Well, how do y'all? Welcome to the podcast.

Yeeeeee.

Today we're gonna recommend that you head right on over to Joe Shroomshack.com. They're having an amazing special on crawfish. What is it? They got crawfish. They got all kinds of crawfish. What kind? You get the brazil's dwarf crawfish. You can even get jimmy's favorite, the dwarf Mexican crawl fish. They're orange. There they are. I like orange. Use the Aquarium Guys podcast at checkout for now, 15 whole percent off your entire order of tucking in crawfish, shrimp, hard goods, hail. They got it all. You can take that money and you could buy yourself some spices for those crawfish. Yeah. Also, don't forget about our friends, the Ohio Fish Rescue. They need your love and support. Find them on YouTube. Ohio Fish Rescue. They sure do do have got a good YouTube channel. Those guys are crazy. All right, guys, let's kick that ball. K. Let's do it. Hey, guys, just got to give you a reminder that this podcast is actually prerecorded. So we want to let you know that since the Coronavirus outbreak, the Minnesota Aquarium society's Expo, the Minnesota Aquarium Expo has been postponed. They wanted to do it hopefully towards the end of the summer. But everything is very much related on the Coronavirus and how we're all having to deal with it. So please be safe, wash your hands, stay at home, and abide by CDC and local recommendations. We'll keep doing podcasts, especially now since we got a lot more time on our hands.

Jimmy, we got a lot more time, and we're going to looking for some really cool guests that are coming up here shortly and stuff. But first of all, everybody, please be safe. I know we've been making fun of the Coronavirus for some time here.

Forgive Jimmy for doing that.

Yeah, we all were. But I really want everybody to step back, take a breath, just relax. We're all going to get through this.

Let's kick that podcast for real. Welcome to the Aquarium, guys. Podcast with your hosts, Jim colby and Rob olson. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast. Today we have another Outside the Tank special. I forget what we actually labeled these podcasts.

Out of the box.

Out of the box.

Out of the box.

And today we have Katie burgert from Fish Untamed Podcast to join us and tell us about fly fishing and why us as a query. Should get into that hobby as well. So, Katie, how are you doing?

I'm pretty good. How about you guys?

Jimmy'S, looking good.

I'm always looking.

No Coronavirus. He was cleared of it after his cruise.

After my cruise was clear to the Coronavirus, I'm good to go. I'm ready to go on another cruise, right?

Wait, what?

They're on sale right now?

They are on sale.

Cheaper. They've never been cheaper.

No, they've never.

And you know what the code is for the sale price?

Coronavirus.

Corona.

Yeah.

Like, if you try to compare. We have the Las Vegas shooting versus those prices now for cruise ships. Cruise ships beat it out. Yeah.

Cruise ships.

Are they're giving it for free?

Yeah, pretty close. Pretty accurate.

So stay away from cruise ships. But again, I'm your host, Rob olsen.

I'm Jim colby.

And I'm Adam on the shower.

Welcome again. Before we dive into this amazing topic of fishing, and specifically fly fishing, we got to do some clean up. Jimmy?

Yes.

Do we get all the banners or do we need more for the Minnesota Aquarium Expo March 21?

I think we're good for I think we're good for right now, but I think the next one we'll do, we'll have to have some more banners made.

This podcast will air just the week before. See us in two days when you're listening to this.

Yes, that's right.

21St, Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the augsburg University.

Correct.

We have the premier see, when you had Dan rowe on yes, I want to say Mike rowe every time.

No, it's Dan rowe.

Right. When we had Dan rowe on, you gave him crap that we're going to be like positioned by the dumpster. So I think he heard that and he gave us the best booth in the entire facility.

Yeah, we're smack dab in the middle, so that should irritate everybody.

Exactly.

And we're not near the buffet.

There is no buffet.

There is no buffet. We have to cater in Jimmy John's to make them happy at us.

My wife says donald's will deliver anywhere.

Anywhere.

Well, I'm excited now for pizza.

So you had this great idea and we don't know if it's going to happen yet, but you were thinking about a wheel of misfortune.

Wheel of misfortune. We're thinking maybe that we're going to give away a few things, like maybe a dirty net, dirty nets.

Ripped nets with holes.

Maybe a dirty sock, maybe gyms old.

Almost half dead data.

Yeah, it could be. I don't think we'll give away we'll.

Figure out some good prizes, but there'll definitely be some gags in there. But no, come see us at the booth, guys. It'll be a lot of fun. There's going to be a lot of people there and it is a local event. There's not a ton of people flying in for this, so don't worry about that coronavirus quite yet. There's only two cases in Minnesota.

Wait, there's two now?

Yes, there is.

As of the 9th when we're airing this.

Yes. We'll see where we're at here in a couple of weeks. But the other thing too, about the event, there will be no clowns, and I hate clowns, so I'm really happy about that.

I'm bringing a wig and a clown nose now.

Oh, great.

Just for you.

I can't wait.

They call me Warning the clown out.

By either me or Jim.

That's right. Sometimes you get punched in the throat. I know that.

I just can't watch it anymore, thanks to you.

People. I like it. That's fun.

We have a question sent in. It wasn't really a question. I was being notified by josiah in our discord. josiah is one of our fans and discord. If you ever want to join us, it's our fan chat, so you can go to Aquariumgist Podcast.com at the bottom of the website. There's a link. Join up. It's a fantastic place to intermingle with us fish freaks. I had a conversation with josiah and I had to bring this up. Apparently he has monos, these beautiful, normally varied brackish, almost completely saltwater fish.

Seabe monos.

Right. mono.

Sibay.

Okay.

Yeah.

And he's got four plus four to six of them and he's running them acclimated for over two years now to completely fresh. But I always want to see a secret because I can only find a handful of people ever to do this. And it's not that we're recommending taking monos and putting them to fresh, but finding them means that they can be and I want to know the missing element. So I asked him to test his water and it's like 7.47.5 PH.

Nice.

So maybe that's the trick when you're having monos, to try to have a higher PH. If you have a higher PH, give them a try and not intentionally winning them off brackish. But they may do better if that's the case. I was very amazed by that. And thanks for that information again, josiah.

That's really cool.

They're like angels. Plus for you. Absolutely not the website. They're just better angels.

Yeah.

I think they look really similar to a saltwater fish than they do a freshwater fish. And I've had them with no success whatsoever. They've lasted two weeks, three weeks, and then they kind of petered out.

The only way I've ever had them with success is you start them in brackish. And if Robbie ever finds that episode that we did about bracket it is.

The last episode at this point.

It's in my basement.

It's in his basement. That's what we're blaming for.

They do better if you acclimate them to pure salt water. Almost. One would believe what I've always done with them.

That's why I was just so shocked. Like pure fresh water. Like, what is your water quality? I need to know everything this week. I have a small rent to make and I'm not going to put the gentleman's name in here because it's unfair.

Is it me?

No.

I wish.

Remember when I pranked you and put that glass dildo on your tank? That wasn't very nice and I felt bad because you guys blame me for a discus dying and your wife wants to have my head, right?

Yeah, she wants more than that. She wants part of your bottom part, too.

Well, good to know. Good to know. So in a real friendship, not only do you pick on someone, but you also build them up in the random gifts genre of things. I decided to start looking for not only replacement discus, but maybe a few high end premium angels if they so arise. I was on a site and found a gentleman that was looking to get out of it. He bred a bunch of angels and sold them for a long time. And he's looking to get out of it. He's moving and realized that it wasn't really worth his while and wanted to ship out his fish to someone that would take them. I said absolutely I'll take them. And he had amazing platinum angels. He had these blue angels that had platinum reflectiveness to them and also pearl scale top end angels. Like nice full adults, pears, the whole deal.

Can I see them?

They're in my dumpster right now. And that's the moral of this conversation is I just want to make a small rant about shipping. When this happened, we split shipping. He wanted him to go to a good home. I was going to give him to Jimmy. So it's not quite a good home, but good enough. Wow.

Thank you.

Love you. And when they came in, I don't know if instructions weren't listened to or anything else or he just didn't get it. But he shipped fish all over for a while now, so he at least understood. So I told him he had to have foam. He said, oh no, I got foam. Like it's got to be nice and thick. You're sending this to Minnesota? No, I got you. I got foam. Okay, foam it is. You also got to have at least two heat packs, if not more. You have to get in there, have it nice and high. Okay, let's just start with how the box came in. The box was so big, it was like one third of the space fit all the fish he was sending me. And the list was a bunch of angels, discus, guppies and the shell dwelling cichlids. Right. That's the list.

Shell dwelling cichlids.

Right. It was skilled. It was real skilled. So when I got the box in again, the box was so big, one third of the box fit all the fish. So the fish were loose, thrown in this box to be jarred around and thrown from fedex or Ups or whatever the shipping was. Number one, they're getting knocked out and tossed like a salad. Number two, the foam was maybe a 16th of an inch, 8th of an inch thick. It was like a wall liner. It was kind of foam but it was real, real thin, real flexible. Right. And didn't really fit tight. There was a lot of that in there. The heat packs were just thrown in there. They weren't taped up to the top. So if anything in there got wet, they immediately conked out. And that's exactly what happened. You have rubber banded bags tossed in a big box with fish thrown around. There's going to be drips. And immediately all the heat packs turned off. It gets wet at all. The heat pack shut off. So we have cold fish with no insulation, and then we have them tossed around in an open big box. And then inside the bags, which were triple bagged, I was at least impressed with the bagging. The shell dwelling cichlids he sent the shells with. And he told me this, like, oh, I'll just send the shells with it. Well, thank you. that'll work. Then I have a place to use these shells with the shell dwelling cichlids. He put the cichlids with the shells in the same bag.

So he basically made a rock tumbler.

He made a rock tumbler. And these things came in pieces. They were literally cut and smashed apart by the time they got to my house. And the shells weren't rinsed. I told him not to rinse them because if he's going to sell in the shells, because he can just put dirty shells in a bag, that's not a big deal. I can clean them. But when you put dirty things with a fish, what normally would be a normal amount of ammonia spikes in a bag and could kill them in the.

First hour, because Lord knows what's in a shell.

So I just hope that those fish were killed by ammonia first before they were beaten to pulp. So it was an absolute fiasco. Out of the entire box, the bag of guppies, four of them lived. And the handlers no, no such no, no. These were Black Moscow guppies, so they were real nice.

Oh, okay.

And a snail lived. So I paid half the shipping to get four guppies, and a snail felt real good.

Did you not explain to this guy how to ship?

I went in detail. You need heat bags. You need to put it on there. You need foam. You need thick foam. And he's like, no, I got it, and cut me off. I'm like, all right, you know, what your experience? You got this.

No, obviously he's not that experience.

And then after I get it, it's been like a half a week, and he refuses to message me or talk to me. So it's real weird. Like, if I would have paid for the fish, I would have totally liked, this is a scam. But he paid half the shipping. I paid half the shipping and I didn't pay for the fish. It's just one of those deals where you live and you learn and then you get better foam coolers.

Better foam coolers. As soon as you get heat pack sweat, they're done. And so with a heat pack, you need to tape it to the top of the box. You need to tape it well, you need to tape it hard. And the thing is, when a heat pack doesn't get oxygen, it doesn't work, period. So if a lot of the people that I get from they'll actually put a cheap paper plate and fold it in half and put the heat pack inside of that and then run like four or five staples around the edge and then tape it to the top. And that works really, really well.

And it wasn't even like it was peak of winter when it came here. It was 40 was it 45 degrees when the fish showed up?

And how many days did it take to get here?

They did overnight shipping.

Really?

Right. So the heat packs must have been dead immediately and it must have sat in a truck overnight.

And just so you know, if you go to and buy heat packs at lowells or like a place like Walmart, they're good for 6 hours, people. You have to get professional heat packs that last from 24 to 48 hours. 48 hours heat packs are the best. You usually can get them from any ship supplier.

Buy a foam cooler. And if you are going to pack fish into it, always pack tight. Meaning that if you have extra airspace in the box, fill it with garbage. Grab newspaper, grab anything soft that won't affect the heat distribution and puncture a bag. Fill that up tight so those bags stay jarred in the box.

What I like to do is just fill up plastic bags full of air and put in there and they act as a nice little cushion.

And then when he gets his fish in, he puts them under a shirt and tries to dance. Like what was it? The rockets?

What are you talking about? Your nut job.

I don't even understand.

I don't know. Sometimes Robbie just goes off in the deep end.

Yeah.

People, this is a fine example why some animals eat their young right here.

Robbie, are you saying that I'm fat and delicious?

No, I'm not saying you're delicious at all. Not even a little bit.

Damn.

Yeah. And maybe you should probably when you're running the microwave, close the dang door because I think the little nuclear particles are getting to your brain.

It's happening, man.

Holy cow.

So I think that's what I got. Anybody else got any news?

I got nothing.

Nothing? Okay. I don't need to let you guys know that I'm concerned about jimmy's health. Every time we have the podcast, we do mic checks. And the obvious mic check is, what do you have for breakfast? And every time I hear them, it's like gummy bears and vodka. It's just worse every time. You look good for whatever your diet is. We need to mirror it.

Yeah, it's good. Don't worry about me.

I'm just concerned.

No, I'm good.

Thanks again for joining the podcast and listening in. If you like what you hear, certainly go on our website, aquariumgyspodcast.com. Join the fun. There's a discord link at the bottom. And there's also a way to support us. Number one, support our sponsors. They support the podcast to keep this thing going. Or if you want to support us directly instead of patreon, we have our own link, which doesn't take the big percentage out. It's right at the bottom of the website we call our tip jar. You can either donate this to us one time or have a monthly subscription to get vast content. And Jimmy has been thinking of ways that we can have a premier program sending you gifts out every now and again if you're a monthly subscriber.

The thing I'm working on right now is I'm having betty White deliver chocolates to your house, but it's not going so good so far. I got the chocolates. I don't have betty White.

I'm sad because as a diabetic, I would lose toes for betty White.

Yeah, I know you would.

All right, well, let's get down to our topic. Katie, I apologize. You've been quiet, and there's a lot going on there for us. Lovely having you on and can't wait to dive into the topic. How are you for this last 15 minutes?

Okay. I learned a lot about shipping fish.

I know, right?

If I ever need to, I'll know what to do.

Don't worry. I think on the list we got to ask you how you ship filled fish, I think is the next thing.

Well, I haven't shipped fillete fish, but I'm sure I can give it a whirl.

Excellent. Tell us a little bit more about yourself. Now you have this fish untamed podcast. What inspired that?

Honestly, it was just the fact that I've got a job where I can listen to podcasts for the entire length of my work day. So it's kind of become just an ingrained part of my life to be listening to podcasts. And I listened to enough that I was like, I feel like I'm qualified to do one of these myself. So I just wong it, I guess, if you will. Just picked a topic I liked and started one. See what happens. And so far it's been pretty fun.

So what do you do for a.

Living outside of fly fishing?

I'm a cad drafter.

I need to talk to you after this. I'm actually 3d printing a bunch of aquarium parts.

Oh, nice.

We'll swap info after the podcast. What the heck does she do? So you have to explain CAD drafting the gym.

I'm an old man. Tell me what you do.

We just design so my company contracts out to comcast, so we kind of design where fiber is going to be laid down in cities. And so I'm kind of working on CAD but as like, a mapping service to map the fiber routes.

So the other half I was picking on is they use the same CAD software to design objects either, like, manufacturing for CAD so you can make your own filter or whatever part you're looking for.

How will this help me get free cable? I'm just wondering.

Well, I got to figure out how to get it myself first, and then I can pass on the info.

All right, that would be greatly appreciated.

Everything in time. So, Katie, how much is the fine.

If they cut the fiber optic line?

Did you do that this weekend, Adam?

No, I'm just wondering. I got this one if Katie doesn't know.

Well, yeah, I guess. I don't work for comcast. We contract out to draw the map, so I have no input on the actual workings of comcast.

So random, tangent. It's variable. Of course. I used to work for an Internet service rider for about six years, and it's a flat fee to roll a truck. And we're talking like, insurance costs like, thousands of dollars, normally, like five digits deep. And then every minute that is disconnected, there are contractual fines across the board depending on what it's cut. If it's a main line or if it's just a small city, it can be anywhere from thousands a minute to hundreds a minute.

How do we find Delta airline for keeping me waiting?

Delta wouldn't have anything to do with it.

That is weird that they could actually get away with that. I mean, doing that much stuff.

It's amazing. When you have hospital 911 services on a line that matters, it's more important and sometimes in electricity.

I guess you got a point, right?

Let's get back on the point. That was a good tangent, though. Katie, again, you told us before you're 27 years old. When was your headfirst dive into specifically fly fishing?

In the fly fishing, I was 18, so that was the first time I actually picked up a fly rod. I kind of stumbled into it by accident. So my sister is a teacher out here in Colorado, and I, at the time lived back in Pennsylvania, where I was born, and she worked with a guy at her school who a lot of the teachers have summer jobs and things to make some extra money. And she knew a guy who worked at a fly shop over the summer, and he was asking her if she knew anyone who enjoyed fishing because they were looking for just some summer help around the shop. So she reached out to me and asked if I was interested. And I grew up just spin fishing for bass and stuff back home. So I just kind of came out to Colorado on a whim one summer between college semesters to kind of help out in the shop. And I guess that's the rest is history. After that, I just kind of stuck with it and kept coming out. And once I graduated, I just didn't go back home.

So is it just tours or tell us details of the shop for people that aren't part of the hobby?

Yeah, so fly shops are kind of like the backbone of the fly fishing industry, if you will. They sell flies and all the equipment you use when you fly fish, and most of them also guide, so they'll take people out, usually on day trips or half day trips, and either teach them how to fly fish or if they're experienced, they'll just pay to have someone knowledgeable about the area, take them out. And since I had no real experience fly fishing, when I came out, most of my first year was spent just working behind the counter. I learned what I need to learn and then answer people's questions when they come in, help them choose gear, things like that. But I'd go along, as they called it, a junior guide. Go along on trips, kind of do the grunt work, help people take knots out of their line and things like that. And then after a couple of years of doing that, you kind of rise in the ranks and start taking trips out of your own. So after a couple of years, then I would be taking trips on myself out or leading trips with other junior guides who were just starting out where I was.

Do you still do guide work today?

Not really. I'm still connected with them, and occasionally over the summer, I'll take a trip out if they need an extra set of hands around there. But it's more of just they'll call me when they need me kind of thing. I'm still friends with them all, so we still keep in touch. I don't have as much time as I did back then to do a lot of extra work.

That got you into the hobby, but you said you fished before. That just standard rod and reel fishing. I don't know. What do you call vanilla fishing?

Well, in this case, it was spin fishing. So there's bait casting and spin fishing and ice fishing and all the different types, but I was just standard spin fishing, which is what I assume most people think of when they think of fishing. Just like a lure on the end of a line and a real open face reel that you cast out. But, yeah, that's where I got my start. I know I mentioned I had a sister sister, but both of my sisters are a lot older than I am, so they had actually already moved out of the house when I was growing up, so I grew up as an only child. Fishing was kind of my way of being able to entertain myself as a kid because I didn't have any brothers or sisters to play with. So that was a way that my dad would just send me out with a rod and say, See you later, and it was my job to find something to entertain myself in between then and the evening.

When they sent you out, do you guys live on a lake or live close by? I'm assuming some body of water.

We lived about 15 minutes from our cottage, which was on a river in western Pennsylvania. So every day during the summer, we'd go out to the cottage and my dad and my uncles would hang out and do work around the place, chop wood, things like that, drink beer and tell us to get out of their hair.

They drink beer, didn't they?

A little bit, yeah.

Well, fantastic. You got in early. Let's go to fundamentals of Fly Fishing because again, this whole podcast is to introduce people from the aquarium hobby to encourage them to get out and find the actual specimens out in nature. And what better way than trying a different method of fishing? We've had hoot, the bait guy. He did a full on wholesale bait business and taught us all details about that. We've had the Minnesota dnr on the podcast, so we have this whole out of the Tank series and I think it's just important to expose aquaris to that. If you could explain someone how the logistics of fly fishing works and how is it different from other fishing.

I think a lot of people are familiar with what fly fishing looks like. I assume most people have seen A River Runs Through It and a lot of people have probably bought gear after seeing that movie, only to not use it again after that. But the gist of it is that if you take like a regular, let's say just a regular fishing rod that most people are probably familiar with, you've got your rod, a thin piece of clear line and a lure or like a weighted piece of bait or something on the end. And then when you bring that rod forward on a cast, the weight of that lure or the bait or whatever you have on the end of that rod is going to pull the line out. And that's kind of how you get your cast out there. You can fly fish for any species you can fish for, but a lot of people associate it with trout and that's because a lot of what trout eat are very small insects. And so the flies are essentially hooks decorated with feathers and thread and things like that to imitate those small insects. But if you were to put one of those on a standard fishing rod, it wouldn't have enough weight to pull the line out when you cast it forward. It would go nowhere. Anyone who's tried casting a spin rod with something underweighted will kind of know that feeling of casting forward and nothing happens. So instead of using the weight of whatever you're casting out, such as a lure or bait or anything like that, in fly fishing, you use the weight of the line. So if you've seen someone casting a fly rod back and forth and they have that thick kind of rubbery line flying around, it's called a fly line, but it's weighted. And so if you think about throwing a lasso and you're kind of using the weight of the lasso to on the last throw, toss it out and get some momentum, that's what the fly line. Is doing. So as you wave it back and forth, the weight of that line is pulling more and more out until on your final cast you lay it down and the weight of that line actually pulls the fly out with it. And that's how you get your cast. Really the whole point of fly fishing is just to be able to cast things that are too small and light to throw. On a regular spin rod, I've always.

Lined it up with whips. If you have a long rope like whip, there's no weight at the end. It's completely held by its own string. Except with a rod you can just give it more slack.

Yeah, that's a great way to think about it.

So at the end of these, you didn't call them lures, the actual fly hook at the end describe some of those options to us because I think there's so many variable points but just at least the introductory sure there's a.

Ton of different flies out there and some people really nerd out about the flies. I mean, there are people who tie flies who don't even fish, they just really enjoy the act of tying because it's kind of like adult arts and crafts, I guess, just being able to tie them. But there's so many categories out there. But I'd say the three main categories of flies are dry flies, wet flies and streamers. And I guess technically you could call a streamer a wet fly since it sinks, but for this purpose we'll say dry, wets and streamers. These things are mostly imitating, like I said, small insects, but they can imitate anything from bait fish to insects to crustaceans worms. Really anything that is food for fish can be imitated with a fly. The dries, wets and streamers are so named because dry flies float, so they'll be imitating things that are on the surface, usually adult insects. If you've ever seen like a mayfly hatch or anything like that, you'll see lots of bugs flying up, landing back out on the water and floating down. So that would be a dry fly because they stay on the surface. A wet fly is just the same thing, but it goes underwater. They usually have some sort of weight on them, like a bead at the front to weigh them down so they sink. They don't all have that. That's one common type of nymph is another word for the wet fly.

Got you. And when you say sink, it doesn't go down a long ways, does it?

Not usually. I mean, they have heavier ones that are designed to get down very quickly, but it's not like if you were to throw a lure that had a big lead weight on it, it's just going to drop straight to the bottom. That's not the goal, it's not to drop it straight to the bottom.

Got you.

And then the last type is the streamers, which is probably the closest to like what people would associate with a regular lure. Like if you had a little lure that looked like a fish, the streamers are usually imitating things like that. So leeches or small bait fish or things like that, those are usually much larger. They sink a little bit faster and you might be actively pulling those through the water the same way you'd reel in.

Allure I see some of those compared to like a common rap a lot except they have feathers and a lot lighter.

Yeah, that's a good comparison. And you fish them kind of the same way too. Whereas many of these flies you'll cast out and kind of let them drift with the current trying to imitate like an insect that's drowned and is not moving anymore. Most of the streamers you're casting out and you're bringing them back in toward you to imitate like a moving fish. So just the same way you'd cast out a lure and reel it back in.

I think one of the most interesting things on this is like you said, the imitation of a bug. I've seen some of these flies being purchased to imitate for archer fish. One of jimmy's favorite fish. And what they'll do for archer fish is again, there's like a three banded fish in the water. They'll have the water level in the tank like 50%. So they have a lot of open space above in the tank and you put crickets on branches and whatnot. And the archer fish will shoot a stream of water dead on accurate every time they hit the bug to drop in the water. So they eat the bug.

I think I see documentaries about that.

Oh, they're beautiful entertaining fish. And what they do is they take these flies that you purchase from a fly store and they'll just dangle them around the tank. So they're shooting these flies all the time so you can interact with your fishing. So if it's effective even for the archer fish, you know that this is definitely imitating the bug on the water surface perfectly. Yeah.

I wonder if they've tested at what point does it not look real enough that the fish doesn't care about it anymore?

Or how many times does he spit at it if it doesn't come down? He just goes, I'm going over to tunnels.

Well, you got to think of it like a cat toy, right? You're dangling the toy in front of the cat. If you just leave it there, the cat's going to ignore it. But if you bring it in kind of like as a play toy, every now own again they'll still hit it. So some of the creations on these, like you go to a bait shop that I'm normally used to, I gave the example of a rappler. That's a brand of lure that you use for a lot of trolling or hard wheeling where it goes a lot deeper. You're seeing all these premade lures. Well, fly fishing, it seems to me like it's older and people hand make these all the time. You get kids to make flies, it seems to be a lot different. Do you make a lot of your own flies?

I would say I make a lot. I make a handful of select patterns that I've decided are worth my time. I think that someday when I have a little bit more time to myself, I probably will. But for the time being, I think it saves my time and hassle to just go buy them for the most part. I'll do a couple of patterns that are pretty easy and quick.

So what are some of the materials you use in fly creation?

I'm definitely not the expert on this, so I'll probably sound pretty dumb if I start trying to list beginner level, but beginner level, I can tell you the main categories of things you're using. You're using different threads. You're using lots of different wires of different weights. So some wires are very thin and they're just kind of there to put ribs on the body of the insects to give it kind of a segmented look. And then you have other wire that might be a heavily weighted or very thick wire that's used mostly to wrap around the hook to give it some weight, using beads, feathers, fur, all kinds of different parts of all these animals too. So that's where it starts to lose me, is I don't know a lot of the very specific types of feathers and furs that they pull off, but those are like the main categories. And there's also synthetic. So people will use little rubber pieces of rubber to make little insect legs. And synthetic, like they call it dubbing, which is just kind of like a synthetic type of fur or fuzz. So it's just a lot of things like that. Basically, if you can tie it on a hook with thread, it could be used to make a fly.

So a lot of the ones that I've seen and again, I'm going this off of like one or two times that I've ever attempted fly fishing, and my fly fishing story is taking off like half a dead tree next to me. And when I say half a dead tree, like Timber Giant Wave almost got killed. So that was my sad experience. But I saw a lot of these flies with corks. Is that still relevant? And being used with cork? Yeah, like cork, like a popper, like a wine cork.

There are some popper flies, like especially bass flies, they're made with I don't know if it's actually cork, but some sort of like buoyant light material. I assume it could be used with cork, but basically to recreate a popper. And those ones are almost on the verge of not really being flies. That's kind of a contagious issue. I don't really care. I don't differentiate. And I think most people who really put a lot of thought into whether something counts as a fly are being a little too uppity for their own good. But my thought is, if it's light enough to cast on a fly rod, it can be considered a fly. But a lot of those poppers, if you were to think of just like a plastic popper that you might use with a spin rod, there are ones that are basically identical but are just made of a lighter material, which is usually something like you said, kind of like cork. They've just carved to look like a frog or something like that with a little popper mouth.

And for the listeners that, again, have never fished, these popper lures that we're talking about are to imitate something that's injured on top of the surface. So I do a lot of the bait casting, the spin casting. You're just describing fishing. And it's just been fishing where I'm at across the board. It's fishing, ice fishing or spearing. That's how it is in Minnesota. I've done a bunch of popper fishing, and the idea is you take one of the most common, the oldest lure that I saw there is called a hula popper, and it's to imitate an injured frog. So it doesn't look like a frog from how you're looking at it, but from the fish below. It's got a white belly. It makes a blue as it springs through the water, and you literally cast it out. It stays in the top, and you just jerk it slightly every now and again to mimic the frog trying to jump in the water. Fish hear that and bass, electric large mouth bass will leap two 3ft out of the water trying to hit these things. It's one of the most enjoyable things. So having a nice lighter version to hit fish on fly, I'm assuming, is just as fun, if not more fun.

Yeah, and honestly, I think some of those poppers that are designed as flies would probably be heavy enough to be cast on certain spin rods as well. Like I said, there's kind of a gray area where it can be questionable whether something actually counts as a fly versus more of a lure. I think the difference is, like, I've used those hula poppers, too, and they're made of plastic and usually have some rubber off the back. And usually the flies I see are made of some sort of cork or balsa and have feathers off the back. But it's essentially the same thing. And honestly, if you got a big enough one, I bet you can cast it on the spin route as well.

So, Katie, where have you all fished in your fishing career? I know I see a lot of guests on your podcast that have fished certainly everywhere. But what is your range that you've been on fishing trips?

Let's see. Well, I mostly like I said, I grew up in Pennsylvania, and until I left for college, that was pretty much the only place I did fish, I think. I never really got sick of my home water, and I still go back to fish it every year. But out here, all over Colorado, I don't really just distinguish between lakes or rivers. Like, I'll fish in town five minutes from home and, like, a blue gill pond. Or I'll go up in the mountains and hiking for a couple of days.

You see water, you get chills, you have to fish it.

Yeah, essentially, unless I see trash floating by, that kind of turns me off. But if it looks nice and there's a good view behind it, then I'll fish it. But I've hit wyoming. I've done montana. California. Let's see. New Mexico. If I can get to it in a car, I've probably done it in a weekend. But there's just so much to see around here, too, that as much as I want to get out and about, I never get sick of what I'm fishing here.

What are some of the species that you commonly try to go after? And what are the some of the other species that you catch up by accident?

It's weird because where I grew up was a river that was kind of it had everything in it. Like, you could go out, and the majority of it was small mouth bass fishing. And if anyone's fish for them before, they might understand why. That's my I would say that's probably my favorite fish. They're just so fun. They're super strong, super aggressive. But in that river, it was kind of a toss up. Like, you'd mostly catch bass, but I've probably caught, I don't know, maybe eight to ten different species out of that river while targeting bass. There's just a lot of bycatch of walleye, large mouth bass, pike. I caught a musky out of there once fishing for bass just by accident. That's kind of a different situation than what I have out here, which is in the mountains and these small streams. It's pretty much exclusively trout, and there's lots of different species of trout, but you don't usually go out and get surprised by something completely random, really. The only thing I catch out here that might be considered accidental is a mountain white fish. But I actually prefer mountain white fish to trout fishing. I think they fight a little better, so it's always like, a pleasant surprise if I hook one of those instead of a trout.

Now, do you eat the fish, or you're just a complete game fisher?

I wouldn't say half and half, but I do keep fish occasionally. It depends where I'm fishing. If I'm close to home, like I said, we're down in the Denver area. I don't really keep anything from anywhere within 30 minutes of where I live, just because it's so developed. And I'm not really sure about the water quality. But up in the mountains, I'll keep fish occasionally, especially if we're camping and have a fire, something to cook the trout over, then we'll keep a handful. We go out and just the ones that are medium sized.

What's the different intricacies of fishing on a lake or pond versus a river? I'm assuming the river is the one that you go to because, again, fly fishing in my mind is synonymous with trout, and trout are on rivers. But that being said, if we have a beginner, I'm assuming lakes are going to be easier. Is that correct?

I would say yes. So there's a whole bunch of different things to take into account with that. So, first of all, trout also do live in lakes, so a lot of people associate fly fishing with rivers, and I think think I blame that a lot on things like a river run through it where people have seen it, and that's the image they have in their mind. And so a lot of people, the first time they go out, really want that experience. They want to be Brad pitt doing the giant cast in the middle of a river. But you're right that it is, I think, much easier to start on a lake because while there are different techniques for both, it's essentially the same thing, except for the lake. You're not worrying about the moving water and trying to figure out where a fish is going to be in that moving water and how to deal with it. I think for first timers, the yard is probably the best place to learn to cast because you're not worrying about the fish, you're just focusing on your cast. But let's say you do want to start on the water, or you have tried a couple of times in your yard and you're ready to go actually fishing, I think a lake is the best place to go. And I think going to a blue gill pond is probably your best bet because you can fly fish for bluegill and they eat anything. I'm sure you've had that experience before.

So my experiences is especially with blue gill, I grew up really poor, like eating on a coolup bowls, food shelf, cereal poor. And growing up, there are some times where I never felt like I grew up poor. I felt like I grew up wonderful. I grew up on a lake. Who. What privileged kid wouldn't want that? But there's summers where my mom's like, go catch fish and then go get field corn from next door that will boil with sugar water, and that'll be our meals for the next two days. So I go out, I make myself a pop can fishing rod. I don't know if anyone if you've ever seen one of these.

This is just getting sadder as we go.

You got that violin for me?

No, I'm going to get a tissue.

Here, we should all right.

The tissue. So how you make a pop can fishing rod? If you're in rob's redneck ghetto is you take your can, you take that pull tab, how you open up a normal pop can, and you just put it out directly straight up from the can. You tie your fishing line onto that little pull tab, and then you begin to wrap the line around the center of the can that is acting as your reel. So you fill it up a good I mean, you don't have to have a ton of line on there, but at least enough feet for, I'd say, three times what you would cast normally on a pole. Then you put your hook and bobber onto it. You take your can while holding the can and just toss it. And it works well because it just releases off the slighty can. The line just pops right off, and it works at beautiful cast. So that's how it would catch fish, is just a common, cheap hook, bobber fishing line on a pop can. And I would use corn from the field next door, the field corn, and just pop off a kernel and put it on the hook. I would catch the biggest, most active blue gills on just corn or bread pieces or whatever I had around. But corn was, like, the most active because we were right next to, like, a farmer's field, and I could steal cobs as much as I wanted.

That was the saddest story I've ever heard.

It was some of the fun growing up.

Holy I just picture Rob out there with a paper clip and a shoelace and a stick.

No, shoelaces were too valuable to get rid of. You use shoelaces to, you know, let me make up your fish together. When you catch them, it's like it's your stringer.

Let me make a point here. Rob doesn't even use shoelaces. Everything he has is velcro.

He don't know he don't even know.

How to run shoelaces.

If they had light up shoes for adults, you know, when you walk and they they light up, I would wear them, but they don't have them from my side.

Did you not come over to my house about two years ago with light up shoes?

No, no. Those were like led. They had a battery in the back, and I would turn them on. They wouldn't, like, stomp and light up. Like, the cool thing. Also, don't get those shoes because they put the battery in the heel, and it's a lithium battery. And mine started on fire, so don't get those shoes. Public service announcement. They're way worse than one of those little, like, two wheeled scooter things.

We should put some really sad music right here from, like, Old yeller or something. rob's Port.

All right. You heard that producer. Put it right here.

The music. The sad, sad music.

Sad, sad music. Lord. Yeah. If you want to try fishing out for the first time and you say you don't have money, I'm calling bs. Get your favorite beer can and give it a try.

Speaking of money, what is kind of a starter fly fisher rod going to cost?

You hear that, Katie? We just got Jimmy into it. He's looking to invest.

He's thinking about it. I mean, obviously you can spend as much money as you want, but I feel like if you want to get kind of the essentials that you need to go out. So if you want to go into the store and come out and walk straight over to the pond and start fishing, you can be in and out for around $150 with everything you need. That's not including things like waiters and stuff, which is necessary if you're fishing really cold water. But a lot of people just put them on because that's what they're supposed to do.

It looks cool, right?

But I mean, I'm not going to wear waiters on an 80 degree degree summer day.

So $150 of that will get you a pole.

A lot of fly rod companies sell they usually call them either combos or outfits. But instead of having to buy, like, you can't you can buy the rod and the real and everything and put it all together. But a lot of companies to kind of cater to that beginner crowd who doesn't really know what they want yet, they'll sell these outfits, which is essentially a rod case that comes with a rod reel line all strung up together. And in this rod case, so you come out with the whole package set up, you pull it out, and you can literally tie a fly on and start fishing right away.

And what's the price of I mean, I've seen some of these flies go for a lot of money.

Just the flies or the fly rods noise.

What's the most money you've ever spent on a flight?

The most I've probably spent is like maybe $10. I'd say they average around two dollars to three dollars, depending on the fly. But it does depend on the fly. The more simple ones might be like a dollar, $99. I'd say the average is probably like $250. And then some of the more complicated ones, like bass flies or salt water flies or pike flies, those ones are the ones you'll start to spend like double digits on.

So what's the most expensive fly you've ever seen? Now I need to know.

Ever seen? I don't know. Probably not more than $12 or so, but I'm not even looking at those when I go into the shop, so I probably just tune those out when I'm in there. I'm sure there's more expensive ones in there, but I'm not usually buying those ones.

Say, Katie, have you ever read the book The Feather thief?

I have, yes.

Isn't that a good book?

I really enjoyed that. It wasn't even really about fishing at all, and it was mostly about the feather trade. But I did really enjoy it yeah.

I was surprised, and I didn't realize that people were that crazy, but then I realized that they're British.

You need to share with the class.

I was going to say, look, about we're talking crazy. I need to know crazy.

Okay, so The Feather thief is a book about a guy who broke into the trend museum, I think, or trend museum and stole a bunch of skins from Birds of paradise from like, 100 and 5200 years ago, like type specimen birds. And in Britain, they like to collect things like eggs, orchids, butterflies. It's part of their colonial thing. But anyways, I'm probably not allowed in Britain now.

No, you're banished.

I might be from another this guy stole all these skins and he stole what was it, like a million dollars worth or a couple of million dollars worth of skins?

I think we should also put a spoiler alert to the beginning of this, by the way.

Well, no, they talk about it in the book.

That's the idea. You're spoiling the book.

No, they talk about it, like, on the COVID of the book.

It's a true story, and it's like the story of this heist.

So this actually happened. I thought you two were just smoking crack. I'm sorry.

No, I'm going to pay attention.

In Britain, there's certain flies of the fly tires. They don't even fish, they just tie flies. Am I right?

Yeah.

So that's actually probably a good thing to mention real quick before we finish this story, is that when you're asking about the most expensive fly that I've seen, this is like actual practical flies in a fly shop that you're going to buy and use for fish. There's a completely separate world for there are these fancy salmon flies that it's an art form where they get all these rare feathers from birds all over the world. And there's like, recipes for these flies where you have to get one feather from this bird and one feather from this bird, and they tie these flies that are like actual works of art that are never meant to be fish. And those ones, the ingredients in those would cost several thousand dollars.

I think you're talking witchcraft now.

Well, that would make sense why we're.

Seeing a completely different world.

Yeah.

I have a new tongue of something. I don't know.

Yeah, but it was just really cool to read it because one of these feathers would sell for, like, $100 a piece. And then in order to do the recipes, you had to use certain parts or certain feathers from the bird. So you had to go from either near the throat or the wing or the tail, and you had to use, like, one feather of this, one feather of that, one feather of this. And the guy just sold the feathers off on ebay. And I don't want to spoil it, but if you guys want to read a really interesting book, it was really interesting because I didn't realize that guy is right up there with egg collectors.

So is this like a black market of sorts or not?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, because everything's sightings. All these birds are like birds of paradise from like papua New Guinea and New Zealand and Australia and stuff. And it's all black market stuff.

I was going to say. Can you also tell what the sites is for some of our listeners? We've mentioned it quite a few times in the show, though sighties is basically.

They'Re in charge of the trade of rare and endangered animals. It's a scientific community and it's a good thing for people to do and look at because then you can see what's available. They just put token geckos on sites, which I don't know what the hell they did that for, but it also controls like, the trade. So they'll basically say and every country has their own sites permit where they're allowed. They say what you can and cannot catch. So, like Brazil, when they put remember when zebra plea goes on the blacklist jim?

Yes.

Yeah, that was sidis. Brazil just told sidi, we're not shipping anymore. We're done. So they go on the sites list where you can't get them anymore and sites will actually have permits. So, like say Brazil wanted to release like 100 zebra plecos. That's all that they allow in the trade. So if any more than 100 come out, they know that those are illegal and they track the crap out of stuff. But they are in charge of all plants and all wildlife. So they're in control of elephant tusks, rhino horns. They basically go for every rare and endangered animal in that country. Fish, bird, everything. And they say what you can and cannot have. And if you find it, it's illegal.

So they regulate it.

Yeah, they're like international regulators and they kind of have like, international jurisdiction. Everybody wants to kind of get on their good side for stuff.

So in this book, when this happened, what year are we talking about? Was it something 800?

Yeah, really recently. Like early two thousand s, I think.

Wow.

Yeah.

That sounds great book to read. You can get it from your local library if you can or buy it. But it's a really interesting book because it talks about the feather trade. And they didn't even think it was that big of a deal. The place where these skins were kept didn't even have antitheft devices. The guys literally just busted a window, walked in and walked out.

Sort of like the big heist in Grand rapids, Minnesota, when they stole dorothy's slippers from The wizard of oz. Didn't that found it did in Minnesota. Yeah, minneapolis. For those who are listening, adam is from Grand rapids, Minnesota, which is a home birthplace of judy garland. And they had brought in the ruby red slippers, one of I think there's seven pairs ruby red slippers from the. Wizard of oz, and they put it on display in this small museum in Grand rapids. And in the middle of the night, somebody had knocked out a window, walked in and grabbed these priceless ruby red slippers and disappeared. And it took, what, eight, nine years before it was found.

You mean before you dropped it off at the airport?

Yeah, when I was done wearing them late at night, up and down the runway.

There's no place left at home. There's no place like home.

No, I was wearing them, and I kept going up and down my hallway, and I was going that I'm too sexy for these shoes. Too sexy?

I thought it was more like I'm a pretty girl, but okay.

Yeah, definitely. We went off of big tangent.

Another one.

Man well, at least now it's fascinating to know why. I was watching a documentary about these birds that were extinct across North America and other countries, and they kept all these in a just super secured museum outfit, and I just couldn't understand why. I'm like, it's just a bunch of dead birds. I realize I need to be locked up, but that that much security. Well, if they're going for, like a couple of thousand a feather, I understand why now. Yeah.

And a lot of these I mean, when these fly patterns were designed, these birds weren't all illegal. And that's kind of what the problem is. That these books and forums and things where people are talking about these classic patterns. It's like the patterns were developed when all these feathers were available, and then they disappeared. People weren't allowed to buy them anymore. Instead of changing the patterns, I mean, some people have changed their patterns and found replacements. It doesn't have to be this particular bird. They'll just replace it with something that looks the same. But there's those people who don't feel like it's correct unless they've got the right pattern. And that's why these feathers are still in really high demand, because people don't want to find an alternative to make these fly patterns. They want to follow the original recipe.

If I want to start making some flies, where does one buy feathers? Feathers are us or what?

They sell them at the local fly shop. So fly shops will sell the gear, the flies, and fly tying materials.

But it's only good if you slaughter your own chickens, right, Jimmy?

No, we're not slaughtering chickens.

The stuff you'll find there are, like, normal feathers. They're not endangered birds. In foreign countries, you'll find things like roosters and peasants and things like that.

Up here in northern Minnesota, we have a bunch, and when I mean a bunch, we have bald eagles everywhere. And it is illegal. If you would pick up a bald eagle feather from the ground, it is illegal in Minnesota. I don't know, maybe it's national.

I think that might be national.

Yeah.

It's a federal law. You can't even pick up one off the ground. And I know in our local zoo down Wapdon, North Dakota, when I belong to zoo association down there, that it was quite like the thing that when eagles would molt and there'd be feathers down there and people would try to come and grab them. And the zoo association was always quite adamant about trying to grab them and put them in storage, and I don't know what ever happened to them, but they wanted to make sure that nobody was breaking the law. The only way you could have an eagle in a zoo is if it's hurt or got a bad wing or something and can't be put released back out into the wild. So it's kind of interesting. A lot of these feathers have got some major federal laws behind them.

Well, see, eagle feathers are protected by the migratory Bird Act or the Birds of Prey Act hawks. And if you want to be a falconer, you have to get all these federal licenses. And the only way you can have eagle feathers, like bald eagle feathers or any of them, is if you're native and you have a special piece of paper. So you can have them, but you have to be native American, and you have to go through some stuff, and you have to literally carry that piece of paper with you everywhere when you have that feather. But, yeah, they're like federally protected. And that's right up there where you want SWAT on your ass that'll get you SWAT on your ass. If you walk around with bald eagle feather and you don't have paperwork, this.

Is what you get for hanging out with a bunch of fish. nerds. We know a lot of, like, useless information, zoological bogus info for the listeners. You can make your flies purchase flies we've talked about casting. Go to a blue gill pond or lake to try to do it. The first, make sure you're out of the way of trees, otherwise you'll have one third of a tree falling on you. Like, did me practice at home? What are some other recommendations you have for beginners getting started?

Yeah, so my top two, you want to start on your own tips. And this is assuming that you don't have someone to show you how? Because there's obviously no substitute for if you have a friend who knows how to do it, having someone show you in person. The other way to do that is to hire a guide, but that is a little limiting in price if people don't want to spend a couple of $100 on a guide for a day. So assuming that you just have the gear you need and you just want to learn to do it on your own, the first two steps I would take first is look up terminology for fly fishing. Because if you open up, like a video or read an article or something like that, it's not necessarily the same set of terms that you would see even if you've been fishing before. If you've been fishing for years, you could watch someone cast a fly rod in a video and I have no idea what they're talking about when they refer to the different parts of the line, different parts of the rod and reel, things like that, and the different techniques in the cast. So the first thing I do is look up just some basic fly fishing terminology. That way when someone references the backing or the fly line or the leader, you know what they're talking about and you're not trying to pause the video quickly and figure that out. And then once you have kind of that basic terminology, which it's not long, you'll probably be able to learn it in ten minutes. But once you have that down, I would just go to YouTube orvis, which is one of the major fly fishing companies, has an entire video series on their website. You can just watch those videos and they'll walk you through every step of the cast and you can stand there in the yard with your YouTube out and just mimic what they're doing. And once you've done that a couple of times, it's really just getting out on the water. And like I said, if you go to a bluegill pond, those fish are pretty forgiving. It's not rocket science to get them to eat something. And so even if your cast is terrible, the main thing is as long as your cast catching fish, you're going to be motivated to try it again and you just got to kind of do it a couple of times before it's going to start to come a little bit more easily. So trying to jump straight into something like trout where you may go out two or three times in a row and not even get a bite, that's going to be kind of discouraging. So that's why starting with something easy like blue gill where you might catch fish, even if you're absolutely terrible, you're going to come away thinking like, wow, I did such a great job, I'm a hero. Then you'll go a couple more times and by that point you'll start to kind of get the feel of it. It's going to feel a little bit awkward at first, but once you do it a couple of times, it will start to flow a little bit better. The mechanics will become a little smoother, a little easier, and at that point you can start looking at more specific questions that you want to know or go into a fly shop and ask people there. You can always go into a fly shop and ask for help, but it's a little bit helpful on your end if you kind of know what to ask when you go in. Because if you go in your first time, you might be standing there just wide eyed, staring at everything on the wall and have no idea what to even ask. So I think going out once or twice before you go to a fly shop, just so you have a couple of questions in your pocket is probably the best way to go.

Clearly you've helped a couple of people start fly fishing.

Yes.

I always try to explain it as getting on a bike. Learning how to bicycle takes maybe a few days of solid trying before you get off your training wheels and dad helps you. How long does it take for the average person that doesn't have rheumatoid arthritis to learn a decent acceptable cast?

I'd say a decent cast that can.

Catch you a fish. That's the requirement here.

Are you going by the number of hours you're out or just like how many full days you are going? Because I feel like there's some people who have it down by the end of day one, but usually those people are out for a full day. In an hour is probably not going to do it for you. So I'd say maybe between eight and 16 hours. So let's say like two full eight hour days. By the end of day two you should be getting pretty comfortable with it. By that point you're definitely not going to be an expert. You're still going to be making mistakes. But by that point you should be able to kind of explain what you're doing, feel when you're doing something wrong and be able to correct that. And obviously it varies. There are people who have it down after just a couple of tries and there are people who spend an entire year doing it and still have no idea what they're doing. But I'd say just a couple of days. It's usually good for most people to become competent.

I got a quick question for you. Here in Minnesota, we've got just a ton of different fishing shows on Saturday morning fishing when they all lived there and stuff like that. And they have a lot of tournaments where they go out there for 6 hours and see who gets the biggest to walleye or the most sun fishing, bass fishing. Bass fishing. Do you guys have tournaments for fly fishing?

There are some. There are tournaments that allow all kinds of fishing and some people opt to fly fish. There's also the national competitions. Like there's a Us fly fishing team and there's a bunch of European fly fishing teams that usually do pretty well. That's not really a world I follow too much. It seems to be kind of a different group. Like most people who fish recreationally don't want too much to do with the competition world and vice versa. So I know it exists, but I can't really tell you much about it beyond the fact that there are competitions. But it seems to be more of an organized thing. I'm sure there are little local tournaments here and there. Like I said, I've never done one, but there is more of an organized national competition fly fishing scene.

I feel like that around Minnesota, the big derbys that they have, we have no regulations on how you catch your fish, so as long as you bring the fish in, it's of a certain size and it's a release basis, you're good. So if you go out and you're not doing something illegal, mindful dynamite, like dynamite, don't eat dynamite, I don't think they're going to care. So it's like going to a rip competition and then bringing beef rip. everybody's else is doing pork, you're bringing beef. See what happens. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And I think most people would probably opt, like, if you're actually trying to win, I think a lot of people would argue that fly fishing would not be the best way to do that. There are definitely situations where a fly fisherman can outfish a spin fisherman. I think in general, though, it's the other way around. Usually spin fisherman will outfish fly fishermen if it just comes down to number of fish in a certain amount of time.

Now, quick question for you. What is your dream place to go fishing? I mean, I always watch these guys fishing in Alaska where there's bears looking at them. Have you ever wanted to go to Alaska fishing or what's your dream vacation to go fishing? Where would you want to go?

Yeah, Alaska is definitely on my bucket list, and that's primarily because you can do it as like I actually just recorded one of my own episodes about this. But you can do it as a DIY destination, so it feels a little bit more exotic. You're getting out away from the lower 48, the stuff that you're used to, and it feels like you're going on this major trip, but you can still do it without a ton of extra planning and cost. You can rent your own flight out in a bush plane if you need to. You don't necessarily need to have a guide or anything, so that's definitely on my list, just because it seems a little more doable. But if I could choose one place, I think I'd do russia. Yeah, that's probably my top, I'd say.

Well, I mean, Russia.

Russia.

Russia has a lot of similar fish and ecology to some of our lakes and streams here, but they just never get touched, especially.

Yeah, it's like super wild.

Yeah. communistic area doesn't allow a lot of travelers to come in certain areas. They had a documentary. What was that place that they did all the manufacturing for all the nuclear plants and weapons? I can't remember the city, but they finally opened it up to a few tourists now, and they had, like, secret fishing locations that no one's ever touched before, and it was just if you're.

Talking about Kimchaka, I think that one just that's where I'm talking about. And that, I think, just opened up to the public.

Yes.

Maybe ten years ago or so.

Yes, within the last decade. And it's only been still touched by only a small few because it costs so much to get out there and there's a tons of paperwork and I mean, who wants to go to a nuclear? Yeah, it's not chernobyl, but it's still a risk.

I mean, I just watched the thing with River monsters guy, Jeremy, and they went out fishing near the chernobyl plant.

Right at it, actually.

And they had to wear the old geiger counter clicker thingy on their body because there's still so much radiation out there. And I'm thinking, I don't like fishing that much.

They were catching like, their version of walleyes, and they were all record size. Everyone he'd pull up because it was just untouched.

Yeah, that was pretty interesting. And then they showed the city, actually, that everybody evacuated out of there and stuff is still sitting there like it was from 30 years ago.

Yeah, it's always so creepy when you see those, like, nuclear zones that everyone just fled.

It wasn't something like they had time to pack. They were out of there in hours. So it's really creepy to watch that.

I think one place I want to see someone fly fish and Katie, you have to live this dream for us is someone needs to go down to the Amazon deep, like, where you see like, arapaima and all kinds of craziness. Someone needs to fly fish this that's the thing already.

I think you can Google that. There's movies on that now.

I've never seen people fly fish. I've seen people do other fishing.

There's so many fly fish in the Amazon.

They've done arapaima down there.

Oh, yeah. They're surface attackers. That's how Jeremy got his was like a bait spin on just the surface. It was tiny little bait.

And those things are huge, like 11ft long.

I think Jeremy tried to fly fish for them, didn't he? And then it didn't work, so he switched out. But I think someone else now has gone down and caught one on the fly.

I think it would just be easier to put a small baby calf on the rope and just drag it through there.

But small baby not a baby.

You got to chum them up. That's what you need to do.

How is the salmon fly fishing different than regular? Have you ever went salmon fly fishing?

No, I haven't gone salmon fishing. I think it's a little bit different. But like I said, I'm not the person to speak to. That because I haven't salmon fish before.

Okay.

I was just wondering if you ever thought of going to England to try those salmon to see if the book this lure and this color catches this fit.

Yeah, I don't think that's up my alley. I mean, I wouldn't turn it down if someone wanted to send me over there to fish. But Western europe isn't super high on my list of places to go fish, but I know a lot of people get really into that. Going to this specific river and doing the traditional dress the traditional way and using the traditional flies and all that.

I just think it'd be more fun to go salmon fish in Alaska and trying to beat the bear off with a stick when you're pulling your salmon in, I think it'd just be more fun.

Yeah.

And you can bring it home and eat it.

The bear. Wow.

Yeah, I know. The salmon.

You're a mean woman, but the bear, too, if you get it, be a.

Great YouTube video that would yeah.

So I'm going to do last three questions for you. Would that be surf and turf surf?

We have a new idea for you.

Only if you're wearing a wife beater. That's how it works.

For your next podcast, Katie, we're going to throw you some money. We're going to get you $12 in gasket out of town and go up to Alaska fishing. And we'll get you a big stick. And then if you bring back a bear, we'll help you moan.

It all right. I'll do that. Big stick provided because I'm sure I will be able to find any up there.

So last three questions, for the sake of time and again, thanks for coming on the podcast with us. Any secret fish recipes that you have?

I don't have a ton of complicated recipes. I like simple things. But I'd say my most commonly used style of cooking fish is I just take the if we're talking trout here, take the entire trout. wipe off the slime, cut off the head, gut it, give it a couple of slices down the side, each side. And then I just stuff a couple, like, lemon wedges inside with some butter, salt and pepper, whatever other spices you want on your fish. And then I just wrap it up in tinfoil. And I think I most often eat fish when I'm camping, so we usually just throw those foil packs in the fire, but you could also throw them on the grill, and then we just pull them out and the flesh will just kind of fall right off the bone. So we just kind of eat the whole fish as like, finger food. Assuming most of the fish we eat are probably between ten and twelve inches. So I'm not like, flaying them, I'll fly them if they're a lot bigger. But for the size we usually keep, we'll just like, pick it right off the bone and then you'll just be left with like, a perfect little fish skeleton when you're done.

Just like the cartoons.

Just like the cartoons. But there's no head because you cut it off just the spine of the ribs and the tail.

Next question is jimmy's most important question.

What's that?

How do you select a good beer for your trip?

Oh, probably the most important thing.

I just wrote an article about how to do this, so I'm well versed in it. I take a whole bunch of things into account. But as much as I love craft beer, I did recommend some craft beers in the article I wrote. But my number one fishing beer is still coarse light because it is cheap, and I don't mind when I spill an entire candidate into the river and it stays cool and refreshing on a hot day. But if I'm choosing a craft beer, I'll kind of do the same thing. I want it to be relatively cheap, so I'm not upset if I spill it. I want it to be light and refreshing. So I'm saving things like ipas or stouts for when I get home. And I'm usually taking something like a lager or pilsner, something like that, or even like, a sour, something refreshing. And then if you really want to go into the weeds, there are a couple breweries that prioritize things like donating to your local waters. So I know upslope does that. They're partnered with Trout Unlimited, so I think they either work with them somehow or donate some money. So if you really want to get into the weeds, there are some breweries that you can support that we'll give.

Back to the resources and soon to sponsor your podcast. Hopefully, if they're listening.

Hopefully. Yeah.

Give Katie a call. I want to adopt Katie everything in time.

I do.

Okay, grandpa Jimmy.

Yes. Right.

I don't drink beer. Contrary to popular opinion, they don't believe that. I'm not half drunk at every podcast, but if I was to pick it, I would pick cous as well, just because I have made bottle cap fishing lures for many, many years, and there's nothing better than cooers to catch fish with.

Really?

For those that are listening, that want to, they're rob's design. This is not a sad story.

Here's another sad, sad story.

Sad young rob's made money in Minnesota. You take a bottle cap. Now, this is rob's patented design, right?

Where did you get the bottle cap? I thought you were using cans.

Oh, no, you have to do bottles.

That's why I'm in his life. I drink the beer, I pay for the beer. I supply the bottle caps, right? Because Rob doesn't drink.

Well, I was young. I had to go up to the local bar and ask them for their bottle caps, and they just give me bags of whatever they had because they throw them out. So I get all these, and I have to sort them out first. So you sort out all the flavors, and then you take your bottle cap. You bend it kind of in half. It kind of like to bend it into a spoon shape, right? You drill two holes at the top tips, and you put the spinner. It's kind of like a keychain loop, but tiny ones for your lure. Why are you looking at me like I'm trying to give you, like, a name. I know you're looking at me like.

I'm going to help you out with.

I'm like thinking the parts at Walmart and ordering them on Amazon. I have no idea what they're called. But you put like a little spinner job. It's like a little keyring loop at both ends, and you put a treble hook on it that is literally making like a spoon for pike fishing. It's wonderful. It wobbles in the water when you're reeling it in, kind of making that reflective, shiny velour. And I catch musky pike bass. Any smaller large mouth bass on those and it worked really well. I sold them for like buck 50 apiece growing up. I put them on Mason jars and drop them off at bars. That's how I made my scratch. Back when I was a kid, I.

Would give you a dollar 50 just to get off my porch and quit selling me this crap.

Come on, Jimmy.

Will you buy my cookies?

No, I'm not buying your cookies. Get off my porch.

So give it a try. I can even see if I can find a picture. I think I might have a couple around. I made some of this last year.

Nobody cares to show a picture. No, seriously, nobody cares.

Well, thank you, Jimmy. Thank you.

What's the last question you got for Katie?

Last question and most important question, if they want to come listen into your podcast, see some of your content, I see that you have a blog. where's the best place to go?

Yes. That just lives all on fishandtame.com. So that's the blog got the podcast. There's a player on there that you can listen to all the episodes and then really I'm just on Instagram is the only social media I'm on. And that's also under fish and tame. So if you just type in those words, you'll end up in the right spot somewhere.

We need to get on Instagram because I went on katie's Instagram earlier and it looks so fun. It looks like a travel guide. It literally looks like it's just all these sweet fishing places. So if you want to get inspired, the Instagram is the best place to go, in my opinion. Well, thanks again, Katie. I really appreciate it. Hopefully people won't just try to go through their grandma and grandpa's fly kits to steal rustic feathers that they're going to sell on ebay and instead give fly fishing a real try. I appreciate you on the podcast.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. I had a great time.

You guys got anything else?

I'm good.

Adam'S good.

I can't believe Adam is good.

Adam is really great. So we'll work on it. But thanks again, guys. Podcast out.

Thanks, guys, for listening to this podcast. Please visit us@aquariumguyspodcast.com and listen to us on spotify. iheartradio itunes, and anywhere you can listen.

To podcasts, we're practically everywhere. We're on Google. I mean, just go to your favorite place, Pocket casts. Subscribe, to make sure it gets push notifications directly to your phone. Otherwise Jim will be crying into sleep.

Can I listen to it in my tree house?

In your treehouse house, in your fish room, even alone at work.

What about my man cave?

Especially your man cave. Yeah, only if adam's there no with feeder guppy?

No, they're in lurks.

You imagine loving Frank fucking mother frank.

Well, I guess we'll see you next time. Later.