Traveled #2: Pete Erickson on the Euro Nymphing School – Team USA Gold, Eastern Idaho, South Fork Snake

Dave (1s): Today on Yellowstone Tetons traveled podcast. Pete (5s): That’s where the castle, where Queen Mary was like held prisoner. It’s this famous castle. It’s a, it’s on an island in the middle of block leaving. And I looked over at it, I’m like, can we go there? And he is like, yeah. Wrote over to it, you know? And I, I was like, oh my God. This is in the, you know, the history books. So, you know, that’s one of the cool things about Europe is you, you look around and there’s all this crazy stuff. Dave (27s): A great story from Pete Erickson and a little history of Western Europe. We are traveling to one of the great western trout rivers in the United States by way of Italy and the gold medal. Welcome to Traveled, where it’s all about the journey we are on in fly fishing and life. This is our chance to take a deep dive into a specific area around the country so you have a better feel for the people, the resources, and the community that make this part of the country so unique. Before we jump into it today, I wanted to share a big special traveled giveaway we have going on right now that’s just kicked off. You can win a trip to the Nymphing School with Pete Erickson and Brett Bishop and some other amazing anglers. So you can up your Euro game this year. Dave (1m 9s): We’re also giving away a echo shadow X rod, a huge prize pack. This is gonna be a big event. It’s going on right now. You can head over to wetly swing.com/giveaway, and you can enter this right now. And there’s a link in the show notes to check that out. I’ll also be heading there this year on this trip. So if you want to check out and actually purchase a slot for this, you can go to dave wetly swinging.com right now, and we’re gonna have 10 slots available this year. So if you want to get one of these, you can enter the giveaway. But if you wanna purchase that, connect with me as soon as you can and we’ll save you a spot for the Euro Nipping School. I hope to see you in eastern Idaho this year for a chance to fish one of the great trout rivers in the country, learn from some of the best we have in this country, and to hang out with yours truly on the river. Dave (2m 1s): Okay, before we jump into it with our guest and dig in with Pete here, I want to share the love with our traveled sponsor. This podcast is sponsored by Swing Outdoors and the Wet Fly Swing podcast. If you’re traveling to this neck of the woods and you get a chance to visit a hotel lodge or any other business connected in Eastern Idaho or in that region, go ahead and let them know you heard about them through this podcast. And if you get a chance, you can also head over to wetly swing.com/teton and see that full list, that full list over there at Teton. All right. This week Pete Erickson is here to break down the ING School with a focus on the South Fork of the Snake, the Henry’s Fork, and some of the other great rivers in this part of the area. Dave (2m 44s): Pete gives us his update since episode 1 18, 118. It’s been a while and we find out what Team USA has been up to, how that gold medal came to be. And we, we hear about that story and then, then we find out how we’re gonna be learning some of these tips, tips and tricks from the gold medal winner on our upcoming trip. We also dig into a little of the history on, on Euro nipping and, and find out how you can up your game with this big trip and prize pack we got going right now. So before we get into it, just wanna give you a heads up wetly swing.com/giveaway. There’s a link in the show notes for your chance to win slot to this trip. Dave (3m 27s): We’re giving away one chance to win and then you’re also gonna win a big price pack. So let’s check it out. Let’s jump into this right now. Time to experience the road less traveled Euro style. Here we go. Pete Erickson. How’s it going Pete? Pete (3m 43s): Good, Dave, thanks for having me. Dave (3m 45s): Yeah, yeah, thanks for putting this together. We’ve been talking behind the scenes a little bit, putting together the Euro Nipping School, this cool program we have going and we’ve got a good cast of people on board and you know, experts and we’ll, we’ll talk about that. We’re gonna dig in that today and, and we’re gonna help people get educated on Euro nipping a little more today. But take us back real quick. We’re gonna go back because it was one 18 episode one 18 when we had you on back in January of 2020 just before Covid started. And so what even doing since then? Take us back. So over the last few years, Pete (4m 15s): Yeah, English teacher, ninth grade English teacher in Boise. So like that takes up a lot of my time. I’ve also been lucky enough to travel, you know, doing a lot of fish and stuff, host guiding and, and the team U S A thing has been pretty fun. Been to, let’s see, since 2020 cuz we got shut down on a couple tournaments. Yeah, we went to Czech Republic, that was awesome. And then Italy. Dave (4m 41s): Oh Pete (4m 41s): Yeah, Italy was just this last summer and we were able to win the world championship as a team. Oh Dave (4m 47s): Wow. Pete (4m 47s): That’s right. Yeah. And Brett Bishop won the individual world championship. It was amazing. Where else have I been? I’ve been to Argentina twice, you know, Patagonia and just lucky to travel a little bit and everything’s kind of opening up and yeah, fishing’s kind of getting back in the swing. Dave (5m 3s): That’s cool. How have you always done that? You know, because you have the teaching. How has that been as far as balancing, you’re traveling all these places, plus you got, you know, it seems like a lot going on. How have you been able to do that? What’s the secret? Pete (5m 15s): It’s been precarious, actually. There’s no secret begging my principal to, you know, let me get a sub and use sick days and trying to time these things around vacation, spring break, Christmas break, and then summers. I mean, summers do open it up a little bit, so if a world championships are during the summer, it really helps. So it’s pretty, it’s actually pretty precarious operation. Dave (5m 39s): Yeah, yeah, definitely. Nice. Well I’ll put a link out there to that last episode we did, and it was so long ago, I can’t even remember what we talked about. I know we dug into Euro nipping, so we’ll have a little bit of, of that today. But you mentioned Italy, which was the goal, that’s where you guys won the gold. Pete (5m 52s): Yeah, it’s something that the adult teams have never been able to do. The youth team has won gold, but the adult team that’s been this, like this quest and like for the cut, you know, like it’s like the holy C crail that we were trying to do. And you know, you got the senior team and the masters team and we’ve both been gunning for that thing. And to be honest with you, when I was planning for Italy as a captain, you know, in my mind I was kind of like, man, I hope we medal. You know, the Italians, I don’t know if they’ve ever lost, you know, their home turf. And our guide Stefano just basically he was like, look, these guys have been coming to this water every weekend, you know, this year to prep for this. Pete (6m 36s): And they’re all such great anglers and just, you know, there’s a bunch of past world champions on the team and everything and, and as it was coming together, we were just fishing really well and understanding everything. And a lot of that is credit to our guide who’s amazing. And you know, all of a sudden we found ourselves kind of like, hey, wait a minute, we’re in, we’re in second place after day one and heck after the third session, third day we’re in first place. Like, what’s going on here? We’re all fishing really well and we’re all, we’re all working together as a team, which is the biggest part of this stuff. And you know, it just all came together. It was kind of awesome. It was kind of magical. Dave (7m 11s): Wow. Wow. And you guys took it home and Brett? Yeah, we had Brett on a while back, he talked about winning that, so I’ll put a link out to that episode as well. Pete (7m 19s): Oh Dave (7m 19s): Good. And so, yeah, so you guys have the first ever gold for the adults. So I guess it’s the guys down below. So what is the team? So you guys are the, is it the masters? Pete (7m 28s): Masters, yeah. And Brett’s the captain of the, of the senior team and all, you know, all of us have been on that team too for many, many years. So yeah. But it was really cool because each country, you go to the Euro style new thing I would say is it’s different. You have to completely recalibrate, you know, and figure out. It’s always about the, the river and the fish. Dave (7m 51s): Does it look like, you know, you go to the European countries and you find that the places where it’s harder to catch fish, those are the better teams typically over in Europe like Italy. The further, is that kind of how it works? Pete (8m 3s): A hundred percent. It’s exactly like skiing the icit hardest, like places is where the best like skiers come from. Best racers. Dave (8m 12s): Right. Pete (8m 13s): And it’s just like, because they’re trained, you know, it’s so fun to, to see those people from Italy, especially the competitors, but just your average, you know, European Angler two, if you see ’em over in Idaho or something. And I have, I’ve accidentally bumped into the French team before on the Henry’s fork. Oh Dave (8m 32s): Wow. The whole team. Like, Pete (8m 33s): I’m like, oh my God, I know you guys. And it’s just, they can’t believe how awesome the fishing is. It’s like Shangri Law for ’em. Dave (8m 42s): Oh wow. So they come over here and they’re just, just going crazy. Pete (8m 45s): Yeah. And you know, the same thing, other parts of the world too are awesome fishing too. But Europe can be just so challenging. You know, those fish are pressured and you know, believe it or not, it’s, there’s a, a lot of wild trout and wild grayling and we had marble trout in this one too. So that was something that I’ve never really focused on marble trout. And it was, they were different, you know, it was like, okay, these things are different to catch than I know browns and grayling really well, but Wow. Dave (9m 12s): Okay. What are the marble trout, what do they look like? Where are they connected to? Pete (9m 16s): They’re just kind of, they’re big and they’re beautifully coated. They kind of look like a tiger trout. Dave (9m 22s): Oh, okay. Pete (9m 22s): If you know what that looks like. And yeah, they’re just, they’re aggressive and they hang in certain types of water and it’s just, they’re different, you know, like it, the funny part is, is when you’re prepping for your, your section, usually it’s all sealed envelope, so you don’t know what section you’re using at, but you prep for every section that you might possibly get. And so, you know, like, oh, I got beat number six. There’s a bunch of marble trout on there. And so, you know, like, you kind of know what you have to do. You’re like, okay, I have to fish differently than if this were a, a heavy, wild brown T trout section. Gotcha. That’s part of the fun of what we get to do, you know, because you’re in all these different places. You’re not just going to the same rivers that you go to all the time, like I do in Idaho. Pete (10m 5s): I go to the same rivers, you know? Dave (10m 7s): Right, right. Yeah. These are totally different than these rivers. Did you guys fish ’em a little bit before you actually started the competition? Pete (10m 13s): Oh yeah. Yeah. We have sometimes a couple weeks of practice and the guide’s like teaching us and we’re trying to dial it in ourselves and find our confidence and, and then there’s, you know, as a captain, I do like a whole year’s worth of research on all the, the entomology and the Creole census and all the, like, everything, you know, try to figure everything out and, and what’s gonna happen. And if it’s high water, if it’s low water, if it’s raining, if it’s sunny, all those different deals, it makes it really challenging and really fun. Dave (10m 42s): That’s it. So what do you think was the secret to you guys when the goal was it mostly, mostly nipping? Pete (10m 48s): It was a combination because, you know, some rivers were dry dropper, some rivers were dryly and there was a lot of nipping. We kind of had that glacial flower, you know, rivers like on the sarka and stuff like that. So, you know, you’ve probably fished in the northwest for steelhead. And you know what, glacial flower? Dave (11m 6s): No, what is the glacier? You mean? Just like a tint till, Pete (11m 8s): So glacial flower is like the, it’s that lime green that comes from the glaciers, you know, like it’s coming out of the mountains, you know, and so, so you’re like, I can’t see very far into this, which was really cool. Right. Cuz you walk up and I’m like, oh my gosh, look at the color of this river. It’s lime green. Yeah. You know, and it’s cuz you’re, it’s the dolomites, right? You’re coming off of it’s runoff and it just makes things completely different, you know, as far as how you prep for colors of the flies, basically everything, you know, and you can’t really see when you’re waiting on, like, that was the Sarco River that I was referring to right there. But it’s, yeah, you just like all these different aspects come into play. Pete (11m 50s): Right. Dave (11m 51s): So the stuff you guys did over in Italy, let’s take it back over here because we’re gonna be hitting probably like the Henry’s Fork or the South Fork snake. Some of those rivers is there. Right. Are there any similarities between the two Italy versus the stuff over here we’re gonna be hitting? Pete (12m 5s): Yeah, tons. You know, and that’s, that’s one of the reasons that we’re able to prep and practice in the Rocky Mountains because there’s so many similarities between these types of rivers. You know, Europe is distinctly unique in a lot of its river systems, but let’s say for example the South Fork, it kind of has everything. It’s like one of those places that has, you know, it has the thin shelves, it has the, it has the Freestone side channels, it has like, there’s all these different things that you can do. It’s so diverse and that’s why I’ve spent a lot of time on the south fork of the Boise South Fork of the Snake. You know, it’s easy to find the style of practice, if you know what the river is in Europe. Pete (12m 47s): And that’s why it’s just so fun to euro them the south fork of the snake. It’s just huge and it’s, there’s so much to do. Right. And in October the waiting is gonna be very accessible. Dave (12m 59s): Oh, Roy. Pete (13m 0s): Oh yeah. You can wander all around. Dave (13m 3s): What is going on during October? Pete (13m 5s): The water levels are just down. Yeah, yeah. And the fish are concentrated in holes, which makes, you know, your owning awesome. Dave (13m 11s): Oh, Roy. Okay. And you, can you fish year round on, I mean the south fork, like you can kind of do that year round. Pete (13m 18s): Yep, absolutely. And there’s, there’s whitefish that you can target and practice on, you know, sometimes we would practice on whitefish because they had similar mouths and stuff to grayling. So, and people are learning how to euro sometimes they’re like, okay, there’s a, here’s a hole right here. And, and there’s whitefish in it, Dave (13m 38s): Which are great mountain whitefish. Pete (13m 40s): Yeah. It’s like, I’m gonna practice this deal, you know, as guides, sometimes we poopoo the whitefish, but if you’re practicing your owning, sometimes you get your set right, you get your cider, you get lined up, you get figured out. And you know, whitefish might be a little dumber in trout, but they still play the game. And you know, when you’re learning it’s kind of nice cuz you’re fighting fish and you’re setting fish. Dave (14m 3s): Yeah. Just hooking, fighting fish. Yeah, you’re hooking stuff. Yeah. Okay. So that’s the game. So the South fork, if we’re looking at that, maybe we could talk about, you know, how you, because you have this masters in education, you’re a teacher, you’ve got those skills. Take us to your program. Like if you’re, you know, we’re gonna be doing this, this is part of like, you know, teaching somebody who’s gonna be listening probably they might be new to Euro Nipping, maybe they haven’t done it at all. What does your program look like? How do you start people out, you know, from square one in this stuff? Pete (14m 30s): Yeah. You know, you kind of do presentations either in the morning or night. It could be PowerPoint, it could be showing videos, it could be kinda group discussion. And that’s always the, the educational part of it to get everyone kind of like the big picture of everything. The other thing too that people find really engaging is you’ll have like sessions where like, hey, let’s, let’s all build ourselves leaders, you know, and of course like Brett and I might guide that process and kinda maybe show a few slides on the materials and just the different like leader theories and, and things like that. You know, what’s most, you know, the most modern techniques that are happening, most contemporary. Pete (15m 10s): And then, you know, that’s kind of cool to have, you know, you’re doing it yourself, you’re building your own leader and you’re kind of armed and ready to go out there. So there’s that. You can kind of go over the fly boxes and then obviously there’s, you know, time on the river. Yeah. That part is, you know, it’s key. And so you kind of mix those together and you get, you get a nice little clinic. And then I’m a big teacher that believes in guided discovery. So, you know, like, I like to let people kind of figure, you know, not do it on their own, but like kind of pay attention to ’em and see ’em kind of break through different plateaus and stuff. I’m there, I’m just kind of like, what are you thinking? You know, we, it’s really seems to work pretty well in a lot of these clinics to let people kind of explore and, and guide ’em, let ’em explore, figure it out and have some fun. Pete (15m 58s): Really. I mean, one thing that people seem to like, they kind of discount fishing when it comes to your owning. It’s almost like this like system of almost like gill netting fish or something, you know, like, oh, Dave (16m 11s): Right. Like it’s too easy. Pete (16m 13s): It’s so not like that. There’s, there’s so many elements of being a fly fisherman, you know, like an angler. Like, once you figure out kind of your basics and everything, you move into fishing mode, you start looking for water and you start figuring out things and you start figuring out your presentations and adjusting, adjusting, adjusting. And seriously, it’s just as much fly fishing as far as all your adjustments and everything as, you know, dry dropper fishing or any other style streamer fishing. Dave (16m 42s): Yeah, I love it. I love that it’s called, you know, essentially there’s different names for a dynamic nipping, you know, mono, whatever. But I love that it’s mostly called your own nipping because it, it’s almost like the right we’re the US here, but we have people that list around the world. But it’s your, it’s perfect because I mean that’s how it started, right? I mean the European nipping, well Pete (17m 1s): I think you and I talked about that in our last episode, but I can’t really remember. But I mean it’s kind of a, a dubious thing that we, you know, I think I told you the story where Dave (17m 10s): We dubbed it. Yeah. Pete (17m 11s): Did, yeah. Where we were talking like Jack Dennis had 10 different countries listed on his presentation and we were like, Jack, just shorten it to, don’t call it Polish, Czech, French and Spanish nipping, you know the title slide of your presentation, Stu? That’s too much. Just call it European. Dave (17m 28s): Yeah. So you And who was there when they came up with the European Pete (17m 31s): Oh Courier. And I think we were in Laramie, another guy named Sam, I think, I can’t remember who was all there, but it was some team u s USA guys and we were kind of, we were like part of Jack’s presentation and it wasn’t long after that that Jack and myself and Vladi put out the first European ing video. Like the Cabela’s one. Yeah. I was like, this is the very first one. And it was like, Dave (17m 52s): Oh really? The Cabela’s one? Pete (17m 53s): Yeah, it’s like super old. But it was, it was perfect cuz Jack’s like, yeah, I’m gonna call this thing the European Ning, you know? Dave (18m 1s): There you go. So Jack Dennis, I mean, he was there, right? Because he was the captain or he was the captain. Pete (18m 6s): He was, yeah, he was a big driver and all this stuff and organized everything and, and you know, just a lot of vision on all that stuff. And I remember the first few times that that like, Vladi was kind of wondering like, why isn’t this called Polish Ning? You know, like this this, yeah. This DVD that we’re making. And no matter where you went, you’re up there like, wait, this is called checking. You know? And it was like very, you know, they’re very, very proprietary and it’s just like Americans to throw a big general name on something, right? Dave (18m 38s): Yeah, exactly. Pete (18m 40s): But that’s the first time I’ve ever heard the term when we kind of shorten it down. And I always tell people, somebody co currently could have, you know, called it that too. Who knows. Dave (18m 51s): Yeah. Yeah. But no, but you guys were there. But the bottom line, you were there, Dennis, I mean, Jack Dennis was the man, he got this going at the start. And so you guys were there at the beginning with, with Jack. Pete (19m 1s): Yeah. It was pretty early on in the whole process, so who knows. Dave (19m 4s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s good. Pete (19m 5s): Yeah. But you’re nipping has kind of stuck and it does kind of make sense. It’s, it, I think it’s important to kind of clarify that all these techniques individually parts of ’em and stuff have existed forever for decades. And they’re, you know, people will say, my great-granddad was high sticking in Colorado in the 17 hundreds, you know, or when, you know, you just hear stuff that’s like, well of course everyone’s been doing everything. It’s just like flies. You know, someone comes up with a fly. It’s like, you know, all those elements have been around for decades. And so it, I think Euro owning is, it was all those things coming together for those people during those competitions in the eighties and it kind of clicked as a thing, you know, with the flies, with the, the long light rods. Pete (19m 50s): But with all that stuff it kind of clicked as a technique and a thing and a whole something that’s, that was identifiable. So that’s why I think it’s okay to, to call it something. Dave (19m 59s): Yeah, no, I think it’s perfect. It actually is. Good. Well, I, I wanna dig into a little bit on the gear because we’ve got a cool, it’s cool thing we’re doing here is that we’re doing this cool, but we’re giving away a trip, which is pretty amazing. So we’re gonna give away, somebody’s gonna win this trip, but not only are they gonna win a trip, we got a bunch of gear including Echo, shadow X Rod, and a bunch of other, like over 10 other companies giving away products. So I’ll give a shout out to that at we fly swing.com/giveaway where we’re gonna be have one lucky winner. But let’s talk about the gear. Let’s go into that real quick. So I know last time we talked about Echo Oh yeah. Bring us back. So what is the, you know, has anything changed since then? Talk about your gear. Like if you’re going out there just focusing on your nipping, what are you bringing out there? Pete (20m 40s): Well, like, you know, early on too, we were using whatever rods we could find. Cuz there were no specific long light rods, you know, there, there were no 10 foot three weights or anything like that way back when. So you can do your owning with a nine foot five weight. It’s just such an obvious difference. If you use a 10 and a half foot three weight, it’s just amazing, you know, reach and, and your ability to, to lead your flies or you know, whatever it is. Like setting fighting fish. There’s so many different things that, that these rods can do. The microliters, which are really long leaders that are very thin, the jig hooks, the bead heads, you know, all these things kind of come together in that fashion. Pete (21m 22s): Yeah. And I remember we talked about, of course the echo, shadow X is my favorite rod. Right, right. Dave (21m 29s): That’s right. But there’s a bunch, right? There’s a bunch of good rods out there Pete (21m 32s): Probably. Oh, they’re all, there’s so many really good rods out there cuz obviously I, as a rod designer, I’m trying rods all the time and I’m incredibly impressed with a lot of the rods on in the industry right now. Dave (21m 44s): Gotcha. So 10 and a half foot three weight is the rod that you Pete (21m 47s): Use. That’s the one I prefer. That’s the one, you know, we all used and maybe 10 foot three too when we were in Czech Republic, you know, with heavy cover and smaller fish, we used 10 foot two weights and sometimes you can go down to a nine and a half foot rod. But yeah, just the combination of long and light is a big part of it. And the biggest test you can give anybody is you run ’em through these clinics, you let ’em use the, the long light rods and they start getting used to it and you say, okay, here, here’s your eight and half foot five way. Right. Dave (22m 19s): Here’s your old heavy rod. Pete (22m 20s): And they just, you know, they just feel like a eunuch. Dave (22m 23s): It’s Yeah, exactly. It’s hard to go back. That’s right. What about the lines? I have the lines changed over the last few years with the euro nipping lines. Do you even need a lion Roy because you’re not Roy using a line, right? Pete (22m 34s): Yeah, yeah. I mean a lot of the rules for FIPs mosh have encouraged that you’re using line outside the rod, you know, pushing it a little more towards traditional fly fishing. So the leaders can no longer be, they can only be twice a rod length now. And so that’s all the mono you get. And so you will, if you’re reaching across a river trying to find a spot, you’re, you’re fishing with fly line and it depends on the angler. But some of us will hybridize our situation and we will cast a a u own in line with a dry dropper in a pinch. So yeah, we actually kind of use the lines a little bit more than people think. Dave (23m 11s): Yeah. And what are the lines, does everybody have a euro nipping line out there now? Pete (23m 15s): Yep. They all have, you know, and they’re very thin, very light, and they’re certain diameter, they have to be for the rules. And one of the reasons they’re so, so light and thin is they’re not heavy so they don’t cause line tag. And what line tag is, is just like if you’re reaching out and you’ve gotta drift going, if your line’s heavy, the line will start to fall in between the guides and it’ll pull your NIMS towards you. Dave (23m 42s): Oh Pete (23m 43s): Wow. So that’s, that’s one of the reasons that all these lines are so thin. And you’ll notice it when you get one, you’ll be like, whoa, this looks like this like running line Dave (23m 51s): To that’s what I was gonna say, running line. Exactly. Yeah. Or even backing, Pete (23m 55s): It’s covered in a, you know, it it’s traditional fly line covering, but Dave (23m 58s): Yeah. Gotcha. Do you have like a brand that you use typically? Pete (24m 1s): I’ve actually used Airflow and Rio. The lines can be kind of similar. There’s, you can go down deep rabbit holes with, with these lines on, on their cores and all that stuff, but durability. But they, they aren’t kind of similar the way they’re constructed. A lot of them. And they’re just like, let’s say that you’re starting this clinic, you’re gonna look at it and go, wow, that doesn’t look normal. This is very thin. You know, it’s, it’s not built like a traditional trout taper, you know, trout wide. Which, you know, that would be one of the goals of, of our clinic is to let people know like, here’s why this line looks like this and here’s the benefits of it, you know, here’s why you need one. Dave (24m 41s): Yeah. And that’s what we’ll dig into too, right? This school is like, how do you cast this thing and what does that look like? Pete (24m 47s): Yeah. All the casting is very kind of unique with a lot of the Euro, Euro nipping techniques. You know, there’s LOBs and then there’s, you just have to figure out how to work the rod. All these are techniques that have, you know, they’ve kind of been refined. One of the really cool things about, you know, doing a euro nipping course is that when you do, it’s kind of a freeze frame in time. Things change so fast in this, in this deal that it’s, it’s very dynamic and you’ll learn what is, well like with Brett and I and the other guys, you’ll learn what is actually, you know, kind of happening on the scene right now. But it changes, it changes fast. Right. You know, which is what I love about being on the competition scene. Dave (25m 29s): Exactly. I think that’s one of the cool things about having you and Brad and the other folks we’re gonna have on this is that yeah, we’ll have a connection with you guys and as things changes we can keep up with you. Right. Well where is Team USA right now? So give us, well let’s take a break there. So is that, is that on coming up here? Where’s that at? Oh, Pete (25m 45s): Like the masters, we we’re gonna try to defend our championship up in Camloops, BC and that’s in September. Dave (25m 53s): Oh, it’s in September. Oh, this might be something I might be have to make up there. Pete (25m 57s): Yeah, it’s, it’s up in Camloops is kind of quite the drive, but not too bad. And that’s where I grew up fishing. Dave (26m 4s): Oh, it’s in Camloops actually in the town of Camloops. Pete (26m 7s): It’s around there. Yeah. It’s different lakes. Yeah. And there’s two rivers too. So Camloops is known for, it’s still water fish. Dave (26m 15s): Yeah. Big trout. Big, big rainbow. Are you guys gonna catch some trophies? Is that the, is that the thought? Pete (26m 20s): What’s that? Trophies? Dave (26m 21s): Yeah. Yeah. You gonna fight some big fish? Pete (26m 23s): Oh yeah, there’s huge fish up there. It’s awesome. And pretty sure that’s where I caught my first trout when I was, you know, six, seven years old. So I grew up in Seattle, but my dad was obsessed with that area and we went up there like almost every other weekend growing up. Dave (26m 37s): Wow. So can people go to this league? Could people like actually go watch the event? Pete (26m 42s): Yeah, yeah, you can go go. I mean you’d be on the bank watching Bo it’s mostly lock style fishing, but yeah, you know, that’s the fun part. And you can always hang out in the hotel and hang out with everybody and you can learn a lot. Like, like I know people who are, who wanted to get in the competition scene. Sometimes they’ll go to a world championship or a, or a national championship and they’ll just kind of soak it all in and figure out and talk to people and everyone’s, you know, really nice and let you know what’s going on. You can learn a lot about the fishing techniques and everything and lock style fishing’s. Awesome. Dave (27m 12s): Yeah, I know I wanna learn about that. We’ve talked a little bit about that over the years, but I mean that’s just such a big, it sounds like. Yeah, I mean why, let’s just dig in that just for a second. I mean, why is the lock style, it’s basically thrown out the drug right there and, and you kind of go with, let the drug slowly pull you down so you’re not trolling, you’re actually fishing. Pete (27m 29s): Yeah, yeah. The, they have drifts and there’s, you know, within given lakes there’s drifts that are obvious and they’re kind of almost traditional, you know, cuz the winds blow a certain way. I remember in Scotland back in a long time ago, 2009 I guess I saw this map in this pub outside lock leaving and the drifts had been named, you know, like a hundred years ago. Like they had, the drifts were named on this map and I was, it was so cool. Dave (27m 58s): And by drifts you mean just the wind is so common, the same type of wind and area that they, it’s always the same. Pete (28m 4s): Well what you do is you would, I, I don’t know what they did way back when they probably rode, but you got, you know, you have little five or 10 horses on there depending on the size of the boat. Lockley even had big boats, so maybe a little bit bigger motors and you go set up on the drift at the top of it and you know the wind’s blowing a certain way and you drift the whole way, all the way to the, to the shore of the other side of the lake. And the, and the boats will line up. So you get in behind people and Dave (28m 31s): Oh wow. So you’re in a like a, just a lineup of boats. Pete (28m 34s): Yeah. And the drift just, it just takes everyone through there. Dave (28m 37s): What happens when you catch a fish and like how do you follow the fish? You get outta your line or you just stay drifting? Yeah, Pete (28m 43s): You just keep drifting and bringing in, you’re not drifted. It depends, I mean if the wind’s howling, the boats on lock leaving I think didn’t have drugs cuz they were so like awesome traditional heavy boats. Dave (28m 56s): Oh right. Didn’t even need ’em, that Pete (28m 57s): They didn’t get pushed hard in the wind. Yeah. And and you had a Gilly in the middle that had oars and he kept the boat crabbing. They were huge boats. Dave (29m 6s): Yeah. Like how long? Like roughly, Pete (29m 8s): I can’t remember how long they Dave (29m 9s): Were like much bigger than a drift boat. Pete (29m 11s): Way bigger. I was pretty far away from the other angler, like, and they were white. It’s kind of fun. You can go to lock leaving and go, you know, Google it and type in images and you’ll see the boats. Like they’re old. They’ve been there forever and they’re the best boat that I’ve ever like Lake fished out of. Wow. They were really cool. Dave (29m 29s): What do they call, if we had to look up on Google? Would there be a style of boat? What do you think they’d be Pete (29m 33s): Called? Well, I don’t know if it’s called clink style. I think these boats were almost considered like lock leave and style. I dunno, all the people I know in Scotland are probably mad at me right now for most. Yeah, yeah. Like, but it’s very important like to get all this stuff right. But I mean, it was a long time ago for me, I just remembered like being in this boat, it didn’t crab it drifted perfectly and it was stable and it was just like, I had a lot of room in the boat and I was like, wow, this is, this is what it’s all about, this boat right here. So if I go out in my drift boat sometimes it’ll, it’ll crab back and forth, you know, and it’ll move too fast and they’ll, you know, drift boats are made for rivers and, and so, but these boats, I was like, wow, this is awesome. Pete (30m 16s): You know, you’re load of the water. There Dave (30m 18s): You go. Cool. Nice. Pete (30m 19s): Yeah, so I mean, some of that stuff is, is the cool things that you learn, you know, when you go over and participate and some, it’s been around forever. Dave (30m 27s): Oh, I love that. That’s gotta be a big part. I mean that right. The history is pretty cool. On, on this. You get that history piece. Do you enjoy digging into that here in all the history of the European stuff? Pete (30m 37s): Oh, oh, a hundred percent. I remember, I mean that’s where the castle where Queen Mary was like held prisoner. Oh wow. It’s this famous castle. It’s, it’s on an island in the middle of block leaving. And I looked over at it, I’m like, can we go there? And he is like, yeah, Dave (30m 51s): Nice. Pete (30m 52s): We wrote over to it, you know, and I was like, oh my god, this is in the, you know, the history books. So, you know, that’s one of the cool things about Europe is you, you look around and there’s all this crazy stuff. Dave (31m 2s): Yeah, it is. That’s, yeah, the history’s huge. Nice. Well let’s take it back into you. We were talking on a while back on just the course. Let’s, let’s think of, you know, we’re putting this together, you know, it’s day one, people are arriving, you know, and this is gonna be kind of a multi-day deal here. And we could probably do the, the coursework the night before. Let’s just take it there. What would be be the first start when we’re looking at just, you know, all right, somebody’s, were kind of sitting down, you’re going through like a PowerPoint and you got maybe some videos and stuff. Where do you start with the Euro school? Pete (31m 32s): I usually start with, I kind of put the focus on the, you know, the students that are there and just say what, you know, what are you doing right now? How do you catch fish? How do you nim what do you think of this? What are your perceptions of this? And we kind of go from there and figure out, you know, we just kind of range find a little bit and then I usually, you know, pick up what I can from there and kind of try to meet their needs and go into maybe some brief history on it and, and why they might wanna do it. And what, what are some of the big, big picture advantages to it and yeah, Dave (32m 6s): Well what if they said, you asked ’em that question? They basically said, well I’ve done it a few times out there, but it’s always been a struggle. I don’t really have my gear. It’s kinda like the casting was a little tough, you know, didn’t catch that mini fish or whatever, you know, if, if that’s where they’re coming from, what would you, where do you start? You start differently than if you talk to somebody who is like, oh yeah, I’m, you know, I’ve done this a while, you know, I’m, I’ve got, I’ve got my own gear. All that stuff. Pete (32m 29s): Yeah, I mean that’s, that’s a, a differentiation mode that I would go into. Cuz obviously if you have enough time in a clinic like this, what you do, you can differentiate the instruction to, to meet the, you know, the different levels. And usually what I would say is that the, even though the people are like, yeah, I’ve kind of done this for a while and I I’ve got my own, your owning rod, they’re usually pretty dialed into saying, oh yeah, I do kind of wanna learn about the, the history of this. And you know, oftentimes you can kind of find some things that they’re like, oh wow, you know, like I’m self-taught and I didn’t realize that I think I’m gonna go back and, and maybe, you know, change those knots on my leader or, or I never knew why that was. Pete (33m 12s): And so you can kind of bring both sets in. You can bring a, you know, total beginner in with someone who’s intermediate and then eventually, obviously even if someone came that was super advanced, we can always find ways to take them to the next level. It’s not that hard. It’s such a vast amount of information that you can easily differentiate instruction. Dave (33m 35s): Okay, good. And that’s gonna be the plan. Cause we’re gonna have, yeah, we’ll have hooked up, we’ll have multiple guides in there taking people out and we’ll be going to different rivers and you know, covering that. So, well, let’s look at the river. So what do you think would be, you know, we talked about the South fork, the Henry’s Fork, when you talk about that area, that part of Eastern Idaho, what are the places that are really like Euro nipping? I mean, is it kind of like all of them you can nip on? Or is it a few select ones? Pete (33m 58s): No, it kind of depends on, it’s different sections of different rivers really. The South fork is pretty consistent, especially at that time of year when the water levels down, you’ll be able to, you know, park the boat on an island and you’ll have side channels coming down, both sides around the island. You’ll have holes, drops like runs, you’ll have all these things that are, it’s just like a playground for European and a lot of mobility. Like it’s easy waiting Dave (34m 24s): And it’s a boat fishing. Are you doing this from a boat or you’re floating or are your people walking Pete (34m 28s): In? Well, the European Ning, most of the time what you’re gonna be doing European Ning is going from spot to spot and getting out and, and doing that. And you have so much access. And that time of year two, the, the river’s not really that crowded. So you can go from island to island and you just have endless amounts of, of holes and runs and stuff that you can do. So like the South Fork is, is just amazing for European. I do a lot of it. I have, you know, clients that that’s all they want to do. Like they come out in the fall and there’s like, let’s just euro nph the whole whole way down, you know, which just kind of sounds weird with, you know, like, wait, there’s some, they’re eating some betas over there. It’s like, no, I wanna see some of the big picture at the bottom of this hole. Dave (35m 9s): Yeah, that’s kind of what I wanna do. I want to get like, you know, I feel like just getting it dialed in, you, you put in four days to something with, you know, basically some of the best in the world, right? I mean that’s the ideas that like I, yeah, that’s what I wanna do. I want to be, I wanna get as, I wanna suck as much information outta you guys as I can. Right, sure. That’s the idea that you come out of it, then you add, you know, a little bit of, you could always go back and try it with other things. So you got the south for the snake and you got, so what are the other rivers that you might euro nph out there? Pete (35m 37s): Oh, the Henry’s fork Blue Ashton is like a really fun place that we might be able to do depending on water levels. And it always depends on the water level. It looks like this year’s gonna be above the percentage of, of runoff, but who knows? You never know. We’re still pretty in the middle of the winter of winter, so, but yeah, those would be the two that I would prefer. You know, like I think that you don’t wanna, there are certain rivers that maybe are like deep slow moving pools that just aren’t as conducive to your owning. Of course you can, you can your own in any situation really. But oftentimes there’s situations that are a lot better than others. Pete (36m 18s): Gotcha. Dave (36m 18s): Okay. So if we’re on the snake and we, you know, we’re, we’re floating down, we find a spot, let’s take it to the water a little bit. So you’ve got your gear, you’ve got your setup, you’d mentioned the leader. Do you wanna break that down really quick? Has that changed much over the years? What does your leader look Pete (36m 31s): Like? We’ll probably introduce a couple of different types of leaders. If you’re, and this is why I said it’s kind of easy to, to differentiate instruction between beginners and maybe intermediate or advanced. Oftentimes like Brett and I will build kind of leaders for people who are just getting into it. It makes the casting easier, the lab casting it makes it more accurate, less tangles. We also, we can go all the way up to our competition microliters, which are, you know, if you’re, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can tangle ’em pretty easy. They’re, you know, 22 feet long of all the way down to seven x a to, I mean Czech Republic I fished nine x, you know, nine Dave (37m 10s): X, Pete (37m 10s): Yeah, nine x. Yeah. Wow. They’re, and it, and it mattered be from eight to nine x, you know, but people are probably laughing at that listening to this. It’s absolutely a hundred percent mattered and between seven and a half x and eight mattered, or seven x and eight x totally mattered to the fish. It was crazy. And that’s what, this is what nims, this is not drives, so those leaders, I mean, I mean what we’ll be doing is nothing crazy like that. And oftentimes the fish in North America are a little bit bigger. So, you know, that’s pretty tough to, to land a big fish that way and maybe not even that good for the fish. So we, we’d probably go with, you know, five x, which is still a microliter, you know, if you got 20 feet, 21 foot liter or 20 foot liter, let’s say for this particular group of people. Dave (37m 58s): So 20 foot liter and then you have take us down from say the, the fly line end down. How do you, just quickly, how does that, how do you build Pete (38m 6s): That? Well, from the fly line, there’s not really like these big butt sections like you would see in a traditional situation. It can taper down, but it’ll depend on how much time we wanna spend doing these things. But you know, in competition we usually do like needle knots and show ’em all that stuff. You can certainly tie off with a nail knot and it’s fine. But yeah, you just go from there and, and it’ll have a slight taper. And then, you know, this is for the microliter, which is usually what most of us use in competitions these days. That’ll just be straight all the way down to tippi rings. Right, so you have cider and you have tipper rings. Dave (38m 41s): Yeah. So you’ll have like how many feet? So you have like from your fly line down to your first tippi ring of five x, you might have like what, like 15 feet or something. Pete (38m 50s): You might taper down from 12 to 14 feet and then have a cider of, of a a foot. It kind of depends on which, which leader we feel is kind of appropriate. And you know what, the leaders are a little different depending on the country and depending on the person. But in general, microliters kind of like that. It’ll be pretty thin, you know, it can be, can be four x to five x down to the cider, down to the, the tipt rings. And then oftentimes after the cider tipt ring, you’ll see someone go down to five and a half X or six x or six and a half x or seven x. That would be the last, you know, that would be where the two flies are. And depend, let’s say that you’re fishing mostly, I dunno, two to four feet of water, you might have anywhere from three to five feet on that. Pete (39m 35s): So just depending on, you know, it really depends on the situation. There’s, there’s generalities that that’ll get you started. But we’ll dial it in a a little bit closer than just saying, hey, you should go double the depth of the water. Yeah, we’ll we’ll kind of dial it in and say, we’ll see how fast this water’s moving. So let, that’s maybe not gonna work right now. Or see the bottom, you know, there’s lots of snags and stuff here. It’s kind of nice having someone out there that like kind of worked in these leaders and will get you up to speed a little bit faster than if you’re out there kind of trying to, you know, trial and error on your own. Dave (40m 6s): Right, right, right. So yeah, I mean leaders are pretty important, right? Yeah. I mean leader or rod, I mean which one’s more important having the right rod? Pete (40m 13s): John? That’s a tough question. Leaders are very, very important. Leaders do so much for presentation sensitivity. Setting the length of the rods really isn’t, is important. It is cause of what you need to do. Yeah. You know, like your reach and, and how you gather the line. I don’t know, I would say leaders and then rods and then yeah and then flies, you know, the flies, the weight of the flies is really important. We’ll talk about all that. But you have to constantly adjust your weights depending on the depth and Dave (40m 45s): Right. How you do that. So if you got your setup, like we’re talking here, you got a 20 foot liter, whatever it is, and you have this little slot, maybe it’s a ledge off of a drop and a little, I don’t know, a little riff run or something, you know, how are you knowing you’re getting down? Do you let your, talk about that? How do you know you’re at the right level and when would you change the fly? Pete (41m 3s): You can bounce and touch the bottom, you know, you can feel it, you know, especially with the sensitivity of, especially like a shadow X is a very sensitive rod in my opinion. Sensitivity is, there’s a bunch of different things of like setting the fish, feeling the fish, take peck at it, bouncing off the bottom, figuring out all these, there’s so many different things that that, you know, obviously site is the first thing that you’ll see on a take. But I think site and feel kind of mixed together at, at the highest levels. So you know, you would try to figure out, like if you were just starting, you’re gonna go a little heavier bead heads and stuff because, and you’re gonna be on the bottom a little more than you want because it’s, it’s a better way to learn. Pete (41m 44s): You’re still gonna catch fish as you get better. You learn to go with lighter flight or flies, you know, because if you have a big heavy clunky fly, it’s not as attractive to the fish It can be in certain situations, but usually the lighter the flies. And so one of the things that we’ll do in this clinic is we’ll teach you how to kind of start progressing toward that. If they’re a beginner, like I start ’em off with a little bit heavier flies, helps their casting, helps with tangles, it kind of helps ’em feel like they’ll, they’ll bounce the bottom a little bit here and there and they’ll, they’ll just get the hang of it. Dave (42m 15s): Right, right. And how, what is the tip there? So casting, because sometimes you cast these things and it feels kinda weird. I mean, are you, Pete (42m 22s): They’re very hard to control. Dave (42m 24s): Yeah. But you’re essentially making a normal cast, right? Pete (42m 27s): No, you’re, it depends, like usually what you do is you load the nims, I mean this is gets kind of like technical, but traditionally when the rods were much, much more medium flex and they weren’t as powerful, the earlier Onfi rods, you’d kind of like load ’em and then kind of, I call ’em loaders. But you’d shoot the kind of heavy tapered and very stiff back butt section like maxima, you’d shoot that leader and the leader would actually kind of act like a flight line. It would have a loop in it and you’d throw it and it would unfurl your flies for you. Now what’s kind of happened is these rods are faster, you know, they have better recovery, they’re, they track better. Pete (43m 7s): You kind of load back behind you and pause and you feel, you almost feel that nph behind you with the rod and you shoot it, you shoot it to where you want it to go. And that’s kind of what’s taken place in the LA you know, the last 10 years. Dave (43m 22s): Gotcha. So you’re loading, you’re loading, you’re just using the water load to shoot it. So you’re not doing a bunch of false gas. Pete (43m 28s): No, you don’t wanna do too much false gas. Nah. Cuz it’s not, not a traditional situation. And you’re fly line, if you are using some fly line out of the end, which you can do depending on how far your reach you need, it’s not gonna cast like a traditional situation. So you’re doing a lot of what I call shooting and most of the rods that at least that I design and a lot of the rods, it seems like the industry they’re built that way. They’re built to load up a, the weight of the nymph and, and the beat hat and shoot it. So I make a distinction between loaders and shooters, you know, Dave (44m 0s): There you go. Loaders and shoot. Well that shadow X rod, so that is what I mentioned that earlier. That is something we’re given away. I’ve already, I’ve already looked at it and I don’t have one of my own, we’re gonna be given one of these away. What did you put into that rod to make that, you know, how’d you design that thing? Pete (44m 14s): Yeah and there’s, you know, there’s all these different kind of philosophies about all these rods and stuff and you know, there’s all these things that help you compete and give you an edge. You know, like down locking real seats for balance or, or single footed guides or, I remember making a list when I first did the very first shadow a long time ago, the shadow pe and yeah, I mean I just made a list of like, kind of like dream elements and kind of like begged Tim Ray Jeff to like, can I do all these things? Or you know, like, and of course you can’t but you know, you have to try to find an equilibrium of how much a rod cost to develop and how much it cost to produce. And, but yeah, like it kind of was a progression all the way to the shadow X now, which to me the shadow X is like, it’s super light in hand, you know, it has really good tracking. Pete (45m 5s): For me, like I said, sensitivity is actually kind of a big deal to me even though it’s a nebulous term in the industry. For me, sensitivity is actually feeling certain things at the same time of, of seeing ’em. Like, so obviously most of the time when a fish takes, you see the cider move first and that’s, that’s your go-to. But there’s also this whole other element of feeling the bottom feeling fish takes feeling, you know, feeling all these different things. And the shadow has a few design like kind of strategies that make it, I think the most sensitive rod out of all of ’em is very light in hand. And so like, it was really fun developing that because I got to, I got to put it in the hand of a lot of like European competition anglers and you know, it’s Brett’s favorite rod and, and a lot of like, I think on our, on our master’s team that won in Italy, just about everybody, maybe four out of the five of us were using shadows. Pete (46m 4s): So that’s like a pretty good endorsement considering that there’s a lot of other really great rods out there that everybody has access to. And I even noticed that a lot of the Europeans were using them too, so, oh, there you go. Yeah, it was kind of cool. And like I said, just very light in hand. The first stripping guide’s really close. That’s what makes it so fun to design. Dave (46m 25s): What is the single foot, what is the advantage of a single foot guide versus like the double foot, Pete (46m 29s): There’s a weight issue, the way they shoot line. There’s a whole bunch of advantages to it. And I remember that was one of the first decisions I made with the early, early shadow was, I’m gonna switch to these cuz all the, all the whatever. There weren’t all that many Euro NiFi rods. I think the shadow PE was like the first 10 and a half foot production rod in North America. And so there weren’t a lot of ’em. But what I was trying to do is I was trying to get the right feel and the right action. And Tim suggested like, Hey, well you know, we can try different guides. They’re, they’re all different weights and they affect everything And you know, we just, I was like, oh, let’s try those. And it’s funny cuz it’s on most of the rods now, the single foot guide. Pete (47m 12s): Oh it is. There you go. Yeah, they’re on most of the rods. And it was just kind of like, you know, with Tim’s suggestion cuz he is a materials engineer and stuff and all that and he would be like, here, you should try that. You know, he would say, what do you want? What are you after? Yeah. It’s just things like that. So, and that, you know, if anyone’s thinking about, about doing this clinic, those are the types of fun things. Like all this stuff is really fun to work with. It’s kind of technical and kind of fun and you can go explore it online and see all the different philosophies or certainly my philosophies on raw design or, or what I think is most effective with European Ning isn’t, is definitely not necessarily the way to do things. Pete (47m 53s): It’s just the way that I learned with people that I was around and I observe people that I really respect and just kind of, you come to your own like conclusion on all that stuff. Dave (48m 3s): Yeah. How much do you think of what you’ve learned has come from Europeans versus say Americans versus, you know, like is it, is it just a mix of everybody or is there certain peoples that really influence? Pete (48m 14s): Oh, that’s a really good question. Oh, initially mostly Europeans. Dave (48m 19s): It was, yeah. Yeah, Pete (48m 20s): I would say. And then obviously there’s, there’s Americans from all different, you know, regions of the country that do really cool things, you know, especially the team USA guys, you know. Dave (48m 31s): Yeah. All the guys from like George Daniel. Pete (48m 34s): Yeah. You know, and George was, we were all there at the beginning and you come across a guy like Pat Weiss where you watch him NPH and you’re just like, wow, how did you develop that style? That’s amazing. And you’re kind of all together and you can kind of take little parts of each other’s stuff and you know, that’s one of the things that, that if you do learn it from some people, you make it your own though. You know, like you go online, you start watching people and, and there’ll be a lot of conflicting opinions, which I don’t see as like kind of frustrating or confusing. I see it as like cool. Like, I’m like, oh, so this guy’s saying that I should do this and I’ve always done it the other way. Pete (49m 14s): I’m gonna go try that like on the river tomorrow. Like I’m gonna go see if what he’s saying makes sense to me. And if it does, I’ve got a new like arrow in my creamer. You know, it’s like, that’s the way I see it. I don’t, I love how like multifaceted all the opinions are, it’s Dave (49m 31s): Great. Yeah, I agree. What about Tim Raje? Has he, has he ever been out there Euro NiFi before? Oh yeah. Oh yes. Nice. Pete (49m 39s): Oh totally. We, we did a lot of the rod design on Deschutes River and go to his house and with the design team and all that stuff and, and yeah. Dave (49m 48s): Well give us a little breakdown on Tim, what’s he like because he’s kind of, he’s been a guy I’ve been trying to, you know, wanted to get on the show here and he’s, it seems like he’s a little hard to track out you. Pete (49m 58s): Yeah, he should. Well now he’s got a little time cause you know, cuz he is sold echo, so Dave (50m 3s): Oh yeah, that’s right. Yeah, yeah, that’s right. He’s sold echo. Gotcha. Yeah, Pete (50m 7s): He and catheter are probably cruising around having fun. Tim’s just like, I don’t, he’s extremely smart and you know, obviously world class at everything, fishing, you know, especially casting, but he’s like, he’s very curious and creative and you can tell, tell that he likes to do stuff and he’ll, you know, especially like when he first contacted me for a lot of this stuff, we met at, I think we met at Golden Gate Casting Club, like during a competition. Yeah. And it was like, he’s like, I I, I’m curious about that stuff for my company, you know? And I was like, yeah, I’m happy to come up to Vancouver, hang out with you and talk about it. And, and he’s just open-minded and curious about stuff. Pete (50m 49s): Like he likes to create things and that’s just how his brain works and it’s fun. It’s fun to be around that. Dave (50m 56s): Yeah. That’s how you guys did it with the rod. You guys just kind of went, did you kinda spitball like back and forth on stuff for a while? Yeah. Like how long did it take you to get the Pete (51m 3s): I would say that the learning curve was pretty steep on my side where he kind of had to keep pounding a hammer on my head trying to Yeah. Tell me certain things can’t be done and this and that. And like, he was basically teaching me about materials and rod design and everything in the beginning. That was a long time ago. I can’t even remember when the shadow PE came out. Yeah, Dave (51m 25s): It’s been a while. Pete (51m 26s): It was long time ago, you know, but eventually I started kind of figuring out the process that he’s known forever and you know, he’s been a broad designer forever with, I think he was at Loomis with his brother and I don’t know his exact history. I think he told me, but I, but you know, he, he knows everything and that was the fun part. Dave (51m 46s): We’ll work on getting him on and then we’ll have him tell his own story and we’ll get it out here. So, so the drift boat thing. So we’re gonna be, and I always love the other drift boats because I have like a huge drift boat fan or just boats in general, but, so we’re gonna be in boats doing that floating down. So that’s different than maybe some other euro nipping type schools or clinics. Talk about that a little bit, what that’s gonna look like. Pete (52m 6s): Yeah, no, for sure. I mean I I call it Cadillac fishing because it’s like you’re just, you’re just eating up, you know, territory. Dave (52m 13s): Covering ground. Pete (52m 14s): Yeah. With our deal, it’s not like we drive up to a spot and wait out to one set of islands that we’re stuck there for three or four hours and we gotta make it happen. If we don’t, you know, if we don’t like a, a gravel bar or an island or we’re back in the drift boat, we’re moving and we might even pull out our, you know, our dry dropper rigs or our BEUs dry only flight. You know, we might take advantage of the fact that it’s a world-class fishery and fish a few seams or, or slicks or banks or whatever we wanna do and then find our next European ing perfect island. Like that’s Dave (52m 49s): Awesome. That’s what we’re doing. So that’s the cool thing about this is that we have the flexibility even though, you know, we’re coming here for the Euro school, you know, and learn from you guys and to get that dow in. I mean we are on one of the great rivers, right? I mean in the country and there’s a lot of cool stuff going on there. Like why is that river so well known? You know what I mean? Like the south fork of the snake, what makes it so special? Pete (53m 9s): Lots of fish and lots of friendly fish. Dave (53m 11s): Yeah, really. So lots of fish. Pete (53m 13s): Yeah. And the beauty too of the area is unbelievable and you know, I always tell everyone cutthroats are lovable. Dave (53m 22s): Oh yeah, yeah. These are cuties. Pete (53m 23s): Yeah, I mean there’s obviously browns and rainbows in there too. Big, big browns and big rainbows. But it’s just classic, you know, rocky mountain fishing and it’s, it usually focuses on dry fly fishing and that, that’s sometimes people are like, how can you possibly your own NPH right now when you know that there’s dry fly action going on? And it’s like, well when you hook a fish within like 10 feet of you, there’s this kind of bizarre electrical feeling that happens cuz it’s so close that it’s a rush in the same sense as seeing a fish kind of eat a dry fly. It’s very visual. Like you see the fish right away cuz it’s probably, you know, right to the surface and it’s fighting instantly. Pete (54m 7s): And that is a rush that until you do it you don’t really realize, you know, like it’s, it’s that same rush as like seeing a fish come up and taking a fly on the surface. Even if that’s from a, from a distance, the proximity of you know, hooking these fish and seeing them and seeing the cider is very visual and people don’t realize that until they do it. Dave (54m 28s): Yeah, right. It’s visual. God that is cool. So I think that is the beauty like you said, I mean the beauty is that we’re going to this cool amazing river so we are gonna be dialing in our Euro game for sure. You know, that’s gonna be the bulk of what we do, but we are gonna be going to a cool place. So that’s what I think is what it’s all that’s fishing, right? I mean as much as we all love catching fish, you know, it is about just being in the cool places, right? Pete (54m 53s): Yeah, a hundred percent. And it’s not like we’re forcing a classic river into a Euro ing spot. This is a great euro owning river. Same with the Henry’s fork too. Like you can really, you’re well in these rivers. Dave (55m 5s): Perfect. Well I think I just wanted to touch on the surface today, you know, and just give people kind of, you know, wet their whistle for this sort of thing because I mean the giveaway right now we have going, like I said, we’ve got this trip, we’ve got all these products, you know, other, we talked about the Rob and we’ve got reels, we’ve got all sorts of things we’re doing. So I’m gonna give a shout out there, wet fight swing.com/giveaway for a chance to get on that. But for those that want to just go on this trip, that’s the other opportunity. You can actually just bypass that and book one of these trips with us and we’re gonna have limited slots here, so, so yeah. Anything else Pete, you wanna give a shout on, on this? I mean, for those that haven’t been to this part of the area of, you know, eastern Idaho, what else should we be thinking about before we get there if we’re planning Pete (55m 48s): That? Yeah, I mean Eastern Idaho is just really a mecca of fly fishing and it’s just, you know, if you’ve never been to it, you really need to end your into fly fishing. You’ve gotta go once in your life. You really do. It’s, it’s amazing and it’s just still very rural and, and the rivers are beautiful and wild fish and yeah, it’s just awesome. Dave (56m 8s): Perfect. Well I think that’s a perfect way to, to kind of wrap this thing up and we’re gonna circle around later in this week with some other episodes focused on this and we’re probably gonna get you back on too. We might even do a, a fireside chat with Dave on when we do this, this the trip. We might do that. Is there gonna be, that’s a thing. There’s probably an opportunity we’re gonna be working with WorldCast guys. Well let’s give them a shout out real quick because yeah, we’re gonna be working with the WorldCast talk about that group because I’ve heard about them before, but I didn’t know what they do. So the program, that’s the group you kind of work with? Pete (56m 39s): Yeah, I’ve been working with WorldCast since like the, actually the early nineties, believe it or not the company, it used to be BRS Outfitters, but it changed into WorldCast and just unbelievably professional outfit, unbelievable guides, you know, you know Mike Chris, everybody who helps run it, it’s just awesome and they’re, it couldn’t be a, a better partner than the world cast guys for this. I mean it’s Dave (57m 5s): Awesome. And they’re right there. They have a fly shop, right? In Victor? Pete (57m 8s): Yeah. In Victor. So it’s right there. They’ve carried the shadows and they might carry other NiFi rods too. They, you know, you can get a lot of the, the euro nymphing stuff in their shop. They’re into it. They realize that a lot of people like this style of fishing. Dave (57m 22s): Right, right. Yeah, exactly. That’s the thing. I mean the euro nipping it occasionally gets from some people, right? Whatever. There’s always some of that. But I mean it is a super popular Do you see that around that they, it just continues to grow. Oh yeah. It seems like it’s been just kind of, yeah, Pete (57m 36s): Well it’s just one of those things where it’s just a different style of fishing and you and everyone likes to do different styles of fishing, you know, so Dave (57m 44s): Right. And they like to catch fish. Pete (57m 47s): Yeah. And I mean, your owning is definitely has a reputation to catch on a lot of fish. Dave (57m 51s): Yep. Awesome. All right Pete, well I’ll, I’ll leave it there and we’ll definitely circle back around with you for another one of these and we’re gonna dig more into probably some of the fishing. And I want, on the next thing we do, I want to actually dig into, just go deep into like what the trip was like cuz we’re gonna do an after Tripp right. As well. So we’re gonna talk about that and, and we’ll kind of do a wrap up episode. So, so yeah, until then we’ll send everybody out I guess probably to, we’ll just leave the link to the giveaway for now and they could always connect with you through the WorldCast guys. Yeah. Anything else you wanna give a heads up on before we head outta here? Pete (58m 23s): No, just an awesome opportunity to, to get out there and, and learn that style fishing and be in an incredible place. Dave (58m 30s): Right on. All right Pete, well thanks for the time and we’ll talk to you Pete (58m 34s): Soon. All right, thanks. Dave (58m 36s): All right, Pete Erickson on travel, part of the Wet Fly Swing podcast and Swing Outdoors. Today’s podcast was supported by Eastern Idaho’s Yellowstone Teton territory. You can support this podcast in eastern Idaho by heading to wetly swing.com/teton. That’s T e t O n. You can get more information on all the brands and companies you can support there and find out why this part of the world is so unique and some of the amazing stuff that we have going on right now over there. Quick reminder before we get outta here, don’t forget the yearning trip giveaway is going on right now. This week it just launched and we’ve got a huge grand prize, which is a trip all expenses paid trip to this school, to our trip to fish this part of the country, south Fork of the Snake. Dave (59m 22s): Plus, we’re giving away a shadow X rod and a huge prize pack from all of our sponsors. This is gonna be a big one. Wet fly swing.com/giveaway. You can head over there right now, sign up for your chance. We’re gonna be given this away in about a week. So, so there’s not a lot of time on this one. All right, I’m gonna roll. We got a big, we got a big, big, big, big, big, big, big, very big week, so we got a lot of stuff going on here. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Pete. Stay tuned because we’re gonna be doing another episode with Pete wrapping up talking more about the Euro School. So if you get a chance and you can’t make it, we are gonna be doing a little summary of it. Hopefully we’ll have a little fireside chat with Dave on that episode and, and we’ll talk more about it and provide some more tips and tricks if you’re interested in digging in this year and really getting your nipping game to the highest level. Dave (1h 0m 14s): That’s what we’re doing here. So we’re gonna be, we’re, we’re gonna be keeping it rolling. So this is the Euro nipping week we got going right now. Glad you had a chance to listen in and I’m excited. I’m excited to keep digging into this and I can’t wait to get on the water and maybe see you on the water. That would be the best. If I could connect with you on the river and we could do this thing, that would be amazing. But if I can’t check in with me online, dave@wefflyswing.com and I hope you are having a great morning, a great afternoon or great evening, wherever you are in the world. I look forward to talking to you soon.