752B | Western Wyoming Fly Fishing with Jason “JB” Balogh of Fish the Fly

Dave (2s): There’s no question that some of our home waters and destinations for fly fishing have gotten busier since Covid from the east, the West to the north and south. We have definitely seen a boom in new anglers, new people out there in the country, but there is still one for sure way to avoid these crowds and hiking into the back country might be the best way. Today we have a guest that makes his living taking people into one of the most spectacular areas in the country. And by the end of this episode, you will have a guide to Catching Fish in the Backcountry on the fly. This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip, And what you can do to give back to fish species we all love. Dave (44s): Hey, how’s it going? I’m Dave host of the Wet Fly Swing podcast. I’ve been fly fishing since I was a little kid, grew up around a little fly shop and created one of the largest fly fishing podcasts out there. JB from Fish to Fly Guide Service is here today to take us into his world of western Wyoming and beyond. We’re gonna talk about the Green River, the Snake River, the backcountry waters. We’re gonna find out some of his favorite backcountry patterns. If you’re gonna put together a box in many places around the country, you’d probably want to have these patterns in your box. We’re gonna find out how to fish the soft hack with weight and the lift. This is an interesting way. If you’ve ever had struggled fishing soft tackles or swinging flies, we’re gonna talk about a new way here. Dave (1m 24s): And also how to approach a water if you’re new to some of these smaller streams and creeks, the best way to approach it so you don’t end up stepping on fish. Plus, we’re gonna get his number one mistake to avoid if you’re heading out this year and why people are riding the gondola to the top of the mountain in his hometown to eat waffles to start their day. All right, we’re heading to the current epicenter of geology formation in the us Here he is, JB from Fishthefly.com. How you doing jb? JB (1m 54s): I’m doing well, Dave. Yeah, thanks for having me on the show. Yeah, Dave (1m 58s): Yeah, this is gonna be a fun one. I, I’m always excited because, you know, we talk a lot. You guys do everything out there. We’re gonna cover what you do out in Wyoming and Jackson Hole and everything there. I think today we’re gonna focus a little bit on, on the back country, and you guys do it all. But I, I’m excited because I think that for especially those people that don’t have a boat want to get out and explore, I think that’s a good way to do it and fly fishing. But before we get there, let’s take it back real quick on, on your history. Did you get started early or when did the fly fishing come? What’s your first memory? And then, then we’ll talk fish to fly. JB (2m 28s): Yeah. Yeah. I guess my first fishing memories were actually like spin fishing with my, my grandfather I, I grew up in, in Memphis, Tennessee, and we used to load up in, in the station wagon Griswold style and drive two days to Northern Minnesota where my grandparents lived. And then when we get there that night, I’d go out and hunt night crawlers with my grandfather in his garden, and then we’d go fish the next day on, on, on the lakes there, catch some, some bass, some pike, walleye sunfish. The fly fishing thing really kind of got going for me when I moved out west into Jackson 28 years ago. JB (3m 12s): Yeah, no, I just kind of became a passion, immediately caught my first fish on the fly out here. It was actually in the Hoback River. It was a like a 10 inch cutthroat on a, a Turk tarantula, which was real popular back then. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it’s kind of been smitten ever since. Yeah. Love it. Dave (3m 33s): That’s it. Well, you guys were up in Minnesota. What were you like way up the grandparents? Were they way up north or what part of Minnesota? JB (3m 42s): Yeah, a little small town called Cloquet. So not too far from the boundary waters. Oh, okay. So you Yeah, way up north when we got up there. Like it would be light until super late at night, which I wasn’t used to. So I remember just being in awe of that be light at like 10 o’clock at night. That was kind of my first experience with that. And then, yeah, just, you know, creating those memories with my grandfather still brings a smile to my face. Yeah, Dave (4m 13s): That’s so cool. Yeah, I love, I love the the grandparents, the, the parents. Were your parents also into fishing in the outdoors, or was the grand granddad? JB (4m 22s): Mostly my granddad. My dad didn’t really fish a whole lot, and so I became the fishermen of the family and now I take all of them fishing when they come out to visit here, you know, like, let’s go do this. Dave (4m 38s): And, and what got you to Jackson Hole? Was it this typical just, you know, move out west, like a lot of, you know, or why’d you get out there? JB (4m 45s): Well, I was in engineering school in St. Louis at Wash U and was looking at desk jobs and, you know, the thought of a cubicle really kind of, well, it really wasn’t my jam, honestly. And I had a couple buddies that drove up to St. Louis on their way out to Jackson Hole and visited. And then when I was graduating, I, I gave them a buzz and they, they’re like, well, we’ve got a, a room in a three bedroom condo, you should come out. And so I, I jumped on the opportunity thinking I’d be here, you know, six months or a summer and kind of the classic Jackson story. It, it, you know, I fell in love and it’s been 28 years now. JB (5m 25s): Huh. Dave (5m 26s): What, what, I mean, I guess it’s, it’s just, we’ve talked a little bit about this, you know, on, on past episodes, but it’s kind of just, it’s everything, right? It’s the, it’s the mountains and the, the, it’s the outdoors though, right? It’s kind of that’s that’s the place. JB (5m 39s): Yeah, for sure. I mean, this town is surrounded by public lands, be it the national parks, the Forest Service, BLMI mean, the access to getting outdoors is just kind of amazing really. It just, it’s never ending. You could spend, you know, honestly, I could probably spend the rest of my life looking at new water and not really fish the same thing twice out here, we’re kind of up here in this, what we call the golden circle of trout. We’re at the headwaters of, of three major rivers, got the snake. Of course we’re not, we’re maybe an hour or so from the headwaters of the Yellowstone, and then roughly 45 minutes or so to the headwaters of the green, which goes to the Colorado and down to the, to the Baja there. JB (6m 34s): So you got so much water here, it’s amazing. You know, there’s so many things to do outdoors, be it fishing, skiing, hiking, whatever you wanna do. We got it going on here. Dave (6m 44s): That’s right. And, and this time of year, I guess we’re kind of close, you know, the, the season’s right around the corner. What are you doing now? I guess whereas we’re talking, it’s, it’s mid-March, you know, April’s right around the corner. What’s that look like for you? JB (6m 57s): So yeah, mid-March we’re finishing up a ski season. I, I work out at JHMR and help manage the host program. So I get a decent amount of skiing in in the winter, which is fun. But this time of year we started to get some, some warm spells, kind of goes cold, warm, cold, warm. And then like, like last week it was in the fifties and actually had a, a chance to get out and go float on the snake when slid the boat over snow banks and we’re catching fish on, well it’s mostly nymphs, midges and the little Blackstones, but there was a little bit of dry fly action and a decent streamer bite like midday, right? JB (7m 41s): Yeah, no. So we’re just kinda getting excited for the season. It’s coming around the corner real quick. You know, April is one of my favorite months to fish here, especially on the Snake River. Just those, those cutthroat are excited about it. They’re, they’ve lived through a long winter and you know, their first really major hatches, midges and the Blackstones and then Squalls and they, they get really excited about, you know, especially eating off the surface, which is, which is fun. It feels like it’s been a bit since I’ve seen fish do that. Right. Dave (8m 14s): How has the, you guys had a pretty decent winter. What’s that been like? JB (8m 18s): Yeah, it’s been good. I mean, overall I’d say it was warm, but we’ve got good snow pack. We’re I think like 105, 106% of our water in our snowpack, which is bodes well for our, our summer, upcoming summer season. You know, March, April and into may really kinda help determine how well that will go. But you know, it’s gonna, it’s supposed to snow this week. It’s kinda actually going back into winter for a minute here and then gonna be back in the fifties next week. So looking forward to getting on the river then. Dave (8m 55s): Right. Okay. So, so when you mentioned it, yeah, the exploration is part of the big thing there and I think backcountry is something we haven’t talked a ton about getting out there. Maybe we could just cover that a little bit just on the, you know, what that looks like. So if somebody’s coming in talking about, you know, getting into the backcountry or maybe they’re just gonna be out in that area, what, what’s that look like? Is it just, you know, do you guys guide for this? How does that look? JB (9m 20s): We do guide for this fish. The fly has some, some unique permitting that allows us to go into some of the tributaries and tributaries of the tributaries on the snake, honestly. So you going, you would probably come, if you were coming to stay here, you’d stay in Jackson and then we’d drive roughly 45 minutes, hour, maybe an hour plus in a few different directions honestly, and drive up into some drainages that don’t see as many folks and then hike a little bit. And those hikes, we’ve got seven different creeks or rivers that we fish. JB (10m 6s): And so the hiking can be, you know, and up and over and a little bit of elevation gain or you can be kind of just walking level along the stream bed. Then we fish. So this, these, all these waters are roughly 7,500 feet in elevation and got a lot of warm up a little bit usually ’cause we’re not Oh, right, yeah, we’re not fishing ’em until after snow melt ends. And late June is probably about the earliest. We do some of that early July and then into mid-September or so. It’s really kind of the season for our backcountry creeks. But when we get there, it’s usually, it’s usually a dryly thing. JB (10m 48s): Cutthroat trout love to eat off the surface. There’s no doubt about that. So we, we love ’em for it. Dave (10m 54s): Is there a mix of the, the cutthroat species or are these all like Snake River or what, what are the cutthroat up there? JB (10m 60s): It’s a lot of Snake River cutthroat trout and there’s a lot of Yellowstone cutthroat trout. The Snake River fine spotted cutthroat trout, I guess is what I should officially call it. It, it’s a subspecies of the Yellowstone Cutthroat. It’s a super unique trout. It’s, it’s the only subspecies whose historical range is actually lies within the historical range of another cutthroat. So the, which is would be the Yellowstone Cutthroat. So, and that’s because of, well these Snake River cuties of the fine spots evolved from the Yellowstone cuts. JB (11m 45s): It was roughly, I don’t know, 20,000 years ago or something that the last glaciation period came and then it kind of cut off our valley a little bit, kind of. So the fine spots range is, you know, from Palisades up to Jackson Lake roughly. And these glaciers kind of cut it off within that zone. And then there was a, like a genetic mutation that kind of created these, these fine spots. Like they’re, the only way to tell them apart from a Yellowstone cut is by their spotting pattern. You know, everything else, if you sent it, you sent a sample to the lab, it would tell you it was the same fish. JB (12m 27s): So they kind of evolved within that little range on their own and then became the dominant species in that range as well. So we do have a mix of those fine spots in Yellowstone cuts, especially up in our back country creeks. But overall in the drainage, the, the fine spot has out competed, you know, the Yellowstone cut and then any introduced species through the years as well. It’s, it’s a pretty hardy fish, honestly. Yeah, yeah. They’re really adaptable. They love, they’re not afraid of fast water. They’re used to having rivers and creeks that, that change with the snow melt and, and adapting to that. JB (13m 9s): So it’s super unique trout. Dave (13m 11s): Wow. So the only way to tell, I mean if you look at the two side by side is, well the fine spot is the Snake River just has finer spots. Is that the main way? JB (13m 20s): Yeah, so it’s got like these little smaller peppery type spots and it’s, it’ll be all over the body, whereas like on a Yellowstone cut, they’re rounded spots and they’re typically grouped more towards the tail. Yeah. So they’re, you know, that’s always kind of fascinated me that they really are the same fish except for this other, the fine spot, you know, kind of evolved and then became kind of the dominant species within this, this drainage. Dave (13m 50s): Right. And then are the ones in the Snake River, are you also down river when you’re floating, catching both species? Or is it mostly the Snake River? JB (13m 58s): It’s mostly the Snake rivers. You do find a couple of, of Yellowstone down there as well, but it’s mostly Snake River, you know, it’s once you get below there on the Palisades and over towards like Thes Fork that you see a lot more Yellowstone cuts again. Yeah, Dave (14m 14s): I’m, I’m looking at now, I, I see the photo. Yeah, it’s kind of, yeah, they have finer, maybe even more spots. The Yellowstone Cutthroats are kind of bigger and maybe not quite as spotted, is that the case? JB (14m 25s): Yeah, exactly. Both of which are, are beautiful fish for sure. I think. Yeah, they are, they’re gorgeous. You know, they’re kind of like golden yellow. And then Isabella, you take on like some yellowish orange shoes when they, when they get bigger, we call ’em the Yellow Bellies. Oh, right. Yeah, they’re, they’re fun. You know, our cuties get to, you know, maybe 16 to 20 inches would be the average, you know, 20 inches and above would be a fairly exceptional cutthroat trout. But they’re doing well, they’re doing really well in this drainage. Dave (15m 2s): Yeah. Do you guys do different on the, the day, is it mostly a day trip or do you guys do any like backcountry stuff out there and could you go out there? Is this going, are you in the National forest sort of thing or the park or what’s that look like? JB (15m 15s): We do day trips and then they are into, you know, these waters are within the forest, a lot of which the, you know, some of these creeks go from the forest and flow straight into the park, so you might drive through the park to get to the forest, you know, so you’re still kind of right under the Tetons more or less. But yeah, we do do day trips and so they’re, they’re longer days, which is great. You know, you kinda have a chance to get out into zones where your cell phone doesn’t ring mean you can detach a little bit, you know, and kinda, I think of it as, as recentering yourself and just kind of seems like I come back more relaxed every day that I go out to the back country once I return, I’m, I’m, I’m more relaxed than when I started. JB (16m 4s): Yeah, Dave (16m 5s): For sure. And you’re surrounded by it, right? The Tetons, are you seeing the mountain jagged peaks everywhere when you’re hiking in through there? JB (16m 12s): Yeah, there’s, yeah, in some creeks, yes, and in some creeks they’re filtered and then, you know, you’re in the, the Grove range, there’s also the Snake River range, you know, Jackson’s got surrounded by, you know, five different mountain ranges actually. So Oh wow. You got bits and pieces of it, you know, all kinds of different mountains depending on which way you look. Dave (16m 36s): Yeah, which way. And then of course you got the national park. And it’s interesting, I’m, there’s a geologist, he’s, he’s got like a YouTube channel. I’m trying to think of his name. I’ll, I’ll have to, I’ll put it in here. But he’s, he does these really great videos about geology of the west mostly. And one of them, he was talking about the geology of the Columbia River and how, you know, over millions of years things have evolved and how like basically the mountain ranges have developed and all the lava and stuff has flowed. But basically what he said is that hot point has migrated across the west, has moved east, you know, and now it’s obviously right in Jackson in Yellowstone National Park, right. With what is it, old, faithful and, and all that stuff. JB (17m 15s): Yeah, yeah, Dave (17m 16s): Right. You guys are in this hotspot, but that hotspot has been migrating over the millennia and you’re in the epicenter. I mean, that’s kind of, that’s what’s amazing about it, right? You have all these mount ranges, you’ve got the national parks. Do you partake, I mean, do you do a lot of National Park? What’s the difference between say the national parks and the National Forest? Or are they A lot of, a lot of similarities. JB (17m 34s): The national Park, grand Teton National Park, and then Yellowstone, like Grand Teton kind of encompasses the Teton range and then kind of comes out into the valley that, but you know, if you’re on the other side of the valley in the forest, you’re looking straight back at the Tetons. So you, I mean, it feels like you’re exactly in the, in the national park itself, but you might be on forest land. Some of the best camping is actually, you know, in this, it’s on forest land, it’s just on the other side of the valley from the, from the Tetons. It’s got an amazing view. Yeah, no, it’s super cool to be near the Yellowstone C era. You get a lot of hot springs from that, you know, molten laba that’s right down underneath this here. JB (18m 22s): There’s, yeah, it’s, it’s really cool. It’s, it’s super unique that way. And we got, you know, you got the geology, you get lava flows in mostly in Idaho you see more of those. But we’ve got, like, some of our geology have ash flows, which is called like a tough would be the, you know, when that ash kind of cools super quickly and then turns into rock. And then we have like Bri cliffs, so there’s a lot of surrounding the Tetons, there’s a lot of sedimentary drainages with those type of geology, but the Tetons themselves are more jagged and metamorphic rock and just kind of super spectacular. JB (19m 10s): Honestly, I never get tired of looking the Tetons. Dave (19m 13s): No, the Tetons are, I mean, it’s all amazing, but that’s, yeah, when you first see those things, it’s pretty crazy. And I just found, so it’s, it’s Nick Zentner and he’s, I’m actually, I’ll bet he has something on that area. I’m sure he does. The, the video I was watching is the geology of the Columbia River Gorge. Right. And essentially, I mean, it’s all connected. I mean, you guys, the Snake River is a trip to the Columbian, but it’s, yeah, it’s really interesting. He’s got a good way about stuff. So I’ll, I’ll have to look up and find a, a video on, on your area where you’re at. But, but yeah, so that’s it. So you’re gonna be hiking in, maybe take us to the day when, you know, it sounds like July, August, September of the prime for doing some of these backcountry. Where’s the meeting? Are you meeting out in the, you know, at the creek at your office? Dave (19m 53s): What’s the first step here? JB (19m 55s): We’ll probably meet you in town sometimes just north of town up towards Gron Junction or a moose maybe, and head north. And then from there we’re, like I said, driving 45 minutes, hour either north or going east up into the gron. We’ve got some tributaries that we fish south from there too. And then, so you’re driving through, you know, a lot of this terrain is you get out of kind of the busier national park zone and you get into bits and pieces of our valley and, and just off of it where not as many folks make it. JB (20m 35s): I mean the Tetons are, are so popular and for good reason, but you can avoid most of the people really quickly. Same thing with all the smaller tributaries in Yellowstone. They, you know, most folks don’t stray from the road, so walk 10, 10 minutes out into the back country and you’ve lost 95% of the people immediately by doing that. So it’s pretty easy to find some, some quiet space out in the hills around here. Dave (21m 4s): So that’s kind of the, the ticket. And is it, I mean, for what you guys do, it sounds like you have specific rivers or creeks that you’re fishing, but are you fishing, are people able, if they’re going there to fish anywhere, could they just get a license and hike off in the national park wherever and fish any creek up in there? JB (21m 20s): Yeah, that’s one of the beauties of, of the public lands around here, is that you do have access to those. I mean, down in the valley here, some of these, these creeks go through private land and you know, some ranches in the mountains as well, but for the, the majority of it, yeah, if you have a fishing license, you can fish a lot of this on foot on your own, takes a little bit of know how to, to read the maps. But you know, following the blue lines on the map, we’ll get you places around here. Dave (21m 51s): Right. So I mean, that’s one way to do it. I mean obviously the, the guide trip if you want to, you know, lower the learning curve or whatever, you know, check in with you guys. But they could probably also, yeah, just get a map or use your trout routes or you know, whatever and find like, you know, okay, here’s the stream. I go for it. If they were, let’s just take it in and we’re gonna be focusing this on, you know, that sounds like that summer period. But for you guys, what is the typical, sounds like it’s a dry flight game out there. What does that look like? What should the box fly box look like for dry flies if you’re heading out there in say, July? JB (22m 24s): Yeah, no, it is mostly dry flies. We do use maybe some droppers, like if you get there in the morning and the water’s still chilly and they’re not, they’re not fully coming to the surface, we might drop a, a niv below your, your bigger drive, maybe two feet, three feet tops. Yeah. So I would take my box for the back country. Well we got a lot of foam around here. Obviously we fish a lot of stone flies and a lot of terrestrials in general. So the beetles and hoppers, I definitely would not go into the back country without any ants. And since these are are cold waters, they’re actually water temps are kind of prime for mayflies on a lot of these creeks as well. JB (23m 9s): There’s a really good, I mean, you have, you have your PMDs your Drakes early season, but kind of through the season after those early season hatches wane, you get kind of these sporadic flas, which is kind of like a, a smaller green Drake. So that’s, you know, and I, I cover those with, you know, a lot of your typical Drake patterns. I mean you could get a, cover them with a parachute hairs ear, a parachute Adams, a fish like Fiskes Drake patterns ’cause they got a little foam body since a lot of our, our creeks have gradient, they’re coming right outta the mountains. JB (23m 50s): You want something that’s gonna float pretty well and that’s a good pattern for that. It’s really visible. It’s mostly dry flies, you know, I might go up the stream in the morning while a hatch is kind of working its way to fruition and fish a smaller fly. Another bug I wouldn’t be without is actually a purple haze. Oh yeah, that’s a really good one. Yeah, that’s a really good one out here. So, you know, maybe we fish the purple haze going upstream and then we get good action on that. And then coming down back through in the afternoon, I might throw on that bigger bug, your phone bug or maybe either a hopper pattern or a stone fly pattern. JB (24m 32s): And then fish it kind of quarter it downstream. So kind of non-traditional fishing it downstream, almost like you were swinging a streamer, men downstream and then kind of twitch it across the seam or across the pool, give it some action. You know, all those terrestrials don’t really, just, not a lot of ’em just sit there once they make the water, it’s a little foreign to them. They’re like, I gotta get outta here. Especially the stone flies, you know, our mutant stones, we got a ton of those down on the snake, but they’re, they’re also up on these, these back country creeks and rivers and, you know, really fun to fish. I like to, I fish a lot of patterns, you know, in that afternoon zone that could be a hopper or that stone fly like a, there’s like a tan, a Barrett’s hand we call it. JB (25m 21s): Or we’ve got a red belied Barrett’s hand. And then for the stoneflies I’ll fish the, what’s called a CFO amp. But those mutant stones, the males, they don’t have wings. They’re flightless. So by working that downstream end and then twitching across, you’re really imitating those males well. And then, you know, also the females, like they come back to the water in the afternoon on their egg laying flights. And so they’re, they’re dropping down to the water and scooting along it, dropping eggs, they dropping eggs from the surface to the, you know, riverbed. And so things that move get attention for sure. And it’s really exciting to watch fish not only come up and eat a dry fly, but you know, where you’re twitching like that they’ll be kinda launching themselves after it. JB (26m 6s): Oh wow. It’s a super fun way to fish. Dave (26m 9s): Yeah. So the twitch is just, so what you’re talking about, you’re casting it down maybe with a foam or something that’s a high floater. It’s swinging down, you’re putting them downstream in, so you’re speeding it up and then you’re also twitching. And what is the, what type of twitch? Just kind of doing your rod tip a little bit, like a little quick twitch. JB (26m 25s): Yeah, you can do the rod tip or just even a small strip, three, four inches with your, you know, your line hand. We’ll cover that if it’s a bigger flatter pool and say there’s not a lot of current to work with. A lot of people lift the rod tip, so it just kind of slides along the surface, you know, kind of the same way you would fish say a soft tackle under the water. But you’re, you’re fishing the, the foam bug on the top and just kind of, it skidders right across. It makes like a little ve wake right behind the fly. Yeah. Dave (27m 1s): How would you fish that on the soft tackle? That’s, I’m interested in that, that if you’re down kind of in the surface, right? What do you mean by kind of lifting it? How would you fish the soft tackle and what do you mean by like how you lift it in a similar way? JB (27m 13s): You know, a bug that we fish that I fish soft tackles is that we’ve got the heck yba out here. I think it’s Tim Noga Heba is what it’s called. It’s a, a great red quill western red quill, but it is a larger Drake pattern and basically it’s really well covered by a, a parachute hairs here with that red ribbing that, you know, matches that pretty well. At least the ones we see here. They can be different coloration in, in different drainages, but they emerge underwater and kind of swim to the top. So you, you know, we’ll fish like a soft hackle hairs ear. JB (27m 57s): And so I might use what say put on a seven and a half foot liter and then tie, you know, a stretch of forex fluoro usually to that and then tie it down to my fly. You know, a lot of times I’ll use a loop knot on that fly like I would a streamer and then put, you know, maybe a small weight right there at that knot where we tied on our, our tippet to help get it down but not, not too far down. And then, you know, fish it, like I said, across and then I’ll mend downstream and work the swing. So let the current kind of swing it across there and then when it makes it to the other side of the seam and is out of the current, then kind of strip it up towards, back towards you. JB (28m 48s): Oh yeah. But the lift works really well once it’s made it across that seam kind of into that flatter water see, and then you just lift the rod tip and then it kind of draws it back to you slowly. And then as you’re drop in the rod tip, you would use your line hand to, to pull out any slack so you can set the hook on the strike. That’s Dave (29m 9s): Awesome. And you have a little, a little split shot, like a, a tiny one that would be on it. Remind me again on that, where are you putting that split shot in relation to the, the soft tackle hole? JB (29m 18s): So I would put it, you know, where I tied on my tipt from my leader, so I’m, I’m maybe tying on two feet of, of tipt, so right at that knot. So I’d go above that knot so it doesn’t slide down to your fly, but it helps draw it down into the water column a little bit. And then that distance, you know, from the weight to the fly that, that the soft tackles are pretty much weightless. So the, the weight’ll be down lower than the fly itself. So it kind of makes it the fly go up and down in the water column when you’re drawing it back to you. It kind of gives it a little bit of a jigging action as well. Sure. Dave (29m 57s): Well in what size split shot would you typically be using? JB (29m 60s): Maybe a BB would be plenty for that. Gotcha, Dave (30m 4s): Okay. No that’s great. Yeah, JB (30m 5s): I mean I fished that on the, on the riffles in the snake lit way, but also on the backcountry. So these, these backcountry creeks aren’t super deep so you don’t have to get too far down into the water column. And the beauty of the, of the cutthroat is that they hold, you know, four to six feet down and look to the surface for their food. A lot of times, you know, a lot of times they’re, you know, suspended just below the surface, maybe a foot or two, you know, so there’s can be a lot of sight fishing associated with fish in those backcountry creeks that way, which is, yeah it’s super fun to see ’em just kind of suspended. It almost looks like in midair ’cause the water’s so clear. Dave (30m 48s): Wow, that is cool. Yeah. So you got some sight fish. So I love the yeah, the wet fly soft tackle ’cause that could, that technique could really work anywhere, you know, probably in most places. And it’s also probably imitates not only may flies but probably cadis and other bugs. Right. That soft tackle, that hair’s ear, is that, do you think it imitates a few different things? JB (31m 4s): Oh absolutely, yeah. I mean they, beyond the may flies, but the cadis and stone flies would be the top bugs. But you know, if you’re looking on the bottom of one of these back country creeks, you see cas everywhere, you know, and it’s, it’s typically your, your hydro psyche cas, which is tan, so that hairs ear that soft tackle hairs ear will cover it well. Okay. Dave (31m 31s): So you mentioned the site fishing. Is that something that you’re usually doing almost all the time up there for when you’re fishing the dries in the back country JB (31m 39s): You do? Yeah, you’re sight fishing in a decent amount, especially when the hatch is on or as the water drops, these fish will move up, you know, say from the pools in between the runs so they can be, we get a lot of good flying ant hatches, especially kinda, you know, as we get into August, a lot of flying ants. And so they’ll, they’ll move out into, you know, say there’s a, a trough along the bank that’s like a foot deep or something, they’ll kind of slide up into there and so it’s water that you would, a lot of folks would just kind of walk right straight through. ’cause you’re looking at the pool that’s upstream that looks so inviting, you know, but you gotta kind of keep your eyes peel for that, you know, and they, they tend to stand out, you know, that yellow belly will stand out against a lot of these rocks, but they’re just sitting close to the bank usually and just sipping when they’re in water like that. JB (32m 41s): Not a, making a lot of movement ’cause they’re out exposed. So, but barely just kind of bringing their nose up and sucking down the fly. It’s really fun to, really fun to watch, you know. Yeah, Dave (32m 54s): That sounds like a, a mistake that maybe is common, right? Somebody’s out there, they’re going up into the back country, you know, they find a stream they think would be good and then they, you know, walk over the fish. What, what would be your advice if somebody is coming up or how do you, do you guys do that? I’m sure you have some areas that you know, you know really well, but how do you choose, you know, like the reading the water, you come up to that stream and are we talking large stream, small and everything in between? JB (33m 19s): Yeah, kind of everything in between and then, then they fish at different times of the year. Some are early season and then the water drops too low and the move fish will move back out. But, and then those colder ones tend to be a little bit larger that we’re fishing in August when it’s just hot out and yeah, no I would say just, you know, I come to the stream, you know, obviously I’m looking for, before I tie anything on, I’m looking for bugs, what do I see? A lot of times as you’re walking through the sagebrush, you know, over to the creek you’ll see spinners or these clouds of, of black ants kinda hovering there and that’ll give you a good clue as to what to tie on first once you get there. JB (34m 7s): So, you know, just kind of observing and that’s, well that’s kind of the beauty of, of being in the backcountry. You just kind of get absorbed into the environment and you just, you know, you become present and that’s really what kind of, like I said, detaches you from, from the real world so to speak and really brings you into the moment and then really kind of makes it a special experience that way. Dave (34m 31s): Yeah, right. So that’s a great tip. So basically take a look at what you know you’re coming in on and bugs, things like that when you come up to the water, if you’re up to a new water, what’s your first, you know, like you said some of these fish might not be in the pool, they might be on a slot on the, are you just kind of taking your time and looking, trying to spot fish or look for risers or how do you know where to kinda start to make sure you don’t walk on the fish? JB (34m 54s): Yeah, after the, the water warms up, you know, it’s not unusual to see them rise. So you look for those rise forms and kinda yeah, you, you know, just look for that and then and fish to that. But yeah, Dave (35m 10s): That’s the easiest way to do it, just to look for risers. And if they’re, if they’re not rising, can you still get ’em on the terrestrials and ants later in the day, even if they’re, you’re not seeing a ton of risers or, or is it typical in those back country streams you’re seeing lots of fish rising? JB (35m 25s): Well, yeah, they, it’ll slow down the, the rise periods probably where they’re coming to the surfaces typically like 10 to two. But yeah, you can totally fish the likely water. And like I said, there’s some mornings where you get up there and it’s been colder overnight or we had a rain recently and the water’s cooled down a touch and so, you know, I’ll start with a, a foam bug and maybe something as simple as like a pheasant tail dropper or the hairs your dropper, you don’t have to get too crazy under droppers out there honestly. And then, you know, run it through the pool, just the likely looking water, you know, they’ll eat the nymph but a lot of times those cuddy will come right straight past the nymph and go eat that bug off the surface. JB (36m 13s): They love to eat off the surface. Yeah. And that’s when you know you’re okay, it’s time to, it’s time to cut off that NPH and we’ll just go, go single dry switch it up. Yeah, totally. Dave (36m 23s): So there’s no reason to do the dry droppers. Probably the best thing, you don’t have to use an indicator or go like euro nipping, I mean, or any of that stuff. You guys just pretty much dry drop or dry only JB (36m 32s): Yeah. On those creeks for sure. That’s really kinda, it’d be rare to m any of that you might might run into say some big beaver ponds where a small streamer like a little leach pattern usually is good or sculping pattern, like a smaller sculping pattern and you know, swing it through the pool but typically it’s dries or dry dropper and get to watch those fish eat your fly all day long. It’s kind of fun that way. Dave (37m 4s): Yeah, it sounds great. So I guess it sounds like you guys, yeah and like anybody listening, you know, if they’re out in that area they could get to a spot trailhead, you know, have your gear, it sounds like you guys hike up a bit, maybe a certain distance, get over a, a pass or something then drop on the other side. I mean you’re just kind of getting out away from the crowds a little bit. Is that the secret or do you have, is there a reason why you might wanna be hiking, you know, a longer period of time? Maybe hours potentially, JB (37m 31s): You know, the farthest we would hike from wherever we park the car is maybe like 45 minutes. But it we’ll get you well away from where anybody else that might have driven into there where they might fish. I mean you don’t see many people, but you know, typically folks fish closer to where their car is parked. So when you, you hike in, you get to that quieter water where you don’t see any people sometimes, you know, we’re using the hike to get up to, there’ll be forks of this, of a creek and you’re going up to fish one of the two forks and make your way up a specific drainage that way and fit versus bishop the mainstem below where they come together, you know, and, and those, those forks will be just that much colder than say the main stem, you know, as the, the water drops and the temps get higher during the summer, those cuties will definitely seek out cooler water. JB (38m 33s): That’s part of what allows them to kind of sit in that shallower water. They’re happy with that ’cause they, you know, if it’s colder they’ll go up into that shallower water. Dave (38m 43s): Gotcha. Wow, this is great. So that’s the, and you guys, like we said the star. You guys do a little of both. So you, I mean, what do you think is the biggest, you know, for somebody listening they’re thinking, okay, I could do the big water versus the small water. Are there some similarities there on, you know, the whole, you know, what you guys are doing or are they kind of night and day as far as the, the fishing or if somebody was kinda choose what they wanted to do? JB (39m 5s): There’s a lot of similarities, but they’re really two totally different experiences. The, you know, the boat is awesome, it’s relaxing and you float and, and you don’t really have to work quite as hard to get those fish and you still Dave (39m 20s): Right, you get a drink, a drink, a nice beverage like on the boat. Yeah, JB (39m 25s): Kind of, yeah. Relax and crack a beer and, and you still get to watch ’em come up and eat dry flies. You might nymph more on the, out on the snake. You might, you might use the nymphs more or like a, a indicator rig, but you know, so same bugs, similar bugs and you still get the watch ’em eat off the surface. But the, the back country’s totally different in that it’s a, a longer day. It’s really kind of more for an, an adventurous type angle or somebody that doesn’t mind getting out there wandering and exploring and seeing some new stuff. And it does require that, you know, you’re somewhat physically fit, you know, you’re up above 7,000 feet in elevation. JB (40m 12s): You need to be able to, to hike some, so that’s Dave (40m 15s): Amazing. JB (40m 16s): Yeah, they’re really two totally different experiences, but like I said, they do have similarities. Yep. Dave (40m 22s): What’s the gear real quick on that? Like when you’re doing this, it sounds like you’re in the summer, so it’s probably pretty nice. Are you just taking a, a backpack or what would somebody be, what would you need on this? You got a fly box or what does that look like? Do you have waiters and all this stuff of gear? JB (40m 36s): Well, definitely a backpack. You know, you’re gonna have your, your bugs liters, some bug dope lunch. You definitely want to have a lot of water with you. Typically that time of year we’re, we’re wet weighting. Okay. You know, so I’ll, I’ll even hike in from the trail head in in my waiting boots and then I’ll use weighting socks, you know, and kind of go that way. So you don’t, you don’t necessarily need those waiters. It’s the water will be chilly but the land around you is definitely warm. So it’s just fully refreshing to step into that creek and then be in it for a while. So, you know, I suggest that folks wear kind of like a nylon pant versus short sometimes when, when you’re along the creek you kind of, when you go up and out of the creek to move upstream, say to the next hole, there’s a lot of sagebrush around or willows and you know, don’t wanna scratch your legs all up. JB (41m 35s): So good way to keep your legs looking nice. Dave (41m 38s): Right, right. Got a lot of pain all the summer, all this because you guys are, is this on the east side of the, is this kinda like the desert side of or how does that work? Are you guys in the pretty much, it sounds like it’s deserty. JB (41m 49s): It can be. Yeah, like yeah, it’s kind of a high plains desert really. You know, once you get outside of the Tetons, the Tetons are very, they seem to suck every last drop of moisture out of ’em. But yeah, you’re in the rain shadow a little bit and you go, we go north, we go east, we go south, you know, outta Jackson for these creeks. So all different directions, but it’s typically drier landscape, sagebrush, like I said, the willows, you know, most of your vegetation, you know, tree wise or willows are, is right next to the stream. And then, you know, a lot of, a lot of sagebrush flats in between and around it. Dave (42m 31s): How do you guys choose where, you know, you’ve got all these streams where, you know, north, southeast, west, which ones you’re going to any given day? JB (42m 39s): It’s timing, it’s time of the, the season. Some of these are, are pretty small. You can almost even hop across ’em or do a nice leap and jump across some of these creeks and those fish well early season. But once the water drops it gets warm and, and those fish tend to drop back into a, a mainstem of a river or another creek. And then, you know, as we go through the season, like I mentioned earlier, we’ll we’ll seek out the ones that are just a touch bigger but colder on average. Sometimes when you, you know, you’ll do a stream crossing first thing in the morning and water temp will be say 48 degrees, 50 maybe. JB (43m 24s): So super cold. And so those are the waters we seek out kinda later in the season. You know, August and then that early, early September. ’cause they tend to hold more water. It’s colder, you know, that colder water made me think of another bug that we fish. What’s Dave (43m 41s): That JB (43m 41s): One that’s fun to fish is is the crane fly? Dave (43m 45s): Oh the crane fly. JB (43m 46s): Yeah, they, crane flies love, you know those colder waters that are flowing through a hotter or warmer landscape around them, that’s kind of their, that’s typically where you’ll find them is in that colder water. And so that’ll be a big bug. You can fish early in the morning and now when you put a lot of action on, you know, they’re moving quickly across the surface but you know, you could fish it pretty similar to, you know, we were talking about fishing that foam bug earlier where you’re swinging it downstream almost like a little streamer or soft tackle. Dave (44m 20s): Yep. So you can do that. Okay. And are you at times casting up into some of the pools upstream doing your, a typical dryly sort of thing? Or how does that look? JB (44m 29s): Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean typically we, you know, once you get to where you’re gonna fish, you move upstream to fish it during the day. So yeah, you would fish upstream and from behind where you, the fish are lying, Dave (44m 42s): Right. Casting up and looking for fish feeding or, or even spotting fish. This is awesome. Well that’s a little bit of a, a primer on some of the backcountry getting a taste for that. Maybe just take us, you know, through kind of your other, you know, I know you guys do the green, the snake, well what’s that look like? And you have some guides. There’s a cool picture of your guides that are, is on your website that I think you’re all in dry suits. It looks like you’re in some, you know, some big river trip. But, but yeah. What does that look like throughout the year maybe first off, where does that picture, was that like what, why were you all wearing dry suits? What was that picture and then what, what is the rest of your, you know, areas you fish look like? JB (45m 17s): Yeah, so those dry suits, that’s a, a swift water rescue course Oh right. That we took. So yeah. And so this, the snake is swift water and that’s definitely part of the training to be a guide here, especially on the snake is, is that swift water training and then, yeah, so I mean it’s, you know, just like the back country creeks, some of these rivers fish at different times of the year, say like the Green River fishes will kind of fish early. We’ll the snake will fish well say, you know, right now like mid-March till early May-ish whenever runoff decides to come and then it gets super muddy and then we’ll we’ll kind of head down towards the green in that zone through the month of May and in June because those brown trout, you know, you still experience runoff down there, but it’s below two large lakes, the green river lakes. JB (46m 19s): And so it’s not, you know, it can be some of the water, sometimes it’s muddy, but sometimes it’s just like tannin colored. Yeah. And they, they’ll feed well yeah, the brown trout that live down there are certainly not afraid of that kind of water. You know, they’re all browns are, are all light sensitive fish. So cloudy waters is what they love really. It kind of hides them, you know, when all the food’s out. But yeah, so we’ll fish that, you know, and there’s good stonefly hatches and then you get a really, really good gray Drake hatch down there Dave (46m 57s): On the green. JB (46m 58s): Yeah. It starts in, you know, kind of July typically. And it, you know, depending on what sort of snow pack we had and what kind of water the green has for the summer kind of determines how long that will go. And you know, usually, usually the more water, the more Drake you’ll see. They love that silt, you know, silty bottoms. So Yeah, no it’s, it’s really cool The green’s a you know, completely different experiences, smaller water. We, we, we float that Dave (47m 28s): You doing rafts or drift boats JB (47m 30s): In drift boats, you know, I’ll use, I’ve got a, a headhunter skiff that I’ll use down there on the green. So you got a little bit stealer profile on the boat. ’cause it is overall a smaller river than the snake like on the snake we, we use a lot of the, well what I use is a cl a it’s a 16 lp so it’s a, a low profile boat, but it’s got, you know, more kind of the traditional McKinsey style drift boat with a larger bow. You know, ’cause you’ll go through some wave trains, smaller wave trains on the snake, you know, ’cause it has gradient. But down on the green we’re using that smaller skiff. JB (48m 12s): You can even, you can sit down and kind of head hunt fish with a single dry, you know, sometimes, a lot of times when that, when that dra hatch is, is going, they start feeding early. So you want to get down there, you know, as close as you can to say sunrise and then, oh okay, yeah you can fish Drake spinners and then, you know, some cripple or emerging patterns and then adults and you know, when you’re in the middle of that hatch, it’s not so unusual just to fing fish a single dry, you know, sometimes the double dry as well because you’ll have PMDs or yellow Sallys that are, are, are popping at the same time as those gray Drakes. JB (48m 55s): And so you fish a double dry rig and the green up in that zone is, you know, not super deep. You know, it’s got some deeper holes but you know, there’s relatively shallower water for a major river and they, those fish like to eat off the surface ’cause it’s, you know, it’s closer to them, you know, so yeah, when those hatches are on, they’re, the greens are really, really fun place to fish. Nice. Dave (49m 20s): And, and this is the same green that flows down into like, like Utah right? And all that? This is more higher up is, or talk about that do, where is this at? Is this, are there multiple Green Rivers? JB (49m 32s): No, it’s the same one. This is near, this is the headwaters of the green where closer to where it comes out of the Wind River mountains near Pinedale or Daniel in that zone, you know, so as far as the Green River goes, it’s still like, it’s headwaters but it’s maybe where we fish it is maybe 80 miles downstream from the, from its source, you know. So it goes a long way. Like I said, the first thing it does, it goes into those two lakes and it, it filters out a lot of the sediment that’s coming straight from the mountains. So yeah, no, it’s, that’s roughly if we’re, if you’re staying in Jackson, we would drive down there, get that early start, you know, it’s 45 minutes to probably the first section of river you reach on the green, you know, an hour could be, you know, the farthest out we would be, it was an hour and a half from, from Jackson on your return trip coming back in that day. JB (50m 33s): So it, you get an early start fish that bug hatch and then, you know, as the green drops it gets a little warmer in the afternoons and then the sun’s fully high in the sky and those, those browns will just, they’ll just shut off. It’ll be like somebody flipped a switch, be like, all right, we’re done. You know, that’s it, you know, that’s it. And then once you start to see that, I mean, you can still, there are rainbows and there’s actually a, the Colorado River cutthroat down in the green as well. And so you still, you get some action on those, those guys. But typically we’re heading, you know, back to Jackson by like two in the afternoon a lot of days. JB (51m 18s): Gotcha, Dave (51m 19s): Okay. Yeah, it’s pretty cool to see it just, yeah. Where you’re at on the map is yeah, you’ve got the Wind River reservation kind of in the middle, roughly in the middle of the state. Yeah. And so you’ve got that right, the green’s flowing kind of out of that, that area For the most part JB (51m 34s): It would be actually, so the Wind River Indian Reservation is on the north side of the Wind River range. And so we’re kind of actually on the other side, we’re on the south side of the Wind River Dave (51m 47s): Range there. Oh, on the south side. Gotcha. JB (51m 49s): Yeah. And yeah, and, and Gantt Peak is the, it’s the high highest peak in Wyoming. It’s actually Oh, it is just a little, yeah, it’s a little bit taller than the Grand Teton by like, I think it’s 13,000 8 0 4, something like that is the elevation for Gannet and the, and the Grand Tetons 13 770. There you go. The wind rivers are, are really, really old mountains, the rock that’s exposed, theres, you know, I call it basement rock, it’s like, you know, 4 million years old or 4 billion years old. It’s really just kinda, Dave (52m 25s): Yeah. Or something like that, right. JB (52m 26s): Yeah. It’s crazy. Dave (52m 27s): It all said, yeah, 4 billion or 4 million to me is about the same. I can’t, you know, get a feel for it JB (52m 33s): With some of the oldest exposed rock that you’ll, you’ll see, you know, so I guess it’s, what’s it called again there really? The Wind River range. Dave (52m 42s): Oh yeah, the Wind River. Yeah. Yeah. JB (52m 44s): So yeah, no, they’re some super jagged peaks up into the winds, but that’s it. The Wind River. Yeah, they’re, they’re much larger mountain range than, than the Tetons all things considered. The, the Tetons are relatively, well the Tetons are relatively small mountain range, honestly. They go about 50 miles and they’re, you know, 10 miles wide or so, whereas the, the Wind River range is going 150 miles maybe, and then it’s maybe 20 miles to sit. Yeah. It’s a much bigger mountain range. Dave (53m 18s): That’s really, yeah, we’ve had at least one episode on, actually we’ve had a couple because we’ve done on the Wind River area, I know there’s a Native American kinda, I think part, right. And on the reservation, I think that’s the only people who can guide out there. We talked about some of that, that area up there. JB (53m 34s): Yeah, no, that’s would be kind of like closer on the Dubois side or up towards Thermopolis. Dave (53m 42s): Okay. JB (53m 42s): Yeah. And, and a lot of that is, yeah, you know, native Americans are the only ones that can guide there or hold or be an outfitter, but you can still get a reservation permit and, and fish on your own. That’s Dave (53m 58s): Right. Which is probably good advice too. Right. That’d probably be a good area to get away from some of the crowds out there. JB (54m 3s): Oh yeah, absolutely. And there’s definitely some zones where you can access with that permit. And then there are some, some zones where they know white man and beyond this side for sure. So there’s, there’re definitely some sacred ground for those guys that they don’t want you to go fish. Dave (54m 21s): That’s great. I think that, I think your tip at the, you know, the star of the fact that just getting out even in the national park of the busy area is just, just hiking for 15, 30, 45 minutes is gonna get you away from most of the people. Right. That’s probably the biggest, you know, one of the big tips today. Oh JB (54m 36s): Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Not too hard to get away from the most folks around here. Dave (54m 40s): Yeah. Perfect. And I, like I said, I’m gonna get, definitely get Nick Zentner on the show. We’re gonna have a geology episode that I think that we’re gonna for sure focus on. I wanna learn about the winds, the wind river range and kind of all that stuff. It sounds, I mean it’s a hot spot obviously, right? It’s the place that kind of feels like it’s the epicenter for, you know what I mean? Not only a lot of this outdoor stuff, but all the geology and kind of everything going on out there. Well, before we get outta here in a little bit, JB just wanna check with you, anything else you wanna shed light on about your program? We talked about the green, the snake, anything else you guys are doing? The back country that you wanted to shed light on or, because we’re gonna be following up with you as we move forward here, but just before we leave today, anything else here? JB (55m 22s): Yeah, I mean those are kind of the, the main rivers. We also float the Salt River, which would be south of here. Another tributary to the snake salt’s, a really fun small river that’s really best fish from the boat ’cause there’s tons of willows along it. And then we also just for, you know, you’re, we get a lot of families in Jackson, so we also do some scenic floats on the snake where we’ll, you know, float under the Tetons. And usually a, our most popular one is in the evening where we’ll stop and cook you up Eisenberger along the way, and then you enjoy the sunset on the way out. JB (56m 3s): So, you know, for the non fishing folks in your crew, that’s Dave (56m 8s): Perfect. So you could do a little bit of a Yeah. Family and, and have, I mean, just kind of more of the scenic thing and that’s pretty cool. What, what do you guys get is, I guess that’s the thing with Jackson because you get a ton of people coming through probably for their first time right. Coming through there. And is that what that looks like in any given year? It must be a little bit crazy, right? When, when it starts getting busy in June, July, August? JB (56m 29s): Yeah. No, it’s definitely a busy spot. I mean, I think Jackson roughly has 15 to 20,000 people population year round, but I think somewhere upwards of 4 million come through here in the course of a summer. So you can imagine what that might look like. It’s, it’s super busy. Yeah, Dave (56m 49s): It’s a busy and in a, but in a large area, right? Like you said, there’s two national parks. What are the other, I mean, you got the national parks, the National Forest, what are the other tourist things in the summer that people are doing? I mean, it’s mostly right hiking, just getting outdoors. What is it that’s bringing people there? I guess mainly it’s the national parks, right? JB (57m 7s): Mainly it’s the national parks and, and then hiking in those national parks is, is certainly popular. You know, I obviously think that you can’t miss a, a day on the, on the river is just, you know, great way to experience the parks and, and the lands around them. And then, you know, Jackson, let’s see what, you know, folks will come to, they’ll ride the tram or the gondola. It’s snow king. And so you can go up to the top of these peaks and then, and have views out over our valley. Oh wow. And the, yeah. And then there’s a tram up at, at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort that a lot of people will ride up there, go up there and get yourself a waffle. JB (57m 51s): That’s what they’re famous for at the top of the tram. Oh, it was waffles. Yeah, Dave (57m 55s): Waffles. So you could take a, so like in the, in the summertime or is that kinda what most people are doing? Come up there in the summer, take a tram up to the top and get a view of the whole valley? JB (58m 5s): Yeah, that’s on the checklist. If you come through here, you know, go up the tram, get that waffle, you know, float the river, do some hiking. You’re out there looking for, for wildlife is a, a really big one around here. It’s Grand Teton and Yellowstone. What’s Dave (58m 22s): The wildlife? What, what are the one, I mean obviously it’s got some of the ones you won’t see anywhere, Buffalo and things like that, but what are people looking for out there? JB (58m 29s): Yeah, so we, yeah, we got a lot of those, the bison, and then we’ve got pronghorn, which is a cousin to the antelope, but a lot of mule deer, a lot of elk. You see moose out here bears, we got black bears, we got grizzly bears, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the big animals. So that’s a pretty popular thing to do is, you know, go on a, a wildlife tour. It is. And so you get, you see the parks and see the animals and it’s pretty cool to, to be surrounded by that many animals. It’s America’s Serengeti they call it around here. Dave (59m 11s): Yeah, that’s what it is. I mean, just the buffalo or the bison, you know, just seeing them out there or you know, sometimes you’ll be on the road, right. And there’ll be a close encounter, they’ll be right next to your window, some of those. And that’s really, oh, it’s, it’s amazing. I mean, just that right there is worth the price of admission. Right. JB (59m 27s): Yeah, it’s crazy. I mean they’re, well some of those bison are as big as your car, right? I know. Kinda walk out on the road and stare you down and like, well what are you doing here? You know? Right. No, it’s, it’s super cool. Like you’ll get what we call, call ’em bison jams where you know, the hurdle just kind of be crossing the road and they’ll for whatever reason decide to stop in the middle of the road. And so you’re not going anywhere for a while until they decide to move. Dave (59m 55s): No, exactly. Yeah, we had a, we had a cool moment on a stream. We were fishing in the middle of the park and yeah, just down, we hiked off a ways, right. But we were out with some bison and it was just really cool. There’s a herd of ’em and they were all walling in the, in the, the water, the mud flats or whatever. But yeah, it was just really cool. We’re sitting there, fly fishing, they’re like, we’re waiting for them to cross the creek, you know, so we don’t get in any, you know, any trouble with them. But it’s just a cool area, so. So this has been good JB I think we can leave it there today. We’ll put, we’ll send everybody out to fish the fly.com and they can check in with more on this. I think it’s been really cool just hearing, you know, the opportunities, right? You mentioned there, just the back country, the everything going on there. It’s not just about the fly fishing, right? Dave (1h 0m 36s): It’s about the mountains and there’s so much to do. So I think that that would be a good start for me when I think about it. I’d love to go, maybe get a day in the back country, maybe float the river for a day, maybe hit the green, you know, mix it up so you’re kind of doing a few different things and, and that’s awesome. Well, I appreciate your time today and we’ll definitely be in touch ’cause we’re gonna be doing more of this, probably connecting with some of your guides and some of the other areas. But definitely appreciate the time and we’ll be in touch soon. JB (1h 0m 60s): Awesome. Well yeah, thanks so much Dave. I appreciate you having me on. Dave (1h 1m 4s): All right. Your call to action is clear today. Head over to fish the fly.com and find out more information. Let JB know you heard this podcast and check in with him. Find out about some of these amazing backcountry hiking trips. Pick his brain on floating the rivers. It’s the best place to start right now. If you wanna get into it. And also please follow this show so you get updated when the next episode goes live. Click that plus button in Apple podcast and the next episode next week is gonna be awesome. We’ve got a couple of big ones in the, in the bucket and littoral zone are both coming up next week on Monday. The Littoral zone. Phil is always bringing his good stuff, so stay tuned for that. Subscribe. So you get updated right now. If you haven’t yet checked out Wetly Swing Pro, you can go to wetly swing.com/pro, enter your name there. Dave (1h 1m 51s): We’ll follow up with you some details on that. We are just doing a slow trickle out for those interested, I’m just kind of hearing back On the podcast before we kind of go all in on this. So go to wet fly swing.com/pro and and you can find out there. All right, I’m gonna get outta here. Hope you have a great morning, hope you have a great afternoon or an amazing evening, and we’ll see you on that next episode. Outro (1h 2m 14s): Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly, swing Fly fishing show. 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