Ep 34: Making the Most of Time on the Water, with Darrin Schenck
Darrin Schenck is an avid fly fisherman and the head coach of the Arizona State University racquetball team. We had originally planned to talk mostly about his recent fishing trip to Utah and Idaho. When the fishing success turned out to be less than expected, we decided to switch gears a bit and branch out more in the conversation. What followed was a discussion of what happens when the fishing is lackluster, some of the better trips Darrin has been on, and how he makes the most of the time he has left to fish with his father. I also got to hear about how his favorite fish isn’t the biggest one he has caught, and why the best memories don’t always correspond to the measurements of the fish itself. Near the end, we also get into the pros and cons of trying to turn fishing into a career. All in all, it was a rich and thought-provoking conversation that took some really enjoyable turns.
Website: darrinchatter.com
Email: darrin@darrinchatter.com
Instagram: @darrinchatter
Twitter: @darrinchatter
Linkedin: Darrin Chatter
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. All right, welcome to episode number 34 of the Fish Untamed podcast. Today I am talking to Darrin Schenck, and Darrin reached out to me maybe a month ago now, and just sounded like he had some interesting stories to tell and thoughts to share, so had him on the podcast, and it was one of the most enjoyable conversations I've gotten to have about fishing. We were initially planning on talking mostly about his recent trip up to Idaho, but the fishing was a little less than expected so we ended up branching out into different topics a little bit more. At times it got a little bit sad and a little deep talking about family members who aren't always going to be around to fish with and how we're not guaranteed you know the next fishing trip or or the next day so I really like those conversations that go beyond just the techniques to catch you know your next big fish or the latest gear that's in style. So I really really enjoyed this conversation I'll go ahead and cut it off there so please enjoy my chat with Darrin Schenck. I am sitting down today with Darrin Schenck. Did I say that right?
Darrin
You did thank you.
Katie
I always have to put that part in the like the welcome packet to make sure I you know pronounce everyone's name right because I'm always like what if I get to the part where I have to introduce them and I I don't remember how to say it. How are you doing this evening?
Darrin
Very well thank you.
Katie
Have you been been fishing much?
Darrin
Well, I just got back from a trip, kind of a, I hate to say it, but it's possible a last hurrah kind of a trip with my dad. We took a two-week trip to Utah and Idaho. He's getting older a little, you know, well, we all are for that matter, but the mileage is starting to show on him, not just the years. And the way things have worked out with working remotely, everything just sort of fell into place for us to take an extended trip together. And so I'm literally fresh off of a trip from Utah and Idaho.
Katie
Yeah. And I saw in your email that it didn't go quite as planned, which I'm sure you can talk about, but brief overview.
Darrin
There's levels to the game, right? Okay. We can hop in. Yeah. I've been fly fishing all my life, but a large majority of what I've done has been small streams and smaller rivers as the largest water that I fish. I've been on a few guided trips on bigger water. I fished Lee's Ferry here in Arizona, which is the Colorado River where it runs out of Lake Powell. So that's big water. And the next biggest water would be the San Juan River in New Mexico, which most of the time when we fish is about, I would say, five to 800 cubic feet per second in flow. So going to the Green River in Utah, and then the Snake River in Idaho was a big step up, right? My dad certainly prefers to fish smaller water. And we were, we were doing a good job of fishing what we thought was the obvious water to fish. And we were catching literally, you know, four or five, six inch trout. All of the bigger fish are in the bigger, heavier water. But in those rivers, it's difficult to fish that while wading. Everybody that was in a guide boat was catching fish. And the day that we had a guide boat on the Green River, we caught far more fish than we did any other day, either there or Idaho. But as you know, that's not the cheapest version of fishing. So we were a little limited in how often we could do that. And of course, there's a little bit of a learning curve to fishing water that much bigger too. So we had sporadic at best results. I caught my first whitefish, which the first time I was kind of excited about because it was new. It was 18 inches and big and fat. And I actually chased that fish probably 500 yards down river because for the first 10 minutes of that battle, I thought it was a brown trout.
Katie
Oh, that would have been an exciting thing too. If a brown trout fought as hard as a whitefish or an 18 inch whitefish does, that would be a big brown trout.
Darrin
Yeah, so we were in the Provo River in Utah, and we're in some water that's a little more like we were accustomed to fishing. I caught it in some heavy current, and it took off downriver, and I chased after it, and it went down to the next hole and through the next riffle and to the next hole before I finally got him into some slower water where I could kind of control him a little better. And then when I finally got a look at it, I was like, I thought it was a sucker at first. And then I realized that it was a whitefish. And that was difficult. I mean, I was winded. And the next day, like, I was sore from chasing after that fish. Because that was quite a long run over, you know, through some heavier water and over some slippery rocks and stuff like that. So I earned that one for sure.
Katie
Now, I have to ask you, what's your opinion of the whitefish?
Darrin
Well, you know, it's not, it was not my intended target, right? any fish that size is going to be a challenge to land in kind of faster water they certainly it certainly fought well and so it was fun for sure but my thought was that it was a brown trout that and so I was disappointed when it wasn't but you know it was still kind of a fun little adventure to on that you know in the microcosm of that trip
Katie
sure yeah I have been vocal about the fact that whitefish are some of my favorite fish to catch because they fight so hard. But that is usually going in with the intention of like I'm fishing a place that has whitefish. I want to catch them. If I thought I had a trout on that was fighting as hard as some of those whitefish do, I would probably be a little disappointed too when I got it in. I was like, oh man, this felt like a 20 something inch trout.
Darrin
That's exactly what I thought. I thought I had finally figured out things well enough to hit into that signature fish for this trip. And, you know, was a little disappointed at the end result. But again, it was fun. It was certainly a challenge because the only other time I've ever had that similar experience, I was fishing in Colorado with a very, very well-known guide named Landon Meyer, who you may be familiar with. And that was an amazing experience because I thought I was good until I fished with a guy who was great. And then I realized, oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. I'm, I might be good, but there's, there's several levels up in this game for sure. He was walking up and down the bank of the dream stream on the, the South Platte river finding fish for us to target. And he found, I told him I wanted to catch a really big brown trout if we could. So he found one and waved me in, told me to come in behind him in the river. I crossed over to where he was. He pointed to where the fish was and I couldn't see it. And I literally was within 15 feet of that fish and couldn't see it. And he said, there's a big brown trout laying there and behind him is a big rainbow. If the brown trout takes it, takes your fly, he's going to run for that log right there. If the rainbow gets it, get ready to run. And I'm like, okay, well, you know, I'm hoping for the brown trout. So I'm thinking, you know, thinking log jam, right? and we did a couple casts, didn't get a take, put on another fly, and I'm, I'm, I, I, again, I cannot see the fish. I made him trade me sunglasses. That wasn't the problem. I just could not pick up the fish the way he did in that little bit of, of, riffle there. And so the rainbow grabs it and he yells, he's got it run. And I'm like, what? And I turned to look at him and he's already running down river. Sure enough, the rainbow turns and starts ripping line off. So we go chasing after him and same thing. We went from hole to riffle to hole to riffle and finally into a deep, slow pool where that fish just sat on the bottom. And I spent the next five minutes not reeling an inch of line in, but just leaning back and putting some pressure on it and then letting him settle down. And finally he got tired enough that he gave up and we were able to net him. But same thing that, you know, that's the only other time I've ever chased a fish that far before I felt like I could get it under control enough to get it to net. So that was cool.
Katie
Sometimes there's not much you can do except run because especially if they're going downstream, I feel like if they're going upstream, you can usually kind of, I usually will like walk out into the river if I can and get, get below them and form a barrier. But if they go downstream, it's often run or you're breaking off.
Darrin
Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I I'm I've, I don't know if this costs me in some cases, but I have been a big proponent of fishing with four pound fluorocarbon as my entire leader and not using a tapered leader or anything super light. That's like a, you know, six or seven X tippet. I just don't see how you land fish that, you know, that are big in any kind of current with something that light. Maybe it's, maybe it's me and my inability to do that, but I have done very well with four pound fluorocarbon on my entire, as my entire leader, and then having four pound between a fly and a dropper. And so if I get a fish that I think is bigger than that, obviously I have to be a little more careful, but I always have felt like if I got stuck or if I got into a bigger fish, I have, I'm not as at as much of a disadvantage as I am fishing with a six or seven X tippet. It just, it's so difficult. I mean, I, I'm sure you have the same appreciation for someone's ability to land a really, you know, 20 plus inch fish that's in really kind of swift water and stuff with that kind of setup. It is a skill all of its own for sure.
Katie
Yeah. Have you noticed a problem with like your flies turning over with just the like the not tapered leader, just a single level line from start to finish?
Darrin
I don't think so, but it's hard to say. I mean, I don't I don't have I don't get snagged. I don't end up with a lot of knots, you know, like from casting distance or anything like that. So I don't think there's any downside to it. And there's been days where I have caught as many or more fish than somebody who's fishing with a guide with, you know, small tippets and everything like that. So I do think that's a viable way to do it. The only problem is I do have to change my rig if I'm switching over to a dry fly because the fluorocarbon just sits up on the film of the water and it won't sink and the fish shy away from it. So that's a complete rig change. or putting on a tippet that to, you know, between the, the fluorocarbon and the fly, the dry fly. But other than that, I don't really see any downside to that.
Katie
Okay. Yeah. I, I feel like it also really depends on the situation. Like if, if it sounds like you fish a lot of rivers, in the summer here, I do a lot of lake fishing and that, I feel like it's a lot easier to get away with some of those thinner tippets in laces. You're not fighting the current too. You're just, you know, you can hold the fish in place. And if you need to just put pressure on for a while, you can do that. But those rivers, I feel like you, you know, if that's what works for you, even if it's just the confidence of being like, I'm, I, I have faith in this rig, you know, you might fish it better.
Darrin
Some of it's that. Yeah. Some of it's that for sure. If I was in a lake, which I do not do very much fishing that way at all, that would change that for sure. I'm almost always fishing in at least a stream or a river, you know, a larger river.
Katie
Now, isn't it crazy when you said you went out with Landon and, and he was spotting those fish, Isn't it crazy how much more knowledge you realize that you could have? Like when you feel like, yeah, I've really got this fly fishing thing down. And then you talk to somebody who's forgotten more in their life than you know now. And you're like, I can't believe, you know, how tuned into this you are.
Darrin
Yeah. Well, I have some frame of reference for that kind of in my history. I was a competitive athlete for a long time. I was a professional racquetball player. And so as a coach of that sport now, I get on the court with some of my kids on the ASU racquetball team. And if they've never seen me play before, they're new on the team, I'm dialing it down to their level, whatever that may be. And so every once in a while, when I shift gears, it's fun to watch the look on their face like, oh my gosh, where did that come from? Well, with Landon, I was the person in that role instead of the one with all the knowledge, right? So it was really cool to be on the other side of that for a change because I've played racquetball almost as long as I've been fishing. And so that just comes second nature to me. And it was clear that a guy who does that for a living is, like you said, has forgotten things that I've never even learned yet. So that was impressive to say the least.
Katie
Yeah. When you said that you traded glasses and everything and that didn't fix it, it made me think of a couple months ago. I went out with my boyfriend and he has for the past year or two, because he got into fishing in the past three years or so. And for the past year or two, he has constantly been looking at the water and he'll be like, I don't see the fish you're pointing out. And in my mind, I'm like, I don't know how you're not seeing these fish everywhere. And then one day I switched glasses with him and it turns out that the quote unquote polarized sunglasses he had been sold were not actually polarized. And so it was the glasses. And he was like, this is so amazing to see what you're seeing. Because for all this time, he thought his glasses were polarized and they turned out not to be. So that was an easy fix. So he was pretty happy with it. It was just the glasses. But that made me think of that when you mentioned that you traded glasses, but that didn't help.
Darrin
That wasn't the problem.
Katie
No, I assume that he's not fishing with unpolarized glasses either.
Darrin
No, he's sponsored by Smith Optics, I believe.
Katie
All right, so he's got the good stuff.
Darrin
He does. I had on, I don't remember if it was Maui gyms or if it was my Costas that I have now, but they were good quality polarized glasses, right? And that wasn't the problem. It was, and he's telling me, look for the cheek, the pink on that rainbow's cheek. And he's feeding so he could see his mouth open, you can see the white of his lips and stuff. I'm like, okay, dude, I'll take your word for it, but show me where to cast and I'll throw there, but I don't see either of those fish.
Katie
Yeah, sometimes the bigger ones you'd expect to be easier because they're so large, but sometimes I feel like if they're just sitting still on the bottom, you know, those ones can be hard to pick up. It might just look like a rock or a log where the little ones are usually kind of darting around a little bit. You can spot them a little easier.
Darrin
Yeah, I do fish a fair amount of small water being here in Arizona, and I'm a little spoiled in some of the places I fish because you can throw a dry fly out and fish will come from 10 feet away rushing to grab it versus going like the San Juan or the Colorado where you're trying to hit a feeding lane of a fish that's parked in one spot and literally moving a couple inches left and right and up and down and that's it and if you don't hit that feeding lane they they're not going to take your fly so it's it's quite a contrast with that but I agree sometimes they eat the it's easier to see the small ones
Katie
now tell me about the fishing in Arizona because I've never been to Arizona but I also feel like it's probably not the place that comes to mind when people think about fishing. but turns out you do have water there.
Darrin
We do sometimes. Yeah. You know, we, we've had an extremely hot summer. One of the hottest I can remember in the 30 some years I've lived here. Now, how hot is that? Like what's a daily temperature? We had, we had 50 days that were over 110 degrees. No, thanks. Yeah. And today is the end of September and it was 103 today. So it's, it got hot a little later in the year in the later in the summer than it has in the past, but it's been really, really hot. We've had almost no rain in the valley. In the mountains, we're getting some rain, which is critical because the metro Phoenix area relies on water coming from Colorado and from our mountains to fund our lifestyle, so to speak. So it's not the end of the world that the metro area didn't get rain, as long as we do get some in the mountains. But However, it's been well documented, unfortunately, that that has not been managed well as a fishery. It's been managed as a power source for California. So regardless of what happens with the fish spawning or anything like that, if California needs more electricity, then they open up the dams, the floodgates, and produce more hydroelectricity to send to California. And whatever happens in the river happens. And that has been very detrimental to the fish population. It used to be that if you did not catch a five-pound fish or better in a weekend, you had a terrible weekend. The last time I went on a guided trip up there, which has been probably five years now, I caught one fish that the guide swore up and down was 18 inches. It turned out to be 16 and a half. And he was excited that I got a nice fish. Now, we caught 40 or 50, I caught 40 or 50 fish that day, and so did my friend that was with me, but nothing of size, nothing of, you know, that legendary Lee's Ferry status. So it's really unfortunate that that's how that fishery is managed, because the scenery is unparalleled. I mean, you're on a boat in a river going through, in some places, 200-foot red rock canyon walls, And it's just, it's amazing. And the waters looks pristine. I mean, it looks like ideal habitat, but because of the way it's managed, the fish population has really reduced in size over the years. So that's the place that most people think of right away. That one picture that I sent you of the big brown trout I'm holding, I don't disclose where that is, but it's not that far outside of Phoenix. It's about two hours north of the metro Phoenix area, and it was a very small creek. It's not something that you would look at that water and assume there'd be a brown trout that big there. I think every hole on that stream has a brown trout roughly that size. I've seen them. I've caught some. I've missed some. It's just amazing habitat, and you have to hike into a rugged canyon, so that weeds out a lot of people right there, And up above where that canyon is, there's a campground where the fish and game department stocks a bunch of 10 to 12 inch rainbows for the campers to catch. And those rainbows move down through into the canyon. And in some cases, I'm sure they become food for the big brown trout. Or if they manage to get to a certain size, then, you know, they're in less danger of getting eaten. But now they're more fun for me to catch to fill in the gaps between the brown trout that I catch.
Katie
Yeah, I do want to talk to you about that picture because I was going back to your email and I saw that you had said that that was your best fish, but not necessarily the largest. I did have a question about Lee's Ferry first, though, because I've heard about Lee's Ferry from some friends who have fished there and just kind of being like the place to go in Arizona. How big is Lee's Ferry? because when I'm thinking of the fact that that's the one place I always hear about in Arizona, I'm like, you know, if it's not that big a place, that's got to be, you know, shoulder-to-shoulder fishing with everybody who's got to go there. But maybe it's bigger than I think it is as a single name location.
Darrin
From the sounds of it, yeah, from the sounds of that, it definitely would be. The flows will vary quite a bit, again, depending on how much hydroelectricity California needs. but you can only access by foot. You can't really even wade. There is a walk-in area, but it's very limited. If you, at the boat ramp where everybody launches to go up river on their boats, you can go maybe a half mile up river by walking and that's it. Everything has to be accessed by boat. So as with anything outdoors, the farther you travel, the less people you see. it's 14 miles from the boat launch to the roughly the base of the dam. So if you're willing to do that legwork of getting up there and if the river's flowing high, that's easy. If the rivers blow, one of you has to stand on the front of the boat and navigate around the rocks to the, you know, and, you know, point fingers left and right to the person steering the boat because you literally are in danger of scraping bottom in a lot of places. So if you go anywhere above eight miles in, it's highly likely you'll be at least in a section of river by yourself. And if you go all the way to the top, you may see one or two other boats that come to the top, but then they're drifting quickly down through. And you can pull over and fish a stretch and then get in a boat and then drift a little bit and then pull over and fish another stretch, things like that.
Katie
Okay, so it's less so there's not a ton of anglers or that it's like a really small spot. It's just that people are kind of passing through because they're in boats. So it's not a bunch of guys standing shoulder to shoulder casting over and over. Okay. That makes sense.
Darrin
There's a place where, where the person I used to fish with and I would camp. And there was almost a mile stretch of shoreline. And I, we, on a really windy day, we discovered that we were able to walk to the top of that, of that run, throw in about 10, 15 feet off of, off of the shore and literally walk as far as you wanted on a drift. If you could walk the same pace that you were drifting and do a quarter of a mile drift before you had to recast. And so in windy conditions, that was critical to catching fish that day because you weren't able to cast very well. You certainly, there was no, no top water action. So I probably walked 20 miles that day walking down river and then walking all the way back up and throwing in and walking down river again. So, but it was very effective. I caught 50 fish that were all pretty good size in, you know, fairly heavy water and between sunup and sundown. I mean, I fished every minute of that day that I could because I clicked into something that was working and I wanted to get as much out of it as I could. So I was, I did it from dawn till dusk.
Katie
So is that, is that a fairly large river there? Like compared to, I know we were talking about large versus small streams.
Darrin
Yeah.
Katie
It sounds like you grew up fishing kind of smaller stuff and the larger rivers are a bit newer to you. Would you, would you classify this in the larger river category?
Darrin
Absolutely. Okay. I don't know CFS off the top of my head, but I would say it's similar to the Snake River, which I believe when we were there was about 2,400 cubic feet. So it's similar in size to that for sure. It's big water.
Katie
What have you found are the, like, because I feel a little bit overwhelmed sometimes by larger rivers too, especially ones that I haven't fished before. It's one thing if you know the river and you know where to go, but it's not, I feel like it's pretty easy to walk up to a small creek that you've never seen before and catch, you know, two dozen fish out of it pretty easily. But larger rivers, like what are the challenges that you found? I know you said that this trip didn't go super as planned being on foot and everything, but Like what, what struggles do you find with the larger rivers?
Darrin
Well, what did work was a bounce rig. If you're familiar with what that is, the, the boat guide or the, excuse me, the guide that was, that had us in the boat tied a balloon as our indicator and had a bounce rig with 18 split shot on it. And, you know, the BB size split shot and the, the, the bounce rig has the weight at the bottom and then the flies are suspended above it. So that makes sense to me in the boat where you're fishing almost straight down because you're not casting very far away from the boat, right? How deep is that? That river is pretty deep in some spots. So he was very, very particular about how he tied that rig up. He was literally measuring the length of the overall rig and then the distance between the flies and stuff there clearly seemed to be a science to having everything exactly right.
Katie
Okay. Yeah. That's what I was wondering. Cause I was like, if you got 18 split shot on one end and a balloon on the other, you can't have it dragging like an extra two feet on the bottom or it's going to get hung up, but you also don't want 18 split shot just dangling in the middle of the water column.
Darrin
Right. And the balloon was about three inches in diameter. If you would have used anything smaller than that, I'm sure all that weight would have pulled it under, no question. But it was very effective. It would drag, it would bounce along the bottom, but not get stuck. hence the name I guess but so back to your question the problem with that rig to fish from you know being able to wade in 10 maybe 15 feet off of the bank and then throwing that rig a decent distance away trying to get to the main channel of the river herein lies the problem with with fishing bigger water like that if if I could have used a dry fly and just thrown that as far as I could cast it, I probably would have been okay. But it was a little bit windy. There had been a cold snap that happened about a week and a half or two weeks before we got there. So a lot of the terrestrial and topwater activity just went away. And so nymphing would have been better. But getting out to the water where the bigger fish were proved to be very difficult for us. I don't know if other people who were waiting had a lot more success than we did. Everybody who went by us boat was catching fish. So when they were in the main channel of the river, what they were doing was working, but what we were trying to replicate from a distance away from that main channel was not working.
Katie
Now, were they all using, like people in the boats, were they using that balloon bounce rig?
Darrin
I believe that's kind of standard issue for the guides up there. Most people that were close enough, I could see the balloon as the indicator when they pass by. Or when they were fighting a fish, you could see the balloon getting pulled towards the top of the rod. So I think that's pretty kind of standard operating procedure for that particular river. Yeah.
Katie
Were you into that rig or was there a part of you that was like, this doesn't feel right?
Darrin
Well, I hate to say it, but I adapted to that a little easier than my dad did. Okay. Um, they wanted you to water load it to cast. So I don't know if there's anything else you could do with something. Right. I was holding the rig in my hand, the split shot in my hand and tossing it out the right side of the boat. And then when, when enough of the rig went in that the balloon hit the water, then I would throw it to the left side and drift it. Okay. And so my dad was struggling with that a little bit. He, I mean, neither one of us had ever done that. And for whatever reason, the rhythm of that was just kind of, you know, he was struggling to get, get a handle on it. We had gone, my dad had gone a day and a half of fishing, wade fishing without catching a fish. I had caught nothing larger than seven inches in a day and a half. So whatever the guide suggested, I was all for it because I was tired of not catching anything sizable whatsoever. So to pull the rig in most of the time I, we were at the end of a run where we would pull the rigs in versus one of us getting stuck or having a hit and missing it. So it seemed like a very effective way to do it. Um, and, and it certainly worked. We caught some fish, but again, that, I don't think that would have transferred very well into the wade fishing that we were also there trying to do.
Katie
Sure. So it was kind of like, you know, the technique itself wouldn't be your first choice, But if it's between that and catching tiny fish or no fish on an out-of-state trip that you've obviously put a lot of looking forward to and probably time and money into, then you're going to listen to whatever the guide says to do.
Darrin
You betcha. I'm not that stubborn.
Katie
I've fished a similar technique, never with the balloon, but there's a tailwater right below the dam area here. that's that's the way to do it is to put on a ton of weight and then put the the flies on the tag ends above that and just like dredge it through but we always did it without without any sort of indicator it was just feeling it okay but everyone had to cast in unison because you're all standing you know maybe there's you know such a short area that everyone's standing within 20 feet of each other so because you have to kind of like load the rod and then sling it over your shoulder you have to wait for everyone to do it in unison so all the lines go upstream at the and they all come down at the same time, and you're kind of in this like synchronized swimming sort of casting motion.
Darrin
Well, as long as everybody's playing nice, that works, but I'm sure there's always somebody in the group that messes it up, right?
Katie
One bad apple who gets all tangled with everybody else. So tell me about that picture that you sent, that you said that that was your best fish, but not necessarily your largest.
Darrin
Yeah, it's close to the largest. I caught that rainbow that I caught when I was with Landon. was a shade under 25 inches. And we estimated it was probably about seven and a half pounds. I caught another rainbow, which we can talk about this in a second, in a place that is managed for catch and release and large fish by the fishing game department here in Arizona. I caught a seven pound, nine ounce rainbow that was 25 inches. So those are my two biggest fish. The reason I like that brown trout the best is several reasons. One, this is going to sound crazy, but I stand by my story. Ten years before I caught that fish, I saw it in that same hole. It was, I don't know if it had just gotten caught or if it had like eaten a crayfish in shallow water and was like feeling heavy and sitting there. But he was sitting in really shallow water, like his dorsal fin was out of the water. and he has such distinct coloration of that dark green back and then such a honey golden color to him that I and it was in the same hole so I contend that that was that same fish that I saw 10 years prior to actually catching it when I saw it it was about 18 inches I'm guessing and when I was walking upstream he was not in a place where I expected to see him so we kind of you know, I was surprised to see him there. And my first thought was, Oh, I want to cast to him. But then I was, as I was looking at it, I'm like, well, he's clearly not feeding and I'm not even sure he's okay. So I like stepped in the water and poked him with my rod and then he took off. Right. So he was okay. Um, and then when I actually was, when I, the day I caught him, my dad and I had hiked into that rugged Canyon and we're having a great day. It was actually Father's Day, we were having a great day of fishing and I was in this, we were in this long stretched out hole that doesn't have a ton of cover to it and oddly enough there is a huge osprey that lives in a really big tree that's right there in the middle of that hole and yet this huge brown trout has managed to elude this osprey all of his life. So I'm fishing in the middle of the hole and I hear a fish, a big fish suck a bug off of the surface. And as you I'm sure know, it makes a very different noise than when a small fish does it, right? A small fish is banging into that fly or that bug trying to kill it. And a big fish is just, you know, coming up and closing its mouth over it. And it sort of makes that popping noise. And then when you look, you can tell by the rings that that was a big fish, right? So that's exactly what happened. I heard the noise. I reeled my line in real quick. I went up to where it was. I'm under some trees, so I'm literally like casting sideways, and I do a good roll cast right in front of the rock where I think he's laying behind, and the fly starts drifting down through. I had a black ant on, no weight, but it was surface, and all of a sudden my line stopped, and I thought, ah, I'm hung up on the rock and I lifted it and I actually kind of tugged on it a little bit because I thought I was stuck and then it started to move and I was like oh oh my gosh and so now I'm now I realize that I'm fighting a fish not stuck and so I whistled for my dad because I knew it was a big fish and I'm I'm under a tree so I'm you know like literally keeping my rod at a very steep angle not up like I want it but very very steep angle to the side and I figured I was going to need some help. So my dad comes, comes hustling up through and he grabbed his net and I had not seen the fish before my dad arrived, but I could tell that it was a big fish. And when I finally got it to roll up on the surface, both of us were like, Oh my God. We knew it was just a special fish for sure. So my dad netted it and then he handed the net to me and I handed him my camera and my phone. And so he's filming me unhooking this fish and then lifting it up and holding it and posing for some pictures. And then I put it back in the net and then I lift it up one more time and the fish, the fish flips out of my hands and disappears. Right. So the video I have of that is kind of funny. I was going to release him anyway, of course, but it just, you know, it was sort of like, well, he won, he got away. But, you know, I was able to measure him on my net and stuff. And such a large fish like that was a really special moment. And then on that same day, my dad caught not quite as big, but a really nice female brown trout, a couple of holes upstream of where that was. So I have that picture of me and then a picture of him from that same day. And then last summer I caught that fish again. Unfortunately, my dad hit him with the net while he was trying to net him and broke him off. Again, he has such distinct coloration. It was in exactly the same hole. We both got a very, very good look at it. So I'm sure it was that same fish, no doubt. So as far as I know, he's still in there. And I've tried visiting him a couple of times this year so far. I knocked on the door, but he hasn't answered. But I'm hopeful that the fish will be there for several more years and give me another shot at him.
Katie
I really like how, I feel like this is probably not unique to us, but I like how favorite fish don't necessarily correspond to biggest fish. I'm not even sure what my biggest trout is, but I can guarantee it's not my favorite fish because I can remember my favorite fish and I know they're not the biggest, but there's so many things that go into what makes your favorite fish. I caught a brook trout this summer that I've been calling my favorite brook trout that I've ever caught because it had these the white slashes on the on the bottom fins you know it's it had yellow slashes instead of white and it really stuck out in the water like as I was reeling it in I was like I could see the yellow and so that was like super special to me even though I've caught way bigger and you know the rest of the body has probably been more colorful but that that one aspect was like this is so unique even though it's probably like eight inches long and for you I'm sure like being with your dad on father's day and having encountered that fish before. And, you know, so many things go into what make a fish a special experience. And it often doesn't have that much to do with size.
Darrin
Yeah. You know, as a kid, I was convinced that my dad's fly rod was magic and whatever, whenever he pointed it, there was a fish. And so it took a long time before I felt like I was an equivalent fisherman to him. And, you know, it's with a tinge of sadness, I say that I have overtaken that role in our relationship. And I usually catch more fish than he does. What a shame. On every trip we go. Yeah. I mean, in some ways it is right. I mean, it's, it's showing that changing of the guard and, and, you know, I mean, nobody escapes, you know, father time. Right. So it's certainly indicative of that, but it's been funny to hear when we take somebody with us my dad always defaults to me now to teach that person how to fly fish and I don't know when exactly that happened but it's somewhere along the line he felt like I was the one that should be teaching people how to do this instead of him even though he's he was the one that taught me and so that that was a kind of cool designation for me as well to have the person that I respect the most as a fisherman in my life. Other, you know, different example than Landon and somebody like that. But, you know, to have that, to have him view me in that way was something I really valued a lot. So that was just one of the byproducts of us fishing together all this time.
Katie
Yeah, I grew up fishing. You know, my dad would take me, but he didn't really fish. He would just, he was an enabler. You know, he would drive me to where I wanted to go and stuff. But I never had that same feeling of like being, you know, taught a lot. And sometimes I wish I did, you know, as much as I really liked the situation I grew up in. But I can imagine that's a really nice feeling to kind of be given. I don't want to say the permission, but almost just the acknowledgement that he's kind of passing. Like you said, the changing of the guard, passing that over to you and kind of saying like, you're the you're the boss here now. I'm sure he's just kind of enjoying his time out on the water at this point, more so than numbers or size or anything like that.
Darrin
Yeah, when we go to the creek I don't mention the name of here in Arizona and fish, because it's so rugged, we have changed our routine where he will fish two really big holes that he loves to stand and cast. know, he'll spend half a morning at one and the rest of the afternoon at the other and, and then just kind of go back and forth. And I will fish the rest of the canyon and then circle back to him. And the first time we did that, again, that was kind of an acknowledgement of, hey, I'm not able to do this physically anymore, but this has become the new normal. And so I will go up through that canyon and fish five or six hours on my own and then circle back to him and I will catch on an average day 25 to maybe 40 fish and if I'm lucky one big brown trout in that mix and then the rest of them are smaller brown trout and stalker rainbows the the rainbow the brown trout are all native they don't stock brown trout in Arizona in the streams so and then I'll circle back to him and he sometimes catches more fish than me in the big holes because he spends all day there doing it and he's kind of got that dialed in but overall he'll catch like a dozen fish to my you know three dozen fish but I'm covering way more ground than he is I'm fishing very familiar water I skip over the stuff that I know is a little flat you know some of the riffles are too thin to really worry about so I just jump to the next spot kind of and and so I'm maximizing my opportunities where he's solve the puzzle of that one spot for two or three hours at a time and then it's a short jaunt to the next big hole that he likes to fish and then he repeats that process and then we'll end up back at that first big hole at the end of the day and fish there till close to dark and then we head out so it's been a it's been a it's the perfect setup for that stuff and I'm glad we found a way to modify it where he is still comfortable doing it you know that first fishing trip without him is going to be very, very difficult for sure. But, I certainly assume that I will do this my whole life, even to that spot. Um, but I dread the thought of him not being able to, to do that stuff with me anymore for sure.
Katie
Now, do you think that you'll, you know, when that day comes, maybe kind of fish that hole the way he does and in almost like in remembrance of him, like it would, would that, would that be some sort of spiritual connection for you to kind of honor that memory?
Darrin
I have no doubt. I'm trying not to think about it because, you know, as the years tick by, that becomes more and more of a reality. And I wrote a blog post a little while ago called QTL, Quality Time Left. It's something that he has hammered into me for a long, long time, not just recently as he's gotten older and, you know, had some physical limitations on what he can do. We've always been cognizant about the fact that, hey, someday this all comes to an end. I got in a very, very bad car accident in 2015. I got hit head on by a drunk driver at five o'clock in the morning headed to go fishing. Luckily for us, he was already at our destination and not in the car with me. But that easily could have been the end of that, right? I could have ended up in a wheelchair. I could have ended up dead. That could have changed things in an instant. That would have been tragic. It would be sad when he's no longer around, but at least that's the natural order of life. A father should not have to bury their son, but a child burying their father is sad, but it's not a tragedy, so to speak. So that's always been top of mind. And again, as we do one more trip and have one more set of memories in the books, I always assume that this may be the last one because you never know. And so I try to, without the dark side of that hanging over us, I try to maximize that event, whether it's a turnaround trip here in Arizona or a two-week extended trip like we just did. I'm always kind of doing that under the assumption that this might be the last one. And at some point I will be doing this in his honor and in his memory instead of doing it with him.
Katie
As much as it's kind of a sad thought to, you know, constantly have that in the back of your mind that, you know, this could be the last trip. It's probably not, but it could be. I feel like there's got to be a benefit to that, though, where you probably don't let any trips with him go to waste either. I mean, it's so easy, you know, especially if I'm fishing by myself or something. But, you know, if you take somebody out who really wants to go or, you know, there's just something different about that trip for you, obviously, with your dad and the fact that, you know, you know, the time's not going to last forever. I feel like it's a lot easier to avoid those trips that just kind of get thrown on the back burner that you don't remember. You know, I don't remember half the trips I took this summer because they're 10 minutes from my house and, you know, I probably didn't catch anything of much substance. But like if you go out, even if you only catch a couple of fish, I feel like it's a little bit easier to make every trip feel like a bigger deal. If you've got something like that, kind of that weight on the trip.
Darrin
Well, personally, I as you probably saw from my bio, I do some public speaking and a lot of times my target, I do a lot of stuff at universities and colleges. And so, you know, I know at that age I didn't have any concept of the fact that I wasn't bulletproof and that I wouldn't live forever. Right. But I try to convey some of that thought to people so that at least if they even if they just think about it for that moment, they're a little more cognizant of that. But I think that more people should live their life that way because we take so much for granted. And, you know, I had I had a rough trip. Right. Poor me. I'm in Idaho fly fishing with my dad and I'm my biggest complaint is I'm not catching very many fish. Right. how sad right first world problems but again because I in the back of my mind this may be the the last big trip that we take every dinner that we had every conversation that we had all of that meant more because of that that thought is so prevalent I'm not taking it for granted I'm not assuming that hey next month we'll do the same thing again right and so I think more people should to some degree be cognizant that we're all on a timeline that we're unaware of. And it's not the assumption that everybody has, which is we're going to die at 102 in a hospital bed surrounded by your family who all love you, right? Again, I could have died in that car accident that happened a while ago and all by myself in the middle of nowhere, right? That would have been my end. And so keeping our inevitable demise somewhat top of mind keeps me a little more grounded. It softens the expectations. It takes the edge off of disappointments. And it makes me appreciate the little things that go along with the trip like that, not just, oh, well, on my on my float trip, I only caught 10 fish. Right. That I don't want that hanging. I don't want that to be what I remember. What I want to remember is all that time I got to spend with my dad for the two weeks that we were fishing together.
Katie
I've even had times where I like, you know, not not literally, but like kind of punished myself in my mind if I if I noticed myself thinking things like, yeah, that wasn't very good. And I'm like, why wasn't it good? You know, I, you know, I could be at work. I could be doing something other than, you know, standing in a river, casting a line. And sometimes I get a little angry with myself when I notice myself thinking like, I didn't really like that fishing trip. Because like, why, why do I dislike it? Because I didn't catch anything? Or, I mean, I guess the most frustrated I get is when I'm getting tangles and caught on trees. But still, at the end of the day, pretty minor problems. Oh, no, I had to pull my fly out of a tree and retie it or something like that. It's so easy to get in that negative mindset where you're just looking for everything that went wrong instead of realizing that, so what? Worst case, near you, you stood in a river for a little bit and didn't catch anything.
Darrin
Right. I mean, our hobby of choice can be very frustrating, right? I mean, you know, there's been times where, you know, we've all not caught fish or you get stuck and tie on a rig and within one cast break everything off and have to sit down. Yeah, I mean, it's it can be aggravating. There's no doubt. But as we kind of, you know, hopefully a lot of people have this. I actually I'll pose it as a question instead of making a statement. Do you have an experience when you're fishing of complete immersion in what you're doing to the point where a bunch of time passes and you sort of like snap out of it and wake up like, oh, geez, how long was I out? Right. Does that happen to you?
Katie
It does. But I find the opposite of what I would expect where I, you know, frequently will zone out and then I'll be like, oh, my God, I'm sure that, you know, two hours has passed and I missed it. And instead, for some reason, with fishing, I find that the time moves a little slower, which is great. But I've had a lot of experiences where I'm, you know, worried like, oh, no, I should get home. It's dinner time or whatever. And I realize that only a half hour has passed. And I almost think it's because you are so focused that, you know, I can't say time slows down, but there's just there's not much to think about. And so, I don't know, you don't have all those thoughts rushing through your head and things. It's so easy to have things be sped up when you're frantic and you're stressed and you feel like you're running out of time. But if you're out there and you've got what feels like all the time in the world, I feel like time slows down a little bit, which is interesting. And that's what I know I'm in, like, the zone, if you will.
Darrin
Yeah, I'm glad I asked that as a question then because I have the opposite.
Katie
Okay.
Darrin
And I've explained this to a bunch of people, and I definitely get mixed answers. Yours was the first I've had accelerating time. But on the San Juan River, there's a famous place called the Texas Hole. And that's where the boat ramp is. So the guides typically start there.
Katie
Where is that? Because that sounds familiar. And I'm not sure if maybe that's where I was.
Darrin
So it's within the first mile below the dam.
Katie
That must have been where I was.
Darrin
what is considered the true blue ribbon fishery part of that river. There's, again, it's the only boat ramp that's that far up on the river. And so the guides come in and drop their boats there. It's a huge swirl. And there's a part of the river that branches off and goes right against the cliff that comes down through there and then meets up to make a back eddy in that hole. And so it is picture perfect. It's just, it's an amazing spot. And if the flows are 800 feet or lower, you can cross the river up above and then come down on the opposite side of the bank or the river and stand in the water and fish the backside of that swirl.
Katie
Okay.
Darrin
That's the easiest place for me to slip into that zone. And I've had some amazing experiences there because the sun comes up from behind you and it will illuminate all of the fish in the water for the first hour. So I'm standing in a spot where there's a hundred fish that I can see within casting distance. And I get so immersed in that, in that action of fishing there that I've actually had times where I'm, the back eddy swirls around. And so I'm actually facing down river and, but I'm throwing in the lines coming back towards me. And I have watched my indicator and estimated where my line was. And I will see a fish who's sitting on the bottom do this. It will turn and pick something off the bottom. And I'll set the hook before my indicator moves. And I actually was so zoned in on that, that I saw the fish that took my fly. And I actually set the hook before the indicator moved. And I am so entrenched in that moment that at one o'clock, I will have a headache, a raging headache, and finally have to go, oh, okay, I need to take a break and drink some water and eat something. because for the last five hours I've been standing here in these same footprints completely immersed in what I'm doing not a thought going through my head nothing but the sound of the river and a little bit of pressure against my my my waders as I'm standing in a spot where the water's flowing and just zoned in on watching those fish do their thing and catching fish after fish after fish. That's the fishing is, it's a close second, but it is secondary to that feeling. I don't meditate. I don't do yoga, but that is the mindset that I'm looking to get out of that experience. And that's truly what fishing has become for me. Catching fish is a close second, but it is secondary to that.
Katie
You know, it's funny you say that because, I was just talking to somebody the other day. Um, we we've got these fitness watches and they, they tell you when you're stressed you know it you know somehow measures your breathing or heart rate or something like that and I we were talking about how we also noticed that it'll give us that you're stressed warning if we're super focused like it doesn't necessarily have to be stressed but if I'm super focused on a task it'll say like okay just need to you know relax calm down and I've had it do that when I'm fishing even though I would definitely say that fishing is a stress relieving activity if I'm if I'm feeling too stressed or you know my mind's not clear I can go fishing and I'll come like ah you know I got that release that relaxation I needed but even during that I'll still get these my watch will still tell me I'm stressed but I don't think it's stress it's that focus like you said where right where you almost you know you get a headache from it because you're so in tune but then afterward it's almost like you don't get that stress relief until you're done you know you get back home and then you feel like you've had a weight lifted off you because you got that couple hours of relaxation but when you're in it it's not necessarily relaxing you're not sitting there staring at the sky, just, you know, breathing nice breaths and feeling great. It's often really, really focused and not stressed, but there is a different feeling to it when you're actually in the moment.
Darrin
It is. And my boss is not a fisherman. One of his hobbies is to ride motorcycles. So he understands that kind of mindset. And when I told him that some of my best ideas for marketing and things like that have come on my way home from a fishing trip, he totally got that. When he's out on a long ride, you know, his brain's doing the same thing. You're swimming around in your subconscious instead of being so present-minded. And some of my best ideas have come at the tail end of a fishing trip where I'm so much more in touch with that part of my brain. And the handcuffs come off of your conscious, or I should say it the other way, the handcuffs get put on your conscious mind and your subconscious mind is allowed to roam free for a change. And some of my best solutions to problems or some of my best creative ideas have come at the tail end of a fishing trip when I'm making that seven hour drive home from farming to New Mexico. And I come back refreshed and ready with some new ideas or new ways to tackle things.
Katie
I read that article you sent over that I think it was one of your blog posts I don't remember the name of it but it was it was about that pure focus oh yeah three days of focus that was it yeah and you mentioned in there how like you're fishing for like 10 hours a day and during that time you're so focused but you also noted that you know you you never get better sleep than right after that I feel the same way also for hunting I told you that I've been hunting for the past couple weeks and yeah it's so nice to go especially on one of those extended trips like I think this one you said that was three days of focus this last trip was a couple weeks yeah and there's something that like changes when you're out for more than just a couple hours where every day you wake up your purpose is nothing more than just to go out and fish and come back or go out and hunt and come back and I feel like after a couple days of that something starts to change where you have no responsibilities. Your focus is solely on this thing and it's something you really want to do. And then you come back and you don't have to do anything before bed. You just have to go to sleep and wake up and do it again. And there's just like a change that happens where, I don't know, you sleep so well and you feel so refreshed when you wake up.
Darrin
Yeah. And I live in a metro area, right? I mean, I'm not smack dab in the middle of Phoenix, but I'm in part of the Metro Phoenix area. So, so the air is not super clean. There's lots of traffic. There's lots of noise. You know, there's just environmental stress, I guess, is one way to put it with where I live. And so one day away doesn't erase that. But like you said, a couple of days, it, it, it gets, it lessens and lessens each day. And then on an extended trip, it is definitely, at some point I'm, I have left that lifestyle behind and I'm now living in the moment of, you know, getting up, you know, going to a new part of the river or, you know, I do some hunting myself, not, not a ton, but, you know, just the, the tasks that you have, your, your list is one thing instead of my typical to-do list on a day where I'm going to work, where I've got, you know, a hundred emails come in during the day and 12 phone calls and, you know, all kinds of other distractions and things that need to be done. My task is one thing, get up, go fish, get up, go hunt, whatever it may be. And that is a privilege for sure. I'm curious if I lived in a place where I had more access, if I would maybe be guilty of taking that for granted a little bit, if I got to do it twice a week instead of, you know, once a month or maybe in a good month, twice a month kind of a thing. I don't know. In being here in the desert, my options are limited. And so I have to plan a trip and then go do a trip. I don't get the opportunity to go, oh, my afternoon's free. I'm going to grab my rod and go fishing, right? I, there's, there's urban lakes that I could go to and bass fish if I wanted to, you know, be a hack and bass fish. Just, just kidding. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm a snobby purist fly fisherman for sure. Um, but it's not the same experience, right? I mean, I, even fishing an urban lake for trout doesn't have the appeal to me of going to the mountains, getting away from everybody and, and fishing in a, in a stream or a river.
Katie
I think that kind of points to what someone's motivation is because I agree we've got some lakes around here. And I do like warm water fishing, but that's because I grew up with warm water fishing. Although I grew up with like a wild river that had warm water species. And I don't have that same appeal to go to my local city pond, even though I can catch the same species. It's not the species I like. It's the environment they're in. And I don't get that same feeling. It's not the act of casting a line and reeling in a fish. I'll still do that you know I've got a couple hours after work I'll go hit a pond in town but I would rather not fish as often but when I do get to do a you know four or five day trip into somewhere in the middle of nowhere than to fish the same number of days but spread out and be going to you know places within 10 minutes of me there's just something different about that and I'm not a trout purist but I am I'm more of a location purist I don't care what's there when I get there I just want it to be the type of place I want to fish and I want it to be not crowded. You know, I feel like everyone's got their, everyone's got their things that they, they look for. Um, and that's definitely for me, if I could choose one thing, it would be a remote location that no one's in.
Darrin
I don't care how many fish are there, what species it is. Yeah. So I have a question for you. Um, again, you know, this is something I talk about in my public speaking sometimes. Um, I would never consider being a fly fishing guide. And I'll tell you why after I ask you if you would consider doing that as a profession.
Katie
I have done that.
Darrin
Oh, you have? Okay. Sorry.
Katie
Yeah. No, it's, my situation was a little bit different because the company I worked for was more focused on taking like larger groups. Like if a family wanted to come and learn to fish, it wasn't, you don't pay 500 bucks and go catch trophy fish. It was the whole family's going to come along and we're going of make it a learning experience so it wasn't your typical guiding it was a different kind of guiding and I really really enjoyed it those were some of the best times of my life but I would get burned out by the end of the summer I don't know how my experience would have differed had it been kind of the typical guiding you're taking one or two anglers they've got very specific goals they've fished before and they're paying you hundreds and hundreds of dollars to catch them that trophy fish, you know? I think I would like that way less than what I did, which was, you know, I love dealing with people who just want to learn how to do it and are excited to be out there and are enjoying an experience with their family. But even with that, I would get a little bit burned out by the end of the summer. It was just a summer thing. So no, I would not consider doing it as a full-time year-round thing. I think I would hate fishing if I did it.
Darrin
Yes, so that's my conclusion too, right? As a professional racquetball player, that's all I did. I was on a court or I was in the weight room getting ready to be on the court or I was at an event competing. And my job also was teaching other people how to play. So I never really got a break from that. It was 10 years of just nothing but racquetball. And I got burned out on it. And when I retired, I should have retired a year earlier. And I just didn't know what else. I spent my whole life getting ready to be a pro racquetball player. I didn't know what else I was going to be if I wasn't doing that. So that kept me in it a year longer than it should have. And it took me a while to kind of get my feet under me again and figure out, you know, okay, there's things outside of that. Life will move on. But I have vowed to never allow fishing to become that same thing. Because when I tell people how much I love to go fishing and show them pictures and stuff, they're like, oh, you should be a guy. You'd get to do that all the time. And my answer is absolutely not. The guides that I've worked with on the few times I've gotten to do that, they're on the river 200 days a year. And some of their clients are good and they have a go out and it's kind of easy work. And other times their clients are brand new and they're getting stuck all the time. And it's, it's, it's a, it's gotta be a drag, right? It's gotta be tough work. And they don't get to fish much. Exactly. So that was kind of my point with the racquetball comparison is, you know, on my days off, I didn't run to go play racquetball. If I'm a fishing guide, I don't see me running to go fish in my free time because that seems like work. And I don't want to ruin the thing that I'm most passionate about, turning it into a job like I did my racquetball career. And I'm I'm that's also very top of mind for me in my public speaking stuff. I really enjoy my day job and it gives me a lot of freedom. And so I don't have any intention of replacing my day job with public speaking. I want that to be a sideline thing that I do because I love it. And oh, I happen to get paid for it too. But I, again, I want to keep the day job as my income source. And then all the other things I do are hobbies and passions. And if they happen to also pay, pay the bills a little bit too, that's great. But that's a bonus.
Katie
that's not a requirement for sure and I think my situation worked out because like I said it it was one of my I mean it was my favorite job I've ever had but that's because it was three months a year it was it was low stakes like I said it was families true yeah I was you know working with my friends like there were multiple guides on trips because we would take you know bigger groups more than just one or two adult anglers and there might be kids there that you take a spin rod along and someone's fishing with the kids it was it was more of a family immersion experience and because of that I loved it but yeah that sounds fun but yeah so that that was a great experience and I would I would totally feel like people who don't want a guide they they could succeed in something like that because it that never really felt yeah that never really felt like I was ruining fishing I would still fish on my days off because I'd be fired up like someone just caught their first fish they're super excited and it's like yeah great now I can go out this evening and do that. But that's a different situation. And I also feel like there might be, I mean, there's different types of people. There's people who fishing is their entire life. That's all they want to do. It's all they think about. And as much as I would definitely consider fishing my number one passion, and it has been since I was really little, I do like to do other things. I like to hunt. I like to ski. I like to hike. There's lots of things apart from fishing that I also like doing and so I think the people who really really do well and like feed off that guiding energy are the people who fishing is their only thing you know they and they'll they'll know it way better than I ever will because I've got I've got the desire to do more things it sounds like you're kind of the same way like fishing is your your main thing but you like racquetball you like public speaking you've got other things in your life and I think I think those type of people would do better not guiding because, because fishing isn't their everything.
Darrin
Yeah. I think that's a good, good assessment of that for sure.
Katie
So have you, have you ever had that, that notion of like, should I, should I try guiding?
Darrin
Nope. Nope. Never. No, I learned my lesson from the racquetball stuff for sure. I, I definitely don't want to, cause I ruined that. Right. I mean, I, I played competitively professionally till I was 30 and was burnt to a crisp and retired and hung up the rackets and didn't do anything racquetball related for several years. And then somebody that I knew who was going to ASU at the time asked me, hey, we've got a club together, but we don't have a coach. We got a guy that's the club president, but he doesn't know anything about racquetball. Would you come down and kind of work with the team a little bit? And I'm like, yeah, that sounds like fun. You know, I'll go hang out with the college kids. And I was 36 at the time, I think. So, you know, I, my friend who invited me was a very, very good player. So I thought I could help him a little bit at the higher levels and then help the beginners and kind of help them out. And, you know, he said, well, you know, we're going to practice on Saturday. If you could come down from like 10 to 12, that'd be great. Well, what seemed like a one-time invite has turned into two days a week, about 10 hours a week, six months out of the year. And this is my 14th year doing it. So I got just completely pulled into that and absolutely love it. I mean, I've had so many amazing experiences and by far the list of memorable and impactful racquetball experiences is way longer as a coach than it was in my own career, even though my own career was much longer than that. And so, you know, I have had some amazing relationships with the team members and kids. I've been to a few weddings. You know, I actually two of the team members met on the team and got married to one another. So that was that was a cool story that obviously has nothing to do with racquetball, really. But I'm very close with them still. And I've had about probably 400 players go through the program in that time. And I learned pretty early on that I was not teaching racquetball. I was teaching life skills disguised as racquetball lessons. And so once I made that pivot, I really felt like I was able to maximize that experience for not everybody, but for the person who was looking for that out of the experience and teach very transferable skills under the guise of competitive racquetball. And that's been the most personally rewarding thing I've ever done.
Katie
I feel like a lot of people would fall into kind of that category in whatever they like doing, fly fishing included. Like I feel like being a part-time guide where you occasionally take people out and you still get that rush of maybe teaching someone how to fly fish or watching them catch their first fish. Those things are still really exciting when it's not all day every day. And it sounds like if you were considering this as almost like a part-time thing, know it has has grown to a couple times a week and it's taking up more of your time but it's not it's not everything you do and it's not where you're making all your money your your life isn't depending on you you know doing that job it's it's on the side you could drop it at any point if you wanted to yep and I think that kind of freedom and that you know not full time just to it's not the fact that you're making money off something that ruins it it's it's doing it too much and making that your, your sole existence. So I think something like a part-time guiding would, would maybe equate to what you're doing with racquetball, where you can still enjoy it and live vicariously through the people you're teaching. And it might extend beyond simply what you're teaching, but you're not overwhelmed by it or feeling trapped by it.
Darrin
Yeah. Because I do that with racquetball, I'm not taking any chances with my fishing. So I, I, I agree with your theory completely. And I applied that to racquetball. I still don't play competitively other than, you know, beating up on the kids on the team, which, you know, depending on the year, sometimes that's harder than it sounds. The, our number one girl last year was from Costa Rica. Well, she was with us for four years and she was, became a very accomplished player by the, by the time her four year tenure was over with us. And it was a struggle beating her by the end. Well, believe me. And she'll dispute that. She will, you know, she, I never remember losing to her, but she's very cognizant of the times that she won. So, you know, that's always been a lot of fun for me. It was easy for me to separate that from regular competitive tournaments and things like that. I've always enjoyed playing against the kids and got better and better about dialing my level of play down to a half notch above where they are so that I'm sort of pulling them up a little bit, but also not, you know, beating the crap out of them and disheartening them about the gap between their skill set and mine, right? I wanted every kid to be able to walk away thinking, oh man, I was close to beating coach tonight, you know, and I'm in a game to 15, I'm down 12 to 10 and then run off five points at the end so that I don't lose and can protect my reputation and my ego for that matter, but make them feel like, oh man, I almost had him tonight. I must be getting better. I got close and just keep doing that to them. Ideally all four years that they're there.
Katie
That probably lights a bigger fire than, than having them beat you, you know, just be so close, but not quite making it. I feel like that's the kind of thing that keeps someone interested in whatever they're doing.
Darrin
I've always contended anytime you beat me, you've earned it. My ego will not allow me to let you win. If you beat me, you've earned it. It doesn't matter if I had a terrible day at work or whatever. No excuses. If you beat me, you've earned it regardless of your level of play. If I screwed around and put you in position to win and you close the deal, you earned that, no doubt. And so the few times that somebody would sneak a game off of me, it was a major accomplishment for them, kind of a milestone in terms of their progress. And so, you know, that, again, I would, my ego doesn't want to, you know, to let that happen. But as my heart as a coach is absolutely ecstatic that they were able to do that. Because I know how much positive reinforcement that gives to that player. And sometimes to them, you know, as a person, right? I mean, for some of the kids, this was the first sport they ever played. And to be starting from a beginner and get into a competitive environment your first year and by your fourth year, reach collegiate All-American status, to be able to put that on your resume for the rest of your life and things like that has very, very long reaching impact for sure.
Katie
Yeah. I feel like that's transferable to something like fishing too. If you were to take, not, not necessarily even in guiding, but, if you were to take someone out, I feel like there's definitely an ego aspect where if someone who you know is not as experienced as you are catches more fish, there's, there's like some, there's a competitive ego thing that's, that starts to spill over where you're like, no, you're not going to catch more fish than I am even if
Darrin
oh good it's not just me
Katie
no no and you know it's such a weird thing too because you know it can happen to anybody like I I heard a story it was a long time ago but I heard a story about some dad who was taking his daughter fishing and he you know he was out there to fish but he obviously had to like babysit her for the day you know mom was away and so he gave her this little you know snoopy rod or whatever and she ended up catching like a state record catfish and you know that that dad was like proud, but also probably a little bit like, no, you shouldn't be catching this.
Darrin
That's funny. Yeah. It's, you know, it, like I said, it's the same thing with my dad, right? It's like you, you live for that moment, but then it also kind of marks a transition, not maybe not for her since she was so young, but it marks that transition of, oh, maybe I'm not the best one in the family at this anymore.
Katie
Yeah. Well, Darrin, I know this is a little bit unusual because for some reason I tend to talk to people who have some sort of like fly fishing company or book or something. But do you have any like social medias or emails or anything you want to share if anyone wants to reach out to you or follow you?
Darrin
Sure. Yeah. Everywhere on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram is Darrin Chatter, C-H-A-T-T-E-R. And my website is DarrinChatter.com, which has a lot of my public speaking stuff. And then the blog that I write, a random post here and there is about, about fly fishing. It's a, it's kind of a brain dump in some cases where I just pick a topic and write about it. Um, so it's a quite a, quite a wide variety of topics, but, that's just darrenchatter.com forward slash blog to access that. So yeah, if somebody, you know, is, has listened to this and wants to reach out for reason or is in the area you know in Arizona or whatever or is headed to the San Juan and wants some you know some insider tricks and tips that sort of thing I'd love to hear from him I'd be happy to help
Katie
yeah I'll have to hit you up if I ever end up down there I've been to the San Juan once and I fished the animus once too so I'll have to let you because I know I saw that you have fished the animus before so I'll let you know if I'm ever a couple of times over in that area again
Darrin
yeah please do and and same thing. you know I will likely end up on the San Juan in January which is, you know, cold, but still very fishable. So, you know, if we had the opportunity for our paths to cross, that would be awesome.
Katie
For sure. And let me know if you're ever in the Denver area. We don't have a shortage of fishing spots here, but sometimes it's hard to sift through them all.
Darrin
That's very true. And believe me, my wife, who actually just got home, is a nurse. And at some point in our future, we're looking to have her do a traveling nurse assignment. And Denver was my first choice of cities to go to for a summer instead of sweating it out in Phoenix again. And for that exact reason, it would satisfy my fly fishing addiction a whole lot better than living in the desert. So, yeah, we'll definitely keep in touch.
Katie
All right. Well, I'll let you get on with your evening, but love chatting with you. I really like these chats that are, you know, not as much about the tips, but just about the experience of fly fishing. I feel like that's something that we all have in common. So it's always a nice treat.
Darrin
I've enjoyed it very much too, Katie. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Katie
All right. And that is all. As always, if you liked what you heard, I'd love for you to go over to Apple podcasts or wherever else you listen to podcasts and subscribe there. If you've got a couple extra minutes, a rating or review would also be much appreciated. It doesn't take too long and it makes a big difference on my end. You can also find all my episodes on fishuntamed.com in addition to fly fishing articles every two weeks and you can find me on social media under my name Katie Burgert on go wild or at fish untamed on instagram I will see you all back here in two weeks bye everyone
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