Ep 9: Fly Fishing Film and Our Favorite Fishing Memories, with Ali Bair

Ali Bair is a fly fishing guide and producer on an upcoming documentary called “Daughter of the White River.” Ali and I have been good friends for years, and decided to have a beer together over the phone and talk about the movie, the fly fishing film world, and some of our favorite memories fishing together.

Instagram: @babyybair

• Transcript

  Intro

  You're listening to the Wild Initiative podcast network. Learn more and check out all the shows at thewildinitiative.com.

  Katie

  You're listening to the Fish Untamed podcast where we talk all things fishing, conservation, and the outdoors. Today on the show, I'm joined by one of my best fishing buddies, Ali Bair. All right, welcome to episode number nine of the Fish Untamed podcast. Today is more of a relaxed episode, I'm just having a virtual beer and BS session with my good friend Ali. She is currently working on a documentary film called Daughter of the White River and got to stay on the White River for a couple weeks and obviously got to do a little bit of fishing while she was there. We also wanted to just kind of relive some of our favorite fishing memories. Allie and I have been fishing together for probably the past six or seven years now and always seem to find ourselves getting into sticky situations in the backcountry. So, living in different states now we figured it'd be fun to just hop on and crack a beer and talk about some of our favorite memories. So, without further ado, here is my chat with Ali Bair. So, is it just by chance at the angling resort?

  Ali

  Yes, I was already excited about being on the project. I didn't know like how much access I would have and that sort of stuff, But I was like, oh, it's in Mountain View. It's right by the White River. Like, sweet. Never been up there. And then I got my housing assignment because they just house all the casting crew. And honestly, there was maybe like five other crew members in that resort. And then everyone's just all around. So they had people housed all over the place. And I was just randomly one of the people that they housed in a cabin literally on the White River. And so I got my housing in an email a few days before I headed up there and I was like, "Oh shit." So I got super excited. Like honestly, the cabin was sweet. The resort was really cool. They had guided fishing, but no, like that's not really a fly fishing area. If you go a little further on towards Cotter and like the North Fork of the White River, the North Fork of the White River slash North Fork, that's where like there's a big fly fishing guided, like fly shop hub.

  Katie

  Why is it divided? Like fly fishing one place and not other places?

  Ali

  You know, I really don't know. And that feels like more of an Arkansas thing. There is fly fishing in Arkansas, but it's difficult because there's still, I would say, the majority of areas and majority of areas on the water, whether it be river, like whatever, people are still like, they're interested in fly fishing. I talked to so many people at the resort. I talked to all their employees. I told them what I do in the summers and ask them for their advice on where to go and that sort of stuff and they were super friendly but all like acted like well you don't you don't know anything like people don't really fly fish around here and like many people told me that but everyone was really cool about it was like I'd love to try it and that sort of stuff so I like got to show a couple people how and that sort of thing but I I don't know what it is and that and that's one thing about Arkansas that makes it even harder for me to build a fly-fishing community around here I feel like they're very small pockets where those exist and none of them are close to Little Rock or even like the closest the closest one is probably like an hour and a half and that's the Little Red River and that's like the main place I go.

  Katie

  But maybe that's like a an opportunity. 

  Ali

  Yeah. 

  Katie

  You know because like imagine trying to start something out here in Colorado and it's just it feels so saturated.

  Ali

  That's true.

  Katie

  You know I mean to be fair it's it's mostly like up in the mountains. Like if you come down to any given pond, like in Denver city limits, you're gonna get spin fishermen.

  Ali

  Spin fishermen, yeah.

  Katie

  But I feel like that's just a proximity to like mountain streams, not a, you know, there's a fly shop here and so there's a hub.

  Ali

  Yeah, and I mean, it's interesting and it definitely didn't stop me from doing it. And like the main issue I had in terms of like fishing on the white right where I was staying is that like the water was just super high.

  Katie

  So did you fish at all?

  Ali

  I did, yeah. I fished, I think, probably four or five times over my stay. Well, plus a couple extra times on that tributary that I walked down to.

  Katie

  Is that where you saw the big trout, the big brown?

  Ali

  No, no, no. That was on the Little Red River. So on my drive home, halfway between where I was staying on the White and Little Rock is the Little Red. And that's the place I'm the most familiar with fishing. And there's a lot of really good spots. So that's where I ended up fishing for my birthday because I wanted to go somewhere and the water there was actually relatively low. So the fishing was really good. And I could see tons of fish and that sort of stuff, which isn't always the case there either. So I went there after I wrapped on the film, but during production while I was staying on the white, I did fish. I had one off day where I got to go on a boat. A couple of locals took me and our lead actor from our movie on their boat for a whole day. And they were doing fishing with lures and night crawlers. And I did some of that too. And I literally haven't fished with lures and that sort of stuff in probably since I was a little kid. I don't know, in a really long time, especially trolling from a boat like that. was actually pretty fun because we like spend a lot of time chatting and drinking beer and like trolling. And I also tried to try to do some different versions of that with like different big old streamers and stuff and had very little success. But what they would do they were super nice and like they would they had like four different spots that they took me and dropped me off that were wadable. So I brought my waders and they would like drop me off. I would fly fish they would keep going down and then they would motor back up and pick me up and take me to the next spot. So we spent like a whole day doing that. So I fly fish. I mean I literally I just used nymphs the whole day. I tried streamers. Streamers weren't working for me. I don't know enough like kind of like we've been talking about too. Like I'm just not comfortable enough with streamers in big water like that. So I probably wasn't getting enough weight or like something like I wasn't getting deep enough or something. But I trout on nymphs and then every time I would throw any dry flies I would just catch like little shad or like a couple of a couple of um bass. Yeah so that was like my full day of fishing and it was really cool and like pretty different from what I would typically do but it was so awesome that these yeah these random locals took us out on their boat. Also the guy that went with us was literally like an actor from Los Angeles, California, and like hasn't done anything like that ever. So he was really fun to go with and like a pretty funny companion.

  Katie

  So what makes the water high? Like is it a tailwater or has it been raining? What's going on?

  Ali

  Yeah, no, they're at that point they're below I think like four different lakes, like reservoir lakes. So they're just letting it out? They were letting out a lot of water and that's what they were explaining to me. These people were also really sweet and I like we stayed we got each other's contact information They were like well since you're close Like if you're ever wondering how conditions are in this area just text us and we can like give you that like they live on The river they're like have a house that they can see it from and stuff So they're like, we'll just let you know and the guy like guides you guys Just like general fishing from his boat, I think that he always just does the thing where they troll and do all that They were really nice.

  Katie

  What's in the White River? Like, what all species?

  Ali

  Well, so trout-wise, they said they see, in that area, primarily rainbows. I actually-- we didn't catch a single brown trout the whole day.

  Katie

  That's funny, because I feel like that's what I think of.

  Ali

  That's what I think of, too. And I do catch browns in the Little Red. And I know that, like, up on the North Fork and in Northwest Arkansas, you see a lot of those bigger browns. And they said they do catch them, but they said they catch like probably 80 to 90% rainbows where they're at. And that's like, we caught a ton of fish. They're all rainbows. Trout wise, that's all I caught on the way was rainbows. So it was interesting. And yeah, definitely like different than my expectation, but it wasn't a bad thing. It was just like, you know, you have one thing in your head and the white river, the thing that I feel like everyone thinks of is like a good looking brown trout. And I wasn't just like maybe in the prime area for that whatever or like didn't know what to throw that was gonna interest a brown and that sort of thing. And then yeah and then there there are white bass and then there's a lot of smallmouth bass and and other than that I mean all that like lots of little shad and bluegill and that sort of stuff in the the slack water because it is still fairly warm. But yeah that's all I saw and they did say they occasionally catch brook trout as well.

  Katie

  Really? I wouldn't have pictured that in a set like a river that with all the other species you just named like I just do not think of brook trout.

  Ali

  I know I thought so too I'm just the size of it and everything. 

  Katie

  Are they big? Like I feel like you'd have to be to like compete but.

  Ali

  I should have I should have asked more about it because they they kind of mentioned that I was asking them what what they catch mostly and they said like rainbows mostly sometimes german browns and then sometimes brook trout and they didn't really say anything on the size but yeah I can't imagine I don't know I really don't know yeah I should have asked to see like a picture or something.

  Katie

  So what's the other movie then the one that you're actually working on the Daughter of the White River? I know that one has nothing to do with fishing either

  Ali

  Yeah so that one is set um well it's a documentary so it's like a historical story slash series of things that that happen in sort of this whole culture but that one is set on yet another section of the White River in Arkansas. And so that one is going to be on southeast, southeast Arkansas, central east Arkansas, like Clarendon, St. Charles, smaller towns that no one knows anything about unless you're fairly local. But these are all towns on the White River. And it's interesting 'cause the ecosystem is very different over there. So I don't really know anything about fishing in that area. I know that there are fish there, obviously. A little bit of the research that we've done, just for the whole historical piece that we're doing, like, I can't remember if it was Helen Spence's father. Someone in the story, like, used to guide fishing and all this stuff, and there's definitely fish. I know, like, bass and stuff is a factor that I don't know about trout, 'cause it's a little more of, like, a swampy bayou-type environment. It's like super different. But anyway, the documentary that we're producing on that is all about this girl, Helen Spence, this young woman who lived in the houseboat community in that area of the White River. And she was born, I think, in Clarendon, Arkansas, and then lived in St. Charles on a houseboat. So like there was this whole community of people who lived in their houseboats on the White River for a number of years, and since our whole setting is like the 1920s, 1930s. And there was all, I mean, it was a whole culture. These people were called river rats. There was sort of some contention between the people who lived on the river and the city, town folk. And Helen's family was very like rough and tumble, but like distinguished in the river community. And anyways, her father one day on their property out their boat was murdered in front of Helen by some random guy, Jack Whirls. And there's a whole kind of history of why he ended up coming down and all of that. But she witnessed her father being murdered. She witnessed the guy taking her stepmother. He ended up beating the stepmother to the brink of death. She died as well. And Helen got away. And then Jack Rawls, the murderer, the suspect or whatever, got caught relatively quickly and went to trial. And he, so he went to trial and Helen attended his trial and it was like 1920s, 1930s. She had on like her kind of Sunday best as you would. And she had like a muff. Do you know what I'm talking about?

  Katie

  Like the old-timey hand warmer?

  Ali

  Yeah

  Katie

  Like the front of the waders.

  Ali

  Yes, exactly. But detached, so it's just like a little pocket.

  Katie

  It's just a little patch of waders. 

  Ali

  Yes! It's so true. So she had a muff that she wore to court. And being the era that it was, like there wasn't high levels of security in small-town murder court. So she had a nice little handgun in her muff that she walked right in with. and when he went on stand, she pulled out her gun and shot and killed this dude in front of everyone. Which is like the most badass thing ever and she was like quoted as saying like, "He killed my daddy." And everyone freaked out and they got her. I mean she went, she was immediately like sent to prison and all this kind of stuff. And then the unfolding after that was that like she has multiple escapes from prison. She's finally out and done for this Crime, but then she's like ends up confessing to the murder of another man, but there's a whole thing about how he probably was like you know raping her and like just rough times and the prison system was super corrupt and the younger female prisoners were being sex trafficked around kind of a tri-state area and And so Helen was being abused in that way. It's a crazy ass story. And it's all like based in this culture of these, these river rats, the riverboat community. And river rats is kind of like a derogatory term that they were called, but it's part of our whole history and all of that sort of thing. But yeah, this riverboat community and sort of like Southeastern and Eastern Arkansas on the White River. And so we are, I mean, we've been doing production on it for over a year now. And we've got this badass trailer that's premiering on Wednesday and I'm super excited and we're gonna launch a Kickstarter to raise the last few thousand dollars to finish the production and finish the edit. So we can like send this thing around to festivals and like finish it.

  Katie

  Well, that sounds awesome. I’ll be checking that out.

  Ali

  Yes, absolutely. And like, that's a whole nother, yeah, whirlwind thing that's happening like all around the river. Like most of the production that's happened so far has been like shot on location at the White River in these little towns where there's houseboats still standing and all this sort of stuff. Denise Parkinson, who like brought this whole story to our attention, wrote a book about it by the same name as our project, So Daughter of the White River. And she was born in the same area and her family also grew up in the houseboat community. So she's like, we have this awesome connection through her too. But yeah so we have like pictures of her family members even like in Super 8 footage like super old archival film footage of that their families like old and we have some of them like with fish and stuff that I've been looking through so that's been exciting for me. But yeah just the fact that I'm getting to like be a part of this production of like a story about this super strong independent fearless woman like in the face of so much corruption like just being badass and doing it like on the river just feels very exciting for me and like so fitting and I get super into it and excited.

  Katie

  Do you think at some point you'll be able to take the film stuff into the fishing world?

  Ali

  Yeah I definitely want to and that's sort of been an ongoing plan and goal of mine for for years now. I mean, I've been talking to you about this since before I even like had any production capacity and I was just getting into this field and

  Katie

  Well, at what point can you take it on your own? Like, I feel like for the most part, you generally work on other people's productions, but at what point does a filmmaker like break off and decide like, I'm making this film and like I would hire other people or not, but.

  Ali

  Yeah, so yeah, so to make a production of some quality, like I couldn't do a one man show, like especially, I mean, because when you're shooting a fishing film, like you have to have the people doing the fishing and then the people doing the production, the filming and that sort of stuff. So even then I'm organizing at minimum three people. And like to make it good, I would say it has to be like closer to four or five. But I feel like I'm getting closer to that. And the thing about all that is, and it doesn't really matter, the film project is like, you can go and make something anytime. But like, it’s all dependent on…

  Katie

  What you do with it.

  Ali

  Yeah, exactly. It's kind of like, if you're going to get, if you're going to make something that people talk about, and that gets viewership and has a potential to have backers and funding and interest and like, basically, if you're going to make something that more than like, your Instagram followers see, you want to have a little bit more production in mind. So whether you self-produce or go with a producer, you want a body of work and you also want some credibility to yourself. So a lot of what I've been doing, whether it's like working on a Hallmark movie or more exciting for me, like working on this documentary, I'm kind of building a portfolio for myself of work I can point to and say, "Hey, I played this role on this, hey I played a really big role on this, like this is the kind of work I can produce. And I'm also really fortunate because my boyfriend and sort of business partner works in the same industry as me and has been doing so for longer. So he has a lot of resources that by proxy belong to me as well. And so I'm able to plan things with him and this is a huge project that started as his project and I've really jumped on and taken on a bigger kind of producer role. And so the exciting thing is that in the future, and we've talked about this and done a lot of talking about this, that he would be willing to flip roles and you know do a similar thing and put a lot of work in onto a project of mine. And the other exciting thing about this one and a couple other projects I've been involved in this year is we're doing things like like crowdsourcing, fundraising, figuring out how to get financial backing. And when I try to do something specific to fly fishing and outdoors, it's kind of a different set of people. I'm asking for funding, but I think the basic scripts, the basic ways you go about that are similar. So I'm learning a lot there. Well, in crowdsourcing, it's exactly the same. Like you run a campaign and you figure out the best way and the best audience to target. But like with fly fishing, there's brands, right? So I could look for literal sponsorship and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, it feels a lot closer to my future 'cause my big thing and Andy, my boyfriend, feel similar is that we don't wanna produce anything with our name on it that we don't like legitimately feel good about. And there's like multiple different ways of going out. It's like you can produce 10 shitty things for $0 and maybe eventually work your way up to someone noticing you. Or you can like notice and be a part of projects that you know are gonna do well and have your name attached to those and then take your turn with both people, resources, all of that, jumping onto your project and being like, hey, yeah, I've seen these past three things you've been involved in that were super cool. I recognize your face in general in terms of production and I feel confident working with you or giving you money or whatever the ask may be. So yeah, it's definitely something I wanna do. I've also told you about the Mayfly project, which is a really cool thing and another big part of Markham Park, the studio that we have here, the production studio that I work at that's owned by my boyfriend, a big goal and something that we've already started doing with all our work for the Girl Scouts and now this big nationwide worldwide campaign called Delivering Jobs. We've kind of got a framework and we're gonna start trying to go for big nonprofits and do like really big campaigns, video and multimedia campaigns. And kind of the model of that that we'd like to do like for every like 10,000 plus dollar job that we get, we want to donate a job to a nonprofit and that sort of stuff. And that's cool. And he's wanted to do since he started this whole company and studio. And so a big one that we've talked about trying out first for multiple purposes is to donate a video to the Mayfly project. So I've actually talked to the founder about doing like a paid video for him, but they don't have funds to pay very much. And so I was I was already like, yeah, I'll do it at a discounted rate and all that stuff. But we're like, well, why don't we just go ahead and donate one and that'll give me specific, yeah, a lot of specific experience in producing a really well-produced video about fly fishing and also it works into this other model and thing that we're trying to do. So that's hopefully a thing that'll happen this spring that will be my start into that.

  Katie

  So is there, this is totally coming from, like I have no idea, so this might be a really stupid question, but when you try to get into like fly fishing film, is the like fly fishing film tour the kind of thing you're striving for, or is that like a low tier and you go, and that's just for, you know, anyone who can submit a film and, you know, there's like an upper echelon above that that you strive for, or is that like what the end result is? a film that would be in that and then you just continue to do one of those each year?

  Ali

  You know I've thought about that and it's interesting because and it's not like I've done a ton of research into like where I would go with it because I don't know part of me wants to to do work that's a little bit different than what's out there already so that's one thing.

  Katie

  It is and it's hard to do that because with like eight films every year you know any new idea one year is just capitalized on the following. So it's kind of hard to stick out.

  Ali

  And so I thought about that. And it's interesting because there's there's so many different like genres of like little short films that are really well produced like this coming out in just the outdoor world, outdoor world, and then like also beyond like everyone has like their niche, that's becoming a film thing now. And there's like a festival about it and all that stuff. And so the film, the fly fishing film tour is definitely the biggest and the primary one in the states. And so like that would definitely be a goal starting off.

  Katie

  As opposed to the international, is it the International Fly Fishing Film Festival?

  Ali

  Yeah, yeah. There's that one too. But I mean, I think I would, I would, my first goal would definitely just be the fly fishing film tour primarily because I mean, even though those films are like so quick and you're seeing eight of them every year and they're being turned around. Those are high dollar films. And so if I can get a couple of sponsorship backers to give me the funds to make that, that would be like, it's a pre-cooked platform that seems accessible with what I feel capable of doing, like assembling a team to do. And then you immediately get viewership. So since that's probably the most well-known national platform in terms of us, anyone, everyone that I know in my fly fishing communities that would actually see it, it would be that one. That's what I would like go for first. Beyond that, I'm not sure. Sure, you'd think that you'd go for an international circuit, but there's also another way of thinking about it, which I have a lot of lofty goals, but But it's good. But that there is like a life goal that I have, which is a sort of a nonprofit model that's trying to do a lot within fly fishing. And I might decide if I gain any footing with the main fly fishing brands and that sort of thing, that I might not try to just make fly fishing movies, you know, for long-term, but that I might actually try to be like, "Hey, now that you like this content I've produced, let me tell you about my idea and see if you'd be interested in being a part of that and help me make this whole nonprofit with properties where I could spread fly fishing and primarily guiding skills to a wider variety of people, give a more diverse group of people the opportunity to be a part of our industry." And that's a very summarized version of what I want to do with this nonprofit. But I thought, hey, this film thing is already a thing I love. It's a thing I'm gaining more and more experience in. And I would love to, I have lots of ideas for fly fishing content and films that I would want to make. So it's not like I would make one and then like branch over to this other thing. But instead of that being like, oh, I will be like the premier fly fishing filmmaker in the world. That's not really an end goal for me so much as it is that I want to make really good content. to make content that stands out and is meaningful and feels like it's coming from a different perspective. Because just like the industry of fly fishing, I think, and just like the industry of fly fishing and the industry of filmmaking, the industry of filmmaking about fly fishing even more so is very male dominant. And while a few are starting to at least feature women a little bit more, the crew, the people behind the scenes are very heavily male.

  Katie

  right and and having a woman in it is like the thing like it's not like I want to go and I you know of course I want to see women in film but I don't want to be like the topic of this film is that there's a woman i want it to be like this is the exact same topic that you would have had with a dude but it happens to be about a woman and that's not a comment like there's no comment about that it's just how it is

  Ali

  yeah no and that's kind of the whole theme it's the whole through line of the film is just like a woman is fishing. Oh my god. And so yeah, obviously like I wouldn't want my content to look like that, but I also would want my content to stand out somewhat from everything that's from a male perspective. So that's tricky to figure out and I've done a lot of thinking on that. And yeah, and beyond that with my end goal in mind, it's like I just want to diversify the voices within the industry of fly fishing, be it like the media that comes out or like literally the people teaching you how to do it, et cetera, the people making the products involved, all of it. I think with a more diverse group of people being that core industry, you're going to have more ideas. It's going to feel more approachable. That's to me the whole point. I would much rather fly fishing feel like a more approachable, accessible thing as opposed to this super elitist thing that it's been for a long time because I've been really fortunate to not had to take that approach and to be able to take a much more, you know, how can I phrase this? I think, I mean, we've talked about this a lot and you know what I mean. It's just like our, both of our access into fly fishing was really unique and kind of like scrappy and didn't at all feel exclusive. And it also did in a couple of ways.

  Katie

  But you kind of got to claw your way into it at that point.

  Ali

  Yeah. And so I just, I want to make it this thing that people can try. And obviously not everyone's going to become obsessed with it like we have, but it just feels like the majority of people are like, "Oh, well, I can't even try that." Even just like the people in Mountain View, Arkansas, where it's like, "Oh, well, I've always wanted to try fly fishing, but I'm not fancy," or whatever. There's just such that air about it whenever I talk to people. They suddenly feel kind of intimidated and I'm like, "I want to change that." It's not intimidating. You can do it with base level gear. It's about spending the time and having the interest and care to do it.

  Katie

  Well, I think the problem is that once you know how to do it, So like once you're in our position it looking back on it, you're like, it's so easy to get started, you know It's not as intimidating as it looks But thinking back to when I was in that place I remember being very intimidating and it's it's crazy once you get it and you're like, okay, you know I had these way different expectations of how hard it was gonna be then it actually was And so it's like I'm simultaneously trying to convince people that it's not that bad to start but I remember being in that position where it seemed that bad to start and that's actually one of the issues I've had with the fly-fishing film tour and I don't know if you felt the same way is that and It's I go back and forth because on one hand of course you want to go see like incredible footage in incredible places and Catching species that you've never even heard of but at the same time Like I don't really feel connected to watching someone like in the Seychelles catch a bunch of fish like I can't afford to go catch and And my favorite films in the film tour are almost always like, "We went to Montana and fished this river." And it's like, I think there's just something about like, yeah, I've fished for trout a thousand times, but knowing that this is accessible to me, like I could do this and without that much money, it makes me enjoy it more because I can like feel I could put myself in that person's shoes. And I'm kind of sick of seeing places that I can't afford to go, honestly.

  Ali

  I agree. fun to see little glimpses of that or see like exotic fish where you can like imagine for a second you're like whoa what would that be like maybe when I'm 55 and I've you know done my life's work like I'll go on one trip you know but it's like yeah it's super moved from like the majority and we're still like of a very privileged group of people and even for us we're like well yeah I'm gonna freaking happen so right um so even yeah just even yeah that's a big that's a big thing that I'm trying to do. And maybe with anything I put out is just like, yeah, making it feel and. And yeah, the projects that I'd want to do first are like something in Estes Park, Colorado, where I actually know what I'm talking about. And I didn't didn't just go on a two week long trip and figure a couple things out and like make it look sexy. I'm like, the stuff that's more interesting to me in these films is like the stories. It's like, if it is a trip to a new place like tell me about the stormy to tell me about the people doing this like how'd you find it? Make me feel like I could have gone along with you and been a part of this and and they do different levels of a good job on that and all the films that I've seen thus far but but yeah there's something about accessibility and about just feeling like oh this is a world I could enter into and it's like we're already in this world but like watching that as someone who's not like yeah that's great you're just like okay well, that's really pretty and cool, but I'm never going to be a part of that. I would like to see that broaden and change. That stuff can still happen. I'm not saying that territory shouldn't be explored and horizons broadened, but I think there's just this huge missing piece of most of humanity that's not getting to have access to this beautiful practice that we know and love so much. the basics of it are simple, they're there and they shouldn't be as intimidating as they are and that we you know they were to us as well it's just that's that's a thing that I would I would work to change with whatever I put out there and on on fishing any sort of media.

  Katie

  Right and I think there's a way to do it where you can so for example I you know I don't necessarily need to see someone catch you know some crazy saltwater fish in some crazy expensive destination another time but I also can see why people get bored seeing trout because it's like what you always fish for but there doesn't seem to be much of a happy medium where I'm like well why don't you go somewhere else in the US that's totally affordable but you catch some species that no one thinks of like oh we went to you know somewhere on the east coast and caught bowfin you know like anyone can afford this and it still seems like an exotic species because you know so many people don't know it's even out there just like fishing for something that's exotic but local.

  Ali

  Yeah, it feels exotic, I guess. Yeah, and fish for the regional thing that everyone in the state or area fishes for, but most of the rest of the nation doesn't have access to or think about.

  Katie

  I don’t even feel like I've seen a bass show in the fly fishing film tour.

  Ali

  I agree. Fly fishing for bass is pretty big in a lot of places and a freaking blast. And so it's really interesting. But yeah, the media, it seems to be either trout or exotic foreign land and that’s like really the two that have just been pounded into the ground so I think that's a really good point.

  Katie

  And I think you'd get people that I mean bass fishing itself is just a huge industry. I feel like you get people who like to bass fish and are like I have no idea what fly fishing is but I'll go watch this because it's bass and then you get people who are interested and start talking about it maybe they share it with their friends in the bass fishing you know community. I don't know I just don't see why there's like these two ends of the spectrum but but they're the only ends that you can do like trout and exotic but that's just my rant of the fly-fishing film tour.

  Ali

  No I agree we we've had a few in the past but um one second I'm gonna turn on the light cuz it's getting dark. 

  Katie 

  Should we move on to the actual like what we were gonna talk about?

  Ali

  I know I was thinking about that I was like oh we've been to a couple of places on a couple of paths.

  Katie

  Well I was thinking I was like we could just do like a film a film one only and then move on to stories but the main point was supposed to be rehashing some of our favorite stories.

  Ali

  Yeah.

  Katie

  I wrote down a couple that I want to definitely talk about. I don't know if you had ones in mind but I narrowed it down. Like we talked about it via text like you know all the ones we've done and I think the common thread amongst the three on our list is that they all involved something really stupid. You're like we did something really stupid.

  Ali

  Like we gotta fucking try this

  Katie

  The three I have… so I have golden trout and then a couple spots in Rocky Mountain National Park with big cutthroats and the three of them obviously with golden trout it was the whole thing was just stupid also the the hiking in at like midnight with a bottle of whiskey and having to pitch tent right on the trail. Lightning and hail for some of the other ones and then the bear attack. So I'm just like is it coincidental that all of my favorite ones involved what felt like a near-death experience at some point or another?

  Ali

  It's the same and I'm not gonna like try to completely bring it back into like the film conversation. It's the same thing we've always talked about, about how like still probably probably one of my very top favorite fly fishing films is Eastern Rises because it's like it's a fucking story and like things go so wrong and people get shit faced and it's like and you make memories with like your people and that's like what makes it what takes it past being like this really amazing peaceful thing you get to do in nature which is like one thing and sometimes that's what you want what you go for and why you you go on your own. But I feel like when I do these trips, when I do like planned fishing trips with another person or with a group of friends, like that's what you're looking for. As you're looking to get crazy, you're looking for that thing that's gonna go wrong and that you're gonna talk about literally for the rest of your lives, because you cannot believe that you went through that. And so, yeah, I think that's why those are like our most memorable stories beyond like the incredible fish that we ended up finding and getting to catch together. but it's like the things that go wrong are just as much of a reason as why we tell those stories and why we remember them so fondly, even though at times we felt like we were going to literally die.

  Katie

  But the Eastern Rises, like you feel like you kind of know those guys. I think that's why I like that one, is you can, that's one of the few that's exotic, really exotic, really expensive to get to, and you still somehow feel like you could be there. You're like, "Oh, I could go do that," because you could see yourself in that group and a lot of it's not about the fishing.

  Ali

  And even the way they set it up where they're like, well, we did these travel plans and we traveled like a bunch of bums and then we slept in this one tiny hotel and the longest, the tallest one of us slept like across the whole apartment, like little things like that where you're like, yeah, if I ever did any expensive fishing trip, I'd have to go with like 50 friends and we'd have to sleep in like a one bedroom to afford it. But it's like stack on top of each other while we sleep.

  Ali

  Yeah, you're like, oh, I'm there. Like, I know that level. Like, I've kind of done that. Like, thinking to like the Sasquatch house or like the old haciendas where literally we had someone sleeping in the kitchen all summer long. You know, I totally know what that looks like. And it's like as grungy as it is and as happy as I am that like maybe I'm not sleeping in a kitchen anymore in life, like, or that I personally ever had to. But like, God, those are the best memories. like those are the years of guiding that we look upon the most fondly and like talk about is like that was the best year and

  Katie

  like you didn't need much

  Ali

  yeah

  Katie

  You just needed a bed in the kitchen

  Ali

  Yeah

  Katie

  Which one did you want to talk about first?

  Ali

  What do you think I mean we could go in chronological order

  Katie

  Let's go chronological. So first one was, I don't know, it was probably three, four years ago and I forgot this part of this. This wasn't actually like we were in danger but of course it was just the first like the first nail in the coffin of many nails in the coffin that day when we woke up at like four in the morning and opened the door and someone had left the garage door open and a barrack come in and destroyed the entire garage and opened the fridge, took everything but I think and maybe one beer and everything else was destroyed and we we opened it we're like we probably should help clean this up but we're going fishing so we just sent a text to everyone else being like bear got in the garage

  Ali

  I had completely forgotten that that was that day

  Katie

  Yeah

  Ali

  Cuz it was one of those hikes where you have to leave at like 3 in the morning. So we did it and then we see our entire garage shared garage with all our mates destroyed by a bear and it like wasn't the first time this has happened and we definitely had gone to bed early early so we're like well we didn't leave the damn garage door. Sorry. Oh my god I forgot about that.

  Katie

  Yeah, so then we we send out that text and promptly turn on airplane mode so we don't have to hear back. Get to the trail And the hike itself wasn't terrible. I mean, it was a, I think we figured out it was like 13 round trip, 13 or 14 round trip. Um, hike itself, uh, for the first. Mm. Nine tenths of the hike in was like fine.

  Ali

  And we talked about it on, on, at the end, kind of that the way in did not feel long. We, yeah, we can talk about it when we talk about the way out, but like, it was like, yeah, you, you got winded. Like you're above tree line a good majority.

  Katie

  Like six miles.

  Ali

  We started super high up, but like we were excited, conditions were good and like, it just didn't seem to take that long. It didn't seem to be that strenuous like compared to like what we were doing on regularly the whole summer anyways.

  Katie

  Probably one of the short, well, not the shortest, but one of the least memorable six miles, not in terms of, I mean, the views were good, but it was just like an easy six miles. And we were above tree line, but it was just it rolled on normally.

  Ali

  I feel like we were just trucking. We had a destination in mind kind of hike, so we weren't really focused on the hike itself as much. That tends to be the case when I'm going to a new place.

  Katie

  We were seeing wildlife. I remember we saw some deer, we saw some elk, we saw a ptarmigan, and tons of marmots.

  Ali

  The ptarmigan was cool.

  Katie

  Right, we were in a great mood. So then it's time for us to cut off the trail. And we're like, that's fine. According to the map, it's just a nice little flat walk over here. And then we'll drop down to the lake. So as we're walking along, we see one of the lakes. And we're like, is that it? We're like, no, it's not it. But let's eat lunch here. So we have a nice lunch overlooking a different lake. Then we continue along the ridge and look down upon our lake and realize that there's not really an easy way down. So we can either add what? Like probably a mile or two on and walk. the ridge starts to descend down to kind of meet the valley floor. So we could walk down the side and then basically walk right back to where we are, but lower down. Or we could just go straight down the hillside. Of course, we chose to go straight down the hillside.

  Ali

  And we were like, fuck it. We're only carrying giant packs loaded down with waders and fishing packs. We both thought we had like our overnight packs and they were pretty stuffed.

  Katie

  Everything but like tents and sleeping bags. Yeah. Because also, you know, I mean, we had enough stuff that we probably could have spent the night out there if we had to, just because you are like seven miles in.

  Ali

  And I remember us talking about it. Because initially, I mean, we would have liked to just go ahead and overnight it. But like, A, that would have meant a lot more weight. And B, like, we didn't have the permit and that sort of thing. And like, we were like, well, like, should we try it? And we're like, well, I guess if we have to, like, we have to.

  Katie

  And that can be our explanation. if the weather kept us there. Which frankly, it nearly did. Because that was the portion of this one that I was going to call real dumb. Because there's something that makes you feel safe when you're in a valley surrounded by really tall mountains and then you realize that the valley - it's not really a valley, it's a basin, I guess. The basin itself is still at like probably 11,000 feet. And you're like, "So this is not particularly safe even though there's a bunch of tall mountains around us.

  Ali

  Yeah, we are still like entirely exposed.

  Katie

  And I feel like the fishing in this one isn't that, like I don't want to say it's not memorable. I mean we caught real big fish, but the, for example, golden trout, the fish was a big part of it. And even elsewhere in the National Park, the fish have been a big part of it. Fish were a big part of this, but I feel like more so it was a fact that we counted that we got rained on, I want to say like seven separate times throughout the course of, we only fished there for two or three hours.

  Ali

  And I feel like each time that it rained it thundered. It hailed. Yeah, like it was thunderstorm, lightning storm situations multiple times.

  Katie

  And I'm like huddled in the trees off the side of the lake and every time I like creep back out and like I think it's gone a new one would start and it happens so many different times and eventually it's time for us to leave. So we decided to climb back up the hill and that's that I feel like that's when everything just fell apart. Well

  Ali

  I mean I think I was wrong, but Just bringing us back to getting down the hill, the fact that it looked so close, and we were at that point in really good spirits and had relatively a lot of energy left, and the storms were maybe just starting to roll in, but really hadn't yet maybe I don't really feel like the storms had rolled in yet.

  Katie

  No, they started halfway through our actual fishing. Yeah, so Not to overlook the actual fishing. We caught real nice cutthroats.

  Ali

  Yeah, at that time, I think that was by easily the nicest cutthroat that I had ever caught. And so I was just like freaking thrilled. But even just the descent down, I think that's when I started to like get a little more like not discouraged. Like I was still in really high spirits and super excited to get started fishing. And when we like saw the first big fish and all that, we caught one and like that was great. But I just remember that descent taking impossibly long time and feeling super freaking sketchy. whole time down discussing what way we were going to come back up because there's no way in hell we could come back up that way. Just the way down was difficult. You know that if you're going down and it's difficult, that's some very steep, ridiculous terrain.

  Katie

  Right. I remember my ankles hurt because we had to sidestep. We couldn't walk straight. We had to sidestep. You'd sidestep enough in the same direction that it would start to wear on you, so you'd have to turn and face the other way. We were just constantly facing sideways one behind the other.

  Ali

  Yeah, and there's like a lot of loose ground. And I mean, again, just like off balance 'cause of heavy packs, like it was not pleasant.

  Katie

  But then going back up, which took us, it took us like an hour and a half, I think, to go probably, you know, as the crow flies distance, maybe an eighth of a mile. It was just an eighth of a mile that was straight up. And we were on hands and knees crawling up this hillside while the hail starts back up and another storm's rolling in And it's like, great, we're stuck between being down in this valley for indefinite amount of time with storms rolling in, or we climb to the top to get out and have to get on top of a mountain to leave, which is not ideal. Exposed and above the treeline the next five miles.

  Ali

  Thousand miles. And that's when I remember being the most scared. I have a few different instances, all of them hiking-related, most of them also fishing-related, where I literally was like, okay, well, I might die. And like, here are my different decisions I can make. And even if I make any of them, like I might die. Like there wasn't like an option that was like, well, if I make this decision, I won't die. Like there was no option that was fully safe. And so it was just like kind of navigating that as two people and that gets tense. And like, we didn't like have any sort of like stuff between us, but we just were tense and we were focused and we were freaking exhausted and we were literally like fearing for our lives. And I remember a couple of different discussions of like, should we like get under this rock outcropping or should we move as fast as we can upward? Or like, what's the, like just each of those little decisions we're working our way up feeling so like important because it was like, both of these sound pretty bad, which one makes us safer?

  Katie

  Sounds less bad. Yeah. Well, and that's the problem, like for example, I know you're not supposed to get under rocky outcroppings during a lightning storm because lightning doesn't care, but it's like, okay, I could get under the rocky outcropping or I could just not get under the rocky outcropping. I feel like I'm equally in danger.

  Ali

  When you're there and you're on this like 90 degree angle fucking thing and you're climbing up and it's lightning around you and you see a rocky outcropping, you're like, my literal like instincts are pulling me to that little outcropping. Like I can still remember one specific.

  Katie

  Me too.

  Ali

  That I like looked at and I was just like, "I want to stay there forever." Yeah. Like I know in my logical head that I'm not any safer there, but I want to get in there and I don't want to leave.

  Katie

  Well, yeah, I mean, it's like if you can get under that or get into like, you know, a level forest at a safe elevation, obviously choose that. But if it's like, "I'm going to stand out and be a flagpole on the side of a mountain," or get under the rocky outcrop, you can at least die dry. I'm going to do that. And then it was funny, once we made it through that, we got to the top, the sun came out, and we had a normal hike back. And the hike back seemed super long, but it was fine. I mean, it was sunny. It was great.

  Ali

  And I think the thing that saved us was just the fact that the weather cleared, and so we were just in a way better spirit. We were like, "Oh, this is great." I remember we stopped for some really pretty pictures and saw some marmots and shit. I just remember being exhausted but being like happy.

  Katie

  Yeah, I mean, I'd rather be exhausted.

  Ali

  We did it, we made it there, we caught the fish we wanted to catch. Like at that point, you know, you're like, I made it, I didn't die. Right. And you're happy to like be approaching the end and like some reprieve. But yeah, I do remember that hike back taking, it's like certain hikes it doesn't happen and then certain hikes it feels like down takes three times as long.

  Katie

  And that one was one of those. Yeah. Maybe it's because we already spent an hour and a half climbing up a hill that gave us no distance. It only gained us elevation that we then had to lose again.

  Ali

  And like, it's like not only were we physically spent, but we were like super tense that whole hike out because of the lightning storm. So that like drains you in a really big way, I think.

  Katie

  So I'm gonna pivot off that and I'm gonna go to the golden trout, which we don't need to give a play-by-play of the entire thing. Yeah. - I've talked about it enough. But just as a quick summary, we found out that there was a small population of golden trout way back in a wilderness area of Colorado, and we decided to try to go find it and see if there were any fish there, and we had a three-day weekend to do it, I think.

  Ali

  I think that's right. Yeah.

  Katie

  because we went. - Yes, it was a three-day weekend. So, the reason I was going to pivot to that is, were you more scared in the lightning storms in Rocky Mountain National Park or the night that we hiked in and encountered something along the trail? And just as a backstory, we had gotten to the trailhead at like 11.30pm and we're all super gung-ho, we're very excited, we grab a bottle of whiskey and we're like, "Okay, It's about a 10-mile hike in. We're going to start the hike now and ideally get like four or five miles in tonight so we wake up, it's just a quick little hike up to where we're going to camp. And it's going great for like the first mile and a half. I think that's about how far we got. We were just enough into the whiskey to be having a great time and then we come up into this meadow and immediately our head or our headlamps shine on a pair of eyes and we're like okay it's it's either bare and it's gonna run off or it's something else that's gonna run off so we start yelling at it and it doesn't go away it just starts coming toward us

  Ali

  I just yeah and i remember that you you first shined on it and you were like hey and so and then i brought it to my attention and it gave you know like that initial immediate like gut feeling of like fuck eyes looking like…

  Katie

  yeah you just don't like seeing eyes

  Ali

  It's in general pitch darkness And so you're originally like, fuck. But you're like, all right, well, you know, this has happened before. It had happened the same summer on a trip that we shared. It had happened to us when we were approaching the campsite when we had the bear issue. And so in that scenario, and it had been like not that long.

  Katie

  It had been like less than couple months. I mean, those two…

  Ali

  Oh, OK. Had it?

  Katie

  Yeah, like it was July to September, I think.

  Ali

  It was within a recent enough period of time that I thought back to that. And I was like, well, those were way closer eyeballs. And I clapped and screamed, and they ran away. my immediate reaction. - Let's just clap and scream again. Yeah, like, it's gonna be great, we'll spook it off. And it just did not budge. And that was the moment once we did the whole clapping and screaming and like not a single flinch from the crowd.

  Katie

  And then we realized that we were like completely unprepared because like that was clearly our only plan of action here was clapping and screaming. And when that didn't work, we're just like, well, I guess we're dead.

  Ali

  That is when my stomach like sunk into my like butt and I was like, "Well, I'm going to die tonight." Even though this thing was probably like a fox. But we couldn't tell how far away it was.

  Katie

  And occasionally it would turn. We couldn't see the eyes anymore. And they'd pop up somewhere else. We're just like, "This thing is, you know, it's changing forms."

  Ali

  And who knows? I could have been in my head at this point. But we did talk about this after. Is that like when it did start to move, something about the way it moved, even though, again, all you can see is the eyes lit up, but the way it moved did not feel like a bear. It did not, it felt feline, you know, like my brain initially went, or like that's when my brain switched to, switched to mountain lion or something feline, or because of the way it moved slowly and kind of like…

  Katie

  Smoothly.

  Ali

  Smoothly and assuredly.

  Katie

  Right, I think you picture like a coyote as like more of a trot, you know, they kind of trot and stop and trot and stop. And even a bear, I don't, it doesn't trot, but I feel like it's more of a lumbering and I feel like these eyes were a very level, smooth.

  Ali

  They were level and smooth. And the thing about it was, and this is what I've thought back to you, is that they stayed on us, but they moved sideways. They didn't move towards us or away from us. It was docking, it was moving, it was perimetering us and staring at us.

  Katie

  Yeah, the face stared at us, but the body moved.

  Ali

  That felt very specific. that is what had me yeah pretty terrorized pretty much like okay like I have these trekking poles like how am I gonna fight back like with what I have on me like I was trying to make a game plan in my head we were kind of having a little bit of back and forth like dialogue between us but we were both clearly like doing this in our brains and like trying to think fast of like what the the fuck are we gonna do if it starts coming towards us?

  Katie

  Yeah, and I remember our, once we realized that our one and only plan of screaming at it was not gonna work, we grabbed, I'm like, oh, I've got pepper spray, not bear spray, just pepper spray, that I had never tested before. And I was like, well, I guess this is the time to learn how to use it. So I expected a cloud of pepper spray. And I don't know if this is because pepper spray differently than bear spray or because it was just really old and the product had gone bad but it came out like a squirt and I'm like great so when this thing comes up I've got to like squirt it in the eyes I can't like spray it out in a large cloud as I think we grabbed trekking poles and made a barricade and we're like okay you you stop it with the pole and I will spritz it in the eyes That's the plan here.

  Ali

  And as we made that plan, I was like, "Okay, so if I die tonight, how will I feel about that?"

  Katie

  I'm sure the half bottle of whiskey had played a role in this. Yeah. And then eventually they disappeared, but every once in a while they'd reappear, but just in a different spot of the circle around us, you know. And at one point they were on the trail in front of us, and we're like, "Well, there goes our last plan of walking away from this thing on the trail."

  Ali

  There was a moment where they were on the trail right in front of us and I remember a very brief, it probably took like two steps towards us, but there was that sense of it getting closer and that was the scariest couple of seconds for me. Do you remember that moment?

  Katie

  I don't remember it specifically on the trail, but I do remember it coming at us. It went towards us.

  Ali

  It may not have been on the trail in the moment, but like it was pretty much in front of where we were headed. It was still in that direction and there was one moment that we're like got a little closer and that was the scariest moment because I was like you know like if this continues this way like okay like get ready like we're about to fight whatever this is and like yeah we don't even know we have it's pitch dark we have whiskey in us like we've never been in this place in the daylight we have no idea of our surroundings at all you know

  Katie

  so that was another factor that we had. We never really had an issue like hiking in at night before I mean we're not country, so you're not really that concerned. So at this point, we decide the only plan of action is to pitch the tent on the trail, right where we're standing, because it's in front of us on the trail, and we're not about to lose progress we've made by going back down the trail, so we just drop our backs and pitch the tent right there on the trail.

  Ali

  Yeah, and I remember, aside from not losing progress, I remember thinking like if it is any sort of predator larger animal I ain't about to fucking start walking when it can see me and I can't see it.

  Katie

  Yeah, I'm not gonna turn around.

  Ali

  No. Yeah.

  Katie

  Um, so I think we just ditched, I think we ditched our food thinking, you know, let's not have food in here if it's a bear. So I think we had a bear canister. Yeah, we did. And so we put the bear canister elsewhere and then ran back out in the tent and went to bed and just forgot about it and of course everything turned out fine because it was probably like a raccoon.

  Ali

  It was not a raccoon.

  Katie

  No, it wasn't. I don't know if they have raccoons up there.

  Ali

  Who knows. But yeah, like it definitely - I was still trying to think of like the answer to your question of whether I was more scared in that scenario or with the weather. I really don't know. probably just pretty similar because it's one of those situations where you're like, "Well, chances are I'm gonna make it out of this fine." But in the moment you're like, "But the chance also is, there is also a chance that like I'm about to die and it's gonna be brutal and like who knows who's gonna find me." Like it's either gonna be the situation where I die and my good friend has to deal with that in the middle of fucking nowhere or we both die and then like we never get found and we get like eaten.

  Katie

  I think in the moment I was more terrified during the animal encounter. Like there was just more just pure terror running through me but the lightning one seemed like a more real threat where the animal, I didn't actually think we were gonna die. It was more just like, this is terrifying.

  Ali

  Well, and it's the whole thing of it being pitch dark and having eyeballs looking. It's just like the... Yeah, it's the difference of the lightning. It's not the unknown. It's just like the... Well, shit, like we're in a bad spot. - I have no control over it. And with this one, it's just the complete unknown. The complete unknown of like, this could be a fox or this could be something that wants to kill me. And it's in its prime hours for doing so, like...

  Katie

  And I think the problem with the lightning is that you feel like you have no control over it. Once you're, I mean, once you're up there, there's nothing you can do. With the animal, at least you're like, "Well, odds are it's probably not going to take on two people at once. And if it does, two people at once can probably handle it." Whereas the lightning, it's like, there's nothing you can do. You just got to... And so it's more of like a helpless feeling.

  Ali

  I think I agree with you where I was more scared with the animal encounter, but I was like more like... It's more ominous. ...about the fact that I might die with the lightning. I was just like a, I think, more generally in danger with the lightning. that's also a situation I've been in more than just that one time. And I take precautions and we do the thing where we start at 3 in the morning and even with that it's like if you're gonna live this lifestyle and do these kinds of trips that's just something you end up facing, you know. And it's like people talk about the things you can do but like if you're that exposed like there's a certain level of like you can't really do anything to ensure that you're gonna be okay and that's just one of the things that comes of the territory.

  Katie

  You know this is this is why I get annoyed when people talk about the odds of you getting struck by lightning or being eaten by a shark or whatever because when people are like oh you're more likely to such and such than be eaten by a shark and I'm like well yeah I have a zero percent chance of being eaten by a shark because I don't live on the coast and I'm not in the ocean.

  Ali

  Yeah.

  Katie

  And someone who lives in Florida and goes swimming every day has a much higher chance of getting eaten by a shark. And when they talk about like, "Oh yeah, you're more likely to whatever than get struck by lightning." I'm like, "Yeah, in St. Louis, that's the case." But when you're up in the high country all the time, your odds are way different. And I don't like those statistics because they feel very misleading.

  Ali

  It's true. I agree with that. And beyond that, it's things like that year, a couple years back on Trail Ridge Road where two days in a row, lightning bolts killed multiple people at a time. Oh, I didn't even know that. And I'm like, yeah, that happened, I want to say it was two or three summers ago. There was on the Ute trail, like the Trail Ridge Road trail that's above Treeline, that's super accessible, at least to get to the start of and all that. There was big lightning bolts and I think one of them killed five people.

  Katie

  Really? I did not hear that at all.

  Ali

  And then literally the next day, another lightning bolt killed like another couple people in the same like Trail Ridge Road area. And it's just like one of those things where it's like people aren't aren't understanding because people have been fed that same statistic of like you're not gonna get like the odds are really low that you get struck and all this stuff. But it's like and I know like there's like rangers and stuff are trying to be informative but yeah I just feel like there's this misconception or people don't understand exposure when they're above tree line because it's just a completely different story and people die from lightning like every year in this pretty relatively small national park like it's really real scary and fucked up.

  Katie

  To be fair we were those people too. Like we were we were above tree line.

  Ali

  No, no, no I know and that's what I'm saying is like that's one thing and we're doing that but we're doing that with the knowledge and by choice whereas I feel like some people just don't know because if I was on Trail Ridge Road and I was you know.

  Katie

  You have like a safety of being like oh I'm on a paved road I don't feel in danger.

  Ali

  Yeah if I was a little ways from my car and you know weather rolled in I would run to my car you know like if I'm faced with the same scenario we're talking about yeah where my options are keep going on the sidecar, run to my car. I run to my car because I'm aware of mistakes.

  Katie

  And you feel safer because you've got that, just having the paved road and having a car nearby, you're like, "Oh, I'm safe." But it's like, lightning's not going to give you 20 seconds to run to your car. Yeah. But anyway, the rest... So once we didn't die from the animal, that probably had nothing to do with us anyway, that meant that the next day we had like eight and a half miles to go instead of the like five we had hoped for, which is fine, except that most of it was off-trail and most of it was not marked correctly on the map because...

  Ali

  And we like went a little bit further, Pat, like we like kind of got lost for a while and like went further than we needed to go on the trail and like went on to a different piece of trail.

  Katie

  Yeah, there were, there were trails that existed in the real world that were not on the map and vice versa. There were ones that did not exist in the real world that were were on the map.

  Ali

  Yes.

  Katie

  So we're just like basically holding the map out, walking

  Ali

  Freaking on it.

  Katie

  Yeah, just like walking with the map in front of our eyes. Yeah. Took a terrible route up there. Like, 'cause we had to pick our own route and we picked the wrong one.

  Ali

  I mean, talking about exhausting hikes, like just nothing compares to this hike. And I just remember all the times, like the like scree and the rock scrambles were exhausting, but nothing compares to the freaking sections of forest that were untrailed because The down trees. Down tree after down tree after down tree, and not only are you going uphill steadily, not only do we have however many pounds of overnight gear on our backs and fishing gear, but we are climbing over a large down tree every couple steps.

  Katie

  And the tree- While going steeply uphill. 

  Ali

  Right

  Katie

  Because the brush and everything. And the tree is uphill of you. So a tree that's already about four feet in diameter is now placed above you. So now you have to crawl, you have to climb up the trunk to get over it with the, I don't know, probably 40, I don't know, 40 pounds of gear on the back?

  Ali

  Yeah.

  Katie

  I have no idea how much weight I carried.

  Ali

  I don't either, I never know.

  Katie

  More than I wanted to be climbing over trees with.

  Ali

  When I guide people with just like day packs that have waders and then they're always like, what do we have like 80 pounds? Like roughly 80 pounds. I just always kind of been like yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably. Just high momentum.

  Katie

  Yeah. So you get up there and the next day we were camped at a lake and we're like okay there may be fish in this lake. Don't see any rises, take a couple casts, don't catch any fish and we're like let's try to find an inlet or an outlet. We go we see what looks like an inlet on the map and we walk to it and we're like this is not an inlet This is a swamp And we don't see any outlet and we're like this like it's dead. There's nothing in here Which to be fair, I don't think there was, but we finally find the outlet and we follow it down and we fish the stream And fish it and fish it and fish it and there's no fish. We're like, well, this was a bust of a 10 mile hike And then we find we walk we walk upon this um pool and there's a tree in the pool there's a tree that's fallen down the pool i remember the tree that was laying down the pool and a single fish darted under the tree and i'm pretty sure we screamed and like dropped our stuff because we're so excited um but we're like well let's go downstream of here and fish our way back up to it to give that section a chance to rest so we're like probably a half mile down and then just get back into catching nothing like there's just nothing down there, then come the whole way back up to this pocket and then catch that fish out of the pocket.

  Ali

  Yeah.

  Katie

  And then there's like three or four more bends that we find fish in.

  Ali

  And they each have fish, like a fish or two fish.

  Katie

  Yeah, like one or two fish and then that's it. And then you keep going up to the lake and there's nothing. And it seems like there are, and these are golden trout.

  Ali

  Yeah, it was this very specific section that was a little more open and they were just super slow relatively for how narrow they were, deep pockets, and it's like only water that held anything.

  Katie

  It's like this population of probably 20 fish has just been living in this, I don't know, 100 yard section of stream and they don't go up or down.

  Ali

  They just sit right there. They weren't puny. They were good enough size. They seemed perfectly well fed.

  Katie

  By like 8 to 12 inches.

  Ali

  Yeah. Yeah, none of them were small. They were all about the same range of size. Like, they seemed probably all similar.

  Katie

  And they all turned on and off together. So, we would, we caught, we caught a couple. We didn't catch a ton. I'd say over the course of our day and a half fishing there, we caught like maybe six to eight.

  Ali

  Yeah.

  Katie

  If that, but when we first got there, we caught probably the first five and then it just stopped.

  Ali

  Yeah I mean like the first the first one we saw you caught and then the next one we saw I caught like you would just see one catch it move on and then that was about it like.

  Katie

  Yeah and they all just disappeared they and they wouldn't they couldn't bring them back out for anything. So then we had a fire um that I mean the night was fairly uneventful. We had a fire. Next day tried to fish some more. I think we caught like one the next day and again they all turned off.

  Ali

  Yeah the next day wasn't a lot but it's because like we we pounded what there was.

  Katie

  Like it's not a big stock you don't want to like destroy it. And then but we did have the one the one thing I enjoyed about the second day was that was the day that we had seen one like big one the day before. And I had taken a cast to it because we saw it again the second day. I took a cast to it and it took my fly but I mean the section of stream is probably like two feet wide and deep and it took it and then immediately ran it under a log that had clearly fallen but then gotten covered up by like land. So the log was just like coming out from the shore on one side crossing the stream and then going basically back underground. And it ran under that, broke the line and I was like, "Well, that sucks." And then, I don't know, a half hour later, I took another cast and caught a fish and then it had my fly in its mouth.

  Ali

  And that was the biggest one.

  Katie

  Yeah, that was probably about a foot long or so. Not huge, but... So that was fun.

  Ali

  Yeah.

  Katie

  And it got my fly back and everything. And then we headed down and the trip down on that one was a lot more enjoyable than the way out. Like, as opposed to the last one we talked about where it's like the way in was fine, the way out was awful. This one I had the way out. We picked a better route out. -

  Ali

  We had done it.

  Katie

  Yeah

  Ali

  We also just knew what we had ahead of us. And it's not like it wasn't hard and terribly exhausting, but it's just like we knew what we had ahead of us, and also, like, this was just so much more of a, like, all-in adventure where we were literally like, "Well, we might find them or literally not see a fish." And we had, like, found them. So nothing was gonna break our spirits at that point. And, like, yeah, we'd encountered all the shit that we encountered that first. like everything had been fine and like and great and like exactly what we had hoped for and so yeah we were just like getting out of there like it was just nice at that point and weather we didn't have any bad weather 

  Katie

  we had no bad weather. we picked a much better route out because the first time we uh we um how do we plan it wrong we had the right plan but we we missed it where we ended up above the lake and had to come back down to it

  Ali

  yeah we angled it And we did extra at the highest elevation. Yeah we were wiped out.

  Katie

  We were camping above, well, not above tree line. We were at the very tippy, tippy top of tree line. We were at the last set of trees. And on the way down, we just followed the creek and it was glorious.

  Ali

  It was amazing. I wish we had taken that way on the way up. Yeah, we just had no idea.

  Katie

  No, I mean, you could choose your own adventure 'cause there's no trail. There's obviously only a couple of ways you can go up a, you know, steep embankment. but I remember on the way back when we actually hit trail again, and I was so happy that we were back on a trail that wasn't gonna have trees over it, that I was like, we only have six miles left. It's like six miles, one way is a big day already. And then…

  Ali

  Yeah, it's typically like you're like, oh, I got six miles today.

  Katie

  That's a full day. And this one was like, oh, we only have six miles, this is amazing 'cause we're on a trail. and the Aspen's were changing, had great weather on the way out. So the way everything from the halfway point of the trip to the way out was picture perfect.

  Ali

  I feel like that's when I like took the most pictures too. I remember finally like being able to appreciate the beauty a little more. Once we got back on the trail, I just remember being like, yes. And we like stopped for a while, took some pictures of that viewpoint, 'cause it was really pretty. And then like, yeah, the whole way down, like taking pictures of you hiking and like the different like stuff all around us and like yeah just feeling pumped up even though it was like six miles with like an overnight pack but it felt like cake at that point.

  Katie

  But I feel like both of these so I think we're gonna have to probably cut it off before we get to the last story. We could do the other one another time. But as much as so I especially for the golden trout like it the fish itself really mattered you know because that's the whole reason we went there. But when I think about it, that's not the first thing that comes to mind. Definitely with the cutthroats. Everything else is what comes to mind first. How awful the hikes were. It's usually just how awful the hike is. We tend to enjoy those. The worse the hike, the better we enjoy it. For all of my favorite fishing trips, it's always everything but the fish that I tend to remember.

  Ali

  The struggle and everything that kind of goes awry from your plan and like Yeah, and there's like some humor to it and it's like Yeah, it's just the memories it's like the freaking It's the stuff that you're gonna when you come out and you're like Especially just when it's a backcountry trip when you come out and everyone who knows you were going is like All right. Tell me your story. Like what? How was your trip? What was the story? And they don't want to hear "Oh, we caught this fish and this fish and that was what we did." Like what we're looking for is like, we want that. Like that's part of the story, but what you're always looking for in the story is like, what went wrong? What did the client do that was ridiculous? Who fell in? Who can tell that kind of a story? And like, and I don't know, that's just always been the most enjoyable thing for me. And I think for our whole crew is just the humor of it. And just like, what happened? Like what outlandish shit in the back country when we're trying to be in charge of ourselves and often other grown adults and shit just goes down. Wildlife is out and about and crazy things happen. Yeah, that's always been my favorite part about that whole community and being a part of people who get to go out and do these kind of things in such a crazy back country location on the daily is just like, you never know what you're gonna get into because there's so many factors out of your control and that's what's so exciting about it. That's the draw for me and I think for most of us. And so yeah, when you come back and you're gonna talk about it, like, yeah, the fish are cool and you wanna see it. And if there's a really memorable fish, like you're gonna talk about that. But most usually there's not a super memorable fish. It's just like, yeah, we caught some nice fish. It was super fun at the time. But once you're reminiscing on it, thing you want to talk about is everything else. Is the thing that happened that you weren't planning for. You're always planning for fish, you know.

  Katie

  You know what I get frustrated with? It's easier when you're talking to someone who gets it. You know, if I were telling you a story I'd be able to tell it and yeah you wouldn't be there but I assume that you can kind of picture how it goes. But I always get really frustrated when you know like I come back to work and someone's like, "Oh how was your hike?" And I'm like, "I don't even want to tell you because I don't think you're gonna get the extent of it." Like I I just say like, "It was good." And you're like, "Oh, okay." And there's no way for me to convey to you what happened. Especially to someone who doesn't do it and you're just... I'd rather not even try to like half explain it. I'd rather just say it was good and just call it a day. Because for me to give it like a half explanation to someone who doesn't understand it, it just feels like it's not doing it justice, you know?

  Ali

  Yeah, I know what you mean and it's always interesting because I have lots of people in my life who aren't outdoor people in the slightest and they'll still ask about or they'll follow what I'm doing on social media or something and always ask about it. Yeah, it is a really hard thing to talk about or explain because I'm like, "Oh, well, I did this 10-mile hike." At the same time that to them 10 miles seems crazy, they're just like, "Oh." It's like an abstract number to them. It isn't a fully formed real thing and there's no way it can be. Yeah, that's always an interesting thing where you're like, "Well." Again, that's where I come to emotions like fear or exhaustion that at some level they can connect to.

  Katie

  How many people on a daily – Well, not on a daily basis because I don't experience it on a daily basis, but I think there are a lot of people out there who have not felt true fear.

  Ali

  Yeah.

  Katie

  Like I mean you could definitely can have that without you know hiking back into the backcountry like if someone's trying to break in your House, that's probably like the realist fear you can feel but I think a lot of people have not had that like burst of adrenaline in a long time because they're not putting themselves in admittedly really stupid situations, but I Feel like I need that every now and then like it's a reset to just shock my system and be like, oh wow It's really nice to on a daily basis not be fearing for my life, you know?

  Ali

  Yeah. It's so funny about people who are drawn to the backcountry. We definitely do have something in common in terms of needing, like you're saying, that reset or that moment of just purely having so many elements out of your control. There's so much to benefit from. I mean, yeah, it's beautiful. It's peaceful. You're going to see so many things that you just have no access to. Otherwise, You have no idea what you're gonna see and so like there's so many positives but at the same time you go into it knowing and almost like being excited for like those negatives those things that are gonna get fucked up because they like like we've said every big trip we've planned like things have gone shit wrong like things have gone crazy and been terrifying and And like yeah, I don't love it at the time, but like that's the stuff we talked about more than anything else So it's like we want that we're seeking that and it isn't interesting like it'd be interesting psychology to like think about more and there's people who take it to an even further extreme I mean like extreme alpinists and people who are doing this like so even much higher degrees and time frames and all of that you're just like I I'm interested in those stories and I read up on them and I follow them because I get it It's like I may not be doing that level but I understand the draw. As much as to some people they'd be like, "Why are they even out there trying to climb that mountain? That sounds terrible." I see that side because I'm like, "Yeah, that sounds terrible." I know it's terrible and I get why they're doing it.

  Katie

  Yeah.

  Ali

  In a weird way.

  Katie

  All right. Well, let's end on that.

  Ali

  Yeah

  Katie

  That was inspirational.

  Katie

  [laughter] All right. And that'll do it. As always, if you liked what you heard, go ahead and go over to the Wild Initiative podcast. You can subscribe there and get my shows every Thursday, as well as all of Sam's other shows throughout the week. You can also find my episodes on fishuntamed.com, in addition to weekly backcountry fly fishing articles. You can find me on social media @fishuntamed on Instagram and under my name Katie Burgert on GoWild. And I will see you same time, same place next week.

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