Ep 36: Traditional Outdoor Pursuits, with Steve Angell
Steve Angell is a lifelong outdoorsman and host of the Traditional Outdoors Podcast, which focuses on fly fishing, trad bowhunting, and other similar outdoor pursuits. A frequent fisher of Georgia’s native brook trout streams, Steve has switched mostly to fiberglass rods. In this episode, we talk about what Steve enjoys about fiberglass, how his trip out west opened up opportunities to fish new types of water, what he considers to be traditional in the world of outdoor sporting, and the type of community he values. He also shares some meaningful stories from his hunting and fishing adventures.
Simply Traditional Website - www.simplytraditional.net
Traditional Outdoors - www.traditionaloutdoors.com
Facebook: /TraditionalOutdoors
Instagram: @traditionaloutdoors
Twitter: @tradoutdoors
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. Alright, welcome to episode number 36 of the Fish Untamed podcast. Today I got a chance to sit down with Steve Angell, who is the host of the Traditional Outdoors podcast, which I was a guest on about a year ago I think. And it covers fly fishing, traditional bow hunting, and other similar outdoor pursuits. In this episode, Steve and I talk mostly about what he values in these more traditional outdoor activities and some of the more impactful moments he's had outside. So with that we can hop over to my chat with Steve Angell. Alright I am sitting down today with Steve Angel with the Traditional Outdoors podcast. How are we doing today Steve?
Steve
You know what? Can't complain. As my buddy, now buddy and recent guest said, you know, it's a day above the grass and they're all good.
Katie
There you go. Have you been, have you been getting out in the water much?
Steve
Not on, well, we're obviously, so we're already into, um, hunting season. So what time I have right now is pretty much focused on, on the, the whitetail woods, but, uh, did get out some over the, over the summer and, and we'll probably get out some more again later this fall and then once we get into, January and February, I tend to do a lot of post-season scouting and fly fishing at the same time.
Katie
That's interesting because I feel like January and February is usually so cold here that I'm not I'm not thinking about fishing too much then but I guess where you are that's probably pretty nice weather.
Steve
It so it can be. I will tell you that and it's one of those situations I don't get to do often but one of my absolute favorite fly fishing I don't know, 10 or 15 years. We had a cold front move through. It's been 10 years ago or more. I happened to be, I don't, it was during the week and for some reason I had the ability to take the day off of work and we had a snowstorm and I headed up into the North Georgia mountains. It wasn't a whiteout of, you know, like a blizzard or anything, but I actually got out and caught some fish and it was cold enough in Georgia that I actually had to stop every now and then and cleaned the ice out of my guides and managed to catch a few fish. And there was just nothing more beautiful to me than taking some pictures of a few trout, you know, laying on the snow and then slipping them back into the water. But it was just a great day and not something I get to experience often.
Katie
Yeah, those snow days are usually pretty nice because you're often the only person out there too. So you get to experience that winter wonderland, but you know, totally in solitude.
Steve
It's funny how much different the rippling of the water sounds when everything is blanketed in snow and absorbs all the other sounds and noises. You definitely feel a lot closer to the environment in those situations.
Katie
I agree. There's something, you know, same with if you're hunting in woods full of snow and when the wind dies down and it just feels so, everything's so muffled that I don't know, it's just such a peaceful moment and you don't really hear anything. You can just, you're hearing your own thoughts almost.
Steve
And in some cases, it's almost like you can hear your own heartbeat echoing. It's really cool. I agree.
Katie
Now, when you guys get snowstorms down in Georgia, is that one of those situations where the state kind of shuts down and you hear about people getting stranded on the highway? Or where you are, do they handle it pretty well?
Steve
Oh, no. It's bad as far as... Yeah, I mean, and we're the brunt of a lot of jokes because it can be a dusting of snow and they close everything down. But a lot of us still do get out. I mean, I grew up in North Central North Carolina, so a lot more familiar with getting out on the roads and driving. And I don't, I actually don't worry about myself as much as I do the other people. So as long as the other people are off the roads, I pretty much go as I want to.
Katie
Yes, tell me about your upbringing a little bit because I know some people may have heard it, but I was on your podcast recently, so I was doing all the talking, but I didn't get to hear much about your background and how you got your start in the outdoors or fishing specifically.
Steve
Sure, and yeah, I was looking at that, I think we were chatting about it a little bit before we pressed record, but it's been a little over a year since you were on our podcast. You were, I think, episode 62 or something like that. But yeah, you know, it's funny, my background story as far as the outdoors is, I see it as a bit unique. No one in my family really hunted. It just wasn't, it wasn't something we did. I grew up on a farm. It was a tobacco farm. We did raise small grains and had some cows and those kinds of things. But the primary cash crop was tobacco. And you know, that was a lot of our life, you know, day in and day out. If we weren't actually working in the crops, we were repairing equipment and doing things over the winter to get ready for the next year. And my dad was just a, that's, I mean, the farming wasn't just his job or his career. It was his passion. And, you know, to him, he would just, he would be happier doing something related to the farm than just about anything else. But I had a strong desire to spend time in the outdoors from a very early age outside of just the work. And my mother, my mother liked to fish a little bit and you know, she would, she would take us fishing. I'd go fishing with her. But even when that wasn't an option, I mean, I can remember me and my brother making our own fishing rods out of saplings and links of fishing twine and actually using even sewing needles and bending them at some times to, you know, to catch fish out of, we had a small stream that ran behind our house. And then the hunting thing was kind of the same way. I just, I kept pushing my father. He finally bought me my first bow when I was 16. And I just, you know, I jumped in with both feet and learned a lot of really hard lessons the hard way, but I tried to learn from every mistake. And over time, I kind of got pretty, you know, there wasn't Google back in those days. You just got out and you tried to learn from your surroundings and your mistakes. I guess that's really about it. I mean, it's something that I've had as long as I can remember. I remember reading a lot of magazines like Fur Fish and Game and Outdoor Life and Field and Stream and those kind of things and learned as much as I could from there. And that was the bulk of where I got my information from.
Katie
You know, it's funny you bring up the fact that, you know, back then you didn't have the same resources you have now because we have so many resources available now, be it print or video, online podcasts, but I still find that it's pretty incredible how much more you can learn in, you know, just a day or two of doing something than you can in hours of consuming content like that. I just feel like there's really no substitute for getting out and just giving a try and messing up and seeing where you mess up and learning from that. You can feel so equipped to go do something after reading about it for hours and then you go out and I feel like it all just gets thrown out the window and you just start learning things on the fly and it's, I don't know, it's just in some ways it's really, really different and in some ways I feel like it'll kind of always be that way where you really need to just get your hands in the dirt and do it.
Steve
And you know, I definitely would agree. I think, you know, looking back, I would have definitely loved to have had, especially on the hunting aspect, a mentor to kind of show me things and teach me things. And probably that's a big driver in why I do the podcast and why I do, you know, some of the YouTube videos, which I've got to get, I've got to get better at adding content to YouTube. But you can, you know, you can learn a lot from other people those sorts of medium, but there's always going to be that, that gap of understanding what you're hearing and applying it directly to your hunting scenario or your, you know, the streams that you fish. I mean, nothing beats experience. And, you know, you, I think, you know, a lot of, a lot of people that, that don't have those, uh, those mentors or someone to, uh, to show them the rope. so to speak, the best thing you can do is just get out there and give it a shot. I mean, try the things you know, but learn from the things that you either don't fully understand or that you're completely wrong about and learn how to adapt and adjust.
Katie
Yeah, I feel like that's especially the case with something like fishing. I feel like one could make the argument that for hunting, especially with bow hunting, that you want to have a decent base of knowledge before you go out because you do have the For something like fishing, I feel like there's really no downside to going out and giving it a try. I think there's a kind of a barrier to entry where people are a little worried about going and just being terrible at casting, especially for something like fly fishing. But you know, what's the worst that happens if you go out and are absolutely terrible? Everyone's terrible the first time they go out. So for something like that, I just feel like there's really no reason not to go try it and just mess up and learn.
Steve
I would definitely agree. I would say, um, you know, depending on, and this is something I'll be honest, is probably something I should still, even today do myself. Uh, but I would recommend anyone, you know, find someone that's willing to, or even if you have to pay a little for it, you know, find an instructor that can teach you, um, at least the basics around fly casting. I, I'll be honest. I learned that just the way I did everything else. I learned it through reading magazines and, you know, casting by the clock, you know, 10 to one, those kind of things. And I learned with the most horrible, horrendous fly rod and reel combination you could probably buy at the time, but it's what I had. And, you know, today, and I've said this many times, I've said this on my own podcast, you know, I'm a fly caster that can, I can slap water with the best of them because I make mistakes, but I catch fish and, uh, you know, I, I, I feel like I do okay. For the most part, until I'm around someone that really knows what they're doing and I, you know, there's definitely an example and we were talking about that a little bit before the, before we started recording, there's, there's one example I can give you for that. But, um, fly fishing is something that it is, it is extremely simple. Lefty Cray can break it down better than anybody, I think. You know, as far as watching or listening to somebody online and he's no longer with us, but that man was just amazing to watch with a fly rod. And he, you know, he took a very simple approach to fly casting, but it works. But trying to go out there and just, you know, learn that on your own without any instruction, it can be frustrating. So if you go that path, you just have to, you have to stick with it. You have to figure out you're probably going to replace at least one spool of fly line because you're going to destroy it on the grass and so forth trying to learn. But anybody that came up and just asked me, I would definitely say try to find someone that is either you know they're really good at fly fishing or even pay an instructor to learn how to cast because it can save a lot of frustration.
Katie
Absolutely. And I know there's a lot of fly shops I think even do free classes with the idea that if you pick it up and like it then you'll probably come to their flash shop and buy some things later so it's probably not too hard to find a free or at least really affordable class to take. Even like 30 minutes of instruction can make such a huge difference.
Steve
I agree wholeheartedly. The only thing I would add to that from my experience is if you are looking to find an instructor and especially if it's tied to a fly shop and I'm not going to get into brands or names but I have seen good and I have seen bad. I will tell you depending on your area find a local forum or something where you can go out and ask questions and find somebody that does come highly recommended. It was funny, I was listening to, I forget the gentleman's name, there was an episode that you did very early on and it was a gentleman, because I actually thought I need to reach out to Katie and see if she has his contact information, but he's trying to find, he was trying to catalog all the streams in North Georgia that held native brook trout or something
Katie
Oh yeah, that's Palmer Henson. I can definitely hook you up with him.
Steve
Exactly right. talking about the fishhawk and one of my, um, a real good friend of mine actually, uh, works at the fishhawk to my knowledge. He still works there provided, you know, this, this whole COVID situation hasn't, hasn't impacted his, his job. He works at the fishhawk. His name is Rob Smith and one of the absolute best, uh, people to try to teach somebody how to fly fish. He, he, he does some guiding and so forth and just a, a fantastic individual that I would recommend to anyone. But again, there's some shops that I've gone into where I might just go in to look at a rod and the next thing I know, they're wanting me to get out in a parking lot and cast and then they're trying to give me pointers and I'm like, look, you're breathing down my neck. I can't even think and focus on what this rod feels like. So I just, I would say, try to find somebody that has a good reputation for teaching others how to fly fish or how to fly cast.
Katie
For sure, and it might, like you said, kind of come down to a little bit to personal style. There's obviously some people who are just fantastic teachers and other people who may be great casters but they just struggle with the teaching. But like you said, you don't want someone breathing down your neck and I would feel the same way. I'm like, "Let me just go out by myself and see how this feels." But other people might really want that extra attention while they're casting to get pointers. So also just kind of shopping around until you find someone who just feels right for you if you're trying to learn or buy a fly rod. I wanted to also ask you in addition to your start in the outdoors, at what point did you kind of transition over to focusing on the traditional outdoors? That's your podcast and that's kind of your sole focus, kind of centered around fly fishing and bow hunting. And also, what do you consider to be the traditional outdoors?
Steve
Okay, so we could probably end up spending another 30 or 40 minutes just talking about this one topic. Oh, you've got time. So for me, traditional is more about attitude, I guess, than anything else. I am a traditional only bow hunter. I've only hunted with traditional archery equipment for going on 20 years now. I'd have to sit down and look at some notes to tell you exactly how many years. But when I started Traditional Outdoors, and actually I built a website for a couple of months before I launched the podcast, kind of knew where I was going, but I wanted to get the website format like I wanted it and really identify what I wanted the podcast to be about. And we've tried to stick to it. We may stray here and there a little bit, but traditional outdoors is not about traditional bow hunting. It's not about traditional archery. It's really more about, um, what I consider traditional values related to spending time in the outdoors. And I've been asked this multiple times, but for me, it's, it's a lot things. You know, we could talk about ethics, we could talk about morals, we could talk about the golden rule when you're in the outdoors. But the biggest thing for me is to lose yourself in the outdoors and the biggest thing you can take with you when you leave the stream, when you leave the woods, are the experiences that you had during that outdoor activity. Whether it's hunting, whether it's fishing, it all comes down to focusing on the things that really matter and again what's going to build those lasting memories and that's not always going to be the quantity or the quality of the animal or the fish, the animal that you harvested or the fish that you landed. There's so many other things and we've had guests on everything from outdoor cooking to camping to black powder to, you know, uh, traditional bow hunting, obviously a lot of those fly fishing, uh, wing shoot. I mean, you just name it. We've had a lot of different guests, but the common core there is, or the common trait is it's all about the experience. And I, I, that's the best way I can explain it. And again, we could talk about some other things again with the, you know, the traditional values and the ethics and the morals. and but really that's what it comes down to to me.
Katie
I think that's what really drew me in to your podcast initially was your kind of your attitude around it. You know I subscribe to I don't know over a dozen fly fishing podcasts so it wasn't really that I needed to add another fly fishing podcast or hunting podcast for that matter to my subscription list but your show had a different feel to it when I first listened to it and that's what kept me coming back. And actually, you had one episode, I don't remember how long ago it was, I think it was after I came on so it must have been in the last year, but you were just sitting around with a couple people, like a round table discussion where you were just sharing kind of your favorite hunting stories. And I remember right after I listened to that someone actually came on Instagram and was saying, "I'm so sick of just hearing you know boring podcasts with just you know listing off tips and I just I just want to hear podcasts with a good story does anyone have anything to recommend and I sent over that podcast episode of yours and I was like you should definitely check this out and I remember one of the stories was just it was like a doe hunt and I'm not even sure if you if you even harvested that doe or whoever was telling the story but it was it was just notable to me that a a story about a doe hunt that was possibly unsuccessful was memorable enough for me to want to recommend it to somebody later when they were looking for a good story. And that's the kind of thing I think more and more people are getting into is just the whole atmosphere and experience of these things. It doesn't really matter what the outcome is. It matters what you took from it and what you remembered from it. And I think a lot of people are appreciating that when they're outdoors now too. So I definitely really appreciate hearing those values on your show.
Steve
Well, and and I do appreciate that and I'm almost positive That I don't know. I don't know remember the episode number I do know I do know the episode that you're talking about and I think that was me and Tom and and Nick were all on that episode And I'll tell you you you may not and I don't remember if I covered this on on the podcast But I know exactly which hunt you're talking about I have written about that hunt, which lasted almost the full season. And just so people that are listening to this show and that kind of knows what we're talking about here, I won't walk through the whole thing, but you can definitely find it if you want to. The article that was written was called "Only a Hunter Would Understand." And I played a cat and mouse game over the course of an archery season with this Wise Mature doe. It seemed no matter what I did, she was a step ahead of me. And as a traditional bowhunter, you got to understand, it's an up close and personal game. I mean, I rarely will take a shot over 15 yards. I want everything to be up close and personal for multiple reasons, but this doe just gave me the hardest time. And towards the end of the season, I actually used a tactic that I've used maybe twice in my life and some will get a chuckle out of this because it is, I'll be honest, it's a bit disgusting. But the area that I was hunting this animal was using a very, it was using a triangle shaped block of pines, very thick cover, to move from some hardwoods just before daylight to some very thick cover right after shooting light started. So what I did was I actually, after playing this game of cat and mouse, I took a week's supply of work socks that I had been wearing to work that I had kept in a Ziploc bag. And when I parked my vehicle, I got out and I started hanging those over limbs along the edge of that stand of pines, which bordered up a road. With the idea that with the way the wind was blowing, that animal was going to smell that, I was fairly confident I knew the route she would take to avoid what she thought was humans. And I set up that morning and just after daylight I caught movement and sure enough she was using the exact trail that I thought she would use to try to circumvent what she thought was a hunter posted along the road. And she showed up at 15 yards and I had my bow up and I started to pull the string and I sat there and I followed her till she passed me at 10 yards and then she was at 12 yards again and out to 15. And then I realized I just had never, I can't remember if I never drew the bow or if I, I think I drew the bow at some point and when I realized what I was doing I had already let the bow down and she had beat me. I couldn't bring myself to end that game, to end that chase with that animal, feeling like I had cheated her. And I was telling my wife that night about that story and she said, "You mean you, I've heard about this "the whole season and the moment of truth came "and you couldn't shoot that animal." And I said, "Only a hunter would understand." And anyway, that became an article, and I'm pretty sure that's the story that you're remembering. You can tell me if I'm off there.
Katie
No, that is absolutely the story I was remembering. And I had forgotten the part that you had basically passed on her. I just, I remembered it as just an unsuccessful hunt, but I was remembering it wrong.
Steve
Oh, it was successful.
Katie
Right, right.
Steve
It was successful in every part of being successful. To me, it was a success. Absolutely. - And honestly, I think for me, the biggest success was accepting defeat in one way, but winning in the fact that I let it walk and I'll keep that memory for the rest of my life.
Katie
Right, and that's the kind of episode that when someone was saying, I need something interesting and powerful to listen to, not just the same old ramblings about "What's the next best bow?" and this and that, that I was like, this is the episode you're looking for. I can guarantee it. So that's the kind of, you know, obviously I've been listening to your show for a while when that came out, but that's the kind of thing that drew me in because, you know, even if you weren't talking about that story, the type of person that has a story like that and has that experience, that spills over into the rest of what I hear from you and Nick as well, is that kind of feeling. And that's the kind of thing that I feel like a lot of us are chasing when we go out, is that is that feeling right there where, like you said, only a hunter, only an angler would understand. Do you have any stories, obviously it's not really the same realm, but do you have any stories that are that impactful for you on the river too?
Steve
I'm sure, well, I know I do. I would say maybe not necessarily to that level, but along the same lines, you know, like I said, I grew up was not in a, uh, when I say an outdoor family, just didn't spend a lot of time in the outdoors except for work. Um, but trout fishing was one of those things when I was growing up, I did not have access to. I grew up in the Piedmont of North Carolina. Um, we had, you know, we had bass, bass lakes, we had pan fish, but we just didn't have trout. So obviously, you know, for, uh, uh, a young, a young kid that really enjoys being outdoors, whatever you don't have access to is always going to be the most alluring, which could also be another discussion around my trip to hunt antelope. But anyway, that was just something I always wanted to do. And I guess when I was about 16, my father up and packed up our, I think it was a Bronco at the time and carried me and my brother up into the mountains North Carolina, which was about an eight hour drive for us. It was again, we didn't have, he didn't have any idea other than some coworkers had kind of pointed him where to go. And I remember we, we pulled into the area that we were going to fish around midnight that night. Everybody was exhausted and we all just kind of crashed there in the, in the Bronco and I remember laying there all night, listening to the, the rush of that water, which I had never, I'd never heard. I'd never been in an area like that to listen. And it was a pretty big stream. And I mean, it's a stream called Santela Creek up in Western North Carolina. Listened to that all night, got up the next morning, couldn't wait, got out, got to fish. Didn't know, again, I could cast a fly rod, but I would love to have video of how horrible it probably looked. But I can still tell you to this day, and if I close my eyes, I can visualize the first time it all went right. And you know, that, that, that pretty sure it was an elk hair caddis hit the water and actually floated the way it was supposed to. And I had enough slack in the, in the leader that it actually got a decent drift and I remember a big rainbow just smashing that. And it was almost like I didn't know what to do next. But in my mind, I can still see, I can still see that eddy, I can still see that slick of water, and I can still see that fish rising on that fly the first time. So there's a lot of little stories like that over the years. I can still, I could probably carry you to the exact place I caught my first brook trout. And I can still take you to the first stream actually called Native Brooks out of and that was it was actually called Wildcat Branch. I know exactly where it's at to this day although I've been told that that due to some heavy flooding one year in the summer it pretty much destroyed that that native that native stream. But anyway if I thought about it more I could probably come up with a lot of them but you know that's just one that comes to mind.
Katie
Do you find that in moments like that like in this story where where the rainbow came up and took your L-care, where you have almost like a memory burned in of a couple seconds before it happened to a couple seconds after it happened, and you can kind of just roll through it like you're scrubbing through a slow-mo video, where you can just picture it so clearly and not in even the same speed it happened. You can picture at any moment during that, I don't know, let's say 10-second span, you scrub through your memory just like you were scrolling back and forth through a 10-second video in slow motion?
Steve
Absolutely, just don't ever tell my wife that because I can walk in a grocery store and forget half of what she told me I needed. But yeah, I mean definitely and not just just that I mean even and I'm sitting here thinking you know we were talking about the hunter would understand. There is and I here's one thing I can tell you on that same and I still visit that stream. I try to once a year. It's only about a two hour, oddly enough, now I live in Georgia, it's about a two and a half hour drive. And I still try to make it up there at least every couple years. It's got a special place in my heart because, you know, my father was the first one that took me there. Me and my brother had quite a few adventures on that stream. But there's an area where The main part of that stream, and if you're not willing to actually get out and walk a good bit and get off the Forest Service road that follows the stream, you would never know it exists. But the stream splits. And there's two things about this split that are important to me, and it's the areas that I visit every time I go to this stream. If you continue down the main branch, It comes to what we have always called the swimming hole. And the reason we call it that is it's a very large pool that has been there so long that it's basically just a solid granite bottom for the most part. About a third of this, the width of this is large boulders that are underground. Always can catch trout there. but to the two-thirds of it, to the left side of the stream, if you're looking downstream, there's a quartz vein that runs through the full length of this pool and it almost looks like a swimming lane. So we always called it swimming hole. But I always fish there and then feeding into that pool on the far side of the stream is where that branch broke off it makes one huge triangle or one huge loop and comes back into that mainstream right there at this swimming hole. So I always fish there. In fact I've got pictures every time I go with my youngest daughter we always visit that spot and she fishes it. But if you cross over there and follow that branch where it comes back in after it splits off a couple hundred yards you come up to this additional pool that's just it's very slow there's not a lot of water that's actually coming through this section so it's it's very slow it's gin clear and there's always several very nice sized trout in that pool to this day I've never been able to catch one of them but I always go to that spot I always you know crawl on my hands and knees and I can get a fly out there and they will they will inspect it but to this day and we're going on a probably a 20 year cycle at this point and I've never gotten one of them to take but I always try.
Katie
So I feel like those are some of the most fun even if you never catch them just that you know it's it's always fun to catch a ton of fish obviously but if you walk up and and they hit the first thing you throw on your first cast, it's over. It's kind of like shooting something on your first day of the hunt. You're so grateful to have gotten it, but you almost want it to last a little bit longer than that. And it sounds like you're kind of in the indefinite realm of who knows if it'll ever happen, but at least it'll keep you engaged.
Steve
You know what? Every time I go to that stream, I will always try, and I will always end up spending probably a half hour to an hour just sitting on a large stone somewhere in that general area and never casting but taking everything in. It's just, it's one of those special places for me even though I've, again, I've never pulled a, I've never pulled a, successfully pulled a fish out of that little pool but I've always got to go, I've always got to go every time I'm up there.
Katie
What do you say that you get out of fly fishing? I know you mentioned the values for all these traditional outdoor activities, but if you had to put it into some sort of coherent thought, is there something you can pinpoint for what you get out of fly fishing in general or even a specific day of fly fishing? What is your intended goal to get out of that?
Steve
So yes, I can answer that question, but at the same time, I want to be a little bit careful. I have, I've, I've pretty much fished every way possible at some point in my life, bait casting, spin casting, uh, open phase, closed phase, fly, you know, and fly rod. And for me, the spin casting and the bait casting, uh, there's, I don't know, for me, it feels like I'm, I'm less involved in the process. I don't know if that will make sense to many people or not, but it's It's in some ways it's, it's somewhat like the traditional bow hunting. Uh, I just feel like the fly rod is much simpler from a tool perspective and much more reliant upon me to become one with that, that tool, one with that piece of equipment, and I just, I feel, I feel closer to it. I feel like I'm more in control than the other way around. Uh, although sometimes it doesn't always pan out that way, but that's kind of the reason that it just appeals to me more. I just, I feel like, and that gets, even gets into some of the reasons when we talked about this earlier, the, before we started recording the, you know, I've started fishing a lot more with fiberglass rods again. Um, and even some of that even ties into it because if I'm fishing with a spinning rod, I'm casting, I'm reeling, I'm casting, I'm reeling, if I'm fishing with a fly rod, I'm discerning the tug of a fish compared to the current in the water. Or maybe I'm trying to determine, was that by nymph bouncing along a boulder? Or was that, you know, did a trout just pick that up and spit it out? And those are all the kinds of things that I don't have with other equipment that the fly rod just really appeals to me for. I just feel closer to what I'm doing when I'm fishing with a fly rock. I hope that answers your question.
Katie
No, it did and that's actually, I don't want to say like a better answer than I was expecting, but I've never thought of it that way, but you're definitely right. I grew up fishing with primarily lures. I never did much bait fishing, but I threw a ton of lures growing up and they are just so much more technologically advanced in terms of like you've got rattles, they dance through the water on their own. You just have to pull them, the lip makes them dive, and you don't have to do too much. I don't want to take away from that style of fishing because I absolutely loved it growing up and I don't mean to take away from the skills still required to catch fish, especially big fish, using gear like that. But like you said, it's kind of casted out and then a lot of the time, especially with lure fishing like that, the lure does a lot of the work for you. Or something like a spinner where it's buzzing through the water and you just have to pull it back in. And I never thought about it that way where, yeah, with something like a fly rod, it's such a simple piece of machinery. It's just a spool that you can reel in or out and you have to do basically everything else. You have to put the fly in the right spot with a more involved cast. You have to make the fly do anything it does, apart from, I guess, just sink straight down if you've got some weight on it. But that's about the only thing that it'll do without you. And even then, you have to kind of control the speed to let it sink at whatever rate you want. So there's just a lot more that you have to control. And I never really thought of it that way, but I mean, it's kind of the same thing with like bow hunting versus hunting with a gun too. Like, you have to kind of participate more, if you will, to get it to go right. And you can't rely as much on the equipment itself to get it done.
Steve
Yes, to all of that. And I think for me, and I will say the same thing, I mean, I'm not, by what I said, please don't anybody listening take that I'm disparaging a spin fisherman or a baitcaster fisherman because there are definitely skills involved in that for people to be consistently successful. Okay. So I'm not, I'm not trying to take away from that. And the same thing goes with the, with the, the hunting the way I do. There's, there's a couple of reasons for me why the longbow or recurve, I hunt some of the recurve mostly longbow, longbow is more appealing to me And it's just because it makes the entire process more intimate. I mean, everything is a game of distance when you start limiting your range to 15, 20 yards. And I admit there's also an aspect of simplicity. No sights, no scope, no, I mean, there's, for all intents and purposes, the bow I hunt with is a glorified stick with a string on it. I mean, that's all there is to it.
Katie
Did you ever do any hunting with a compound bow? Or do you do any hunting with like a muzzle loader? 'Cause I know you said like no scope and stuff, and you know, at least you're in Colorado for muzzle loader season, not allowed to use a scope, it has to be open sights. Does that appeal to you at all or is it strictly the traditional bow itself?
Steve
So I'm probably one of the oldest podcasters out there right now and probably one of the... So yes, I have hunted, I started hunting with a compound bow that would have been in, uh, let me think, um, probably around 1984, maybe even 83. Um, I got a bow for my 16th birthday and I started hunting with it that fall. Uh, now it took me a few years to be successful, but I'm, when I got that bow, I was determined that I was going to hunt with just a bow until, uh, I had success. And then I did hunt with a rifle for many years. I've hunted with handguns, I've hunted with black powder. And you know, even when I started hunting with traditional gear the first year or two, I hunted with traditional gear and I still picked up the rifle. But I will say the first deer I successfully took with a longbow, I never looked back. I haven't hunted with anything since then. Uh, most of the firearms I still own are, are more personal defense than they are for hunting. I've sold most of my hunting weapons. There is, and I've talked about this a few times. I think at some point I'm going to want to, um, take to the woods with a muzzleloader again. If I do, it will be something along the lines of a, um, uh, Tennessee long rifle or a Tennessee poor boy style rifle, flintlock, not percussion. And I do think at some point I might pick up a handgun and hunt with a handgun again, but may never happen. I don't know. I've thought about it a few times, but typically when I think about something like that, I'm immediately pulled back to the longbow.
Katie
Fair enough. And so tell me about, I know you mentioned you wanna talk about this and you did mention it briefly here, but you've kind of transitioned over to glass rods. What was the motivation behind that and what have you found? It sounds like you really like it, you've been sticking with it. What have you found differently between that and the graphite rods that I assume you were using before?
Steve
So none of my answers are simple, Katie.
Katie
That's fine. I need you to do the talking so I don't have to.
Steve
I mentioned my first fly rod and getting started and teaching myself. And again, most of the listeners will have no idea what I'm talking about, but I actually saved money for months, you know, money from, from birthday and, and any money I could scrape together. I think I actually witnessed and returned glass bottles when they used to be a deposit that you could get back for glass bottles, that kind of thing. And I bought a I don't even remember what weight it was now, but I bought a fly rod from a department store called Gibson's that are no longer around. It was glass, it was heavy, it was cumbersome, but I learned how to fish with it. And I think it had an old Martin, just a plain Martin reel on it. And over the years, you know, everybody went to graphite. I picked up graphite rods. I still own several graphite rods. I've got some St. Croix's. I've got a Temple fork, TCRX, lefty cray that I love, and I still fish with them. As far as how I got into the glass rods, not long after we launched the traditional outdoors podcast, I ran across Cameron Mortensen, the fiberglass manifesto, bugged him by phone for weeks, because we were new. You know, I pretty much felt like I had to assure him the podcast was in it for the long, we were in it for the long haul if we could just get him to come on the show. And really that's what kind of opened the door back up to Glass for me. I hadn't really thought about it until reading some of his articles and then spending an hour talking to him. After that I actually bought a, now I'm gonna draw a blank on the name, it'll come to me in a minute when it does I'll throw it back out there, but he actually sells some cost-effective, I won't say cheap, cost-effective fly rods off his website. And we worked out a deal and he sent me one, I think it's a five weight. And I got out in the backyard and I started casting it and I was like, this is not the fiberglass that I remembered. Whether or not they make the rods different or better, I honestly don't know, but it was definitely better than the fiberglass I remembered. And I took that rod out on the the Chattahoochee River, the tailwater here near Atlanta and had a blast with it. And I got out looking on some of the Facebook groups for a fly rod and ran across a guy that was selling one. He was selling, if I remember correctly, it's a seven foot two weight and I'd always wanted a two weight rod. I had a three, a four and a five. Anyway, we worked out a deal. I bought this seven foot two weight with a enable reel that that he had he had he had built a rod or I think is he and Cameron Mortensen called it a he had Rod put her together for this thing. So he had bought all the components and built it off of blank And I care when he when I got that rod I the first place I did was carried it to a stream about 30 minutes from my house called the amical. Oh It's a delayed harvest stream. It's not a natural Producing stream, but they stock it And I just, and it's some pretty quick water. In fact, it's got some of the most dangerous whitewater rapids for rafting or canoeing rafting on the, on the East Coast. But I hooked into a, I don't know, probably a 10, 11 inch trout on that two weight. And if somebody had had a camera on me, they would have probably made $10,000 because I was, I was laughing and giggling like a kid. And what I found on top of that, so that, you know, a two-weight is a two-weight, right? When you get a decent fish and a decent stream on a two-weight, you're going to have fun. But I noticed that I was actually feeling the line in a lot of ways different than I'd been able to feel the line with my fast graphite rods. I could feel the rod load. I found that I was actually forming my loops better. And in some cases, even getting more distance, in some cases, more distances, distance out of my cast with less effort because I was able to load that energy in the rod and take advantage of that. Flash forward another, I don't know, six months to a year and I think now I've got two two-weight glass rods. I've got an absolutely gorgeous three-weight blue halo glass rod that I absolutely love. And I never thought anything would replace my 3 weight St. Croix Legend Ultra, but it has. I really love fishing that rod. And then I've got a, I think I've got a 5 weight and, uh, and I've got a 4 weight. I had a custom 4 weight built too. So I still fish both. Um, but I will tell you for most of the fishing here in the area that I, that I trout fish and fly fish the most, I pretty much pick up the glass rods whenever I head out. After fishing out west a couple years ago, I don't know that I would, it would depend on what the weather was going to be if I took that, if you wanna get into that, we can, but for around here, I mean, I just, I love, I love the glass rods.
Katie
Yeah, we can get into the east-west thing too, that was the other thing you wanted to bring up. I did have one more question about the glass before we get into that, and that is, when you said that you had been fishing primarily glass, I assumed that was kind of from the traditional outdoors perspective. You know, glass is just not as recent as graphite. But it sounds more like you've kept up with it not for, you know, trying to stick to any sort of, I don't know, template of what classifies as traditional, but just straight up because it's more fun. Is that pretty accurate?
Steve
I would say, well, yes and no. I think, I think, you know, the glass, that's probably the reason I reached out to Cameron and had him on the show. So I'll be first upright and honest and say, because of the traditional aspect, it seemed like a great traditional quote, old school topic to have a guy on talking about glass rods. But after I started fishing with him, I was like, wow, there's something here. And again, a buddy of mine, Derek Sheehan, who he's the gentleman I was talking to you earlier before we started recording about the bamboo rods. He swears it's the same mandrels that they use to form the rods on and everything's the same. Somebody's got to prove that to me because the rods that I've fished with, especially the two two weights and the blue halo that my buddy Scott Spray, was also on our show built for me. Those are just light years ahead of, of, of the glass rods that I'd fished with in the past. Um, they're not as heavy, they're not as cumbersome, and there's a lot of finesse to these rods. Again, there are situations where I would pick up my, my, my five weight, um, graphite rod, especially my TFO is a very fast action rod. And there are some things like if I'm some of the streams up here, you know, you're casting, um, weighted, sometimes tungsten beadhead, woolly boogers to get down deep enough in some of these fast waters and that fast way to being able to really push that, that rod and not, you know, knock yourself out with the net woolly booger when it flies past. Uh, I do reach for that rod for some of that type fishing, but man, I just really have a lot of fun with the glass rods.
Katie
Yeah and I remember when I was on your show you had mentioned that you were, you were, your favorite way to fish was with streamers. Is that, is that still the case or has the fiberglass transition kind of turned you into a like a dry fly fisherman?
Steve
No and I probably should, I'll clarify that statement. I probably fish more with streamers than anything else.
Katie
Okay.
Steve
If there's a, and you got to understand it for the most part, the water that I fish here in the Southeast is a little bit different than some of the streams out West where if there's a hatch going on on these streams, in most cases, you don't, you just have to get close. You don't have to match what they're feeding on. But there is nothing I enjoy more than seeing, you know, fish rise to a dry and I will fish those if there's a hatch going on and I'm seeing fish rising. But between fishing a streamer or a wet fly, in most situations, I would much prefer the streamer because I'm more successful at it and tend to get, for the most part, I'll tend to catch bigger and more aggressive fish on the streamer than I would with a dry, I mean a wet, excuse me, a wet fly or a nymph.
Katie
I don't know if I trust someone who doesn't want to fish a dry fly when there's a hatch going on.
Steve
You know, I sure wouldn't, but I did want to make sure I made that clarifying point.
Katie
No no, it's just I know you specified that like if there's a hatch going on you'll use the dry And I'm just like I know some people who wouldn't and I don't know if I really trust them Because there's just there's just nothing quite like it and and there's just such a joy when you walk up to the river and you just See fish rising and you're you're like, I know exactly what I got to do here and it's gonna be just the most amazing experience
Steve
And I will I will add to that because it was a part that you asked there that I didn't answer And here's the best way I can explain it. I've got a three foot excuse me a three weight graphite and I got a have a three weight Glass I would say they're comparable in action to glass mate I mean they the st. Croix is probably a little bit flat faster, but it's still a fairly slow action rod If I was taking one of those to a stream knowing I was going to fish with dry flies only I I don't think I would, I wouldn't make a choice of which rod I was going to fish with based on which one I could present to fly better with.
Katie
Okay.
Steve
So I think at least in that case, and that's probably the best comparison I have, is with my three weights. From a presentation perspective, you might have to adjust a little bit to get, you know, reacquainted with the action of the rod. But as far as being able to present to fly, I can probably do pretty much the same with either rod. In that case I don't know that it would make that much difference, but you're definitely going to feel the fish more when you start fighting or landing a fish I feel like more with a glass than you would do the graphite.
Katie
Yeah, I haven't, I don't have as much experience at all with the fiberglass, but from the few times I've cast them and used them I could definitely see that being the case. It's something Something I'd like to get more into, I'm hoping to build a glass rod in the, hopefully this winter at some point when I'm stuck inside. And I think what I would do is basically force myself, just take it on every trip and just get used to it because I know there's going to be a bit of a learning curve in terms of making it work just as well. Or like you said, I might not even be choosing what's the best way for me to present the fly but rather just taking that rod and getting used to it and starting to appreciate it a little bit more.
Steve
Well so the one thing I will tell you there based on my experience and I have not cast every fiberglass rod out there but I have I've picked up and tried quite a few over the course of the last 18 months. Cost to quality ratio you're gonna find it very hard to beat a blue halo rod.
Katie
Those were some of the blanks I was looking at for sure. I know they sell those blanks that you can you just get and build so that's definitely one of the ones on my list.
Steve
I absolutely love mine and I like I said I've tried quite a few and it's it's probably my favorite at this point.
Katie
Perfect well that's that's good to hear because I want that glowing review for it for what I'm considering.
Steve
Well if you if you get it you decide you don't like it just let me know I'll probably buy it from you.
Katie
All right that sounds like a deal. I know you mentioned your trip out west and And that was something you wanted to kind of talk about. So I guess just tell me about your trip out west and what you experienced different from fishing back east. Because you're definitely more experienced on the east coast and I'm more experienced on the west coast. But it sounds like we've dabbled a little bit in each other's worlds in terms of fly fishing. I fished spin rods back east a ton, but never fly. So tell me about your experience kind of comparing those two areas and what you liked about both, but how they differ. Anything you disliked?
Steve
So, and after I mentioned this, I actually thought about, part of this is going to be painful for me to actually admit, but we'll talk about a couple of things first. So I've actually fished out west twice. Was out in Wyoming in 2016 on an antelope hunt. After the hunt, Tom, my buddy Tom, who's, we call him our co-host at large on the Traditional Outdoors podcast, shows up to Cohost now and then, but we spent two and a half to three days just actually riding through. We rode through the Bighorn Mountains, we drove through the Crow Indian Nation, we drove through the Badlands. We spent a good bit of time as we made our way back to the East Coast sightseeing, but we also stopped at a lot, especially driving through the Bighorns. If we saw a stream that we thought might hold fish in it, we got out and fished it. And most of these were, I would say they were comparable to what we fish here on the East Coast. Not a lot of difference. Small mountain streams, a lot of overhead branches and a lot of cover that you have to cast to. And on that trip, I think we both ended up catching a couple of fish and that was it. But we didn't fish a lot. I mean, we would stop and fish for 15, 20 minutes and then hop back in the car and drive. In 2018, we went out for a self-guided mule deer hunt. We spent a week in the Big Horns, 9,000 to 10,000 feet elevation for the bulk of the week. We hunted in the morning, we hunted in the afternoon, and all during the midday, most days we spent fly fishing. So that was really my first real experience fly fishing out west. And a couple of things that I would say is a lot different. We don't have many streams where you don't have to worry about where you're casting. A lot of the water that we found when we were fishing out west, if you manage to snag something, you're really doing something wrong because there's nothing overhanging the water. The edges of the stream are mostly tall grasses. Uh, so from that aspect, I liked it a lot better because I could just get out and freely cast. I didn't have to constantly look at, you know, where's my, where's my back cast going? What's, what am I, if it's back there, I'm going to snag it. So I didn't have that worry all the time. The part that's hard for me to admit, Tom is one of the best, and I've, I fished with Tom a little bit, but never in a situation like this, without a doubt, he's one of the I've ever been around. I sat there and watched him cast a three-weight into very stiff winds that left me just humbled. I mean, it was amazing. I could have sat there and watched him for hours because he made it look effortless. He would present the fly pretty much where he wanted to even in those strong winds. Anyway, I was extremely humbled by that. But at the same time, thinking about the rods that I like to use, I definitely see where the graphite faster action rod was better in that scenario than I would have been with a slow action glass rod, at least with the way I cast, it would have been. Not saying you can't do it. Not saying someone that's a better caster than I am could probably do it and not have any problem. But for me in that scenario, I was glad that Tom had brought a faster action rod. And I tried just not to cast a lot when Tom was watching me.
Katie
Was that because of the wind that you were kind of preferring that graphite rod or something else?
Steve
Yes, because again, in a lot of the scenarios, you were either casting in some cases into the wind, in some cases you were casting with a fairly strong cross wind. Um, and we managed to catch quite a few trout over the course of that week. We, we didn't, all of it was catch and release. We didn't keep anything, but we, we caught a lot of fish. And for the most part, we were mostly, um, we weren't necessarily drifting or, or, you know, um, doing a lot of loop cast and those, uh, roll cast. It was mostly, you know, just normal, normal casting. And I do think a slower rod, at least, again, I didn't try it because all we had was the fast action, but I just remember thinking, I'm glad we've got a faster action rod that really allows me to kind of push this line and keep a very tight loop.
Katie
Now, I do have to kind of burst your bubble here and let you know that those nice meadow streams that are mostly just grass, that's not the only thing we have out here. I feel like the majority of the small streams I fish, especially when it's something like that where, like I took a rod on my last hunt too and took some casts, and especially here in Colorado we have a lot of like just little willows around the streams and there was one stream I got caught in a couple years ago where I was just walking up the stream itself because there wasn't enough room on the bank and eventually the willows growing over it got so tight that I couldn't even walk up the stream itself. was nowhere to go I was just like feeding my the tip of my rod through the branches and just letting the fly fall onto the water wherever the end of my rod was because there was no way to even do like a roll cast in there. So especially if you're above tree line you can get those like wonderful streams that you can just cast as far as the eye can see but unfortunately that's not how it is the entire way around the west.
Steve
And did know that. So the streams that we fished in 2016 were a lot, like I said, they were a lot more similar to what I fish here in the Southeast. I will say we had so much water out there in 2018, we didn't have to fish those streams. So we stayed in the ones that were... You know what, actually now that I think about it, we did have one stream that was fairly close to our second camp that we did fish that with a good bit. it had a lot more cover, but for some reason it was, and it's obviously it's because it's not what I'm used to and it was a different experience, those meadow streams were just a blast for me to fish. I've seen them in, you know, in magazines and stuff like that, but I'd never actually gotten to fish one, so it obviously left a stronger impression.
Katie
Yeah, those are some of the most fun, the combination of having nothing hindering your cast and having those like deep undercut banks are on the bends and having that the stream that just meanders through a meadow where you if you walk straight you'll you'll cross the stream like every 20 feet as it as it curves around again um i feel like you can fit many miles of stream into into a smaller uh smaller area just because they they wind and bend so much um if i could build my my dream stream it would be something like that where it's just wide open and and deep cut banks and riffles every so often there's definitely not a shortage of those out west but you do have to go find them.
Steve
Well I fish both and if I went out there again I think I would try to find those meadow streams again.
Katie
Well and it's funny you mentioned back east because like I said I grew up fishing back east but I had a larger river where I grew up so I was usually fishing that and I don't have as much experience on those smaller streams although I've definitely seen them but at the time I didn't fly fish and I just feel like it wasn't conducive to tossing a lure with a spin rod into some of those really small creeks. Like I mean, the fish I'd be catching are probably the size of some of the lures I was using in the river that I fished. So I definitely want to make it back at some point to those eastern streams and give fluff so you can try there.
Steve
Well, if you ever make it this way, let me know. I'd be happy to at least carry you to some of the ones I know. You know, the Chattahoochee, which I do fish a good bit, there are definitely places you You have to focus on your back cast, but there's a lot more water on that river that you don't. Once you get out in the river, you can do whatever you want. But a lot of the mountain streams that I fish, which is one of the reasons I love these little two weights, and I've got a six foot two weight that I really like the little small streams, but you're not really casting. You're crawling on your hands and knees and you're presenting a fly with at best a small roll cast. not doing overhead casting or even side arm casting.
Katie
Yeah, just kind of dapping it down on the surface in front of you while you hide.
Steve
Exactly.
Katie
Well, Steve, we can start to get wrapped up here, but before we hop off, do you just want to share a little bit about your show? I know you mentioned in the packet I sent you the traditional outdoors as well as Simply Traditional, and I don't know if I'm familiar with Simply Traditional. So if you want to fill everyone in on both, but I'm also curious what Simply Traditional is.
Steve
Sure. So Simply Traditional actually started out as a blog. In fact, if anyone wants to read the full article around a hunter will understand, it's on the simplytraditional.net website. It's actually been in a couple of different small publications, but it's there as well. But it started as a blog. I'll be honest with everything that I have going on, I don't write as much anymore as I used to. I probably should and I really don't want to lose the skills that I had learned while doing that. But it's mostly a blog, but I also run a small storefront on there that over the years has really turned into more of a business around making custom Flemish twist bow strings, which is a whole nother discussion. But I make a lot of bow strings for both customers and I've got several fairly large boyars that make their living making traditional long bows and recurves that I make their bow strings for them. And it's Flemish twist strings, you'd have to see them, but there's, It's almost like a rope making technique where you build the loops for each end to fit over the end of the bow, but there's no knots or anything like that in the strings. It's basically friction holds everything together once you get the string built. So I make a lot of custom bow strings and that's my primary storefront for that is simply traditional.net. The spinoff from that was what became Traditional Outdoors, which is a website. There is the podcast, the Traditional Outdoors podcast. I also have a YouTube channel for Traditional Outdoors that you can find just by searching YouTube. I do plan and have a lot of good ideas around video content. Right now, it's just a matter of time, especially right now with archery season being open. I'm, I'm really going to be pushing myself throughout the course of this season and then starting into 2021 of, of really focusing in and getting busy and putting more content out on, on YouTube. But, uh, there are articles on the traditional outdoors website as well. Uh, some other articles that I've run across that are, uh, linked from other websites. So there's, there's, there's a good bit of content on the traditional outdoors website as well, but. it's primarily used for the publication of the podcast.
Katie
Okay, yeah, I'll have to go check out that article, the Only a Hunter Would Understand, because I, like I said, I've heard the story twice now and I'm still not over hearing it, so I'll probably have to go read the whole the whole story there, but it was such a pleasure talking to you tonight. I really love what you're going for with your podcasts and just getting to talk to you and kind of appreciate the the simpler parts of what we like to do, Because like I said, I feel like there's a lot of people out there who, whether they realize it or not, that's what they're chasing, not the fish. So I just had such a great time hearing from you and can't wait to hear what the rest of your podcast has in store.
Steve
Well, you know what, Katie, thank you so much for having me on. Thank you again so much for actually being a guest on our show a few months back. And you know, if you ever want to get on here and talk again, you're always welcome to hop back on our show anytime. I'm more than happy to hop back on here and talk with you in the future. So I always have a good time talking to you.
Katie
Well, I'll never turn down getting to hop on and talk fishing with somebody, so I might take you up on that.
Steve
All right. Well, I'll be looking forward to it.
Katie
All right, Steve. Take care.
Steve
You too.
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 GoWild or @fishuntamed on Instagram. And I will see you all back here in two weeks. Bye everyone.
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