Ep 128: Trout, Art, and Duck Hunting, with Dan Brown
Dan Brown is an author (not that author), artist, and angler. Dan grew up catching bugs and fish, but has since become a full-time artist. He has traveled the world catching different fish and capturing their beauty through his art. He also recently published a book, “Trout: A Fictitious History,” in which he reimagines real species and subspecies of trout if their looks got a makeover. In this episode, we discuss the book, what it’s like to make a living as an artist, some of his adventures around the world, some favorite ways to prepare fish, and the joy of duck hunting.
Website: link
Facebook: /danbrownartwork
Instagram: @danbrownartwork
Merch: link
-
Katie
You’re listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 128 with Dan Brown on trout, art, and duck hunting. All right, well, if you're a listener of the show, you know how I start things out. I always get a background on how my guests got into the outdoors and into fishing. I know you have a rich history in art and fishing in the outdoors in general, but walk me through how you got introduced to the outdoors.
Dan
Okay, well, I only know two other people who had better childhoods than I did. My dad worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service and so he managed waterfall refuges. And so as a little kid, we lived out in the country with lots of space. And probably the first fish I ever caught was a giant carp in the Sacramento River. And I don't remember it or anything except for I have the picture to prove it. And then being in the Fish and Wildlife Service kind of like being in the military, you had to move every couple years. And so we moved to Northern California and that MODOC wildlife refuge and I learned, I caught bullheads on worms and had a great time sparing bullfrogs. So had that and then we moved again a couple more years to Northern Idaho and it probably spoiled me for life. Our backyard, literally at the end of our backyard, there was a trout stream. And so as a kid, second and third grade, you'd go catch grasshoppers all morning and fish all afternoon and just wonderful, wonderful fish. Nice big rainbows, wonderful. Then we moved to the Columbia Basin and Eastern Washington. And that's always a shock when you move to the evergreen state and you move to the sagebrush. And probably the first fish I caught on flies were crappies, except for he had a piece of bacon on the end. I don't know if that counts. (both laughing) And then I started using a bubble, catching some really nice browns and rainbows in this crick with an impoundment. And then I went to college and my roommate taught me how to cast with a fly rod. I bought a fiberglass fly rod in Moscow, Idaho at the Husky Station and been fishing ever since.
Katie
I have to ask, what's it like to catch a carp as your first fish when you're a little kid? I mean, they're so well known for being some of the hardest fighting fish, and I'm just picturing a little kid that's barely big enough to hold a rod trying to bring in a carp. What was that like?
Dan
You know, the photo, I must have been three to four years old, and I don't remember it. And I just talked to my mom the other day about it, and she said they weren't paying attention to me. I don't know why you don't pay attention to a kid along the river, but they must have been a little bit. I brought the fish up to him and I was just shaking. I could barely hold it, I was just shaking so bad. But I don't remember it myself.
Katie
It's really timely that you mention this. I was just talking to my dad the other day and he was reminding me of a smallmouth bass I caught when I was really young. It was probably my earliest fishing memory and I caught it way downstream of where our cottage was and I walked it the whole way back up. I would drag it in the water for a while and pick it up and kind of run a little bit and dunk it in the water and I was so proud because it was 14 inches long and that was the biggest fish I had ever seen before and I was so, so excited for it. And I don't know, that poor fish probably took like a half mile journey upstream with me there. But it reminds me of what you're saying here where you just, you had to bring the cart back to show everybody and they're like, where did this come from?
Dan
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah. And it's nice we have parents and photographs to remember some of those.
Katie
Absolutely. So how did you get interested in art?
Dan
You know, I always drew. I have a journal from my fourth grade that have illustrations of insects I would catch and little notes about them and stuff. But then I had a younger sister who could draw better than me. And so I just kind of did it quietly. I took one art class in high school. And then in college, I was taking a mammal taxonomy class And we had a key and there weren't any pictures in it. So I offered the instructor, I'll tell, illustrate it for you. And he took me serious and I did an excellent job. Illustrated all the skulls of all the mammals of Washington State. But he was a perfectionist and he never published it. But it really got me drawing a lot. And I just loved it. Nothing's better, like all my studies were done to be 10 o'clock at night, you turn on the radio and you just draw and the rest of the world disappears. It is just so fun.
Katie
And you've since gotten into all different kinds of art, it sounds like, not just drawing.
Dan
Yeah, yeah. So I started off as a science teacher. I don't know what your life is like, but I didn't really plan mine very well. It just kinda happened. (laughs) I wanted to be an entomologist in the worst way. And I got to college and they wouldn't let me take an entomology class 'til I was a junior in college. And so I just got a degree in wildlife biology, ended up being a science teacher. And my wife and I went to Paraguay in the Peace Corps, and that was a really cool experience. And then when we returned, I applied for jobs on places I wanted to live in. And I applied for a job in Chihuila, Washington as a biology teacher, a math teaching job in Chiapas, Mexico, and then art job up here in Okanagan, Washington. And they hired me. And so I had to become an artist.
Katie
So here you are.
Dan
Yeah, here I am.
Katie
And I'm curious, 'cause most artists I talk to do not have any sort of background in the sciences. Like they are full-on artists. Or I talk to scientists who have no artistic skills whatsoever, but you have a degree in wildlife biology and obviously have done art kind of in a context of, you said the mammal key, which is, it's art, but it's not creative in the same way because you need to really depict something realistically and in kind of a scientific way. Like what is that like having these two worlds combined where you have this creative drive and skillset, but you're also trying to marry it with kind of more of scientific, rigid, things are done in a specific way mindset. Like how do you marry those two things and what's that like?
Dan
Well, I kind of think it's kind of natural myself because I kind of think that's how artists develop. And I also think it's kind of how art appreciators develop. You start off, you're just tickled you can draw something realistic. I mean, it's just amazing that you can do that. And then you get that down and then you just, well, you just start going from there and get to be more creative and stuff 'cause you can already do the realistic stuff.
Katie
So do you think it's kind of required to pass through a phase where you create realistic art before you can really blossom into some of the more abstract things?
Dan
Maybe not realistic, but the same skills. Like when I was teaching anime was the big thing, and the students were copying all these Japanese artists, and they could do it really, really well. But that was their version of realism. Like they could develop the skills they needed and went from there.
Katie
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about your book. I know we're gonna get into all kinds of different topics today, but the book you sent me is very much an art book, as well as a fishing book. I feel like the art is really what the highlight is. It's about real trout, but your interpretation of them. I just wanna hear how you came up with the idea. Just talk about where you came up with the book and how it morphed into what it came to be.
Dan
Okay. guess I want to say a little bit is that there's all kinds of audiences out there and some people need the technical book and sometimes fiction reaches other people and so even though it's a book of fictitious trout it might spark an interest in somebody. How it started though I was there's a store in Spokane Washington called Blue Radleys and I walked in and I had a fishing baseball cap on. And this guy walks up to me and I'm pretty open minded, but he didn't look like my, my stereotypical Fisher person. He had, he had waist length hair, and both ears were gauged, and he had a nose ring. And he whipped out his phone and started showing me red bands that he caught. And I felt really dumb. I didn't know what a red band was. And so I just kind of nodded my head and enjoyed his photographs and I went home and looked them up and they're rainbow trout with a really bright lateral line. And so I decided I didn't think a band should be the length of the trout, had to go around it. And so I painted one like that and I got my dad, James Prozix's Trout An Illustrated History several years ago. So I got that out and I thought there's all these trout. There's bunches of, how many trout are there in the United States? You know?
Katie
I have no idea, but it's a lot.
Dan
It is. I mean, it's 70 maybe. I don't know. And then some of them I look at and right away I know what to come up with. And others took a lot of research to figure out what to do.
Katie
So were you mostly inspired? It seemed like when I was looking through that you were mostly inspired by the names of them. You know, an example, for somebody who's not looking at the pictures with us, an example might be, "I saw the greenback cutthroat trout is meant to look like a dollar bill." Right. Like greenback. A lot of them are plays on words like that where you look at the name of the trout and you're like, "Well, it doesn't really describe physically what the trout looks like. It's got some other unrelated name." What would that trout look like if it were named or if it were designed after its name? Are they all like that or were there some that were a little bit more... They had different backgrounds?
Dan
There's a couple that were really hard to do. The Alvord cutthroat trout. Do you know where the Alvord Desert is?
Katie
I don't.
Dan
No. It's in Eastern Oregon. It's in a beautiful spot. They run race cars on it, just like they do in Bonneville. I started researching the Alvord Desert. I came up with race cars. Then I came up with this lady who was incredible, Kitty O'Neil. is one of those people I think she couldn't hear very well and but she didn't let it stop her she became this amazing person and so I designed the trout after her race car and that you know that was fun to do and learn a little bit about somebody I didn't even know about.
Katie
Now did you find that some did you feel like some were kind of living inside you already like you got to this trout and you were like I know what this should look like?
Dan
Oh you know some are obvious like a steelhead of course it's gonna be made it's gonna be out a medal. No, you know, I don't, I guess I didn't know enough about trout. So, no, none was already there. I had to think about it. And sometimes you have so many good ideas, which one do you use? The brook trout, I was going to have, should be in a brook brothers suit? I don't know. There's all kinds of possibilities.
Katie
Now, I have to assume that you learned a lot more about many trout that you've never heard of because I was looking through and I looked through all the names and I would say a solid half of them I was quite familiar with. Maybe another, maybe 10% I had maybe heard of or it stirred something in my mind. And then there were another set that I had never heard of before, mostly subspecies of things, not a whole genre of trout, but some kind of obscure cutthroat subspecies. But there were a lot in there that I had never heard of. And I assume that you you must have learned a lot of new new subspecies going through this process.
Dan
Oh yeah wouldn't it be fun to go and catch them all or at least find them? And so this other book if you don't have this one James Prozick's Trout An Illustrated History that's you know that's where I got the information from and of all the types of trout. And then and if you don't have that one Robert Benke's and this illustrator is amazing he is super realistic you'd think they were photographs Joseph Tomarelli but yeah I learned a lot about trout
Katie
Did you have a favorite that was kind of a new addition to you where like as as you were reading about it you thought you know wow it's it's incredible that this fish is out there and I've never heard of it before
Dan
Oh gol it's terrible as an artist I I liked all of them. The West Slope cutthroat trout, of course I knew of, but I had fun come up with an idea for it. So, no, I guess not one stood out more than that, except for the Mexican trout. I didn't know they went that far south.
Katie
Yeah, I noticed that one too, and that surprised me.
Dan
Yeah, they go way down there.
Katie
I think my two favorites were the Northern and Southern Dolly Varden. And maybe I'll let you describe that one if you care to.
Dan
You know, I was wondering if I should put those in there. So Dolly Varden sounds like Dolly Parton. And so I have a Dolly Parton with cleavage showing. That's the Southern Dolly Barton. And then, have you ever read The River Why?
Katie
Yes, I have.
Dan
Yes, you have. So that's one of my favorite books. And I like character Gus in it. kind of identify with them. And like most guys, if you ran into a beautiful woman or a big fish, you wouldn't know what to do. And that's kind of how I pictured the Dolly Varden.
Katie
(laughing) Well, I didn't understand it at first 'cause the first one is the Southern Dolly Varden and it's on its own page and then you turn the page and then there's the Northern one. And so I got to the Southern one, I saw the cleavage and I was like, I'm not really sure what I'm looking at here. And then I turned over and saw the Northern Dolly Varden and saw her face and then I realized I made the connection. So yeah, I really enjoyed that and thought it was great how it was positioned. You had to turn the page to figure out what was going on.
Dan
Yeah. So.
Katie
Well, some other art things I want to kind of dive into with you, and we can touch back on the book as needed if species come to mind or we want to talk about them. But I noticed that you had mentioned in the document I sent you that you did like a fish printing where you went out and got some bluegills and you were going to make like fish prints. Yeah. I assume is kind of like a Japanese style of fish printing. So tell me about that because I've talked to many artists, but no one has ever mentioned this style before and I'm intrigued.
Dan
Oh, I think the Japanese name is Gaiutaku and it's easy to do, it's fun to do, works really good with scaled fishes where you catch one, kill it, you wipe the mucus off them and then you just paint ink on them and put soft paper over the top of them. And like if you go to Hawaii, often you'll see them in stores and stuff. My favorite fish print though when I was teaching is one of my students found a dead snake on the way to school and she brought it in and she made a snake print and it was gorgeous. You had to curl it around and everything.
Katie
I don't know how many teachers would be welcoming of a dead snake brought into class, but it sounds like she had the right professor or teacher for that.
Dan
Yeah, yeah.
Katie
I also just wanted to touch on making a living as an artist, because it sounds like you do art full-time at this point, is that correct?
Dan
It is, it is.
Katie
So how does that work? Do you do commissions for people? Do you sell at different events? How does one make art for people at a scale that allows them to bring enough income to do that full-time?
Dan
It took me a long time to do that. I started small, started with farmers markets, tried to get into galleries, eventually got into a gallery. And there are some really good artists out there. It just blows me away how good they are. And so the competition's tough. And so the way I did it is I got into a gallery and then a really sweet lady invited us to her house. And her house, floor to ceiling, is just solid artwork. And I thought, "Gah, these people, "they don't have room for any art." And the gallery I was in had room for, they had one sculptor, and his sculptures were for inside. And so my wife bought me a plasma cutter and a wire feed welder. And so I started making art for outside their houses. And for me, it worked. And you start small, you charge so much money for it. If it sells, maybe the next one you can add a little bit more. So now I'm embarrassed by how much I get for my artwork. I mean, I couldn't afford it myself now.
Katie
And what tips would you have for somebody who might be trying to pursue this? You know, maybe they're young and they're getting into art, but they're not sure how to start. Do you have any tips for somebody who would like to pursue that as a career?
Dan
You know, start small, but start just trying to get out there and sell it any way that you think works for you. On one of my students, I don't know, understand this newfangled stuff, but I think she's getting paid by Instagram, because she has so many followers, and she's not even out of college yet. And she'll she'll put put stuff on Instagram, and she'll do commissions through Instagram. But yeah, start small, test the market, be flexible. For me, it doesn't matter. I love to paint. I love watercolors, but most of stuff I sell is made out of metal. So be willing to change, I think is important. I had another artist student, he's a true artist. Only did artwork for himself, it was pretty out there, and he sold a little bit but not a lot. So it was, you know, I loved his art but not everybody else did. And so, you know, be flexible, just keep working at it.
Katie
Fair enough, good advice.
Dan
Yeah.
Katie
Pivoting a little bit to some of the traveling you've done, because I saw that you've done, I can't believe how many different places you've gone fishing based on what you listed.
Dan
How poorly I've gone fishing.
Katie
What's that?
Dan
I like to say I haven't caught fish on every continent except for Antarctica because I fish poorly. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Katie
I know we don't have time to cover all the different things you've done and maybe you can steer some of the things you'd like to talk about. In particular, I saw that you have been to the Boundary Waters, I think recently, and I would love to hear about that trip. You also mentioned that camping is getting harder these days. And I'm curious what you mean by that and if it's related to your boundary water stripper, if that's just a different thing you muse upon.
Dan
Oh, you know what? You used to be able to drive anywhere you want, pull over on the side of the road and set up a tent. It's harder now. One of my favorite places to camp are gravel pits because I know I won't start any fires. But even they're blocked off now. And then COVID, everybody came out and started camping. And so any state or national park type campgrounds, it's tough to get into these days. Do you have trouble where you live camping?
Katie
Sometimes depending on what we're trying to do. If we're trying to backpack, then not at all. If we're car camping on a weekend in the summer, it can be a little bit cutthroat to get to a spot. But if you're willing to drive around for a little bit, I can't remember the last time that we weren't able to camp because we couldn't find the spot. but sometimes the good spots are taken early in the summer out here, for sure.
Dan
It's nice to live in a state with public land and not too many people. No, the boundary waters were wonderful. After the first day, you can get out away from the people.
Katie
Tell me about that trip. What inspired this? Tell me about the planning and what happened. I'd love to hear just how it went down.
Dan
My wife and I did it for our honeymoon 38 years ago.
Katie
Oh, okay. So I was wrong about it being recent.
Dan
Oh no, and then we went to a wedding last summer. And so we went back.
Katie
Oh, OK. OK.
Dan
Yeah. And it doesn't take any planning at all. I mean, you just have to have some food in your tent and a sleeping bag and a fishing pole. And then you go to an outfitter and rent a canoe and get your permit and just plan your route and go. It's pretty easy. Some of the entries, though, you have to get your permit ahead of time. But other than that, it doesn't take much planning.
Katie
Tell me how the trips went.
Dan
Oh, it was a short trip this last time. We went with a niece and her boyfriend. So it was real fun to go with some younger people. And we just-- we canoed in two days and then set up camp and then just went out from there and went out. And they weren't big fisher people, so I just snuck in casts whenever I could and found some really nice bass fishing. It was a good trip.
Katie
Were you fly fishing or conventional fishing?
Dan
In this time I was conventional fishing.
Katie
Have you fly fished there before?
Dan
You know, I did. I took my fly rod on our honeymoon, but I think the only thing I caught on a fly rod was really stupid. I put a big bass plug on, cast it out with my fly rod, and caught something that way.
Katie
Tell me about some of your other trips then. It sounds like you've done a lot of travel, so I'd like to hear about, you know, go into depth. just like some of your favorite trips that you've taken and really get into the nitty-gritty of how you planned it and pulled them off?
Dan
I was a teacher, so I didn't have tons of money. Had some money. One year, we were going to build a house out on 40 acres we had, and we drilled a well, and we didn't get any water. We drove 500 feet. We didn't find any water. We couldn't build a house, so I called a friend who lives in Saudi Arabia and asked him, "Do you have any jobs opening?" He's a teacher at another school. He said no. A week later, he called me up and said, "There's one open in Thailand, and my old boss is the principal there." I got a job teaching in Thailand. We moved to Thailand. Have you ever been to Thailand?
Katie
I have not.
Dan
It's worth going. It's an incredible country. Way too hot to live, but it's just beautiful. People are nice. Asia is so different than anywhere I've ever been. And so I had to work most of the time, but I called up a guide service and went fishing with this guy named Francois. And he and his wife took me fishing and I caught, I don't know, like 20 Mekong catfish in one day, which to me is amazing. I'd never caught a 40 pound fish before. And they fish for 'em really differently. They use a big spiral and then they put white bread with coconut milk and papaya juice mixed in. And it has a little teeny leader with a teeny hook that they just stick on that. And you cast it in and the catfish suck it up. So these great big fish on these little hooks and yeah, they're incredible fighters. Quite, quite fun to catch.
Katie
So how big is this spiral that we're talking about? Because I was picturing kind of a big, like a big large thing, but I don't know how that would work with a teeny tiny hook. So maybe I'm picturing it incorrectly.
Dan
The spiral's about as big as an apple. So it's like an apple of breadcrumbs. And then they have that little hook with just a little piece of bread on it. I guess it disintegrates and the catfish start sucking it all up and suck that hook in too.
Katie
Is there a big fishing culture over there?
Dan
It's huge. Thai people really love to fish. In fact, sprinkled throughout Bangkok are all these ponds that you can pay to fish in. Some of them have huge fish and some of them have little fish. This particular pond or lake has arapaima in it. And if you didn't believe in sea monsters, oh my gosh. It would roll in the water and you'd see these scales with bright red edges on them. And it kept rolling and rolling. I mean, it was a real sea monster. It was huge. and I think it was 12 feet off, but that's pretty darn big to me.
Katie
Do most of the people there fish for food or is it for the love of fishing?
Dan
It's both, it's both. You see people fishing in the river. It's a big muddy river that goes through Bangkok, the Chao Phraya, but you see people fishing there, setting out eel traps. You can buy fish in the market everywhere. You see lots of little teeny snakeheads on sticks that they barbecue that they sell a lot in the markets to eat. And the guy I fished, I went with, he loves to catch giant snakeheads. That's his fish. And so he'd travel all over Thailand to catch those. And I didn't have time to do it, unfortunately.
Katie
Now, are snakeheads native there? I know they're not native here, but I'm not actually sure where they are native to.
Dan
I'm pretty sure these two are. There's a giant snakehead there and a cobra snakehead, and then these little brown snakeheads, and there's probably several others I don't know about. Francois loves to catch 'em. I saw him just the other day, he had caught two cobras. He said most people fish 15 years without catching one. But he's an amazing guy, really nice. I designed T-shirts for his fishing company, and so he let me go fishing for free. Just a nice guy, and I think he and his clients have 254 IGFA records. Just incredible.
Katie
Oh wow.
Dan
Yeah. All the different line classes of fish.
Katie
Is that just in their kind of local area?
Dan
I'm sure it's just in Thailand. Some of them are not native to Thailand, like the Arapaima is not native. But some of them are, and a lot of them are wild fish. Not all of them are in these ponds in Bangkok. A lot of them are wild. In fact, my favorite, favorite fish, I look at his website and look at all the fish people catch. A guy caught a fire eel and it wasn't very big, 12, 14 inches, but just beautiful red and black colors. It's just a gorgeous fish.
Katie
Do these exotic species give you inspiration for your next personal art piece? When you're not doing commissions for people to sell, do you get lost in all the different fish out there in the world that there are that you know would make make a good art subject?
Dan
Yeah I mean I would love to just paint fish. It'd be it'd be fun. In fact right now I'm trying to decide. The next show I'm in has is artwork based on used snowboards and so I looked up all the snowboard tricks and one of them is called a stale fish and so I my I don't know I'm should I sculpt a seal a camp on a snowboard doing a stale fish? Or should it be a sockeye salmon because people know salmon better than they do coelacanths? But yeah, have you ever snorkeled or scuba dived?
Katie
Yep, my husband and I are both divers.
Dan
Are you? There's so many fish down there, it's just incredible.
Katie
I think it'd be fun to do some like freshwater snorkeling or diving because you know we always travel to do saltwater diving as you do. It's fun, but you see so many fish that you don't know. Yeah. I think it'd be a ton of fun to dive in a place where I know... If I dove in any river or lake in the US, I would see a lot of fish I know. I'm sure that I would see plenty that I don't know still, but I would say the majority I would at least be able to pick out what family it's in. Out in the ocean, I know a handful of really well-known ones, but for the most part, I look around and I think, that's pretty but I have no idea what it is.
Dan
Yeah I know I every time I go down I think I'll remember that one so I can look it up and then you see the next one and it's gone.
Katie
Yeah I have the exact same experience.
Dan
Yeah it's incredible. So you don't you haven't snorkeled your local rivers or anything?
Katie
No no I mean most of our rivers here are pretty cold small mountain streams so I could get in there I guess and look at the you know myriad of brook trout but most of our streams have a single species in them. So I could look at those and that would be about it.
Dan
Because we put our life jackets on and our snorkels and masks and float our river in the summertime one time. And it's fun just to see the fish and the mussels and everything. And it's a fun thing to do.
Katie
I did some snorkeling when I lived in Pennsylvania. I would put a mask and snorkel on and swim around the warm water rivers there because those rivers are a lot warmer, be a lot bigger and see have more than two or three species in them. so there's a lot more to look at. But out here, yeah, I just haven't really gotten into that 'cause it would be me sitting on the bottom in six inches of water.
Dan
Those are a little thin, aren't they?
Katie
Not quite the same. I mean, we do have bigger rivers too, but for the most part, what I'm fishing are very little mountain streams and things. So no, haven't gotten around to it, but I do miss doing that in the bigger warm water eastern rivers.
Dan
I've been listening to your show all week. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about coming on. So I'd listen to your show and oh my gosh, they're so enjoyable.
Katie
Thank you.
Dan
You're welcome. Sometimes your life, you get busy doing one thing and something else takes over. And I've always wanted to be an artist and things are going well. So I kind of been doing a lot of that and not enough fishing and you've awakened it in me. I wanna go fishing so bad now.
Katie
Oh, I'm so glad to hear that.
Dan
Yeah, and I can hardly wait. I almost went last night, but I ran out of time. And again, I'm spoiled too. Where you live makes a huge difference. I'm lucky to live where I can catch a bunch of different species. I can probably catch something if I go out, if I want to. But there's places I haven't been, and I keep looking at, and how come I haven't fished them? Like the next valley over is the Metow River. And you can't catch steelhead in there anymore, but they still have some beautiful trout in there. And I've never fished it. There's a beautiful canyon between Yakima and Ellensburg that I just wanna go just to float in, it's so pretty. But it also has big trout in it. And so I'm gonna get out there this year, for sure.
Katie
Well, it's interesting you mentioned that because I feel like, not that I've gone in the opposite direction necessarily, but I've tried to become more comfortable with the idea that I can enjoy lots of different activities. And that's not necessarily against what you're saying here, But I think for a while, I got a little bit hung up on fishing as some sort of identity, where that's what I do, and I shouldn't be doing anything that takes time away from that. And I've found that diversifying the things I do has really sparked kind of an old love in me for it again. And I know that you also have varied interests with your art, and I know you ski, and I ski as well. And having different things to look forward to, I feel like having that reset where when the summer comes back around, and I haven't been out in a while, I just have such a burning desire to get out there, that I don't think I'd have if I went and, you know, suffered through the snow storms as much in the winter instead of just going skiing.
Dan
So. Yeah. But it's time for me to get back out there. I miss it.
Katie
That's fair enough.
Dan
'Cause with it, you get camping and backpacking and floating rivers and all that other good stuff that goes with it.
Katie
Absolutely. I saw that you just did like a long ski, I don't know, was it a race that you just finished?
Dan
Yeah, the Berkbiner in Wisconsin. It's usually a 50 kilometer race, but there's no snow in Wisconsin. So they had to make it all. And so they had a 10 kilometer loop. And if you weren't an elite skier, you only could do 30 kilometers, which my wife and I did. And it was great fun. And one of the coolest things is they had the World Cup the week before in the Twin Cities. And so while we were skiing, the World Cup skiers were skiing beside us. And oh my gosh, are they good. They passed me and then they slowed down to kind of talk to each other a little bit. and they took off again, and they are so good, it doesn't even look like they moved their bodies, and they are just jetting out of there. It is so fun to see somebody who really knows what they're doing. It's so fun.
Katie
And I assume this is cross-country skiing.
Dan
It is, and we do skate skiing, which is a skating motion instead of the back and forth like the classic skiing.
Katie
Okay, so I'm not that familiar with cross-country skiing. We tour, we do back-country skiing, and we downhill ski, but we don't really cross-country ski. What's the difference between the different styles?
Dan
In classic, both skis are parallel the whole time, and you can go really fast if you're good at it. But sometimes they stay in a little track. In the skate ski, it's like you're skating with ice skates, but with these skis on. And for me, I'm not a great skier. It's so much faster and so much fun and so much hard work. It's just wonderful. I hurt my knees a couple years ago and I can't run anymore, but I can still skate ski and it's fun to do something fast.
Katie
Do you ever combine skiing and fishing? Have you ever skied to a place that you could then fish?
Dan
I have, yeah, I've gone up to high lakes in the wintertime and ice fish. The brook trout are really hungry in the wintertime. They just jump out of the hole when you do that. And oh, another one of your shows I was listening to today about cooking and a friend of mine has a great brook trout recipe. Have you ever tried smoking them and pressure canning them?
Katie
I haven't, but I recently got a smoker, so I'm interested.
Dan
So he catches these little brook trout, six, eight inches long, lightly smokes them and puts them in a canning jar and pressure cooks them. And the flavor's wonderful and you can eat the bones and everything like sardines because they've been pressure cooked and they're just really good that way.
Katie
Okay, so this is pressure cooking not pressure canning correct like I like so I have I have both I have a pressure canner and I have a pressure cooker and I'm curious what I need to put it in.
Dan
Canner pressure canner.
Katie
A canner, okay
Dan
I was calling it the wrong thing. I guess.
Katie
I guess it probably cooks in There as well. I just wasn't sure if if you know, the final product was a canned item so so you'd come out with like a jar of Kind of like sardines almost
Dan
Yeah, a lot better tasting than sardines even.
Katie
Yeah, I like brook trout. I think they're some of the tastiest of the fish. Do you eat a lot of what you catch?
Dan
I usually keep one or two to eat. And yeah, it's best to cook 'em right away. Don't put 'em in the freezer 'cause then you never get around to it. So I like to eat 'em fresh.
Katie
And what's your favorite species? Do you have a favorite?
Dan
Oh, you're just gonna laugh at me 'cause I've listened to your show and I've heard opinions. The triploids, oh my gosh, are they good.
Katie
Really? They taste different.
Dan
They're such an ugly, gross looking fish, but because they're so big and fat, they're like eating a salmon. So we always soak 'em in teriyaki sauce and a little bit of brown sugar and garlic, and then wrap 'em up in tinfoil, barbecue 'em 'til they're cooked, then you take the tinfoil off and char the skin, and oh, they're really good, and they're so fatty. You know, they're delicious.
Katie
I feel like I might have a silly question for you. I don't know if I would even know that I caught a triploid if I did. I do see fat fish sometimes, but it's usually below a dam or something where they're feeding on shrimp and other things that are coming out of the reservoir. So they look like little footballs. But I think that's just because of what they're eating. So I'm not sure I would actually know I had caught a triploid. How do you know it's a triploid when you catch one?
Dan
Well, part is the location. I know there's triplets in there. In my book, I painted one like a football, and it's not an exaggeration. They're not chubby. They are fat.
Katie
Yeah. At least the ones I'm talking about that are just corn-fed, basically, but they are shaped like a football. It's uncanny.
Dan
It is. Their heads and tails can't grow, but their bodies can. This is in the Columbia River. They've given a few people to farm fish there, and so they'll hang below the pens and eat the extra food that comes out of the pens. It's a total artificial fishery, but they do taste good.
Katie
I wouldn't have guessed that. I don't know why I would have guessed that they would taste worse. I'm not even sure what I'm likening it to. I guess maybe I'm thinking of a cow that's just been force-fed and it's gotten super fat, but I guess that is still valued for its flavor, even though it's not necessarily the healthiest thing to eat. They tout the grass-fed, grass -finished is kind of the good beef for your health, but good marbling from a fattened cow fed, or a corn-fed cow is still kind of, I think, a gold standard for just the taste. So maybe that's kind of the equivalent of a fat triploid trout.
Dan
Yeah, and you know, they're in the Columbia River, so the river's really cold, so you know, they're not a super soft fish that like, from out of warm water or anything. So yeah, I don't know if the fat's good. Fish fat's supposed to be better for you than cow fat, I think.
Katie
I know fish fat is good for smoking. Like you mentioned the smoked brook trout, I know they recommend fatty fish for smoking 'cause the fat, I don't know if it's that it holds the smoky flavor, but that's why you get smoked salmon and smoked whitefish 'cause those are fatty fish. Whereas I think it's not as recommended for really lean fish, so maybe that would be a good candidate for the smoker as well.
Dan
I bet they're really good smoke. so good to barbecue and easy to barbecue that's that's what we do
Katie
Well last thing I kind of wanted to touch on is that you mentioned you've got you know you have a lot of bucket list items but one is to catch an Arctic char and to photograph caribou and I'm just curious you know where did you where'd you come up with this as your as your sole bucket list item and maybe how do you plan to how do you plan to accomplish it
Dan
you know my wife just told me the other day better do it soon while I can enjoy it. So I might have to look into it really hard. I guess because Arctic char, they're just the most beautiful fish I've ever seen. They're just gorgeous and I've never spent time above the Arctic Circle or anything like that, so it'd be a cool environment to go to. And at one time I was a super avid hunter, so my list used to be to go fish for Arctic char and caribou at the same time. But I'm not quite as avid a hunter as I used to be. So a camera will be fine for this trip. Do you know where to go for him? I mean, just generally? Where do you head for Arctic char?
Katie
I mean, generally, I would say Alaska.
Dan
Okay.
Katie
But that's about as much help as I can be. I think I've never fished for Arctic char or seen a caribou. Although I think your original bucket list of fishing for a caribou hunt would be a lot of fun because we do a lot of hunting as well. And caribou sounds like one of the coolest things. They just live in such interesting habitats. And they're so cool. They're different. Their antlers are so obscure. They're not very symmetrical. They seem almost like a foreign animal, even though they're right here on our continent. I just think they're really interesting. So I'm with you on it.
Dan
Yeah, and I still hunt some. In fact, you know, depending upon where you live affects it, you know. You know, I usually get a deer every year with a bow. And I grouse hunt a little bit and I love to eat grouse. They're really good. But you know, when I was younger, I lived on the breaks of the Snake River and, you know, hunted chukars and they had two species of deer there. I mean, it's just wonderful. So I go out a little bit, but not as much as I used to.
Katie
Do you do any waterfowl hunting? I remember you said your dad, Was it your dad that was like wetlands? I don't remember what title he had, but it was something related to like waterfowl habitat.
Dan
Yeah, the refuges he managed were for waterfowl. And so when we lived in the Columbia Basin, like when I was in high school, that's all I did was hunt ducks. And it was so fun 'cause there'd be a rabbit or a pheasant would be there, or sometimes a geese would come in if you had a really good day. And it was the funnest kind of hunting. In fact, I still kind of think this way. There's some activities I'm not gonna do till I get really old, 'cause I can't sit still long enough to do 'em. And one would be hunting in a blind. I can't sit in a blind all day. And we could jump shoot ducks. And there were so many ponds, and you get on your belly, and you crawl up to the edge of the sagebrush, and if the water's moving, you know they're in there. And then you stand up and they fly. It's so much fun. And one, I didn't have a dog, So I always carried a fishing rod at the bass plug in case the ducks landed too far out. One day I discovered a great bass lake and I caught five bass after retrieving my duck. (laughing) It was quite fun.
Katie
Yeah, this is our second year duck hunting. This is our newest venture. We've been big game and small game for a while but ducks seem kind of daunting. But last year we really had our hands held. You know, we only went out with people and this was our first year really diving into it And boy, you're right. It is so fun. And big game hunting, we like it because you come out of it looking back, and it was a good experience. And you get all the meat, and that's wonderful. But in the moment, I'm not usually thinking, like, wow, this is fun. It's usually, wow, I'm tired. Wow, this backpack's heavy. All those things. But duck hunting is one of those ones where the entire time, it is just, wow, this is fun. I guess apart from the cold. The cold I could do without. but everything else, it's just such a good time.
Dan
And it's so satisfying to make a shot.
Katie
Yeah.
Dan
It's so satisfying to do a good shot. What kind of shotgun do you use?
Katie
I just, I actually just got a new one for Christmas. So I have a Franchi Affinity Catalyst, I think is what it's called, it's a 12 gauge. Prior to that, I was using a 20 gauge single shot break action shotgun that I got in high school. And I will never get rid of that gun, even though it's not particularly useful being single shot. I don't want to risk injuring something and then not being able to take a follow-up shot. I really don't like the idea of wounding something that I can't recover. But it's just such a fun little shotgun and it's a break action, so there's not much that can go wrong with it. You can see all the parts and how they work. You gotta pull the hammer back. So I'm hoping to maybe pass that on to a child someday because it's just a fun little gun.
Dan
It is.
Katie
I've upgraded.
Dan
Yeah, good. And what kind of ducks do you get?
Katie
This year we got a lot of divers because it wasn't a very good season. And like I said, we're very new, so I can't speak as an authority on it, but from what I heard, it was one of the worst seasons that we've had in decades. So we took what we could get, but we've gotten some mallards, we got some green-winged teal. I think I've decided that green-winged teal are my favorite duck, 'cause they're just so cute and small and-- - They're pretty. Yeah, they're very pretty.
Dan
And they're good to eat, and they make nice sounds when they whistle.
Katie
Yeah, yeah, and the calling for ducks is also so fun. Like I just, the whole process is such a fun learning experience, so I'm just excited to talk to another person who does it because it's still so new and exciting to us.
Dan
That's great, that's great. While we have time, you tell me, I only fish three flies. I fish a muddler minnow, a black leech, and a green carry. What should I, what should my fourth fly be?
Katie
I don't know if you're gonna like my answer. It's kind of boring, but a parachute Adams is my favorite go-to fly and it's the only fly I will recommend to people without hesitation because it always works for me. But it sounds a little different than what you usually use. It sounds like you're using some bigger things.
Dan
They are, but they work. I can catch a couple fish on them, but I never fish dry flies much, so maybe I'll look into that, a parachute Adams.
Katie
Well, we might need to trade places, 'cause I barely ever fish streamers.
Dan
All right.
Katie
So maybe I'll try your muddler minnow out as my new fly and you can try parachute Adams and we can report back and see how it goes.
Dan
Okay, that sounds great.
Katie
Well, great. Just to wrap up, I want to give you a chance again to plug your book because I know we talked about it a little bit, but I don't actually even know if we mentioned the title of it. So tell people the title of your book, where they can find it, where they can find your art or anything else you'd like to plug. This is just your segment to take as you want and do what you want.
Dan
It's called Trout, a Fictitious History. And it is, it's just fiction and it's just fun. I hope though it brings somebody interested in trout though. Of course you can buy it on Amazon. And so far I've only got, have it regional at the art galleries that I have. If you're ever in the Metow Valley, the Confluence Gallery in Twisp and the Winthrop Gallery in Winthrop carry my art. The JGO Gallery in Bainbridge Island my art and I have a Zazzle store, Dan Brown artwork. If you wanted a funny looking tiger trout on your coffee cup, you could get it there.
Katie
Maybe some people looking for the other Dan Brown will stumble across you because, I think that they might be able to tell your work from his just based on the subject matter.
Dan
Yeah. If you Google Dan Brown, you're not going to find me right away.
Katie
I think it's also worth pointing out that your book is fictitious trout. people will be able to tell just from looking at the cover that these trout are not, you know, this trout doesn't actually have a tiger's face plastered on the side of it. But it's not entirely fictional. They are real species and subspecies of trout, and there is real information in there about the trout. I wouldn't want someone to be turned away just because they hear it's fiction, you know, and if they don't like reading that, why would they get it? it's still a fun book to look through because there is an aspect of realism to it.
Dan
No, I appreciate that. And growing up one of my favorite books was my dad's To Hell With Fishing by Ed Zern, which is totally fiction, but I read that all the time because I like to fish.
Katie
Perfect. Well, Dan, I thank you for coming on today. It was fun to just kind of see where the conversation took us and talk about your book. I really liked looking through it and Just fun to talk to another avid angler and now a waterfowler too, as a new avid waterfowler myself. It's fun.
Dan
Great. And thanks for having me on. I sure appreciate it.
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 @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.
Note:
These transcripts were created using AI to help make the podcast more accessible to all listeners, including those who are deaf or hard of hearing, or anyone who prefers to read rather than listen.
While I’ve reviewed each transcript to correct obvious errors, they may not be 100% accurate. In particular, moments with overlapping speech or unclear audio may not be transcribed word-for-word. However, every effort has been made to ensure that the core content and meaning are accurately represented.
Thank you for your understanding, and I hope these transcripts help you enjoy the podcast in the way that works best for you.