Ep 138: Recent Trips to the Driftless and the San Juans, with Shawn Larson and Paul Vertrees
Shawn Larson is a friend and multi-repeat guest on the show (episode 63 and 67), and Paul Vertrees is also returning to the show after appearing in episode 118. Paul and Shawn have been adventuring together all summer, and in this episode, we catch up on what they’ve been up to, including recent trips in the Driftless Area and the San Juan Mountains of Colorado.
Paul:
Blog: Tenkara Tracks
YouTube: link
Instagram: @tenkaratracks
Facebook: /TenkaraTracks/
Email: paul@royalgorgeanglers.com
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 138 with Shawn Larson and Paul Vertrees on their recent trips to the Driftless and the San Juans cool both of you have been on the show separately before Shawn you've been on a multi multi guest at this point and Paul I know we talked not too long ago about tenkara I think there's gonna be a little bit of that in today's conversation as well. But I'll kind of let one of you take it away. Whoever wants to start, I think we're just gonna be talking about some of your recent trips you've been doing and we'll just kind of see where things go from there.
Shawn
So Paul, I don't know if you want to kind of start us off with our trip to the Driftless.
Paul
Yeah, and that's kind of where where most of this starts spring and summer this year. This is kind of a potluck of adventures that Shawn and I have been on. So we'll kind of kick off with the Driftless and move on from there because we've been doing all kinds of other stuff as well. It's been a lot of fun. So this goes back to April this past spring. and Shawn and I had been this is actually Shawn's idea to put together a turkey hunt in southwest Nebraska and we had just wrapped up a hunt here and at home and and we talked about going to southwest Nebraska for a long time and and this is a place Shawn had had hunted previously and had good things to say about it so we started looking at the calendar and putting together some ideas about maybe building on this road trip to Southwest Nebraska and turn this into a cast and blast or a blast and cast, if you will, hunting turkey in Southwest Nebraska and then moving across the Great Plains to Southwest Wisconsin to the Driftless area that Shawn and I have both been to before. Love it. And put together an even more epic road trip than it started out to be. So that's how this thing got started with Shawn's idea to turkey hunt. So we just kind of, you know, took off on that idea and put it together and we did the trip. And it was, Shawn and I have been all over North America together. So this was another perfect fit for a trip and a lot of fun. And I was glad to have Shawn there with me as well and, and vice versa. So, and Shawn, there's a backstory to this whole turkey hunting idea. You want to share that with, with everybody?
Shawn
You know, I had been out to Nebraska a couple of times to hunt with a friend of mine that introduced me to that area. And I had success my very first time out there. So, which was cool because Paul and I had hunted turkeys in Colorado a number of times and just never, the stars never aligned for me. So that was the first place I was able to take my first turkey. So I was anxious to get back. And the guy that actually showed me this area moved out of state. And so, you know, I was anxious to get back and I wanted somebody to go with me. And, you know, Paul's been hunting turkeys for a really long time back in Missouri and here in Colorado. So I was like, hey, let's let's go check this place out because there's a lot of turkeys.
Katie
Is it public land?
Shawn
It is. OK. Yeah, it is public land. In fact, it's a little bit challenging because where the turkeys are, you know, there's public land, but private land literally right next to the roost trees in some cases. And so they will come off the roost tree and immediately go onto private land. So you have to be there, Johnny, on the spot to intercept them to have a chance of shooting a turkey. But, you know, it was an idea that I had been wanting to go back and take Paul. So I was like, hey, let's, you know, let's combine this with going to the Driftless because we've been talking about going to the Driftless as well. We're already a third of the way there. We might as well just keep going.
Katie
And how far is the Driftless, like, or where you were in the Driftless from where you had, you know, planned to hunt turkeys?
Shawn
Oh, let's see. I'm trying to remember what the time was because we, Paul's sister lives about halfway between where we were in Nebraska and the Driftless. So we stopped there, spent the night. So we broke the trip up, which was nice, not having to drive. But from, what was it, Paul, about, was it five hours? I think it was six.
Paul
Six hours? Yeah, six to our campsite in Nebraska. And then I think it was nine the next day, kind of the halfway point to my sister Sarah's house. And then it was about another nine north to the Driftless. So yeah, it broke it up real well. None of those days, you know, none of them were hard travel days. So it was great.
Katie
And how was the turkey hunting? Any luck?
Shawn
Well, yeah, there were a lot of turkeys. We had some extremely close encounters, but some really difficult shots and including a turkey hanging up about probably 10, 12 feet from Paul and I on the other side of a barbed wire fence, which was private property. And he wouldn't come over the fence. Almost like they know. Yeah, exactly. So, and, you know, we had some probably, you know, 60 yard shots, but that's, I mean, that's a long shot for a turkey. So we were not successful, but we saw a lot of turkeys. It was just trying to figure out, you know, where they were going to roost. And there were some other hunters. So we had to be mindful of where they were. So that, but it wasn't crowded by any means. You know, there was one or two other hunters and that was about it in the area where we were. So it's a big private land area. So it is possible for people to kind of spread out.
Katie
And how long did you stay for the hunt?
Shawn
So we went on Friday and did some recon and then hunted Saturday, Sunday, Monday morning, or we left Monday, I think, wasn't it? Saturday, Sunday, Monday. And then left and drove, you know, Tuesday. We got to the Driftless on Wednesday. It would be nice to have spent another day and, you know, maybe next time we do this because it's such a perfect fit to drive out there and to turkey hunt along the way. that we'll probably end up doing it again.
Katie
Yeah, so tell me about the Driftless portion then, which I know is going to be, you know, that's a small question for probably a really big story. But, you know, give me all the details. Like, how did you plan your, you know, where you were going to go and the gear and all that and how you did?
Shawn
So we were there for, let's see, we got there on Wednesday. And I'm trying to remember, Paul, when we were there for what, four days, five days?
Paul
we were there for four and wishing we'd be, you know, we, we keep adding days onto this trip for the next time. So, you know, I think another day of turkey hunting and a couple more days now we're into, you know, two weeks, which is great. You know, this thing is kind of evolving, for next year, but yeah. Uh, so four days, and we, you know, you asked how we, how we plan this out or whatever. And, We, Shawn's one of the few friends I have where I get like, we can get into the double digits on text per day. You know, and most of the time when that happens, we're putting something like this together. So we're just, we're banging away. Shawn and I actually coordinate meals ahead of time. So, you know, if we're out there for, and we just did this and we'll get to this later, but we're out there for seven days backpacking, for example. or six days. I know that I'm responsible for six meals. He's responsible, you know, we, for six meals, we do, we put all this together ahead of time. So, you know, there's a lot less guesswork and we can kind of focus on what's really important and that's having fun, either hunting or fishing or whatever we're doing. So, so we do a fair bit of, of, of coordination on the kind of logistics end of the thing ahead of time. And, you know, so, and it works well and, and there's nothing more valuable than a good guy or a good gal in camp. And we have that with each other because we really, we've spent a bunch of time out there and, and, and it's, it's kind of a no brainer when we start putting a trip together, but we do a lot of planning for sure.
Shawn
Well, and it's, you know, it's a bit more challenging because we don't live in the same city. He lives, we live two hours apart so usually as we get a bit closer to the trip we have a spreadsheet or I have a spreadsheet I should say that I put together for all of my trips for backpacking depending on the days and I have a gear list for Paul and I for backpacking Paul's responsible for this Shawn's responsible for that and so and then we'll follow up with a phone call within you know a couple of days prior to the trip or whatever just to kind of finalize you bringing this that that and the other and make sure that we have all the gear and equipment that we need.
Katie
That's actually something that I wouldn't mind chatting about for a little bit because this just came up for me. I was backpacking this past weekend with a friend, and so we were doing the same thing. Can you carry this if I carry this and vice versa? But I don't think we've ever talked about this on the show before, but it's kind of an important thing to learn when you're maybe just getting started doing backcountry trips with somebody else is like, let's not bring two stoves. Let's not bring two water filters or whatever other thing you might be able to share. Any advice from someone who's more experienced on how to kind of divvy that up? And what things do you only take one of? What things do you take two of? Things like that.
Paul
Communication is the biggest part of this whole thing. And it's never too early to start that communication when you're planning for a trip. But the spreadsheet helps. And Shawn came up with that one. you know you don't want a whole bunch of duplicity there's some things that it's nice to have some backups you know or have two of one thing the best piece of gear can do multiple jobs and I've always said that you know the really really good good pieces of gear can do more than one thing so that's you know you need to take a look I think you need to take a look at that the things that Shawn and I to bring one of would be a stove. And I say that because both of us know how to produce heat without a stove. And we can do that. You know, either one of us can do that. So, and that's with a live fire. So we only bring one stove. We only bring one pump. That's with a gas stove. We do bring extra fuel, but just one stove. And we only bring one set of, cooking pots. And we really only use one or maybe two pots. So, you know, you don't need, you don't need to duplicate that. There's a lot of that kind of thing. And then the no-brainer stuff like the shelter and all that, because we share a shelter. But a lot of it boils down to what you're using for your backcountry kitchen. I think on, you know, doubling up on things, lights, we only bring one light. Really? Okay. That's one I would not have guessed. And that's a tent light. We have headlamps.
Katie
Oh, okay. I thought you meant you were sharing a headlamp. No, no. And I was like, that seems a really silly weight savings.
Paul
Yeah, I see a cartoon in there somewhere. Both four heads and a giant headlamp. Yeah, so I'll back up and say a tent light. Yeah, and things like that. Like a Lucy light. A lot of it is really the guts of the kitchen, which is the stove and the pots and the water filter and stuff like that.
Shawn
Yeah, and Paul has a good fry pan for going to catch fish and fry fish once in a while. So he always brings his fry pan. I've got a lightweight set of MSR ceramic pots, so I usually bring those. I think we've switched off a couple times, but usually you bring your Whisper light stove. Now, when we're camping in the trailer, that's a whole other list of equipment. So you've got a two-burner stove. You've got more lights for outside, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, a jug for some water or two jugs, depending on, you know, if we're going to be dry camping or not. So one for inside, one for outside. that sort of thing. So we just tried to coordinate, you know, sharing. So not one person is bringing everything. So, and then water filter, you know, I, I used to only bring one filter. Um, but you know, sometimes the water is just not very clear and there's a lot of sediment in it and the gravity filters don't do well with a lot of sediment. So I've begun to carry a spare brand new filter that's not ever been used before just in case the other one gets just so painfully slow that you know you just have to switch your filter out so we had a gravity filter I don't know if I’d go back
Katie
I don't know if it was user error I mean we've used it a zillion times so I would assume not but we had a gravity filter just kind of stopped working on us last summer and ended up boiling water for the rest of our trip because it just I don't I don't quite remember what happened like if the water just wouldn't go through it or what I mean we obviously wouldn't have known if It just didn't do the filtering. It was flowing straight through. But so I must, it must have just not been coming through at all. Yeah. But, you know, we've since replaced it. And gravity filter is definitely my preferred. If you're going to be in camp near water, it's so quick and easy. But I do like to carry a SteriPen as like a backup where it's like, okay, if I, but boiling is also an option. Sure. I know that. So I don't, I don't fret too much about a faulty filter. Yeah. But yeah, when it goes, when it goes poorly, it's frustrating.
Shawn
Yeah, I started to write because I would lose track of how long have I had this filter and how many, you know, gallons of water or liters have I put through it. Yeah. So I started to write with a Sharpie on the edge. It's the BeFree filters. And I write on that blue ring around the filter. I write the date, the month and year that I put it into service so I know how old it is. And I can go back and I count, you know, how many trips, how many days I've got on it. And when Paul and I just recently went, I had one that I put into service in August of last year. And it was definitely slowing down. We had some dirty water at one point because we had a pretty bad rainstorm that silted up the stream. So I did break out the other one because it was just taking so long to filter the water through. And when you're sitting there above a tree line, you don't have a tree to hang. You're holding it up.
Katie
Oh, I've never had that.
Shawn
So your arm gets tired. We have to take turns going like this and okay, it's your turn to hold it.
Katie
You just put one uphill and one downhill on the ground.
Shawn
Well, yeah. Sometimes that works.
Katie
And I assume that's with like back flushing and everything too. Like you try to maintain it, but it's still just eventually.
Shawn
So the be free, there is no back flush. It's basically just kind of swish it. Oh, okay. Just to keep it clean. But you have to be religious about doing that pretty frequently in relatively clean water just to keep it flowing. But I know the platypus ones, for every two liters or every dirty bag you put through it, you should be back flushing at least a liter. So there's a couple different ways of doing that. And I don't know which one actually lasts longer. I think maybe the platypus with back flushing might last a bit longer, but I don't know.
Katie
Yeah, I'd have to check how long we got out of our last filter. It was a while. It's gotten quite a bit of use, but yeah, they do eventually give out. Anyway, back to the drift list. I just wanted to hear your opinions on, you know, what's worth two and what's worth one. But, yeah, I mean, pick up where you guys left off on the trip.
Shawn
Yeah. So, I mean, Paul is more familiar with the Driftless than I was when he and I went together. He had been there at least once before. I can't remember if he'd been there more than once. But we were, on this trip, we were trying to recount, you know, some of the places that we went and where we had the best fish, the most productive fishing. And also because we were, you know, pulling a trailer. And when we went before, we stayed in a yurt. But we had to drive about, what was it, 30 minutes or something from the yurt to where the rest of the group was and to get to the fishing. and so we pulled Paul's trailer out there and found a campground that was really close to the river that we wanted to spend most of our time on. Kind of a funny story and we always use this little inside tagline but so I don't know if you're familiar with Wisconsin but they have very generous water access laws so as long as it's a navigable river I shouldn't say a river navigable water and navigable to them is you can put a canoe in it and canoe only needs about three inches of water oh that's and it's the high water mark and so but as long as you're in the water you can go anywhere you want you can't walk across the farmer's property to get to the water so most people will park where the stream goes under the road jump in the water and you can literally walk anywhere you want as long as you stay in the water so we we came we wanted to fish this one stretch that we hadn't fished but it looked nice and there was a dairy farm so we kind of pulled off to the side there's a little dirt parking area or dirt area right next to their house and Paul went up and knocked on the door and said hey you mind if we park here and we'd like to fish this stretch of the stream and of course you know she said that's fine just stay in the so that was an inside joke for us stay in the creek so anyways we thought about that place where we parked and that was a very good stretch of river and it was very near where we were camped so we went back to that area and another friend that Paul knows that lives out there and has drifted the has fished the Driftless extensively, also was camped out there. So he showed us some new areas that we hadn't fished before. So that was kind of nice as well. But that was kind of how we started was we know where we can camp. We know it's good water. And that's where we started. And then just kind of went from there and freelance once we got there and just were looking at, you know, online or apps on our phones to figure out, you know, where there was access or whatnot.
Katie
Is there pretty ample camping in the area? You said a campsite or campground. Is it pretty easy to find a place to sleep?
Paul
You bet. I got to give a shout out to West Fork Sports Club. This campground is a private campground. Previously, we had used public campgrounds. We kind of researched things. We hooked up with West Fork Sports Club. And this campground is right on the banks of the West Fork of the Kickapoo River. you can literally walk I don't know 50 yards from camp and start fishing which is pretty cool. There's campgrounds all over Vernon County and this is really the kind of the epicenter of where we fished is Vernon County, Wisconsin. There are public camping all over the place. There's private campgrounds as well so between the access that Shawn talked about and the camping opportunities. I mean, it's kind of endless on what you can do with fishing in the Driftless. It's very cool.
Shawn
Yeah, and some state parks as well. So there's a lot of public land that you can access, but just the access opportunities, as long as you're in the water, you can fish any stretch of stream that would have a fish in it, literally.
Katie
Does it feel like there's – is there more private land that people are fishing along? I know that they'd be in the water, but people are more often fishing, like, quote-unquote, on private land than they are on public land there?
Shawn
Absolutely, yeah. Because it's – I mean, there is – there are some state parks and there are some easements that we found as well. But for the most part, it's all farmland. There's – aside from the few state parks and whatnot, it's all farmland. It's privately owned.
Katie
And are the landowners like generally nice about it? It sounds like, cause I mean, a law is a law, but that doesn't mean that the person that you're knocking on the door is going to care, you know, when they, when they address you. So yeah.
Paul
Yeah. We've had nothing but good experiences with that. And, and Shawn was talking about, stopping at a farm on the Kickapoo river actually. And, and, um, talking to, you know, the, the landowners, and they're, And it's a really cool part of the world in the Driftless because everybody's on board, it seems. And unfortunately, that can't be said in the West where we have all kinds of complications with access to water between public and private. My feeling has always been that everybody's on board in the Driftless. It's always been a great experience in any interactions we had with landowners. It was great. Most of the time, you don't have an interaction with landowners because it's just an accepted fact that you're going to have access to that. They don't come out and make contact with you. You fish your way through it and you get out and you go home. So it really works well. Absolutely.
Katie
I wish we had that out here.
Shawn
I know.
Katie
It would be so nice. I know.
Shawn
I know. And I don't know how many, there's got to be thousands of miles of fishable water in, And the Driftless isn't just Wisconsin. It's an entire region that encompasses Wisconsin, Minnesota. Help me out, Paul. Iowa and Illinois. And a little bit of Illinois, yeah. So it's a pretty large region, but there's thousands of miles of streams. It's incredible.
Katie
Yeah, I think, so I talked to somebody recently about the Driftless, and I think they mentioned that there are some popular places to go. Sure. But did you guys feel crowded when you were there? Is it like if you put a little bit of effort into getting away from the crowds, you can do so?
Paul
It wasn't crowded at all, even at the campground, actually. We ended up on some public water in a county park. That wasn't crowded. We only saw, I think, one other person the whole day. We ended up on some private property as well. There was nobody there because we had pretty much exclusive access to that. But no. And I think Shawn will agree. We did not feel crowded at all. Most of the time we were by ourselves, which was great.
Shawn
I mean, the most people we saw were the ones that were camping at the campground or just, you know, park there to fish. But even then it was like three people.
Katie
Okay. So by our standards. Yeah. Not crowded.
Shawn
Not crowded. Yeah. I mean, they're, they're, they, the Kickapoo is a, it's not a big river, but it's also not, you know, it's not, I don't know. In certain areas, it might be like Clear Creek, you know, so it's not really small. But there are some really small streams that you just have to seek out big holes. And that's where the fish are. And there are a lot of fish.
Katie
Browns, mostly?
Shawn
Browns and brook trout. Brook trout and tiger trout. Paul caught, amazingly enough, a natural tiger trout. Because there were browns and brook trout in this hole, and all of a sudden he pulls out a tiger. and they don't stock tigers to my knowledge. So it was pretty cool. Yeah.
Paul
I had to travel a thousand miles from Colorado to catch a tiger trout. So yeah. Yeah, it was great. It was awesome.
Katie
Yeah, I was with John when I think he caught a natural tiger trout unless it had washed down from somewhere else. And I've caught a lot of tigers, but zero of them have been naturally occurring. Yeah. So that's pretty special. It was pretty cool.
Shawn
Yeah. And that was the first time that the other time that we were there, We didn't see any tigers, so I was surprised by it. But it makes sense. You've got browns and brookies in the same stream. You just have to have the right sex of each matchup.
Katie
Isn't there something that's difficult about it, though? There's a reason that they don't just start cropping up everywhere.
Shawn
And I don't remember it has to be the male of one species and a female of the other. Yeah, I thought there's something with chromosomes or something. Something. But yeah, it's not easy to get them. It seems like a fluke, yeah, when it happens. Yeah, so it was pretty cool. It wasn't a big fish, but it was very cool to see that come to net.
Katie
Was the fishing fairly easy? Like they just want to eat everything?
Shawn
Pretty much. I used two flies all four days.
Katie
Two patterns or two flies?
Shawn
I don't think I lost any flies. I used one of my perdigons. I think I used it the entire time, the same fly. perdigons are just so – Paul had one one day. His fly, there was nothing but wire and thread hanging off the back of it.
Paul
Yeah, that was a 50 fish, and I don't count fish. I don't have a clicker in my pocket or anything, but that was a 50-plus fish fly. Yeah. And it was all day long, and it ended up, it was just an awful fly. It was an ugly fly when we got finished. But, you know, those fish really don't care. That's kind of the way it is there. They really don't care. They'll flip off and on when they want to eat dries and when they don't. But if they're on, they don't care. And those are my favorite kind of fish.
Katie
Yeah, I feel like that's what you need when your fly has turned into nothing but a little bit of twisted thread on the end. When you can continue to catch them on that, you realize that maybe you shouldn't be using your good patterns on them. They're going to go find some of the ratty flies that you've stashed away over the years.
Shawn
Yeah. They just don't get that much pressure. But, yeah, the weather was not great. We got a little bit of snow. It was literally in the upper 30s, low to mid 40s during the day. So it was not warm on a couple of days. But even those days, we managed to catch fish.
Katie
And what month was this again?
Shawn
you're getting to know we were there April yeah April okay yeah we were there around mid-April so and it's you know it's pretty well protected so Paul you you always describe this out west you know we always think about going up an elevation to do our fishing take that graphic and as Paul says flip it upside down Wisconsin's very flat but then you have these coolies and that's why they call them is coolies and you know river valleys and creek valleys that you go down into and you end up fishing and that tends to make them because it was it was super windy in Nebraska it was windy all the way to Wisconsin on our drive and all the way back it was just a really windy time of year but we were very well protected from the wind for the most part, aside from a few places. So that was kind of nice.
Katie
Yeah. I'm trying to think how that would work. Because we go up and it gets colder because we're going way high. But I could also see that time of year, if you go down, if all the cold air is pouring down into those things, how you could have the same kind of effect, not from elevation, but just from the settling.
Paul
Yeah, it does, absolutely. And I call this reverse topography, is what I call it. And it's exactly that. It's a mountain landscape flipped upside down. which you know and part of the reason I really love the Driftless as well is because it's just in a in many ways it's an exact opposite of where we live in Colorado and where we fish yeah you know it was it's this pastoral landscape it's green it's lush you have to go down to get to good fishing instead of up. I mean, you know, it, the, the, the, the, the list of, of opposites is long. And that's why I think I enjoy it so much is it's just, it's, it's just so not Colorado. Yeah. You know, it's about as far from that as you can get. And it's a great, it's a great place to go. Um, I can understand why people from the Midwest come here because of that as well. Sure. Same reason. Right. Exactly. And, you know, I don't know too many folks who leave a mountain state to go there and have that kind of experience, but I would encourage anybody to do that because it's great. And it just, it's a dramatic change from what we're accustomed to here at home in Colorado for sure.
Katie
Yeah. And you were using a Tenkara gear the wholetime you said?
Shawn
We were. Yep. Exclusively. Yep. I didn't even bring, I didn't even bring my Western rod usually I'm the one with the western rod and and Paul's yeah Paul's stuck on tenkara guy
Katie
but I'm surprised to hear that you didn't bring anything else
Shawn
I did not bring my western rod. I brought one tenkara rod and that was it actually I think I might I brought two but just in case one breaks but yeah it's I mean it's it's perfect water for tenkara and you know Paul's the tenkara expert he's been doing for for a long time but and I'm still learning from him But it's perfect water for just that small. You know, you don't have to cast a long ways. You just find a hole and flip a fly in it and catch fish. It's very easy, very simple. It's just, it's nice to travel with lightweight gear.
Katie
Was that why? Was it the traveling? Or are you trying to get more into tenkara?
Shawn
No, it was just, we just decided, well, I mean, like I said, you know, Paul is typically 100% tenkara if he can help it, especially if it's a stream. I just decided I'm just going to go 100% tenkara just because it's easy. Yeah, and it's all you need.
Paul
You know, for me, it wasn't a matter of space in the trailer or packability or any of that. It's just all you need. You don't need anything else, you know. These streams, the biggest one we were on was the Kickapoo River, and it was maybe 50 feet across, you know. So you could fish half of it from either side, and you could reach all of it. So in a white spot, yeah, it's truly all you need.
Katie
So yeah, that sounds kind of like the perfect setup for that. Like, you know, I picture not like our, you know, cascading mountain streams, which is kind of like a smooth flowing, not too small, not too wide river. That sounds like the perfect use for that. Whereas I feel like out here, there's a lot more like variation in the kinds of things you're going to be fishing from lakes to big rivers to tiny mountain streams. Like, you know, having a little bit more variety could help. But yeah, what you're describing sounds like just right for that.
Shawn
Yeah, it's perfect.
Katie
Well, anything else about the Driftless in particular you want to talk about? Or I'm also excited to hear about your trip to the San Juans, if that's next on the menu.
Paul
Well, you know, one of the things we did the first trip we made to the Driftless was we wanted to incorporate some other things into the trip. And so Shawn and I enjoy good craft beer a lot. And we try to find local beers wherever we go. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And a number of years ago, we made our first trip to the Driftless and found a really cool small craft brewery in Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, the Driftless Brewing Company. And we were disappointed to find that they were out of business and gone and this trip that we just did. we were amazed as well on how hard it is to find a beer in Vernon County, Wisconsin. It's kind of tough. We were shocked at that. So I would encourage those folks if they listen to this podcast and they live in that part of the country, guys, get in the game, man. Get some more beer out there.
Katie
I would assume that there was nowhere in Wisconsin that it's hard to find a beer.
Paul
You would think. You would think. Yeah, you would think. yeah yeah so but anyway we did at the at the what's the name of that place the woolly beer oh yeah yeah the woolly beer it was a tap house in vera quo Wisconsin shout out to those guys it was a great place yeah we did find some beer but that's one of the things we've done on these trips is try to have some fun with with some other things other than fishing that is going to be part of the whole story as well. So, so we did, you know, this trip, it was kind of tough finding a good beer. Um, and, you know, we were, we were blessed as well to, to, to hook up with a couple of friends. Um, one from Wisconsin, one from Minnesota that met us there, they were camping as well. Um, and they, they hosted us in a way, showed us some, some new spots and, And so, you know, I'd really like to thank Dave Nolan's own Kolinsky for doing that for us. We ended up on some really special water as a result of that. So that was something that was new this time around as well. And really appreciated that from those guys.
Shawn
Yeah, it's amazing when you drive around, you're just driving by water the entire time. It's like, oh, there's a great spot. Maybe we should try that tomorrow. And then you drive it by another great one. It's like – Just distracting. Everything's distracting. It's very distracting. It's very difficult to figure out, okay, you look at a map and there's just blue squiggle lines everywhere. It's like where are we going to fish? Where do we pick? Right. Just throw a dart. Yep.
Katie
Well, Paul, because you're remote, I want to let you know that because you've described Shawn as being such a craft beer guy that when he opened my fridge today, he chose a Costco beer that someone left in my house.
Paul
Well, Shawn does have a soft spot in his heart for Costco on a lot of levels. So I'll just leave it at that.
Shawn
It's a lager. Yeah. I chose that instead of the IPA. Yeah.
Katie
Well, I'm sure it was purchased at a local Costco.
Shawn
Yes. So you're still shopping. So, yeah. The beer that we – the first trip to the Driftless, we stopped at a very large tap house in Minnesota on the way down there. And we were sitting there drinking beers. we found a really strong dark beer we started you know having some some sips of it and we were kind of joking because that was a trip I mentioned we've stayed in a yurt and we said boy if you drink too many of these you're going to have to stay on your yurt you're not gonna be able to leave the yurt so we we coined the phrase a yurt beer a yurt beer okay so you can't when you look through the glass you can't see your hand on the other side and it's got to be at least eight percent
Katie
all right yeah I'm gonna start using that’s a yurt beer brand new classification of beer right there. now what if it's in a can so you can't tell if you can see your hand
Shawn
it just has to you know when you pour it out it has to be dark enough you can't see it okay okay
Katie
you gotta pour it in front of you see if you can see the person on the other side of the waterfall
Shawn
yeah so anyway we digress so you said yeah our last trip that we just got back from about a week or so ago. We were in Southwest Colorado and it was a return trip again for us. We had been there actually in 2020 at the screaming height of COVID. So the pictures of me, I look like the Unabomber, I think. I can't picture that. I didn't have a haircut or shaved in months. But anyways, we happened to catch this area. We were fishing a stream, and we happened to catch it after a very poor snow year. So the water levels were very low compared to when I was there the first time with John. And he and I hit it, and the fishing was off the hook, so to speak. We caught so many fish of different species. There was fish in every single hole. They were big. The water was perfect. When Paul and I went back, I was shocked at how different it was. And I think there were a couple of reasons. Number one, it was a poor snowpack, so there just wasn't a lot of water. But as we started fishing up the drainage, got higher and higher, it was very interesting. There must have been a, we started fishing the same exact place that John and I had, and we came around the corner, a bend in the stream, and we could not get past the spot. It was cliff walls of both sides, and there was no way that we could get through it. And I was like, this was not like this in 2013, I guess it was, when John and I were there. we had no problem walking all the way up to the point where I wanted to walk up with Paul. And so there was a, at some point, a catastrophic flood that came through there and just totally changed the character. And there were a lot fewer fish. And initially I thought, well, maybe that was just because of the low water and they had moved down to the larger river that this stream dumps into or something. But I wonder now, after this second trip in particular, realizing going up to a spot where the stream was about, I don't know, maybe three feet below the side of the trail. And now it's about 15 feet.
Katie
Oh, wow. That's a big change.
Shawn
Huge. So I wonder if that catastrophic event just carried a lot of fish down and out of the drainage completely.
Katie
And how big is this creek or stream or river?
Shawn
Tiny. It is tiny. Very small. Yeah. Very small. Yep. I mean, you know, there are places where it might be six feet wide, maybe, and other places where it might be three feet wide. Okay. And then it might, you know, you might have a hole that's, you know, pretty deep and it's 10, 15 feet wide.
Katie
Sure. But this isn't like a big, strong river. This was a little creek that got really big at one point.
Shawn
It was a very small creek, yeah. But it was, I mean, it was staggering to look at the amount of land mass that got moved and created this gorge where John and I years previously had just walked straight through. There was no problem. And the geology there is very volcanic. So the rock is really loose. So, you know, I think that part had something to do with it, that it's just very porous and easy to erode. But, and Paul, I guess your assignment when we got back was to try and get a hold of the biologist and ask, you know, hey, what was this catastrophic event that occurred and, you know, what his thoughts on it were because it was very curious.
Paul
And I don't have an answer yet back, but, you know, the steepness of the landscape as well, it's very steep. I think has something to do with that. The other thing that this canyon has going on that makes fishing challenging, and I'm saying this, I'm 61 years old and Shawn's a couple years younger than I am, it's not easy to fish this kind of place. There are thousands of acres of beetle-killed lodgepole pines everywhere, like matchsticks. The mountainsides are silver. They're not green. And with the runoff that's come through this canyon, plus the beetle-killed trees, there's downfall everywhere. Yeah. You know, it's like doing CrossFit for eight hours a day, you know, fishing this creek because you're going over and under and around. You know, it's a challenge. I think that's one of the reasons it's, you know, the quality of the fishing. All of that, I think, is a result of that because I think it's, you know, all of those factors make a really good filter and it keeps folks out of there. They just don't go up in there. But it's a very challenging landscape, I can tell you for sure.
Katie
Were you backpacking?
Shawn
Oh, yeah. Yeah. We saw one person in the course of five days.
Katie
Were you mostly on trail or? Yeah. Okay. I wasn't sure if the dead, cause you mentioned the deadfall. So I wasn't sure if that was just when you're kind of like veering off the trail.
Shawn
There was a lot of deadfall on the trail. Yeah. And across the river. And there were, there were log jams. You could tell there was a lot of water that came down there because there are these just massive amounts of debris that was piled up, you know, in some places, six feet high. It was crazy.
Katie
Yeah. That's, that's so hard to navigate over.
Shawn
How much water was coming down when that whatever happened happened. And it even changed. There was a couple of places that we noticed, hey, this looks different from the first time we were there, which was only four years ago. So, and I think, you know, to Paul's point, because when John and I were there the very first time, none of those trees were dead. I have pictures from then and now and look back at those pictures and the trees were all green. And now that the entire, we went to the very upper part of a basin, a different basin, and everyone in the trees is now dead. And so it looks very, very different. And so I'm sure that has an impact, obviously has an impact on, you know, during having rains or what have you, the amount of water that just is not captured in the vegetation and just washes down.
Katie
Was the fishing any different after this, like, blowout? Like, did, I mean, was there any evidence that something major changed in the fishery or did it kind of like rebound?
Paul
Yeah, I think there were, I think there were fewer fish maybe this time than there was. And Shawn's been there three times, I think, at least three times. I've been there twice. I think, you know, comparing four years ago to now, I think there's, there's maybe fewer fish. Just kind of my feeling. And I say fewer, it might be that there are only, you know, fish in two thirds of the holes instead of all of them. So, you know, it's still really good. So don't get me wrong. But I think that this, these cataclysmic events that, you know, I kind of wish I could, I could watch from a safe distance to just witness that. It does have an impact on fish. That's for sure. But it's still very good.
Shawn
Yeah. Yeah. I did notice that, you know, in particular when John and I were there the first time and then Paul and I went my second time. I mean, there was a fish in every hole, every run. You just had to flip your fly in the water. And this last time I noticed in some of the deep holes that even Paul and I had fished before where there might be a dozen fish, there was only four or five or six, half a dozen fish.
Katie
So if you hadn't gone before and had nothing to compare it to, it wouldn't strike you as bad. It was still good. It's just you have seen it in previous forms. And how far back were you guys camped or fishing?
Shawn
The first camp was about six miles. Our upper camp was another five and a half miles. So we were in there quite a ways.
Katie
And did you go up? Were there like a lake or anything at the end?
Shawn
Yeah, that was the whole purpose for going to the upper part of the basin. there are some lakes at the upper part of the basin. So we only spent one night at the first camp, went to the high camp, and then stayed there and fished a couple of the lakes. And it was interesting, too, that one of the lakes in particular, the very first time I was there, there were cutthroats, and now the only thing that's in this lake are rainbows, which is very odd for a high mountain lake. I have no idea what was going on there either.
Katie
I wasn't sure what was going to come out of your mouth, but I thought there was a 90% chance it was going to be brook trout.
Shawn
No, it's rainbows. Why are we catching these rainbows? It was very strange.
Katie
How does that even happen?
Shawn
I have no idea. So that's another question for the fish biologist.
Katie
Yeah, did you tack that on, Paul, to your question to them? I'm more curious about that than the other one.
Paul
I've got a voicemail sitting there cooking, waiting for an answer back. But it's going to be an interesting conversation for sure.
Katie
Yeah, those don't just end up somewhere without a lot of effort. Yeah.
Shawn
And this lake is not easy to get to. It's a long ways from any trailhead.
Katie
Wow.
Shawn
And I was surprised. Maybe there might be one odd, but every single fish we caught was a rainbow, which is very strange.
Katie
So no cutthroats? Like any cut bow-looking fish? It's like they just disappeared and were replaced with Yeah, they're all rainbows.
Shawn
Rainbows.
Katie
Wow. And you said there were multiple lakes up there? Were they, only one of them was this rainbow lake.
Shawn
Right. And the rest still had cutthroats. Yeah. The other one that we fished, there weren't as many fish as the first time that I had been up there. And they were definitely much smaller. We just didn't see a whole lot going on. But there were some people up at that high camp that were there. And they fished at the same time we were up there. And we saw them. They catch a couple. And they were cutthroats. So, yeah, there is another lake that we didn't get to in that same area. But we just decided because this one lake that I was targeting because I had gotten skunked there, and I always like to go back and try and get the skunk off, which I didn't do. We decided let's go down to the lower camp and hit the creek.
Katie
Oh, you have the opposite approach of me. If I get skunked, I'm crossing that out. I mean, unless I feel like it was my fault.
Shawn
Well, yeah.
Katie
Is that how you felt? Yeah, because there were definitely fish in there, and they were big fish.
Shawn
They were just being tight-lipped, and I could not. John finally hooked into one very briefly and lost it, but we fished it hard for like three days and didn't catch a single fish. I could see the fish, but just couldn't catch them. That's tough. Yeah, so I wanted to go back and redeem myself, which I didn't do, so now it's off the list. Okay, so two skunks and you're out, I guess. Almost like baseball. Almost, but by a little bit tighter rules. Yeah, yeah. And it, I mean, it's just, it is really difficult to get in there. And the trail, because of, again, the geology, there were several places. As Paul said, it's extremely steep canyon. There were places that the trail was about 8 or 10 inches wide, and it's about 100 foot drop down. So it's a little sketchy just getting in there.
Katie
Maybe some trekking poles?
Shawn
yeah is that not for you no I mean Paul had trekking poles but just I'm older yeah if it was we were both concerned going out we wanted to get out before any rain came because you know that section of trail could wash out even worse
Paul
yeah so yeah funny story because we got to well the night before this is the night we had to go through that section of trail. I was laying in bed, getting ready to fall asleep, and I was thinking about that spot and obsessing about that spot. It's like, you know, I really hope I make it across that spot. And so I didn't say anything to Shawn. And so we got it. And it takes literally, it takes like 20 seconds to cross this spot. All right. And, so we both got on the other side of it and Shawn looked at me and he says, you know, I was really thinking about that last night. And I said, yeah, I was too, but I didn't want to say anything to you.
Katie
Want to talk about it?
Paul
Yeah. Oh my gosh. I made my peace with...
Katie
I think that's one of those things that talking about it makes it worse. Yeah.
Paul
So I made my peace with God the night before and it was like I was ready to do that. Yeah, it was good. Yeah.
Katie
But did you cross it again on the way back then?
Shawn
Yeah, we crossed it twice. When we came upon it on the way up, I looked at it and I was like, well, that's not good.
Katie
Yeah.
Shawn
And then, I mean, the section that's really bad is actually fairly short. It's literally only about two or three feet. And then it widens slightly. But it's still not great. And it's, you know, the trail is not flat. It's on a slight cant, and there's loose rocks on it, which on top of harder rock become little pebbles that are marbles that if you step on it, they're slick. So, yeah, it was just running in my mind. It's like, man, is there any way for us to even get around this thing if for some reason we can't get across it? Because we had two really bad rainstorms that moved through while we were up at the high camp. So in, you know, about two inches of hail on the first one. So, you know, both of us were concerned about the condition of this one spot of the trail. And it's like, okay, if we can't cross that, what's our exit strategy?
Katie
Was there any such thing as like you add a mile and a thousand feet to your hike, but you have to climb up over some ridge or something like that?
Shawn
Or was this... We would have... I mean, there is another way out, but it would have added another... I think it's, I mean, had we gotten there and not, and it had been washed out, we would have had to backtrack and it probably would have been an almost 10 miles for us to get back out to the trailhead.
Katie
Instead of?
Shawn
Instead of the five miles down to our upper camp.
Katie
Okay.
Shawn
Because it was a completely different drainage that another trail came in on. I see. I see. And we had a really nice creek full of trout waiting for us. Yeah. Got down to our lower camp as well.
Paul
That was our bailout, you know, so we couldn't do, we couldn't miss it.
Shawn
Yeah. So, you know, that's just, I guess, that's another thing just to consider and think about when you're on a backpack trip. You never know what you're going to run into, and you should always have an alternate and study your map. And, hey, if something goes wrong, we need an exit strategy. We need a different way to get out of here. And so, you know, that's what I was looking at. It's like, okay, well, we have a few choices, and there's only one good one, and it's not great.
Katie
Yeah, the reason I asked if there was another way out is, you know, I feel like when I'm doing backpacking trips, I like to prioritize a loop trail if I can, just because it's fun to see, you know, something new the whole time. Yeah. But I never thought about that as being a potential benefit. Like, you know, well, you cross this thing on the way in, but.
Shawn
You only got to cross it once. We can just keep on moving forward instead of having to go back over it. Yeah. And there is, I mean, there is a loop potential. We decided not to because we didn't, I don't think there was, the fishing potential was there in that second drainage because it was much, much steeper than the one that we came up. Yeah. So.
Katie
And I don't know if you said, and I just missed it, but what was in the creek? Cutthroats in the creek?
Shawn
So there actually is a pretty good variety of, there were some browns. There were more rainbows, oddly enough, than what I had caught the first time I went. Caught mostly browns, but there were brook trout, rainbows, cut bows, browns. So basically you just did a grand slam in this area. I caught one cutthroat this time. And I caught a couple the very first time I was in there, maybe two or three cutthroats. So there were fewer cutthroats, more rainbows. We didn't catch too many brook trout, but mostly rainbows.
Paul
The first trip Shawn and I did in there, I actually did a Grand Slam Plus, which I got a cut bow. Didn't happen this year. And I did that and it took me about an hour and a half to do that Grand Slam. Wow. Amazingly enough, yeah, it was pretty cool.
Katie
I feel like that's really rare in a creek. You usually get like, this lake has this, this lake has that, this lake has this. You can just link them together, but to have all of them in the same creek. In the same creek.
Shawn
There were certain holes that one particular section had more brook trout than another. But yeah, they were kind of dispersed throughout. It is a nice piece of water. And there was definitely more water in it this year than there was when we were there four years ago. So our plan was to move down and fish the lower stretch, the lowest stretch, which had very, very skinny water four years ago. My knee, unfortunately, did not cooperate. So we bailed a day early and decided to plan another trip and just focus on the lower stretch of river and make sure that we go after a decent snowpack where there's a good amount of water. Because there was still a lot of snow up on some of the ridges.
Katie
And when was this?
Shawn
This year. It was just two weeks ago.
Katie
Oh, okay.
Shawn
Yeah, so mid-July.
Katie
There's quite a bit of snow up there still. We were surprised this weekend. Like it's not hard to come across snow and we're almost in August. Right. Yeah.
Paul
I came past, I drove past Mount Massive yesterday and there's a ton of snow up on it, on the divide. So, yeah.
Katie
That's great. That's good. I haven't heard about a lot of fires this year, which has been, well, it's not here. Not here. Yeah. We're getting it from somewhere else.
Shawn
Unfortunately, we're getting it from elsewhere. My eyes are feeling it. But, yeah, I mean, it's a spectacular piece of water, and it drains into a larger river that's very long, has a ton of public access. And so, you know, the opportunities are there. And there's other streams that I have fished also in that area. The first time that we went, I just stayed by myself. And Paul took off. He had other obligations. And I fished for another like three days on another small stream and did even better than what Paul and I had done in this stream. So and those were almost exclusively Rio Grande cuts. So there's a ton of water just in that general area. You just have to seek it out.
Katie
And what was the total length on this trip?
Paul
We talked about that. We think around probably 30 miles or so.
Shawn
Yep. Yep. With our, you know, jaunts from camp to the different lakes that we fished and back and forth and walking downstream, jumping in, fishing back up, et cetera. Yeah, it was probably close to 30 miles.
Katie
Over how long?
Shawn
What was it? Six days. Yeah, six days.
Katie
That sounds like a really, like, nice length of trip. Yeah, it was perfect. Not too, like, grueling any one given day, but cover a lot of area.
Paul
Yeah.
Katie
Over the course of it.
Paul
And, you know, we moved camp three times. So we did get around, you know, into some different spots, into some different countries. So moving camp, you know, really got us into, you know, some new places for me, at least, that we didn't do last time. So, yeah.
Shawn
But it was a great week. The hardest part was just negotiating the downed trees with a heavy pack on, on steep terrain where you can't just walk around it. It was horrible.
Katie
Yeah. I don't know how big the trees were there, but as a short person, going over a tree that's sometimes taller than my waist with a pack that weighs half my body weight.
Shawn
There were several that were chest high. It's like, well, we got to go figure out a way to get around this one.
Katie
Yeah. Oh, that's tough. But it sounds like overall still a good trip. Yeah. Despite the harrowing cliff trail and dead trees.
Shawn
Yeah, I put that one out of my mind. But yeah, I mean, we caught plenty of fish when we finally got into the stream. And it was just slightly different from the previous time we were there. But we found plenty of fish.
Katie
Was this also Tenkara only? I'm sure for you it was, Paul. But was this overall Tenkara only?
Paul
I brought two rods. So I had a Western rod, you know, a traditional fly fishing rod and reel. And I also had a tenkara rod. And really my plan was to use that five weight on high lakes because typically, you know, you're trying to reach fish that are out 40, 50, 60 feet. Yep. And they can do that to you. So I did take that five weight. And unfortunately, well, it was kind of a mixed bag. One of the lakes, you know, really didn't have much going on. The other one, I did use it on that lake as well. Our rainbow trout lake that Shawn talked about. And I used the five weight on that lake. And those fish were out there quite a ways. They were not close to the edge. And so, you know, I think that worked out well. But once I got on the moving water, it was all tenkara. There really wasn't a lot of room. It was very, very tight quarters. Tenkara worked out great. That's all I used on the moving water.
Shawn
I only took one rod, my four weight. Western rod. That was it.
Katie
And Paul, I'm sure you mentioned this last time we spoke, but do you often take just a Tenkara to Alpine Lakes? Or is it pretty standard for you to bring a Western rod for those? Because, you know, you might be trying to get out over a shelf or something.
Paul
Yeah, that's a great question. And most of the time, and I think Shawn will agree with this, that I have only taken one rod and it's been a Tenkara rod. There are times that I kind of wished I had my four or five weight simply because I couldn't reach fish. You know, Tenkara is not the answer to everything and it does have its limitations. And I have encountered those on high lakes for sure. You know, and I kind of gave that some thought when I was planning, you know, on what to bring on this trip. And, yep, I just, you know, I brought the five weight, but I would say most of the time I don't. I usually will bring one or two rods, but they're usually both Tenkara rods. Yep.
Katie
Yeah, because sometimes I find it hard to reach the fish even when I have a regular fly rod. I'm like, they're 10 feet past where I can get either because of my casting ability or because I've got a wall of trees behind me and I'm, you know, stuck roll casting out. I guess, you know, maybe that almost turns a lot of what I'm doing into Tenkara appropriate because half the time I'm just roll casting out there anyway.
Paul
Yeah, isn't that funny that no matter where you cast, they're always 10 feet past. It doesn't matter if it's 25 feet or if it's 50 feet. Yeah, but I had a great time with both this trip, but for sure on the moving water, it was all Tenkara for sure. And it was a quintessential Tenkara stream. Absolutely. It was all pocket water, really short runs. So it was perfect.
Shawn
I have done a couple of trips where I took just Tenkara, even knowing that all I was going to fish was high lakes. And it made it extremely challenging because the fish were just beyond my reach. of that tenkara rod. So, it made it challenging.
Katie
Yeah, that's tough. Cause I feel like even when I'm limited by, you know, trees or something behind me, I'll just move to a different place and then I can cast farther. But when your gear is what's limiting you, you have no choice and you can't make the fish move any closer. Right. Um, I think I'd end up breaking that right over my knee eventually. Yeah. Uh, speaking of knees, what, what happened to your knee?
Shawn
I have an old injury. I blew my knee up, gosh, 30 years ago. Skiing? Skiing, yeah. And I suspect it was due to COVID because I didn't ski for two years. We just didn't buy a pass. And I telemark 100% of the time. And so my leg strength, I lost a ton of leg strength not telemarking. And I think my knee just got so stressed. And this is the first time it's ever done it to me while backpacking. And I think the sequential days and coming downhill, it didn't bother me at all going up. Didn't hurt. Wasn't swollen. Never even thought about it. We came down, set up camp, woke up the next morning, and it was blown up like a softball.
Katie
You know what might help with that? Trekking poles.
Shawn
Oh, I just, I dislike trekking poles so much. I like to have my hands free. I don't know what it is, but I've tried them before and I just, I just don't like them. I mean, the only time I did borrow Paul's several times and it was when we would cross the stream and I needed to have just a little bit of extra balance. I did, I did borrow one of his.
Katie
That sounds like Paul came prepared. Yeah. So when you said that your knee does this, like, what is this? Is it just like painful?
Shawn
It's really not painful. It just swells up. I do have a little bit of arthritis. And there are certain connection points and tendons from my quad down to my knee that swell up. And I think it's probably just the stress of especially going downhill or when I'm telemark skiing. You're putting a lot of stress on your knees. Not as much, oddly enough, as when you're alpine skiing. But I think just not having the muscle mass to hold the knee stable, it just gets stressed and starts flowing up. So it's a bummer.
Katie
And it's still lingering?
Shawn
It's better now, but it's not 100%. Because I did actually cancel a backpack, but we just went truck camping instead and fished last week.
Katie
And Paul, were you on that trip too, or was this just a Shawn?
Paul
No, I came home.
Shawn
And he did his own fishing.
Paul
I had another trip that I just got back from last night.
Katie
Yeah. And your lives sound so difficult.
Paul
Yeah, it's tough. It's tough being us. You know, listen, I was listening to Shawn talk just now, and you should do a whole episode on the aging backpacker. It could be a series.
Katie
Yeah, no, it's a series.
Paul
I say that with all seriousness because there's a certain amount of conversation that Shawn and I have in camp when we're backpacking that involve the subject of aches and pains. It's not like it used to be when we were 40. We're going to do this as long as we can, but it's noisy and it gets uncomfortable.
Katie
I really like this idea. I think you're going to be the star of the aging backpacker.
Shawn
I know a few that are older than I am and still out there. So, you know, if I can just get my knee back to where I, it was really, I don't know, Paul probably could sense how irritated and frustrated I was when that happened because it was the first time ever on a backpack trip. And we cut the trip short because I was kind of stressing out about, I had a one day turnaround, actually two day turnaround to the next backpacking trip. and so I was like all right I think I need another day of rest and as it turned out we didn't backpack but we did hike a lot we hiked quite a few miles and at the end of the day I could feel it even without a heavy pack on
Katie
yeah and I know where you were gonna go and that's not a place you want to go not feeling great
Shawn
I did not want to be that far in and have my knee you know do something where I was going to put someone else at risk so yeah
Katie
and Paul where did you say you went at the same time?
Paul
Yeah. So, got home from that, this most recent trip with Shawn. Uh, my wife and I had a, camping trip planned for, Ridgeway state park. Um, so we went over there, we took our travel trailer over, kayaks. We took our kayaks over with us. Um, we hiked, we fished, we took in some great music. We had good food. So we just spent of week over there, kind of Ridgeway, Ouray, Telluride, that whole triangle. Um, we did, we did fish the Uncompahgre River, the tailwater section, below Ridgeway, reservoir. Uh, I also fished the, Mary and I, my wife, Mary and I, fished the San Miguel, kind of between Placerville and Norwood. And then we went over and fished the, the three forks of the Cimarron river over, above and below Silverjack reservoir as well. So yeah, it was a great trip and, uh, kind of a, a, a different type of trip than, than I normally do, but, uh, still fun. And we had a great time.
Katie
Awesome. Um, well to, to wrap things up, do you guys have any, upcoming trips planned?
Paul
We always do. Yeah, that should be expected. Yeah, we do. Actually, we put one together today, right before the podcast, actually. This is how it goes. So I think we've got maybe a good chance to do a kayak fishing trip in South Park. Camp, fish, hang out for two or three days there. we've got uh you know in the fall shows up and then and they are especially on the Arkansas river things are just fantastic down here so we we end up fishing together quite often here as well so you never know there could be another trip put together between the end of this podcast and when we go to bed tonight so but I think that's the next one we kind of have on the radar is just a kite we do like getting our kayaks out and fishing from kayaks so and doing some still water stuff as well so I think that's the maybe the next thing that's coming up unless there's unless I'm missing something Shawn help me out for us
Shawn
no I do have a trip with a group and my gal and it's going to be you know truck camping with the trailer but I've got my eye on a few high lakes that I want to hike up to and hit. Again, that John and I sampled actually just a couple years ago. We just were like, we're in the area. It's like, oh, it's only a mile up there. Let's go check out this lake. So we did, and we caught some pretty nice fish. So I want to go back because it was 4.30 in the afternoon when we hit this thing. So a short hike, and there's some nice fish. that's kind of on my radar to go back to that one and sample a little bit better.
Katie
What part of the state?
Shawn
North part of the state.
Katie
Okay.
Shawn
North Central, yeah.
Paul
So, yep, big trips coming up. I'm heading to Alaska on August 31st. I'm going to be up there with a group, a hosted trip that I'm taking a group of clients up. We leave on the 31st of August and we'll be back on the 7th of September. So that's coming up. I got two trips in September, so I've got that one. And then my wife and I are heading back to the Driftless. Oh, that's right. Kind of the third week of September. And she's never been up there. I wanted to introduce her to that. We've been married for almost 30 years, and she just picked up a fly rod like a month ago.
Katie
How does that work? How do you survive for 30 years before giving in?
Paul
Yeah, so, well, we're dedicated. So, yeah, I mean, she fished on this last trip. So we're going to head up to the Driftless. We've got campsites reserved and we've got everything set up and probably stop halfway and see my sister again. Kind of a repeat of what Shawn and I just did. So September is going to be a busy month for sure. And then we start hunting. So once October rolls around. So lots going on.
Katie
What tags do we all have?
Paul
Well, I'm eating tag soup. That's when you take your applications and you tear them up and you drop them in boiling water and have your dinner, right? So I have tag soup. But we have a family farm in Missouri and some fantastic white-tailed deer hunting there. And so I'll be heading out there in November. That's kind of a bailout type plan. It's a wonderful place. and fortunate to have that. Shawn has been out there with me in previous years. So I'll be heading out there. So thank goodness for whitetail deer hunting. Otherwise I'd be eating salad all year. It's a save.
Shawn
Shawn came out of this a lot better than I did. Yeah, I drew all the tags that I put in for. Sorry, Paul. We're the reason that he didn't get. So hopefully we'll have some fresh meat in the freezer.
Katie
So what did you get?
Shawn
Deer, elk, and I got two pronghorn tags.
Katie
How'd you manage that?
Shawn
I drew in the primary a buck, and then I put in for a doe in the secondary and got the doe in the secondary. Oh, nice. It's in a unit that is heavily hunted for trophy bucks. So whenever you look at the number of licenses for buck and doe that were allocated and actually drawn, the group that I hunt with, there's usually two of us that get buck tags, two that get doe tags. And there were only two doe tags that were issued, and those were ours.
Katie
Oh, wow.
Shawn
So nobody wants to –
Katie
Do you know how many applications?
Shawn
I don't think anybody actually puts in for doe because they want the trophy buck.
Katie
Oh, okay. I wasn't sure if you were saying that like a bunch of people put in and they only give out two dough. Like those are probably the only two applications for does. Yeah.
Shawn
We were the only ones that probably applied and got them because everybody wants a buck.
Katie
Oh, wow.
Shawn
So I don't really care. I just want meat in my freezer.
Katie
Right.
Shawn
So, yeah, hopefully we'll have some success.
Katie
And maybe you'll come duck hunting with me this year. Because I think I invited you like five times last year. And you were always doing something else.
Shawn
I know. Well, let's plan that a little bit better and maybe see if we can definitely get some duck hunting in. Hopefully the blue-green algae that was an issue in some of the areas isn't an issue this year. Because I know you've canceled at least one of your trips because of that.
Katie
Did I?
Shawn
I thought so. There was one place that had some blue-green algae. So I think you decided not to go.
Katie
Oh, I think there was a place that had had it. Yeah. I think it was gone because when we got there, it was frozen solid. Oh, okay. So I don't think the algae was doing much damage there. Right.
Shawn
But yeah, definitely. Let's get some duck hunts on the calendar for sure.
Katie
Well, thank you both for the inaugural one person in person and one person online. I feel like this went as well as it could have gone for the first trial run. So I appreciate the effort making this happen.
Paul
Yeah. Well, thanks for having us on the show too.
Katie
Yeah. Well, I'm sure I'll be talking to you both again soon for the aging backpacker series. We'll make it happen. But in all seriousness, I'm sure we will talk again and catch up on next summer's activities and everything that happens in between. But until then, thank you guys again. 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. you
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