents out and, and enough users, the only thing we gotta do is keep the snow off the, off the roofs and there’s enough users there and they’ve, they understand they have to do that if we wanna keep ’em upright. Gotcha. So yeah, people, people just, you know, it doesn’t take too much to knock the snow off. Well Dave (31m 29s): This is awesome. Yeah. So where would you go if someone wanna find out about that and do some of that cross country skiing? How can they track this down? Dave Pace (31m 34s): Yeah, the Aall Ski Club’s webpage. I think it’s just aall ski club.org. Yeah, Dave (31m 39s): Yeah. Yeah. You must get, I mean, you’re obviously close to Yellowstone. I mean, that’s another thing we haven’t talked about, but you’ve got all sorts of all all of that. I mean, or do you think it’s an equal amount of summer and winter activities out there? Or, or it seems like you, there’s a, a lot of both. Dave Pace (31m 54s): There’s plenty to do in the winter if you’re, if you’re into that kind of thing. Yeah. you know, if you’re into cross country skiing, downhill skiing, snowmobile and ice fishing, there’s plenty to do. But if you’re a warm weather person, then yeah, it’s a long winter. We got snow just before Thanksgiving and we’ll have that snow in the ground here until it melts in March. Dave (32m 16s): Oh, in March. I was gonna say, so the expos around the March 22nd, so will it, there’ll still be snow on the ground by then Dave Pace (32m 22s): Up in the mountains for sure. Yeah, it’s amazing. We take those tents out probably mid-March. We took it out this year and that was the deepest snow pack we had had all year. So it, it, you get more snow, you get more snow and it just doesn’t, it settled some, but it doesn’t really melt. More snow, more snow. And then spring gets here and it melts and in like two weeks you lose five feet of snow. Oh wow. Dave (32m 46s): Just like Dave Pace (32m 46s): That. It’s, yeah. So it’s funny, we’re up there, you know, I’ve got pictures we’re taking down the wall tent and I mean the, the, there’s five feet of snow beside the tent, you know, when we’re done, here’s this huge hole in the snow with the plywood floor. Oh wow. And then, you know, two weeks later it’s all gone. Yeah. Dave (33m 3s): And what is, is this a homemade wall tent or is there a brand that is behind the tent? Dave Pace (33m 8s): No, well the time these were built, don don’t think there was many. Yeah, it’s a Dave (33m 11s): While ago. Dave Pace (33m 12s): Yeah. Many brands, well actually our, our tents are new now and the day we’re built by a local canvas company. Idaho Canvas. Oh Dave (33m 18s): Yeah. Idaho Canvas. Okay. Nice. Well let’s go back to the expo a little bit here. So anything else we want to, you know, as we look ahead, because I want to get people primed up for that. So, you know, you gonna have probably some of the same vendors, some of the same tires, you know, what can people expect for this next year come up here in March? Dave Pace (33m 34s): Yeah, so we’re, should have a few more vendors. We, you know, we’re a new facility, we kinda learned some things last year. We kind of learned besides the hockey arena area, there’s a concourse around the outside. So we’re gonna take advantage of that and maybe get some more vendors and use that space and hopefully get a few more tires to, I mean, a hundred tires is plenty, but the one thing, I guess the one drawback to this facility is the, the banquet facility, the old facility, we had one room, so we had to change the show. So what was it, 3, 3 30 we kicked all the vendors out and five o’clock we opened the door for the banquet. So Oh wow. We, we changed the whole entire room over, kicked all the vendors out, cleaned up the floor and set up all the banquet tables. Dave Pace (34m 18s): So, geez, that’s what’s nice about this area is they have a separate convention center, but that convention center isn’t quite as large. So where we used to be able to seat 500 people, now we can only seat like 330 people at the banquet and, and we sold that out. So I would say if, if anybody wants to come to the banquet and the live auction and you know, enjoy that night and help us raise some funds, you gotta get your tickets early for that. You do. Yeah, that will, that will obviously sell it again. Dave (34m 44s): And where would they go if they wanna get those tickets? Right now Dave Pace (34m 47s): That’s our, they’re not on sale yet. We probably don’t put ’em on sale until probably the 1st of February. Okay. And that’ll be the, the stake of her cutthroats.org is when you can see where everything that’s going on and you can sign up for the workshops online there this year and also the buy the banquet tickets or packages if you wanna raffle ticket package. Dave (35m 7s): Oh, perfect. To Dave Pace (35m 8s): Go with your banquet. But yeah, I definitely, if you want to go to the, the tying workshops, like I said, that is something you can’t just come to the show that’s, you need to be signed up ahead of time and then the banquet, that’s really the only two things that people have to get signed up ahead of time before they come. Yeah. Dave (35m 26s): Did, did Renee Harp, did he make it down this last year? Dave Pace (35m 29s): Don? Don’t think so. Renee’s kind of a personal guy. Yeah, he doesn’t show up a lot. Leslie, his daughter Leslie taught fly time classes with us Oh okay. A lot over the years. And as a president, Mike Lawson used to offer trips through our expo through the light. He would donate and live auction and Jack Dennis as well. So we used to have some personal trips from some big name people that they’re getting, they’re getting Dave (35m 52s): Older. Yeah. Dave Pace (35m 53s): They don’t want to do that anymore. And I certainly don’t blame ’em Dave (35m 56s): Who are the new, that’s always the question. ’cause we had, we’ve had a lot of old amazing people, you know, older people that have, like you said Jack Dennis, he’s still out there. I mean I think Mike, all those people are out there, it’s just they’re slowing down. Who are the next people, you know, like who are those people at your show that are maybe the next up and comers that are gonna be the next Mike Lawsons. Even though we, we can’t really replace somebody like Mike. Dave Pace (36m 14s): You know, I don’t, I don’t, I mean there’s tying people, you know. Yeah. But I don’t, I don’t see the, I mean those guys, you know, Bob Jacqueline, you know Mike Lawson, Jack Dennis. Yep. They, they all were kind of at the start of the popularity of Fly Fishing. I mean when a river runs through, it came out and Right Fly Fishing took off. They, they were in the fly shop business and, and you know, they were, had the guide businesses and had the fly shops and got that notoriety. But I don’t see that any anymore really. you know, it, there’s enough fly shops around and there’s, they’re busy running their business and, and don’t need to be the celebrities and there’s an enough influx of a whole bunch of different guide shops around that. Dave Pace (36m 55s): You just don’t see those expert people that are willing to, to share, interested in being a celebrity and wanna share, write books and do talks. Yeah. You just don’t see that anymore. Yeah. Dave (37m 7s): That’s changed. Are you getting a, a influx of newer, is it mostly older folks or are you seeing some younger generation at your event? Dave Pace (37m 15s): Oh, our tires tend to be a little more of the, we, we get a little bit, a lot of everything. But I would say, you know, having, not having the show for the last three years, I would say this year we did see a, an increase in even kids. We have, we have some time tables and I would say there was more kids that that came. And then yeah, more of the, you know, just starting your personal life, your per profession, you know, people in their twenties or whatever increase in, in that category. People too. Dave (37m 48s): Nice. So if somebody was wanting to come to that, this is in, you know, mid, like you said March 22nd, what, what does that look like if they’re kind of coming from a distance? Where would they be staying? Do you have recommendations on hotels or what are t you know, if they’re coming from a ways where, what are people doing? Dave Pace (38m 3s): Yeah, yeah. There are a few. Not not out there just yet, but when, when we get closer to the show, we do have deals with, you can get reduced rates. It’s at a couple of hotels that are close to the venue. So, so that’s there. And the reason we kind of also settled on, we used to do this in April, I think the third week of April. And we ran into a conflict with a show in California. And also when you get into April, our runoff season is starting and our, our fishing actually gets worse where in March you’re pre-run off. So the Henry’s fork actually, and, and a lot of the other smaller rivers in our area are better fishing. So, you know, as, as long as it’s not snowing, it’s actually better fishing in in March than it would be in in April. Dave Pace (38m 46s): So that was kind of one of the reasons why we settled on that date is ’cause I think it do, a lot of people do come from the area. Certainly our tires, you know, coming from California, whatever, they’re, they’re not just wanting to sit down and tie, they wanna combine it into a trip. So they, they fish some of the local area as well then, Dave (39m 2s): Right? Yeah, so March you can definitely get some fishing out there that, well I guess that you have the Tailwater so throughout the whole year you can fish out there. Dave Pace (39m 9s): Yep. And like I said, you, you get into April then the natural runoff starts to happen and the water clarity water gets higher and, and more turid. So the fishing’s not as good, but March is still the pre-run off springtime season. So as long as you get a, a warm weather day, the Fishing can be really good. Dave (39m 27s): Perfect. And if somebody wanted to learn more about the fishing, I guess like we said, there’s a ton of great fly shops, maybe we could start to take it out here with our fly shop. Shout out here. And then I have a couple of other random questions for you, but, so I wanted to hear about that. We’ve talked to a number of these fly shops from around the area, but today’s, this is presented by Yellowstone Teton territory, who’s obviously in your, I think they actually promote the event. Right? Do you know the folks involved with that? Dave Pace (39m 53s): Yeah, they were a, a big part with kind of, we got hooked in with them through the Mountain America Center and last year yeah, they, they did pony up and help us promote the show a a lot. Dave (40m 3s): Nice. What is, so let’s talk fly shops. What, what is your local flight, your Idaho Falls? So I know there’s a few big ones, I think even maybe the fly fish food guys have purchased one up in that area. What, but what is your local fly Dave Pace (40m 15s): Shop? Yeah, so our, our local fly shop for my whole, my whole life here has been Jimmy’s fly shop in town here. And and he did retire this last year, sold his fly shop, had been in the market to sell it for a while and I’m glad he got the chance to retire finally. Amazing guy did more for fly fishing and our Snake River cutthroats than, than anybody I’ve ever met. And, but he did sell that to fly fish food and you know, they weren’t on kind of our radar as someone that might take that over. And we’re all wondering man, who’s gonna replace Jimmy? And that was an awesome fit. ’cause fly fish food is, Jimmy was a fly tying centric shop rather, you know, we mentioned all the other shops in, in the area and that more destination West Yellowstone Jackson kind of thing. Dave Pace (41m 0s): So those are outfitters and that’s kind of their main business. And we don’t have, Jimmy never guided outta that shop, never had that. It, it’s a fishing shop. And, and we were real pleased that Fly Fish food took that over ’cause that’s their business, you know, it’s, it’s tying materials and they took Jimmy’s crazy amount of inventory to like tripled it. So now we’ve got an amazing selection of materials here in, in town for tying. Dave (41m 24s): Yeah. So you see it. So you see a lot, a lot more materials then. Is Jimmy still around the fly shop occasionally? Dave Pace (41m 30s): No, he’s retired. Not, he comes in as they need to help, you know, help figure things out that Yeah, sure. That I think, yeah, he’s fishing. Dave (41m 37s): Yeah, he’s Fishing. That’s right. Dave Pace (41m 38s): And he he should be. Yeah. Dave (41m 40s): Yeah. That’s cool. So, so Jimmy’s he deserves it. Yeah. And are there other fly shops in Idaho Falls Dave Pace (41m 44s): That’s the main fly Fishing only shop. There’s a, a sportsman Cabela’s here, but they don’t have near as near the stuff that Jimmy says by any means. Dave (41m 54s): That’s right. Yeah. And, and what do you, you know, when you think about Jimmy, what made him so unique, how would you paint that picture of somebody who’s never met him before? Dave Pace (42m 2s): Jimmy’s just one of the nicest, most congenial people you could ever meet. And he trained all his employees do the same thing when you walked in there shop. He is like, you know, hey Dave, how’s it going? Let us know if you need anything. And they just, no high pressure, no nothing, you know, and, and he, we had all our expo planning meetings in his shop, you know, he just opens the door to all of that and supported us with donations and everything over the years. And just his goal was, you know, let’s just make fly fishing and tie in in this area as good as it can and I’ll reap the benefits. And, and he did, had a very successful shot. Dave (42m 35s): That’s awesome. Yeah, I hope to get Jimmy on. I would love to hear more of that story from him as well. So, well let’s jump into a few random ones then we’ll take it outta here. So, you know, like we said, the Yellowstone Teton territory, we’re helping to promote some of the, you know, local businesses and brands around that area. But, so let’s think of this. So we’re, somebody’s doing a trip up there, what would be, I’m not sure restaurants out there. Do you guys get out, would you have one recommendation if somebody was fishing there, you know, during the time of the, the event for the expo? Or where would they go and get some dinner? Any, do you guys have a a favorite place? Dave Pace (43m 6s): Yeah, I would say my favorite kind of steak place is probably Stockman’s. Dave (43m 9s): Stockman’s? Yep. Dave Pace (43m 11s): Okay. Yeah, it’s a nice steak place. And there’s, there’s a couple other ones. Jakers is another one and the Sandpiper are kind of our three nice steak places and they’re all three pretty close to the river. We have the sneaker river flowing through town here. And, and both I guess sandpiper’s the only one that actually has a deck that is out looking on the river, but they’re all all pretty close to it. Dave (43m 33s): Perfect. Perfect. And, and then you talked about cross country skiing. Any other activities that you like doing, whether it’s, you know, throughout the year, other than the skiing, anything outdoor? Dave Pace (43m 43s): Yeah, downhill skiing. I mean we’ve got targe. Oh Dave (43m 48s): Yeah, right. Dave Pace (43m 49s): Yeah. Always targe is, I grew up skiing there. I backcountry skied on Jackson Pass a lot, which is the same kind of snow. Jackson Hole is on the other side, but it gets more sun. And I spent my thirties traveling all over the west skiing different places and you never find any snow that’s better than targe really. So if you’re after quality powder snow, like fluffy snow, yeah. It doesn’t get, isn’t any better from all the places I’ve skied Dave (44m 19s): And targe is And where is that in relation to Jackson? Dave Pace (44m 22s): It’s just on the other side of the Tetons in the, in the Driggs Valley. Dave (44m 26s): Oh, in Driggs. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. Okay. So Targe. Yeah, that we must have been close ’cause we stayed in Driggs when we were down there fishing at Airbnb. So yeah, it’s really, it is amazing ’cause you’re literally, and Jeff, we’ve had some guests on Jeff Courier. I know when he was on here last, he talked about how, you know, he lived in on the, the west side and just went over the, you know, the mountains to get over to Jackson because it’s so spiny. Yeah. And, but I think everything’s getting a little spiny there, even the driggs in those areas. Right. Because it’s just, yeah, Dave Pace (44m 51s): Driggs and Victor are blowing up too and Yeah, it’s turning into a Jackson. Dave (44m 55s): It is. Right. And as Idaho Falls, Iss just kind of not, it’s kind of a different type of town. It it’s, you’re not seeing the same thing. Dave Pace (45m 2s): No, I would say the last five years we’re definitely doing that too. We’ve probably seen a 25% increase in the last five years in population here. And it’s, it is a richer clientele that’s moving into retiring to the area basically. Dave (45m 16s): Gotcha. Okay. Well let’s keep going down this with our rapid fire here. So we got, we talked flies, you mentioned the Chernobyl Chernobyl ant. What’s your one, you know, if you had the one fly for dry fly other than that one? Or is that your pattern if you’re fishing in the summer? Dave Pace (45m 28s): Yeah, yeah. I mean we tie our own, all our own flies. So the Cher and is a genre. Yeah. And we, yeah, you can paint it in whatever colors. That is my favorite dry fly bang in the banks fly. ’cause it, we can twitch it well, it floats real well. And the fish just like it. I mean it’s, it got picked up by the guides and I fished with world cast anglers this year. My, my wife bought a trip at the Expo two day overnight trip and we fished with them and the guide had us on a different kind of hopper, golden stone pattern. Just fished that with my wife and she did really well with it. And, and I got tired of that and I put on a, a purple Chernobyl and he is like, well, okay. Yeah. And, and I caught fish on and he Iss like, wow, I’m surprised they still eat that. Dave Pace (46m 10s): Oh really? It got really popular and you Dave (46m 12s): Know. Oh Dave Pace (46m 13s): Right. Yeah. The more, but you know, when you’re tying ’em your own it’s, you’d make your own colors and they’re never exactly like the popular fly and the fly shop that everybody buys, so. Yeah. Dave (46m 22s): Yeah, definitely. And who, who’s your, your guide? Who is that the guy to you that day? Dave Pace (46m 26s): Oh geez. He’d asked me that. I don’t remember his name. He Dave (46m 29s): Was, I’m trying to think. ’cause we, we went out, well Pete works with WorldCast as well, so we met the owner and, and hung out with those guys a little bit. But yeah, they got a big crew. I mean I think they have like 40 or 50 guides or something like that. Dave Pace (46m 39s): Yeah, they do. And they came to the expo that a lot of the guides, they don’t, I guess look at it, there’s that much business. I mean, the locals don’t buy trips on the local rivers. Right. So they haven’t come to our expo. But yeah, the WorldCast came and they brought more of their shop and we’re selling items and stuff and yeah, it was fun to, to see them there. And yeah, they do have a big shop and a lot of stuff going on. Yeah. Dave (47m 1s): Yeah, definitely. Well let’s take it outta here. I always love to ask the podcast music question. Do you listen to any podcasts or you, do you do more music or what do you listen to more? Do you have any podcasts in your queue or, or do you listen to music? What’s that look like when you’re traveling to, to go fishing? Dave Pace (47m 17s): Yeah. I, I play music off a MP three player, not really a streaming guy. Okay. For sound. Yep. Dave (47m 22s): Yeah. How about podcasts? Have, have you got into that at all? Dave Pace (47m 25s): Nope, not really. Dave (47m 26s): Not really. There you go. So we’ve got a potential new future podcast listener. They, they say that about 50% of the, the population in the US listens to podcasts and the other 50 doesn’t. So I guess you’re one of the, one of the other. That’s good. There you go. So what’s your, give us some music to put in the show notes to put on Instagram. What would be something, what type of music? Or do you have a group or genre or what, what do you listen to? Dave Pace (47m 47s): We’ve been listening to the record company a lot lately. Dave (47m 49s): The record company. Yeah. Okay, perfect. And what type of music is that? Dave Pace (47m 54s): Oh, it’s kind of Southern rock I think. Dave (47m 57s): Oh, nice. Southern Rock. Awesome. Dave Pace (47m 59s): They were in Sun Valley. We had a concert. My wife got us plugged into three different concerts over there and that was the one we enjoyed the most. Dave (48m 6s): Perfect. All right, good. Well we’ll put this in the show and also we’ll get a link to the record company if we can, a video or something there. And that kind of scratching my own itch. I always love to get some new tune. So. Perfect. Dave. Well I think that’s good. I guess maybe just give a heads up. So you got the big in the next six months or so, you’ve got the big event coming up in March. What else are you looking at? Are you excited about over the next six months to a year? you know, for you or, or the Snake River Cutthroats? Dave Pace (48m 29s): Oh, I just enjoy the coming of the springtime season fishing season. Dave (48m 33s): Yep. Dave Pace (48m 34s): So I always, there’s a lake I like to fish around here actually for pan fish. Oh really? I’ve been, I’ve been fishing that lake. I grew up fishing it and my wife did as well for forever ago when we were six years old. And I’ve been going back to that lake for, for years. So since we both have history there, we like to spend a week there and every June, so Dave (48m 55s): There you go. That’s it. I mean, so the Stillwater is still good there, right? I mean you still hit that as much as the rivers. Dave Pace (49m 1s): Yeah, it just kinda depends on what you’re interested in. But yeah, we certainly have good Henry Henry’s Lake, that’s, yeah. Anybody in the country probably has heard about Henry’s Lake and Yep. And, and more recently I’ve even gotten into small mouth fishing that, which is kind of rare in this area, but we do have some small mouth fishing and we put together a, a pike trip actually that a bunch of us on the club were going. So one of the guys that used to be a Trout Unlimited guy is now running a travel business Hatch Adventures. And he, he had a article in the paper about him checking out a potential pike place up in the Yukon. So we got hooked up with him and 10 of us are gonna go up there in early June and, and chasing Pike. Dave Pace (49m 42s): We’ve done a trip over on Saskatchewan on Reindeer Lake once before. So those guys, people that went on that were like, oh, we gotta do that again. So it’s always fun. I if you’re a streamer, fisherman Pike is like pure adrenaline pike. Dave (49m 55s): Is it? So you’re heading up north up to Canada to hit the pike? Dave Pace (49m 58s): Yep. Clear. Clear North Yukon, clear up by Alaska. Dave (50m 1s): Oh wow. Yukon. Dave Pace (50m 2s): Yep. Dave (50m 3s): That’s really cool man. And so this is part of the, your local tu chapter that the people are the, you’re connecting these, putting these trips together? Yeah. Dave Pace (50m 11s): Yep. Dave (50m 12s): Wow. And what is that, what’s your chapter? What is the, you know, what are you guys doing mostly there? It sounds like you’ve got some events, so what, what, what keeps people coming back to, you know, the Steak River Cutthroats? Dave Pace (50m 23s): Yeah, so we’re, it’s just a nonprofit just to kind of, you know, get people, people together that like fishing. So we, our main fund road, their razors at expo and then we turn around and, and do fund and also carry out our own conservation projects. So we do, you know, three or four or five of those a year Build fence. We did some instream, we did work up in on the Salmon River or tributaries as salmon for 25 years. We did different projects up there more for steelhead stuff. Now we’re doing more stuff more locally. Yeah. And then over the summer we’ve got fishing outings, so it’s just kind of get togethers with people. We have a summer picnic and Christmas party. I’m wrapping gifts, got a pile of gifts here on the floor for the Christmas party. Dave Pace (51m 5s): And then we do some education stuff. We have tying workshops, kind of learning how to tie beginning. Dave (51m 13s): Oh yeah, I saw that you guys are doing those kind of at local pubs or something like that or Dave Pace (51m 16s): Yeah, that one’s tie went on. Yeah, tie went on. Yeah, we, yeah, we have a get together once a month and just bring in kind of a noted tire and he ties and chairs kind of his patterns and what he’s tying. Yeah, Dave (51m 28s): I love how you guys do it. ’cause I, I haven’t been to one, but I was checking out some of the photos and you’ve got kind of the big screen on and is that typically at like a pub or where do you guys do that? Yeah, Dave Pace (51m 36s): It’s called Tap and Fill. It’s a, it’s a local local pub. Dave (51m 40s): Perfect tap and fill. And then you got the big screen, which is cool, so it’s all blown up. So from hanging out you can just sit wherever and then watch it on the big screen. Dave Pace (51m 47s): Yeah, I mean we’re just in the bar so I mean there was a lot of people that just come to the bar, so Yeah. We get a lot of people just walking over what is going on back here. Dave (51m 55s): Yeah. You’re probably recruiting some new people, right? Some new flying anglers maybe at, at the event. Yeah. Dave Pace (51m 59s): And that, that was kind of the goal with that. Yeah, that thing is to get some, I mean there’s, there’s always everybody’s different groups of people and that’s a younger crowd that, that we kind of get get with that. And, and we do have the Fly Fishing film Festival as part of the expo and we see a different, totally different group of people that comes to that than, than a lot of the other stuff. So yeah, we, we try to be diverse enough to give something that everybody can enjoy. Dave (52m 23s): Sweet. All right, Dave, well I think if people want to connect with the expo i this your website right? Snake river cutthroats.org, is that the best place? Dave Pace (52m 31s): Yep, that’s the club and the expo. Dave (52m 33s): Good deal. Okay, well we’ll put that link in the show notes as well and just wanna Thank you today for your time. I’m hopefully gonna be out there this year. I’d love to meet up with you and everybody there and chat about, I know we’ve had at least one episode here where we talked about it, but I know we’re gonna have more of this going forward. So yeah, I appreciate all your time today and looking forward to hopefully meeting you in person. Dave Pace (52m 52s): Yeah, that’d be nice. Dave (52m 54s): That’s a wrap on travel part of the Wet Fly Swing podcast and Swing Outdoors. This podcast was supported by Eastern Idaho’s Yellowstone Teton territory. You can support this podcast and eastern Idaho by heading over to wetly Swing dot com slash teton right now. And you could let any of the brands know that you found them through this podcast and click in there and check out all the great brands. We’ve had a number of ’em on this podcast and, and we would love you to find out all the good stuff they have going. You can also check in with me anytime Dave at wetly Swing dot com if you have any questions or feedback or have an idea of where we should be traveling to next. And one big reminder before we get outta here, the Stillwater School is going right now. Dave (53m 34s): If you go to wetly Swing dot com slash Stillwater School, you could find out if we have any slots available for the big trip out to this part of eastern Idaho. Phil Row is gonna be our guru. He’s gonna be breaking out the Stillwater Magic. And if you wanted to up your game this year, this is your best chance right now. You can check in there or send me an email, like I said Dave at wetly Swing dot com. And as we roll outta here, I just want to Thank you for taking the time to, to check out the Traveled podcast. And I appreciate you for your support and all the listens here and I hope you have a chance to experience that road less travel.