The Okay Podcast Powered by The Strength Co. - EP 36: The World’s Best Fly Fishing Guide feat. John Conits

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

Podcast Hosts: Grant Broggi: Marine Veteran, Owner of The Strength Co. and Starting Strength Coach. Jeff Buege: Marine Veteran, Outdoorsman, Football Fan and Lifter Tres Gottlich: Marine Veteran, Texan, Fisherman, Crazy College Football Fan and Lifter Join the Slack and Use code OKAY: https://buy.stripe.com/dR6dT4aDcfuBdyw5ks Check out BW Tax: https://www.bwtaxllc.com Hare's Ear Fly Fishing: https://www.haresearflyfishing.com/ TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Intro 03:49 - Welcome John Conits 07:17 - The Fishing Bug 11:04 - Types Of Clientele 15:31 - Budget Fly Fishing 27:59 - Tournaments 29:22 - Becoming A Guide 32:32 - Spotting A Good Fly Shop 44:32 - West Coast vs East Coast Fishing 54:13 - Rods 58:03 - Best Fishing In The World 01:04:52 - Stock vs Wild Fish 01:10:32 - Conservationism 01:27:01 - Upstate vs Low Country 01:32:27 - One Fly Pattern Only 01:33:45 - OKAY! 01:38:48 - Saved Rounds

All right. Welcome back to episode 036 of the OK podcast powered by the strength co. I'm your host, Grant Brogy. It's episode 036. I just turned 36. Ah, who knew how that worked? I thought you were 36. Does that mean that I, well, when you get older and I'm not old, I'm young in terms of lifting, but as you get older, when you cross the year, someone asks you how old you are, you just take 2024 minus 1988. So not in a way to lie. But when people ask how old I am, I forget. So for probably five years, I've just gone, it's this year.

I was born this year. I'm this old. So I may have told you I was 36. You might have. But I've been in my 36 year for, it feels like, since 2024 started. Yeah, 36 years. Are we 36 weeks in the podcast? Dude, happy birthday. This is your birthday podcast.

Amazing. Birthday pod, August 26, 1988, I wish. I accept gifts all year long. I dox myself on many platforms. Come find us. But today's date is August 29th in the year of our Lord. It's my dad's birthday. Oh, happy birthday, Japanese dad.

Yes, sir. And Michael Jackson. And Michael Jackson. Nice. The block height's 858274. While we're giving random shout outs, Jeff Graham, Slack member, turns 51 tomorrow, August 30th. His son turned 20, I believe, maybe 19, I think 19 on my birthday. It's always funny when it's your birthday. You find out other people's birthday. Tanner from Asinomics' mother's birthday is August

26th. So a lot of birthdays going on. If you're born this month, you're probably like a tiger or a lion. I'm a cock. Or cock or a game cock yeah something like that but anyway we're not here to talk birthdays uh exciting times pj got married and actually that brings us to a special segment every every time that uh people get married from the podcast we give them a gift and this gift comes from uh djd woodworks potential sponsor friend of bw tax he said i've seen what the podcast has done for bw tax i want to do something for you guys and i hear that you have someone getting married so he made this woodworking it's a uh it's got a little hook on the back that is incredible you can hang stuff in it it's recessed oh man who knows what you can

put in there that people want to see it not you pj but let me let me let me shout it out real quick give you all his uh handles and where you can find them absolutely oh it's going straight my yeah so it's it's on instagram it's djd woodworks woodworker. My shop's located in Simpsonville, South Carolina. Wants to sell out there. It's 864-325-3305. Anyway. Dude, this is a great gift. I've actually looked into the wooden American flag things.

Those look nice. And now you own one. Now I have one. Yeah, now you own one. I'm putting that straight in my office. DJD Woodworks, Simpsonville, South Carolina. He wants you to call him by his phone number. He looks like an older gentleman with a dog.

He's got a white beard. Looks really joyful. 864-325-3305. He specializes in American flags, furniture, trays, frames, and cutting boards. Dude, shout out that guy. What's his name? David Durbin. David Durbin.

Thank you, David. So PJ's got some new stuff for the house. And yeah, we're going to cover his wedding next week because this week we have a special guest. And I know we didn't talk Bitcoin. We didn't talk about the price of Bitcoin. It's low. What, $59?

Something like that. Yeah, I just unplugged the internet, so it's going to take some time. Yeah, Bitcoin. You shut Bitcoin off, too. Yeah, I just shut Bitcoin off. We'll get it back going later in the show. Let's get the guys on here.

Just shut Bitcoin off too. Yeah, just shut Bitcoin off. We'll get it back going later in the show. Let's get the guys on here. All right. The boys are all here. Episode 036 of the... Okay. Okay.

Okay. Podcast powered by the Strength Co. A little different today. We have for the first time a guest in the studio of Upstate South Carolina. We've had, is it 13 guests, PJ? Oh, we have for the first time a guest in the studio of Upstate South Carolina. We've had, is it 13 guests, PJ? Oh, I think so. Yeah, I think it's 13. PJ's off camera, back like it was in episode one.

The way it should be. Goodness. The way God intended. He's got married. He's back to the old ball and chain. He's back off camera. We got him on camera. We got him married.

Now, okay, we don't have to worry about getting him a wife anymore. Get him off camera. Now he's off camera yeah we got him on camera we got him married now okay we don't have to worry about getting a wife anymore get him off now he's off camera one of our listeners married him yeah yeah probably um if you need if you need lifting advice call grant if you need fishing advice call john if you need marriage advice listen to the okay podcast that's what i always say um all right so john's the owner of harris fly fishing harris ear fly fishing come on hey man i try not to name drop you know not rivers yeah no rivers no river talk guys there'll be no rivers mentioned by zero from texas i don't know what a river is code of ethics yeah if it's not john's creek it's someone else's correct i like that um but yeah so you've been in business what this is we're about to hit year six year six all right and how long you been fishing 12 12 years and before that you never fished no i've been fishing since i was like

nine so it's 12 mean fly fishing 12 fly fly fishing. Okay, 12 years fly fishing. But you don't really service, I mean, you service the Greenville people, but you fish, not to name rivers, but we can name regions. States. States, yeah. East coast.

Geographic areas. Upstate, maybe upstate. Is that too specific? The eastern time zone. We stick with South Carolina carolina north carolina tennessee all right okay no georgia no georgia no georgia maybe one day south carolina north carolina tennessee all right so and it's interesting i'll tell my story real quick uh my brother jeremy we've talked about on the show before was like i called him i was like i want to

fly fish i was i'm by this rod i'm gonna callvis and I'm going to go book a lesson because I'm a coach and I know I suck. And Orvis is a big name that I've heard of. And Jeremy in his wisdom was like, dude, that is the last thing you want to do. He's like, don't buy anything. Don't go to Orvis. He's like, you can buy a cool hat there later he's like hire a guide and so i typed in he knows his stuff yeah well you fish with him yeah so i typed in greenville fly fishing and hair's ear popped up bam didn't pay for that yeah do you remember that call i do what'd you think it's been a long time. It was like it was yesterday, right? I think it was October.

That's seven months ago. Eight months ago. November? Seemed like seven years. We fished before Christmas. For sure. We fished when it was very cold. You got into it when it was like 36 degree highs.

I like that better. It is fun. Yeah. Well, I just liked it better because you're in a good mood because you know i still wanted to fish even though it's cold it's cold and uh the fish still eat when it's cold yeah that's good um all right so 12 years fishing did you fish as a kid like other methods 100 like what kind of stuff did you do uh ponds broken well back then greenville wasn't so big you know like greenville used to be full of farm ponds dude like what what is a farm pond

for our listeners it's a piece of water surrounded by a bunch of grass so it's just like like small okay it's just man it's like like two acres all right some more acres yeah just shore fishing throwing out there in the middle hoping to get lucky no strategy just knew there were fish there and and real casting real spin rod spin rod that's what you call it okay spin rod spin rod okay spin fishing when did so jeff's a fly fisherman now uh trey is a bass fisherman big time and i've done fly once i've done it one time yeah well how long you been you got like you like kind of like me once i got bit i'm done like i'm over like i want to quit the marine corps i want to close the strength co i want to work for john i want to give him all my money like it's over and like that kind i would say that similarly

happened to you right yeah as far as like really fishing yeah like yeah so because i uh i grew up like fishing recreationally like we'd go out maybe once a year and kind of like you said go to a pond go on a dock somewhere and just wet a line for a little bit. So my brother-in-law during COVID, well, my brother-in-law has always been really into fishing, big bass guy. And so during COVID, I do sales. And so during COVID, it was shut down. I couldn't see any customers. So I was trying to figure something to do.

And he's like, hey, let's go fishing and game over so he let me borrow his rods and then unfortunately he has very high very expensive tasting rods and then i got a bit by the same thing so it's very real bug man i used to play poker with a guy before I started fly fishing. He said, you should take this rod and go to the river. Because I used to go play cards at night back in the day before fly fishing. But I used to go spin fishing before the card games on the trout streams. I used to take like rooster tails, eggs, all that good stuff. And then one day he's like, hey, man, you should try fly fishing. So he brings me the rod and he hands me the rod. We're sitting on the front porch smoking a cigarette. And this guy

says, whatever you do, man, I was married back then too. I've been married 16, 17 years now. And he says, just be careful. I was like, what'd you mean? He's like, it's real addictive. He's like, it's real addictive. And I was like, for real? He's like, you'll forget about money, your job, your family. And he was not playing. I went and fished for almost 700 days in a row. Like that's how I got into it. Like it was it was like and like i tell everybody what he told me i tell everybody that now like when they first get in the sport it's like man it's real addictive like you gotta like you gotta like put the brakes on and like have some self-control because you will like you'll you'll you'll mess around and like stay up late wake up early go fish all day come back home feel miserable and then you still got a bunch of crap to do and it's like but then but then you get your crap done you're like

dude i'm going back tomorrow that's what people people keep telling me hey they're like hey you should get into golf i'm like i can't I got all my money tied up in fishing. I can't pick up another hobby. That's what happens, man. You just get fully like the people. I call it the bug for a reason because it is, man. I've been around a lot of addictive personalities in my life, and fly fishing, I swear, is the same thing.

When you get into the Pandora's box of this game, it is, it's pretty stupid. I mean, you will literally, you could lose your mind in a, in a good way, but also in a way where like, it's like, all right, you need to have like a talk with yourself and be like, enough's enough. Like I need to, I need to, I need to limit this. This was going to be an intervention on fishing. Yeah. Yeah. It's an intervention. to be an intervention on fishing. Yeah. Yeah. It's an intervention.

It's an intervention on Grant. Who's about to have a kid. No, but it's, it's interesting. So, uh, I'll give a quick story.

So you guys knew I was up in Glenville, North Carolina. That's as geographical as I'll get. And I wanted to go fishing. So, you know, I was like, we're going to go fishing.

And my wife's super pregnant. So I was like, all right, we're going up. It's her in-laws. We're staying at my client's place. I'm very comfortable there, but everyone else kind of feels like a guest. Also, I can't leave and just go fish forever and leave my wife home with the in-laws. But I'm like, all right, she's pregnant. She'll probably sleep till nine. And they get along fine. But but i'm like all right she's pregnant she'll probably sleep till like nine and like you know they they get along fine but i'm like all right if i get back at like 10 i'm good so i woke up the first day like i don't know five in the morning i'm like down there

making coffee and i was thinking i was gonna be in the water by six and my dumb butt was like i didn't even look and see what time sunrise was so so i'm like oh my gosh i'm sitting there in the pitch black like staring at myself in my eye so i'm looking at places to go and uh anyway i get out there and i go and i hike up and i'm fishing and like nothing's happening nothing's happening and and i want to ask you about this later but like fly fishing is so interesting because it's also very mental it's like you have this plan you go in and you're like and i'm terrible like i have no idea what i'm doing but i'm like all right i was i was taught by john conant's i know a little bit nothing happens i fished the whole stretch i get back to where i started and the sun starts coming up like actual sun like hitting the water i was like you know

what you can see you know i was like yeah you know what? Good to see you now. I was like, yeah. I'm like, I'm just going to fish this stretch again. So I fish. Boom, fish. Keep going now. Next one. I'm sitting there.

I'm like, well, there was a fish here. There's probably another one. I'm like, John, tell me to move. John, tell me to go. It's graph paper. So I moved down. I catch another fish. Catch another fish. I look at my watch.

It's 930. And I'm like, man, by the time I hike out out, get to my car, take all my stuff up and go up the hill, like I'm already going to blow 10 o'clock. So I told my wife, I'll be back 10 o'clock. And I was like, just one more cast. And I fought it. So I leave. And of course I leave on time, like a disciplined person. I hit the road I'm going to go on. And it's a one-way road to dead end at the top of the mountain where we were staying and they're moving in modular homes and the road is blocked and i still don't have service so i can't even say i'm a mile away i left the water when i told you i would i'm almost there and then i'm like so i walk up i'm

like hey how long guys things gonna be i got time i screwed up guys yeah but anyway but yeah no it's like yeah once you're on the water you never want to leave you don't want to leave even if you suck no nothing exists on the water but there yeah that's it yeah no bills no tv no instagram no politics ain't none of that nothing bro so it's all water. We got some questions we're going to kick around, but I'll start. Your clientele, so like, I don't know, what have we fished together? A dozen times? Probably.

Probably more than that. Probably more than that. Yeah, at least 10, right? Probably less than 20. For sure. So I come in, I couldn't tie a knot. Like your clientele, like what's the the i know you see a wide variety but like what's your kind of common clientele um it's kind of crazy like now it changes right like i guess like this year has been a big change for us i get like i would say 70 of

my clientele right now are regulars okay right but it wasn't that way he didn't start that way I used to work for a fly shop we'd get you know new walks of life in there and same thing rolls over into my business I have two types clients you have the tourist who is there for a day they're crunched on they're crunching their time they want to see something cool do this little family excursion don't really care about learning right they just want to go catch some fish we do that a lot okay right then they got then we got guys like you who are like i'm trying trying to learn. So that's like a whole nother animal, as you know. Yeah.

I can shake hands and kiss babies, but a guy calls me and says, I want to learn. Like, bro, you were in trouble at that point. If you cannot take criticism, you're going to walk away very frustrated with me. I'm just going gonna put that out there like we're not that type of God service trying I can second that and I loved it because I remember people when they were coming to the gym it's a little different everyone actually thinks they want to get strong but it's hard yeah uh maybe you get people that are like oh it's a free Saturday workout but for the most part I want to strong. I think it's hard and they all quit.

And there's some people, though, that are just like, man, you have to be mean to me or I won't do this. Correct. And that's John Connors right there, let me tell you. I'm super nice when I need to be. Yeah, you always got when I need to be. Yeah. You always got a good way to bring it back around. Just sometimes you bring it back around like three days.

First thing you can do is tell a guy like me, you want to learn. I am about to push the gas pedal. So what's the percentage? No, I'm going to kick it around to them. Like, so are you 50%?

Hey, I'm a banker. I want a picture with a fish. Man, I got. And I know you got guides under you and you got a lot of fishing excursions going on. Just client wise, right? Yeah. I just mean like what's the overall feel of like the people that call a guy?

It's mostly people with a higher income, the majority. Yeah. come the majority yeah but what i've noticed over the last since covid women yeah interesting have been a big part of fly fishing lately like we're talking like big numbers okay we're talking like neck and neck with the guys wow um there's some women's organizations and stuff that started up around our area, which is badass. Like, you got all this cool stuff happening. And then, I mean, I've got guys that work for Google, and then I've got guys who sell drugs. I mean, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, you just don't know.

That's why we don't name rivers. They might be a drug train. We have so many, you know have so many walks of life. What I am seeing is a trend in younger people from 30 to 45. I'm seeing couples fish together now. Dudes aren't showing up with their bro and coming. It's like husband and wife. And then kids.

Seeing a lot of 11 to 17- to 17 year old kids which is sick because so i gotta wait till my girl's 11 to give her to you no i was gonna pass her off like four i think the youngest i've got it is five okay that was it's kind of crazy with five but man like you can there's a lot to do i mean it's kind of they got like an hour of good fishing okay and then they're like we're picking up rocks looking at bugs being nerds on the water still an income right there so i always ask them like am i do you want me to teach me how to get strong or you want me to be a babysitter like there's there's some age in there it's different for every kid but anyway jeff what you got well we kind of touched on it a little bit, like with Grant talking about like, all right, getting started, asking his brother. What would you say to like,

all right, person listens to this podcast or I don't know, they see some stuff on YouTube and they're like, I want to give this a shot. What's kind of your first step that you recommend? And then also kind of like touched on a little bit that like a lot of your clientele is recommend and then also kind of like touched on a little bit and they're like a lot of your clientele is higher income like fly fishing can like golf can be like a big barrier entry with like the price tag of stuff what do you recommend for that person that like okay they they go out with a guide they love it and they want to get into it but they don't have a ton maybe it is that like 17 year old kid whose parents aren't going to foot the bill for everything. Kind of what do you recommend for that person just starting out that then is like, okay, I want to keep doing this, but how do I

kind of get this on like a budget kind of level? Okay. So basically if you're wanting to get into this first thing I'm going to tell you, and i don't say this because i'm a fishing guide and it is kind of cliche to say as a fishing guide i do believe hiring a guide will save you a lot of time so i wasn't lying about the 700 days right and i will say my wife when i would come home my wife would be like how'd it go and i'd be like it was'd it go? And I'd be like, it was all right. You know, like, uh, did you catch any? I was like, oh, and I, well, you know, what I didn't tell her was that I had been on the bank for six hours re-rigging my crab because I was in the tree and I only fished for two. Right. So like, that's one of those deals where a guide comes into play when you can when you learn to read water and not waste time on sex you know when you get into a river you look at a river and

you break it down there's a lot going on it's very overwhelming and then when you start learning how to read water it you you're you're actually complicating it even more because then you're dissecting like oh this is a little slower. Fish could hold here. This time of year, they're going to be here. This time of year, they're going to be. So you start, when you hire a guide, you're beating a lot of that time of frustration. I will tell you, there were times where I wanted to quit because I was so mad.

I was driving, dude. I was driving an hour away, two hours away, three hours away just to go fish. And I was leaving Greenville every day to go do this for two years. And literally, I think most of my time was wasted on the bank because no one taught me that I could just simply make a little swoop gasp to begin with, right? Like you, there's so many things that go into play when you first get there. It's overwhelming fly selection, like, holy crap. I walk into a fly shop, brother. And if you've never done this and look at the fly bin and you tell me what they're eating, because that's where it gets like super complex, complicated, but a guide will simplify that for you.

So I definitely think like you spend four or five, 600 bucks on a fishing guide. You're going to save, dude, you're saving hundreds of dollars in time and gas and energy and all kinds of, I think it's like you're actually winning when you hire the guide. I'm not saying that because I am a guide. Any client that knows me knows I hate spending money, knows I'm a very budget type guy. I'm not saying that because I am a guy. Any client that knows me knows I hate spending money, knows I'm a very budget type guy. He loves when I buy him a Dunkin' Dunk. Right? I go all out on the clients, but man, on me, I got the same t-shirt on. I probably had three days ago. It was just on top of my drawer. Bam. My wife washed it, so that's who I am. So that's who I am. But to get in into it for a very cheap way, like you can't get lucky like Grant walks in one day.

I mean, I've seen Grant came in the cheapest you can come in, just to be clear. Right. So it's one of them sports where you can find a rod. First, go to your local fly shop. You never know if they got a sale going on and we got a Dodson out there in Travis rest, good guys over there. They got a bunch of crap that you can buy. Dude, like they will walk you down the whole price guide. Most of these fly shops will,

they'll show you everything you can like beginner friendly budget. Like the rods I got, like this rod right here, Grant just hung up on a wall that's a thousand bucks that reel right there is 650 the line on that reel is a hundred dollars there is a used honda accord sitting behind right so like it's a good prop you can go crazy with it or you know you can find deals there's always people selling rods online. That's another thing.

You're not going to be able to buy everything online because what happens is half that stuff's junk. But you can put your hands on it in a fly shop. So, like, in a fly shop is kind of a big part of the fly fishing industry. Now, I'm a guide service. You know, I've worked in the shops i've seen that that's just not what i do but i know for a fact like if it weren't for a fly shop i wouldn't have half the shit i have now because you know you gotta have that stuff you once you buy everything you're looking at i think you can get into fly fishing without the waders and boots for $350, $400, right?

No, the deal he's talking about of me getting the deal, we talked about in, I think, episode two, is I went to Dodson, our friends in Traveler's Rest, and I started fly fishing in the winter. And I was like, and I was really in. I was really in. And I'm not a broke 17 year old. Right. And I'm like, man, I got to buy $650 waders and I got to buy $300 boots and I got to buy these socks. And not like that's before I don't even own a net yet. And the guy walks in and he's like, Hey, you don't know anyone with a size 14 do you? And we're like, Oh yeah,

right here. He's like, you want these know anyone with a size 14 do you and we're like uh yeah right here he's he's like you want these boots i'm like how much take 50 bucks i was like what else is in the box he's like waiters so it's like 100 for all of it he's like might not work i was like i'll take my chances right so you're right so you're right um but it's kind of similar what i was gonna say it's like barbell training when people want a home gym yeah it's like i actually think the similarities in terms of there actually is upfront cost oh yeah and yes the answer is you could hire a coach and go learn what you're doing save a bunch of time could join a gym not really applicable like you want to buy a home setup your wife's personal trainer like hey brother 1500 bucks on the cheap. If you go base, if you go base and then like fly fishing, he's like barbell training, you could have a $25,000 gym like easily,

easily. Um, it's the same. And like, it's even at the point now, whereas I always tell myself, like, I keep trying to fish, keep trying to get better. I'm like, gear is not what's holding me back. Like I need more time on the water. Like it not it's not it's not gear uh but you do need requisite gear to even get better i agree yeah oh there's some crappy gear out there yeah like my rod i guess kind of following up on that man is uh so let's say you're a grand soul so like bass fishing i'm not going to start somebody off like on a g loomis rod they're going to use like an ugly stick if it's like a kid that they break it's like a ten dollar rod not a big deal so let's say

like they're at grand level they're like intermediate like what would you not an intermediate i am a novice okay well yeah someone that cares a lot later i'm a novice okay well yeah someone that cares a lot i'm a novice brother if they're let's say they're serious about it now like then what would you tell them all right i would start saving up for this maybe spend money on this this is a waste of money i don't even bother about getting this i always am up front about the rods So the rods I use, right? These guys don't pay me, by the way. I will never be sponsored in this industry, but. You might.

I might one day. You might be sponsored by us. That'd be great. We have a sponsor, which is crazy. So you might have one. I fish a lot of Scott rods, right? It's a very high-end rod, made in America, yada, yada, yada. They do a great job.

They make a great rod. Good warranty. They don't drop, they don't, good warranty. They don't drop fish. I fish with a lot of crappy rods and I tell people that, right? Like I tell the guy, like someone asked me that question, like, what should I buy? I'm like, look, man, I wouldn't cheap out. Cause what I did, I went to

Cabela's, bought a Cabela's rod early on, right? Not a bad rod, good starter rod. It's budget friendly. It is what it is. But my problem was I ended up buying about 15 other rods after that Cabela's rod, right? So you end up, you know, if you come out of pocket to begin with and you got the money to spend, I suggest always buying the right gear first. That way you're not buying the same gear two times, three times, four times. Like my dumb ass, like I was in a fly shop. When I'm Fisto 700, I was in a fly shop. Man, I bet you I was in a fly shop every other day dropping coin. Like, it was bad.

It was, I mean, it was bad. But I didn't have anybody to tell me, hey, man, this rod right here is going to kind of cover your basis for our whole region right here. Yeah. You know, like no one told me. So I didn't know. I was just in there buying stuff and being a dude from Greenville walking into these mountain towns. I look crazy, talk crazy. Everything just doesn't fit. And I don't want to tell people that I don't know shit. I'm like, I walk in there with my chest out like, I know what I'm looking for. I don't need any

help. I'm that dude. That's who I was when I stepped up in those shops. So I learned that the hard way. So that sucked. Buy nice, don't buy twice. Buy nice, don't buy twice. So true. That's the same thing we say in strength training equipment, especially like the main deal is the barbell like that one over there. That's the first one I ever bought.

And actually, someone told me that's a Bergeron and Ripito 2.0. It used to be made by York. They no't they no longer make that bar but they were like look the barbell is what you're connected to for the whole system and i sell plates mainly right so i'm like i'm like talking against my own business but they're like if you're gonna spend money yeah thanks like if you're gonna spend money the barbell and i think it's similar to the rod i mean like it's yeah i mean i and i also feel like i need a smaller one to fish some of those creeks of infinity my second uh year guiding for this fly shop i was on this water we got it in this water and and i had this i had these two musicians come into town and jack white it was uh definitely it was my first skunk ever it was we i took a double skunk that day with clients yes oh so that's way worse and i've only

taken like three skunks right bro like i i oh you always put me out i take some ales and musky but always put me out i take some l's in musky but i don't i don't i don't really take l's in the trout yeah right or bass and uh so i remember every time we'd hook a fish we'd bring that fish in and i had these rods cheap l cheapos bro they were terrible that guy would lift up on that fish and the hook would pop out i'm talking we went six seven fish in a row like that and i'm thinking these guys are you know doing something weird with the rod i'm not really paying attention i'm kind of a young guy at the time so i'm like the rod it was the rod dropping those fish dude it some of these rods they drop i call them fish droppers i didn't know my mom was fishing with a honda accord maybe that's why she caught two. I thought you just trained me up real good, and I knew how to fish small fish. Man, it was just some old cheat.

I mean, dude, I don't know where they made these rods, but I guarantee you they were not. They were just in the factory. You're better off getting a 3D printed rod. Oh, man. I'll never forget that day i threw all those rods out i sold them all good sold them all got back to the good stuff do you fish any tournaments no no i i'm not really into i fished a sheep's head tournament one time it's saltwater okay um in louisiana fish for it all the time it was a sheep said only you had to catch them in the

grass sight fished with a fly rod you couldn't catch them off rock points that was probably the coolest tournament ever because of the crowd that was down there and it was me and a buddy we were the only two trout dudes from over here and as much as saltwater fly fishermen and guides and uh that's the only tournament um they do tournaments like comp tournaments and fly fishing like euro nymphing and stuff but i'm not really into that stuff like it it works it catches fish but i like fly casting man euro nymphing is more of a lob cast and technique it's contact nymph and you know what i mean like their techniques are phenomenal i use them a lot with regular rigs but um tournament fishing is not really a big deal you know you start getting into the them boys down south like in the keys like the tarpon i thought we were the

boys down south i mean those guys i mean those guys down there actually play for real money i mean they they they do they do some real big tournaments down there now that's a world i'm just so out of touch so i want to ask that so you fish 700 days in a row when you did that it's like right now if i could fish 700 days in a row i feel like i would right i know you could yeah I know you could. Yeah, I could. I know you could. You could have a baby right now, brother. You might. I might. I might be fishing 700 days in a row.

But when you fished 700 days in a row, was your mindset, I want to open a guide service, or did you want to catch fish? Because right now, I'm just obsessed with like, I just want to catch fish. The chase, man. The chase is what it was about. The puzzle. you didn't think about your business that you have man no no when did that happen was it day 300 was it after the 700 days i mean i caught one fish i caught one fish on the davidson river i'll we don't name rivers on this we just call that a river i beat that one out there just just because people know that river so well yeah it was one of them fisheries back when i was fishing it and it's still a great

fisher we got it every day that's the first place we went yeah yeah and uh there was this fish early october these big fish push out of the system and what they're doing they're migrating to spawn they weren't spawning back then it was just like a push for you know all these fish that moved from the lower river to the upper river and you you walk around you see these huge fish in these deep holes and what they were doing they were just migrating pushing upstream and uh i saw that fish september 7th i caught that fish october 26th so i went up there for a month and a half every day and chased this fish i got no i i got i got a third johnson streak right here because when I first started fishing with him, I was like, this dude just speaks in absolutes. He's like, that hole has this size fish.

And I'm like, okay, it's a river. You also just told me this is the second oldest river in the world. How does that hole have that fish? And he's like, this thing will do that and like it's oh everything's an absolute that was 13 inches i'm like we didn't measure it right but what i found is he's actually right on most of those things so i just i think whatever dates he just threw i think i think they're accurate they are i mean i'll never forget it you learned that in guide school wait wait but but so you caught that fish and then you wanted to guide i i literally went home told my wife i was gonna be a fishing guy i just told my wife that last

night so everything will come tired literally went home that day and begged went in the next day i called fly shops in our region and begged them to hire me for six to eight months until someone finally picked me up. Trey, you got a question on fly shops, don't you? I just want to poke him about his business, but you had one about like, how do you know a good fly shop? Yeah, I think that would probably be one man it's as far as like i've walked into maybe two fly shops and i don't know like what is there one that differentiates one like whenever you walk in 100 100 can we can we talk about the one up by no okay no but we we could i mean that's a good shot that's my favorite i've probably been in 10

now that's my favorite but they're good people over there man they they have they were there when i started okay so they were there i guess what he's asking is like you're a new guy jeff's question you're on a budget you know whatever but like me like so even me now like i fish with you western north carolina a good bit and every time i'm not fishing with you i'm fishing and i'm texting you you're telling me sometimes i don't want to bug you so i'm like all right is there a fly shop around here so i walk in and the guy's like all dressed fancy wearing orvis like for me like i know nothing but i'm just like he looks like a little too fancy like he probably doesn't know what he's talking about but i was also john

connett's train like i expect you to be in a t-shirt smoking a newport if you're not you don't know what you're doing i'm a big fan if you see a dog in a fly shop okay you're probably you're probably in the right spot um if they allow dogs in the fly shop you're probably in the right spot so the first question they have i mean i look around man you know i don't like a real bougie types environment because like i think that's where fly fishing becomes like i don't fit in this game let me just go ahead and put that out there like i don't fit in the fly fishing material world right right? I come from West Greenville where things are very different from mountain towns, right? You know what I mean? Like there's all here in Greenville where we are right now, like this is a cutthroat

city. I mean, you have to go to work. You have to do your job or someone will replace you immediately. Mountain towns move a little bit slower. mountain time mountain towns move a little bit slower and you when you walk into those places man you you get that vibe where these people live a little bit more peacefully than we do in these bigger cities you know and i respect that a ton i chase that a ton right this is where i'm at every day i'm in these places but like you see the you see these fly shops, you walk in and there's like two, three million dollars in that shop. And then, you know, like half of them are are funded by a client that has a ton of money.

Or the other half is like that dude that's, you know, like me, who has absolutely struggled day in, day out, committed to the lifestyle, loves the sport so much. They put all their heart and soul into that shop. And then that's kind of what shows up with me. I'm a people reader, so I can walk in a fly shop and be like, you know, if they have a good fly tying selection, like where you can actually tie flies, like buy material to tie your own flies. If their fly tying selection is big, if it's as big as their retail side of like clothing, you're in the right spot. That's another thing. Like if they have a bunch of fly tying stuff, bro, I am there. If they had a bunch of flies, like a bunch of flies, I'm there.

Like I think there's some shops that just is half-assed and they're out here just to kind of wash some money or do whatever they want to do or just play, right? Like I don't know. I couldn't own a fly shop. I'd be really – that inventory list scares me. But I think if you can find the dog find a good fly tying selection and then if you walk in there and the dudes are just stoned out of their mind i mean that's cool man but you're gonna see a lot of you're gonna you're gonna see a lot of that but i'm not that guy either right like i i you need to be professional when you walk in you know i want help when i walk in a shop

you need to be asking me hey sir how you doing like yeah i don't like that shit where you walk in and the guy just kind of i'm a fly shop worker i'm not gonna talk to you you know like i i really catch fish bro like that bro lifestyle that's in the sport trash right like that's trash like i know i taught funny but i've got respected manners at the same time like right like there's never a client that calls me and i'm like what's up bro you know because i don't know who the hell i might be talking to bill gates you know i mean you might be i might be talking to some dude that if you called him bro might show up at your house because he's got a problem with that. You know what I mean?

Like you don't, you don't talk to people like that, you know? And when it needs to be professional, like the boys at Dodson professional. Yeah, no, they're great.

Yeah. Boys at Chituga professional. Yeah. You know what I mean? Now we're naming stuff. Okay. All right. Well,

you know, like I just know these people. Yeah, no, no. So I will name a river though. No, no so i won't name a river though no no we won't name a river i will i will say fishing in upstate south carolina which i want to ask john about don't let me forgive me but ask about upstate because i want to ask about the upset about the

podcast but fishing upstate south carolina a little bit and i had to beg him to tell me a river that i could fish just because i was like, bro, my heart's in South Carolina. I got to fish South Carolina river. So he gave me one, but in Western North Carolina, I walk into any fly shop literally. And I probably, it's probably, it's not 10, but it's more than five. And, and I drive, like, if there's one thing that John taught me, it's like two hours is nothing. Like, what are you talking about? Because at first I was like, yeah, but where can I fish close? He's like, you can't fish close.

And I was like, yeah, but I need to fish close. He's like, if you're short on time, you're not fishing. He's like, then you're just checking a box. And so now I'm like, I mean, we came back from glenville north carolina today we put it in the you know the car it's like an hour and 36 minutes and we hit the sign where it's like cashers 11 miles and you know you make the left and i was like oh yeah i turned off the gps when i was like what are you doing i was like oh that's where i come fishing she's like you come this far and i was like oh yeah like all the time I come fishing. She's like, you come this far? And I was like, oh, yeah.

Like, all the time. And John is telling me. But anyway, my point is, I walk into any fly shop, and I mention Hare's Ear, and you get a response. And it's a wild variety of responses. This is probably wild. Yeah. But it's always, no, it's always this guy.

No, it's a good one, right? It's like everyone knows. And you can tell when it's always this guy no no it's it's it's a good one right it's it's like everyone knows and you can tell when it's like competitor right and you can tell when there's respect and it's similar like in barbell training like i always tell people when i train them right so you train people for the first time there's a way you put a plate on the bar and like you could put letters in and you put letters out but the reason you put the letters in is because there's a handle on it and i always kind of make a joke when I teach my camps. I'm like, hey, look, when you leave here, you're Grant Brogy trained.

And if you post a video online with those letters out and say that you trained with me, I'm going to be pissed. You fix it right now. And they're like, it's a warm-up. It's 65 pounds. I'm like, I don't care. Fix it because this is how we do it, right? care. Fix it because this is how we do it. That's like when you walk into a fly shop

in this area and I mention Hare's Ear or John Connett's, people are like, oh, all right. That's fun. It's fun to represent. We got to make you some more merch. We'll get out there. What you got next, Jeff?

I was just glad to hear that Western Rivers Fly Fisher, the fly shop I go to, checked all those boxes. what you got next jeff i was just glad to hear that the that western rivers fly fisher the the fly shop i go to checked all those boxes he said i was like oh good yeah well actually frequently have dogs in there uh yep they got a lot of fly time materials and the guys are not actually like too really helpful and nice and yeah it's a good it's a good group that well they're probably mormons they're not smoking any day yeah that's right i don't think they're i don't think They're probably Mormons. They're not smoking any dope. Yeah, that's right. I don't think they're Mormons.

I've seen them drink beer. Why don't you ask them about the rivers out there versus here? And like, you know, regions. Have you done much like fly fishing kind of like out west, like Utah, Wyoming, Montana? Not Montana. I've done Idaho. I've done Colorado. And I will say it's a lot easier out there than it is for us out here. Oh, yeah.

Way more space. Dude, so much more water. Those fish don't see flies but for six months, eight months at most out of the year. You come over here, man, we get a lot of those guys from out west that they see our rivers. They're like, what? I fish what I call some of the best trout rivers in the country. I mean, they're just hard as crap. Just pressured.

Pressured. Pressured fish. Pressured fish. Pressured. trout rivers in the country i mean they're just hard as crap just pressured i mean pressured pressured fish pressured pressure and there's a way to fish pressure fish you gotta really you gotta really slow your game down you know when i was out west with my one of my buddies um he bought some land out west and he took me fishing on the Snake River. I could not believe the amount of fish that came off the bank on 2X. Like, it was – to fish 2X over here where I am is just like a funny joke. Like, it's like it doesn't exist. It does sometimes, but it really not – no, we don't really do that over here, man. Like this water is very different.

And I truly believe out west is a very, very genuine experience. I catch myself more out west stopping and looking around me more than I do here. Here is beautiful. Man, I put the Southeast against whatever, right? I do. I do. But when I was out West and you see these moose and you see these giant like peaks that like, see, we don't have the peaks here. We don't have those big Rocky mountain peaks. And like, when you're looking at that crap, you're like, holy crap, brother. And when it's like 32 degrees there, 28 degrees there, it's like warmer.

It's like not – it's doable. Like here, 28, brother, you are so cold. I mean, we fish – most of our January, we do a lot of streamer fishing for these big browns in Tennessee. And like, I ain't kidding you. Like, it is some of the most brutal conditions anyone can fish in. Like, I saw one of my clients last year, like, hands split wide open for five days straight. Tylenol every day. Ibuprofen every day.osporin band-aids

like i was out west in like 16 degrees and we were just like man it feels really good out here like what's something wrong like you call that a dry cold it's a dry that dry cold that dry cold is just so different man but i will say y'all's fishing is better as far as um what do i call it better as is an experience of just the fly fishing in general but man young man that we got some we got rivers on this side of the country that i'd put up against anything in the world like i i am very blessed to fish some of the rivers. I mean, I had a client two days ago put a freaking 12-pound brown in the net. And we're talking about a wild fish here.

We're not talking about one that was fed dog food and over to that size. We're talking about a big, wild, stream-born fish. And when you do that in the fly fishing world, you have accomplished like the main trout goal, right? Like watching him land that personal, because I've been fishing with this guy for years and I've watched him lose fish like this for years. And when you put that thing in the net on the East Coast,

I mean, there's a lot of dudes that would pay 10, 15 grand to fly down New Zealand and do that. I'm driving two hours up the road, man. And here we are. Like I do, I see those fish every day. Like every, it's, I see them. It's, it's, it, throw it, and hope for the best scenario. You know what I mean? Out west, I feel like you have a better chance of coming out there and just having a really good experience. With here, you have to put in just a little bit more work than the average angler would out west. That's it, a lot more work. A lot. It's a lot.

Now we've got some easy fisheries. What I was was saying this is this is like me i thought he kept taking me to rivers and i'm like all right i kind of know what i'm doing they took me to one and i was like i have no idea and it was so clear i could see everything and what he's saying about the fish because we got in the boat and he's like kind of what he said now he's like people pay a lot of money to go far and it's right here in our backyard and by the way the only thing he lied about was two hours it's it's john's two hours is that's a really loose two hours by the time all over yes by the time you get the boat

out in the waters it's a long two hours but it that messed with me it That was the most mental day I've ever had. And I was like, I love John yelling at me. I love him critiquing me. But the fish he just described, like I saw. And he's like, cast it there. Let the fly go there. And I could not do it. And I was like, wow, I've been in these other rivers.

Humble pie. Yeah. You got to eat it to the proofs in the pudding. Humble pie. It ain't there yet. But no, I didn't go in there thinking I was all good. But once you can see the fish, even now, even where I was fishing yesterday, I'm like, put me in the fast water. I don't want to see the fish.

Let me read the current. And I would just hear in my mind John on the days that he goes they're in the fast water today i'm like i don't know if that's true or not but i like it way better when they're in the fast water everybody does yeah right because you can't see them and you're just like oh that was a good drift right but man he took me out there and it was like wow the level of angling the i mean i i always try to i was trying to describe my dad yesterday i was like dad john took me to place i was like he told me it was an aquarium and i literally didn't believe him and we launched the boat and it was muddy i'm like this is an aquarium and we went 50 feet

and it was an aquarium and john did what probably a good guy does. I don't want to out you. But he put me in fast water. And I caught like 15 fish in like 30 minutes. And I'm like, I am the man. He's like, let's go catch a big one. And we went out. And I'm talking, I mean, yesterday we were there. I was trying to teach my mom to fish. And I'm like, you know, all the bait fish are out there.

And I gave my Smith glasses. Shout out, Smith, potential sponsor of the podcast. Best glasses out there. Yeah, best glasses out there and i gave my smith glasses shout out smith potential sponsor of the podcast best glasses out there best guys get the yellow lands a lot of people take it out yellow goes all all year low lights and mom's like whoa look at all these fish and so later i was trying to describe it i was at mom like i've been to places where all like you put those glasses on you don't even need the glasses actually yeah yeah and all the fish are this big and the flies are bumping them in the forehead they don't care and they're not biting i was like or because she's like that little do you know what that fish was the last one

she caught you probably forget you look at so it was a broom it was a brim right okay that's what i said so she was so pumped because it was bigger than the last one, right? It's a brim. And I told her it was a brim. So I'm glad I got that right. But she kept saying, I'm looking at this big one. I'm looking at this big one. So I'm like, behind her shoulder, I'm like, go right there. And I just kept doing John Connors, be ready right there, be ready right in there. And he finally got it, whatever. But when you took me out there, it was terrible. I mean, it was great. It was great. It was exactly what I needed. But I realized like, whoa, this is a whole new level. Because now the fish can see everything.

Everything. Yeah. Everything. And I think that's like as hard as trout fishing can get anywhere in the world, to be honest with you. I mean, it's that hard. There's a reason you don't see guides guiding that water. Yeah.

I mean, it's hard. It's really tough. It's really tough. There's only a select few of us that are crazy enough to go in there day after day and watch people crumble, you know. Watch people land them, but people have mental breakdowns in this sport. It's just like any other sport. It depends how serious they're taking it.

I'm not a fan. As soon as the guy starts crumbling, it's like, all right, man. I'm the guy that's going to be like, man, you screwed that up big time. We're going to go right back to this fast water. We're going to have a great day. He did not do that to me. No. I just remember the

ride out of there. We're rowing the boat out. I can see all these fish he's like hey man you've been fishing for me with me for six seven months cast where you think and i'd cast he goes that's what you put that's what you picked you're gonna cast over there in this water with all those fish right there and i look over it's like all these huge fish so i cast over there oh now you're gonna go over there but it was the best it's the best i got the world's best fly fishing guy anyway trey what else you got man so i was gonna i think first i got two two questions man so let's say you have uh like bass fishing like i change rods depending on what I'm throwing.

If I'm throwing a swim bait, I got a swim bait rod. If I'm throwing a crank bait, crank bait rod, so to speak. One thing that's appealed to me, and I don't know if this is accurate, about fly fishing is you just go out with one rod and it kind of covers all the bases. Is that true or are you bringing out multiple rods or what? Trout fishing, I think as a recreational angler, one rod, you're good to go. Nine foot? Nine foot five in our area is a great rod.

I'd say a nine six out west most of the time, even a nine four. But see, I'm fishing ten fours for certain types of water, and then I'm fishing 10 fours for certain types of water. And then I'm fishing nine fives for certain times of water. And then now that you brought up the bass, we, we got a lot of small mouth, right? Like we got, that's what I love, right? Like we're in the middle of that right now. Um, we've been on a two month terror of that. And when we show up for bass, we've got two, four. I might have eight rods in the boat.

And that's because bass. With one client. With two clients. Two clients. But you got eight rods. Ready to roll. Okay. Ready to roll.

Same line on all of them? No, they're all different. They're all different. I'll have like intermediate sinking lines. I'll have a floating lines fly set up. We'll have spin rods in the boat. So one thing I'm not against, like I'm a fly fishing guy, but when you're fishing bass, if you're not fishing,

if you don't have a spin rod set up, you're not actually fishing those fish. They don't always eat fly rods like everyone says they do. I mean, there's guys you can go out there and catch. I mean, I got friends who won't put a spin rod in the boat. It's like everyone says they do. I mean, there's guys you can go out there and catch. I mean, I got friends who won't put a spin rod in the boat. It's like against the rules. And I'm a catcher, right? I'm not out here to go. I'm not going to go float five miles and catch 10 bass on a popper that I'm just skatooting across the water, right?

When I can just catch, you know, 50 on a spin rod. I'm not much of a spin rod guy either. But there's nothing wrong with spin rod. There's nothing wrong with that, right? I was against it early on. But when you start dealing with a fish like a bass, this is a very migratory fish. This thing does different things at different times of day. and what happens is it's not that one fish it's the whole river that's doing that when it happens so if you got a fish that's sitting on a bank for 12 hours for three weeks

and you show up week number four and you throw to the bank and you realize your fish are not there anymore one year beat the hell out of them too much, right? And you're looking for a bite that you've ruined. Or those fish have migrated into a different type of water column. And a spin rod is faster, quicker, more effective in rivers when it comes to smallmouth bass. And trout, I'll never guide trout with spin rod. It just ain't a, that fish is a predictable fish.

They always do the same thing. They feed in a line of current, same type of year, different type of temperatures. Bass, you can find those fish six inches deep, a foot deep, three foot deep, four foot deep foot deep in the ripping current in the slowest current all in the same day yeah i'd be curious what they do like bass in a river versus bass in a lake kind of what the difference very very very different species in my opinion yeah very very different very different i guess you have your home body fish. Yeah, go ahead. The second question I had, man, is let's say you had money, no option. Some place that you're like,

this is a bucket list place that I want to go fish. I guess not in South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee. It'd be really hard for me to take. I'm not lying when I say this, but I will fish those three states before I go anywhere in the world. Really? Okay. That just don't make no sense to me. It just, I mean, you got to see what I see, though. Like, we just got back.

We just did this two-day camping trip. That looked cool, by the way. Oh, my God. Good social media. I was dying inside. Oh, man. got back we just did this two-day camping trip that looked cool by the way oh my good social media oh dude i was i was dying inside oh man we did this two-day camping trip brother phenomenal bass fishery now it was scary right like there is crazy white water the logistics is very screwed up we had planned this for months uh another buddy that's a guide of mine and another uh guide service buddy of mine from east tennessee um we all like butt our heads together did this trip

had a few of our buddies come with to kind of be the guinea pigs on and we ran this i mean such a secluded piece of the world, man. Like, right? Like, I could take video down there and you'd be like, I don't know where he's at. And I'm just, I'm really close to my house, right? Like, I'm really, really, really close. You know, I would want to go do something in the salt if I had to get away from where I'm at. Beaufort's a great place.

I'd love to explore it with you. Yeah, Beaufort. I want to go do, from what I hear, a lot of my clients, I've done the redfish. I've done that in Louisiana. I've done it in North Carolina. I've done it in South Carolina too. But I would want to go chase permit in Mexico.

That seems like a really, it's a hard fish. They say it doesn't eat right. Like it's a real hard fish to get to eat. They can really like see well, smell well, all that good stuff. Um, I probably want to go do that. Um, if you had, if I had to, man, I've just got so much at my front door. I mean, any day of the week we could be guiding striper, muskie, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, brown trout, rainbow trout, brook trout, and whatever else you want to catch, man. Brim. Brim. I just went muskie fishing a couple months back up in Canada. Yes, good fishing.

How big do they get down in your neck of the woods? The other day we had one that was 45 on accident, and we hooked it on accident bass fishing. I have seen one that was 51 inches two years ago. And I know a guy that caught a 55 two or three years ago as well. What'd you catch, Trey? Are they sitting there? Are they just following?

No, they caught these fish. These were caught fish. Okay. Yeah, but musky do, yes. They follow? We see a lot of that that especially on our pressured muskie fisheries they they do follow a lot like a lot most of the muskie fisheries around here are very pressured because it's such a tight knit there's muskie here real close in this state

or close to it close enough okay yeah not like i would say there's musky in south carolina but man it'd be real hard i'll name you name rivers but within two hours i could be on musky we we there are musky west of us in the state okay for sure for sure but not many okay okay a lot more in north carolina and san francisco in virginia then like where you were at the musky land like A lot more in North Carolina and Tennessee. In Virginia. Like where you were at, the musky land. Like, right? Like that is. All over the place.

Full of musky. How many did you catch, Trey? So we didn't catch. So musky season, we weren't really fishing for it. So we were doing smallmouth fishing. And you would just get a musky follow like on a swim bait. And that's really all it was and if you don't have up there if you don't have like a metal leader or something like that then they'll just cut your line real quick which is what happened i will whenever i hooked one they will cut you off

leaders yeah oh yeah but i think like our group caught maybe three total so yeah you were catching crappie no we would do so i went crappie fishing like earlier that was back in like march i think that's that's down in texas but up there we were doing walleye fishing oh yeah that's right walleye and you do walleye fishing like before and then you do like a shore lunch and then like in the afternoon you would just do smallmouth fishing and it was it was like smallmouth it was like right after post-spawn up there because it's uh it was a lot colder so the the seasons are a little bit later or earlier i should say and so uh yeah we were they were eating everything, all the crawfish up there. Most underrated fish on fly rods, smallmouth bass. I expect a huge – the boys up north, there's some guys in Michigan

that have actually gave respect to that fish and have done a good job marketing that fish to the community because I think people get tied into the trout and realize that fly fishing is about fly fishing. It's not about trout. It's still's still a chase it's still a puzzle i feel attacked yeah i know you do you won't give it a little time all right but i think small mouth fishing pound for pound probably one of the hardest fish to catch some days too like Like, do you have to play your cards? Like they're really easy. Like when you're from a guide's point, like we just want to catch a few fish, yada, yada, yada. But like, if you want to like go and chase like a big smallie on the fly,

like you might, you're going to like around our area, you're going to have like two shots that day. If you fish it perfect, like you like you're gonna have like it's very like 60 foot long cast into the shade if the shade line's six inches wide you have to put it in the six inch wide shade line or you're not gonna you're not getting bit that day like you're not gonna you're not gonna catch that fish it's very they're very there it's a wild fish it's it's what our company stands for we're all about wild fish like stream born native or wild that don't matter right can you give the listener because we got a lot of dumb ass weightlifters here that's fine all right so so we got hatchery native wild yeah just like one minute so so stock fish are fish that the state makes

in-house just like a damn i don't even know like a frozen foods department they put it in the conveyor belt they dump them off into the river is that a hatchery hatchery are they all bad i'm not a fan okay yeah i'm not a fan fan. Finish the explanation, and then I'm going to dig into that. So I think hatchery fish have a very – they have a place, and it's not where wild fish live because they compete with the wild fish. And when you stock a bunch of – it'd be like taking – how do you put this? how do you put this? It's literally, you're literally taken from the resource when you,

when you add something to it that it doesn't need. It already, it already has what it needs. You can't, you can't take a river that the way rivers are set up, they're allowed to produce a certain amount of fish. The food in that river is only so abundant for what's in it already. So if you've got a river with 700 fish a mile, like our free stones in

Pisgah, they don't have a lot of fish in them. You got 10 fish a hole or something, right? You know, some of these rivers out in the other part of the States, like Tennessee, you might have 50 fish in a hole there's more biomass in that river there's more bug life in that river for those fish to survive on but when you take uh seven fish a whole river and then you dump 40 fish on top of those seven there's a problem okay there's not first, there's not enough food. Somebody's going hungry. You're going to start seeing fish die, get ate. Something's going to happen.

Another thing is I think a lot of fly shops and a lot of companies are made from stock fish, right? So there are people making a living off these fish, and I made a living off them for a while. And I still have a place we have access to that has stock fish. Why can't we go there? We're not going there. We're not going there. I think it's for a certain crowd.

I think it's for a kid, or I think it's for a 90-year-old, 95-year-old man who can't walk, but I can take them right here and sit them down and put them on a couple of fish real quick. You know, I think that's the place for them. Now, when people get in the, in this funk of chasing stock fish, chasing where they stock the most and going out and chasing these trucks that load them into these rivers i think you're i think you're taking fly fishing and you're literally you're ruining the sport when you do this okay this is an opinion i man i if y'all had a like i don't know who the following is here but i'll catch hate mail for this and you can come at me any day of the week. I don't care who y'all are. There is no reason for a 12-year-old boy or a 30-year-old man to be introduced to a fish that shouldn't be there.

You should have to earn your first fish. And I didn't know this going into it. I was the guy that caught the stock fish first thinking I was, damn, I'm getting good at this shit. These fish are eating all my flies, but you step into a wild trout stream. It's a whole nother animal. These fish know, they hear, they see stock fish are opposite. They have been fed by Billy Joe at the hatchery for years, man. They know what people look like. They follow you. They come right to you. I've sat there and watched stock fish not eat. A stock fish can be some of the hardest fish to catch some days, especially

when there's 50 guys coming in on that same hole every day beating on them, right? These wild fish, what they do, you know what they do when you make a bad cast they get the hell out of there you screwed up you need to move on then and that's and that's the that's where fly fishing is should should be it should be a fair chase game i think when you start dumping a bunch of fish in a river system like that that don't belong i can go off on this and i've got and there's a lot of people who hate me in the 300 mile radius we're in because I've kind of made this statement, right? And I made it clear. We fish public water a lot. We fish a lot of wild fish. And you look on my accounts, like we don't promote any stock

fishing. Will I take people to a stocked river? Of course I will, man. I will take a kid. If I know that this is what they need, I give people what they need. You know, now ask me how many times a year I do that out of the 250 days I'm on the water. I'm going to go with like five. Right. Like you show up with two kids. They're most likely on a wild trout stream

with me if you got two 10 year olds showing up i'm taking to those kids to a wild trout stream most likely like you have to request that that easy trip here you know what i mean there's a lot of places to offer that you know i could off on that. In South Carolina, we just call that fishing. Yeah. I do believe that. Yeah. I was going to do that in a minute. No, that was good.

That was even better. That was longer. Jeff, I feel like you pull his heartstring one more time. Yeah. So we'll always kind of. So Grant and I are the two fly fishermen here, and then we got Trey, the, you know, just the traditional kind of spin rod guy or spin reel guy. Big caster, not spin. Oh, yeah. Excuse me.

Excuse me. Hey, John made a good case for Trey's profession tonight. It's true. It's true. But we always talk about like, oh, we're conservationists as fly fishermen you know we're catching release that sort of stuff can you kind of talk more to like how like there is that kind of that like conservation heart of fly fishing and why it is kind of so like baked into the the dna of the sport so like uh man these are greasy, boy.

Hey, get greasy, brother. That's why you're here. Speak from the heart. We want the honest truth. So you want me to say it one more time for me so I can just rethink it? Because I could really go off and say some stuff. We would love for you to go off. This could get real.

Yeah, we should talk about kind of how you view fly fishing kind of like going hand in hand with like conservation and like preserving public lands access to public waters that's probably kind of touched on a lot of it talking about like the wild fish versus the stock fish and how that really is like a big thing and until you kind of get into fly fishing or you know looking at fishing rivers that you don't really even think about stuff like that. Can you kind of just talk more into that? Fly fishing and conservation definitely go hand in hand. I think there's a big group of us that practice catch and release fishing to help those fisheries do well so we can take our kids there there's that there's that side then you have organizations that are guys like backcountry hunter um backcountry

hunting angling yeah backcountry hunters and anglers yeah like like that group right there solid dudes yeah right they're fighting for anglers. Like if you watch how they move, it's very impressive. One of my buddies kind of put me on to them a couple years ago. And the way they fight for the public land use. And you got to understand where I'm coming from. I'm a kid from West Greenville that doesn't really play the public land thing, right? It's just something that I had to learn when I got into the sport. It's very important

that we have that public land. I've watched a lot of water disappear in the short amount of time I've been around. Right. And I get the access to private. I've got clients that own private water out West. I've got friends that own private water here. My old boss owns private water. Um, totally get the business side of things. But the thing is, when is, um, where's the cutoff when it goes public to private? When do we stop giving public land to private landowners? When do we stop losing land? Because what's happened is we've begun to lose more and more and more as big money rolls into town. A lot of these mountain towns don't know this yet, but wait till what... Greenville was a very small town, okay?

Very small town 20 years ago. You didn't walk in certain neighborhoods. You didn't go to certain parts of town. You owned acres of land at a time. And now Greenville, like you didn't see Lamborghinis. You didn't see Ferraris. Like if you did, they were from Atlanta passing through. Now they're here. and if you watch the land greenville's lost as a whole like the whole side of travelers rest cleveland paris mountain gone if gone right it's good for the community community's economy but what you're also doing when you do when you when you boost that economy these mountain towns don't know the money that can kind of just come in and

take it all away from them. It takes one guy with a big wallet, step into a small mountain town and scoop up a mile of private water. It is nothing. These mountain towns have a very, I hope they're on guard for what will come, you know, because I feel bad for some of them because they don't understand this cutthroat lifestyle of business that I was raised in before fly fishing. Fly fishing doesn't have that, you know what I mean?

So we're going to lose more land before we actually open more up, if that makes sense. opened more up if that makes sense i don't think i do not think they're fighting it right now on the wataga river above boone american whitewater has jumped in and i mean they are fighting a huge case over there right now i mean it's big i don't even want to talk about it really that's not something i should speak on but you're watching like a national thing go down right now and then but i think it was new mexico that opened up every waterway in the state over like boom private water is done guys everybody can get in the water i'm moving there so there's that aspect that could happen too right but the thing is then i start seeing guys I know, like, I don't want to see people that I know, like even my old boss or guys I know, like who I would consider competition.

Sure. Like, I don't want to see them lose their water. Yeah. Like it ain't, I don't wish nothing bad upon people, but what happens is you start stocking fish on top of wild fish. You're killing a resource that's already doesn't resource that doesn't need man to help it succeed. It's already made it. It's been there hundreds of years.

Hundreds of years. Since the 1800s, the fish have been there. Why the hell are we going to jump in this thing? It's almost like government, but we don't talk politics. But if we took more money from the stocking and put it towards stream restoration, like starting at the headwaters down in our areas and across the country, I think we'd have better water, better fishing. What people want is more, more, more. And what they need is less, less, less.

That's what they don't understand. It sucks to say this to clients, but I'm, I always tell them this, like, I want to catch a lot of fish. And I'm like, man, like, I've got that button on me, right? Like my, my God, Ron, he knows, like, I got this light little switch. I got, I got, I got like a switch where it's like I can really turn it on and we can really catch the hell out of these fish or we just catch them. You know, what happens when you turn those switches on, people think that's how it's supposed to be every day. And fishing isn't supposed to be catch, catch, catch, catch. You should go get your ass whipped a couple of times.

You should see that six inch rainbow that's like right sitting on like this little little of a fish right just little thing man most people laugh at this fish but that fish is smaller than half the humans walking this earth right now that fish does two things it mates and it eats it doesn't do nothing else right so when you have this little six inch mater and eater that has done nothing for the past 200 years but survive. And you throw this beautiful cast that's 40 foot long and he looks at that fly and goes under the tree and goes away. I think that is more relevant. That is more important for that angler to see than it is to catch that fish. Because you don't deserve that fish, right? Like that fish is like, that fish is really stupid when

you break it down trout. Like I respect trout, but if you feel like if you really break down a fit, like trout are real predictable. They're're kind of like they're gonna eat right that's what they got to do they eat mate right but when you throw a bad cast at that fish and he runs away it's something something serious there for the angler to understand and i think conservation when you when you put your effort towards the streams tu's kind of done a big thing where they represent wild trout and this and that. But I know TU organizations in our area that stock fisheries. They're putting stock fish in wild fisheries. And I'm going to tell you, man, the hell I'll catch from anybody here,

and this will be great. But I mean, I'm for it. I fight that fight all the time. I preach to everybody that calls me and says, well, I want to catch them. And I always tell everyone, I say, man, can you listen? If you can listen, you can catch them. We'll put you on them. But these people that want this justification of I want 600 fish in a hole,

what they don't realize is that you're you're you're you're in a strip club at that point yeah the girls aren't real the girls aren't real the girls aren't real not that i've ever been to a strip club i don't know those girls drive more expensive trucks than y'all they are they aren't going to college she's got a hundred k sitting in a shoe box in her house right now this is a front it is is literally just a quick fix for the angler community and when you go to these wild trout fisheries like up in east tennessee where i guide and you see the reproducing brown trout in those rivers by the thousands right and those and we and i'm part of a guide association now where we're trying to help those rivers right like we're actually putting effort to like check temperatures check

bug life doing whatever we can to keep those fisheries stable because what's happened since covid a lot of these fisheries started to go down a lot of conservation efforts are to me i wouldn't call it like a front but a lot of it's just a bunch of bs and political shit like i i've seen a lot of guys i've seen a lot of private water get restored on government funding right like me and you can't fish that water. They're going to charge people to fish that water. So there's a, there's so many different things going on with that alone. Right. Like, and it just, it kind of pisses me off, but I think as long as we stay ahead of the curb where we stand for something, it's it's it's okay is the are the trout streams in

our region gonna crash and burn man it's very possible but what's cool about wild fish is they always have a way to make it you know like floods drought yeah they know it's like people from west greenville yeah i mean we can i mean it. Yeah. I mean, that's it. I mean, that's it, man. Like, man, we're Greek. We come from this side of town, and you couldn't walk down this road we're sitting on right now 20 years ago. Things change. People change.

five, six years, a progression towards wild trout where I'm, where you're seeing a lot of the guys that used to chase stock trout, even on social media, Instagram is a big, like fly fishing community, right? It's huge. It's, it's big for everything. I get it. But, uh, um, you're seeing guys like that move towards fishing for wild trout, which is a very good thing. Sometimes it can be a bad thing because then you're, you know, like we're not hot spotting, right? Like I don't want to talk about rivers. I named Davidson earlier, but there's not a person on this 300-mile radius that knows that, you know, they know I fished at Davidson. It's not a

secret um but you know like when you put pressure on these wild trout streams you've got to put the right type of pressure on it like you got to have some etiquette like there are some rivers we guide where you see a car man you better keep driving right like you don't you've done that to me riding with you and you're like we're gonna fish it we're not fishing here we're not fishing yeah and it's a self-code thing it has nothing there's no rule book right like but why i take the water that i wanted to fish this dude beat me here give him that respect that day and beat him the next day, right? There's 20 miles of river upstream. Let's just go there, right?

Why go in on that guy in a wild trout stream? It just don't make sense. It's like the Davidson River. It's a wild trout stream, right? But there's an etiquette out there that's completely rigged. They think that you can sit shoulder to shoulder in that river. And that is not the case. We are not like some of these rivers I went to in Colorado one time. Holy crap, dude.

There were 50 dudes within sight. If that happened on the Davidson, somebody would be – I'm telling you right now, if that happened on the Davidson, there would be a fight. There would not – it wouldn't be a thing. And everyone complains about Davidson being busy. It's not. Nowhere near as busy as some of these other rivers are. And I'm a firm believer that you have to, like, if you're going to fish wild fish, you got to do it with some type of code and etiquette.

A lot of people call wild fish guys snobby. They call us arrogant. They call us cocky. Man, it ain't got nothing to do with that. I can shoot a deer in my backyard with a high fence in it and call myself a hunter or I can go climb the fucking mountain and see if the deer is up there. He might not be there, right? The deer may not be there.

I may have to go over another mountain to get to that deer or another mountain. I may not shoot a deer for a month. I may starve. I may starve, right? That's what wild fish and stock fish are. The stock fish are there placed in front of your doorstep like an Amazon package. That's what it is. That's what a stock fish is. They have nothing. You eat them fish, man. You know, there's a lot of people who know me and i will i'm gonna tell you right now stock fish comes into my hands it's not a good day for that fish he's coming home with me yeah right if the regulations are correct yeah if the regulations are right and i catch stock fish coming home he's coming home coming home

he's coming home we're gonna take i knew jeff that'd be a passionate one for him that's why uh that's a good one are there much i'll just try to hit no no no no they they were like they were like as i got into fly fishing i was like talking about wild fish and native fish they were kind of like ragging on me like you care about all this i was like hell yeah it's like it's important i mean i remember the day i remember the day that we're trying to float a river that i won't name first time on a boat catch a couple fish and all of a sudden the whole thing's washed out with dirt yeah and he's like that's a feeder upstream or i don't know what do you call a river that runs in another feeder upstream? And that's being,

you know, they're doing construction on it. It's probably funded by your tax dollar and it ruined our day fishing this river. And then that's the same day that I learned, like I told my dad, yeah, I can fish a ditch.

Watch me. Yeah. It's called a Creek. That's just fine. And still is fun. We caught the hell out of those guys. We caught the hell out of those guys over there. Yeah, we did.

That was cool. Well, the problem with this podcast is this is probably my favorite topic. And I could just go for four hours. No, no. Yeah. I don't even know what's happening. Yeah, don't worry about that. You're in the zone.

It's bad. All right, so anything you guys want to ask John before we kind of go through the usual shtick of things? I don't know. Actually, I'll start, and then we'll kick it a train, Jeff. So I grew up in the low country, Beaufort. I live in Seabrook, not Seabrook Island, Whale Branch River. I don't know if you know it.

Before 21 hits 17, like where you go to Charleston. It's the low country. It's marsh grass. I grew up on a shrimp boat. And we always called this the upstate. I never thought a thing about it. It was like Greenville and beyond is the upstate. That's what it is.

And when we went to the mountains, we went to Cashers, right? We went to North Carolina. But my dad would be like, we're driving through the upstate. We started this podcast. Now we say at the beginning, we're live from upstate South Carolina. I didn't think anything of it. I just was like, this is the upstate. Now I live here. It is what it is. But a lot of people are like, upstate? What does that mean? And so I just always tell people like, well, I assume it's like low country versus upstate difference in elevation. But today I did some research because I knew I was having you on and there's no knocking you because until today I had no idea.

And I grew up in the state. Like I grew up here. I was raised here, as Trey likes to say. But do you know anything about that term or does it mean anything to you? I'm going to see what you have to say on this one first. Okay. There's a couple. I'm going to give it away, and it's a very boring answer.

But what do you think? It's a corner of the state. Okay. So you think the corner is the up. Okay. So you don't think it's elevation. Okay. So in the 1960s, I forgot what the guy named was.

But in the 60s, they wanted to rebrand the upstate. So you had the Lowcountry and you had the Piedmont, right? Florence, Columbia, which included Greenville. And so this is into your thing of like Greenville blew up. You're talking the last 20 years. It was actually like blown out even more. It's like 1965, they were like, we have to separate ourselves from the capital.

And so we need to separate ourselves from the capital. And so we need to rebrand this. And the only city here is Greenville, but we'll just call this whole region the upstate. And then it took off. They got Michelin here. They got BMW in here and whatever. But yeah, I didn't know that. I just thought it was like

height. Low country's low. Upstate's higher. So they named it to rebrand to rebrand draw and go into companies and businesses yeah look at that it's great that's the greenway it's ugly out here hey every time i fish for john i drive two hours and i meet him somewhere in a parking lot by like a swimming pool or like a dirty gas station it doesn't have a bathroom and i'm like why don't you just live up here? And he's like, one, mountain people are crazy, once they are.

Like, they tailgate the crap out of you. It's unbelievable. And two, he's like, my heart's in Greenville. And I was like, I respect that. I respect that. Born and raised, man. Born and raised. I love my mountain people at the end of the day.

No, mountain people are great. But, man, I had a guy tailgate me from Tennessee yesterday. I was coming back. I pulled out at the place you told me to go, which I can't name. And I didn't think there was an actual pullout. So I pulled out a spot and I was like, oh, this must be where he wanted me to go. It was like 500 feet before you told me where to go. If I'd gone 500 feet, it was where I was supposed to go.

But I parked and I went out and I was like, all right, I'm using this new like map thing. I'm going to start like plotting everything. So I go out, take a picture. I upload the picture. I'm, all right, I'm using this new map thing. I'm going to start plotting everything. So I go out, take a picture. I upload the picture. I'm like, okay, I'm cool. And then I get my stuff and I'm like, I'm going to get run over by one of these dump trucks. So I'm like running across the street, all my gear on, nine foot ride.

Typical fly. Yeah, typical. Typical out of state fly. Typical novice right there. I run across, I hit the bridge and it says, turnout 50 feet. right there i run across i hit the bridge and it says turnout 50 feet and i look and i'm like the government put a turnout there in a sidewalk the first thing i thought was this must not be a good place to fish if the government's into it but i fished anyway and caught fish anyway i leave and so i have to pull out and i'm like on a curve and i'm looking you know i got that old truck and

like i pull out and the dude just tailgates me so i'm like what's up what's up like i got a 97 chevy i've been on mountain roads so i'm like 60 and a 40 he's like right up on me i'm like whatever so i pull out on the slow pull out he goes ahead of me and i'm like watch this i got a 350 engine so i floor it and i'm tailgating the hell out of them i get to the turn off he stops like three dump trucks pass there's another one coming he pulls halfway so i can't get out stuffs his middle fingers out the road oh yeah i'm like what license plate is this so like yeah that's tennessee right there watch out they're real over there and they're real

mountain real but i do love the mountain folk yeah uh all right jeff what do you got for him outside of fly fishing oh nothing i don't try fly fishing man i was gonna say it's not so much a question just kind of reiterate what you were saying one love the soapbox that you were on man i thought that was really good stuff um i always find that for people who don't fish or are kind of wondering if they should get into fishing. I always told Grant, like, bad day fishing beats working. So I think just as important as getting outside is going outside, touching grass, get some sun on you versus even if you don't catch anything. It's just fun.

Correct. I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. Yeah, I got a fishing question for him. Oh, yeah. Go. All right. So I work for Patagonia and Yvonne Chouinard, the founder, huge fly fisherman. And on a podcast, he talked about one time for a year, he said, I'm just going to fish with one fly pattern. I'm just sticking to one fly pattern. I'm going to change sizes, but it'll be one pattern.

If you were going to do that same thing, what fly pattern would you choose change sizes but it'll be one pattern if you were gonna do that same thing what fly pattern would you choose for a year it's gonna be a blue wing olive man it's not gonna be a hair it's not gonna be a hair it's gonna be a blue wing all right okay blue wing olive i think every fish that's a trout eats blue-winged olives. I do. That's the southeastern nationwide. I'll fish a blue-winged any fish. That's good New Zealand. Give me a blue-winged

olive. I wish I could say beetle, but they wouldn't eat that crap in the winter. Oh, man. I love that. That's the equivalent of a Texas rig, Senko bass fish. Basically. A worm is a good way to go. I love when he tellsko bass fish. Basically. You know, a worm is a good way to go. I love when he tells me

to fish a worm. I will say, you could argue worm is probably the best answer there. Worm is probably the best. Greeny leanies, baby. Right now, yeah. For sure.

With OK Podcast, we usually talk about our sponsors.. All right. So, uh, with okay podcast, we usually talk about our sponsors. We haven't because grants enamored fly fishing, but our sponsors BW tax, he's a CPA from Greenville, not from Greenville. He's actually from Boston. He went to the Citadel.

He's right down there on broad street. And funny question. And I think you'll appreciate this. Uh, you know, we're moving back to california before my deployment all that and my wife says to him you know he's asking about the move like grant's truck here he loves fly fishing he's got a gym like why would you do this and she says to him you're from boston have you like like I know your wife's from Spartanburg, but have you never thought of living anywhere else?

And he just looked at her dead in the face and said, no. No. Greenville's my home. Greenville's legit, man. So that's where he is. That's my facts about him. So what we're going to do is we're going to go around the room. We're going to give some facts.

We're going to have PJ, who maybe mics, maybe not. We can grab this mic, give some facts. And then we have you give an ad read. It doesn't have to be fancy. Trey will give you the instructions, but you'll just be like, Hey, this guy's from here. He can do your taxes. But Jeff, give some facts about them. The great thing is even if you're anywhere in the country, he can do your taxes. So it's not just in the country, he can do your taxes. So it's not just South Carolina specific. He can do your taxes if you live in Tennessee or upstate, downstate, low country, wherever you are. BW can do your taxes for you.

Trey? Man, I would say, so I did, I'm not going to say the company I did my taxes with this last year, but the initials are H. It's like not naming the river. You just don't do it. Yeah, but the initials are HRB. See me figure that out. So Big Hague. So the good thing about BW is it's a small company, very responsive.

If you have a question, you call them, you're not going to get a hotline. He's going to pick up or one of his guys is going to pick up so yeah it's always good pj you want to say anything about bw tax sure he knows how to cut through all the government red tape get your money back in your pocket so we don't we don't that the the buttons aren't working right right? Usually we play the guest an example, but you just – Just play the trombone. Give me the instructions. Oh, yeah, I can play the trombone.

Hang on. Number six. Nope. Yeah, that's your prep music. Trey, give them a little bit of instruction. All right. Hey, so usually on these ad reads, one, I'll say this. One of us does it, so the bar is usually very low.

But usually what we have people do is they take these facts that we give you, and you just do either five-second to five-minute, whatever you want to do, just a quick ad read of why people should go to BW. Yeah, and you act like you know them. Like what I love about BW Tax, and then you take everything we just said, and you go into it. Just whatever. Whatever, yeah, whatever. Better off the cuff take everything we just said and you go into it. Just whatever. Whatever.

Yeah, whatever. Better off the cuff. Shoot it right now. Yeah, shoot it. What I like about BW Tax, you just call the guy. He answers the phone, gives you great customer service right off the rip. He can do your taxes anywhere in the country. Why not go with it?

Why not go with it? That's going on the soundboard. So we have six buttons here. We had four filled up. Why not go with it? That's going on the soundboard. So usually, we have six buttons here. We've had four filled up. We've had 12 people do the ad read. So only four people have made it. I think he's making the soundboard.

Right off the rip. Right off the rip. Yeah, right off the rip. Jeff, you want to take them through the okay thing, maybe related to fly fishing? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so you saw the beginning of the show. The first time Grant didn't mess up a cast. Get set up.

No, you're good. You're good. Yeah, beginning of the show, all of us kind of gave our, like, okay. That's kind of our little tagline there. But, yeah, so think about, like, yeah, the first time Grant threw out that cast and hooked up a fish, kept it on the line, and you were like, okay, okay, Grant. It never happened. Yeah, just an okay, dig down deep, maybe give a little stank on it.

Little John. Yeah. That's where y'all got it from. That's great. That is where we got it from. Y'all put it real white. Yeah. Okay. he does the okay that's good that's little john that's a little west greenville right there

what boy that's that was when i was 18 brothers like little john was my he got me to my girlfriend's house yeah what are we we're like we're like 10 months apart he got me yeah yeah little john was when you were in the club you were oh that was it yeah you know in the east side boys and the east side boys yeah and the yin yang twins yeah yeah yeah and go dj by uh little wayne that was real that was helpful in high school that was um all right so john first can't think enough you're the first guy to sit in the equipal these my wife's mexican these chairs are from mexico we bought them our honeymoon shipped in tijuana i drove across this uh state line there in california or country line i guess you know what what people would call the wall there was no wall and i brought

these chairs back we've never had a guest in the chairs you're the first always the first it's great yeah podcast for me yeah my first time being talked to yeah a lot of guys don't want to talk to me yeah you're a natural want to call me and go fishing yeah i i feel like i overused like wearing out your welcome where i talked to you too much but you you're, this is great. Yeah. Um, where can people find you?

Where do you want them to go? What do you want them to do? Oh, just Google us. Yeah. Fly fishing Greenville. Um, we'll be up there.

Here's your fly fishing.com hair as like a rabbit. H a R E S E A R fly fishing.com. John at here's your fly fishing.com. John at haresirflyfishing.com. What's your Instagram? Haresirflyfishing. Haresirflyfishing, like a rabbit. That's it. That was the first fly you tied, right?

Wasn't that the story? That was the fly that that fish that I chased forever ate. Okay, that was the first one you had. The one that ate, the company is named after a fly the fish ate that made me quit my day job. Day job. Now you made it. So last question, and we'll let you out of here. So I put my mom on those two fish.

I was really proud of it. It was fun. I wasn't proud of it because it wasn't a lot of great angling happening but like her excitement like when when i would hand her the fish her hand was shaking right and like the smile was so big and i was like this is better than any fish i've ever caught actually i don't know that i've ever made my mom smile this big right like like her hands were like and afterwards she kept talking i don't know why my hands were shaking i was like mom you just touched a native fish and no one in this world has ever touched right that's a little john connett send me right there but um i also trying to thought

that happens yeah sorry i went off i started thinking about god and you were god that was god i have no idea i had a point i had a point there uh it sounded really good yeah i did yeah oh no yeah yeah so so so i finish she catches it and she's like do you want to fix she's like should i change i was like no it's it's graph paper you fish this water go over here she goes over she, she catches the next fish. And she finishes. She's been fishing like an hour at this point. My wife's very pregnant.

I'm like, it's time to go. You caught a fish. We're on a high note. Let's get out of here. And so, you know, I go to put the rods up, including the Honda Accord behind you. And, you know, I cut the fly off and I pull out, you know, I got some fly company stuff I won't name and i'm like i don't like this company john told me this company sucks i had a couple flies in that dumped another one put the fly in and i was like here so what's this i was like that's the first fly you ever caught a fish on because

like in artillery which the three of us are like first time you pull the lanyard into the howitzer you get the primer you bite the swab it's like a thing right and you're like this is the first time like is that a thing like i just i was just like i feel like keep this fly you'll remember it it's a thing if the moment's special enough okay this is all right cool all right i just like that guy caught that fish the other day yeah keep this fly took the fly yeah all right a lot it's just i i think it's just a it's a ceremony type so it's not necessarily the first one but it's like it's just an important one yeah it's an important one yeah it's an important way it's you made it to be she made it important you made it important so

there you go all right that's cool all right you like that all right here's your fly fishing.com like the rabbit here's your fly fishing on instagram it's super great account the river updates are my favorite they don't happen enough i want more of them they happen like once a month we're live from the garage i hate doing this he always prefaces with that but go follow those guys um john thanks for coming on thanks for having me all right it was fun this was fun. This was fun. All right, Trey. At this point of the show, it's over.

John's leaving. He's still here. What do, like, you know, what should we tell? Yeah, I mean, we probably want people to listen to this. I mean, you got that amount of knowledge dropped on you. You probably need to know something. Yeah, if you made it this far, Grant's bomb. Well done.

Yeah. Thanks, Mom. What episode are we on? 036. It's been 036 of the Okay. We almost forgot. We almost forgot. We'd like to thank our guest, John, for coming on

for the time and questions and knowledge you dropped on us. Thanks again. Love to have you on sometime in the future. As always, let's thank our sponsor, BW tax, keeping the lights on this. I believe we are still powered by the strength.

Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, I don't know. Hey, it's got a fun, my fly fishing below. You'll see a link to the Slack. Love to interact with fly fishing. Look at the show notes below.

You'll see a link to the Slack. Look to interact with you there. Go ahead and join that. Got any questions about lifting, life, you can reach out to us there. Find us on YouTube. Like and subscribe there. Leave a comment. If you go to www.theokpodcast.com, you will find all the social media links.

Give us a like and a follow there that machine thanks no thank you jeff do you miss anything beautiful well done trey we'll see you next time