Ep 169: Backcountry Gear Updates, Surf Fishing, and Fishing Everyday, with Patrick Bauman
Patrick Bauman (also appearing in episode 100) is the owner of Colter Backcountry, a small business focusing on backcountry fly fishing gear. In this episode, we go over some updates to his product line and what’s coming up. Like previous guest, Steve Veals, Patrick is also in the middle of trying to fish every day for a year. We talk about the challenges he has faced along the way, and how he got started by learning to fish the surf in southern California and quickly becoming proficient at this new-to-him style of fishing.
Instagram: @colterbackcountry
Website: www.colterbackcountry.com
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. this is episode 169 with Patrick Bauman on backcountry gear updates, surf fishing, and fishing every day. Well, last time I got a background on you, so we can dive right in today. And we're going to kind of jump all over the board today. So maybe I'll just start off with a little banter of, you know, what have you been up to lately? I know we're going to get to the fishing every day thing, but just generally, have you been doing any fishing in the last week or two that is worth noting?
Patrick
Yeah, definitely. A lot of fishing lately. July, I was pretty much in Colorado the entire month. So I was on a big road trip traveling around. I got to do a bunch of stuff. Awesome month to be up there and getting into some high elevation stuff, which is excellent. I am actually in Kansas City, Missouri right now. So I've been switching over to a lot of warm water stuff, kind of midsummer, bass, bluegill, catfish, those kinds of things, which is what I grew up doing. So it's been a blast. I am doing hopefully like an Ozarks trip next week to get back down to some cold water stuff. There's some good trout stuff down there and also some smallmouth as well. So excited about all that.
Katie
Very nice. Well, and how about culture backcountry? Because that was kind of on our list to talk about today is like updates. So that might be a good thing to kind of start with and tell me what's up with Colter these days.
Patrick
Yeah, absolutely. So I don't completely remember like where we were in the process of everything the last time I was on the show. I'm not sure if we had the products out or not or if we were just talking about the idea.
Katie
I don't think you did. I don't think so.
Patrick
Okay. So like since then, I guess like a little bit of a reminder if someone's listening for the first time. I run a business called Colter Backcountry. Our angle is we are designing and manufacturing gear for backcountry fly fishing. So it's something that my brother and business partner, Daniel and I love doing. It's kind of been our favorite type of fly fishing. And so we're basically trying to go through like pain point by pain point when we're in the backcountry, when we're backpacking, when we're far from a trailhead and trying to fish. You know, what are the things that current gear companies do not offer? And how can we kind of come up with a creative solution to those and really build out a robust kit of gear for backcountry fly anglers? So since we last talked, we came out with a pretty cool collapsible net. So this net breaks into a couple of pieces and then folds down real small, slides into a nice mesh carrying case. And it basically removes the whole like net getting snagged on every single tree branch you walk by as you're hiking in somewhere. The resets up really quickly. It's lightweight, portable, but also designed to be able to handle kind of like a real fish. So, you know, you can still net some of the bigger fish that you would definitely want the net for in the backcountry. This summer, gear-wise, we came out with kind of our second piece of gear. We call it a clip kit. Basically, like a very minimalist fishing wallet. So a lot of the times, most of the things that maybe traditionally we've had, you've gotten over the years to carry all of your fishing gear are quite bulky. They can carry a ton of stuff. Very useful for all sorts of applications, but long hikes and backpacking is not a good one. So we're looking for something that could basically hold all of your accessories, nippers, tippet, floatant, pliers, a couple extra leaders, indicators, that kind of stuff, and nothing else. So there's a big old fly patch on there. You can throw big streamers on, flies. But basically everything but the fly box, this will hold. So those just came out, our clip kits, and a few other things in the works. So that's sort of where things stand gear-wise. We can maybe tease some of the stuff later on that we have coming out this year. But overall, it's been great. We've kind of, I think, gotten the word out to a few more people that are into the backcountry community and gotten some really good feedback and a lot of stuff that's on the market now. Slowly making a push to get into different dealers. So we're in a few dealers in Colorado, over in California, down in Arizona, as well as some online options, too.
Katie
Yeah, it's kind of cool because often when people are on the show kind of plugging their stuff, it's something I haven't used. I'm like, oh, that sounds like a cool idea. I've actually gotten to use the net. I haven't gotten to use the clip kit yet because I just bought it. But I won one of your nets at the Flyathlon this year. Awesome. I just took it out the other day for the first time. And I just say it is awesome. I didn't think a net could, I don't know, make or break anything. But it's very clear that you use it in the setting that it's meant to be used. Yeah. Because like you mentioned, there are backcountry nets out there and they're flimsy. They're the ones that kind of like twist up into a figure eight shape and you can jam in a pocket, which is great for space. But, you know, not every fish in the backcountry is small. And the net that I've been carrying in the backcountry is absolutely massive because it's like my standard fishing net is like a lightweight. I got it from Bass Pro Shops. It's a huge basket, but I like it because it's got really small netting. And I do catch a lot of small fish, but it's the only net I can find that has small enough netting that's still rubber. that won't let the fish through. But it's so massive to carry so that it's strapped to the outside of my pack. Like you said, it's catching on every branch. And yeah, the thoroughfare net that I got from you is big enough to hold a big fish, small enough webbing to handle most of the fish I catch, which are like four inches long, and fits in a backpack nice and compact. So well done. And I set it up in like 30 seconds. Take it down in 30 seconds. So yeah, kudos to you and great design. You can tell that it's designed by somebody who has used it in that setting.
Patrick
Awesome. No, that's great to hear. Thanks, Katie.
Katie
I want to know what you can tease, if you can tease anything that's coming out in the future.
Patrick
Yeah, we are. Our next big thing that we're tackling that is sort of like kind of in between the final prototype and actually manufacturing is an ultralight rod tube. That is another big pain point for us. You know, we find that most people have your standard rod tube for a lot of the cheaper rods on the market. That's typically like a pretty heavy canvas. It's quite heavy. Some of the more high-end rods you can get into aluminum material. But for people who are into backpacking, they know that that is a pretty significant weight. And unfortunately, the alternative is just not really bringing anything to protect the rod. I think you're rolling the dice if you do that. I've done it before, and then I feel very uncomfortable. And I've known people that have snapped plenty of rods. So we're coming out with a much lighter option, but should be every bit as protective as what's currently out there. and it will also hold two rods. That's pretty important to me. If I'm backpacking for multiple days, I almost always bring two rods, whether you want to do multiple setups or you just want to have like an extra in case something goes wrong. So we're pretty excited about that project coming out.
Katie
And I know it's probably going to go through iterations as you make design changes and everything, but what's the idea behind how you got it lighter? Is it like a smaller diameter tube? Are you skipping things like the rod sock inside it to save space and make it smaller? Is it the material? Like what kinds of things did you look at on a regular rod tube and say like we can change that?
Patrick
It's a combination of material and then also design. I do think it is kind of proprietary. So I'm not going to go into the hard details right now. But it is pretty cool. I think what we've done. So hopefully we can share some photos and stuff and get people excited pretty soon.
Katie
And this wouldn't be an actual teaser because, you know, what you just talked about is what you're actually in progress with. But what other pain points would you like to solve in an ideal world if you had unlimited budget and resources and materials weren't an issue and things like that? What are the pain points that you still are going out in the backcountry and being like, wow, I wish we had a solution to this, whether or not that actually exists?
Patrick
You know, I would love to and we've started to explore this a little bit. I'd love to investigate some more technical apparel. Personally, a lot of the stuff that I love to fish in does not stand up very well if you're going through a lot of brush or if you're doing off-trail travel and or is uncomfortable if it's really hot outside. And so finding a better balance between lightweight clothing that covers you, protects you from the sun, but doesn't get trashed if you're going through thorns and whatnot, I think would be very interesting. And we also want to continue to iterate on the net. So we dove back into a few projects using the same mechanical design we have for some different sizes for different fishing applications. So that's also something we're looking into right now.
Katie
Interesting. I forget if we talked about this last time. Do you consider waders a pain point? I don't often take waders in the backcountry because they're so bulky. But there are times where it's like there's a lake shelf that kind of comes up to my waist. And I would love to not be having to choose between waiting it up to my waist in shorts and having to stay closer to shore. I can't even picture a world in which that problem is truly solved. But is that a pain point for you or do you just kind of write waders off or suck up and carry them in?
Patrick
Yeah, that is totally a pain point. I will say I'm a convert to the, I don't know if you've heard the Backcountry Skins product line.
Katie
I think I've heard of it, but I don't know anything about it.
Patrick
They're pretty cool. They're a business out of Canada. We've kind of connected also two brothers that run it, but essentially like tight compression, like neoprene compression leggings that you wear under a pair of shorts. And then you combine them with a waterproof sock and then put those into your boots. And so, yeah, it's basically like a waterproof system that's skin tight. And so it doesn't have the bulkiness of the waders and goes all the way up to your hips. So I definitely wear those. At the height, at like the true height of the summer, I will usually just totally wet wage no matter what.
Katie
That can, you know, backfire because if you're caught in form or high elevation or something,
Patrick
it's still really easy to get cold. But if it's like high July or early August or something, usually you can get away with the total wet wage. But yes, definitely waders are a huge pain in the butt. But Backcountry Skins have been a cool product that we started using. They've worked great.
Katie
Yeah, I'll have to check those out. I totally wet wage anytime I'm in a stream or river. but it's the lakes that get me where it's like if that shelf is too far out to to cast over from shore but it's also way steep it's like yeah I don't want to wait out there and then have a storm roll in 20 minutes later that I didn't see coming and now I'm just like absolutely frozen so totally it's also the boots I i find that the boots are arguably a bigger problem than the waders themselves so I i often put like a pair of Tevas over the the waiter socks and skip the boots entirely but still doesn't solve the the bulkiness of the waders it's not it's not so much the weight but just they take up a lot of space
Patrick
yeah I typically I will repurpose old trail runners so when they get like so beat up that they're kind of almost a size bigger than they were when I bought them and all stretched out and have like little holes then they're like the perfect size to slide over a waiter booty if you're trying to go go light and pack something in
Katie
well other other recent things I know you want to talk about the the new Mexico Flyathlon debut this year which I didn't attend that when I was at middle creek like I always was but I heard really good things about the new Mexico one so tell me firsthand what it was like
Patrick
yeah the new Mexico race was fantastic it was it was super cool. I had not spent a ton of time in that part of new Mexico but absolutely beautiful. we were on the Vermejo ranch which is one of ted turner's reserves and also I guess I'll just preface this by saying like if I share any information I'm not the expert on any of these areas or anything so you know I'll do my best to remember exactly how things were but we were on yeah the Vermejo ranch which is epic absolutely huge property so I think I think when you leave the highway if you're coming down the front range you drive through raton on i-25 pretty much as soon as you leave the highway you're kind of on the ranch and I think we drove for about 65 miles and a couple hours before we actually got to where we were camping, all on the same property.
Katie
That's crazy.
Patrick
And the whole property has been managed for conservation. So they have a bison herd that they manage. And then the big thing, the reason why we were there, the Rio Grande cutthroat trout native to the drainage. And they've done this huge project over decades, I think, at this point, where they basically systematically have gone through this entire drainage, removed all non-native species, reintroduced these fish, and now have a really thriving population that is accessible by anglers who are on the property. So super, super cool. Yeah, it was beautiful. It was pretty amazing. It kind of felt like once we got there, it sort of felt like we were in a Yellowstone type environment, like a private Yellowstone you could go to. It was just very, very neat.
Katie
I don't know if you'll know this, but what's the motivation behind this conservation? Like, I feel like for us, we can understand the intrinsic motivation behind conserving natural resources. But when I think of like mega ranches like this owned by rich people, I don't often think of the motivation being I just want to make it great and conserve these resources. Like, is that is that it? Is that the motivation? Or is there like, do they, you know, rent rent this out for people to come do things on and that's kind of the motivation for making it this kind of like Western pristine landscape?
Patrick
Yeah, they had someone from the ranch who talked about this a bit. And again, I don't know if I'm the person to relay this information accurately.
Katie
Sure, take it with a grain of salt.
Patrick
But it sounds like they essentially have a model where they try to manage these ranches so that they are both economically viable. So they sell the meat for the bison herd. It's also a guest ranch, so people can come stay there. They do quite a bit of logging. And then on the same hand, they're trying to make money off of it, but also then basically do as much conservation work as they possibly can. So, you know, the forests are managed to be wildfire resistant and plants and animals are all kind of trying to match what the native ecosystems would look like. And so that's sort of their ethos. And I don't know if that's true. I think maybe that's true across all the Turner properties, but at least in Vermejo, that's kind of their goal.
Katie
Okay. So like economically beneficial conservation.
Patrick
Yes.
Katie
it's like you know if that's if that's what it takes to conserve places I'm all for it you know if we can if we can make some money off of getting things back to the way they're supposed to be then then let that be the motivation for sure what was the what was the actual race like like how long is the run what is the like topography of the run what's the fishing like I think I saw some pictures but I didn't see a lot of the actual like fishing or the course itself just kind of like the hanging out area
Patrick
yeah the race was awesome so you're the main camp is kind of just off a reservoir and you have two two creeks that are draining this giant grassy valley you know and you're overlooking like there's a couple of 13,000 foot peaks in the distance just absolutely stunning scenery the race I think was around nine or ten miles and more or less a loop up up kind of the road you came on and then sort of split over and you get to split the two creeks that go through the valley so you can fish on either one of those and then towards the end there was a fun spur that you go up that was the big climb for the day I don't know exactly what the elevation was but I got to go climb up to one of these lakes I guess there were like three total if I remember right but run up there and so you had some opportunity to do some still water fishing as well so that was kind of fun you can take creeks and then also fish these lakes and at the turnaround point the check-in point you could even keep going if you wanted to and push back up to a lake behind that it was quite pretty as well. So a lot of different types of fishing, which is cool.
Katie
Were the meadow creeks basically accessible the entire time? Or were any areas kind of like down an embankment or like willow choked or anything like that? Was it kind of like you just had miles of open meadow stream to go fish?
Patrick
Pretty much. Yeah, it was open grassland. I mean, sometimes the running route was a few hundred yards from the water, but everything was very accessible. There were no crazy cliffs or anything that was totally socked in. So I do think that, I think there was 100% catch rate by the race participants this year. So I think every single person caught a fish, which is cool.
Katie
Yeah, it sounds a little more accessible. Like Middle Creek is by no means an inaccessible course. It's not like you have to be like a high level bushwhacker to get down to the creek. But there are definitely spots where it's like, this is an easy spot to get down. And other spots where you're like, yeah, that looks annoying to get down to and then choked out once you get down there. So it sounds really nice to kind of let people spread out kind of like wherever you want to go instead of kind of funneling people into the handful of like, oh, this is an easy place to access it. You know, I feel like a lot of people end up in the same spots at places like Middle Creek because there are a couple like definitely easier spots to get down to the creek than others.
Patrick
No, this is wide open. This is plenty of fishing room for everyone.
Katie
What was the fish size like? I heard someone mention that the fish were all pretty like decent, but I don't know if that was true.
Patrick
There were quite a few like smaller fish. So a lot of, you know, five to seven inch fish. But in, I think the winning fish was 16 and that was caught out of one of the tiny creeks. So, you know, a lot of these creek sections are like not much bigger than the sidewalk, but there's some good, good, uh, banks and brush and structure. And there was some bigger fish in there. So I think like 15 or 16 was the winning fish. And did the lakes also have the cutthroats in them? They did. Yes. Yes, they did. That sounds very appealing. I was already
Katie
talking to Mike and I was like, I don't know, this one sounds pretty cool. It'd be fun to do it next year. But I'm also so in love with Middle Creek that it might come down to like how many of my friends are doing Vermejo versus Middle Creek. It's like, I don't want to pull myself away, but if everyone, like there are a couple of people this year that all went down to the New Mexico and then didn't come to Middle Creek. And I'm like, well, I was looking forward to seeing them. If they're all switching, then I might have to jump on the bandwagon too. So we'll see.
Patrick
It's definitely worth going a minimum one year so you can see it. It's pretty cool.
Katie
Sure. Are you going to continue to do that one?
Patrick
Yeah, hopefully. I mean, we, I think I've done all three of the ones in Colorado now, or I guess this one isn't in Colorado, but I've done the Lake Fork and the Middle Creek one. So I don't know. I don't know. Next year, I'll have to figure out which one to go back to. But definitely, definitely intend to do them every year. It's been a blast. And we've had kind of the same group of friends come out and join us now two years in a row. They've had a good time.
Katie
Yeah, that's, I'm kind of in the same boat as you guys. I've done Lake Fork and Middle Creek, I feel like I should round it out. Like I'm not really counting the, there was the driftless one for a couple of years. I think that one might be on hiatus and then the North Carolina one, which I think is just paused as long as they're still recovering from the flooding that happened last year. I don't really count those two as, not that I don't count them as Flyathlons, but they're not really on my radar as like ones I'm looking at. But yeah, I'm kind of with you that anyone that pops up within like five hours of me, I feel like I should maybe give a shot at some point just to see what they're all like. Because they're all different in really fun ways.
Patrick
yeah no totally they all kind of have like a different feel a little bit different vibe different crew that's there. it's been fun to see
Katie
well this was like completely random that so I reached out to you just because we haven't connected in a while and you were like hey I'm fishing every day for a year I know you just had somebody on who did that so like I don't want to repeat it but I like I would really love to hear how that's going for you a because you're still in the middle of it whereas I talked to somebody who had finished it so you know he knew that he had made it a year. you're still kind of in the in the depths of it but also it's like I I feel like it's going to be very different from person to person because, you know, what you count as a day of fishing might be different than somebody else's and your life circumstances might be different. So it'd be easier or harder to kind of fit things in. So I'm going to let you get started here and then I'll pepper you with questions along the way. But where did you come up with this idea to try to fish every day for a year?
Patrick
Yeah, I don't, I feel like the, like the general idea I've had for years is like, oh, that'd be like so interesting to try to, like, I wonder what it'd be like to try to fish every day for a year so I definitely thought about it for a long time and never really seriously considered doing it I kind of felt like I needed to be living in a place where a I had easy access to a lot of water and that like whatever the daily fishing spot was going to be something that would keep me entertained like day after day or those I kind of knew in the back of my head like those would be like two critical pieces of the puzzle if I was even going to make an attempt that would have to happen so yeah I don't know I was looking for something fun to do this year some like a big challenge and that kind of hung around in the back of my mind for the last few months of 2024 and decided to give it a go in 2025 I will say when I saw the podcast you did I don't remember was his name
Katie
Steve veals
Patrick
yeah I saw your email blast that went out and it was like fishing every day for a year my jaw dropped I was like oh my god someone else did this like immediately reached out to him I was like hey like that's awesome
Katie
yeah I didn't even think about the fact that what you just said that you need your kind of like home spot to be something that's not boring because I don't think I talked to Steve about that at all and I think he was like on the road a lot his job like took him on the road a lot and so I think he was getting a lot of variety but if you're not on the road for your job all the time like I could see it being where you're just like, this is like the 50th day in a row I fished like my home creek and it's all rainbows or it's all brook trout and they're all eight inches long. And like, I, you know, if I catch one more fish of this species of this size, I'm going to like rip my hair out, you know? So what is your kind of like home water and what keeps it interesting?
Patrick
Well, it has changed a bit, but when the year started out, I was living in Los Angeles. And so my home water was the beaches. I was big into fly fishing in the surf. And it was something that has like a very steep learning curve to it. I had sort of dabbled a bit throughout 2024. And so going into 2025, I was like, this is something that's really hard and challenging, but I love it. And so this is like enough to hook me every day for a while, you know, maybe not every day there, but like have that be the daily water option. so a huge portion of like the first part of the year through may was essentially a lot of ocean fishing from the beach
Katie
that's a really good idea I guess for for somebody who's like trying to do this challenge because I feel like a you've got the the variety of the ocean like you're not going to probably catch the same thing every time and b it's such a a different experience to to fishing like classic streams and lakes that I feel like just the the learning of it would keep me engaged at least. Even if I wasn't catching anything, I'd be like, why didn't I catch anything today? I'm going to go home and Google some stuff and then try something else tomorrow. Whereas if you're going out every day and being like, I know how to catch this brook trout on a dry fly every day, you're not necessarily getting anything, any extra stimulation from that, I guess. So that's a really good hack, I think, to take up a new form of fly fishing to do that.
Patrick
Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. It was really fun. I will say it's quite humbling to take up a of fishing that you know absolutely nothing about and start doing it but if you're doing it every day like you can kind of pick things up surprisingly quickly so what kinds of stuff do you catch in the surf well sort of the bread and butter fish over the winter is a surf perch it's kind of the bluegill of the sea if you will but honestly like kind of a fun fish to catch you if you if you kind of pick up on you know where they are and how the how the tides are and when you should be going to the beach what time of day you should be there and know when the structure in the area that you're going to be fishing is going to be submerged at an appropriate level then you can get into big schools of them and catch a ton so that's a big big winter fish there are a few different croaker species yellowfin croaker being one the big the big thing in socal at least that everyone fly fishes for is a fish called a corbina it's also a member of the croaker family and they're just these big gray kind of ghost-like fish that they don't show up until about like late April when the water starts getting warm they're everywhere now right now but they they come super shallow they eat sand crabs out of you know three inches of water kind of thing and then shoot right back into the waves so it's it's a very fun sight fishing game California halibut also do come in close enough that you can catch them with fly gear if you're at the right spot at the right time leopard sharks are kind of a popular thing people will target like right right at the shore too so there's a good mix there's a lot of stuff there are striped bass that run in socal I never caught any they are not nearly as prevalent as they are up in the bay they're not not native to the west coast anyway but I think they're getting more and more prevalent. people are starting to kind of fish for those a little bit more seriously
Katie
how did you learn, you obviously know to cast a fly rod, but did you just go out and wing it and say like I've got 365 days to to practice this and I'll figure it out or did you like have any resources that helped you along the way?
Patrick
I read a lot of books and watched a ton of videos there yeah I mean the first thing is coming from a pretty much totally freshwater background there are some basic gear considerations that are just totally different than what I had you're running the stripping basket is absolutely essential they're a huge pain in the butt when you first start using them but it is completely impossible to fish in the moving surf without one you're also looking at like different weighted line or shooting head systems so big like 30 foot sections of weighted line and then a running line behind them which like helps cast really far and then the weighted lines are very heavy five to six second sink rates or five to six inches a second sink rate that kind of thing to get just below the waves as quick as possible and then just even like the act of actually fishing you're you're doing all you can to keep contact with your fly at like all times which is kind of crazy when you have you know potentially like a four or five foot surf coming in and like wild rip currents and all sorts of gnarly stuff coming in so there is like a huge curve on just learning like what the gear was and how to use the gear before I even got into the okay where should I fishing question of things which was the next the next level it's like okay well if you look out on the beach where are the fish and that was sort of the next challenge but there are a lot of good books and resources out there I'm trying to remember there's a great one I got it was probably just called like fly fishing southern California or something something like that but that was great a lot of youtube videos out there that will kind of get you up to speed pretty quick but there were I i will say like having done that as I'm sure you know you literally you just can't learn to fish by reading a book so the act of actually being out there every day was just invaluable and definitely got me up to speed way quicker than I would have been if I was going once or twice a week
Katie
do you feel like by the end you were like a pretty competent surf angler
Patrick
yeah I would say so I mean, there are guys that are are masters out there of course of course when it comes to like catching the corvina and stuff that are far far beyond anything I do but yeah yeah I would say you know I could accurately walk a beach and like tell you where fish are going to be holding and what time of day you should be there and all that kind of stuff.
Katie
Like most days, would you come out with a fish, a handful of fish, no fish? Like what's a typical day like?
Patrick
I would say yes, if I had control over my schedule. Once I kind of figured out like what tide you should be present at. And the other thing is the wind. You know, if you're not fishing in the morning, you stand to get like a pretty good wind coming in offshore, at least in the part of California I was in. And it could be pretty brutal to be doing any kind of fly fishing if you time it incorrectly. If you time the tides incorrectly, things just might be out of reach for fly gear at least. So some days, you know, I just had to squeeze in fishing and I would go knowing that I'm probably not going to catch anything just because the situation is not set up for success. But if I had like total control on when I could go, then yeah, generally speaking, I could find the fish.
Katie
What kind of flies are you typically throwing? I'm sure it varies a little bit based on species. But like what types of flies are you throwing?
Patrick
Lots of small little bait fish patterns, clousers, things of that nature. And then a lot of little hermit crab imitation or not hermit crab, sand crab imitations for some of the stuff that feeds on the crabs. Once the water warms up, the crabs start coming to the surface and fish are just eating them directly out of the sand.
Katie
Interesting. and I know like you you're not going to be able to convey months of figuring this out in a couple minutes but just if you to describe you know you go out what are you doing like are you are you walking the beach casting as you go are you like looking for a particular feature in the water and then casting out to that are you casting out and stripping and just kind of like describe to me what the fishing looks like like if I were to describe going freshwater fishing I'd be like well I'm looking for this kind of water and then I'm going to like cast above this rock and then try to get to float over the fish like just kind of describe what surf fishing is like because i've never done it
Patrick
yeah pretty much I am looking for structure and then food sources so you know it's not much different than like other types of fishing you know these fish want to feel like safe and structure and open surf zone means deep holes so as you get current ripping in and waves coming back and forth they'll get these big like troughs or just holes carved out and so fish will sort of kind of use that as like a home base and then use these deeper channels to when the tide comes in push up onto the sand because most of their food is coming off the sand so it's coming out of the sand crabs worms things like that are getting pushed out so fish feel safer when they're in the deeper channels and they'll use those channels to access the food source and then if you can find those deeper spots which when you're walking you can identify them by either a darker water or B where waves are not breaking. So, you know, waves break in shallow areas, they don't break in deeper areas. So look for those two things. If you can find a deeper spot that's combined with a good current that's pushing, you know, something like a wave is coming up on a really steep part of the beach, and then it's all like funneling some sort of sand out and carving in like a specific little V formation to push food back into the water, there's going to be fish that are stacked up right there. And so you're basically just kind of walking and looking for those kinds of things. They change day to day, hour to hour. Sometimes if there's a really predominant weather pattern, they'll, and like a really strong swell that creates certain features, they'll stick around for a long time. But that's a huge advantage of going daily is that you kind of always know where the structure is and kind of just keep tabs on everything.
Katie
I do think that's one cool thing about the idea of fishing every day for a year, or every day for any kind of lengthy time period. if you're in the same spot, is getting to watch that place change throughout the year. I mean, I went to the same spot twice this summer, and it was very different both times. And I was thinking, like, huh, I wonder what it'd be like to watch this go from what it was to what it is now, like the water's lower, you know, vegetation's different, things like that. And that's just two instances where I just, I have a start and an end condition. But being able to watch that transition for a whole year would be really, really interesting. Yeah, it was cool. And then,
Patrick
you know, if I would go out of town for a week or something, then come back, then you're like starting from scratch. It's like, all right, let's see what the beach looks like now.
Katie
So what is your home water now, now that you're in Kansas City?
Patrick
Yeah, I've been in Kansas City for a lot of the summer, although I was also on the road for a significant part of the summer. But home water here are a lot of local creeks and ponds. So it's been a combination of mostly bass fishing and then carp fishing, if I'm feeling up for carp mission so we've gotten a ton of rain around here lately so the clarity of these bodies of water has been terrible lately they've been like almost totally opaque which has made the carp stuff a little bit more challenging but it's been fun it's been fun I feel like I'm getting back to my roots this is I grew up in Missouri so doing a lot of the warm water species stuff is is a blast and where were you on the road in between mostly in Colorado so I spent most most of the month of July in Colorado mostly on a sales trip so we were visiting prospective dealers around the state met with a ton of fly shops and just kind of got to know some of the some of the local fly communities which was excellent but a lot big old zigzag through Colorado and then I did do some Utah actually made it all the way out to Tahoe I was meeting my family out there for a weekend so way west and then back through Utah and a little bit through Wyoming on the way home before coming back to Missouri.
Katie
Not hard places to fish every day, I think.
Patrick
No, no, not at all. It's like hard to pick the spot I should be fishing in. It's too many options.
Katie
So just a side tangent here, is Colter Backcountry your full-time gig right now?
Patrick
Kind of. I'm trying to make that jump currently. It's a little bit borderline, I don't know if it's able to be, but we're progressing towards that right now.
Katie
Okay. I was wondering what your schedule's like, because we're going to get into the logistics of fishing every day for a year, which is kind of like what I find interesting is trying to fit this into, you know, an existing life that has other priorities and things you need to do. I wasn't sure if you had like very flexible schedule because you were making your own schedule, working for your own business, or if you had other kind of like work limitations that control when you can go fishing.
Patrick
My schedule is pretty flexible, which is excellent. So if at all possible, I try to fish in the mornings because that way it's just like there's this thing that I have to do today and now it's done you know I there are plenty of days where I have not heated that rule and then you run into some unexpected thing in the evenings and all of a sudden it's like crunch time and you have to figure out a way to squeeze in fishing which I don't like to do so fishing typically comes first in the mornings which is kind of a struggle because I used to always work out in the morning and those things are you know working out was kind of like my non-work thing that I always did every day and carved out time for that and so now fishing is my non-work thing but I also try to do workouts too so those kind of got bumps to random times throughout the day but fishing takes priority in the mornings
Katie
you mentioned that it's like something you have to do which like I get it, it is because you've made this goal for yourself, but has it started to feel like a bit of a chore where you're like I don't want to do this but I've got to go get the fishing in?
Patrick
there are some days where it does feel like that and that was my biggest fear going into this was I was like all right here's this thing I love doing I think it would be like a unique and interesting and fun challenge to try to do it every day but I am worried that if I if I force myself to do this that I'm gonna like hate it or something which has definitely not happened but there are days where I will say like were I not trying to fish every day for a year I would not be going fishing right now kind of thing and I'm just I'm just doing it to knock it out so usually I'll I can shake myself out of that pretty quickly by giving myself a new place to go fish. If I start to feel that and it's like, all right, next week, maybe I can go a few more hours away and do something a little more exciting than I haven't done in a while or I've never done before. And that will get me kind of dialed back in and excited about the whole thing.
Katie
Are those days that you don't want to go typically because of like just your mood, like you're not feeling it? Or is it like the weather's terrible and it's just like not a good day to go fishing? Or I have errands. Like, is it a mindset thing or is it like an external factors are just making today not a great fishing day?
Patrick
It's usually a mindset thing. There is a part of me that almost enjoys fishing when the conditions are so bad that it's like stupid to be out there.
Katie
A hilariously bad idea.
Patrick
Yeah, especially when I was doing a lot of fishing on the beach where, you know, if the wind is just ripping and there's basically a sandstorm coming up and there's like a big seven foot swell coming in or something and you're just standing out there trying to cast fly gear. It's just like so ridiculous that it's comical almost but though if the situations are that extreme it's almost fun to be out there because no one else is going to be doing it people are looking at you weird and I don't know that's that's worth something if nothing else
Katie
I could see that I could see myself getting bored with like my 40th like sunny nice day in a row but then like a blizzard rolls through and you're like you know what let's just like see what happens today like it would be it would make it interesting in a way that you know the 50th day in a row of the same stuff would would become monotonous. So I can see that. But I would also worry that it would ruin it for me. Like turn it would turn it into a chore would turn it into a task on my to do list. And it's like, there's plenty of things I put on my to do list every day as kind of like a habit thing. And I've grown to view them all as chores. Even when if I put them on, I was like, this is a fun thing. I should I should treat myself to this every single day. So I could I could see myself like burning out on it and then like not wanting to fish when the year was up. But it sounds like you're kind of making it through that in a way I might not.
Patrick
Yeah, so far, so good. So far, so good on that front.
Katie
What counts as fishing for you? I remember asking Steve that as well. Like what, what do you have to do to check the day off?
Patrick
I consider like it needs to be an honest effort to try to catch a fish. There have been a few days where I only fished like 20 minutes, but it is, you know, I'm going out there. I have every reason to believe that there are fish in the area that I'm fishing and I'm like actually trying to catch them. So, you know, I'm not, Someone isn't just handing me a rod and I do like two performative casts over some body of water somewhere and check it off. I wouldn't count that. But a short session is okay in my book. So there have been times where, like I said, quick 20 minutes or something.
Katie
So putting on a reasonable fly with reasonable gear and casting out as much as you normally would to try to catch a fish.
Patrick
Yeah. And usually once you get, like, if you love fishing, once you've gotten to that step, then it's hard to walk away. Even if you didn't want to do it, it's like, well, I'm already here and now I'm casting. It's like, all right, now I have to pull myself away, even if I don't have time.
Katie
Right. It's like people's hack to go to the gym. Just go to the gym, put your shoes on and lift a weight. And then it's like, well, once I'm there, I might as well just lift the weight some more. Yeah, exactly. The hard part is lacing up your shoes and going to the gym. What almost setbacks have you had? I mean, I assume you're still on track to finish. So I'm assuming you have so far fished every day for a year. What days have you almost not fished and for what reasons?
Patrick
so far every day has been recorded in my fishing journal travel days are tough air air I think I don't know anytime you're going on the airplane and just going through through airport travel it's it's sketchy especially if you have a super early flight and you can't really fish beforehand and then you're like banking on oh I hope you know I hope this flight doesn't get delayed it's not a travel nightmare I gotta fish when I get somewhere those have been been the most difficult but honestly outside of that there hasn't been any like truly like, oh man, I barely pulled this one off kind of thing. That has yet to happen.
Katie
Do you have any days coming up in the rest of the year that you know are going to require some organizing and planning to make happen? Like, oh, I've got an international trip planned for October and I need to think about this ahead of time.
Patrick
Yeah, it's funny you say that. Well, there are a few things. I have a handful of weddings, which shouldn't be too bad. I have a bachelor party that I'm going to, so I'm just going to have to like sneak out in the morning so everyone's still sleeping and get my fishing in but I i am I i am concerned there may be two days this year where I I'm unable to fish I need to die I need to really get into the details but it has a huge upside payoff that I would be okay as a trade-off so I'm actually I'm going to Mongolia at the the very end of September and the start of October which I'm super super excited about and we'll be fishing over there but the travel day to get over there may be a little bit prohibitive to fish during that calendar day but I haven't like actually looked at the all the flight times yet so something maybe we could pull something crazy off
Katie
I don't know what's your rule on for Mongolia is it every calendar day or is it like every 24 hours can you can you find like a loophole where it's like you know you flew I know you probably be flying over the dateline I would guess but I'm not sure but could you give yourself some leeway with like I have to fish within 24 hours of the last time I fished you know in that particular instance to count it as a day
Patrick
I think there'll have to be something like that. again I haven't like laid out the whole timeline I'm probably gonna have to get a piece of paper and like sketch out different multiple times at once but hopefully we I don't know there'll be a little wiggle room where I can still say I'm holding off but a little bit worried about those days but if I If I catch a time and it'll be all worth it.
Katie
So of course I, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't blame you for, for giving it up for that. Are the two days just the travel there and then the travel back? Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. Well, yeah, I think if you catch a time and that'll be worth it. What do you have a plan for if you, if you were to fail, knock on wood, would you say, Hey, I gave it a hell of an effort and it was a fun experience and I got what I came for, or would it be a, I'm starting to get on January 1st and we're going to get it next year.
Patrick
I think I would just finish the year out continuing to fish every day. And I don't know, maybe throw a January 1st in there just to make up for it and call it good. Okay. We'll see. We'll see. I hope it doesn't come to that.
Katie
Yeah, me too. Well, I'm really curious to hear how this plays out. I don't know if, you know, we can always catch up next time Coulter has another release and hear how it went. But like I said, even though I talked to Steve about this, it's so different hearing your experience because you were like fishing in the surf and, you know, trying to pull off this international trip. I know he did a lot of travel too, but your rules are different than his. And for every person who comes up with a challenge like this, I feel like it's so individualized to their life that it's just really interesting to hear how people kind of work things around goals like this.
Patrick
Yeah, no, I love a crazy weird challenge that's totally meaningless. Those are right up my alley. So this has been a very fun thing to work on this year.
Katie
I wanted to ask, I know that last time we talked, this was kind of on pause, but is there any future work on the Gila Traverse coming?
Patrick
maybe it's funny that you asked that I have a friend I have a wedding in phoenix this fall and I have a friend who's bugging me to get three or four days on the front or back end in the white mountains and I was like well if I'm going there I might as well try to loop in a little Gila traverse action so sadly no no is the answer to that there hasn't there have not been any major major attempts or updates that since we last talked but I do still think it's an epic project and I would like to spend some time doing it but so so far it is it is I don't know maybe about a fifth complete
Katie
okay and and kind of on that line because I was thinking about it because I had recently checked your YouTube to see if you had done any updates on that I saw you'd done some other trips like you did some fishing in Arizona you did like golden trout wilderness in the last couple minutes we have like do I talk about those trips at all they I watched your videos and they were like they were cool trips if you don’t mind sharing.
Patrick
yeah yeah we did some awesome ones golden trout was sweet I did that with my dad last about a year ago last august super cool area i've done a ton in the sierra but the southern sierra is pretty beautiful and really makes for easy cross-country travel so you know there's plenty of trails but you can also get off trails easy and just kind of this smooth open rock that you can wonder about on which is awesome and to get to catch the the native goldens in their native drainage was really really neat they were crazy color fish definitely the most beautiful fish i've caught that was that was a fun one I was actually when I was up there I was trying to think of like some sort of way to do a golden trout Flyathlon out west in California I think that'd be kind of neat but that was a great trip yeah i've done quite a bit of stuff in Arizona over over the years there that was definitely one of my favorite places to explore there's basically this huge chunk well I mean it's essentially the Gila Traverse concept, but there's this huge chunk of wilderness that cuts across the middle of Arizona over to the eastern side of the state and sort of continues into western New Mexico, into the Gila wilderness there. That is a really, really cool wild area to be in. And I love fishing there. I'm looking forward to getting back.
Katie
And remind me what you were fishing for in Arizona. Was it Apache trout or Gila trout?
Patrick
Apache and Gila. And then those those river systems also have some big brown trout as well
Katie
okay gotcha yeah I want you to put more videos on YouTube. I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you that
Patrick
so I have a bunch that are on my plate that I'm working on. We’ve been trying to like put out more of them because we i've done a bunch of trips this year and I'm trying to trying to make some videos about them so hopefully that is gonna come
Katie
yeah i've enjoyed all the ones you put up but I looked I looked recently I was like it's been a long time since you put something up I'm gonna harass him about it excellent excellent Well, on that note, where can people find you if they want to check out your YouTube, Coulter Backcountry, anything else? I don't know if you're documenting the every day for a year thing, but if that's documented online, are people able to follow along?
Patrick
I mean, I'm posting casually on my personal Instagram account. I don't know. It's not very exciting. I do updates on if I catch an interesting fish, I'll try to post a picture of it. Otherwise, yeah, you can find everything is Coulter Backcountry. That's C-O-L-T-E-R. That's our handle across social media. And then our website is ColterBackcountry.com. I will do just a super quick plug for a cool program that I've been super stoked about. Katie, you've submitted a few challenges for this already.
Katie
Oh, yes. I can't believe we forgot to talk about this.
Patrick
Yeah. I worked in the outdoor industry and other capacities for a while as a backpacking guide for a long time and have sort of been exposed to what people call pro deals. So generally people in the outdoor industry qualify for pro deals with big outdoor brands and they get sometimes significant percentages off products, which I always thought was super cool and awesome. And we wanted to do something similar for Coulter. But we know that like a lot of our core audience are people like us who are do it yourself, kind of dirtbag DIY fishermen, which is epic and awesome. But maybe you don't already qualify for some of those traditional pro deals. So we started our own version of a pro deal where we have a long list of fishing and hiking and backpacking related challenges on our website. Each of those challenges corresponds to discounts on our gear. So if you're out doing really cool backcountry fishing, we want to hear about it and we want to reward you for your cool trips. We have some fun challenges up there. So if anyone's interested, you can check them out at ColterBackCountry.com.
Katie
Yeah, I want to take another minute or two to ask you about this. Have you received like a lot of submissions?
Patrick
There have been some good ones. I think we're at maybe about 10 submissions for the summer. So, yeah, people are getting out there and doing some cool stuff. We just had the first 50-mile backpack trip knocked out, so that was good to see. A lot of people asking if they can count their through hikes from past years, which I'm sympathetic to, but we're holding the line. You got to do it this year or later.
Katie
Yeah, I was bitter that I couldn't count last year's Troutman.
Patrick
I know, I know.
Katie
Because it might be a little bit before I do another one, but that'll be my motivation to get back out there. I do have another submission or two coming your way. I was going to spread them out a little bit, but I've got some in my back pocket. I don't even really need the discount. I have your net. I have your clip kit. So I'm like, I don't need anything else right now.
Patrick
It's not about the world chain.
Katie
Yeah, exactly. I just want my name on the completion. I don't even need the discount. Just keep the discount, give it to somebody else. But that's really awesome. And I appreciate your sentiment of some of the people who are doing the coolest stuff out there don't work in the industry. They just work normal jobs and they get out when they can. So it's nice to see somebody kind of taking a different approach on the pro deal concept.
Patrick
Yeah, definitely.
Katie
Well, one more time, Colter Backcountry on YouTube, Instagram, everywhere else, and website. Anything else you want to plug or wrap it up?
Patrick
No, I think that's about it. Yeah. If you love backcountry fishing, check us out.
Katie
All right. And I will once again plug that your net is designed by somebody who knows what a backcountry net needs. So please go check out the thoroughfare net. But thank you again, Patrick, for coming on. I'd love to catch up again when you're done with your year of fishing. And just appreciate you taking the time for this.
Patrick
Awesome. Thanks, Katie.
Katie
all right that's a wrap thank you all for listening if you want to find all the other episodes as well as show notes you can find those on fishuntamed.com you'll also find the contact link there if you want to reach out to me and you can also find me on instagram at fish untamed if you want to support the show you can give it a follow on apple podcasts or your favorite podcasting app and if you'd like to leave a review it would be greatly appreciated but otherwise thank you all again for listening I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode take care everybody
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