Ep 38: Fly Fishing Media, with Joe Evans
Joe Evans is a Journalism student at the University of Montana, and aspiring guide and media creator. He spends his summers with Henry’s Fork Anglers in Island Park, ID, and one day hopes to travel, fish, and create media around his adventures. In this episode, we discuss storing a drift boat with limited space, the pros and cons of drift boats vs. rafts, fishing Pyramid Lake, careers in the fly fishing media world, how he balances fishing with content creation, and a few quick tips for photographing your catch.
Instagram: @idaaflyy
Email: idaaflyy@gmail.com
Youtube: Ida Fly
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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 38 of the Fish Untamed podcast. Today, I got a chance to talk to Joe Evans, who is a journalism student at the University of Montana in Missoula. And in this episode, we mostly cover fly fishing media. Everything from what Joe wants to do with his degree when he's out of school, to what other careers there are in fly fishing and travel media, and how he creates content while he's out on the water in his drift boat with his friends. and trying to balance the content creation with actually just enjoying yourself fishing. We also got into a couple unrelated topics. Fishing pyramid lake, which Joe's done a couple times, and also how he manages to store all of his gear and his drift boat while living in a dorm. So kind of wide range of topics. We can hop right into it. Here is my chat with Joe Evans. All right, I'm sitting down today with Joe Evans. Where are you today, Joe? In college?
Joe
I'm in college in Missoula, Montana. Yep.
Katie
And so what university is there?
Joe
University of Montana.
Katie
I know I read it on your bio, but you're going for journalism?
Joe
I am. Yep. I am doing a lot of writing and hopefully I can kind of get in the multimedia photography side of things. So, yeah.
Katie
And are you planning to kind of take that in the fly fishing space specifically?
Joe
Totally. Yeah. I mean, if there's, I'm not a big fan of global news, politics. So not really, not really the New York Times route, more the photography, photojournalism route. So totally in the fly fishing industry.
Katie
Sure. I definitely want to come back to that. But starting off, do you just want to tell me how you kind of got your start in the outdoors and fly fishing specifically?
Joe
Yeah, for sure. For a brief background, I started when I was about eight or nine. My dad and I were, you know, throwing the conventional rods, worms in the river, stock ponds for trout. And then he bought a fly rod and we started going to the fly shop just because he kind of wanted a new challenge. And we began learning together, probably got into it for maybe a couple months. And then he took a job in Florida. We were in Idaho at the time. And then he basically, when he left me, it gave me the choice to like stick with it and learn myself or just drop it. and I stuck with it.
Katie
Nice. What were you fishing for back then? It was just trout in the local river in Boise.
Joe
Yep
Katie
Okay. And is that still what you primarily target or have you kind of branched out to different species?
Joe
I try and branch out different species every chance I can, but it's hard to leave trout when you're in Montana or Idaho. That's true.
Katie
So you're in school in Montana, but your brand name, handle, whatever is Idafly. So I assume that's related to Idaho.
Joe
It is. Yeah, it was kind of just a name I came up with when I was young. And it's actually funny you say I had someone comment on one of my recent posts. You're gonna have to change your name now because you're now a Montana guy. And it's just Ida Flyer, just kind of where I grew up was Idaho. So Idaho's got a special place in my heart. And I don't know if I'll be I don't know where I'll be temporary down the road. So Ida Flyer is just kind of like a name I came up with. And I like it.
Katie
I got to say, I was a little confused at first when you emailed me because like your first name on your email is Ida, which is like, you know, a lady's first name. So I was really confused whether I was talking to you. Yeah. So it was like Ida emailed you and I was like, who's Ida?
Joe
That is good to know. No one's ever told me that. I'm going to have to fix that.
Katie
Yeah. Maybe maybe just make Ida fly the like the first name, because you're probably emailing a lot of people who think they're receiving something from Ida.
Joe
Just Ida in the email. I got to fix that. Thank you.
Katie
Yeah, no worries. So a couple things we talked about, like wanting to discuss today. One of them is just fly fishing on a budget and in like a super tight space, because you're the first college student I've talked to on the show, and I'm probably the first college person I've talked to in a long time. What's your kind of setup for, I know you fish a lot out of a drift boat. Do you have a drift boat on campus? And how do you like store all your stuff?
Joe
perfect I love talking about this just because it's like it's like a scramble every single day so first of all college campus parking is horrible and on any campus you're at for the most part and so I did that was one of the first things I did when I got to Missoula was I'd buy a drift boat I love I had that money from just a lot of savings over time and finally got a drift boat I got an RO skiff and I love it and I knew that with that boat I could get to learn the water very very quickly around here while I was you know I'm going to be here for the period of time while I'm studying and I had to I basically pay for dirt on an outdoor storage okay and that's where I left the drift boat for the last three four months and paid for that just outside Missoula about five minutes and I just go pick it up the morning of or the night of for the next day and scramble to find a double perfectly open space in the parking lot somewhere or park it down the road along the street quite a ways away and walk home in the dark but storaging stuff I do own a truck and I'm able to leave almost all my fly fishing gear in there and I organize it perfectly in this dorm somehow between fly tying gear and waders boots everything I'm like drying them out the window every other night
Katie
yeah so the truck must help a lot I feel like when I was in school not a lot of people had trucks but that would definitely help out a lot just I assume you have like a cover on the back just to keep people out of it and you just keep all your stuff in there
Joe
yeah I do have a camper shell I love it do you ever sleep back there yeah I do It's a short bed, so I have to kind of bend my legs. And I have done that in the summer, but I try it. If it's cold, I'll just sleep in the car and lay the seat back. Definitely go on trips where I will crash in the car. That is a very common thing.
Katie
Now, I don't know if you'll know this, but I didn't have anything that large to store when I was in college, so I don't even know if we had the option to store things. But is that unique to where you're going to school? are they used to people having like drift boats and stuff is that kind of you know do a lot of people use it for that or is that just what you've used it for and that's just a kind of a common thing that is available for people
Joe
definitely a lot of people around Missoula university Montana area are very outdoorsy people climbers fly fishermen bikers literally everything and they definitely have to deal with storaging larger items but I feel like everyone that I've every student that I've come across is an upperclassman where they live off campus and don't have that problem okay so the underclassmen don't like jump into that big investment from the start I just I guess I chose because I saw the boat that I found here in Missoula was one that I actually like really really liked I love the color it's like a light blue and I was just fantasizing over it so I had to grab it
Katie
now was that like a used boat you found or?
Joe
yes
Katie
okay did you fix it up at all that like didn't need fixed up?
Joe
It needs some, I mean, mainly just repainting and there's definitely some big chips in it where like took little chunks out of the sides and bottom. I'll probably do some work on it this spring when it's nicer out and I'm able to sit outside for a longer period of time and have open space. Like when I've transitioned from here to my summer job. Okay. And what is your summer job? I work at Henry's Fork Anglers. It's in Allen Park, Idaho. It is like trout paradise in eastern Idaho and 45 minutes from West Yellowstone and Yellowstone National Park. The Madison in Montana is like 35 minutes. It's incredible. It's got everything.
Katie
I love it. Do you guide for them or just work the fly shop?
Joe
Not yet. I had my first very, very short season with COVID last summer and I hope now I have a drift boat and as opportunities come and I can begin to learn the water and earn my way up the totem pole to begin guiding. because there are some very, very talented guides above me. When I got there, I had some confidence and it all went away when I got to that shop.
Katie
Oh, I'm sure. Every time I feel like I know something about fishing, I talk to somebody else who's way more knowledgeable and I'm like, I don't know anything.
Joe
Yeah, seriously. You're like, you go to a new place and you're like trying to talk like, oh, I did this back home and they like laugh at you because it's just nothing what you need for that specific area.
Katie
Yeah, I don't know who I was talking to recently about that, but like when you go to a new spot and you feel like you don't know anything like you know in theory knowledge should transfer you know especially between like trout rivers like if you're in trout rivers in the west they're all gonna fish like kind of the same but you show up at a new spot and you're just like it's like a blank slate you know your face just goes blank and you're like I don't know what to do and you're like I do know what to do but there's just something like different when you're when you're fishing a spot you fished before and you're like I know what to do here exactly yeah I don't know what it is so do you need like rowing experience to kind of move the totem pole there or did you just get the drift boat just as you know something fun for yourself to do?
Joe
Totally I loved talking about that that's sweet you brought that up I started off with a small raft it was called a Saturn raft and I got that purchased two summers ago with one of my best buddies and that's how I learned I think it's awesome to learn through a raft first because you're gonna you're gonna bang you're gonna hit rocks you're gonna do 360s in places you don't want to do 360s with a drift boat there's not much room for error I guess you could say because if you make a large error a large mistake hitting a big object it can really damage the boat versus a raft you can bump in whatever you want I think a drift boat's a lot more luxury it's really hard to guide in my opinion out of a raft there's just less space and I feel like especially in the industry, guiding elderly people is very common or children. I think having them just in a spot where they can like sit in an open seat and have places to keep their feet. And you know, when you're guiding, you want to have a cooler and you want to have all your flies. It's just a lot. It's like luxury, like I said, in a drift boat. And for guiding, I wanted to take that next big step, get rid of that small raft and begin to work in a drift boat. Now, if I had both, that would just be incredible because there's places I want to float that nobody ever even thinks to float where I take a raft and I can throw it over the hillside and drag it down wherever and run, run a float where a drift boat you can't.
Katie
So guiding aside, like let's pretend, you know, you're never wanting to guide and you are only fishing personally. Would you take a drift boat or a raft and, and why?
Joe
I would take a raft
Katie
that's what I've always leaned toward too because I've got some friends who are like oh I'm saving up for a drift boat and I'm like I think I'd rather have a raft that I can pack down and not tow it everywhere but I wondered what if there is like a benefit to actually having the full-on like rigid drift boat like why why do people really opt for that is there a is there apart from you know guiding clients like if you're just fishing personally is there a benefit to the drift boat?
Joe
I like I said storage but I really do believe it's luxury but some people could definitely tell me different and say them wrong because I've only had a drift boat for like three or four months now so I don't have a lot of experience now I do know one thing is wind wind sucks in a raft okay because you're just on the surface a little bit more exactly way on the surface that's why those high side drift boats like that are angled like this don't do well in the wind either so that's a big reason why I got a ro skiff is because a lot of the water I'm hopefully gonna be guiding like the henry's fork is very very flat to water okay and that's like for a sneaky little boat you know what I mean and it it's just so much more enjoyable to fish out of a drift boat than a raft also rafts at takeouts and put-ins are I'd say a little more complicated too you can crank a drift boat up so quickly
Katie
that makes sense because yeah I'm like it sounds more luxurious to be in a drift boat but it sounds like more of a hassle to own one and I'm just like you know I don't want to have to tow it everywhere but yeah you're the first person I've talked to actually you know I've had experience with boats so I'm like I should I just pick his brain on that
Joe
totally I think with a raft like I think your first a first should be a raft for sure definitely heavier I think drift boats I think drift boats can be easier to row but also harder to row it's kind of hard raft rafts just more forgiving
Katie
okay good to know I'll have to keep that in mind I mean I'm not looking to buy one anytime soon but I just you know gotta gotta gather all the info now might as well let's let's move on to like the the media side because I know that's a big part of what you're working on and that's something that I have basically no experience with and I guess I'd just start off by asking you like what what jobs are there for a person in fly fishing media because I feel like when I think of fly fishing media I think of like fly fishing film tour and that kind of thing like like film festivals basically then there's of course like magazines and things like that and then online but like what is there anything else I'm missing or or what what kinds of careers can you follow in that
Joe
this is a tough question for an 18 year old
Katie
for sure but you're supposed to know what you want to do with your life already that's what they tell you
Joe
I'm trying to learn so that question is something I'm trying to learn a lot. I ask myself the same question all the time. I'm trying to learn more about the careers as well. Although I do want to begin guiding at my age right now to see if I love that route. And I'm really excited for that. Now, when it comes to media, I think you can go a million different directions. Like you said, there's production. So with film, like the Fly Fish Film Tour, a lot of people know of Captain Jack Productions or Wild Fly Productions. They focus on making videos. So they're going to really, really focus on worrying about their filming, not fishing. And, and they are constantly pumping out YouTube videos, short films, and they're really focused on their Instagrams and podcasts, social media in general. That's like a productions where someone would pay them to film their trip or they get put into film festivals or they make money off YouTube. And then you have another route would be like a media marketer where someone runs an Instagram. That might not be, that might even be a fly fisherman, but a lot of people that fish know where to find those pictures for a certain company. Like they might work for a fly shop or something and they're just running the social media. Running social media pages, a marketer. And then the next one would be a brand ambassador. And that's also a totem pole type thing. You start off buying some product for somebody and you prove to them that you can take really good pictures and provide really good content for them either to put on their blog web page website social media anything and if you can prove to them that you can give them good content and they'll you'll work your way up and your percentage discount will get bigger and you can eventually slowly work your way up into the business of that fly fishing company and either like get a paid position in the workplace or become a legitimate elite ambassador where you are getting paid to get them content
Katie
okay question on that I want to know your opinion on this what are your thoughts on kind of the criticism that brand ambassadors have been receiving lately because I don't feel like you know you don't hear people you know making fun of the guy who does social media for whatever fly shop but I feel like you see a lot of flack being given to brand ambassadors for it's usually like a couple specific companies I can think of I won't bring them up but like the criticism is that like that person knows how to take a good photo and basically make Instagram content but like doesn't know what they're doing like what what are your thoughts on that
Joe
totally I think they're doing their job they're out on the water they may not be a fantastic angler but if you are helping get fantastic pictures like I have friends that are photographers that aren't elite fly fishermen but they know how to work a camera and if that's what they're good at they shouldn't get shame for it
Katie
sure do you think it makes a difference if they're portraying themselves as something different
Joe
I think so I think you should stand where you belong
Katie
I think that's where a lot of the fleck that I see comes from it's not it's it's not like someone who takes a good photo of a fish and is associated with a company but the the people who I guess give them maybe elevate their own image a little too much in terms of like how good of an angler they are or how experienced they are when maybe that that's not the case. I feel like that's what I see a lot more criticism about but I also don't really know any of these people personally so it's really hard for me to tell like whether they actually you know are you know quote-unquote legit or not. But it's like it's easy to kind of see both sides of like well this person's not doing anything wrong but also I can kind of see the argument that there's people profiting off of basically an image of themselves.
Joe
Yeah, totally. I totally see where you're coming from. And I see that myself too all the time. I never try and judge a book by its cover on Instagram because you can see someone holds up huge fish. I mean, I don't hold up huge fish. I make a smaller fish look big, secrets out, just through the way of angles and photography. And that makes the picture look cool, in my opinion. And I don't really care what everyone else thinks. They can see that fish, like wow that's a big fish I know how big the fish truly is maybe they know that how big the fish truly is maybe they think that fish is huge but it all comes on the it all comes down to like eventually meeting that person and going fishing with them to see how talented they are and like watch them do let's say that you watch them as you're sitting in the back of the boat and all of a sudden guy in the boat anchors and says hey let's take some photos for what I'm wearing right now he might think that's weird or he might think that the angler like works his way into living up to it I guess you could say like he he is talented enough to be repping that company
Katie
fair enough and I agree I feel like it's it's hard to judge someone by what they're putting on social media in either direction like either they're posting something that appears to be kind of cringy but you don't actually know that person or like maybe they're posting really really awesome stuff but then they turn out to be kind of an asshole in real life like you don't really know yeah what what route are you hoping to go like I know you're just getting started with your degree so you might not know but like if you could create your dream job right now like what would you be doing?
Joe
my dream job would definitely be just to be able to fish the world either if I was guiding and just in the off season got chances to go fish incredible places and travel that would be like an ultimate dream I love I love Allen Park and Henry's Fork Anglers and I hope to grow grow there and I can't really tell where the future lies 20 years from now but I hope 20 years from now. In the industry, there's great networks to be connected with and made and great people to be connected with. I think that can happen through guiding. And then, you know, from there, really, really cool destination trips could form. And I would just love to, like I've said, if I'm guiding all summer long, and then sure enough, winter comes and I don't have anything going on. And there's a great chance to go fish and film for a company I work with outside of guiding, and shoot for them and get cool content for them. And I'd love to do it all is what I'm trying to You know, I might not be able to because you never want conflict of interest. And I've been coming to learn that a lot as I've gotten to the industry and made mistakes too. And so I hope that there's always ways I want to try and do it all. Where some people say, you can't do it all. Like, you can't because that's going to go wrong here and go wrong there. But if you could do a little bits of everything by literally an emblem I made was like travel fish film. Like I want to be able to fish everywhere, capture on camera to watch it over and over again and fish outside of my home river, like somewhere insane.
Katie
You know, I kind of see what people are getting at when they say, like, don't try to do it all. But I feel like it might be a little different in the case of, you know, like maybe guiding in the summer and then doing, you know, media work in the winter or something like that. Like trying to do it all at the same time, because like you said, there might be a conflict of interest. Like you're guiding, but you're trying to create content off of those trips. Like it kind of seems like a gray area. But if you are like, hey, I'm going to guide for four or five months during the summer, and then when I start to get kind of burned out on that, then switch gears and do something else, I feel like that might, they almost might feed off each other where, you know, right when you start to get a little sick of one, you can switch and do the other thing and maybe keeps you kind of into both.
Joe
Totally. And what you're saying with that gray area is an area that I got lost in recently. And what I've learned is what I would love to do with that, that's the reason why I want to do all is because I would be worried for myself and I would get burnt out because guiding is a very difficult job out on the water all day. And so in the winter, that'd be so cool to be able to make YouTube videos or something. Although that gray area I see can fade to black and white where you're making media and content and that's driving clients to realize to see your name and be like, oh, I know where I'm going this summer.
Katie
Yeah, I don't feel like that is really a gray area. I feel like most guides do have a social presence in hopes that people want to come fishing with them. I feel like it's when you go direction that it becomes kind of a gray area where it's like you know if I go out with a guide and I feel like he's making content off of his trip with me that's where I'm like no like I'm paying you to be focused on me right now not like making making this into some sort of content to share that's huge that's huge but I feel like the other direction's not I feel like that's not like unethical yeah you said it perfect so where all of you traveled so far
Joe
so start off in Idaho my dad just recently moved from Miami, Florida, but he was there when that first move initially happened back when I was a lot younger. He was in Miami, Florida, and I got to fish there in Key West for bonefish, tarpon, tried permit, didn't do so well. I did that with, it was really cool because I got to connect with Max Hamlin. He's one of the other younger guides at Henry's Fork Anglers who goes down there during his winters. And I've been to Alaska. That was incredible. Literally just went with a neighbor for a long weekend and caught steelhead. I've been to... Where in Alaska were you real quick before we move on? It was Soldatna. Okay. Soldatna. And let's think. I fished almost all over the northwest between Tillamook, Oregon on the Oregon coast, across over to the Oahe River in Oregon. And then I fished all over Idaho, north to south, up into Coeur d'Alene in the tip. and the Clearwater River there in Lewiston, Montana. I haven't really branched into Utah and Wyoming yet. I fished a little bit in Colorado.
Katie
Where in Colorado?
Joe
It was Breckenridge.
Katie
Okay. Blue? The Blue River?
Joe
I did. I was so little.
Katie
I've only fished the blue a handful of times, even though it's only about an hour and a half from me, but I haven't had much luck there. But I've heard that I need to go elsewhere on it to have better luck. I just haven't brought myself to do it yet.
Joe
Totally. It was beautiful, of what I remember. And one more place I forgot to add was Pyramid Lake. That place is incredible.
Katie
I haven't made it there yet, but I've heard a lot about it.
Joe
Yeah, it's a must trip.
Katie
Did you catch a monster there?
Joe
The first time I went with my best buddy, we struggled. We went in the winter, which is usually when you catch the biggest fish, but less numbers. I went back in February with a big group of guys, and we absolutely destroyed them.
Katie
Really? Lots of fish or big fish or both?
Joe
Both. It was everything you'd want, but it was crazy because you'd have, you'd have to time everything right. Like you needed wind, you needed early morning, you needed late in the evening. If it was dead calm and sunny, we may catch one fish and he may be huge. We may get one bite and it may be small. I mean, you literally watch that bobber from sun up to sundown as long as you can. As long as you leave it in the water, the better your odds, of course, but it could bob down twice that whole day and if you're not watching it you won't even know or if you set too late it'll not come back to you so it's pretty cool
Katie
hearing about the wind there what about the wind like makes it makes it so much better?
Joe
it just in my opinion there's those chub in there and wind would obviously push bait fish up in the banks I'd see fish like hit schools of bait up against our feet on rocks also it just those fish I feel like Rome they move a lot more in the wind and they are a lot more willing to move shallow in the wind I don't know all the logistics but I we just when it's high and bright when the water's glass makes it makes the fishing I feel like not as good if you're on the move a lot more in the wind
Katie
interesting because yeah I feel like you know the alpine lakes around here I like when I get not necessarily like dead calm but I don't want like white caps or anything like that that's going to turn me off but a lot of what we're doing up on those lakes is like dry fly fishing so I'm I you know I feel like that might be the the reason but I've heard that from more than one person about pyramid lake that you want some chop on the water you do also with indicator fishing
Joe
it's just keeping your fly moving when it's straight glass you have a either a chronometer bounce leech whatever you're fishing underneath that bobber if it's just sitting there it doesn't really look normal that's true yeah I'm not doing I would move my bobber constantly I like to pop it I mean, just, you know, but everything, of course.
Katie
And then how deep are you fishing below that indicator?
Joe
Oh man, I caught my second biggest pyramid lake fish at five feet. And then I caught my biggest pyramid lake fish at nine feet. So my tactic was a obviously indicator with a split shot, just one. I don't like to run too big because you're going to tangle casting or roll casting. Switch rod is a must if you're fishing indicators. And then obviously you want a heavy rod with full sink for stripping. But for depth with indicator, you got to run a little, maybe a little split shot. You don't have to. And then I run a tungsten fly at the bottom. And then just above it, I like to fish two different depths, obviously, like two to three feet apart. Tungsten on the bottom is going to keep your indicator rig as straight as possible. And then with your tungsten on the bottom, just above that, you're going to have a tag and that's going to have your, I fish a weightless nymph because if it's weighted, that tag is just going to do this.
Katie
Yeah, just dangle straight down.
Joe
Yeah, and so it'll stay up like that. And then I have basically a fly here and then a fly here. And my mainland runs straight up.
Katie
Okay. Now, I don't mean to say this as though, you know, it's not fun to catch giant fish. But, like, do you get kind of bored out there just, like, watching the indicator all day? Compared to, like, what you'd be doing on a river.
Joe
Yeah, you can't do it alone. You need friends. You need, like, lunch breaks. Little things like that, like, make a huge difference. I couldn't do it alone.
Katie
Okay, so like you're basically out there for size, like to catch like a trophy fish versus, you know, when I go fishing around here, like I don't really care what I catch. I'm just happy to be out there enjoying it. You're not necessarily enjoying the process as much there. It's all about the final destination.
Joe
It is. You're definitely chasing a trophy, but what's so cool is you can still catch five fish over 20 inches because the average is a 20-inch fish plus.
Katie
Okay, so even like the small ones is going to be, you know, one of the larger fish you've caught probably.
Joe
Yeah, a six-inch is like tiny.
Katie
Cool. Well, that was kind of a tangent I didn't expect to go down, but I haven't talked to a lot of people who fish pyramid lakes. So going back to the media side, because I know that's what you want to talk about a lot. Do you, like, what kind of media do you create right now? Like, are you filming on the water? Are you taking mostly still photos?
Joe
Totally. A lot of photos and I have a lot of friends that like to shoot film and photo. And I think it's super awesome. They're there because I'll be fishing and they take pictures of me. because I love to fish. It's hard to, it's like hard to pick up a camera in the middle of a float because you only have a couple hours to get out in these times during school. And I don't want to spend the whole time behind the lens, but for the most part, I'd say photos. I like taking photos and editing them, but because it's really hard to take a whole lot of footage and break that footage down between, you know, GoPro and camera, and then each day, each fish, and then throw it on Premiere pro and edit it like that takes a lot of work so I've definitely been taking the easy way route or easy way out with photos although I think video content just goes so much further and with media like I this year I've came on with Kyptech and Cortland just through just through good connections good people and directors and in no way does that affect my other jobs or work it's just something I wear and something I help promote with them on the media pages either if that's just through cool videos rolling through the snow while wearing a heavy duty jacket or if it's a picture holding up tippet in my hand with still with a still photo or a short video rigging up with that tippet anything like that is great content that goes a long ways.
Katie
So are you planning to get more to film at some point or are you kind of hoping to run with the photography side and stay with still photos?
Joe
Both I think you can't can't do without both but I'd love to get more into video it's just it's hard to stay like like those production guys that's like what they live for they don't I'm gonna be honest they get to fish but they don't fish much
Katie
yeah that's something that has always kind of you know I've I've been divided about because I'm definitely not in the like media space like you are but you know everyone who fishes likes you know a good photo of what they've caught but even I have like I struggle with even getting a good still photo of what I've caught because I'm just like I just can't be bothered to to deal with you know the equipment and stuff like that like I'll just take a picture on my phone and be done with it but like how do you balance that when you're out on the water do you ever find yourself thinking like oh I should be capturing this as content and then debating like well I shouldn't be thinking that way like I should be out here enjoying myself like I've I've struggled that before and I'm not even in the media space
Joe
totally I I've personally me I think fish first and then you know, when a good fish comes along, Hey, let's get a picture of it or really cool fog behind us. And it was, even if it was a small fish, yeah, this would be a cool picture. But definitely fish first. I'm not out there to, I'm not out there with the intention of getting photos unless let's say I got a bunch of new product in and threw it all on. I was like, okay, let's really get some good photos today. But in the beginning of the flow and then we'll fish the rest of it. You know what I mean? But definitely fish first. Like I'm out there to fish. I'm not, I'm not, I'm out there to enjoy my time on the water. I'm not out there to, to work. You know what I mean?
Katie
Right. So do you kind of end up batching it like you said when you when you get in the water you might be like oh let's like start with some some photos and then fish do you kind of separate it like that where it's like okay for the next 10 minutes we're working on media and then we're going to switch over or is it like you wait until you catch something and then you decide if it's worth getting content from you know what I mean does that make sense
Joe
yeah totally I'll do both if I've been kind of dry lately with content I'll definitely like start off with the camera or if I know that in midway through the float there's some good scenery I'll pull it out and hold on to it for five to five to 15 minutes anything like that I don't batch it for like hey we're gonna we're gonna film for 10 minutes straight that was a good example I'm more like pulled out at good scenic views pulled out when a good fish is caught yes but sometimes when I know like I've got some fun photos saved to post the next week or so I'll just go out and fish and if I even get like a 16 incher that I just don't really feel like taking the work to pull the boat off rank of the boat off, I'll just grab my phone or I'll just send her off. That was good. That was a good question though.
Katie
Right now, what are you creating content for? Is it just like your Instagram or do you have some sort of like photography website or business or anything like that that you're using the content for?
Joe
Yeah, totally. I recently made a business. It was kind of like a fun college project was to make a website and tackled it and it was a long road and it was super cool. I made like some stickers and apparel for fun just to kind of go with the intro of the website. I'll definitely post like some of my friends really cool stories and their tactics on there as like a blog. But the intention of it is to have a place for like my photos and videos to go on. And then they can see that and know where to find me in the summers. So it'll be another good platform along with Instagram to help grow interest with people that want to come fish with me. I don't know exactly where I'm going to go. Like I said, I'm going to start with guiding because I think that'd just be so cool. I'm definitely a people person, so I'm really excited for that. But then it'll be great to at least have a good base. I feel like I started young and I want to be where I want to be with the great connections I've made at a young age and know that I'm in a good place because I have goals set and I want to reach them before it's too late to work. Well, there's never too late, but I want to reach them as soon as I can.
Katie
It's your early start, yeah.
Joe
Yeah, of course. building your platforms now is great because they'll always be there and then you can always add to them when you get slow because there's definitely seasons where you get slow. I pumped out the website and then I kind of faded away from it because I didn't really know where to go with it next, but I'm going to continue to work on it to place my pictures and photos and videos guiding with Henry's Fork or that I shot with Crypt Tech, anything like that. And TikTok. I just got TikTok recently.
Katie
Oh man, I don't, I've never used, well, I mean, I've used it in that I've viewed, I've viewed other people's videos from TikTok, but I don't have an account and I've never made anything. I just can't, I just can't bring myself to do it. It's too much, but it, there’s, there's definitely a lot of people on there right now. That's what I've heard. I've heard like, there's like giant communities for, you know, whatever, whatever you're talking about, be it like fishing, you know, climbing, whatever the, whatever the hobby, there's like a huge community on there definitely how do you how do you like find content on TikTok like instagram is like hashtags stuff like that like how do people find fly fishing content on TikTok
Joe
oh it's very rare, tiktok's mainly like dancing and whatever people do whatever stupid crap people do on TikTok but there's a very small number of people and I think what more is as of right now because the community is so small is you post like a maybe a really gorgeous fish or you post like I had one recently that kind of blew up it got a good amount of views was rowing through the snow like a big snowstorm and people that don't fish still think it's cool so that's what's happening is okay getting the attention from people that don't fish but there's a super small community of guys that are that are in the fly fishing community are trying the TikTok trend but like I said just the more platforms you have the better because you can just reach out to more people now
Katie
do you think TikTok's gonna like it's here to stay
Joe
no no I think instagram's here to stay and facebook's here to stay TikTok was at one time like a vine and vine died and turned into TikTok so that may happen again where it dies and turns into something new but right now it's booming because I know friends who say like I'm bored and I like laugh harder on TikTok than I do with some my friends and I'm like that's crazy that's not good maybe that's probably not good but
Katie
yeah I mean when you when you said that it makes me think of the fact that Instagram seems to just like eat up other apps in terms of like when another app does something that people seem to cling to Instagram makes their own version of it like I feel like Instagram yeah like it ate Snapchat I feel like it's gonna try to eat eat a TikTok with the real the reels feature I feel like Instagram just looks at whatever you know hot app is out there and then it's just like let's add that to instagram
Joe
yeah there's like you could go to your home page on instagram look through photos you can go watch a bunch of reels or IGTV long longer like IGTV is like the youtube of instagram
Katie
I totally see that yeah I feel like the one well maybe the two platforms it's not really competing with are facebook and twitter because facebook and twitter aren't as like image based whereas all the other like image or video based platforms I feel like just getting eaten up by by instagram
Joe
I don't I don't I agree I don't think twitter gets this far because you need need to have a visual in my opinion
Katie
yeah but I think that's also where like that's why Instagram hasn't eaten it up because it's it's not competing like you have to read the caption for it to even resemble Twitter although I'm not on Twitter so I don't I don't know too much about it but so do you have like a background photography or is this something that's kind of new to you
Joe
very new I actually took a photo class this year and learned how to use the manual settings on my camera for the first time. It's kind of cool looking back at how much it's progressed, but I purchased a very expensive camera. I took a long time saving for it and got a little bit of help from parents because they dropped my old one in the water. And I have a Sony a7 Mark III, and it's an incredible video camera. It's a mirrorless camera, but it takes sweet pictures in the manual settings as well. And I've only come to learn that over the last year.
Katie
do you I know you said you're kind of new to this do you have any tips for like someone who wants to photograph their fish and get really good shots of it or do you feel like you're not quite to the level yet where you can kind of tell someone how to get good fish photos
Joe
yeah there's two things. it's it doesn't have to be a good photographer it's has to be knowing the settings in the camera so it's not actually the person taking the picture and how they hold it it's if the setting on the camera is set right so like two big tips is you have the angler holding the fish and the photographer you obviously have to have a a decent looking hold and there's many different ones but I always like to say head of the fish first in focus if because if you're projecting a fish in front of you you would hold the forehand with the head first because that's kind of going down the line if you think of like rule of thirds but like I sorry I'm kind of getting off track knowing the settings within a camera and then holding the fish are just the two things that are need to get worked on if you got a good hold on the fish and then your settings are set right it turns out to be a great picture and knowing what's in focus so like low aperture being if you want like just the focus of the colors on the fish and the eye to be super in focus and the rest blurry or if you want like a middle aperture where the whole person and the fish are in focus but the mountains are blurry or if you get a really great landscape photo of everything in a high aperture
Katie
I would push back a little bit in that I feel like there's a couple external things like having the sun in the right spot or like or like what angle you're at like one thing I've noticed and I'm not I'm not a photographer by any means but I've noticed that I like photos more where the photographer is like down at the same level as the fish
Joe
I was just about to say that
Katie
Yeah like I said there's a lot of people I've had take pictures like when I hold a fish up and they're just like I'm like kneeling down in the water and they're just standing up above me like looking down at me like this is not flattering for anybody in this photo right now
Joe
no no definitely from the walk from the from the down view up is the best in my opinion either there or dead on but not from above it just looks weird
Katie
it it does I don't know what it is but like it seems to skew things I don't know like looking them like up it's just kind of awkward
Joe
yeah it's good to be right center a little bit below them and then yes if it is a bright day I and you have cloud cover and shade definitely good to face the angler, the sun coming into the angler, and the the sun behind the photographer
Katie
I always feel like the sun happens to be in like the worst spot too like when you when you get a fish in yeah you like you're hoping that the sun is in the right spot it's always like right right behind the person holding the fish and then it always like some reason you can't get the right right angle
Joe
at that point usually I was like all right let's just get a cool release video like the picture is just not gonna work
Katie
yeah sometimes it can be like that is there any sort of like logistical differences between what you're doing like taking photos videos whatever from a drift boat versus wading like I feel like the logistics have to be a little bit different
Joe
yeah from a drift boat definitely have to take an account like the river flowing on each side of you playing with your exposure and your shutter speed is huge because you don't want the water to look black we also want to have color and then do you want the water to look fuzzy or do you want the water to look like realistic that's all with shutter speed now the same thing happens too when you're wading but when you're wading I think you can get more personal shots and then with a drift boat you're going to get more of a landscape type photo so I think it's definitely a portrait versus landscape but again depends on where the photographer is on the drift boat the photographer is in the back of the boat taking pictures of the guy in the front of the boat he's definitely going to have to zoom in with his lens to get more of a portrait personal photo but then he can take a really cool photo landscape of the guy rowing and the photographer and the fly picture in the front seat I don't know if that really answered your question
Katie
no it does I just I've never done a drift boat trip so I never tried to take photos while you know floating downstream I guess I guess is assuming that the photographer and like basically there's a photographer and an angler and a rower versus just like an angler and a rower.
Joe
Yeah. Yeah. The photographer would most likely sit in the back of the boat, but then if you wanted to get really good shots of the rower, then you would definitely sit in the front and get the forefront of him rowing.
Katie
Now, are you fishing from a drift boat primarily these days since you have one or are you doing more wading just because it's like faster and easier?
Joe
I hate wading now that I have a boat. It's just so much fun to fish off a boat. And the best part about it is you're getting the water that most people can't access. I mean, even when you float, if you have a full day ahead of you, my favorites are like short mileages on that float, but you have all day. So you can literally park and get out and wait as much as you want. So that's what the benefit of floating is. You can weigh just as much as you float, depending on where you are. That boat is just getting you to the water that you don't have to walk two miles to get to by foot.
Katie
So do you have someone rowing you or are you like floating somewhere, getting out, stopping, wading, getting back in, rowing yourself again?
Joe
Usually I have, that's a good question. Usually I have friends with me. I always do because we have to run a shuttle with the cars. Oh, okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. And so, you know, a couple of my buddies didn't even know how to row when they first go on the drift boat. And so I've, it was really cool getting like to teach them how to row. And then eventually I get to eventually towards the end of this semester, they would row majority of the time because I rowed them majority of the time in the beginning and I got to fish myself. And that was pretty cool to fish on my own boat. But I always, every time I put the boat in the water, I always start off by rowing every single time. Just, just good juju. Just man with the boat starts by rowing the boat. And when you get friends that learn how to row, then they can do it and you can fish.
Katie
how hard would you say it is to learn to row well?
Joe
Very hard. I don't even row well. I'd say it's easy to like row to dodge things and row through difficult water. It's very hard with positioning and keeping the angler where he needs to be. Like if there's a rising fish and you're in slightly moving water or swirly water, it's so hard. It is so hard. And like learning to drop your anchor in the right places because it can pull your if your anchor gets caught in fast water your boat could flip there's like a lot of complications to positioning I think is the hardest part
Katie
so basically it sounds like it's easy to learn the basics but hard to get really good at
Joe
it's very I'm so bad at still positioning the anglers properly but I I can definitely dodge a rock garden with high confidence
Katie
okay and do you like how long do you think someone needs on the sticks to get to the point of of just being able to like dodge stuff and like get down the river okay
Joe
I'd say between three and eight times three and eight times like an all-day row yeah wow I I don't think they can do it they can't do it in the first day unless it also depends on athleticism like my girlfriend like has like knows what to do mentally but her arms are just straight noodles so she can't like she can't have the power to move away in time but she has the the direction of the boat placed perfectly
Katie
like she can tell someone else how to do it just fine it's just the actual like doing it
Joe
yes and she's only rode I'd say probably like six times but she knows everything in her head but doesn't have the power but then I've had guys that have all the power but just can't figure out that you have to row back like what rowing backwards means moving the boat backwards and like when they get scared of something they try and like push forward away from it those are like the little things that you'll learn within those first couple times is someone yapping at you over your shoulder like to point the front person and row away like I when I taught my friends I said you will not like forward push the entire day you can only row backwards
Katie
like you're only rowing upstream basically
Joe
only upstream because that'll slow you down and that can move you away from things because you're obviously pulling is a lot more powerful than pushing. So, yeah.
Katie
So just to wrap up, do you want to share, like any handles, websites, anything like that, that people can find you at?
Joe
Yeah, totally. Um, for handles, Instagram is at IDAAFLYY. Um, my website I just recently made is just www.idafly.com. No two A's, no two Y's. I'm on TikTok, same as my Instagram. And Facebook is just IdaFly. YouTube is IdaFly as well. I got all the social media platforms. And hopefully with time, I'll be able to get on the Henry's Fork Anglers guide page.
Katie
All right, perfect. Well, I'll share all that in the show notes too. If anyone wants to come visit or take a trip with you, hopefully, if you're going to be guiding sometime in the near future, hopefully.
Joe
I hope so too.
Katie
All right, awesome. Well, thanks, Joe, for taking the time. And maybe if I ever end up in Idaho, which we're talking about coming up to Idaho in the next year, maybe I'll have to hitch up and take a trip or something.
Joe
Seriously, yeah. Even if you guys got an extra day, I'd gladly take you on the boat.
Katie
Awesome.
Joe
Just for a fun float. That'd be great. You should let me know.
Katie
All right. Will do. Have a good night.
Joe
You as well. Thank you.
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 fishuntamed on Instagram. And I will see you all back here in two weeks. Bye, everyone.
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