Ep 105: The Dirty Bomber and Atlantic Salmon, with Paul White
Paul White is a counselor, angler, and writer. He has a story featured in the new book Tales of the Great Outdoors, which is a compilation of hunting and fishing stories from Newfoundland and Labrador. In his article, he recounts the creation of the Dirty Bomber fly, a variation he created that embraces the idea of excellence over perfection. In this episode, we talk about fishing as a way to improve mental health, fishing in Labrador, Atlantic salmon, and the creation of the Dirty Bomber fly.
Website: link
Twitter: @paulmwhitey
Linkedin: link
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. this is episode 105 with Paul White on the dirty bomber and Atlantic salmon. I like to start every show with getting a background on my guests and how they got into the outdoors. So I'd love to hear how you got your start in the outdoors and then also how you got your start in fly fishing?
Paul
Well, I guess I was mentored by a very, we call him a strange creature. My grandfather, he was a happy taxpayer. If you've ever heard of one of those. And my father was, you know, he worked for the U.S. military. He was a civilian. And so my grandfather, I became his protege at a very young age. And he was into, he was retired now. So he was into, you know, part-time jobs but hunting and fishing and we snared rabbits together pick berries really after the trout and so it was years later when I saw all these guys you know standing on a bridge and I said poppy you know what are they doing he said they're they're fly fishing for Atlantic salmon so we started fly fishing and then got into that and it's opened up I guess a whole world Katie of I don't know how to explain it adventure is a good word to use I guess
Katie
sure and so I know we're going to get kind of into how you like tie this into, you know, what you do for a career and how kind of your ethos on life. And maybe I'll let you kind of steer the conversation that way, because maybe we'll start with like what you do for a living and we'll kind of bring that back into the fly fishing world. So tell me what you do for a living. I know it's kind of wide ranging, so feel free to take it wherever you want.
Paul
Sure. So I do have an entrepreneurial spirit, a background. I got, you know, part-time businesses on the side, streams of revenue. I'm a mental health counselor by profession, trained, and I work in a couple of schools, but I'm also a professional speaker. So I get the key theme of all this is helping people. And I find that for me to be able to help people, I got to be in tip top shape. And that's what fly fishing does. It keeps the mind focused. It keeps, you know, life balance, patience, a clear head. And you can't go wrong, you know, in mother nature with the sights and sounds and the fish rising. And even if there's no fish, you're just, you're out there with the fresh air. And, so yeah, I guess people ask me, you know, you've had all these positions and you, you, you've done a bunch of things. What do you do? And I, I try to help people leave, lead great lives and whatever that means to them, you know, not chasing, not chasing the dollars, but chasing the happiness and finding it and, you know, being well, well grounded. And, and the best way to do that is get in nature. So there it is, Katie.
Katie
So how did you get into this? Did you just feel like you had a calling to help people and they took you here? How did you stumble into being a mental health counselor?
Paul
Well, yeah. So my grandfather, like I said, he was a helper. He was a well-spoken man. Before unions, he was the union because if there was a problem between the workers and management and they done jobs for the Americans. He also worked at the naval base when he retired from fishing on his father's schooner. So Skipper Mike, my grandfather, he was the main man, shall we say, and they say, Mike, you know, you be foreman. And he could speak for the people and, you know, just a common person, you know, with a common good and a big heart and a big voice. And I guess, you know, I got into it, eventually joined Toastmasters and people said, you're good at that. You know, we would like to hear more. And I was really shy in school. And so it evolved, Katie. And I can say, you know, it's been mostly a genetic thing that I've developed to be able to, you know, do to the best of my ability, help to the best of my ability, you know, deliver a powerful message, probably, you know, at a keynote presentation, or, you know, deal with somebody who's probably suicidal, and having those thoughts and feelings and taking them from, you know, the depths of despair to reality and back to a good place, you know, it hasn't been easy, but it's very worthwhile.
Katie
And so that's an example of what you do. What other kinds of things do you help people with, you know, say someone comes in, And they just want to, maybe they're not depressed or thinking about ending their life, but just they want to be a better version of themselves. They want to, you know, live a fulfilled life. How do you help someone go about that?
Paul
I find, so like counseling, we're not supposed to give advice. You know, and coaching is a buzzword that a lot of people use. I like the word consulting because as a consultant, I can give advice. You know, mental health advice, I don't usually do that unless it's absolutely necessary. You know, people with self-harm and stuff. But as a consultant, you can give the advice. You can basically help people help themselves. And a lot of times, well, I'd say most of the time, you know, people want someone to listen. They want to talk. They want to get it out of their system. And I can do that and also help them probably see things they couldn't see, you know, and develop a plan and, you know, reel it back in. You know, as we say in fishing, right? Reel it in. It all starts internally. and developing the self-esteem and the self-confidence and the basic stuff, the foundational stuff. Because once you got that, I mean, you can tackle pretty much anything. And so that's pretty much it. Grounded to simple disciplines, learning those, practicing those, reinforcing those, and being a good listener.
Katie
Now, do you ever prescribe time in nature as a way for people to feel better? Is that something you write down a piece of paper and hand to them and say, know, go outside or try picking up a rod or something?
Paul
I do. Yeah, I'm not a registered psychologist. I have acted as one in a prison system because they, you know, they couldn't find anybody as a counselor. Basically, I didn't write the exam. I could have, but, you know, letters after my name don't mean anything. So, you know, only the psychiatrist, the medical doctor trained can prescribe medication, you know, as a medical doctor and a psychologist, they can diagnose. But as a counselor, you know, we do a broad range of things, but nothing really specific medication-wise. However, I will scribble on a piece of paper, you know, eight glasses of water a day, eight hours of sleep at night, and, you know, get active during your week, go for a hike, go to the river, and people, they laugh at it, but they don't forget it when you write it on a little sticky note.
Katie
Now, I know one of the things you mentioned as kind of a theme in what you talk about and what you do is kind of thinking of fly fishing as like a metaphor for life. Tell me more about that. Like, How do you view fly fishing as a good comparison for, you know, striving for excellence in other areas of your life?
Paul
Well, I look at, you know, it's the fishing versus the hunting. So I'm in Newfoundland, Labrador, northeast coast of Canada. We're the closest to England. We're a half hour ahead of everybody else. We got our own time zone. So, you know, it's culturally authentic here. But the hunting metaphor is you chase. And the fishing metaphor in the spiritual world or the self-help world, self-improvement world is the law of attraction. That, you know, you get so good at being such an attractive person that, you know, you bring things to you. You bring the business to you. You bring the clients to you. You bring the happiness to you. Because, you know, you develop a skill set. And, I mean, it's a daily battle, Katie. Day to day, you got to work at it. Developing those disciplines and working hard and, you know, biting the bullets. No pain, no gains. You know, I use that lightly, but it's true. And so, you know, I use that fishing metaphor for people to learn the basics and how to attract the success or whatever they want, the good health. But you've got to do the work, but it's a lot of attraction. It's fishing.
Katie
So the way I'm interpreting this, when you say hunting, it's kind of the chase. You're going out and seeking what you want to get. And for fishing, the way I'm hearing it is that, you know, you could go out all day long and try to catch a fish with your hands. But putting in all that time and effort is not going to get you a lot of fish. Whereas if you can become a good angler and bring the fish to you, then that's like a better use of your time. Is that kind of like what you're going for?
Paul
100%. So if you chase a moose or you chase an animal, it runs. It runs, right? So if you're fishing, you put out the bait, you lure it to you. And it's less stressful. It's more peaceful. It's more happiness. What was the quote by Jim Rohn? He said he was the business philosopher in the U.S. I went to his training, actually, and he trained Tony Robbins and a whole bunch of these early gurus in self-development. He said that success is something you attract by becoming an attractive person. So you have to be an attractive person in the marketplace, you know, with a spouse, with your kids, in your job. You be an attractive person. You don't need to go chasing stuff, but be so grounded and be so attractive that, you know, things show up. And it takes time. And, you know, some people, they have serendipitous moments. They have, you know, some luck. But a lot of it is hard work and learning the disciplines and, you know, studying what works and applying it to yourself.
Katie
So tell me what that looks like in the context of how you're usually helping people. And obviously it's going to be different. You know, you being an attractive person to your spouse is different than being an attractive person to potential clients or things like that. Like you might have to do different things to be that person that is bringing things to them. But, you know, what does that look like in general for somebody who is trying to make themselves be that person that kind of success comes to them? I know we're still we'll get back to the fishing, but I'm just curious how you how you apply this.
Paul
Well, I mean, it starts with a plan, a plan in your mind. Some people read it on paper. I used to now. You know, it's it's more of in your mind of how you plan it. And, you know, your hours, your minutes turn into hours, your hours turn into days, your days turn into weeks, the months, the years. So, you know, there is some time management there. But, I mean, you've got to plan it out. And on top of that, study what works, right? If you want a dog, don't buy a cat. So you study what works, and then once you study it, you apply it. And that's as basic as I can put it. Now, like I said, some people need, you know, we use that buzzword coaching, but some people need some consulting and someone to be hard-nosed with them. Okay, listen, I'll tell you what. I'll save you 10 years of your life. Don't do this. I promise you it's not going to work. I've done it and tried it 10 times. I've had other people try it. No, don't do it. Go this route. It'll save you the stress and the agony, you know, and sometimes you got to be frank with people like that. And, you know, I guess at the end of the day, once again, it's, it's, it all comes back to that self, that inner person and having the self-esteem and the self-confidence then to take a risk and to make it happen and to ask for help whenever you need it. So I hope that sort of answers your question.
Katie
Yeah, yeah. It makes me think I might need a counselor to come to when, you know, fishing's not going right and I need to come consult and be like, hey, why did this thing that I thought was going to work not work? So I kind of wish they had you on retainer for fishing issues.
Paul
I like it. I like it.
Katie
So the reason we got connected is you've got, I don't know if it's your book or if it's just a book that you had a story in. It wasn't super clear. So I'd love to hear from you how this book came to be. But the Tales from the Great Outdoors, I read a couple stories in there. You've got a story in there about the dirty bomber fly. So tell me how this book came to be. How did you become a part of it? Just tell me how this came to be.
Paul
Well, I'll go back a little bit. Like I wrote Newfoundland Labrador's first self-help book. It was years ago. I think it was 2008. I didn't put a lot of emphasis on it. So I wrote that book and put it out there. Then I became part of another book in the mental health world called Resilience. So the main guys who operated like an outdoors adventure group, they had a TV show, they had a magazine. It was the Newfoundland sportsman, Newfoundland Labrador sportsman. So Gord Follett was the editor and he had a bunch of writers. They had a magazine, I think it was every second month, so six times a year, or it might have been quarterly. Anyway, COVID hit. They went on a bit of a hiatus and then decided, you know, it's a new world now and we got to try some different. So they tried it online. It didn't really work. And the guys were, you know, they were getting up there, ready to retire. So they shut the business down. But Gord, the writer and the editor of magazine, he formed a little group. And now he got his own little side gig and, you know, part of another publishing group. He decided to take his top writers and produce a book of Tales of the Great Outdoors, Hunting and Fishing Adventures, Newfoundland, Labrador. So I had wrote an article actually of this salmon fly that was going to go in the last or the issue of the Sportsman Magazine before COVID flattened it. And it never got published. So he wanted it for this book. So anyway, and here we are.
Katie
It makes sense that it kind of spawned out of a magazine because it feels very much like a long magazine. maybe three to five page articles just all in the same theme but all written by different people all about different stories and when I opened it I was like this seems kind of like a mega magazine without the ads which is great but
Paul
oh sure 100%
Katie
so it's like all the meat of maybe 10 magazines all squeezed into one book but it's great to open up for like you know you want to read 10 minutes before bed read one story close it up and then check back in the next day
Paul
100% one of the greatest book series in the world is Chicken Soup for the Soul, right? Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen. And that's just a collection of stories from different authors, different walks of life, different themes. A colleague of mine, Kyle Wilson, now he's got one in Texas, Lessons From, and it's the personal development success movement. I'm in one of his, the resilience book, but he's got Don't Quit and Overcoming Adversity and a whole bunch of themes and short stories, like you said, easy reading. You can pick it up. Instead of picking up your cell phone to scroll, pick up, read a story, right? Go to bed, wake up, something positive. Yeah. So thanks a lot. It's an enjoyable book.
Katie
Now, how did you get into writing? Is this something that you just picked up and decided to run with or how'd you get your start?
Paul
Well, I guess writing university papers. Okay. And yeah, I'm not a typer. I'm a speaker. So I usually speak it into the machine or I pick one, right? So I just got into it and people liked it and some stories and, you know, I guess it's all about how you tell the story.
Katie
Yeah. So maybe give people a rundown of your story in here, because this is great. It's like kind of a short format thing. So people can kind of get a taste of what type of stories might be in this book, but also give people a background before we dive into the Dirty Bomber fly and Atlantic Salmon Fishing and all that. Give people a rundown of what you wrote about for the book.
Paul
Do you want me to tell you the other stories?
Katie
Oh yeah, sure.
Paul
The names and stuff? I wrote them down, Katie. Just one second. Cole's Notes version. So like in the hunting world is black bear, moose, caribou hunting, tern hunting, that's a seabird. Polar bear hunting. Now that's a controversial topic, but the indigenous people in the north, they get licenses. That's part of their culture. Duck hunting, winter camping, rabbit hunting, cooking, food, cooking in the outdoors, Atlantic salmon fishing, sea trout fishing, brown trout, Arctic char fishing, then we got salmon flies, ice fishing. There's part there, but, you know, plane crashes of days gone by coyote hunting. So, you know, it's a history culture, pretty authentic for Newfoundland Labrador where, you know, it's, it's one of the last heavens on earth. And, and, you know, September 11th happened and Gander close to where I'm living now in central Newfoundland, you know, opened its, its doors to thousands of passengers. And ever since that, they've come back, right? So from the US and different parts of the world. And, you know, it's got the small town feel with a big heart. And, you know, nature is a big part of our life.
Katie
I hear really great things about it. I think it's a lot of people's bucket list to head up there and feel like they're in one of the last great, like untouched wildernesses in the world. 100%. Yep. So go ahead and tell me about the Dirty Bomber, the Dirty Bomber fly and, you know, Atlantic salmon fishing?
Paul
Well, yes, Atlantic salmon. So I'll go back to my grandfather, my great grandfather, they were on the schooner way back, you know, and they were commercial salmon fishery. So we had a commercial salmon fishery where they use nets, gill nets and process the fish. They glaze the salmon, froze them. So over time now the Atlantic salmon stocks, the wild stocks, you know, decreased significantly all over the world. And so, I mean, it's in my blood it's in my culture so when grandfather and I went fishing first that's a long time ago you know three plus decades there was wet flies and dry flies a wet fly sinks below the water dry fly floats on top that's pretty much the two basic categories now you got a whole bunch of other you know streamers and as you know terrestrials and scuds and midges and but for Atlantic salmon for the most part is wet and dry and so the dry fly there was a guy in New Brunswick, Elmer Smith. he threw a cigarette butt on a salmon pool and watched the salmon come and grab the cigarette butt. And so he designed this fly that was clipped deer hair with a couple of tails on it to resemble a cigarette butt or a cigar butt. And they had great success with it. So the next thing you know, somebody spins on deer hair, trims it down, and then wraps a feather around it. A hackle kind of looks like a caterpillar. Nobody knows what it looks like, but it floats and it works for Atlantic salmon. So the salmon don't, the Atlantic salmon do not feed in freshwater. They'll eat, of course, they'll eat bugs and insects, but they don't feed. The major feed is in the ocean. They're anadromous. So they spawn in freshwater, go to the ocean to feed, come back to, you know, the cycle of life. So anyway, I said all that to say this. So when grandfather and I started, I started tying flies very soon after. And, you know, as a beginner, you know, it's like learning how to ride a bike, You fall on your face or you trip. So my flies, Katie, were what we called dirty. They were ugly, rotten, like a furball a cat had hacked up, right? And I guess I never, ever lost that because I know my friends now, they can make a salmon fly. You could frame it like Picasso's art on the wall. They're that good, you know, with the different colors. And the guys can spin here and put eyeballs on them with deer here. And it's crazy. So anyway, but I never lost that childhood, I guess, curiosity, if that makes sense to you. And I was tying them and I didn't really know what I had. Like this kind of evolved that, you know, how do I say this? I was too ashamed to use them because they didn't look good. They didn't look good to my eyes. And so this day on the river, I had them tucked in the corner of this box. And my grandfather and I, we bought the professional ones done. You know, they look good, trimmed well, neat, you know, tidy. And grandfather said, what do you got there? I said, well, that's just, you know, the old rotten ones I thought. He said, put it on. And Katie, I'm glad I did. And, you know, so I guess, you know, hindsight, you look backwards, another discipline of success. You know, you're at the end and you connect the dots going back to see where you end up. And so when I look back, I realized that, hmm, I didn't lose my curiosity. I still do not tie neat and tidy. I like it because 99% of anglers, right, they throw, you know, identical, perfect looking flies out there. And my philosophy is, well, show them something different. If others zig, you zag. So that's what I do. And that's what I did. And then so this bomber, you know, my flies, especially the dry fly, and it got to a point where I didn't care because they work so well when other people's didn't work. I said, this is, there's something to this. So then I got thinking and, you know, I like to study. I'm a bit of a thinker. So you realize, well, you know, what's really going on here? Why do the fish destroy this? Like they'll rise and they'll pick and they'll, you know, nip and try to drown. But they come and like the old skipper said, he said, they got it in their mouth fast. He said, it's crazy. And so then I figured out, well, if you look at the animal kingdom, when you have like, you know, an injured zebra, right? The lion will kill the zebra, but if it's an injured zebra, he's more vicious. He wants to put it out of his misery. Same thing with the polar bear and the seal. Polar bear gets a seal, but if the seal is injured or I've seen him hit the seal, drive it 20 feet up in the air and then come down on top of it. Right. It's all, I don't know. So I said in the book there that, you know, the greatest predator prey relationship is with an injured victim. So I figured that an injured fly and something really messy and rotten looking and not perfect in nature, it drives the salmon crazy. And it works that much better. And my friends can't believe it. They just can't believe it. And so what I did, Katie, over time was I took a whole bunch of different ways of this fly, you know, from short tails to long tails to messy body to short hackle to long hackle. and realized that, you know, for the Atlantic salmon, it was the shadow on the water above their heads, right? I show you my finger here is what you see. But if you look up at it with the sun beaming down, that's what the fish see. It's totally different. And anyway, so yeah, I mean, that's how it came about. And it's got a neat little name, Dirty. My friends one time looked at my fly box and said, it looked like someone threw a grenade at it. It was pretty rotten. So the word dirty stuck, right? Paul's flies are dirty. You had a bomber and then the dirty bomber, yep.
Katie
How do you take a fly? So I totally get what you're saying when you say that it makes something that looks different, makes something that looks not like everything they've seen before, something that stands out a bit, which is very apparent to me, having gone to a fly shop and had them recommend the same fly they've recommended to 100 other people that day, and it just doesn't work as well as you feel like it should. It looks perfect. And then you switch to something they've never seen before and you start catching fish. How do you avoid falling into the trap of you've got a fly that is inherently good because it's imperfect, and now you're trying to replicate that? You know, flies have a recipe that you're following, and you're making the hackle turns. And at some point, it becomes almost robotic because you've done it so many times. So how do you keep that air of imperfection in something that is inherently now a recipe that you're following?
Paul
Okay, good question. Before I get to that, I'm just going to go one step further. so with the Atlantic salmon as I was saying they don't they'll eat in freshwater but they don't feed so nobody knows why they take the fly it's a mystery right no they're not taking it to to feed they might eat it they may kill it they may it might bother them nobody really knows other than instinct so with the salmon fly they're so unpredictable like with a trout he's taking it he's killing it as dinner with the salmon I mean and when they get in the river system they just It's got sex on the brain. It's just reproduction. Go to the headwater spawn, get this done. So it's, you know, it's not a feeding instinct. So that's why, you know, with the dirty bomber and the salmon fly, the imperfection works. Because if you're fishing trout or I think you started with, was it bass fishing?
Katie
Yeah, I started on bass. But yeah.
Paul
Right. And people say match the hatch and all these, you know, different philosophies that work. So, you know, with the Atlantic salmon, showing them something different a lot of times, like if guys are fishing wet, I'll go dry. If guys got the brown bug, I'll go orange. Or if the guys are using a regular bomber, put the dirty on. And now, I mean, you know, a lot of people have caught on to that, but it doesn't matter. So that's that, you know, that's that piece of the equation. When you're tying them, I like them every single one to be different. That's just me. So how I do that is speed. I just go. You just rush it. I just go. I could actually, like, I won't, but during this interview, for example, I could tie and talk and keep tying and, yeah, it's kind of a, it's a learned thing over so many years that the speed takes care of the keeping it imperfect.
Katie
You know, that's a really interesting point because when I think of fly tying and, you know, getting into it and, you know, following these recipes and perfecting the flies, I always hear the tip of like tie the same fly over and over again until you get good at it which which makes intuitive sense to me but now I'm questioning maybe maybe it's there's some value in tying two or three and then switching to something else so you're kind of always tying it a little bit different so you don't get that perfect fly and I I guess as a fly tire you might want to see the satisfaction of getting the fly just right like making it look like it does in the book you're using or on the on the YouTube video or whatever there's some satisfaction in getting it just right But maybe it's good to not be frustrated when your fly still doesn't look quite right, because maybe that will be what triggers the trout to eat that day when everyone else is throwing a perfect elk hair caddis and you're throwing kind of a wonky one. You know, those flies still have value that makes those early ties still a little bit satisfying in some way.
Paul
100%. And of course, practice makes permanent. People say perfect, but practice makes permanent. You get good at it. And the key with fly tying, I find, is once again, you get the basics down, tight thread knots, you know, proportions are big. Then you can tie anything. But, you know, with the beat up, rotten, dirty caddis, I mean, it looks injured. I would think the fish are going to hit it. But you don't know. You kind of got to experiment. The other thing, too, you know, do you want to eat green grapes and, you know, a carrot bran muffin every day for the rest of your life for breakfast?
Katie
No.
Paul
No, you want change. You want variety. So throw out the orange bug, throw out the muddler minnow, throw out the Mickey Finn stream. You know, you kind of got to vary it up. I'm sure trout get bored too, seeing the same stuff or bass or salmon.
Katie
Sure. I mean, I bet it depends a lot on how fished the water is too. You know, if you're the first person that's been there in two weeks, I would bet that it doesn't really matter what you throw out on nearly anything that lands in the water is going to be taken. If you've got 50 people in the same stretch every day throwing the same fly that the fly shop told them to fish. I feel like that's where you really get that value in throwing something a little bit different that the fish haven't seen 2,000 times in the past hour.
Paul
A hundred percent. And you get good at that by studying it. So I tell people, you know, as crazy as this sounds, think like a fish. Think more like a fish, not like the guy who's tying the flyer, the guy you spoke to at the fish shop. Listen to your guide or the experts on the river, but weave in a little bit of your own thinking that thinks like a fish, if you can imagine that.
Katie
Absolutely. So tell me more about the fishing in your part of the world, because I know it's pretty famous for lots of things. I think of brook trout when I think of that region. But obviously, you're pretty focused on the Atlantic salmon. So tell me more about Atlantic salmon, because I don't know too much about them.
Paul
Well, yeah, so the Atlantic salmon is anadromous. Like I said, you know, it spawns in freshwater, feeds in the Atlantic Ocean. The large salmon leave our rivers, go as far north as Labrador, Greenland, you know, and come back. Those are the large ones. They're out to sea more than, say, one year, multi-sea winter MSW. Some of them could come back, you know, 20-plus pounds, right? They've got them 40, 50, and, you know, they're massive. I mean, it's probably the number one game-fighting fish on a fly rod rather than a tuna fish, you know, deep-sea tuna. And they've got them on rods and reels too, you know, six, seven, 800-pounders off the coast of Newfoundland. But the Atlantic salmon, we've got to use a barbless hook. Fly fishing only is, you know, it's a protected species. It's incredible because it's such paradoxical. You don't know what it's going to do. And every day is unpredictable. Every rise, every season, they rise differently. Like it's, I can't explain it, Katie. You'd have to do it to really understand it, but it keeps you going back. And my grandfather said, you know, if we only knew the mind of a fish, we'd have it made. But also we probably wouldn't go, we wouldn't do it anymore.
Katie
So how do people tend to target them with a fly rod? Like what kinds of flies do people use? Obviously you mentioned the Dirty Bomber, but how are people getting them in the net?
Paul
Blue Charm is a big one. Like I said, and the wet fly fishing, like some people, they tie the fly, they tie the leader on the hook and let it sink under the water. In Newfoundland, they develop what's called the Riffling Hitch or the Portland Creek Hitch where two half hitches go around the head and it skims across the surface and makes a V behind it. And that became about when Lee Wolf was the pioneer from New York. He came here hired by the government to promote hunting and fishing. To the world from Newfoundland and Labrador, especially the Americans, and the locals in Portland Creek and eventually River Ponds, those communities, but Portland Creek, They used to take the old classic flies that were beat up because the eyes of them were tied with gut, you know, silk gut, and they had fallen apart. So the locals would put a half hitch, two half hitches on the top just to attach it to the leader, and the fly made a different movement. So that's a unique history in and of itself. But, you know, hitch the fly, dry fly, wet fly, streamers, muddler minnow, you know, it's very unique. you'd have to really experience it to understand it. A lot of times, when you're prospecting or going down through the pool first, you'll often rise a fish. He'll just come and look at it. And you may get him the next cast or a couple casts later. He'll come first the first time, but the second time with the wet fly, he's coming. He means business. And yeah, you know it's coming. You're just anticipating, right? Adrenaline on bust. So, you know, we got trout here too, brook trout. We got sea trout. We got arctic char, northern pike, lake trout, whittonish, they're actually landlocked salmon. There's brown trout, steelheads, sea-run rainbows in smaller, you know, smaller proportions, right? So I think that's most of our species. You can catch on a fly, but how did you get involved in fly fishing?
Katie
I've got kind of a convoluted story, but I started fishing when I was really young with a spin rod for bass and walleye and things like that. And I knew a guy who worked in a fly shop, or I knew my sister knew a guy who worked in a fly shop out here in Colorado. I grew up in Pennsylvania and they were looking for help in the fly shop over the summer. And he happened to ask her if she knew anyone who'd like to do it. So I got a call one day asking if I'd like to move to Colorado and work in a fly shop. And I took him up on it and kind of learned from there. I would like shadow the guides while I was out until I knew enough to start going out on trips and taking people out. And that's kind of how it how it happened. I haven't really looked back since I did pick up a spin rod. now and then still, but for the most part, I stick to fly fishing. I find it a more fun technique, but I'll pick up a spin rod if the species calls for it or whatever. I mean, I don't look down on it. It's just I find fly fishing more fun in general.
Paul
A hundred percent. Yes. Guaranteed.
Katie
Do you ever pick up a spin rod or are you a fly only guy?
Paul
Fly only. I can't remember the last time. It must be 10 years.
Katie
So with the wet flies for Atlantic salmon, are you swinging them? When I think of the culture of the West Coast, salmon and steelhead, I'm thinking, or I guess mostly steelhead, I'm thinking of swinging flies and people go days without catching a fish just because they want to catch one on the swing. Is there that same culture around swinging wet flies for salmon or people kind of doing whatever it takes to get a fish in the net?
Paul
I've got to say yes. Now, a lot of our rivers are smaller, but the swinging wet, and like I said, some people hitch the wet too, so it skims across with a V behind it. But the swinging is a big part of the wet fly presentation for sure. Some people with a bomber or dry fly, some people will also, you know, they'll swing that too. Fish it dry first and then at the end, because sometimes the salmon will chase it, right? They'll go savage for it.
Katie
So does that allow you to do things, like I'm thinking of a dry fly with a dead drift, like you're trying to make it look like a dead insect that's not moving at all. But if they're not really feeding for actual sustenance, they're taking it for some mystery reason, maybe some, I don't know, instinct or aggression. Can you do more exciting things with a dry fly instead of having to just dead drift it and pretend it's a dead bug? Can you make it do kinds of weird things to elicit some sort of strike that might not exist in the trout world as much?
Paul
100%. Rip it across the water like a shrew or pop it on the pool and it pops and pops again. And, you know, you could tease them. A lot of those big salmon, I mean, they see the fly in the air before it hits the water. It's in the story, actually. And I've witnessed this. They see it in the air.
Katie
What's your best guess for why they're eating these? I know you said that it's not fully known, but if you had to guess why they're eating these when they're not actually feeding, what would be your best guess?
Paul
Their instinct.
Katie
Okay.
Paul
Fish eat insects, bugs, smaller fish. It's an instinct. It's a predatorial. Some combination thereof. Some people say it pisses them off or it aggravates them. Maybe, maybe in the fall of the year, but these big salmon going up the spawn don't eat or they don't feed. It's definitely of the instinctual nature. Now, what percentage beyond that, I don't know, but I would believe to be instinct number one.
Katie
And how frequently do they do this? Because obviously it's different day by day, but is it a rarity for them to come up and eat something? Or is it pretty easy to catch a number of fish in a day and have... I mean, I don't even know what kind of numbers we're talking, but like how often do they eat?
Paul
Well, for say one Atlantic salmon, I mean, early season, like late June, early first couple weeks of July when the water's cold and the fish are fresh. I mean, you know, as long as the fly is presented reasonably okay, they'll take it. They'll take a fly, no problem. It's, you know, it's later on in the year when the fish are picky. Then, you know, your fishing got to get better. Smaller flies, longer leaders, different presentations, different angles. You know, you got to basically take out the toolbox and start picking through. So, you know, you know how that works.
Katie
Yeah. I mean, I feel like that's almost a universal, you know, at least for me, I'm thinking like beginning of the season, fish are like eager to come out of winter. They're ready to play. And then by the end of the summer, you're really trying to kind of scrape the bottom of the barrel with what's left and try not to overpressure them and things like that.
Paul
Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And some people, you know, the speed of the fly too, right? Like a slow walk versus, you know, you rip it across the water to aggravate them, get them get them in you know a predator predatorial shall we say size of the hook is a big thing too as the water level goes down you know drop the size of the hook we find though with the dirty bomber the big bomber if you get them comedy won't take it put on a bigger one especially the especially the big salmon it does something to them they yeah they don't mess around with it there's just something in them that tells them they've got to go for it just something yep we got to have that
Katie
So speaking of the Dirty Bomber again, you mentioned that you have like branded the Dirty Bomber as your like personal brand. Tell me about that. And is that part of the like mentoring children? I know I saw that you're kind of getting kids into it and acting as a mentor. Is that all tied in together?
Paul
No, well, so that's a personal thing that, you know, it's been in the works for a number of years. And I mean, you know, you got to do it right legally because, right, people will say, you know, they invented it or they claimed it or they don't, whatever. But no, it's been a couple of years in the making. So my lawyer took care of all that. You know, there's fellows that, you know, tried to use it. But no, it's my creation. It's my title. It's my name. And so I got that little entity about to happen now with swag and T-shirts and sweatshirts and anything and everything fishing, including, you know, restaurants and different types of beer, et cetera. With the kids, that's more of teaching them how to fly fish, teaching them how to tie flies, having a fishing club. We got a fish friends program in a couple of schools where we raised the baby salmon from eggs, feed them for a couple of weeks, and then put them back in the river to give them a good chance of survival. And that's part of salmon restoration and enhancement.
Katie
Very cool. Is the fly fishing integrated into the school somehow, or is that more like an after-school or extracurricular thing that kids can do?
Paul
It's more after-school, extracurricular. I'm hoping to bring it to fly tying, especially like, you know, a provincial thing across the province, just like basketball or hockey or, or, you know, improv or drama or music, you know? So because the kids love it, it's cultural, they're off their cell phones, their parents like it, they're in nature. It's just so many benefits, Katie, as you know, and it's good physical and mental health activity.
Katie
Have you had pretty good success getting kids interested?
Paul
Well, I tell you what, now my, when I moved to a new job I took, the boss told me, I said, well, let's do fly tying. He said, well, give it a shot. You know, you might get six or eight or whatever, right? They were grade sixes. And one class had 24, the other class had 25, I think. So I had a 49. I think I had 30 out of 49. So I had to break them up with small groups. and this year roughly the same we did it again and this year I got a 44 45 out of 50. Oh wow so they're in. Yeah and so I mean they're just they're in there's only one of me now that's that's only grade sixes so I got another group in intermediate or junior high grade seven eight nine and they are there's you know different different different grades got a couple of each so you know we got eight or ten there and there but they're really dedicated and they're starting to sell their flies now too.
Katie
Yeah, I feel like fly tying is a really good avenue just because you might get the people who are interested in fishing and also the people who are just creative and interested in, you know, crafts or working with their hands. Whereas if you went just with fishing, I could see a lot of people just writing it off, you know, like, I don't think that's for me. I'm, you know, I don't want to touch the fish or, you know, whatever. There's all kinds of reasons they could come up with to not go fishing. But I feel like the fly tying is kind of like welcoming to lots of different interests that it kind of incorporates all together.
Paul
100 percent very creative creative your creative juices flow and talents come through when I was north on a special mental health project I I brought fly tying to an indigenous community and the girls actually tied earrings made made like tied a fly on a hook cut off the barb put it on a put it on a loop and yeah made earrings so yep and they didn't really care about fishing. their relatives did but they just wanted to be creative.
Katie
sure yeah yeah no I mean there's people who tie flies and don't fish. I mean, I get it. It's fun and gets you to work with your hands. And if you're not somebody who can necessarily produce something creative in the form of like writing or music or something, this is kind of a good way to, you're still, you have something to follow. You've got kind of a prompt. You don't have to come up with something from scratch. You can, but it allows you to be creative with some sort of template to follow, which I think is helpful for people who don't have the juices flowing themselves necessarily.
Paul
100%. Yeah. You got to prime the pump sometimes.
Katie
So last thing I kind of wanted to ask about, just to wrap it up, is one of the things that you mentioned beforehand was striving for excellence, not perfection. Tell me what you mean by that and how it relates to either your mental health counseling or fishing or just the outdoors in general. What do you mean and why do you kind of promote that as an ethos?
Paul
Well, that's a dirty bomber philosophy. You know, I look at the fly, how it all came about and just appeared. one of those things that is mind-blowing, but it's there. And I am grateful for it. I saw a lot of people, caught a lot of fish. The philosophy is, we've all heard it before, don't judge a book by its cover. And like I said, my buddies can tie flies. Katie, they're works of art. They frame them. It's immaculate. I'm sure I know one guy, Wally Hollerand, we call him Blackie. If he ties a thousand bombers, 998, got the same identical look with the feathers and the deer hair and the calf tails, probably also the same exact same number of hair particles in each one, right? He's just that good. So, I mean, the fish love those flies too. The key with the dirty is it's, I'm going for excellence, not perfection. People get too caught up in perfection and they limit themselves. They stress themselves out. They get obsessed with being perfect. And that's not what life's all about. And the dirty bomber proves it, right? The most ugliest looking rotten, you know, like I said, someone said you threw a grenade in your fly box and you took out the particles, what was left, you put it underwater. And so, you know, be real. We don't need to be fake. There's enough fakeness out in the world. Be real. And always go for the success. Go for the excellence. Don't go for the perfection. I'll give you an example. You know, some people, they like, and they're really good. They're excellent fly casters. They can throw the line, and oh my God, it's an art to watch. I got friends who can't do that, but they catch fish. So I'm going for the results. I'm going for the excellence, not the perfection of the perfect cast, the perfect swing in the water, right? Think, you know, it's just a basic thing. And it's less stressful when you realize that, hey, you know, life is life. Life is as it is. And we should all seek success, seek excellence, not perfection, because perfection keeps people stuck. You know, you got three, four or five hundred pounds on your back. You're afraid to move in a sense of like start the business. You're afraid to start a new relationship or ask a significant other on a date. perfection cripples people and it, it masks your, your true talent and your true gifts. So, you know, lessen the load, go for the, the, the excellence, not the perfection.
Katie
I like it. Well, Paul, if people want to either find you, I don't know if you have places that they can reach you online or if they want to check out your story in the book, tell people where they can find you.
Paul
Well, my website, of course, paulwhite.ca. It's actually, I'm not sure if it's going to be launched tonight or this week. The relaunch, it's an updated website with some new people. pictures, etc. Twitter, I think, is Paul M. Whitey, W-H-I-T-E-Y. And Tales of the Great Outdoors, that you can Google that book. It's on Amazon. Tales of the Great Outdoors. Anybody wants to go on my website and drop me an email or no problem. I respond to everything.
Katie
Well, no worries about when the website will relaunch because this episode won't come out for quite a bit. I'm trying to record ahead because we're taking some time off to get married. So I'm sure it'll be Oh, God love you. Perfect. Yeah, it'll be launched by the time it airs. So people can go check that out. And I hope to check out the book. It was a super fun read. And I like doing the deep dives on places. Not that we went super deep into Labrador, but the book, like compiling all these stories together of one place. I wish more places had a deep dive like this where you could really get to know a place through like different people's stories, different people's ways of seeing things and ways of telling the story. So I'm kind of jealous that I don't have something like that for where I live.
Paul
You're in Colorado, right?
Katie
Yeah, I mean, it's out there, I'm sure. But I wish I had an anthology like this.
Paul
Be nice to put it. Yeah, see, well, we got a massive land area and 500,000 people. So you probably got 500,000 people in 25 different towns. So yeah, we can do that. But it's a great year. I thank you for that. It's a great way to put it.
Katie
Well, Paul, I had a great time talking to you. I'm going to look forward to reading through the rest of the stories I've only made it through some of the, I saw yours was early on the book. So I read through the first couple to get to yours, but I'm looking forward to reading the rest and maybe we'll do this again sometime and see how things are going.
Paul
That's great, Katie. And if you guys ever want to come east to the great place of Newfoundland, Labrador, you just look me up.
Katie
Oh, I will. It's on my bucket list. I don't think it's in the next couple of years, but I'm sure it'll happen at some point.
Paul
No problem.
Katie
All right. Well, I will let you get going. I know it's late for you, but once again, thank you so much for coming on today.
Paul
Thanks, Katie. Have a good one.
Katie
All right. That's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. If you want to find all the other episodes as well as show notes, you can find those on fishuntamed.com. You'll also find the contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram at fishuntamed. If you want to support the show, you can give it a follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. And if you'd like to leave a review, it would be greatly appreciated. But otherwise, thank you all again for listening. I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode. Take care, everybody.
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